THE STUDY OF A FACE
'I suppose you have not been asked to Bindon?' said Olver, as Jack
entered the ferryman's cottage.
'No; for what?'
'Only Mrs. Jose is going to have a Christmas party for her servants and
farm labourers, and she always on these occasions invites the young
folk of Axmouth, and has the church musicians. I thought it not likely
she would have asked you.'
'No, for she knew I could not attend so soon after my father's death.'
'Exactly; I thought as much. She is a motherly body, and always thinks
and does the right thing. But for that you would have been invited. I
only wish I had been. I have tasted her pickled hams; there are none
like them. And she does not stint the liquor. What is the matter with
you?'
'I have had some knocks-down. These take the curl out of one's spirits,
but I shall be all right again to-morrow.'
'Excuse me, Jack, if I give you my opinion. I think you are going to
work in the wrong way. A man's success in life depends on his seeing
where to put his foot, and then and there putting it down. If you want
to cross the Axe mud you must step on the stones, otherwise you go
up to your waist. Now, Jack, there's a fine field open to you as the
son of Captain Job. But you will not enter it. I've seen an ox――just
the same; the farmer wanted to drive him into a pasture rich with
buttercups, but, bless your soul! he would bounce into a milliner's
shop instead.'
Jack took up his hat again, and went forth. He was weary of Olver Dench
and his persistence in urging him to pursue his father's business.
Full of discouragement that made his heart sad, he wandered about till
the day closed in, and then, for lack of anything else to do, he
resolved to go to Bindon, not to take any part in the festivities, but
from a distance to observe them. The weather was favourable, the air
mild, although the season was mid-winter. Bindon, as already intimated,
had a front court closed by a wall. With this wall the house formed a
quadrangle. The porch and hall windows faced the entrance, looking into
a turfed enclosure, whilst a chapel occupied one wing, and the other
was given up to barns. The chapel, never consecrated, had been erected
for divine service in 1425, when the mansion was the residence of a
squire with retainers; but when Bindon declined to be a farmhouse, the
building ceased to be associated with worship and was given over to
secular purposes.
As the lonely lad approached, he saw the twinkle of lights, and heard
the hum of happy voices.
He would not draw near, lest he should be recognised, and this led
to an awkward situation. He hung about within hearing of the music
and voices. Bindon has never been surrounded by a park, but it has
pleasant, sloping grounds, well studded with trees and broken with
rock. It was something to Jack to be near his fellows, and to know that
if he was sad others were happy.
As the darkness deepened, the risk of being recognised became less, and
he drew nearer.
The barn had been cleared, lanterns had been suspended from the
rafters, and as these shed but a feeble light, they had been
supplemented by hoops stuck with candles, pendent from the tie beams.
On a barrel at one end sat a fiddler, the clerk in Axmouth church, and
near him a solemn man, the tailor, who worked the bass viol. Another,
Hopkins, the shoemaker, warbled on the clarionet.
In the days gone by, at the beginning of the century, every country
church had its village orchestra. At that time the detestable harmonium
and the strident American organ, the phylloxera of sacred music, had
not invaded and exterminated village concerted music.
The floor was occupied by dancers. Mrs. Jose, her broad, rosy face
all smiles, looked on. But the number of those who figured was
inconsiderable. The girls were shy, shyer still were the lads; and only
a few of the bolder spirits and the most confident in their legs began
to dance.
But by degrees, under the influence of the music, of the persuasion of
the hostess, of the desire to make the most of so rare an opportunity,
shyness yielded, and the number of footers on the floor increased.
The light, according to our modern notions, was not brilliant, but the
twilight of tallow candles and horn lanterns sufficed, where hearts
were light and blood was aflame.
The barn had a large door under a pent-house roof for the reception
of sheaves to be tossed in from a laden wagon, to be piled at one end
and thrashed on the floor in the middle. It was lime-ashed at the
extremities, but the floor, on which the flails played, was of oak
boards, beaten hard and smooth.
But the barn was provided as well with slits unglazed, through which
light and air by day entered the barn when the great doors were shut,
and through which now flowed the light and the sounds from within.
To one of these Jack drew near. He could look through and observe the
fun without himself being noticed. This was the more certain as the
loophole he selected was behind the barn door, thrown back to allow
those who were hot to issue forth and cool themselves, and to enable
the dust tossed up from the floor to be carried out by the draught and
dissipated. Lest an excess of chill winter air should enter, only one
of the valves was opened. At any moment, if necessary, it might be
shut. But the air, if humid, was not frosty, and none complained of
cold.
Concealed behind the door, Jack peered into the interior, leaning his
elbows on the ledge that projected from the slit.
He felt no desire to be within. It would not have been seemly for
him to have taken a part in the merrymaking so soon after losing his
father, and the tone of his spirits was not in keeping with a festival.
He knew by sight most of the girls present, but none of them interested
him particularly, though several had pleasant and even pretty faces.
The soft light from above toned down any slight roughnesses or
irregularities there might be in complexion and feature; and where the
faces were kindled with pleasure, the eyes sparkled, and the colour
mounted, none could be plain, and a taste must be fastidious that does
not see beauty in the fresh and well-formed faces of the West.
As to the young men, they were cheery, perhaps a little noisy in their
mirth, and only such were clumsy as had laboured at the plough in deep,
tenacious clay.
Jack wondered whether happiness abounded alongside with ignorance,
and was more sparse with knowledge; whether education did not spoil
a man for the enjoyment of simple pleasures. He would have found no
satisfaction had he been within, dancing with the rest. He would have
felt himself out of accord with those present. He was separated from
these young people mentally, and was no longer capable of sharing in
their pleasures as he was debarred from taking part in their pursuits.
But he was not the only person who was solitary, isolated, that
evening. Over against him sat Winefred on a bench against the barn
wall. A flaming ring of candles threw a comparatively strong light upon
her face. No lad had spoken to her, none had invited her to dance;
although, as Jack could not fail to discover, she was far handsomer
than any other girl present.
Nor did those of her own sex associate with her. They held aloof, and
if they noticed her it was in a captious spirit: they whispered and
pointed at her gown or her trinkets, and tittered.
It was unfortunate; it was provocative. Her mother had insisted in
dressing Winefred for the occasion in a manner wholly unbecoming the
sort of entertainment to which she had been asked. A handsome dress,
bracelets, and brooches were resented by the girls present as an
attempt to outshine them in their humbler stuffs and cheap ornaments.
To do her justice, Winefred had entreated her mother not to oblige
her to appear overdressed, but Jane Marley could not understand her
shrinking. She regarded this as an opportunity for the assertion of
superiority over the other girls of Axmouth, an opportunity to be
seized on and enjoyed.
Winefred was keenly alive to the awkwardness of her situation, but was
too proud to show how wounded she was by the slights put on her.
She could not, she would not stoop to solicit the friendship of girls
who regarded her mother as a thief. It would be solely on condition
that they acknowledged her mother's integrity that she would relax
towards them. So long as they held her mother in suspicion, so long
would she hold aloof from them. Consequently she did nothing to disarm
the ill-feeling that existed against her. None ventured to attack her
openly, being afraid of her sharp tongue. She was well aware that
around her was the flicker of animosity, like summer lightning, of
which one cannot say where it will strike.
The girls to whom she and her mother had sold ribbons, laces, papers
of pins, and reels of cotton, resented her sudden elevation to a
position――as far as money went――far above them.
The boys followed suit. They took their tone from their partners. She
made no attempt to attract them by graciousness of manner. Those few
who had approached her were repulsed.
But although the girls were jealous of her, they were as well in awe
of her, and did not dare to carry their hostility too far. They were
alive to the fact that she was very good-looking, and that a little
display of amiability on her part was alone required to bring the young
men about her in a swarm.
Peering through the opening, Jack watched Winefred's face as he had
never before been able to observe it. He wondered why she was there, so
manifest was it that the entertainment afforded her no pleasure.
Others wondered as well as he. A couple was standing outside, leaning
against the door, in the shadow of which he was concealed.
'Do y' mark her, Joe?' asked the girl.
'Yes, I do, Bessie. She is tart as a green gooseberry, and will curdle
Mrs. Jose's milk.'
'Why has she come, Joe? I can tell you. To outflounce us girls, and to
make mock at you lads. She thinks herself in her finery as high as the
clouds above us.'
'She is vastly pretty,' said Joe.
'Oh! if you think so, go and ask her to dance.'
Jack did not remove his eyes from her.
She certainly was pretty. She was more than pretty――most of the girls
present were that――but she was above them in beauty as she transcended
them in dress. The brow, broad and intelligent, was lighted by the
candles above, and set off by her profuse dark hair. Her eyes were
lowered, and the long lashes swept her cheek. The face was long, but
formed an oval, and the chin, if pointed, was not too sharp. The
delicate, sinuous lips would have made the mouth delicious but for the
expression of bitterness that compressed them.
There was no brightness, not the suspicion of a smile, in her face,
more than in that of a corpse.
Winefred was certainly unhappy. Jack was convinced of that. She sat
there, in the midst of gaiety, without partaking of it, suffering
internally, yet afraid to let this be seen, lest it should be made an
occasion of jest. She kept herself under control. The tension of the
muscles showed how great the exertion was.
Was it her fault, asked Jack of himself, that Winefred was left so
completely alone; that no one, except at intervals Mrs. Jose, spoke to
her; that she dared not lift her eyes lest she should encounter looks
of animosity? Was it so very certain that her mother had done that
wherewith she was charged by the general voice? Was not that charge
formulated to express the envy and spite of those who saw the woman
who had been under their feet lifted above their heads? And even if
Mrs. Marley had done him this wrong, was her daughter a partaker in it?
Consciously, certainly she was not.
Asking these questions, and thus musing, Jack continued to watch the
face.
He was sure that the hardness in the countenance, the twitching of the
set mouth, and the convulsive knitting of the hands on the lap were due
to effort to suppress tears that were welling up in her heart.
A sense of softness come over Jack. This girl, like himself, was alone.
And the feeling that she, as he, was friendless, made him wish he could
creep in unseen and sit by her side. He would say nothing, he had
nothing that he could say, save this, 'Winefred――I believe in you.'
Every now and then her head sank, and the light no longer fell over it,
but bathed her glossy dark hair, and then for a moment her chin rested
on her heaving bosom.
By an effort she reared herself, looked quickly round at the dancers,
fearful lest weakness should have been detected, and with defiance in
her glance.
All at once, as though consciousness came over her that she was
observed, she moved uneasily on the bench and looked straight before
her at the slot through which Jack was looking. No dancers at the
moment intervened, and she saw him.
Her eyes fell at once. Jack could not be sure whether she had
recognised him, but that she had seen that some one was watching her
was obvious from her movements.
He drew back, and again was the unseen hearer of a conversation
relative to Winefred.
'Bill,' said a girl, 'I have caught you sidling towards that stuck-up
minx of a Marley, or, as she is pleased to call herself, Holwood. I
know you want to make up to _Miss_ Holwood because of her hundreds of
pounds, and to be off with Susie Finch.'
'It is not so. I swear to you it is not so. You attack me because you
are disappointed that Jack Rattenbury is not here.'
'It is an untruth, a wicked untruth. What care I for Jack Rattenbury?
He is too saucy to speak to such as I――with all his learning he had of
the curate.'
Then they passed away to patch up their lover's quarrel elsewhere.
Jack pressed to the window slit again.
And again he looked across the barn at Winefred, and once more their
eyes met.
Her lips contracted, her brows knit, she started from the bench, and
strode across the floor to the barn door.
He turned, thrust back the valve, and dashed away into the darkness.