They were directed to John Taylor's house, a low mud cottage, very wretched looking, and apparently so smoky that Mr. Ernescliffe and Norman were glad to remain outside and survey the quarry, while the ladies entered.
Inside they found more cleanliness and neatness than they had expected, but there was a sad appearance of poverty, insufficient furniture, and the cups and broken tea-pot on the table, holding nothing but toast and water, as a substitute for their proper contents. The poor woman was sitting by the fire with one twin on her lap, and the other on a chair by her side, and a larger child was in the corner by the fire, looking heavy and ill, while others of different ages lounged about listlessly. She was not untidy, but very pale, and she spoke in a meek, subdued way, as if the ills of life were so heavy on her that she had no spirit even to complain. She thanked them for their gifts but languidly, and did not visibly brighten when told that her husband was better.
Flora asked when the babes would be christened.
"I can't hardly tell, Miss--'tis so far to go."
"I suppose none of the children can go to school? I don't know their faces there," said Flora, looking at a nice tall, smooth-haired girl of thirteen or fourteen.
"No, Miss--'tis so far. I am sorry they should not, for they always was used to it where we lived before, and my oldest girl she can work very nicely. I wish I could get a little place for her."
"You would hardly know what to do without her," said Miss Winter.
"No, ma'am; but she wants better food than I can give her, and it is a bad wild place for a girl to grow up. It is not like what I was used to, ma'am; I was always used to keep to my school and to my church--but it is a bad place to live in here."
No one could deny it, and the party left the cottage gravely. Alan and Norman joined them, having heard a grievous history of the lawlessness of the people from a foreman with whom they had met. There seemed to be no visible means of improvement. The parish church was Stoneborough, and there the living was very poor, the tithes having been appropriated to the old Monastery, and since its dissolution having fallen into possession of a Body that never did anything for the town. The incumbent, Mr. Ramsden, had small means, and was not a high stamp of clergyman, seldom exerting himself, and leaving most of his parish work to the two under masters of the school, Mr. Wilmot and Mr. Harrison, who did all they had time and strength for, and more too, within the town itself. There was no hope for Cocksmoor!
"There would be a worthy ambition!" said Etheldred, as they turned their steps homeward. "Let us propose that aim to ourselves, to build a church on Cocksmoor!"
"How many years do you give us to do it in?" said Norman.
"Few or many, I don't care. I'll never leave off thinking about it till it is done."
"It need not be long," said Flora, "if one could get up a subscription."
"A penny subscription?" said Norman. "I'd rather have it my own doing."
"You agree then," said Ethel; "do you, Mr. Ernescliffe?"
"I may safely do so," he answered, smiling. Miss Winter looked at Etheldred reprovingly, and she shrank into herself, drew apart, and indulged in a reverie. She had heard in books of girls writing poetry, romance, history--gaining fifties and hundreds. Could not some of the myriads of fancies floating in her mind thus be made available? She would compose, publish, earn money--some day call papa, show him her hoard, beg him to take it, and, never owning whence it came, raise the building. Spire and chancel, pinnacle and buttress, rose before her eyes, and she and Norman were standing in the porch with an orderly, religious population, blessing the unknown benefactor, who had caused the news of salvation to be heard among them.
They were almost at home, when the sight of a crowd in the main street checked them. Norman and Mr. Ernescliffe went forward to discover the cause, and spoke to some one on the outskirts--then Mr. Ernescliffe hurried back to the ladies.
"There's been an accident," he said hastily--"you had better go down the lane and in by the garden."
He was gone in an instant, and they obeyed in silence. Whence came Ethel's certainty that the accident concerned themselves? In an agony of apprehension, though without one outward sign of it, she walked home. They were in the garden--all was apparently as usual, but no one was in sight. Ethel had been first, but she held back, and let Miss Winter go forward into the house. The front door was open--servants were standing about in confusion, and one of the maids, looking dreadfully frightened, gave a cry, "Oh! Miss--Miss-- have you heard?"
"No--what? What has happened? Not Mrs. May--" exclaimed Miss Winter.
"Oh, ma'am! it is all of them. The carriage is overturned, and--"
"Who's hurt? Mamma! papa! Oh, tell me!" cried Flora.
"There's nurse," and Ethel flew up to her. "What is it? Oh, nurse!"
"My poor, poor children," said old nurse, passionately kissing Ethel. Harry and Mary were on the stairs behind her, clinging together.
A stranger looked into the house, followed by Adams, the stableman. "They are going to bring Miss May in," some one said.
Ethel could bear it no longer. As if she could escape, she fled upstairs into her room, and, falling on her knees, hid her face on her bed.
There were heavy steps in the house, then a sound of hasty feet coming up to her. Norman dashed into the room, and threw himself on a chair. He was ghastly pale, and shuddered all over.
"Oh, Norman, Norman, speak! What is it?" He groaned, but could not speak; he rested his head against her, and gasped. She was terribly frightened. "I'll call--" and she would have gone, but he held her. "No--no--they can't!" He was prevented from saying more, by chattering teeth and deadly faintness. She tried to support him, but could only guide him as he sank, till he lay at full length on the floor, where she put a pillow under his head, and gave him some water. "Is it--oh, tell me! Are they much hurt? Oh, try to say!"
"They say Margaret is alive," said Norman, in gasps; "but--And papa--he stood up--sat--walked--was better-"
"Is he hurt--much hurt?"
"His arm--" and the tremor and fainting stopped him again.
"Mamma?" whispered Ethel; but Norman only pressed his face into the pillow.
She was so bewildered as to be more alive to the present distress of his condition than to the vague horrors downstairs. Some minutes passed in silence, Norman lying still, excepting a nervous trembling that agitated his whole frame. Again was heard the strange tread, doors opening and shutting, and suppressed voices, and he turned his face upwards, and listened with his hand pressed to his forehead, as if to keep himself still enough to listen.
"Oh! what is the matter? What is it?" cried Ethel, startled and recalled to the sense of what was passing.
"Oh, Norman!" Then springing up, with a sudden thought, "Mr. Ward! Oh! is he there?"
"Yes," said Norman, in a low hopeless tone, "he was at the place. He said it--"
"What?"
Again Norman's face was out of sight.
"Mamma?" Ethel's understanding perceived, but her mind refused to grasp the extent of the calamity. There was no answer, save a convulsive squeezing of her hand.
Fresh sounds below recalled her to speech and action.
"Where is she? What are they doing for her? What--"
"There's nothing to be done. She--when they lifted her up, she was--"
"Dead?"
"Dead."
The boy lay with his face hidden, the girl sat by him on the floor, too much crushed for even the sensations belonging to grief, neither moving nor looking. After an interval Norman spoke again, "The carriage turned right over--her head struck on the kerb stone--"