The news of Farmer Jocelyn's sudden death was as though a cloud-burst
had broken over the village, dealing utter and hopeless destruction. To
the little community of simple workaday folk living round Briar Farm it
was a greater catastrophe than the death of any king. Nothing else was
talked of. Nothing was done. Men stood idly about, looking at each
other in a kind of stupefied consternation,--women chattered and
whispered at their cottage doors, shaking their heads with all that
melancholy profundity of wisdom which is not wise till after the
event,--the children were less noisy in their play, checked by the
grave faces of their parents--the very dogs seemed to know that
something had occurred which altered the aspect of ordinary daily
things. The last of the famous Jocelyns was no more! It seemed
incredible. And Briar Farm? What would become of Briar Farm?
"There ain't none o' th' owd folk left now" said one man, lighting his
pipe slowly--"It's all over an' done wi'. Mister Clifford, he's good
enow--but he ain't a Jocelyn, though a Jocelyn were his mother. 'Tis
the male side as tells. An' he's young, an' he'll want change an'
rovin' about like all young men nowadays, an' the place'll be broke up,
an' the timber felled, an' th' owd oak'll be sold to a dealer, an'
Merrikans'll come an' buy the pewter an' the glass an' the linen, an'
by-an'-bye we won't know there ever was such a farm at all--"
"That's your style o' thinkin', is it?" put in another man standing by,
with a round straw hat set back upon his head in a fashion which gave
him the appearance of a village idiot--"Well, it's not mine! No, by no
means! There'll be a Will,--an' Mister Robin he'll find a Way! Briar
Farm'll allus be Briar Farm accordin' to MY mind!"
"YOUR mind ain't much," growled the first speaker--"so don't ye go
settin' store by it. Lord, Lord! to think o' Farmer Jocelyn bein' gone!
Seems as if a right 'and 'ad bin cut off! Onny yesterday I met 'im
drivin' along the road at a tearin' pace, with Ned Landon sittin'
beside 'im--an' drivin' fine too, for the mare's a tricky one with a
mouth as 'ard as iron--but 'e held 'er firm--that 'e did!--no weakness
about 'im--an' 'e was talkin' away to Landon while 'e drove, 'ardly
lookin' right or left, 'e was that sure of hisself. An' now 'e's cold
as stone--who would a' thort it!"
"Where's Landon?" asked the other man.
"I dunno. He's nowhere about this mornin' that I've seen."
At that moment a figure came into view, turning the corner of a lane at
the end of the scattered thatched cottages called "the village,"--a
portly, consequential-looking figure, which both men recognised as that
of the parson of the parish, and they touched their caps accordingly.
The Reverend William Medwin, M.A., was a great personage,--and his
"cure of souls" extended to three other villages outlying the one of
which Briar Farm was the acknowledged centre.
"Good-morning!" he said, with affable condescension--"I hear that
Farmer Jocelyn died suddenly last night. Is it true?"
Both men nodded gravely.
"Yes, sir, it's true--more's the pity! It's took us all aback."
"Ay, ay!" and Mr. Medwin nodded blandly--"No doubt-no doubt! But I
suppose the farm will go on just the same?--there will be no lack of
employment?"
The man who was smoking looked doubtful.
"Nobuddy can tell--m'appen the place will be sold--m'appen it won't.
The hands may be kept, or they may be given the sack. There's only Mr.
Clifford left now, an' 'e ain't a Jocelyn."
"Does that matter?" and the reverend gentleman smiled with the superior
air of one far above all things of mere traditional sentiment. "There
is the girl--"
"Ah, yes! There's the girl!"
The speakers looked at one another.
"Her position," continued Mr. Medwin, meditatively tracing a pattern on
the ground with the end of his walking-stick, "seems to me to be a
little unfortunate. But I presume she is really the daughter of our
deceased friend?"
The man who was smoking took the pipe from his mouth and stared for a
moment.
"Daughter she may be," he said, "but born out o' wedlock anyhow--an'
she ain't got no right to Briar Farm unless th' owd man 'as made 'er
legal. An' if 'e's done that it don't alter the muddle, 'cept in the
eyes o' the law which can twist ye any way--for she was born bastard,
an' there's never been a bastard Jocelyn on Briar Farm all the hundreds
o' years it's been standin'!"
Mr. Medwin again interested himself in a dust pattern.
"Ah, dear, dear!" he sighed--"Very sad, very sad! Our follies always
find us out, if not while we live, then when we die! I'm sorry! Farmer
Jocelyn was not a Churchman--no!--a regrettable circumstance!--still,
I'm sorry! He was a useful person in the parish--quite honest, I
believe, and a very fair and good master--"
"None better!" chorussed his listeners.
"True! None better. Well, well! I'll just go up to the house and see if
I can be of any service, or--or comfort---"
One of the men smiled darkly.
"Sartin sure Farmer Jocelyn's as dead as door-nails. If so be you are
a-goin' to Briar Farm, Mr. Medwin!" he said--"Why, you never set foot
in the place while 'e was a livin' man!"
"Quite correct!" and Mr. Medwin nodded pleasantly--"I make it a rule
never to go where I'm not wanted." He paused, impressively,--conscious
that he had "scored." "But now that trouble has visited the house I
consider it my duty to approach the fatherless and the afflicted.
Good-day!"
He walked off then, treading ponderously and wearing a composed and
serious demeanour. The men who had spoken with him were quickly joined
by two or three others.
"Parson goin' to the Farm?" they enquired.
"Ay!"
"We'll 'ave gooseberries growin' on hayricks next!" declared a young,
rough-featured fellow in a smock--"anythin' can 'appen now we've lost
the last o' the Jocelyns!"
And such was the general impression throughout the district. Men met in
the small public-houses and over their mugs of beer discussed the
possibilities of emigrating to Canada or New Zealand, for--"there'll be
no more farm work worth doin' round 'ere"--they all declared--"Mister
Jocelyn wanted MEN, an' paid 'em well for workin' LIKE men!--but it'll
all be machines now."
Meanwhile, the Reverend Mr. Medwin, M.A., had arrived at Briar Farm.
Everything was curiously silent. All the blinds were down--the
stable-doors were closed, and the stable-yard was empty. The sunlight
swept in broad slanting rays over the brilliant flower-beds which were
now at their gayest and best,--the doves lay sleeping on the roofs of
sheds and barns as though mesmerised and forbidden to fly. A marked
loneliness clouded the peaceful beauty of the place--a loneliness that
made itself seen and felt by even the most casual visitor.
With a somewhat hesitating hand Mr. Medwin pulled the door-bell. In a
minute or two a maid answered the summons--her eyes were red with
weeping. At sight of the clergyman she looked surprised and a little
frightened.
"How is Miss--Miss Jocelyn?" he enquired, softly--"I have only just
heard the sad news--"
"She's not able to see anyone, sir," replied the maid, tremulously--"at
least I don't think so--I'll ask. She's very upset--"
"Of course, of course!" said Mr. Medwin, soothingly--"I quite
understand! Please say I called! Mr. Clifford--"
A figure stepped out from the interior darkness of the shadowed hall
towards him.
"I am here," said Robin, gently--"Did you wish to speak to me? This is
a house of heavy mourning to-day!"
The young man's voice shook,--he was deadly pale, and there was a
strained look in his eyes of unshed tears. Mr. Medwin was conscious of
nervous embarrassment.
"Indeed, indeed I know it is!" he murmured--"I feel for you most
profoundly! So sudden a shock too!--I--I thought that perhaps Miss
Jocelyn--a young girl struck by her first great loss and sorrow, might
like to see me--"
Robin Clifford looked at him in silence for a moment. The consolations
of the Church! Would they mean anything to Innocent? He wondered.
"I will ask her," he said at last, abruptly--"Will you step inside?"
Mr. Medwin accepted the suggestion, taking off his hat as he crossed
the threshold, and soon found himself in the quaint sitting-room where,
but two days since, Hugo Jocelyn had told Innocent all her true
history. He could not help being impressed by its old-world peace and
beauty, furnished as it was in perfect taste, with its window-outlook
on a paradise of happy flowers rejoicing in the sunlight. The fragrance
of sweet lavender scented the air, and a big china bowl of roses in the
centre of the table gave a touch of tender brightness to the old oak
panelling on the walls.
"There are things in this room that are priceless!" soliloquised the
clergyman, who was something of a collector--"If the place comes under
the hammer I shall try to pick up a few pieces."
He smiled, with the pleased air of one who feels that all things must
have an end--either by the "hammer" or otherwise,--even a fine old
house, the pride and joy of a long line of its owners during three
hundred years. And then he started, as the door opened slowly and
softly and a girl stood before him, looking more like a spirit than a
mortal, clad in a plain white gown, with a black ribbon threaded
through her waving fair hair. She was pale to the very lips, and her
eyes were swollen and heavy with weeping. Timidly she held out her hand.
"It is kind of you to come," she said,--and paused.
He, having taken her hand and let it go again, stood awkwardly mute. It
was the first time he had seen Innocent in her home surroundings, and
he had hardly noticed her at all when he had by chance met her in her
rare walks through the village and neighbourhood, so that he was
altogether unprepared for the refined delicacy and grace of her
appearance.
"I am very sorry to hear of your sad bereavement," he began, at last,
in a conventional tone--"very sorry indeed--"
She looked at him curiously.
"Are you? I don't think you can be sorry, because you did not know
him--if you had known him, you would have been really grieved--yes, I
am sure you would. He was such a good man!--one of the best in all the
world! I'm glad you have come to see me, because I have often wanted to
speak to you--and perhaps now is the right time. Won't you sit down?"
He obeyed her gesture, surprised more or less by her quiet air of sad
self-possession. He had expected to offer the usual forms of religious
consolation to a sort of uneducated child or farm-girl, nervous,
trembling and tearful,--instead of this he found a woman whose grief
was too deep and sincere to be relieved by mere talk, and whose
pathetic composure and patience were the evident result of a highly
sensitive mental organisation.
"I have never seen death before," she said, in hushed tones--"except in
birds and flowers and animals--and I have cried over the poor things
for sorrow that they should be taken away out of this beautiful world.
But with Dad it is different. He was afraid--afraid of suffering and
weakness--and he was taken so quickly that he could hardly have felt
anything--so that his fears were all useless. And I can hardly believe
he is dead--actually dead--can you? But of course you do not believe in
death at all--the religion you teach is one of eternal life--eternal
life and happiness."
Mr. Medwin's lips moved--he murmured something about "living again in
the Lord."
Innocent did not hear,--she was absorbed in her own mental problem and
anxious to put it before him.
"Listen!" she said--"When Priscilla told me Dad was really dead--that
he would never get off the bed where he lay so cold and white and
peaceful,--that he would never speak to me again, I said she was
wrong--that it could not be. I told her he would wake presently and
laugh at us all for being so foolish as to think him dead. Even Hero,
our mastiff, does not believe it, for he has stayed all morning by the
bedside and no one dare touch him to take him away. And just now
Priscilla has been with me, crying very much--and she says I must not
grieve,--because Dad is gone to a better world. Then surely he must be
alive if he is able to go anywhere, must he not? I asked her what she
knew about this better world, and she cried again and said indeed she
knew nothing except what she had been taught in her Catechism. I have
read the Catechism and it seems to me very stupid and
unnatural--perhaps because I do not understand it. Can you tell me
about this better world?"
Mr. Medwin's lips moved again. He cleared his throat.
"I'm afraid," he observed--"I'm very much afraid, my poor child, that
you have been brought up in a sad state of ignorance."
Innocent did not like being called a "poor child"--and she gave a
little gesture of annoyance.
"Please do not pity me," she said, with a touch of hauteur--"I do not
wish that! I know it is difficult for me to explain things to you as I
see them, because I have never been taught religion from a Church. I
have read about the Virgin and Christ and the Saints and all those
pretty legends in the books that belonged to the Sieur Amadis--but he
lived three hundred years ago and he was a Roman Catholic, as all those
French noblemen were at that time."
Mr. Medwin stared at her in blank bewilderment. Who was the Sieur
Amadis? She went on, heedless of his perplexity.
"Dad believed in a God who governed all things rightly,--I have heard
him say that God managed the farm and made it what it is. But he never
spoke much about it--and he hated the Church--"
The reverend gentleman interrupted her with a grave uplifted hand.
"I know!" he sighed--"Ah yes, I know! A dreadful thing!--a shocking
attitude of mind!' I fear he was not saved!"
She looked straightly at him.
"I don't see what you mean," she said--"He was quite a good man--"
"Are you sure of that?" and Mr. Medwin fixed his shallow brown eyes
searchingly upon her. "Our affections are often very deceptive--"
A flush of colour overspread her pale cheeks.
"Indeed I am very sure!" she answered, steadily--"He was a good man.
There was never a stain on his character--though he allowed people to
think wrong things of him for my sake. That was his only fault."
He was silent, waiting for her next word.
"I think perhaps I ought to tell you," she continued--"because then you
will be able to judge him better and spare his memory from foolish and
wicked scandal. He was not my father--I was only his adopted daughter."
Mr. Medwin gave a slight cough--a cough of incredulity. "Adopted" is a
phrase often used to cover the brand of illegitimacy.
"I never knew my own history till the other day," she said, slowly and
sadly. "The doctor came to see Dad, with a London specialist, a friend
of his--and they told him he had not long to live. After that Dad made
up his mind that I must learn all the truth of myself--oh!--what a
terrible truth it was!--I thought my heart would break! It was so
strange--so cruel! I had grown up believing myself to be Dad's own,
very own daughter!--and I had been deceived all my life!--for he told
me I was nothing but a nameless child, left on his hands by a stranger!"
Mr. Medwin opened his small eyes in amazement,--he was completely taken
aback. He tried to grasp the bearings of this new aspect of the
situation thus presented to him, but could not realise anything save
what in his own mind was he pleased to call a "cock-and-bull" story.
"Most extraordinary!" he ejaculated, at last--"Did he give you no clue
at all as to your actual parentage?"
Innocent shook her head.
"How could he? A man on horseback arrived here suddenly one very stormy
night, carrying me in his arms--I was just a little baby--and asked
shelter for me, promising to come and fetch me in the morning--but he
never came--and Dad never knew who he was. I was kept here out of pity
at first--then Dad began to love me--"
The suppressed tears rose to her eyes and began to fall.
"Priscilla can tell you all about it," she continued, tremulously--"if
you wish to know more. I am only explaining things a little because I
do want you to understand that Dad was really a good man though he did
not go to Church--and he must have been 'saved,' as you put it, for he
never did anything unworthy of the name of Jocelyn!"
The clergyman thought a moment.
"You are not Miss Jocelyn, then?" he said.
She met his gaze with a sorrowful calmness.
"No. I am nobody. I have not even been baptised."
He sprang up from his chair, horrified.
"Not baptised!" he exclaimed--"Not baptised! Do you mean to tell me
that Farmer Jocelyn never attended to this imperative and sacred duty
on your behalf?--that he allowed you to grow up as a heathen?"
She remained unmoved by his outburst.
"I am not a heathen," she said, gently--"I believe in God--as Dad
believed. I'm sorry I have not been baptised--but it has made no
difference to me that I know of--"
"No difference!" and the clergyman rolled up his eyes and shook his
head ponderously--"You poor unfortunate girl, it has made all the
difference in the world! You are unregenerate--your soul is not washed
clean--all your sins are upon you, and you are not redeemed!"
She looked at him tranquilly.
"That is all very sad for me if it is true," she said--"but it is not
my fault. I could not help it. Dad couldn't help it either--he did not
know what to do. He expected that I might be claimed and taken away any
day--and he had no idea what name to give me--except Innocent--which is
a name I suppose no girl ever had before. He used to get money from
time to time in registered envelopes, bearing different foreign
postmarks--and there was always a slip of paper inside with the words
'For Innocent' written on it. So that name has been my only name. You
see, it was very difficult for him--poor Dad!--besides, he did not
believe in baptism--"
"Then he was an infidel!" declared Mr. Medwin, hotly.
Her serious blue eyes regarded him reproachfully.
"I don't think you should say that--it isn't quite kind on your part,"
she replied--"He always thanked God for prosperity, and never
complained when things went wrong--that is not being an infidel! Even
when he knew he was hopelessly ill, he never worried anyone about
it--he was only just a little afraid-and that was perfectly natural.
We're all a little afraid, you know--though we pretend we're not--none
of us like the idea of leaving this lovely world and the sunshine for
ever. Even Hamlet was afraid,--Shakespeare makes him say so. And when
one has lived all one's life on Briar Farm--such a sweet peaceful
home!--one can hardly fancy anything better, even in a next world!
No--Dad was not an infidel--please do not think such a thing!--he only
died last night--and I feel as if it would hurt him."
Mr. Medwin was exceedingly embarrassed and annoyed--there was something
in the girl's quiet demeanour that suggested a certain intellectual
superiority to himself. He hummed and hawed, lurking various unpleasant
throaty noises.
"Well--to me, of course, it is a very shocking state of affairs," he
said, irritably--"I hardly think I can be of any use--or consolation to
you in the matters you have spoken of, which are quite outside my scope
altogether. If you have anything to say about the funeral
arrangements--but I presume Mr. Clifford--"
"Mr. Clifford is master here now," she answered--"He will give his own
orders, and will do all that is best and wisest. As I have told you, I
am a name-less nobody, and have no right in this house at all. I'm
sorry if I have vexed or troubled you--but as you called I thought it
was right to tell you how I am situated. You see, when poor Dad is
buried I shall be going away at once--and I had an idea you might
perhaps help me--you are God's minister."
He wrinkled up his brows and looked frowningly at her.
"You are leaving Briar Farm?" he asked.
"I must. I have no right to stay."
"Is Mr. Clifford turning you out?"
A faint, sad smile crept round the girl's pretty, sensitive mouth.
"Ah, no! No, indeed! He would not turn a dog out that had once taken
food from his hand," she said. "It is my own wish entirely. When Dad
was alive there was something for me to do in taking care of him--but
now!--there is no need for me--I should feel in the way--besides, I
must try to earn my own living."
"What do you propose to do?" asked Mr. Medwin, whose manner to her had
completely changed from the politely patronising to the sharply
aggressive--"Do you want a situation?"
She lifted her eyes to his fat, unpromising face.
"Yes--I should like one very much--I could be a lady's maid, I think, I
can sew very well. But--perhaps you would baptise me first?"
He gave a sound between a cough and a grunt.
"Eh? Baptise you?"
"Yes,--because if I am unregenerate, and my soul is not clean, as you
say, no one would take me--not even as a lady's maid."
Her quaint, perfectly simple way of putting the case made him angry.
"I'm afraid you are not sufficiently aware of the importance of the
sacred rite,"--he said, severely--"At your age you would need to be
instructed for some weeks before you could be considered fit and
worthy. Then,--you tell me you have no name!--Innocent is not a name at
all for a woman--I do not know who you are--you are ignorant of your
parentage--you may have been born out of wedlock--"
She coloured deeply.
"I am not sure of that," she said, in a low tone.
"No--of course you are not sure,--but I should say the probability is
that you are illegitimate"--and the reverend gentleman took up his hat
to go. "The whole business is very perplexing and difficult. However, I
will see what can be done for you--but you are in a very awkward
corner!--very awkward indeed! Life will not be very easy for you, I
fear!"
"I do not expect ease," she replied--"I have been very happy till
now--and I am grateful for the past. I must make my own future."
Her eyes filled with tears as she looked out through the open window at
the fair garden which she herself had tended for so long--and she saw
the clergyman's portly form through a mist of sorrow as in half-hearted
fashion he bade her good-day.
"I hope--I fervently trust--that God will support you in your
bereavement," he said, unctuously--"I had intended before leaving to
offer up a prayer with you for the soul of the departed and for your
own soul--but the sad fact of your being unbaptised places me in a
difficulty. But I shall not fail personally to ask our Lord to prepare
you for the unfortunate change in your lot!"
"Thank you!" she replied, quietly--and without further salute he left
her.
She stood for a moment considering--then sat down by the window,
looking at the radiant flowerbeds, with all their profusion of blossom.
She wondered dreamily how they could show such brave, gay colouring
when death was in the house, and the aching sense of loss and sorrow
weighted the air as with darkness. A glitter of white wings flashed
before her eyes, and her dove alighted on the window-sill,--she
stretched out her hand and the petted bird stepped on her little rosy
palm with all its accustomed familiarity and confidence. She caressed
it tenderly.
"Poor Cupid!" she murmured--"You are like me--you are
unregenerate!--you have never been baptised!--your soul has not been
washed clean!--and all your sins are on your head! Yes, Cupid!--we are
very much alike!--for I don't suppose you know your own father and
mother any more than I know mine! And yet God made you--and He has
taken care of you--so far!"
She stroked the dove's satiny plumage gently--and then drew back a
little into shadow as she saw Robin Clifford step out from the porch
into the garden and hurriedly interrupt the advance of a woman who just
then pushed open the outer gate--a slatternly-looking creature with
dark dishevelled hair and a face which might have been handsome, but
for its unmistakable impress of drink and dissipation.
"Eh, Mr. Clifford--it's you, is it?" she exclaimed, in shrill tones.
"An' Farmer Jocelyn's dead!--who'd a' thought it! But I'd 'ave 'ad a
bone to pick with 'im this mornin', if he'd been livin'--that I
would!--givin' sack to Ned Landon without a warning to me!"
Innocent leaned forward, listening eagerly, with an uncomfortably
beating heart. Through all the miserable, slow, and aching hours that
had elapsed since Hugo Jocelyn's death, there had been a secret anxiety
in her mind concerning Ned Landon and the various possibilities
involved in his return to the farm, when he should learn that his
employer was no more, and that Robin was sole master.
"I've come up to speak with ye," continued the woman,--"It's pretty
'ard on me to be left in the ditch, with a man tumbling ye off his
horse an' ridin' away where ye can't get at 'im!" She laughed harshly.
"Ned's gone to 'Merriker!"
"Gone to America!"--Robin's voice rang out in sharp accents of
surprise--"Ned Landon? Why, when did you hear that?"
"Just now--his own letter came with the carrier's cart--he left the
town last night and takes ship from Southampton to-day. And why?
Because Farmer Jocelyn gave him five hundred pounds to do it! So
there's some real news for ye!"
"Five hundred pounds!" echoed Clifford--"My Uncle Hugo gave him five
hundred pounds!"
"Ay, ye may stare!"--and the woman laughed again--"And the devil has
taken it all,--except a five-pun' note which he sends to me to 'keep me
goin',' he says. Like his cheek! I'm not his wife, that's true!--but
I'm as much as any wife--an' there's the kid--"
Robin glanced round apprehensively at the open window.
"Hush!" he said--"don't talk so loud--"
"The dead can't hear," she said, scornfully--"an' Ned says in his
letter that he's been sent off all on account of you an' your light o'
love--Innocent, she's called--a precious 'innocent' SHE is!--an' that
the old man has paid 'im to go away an' 'old his tongue! So it's all
YOUR fault, after all, that I'm left with the kid to rub along
anyhow;--he might ave married me in a while, if he'd stayed. I'm only
Jenny o' Mill-Dykes now--just as I've always been--the toss an' catch
of every man!--but I 'ad a grip on Ned with the kid, an' he'd a' done
me right in the end if you an' your precious 'innocent' 'adn't been in
the way--"
Robin made a quick stride towards her.
"Go out of this place!" he said, fiercely--"How dare you come here with
such lies!"
He stopped, half choked with rage.
Jenny looked at him and laughed--then snapped her fingers in his face.
"Lies, is it?" she said--"Well, lies make good crops, an' Farmer
Jocelyn's money'll 'elp them to grow! Lies, indeed! An' how dare I come
here? Why, because your old uncle is stiff an' cold an' can't speak no
more--an' no one would know what 'ad become o' Ned Landon if I wasn't
here to tell them an' show his own letter! I'll tell them all, right
enough!--you bet your life I will!"
She turned her back on him and began to walk, or rather slouch, out of
the garden. He went up close to her, his face white with passion.
"If you say one word about Miss Jocelyn--" he began.
"Miss Jocelyn!" she exclaimed, shrilly--"That's good!--we ARE
grand!"--and she dropped him a mock curtsey--"Miss Jocelyn! There ain't
no 'Miss Jocelyn,' an' you know it as well as I do! So don't try to
fool ME! Look here, Mr. Robin Clifford"--and she confronted him, with
arms akimbo--"you're not a Jocelyn neither!--there's not a Jocelyn left
o' the old stock--they're all finished with the one lyin' dead upstairs
yonder--and I'll tell ye what!--you an' your 'innocent' are too 'igh
an' mighty altogether for the likes o' we poor villagers--seein' ye
ain't got nothin' to boast of, neither of ye! You've lost me my
man--an' I'll let everyone know how an' why!"
With that she went, banging the gate after her--and Clifford stood
inert, furious within himself, yet powerless to do anything save
silently endure the taunts she had flung at him. He could have cursed
himself for the folly he had been guilty of in telling his uncle about
the fight between him and Landon--for he saw now that the old man had
secretly worried over the possible harm that might be done to Innocent
through Landon's knowledge of her real story, which he had learned
through his spying and listening. Whatever that harm could be, was now
intensified--and scandal, beginning as a mere whispered suggestion,
would increase to loud and positive assertion ere long.
"Poor Uncle Hugo!" and the young man looked up sorrowfully at the
darkened windows of the room where lay in still and stern repose all
that was mortal of the last of the Jocelyns--"What a mistake you have
made! You meant so well!--you thought you were doing a wise thing in
sending Landon away--and at such a cost!--but you did not know what he
had left behind him--Jenny of the Mill-Dykes, whose wicked tongue would
blacken an angel's reputation!"
A hand touched him lightly on the arm from behind. He turned swiftly
round and confronted Innocent--she stood like a little figure of white
porcelain, holding her dove against her breast.
"Poor Robin!" she said, softly--"Don't worry! I heard everything."
He stared down upon her.
"You heard--?"
"Yes. I was at the open window there--I couldn't help hearing. It was
Jenny of the Mill-Dykes--I know her by sight, but not to speak
to--Priscilla told me something about her. She isn't a nice woman, is
she?"
"Nice?" Robin gasped--"No, indeed! She is--Well!--I must not tell you
what she is!"
"No!--you must not--I don't want to hear. But she ought to be Ned
Landon's wife--I understood that!--and she has a little child. I
understood that too. And she knows everything about me--and about that
night when you climbed up on my window-sill and sat there so long. It
was a pity you did that, wasn't it?"
"Yes!--when there was a dirty spy in hiding!" said Robin, hotly.
"Ah!--we never imagined such a thing could be on Briar Farm!"--and she
sighed--"but it can't be helped now. Poor darling Dad! He parted with
all that money to get rid of the man he thought would do me wrong. Oh
Robin, he loved me!"
The tears gathered in her eyes and fell slowly like bright raindrops on
the downy feathers of the dove she held.
"He loved you, and I love you!" murmured Robin, tenderly. "Dear little
girl, come indoors and don't cry any more! Your sweet eyes will be
spoilt, and Uncle Hugo could never bear to see you weeping. All the
tears in the world won't bring him back to us here,--but we can do our
best to please him still, so that if his spirit has ever been troubled,
it can be at peace. Come in and let us talk quietly together--we must
look at things squarely and straightly, and we must try to do all the
things he would have wished--"
"All except one thing," she said, as they went together side by side
into the house--"the one thing that can never be!"
"The one thing--the chief thing that shall be!" answered Robin,
fiercely--"Innocent, you must be my wife!"
She lifted her tear-wet eyes to his with a grave and piteous appeal
which smote him to the heart by its intense helplessness and sorrow.
"Robin,--dear Robin!" she said--"Don't make it harder for me than it
is! Think for a moment! I am nameless--a poor, unbaptised, deserted
creature who was flung on your uncle's charity eighteen years ago--I am
a stranger and intruder in this old historic place--I have no right to
be here at all--only through your uncle's kindness and yours. And now
things have happened so cruelly for me that I am supposed to be to
you--what I am not,"--and the deep colour flushed her cheeks and brow.
"I have somehow--through no fault of my own--lost my name!--though I
had no name to lose--except Innocent!--which, as the clergyman told me,
is no name for a woman. Do you not see that if I married you, people
would say it was because you were compelled to marry me?--that you had
gone too far to escape from me?--that, in fact, we were a sort of copy
of Ned Landon and Jenny of the Mill-Dykes?"
"Innocent!"
He uttered the name in a tone of indignant and despairing protest. They
were in the oak parlour together, and she went slowly to the window and
let her pet dove fly.
"Ah, yes! Innocent!" she repeated, sadly--"But you must let me go,
Robin!--just as I have let my dove fly, so you must let me fly
also--far, far away!"