POLLY PROVES A TRUE PROPHET.
It was in June that the accident happened, early June, but the season
was warm that year and already the little white roses were in bloom.
They were in bloom the year of Theresa’s marriage,--white roses for the
wedding, and now, with but one other June to intervene, white roses for
the burying. It was Bill who thought of this, not Theresa, although
Theresa, smelling the scent of the flowers under the window, thought of
her wedding-day as she sat waiting that night.
She shivered a little as she recollected; it may have been at her
thoughts, it may have been with cold, for the air was chilly. It was
very late; she rose, and going to the window closed it, shutting out the
sweet scents of the night. Then she glanced at the clock,--how late
it was!--past twelve,--Robert had never been so late before. Surely
nothing could have happened to him? Nothing ever happened; he was late,
that was all, and she sat down again with a set look on her face.
There was a letter in her work-basket; she had read it once, but
something made her put her sewing down and take it from its envelope
to read again. It was from Bella, who had gone to spend a few days
with some relations of her husband’s at Kensington. How happy Bella
seemed! How delighted that Jack was going to join her that day! It was
such a pleasant letter, though it told little. Theresa read it and
folded it, smiling as she did so; then for a moment she sat listening,
thinking she heard the sound of a horse’s feet. The road was not
near, but the night was so still that she could almost have heard in
her present state of tension. She might be mistaken, but there was
certainly a sound of some kind. Wheels,--someone driving home--then
she was mistaken, for Robert was riding to-night; this must be some
other wayfarer, perhaps Gilchrist Harborough come down by the mail from
London. She set herself to watch again; the sound of the wheels had
passed now, the vehicle may have driven out of earshot, or it may have
paused by the gate where the road was dark. The last must have been the
case for, after a moment, she caught the sound again; perhaps the horse
started suddenly, for the noise was much plainer now. It was coming
nearer--surely there was not some one driving up to the house?
She rose quickly, a nameless dread at her heart, and went into the
hall. There she paused a moment listening; the noise of wheels came
nearer, then ceased, and through the closed door she heard, or her
over-wrought senses told her she heard, the sound of a horse breathing.
A man came up the steps; she heard him as she stood there, her hand
upon the door, nerving herself to meet she knew not what. He stopped,
and she opened the door to find herself face to face with Gilchrist
Harborough.
For a second he shrank from her, and in the starlight she saw it.
“What is it?” she asked with lips that seemed too dry to speak.
“Robert has been hurt,” he answered, avoiding her eyes. “I--I have
brought him home.”
“Hurt?”
Her voice rang distinct, almost sharp, and Harborough knew the question
she was asking herself, although she was too loyal to put it to him.
“Yes,” he answered, meeting her eyes now; “he has been hurt, badly
hurt, I am afraid.”
“Badly? How badly?” Fear was whitening her face and quickening her
perceptions. “You don’t mean--oh Robert!--Why, I can see him out there!
Robert!”
She passed Harborough and would have gone down the steps but he stopped
her. “That is Dr. Bolton,” he said gently; “I brought him with me.
Robert is there,--but,--you can’t see him.”
She leaned against the door-post and caught her breath, searching his
face with questioning eyes. “He is dead?”
He felt the words were spoken, though he hardly heard them. “Come in
here,” he said gently. He led her to the room she had just left, and
put her unresisting in a chair.
“Dead,” she whispered, “dead?” Her breath was coming in gasps; she
shook a little, but she did not weep or faint. For some reason
Gilchrist was afraid to look at her; he moved to the door. “Are you
going to bring him in?” she asked in that same low, breathless voice.
“Yes.”
“Up-stairs?”
“It would be better.” That was the doctor’s voice outside; both the
doors were open and he had heard what was said.
“You will want a light; there is none in the room.”
She had risen as she spoke, but the doctor, seeing her white strained
face, said: “No, no, wait here; Harborough will go up first, and set a
light.”
She paid no heed to him, but tried to light a little hand-lamp.
Gilchrist took the matches from her trembling fingers and, lighting it
for her, put it into her hand. She gave him a look of thanks and then
went slowly up-stairs.
It was early the next morning when Bill received the telegram that
summoned her to Ashelton. That Bill should be summoned both annoyed and
surprised Polly; she objected to parting with her for one reason, and
for another she considered that she herself was the right person to be
sent for in an emergency. “I don’t see what good you can do,” she said.
But Bill did not argue the point; she looked at the time-table, and
then went up-stairs to dress for the journey. Polly picked up the
telegram and having read it again followed Bill. “‘Come at once, Mrs.
Morton wants you. Harborough.’” She read the message aloud to Bill when
she reached her room. “What has Gilchrist got to do with it, I should
like to know?”
“Robert is ill, I expect,” Bill said. “If it were Theresa, Robert would
have sent the telegram; but as neither of them did, I expect Robert is
ill.”
“Robert ill!” Polly sniffed contemptuously, then with the air of a
prophet who sees his evil prognostications fulfilled, she added: “It is
very likely you are right; he never was much good. Still I don’t see
why Gilchrist Harborough should telegraph for you; he has no connection
with the matter, neither have you.”
“Jack and Bella are away. I expect Gilchrist is looking after things;
he would be very good in an emergency.”
Bill got her dress out of the cupboard as she spoke, and Polly looked
at the telegram again. “Robert’s not ill,” she said with sudden
conviction; “he’s dead!” Bill, from the wording of the telegram,
thought it just possible too; still she did not say so, and Polly went
on: “I always said he would die young and die suddenly; now he has done
it and probably left Theresa very badly off.”
Bill was used to seeing Polly in moral undress by this time; the elder
cousin did not always think it necessary to keep up appearances with
the younger now that she knew how little the girl appreciated or was
deceived by them. Bill had so often been treated to Polly’s unvarnished
opinion of late that she was not much surprised by her way of regarding
the possible death of Theresa’s husband.
“Really I never saw anyone so unlucky as we are,” Polly was saying;
“no sooner do we get Bella settled than we have Theresa thrown back
on our hands. It is hard, just as we are beginning to get on a little
too, and make things pay. You and I have worked things up and managed
splendidly, and this is our reward! It seems to me that, manage as we
may, we shall never reap any benefit from it. We can work and it seems
we always may. As for those Warings, I have no patience with them!”
“So it seems, since you won’t wait to hear how Robert is before
deciding not only his death, but his widow’s future as well.”
“Oh, I know he is dead,” Polly said irritably as she followed the
younger girl down-stairs. And Bill felt nearly sure of it too, even
before she got to Wrugglesby station and saw Sam, who had been sent to
meet her. When she saw him there was room for doubt no longer.
On the homeward drive he told her all he knew about the accident. The
master had gone to Wrugglesby yesterday and returned late; he was
riding a skittish young horse and must have been thrown and probably
killed on the spot. Mr. Harborough, who had come from London by the
mail-train, drove home along the same road and found him, but it was
thought he must have been lying there for several hours. Dr. Bolton had
been called up and came with Mr. Harborough to Haylands; but it was
quite useless, the master was beyond help when he was found; “and the
missus”--so Sam concluded--“was somethin’ terrible, quite stunned, not
sheddin’ so much as a tear.”
Bill could believe that; it seemed to her quite natural that Theresa
should be stunned. But when she reached Haylands it seemed just as
natural that Theresa, when she met her and put her arms round her,
should burst into a paroxysm of weeping. Bill wept with her of course;
it was her nature; but she wept for the pity of life’s tangle, while
Theresa wept for the husband dead last night and the lover dead months
ago, for the widowhood of name which had fallen upon her now and the
widowhood of heart which had fallen long before; wept for her grief and
her loss and her double grief that the loss and grief were not greater,
and for all combined till thought was vague and her heart was eased.
So she wept, and no longer dreaded that the world, seeing her grief,
should also see that which lay behind. She had feared lest the secret
she had guarded during Robert’s life should be revealed after his
death. It was for this reason she would not have Polly or Bella or
anyone but Bill,--Bill whose eyes were not quick to mark anything
amiss. The others might discover or think, but Bill--no one minded
Bill. And then, when Bill came with her sympathy and her pliant
changing nature, there suddenly seemed no secret to hide, nothing amiss
which could be marked--all was melted in a gush of tears.
Thus Theresa became widow indeed, and though she sorrowed as such she
was all the better for the sorrowing. Quite unconsciously she turned to
the girl, whom she still persisted in regarding as a child, for comfort
and help. Bill gave all the comfort she could, listened when Theresa
told her how Robert went out yesterday and she had not said good-bye;
wept when Theresa wept over this omission and over the hundred trifles
which seemed to speak of his presence still near,--his pipe on the
mantelpiece, his whip behind the door, his dog waiting wistfully in the
hall. Bill listened, but she also worked, for that suited her best.
Theresa was really prostrate with grief; so Bill assumed, by the quiet
right of the one who can, the management of the household, and the
management so assumed remained with her some time.
It was during the days which followed that Gilchrist Harborough found
himself thinking that Bill, viewed in a light other than that of
prospective wife, had something to recommend her. He had not seen her
since the December day when she cancelled their engagement; but in the
time that followed Robert’s death he saw her often, for she stayed at
Ashelton till the summer was well advanced. Polly wanted her back in
town, but she was obliged to allow that Theresa needed her more at
Haylands. Very reluctantly she gave permission for Bill to remain; very
reluctantly, with the wages Bill forfeited by absence, she hired a girl
to help with the work. And Bill spent a second June at Haylands, very
unlike the first, excepting only that she saw Gilchrist Harborough
often, though even in seeing him there was one great and essential
difference, for they met now on a new footing, a footing much nearer
equality.
Jack was a good brother-in-law, but Greys was some way from Haylands,
and he, being but recently married, and having besides a great deal
of land to look after, found it somewhat difficult to give Theresa’s
farm the supervision it required. Harborough lived much nearer, had
more time and possibly more inclination, for the lawsuit did not
occupy so much of his attention just now, therefore he came often to
Haylands that summer, and in coming, met Bill often, but always in her
working capacity; a capacity, he thought, which suited her so well
that he wondered how he had ever come to think of her,--the most able
collaborator man could wish,--as wife.
But Theresa’s domestic arrangement, admirable as she found it, did
not suit Polly at all. To begin with she did not find the girl at all
an efficient substitute for Bill, and to go on with she “wanted to
know how it was all going to end.” Bill also wanted to know that, not
because she found the arrangement any less pleasant than did Theresa,
but because it was her custom to plan several miles in advance of the
elder cousin’s range of vision. So, before Theresa had contemplated the
future as a working possibility, Bill had answered Polly’s enquiries.
“I’m afraid,” so she wrote, “things are not much better than you
expected; Theresa will be left very badly off. Still, I think she will
most likely have a little, so there is a certain amount of choice as to
what is to be done; I have not properly talked it over with her so I do
not know if she has any wishes. As far as I can see we three (she and
you and I) must live together; we can’t afford two houses, but together
I believe we might live here or in town. If we stop here we should have
to give up most of the land, only keeping enough for a certain amount
of dairy work. The dairy, with pigs, poultry, and vegetable growing, I
reckon would keep us in food and pretty well pay the rent--I believe
this could be made to answer. We could have a boarder in the summer if
you liked. Of course the other choice is for you and me to go on as
before and take Theresa in; I don’t know what else can be done, unless
she goes to Jack and Bella, which seems hardly fair.”
Polly read this letter and digested it thoughtfully, and her thoughts,
it is to be feared, were not so much for the common good as for her
own personal comfort, and that did not incline her towards going to
Ashelton. She preferred town to country; she liked her present life in
many respects, and she certainly did not relish the idea of making pigs
and poultry pay with Bill’s assistance, not because she thought they
would not pay but because she knew quite well that the assistance would
be on the wrong side in such a venture. Theresa she did not consider
in the matter, and fortunately for her, Theresa had no very strong
wishes; she did not greatly care whether she remained at Haylands or
went to London; it seemed to her that her life had been snapped and
could go on as well, or as ill, in one place as another. Jack was in
favour of giving up the farm, pronouncing Bill’s scheme to be a mad
one. Gilchrist, who knew Bill better, was not so sure of that; but he
saw that it would entail much hard work on all, on Theresa, who in his
opinion was not fit for it, as well as on Bill who was. Therefore, as
the general voice was with Polly, she carried the day, to her own great
satisfaction, and at Michaelmas the farm was given up.
It is not to be supposed that Bill remained undisturbed at Haylands all
the summer. She was merely keeping Theresa company, and when Bella’s
husband spared her to do that for a time, Bill, very reluctantly,
returned to town, to Polly and her domestic difficulties. It is hard,
when one can do work and has half done it, that it should be taken away
and given to another, who not only cannot do it but does not recognise
that it exists to be done. Bill did not want her work recognised, but
she did want to finish it; but since that was impossible there was no
choice but to silently resign it half-finished, without a hope of its
being anything but wasted by the one who came after. So she went back
to town, and Bella, it is to be feared, fulfilled her anticipations;
the seed plants died, the vegetables languished, the ducks laid away,
and the poultry intermarried disastrously. Later on Polly went down
to Haylands, for a rest, she said; and Bill did not ask her to look
after any of her pet projects, thinking perhaps that it would only be
useless. When Polly returned she did enquire how the fruit was that
year, and was told that the trees were breaking with the weight of
plums.
“Does no one pick them?” Bill asked.
“Some of them,” Polly told her; “but fruit fetches so little this year;
it is not worth a man’s time to pick it, at least so Gilchrist says,
and he is managing everything, you know.”
Bill was not thinking of Gilchrist’s management but of private
enterprise; Polly was thinking of something quite different and it
was she who spoke first. “Did it strike you, Bill,” she said, “that
Gilchrist takes a great interest in Theresa and her affairs?”
“Yes, of course; he likes managing, and he does it thoroughly.”
But this was not what Polly meant at all and she said so. “What I want
to know,” she concluded, “is, why did he begin it? Why does he do it?”
“Because it wanted doing, and because he can do it. Somehow or other
the people who can do things always have to do them whether it is their
business or not; they have a sort of right to the jobs that want doing.”
This was not Polly’s opinion. “It’s my belief,” she said, “that he has
an interest in what he does.”
“An interest? He does not get the profits.”
“No,” Polly retorted impatiently, “but Theresa does; that’s his
interest.”
“Do you mean he is fond of Theresa?” Bill asked in astonishment.
Polly did, and explained herself at some length, without convincing
Bill who, when she had come to the conclusion that this was only one of
Polly’s fancies, went back to the subject of the plums. Polly was not
interested in plums, and when Bill asked if she and Theresa picked any,
answered snappishly, “No, we did not; we did not choose to spend our
days up ladders.”
A recollection of last year lent viciousness to this remark; Bill
remembered last year too and sighed. Had she been at Ashelton
early enough very likely there would have been a repetition of the
plum-selling. But she was not there in time to do anything, for, though
she did go down to Haylands to help Theresa to pack at the last, the
fruit was practically over. It was a bad year for apples; there were
hardly any in the orchard at Haylands, and Bill saw at once, when she
went to look round, that there was nothing to be done with them. As for
the plums, they were a real grief to her when she saw them lying rotten
on the grass beside the branches which the heavy fruit had broken down.
“Gilchrist could not look after everything,” she told herself, “and
Theresa would not know.”
After all, the waste of the plums did not trouble her so much
as did the sight of the withered plants in the garden, and the
raspberry-canes, still loaded with shrivelled fruit, dried up for want
of water. But bad as the garden was, it was not the worst, for in one
short tour of the stackyard she found, besides the feathers of many
untimely victims of stray cats, five lots of addled eggs laid and lost
in the summer months. She had her last find of eggs in a basket on the
Saturday afternoon when she went to the orchard to look for fallen
apples. There were not many, but she picked up what there were and took
the eggs to the ditch to throw them away to make room for the apples.
It was just then that Mr. Stevens came by. He was a busy man, but he
sometimes allowed himself a little holiday on Saturdays in September to
shoot a friend’s partridges; he had been shooting partridges that day
and very good sport he had had to judge from the beaming good-humour
he was carrying back to Wrugglesby.
When he saw Bill he pulled up. “Good-afternoon,” he cried; “I didn’t
know you were back. You haven’t been over to see me; don’t you want to
have a talk about your affairs?”
Bill came to the gate. “There isn’t much to say about them, is there?”
she asked. “I thought nothing much could be done at this time of year.”
“Well, no, not much certainly; everybody is out of town now. Still, if
you’d like to have a chat, you might look in when you’re in Wrugglesby;
I’m not very busy just now.”
“Thank you, I will if I have time; I am only here for a few days just
to help Theresa to pack.”
“Ah, of course, she is leaving soon, poor thing. Going to live in
London with you, isn’t she?”
Mr. Stevens felt very sorry for Theresa, of whose affairs he knew all
that was commonly reported and a little more besides. He felt sorry for
Bill, too, that afternoon; she did not seem to be so cheerfully and
completely satisfied with life as usual.
“We must make the best of a bad job,” he said encouragingly, “and look
for better times. Let’s hope your business will be through before
Christmas,” and he shook his reins as if he were going on.
“Do you think it could be done so soon as that?” Bill asked with
animation.
“I dare say; I don’t see why not, or at the latest early in the
new year. Woa, my beauty!” and he pulled up again. “Mr. Briant
is a rich man and can afford to fight as a poorer could not; but
you’re too strong for him, and since the business of the divorce and
remarriage was settled he knows it. It’s my belief--though as I’m not
professionally connected with the case perhaps you will say I have no
right to an opinion--it’s my belief Briant never suspected a second
marriage. But owing to the rector’s help you have incontestable proofs,
and the other side haven’t a case worth mentioning.”
“Then you think it will be settled soon?” Bill asked. “I am very glad;
and I am glad, too, that Mr. Briant is so rich that one need not much
mind taking money from him; even if I win he will still have plenty
left.”
Mr. Stevens, though he was amused by her scruples, assured her that
she might be quite easy on that score. “He’ll have plenty,” he said,
“plenty, seeing that he has neither son nor daughter to take it after
him. Bless my soul, he ought to be quite pleased to make provision for
a young lady in that way!”
The lawyer laughed as he spoke and Bill laughed too. “I am afraid he
won’t see it in that light,” she said.
“I’m afraid not either. No; I think if you win your case you will have
to thank your good aunt’s care in keeping old bills and letters and
recipes for herb-tea. That is what will have the most to do with it,
since she managed to keep with them several of old Roger’s useless
documents, and one valuable one. Yes, you will have to thank her for
her care and Mr. Dane for his generosity. Good-bye, and a speedy
success to you.”