shadow fell upon the mirror or the picture: call it what you will. A great shadow of the Stranger, as he first stood underneath their roof; covering its surface, and blotting out all other objects. But the nimble Fairies worked like bees to clear it off again. And Dot again was there. Still bright and beautiful.
Rocking her little Baby in its cradle, singing to it softly, and resting her head upon a shoulder which had its counterpart in the musing figure by which the Fairy Cricket stood.
The night—I mean the real night: not going by Fairy clocks—was wearing now; and in this stage of the Carrier’s thoughts, the moon burst out, and shone brightly in the sky. Perhaps some calm and quiet light had risen also, in his mind; and he could think more soberly of what had happened.
Although the shadow of the Stranger fell at intervals upon the glass—always distinct, and big, and thoroughly defined—it never fell so darkly as at first. Whenever it appeared, the Fairies uttered a general cry of consternation, and plied their little arms and legs, with inconceivable activity, to rub it out. And whenever they got at Dot again, and showed her to him once more, bright and beautiful, they cheered in the most inspiring manner.
They never showed her, otherwise than beautiful and bright, for they were Household Spirits to whom falsehood is annihilation; and being so, what Dot was there for them, but the one active, beaming, pleasant little creature who had been the light and sun of the Carrier’s Home!
The Fairies were prodigiously excited when they showed her, with the Baby, gossiping among a knot of sage old matrons, and affecting to be wondrous old and matronly herself, and leaning in a staid, demure old way upon her husband’s arm, attempting—she! such a bud of a little woman—to convey the idea of having abjured the vanities of the world in general, and of being the sort of person to whom it was no novelty at all to be a mother; yet in the same breath, they showed her, laughing at the Carrier for being awkward, and pulling up his shirt-collar to make him smart, and mincing merrily about that very room to teach him how to dance!
They turned, and stared immensely at him when they showed her with the Blind Girl; for, though she carried cheerfulness and animation with her wheresoever she went, she bore those influences into Caleb Plummer’s home, heaped up and running over. The Blind Girl’s love for her, and trust in her, and gratitude to her; her own good busy way of setting Bertha’s thanks aside; her dexterous little arts for filling up each moment of the visit in doing something useful to the house, and really working hard while feigning to make holiday; her bountiful provision of those standing delicacies, the Veal and Ham-Pie and the bottles of Beer; her radiant little face arriving at the door, and taking leave; the wonderful expression in her whole self, from her neat foot to the crown of her head, of being a part of the establishment—a something necessary to it, which it couldn’t be without; all this the Fairies revelled in, and loved her for. And once again they looked upon him all at once, appealingly, and seemed to say, while some among them nestled in her dress and fondled her, ‘Is this the wife who has betrayed your confidence!’
More than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thoughtful night, they showed her to him sitting on her favourite seat, with her bent head, her hands clasped on her brow, her falling hair. As he had seen her last. And when they found her thus, they neither turned nor looked upon him, but gathered close round her, and comforted and kissed her, and pressed on one another to show sympathy and kindness to her, and forgot him altogether.
Thus the night passed. The moon went down; the stars grew pale; the cold day broke; the sun rose. The Carrier still sat, musing, in the chimney corner. He had sat there, with his head upon his hands, all night. All night the faithful Cricket had been Chirp, Chirp, Chirping on the Hearth. All night he had listened to its voice. All night the household Fairies had been busy with him. All night she had been amiable and blameless in the glass, except when that one shadow fell upon it.
He rose up when it was broad day, and washed and dressed himself. He couldn’t go about his customary cheerful avocations—he wanted spirit for them—but it mattered the less, that it was Tackleton’s wedding-day, and he had arranged to make his rounds by proxy. He thought to have gone merrily to church with Dot. But such plans were at an end. It was their own wedding-day too. Ah! how little he had looked for such a close to such a year!
The Carrier had expected that Tackleton would pay him an early visit; and he was right. He had not walked to and fro before his own door, many minutes, when he saw the Toy-merchant coming in his chaise along the road. As the chaise drew nearer, he perceived that Tackleton was dressed out sprucely for his marriage, and that he had decorated his horse’s head with flowers and favours.
The horse looked much more like a bridegroom than Tackleton, whose half-closed eye was more disagreeably expressive than ever. But the Carrier took little heed of this. His thoughts had other occupation.
‘John Peerybingle!’ said Tackleton, with an air of condolence. ‘My good fellow, how do you find yourself this morning?’
‘I have had but a poor night, Master Tackleton,’ returned the Carrier, shaking his head: ‘for I have been a good deal disturbed in my mind. But it’s over now! Can you spare me half an hour or so, for some private talk?’
‘I came on purpose,’ returned Tackleton, alighting. ‘Never mind the horse. He’ll stand quiet enough, with the reins over this post, if you’ll give him a mouthful of hay.’
The Carrier having brought it from his stable, and set it before him, they turned into the house.
‘You are not married before noon,’ he said, ‘I think?’
‘No,’ answered Tackleton. ‘Plenty of time. Plenty of time.’
When they entered the kitchen, Tilly Slowboy was rapping at the Stranger’s door; which was only removed from it by a few steps. One of her very red eyes (for Tilly had been crying all night long, because her mistress cried) was at the keyhole; and she was knocking very loud; and seemed frightened.
‘If you please I can’t make nobody hear,’ said Tilly, looking round. ‘I hope nobody an’t gone and been and died if you please!’
This philanthropic wish, Miss Slowboy emphasised with various new raps and kicks at the door; which led to no result whatever.
‘Shall I go?’ said Tackleton. ‘It’s curious.’
The Carrier, who had turned his face from the door, signed to him to go if he would.
So Tackleton went to Tilly Slowboy’s relief; and he too kicked and knocked; and he too failed to get the least reply. But he thought of trying the handle of the door; and as it opened easily, he peeped in, looked in, went in, and soon came running out again.
‘John Peerybingle,’ said Tackleton, in his ear. ‘I hope there has been nothing—nothing rash in the night?’
The Carrier turned upon him quickly.
‘Because he’s gone!’ said Tackleton; ‘and the window’s open. I don’t see any marks—to be sure it’s almost on a level with the garden: but I was afraid there might have been some—some scuffle. Eh?’
He nearly shut up the expressive eye altogether; he looked at him so hard. And he gave his eye, and his face, and his whole person, a sharp twist. As if he would have screwed the truth out of him.
‘Make yourself easy,’ said the Carrier. ‘He went into that room last night, without harm in word or deed from me, and no one has entered it since. He is away of his own free will. I’d go out gladly at that door, and beg my bread from house to house, for life, if I could so change the past that he had never come. But he has come and gone. And I have done with him!’
‘Oh!—Well, I think he has got off pretty easy,’ said Tackleton, taking a chair.
The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down too, and shaded his face with his hand, for some little time, before proceeding.
‘You showed me last night,’ he said at length, ‘my wife; my wife that I love; secretly—’
‘And tenderly,’ insinuated Tackleton.