REFLECTION AND ENLIGHTENMENT
Eloquent found that M. B. Ffolliot had not deceived him as to the
nearness of the village. A few yards to the left, over the bridge, and
the long, irregular street lay in front of him; the river on one side;
the houses, various in size and shape, but alike in one respect, that
the most modern of them was over two hundred years old. He knew that
his aunt's house was at the very end of the street and furthest from
the bridge, and that Redmarley village was nearly a mile in length.
Yet he did not hurry. He walked very slowly in the middle of the muddy
road, resolved to marshal and tabulate his impressions as was his
orderly wont.
But in this instance his impressions refused to conform to either
process, and remained mutinously chaotic.
He found that, in thinking of Mary, he unconsciously called her "that
girl," whereas such maidens as he hitherto had encountered were always
"young ladies." He didn't know many "young ladies," but those he did
know he there and then called into review and compared with Mary
Ffolliot.
They were all of them much better dressed, he was certain of that. But
he was equally assured that not one of them would have forborne to
laugh at his plight, as he sat abject and ridiculous in the very
largest puddle in Redmarley woods.
She had not laughed.
And would any one of these well-dressed young ladies (Eloquent took
into account that it was Sunday) have held out helping hands to a total
stranger with such absolute simplicity, so entirely as a matter of
course? not as a young woman to a young man, but as one fellow-creature
to another who had, literally, in this instance, fallen upon evil times.
How tall she was, and how strong.
Again (he blushed at the recollection) he seemed to feel the clasp of
those muscular young hands in the worn tan-coloured gloves, gloves
loose at the wrists, that did not button but were drawn on. He had
noticed her leather gloves as she held out her hands to him, and knew
that in the language of the trade they were "rather costly to start
with, but lasted for ever."
They did not stock goods of that class in the particular branch of the
outfitting trade that he knew best. People wouldn't pay the price.
And he found himself saying over and over again, "wouldn't pay the
price," and it was of the girl he was thinking, not of her gloves.
How eager she had been that he should come and be brushed; "I've no
objection," Eloquent reflected, "to being under an obligation to her,
but I'm hanged if I'd be beholden to Ffolliot for anything." Somehow
it gave him infinite satisfaction to think of Mary's father in that
familiar fashion. He, to put up boards about trespassers in the woods!
Who was he?
Eloquent ignored the fact that they were the same boards that had been
there in old Mr Ffolliot's time, and badly needed repainting.
That little boy, too, who first appeared to suspect him of poaching,
and then expressed sorrow that he would not stay to tea. What an
extraordinary family they seemed to be!
The girl had actually owned to being constantly suspected of all sorts
of damage, and not always wrongfully either. He was devoured by
curiosity as to what forms her lawlessness could take.
"A bit of a gawk" her young brother had called her. How dared he?
"Goddess," thought Eloquent, was much more appropriate than gawk. He
had no very clear conception of a goddess, but vaguely pictured a woman
fair and simple and superb and young--not quite so young as Mary
Ffolliot. It was only during the last year or two that he had read any
poetry, and he was never quite sure whether he liked it or not. It was
upsetting stuff he considered, vaguely disquieting and suggestive. Yet
there were times when it came in useful. It said things for a chap
that he couldn't say for himself. It expressed the inexpressible . . .
in words. It synthesised and formulated fantastic and illusive
experiences.
His youthful facility in learning "bits" of prose by heart had not
deserted him, and he found verse even easier to remember; in fact,
sometimes certain stanzas would recur with irritating persistency when
he didn't want them at all; and in thinking of this, to him, new type
of girl, there flowed into his mind the lines:
"Walking in maiden wise,
Modest and kind and fair,
The freshness of spring in her eyes
And the fulness of spring in her hair."
Gawk, indeed! that little boy ought to have his head smacked.
And having come to a definite condition at last, he found he had
reached his aunt's house. The lamp was lit in the parlour and the
blind was down, for it was already quite dark. He had taken
twenty-five minutes to walk from Mr Ffolliot's gates to his aunt's
house.
Miss Gallup, plump, ruddy, and garrulous, very like her brother Abel
with her round pink face and twinkling eyes, was greatly delighted to
see him.
"You've come to your old aunt first thing, Eloquent," she cried
triumphantly, "which is no more than I expected, though none the less
gratifying, and you nearly a member and all. How things do come to
pass, to be sure. I wish as your poor father had lived to see this
day, and you going into parlyment with the best of 'em."
"Don't say 'going in,' aunt," Eloquent expostulated. "It's quite on
the cards that they won't elect me. Personally, I think they would
have done better to put up a stronger candidate. Marlehouse is always
looked upon as a safe Tory seat; you know Mr Brooke has been member for
a long time, and was unopposed at the last election."
"An' never opens his mouth in London from one year's end to the other,
sits and sleeps, so I've heard, and leaves the rest to do all the
talking and bills and that. My dear boy, don't tell me! Marlehouse
folk's got too much sense to give the go-by to one as can talk and was
born amongst 'em, and they all know you."
"But, Aunt Susan, I thought you were ever such a Tory. What has become
of all your political convictions, if you want me to get in?"
Miss Gallup laughed. "Precious little chance; I had of _'aving_ any
convictions all the years I kept house for your dear father; an' a
pretty aunt I'd be if I could go against you now. Politics is all very
well, but flesh and blood's a deal more, an' a woman wouldn't be half a
woman if she didn't stand by her own. It don't seem to matter much
which side's in. There'll be plenty to find fault with 'em whichever
it is, and anyway from all I can hear just now you're on the winnin'
side, so 'vote for Gallup,' says I, an' get someone as'll speak up for
you--and not sit mumchance for all the world like a stuckey image night
after night. Your bag come by the carrier all right yesterday. And
now you must want your tea after that long walk--but, good gracious me,
boy, have you met with an accident, or what, that you're all over with
mud like that? You aren't hurted, are you?"
Eloquent again explained his mishap, but he said nothing about Mary
Ffolliot. His aunt took him to the back-door and brushed him
vigorously, then they both sat down to tea in her exceedingly cosy
sitting-room.
"Do you like being back here again after all these years, Aunt Susan?"
asked Eloquent. "I suppose everything has changed very much since you
lived here before."
"Not so much as you'd think; and then the _place_ is the same, and as
one grows older that counts for a lot. When one's young, one's all for
change and gallivantin', but once you're up in years 'tis the old
things you cares for most; 'an when I heard as the house I was born in
was empty I just had to come back. Redmarley village don't change,
because no one can build. Mr Ffolliot sees to that; not one rood of
land will he sell, and the old houses looks just the same as when I was
a little girl. Your father he left Redmarley when he was fourteen, and
went 'prentice to the 'Golden Anchor,' an' he never cared for the
village like me. I hardly knew him when I was young, he being twelve
years older than me, and him coming home but seldom."
"It must make a good deal of difference having a family at . . . the
Manor," said Eloquent, with studied carelessness. He had nearly said
"the Manshun," after the fashion of the villagers.
"Of course it do. There's changes there, if you like."
"I suppose you sometimes see . . . the young people?"
"See them? I should just think we do, _and_ hear them and hear _about_
them from morning to night. There never was more mixable children than
the young Ffolliots."
"How many are there?" Eloquent tried to keep his voice cool and
uninterested, but he felt as he used to feel when he was a child in
"hiding games," when some one told him he was "getting warm."
"Well, there's Mr Grantly, he's the eldest; he's going to be an officer
in the army like his grandpa; he's gone apprentice to some shop."
"What?" asked Eloquent, in astonishment.
"I thought it a bit queer myself, but Miss Mary herself did say it.
'Grantly's gone to the shop,' she said, 'to learn to be a soldier'; and
I said, 'Well, the gentry's got more sense than I thought for, if they
gives 'em a trade as well.' And Miss Mary she said again, he'd gone to
a shop right enough, and went off laughing."
"But that's impossible," said Eloquent. "He must have gone either to
Sandhurst or Woolwich; there's nowhere else he could go."
"She never mentioned neither of those names. 'Shop,' she said . . .
you needn't look at me like that, Eloquent . . . I'm positive."
"You were telling me how many children there were," Eloquent remarked
pacifically, "Grantly, the eldest son, and then . . . ?"
"I'm getting warm," his mind kept saying.
"Then Miss Mary, just a year younger, very like her mother she is . . .
in looks, but she hasn't got the gumption of Mrs Ffolliot. That'll
come, perhaps . . . later. A bit of a tomboy she's bin, but she's
settling down."
"I suppose she is nearly grown up?"
"Between seventeen and eighteen, she'll be, but not done up her hair
yet--that's Mr Ffolliot's doin's; he's full of fads as an egg's full o'
meat. Then there's the twins, Uz and Buz they calls 'em. They're at
Rugby School, they are, but they'll be home for the holidays almost
directly. I can't say I'm partial to scripture names myself, and only
last time he was here I asked Mr Grantly what they called them that
for, when there was so many prettier names in our language, and he
said, quite solemn like, 'Uz his first-born and Buz his brother, that's
why, you see.' And I said, 'but they're twins, sir'; and he said, 'but
Uz was born five minutes before Buz, so it's quite correct,' and went
off laughing. They're always laughing at something, those children."
"Then are there just the four?' asked Eloquent, who knew perfectly well
there were more.
"Oh, bless you, no; there's Master Ger; now I call him the pick of the
bunch, the most conformable little chap and full of sense: he'll talk
to you like one of yourselves; he's everybody's friend, is Master Ger.
Miss Kitten's the youngest, and a nice handful she is. She and Master
Ger does everything together, and they do say as she's the only one as
don't care two pins for her papa; nothing cows her, she'd sauce the
king himself if she got the chance."
"From what you say, I gather that they seem to do pretty much as they
like," Eloquent remarked primly.
"Outside they do, but in the house they say those poor children's
hushed up something dreadful. Mr Ffolliot's a regular old Betty, he
never ought to have had one child, let alone six. He's always reading
and writing and studying and sitting with his nose in a book, and then
he complains of nerves. I'd nerve him if I was his wife--but she's all
for peace, poor lady, and I suppose she makes the best of a bad job."
"Is she unhappy?" Eloquent demanded, with real solicitude.
"If she is, she don't show it, anyhow. She goes her way, and he goes
his, and her way's crowded with the children, and there it is."
"Are you thinking of going to church, Aunt Susan?"
Miss Gallup looked surprised.
"Well, no, not if you don't want to come. I generally go, but I'm more
than willing to stop with you."
"But I'd like to go," Eloquent asserted, and got very red in the face
as he did so. "I don't think I've ever been in the church here."
"Well, there's no chapel as you could go to if you was ever so minded.
Old Mr Molyneux mayn't be so active as some, but there's never been no
dissent since he was vicar, and that's forty years last Michaelmas."
"What about my father?" Eloquent suggested.
"Your dear father got his dissenting opinions and his politics in
Marlehouse, not here."
"Then I'm afraid I shan't get many votes from this village," said
Eloquent, but he said it cheerfully, as though he didn't care.
"That's for you to see to," Miss Gallup said significantly; "there's no
tellin' what a persuasive tongue mayn't do."
As Eloquent walked through the darkness with his aunt, he heard her
cheerful voice go rippling on as in a dream. He had no idea what she
talked about, his whole mind was concentrated in the question: "Will
she be there?"