BAB.
AS Jasper recovered, he saw less of the sisters. June had come, and
with it lovely weather, and with the lovely weather the haysel. The
air was sweet about the house with the fragrance of hay, and the soft
summer breath wafted the pollen and fine strands on its wings into the
court and in at the windows of the old house. Hay harvest was a busy
time, especially for Barbara Jordan. She engaged extra hands, and saw
that cake was baked and beer brewed for the harvesters. Mr. Jordan had
become, as years passed, more abstracted from the cares of the farm,
and more steeped in his fantastic semi-scientific pursuits. As his
eldest daughter put her strong shoulder to the wheel of business, Mr.
Jordan edged his from under it and left the whole pressure upon her.
Consequently Barbara was very much engaged. All that was necessary to
be done for the convalescent was done, quietly and considerately; but
Jasper was left considerably to himself. Neither Barbara nor Eve had
the leisure, even if they had the inclination, to sit in his room and
entertain him with conversation. Eve brought Jasper fresh flowers every
morning, and by snatches sang to him. The little parlour opened out of
the room he occupied, and in it was her harpsichord, an old instrument,
without much tone, but it served to accompany her clear fresh voice.
In the evening she and Barbara sang duets. The elder sister had a good
alto voice that contrasted well with the warble of her sister’s soprano.
Mr. Jordan came periodically into the sick room, and saluted his guest
in a shy, reserved manner, asked how he progressed, made some common
remark about the weather, fidgeted with the backs of the chairs or the
brim of his hat, and went away. He was a timid man with strangers,
a man who lived in his own thoughts, a man with a frightened,
far-off look in his eyes. He was ungainly in his movements, through
nervousness. He made no friends, he had acquaintances only.
His peculiar circumstances, the connection with Eve’s mother, his
natural reserve, had kept him apart from the gentlefolks around. His
reserve had deepened of late, and his shyness had become painful to
himself and to those with whom he spoke.
As Eve grew up, and her beauty was observed, the neighbours pitied the
two girls, condemned through no fault of their own to a life of social
exclusion. Of Barbara everyone spoke well, as an excellent manager and
thrifty housekeeper, kind of heart, in all things reliable. Of Eve
everyone spoke as a beauty. Some little informal conclaves had been
held in the neighbourhood, and one good lady had said to the Cloberrys,
‘If you will call, so will I.’ So the Cloberrys of Bradstone, as a
leading county family, had taken the initiative and called. As the
Cloberry family coach drove up to the gate of Morwell, Mr. Jordan
was all but caught, but he had the presence of mind to slip behind a
laurel bush, that concealed his body, whilst exposing his legs. There
he remained motionless, believing himself unseen, till the carriage
drove away. After the Cloberrys had called, other visitors arrived,
and the girls received invitations to tea, which they gladly accepted.
Mr. Jordan sent his card by his daughters; he would make no calls in
person, and the neighbours were relieved not to see him. That affair of
seventeen years ago was not forgiven.
Mr. Jordan was well pleased that his daughters should go into society,
or rather that his daughter Eve should be received and admired. With
Barbara he had not much in common, only the daily cares of the estate,
and these worried him. To Eve, and to her alone, he opened out, and
spoke of things that lived within, in his mind, to her alone did he
exhibit tenderness. Barbara was shut out from his heart; she felt the
exclusion, but did not resent the preference shown to Eve. That was
natural, it was Eve’s due, for Eve was so beautiful, so bright, so
perfect a little fairy. But, though Barbara did not grudge her young
sister the love that was given to her, she felt an ache in her heart,
and a regret that the father’s love was not so full that it could
embrace and envelop both.
One day, when the afternoon sun was streaming into the hall, Barbara
crossed it, and came to the convalescent’s room.
‘Come,’ she said, ‘my father and I think you had better sit outside
the house; we are carrying the hay, and it may amuse you to watch
the waggons. The sweet air will do you good. You must be weary of
confinement in this little room.’
‘How can I be weary where I am so kindly treated!—where all speaks to
me of rest and peace and culture!’ Jasper was dressed, and was sitting
in an armchair reading, or pretending to read, a book.
‘Can you rise, Mr. Jasper?’ she asked.
He tried to leave the chair, but he was still very weak, so she
assisted him.
‘And now,’ she said kindly, ‘walk, sir!’
She watched his steps. His face was pale, and the pallor was the more
observable from the darkness of his hair. ‘I think,’ said he, forcing a
smile, ‘I must beg a little support.’
She went without hesitation to his side, and he put his arm in hers. He
had not only lost much blood, but had been bruised and severely shaken,
and was not certain of his steps. Barbara was afraid, in crossing the
hall, lest he should fall on the stone floor. She disengaged his hand,
put her arm about his waist, bade him lean on her shoulder. How strong
she seemed!
‘Can you get on now?’ she asked, looking up. His deep eyes met her.
‘I could get on for ever thus,’ he answered.
She flushed scarlet.
‘I dislike such speeches,’ she said; and disengaged herself from him.
Whilst her arm was about him her hand had felt the beating of his heart.
She conducted him to a bench in the garden near a bed of stocks, where
the bees were busy.
‘How beautiful the world looks when one has not seen it for many days!’
he said.
‘Yes, there is a good shear of hay, saved in splendid order.’
‘When a child is born into the world there is always a gathering, and a
festival to greet it. I am born anew into the beautiful world to-day. I
am on the threshold of a new life, and you have nursed me into it. Am
I too presumptuous if I ask you to sit here a very little while, and
welcome me into it? That will be a festival indeed.’
She smiled good-humouredly, and took her place on the bench. Jasper
puzzled her daily more and more. What was he? What was the temptation
that had led him away? Was his repentance thorough? Barbara prayed for
him daily, with the excuse to her conscience that it was always well to
pray for the conversion of a sinner, and that she was bound to pray for
the man whom Providence had cast broken and helpless at her feet. The
Good Samaritan prayed, doubtless, for the man who fell among thieves.
She was interested in her patient. Her patient he was, as she was the
only person in the house to provide and order whatever was done in it.
Her patient, Eve and her father called him. Her patient he was, somehow
her own heart told her he was; bound to her doubly by the solicitude
with which she had nursed him, by the secret of his life which she had
surprised.
He puzzled her. He puzzled her more and more daily. There was a
gentleness and refinement in his manner and speech that showed her he
was not a man of low class, that if he were not a gentleman by birth
he was one in mind and culture. There was a grave religiousness about
him, moreover, that could not be assumed, and did not comport with a
criminal.
Who was he, and what had he done? How far had he sinned, or been
sinned against? Barbara’s mind was fretted with these ever-recurring
questions. Teased with the enigma, she could not divert her thoughts
for long from it—it formed the background to all that occupied her
during the day. She considered the dairy, but when the butter was
weighed, went back in mind to the riddle. She was withdrawn again by
the demands of the cook for groceries from her store closet; when the
closet door was shut she was again thinking of the puzzle. She had to
calculate the amount of cake required for the harvesters, and went
on from the calculations of currants and sugar to the balancing of
probabilities in the case of Jasper.
She had avoided seeing him of late more than was necessary, she
had resolved not to go near him, and let the maid Jane attend to
his requirements, aided by Christopher Davy’s boy, who cleaned the
boots and knives, and ran errands, and weeded the paths, and was made
generally useful. Yet for all her resolve she did not keep it: she
discovered that some little matter had been neglected, which forced her
to enter the room.
When she was there she was impatient to be out of it again, and she
hardly spoke to Jasper, was short, busy, and away in a moment.
‘It does not do to leave the servants to themselves,’ soliloquised
Barbara. ‘They half do whatever they are set at. The sick man would not
like to complain. I must see to everything myself.’
Now she complied with his request to sit beside him, but was at once
filled with restlessness. She could not speak to him on the one subject
that tormented her. She had herself forbidden mention of it.
She looked askance at Jasper, who was not speaking. He had his hat
off, on his lap; his eyes were moist, his lips were moving. She was
confident he was praying. He turned in a moment, recovered his head,
and said with his sweet smile, ‘God is good. I have already thanked
you. I have thanked him now.’
Was this hypocrisy? Barbara could not believe it.
She said, ‘If you have no objection, may we know your name? I have been
asked by my father and others. I mean,’ she hesitated, ‘a name by which
you would care to be called.’
‘You shall have my real name,’ he said, slightly colouring.
‘For myself to know, or to tell others?’
‘As you will, Miss Jordan. My name is Babb.’
‘Babb!’ echoed Barbara. She thought to herself that it was a name as
ugly as it was unusual. At that moment Eve appeared, glowing with life,
a wreath of wild roses wound about her hat.
‘Bab! Bab dear!’ she cried, referring to her sister.
Barbara turned crimson, and sprang from her seat.
‘The last cartload is going to start,’ said Eve eagerly, ‘and the
men say that I am the Queen and must sit on the top; but I want
half-a-crown, Bab dear, to pay my footing up the ladder to the top of
the load.’
Barbara drew her sister away. ‘Eve! never call me by that ridiculous
pet-name again. When we were children it did not matter. Now I do not
wish it.’
‘Why not?’ asked the wondering girl. ‘How hot you are looking, and yet
you have been sitting still!’
‘I do not wish it, Eve. You will make me very angry, and I shall feel
hurt if you do it again. Bab—think, darling, the name is positively
revolting, I assure you. I hate it. If you have any love for me in your
heart, any regard for my feelings, you will not call me by it again.
Bab——!’