On the day of father's funeral the sun shone and all the summer had
come back. Against a pale, fair sky, dashed with softest clouds, golden
boughs of elms made delicate metallic traceries, and crimson creepers
shot like flames across the gray walls of sober cottages. Even passing
birds had not all deserted us, and swallows swept again around the
ancient ivied aisles of the old cathedral, under whose shadows we laid
him away in the earth.
We put him under the yew-trees beside our little brother John, with his
face towards the sun's setting behind the pine-trees; every one said it
was a beautiful place for him to rest in; and Joyce wept her simple,
silent tears over the hopeful words spoken by the Rev. Cyril Morland,
whom mother had chosen to read the service. But as for me, my heart was
too hot and rebellious to shed any tears or to see any hope or comfort;
I hated the sun for shining so brightly, the world for being so fair,
and folk for thinking it natural enough that an old man should come to
an end of his life.
Yes, they spoke of it sadly, compassionately--all those many folk who
followed him to the grave; folk to whom he had told his thoughts, whom
he had helped and taught, and with whom he had sympathized in his life;
folk who would not have been what they were without him--whose friend
he had been, who would never find such another to lead them! But for
all their honest tears, they spoke of it as a worthy life brought
worthily to an end--they could think of his grave as beautiful,
whereas to me God was cruel to have taken him, and no place in the
world could be anything but cold earth that hid him from my sight.
Towards mother and Joyce my heart was soft because of the promise I had
given him with his darkening eyes looking into mine, but even towards
Joyce I was sore when I saw her bend her head towards Mr. Hoad as he
held open the gate of the graveyard for her; and it was with a grim
feeling of satisfaction, and no sense at all of the unfitness of the
occasion, that I turned aside from his out-stretched hand, and said, in
a loud voice, that every by-stander could hear: "No, Mr. Hoad, I don't
think I shall ever care to shake hands with you again. You don't fight
fair. It is through you my father lies there, and I'll never forgive
you."
I swept on after mother without even giving one glance at the angry
face I left behind, without listening to the suppressed murmur that ran
round, without even seeing the vexed, distressed look on the squire's
face close beside me. My heart was very sore, and not the less so
because I had missed around the grave one face that I had made quite
sure would be there.
The squire and I had never spoken again of Trayton Harrod since
that day when he had begged me to leave the recalling of him to his
discretion. I don't think I had seen him more than once during that
time, and then it had been about the arrangements for the funeral, when
I should not have liked to speak to him on such an apparently trivial
matter, however much I might have wished to do so. But all through
the dreadful days when we three had sat silently in the darkened
parlor, hearing no news from without save messages of condolence and
flower-tokens of humble friendship, brought in by old Deb with her
swollen eyelids--all through the time when we were waiting till they
should take away from us forever that which was left of what had once
been our own, there had come sudden waves of unbidden remembrance
mingling with my holy sorrow for the dead, and interwoven with my
regrets over the much I might have done for my dear father which it was
now too late ever to do, were other genuinely contrite thoughts, which
I resolved should not be without fruit.
I wanted to make amends for my wrong-doing, and Trayton Harrod would
not give me the chance. Where was he? Surely by this time he must have
heard of our trouble. How could he remain away? And as the dull hours
wore on from morning to evening and from evening to morning again, I
longed to see him with a heart-sick longing that not even my tears
could quench; I longed to see him, though his face might be ever so
stern, his voice ever so cruel, his hand ever so cold.
But he did not come, and on the fourth day after the funeral, mother,
awaking slowly to the knowledge of outer things and people, asked for
him. "Meg," she said, "it's very strange that Mr. Harrod hasn't been
near us all this time of our trouble. Is he sick, do you know?"
"I haven't heard, mother," said I, faintly; "but I believe he has been
away."
"Away!" echoed mother. "Well, then, he might have come back again, I
think. I wouldn't have believed he was such a fair-weather friend as
that. I thought of him so differently."
My heart swelled with a bitter remorse, for deep down there was a
little voice that told me that if Harrod was away I was not without
blame for it.
"You and he haven't had a quarrel, have you?" said mother, after a bit.
"A quarrel!" repeated I, faintly. "Oh no!"
"Well, I'm glad of that," answered she. "He's a nice lad, and it's a
pity to lose a friend. I fancied he might have been speaking to you
about something you didn't choose to be spoken to about. I'm glad it
isn't so. I wonder what keeps him away. And not so much as a line.
Well, I dare say he'll be back to-morrow."
Her voice dropped wearily; in truth, she cared very little whether he
came or not; there was only one whom she longed for, and he could never
come again.
But I--sorely as I too longed for that presence that she mourned--_I_
cared whether Trayton Harrod came again, and when he did not come I
went to get news of him. Joyce thought it very dreadful of me to go for
a walk when our dead had been but so lately laid to rest, but Joyce did
not know. She too, perhaps, wondered at his absence, but she did not
know, as I did, the reason for it.
I went out of the house, across the garden, down the cliff where I had
seen him disappear on that weird, moonlight night a month ago, down
onto the marsh. The sun had gone behind the hill, for it was afternoon,
but the sky was clear and limpid, the sea blue beyond the mellow
marsh-land; along the banks of the dikes thorn-bushes studded the
way--rosy-flushed from afar, but close at hand coral-tipped on every
slender branch; and the water, shorn of its green rush-mantle, lay
still and bare to the sky.
I walked fast till I came to the white gate that divides sheepfold from
cattle-pasture, and then I turned round to look back: if I chanced on
the squire I should get news; but there was not a living thing to be
seen on the land--I was alone with the birds and the water-rats. The
cattle had been called off the marsh when the stormy weather set in,
and I had forgotten to bring even the dog with me; it was so long since
I had been for a walk.
But the dear familiar land soothed me with its sadness. Far away upon
dikes where the scythe had not yet mown the rushes, broad streaks of
orange color followed the lines of the banks or were dashed across
the stream, tongues of flame in the sunlight. In the distance blue
smoke soared slow and straight into the pale air from the fires of
weed-burners in the ploughed furrows, and a shadow crossed the base of
the town, whose pinnacle was still white in the afternoon light. Along
the under-cliff of the Manor woods the crimson of beeches made gorgeous
patches of painting upon the sombre background of pines, and larches
held amber torches up among the paler gold of elm-trees.
God's earth was very fair, but why had he taken away all that made it
glad? Not far from here had we two first met in the rain and mist; here
had we started the lapwing in the green spring-time and scared the
cuckoo from its nest, usurped; here had we many a time followed the
game and learned the ways of birds and beasts; here had we gathered
the hay and the harvest, and watched the sheep-shearing; here had we
crossed the plain in the thunder and lightning of the storm.
And all these things would happen again--the spring and the summer and
the winter would come with their sights and their sounds, their life
and their duties; the marsh-land would always be the same, but would it
ever be the same again to me? Ah, that day I did not think so!
A shot sounded in the woods. It was the squire's keeper after the
pheasants. It awoke me from my dream, but I must have been so still
that even the rabbits thought I was not alive, for two of them ran out
across my path.
Was I alive after all? I shook myself and went slowly on to where the
marsh meets the road, and then I turned up across the ash copse on the
hill--bare already of leaves--and took the path towards "The Elms."
Yes, I had come out to hear news of Trayton Harrod, and I would not go
back without it; somehow and from somebody I would learn where he was,
and why he had gone.
I walked fast when once I got in sight of the house; my heart was
beating. It stood there--serene and solitary as usual--a bare, lonely,
uninviting house, looking out from its quiet height upon the downs and
the sheep-pastures, the sun-setting and the sunrising.
There was never anything human about "The Elms." It seemed to be intent
just upon its daily work and its daily duties, and as though it might
think that anything which interfered with them was not to be considered
or countenanced. That day it looked more inhuman, more uninviting
than ever; its white walls seemed to grin at me; its straight, tall
chimneys, whence no friendly blue smoke sought the sky, seemed to point
jeeringly away into the void. My heart sank as I climbed the hill and
opened the gate of the farm-yard. I knew why the place looked more
uninviting than ever--it was deserted, the shutters were closed, the
house door was bolted; it was as if some one had died there, as some
one had died at home.
I knocked once, loudly, in desperation, but I knew that nobody would
come. Nobody did come; nobody came, though I knocked three times; all
was still as the grave. As I walked down the hill again at last, I met
Dorcas's niece with her "youngest" in her arms.
"Lor', miss, who would ha' thought to meet you so soon after your poor
father died!" said she, reproachfully. "I've just been down to the
village to fetch some soap."
"Oh, I see. Is Mr. Harrod expected home?" asked I, lamely.
"Home!" repeated she, gaping. "Why, he's left the place this month
past. All his traps went last week."
I suppose my face showed how my heart had sunk down, for she added,
half compassionately, "Didn't you know he was going, miss?"
I pulled myself together. Miserable as I was, there was an instinct
within me that did not want strangers to guess at my misery.
"Oh yes, I knew he was going," said I, carelessly; "but of course we
have had too much to think about at home for me to remember just when
it was."
"Why, yes, of course," echoed the woman, in the commiserating tone of
her class under such circumstances. "Ah, farmer was a good man, and
none can say different! And, to tell the truth, many's the one have
thought it queer Mr. Harrod should choose this time to go away. But he
always were odd, and I suppose we must all look to our own advantage.
There's no more work to be done on poor old Knellestone farm--so folk
say--and I suppose he had heard of something as would suit him. Ah,
it's very sad after all the years the family have been on the place."
I dared not think what she meant, although I knew well enough; but this
other blow had stunned me, and I could not speak, even had I chosen to
bandy words, about poor father's affairs with a village gossip.
"I'll go up with you and look round the house," said I.
"It ain't tidied yet, miss," answered she, apologetically. "I was just
going to wash and settle it all up."
"Never mind," insisted I. "I want to look for a book," and I led the
way up the hill.
"Lor'! you won't find anything there," laughed she, following. "There
isn't anything in the place."
I went in, nevertheless. But she was right, he was gone indeed. The
homely room was deserted where I had sat in the window-seat that summer
evening reading words of Milton that I did not understand, and watching
the rising storm and the sheep cropping sleepily over the grassy
knolls. There was not a book left of all those books that I had envied,
and had thought he would think the better of me for reading; not a pipe
on the rack above the mantle-shelf; not a sign to show that he had ever
been there. And yet I saw it all before me just as it had been that
day; I felt that unseen presence that I had never seen there, just as
if he might open the door at any moment and come in.
The woman left me for a moment, and I sat down on that window-seat once
more. The sun was setting redly, as it so often set beyond those wide
marsh-lands and their boundary line of downs; the valley was full of
blue mist--blue as a wild hyacinth--against which the bended, broken,
broad-topped pine-trees laid every branch of their dark tracery,
abrupt, unsuspected, alert with individuality, strangely full of a
reserved irregular grace. I remember the picture, yet I scarcely saw
it; it must have fastened itself upon my memory, simply because it
fitted so well with my own mood. Oh me! when I had last been there
Harrod had not seen Joyce, and now I said from my heart, "Would to
God he had not seen me!" Yes, I said it from my heart; so much so
that I was not content with mere regrets, I was resolved that Trayton
Harrod should not go out into the world with that lie of mine in his
heart--not if I could help it.
I started up. I would go to the squire; I felt convinced now that the
squire knew all about Harrod's departure. The squire could at least
tell me where he was that I might write to him. I walked across the
empty room, and at the same moment Mr. Broderick opened the gate of the
yard without. Everything was happening just as it had happened that
day; but oh, with what a difference!
The squire's face grew pale--I could see that through the tanning on
it; he had not expected to see me here, and his hand trembled as he
took mine. But he said, gently: "I'm glad to see you out again. I came
to look round the place. I hope we have been lucky enough to sublet it
till your lease is up."
From a business point of view the words swam over my head, but they
were ominous. I felt that they confirmed what the woman had said. "You
think we can't afford to keep on 'The Elms?'" I asked, absently, not
daring to put the question that was at my heart.
"I think it would be unwise," answered he, evasively. "I think any one
who manages your property will have enough to do without it."
"Mr. Broderick," said I, suddenly, looking him full in the face, "has
Mr. Harrod left us for good?"
"Yes," he answered, firmly, "for good."
I could not speak for a moment, then trying hard to steady my voice, I
said, "Did you know it?"
"Yes," he answered. "I knew it."
He no longer looked at me now, nor did either of us say anything for
some time. He spoke first, saying, in quite an ordinary voice: "I don't
think he was quite the fellow for the place. An older man with fewer
new ideas would have been better."
"Was that the reason that he left?" asked I, in a muffled voice,
although indeed I knew well enough that I was talking idly. "Father did
not send him away because of his new ideas."
The squire brought his eyes round to my face. "I don't know the reason
that he left," said he. And although I said nothing, I suppose there
was some sort of an appealing look in my face that made him go on: "I
only know that he came to me the night before your father was taken
ill, and asked me, as a friend, to see after his work for him until a
substitute could be found, because he was obliged to leave immediately.
I asked no questions, and he told me nothing. Of course I was glad to
do what I could for--you all."
He was silent, but I felt his eyes upon me. I met them, with that
tender, pitying gaze in them, when at last I lifted mine.
"Mr. Broderick," said I--and I felt that my voice faltered--"will you
give me his address? I must write to him. There is something that I
must say to him. I thought I should have seen him again, but--I must
write it."
He took out his note-book and wrote it down, handing me the leaf that
he tore out.
I don't think I even thanked him; I don't think I said good-bye; I just
walked out of the door. The squire followed me for a few, steps. "I
want to have a talk with you soon about your father's affairs," said
he, trying to reach a cheerful and commonplace tone of voice.
"Yes--some day," said I, in a dull way. And I don't think I even turned
round again to look at him.
It was very rough, very ungrateful of me, but I couldn't bear another
word. The only thought in my heart was to be at home--to be alone--to
write my letter. I tore down the lane under the pine-trees in the
gloaming. I ran so fast that I did not even notice two figures that
passed me under the shadow of the wall on the opposite side; their
heads were close together, and the woman, who was much shorter than the
man, clung very close to his tall, slim person. It was not till some
days afterwards that it occurred to me who those figures had been.
I had not even a word for poor Taffy, who sprang upon me reproachfully
as I opened the gate of the farm-yard. I had forgotten to take him, but
I had no thought even for that dumb and faithful companion just then; I
only wanted to write my letter.
I wrote it, but it was returned to me from the dead-letter office. Two
days afterwards Deborah, taking courage at last to clean up the poor
deserted parlor, found another letter in the old Nankin jar on the
mantle-piece, which served well enough as an answer to mine although it
was sent so long before it; it was the letter which Trayton Harrod had
written to father the day before he left.
I had been in the garden, and when I came in mother sat with it in her
lap. There was a shade more trouble than before on her worn white face,
whence the dainty tints had all fled in these hard weeks. Directly I
came into the room I knew what the letter was. I had never had a letter
from him--no, not a line. I don't remember that I had even seen his
handwriting, but I knew whose the rugged uncompromising capitals were
the moment I looked at them. I took the letter up and read it, and
when I had read it I found some means of slipping it into my pocket; I
wanted to keep it--it was the only letter I could ever have from him,
but a strange love-letter truly. It was written in his curtest, most
uncompromising style, saying what it had to say and no more. Somehow
I was glad that father had never seen it; it did my friend such grave
injustice. It made no sort of excuse for quitting the place as he did,
it merely said that as he felt he was useless there, he had decided
to accept a post in Australia, which would, however, oblige him to
leave Knellestone without the usual warning. It enclosed the sum of
three months' salary, which he would have been supposed to forfeit for
leaving without notice. It gave no address, and left no message; that
was all.
"It's very odd," said mother, looking at me as I read it, and slowly
opening and shutting her spectacles in a nervous manner. "I don't at
all understand it. But I suppose he had something better in view--and
the farm is not what it was. It shows how one can be deceived in folk."
And that was my punishment. I was obliged to let people think that they
had been deceived in him. It was on my tongue to tell mother what I
could. Was it cowardice that kept me back, or was it that I scarcely
knew what to tell? There seemed so little that was not bred of my own
fancy--only I knew well enough that my fancy was right.
And as the time passed, I knew more surely than ever that my fancy was
right. He had said in his letter that there was nothing to keep him in
the old country, but if he had seen Joyce as I saw her, surely he would
have guessed at my lie--he would have known that there _was_ something
to keep him!
Two days after the discovery of Trayton Harrod's letter my sister told
me that she had broken off her engagement with Frank Forrester.
There had never been quite the same understanding as of yore between us
two since that horrible scene of passion, when I had been so cruelly
unjust to my poor Joyce. She would have forgiven me, no doubt, but I
was too proud to invite it. That day, however, she told me quite simply
that she had broken off her engagement.
"I ought never to have made it, Meg," said she. "I did not think it was
wicked then; I liked him to love me; but now I think it was wicked. It
may be wrong to depart from one's word, but--I can't marry him."
She spoke in a half-apologetic kind of way--as she had, no doubt,
written to him. She had not seen those two figures pass along under the
wall in the twilight, as I now remembered for the first time that I
had seen them. But I said nothing; I was dumb. I think from that time
forward I was dumb for a long time--dumb with remorse and the sense
of my own utter helplessness--standing alone to see the river run by,
which I had once fancied I could set in motion or stem at will.
But her face, though stained with tears, which mine was not, was
calm, her blue eyes were serene and trustful as ever. Yet, ah me! how
guiltily did I creep about her, how hungrily watch for every piece of
news--for her!
But he was gone, and it was through my fault.