NATURAL SELECTION.
Bill, of course, knew nothing of what was in the rector’s mind; she
only wondered once or twice about the song, and decided to sing it
no more in public since the greater number of her acquaintances
disapproved of it, and the one whose opinion she most valued did not
like it. Harborough liked it or had seemed to like it on the night
she sang it at the Dawsons’. But she was not quite sure of him, for
she had begun to think there were two separate persons in Gilchrist
Harborough,--one a strong, cool, somewhat old young man whose only
weakness was theories, and who was the normal and usual person in
possession; the other a very different person, who only looked out now
and then, by accident as it were. It was to this last that the song
appealed, this last who waked once or twice under her influence. She
was not sure, but she rather fancied Harborough despised this second
self, even denied its existence. That was a pity, in her opinion, for
the second self was the thing in him which played, which laughed, and
enjoyed life and despised theories. For this reason, and also for pure
mischief, Bill tried occasionally to rouse this other self.
She had not many opportunities, for Harborough was very guarded, and
by degrees, since she was much absorbed in her work, she forgot all
about it, though she saw him often while Theresa was at Wrugglesby. It
is true, if he passed when she was working in the garden he did not
usually stop to say more than “good-afternoon”; indeed, had she only
known it, his demeanour on those occasions suggested “lead us not into
temptation” in a manner which was scarcely complimentary. However, as
it happened, about this time business brought Harborough to Robert,
and Robert brought him to Haylands, where of necessity he saw Bill.
Even when he did not come to the house, he met her in the yard or barns
or dairy, “looking diligently to the ways of her household.” There
could be no doubt as to her capabilities and diligence as a housewife;
Harborough never saw her now without being impressed with her ability
and, indeed, with her great suitability for the post of mistress of a
working-farm.
Events, or rather his opinions, culminated on the afternoon when he
invited her to take shelter from the rain in Crows’ Farm. It was very
heavy rain and very sudden, and she had on her best hat; in ordinary
circumstances she would have declined his hospitality and paddled
cheerfully home, but the hat was not ordinary; so she accepted his
offer and took shelter under his roof for the hour that the rain
lasted. While there she made tea for him without disturbing the method
of his arrangements; she washed the cups without splashing his scrubbed
table, and she did not, even when asked for her opinion, say that his
way of keeping kitchen utensils was wrong. Finally she sat by the
smouldering fire with folded hands saying with unmistakable sincerity
that his manner of living was one after her own heart.
“You would like it?” he asked.
“Yes, better than anything except gipsying.”
“You would not like that,” he told her smiling. “At least when you came
to know what it was really like, you would not.”
“You think not? Perhaps so; I don’t know much about it: have you tried?”
“Rather not,” he said; “I have tried bush-life though.”
“Is that like it?”
“No; not altogether. There are not so many fellow-gipsies in that; also
there are not necessarily dirt and dishonesty.”
“But there are sometimes?” Bill asked as if she were anxious there
should be.
“Occasionally you run against queer customers, men from the ends of the
earth, who had very much better have stayed there, if they could not
contrive to drop off altogether.”
“I should think they were worse than fellow-gipsies,” Bill observed.
“That’s a matter of opinion; besides, there is always plenty of room
there, and you don’t come across them often. I think the thing which
strikes me most of all here is the smallness; it is all so ‘preserved.’”
Bill was interested. “I should like to see the bush,” she said.
“It is not much to see,” he told her, but added, “station-life would
suit you; I believe you would like that.”
“Tell me about it.” And he told her what he thought would interest her,
she listening with eager face.
And thus they spent the time pleasantly enough until the rain ceased
sufficiently for her to go home. He walked to the gate with her, and
then went back to his barns and sheds revolving in his mind a theory he
had not much considered before,--the theory of natural selection, which
he interpreted to mean the wisdom of choosing your wife as you choose
your horse, for general suitability to your purpose.
She was young, it was true, and perhaps a little wild, but she could be
trained; she would also sober down of herself, and she would probably
never develop her latent possibilities for mischief if she married
early. She was not what one would describe as tractable, though she was
accommodating, far too accommodating not to be more or less submissive
to superior experience. And she was all one could desire for practical
purposes.
Practical purposes! That was just it; in adopting a practical farmer’s
life he found he needed a practical farmer’s wife; there was no room
at his hearth for the stately lady whom fancy (not yet dead) had once
painted in that position. There was something wrong with the present
arrangement; a man either wanted to be something less or else to
have something more than modern codes allowed. The patriarch Abraham
supplied what must even then have been a long-felt want, in taking,
besides the chief and lady wife, a humbler working partner.
Harborough was not a man given to acting hastily, at least the
paramount person in his character was not; concerning the other
person he did not know much. He thought a long time of Bill and her
suitability for his purpose, entirely oblivious for the moment of her
curious attractions; but he could come to no conclusion either as to
whether he wanted her or whether, if he did, she wanted him. However,
he need not have wearied himself with the consideration that night,
for, as it chanced, he had almost a month in which to think it over
before he saw her again. That very evening she went to Wrugglesby and
did not come back to Ashelton for some weeks.
As she crossed the yard on her homeward way, Robert met her, his heavy
face wearing a look of real concern.
“Bear up, little girl!” was his greeting, for he saw that his face had
already broken the bad news. “Cheer up! It hasn’t come to the worst
yet, and we’re not going to be frightened into thinking it’s coming,
either;--we’re just going to drive in to Wrugglesby and see.”
“Have they sent for me?” she asked, her face whitening.
“Yes,--you’re not going to cry, are you? It mayn’t be so bad as all
that. There’s a brave girl! Run in and get a wrap or something, you’ll
be cold before you get there. They’ll have Beauty in the cart in a
twinkling, and you shall drive her if you like.”
Bill smiled a little; he was trying to comfort her as well as he could
and she was grateful for the intention. She even pretended to be
pleased to drive the spirited mare hitherto forbidden to her; it might
have hurt him if she had not. It might have hurt him if she had refused
the sweets he kept popping in her mouth, and she ate them though each
one seemed as if it would choke her.
He talked a little during the first part of the drive and she tried to
answer him, but after a while he felt the wisdom of silence, and they
both became quiet until just as he handed her out at Langford House
he said awkwardly: “You shall never want for anything while I live, I
swear you sha’n’t! Theresa and I will always have a home for you,--mind
that, little girl.”