Spring was late that year. It was the third week in April before the
last streak of snow faded from the hills, or the showers of sleet
ceased to starve the land. Morning after morning the Squire tapped his
glass and looked abroad for fine weather. The barley-sowing might wait,
but the oats would not wait, and at a time when there should have been
abundant grass he was still carrying hay to the racks. The lambs were
doing ill.
Morning after morning, with an old caped driving-coat cast about his
shoulders and a shabby hunting-cap on his grey head, he would walk down
to the little bridge that carried the drive over the stream. There, a
gaunt high-shouldered figure, he would stand, looking morosely out over
the wet fields. The distant hills were clothed in mist, the nearer
heights wore light caps, down the vale the clear rain-soaked air showed
sombre woods and red soil, with here and there a lop-sided elm,
bursting into bud, and reddening to match the furrows. “We shall lose
one in ten of the lambs,” he thought, “and not a sound foot in the
flock!”
One morning as he stood there he saw a man turn off the road and come
shambling towards him. It was Pugh, the man-of-all-work at the Cottage,
and in his disgust at things in general, the Squire cursed him for a
lazy rascal. “I suppose they’ve nothing to do,” he growled, “that they
send the rogue traipsing the roads at this hour!” Aloud, “What do you
want, my man?” he asked.
Pugh quaked under the Squire’s hard eyes. “A letter from the mistress,
your honor.”
“Any answer?”
Reluctantly Pugh gave up the hope of beer with Calamy the butler. “I’d
no orders to wait, sir.”
“Then off you go! I’ve all the idlers here I want, my lad.”
The Squire had not his glasses with him, and he turned the letter over
to no purpose. Returning to his room he could not find them, and the
delay aggravated a temper already oppressed by the weather. He shouted
for his spectacles, and when Miss Peacock, hurrying nervously to his
aid, suggested that they might be in the Prayer Book from which he had
read the psalm that morning, he called her a fool. Eventually, it was
there that they were found, on which he dismissed her with a flea in
her ear. “If you knew they were there, why did you leave them there!”
he stormed. “Silly fools women be!”
But when he had read the letter, he neither stormed nor swore. His
anger was too deep. Here was folly, indeed, and worse than folly,
ingratitude! After all these years, after forty years, during which he
had paid them their five per cent. to the day, five per cent. secured
as money could not be secured in these harum-scarum days—to demand
their pound of flesh and to demand it in this fashion! Without warning,
without consulting him, the head of the family! It was enough to make
any man swear, and presently he did swear after the manner of the day.
“It’s that young fool,” he thought. “He’s written it and she’s signed
it. And if they have their way in five years the money will be gone,
every farthing, and the woman will come begging to me! But no, madam,”
with rising passion, “I’ll see you farther before I’ll pay down a penny
to be frittered away by that young jackanapes! I’ll go this moment and
tell her what I think of her, and see if she’s the impudence to face it
out!”
He clapped on his hat and seized his cane. But when he had flung the
door wide, pride spoke and he paused. No, he would not lower himself,
he would not debate it with her. He would take no notice—that, by G—d,
was what he would do. The letter should be as if it had not been
written, and as to paying the money, why if they dared to go to law he
would go all lengths to thwart them! He was like many in that day,
violent, obstinate men who had lived all their lives among dependents
and could not believe that the law, which they administered to others,
applied to them. Occasionally they had a rude awakening.
But the old Squire did not lack a sense of justice, which, obscured in
trifles, became apparent in greater matters. This quality came to his
rescue now, and as he grew cooler his attitude changed. If the woman,
silly and scatterbrained as she was, and led by the nose by that
impudent son of hers—if she persisted, she should have the money, and
take the consequences. The six thousand was a charge; it must be met if
she held to it. Little by little he accustomed himself to the thought.
The money must be paid, and to pay it he must sell his cherished
securities. He had no more than four hundred, odd—he knew the exact
figure—in the bank. The rest must be raised by selling his India Stock,
but he hated to think of it. And the demand, made without warning, hurt
his pride.
He took his lunch, a hunch of bread and a glass of ale, standing at the
sideboard in the dining-room. It was an airy room, panelled, like most
of the rooms at Garth, and the pale blue paint, which many a year
earlier had been laid on the oak, was dingy and wearing off in places.
His den lay behind it. On the farther side of the hall was the
drawing-room, white-panelled and spacious, furnished sparsely and
stiffly, with spindle-legged tables, and long-backed Stuart chairs set
against the wall. It opened into a dull library never used, and
containing hardly a book later than Junius’ letters or Burke’s
speeches. Above, under the sloping roofs of the attics, were chests of
discarded clothes, wig-boxes and queerly-shaped carriage-trunks, which
nowadays would furnish forth a fancy-ball, an old-time collection
almost as curious as that which Miss Berry once viewed under the attics
of the Villa Pamphili, but dusty, moth-eaten, unregarded, unvalued.
Cold and bare, the house owned everywhere the pinch of the Squire’s
parsimony; there was nothing in it new, and little that was beautiful.
But it was large and shadowy, the bedrooms smelled of lavender, the
drawing-room of potpourri, and in summer the wind blew through it from
the hay-field, and garden scents filled the lower rooms.
An hour later, having determined how he would act, the old man walked
across to the Cottage. As he approached the plank-bridge which crossed
the river at the foot of the garden he caught a glimpse of a petticoat
on the rough lawn. He had no sooner seen it than it vanished, and he
was not surprised. His face was grim as he crossed the bridge, and
walking up to the side door struck on it with his cane.
She was all of a tremble when she came to him, and for that he was
prepared. That did not surprise him. It was due to him. But he expected
that she would excuse herself and fib and protest and shift her ground,
and pour forth a torrent of silly explanations, as in his experience
women always did. But Mrs. Bourdillon took him aback by doing none of
these things. She was white-faced and frightened, but, strange thing in
a woman, she was dumb, or nearly dumb. Almost all she had to say or
would say, almost all that he could draw from her was that it was her
letter—yes, it was her letter. She repeated that several times. And she
meant it? She meant what she had written? Yes, oh yes, she did.
Certainly, she did. It was her letter.
But beyond that she had nothing to say, and at length, harshly, but not
as harshly as he had intended, “What do you mean, then,” he asked, “to
do with the money, ma’am, eh? I suppose you know that much?”
“I am putting it into the bank,” she replied, her eyes averted. “Arthur
is going—to be taken in.”
“Into the bank?” The Squire glared at her. “Into Ovington’s?”
“Yes, into Ovington’s,” she answered, with the courage of despair.
“Where he will get twelve per cent. for it.” She spoke in the tone of
one who repeated a lesson.
He struck the floor with his cane. “And you think that it will be safe
there? Safe, ma’am, safe?”
“I hope so,” she faltered.
“Hope so, by G—d? Hope so!” he rapped out, honestly amazed. “And that’s
all. Hope so! Well, all I can say is that I hope you mayn’t live to
regret your folly. Twelve per cent. indeed! Twelve——”
He was going to say more, but the silly woman burst into tears and wept
with such self-abandonment that she fairly silenced him. After watching
her a moment, “Well, there, there, ma’am, it’s no good crying like
that,” he said irritably. “But damme, it beats me! It beats me. If that
is the way you look at it, why do you do it? Why do you do it? Of
course you’ll have the money. But when it’s gone, don’t come to me for
more. And don’t say I didn’t warn you! There, there, ma’am!” moved by
her grief, “for heaven’s sake don’t go on like that! Don’t—God bless
me, if I live to be a hundred, if I shall ever understand women!”
He went away, routed by her tears and almost as much perplexed as he
was enraged. “If the woman feels like that about it, why does she call
up the money?” he asked himself. “Hope that it won’t be lost! Hope,
indeed! No, I’ll never understand the silly fools. Never! Hope, indeed!
But I suppose that it’s that son of hers has befooled her.”
He saw, of course, that it was Arthur who had pushed her to it, and his
anger against him and against Ovington grew. He would take his balance
from Ovington’s on the very next market day. He would go back to
Dean’s, though it meant eating humble pie. He thought of other schemes
of vengeance, yet knew that when the time came he would not act upon
them.
He was in a savage mood as he crossed the stable-yard at Garth, and
unluckily his eye fell upon Thomas, who was seated on a shaft in a
corner of the cart-shed. The man espied him at the same moment and
hurried away a paper—it looked like a newspaper—over which he had been
poring. Now, the Squire hated idleness, but he hated still more to see
a newspaper in one of his men’s hands. A laborer who could read was, in
his opinion, a laborer spoiled, and his wrath blazed up.
“You d—d idle rascal!” he roared, shaking his cane at the man. “That’s
what you do in my time, is it! Read some blackguard twopenny trash when
you should be cleaning harness! Confound you, if I catch you again with
a paper, you go that minute! D’you hear? D’you think that that’s what I
pay you for?”
The worm will turn, and Thomas, who had been spelling out an inspiring
speech by one Henry Hunt, did turn. “Pay me? You pay me little enough!”
he answered sullenly.
The Squire could hardly believe his ears. That one of his men should
answer him!
“Ay, little enough!” the man repeated impudently. “Beggarly pay, and
’tis time you knew it, Master.”
The Squire gasped. Thomas was a Garthmyle man, who ten years before had
migrated to Lancashire. Later he had returned—some said that he had got
into trouble up north. However that may be, the Squire had wanted a
groom, and Thomas had offered himself at low wages and been taken. The
village thought that the Squire had been wrong, for Thomas had learned
more tricks in Manchester than just to read the newspaper, and, always
an ill-conditioned fellow, was fond of airing his learning in the
ale-house.
Perhaps the Squire now saw that he had made a mistake; or perhaps he
was too angry to consider the matter. “Time I knew it?” he cried, as
soon as he could recover himself. “Why, you idle, worthless vagabond,
do you think that I do not know what you’re worth? Ain’t you getting
what I’ve always given?”
“That’s where it be!”
“Eh!”
“That’s where it be! I’m getting what you gave thirty years agone! And
you soaking in money, Master, and getting bigger rents and bigger
profits. Ain’t I to have my share of it?”
“Share of it!” the old man ejaculated, thunderstruck by an argument as
new as the man’s insolence. “Share of it!”
“Why not?” Thomas knew his case desperate, and was bent on having
something to repeat to the awe-struck circle at the Griffin Arms. “Why
not?”
“Why, begad?” the Squire exclaimed, staring at him. “You’re the most
impudent fellow I ever set eyes on!”
“You’ll see more like me before you die!” Thomas answered darkly. “In
hard times didn’t we share ’em and fair clem? And now profits are up,
the world’s full of money, as I hear in Aldersbury, and be you to take
all and us none?”
It was a revelation to the Squire. Share? Share with his men? Could
there be a fool so foolish as to look at the matter thus? Laborers were
laborers, and he’d always seen that they had enough in the worst times
to keep soul and body together. The duty of seeing that they had as
much as would do that was his; and he had always owned it and
discharged it. If man, woman or child had starved in Garthmyle he would
have blamed himself severely. But the notion that they should have more
because times were good, the notion that aught besides the county rate
of wages, softened by feudal charity, entered into the question, was a
heresy as new to him as it was preposterous. “You don’t know what you
are talking about,” he said, surprise diminishing his anger.
“Don’t I?” the man answered, his little eyes sparkling with spite.
“Well there’s some things I know as you don’t. You’d ought to go to the
summer-house a bit more, Master, and you’d learn. You’d ought to walk
in the garden. There’s goings-on and meetings and partings as you don’t
know, I’ll go bail! But t’aint my business and I say nought. I do my
work.”
“I’ll find another to do it this day month,” said the Squire. “And
you’ll take that for notice, my man. You’ll do your duty while you’re
here, and if I find one of the horses sick or sorry, you’ll sleep in
jail. That’s enough. I want no more of your talk!”
He went into the house. Things had come to a pretty pass, when one of
his men could face him out like that. The sooner he made a change and
saw the rogue out of Garthmyle the better! He flung his stick into a
corner and his hat on the table and damned the times. He would put the
matter out of his mind.
But it would not go. The taunt the man had flung at him at the last
haunted him. What did the rogue mean? And at whom was he hinting? Was
Arthur working against him in his own house as well as opposing him out
of doors? If so, by heaven, he would soon put an end to it! And by and
by, unable to resist the temptation—but not until he had sent Thomas
away on an errand—he went heavily out and into the terraced garden. He
climbed to the raised walk and looked abroad, his brow gloomy.
The day had mended and the sun was trying to break through the clouds.
The sheep were feeding along the brook-side, the lambs were running
races under the hedgerows, or curling themselves up on sheltered banks.
But the scene, which usually gratified him, failed to please to-day,
for presently he espied a figure moving near the mill and made out that
the figure was Josina’s. From time to time the girl stooped. She
appeared to be picking primroses.
It was the idle hour of the day, and there was no reason why she should
not be taking her pleasure. But the Squire’s brow grew darker as he
marked her lingering steps and uncertain movements. More than once he
fancied that she looked behind her, and by and by with an oath he
turned, clumped down the steps, and left the garden.
He had not quite reached the mill when she saw him descending to meet
her. He fancied that he read guilt in her face, and his old heart sank
at the sight.
“What are you doing?” he asked, confronting her and striking the ground
with his cane. “Eh? What are you doing here, girl? Out with it! You’ve
a tongue, I suppose?”
She looked as if she could sink into the ground, but she found her
voice. “I’ve been gathering—these, sir,” she faltered, holding out her
basket.
“Ay, at the rate of one a minute! I watched you. Now, listen to me. You
listen to me, young woman. And take warning. If you’re hanging about to
meet that young fool, I’ll not have it. Do you hear? I’ll not have it!”
She looked at him piteously, the color gone from her face. “I—I don’t
think—I understand, sir,” she quavered.
“Oh, you understand well enough!” he retorted, his suspicions turned to
certainty. “And none of your woman’s tricks with me! I’ve done with
Master Arthur, and you’ve done with him too. If he comes about the
place he’s to be sent to the right-about. That’s my order, and that’s
all about it. Do you hear?”
She affected to be surprised, and a little color trickled into her
cheeks. But he took this for one of her woman’s wiles—they were
deceivers, all of them.
“Do you mean, sir,” she stammered, “that I am not to see Arthur?”
“You’re neither to see him nor speak to him nor listen to him! There’s
to be an end of it. Now, are you going to obey me, girl?”
She looked as if butter would not melt in her mouth. “Yes, sir,” she
answered meekly. “I shall obey you if those are your orders.”
He was surprised by the readiness of her assent, and he looked at her
suspiciously. “Umph!” he grunted. “That sounds well, and it will be
well for you, girl, if you keep to it. For I mean it. Let there be no
mistake about that.”
“I shall do as you wish, of course, sir.”
“He’s behaved badly, d—d badly! But if you are sensible I’ll say no
more. Only understand me, you’ve got to give him up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“From this day? Now, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
After that he had no more to say. He required obedience, and he should
have been glad to receive it. But, to tell the truth, he was a little
at a loss. Girls were silly—such was his creed—and it behoved them to
be guided by their elders. If they did not suffer themselves to be
guided, they must be brought into line sharply. But somewhere, far down
in the old man’s heart, and unacknowledged even by himself, lay an odd
feeling—a feeling of something like disappointment. In his young days
girls had not been so ready, so very ready, to surrender their lovers.
He had even known them to fight for them. He was perplexed.