A BARGAIN
It was nearly a fortnight after Colonel Elliot's death that Jeff
Ironside went to the stable somewhat suddenly one morning, saddled his
mare, and, without a word to anyone, rode away.
Granny Grimshaw was the only witness of his departure, and she turned
from the kitchen window with a secret smile and nod.
It was an autumn morning of mist and sunshine. The beech trees shone
golden overhead, and the robins trilled loudly from the clematis-draped
hedges. Jeff rode briskly, with too set a purpose to bestow any
attention upon these things. He took a short cut across his own land and
entered the grounds belonging to the Place by a side drive seldom used.
Thence he rode direct to the front door of the great Georgian house and
boldly demanded admittance.
The footman who opened to him looked him up and down interrogatively.
"Miss Elliot is at home, but I don't know if she will see anyone," he
said uncompromisingly.
"Ask her!" said Jeff tersely. "My name is Ironside."
While the man was gone he took the mare to a yew tree that shadowed the
drive at a few yards' distance and tied her to it. There was an air of
grim resolution about all his actions. This accomplished, he returned to
the great front door.
As he reached it there came the sound of light, hastening feet within,
and in a moment the half-open door was thrown back. Doris herself, very
slim and pale, but withal very queenly in her deep mourning, came forth
with outstretched hand to greet him.
"But why did they leave you here?" she said. "Please come in!"
He followed her in with scarcely a word.
She led him down a long oak passage to a room that was plainly the
library, and there in her quick, gracious way she turned and faced him.
"I am very pleased to see you, Mr. Ironside. I was going to write to you
to thank you again for all your kindness, but lately--there has been so
much to think about--so much to do. I know you will understand. Do sit
down!"
But Jeff remained squarely on his feet. "I hope you have quite recovered
from your fall?" he said.
"Quite, thank you." She smiled faintly. "It seems such an age ago.
Hector came home quite safely too." She broke off short, paused as if
seeking for words, then said rather abruptly, "I shall never go hunting
again."
"You mean not this year?" suggested Jeff.
She looked at him, and he saw that her smile Was piteous. "No, I mean
never. Everything is to be sold. Haven't you heard?"
He nodded. "Yes, I had heard. I hoped it wasn't true."
"Yes, it is true." Her two hands fastened very tightly upon the back of
a chair. There was something indescribably pathetic in the action. She
seemed on the verge of saying more, but in the end she did not say it.
She just stood looking at him with the wide grey eyes that tried so hard
not to be tragic.
Jeff stood looking back with great sturdiness and not much apparent
feeling. He offered no word of condolence or sympathy. Only after a very
decided pause he said, "I wonder what you will do?"
"I am going to London," she said.
"Soon?" Jeff's voice was curt, almost gruff.
"Yes, very soon." She hesitated momentarily, then went on rapidly, as if
it were a relief to tell someone. "My father's life was insured. It has
left my stepmother enough to live on; but, of course, not here. The
place is mortgaged up to the hilt. I have nothing at all. I have got to
make my own living."
"You?" said Jeff.
She smiled again faintly, "Yes, I. What is there in that? Lots of women
work for their living."
"You are not going to work for yours," he said.
She thrust the chair from her with a quick little movement of the hands.
"I would begin to-morrow--if I only knew how. But I don't--yet. I've got
to look about me for a little. I am going first to a cousin at
Kensington."
"Who doesn't want you," said Jeff.
She looked at him in sharp surprise. "Who--who told you that?"
"You did," he said doggedly. "At least, you told Mr. Chesyl--in my
presence."
"Ah, I remember!" She uttered a tremulous little laugh. "That was the
day I caught you eavesdropping and ordered you off your own ground."
"It was," said Jeff. "I heard several things that day, and I
guessed--other things." He paused, still looking straight at her. "Miss
Elliot," he said, "wouldn't it be easier for you to marry than to work
for your living?"
The pretty brows went up in astonishment. "Oh!" she said, in quick
confusion. "You heard that too?"
"Wouldn't it be easier?" persisted Jeff in his slow, stubborn way.
She shook her head swiftly and vehemently. "I shall never marry Mr.
Chesyl," she said with determination.
"Where is he?" asked Jeff.
The soft colour rose in her face at the question. She looked away from
him for the first time. "I don't quite know where he is. I believe he is
up north somewhere--in Scotland."
"He knows what has been happening here?" questioned Jeff.
She made a slight movement as of protest. "No doubt," she said in a low
voice.
Jeff's square jaw hardened. Abruptly he thrust Chesyl out of the
conversation. "It doesn't matter," he said. "That isn't what I came to
talk about. May I tell you just what I have come for? Will you give me a
patient hearing?"
She turned to him again in renewed surprise. "Of course," she said.
His dark eyes were upon her. "It may not please you," he said slowly,
"though I ask you to believe that it is not my intention to give you
offence."
"But, of course, I know you would not," she said.
Jeff's fingers clenched upon his riding-switch. He spoke with
difficulty, but not without a certain native dignity that made him
impressive. "I have come," he said, "just to say to you that if it is
possible that no one in your own world is wanting you, I am wanting you.
All that I have is absolutely at your disposal. I heard you say--that
day--that you would like to be a farmer's wife. Well--if you really
meant it--you have your opportunity."
"Mr. Ironside!" She was gazing at him in wide-eyed amazement.
A dark flush rose in his swarthy face under her eyes, "I had to say it,"
he said with heavy deliberation, "though I know I'm only hammering nails
into my own coffin. I had to take my only chance of telling you. Of
course, I know you won't listen. I'm not of your sort--respectable
enough, but not quite--not quite--" He broke off grimly, and for an
instant his teeth showed clenched upon his lower lip. "But if by any
chance, when everything else has failed," resolutely he went on, "you
could bring yourself to think of me--in that way, I shall always be
ready, quite ready, for you. That's what I came to say."
He straightened himself upon the words, and made as if he would turn and
leave her. But Doris was too quick for him. She moved like a flash. She
came between him and the door. "Please--please," she said, "you mustn't
go yet!"
He stopped instantly and she stood before him breathing quickly, her
hand upon the door.
She did not speak again very quickly; she was plainly trying to master
considerable agitation.
Jeff waited immovably with eyes unvaryingly upon her. "I don't want to
hurry you," he said at last. "I know, of course, what your answer will
be. But I can wait for it."
That faint, fugitive smile of hers went over her face. She took her hand
from the door.
"You--you haven't been very--explicit, have you?" she said. "Are
you--are you being just kind to me, Mr. Ironside, like--like Hugh
Chesyl?"
Her voice quivered as she asked the question, but her eyes met his with
direct steadfastness.
He lowered his own very suddenly. "No," he said. "I wouldn't insult you
by being kind. I shouldn't ask you to marry me if I didn't love you with
all my heart and soul."
The words came quickly, with something of a burning quality. She made a
slight movement as if she were taken by surprise.
After a moment she spoke. "There are two kinds of love," she said.
"There's the big, unselfish kind--the real thing; and there's the
other--the kind that demands everything, and even then, perhaps, is
never satisfied. You hardly know me well enough to--to care for me in
the first big way, do you? You don't even know if I'm worth it."
"I beg your pardon," said Jeff Ironside. "I think I do know you well
enough for that. Anyhow, if you could bring yourself to marry me, I
should be satisfied. The right to take care of you--make you
comfortable--wait on you--that's all I'm asking. That would be enough
for me--more than I've dared to hope for."
"That would make you happy?" she asked.
He kept his eyes lowered. "It would be--enough," he repeated.
She uttered a sudden quick sigh. "But wouldn't you rather marry a woman
who was in love with you in just the ordinary way?" she said.
"No," said Jeff curtly.
"It would be much better for you," she protested.
He smiled a grim smile. "I am the best judge of that," he said.
She held out her hand to him. "Mr. Ironside, tell me honestly, wouldn't
you despise me if I married you in that way--taking all and giving
nothing?"
He crushed her hand in his. The red blood rose to his forehead. He
looked at her for a moment--only a moment--and instantly looked away
again.
"No," he said, "I shouldn't."
"I should despise myself," said Doris.
"I don't know why you should," he said.
She smiled again with lips that quivered. "No, you don't understand.
You're too big for me altogether. I can't say 'Yes,' but I feel very
highly honoured all the same. You'll believe that, won't you?"
"Why can't you say 'Yes'?" asked Jeff.
She hesitated momentarily. "You see, I'm afraid I don't care for
you--like that," she said.
"Does that matter?" said Jeff.
She looked at him, her hand still in his. "Don't you think so?"
"No, I don't," he said, "unless you think you couldn't be happy."
"I was thinking of you," she said gently.
"Of me?" He looked surprised for an instant, and again his eyes met hers
in a quick glance. "If you're going to think of me," he said, "you'll do
it. I have told you, you needn't be afraid of my expecting too much."
But she shook her head. "I should be much more afraid of taking too much
from you," she said. "The little I could offer would never satisfy you."
"Yes it would," he insisted. "I'm only asking to stand between you and
trouble. It's all I want in life."
Again his eyes were upon her, dark and resolute. His hand held hers in a
steady grip. For the first time her own resolution began to falter.
"Let me write to you, Mr. Ironside," she said at last, with a vague idea
of softening a refusal that had become inexplicably hard.
"Write and say 'No'?" said Jeff.
She smiled a little, but her eyes filled with sudden tears. "You make it
very hard for me to say 'No,'" she said.
"I would like to make it impossible," he said.
"Even when I have told you that I can't--that I don't--love you in the
ordinary way?" she said almost pleadingly.
"I don't want to be loved in the ordinary way," he answered doggedly.
"I should be a perpetual disappointment to you," she said.
"I would rather have even that than--nothing," said Jeff.
One of the tears ran over and fell upon their clasped hands. "In fact,
you want me at any price," she said.
"At any price," said Jeff.
She bent her head and choked back a sob. "And no one else wants me at
all," she whispered.
He stooped towards her. Perhaps for her peace of mind it was as well
that she did not see the sudden fire that blazed in his deep-set eyes as
he did so.
"So you'll change your mind," he said, after a moment, to the bowed
head. "You'll have me--you will?"
She caught back another sob and said nothing.
He straightened himself sharply. "Miss Elliot, if it's going to make you
miserable, you had better send me away. I'll go--if it's for that."
He would have released her hand, but it tightened very suddenly upon
his. "No, don't go--don't go!" she said.
"But you're crying," muttered Jeff uneasily.
She gave a big gulp and raised her head. The tears were running down her
cheeks, but she smiled at him bravely notwithstanding. "I believe I
should cry--much more--if you were to go now," she told him, with a
quaint effort at humour.
Jeff Ironside put a strong grip upon himself. His heart was thumping
like the strokes of a heavy hammer. "Then you'll have me?" he said.
She put her other hand, with a very winning gesture of confidence, into
his. "I don't see how I can help it," she said. "You've knocked down all
my obstacles. But you do understand, don't you? You won't--won't--"
"Abuse your trust? No, never!" said Jeff Ironside. "I will die by my own
hand sooner."
"Ah, I can't help liking you," Doris said impulsively, as if in
explanation or excuse. "You're so big."
"Thank you," Jeff said very earnestly. "And you won't cry any more?"
She uttered a whimsical little laugh. "But I wasn't crying for myself,"
she said, as she dried her eyes. "I was crying for you."
"Well, you mustn't," said Jeff. "You have given me all I want--much more
than I dared to hope for." He paused a moment, then abruptly, "You won't
think better of it when I'm gone, will you?" he said. "You won't write
and say you have changed your mind?"
She gave him her hand again with an air of comradeship. "It's a bargain,
Mr. Ironside," she said, with gentle dignity. "A very one-sided one, I
fear, but still--a bargain."
"I beg your pardon," murmured Jeff.