A Valley of Shadows

Front matter

JNEW JMOVELS. ALONE ON A WIDE WIDE SEA. By W. Clark Russell. 3 vols. THES DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND. By Grant Allen. 3 vols. CORINTHIA MARAZION. By Cecil Grippith. 3 vols. A SONG OF SIXPENCE. By Henry Murrav. i vol. SANTA BARBARA. By Ouida. i vol. IN THE MIDST OF LIFE. By Ambrose Bierce. i vol. TRACKED TO DOOM. By Dick Donovan, i vol. COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT, and SOME OTHER PEOPLE. By Bret Harte. i vol. ADVENTURES OF A FAIR REBEL. By Matt. Crim. I vol. IN A STEAMER CHAIR. By Robert Barr. i vol. THE FOSSICKER. A Romance of Mashonaland. By Ernest Glanville. i vol. London : CHA^EEO & WINDUS, 214, Piccadilly, W. BY G. COLMORE AUTHOR OF A LIVING EPITAPH,' lA CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE,' ETC. Such storms vex human souls, That they are driven into unknown seas And dark, strange waters : yet the Power that made The calm, safe inland bays, made the wild waste, ; And knows the great waves and the silent rocks, And knows the whirling tempests that have tossed The wrecked hulk stranded far away from home IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II. UonSon CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY $ 0 0 k _E 1. (continued). DINAH. 15 VOL.

CHAPTER XI.

It was August before Jim Saryll came back to Sleepy Dale. Already in the evenings the shadows stole earlier each day over the hills, and in the mornings the sun delayed its rising ; yet Jim told himself that for him the summer was still to come. Strong with youth and love and hope, it seemed to him that the sun shone whether the sky was cloudy or fair ; and Lucy Hatherden, cheered by his joyous presence, quick to forget, and keen to enjoy, castaway the fears that had darkened the last few weeks, and gave herself up to happiness again. The mornings were spent chiefly under the trees in the garden, and the afternoons, when the heat of the day was over, were given up to long rambles over the downs. Sometimes Joel Hatherden came home in time to join in the walk ; more often Lucy, Dinah and Jim went forth alone.

Chapter I

A wild autumn followed the long summer ; October came with a rush of clouds and rain ; the days were stormy and wet. Anne Hatherden was not well this autumn ; a sharp attack of rheumatism had kept her in bed for several days, and for two or three weeks she was unable to leave the house. She sat in her little sitting-room, her eyes looking out at the unquiet sea, while her hands knitted ; and she said to herself that it was like the life of the world, troubled and restless, and that only the eye of Christian faith could pierce to the calm land that lay beyond. Yet the thought of the land beyond was not the one on which she cared most to dwell ; the vengeance of the Lord, the overthrow of the ungodly, these were the subjects that pleased her spirit best ; and her Bible, lying by her side, lay always open at a page which bore upon it some prophecy of retribution, some denunciation of sin.

If only she could have been sure that on the Day of Judgment Joel Hatherden would stand beside her among the saved, the thought of that day, when the Lord would vindicate His name ; when men would see that she, Anne Hatherden, had been right to lead the stern life she had led, to scorn pleasure as she had scorned it, to speak plainly as she had spoken, to search the Scriptures as she had searched them ; and when all Sleepy Dale would recognise at last that pleasure and beauty and fine dressing were altogether vanity ; if only she could have been sure that Joel would be safe, and could have hoped, moreover, that Dinah also might stand upon the outskirts of the chosen, the thought of the Last Day would have ANNE 113 been a thought made up of triumph and of longing. But there was always the fear that her brother's soul might perish at the last ; and the fear shadowed her life, chilled her heart, embittered her anticipations of the overthrow of the ungodly, and went hand in hand with a never-dying distrust and dislike of the woman who was his wife.

Her own soul was safe ; grace had been given to her, and she had worked out her salvation, if not in fear and trembling, yet in rigid self-repression ; but if her brother's soul, the soul of the one human being for whom she felt a warm human love, strong enough, passionate enough to rival sometimes her sense of duty to the Lord, if this soul should perish at the last, there would perish with it some thing that she dared not name. Anne Hatherden's religion would not let her think a blasphemous thought ; but she knew in her heart of hearts that the glories. VOL. II. 2 of heaven would pale for her if Joel were in hell, that the golden streets would be dulled if Joel did not tread them by her side, that the songs of praise would lack in sweetness and in triumph if Joel's quavering voice did not help to swell their strains.

So, as she sat and looked out at the sea, the thought of her brother's soul was a thought that darkened her visions of a future life ; and always she saw Lucy Hatherden standing between Joel and his salvation. On a cloudy afternoon Churchwarden Hargreaves sat with Anne Hatherden in her little parlour and talked to her of the nothingness of life, and by-and-by, being cheered by a cup of tea, of Dinah's ap proaching wedding. ' You're glad, I suppose,' he said, ' that she didn't marry the other young man ? You've never taken to Mrs. Joel, I fancy, not being one to change, in spite of time working wonders, as they say ; and you ANNE 115 wouldn't have cared for any further con nection with the family.' Aunt Anne turned her face from the leaden sea outside, towards the little round table, with its white cloth and teacups and bread-and-butter, and the broad, sallow face of the churchwarden on the further side. ' No, I'm not one to change,' she said ; ' chopping and changing's for those that makes up their minds with nothing to go upon.

Still, I don't say that sons is answer able for their mothers, and the young man's a young man I took a kind of liking to.' ' Well, Dinah seems a bit changeable anyway,' said Mr. Hargreaves, ' and I don't know where she gets it from, seeing her father never was that wav, nor you, nor any of the family.' ' She gets it from her bringing up, that's where she gets it from. Her stepmother's got an unsettled way with her, and the girl's caught it.' ' Girls are often fickle by nature, though. There was a girl I came across when I was quite a young man ; Maria her name was ' ' Yes, you've told me about her before,' interrupted Aunt Anne, ' and a good thing it was for you, churchwarden, that the Lord moved her to jilt you. Still I don't hold with fickleness ; I'm not one for earthly love, as you know, but if a girl says yes to a man, she ought to hold to him — unless for conscience' sake.' ' Well, it's all for the best, I suppose,' said the churchwarden. 'And he seems a likely young man, quiet and Christian behaved, so far as one can see.' Aunt Anne shook her head. ' I don't take to him.

He wears one of them tall hats — weekdays and all.' ' It's the custom in London, I fancy, among a good many.' ' I don't know that that makes it any ANNE ■17 better ; London customs isn't always Bible customs by all I hear. Not that Fid say anything if it was only on a Sunday ; my father wore a hat like that when he went to church, and it has a respectable look on the Lord's day ; but weekdays ' ' Well, perhaps it's rather proud looking for weekdays,' admitted the churchwarden. ' I was always one to go by headgear, as you know,' Aunt Anne went on ; ' what's outside a head, shows what's in it, to my way of thinking.' ' You don't take to him, then ?' ' No, I don't take to him, but my opinion's of no account now at Little Hollow. Things is changed there since my time, churchwarden ; it used to be held right to see what people's minds and hearts was like ; but now it's marrying and giving in marriage, and no care for the soul, or whether those they marry are Christians or no Christians.' ' If I'd thought he wasn't a Chris tian ' began Mr. Hargreaves. ' I don't say he isn't,' interrupted Aunt Anne, ' I only say the outward signs don't hold with it ; and I'd have liked better if I'd known more about him.

I don't trust people coming as strangers, with nothing to show what they're like ; and Dinah's the only child, and her mother was a good woman, and she ought to have had a husband that'ld guide her in the right way.' ' I was about to say,' said Mr. Har greaves, ' that if I'd thought he wasn't a Christian, Fid have made a few inquiries. My brother-in-law — him that's father to my nephew in the law, he knows him a bit, I fancy, for he said in his last letter — and that's a month or two gone by — I hear, says he, that young Wace has been down in your parts, and what do they think of him there ? or something of the sort — I can't exactly remember. I'm not much of a ANNE 119 correspondent, and I've never answered the letter yet; but if I'd thought about it, I might have made a few inquiries.' ' A month or two gone by ?

That'll be when he first came here ?' ' Yes, about then ; but not knowing what was going to happen at the time you see, I didn't take so much interest. But now — well, for the matter of that, I suppose I might make a few inquiries yet.' ' I suppose so.' ' I'll do it,' said the churchwarden, getting up ; ' if there's anything to be found out about anybody, it's always best to find it out. And, as you say, there's some thing about him not to be depended on.' ' I know nothing against him,' said Aunt Anne, ' except his outward appearance.' ' Ah, but the hat doesn't look well ; it's as you say, the hat's against him.' The churchwarden bustled away, and Aunt Anne, left alone, looked out again at the sombre sea. ' Marrying and giving in marriage !' she was thinking, ' it's all they give their minds to, that and pleasuring and vanities. And so it was in the days of the Flood, and so it was in Sodom and Gomorrha ; and the wrath of the Lord came upon them and destroyed them all.'

Chapter II

The time of Dinah's wedding was drawing near. All the valley seemed to mourn its approach : the leaves lay dead beneath the trees, and the branches wailed over them : the sea took a grayer tone, the wind had a more desolate sound than in any autumn Dinah had ever known. The heavy days passed all too swiftly ; the wind seemed to sweep the short time along with it as it whirled and blustered about Little Hollow, and the dreaded month of December drew near with giant steps. To Lucy Hatherden the time was one of feverish unrest ; sometimes she looked on with passionate longing to the day that would bring her safety ; sometimes she called upon God to hold the days as they came and forbid them to pass on. And always in the night the wind spoke to her through long, wakeful hours, and Dinah's voice called to her through its wailing ; and sometimes it seemed as though she must answer the voice and bid it cease with words that would hush the pain in it.

But when the wind's voice died into low breath ings, and wandered wearily around the house, or lingered sighing at her win dow, it whispered to her of death ; and fear awoke in her heart and answered it, and the two voices together made her dumb. Every day she took long walks, as in the days before she had married Joel, and her favourite walk was the desolate stretch of beach beyond Love's End Point. Again and again she paced there to and fro and watched the tide come in ; and again and again she waited till the waves had reached the rocks before, with hurried steps, she ANNE 123 returned to the safety that lay on the other side of the point. One evening, when the gale, tired with its own raging, was quiet for a time, Lucy came back along the beach from Love's End Point. It was nearly dark, but she could still see the long line of the waves as they broke, and the onward motion of the torn, ragged mass of clouds overhead.

Before her the beach stretched desolate ; the fishermen's huts ahead were hidden in the gloom ; only Anne Hatherden's cottage, standing solitary near the shore, broke the loneliness of the scene. It stood like a square, dark blot, the smoke from its chimney barely visible as it rose in a slant ing course towards the clouds. No light showed from the side that faced Lucy as she came along the shore, but when she was close to the cottage and had passed round to the front of it, she saw the flicker ing light of firelight through the window bv the door. All about her the dark, blank night was growing, and amidst the dreari ness around, the moving, leaping light had a friendly, beckoning look. Lucy drew nearer to it, paused, and drew nearer still, and so, bit by bit, advanced till she was quite close to the window.

She stood on tiptoe and looked in. At first she thought the room was empty ; but presently, in a part of the room which the firelight hardly touched, she saw Anne Hatherden. Anne was kneeling by the table ; the starting light came and went upon the open Bible by her side ; her hands were clasped, her face was turned upwards ; Lucy, listening, could hear that every now and again she spoke aloud. She could not hear the words that Anne said, but instinctively she seemed to know that Anne was praying for Joel, praying for a salvation that meant loneliness to the woman standing outside in the darkness, praying that his love for her might pass away ; and as she waited the love and pain and bitterness in Lucy's ANNE 125 heart grew strong and fierce, and suddenly she left the window and went to the door and opened it, and stood on the threshold, and spoke out something of the passion and misery within her. ' I love him,' she said, ' I love him in a way that you can never know.

What right have you to kneel before God, and say that you love him best ? What right have you to ask that the only thing I have should be taken from me ? Only now, at the last, I know what it means to me, only now ' — she came forward into the room, close to the tall figure that had risen to its feet ; she put out a hand and laid it on Anne's arm. ' Don't pray to God,' she said in a voice in which the passion was lost in pleading, ' don't pray to Him to take Joel's love from me ! I have done so much, given so much, to keep it ; don't, for the God's sake who listens to you, don't ask that it may be taken away from me !' Anne Hatherden took the clutching hand from her arm before she answered. ' Your words are idle,' she said. ' I do not know why you should come here now to speak to me of a love that, as you say truly, I can never know.

My love is different from yours ; it does not think of the body, it does not ask to be seen and known and rewarded here ; it looks further, it will last longer. I must ask the Lord what such a love bids me ask ; and the Lord Himself will judge between your love and mine.' The excitement died out of Lucy's face as she listened to Anne's stern voice, and she turned away as Anne ceased to speak. ' It is true,' she said ; * God will judge ; there is no escape at the end — only the end is not, cannot be yet. But still ' — Lucy turned once more — ' I will tell you this, that I who fear death so much, would give my life because of the love that you despise.' ANNE 127 ' Life is a little thing to give,' said Anne, a little thing, and easily given.' ' To me it would be hard. As for you, you have never really lived, you have cut yourself off from all that makes life sweet, you have never known love — or fear.' ' I have chosen the better part.' ' And I the worse ; but you do not know how the world has been to me.

If I had been born here, as you were born, I might have chosen — I cannot tell ' ' You were born as the Lord thought good ; and the Lord, when He gave you life, gave you the power to choose between good and evil.' ' Perhaps ; I have never understood these things. But I have learned to reverence a man who has been kinder to me than God has been : God turned his face away from me, but Joel pitied me in my loneliness ; God would not hear me when I asked Him for a sign, but Joel ' ' God knows your heart,' broke in Anne ; ' Joel has been always blinded by his earthly love.' ' Then let it blind have ; if I lose it indeed.' him still. It is all I now I shall be lost blasphemous words,' ' Your words are said Anne ; ' there's no saving or losing in earthly love.' The flames, leaping up, showed her face set in hard lines as she spoke, and Lucy, looking at her, felt her heart grow cold.

She did not answer Anne's last words, but turning from her, left the cottage and took her way back to Little Hollow. By the gate Joel Hatherden was waiting for his wife. ' At last !' he said. ' I began to think you must have lost your way.' ' I know the way too well.' ' The way home. It is your home now, indeed ? You want no other ?' ' No, only this.' The night was too dark for Joel to see ANNE 129 Lucy's face as she spoke ; nor could she see that on her husband's face was the look of a man who has won his heart's desire. VOL. 11.

Chapter III

A week later Anne Hatherden came to Little Hollow. It was a long time since she had been there, and Lucy and Dinah looked up, surprised and startled, as with slow, faltering steps she entered the hall. ' Aunt Anne ! How have you come ? You surely have not walked ?' Dinah went forward and led her to a chair by the fireside. ' Yes, I walked. I had to come, and when the spirit's willing it can force the flesh to a deal.' ' You had to come ? Why ?' Lucy asked. She spoke hurriedly ; everything that happened cast on her now a shadow, A NNE 131 not of itself, but of one constant shape — the shadow of fear. Aunt Anne glanced at her quickly. ' Lucy Hatherden, you have not done your duty in the matter of this marriage.' ' How — my duty ? What have I done ?' Dinah came and stood before her step mother, hiding her from Aunt Anne's gaze. ' What do you mean, Aunt Anne ?' she said. ' I mean this,' said Aunt Anne, ' that there was no looking into things when this marriage was settled, no inquiries made, no trouble taken to find out whether the man that was to be your husband, Dinah, was a child of light or a child of the devil.' ' My father is satisfied,' said Dinah. ' Your father's one that's satisfied with a ha'porth of satisfaction out of every shilling.

He was never one to find out anything, he'ld trust anybody, whether he'd ever seen them before or not, and take all they said for gospel. No, it's not him I look to, it's you, Lucy Hatherden, you that's set up to be a mother to the girl, you that I 'Id have thought would have taken some pains to find out whether the man would make her a good husband.' ' There was nothing to find out ; I knew all about him.' ' You knew all about him ? then Satan's made your heart blacker than I thought for.. I didn't expect much, I didn't think you'ld look for grace, but I thought you'ld hold to decency.' ' The man's a decent man, the man I hope, I believe, I know, will make a good husband, will be kind and merciful once he's married.' ' The man's a loose - living, gambling man, the man's a Sabbath-breaker and a scoffer ; married or single you'll pluck no grapes or figs off him — thorns and thistles is all you've got to look for.' ANNE 133 ' What has he done ?

What do you know of him ?' ' You don't think much of such things, maybe, you don't take much account of pleasuring on the Lord's day, of drunken ness, chambering and wantonness ; the children of this world sees things different, I know. But I'm of kin to the child, I'm of her blood, I stood by her m3ther's bedside when she was born, I held her in my arms and renounced the pomps and vanities for her ; and I won't stand by and see her given over to evil, and her soul laid out ready for Satan to destroy.' ' What has he done ?' asked Lucy again. ' What do you know about him ?' ' He lives a loose life,' said Aunt Anne. ' Not worse than hundreds of others you'll tell me, maybe, and I won't give you the lie, for the world's mostly all Babylon nowadays ; but he's not fit to come here and marry into our family, that's always been used to look to their souls — leastways till they took up with strangers ; and I can't but set my face against it.' Aunt Anne put her hand in her pocket and drew forth a letter. ' See here,' she said ; ' this came by the post this morning to Church warden Hargreaves.

It's from his brother in-law in London, and he's made a few inquiries, and this is what he says.' , She handed the letter to Lucy, and Lucy read it. When she had read it, she folded it up and stood with it in her hand, clasp ing it very tightly. ' Did you know all that about him ?' asked Aunt Anne. ' No, I did not know, Dinah stretched out her hand ' Give me the letter,' she said. ' Let me read it.' But Lucy drew back, and Aunt Anne said : ' No, child, there is no need for you to read it.' She fixed her eyes on the girl's face. ' Dinah,' she said, ' the Lord's call ing to you for a sacrifice, and vou've got A NNE 135 to give it, as Abraham offered up Isaac. You must give up your sweetheart for conscience' sake.' Dinah answered with her eyes looking back into Aunt Anne's eyes : ' I cannot give him up ; I must marry him.' ' Not when you know him to be an enemy of the Lord ; not when you know he's a bad man and leads a bad life and cares nothing for the life that is to come.' ' Whatever he is, and does, or has done,' said Dinah, ' I must marry him.' ' Is your heart so set upon him ?

Child, come here.' Aunt Anne's voice softened ; she stretched out her hand and drew Dinah towards her. ' Child, I did it once, long ago, I gave up my sweetheart for con science' sake. It'll hurt you a bit, I know — I remember the hurt ; but the Lord'll heal the place, and it's but a little thing to cast away, when you think of saving the whole of you from hell fire.' ' I cannot help it,' Dinah answered brokenly ; ' God will not be so hard upon me, so cruel — to cast me into hell, because I must — I must marry him.' ' The Lord is never cruel,' said Aunt Anne sternly. ' It's human creatures that take their own way, and when they have damned themselves they say that God is hard.' Dinah did not answer. The evening had come, and the light of the flames in the wide fireplace was the chief light in the room.

Lucy stood back in the shadow, and still held the letter tightly clasped in her hand. Presently Aunt Anne spoke again. ' It's a pity you couldn't bring yourself to give him up of free will,' she said, ' for give him up is what you'll have to do. He's a meek man, is Joel, and innocent in his ways, but I never knew him to do wrong or to allow wrong, when he could see clearly that it was wrong ; and when ANNE 137 he's read that letter I've no doubt but what he'll forbid Martin Wace ever to come to Little Hollow again.' Lucy spoke out of the shadow. ' You think he will not let Dinah marry him ?' ' I make no doubt of it ; he's obstinate enough when his mind's made up, is Joel.' ' And you think — you are sure he will not let her marry him ?' ' It's not a matter of thinking — you can see for yourself.

It's plain enough to any one who cares for the child's soul, or takes no heed, even, of anything but her earthly happiness, it's plain enough there's only one thing to be done.' Lucy said nothing, and Aunt Anne, after a pause, went on speaking. ' Dinah can't see it now ; the earthly love's got into her and made her blind. But Joel '11 see it, as plain as I see it, as plain as even you see it, Lucy Hatherden, ■38 A VALLEY OF SHADOWS who thinks more of earthly love than heavenly.' Again Lucy made no answer. Aunt Anne turned towards her. ' You see it plainly — that even looking only to the child's earthly happiness, the thing's impossible ?' Lucy, still standing in the shadow, answered very softly. ' I — hardly know.' 'You hardly know?' Anne Hatherden rose from her chair. ' Do you mean you have any doubt ?' There was a pause, and in the pause the sound of a footstep on the path. Aunt Anne sat down again and said : ' It's Joel.'

Chapter IV

Joel Hatherden entered the house in the same careful way that he had entered it evening after evening for very manv years. Inside the hall the three waiting women could hear the scraping of his feet and the stamping on the mat ; then came the little pause while he hung up his hat ; and then the handle of the door was turned, and he stood in the doorway. ' Are you there, Lucy ?' he said, ' and Dinah ? It seems dark at first, coming in from outside.' ' Yes, we are here,' Lucy answered ; ' and — and Anne is here.' ' Anne ? At this time of night, and with her rheumatism ?' ' There are worse things in the world than rheumatism, brother,' said Aunt Anne, ' and harder to master.' ' I begin to see now,' said Joel ; ' it seemed quite dark coming in. But we might have a little light, eh, Lucy ? It seems cheerless to be sitting in the dark, and not be able to see each others' faces.' ' Shall I get the lamp, mother ?' Dinah asked. ' No, the candles will do just now.' Lucy herself reached up and took the candles from the mantelpiece, lighted them, and put them back.

They stood high up, and cast a feeble light on the faces below, a light that was shifting and unsteady, for there was a draught from the door, and the thin flames flickered as they burned. ' Well, Anne, I'm glad to see you,' said Joel, ' though doubtful how far it's wise for you to venture so far.' ' I didn't come for pleasure,' answered Aunt Anne ; ' pleasuring's not my way, as ANNE 141 you know. I've come to open your eyes, and to put the wrong and the right before you.' Joel glanced round uneasily. ' Well, what is it ?' he said, and his voice was a little weary. ' It's to do with Martin Wace and this marriage of Dinah's.' ' With Martin Wace ? Do you know about it, Lucy ?' ' Anne has just told me. Dinah came to her father's side. ' Father, do not listen to Aunt Anne. I must marry him, whatever she says.' Joel's face was full of perplexity. ' I don't understand,' he said. ' Have you anything against the marriage, Anne ?' ' I'm against the marriage, brother, and you'll be against it when you find the man's a bad, loose-living man ; you're not what I took you for if you're willing to give your child to a husband that'll treat her badly in this life, maybe, and'll drag her soul down to perdition with his own.' 'Is he a bad man ?