Louise awoke the next morning filled with a curious sense of buoyant
expectancy. The sunshine was pouring into the room, brightening up its
most somber corners. It lay across the quilt of her bed, and seemed to
bring out the perfume of lavender from the pillow on which her head
reposed.
Aline, hearing her mistress stir, hastened at once to the bedside.
"Good morning, _madame_!"
Louise sat up and looked around her, with her hands clasped about her
knees.
"Tell me everything, Aline," she said. "Have you my breakfast there? And
what time is it?"
"It is half-past nine, _madame_," Aline replied, "and your breakfast is
here. The old imbecile from the kitchen has just brought it up."
Louise looked approvingly at the breakfast tray, with the home-made
bread and deep-yellow butter, the brown eggs and clear honey. The smell
of the coffee was aromatic. She breathed a little sigh of content.
"How delicious everything looks!" she exclaimed.
"The home-made things are well enough in their way, _madame_," Aline
agreed, "but I have never known a household so strange and disagreeable.
That M. Jennings, who calls himself the butler--he is a person
unspeakable, a savage!"
Louise's eyes twinkled.
"I don't think they are fond of women in this household, Aline," she
remarked. "Tell me, have you seen Charles?"
"Charles has gone to the nearest blacksmith's forge to get something
made for the car, _madame_," Aline replied. "He asked me to say that he
was afraid he would not be ready to start before midday."
"That does not matter," Louise declared, as she settled down to her
breakfast. "I do not care how long it is before he is ready. I should
love to spend a month here!"
Aline held up her hands. She was speechless. Her mistress laughed at her
consternation.
"Well," she continued, "there is no fear of their asking us for a month,
or for an hour longer than they can help. The elder Mr. Strangewey, it
seems, has the strongest objection to our sex. There is not a woman
servant in the house, is there?"
"Not one, _madame_," Aline replied. "I have never been in a household
conducted in such a manner. It is like the kitchen of a monastery. The
terrible Jennings is speechless. If one addresses him, he only mumbles.
The sound of my skirts, or my footstep on the stone floor, makes him
shiver. He is worse, one would imagine, than his master."
Louise ate and drank reflectively.
"It is the queerest household one could possibly stumble upon," she
remarked. "The young Mr. Strangewey--he seems different, but he falls in
with his brother's ways."
Aline glanced at herself in the mirror. She was just out of her
mistress's range of vision, and she made a little grimace at her
reflection.
"I met him twice this morning in the hall," she remarked. "He wished me
good morning the first time. The second time he did not speak. He did
not seem to see me."
Louise finished her breakfast and strolled presently to the window. She
gave a little sigh of pleasure as she looked out.
"But, Aline," she exclaimed, "how exquisite!"
The maid glanced over her shoulder and went on preparing her mistress's
clothes.
"It is as _madame_ finds it," she replied. "For myself, I like the
country for fete days and holidays only, and even then I like to find
plenty of people there."
Louise heard nothing. She was gazing eagerly out of the casement-window.
Immediately below was a grass-grown orchard which stretched upward, at a
precipitous angle, toward a belt of freshly plowed field; beyond, a
little chain of rocky hills, sheer overhead. The trees were pink and
white with blossom; the petals lay about upon the ground like drifted
snowflakes. Here and there yellow jonquils were growing among the long
grass. A waft of perfume stole into the room through the window which
she had opened.
"Fill my bath quickly, Aline," Louise ordered. "I must go out. I want to
see whether it is really as beautiful as it looks."
Aline dressed her mistress in silence. It was not until she had finished
lacing her shoes that she spoke another word. Then, suddenly, she
stopped short in the act of crossing the room. Her eyes had happened to
fall upon the emblazoned genealogical record. A little exclamation
escaped her. She swung round toward her mistress, and for once there was
animation in her face.
"But, _madame_," she exclaimed, "I have remembered! The name
Strangewey--you see it there--it was in our minds all the time that we
had seen or heard of it quite lately. Don't you remember--"
"Yes, yes!" Louise interrupted. "I know it reminds me of something, but
of what?"
"Yesterday morning," Aline continued, "it was you _madame_, who read it
out while you took your coffee. You spoke of the good fortune of some
farmer in the north of England to whom a relative in Australia had left
a great fortune--hundreds and thousands of pounds. The name was
Strangewey, the same as that. I remember it now."
She pointed once more to the family tree. Louise sat for a moment with
parted lips.
"You are quite right, Aline. I remember it all perfectly now. I wonder
whether it could possibly be either of these two men!"
Aline shook her head doubtfully.
"It would be unbelievable, _madame_," she decided. "Could any sane human
creatures live here, with no company but the sheep and the cows, if they
had money--money to live in the cities, to buy pleasures, to be happy?
Unbelievable, _madame_!"
Louise remained standing before the window. She was watching the
blossom-laden boughs of one of the apple trees bending and swaying in
the fresh morning breeze--watching the restless shadows which came and
went upon the grass beneath.
"That is just your point of view, Aline," she murmured; "but
happiness--well, you would not understand. They are strange men, these
two. The young one is different now, but as he grows older he will be
like his brother. He will live a very simple and honorable life. He will
be--what is it they call it?--a county magistrate, chairman of many
things, a judge at agricultural shows. When he dies, he will be buried
up in that windy little churchyard, and people will come from a long way
off to say how good he was. My hat, quickly, Aline! If I am not in that
orchard in five minutes I shall be miserable!"
Louise found her way without difficulty across a cobbled yard, through a
postern gate set in a red-brick wall, into the orchard. Very slowly, and
with her head turned upward toward the trees, she made her way toward
the boundary wall. Once, with a little exclamation of pleasure, she drew
down a bough of the soft, cool blossom and pressed it against her cheek.
She stopped for a moment or two to examine the contents of a row of
chicken-coops, and at every few steps she turned around to face the
breeze which came sweeping across the moorland from the other side of
the house.
Arrived at the farther end of the orchard, she came to a gate, against
which she rested for a moment, leaning her arms upon the topmost bar.
Before her was the little belt of plowed earth, the fresh, pungent odor
of which was a new thing to her; a little way to the right, the rolling
moorland, starred with clumps of gorse; in front, across the field on
the other side of the gray stone wall, the rock-strewn hills. The
sky--unusually blue it seemed to her, and dotted all over with little
masses of fleecy, white clouds--seemed somehow lower and nearer; or was
she, perhaps higher up?
She lingered there, absolutely bewildered by the rapid growth in her
brain and senses of what surely must be some newly kindled faculty of
appreciation. There was a beauty in the world which she had not felt
before.
She turned her head almost lazily at the sound of a man's voice. A team
of horses, straining at a plow, were coming round the bend of the
field, and by their side, talking to the laborer who guided them, was
John Strangewey. She watched him as he came into sight up the steep
rise. Against the empty background, he seemed to lose nothing of the
size and strength that had impressed her on the previous night. He was
bareheaded, and she noticed for the first time that his closely cropped
fair hair was inclined to curl a little near the ears.
He walked in step with the plowman by his side, but without any of the
laborer's mechanical plod--with a spring in his footsteps, indeed, as if
his life and thoughts were full of joyous things. He was wearing
black-and-white tweed clothes, a little shabby but well-fitting;
breeches and gaiters; thick boots, plentifully caked now with mud. He
was pointing with his stick along the furrow, so absorbed in the
instructions he was giving that he was almost opposite the gate before
he was aware of her presence. He promptly abandoned his task and
approached her.
"Good morning!" he called out.
She waved her hand.
"Good morning!"
"You have slept well?" he asked.
"Better, I think, than ever before in my life," she answered.
"Differently, at any rate. And such an awakening!"
He looked at her, a little puzzled. The glow upon her face and the
sunlight upon her brown hair kept him silent. He was content to look at
her and wonder.
"Tell me," she demanded impetuously, "is this a little corner of
fairy-land that you have found? Does the sun always shine like this?
Does the earth always smell as sweetly, and are your trees always in
blossom? Does your wind always taste as if God had breathed the elixir
of life into it?"
He turned around to follow the sweep of her eyes. Something of the same
glow seemed to rest for a moment upon his face.
"It is good," he said, "to find what you love so much appreciated by
some one else."
They stood together in a silence almost curiously protracted. Then the
plowman passed again with his team of horses, and John called out some
instructions to him. She followed him down to earth.
"Tell me, Mr. Strangewey," she inquired, "where are your
farm-buildings?"
"Come and I will show you," he answered, opening the gate to let her
through. "Keep close to the hedge until we come to the end of the plow;
and then--but no, I won't anticipate. This way!"
She walked by his side, conscious every now and then of his frankly
admiring eyes as he looked down at her. She herself felt all the joy of
a woman of the world imbibing a new experience. She did not even glance
toward the dismantled motor in the barn which they passed.
"I am glad," he remarked presently, "that you look upon us more
charitably than your maid."
"Aline is a good girl," Louise said, smiling, "but hot-water taps and
electric lights are more to her than sunshine and hills. Do you know,"
she went on, "I feel like a child being led through an undiscovered
country, a land of real adventures. Which way are we going, and what are
we going to see? Tell me, please!"
"Wait," he begged. "It is just a queer little corner among the hills,
that is all."
They reached the end of the plowed field, and, passing through a gate,
turned abruptly to the left and began to climb a narrow path which
bordered the boundary wall, and which became steeper every moment. As
they ascended, the orchard and the long, low house on the other side
seemed to lie almost at their feet. The road and the open moorland
beyond, stretching to the encircling hills, came more clearly into sight
with every backward glance. Louise paused at last, breathless.
"I must sit down," she insisted. "It is too beautiful to hurry over."
"It is only a few steps farther," he told her, holding out his hand;
"just to where the path winds its way round the hill there. But perhaps
you are tired?"
"On the contrary," she assured him, "I never felt so vigorous in my
life. All the exercise I take, as a rule, is in Kensington Gardens; and
look!" She pointed downward to her absurd little shoes, and held out her
hand, "You will have to help me," she pleaded.
The last few steps were, indeed, almost precipitous. Fragments of rock,
protruding through the grass and bushes, served as steps. John moved on
a little ahead and pulled her easily up. Even the slight tightening of
his fingers seemed to raise her from her feet. She looked at him
wonderingly.
"How strong you are!"
"A matter of weight," he answered, smiling. "You are like a feather. You
walk as lightly as the fairies who come out on midsummer night's eve and
dance in circles around the gorse-bushes there."
"Is it the home of the fairies you are taking me to?" she asked. "If you
have discovered that, no wonder you find us ordinary women outside your
lives!"
He laughed.
"There are no fairies where we are going," he assured her.
They were on a rough-made road now, which turned abruptly to the right a
few yards ahead, skirting the side of a deep gorge. They took a few
steps further, and Louise stopped short with a cry of wonder.
Around the abrupt corner an entirely new perspective was revealed--a
little hamlet, built on a shoulder of the mountains; and on the right,
below a steep descent, a wide and sunny valley. It was like a tiny world
of its own, hidden in the bosom of the hills. There was a long line of
farm-buildings, built of gray stone and roofed with red tiles; there
were fifteen or twenty stacks; a quaint, white-washed house of
considerable size, almost covered on the southward side with creepers; a
row of cottages, and a gray-walled enclosure--stretching with its white
tombstones to the very brink of the descent--in the midst of which was
an ancient church, in ruins at the further end, partly rebuilt with the
stones of the hillside.
Louise looked around her, silent with wonder. A couple of sheep-dogs had
rushed out from the farmhouse and were fawning around her companion. In
the background a gray-bearded shepherd, with Scottish plaid thrown over
his shoulder, raised his hat.
"It isn't real, is it?" she asked, clinging for a moment to John
Strangewey's arm.
He patted one of the dogs and smiled down at her.
"Why not? William Elwick there is a very real shepherd, I can assure
you. He has sat on these hills for the last sixty-eight years."
She looked at the old man almost with awe.
"It is like the Bible!" she murmured. "Fancy the sunrises he must have
seen, and the sunsets! The coming and the fading of the stars, the
spring days, the music of the winds in these hollow places, booming to
him in the night-time! I want to talk to him. May I?"
He shook his head. The old man was already shambling off.
"Better not," he advised. "You would be disappointed, for William has
the family weakness--he cannot bear the sight of a woman. You see, he is
pretending now that there is something wrong with the hill flock. You
asked where the land was that we tilled. Now look down. Hold my arm if
you feel giddy."
She followed the wave of his ash stick. The valley sheer below them, and
the lower hills, on both sides, were parceled out into fields, enclosed
within stone walls, reminding her, from the height at which they stood,
of nothing so much as the quilt upon her bed.
"That's where all our pasture is," he told her, "and our arable land. We
grow a great deal of corn in the dip there. All the rest of the
hillside, and the moorlands, of course, are fit for nothing but grazing;
but there are eleven hundred acres down there from which we can raise
almost anything we choose."
Her eyes swept this strange tract of country backward and forward. She
saw the men like specks in the fields, the cows grazing in the pasture
like toy animals. Then she turned and looked at the neat row of stacks
and the square of farm-buildings.
"I am trying hard to realize that you are a farmer and that this is your
life," she said.
He swung open the wooden gate of the churchyard, by which they were
standing. There was a row of graves on either side of the prim path.
"Suppose," he suggested, "you tell me about yourself now--about your own
life."
The hills parted suddenly as she stood there looking southward. Through
the chasm she seemed to see very clearly the things beyond. Her own
life, her own world, spread itself out--a world of easy triumphs, of
throbbing emotions always swiftly ministered to, always leaving the same
dull sensation of discontent; a world in which the pathways were broad
and smooth, but in which the end seemed always the same; a world of
receding beauties and mocking desires. The faces of her friends were
there--men and women, brilliant, her intellectual compeers, a little
tired, offering always the same gifts, the same homage.
"My life, and the world in which I live, seem far away just now," she
said quietly. "I think that it is doing me good to have a rest from
them. Go on talking to me about yourself, please."
He smiled. He was just a little disappointed.
"We shall very soon reach the end of all that I have to tell you," he
remarked. "Still, if there is anything you would like to know--"
"Who were these men and women who have lived and died here?" she
interrupted, with a little wave of her hand toward the graves.
"All our own people," he told her; "laborers, shepherds, tenant-farmers,
domestic servants. Our clergyman comes from the village on the other
side of that hill. He rides here every Sunday on a pony which we have to
provide for him."
She studied the names upon the tombstones, spelling them out slowly.
"The married people," he went on, "are buried on the south side; the
single ones and children are nearer the wall. Tell me," he asked, after
a moment's hesitation, "are you married or single?"
She gave a little start. The abruptness of the question, the keen,
steadfast gaze of his compelling eyes, seemed for a moment to paralyze
both her nerves and her voice. Again the hills rolled open, but this
time it was her own life only that she saw, her own life, and one man's
face which she seemed to see looking at her from some immeasurable
distance, waiting, yet drawing her closer toward him, closer and closer
till their hands met.
She was terrified at this unexpected tumult of emotion. It was as if
some one had suddenly drawn away one of the stones from the foundation
of her life. She found herself repeating the words on the tombstone
facing her:
"And of Elizabeth, for sixty-one years the faithful wife and
helpmate of Ezra Cummings, mother of his children, and his
partner in the life everlasting."
Her knees began to shake. There was a momentary darkness before her
eyes. She felt for the tombstone and sat down.