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A Fair Mystery Chapter 1 - A Voice and a Face in the Night · The Charlotte M. Brame Library

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  Speaker 1: CHAPTER I. A VOICE AND A FACE IN THE NIGHT. HUSH!
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  Speaker 1: For the love of mercy, hush, I cannot bear it.
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  Speaker 1: But that which called forth this protest was only the
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  Speaker 1: lisping prayer of a little child at its mother's knee.
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  Speaker 1: Patty Brace lifted the white-robed figure to her lap and
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  Speaker 1: rested the brown head on her bosom. Mark, she said,
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  Speaker 1: in mild remonstrance, looking at her husband. I say, I
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  Speaker 1: cannot bear it. You have her pray, God bless my home.
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  Speaker 1: It is too much. But why not? on this wild
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  Speaker 1: stormy night when other little ones may be out in
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  Speaker 1: the dashing rain and moaning wind is it not right
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  Speaker 1: to pray god bless our home but how long will
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  Speaker 1: we have a home patty think of tomorrow oh heaven
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  Speaker 1: help me tomorrow ruined disgraced going out from the home
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  Speaker 1: where i was born and forced into exile i cannot
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  Speaker 1: bear it we shall never have a home again and
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  Speaker 1: our child will grow up homeless Dear Mark, you cannot
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  Speaker 1: go out disgraced when you have done no wrong, and
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  Speaker 1: homeless you will not be, for home is where the
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  Speaker 1: heart is, and in any land we three will be together,
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  Speaker 1: and heaven over all. I cannot feel as you do, Patty.
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  Speaker 1: I am not gentle and good as you. I blame
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  Speaker 1: myself that by going security for that smooth-toothed rascal, whom
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  Speaker 1: may a curse hush, said Patty, with sudden authority. Mark,
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  Speaker 1: you shall not curse friend, neighbour, nor enemy. It is
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  Speaker 1: not your nature. It is wrong. If you curse anyone,
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  Speaker 1: how can you look to have prayer answered? Prayer, said
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  Speaker 1: Mark bitterly. I begin not to believe in prayer, or goodness,
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  Speaker 1: or any such thing. You have prayed, and that innocent
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  Speaker 1: little victim on your bosom has prayed, in her baby way.
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  Speaker 1: And has heaven heard? No. We lose our home, and
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  Speaker 1: I was born here. Heavier grew the round, brown head
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  Speaker 1: of the two-year-old child on Patty's breast. The little tanned
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  Speaker 1: hands fell apart with a sleepy grace, and the plump
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  Speaker 1: sunburnt face took the moist flush of childhood's deep rest.
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  Speaker 1: Patty looked at her husband. He leaned against the wooden mantel-shelf.
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  Speaker 1: The ruddy light of the fire leaped across his sorrowful brow,
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  Speaker 1: and the wife saw the bronzed cheek wet with not
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  Speaker 1: unmanly tears. Beyond him, in the range of her vision,
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  Speaker 1: was the window looking toward the garden. and between the
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  Speaker 1: bushes of lilac and guelder roses, Patty had a swift
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  Speaker 1: vision of a tall woman, robed in black, a thin
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  Speaker 1: white face looking eagerly into the cheerful farm kitchen. She
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  Speaker 1: leaped to her feet, but the vision had faded. Only
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  Speaker 1: the wind swept the wet lilac boughs against the pane.
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  Speaker 1: Only the guelder roses looked like tall, dark, draped forms
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  Speaker 1: in the stormy night.' What is it?' said Mark, as
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  Speaker 1: she started.' Nothing,' said the wife. Little Mattie sleeps. I
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  Speaker 1: must carry her up to bed. She chided herself for
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  Speaker 1: her fancies. Nothing, said Mark. I have become nervous and
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  Speaker 1: womanish with my misery. Do you know, Patty, even now
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  Speaker 1: I keep looking for someone or something to come and
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  Speaker 1: save me? It is never too late, said Patty. Heaven
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  Speaker 1: could save you now, save you even by so frail
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  Speaker 1: a thing as this baby child. She passed to the
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  Speaker 1: upper room. and left Mark still in his misery, hastily
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  Speaker 1: retracing his past in gloomy thought. Patty returned and stood wistfully,
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  Speaker 1: her hand on his arm.' Don' t despond, Mark. We are young, strong, loving.
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  Speaker 1: We will give honest work for honest bread.'' It is
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  Speaker 1: not right for the innocent to perish with the guilty,'
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  Speaker 1: cried Mark vehemently,' for you and baby Mattie to perish
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  Speaker 1: with me.'' You are not perishing, and how have you
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  Speaker 1: been guilty?' I seem to have been guilty somehow, all along.
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  Speaker 1: My father left me this farm in fairly good order,
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  Speaker 1: the least for my life and one after me. I
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  Speaker 1: could not rest content. I must improve the land and
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  Speaker 1: improve the outbuildings and improve the breed of my cattle
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  Speaker 1: and sheep like a fool. No, like neither a knave
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  Speaker 1: nor a fool, like an enterprising farmer wanting to improve
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  Speaker 1: his prospects and grow with the age. Did not the
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  Speaker 1: Duke of Downsbury say you were one of his best tenants?
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  Speaker 1: and that you were a pattern of good farming and industry?
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  Speaker 1: And then, said Mark, intent on saying bitter things of himself,
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  Speaker 1: I had a thousand pounds, my father's savings, and instead
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  Speaker 1: of leaving it where he placed it, at safe, low interest,
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  Speaker 1: I must let the men of the great new bank
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  Speaker 1: of Downsbury persuade me to give all to them for
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  Speaker 1: big interest. And that bubble burst, the bank collapsed, swindled everyone,
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  Speaker 1: and left me nothing. No blame to you, and you
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  Speaker 1: were left your good name. Are you not known in
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  Speaker 1: all the country as Honest Mark Brace? I must be
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  Speaker 1: a scoundrel some way, Patty, to have such luck. Go
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  Speaker 1: on and tell your sins, said Patty. You married a
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  Speaker 1: girl without money, Patty Leslie by name. You took care
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  Speaker 1: of her widowed mother till she died, and you were
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  Speaker 1: so foolish as to have a little girl child who
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  Speaker 1: can only eat and not earn. Heaven bless her and you,
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  Speaker 1: said Mark. Marrying the best wife in the world was
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  Speaker 1: about the only good deed I ever did. What did
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  Speaker 1: you start that way for, again, Patty? Hark! I heard
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  Speaker 1: such a strange noise, a pitiful wail. No further off
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  Speaker 1: than my heart, said Mark. I heard nothing. Once married, Patty,
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  Speaker 1: think how harvest after harvest has been poor, and season's bad,
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  Speaker 1: so I could not lay up a penny. Not your fault, Mark.
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  Speaker 1: I know I hear a cry. No, no, my ears
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  Speaker 1: are keen. I hear nothing. It is the storm. Even
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  Speaker 1: the wind and rain are crying after the outgoing of
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  Speaker 1: the brace-blood from the farm of Brackenside. Oh, Patty, why
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  Speaker 1: could I not let well enough alone and not go
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  Speaker 1: and sign security for that villain Amwell? You did it
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  Speaker 1: out of pure heart-kindness. You thought him honest and in trouble.
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  Speaker 1: You helped him. And he left me with a hundred
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  Speaker 1: pounds to pay. He meant to do it all along.
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  Speaker 1: He robbed me. I robbed you. and tomorrow my goods
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  Speaker 1: must be seized. The crops will be bid off as
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  Speaker 1: they stand in the ground, and the farm tools and
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  Speaker 1: the house goods with them, for this terrible security. I
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  Speaker 1: have tried everywhere to get help. I spent all day
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  Speaker 1: today seeking for someone to lend to me, but since
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  Speaker 1: Farmer Dobbs holds a mortgage on my livestock for the
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  Speaker 1: debt the burning of the big barn brought me into,
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  Speaker 1: I cannot get any help. The lease must be sold
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  Speaker 1: to finish paying up Dobbs.' I will not run off
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  Speaker 1: in debt like that scoundrel Amwell, and, with what is left,
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  Speaker 1: we can emigrate. Patty, oh, how can I go? I
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  Speaker 1: love every stick, and every tree, and every sod. My
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  Speaker 1: mother and father lie here, in yon churchyard, and I
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  Speaker 1: had hoped to lie with them. Honest Mark Brace covered
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  Speaker 1: his face with his hands, and his strong, tall figure
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  Speaker 1: shook with the storm of his sorrow. He loved every
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  Speaker 1: foot of this land, where, boy and man, He had
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  Speaker 1: sung at his work and lived popular and respected. A
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  Speaker 1: fine stalwart young Englishman, intensely a home-lover, it seemed to
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  Speaker 1: him impossible that other skies could be so blue, other
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  Speaker 1: breezes so jocund, other fields so green, as these that
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  Speaker 1: blessed his birthplace. Patty, in mute sympathy, clasped her hands
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  Speaker 1: about his neck, friend in woe as in joy. She, too,
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  Speaker 1: loved and suffered. but hers was a cheerful hopeful pious
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  Speaker 1: soul she could not despair as mark did mark had
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  Speaker 1: been loudly accusing himself where he was guiltless now with
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  Speaker 1: the inconsistency of misery he turned to declare his own
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  Speaker 1: uprightness and by implication the injustice of heaven why has
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  Speaker 1: this come to me other worse men have happier fortune
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  Speaker 1: have i swindled men like the bankers who carried off
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  Speaker 1: my all have i lied like ned Did I ever
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  Speaker 1: cheat in my men's wages? Have I sent the poor
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  Speaker 1: empty from my door? Have I failed to pay my
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  Speaker 1: tithes or miss church on Sundays? Do I drink? Do
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  Speaker 1: I swear? Do I ever go to sleep in church? Why, then,
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  Speaker 1: have I such trouble? The wild minglings of crimes, errors,
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  Speaker 1: and peccadillos might have made a disinterested listener laugh. It
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  Speaker 1: did not make Patty laugh, nor did it call forth
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  Speaker 1: an answer. She turned an intent ear, to the outer
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  Speaker 1: world and said uneasily, Mark, listen, other souls are in pain.
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  Speaker 1: It is not the winds I hear, not the dashing rain.
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  Speaker 1: I have heard sobs and moans and crying in the night,
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  Speaker 1: a child crying, like a little baby soul that has
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  Speaker 1: lost its way and can find neither earth nor heaven.
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  Speaker 1: Your fancies make me mad, cried Mark angrily. My troubles
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  Speaker 1: are real and so will yours be tomorrow. Shrill and
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  Speaker 1: clear the cry quivered in the air. he too heard
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  Speaker 1: it it is little mattie he cried run to her
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  Speaker 1: and he followed patty fleet-footed up the stairs but little
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  Speaker 1: rosy mattie slept tranquilly and the two came slowly down
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  Speaker 1: patty opened the kitchen window and the swirling rain drenched
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  Speaker 1: her dark hair as she leaned into the darkness Come in,
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  Speaker 1: there will be nights enough to face storms, said Mark hardly.
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  Speaker 1: We are only both fanciful, or, as my old granny
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  Speaker 1: used to tell me, since we are flitting from the
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  Speaker 1: hearth where we have kept warm so long, the souls
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  Speaker 1: of my ancestors are mourning for my sorrow. Poor old granny!
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  Speaker 1: Little she knew how I should leave the old roof-tree.
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  Speaker 1: Patty sprung to her feet.' Mark, come with me. It
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  Speaker 1: is no fancy, no spirit. It is real, some human
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  Speaker 1: being out in this tempest. Let us search everywhere and
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  Speaker 1: give the homeless a shelter this last night that we
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  Speaker 1: have a home.' She ran from the room, and Mark
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  Speaker 1: followed her into the stone-flagged entry. Her vehemence carried him away.
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  Speaker 1: He reached over her shoulder and aided her trembling hands
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  Speaker 1: to undo the door-bolt. Starless the night, no balm on
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  Speaker 1: the summer air, the raw chill of autumn brooding under
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  Speaker 1: the beating rain, a murky heaven over land and sea,
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  Speaker 1: and once again that wild, only half-human wail, coming up
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  Speaker 1: now from their very feet. Patty sprung into the dark,
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  Speaker 1: vine-draped porch, the red light from the kitchen crept fitfully
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  Speaker 1: to the threshold, and close beside the door-sill lay a
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  Speaker 1: bundle in the poor shelter of the latticed porch. From
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  Speaker 1: that bundle came, shrill and piteous, that miserable cry. End
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  Speaker 1: of chapter 1