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Title: Fiander's Widow
A Novel
Author: M. E. Francis
Release Date: October 27, 2021 [eBook #66622]
Language: English
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIANDER'S WIDOW***
This etext was transcribed by Les Bowler
FIANDER’S WIDOW
A Novel
* * * * *
BY
M. E. FRANCIS
(MRS. FRANCIS BLUNDELL)
Author of “Pastorals of Dorset,” “The Duenna of a Genius,”
etc., etc.
* * * * *
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
LONDON AND BOMBAY
1901
* * * * *
_Copyright_, _1901_,
BY LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
_All rights reserved_
* * * * *
UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
* * * * *
_I dedicate this Rural Romance_
_to_
_MY KIND HOSTESSES OF TENANTREES_
_True Daughters of_ “_Dorset Dear_,”
_Under whose auspices I first became acquainted_
_with the peculiarities of its dialect and_
_the humours of its people_
CONTENTS
_PROLOGUE_
Page
THE BRIDE 1
_PART I_
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY 27
_PART II_
THE PRINCE 185
PROLOGUE
THE BRIDE
A man of reverend age,
But stout and hale . . .
WORDSWORTH.
A wife’s be the cheapest ov hands.
WILLIAM BARNES.
THE sale was over: live stock, implements, corn and hay, turnips and
potatoes, even apples, had duly been entered to their various buyers; and
now such smaller articles as milk-pails, cheese-tubs, cream-tins, weights
and scales, and other items of a dairy-farmer’s gear were passing under
the hammer. The auction had been well attended, for it had been known
beforehand that things would go cheap, and though the melancholy
circumstances under which the sale took place called forth many
expressions of regret and compassion, they in no way lessened the general
eagerness to secure good bargains.
Old Giles Stelling had always kept pace with the times, and had been
among the first to adopt new appliances and avail himself of the lights
which advancing science throws even upon the avocations of the farmer.
He had gone a little too fast, as his neighbours now agreed with many
doleful ‘ah’s’ and ‘ayes’ and shakings of heads. All these grand new
machines of his had helped to precipitate the catastrophe which had
overtaken him—a catastrophe which was tragic indeed, for the old farmer,
overcome by the prospect of impending ruin, had been carried off by an
apoplectic fit even before this enforced sale of his effects.
Nevertheless, though many considered these strange new-fangled
reapers-and-binders, these unnatural-looking double-ploughs, a kind of
flying in the face of Providence, a few spirited individuals had made up
their minds to bid for them, and one energetic purchaser had even driven
eighteen miles from the other side of the county to secure one
particularly complicated machine.
The bidding was still proceeding briskly in the great barn when this
person shouldered his way through the crowd and made a tour of inspection
of the premises, previous to setting forth again on his return journey.
He was a middle-sized elderly man, with bright blue eyes that looked
forth kindly if keenly from beneath bushy grizzled brows; the ruddy face,
set off by a fringe of white beard and whisker, looked good-humoured and
prosperous enough, but the somewhat stooping shoulders bore witness to
the constant and arduous labour which had been Elias Fiander’s lot in
early life.
He sauntered across the great yard, so desolate to-day albeit crowded at
the upper end nearest the barn; the suspension of the ordinary life of
the place gave it an air of supreme melancholy and even loneliness. The
cattle thrusting at each other in their enclosures and bellowing
dismally, the sheep hurdled off in convenient lots, the very fowl penned
up and squawking lamentably, for the more valuable specimens were tied
together in bunches by the legs—all these dumb things seemed to have a
kind of instinctive understanding that something unusual and tragic was
going forward.
‘Poor beasts, they do make a deal o’ noise,’ muttered Elias half aloud;
‘a body might think they was a-cryin’ for their master. Well, well, ’t
is an ill wind what blows nobody good, and that there turnip-hoer was a
wonderful bargain. It won’t do him no harm as I should ha’ picked it up
so cheap. Nay, nay, ’t won’t do him no harm where he be gone to; and I
might as well ha’ bought it as another.’
Having satisfied a passing twinge of conscience with this reflection, he
stepped into the great rickyard, and stood a moment gazing from one to
the other of the golden and russet stacks.
‘Prime stuff!’ he muttered to himself. ‘That be real old hay in the
corner, and this here wheat-rick—there’s a goodish lot o’ money in that
or I’m much mistaken. Here be another, half thrashed—ah, fine stuff. ’T
is a pity the poor old master did n’t live to see the end o’ that
job—though if the money were n’t a-goin’ into his own pocket he wouldn’t
ha’ been much the better for ’t.’
He was wandering round the rick in question, gazing at it from every
point, and even thrusting his hands upwards into the loosened sheaves of
that portion which had been unroofed and partially thrashed, when a
sudden rustle close to him made him start.
Lo! perched high upon the ledge of the half-demolished stack a figure was
standing, knee-deep among the roughly piled-up sheaves, the tall and
shapely figure of a young girl. She was dressed in black, and from under
the wide sombre brim of her straw hat a pair of blue eyes looked down
fiercely at the farmer. The face in which they were set was oval in
shape, and at that moment very pale; the lips were parted, showing a
gleam of white teeth.
‘Why, my dear,’ said Fiander, stepping a little further away from the
stack and gazing up at her in mild astonishment—‘why, whatever might you
be doin’ up there? You did gi’ me quite a start, I do assure ye.’
‘I’m looking at something I don’t like to see,’ returned the girl in a
choked voice; and her bosom heaved with a quick angry sob.
‘Ah!’ said the other tentatively. Setting his hat a little further back
on his head and wrinkling up his eyes he examined her more closely. The
black dress, the wrathful, miserable face told their own tale. ‘I do
’low ye be somebody belongin’ to the poor old master?’ he continued
respectfully.
She sobbed again for all response.
‘Ah!’ said Fiander again, with a world of sympathy in his blue eyes, ‘’t
is a melancholy sight for ye, sure. You’re Mr. Stelling’s daughter very
like.’
‘Granddaughter,’ corrected the girl.
‘Dear heart alive, ’t is sad—’t is very sad for ye, miss, but I’m sure
I’d never keep a-standin’ on the stack frettin’ yourself so, I would n’t,
truly. ’T is a very sad business altogether, Miss Stelling, but you’ll
be upsettin’ yourself worse if ye bide here.’
The girl stepped across the sheaves and drew near the edge of the stack.
Fiander stretched out his hand to assist her down.
‘That’s it,’ he remarked encouragingly; ‘I’m main glad to see you are so
sensible and ready to take advice, Miss Stelling. Here, let me help ye
down.’
‘No, thank you,’ she replied, ‘and my name is n’t Stelling!’
Stooping, and supporting herself with one hand against the edge of the
ledge, she swung herself gracefully down, her hat dropping off as she did
so; the face thus exposed to view proved even younger than Fiander had
anticipated, and, were he a more impressionable man, he might well have
been startled at its beauty.
Even though he had attained the respectable age of fifty-eight and had
not long buried a most faithful and hard-working helpmate, the worthy
farmer was conscious of a glow of admiration. Though the girl’s eyes
were blue, the hair and brows were distinctly dark, and the complexion of
the brunette order—a combination somewhat unusual and very striking. Her
figure was, as has been said, tall and slight, yet with vigour as well as
grace in every movement: she alighted on the ground as easily and as
lightly as though she had been a bird.
‘Well done!’ ejaculated Fiander. ‘And what might your name be if it
bain’t Stelling?’
‘My name is Goldring,’ she replied a little haughtily. ‘Rosalie
Goldring. My mother was Mr. Stelling’s daughter.’
‘Well now,’ returned the farmer, smiling cheerfully, ‘Goldring! and
that’s a pretty name too—partic’lar for a maid—a token I might say!
Rosalie did you tell me, miss? I do mind a song as I used to hear when I
were a boy about Rosalie the Prairie Flower.’ She had picked up her hat
and stood gazing at him discontentedly.
‘I suppose everything is sold by this time?’ she said. ‘My dear
grandfather’s mare, and the trap, and even my cocks and hens. Dear
grandfather! he always used to tell me that everything in the whole place
was to be mine when he died—and now they won’t so much as leave me the
old rooster.’
‘Poor maid!’ ejaculated Fiander, full of commiseration, and guiltily
conscious of having bought that turnip-hoer a bargain. ‘’T is
unfort’nate for ye, I’m sure. Did n’t your grandfather make no provision
for ’ee?’
‘Oh, it is n’t that I mind,’ retorted Rosalie quickly; ‘it’s seeing
everything go. Everything that I love—all the live things that I knew
and used to take care of—even my churn, and my cheese-presses—granfer
used always to say I was wonderful about cheese-making—and the pails and
pans out of my dairy—everything that I kept so nice and took such pride
in. They’ll all go to strangers now—all scattered about, one here, one
there. And to-morrow they’ll be selling the things out of the house. If
they leave me the clothes I stand up in that’ll be all.’
She sobbed so pitifully and looked so forlorn that Fiander’s heart was
positively wrung.
‘My word!’ he ejaculated, ‘I do ’low it’s hard—’t is that, ’t is cruel
hard; what was ye thinkin’ o’ doin’, my dear? You’ll have some relations
most like as ’ll be glad to take ye in?’
‘I have n’t a relation in the world,’ returned Rosalie with another sob;
‘I had nobody but grandfather. If I had,’ she added quickly, ‘I don’t
know that I should have gone to them—I don’t like to be beholden to
anybody. I’ll earn my own bread, though I don’t know how I shall do it;
grandfather could never bear the notion of my going to service.’
‘Ah! and could n’t he?’ returned Fiander, deeply interested.
‘No, indeed. Of course when he was alive we never thought of things
coming to this pass. He always told me I should be mistress here when he
was gone, and that I should be well off. Dear granfer, he grudged me
nothing.’
‘Such a good education as he gi’ed ye too!’ observed Elias
commiseratingly.
‘Oh, yes. I was at boarding-school for three years. I can play the
piano and work the crewel-work, and I learnt French.’
‘Dear heart alive!’ groaned Fiander, ‘and now ye be a-thrown upon the
world. But I was meanin’ another kind of education. Cheese-making and
dairy-work and that—you was sayin’ you was a good hand at suchlike.’
While he spoke he eyed her sharply, and listened eagerly for the
response.
‘Yes, yes,’ agreed Rosalie, ‘I can do all that. We made all kinds of
cheeses every day in the winter, “Ramil,” and “Ha’skim,” and “Blue Vinny”
and all. Yes, I was kept busy—my butter always took top price in the
market; and then there were the accounts to make up of an evening. My
life was n’t all play, I can tell you, but I was very happy.’
‘My missus,’ remarked Fiander, following out his own train of
thoughts—‘that’s the second one: I buried her a year come Michaelmas—she
was a wonderful hand at the Ha’skim cheeses. A very stirring body she
was! I do miss her dreadful; and these here dairy-women as ye hire they
be terrible folk for waste—terrible! I reckon I’ll be a lot out of
pocket this year.’
‘We all have our troubles, you see,’ said Rosalie, with tears still
hanging on her black lashes. ‘Well, I thank you for your kind words,
sir; they seem to have done me good. I think I’ll go in, now. I don’t
want to meet any of the folk.’
‘Bide a bit, my dear,’ said the farmer, ‘bide a bit! I’ve summat to ax
ye. You bain’t thinkin’ of going to service, ye say, and ye don’t
rightly know where to look for a home?’
Rosalie stared at him. He was laughing in a confused, awkward way, and
his face was growing redder and redder. Before she could answer he went
on:
‘There’s your name now—it be a pretty ’un. I do ’low it ’ud seem almost
a pity to change it, an’ yet if ye was to lose the name ye might get the
thing.’
‘I don’t understand you, sir,’ cried she, growing red in her turn.
‘Why, Goldring, you know. ’T is a token, as I said jist now. If you was
to get married you would n’t be Goldring no more, and yet ye’d be getting
a Gold Ring, d’ye see—a weddin’-ring!’
‘Oh,’ said Rosalie distantly.
‘If I might make so bold as to ax, have ye been a-keepin’ company wi’ any
young man, miss?’
‘No,’ she returned, ‘I don’t care for young men.’
‘Well done,’ cried Fiander excitedly, ‘well done, my dear! That shows
your spirit. Come, what ’ud ye say to an old one?’
His blue eyes were nearly jumping out of his head, his honest face was
all puckered into smiles.
‘Come,’ he cried, ‘’t is an offer! Here be I, an old one, yet not so
very old neither, and uncommon tough. I wants a missus terrible bad.
I’ve a-been on the look-out for one this half-year, but I did n’t expect
to take up with a leading article like you. Well, and ye be lookin’ for
a home, and ye bain’t a-keepin’ company wi’ nobody. I ’d make ye so
comfortable as ever I could. I ’d not grudge ye nothing, no more than
your grandfather. I’ve a-worked hard all my life and I’ve got together a
nice bit o’ money, and bought my farm. There’s seventy head of milch
cows on it now, not to speak o’ young beasts and pigs and that. Ye might
be missus there, and make so many cheeses as ever ye pleased. How old
might ye be, my maid?’
‘Eighteen,’ returned Rosalie tremulously; she had been gazing at him with
large startled eyes, but had made no attempt to interrupt him.
‘Eighteen! Well, and I’m fifty-eight. There’s forty years a-tween us,
but, Lord, what’s forty years? I can mind when I were eighteen year of
age the same as if ’t were yesterday, and I can mind as I did think
myself as old and as wise as I be now. Come, my dear, what’s forty year?
I’m hale and hearty, and I’d be so good to ye as ever I could; and you be
lonesome and desolate—thrown upon the world, as I say. Come, let’s make
it up together comfortable. Say the word, and ye can snap your fingers
at anyone who interferes wi’ ye. My place is just so big as this—bigger.
Well, now, is it a bargain?’
‘I think it is,’ murmured Rosalie. ‘I—I don’t know what else to do, and
I think you look kind.’
* * *
Late on that same evening Mr. Fiander reached home; and after attending
to his horse and casting a cursory glance round to ascertain that nothing
had gone wrong in his absence, he betook himself across the fields to the
house of his next neighbour and great crony, Isaac Sharpe.
He found his friend seated in the armchair by the chimney corner. Isaac,
being a bachelor-man, paid small heed to the refinements which were
recently beginning to be in vogue among his class, and habitually sat in
the kitchen. The old woman who acted as housekeeper to him had gone
home, and he was alone in the wide, flagged room, which looked cheerful
enough just now, lit up as it was by the wood fire, which danced gaily on
the yellow walls, and threw gigantic shadows of the hams and flitches
suspended from the great oaken beams, on the ceiling. He was just in the
act of shaking out the ashes from his pipe, previous to retiring for the
night, when Elias entered, and greeted him with no small astonishment.
‘Be it you, ’Lias? I were just a-goin’ to lock up and go to roost.’
Elias creaked noisily across the great kitchen, and, standing opposite
Sharpe in the chimney corner, looked down at him for a moment without
speaking. The other tapped his pipe on the iron hob nearest him and
continued to gaze interrogatively at the new-comer. He was about the
same age as Fiander but looked younger, his burly form being straight and
his sunburnt face more lightly touched by the hand of time. Hair, beard,
and whiskers, alike abundant, were of a uniform pepper-and-salt—there
being more pepper than salt in the mixture; when he smiled he displayed a
set of teeth in no less excellent preservation.
As Elias continued to gaze down at him with an odd sheepish expression,
and without speaking, he himself took the initiative.
‘Ye called round to tell me about the sale, I suppose? Well, I take it
very kind of ye, ’Lias, though I was n’t for your goin’ after that
new-fangled machine. I do ’low ye’ll ha’ give a big price for ’t.’
His tone had a tinge of severity, and it was noticeable throughout that
his attitude towards Fiander was somewhat dictatorial, though in truth
Fiander was the older as well as the richer man.
‘Nay now, nay now,’ the latter returned quickly, ‘ye be wrong for once,
Isaac. ’T is a wonderful bargain: things was goin’ oncommon cheap.
There was hurdles to be picked up for next to nothin’. I were a-thinkin’
of you, Isaac, and a-wishin’ ye’d ha’ comed wi’ me. Yes, hurdles was
goin’ wonderful cheap. They’d ha’ come in handy for your sheep.’
Isaac grunted; since he had not thought fit to accompany his friend, he
was rather annoyed at being told of the bargains he had missed.
‘It was a long way to travel,’ he remarked. ‘Did you have to go into
Dorchester?’
‘Nay I turned off by Yellowham Hill. Banford’s about four mile out o’
Dorchester, and I cut off a good bit that way.’
‘Well, ye’ve a-got the hoer,’ grunted Isaac. ‘Did you bid for anything
else?’
‘No, I did n’t bid for it,’ returned Elias with a sheepish chuckle; ‘but
I’ve a-met with a wonderful piece of luck out yonder.’
He paused, slowly rubbed his hands, chuckled again, and, finally bending
down so that his face was on a level with Sharpe’s, said slowly and
emphatically:
‘Isaac, you’ll be a-hearing summat on Sunday as ’ull surprise ye.’
Isaac, who from force of habit had replaced his empty pipe in his mouth,
now took it out, gaped at his interlocutor for a full half-minute, and
finally said:
‘What be I a-goin’ to hear o’ Sunday?’
‘Banns! My banns,’ announced Fiander, triumphant, but shamefaced too.
‘What!’ ejaculated Isaac, in a tone of immeasurable disgust. ‘Ye be at
it again, be ye? I never did see sich a man for wedlock. Why, this here
’ull make the third of ’em.’
‘Come,’ returned Elias plaintively, ‘that’s none of my fault. My
missuses don’t last—that’s where ’t is. I did think the last ’un ’ud ha’
done my time, but she goes an’ drops off just at our busiest season. If
I be so much o’ a marryin’ man, ’t is because the Lord in His
mystreerious ways has seen fit to deal hardly wi’ I. Ye know as well as
me, don’t ye, Isaac, as a dairy-farmer can’t get on nohow wi’out a wife.’
‘Aye, ’t is what I’ve always said,’ agreed Isaac. ‘There may be profit
in the dairy-farming, but there’s a deal o’ risk. What wi’ cows dyin’,
and bein’ forced to toll a woman about, ’t is more bother nor it’s worth.
Why did n’t ye do same as me, and keep sheep and grow roots? Ah, what
with roots, and what with corn, a man can get on as well that way as your
way—and there’s less risk.’
‘Well, I’ve a-been brought up to it, d’ye see, Isaac—that’s it. My
father was a dairyman before me—in a less way, to be sure. Ah, it were a
struggle for him, I tell ye. He did ha’ to pay thirteen pound for every
cow he rented of old Meatyard, what was master then. Thirteen pound!
Think of that. Why, I used to hear him say as pounds and pounds went
through his hands before he could count as he’d made a penny.’
‘Ah!’ remarked Mr. Sharpe, with the placid interest of one who hears an
oft-told tale. But then pastures and house-rent and all were counted in
that—your father paid no rent for ’em, did he? And Meatyard found him in
cows, and kept him in hay and oil-cake and that?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Elias unwillingly; for the enumeration of these extenuating
circumstances detracted from the picturesque aspect of the case. ‘Oh,
yes, he did that, but my father he al’ays said it were a poor way o’
makin’ a livin’. “Save up, ’Lias, my boy,” he al’ays did use to say to
I. “Save up and buy a bit o’ land for yourself.” So I scraped and
scrimped and laid by; and my first missus, she were a very thrifty body,
a very thrifty body she were. She put her shoulder to the wheel too, and
when old Meatyard died we bought the farm, and things did prosper wi’ us
very well since—till my last poor wife died; then all did go wrong wi’ I.
Aye, as I say, if I do seem more set on matrimony than other folks, ’t is
because the Lord ha’ marked I out for ’t. Now you, Isaac, never was
called that way, seemingly.’
‘Nay,’ agreed Isaac, ‘I never were a-called that way. I never could do
wi’ women-folk about. I’ve seed too much of ’em when I were a young ’un.
Lord, what a cat-and-dog life my poor father and mother did lead, to be
sure! He liked a drop o’ drink, my father did; and when he’d had a glass
too much I’ve seen my mother pull the hair out of his head by
handfuls—ah, that I have. But father, he’d never complain. Soon as she
’d leave go of him he’d stoop down and pick up all the hair as she ’d
a-pulled out of his head. He’d put it in a box—ah, many’s the time he’ve
a-showed it to me arter him and her had had a fallin’ out, and he’d say
to me, “Never you go fur to get married, my boy,” and I’d say, “Nay,
father,” and I’ve a-kept my word.’
‘Your poor sister kep’ house for you a good bit, though, did n’t she,
after she lost her husband? And you were uncommon fond o’ the boy.’
‘Yes, it be different wi’ a sister—particularly one as knows she have n’t
got no right to be there. She were a very quiet body, poor Eliza were.
I were quite sorry when she and the little chap shifted to Dorchester;
but she thought she’d do better in business.’
‘Well, but you were a good friend to she,’ remarked Elias, ‘both to she
and her boy. Ye paid his passage to ’Merica arter she died, poor thing,
did n’t ye?’
‘Ah, I did pay his passage to ’Merica, and I did gi’ him a bit o’ money
in hand to start wi’, out there. Well, but you ha’n’t told me the name
o’ your new missus.’
‘Rosalie Goldring is her name,’ returned Elias, lowering his voice
confidentially. ‘Rosalie Goldring—nice name, bain’t it? Soon’s I heard
her name I took it for a kind o’ token.’
‘Ah! there be a good many Goldrings Dorchester side,’ remarked Isaac.
‘Was that what took you off so far away? You’ve been a-coortin’ and
never dropped a hint o’ it.’
‘Nay now, I never so much as set eyes on her till this very day. But
being so bad off for a wife, and so put about wi’ all the waste as is
a-goin’ on at my place, I thought I’d make sure o’ her, so I axed her.
And she were glad enough to take me—she’s Giles Stelling’s granddaughter,
d’ ye see, and she has to turn out now.’
‘Old Stelling’s granddaughter,’ repeated Isaac with emphasis.
‘Granddaughter? He must ha’ been a terrible old man.’
‘I do ’low he were—old enough,’ replied Elias hastily. ‘Well, now I’ve
a-told ye the news, Isaac, I think I might as well take myself home
again. My head be all in a whirl wi’ so much travellin’ and one thing
and another. Good-night to ye, Isaac; ye must be sure an’ come over to
see the new turnip-hoer to-morrow.’
A little more than three weeks later Fiander brought home his bride, and
Isaac Sharpe cleaned himself, and strolled up in the evening to
congratulate the couple. Elias admitted him, his face wreathed with
smiles, and his whole person smartened up and rejuvenated.
‘Come in, Isaac, come in. The wife’s gone upstairs to get ready for
supper, but she’ll be down in a minute.’
‘I give you joy,’ said Sharpe gruffly.
‘Thank’ee, Isaac, thank’ee. Come in and take a chair. Ye may fill your
pipe too—she does n’t object to a pipe.’
‘_Who_ does n’t object to a pipe?’ said Isaac staring, with a great hand
on each knee.
‘Why, Mrs. Fiander does n’t. Oh, Isaac, I be a-favoured so. I told you
the A’mighty had marked me out for wedlock; well, I can truly say that
this here missus promises to be the best o’ the three. Wait till ye see
her, and you’ll think I’m in luck.’
Isaac gazed at him with a kind of stolid compassion, shook his head,
deliberately filled his pipe, and fell to smoking. Elias did the same,
and after he had puffed for a moment or two broke silence.
‘Ah! ye’ll find her most agree’ble. I did mention to her that you be
used to drop in of a Sunday, and she did make no objections—no objections
at all.’
‘Did n’t she?’ returned Isaac. ‘Come, that’s a good thing.’ He paused
for a moment, the veins in his forehead swelling. ‘I don’t know but if
she had made objections I should n’t ha’ come all the same,’ he continued
presently. ‘I’ve a-come here Sunday arter Sunday for twenty year and
more. It would n’t seem very natural to stop away now.’
‘Nay, sure,’ agreed Fiander nervously; ‘’t would n’t seem at all
natural.’
The sound of a light foot was now heard crossing the room overhead and
descending the stairs.
‘That be her,’ remarked Elias excitedly.
The door opened, and a tall well-formed figure stood outlined against the
background of fire-lit kitchen. It was almost dusk in the parlour where
the two men sat.
‘Why, you’re all in the dark here!’ observed a cheerful voice. ‘Shall I
light the lamp, Elias?’
‘Do, my dear, do. This here be Mr. Isaac Sharpe, our next neighbour, as
you’ve a-heard me talk on often. Isaac, here’s Mrs. Fiander.’
Isaac wedged his pipe firmly into the corner of his mouth, and extended a
large hand; according to the code of manners prevalent in that
neighbourhood, it was not considered necessary to rise when you greeted a
lady.
‘How d’ ye do, mum? I give you joy,’ he remarked.
When her hand was released Mrs. Fiander sought and found lamp and
matches, and removed the shade and chimney, always with such quick
decided movements that Isaac remarked to himself approvingly that she was
n’t very slack about her work. She struck a match, bending over the
lamp, and suddenly the light flared up. Isaac leaned forward in his
favourite attitude, a hand on either knee, and took a good look at the
new-comer; then drawing himself back, and removing his pipe from his
mouth, he shot an indignant glance at Fiander.
‘Come, that looks more cheerful,’ remarked the unconscious bride; ‘and
supper will be ready in a minute. I’ll go and get the cloth.’
As she vanished the new-made husband bent over anxiously to his friend.
‘What do you think of her?’ he remarked, jerking his thumb over his
shoulder.
‘Elias,’ returned his friend wrathfully and reproachfully, ‘I did n’t
expect it of ye; no, that I did n’t. At your time of life and arter
buryin’ two of ’em! Nay now, I did n’t think it of you. The least you
might do was to pick out a staid woman.’
‘Come, come,’ retorted Fiander; ‘she’s young, but that’ll wear off,
Isaac—she’ll mend in time.’
‘It bain’t only that she be young,’ resumed Sharpe, still severe and
indignant. ‘But I do think, ’Lias, takin’ everything into consideration,
that it ’ud ha’ been more natural and more decent, I might say, for you
to ha’ got married to somebody more suited to ye. Why, man, your new
missus be a regular beauty!’
PART I
_THE SLEEPING BEAUTY_
CHAPTER I
Oh, Sir! the good die first . . .
WORDSWORTH.
Aa! Nichol’s now laid in his grave,
Bi t’ side of his fadder and mudder;
The warl not frae deoth could yen save,
We a’ gang off,—teane after t’ other.
A CUMBERLAND BALLAD.
SUNDAY noontide; and a warm Sunday too. The little congregation pouring
out of the ivy-grown church in the hollow seemed to have found the heat
within oppressive; the men were wiping their moist brows previous to
assuming the hard uncompromising hats which alone could do justice to the
day, and the women fanned themselves with their clean white
handkerchiefs, or sniffed ostentatiously at the squat, oddly shaped
bottles of smelling-salts, or nosegays of jessamine and southernwood,
with which they had provided themselves. In the village proper sundry
non-churchgoers waited the return of their more pious brethren; one or
two lads sat expectantly on stiles, on the look-out for their respective
sweethearts, whom they would escort homewards, and with whom they would
possibly make appointments for a stroll at some later hour of the day.
Children, with important faces, might be seen returning from the
bakehouse, carefully carrying the Sunday dinner covered with a clean
cloth; and a few older men and women stood about their doorsteps, or
leaned over their garden gates, with the intention of waylaying their
homeward-bound neighbours and extracting from them items concerning a
very important event which had recently taken place in the vicinity.
One very fat old lady, propping herself with difficulty against the
lintel of her door, hailed her opposite neighbour eagerly.
‘Good-day, Mrs. Paddock. Did ye chance to notice if master have a-gone
by yet?’
‘Nay, he have n’t a-come this way—not so far as I know,’ returned the
other. ‘They do say he takes on terrible about poor Mr. Fiander.’
‘Ah!’ said the first speaker with a long-drawn breath, ‘he’d be like to,
I do ’low, seein’ what friends they was. Folks d’ say as Fiander have
very like left him summat.’
‘Nay, nay, he’ll leave it all in a lump to she. He thought the world of
the missus. He’ll be sure to ha’ left it to she—wi’out she marries
again. Then—well, then, very like Mr. Sharpe will come in. Poor Mr.
Fiander, ’t is a sad thing to ha’ never chick nor child to leave your
money to.’
‘Ah, sure, ’t is a pity they did n’t have no children. I reckon Mr.
Fiander looked to have ’em, seein’ he’d picked out such a fine shapely
maid. He were a fine man too, though he were gettin’ into years, to be
sure, when he wed her. Not but what a body ’ud ha’ expected the old
gentleman to last a good bit longer. Sixty-two they d’ say he were.’
‘Well, and that’s no age to speak on! Lord, I were that upset when I
heerd he were took I’m not the better of it yet.’
‘Ay, ’t is a terrible visitation! All as has hearts must feel it.’
‘I do assure ye, Mrs. Belbin, I’ve scarce closed my eyes since, and when
I do drop off towards mornin’ I do dream—’t is fearful what I do dream!
This very night, I tell ye, I thought the End had come, and we was all
a-bein’ judged yon in church. The Lord A’mighty Hisself was a-sittin’ up
in gallery a-judging of we—’
‘Bless me,’ interrupted Mrs. Belbin, ‘and what were A’mighty God like to
look on, Mrs. Paddock?’
‘Oh, He were beautiful—wi’ broad large features and a very piercin’
eye—but He had a beautiful smile. I thought, if ye can understand, that
some was a-goin’ up to the right and some to the left. Yes, we was all
bein’ judged, taking our turns. Squire fust, and then his lady, and then
all the young ladies and gentlemen a-goin’ up one after t’ other and
a-bein’ judged—’
‘Well, well!’ commented Mrs. Belbin, throwing up her eyes and hands.
‘All so natural like, wa’ n’t it?’
She had evidently been much impressed by the strict order of precedence
observed by the actors in this visionary drama.
‘Well, then I seed farmers a-goin’ up—’
‘Did ye see poor Farmer Fiander?’ inquired the other eagerly.
‘Nay, nay. He were n’t there, strange to say. ’T ’ud ha’ been natural
to see him—him bein’ dead, ye know—but he were n’t there. But I see
master a-bein’ judged.’
‘Did ye, now? and where did he go? He’s a good man—he ’d be like to go
up’ards. Were Hamworthy there—the butcher, I mean? I wonder what the
A’mighty ’ud say to the short weights that he do give us poor folk!’
‘Nay, I did n’t see him, fur it were a-comin’ nigh my turn, and I were
that a-feared I could n’t think o’ nothin’ else. And when I did get up
to walk up under gallery I thought my legs did give way and down I
plumped—and that did awaken me up.’
‘Well, it was a wonderful dream, Mrs. Paddock. I’m not surprised as you
be feelin’ a bit poorly to-day. ’T is astonishing what folks d’ dream
when they’re upset. I do assure ye when my stummick’s a bit out of order
I’m hag-rid all night. Last Sunday ’t was, I did dream I seed a great
big toad sittin’ on piller, and I hollered out and hit at him, and Belbin
he cotched me by the hand, “Good gracious!” says he, “what be’st thumpin’
me like that for?” “Why,” says I, “bain’t there a toad on piller?” “Nay
now,” says he, “there’s nothin’ at all; but you’ve a-hit me sich a crack
upon the chops that I’ll lay I’ll have the toothache for a week.”’
‘I’d never go for to say as dreams did n’t mean summat, though,’ said
Mrs. Paddock.
‘Aye, I’ve great faith in dreams and tokens and sich. Ye mind old Maria
Gillingham? Folks always used to think her a bit of a witch, but she
never did nobody much harm seemingly. It were but the day before she
died as I did meet her. “You look poorly, Maria,” says I. “I be like to
be poorly, Mrs. Paddock,” says she. “I’m near my end,” she says. “I ’ve
had a token.” “You don’t tell me?” says I. “Yes,” she said. “I were
a-sittin’ in chimbly corner just now, and three great blue-bottles did
come flyin’ in wi’ crape upon their wings, and they did fly three times
round my head, and they did say, _Soon gone_! _Soon gone_! _Soon
gone_!”’
‘Ah,’ commented Mrs. Belbin, ‘and she were soon gone, were n’t she?’
‘She were,’ agreed Mrs. Paddock lugubriously. ‘They did find her lyin’
wi’ her head under the table next day, stone dead. . . . But here’s Rose
Bundy a-comin’ down the road. Well, Rose, was the widow in church?’
‘Ay, I seed her,’ cried Rose, a fat red-cheeked girl, with round black
eyes at this moment gleaming with excitement. ‘She did have on such
lovely weeds—ye never saw such weeds. There was crape on ’em very nigh
all over. She did have a great long fall as did come to her knees very
near, and another much the same a-hanging down at the back o’ her bonnet,
and her skirt was covered with crape—and I think there was truly more
black than white to her han’kercher. Ah, it was a-goin’ all the time
under her veil—fust her eyes and then her nose. Poor thing! she do seem
to feel her loss dreadful.’
‘And well she may,’ said Mrs. Paddock emphatically. ‘A good husband same
as Fiander bain’t to be picked up every day.’
‘Why, he was but a old man,’ retorted the girl. ‘Mrs. Fiander’ll soon
have plenty o’ young chaps a-comin’ to coort her; they d’ say as Mr.
Fiander have a-left her every single penny he had, to do what she likes
wi’! She’ll soon take up wi’ some smart young fellow—it is n’t in natur’
to expect a handsome young body same as her to go on frettin’ for ever
after a old man, let him be so good as he may.’
‘Nay now, nay now,’ cried Mrs. Belbin authoritatively, ‘’t will be this
way, as you’ll soon see. Mr. Fiander will ha’ left the widow his money
and farm and all, as long as she do be a widow, but if she goes for to
change her state, why then o’ coorse it’ll go to somebody else. There
never was a man livin’—and more particularly a old one—as could make up
his mind to leave his money behind him for a woman to spend on another
man. That’ll be it, ye’ll find. Mrs. Fiander’ll keep her money as long
as she d’ keep her mournin’.’
‘Here be master, now,’ announced her opposite neighbour, craning her head
a little further out of the doorway. ‘The poor man, he do look upset and
sorrowful.’
The eyes of all the little party fixed themselves on the approaching
figure. Mr. Sharpe was clad in Sunday gear of prosperous broadcloth, and
wore, somewhat on the back of his head, a tall hat so antiquated as to
shape and so shaggy as to texture that the material of which it was
composed may possibly have been beaver. His large face was at that
moment absolutely devoid of all expression; Mrs. Paddock’s remark,
therefore, seemed to be dictated by a somewhat lively imagination. He
nodded absently as the women greeted him, which they did very
respectfully, as both their husbands worked under him, but wheeled round
after he had passed the group to address Mrs. Paddock.
‘I’ll take those chicken off you as you was a-speakin’ on if you’ll fetch
’em up to my place to-week. The fox have a-took a lot of mine, and I be
loath to disappoint my customers.’
‘I’ll fetch ’em up, sir, so soon as I can. These be terrible times, Mr.
Sharpe, bain’t they? Sich losses as we’ve a-had last week! The fox he
’ve a-been terrible mischeevous; and poor Mr. Fiander—he were took very
unexpected, were n’t he?’
‘Ah!’ agreed Mr. Sharpe.
‘You’ll be the one to miss him, sir. As we was sayin’, Mrs. Belbin and
me, Mr. Sharpe ’ull be the one to miss him. Ye did use to go there every
Sunday reg’lar, Mr. Sharpe, did n’t ye?’
‘Ah!’ agreed the farmer again. His large face seemed just as
expressionless as before, but a close observer might have detected a
sudden suffusion of colour to the eyelids.
‘They d’ say as Mrs. Fiander be takin’ on terrible,’ put in Mrs. Belbin,
folding her arms across her ample bosom, and settling herself for a good
chat with an air of melancholy enjoyment. ‘She is a nice young
woman—yes, she’s that; and the marriage did turn out wonderful well,
though folks did think it a bit foolish o’ Mr. Fiander to choose sich a
young maid at his time o’ life. But he was lonesome, poor man, losing
his first wife so long ago, and the children dying so young, and his
second missus bein’ took too. But, well, as I d’ say, the last marriage
turned out wonderful well; there was never a word said again’ Mrs.
Fiander.’
‘There was never a word _to_ be said,’ returned Mr. Sharpe somewhat
sternly.
‘Yes, just what I d’ say,’ chimed in Mrs. Paddock. ‘His ch’ice was a
good ’un. She be a nice body, Mrs. Fiander be.’
‘Ah!’ agreed the farmer, ‘I d’ ’low she be a nice plain young woman. Her
husband have a-proved that he did think his ch’ice a good ’un, for he’ve
a-left her everything as he had in the world.’
‘But not if she marries again, sir, sure?’ cried both the women together.
‘Lard,’ added Mrs. Belbin, ‘he’d never ha’ been sich a sammy as to let
her keep everything if she goes for to take another man.’
‘She be left house and farm, stock and money, onconditional,’ returned
Mr. Sharpe emphatically. And he passed on, leaving the gossips aghast.
CHAPTER II
The time I’ve lost in wooing,
In watching and pursuing
The light that lies
In woman’s eyes,
Has been my heart’s undoing.
THOMAS MOORE.
THE subject of the conversation recently recorded was slowly removing her
‘blacks,’ and laying them carefully away on the lavender-scented shelves
in the desolate upper chamber of the home which had suddenly grown so
lonely. Divested of the flowing mantle, the tall, well-moulded figure
was set off by its close-fitting black robe; and the face, which had been
hidden from view by the thick folds of crape, proved able to stand the
test of the glaring summer sunshine. The adjective ‘plain,’ applied to
the widow by her late husband’s friend, must be taken only in its local
sense as signifying ‘simple and straightforward;’ even to the indifferent
eyes of this elderly yeoman Rosalie’s beauty had ripened and increased
during the four years that had elapsed since her marriage with his
friend. The black lashes which shaded her lovely eyes were still wet;
the red lips quivered, and the bosom heaved convulsively. Most of the
friends and neighbours of the late Mr. Fiander would have been
astonished—not to say scandalised—at the sight of such grief. It was
quite decent and becoming to cry in church where everybody was looking at
you, but to cry when you were alone for an old man of sixty-two—when you
had been left in undisputed possession of all his property, and might
with perfect impunity marry again at the earliest possible opportunity—it
was not only unreasonable and foolish, but rank ingratitude for the most
merciful dispensation of Providence.
But Mrs. Fiander continued to sob to herself, and to look blankly round
the empty room, and out at the wide fields where the familiar figure had
been wont to roam; and when, taking the new widow’s cap from its box, she
arranged it on the top of her abundant hair, she could not repress a
fresh gush of tears.
‘Poor Fiander!’ she said to herself, ‘he would n’t let me wear it if he
knew. It makes me a perfect fright, and is so cumbersome and so much in
the way. But I’ll wear it all the same. Nobody shall say I’m wanting in
respect to his memory. Dear, dear, not a week gone yet! It seems more
like a year.’
She descended the stairs slowly, and entered the parlour. There was the
high-backed chair where Fiander used to sit waiting for the Sunday midday
meal; there also was the stool on which he supported his gouty leg.
Opposite was another chair, invariably occupied by Farmer Sharpe on
Sunday afternoons, when, after a walk round his neighbour’s land, he came
in for a chat and a smoke. Mrs. Fiander herself had always sat at the
table, joining in the conversation from time to time, after she had mixed
for her husband and his friend the stiff glass of grog of which it was
their custom to partake. Fiander said nobody mixed it so well as she,
and even Mr. Sharpe occasionally nodded approval, and generously agreed
that she was a first-rate hand.
She wondered idly if Mr. Sharpe would come to-day; she almost hoped he
would. She did not like to walk round the fields alone—people would
think it strange, too—and it was so lonely and so dreary sitting by
herself in the house.
But Mr. Sharpe’s chair remained empty all that afternoon; Mrs. Fiander,
however, had other visitors. It was getting near tea-time, and she was
looking forward somewhat anxiously to the arrival of that meal which
would make a break in the dismal hours, when a genteel knock at the door
startled her. She knew it was not Isaac, for it was his custom to walk
in uninvited, and thought it might be some other neighbour coming with a
word of comfort. She was surprised, however, when the maid ushered in a
tall, stout young man, whom she recognised as the son of one of the
leading tradespeople in the town. Andrew Burge’s father was, indeed, not
only cab and coach proprietor on a large scale, but also undertaker, and
Rosalie now remembered that her actual visitor had taken a prominent part
at her husband’s funeral.
‘I jest called to see how you might be getting on, Mrs. Fiander,’ he
remarked, ‘and to offer my respectful condoliences. ’T was a melancholy
occasion where we met last, Mrs. Fiander.’
‘It was indeed,’ said Rosalie; adding, somewhat stiffly, ‘Take a seat,
Mr. Burge.’
Mr. Burge took a seat—not one of the ordinary chairs which Mrs. Fiander
indicated with a general wave of the hand, but poor Elias’s own
particular one, which was, as has been stated, established in the
chimney-corner. It happened to be directly opposite to the one in which
Rosalie had been sitting—Isaac Sharpe’s usual chair—and was no doubt
chosen by the visitor on account of its agreeable proximity to his
hostess. Anybody more unlike its former occupant it would be hard to
imagine. Andrew was, as has been said, tall and stout, with black eyes,
closely resembling boot-buttons in size and expression, a florid
complexion, and very sleek black hair. He conveyed a general impression
of bursting out of his clothes; his coat appearing to be too tight, his
trousers too short, his collar too high, and his hat, when he wore it,
too small. This hat he carefully placed upon the ground between his
legs, and drew from its crown a large white pocket-handkerchief, which he
flourished almost in a professional manner.
‘I feels,’ he went on, attuning his voice to the melancholy tone in
harmony with this proceeding—‘I feels that any condoliences, let them be
so sincere as they may, falls immaterially short of the occasion. The
late Mr. Elias Fiander was universally respected by the townsfolk of
Branston as well as by his own immediate neighbours.’
‘You are very kind,’ said Rosalie, feeling that she must make a remark,
and inwardly chiding herself for the frenzied impatience with which she
had longed to turn him out of her husband’s chair. After all, the poor
young man was unconscious of offence, and meant well.
‘It was, I may say, Mrs. Fiander, a object of congratulation to me that I
was able to pay the deceased a last melancholy tribute. P’r’aps you did
n’t chance to observe that it was me druv the ’earse?’
‘I knew I had seen you there,’ said the widow, in a low voice, ‘but I
could n’t for the moment recollect where.’
‘It would ha’ fallen in better wi’ my own wishes,’ went on Andrew, ‘if I
could ha’ driven both o’ you. But my father told me you did n’t fancy
the notion o’ the Jubilee ’earse.’
‘You mean that combined hearse and mourning coach?’ cried Rosalie. ‘No,
indeed! Why, the coffin is put crosswise behind the driver’s legs, just
like a bale of goods. I think it’s dreadful!’
‘Nay now,’ returned Andrew, ‘we are most careful to show every respect to
the pore corpse. The compartment is made special—glazed, and all quite
beautiful. Some people thinks it a privilege for the mourners to be
sittin’ behind, so close to their dear departed. And then think of the
expense it saves—only one pair of horses needed, you know! Not but what
expense is no object to _you_; and of course, your feelin’s bein’ o’ that
delicate natur’, you felt, I suppose, it would be almost too ‘arrowing.’
‘I know I could n’t bear the idea,’ she cried. ‘The _Jubilee_ hearse, do
you call it? How came you to give it such a name?’
‘Ah! Why, you see, it was entirely my father’s idea, and he had it built
in the Jubilee year. He thought, you know, he’d like to do something a
little special that year by way of showin’ his loyalty. Ah, he spared no
expense in carryin’ of it out, I do assure ’ee. Well, as I was sayin’,
Mrs. Fiander, it would have been a great pleasure to me to have given you
both a token of respect and sympathy at the same time, but, since it was
n’t to be, I followed what I thought would be most in accordance with
your wishes, and I showed my respect for your feelin’s by driving the
remains.’
Here he flourished the handkerchief again and raised the boot-button eyes
to Mrs. Fiander’s face.
‘I am, of course, grateful for any tribute of respect to my dear
husband,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ resumed Mr. Burge, ‘I thought you’d look on it in that light; but
I should have thought it a privilege to drive you, Mrs. Fiander.’
Rosalie made some inarticulate rejoinder.
‘I thought I’d just call round and explain my motives,’ he went on, ‘and
also take the opportunity of offering in person my best condoliences.’
‘Thank you,’ said Rosalie.
‘I may speak, I think,’ remarked Andrew pompously, ‘in the name of the
whole borough of Branston. There was, I might say, but one mournful
murmur when the noos of his death came to town. But one mournful murmur,
I do assure ’ee, Mrs. Fiander.’
Rosalie looked up gratefully; the young man certainly meant well and this
information was gratifying. She felt a little thrill of melancholy
pleasure at the thought of the universal esteem and respect in which her
poor Elias had been held. But meeting the hard expressionless gaze of
Mr. Burge’s tight little eyes, the appreciative compliment died upon her
lips.
‘So now,’ resumed the visitor, diving for his hat and carefully tucking
away the handkerchief in its lining—‘now, Mrs. Fiander, having spoken for
myself and for my fellow-townsmen, and having assured myself that you are
no worse in health than might have been expected under these extraneous
circumstances, I will withdraw.’
He rose, ducked his head, extended his hand, and solemnly pumped
Rosalie’s up and down for about two minutes; finally backing to the door.
As he let himself out he almost fell over another caller who was at that
moment raising his hand to the knocker. This was a dapper gentleman of
about his own age, with an alert and sprightly air and a good-humoured,
sharp-featured face.
Rosalie, just standing within the half-open parlour-door, caught sight of
the new-comer and wondered who he might be. In a moment he had set her
doubts at rest.
‘Good-day, ma’am,’ he remarked, advancing cheerily with outstretched
hand. ‘I must introduce myself, I see; I’m not so well known to you as
you are to me. My name is Cross—Samuel Cross—and I am one of Mr.
Robinson’s clerks. Robinson and Bradbury, solicitors, you know—that’s
who I am. I just called round to—to make a few remarks with regard to
certain business matters in the hands of our firm.’
‘Won’t you sit down?’ said Rosalie, hastily taking possession of her
husband’s chair. It should not, if she could help it, again be
desecrated that day. She pointed out a small one, but Mr. Samuel Cross,
without noticing the intimation, stepped quickly forward and seated
himself opposite to the widow in the chair she had just vacated—Isaac
Sharpe’s chair. Rosalie contemplated him with knitted brows; since Mr.
Sharpe, that trusted friend, had not thought fit to occupy his customary
place himself that afternoon, she felt ill pleased at the intrusion of
this presumptuous stranger.
What a callow little shrimp of a man it was, to be sure, and how unlike,
with his spare form and small narrow face—a face which she mentally
compared to that of a weasel—to the large, bland personality of Isaac!
‘A matter of business,’ she said drily. ‘I am surprised that Mr.
Robinson should send you on Sunday.’
‘Oh, this is quite an informal visit, Mrs. Fiander; not at all official.
I came of my own accord—I may say, in my private capacity. This here is
n’t a six-and-eightpenny affair. He! he!’
‘Oh!’ said Rosalie, even more drily than before.
‘No; seeing, Mrs. Fiander, that you are left so peculiarly lonely and
desolate, I just thought to myself that it would be only kind to call in
in passing and mention that your business matters, Mrs. Fiander, are in a
most satisfactory position. I have frequently heard our firm remark that
they seldom had to deal with affairs more satisfactory and
straightforward.’
‘My husband had a very clear head for business,’ said Mrs. Fiander. ‘I
always found that.’
‘’T is n’t that alone,’ rejoined the young man, ‘it is, if I may be
permitted to express an opinion, the very satisfactory manner in which he
has disposed of his property, on which I feel bound to congratulate you.
I called round, private as I say, jist to let you know as all was most
satisfactory.’
‘Thank you. I had no doubt about it,’ said Rosalie, surveying her
visitor with increasing disfavour as he leered at her from the depth of
Isaac’s capacious chair.
‘Ladies,’ he pursued, with an ingratiating wriggle—‘ladies is apt to be
easily alarmed when legal matters is under discussion. The very terms
which come so natural to us are apt to frighten them. Lor’ bless you, I
des-say when Mr. Robinson do talk about testamentary dispositions and
such like it makes you feel quite nervous. But ’t is only the sound of
the words as is strange; the thing itself [meaning the testamentary
dispositions of the late lamented Mr. Fiander] is, I do assure you, most
satisfactory. What with the freehold property, meanin’ the farm and the
money invested in such good and safe securities—you may be sure that they
are good and safe, Mrs. Fiander; for I may ventur’ to tell you in
confidence that the late lamented used to consult our firm with regard to
his investments—I have pleasure in assuring you that very few ladies find
theirselves in so satisfactory a position as you do find yourself to-day.
I jist dropped in, unofficial like, to let you know this, for, as I said
to myself, it may be a satisfaction to pore Mrs. Fiander to know _her_
circumstances, and to understand that, desolate as she may be left, there
is some compensations; and that, moreover, she has been left absolutely
free and independent, the late lamented not having hampered her by no
conditions whatever.’
Here Mr. Cross, who had been leaning forward in his chair so that his
face, with its narrow jaws and its little twinkling eyes, had been a good
deal below the level of the slightly disdainful countenance of his
hostess, now slowly straightened himself, clapped an exultant hand on
either knee, and brought the jaws aforesaid together with a snap.
Mrs. Fiander could not help contrasting him once more with the friend who
should by right be sitting opposite to her; how far more welcome would
have been the sight of the good-tempered rubicund visage, the placid
portly form! Even the contented, amicable taciturnity which Mr. Sharpe
usually maintained during the greater part of his visits would have been
far more to her mind than this loquacity, which somehow seemed
unpleasantly near familiarity. Still, it was unreasonable to take a
dislike to the poor young man merely because he looked like a weasel and
was disposed to be a little over-friendly; no doubt his intention was
kind.
She thanked him, therefore, with somewhat forced politeness, but could
not repress a little forward movement in her chair which a sensitive
person would have recognized as a token of dismissal. Mr. Cross was not,
however, of this calibre, and prolonged his visit until his hostess’s
patience fairly wore out. She rose at last, glancing at the clock, and
observing that she thought it was time to get ready for evening church.
‘I will have the pleasure of escorting you,’ announced Samuel promptly
and cheerfully.
Thereupon Mrs. Fiander sat down again.
‘On second thoughts I’m too tired,’ she said; ‘but I will not allow you
to delay any longer, Mr. Cross—you will certainly be late as it is.’
He had no course but to withdraw then, which he did, unwillingly enough,
after tenderly pressing the widow’s hand and assuring her, quite
superfluously, that she might depend on him to look after her interests
in every way in his power.
Rosalie was disconsolately polishing the hand which had received this
undesired token of interest, when the door creaked slowly open, and a
tall, gaunt, elderly female, clad in rusty black, and wearing somewhat on
the back of her head a flat black bonnet, with the strings untied,
entered the room. This was Mrs. Greene, a personage generally to be met
with in this neighbourhood in households whose number had recently been
either increased or diminished. She was equally at home, as she once
remarked, with babies and with corpses; and she filled up the intervals
by ‘charing.’ Her appearance was so genteel, and her manner of
fulfilling her various duties so elegant, that the clergyman’s daughter
had once remarked that she was wonderfully refined for a char-woman; the
appellation had stuck to her, and she was commonly known as the ‘refined
char-woman’ among such of the ‘gentry’ as occasionally employed her in
that capacity.
She had come to Littlecomb Farm to ‘lay out’ poor Elias Fiander, and she
was remaining on as chief factotum and comforter. For it was n’t to be
supposed that the poor young widow ’ud be eq’al to lookin’ after the
maids—much less to turn her thoughts to doin’ for herself. She now
advanced slowly to the table, and after heaving a deep sigh proceeded to
lay the cloth. Rosalie knew that she was burning to enter into
conversation, but was too much dispirited to encourage her. But
by-and-by, after a preliminary cough, Mrs. Greene remarked in a
lugubrious tone:
‘That’s a lovely cap, mum. Everybody was a-sayin’ that you did look
charmin’ in your weeds. Ay, that was what they said. “She do look
charming”—that was the very thing they said; “’t is a comfort, too,” says
they, “to see how nice she do mourn for Mr. Fiander.” They was all
a-passing the remark one to the other about it, mum—admirable they said
it was.’
‘Nonsense,’ cried Rosalie wrathfully, but with a little quaver in her
voice; ‘it would be very strange, I think, if I did not grieve for such a
good husband. I wish people would n’t talk about me,’ she added
petulantly.
‘Talk!’ ejaculated Mrs. Greene dismally. ‘Ah, they will talk, mum, you
may depend on it. They’ll al’ays talk, and perticlarly about a young
widow. Lord, how they did go on about me when poor Greene died! They
did n’t leave so much as my furnitur’ alone. Whether I could afford to
keep it, or whether I’d be for ridden house and goin’ into lodgin’s, and
whether I’d put the children in an orphanage and get married again—it was
enough to drive a body silly the way they did go on.’
‘Disgusting,’ cried Rosalie, now faintly interested. ‘The idea of
talking of a second marriage when your poor husband was only just dead.’
‘Why, that be the first thing they’d talk on,’ with a kind of dismal
triumph—‘more perticlar if a woman be young and good-lookin’. In your
own case, mum, I do assure ye they be all a-pickin’ out _your_ second.
Ah, that’s what they be a-doin’, but as they all picks different men they
don’t so very well agree.’
‘Mrs. Greene!’ ejaculated her mistress indignantly, wheeling round in her
chair, ‘what do you mean? How dare you come and repeat such things to
me—it’s positively indecent!’
‘That be the very remark as I did pass myself to the men yesterday,’
retorted Mrs. Greene, pausing to contemplate Mrs. Fiander with her hands
upon her hips. ‘The very thing. “’t is most onbecomin’,” says I, “to be
settin’ yourselves up to pry into the affairs o’ your betters. Missus,”
says I, “be a-thinkin’ of nothing but her mournin’ so far, and when she
do make her ch’ice,” says I, “she’ll please herself and pick out him as
is most suitable.” Them was my words, mum.’
‘Well,’ cried Rosalie, rising to her feet impetuously, ‘I wonder you dare
to own them to me, Mrs. Greene. I think that, considering you are a
widow yourself, you ought to know better than to accuse another woman of
such faithlessness. If you think I could ever, ever forget my good kind
husband, you are much mistaken.’
Mrs. Greene coughed drily behind her hand.
‘Why should I marry again any more than you?’ cried Rosalie, with angry
tears starting to her eyes.
‘Well, mum, the cases be very different. Nobody never axed I—’t was n’t
very likely as they should, considering I had six children and only my
own labour to keep ’em. As for you, mum, nobody could n’t think it at
all strange if you was to get married again—considerin’ everything, you
know. Your station in life,’ continued Mrs. Greene delicately, ‘and your
not bein’ blessed with no children, and your fortun’ and your _oncommon_
looks—it ’ud be very strange if there was n’t a-many a-coming coortin’
ye—and you may depend upon it they will,’ she cried with conviction.
‘And seein’ how young you be, mum, and how lonesome like, I should say it
be a’most your dooty to take a second.’
‘Now listen to me, Mrs. Greene,’ said Rosalie very emphatically, ‘I wish
to put an end to this foolish gossip at once. You can tell everybody
that you hear talking about the matter that I never intend to marry
again. Never!—do you hear me?’
‘Yes, mum,’ returned Mrs. Greene, with every feature and line of her
countenance expressing disbelief, ‘I hear. P’r’aps I better begin by
lettin’ them two chaps know what called here to-day. I do ’low they’ll
be disapp’inted!’
‘I wish you would n’t talk such nonsense, Mrs. Greene,’ cried Rosalie
almost pettishly, though the colour rushed over her face, and a startled
expression showed itself for a moment in her heavy eyes. ‘Go away! I
don’t want to be worried any more; remember what I have said, that’s
all.’
CHAPTER III
Nothing coming, nothing going—
Landrail craking, one cock crowing;
Few things moving up and down,
All things drowsy.
NORTH-COUNTRY SONG.
ROSALIE passed a very unquiet night, and woke from a troubled sleep
shortly after dawn. The dead-weight of grief, ever present to her since
her bereavement, was now, as she dimly felt, supplemented by something
else—something irritating, something unpleasant. As her scattered
faculties returned to her she gradually recognised that this state of
feeling was produced by several small causes. The two visits which she
had received yesterday, and which she had supposed to proceed from mere
officious goodwill, had, as she now acknowledged, been prompted in all
probability by aspirations as unjustifiable as they were unseemly. Her
subsequent interview with Mrs. Greene had disagreeably enlightened her on
this point, and had also made her aware of the kind of gossip to which
she must expect to be subjected. Then—all through that long, lonely,
heavy day Isaac Sharpe had not once put in an appearance. He, her
husband’s faithful friend, the only real friend whom she herself
acknowledged, had not thought fit to look in for so much as five minutes
to cheer her in her desolation. As she thought of these things hot tears
welled afresh to her eyes. Oh, how desolate she was! No one really
cared for her, and, what was almost worse, no one seemed to believe in
the sincerity of her affliction.
As she lay tossing uneasily on her pillow, and as the light grew and
brightened, and the birds’ jubilant songs mingled with the distant lowing
of cows, a new sense of disquietude came to her, proceeding from a
different and very tangible cause. It was broad day—Monday morning—a
morning of exceptional importance at the farm—and no human being seemed
yet to be afoot. Reaching up her hand to the old-fashioned watch-pocket
which hung in the centre of the bed, she took down Elias’s heavy silver
repeater and pressed the spring. _Ting_, _ting_, _ting_, _ting_, _ting_!
Five o’clock. Sitting up, she sent the two cases flying open and gazed
almost incredulously at the dial beneath. Ten minutes past five—no less!
She sprang out of bed and flung open her door.
‘Jane! Susan! What are you about? ’t is past five o’clock, and churning
morning. How did you come to oversleep yourselves like that?’
There was a muffled murmur, a thud upon the floor, a _pat_, _pat_ of bare
feet across the room above, and a door overhead opened.
‘Was ye callin’, mum?’
‘Was I calling? I should think I was calling! Have you forgotten what
morning it is?’
‘Nay, missus, that I haven’t. Lord, no. ’T was this day se’ennight as
poor master was buried. Dear, yes, so ’t was.’
A lump rose in Rosalie’s throat, but she steadied her voice and said
coldly:
‘I am not talking of that. It is churning morning, as you know very
well. You should have been up and about an hour ago. Make as much haste
as you can, now, and come down.’
She closed the door with just sufficient noise to indicate the condition
of her feelings, and hastened across the room to the open window.
Drawing the curtains apart, she looked out. A glorious summer’s day.
Not a cloud upon the pearly-blue expanse of sky, the leaves stirring
gently in a fresh breeze—a breeze laden with all the exquisite spicy
scents of morning: the fragrance of dewy grasses, of sun-kissed trees, of
newly-awakened flowers. The monthly rose-tree climbing round her
mullioned window thrust its delicate clusters of bloom almost into
Rosalie’s face, but she pushed it impatiently aside. Her eyes cast a
keen glance on the homely scene beyond. Above the time-worn roofs of the
farm-buildings, where the green of the moss and the mellow red and yellow
of the tiles were alike transfigured by this mystic glow, she could see
last year’s ricks shouldering each other, their regular outlines defined,
as it were, with a pencil of fire; the great meadow beyond, which sloped
downwards till it reached the church-yard wall a quarter of a mile away,
broke into light ripples, tawny and russet, as the breeze swept over it.
Surely these were sights to gladden a young heart—even a heart that had
been sorrowing—yet the expression of Rosalie’s eyes grew more and more
discontented and displeased, and a frown gathered on her brow.
The fowl were flocking impatiently about the gate of the great barn-yard;
yonder, on the further side, from beneath the tiled roof of the line of
pigsties she could hear loud vociferations; turning her eyes towards the
stable-buildings which ran at right angles to them, she could see that
the doors were fast closed, and could hear the rattling of chains and
stamping of heavy hoofs within. The Church Meadow ought to have been cut
to-day—the grass was over-ripe as it was; men and horses should have been
at work since three o’clock. No figures appeared even in the
neighbourhood of the barn; and looking beyond to the barton proper, she
could see that it was empty. No wonder that the lowing of the cows had
sounded distant in her ears: they were still in their pasture by the
river. Poor creatures! crowding round the gate, no doubt, as the fowl
were doing close at hand, all clamouring alike for the attention which
was evidently withheld from them. What was everyone about? Why had not
the men come to their work as usual?
She performed her toilet hastily and somewhat perfunctorily, and when at
last a sleepy-looking red-haired man came slouching up the lane which led
to the farm, he was surprised to see a figure in rustling print and
broad-brimmed chip hat standing in the midst of a bevy of cocks and hens,
scattering handfuls of grain with wide impetuous sweeps of a round,
vigorous arm.
‘Hallo! What’s the hurry, Sukey?’ he inquired pleasantly.
But the face which was flashed upon him was not the rosy and somewhat
vacant one of Susan, but belonged to no less a person than Missus
herself.
‘What’s the hurry, Job?’ she repeated severely. ‘I should like to know
why there is n’t a little more hurry? What has become of all the men?
Has anybody gone to fetch the cows? What is everyone about, I say?’
Job tilted his hat a little sideways on his red locks, the better to
scratch his head, and gazed at his mistress with a puzzled and somewhat
scandalised expression.
‘Ye must expect things to be a bit onreg’lar for a bit, mum,’ he
remarked. ‘Seein’ the loss we’ve had, and us all bein’ so upset like
about poor master, we ha’n’t a-got the ’eart to go about our work as if
nothin’ had happened. It bain’t to be looked for. Nay now,’ he
continued mildly, ‘an’ we did n’t look to find yerself a-goin’ about this
way—we did n’t, sure. It scarce seems nait’ral. If I may make so bold
as to say so, it do seem’—here Job fixed an expostulatory glance on the
angry young face that was confronting him—‘it d’ seem scarce right, mum.’
‘Job Hunt,’ returned his mistress haughtily, ‘you are not called upon to
make remarks upon my actions; but I will tell you so much: it is my duty
to see that the work in this place is properly done, and I intend that it
shall be properly done. Go and call the other men at once. Tell them if
they are ever again so disgracefully late they shall all be fined. Call
them quickly,’ she added with an imperative tap of the foot, ‘and then go
and fetch the cows.’
As she turned to re-enter the house she caught sight of Susan, who was
evidently exchanging astonished and depreciatory grimaces with Job, while
Mrs. Greene, in the background, was raising hands and eyes to heaven.
‘Come, get to work,’ she cried sharply. ‘Skim the cream, Susan; and you,
Jane, get the churn ready. Well, Mrs. Greene, what are you staring at?
Have you never seen me work before, that the fact of my turning up my
sleeves need astonish you so much? I suppose you can find something to
do about the house. Give me that other skimmer, Jane.’
‘Ho dear, yes, mum, I can find a plenty to do about this here house. I
wur but a-lookin’ at you, mum, because it do really seem a’most too much
for flesh an’ blood to be a-takin’ on itself as you be a-takin’ on
yourself now, mum. Dear, yes! but it’s to be hoped as ye won’t overtax
your constitootion, Mrs. Fiander.’
‘Go and clean the kitchen grate,’ said Rosalie, beginning to skim with
great rapidity and decision; ‘and see that you blacklead it properly.’
‘Ho yes, mum, _I’ll_ blacklead it,’ returned the elder matron, without,
however, attempting to move from the spot where she stood, and continuing
to fix her eyes mournfully on her mistress—‘_I’ll_ blacklead it right
enough,’ she repeated, with a kind of groan, after a pause, during which
she had meditatively polished first one skinny bare arm and then the
other with a not over-clean apron.
‘Well, why in Heaven’s name don’t you go, then?’ cried Rosalie
impatiently, for she felt Mrs. Greene’s sorrowfully disapproving gaze
right at the back of her head.
‘I be going, mum, I be going. If I mid take the liberty of remindin’
you, mum—’t is your _hat_ as you’ve a-got on your head.’
‘Well?’ inquired Rosalie, reddening ominously.
‘Well, Mrs. Fiander,’ returned the char-woman with an insinuating smile,
‘would n’t you like me to run upstairs wi’ it now and fetch you down your
cap?’
‘No,’ replied her mistress very shortly; ‘if I had wished for it I should
have sent for it. You need not be so officious. The strings would get
in my way while I worked,’ she added a little inconsequently. She felt
she was lowering herself by making this explanation, yet she could not
bear that even Mrs. Greene and the two maids should think her wanting in
respect to Elias’s memory.
Mrs. Greene withdrew, murmuring under her breath that it was to be ’oped
as nobody would n’t chance t’ look in that morning, which was not,
indeed, very likely, the hands of the old-fashioned clock in the kitchen
beyond just pointing to the quarter-past six.
For some minutes nothing was heard but the clinking of the skimmers
against the sides of the vats as the rich cream, clotted and crinkled and
thick, was removed therefrom. The scene was a pretty one; indeed, such a
dairy on such a summer’s morning must always hold a charm and a
picturesqueness of its own; and now that the angular presence of Mrs.
Greene was removed there was absolutely no discordant element in this
cool harmony. The dairy itself was a wide, pleasant room, its buff walls
and red-flagged floor throwing out the exquisite tints of the vast tracts
of cream, each marked off by its own barrier of glancing tin, and varying
in tone from the deep yellow of that portion destined for the morning’s
churning to the warm white of the foaming pailfuls which Job poured from
time to time somewhat sulkily into the vat nearest the door. Then there
was the green of the gently swaying boughs without, seen through windows
and open door, the brilliant patch of sunlight creeping over the uneven
threshold, the glint of blue sky between sunlit green and sunlit stone.
The brave array of glittering cans on the topmost shelf added their own
share of brightness; the great earthenware crocks and pans, some the very
colour of the cream itself, some ruddy in tone, some of a deep rich
brown, lent also valuable aid; then there were tall white jars containing
lard, carefully-packed baskets and smooth wooden vessels piled high with
eggs, little squares of filmy gauze hung out on lines in readiness for
the golden rolls of butter which they were soon to enfold. The figures
of the girls themselves—for the mistress of Littlecomb Farm was no more
than a girl in years—gave the necessary and very delightful touch of
human interest. Susan and Jane, in cotton dresses and large aprons so
immaculate that the mere sight of them was sufficient to recall that it
was the first day of the week, were not without a certain rustic charm of
their own; as for Rosalie, standing in the foreground, with her sleeves
rolled up on her white arms, her print dress fitting so closely to her
beautiful form, the hair hastily rolled up escaping into such exquisite
curls and tendrils round brow and ear and shapely neck—Rosalie was as
ever what her admiring old Elias had once called her—the leading article.
When the churn was fairly at work, the skim-milk duly meted out to the
pigs, and the long procession of dairy cows were sauntering back to their
pasture under the guardianship of Job and the three ‘chaps’ who had till
then been busily milking, Rosalie removed her hat and sat down to
breakfast.
The flush of annoyance still lingered on her face, and, while she ate,
her glance wandered through the window to the premises without. She
could hear Robert Cross and James Bundy leisurely leading out the horses,
inducing them with many objurgations to stand while they were being
harnessed to the rattling, creaking mower. How slow they were! They
should have been in the field hours ago, and yet they slouched about as
though the beautiful golden morning were not already half over. Now, at
last they were starting—no, here was James coming back for something they
had forgotten. Rising hastily from her chair, she leaned out of the open
window, tapping impatiently on the pane. ‘What are you about, Bundy?
Why on earth don’t you try and make a little more haste?’
‘Mum?’ gasped Bundy, turning round a vacant, weather-beaten countenance
adorned with the smallest fraction of a nose which it was possible for
the face of man to possess.
‘I say, why don’t you make more haste when you have lost so much time
already?’
‘I be making so much haste as ever I can,’ responded James, much
aggrieved. ‘I be just a-comin’ to fetch the ile-can. ’T would n’t be no
use to get to work without the ile-can.’
‘Why did n’t you think about the oil-can while Cross was harnessing the
horses? ’t is nearly eight o’clock—you have lost half your morning’s
work.’
Bundy looked up at the sky; then, still in an aggrieved manner, at his
mistress.
‘We was all so upset,’ he was beginning, when she interrupted him
fiercely:
‘Don’t let me hear another word about your being upset! If I can attend
to my business, you can attend to yours, I should think. ’T is but an
excuse for disgraceful laziness.’
‘We _was_ upset,’ asserted Bundy with much dignity, ‘and, as for bein’
behind, if it comes to that we can keep on workin’ a bit later this
a’ternoon.’
‘You must certainly work later this afternoon; but how long will this
fine weather last, think you? Besides, you know as well as I do that it
is much better for the horses to work in the early morning. There! get
started now, and try to make up for lost time.’
She returned to her breakfast, and James rejoined his companion at a
slightly accelerated pace. But, by-and-by, her attention was caught by
the sound of voices, apparently in placid conversation. Back to the
window again flew she: the village carpenter, who was supposed to be
repairing the yard-gate, had just arrived, and was leaning negligently
against one of the posts, while Abel Hunt, Job’s brother, a large bucket
of pig-food in either hand, was leisurely talking to him.
‘I will give them a few minutes,’ said Rosalie to herself. ‘After all, I
must n’t be too hard on them.’
Once more she went back to the table, finished her egg, and drank her
second cup of tea, the trickle of talk meanwhile continuing without
ceasing.
Pushing back her chair, she returned to the window impatiently. The
carpenter had remained in the same attitude, without even unfastening his
bag of tools; Abel had set down his pails, and propped himself up against
the other gate-post; the pigs were wildly protesting in the background.
Rosalie recrossed the room hastily and went to the door.
‘Do you intend to gossip here all day?’ she inquired with flashing eyes.
‘We was jest a-talkin’ about the melancolly event,’ explained the
carpenter.
‘You will oblige me,’ said Rosalie, ‘by keeping to your work. Abel, take
those pails across to the sties at once. Remember, I will have no more
dawdling.’
Abel took up his pails, and the carpenter unfastened his tools, the
expression of both faces alike shocked, wounded, and astonished.
‘If this goes on,’ murmured Rosalie to herself, ‘I shall not only break
my heart, but go out of my mind. Oh, Elias, you were clever as well as
kind—everything seemed to go by clock-work when you were here—oh, why did
you leave me?’
CHAPTER IV
An’ o’ worken’ days, oh! he do wear
Such a funny roun’ hat,—you mid know’t—
Wi’ a brim all a-strout roun’ his hair,
An’ his glissenèn eyes down below’t;
An’ a coat wi’ broad skirts that do vlee
In the wind ov his walk, round his knee.
WILLIAM BARNES.
ALL the forenoon was passed in butter-making, and in the afternoon
Rosalie betook herself to the mead to superintend the operations of James
and Robert. It was not until after tea that she had leisure to change
her dress and make her way, by the well-known little footpath that
skirted the cornfields and wound across the downs, to Isaac Sharpe’s
farm.
She found that worthy standing contemplatively in the middle of his yard.
There had been sheep-shearing that day, and the master had worked as hard
as any of the men; now, however, the naked, ungainly-looking ewes had
returned to their pasture, the newly-taken fleeces lay neatly piled up in
a corner of the barn, and Isaac was at liberty to straighten his weary
back, relax his muscles, and smoke the pipe of peace.
Tall, massive, and imposing was this figure of his, ever at its best in
the smock-frock and serviceable corduroys and leggings of weekday wear;
his wideawake, turned up at the back and projecting in front in the
orthodox shovel form, was decidedly more becoming than the Sunday beaver.
He started as the yard-gate creaked upon its hinges, and Rosalie’s
black-robed figure passed through.
‘Why, Mrs. Fiander,’ he cried, hastening towards her, ‘be this you? I’m
glad to see ye. Is there anything I can do for ’ee?’
Rosalie could hardly have defined the motive which prompted her visit;
her desolate heart felt the need of sympathy; in this strange new life of
hers she yearned to find herself once more, if but for a moment, in touch
with the past. ‘No, Mr. Sharpe,’ she said with a little gasp, ‘I don’t
think there’s anything you can do for me. I only came because I—I—oh,
Mr. Sharpe, everything is going wrong!’
Isaac Sharpe took out his pipe and opened his eyes very wide.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘come—tell me what be the matter.’
‘Everything’s the matter,’ returned the widow in a shaking voice. ‘Oh,
Isaac, I can’t get on without Elias!’
‘Can’t ’ee now, my dear?’ returned Isaac, blinking very hard. ‘Well, I’m
sure ’t is nat’ral.’
Rosalie gave a little sob, and the farmer, stretching out a large brown
hand, patted her arm soothingly.
‘Don’t ’ee take on, though,’ he said. ‘Nay now, don’t ’ee take on, my
dear. Cryin’ never did nobody no good.’
‘I’m so lonely,’ went on the girl brokenly. ‘I miss him at every turn.’
‘Ye’d be like to do that,’ responded Sharpe judicially. ‘Dear, yes—ye’d
be like to do that.’
‘Everything is at sixes and sevens,’ she pursued plaintively. ‘The men
think they can do just as they like; it was eight o’clock before they
began their mowing this morning.’
‘Well, I never!’ ejaculated Isaac. ‘Eight o’clock! What be the world
comin’ to?’
‘The very maids won’t get up,’ continued Rosalie. ‘This was churning
morning, and it was after five before anybody moved. None of the men
came near the place until six; the cows were left in the pasture, none of
the beasts were fed!’
‘Shockin’! shockin’!’ commented the farmer. ‘Dear heart alive! I never
heard o’ sich doin’s!’
‘When I speak to them,’ cried Rosalie, her voice rising with the
recollection of her wrongs, ‘they turn round and tell me they are all too
much upset to think of work.’
‘Do they now?’ in tones of deep disgust. ‘Well, an’ that’s a pretty
story!’
‘Yes. And you know, Mr. Sharpe, ’t is the last thing Elias would have
wished—that the work should be neglected and everything allowed to go
wrong like this; yet they seem to think me heartless for expecting things
to go on as before. And the worst of it all is’—here poor Rosalie began
to weep hysterically—‘they don’t any of them believe that I am sorry for
Elias, and they think I’m going to marry again; and, and—two hateful,
odious, impudent young men have already come to court me.’
Her sobs well-nigh choked her as she made this last announcement; and
Isaac, full of concern, fell to patting her arm again.
‘Don’t ’ee now, my dear, don’t ’ee. Well, ’t is very annoyin’ for ’ee,
I’m sure. There, don’t ’ee cry so. Well, well! to think on’t! Started
coortin’ a’ready, have they? Well, they mid ha’ waited a bit! But come
in a minute, do ’ee, Mrs. Fiander, and sit ’ee down. Dear heart alive!
dear heart alive! poor Elias ’ud be terrible upset if he were to see ye
a-givin’ way like this.’
He half persuaded, half propelled the still weeping widow across the yard
and into his kitchen, where, sitting down near the table and covering her
face with her hands under the heavy crape veil, she continued to sob
until her host was nearly distracted.
‘Here, my dear, take a sup o’ this, ’t will do ye good.’
Rosalie threw back her veil and took the glass which he offered her.
Raising it to her lips, she found that the dark decoction which it
contained was excessively strong, unusually acid, and unspeakably nasty.
Fresh tears, not prompted by sorrow this time, started to her eyes as she
set down the glass.
‘Thank you, Mr. Sharpe,’ she said; ‘I am better now. I don’t think I’ll
finish it. It seems very strong.’
‘Ah, it’s that,’ agreed the farmer with some pride. ‘Sloe wine Bithey d’
call it; she do make a quart every year. Wonderful good for the spasms,
or sich-like. She do get taken that way sometimes in her in’ards, pore
old soul! an’ she says a drop o’ this do al’ays set her to rights. Sloe
wine! ah, that’s what it be called; ye’d scarce think ’twere made o’
nought but the snags what grows in the hedges—jist snags an’ a trifle o’
sugar. But I do assure ye ’t is that strong ’t will sometimes lift the
cork out o’ the bottle. Now, Mrs. Fiander, ye’d best finish it; ’t is a
pity to let the good stuff go to waste.’
But, as Rosalie gratefully but firmly declined, the worthy man appeased
his thrifty conscience by draining the glass himself.
‘Well now, Mrs. Fiander,’ he resumed, as he set it down, ‘I be trewly
sorry that ye be so vexed an’ ann’yed wi’ the men comin’ so late; but, if
I may advise ’ee, be a bit stiff wi’ ’em; don’t ’ee let ’em fancy they
can impose upon ’ee because ye be a woman.’
‘I assure you, Mr. Sharpe, I showed them very plainly that I was vexed
this morning. I spoke as severely as I could.’
‘Lard, my dear, them chaps don’t care for words; more pertic’lar a
woman’s words. Bless you! they’ve all got women-folks o’ their own, an’
they be well used to scoldin’. ’T is different wi’ us men; when we be
angry we can _dang_ here and there, and use a bit o’ language. Then, d’
ye see,’ said Isaac, leaning forward confidentially, ‘the chaps
understand as we be in earnest; but ’t ’ud be no manner o’ good your
tryin’ to do that, my dear; ’t would n’t come nat’ral to ’ee, and they
would n’t think a bit the better of ’ee for it. Nay, nay,’ he repeated
mournfully, ‘they wouldn’t think the better of ’ee.’
A faint smile hovered round Rosalie’s lips, but Isaac remained quite
serious.
‘A woman must show by her deeds that she be in earnest,’ he went on after
a pause. ‘’T is the only way, my dear. Deeds and not words for a
woman!’
Here he paused again, shaking his head reflectively. It was possible
that his thoughts had travelled back to that memorable box in which his
erring father had enshrined the riven locks that testified to his own
transgressions and the vigorous retaliation of his wife. Isaac’s late
mother had certainly been a woman of action.
‘That’s it, my dear,’ repeated Sharpe, emerging from his reverie, ‘ye’ll
be forced to turn to deeds. Next time them chaps comes late, jist you up
an’ fine them. Says you, “Short work desarves short pay. Bear in mind,”
says you, “that accordin’ to the work shall be the wage.”’
‘Yes, I might try that,’ agreed Rosalie. ‘But the worst of it is they
lose so much time and do their work so badly when they do come.’
‘Then, jist make a’ example o’ one o’ them—that’s your best plan. Give
the worst o’ them the sack, and ye’ll find the others ’ull settle down
like—like lambs,’ said the sheep-farmer, bringing out the simile
triumphantly.
‘Thank you very much for your advice, Mr. Sharpe. I’ll take it. And
now—’ she paused a moment, blushing—‘what would you recommend me to do
with regard to my other difficulty? How am I to make people understand
that I don’t mean to marry again?’
‘Well, a body ’ud really think they need n’t be so pushin’,’ remarked
Isaac. ‘It be downright ondacent for ’em to be a-hangin’ about ’ee so
soon—’
‘They have no business to think of it at all, Mr. Sharpe,’ interrupted
the widow fiercely. ‘I shall never, _never_ put anyone in my dear
Elias’s place!’
‘That’s very well said, my dear,’ returned Isaac, looking at her with
real kindness and emotion. ‘’T is the proper spirit. I myself, as you
may have heard me say, was never one to set up for wedlock. Well, ye’ve
had a husband, and a good ’un, an’ you be in the right o’t to be
satisfied wi’ that, just as I be satisfied wi’ havin’ no wife at all.
Dear heart alive! when I were a young chap the maids did use to be
castin’ their eyes at me, but I never took no notice, and when I grew
more staid there was one very perseverin’ woman, I do mind—very
perseverin’ she were. Ah, she come to house here, time and again, wi’
one excuse or another, and at last, so soon as I did see her comin’ I did
use to shut door in her face.’
‘Why, that’s what I shall do,’ cried Rosalie, laughing, and clapping her
hands—‘that’s the very thing I shall do. Thank you for the hint, Mr.
Sharpe. That again, you see, will be deeds, not words.’
Isaac looked kindly at the bright face and sparkling eyes, and nodded
cheerfully.
‘That be the way to take ’em.’
‘I only wish I had thought of it on Sunday,’ she went on. ‘Those two men
sat and talked so long, that I was wishing them anywhere. I expected you
on Sunday, Mr. Sharpe,’ she added, in an altered voice, while the smile
vanished from her face.
‘Did ’ee?’ said Isaac, abashed, and guilty.
‘Yes, I did, indeed—I thought you would have come if only in memory of
old times.’
‘Why, to tell the trewth, I could n’t a-bear to go nigh the place,’
blurted out the farmer. ‘Nay, nay—I’ve been a-goin’ to Littlecomb Farm
Sunday after Sunday for nigh upon five and twenty year. I don’t know how
you could expect me, Mrs. Fiander, to go there now as he be gone.’
He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his smock-frock, and at this tribute
to Elias’s memory his widow forgave the gruffness of Isaac’s tone, and
almost, but not quite, the slight to herself.
She gazed at him for a moment in silence with a quivering lip, and he
wiped his eyes again and heaved a sigh.
‘You do not think of me at all,’ said Rosalie, at last. ‘You don’t
consider my loneliness, or what I feel when I sit there, looking at the
two empty chairs, and thinking of how I used to sit between you, and how
happy we used to be. Is n’t it worse for me to see his empty place than
you? You might have come—even if it did hurt you—you might have come to
bring me a word of comfort. I think you were very unkind, Mr. Sharpe!’
‘Don’t ’ee now, my dear,’ stammered Isaac, almost purple in the face, and
with his usually keen eyes suffused with tears. ‘I do really feel
touched to the ’eart when you look at me so pitiful and say such things.
God knows I’d be main glad to comfort you, but what can the likes of I
do?’
‘You could let me feel that I had still a friend,’ sobbed Rosalie. ‘You
might come and sit in your old chair, and we could—we could talk about
Elias.’
‘That’s trew, so we could,’ agreed Isaac in a choked voice. ‘Well, next
Sunday—if I live so long—I’ll not let nothing hinder me. I’ll come, my
dear. I d’ ’low I should ha’ thought of you yesterday, but I could n’t
seem to think o’ nothing but how ’Lias war n’t there.’
‘Well, I shall be very glad to see you,’ said Rosalie, rising, and
tremulously beginning to pull down her veil. ‘And I am very grateful for
your kindness. Perhaps,’ she added hesitatingly, ‘you might be able to
look in one day during the week?’
‘Nay,’ returned the farmer, ‘nay, Mrs. Fiander, not before Sunday. I be
very busy to-week—we be shearin’, d’ ye see, and there’s the big mead to
be cut. Nay—not before Sunday.’
‘Oh, very well,’ she responded a little stiffly; and she went out of the
house and across the yard without speaking again except to say Good-bye
at the gate.
The downs were now all bathed with the light of the sinking sun, and the
topmost branches of the hedges which bordered the cornfields seemed
turned to gold; while the banks beneath had begun already to assume the
deeper tint that spoke of gathering dew—dew that the morning light would
turn to a very sheet of silver; but Rosalie could only see the beauties
of the world without through a mist of crape and tears.
‘I have not a friend in the world,’ she said to herself, ‘not one! Isaac
would n’t even take the trouble to walk a quarter of a mile to see how I
was getting on after following his advice. He is only coming on Sunday
as a sort of duty, not because he wants to. Well, never mind, I will
show him and everyone that I can look after myself. I want nobody’s
pretended pity since nobody really cares.’
And she held up her head beneath its heavy veil, and went on her way with
a stately carriage and a firm step.
CHAPTER V
He drow’d
Hizzelf about, an’ teäv’d an’ blow’d,
Lik’ any uptied calf.
* * *
An’ mutter’d out sich dreats, an’ wrung
His vist up sich a size!
WILLIAM BARNES.
ON the next morning when the men came slowly sauntering to their work
they were surprised to see Mrs. Fiander, clad this time not in homely
print but in ceremonious black, standing by her own door, with a severe
expression of countenance. She held a note-book in her hand, and as each
arrived she jotted down some memorandum therein. When the last straggler
had appeared upon the scene, she summoned the entire band before her.
‘Men,’ she said, speaking calmly and very distinctly, ‘since you seem to
pay no attention to what I say, I must show you that I am not to be
trifled with. I shall fine every one of you this morning for being late.
I shall continue to fine you each morning that you are late, and I shall
deduct from your pay a certain amount for every hour that you wilfully
waste. In fact, for the future your wage shall be in exact proportion to
the work you do.’
The men stared, gaped, and looked sullenly first at one another and then
at their mistress.
‘Do you understand?’ she inquired sharply.
Job Hunt, his red-bearded face even more glowing than usual, answered in
surly tones for himself and comrades.
‘Nay, missus, us can’t say as we do!’
‘Well, then, I’ll make it clear to you,’ rang out the brisk young voice.
‘You are paid for the work you do during certain hours, and if you don’t
come here punctually, or if you waste any of those hours, I shall deduct
from your weekly wage the value of the lost time—I shan’t pay you, in
fact, for work you don’t do!’
‘Nay, now,’ responded Job, rolling his head from side to side, and
assuming a bullying air. ‘I don’t hold wi’ these here reg’lations. Us
don’t want no new rules, do us, mates?’
‘Nay, that we don’t,’ came the answer in a chorus of growls.
‘Whether you want them or not, I mean to keep to them,’ returned Rosalie.
‘That will do; you can all go to work now.’
She turned, and went into the house; her heart was beating very fast, and
she was rather white about the lips, but she had borne herself bravely,
and no one would have guessed the difficulty she had found in nerving
herself to take this stand.
She could hear the men’s voices murmuring together discontentedly, but
by-and-by the sound of heavy slouching steps moving away in different
directions warned her that the group had dispersed.
It being the morning for cheese-making, she presently went upstairs to
change her imposing black robe for her working dress, and, chancing as
she came downstairs to look out of the window, she observed that Job Hunt
was standing, arms a-kimbo, by the pigsties, in close conversation with
his brother. Now, Job should at that moment have been far on his way to
the pasture; Abel ought to have been feeding the pigs: this was palpable
defiance.
‘Deeds, not words,’ said Rosalie to herself. ‘They think I am merely
threatening—I must show them I am in earnest.’
She went across the yard, note-book in hand.
‘It is now half-past five,’ she remarked. ‘You, Job, are two hours and a
half late; you, Abel, an hour. I have made a note of the time.
Moreover, if I find that you continue to disobey me I shall not keep you
in my service.’
Job made an indescribable sound, between a snort and a groan, and slowly
walked away. Abel, however, continued to stare darkly at his mistress,
without changing his position.
As Rosalie, now thoroughly incensed, was about to pour out upon him the
vials of her wrath, she suddenly perceived—the fact being unmistakably
impressed upon her—that the pigsties near which she stood were in a most
disgraceful condition.
‘Abel,’ she said, ‘when were these sties cleaned out? Not, I am sure, on
Saturday.’
‘I were—mortal busy o’ Saturday,’ returned Abel in sepulchral tones.
‘Why were you more busy last Saturday than on any other Saturday?’
Abel shuffled from one foot to the other, and repeated sulkily that he
had been mortal busy.
‘You must clean them as soon as ever you have fed the pigs,’ said Rosalie
sharply. ‘’t is enough to bring fever to the place to have them in this
state.’
‘Pigs is n’t p’ison,’ responded Abel roughly.
‘Do not attempt to answer me back like that,’ she cried. ‘It must be
very bad for the poor animals themselves. Get to work without a moment’s
delay.’
‘Saturday is the day,’ growled the man. ‘I’m—blowed if I clean ’em out
afore Saturday!’
‘Mind what you are about,’ said his mistress sternly, uplifting a warning
fore-finger. ‘I will not put up with impertinence or disobedience.’
‘Saturday is the day,’ shouted Abel; and the shuffling movement became so
violent and rapid that he actually seemed to dance.
‘This will never do,’ said Rosalie. ‘I see I must make a change at once.
Abel Hunt, I give you notice to leave on Saturday week.’
‘One change be enough for me, Widow Fiander,’ retorted Abel, uplifting
his voice as though his mistress stood a hundred yards away from him
instead of barely two.
Rosalie’s lips quivered.
‘’T is your own fault,’ she cried passionately. ‘If you behave in this
way I must make an example of you. Unless you do as I tell you, you must
go!’
‘I’m danged if I do clean the pigs out afore Saturday,’ shrieked Abel;
and he threw his hat upon the ground, waved his arms, and stamped about
like a maniac. ‘I don’t want no danged women-folk to come a-orderin’ o’
me;’ and here Abel relieved his feelings by what Isaac Sharpe would
delicately call ‘a bit o’ language.’
‘Clean your pigs yourself, Widow Fiander. One change be enough for me!
Notice me so much as ever ye like, I’ll not clean them pigs out afore
Saturday!’
Then came a little more ‘language,’ and so on _da capo_.
Never had such an experience fallen to Rosalie’s lot before; neither her
kind old grandfather nor her doting husband had ever given her a rough
word; while they lived her subordinates had invariably obeyed her orders
with alacrity, and treated her personally with respect. The sound of
Abel’s strident tones, the sight of his inflamed face, above all the
words he used and the insolence of his manner, positively frightened her.
She turned pale, trembled—then, making a valiant effort to stand her
ground, threw out her hand as though to command silence; but, as Abel
continued to dance and rave, sheer physical terror overcame her, and she
suddenly turned and fled, her heart thumping violently against her ribs,
the tears—never very far off during these first days of her
bereavement—springing to her eyes.
She rushed upstairs to her room and flung herself across the bed, burying
her face in the pillow in an agony of humiliation.
‘What a fool I am! What a miserable fool! To be afraid of that wretched
booby! How can I ever hope to rule these people if I show the white
feather at the outset? Now, of course, they will think that they’ve only
got to bully me and I shall at once give in. Oh, fool, fool! To give
way to silly womanish fears at such a moment! Oh, oh! how shall I ever
look them in the face?’
She continued to roll her head on the pillow for some moments; her cheeks
had now become burning, and her heart still beat fast, no longer with
terror, but with anger. By-and-by she sat up, pushed back her hair, and
shook out the folds of her dress.
‘After all, ’t is never too late to mend,’ she said to herself.
She went downstairs, and into the dairy, directing her maids somewhat
sharply, and setting about her own work with flushed cheeks and a serious
face. In course of time her agitation subsided, and after her solitary
breakfast she was quite herself again.
At noon, as she passed through the kitchen to the parlour, she chanced to
glance through the open door, and observed that the men had gathered
together in the yard, and were eagerly talking instead of making their
way homewards, or retiring to the barn to eat their dinners. She feigned
to pay no attention to them, however, and walked on to her own quarters.
Presently she became aware that the whole body was advancing towards the
house, and a moment later Susan thrust in her round face at the door.
‘Please, mum, the men be wishin’ to speak a few words with ’ee.’
‘Very well,’ said Rosalie, ‘I will go out to them.’
On reaching the threshold of the outer door she paused, looking round on
the group, and waiting for them to take the initiative. Job was, as
before, the first to speak.
‘I be come to tell ’ee, Mrs. Fiander, as I wish to notice ye for Saturday
week. These here changes bain’t to my likin’, and the mistress bain’t to
my likin’; so ye’ll please to suit yourself by that time, mum.’
He spoke gruffly, and eyed her impertinently, but this time she did not
flinch.
‘Very well, Job,’ she said; ‘I have no doubt I shall be able to do so
without any difficulty.’
Abel was the next to advance, but Rosalie waved him aside.
‘As it has already been settled that you are to leave,’ she remarked,
‘you can have nothing to say to me. Step back. Now who comes next?’
James Bundy, it seemed, came next; he approached a little hesitatingly,
looking hard at his mistress.
‘Please, mum, I wish to leave on Saturday week.’
‘Quite right,’ returned Rosalie with great unconcern. ‘Next!’
James Bundy stepped back and Robert Cross stepped forward, smiling
obsequiously.
‘I’m sure, mum, it do go agen me terrible to make sich a break as this
here, but still, d’ ye see, we can’t nohow put up with—’
‘You need not take the trouble to explain—you wish to leave on Saturday
week with the others, I suppose?’
‘’Ees—leastways—’
‘That will do,’ said Rosalie. ‘Now, Sam Belbin, you wish to leave too?’
Sam Belbin made a step forward and glanced round appealingly.
By this time his companions were looking very blank. The sudden assault
by which they had expected to frighten their mistress into capitulation
had apparently failed. Their respective attitudes had changed; she was
calm and unmoved, and they were beginning to be seriously uneasy. Good
places and regular pay were not to be picked up every day in that part of
the world.
‘Well, Sam?’ said Rosalie kindly, as though to help him out.
Sam was the chief of the three ‘dairy chaps,’ a good-looking young fellow
of about four-and-twenty, with a dark, good-humoured countenance and a
certain jaunty air. As he now advanced a smile flashed suddenly over his
face, his white teeth gleaming out pleasantly.
‘Mum,’ he said. ‘Mum—Mrs. Fiander—’
She smiled too.
‘Well, Sam, what have _you_ got to say? The usual thing, I suppose?’
‘No, mum—not at all, mum. I—wish to say as I haven’t got no fault to
find at all, mum. I’ll come in better time to-morrow morn, an’ ye’ll not
have to speak to me agen, mum.’
‘_Very_ good!’ said Rosalie in a different tone. At this unexpected
speech a lump came in her throat, but she choked it down.
‘Have the others got anything to say?’ she inquired. ‘Because, if so, I
hope they will make haste and say it. My dinner will be getting cold.’
The men who had not hitherto spoken looked at each other uncertainly,
their glances finally resting on the beaming countenance of Sam Belbin.
After all, had he not chosen the better part?
‘I do agree with he,’ said one under his breath, and then another.
By-and-by all remarked aloud, somewhat falteringly, that they just
thought they would mention their wish to give more satisfaction in the
future.
Job and his followers scowled at these renegades, but their mistress
rewarded them with a gracious smile.
‘Very well said,’ she remarked. ‘That’s the proper spirit. Do your duty
by me, and you will find me ready to do mine by you.’
The day was hers, as she felt when she returned in triumph to her dinner.
Isaac Sharpe happened to be strolling through the village that evening,
when he was accosted by Mrs. Belbin, who was standing, as was her custom
at this hour, arms a-kimbo, on her doorstep.
‘There be a great upset up at Fiander’s, bain’t there, sir?’
Isaac brought his slow, ruminative gaze to bear on her.
‘Why, what upset do ye mean, Mrs. Belbin? Things be like to be upset now
that the master’s gone to the New House. But I hope as your son an’ the
rest of ’em be giving the widow so little trouble as ever they can.’
‘I dunno about that, sir. My Sam he do tell I as there was a regular
blow-up this mornin’. I d’ ’low as my son _he_ did behave so well as
ever he could. Says he to Mrs. Fiander, “Mum,” he says, “I have n’t no
fault to find wi’ you at all; and I’ll do my _h_endeavours to gi’e ye
satisfaction.” That were what _he_ did say—my son Sam did; but there was
others as, accordin’ to all accounts, went on most scandalious.’
Here Mrs. Belbin rolled up her eyes and wagged her head significantly.
‘Ah,’ put in Mrs. Paddock, hastening to cross the road and join in the
conversation, ‘it did give me sich a turn when I heard on it, that I did
sit down on the table. ’T were a good job as I did, else I should ha’
fell down. Sich doin’s! The whole lot of ’em—aye, every single one as
works for her—marchin’ up to give her notice! ’T was enough to frighten
a pore lone woman out of her wits.’
‘I have n’t heard a word of this,’ cried Isaac emphatically. ‘The men
gave her notice, d’ ye say?’
‘All except my Sam,’ put in Mrs. Belbin proudly. ‘’Ees, they all did go
up in a lump, so to speak, and noticed her, one arter the other, till it
come to my Sam’s turn, an’ then he up an’ says, “Mrs. Fiander, mum,” says
he, “I have n’t got no fault to find wi’ ye;” and a few more, when they
heard that, heartened theirselves up and follered his example.’
‘’T was very well done o’ your Sam,’ said Mrs. Paddock in a complimentary
tone; ‘but as for them others—why, they do say as Abel Hunt were
a-dancin’ an’ a-swearin’ like a madman. “I want no orderin’ from danged
women-folk,” says he, just so bold as if the missus was his wife. And
Job, he did shout at her so rough, and speak so impident! ’T was really
shockin’!’
‘I must go up and see her,’ said Sharpe, much perturbed. ‘I’m sure I
don’t know whatever’s come to folks these times. As to them Hunts—I’ll
gi’e them a bit o’ my mind. They should be ashamed o’ theirselves to
treat a pore young creature so disrespectful. They do think, I s’ppose,
as Mrs. Fiander has n’t got nobody to purtect her, and they can serve her
so bad as they like. But them as was friends to her husband is friends
to her. Pore young thing! Well, I be glad your son did do his duty by
her, anyways, Mrs. Belbin. My Father A’mighty, these be times!’
He walked away at an accelerated pace, the women looking after him.
‘He did speak so feelin’, did n’t he?’ commented Mrs. Paddock. ‘“Pore
young creature!” says he, d’ ye mind? An’ “Pore young thing!” Master be
a very feelin’ man!’
‘Ah,’ agreed Mrs. Belbin; ‘an’ he did say as he were glad my Sam did do
his duty. Ah, he be a good man, master be! But I would n’t like so very
much to be Abel Hunt jist now—nay, nor Job neither.’
CHAPTER VI
Souvent femme varie,
Bien fol est qui s’y fie.
THE mistress of Littlecomb Farm had no cause to complain of the
unpunctuality of any of her workpeople on the following morning. Each
man appeared at the very moment he was supposed to appear, the maids were
up betimes, and the business of the day progressed with far greater speed
than usual.
At dinner-time she again observed a group of men in the yard, smaller in
number, however, than on the preceding day, and talking with dismal
countenances and hesitating tones. Susan came presently to announce, as
before, that some of the men wished to speak to her.
Rosalie went out, and discovered a detachment of four awaiting her, two
with plaintive, wobegone faces, the others in a state of surly
depression.
‘Missus,’ stammered James Bundy, ‘we be a-come—me and these here chaps—be
a-come to ’pologise, and to say as we hopes ye won’t bear no malice, and
as ye’ll overlook what has passed. We’ll undertake to give satisfaction
from this time for’ard.’
‘’T is a pity you did not say that yesterday, James,’ said Rosalie
severely.
Bundy looked at Cross, and the latter’s jaw fell.
‘If ye’d please to overlook it, mum,’ resumed James, falteringly. ‘We
was, so to speak, took by surprise wi’ the new rules, and we was
persuaded’—here he darted a reproachful glance at Joe—‘I’ve got a long
family, mum,’ he added tearfully, ‘and my wife—she be near her time wi’
the eleventh—’
‘Well, James, you have been foolish, but I do not altogether think it was
your fault. I will make no definite promise, but I will see how you go
on between this and Saturday week.’
‘I be to go on Saturday week?’ ejaculated James, whose wits were none of
the keenest, and who was more impressed by the severity of the tone than
by Rosalie’s actual words.
‘No, no, you foolish fellow! Come, I will give you another chance; but
mind you behave very well.’
Robert Cross next came forward.
‘Mine be a very long family, too,’ he began, having evidently remarked
the happy results which had ensued from Bundy’s plea. Rosalie stopped
him:
‘Well, I will give you another chance, Cross,’ she said. ‘Next time,
think twice before you follow a bad leader. As for you, Abel Hunt,’ she
said, turning sternly to that gentleman, ‘I am at a loss to know what you
can have to say—in fact, I have no wish to hear it, whatever it may be.
You must go. No apology can atone for your insolence yesterday.’
‘And how be you goin’ to manage about them pigs?’ inquired Abel
plaintively.
‘That is no concern of yours.’
‘Mr. Sharpe was a-speakin’ to me yesterday,’ put in Job, very humbly, for
his courage was fast oozing away, ‘an’ he did say ’twould be terrible
ill-convenient for ’ee to have so many chaps a-leavin’ together, an’ so
me an’ my brother agreed as we’d ax to stop on.’
‘I can do very well without you,’ retorted Mrs. Fiander tartly. ‘No,
Job, you have behaved too badly. You have been the ringleader of this
disgraceful business—you must certainly go.’
‘On Saturday week?’ faltered Job.
‘Yes, Saturday week—you _and_ Abel. How Abel can suppose I could
possibly keep him after such conduct, I can’t imagine. I certainly will
not.’
‘Mr. Sharpe did say’—Job was beginning, now almost in tears, when she
interrupted him relentlessly.
‘Never mind what Mr. Sharpe said. I have quite made up my mind as to
what I shall do.’
She was thoroughly in earnest, and the men knew it. They fell back
ruefully, and their young mistress returned to the house, carrying her
head very high and setting her face sternly.
When her work was over that afternoon she set out, with a business-like
air, on what seemed to be a tour of inspection; first walking briskly
along the rows of pigsties, the condition of which had on the day before
given rise to so much controversy. All was now as it should be; Abel,
Sam, and one or two of the other subordinates having devoted their
attention to them at early dawn. Here were pigs of every age and degree,
from the venerable matron to the spry young porker just beginning to
devote himself to the serious business of life—namely, growing fat.
Seventy-two in all, and most of them doomed to destruction within a few
months: that was the part of the economy of farming which Rosalie most
disliked; it was the blot on the otherwise poetical and peaceful
avocation. But she had hitherto been taught to consider the presence of
these pigs an absolute necessity. Was this really the case? Might not
she, with her woman’s wit, devise some better expedient by means of which
the obnoxious animals could be dispensed with, and at the same time waste
of skim-milk and whey avoided?
Leaving the yard, she betook herself to the orchard, where a few more
porcine families were taking exercise. Their presence somewhat detracted
from the picturesque appearance of the place, which, though the ‘blooth’
or blossom had long since fallen, had still a considerable share of
beauty of its own. The sunlight beating down now through the delicate
green leafage brought out wonderful silvery lights from the lichened
trunks, and outlined the curiously gnarled branches. It struck out a
golden path across the lush grass for Rosalie to walk on, and she passed
slowly down the glade with bent head and serious face.
Turning when she reached the end to retrace her steps, she saw a
well-known sturdy form approaching her, and advanced to meet Isaac
Sharpe, still with a certain queenly air, and without quickening her
pace. Isaac’s countenance, on the contrary, wore a perturbed and puzzled
expression; his brow was anxiously furrowed, and he gazed hard at Mrs.
Fiander as he hastened towards her.
‘I’m a-feared ye’ve had a deal o’ trouble, here,’ he began.
‘Yes; I followed your advice, you see.’
‘And it did n’t altogether answer?’ said the farmer, with a nervous
laugh.
‘Oh, yes, it answered very well. I think the men know I’m in earnest
now.’
‘Them two Hunts come round to my place at dinner-time; they were in a
taking, poor chaps! But ’twill do them good. All the same, I think I’d
let ’em off, if I was you, Mrs. Fiander. Job be a roughish sort o’ chap,
but he be a good cowman; an’ Abel, he be wonderful with the management o’
pigs.’
‘I’m not going to let them off,’ said Rosalie, her face hardening again
as she thought of Abel’s maniacal dance, and of the loud voice which had
frightened her, and of Job’s insolent manner when he had said, ‘The
missus bain’t to my likin’.’
‘Well, but ’twill be a bit ’ard to find as good,’ Isaac objected.
‘P’r’aps ye’ll not better yourself. I doubt ’t will be harder for you to
get on wi’ strange men.’
‘I am not going to put strange men in their place. I am not going to
hire any more men; I’m going to have women. I can manage women very
well.’
‘But, my dear,’ cried Isaac, opening his eyes very wide, and speaking in
horror-stricken tones, ‘women can’t do men’s work.’
‘No, but they can do women’s work. I have thought it all out, Mr.
Sharpe, and my mind is made up. Job and Abel must go. I shall put Sam
Belbin in Job’s place.’
‘Well, he have behaved well to ’ee,’ conceded Isaac, unwillingly; ‘but he
be young. I doubt if he’s fit for ’t.’
‘I’ve watched him,’ returned Rosalie, positively, ‘and I think he’s quite
fit for it. He has worked under Job for some time, and is a capital
milker. I think he will manage very well. As to Abel, I shall put no
one in his place, for I mean to sell the pigs.’
‘Sell the pigs!’ ejaculated Isaac—‘at this time o’ year?’ His face
became absolutely tragic, but Rosalie merely nodded.
‘Why, what’s to become o’ your skim-milk,’ he gasped, ‘an’ the whey, and
that?’
‘There will be no skim-milk,’ said Rosalie. ‘I shall make Blue Vinney
cheese, as I used to make when I was with my grandfather. Some people
are very fond of it. That is made entirely of skim-milk, you know. As
for the whey, there will not be much nourishment in it, but I shall keep
a few sows still, just to consume that and the butter-milk. They will
not require much attention as they walk about here, you see, and there is
always a lot of waste green stuff.’
‘I don’t think ye’ll find many folks here what cares for the Blue Vinney
cheese,’ said Isaac, still much dejected. ‘Nay, ’t is all the Ha’-skim
as they likes hereabouts. The Blue Vinney has gone out o’ fashion, so to
speak.’
‘If they don’t buy them here I can send them to Dorchester,’ said the
widow resolutely. ‘They used to buy them up there faster than I could
make them. So you see there will be no waste, Mr. Sharpe; there will be
less work to do outside, and therefore I shall not miss Job or Abel; but,
as we shall be very busy in the dairy, I must have two or three extra
women to help me.’
Isaac stared at her ruefully; she looked brighter than she had done since
her husband’s death, but she also looked determined. He shook his head
slowly; his mind was of the strictly conservative order, and the
contemplated abolition of pigs from the premises of this large dairy-farm
seemed to him an almost sacrilegious innovation. Moreover, to sell pigs
in July; to make cheeses that nobody in that part of the world cared to
eat; to replace two seasoned men who knew their business—whatever might
be their faults—with that dangerous commodity, womankind—the whole
experiment seemed to him utterly wild, and pregnant with disaster.
‘I mean to do it,’ said Rosalie, defying the condemnation in his face.
‘By this time next year you will congratulate me on my success.’
‘I hope so, I am sure,’ said Isaac in a slightly offended tone. ‘I came
here to advise ’ee, but it seems ye don’t want no advice.’
‘Oh yes, I do,’ she cried, softening in a moment. ‘I value it of all
things, Mr. Sharpe. My one comfort in my difficulties is the thought
that I can talk them over with you. I have laid my plan before you quite
simply, in the hope that you would approve.’
‘Well, my dear,’ said Isaac, somewhat mollified, ‘I don’t approve, d’ ye
see? Since you ask my advice, I’ll tell ye plain that I don’t think the
plan will work. Ye won’t be able to sell your pigs to begin with; then
ye’ll want a man wi’ more experience than Sam to look after the cows; it
bain’t such easy work—nay, that it bain’t. Then, as to gettin’ more
women ’bout the place, I don’t hold with the notion. I don’t think it
’ud benefit ye, my dear. I don’t trewly.’
Rosalie appeared to meditate.
‘Think it over, Mrs. Fiander,’ he urged; ‘don’t do nothing in a hurry;
that be my advice.’
‘Thank you very much. Yes, I’ll think it over. You’ll come on Sunday,
won’t you, Mr. Sharpe?’
‘’Ees,’ agreed Isaac doubtfully. ‘’Ees, I’ll come on Sunday. I be main
glad you be thinking of taking my advice, Mrs. Fiander.’
‘I am grateful to you for giving it,’ said Rosalie with a sweet smile;
and the farmer walked away, thinking that on the whole women were far
less unreasonable than he had hitherto supposed.
The next day was Thursday—early closing day at Branston—therefore no one
was surprised when Mrs. Fiander, having as she averred some business to
do in the town, ordered the gig in the forenoon. It was the first time
she had used that vehicle since her husband’s death, and she looked
sorrowful enough as she climbed into it, clad in her deepest weeds.
The steady old horse looked round when she gathered up the reins, as
though wondering at the innovation—for Elias had always been accustomed
to drive—and was with some difficulty induced to start.
‘Nigger be so wise as a Christian, that he be,’ commented Bundy, as the
gig and its occupant disappeared. ‘He was a-standin’ and a-waitin’ for
master, so sensible as I mid do myself. But he’ll have to get used to
the change the same as the rest of us.’
‘Ay, an’ p’r’aps he’ll not like it so very well,’ returned Abel
sardonically. ‘Give a woman a whip in her hand, and she fancies she’s
bound to lay it on.’
But Nigger was suffered to jog along the road at his own pace, for the
old sadness which had fallen upon Rosalie had for a moment checked her
eager spirit, and a new preoccupation was, moreover, now added to it.
Would Elias approve of what she was about to do, or would he agree with
Isaac? No, surely he would say that she knew best; he was always pleased
with anything she did. He used to say that she was the best manager he
had ever known; and, on the other hand, used frequently to speak of
Isaac’s ‘notions’ with good-humoured derision. It will be seen that Mrs.
Fiander’s meditations over her friend’s advice had resulted, as indeed
might have been expected, in the determination to adhere to her original
plan, and she was now on her way to interview two personages whose
co-operation would be necessary in carrying it out.
Her appearance in the shop of Mr. Hardy, the principal grocer of the
town, caused a certain amount of commotion; everybody turned to look at
the beautiful young widow, who had indeed for many days past formed the
principal topic of conversation among the townsfolk; and much interest
was aroused by her murmured request to see Mr. Hardy in private.
‘Certainly, Mrs. Fiander. Step this way, ma’am. John, open the door
there!’
John Hardy, a tall, good-looking young man in a white linen jacket,
hastened to obey his parent’s behest, and was even good enough to
accompany the visitor along the passage which led from the shop to the
family sitting-room. It was empty at this hour, Mrs. Hardy being
presumably occupied in household duties; and Mr. John ushered Rosalie in
with much ceremony, and invited her to be seated in the best armchair.
Some disappointment was perceptible in his ingenuous countenance when he
found that the interview which had been so mysteriously asked for was
merely connected with cheese; but his father listened to Rosalie’s
proposition with grave attention.
‘I don’t exactly see how the plan would work,’ he remarked, shaking his
head. ‘We sell your Ha’skim cheeses very fairly well, Mrs. Fiander.’
Mr. Hardy was a discreet person, and was determined not to commit
himself. ‘But as for the Blue Vinney, I’d be very glad to oblige you,
but I’m really afraid—you see there’s scarcely any demand for Blue Vinney
nowadays. A few of the old folks ask for it now and then, but we don’t
get, not to say, a reg’lar custom for ’t, and it would n’t be worth our
while to keep it.’
‘I am considered a particularly good hand at making Blue Vinney,’ said
Rosalie. ‘I used to be quite celebrated for it when I lived near
Dorchester—in fact, I could easily sell my cheeses now at Dorchester,
only I thought I would give you the first offer as you have dealt with me
so long.’
Growing warm in her excitement, she threw back her veil: John Hardy,
gazing at her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, thought Mrs. Fiander had
never looked so handsome as in her widow’s weeds.
‘Dorchester!’ commented the senior. ‘That would be a long way for you to
send, ma’am.’
‘I am sure,’ put in the son quickly, ‘we’d be sorry to think as Mrs.
Fiander should need to take her cheeses to Dorchester, father.’
The elder Mr. Hardy glanced from one to the other of the two young faces,
and, as Rosalie bestowed a grateful smile upon his son, an idea seemed to
strike him.
‘Well,’ he said good-naturedly, ‘you are trying an experiment, I
understand, Mrs. Fiander. There’s always a certain amount o’ risk in an
experiment; but still, “Nothing venture, nothing have,” they say. If
you’re willing to venture I shall be glad to help you all I can. Send
your cheeses to me, and I’ll do my best to sell ’em. I won’t promise to
pay money down for ’em,’ he added, cautiously, ‘same as I do for the
Ha’skims, but I’ll try an’ sell ’em for you, and we can settle about them
after.’
‘I am very much obliged,’ said Rosalie, a little blankly, however, for
she had not been accustomed to do business in this manner.
‘We will use our utmost endeavours to push the goods—of that you may be
sure,’ cried young John eagerly; and she smiled upon him again, so
graciously that he somewhat lost his head, and made several incoherent
statements as to the excellence of Blue Vinney cheese for which his
worthy father subsequently brought him to book.
‘That’s not the way to get round a woman, my lad,’ he remarked. ‘Mrs. F.
will just think you be right down silly; the notion o’ tellin’ her as
Blue Vinney cheese was richer to the palate than Rammil—why, Rammil’s
made altogether o’ good new milk, and this here’s nothin’ but skim. She
makes cheese o’ skim instead o’ givin’ it to the pigs, and you go and
tell her all that rubbish. She’s no fool—the widow is n’t—that is n’t
the way to make up to her.’
Meanwhile Rosalie had driven across the market-place and up a side street
to the house of a certain auctioneer, and to her great joy found him at
home.
He was a stout middle-aged man, with some pretensions to good looks, and
more to being a dandy. He was attired in a sporting costume of quite
correct cut, and received his visitor with an air of jovial hospitality.
‘Delighted to see you, I’m sure, Mrs. Fiander. I feel _h_onoured. I am
at your service for anything you may wish—you may command me, ma’am.’
Rosalie had begun by expressing a desire to transact a little business
with him, and now proceeded to explain its nature.
‘I wish to sell my pigs by auction,’ she said. ‘I have about sixty-five
to dispose of, and I should like the sale to take place as early as
possible next week.’
‘Next week!’ ejaculated the auctioneer, his face falling.
‘Yes,’ said Rosalie, with great decision.
‘But—have you considered the question? It would be difficult to sell off
such a number of pigs at any season of the year, but now—in the height of
the summer! If I may advise you, Mrs. Fiander, don’t be in such a hurry.
Wait and sell the pigs at a more convenient time. Nobody’s killing pigs
now, and most people as go in for fatting pigs have got as many as they
want by this time.’
‘It must be next week,’ said the widow obstinately. Job and Abel were
leaving on the Saturday, and the stock must be got rid of before the new
era began.
‘You’ll lose to a certainty, ma’am,’ said Mr. Wilson, running his hand
through his well-oiled hair. ‘What with all the regulations on account
of the swine fever, the selling of such a number of pigs would be a
difficult matter—at any season, as I say, and you don’t give me no time
scarcely to get out my bills—’
‘The sale must take place before Saturday week,’ insisted Rosalie. ‘You
must do the best you can for me, Mr. Wilson.’
‘You may rely on that, Mrs. Fiander; but it really grieves me to think
that you should lose so much.’
He paused, thoughtfully biting the end of one finger, and suffering his
eyes meanwhile to travel slowly over the handsome face and graceful
figure of his client. During this scrutiny he was not unobservant of the
rich materials of which her dress was composed, and her general
appearance of mournful prosperity.
‘Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, he said. ‘It’s against my own
interest, but I always like to oblige a lady—particularly such a lady as
you, Mrs. Fiander. I’ll drive round the country and see if I can
persuade people to buy up those pigs by private contract. I know a
pig-jobber over Shaftesbury side as might be glad to take a good many off
you, if he got them at a low price. If I understand you, Mrs. Fiander,
the price is not an object to you?’
‘No—o,’ faltered Rosalie. ‘Of course, I should like as much money as
possible for them, but the price is not so important as to get rid of the
animals as soon as possible.’
‘Just so,’ agreed the auctioneer cheerfully. ‘Well, Mrs. Fiander, I
shall lose by it, as I say, but I will try and arrange matters for you in
this way. Under the circumstances, ma’am, I grudge no time or trouble
spent in your service. I am always thought to be a lady’s man—my late
poor wife used to say that my consideration for ladies injured the
business; but, as I used to tell her, a man has a heart or else he has
n’t. _If_ he has a heart—if he has more feelings than his neighbours, he
is n’t to blame for it. “Let the business go, my dear,” I ’d say, “but
don’t ask me to be hard on a woman.”’
It had been whispered among the gossips of Branston that during the
lifetime of the late Mrs. Wilson her lord had been wont to correct her
occasionally with a boot-jack, but these rumours had not reached
Rosalie’s ears; and even if they had she would probably have disbelieved
them. Nevertheless, she did not quite like the manner in which the
gallant auctioneer leered at her, nor his unnecessarily warm pressure of
her hand on saying good-bye.
She drove homewards with a mixture of feelings. The inauguration of her
new plan seemed to involve a considerable amount of risk, not to say
loss; she felt conscious of the fact that she owed her very partial
success more to the persuasion of her beauty than to faith in her
prospects as a woman of business; yet there was, after all, satisfaction
in thinking that she had carried her point.
CHAPTER VII
He that will not love must be
My scholar, and learn this of me:
There be in love as many fears
As the summer’s corn has ears.
* * *
Would’st thou know, besides all these,
How hard a woman ’t is to please,
How cross, how sullen, and how soon
She shifts and changes like the moon.
HERRICK.
IT was with some trepidation that Rosalie awaited Isaac’s visit on the
Sunday following that long and eventful week. The good fellow was,
indeed, so overcome when he found himself seated once more in the
familiar chair, with the vacant place opposite to him, that she had not
courage to make a confession which would, she knew, distress and annoy
him—a confession which would have to be made, nevertheless.
Her own eyes filled as she saw Isaac unaffectedly wiping away his tears
with his great red-and-yellow handkerchief, and for some moments no word
was spoken between them. She filled his pipe and lit it for him, but he
suffered it to rest idly between his fingers, and made no attempt to sip
at the tumbler of spirits and water which she placed at his elbow.
‘Let’s talk of him,’ she murmured softly, at last, bending forward.
‘Tell me about when you knew him first.’
‘Lard!’ said Sharpe with a sniff, ‘I know’d him all his life, I may say;
I were with him when he were confirmed—and I were at both his weddin’s.
Yours was the only one I was n’t at.’
Rosalie straightened herself, feeling as if a douche of cold water had
been unexpectedly applied to her.
‘Ah,’ went on Isaac, shaking his head mournfully, ‘I knowed his fust and
his second missus well—they was nice women, both on ’em. The fust was a
bit near, but, as poor ’Lias used to say, ’twas a good fault. Ah, he’d
say that—a good fault.’
He put his pipe between his lips, and immediately took it out again.
‘The second Mrs. Fiander,’ he went on, ‘was a good creatur’ too—very
savin’; delicate, though; but he’d al’ays make allowances, her husband
would, though it did seem to me sometimes as it was a bit disheartenin’
to a man when his wife got the ’titus just at the busiest time of year.
Ah, he used to tell me often as it were n’t no use to be a dairy-farmer
without you had a active wife.’
Rosalie fidgeted in her chair: these little anecdotes of Isaac seemed to
her rather pointless under the present circumstances.
‘All I can say is,’ she remarked after a pause, ‘that _I_ always found
poor dear Elias the most considerate of men.’
‘I d’ ’low ye did,’ said Isaac, turning his moist eyes upon her. ‘He
thought a deal o’ you—he did that. Says he to me the first night I come
here, when you come home arter getting wed, “I d’ ’low,” says he, “she’s
the best o’ the three.”’
There was comfort in this thought, and Rosalie looked gratefully at her
visitor, whose eyes had again become suffused with tears as he recalled
this touching tribute.
‘He used to say,’ she observed presently in a low voice, ‘that I was a
very good manager, but I don’t think it was on that account alone he was
so fond of me.’
‘’Ees, he did use to say you was a wonderful manager,’ said Isaac,
disregarding the latter part of the sentence. ‘Many a time he’ve a-told
me that you had n’t got no equal as a manager.’
Sentiment was evidently not to be the order of the day, but here, at
least, was an opportunity of introducing the little matter of business
which weighed so heavily on Rosalie’s conscience.
‘I think,’ she said, diffidently, ‘he would say I was wise in carrying
out this new plan.’
‘What new plan?’ inquired Isaac, pausing with his handkerchief halfway to
his eyes, and turning towards her sternly, though the tears hung upon his
grizzled lashes.
‘Why, the one I spoke to you of—about doing away with the pigs, you
know,’ she returned faintly.
‘That there notion that I gi’e ye my advice agen?’ said Sharpe grimly.
‘Yes,’ hesitatingly. ‘I thought it over, as you told me to, and I did
n’t think I could manage differently. I find I can sell the pigs all
right, and Mr. Hardy has promised to try and dispose of my Blue Vinney
cheeses.’
Isaac blew his nose, returned his handkerchief to his pocket, and stood
up.
‘I’m glad to hear as ye can manage so well,’ he said sarcastically. ‘You
don’t want no advice, that’s plain; and I sha’n’t never offer you none
agen. I’ll wish ye good day, Mrs. Fiander.’
‘Oh, don’t go away like that,’ cried she piteously. ‘Please don’t be
offended with me. Such an old friend—’
At this moment a figure passed across the window, and a loud knock was
heard at the house-door. Rosalie rushed to the door of the parlour.
‘Don’t let any one in, Susan,’ she cried. ‘Say I’m—I’m engaged. Stay at
least a minute, Mr. Sharpe—I want to tell you—I want to explain.’
Throwing out one hand in pleading, she held open the parlour door an inch
or two with the other, and presently the manly tones of Mr. Cross were
heard through the chink.
‘I am sorry to hear that Mrs. Fiander is engaged. Will you kindly inform
her that I will call next Sunday?’
‘Tell him, Susan,’ said her mistress, opening the door a little way, and
speaking under her breath—‘tell him that I am always engaged on Sunday.’
Susan was heard to impart this information, and then the visitor’s tones
were heard again:
‘That’s a pity! Tell her, if you please, that I shall ’ope to have the
pleasure of finding her at home some afternoon during the week.’
‘I am always out in the afternoon,’ said Rosalie, speaking this time so
decidedly that it was not necessary for Susan to repeat her words.
‘Oh!’ said the young man, addressing this time not the maid but the
bright eye of which he caught a glimpse through the door, ‘then I shall
take my chance of finding you in the morning.’
‘I am too busy to see anyone in the morning,’ retorted Rosalie; and she
shut the door with a finality which left Mr. Cross no option but to
depart.
‘You see I do take your advice sometimes,’ said Rosalie, turning to
Isaac, and speaking in a plaintive tone, though a little smile played
about her mouth.
Isaac’s back was towards her, and he made no reply; as she approached the
burly form, however, she saw his shoulders heave, and presently, to her
great relief, discovered that he was shaking with silent laughter.
‘Well, my dear, ye don’t do things by halves—I’ll say that for ’ee,’ he
chuckled. You’ve a-got rid o’ that there chap, anyhow. He’ll not ax to
come coortin’ again. Well, well, if ye manage as well in other ways I’ll
not say that ye bain’t fit to look arter yourself.’
‘But it was your advice, you know, Mr. Sharpe,’ she said demurely. ‘You
gave me the hint about shutting the door.’
‘I d’ ’low I did,’ said Isaac; and, being a good-natured and placable
person, his transitory sense of resentment was soon replaced by thorough
appreciation of the humorous side of the situation.
The discomfiture of Samuel Cross gave a salutary lesson not only to
himself, but to sundry other adventurous young men who had been a little
hasty in their overtures to Mrs. Fiander. It was soon noised abroad that
the young widow wished for the present to keep herself to herself, as the
saying went, and that it would in consequence be advisable to abstain
from making advances to her—at least, until she had laid aside her crape.
For some months, therefore, Rosalie enjoyed comparative immunity from the
importunities which had so much annoyed her, while the new arrangements
appeared to work amazingly well both within and without Littlecomb Farm.
Job and Abel departed in due course; the pigs were sold—at considerable
loss to their owner; Sam was installed as chief cowman, and sustained his
honours cheerfully, without, however, appearing to be unduly elated; and
three strapping damsels were engaged as dairy-maids. With their
co-operation Mrs. Fiander turned out weekly a score and more of large
round cheeses, which were stowed away in an upper room until, in course
of time, they should become sufficiently ripe—some people might use the
term mouldy—to have earned their title of ‘Blue Vinney’ cheese.
This process took a considerable time, and meanwhile the profits of the
dairy were a good deal lessened since Rosalie had left off making the
Ha’skim cheeses, for which she had been so particularly famed, and for
which she had invariably received regular payment. Still, as she told
herself, when the Blue Vinneys were disposed of, she would receive her
money in a lump sum, and all would be the same in the end.
Her chief trouble at this time arose from the frequent calls of Mr.
Wilson, the auctioneer, who, though he could not be said to be regularly
paying attention to Rosalie, found, nevertheless, sundry excuses for
‘dropping in’ and conversing with her at all manner of unseasonable
times. He made, as has been implied, no direct advances; and Rosalie,
moreover, could not treat him so unceremoniously as she had treated Mr.
Cross, for she felt in a manner indebted to him about the sale of those
unlucky pigs. He had carried the matter through for her with great
difficulty to himself, as he frequently assured her, and he had steadily
refused all remuneration. It was hard, therefore, for the young widow to
repel or avoid him, and she was in consequence reluctantly obliged to
endure many hours of his society.
CHAPTER VIII
Your own fair youth, you care so little for it,
Smiling towards Heaven, you would not stay the advances
Of time and change upon your happiest fancies.
I keep your golden hour, and will restore it.
ALICE MEYNELL.
ONE September day Rosalie betook herself to the little churchyard where
Elias lay at rest. Three months had elapsed since he had been taken from
her, and she had not let a week pass without visiting and decorating his
grave. She thought of him often, and her affectionate regret was in no
way diminished; yet, though she was now on her way to perform this
somewhat melancholy duty, she advanced with a bright face and a rapid
bounding step.
She was young, full of vigour and elasticity, and on such a day as
this—an exquisite golden day, full of sunshine, and yet with a tartness
hinting of approaching autumn in the air—every fibre of her being
thrilled with the very joy of life.
When she knelt by her husband’s grave, however, her face became pensive
and her movements slow. Taking a pair of garden shears from the basket
which she carried, she clipped the short grass closer still, laid the
flowers gently down on the smooth surface, placed the dead ones in her
basket, and, after lingering a moment, bent forward and kissed the new
white headstone.
As she rose and turned to go away, her face still shadowed by tender
regret, she suddenly perceived that she was not alone. At a little
distance from her, ensconced within the angle of the churchyard wall, a
man was sitting, with an easel in front of him. Above the large board on
the easel she caught sight of a brown velveteen coat and a flannel shirt
loosely fastened with a brilliant tie; also of a dark face framed in
rather long black hair and shaded by a soft felt hat of peculiar shape.
From beneath its tilted brim, however, a pair of keen dark eyes were
gazing with intense curiosity at the young woman, and, though he held a
palette in one hand and a brush in the other, he was evidently more
interested in her than in his painting.
Rosalie, vexed that her recent display of feeling had been observed by
this stranger, walked quickly down the little path, colouring high with
displeasure the while, and assuming that stately carriage which came
naturally to her in such emergencies.
The gentleman turned slowly on his camp-stool, his eyes twinkling and his
dark moustache twitching, and watched her till she was out of sight.
Rosalie was clad in her morning print, and wore her wide-brimmed chip
hat, so that her attire gave no indication of her station in life. As
her tall figure disappeared the man rose, stepped past his easel—which
supported a canvas whereon already appeared in bold firm lines a sketch
of the antiquated church porch—and made his way up the path and across
the grass to Elias Fiander’s grave.
‘Let us see,’ he murmured; ‘that kiss spoke volumes. It must be a
sweetheart at the very least; yet when she came swinging down the
meadow-path she certainly looked heart-whole. Here we are—a brand-new
stone. Funny name—Elias Fiander! No—aged sixty-two. Must have been her
father, or perhaps her grandfather—the girl looked young enough—so all my
pretty romance has come to nothing. I wish she had stayed a few minutes
longer—I would give something to make a sketch of her.’
He went back to his work whistling, and thinking over Rosalie’s beautiful
face and figure regretfully, and with an admiration that was entirely
æsthetic, for he had a cheery, rotund little wife at home in London, and
half a dozen children to provide for, so that he was not given to
sentiment.
It was, perhaps, because his admiration was so innocent and his ambition
so laudable, that a few days later his wish to transfer Rosalie’s charms
to canvas was granted in a most unexpected way.
It had been unusually hot, and the artist, having finished his sketch of
the porch, was proceeding by a short cut through Littlecomb Farm to the
downs beyond, in search of cooler air, when, on crossing a cornfield at
the further end of which the reapers were busily at work, he suddenly
came upon a woman’s figure lying in the shade of a ‘shock’ of sheaves.
The first glance announced her identity; the second assured him that she
was fast asleep. She had removed her hat, and her clasped hands
supported her head, the upward curve of the beautiful arms being
absolutely fascinating to the artist’s eye. The oval face with its warm
colouring, the slightly loosened masses of dark hair, were thrown into
strong relief by the golden background; the absolute abandonment of the
whole form was so perfect in its grace that he paused, trembling with
artistic delight, and hardly daring to breathe lest he should disturb
her.
But Rosalie, overcome with the heat and tired out after a hard morning’s
work, slept peacefully on while he swung his satchel round, opened it
quickly, and began with swift deft fingers to make a rapid sketch of her.
A few light pencil strokes suggested the exquisite lines of the prostrate
form, and he had already begun to dash on the colour, when, with a loud
shriek and flapping of wings, a blackbird flew out of the neighbouring
hedge, and Rosalie stirred and opened her eyes.
Rosalie’s eyes always took people by surprise, and the artist, who had
not before noticed their colour, suffered his to rest upon them
appreciatively while they were still hazy with sleep; but when, with
returning consciousness, he observed a sudden wonder and indignation leap
into them, he threw out his hand hastily.
‘One moment, if you please—stay just as you are for one moment.’
Still under the influence of her recent heavy slumber, and taken aback by
the peremptory tone, Rosalie obeyed.
‘What are you doing?’ she inquired suspiciously, but without changing her
posture.
‘Don’t you see?’ he returned. ‘I am making a picture of you.’
A warm tide of colour spread over the upturned face.
‘You should n’t do that without asking my leave.’
‘A man must take his chances where he finds them,’ said the artist. ‘I
don’t often get such a chance as this. I am a poor man, and can’t afford
to let an opportunity slip.’
He had a shrewd sallow face and kind merry eyes, and as he spoke he
paused in his work and smiled down at her.
‘I don’t want to be disobliging,’ said Rosalie, ‘but I—I don’t like it.
I fell asleep by accident—I should n’t have thrown myself down like this
if I had thought anyone was likely to see me.’
‘All the better,’ commented he. ‘You could n’t have put yourself into
such a position if you had tried to. It has evidently come naturally,
and it is simply perfect.’
He paused to squeeze out a little colour from one of the tiny tubes in
his open box, and again smiled encouragingly down at his model.
‘Now will you oblige me by closing your eyes again? No, don’t screw them
up like that; let the lids drop gently—so, very good. ’T is a pity to
hide the eyes—one does not often see blue eyes with such Murillo
colouring; but the length of the lashes makes amends, and I want you
asleep.’
Again a wave of colour swept over Rosalie’s face: the stranger marked it
approvingly, and worked on.
‘Is it nearly done?’ she inquired presently. ‘You said you would only be
a moment.’
‘I find it will take several moments, but I am sure you would not grudge
me the time if you knew what a wonderful piece of good fortune this is
for me.’
‘How can it be good fortune for you?’
‘Don’t frown, please; let the lids lie loosely. I will tell you why I
consider this meeting a piece of good fortune. Do you know what it is to
make bread-and-butter?’
‘I make butter three times a week,’ returned Rosalie, somewhat amused;
‘and I make bread too, sometimes.’
‘Well, I have got to make bread-and-butter every day of my life, not only
for myself, but for my wife and six small children, and I have nothing to
make it with but this. You may open your eyes for a moment if you don’t
move otherwise.’
Rosalie opened her eyes, and saw that he was bending towards her, and
holding out a paint-brush.
‘Now, go to sleep again,’ he went on. ‘Yes, that’s what I make my
bread-and-butter with; and it is n’t always an easy task, because there
are a great many other chaps who want to make bread-and-butter in the
same kind of way, and we can never be quite sure which among the lot of
us will find the best market for his wares. But I shall have no
difficulty in disposing of you, I am certain—therefore, I consider myself
in luck.’
‘Do you mean that you will sell that little picture of me?’
‘Not this one, but a big one which I shall make from it. It will go to
an exhibition, and people will come and look at it. As the subject is
quite new and very pretty, I shall ask a big price for it, and there will
be lots of bread-and-butter for a long time to come.’
‘But would anybody care to buy a picture of a woman whom they don’t know,
lying asleep in a cornfield?’ cried Rosalie incredulously, and
involuntarily raising her drooped lids.
‘Most certainly they will,’ responded the artist confidently. ‘This will
be a lovely thing when it is done. I shall come here to-morrow and make
a careful study of this stook against which you are lying, and of the
field; and I shall look about for a few good types of harvesters to put
in the middle distance.’ He was speaking more to himself than to her,
but Rosalie listened with deep interest, and watched him sharply through
her half-closed lids. Suddenly she saw him laugh.
‘Perhaps if I come across a very attractive specimen of a rustic, I may
place him just behind the stook here, peering through the sheaves at you,
or bending forward as if he were going to—’
‘Oh, don’t,’ cried Rosalie, starting violently and opening her eyes wide.
‘No, I won’t have it, I won’t be in the picture at all if you put
anything of that kind in!’
‘Not—if I chose a particularly nice young man?’ inquired the painter,
still laughing softly to himself. ‘Not if I chose—_the_ young man?’
‘I am sure I don’t know what you mean,’ protested she, her cheeks crimson
again and her lips quivering. ‘There is no young man.’
‘Do you mean to tell me, my dear child, that with that face you have
lived till now without anyone courting you—as I suppose they would call
it?’
‘Oh, of course they court me,’ Rosalie hastened to admit; ‘but I hate
them all. And they are all very ugly,’ she added eagerly, ‘and would
look dreadful in a picture.’
‘There, you are frowning again. Come, let us talk of something less
exciting. Keep still, please. So you make butter three times a week, do
you? You are a farmer’s daughter, I suppose?’
‘I was a farmer’s granddaughter,’ she returned. ‘My father was a
schoolmaster.’
‘Ah, that accounts for your educated way of speaking.’
‘No, father died when I was quite a baby, but my grandfather sent me to
school.’
‘Then you live with your mother, I suppose?’
‘No, I live alone here. This farm belongs to me.’
She could not help peeping out beneath her lashes to judge of the effect
of her words, and was gratified when the busy brush paused and the dark
eyes glanced down at her in astonishment.
‘You live alone here? But this is a big farm—you can’t manage it all
yourself?’
‘Yes, I do. It is hard work, but I contrive to do it. I am rather
lonely, though.’
‘That will be remedied in time,’ said the artist encouragingly. ‘The
right man will come along, and perhaps,’ he added with that queer smile
of his, ‘you won’t find him so ugly as the rest.’
‘You don’t know who I am or you would n’t speak like that,’ said Rosalie
with dignity; adding, with a softer inflexion of her voice: ‘The right
man has come—and gone. I am a widow.’
And unclasping the hands beneath her head, she thrust forward the left
one with the shining wedding-ring.
Confusion and concern now replaced the careless gaiety of the stranger’s
face.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said earnestly; ‘I did not know. You look so
young—I could not guess—but I am very sorry for my foolish talk.’
‘I was married four years,’ said Rosalie softly. Something gentle and
kindly about the man invited confidence. ‘My poor Elias has only been
dead three months.’ She paused abruptly, astonished at the sudden
expression of blank bewilderment on the other’s face.
‘Your husband’s name was Elias’ he queried. ‘I beg your pardon for what
must seem idle curiosity. Was it—was it his grave that I saw you
visiting the other day?’
‘Yes,’ said Rosalie, sighing and blushing; ‘yes: I—I thought I was
alone.’
‘_Aged sixty-two_!’ quoted the artist to himself, and he raised his hand
to his mouth for a moment to conceal its tell-tale quivering. He thought
of the girl’s elastic gait on the morning when he had first seen her, and
scrutinised once more the blooming face and admirably proportioned form
before him; then, shaking his head slowly, went on with his work.
‘Perhaps I shall call this picture “The Sleeping Beauty,”’ he observed
after a pause, with apparent irrelevance. ‘You know the story, don’t
you?’
‘Yes, but I don’t think it would be a good name. She was a Princess who
went to sleep in a palace in the wood, and I am just I—in my working
dress, asleep in a cornfield.’
‘These are mere details,’ said he. ‘The main points of the story are the
same. She woke up all right, you know. You will wake up some day, too,
my beauty.’
He put such meaning into the words, and smiled down at her so oddly, that
she felt confused and uncomfortable. It was not that her pride was
wounded at the liberty he had taken in applying such a term to her: his
admiration was so evidently impersonal that it could not offend her, and,
moreover, his allusion to his wife and children had had a tranquillising
effect. But the man’s look and tone when he made this strange remark
filled her with vague disquietude; both betrayed a secret amusement
mingled with something like compassion. ‘She would wake up some day,’ he
said; but she did not want to wake up! She was quite happy—at least, as
happy as could be in her bereaved state—she asked nothing more from life.
It would be certainly more unpleasant than the reverse to discover that
life had surprises in store for her. But why need she trouble herself
about a prophecy so idly uttered, and by an absolute stranger?
Nevertheless, she did trouble herself, not only throughout the remainder
of the time that the artist was completing his sketch, but frequently
afterwards.
‘You will wake up some day, my beauty!’ Oh no, no; let her sleep on if
this placid contented existence were indeed sleep; let her dream away the
days in peace, until that time of awakening which would re-unite her to
Elias.
CHAPTER IX
Then, proud Celinda, hope no more
To be implor’d or woo’d;
Since by thy scorn thou dost restore
The wealth my love bestow’d;
And thy disdain too late shall find
That none are fair but who are kind.
THOMAS STANLEY.
WHEN the artist had gone away, after lingering some days longer to
complete his studies for the projected picture, the tenor of Rosalie’s
existence flowed on as calmly as even she could desire. She made and
sold her butter; had her cheeses conveyed to Mr. Hardy’s establishment in
Branston; superintended the harvesting of her potatoes and mangels; laid
in her winter store of oil-cake; and fattened sundry turkeys and geese
for the Christmas market.
Early on a winter’s afternoon Rosalie Fiander might have been seen
walking slowly across the downs in the neighbourhood of Isaac Sharpe’s
farm. She carried a large basket, and every now and then paused to add
to the store of scarlet berries or shining evergreen which she was
culling from thicket and hedgerow for Christmas decoration.
All at once she was surprised by hearing a step on the path behind her
and a man’s voice calling her name, and, turning, descried the tall and
somewhat ungainly person of Andrew Burge.
Though it wanted yet a few days of Christmas, that gentleman, who was of
a social turn of mind, had evidently begun to celebrate the festival, and
Rosalie, gazing at him, was somewhat dismayed on perceiving the flushed
hilarity of his countenance and the devious gait by which he approached.
She paused reluctantly, however, and shook hands with him when he came
up.
‘I’ve been calling at your place, Mrs. Fiander,’ he observed, ‘to wish
you the compliments of the season.’
‘I am very much obliged to you,’ said Rosalie. ‘The same to you, Mr.
Burge.’
‘Ah!’ said the young man, rolling an amorous eye at her, ‘I was most
wishful, Mrs. Fiander, to give you my Christmas greetings in person.’
‘You are very good,’ said she. ‘I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy
New Year. And now I think I must be moving home, for I am very busy
to-day.’
‘Allow me to escort you,’ urged Andrew. ‘’T was a disapp’intment to me
not to find you at home. I am rej’iced to have overtaken you, and
anxious to prorogue the interview. There’s a season for condoliances and
a season for congratulations. This here is the time for congratulations,
and I am anxious, Mrs. Fiander, ma’am, to prorogue it.’
‘My work is waiting for me at home,’ said the young widow in alarm. ‘I
am afraid I shall have no time to attend to you; but, perhaps, some other
day—’
She broke off and began to walk away rapidly; but the uneven, lumbering
steps kept pace with hers.
‘Christmas comes but once a year,’ remarked Mr. Burge, somewhat thickly.
‘’T is a joyful season—a season as fills a man’s ’eart with ’ope and
’appiness.’
This observation appearing to call for no rejoinder, Rosalie let it pass
unnoticed except by a slight quickening of her pace; to no purpose,
however, for her unwelcome companion kept by her side.
‘Christmas for ever!’ he ejaculated huskily, with an appropriate flourish
of his hat. Instead of restoring it to its place after this sudden
display of enthusiasm, he continued to wave it uncertainly, not over his
own head, but over Rosalie’s, leering the while in a manner which
materially increased her discomposure. All at once she saw that a sprig
of mistletoe was tucked into the band of Mr. Burge’s head-gear, and
almost at the moment she made this discovery he lurched forward, so as to
bar her progress, and bent his face towards hers.
‘How dare you!’ cried Rosalie, thrusting him from her with a vigorous
push; then, as he momentarily lost his equilibrium and staggered
backwards against the hedge, she fairly took to her heels and fled from
him at full speed, not towards her own home, but to Isaac Sharpe’s
premises.
‘O Mr. Sharpe!’ she cried breathlessly. ‘Oh, oh, save me! He’s after
me!’
‘Who’s arter you, my dear? Why, you be a-shakin’ same as an aspen-tree.
What in the name o’ Goodness has put you in such a state?’
‘Oh, it’s—it’s that dreadful Andrew Burge. He overtook me on the downs
and tried to kiss me. I think he’s tipsy, and I know he’s running after
me.’
‘Nay now, my dear, don’t ’ee take on so. He’ll not hurt ye here—I’ll see
to that. Dang his impidence! Tried to kiss ye, did he? That chap needs
to be taught his place.’
‘I’m sure he’s coming down the path now,’ cried Rosalie, wringing her
hands. ‘Oh, dear, if he does n’t come here I dare say he’ll go back to
the farm, and I shall find him there when I go home.’
‘Now, don’t ’ee go on shakin’ and cryin’ so. Don’t ye be so excited,
Rosalie,’ said Isaac, who was himself very red in the face and violently
perturbed. ‘Come, I’ll walk home along of ye, and if I do find him there
I’ll settle him—leastways, if you’ll give me leave. Ye don’t want to
have nothin’ more to say to ’en, do ye? Very well, then, ’t will be easy
enough to get rid of ’en.’
So Isaac Sharpe, without pausing to pull a coat over his smock-frock,
duly escorted Mrs. Fiander across the downs and home by the short cut;
and, as Rosalie had surmised, Susan greeted them on the threshold with
the pleasing information that Mr. Burge was waiting for her in the
parlour.
‘Very good,’ said Isaac. ‘Leave ’en to me, my dear. Jist you go to the
dairy, or up to your room, or anywheres ye like out o’ the road. I’ll
not be very slack in getting through wi’ this here job.’
He watched her until she had disappeared from view, and then suddenly
throwing open the parlour door shouted in stentorian tones to its
solitary occupant:
‘Now then, you must get out o’ this!’
Burge, who had been sitting in a somnolent condition before the fire,
woke up, and stared in surprise mingled with alarm at the white-robed
giant who advanced threateningly towards him through the dusk.
‘Why, what does this mean?’ he stammered.
‘What does this mean?’ repeated the farmer in thundering tones. ‘It
means that you’re a rascal, young fellow.’
And Isaac qualified the statement with one or two specimens of ‘language’
of the very choicest kind.
‘What do you mean, eh,’ he pursued, standing opposite the chair where
Andrew sat blinking, ‘by running arter young females on them there
lonesome downs, when you was not fit for nothin’ but a public bar,
frightenin’ her, and insultin’ her till she was very near took with a fit
on my doorstep? What do ye mean, ye villain, eh? If ye was n’t so drunk
that ye could n’t stand up to me for a minute I’d have ye out in that
there yard and I’d give ye summat!’
Mr. Burge shrank as far back in his chair as was compatible with a kind
of tipsy dignity, and inquired mildly:
‘Why, what business is it of yours, Mr. Sharpe?’
‘It’s my business that I won’t have ’Lias Fiander’s widow insulted nor
yet put upon, nor yet bothered by folks as she don’t want to ha’ nothin’
to say to.’
‘Mr. Sharpe,’ protested Andrew—‘Mr. Sharpe, I cannot permit such
interference. My intentions was honourable. I meant matrimony, and I
will not allow any stranger to come between this lady and me.’
‘Ye meant matrimony, did ye?’ said Isaac, exchanging his loud, wrathful
tone for one of withering scorn. ‘Mrs. Fiander does n’t mean matrimony,
though—not wi’ the likes o’ you. Come, you clear out o’ this; and don’t
you never go for to show your ugly mug here again, or my cluster o’ five
will soon be no stranger to it, I promise you!’
He held up a colossal hand as he spoke, first extending the fingers in
illustration of his threat, and then clenching it into a redoubtable
fist.
Andrew sat upright in the elbow-chair, his expressionless eyes staring
stolidly at his assailant, but without attempting to move. Through the
open door the sound of whispers and titters could have been heard had
either of the men been in a condition to notice such trivial matters.
‘Now, then!’ repeated Sharpe threateningly.
Andrew Burge drew himself up.
‘This contumacious behaviour, Mr. Sharpe, sir,’ he said, ‘has no effect
upon me whatever. My intentions is to make an equivocal offer of
marriage to Mrs. Fiander, and from her lips alone will I take my answer.
I shall sit in this chair,’ he continued firmly, ‘until the lady comes in
person to give me her responsory.’
‘You will, will ye?’ bellowed Isaac. ‘Ye be a-goin’ to sit there, be ye?
Ye bain’t, though! That there chair’s my chair I’d have ye know, and
I’ll soon larn ye who have got the right to sit in it.’
With that he lunged forward, thrusting the cluster of five so suddenly
into Andrew’s face that that gentleman threw himself heavily backwards,
and the chair, being unprovided with castors, overbalanced, and fell
violently to the ground.
Undeterred by the catastrophe and the peculiar appearance presented by
Mr. Burge’s flushed and dazed countenance as he stared helplessly
upwards, contemplating probably a thousand stars, Isaac seized the chair
by the legs and began to drag it across the floor, bumping its occupant
unmercifully in his exertions. His own countenance was, indeed, almost
as purple in hue as Andrew’s by the time he reached the door, which was
obligingly thrown open as he neared it, revealing Sam Belbin’s delighted
face. The alarmed countenances of the maids peered over his shoulder,
while a few manly forms were huddled together in the passage. Mr.
Sharpe’s extremely audible tones had attracted many eager listeners;
nothing so exciting had taken place at Littlecomb since Elias Fiander’s
funeral.
‘Here, you chaps,’ cried the farmer, still tugging violently at the
chair, and panting with his efforts; ‘here, come on, some on you. Lend a
hand to get rid o’ this here carcase.’
Nothing loath, the men sprang forward, and between them the chair with
its occupant was dragged out of the room and along the passage.
‘What’s he been a-doin’ of?’ inquired Sam with great gusto, as he dropped
his particular chair-leg on the cobble-stones in the yard.
‘Never you mind what he’ve been a-doin’ of,’ returned Isaac,
straightening himself and wiping his brow. ‘Get him out of that there
chair, and trot him off the premises—that’s what you ’ve a-got to do.’
Andrew Burge was with some difficulty set on his legs, and after gazing
vacantly round him appeared to recover a remnant of his scattered senses.
‘I’ll summons you, Mr. Sharpe,’ he cried. ‘The liberties of the British
subject is not to be vi’lently interfered with! I leave this spot,’ he
added, looking round loftily but unsteadily, ‘with contumely!’
Anyone who had subsequently seen Sam and Robert conducting the suitor to
the high road would have endorsed the truth of this remark, though Mr.
Burge, according to his custom, had merely used the first long word that
occurred to him without any regard to its appropriateness.
Returning to the house, Isaac went to the foot of the stairs and called
out Rosalie’s name in a mildly jubilant roar.
‘Come down, Mrs. Fiander; come down, my dear! He be gone, and won’t
never trouble you no more, I’ll answer for ’t.’
Rosalie came tripping downstairs, smiling, in spite of a faintly alarmed
expression.
‘What a noise you did make, to be sure!’ she remarked; ‘and what a mess
the parlour is in!’
‘We did knock down a few things, I d’ ’low, when we was cartin’ ’en out
of this,’ returned Isaac apologetically. ‘He was a-settin’ in my chair,
and he up and told me to my face as he’d go on a-settin’ there till he
seed ’ee—that were comin’ it a bit too strong!’
He was helping her as he spoke to pick up the scattered furniture, and to
restore the table-cloth and books, which Andrew had dragged down in
falling, to their places.
These tasks ended, he faced her with a jovial smile.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘he won’t trouble you again, anyhow. There’s one o’
your coortin’ chaps a-gone for good.’
‘I wish you could get rid of them all in the same way,’ said Rosalie
gratefully; adding in a confidential tone, ‘there’s Mr. Wilson, now—he
keeps calling and calling, and he follows me about, and pays me
compliments—he is very tiresome.’
‘Be he?’ returned the farmer with a clouded brow. ‘Ah, and he bain’t a
chap for you to be takin’ notice on, nohow. I’d give ’en the sack if I
was you.’
‘Why, you see, I don’t like to be rude; and he was kind about the pigs.
But I wish some one would drop him a hint that he is wasting his time in
dangling about me.’
She broke off suddenly, for at that moment the interested and excited
countenance of Sam Belbin appeared in the doorway, and, though he was a
favourite with his mistress, she did not see fit to discuss such intimate
affairs in his hearing.
The news of Isaac Sharpe’s encounter with young Andrew Burge soon flew
round the neighbourhood, evoking much comment, and causing constructions
to be placed upon the farmer’s motives which, if he had heard them, would
have sorely disquieted that good man.
‘He be a-goin’ to coort Widow Fiander hisself, for certain,’ averred Mrs.
Paddock. ‘D’ ye mind how I did say that day as there was all the trouble
yonder at Littlecomb—“How nice,” says I, “master did speak of her!”—d’ ye
mind? He were quite undone about her. “Pore young creatur’,” says he,
so feelin’ as he could. “D’ ye mind? Mrs. Belbin,” I said, says I,
“master be a very feelin’ man.”’
‘Ah, I can mind as you said that,’ returned Mrs. Belbin; ‘but my Sam he
d’ ’low as Mrs. Fiander would n’t so much as look at master. “Not
another old man,” says he. And, mind ye,’ added Mrs. Belbin,
confidentially dropping her voice, ‘Sam’s missus do think a deal o’ he.’
Mrs. Paddock folded her arms, and looked superciliously at her neighbour.
‘Nay now,’ said she, ‘your Sam ’ull find hisself mistook if he gets set
on sich a notion as that.’
‘What notion?’ returned the other innocently. ‘I never said nothin’
about no notion at all. You’ve a-got such a suspectin’ mind, Mrs.
Paddock, there’s no tellin’ you a bit o’ news wi’out you up an’ take a
body’s character away.’
At this moment the impending hostilities between the two matrons were
averted by the advent of a third—Mrs. Stuckhey by name, wife of Robert
Stuckhey, who worked at Littlecomb.
‘My ’usband did say,’ she remarked, negligently scratching her elbows,
‘as Mr. Sharpe seemed very intimate wi’ missus. “My dear,” he says to
her. Ah, Stuckhey d’ say as Mr. Sharpe do often call missus “my dear.”
And he did say as he seed ’en come walkin’ home wi’ her this arternoon,
quite lovin’ like, in a smock-frock, jist the same as if he was in his
own place. “Go upstairs, my dear,” says he—’
‘In his _smock-frock_?’ interrupted Mrs. Paddock eagerly. ‘Were it a new
smock-frock, did Mr. Stuckhey say?’
‘Very like it were,’ replied Mrs. Stuckhey, accommodatingly. ‘My master
he bain’t one as takes much notice, and if it had a-been a old one he’d
scarce ha’ thought o’ mentionin’ it to me.’
‘Then you may depend, Mrs. Belbin,’ cried Mrs. Paddock triumphantly, ‘as
master be a-coortin’ o’ Widow Fiander! A new smock-frock! ’t is the very
thing as a man like he ’ud wear when his thoughts was bent on sich
matters! I do mind as my father told me often how he did save an’ save
for eleven weeks to buy hisself a new smock to go a-coortin’ my mother
in. Ah, wages was terrible low then, and he were n’t a-gettin’ above
seven shillin’ a week; but he did manage to put by a shillin’ out o’
that. The smock—it were a white ’un—did cost eleven shillin’, and he did
save eleven weeks. And, strange to say, when he and my mother did wed,
they did have eleven children.’
Utterly routed by this incontrovertible testimony, Mrs. Belbin withdrew
to her own quarters, leaving the other two ragged heads bobbing together
in high enjoyment of the delectable piece of gossip.
Before the morrow the entire village knew that Farmer Sharpe had arrived
at Littlecomb with his arm round Widow Fiander’s waist, that he had
spoken to her in the tenderest terms, had avowed his intention of
hammering each and every one of her suitors, and had bought himself a
brand-new and beautifully embroidered smock-frock for the express purpose
of courting her in it.
CHAPTER X
Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,
Misprising what they look on . . .
SHAKESPEARE.
THOUGH Isaac Sharpe did not consider himself bound to assist Rosalie in
repelling the advances of Mr. Wilson, the auctioneer, the wish she had
expressed that someone would be kind enough to ‘drop a hint to him’ had
fallen upon other attentive and willing ears.
Sam Belbin had laid her words to heart, and only waited for an
opportunity of proving his good-will by ridding her of a frequent and
unwelcome visitor.
His chance came at last, and he was quick to take advantage of it.
It was cheese-day, and Rosalie and her maids had prepared such a quantity
that their work was not, as usual, finished before dinnertime, and they
were still elbow-deep in curds when Mr. Wilson chanced to look in.
Sam was standing in the outer room, swilling out the great cheese-vat
which had held that morning a hundred and eighty gallons of skim-milk. A
wonderfully obliging fellow was Sam, always ready to lend a hand here, to
do an odd job there; and so good-tempered with it all. His mistress
could often see his smiling mouth open and ready to agree with whatever
remark he thought her likely to make long before she had spoken; and as
she liked contradiction as little as any of her sex her head-man advanced
the more rapidly in her favour.
She was anything but gratified when Mr. Wilson appeared on the threshold
of the milk-house, and after a brief greeting bent her head over her
mould and went on with her work.
‘Always busy, Mrs. Fiander,’ remarked the visitor pleasantly. ‘’Pon my
word, you ladies put us to shame sometimes. We men are idle creatures in
comparison with you.’
Rosalie made no answer, and Sam banged about the vat with his stiff brush
so energetically that he seemed bent on giving the lie to the
auctioneer’s words.
‘I am really quite curious to see how you set about your cheese-making,’
pursued the latter in mellifluous tones. ‘Should I be in your way, Mrs.
Fiander, if I was to step in and watch you?’
‘I am afraid you would n’t find it very amusing,’ responded Rosalie
unwillingly. ‘Of course, if you like. But it will really be most
uncomfortable for you. We are all in such a mess here.
Sam’—irritably—‘what a din you do make with that tub!’
Sam, who had tilted up the tub, the better apparently to scrub the
bottom, now let it go suddenly, sending a great portion of its contents
splashing across the floor in Mr. Wilson’s direction.
‘It be all the same,’ he remarked philosophically; ‘I were just a-goin’
to swill out this here place.’
And with that he upset a little more of the steaming water upon the
floor, seized a stiff broom, and began to brush the soapy liquid towards
the door.
‘You might have waited a moment,’ commented his mistress; but she spoke
with a sweet smile, for she saw with the corner of her eye how hastily
Mr. Wilson had skipped out of the way, anxious to protect his shining
boots and immaculate leggings. ‘I really cannot invite you in now,’ she
added, turning to the visitor regretfully. ‘Pray excuse the man’s
awkwardness.’ But as she spoke she smiled again on Sam.
She related the anecdote with much gusto to Isaac Sharpe on the following
Sunday, but he did not seem to appreciate it as much as she had expected.
‘That there Wilson, he’s arter you too, I suppose. I would n’t have
anything to say to him if I was you. He bain’t steady enough to make a
good husband—racin’ an’ drinkin’, and sich-like. Ah, his poor wife, she
did n’t praise him, but she suffered, poor soul!’
‘Gracious, Mr. Sharpe, I am sure you need n’t warn me! You know what my
views are; besides, I hate the man. I would n’t see him at all if he had
n’t—had n’t been rather obliging in a business-way. But was n’t it
clever of Sam to get rid of him like that?’
‘’Ees,’ agreed the farmer dubiously; ‘but don’t ’ee go for to let ’en
take too much on hisself, my dear, else ye’ll be like to repent it. It
do never do to let these young fellows get sot up. Keep ’en in his
place, Mrs. Fiander; don’t let ’en get presumptious.’
‘I’m sure he would never be that,’ she rejoined warmly. ‘Poor Sam; he’s
the humblest creature in the world. He goes about his work like—like a
machine.’
‘May be so,’ said Isaac incredulously; ‘you know him best, I suppose, but
I jist thought I’d speak my mind out about him.’
Rosalie frowned a little and said no more, but her faith in Sam was not
diminished, and as time went on she grew to rely more and more on this
cheerful and obliging young fellow.
The gossiping anent the alleged courting of Mrs. Fiander by Farmer Sharpe
was not confined to Littlecomb Village, but soon spread to the more
important town of Branston, with the immediate result of stirring up
sundry of the young men belonging to that place, who, after the
discomfiture of Samuel Cross, had deemed it prudent to relax for a time
in their attentions to the fascinating widow. So long as she had been
thought plunged in grief, these wooers of hers had been content to bide
their time; but when it became known that there was actually an avowed
suitor in the field, and one, moreover, to whom the lady had given
unequivocal tokens of confidence and good-will, they resolved with one
accord to bestir themselves, lest the prize of which each thought himself
most deserving, might be secured by another.
Before many days of the new year had passed Rosalie found herself
absolutely besieged. Samuel Cross actually forced his way past the
unwilling Susan into the parlour while Rosalie was at tea; Mr. Wilson lay
in wait for her as she was emerging from church on Christmas Day, and
made his proposal in due form as he escorted her homewards. John Hardy
inveigled the widow into the back parlour behind the shop, ostensibly to
discuss the sale of the Blue Vinneys, in reality to lay his hand and
heart at her feet.
Rosalie said ‘No’ to one and all, and was astonished at the outburst of
indignation which her answer provoked, and at the keen sense of ill-usage
under which every one of her suitors appeared to be labouring.
It was Samuel Cross who first alluded in Rosalie’s hearing to the
prevalent belief that Farmer Sharpe was paying his court to her; and he
was somewhat taken aback by the unfeigned merriment which the suggestion
evoked.
‘You may laugh, Mrs. Fiander,’ he said, recovering himself after an
instant, ‘but people are not blind and deaf; and, though they may be
fooled to a certain extent by a lady, gentlemen of my profession find it
easy to put two and two together, ma’am. When a lady tells you she is
always engaged on a Sunday, and shuts the door in the face of a person
who comes to make civil inquiries, one does n’t need to be extra clever
to guess that there must be some reason for it. And when the reason
turns out to be another gentleman, and when that gentleman takes upon
himself to assault another gentleman as was also desirous of paying his
respects in the same quarter, that, Mrs. Fiander, is what one may term
_primâ-facie_ evidence!’
Whether the display of Mr. Cross’s learning had a sobering effect on Mrs.
Fiander, or whether she was suddenly struck by some serious thought, it
is certain that she ceased laughing at this juncture, and remained
pensive even after the rejected suitor had departed.
Mr. Wilson was harder to get rid of. He was so confident in the justice
of his claim, so pertinacious in reminding Rosalie of her obligations
towards him with regard to the sales of the pigs—which piece of business
he perseveringly alluded to as ‘a delicate matter’—so persuaded,
moreover, of his own superiority to any of her other lovers, that she
finally lost patience and petulantly declared that if there were not
another man in the world she would not consent to marry him.
The auctioneer grew purple in the face, and suddenly changed his note:—
‘If there was n’t another man in the world!’ he repeated sneeringly.
‘Then there is another man? Ha! it is n’t very hard to guess who! Well,
tastes differ. If you like such a rough, common old chap better than a
gentleman doing a large and honourable business, I make you a present of
him, Mrs. Fiander, smock-frock and all! Ha, ha, he’ll soon have the pigs
back again when he’s master here, and all my labour and loss of time will
have been thrown away. Not that I grudge the sacrifice,’ cried Mr.
Wilson in a melting tone. ‘No, far be it from me to grudge the
sacrifice. The ladies have always found an easy prey in me; and when I
think of the far greater sacrifice which a young and lovely woman is
prepared to make upon the altar of matrimony—a sacrifice which she will
repent too late—I am rejooced to silence.’
Here Mr. Wilson thumped his breast and cast a last languishing look at
the young widow, who appeared, however, to be absorbed in her own
reflections.
He talked on in spite of his last assertion until they reached Rosalie’s
door, where, waking as if from a dream, she extended her hand to him.
‘Good-bye,’ she said. ‘There is no use in talking about it any more, Mr.
Wilson; my mind is made up.’
The auctioneer extended his hand dramatically in the direction of the
empty pigsties.
‘Well, Mrs. Fiander,’ he cried, ‘if the Inspector of Nuisances visits
your premises you will only have yourself to thank.’
‘Meanwhile,’ retorted Rosalie with some acerbity, ‘as it might be a
little difficult to send for him to-day, I should be glad if the nuisance
who is now occupying my premises would take himself off.’
She went into the house with a flushed face, but seemed more thoughtful
than annoyed during the remainder of the day.
It was, however, with unmixed vexation that she perused, on the morning
following her rejection of young John Hardy, a document signed by the
firm, which ran thus:—
‘To MRS. FIANDER.
MADAM,—_Re_ Blue Vinney Cheeses.—We regret to inform you that we can
no longer allow our premises to be used as a storehouse for these
unsaleable articles. In the three months during which, in order to
oblige you, we have placed our establishment at your disposal, we
have only found one purchaser for a small portion of the goods in
question (as you will see per statement copied from our books and
enclosed herewith). Under these circumstances we are returning to
you to-day as many of the cheeses as the carrier’s cart can convey,
and we shall be obliged by your removing the remainder at your
earliest convenience.
We are, Madam, yours obediently,
‘HARDY & SON.’
The enclosed ‘statement’ testified to the purchase by one Margaret Savage
of ¾ lb. Blue Vinney Cse at 5¾_d._ = 4_d._, which sum had been credited
to Mrs. Fiander’s account.
Rosalie gave a little gasp, and tears of vexation sprang to her eyes.
‘They just want to spite me,’ she said. ‘Of course the cheeses are
hardly fit for use yet—they can’t have even tried to dispose of them;
they simply pretended to sell them so as to entrap me, and now they are
throwing them back on my hands before I have time to think what to do
with them. That odious John Hardy! Mean-spirited wretch—it is all his
doing!’
Even as she thus cogitated there was a rattling of wheels without, and
the carrier’s cart drew up with a flourish at the door.
‘Please, ma’am,’ cried Susan, thrusting in her head, ‘Mr. Smith be here
with ever so many cheeses as he says Hardys are sending back; and there’s
sixteen-and-eightpence to pay; and he says, ma’am, will you please send
the men to unload them at once?’
‘Call Sam,’ said her mistress in a strangled voice. ‘Tell him to come at
once with two or three of the others, and to take the cheeses carefully
upstairs.’
‘Why, the cheese-room be a’most full, ma’am. I doubt there’ll not be
much room for them there. We was waitin’, you know, till Christmas had
gone over a bit to send the last load to town.’
‘Pile them up in the dairy, then, for the present. Well, why don’t you
go?’ she cried, irritably, as the girl remained staring at her. ‘Make
the men get to work at once while I find my purse.’
As she came down from her room, purse in hand, she observed through the
staircase window the blank faces of Sam and his underlings, as the
carrier tossed the cheeses to them from the cart, grinning the while as
though at some excellent joke. She stamped her foot, and caught her
breath with a little angry sob. She had been so proud in despatching to
Branston load after load of these fine round cheeses, she had often
congratulated herself on the wisdom and cleverness of this expedient of
hers—and now to have them ignominiously thrown back at her without having
even disposed of one—to be turned into a laughing-stock for her own folks
as well as for the whole town of Branston; to be actually made to pay for
the ill-success of her experiment! Rosalie was as a rule open-handed and
generous enough, but the disbursal of this particular
sixteen-and-eightpence caused her a pang of almost physical anguish.
Half an hour later, when the carrier had departed and the men returned to
their work, she entered the dairy, and stood gazing with clasped hands
and a melancholy countenance at the heaps of despised Blue Vinneys which
were piled up on every side.
To her presently came Sam Belbin, his arms dangling limply by his sides,
his expression duly composed to sympathetic gloom.
‘Oh, Sam!’ exclaimed Rosalie in a heartbroken tone, pointing tragically
to the nearest yellow mound.
‘I would n’t take on, I’m sure, mum,’ responded Sam with a ghastly smile.
‘Nay now, I would n’t take on. ’T was very ill done o’ Mr. Hardy—so
everybody do say, but he’s that graspin’—he never do care for sellin’ a
bit o’ cheese to poor folks—’t is all bacon, bacon wi’ he! “Don’t ’ee go
for to fill your stummicks wi’ that there ’ard cheese,” I ’ve a-heard him
say myself. “Buy a bit o’ bacon as ’ull stand to ye hot or cold.”’
‘Bacon!’ ejaculated Rosalie with a note of even deeper woe. Then,
pointing to the cheeses again, she groaned: ‘Oh, Sam, was it worth while
getting rid of the pigs—for this?’
‘Dear heart alive, mum,’ responded Belbin, plucking up his courage, and
speaking more cheerfully. ‘Mr. Hardy bain’t the only grocer in Branston!
There be a-many more as ’ud be proud an’ glad to sell them cheeses for
ye.’
‘No, no. Why, the story must be all over the town by now—no one will
look at them in Branston. Everyone will know that Mr. Hardy packed them
back to me. No, if I sell them at all I must send them away somewhere—to
Dorchester, perhaps.’
‘Well, and that ’ud be a good notion, mum,’ commented Belbin. ‘You’d get
a better price for them there, I d’ ’low. Lard! At Dorchester the Blue
Vinney cheeses do go off like smoke.’
‘There is always a sale for them there, to be sure,’ said Rosalie,
somewhat less lugubriously.
‘And our own horses and carts ’ud take them there in less than no time,’
pursued Sam, more and more confidently. ‘Things have just fell out
lucky. It be a-goin’ to take up to-night, and I d’ ’low there’ll be some
sharpish frostiss—’t will just exercise the horses nicely, to get them
roughed and make ’em carry them cheeses to Dorchester—’t will be the very
thing as ’ull do them good. And it’ll cost ye nothing,’ he added
triumphantly.
‘Well, Sam, you are a good comforter,’ cried his mistress, brightening up
under the influence of his cheerfulness. ‘’T is a blessing, I am sure,
to have someone about one who does n’t croak.’
She turned to him as she spoke with one of her radiant smiles—a smile,
however, which very quickly vanished, for Sam’s face wore a most peculiar
expression.
‘Why, my dear!’ he cried, casting an ardent look upon her, ‘I be main
glad to hear ye say so! I’d ax nothin’ better nor to be about ye always;
an’ I’d comfort an’ do for ye so well as I could. ’T is a thing,’ he
added, with modest candour, ‘as I’ve a-had in my mind for some time, but
I did n’t like to speak afore. I was n’t sure as ye’d relish the notion.
But now as you’ve a-hinted so plain—’
Rosalie had averted her face for a moment, but as he advanced towards her
with extended arm, she flashed round upon him a glance which suddenly
silenced him.
He remained staring at her with goggling eyes and a dropping jaw during
the awful pause which succeeded.
He heaved a sigh of relief, however, when she at last broke silence, for
she spoke calmly, and her words seemed innocuous enough.
‘Is that your coat hanging up behind the door?’
‘Yes, mum,’ responded Sam, no longer the lover but the very humble
servant.
‘Go and get it then. Your cap, I think, is on the table.’
She fumbled in her pocket for a moment, and presently drew forth her
purse, from which she counted out the sum of fourteen shillings. Her
eyes had a steely glitter in them as she fixed them on Sam.
‘Here are your week’s wages,’ she said. ‘Take them, and walk out of this
house.’
‘Mum,’ pleaded Sam piteously. ‘Missus—!’
‘Go out of this house,’ repeated Rosalie, pointing mercilessly to the
door; ‘and never let me see your face again. Out of my sight!’ she added
quickly, as he still hesitated.
Sam’s inarticulate protests died upon his lips, and he turned and left
her, Rosalie looking after him with gleaming eyes until his figure was
lost to sight.
CHAPTER XI
Follow a shadow, it still flies you,
Seem to fly it, it will pursue:
So court a mistress, she denies you;
Let her alone she will court you.
Say, are not women truly, then,
Styled but the shadows of us men?
BEN JONSON.
Who by resolves and vows engag’d does stand
For days that yet belong to Fate,
Does, like an unthrift, mortgage his estate
Before it falls into his hand.
ABRAHAM COWLEY.
ISAAC SHARPE, receiving no answer to his knock, walked straight into the
parlour. The room was dark save for the smouldering glow of the fire,
and it was some time before he discovered Rosalie’s figure huddled up in
Elias’s chair.
‘Why, what be to do?’ he inquired, stooping over her.
‘Oh, Mr. Sharpe,’ returned she, with a strangled sob, ‘I have had such a
day—I have been so insulted. Oh, how shall I ever forget it! What can I
have done to bring about such a thing!’
‘Come,’ cried the farmer, much alarmed, ‘whatever is it, my dear? Out
wi’ it; and let’s have some light to see ourselves by.’
With that he seized the poker and stirred the logs on the hearth, until
they flared up with a brightness almost painful to Rosalie’s aching eyes.
He saw the traces of tears upon her flushed face, and his concern
increased.
‘I heard ye was in trouble again,’ he said, ‘and I thought I’d look
in—Them cheeses as ye’ve been a-making of ever since midsummer is back on
your hands, they tell me.’
‘Yes,’ said Rosalie faintly. ‘There are piles and piles of them in the
dairy; and Mr. Hardy wrote a most ill-natured letter about them, and
everyone in the place will think me a fool. But it is n’t that I mind so
much—I shall sell those cheeses somewhere, I suppose, and I know Mr.
Hardy only sent them back out of spite because I would n’t marry John—’
‘Ah,’ put in Isaac, interested; ‘John Hardy axed ye, did he? And you
would n’t have ’en?’
‘Of course not,’ she returned petulantly.
‘Well, Mrs. F.,’ said Isaac, leaning forward in his chair, and speaking
solemnly, ‘ye mid ha’ done worse nor take him. ’T is in my mind,’ he
went on emphatically, ‘as soon or late ye’ll have to take a second. But,
tell me, what was it as upset ye so much to-day?’
‘I am almost ashamed to say it. Sam Belbin—you know Sam, that common lad
that I made cowman out of pure kindness and because I thought him
faithful—he—he—that lout, has actually dared to make love to me!’
‘Well, now,’ commented Isaac, nodding.
‘Are you not amazed? Did you ever hear of such impudence? He dared to
call me “my dear”; and he seemed to think that _I_, his mistress, had
actually encouraged him! He said something about my dropping a hint.
But I soon let him see what I thought of him. I packed him off on the
moment!’
‘Did ye?’ said Isaac. ‘Well, my dear—I beg pardon—Mrs. Fiander, I should
say—’
‘Oh, of course,’ she put in quickly, ‘I don’t mind _your_ saying _my
dear_—’t is a very different matter.’
‘Well, as I was a-sayin’,’ pursued the farmer, ignoring these niceties,
‘I bain’t altogether so very much surprised. I’ve a-heard some queer
talk about you and Sam Belbin—only this very day I’ve a-heard queer
talk—and, to say the truth, that were the reason why I looked in this
arternoon—I thought it best not to wait till Sunday. I’m not one to
meddle, but I thought it only kind to let ye know what folks in the
village be sayin’.’
‘Mr. Sharpe!’—and her eyes positively blazed—‘do you mean to tell me that
people know me so little as to gossip about me and that low fellow?’
‘Ah, my dear,’ cried Isaac, catching the infection of her excitement,
‘there’s no knowing what folks do say—they be ready to believe any
scandelious thing. Why, Bithey did actually tell me ’t is common talk o’
the village as you and me be a-goin’ to make a match of it.’
Rosalie, who had been leaning forward in her chair, suddenly sank back;
she drew a long breath, and then said in a very small voice:
‘Well, Isaac, I believe it will have to come to that.’
Not even Sam Belbin, withering under his mistress’s scornful gaze, had
stared at her with such blank dismay as that now perceptible on Farmer
Sharpe’s face.
Rosalie covered her own with both hands, but presently dropped them
again.
‘Everything points to it,’ she said firmly. ‘You see yourself things
cannot go on as they are. I find I can’t manage the men—’
Here her voice broke, but she pursued after a minute: ‘Even the work
which I am competent to undertake has not succeeded. Elias would be
sorely grieved to see everything going wrong like this, he who was such a
good man of business—always so regular and particular.’
‘Ah,’ groaned Isaac, ‘I d’ ’low, it ’ud very near break his heart.’
‘There must be a master here,’ went on Rosalie. ‘Even you were forced to
own just now that I ought to marry again.’
‘’Ees,’ agreed Isaac unwillingly, ‘oh, ’ees, it ’ud be a very good thing;
but I—’
He broke off, gazing at her with an expression almost akin to terror.
‘Do you suppose for a moment,’ she cried with spirit, ‘that I would ever
consent to put a stranger in my dear Elias’s place? Could you—you who
have been his friend so long, bear to see one of the Branston
counter-jumpers master here? I wonder at you, Isaac Sharpe!’
‘Nay now,’ protested the farmer; ‘I did n’t say I wished no such thing,
Mrs. Fiander. I said ’t was my opinion as you’d be forced to take a
second, and you might do worse nor think o’ John Hardy.’
‘Pray, is n’t he a counter-jumper?’ interrupted Rosalie vehemently.
‘Well, there’s others besides he,’ returned Sharpe weakly.
‘Whom would you choose, then?’ cried she. ‘Wilson, to drink, and race
away my husband’s hard-earned money? Andrew Burge, perhaps, whom you
drove out of this house with your own hands? Or that little ferret-faced
Samuel Cross—he’d know how to manage a dairy-farm, would n’t he? You’d
like to see him strutting about, and giving orders here? I tell you what
it is, Isaac Sharpe, if you have no respect for dear Elias’s memory, you
should be glad that I have.’
‘Who says I have n’t respect for ’Lias’s memory?’ thundered Isaac, now
almost goaded into a fury. ‘I’ve known ’en a deal longer nor you have,
Widow Fiander, and there’s no one in this world as thought more on him.
All I says is—I bain’t a marryin’ man—’Lias knowed I were n’t never a
marryin’ man. I don’t believe,’ added Isaac, with an emphatic thump on
the table, ‘I don’t believe as if ’Lias were alive he’d expect it of me.’
‘But he’s dead, you see,’ returned Rosalie with a sudden pathetic change
of tone—‘he’s dead, and that is why everything is going wrong. I should
n’t think of making a change myself if I did n’t feel it was the only
thing to do. You loved Elias; you knew his ways; you would carry on the
work just as he used to do—it would n’t be like putting a stranger in his
place. I would n’t do it if I could help it,’ she added, sobbing; ‘but I
think we—we should both try to do our duty by Elias.’
Isaac, visibly moved, rolled his eyes towards her and heaved a mighty
sigh.
‘Of course, if you put it that way,’ he began; and then his courage
failed him, and be became once more mute.
‘It would n’t be such a bad thing for you, Mr. Sharpe,’ went on Rosalie
faintly. ‘’T is a very fine farm, and a good business. It would be
convenient for you to work the two farms together. You’d have quite a
large property—and this is a very comfortable house.’
‘Ah,’ agreed Isaac, ‘’t is a good house, but I have n’t no need for two
houses. I’m content wi’ the one where I were born.’
‘Oh, but that won’t do at all,’ cried Rosalie with sudden animation; ‘you
would have to live here—the object of my marrying you would be that you
should live here.’
‘I’ve a-lived in my own house ever sin’ I were born,’ said the farmer
obstinately, ‘and when a man weds he takes his wife to live wi’ him.’
‘Not when the wife has got the best house of the two,’ retorted Mrs.
Fiander.
‘A man can’t live in two houses,’ asserted Isaac; adding, after a pause:
‘What would ye have me do with mine, then?’
‘You could put your head-man to live in it,’ returned she, ‘paying you
rent, of course. Or you could let it to somebody else—you would make
money in that way.’
One by one Isaac’s entrenchments were being carried: no resource remained
open to him but to capitulate or to take flight. He chose the latter
alternative.
‘’T is not a thing as a body can make up his mind to in a hurry,’ he
said. ‘I must think it over, Mrs. Fiander.’
Then before she could make the sharp retort which had risen to her lips
he had darted to the door.
As it closed behind him Rosalie sprang to her feet, and began to pace
hastily about the room. What had she done? She had actually in so many
words made an offer of marriage to Isaac Sharpe—and she was not quite
sure of being accepted! There was the rub! Elias was an old man, yet he
had wooed her, in her homeless, penniless condition, with a certain
amount of ardour. In her widowhood she had been courted, doubtless as
much on account of her wealth as of her beauty, but certainly with no
lack of eagerness. And now, when she had turned with affectionate
confidence to this old friend, and practically laid herself, her good
looks, and good fortune at his feet, he had promised unwillingly to think
it over. It was not to be endured—she would send him to the right-about
on his return, let his decision be what it might. But then came the
sickening remembrance of the failures and humiliations which had attended
her unassisted enterprises; the importunities of distasteful
suitors—worst of all, the confident leer on Sam Belbin’s face. Great
Heavens! What a miserable fate was hers! She dared not so much as trust
a servant but he must needs try to take advantage of her unprotected
condition.
The lamp was lit and tea set forth, but Rosalie left it untasted upon the
table. She was still pacing restlessly about the room when Isaac walked
in; this time without any preliminary knock.
He closed the door behind him and advanced towards the young woman, his
face wearing a benign if somewhat sheepish smile.
‘I be come to tell you,’ he said, ‘as I’ve come round to the notion.’
He paused, beaming down at her with the air of a man who was making an
indubitably pleasant announcement; and Rosalie, who was gifted with a
very genuine sense of humour, could not for the life of her help
laughing.
‘’Ees,’ repeated Isaac valiantly. ‘I’ve a-comed round to the notion. I
was al’ays a bit shy o’ materimony, by reason o’ the cat-and-dog life as
my mother and father did lead; but I d’ ’low as I’ve no need to be
fearful about you. You’re made different, my dear; and ye’ve been a good
wife to ’Lias. What’s more,’ he went on cheerfully, ‘as I was a-thinkin’
to myself, ’t is n’t same as if I was to go and put myself in the wrong
box, so to speak, by beggin’ and prayin’ of ye to have me; then ye mid
very well cast up at me some day if I was n’t _satisfied_ wi’ the
bargain. But when a young woman comes and axes a man as a favour to
marry her it be a different story, bain’t it?’
Rosalie stopped laughing and glanced at him indignantly.
‘If that’s the way in which you look at it, Mr. Sharpe,’ she said, ‘I
think we had better give up the idea. How dare you,’ she burst out
suddenly—‘how dare you tell me to my face that I asked you as a favour?
I am not the kind of person to pray and beseech you. You know as well as
I do that other people are ready to fall on their knees if I but hold up
a finger.’
‘Ah, a good few of them are,’ agreed Isaac dispassionately; ‘but ye don’t
want ’em, ye see. Well, and at the first go off, when I was took by
surprise, so to speak, I thought I did n’t want you. Not as I’ve any
personal objections to you,’ he added handsomely, ‘but because I never
reckoned on changing my state. But now, as I’ve a-thought it over, I’m
agreeable, my dear.’
Rosalie remained silent, her eyes downcast, her hands nervously clasping
and unclasping each other.
‘I’m willin’,’ he went on, ‘to do my dooty by ’Lias and my dooty by you,
Rosalie. You’ve been a good wife to he, and ye’ll be the same to me,
I’ve no doubt.’
He paused, passing his hand meditatively over his grizzled locks and
probably comforting himself with the reflection that in this case at
least there would be no need to supply himself with such a box as that so
often dolefully shown to him by his father.
‘I want to do my duty by Elias,’ said the poor young widow at last, in a
choked voice, ‘but I don’t want you to sacrifice yourself, since you feel
it is a sacrifice. If you hate me so much don’t marry me, Isaac,’ she
added passionately.
‘Lard, my dear, who ever said I hated ’ee? Far from it! I do like ’ee
very much; I’ve liked ’ee from the first. ’Lias knowed I liked ’ee. Say
no more about a sacrifice; it bain’t no sacrifice to speak on. I was
real upset to see how bad you was a-gettin’ on, an’ it’ll be a comfort to
think as I can look arter you, and look arter the place. You and me was
al’ays the best o’ friends, and we’ll go on bein’ the best o’ friends
when we are man and wife. I can’t say no fairer than that.’
He stretched out his large brown palm, and Rosalie laid her cold fingers
in it, and the compact was concluded by a silent hand-shake.
Then Isaac, who was a practical man, pointed out to Rosalie that her tea
was growing cold, and remarked placidly that he would smoke a bit of a
pipe by the fire while she partook of it.
As she approached the table and began tremulously to fill her cup he drew
forward a chair and sat down.
Rosalie glanced round at him and started; the new era had already begun.
Isaac was sitting in Elias’s chair!
PART II
_THE PRINCE_
CHAPTER I
’Mong blooming woods, at twilight dim,
The throstle chants with glee, o!
But the plover sings his evening hymn
To the ferny wild so free, o!
Wild an’ free!
Wild an’ free!
Where the moorland breezes blow!
EDWIN WAUGH.
L’amour nous enlève notre libre-arbitre: on peut choisir ses amitiés,
mais on subit l’amour.
PRINCESSE KARADJA.
ONE lovely sparkling April day a man was slowly pushing his bicycle up a
certain steep incline which is situated a little way out of Dorchester,
and which is known as Yellowham Hill.
The road climbed upwards between woods, the banks on either side being
surmounted by a dense growth of rhododendrons and gorse, the latter in
full bloom, its brilliant yellow contrasting with the glossy dark leaves
of the bushes behind, which were already covered with a myriad of buds,
and the little bronze crooks of the bracken curling upwards through the
moss beneath.
The long spring day wanted yet some hours of its close, but already
delicious spicy odours came forth from the woods, which spoke of falling
dew; and the birds were making mysterious rustlings in the boughs, as
though preparing to go to roost.
The young man paused every now and then to draw a long breath, and to
look round him with evident delight.
‘This is good,’ he said to himself once. ‘This is fairyland—the place is
full of magic.’ Then a sudden change came over his face, and he added:
‘It is better than fairyland—it is home.’
He was a pleasant-looking young fellow, with a handsome intelligent face
and a tall well-knit figure. He had grey eyes, very alert and keen in
their expression, and when he smiled his face lit up in an unexpected and
attractive way. His complexion was browner than might have been looked
for in connection with his hair, which was not very dark, and he had a
certain wideawake air as of one who had seen many men and things.
He had almost reached the crest of the hill when his glance, sweeping
appreciatively over the curving bank at the turn of the road, rested upon
a woman’s figure amid the tangle of sunlit green and gold which crowned
it.
Rosalie Fiander—who would be Rosalie Fiander for some three months
longer, it having been agreed between her and Isaac that their marriage
should not take place till her year’s widowhood was completed—had halted
here on her return to Branston, after a flying business-visit to
Dorchester.
These Yellowham Woods had been much loved by her during her childhood,
and she had yielded to the temptation of alighting from the gig to spend
a few minutes in what had once been to her a very paradise.
Nigger was placidly cropping the grass at a little distance from her, and
she had been on her way to re-enter the vehicle, when she had paused for
a last glance round.
She had marked, at first idly, then with some interest, the figure which
was toiling up the hill, feeling somewhat embarrassed when she discovered
on its nearer approach that she was herself the object of a somewhat
unusual scrutiny. The grey eyes which looked at her so intently from out
of the brown face had a very peculiar mixture of expressions. There was
curiosity in them and admiration—to that she was accustomed—but there was
something more: a wonder, an almost incredulous delight. Thus might a
man look upon the face of a very dear friend whom he had not expected to
see—thus almost might he meet the sweetheart from whom he had been parted
for years.
As he approached the bank he slackened his pace, and presently came to a
standstill immediately beneath Rosalie’s pinnacle of moss-grown earth.
They remained face to face with each other for a moment or two, Rosalie
gazing down, fascinated, at the man’s eyes, in which the joyful wonder
was growing ever brighter. Rousing herself at last with an effort, and
colouring high, she turned and hastened along the crest of the bank until
she came to the gig, descended, rapidly gathered up the reins, and
mounted into the vehicle.
Seeing that the stranger, though he had begun to walk slowly on,
continued to watch her, and being, besides, annoyed and confused at her
own temporary embarrassment, she jerked the reins somewhat sharply, and
touched up Nigger with the whip. The astonished animal, unaccustomed to
such treatment, started off at a brisk pace, and the gig rattled down the
steep incline with a speed which would have filled its late owner with
horror.
The disaster which he would certainly have prophesied was not long in
coming. Nigger’s legs were not quite on a par with his mettle, and
presently, stumbling over a loose stone, he was unable to recover
himself, and dropped fairly and squarely on both knees.
He was up in an instant, but Rosalie, jumping out of the cart, and
running to his head, uttered a cry of anguish. Through the white patches
of dust which testified to Nigger’s misfortune she saw blood trickling.
A moment later rapid footsteps were heard descending the hill, and the
bicyclist came to her assistance.
Bending forward, he carefully examined Nigger’s knees, and then turned to
Rosalie; the curious expression which had so puzzled and annoyed her
having completely vanished and given place to one of respectful concern.
‘Don’t be frightened,’ he said; ‘it is not much—barely skin-deep—I doubt
if there will be any marks.’
‘He has never been down before,’ said she tearfully. ‘Poor Nigger! Good
old fellow! I should n’t have driven you so fast down the hill.’
‘His legs should be attended to at once,’ said the stranger practically.
‘Have you far to go?’
‘Oh yes—sixteen miles. To Branston.’
He darted a keen glance at her.
‘Branston,’ he echoed. ‘I am going there myself to-morrow, or rather I
am going to a place about a mile this side of it.’
‘Well, I, too, stop a little this side of the town,’ said Rosalie. ‘But
poor Nigger will never get so far. What am I to do? I must get home
to-night.’
‘There is a village a mile or so from here,’ observed the young man. ‘I
think your best plan would be to leave the horse at the inn there. They
would probably lend you another to take you home. If you will get into
the trap I will lead the horse slowly back.’
‘Oh no, I will walk,’ cried Rosalie; ‘I can lead him myself,’ she added
diffidently. ‘I don’t like to take you out of your way—besides, you have
your bicycle. I suppose you are going to Dorchester?’
‘I can go to Dorchester any time,’ returned he. ‘’T is merely a fancy of
mine that takes me there. I’ve a wish to see the old place again, having
been away from it for ten years. But I am really on my way to visit my
uncle. If you know Branston, I dare say you have met him. He lives near
Littlecomb Village, at a place called the Down Farm.’
‘Mr. Isaac Sharpe!’ ejaculated Rosalie. ‘Indeed, I do know him. I live
next door to him.’
She broke off, not deeming it necessary to disclose, on so short an
acquaintance, her peculiar relations with the person in question.
‘Good!’ cried the young man gaily. ‘It is strange our meeting like this.
I am Richard Marshall, his nephew. You live next door to him, you say,’
he added, with a puzzled look; ‘then you must be—you are—?’
‘I am Mrs. Fiander,’ returned she. ‘You remember Elias Fiander, of
Littlecomb Farm?’
‘Of course I do; and I used to know his wife.’
‘Oh, you have been so long away that a great many changes have taken
place. I was Elias Fiander’s third wife.’
‘Was?’ cried he.
‘Yes,’ said Rosalie blushing, she knew not why. ‘My dear husband died
last July.’
The look of blank dismay which had overspread the young man’s face gave
way to an expression of relief; but he made no reply.
Rosalie took hold of the nearest rein, turned Nigger round, and began to
lead him slowly up the hill again.
‘I can really manage quite well,’ she said, somewhat stiffly.
‘I must see you out of your difficulties,’ returned the other with quiet
determination; and he too began to retrace his steps, pausing a moment at
the crest of the hill to repossess himself of his bicycle, which he had
left propped against the bank.
‘I will ride on to the village,’ he said, ‘and make arrangements about
leaving your horse there and getting a fresh one. It will save time, and
there is none to spare if you want to get home before dusk.’
He raised his cap, mounted, and disappeared before Rosalie had time to
protest.
Indeed, she was glad enough of Richard Marshall’s helpful company when
she presently arrived at the Black Horse Inn, where, in spite of the
framed poetical effusion which hung beneath the sign, and which testified
to the merits of the establishment, there was some difficulty in
procuring accommodation and attention for poor Nigger, and even greater
in finding a substitute. In fact, the only animal available proved to be
a huge rawboned three-year-old, who was with great difficulty persuaded
to enter the shafts of the gig, and who, when harnessed, tilted up the
vehicle in such a peculiar manner that Rosalie shrank back in alarm.
‘He does n’t look safe,’ she faltered; ‘and I’m quite sure that boy is
n’t capable of driving him. I have been shaken by the fright, I suppose,
for I feel quite unnerved.’
‘I will drive you,’ said Richard, with decision, waving aside the lad who
had been appointed charioteer and who now began to assert his perfect
competence to perform the task. ‘I guess I can manage most things in the
way of horseflesh; and in any case I intended to go to my uncle’s
to-morrow.’
‘Oh no; I could n’t think—’ Rosalie was beginning, when he interrupted
her eagerly:
‘Nothing will be easier, I assure you; my bag is here, strapped on to my
bicycle. I meant to take my uncle by surprise—he does n’t know I am in
England. You can send back the horse to-morrow—even if you took the lad,
it would be difficult for him to return to-night. My bicycle can stay
here until I send for it or fetch it. Perhaps I had better get in first,
Mrs. Fiander, to keep this wild animal quiet, while you get up. Hand
over the reins here—that’s it; hold on by his head till the lady mounts.
Put that machine of mine in a dry place, will you? Now then, Mrs.
Fiander, give me your hand. Whoa, boy! Steady! There we are—Let go!’
He laid the whip lightly on the animal’s back, and they were off before
Rosalie had had time to protest or to demur.
The long legs of the three-year-old covered the ground in a marvellous
manner, and with that tall masterful figure by her side she could feel no
fear. Indeed the sensation of swinging along through the brisk air was
pleasant enough, though she felt a little uncomfortable at the thought of
the astonishment which her arrival in such company would produce at home;
and she was, moreover, not quite certain if she relished being thus
peremptorily taken possession of by the new-comer. Rosalie was used to
think and act for herself and it was quite a new experience to her to
have her will gainsaid and her objections overborne, even in her own
interests. But, after all, the man was Isaac’s nephew, and no one could
find fault with her for accepting his assistance. In a few months’ time
she would be his aunt—perhaps he would then allow her wishes to have more
weight. She smiled to herself as she glanced up at him—what would he say
if she told him the relationship which he would shortly bear to her? He
would be her nephew. How ridiculous it seemed! He must be some years
older than she was; there were firm lines in that brown face, and the
hands looked capable and strong, as if they had accomplished plenty of
work.
When they reached Yellowham Hill once more and began to descend at a
foot’s pace, Richard broke silence.
‘I have seen and done a good many things in the course of my travels, but
I have never come across so beautiful a spot as this, and none of my
adventures have been so curious as the one which introduced me to you.’
‘Really,’ said Rosalie drily; ‘I cannot see that there was anything so
very extraordinary in it. Even if Nigger had not had this accident we
should have been certain to meet while you are staying at Mr. Sharpe’s.’
‘I wonder,’ said the young man, speaking half to himself and half to
her—‘I wonder if I should have preferred to meet you first in your own
fields—in a cornfield. But the corn, of course, will not be ripe for
months to come. No, on the whole I am content. I said to myself when I
was climbing the hill, “There is magic in this place,” and I felt it was
home.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Rosalie. ‘What can it matter where
one first meets a new acquaintance, and why should it be in a cornfield?’
‘I saw you first in a cornfield,’ said he.
‘But surely you were not in England last harvest time,’ she cried. ‘What
are you talking about? You have only just said that you would like to
_have met_ me first in a cornfield, which proves—what is true—that you
have never seen me before.’
‘I have seen you before,’ he murmured in a low voice.
‘Nonsense, nonsense,’ she cried sharply; ‘you must have dreamt it.’
‘Yes—I did dream—about you,’ he owned, glancing at her; and once more
that curious look of wondering joy stole over his face.
Rosalie drew a little away from him in a displeasure which he was quick
to observe.
‘I will explain some day,’ he said, looking down at her with a smile
which disarmed her; and then, having reached the bottom of the hill, he
chirruped to the horse, and they sped along once more at an exhilarating
pace.
By-and-by he began to talk about his uncle, speaking of him with such
evident affection that the heart of the future Mrs. Sharpe warmed to him.
Her grateful regard for Isaac had increased during their four months’
betrothal. Indeed, it could not have been otherwise: he was so placid,
and good-natured, and obliging. Moreover, he took a lot of trouble off
her hands, for he had assumed the management of the farm immediately
after their engagement. No one could cavil at this arrangement: it was
natural that the man who was so shortly to be master should at once take
over the control of affairs. Even the gossips of the neighbourhood could
make no ill-natured comments; one and all, indeed, agreeing that it was
pretty behaviour on the part of the Widow Fiander to postpone the wedding
till after the year was out.
So Rosalie listened, well pleased, while Richard spoke of Isaac’s past
generosity to him and his mother, of the high esteem in which he held
him, and of his desire to spend a few weeks in his company before going
out into the world afresh.
‘Perhaps I ought to tell him that I am going to marry his uncle,’ thought
Rosalie, and then she dismissed the notion. Let Isaac make the
announcement himself; she felt rather shy about it—and possibly Richard
Marshall might not like the idea.
She began to question him, instead, anent his past achievements and
future prospects, and heard with astonishment and concern that the young
man had not only failed to make his fortune in the distant lands he had
visited, but had come back in some ways poorer than he had set out.
‘Only in some things, though,’ he said. ‘I reckon I am richer on the
whole.’
‘How are you poorer and how are you richer?’ queried Rosalie.
‘I am poorer in pocket; my uncle sent me out with a nice little sum to
start me in life. Ah, as I tell you, he’s a first-rate old chap. He
could n’t have done more for me if I had been his son. Well, that’s gone
long ago, but I have come back richer all the same—rich in experience,
for one thing. I have seen a lot and learnt a lot. I educated myself
out there in more ways than one. Dear old Dorset holds a very fine place
on the map of England, yet ’t is but a tiny corner of the world after
all.’
As she listened there came to Rosalie a sudden inexplicable envy. She
had never been out of her native county—she had never wanted to travel
beyond its borders, but for a moment the thought struck her that it might
be a fine and desirable thing to see the world.
‘I wonder,’ she said tartly, for her irritation at this discovery
recoiled on its unsuspicious cause—‘I wonder, Mr. Marshall, you should
care to come back to Dorset since you have such a poor opinion of it.
Why did n’t you settle out there?’
‘Out where?’ he inquired with a smile. ‘I have tried to settle in a good
many places. I was in a newspaper office in New York—it was while I was
there that I did most in the way of educating myself—and then I went to
San Francisco, and then to Texas. I’ve been pretty well over the States,
in fact, and I’ve been to Mexico and Brazil and Canada. I might have
done well in several places if I could have made up my mind to stick to
the job in hand—but I could n’t. Something was drawing me all the
time—drawing me back to England—drawing me home, so that at last I felt I
must come back.’
‘And what will you do now?’ she inquired with curiosity.
‘Oh,’ he cried, drawing a deep breath, ‘I must work on a farm. The love
for farm-work is in my blood, I believe. I want the smell of the
fresh-turned earth; I want my arms to be tired heaving the sheaves into
the waggons; I want to lead out the horses early in the morning into the
dewy fields—I want, oh, many things!’
Rosalie considered him wonderingly: these things were done around her
every day as a matter of course, but how curiously the man spoke of them,
how unaccountable was that longing of which he spoke! She had never seen
anyone the least like him, and, now that the conversation had drifted
away from herself, she felt a real pleasure and interest in listening to
his talk. As they drove onward through the gathering twilight she, too,
was moved to talk, and was charmed by his quick understanding and ready
response. Her own wits were quick enough, but she had fallen into the
habit of keeping her opinions on abstract subjects to herself: the
concrete was all that the people with whom she associated were capable of
discussing; and, indeed, they had not much to say on any matter at any
time. This young bright personality was something so absolutely new to
her, his point of view so original and vigorous, and his sympathy so
magnetic, that Rosalie enjoyed her adventure as she had never enjoyed
anything in her life before. Her eyes shone, her cheeks flushed, her
merry laugh rang out; she felt that she, too, was young and
light-hearted, and that life and youth and gay companionship made a very
delightful combination.
As they drew near their destination a sudden silence fell between them,
and presently Richard broke it, speaking in a soft and altered tone.
‘How familiar the country grows! Even in the dark I recognise a friend
at every turn. Is not that your house yonder where the lights are
glimmering?’
‘Yes,’ said Rosalie, with a little unconscious sigh.
‘The cornfield where I saw you lies just to the right of it.’
‘I wish you would not talk in riddles,’ said Rosalie, breathing rather
quickly. Through the dusk he could see the wrathful fire in her eyes.
‘Do not be angry,’ he said quickly; ‘I meant to tell you another time
when I had come to know you better, but after all why should I not tell
you now? I saw a picture of you in London. I stayed a day or two there
on my way through from Liverpool—I had some business to do for a friend
in New York—and I went to the Academy, and there, in the very first room,
I saw your picture.’
‘My picture!’ ejaculated she. ‘It must have been the one that London
gentleman said he would paint.’
‘Yes, it was you—you yourself; and you were lying in a cornfield under a
shock of wheat, and the corner of your house could just be seen in the
distance, and some of the men were reaping a little way off—but you were
fast asleep.’
Rosalie’s heart was thumping in a most unusual way, and her breath came
so pantingly that she did not trust herself to speak.
‘’T was a big picture,’ he said; ‘full of sunshine, and when I saw it—the
whole thing—the great field stretching away, and the men working, and the
quiet old house in the distance, and the girl sleeping so placidly—it was
all so glowing, and yet so peaceful and homelike that my heart went out
to it. “That’s Dorset,” I said, and I believe I cried—I know I felt as
if I could cry. After all those years of wandering to find, when I
thought myself all alone in a great strange city, that piece of home
smiling at one—I tell you it made one feel queer.’
Rosalie remained silent, angry with herself for the agitation which had
taken possession of her.
‘So you see I was not quite so far wrong in saying that to-day’s meeting
was a very strange one. The first instant my eyes fell upon you I
recognised you.’
She felt she must say something, but her voice sounded husky and quite
unlike itself when she spoke.
‘It certainly was odd that we should come across each other near
Dorchester. It would of course have been quite natural if you had
recognised me when you came to your uncle’s.’
‘I thought you would have been more interested in my story,’ he said
reproachfully, after a pause.
‘I am—I am very much interested; I think it a very funny story.’
‘Funny!’ he repeated, and then relapsed into silence, which remained
unbroken until they turned in at Rosalie’s gate.
CHAPTER II
A thousand thorns, and briers, and stings
I have in my poor breast;
Yet ne’er can see that salve which brings
My passion any rest.
HERRICK.
‘WELL, my boy, I be main glad you be come back. There bain’t no place
like home, be there?’
As Isaac Sharpe repeated these words for the twentieth time since his
nephew’s arrival, he beamed affectionately upon him through the fragrant
steam of the bowl of punch specially brewed in his honour, and then,
leaning back in his chair, sighed and shook his head.
‘Ye be wonderful like your mother, Richard,’ he said, and sighed again,
and groaned, and took another sip of punch, blinking the while, partly
from the strength of the decoction and partly because he was overcome by
emotion.
Richard, sitting opposite to him, stretched out his legs luxuriously to
the warmth of the crackling wood fire, and, removing his pipe from his
lips, gazed contentedly round the familiar kitchen, which was now looking
its best in the homely radiance.
‘It is good to come back to the dear old place and to find everything
exactly the same as ever. You don’t seem to have grown a day older,
Uncle Isaac—nothing is changed. I can’t tell you how delightful that is.
I had been tormenting myself during the journey with fancying I should
find things altered—but, thank Heaven, they are not.’
He glanced brightly at the broad, rubicund face opposite to him, and took
his glass from the table.
‘Your health, Uncle! May you live a thousand years, and may you be the
same at the end of them!’
He half emptied his glass, and set it down with a cheery laugh.
Isaac drank slowly from his, peering meanwhile at his nephew over the
rim.
‘Thank you, my lad,’ he said, replacing it on the table at last. ‘I’m
obliged to you, Richard. ’T is kindly meant, but changes, d’ ye
see’—here he paused and coughed—‘changes, Richard, is what must be looked
for in this here world.’
His colour, always sufficiently ruddy, was now so much heightened, and
his face assumed so curiously solemn an expression, that Richard paused
with his pipe half-way to his lips and stared at him with amazement and
gathering alarm.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said, anxiously. ‘Are n’t you feeling well?
You’re looking first-rate.’
‘Never felt better in my life,’ rejoined his uncle in sepulchral tones.
‘Come, that’s all right! You quite frightened me. What do you mean by
talking about changes?’
Isaac took a gulp from his tumbler and fixed his round eyes dismally on
the young man.
‘There may be sich things as changes for the better,’ he remarked, still
in his deepest bass.
‘Don’t believe in ’em,’ cried Richard gaily. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going
to turn Methody, or Salvationist, or anything of that kind. I like you
as you are—and I don’t want you to be any better.’
‘Dear heart alive, what notions the chap d’ take in his head!’ ejaculated
the farmer, relaxing into a smile. ‘Nay now, I never thought on sich
things; but there’ll be a change in this here house for all that,
Richard. I be a-goin’’—here Isaac leaned forward, with a hand on either
knee, and fixed his eyes earnestly, almost tragically, on his nephew—‘I
be a-goin’, Richard, for to change my state.’
He slowly resumed an upright position, drawing in his breath through
dilated nostrils.
‘I be a-goin’, Richard,’ he continued, observing the other’s blank and
uncomprehending stare—‘I be a-goin’ to get married.’
‘Bless me!’ exclaimed Richard, taken aback for a moment; then rising from
his chair he stepped up to his uncle, and slapped him heartily on the
back. ‘Well done!’ he cried. ‘Well done! I give you joy! Upon my life
I did n’t think you had so much go in you—you’re a splendid old chap!’
‘Thank ’ee,’ said Isaac, without much enthusiasm. ‘I’m glad you’re not
agen it.’
‘Why should I be against it?’ returned Richard hilariously. ‘I’m a
little surprised, because I did n’t think that was in your line; but,
after all, “Marry in haste and repent at leisure,” the saying goes—your
case is the reverse; you have taken your time about marrying, so perhaps
it will be all the better for you.’
‘I hope so, I’m sure,’ said the bridegroom-elect, dolefully; adding, as
Richard, still laughing, resumed his seat, ‘I thought I’d best tell ’ee
at once as there was goin’ to be a change.’
‘Well, well, a change for the better, as you say,’ cried the other.
‘There’ll be two to welcome me when I pay the Down Farm a visit instead
of one. I shall find a jolly old aunt as well as a jolly old uncle.’
Isaac took his pipe out of his mouth with a perturbed expression.
‘She bain’t so very old,’ he remarked.
‘No, no—of course not. Neither are you for that matter. May she be an
evergreen like yourself!’
‘Thank ’ee, Richard, thank ’ee. I’m glad as you approve o’ my thinking
on matrimony.’
‘Why, matrimony’s the best thing going,’ said Richard, still gaily, yet
with an undercurrent of something curiously like tenderness. ‘Every
grief is lessened by half, and every joy is doubled. Always a bright
cheery face at the fireside, always a kind true hand in yours—a woman’s
wit to point out where the man has been at fault.’
‘Ah,’ interrupted his uncle, with a groan, ‘they be willin’ enough to do
that!’
‘Always ready to comfort you when you are in trouble,’ went on the young
man without heeding him, ‘ready to advise you when you are in a
difficulty—the best of companions, the most faithful of friends, the
kindest of helpmates—that’s a wife!’
The farmer was gazing across at him with bewilderment mixed with delight.
‘Well said, Richard,—very well said! Ye be wonderful quick wi’ your
tongue. If that’s the way ye feel about wedlock you ought to be lookin’
out for a wife o’ your own.’
‘Nonsense, Uncle Isaac. Why, I have n’t a penny. I shall have hard work
to keep myself to begin with.’
‘Come, come, we mid be able to manage summat. I’ve a notion in my head.
Ye be a-goin’ to take up farm-work agen, ye tell me; well, an’ as I says
to you: Why not work on the farm where ye was brought up, and why not
take wage from your own flesh and blood instead of lookin’ to strangers
for ’t?’
‘There’s no one I should like to work for better than you, Uncle
Isaac—you know that.’
‘I do know it, Richard. I d’ know it very well. “But,” says you to me,
“I must have somewheres to live,” says you.’
‘No, I don’t, Uncle Isaac! I say nothing of the kind,’ put in the young
man hastily. ‘If you intended to remain a bachelor it would be a
different matter, but—’
‘I’m not axing you to live wi’ me,’ returned Isaac, throwing out his hand
in a lordly manner. ‘If I was a-goin’ to keep single it ’ud come nat’ral
enough, but my new missus—Well, ’t is this way. She have got a house of
her own, and she’s anxious for me to live over there along o’ her.’
‘I see,’ said Richard, looking rather astonished, however.
‘’Ees, I were agen it at first, but I come round to it arter. So I
reckoned to let this here house to somebody—one of the men, p’r’aps; but
now has you’ve a-comed back, Richard, my boy, there bain’t nobody I’d
like to see livin’ here so much as yourself. My notion ’ud be for you to
settle down wi’ a wife to do for you and keep the place tidy, and work
this here farm under me. My hands ’ull be pretty full, and I’ll be glad
o’ your help. _She’s_ got a biggish place to manage, and I’ll be glad to
think as there’s somebody here as I can rely on. Well, what do you say?’
‘What do I say?’ cried Richard, stammering with joy. ‘What can I say? I
don’t know how to thank you!’
‘Well,’ said the farmer jovially; ‘and now, what about the missus? ’Ave
’ee got your eye on anyone as ’ud suit?’
‘Why,’ began Richard eagerly; he paused, and then continued laughingly,
‘you must give me a little time, you know. I’ve only been a few days in
England.’
‘That’s true. I’m glad to think, my lad, as you don’t want to take a
wife from abroad. Nay, don’t ye go travellin’ for a wife. Take my word
for ’t, the best is often to be picked up close at hand. Not always,
though,’ he continued, reflectively. ‘Poor Elias Fiander—ye mind ’Lias
Fiander? He went travellin’ all the way to Dorchester to buy a
turmit-hoin’ machine, and it was there, nigh upon eighteen miles off, as
he come across his last missus. But you know her,’ he went on with
animation—‘aye, now as I call it to mind, you were a-tellin’ me how you
drove her back to-day. Ah, sure, so ye did.’
‘Yes,’ said Richard quickly; ‘yes, I told you all about that.’
‘Ah, so ye did. ’Twere funny how you come across her. I be pleased to
think as ye’ve met. She were a good missus to Elias—she were, indeed—and
a good missus to one man is like to be a good one to another.’
Richard caught his breath and leaned forward; his face was flushed, his
eyes shining.
‘Why do you say this to me now?’ he said eagerly.
His uncle removed his pipe from his mouth, took a sip of punch, and then
looked at him solemnly.
‘Because, Richard, my boy, ’t is but nat’ral I should talk of her, seein’
as we be goin’ to be man an’ wife so soon.’
‘What do you mean?’ cried Richard, almost violently. ‘What are you
talking about?’
‘Why,’ returned Isaac, raising his voice to a kind of mild roar, ‘you
have n’t been listenin’ to me. I’ve been a-talkin’ about Mrs.
Fiander—’Lias’s widow. I be a-goin’ to get married to she!’
‘You!’ exclaimed his nephew in the same loud fierce tone.
‘’Ees,’ bellowed Farmer Sharpe. ‘Have n’t I been a-tellin’ ye this hour
and more? Did n’t I say I were a-goin’ to change my state, and did n’t I
tell ’ee she’d a house of her own and wanted me to live over there along
of her? But your brains was wool-gatherin’—I’ll lay a shillin’ you was
a-thinkin’ o’ your own young woman!’ cried Isaac, with a roar of
laughter, stretching forward a long arm that he might give his nephew a
facetious dig on the nearest available portion of his person.
Richard laughed too, spasmodically, and with a wry face.
‘You’re a sly dog, Uncle Isaac,’ he said. ‘Ah, you’re a cunning old
chap—you’ve got your wits about you if mine have gone astray! Yes, and
you’ve very good taste too—you’ve picked out the greatest beauty in
Dorset.’
‘Except your young woman, eh?’ put in Isaac, with a chuckle and another
dig.
‘Except my young woman, of course,’ agreed Richard, laughing again with
that odd contortion of the face. ‘But I have n’t found her yet, you
know.’
‘My weddin’-day is fixed for the end o’ Ju—ly,’ said his uncle
ruminatively. You’ll have to look out for your missus afore that time.
I doubt as you and Bithey ’ud scarce get on so very well—I’m used to her,
you see, but she’s a cranky old body, and it ’ud never do for ye to
settle down wi’out a woman o’ some kind to do for ’ee. We might ha’ the
two weddin’s same day: I’d like to know as you was settled when I have to
shift.’
‘Thank you kindly, uncle; you’ve always been like a father to me, and I
can’t tell you how grateful I am to you for the welcome you’ve given me,
and for wanting to do so much for me. But I don’t know about settling
down after all—I’ve been a rover so long, you see, I—I might n’t be able
to stick to it and then you might be disappointed.’
‘Stuff an’ nonsense! I’ll not hear o’ no objections. Why, Richard, you
never were one to blow hot one minute and cold the next. It bain’t half
an hour since you said there was naught you wished for so much as to take
up farm-work again and live on the old place—did n’t ’ee?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘But nothin’! You’re a-wool-gatherin’—that’s it. Your thoughts is
a-wanderin’ off to the new missus.’
‘Is not that to be expected?’ returned his nephew idly.
Resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands he leaned
forward, gazing thoughtfully into the fire:
‘I have n’t got over my surprise at your piece of news yet,’ he said,
after a pause. ‘I thought you so determined a bachelor.’
‘So I thought myself,’ put in Isaac with a nod.
‘And then—from what I’ve seen of Mrs. Fiander I should never have
imagined that she would be the wife you would choose when you did make up
your mind to take one.’
‘Why so?’ inquired Isaac, somewhat roughly.
‘She’s so young—forty years younger than you, I should think.’
‘Thirty-nine,’ corrected his uncle succinctly.
‘Then she is so beautiful—so full of life, and spirit, and dash. I can’t
imagine how you came to think of her.’
There was a pause, during which Isaac meditatively smoked and rubbed his
knees.
‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘I did n’t exactly think of it myself, ye
see—but I could n’t someways find it in my heart to say No.’
‘To say what?’ cried the young man, dropping his hands and whisking round
in his chair.
Isaac gazed at him mildly, and continued to polish his corduroys.
‘To say No,’ he repeated, slightly uplifting his voice, and speaking very
slowly and distinctly. ‘I say I could n’t find it i’ my ’eart
to—say—No—when she axed me!’
‘She asked you! Do you mean to say that the proposal came from her?’
His uncle nodded.
‘’T war n’t very likely it ’ud ha’ come fro’ me,’ he remarked
dispassionately. ‘As I told her at the time, I never was a marryin’
man.’
A silence ensued, during which Richard vainly endeavoured to readjust his
ideas. At length he said faintly:
‘And what did she say to that?’
‘She said,’ returned Farmer Sharpe stolidly, ‘that it would n’t be a bad
thing for me—“’t is a fine farm,” says she, “and a good business. You
could easy work the two farms together,” says she.’
Richard gazed at his uncle with starting eyes and a dropping jaw.
‘But why, in the name of Fortune?’ he ejaculated. ‘I could understand
her marrying again—but why you?’
‘She knowed I’d work the farm right, d’ ye see? Things was goin’ wrong
all round, and she knowed I understood the work. Ah, I told her myself
at the time that she ought to look out for a younger man; but she says,
“I don’t want no counter-jumpers,” says she—meanin’ the Branston folks.
Ah, there were a good few after her, but she did n’t fancy none o’ them.
She thought some was arter the money, and none o’ them knowed anythin’
about dairy-farmin’.’
‘In fact,’ struck in Richard, rising from his chair and beginning to pace
hastily about the room, ‘she has proved herself to be a most practical
woman. You won’t make away with her money—you won’t allow mismanagement
of the business.’
‘Jist so,’ agreed his uncle, sucking vigorously at his partially
extinguished pipe.
Richard continued to walk about the room, and presently paused opposite
the hearth.
‘Did she make an offer to Elias Fiander too?’ he inquired sharply.
Isaac removed his pipe and stared up at him. The idea was evidently
presented to him for the first time.
‘He never telled me so,’ he said. ‘It were made up in a hurry, to be
sure. ’Lias had n’t no notion o’ sich a thing when he started off from
here. He went arter a turnip-hoer arter her granfer’s death. They sold
’en up, poor old chap, and Rosalie—that’s Mrs. Fiander—had n’t nowhere to
go.’
‘Ha!’ remarked Richard sardonically.
‘But I think,’ pursued the farmer, averting his eyes from his nephew’s
face and gazing stolidly at the fire—‘I _think_ ’twas ’Lias as axed her.
’Ees, now I can mind he told me so at the time. “Me wantin’ a wife so
bad,” says he, “and her bein’ such a good hand at the dairy-work, I
thought I’d make sure o’ her,” he says.’
‘She told him, I suppose, that she was a good hand at dairy-work,’
commented Marshall. ‘Yes, I understand the matter now. She is, as I
say, a practical woman.’
‘She is—she is,’ agreed Farmer Sharpe warmly. ‘She be a wonderful good
manager. Many’s the time I’ve said that. Ah, I reckon I can say I’m in
luck.’
Richard murmured something inarticulate and returned to his chair,
re-lighting his pipe and beginning to smoke without further remark. On
the opposite side of the hearth Isaac ruminated contentedly, without
appearing to notice his nephew’s preoccupation, and tumblers and pipes
were emptied in almost unbroken silence.
When Richard sought his room that night—the familiar little attic-room
which had been his in childhood—his first act after a cursory glance of
recognition and approval was to set down his candle on the little deal
table and to draw carefully from his pocket a large envelope. Opening
this, he took out a print, evidently cut from some illustrated paper, or
collection of ‘Pictures of the Year.’ Holding it close to the light, he
looked at it intently. Underneath were the words, ‘A Sleeping Beauty,’
followed by the artist’s name. The picture represented a cornfield with
a large ‘shock’ of sheaves to the front, beneath which lay the
outstretched figure of a girl asleep. Even in this rough reproduction a
certain likeness to Rosalie was discernible, and Richard’s fancy supplied
the rest. Indeed, as he gazed, he contemplated not only the glowing and
highly-finished work of art which had haunted him persistently since he
had first beheld it, but the vision of that afternoon—the exquisite face,
the lithe, graceful form which had suddenly appeared to him against its
background of bloom and sunlit green. He seemed to hear again the blithe
young voice which had thrilled him as it prattled at his side; he seemed
to see the large eyes lifted a little shyly to his, and then modestly
dropped because of his too evident admiration.
He had deemed these things the outward indication of absolute womanly
perfection. His young imagination, fired by the unexpected meeting with
Rosalie, and further stimulated by his uncle’s chance remarks, had
created a marvellous romance before Isaac had pronounced the name of his
own future bride. Now the golden glow had vanished, all was flat, and
dull, and grey; and, what was worse, he knew his ideal to have been
delusive. Young bloom and beauty and fascination meant nothing—Rosalie
Fiander was a calculating, mercenary woman, devoid even of feminine
reticence. Not content with ‘setting her cap’—odious phrase!—at the man
whom she considered best likely to protect her interests, she had
actually offered herself to him, haggled over the prospective bargain,
weighed with him the gains which must accrue to both. When she was
little more than a child she had angled for old Elias Fiander. Well, she
was homeless and penniless then, and might from her extreme youth be
supposed to know no better, but now in the ripeness of her womanhood,
with wealth, liberty, all that she could desire, at her command, she must
needs sell herself again! Pah! such a nature must positively be
depraved.
With an impetuous movement he held the paper over the candle, but as
suddenly snatched it away again, extinguishing the flame with his finger
and thumb, and rubbing the burnt edge ruefully:
‘This at least is a thing of beauty,’ he said; ‘why destroy it?’
Then, hastily restoring the print to its wrapper and thrusting it into
his pocket again, he muttered: ‘I wish I had never seen her.’
CHAPTER III
Butter? rolls o’t!
Cream? why, bowls o’t!
WILLIAM BARNES.
Come, come away,
Or let me go;
Must I here stay?
* * *
Troth, lady, no!
HERRICK.
ISAAC was somewhat disappointed at his nephew’s lack of enthusiasm over a
project which had at first seemed to take his fancy so much. Talk as he
might about Richard’s future, and his own desire that he should pass the
remainder of his days on the Down Farm, he could extract nothing from the
young man but vague expressions of gratitude, and a doubtful promise to
think the matter over.
‘I’m goin’ up yonder to Fiander’s,’ remarked Isaac, after breakfast;
‘there’s a little matter there as I must see to. Ye mid as well step up
along wi’ me, Richard.’
‘I was thinking of taking a stroll round this place,’ rejoined Richard.
‘Why, what’s all your hurry? Ye may as well wait till I am ready to go
wi’ ye. I’ll not be above two or three minutes at Littlecomb, and then
we mid walk round together. Besides, ye’ll be wantin’ to pay your
respects to Mrs. Fiander, won’t ye, arter drivin’ her from Dorchester
yesterday—and her that’s goin’ to be your aunt?’
‘To be sure: I must keep on good terms with my aunt, must n’t I? Else
perhaps she won’t make me welcome when I come to see you.’
‘No fear o’ that—she’ll make ’ee welcome enough. She al’ays behaved
uncommon civil and respectful to I in ’Lias’s time. Ah, sure, that she
did.’
‘Perhaps she won’t be pleased at my calling so early?’
‘Early! Dear heart alive! You don’t know that woman, Richard. She’s
astir soon arter four in the morning, and she has her maids afoot afore
that. Aye, and the men knows if they comes late they’ll get fined. Ah,
she be a wonderful manager.’
‘Then, what in the name of wonder,’ said Richard to himself, as he
followed the portly white figure across the yard and over the downs—‘what
in the name of wonder can she want with you?’
Despite Farmer Sharpe’s protest most people would have considered the
hour at which they betook themselves to call at Littlecomb Farm a
sufficiently early one. The dew lay thick and sparkling upon the short
herbage of the downs, and the air was still sharp and keen. A lark was
circling over their heads, its jubilant notes piercing Richard’s heart
with an odd sense of pain. What was this heaviness which had come upon
him, and which even the brisk walk through the exhilarating air, and the
delightfully familiar scents, and sounds, and sights could not drive
away?
Now they had entered Rosalie’s demesne. These wide fields were hers;
yonder were her cattle grazing by the river; and here, peeping through
the trees and compassed about by a goodly array of stacks, was her house
with its bodyguard of farm-buildings.
Richard, who had not spoken much throughout the walk, became altogether
silent as he crossed the well-kept yard, and even lagged behind when his
uncle approached the open milkhouse door. Through this open door the
sound of female voices could be heard, raised, one in voluble excuse,
another, whose tone Richard recognised with a little shiver of
inexplicable anguish, in vituperation. But Isaac Sharpe boldly advanced
into the building, and beckoned to him to follow.
‘Why, what’s the matter here?’ he inquired good-humouredly. ‘Fine
mornin’, Mrs. F. I’ve brought my nevvy to see ye.’
‘He’ll find us rather in a mess, I’m afraid,’ returned Rosalie’s clear
voice, still with a distinct note of sharpness in it; ‘but I am very glad
he has come; I want to thank him for his kindness to me yesterday.’
Peering over his uncle Richard descried the mistress of the establishment
stooping over the large cheese-vat already alluded to, one white arm,
bare almost to the shoulder, vigorously kneading and stirring a huge mass
of curds. Her buff print dress appeared to imprison the sunshine, and
attitude and movement alike showed off her supple figure to the very best
advantage.
Most lovers, thought the young man, would have been unable to resist the
temptation of putting an arm about that inviting waist for the morning
greeting—the arm of the future husband had surely a right to be there.
But Isaac Sharpe stood bluff and square in the doorway, his hands in his
pockets, his hat on his head.
‘You’ll excuse my shaking hands,’ said Rosalie, looking up with eyes in
which the angry light still lingered, and a puckered brow. ‘Everything
is upset, and I can’t leave the curds for a minute. Indeed, as it is I
fancy the whole of this batch will be good for nothing.’
A hitherto imperceptible dimple peeped out near her lips when she
spoke—such red ripe lips! Such a bewitching dimple! Isaac, however,
merely thrust his hands a little deeper into his pockets, and again
inquired with increased concern:
‘Why, what’s wrong?’
‘This morning I happened to be late,’ said Rosalie, uplifting her voice,
evidently for the benefit of the culprit, Jane, who had suddenly melted
into tears; a fact which was betrayed by her heaving shoulders as she
stood with her back to the visitors.
‘I happened to be a little late,’ repeated Rosalie severely, ‘so I
desired one of the maids’—here Jane sniffed deprecatingly—‘to start work
without me. And when I came down, what do you think? I actually found
the careless girl pouring the rennet in out of the bottle.’
‘Tch, tch, tch!’ commented the farmer, clicking his tongue
commiseratingly.
‘There were n’t but a few spoonfuls left,’ explained Jane, almost
inarticulately.
‘How could you possibly tell how many were left?’ retorted her mistress,
with increased acerbity. ‘You know how particular I always am to measure
it out drop for drop almost—a spoonful too much may make all the
difference—particularly at this time of year. I call it downright wicked
of you to run the risk of spoiling the whole vat-ful! There are a
hundred and fifty gallons of milk in this vat—it should make nearly a
hundredweight of cheese. And just because you are so idle and careless
it may all go to waste!’
Jane turned her pretty tear-bedabbled face over her shoulder, and
inconsequently and incoherently protested that she always did her best;
then, with a gasp and a moan, she darted past the group in the doorway
and ran round the house.
Richard looked after her with a disgusted air, and then his glance
reverted to Mrs. Fiander, whose beautiful round arm was still embedded in
curds, and whose face, a little paler than its wont, continued to be full
of ire. What could this trifling mistake matter after all to such a rich
woman, a woman who would soon be richer still? Besides being
cold-blooded and self-interested, she was evidently miserly; she was,
moreover, distinctly bad-tempered. His imagination, already warped by
the revulsion of feeling consequent on his uncle’s disclosures, was ready
to take alarm at every trivial detail. Rosalie’s pallor, and the
slightly drawn look on her face—both due in reality to a sleepless night,
resulting from an unaccountable perturbation of mind—were immediately
attributed to an acute and unreasonable disappointment over an
insignificant money loss. The eyes which had gazed on Rosalie so
ardently yesterday were now busily tracing lines of fancied meanness in
her face; those frowning brows surely revealed the shrew, the compressed
lips spoke of parsimony. When that lovely colour faded, and those
clear-cut features had become coarsened by age and self-imposed toil,
what would remain? None of that beauty of soul which he had thought to
find there.
‘Well, well,’ remarked Isaac placidly, ‘these accidents will happen, but
I would n’t advise ’ee to be cast down by ’em. These here curds d’ seem
to be a-settin’ all right. I know how ’t is wi’ young folks. A body has
to stand over them all the time. Why, when we be a-shearin’ I d’ scarce
dare go in for a bit o dinner for fear o’ findin’ them poor ewes snipped
to pieces when I come back.’
Rosalie jerked the mass of curds up with additional impetuosity, but made
no reply.
‘My nevvy,’ pursued Isaac, ‘thought he’d like to drop in an’ pay his
respects to ’ee, my dear, an’ inquire how you was a-feelin’ arter the
accident yesterday.’
Here he nudged Richard as a tacit reproach for his muteness.
‘I hope,’ said the young man formally, ‘that you are none the worse for
the shock, Mrs. Fiander?’
The blue eyes shot up an inquiring glance, and the industrious arm paused
for a moment. What was the meaning of this altered tone, and why was the
gaze now bent on her fraught with such cold disapproval? They had parted
like old friends, and she had looked forward more than she knew to their
next meeting.
‘Thank you,’ she returned, in a tone almost as frigid as Richard’s own;
‘my nerves are not easily upset.’
She believed the statement to be true; yet the equilibrium of her system
was at that moment, if she had but realised it, very seriously disturbed.
‘Have ’ee sent for Nigger, Mrs. F.?’ inquired Isaac.
‘I sent James Bundy to look after him. He may not be fit to move for a
day or two.’
‘Ah, he were a good beast,’ remarked the farmer; ‘’t is a pity ye did let
’en slip. ’T was wi’ drivin’ fast down-hill, my nevvy here d’ tell me,
an’ that’s what he’ve never been used to. Ye should have druv ’en more
carefully, my dear.’
Rosalie thought of the cause of her unusual haste on the previous day; it
was her anxiety to escape from the too evident admiration of the grey
eyes which were now bent on her with so different an expression. The
memory confused her; the contrast stung her; she answered sharply, and
with assumed indifference:
‘One cannot crawl down every slope to suit the convenience of a worn-out
animal!’
‘He bain’t worn-out, though,’ returned her future husband, who invariably
took things literally. ‘Nay, I should say he’d last a good few years
yet, though he be past ’ard work. ’Lias al’ays used ’en gentle; ’t is
wonderful how far that’ll go both with man an’ beast. “Fair an’ soft do
go far in a day,” the sayin’ goes. Fair an’ soft—ah, ’t is trew, ’t is
trew!’
Rosalie bent her head over the vat in silence, her face averted, so that
her visitors could see only the outline of her cheek, the exquisite
curves of ear and neck.
‘Fair and soft,’ muttered Richard to himself. ‘Fair and soft enough to
look at, but her heart is as the nether millstone!’
His uncle gazed reproachfully at him; he was proud of his travelled and
book-learned nephew, and had eagerly looked forward to the impression he
was sure to produce on ‘Mrs. F.,’ who had also been highly educated, and
was considered an authority on matters appertaining to culture—and he was
not showing off at all! He was standing there, mum-chance, as stupid as
any other body might be. He gave him another admonitory nudge and
remarked:
‘Richard, that’s my nevvy, did quite take me by surprise last night. I
was n’t expectin’ to see ’en at all. To tell the trewth I had no kind o’
notion o’ where he mid be. He had n’t wrote—How long were it since
you’ve a-wrote me last, Richard?’ inquired Isaac, driving home the query
with his elbow, and again frowning and winking.
‘I don’t know,’ answered his nephew, in muffled tones. ‘A long time, I’m
afraid; but, you see, you never wrote to me,’ he added with a laugh.
‘That be different, my boy,’ returned the farmer seriously. ‘There was
reasons why I did n’t write, Richard. I never was a writin’ man. Lard,
no,’—and here he relaxed, and uttered a jolly laugh,—‘’t is as much as I
can do to put my name to a receipt, an’ then Bithey d’ do it for I, and I
do jist stick my mark under it. Nay, Richard, I never was one for
writing much—nay, I was n’t.’
He continued to roll his shoulders and to chuckle ‘nay’ meditatively at
intervals, but his eyes were meanwhile fixed appealingly upon the face of
Richard, who remained obstinately dumb.
Presently their hostess came to his assistance.
‘I suppose, now that you are here, you’ll remain some time, Mr.
Marshall?’ she asked, without looking round; her voice in consequence
sounding nearly as muffled as the young man’s own as she bent over her
cauldron.
‘That depends, Mrs. Fiander. Of course I want to see as much as I can of
my uncle, but I’m restless by nature, and—and I never stay very long in
one place.’
‘There now,’ cried Isaac, in loud remonstrance. ‘What, ye be at it
again, be ye? Did n’t we arguefy enough about it last night? I’ll not
take No, an’ so I tell ’ee! Ye’ve a-comed home, and now ye may bide at
home. Lard, I did n’t think ye could be sich a voolish chap. What need
have ye to go travellin’ the world when ye have a good berth offered ye,
an’ them that’s al’ays been your friends ready an’ anxious to keep ye?
Here’s Mrs. F. will tell ’ee the same as I do, won’t ’ee, my dear?’
‘I don’t quite understand what it is all about,’ said Rosalie, pausing in
her labours, however, and straightening herself.
Why, ’t is this way,’ explained the farmer. ‘When Richard come last
night he says to me, says he, “I’ve been a-longing for years an’ years to
get back to the wold place. An’ now,” says he, “I d’ feel as if I could
n’t settle to naught but the old work. Farm-work,” he says. “Well then,
this here house ’ull be empty afore very long; an’, moreover,” says I, “I
shall need to have somebody responsible to look after this place,” for it
stands to reason, Mrs. F., as I can’t be in two places at one time.’
Rosalie endorsed this statement with an inarticulate murmur, and he
continued:
‘“Well, then,” says I, “since you want to come back to the wold place an’
take up the farm-work, why not live here and work for I?”’
‘Why not, indeed?’ said Rosalie.
‘Jist what I d’ say,’ said the farmer indignantly; ‘why not? First he
were quite took wi’ the notion, but arter a bit he did n’t seem to relish
it. Now I want to know,’ pursued Isaac, extending an aggrieved
forefinger, ‘why don’t ’ee relish it, Richard?’
‘Suppose you should be disappointed in me—suppose I should n’t give you
satisfaction?’ said Richard hesitatingly.
‘Pooh! nonsense! I’ll let ’ee know fast enough if ye don’t give
satisfaction. Have n’t I brought ’ee up? Bain’t he much same as a son
to I?’
‘But if—if I should find I could n’t settle, then you’d be more vexed
than if I had n’t given in to the plan.’
‘But why should n’t ’ee settle, that’s what I want to know? Ax ’en that,
Mrs. F., ax ’en why he should n’t settle? Ha’n’t ’ee travelled enough?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Rosalie, ‘I should think you ought to be glad of a
little quiet, Mr. Marshall.’
‘Well said!’ cried Isaac. ‘Tell ’en he’ll be a fool if he lets my offer
slip.’
‘Indeed,’ repeated Rosalie, gazing in surprise from the heated and
excited countenance of the elder man to the inscrutable one of his
nephew—‘indeed I think Mr. Marshall would be very unwise if he did not
accept it. It seems to me entirely to his advantage.’
‘And of course,’ said Richard, with a momentary gleam in his steel-grey
eyes, ‘of course my personal advantage should outweigh every other
consideration! It is obvious. Nothing like a woman’s clear head for
solving a difficulty. I will take your advice.’
Rosalie’s pretty face wore a look of such absolute bewilderment, and she
was evidently so much at a loss to account for his sarcastic tone, that
Richard suddenly burst out laughing; the cloud lifted from his brow,
giving place to an expression of frank good-humour. ‘Uncle Isaac,’ he
cried, clapping him heartily on the shoulder, ‘forgive my chopping and
changing so often; this time my mind is made up. I accept your offer.
Shake hands on it!’
CHAPTER IV
The blackthorn-flower hath fallen away—
The blackthorn-flower that wise men say
Keeps wild and variable skies
As long as it may stay;
But here’s the gorse, and here’s the whin,
And here the pearlèd may appears,
And poison-weeds of satin skin
Through every bank prick long green ears
To hear the cuckoo-cries.
ELINOR SWEETMAN.
To gather flowers Sappho went,
And homeward she did bring,
Within her lawny continent,
The treasure of the spring.
HERRICK.
RICHARD MARSHALL drove the plough slowly up the brown slope, half turned
at the summit, halted, and, having established his horses at a
comfortable angle, sat down, with his back against a tall mossy bank
sheltered by a little copse, to eat his breakfast.
He had already partaken of a ‘dew bit’ shortly after dawn; but two or
three hours’ exercise in the brisk morning air had whetted his appetite
afresh, and he now fell to work on his bread and bacon with the utmost
zest and relish.
The great field, all glittering green save for the brown strip which
testified to recent labours, stretched away for many goodly acres. On a
lesser slope beneath he could see the roofs of Littlecomb Farm and its
appurtenances, but the sight of the amber and ruddy outlines awakened in
him now no feeling of repulsion. During the past weeks he had laughed
himself out of his whilom fancy for the fascinating and disappointing
widow; he had even taken himself to task somewhat severely for his
strictures on that unconscious young woman. Was it her fault, after all,
that her outer parts belied her real self? Why had he been so
unreasonably angry because she had failed to correspond to the high
estimate which he had formed on slight and inadequate premises? She was
a very beautiful creature, and, no doubt, good enough in her way; if she
was common-place, and had a sharp eye for the main chance, she would make
the better wife to a practical farmer. He would in all probability get
on well enough with her when she became his aunt, but meanwhile life was
too full of congenial work and ever-growing interest to admit of his
wasting time in improving his acquaintance with the future Mrs. Sharpe.
He had thrown himself into his new pursuits with characteristic energy,
and found them daily more and more engrossing. He possessed a gift not
often to be met with in the cultivator of the soil—a love of Nature for
her own sake—a sympathy with her moods, not from the practical, but from
the poetical standpoint. Clouds and sunlight, frosts and dew, meant more
to him than to his brother-toiler; the very odour of the damp earth, the
fragrance of the bursting buds in copse and hedgerow, of the crushed
herbage beneath his feet, intoxicated him. The homely thud of the
horses’ hoofs as they trod the furrow, the ripping up of the green sod as
he drove the plough through it, the mere consciousness of his own vigour
and life and manhood dominating this solitude, filled him with a kind of
ecstasy. ‘This is what I want,’ he had said to himself over and over
again that morning; ‘this is what I have always wanted!’
He had finished his breakfast now, but he permitted himself the luxury of
repose for a few moments longer. He threw himself back on the bank, his
head resting on his clasped hands, and his eyes gazing up, up, through
the interlacing boughs of the trees, outlined now with shifting silver in
the morning light, through the ethereal leafage, still half unfolded, up
to the heights of delicate blue beyond. He had fancied that there was
not much breeze this morning; yet, as he lay thus quiet he could hear a
faint rustling in the undergrowth, and the occasional crackling of
twigs—a squirrel perhaps; but when was a wood known to be absolutely
still? Besides the incidental noises attending the passage of living
things—flying, running, creeping—the creaking and swaying of boughs, the
fluttering of leaves, had not such places a mysterious movement and
vitality of their own? Was there not always a stir, a whisper, in their
midst produced by no ostensible cause?
Smiling upwards, his head still pillowed on his hands, Richard was
meditating on some half-forgotten page of Thoreau which seemed to bear
upon this fancy of his, when suddenly a woman’s figure appeared on the
crest of the bank close to him, and without warning sprang down beside
him. Rosalie Fiander, with the skirt of her print gown gathered up so as
to form a receptacle for the mass of primroses which she had been
gathering, and the fragrance of which was now wafted to Richard’s
nostrils—Rosalie Fiander, with minute dewdrops clinging to her dark hair,
with morning roses on her cheeks, and the morning light shining in her
eyes—a vision of grace and beauty, more captivating even than the glowing
pictured Rosalie of the cornfield or the stately heroine of Yellowham
Woods.
Richard sat up, the colour rushing over his sunburnt face; he had
divested himself of hat and coat, his waistcoat hung loosely open, and
his shirt was unfastened at the throat. For a moment Rosalie did not
identify him; then, as he slowly rose to his feet, she too blushed.
‘I beg your pardon; I did not know anyone was here. I had a half-hour to
spare before breakfast and ran out to pick some primroses. This is my
wood, you know,’ she added hastily; ‘I am not trespassing unless when I
take a short cut home across your uncle’s field.’
Ploughman Richard, with his bare brown arms and ruffled head, was not at
all alarming. She scarcely recognised in him the trim, severe young man
who had called on her ceremoniously a few weeks before, still less the
mysterious personage who had driven her home from Dorchester, who had
said such strange things, and looked at her so oddly—Isaac Sharpe’s
nephew was just like anybody else after all. Being blithe of heart this
bright spring morning, she smiled on him pleasantly, and, lowering the
folds of her gown, displayed the primroses.
‘Are they not lovely? I like them better than any other flower—in fact,
I love them. Almost the first thing that I can remember is holding on to
my mother’s finger while she took me up to a bank of primroses;
afterwards, when I grew old enough to pick them for myself, oh, the
delight, each spring, of finding the first primrose!’
Now, curiously enough, the gay tone and easy manner had the effect of
filling Richard with wrath; the very grace of her attitude, the
child-like candour of her eyes were to him obnoxious, the more so because
he could not repress a momentary thrill of admiration. He knew how much
they were worth; he knew the sordid nature beneath this attractive
disguise.
‘Primroses are fine things,’ he said, with assumed carelessness. ‘You
should have picked some before the nineteenth; then you would have had a
good sale for them.’
‘But I don’t want to sell them,’ cried she, her white teeth flashing out
as she laughed, and the dimples coming and going. ‘I picked them for
myself—I shall fill every vase in the house. Primroses should never be
sold; those you see in the streets look so miserable, all huddled
together with their dear little faces crushed and faded, and even their
scent gone! It seems a sin to sell primroses.’
‘Yes, particularly as I don’t suppose they fetch a big price in the
market.’
She had gathered up a bunch in one hand, and now raised it to her soft
cheek.
‘They are like satin,’ she said.
Somehow the gesture and the smile which accompanied it provoked Richard
beyond endurance.
‘They are pretty little yellow things,’ he said, ‘but not worth the
attention of practical people. There are other yellow things more
deserving of admiration—rolls of beautiful fresh butter, for instance;
fine round cheeses!—The beauty of these is that they can be exchanged for
still finer yellow things—golden coin, Mrs. Fiander, that is the only
yellow thing really worth thinking about.’
‘Are you so fond of money?’ she asked innocently; and once more she laid
the dew-drenched flowers caressingly against her cheek. How could she
look so guileless; how had she the face to turn the tables on him thus;
above all, how dared she be so beautiful! He had almost succeeded in
forgetting his transitory hallucination; he wanted to ignore her
charm—and here she was tantalising him afresh.
‘Are we not all fond of money?’ he said, with a forced laugh. ‘Are not
you fond of money?’
‘Am I?’ queried she; and the blue eyes glanced up with genuine
astonishment.
‘Why, of course you are! We’re all fond of it, I say. We men toil for
it: we sell our brains for it—we sell our strength and power, and the
best years of our lives for it. And you women—’
He paused. Rosalie, surprised at his vehemence, but still half amused,
inquired lightly:
‘Well, what do we do? Take care of it when we’ve got it, and do without
it when we have n’t?’
‘Not always,’ he added; and this time there was no mistaking the
deliberate insolence of his tone. ‘Sometimes a woman sells herself when
she has n’t got it, and sometimes, mistrusting her own powers of
management, she invites other people to take care of it for her.’
There was a dead silence for a moment. Richard, fixing his merciless
gaze upon her face, saw the colour ebb from it, leaving the very lips
white. His shot had struck home—he was glad of it.
‘What do you mean?’ said Rosalie at last, lifting her eyes, which she had
involuntarily lowered, and looking at him steadily.
‘I think you must know what I mean,’ he returned, with a smile almost
insulting in its contemptuousness.
‘Why should you attack me?’ she inquired, without flinching, though her
large eyes looked pathetic in their surprise and pain.
‘Am I attacking you? I am merely stating facts. When a penniless young
girl marries a prosperous old man one is bound to conclude that his money
is the chief attraction, and when that same girl, finding herself a few
years later rich and free, offers herself for the second time to a man
forty years older than herself—’
‘Offers herself?’ cried Rosalie, turning upon him fiercely while the
blood returned impetuously to her face; ‘how dare you say such an
insulting thing to me?’
‘Is it not true?’ he inquired. ‘I have the statement on most excellent
authority.’
Rosalie dropped her flower-laden skirt, a yellow shower falling at her
feet, and buried her face in her hands.
‘Oh,’ she groaned, ‘Isaac told you that! He—he said—oh, how could he!’
The beautiful shoulders heaved, tears trickled through her fingers, but
Richard steeled his heart against her. Let her suffer—let her cry!
These selfish tears could not expiate the things that she had done.
Tears and subterfuges were woman’s natural weapons, but they should not
avail her. She should be made to realise her own vileness.
‘Do you deny it?’ he said sternly.
Rosalie dropped her hands, and raised her head: her lip was still
quivering, but her eyes shone through the tears.
‘I deny nothing,’ she said; and without another word walked away from
him, down the slope, and across the field, passing through a gate at the
further end.
Richard stood looking after her until she was out of sight; then his eyes
reverted to the heap of primroses lying at his feet—a tumbled heap,
sweet, and dewy, and fresh—just as they had fallen from her gown.
Mechanically he stooped and began to gather them together, but presently
he threw back again the flowers he had picked up.
‘What should I do with them?’ he murmured, half aloud. Straightening
himself he passed his hand across his brow, and looked round him with a
blank stare. ‘What have I done?’ he said.
CHAPTER V
Colin, the grass was grey and wet the sod
O’er which I heard her velvet footfall come;
But heaven, where yet no pallid crescent rode,
Flowered in fire behind the bloomless plum;
There stirred no wing nor wind, the wood was dumb,
Only blown roses shook their leaves abroad
On stems more tender than an infant’s thumb—
Soft leaves, soft hued, and curled like Cupid’s lip—
And each dim tree shed sweetness over me,
From honey-dews that breathless boughs let slip
In the orchard by the sea.
ELINOR SWEETMAN.
‘YE bain’t sich very good company to-night, Richard,’ remarked Mr.
Sharpe, laying down his knife and fork, and gazing critically at his
nephew. ‘Nay, I can’t say as ye be. You have n’t opened your mouth
since we sat down, except just to put a bit into it now and again, and
not too often neither. Ye bain’t eatin’ nothing to speak on, an’ ye have
n’t a word to throw to a dog. What’s amiss?’
‘Why—nothing,’ returned Richard, rousing himself with a startled look
from the brown study into which he had fallen. ‘I suppose I am tired,’
he added, as an afterthought.
‘Ah, very like ye be,’ agreed the farmer commiseratingly. ‘It just
depends on what a man’s used to how soon he gets knocked up. You be used
to town, an’ travellin’, and that, and when you come back to the
ploughin’ it tries you a bit to start wi’. ’T is just the other way wi’
I; I’m used to the country, d’ ye see, and when I do have to go to
town—to Dorchester, or Weymouth, or any big place like that—Lard, I do
get mortal tired! Walkin’ them streets, now, and lookin’ in at the
shop-winders—dear heart alive, it makes me so weary as I could very nigh
drop down in the middle of ’em! As for travellin’—goin’ in trains an’
sich-like—it do make me so stiff I can scarce lay legs to the ground when
I do ’light from ’em. But I dare say you found it a hardish bit o’ work
turnin’ up the big field yonder?’
His nephew made no response, and Isaac bawled out the question afresh.
The young man, who had been absently balancing a fork on his fore-finger,
started, and replied hastily that he had n’t found it at all hard—at
least—yes, perhaps rather hard, but very pleasant; and he liked the work.
Isaac took a farewell pull at his pint mug, set it down, and pushed his
plate away.
‘Draw up to the fire, lad,’ he said, ‘and smoke your pipe quick, and then
turn in—ye bain’t fit for nothin’ but bed.’
‘No, no,’ returned Richard hastily, as he rose, ‘I could not go to bed
yet—it is not much past eight. I don’t think I’ll sit down by the
fire—I’ll go out for a stroll to stretch my legs.’
‘Stretch your legs!’ commented his uncle indignantly. ‘Ha’n’t ye
stretched them enough to-day already? You’ve a-worked hard enough for
two men.’
‘No remedy so good as a hair of the dog that bit you, you know,’ said
Richard. ‘A brisk turn will take the stiffness off, and it is a lovely
evening.’
‘Lard, how restless these young chaps do be!’ ejaculated Isaac, as he
scraped his chair across the tiled floor to the hearth; ‘a body mid think
he’d be glad enough to set down for a bit. I’ll engage he’ll find it
hard enough to turn out to-morrow morn.’
When Richard had proceeded a little way he paused, and drew a long
breath; then, wheeling round swiftly, began to retrace his steps, brought
himself to a stand-still for the second time, his hands clenched, his
eyes fixed; finally, crying aloud: ‘I will do it—I must do it!’ He
turned once more, and pursued his former course.
The sun had set some time before, but the heavens were still luminous;
the rosy glow which lingered at the horizon merging into soft primrose,
which in its turn melted into an exquisite ethereal green. Against this
lambent background the hills and woods stood out darkly purple, while the
little copses scattered here and there upon the downs, and the hedge at
the further end, appeared to be almost black. Little parties of his
uncle’s sheep scurried out of Richard’s way, a bell tinkling here and
there among them; birds flew almost into his face as he passed the groups
of trees before alluded to; when he forced his way through the hedge a
trailing tendril of honeysuckle, wet with the heavy dew, flapped against
his face; every now and then a rabbit crossed his path, its passage
scarcely noticeable in the dusk save for the flash of its little white
tail. There must have been thyme growing on or about those downs, for
its fragrance was strong in the air. Richard did not, however, pause to
inhale it—it is even doubtful if he noticed it; yet, when by-and-by
entering Rosalie’s fields he skirted a bank overgrown with primroses,
their perfume for a moment turned him almost faint.
Here was the house at last—how quiet at this hour! Nothing seemed to be
stirring; no one was about.
Susan appeared in answer to a somewhat tremulous knock, and informed him
that her mistress was in the garden.
‘I’ll soon call her,’ she added.
‘No, no,’ he returned quickly. ‘I will go to her—I only want to see her
for a moment.’
Who knew? She might refuse to obey the summons; it was best to come upon
her without warning.
‘Round to the left,’ explained Susan; ‘the path leads you up to the
gate.’
Following her directions, and passing through the little wicket, Richard
presently found himself in the walled enclosure which had once been the
Manor House garden, for Littlecomb had been the dower house of a noble
family; along the straight prim paths stately ladies had loved to pace,
and the lavender hedge which was Rosalie’s pride had been the pride of
many a titled dame before her. It was more of a pleasant wilderness than
a garden now, having been neglected by Elias and his predecessors on the
farm; but Rosalie was endeavouring to reclaim it, and already had made
progress with the work. Richard, walking slowly onward, glanced
anxiously down the dim alleys, and peered into various overgrown bowers.
At length, amid a mass of distant greenery, he descried a moving figure,
and, quickening his pace, advanced towards it. The afterglow had now
almost faded, and the moon had not yet risen; here beneath these high
walls and amid this dense growth everything looked shadowy and unreal.
He would scarcely have distinguished which was path and which was
flower-border had he not been guided towards the spot where she stood by
a double line of white pinks. Now a blossom-laden apple-bough barred his
progress; now he passed beneath an arch of monthly roses, brushing off
the moisture from leaf and bloom as he went.
All at once Rosalie’s voice called through the dusk:
‘Is that you, Susan? Come here for a moment; I want you to hold this
branch.’
Richard made no reply, but hastened on. The shadowy figure turned, and
he saw the pale silhouette of her face. She was standing beneath a great
bush laden with white blossoms, which from their size and perfume he
judged to be lilac; she had drawn down a branch and was endeavouring to
detach one of the clustering blooms.
‘Who is it?’ she said quickly.
‘It is I,’ he returned.
She loosed the branch, which flew rustling up to join its fellows, and
made a step forward; he could see her face more clearly now; the gleam of
her white teeth between her parted lips; he even fancied that he could
detect an angry sparkle in her eyes.
‘Why do you come here?’ she said. ‘Here at least I supposed myself
safe.’
‘I came,’ replied Richard, in an unsteady voice, ‘to beg your pardon most
humbly, most sincerely, for my conduct to you to-day.’
‘It was inexcusable,’ she said, after a pause. It seemed to him that she
was breathing quickly—perhaps with a just and natural anger.
‘I do not attempt to excuse it,’ he murmured.
‘I cannot even understand it,’ she pursued. ‘What had I done to you?
How do my private concerns affect you?’
There was a long silence, and then Richard said, almost in a whisper:
‘I can make no excuse—I think I must have been mad! When I came to
myself I felt—as if I could kill myself for my brutality to you. All day
the shame of it has been eating into my soul—I feel branded, disgraced!
I cannot rest until you tell me you have forgiven me.’
There was silence again, broken only by the faint warbling of a thrush
singing to his mate in the warm dusk.
‘You ask a great deal,’ said Rosalie at last. ‘I scarcely know how I can
forgive you.’
She saw the dark figure sway a little, but he spoke quietly:
‘I can only say that I would give my life to recall those insulting words
of mine.’
‘Words!’ she repeated. ‘Words count for little! That you should think
of me thus—that you should judge me so harshly!’
He said nothing; the thrush sang on, the liquid notes rising and falling
with almost unendurable sweetness.
Then, ‘I entreat you!’ he pleaded once more. ‘I entreat you to forgive
me!’
She stretched out her hand in silence, and he took it without a word; it
was cold, very cold, and it trembled.
She drew it away almost as soon as his fingers had closed upon it, and he
turned and went away, his footsteps falling with unaccustomed heaviness
on the little path; and presently the gate swung to behind him.
Isaac was sitting by the dying fire, a foot resting on either hob, and
surrounded by a haze of tobacco-smoke, when his nephew entered. He
looked towards Richard with an aggrieved expression as he crossed the
room.
‘Well, them there legs o’ yourn should be pretty well stretched by now.
I was wonderin’ whether you were comin’ back at all to-night. Where have
ye been all this while?’
Richard hesitated, and then, throwing back his head, answered
deliberately:
‘I’ve been to see Mrs. Fiander.’
‘What! to Littlecomb at this time o’ night! What ever took ’ee there so
late?’
‘Why, to tell you the truth, I went to make an apology to Mrs. Fiander.
She came across the top field to-day when I was ploughing, and I said
something which hurt her feelings—in fact, I offended her very much, and
I felt I could not rest to-night without begging her pardon.’
‘Oh,’ said the farmer, and then paused, eyes and mouth round with
astonished concern. ‘Well,’ he continued presently, ‘I’m glad as ye
’polygised. I’m very glad as ye ’polygised, Richard. ’Ees, that was
very well done of ’ee. But what did you go for to offend her for?’
He leaned forward, anxious wrinkles still furrowing his brow, and
puckering up his mouth as though he was going to whistle. By-and-by,
indeed, he did actually whistle under his breath and without any regard
for tune. Richard, meanwhile, stood looking down into the fire as though
he had not heard the question.
‘Eh?’ hinted his uncle at last.
‘Oh, I beg your pardon! I can’t think, I’m sure, how I came to forget
myself so. I was out of temper, I suppose.’
‘Ah,’ commented the farmer. ‘Well, I can say truly as she and me ha’
never had a word, not since I knowed her. Nay, not so much as one word!
We did al’ays get on wonderful well in ’Lias’ time, and now I do really
think as we gets on better than ever.’
‘So you ought to,’ said Richard, a trifle irritably; then he added in a
softer tone: ‘I don’t believe anyone could quarrel with you, Uncle
Isaac.’
‘Well, d’ ye see,’ explained Isaac, waving his pipe impressively, ‘even
if I was a quarrelsome man—which I bain’t—I never should ax to quarrel
wi’ she. I’m oncommon fond o’ Mrs. F.!’
To this Richard made no rejoinder. Stretching out his foot he pushed the
logs together, and then stood looking down at them again.
‘I’m sorry, Richard, as ye should ha’ hurt her feelings,’ went on the
farmer, after ruminating for some time in evident distress of mind. ‘Ah,
I be very sorry for that, but ye could n’t do no more nor ’polygise; nay,
ye could n’t do more nor that. I’m glad ye did ’polygise, Richard.’
‘So am I,’ said Richard huskily; adding, with the same irritation which
he had previously displayed: ‘Not that it makes much difference one way
or the other.’
‘’T is a bad thing,’ went on the farmer, ‘for to hurt a woman’s feelin’s
in the beginning of acquaintance; it makes a bad start, d’ ye see? It do
rouse up notions as they’d maybe never ha’ thought on if they was n’t
crossed in the beginning. Now my poor mother—your grandmother,
Richard—she did have sich tender feelin’s there was no livin’ in th’
house wi’ her. And my father—ah, I’ve heard ’en tell the tale many a
time—he did always set it down to his not havin’ been careful to keep the
right side o’ her when they was a-coortin’. ’Twas this way, d’ ye see?
My father was a bit of a buck in his day, an’ a’most up to the time when
he had his banns put up wi’ my mother he liked to have his fling, d’ye
see? He’d walk o’ one Sunday wi’ one maid, and the next maybe he’d go
along wi’ another; and the third maybe he’d go a-fishin’, and there’d be
my poor mother wi’ her best bonnet on all the time a-lookin’ out for ’en
so anxious. And she got that upset in her feelin’s, and that nervous, ye
know, that she was n’t the better for it all her life after. Ah, I’ve
heard my father say often when she’d scratched his face for him, or
thrown his hat into the wash-tub, “’T is my own fault,” he ’d say, “I did
n’t use to consider her feelin’s as a young ’un, and her feelin’s is
a-comin’ agen me now.”’
Isaac shook his head slowly over this affecting reminiscence, and
restored his pipe to its favourite corner. Richard said nothing for a
moment, but presently turned towards his uncle with a smile.
‘Don’t you be afraid, Uncle Isaac. Mrs. Fiander’s temper is perfect, I
am sure. I was entirely in fault to-day, and I will promise most
faithfully not to do anything which might disturb your peace of mind in
future.’
Though he spoke with assumed lightness, there was an earnest look in his
eyes.
CHAPTER VI
Some friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh, ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly!
SHAKESPEARE.
WHEN Sunday came round Isaac Sharpe surprised his nephew by inviting him
to accompany him on his usual visit to Littlecomb.
‘I don’t think you want me,’ said Richard, colouring and hesitating; ‘I
should only be in the way. Two are company, and three are none, you
know.’
‘Nay now, ’t is a silly notion that. “The more the merrier,” I say.
Besides, I have particular reasons for wanting you to come to-day. You
and Mrs. F. have n’t met since that night as ye ’polygised, have ye?’
‘No,’ said Richard.
‘And I noticed you hung behind when I was talkin’ to her arter church
this mornin’. Was ’ee ashamed o’ meetin’ her?’
‘That’s about it,’ said Richard.
‘Nay, but that will never do. If ye go on a-hangin’ back, and a-keepin’
out o’ her way, things will get awk’arder and awk’arder a-tween ye. Now,
take my advice and come along wi’ I quite quiet and nat’ral; it’ll all
pass off so easy as ye could wish. Just drop in same as myself. I want
’ee to be friends.’
‘Well, I can’t refuse if you put it like that,’ said Marshall. And the
two sallied forth together.
In spite of Mr. Sharpe’s prognostication, there was decidedly a little
awkwardness about the young people’s meeting. Rosalie greeted Richard
somewhat stiffly, and invited him with formal politeness to take a seat.
‘’T is a fine day,’ began Isaac, as he installed himself in the
high-backed elbow-chair which had now become his by consecrated right.
Rosalie responded hastily that it was a very fine day.
‘Ah,’ remarked the farmer, with a covert note of warning in his voice,
‘my nevvy was a-sayin’ as we come along that it was a wonderful fine day
for the time o’ year—did n’t ’ee, Richard?’
As it happened to be the time of year when fine days were not uncommon,
this alleged observation would not have testified to any extraordinary
perspicacity on Richard’s part; but as a matter of fact it was entirely
fictitious. Nevertheless the young man did not repudiate it.
‘Yes,’ he said, with his eyes on the floor; ‘yes, to be sure.’
‘Did n’t ’ee find it oncommon warm in church, Mrs. F.?’ pursued Mr.
Sharpe, after a short silence.
‘Yes, I did,’ agreed she. ‘I was longing for someone to open the door.’
‘Mrs. F. d’ say,’ cried Isaac, turning to his nephew with an explanatory
bawl, which was intended to stimulate him to further efforts at
conversation—‘Mrs. F. d’ say, Richard, as she found it oncommon warm in
church.’
Richard’s eyes travelled slowly from the carpet to his uncle’s face,
where they rested; for the life of him he could not muster courage to
move them to the blooming face on the other side.
‘Oh,’ he commented faintly, ‘did she?’
‘’Ees,’ said Isaac emphatically; ‘do ’ee ax her—’ Here he jerked his
thumb significantly in Rosalie’s direction. ‘She d’ say as she was
a-wishin’ as somebody ’ud open the door—did n’t ’ee, my dear?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Rosalie.
‘Ah, she’ll tell ’ee about that, Richard,’ went on Isaac; and his
enormous boot came slowly sliding across the floor till it reached
Richard’s foot, which it proceeded to kick in an admonitory fashion.
‘Jist ax her about that—If ye’d ha’ known she was wantin’ the door open
you’d ha’ opened it fast enough for Mrs. F., would n’t ’ee, Richard?’
‘Certainly,’ responded Marshall, with his eyes still glued on his uncle’s
face.
‘Ah, you can jist talk about that,’ hinted the latter, as he proceeded to
search in his pocket for his pipe.
A dead silence ensued. Isaac looked from one to the other, and the
perspiration stood upon his brow. His strenuous efforts had exhausted
him, but the desired consummation seemed just as far off as ever.
‘Have you got your tobacco-box, Uncle Isaac?’ inquired the dutiful nephew
presently.
‘Let me give you a light,’ said Rosalie.
There they were again! What was the good of their talking to him? He
wanted them to talk to each other.
‘Richard,’ said Isaac, after sucking for a moment at his pipe—when
Rosalie applied the match a flash of inspiration had come to
him—‘Richard, my boy, ye have n’t been round this here farm since ye come
home, have ’ee?’
‘No,’ said Richard; ‘but I know it well of old.’
‘Ah, but there’s been improvement since ye left—there’s been a many
improvements. Ye’d better take him round, Mrs. F., and show him all
what’s been done the last few years. He be oncommon fond o’ stretching
his legs—Richard be—and it’ll just suit him—won’t it, Richard?’
Richard stammered confusedly that he should like it of all things.
‘And you be a wonderful one for fresh air yourself, Mrs. F.,’ went on the
diplomatist. ‘Jist take ’en out and show ’en everything, there’s a good
soul.’
Rosalie had risen willingly enough, for she had found the previous
constraint exceedingly uncomfortable; but she now paused hesitatingly.
‘Are n’t you coming, Mr. Sharpe?’
‘Nay, my dear, I’ll stay where I be. ’T is very comfortable here i’ th’
chimney corner, and I bain’t so young as I was, d’ ye see? Nay, you two
young folks can go out and freshen yourselves up a bit, and make
acquaintance; and the wold man will bide at home, and smoke his pipe, and
be ready for tea when you come back.’
He nodded at them both with an air of finality, and twisted round his
chair so as to present to their gaze a large and inflexible back.
‘Well, then, we had better start if we are to be back by tea-time,’ said
Rosalie, a little sharply; and Richard took up his hat, and followed her
out in silence.
The whole place was wrapped in Sabbath stillness; milking was over, and a
distant line of red and dappled cows was vanishing down the lane,
followed by one or two of the dairy ‘chaps,’ with white pinners
protecting their Sunday clothes. Save for the calves, which thrust their
blunt, moist noses through the bars of their enclosure, and the fowl
cackling lazily as they lay sunning themselves in the angle of the barn,
the barton was absolutely deserted.
‘We drained the big mead four years ago,’ said Rosalie, ‘and threw the
twenty-acre into it; ’t is beautiful pasture now. Would you like to see
it?’
Richard hurriedly expressed a desire to that effect, and the two betook
themselves in silence along a narrow farm-track to the rear of the house,
which led to the field in question. They walked with the breadth of the
lane between them, and in unbroken silence; their eyes, by common accord,
gazing straight in front, and both secretly rebelling against the
expedient which Isaac had deemed so happily devised. At length they came
to a gate set in the hedge, and turned to look over it. A great green
expanse stretched away before their gaze, meeting the sky-line on one
side where it sloped upwards, and melting on the other into the lighter,
more delicate green of springing corn; beyond were the woods, which, as
well as the low line of hills behind them, were covered by a gentle haze.
Richard leaned his elbows on the topmost rail of the gate, and his face
gradually cleared as his eyes roamed over the landscape.
This county of Dorset has given birth to more than one great writer of
lowly origin, whose early nurture amid field, and heath, and woodland has
fostered an intimate and loving sympathy with Nature, to which each in
turn has given exquisite expression. Richard Marshall, born of the same
sturdy peasant stock, brought up amid the same pastoral surroundings,
possessed a somewhat kindred spirit, though he was denied this gift of
expression. Yet the inglorious rustic Milton was not always mute; he had
read so much, and meditated so much, and, above all, felt so deeply, that
at times something of what he thought and felt struggled to his lips and
found vent in words, inadequate, indeed, but suggestive.
‘How beautiful it all is!’ he said, turning to Rosalie, with a very
poet’s rapture in his eyes. ‘It seems to fill one like music.’
‘Yet I suppose you have seen far finer sights during your travels,’
returned she, speaking naturally for the first time, as she too leaned
over the gate.
‘Finer things? Oh, yes, perhaps; but this homely beauty touches me as no
other sight could do. Something about a great sketch of green like this
always affects me curiously. I love these wide fields.’
‘Yes, I remember your saying so,’ said Rosalie. The ice was broken now
and she could talk to him freely, even taking courage to broach a subject
which had much occupied her thoughts lately. ‘You told me, you know, how
pleased you were at the sight of the cornfield in—in my picture.’
He did not turn towards her, and continued to scan the mead; but over his
brown face she saw the colour rush quickly.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said; ‘of course I remember telling you about it.’
‘I wanted to ask you was—was the picture a very large one; and was it
well painted?’
‘Yes, very large indeed, and beautifully painted. There was an iron
railing in front of it because people pressed round it so. I was told it
was the picture of the year.’
‘Was it?’ cried Rosalie; and at the note of delight in her voice he
turned and looked at her with a smile. Her cheeks were pink with
excitement, her eyes shining. ‘Oh!’ she cried, with a sigh of longing,
‘I would give anything to see it.’
‘I have a little print of it here,’ returned he impulsively; ‘I cut it
out of a paper. It will give you some idea of it, though of course a
very poor one.’
In another moment he partly withdrew from its enclosure the print in
question, holding the envelope firmly in his own hand, however, so that
the charred margin was hidden.
‘See,’ he said, pointing with his disengaged hand, ‘there is your
house—over there in the corner, and here are your men, and here, under
the piled-up sheaves, are you. But of course the figure in the picture
is far more like you.’
‘I see,’ said Rosalie. ‘Yes, it must be a nice picture; and you say it
is beautifully done?’
‘It is beautifully done. It is so real, so vivid, that I felt as if I
could walk into the picture. These sheaves stand out so that one might
think it easy to pass behind them.’
He glanced up as he said these words, and was surprised to see Rosalie
colour almost to the temples. His own heart gave a sudden throb. Was it
possible that she had divined the audacious thought which had so often
come to him as he recalled that picture, and which, since his uncle’s
revelations, he had resolutely striven to banish?
As a matter of fact there did happen to be a certain similarity between
this thought of his and that which had caused Rosalie to change colour.
For there had flashed across her mind the remembrance of the unknown
artist’s words: ‘Perhaps if I come across a very attractive specimen of a
rustic I may place him just behind the stook.’
‘This is the name underneath, I suppose?’ she said hastily. ‘What is the
picture called? I cannot see from here.’
‘It is called “A Sleeping Beauty,”’ returned Richard.
She was dumb for a moment, hot waves of colour rushing over brow and
neck. What was it the man had said last year? ‘You will wake up some
day, my beauty.’ Words of ill omen! They had often tantalised and
tormented her, but now, as they recurred to her, her heart seemed to
stand still. Ashamed of her burning face, on which the young man’s eyes
were now fixed, and of the agitation which she could not master, she
suddenly bent forward confusedly.
‘What is the name of the painter? Let me look.’
Before Richard could divine her intention she had snatched the print from
his hand, its black and jagged edges immediately catching her eye.
‘Why,’ she said in an altered tone—‘why, it is burnt.’
It was now Richard’s turn to look confused. ‘I began to burn it, but
repented of my intention.’
‘You wanted to burn it,’ said Rosalie, ‘because you were so angry with
me. Why were you so angry with me? Was it because of—of what your uncle
told you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know he did not mean to do me harm,’ said Rosalie tremulously, ‘but I
don’t think he—he can have made you understand properly. Everything was
going wrong, and—and I was so much bothered; I found I could not manage
by myself, and he had been my poor Elias’s friend’—she was beginning to
sob now—‘and I knew I could trust him not to do anything Elias would n’t
have liked, and—oh, it is so difficult to explain!’
‘Pray do not try to explain,’ said Richard very gently.
‘But you should n’t misjudge me as you do,’ cried she, and then burst
into tears.
‘I do not misjudge you now,’ said Richard in a low voice. ‘Oh, don’t
cry! I assure you I understand. You have been quite right—quite right
all along.’
The big tearful blue eyes looked at him over the crumpled handkerchief.
‘But you said—you said I sold myself,’ she gasped. ‘You should n’t have
said that! I loved my husband.’
‘I am sure you did,’ said Richard gravely and tenderly.
‘Yes, indeed I did. I loved him from the first. He was like a father to
me.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Richard, and he looked at her with an odd mixture of
wonder and compassion.
‘He was just as kind and dotingly fond of me as my own dear granfer.’
‘To be sure,’ said Richard. ‘Yes; no wonder you loved him.’
Something in his tone caused Rosalie to pull down her handkerchief and to
cast a keen glance at him.
‘Why do you look at me like that?’ she said passionately.
‘Was I looking at you in any particular way?’ returned he, averting his
eyes quickly.
‘Yes, you were. You were looking at me as if you were sorry for me! How
dare you be sorry for me?’
‘Were you not telling me,’ he said quietly, ‘how much you felt the loss
of your good old husband?’
‘You know it was not that,’ she retorted. ‘You looked at me as if I were
a child who had no sense—as if I did not know what I was saying.’
‘Did I?’ said Richard. ‘I beg your pardon.’
‘Is that what you really think of me?’ pursued she, her eyes full of
wrathful fire, though the tears were still standing on her cheeks.
‘Answer me—I insist on your answering me!’
Richard’s gaze had been fixed on the little print which she was holding,
and Rosalie, marking this, had felt an increase of indignation. Did he
dare to share the opinion which the artist had so impertinently
pronounced? Rousing himself, however, he turned towards her, and their
eyes met.
‘I do think,’ he said, ‘that you know very little of life. Perhaps it is
all the better for you. The fruit of the tree of knowledge is nearly
always bitter—and sometimes it is poisonous.’
Rosalie was about to make a very angry rejoinder when the sound of steps
close to them made them both suddenly start; on looking round they beheld
a loving couple, such as are so frequently to be met with in rural
districts on Sunday afternoons, sauntering down the lane.
Rosalie hastily restored her handkerchief to her pocket, and again leaned
over the gate, endeavouring to assume a careless attitude; but she was
secretly much annoyed, for the young man who was so gallantly escorting a
much befringed and beribboned lady was no other than Sam Belbin. At any
other time she would have been somewhat amused on discovering how soon
her lowly admirer had consoled himself. He was working at Branston now,
and his companion was evidently a townswoman; but that he should come on
her just then, in the midst of her tears and wrath, with Richard Marshall
in such close proximity, was most vexatious.
Sam stared hard as he approached, taking in, as Rosalie felt though she
did not again look towards him, every compromising detail of the
situation. When they had passed on he made some facetious remark to the
girl on whose arm he was hanging, to which she responded by loud
laughter.
The little incident impressed Rosalie disagreeably: she turned to Richard
petulantly, holding out the little print which had been the cause of so
much agitation.
‘You had better finish burning this,’ she said.
‘Perhaps I had,’ returned he, with unexpected docility.
Isaac looked so placid and cheery when they entered, and greeted them
with so bright a smile, that Rosalie was conscious of a sudden rush of
remorse.
Going up to him she placed her hand upon his shoulder, a caress which
astonished its recipient mightily, for he was not accustomed to
endearments from her. Rosalie kept her hand there, however, glancing
defiantly at Richard the while, as though to say, ‘You are wrong in
thinking me so ignorant; see how I love and appreciate this good man;’
and Richard smiled back kindly, as if replying, ‘I see it, indeed, and I
am glad that you are content.’
‘Well,’ said Isaac, squinting down sideways at Rosalie’s hand. ‘Well,
Mrs. F., did you take ’en all over the place?’
‘I took Mr. Marshall to see the big mead,’ returned she, a little
doubtfully.
‘Ah, I’m sure he thought that improved. Well, and then you took ’en up
to see the root crop?’
‘No—no, we did n’t go there; we did n’t like to go too far, as you were
here by yourself.’
‘Why, I were all right.’ Here Isaac slowly lifted the shoulder on which
Rosalie’s hand still lingered, and again glanced down at it. As, taking
the hint, she withdrew it, he gently rubbed the place where it had
rested.
‘You took ’en down to the carnfield, though,’ he continued. ‘I’ll engage
he thought them oats was a-comin’ on wonderful.’
But they had not been to the cornfield, it appeared, nor yet to see the
potatoes, nor round by the vegetable garden, nor through the orchard;
they had just been to the big mead and back.
‘Well,’ commented Mr. Sharpe, gazing at them in amazement, ‘ye must ha’
walked oncommon slow!’
‘We stood for some time looking at the view,’ said Richard, seeing
Rosalie somewhat confounded.
‘Lookin’ at the view, eh?’ echoed his uncle. ‘There bain’t any view to
speak on from the mead. If you’d ha’ gone a bit further up the lane and
turned the corner ye’d ha’ had a beautiful view o’ Branston. But if you
enj’yed yourselves it’s all right.’
He wheeled round in his chair as he made this last remark, and looked
from one to the other of the young folks. Both faces were alike
downcast, and somewhat paler than usual. After a moment’s scrutiny Isaac
became as crestfallen as they.
‘So long as you enj’yed yourselves,’ he repeated slowly. ‘So long as
ye’ve a-made friends—I want ’ee to be friends, d’ ye see?’
Rosalie and Richard glanced at each other. He read in her face a kind of
antagonism mingled with fear, and dropped his eyes quickly lest they
might betray the anguish and longing with which his heart was full to
bursting.
‘I want ’ee to be friends, d’ ye see?’ repeated the farmer anxiously and
pleadingly. ‘There’s me and you, Mrs. F., as friendly as can be; and
there’s you and me, Richard—you’re much the same’s a son to me, bain’t
ye?—well, then there’s you and Mrs. F., why should n’t ’ee be friendly
wi’ her?’
Richard, to whom the question was directed, remained dumb. _Friends_!
Could they ever be friends?
Rosalie, however, made a step forward and extended her hand.
‘Why should we not, indeed?’ she said. ‘To tell you the truth, Isaac, we
have done nothing but quarrel since we first met each other, which was
very silly and unreasonable of us. Now, for your sake I am determined
not to quarrel any more; and for your sake, I think, he too should be
willing to keep the peace.’
‘Well said!’ cried Isaac heartily. ‘Well said, Mrs. F.! Now, Richard,
my boy, where’s your hand? Just catch hold o’ Mrs. F.’s. That’s
it—that’s it! Shake it well!’ Here he thumped the arm of his chair
jubilantly. ‘You’ll be the best o’ friends from this day for’ard! Here
we be, we three, friends all! Jist as me and poor ’Lias and Mrs. F. was
friends—dear heart alive! yes, we was friends too—the best o’ friends!
We was three then, and we be three now, bain’t us, Mrs. F.? We three! I
do mind a old song as your poor dear mother used to sing, Richard:
‘When shall we three meet agen?
In starm, in zunshine, ar in rain!’
Lard, yes, she used to sing it, poor soul! Well, now we be three agen,
bain’t us? Three good friends! So, if you’ll mix the usu’l glass, Mrs.
F., we’ll drink to the bond o’ good fellowship.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Rosalie indistinctly. ‘I forgot all about your
glass, Isaac; I’m so sorry; I’ll see to it at once.’
She ran out of the room, glad to make her escape, and Richard sat down
near the hearth.
Friends! They were to be friends as his uncle, and Elias, and Rosalie
had once been friends! He had felt her hand twitch in his as Isaac had
spoken; to her the proposition was doubtless as distasteful as to him it
was impossible. What was his uncle thinking of? There were some things
which flesh and blood—young flesh and blood—could not brook, and this
triangular bond was one of them. But he would be patient for a little
while; he would choke down his rebellious sense of injury. His secret,
thank Heaven! was secure; neither the guileless Isaac nor Rosalie herself
had the faintest idea of the miserable passion which he was striving so
hard to conquer. What was it she had said? They were to be
friends—friends for his uncle’s sake. His uncle, to whom he owed
everything—his kind, faithful, generous old benefactor. Well, he would
try.
That night, in the seclusion of his attic room, he once more drew forth
Rosalie’s picture.
‘Sleep on, Beauty,’ he said. ‘Sleep on in peace! I shall not try to
wake you. Sleep soundly; do not even dream.’
And, after a last silent look, he held it steadily in the flame of the
candle, watching its destruction unflinchingly until the last feathery
film dropped from his fingers.
CHAPTER VII
And times he saith: ‘Why must man aye forego?
And why is life a nobler thing through pain?’
And times: ‘Since Love’s sweet apple hangs so low,
Shall I not strongly grasp and count it gain?’
ELINOR SWEETMAN.
For some time after Isaac’s apparently successful peace-making the
friendly relations between the parties concerned remained unbroken.
Richard was frequently sent on messages to Littlecomb, acquitting himself
on these occasions in a strictly business-like manner; and when he
accompanied his uncle thither he made such strenuous efforts to appear at
his ease and to entertain its hostess that Isaac was delighted beyond
measure.
‘How th’ chap d’ talk!’ he would say sometimes under his breath, with an
admiring nod and wink. ‘Bless me, he d’ talk like prent! I d’ ’low
there is n’t very much as my nevvy don’t know.’
Richard, indeed, in his desire to avoid those terrible long silences
which had so much discomposed him during his first visits to Littlecomb,
embarked upon wild flights of fancy, related at length his past
experiences, and delivered his opinion upon men and things with a fluency
which frequently surprised himself. The fact was that he was afraid to
pause; were he to come to a halt when those blue eyes were fixed upon
him, could he ever take up the thread of his discourse again? Even as it
was, the mere consciousness of that intent gaze made him sometimes
falter; but, recovering himself, he would go on with a rush, knowing that
he was making many wild statements, but persevering nevertheless. He was
bound to do all the talking, if talking there must be, for Rosalie was
very silent, and his uncle was at no time garrulous.
But the harmony of these relations was rudely broken by an unexpected
incident.
One warm afternoon, early in June, Farmer Sharpe chanced to be standing
by his own gate, gazing abstractedly up and down the lane. Presently he
descried an undersized, narrow-chested figure making its way towards him,
and, as it drew near, recognised Mr. Samuel Cross.
‘Fine evenin’,’ remarked Isaac, nodding sideways in his direction, and
expecting him to pass on.
‘A very fine evening, Mr. Sharpe,’ returned Samuel, pausing, and leaning
against the gatepost, with the evident intention of entering into
conversation. ‘The very evenin’ for a quiet walk.’
‘Walkin’ bain’t much in my line,’ returned Isaac. ‘Nay, not without I’m
obliged to—seein’ after the men and goin’ round the fields, and across
the downs to look after the sheep; but walkin’—meanin’ goin’ for a walk
jist for pleasure—it bain’t in my line at all.’
‘It’s in other people’s line, though,’ said Samuel; and he shot a cunning
glance at the older man out of his little red-rimmed eyes. ‘I met your
nephew strolling up towards Littlecomb just now.’
‘Very like ye did,’ agreed Sharpe. ‘He do often go up there on
business.’
‘Lucky chap!’ exclaimed Cross. ‘The rest of us don’t often contrive to
make business agree so well with pleasure.’
He paused to snigger, and Isaac turned his mild grey eyes inquiringly
upon him.
‘Nay, Samuel Cross,’ he remarked, ‘I don’t suppose as _you_ do.’
The slight stress laid upon the personal pronoun appeared to irritate the
young gentleman, and he replied with a certain acerbity:
‘There is n’t, as a rule, much pleasure to be found in doing honest
business, Mr. Sharpe.’
‘Not among lawyers,’ said Isaac, nodding placidly. ‘So I’ve been told.’
‘There’s others besides lawyers, though,’ cried Samuel, ‘as are n’t so
very honest! He! he! You’re a very confiding man, Mr. Sharpe—a very
confiding uncle. ’T is n’t everyone in your situation that would care to
make such a handsome young man his business-manager where a handsome
young woman was concerned. He! he! Your nephew, no doubt, will do the
business thoroughly—perhaps a little too thoroughly.’
‘My nevvy,’ returned Isaac loftily, ‘may be trusted to do his dooty,
Sam’el. ’T is more nor can be said for many folks as be all for pokin’
their noses where they bain’t wanted!’
Mr. Cross’s always sallow complexion assumed an even more jaundiced hue
as he retorted:
‘Most people do no business on Sunday—in England they don’t at least; but
I suppose Mr. Richard Marshall has brought foreign notions back with him.
He was seen two or three weeks ago doing _business_ with Mrs. Fiander
quite as per usual. They were standin’ close together lookin’ over a
gate, just as if he and she were keepin’ company. And he was tellin’ her
such touchin’ business details that she was actually crying, Mr. Sharpe.’
‘Cryin’!’ ejaculated Isaac, in a kind of roar. ‘Stuff and nonsense!
What had she to cry for?’
‘How should I know? Because prices had gone down, I suppose, since,
according to you, they talk nothing but business when they are together.’
‘Oh, drop that,’ cried the farmer, losing patience at last. ‘What be you
a-drivin’ at, Sam’el Cross, wi’ your hints?’
‘Why,’ rejoined Samuel, thrusting his thumbs into his waistcoat
pockets—‘why, the remark as was passed by the young man that saw them in
the lane will perhaps throw some light on the subject. Says he, “I
believe,” he says, “as the widow Fiander be a-takin’ on wi’ the new love
before she is off wi’ the old.” So if I do drop a hint, Mr. Sharpe’—and
Samuel assumed a virtuous air, and struck an appropriate attitude—‘I do
it in the way of kindness. Take my advice and look sharp—look like your
name, sir! We lawyers see a deal of the world, a deal of the wickedness
of the world, and we know that worthy folks are often caught napping.
But don’t you be caught, farmer—keep a good look-out, or your bride will
be snapped up from under your very nose.’
‘Now I’ll tell you what it is, Sam’el Cross,’ cried Isaac, who had been
shifting from one foot to the other during the latter part of the clerk’s
speech, and was purple in the face with suppressed ire, ‘since you’re so
fond of advice maybe you’ll take a bit from me. Jist you keep that long
tongue o’ yourn quiet. What do ye mean, ye little treecherous spy, by
poking your nose into other people’s business and tryin’ to make mischief
between them that’s as good as father and son? I know my nevvy a deal
better than you know him. My nevvy bain’t a snapper, an’ so I tell ’ee!
Now you jist take yourself off out of this, and don’t ’ee come here wi’
no more lyin’ tales, else maybe ye’ll find this here stick o’ mine laid
about your shoulders. I bain’t so strong as I were, but I could make a
shift to hit ’ee a crack or two—so now ye know.’
Samuel had started back as words and gestures grew threatening, and now
deemed it better to beat a retreat; turning, however, at a safe distance
to bestow a withering valedictory smile upon his adversary, and to remark
that he was sorry for him.
Ever since his rejection by Rosalie he had been burning with resentment
against her, and desirous of an opportunity of venting it. A chance
meeting with Sam Belbin had resulted in the latter’s imparting to him a
highly-coloured version of the scene which he had witnessed between
Rosalie and Richard in the lane. The desired opportunity seemed to have
arrived, and Samuel had hastened to take advantage of it, with, as has
been seen, indifferent success. As he now hastened away as rapidly as
his short legs would carry him he encountered the very person he had been
so anxious to traduce. Richard nodded, and would have passed on, but
that Cross, who was still suffering from a redundancy of spite, thought
the opportunity favourable for venting it.
‘You are back already,’ he remarked. ‘I wonder you did n’t contrive to
be a bit longer over your _business_! You would n’t ha’ been missed
yonder. Your uncle seems quite content with your doings. As I told him
just now—he has a confiding nature.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Richard, speaking in a low even voice, but with
an ominous flash of the eyes.
‘Ha! you know what I mean well enough, you sly young dog! If you don’t,
ask the fascinating young widow—ask lovely, dainty Mrs. F. She knows
what she’s about, though she contrives to look so demure. Come,’ marking
the expression of Richard’s face, ‘you need n’t turn rusty over it—I’ll
tell no tales, bless you! But there’s others besides me that has been
passing remarks about the Widow Fiander’s new business-manager. Ha!
ha!—You may carry on, though, as far as I am concerned—perhaps I know a
little too much about the lady to envy you; she has played a double game
before now. As for the old man, _he’ll_ find out nothing; he’s as blind
as a bat—as blind as a bat!’
Here Mr. Cross thrust his tongue into his cheek, and made a hideous
contortion of countenance calculated to convey an impression of his own
extreme artfulness and of his contempt for the old farmer’s
short-sightedness.
His own vision, perhaps, might with advantage have been a little clearer;
a man of quicker perceptions would have realised that Richard’s
persistent silence was more fraught with danger to him than a torrent of
wrathful words. He was, therefore, considerably surprised when Marshall
suddenly brought down his vigorous right hand upon the cheek at that
moment distended by Samuel’s malevolent tongue, and, before he had time
to spring backwards, the other palm inflicted similar chastisement on its
fellow.
The lawyer’s clerk gasped, spluttered, and finally uttered a choking
howl.
‘Hang you! You’ve made me nearly bite my tongue off!’
‘Serve you right if I had,’ cried Richard. ‘You little reptile, if you
so much as say another word of this kind I’ll half kill you!’
He had seized Samuel by the shoulders and was now shaking him slowly
backwards and forwards:
‘Do you take back every word of your vile slanders?’
‘Ye—ye—yes,’ gasped Cross, in an agony of terror.
‘Will you give me your word to keep that foul tongue of yours quiet in
future?’
‘Oh Lord, yes, Richard Marshall. For Heaven’s sake let me go! You’ve
about half killed me as it is!’
Richard released him with a parting admonition to look out, and Cross
went on his way with a staggering gait, and stuffing his
pocket-handkerchief into his mouth.
Richard, still in a white heat of passion, was striding along at a
tremendous rate, when he suddenly observed the large white-clad person of
his uncle standing contemplatively some twenty yards away from the scene
of the encounter. His good humoured face wore a pleasant and satisfied
smile.
‘Well done, lad!’ he remarked, as soon as Richard came within hearing.
‘Ye did give it ’en in style! I never did see nothing more neat. I do
rather think, Richard, as Mr. Sam’el Cross ’ull have the toothache. I d’
’low he will.’
‘I only wish I had made every bone in his body ache!’ cried Richard,
still fuming.
‘I d’ ’low as he said something as ann’yed ’ee, Richard,’ said the
farmer, ceasing his placid chuckles and looking intently at his nephew.
‘Yes,’ returned Richard, ‘he annoyed me very much. He—in point of fact,
he insulted me.’
‘Well, now,’ commented Isaac, ‘that was strange. I did n’t think he’d
insult ’ee to your face, Richard. He was a-talkin’ to me jist now, and
he did say some very insultin’ things agen you—but that was behind your
back, d’ ye see? I did n’t think the chap would acshally go for to say
’em to your face.’
‘What did he say of me?’ said Richard breathlessly.
‘Why, he did say redic’lous things about you and Mrs. F. Ah, the little
raskil could n’t so much as leave Mrs. F.’s name out! And he were very
oncivil to me—ye ’d scarce believe how oncivil he were. Up and told me
straight out as if I did n’t look out you’d be snappin’ up Mrs. F.
without “By your leave,” or “With your leave.” But I give it ’en back
well, I can tell ’ee. Says I, “My nevvy bain’t a snapper,” says I. Them
was my very words. “Ye little treecherous spy,” I says, “don’t ’ee be
a-pokin’ your nose into other folks’ business. I know my nevvy,” I says,
“and my nevvy bain’t a snapper.”’
Here Isaac paused to chuckle jubilantly, and, turning, slapped his nephew
jovially on the back.
‘What do you think of that for an answer, eh?’
‘Why, that it was an excellent one,’ said Richard, beginning to stride on
again so rapidly that his uncle could scarcely keep pace with him.
‘And I told him too,’ pursued the latter, ‘that if he came agen with sich
lyin’ tales I’d lay my stick about his shoulders.’
‘I’m glad you said that,’ exclaimed the young man without turning his
head. ‘I’m glad you told him they were lying tales. They _are_ lying
tales!’
‘And the stick,’ Isaac reminded him with modest triumph. ‘I reckon I
brought it in rather neat about the stick. Says I, “I bain’t quite so
young as I were, but I could make shift to hit ’ee a crack or two yet.”’
‘I wish I had thrashed him within an inch of his life!’ came the savage
comment thrown over Richard’s shoulder.
‘Lard, Richard, how you do lay them long legs o’ yourn to the ground,’
panted Isaac, pausing to wipe his brow. ‘I’m fair out o’ breath. Bide a
bit—bide a bit; let me blow. There, don’t ’ee be in sich a takin’, lad.
I reckon them there little taps as ye gave Sam’el Cross ’ull keep ’en
quiet for some time. He be gone t’other way, anyhow; and it won’t do ’ee
no good to run me off my legs.’
Richard came slowly back; his face was fixed and stern, but he spoke more
quietly.
‘Uncle, I blame myself to a certain extent for what has happened. I
might have guessed that in a gossiping little place like this people
would talk if I went so often to Littlecomb. I must keep away altogether
for the present.’
‘Nay now, don’t ’ee let yourself get so upset. What signifies a bit of
idle chatter! You don’t need to take no notice of it at all.’
‘But I will take notice of it,’ cried Richard. ‘I don’t choose that
people should take liberties with my name; and what is worse—with hers.
I need not assure you, Uncle Isaac, that I have never said one word to
Mrs. Fiander that anyone need find fault with.’
‘To be sure,’ agreed Isaac, ‘of course not.’ He came to a sudden pause,
however, and cast a sidelong look at his nephew, scratching his jaw
meditatively. ‘There was one day—one Sunday—Sam’el Cross was a-sayin’,
somebody seed you both standin’ a-lookin’ over a gate, and Mrs. F. was
a-cryin’. That was n’t very likely, I don’t think. ’T was n’t very
likely as you’d say aught as ’ud make Mrs. F. cry.’
Richard drew a quick breath, and his hands involuntarily clenched
themselves.
‘She did cry one day,’ he said. ‘It was the first Sunday you took me to
Littlecomb. She imagined’—hesitatingly—‘that I had a bad opinion of her,
and she cried, and said I was unjust.’
‘That’ll be the day you went to see the big mead,’ said Farmer Sharpe
reflectively. ‘Ye had n’t made friends then. Ye have n’t made her cry
since, Richard, have ’ee?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Women be so fanciful. Ye did n’t really have a bad opinion of her,
Richard?’
‘Far from it.’
‘She be a very dear woman—a very dear woman. ’T is n’t very likely as
anybody ’ud have a bad opinion of Mrs. F. Well, ye be real trew friends
now, and ye don’t need to take no notice of idle talk. Let there be no
coolness between ye on that account.’
Richard, however, remained fixed in his determination to avoid Littlecomb
for the future, and in spite of his uncle’s protests adhered to his
resolution. On the following Sunday he was somewhat discomposed to find
Rosalie’s eyes straying towards him once or twice as he knelt on the
opposite side of the church, and it seemed to him that they wore a
questioning, pleading expression.
His purpose, however, remained unshaken, and immediately after the early
dinner he went out without saying anything to his uncle, and could not be
found when the hour came for their weekly pilgrimage to Littlecomb.
After waiting some time, and vainly bellowing his name, the farmer was
obliged to go without him.
Richard was in a very taciturn mode at the evening meal, and his uncle’s
announcement that Mrs. F. had inquired why he had not come and remarked
that she saw nothing of him nowadays, did not render him more inclined
for conversation. After supper, too, instead of smoking quietly, he sat
fidgeting in his chair for a few minutes, and then, rising hastily, fell
to pacing about the room.
‘You seem mortal onaisy this evening,’ remarked the farmer, after these
perambulations had continued some time. ‘Sit down, and light up like a
decent Christian.’
He pushed forward a chair invitingly with his foot, and Richard took it
and drew his pipe from his pocket.
Ugh! How hot and stuffy it was in this kitchen, where, in spite of the
warm weather, a fire was blazing! The windows had not been opened all
day, he felt sure; the odour of their recent repast still lingered in the
air, mingled with the fumes of the particularly rank pipe which his uncle
was then enjoying. He thought of the cool twilight without, of the downs
with the fresh breeze blowing across them, of the path beside the hedge
that led to Littlecomb, of the garden there—the garden where the thrush
was singing, and where the roses and syringa were in full bloom. Ah, he
could picture to himself the syringa with its white blossoms shining like
pale lamps amid the dusky boughs. The garden still, and sweet, and
dewy—where she was wandering at this hour!
‘Light up, man,’ said Isaac, pointing to Richard’s pipe.
His nephew obeyed, but held it absently between his fingers.
Isaac poked the blazing logs with his foot and bent forward, extending
his hands to the glow; his big red face looked unnaturally large through
the surrounding haze of smoke. Richard half rose from his chair, and
then sank back again. Outside, came the tantalising thought again,
outside—a few paces away, were the downs and the lonely path through the
fields, and then the garden.
The farmer was slowly nodding in the comfortable radiance. Richard’s
unused pipe had gone out. _The garden_! _The garden_!
Suddenly he rose from his chair, strode across the room, flung open the
door, and was gone before his uncle had time to do more than turn his
head.
CHAPTER VIII
Away! the moor is dark beneath the moon,
Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even:
Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon,
And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven.
Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, away!
SHELLEY.
ONCE outside, Richard flew along as though pursued by a thousand demons;
here were the downs, with their delicious tart air—but he raced across
them without pausing to inhale it; now to swing over the hedge and to
cover the ground that still lay between him and the garden. The garden
and her! His heart was thumping loudly against his ribs; a sound as of a
rushing sea was in his ears. On, on! there were the lights twinkling
from under the dark eaves—there was the gate set in the high wall. How
it shook beneath his violent hand as he flung it open! He stood still at
last, hardly breathing in his suspense. Was she there? All was still
save for the rustling of the boughs and the faint warbling of the
birds—more than one was celebrating evensong to-night. What if she
should not be there! He walked on, slowly and unsteadily now, and
presently there was a movement amid the greenery close at hand. Out of a
little arbour set amid the shrubs a figure came gliding forth to meet
him. She paused two paces away from him and her hands fell by her sides.
‘It is you?’ she said, almost in a whisper.
‘Yes, it is I.’
They stood facing each other in unbroken silence for a full minute, and
then she asked, still in that breathless whisper:
‘Why did you come?’
‘Because I could not keep away.’
She turned and began slowly to pace down the path between the roses.
Waves of perfume were wafted to their nostrils from the syringa blossom.
Yes, yonder stood the bush just as he had pictured to himself. The
remembrance suddenly flashed across Richard as he walked beside her that
these shrubs were sometimes called ‘Mock Orange Trees.’ _Mock Orange
Trees_! _Mock Orange Blossom_!—he must not pursue that thought further.
‘I kept away for four days,’ he said suddenly. ‘I tried to keep away
to-day.’
After a long pause she faltered:
‘I was wondering why you did not come.’
He made no answer, and they walked in silence till the end of the path
was reached, and then she said, still falteringly:
‘I don’t think you ought to have come now.’
‘I know I ought not!’
They turned and began to retrace their steps, but when about mid-way up
the garden she came to a standstill and looked him full in the face.
‘Go now,’ she said. ‘Go! You must not stay here any longer.’
Even in the dim light he could see that she was pale and that her figure
wavered; but he gazed at her as though without realising the sense of her
words.
‘Will you not leave me,’ she entreated, ‘when I ask you?’
He stood looking at her stupidly for a moment or two longer; then the
meaning of her request seemed to reach his understanding.
‘I will go,’ he said hoarsely, ‘if you will give me those flowers in your
hand.’
‘How foolish you are!’ she cried. ‘There, yes, take them, and for
Heaven’s sake go!’
She thrust them towards him, and he took them from her hand—a cluster of
roses, moist and sweet. Instead of fulfilling his promise, however, he
made a step closer to her.
‘Will you put them in my coat?’ he asked. His eyes in his haggard face
seemed to burn.
‘No,’ said Rosalie, drawing back.
The movement and the icy tone that accompanied it recalled him to
himself. He, too, drew back, hesitated, and then, throwing the flowers
on the ground with a passionate gesture, departed. Back again through
the gate, across the yard, under the lea of the hedge, over the downs.
Here was home; there was the warm light of the fire by which his uncle
sat. Now the door was open, and he stood once more in his presence; now,
he, Richard, would be forced to look him in the face.
For a moment he stood with the door-handle in his hand, and then, as the
old man turned to smile inquiringly upon him, he suddenly wheeled and
fled.
‘I can’t,’ he cried, as he mounted the stairs. ‘I can’t!’
Isaac stared at the closed door for some moments as though expecting it
to open again, then, slowly turning back to the fire, listened.
In the room overhead hasty steps were walking up and down.
‘He be gone to fetch summat, very like,’ remarked the farmer as he
restored his pipe to his mouth. But after smoking and listening a little
longer, and marking that the pacing to and fro continued without
intermission, he jerked his thumb upwards, nodded, and said, ‘He bain’t
a-comin’ back.’ Then, after pausing a moment to ruminate over this
circumstance, he made up his mind to the inevitable, tapped his pipe upon
the hob, extinguished the lamp, and went upstairs to bed.
And long after he was sunk in dreamless slumbers those hasty footsteps
might have been heard in the adjoining room, pacing up and down, up and
down, like the restless tread of a caged beast.
Richard was not the only one who spent an unquiet night. Rosalie, too,
could find no rest for her aching heart. After some hours of feverish
tossing she rose, dressed in the dim grey light that was just stealing
over the world, and seated herself by the open window. She could
meditate here without risk of being disturbed, for the sun would not rise
for an hour and more; and even the earliest of her men would not appear
until some time after dawn.
With her chin resting on her hand, she hearkened vaguely to the
succession of sounds which betokened the awakening of Nature. The cock
had crowed long before she had left her uneasy pillow; the young sparrows
had been chirping while she had clothed her weary frame; but now the
cuckoo’s note was sounding faintly from a neighbouring copse, and the
starlings were chattering in their nests on the ivied wall. The grey
veil was being gradually withdrawn from the face of the earth, but even
yet familiar objects were only half revealed, and the most well-known had
a strange and unreal look.
The first sunbeam had not yet struck across the sky when Rosalie, whose
eyes had been absently fixed upon the irregular line of hedge which
marked the approach to the barton, saw a dark object moving slowly along
it, and presently into the open space before her gate there stepped the
figure of a man. She knew what man it was even before he had vaulted the
locked gate and taken up his stand beneath her window. She would have
given worlds to close this window and hasten out of sight, but a spell
seemed to be laid upon her, and she could neither move nor speak, only
gaze downward with dilated frightened eyes.
‘You are there?’ said Richard, looking up with a face as drawn and white
as her own. ‘Thank God! I wanted to see you before I go. I wanted to
say Good-bye.’
The power of speech returned to her, and she leaned forth impulsively
with a faint cry. ‘Going! You are going?’
‘Yes, I am going. Is it not the only thing I can do? Do you think I can
bear to sit at his table and take his pay, and know that I am a traitor
to him in my heart?’
Rosalie did not speak; but Richard, gazing upwards, saw the clasp of her
hands tighten, as they rested on the sill, till the nails and knuckles
showed white.
He went on passionately: ‘Every word he says to me stabs me. Every time
I look at his honest, unsuspicious face I feel—surely you must know what
I feel! I’m not quite a brute yet! And later, when you are his wife—do
you think it would be possible for me to go on living within a stone’s
throw—to see you every day—to keep up the farce of friendship? What do
you think I am made of?’
Her face was set like marble; only the eyes moved. After a long pause
she whispered: ‘Will you—ever come back?’
‘Who knows?’ he answered with a harsh laugh. ‘Some time perhaps—when I
am quite old—when I can no longer feel.’
She put her hand before her eyes, and then let it drop. Richard saw the
irrepressible anguish in them, and his face changed. He threw up his
arms suddenly with a kind of a sob:
‘I will not go—if you tell me to stay!’
For a moment longer the agonised eyes looked down into his, and he
thought he saw her waver; but it was only for a moment. Her lips moved,
at first without emitting any sound, but presently mastering herself, she
said firmly:
‘No, I tell you to go—it is right for you to go.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Richard hoarsely.
‘Good-bye,’ faltered Rosalie; and then there came a great sob: ‘God bless
you!’
He turned as if to leave her, but wheeling round, looked back.
‘Am I to have nothing? Am I to be sent away without so much as a clasp
of the hand?’
She had vanished from the window, and for a moment he stood holding his
breath; would she come down to him—would she meet him at the door?
But within all was silent.
‘She will not come,’ he said to himself; and once more went on his way,
staggering blindly forward, with his head sunk upon his breast.
Had he looked back again he might have seen her creep to the window and
kneel by it, straining her eyes through streaming tears.
Poor Rosalie! Poor Beauty! Did she wake at last only to look upon the
vanishing form of her Prince?
* * *
Later in the day Isaac Sharpe came to Littlecomb in great perturbation of
mind. He found Rosalie lying on the couch in the parlour, the blind
being drawn down—she had a headache, she said.
‘Dear heart alive!’ said Isaac, sitting down, a hand on either knee.
‘Everything d’ seem to be goin’ wrong this day! Here’s my nevvy gone off
wi’ himself!’
‘Gone?’ echoed Rosalie, faintly, turning her face to the wall.
‘’Ees, took himself off this morning wi’out a word to anyone, and left
this here bit of a note for to explain. I bain’t much of a hand at
letter readin’, but Bithey did read it for me, and he does n’t seem to
give no excuse at all, except that he were feelin’ restless. He says he
al’ays told me he were a rover, and could n’t settle down, and now the
travellin’ fit have come on him and he felt he must be off. And he
thanks me very handsome, and he tells me he don’t know where he be
a-goin’ to yet, but when he does he’ll write and let me know where to
send his luggage. And that’s all.’
That’s all,’ repeated Rosalie, looking at the kind, troubled old face
with a bewildered stare. That was all, of course; and she had known it
before. She had with her own eyes watched Richard’s departing figure
until it had disappeared from sight. She had known quite well that he
would never return; she had even told him to go, agreed with him that it
was the right and honourable thing to do—the only thing to do. Ever
since the morning she had been telling herself so over and over again;
yet none the less the farmer’s words fell like a knell upon her heart.
‘You do look bad, to be sure—I am sorry your head be so bad. Lard!
Lard, what a world this be! I’m that upset I don’t know whether I’m on
my head or my heels.’
The quaver in his voice smote Rosalie. She must make an effort to
overcome her selfish grief; above all, to conquer that mad spirit of
rebellion which every now and then rose rampant within her. This good
man had need of her sympathy; should she not give it all the more
willingly that there was so large an element of remorse mingled with her
misery? She sat up and looked affectionately towards him:
‘I’m very, very sorry for you,’ she said.
‘’T was so sudden, ye see,’ pursued Isaac dolefully. ‘He never so much
as said a word to I—never so much as hinted as he war n’t satisfied. I
mid ha’ seen that the restless fit were a-comin’ on if I had n’t ha’ been
sich a sammy. Restless! He were that restless last night, he were more
like a dog at a fair as had lost his master nor a reasonable human being!
It was up and down, and in and out the whole blessed evening. Ah, I be
terrible upset; I be oncommon fond o’ Richard, d’ ye see. Always was
from the time he were a little ’un. I was oncommon fond o’ his mother
afore him; she were the only woman I ever could put up wi’—present
company excepted.’
As Isaac ducked his head towards her with a melancholy attempt at
jocularity, Rosalie’s heart sank lower still; she turned away hastily
that he might not see her face. At an earlier period she might have been
gratified by the knowledge that she was one of the few women in the world
whom Isaac Sharpe could ‘put up with’—phrases of the kind were his
nearest approach to ardour, and indicated, as she knew, a considerable
amount of solid attachment; but the passionate tones of Richard’s voice
had rung too recently in her ear—the look in his eyes was too fresh in
her memory. Ah, what had she not seen in those eyes!
‘’Ees,’ went on her unconscious future husband, ‘’ees, I’ll be like to
miss ’en; him and me was the best of friends—and that’s not all. His
leaving me like this be terrible ill-convenient just now—’t is the busy
time of year, d’ye see—haymaking time—every pair o’ hands is wanted.
Richard did very near the work o’ two men; and he must go trapesing off
wi’ hisself, giving me no time at all to find somebody to take his
place.’
There was a distinct sense of injury in his tone now.
‘I am sure he never thought of that,’ cried Rosalie, quickly and
resentfully. How could Isaac find it in his heart to think of such
things in the face of the overwhelming fact that Richard was gone!
‘Ah, sure he did n’t,’ agreed Isaac. ‘’T is a very bad job! A very bad
job indeed; but I suppose there bain’t nothing to be done.’
Rosalie agreed with a sigh. It was too true; there was nothing to be
done.
CHAPTER IX
L’absence est à l’amour
Ce qu’est au feu le vent;
Il éteint le petit,
Mais it allume le grand.
SEVERAL days passed, and Richard made no sign. Rosalie went about
looking like the ghost of herself. It was known that she was suffering
from a very severe attack of neuralgia, which, oddly enough, had first
seized her on the very day of Richard Marshall’s sudden departure.
Some guileless people believed in the neuralgia—poor Mrs. Fiander did
look so very bad, and a body could n’t make believe to be so pale.
Others, among whom was Mrs. Belbin, folded their arms and assumed a
knowing air. ’T was likely enough, averred this matron, for folks to
look pale as had reason to. Mrs. Fiander’s conscience was very likely
a-troublin’ o’ she. She was a terrible one for carryin’ on wi’ young
men—a-leadin’ of them on, and then a-sendin’ them off wi’out no reason.
Her Sam could say somethin’ if he ’d a mind—her Sam did know more than he
did like to talk about. Others, again, were of opinion that Mrs. Fiander
was just wasting away for love of Mr. Sharpe’s nephew, and that that
young man had gone of his own accord, and had not been dismissed by the
widow. ’T was n’t very likely, said these sages, that Richard Marshall,
who had his own way to make in the world, and who was known to have great
expectations from his uncle, would wish to have any unpleasantness with
him. In response to the suggestion that the young man would n’t be
a-doin’ so very bad for hisself if he and Widow Fiander made a match of
it, they returned conclusively that it was quite unpossible for him and
Widow Fiander to make a match of it, since her banns were to be given out
almost immediately with Farmer Sharpe. Somebody had up and axed Mrs.
Fiander when the wedding was to be, and she had answered that the day was
not yet fixed, but that the wedding was to take place as agreed at the
end of July.
Isaac heard none of these rumours, but he too wandered about with an
unusually lengthy and gloomy face.
One day, however, Rosalie, looking out from the darkened room where she
was sitting, saw him hastening towards her house with every appearance of
excitement, waving a piece of paper in his hand.
In a moment she stood on the threshold. ‘You have heard from Richard?’
she cried eagerly. ‘You have had a letter?’
‘Nay, my dear, I have n’t had no letter,’ panted Isaac, as soon as he was
near enough. ‘I ’ve had a graft.’
‘You have had what?’ inquired Rosalie.
‘I have had a graft, my dear, a tele-graft—in one of them nasty-lookin’
yeller wrappers as al’ays seems to bring bad news.’
‘I hope it has n’t brought bad news this time,’ said she tremulously, as
they went into the house together.
‘Nay, I hope not,’ said the farmer doubtfully. ‘It does n’t say much, d’
ye see—not much one way or t’ other.’
Smoothing out the paper, he handed it to her upside down.
Rosalie reversed it, and read the brief message:
‘Send luggage as soon as possible Lime Street Station, Liverpool, to be
called for.—Richard.’
‘Liverpool! Then he must intend to go to America again!’
Isaac flushed, and his jaw dropped.
‘Now, Mrs. F., I do call that a-jumpin’ to conclusions,’ he said
presently, quite testily for him. ‘You have n’t no earthly reason for
sayin’ sich a thing. Is it likely my nevvy ’ud go off to ’Merica again
when he’s only just a-comed back? Did n’t he say he was a-longin’ and
a-longin’ to be back to the old country—’
‘I know,’ interrupted Rosalie quickly; ‘but for all that I’m sure he
means to return to America now. He told me he landed at Liverpool, and,
depend upon it, he intends to start from there again. Yes, yes, I’m
quite sure of it. He did not rest, you see, until he had put the length
of the country between us, and now he means to go further still—perhaps
when he is at the other side of the world he will be contented.’
She spoke with irrepressible bitterness, but Isaac did not notice it.
‘If that’s your opinion, Mrs. F.,’ he said, ‘we ’d best lose no time in
carryin’ out my little plan. I ’ve got a plan, d’ ye see,’ he added,
with modest triumph. ‘Ah, it comed to me all of a sudden. We’ll write
to him, Mrs. F.’
‘But what would be the use of writing?’ said Rosalie. ‘We cannot force
him to come back against his will.’
‘Nay, we can’t force him, but I think ’t is only some notion the chap’s
got in his head. He seemed quite settled till last week, and maybe the
rovin’ fit will ha’ wore off a bit by now. He’s gone all the way to
Liverpool, d’ ye see—that ought to ha’ let off a bit o’ steam. Maybe, if
we wrote him a letter and just axed him straight out, he might change his
mind. We can send a letter with his luggage—’t won’t be too late so long
as he has n’t left the country; and he can’t leave the country wi’out his
luggage, d’ ye see? We can but try.’
‘Of course—you can try,’ said Rosalie, pressing her hand to her head with
a bewildered air.
‘So, I were thinkin’, Mrs. F., if ye ’d jist set down and drop a line to
’en for me—that’s to say, if your head bain’t a-troublin’ you too much—’
He was looking at her pleadingly, misunderstanding the expression of her
face.
‘Oh, never mind about my head. I’m only wondering—I’m only thinking.
Must the letter go to-day?’
‘Well ye see, Richard did ax most perticlar for his traps to be sent off
at once,’ replied the farmer, his eyes round with anxiety; ‘and if we
don’t send the letter at the same time we mid miss him.’
‘Bithey used always to write to him for you, didn’t she?’ said Rosalie,
catching at the last straw. ‘Perhaps it would have more effect if she
wrote.’
‘Nay now, my dear, if ye ’d be so obligin’, I ’d take it very kind o’ you
to do it. It d’ take Bithey very near three days to write a letter—I ’d
be very much obliged to ’ee, my dear,’ he repeated persuasively.
Thus adjured she had no resource but to comply, and with a beating heart
and throbbing brain she set about her preparations. Going to the window,
she drew up the blind a little way, and then, collecting pen, ink, and
paper, sat down opposite Isaac at the table. When she had thus
inaugurated proceedings Isaac might have been observed to gather himself
up, concentrating, as it were, all his forces in preparation to the
effort of composition.
Having dipped her pen in the ink, Rosalie looked inquiringly at him.
‘How do you wish me to begin?’ she said.
‘Bithey do al’ays start off wi’ “My dear Nevvy,”’ responded Isaac in a
husky tone, as though he were speaking from beneath a blanket, which
evidently resulted from the mighty constraint he was putting upon
himself.
‘_My dear Nephew_,’ wrote Rosalie, and then she raised her eyes again.
The farmer cleared his throat, drew a long breath, and continued slowly,
and with apparently immense difficulty:
‘_Your uncle Isaac do say_—’
‘Say,’ repeated Rosalie, when she had written the last word.
Isaac, crimson in the face, was absorbed in the mental struggle, but
presently perceived with a start that her pen had stopped moving.
‘Have ’ee got _Say_? Well, _Your uncle Isaac do say_—_as I hope you’ll
change your mind_—’
‘Had n’t I better put _he_ hopes?’ said the secretary.
The farmer came out of his brown study, and looked up at her inquiringly:
‘Who’s he?’
‘Why you, of course. If I say, “Your uncle Isaac,” I ought to go on in
the same way, “He says.” If I say “I” it will look as if I were speaking
of myself—as if it were _I_ who wished he would change his mind.’
‘Well, and don’t ’ee wish it?’ asked Isaac sharply, but reproachfully
too.
Rosalie bent her head over the paper, and answered hurriedly:
‘I? Oh, of course, of course; but it would not do for me to tell him
so—it would be too much of a liberty.’
‘Lard, no, my dear. Richard would n’t think it such. But there, I be
dathered with so much talk—you must n’t cut in again, Mrs. F.—’t is
terrible hard work writin’ letters, and if ye go for to speak to I in the
middle I’ll be all mixed up. Let me tell ’ee my own way, d’ ye
see?—Richard knows my ways, and he’ll understand fast enough. Now, let
me see:—“_Your uncle Isaac wishes for to say as I hope ye’ll change your
mind and come back_. _Mrs. F. is a-writin’ this for I_, _and she wishes
for to say ’t is Uncle Isaac as wants ’ee back_”—that’ll make it all
right, d’ ye see?’ he continued, dropping the high unnatural tone which
seemed essential to dictation, and adopting a confidential one—‘now he
can’t go for to make no mistakes. Have ’ee wrote that?’
‘No.—Oh, don’t make me write that, Mr. Sharpe—I don’t want him to think
me unkind.’
Isaac clicked his tongue in desperation.
‘Lard ha’ mercy!’ he ejaculated, ‘this here letter ’ull never get wrote.
Now, my dear, jist put down what I d’ tell ’ee—and don’t flurry me. When
I do get flurried I can’t for the life o’ me think o’ nothin’. Jist be
a-puttin’ o’ that down, and I’ll go on thinkin’, d’ ye see. It’ll come
right—ye’ll find it’ll come right.’
Rosalie reluctantly set down the required sentence, and found at its
conclusion that Isaac had already inflated himself in preparation for a
further effort.
‘_Mrs. F. d’ wish ’ee to come back too_, _as is nat’ral_, _but she thinks
it more becomin’ not to say so_.’
He fixed his eyes sternly upon her as he enunciated this statement, and
in sheer desperation Rosalie set it down.
‘Now ye have n’t nothing to complain of, I don’t think,’ he remarked
triumphantly. ‘Now we can get on. Well—what next?’
After deep reflection the following words came forth:
‘’_T is most onconvenient for ’ee to be a-leavin’ me at such short
notice_.
_I_—_wish_—_’ee_—_most_—_pertic’lar_—_to_—_come_—_back_—_to-week_. _We
be a goin’ to cut the church meadow_, _and __every hand be wanted_. _I
do feel a bit hurt in my feelin’s_’—Here Isaac paused to brush his coat
sleeve across his eyes, and continued brokenly—‘_hurt in my feelin’s to
think as you have a-left your old uncle like that_. ’T war n’t well done
o’ him,’ he muttered, parenthetically, ‘nay, I can’t say as it were well
done o’ Richard.’
He wiped his eyes again, sniffed, drew an immense breath, and started off
afresh:
‘_Like that_. _I do think ye mid ha’ said a word_, _but I will not find
fault no more_, _but jist ax ye to come straight back_—_an’ all will be
forgive and forgot_. Now I think, Mrs. F., we mid finish, ye mid jist
write my name and I’ll put my mark to it.’
He heaved a deep sigh of relief, wiped his brow, and sat gazing at her as
she appended his signature to the page.
‘That be my name, be it?’ he inquired. ‘It do look very pretty wrote out
so nice and small. ’Ees, I can see as this here’s my name.
_I_—_S_—_A_—. You put _A_ twice, Mrs. F.’
‘Yes, it should be written twice.’
‘Ah,’ said the farmer, gazing at the page doubtfully. ‘Bithey now do
only put it once—it be a matter o’ taste, I suppose. Well, now, I’ll put
my mark.’
He ground his pen slowly into the paper, horizontally and
perpendicularly, and remained gazing at it with a certain modest pride.
‘There, shut ’en up now, and write his name outside.’
Rosalie obeyed, and held out the document towards Isaac, but as he was
about to take it she drew it back, a deep flush overspreading her face.
After a moment’s hesitation, however, she again tendered it to him.
‘There—take it,’ she said, with a note of sharpness in her voice which
would have struck a more acute observer than Isaac; but he duly pocketed
it without noticing that anything was amiss.
Left to herself she sat for a moment or two in deep thought, her chin
propped upon her hands; then suddenly rising, rushed out into the yard.
‘Mr. Sharpe!’ she called. ‘Isaac!’
But the farmer’s broad back was already vanishing down the lane.
Evidently her voice failed to reach him as he did not turn his head.
Rosalie stood looking after him, without making further attempts to
attract his attention, and then slowly returned to the house. Why should
she call him back, after all—what need was there for her thus to disturb
herself? Could she help writing the letter exactly as he wished; and how
foolish were the qualms of conscience which the remembrance of certain
phrases in it evoked. It was his letter, not hers: it was he who had
insisted on stating that she wished Richard to return—she had never
authorised him to do so. If Richard did come back she could not be
blamed for it. If he did come back!
Again supporting her throbbing head with her hands, she tried to reason
with herself, but the turmoil in heart and brain for a time forbade any
consecutive train of ideas. During the long blank days which had passed
since Richard’s departure, and often in the course of the weary, restless
nights, this thought had constantly recurred to her with a never-failing
stab:—_He has gone_—_he will never come back_!
And now, if he did come back—if he came back even for a little while! If
she might just see him again, if it were only to be once or twice! At
the mere suggestion she was conscious of a lifting of the load which had
been crushing her. If he were made to know, through no fault of hers but
rather against her will, that she did wish him to return—she who had let
him go forth without a word to stay him—if he even guessed that she
longed to see him—oh, it would be sweet to think he knew, that he would
henceforth judge her less harshly, that he would realise how hard had
been her struggle!
She raised her head, her lips parted in a smile, her eyes dreamily gazing
at the strip of sunlit green outside her window. There he had stood;
thence he had turned away so mournfully, and now he was to come back.
_To come back_! Would he not read between the lines of the oddly
composed missive—would not the very words have for him a deeper meaning
than their guileless originator guessed at—would he not come flying to
her side? In a few days—in little more than a few hours, perhaps, he
would be with her; and then!
She gave a sudden gasp, and flung herself forward across the table. And
then! In a moment the web of self-deception with which she had been
endeavouring to cloak the situation was torn to shreds, and she saw the
truth. A crisis was impending: it was folly to pretend that it would
take her unawares, it was worse than folly to endeavour to shift the
responsibility to poor unsuspicious Isaac. If Richard returned the
struggle would have to be gone through again: it would be even harder
than before, for she would have lured him back after he had broken from
her. If thus sorely tempted and wrongfully encouraged he were to speak
those words which she had seen so often trembling on his lips, what
answer could she make? Could she look him in the face and affect
unconsciousness, or—what did she mean to do? Did she mean to keep her
plighted troth as an honest woman should, or did she mean to cast aside,
for good and all, truth, and honour, and self-respect, and jilt the man
who had been her faithful friend?
‘I want to do right,’ said Rosalie, with another gasping sigh. ‘I have
never told a lie in my life; I won’t tell one now; I won’t act one
either. If he comes back it will only be on false pretences; he must n’t
be allowed to come back.’
She lay still for a moment, her arms extended, a kind of tremor passing
every now and then over her frame. Presently she said again, half aloud:
‘I won’t be deceitful; I won’t break my word; but oh, how hard it is to
do right! God help me.’
She straightened herself all at once, and pushed back the hair from her
forehead; then, drawing the blotter towards her, wrote a hasty line on a
sheet of paper—‘Do not come back, I implore you. R. F.’—thrust it into
an envelope, and directed it to Richard. With little convulsive sobs at
intervals she went upstairs, bathed her swollen eyes, and put on her hat.
There was no one about the Down Farm when she approached it, but, on
entering, she almost fell over a strapped portmanteau that had been
placed just inside the doorway. As she recovered herself Bithey appeared
at the kitchen door.
‘I thought you was the carrier,’ she remarked. ‘Master did say as he ’d
sent for him to fetch that there box o’ Richard Marshall’s. ’T is to go
to Liverpool to-day.’
‘Is Mr. Sharpe in?’ asked Rosalie falteringly. Somehow the sight of that
portmanteau made her turn suddenly faint.
‘Nay, he bain’t. But I’m expectin’ him back every minute. He be gone
some time now, and he said he ’d just catch the carrier. I had a hard
job to get all packed and ready, but ’t is done now.’
It was all packed, the straps fastened, the lock made secure. Rosalie
was too late after all; the important postscript which was to supplement
the letter could not, as she intended, be slipped among Richard’s
effects. Her heart gave a sudden throb that was not altogether of pain.
She had honestly tried, but fate willed otherwise.
‘I don’t think I’ll wait,’ she stammered, scarcely knowing what she said.
‘I shall see Mr. Sharpe to-morrow, and I should only be in your way. I
dare say you are busy.’
‘Nay, not that busy now, ma’am. I’m just a-makin’ a parcel of a big
thick coat o’ Richard’s. ’T would n’t go in the box nohow, and I’m
tryin’ to pack it in paper, but ’t is that heavy it do slip out at one
side so soon as I get t’ other wrapped up.’
‘Let me help you,’ said Rosalie. ‘Four hands are better than two.’
She had never seen Richard wear this coat, yet the mere sight of it—the
mere consciousness that it was his caused a recurrence of that strange
wave of faintness.
‘We want a little bit more string, Bithey,’ she said with the quaver in
her voice which had been noticeable before.
‘I think there’s a little bit on the dresser shelf,’ returned the old
woman; and, dropping her end of the parcel, she went across the kitchen.
This was Rosalie’s chance. She was white to the very lips, but she did
not flinch. With cold, trembling fingers, she hid away the note in the
breast-pocket of the coat; he would be sure to find it there.
Bithey discovered nothing, and presently, the packet being secured,
Rosalie betook herself homewards.
‘I ’ve done it!’ she said, pausing when she reached the solitude of the
downs. ‘Thank God! I ’ve done it! It will be all right now.’
But it was not surprising that in the midst of her self-congratulations
on having so successfully barred herself out of Eden she should once more
melt into tears.
CHAPTER X
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met, or never parted,
We had ne’er been broken-hearted.
BURNS.
THE cutting and making of Rosalie’s hay had been proceeding briskly in
the Church Meadow; the last swathes had fallen, and every available pair
of hands had been called upon to assist in the work, for experienced
weather-prophets had foretold gloomily that the actual ‘fine spell’ could
not be expected to last.
Towards evening on the second day Farmer Sharpe stood alone in the centre
of the field; mopped, for the hundredth time, his perspiring brow, and
cast a contemplative look round.
’T was past seven o’clock; the men had gone home some time before, but he
had remained to take a final survey of the scene of their labours.
‘I don’t think it’s so very like to rain,’ remarked Isaac, looking up at
the sky, where, indeed, no trace of a cloud was to be seen. ‘Nay, I
don’t hold wi’ Job—’t will keep up for a bit yet. Mrs. F. ’ull ha’ gone
home by now, I should think—she’d begin to find it a bit damp in the
dell. The dew be falling very fast. Well, I’ll go home to my supper.’
He passed through the gate at the further end of the field, and had
traversed more than half the distance which separated him from his home
when the sound of heavy but rapid steps behind him made him halt and turn
round.
Job Hunt, who had evidently been hastening in pursuit of him, paused too,
his great red face wearing an appearance of unusual excitement, and his
sly blue eyes positively goggling in his head. Owing to the unusual
press of work, and the need for accomplishing it in a given time, Isaac
had persuaded Rosalie to consent to his engaging this unwelcome addition
to her forces, and she had agreed with a meekness that sufficiently
indicated her spiritless condition. Job it was who had been most
energetic in foretelling a coming storm, partly in order to render his
services the more valuable, and partly because of a natural pleasure in
predicting disaster to Mrs. Fiander’s crops.
‘Well,’ said Isaac, gazing at him in astonishment.
‘Have ’ee seen what be goin’ on yonder, sir?’ was Job’s counter-query.
‘What be a-goin’ on where?’ inquired the farmer.
‘Why, there,’ returned Hunt, with a significant jerk of the thumb in the
direction of the Church Meadow.
‘There bain’t nothin’ at all a-goin’ on there,’ returned his employer
sternly. ‘I be just come from there—the field’s empty.’
‘Nay, Mr. Sharpe,’ returned Job, half closing one eye, and assuming a
very knowing look. ‘Nay, it bain’t empty. Jist you step back and see.
If you was to step up to the dell very cautious—I’d advise ’ee to go very
cautious, sir—you ’d maybe see summat as ’ud surprise ’ee. Jist you come
along wi’ I, Mr. Sharpe—I’ll show ’ee where to look, and I d’ ’low ye’ll
be astonished.’
Isaac surveyed him for half a minute or so without speaking, and then
slowly jerked his thumb forwards.
‘Cut away,’ he said briefly. ‘’Ees, I don’t mind if I do come, but I
don’t expect to see nothin’ surprisin’ at all.’
Job grinned derisively for all rejoinder, and led the way as requested;
walking with exaggerated caution, and turning his malevolent red-bearded
face over his shoulder every now and then to make sure that Isaac was
following. The latter shambled along at his usual pace and with a
perfectly imperturbable face.
As they drew near the dell, a small cup-shaped pit surrounded by bushes
at the upper end of the field, the sound of voices was distinctly
audible—two voices, a man’s and a woman’s—speaking, however, so low that
even when Isaac and his companion were close to the brink they could
distinguish no words.
‘Jist step for’ard, Mr. Sharpe, sir,’ whispered Job excitedly. ‘Jist
look down through the bushes; I’ll bide here till ye come back.’
Sharpe paused for a moment or two, staring at him with evident
displeasure, and then went forward. Presently his tall form towered
above the bushes, and he looked down into the pit beneath.
After a long and steady gaze he returned to Job, took him by the
shoulder, and propelled him to a safe distance from the tantalising spot.
Job, when finally released, examined him with great curiosity; but the
farmer’s face, though a little redder than usual, in consequence probably
of his recent exertions, was stolid as ever.
‘Well?’ he said in answer to the man’s inquiring gaze.
‘Well, sir, did ’ee see who was there?’
‘Of course I did. Mrs. Fiander was there, where I left her, and my nevvy
was there. He ’ve comed home, I see, as I axed him.’
‘Oh,’ said Job, much disappointed, ‘I didn’t know you were expectin’ of
him.’
‘Did n’t ’ee, Job? I ’ve been expectin’ of ’en all this week. I’m glad
he’s come.’
‘It seems a bit queer as he should be in Mrs. Fiander’s hayfield, instead
o’ goin’ straight to your place,’ urged Job almost plaintively. It was a
little disappointing to find that his great discovery had been
anticipated. ‘When I did see ’en b_i_-c_y_cling along the road I made
sure he must be going straight to you, and then when I did see his
b_i-_c_y_cle leanin’ agen’ the hedge, I jist thought I ’d see where he ’d
got to—and there he were in the dell.’
‘And a very nat’ral place for ’en to be,’ returned Isaac in his most
matter-of-fact tone. ‘I did tell ’en most pertic-lar we was cuttin’ the
Church Meadow, and when he saw Mrs. Fiander in the dell ’t was most
nat’ral he should go and speak to her. I don’t see nothin’ queer, Job
Hunt.’
‘He was a-holdin’ o’ both her hands when I see ’en,’ muttered Job.
‘Ah,’ commented Isaac. ‘Well, he’ll be a-holdin’ both mine soon. I be
main glad he be come back. Now I’m a-goin’ home to my supper, and I
think you ’d do well to go back to yours, Job. I’ll expect you early in
the field to-morrow; so the sooner ye get back to look arter your own
business the better. I would n’t advise ’ee to go interfering wi’ my
nevvy. He bain’t so very fond o’ folks axin’ questions or pryin’ about.
Ah, I ’ve known ’en take his fists to a man once as he thought too
curious. ’T is the way wi’ young chaps.’
He nodded, fixed his eyes impressively on Hunt, as though to make sure
that the meaning of his words had penetrated to that somewhat dull-witted
gentleman’s consciousness, and finally rolled homewards, to all
appearance placid as ever.
He had not proceeded very far before he paused, however, shook his head,
and finally stood stock-still.
‘Two hands,’ said Farmer Sharpe reflectively. ‘Two hands!’
* * *
It now becomes necessary to ascertain what passed before Isaac Sharpe,
looking down through the willow-bushes, descried Richard Marshall in such
close proximity to Mrs. Fiander.
Nothing certainly was farther from Rosalie’s thoughts when she had taken
refuge in that sheltered spot from the glare of the afternoon sun than
the expectation of the advent of this companion. She had, in fact, quite
decided that he was by this time out of the country, and had, indeed,
made up her mind to erase his image definitely from her memory.
Henceforward, as she frequently told herself, she must think only of
Isaac—Isaac, who had always been her friend, who was so soon to be her
husband. Her husband!—she must face the thought though she unconsciously
shrank from it. Oh, would—would that this sweet cup of forbidden love
had never been held to her lips! She had dashed it from her, but the
taste of it remained and had taken all the savour out of her life. It
had been to her a poisonous cup, containing as it did wine from the fruit
of the tree of knowledge. ‘_You know very little of life_,’ Richard had
said to her once. Alas, alas! she knew now more than enough.
‘Oh, Elias—poor Elias,’ she groaned to herself sometimes, ‘why did you
die? If you had lived I should have known nothing—I should have guessed
at nothing. I might have gone down to my grave without knowing that
there was any other love besides that which I gave you.’
As an antidote to the rebellious longing of which she was too often
conscious, Rosalie had recourse to the panacea she had hitherto found
unfailing in times of affliction: hard work. Since the writing of that
letter to Richard, and the subsequent battle with herself, she had
resumed her old energetic habits. Once more she rose with the dawn, once
more she passed hours in toil no less arduous than that allotted to her
servants. She avoided solitude as much as possible, and strove by every
means in her power to tire herself out.
So tired was she, indeed, on this particular afternoon, that, having
sought the friendly shade of the grassy nook already referred to, she
acknowledged herself to be incapable of further effort. Even when the
great heat had somewhat abated, and the retreating voices and heavy tread
of her labourers as they trooped homewards warned her that it was growing
late, she sat on, her hands clasping her knees, her eyes gazing vacantly
on the ground, too weary even to think.
A footstep sounded in the neighbourhood of her retreat, but she did not
raise her eyes: it was some straggler, probably, hastening to rejoin the
others. She could hear the bushes rustling, as though brushed by a
passing form, and kept very still; she wanted nobody to speak to her,
nobody even to look at her. But now the step faltered, halted—there was
a pause; and then rapid feet began to descend towards where she sat. She
raised her eyes, first in surprise and a little irritation, then in
incredulous wonder, then—oh, what was it that Richard saw in them?
In a moment he was bending over her and both her hands were clasped in
his.
Was it that particular moment that Job Hunt chose to pursue his
investigations, or did the acknowledged lovers remain thus longer than
they knew? Rosalie could never afterwards tell, nor could Richard. They
felt as if they were in a dream; time, place, circumstances, were alike
forgotten; a vague undefined bliss—the intangible bliss of dreams—haunted
them both, and in the minds of both lurked the same dread of awakening.
It was Rosalie who was first recalled to life. Her eyes, which had been
fixed on Richard’s face, dropped gradually to his hands; gazed idly,
first at those hands, then at her own which he was holding; then the idea
gradually took shape in her mind—those were her hands, Rosalie Fiander’s
hands, that were lying in Richard’s clasp; and they had no right to be
there!
She snatched them away instantly, and the charm was broken.
‘You have come back!’ she cried. ‘Why did you come back?’
‘I came,’ said he, ‘because I received your letter.’
Her face was white with anguish; his, on the contrary, flushed, eager,
triumphant.
‘But did you not find the note which I put in your pocket?’ she murmured,
gazing at him with frightened eyes. ‘I thought you would be sure to find
it. The other was not—was not really mine. I had to write what he
wanted.’
‘I know,’ he answered blithely. ‘I could see it plainly enough. It was
not that which brought me home. It was your own precious little note—the
little line which laid bare your heart to me. I had already sailed
before I found it, but we touched at Queenstown and I landed there and
took the first boat home. I have travelled night and day since.’
She was shaking like a reed in the wind. ‘But—I begged you not to come,’
she whispered.
‘You begged me not to come, sweet, and so I guessed, I knew—you betrayed
your secret, my dear love, and I felt my own power.’
‘No, no,’ she gasped; ‘you must not speak to me like this, Richard—I will
not listen. You know quite well that I cannot listen. I belong to
another man!’
But Richard bent nearer still, his face alight with the same inexplicable
triumph—a triumph that was almost fierce.
‘You belong to me,’ he said; and his words were perhaps the more
passionate because spoken so low. ‘You have belonged to me from the
first. Even from the moment when I saw you in the picture I said to
myself—’
‘Oh, no,’ pleaded Rosalie, in tones as passionate as his, but infinitely
piteous. ‘Do not say it, Richard—do not—do not put it into words!’
Her hand flew out involuntarily as though to stop his mouth: he caught it
and kissed it though it fluttered in his grasp.
‘Why should I not say it—why should I not be brave enough to put into
words the thought which has been in both our minds so often? When I saw
your picture I fancied myself standing beside you, bending over you—’
‘Oh, hush, hush!’
She had withdrawn her hand, and was covering her face.
‘I said to myself,’ he persevered, his words coming brokenly because of
his quick breathing. ‘I said to myself, “If that woman lives she shall
be my wife—I will search for her until I find her!” And then when I
found you—I thought you were free.’
‘But I was not free,’ she interrupted, dropping her hands and looking up
with eyes fierce and wild like those of a hunted animal. ‘I am not free
now, neither are you free. You are bound to him as much as I am—your
duty stares you in the face—’
‘It is too late to talk of duty! I ought never to have seen you. Do you
suppose there is anything which you can tell me that I have not told
myself a hundred times? He is my uncle—yes! He has been my benefactor
always—more than a father to me—yes, yes! He is the kindest, the most
warm-hearted, the most guileless of men. It would never enter his
honest, innocent mind to suspect me of trying to supplant him; in acting
as I do I am a traitor, a liar—vile, ungrateful, dishonourable,
dishonest—Oh, there are no words strong enough, or black enough to paint
me as I am! I know it and I agree to it; but I love you, Rosalie, and I
will not give you up!’
Some of his words were scarcely audible as they came in gusts from his
quivering lips; the veins on his forehead stood out; there was no
mistaking the bitter contempt with which he stigmatised his own conduct,
but there was even less possibility of misapprehending his deadly
earnestness of purpose.
‘I mean to have you,’ he went on; ‘I mean to let everything go—except
you.’
She was so much taken aback at the suddenness of the onslaught, so
confounded at the quickness with which he had forestalled all she had
intended to urge, that she stood before him for a moment absolutely mute;
trembling, moreover, with the growing consciousness of her own weakness,
and at his confident assumption of mastery over her.
Meanwhile he, with his eyes fixed upon her face, read it like a book.
His own suddenly changed.
‘It is useless to struggle, love,’ he said, speaking very gently and
tenderly. ‘We have both done our best—we have tried to do right, but
Fate has been too strong for us. We must just make up our minds to let
ourselves go with the tide—and be happy.’
Rosalie was, as has been seen, very impressionable, very emotional—in a
word, very womanly; but for all that there was at her heart’s core the
little kernel of strength which is to be found in the hearts of most good
women—an instinctive sense of rectitude, the love of duty for duty’s
sake, even when the accomplishment of it involves great sacrifice. She
looked Richard full in the face now.
‘No,’ she said; ‘I will not take any happiness that has to be bought by
doing wrong. I made my own choice and fixed my lot in life before I knew
you, and now I will abide by it.’
The very severity of the struggle gave her courage, and Richard, all
passion-swayed as he was, had in him a certain element of chivalrousness
that responded to the effort she was making.
He was silent, and Rosalie, quick to perceive her advantage, went on
eagerly:
‘I ask you to leave me, Richard; I want you to go now. It is quite true
that you have a kind of power over me, and that if you’—her voice
faltered for a moment, but she steadied it—‘if you go on urging me and
persuading me you will very likely make me give in in the end; but I ask
you, _because_ you love me, not to do this. We could not be really happy
if—if we came together through being dishonourable and ungrateful. It is
better to do right at all costs. As for me, I mean to keep my word to
your uncle. I will try my best to make him a good wife and to forget
you.’
‘And have you thought,’ returned he, with a bitterness which he could not
control—‘have you thought at all of what is to become of me? The whole
thing is absurd,’ he went on with increasing irritation. ‘Do you think
for a moment that my uncle could suffer a tithe of what I shall suffer?
You know very well he is not capable of it. Besides—’ He broke off.
‘I know what you mean,’ said Rosalie, colouring faintly. ‘He would not
have thought of marrying me if I had not first suggested it. But I did
suggest it, and he is very fond of me now.’
‘Fond!’ echoed the young man scornfully.
‘Yes, as fond as it is in his nature to be. He has been faithful to me,
and I will be faithful to him. I will do nothing that could pain or
humiliate him. Some day you too will feel glad that you have not injured
your benefactor.’
‘Then what do you want me to do?’ said Richard, still half sullenly,
though she saw by his face that her words had struck home.
‘I want you to go away now—go quite away as you intended—as fast as you
can—before—before anything happens to make us change our minds.’
In the words, in her pleading eyes there was that same piteous confession
of weakness which had before touched Richard, and which now roused afresh
his most generous instincts.
‘I will do what you wish,’ he said. ‘You are a good woman, Rosalie;
I—will go.’
‘To-night?’
‘Yes; now!’
She glanced at him quickly, opened her mouth as if to speak, and then
turned away without carrying out her intention.
Thus they parted, without another word or a clasp of the hands. Richard
climbed up the bank and disappeared from view, and Rosalie remained
standing where he had left her.
CHAPTER XI
[Picture: Music score from Hayden’s Surprise symphony]
WHEN Richard emerged from the shadowy hollow where he had left his
mistress standing as if turned to stone, he found all the land about him
bathed with the rosy glow of sunset. The long ‘rollers’ of newly-cut
grass over which he stepped were touched here and there by arrows of
light, and the twigs of the hedge towards which he made his way were
outlined as by fire.
He saw none of these things, however; but when, climbing the low bank and
passing through a gap in the hedge, he descended into the road, he was
suddenly recalled to actualities by the unexpected appearance of a
colossal figure which seemed to be mounting guard over his bicycle.
As Richard started back Farmer Sharpe rose from his seat on the bank, and
stood square and determined before him, the ruddy light playing upon his
rugged face and shaggy hair and glorifying his white smock. One great
hand still rested on the saddle of the bicycle, which it almost entirely
covered. As Richard remained dumbly gazing at him, his fingers began to
drum an impatient tune on its smooth surface.
The young man gazed desperately first at him and then at the bicycle,
filled with an insane desire to possess himself of it and ride away at
full speed. But whether because his courage failed him, or because
nobler and more manly feelings gained the ascendency over this momentary
cowardice, he did not put the design into execution.
After gazing steadily at his nephew for what seemed an interminable time,
Isaac removed his hand from the bicycle and pointed in the direction of
the little dell.
‘I seed ’ee there, Richard,’ he remarked in a sepulchral tone. ‘I seed
’ee there with Mrs. F.’
Richard braced himself, and looked him full in the face, but made no
rejoinder.
‘’Ees,’ said the farmer, ‘I seed ye both; and I’ve been a-waiting here
for ye, Richard.’
Still silence. Richard, indeed, felt that it would be useless to enter
upon either explanation or apology.
Mr. Sharpe’s hand crept back to the saddle and resumed its impatient
tune; he planted his legs a little more widely apart, continuing the
while to stare unwinkingly in his nephew’s face.
When the tension had become almost unbearable, he spoke again.
‘I thought I ’d wait for ’ee here,’ he said. ‘I thought ye ’d very
likely have summat to say to me.’
The young man bit his lip and clenched his hands; he could scarcely brook
the expectant look in those eyes.
‘What am I to say, Uncle Isaac? I—what can I say? I’m going away at
once.’
The combined effect of sunshine and emotion had already intensified the
farmer’s usually healthy colour, but this announcement caused it to
deepen to a positively alarming extent. For a moment he seemed in danger
of suffocation; he raised his hand mechanically to the loose collar of
his smock and clutched at it; his eyes seemed ready to start from their
sockets, and, though he opened his mouth and rolled his head from side to
side as though about to fulminate against his nephew, no words came.
‘Don’t,’ cried Richard, much alarmed—‘don’t be so angry, uncle—you really
need n’t be so much upset. I tell you I’m going away at once—to-night.’
Farmer Sharpe sank down on the bank, sliding his legs out before him
rigid as a pair of compasses; his head continued to roll threateningly,
and his eyes to gaze fiercely at Richard, but it was some time before he
could find voice.
‘Ye can’t go to-night,’ he said at last, in husky, suffocating tones:
‘there bain’t no train to-night.’
‘Not from Branston, I know; but I mean to ride to Wimborne, and catch the
night train there.’
Somehow this catching of the night train at Wimborne seemed to be the
culminating point of Richard’s depravity. Isaac positively groaned
aloud; the fierceness went out of his eyes, and to Richard’s infinite
distress they filled with tears.
‘What more can I do?’ he faltered, torn with remorse and grief as he bent
over him.
‘I did n’t think it of ’ee, Richard—nay, if anybody had told me ye ’d go
for to do such a thing I would n’t ha’ believed ’em. To go off wi’out a
word to I—me as has been a father to ’ee—nay, not so much as a word!’
He paused, choked with emotion, and fell to wiping his eyes and shaking
his head disconsolately; while Richard, slowly straightening himself,
stood looking down at him.
‘When Job Hunt did call me, and did p’int out as you was standin’—you and
Mrs. F.—hand in hand: both hands in both hands,’ he added, correcting
himself, ‘I didn’t let on to take no notice. I did send Job about his
business, and I did say to myself, “I’ll wait,” says I. “My nevvy ’ull
tell me all about it jist now.” And I did go and sit me down here. Says
I, “I’ll not interfere; I’ll wait,” I says; “Richard will out wi’ it all
to I—he’ll act straight,” I says. “He’ll tell me.”’
He spoke almost appealingly. Richard’s face, which had turned from white
to red, was now white again.
‘I wanted to spare you, uncle,’ he murmured at last, falteringly.
Isaac groaned, and shook his head; then drawing a long breath, and
peering anxiously at his nephew, he whispered pleadingly:
‘What was you a-sayin’ to Mrs. F. when you was a-holdin’ of her hands,
Richard?’
‘Oh,’ groaned the other impatiently, ‘there are some things that can’t be
talked about! I should n’t have held her hands—I scarcely knew that I
was holding them. What does it matter now? We have said good-bye to
each other for ever; we have made up our minds never to see each other
again.’
Isaac’s jaw dropped; he brought down his fist heavily on the bank beside
him.
‘Well,’ he muttered under his breath, ‘I’m danged! I can’t get no
satisfaction. Not a word!’
‘You know enough,’ said Richard fiercely. ‘Be content with what I tell
you—I will never darken your doors again.’
Isaac brought down his fist once more on the bank, and then slowly
hoisted himself on to his feet.
‘If ye have n’t naught to say to I, I’ve summat to say to you,’ he
announced, speaking very slowly. ‘I bain’t a-goin’ to let ’ee go off
like that. ’T is my way to be straightfor’ard. I’ll speak my mind plain
to ’ee this night, and I’ll speak my mind to Mrs. F. Where be Mrs. F.?
Come along of I, Richard, and find her.’
He had squeezed through the gap in the hedge while still speaking, and
Richard had no choice but to follow him. A few strides brought them to
the dell, and, looking down, they descried Rosalie standing in the same
attitude as that in which Richard had left her.
‘Mrs. Fiander,’ called Isaac, bending over the brink, ‘will ’ee oblige me
by stepping up here? The sides be a bit steep, and I bain’t so young as
I were—I can’t very well go down, but I ’d be obliged if you ’d step up.
I ’ve summat to say to you and my nevvy here.’
Rosalie had started violently at the sound of his voice, and now obeyed
his summons in silence; but she trembled so much, and the wet grass had
become so slippery, that she stumbled often, and it was some time before
she completed the ascent. Meanwhile both men stood watching her,
motionless, and in silence. Once or twice she had raised her eyes
towards the great white figure which awaited her on the brink, and it
seemed to her that Isaac’s face was grave and stern like the face of a
judge. She did not dare once glance at Richard, but she felt, even
without looking at him, that their secret was discovered.
The farmer backed a little away from the edge of the dell when Rosalie
came forth, and stood looking from one to the other; then he spoke very
solemnly, and with some hesitation.
‘Mrs. Fiander, as I was a-sayin’ to Richard jist now, ’t is best to be
straightfor’ard—’ees, ’t is best to speak out, even when it be hard to
speak out. I can’t get no satisfaction from Richard—he did acshally tell
I to my face as he had made up his mind to go straight off wi’out a
single word to I. He comes wi’out a word and he goes wi’out a word!
Now, Mrs. F., I did see you together jist now, and I did think as you ’d
have summat to tell me.’
There was a long pause. Isaac looked once more from Rosalie’s graceful,
shrinking figure to the other culprit, who stood with bent head, awaiting
the storm of reproach and vituperation.
‘From the very first,’ pursued Isaac, still in that solemn and somewhat
stern tone, ‘I did tell ’ee my mind plain, Mrs. Fiander. I did tell ’ee
straight out, did n’t I? as I had n’t never fixed my thoughts on
materimony. ’T was you as was set on it—’
‘Oh, I know,’ interrupted Rosalie. ‘I know it too well. Do not throw it
in my face now!’
‘Throw it in your face, Mrs. F.! Who’s a-throwing o’ what in your face?
All I do say is I did al’ays do my best for ’ee—don’t you go for to blame
me, for blame I do not deserve.’
Both raised their heads and looked at him, astonished at the change of
tone, for now the old man seemed to speak more in sorrow than in anger.
‘I did al’ays do my best for ’ee. I did al’ays think and act as kind as
I could, and you did never once think of I. ’Ees, I did never
interfere,’ he went on, more emphatically; ‘I left ye both to
yourselves—did n’t I? I never comed in your way. But ye mid ha’ given
me a thought.’
The penitent heads drooped again. What need had they to be reminded how
guileless he had been, how unsuspicious, how chivalrous in thought and
deed!
‘’Ees,’ went on Isaac, ‘I did leave ye to yourselves—I did ax ye to make
friends. Do you mind how often I axed ye to be friends?’
True indeed; only too true! They had taken a base advantage of his
confidence; they had profited of the opportunities he had given them only
to be more and more unfaithful to him in their hearts.
‘I thought you ’d be different to what you do be,’ he continued, with
increasing severity. ‘When Sam’el Cross did tell I as you ’d snap up
Mrs. F., Richard, what did I say? Says I, “My nevvy bain’t a snapper!”
D’ ye mind? I said the same thing to you. Well, I thought maybe you ’d
say summat then—but not a word!’
‘Uncle, I—it is n’t fair to reproach me like this. I kept away from
Littlecomb as long as I could; you know that.’
‘’Ees, I do know it, Richard—I know it very well; you would n’t come with
me when I did ax ’ee that Sunday. You would n’t come along o’ me to
Littlecomb; nay, but you went out by yourself that night, and when you
comed back ye would n’t so much as sit down and smoke a pipe like an
honest Christian; and next day you must get up and go off wi’ yourself
before ’t were light. And what did I do then—what did I do, Richard,
though you ’d gone off and left me wi’out so much as a line? I did n’t
give up hopes of ’ee yet. I went and wrote ’ee a letter and told ’ee to
come back, and all ’ud be forgive and forgot. There now, and what do ’ee
say to that?’
His face was working with emotion, his voice tremulous for all its
strength. Never in his life, probably, had Isaac Sharpe put so many
words together, and every one of them came from his heart. To the young
people it seemed as though all their struggles had been futile, their
good desires vain, their great sacrifice useless: for all their days they
would be branded with infamy. They had, indeed, stopped short of the
breach of faith to which both had been so strongly tempted, but they had
nevertheless violated trust.
‘And even now,’ said Isaac—‘even at the very last, when you were for
cuttin’ off wi’out no explanation, I did give ’ee one more chance—and you
would n’t take it.’
‘What in Heaven’s name do you want to say?’ cried Richard, goaded to
desperation. ‘Do you want me to tell you to your face that I love the
woman you are going to marry?’
‘Nay now,’ returned his uncle in an expostulatory tone, ‘I would n’t go
so far as that. I bain’t onreasonable. All I did ever think o’ axin’ ye
was for you and Mrs. F. to see if ye could n’t take to each other. That
were my notion. Ye might ha’ gived each other a fair trial—a fair
trial!’
The young couple stared at him blankly, hardly believing their ears; then
Richard cried out with a gasp: ‘Rosalie, do you hear—do you understand?
He _wanted_ us to love each other!’
‘Nay,’ interrupted the farmer, in a tone that was at once dignified and
explanatory, ‘I did n’t expect so much straight off—Love! No, no, not
love—but ye mid ha’ jist tried to fancy one another! Ye mid ha’ had a
bit o’ consideration for me, I think. Ye knowed, both on ye, as
materimony would n’t come easy to I; and seein’ as you did tell me plain,
Richard, the very first night you come home, as you was on the look-out
for a wife, why not Mrs. F. so well as another?’
It was Rosalie’s turn to gasp now, and her face bloomed like a rose in
the evening light; but neither she nor Richard spoke; both were so
suddenly brought down from their heights of heroics that it was natural
they should feel somewhat dizzy and confused.
‘I’m a man o’ my word,’ said Isaac, ‘and if ye have made up your mind and
fixed your ch’ice on I, Mrs. F., why’—drawing a deep breath—‘I’ll keep my
promise, my dear. But if Richard ’ud do so well as me ’t ’ud be a deal
more convenient, d’ ye see? It ’ud seem a bit queer to change my state
at my time o’ life, and to leave the old home where I was born and bred.
And Richard, he has a very good notion o’ farmin’, and he ’d be willing
to carry on the work in the old way, and to take advice from I, d’ ye
see? Ah, the notion did come to I soon arter he comed here. Thinks I to
myself, I wonder if Richard ’ud do—’t ’ud be a deal more suitable, thinks
I; and more satisfactory to all parties.’
Here Isaac was interrupted by a sudden burst of laughter from his
nephew—laughter which was indeed the outlet of such an extraordinary
mixture of emotions that they had nearly found vent in tears. The
exquisite sense of relief, the unhoped-for joy stirred his very heart’s
depths; but, on the other hand, the humour of the situation struck him
with almost equal force. After the overwhelming remorse, the bitter
sense of shame which but a few moments ago had tortured them, to discover
that their contemplated sacrifice had very nearly set at naught good old
Isaac’s dearest wish!
‘Oh, uncle, uncle!’ he cried as soon as the first ecstatic outburst of
mirth had subsided, ‘why did you not speak before?’
‘’T would n’t ha’ been very becomin’ for me to speak,’ returned the
farmer, still with great dignity. ‘I knowed my dooty to Mrs. F., and I
were n’t a-goin’ to say nothin’ as mid hurt her feelin’s. But I did try
and bring ye together, Richard; and I did try to give ye so many hints as
I could. D’ ye mind how often I did say what a dear woman Mrs. F. were,
and what a good wife she ’d make? Ah, many a time I did. And d’ ye mind
how I used to tell ’ee it was bad to hurt a woman’s feelin’s? And you
would n’t take a bit o’ pains to be friendly and pleasant wi’ her! I did
look for some return from ’ee, Richard, and I were disapp’inted. And I
did expect at least as ye would tell me straight whether you could take
to the notion or whether ye could n’t. ’T was the least ye mid do, I
think. I were that anxious, and that upset—I don’t see as it’s any
laughin’ matter,’ he continued with gathering wrath, for Rosalie’s face
was now dimpling all over with smiles and Richard’s hilarity seemed to
increase rather than diminish. ‘Come, I’ll have a straight answer one
way or t’ other. Will ye give up this here stupid notion o’ going out o’
the country, Richard, and bide here and see if you and Mrs. F. can’t make
it up between ye? And you, Mrs. F., my dear, will ’ee jist think over
this here matter, and see if Richard would n’t do as well as me?’
Richard suddenly ceased laughing, and stepped to Rosalie’s side.
‘Will you, Rosalie?’ he said, very gently and tenderly. ‘Will you try to
like me a little?’
And, without waiting for an answer, he took her hands and laid them
softly about his own neck, and stooped and kissed her.
‘Dear heart alive!’ exclaimed Isaac, clapping his hands. ‘That were n’t
sich a bad beginning, Richard, I will say! You bain’t very slack once
you do make a start.’ He paused to laugh, long and loud. ‘Well, I
never!’ he cried. ‘Nay, Richard, ye don’t do things by halves. Well,
Mrs. F., my dear,’ he added, more anxiously, seeing that Rosalie did not
speak, ‘what d’ ye say?’
‘I suppose,’ returned Rosalie faintly, with her face half hidden on
Richard’s shoulder, ‘I suppose I’ll have to try.’
‘Do ’ee now, my dear,’ cried Isaac, much relieved. ‘Ye’ll find ye won’t
_re_-pent it. And ye’ll not lose nothing by it neither,’ he added as an
afterthought. ‘Richard be jist the same as a son to I—he’ll have all as
I ’ve a-got to leave when I be gone. I don’t want for to seem unkind,
but it ’ud be a very great comfort to me if ye could make up your mind
to’t.’
‘Oh, I think,’ murmured Rosalie, ‘that I can make up my mind to it.’
‘Well, then,’ cried Isaac, chuckling and rubbing his hands, ‘all’s well
as ends well! ’Ees, we may say that—all’s well as ends well! We’ll be
the best o’ friends as ever; but I do think as Richard ’ull be more
suitable as a husband, my dear. Ye mid as well see Mrs. F. home now,
Richard. I think I’ll go back to my bit o’ supper; ’t will be cold
enough by now, I reckon.’
With a nod and a broad smile he left them, and pursued his homeward way,
pausing ever and anon to look backwards at the two lithe young figures
which moved slowly along above the dark irregular line of hedge—the bent
heads, very close together, outlined against the lambent evening sky.
Once, after one of these backward glances, he began to chuckle.
‘They’ve a-took to the notion nicely,’ he said. ‘’Ees, I reckon they’ll
do!’
* * * * *
THE END
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