a few days after edgar sutherland’s visit to mount eden, jane peartree walked out for the first time after her illness into the sun. she wore the plain cap and gown of the other inmates of the home, and even in that simple costume (or rather, perhaps, because of it) she looked strangely beautiful. leaning on the arm of adèle lambert, she passed feebly across the green lawn in front of the house, and gained a garden seat in a quiet walk leading to the home farm.
the day was very mild for winter tide, the sun was shining gently, and here and there from the dark earth a snowdrop was peeping. the air, moreover, was full of that cool, balmy sweetness which so often in our chill climate precedes the resurrection of the spring.
but jane peartree was ill at ease. ever since her encounter with sutherland she had been strangely fretful and uneasy, and had not her strength failed she would certainly have taken her departure before that day.
as they sat together on the window-seat, her cry was still for speedy flight.
‘i must go to-morrow!—yes, adèle, to-morrow! i have already stayed too long!’
‘but, madame, you are still so weak. why should you go so soon?’
‘i cannot stay! i have so far to go,—and—and i shall go mad, i think, if i remain. you are all kind—kinder than i deserve—but it is not that! no, no!’ ‘but where will you go, madame? have you not told me you have no home—no friends?’
‘i have none—i want none,’ returned jane peartree; ‘but all the same, i must leave this place. here, i feel like a dead woman in her shroud, dead and cold, but being forced back to life, just when i would be left alone to rest for ever. i do not feel at peace. in the night i cannot sleep, and in the day i am afraid. why should i be sitting here in the sunshine, when by rights i should be lying in my grave?’
adèle looked at her companion in deep sorrow and pain, and wondered, indeed, if her wits were going, since her words were so incomprehensible and strange. just then, as they sat side by side, there passed across the lawn, some hundred yards away, the figure of a man, at the sight of whom adèle brightened, and said, forcing a smile:—
‘sister ursula tells me your name is uncommon, even in england; yet you have a namesake yonder, madame.’
‘a namesake?’ repeated jane peartree.
‘yes; one of the gardeners upon the estate. that is he crossing to the shrubberies.’
jane peartree turned her weary eyes towards the man, and in a moment her heart leapt up in wondering recognition, her pale face flushed, and she uttered a low cry. who that had once seen it could fail to remember the little, quaint, old-fashioned figure, the curious gait, of luke peartree? yes, it was uncle luke, greyer and older than when, long years before, he led little madeline home from grayfleet churchyard, but still living—‘to brighten the sunshine.’
‘quick! call him! i must speak to him!’ cried the invalid, rising faintly to her feet.
adèle ran off instantly after the man, who had disappeared into the shrubberies. presently she reappeared, the little gnome-like figure trotting by her side. as he came up, clad in homespun and leather gaiters, and carrying a pruning-hook, his wrinkled face expanded into the vacant wondering smile that was so familiar.
what was his surprise to see a strange woman, tall and pale, standing with extended arms, gazing upon him through streaming tears?
‘uncle luke! don’t you know me?’
uncle luke stood and scratched his head, smiling, more amicably than ever, the smile of honest stupefaction. before he could utter a word, which, indeed, he was in no hurry to do, the strange woman had flung her arms around his neck, and, sobbing and crying, was kissing him upon the cheek.
‘uncle luke! it is i—madeline!’
the little man staggered as if under a blow, and went quite pale.
‘madlin!’ he cried. ‘not little madlin as i brung to london! why, lor’, so it be!’
and at a loss for any other means of expressing his utter bewilderment and delight, he grinned from ear to ear.
very pretty it was, as well as pitiful, to see madeline (whom we shall call by her assumed name no longer) lead the little man to the garden seat, sit by his side, hold his hand, and look fondly in his eyes, as she questioned him, lifting his rough hand to kiss it from time to time. the weight of years, the burden of sorrow, had rolled away from her in a moment, and she was a child again, while the heaven that ‘bends above us in our infancy’ was opening over her—bright, tranquil, peaceful, and divine.
meantime, poor uncle luke seemed too stupefied to understand completely what was taking place. he sat blushing and grinning, scarcely able to recognise, in the beautiful, full-grown woman fondling him, the little madlin of his remembrance; and indeed that remembrance was sadly clouded, like the rest of his feeble mind, by the mists of years. when she told him how diligently and how often she had sought to trace him, when she questioned him as to the reasons which had prevented him from seeking her out, he had little or no reply to give. she gathered, however, that he had been for years in the service of a distant kinsman, who was a head gardener on the estate.
it was destined to be a day of strange surprises. as madeline sat by uncle luke, her face wet with happy tears, two gentlemen approached along the garden wall behind her. adèle saw them first, and was about to utter a delighted cry, when the younger of the two placed his finger to his lips to enjoin silence. thus it happened that, before madeline knew or suspected the truth, she saw her husband standing before her, gazing upon her with wistful, wondering eyes; and before she could stir or speak she beheld him kneeling beside her, sobbing wildly, touching her with his outstretched hand.
‘madeline! my darling!’
she rose wildly to her feet, looking this way and that, as if in act to fly. uncle luke rose too, completely puzzled, till adèle beckoned him away. so it came to pass that the other three walked aside, and the husband and wife were left alone.
‘madeline! speak to me; my madeline, my own dear wife!’
she shuddered at the last word, and made a feeble attempt to withdraw from his embrace; but at last, sobbing hysterically, she yielded, and suffered him, with tenderest kisses, to place her head upon his breast.
