THE GATE MARKED
"PRIVATE"
BY
ETHEL M. DELL
AUTHOR OF
THE LAMP IN THE DESERT,
THE BLACK KNIGHT,
GREATHEART, ETC.
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
THE GATE MARKED "PRIVATE"
Copyright, 1928
by
Ethel Mary Savage
The Way of an Eagle
Charles Rex
The Knave of Diamonds
Tetherstones
The Rocks of Valpré
The Unknown Quantity
The Keeper of the Door
The Swindler, and Other Stories
Bars of Iron
The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories
The Hundredth Chance
The Odds, and Other Stories
Greatheart
The Passerby, and Other Stories
The Lamp in the Desert
A Man Under Authority
The Tidal Wave
The Black Knight
The Top of the World
The House of Happiness, and Other Stories
Rosa Mundi
Peggy by Request
The Obstacle Race
The Gate Marked "Private"
This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
CONTENTS
PART I
CHAPTER
I.--A COCK PHEASANT
II.--STAPLE FARM
III.--LITTLE STAPLE
IV.--CONCERNING PIGS
V.--MATILDA
VI.--ROSEMARY
VII.--THE REAL REASON
VIII.--ORIGINAL SIN
IX.--MARY
X.--THE DISCOVERY
XI.--DICK DYNAMO
PART II
I.--THREE FRIENDS
II.--AN AFFAIR OF PARTNERSHIP
III.--RAVENCOMBE
IV.--GRIEVANCES
V.--PUNISHMENT
VI.--YOUTH
VII.--PERCY
VIII.--CHRISTMAS
IX.--THE DREAM
X.--THE BARRIER
XI.--THE EMPTY ROOM
PART III
I.--BOXING NIGHT
II.--THE CAPTURE
III.--THE PRINCE
IV.--THE OLD BEAN
V.--THE CALL OF A FRIEND
VI.--A HEAP OF ASHES
VII.--ARCADIA
VIII.--THE MIRROR
IX.--"I WILL ARISE..."
X.--THE ESCORT
XI.--THE VICTOR
PART IV
I.--PETER AND MARY
II.--THE MEETING
III.--THE CONFLICT
IV.--THE FAITHFUL FRIEND
V.--THE AMBASSADOR
VI.--THE RETURN
VII.--FORGIVENESS
VIII.--THE INDOMITABLE
IX.--THE OPEN DOOR
THE GATE MARKED "PRIVATE"
PART I
CHAPTER I
A COCK PHEASANT
There came the whir of wings from the edge of the Long Copse on the
northern boundary of Staple Farm, followed immediately by the sharp
report of a gun, and a bird came hurtling down through the deepening
dusk of the November day and fell with a thud on the ploughed land
that stretched away from the copse to the sky-line in a low even
rise. The man with the gun spoke to his dog who plunged forward in a
hustle of swift obedience and brought the dead bird to his master's
feet. There was a movement in the copse as he stooped to pick it up,
and another man came out into the open and moved over the heavy
ground towards him.
"A fine cock pheasant that!" he remarked, as he drew near. "I
thought you'd get him."
"It wasn't much of a shot," said the man with the gun.
"I've seen worse," said the other. He took the bird and turned to
mount the rise. "I suppose you'll knock off now."
"I'd have liked a brace," said the man with the gun.
"Can't always have what you want," observed his companion, beginning
to trudge up the hill.
The man with the gun turned to his dog. "Just you remember that,
Nero!" he said.
Nero, a pleasant cocker-spaniel of superlative intelligence and
almost unimaginable greed, shook his ears with vehemence in obvious
disagreement. His master stooped and patted his head. "You're
nothing but an earth-worm, my boy," he said. "You've never wanted
the moon."
Nero had not. He was of a generally contented disposition
notwithstanding his rapacity for food, and beyond this a walk-up with
the gun was all he asked of life. He considered Silas Hickory the
supreme It of existence. So far as Nero was concerned, he controlled
the whole world, and Nero was completely satisfied with the way he
did it.
He followed him now very closely through the November twilight, still
keenly alert to obey his slightest bidding though aware that the
shooting was over for the day.
They reached the top of the rise and found the other man awaiting
them, with the evening's sport--a couple of rabbits and the
pheasant--slung on his shoulder.
"I'll take the rabbits," said Hickory. "You take the pheasant round
to Little Staple, Peter, and leave it with my compliments!"
"Right O!" said Peter.
He turned to go by way of a stile that led through the copse, but was
detained by Silas Hickory's voice. "And by the way, Peter, if you
should see Miss Bobby, tell her I'll be pleased to give her a lift
into Bode market to-morrow if she cares for one! Got that?"
Peter stood with his hand on the rail, considering. "It seems to
me," he said slowly, "that as you've got such a lot to say to her it
wouldn't be altogether unreasonable to go and say it yourself."
Silas Hickory threw up his head with a gesture which, though wholly
unconscious, had in it a hint of arrogance. It was the action of a
well-bred animal resenting the spur.
"You get on with the job!" he said curtly, and turned on his heel in
the other direction.
Peter got over the stile with thoughtful movements and walked away
along the little winding path that led through the Long Copse.
There was another stile at the further end, and when he reached it he
paused again and made a grave remark into the bleak silence around
him. It was the summing-up of his meditation.
"And he's not such a damn' fool neither!" he said.
Silas, walking quietly along the ridge with his dog behind him, was
also deep in thought. The winter day was closing in with a cold,
misty rain and his boots squelched drearily over the muddy ground.
But it was obvious that the weather had no sort of effect upon him.
His progress had something irresistible, even fateful about it. His
big square form moved with machine-like steadiness. His square face
with its blunt features and somewhat blue chin had the massive look
of a carving in bronze. Whatever the end he had in view, Silas
Hickory was not the man to be lightly turned aside from it. He had a
long bare upper lip, also rather blue, that betokened an obstinate
will. His eyes were hard and direct under black brows of exceeding
abundance. Undoubtedly a black beard should have completed his
equipment, but this was denied expression in spite of unceasing
efforts to assert itself. It was said of him by village wags, behind
his back, that Silas was covered with hair wherever he could not
reach to shave. There was certainly no denying that his shaving was
of a very rigorous and drastic description and was sometimes
performed twice a day--a fact of which his step-sister and
housekeeper, Mary Flight, strongly disapproved. She said that hairy
men were the pick of the race and it was a pity that Silas did not
make the best of himself. But no criticisms ever made any difference
to Silas who continued doggedly to refuse to countenance the beard
that thrust itself upon him. If Mary liked beards, why didn't she
get a husband with one? He wasn't standing in her way.
Not that he regarded her as one of the marrying sort in the least!
Somehow he never had, probably on account of her five years'
seniority which had always given her a middle-aged status in his
eyes. In any case she was well over forty now and looked it. Her
stout comeliness allowed of no misunderstanding on that point. She
had managed for Silas and Peter for the past twelve years, and seemed
likely to do so for the rest of her life. It was an oddly-assorted
household, and the curious part of it was that though they all passed
as brothers and sister, there was no actual blood-relationship
between any of them. Mary Flight was the step-daughter of Peter
Garnet's mother who in her turn had become the stepmother of Silas
Hickory. Silas and Peter were foster-brothers as well as
step-brothers, the marriage between their respective parents having
been accomplished as a pure matter of convenience some eighteen
months after Silas's mother had died in giving him birth. Not much
was known of Silas's mother beyond the fact that she was of high
birth and had married his father after a holiday spent in the West of
England in face of the most strenuous opposition from her family. Of
his father everyone knew everything. A great John Bull of a man had
been Silas Hickory the elder, black-bearded, loud-voiced and
assertive as a prize-fighter, jealous of his yeoman stock and
yielding pride of place to none. His wife, very gentle and retiring,
had made no very lasting impression upon anyone, and her memory had
quickly died. Mrs. Garnet, Peter's mother, the wife of one of Silas
Hickory's labourers, had been requisitioned for the nurture and care
of his motherless babe, and had filled the gap with a cheery
efficiency which on the death of her own husband a little later had
induced Farmer Silas, as they called him over at Bode, to install her
in his first wife's place as mistress of Staple Farm. The two boys
and Mary had grown up together, and save for the fact that Silas had
been given a sound Grammar School education whereas the other two
children had received the usual tuition at the local Board School,
there had been small difference in their general upbringing.
Yet, now that both the elder Hickory and his wife were gone and the
three who had been children together lived on in the old home, there
was between them a difference of which all who knew them were aware.
Though they were universally regarded as belonging to the same
family, Silas Hickory was never classed in the same category as Mary
and Peter. They were plain country-folk, and Peter, though
recognized as being something better than a mere farm-hand, was
certainly something very much less than the foster-brother for whom
he worked. Peter belonged to the soil, and no other career than that
of farming had ever presented itself to him. He was slow and very
sure, like one of his own plodding cart-horses, laconic of speech yet
not without a certain humour upon occasion, possessing for Silas a
dumb devotion which seldom found expression but which was one of his
most salient characteristics none the less.
It had always been the same, his attitude to Silas. Even as lads, it
had existed in the form of a mute, instinctive deference which no
adventures or pursuits shared in common had ever eradicated. And
even Mary, who had mothered them both from infancy, manifested it in
a modified degree. An invisible line was drawn between them which
placed Silas apart. He was the master, and by a law as rigid as
Court etiquette he was invariably treated as such. What was good
enough for the two others was emphatically not good enough for Silas,
and though he never made any stand on his own account Mary was
strenuous in her observance of this ceremonial preferment.
Moreover, their friends were not his friends though to the outward
eye they might appear to be. Silas had his own sittingroom at the
Farm, and here he was quite undisturbed at all times, by Mary's
unalterable decree. If she had company in the kitchen with which she
deemed that he might not desire to mix, she brought his meal to him
here herself. Like Peter, she never expressed her devotion in words,
but her vigilance for his comfort had an eagle-like quality that
never failed. Emphatically, Silas was not to be bothered by trivial
things.
On ordinary occasions they lived and ate together, but Silas was
never allowed to wait upon himself, still less upon Mary. Peter
might help her sometimes in the evenings if she were hard pressed,
but Silas never. He was the king of that household, and he was kept
rigidly within his royal limits, so far as Mary was concerned. If he
elected to spend a night with a sick animal, that was a different
matter, though even then Peter was usually hanging round until
express command drove him away. But that was work within his
province which any gentleman-farmer might undertake; but nothing of a
menial nature, such as carrying a bucket of water or a scuttle of
coal, was ever countenanced by Mary.
"Leave that for them whose work it is!" she would say, and Silas,
realizing that to transgress her rules of etiquette gave her actual
pain, was usually goodnatured enough to observe them, at least when
her eye was upon him.
He was very fond of Mary, whose buxom presence was always full of
good cheer. If he found her a little obvious and downright in her
ways, he knew her for the soul of honesty and valued her accordingly.
She did not profess to be intellectual, but she was an excellent
housekeeper and her cooking left nothing to be desired. All that she
did was well done.
Yet, though he knew that hot tea and a blazing fire awaited him on
his return from the dripping fields on that chill November evening,
Silas did not hasten his steps or display any eagerness to reach
those physical comforts. His gait was thoughtful and his head bent.
Staple Farm stood in a hollow up a narrow lane that led off the old
turnpike road to Bode. No traffic ever passed it except the
farm-carts, for beyond it lay only fields and woods. But between the
farm and the main road another lane, grass-grown, scarcely more than
a winding track between hedges, led up a steep slope, and it was near
the entrance of this that he eventually found himself upon descending
the hill.
A rough stile gave access to it from the sodden field he had just
traversed, and this he crossed almost without checking his stride,
then stood abruptly still, staring up through the darkness as though
he listened for something.
There was no sound however, beyond the drip of the branches overhead
and the faint tinkle of a hidden spring that ran down a ditch near
by. Night had fallen, and it was one of inexpressible desolation.
He stood motionless for several seconds, Nero waiting, forlornly
patient, at his heels. Then he heaved a sigh of which he was plainly
unconscious and wheeled in the other direction.
"Yes, I wish it had been a brace, Nero," he said.
CHAPTER II
STAPLE FARM
Mary Flight looked up at his entrance with a smile of welcome on her
broad comely face. The fire was roaring up the open chimney, and a
covered dish stood on an iron stand of Peter's contrivance before it.
"Come along in!" she said. "How late you are! I'm sure you couldn't
have seen to shoot anything for the last half-hour."
"I've brought back a couple of rabbits," said Silas.
An old leathern chair with wooden arms awaited him on one side of the
fire, and a pair of carpet-slippers was placed conveniently near it
in the glow. He moved forward and dropped down rather heavily.
"There now!" said Mary. "Take off your boots and be comfortable! I
thought you'd have been in long ago. Just look at the wet on your
coat! Take it off, and I'll go and get you another!"
She was on her feet with the words, pushing the stocking she was
knitting into a corner of her chair; but Silas stopped her.
"No, Mary, leave me alone! I'm not wet through. I'll go and get a
bath presently."
That was one of his idiosyncracies which Mary could never understand,
though she saw to it that the water was hot whenever he was likely to
need it. She yielded the point of the coat and turned to the table
instead.
"Well, I'll make the tea now. You'll be ready for it after messing
about all this time in those muddy fields. Do take off your boots,
Silas! You'll be ever so much more comfortable."
But Silas ignored the friendly admonition. "Better wait a few
minutes for Peter," he said, stretching out his gaitered legs to the
glow.
"And where's Peter?" said Mary, pausing teapot in hand.
Silas replied with his eyes on the fire. "I sent him round to Little
Staple with a cock pheasant. He'll be in directly."
Mary's pause lengthened into a definite silence ere she turned and
quietly set down the teapot.
When finally she spoke, her voice sounded a little strained. "I saw
Miss Rosemary this afternoon. She was on her way back from the
village and dropped in for a chat."
"Alone, was she?" said Silas.
He did not turn his head to ask the question. The red glow of the
fire gave his features more than ever a look as of having been carved
in bronze.
"Yes, she was alone," said Mary. "Miss Roberta was much too busy to
leave home, and Miss Matilda is in bed."
"What's the matter with Miss Matilda?" said Silas.
Mary slightly shrugged her plump shoulders. "She always is a poor
thing," she remarked not very sympathetically. "As often in bed as
out of it, it seems to me."
Silas grunted acquiescence. "And what had Miss Rosemary got to say
for herself?" he asked, after a moment.
"Oh, she was just as cheery as ever." Mary chuckled a little.
"Ready to laugh at everything and nothing, the little rogue! She's
getting very pretty, Silas, and actually eighteen next birthday. One
can hardly believe it."
"Yes, she's growing up," said Silas.
"But that's just it," said Mary. "She never will grow up. She
doesn't look a day more than fourteen. I can hardly believe she is."
"She was that when they came here," said Silas.
"Yes, and that's three years ago. It seems like yesterday, except
that the old gentleman was with them, and Miss Roberta wasn't quite
so thin as she is now. He was a fine old gentleman was old Colonel
Wendholme."
"Yes," said Silas. "He kept Rosemary in order, which is more than
anyone else has since he went on. The child is as wild as a hawk.
There'll be trouble with her one of these days if they don't look
out."
"Oh, but she's so warmhearted," pleaded Mary, "and simply devoted to
her Aunt Bobby, as she calls her. Besides, Silas, she's so young.
Why, she doesn't know good from evil yet."
"That's just it. Time she learnt!" said Silas. "Girls of eighteen
ought to be beginning to have a little sense. Rosemary is like a
colt that has never felt the lash. Miss Bobby is much too gentle
with her."
"Oh, Silas, she's very strict sometimes," protested Mary. "Too much
so, I almost think. Do you know, last August Bank Holiday when
Rosemary broke away and went to the Fair at Bode with that young
Hudson from Oxford her Aunt Bobby waited up for her and kept her
locked in her room the whole day afterwards? Rosemary herself told
me of it. She said she could have let herself down from the window
easily, but she didn't because she knew her Aunt Bobby was crying in
the dairy, and she couldn't have faced that, she said."
Silas uttered a sound that was like a growl. "I should like the
breaking in of that young woman," he said.
"Oh, but she's so tenderhearted!" pleaded Mary again. "Doesn't that
show how tractable the child is? And anyhow, crying or not, her aunt
never went near her except to take her bread and milk for her meals
until the very last thing at night. Poor little Miss Rosemary didn't
tell me what happened then. She only threw up her hands and said,
'My hat!' and added that she never slept a wink afterwards."
Silas growled again more emphatically. "That girl wants whipping,"
he said. "Why doesn't she turn to and lend a hand with the animals
instead of always tearing about enjoying herself? I've a very strong
suspicion that she's been riding Leader again lately. He's limping
worse than he was."
"Good gracious, Silas! She wouldn't do a thing like that!" Mary
gazed at him, round-eyed. "Where is Leader?"
"Up in the field behind the big barn, two fields off Little Staple.
I know she has been on him since he's been turned out. Old Joe Brant
saw her over a week ago, and I've been on the look-out for her ever
since. But she dodges me, the young baggage!"
"Oh, Silas, don't call her that!" Mary exclaimed in horror. "There's
no vice in her, that I'm sure there isn't. If you really know that
she's been on Leader--though I can't believe she'd do such a
thing--why don't you step round and have a talk to her about it? I'm
sure she would never do it again."
"She won't--if I catch her," said Silas grimly.
"Yes, but, Silas, if you'd only speak to her!" said Mary.
"She'd lie to me," said Silas.
"Oh, Silas!" Mary's voice held real pain.
"I tell you she'd lie," he repeated, stooping forward to throw a
stick into the fire. "And I'm not going to risk hurting Miss Bobby
over it. The only person that's going to be hurt is Rosemary,--and
Miss Bobby won't know anything at all about it."
He thrust out his chin with the words, and Mary almost automatically
shifted her ground.
"Oh, dear, dear, dear!" she said. "Why don't you move Leader to the
field at the back here? He'd do just as well and be out of harm's
way, and then she wouldn't have the temptation waiting for her, so to
speak."
"I don't believe in removing temptation from people's paths," said
Silas. "And look here, Mary! You're not to warn her. Understand?
I shall catch her one of these days, so let the young imp do her
worst--and take her gruel afterwards!"
Mary yielded the point, according to her invariable custom. "I won't
say anything, of course," she said. "It's not my business. But do
remember that she's not a baby nor yet a boy, Silas! She's a lady
born."
"She's a mischievous little devil," said Silas with decision. "I'm
not likely to forget that, anyhow."
The entrance of Peter at this juncture put a timely end to a
discussion which Mary had begun to find somewhat distressing. She
turned to him with relief on her homely face.
"Ah, now we can have tea! Are you very wet, Peter? Come along to
the fire!"
She picked up the teapot again and made room for him to pass her, but
he stopped and sat down at the table.
"I'm warm enough, but wanting a good feed badly. Got something nice?"
"Ham and eggs," said Mary. "And there are some sausage-rolls too.
Come along, Nero! Here's a bone for you! Eat it in the corner,
there's a good dog! Won't you get your boots off, Silas, before you
begin?"
But Silas elected to turn his chair round to the table as he was.
His face had a harsh look as though his thoughts were occupied with
something very far removed from the good cheer that awaited him.
Mary served him first, that being one of the rules of the etiquette
she had instituted, and he began to eat in silence.
They followed his lead for a space, then she and Peter began to
exchange a few commonplace remarks that left the head of the house
entirely to his own meditations. This also was etiquette as Mary had
devised it. Silas talked or did not talk according to his
inclination.
On the present occasion he was half-way through his meal before he
uttered another word. Then abruptly he addressed Peter. "Did you
see Miss Bobby when you left the pheasant?"
"Yes," said Peter, munching. "I did. She was up with Miss Matilda,
but I waited while Miss Rosemary fetched her. She said I was to
thank you very much for the bird, but she won't want a lift to-morrow
as she's arranged to send her pigs over in Everett's cart, and he's
going to sell them for her."
"What on earth is that for?" said Silas. "She'll have to pay the man
commission on everything he sells and probably cartage too."
"Can't say," said Peter, still munching. "Suppose she knows her own
business best. Anyhow, that's what she's going to do."
"Why isn't she going in herself?" demanded Silas.
Peter shrugged his shoulders and grinned. "Got Matilda in bed with a
chill."
Silas made a violent movement of exasperation. "And what does
Rosemary do? Can't she lend a hand?"
Peter's grin broadened. "Rosemary probably has other fish to fry,"
he said.
"She's but a child," said Mary extenuatingly.
Silas relapsed into heavy silence and drank his tea with the air of
one who swallows with difficulty.
There followed a pause, then, as it became evident that Silas had
nothing more to say, Mary and Peter resumed their commonplaces,
talking together as though they were alone.
Silas was the first to finish, and pushed back his chair. "Do you
mind if I go?" he said perfunctorily to Mary.
She opened her kindly eyes in surprise. "Of course not! But, Silas,
you're not going out again--not now, all wet as you are?"
His look became dogged. Even in childhood he had never endured any
dictation from Mary. "Yes, I am. I'm going up to Little Staple.
It's absurd when I'm going in to Bode half-empty and taking Brant too
that she should pay Everett to cart her stock."
He spoke with a certain savagery, as if Mary were the aggressor, and
she wisely forebore to make any further protest.
A cloud came over her usually contented face, but she merely said,
"It seems a pity not to let folks go their own way if they want to."
To which Silas replied by turning with something more than his usual
decision of movement and walking out of the room.
"Don't you worry yourself!" said Peter, as the door closed. "She
isn't taking any, or I'm much mistaken."
Mary gave a sigh. "I do wish he'd just be happy at home," she said.
"He's getting so restless and easily upset. And there's little Miss
Rosemary makes a regular laughing-stock of him, and I can't stop her.
It fairly worries me, Peter. We can keep order in our own sphere of
life, but not beyond it."
"Oh, don't you fret!" said Peter goodnaturedly. "She'll laugh once
too often, that kid. I'm not afraid of her getting the upper hand
with Silas. What I am afraid of is----"
He broke off, as abruptly the door opened and Silas poked his head
round it. "You might clean my gun for me, Peter," he said. "Come
on, Nero!" And he was gone again with Nero eagerly scrabbling on the
oak floor at his heels.
Mary waited till the sounds of their departure ended in the banging
of a door. Then she spoke in a lowered voice.
"What are you afraid of, Peter?"
Peter finished his cup of tea and took his pipe before he answered.
Then, with a frown on his goodlooking countenance he made reply.
"I'm afraid, Mary, that he's after something that won't bring him any
good,--even if he gets it, which I doubt."
"I know what you mean," said Mary, with another sigh.
CHAPTER III
LITTLE STAPLE
It was beginning to rain heavily as Silas went up the track on which
he had stood listening about half-an-hour before. He had put on an
oilskin mackintosh, and the drops pattered drearily on his shoulders
as he trudged along the narrow way. The murmur of the spring in the
ditch had become a definite chatter. The mud was thick and clinging,
but he tramped through it without pause, the faithful Nero closely
following. There was more than fatefulness about him now; there was
fighting determination. It was very dark by this time, and he
carried a hurricane-lamp that shone with a fitful gleaming upon the
puddles as he went.
The track seemed to wind endlessly, though it was in reality barely
half-a-mile from the Staple Farm lane that it widened out to a
duck-pond on one side and an open space in front of a small garden on
the other. Silas turned into this garden, admitting himself by a
little white gate. A row of uneven flagstones led to a cottage, also
white and thatched, smelling of wood-smoke. It was an ancient place,
with lattice-windows from two of which on the ground floor a light
shone through red blinds. He reached a whitewashed porch and set his
lantern upon a seat at the side. Then he knocked with his knuckles
somewhat imperiously upon the stout wooden door.
For a moment or two there was no sound within, and then suddenly a
merry childish voice began to sing a ditty with an impudent lilt.
"Hickory dickory dock!
Whose is that terrible knock?
Oh, don't stay to rile us, but run away, Silas
Hickory dickory dock!"
The words were spoken with great directness close to the keyhole, and
they ended in a laugh so gay and spontaneous that most people would
have found it hard not to laugh also. Not so Silas Hickory! His
face darkened as he listened, and ere the ditty was well over he was
rattling the latch.
"Let me in, please!" he commanded. "I want to speak to Miss Roberta."
Another burst of laughter greeted this announcement. The door showed
no signs of yielding. The impudent voice chanted another verselet
through the keyhole as soon as mirth permitted.
"Oh, we get so sickery
Of Hick-Hick-Hickory,
And we wish he'd go-o away."
At this point Silas lost his temper and delivered a prolonged volley
of such thundering knocks that the ribald vocalist could make no
headway in the din.
His attack ended with somewhat disconcerting suddenness in the sudden
swinging open of the door, a _coup_ which nearly precipitated him
headlong upon the threshold.
A gay voice greeted him. "Hullo, landlord! Hold up--hold up! Where
have you been entertaining yourself this evening?"
He found himself face to face with a laughing imp of a girl,
blue-eyed, golden-haired, bewitchingly pretty, dressed in a white
shirt and brown breeches with boots to the knee. Laughter quivered
in every line of her. She looked like a saucy lad of fourteen.
Silas, ten inches above her head, looked down on her with complete
disapproval. "I want to speak to your aunt," he said.
She stooped with careless grace to caress Nero. "_Ça va!_" she
remarked. "But he can't always have what he wants, can he, Nero?
Aunt Bobby is busy," she announced, standing up again. "But I'll
give her a message if you like."
"Thanks. I don't," said Silas grimly. "I'll wait."
"I expect she'll be busy all night now," said the girl, making an
impertinent grimace at him. "Will you take a seat on the mat?"
"I'll stand, thanks," said Silas.
Again laughter burst from her; it seemed impossible to keep it in.
"Bronze statue of a ferocious cave-man masquerading in the fustian of
a British farmer!" she observed to the oak rafters. "Price of raw
material alone--five and threepence, clothes--shocking misfit,
artistry--too atrocious to mention. Would make a good background to
a prehistoric film--minus the clothes of course, which completely
fail to disguise the violent and very unattractive temperament of the
man!"
Silas spoke, with difficulty restraining himself. "I won't detain
you, Miss Rosemary. Will you kindly mention to your aunt that I am
here?"
She held up her hands in mock astonishment. "Kindly mention you are
here! My good man, if I could only mention that you had gone again,
I might be giving her an unexpected piece of good news. As to your
arrival, she must be only too well aware of it. I suppose that as
the house is your own, you are at liberty to knock it down whenever
the fancy takes you. But after all, we do pay our rent regularly,
don't we?"
It was Silas's opportunity and he seized it. "I don't think you
personally ever do anything beyond getting up to mischief," he said.
She put out her tongue at him; then spoke compassionately. "Yes, I
daresay a very limited intelligence might take that point of view,
and clodhoppers seldom manage to develop anything more. Cave-men too
are guided only by the most primitive instincts, so perhaps it would
be unkind to expect too much. Ah! Your dignified entrance has had
the unlooked-for effect of rousing the household. Guess who it is,
Aunt Bobby!"
She turned to a dark corner behind her whence a winding oak staircase
led steeply upwards, to meet a slight hurrying figure that swiftly
reached the uneven floor and came running over the rough matting to
join them.
"Mr. Hickory, I am so sorry you should have been kept waiting," the
new-comer said.
She had a sweet clear voice, and her movements were quick and
bird-like. In appearance she might have been the elder sister of the
taunting imp in riding-breeches, so light a mark had the twenty years
that divided them made upon her. A little taller than Rosemary and
exquisitely formed was Miss Roberta Wendholme. She had a soft gay
laugh, but there was a decision about her straight blue eyes and
delicate chin that gave undeniable force to her personality. Her
hands were small and dainty, but firm in every gesture.
She gave Silas one of them with a smile of welcome. "And you have
come up in all this horrible rain! Do come in to the fire!
Rosemary, you should have asked him in."
"He came in without," laughed Rosemary. "And you'd better be very
careful, Aunt Bobby, for he's feeling rather prehistoric."
"Foolish child!" said Aunt Bobby, turning to a half-open door on her
left whence came the cosy glow of lamplight and firelight combined.
"Come in here, Mr. Hickory! How very kind of you to have sent us up
another bird! It is such a treat, especially for my sister in her
poor state of health."
She led the way into her little parlour with the words where a peat
fire burned with a steadfast redness beneath a wide-mouthed chimney.
There were a good many books on shelves along the walls and a few
good oil-colours. An ancient oak dresser with some china stood at
one end, and at the side of it a door led into the kitchen. There
were rose-coloured curtains at the windows and rose cushions on the
chairs. A leopard-skin rug covered the shabbiness of the settee that
was drawn up to the fire. The whole effect was one of comfort oddly
mingled with penury.
"Sit down!" said Aunt Bobby, pointing to the settee.
Silas hesitated for a moment, for Rosemary was dancing on her toes
behind him softly humming her impromptu nursery rhyme; then with an
air of determination he pulled off his wet mackintosh, dropped it on
the back of a chair and complied.
"Afraid I'm rather muddy," he said.
"What does that matter?" said Aunt Bobby tranquilly. "Everybody is
now-a-days."
She sat in an old rickety armchair, and Rosemary came and perched on
the arm, her vivid face alight with mocking merriment.
"Dear Aunt Bobby!" she said, twining a warm arm round her as she sat.
"You've given up the unequal contest, haven't you? The snow-boots
have gone by the board and top-boots have taken their place. It'll
be breeches too before the year is out."
Bobby lifted a slightly flushed face to the child's laughing eyes.
"Rosemary darling," she said, "there is one rule which I think you
have forgotten. Outdoor clothes are always changed as soon as we
come in for the evening."
"Oh, but I'm going out again," said Rosemary, unabashed. "I've got
to take Jess her supper. Yes, darling, I know I ought to have done
it before, but I was busy, and then Peter Garnet came, and after that
I forgot. She won't hurt, you know. I expect with all those puppies
to look after she's forgotten too.
"Go and do it at once, dear!" said Bobby. "It's very unkind to keep
her waiting."
"A few minutes more or less can't matter now," responded Rosemary.
"By the way, Nero is in the hall. Shall I lake him along to see her?
He doesn't know he is the happy father of five, does he? He was only
a bridegroom last time he came."
"Go, dear!" said Bobby, gently patting her hand. "But leave Nero
where he is!"
"Oh, there's plenty of time," protested Rosemary. "I want to hear
what Mr. Hickory has come for this time I'm sure it's something to do
with pigs. I can feel it in my bones."
She laughed across at Silas with eyes of roguish effrontery and swung
a careless leg in his direction.
Silas said nothing with conspicuous determination. There was
something about him suggestive of a colossal force strongly pent at
the moment. He did not even look at Rosemary, but stared straight at
the fire.
Bobby spoke, with firmness. "Rosemary dear, go now! Please don't
let me have to speak again!"
Rosemary jumped lightly to her feet. She looked more than ever like
a very winning young boy as she stood facing Silas,--daring him, it
almost seemed.
"I went round to see Mary to-day," she observed. "She told me quite
a lot about you, and all about your funny little ways when you were a
child. She seems absolutely devoted to you. I can't think why you
don't marry her. She'd make you a jolly suitable wife."
She shot the words at him with supreme impertinence Silas stiffened
at the sudden attack. She had pierced his armour at last, and he
opened his mouth to reply. But before he could do so, Aunt Bobby
swooped like an angry bird upon the offender.
"Rosemary," she said, "you annoy me very much. Please go at once!"
It was a very definite command. Rosemary whizzed round on her heels
to face her, and brought her hand to her forehead in a smart salute.
Her eyes sparkled with wicked gaiety as she tramped to the door.
Reaching it, she threw Silas a look over her shoulder that challenged
and disdained him in the same moment. Then she was gone, whistling
with great emphasis the tune to which she had sung her ditty through
the keyhole a few minutes earlier, breaking into song as she pulled
the door behind her.
"Oh, don't stay to rile us, but run away, Silas
Hickory dickory dock."
CHAPTER IV
CONCERNING PIGS
A marked silence followed her departure, and when it had lasted
several seconds Bobby got up and began with rather fluttering
movements to put the fire together.
Silas got up also, his great figure towering above her.
"That's all right, Miss Roberta," he said. "Don't you get worried
over nothing!"
She laid down the poker and straightened herself. There were tiny
lines about her eyes and mouth which only showed when she was
troubled.
"It's very nice of you to say that," she said. "But it isn't all
right. The child gets more unruly and out of hand every day. It's
no good my apologizing on her behalf, for she always does it again."
A faint smile showed through the grimness of Silas's face. "You
haven't whipped her enough," he said.
"Oh, but I have!" protested Bobby, her mouth quivering a little. "I
used to have a theory that if you kept a child in hand from the very
earliest it would never get beyond you. And I have been very strict
with her always. But--I seem to have failed somehow. I suppose it
is the fashion for girls of the present day to behave like spoilt
children."
"They are spoilt children, most of 'em," said Silas. "And they ought
to be treated as such." He spoke dogmatically. "You mustn't let her
defy you, you know."
"I really don't know what to do," sighed the older generation.
"Punishments never have any effect. I am afraid only responsibility
will ever bring her wisdom. I suppose we were the same when we were
young."
"Except that we grew up sooner," said Silas. "But you needn't talk
about when you were young. You don't look more than five years older
than she is."
She laughed, and again slightly coloured. Her fair skin was wont to
betray her thus in moments of embarrassment. As a girl she had
battled furiously against this habit which she had regarded as
contemptible but which had very completely mastered her in earlier
days none the less.
She turned aside and changed the subject quickly, as had been her
invariable remedy in her effort to overcome it.
"Well, what about the pigs?" she said, and then, realizing her
blunder, turned quite crimson and laughed. "Do forgive me! You'll
think I have pigs on the brain."
He smiled openly, and in a moment his sombre countenance was
completely transformed. There was something about Silas's smile
which somehow did not seem to belong to his type. Mary always said
that anyone could see he was a born gentleman when he smiled.
Perhaps it was that smile of his, rare as it was, which had made
Bobby regard him as a friend rather than a mere neighbour of the
farmer class.
"No, I don't think you have pigs on the brain, Miss Roberta," he
said, "but at the present moment, I have. I got your message from
Peter, and I've come up to tell you that there's no need for you to
employ a man like Everett to sell them for you. I'll sell 'em myself
with pleasure, if you'll trust me to that extent."
"How like you!" said Bobby. "Of course I would gladly trust them to
you, but you are so kind that I don't like to be always taking
advantage of it."
"Why not?" said Silas.
She faced him with absolute sincerity. "You won't take payment for
it," she said, "and--I don't like taking things for which I can't
pay."
"Not even from friends?" said Silas, his dark eyes freely meeting
hers.
"Not from anyone," said Bobby firmly.
"Oh!" said Silas. "And--don't you ever give things to anyone
yourself?"
"That is quite different," she said.
"And do they throw it back at you because you won't let 'em pay?"
proceeded Silas with rather stolid persistence.
"That is different," she said again, countering him with his own
weapon.
He abandoned the brief contest with startling abruptness. "Well, you
can pay me if you like," he said. "I'll undertake to do you better
than Everett will even then."
"But--but why should you?" said Bobby, disconcerted.
"Why shouldn't I?" said Silas, and again his smile was apparent.
"You are my tenant here. It's all to my interest that you should
make a success of things."
She shook her head. "Mr. Hickory, I am very sorry, but I don't think
that is your real reason."
"But we're not talking about reasons, are we?" said Silas. "We're
talking about pigs, and who is going to sell 'em."
She laughed, and something that had been rather like distress
vanished from her demeanour as she did so. "I'm afraid it's no
good," she said. "It's all fixed up now."
"It can be unfixed," said Silas.
"No, it can't. I shouldn't like to upset Mr. Everett."
"Damn Everett!" said Silas. "I'd upset him every day of the week if
I got the chance."
"How very vindictive!" said Bobby.
"Well, but you know the man is a sodden brute that's sure to swindle
you if he can, so why give him the opportunity?" argued Silas, not
without heat.
She made a small gesture of appeal. "Please don't be so severe! I
must paddle my own canoe, you know. I am really not doing too badly
on the whole."
"Women are all alike," said Silas.
"So are men," said Bobby with a funny little smile, "when they want
something they can't get. That sounds ungrateful, I am afraid," she
added apologetically, "but I've got to hold my own somehow. It isn't
that I think my way is always the best; only I have got to take it,
that's all."
"And make a mess of things!" said Silas.
She nodded. "And make a mess of things. Anyhow, I do come to you
for advice about the pigs, even if I am pigheaded about selling them."
"You haven't done even that lately," said Silas.
"Because I haven't needed it just lately," said Bobby courageously.
"Is that the real reason?" said Silas.
She laughed, her gay laugh that was like Rosemary's, only sweeter.
"But we're not talking about reasons, are we?" she said. "We're
talking about pigs."
"And you won't accept my help over them?" said Silas.
"Not this time, thank you," she said.
"All right." Silas became determined again. "I shall keep an eye on
them all the same and see that you're not swindled."
She raised her hands comically. "Oh, please don't! It will be more
trouble than if you sold them for me yourself."
"Much more trouble," said Silas.
"Aren't you difficult?" she said with a sigh.
"I suppose I can do what I like," he said rather aggressively.
"Oh, of course!" she agreed. "I am sure you always do."
"I don't, then," said Silas. "There are lots of things I should like
to do that I can't."
"That's life, isn't it?" said Bobby.
He turned upon her. "If you're going to tell me that I can't always
have what I want, I'm going!" he said. "It'll be the third time that
I've been told it in the last half-hour."
"Oh, what a shame!" laughed Bobby. "No wonder you are feeling
aggrieved! No, I shouldn't dream of saying that to you, Mr. Hickory.
I shouldn't dare in the first place."
"You--wouldn't dare?" he said, his voice suddenly sunk very low.
"I leave all the daring to Rosemary," she said lightly. "I am sure
she was one of the brave people who said that to you. And the
other--let me see, the other--must have been Peter."
"It was," said Silas. "But you--Miss Roberta, surely you always say
what you like!"
"No. I stop first, as a rule, and count the cost." She spoke with a
quaint, half-pleading humour. "It really is safer, you know. One
has less to regret in the long run."
"It will never cost you anything to say what you like to me," said
Silas.
She threw him a little smile. "Thank you. That is kind. Now do you
know I think I ought to run back to my sister as she has been alone
nearly all day, and that is so depressing for an invalid. You will
understand, won't you, and excuse me?"
"There's no excuse necessary," said Silas rather gloomily. "I always
understand."
"I suppose I can't offer you anything?" she said. "You have had tea?"
"Yes, thanks. I'm sorry your sister is ill." He picked up his
mackintosh and began to put it on. "I can't hope to see you again
for a long time, then?"
"Oh, I expect so," said Bobby, with pleasant vagueness. "It was very
good of you to come."
He faced her squarely. "When may I come again?"
A sudden burst of song from outside the window, which was not quite
closed, startled them both.
"This year, next year, some time, never!" chanted a merry voice.
Bobby made a sharp movement and coloured again all over her fair
face. Silas turned abruptly to the window and pulled up the blind.
There came a peal of laughter and the sound of retreating feet,
leaving only the patter of the rain beating upon the panes.
Silas fastened the window, pulled down the blind and readjusted the
curtain with care.
Then he turned round again to Miss Roberta. "Good-bye!" he said
rather curtly.
"Please forgive her!" said Bobby, holding out a hand that seemed to
plead. "She is very young and headstrong, but she has a very loving
heart."
"It's none of my business," said Silas bluntly. "I don't care what
she does or is so long as she keeps out of my way."
"I am afraid it is you who will have to keep out of hers," said
Bobby, shaking her head.
"That," said Silas, his voice suddenly so quiet that it sounded
ominous, "I shall never do." He let her hand go with the words.
"Not, that is, so long as she remains anywhere near you. Good-bye!
I'll see that Everett gets you a decent price for the pigs. Nothing
else I can do?"
"Nothing, thank you," said Bobby. "Not even that, I hope, if it's a
great nuisance."
"It won't be," said Silas, going out. "And I'll drop in and let you
know about it. Good-bye!"
He was gone. She left him to let himself out and remained standing
before the fire with an expression half-whimsical and half-sad on her
delicate face.
There was no stopping him. His tactics were of the steamroller type
that might be eluded for a time but not permanently checked. She had
known for a long while that she was powerless in that respect.
Sooner or later, Silas Hickory would hem her in and make his solemn
bid for the future. Quite in vain of course! She had no more
intention of marrying him than he had of marrying Rosemary. But all
the same she liked him, and his honest devotion touched her. Bobby
was one of those who, being sensitive themselves, shrink almost
morbidly from the prospect of inflicting pain. Perhaps this was the
reason that her efforts at avoidance had not so far been
conspicuously successful.
"I suppose I am not rude enough," she said with a sigh. "If I could
only behave like Rosemary----"
But at this thought she stiffened. Rosemary had behaved atrociously,
even more so than usual. Her open rudeness to Silas was becoming
intolerable. It must be checked somehow, and it was for her to check
it.
She straightened herself with a little jerk of determination. If she
could not check Silas, at least she would not be overridden by
Rosemary! Child of her heart as she was, she must not--and would
not--allow her to grow completely beyond her control. At Little
Staple there was so much to do and to think of that perhaps she had
not given sufficient attention to Rosemary of late, and so she had
begun to get out of hand.
"And she used to be so docile," she said to herself with a sigh.
"Well, well, I shall have to be firm."
Meantime, there was the invalid awaiting her ministrations upstairs
and she really must not neglect her any longer. She gathered up her
energies with a conscious effort and thrusting Silas from her mind,
she went about her task.
CHAPTER V
MATILDA
She went quickly up the dark oak stairs, moving with the ready energy
which Silas knew as one of her main characteristics. That energy of
Bobby's was never allowed to flag. Rosemary always declared that she
was never tired, but it would have been more accurate to have said
that she was never idle. The whole burden of Little Staple Farm hung
upon her shoulders, and she never showed any sign of flinching. When
Silas had once asked her what would happen if she were ill, she had
answered, "How absurd! Why, I never have time to be ill!"
It was not so, however, with her sister Matilda. Mary's
compassionate description of her as "a poor thing" was a very
appropriate one. Matilda was one of those, who though seldom
seriously ill, are never really well. She was barely two years
Bobby's senior, but her dependence upon the younger sister was as
complete as if many generations separated them. Rosemary used to
wonder sometimes rather scornfully if Aunt Matilda had ever been
young enough to do anything for herself, for Bobby waited upon her
hand and foot with unremitting devotion. She herself never attempted
to join in the good work, but for this aloofness she was not to
blame, nor was it surprising that lack of sympathy had been its
direct consequence. From her babyhood upwards Rosemary had always
been given definitely to understand that she must never worry Aunt
Matilda, and in the course of years she had arrived at the very
natural conclusion that Aunt Matilda very greatly preferred her room
to her company. It had never been a sore point with Rosemary. Aunt
Bobby's affection was of so warm and sustaining a character that she
had never felt the need of anything further. Of her grandfather, old
Colonel Wendholme, she had stood actively in awe, but she had never
loved him or pretended to mourn his death. For Matilda she had no
respect of any kind, and the deference towards her instilled by Aunt
Bobby was of a purely superficial nature. She adored Aunt Bobby, and
in her very waywardness she was wont to spare her as much as
possible. In her early childhood to be whipped by Aunt Bobby for
some fault had always broken her, because even a mild chastisement
from the one and only beloved one was agonizing. The same punishment
from her grandfather produced nothing but furious resentment if not
rebellion, but Bobby--Bobby suffered so intensely herself in
inflicting pain that punishment from her was altogether too
heartrending to be incurred lightly.
When she was only nine Rosemary had made a solemn vow in church that
she would never, never hurt Aunt Bobby again in that respect, and
somehow she had managed to keep her vow to the extent of evading any
further corporal punishment until she was judged to be too big for
it. But her high-spirited escapades were many and daring, and often
in the midst of her pressing duties Bobby would utter a swift
involuntary sigh over the growing responsibility that each year laid
upon her. Rosemary with her enchanting youth and beauty on the one
hand--Matilda with her failing health and pathetic dependence on the
other! But she was never seriously depressed about it. As she would
have said again with brisk commonsense, there was no time for that.
Entering her sister's bedroom on that dark November evening, her step
was as light as though the day's work were before her instead of
nearly past.
"I am afraid I have been a very long time," she said. "You must have
finished your tea long ago. I hope it was nice?"
"Oh, do take it away!" came the immediate fretful rejoinder. "You
know how I hate to have the remains of a meal lying about in my room.
I suppose it was Farmer Hickory again, was it? What did he want?"
It was Matilda's contemptuous habit always to refer to Silas in this
way. Their landlord was the only subject upon which she and Rosemary
thought alike.
Bobby came to the bedside and whisked the offending tea-tray from the
table.
"He only came to see if he could be of any help in selling the pigs
at Bode Market to-morrow," she said, "as he heard you were ill and
that I couldn't get over myself."
Matilda made a scornful sound. She was lying among her pillows in a
kind of elegant disorder. She too had once possessed beauty, of a
more classical and less arresting type than that which was developing
in Rosemary; but years of discontent and bitterness had completely
marred its gracious contours. Her features remained refined and
chiselled, but the fretful lines of forehead and mouth had become too
apparent for beauty to hold its own any longer. The years had scored
her heavily, and she looked at least ten years older than Bobby.
Her night attire was of the daintiest description. The whole of
Matilda's life, when she was not being ill, was devoted to the
maintenance of her wardrobe. As she said, it was right that one of
them should have the style and appearance of a lady, even though they
were condemned to lead a life of squalor and penury on a farm in the
wilds. She had a wonderful taste in dress; it was her one asset.
And her clothes were always faultless in cut and condition. She had
a regal bearing also, and she knew how to wear them.
Even in bed, her dainty shell-pink _négligée_ struck a note of
fastidious and not wholly incongruous refinement in the plain room
with its simple furniture and threadbare carpet. She had sufficient
personality to make her surroundings, and not herself, the
incongruous part of the picture. The coarse sheets in which she lay
somehow merely enhanced her rarity. Only the tragic lines of her
face matched the sombre background.
"And what will be his excuse to-morrow?" she demanded languidly,
reaching a delicate hand for a small mirror that stood on a table by
her side.
"Probably the pigs," said Bobby with tranquillity. "What would you
like for supper?"
Matilda made a face into the glass she held. "Oh, really, Bobby,"
she said, "your mind like your body seems to feed on meals! Whenever
I see you, you ask me something of the sort."
"My dear, it is no good my bringing you up something that you won't
eat," said Bobby, unperturbed. "I have done that too often. Would
you like some aspic jelly? I have made some for you if you care for
it."
Matilda was pulling her hair into becoming waves on her forehead.
"Oh, anything you like!" she said without transferring her attention.
"Please give me the thermometer before you go! If I have a
temperature, you will have to send for Bellamy. I'm not going to lie
here and die of neglect."
"I shouldn't think you have a temperature to-night," observed Bobby.
"Wouldn't you like me to do your hair for you?"
"No, thanks. You do it so badly. I've been looking a positive
scarecrow all day, but I haven't had the strength to alter it."
Matilda's voice took a plaintive note. "It's all very well for you,"
she said. "You don't know what it is to lie here hour after hour. I
honestly believe you would never think of sending for the doctor
until I was at death's door."
"Oh, I hope I should," said Bobby briskly. "But you haven't come to
that yet, have you? Now let me just put this tray outside, and then
I'll come back and make up a nice fire that you can sit by while I
make your bed."
"I don't want my bed made to-night," said Matilda. "Come and sit by
me and talk instead! It won't take you any longer."
Bobby looked a little doubtful on this point, but she had the wisdom
not to dispute it. She opened the door and set down the tray on a
slab outside, then came back and attended to the fire.
"Give me my powder-box and manicure set!" said Matilda.
Bobby brought them, and adjusted the lamp by the bedside for her
sister's comfort. Then she sat down in a wicker-chair, and though
she never betrayed any signs of fatigue there was something that
indicated relief in the manner in which she sank into the worn
cushions.
"Such a pity you don't sit down a little oftener!" said Matilda.
"You are getting so scraggy. But you always were a restless
creature."
"It seems to be my lot in life," said Bobby, with a smile.
"Do you remember how you used to fidget poor old Father?" said
Matilda. "He always said you didn't know how to rest."
Bobby made no reply. She knew, as well as did Matilda, that she had
been her father's favourite and the sole comfort of his last years.
"And Rosemary is just like you," went on Matilda, beginning to powder
her nose. "Such a wild, harum-scarum thing! She whistles about the
place like a boy. It's such a pity to encourage her, I think. But
you always said I was to leave her to you, and so I do. I wish you
joy of her, that's all."
"And she is a joy too!" said Bobby, with sudden warmth.
Matilda raised her eyebrows a little. "I'm glad you think so," she
said briefly. "I think you've completely ruined her, that's all."
Once again Bobby said nothing. Matilda really did not try her
patience very severely, since her opinion mattered so little. As
Rosemary had been rebuked for saying, poor Aunt Matilda just buzzed
on and no one ever took any notice of her.
Matilda shut her powder-box with a snap after a few moments and
looked up. "And so Farmer Hickory is going to sell your pigs for
you, is he?" she said.
"No, dear," said Bobby. "I have got Mr. Everett down at Holtwood to
take them over for me. He is calling for them early to-morrow."
"But you have to pay him, don't you?" said Matilda.
"Of course," said Bobby.
Matilda opened her eyes wide. "Then why on earth don't you let
Hickory do it for love?"
"Because I would rather not," said Bobby.
Her sister began to laugh. "I really don't see why you shouldn't
derive some benefit from his ridiculous infatuation. The man's quite
daft--obviously; but I don't see why he shouldn't do something useful
for once."
Bobby got up. "I don't like to take what I can never repay," she
said. "Well, I am afraid I must go and see to the supper. You would
like the aspic jelly, would you?"
Matilda's face became petulant again; "Oh, anything will always do
for me!" she said. "I don't suppose I shall touch it. If there's
any junket and cream, I don't mind trying that."
"Very well, dear." Bobby turned to the door. "Yes, there is some
cream left. We saved it for you."
"Well, I shouldn't think that was any great sacrifice," remarked
Matilda. "You must loathe the very sight of it working in the dairy
from morning till night as you do. I'm sure I should."
The soft closing of the door was her only answer, and she took up her
manicure-case with a sigh.
"Poor Bobby! She isn't as goodtempered as she used to be," was her
comment. "She quite resented that little joke about Farmer Hickory.
But she can't--surely she can't--take him seriously!" The idea
suddenly presented a disquieting aspect; she paused in her task with
dilated eyes. Then: "Oh no, it's impossible!" she decided finally.
"She couldn't lower herself to that extent even though she does run a
farm!"
She began to trim her nails with fastidious care, and the subject
dropped from her mind. Matilda Wendholme possessed the immense
advantage of being able to concentrate her whole thought upon herself
to the exclusion of all minor subjects practically at will. And no
one could maintain that Bobby's drab existence could be a matter of
especial importance to anyone for long. Ever since Bobby had elected
to turn farmer and bury herself and the rest of the family at Little
Staple, Matilda had ceased to take the faintest interest in her
doings. She had deeply resented the step, though she had been quite
incapable of suggesting any other means of eking out what otherwise
could hardly have been described as a livelihood. On that point
Bobby had been immovable, and Matilda had been obliged to yield. But
it had remained a sore point ever since. She had never fully
forgiven Bobby for making that determined stand, and though she had
since more than vindicated her decision, the bitterness remained and
Matilda's attitude of perpetual disapproval had never altered. Bobby
had chosen a life of slavery and degradation, and she, Matilda
refused to take any part in it. She had never washed a cup or boiled
an egg since they had become inmates of Little Staple. It was Bobby
who had brought them there, and therefore, as a natural consequence,
it was Bobby's business to do the work. That she lived a life of
comfort at Bobby's expense she would never have admitted. She was
one of the unlucky ones of the earth. Her health was poor and life
had used her hardly. That she made her own clothes and occasionally
arranged flowers on the parlour-table were matters for considerable
self-satisfaction. Not many with her limited powers would have done
as much. In fact, Matilda always marvelled at her own grit and
energy when she rose from a week in bed. There was nothing to get up
for, very little to live for. It was only out of consideration for
Bobby, who never considered her, that she did not suffer herself to
go under altogether. So she sometimes said.
CHAPTER VI
ROSEMARY
"And do I still annoy you very much?" asked Rosemary.
She had discarded her riding-breeches and donned a short navy-blue
skirt that while proclaiming her sex did not succeed in making her
look any older. She smiled at Bobby audaciously as she joined her by
the kitchen fire. There was something very sweet and childish about
her as she paused, awaiting her welcome.
Bobby, who was busy frying eggs and bacon for their supper, did not
turn her head.
"You might get the dish out of the oven," she said. "Take the cloth!
It's very hot."
Rosemary complied with an assiduity that testified to her desire for
favourable treatment. "You run along and wash!" she said. "I'll
finish the eggs."
It was her invariable habit to try to coax Aunt Bobby into
overlooking an offence by being especially helpful in domestic
matters. On ordinary occasions she took small interest in them.
Bobby, however, refused to desert her post. "No, I'll finish them
now," she said. "Go and make up the parlour fire, dear! I shall be
in directly."
Rosemary turned to obey; then abruptly paused. The endearing word
had emboldened her. She suddenly sprang to Bobby's side and closely
embraced her.
"Darling--darling Aunt Bobby!" she said.
Bobby did not resist her, but she made not the faintest response.
She stood quite passive, enduring the warm kisses pressed upon her.
"Run along now, Rosemary!" she said. "It is getting late."
"Won't you kiss me?" pleaded Rosemary, still holding her.
"Not now," said Bobby, with quiet decision.
"Why won't you?" urged the girl. "I haven't been horrid to you. You
can't really mind how I treat a man like Silas Hickory who is always
out of place whenever he comes here."
"I mind your behaving rudely to anyone," said Bobby, on the same
decided note. "It doesn't matter who it is in the least."
"But you've got to be protected somehow," protested Rosemary. "If we
all receive him with open arms, he'll come and take up his abode here
for good."
"Now you are being ridiculous," said Bobby. "Please go and see to
the parlour fire and try to behave sensibly!"
"You won't kiss me?" said Rosemary.
"No," said Bobby.
A gleam of mutiny shone unexpectedly in the girl's eyes. "I believe
you're in a rage," she said. "You'd like to beat me. But I warn
you, Aunt Bobby, I'm getting too old to be treated like a baby of
three. What I did this evening, I did for you. And I shall do it
again if I get the chance."
"Thank you for warning me," said Bobby with composure. "My only
answer is that in behaving like a baby of three, you lay yourself
open to being treated like one. That is all I have to say to you on
the subject."
She closed her lips with the words, and, having extricated herself
from Rosemary's relaxed hold, bent resolutely over the frying-pan.
Rosemary stood and watched her for a second or two with smouldering
resentment, then swung round and walked from the room with her head
held high.
A faint sigh escaped Bobby as the door closed, but the bacon had
begun to hiss and she gave no other sign of depression.
When a little later she entered the parlour with the dish in her
hand, her face was quite serene and free from strain.
Rosemary was sitting before the fire with a book. She did not offer
to fetch the plates, and Bobby went back for them herself.
"Come along!" she said then, as Rosemary did not move. "We'll have
it while it's hot."
The girl looked up, the cloud still on her brow. "Aunt Bobby!" she
said.
"My dear," said Bobby quietly, "we are not going to discuss anything
more for the moment. When you are ready to admit, what you know to
be the case, that you have done wrong, I will listen to you, but not
before. Now come and have supper! Will you cut the bread?"
Rosemary got up. Her girlish face looked drawn and worried. "I'm
not at all sure that I have done wrong," she said.
"Cut the bread, dear!" said Bobby.
She complied and sat down at the table. "What about Aunt Matilda?"
she said, after a moment.
"I have taken her tray up," said Bobby.
Rosemary made a small sound that expressed self-depreciation. "I'd
have done that. Why didn't I think?" she said.
"I had to go up," said Bobby.
"I'm sorry," said Rosemary.
Supper when the fastidious Matilda was not present was always a very
brief affair notwithstanding Rosemary's very healthy appetite. It
was especially so to-night, for they ate in almost unbroken silence.
Bobby spoke once to inquire after Jess and her pups, but after
receiving a satisfactory though preoccupied answer she said no more.
Her brow remained completely unruffled, and there was nothing about
her to indicate that her mind was not wholly at rest.
Not so Rosemary! She ate rapidly, almost as if she did not know what
she was doing, and there was an impatient frown above her eyes. Once
or twice she bolted a mouthful as though on the verge of impetuous
speech, but each time she checked herself and the words remained
unuttered.
When the meal was over, she pushed back her chair and got up as
though finding relief in action.
"You go to Aunt Matilda! I'll see to things," she said.
Bobby went quietly from the room without remark.
In her absence Rosemary clattered the supper-things together
promiscuously and cleared the table by armfuls, bearing everything
into the kitchen where she began to wash up with fierce velocity.
The crash of a broken plate soon interrupted her labours, however,
and when Bobby descended a little later she came upon her lying
half-across the kitchen-table in a storm of tears.
"My precious baby!" said Bobby, and gathered her to her heart where
Rosemary wept for several seconds with a fierce abandonment.
Bobby finally drew her back into the parlour, and they sat on the old
settee together while Rosemary gradually recovered.
"I'm so sorry about the plate," were her first words, as Bobby dried
her tears with a tender hand.
"Never mind about the plate, darling!" said Aunt Bobby.
"I didn't do it on purpose," said Rosemary, assuming the task of
drying her own tears with more vigour. "It wasn't because I was in a
temper either. The beastly thing simply jumped out of my hand."
"I understand, darling," said Bobby.
The girl turned impulsively and wound coaxing arms about her. "Aunt
Bobby, will you kiss me now?"
Bobby hesitated for a single instant, then, as though she had it not
in her heart to do otherwise, she complied.
Rosemary nestled down against her shoulder caressingly. "Thank you,
Aunt Bobby darling! That was very sweet of you--just like you, in
fact. I know I've been a pig and I'm dreadfully sorry to have upset
you. But I can't help it--I simply can't help it when that awful
lantern-jawed man comes round here. You--you--I don't think you
realize what he's after. Aunt Bobby, can't you--can't you keep him
at arm's length?"
"My dear," said Aunt Bobby, "if you are referring to Mr. Hickory, he
has never been a single inch nearer than that, so far as I know."
Rosemary writhed. "He will be--at this rate. I know it! I know the
signs. He is one of those horrible dog creatures that keep coming on
however hard one may try to shoo them away. And I don't think you do
try very hard, Aunt Bobby. You--you are so dreadfully nice to
everybody. And I'm sure that makes him worse. It's getting a
positive nightmare with me."
"But what are you afraid of?" said Bobby.
The girl's arms tightened about her. "Afraid of his getting a hold
on you," she whispered, "and--dragging you away from us whether you
will or not. Oh, Aunt Bobby, you don't understand these
people--these primitive sort of animal men that live on the land.
They are just like their own carthorses. They plod on and on and on
till they get there. That's what Silas Hickory is doing. That's
what frightens me."
"My dear silly child!" said Bobby.
"It isn't silly," breathed Rosemary. "It's the very fact that you
can call it so that shows what a big danger it is. You don't know
what you're reckoning with. Every time--every time he comes here, he
manages somehow to strengthen his position. Oh, it isn't fancy!
Indeed it isn't! I know what he is after. Mary knows too. I've
seen it in her face though she has never spoken of it. I used to
think that it was screamingly funny that a man like that should dare
to lift his eyes to you. But I don't now, Aunt Bobby. I don't now.
I think it's somehow dreadful."
"My dear child!" Bobby said again. Over Rosemary's bowed head she
was faintly smiling, though her smile had in it more of sadness than
of mirth.
Rosemary went on in the same hushed, rather desperate voice. "I do
my best to drive him away and he knows it. But you--when you reprove
me in front of him--apologize for me--" she writhed again--"you
simply encourage him, and so he always comes again for more. He'll
come again to-morrow. I know he will. He--he's rather like a tramp
that sets his foot inside the door so that you can't shut it. Aunt
Bobby, don't you think--oh, can't you see--that the time has come to
try and shut the door? You are always so sweet to everybody, but you
won't be able to keep on. You'll have to do it in the end. You'll
simply have to shut him out soon."
"I don't see why," said Bobby quietly.
Something in her tone made Rosemary raise her head swiftly and gaze
at her. "Aunt Bobby! Aunt Bobby!" she gasped. "You must see!"
Bobby checked her with a steady hand upon her arm. "Rosemary," she
said, "listen to me! I have never wanted to discuss this subject
with you, but for once I will. You have behaved very badly, but I
know that your motive was not wholly bad, so I will not go into that
any further except to tell you that there must be no more of it. I
insist upon your treating Mr. Hickory from to-day forward as the
gentleman that he is."
"Gentleman!" ejaculated Rosemary.
"Yes, gentleman!" Very emphatically Bobby repeated the word. "I am
not speaking of birth or upbringing. I am simply speaking of the man
himself. Silas Hickory is a gentleman, and as such he is always
welcome wherever I have any voice in the matter. I have a great
regard for him, and I am very pleased to reckon him as a friend as
well as a neighbour. More than that of course he is not, and never
can be. I have given him no reason whatever for thinking otherwise.
But he is not to be insulted upon that account. He has always
treated me with the utmost courtesy, and I know him well enough to be
certain that he will always do so. Now that, Rosemary, is all that I
have to say upon the matter. And I hope very earnestly that I shall
never have to re-open the subject of your behaviour towards him
again. There is nothing in the situation that could ever warrant
such rudeness as you have shown. If you are right in your rather
wild surmise, then all the greater consideration should be shown him.
But right or wrong, my child, there is only one thing for you to do,
and that is to behave with courtesy and dignity to him as to everyone
else who comes to this house. You too, Rosemary, are born to a
certain estate, and do not degrade yourself and me by forgetting it!"
She ceased to speak, and Rosemary, who had more than once restrained
herself with difficulty from interrupting, broke into vehement speech.
"I don't forget, Aunt Bobby! And it's to save you from being
degraded that I do it. Not that it would matter one jot if I did
forget! There's no reason that I can see for remembering. If we're
going to be treated as equals by all the yokels of the country-side
we may as well descend to their level at once, and treat them in the
way they can best understand."
"Rosemary!" said Bobby, and there was deep pain in her voice.
Rosemary paused, gazing at her. "Oh, why--" she began, and then
suddenly, quite inexplicably, her resistance collapsed. She laid her
head down upon Bobby's shoulder. "Oh, all right!" she said. "All
right! Don't look like that! You've won! I'll--" she choked a
little and swallowed hard---"I'll be ever so nice to him to-morrow."
Bobby's hand came up and stroked her cheek. "Dear child, don't think
I don't understand!" she said with a sigh.
Rosemary's arms were strained fast about her. "Aunt Bobby darling,
don't--don't sigh like that! I'll be whatever you want to everyone.
There! I promise. I'd do anything for you--anything. Nothing would
be too hard. That's all right now, isn't it? You're not vexed or
hurt or anything? Please, Aunt Bobby, say you're not! Do smile
again!"
"Look up, darling!" said Bobby.
Rosemary hesitated a little, then very cautiously raised her head and
took a glance at the beloved face.
"Thank goodness!" she said with relief. "I thought you were going to
cry. I did really. But you're not, are you? You won't, will you?
It simply tears my heart when you do."
She was looking straight into Bobby's eyes now with something very
nearly approaching worship in her own.
Bobby took the fair head between her hands and looked back very
fondly. All pain and vexation were put to flight. After a moment or
two she bent forward and kissed the vivid, adoring face so like her
own.
"Bless you, my sweet one!" she said.
CHAPTER VII
THE REAL REASON
Rosemary's prediction that her bugbear would come again on the morrow
was fulfilled, but she herself was absent when he did so, having been
considerately despatched to the Vicarage by Bobby with some eggs.
Bobby supplied a good many of the surrounding houses with eggs. She
had the gift, Rosemary said, of persuading her hens to lay when those
of other people were on strike. If unremitting care and attention
were the secret of her success, then she certainly earned it to the
utmost. At five o'clock every morning she was always up and about,
first lighting the kitchen-fire and making a cup of tea for herself
and for Cox the cowman, then heating up food for the poultry while
she swept and dusted the parlour and hall; then out to the pigs and
the chickens, returning at seven to call Rosemary and put the kettle
on for Matilda's early tea. At half-past-seven she and Rosemary
breakfasted, though Matilda, even when in normal health, never came
down before nine. Bobby had latterly, from motives of convenience,
begun to take it up to her as soon as her own was finished, and
though Matilda grumbled at the unearthly hour at which she was thus
forced to eat it she suffered the arrangement. There were times when
Bobby achieved results of this kind without any apparent effort,
simply by quiet and unwavering insistence.
After the breakfast-things were cleared and washed up by herself and
Rosemary, she went to the dairy to make the butter while Rosemary
attended to the old cart-horse and her dog Jess who at the present
time was occupied with a litter of puppies. Butter was another
commodity which Bobby sold to her neighbours. She had but three
cows, and such milk as was over went to Staple Farm in part payment
of the rent. There were many ways in which Silas Hickory proved
himself a friend and adviser worth having. He bought her calves and
relieved her of many minor anxieties and difficulties. Only her pigs
and poultry went to market, and it was usually under his guidance
that these were sold. For Silas always had business at Bode Market
when Bobby had to go. It was almost an understood thing, though she
generally tried to hire Everett's cart for transport before he could
persuade her to make use of his. Bobby was of a very independent
nature, and, though never ungracious, she liked to stand upon her own
feet. There was never any danger of the cross-grained Everett
placing her under an obligation.
The dairy-work over, there was always work to be done in house or
garden and the midday dinner to be cooked. On washing-days this was
usually a cold meal, to Matilda's outspoken disgust. In the
afternoon for an hour she superintended Rosemary's studies, which had
been her most particular care since the death of her father had
deprived the girl of a more leisured teacher. Rosemary was supposed
to study alone for part of the morning, but since the advent of
Jess's pups this arrangement had lapsed somewhat; but Bobby still
insisted that the afternoon reading should continue. She was very
strict on this point, and if Rosemary's attention ever waned, then
her chances of liberty for the rest of the day were small. If, on
the other hand, she applied herself, she was free to roam where she
would by three o'clock, and, to give her her due, she very often
spent the time either in helping with the cows or in running errands
for Bobby, who was then busy till tea-time with pigs and poultry.
On the present occasion she departed gladly to the Vicarage with the
eggs, for the prospect of having to keep her impetuous promise of the
previous evening to be ever so nice to the detested Silas was
anything but an attractive one. And after all, funny old Mrs.
Hudson, the Vicar's wife, was quite a dear even if a trifle prim. As
for the Vicar, well, of course he was everybody's friend and
generally to be found anywhere except at the Vicarage. Certainly it
was much more fun when Percy was at home, even if he did get her into
occasional hot water, as on the last Bank Holiday when he had taken
her to Bode Fair on the back of his motor-cycle unknown to Aunt
Bobby, bringing her back at eleven to meet the wrath of the gods.
That had been Rosemary's last serious scrape. She usually had about
three a year, she reflected, as she made her way nimbly between the
puddles in the misty November sunshine, and she could hardly hope to
keep the slate clean much longer. Last night had been a near thing.
Aunt Bobby had very nearly assumed her magisterial authority against
which there was no appeal. Only her timely surrender had saved the
situation, and she had a strong feeling that even yet there were
breakers ahead. It was really impossible to keep an even course.
Life would become too deadly a thing without these ructions, even
though they always ended in acute suffering. She did not mean to be
wicked and wayward, but, as Silas had said, she was like an untamed
colt, and the necessity to run wild was sometimes too paramount to be
resisted. It was no vice that urged her, merely the fact that she
was young and hotblooded and had no other vent for the natural
effervescence of her spirits. They simply boiled up within her and
could not be contained. She had no amusements save those of her own
devising, and perhaps she was hardly to be blamed that these were
usually of the nature of escapades. If they brought punishment in
their wake, well, that of course was unfortunate, but one must do
something to relieve the monotony. To remain good in order to keep
out of trouble seemed to Rosemary rather craven. Besides, she simply
had to have her fling.
She had discarded the riding-breeches which she always wore in the
farmyard in deference to Mrs. Hudson's primness, but she walked with
a boyish swing nevertheless. No one could have seen her sunburnt
healthy face with its startlingly blue eyes without realizing that
she was essentially a child of the open air. And there was that in
her erect carriage which proclaimed her a fearless horse-woman also,
though it was largely due to the kindly veterinary-surgeon and
riding-master at Bode that she had become one. Some of the best days
that she had ever known had been spent in the saddle with old Roper
as companion and mentor, and one of the sharpest punishments that
Aunt Bobby could inflict was to refuse to allow her to avail herself
of the offer of a free gallop over the moors with him. It was only
now and then that Roper could spare the time, but he and Rosemary had
been fast friends for years and he never forgot her when occasion
offered. He called her his prize-pupil and declared, in answer to
Aunt Bobby's scruples, that her riding was more than sufficient
payment for him. He was, in fact, very proud of her and, strange to
say, he never found her hard to manage.
"Don't be afraid to give her her head sometimes!" he would say to
Aunt Bobby. "Don't ride her too much on the curb, ma'am! Good
breeding always tells in the long run. She'll never come to grief."
And though Aunt Bobby would shake her head and declare that he spoilt
her, Rosemary knew that she did not despise old Roper's advice. He
had a shrewd perception which he did not keep entirely for horses and
cattle.
"If only Silas Hickory were more like him instead of trying to be a
gentleman!" was Rosemary's thought. "I should simply die of shame if
he dared to ask Aunt Bobby to marry him!"
Some unaccountable wave of telepathy must have wafted this thought to
her at that particular moment, for it was just then, as the sun sank
behind the elms of the churchyard and Rosemary turned in at the
Vicarage gate, that Silas Hickory, looking peculiarly stubborn and
rather ungainly, waylaid Bobby as she came from her chicken-runs to
tell her that the pigs had fetched a good price and he had personally
brought her the money from Everett.
"You can let him have a receipt any time," he said. "I thought you
wouldn't mind my bringing it. He didn't want to come round, and I
did."
Bobby paused, a little confused, a bucket in one hand and a can in
the other. She was bareheaded, and the pale sunshine behind her
turned her fair hair into a gleaming halo. Her face had a girlish,
almost appealing look.
"It was very good of you to take the trouble," she said rather weakly.
He bent and took the utensils from her. "This is what I should
always like to do for you," he told her bluntly; "carry your burdens."
"I am very glad the pigs sold well," said Bobby.
He turned towards the granary, and she paused in the yard and waited
for him while he put her things away. When he joined her again, he
was no longer openly awkward, but the stubbornness remained. Cox was
milking the cows in an adjoining shed. He glanced in with an
experienced eye as he passed.
"Such a lovely evening after the rain!" said Bobby, moving on. "It
might almost be September."
Silas glanced about him. The farm-yard had a well-swept, orderly
look. A white pigeon was sunning itself on the roof of the barn. A
misty atmosphere of peace lay upon the whole scene.
"Are you fond of it?" said Silas.
"Very," said Bobby simply.
He looked at her. "But you never have any time to enjoy it."
"I just enjoy as I go along," she said.
She led the way from the farm-yard to the grassy space in front of
the old house, and there she paused.
"Will you come in and have some tea?" she said.
He stood facing her, his burly frame massively outlined against the
white of the farmhouse wall.
"I'll come if I shan't be in the way," he said.
She smiled faintly, a trifle wistfully. "You won't be in mine," she
said. "Rosemary is out and Matilda is still upstairs."
A gleam of satisfaction shone in Silas's eyes at the news. "In that
case I'll come, thank you very much," he said.
Bobby turned to the narrow flagged path that led to the porch. He
followed her with a kind of heavy-footed persistence.
"You go and sit down in the parlour!" she said, glancing back as she
entered. "I have just got to boil up the kettle in the kitchen."
"Can't we have tea in the kitchen?" said Silas. "I'm sure you
wouldn't have it in the parlour if I weren't here."
She did not contradict him, merely went straight through to the
kitchen; and again Silas followed with the level tread of one not
easily turned aside.
The kettle was already singing over the fire. Bobby busied herself
with laying the table for two and cutting thin bread and butter for
Matilda.
He did not offer to help her. He simply stood and waited with a
certain large patience until she could attend to him again. Bobby
pursued her tasks with serene deftness. The presence of Silas did
not embarrass her. Perhaps the man's absolute simplicity of purpose
was a reassuring factor in her eyes.
She made the tea and prepared Matilda's tray exactly as if she had
been alone. When that was done, she brought a home-made cake from
the cupboard and set it on the table with the loaf and the farm
butter.
"I shan't be a minute," she said, taking up the tray.
"I can wait," said Silas, holding open the door for her.
She passed out with a little smile and nod, and he turned back into
the room.
It was much smaller than the kitchen at Staple Farm, and perhaps for
that reason its spotless orderliness was more apparent. The rose
curtains at the windows gave it a simple, old-world look. He
remembered for the first time that Mary Flight's curtains were of
heavy red serge. Also, Mary had never dreamed of cushions on the
window-seats. In Bobby's kitchen there were window-cushions to match
the curtains. There were flowers too on the dresser, some dahlias
and Michaelmas daisies, arranged with a lightness of touch which
honest Mary could never have attained. Mary's flowers were always
placed in a handful in a Toby jug on the mantelpiece. There was a
general atmosphere of cheeriness in Bobby's kitchen, and though it
was low and oak-raftered it was light. He noticed that the windows
were open. Mary seldom opened hers as she found that too much
draught did not suit the fire and interfered with her cooking. The
result was that the mustiness of centuries clung about the place.
There was no mustiness here. Everything was sweet and fresh and
dainty, like Bobby herself. The charm of her presence seemed to
linger everywhere. It was a home without affectation or artistic
conceits of any kind, and for that very reason it held a more direct
and personal appeal for the man who stood and waited for his
hostess's return. It did not speak to him of anyone but her.
He heard her light step in the room overhead and her clear voice
talking while he took note of these things; then came the closing of
the door and the sound of her feet on the stairs.
She entered, smiling. "Now we will have some tea. Cox won't be in
for his cup for half-an-hour yet. He likes it stewed."
She sat down at the end of the table and he took the chair on her
right, facing the window and the garden--Bobby's garden where
everything that was old-fashioned grew.
She gave him his tea without talking. Her serene silences were in
tune with her surroundings, supremely natural and unaffected.
It was Silas who spoke first, and that with no idea of making
conversation. The laws of convention meant nothing to him, and their
relations had always been formal.
"Are you happy here?" he said.
The question came almost involuntarily, though it was one that he had
often longed to ask. He was by no means sure that she would answer
it, but he knew her well enough to be confident that she would not
resent it.
She did not. She even laughed a little, as one who contemplates
something rather humorous. Then she said, without looking at him, "I
am quite content to live here, Mr. Hickory, if that is what you
mean--unless you turn me out."
It was not what he had expected; somehow she seldom gave him that,
though he imagined that he knew her so intimately that there was
little more to know.
He made a sharp movement, for her reply pierced him, how deeply he
did not for the moment know.
"Turn you out!" he said. "Do you think I am ever likely to do that?"
"I think you might," said Bobby.
He recovered himself. "You don't know me very well if you think
that," he said. "I would sooner think of turning out myself!"
"Thank you," said Bobby.
Her blue eyes rested upon him for an instant, and though their glance
was absolutely kind, it seemed to convey some sort of warning; and
Silas stirred again uneasily.
"Miss Roberta," he said, "you are quite wrong if you imagine that I
could ever bear to see you leave this place. Why, if you never paid
another quarter's rent, I'd still beg you to stay."
"What bad business!" murmured Bobby confidentially into her cup.
"That's my affair," said Silas bluntly.
She glanced at him again, and then turned her attention to cutting
the cake.
As she handed it to him she spoke quietly, with a hint of repression.
"I have always felt that I could be happy here. From the moment I
first saw the place I felt that."
"Did you?" he said. He took some cake clumsily, his fingers not
wholly steady. "I am very glad to hear you say it. I've sometimes
wondered if with all this hard work, you mightn't get tired of it."
"Oh, I don't mind work," said Bobby. "In fact, I think work is the
only way to be happy. Don't you?"
"No," said Silas rather grimly. "I don't."
She lifted her brows with a slightly quizzical expression and waited
for him to continue.
He did so somewhat dogmatically. "There are all sorts of ways of
being happy. But working isn't one of them--unless you get results."
"Oh yes, I think you're right there," said Bobby with her cheery
smile. "Working without results must be rather like being in prison."
"It is," said Silas gloomily.
"That almost sounds as if you have been there," said Bobby.
His dark eyes met hers. "I'm there now," he said.
Her smile lingered, but it held more of kindness than mirth. "I
expect you can find a way out," she said.
"That's just it," said Silas. "Can I?"
Bobby drank her tea thoughtfully. "I think we can all get out of
that sort of prison," she said, "if we work hard enough."
"I've done nothing but work all my life," said Silas. "It hasn't led
me very far."
"I should think a great many people might think you very lucky," said
Bobby.
He made a sound expressive of contemptuous disagreement, but the
contempt was for himself, not for her. "Well, I suppose I am lucky
from one point of view," he said, after a moment. "I'm making a
living. But what's the good of that if it's never going to lead to
anything worth having? Do you think winning prizes at Cattle Shows
makes up the whole sum and aim of existence?"
"I should love to win prizes at Cattle Shows," said Bobby. "I was
looking at that new shorthorn bull of yours only the other day.
Isn't he a beauty? You ought to do great things with him."
"I daresay I shall," said Silas. "But what's the good of it? Peter
will care much more than I shall."
"Oh, surely not?" protested Bobby. "You have always been so keen."
He threw back his head with an almost fierce gesture of repudiation.
"I may have been keen once, before I knew anything better. But
now--well, the taste has gone out of everything for me, and I can't
somehow care whether I win or lose."
"What a pity!" said Bobby.
He drank his tea with indignant gulps. "I wouldn't care if it
weren't so damn' foolish," he said. "I've always said to myself that
I'd never suffer any woman butting into my scheme of things. If I
ever took a wife, she would have to understand that and be content.
But now," he glared at her with quite unconscious savagery, "I'm all
upside down for the sake of a woman. And I want to kick myself for
it."
"Oh, don't do that!" pleaded Bobby.
She stretched out her hand for his cup, but he did not pass it.
Instead he pounced upon the hand and held it fast.
"You know what I mean!" he said almost accusingly. "You've known all
along. It's your doing! I've seen pity in those great soft eyes of
yours over and over again. You've been so decent to me all this
time--just because you were sorry. That was it, wasn't it?
Just--pity!"
"Oh, please!" said Bobby gently.
There was a ring on the hand he held, and he was driving it into her
flesh. He looked down suddenly and realized it though she had given
no sign. He relaxed his hold sharply and laid his face down upon the
crushed fingers with something like a groan.
"I know you'd never be happy with a clodhopper like me," he said.
"But--I want you so."
There was something piteous in the words--something of the appeal of
a child realizing the unattainable for the first time. Bobby looked
down upon the bowed black head, and her eyes filled with tears.
"Don't--please don't put it like that!" she said.
"How else could one put it?" He looked up at her and saw the tears.
"Oh, don't cry for the love of heaven!" he said. "It's not your
fault. I'll get through somehow. I'll get through." He spoke
between his teeth. "I knew I hadn't a dog's chance. I've always
known. But I couldn't stop myself. And even now--though I know you
won't stoop to look at me--I can't do without the sight of you!"
"Oh, don't say that!" said Bobby. "Don't--ever--say that! I have no
reason to look down on you. I am proud--as well as sorry--to know
that you care for me like that."
"Proud!" said Silas. He stared at her. "You don't mean that! You
are only saying it out of decency."
"I do mean it," said Bobby. "I think your love is a wonderful thing,
and though I can't accept it, I do hope you will let me keep your
friendship. For I value it--much more than you think."
He continued to gaze at her with a kind of searching wonder. "I do
believe you are in earnest," he said.
"But of course I am!" said Bobby simply. "I do value your
friendship, and I always have. I should be very, very sorry if this
were to deprive me of it."
She slipped her hand gently free with the words, and though his face
fell at her action he suffered it to go.
"That's so like you," he said after a moment. "So kind to everyone!
I've never seen anyone like you before. You can say the very hardest
thing without hurting."
Bobby smiled with obvious relief. "I am so glad you are not hurt,"
she said. "I do hope you won't encourage yourself to think any more
about it. Just put it behind you and be happy again!"
His face reflected her smile though somewhat wryly. "Would you be
able to do that, I wonder?" he said.
She met his look with steady eyes. "I should certainly try," she
said.
"Yes," he agreed, "you would try. I wonder if you would succeed.
Somehow--I don't believe you would."
"Let me give you some more tea!" said Bobby.
He passed his cup and she filled it while he watched her.
"Then you don't consider I have taken a very great liberty?" he said
at length.
"Certainly not," said Bobby.
There was a hint of pathos in his eyes as they dwelt upon her. "You
know," he said abruptly, "I could offer you a better show than this.
If you were the mistress of Staple Farm, you wouldn't have to slave
as you do now. I'd make everything easy for you. You would live the
life of a lady. No whitewashing of sheds or butter-making or
anything of that kind!"
"I like doing those things!" said Bobby whimsically. "They appeal to
me--much more than the life of a lady. I am really fond of little
pigs."
"You would do exactly as much or as little as you felt inclined for,"
said Silas.
"But I shouldn't like to feel it didn't matter what I did," pointed
out Bobby. "I admit that the work here at Little Staple is hard, but
it is at least necessary. One likes to feel that one is necessary."
"And what would happen if you were ill?" said Silas.
She laughed at that. "That is another advantage. One simply can't
be ill."
"We are all human," he observed.
"Oh yes, I know," said Bobby. "That is what makes it so interesting.
If one weren't fighting against odds, there'd be nothing to fight
for, would there?"
"Then you don't want any help?" he said.
"I have never despised the help of a friend," said Bobby. "But, as I
told you yesterday, I must stand on my own feet, even if I make a
mess of things. And you know," she smiled again, "it may sound very
conceited, but really they couldn't do without me here."
"I realize that," said Silas. "But I wouldn't let that stand in the
way. I'd take 'em all in, if only you would come."
"Would you?" said Bobby, with obvious surprise.
"Of course I would! You know I would!" He spoke with force. "Do
you suppose anything else in the world would matter so long as I had
you? I'd make your sister comfortable, and I'd put up with Rosemary
even. The only thing I wouldn't do would be to let you go on slaving
for them as you're slaving now."
"Ah!" Bobby said with a comical shake of the head. "You would try to
be a fairy godfather to us all. But I'm afraid it wouldn't
answer--even if it were possible, which it isn't. Still, I do
appreciate your generosity. You mustn't think I don't. No man could
offer more. I just can't accept it, that's all."
"Why can't you?" said Silas.
The question seemed to burst from him almost involuntarily. He even
looked for a moment as if he had not meant to utter it, and then
abruptly he hardened himself to await her answer. For Bobby's deep
flush had risen and spread like a signal of distress to her temples.
She had not flushed like that before, when pleading for his
friendship.
She did not speak for some seconds. But for his dogged silence she
would hardly have spoken at all.
"I have told you some of the reasons," she said in a low voice.
"Yes," said Silas. "You don't like me well enough, for one. But you
haven't told me that you never could."
"Oh, don't make me tell you that!" she said.
He went on somewhat ruthlessly. "And you think there would be
ructions with your sister and Rosemary, for another. But let me tell
you this, that isn't any reason at all. At least, it wouldn't deter
me, nor, so far as I am concerned, would there be any ructions.
Somehow, I don't believe it would deter you either if it were
possible for you to like me well enough. Miss Roberta, I don't
believe you've told me your real reason at all."
Bobby was smiling rather wanly. There was no recalling the flush
that had betrayed her.
"But I have!" she protested. "There may be others as well, but----"
"And I am not to know them?" he said.
"The answer would have to be 'No' in any case," she said.
Silas pushed back his chair and got up. His black head was barely a
foot from the rafters, and he looked gigantic.
"I think this is rather a child's game," he said. "You either
despise me or don't trust me. I don't know which."
"Neither," said Bobby quickly.
She looked up at him with almost unconscious pleading, the distressed
flush still covering her fair face.
"Indeed neither!" she reiterated with emphasis. "I honour you, and I
would trust you with everything I have."
"Not everything!" said Silas.
"Yes, everything." She repeated the word with a hint of his own
obstinacy. "But--Mr. Hickory--it is not always possible to lay bare
one's soul even to one's most intimate friends. And I--and I--"
Sudden confusion overcame her and she ceased to speak.
Silas stood motionless, looking down at her. His attitude had
changed during those last few moments. The half-fierce look of
humiliation had gone from him. He was as a man who had suddenly
found a footing on very difficult ground.
When he spoke, it was slowly and with a hint of mastery. "I will
tell you one thing," he said. "You may have a perfect right to mark
Private on your gate, but you can't prevent me looking over. I'll
never come through it without your permission, but I've a very shrewd
idea as to what is on the other side."
"Oh, don't!" Bobby said.
It was almost like a cry wrung from her, and with the utterance she
bowed her face upon her hand as she sat.
Silas stooped over her on the instant in swift contrition. "Miss
Roberta--Bobby--don't! I didn't mean it; or if I did, it wouldn't
make any damn' difference! Listen to me! No, don't shiver! Be your
own brave self! You needn't tell me a single thing about the other
fellow if you don't want to. I've always known he was there. You
needn't mind my knowing. You've called me your friend, haven't you?"
His big hand was on her shoulder, stroking it with clumsy solicitude.
All his assertiveness had melted into a tenderness that was like a
warm glow surrounding her. Bobby sat very still within that kindly
circle for several seconds. Then at last she raised her head and
looked straight up at him.
"Silas," she said, "the gate marked Private leads to a sanctuary that
belongs to others as well as to me. That--my friend--is why I can't
open it to you. And please--of your charity--" she faintly smiled
with the words--"don't look over! You won't find--the other fellow,
as you call him, there."
"Where is he?" said Silas.
She shook her head. "I don't know."
"Is he ever coming back to you?" The hand on her shoulder had ceased
to stroke; it pressed a little.
"I don't know," Bobby said again.
He bent a little nearer, looking hard into her upturned face. The
colour had all died out of it now, leaving her with a sad, faded look
very different from her usual cheerful serenity.
"Do you want him back?" said Silas.
She did not speak in answer. Only a long deep sigh came from her.
He stood up again and his hand fell. "All right, my dear," he said
very steadily. "It's all right. You've called me your friend, and
that's what I'm going to be."
She smiled with lips that quivered. "My dear friend!" she said under
her breath.
He went to the window and stood there for a space while she sat
passively waiting at the table.
When he came back his expression was absolutely normal. He sat down
again in his chair.
"May I have some more tea?" he said. "And then we'll enter up the
sale of the pigs in the accounts."
CHAPTER VIII
ORIGINAL SIN
As Bobby had anticipated, Rosemary was kept at the Vicarage for tea
by good Mrs. Hudson who, though she could not always honestly approve
of the child, was yet very genuinely fond of her. Everyone in the
little village of Stapleton regarded her in the same light. She had
a winning way with her.
The Vicar, a round-faced man with a jolly laugh, always had a ready
welcome for her. Rosemary's escapades generally amused him, though
he did his best not to let her know it.
He came in late for tea just as she was getting up to depart, and at
once put her back into her chair with paternal insistence.
"No, no! You mustn't go yet. I'm coming your way myself to see old
Mrs. Everett. We'll walk back together."
"Well, you mustn't be long," said Rosemary. "Aunt Bobby will start
fussing if I'm out after dark, and I've got Jess to see to."
"It won't be dark yet," said the Vicar. "You just sit still while I
have my tea! How is Aunt Bobby? All right?"
Rosemary opened her blue eyes wide. "Of course she's all right!
She's never anything else. Aunt Matilda is in bed though."
"What, again?" said the Vicar with a tragic gesture. "What's the
matter with her?"
Rosemary laughed hardheartedly. "Nothing so far as I know. She
likes bed, I suppose."
"Rosemary, my dear!" remonstrated Mrs. Hudson.
Rosemary turned mocking eyes upon her. "Really, Mrs. Hudson, she
does! She is always at her best in bed. Some people are, you know.
I suppose it rests their tempers."
"Have you ever tried it?" asked the Vicar with a twinkle.
She met the thrust with complete good humour. "Yes, it's Aunt
Bobby's invariable remedy for mine, but it doesn't always have the
desired effect with me. I'm usually grumpy for days afterwards."
"I'll believe that when I see it," said the Vicar.
She nodded gaily. "You will one of these days. I know I'm going to
kick over the traces again before long. When is Percy coming back?"
Mrs. Hudson's upper lip, always inclined to be long, lengthened
perceptibly at the airy question. "I hope, my dear," she said, "that
you will not turn his home-coming into an occasion for any wild
doings which may vex your aunt. We expect him in about three weeks."
"Three weeks! Oh, I can't stay good till then," laughed Rosemary.
"I only just escaped going off the deep end yesterday. I wish old
Roper would come along and give me a run after the hounds."
"Can you not find something useful to occupy your mind, dear?"
suggested the Vicar's wife. "It seems such a pity to invent
distractions when there is so much for all of us to do. Your dear
aunt for example--how hard she works! Can you not give yourself up
to helping her?"
Rosemary looked at her, and her eyes grew a shade darker. "I do what
I can," she said briefly. "She won't let me do much."
"Could you not devote yourself to making your poor Aunt Matilda's
life a little brighter?" went on worthy Mrs. Hudson who believed in
preaching the cause of righteousness in season and out of season.
"Think how much you might do for her!"
A curious darting light shone fitfully in Rosemary's intent eyes as
she listened. "So I might!" she said musingly. "So I might!"
Mrs. Hudson pursued her theme. "Remember, dear child, it is only the
idle hands which Satan can persuade to do mischief. And, alas, how
often now-a-days the hands of youth are idle! But at least yours
need never be that. You have your task waiting for you, and such a
happy task! To bring sunshine into the life of an invalid! Could
anything be more beautiful for a young girl to accomplish?"
"I don't know," said Rosemary. She looked suddenly across at the
Vicar, and then without warning burst into a peal of laughter. "I
only hope that when Satan does find some mischief for me to do, it'll
be something really new," she said. "I'm tired of all the old
scrapes; they're getting monotonous. People talk about original sin,
but there's no such thing. It's all as stale and old as last year's
rubbish-heap. You can put that in your sermon next Sunday."
Mrs. Hudson drew in her breath with a shocked sound. The outburst
both astonished and pained her. She had always regarded Rosemary as
a tractable child, if somewhat impetuous.
The Vicar on the contrary gave no sign of perturbation. He set down
his cup and took out his pocket-book.
"Thank you, Rosemary," he said, and began to write. "Anything else?"
Rosemary stretched her arms above her head with a rebellious gesture.
"Oh, lots of things!" she said. "But it's no use talking. That's
unoriginal too. I often wish I were just one of the animals. They
do at least go to market and change hands, see different pastures
before they die. And they can kick up their heels and run amuck
without being rated for it too. Why, it isn't even wicked. An
animal can't be wicked. And it can't be good either--which is better
still. It can go to perdition its own way, and nobody cares."
"My dear," said Mrs. Hudson, "your remarks are almost profane, and I
really cannot listen to them. George, what is that you are writing?"
The Vicar smiled without looking up. "Please don't interfere, Maria!
There is nothing profane about it. It may not be wholly original,
eh, Rosemary? But it's good of its kind."
"You find it amusing!" said Rosemary with sudden scorn.
He shook his head. "No, I don't. I find it interesting--very. You
were tilting with the windmill of ignorance, my child, but I think
you will have the sense to give it up before you break your lance."
"You don't understand!" said Rosemary hotly.
He looked up at her and his eyes were very kindly. "Nobody
understands, Rosemary," he said. "We've got to do without
understanding. We've got to work in the dark, and remember, that's a
bigger thing than doing a cushy job in broad daylight."
"It isn't!" declared Rosemary. "It's simply shutting off our
reasoning powers and living like an animal. If we were never meant
to use them, why have we got them? What's the good of being a human
being at all?"
"Ah," the Vicar said, "'Shall the thing formed say to Him Who formed
it, Why hast Thou made me thus?' I am afraid it very often does, my
child. But no answer has ever been given. We are made thus, and
that's all there is to it."
"Well, I can't see the good of it," said Rosemary. "I call it a
silly world. All the jolly things are wrong and all the virtuous
ones are beastly." She jumped to her feet. "I'm going home."
"All right. I'm coming," said the Vicar. "You'd better wait for me.
It'll keep you out of mischief for one more day."
She laughed and yielded. "But I'm not idle really," she said. "I
work quite hard. Ask Aunt Bobby if I don't! It's only--only that I
never get any legitimate play. That's why I get so mad."
The Vicar gulped his tea and got up. "Rosemary," he said, and his
jolly face was grave, "you're quite right. Your life is humdrum, and
all you do may seem to you quite futile. But--I have just one thing
to say. It is duty; and only by doing your duty can you fit yourself
for the wider life that you crave for. It will come to you some day,
and if you're not ready for it,--well, you'll fail."
Rosemary's eager eyes searched his. "How do you know it will come?"
she asked breathlessly. "You can't really know."
He put his hand on her shoulder. "I do know, child," he said, "But
don't let it catch you unawares! And above all, don't try to force
the gates! Or there may come a time when you will say, 'O God, let
me go back! I never knew how happy I was.' And the gates will be
shut behind you, and there will be no return."
Rosemary's eyes were wide and dark. She looked like a child gazing
upon some wonderful scene never beheld before.
Mrs. Hudson had taken up her knitting and was plying her needles with
pursed lips. Her silence was not sympathetic, and after a brief
pause this fact seemed to reach Rosemary's consciousness; for she
turned and looked down at her. Her own expression flashed from grave
to gay in a moment, and she uttered a merry reckless laugh.
"Now I've swallowed my medicine without any jam, so let's go!" she
said. "Good-bye, Mrs. Hudson! I'll be a better girl next time.
Thank you so much for having me to tea." She bent and flung
impetuous arms round the rather unbending neck of the Vicar's wife.
"You'll have me again, won't you? I'm sorry if I've been profane.
It's all the Vicar's fault. I never am when he isn't here."
It was impossible to remain unsympathetic. Mrs. Hudson tried and
failed.
"Ah, Rosemary, my dear," she said, yielding to the warm embrace, "you
know you may come as often as you like. You will be older and wiser
some day."
"Heaven forbid!" said Rosemary; and then in haste,
"No, I didn't mean that. That's profane too, isn't it? I meant
Excelsior, or something like that. You know what I meant, don't
you?" appealing to the Vicar.
He laughed tolerantly. "Yes, I know what you meant," he said. "Come
along, scaramouche! We had better be moving."
Mrs. Hudson detained Rosemary and kissed her again. "Let Excelsior
be your motto, dear child!" she said.
"Right ho!" said Rosemary.
CHAPTER IX
MARY
The Vicar preached upon original sin on the following Sunday morning,
being the Sunday before Advent, and Mary Flight said that it was the
best sermon she had ever listened to. It was so full of kindness and
human sympathy, though, as she also said, he was the last person in
the world that one would credit with any tendencies to evil.
"He's probably the same as the rest of us," said Peter. "Only he's
finished sowing his wild oats, that's all."
"Oh, I wouldn't put it like that," said Mary whose reverence for the
cloth was of the same quality as her regard for Silas's rank. "I
should say that he was just being broad-minded and understanding. I
could see that little Miss Rosemary was deeply interested. She was
listening with all her ears."
"She doesn't often," said Peter.
"It isn't every subject that appeals to a child like that," said Mary.
Silas put in a dry remark. "P'raps she thought she'd learn some new
sin that she'd never heard of before."
Mary shook her head in remonstrance. "Now, now, Silas! You're not
quite fair to the child, never have been. Good gracious me, I should
think Rosemary knows as much about sin as that old china dog on the
shelf."
"She's got as much inside her ready made as most of us, I'll be
bound," said Peter judicially. "But she's none the worse for that.
She's only human."
"I know," said Mary, brightening. "That's just it, Peter. She is
human, and so engaging with it all. I do believe she gets prettier
every day. And if young Mr. Percy Hudson manages not to fall in love
with her these holidays, well, he's something less than human, that's
all."
Silas scraped back his chair on the floor and reached for the
matches. "I don't agree with you, Mary," he said. "She's much too
raw and undeveloped, too like a boy herself, to attract any deep
feelings in anyone. Young Percy Hudson wouldn't be such a fool."
Mary's face fell again. To be in open disagreement with Silas was a
state of affairs which had always appeared to her unseemly.
Nevertheless, in defence of her absent favourite, she sought to hold
her own.
"She's growing up, you know, Silas," she pleaded. "And she's getting
really beautiful. I'm not the only one as thinks so. There's no one
in the least bit like her hereabouts, and the young men are bound to
take notice. I'm sure I hope it will be Mr. Percy, for he's the only
gentleman she knows."
She looked at Silas deprecatingly with the words, as if she expected
to be crushed the next moment under the heel of his contempt. But
something in what she said seemed to strike him as reasonable, for
after lighting nis pipe he leaned back in his chair in silence.
It was Peter who took up the discussion. He was usually on Mary's
side.
"Yes, I see what you mean," he said. "She is rather a rare specimen,
is Miss Rosemary. Of course she's the image of Miss Roberta. They
might have come out of the same mould, only Miss Roberta has got a
bit set with time, and Miss Rosemary is still plastic."
Silas took his pipe out of his mouth, and Mary spoke rather hastily,
her tone slightly propitiatory.
"Oh, I shouldn't put it quite like that, Peter. What you mean is
that Miss Rosemary now must be very like what Miss Roberta was as a
girl. But it's only a family resemblance really. They are not much
alike in character."
"I'm not so sure," said Peter, who was not averse to an argument with
Mary when Silas was taking no part. "I should say that when Miss
Bobby was Rosemary's age she was exactly the same, just wild and
merry and taking; in fact, I'd say she might even have been more so.
It's time that has changed her,--time and adversity. She's sobered
down now--same as we all do. But you may take it from me, she wasn't
always sober--not with those eyes. Why, I shouldn't wonder but what
even she may have sown a wild oat or two in her time."
Peter began to chuckle at his own logical conclusions, but the sudden
smart rapping of the tin match-box on the table checked him.
"Peter," said Silas briefly and sternly, "you're talking bunkum.
Shut up!"
Both Peter and Mary looked startled. It was not often that the
master of the house thus expressed himself.
Peter was the first to recover. "Why, what's the matter?" he said.
"They do, you know--they do sow their wild oats--even the gentry
sometimes. Not Miss Matilda; I wouldn't say that she's ever done
much in that line. She's a bit too vain and finicky to let herself
go very far. But Miss Roberta,--well, anyone can see she's been one
of the lively ones. I wouldn't put her down as too old for an
occasional spree even now if it came her way."
"Then you're a damn' fool!" said Silas.
"Silas!" gasped Mary.
Peter said nothing. He merely looked very hard at Silas and waited.
Silas waited also, his eyes under their beetling brows alight with a
dangerous glow. But as Peter remained silent, this gradually died
down.
"No," he said. "I'm wrong. I'm sorry, Peter. But you'll be good
enough not to speak lightly of Miss Roberta. She is a woman whom
neither you nor I are fit to speak of at all."
He got up with the words and turned to the door. Mary and Peter
watched him go in unbroken silence.
Then Mary rose to clear the table. "He's very touchy these days,"
she said sadly.
"Durned unreasonable, I call it," growled Peter. "I was only joking.
He ought to have seen that."
"He did see it," said Mary. "But he won't listen to a joke of that
kind. It's my belief, Peter, that he's been to her and offered
himself and she's sent him away."
"Oh, rot!" said Peter. "He can't have got that far yet. Why,
they've never been out walking together even!"
"And I don't think they will," said Mary. "They're not like that,
Peter. They'd do their love-making on the quiet, like gentle-folks."
"I don't believe it," said Peter stoutly. "He'll never propose to
her. She won't let him. She isn't taking any, I tell you, neither
she nor Miss Rosemary. He's a fool if he doesn't see it; but I think
he does."
"I think he does too," said Mary. "But he won't accept it. And why
should he, after all? He comes of a good stock. There's blue blood
in his veins." She spoke with pride. "His mother was a Thorgrave,
and everybody for miles round knows what his father was. I'm sure
any woman--any woman--ought to be honoured."
She spoke with such feeling that the tears rose in her eyes. Peter,
looking up, saw them. He patted her arm with a clumsy hand.
"Don't you fret, old Mary!" he said. "You can't do anything. He'll
just have to go his own way."
Mary turned her face aside. It was not often that she was betrayed
into any show of emotion.
"Well, I will do something one of these days," she said. "I'll tell
her how high-born he is. And p'raps then she'll give him his proper
place."
"But you don't want her to marry him," Peter pointed out. "I think
it would be a dashed nuisance myself. I shouldn't butt in if I were
you. Let things take their course!"
Mary paused to consider, and brushed her eyes with the back of her
hand. "But he ought to marry," she argued. "Think of the old name
dying out! Think of----"
"Do you suppose she'd ever give him children?" said Peter bluntly.
"I don't know how old she is, but she's no chicken. Why, look at
Miss Rosemary!"
"Yes, but she may have been only a child herself when Rosemary was
born," objected honest Mary. "It doesn't follow, does it, that----"
"She may have been," said Peter. "But--well, I don't much think she
was. Do you?"
"Peter!" Mary went back a step in shocked astonishment. "What ever
are you saying? Why, she--she--little Rosemary is the child of their
dead brother! Didn't you know? Didn't I ever tell you?"
"You may have told me," said Peter, rising to knock out his pipe.
"But I don't know that I believed it. You always take everything you
hear for gospel. I don't."
"Goodness gracious unto me!" said poor Mary, gasping. "Don't you
ever let Silas hear you say that! Why, he'd--he'd--I don't know what
he'd do."
"I daresay he would," said Peter with grimness. "But he's got a very
shrewd suspicion on that point himself, or I'm a Dutchman. You
needn't be upset about it. It's not going to make any difference one
way or the other. But I wouldn't try and teach Miss Roberta anything
she doesn't know about Silas if I were you. Just you leave it alone,
and it won't come to anything."
"Oh, but you can't be right!" protested Mary. "She's a lady born.
She'd never do such."
"That's all you know about 'em," said Peter. "We're all of us human,
as we said before. But if she's a mind to turn down Silas, for the
love of heaven let her! We don't want other people's rubbish dumped
down on our muck-heap."
"Peter!" Mary spoke with her hand to her side. "You've made me feel
quite bad. I'm sure there's nothing in it. I'm sure it isn't true.
What ever makes you think them things I don't know. But all men have
got dirty minds, and I suppose you're no exception--though I've
sometimes thought you were. Now will you please stop talking any
more nastiness to me, for I've no use for it!"
The remonstrance was not without dignity, and it had its effect upon
Peter. He looked rebuked.
"Well, I didn't mean any offence," he said. "If you and Silas choose
to stick up for someone who doesn't deserve it, well, it's no affair
of mine. Everybody's got a right to his own opinion, so we'll agree
to differ."
He sat down before the fire and began to fill his pipe again. Mary
continued her interrupted task of clearing the table with a very
furrowed brow, finally withdrawing to the scullery and shutting the
door. It was not often that she did this.
Peter smoked out this second pipe before at length he went in search
of her. He found her to his amazement nearly blinded with crying,
feverishly scouring an already spotless sink the while her tears
dripped into it.
"Oh, goodness, woman!" said Peter. "What on earth's the matter now?"
Mary could not tell him. She could only continue her desperate
efforts until he forcibly deprived her of the sink-brush and himself
dried her shaking hands on the roller-towel behind the door.
"You silly old thing!" he said. "Why, I've never seen you cry like
this since you were fifteen and the yard-dog bit you because I'd been
teasing him. Oh, dry your eyes and be sensible, do! What's it
matter if Silas does make a fool of himself for once? The world
won't stop!"
"I know--I know!" sobbed Mary. "I'm very stupid. But I've always so
wanted him to be happy. I'm that fond of him. And I don't see how
he ever can be now."
"Oh, stop it, woman!" said Peter. He put his arm round her shoulders
in a rough caress. "He won't come to any harm. Leave him alone to
manage his own affairs! He'll be all right."
Mary choked back a sob. "And Miss Roberta too! I've always loved
Miss Roberta. I'd even thought that maybe I'd stay and serve her if
she were to marry Silas."
"What?" said Peter. He wheeled her round to look at her. "And
where'd I be, I'd like to know?"
"I thought p'raps you'd stay too," said Mary, feeling in her
apron-pocket for her handkerchief.
"Oh, did you?" said Peter. "Well, you were wrong for once. I
wouldn't. And I wouldn't let you either. So now you know."
He spoke with a force with which Mary was not familiar. She opened
her swollen eyes a little. "You wouldn't let me! But why ever not?"
Peter growled something which he had too much respect for his
companion to say aloud. For some reason not quite clear to himself
he was angry.
"Well, I wouldn't, so that's that!" he said. "Now stop this nonsense
and come and sit by the fire! I don't know now what you've got to
cry about."
Mary dried her eyes obediently. "It's just that we've all been so
happy together," she said, "and I don't want ever to be any
different. It's been like a cloud hanging over me all this time--the
fear of losing Silas."
"Oh, stop it!" said Peter. "Why, damn it, girl, you've got me,
haven't you? How many more do you want?"
Something in his rough voice pierced her. She turned and slipped her
arm round his neck.
"Yes, I've got you, dear Peter," she said tremulously. "Thank God
for that!"
"Oh, don't be so durned foolish!" said Peter.
Nevertheless, he bestowed a brief kiss somewhere near her ear to
soften the remark, and Mary remembered it later with a little wonder.
The last time he had kissed her had been when she was a girl of
fifteen and had wept because the yard-dog had bitten her instead of
Peter who had been teasing him.
CHAPTER X
THE DISCOVERY
It was growing dusk as Silas went forth into his rickyard, and there
was a chill in the air which might turn to frost in the early
morning. He moved slowly, with heavy feet. He was vexed with
himself for having lost his temper with Peter who, he fully realized,
had had no intention of being offensive. What he had said had been
outrageous of course and not to be tolerated for a moment, but only a
fool would have tackled the matter as he had. They were probably
laughing at him now, Peter and Mary, calling him all those facetious
names which are usually bestowed upon a man in love. He clenched his
hands at the thought. Wasn't it enough to suffer hideously, as he
was suffering, without being laughed at?
It was five days since he had seen her, except for just one glimpse
that morning in church of her pure face outlined against the old
stone pillar by which she always sat. For five long days he had
resolutely starved himself of the sight of her, and during that time
he had hardly slept at all. Night after night he had lain staring
into the dark with her image before him, ineradicable, almost as if
seared upon his brain.
He had said that he would be her friend, but he had not been able to
bring himself even to attempt to play the _rôle_. He wanted her so
desperately, so unspeakably, for his own. The thought of that other
man who had won her heart and left her was torture to him. It set
him on fire. He could not cope with it.
There was another thought behind which was even more intolerable.
This was a spectre that came to him only in the night watches. By
day he had the strength of will to fling it from him. But at night,
like a poisonous serpent it crept upon him, wound its foul coils
about him, held him in agonized helplessness. That gate marked
Private through which he might not pass, what was it that lay beyond?
Who was it that sheltered there? Over and over again he turned from
the problem, only to be faced with it from another angle. Why had
she cared so terribly when he had suggested the possibility of
discovering the truth? If she were not concerned with it, why should
she mind? She had said that he would not find the other man behind
that gate, but was that literally the truth? His soul revolted at
the doubt, but was it wholly without justification. Why had she been
so urgent that he should not seek to know?
And then would come the vision of her, as he had seen it that
morning--pure, steadfast, yet withal so sweetly human, and he would
break free, casting the evil thing away. Could anyone with eyes like
hers have any guilty secret to hide? It was monstrous, incredible,
the evil phantom of his own diseased imagination. If he could only
sleep, he would be able to trample it underfoot for good and all.
But sleep would not come to him. It eluded him always, often at the
last moment when blessed unconsciousness seemed to be almost at hand.
At such times it was not the vision of Bobby that brought him back;
but that of Rosemary with her vivid laughing beauty, seeming to taunt
him, seeming to block the way. There were times when he almost hated
her, times when he felt that he could have seized her between his
hands and hurled her from his path. But always she eluded him,
escaping as it were by a hair's breadth, and always she came again
just out of reach to mock his fever.
And now he had seen them both again, Roberta and Rosemary, side by
side in church, and it seemed to him that the fever had leapt
well-nigh to madness. He could not have rested indoors even had
those few ill-advised remarks of Peter's not driven him forth. What
the devil did Peter mean by his insinuations? Whose vile tongue had
first dared to link slander with Miss Roberta's name? But no! Peter
had not given voice to slander in his hearing. He had only spoken
lightly of the woman whom Silas worshipped. Possibly he had been
overready to translate those careless remarks into calumny--such
calumny as Peter had never dreamed of uttering. In any case he had
been a fool to take him seriously, and had made a laughing-stock of
himself to no purpose.
He dug his heel into the ground as he reached the gate that led from
the rickyard into the lane. Yes, he was a fool--a fool. All the
sense he had ever had seemed to have gone under during the past few
days, swamped by this obsession, this mad longing for the
unattainable. None but a fool would have gone to church that morning
and risked awaking this fiery torment that was like an unslakable
thirst within him. It had been like a drain of moisture to parched
lips, renewing the anguish a thousand-fold, turning that which had
been just endurable into a nightmare of pain.
He tramped through the gate and shut it behind him. Then he stood
still in the lane, in the mist-laden quiet of the falling night, and
took himself to task. "I've got to do something," he said. "I can't
stand much more of this."
A faint, throbbing sound came to him through the stillness, but he
did not heed it. His misery was too acute to be penetrated by
outward things. Had he stood in a raging storm just then, he would
hardly have been aware of it.
Yet something must have reached him, for after the passage of many
heavy seconds he turned to walk down the lane. Nero had followed him
out and accompanied him closely along the narrow way; but he had no
thought for Nero. Scarcely did he know that he was moving in the
direction of Little Staple. He might have been walking through one
of those endless mazes of trouble in which his spirit wandered
throughout the night.
He came to the junction of the lanes, and here something made him
pause. Then with a sudden pang of bitter self-contempt he awoke to
his surroundings. What was the good of going to her? Had he not
suffered enough?
With an almost violent movement he swung aside to the stile that led
into his fields and crossed it, turning his back upon the track that
would have led him to her.
Drearily he trudged up the hill through the wet grass, past the big
barn where the bulk of his winter fodder was stored, on to the open
down behind Little Staple, above the field where Bobby kept her cows.
Nearing the summit of the hill, there came again to him that
throbbing sound which he had not heeded, and then suddenly through
the quiet, clear as a bell, came a girl's voice.
"Steady, Leader! Steady, old fellow! You mustn't have a swollen
hock in the morning, or there'll be trouble. Come along, old Hoss!
One more straight gallop and good night!"
Silas stopped as if a thunderbolt had arrested him. "Damnation!" he
said.
All the blood in his body seemed to go to his head. Everything about
him went red. In that moment an anger that amounted almost to a lust
for murder took possession of him. He quivered all over with the
fury of it, quivered and waited like an animal straining on the leash.
The throbbing sound had resolved itself into the definite thudding of
hoofs. There was a flat stretch along the top of the hill, and a
horse was cantering over it towards him. He knew the tread of those
hoofs. It was his own horse, Leader, who had gone lame and been
turned out to grass some weeks before. He had had his suspicions for
a long time that Leader was not being left to the life of
tranquillity which had been prescribed for him. Old Roper at Bode
had hinted as much, and suspected mischievous urchins of mounting the
animal; but Silas knew better. Silas knew that old Roper had not had
time to ride with Rosemary lately, and he drew his own
conclusions--conclusions which Mary had not been able to refute.
Rosemary loved a gallop--a headlong, break-neck gallop--as she loved
nothing else on earth. And as the pace of the cantering animal above
him quickened, Silas realized that he had caught the culprit
red-handed.
He turned and took a slanting course up the rise to the corner above
the barn where he knew that she must draw rein. He went hard, with a
wild violence of effort that suited his mood. Not often in his life
had so fierce a tempest of wrath raged within him. It burned like a
furnace, and he was not conscious of any physical effort. Everything
he did seemed part of that tremendous storm, just as those galloping
hoofs seemed a part. It was as if they hammered on his brain.
Then, almost before he knew it, he had reached the top, and was
standing against the railing as Leader dashed up. The animal saw him
first, and swerved. His rider kept her seat with an effort and a
laughing protest. She had no saddle and her only bridle was the rope
of his halter. She carried a riding-switch, however, and she struck
the horse lightly with it by way of admonition.
"What did you do that for, Leader? Do you want to throw me, you old
rotter?"
The fact that she had not been thrown was one which testified to the
excellence of her horsemanship. Even Silas conceded that as he
strode forward into the open.
She recognized him in a moment, and made Leader back before him,
pawing the ground like a circus-horse. "Hullo!" she said coolly.
"You, is it?"
"Yes, me!" said Silas between his teeth. "What are you doing on that
horse? Don't you know he's lame?"
"He isn't when I ride him," said Rosemary, unabashed. "He doesn't
mind featherweights, do you, Leader?"
As Leader stood about seventeen hands high, it seemed an unnecessary
question; but it failed to propitiate the incensed Silas.
He took one more gigantic stride and seized the animal by the
forelock. "Get down, do you hear?" he said thickly. "I'll have no
more of these damned tricks. Get down!"
Rosemary jerked the horse back again in angry astonishment. That
anyone--even the redoubtable Silas--could fail to appreciate her
prowess seemed incredible. Clinging on with her knees, she raised
her riding-whip, "Let go! Let go!" she cried furiously. "I've done
no harm to you or Leader either. I won't get down just because you
say so!"
"You will!" said Silas.
He kept his grip upon the horse, and Leader, recognizing him, tried
to submit. But the girl on his back suddenly turned into a little
tornado of fury which upset his nervous balance. He found himself a
bone of contention and began to dance and rear.
She clung to her perch like a limpet, but it was only a matter of
seconds ere she realized that the man who hung on so stubbornly to
Leader's head was master of the situation. When that knowledge came
to her, the last shred of her self-control evaporated. She leaned
well forward over Leader's neck and brought her riding-switch down
straight and hard upon his grim, uplifted face.
She had the satisfaction of hearing him exclaim, but there all cause
for elation ended. For--what happened she never quite knew--there
followed such a turmoil of movement that she found it impossible to
maintain her balance. She felt herself slipping, clutched
desperately at Leader's mane; and then she had lost all hold and
seemed to be suspended in mid-air in the grip of a giant.
The next thing she knew was the squelch of Leader's hoofs as he
blundered away and the sense of finding her feet on the muddy ground
after a breathless struggle to save herself from falling.
When she was able finally to take a steadier view of things, she
discovered that the whirlwind had passed, and she was standing face
to face with Silas in the gloaming. Her blouse was torn at the neck
and her breeches were covered with mud. She realized that he had
just set her on her feet after holding her dangling as though she had
been a kitten, and very bitterly she resented the fact. She felt
like a boy caught raiding an orchard.
She had dropped her switch in the _mêlée_, and after a hasty glance
around she discovered it in Silas's grasp.
"Give that to me!" she commanded, pointing.
He answered her in a voice that seemed to come from the very depths
of him, like the growl of an angry beast.
"Yes, I will give it to you, you little varmint! You've asked for
it, and you shall have it!"
The deadly intention with which he uttered the words was almost as
forcible as a blow in itself. Rosemary recoiled in spite of herself,
then gamely she returned to the attack.
"Oh, you think you'll threaten me, do you?" she said. "It's the sort
of thing one would expect from a man like you. But if you think I'm
afraid of you, you're jolly well mistaken. Hand over that whip and
don't waste my time!"
"Your--time!" said Silas. For the moment her effrontery nearly bore
him backwards. Then red rage gained the upper hand again. "You
think I'm to be trampled on like that, do you?" he said. "Think you
can trespass on my field, ride my horse, and hit me over the head,
all for nothing! A damned little baggage like you that has never
done anything to justify existence yet!"
He took a furious step forward, but Rosemary did not give ground a
second time. She confronted him with a courage that scorned retreat.
"I shouldn't have hit you if you hadn't interfered with me," she
said. "As to trespassing in your field, that's rot! We all do it.
As to riding your horse, I challenge you to prove that I have done
him any harm. Now--give me my property and I'll go!"
She stretched out her hand for it and even grasped it, but in a
second he had wrenched it from her. He would have thrust it behind
him, but she sprang at him like a little panther in a futile effort
to snatch it from him.
It was childish and undignified, and in that moment she lost all that
she had gained. For he gripped her extended arm and flung her round,
holding her for chastisement as if she had been a boy.
"You've asked for it!" he said again. "You shall have it!"
She made a frantic struggle, but her feet slipped on the wet earth
and she lost her balance. She went down on her face, still
struggling, and as he pulled her up again the blouse she wore which
was already torn ripped like a rag, exposing her white shoulders and
bosom, and the dainty cambric underwear which Bobby always insisted
upon for her darling.
It was a sight that brought Silas very suddenly to a stop. It was as
if he turned a mental somersault. Hitherto he had regarded Rosemary
as a being without sex, but more nearly resembling the male than the
female. Now, abruptly, he realized his mistake. He drew in his
breath hissing between his teeth, and in that breath his violence was
quenched, as though water had been flung upon fire. He let her go.
"You get along home!" he commanded gruffly. "And don't come this way
again!"
She drew away from him, burningly aware of the fact to which she owed
her deliverance, shaking also from head to foot and unable to control
herself.
Silas thrust out the switch to her. His look avoided hers. "Here
you are! Now run along home!" he said. Then, abruptly, "Damn! It's
raining. Have this!"
He dragged off his coat and held it out for her. But she stood,
still trembling, making no effort to move.
"Come on!" said Silas. He was still angry, but--oddly--not with her.
He took her arms, first one then the other, and pushed them into the
sleeves of his coat. Then he wrapped it over her bare shoulders and
buttoned it in front.
"There!" he said. "That better?"
The switch had fallen from her nerveless fingers. He picked it up
and gave it to her again. An urgent desire to put an end to the
situation had come upon him. He had never in his life before felt at
so hopeless a disadvantage.
That Rosemary could be feeling the same did not occur to him, and
when her wild trembling abruptly ended in a burst of tears he was
both shocked and perplexed.
"Oh, damn it!" he said. "You're not hurt. What is it! What's the
matter?"
Then, as she failed to tell him but continued to sob forlornly like a
lost child, desperation came upon him.
He bent and took her, almost seized her, into his arms, and started
down the hill with her through the darkness and falling rain.
She uttered a small cry at his action, but made no fight for freedom.
And so he bore her, weeping, to the stile, which he crossed in one
great stride, and then up the sodden track from which he had turned
in his misery a sort time before, Nero plodding patiently behind him
as though he saw nothing extraordinary in his master's conduct.
When they reached the open space and the duck-pond in front of Little
Staple, Rosemary spoke for the first time, in a very small voice.
"May I use your hanky? I've lost mine."
"All right," said Silas. "You'll find it in the pocket."
He pushed open the gate and went up the flagged path. "Please wait a
minute!" said Rosemary.
But the door opened while she was speaking, and Bobby's figure
appeared on the threshold, outlined against the lamplight behind.
"Oh, Rosemary--my darling!" she said, and ran out to meet them.
"It's all right," said Silas. "She isn't hurt."
He made as if he would have transferred his burden to her, then,
realizing that Rosemary weighed more than an ordinary infant,
straightened again and carried her into the house himself.
"Bring her into the parlour!" said Bobby. "What has happened?
Rosemary--darling--you are crying!"
"No, I'm not," said Rosemary, with a sob. "I'm--I'm quite all right.
Please put me down now!" to Silas. "Don't let's make a fuss!"
He placed her solemnly upon the sofa, but she was off it in a moment
and laughing rather desperately at Bobby's distress. "I'm quite all
right, dear Aunt Bobby. Can't you see? I've--I've been riding
Leader, and--and----"
"I pulled her off," said Silas.
"No, he didn't!" Fiercely she interrupted. "I fell off, and he
picked me up. It--it was jolly decent of him. I was rather dazed
just at first, and he brought me home. That's all, dear Aunt Bobby!
Don't make a fuss! I'm really quite all right. Won't you--won't you
ask Mr. Hickory to sit down a minute while I change and dry his coat?"
"Of course sit down!" said Bobby, turning to him. "But you--" with a
start--"you have had an accident, too!"
There was a red weal straight across Silas's face, and one eye was
nearly closed.
Rosemary spoke with resolution. "That was my doing, Aunt Bobby. I
struck him with my whip."
"No, she didn't!" said Silas flatly. "It was the horse she was
hitting. He reared, and everyone knows it's the only thing to do. I
got in the way. It was my own fault."
He made the statement with a square insistence that would not be
gainsaid. Bobby looked, bewildered, from one to the other.
"You both look rather the worse for wear," she said finally.
"Rosemary, it was very wrong of you to ride Leader at all. You had
better go straight to bed as a punishment. Yes, I mean it," as
Rosemary opened her mouth to protest. "You deserve a far worse
penalty than that, and I may decide to give you one. I will think it
over. But go now, dear! Go at once!"
Her voice of quiet authority took effect. Rosemary turned to obey;
but at the door she paused, stood a moment, then came back to Silas
with extended hand.
"Good night, Mr. Hickory!" she said.
He shook hands with her, standing in his shirt-sleeves on the
hearth-rug. The smile that lighted his face at her action was that
rare smile which Mary so loved to see.
"Good night, Miss Rosemary!" he said. "Don't bother to dry the coat!
It'll only get wet again going home."
"Right ho!" said Rosemary.
She went out, pulling the door after her. A moment later she thrust
a bare arm into the room with the coat held out. "Here you are!" she
said. "And many thanks!"
It was Bobby who took it from her with a murmured rebuke, and a
moment later they heard her scamper up the oak stairs like a boy
released from school.
"Oh dear, oh dear!" said Bobby, half-vexed, half-laughing, and wholly
ill at ease. "What shall I do with her?"
"I'll tell you one thing you'll have to do pretty soon," said Silas,
taking his coat from her and putting it on.
"What's that?" said Bobby anxiously.
He answered with uncompromising bluntness. "Stop treating her like a
child that doesn't know any better, and treat her as a reasonable
being who does."
"But don't I?" said Bobby in distress. "I thought--I hoped--"
Silas interrupted with an unexpected laugh. "I know. But it's no
good. I've had the bump of my life to-day, but it was my fault--not
hers. I thought she was just a mischievous child. She isn't. She's
a woman."
Bobby looked at him almost in consternation. "Oh, do you think so?
She's not eighteen yet."
"And you treat her as if she were eight," said Silas. "I'm only
telling you for your information. Don't look so shocked!"
"But only the other day--only the other day," protested Bobby, "you
told me she was a spoilt child!"
"Did I?" said Silas. "Well, I was wrong. I should let her come down
to supper if I were you. It'll be pleasanter for you both."
"You think she is too old to be punished any longer?" said Bobby, and
in her eyes was the yearning look of the woman who realizes that her
treasure is exclusively her own no more.
Silas saw it and a species of rather stern pity shone in his own eyes
for a moment. "I think," he said quietly, "that life will probably
take on that job for you, and nothing else will make any difference."
He held out his hand. "Good-bye! I'm going now."
"Must you go?" said Bobby, still rather flustered. "Won't you stay
for a little? I haven't seen anything of you for a long time."
"Exactly a week to-morrow," said Silas.
"Oh, is it?" The colour rushed up over her face. "I thought it was
longer." She broke off, paused to master her sudden embarrassment,
and then spoke more collectedly. "I am sure your eye is hurting you.
Won't you let me do something for it?"
"No, thanks," said Silas. "I can't feel it at all. Was there
anything you wanted to talk to me about? Shall I--" he looked at her
with abrupt directness--"shall I come round in the morning?"
Bobby hesitated, then with a faint smile yielded. "One of the pigs
isn't very well. I don't think it's anything really serious. But
perhaps if you could spare a few minutes in the morning-- It isn't
asking too much of you, is it?" she said, with sudden compunction.
"Don't come if you are busy in the other direction! I can get Mr.
Roper."
"I am never busy in the other direction," said Silas squarely. "I'll
be round about eleven. Don't get Roper till I've been! Good-bye!"
His big hand enveloped hers for a moment, and something like a sigh
of relief escaped them both. The old footing was re-established. He
went away exactly as he had always gone--without ceremony--a reliable
friend who would return.
"Thank goodness for that!" murmured Bobby to herself as she heard the
front-door close.
Yes, it had certainly seemed a very long time.
CHAPTER XI
DICK DYNAMO
Rosemary's escapade on Leader was followed by an interval of the most
exemplary behaviour on her part. For one thing Aunt Bobby had
treated the affair leniently and had not demanded to know
embarrassing details. Beyond exacting a promise readily given by
Rosemary that she would not repeat the offence, she had apparently
deemed it wiser to let the matter slip into the background of
forgotten sins, and Rosemary was more than willing to let her do so.
Her own impression of that evening's happenings was a rather
bewildered one, and her feelings regarding Silas's share therein were
of a very mixed character. The fact that he had taken her part in
Aunt Bobby's presence was one which excited her alternate gratitude
and resentment. There was no doubt that her pride had suffered
considerably, but yet in fairness--and Rosemary was very fair--she
had to admit that she herself was largely responsible for this. She
had put herself completely in the wrong and had thus given him the
opportunity to display a generosity of which she had not believed him
capable. She even thought to herself sometimes that the whipping
which he had barely refrained from administering would have been
preferable. But on the other hand the fact that he had realized her
womanhood in time to respect it was gratifying. On the whole, though
somewhat reluctantly, she was inclined to accord to him a certain
measure of admiration. He was not quite the country oaf that she had
believed him to be. He had shown a sporting spirit, and Rosemary was
of the age and type to be more strongly swayed by that than by
anything else. She had no intention of relinquishing her hostile
attitude towards him in the matter of his friendship with Aunt Bobby.
That was rank presumption and no more to be tolerated now than
heretofore. But for the man himself her feelings had undergone a
change. He was a sportsman.
It seemed that the honours of war had been divided, and she was well
aware that she owed this to his chivalry--a quality of which she had
imagined him to be wholly devoid. Therefore some degree of deference
was due to him, and Rosemary, being fair-minded, was not the sort of
girl to deny it.
She avoided Staple Farm for some days, but it was rather from a sense
of embarrassment than one of antagonism. But when she finally came
face to face with Silas one evening in their own farmyard nearly a
week later her attitude was wholly impersonal and free from strain.
She had recovered her equilibrium. She knew that he had been in to
see her aunt several times, and she had purposely kept out of the
way. But now her free pose announced that she had returned to the
old footing. While not actively disliking him, he was an interloper
and she did not want him.
She was riding old Dobbin the cart-horse in from the plough, and as
Silas opened the gate for her she looked down upon him with a good
deal of dignity.
"Thank you," she said. "If you are waiting for my aunt, I think she
has gone to see old Mrs. Everett and may be some time."
She walked Dobbin on to his stable with the words. Silas turned and
followed, and waited for her at the door.
Rosemary did not hurry. She dismounted and proceeded to give Dobbin
a rub-down, whistling the while. When she had finished, she fed him
with oats and hay, and came out to draw a bucket of water.
"I'll do that," said Silas, taking the bucket from her.
"Thank you," said Rosemary again, and allowed him to make himself
useful.
But when Dobbin was served and finally tucked up for the night, she
faced the visitor with a touch of hauteur.
"Perhaps you would like to give me a message for Aunt Bobby. She
won't be back yet."
"I'd sooner wait," said Silas, taking out his pipe.
Rosemary looked at him for a moment, then a sudden gleam lighted her
blue eyes. She led the way across the yard. "Certainly. Come in!"
she said hospitably.
He slipped his pipe back into his pocket and followed her. There was
something about this girl that amused him. Her very animosity was in
its fashion entertaining.
She opened the door into the hall and paused, listening.
"Yes, Aunt Matilda is down," she said, nodding towards the parlour.
"Come into the kitchen!"
The tact thus displayed somewhat surprised him. The Rosemary of
other days would have taken a malicious pleasure in inflicting upon
him society for which she knew he had little liking. Yet he did not
make the mistake of thinking that it was dictated by any kindness on
her part. She evidently had an end in view, and he became curious to
know what it was. He followed her across the hall as she lightly
preceded him and entered the kitchen behind her.
The fire was burning cheerily and the kettle hissed upon it in
readiness for tea. Bobby had set everything in order before going
out. Teapot and tea-caddy stood side by side on the table with the
tray.
"Sit down!" said Rosemary, pointing to a wooden armchair beside the
open hearth.
Silas complied with a certain wariness. She slipped off her coat and
prepared to make the tea; but in a moment moved across to the dresser
to light the lamp.
Silas watched her. Her lithe quick movements had the same daintiness
as had those of Roberta Wendholme, her form in its boyish garb the
same delicacy of outline. Her face, seen in the fitful light of the
fire, might have been that of Bobby herself, except for that little
mocking smile about the lips which with Bobby would have been merely
whimsical. A more complete resemblance could scarcely have existed.
As Peter had said, they might have been cast in the same mould. Time
alone had traced the difference between them. Roberta at Rosemary's
age must have been exactly the same.
Silas's heart stirred within him with a strange intensity of feeling.
Notwithstanding her pride of bearing, the girl before him had a
pathos which banished any lingering sense of hostility. He pitied
her with a deep compassion that somehow had its root in his love for
Bobby. In that moment there arose within him a force of devotion
that embraced them both. Do what she might to frustrate him,
Rosemary would never provoke him to enmity again.
She turned from lighting the lamp and opened a drawer of the old
dresser. "Here's something here I think you would like to see!"
"What is it?"
He saw that she was holding a book. She crossed the room to his
side. "It's Aunt Bobby's album of snaps," she explained. "She
hardly ever takes any now. There is no time. These were nearly all
done before we came to Stapleton. Perhaps you would like to look at
them while I get the tea." She placed it in his hands and turned
away.
He opened the book towards the end and found one or two recent
photographs of herself, but it was not full and he turned to the
beginning.
On the first page was a full-length portrait of a man in
hunting-dress on horseback.
He sat and stared at it, arrested by some inner prompting that moved
him to take in every detail. The picture was one of those amateur
inspirations which occasionally beat all the art of the professional.
The pose of both horse and rider was superb. The man's whole air was
patrician, but not arrogantly so. His bearing was military and
supremely confident. He had the daring look of one accustomed to
override all obstacles. His features were clean-cut and purposeful
as his limbs were lean and strong, essentially a man of great
personal attraction, a man to whom women would accord almost
instinctive homage.
"Who is this?" said Silas.
There was a deep interrogation in his voice that caused Rosemary to
set down the kettle in the act of pouring out.
She came and looked over his shoulder. "That? Oh, that's Aunt
Bobby's _fiancé_! He rode in the Grand National when he was in the
Army, and he was always called Dick Dynamo. Jolly fine, isn't he?
No wonder Aunt Bobby fell in love with him!"
Silas remained absolutely motionless, his attention fixed. She
looked down at his black head, the dancing light of mischief still in
her eyes, and continued, airily communicative.
"He went to California. He wanted her to go too, but she wouldn't.
But he is coming back to fetch her some day, and I shall be jolly
glad when he does, for I'm tired of this hole."
"Oh, you would go too, would you?" said Silas.
"Of course I should go!" she declared with emphasis. "I don't know
what would happen to Aunt Matilda, but anyhow I wouldn't be left
behind. Aunt Bobby would never go anywhere without me." She spoke
with complacence. "I shouldn't wonder if it wasn't because of me
that she didn't go with him in the first place. But of course
Grandpa was alive then too, and Aunt Matilda never could be trusted
to look after anybody."
She returned to her tea-making as she spoke, still with one eye upon
Silas. He had not moved, but she noticed that one powerful hand was
hard clenched upon the arm of his chair.
After a considerable pause he asked another question in that deep,
insistent voice of his. "Does she ever hear from him?"
Rosemary hesitated. She had hoped he would not ask her that. Strict
truth, however, had been inculcated in her from her cradle and she
found herself compelled to cling to its fringe.
"Well, not often; at least not lately. That's what makes me wonder
sometimes if perhaps he may be on his way back to find her. I am
sure she will never send him away again. She is very, very, very
fond of him. She wears his ring always."
"On her right hand," said Silas with a sudden stab of memory.
"Yes. It ought to be on her left as they're engaged, oughtn't it?"
said Rosemary. "I have often thought so myself, and I shall tell her
you say so."
Silas stirred at that, lifted his head for the first time. It was a
good thing for Rosemary that she had returned the kettle to the hob,
or she would certainly have dropped it.
"You needn't do that," he said briefly. "I haven't said it. Now
tell me! Did she tell you all this--or did you make it up?"
Rosemary faced him with kindling wrath. To be called to account for
telling the truth was not to be tolerated for a moment. "I don't
know what you mean," she said. "Of course I didn't make it up. You
can ask her if you don't believe me. Or no! You had better not!
She can't bear to talk of him--to strangers."
"I see," said Silas. His sternness died down, and he quietly closed
the album and laid it aside. "That's enough for to-night. I think
I'll go."
He got up without anger, and again his look comprehended Rosemary
with an odd compassion.
She met it with defiant surprise. In some fashion she felt as if he
had defeated her in the very moment of success.
"I can tell you some more about him," she said, "if you'd like to
hear it. I don't mind talking about him. I only wish he'd come
back."
"I shouldn't wish too hard if I were you," said Silas. "You're
happier as you are. Good night!"
He turned to go and Rosemary made no effort to stay him. Somehow,
though her ruse had succeeded, she did not feel wholly satisfied with
the trend events had taken.
As he went out, she picked up the album and opened it again upon the
portrait of the gallant figure on horseback.
"Oh, I do wish you'd come back!" she said with a sigh. "I've never
seen you--but I know I'd love you!"
PART II
CHAPTER I
THREE FRIENDS
Percy Hudson sprawled in an old wicker-chair in the room which was
still known as the nursery and smoked a pipe of disreputable tobacco
while his college friend, affectionately known to all and sundry as
The Old Bean, sat cross-legged on the floor and oiled his
shooting-boots. His real name was Donald Ross, but Mrs. Hudson was
the only person at the Vicarage who ever remembered the fact. Even
the servants knew him as "Mr. Bean."
The friendship between himself and Percy Hudson was one which no one
could understand, for Percy was of a most energetic and restless
temperament while The Old Bean was supremely quiet and
self-contained. He never did anything in a hurry, though as Percy
ungrudgingly admitted, he always got there in the end. One of his
main characteristics was that he knew exactly what he wanted to do
and therefore he never wasted his time in futile effort. There were
some who thought him lazy, but Percy would never allow this.
"He's just economical by nature, that's all," he said. "What's the
good of running after things you've no use for? He's game enough
when he's keen."
This natural economy was a trait which in himself was conspicuously
lacking. Unless at the end of the day he could feel that he had been
"all out," as he expressed it, then the day, as far as he was
concerned, had been a failure. He had an absolute passion for sport
of all kinds, and spent much of his time in training. The Old Bean
on the contrary merely took sport--as he took wine--when it came his
way, made the most of it and thoroughly enjoyed it. He was a little
older than Percy and a man of independent means. He had chosen to go
to the University because a certain amount of learning seemed to him
worth while and, since he had become a close friend of the turbulent
Percy, a certain amount of sport also attracted him. He never
overdid things in either direction while acquitting himself with fair
credit in both.
"I want," he would say, "to feel that I could earn my own living if I
ever had to, and so I shall take my degree as that carries a certain
amount of prestige. I shall also study game-keeping as I believe I
could make a success of it if I had to. And engineering as a matter
of course, though I know the trade is hopelessly overcrowded."
Engineering was his hobby. Nothing in the world appealed to him so
much. But, as he said, engineers were a glut in the market and he
could regard it as no more than a pastime. He had not the genius for
invention, and he could scarcely hope to make his mark as an
engine-driver, but he could drive an engine at a pinch. A long line
of Scotch ancestry had induced this line of reasoning. He had
inherited an ancient castle in the Highlands and a good many acres of
forest that were quite useless for anything but stag-hunting. He was
not rich, but he had no need to work. He worked merely out of that
sense of natural economy for which Percy respected him.
Percy on the other hand did not work. He spent himself to the utmost
in a fever of occupation. But it was not work. He did nothing from
the valid motive of rendering himself independent. To his father's
grief he displayed no aptitude for matters clerical. The only desire
he had ever expressed was to become a professional boxer. He
supposed he would have to scrape into the Church some day, but he
avoided the thought at all times. He wanted to enjoy himself. Life
in his eyes was a priceless gift that must on no account be
squandered. He had an immense capacity for enjoyment, and an almost
fierce resentment against anything that threatened to interfere with
its indulgence.
"Dash it all! We're only young once!" he would exclaim if The Old
Bean ever ventured to expostulate, which was not often, being waste
of time and effort. "It's a damn' shame if we mayn't enjoy ourselves
while we can. We'll never get the chance later in life. What's the
good of saving up for mouldy old age?"
The Old Bean might then point out mildly that to die in the workhouse
was not an enviable end to a glorious beginning, but Percy never
listened. He had a horror of death and old age and refused
point-blank to contemplate either.
"Time enough for them!" he would say. "And all the more reason to
enjoy ourselves while we may!"
And The Old Bean, despite the fact that he was of a far more
philosophical turn, would yield the point without demur. He was very
fond of Percy in a calm and unobtrusive fashion and he seldom raised
objection to anything that he did or said.
Mrs. Hudson regarded him as an excellent companion for her boy, and
so in the matter of solid worth he was. But--if she had only known
it--he was too economical to throw himself away in fruitless
exhortations, and Percy always went his own way in his company. It
was generally Percy who did most of the talking.
He was talking now in between whiffs at his execrable tobacco which
mingling with the odour of the oil with which The Old Bean was
treating his boots rendered the atmosphere practically unfit for
human consumption.
"It's all very fine for you, Old Bean," he was saying somewhat
moodily, being tired after five hours' tramp with the guns and a
meagre bag. "You've got everything in life that you want. You don't
need even to walk up your game if you don't feel like it."
"I like walking 'em up," observed The Old Bean. "Better fun I always
think."
"It's the fashion to say that," said Percy discontentedly.
The Old Bean smiled a little over his job. He had sandy hair and
eyebrows and a red face of many freckles. "Oh, I'm nothing if not
fashionable," he said.
Percy laughed, half against his will. "You look it, tinkering up
those old boots. P'raps you'd like to have a go at mine when they're
finished. They need it quite as much."
"I will if I feel like it," said The Old Bean placidly. "You might
stick a cigarette in my mouth and light it for me! I'm a mass of
oil."
Percy complied. "Can't think why you don't smoke a pipe," he said,
as he did so. "Much better value."
"Yes, I believe it is," said The Old Bean. "But I'm waiting till I
get married. I shall have more time then."
"You'll never get married," said Percy scathingly. "You're much too
stuffy and middle-aged."
"To the casual observer--perhaps," said The Old Bean.
"Why, you can't even dance," said Percy.
"I try," said The Old Bean.
Percy laughed again with more good-will. "Would you like to learn,
my dear old stodger?"
"Not from you, thank you very much," said The Old Bean, with
courteous decision.
"You'll never get anyone else to teach you unless you pay for it,"
observed Percy unkindly.
"Never mind!" said The Old Bean.
The sudden opening of the door disturbed the discussion, and both
young men started at the intrusion of a laughing face surrounded by a
shiny black sou'-wester.
"Anybody at home?" asked a gay voice.
Percy leaped to his feet with a whoop of welcome. "Hullo,
scaramouche! Come right in! How ripping of you to look us up!"
"I didn't," said Rosemary, entering. "I brought the eggs, and as
everyone seemed out, I thought I'd have a look round. What a filthy
smell! Hullo! Here's The Old Bean! Don't get up for goodness'
sake! You'll only spread it. How do you both manage to breathe?"
"Oh, we don't bother about breathing," said Percy. "It's a waste of
time in any case. Don't say you've turned hygienic since I saw you
last!"
"Oh no!" said Rosemary. "Nobody turns anything but mouldy in these
parts. Do give me one of your cigarettes, Old Bean! I haven't
smoked one since I saw you last."
"Here! Have one of mine!" said Percy jealously. "They're much nicer
than his."
"Oh no, they're not!" declared Rosemary. "The Scotch laddie knows
what's what. Where are they, Old Bean? In your pocket? Hoots, mon,
don't disturb yourself! I can find them."
She thrust a hand into his jacket-pocket without ceremony and drew
forth his cigarette-case with the words.
"All I have is yours," murmured The Old Bean, continuing his
loathsome occupation with scarcely a pause.
"You here for Christmas?" asked Rosemary, choosing her cigarette.
"Hullo! Here's a snap of someone in the lid! Who is it? Why--why,
it's me!"
"Yes, it is you," said The Old Bean, without looking up. "I got you
at the meet. Don't you remember? It must have been last Easter
Monday, for I wasn't here in the summer."
"What cheek!" said Rosemary.
"Tear it up if you don't like it!" said The Old Bean pacifically.
"You grow so fast. It isn't a bit like you now."
"Tear it up yourself if you want to!" retorted Rosemary. "Isn't he
an ass, Percy?"
"A. One. Outsize!" said Percy. "A braw Hieland loon, in short.
Want a match? You can sit in that chair if you like. It's more
dependable than the rest."
He lighted her cigarette for her, and returned the case with the
snapshot still intact to The Old Bean's pocket.
Rosemary subsided in the chair he had just vacated. "Do open the
window!" she pleaded, "or I shall die!"
"Oh, don't do that!" said Percy, complying. "You're the only bright
spot in the universe at the present moment. Now tell us all the
news! Stapleton is the same giddy whirl of frivolous activities, I
suppose?"
"Oh, rather!" said Rosemary. "And you're home just in time for the
Rummage Sale. Is that what The Old Bean is disguising his boots for?"
"Not only his boots," laughed Percy. "He's going to sell himself as
a scarecrow for Silas Hickory's crops this time."
"Is he really?" said Rosemary, interested. "What price is he going
to ask?"
"That's the point under consideration!" declared Percy. "What do you
think he'd fetch?"
Rosemary considered. "I don't believe Silas would give much for him.
He's much too keen on a good bargain."
"What would you give?" suggested The Old Bean amicably.
Rosemary pulled the pockets of her mackintosh inside out with an
eloquent gesture.
"He means what would you give if you had it," said Percy, seating
himself on the arm of her chair.
"I don't know," said Rosemary. "I don't think he'd be much good to
me in that capacity."
"Perhaps you could suggest another," said The Old Bean.
She shook her head. "You're not adaptable enough, I'm afraid."
"You'd better be nice to him," said Percy. "He's brought his car
this time. When he's not oiling his boots, he's oiling her. She's
rather a beauty. You'll have to learn to drive her."
"Oh, I should like that!" exclaimed Rosemary, dropping her cigarette
in her enthusiasm. "Will you teach me, Old Bean? Will you? It
would be ripping of you."
The Old Bean looked up at her, blinking a little. He was
short-sighted, and usually wore glasses. "I'll try if you like," he
said.
Percy uttered a rude laugh. "Isn't he flattering? The woman driver,
you must know, does not hold a very strong appeal for The Old Bean.
He maintains that the driving-bump is lacking."
"I prefer her as a mascot certainly," murmured The Old Bean.
"Pig!" said Rosemary tersely. "Well, I refuse to be your mascot or
anyone else's. Talking of meets, there's one at Ravencombe next
Saturday, Percy. Shall we go?"
"Rather!" said Percy. "I'll call for you, shall I? It's a good five
miles. We shall have to start early. No, dash it, we'll motor! The
Old Bean can take us."
"Delighted, I'm sure!" said The Old Bean. "Is there anywhere where
one can leave the car?"
"Oh, yes," said Rosemary. "You can put it in the yard at The
Ravencombe Arms. It's almost at the gates. We'll all take our lunch
and make a day of it."
"Is old Ravencombe still alive?" said Percy. "He must be at least a
hundred."
"More, I should think," said Rosemary. "He looked like an Egyptian
mummy the last time I saw him. They say he's quite mad, has been for
years."
"Rum old bird!" commented Percy. "Who's his heir?"
"Goodness knows! Don't think he's got one. Probably outlived them
all," laughed Rosemary. "How awful it must be to get old like that!
Oh, bother! My fag's gone out. Light it again for me, there's a
dear!"
"Oh, I'm always that!" declared Percy. "All right then! We'll go to
Ravencombe on Saturday. And I say! What about one of those
subscription dances at Bode Town Hall some evening? There's going to
be a regular swell affair on Boxing Day. Can't you come to it?"
"With you?" said Rosemary, with dancing eyes. "My hat! How I should
love to!"
"Well, can't you?" said Percy. "I'll look after you and see you
don't dance with the wrong people."
"How I should love it!" said Rosemary. "But--" she heaved a big
sigh--"I'm sure Aunt Bobby would never let me. Besides,--I've
nothing to wear."
"Fancy dress is optional," he said lightly, "so you can come in any
old thing, you like--or nothing at all if it pleases you."
"Be quiet, and let me think!" said Rosemary.
"Wear a red shirt and riding-breeches and come as Garibaldi!" he
suggested.
"Yes, that's an idea! But I couldn't dance in top-boots, could I?"
she objected.
"Bare feet would be better and more realistic," he assured her.
She made a face at him. "And have them trodden on by you! No, thank
you very much! I think I'll come as an old gipsy woman and tell all
your fortunes."
"Oh rot! You can't come as anything old! I won't allow it," said
Percy. "Can't you think of something really jolly?"
"Wait!" cried Rosemary suddenly. "I've got an idea! I know where I
can get a dress and shoes and everything! It'll be very long and
old-fashioned, but it'll fit. But I shall have to creep away without
being seen and bring the things with me. I shan't be able to dress
at home."
"Oh, that doesn't matter," said Percy. "We'll stop at _The King's
Head_ and you can change there. It's close to the Town Hall. I say,
this is ripping! What do you say to the scheme, Old Bean?"
The Old Bean looked up. There was a streak of oil smeared down one
side of his face and his general appearance was thoroughly
dishevelled. But there was a certain quality in his green-brown eyes
that discounted any suggestion of rakishness.
He looked straight at Rosemary as he said, "I don't know if it's a
good scheme or not, but if it comes off, I shall be there."
"Hear, hear!" cried Rosemary gaily. "The more the merrier!"