# Comin' Thro' the Rye (Mathers)/Harvest/Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.
Paul will have been gone a week to-morrow, and I have not had a single letter from him, or tidings of any kind, good or bad. I know now that my presentiments were true ones, and that all is not well with him. If I could only think him careless, or neglectful, or busy, or that the letters have miscarried, I should not care; it is this deadly conviction of evil that makes my heart so full of fear. Is he dead? He said he would write, and he never broke his word yet; he knows how eagerly I must be looking out for his letters day by day, and he always hated to disappoint me of the smallest thing. The letter from Marseilles might have missed, but not the one from Rome, though indeed it is unlikely enough that either should be mislaid, for when letters are posted safely they usually come safe to hand, unless indeed they contain postage stamps, to tempt unvirtuous postmen to their ruin. If I could only be angry with him, if I could give him a good downright scolding in my heart, and call him hard names, I should be so much easier; but I cannot. I feel like a mother who is looking for a naughty little truant child, who has strayed away from its home and wandered into danger. Seeking for it in fear and trembling, she forbears to blame it for what if she find her darling dead, will not her angry words rise up and strike her as she looks on the silent, still, defenceless face? So I, who have lost sight of my lover, will not blame him until I know whether the fault be his or no, only if he comes back to me safe I shall be so angry with him, so angry. . . . ​"That's the first smile I've seen on your face for a week, Miss Nell," says nurse; "do it again, dearie, for it makes my heart ache to look at you!"
"I was thinking how I would tease Mr. Vasher when he comes back," I say, looking at her; "he is quite sure to come back, is he not, nurse?"
"Quite sure, Miss Nell. Never was a gentleman who set more store by a young lady than he do by you."
"But I have not heard from him yet," I say, wistfully. "You don't think anything has happened to him, nurse dear?"
"No, no, honey! Maybe he's busy or bothered; 'tis not the man who loves warmest that is the best hand at writing, many a man as is a fine fellow at his pen is a poor hand at courting. There was a young fellow once came courting my sister Susan, his letters was beautiful, a perfect show, and when he came to see her, he was a miserable little sparrow of a creature that it 'ud make you smile to look at. Some does it well on paper, and some does it well on their tongues, and I think your lover, Miss Nell, is one of them last."
"Nurse," I say, watching her as she sits darning the boys' socks, "do you remember you used to say I was certain to have a deal of trouble some day, because I am always so merry and laugh so much?"
"Did I?" she asks, peering anxiously at me over her spectacles; "I can't call it to mind, Miss Nell. Why should you be worse off than other folks? Rain and sunshine come pretty much alike to all, and you've got such a spirit 'twould take a great deal to make you give in. You're terrible fond of Mr. Vasher," she says, shaking her head. "Father used to say 'twas wonderful the difference there was in people when they fell in love: with some it went to the head and was safe, for pride protected it; with others it went to the stomach, and if things turned out contrary, got dan​gerous, and sometimes killed. Now, I think yours is the last, Miss Nell. Not that you've any call to look out for sorrow that way; things 'll go straight enough, never fear, for he loves you as the very apple of his eye."
"Does love keep off misfortune?" I ask, as I get up from my seat; "it seems to me that those who love least come off best."
My restless feet have brought me into the nursery, and now they carry me out again. All day long I wander hither and thither, to and fro, and can settle to nothing, think of nothing, save Paul. I go downstairs and search the newspapers of the past week through and through, those useless ugly papers that come every day regular as the clock, while my eagerly looked for letter comes never. How I dread the sound of the postman's knock and ring, how I shiver as Simpkins places the bag upon the table beside me, how plainly I see his alert look at me as he leaves the room (he knows what I am looking for as well as I know myself!) How my heart sinks as I unlock it and take out the letters, some for mother, one or two for me, welcome enough at any other time, but a hateful mockery to me now! Other people's letters come safely enough—why should not his?
In to-day's paper I come upon the account of an Englishman murdered at Florence. Perchance some woman looked out long and vainly for news of him, as I am looking now. Perhaps her soul sickened within her with dread, just as mine does, only God grant the awakening from my night of dread may not be even as hers! I wonder why, when our friends disappear from our ken in any unaccountable way, we always think they are dead? That is always the dread boundary to which our thoughts fly, that, the only sure and certain thing that can come to us in this life, is the theme of our sharpest fears. Neglect, loss of love, illness, misfortune, all pale before the ghastly visage of the "king of terrors." "Take everything else," we cry; "leave us naked, ​sorry, maimed, and loveless: but leave us life!" I wonder why, when a man or woman is ugly, selfish, and unlovely in life and character, he or she nearly always lives to a good old age?—why the young, the beautiful, the beloved, should always be called away first? Death passes by the wicked, whose evil deeds increase and multiply, to take the adored husband, pillar of the house, the happy, loving wife, the tender house-mother; he spares the vicious, wretched cripple, to gather the beautiful, vigorous child. Oh, he has a rarely, dainty taste, and there must be some sweet blossoms up above, since he takes our best from us so ruthlessly.
I fetch my hat and jacket and go out into the garden, leafless, sodden, miserable, that looked almost cheerful when Paul and I walked in it a week ago. Round and round I go, visiting every haunt in which he and I have sat together, pausing to recall the memories that hang about every nook and corner, standing still at last at the place where Dorley came upon us with his untimely nosegay. Yes, it was just here, and I hold out my arms to the empty air, with a bitter yearning of body and soul. He was here only a few days ago, but where is he now? How lonely it is! If only Jack or Dolly could suddenly appear before me to fill up this deadly, drowsy silence! Even the echoes of papa's belligerent voice would be better than nothing, or Amberley's bleating monotone, which I disliked so heartily in the old careless school-days. One of the children has the chicken-pox and mother is nursing him; she has no time to attend to me, and if she had I could not say much to her about Paul: it is never easy to talk to one's elders about one's lovers.
Steps come along the gravel path behind me. I know whose they are—George Tempest's.
"You have heard?" he asks eagerly.
I shake my head.
"Then he must be on his way back," he says, walking by my ​side. "No doubt the business has been concluded more quickly than he expected, and he did not think it worth while to write."
"It could not have been that, George, for he would not have known at Marseilles, and he promised to write from there."
"Do you know, Nell," he says, looking down into my wan face, "that you are making a mountain out of a mole-hill? Because you have had a dream, and because you have not received a letter, you have made up your mind that something dreadful has happened. I wonder what Vasher will say, when he walks in and finds you have been fretting yourself into a shadow?"
When Vasher walks in!—how comfortable and safe the words sound!
"I'll try and not be foolish," I say, my spirits rising, as they always do when I have some one to speak to, "but oh! George, this past week has been so wretched: I think if I had such another I should go mad. I have learnt the length and breadth, and depth and height, of that ugly word 'endure.'"
"Have you, dear?" he says, and brave man that he is, he does not add, "and so have I."
It is a strange hap that makes my old lover my friend and consoler in the absence of my new one. Are there many men, I wonder, who could fill the post with such unselfishness, dignity, and single-heartedness as he does? All too often I forget how he loved me, and in speaking of Paul say something that touches him to the quick. Noble George, for whom no woman that I ever saw was half good enough!
"How near Christmas is," I say, looking at the flaming scarlet berries that close round the green stalks with such prim, glossy precision. "Only think that to-morrow week is the 25th. He is sure to be back then, is he not, George?"
"Quite sure!" says the young man; "he may come any day now."
​"We meant to have such a merry Christmas Eve," I say, half aloud—"snap-dragon with the children, and——— George, what are you going to do this Christmas? Will you be dull at the Chace? Come and spend it with us, do!" I add, laying my hand on his arm.
"No, no, dear!" he says, looking down on me, with no hidden bitterness of word or tone; "you will not want me. After all," he says, looking up at the sullen sky that has given over raining, but, gives ample promise of plenty more dropping, "I am afraid we shall not have, what you are so fond of, a white Christmas!"