BAX'S FARM
George Hardy and Miss Julia Armstrong sat down to supper at the little
round table; Bax lurked as if he would wait; Hardy said they could
manage very well without him, and the pair fell to. The window was
open, and all the rich, decaying perfumes of the autumn evening floated
into the atmosphere, and sweetened it with the incense of the night.
Hardy looked at his companion, and felt again the delight he used to
take in the contemplation of her shape. The same old suggestion was in
her--that of the Vivandière. But why? He could not have explained, and
neither can I. Every movement was full of beauty and piquancy, and she
wore her hair parted a little on one side.
"Is your bedroom comfortable?" asked Hardy.
"A sweet, old-fashioned little room," she said, "and the bed's a
four-poster. It has curtain rings, and if I tremble in bed they will
rattle, and I shall think it the death-tick, which I hate to hear. Will
that sofa make a comfortable bed for you?"
"You are asking a sailor that question," he answered. "I would be glad
to carry it to sea with me, and sleep all around the world in it. Have
you written a farewell letter to your father?"
"No; I have left him as a spirit might, in utter silence. His wife
will not let him trouble himself. When the time comes for locking up
the bolt will be shot, and he will fill his pipe and fill his glass,
and say to his wife that he is afraid there is some truth in the
story that Mr. Gubbins was telling him about Miss Cornflower and the
Congregational minister. That is the sort of interest he will take in
my not turning up."
She frowned, and put down her knife and fork, and seemed as if she did
not mean to go on eating. Hardy poured out a glass of frothing ale. It
was a fine sparkling ale, better than champagne, and looked an elegant
drink, fit for red lips in the thin glass it brimmed with foam. She
took it and drank.
"It is hard for any girl to be in want," said Hardy; "but there is no
distress to equal that of the lady who is in poverty. What, in God's
name, can she do? She is not wanted in the kitchen, and if I were she I
would rather sell matches than be a governess."
"It is the well-to-do lady who makes it hard for the poor lady,"
exclaimed the girl. "Two years ago I got a situation as nurse to attend
an aged sick woman--she was eighty. She lived with a lady. You would
think this person would have known how to treat the daughter of an
officer in the navy, who was too poor to maintain her as a lady. Mr.
Hardy, she used to call me Armstrong, as though I was her housemaid.
I had my meals separate. When they went away for a change I was not
good enough to sit in the carriage; they made me sit on the box, and
the coachman, in the genial manner of the mews, asked me if I was the
new maid, and if my name was Jemima. When we arrived the lady told
me I must not sit with them if company came, as my presence might be
objected to. I went to my bedroom, and kept in it till I was called
out, and then returned to it."
"It is time you cleared out," said Hardy. "The soft hearts seem to be
found at sea nowadays; at all events, they are not so scarce there as
fresh eggs," said he, helping himself. "Your intentions are to get
abroad and seek a berth abroad. I should like to read the map of them.
You have saved seven pounds odd, and you arrive in London at night, and
you don't know where to go. Next day you ask your way--where? To the
docks; but what docks? London, Millwall, East India, West India, and so
on. You enter a forest without a compass. Now what are you going to do?"
"I meant to go on board ship after ship," she answered, with spirit,
"and ask anybody I saw if there was a berth for me on board."
"Did you ever see a large full-rigged ship in all your life?" he
inquired, smiling.
"Never," she replied, emphatically.
"Go to the docks, and you'll see hundreds, and there won't be one that
wants you."
"What is the name of your ship?" she asked.
"The _York_."
"Where is she going to?"
"She is bound to Australia."
"Is there no place for me in that ship?" she said. She looked at him
piteously, though her natural grace of coquetry broke through all the
same, with the planting of her hands upon her hips, and the way she
side-dropped her head at him.
"We carry no stewardess, no females, no passengers," he answered. "The
captain is a stranger to me. No, my ship is of no use to you," he
continued, after a pause. "You must call with me upon some shipping
people. There may be a vacancy for a stewardess. But suppose the ship
is sailing for India?"
She gazed at him a little vacantly.
"We shall find some means of getting abroad," he went on, running a
note of cheerfulness into his voice, for he thought by the look in the
girl's eyes that she was beginning to bend on signals of distress,
which would be hoisted in a pearly downpour presently. "At all events,
you can't be worse off than you are, and somebody says that when you
are at the bottom of the wheel the next revolution must hoist you."
They talked in this strain until they had supped, then Hardy, not
seeing a bell, opened the door and shouted to Miss Bax to clear away.
When the door was opened they could hear voices in the back room
beyond, and a gush of Cavendish tobacco smoke came in. Some friends
of Bax had called in a casual way by the back entrance, across the
fields, which meant several drinks, clouds of tobacco, and all the
gossip of the social sphere which Bax and his friends adorned. When
Miss Bax had cleared the table she placed a bottle of whisky upon it at
the request of Hardy, also cold water and glasses. She then said there
was no hurry to go to bed. Father did not go to bed until eleven, and
she left them with a smile as though they were a young married couple
spending their honeymoon in Bax's farm, instead of one of them being an
honest, generous-hearted young sailor intent on doing his dead best
to rescue a young English lady from bitter privation, and perhaps from
miserable disgrace; and the other of them being a broken-hearted girl
hurrying from a home of tyranny and drink, a home of one base nature,
and of one spiritless one (which is likewise a baseness), with a future
as dark as the night that lay outside, in whose funeral tapestries her
imagination alone could have beheld the stirrings of the life that was
to give her content and liberty, in whose impenetrable depths she found
no more than a minute gleam of light from Hardy's strange and chanceful
encounter with her while she lay in a swoon deep as death.
With her consent the sailor lighted a pipe. The girl sat in a chair
opposite to him, her head a little on one side, hands on her hips, all
in the old, fascinating, coquettish, incommunicable way. Outside the
night lay in a thin gloom, and they saw the stars shining above the
trees. The hush of the sleeping land was in the air. You heard nothing
but the silver tinkling of a natural fall of water that ran down the
hillside, and fell purely in a stone bowl for men, horses, and dogs to
drink.
"You are a plucky girl," said Hardy; "but I think you are attempting
more than you understand. You talk, for instance, of going to the
workhouse. You are the last girl in the world to go to the workhouse.
Think of dying in a workhouse," he continued, whilst she watched him
without smiling. "Creatures bend over your bed, and say, 'Isn't she
gone yet?' That's the sympathy of the workhouse."
"I want to get out of England, abroad, and be independent," said Julia.
He looked at an old clock upon the mantelpiece. The hour was about
eight. He asked her if she would have some whisky and water, and on
her declining, he mixed a draught for himself, then went to the door
and called to Bax, leaving the girl to wonder what he meant to do. The
farmer arrived.
"Bax," said the sailor, "you have given us a capital supper."
"I'm much obliged to you, sir," answered Bax.
"This is an excellent whisky," continued Hardy, "and I drink your
health"--here he sipped--"and the health of your worthy daughter"--here
he sipped again--"in your very hospitable gift."
Bax grinned, and said, "We make no charge. You're my guests, and you're
welcome."
"Bax," said Hardy, "haven't you a spring cart?"
"Yes," answered Bax.
"Got a horse?"
"Got a pretty little mare."
"Will you drive me over to Captain Armstrong's as soon as possible to
fetch this young lady's luggage?"
Julia started in her chair, and said, "Don't trouble, Mr. Hardy. My
father will send the box on to me when he gets my address in London."
"How d'ye know he will?" inquired Hardy.
"Ah!" murmured Bax.
"Suppose the stepmother declines to let the box go?" said Hardy. "Now
you'll want all the clothes you've got and can get, Miss Armstrong, if
you mean to colonise. Bax, bear a hand, my lad; clap your mare to the
cart, and report when you're ready."
He spoke as if he was on the quarter-deck of a ship and making the
sailors jump for their lives, and Bax went out, saying, "I'll not be
ten minutes."
"How good you are to me!" exclaimed Julia, gathering the side of her
pocket-handkerchief unconsciously, and looking at him with eyes that
seemed to tremble with emotion. "What should I have done had you not
found me? I might have died under that hedge."
"Let me see," said Hardy; "how far off from here does your father live?"
She reflected and answered, "Quite six miles."
"Well, we shall be back with your box before ten. Don't sit up; you
want all the rest you can get. To-morrow will be full of business."
"Oh!" cried Julia, "I hope there will be no trouble. Father may--He
won't like you to know that I have run away. He may insist upon
returning with you, or coming here."
"If he is at home he may, and we'll give him a lift with pleasure."
"I should refuse to meet him," cried the girl, standing up in a sudden
passion of indignation. "He has seen me suffer and has looked on. If he
comes here it is not for me, but for _that_," and she pointed to the
bottle of whisky.
"You shall have your box of clothes, anyhow," said Hardy, smoking
coolly and looking at the girl; and three minutes after he had said
this Miss Bax came in, and reported that "father and the cart was at
the gate."
"Don't let Miss Armstrong sit up," said Hardy. "Do those chaps back
talk very loud?"
"When they arguefy," answered Miss Bax. "They're wrangling over the
age of the queen now."
"Well, when Miss Armstrong goes to bed silence them," said Hardy, "for
I want the lady to sleep well. We shall meet at breakfast," said he,
turning to Julia and taking her hand.
"I shall wait up for you. How could I sleep?" she replied.
He smiled, but answered nothing, filled and relighted his pipe, and
walked out.
The drive was pleasant, down-hill. The road stretched before them like
satin with the dust of it, and many spacious groups of trees lifted
their motionless shapes against the sky-line of the tall land and the
stars twinkling above it. Specks of light in houses reposed like glow
worms in the deep shades of the valley and up the acclivities, but the
river streamed in blackness, and the lamps of a small town past the
railway station were lost behind the bend.
Hardy stared at his father's house as they drove past, always in
darkness on this side, but he knew there would be lights in the windows
which overlooked the grounds that sank toward the river.
The house Captain Armstrong lived in was two miles further on round
the corner, and made one of about a dozen little villas and cottages,
including a church and a public-house. It was a very small cottage,
thatched; but its sun-bright windows, its handsome door and brass
knocker--the taste, in short of the man who had built it in years gone
by--made it very fit for the occupation of a gentleman. It was sunk
deep in a broad piece of garden land, and the apple-trees, whose boughs
were laden, scented the still night air refreshingly.
"Here we be," said Bax, drawing up, and the sailor sprang off the cart,
and walked down the path to the door with the brass knocker.
He hammered briskly, and tugged at a metal knob which shivered a little
bell into ecstasies of alarm. A small dog barked shrilly with terror
and hate, and in a minute the door was opened by a servant, past whom
the small dog fled, and tried to marry his teeth in Hardy's right boot.
A kick rushed the little beast back into the passage, and Hardy said to
the servant, "I have called for Miss Armstrong's trunk."
"Oh, indeed," she said, looking behind her.
"Yes, indeed," he exclaimed. "I'm in a hurry. I've six miles to go. Is
Captain Armstrong in?"
"No," was the answer, and as the servant spoke a door on the right of
the passage was thrown open, and the figure of a stout woman stood
between Hardy and the flame of the oil-float which illuminated the
passage at the extremity.
"Who is it? and what does he want?" said the stout figure, approaching
by two or three paces.
"I am Mr. Hardy, son of your husband's doctor," was the reply, "and I
have called for Miss Armstrong's trunk. It stands ready corded in her
bedroom, and I am in a hurry."
"Where is Miss Armstrong going?" said the stout figure, who was indeed
Mrs. Armstrong.
"To the ends of the earth to escape _you_," he answered. "Bax," he
roared, "fling your reins over the gate-post, and come and lend me a
hand to ship the box in your cart."
"The box shall not leave this house without Captain Armstrong's
permission," said Mrs. Armstrong, who, poor as the light was, you
could see carried a great deal of colour in her face of a streaky or
venous nature; her eyes were small, and gazed with rapid winks as
though they snapped at you as you snap the hammer of a revolver; her
bust was immense; her black hair was smoothed like streaks of paint
down her cheeks and round her ears, and she wore a cap with something
in it that nodded, giving more significance to her words than they
needed.
"Where is Captain Armstrong?" said the sailor.
"Out," was the reply.
"He'll not care whether I take it or leave it." He could not bring
himself to speak even civilly to her. "Whilst you fetch him we'll
tranship it, and the captain can get in and argue the point whilst
we drive away. Come along, Bax. Sally, show us the road to the young
lady's bedroom."
"Maria," exclaimed Mrs. Armstrong, cold and bitter, "go and knock on
Constable Rogers's door, and tell him to come here at once."
"Shall I fetch the master also?" said Maria, quivering in her figure in
the hot anticipation of rushing out.
"No, the walk is too long. I want you back, and the constable."
The girl shot up the walk.
"Bax," said Hardy, "come along. We'll easily find the room."
Bax hung in the wind.
"What's the constable a-going to say?" he muttered. "Won't it be
breaking in if we enters without the missis's leave?"
Hardy looked at him, and then stepped to the foot of the staircase.
"You dare not go up-stairs, sir!" said Mrs. Armstrong, in a voice that
trembled.
Hardy mounted.
"The constable shall lock you up," shrieked the enraged woman.
"Coom down, coom down, Mr. Hardy," sang out Bax. "The constable'll make
it right."
Hardy pulled out a box of wax matches and struck one. The landing was
in darkness, and he wanted to see. He guessed the girl's bedroom by
intuition, opened the door, and saw the trunk--a small one--seized the
handle, and dragged it to the head of the staircase. It was lighter
than a sea chest, and with a heave he settled it on his shoulder, and
went creaking down-stairs.
"I defy you to take that box out of my house without my leave," yelled
Mrs. Armstrong.
Hardy seemed cool, but his spirits were in a blaze. He regarded the
sending for a constable as an atrocious act of insolence, and he walked
past the woman, not in the smallest degree caring whether he plunged
the corner of the box into her head or not. She took care, however, to
give him a wide berth, and he passed through the house door, whilst
the little dog barked furiously at a safe distance at the end of the
passage.
"Give me a hand with this," said he to Bax. "This is no business of the
constable. The box belongs to a young lady who wants it, and I intend
that she shall have it."
"Mr. Hardy," answered Bax, "I'd rather not meddle with the box till the
constable cooms; he'll be 'ere in a minute. He allus smokes his pipe by
his fireside at this hour. If it should be the wrong box--"
"It's the right box," exclaimed Hardy, standing with the trunk on his
shoulder.
"I'd rather wait for Rogers to make it all right," said Bax.
Hardy sent a sea blessing at his head, and without another word walked
rapidly to the cart, threw the box in, took the reins off the gate,
sprang on to the seat, and drove off.
"Stop, sir; stop, for God's sake!" shouted Bax, beginning to run. But
he was too fat to run. He was blowing hard when he gained the road, and
stood staring after his cart. Hardy whipped the mare into a gallop, and
gained the farm in half the time that Bax would have taken to measure
the ground. He drew up at the gate, secured the horse by the reins,
and, shouldering the trunk, marched to the door, and was admitted by
Miss Bax.
"Where's father?" was her first cry.
"I left him enjoying a yarn with Mrs. Armstrong," answered Hardy,
thrusting with the trunk into the room, where Julia was still sitting
just as he had left her. "There are your clothes, Miss Armstrong," said
the sailor, lowering the box on to the floor.
"Father's come to no 'urt, I hope?" said Miss Bax, addressing Miss
Armstrong.
Hardy related exactly the story of his repulse by the insolent
stepmother, his bringing the box down-stairs alone, Bax's fear of the
law, and so forth.
"And now," said he, "as you've not gone to bed, Miss Armstrong, I'll
sit down and keep you company, and smoke one more pipe, and wait for
the constable."
"Well, if father's all right," said Miss Bax, "he'll be here with the
constable, and soon, I hope; but it's all up-hill, and his wind don't
favour him. I've got help at the back, and will put the mare up," and
thus speaking she passed out, and left the young couple alone.
"So she actually sent for a constable!" exclaimed Julia, whilst Hardy
filled his pipe, and looked at the grog bottle on the table. "Could you
imagine a more horrible woman?"
"Here are the goods anyhow," said Hardy, striking a match. "It's your
box, of course--I mean, I've made no mistake, I hope."
"Certainly it is my box," she exclaimed, slightly flushing and poising
her hands on her hips, and dropping her head at him in a posture that
brightened his eyes with delight, "and all I possess in this wide world
is in it."
"I would not like to be the constable if he touches it or is even
insolent over it," said Hardy, stretching backwards his broad
shoulders, with a glance at himself in the little fly-protected mirror.
He then poured out some whisky and water, and sat down near Julia.
"She did not express any astonishment at my leaving home?" said the
girl.
"The dog did most of the talk," he answered, "and made for my choicest
corn," and he looked at his boot, which exhibited the indent of the
beast's teeth. "How your father could have--"
"Was she drunk?" asked Julia.
"I dare say she was. Some people get drunk without showing it. Miss
Armstrong, I am no longer surprised that you should run away."
She smiled, but with mingled sadness and bitterness, and said, "If my
father comes in with Bax and the constable, I shall walk out, and I beg
you to give me your protection, Mr. Hardy, and to save me from seeing
him."
Hardy bowed, but made no answer. He was a man of careless thoughts and
many heedless views in all sorts of directions, a sailor, in short,
whose horizon was salt and limited, yet he could not help feeling
shocked at the extravagance of fear and dislike which the half-pay
captain had by bitter neglect and a Christless marriage excited in
the breast of a girl who seemed a true-hearted, heroic young woman,
beautiful of figure, and with a face of romantic interest.
"Can the constable do anything if he comes?" she asked.
"Oh, yes," answered the sailor, "he can walk out. In what law book is
it written that a man may not possess his own? That is yours," said he,
pointing to the trunk, "and if Constable Rogers touches it we'll have
him before the magistrates, of whom, by the way, my father is one."
He looked at her very thoughtfully, and she looked at him till her gray
eyes drooped to her lap. The Persian kitten had left the room, and she
had nothing to toy with but her handkerchief. Now, by the expression of
Hardy's face, you could have said that he fastened his eyes upon her,
not out of feeling, nor out of the sense of being alone with her, nor
of the enjoyment of the spectacle of her matchless figure, but because
he was maturing thoughts concerning her well-being. He had certainly a
most honest face, and you tasted the manliness of his nature in each
utterance and in every smile.
"I want to talk to you," said he, "about our arrival in London. I
must get you close to the docks. I'll put you in the way of making a
few inquiries whilst I am busy on board my ship; meanwhile I shall be
asking questions."
"Oh, Mr. Hardy, what should I have done had I not met you?" she cried,
in an irrepressible outburst of gratitude, and again he saw tears in
her eyes, for she had lived hard and had fared hard for some years now,
and kindness easily broke her down, as one long divorced from home will
melt on her return to the sound of the music that her mother loved and
sang to her.
"Do you know London?" said the sailor.
"I was never in London," she answered.
"Have you ever seen a ship?"
"I came home in a ship from India," she replied, "but I was too young
to remember the vessel."
"You will not like the East End of London," said Hardy. "I don't know
why sailors should make the places they live in dirty, yet it is true
that after leaving Whitechapel the closer you draw to the docks, the
grimier life looks. Jack has spent his money, you see, and is going
away tipsy and ragged, and what he leaves behind him is anything but
sweet, and they serve him as though he were a Yahoo. Look at his
lodging-house and his boarding-house, at the dens in which he revolves
to the ghastly notes of a black fiddler, with objects fit only to be
lectured upon, or for the show of a Barnum. Take his line of railway,
the Blackwall line; the farmers wouldn't send their swine to market in
the carriages, and so the sailor travels in them."
"How long have you been at sea, Mr. Hardy?"
"I went to sea when I was fourteen years old, and I am now twenty-six."
"In twelve years you have become a mate?"
"Chief mate," he said.
"Oh," she exclaimed, "what would I give if you carried a stewardess,
and your captain would consent to take me!"
"I wish it could be contrived," said he, in his plain, straight way,
"but owners never ship people they don't want. Even if I had influence,
an objection would be raised that you were the only woman on board."
"But I have read," she exclaimed, "that a captain takes his wife to
sea, and she may be the only woman in the ship."
"Ay, but she's the captain's wife," he answered, with a smile, "and if
she were a shipload of females she couldn't be more."
They then began to talk of London and the East End, of a convenient
part to take a lodging in, how it was certain that she must obtain
a berth somewhere or somehow before Hardy sailed; and whilst they
conversed the door opened, and Bax entered, purple with exercise and
beer.
"Well," said he, breathing comfortably, as though he had refreshed
himself before entering with rest and ale, "that was a fine trick of
yourn, Mr. Hardy."
"Never mind about that, Bax," exclaimed the young sailor, cutting him
short in his peremptory quarter-deck way. "Where's the constable?"
"He bain't cooming," answered Bax. "He knows the difference between
climbing up a hill and climbing into bed."
"Sit down, Bax, and take some whisky," said Hardy, both he and Julia
laughing; and after waiting for the farmer to mingle some whisky and
water and pull a chair, he said, "Tell us what passed, Bax."
"Well," began Bax, "it was just after you'd trotted out of sight,
with me hallering, being afraid of the law I was, when oop cooms the
maid 'long with Constable Rogers. 'Oh, Mr. Rogers,' sings out Mrs.
Armstrong, who was standin' in her door, 'the doctor's son's been 'ere
in Farmer Bax's cart, and busted into this house, and gone off with my
stepdarter's troonk agin my commands.' 'Where's your stepdarter?' said
the constable, not speaking overcivil--blamed if I thinks he likes the
woman, and he didn't love her the better for routing of him out. 'I
don't know,' answered Mrs. Armstrong. 'Yes, you do,' says I. 'She's
opp stopping in my house along with the gent as fetched her luggage.'
'What do you want me to do?' says Rogers. 'Your duty,' answers Mrs.
Armstrong, 'twixt a snap of her teeth that was like cocking a goon at
him. 'What do constables usually do when they're called in to houses
which have been busted into and goods taken, otherwise stolen, agin
orders?' Here Bax laughed slowly, as though recollecting something
in this passage of words which he could not communicate, but which,
nevertheless, he could enjoy. 'But there was no busting in here
that I can see,' says Rogers, looking at me; 'you knocked and rung,
didn't you?' 'Why, yes, of course we did,' says I, 'and the gent
spoke the lady as civil as though she had been a maid of hanner or
the queen herself.' 'Oh, what a liar, what a beast you must be!' says
Mrs. Armstrong, screaming like. 'He forces his way oop-stairs, Mr.
Constable, and brings down the box on his shoulder, me standing at the
foot of the steps, and telling him not to touch it.' 'Was he sent by
the party as the box belongs to?' asks the constable. 'Certainly he
was, Mr. Rogers,' says I. 'They're going away to-morrow by the early
train, and she naturally wanted her box to take with her.' 'There's
nothing for me 'ere to interfere with that I can see,' says Rogers,
drawing himself up, and puttin' on the face of a judge delivering a
vardick. 'The lady has a right to her own. Your door was knocked on
civilly, and the gent she asked to bring it away did so, and there's
northen for me to meddle with;' and with that, without saying good
night, he turns his back, and walks into the road, me at his side, and
she hallering arter him that he didn't do his duty, and she'd lodge a
complaint agin him, and 'ave the place cleared of a stoopid old fool.
'She's like my cat when he begins to talk to Springett's cat over the
wall,' says Mr. Rogers. 'I wish the young lady well out of it, I do.
Good-night, Mr. Bax.' So I sets off 'ome, and that's just what all
'appened."
Julia, though she had laughed and often smiled, now sat looking subdued
with grief and disgrace. It was horrible to the feelings of a lady to
possess such a stepmother as the wretch who owned the little dog that
bit, and horrible also to hear her represented and dramatised in the
language of Bax in the presence of the man who, as God had willed it,
seemed the only friend she possessed in this wide world. Nevertheless,
they continued talking until eleven o'clock, by which hour Bax had
grown too maudlin for human companionship.
Julia went to bed, and Bax rolled through the door to the back premises
to send his daughter to the young sailor. All that he requested was a
rug, a blanket, and a pillow, and then when the house was locked up,
and Miss Bax had bid him goodnight, he turned down the lamp, snugged
himself on the sofa, and lay listening to Miss Julia's restless pacing
overhead. There was sleeplessness in her walk; but the delicate
tramp of her tireless feet ceased at last. He thought of her in her
loneliness, and pity moved his heart, and he vowed that he would see
her in safety, buoyed by a full promise of independence in the future,
before he left England.
The window stood open a little way, and all night-sounds were clear.
The stream babbled in the road, and its voice was like the syllabling
of the perfumes stealing darkling down into the valley. He heard the
distant hooting of owls like the crying of idiot boys, one seeking the
other, and the thin thunder of the distant railway was a night-sound,
together with the shuddering of the dry autumn leaves upon the boughs
as though the trees shivered to the chill of the passing moan of air.
And then Hardy fell asleep.