Thursday was the day for making the butter, and one Thursday in the
beginning of June of the year I am recording, I walked along the
flag-stones of the court-yard towards the dairy, that stood somewhat
detached from the house. I hummed softly to myself as I went; I was
happy. I could not have told why I was happy--for Joyce was away, and I
should have been lonely. But the June was fair and pleasant, and I was
young and strong.
Mother had a special pride in her dairy. The broad, low pans stood in
their order on the dressers along the white-tiled walls, each of the
four "meals" in its place; the household cream set apart, and other
clean pans ready for the fresh setting. The warm summer breeze came
through the trellised shutters, that let the air in day and night,
and through the open door, around which the midsummer roses clustered
thickly and the honeysuckle twined its sweet tendrils.
Beyond the door one could see the square of grass-plot, with the wide
border running round it, in which old-fashioned flowers stood up
against the brick wall; and over the wall one could see just a little
strip of marsh and sea in the distance. Mother had not come in yet; but
Reuben had churned before daybreak, and now Deborah stood lifting the
butter out of the churn ready for the washing and pressing.
"Have you seen Reuben anywheres about?" said she, sharply, as I came in.
I knew by her voice that she was annoyed.
"Yes," said I; "I've just left him. Do you want him?"
"I want a few fagots for my kitchen fire; but nowadays there's no
getting no one to do nothing," answered she. "Reuben was never much for
brains, but he used to be handy; but now--if there's nothing, there's
always something for Reuben to do."
"Dear me! How's that?" asked I.
Deborah was silent. She had said already far more than was her
wont--for Deborah was not one to talk, and generally kept her
grievances to herself.
"The butter'll want a deal o' pressing and washing this morning," said
she. "The weather's sultry, and it hasn't come clean."
I was turning up my sleeves. "Dear me! Then it'll take a long time?"
said I. I hated washing the butter; it was dull work.
"Sure enough it will," laughed Deborah, grimly. "What do you want to be
doing? You haven't half the heart in the work that your sister has!"
"Ah no," I agreed. "I'm not so clever at it as Joyce is."
"You can be clever enough when you choose," said the old woman, sagely.
"I dare say you could be clever enough teaching this Mr. Harrod his way
about the farm if you were wanted to."
I looked up quickly. I think I blushed. Why did Deb say that? But why
should I blush because she had said it?
"Indeed, I shouldn't think of trying to teach Mr. Harrod anything,"
said I, trying to laugh.
"What! Has he turned out sharp enough to please you after all?" asked
she, with that peculiar snort which it was her fashion to give when she
wanted to be disagreeable. "I thought you were of a mind that nobody
could be clever enough over this precious farm, unless you was to show
them how."
"Fiddlesticks!" said I.
It was very annoying of Deborah to want to put me in a bad temper when
I had come in in such a good one.
"Have you seen your father?" asked she, presently.
"No," replied I. "Does he want me?"
"He was asking for you. Wanted you to go up and show this young chap
the field where he wants the turnips put."
The bailiff again. What was the matter with Deborah, that she could not
leave me and him alone?
"Mr. Harrod knows his way about the country quite well enough by this
time to find it for himself," I said.
I did not look at Deborah, but I knew very well that her face wore a
kind of expression of defiant mischief with which I was familiar.
"I'm sorry you're still set again the poor young man," said she,
provokingly.
But there was a very different ring in her voice when she spoke
again in a few minutes, and when I looked up I saw that an unwonted
gentleness had overspread her hard, rough features.
"If you haven't seen your father since breakfast," she added, "maybe
you don't know as he's had another o' them queer starts at his heart."
"No. What kind of thing?" asked I, frightened.
"Oh, you know; same as he had in the winter, only not so bad. There,
you needn't be terrified," added she; "it's nothing bad much--only
lasted a minute or two. He called and asked me for a glass of water,
and I fetched the missis. He was better afore she came. But it's my
belief he's neither so young nor so well as he was."
This was evident; but neither Deb nor I saw the joke--we were too
serious.
"And it's my belief he's fretting over something, Margaret," added she,
gravely. "So if this here new chap saves him any bother, I suppose folk
should need be pleased."
I wondered whether Deborah meant this as an excuse for my being
pleased, or as a rebuke for my not being pleased. I think now that she
meant it as neither, but rather as a rebuke to herself. I took it to
heart, however, and the tears rushed to my eyes.
Had I been really anxious to save father all possible worry over this
innovation? Had I done all I could to help Mr. Harrod settle down in
his place? I was not sure. I thought I would do more, and yet I thought
I would not do more. Oh, Margaret, Margaret! were you quite honest
with yourself at that time? I took up a fresh lump of butter and began
washing it blindly.
"Come, come, you're not going the right way about it! You'll never get
the milk out that way!" cried Deborah, coming up to me.
"No, no--I know," answered I, impatiently; and then, incoherently,
"but, oh dear me! what is the right way?"
Deborah laughed, but gently enough. She was a clever old woman, and she
knew that I was not alluding to the butter.
"Well, I don't rightly know myself," said she, without looking at me.
"What you thinks the right way, most times turns out to be the wrong
way; and when you make folk turn to the right when they was minded to
turn to the left, it's most like the left would ha' been the best way
for them to travel after all. I've done advisin' long ago; for it's a
queer tract of country here below, and every one has to take their own
chance in the long-run."
This speech of Deb's had given me time to choke down my ridiculous
tears and put on my usual face again; for I should indeed have been
ashamed to be caught crying when there was nothing in the world to cry
about; and just as she finished speaking, mother's figure came past the
window, walking slowly, Squire Broderick at her side.
"Oh dear me! whatever does squire want at this time o' day?" cried I,
impatiently. "He shouldn't need to come so often, now Joyce is away."
Deborah looked at me warningly. The latticed shutters, although they
looked closed, let in every sound; and indeed I don't know what
possessed me to make the speech, for I had no dislike to the squire. I
suppose I was still a little ruffled.
"You might keep a civil tongue in your head?" grumbled Deborah, angrily.
The squire was, I have said, a great favorite with the old woman, who
was, so to speak, on the Tory side of the camp, although she would have
been puzzled to explain the meaning of the word.
Mother was talking to the squire in her most doleful voice--a voice
that she could produce at times, although she was certainly not by
nature a doleful woman.
"It has upset me very much," she was saying, and I knew she was
alluding to father's indisposition. "He says it is only rheumatics,
and I hope it is; but it makes me uneasy. He's not the man he was, and
I can't help fancying at times that he has something on his mind that
worries him."
The very same words that Deborah had used; but what father should have
specially to worry him I could not see.
"He gives too much thought to these high-flown notions of his, Mrs.
Maliphant, that's what it is," answered the squire, testily. "It's
enough to turn any man's brain."
"Oh, I don't think it's that. I think it cheers him up to think of the
misery of the working-classes," declared mother, simply, without any
notion of the contradiction of her speech. "I'm sure he's quite happy
when he gets a letter from your nephew about the meetings over this
children's institution. It's a notion of his own, you see, and he's
pleased with it, as we all are with what we have fancied out. Not but
what I do say it is a beautiful notion," added mother, loyally. "I pity
the poor little things myself; no one more."
This was true. It was the only one of father's "wild notions" that
mother had any touch of.
I noticed that the squire had frowned at the mention of Frank's name.
He always did; I thought I knew why.
"Yes; that's all very fine, ma'am," he said, "but the trouble is that
it won't make his crops grow. No; and paying his laborers half as much
again as anybody else won't make his farm pay."
Mother looked at the squire anxiously.
"Do you think the farm doesn't pay?" asked she. "Do you suppose it's
that as is making Laban fidgety?"
"How should I know, my dear lady?" answered the squire, in the same
irritable way--he was very irritable this morning--"Maliphant knows his
own affairs."
Mother was silent.
"Well, I hope this young fellow is going to do a deal o' good to the
farm, and to my husband too," added she, cheerfully. "I look to a great
deal from him, and I can't be grateful enough to you, Squire Broderick,
for having settled the matter for us. He's a plain-speaking, sensible
young man, and I like him very much."
"Yes, Harrod is a thorough good-fellow," answered the squire, warmly.
"He _is_ plain-speaking, too much so to his elders sometimes; but it's
because he has got his whole heart in his work. He cares for nothing
else, and you can't say that of every man that works for another man's
money."
They had stopped outside the window, and had stood still there, talking
all this while. I suppose mother forgot that Deb and I were bound to be
inside doing our business, and that the lattice was open.
"I like him very much," continued she; "but I don't think Laban fancies
him much, nor yet Margaret. Margaret set her face against his coming
from the first, you see. It was natural, I dare say. She had been
used to do a good bit for her father; and when Margaret sets her face
against anything--well, you can't lead her, it's driving then. It's
just the same when she wants a thing. You may drive and drive, but you
won't drive her away from that spot. It's very hard to know how to
manage a nature like that, Mr. Broderick, especially when you've been
used to a girl that's as gentle as Joyce is. But there, they both have
their goods and their ills. Far be it from their mother to deny that."
Squire Broderick laughed, and then mother laughed too, and they both
came forward round the corner and in at the door. Mother started a
little when she saw me, and the squire smiled curiously. But I did not
smile; I was boiling over with anger.
"Why, Deborah, you have set to work early," said mother, without
looking at me. "Why didn't you call me?"
"I didn't know as there was any need to call," answered Deborah,
roughly, and I believe in my heart that she was the more rough because
she didn't like mother's speech about me. "You've your work to do,
ma'am, and I've mine. I supposed as you'd come when you wanted to, but
that was no reason why Margaret and I should wait about, twirling our
thumbs."
Mother did not reply. I felt the squire's gaze still upon me, and I
looked up and gave him a bold, angry glance. I am sure that my eyes
must have flashed, and I think that my lips were set in the hard lines
that mother used to tell me made me look so ugly. I hated the squire to
look at me, and he seemed to guess it, for he turned away at once, and
afterwards I remembered how he had done it, and that somehow his face
had looked almost tender.
But mother did not seem to care a bit that I should have overheard what
she said; she began turning up the skirt of her soft gray gown, and
rolling up her sleeves. Mother always wore gray when she did not wear
the old black satin brocade that had belonged to her own mother, and
which only came out on high-days and holidays. She had said she would
never put on colors again when our little brother died many years ago;
and I am glad she never did, for I should not like to remember her in
anything but the soft tones that became her so well. Black, gray or
white--she never wore anything else.
"The dairy is not what it is when Joyce is at home," said she,
deprecatingly, to the squire.
"Well, to be sure, ma'am, I don't see what's amiss with it," declared
Deborah. "It's hard as them as go away idling should be put above them
as stay at home and work."
I looked at Deborah in surprise. She was not wont to set Joyce down.
"Why, the place looks as if you could eat off the floor. What more do
you want, Mrs. Maliphant?" laughed the squire, coming up and standing
beside me. "And I'm sure nobody could make up a pat better than Miss
Margaret."
"Margaret has been more used to out-door work," said mother, at which
Deb gave one of her snorts, I did not know why, except out of pure
contradiction, for she had blamed my butter-making herself five minutes
before.
"You seem to have plenty of cream," said the squire, walking round.
"Yes," answered mother; "our cows are doing well now, though Daisy will
give richer cream to her pail than all the rest put together." Then she
added, without looking at me, "Margaret, you need not do any more just
now. Your father was asking for you. Go to him, and come back when he
has done with you."
I wiped my arms silently, and turned down my sleeves. I had not said
a single word since she had come in. She looked at me, but I would
not return her glance. I was a wrong-headed, foolish girl, and when I
thought that mother had been unjust to me I tried to make her suffer
for it.
I walked straight out of the dairy without a word to any one, and it
was not till I was outside that I saw that the squire had followed me.
He was talking to me, so I had to listen him.
"Yes," I said, vaguely, in answer to him--for of course the remark,
although I had not entirely caught it, had been about my sister, "yes,
Joyce is very well; but she is not coming back just yet. I don't want
her to come back just yet. I think it's so good for her to be away.
When she is at home, mother wants her every minute. It isn't always
to do something, but it's always to be there. And Joyce is good. She
always seems pleased to have no free life of her own. But she can't
really _be_ pleased. _I_ couldn't. Anyhow, it can't be good for her to
be so dreadfully unselfish; do you think so?"
In my eagerness I was actually taking the squire into my confidence. He
smiled.
"Miss Joyce always appeared to me to be very contented, doing the
things about the house that your mother wished," said he. "You mustn't
judge every one by yourself. People generally try to get something of
what they want, I fancy. Your sister isn't so independent as you are."
"No," agreed I, gloomily, "she isn't. She's what folk call more
womanly. I never was intended for a woman. Father always says I ought
to have been a boy."
"I don't think women are all unwomanly because they're independent,"
said the squire. And then he added, in a lower voice, "I don't think
you're unwomanly."
We had come round by the lawn, and we stood there a moment before the
porch. The bees were busy among the summer flowers, and the scent of
roses and mignonette, of sweet-peas and heliotrope, was heavy upon
the air. The sun streamed down on our heads and upon the green marsh
beneath the cliff and upon the sea in the distance. It was a bright,
hot, June day. I was just going in-doors, when the squire laid his hand
on my arm.
"Wait a minute, Miss Margaret, I want to say something to you," he said.
I looked at him, surprised. Was he going to ask me to intercede with
Joyce for him? If so, he had come very decidedly to the wrong person.
But something in his face made me look away.
"I won't keep you long," said he.
And then he paused, while I waited with my face turned aside.
"I don't think you'll take what I'm going to say amiss, Miss Margaret,"
he went on at last. "I've known you such a long time--ever since
you were a little girl--that I don't feel as though I were taking
a liberty, as I should if you were a stranger. I don't suppose you
remember how I used to help you scramble out of the dikes when you got
a ducking on the marsh after the rainfalls, and how I used to take you
into the house-keeper's room at the Manor to have your frock dried, so
that you should not get into a scrape? But _I_ remember it very well,
and the cakes that you used to love with the blackberry jam in them,
and the rides that you used to have on my back after the school feasts."
He paused a moment, as though for an answer. I gave him none, but I
remembered all that he alluded to very well.
"You don't mind my speaking, do you?" repeated he again.
"Oh no, I don't mind," answered I, with a little laugh.
"Having known you like that all your life, I care for you so much,"
continued he, "that I can't bear to see you doing yourself an
injustice."
I looked at him now straight. I felt annoyed, after all, at what I
knew he was going to say. But the kindness and gentleness of his face
disarmed me.
"You mean that I don't behave well to my mother," said I, the flush of
sudden vexation dying away from my face. "Mother doesn't understand me.
I can't always be of the same mind as she is. I don't see why people
need always be of the same mind as their relations; but it doesn't
follow that they're ungrateful and heartless, because they are not.
I've heard mother say that she doesn't believe that I care any more for
her than for any tramp upon the high-road; but that isn't true."
The squire laughed.
"No; of course it isn't true," said he, "and Mrs. Maliphant doesn't
think it."
"Oh yes, I think she does sometimes," persisted I. "She would like me
to be like Joyce. But I shall never be like Joyce!"
"No," assented the squire, decidedly, "I don't think you ever will be.
But it was not specially with reference to your mother that I was going
to speak to you, although what I was going to say bears, I fancy, on
what vexed her to-day."
I bit my lip. Was he going to refer to Mr. Harrod? He paused again.
"Your father is very much harassed and troubled, I fear, Miss
Margaret," he said next. "I have noticed, with much grief of late, how
sadly he seems to have aged."
"Do you think so?" said I. "I don't know what he should have to be
harassed about."
"The conduct of a farm is a very harassing thing: it takes all a man's
thought and care. And even then it doesn't always pay," said the
squire, gravely.
I did not answer; I was puzzled.
"Your father is getting old," continued he, "and it is hard for a man,
when he is old, to give as much attention to such things as in youth
and strength."
"I don't think he is so very old," I said, half vexed; "but perhaps he
doesn't care so much about farming as some people do. Perhaps he cares
more about other things."
"Perhaps," said the squire, evasively. Then starting off afresh, he
added, quickly, "I had hoped that this new bailiff would have relieved
him of some anxiety; but I am afraid there are inconveniences connected
with his presence which, to a man of your father's temperament, are
particularly galling."
"Well, I suppose it's natural that a man who has been his own master
all his life should mind taking a younger one's advice," said I, pretty
hotly this time.
"Of course it is," agreed the squire; "but all the same, the farm
needs a younger man's head and a younger man's heart in it before
it'll thrive as it ought. And now I'm coming to what I wanted to say,
Miss Margaret. _You_ can do more than any one else to smooth over
the difficulties. You must persuade your father to let Harrod have
his own way. He's a headstrong chap, I can see that; and he'll do
nothing, he'll take no interest, if he's gainsaid at every step. Nobody
would. There are many kinds of modern improvements that are needed at
Knellestone. Your father has always stood against them, because he
fancied it wasn't fair to the laborers; but they'll have to come, and
I know very well Harrod won't stay here long and not get them. No man
who is honest to his employer would. Now, you must be go-between," he
went on, still more earnestly, although speaking in a low voice. "You
must get your father to see things reasonably, and you must be friendly
to Harrod: show him that you take an interest in his improvements, and
persuade him that your father does also. So he will, when he sees how
they work. I can see that a vast deal depends upon you, Miss Margaret.
You're a clever girl; you can manage it--_if you will_."
I turned my face farther aside than ever; in fact, I think I turned my
back. I did not answer--I did not know what to answer.
"And you _will_, I know," added he, in a persuasive voice. "I quite
understand that it isn't pleasant to you at first, but it will become
so when you see that _you_ can do a great deal to make things smooth
when difficulties occur. I am sure it must be a great comfort to
you to think of how much there still is in which you can help your
father--quite as much as there used to be in the past, when you had it
more your own way. No one else can help him as you can help him."
"Oh, I don't really think he wants help," said I--but rather by way of
saying something than from conviction.
"Well, I think he wants more than you fancy," persisted the squire.
"I would not for worlds cast a shadow over your young life, Miss
Margaret," he went on, earnestly; "but I feel that it is the part of a
true friend that I should, in a certain measure, do so. Your mother is
a tender helpmeet and an admirable nurse, I know; but there are other
things needed for a man besides physic and poultices. The time may come
when he may turn to you for some things, and I think you should make
yourself ready for that time."
He said no more. But after a few moments he held out his hand.
"Good-bye," said he. "Whenever you want a friend, I don't need to tell
you that you have got one at the Manor."
He was gone, and I had stood there with downcast head, and had
answered never a word. I did not at the time understand all that he
had said, nor what he had meant by his doubts and his fears, although
in after-years his words came back to me very vividly, as did also
other words of Deborah's; but one thing was very clear to me even then,
and that was that everybody--from Joyce and Deborah to mother and the
squire--considered that I ought to make friends with the new bailiff,
and that I had not yet done so sufficiently.