Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: "The vicar's wife would have a fit if I lounged like
this." _See page 4_]
WHEN
THE BIRDS
BEGIN TO SING.
A Novel
BY
WINIFRED GRAHAM,
AUTHOR OF
"ON THE DOWN GRADE," &c., &c.
_WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS_
BY HAROLD PIFFARD.
LONDON:
C. ARTHUR PEARSON LTD.,
HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.
1897
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. AND WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
II. "IMPARADIS'D IN ONE ANOTHER'S ARMS."--_Milton_
III. "GOD MADE THE WOMAN FOR THE MAN."--_Tennyson_
IV. LIFE IS A JEST
V. "THE FLY THAT SIPS TREACLE IS LOST IN THE SWEETS"
VI. LIKE ONE THAT ON A LONESOME ROAD
DOST WALK IN FEAR AND DREAD
VII. THE SHADOWS RISE AND FALL
VIII. KIND HEARTS ARE MORE THAN CORONETS.
IX. HEART SICK AND WEARY WITH THE JOURNEY'S FRET
X. FALSER THAN ALL FANCY FATHOMS
XI. IF WE ONLY KNOW! IF WE ONLY KNOW!
XII. "TO-MORROW, AND TO-MORROW, AND TO-MORROW."--_Shakespeare_
XIII. "IF NEED, TO DIE--NOT LIVE."--_Charles Kingsley_
XIV. IN CLOUDS OF SILENCE FOLDED OUT OF SIGHT
XV. "AH, FOR SOME RETREAT
DEEP IN YONDER SHINING ORIENT."--_Tennyson_
XVI. OH, LOVE! IN SUCH A WILDERNESS AS THIS
XVII. "WHERE THERE AIN'T NO TEN COMMANDMENTS."--_Rudyard Kipling_
XVIII. LET US BE OPEN AS THE DAY
XIX. THE IDEAL! DIM VANITIES OF DREAMS BY NIGHT
XX. LIFE IS THORNY, AND YOUTH IS VAIN
XXI. "BY A ROUTE OBSCURE AND LONELY,
HAUNTED BY ILL ANGELS ONLY."--_E. A. Poe._
XXII. "NO FOOTSTEP STIRRED--THE HATED WORLD ALL SLEPT,
SAVE ONLY THEE AND ME. (OH, HEAVEN! OH, GOD!)"
XXIII. "OH, I DEFY THEE, HELL, TO SHOW,
ON BEDS OF FIRE THAT BURN BELOW,
A DEEPER WOE."--_E. A. Poe_
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
"THE VICAR'S WIFE WOULD HAVE A FIT IF I LOUNGED
LIKE THIS" . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece
"LOOK! THERE IT GOES."
SALUTING THE OLD PICTURES ON THE WALL WITH MOCK COURTESY
THE DINING-ROOM DOOR OPENS, AND PHILIP ROCHE STANDS BEFORE THEM
"MR. AND MRS. GREBBY!"
SHE COVERS HER FACE WITH HER HANDS
"MAY I SEE THAT PHOTOGRAPH?"
"WHY, IT'S NEVER MR. ROCHE!" SHE EXCLAIMS
SHE RUSHES TO THE DOOR WITH A WILD CRY
ELEANOR STAGGERS ON BREATHLESSLY UP THE HILL
THE CRUEL FINGERS PRESS WITH DEADLY FORCE
BIG TOMBO BOWS ASSENT
BEARING TENDERLY THE LIMP BODY OF THE TERRIER
"WHAT VILLAIN HAS KILLED MY HORSE?"
SHE STEALS INTO THE VERANDAH AND WATCHES
PHILIP THROWS BACK HIS COAT, AND SHE SEES THE SHIRT
BENEATH IT IS SPLASHED WITH BLOOD
WHEN THE BIRDS BEGIN TO SING.
CHAPTER I.
AND WHEN LOVE SPEAKS.
She was certainly very pretty, and just then she looked prettier than
usual, for the sharp run had brought a more vivid colour to the cheek,
and an added sparkle to the eye. She was laughing, too--the rogue--as
well she might, for had she not brought her right hand swiftly down
upon his left ear when he had chased her, caught her, and deliberately
and maliciously kissed her, and did he not now look red and foolish,
and apparently repentant?
But let me start from the beginning, and tell you how it all came about.
* * * * *
Eleanor, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer, is as fresh and
beautiful in the eyes of Philip Roche as the field flowers whose heads
fall fading beneath his tread while he follows her through the long
grass. He has watched her playing with the innocent school
children--little more than a child herself--and then, with the calm
assurance that to him is second nature, joins the merry throng unasked.
The children greet him eagerly, after scrambling for a handful of
silver from the stranger's pocket, for is it not the great, grand treat
of all the year?
"Come and play wif us," lisps a little maiden of five summers, whom
Philip tosses on his shoulder with good-natured ease. He has a way of
winning the confidence of children.
"What is the game?"
"Kiss in the ring!" cries a small boyish voice at his elbow.
The stranger's eyes twinkle as he watches the lovely unknown Eleanor
arranging a circle. Placing his tiny friend again on her feet, and
taking her brother's grimy hand, Philip Roche joins the hilarious
pastime.
Eleanor glances across the ring well-pleasedly, guessing that her
dainty figure and deep-fringed eyes have attracted him thither.
A moment later she trips lightly round the chain of children, her heart
beating higher as her feet approach the man's tall figure. Shall she?
Shall she? No time to consider, as the handkerchief falls from her
hand upon Philip's shoulder.
Quick as lightning she flies away--faster--faster--through the
buttercups, while he pursues, nearer--nearer--and then the strong arms
arrest her career, and the inevitable kiss occurs.
Eleanor, her cheeks aflame, frees herself from his audacious caress,
and half laughing, half indignant, walks hastily away. But after their
unconventional introduction Philip is not easily to be foiled.
"You are offended," he cries penitently. "It was only the game; won't
you forgive me, Miss----?"
"Grebby," raising her eyes and pausing. "Eleanor Grebby," she
continues with a prim little air that is quite unnatural, then laughing
spontaneously:
"You see, I was rather taken aback at first, Mr.----"
"Roche--Philip Roche, at your service."
"So now we know each other," holding out her hand.
He grasps it eagerly--such a warm slim hand!
"It was rather a nice introduction, wasn't it?"
Philip thinks how amazingly pretty Eleanor is, as she assents with
deepening colour.
"There! I knew it would come!" she cries, with a thought for her new
poppy-bedizened hat.
"What?" asks Philip, still feasting his eyes on the girl's fair
physique, and unobservant of the gathering darkness overhead.
"Why, the rain, of course. We shall get wet."
"Only a summer shower."
"Yes, but as disastrous in its effects as any other downpour. I shall
make for that barn in the next field; the children have all
mysteriously vanished."
"I am dreadfully afraid of the wet," declares Philip, pretending to
shiver. "May I accompany you?"
He is still retaining her hand as they run together towards the haven
of "shelter.
"How nice of it to rain!" he gasps, applauding the accommodating skies.
"Let me make you comfortable," heaping together a pile of hay for her
to sit upon. "Now tell me all about yourself."
Eleanor sinks down on the soft couch, looking somewhat wistfully
through the open door of the barn.
"I am easily explained. I live here always. My father is a farmer,
and I feed the chickens, dust the house, and teach in the
Sunday-school. Only fancy what an exciting life, Mr. Roche. Doesn't
it take your breath away?"
At the thought of her own humdrum existence Eleanor laughs again with a
return of that superabundant vitality which is hers by nature.
"Then once or perhaps twice a year I am invited to tea at the Vicarage,
and I sit up straight in a high-backed chair and say 'Yes' and 'No'
when I am spoken to, and answer prettily--like a schoolgirl. The
vicar's wife would have a fit if I lounged like this," flinging herself
back with an air of abandon on the hay. "Once she asked me to sing (I
play the harmonium in church). My cousin Joe had brought me a comic
song from town, and I couldn't help, for the life of me, getting up and
giving her a verse."
"Of course it was wrong, and she looked frightfully shocked. I have
certainly never been invited to tea since. Oh, how I should like to
sing at concerts and halls--I mean the sort of places where you have an
eyeglass, and walk round with a hat and stick!"
Her face beamed as she delivered this sentence--involuntarily the
little hands clasped themselves together in excitement.
"Be thankful that such an ambition is ungratified," declares Philip,
speaking seriously for the first time. "You do not know the fate that
you are coveting. Best contented, child, to remain your own sweet
self. Your country life is ideal compared with--_that_!"
Eleanor shakes her head.
"It doesn't seem like it," she declares.
"No, I dare say not. Duty is sometimes heroism in its noblest form."
"Then are all the people wicked that go to London, and sing, act, and
enjoy themselves?"
"Indeed I trust not. We should have a pretty bad time of it if they
were. Yet I don't know that you're far wrong. Few are guileless. But
why talk of it? Time enough to warn you of the pitfalls when you are
on your road to the great city."
"What is your life?" asks Eleanor curiously, drawing the long ends of
hay through her teeth with a meditative smile.
"Scarcely less monotonous than yours, Miss Grebby"--an amused look in
his eyes. "Instead of feeding chickens I feed my friends--lunches,
dinners, midnight suppers--all of which pall terribly after a time.
Instead of dusting my house I leave it to accumulate dust, while I
wander abroad. A home is a dull place for one man."
"You have no wife or mother?"
"No."
"But you must have lots of money. Why, only think of all the silver
you threw to the children this afternoon! I do not believe they had
ever seen so many shillings and sixpences before."
"Money will not buy a mother or----" He was going to say "a wife," but
checked himself. Philip Roche was an accurate man.
"Poor Mr. Roche, it must be very lonely," says Eleanor, with genuine
sympathy in her tone.
He smiles enigmatically. It is strange to him to be pitied by the
little farmer's daughter when so many have envied his happy-go-lucky
existence ere now.
"The rain clouds are dispersing," he murmurs, as a stray ray of
sunlight wanders through the barn door to mingle its glory with
Eleanor's hair. How gold those tender silken threads appear under its
burnishing hand!
"What a pity! It has been such a refreshing shower!"
"I feel quite young again," he declares, "young enough to play with the
children for hours. What do you say to kiss in the ring again?"
He presses her hand gently.
She lifts her eyes to his with a slow shake of her head.
"There is the vicar's wife to be considered."
"Good gracious!" he laughs. "You don't mean I should have to kiss her?"
Eleanor's face dimples all over in delightful smiles.
"What an absurd idea!" she gasps gleefully. "I should just like to see
you!"
"I don't think it has _quite_ stopped," murmurs Philip, holding up his
hands to the sky, and pretending the drops from the barn are rain
themselves.
"How silly you are!" cries Eleanor, mockingly, gathering up her skirts
and revealing a well-turned ankle. "But, oh, isn't the grass soaking?"
as Philip takes her arm and guides her to a narrow path. "The children
will ruin their boots, and all go home with colds. Look, they are
tearing about like mad things. How they will sleep to-night!"
"I wonder what will become of them all in the years to follow, and why
they have any existence whatsoever beneath the glimpses of the moon?"
"One will reap," replies Eleanor, wisely, "and another will sow. Some
may slay oxen and wring the fowls' necks, and perhaps for all we know
murder each other. It is a horrible thought, isn't it? They look so
thoroughly innocent, these country children. Do you see that little
boy crying because he was knocked down in the three-legged
steeplechase. His life race is only just beginning. His father is in
gaol for theft, his mother incurable in a Samaritan infirmary, yet he
is only crying because he grazed his knee and did not win a packet of
bull's-eyes."
Eleanor's voice is low and expressive as her deep sapphire
eyes--fascinating the man by their changeful beauty--one moment light
and dancing like the sunbeams in the branches, the next overflowing
with pity for a pauper child.
The little ones gather round, clinging to her skirts. She is tender
and kind to all, though her gaze rests chiefly on the tall, sunburnt
stranger making himself popular with the youngsters in her class.
"Look, teacher," cries the same wee maiden who is responsible for
Philip's first appearance in their games. "I won 'er, 'opping along o'
Margery in the big race," holding aloft a doll with great staring glass
eyes and brilliantly rouged cheeks. "Ain't she beautiful?"
"What will you name her?" asks the Sunday-school teacher sweetly.
"Don't know," sighs the child perplexedly.
"Eleanor," suggests Philip.
"We 'ad a little sister named Eleanor, but she 'adn't got enough blood
in her, so she died."
"Then you must call your doll by another name," says Miss Grebby
decidedly.
But the small girl shakes her head, and announces with precision:
"I'll call 'er Eleanor!" and marches away well satisfied, to re-open a
half-closed wound in her mother's breast.
"I hit on an unfortunate suggestion," whispers Philip, while the ever
energetic Miss Grebby initiates him into the mysteries of "Nuts in
May," "Poor Mary sits a-weeping," and "I have a little dog."
The soft twilight gradually creeps over this summer world, and the
great red sun sinks down in its sea of fire behind the trees.
The birds chirp a good-night song, till their piping is drowned by the
hearty cheers of the happy children ringing out stirringly on the still
damp air.
"And now--home!" sighs Eleanor, with a little grimace, as Philip bends
down to fasten a spray of wild honeysuckle in her belt.
"May I see you back?" he asks eagerly, noting the bright smile that
flits across her lips at the suggestion.
"_Could_ you walk a mile?" questions Eleanor in mock astonishment. "I
thought London people always drove. The vicar's wife had some friends
from South Kensington who were positively lame if they went any
distance on foot. They said our country roads were a disgrace--no
asphalte, no hansom cabs."
"Come along," murmurs Philip, whose long strides are not easy to keep
pace with. They walk more slowly when out of sight. Oh, the
delightful dawdle back through the vague shadows of evening in sweetly
scented lanes! How merrily she prattles with charming ingenuousness,
while he watches her expressive features, a new strange thrill at his
heart.
What if on this summer holiday, among the clover and the daisies, he
has discovered the one spotless soul of his life--a fresh,
unsophisticated creature of Nature's noblest and purest art!
At last they are in sight of the old farmhouse which Eleanor calls
home. It is a picturesque spot, and Philip stops admiringly to take in
the beauty of the rural scene.
"So you live there in that quiet abode?" he said thoughtfully.
"Yes. I am sorry to-day is over. It has not only been a holiday for
the children, but half the village. The labourers are to have a dinner
to-night and----"
She paused. The labourers and the children are so far from her mind at
this moment.
"I shall see you again," he whispers.
"Where and when?" asks Eleanor, feigning surprise.
"To-morrow in this cornfield on our left. I shall walk past."
"Like Boaz, and Ruth will be gleaning," she replies coyly.
"What will Boaz do?" he murmurs.
Eleanor lowers her eyes, and interlaces her fingers.
"I know," she replies confidently.
In the dim light Philip fancies that Eleanor is weaving some strange
witchcraft. He is drawn involuntarily nearer and snatching her hand
detains it a moment in both his. She is more beautiful than ever now
in the dim solitude of the deserted road. The simplicity of her daily
routine in the country farmhouse appeals to this man of the world, who
yearns for something different, something better in his aimless, empty
life--aimless because he has no one to work for, empty because there is
no one to love.
Eleanor's gentle presence in the gathering gloom quickens his
imagination. A picture wonderful and hitherto undreamed rises like a
sudden mirage before Philip's eyes.
He seems lost in contemplation.
"I have found her at last," he says, speaking his thoughts aloud.
"Who?" asks Eleanor under her breath.
"The Ideal Woman!" he replies.
The girl looks perplexed--she does not understand the phrase. New
Women and rational costumes have not yet penetrated to the depths of
Copthorne, so their counter-poising ideal is to her an unknown quantity.
Eleanor's ignorance of modernity constitutes a special charm in his
eyes. How sweet a privilege to build up this uncultured soul, to mould
her impressionable spirit! Philip is enamoured of the idea, he sees
such vast possibilities stretching out before him. Eleanor differed so
widely from the women of his set. Perhaps the weaker sex are made
variously that the mind of desultory man, studious of change, and
pleased with novelty, may be indulged.
"How long have we known each other?" he asks.
"About three hours," she answers promptly.
"How deep can one go below the surface in one hundred and eighty
minutes?"
Eleanor seems bewildered; she is at a loss for words.
"Have I only been with you so short a time?" he says incredulously.
"Can it be possible?"
"Does it seem long?" she asks looking down shyly. "Have I wearied you,
Mr. Roche?"
His smile reassures her.
"It does not seem _long_, only _full_ to the brim. To every second a
fresh thought, an inch deeper into the unknown."
"I have never met anyone before," she declares frankly, "who spoke to
me like that."
Then with a swift "Good night" Eleanor breaks away and vanishes among
the shadows.
"A wife," says Philip to himself, "is something between a hindrance and
a help. Is this the turn of the tide?"
A nightingale broke into song. "Yes!" it cried; "yes--yes--yes!"