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.
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
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 hendeavours 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 honoured. 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 5¾d. = 4d., 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.