Chapter 27 Girls of the Forest by L. T. Meade
PAULINE IN DISTRESS
When Pauline went up to her room late that evening she gave Verena a very cold good-night. Her little fire was still burning, for nurse had taken care of it. Verena heard her lock the door. Had she not done so her sister would have gone to her, and begged and prayed, as such a sweet girl might, for the confidence of Pauline. Verena had to get into bed feeling lonely and unhappy. Just as she was doing so she heard a firm step walking down the corridor. A hand turned the handle of Pauline’s door, and Verena heard Pen’s voice say:
“It’s me, Paulie. It’s me. Let me in, Paulie.”
Verena instantly opened her own door.
“Go away, Pen,” she said. “Go straight back to your bed. You are not to go near Pauline to-night.”
“Yes, but I want her,” said Pauline, opening the door and putting out her head.
“Very well,” said Verena. “You shall see her with me. I will ring the bell and ask nurse to fetch Aunt Sophy.”
Pauline gave a shrill laugh.
“It isn’t worth all that fuss. Go to bed, Pen. We shall have plenty of time for our chat to-morrow morning.”
Penelope looked disgusted. Verena stood in the passage until her stout little figure had disappeared. She then turned, hoping that Pauline would speak to her; but Pauline had gone into her room and locked the door.
Now, Pauline Dale was at this time going through a curious phase. She was scarcely to be blamed for her conduct, for what she had lately lived through had produced a sort of numbness of her faculties, which time seemed to have no intention of restoring to her. To look at her face now no one would suppose her to be in the ordinary sense of the word an invalid; for she was rosy, her eyes were bright, her appetite was good, and she had plenty of strength. Nevertheless there was a certain part of her being which was numb and cold and half-dead. She was not frightened about anything; but she knew that she had behaved as no right-minded or honorable girl should have done. Verena’s words that afternoon had roused her, and had given her a slight degree of pain. She lay down on her bed without undressing. She left the blind up so that the moon could shine through her small window, and she kept repeating to herself at intervals through the night the words that had haunted her when she was at Easterhaze: “Wash and be clean.” It seemed to Pauline that the sea was drawing her. The insistent voice of the sea was becoming absolutely unpleasant. It echoed and echoed in her tired brain: “Wash—wash and be clean.” After her accident she had hated the sea while she was there, but now she wanted to get back to it. She dreaded it and yet she was hungry for it.
As she lay with her eyes wide open it seemed to her that she was looking at the sea. It seemed to her, too, that she really did hear the murmur of the waves. The waves came close, and each wave as it pressed nearer and nearer to the excited child repeated the old cry: “Wash and be clean.”
“Oh, if only I could get to the sea!” was her thought. She pressed her hand to that part of her forehead which felt numb and strange. All of a sudden the numbness and strangeness seemed to depart. She saw one vivid picture after another, and each picture revealed to her the sin which she had sinned and the wrong she had committed. At last she saw that fearful picture when she stood with her little sister in the White Bay, and the waves had so nearly drowned them. She sat up in bed. The idea of going straight to Aunt Sophia and of telling her everything did not occur to her. She wanted to get back to the sea. How could she manage this? She was not in the least afraid of Aunt Sophy; she was only afraid of the God whom she had offended. She got up, pushed back her black hair, tied it neatly behind her ears, and taking her little sailor-hat and her dark-blue serge jacket, she put them on. She would go back to the sea. She did not know exactly how she could manage it, but somehow she would. When she was dressed she opened a drawer. She must have money. Aunt Sophia was liberal in the matter of pocket-money, but Pauline was careless and spent hers as she got it. All she possessed now was a shilling. She put the shilling into her pocket. Turning round, she saw the flash of the gold thimble as it rested on the mantelpiece. She slipped that also into her pocket. She then opened the window, and, as she had done on a previous night long ago, she got out and let herself down to the ground. She was now out all alone about midnight. Once again the numb feeling had come back to her; nevertheless her mind was made up. She would at any cost get back to the sea.
She walked across the grass. By-and-by she found herself at the wicket-gate. When she reached the gate she had a sudden overwhelming memory of Nancy King. During the last few weeks she had forgotten Nancy. Now she thought of her. Standing with one hand on the post of the wicket-gate, she reflected on an idea which presented itself to her. If she, Pauline, was wicked—if she had been a naughty girl from the first—surely Nancy was worse! If it was necessary for Pauline to wash and be clean, it was still more necessary for Nancy. Together they could visit the seaside; together lave themselves in the waves; together reach that beautiful state where sin did not trouble.
Pauline smiled to herself. She walked through the Forest in the dead of night, and presently reached Nancy’s home. Now, it would have been a very bad thing for Pauline, as it had very nearly been a bad thing for Penelope some weeks ago, had Lurcher been out. But Lurcher was ill, and had been sent to a neighboring vet.’s. And it also happened—just, as it were, in the nick of time—that Farmer King was returning very late from visiting a neighboring fair. He had been kept by a friend until past midnight, and had driven home through the woods. As Pauline got to the gate the farmer drew up his mare within a few feet of the tired girl. He saw a girl standing by the gate, and could not make out who she was or what she was doing. He said gruffly:
“You get out of this. What are you doing here at this time of night?”
Then Pauline raised a white face. He recognized the face, gave a smothered, hasty exclamation, sprang to the ground, flung the reins over the neck of the mare, and came towards the girl.
“Miss Pauline,” he said, “what in the name of all that is wonderful are you doing here at this hour?”
Pauline looked full up at him.
“You said you would help me. You said you would if ever the time came. I want to be helped—oh, so badly!—and I have come.”
“Because I said that?” exclaimed the farmer, his face flushing all over with intense gratification. “Then you be certain of one thing, my dear—sure and positive certain—that when Farmer King says a thing he will do it. You come straight in with me, missy—straight in with me this blessed minute.”
Pauline gave him her hand. It was quite wonderful how he soothed her, how her fear seemed to drop away from her, how contented and almost happy she felt.
“You are very strong, aren’t you?” she said. “You are very, very strong?”
“I should about think I am. I can lift a weight with any man in England, cut up a sheep with any man in existence, run a race with any farmer of my age. Strong! Yes, you are right there, missy; I am strong—strong as they’re made.”
“Then you are what I want. You will help me.”
The farmer opened the hall door with his latch-key. Nancy had been in bed for an hour or more. The farmer unlocked the door which led into the kitchen.
“The parlor will be cold,” he said, “and the drawing-room will be sort of musty. We don’t use the drawing-room every night. But the kitchen—that will be all right. You come right into the kitchen, Miss Pauline, and then you’ll tell me.”
He took her into the kitchen, lit a big lamp which hung over the fireplace, and poked the ashes in the big stove.
“You do look white and trembly all over. Shall I call Nancy to see you, miss?”
“Please, please do.”
Farmer King went noisily upstairs.
“Nancy!” he called to his daughter. “I say, Nancy!”
Nancy was in her first sleep. She opened her eyes at the sound of the farmer’s voice, and said in a sleepy tone:
“Well, what now, dad? I wish you wouldn’t call me just because you come in late.”
“You get up, my girl. There’s trouble downstairs. Missy has come.”
“Missy? Miss Pen?”
“No, not Miss Pen; the other one—the one we love, both of us—the one who was our queen—Miss Pauline. She’s downstairs, and she’s shocking bad. She has come to me to help her.”
“Why, of course she’s bad, father,” said Nancy. “Don’t you know all that happened? Pauline was nearly drowned at Easterhaze, and they say she hasn’t been quite, so to say, right in her head ever since. I have been nearly mad about it.”
“Sane, you mean, to my way of thinking,” exclaimed the farmer; “for you never said a word to me about it, eating your meals as hearty and contented as you please, buying your winter finery, and talking about going to London for Christmas. Give me a friend who will think of me when I am in trouble. But the lass knows what’s what, and it isn’t to you she has come; it’s to me. She wants me to help her because I made her a promise, forsooth! But you come right down, for she will want a bit of cuddling from a girl like yourself. Come right down this minute and see her, for she badly wants some one to do something for her.”
Now, Nancy was really fond of Pauline, notwithstanding her father’s words, and she got up willingly enough and ran downstairs to the kitchen; and when she saw her little friend sitting by the fire, looking very white, her head dropped forward, and her big black eyes fixed with an almost vacant expression straight before her, a great lot of Nancy’s heart did go out to the sad and unhappy girl. She rushed to her side, threw her arms round her, and hugged her over and over again.
“Come,” said the farmer, “it’s a bit of something to eat she wants; then to go upstairs and share your bed with you, Nance. And in the morning, why, I am at her service.”
“Yes, that’s what you do want, isn’t it, Paulie?” said Nancy.
Pauline nodded. She felt almost incapable of speaking. So the farmer brought her food, and made her eat and drink. And then she went upstairs with Nancy, and Nancy made her he down by her side, and when they were both together in the dark, in the warm bed in the pretty room, Pauline flung her arms round Nancy and began to cry. It was really quite a long time since Pauline had cried. At first her tears came slowly and with great difficulty; but in a little they rained from her eyes more and more easily, until at last they came in torrents, and her tears hurt her and shook her little frame, and came faster, and yet faster, until from sheer exhaustion she dropped asleep. But when Pauline woke from that sleep it seemed to her that the numb part had greatly left her brain and that she could think clearly. Only, still she had no wish to go back to The Dales. She only wanted to wash and be clean.
“You are the queerest girl that ever lived,” said Nancy. “You come right downstairs and have breakfast. Of course, they are sure to look for you and try to find you, but you must come straight downstairs now and hear what father has got to say.”
Pauline got up willingly enough and went downstairs. There was a groaning breakfast on the board. On most occasions the farmers’ servants ate below the salt, but now only the farmer and his daughter Nancy were present.
“Here’s cake worth eating,” said the farmer, “and new-laid eggs worth taking; and here’s honey the like of which is not to be found anywhere else, even in the New Forest. And here’s chicken rissoles, and here’s cooked ham. Now, missy, fall to—fall to.”
Pauline ate very little, and then she turned to the farmer.
“And now you want me to help you?” he said.
“I want you to take me to the seaside. I want Nancy to come, too. I want to go where the waves are high, and where I can wash and be clean.”
“My word!” said the farmer, “what does the little lass say?”
“I don’t want to go home. I can’t go home. If I am alone with you and with Nancy I might get better. Don’t let me go home.”
“My lass, my lass, you have applied to Farmer King in your trouble, and Farmer King won’t desert you. I have not the most remote notion what trouble it can be that worrits a poor little lass, but, such as it is, Farmer King will be your friend. There is no doubt, my dear, that when they miss you at The Dales they will come to look for you here, and what am I to do?”
“Hide me! Oh, hide me! I can’t go home.”
“What a lark!” cried Nancy. “We could, couldn’t we, father?”
“And we won’t,” said the farmer, bringing his hand down with a great bang on the table. “What we do we’ll do above-board. We did wrong that time in the summer when we took miss to that picnic and got her into trouble. Now we’re bound to see her out of her trouble. It has to do with that night partly, hasn’t it, missy?”
“I have never been happy since,” said Pauline.
“Well, then, my dear, I said I would help you out if the time came, and I will. You shall stay here—I vow it—and I am just going to get on my horse Caesar, and I shall ride over to The Dales this blessed minute. You leave it to me. You leave it all to me, my dear.”