Thorpe was rich with the autumn yield before Violet Riversley claimed
Ruth’s promise. July had been on the whole a wet month, providing
however much-needed rain, but the August and September of Peace Year
were glorious as the late spring, and at Thorpe an abundant harvest of
corn was stored by the great stacks of scented hay. The apple and pear
trees were heavy with fruit. Blenheim Orange and Ribston Pippin with red
cheeks polished by much sun; long luscious Jargonelles and Doyenne du
Comice pears gleamed yellow and russet. The damson-trees showed purple
black amid gold and crimson plums. Mulberry and quince and filbert,
every fruit gave lavishly and in full perfection that wonderful autumn;
and all were there. Dick Carey had seen to that. The Blackwall children
came and went, made hay, picked fruit and reaped corn, as children
should. They gathered blackberries and mushrooms and hazel nuts, and
helped Ruth to store apples and pears, and Miss McCox to make much jam.
Bertram Aurelius got on his feet and began to walk, to the huge joy of
Sarah and Selina. The world was a pleasant place. Ruth moved among her
children and animals and fruit and flowers, and listened to her
nightingales, amid no alien corn, and sang the song old Raphael Goltz
had taught her long ago, in a content so great and perfect that
sometimes she felt almost afraid that she would wake up one morning and
and it all a dream.
“It’s just like a fairy-tale that all this should come to me,” she said
to Roger North.
The cottages were finished and tenanted, their gardens stored and
stocked with vegetables and fruit trees, and bright with autumn flowers,
from the Thorpe garden. Even Mr. Fothersley was reconciled to their
existence.
Ruth had been to no more parties; the days at home were too wonderful.
She garnered each into her store as a precious gift. But the neighbours
liked to drop in and potter round or sit on the terrace. The place was
undoubtedly amazingly beautiful and perfect in its way. The friendliness
and trust of all that lived and moved at Thorpe appealed even to the
unreceptive. Here there were white pigeons that fluttered round your
head and about your feet. Unafraid, bright-eyed tiny beautiful birds
came close, so that you made real acquaintance with those creatures of
the blue sky, the leaf and the sunlight. So timid always of their
hereditary enemy through the ages, yet here the bolder spirits would
almost feed from your hand. Their charm of swift movement, of sudden
wings, seen so near, surprised and delighted. Their bright eager eyes
looked at you as friends. The calves running with their mothers in the
fields rubbed rough silken foreheads against you; and gentle
velvet-nosed cart-horses came to you over the gates asking for apples.
The children showed you their quaint treasures, their little play homes
in the trees and by the river. In their wood the Michaelmas daisies,
mauve and white and purple, were making a brave show, and scarlet
poppies, bad farmers but good beauties, bordered the pale gold stubble
fields. Everywhere was the fragrant pungent scent of autumn and the
glory of fruitful old Mother Earth yielding of her wondrous store to
those who love her and work for it.
Mr. Pithey was fond of coming, and, still undaunted, made Ruth fresh
offers to buy Thorpe.
“You’ve got the pick of the soil here,” he complained. “Now I’ve not a
rose in my place to touch those Rayon d’Or of yours. Second crop too!
And ain’t for want of the best manure, or choosing the right aspect. My
man knows what he’s about too. Better than yours does, I reckon. He was
head man to the Duke of Richborough, so he ought to.”
Ruth’s eyes twinkled.
“Try giving them away,” she suggested.
“Givin’ ’em away!” Mr. Pithey glared at her.
“Giving them away,” repeated Ruth firmly. “Now sit down here while I
tell you all about it.”
Ruth herself was sitting on a heap of stubble by the side of the corn
field, with little Moira Kent tucked close to her side.
Mr. Pithey had one of his little girls with him, and both were dressed
as usual in new and expensive clothing. They looked at Ruth’s heap of
stubble with evident suspicion, then the child advanced a step towards
her.
“Are you going to tell us a story?”
Ruth smiled. “If you like I will,” she said.
The child’s rather commonplace pert little face broke into an answering
smile. She took out a very fine lace-bordered handkerchief and spread it
carefully on the ground. Then she sat down on it with her legs sticking
out in front of her.
Mr. Pithey resigned himself to the inevitable, and let his well-groomed
heavy body gingerly down too. During the wet weather of July the little
blue-faced lady had contracted pneumonia and very nearly died. Racked
with anxiety, for family ties were dear to him, Mr. Pithey’s inflation
and self-importance had failed him, and between him and Ruth a queer
friendship had arisen.
“She cared—she really cared,” he explained afterward to his wife.
So Mr. Pithey showed himself to Ruth at his best, and though perhaps it
was not a very handsome best, the direct result was a row of cottages as
a thank-offering.
“Once upon a time,” began Ruth, “there was a little Earth Elemental who
had made the most beautiful flower in all the world, or at least it
thought it was the most beautiful, so of course, for it, it _was_.”
“What is an Earth Elemental?” asked Elaine Pithey.
“The Earth Elementals are the fairies who help make the plants and
flowers.”
“We don’t believe in fairies,” said Elaine primly.
“She’s a bit beyond that sort of stuff,” added Mr. Pithey, looking at
the small replica of himself with pride.
“Some people don’t,” answered Ruth politely, watching the little blue
butterflies among the pale gold stubble, with lazy eyes. Almost she
heard echoes of elfin laughter, high and sweet.
“I’ve seen them,” Moira broke out very suddenly and to Ruth’s
astonishment. That Moira “saw” things she had little doubt, but even to
her the little lady was reticent. Something in the Puritan
self-complacence had apparently roused her in defence of her inner
world.
“What are they like then?” asked Elaine, supercilious still, but with an
undercurrent of excitement plainly visible.
“They’re different,” said Moira. “Some are like humming-birds, only
they’ve colours, not feathers, and some are like sweet-peas made of
starlight. But some of them are just green and brown—very soft.”
“We took first prize for our sweet-peas at the flower show,” announced
Elaine suddenly and aggressively.
“As big again as any other exhibit they were,” said Mr. Pithey, dusting
the front of his white waistcoat proudly. “You may beat us in roses, but
our sweet-peas are bigger, I’ll lay half a crown.”
“Why don’t I see fairies any way, if you do?” asked Elaine, returning to
the attack now she had asserted her superiority. But Moira had withdrawn
into herself, bitterly repentant of her revelation.
“Have you ever looked through a microscope?” Ruth asked, putting a
sheltering arm round the small figure beside her.
Elaine looked at her suspiciously.
“You mean there’s plenty I can’t see,” she said shrewdly. “But why don’t
I see fairies if she does?”
Ruth smiled. “I am afraid as a rule they avoid us as much as possible.
You see, we human beings mostly kill and torture and destroy all the
things they love best.”
“I don’t!”
Ruth pointed to the tightly held bunch of dying flowers in the child’s
hand.
“They’re only common poppies!” said Elaine contemptuously.
Ruth took them from her, and, turning back the sheath of one of the
dying buds, looked at the perfect silken lining of it.
“Some one took a lot of trouble over making that,” she said. “But
suppose you listen to my story.” Moira’s small hot hand crept into hers,
and she began again.
“There was once a little Earth Elemental who had made the most beautiful
flower in the world. I think it was a crimson rose, and it had all the
summer in its scent. And the little Elemental wondered if it was
beautiful enough for the highest prize of all.”
“At Battersea Flower Show?” asked Elaine.
“No. The highest prize in the world of the Elementals is to serve. And
one day a child came and cut the rose very carefully with a pair of
scissors, and the Elemental was sad, for it had made the flower its home
and loved it very much. But the child whispered to the rose that it was
going into one of the dark places which men had made in the world, with
no sunshine, or summer, or joy, or beauty, to take them a message to say
that God’s world was still beautiful, and the sun and stars still shone,
and morning was still full of joy and evening of peace. Then the
Elemental was not sorry any more, for its rose had won the highest
prize.”
Elaine’s Pithian armour had fallen from her; out of the little pert face
looked the soul of a child. She had lost her self-consciousness for the
moment.
“And what became of the Elemental?” she asked.
“The Elemental did not leave its home then. It went with it. And when
the rose had done its work and slipped away into the Fountain of all
Beauty, the Elemental slipped away with it too.”
“Where is the Fountain of all Beauty?”
“In the Heart of God.”
Elaine looked disappointed. “Then it’s all an alle—gory, I s’pose.”
“No, it’s quite true, or at least I believe it is. Mr. Pithey”—Ruth
turned on him and her grave eyes danced—“take a big bunch of your best
roses, a big bunch, mind, down to the Fairbridge Common Lodging House
for Women, in Darley Street, and tell the Elementals where you are
taking them. It will stir them up no end to give you better roses.”
“The Common Lodging House!” Mr. Pithey was plainly aghast. “Why, they’d
think I was mad, and ’pon my word and honour I think you are—if you
don’t mind my saying so.”
“Not a bit. I get told that nearly every day.”
“I’ll tell the Elementals, Daddy, and you can take the roses, and then
we’ll see,” announced Elaine, who had been pondering the matter.
Mr. Pithey regarded her with pride. “Practical that, eh?” he said.
“Well, we’ll think about it. But you’ll have to come along now or we’ll
be late for tea with mother. And as to the roses, I’ll beat you yet.
Elementals all nonsense! Dung—good rich dung—that’s what they want. You
wait till next year.”
He shook hands warmly, and took his large presence away.
Ruth sent Moira home to tea, and wandered up the hedgerow, singing to
her self, while Sarah and Selina hunted busily. On the terrace she found
Roger North. He looked worn and ill and bad tempered. It was some time
since he had been to see her. His wife’s jealousy of Ruth had culminated
in a scene and he had a dread of disturbing the peace of the farm. But
the silliness of the whole thing had irritated him, and he was worried
about Violet on whom the strange black cloud had descended again more
noticeably than ever. Riversley had gone to Scotland, writing him a
laconic note, “I’m better away—this is my address if you want me.”
He drank his tea for the most part in silence, and when she had finished
hers Ruth left him and went about her work. North lit his pipe and sat
on smoking, while the two little dogs fought as usual for the possession
of a seat in his chair, edging each other out. And presently Bertram
Aurelius came staggering out of the front door and plump down on the
ground before him. His red hair shone like an aureole round his head and
he made queer and pleasant noises, gazing at North with friendly and
evident recognition. Larry came padding softly up from his favourite
haunts by the river and lay watching them with his wistful amber eyes.
“Thank God for the blessed things that don’t talk,” said North.
The deep lines on his face had smoothed out, his irritation subsided, he
no longer felt bad tempered.
When Ruth came back he smiled at her. “Thank you, I’m better,” he said.
“When I arrived I wasn’t fit to ‘carry guts to a bear.’ You know
Marryat’s delightful story, of course? And how is the farm?”
“Can’t you feel?”
She stood in the attitude of one listening. And curiously and strangely
there came to North’s consciousness a something that all his senses
seemed to cognize and contract at once. It was not a sound, it was not a
vision, it was not a sensation, though it combined all three. Radiant
and sweet and subtle, and white with glory, it came and went in a flash.
Was it only a minute or eternity?
“What was it?” His own voice sounded strange in his ears.
Ruth smiled. “You felt it?”
“I felt something. I believe you mesmerized me, you witch woman.”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t make anyone feel that if I knew all the
arts in the world. Only yourself can find that for you.”
“What was it, anyhow?”
“I think”—she paused a moment—“I think it is getting into the Unity of
All.”
“Where does the bad go to?”
There was a moment’s silence between them. But the world of the farm was
alive with sound. The pigeons’ coo, the call of the cowman to his herd,
the chuckles of the baby, accompanied by the full evening chorus of
birds.
“There isn’t any bad in there,” said Ruth.
“Your farm is bewitched,” said North. “I might be no older than Bertram
Aurelius talking nonsense like this. Come down to earth, you foolish
woman. There’s a telegraph boy coming up the drive.”
Ruth’s face clouded a little. “I have not got over the dread of
telegrams,” she said. “It takes one back to those dreadful days——”
She shivered as they waited for the boy to reach them. He whistled as he
came, undisturbed by much clamour from Sarah and Selina; they were old
friends and he knew their ways.
Ruth tore the envelope open, read the telegram, and handed it to North.
“May I come?” were its three short words, and it was signed “Violet
Riversley.”
“You will have her?” said North.
“Yes, of course.” Ruth penciled her answer on the prepaid form and
handed it to the boy.
North heaved a sigh of relief. “It’s good of you. You know she has not
been well.”
Ruth sat down and pointed to the other chair.
“Tell me all you know. It may help.”
North told her as well as he could. “It’s all so indefinite and
intangible,” he ended. “Sometimes I wonder if her mind is affected in
any way. From the shock Dick’s death was to her you know. That anyone
should be afraid of Vi! It seems ridiculous, remembering what she was.
She _isn’t herself_. That’s the only way I can describe it to you. Upon
my word sometimes lately I’ve almost believed she’s possessed by a
devil. But if she comes here—well, I don’t know why—but I think she will
get all right.”
Ruth did not answer at first. She sat thinking, with her elbows on her
knees, her face hidden between her hands.
That sense of danger to the farm had swept over her again. A warning as
of something impending, brooding; looming up like a great cloud on the
edge of her blue beautiful sky. Something strange and terrible was
coming, coming into her life and the life of the farm. And she could not
avert it, or refuse to meet it. Whatever it was it had to be met and
fought. Would it be conquered? For it was strong, terribly strong, and
it was helped by many. And while the moment lasted, Ruth felt small and
frightened and curiously alone.
“What is the matter?” asked Roger North. His voice was anxious, and when
she looked up she met his eyes full of that pure and honest friendship
which is so good a thing, and so rare, between man and woman. Just so
might he often have looked at Dick Carey.
She put out her hand to meet his, as a man might do on a bargain. “We
will do our best,” she said.
And she knew that WE was strong.