.... It is quiet here, sleepy, rather—a farm is never quiet; the sea,
too, is only a quarter of a mile away, and when it's windy, the sound
of it travels up the combe; for distraction, you must go four miles to
Brixham or five to Kingswear, and you won't find much then. The farm
lies in a sheltered spot, scooped, so to speak, high up the combe
side—behind is a rise of fields, and beyond, a sweep of down. You have
the feeling of being able to see quite far, which is misleading, as
you soon find out if you walk. It is true Devon country-hills, hollows,
hedge-banks, lanes dipping down into the earth or going up like the
sides of houses, coppices, cornfields, and little streams wherever
there's a place for one; but the downs along the cliff, all gorse and
ferns, are wild. The combe ends in a sandy cove with black rock on one
side, pinkish cliffs away to the headland on the other, and a coastguard
station. Just now, with the harvest coming on, everything looks its
richest, the apples ripening, the trees almost too green. It's very
hot, still weather; the country and the sea seem to sleep in the sun.
In front of the farm are half-a-dozen pines that look as if they had
stepped out of another land, but all round the back is orchard as lush,
and gnarled, and orthodox as any one could wish. The house, a long,
white building with three levels of roof, and splashes of brown all over
it, looks as if it might be growing down into the earth. It was freshly
thatched two years ago—and that's all the newness there is about it;
they say the front door, oak, with iron knobs, is three hundred years
old at least. You can touch the ceilings with your hand. The windows
certainly might be larger—a heavenly old place, though, with a flavour
of apples, smoke, sweetbriar, bacon, honeysuckle, and age, all over it.
The owner is a man called John Ford, about seventy, and seventeen stone
in weight—very big, on long legs, with a grey, stubbly beard, grey,
watery eyes, short neck and purplish complexion; he is asthmatic, and
has a very courteous, autocratic manner. His clothes are made of Harris
tweed—except on Sundays, when he puts on black—a seal ring, and a thick
gold cable chain. There's nothing mean or small about John Ford; I
suspect him of a warm heart, but he doesn't let you know much about him.
He's a north-country man by birth, and has been out in New Zealand all
his life. This little Devonshire farm is all he has now. He had a large
“station” in the North Island, and was much looked up to, kept
open house, did everything, as one would guess, in a narrow-minded,
large-handed way. He came to grief suddenly; I don't quite know how. I
believe his only son lost money on the turf, and then, unable to face
his father, shot himself; if you had seen John Ford, you could imagine
that. His wife died, too, that year. He paid up to the last penny, and
came home, to live on this farm. He told me the other night that he had
only one relation in the world, his granddaughter, who lives here with
him. Pasiance Voisey—old spelling for Patience, but they pronounce,
it Pash-yence—is sitting out here with me at this moment on a sort of
rustic loggia that opens into the orchard. Her sleeves are rolled up,
and she's stripping currants, ready for black currant tea. Now and then
she rests her elbows on the table, eats a berry, pouts her lips, and,
begins again. She has a round, little face; a long, slender body; cheeks
like poppies; a bushy mass of black-brown hair, and dark-brown, almost
black, eyes; her nose is snub; her lips quick, red, rather full; all her
motions quick and soft. She loves bright colours. She's rather like a
little cat; sometimes she seems all sympathy, then in a moment as hard
as tortoise-shell. She's all impulse; yet she doesn't like to show her
feelings; I sometimes wonder whether she has any. She plays the violin.
It's queer to see these two together, queer and rather sad. The old man
has a fierce tenderness for her that strikes into the very roots of
him. I see him torn between it, and his cold north-country horror of his
feelings; his life with her is an unconscious torture to him. She's a
restless, chafing thing, demure enough one moment, then flashing out
into mocking speeches or hard little laughs. Yet she's fond of him in
her fashion; I saw her kiss him once when he was asleep. She obeys him
generally—in a way as if she couldn't breathe while she was doing it.
She's had a queer sort of education—history, geography, elementary
mathematics, and nothing else; never been to school; had a few lessons
on the violin, but has taught herself most of what she knows. She is
well up in the lore of birds, flowers, and insects; has three cats, who
follow her about; and is full of pranks. The other day she called out to
me, “I've something for you. Hold out your hand and shut your eyes!”
It was a large, black slug! She's the child of the old fellow's only
daughter, who was sent home for schooling at Torquay, and made a runaway
match with one Richard Voisey, a yeoman farmer, whom she met in the
hunting-field. John Ford was furious—his ancestors, it appears, used to
lead ruffians on the Cumberland side of the Border—he looked on “Squire”
Rick Voisey as a cut below him. He was called “Squire,” as far as I can
make out, because he used to play cards every evening with a parson in
the neighbourhood who went by the name of “Devil” Hawkins. Not that the
Voisey stock is to be despised. They have had this farm since it was
granted to one Richard Voysey by copy dated 8th September, 13 Henry
VIII. Mrs. Hopgood, the wife of the bailiff—a dear, quaint, serene old
soul with cheeks like a rosy, withered apple, and an unbounded love of
Pasiance—showed me the very document.
“I kape it,” she said. “Mr. Ford be tu proud—but other folks be proud
tu. 'Tis a pra-aper old fam'ly: all the women is Margery, Pasiance,
or Mary; all the men's Richards an' Johns an' Rogers; old as they
apple-trees.”
Rick Voisey was a rackety, hunting fellow, and “dipped” the old farm
up to its thatched roof. John Ford took his revenge by buying up the
mortgages, foreclosing, and commanding his daughter and Voisey to go
on living here rent free; this they dutifully did until they were both
killed in a dog-cart accident, eight years ago. Old Ford's financial
smash came a year later, and since then he's lived here with Pasiance.
I fancy it's the cross in her blood that makes her so restless, and
irresponsible: if she had been all a native she'd have been happy enough
here, or all a stranger like John Ford himself, but the two strains
struggling for mastery seem to give her no rest. You'll think this a
far-fetched theory, but I believe it to be the true one. She'll stand
with lips pressed together, her arms folded tight across her narrow
chest, staring as if she could see beyond the things round her; then
something catches her attention, her eyes will grow laughing, soft, or
scornful all in a minute! She's eighteen, perfectly fearless in a
boat, but you can't get her to mount a horse—a sore subject with her
grandfather, who spends most of his day on a lean, half-bred pony, that
carries him like a feather, for all his weight.
They put me up here as a favour to Dan Treffry; there's an arrangement
of L. s. d. with Mrs. Hopgood in the background. They aren't at all well
off; this is the largest farm about, but it doesn't bring them in
much. To look at John Ford, it seems incredible he should be short of
money—he's too large.
We have family prayers at eight, then, breakfast—after that freedom for
writing or anything else till supper and evening prayers. At midday one
forages for oneself. On Sundays, two miles to church twice, or you
get into John Ford's black books.... Dan Treffry himself is staying at
Kingswear. He says he's made his pile; it suits him down here—like a
sleep after years of being too wide-awake; he had a rough time in New
Zealand, until that mine made his fortune. You'd hardly remember him;
he reminds me of his uncle, old Nicholas Treffry; the same slow way of
speaking, with a hesitation, and a trick of repeating your name with
everything he says; left-handed too, and the same slow twinkle in his
eyes. He has a dark, short beard, and red-brown cheeks; is a little bald
on the temples, and a bit grey, but hard as iron. He rides over nearly
every day, attended by a black spaniel with a wonderful nose and a
horror of petticoats. He has told me lots of good stories of John Ford
in the early squatter's times; his feats with horses live to this day;
and he was through the Maori wars; as Dan says, “a man after Uncle Nic's
own heart.”
They are very good friends, and respect each other; Dan has a great
admiration for the old man, but the attraction is Pasiance. He talks
very little when she's in the room, but looks at her in a sidelong,
wistful sort of way. Pasiance's conduct to him would be cruel in any one
else, but in her, one takes it with a pinch of salt. Dan goes off, but
turns up again as quiet and dogged as you please.
Last night, for instance, we were sitting in the loggia after supper.
Pasiance was fingering the strings of her violin, and suddenly Dan (a
bold thing for him) asked her to play.
“What!” she said, “before men? No, thank you!”
“Why not?”
“Because I hate them.”
Down came John Ford's hand on the wicker table: “You forget yourself! Go
to bed!”
She gave Dan a look, and went; we could hear her playing in her bedroom;
it sounded like a dance of spirits; and just when one thought she had
finished, out it would break again like a burst of laughter. Presently,
John Ford begged our pardons ceremoniously, and stumped off indoors. The
violin ceased; we heard his voice growling at her; down he came
again. Just as he was settled in his chair there was a soft swish, and
something dark came falling through the apple boughs. The violin! You
should have seen his face! Dan would have picked the violin up, but the
old man stopped him. Later, from my bedroom window, I saw John Ford come
out and stand looking at the violin. He raised his foot as if to stamp
on it. At last he picked it up, wiped it carefully, and took it in....
My room is next to hers. I kept hearing her laugh, a noise too as if she
were dragging things about the room. Then I fell asleep, but woke with
a start, and went to the window for a breath of fresh air. Such a black,
breathless night! Nothing to be seen but the twisted, blacker branches;
not the faintest stir of leaves, no sound but muffled grunting from the
cowhouse, and now and then a faint sigh. I had the queerest feeling
of unrest and fear, the last thing to expect on such a night. There is
something here that's disturbing; a sort of suppressed struggle. I've
never in my life seen anything so irresponsible as this girl, or so
uncompromising as the old man; I keep thinking of the way he wiped that
violin. It's just as if a spark would set everything in a blaze. There's
a menace of tragedy—or—perhaps it's only the heat, and too much of
Mother Hopgood's crame....