Days, weeks, months passed away, and the two women came to live more and
more like friends and less like mistress and maid. Not that Esther ever
failed to use the respectful "ma'am" when she addressed her mistress, nor
did they ever sit down to a meal at the same table. But these slight
social distinctions, which habit naturally preserved, and which it would
have been disagreeable to both to forego, were no check on the intimacy of
their companionship. In the evening they sat in the library sewing, or
Mrs. Barfield read aloud, or they talked of their sons. On Sundays they
had their meetings. The folk came from quite a distance, and sometimes as
many as five-and-twenty knelt round the deal table in the drawing room,
and Esther felt that these days were the happiest of her life. She was
content in the peaceful present, and she knew that Mrs. Barfield would not
leave her unprovided for. She was almost free from anxiety. But Jack did
not seem to be able to obtain regular employment in London, and her wages
were so small that she could not help him much. So the sight of his
handwriting made her tremble, and she sometimes did not show the letter to
Mrs. Barfield for some hours after.
One Sunday morning, after meeting, as the two women were going for their
walk up the hill, Esther said--
"I've a letter from my boy, ma'am. I hope it is to tell me that he's got
back to work."
"I'm afraid I shan't be able to read it, Esther. I haven't my glasses with
me."
"It don't matter, ma'am--it'll keep."
"Give it to me--his writing is large and legible. I think I can read it.
'My dear mother, the place I told you of in my last letter was given away,
so I must go on in the toy-shop till something better turns up. I only get
six shillings a week and my tea, and can't quite manage on that.' Then
something--something--'pay three and sixpence a week'--something--'bed'
--something--something."
"I know, ma'am; he shares a bed with the eldest boy."
"Yes, that's it; and he wants to know if you can help him. 'I don't like
to trouble you, mother; but it is hard for a boy to get his living in
London.'"
"But I've sent him all my money. I shan't have any till next quarter."
"I'll lend you some, Esther. We can't leave the boy to starve. He can't
live on two and sixpence a week."
"You're very good, ma'am; but I don't like to take your money. We shan't
be able to get the garden cleared this winter."
"We shall manage somehow, Esther. The garden must wait. The first thing to
do is to see that your boy doesn't want for food."
The women resumed their walk up the hill. When they reached the top Mrs.
Barfield said--
"I haven't heard from Mr. Arthur for months. I envy you, Esther, those
letters asking for a little money. What's the use of money to us except to
give it to our children? Helping others, that is the only happiness."
At the end of the coombe, under the shaws, stood the old red-tiled
farmhouse in which Mrs. Barfield had been born. Beyond it, downlands
rolled on and on, reaching half-way up the northern sky. Mrs. Barfield was
thinking of the days when her husband used to jump off his cob and walk
beside her through those gorse patches on his way to the farmhouse. She
had come from the farmhouse beneath the shaws to go to live in an Italian
house sheltered by a fringe of trees. That was her adventure. She knew it,
and she turned from the view of the downs to the view of the sea. The
plantations of Woodview touched the horizon, then the line dipped, and
between the top branches of a row of elms appeared the roofs of the town.
Over a long spider-legged bridge a train wriggled like a snake, the bleak
river flowed into the harbour, and the shingle banks saved the low land
from inundation. Then the train passed behind the square, dogmatic tower
of the village church. Her husband lay beneath the chancel; her father,
mother, all her relations, lay in the churchyard. She would go there in a
few years.... Her daughter lay far away, far away in Egypt. Upon this
downland all her life had been passed, all her life except the few months
she had spent by her daughter's bedside in Egypt. She had come from that
coombe, from that farmhouse beneath the shaws, and had only crossed the
down.
And this barren landscape meant as much to Esther as to her mistress. It
was on these downs that she had walked with William. He had been born and
bred on these downs; but he lay far away in Brompton Cemetery; it was she
who had come back! and in her simple way she too wondered at the mystery
of destiny.
As they descended the hill Mrs. Barfield asked Esther if she ever heard of
Fred Parsons.
"No, ma'am, I don't know what's become of him."
"And if you were to meet him again, would you care to marry him?"
"Marry and begin life over again! All the worry and bother over again! Why
should I marry?--all I live for now is to see my boy settled in life."
The women walked on in silence, passing by long ruins of stables,
coach-houses, granaries, rickyards, all in ruin and decay. The women
paused and went towards the garden; and removing some pieces of the broken
gate they entered a miniature wilderness. The espalier apple-trees had
disappeared beneath climbing weeds, and long briars had shot out from the
bushes, leaving few traces of the former walks--a damp, dismal place that
the birds seemed to have abandoned. Of the greenhouse only some broken
glass and a black broken chimney remained. A great elm had carried away a
large portion of the southern wall, and under the dripping trees an aged
peacock screamed for his lost mate.
"I don't suppose that Jack will be able to find any more paying employment
this winter. We must send him six shillings a week; that, with what he is
earning, will make twelve; he'll be able to live nicely on that."
"I should think he would indeed. But, then, what about the wages of them
who was to have cleared the gardens for us?"
"We shan't be able to get the whole garden cleared, but Jim will be able
to get a piece ready for us to sow some spring vegetables, not a large
piece, but enough for us. The first thing to do will be to cut down those
apple-trees. I'm afraid we shall have to cut down that walnut; nothing
could grow beneath it. Did any one ever see such a mass of weed and briar?
Yet it is only about ten years since we left Woodview, and the garden was
let run to waste. Nature does not take long, a few years, a very few
years."