It was a Sunday morning--bright and windy. Miss Fountain was driving a
shabby pony through the park of Bannisdale--driving with a haste and glee
that sent the little cart spinning down the road.
Six hours--she calculated--till she need see Bannisdale again. Her
cousins would ask her to dinner and to tea. Augustina and Mr. Helbeck
might have all their Sunday antics to themselves. There were several
priests coming to luncheon--and a function in the chapel that afternoon.
Laura flicked the pony sharply as she thought of it. Seven miles between
her and it? Joy!
Nevertheless, she did not get rid of the old house and its suggestions
quite as easily as she wished. The park and the river had many windings.
Again and again the grey gabled mass thrust itself upon her attention,
recalling each time, against her will, the face of its owner.
A high brow--hollows in the temples, deep hollows in the cheeks--pale
blue eyes--a short and pointed beard, greyish-black like the hair--the
close whiskers black, too, against the skin--a general impression of
pallor, dark lines, strong shadows, melancholy force--
She burst out laughing.
A pose!--nothing in the world but a pose. There was a wretched picture of
Charles I. in the dining-room--a daub "after" some famous thing, she
supposed--all eyes and hair, long face, and lace collar. Mr. Helbeck was
"made up" to that--she was sure of it. He had found out the likeness, and
improved upon it. Oh! if one could only present him with the collar and
blue ribbon complete!
"--Cut his head off, and have done with him!" she said aloud, whipping up
the pony, and laughing at her own petulance.
Who could live in such a house--such an atmosphere?
As she drove along, her mind was all in a protesting whirl. On her return
from her walk with the dogs the day before, she had found a service going
on in the chapel, Father Bowles officiating, and some figures in black
gowns and white-winged coifs assisting. She had fled to her own room, but
when she came down again, the black-garbed "Sisters" were still there,
and she had been introduced to them. Ugh! what manners! Must one always,
if one was a Catholic, make that cloying, hypocritical impression? "Three
of them kissed me," she reminded herself, in a quiver of wrath.
They were Sisters from the orphanage apparently, or one of the
orphanages, and there had been endless talk of new buildings and money,
while she, Laura, sat dumb in her corner looking at old photographs of
the house. Helbeck, indeed, had not talked much. While the black women
were chattering with Augustina and Father Bowles, he had stood, mostly
silent, under the picture of his great-grandmother, only breaking through
his reverie from time to time to ask or answer a question. Was he
pondering the sale of the great-grandmother, or did he simply know that
his silence and aloofness were picturesque, that they compelled other
people's attention, and made him the centre of things more effectively
than more ordinary manners could have done? In recalling him the girl had
an impatient sense of something commanding; of something, moreover, that
held herself under observation. "One thinks him shy at first, or
awkward--nothing of the sort! He is as proud as Lucifer. Very soon one
sees that he is just looking out for his own way in everything.
"And as for temper!----"
After the Sisters departed, a young architect had appeared at supper. A
point of difference had arisen between him and Mr. Helbeck. He was to be
employed, it appeared, in the enlargement of this blessed orphanage. Mr.
Helbeck, no doubt, with a view to his pocket--to do him justice, there
seemed to be no other pocket concerned than his--was of opinion that
certain existing buildings could be made use of in the new scheme. The
architect--a nervous young fellow, with awkward manners, and the
ambitions of an artist--thought not, and held his own, insistently. The
discussion grew vehement. Suddenly Helbeck lost his temper.
"Mr. Munsey! I must ask you to give more weight, if you please, to my
wishes in this matter! They may be right or wrong--but it would save
time, perhaps, if we assumed that they would prevail."
The note of anger in the voice made every one look up. The Squire stood
erect a moment; crumpled in his hand a half-sheet of paper on which young
Munsey had been making some calculations, and flung it into the fire.
Augustina sat cowering. The young man himself turned white, bowed, and
said nothing. While Father Bowles, of course, like the old tabby that he
was, had at once begun to purr conciliation.
"Would I have stood meek and mum if _I'd_ been the young man!" thought
Laura. "Would I! Oh! if I'd had the chance! And he should not have made
up so easily, either."
For she remembered, also, how, after Father Bowles was gone, she had come
in from the garden to find Mr. Helbeck and the architect pacing the long
hall together, on what seemed to be the friendliest of terms. For nearly
an hour, while she and Augustina sat reading over the fire, the colloquy
went on.
Helbeck's tones then were of the gentlest; the young man too spoke low
and eagerly, pressing his plans. And once when Laura looked up from her
book, she had seen Helbeck's arm resting for a moment on the young
fellow's shoulder. Oh! no doubt Mr. Helbeck could make himself agreeable
when he chose--and struggling architects must put up with the tempers of
their employers.
All the more did Miss Fountain like to think that the Squire could compel
no court from her.
She recalled that when Mr. Munsey had said good-night, and they three
were alone in the firelit hall, Helbeck had come to stand beside her. He
had looked down upon her with an air which was either kindness or
weariness; he had been willing--even, she thought, anxious to talk with
her. But she did not mean to be first trampled on, then patronised, like
the young man. So Mr. Helbeck had hardly begun--with that occasional
timidity which sat so oddly on his dark and strong physique--to speak to
her of the two Sisters of Charity who had been his guests in the
afternoon, when she abruptly discovered it was time to say good-night.
She winced a little as she remembered the sudden stiffening of his look,
the careless touch of his hand.
* * * * *
The day was keen and clear. A nipping wind blew beneath the bright sun,
and the opening buds had a parched and hindered look. But to Laura the
air was wine, and the country all delight. She was mounting the flank of
a hill towards a straggling village. Straight along the face of the hill
lay her road, past the villages and woods that clothed the hill slope,
till someone should show her the gate beyond which lay the rough ascent
to Browhead Farm.
Above her, now, to her right, rose a craggy fell with great screes
plunging sheer down into the woods that sheltered the village; below, in
the valley-plain, stretched the purples and greens of the moss; the
rivers shone in the sun as they came speeding from the mountains to the
sea; and in the far distance the heights of Lakeland made one pageant
with the sun and the clouds--peak after peak thrown blue against the
white, cloud after cloud breaking to show the dappled hills below, in
such a glory of silver and of purple, such a freshness of atmosphere and
light, that mere looking soon became the most thrilling, the most
palpable of joys. Laura's spirits began to sing and soar, with the larks
and the blackcaps!
Then, when the village was gone, came a high stretch of road, looking
down upon the moss and all its bounding fells, which ran out upon its
purple face like capes upon a sea. And these nearer fields--what were
these thick white specks upon the new-made furrows? Up rose the gulls for
answer; and the girl felt the sea-breath from their dazzling wings, and
turned behind her to look for that pale opening in the south-west through
which the rivers passed.
And beyond the fields a wood--such a wood as made Laura's south-country
eyes stand wide with wonder! Out she jumped, tied the pony's rein to a
gate beside the road, and ran into the hazel brushwood with little cries
of pleasure. A Westmoreland wood in daffodil time--it was nothing more
and nothing less. But to this child with the young passion in her blood,
it was a dream, an ecstasy. The golden flowers, the slim stalks, rose
from a mist of greenish-blue, made by their speary leaf amid the
encircling browns and purples, the intricate stem and branch-work of the
still winter-bound hazels. Never were daffodils in such a wealth before!
They were flung on the fell-side through a score of acres, in sheets and
tapestries of gold,--such an audacious, unreckoned plenty as went
strangely with the frugal air and temper of the northern country, with
the bare walled fields, the ruggedness of the crags above, and the
melancholy of the treeless marsh below. And within this common
lavishness, all possible delicacy, all possible perfection of the
separate bloom and tuft--each foot of ground had its own glory. For below
the daffodils there was a carpet of dark violets, so dim and close that
it was their scent first bewrayed them; and as Laura lay gathering with
her face among the flowers, she could see behind their gold, and between
the hazel stems, the light-filled greys and azures of the mountain
distance. Each detail in the happy whole struck on the girl's eager sense
and made there a poem of northern spring--spring as the fell-country sees
it, pure, cold, expectant, with flashes of a blossoming beauty amid the
rocks and pastures, unmatched for daintiness and joy.
Presently Laura found herself sitting--half crying!--on a mossy tuft,
looking along the wood to the distance. What was it in this exquisite
country that seized upon her so--that spoke to her in this intimate, this
appealing voice?
Why, she was of it--she belonged to it--she felt it in her veins! Old
inherited things leapt within her--or it pleased her to think so. It was
as though she stretched out her arms to the mountains and fields, crying
to them, "I am not a stranger--draw me to you--my life sprang from
yours!" A host of burning and tender thoughts ran through her. Their
first effect was to remind her of the farm and of her cousins; and she
sprang up, and went back to the cart.
On they rattled again, downhill through the wood, and up on the further
side--still always on the edge of the moss. She loved the villages, and
their medley of grey houses wedged among the rocks; she loved the stone
farms with their wide porches, and the white splashes on their grey
fronts; she loved the tufts of fern in the wall crannies, the limestone
ribs and bonework of the land breaking everywhere through the pastures,
the incomparable purples of the woods, and the first brave leafing of the
larches and the sycamores. Never had she so given her heart to any new
world; and through her delight flashed the sorest, tenderest thoughts of
her father. "Oh! papa--oh, papa!" she said to herself again and again in
a little moan. Every day perhaps he had walked this road as a child, and
she could still see herself as a child, in a very dim vision, trotting
beside him down the Browhead Road. She turned at last into the fell-gate
to which a passing boy directed her, with a long breath that was almost a
sob.
She had given them no notice; but surely, surely they would be glad to
see her!
_They_? She tried to split up the notion, to imagine the three people she
was going to see. Cousin Elizabeth--the mother? Ah! she knew her, for
they had never liked Cousin Elizabeth. She herself could dimly remember a
hard face; an obstinate voice raised in discussion with her father. Yet
it was Cousin Elizabeth who was the Fountain born, who had carried the
little family property as her dowry to her husband James Mason. For the
grandfather had been free to leave it as he chose, and on the death of
his eldest son--who had settled at the farm after his marriage, and taken
the heavy work of it off his father's shoulders--the old man had
passionately preferred to leave it to the strong, capable granddaughter,
who was already provided with a lover, who understood the land, moreover,
and could earn and "addle" as he did, rather than to his bookish milksop
of a second son, so richly provided for already, in his father's
contemptuous opinion, by the small government post at Newcastle.
"Let us always thank God, Laura, that my grandfather was a brute to
yours!" Stephen Fountain would say to his girl on the rare occasions when
he could be induced to speak of his family at all. "But for that I might
be a hedger and ditcher to this day."
Well, but Cousin Elizabeth's children? Laura herself had some vague
remembrance of them. As the pony climbed the steep lane she shut her eyes
and tried hard to recall them. The fair-haired boy--rather fat and
masterful--who had taken her to find the eggs of a truant hen in a hedge
behind the house--and had pushed her into a puddle on the way home
because she had broken one? Then the girl, the older girl Polly, who had
cleaned her shoes for her, and lent her a pinafore? No! Laura opened her
eyes again--it was no good straining to remember. Too many years had
rolled between that early visit and her present self--years during which
there had been no communication of any sort between Stephen Fountain and
his cousins.
Why had Augustina been so trying and tiresome about the Masons? Instead
of flying to her cousins on the earliest possible opportunity, here was a
whole fortnight gone since her arrival, and it was not till this Sunday
morning that Laura had been able to achieve her visit. Augustina had been
constantly ailing or fretful; either unwilling to be left alone, or
possessed by absurd desires for useless trifles, only to be satisfied by
Laura's going to shop in Whinthorpe. And such melancholy looks whenever
the Masons were mentioned--coupled with so formal a silence on Mr.
Helbeck's part! What did it all mean? No doubt her relations were vulgar,
low-born folk!--but she did not ask Mr. Helbeck or her stepmother to
entertain them. At last there had been a passage of arms between her and
her stepmother. Perhaps Mr. Helbeck had overheard it, for immediately
afterwards he had emerged from his study into the hall, where she and
Augustina were sitting.
"Miss Fountain--may I ask--do you wish to be sent into Whinthorpe on
Sunday morning?"
She had fronted him at once.
"No, thank you, Mr. Helbeck. I don't go to church--I never did with
papa."
Had she been defiant? He surely had been stiff.
"Then, perhaps you would like the pony--for your visit? He is quite at
your service for the day. Would that suit you?"
"Perfectly."
* * * * *
So here she was--at last!--climbing up and up into the heart of the
fells. The cloud-pageant round the high mountains, the valley with its
flashing streams, its distant sands, and widening sea--she had risen as
it seemed above them all; they lay beneath her in a map-like unity. She
could have laughed and sung out of sheer physical joy in the dancing
air--in the play of the cloud gleams and shadows as they swept across
her, chased by the wind. All about her the little mountain sheep were
feeding in the craggy "intaks" or along the edges of the tiny tumbling
streams; and at intervals amid the reds and yellows of the still wintry
grass rose great wind-beaten hollies, sharp and black against the blue
distance, marching beside her, like scattered soldiers, up the height.
Not a house to be seen, save on the far slopes of distant hills--not a
sound, but the chink of the stone-chat, or the fall of lonely water.
Soon the road, after its long ascent, began to dip; a few trees appeared
in a hollow, then a gate and some grey walls.
Laura jumped from the cart. Beyond the gate, the road turned downward a
little, and a great block of barns shut the farmhouse from view till she
was actually upon it.
But there it was at last--the grey, roughly built house, that she still
vaguely remembered, with the whitewashed porch, the stables and cowsheds
opposite, the little garden to the side, the steep fell behind.
She stood with her hand on the pony, looking at the house in some
perplexity. Not a soul apparently had heard her coming. Nothing moved in
the farmhouse or outside it. Was everybody at church? But it was nearly
one o'clock.
The door under the deep porch had no knocker, and she looked in vain for
a bell. All she could do was to rap sharply with the handle of her whip.
No answer. She rapped again--louder and louder. At last in the intervals
of knocking, she became conscious of a sound within--something deep and
continuous, like the buzzing of a gigantic bee.
She put her ear to the door, listening. Then all her face dissolved in
laughter. She raised her arm and brought the whip-handle down noisily on
the old blistered door, so that it shook again.
"Hullo!"
There was a sudden sound of chairs overturned, or dragged along a flagged
floor. Then staggering steps--and the door was opened.
"I say--what's all this--what are you making such a damned noise for?"
Inside stood a stalwart young man, still half asleep, and drawing his
hand irritably across his blinking eyes.
"How do you do, Mr. Mason?"
The young man drew himself together with a start. Suddenly he perceived
that the young girl standing in the shade of the porch was not his
sister, but a stranger. He looked at her with astonishment,--at the
elegance of her dress, and the neatness of her small gloved hand.
"I beg your pardon, Miss, I'm sure! Did you want anything?"
The visitor laughed. "Yes, I want a good deal! I came up to see my
cousins--you're my cousin--though of course you don't remember me. I
thought--perhaps--you'd ask me to dinner."
The young man's yawns ceased. He stared with all his eyes, instinctively
putting his hair and collar straight.
"Well, I'm afraid I don't know who you are, Miss," he said at last,
putting out his hand in perplexity to meet hers. "Will you walk in?"
"Not before you know who I am!"--said Laura, still laughing--"I'm Laura
Fountain. Now do you know?"
"What--Stephen Fountain's daughter--as married Miss Helbeck?" said the
young man in wonder. His face, which had been at first vague and heavy
with sleep, began to recover its natural expression.
Laura surveyed him. He had a square, full chin and an upper lip slightly
underhung. His straight fair hair straggled loose over his brow. He
carried his head and shoulders well, and was altogether a finely built,
rather magnificent young fellow, marred by a general expression that was
half clumsy, half insolent.
"That's it," she said, in answer to his question--"I'm staying at
Bannisdale, and I came up to see you all.--Where's Cousin Elizabeth?"
"Mother, do you mean?--Oh! she's at church."
"Why aren't you there, too?"
He opened his blue eyes, taken aback by the cool clearness of her voice.
"Well, I can't abide the parson--if you want to know. Shall I put up your
pony?"
"But perhaps you've not had your sleep out?" said Laura, politely
interrogative.
He reddened, and came forward with a slow and rather shambling gait.
"I don't know what else there is to do up here of a Sunday morning," he
said, with a boyish sulkiness, as he began to lead the pony towards the
stables opposite. "Besides, I was up half the night seeing to one of the
cows."
"You don't seem to have many neighbours," said Laura, as she walked
beside him.
"There's rooks and crows" (which he pronounced broadly--"craws")--"not
much else, I can tell you. Shall I take the pony out?"
"Please. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with me for hours!"
She looked at him merrily, and he returned the scrutiny. She wore the
same thin black dress in which Helbeck had admired her the day before,
and above it a cloth jacket and cap, trimmed with brown fur. Mason was
dazzled a moment by the milky whiteness of the cheek above the fur, by
the brightness of the eyes and hair; then was seized with fresh shyness,
and became extremely busy with the pony.
"Mother'll be back in about an hour," he said gruffly.
"Goodness! what'll you do with me till then?"
They both laughed, he with an embarrassment that annoyed him. He was not
at all accustomed to find himself at a disadvantage with a good-looking
girl.
"There's a good fire in the house, anyway," he said; "you'll want to warm
yourself, I should think, after driving up here."
"Oh! I'm not cold--I say, what jolly horses!"
For Mason had thrown open the large worm-eaten door of the stables, and
inside could be seen the heads and backs of two cart-horses, huge,
majestic creatures, who were peering over the doors of their stalls, as
though they had been listening to the conversation.
Their owner glanced at them indifferently.
"Aye, they're not bad. We bred 'em three years ago, and they've taken
more'n one prize already. I dare say old Daffady, now, as looks after
them, would be sorry to part with them."
"I dare say he would. But why should he part with them?"
The young man hesitated. He was shaking down a load of hay for the pony,
and Laura was leaning against the door of the stall watching his
performance.
"Well, I reckon we shan't be farmin here all our lives," he said at last
with some abruptness.
"Don't you like it then?"
"I'd get quit on it to-morrow if I could!"
His quick reply had an emphasis that astonished her.
"And your mother?"
"Oh! of course it's mother keeps me at it," he said, relapsing into the
same accent of a sulky child that he had used once before.
Then he led his new cousin back to the farmhouse. By this time he was
beginning to find his tongue and use his eyes. Laura was conscious that
she was being closely observed, and that by a man who was by no means
indifferent to women. She said to herself that she would try to keep him
shy.
As they entered the farmhouse kitchen Mason hastened to pick up the
chairs he had overturned in his sudden waking.
"I say, mother would be mad if she knew you'd come into this scrow!" he
said with vexation, kicking aside some sporting papers that were littered
over the floors, and bringing forward a carved oak chair with a cushion
to place it before the fire for her acceptance.
"Scrow? What's that?" said Laura, lifting her eyebrows. "Oh, please don't
tidy any more. I really think you make it worse. Besides, it's all right.
What a dear old kitchen!"
She had seated herself in the cushioned chair, and was warming a slender
foot at the fire. Mason wished she would take off her hat--it hid her
hair. But he could not flatter himself that she was in the least occupied
with what he wished. Her attention was all given to her surroundings--to
the old raftered room, with its glowing fire and deep-set windows.
Bright as the April sun was outside, it hardly penetrated here. Through
the mellow dusk, as through the varnish of an old picture, one saw the
different objects in a golden light and shade--the brass warming-pan
hanging beside the tall eight-day clock--the table in front of the long
window-seat, covered with its checked red cloth--the carved door of a
cupboard in the wall bearing the date 1679--the miscellaneous store of
things packed away under the black rafters, dried herbs and tools,
bundles of list and twine, the spindles of old spinning wheels,
cattle-medicines, and the like--the heavy oaken chairs--the settle beside
the fire, with its hard cushions and scrolled back. It was a room for
winter, fashioned by the needs of winter. By the help of that great peat
fire, built up year by year from the spoils of the moss a thousand feet
below, generations of human beings had fought with snow and storm, had
maintained their little polity there on the heights, self-centred,
self-supplied. Across the yard, commanded by the window of the
farm-kitchen, lay the rude byres where the cattle were prisoned from
October to April. The cattle made the wealth of the farm, and there must
be many weeks when the animals and their masters were shut in together
from the world outside by wastes of snow.
Laura shut her eyes an instant, imagining the goings to and fro--the
rising on winter dawns to feed the stock; the shepherd on the fell-side,
wrestling with sleet and tempest; the returns at night to food and fire.
Her young fancy, already played on by the breath of the mountains, warmed
to the farmhouse and its primitive life. Here surely was something more
human--more poetic even--than the tattered splendour of Bannisdale.
She opened her eyes wide again, as though in defiance, and saw Hubert
Mason looking at her.
Instinctively she sat up straight, and drew her foot primly under the
shelter of her dress.
"I was thinking of what it must be in winter," she said hurriedly. "I
know I should like it."
"What, this place?" He gave a rough laugh. "I don't see what for, then.
It's bad enough in summer. In winter it's fit to make you cut your
throat. I say, where are you staying?"
"Why, at Bannisdale!" said Laura in surprise. "You knew my stepmother was
still living, didn't you?"
"Well, I didn't think aught about it," he said, falling into candour,
because the beauty of her grey eyes, now that they were fixed fair and
full upon him, startled him out of his presence of mind.
"I wrote to you--to Cousin Elizabeth--when my father died," she said
simply, rather proudly, and the eyes were removed from him.
"Aye--of course you did," he said in haste. "But mother's never yan to
talk aboot letters. And you haven't dropped us a line since, have you?"
he added, almost with timidity.
"No. I thought I'd surprise you. We've been a fortnight at Bannisdale."
His face flushed and darkened.
"Then you've been a fortnight in a queer place!" he said with a sudden,
almost a violent change of tone. "I wonder you can bide so long under
that man's roof!"
She stared.
"Do you mean because he disliked my father?"
"Oh, I don't know nowt about that!" He paused. His young face was
crimson, his eyes angry and sinister. "He's a _snake_--is Helbeck!" he
said slowly, striking his hands together as they hung over his knees.
Laura recoiled--instinctively straightening herself.
"Mr. Helbeck is quite kind to me," she said sharply. "I don't know why
you speak of him like that. I'm staying there till my stepmother gets
strong."
He stared at her, still red and obstinate.
"Helbeck an his house together stick in folk's gizzards aboot here," he
said. "Yo'll soon find that oot. And good reason too. Did you ever hear
of Teddy Williams?"
"Williams?" she said, frowning. "Was that the man that painted the
chapel?"
Mason laughed and slapped his knee.
"Man, indeed? He was just a lad--down at Marsland School. I was there
myself, you understand, the year after him. He was an awful clever
lad--beat every one at books--an he could draw anything. You couldn't
mak' much oot of his drawins, I daur say--they were queer sorts o'
things. I never could make head or tail on 'em myself. But old Jackson,
our master, thowt a lot of 'em, and so did the passon down at Marsland.
An his father an mother--well, they thowt he was going to make all their
fortunes for 'em. There was a scholarship--or soomthin o' that sort--an
he was to get it an go to college, an make 'em all rich. They were just
common wheelwrights, you understand, down on t' Whinthorpe Road. But my
word, Mr. Helbeck spoilt their game for 'em!"
He lifted another sod of turf from the basket and flung it on the fire.
The animus of his tone and manner struck Laura oddly. But she was at
least as curious to hear as he was anxious to tell. She drew her chair a
little nearer to him.
"What did Mr. Helbeck do?"
Mason laughed.
"Well, he just made a Papist of Teddy--took him an done him--brown. He
got hold on him in the park one evening--Teddy was drawing a picture of
the bridge, you understand--'ticed him up to his place soomhow--an Teddy
was set to a job of paintin up at the chapel before you could say Jack
Robinson. An in six months they'd settled it between 'em. Teddy wouldn't
go to school no more. And one night he and his father had words; the owd
man gie'd him a thrashing, and Teddy just cut and run. Next thing they
heard he was at a Papist school, somewhere over Lancashire way, an he
sent word to his mother--she was dyin then, you understan'--and she's
dead since--that he'd gone to be a priest, an if they didn't like it,
they might just do the other thing!"
"And the mother died?" said Laura.
"Aye--double quick! My mother went down to nurse her. An they sent Teddy
back, just too late to see her. He come in two-three hours after they'd
screwed her down. An his father chivvyed him oot--they wouldn't have him
at the funeral. But folks were a deal madder with Mr. Helbeck, you
understan', nor with Teddy. Teddy's father and brothers are chapel
folk--Primitive Methodists they call 'em. They've got a big chapel in
Whinthorpe--an they raised the whole place on Mr. Helbeck, and one night,
coming out of Whinthorpe, he was set on by a lot of fellows, chapel
fellows, a bit fresh, you understan'. Father was there--he never denied
it--not he! Helbeck just got into the old mill by the bridge in time, but
they'd marked his face for him all the same."
"Ah!" said Laura, staring into the fire. She had just remembered a dark
scar on Mr. Helbeck's forehead, under the strong ripples of black hair.
"Go on--do!"
"Oh! afterwards there was a lot of men bound over--father among 'em.
There was a priest with Mr. Helbeck who got it hot too--that old chap
Bowles--I dare say you've seen him. Aye, he's a _snake_, is Helbeck!" the
young man repeated. Then he reddened still more deeply, and added with
vindictive emphasis--"and an interfering,--hypocritical,--canting sort of
party into t' bargain. He'd like to lord it over everybody aboot here, if
he was let. But he's as poor as a church rat--who minds him?"
The language was extraordinary--so was the tone. Laura had been gazing at
the speaker in a growing amazement.
"Thank you!" she said impetuously, when Mason stopped. "Thank you!--but,
in spite of your story, I don't think you ought to speak like that of the
gentleman I am staying with!"
Mason threw himself back in his chair. He was evidently trying to control
himself.
"I didn't mean no offence," he said at last, with a return of the sulky
voice. "Of course I understand that you're staying with the quality, and
not with the likes of us."
Laura's face lit up with laughter. "What an extraordinary silly thing to
say! But I don't mind--I'll forgive you--like I did years ago, when you
pushed me into the puddle!"
"I pushed you into a puddle? But--I never did owt o' t' sort!" cried
Mason, in a slow crescendo of astonishment.
"Oh, yes, you did," she nodded her little head. "I broke an egg, and you
bullied me. Of course I thought you were a horrid boy--and I loved Polly,
who cleaned my shoes and put me straight. Where's Polly, is she at
church?"
"Aye--I dare say," said Mason stupidly, watching his visitor meanwhile
with all his eyes. She had just put up a small hand and taken off her
cap. Now, mechanically, she began to pat and arrange the little curls
upon her forehead, then to take out and replace a hairpin or two, so as
to fasten the golden mass behind a little more securely. The white
fingers moved with an exquisite sureness and daintiness, the lifted arms
showed all the young curves of the girl's form.
Suddenly Laura turned to him again. Her eyes had been staring dreamily
into the fire, while her hands had been busy with her hair.
"So you don't remember our visit at all? You don't remember papa?"
He shook his head.
"Ah! well"--she sighed. Mason felt unaccountably guilty.
"I was always terr'ble bad at remembering," he said hastily.
"But you ought to have remembered papa." Then, in quite a different
voice, "Is this your sitting-room"--she looked round it--"or--or your
kitchen?"
The last words fell rather timidly, lest she might have hurt his
feelings.
Mason jumped up.
"Why, yon's the parlour," he said. "I should ha' taken you there fust
thing. Will you coom? I'll soon make a fire."
And walking across the kitchen, he threw open a further door
ceremoniously. Laura followed, pausing just inside the threshold to look
round the little musty sitting-room, with its framed photographs, its
woollen mats, its rocking-chairs, and its square of mustard-coloured
carpet. Mason watched her furtively all the time, to see how the place
struck her.
"Oh, this isn't as nice as the kitchen," she said decidedly. "What's
that?" She pointed to a pewter cup standing stately and alone upon the
largest possible wool mat in the centre of a table.
Mason threw back his head and chuckled. His great chest seemed to fill
out; all his sulky constraint dropped away.
"Of course you don't know anythin aboot these parts," he said to her with
condescension. "You don't know as I came near bein champion for the
County lasst year--no, I'll reckon you don't. Oh! that cup's nowt--that's
nobbut Whinthorpe sports, lasst December. Maybe there'll be a better
there, by-and-by."
The young giant grinned, as he took up the cup and pointed with assumed
indifference to its inscription.
"What--football?" said Laura, putting up her hand to hide a yawn. "Oh! I
don't care about football. But I _love_ cricket. Why--you've got a
piano--and a new one!"
Mason's face cleared again--in quite another fashion.
"Do you know the maker?" he said eagerly. "I believe he's thowt a deal of
by them as knows. I bought it myself out o' the sheep. The lambs had done
fust-rate,--an I'd had more'n half the trooble of 'em, ony ways. So I
took no heed o' mother. I went down straight to Whinthrupp, an paid the
first instalment an browt it up in the cart mesel'. Mr. Castle--do yo
knaw 'im?--he's the organist at the parish church--he came with me to
choose it."
"And is it you that play it," said Laura wondering, "or your sister?"
He looked at her in silence for a moment--and she at him. His aspect
seemed to change under her eyes. The handsome points of the face came
out; its coarseness and loutishness receded. And his manner became
suddenly quiet and manly--though full of an almost tremulous eagerness.
"You like it?" she asked him.
"What--music? I should think so."
"Oh! I forgot--you're all musical in these northern parts, aren't you?"
He made no answer, but sat down to the piano and opened it. She leant
over the back of a chair, watching him, half incredulous, half amused.
"I say--did you ever hear this? I believe it was some Cambridge fellow
made it--Castle said so. He played it to me. And I can't get further than
just a bit of it."
He raised his great hands and brought them down in a burst of chords that
shook the little room and the raftered ceiling. Laura stared. He played
on--played like a musician, though with occasional stumbling--played with
a mingled energy and delicacy, an understanding and abandonment that
amazed her--then grew crimson with the effort to remember--wavered--and
stopped.
"Goodness!"--cried Laura. "Why, that's Stanford's music to the Eumenides!
How on earth did you hear that? Go away. I can play it."
She pushed him away and sat down. He hung over her, his face smiling and
transformed, while her little hands struggled with the chords, found the
after melody, pursued it,--with pauses now and then, in which he would
strike in, prompting her, putting his hand down with hers--and finally,
after modulations which she made her way through, with laughter and
head-shakings, she fell into a weird dance, to which he beat time with
hands and limbs, urging her with a rain of comments.
"Oh! my goody--isn't that rousing? Play that again--just that
change--just once! Oh! Lord--isn't that good, that chord--and that bit
afterwards, what a bass!--I say, _isn't_ it a bass? Don't you like
it--don't you like it _awfully_?"
Suddenly she wheeled round from the piano, and sat fronting him, her
hands on her knees. He fell back into a chair.
"I say"--he said slowly--"you are a grand 'un! If I'd only known you
could play like that!"
Her laugh died away. To his amazement she began to frown.
"I haven't played--ten notes--since papa died. He liked it so."
She, turned her back to him, and began to look at the torn music at the
top of the piano.
"But you will play--you'll play to me again"--he said
beseechingly.--"Why, it would be a sin if you didn't play! Wouldn't I
play if I could play like you! I never had more than a lesson, now and
again, from old Castle. I used to steal mother's eggs to pay him--I can
play any thing I hear--and I've made a song--old Castle's writing it
down--he says he'll teach me to do it some day. But of course I'm no good
for playing--I never shall be any good. Look at those fingers--they're
like bits of stick--beastly things!"
He thrust them out indignantly for her inspection. Laura looked at them
with a professional air.
"I don't call it a bad hand. I expect you've no patience."
"Haven't I! I tell you I'd play all day, if it'ld do any good--but it
won't."
"And how about the poor farm?" said Laura, with a lifted brow.
"Oh! the farm--the farm--dang the farm!"--said Mason violently, slapping
his knee.
Suddenly there was a sound of voices outside, a clattering on the stones
of the farmyard.
Mason sprang up, all frowns.
"That's mother. Here, let's shut the piano--quick! She can't abide it."