THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF A GUARDIAN.
“It is my belief,” said Miss Minchin to Miss Gruet, when the sultry
days of August had reduced the two ladies to visiting one another in
the cool of the evening only, “it’s my belief that Mr. Harborough is
courting Mrs. Morton’s cousin; he goes to Haylands so very regularly
now.”
“Very likely,” Miss Gruet made answer, “although I should hardly have
thought so poorly of him.”
“So poorly?” Miss Minchin repeated.
“Yes, so poorly, for she is little more than a child.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Miss Minchin bridled at some recollection. “I had
an offer before I was her age.”
That was true, although, since the suitor was still younger it could
hardly be regarded as eligible. Miss Gruet, having no such testimony
to bring forward, contented herself with saying, “Girls don’t marry so
young nowadays.”
“No,” Miss Minchin was forced to admit, “no, perhaps you are right.
But what takes Mr. Harborough so often to Haylands? He must go to see
someone; who is it?”
Now, oddly enough, that was exactly the question Polly was propounding
to herself, and seeing how entirely she considered the engagement
(except for the secrecy) her own arrangement, it was strange.
Fortunately about this time she had ample opportunities for studying
the question, for she and Bella came to Ashelton as often as they could
during the summer months. They usually walked from Wrugglesby, nearly
a six miles’ tramp along dusty country roads; but as compensation they
always drove home with a certain quantity of spoil stowed under the
seat. Sometimes it was butter they brought back packed in a damp cloth,
or eggs carefully held in Bella’s lap, or chickens showing under the
back seat; sometimes it was only vegetables, or a basket of fruit, or a
pigeon pie, or a basin of dripping, or some equally humble subscription
to the larder. Polly despised nothing and refused nothing. When Theresa
hardly liked to offer such trifles to the elder housekeeper, Bill
relieved her of any difficulties by putting various small articles in
the old safe which stood in the corner of the wash-house, and which
came in the course of time to be kept for Polly’s sole use. “That’ll do
for Polly,” she would say when Theresa debated how to use this or that;
and if Theresa demurred saying, “I can’t offer her such things,” Bill
assured her: “You can offer her anything you don’t mind her having; the
only thing you can’t offer her is anything you don’t want her to have
and only offer out of politeness. Put it in her cupboard; she’ll take
it.”
And take it she always did. So, partly because this collecting of odds
and ends suited her near, but effective, style of housekeeping, and
partly from a sense of responsibility which prompted her to see how
things went on at Haylands, Polly came often to Ashelton that summer.
And what she saw there led her to ask herself the question which Miss
Minchin asked: “Whom did Gilchrist Harborough come to see?” And the
answer she gave herself was the one which with great truthfulness she
gave in different words to Miss Minchin, “I don’t know.”
Miss Minchin asked the question, or rather, by less bald methods
sought the answer, when Polly came to stay at Haylands in August. It
was the middle of the month when she and Bella came; they had had to
continue school during the earlier part of the month to compensate the
pupils for the time lost at Miss Brownlow’s death, but by the middle
they came to Ashelton to stay for a fortnight. For the first week
Theresa would be there; for the second the three cousins would be left
in charge as she and Robert were going away. It was a busy time for
a farmer to leave, but Robert did not seem to mind; as he said that
he would much rather leave now than in September, partridge-shooting
possibly had more to do with his decision than farming. However that
might be, he decided to go, and Polly and Bella came to Haylands with
the understanding that they would look after Bill and the house during
Theresa’s absence. It was a few days after their arrival that Polly met
Miss Minchin in the lane. As they were going the same way they walked
on together, Miss Minchin making many enquiries as to the health and
general welfare of the cousins. Polly gave all suitable answers, and
talked in her best style, with perhaps more regard for effect than
accuracy. What she said in reference to Harborough, however, was mainly
true, more true than she herself liked under the circumstances.
Of course, so she told herself, Harborough came to see Bill, and
since, being a busy man with no spare time, his visits were paid at
fixed hours, he usually did see Bill. It sometimes happened, though
not often, that the time of his coming varied a little, and also it
sometimes happened, even when he was regular, that Bill was busy or not
to be found for a few minutes. On these occasions Theresa entertained
him until Bill appeared, when she would have been quite willing to
leave them to enjoy each other’s society undisturbed. But they did not
show the least wish for such a thing. “We haven’t got anything private
to say,” Bill told her once when Theresa remonstrated with her. So
by degrees it came about that if the cousins were indoors Harborough
joined them, and if they were out of doors he sat under the elm-tree
with them, helping Bill to shell peas or string currants, or whatever
peaceful occupation she might be engaged upon that evening. Theresa
would willingly have taken such work from her on the evenings when
Harborough came, but if she did Bill only got something else to do, and
that possibly of a less suitable nature. Theresa could not understand
the girl at all; she never seemed shy or eager to see her lover; she
was never anxious to put on her best frock for his coming; and yet she
appeared happy in the engagement. Of course Harborough himself was not
demonstrative; he was always grave and serious when Theresa saw him,
but no doubt, so she thought, he was different in her absence, thinking
which she went away. Whereupon, the currants being done, the pair took
to watering the garden with a silent industry and a strict attention to
business.
Polly saw all this and more still with her shrewd little eyes, and
before Theresa went away she spoke to her on the subject.
“You have noticed it too?” Theresa said, as if relieved to find it not
all her own fancy. “Do you think Bill is really fond of him?”
“Yes, I do, and I think it is very hard on her that you should take so
much of his attention.”
“I!” exclaimed Theresa flushing. “I! How can you say such a thing,
Polly?”
Polly both could and did say such a thing, and she said it with the
repetitions and variations she so well knew how to use, until Theresa,
hurt and angry and mortified by turns, first denied the charge and then
defended the action.
“Somebody must be civil to him,” she said at last. “Bill never wants to
see him alone; she makes him work in the garden if I leave them; she
won’t be nice to him or put her best dress on, or anything.”
“Bill is a little goose, and the chances are she does all that out of
pride and contradiction because she is jealous of you.”
“She can’t be jealous of me, it is impossible,” Theresa said, and the
next moment added, “and if she is, why does she not try to please
him? When he wants her to talk seriously she won’t; she says the most
ridiculous things in the gravest manner, and the gravest in the most
ridiculous, till he never knows how to take her, and that’s annoying to
a man, you know. And then she will persist in calling him Theo. For a
long time she did not call him anything, at least not when I was there,
always beginning, ‘I say,’ just as if that was his name; it was so
rude, I told her about it. She said she did not like Gilchrist, there
had been too many of them. I told her to settle that with him, but I’m
sure I don’t know what she said, for now she calls him Theo which she
says is short for theory, and I know he can’t bear it.”
To this recital of Bill’s misdeeds Polly only said: “I must have a good
talk with Bill, I think she minds me more than you; only, you know, my
dear Theresa, your being nice to Gilchrist will hardly compensate for
Bill being nasty. I am sure you don’t mean anything but the very best,
still, quite unintentionally of course, you sometimes make it a little
hard for her.”
Theresa was truly grieved as Polly meant her to be, and determined to
be very careful of her conversation with Harborough in the future. It
must be admitted that she could not disguise from herself the fact that
she really did enjoy talking to him, and he could not disguise from her
woman’s wit the respectful and quite impersonal admiration he had for
her.
Theresa was easy enough to deal with; Bill was the real difficulty, as
Polly knew, a difficulty she did not feel at all sure of being able to
tackle successfully. She thought over the subject for some time, and
finally decided to leave it for the present. Theresa was going away
in a day or two, and when she returned Bill herself was to leave with
Polly and Bella. In these circumstances it hardly seemed necessary to
open the question now, and Polly determined to study the matter for the
present and speak of it while they were away together.
Theresa was only away for a week, but the three cousins left behind
contrived to get a certain amount of excitement into the week. It was
really Bill’s fault, Polly said, Bill and her plums. Plums were very
scarce that year, not only in Ashelton but in all that part of the
country. There had been every promise of a good yield in the spring,
but a few late frosts had terribly damaged the crop; many trees were
quite bare and many others had but little fruit; those in the Haylands
orchard had escaped. The plums were decidedly the best of the trees in
the orchard; they were younger and in better condition than the apples
or pears, and they were, moreover, very good kinds. In the spring they
had shown every promise of abundance of fruit, and when the late frosts
came, damaging the neighbouring trees, they did not suffer much owing
to good luck and a sheltered position. Bill was delighted by their
escape, and during the summer took great interest in the health of the
trees, propping up the overloaded branches and regretfully thinning the
too abundant crop. By the end of August the fruit was ripe and a source
of great satisfaction to her.
“I don’t see what you are going to do with them,” Polly said one
morning as she looked at the trees from which Bill was filling Bella’s
pudding-basin.
“We can’t eat them all,” Bella said, biting one as she spoke, “nor make
jam, nor pies, nor give them away; there are far too many; they have
all got ripe together. What a pity Theresa is not here; I wonder what
she does with the fruit.”
“Sells it,” said Bill as she went on to look at the next tree.
“To whom?”
“I don’t know. The apples used to go away last year; I have seen some
of the baskets about. These plums ought to be picked; they are quite
ripe and the wasps are getting at them.”
“Yes,” Polly said judicially, “they ought to be picked to-day. I think,
Bill, you had better get what we want for jam and perhaps you might
get a basketful for Mrs. Dawson. Mr. Dawson was saying the other day
that they had none at all. You had better gather all we can use this
morning.”
“I mean to,” Bill replied, “but you have got to help. Oh, yes you have;
they must be all, or at least the greater part picked to-day; you will
have to help.”
“Bill,” Polly began with dignity, but Bella, disturbed about her
sister’s property, interposed. “It does seem a pity not to sell them: I
do think it is silly of Theresa not to have left any orders about them;
can’t we write to her?”
“Not in time,” Bill answered. “I expect she left no orders because she
did not think; she and Robert always call these my trees, because I
take such an interest in them. Robert said I should keep anything I
could make out of them; I don’t want to do that, but I mean to make
something.”
“I don’t see how you are going to sell them,” Polly called from the
gate as she was leaving the orchard.
“Don’t you? I have seen for several days. Don’t go, Polly, you must
help to pick; it is going to be a busy day and you will have to help;
you might begin at once while I find the baskets.”
“I’ll come too as soon as I have taken this to Jessie,” and Bella went
away with the basin as she spoke, leaving Bill and Polly in animated
conversation. When she came back to begin her share of the plum-picking
she found Polly at work; Bill had coerced her into it somehow, and,
what was more remarkable still, kept her at it. They all three worked
steadily, finding it decidedly more tiring than they had anticipated.
Not only did they gather the fruit, but they also packed it in the
baskets in which it was to travel. In time the baskets gave out, and
Bill proposed to borrow some from Mr. Dane. “I know he has got some,”
she said; “I saw them round by his back door the last time I went for
books. It won’t take me long to go and borrow them.”
“You can’t,” Polly said; “besides we have done enough; it is nearly
four o’clock.”
“We sha’n’t have done enough,” Bill observed, descending her ladder,
“until we have done all we can.”
“It would be a great pity to waste any,” Bella added; “there are heaps
more just perfect, and this weather they won’t hang.”
“Do you intend to keep on till dark?” Polly demanded. “How absurd! Have
you forgotten that Gilchrist Harborough is coming this evening?”
“All the better,--he can help,” was the only answer, and the gate
closed after Bill as she went in quest of the rector’s baskets.
“It is perfect nonsense,” Polly said wrathfully; “why couldn’t she have
got one of the men about the farm to do this work?”
“They are busy,” Bella answered; “I expect she does not want to take
their time, more especially as Robert said she could have the profits.”
“There won’t be any; and if there are I see no reason why I should work
for her profit.”
“It is not bad work. I wonder how she found out where to sell them; I
expect she made Theo tell her. Do you like him, Polly? I think I do.”
“I don’t like this work,” was Polly’s only answer, “and I am not going
to do any more of it at present; I shall lie down for half an hour.”
And away she went, calculating that Bill could not be less than half
an hour in borrowing the baskets, and in any case she would hear
her return through the open window. Bella, left to herself, went on
industriously with her work until the sound of footsteps in the lane
arrested her attention. She was standing on a high rung of the ladder,
and peering through the plum-branches, she looked to see who might be
passing, secure that she herself was unseen. In this belief she was,
however, mistaken, for the passer by glancing up at that moment had
the vision of a flushed face and a frame of golden hair, the curls all
loosened and caught by the tiresome interwoven branches, the whole
surrounded by those same branches in a way which he found almost
bewildering.
“Good-afternoon, Miss Waring,” he said. “I was just on my way to
Haylands about the bees,--is any one at home?”
Polly was at home, but Polly might not like to be disturbed; still of
course the bees were a matter of business, so Bella looked out again,
or rather, partly looked out, having in the moment’s retirement given
some infinitesimal but effective touches to her tie and hair. Jack
Dawson found her irresistible, but he had found her that before. Mrs.
Dawson could hardly have selected a more momentous time for acquiring
a hive of bees than the one she did, for her son Jack discovered that
the Mortons’ bees were the best, in fact the only really good bees to
be had, and even these he found needed a great deal of investigation
before purchase. At least such must have been the case to judge by the
number of calls of inquiry he paid and the length of time he spent
looking at the hives with Bella. Mrs. Dawson is reported to have said
at the end of the month that that hive cost her more than anything she
ever bought, but eventually she came to a gentler way of thinking; for
after all, though it undoubtedly is a criminal offence for only sons to
marry, it is an offence they will commit, and Jack’s partner in guilt,
or rather promised partner, won her way into Mrs. Dawson’s heart in
time.
But that was all in the future; in the present, Jack, on his mother’s
behalf, was industriously following up his quest for bees, and Bella,
on her sister’s behalf, was helping him. It is to be presumed that
these were their motives, though a casual observer might have thought
their interests, though mutual, were more circumscribed on the occasion
when they helped each other to gather Bill’s plums. Bella said she
could not leave off till Bill came back; it would be so unkind if both
she and Polly went away without a word of explanation. Jack agreed,
saying that there was no hurry and he could wait any time, and while he
waited he helped to make up for Polly’s desertion. Polly, meanwhile,
slept peacefully, and Bill went by way of the rector’s back door into
the rector’s presence.