Danger! and Other Stories Page 7
VII. THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL
I--HOW THE WOMAN CAME TO KIRKBY-MALHOUSE
Bleak and wind-swept is the little town of Kirkby-Malhouse, harsh andforbidding are the fells upon which it stands. It stretches in a singleline of grey-stone, slate-roofed houses, dotted down the furze-clad slopeof the rolling moor.
In this lonely and secluded village, I, James Upperton, found myself inthe summer of '85. Little as the hamlet had to offer, it contained thatfor which I yearned above all things--seclusion and freedom from allwhich might distract my mind from the high and weighty subjects whichengaged it. But the inquisitiveness of my landlady made my lodgingsundesirable and I determined to seek new quarters.
As it chanced, I had in one of my rambles come upon an isolated dwellingin the very heart of these lonely moors, which I at once determinedshould be my own. It was a two-roomed cottage, which had once belongedto some shepherd, but had long been deserted, and was crumbling rapidlyto ruin. In the winter floods, the Gaster Beck, which runs down GasterFell, where the little dwelling stood, had overswept its banks and tornaway a part of the wall. The roof was in ill case, and the scatteredslates lay thick amongst the grass. Yet the main shell of the housestood firm and true; and it was no great task for me to have all that wasamiss set right.
The two rooms I laid out in a widely different manner--my own tastes areof a Spartan turn, and the outer chamber was so planned as to accord withthem. An oil-stove by Rippingille of Birmingham furnished me with themeans of cooking; while two great bags, the one of flour, and the otherof potatoes, made me independent of all supplies from without. In diet Ihad long been a Pythagorean, so that the scraggy, long-limbed sheep whichbrowsed upon the wiry grass by the Gaster Beck had little to fear fromtheir new companion. A nine-gallon cask of oil served me as a sideboard;while a square table, a deal chair and a truckle-bed completed the listof my domestic fittings. At the head of my couch hung two unpaintedshelves--the lower for my dishes and cooking utensils, the upper for thefew portraits which took me back to the little that was pleasant in thelong, wearisome toiling for wealth and for pleasure which had marked thelife I had left behind.
If this dwelling-room of mine were plain even to squalor, its poverty wasmore than atoned for by the luxury of the chamber which was destined toserve me as my study. I had ever held that it was best for my mind to besurrounded by such objects as would be in harmony with the studies whichoccupied it, and that the loftiest and most ethereal conditions ofthought are only possible amid surroundings which please the eye andgratify the senses. The room which I had set apart for my mystic studieswas set forth in a style as gloomy and majestic as the thoughts andaspirations with which it was to harmonise. Both walls and ceilings werecovered with a paper of the richest and glossiest black, on which wastraced a lurid and arabesque pattern of dead gold. A black velvetcurtain covered the single diamond-paned window; while a thick, yieldingcarpet of the same material prevented the sound of my own footfalls, as Ipaced backward and forward, from breaking the current of my thought.Along the cornices ran gold rods, from which depended six pictures, allof the sombre and imaginative caste, which chimed best with my fancy.
And yet it was destined that ere ever I reached this quiet harbour Ishould learn that I was still one of humankind, and that it is an illthing to strive to break the bond which binds us to our fellows. It wasbut two nights before the date I had fixed upon for my change ofdwelling, when I was conscious of a bustle in the house beneath, with thebearing of heavy burdens up the creaking stair, and the harsh voice of mylandlady, loud in welcome and protestations of joy. From time to time,amid the whirl of words, I could hear a gentle and softly modulatedvoice, which struck pleasantly upon my ear after the long weeks duringwhich I had listened only to the rude dialect of the dalesmen. For anhour I could hear the dialogue beneath--the high voice and the low, withclatter of cup and clink of spoon, until at last a light, quick steppassed my study door, and I knew that my new fellow lodger had sought herroom.
On the morning after this incident I was up betimes, as is my wont; but Iwas surprised, on glancing from my window, to see that our new inmate wasearlier still. She was walking down the narrow pathway, which zigzagsover the fell--a tall woman, slender, her head sunk upon her breast, herarms filled with a bristle of wild flowers, which she had gathered in hermorning rambles. The white and pink of her dress, and the touch of deepred ribbon in her broad drooping hat, formed a pleasant dash of colouragainst the dun-tinted landscape. She was some distance off when I firstset eyes upon her, yet I knew that this wandering woman could be noneother than our arrival of last night, for there was a grace andrefinement in her bearing which marked her from the dwellers of thefells. Even as I watched, she passed swiftly and lightly down thepathway, and turning through the wicket gate, at the further end of ourcottage garden, she seated herself upon the green bank which faced mywindow, and strewing her flowers in front of her, set herself to arrangethem.
As she sat there, with the rising sun at her back, and the glow of themorning spreading like an aureole around her stately and well-poisedhead, I could see that she was a woman of extraordinary personal beauty.Her face was Spanish rather than English in its type--oval, olive, withblack, sparkling eyes, and a sweetly sensitive mouth. From under thebroad straw hat two thick coils of blue-black hair curved down on eitherside of her graceful, queenly neck. I was surprised, as I watched her,to see that her shoes and skirt bore witness to a journey rather than toa mere morning ramble. Her light dress was stained, wet and bedraggled;while her boots were thick with the yellow soil of the fells. Her face,too, wore a weary expression, and her young beauty seemed to be cloudedover by the shadow of inward trouble. Even as I watched her, she burstsuddenly into wild weeping, and throwing down her bundle of flowers ranswiftly into the house.
Distrait as I was and weary of the ways of the world, I was conscious ofa sudden pang of sympathy and grief as I looked upon the spasm of despairwhich, seemed to convulse this strange and beautiful woman. I bent to mybooks, and yet my thoughts would ever turn to her proud clear-cut face,her weather-stained dress, her drooping head, and the sorrow which lay ineach line and feature of her pensive face.
Mrs. Adams, my landlady, was wont to carry up my frugal breakfast; yet itwas very rarely that I allowed her to break the current of my thoughts,or to draw my mind by her idle chatter from weightier things. Thismorning, however, for once, she found me in a listening mood, and withlittle prompting, proceeded to pour into my ears all that she knew of ourbeautiful visitor.
"Miss Eva Cameron be her name, sir," she said: "but who she be, or whereshe came fra, I know little more than yoursel'. Maybe it was the samereason that brought her to Kirkby-Malhouse as fetched you there yoursel',sir."
"Possibly," said I, ignoring the covert question; "but I should hardlyhave thought that Kirkby-Malhouse was a place which offered any greatattractions to a young lady."
"Heh, sir!" she cried, "there's the wonder of it. The leddy has justcome fra France; and how her folk come to learn of me is just a wonder. Aweek ago, up comes a man to my door--a fine man, sir, and a gentleman, asone could see with half an eye. 'You are Mrs. Adams,' says he. 'Iengage your rooms for Miss Cameron,' says he. 'She will be here in aweek,' says he; and then off without a word of terms. Last night therecomes the young leddy hersel'--soft-spoken and downcast, with a touch ofthe French in her speech. But my sakes, sir! I must away and mak' hersome tea, for she'll feel lonesome-like, poor lamb, when she wakes undera strange roof."