Chapter X
Dinah Visits Lisbeth
AT five o'clock Lisbeth came downstairs with a large key in her
hand: it was the key of the chamber where her husband lay dead.
Throughout the day, except in her occasional outbursts of wailing
grief, she had been in incessant movement, performing the initial
duties to her dead with the awe and exactitude that belong to
religious rites. She had brought out her little store of bleached
linen, which she had for long years kept in reserve for this
supreme use. It seemed but yesterday--that time so many
midsummers ago, when she had told Thias where this linen lay, that
he might be sure and reach it out for her when SHE died, for she
was the elder of the two. Then there had been the work of
cleansing to the strictest purity every object in the sacred
chamber, and of removing from it every trace of common daily
occupation. The small window, which had hitherto freely let in
the frosty moonlight or the warm summer sunrise on the working
man's slumber, must now be darkened with a fair white sheet, for
this was the sleep which is as sacred under the bare rafters as in
ceiled houses. Lisbeth had even mended a long-neglected and
unnoticeable rent in the checkered bit of bed-curtain; for the
moments were few and precious now in which she would be able to do
the smallest office of respect or love for the still corpse, to
which in all her thoughts she attributed some consciousness. Our
dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them: they can
be injured by us, they can be wounded; they know all our
penitence, all our aching sense that their place is empty, all the
kisses we bestow on the smallest relic of their presence. And the
aged peasant woman most of all believes that her dead are
conscious. Decent burial was what Lisbeth had been thinking of
for herself through years of thrift, with an indistinct
expectation that she should know when she was being carried to the
churchyard, followed by her husband and her sons; and now she felt
as if the greatest work of her life were to be done in seeing that
Thias was buried decently before her--under the white thorn, where
once, in a dream, she had thought she lay in the coffin, yet all
the while saw the sunshine above and smelt the white blossoms that
were so thick upon the thorn the Sunday she went to be churched
after Adam was born.
But now she had done everything that could be done to-day in the
chamber of death--had done it all herself, with some aid from her
sons in lifting, for she would let no one be fetched to help her
from the village, not being fond of female neighbours generally;
and her favourite Dolly, the old housekeeper at Mr. Burge's, who
had come to condole with her in the morning as soon as she heard
of Thias's death, was too dim-sighted to be of much use. She had
locked the door, and now held the key in her hand, as she threw
herself wearily into a chair that stood out of its place in the
middle of the house floor, where in ordinary times she would never
have consented to sit. The kitchen had had none of her attention
that day; it was soiled with the tread of muddy shoes and untidy
with clothes and other objects out of place. But what at another
time would have been intolerable to Lisbeth's habits of order and
cleanliness seemed to her now just what should be: it was right
that things should look strange and disordered and wretched, now
the old man had come to his end in that sad way; the kitchen ought
not to look as if nothing had happened. Adam, overcome with the
agitations and exertions of the day after his night of hard work,
had fallen asleep on a bench in the workshop; and Seth was in the
back kitchen making a fire of sticks that he might get the kettle
to boil, and persuade his mother to have a cup of tea, an
indulgence which she rarely allowed herself.
There was no one in the kitchen when Lisbeth entered and threw
herself into the chair. She looked round with blank eyes at the
dirt and confusion on which the bright afternoon's sun shone
dismally; it was all of a piece with the sad confusion of her
mind--that confusion which belongs to the first hours of a sudden
sorrow, when the poor human soul is like one who has been
deposited sleeping among the ruins of a vast city, and wakes up in
dreary amazement, not knowing whether it is the growing or the
dying day--not knowing why and whence came this illimitable scene
of desolation, or why he too finds himself desolate in the midst
of it.
At another time Lisbeth's first thought would have been, "Where is
Adam?" but the sudden death of her husband had restored him in
these hours to that first place in her affections which he had
held six-and-twenty years ago. She had forgotten his faults as we
forget the sorrows of our departed childhood, and thought of
nothing but the young husband's kindness and the old man's
patience. Her eyes continued to wander blankly until Seth came in
and began to remove some of the scattered things, and clear the
small round deal table that he might set out his mother's tea upon
it.
"What art goin' to do?" she said, rather peevishly.
"I want thee to have a cup of tea, Mother," answered Seth,
tenderly. "It'll do thee good; and I'll put two or three of these
things away, and make the house look more comfortable."
"Comfortable! How canst talk o' ma'in' things comfortable? Let
a-be, let a-be. There's no comfort for me no more," she went on,
the tears coming when she began to speak, "now thy poor feyther's
gone, as I'n washed for and mended, an' got's victual for him for
thirty 'ear, an' him allays so pleased wi' iverything I done for
him, an' used to be so handy an' do the jobs for me when I war ill
an' cumbered wi' th' babby, an' made me the posset an' brought it
upstairs as proud as could be, an' carried the lad as war as heavy
as two children for five mile an' ne'er grumbled, all the way to
Warson Wake, 'cause I wanted to go an' see my sister, as war dead
an' gone the very next Christmas as e'er come. An' him to be
drownded in the brook as we passed o'er the day we war married an'
come home together, an' he'd made them lots o' shelves for me to
put my plates an' things on, an' showed 'em me as proud as could
be, 'cause he know'd I should be pleased. An' he war to die an'
me not to know, but to be a-sleepin' i' my bed, as if I caredna
nought about it. Eh! An' me to live to see that! An' us as war
young folks once, an' thought we should do rarely when we war
married. Let a-be, lad, let a-be! I wonna ha' no tay. I carena
if I ne'er ate nor drink no more. When one end o' th' bridge
tumbles down, where's th' use o' th' other stannin'? I may's well
die, an' foller my old man. There's no knowin' but he'll want
me."
Here Lisbeth broke from words into moans, swaying herself
backwards and forwards on her chair. Seth, always timid in his
behaviour towards his mother, from the sense that he had no
influence over her, felt it was useless to attempt to persuade or
soothe her till this passion was past; so he contented himself
with tending the back kitchen fire and folding up his father's
clothes, which had been hanging out to dry since morning--afraid
to move about in the room where his mother was, lest he should
irritate her further.
But after Lisbeth had been rocking herself and moaning for some
minutes, she suddenly paused and said aloud to herself, "I'll go
an' see arter Adam, for I canna think where he's gotten; an' I
want him to go upstairs wi' me afore it's dark, for the minutes to
look at the corpse is like the meltin' snow."
Seth overheard this, and coming into the kitchen again, as his
mother rose from her chair, he said, "Adam's asleep in the
workshop, mother. Thee'dst better not wake him. He was
o'erwrought with work and trouble."
"Wake him? Who's a-goin' to wake him? I shanna wake him wi'
lookin' at him. I hanna seen the lad this two hour--I'd welly
forgot as he'd e'er growed up from a babby when's feyther carried
him."
Adam was seated on a rough bench, his head supported by his arm,
which rested from the shoulder to the elbow on the long planing-
table in the middle of the workshop. It seemed as if he had sat
down for a few minutes' rest and had fallen asleep without
slipping from his first attitude of sad, fatigued thought. His
face, unwashed since yesterday, looked pallid and clammy; his hair
was tossed shaggily about his forehead, and his closed eyes had
the sunken look which follows upon watching and sorrow. His brow
was knit, and his whole face had an expression of weariness and
pain. Gyp was evidently uneasy, for he sat on his haunches,
resting his nose on his master's stretched-out leg, and dividing
the time between licking the hand that hung listlessly down and
glancing with a listening air towards the door. The poor dog was
hungry and restless, but would not leave his master, and was
waiting impatiently for some change in the scene. It was owing to
this feeling on Gyp's part that, when Lisbeth came into the
workshop and advanced towards Adam as noiselessly as she could,
her intention not to awaken him was immediately defeated; for
Gyp's excitement was too great to find vent in anything short of a
sharp bark, and in a moment Adam opened his eyes and saw his
mother standing before him. It was not very unlike his dream, for
his sleep had been little more than living through again, in a
fevered delirious way, all that had happened since daybreak, and
his mother with her fretful grief was present to him through it
all. The chief difference between the reality and the vision was
that in his dream Hetty was continually coming before him in
bodily presence--strangely mingling herself as an actor in scenes
with which she had nothing to do. She was even by the Willow
Brook; she made his mother angry by coming into the house; and he
met her with her smart clothes quite wet through, as he walked in
the rain to Treddleston, to tell the coroner. But wherever Hetty
came, his mother was sure to follow soon; and when he opened his
eyes, it was not at all startling to see her standing near him.
"Eh, my lad, my lad!" Lisbeth burst out immediately, her wailing
impulse returning, for grief in its freshness feels the need of
associating its loss and its lament with every change of scene and
incident, "thee'st got nobody now but thy old mother to torment
thee and be a burden to thee. Thy poor feyther 'ull ne'er anger
thee no more; an' thy mother may's well go arter him--the sooner
the better--for I'm no good to nobody now. One old coat 'ull do
to patch another, but it's good for nought else. Thee'dst like to
ha' a wife to mend thy clothes an' get thy victual, better nor thy
old mother. An' I shall be nought but cumber, a-sittin' i' th'
chimney-corner. (Adam winced and moved uneasily; he dreaded, of
all things, to hear his mother speak of Hetty.) But if thy
feyther had lived, he'd ne'er ha' wanted me to go to make room for
another, for he could no more ha' done wi'out me nor one side o'
the scissars can do wi'out th' other. Eh, we should ha' been both
flung away together, an' then I shouldna ha' seen this day, an'
one buryin' 'ud ha' done for us both."
Here Lisbeth paused, but Adam sat in pained silence--he could not
speak otherwise than tenderly to his mother to-day, but he could
not help being irritated by this plaint. It was not possible for
poor Lisbeth to know how it affected Adam any more than it is
possible for a wounded dog to know how his moans affect the nerves
of his master. Like all complaining women, she complained in the
expectation of being soothed, and when Adam said nothing, she was
only prompted to complain more bitterly.
"I know thee couldst do better wi'out me, for thee couldst go
where thee likedst an' marry them as thee likedst. But I donna
want to say thee nay, let thee bring home who thee wut; I'd ne'er
open my lips to find faut, for when folks is old an' o' no use,
they may think theirsens well off to get the bit an' the sup,
though they'n to swallow ill words wi't. An' if thee'st set thy
heart on a lass as'll bring thee nought and waste all, when thee
mightst ha' them as 'ud make a man on thee, I'll say nought, now
thy feyther's dead an' drownded, for I'm no better nor an old haft
when the blade's gone."
Adam, unable to bear this any longer, rose silently from the bench
and walked out of the workshop into the kitchen. But Lisbeth
followed him.
"Thee wutna go upstairs an' see thy feyther then? I'n done
everythin' now, an' he'd like thee to go an' look at him, for he
war allays so pleased when thee wast mild to him."
Adam turned round at once and said, "Yes, mother; let us go
upstairs. Come, Seth, let us go together."
They went upstairs, and for five minutes all was silence. Then
the key was turned again, and there was a sound of footsteps on
the stairs. But Adam did not come down again; he was too weary
and worn-out to encounter more of his mother's querulous grief,
and he went to rest on his bed. Lisbeth no sooner entered the
kitchen and sat down than she threw her apron over her head, and
began to cry and moan and rock herself as before. Seth thought,
"She will be quieter by and by, now we have been upstairs"; and he
went into the back kitchen again, to tend his little fire, hoping
that he should presently induce her to have some tea.
Lisbeth had been rocking herself in this way for more than five
minutes, giving a low moan with every forward movement of her
body, when she suddenly felt a hand placed gently on hers, and a
sweet treble voice said to her, "Dear sister, the Lord has sent me
to see if I can be a comfort to you."
Lisbeth paused, in a listening attitude, without removing her
apron from her face. The voice was strange to her. Could it be
her sister's spirit come back to her from the dead after all those
years? She trembled and dared not look.
Dinah, believing that this pause of wonder was in itself a relief
for the sorrowing woman, said no more just yet, but quietly took
off her bonnet, and then, motioning silence to Seth, who, on
hearing her voice, had come in with a beating heart, laid one hand
on the back of Lisbeth's chair and leaned over her, that she might
be aware of a friendly presence.
Slowly Lisbeth drew down her apron, and timidly she opened her dim
dark eyes. She saw nothing at first but a face--a pure, pale
face, with loving grey eyes, and it was quite unknown to her. Her
wonder increased; perhaps it WAS an angel. But in the same
instant Dinah had laid her hand on Lisbeth's again, and the old
woman looked down at it. It was a much smaller hand than her own,
but it was not white and delicate, for Dinah had never worn a
glove in her life, and her hand bore the traces of labour from her
childhood upwards. Lisbeth looked earnestly at the hand for a
moment, and then, fixing her eyes again on Dinah's face, said,
with something of restored courage, but in a tone of surprise,
"Why, ye're a workin' woman!"
"Yes, I am Dinah Morris, and I work in the cotton-mill when I am
at home."
"Ah!" said Lisbeth slowly, still wondering; "ye comed in so light,
like the shadow on the wall, an' spoke i' my ear, as I thought ye
might be a sperrit. Ye've got a'most the face o' one as is a-
sittin' on the grave i' Adam's new Bible."
"I come from the Hall Farm now. You know Mrs. Poyser--she's my
aunt, and she has heard of your great affliction, and is very
sorry; and I'm come to see if I can be any help to you in your
trouble; for I know your sons Adam and Seth, and I know you have
no daughter; and when the clergyman told me how the hand of God
was heavy upon you, my heart went out towards you, and I felt a
command to come and be to you in the place of a daughter in this
grief, if you will let me."
"Ah! I know who y' are now; y' are a Methody, like Seth; he's
tould me on you," said Lisbeth fretfully, her overpowering sense
of pain returning, now her wonder was gone. "Ye'll make it out as
trouble's a good thing, like HE allays does. But where's the use
o' talkin' to me a-that'n? Ye canna make the smart less wi'
talkin'. Ye'll ne'er make me believe as it's better for me not to
ha' my old man die in's bed, if he must die, an' ha' the parson to
pray by him, an' me to sit by him, an' tell him ne'er to mind th'
ill words I've gi'en him sometimes when I war angered, an' to gi'
him a bit an' a sup, as long as a bit an' a sup he'd swallow. But
eh! To die i' the cold water, an' us close to him, an' ne'er to
know; an' me a-sleepin', as if I ne'er belonged to him no more nor
if he'd been a journeyman tramp from nobody knows where!"
Here Lisbeth began to cry and rock herself again; and Dinah said,
"Yes, dear friend, your affliction is great. It would be hardness
of heart to say that your trouble was not heavy to bear. God
didn't send me to you to make light of your sorrow, but to mourn
with you, if you will let me. If you had a table spread for a
feast, and was making merry with your friends, you would think it
was kind to let me come and sit down and rejoice with you, because
you'd think I should like to share those good things; but I should
like better to share in your trouble and your labour, and it would
seem harder to me if you denied me that. You won't send me away?
You're not angry with me for coming?"
"Nay, nay; angered! who said I war angered? It war good on you to
come. An' Seth, why donna ye get her some tay? Ye war in a hurry
to get some for me, as had no need, but ye donna think o' gettin'
't for them as wants it. Sit ye down; sit ye down. I thank you
kindly for comin', for it's little wage ye get by walkin' through
the wet fields to see an old woman like me....Nay, I'n got no
daughter o' my own--ne'er had one--an' I warna sorry, for they're
poor queechy things, gells is; I allays wanted to ha' lads, as
could fend for theirsens. An' the lads 'ull be marryin'--I shall
ha' daughters eno', an' too many. But now, do ye make the tay as
ye like it, for I'n got no taste i' my mouth this day--it's all
one what I swaller--it's all got the taste o' sorrow wi't."
Dinah took care not to betray that she had had her tea, and
accepted Lisbeth's invitation very readily, for the sake of
persuading the old woman herself to take the food and drink she so
much needed after a day of hard work and fasting.
Seth was so happy now Dinah was in the house that he could not
help thinking her presence was worth purchasing with a life in
which grief incessantly followed upon grief; but the next moment
he reproached himself--it was almost as if he were rejoicing in
his father's sad death. Nevertheless the joy of being with Dinah
WOULD triumph--it was like the influence of climate, which no
resistance can overcome. And the feeling even suffused itself
over his face so as to attract his mother's notice, while she was
drinking her tea.
"Thee may'st well talk o' trouble bein' a good thing, Seth, for
thee thriv'st on't. Thee look'st as if thee know'dst no more o'
care an' cumber nor when thee wast a babby a-lyin' awake i' th'
cradle. For thee'dst allays lie still wi' thy eyes open, an' Adam
ne'er 'ud lie still a minute when he wakened. Thee wast allays
like a bag o' meal as can ne'er be bruised--though, for the matter
o' that, thy poor feyther war just such another. But ye've got
the same look too" (here Lisbeth turned to Dinah). "I reckon it's
wi' bein' a Methody. Not as I'm a-findin' faut wi' ye for't, for
ye've no call to be frettin', an' somehow ye looken sorry too.
Eh! Well, if the Methodies are fond o' trouble, they're like to
thrive: it's a pity they canna ha't all, an' take it away from
them as donna like it. I could ha' gi'en 'em plenty; for when I'd
gotten my old man I war worreted from morn till night; and now
he's gone, I'd be glad for the worst o'er again."
"Yes," said Dinah, careful not to oppose any feeling of Lisbeth's,
for her reliance, in her smallest words and deeds, on a divine
guidance, always issued in that finest woman's tact which proceeds
from acute and ready sympathy; "yes, I remember too, when my dear
aunt died, I longed for the sound of her bad cough in the nights,
instead of the silence that came when she was gone. But now, dear
friend, drink this other cup of tea and eat a little more."
"What!" said Lisbeth, taking the cup and speaking in a less
querulous tone, "had ye got no feyther and mother, then, as ye war
so sorry about your aunt?"
"No, I never knew a father or mother; my aunt brought me up from a
baby. She had no children, for she was never married and she
brought me up as tenderly as if I'd been her own child."
"Eh, she'd fine work wi' ye, I'll warrant, bringin' ye up from a
babby, an' her a lone woman--it's ill bringin' up a cade lamb.
But I daresay ye warna franzy, for ye look as if ye'd ne'er been
angered i' your life. But what did ye do when your aunt died, an'
why didna ye come to live in this country, bein' as Mrs. Poyser's
your aunt too?"
Dinah, seeing that Lisbeth's attention was attracted, told her the
story of her early life--how she had been brought up to work hard,
and what sort of place Snowfield was, and how many people had a
hard life there--all the details that she thought likely to
interest Lisbeth. The old woman listened, and forgot to be
fretful, unconsciously subject to the soothing influence of
Dinah's face and voice. After a while she was persuaded to let
the kitchen be made tidy; for Dinah was bent on this, believing
that the sense of order and quietude around her would help in
disposing Lisbeth to join in the prayer she longed to pour forth
at her side. Seth, meanwhile, went out to chop wood, for he
surmised that Dinah would like to be left alone with his mother.
Lisbeth sat watching her as she moved about in her still quick
way, and said at last, "Ye've got a notion o' cleanin' up. I
wouldna mind ha'in ye for a daughter, for ye wouldna spend the
lad's wage i' fine clothes an' waste. Ye're not like the lasses
o' this countryside. I reckon folks is different at Snowfield
from what they are here."
"They have a different sort of life, many of 'em," said Dinah;
"they work at different things--some in the mill, and many in the
mines, in the villages round about. But the heart of man is the
same everywhere, and there are the children of this world and the
children of light there as well as elsewhere. But we've many more
Methodists there than in this country."
"Well, I didna know as the Methody women war like ye, for there's
Will Maskery's wife, as they say's a big Methody, isna pleasant to
look at, at all. I'd as lief look at a tooad. An' I'm thinkin' I
wouldna mind if ye'd stay an' sleep here, for I should like to see
ye i' th' house i' th' mornin'. But mayhappen they'll be lookin
for ye at Mester Poyser's."
"No," said Dinah, "they don't expect me, and I should like to
stay, if you'll let me."
"Well, there's room; I'n got my bed laid i' th' little room o'er
the back kitchen, an' ye can lie beside me. I'd be glad to ha' ye
wi' me to speak to i' th' night, for ye've got a nice way o'
talkin'. It puts me i' mind o' the swallows as was under the
thack last 'ear when they fust begun to sing low an' soft-like i'
th' mornin'. Eh, but my old man war fond o' them birds! An' so
war Adam, but they'n ne'er comed again this 'ear. Happen THEY'RE
dead too."
"There," said Dinah, "now the kitchen looks tidy, and now, dear
Mother--for I'm your daughter to-night, you know--I should like
you to wash your face and have a clean cap on. Do you remember
what David did, when God took away his child from him? While the
child was yet alive he fasted and prayed to God to spare it, and
he would neither eat nor drink, but lay on the ground all night,
beseeching God for the child. But when he knew it was dead, he
rose up from the ground and washed and anointed himself, and
changed his clothes, and ate and drank; and when they asked him
how it was that he seemed to have left off grieving now the child
was dead, he said, 'While the child was yet alive, I fasted and
wept; for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me,
that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I
fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he
shall not return to me.'"
"Eh, that's a true word," said Lisbeth. "Yea, my old man wonna
come back to me, but I shall go to him--the sooner the better.
Well, ye may do as ye like wi' me: there's a clean cap i' that
drawer, an' I'll go i' the back kitchen an' wash my face. An'
Seth, thee may'st reach down Adam's new Bible wi' th' picters in,
an' she shall read us a chapter. Eh, I like them words--'I shall
go to him, but he wonna come back to me.'"
Dinah and Seth were both inwardly offering thanks for the greater
quietness of spirit that had come over Lisbeth. This was what
Dinah had been trying to bring about, through all her still
sympathy and absence from exhortation. From her girlhood upwards
she had had experience among the sick and the mourning, among
minds hardened and shrivelled through poverty and ignorance, and
had gained the subtlest perception of the mode in which they could
best be touched and softened into willingness to receive words of
spiritual consolation or warning. As Dinah expressed it, "she was
never left to herself; but it was always given her when to keep
silence and when to speak." And do we not all agree to call rapid
thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration? After our
subtlest analysis of the mental process, we must still say, as
Dinah did, that our highest thoughts and our best deeds are all
given to us.
And so there was earnest prayer--there was faith, love, and hope
pouring forth that evening in the littie kitchen. And poor, aged,
fretful Lisbeth, without grasping any distinct idea, without going
through any course of religious emotions, felt a vague sense of
goodness and love, and of something right lying underneath and
beyond all this sorrowing life. She couldn't understand the
sorrow; but, for these moments, under the subduing influence of
Dinah's spirit, she felt that she must be patient and still.
