Farmer Owen was considered quite a proficient on the violin in Usk,
and as soon as the party, with the exception of Nell, had discussed
the good things provided for them, he drew his instrument from its
green baize case, and proceeded to play a plaintive ballad. His friends
listened with respectful attention, but the melancholy strain was too
much for Nell’s over-strung nerves.
‘Oh, give us something livelier, Mr Owen, do,’ she cried, jumping up
from her seat. ‘“Robin Adair” is enough to give one the blues! Let’s
have a dance instead. Here, Hetty, help me to wheel the table into the
corner, and we’ll stand up for a good old country reel. Did I tell you
that Lord Ilfracombe is married? We’ll dance in honour of the wedding.’
‘The earl _married_!’ exclaimed her sister, standing still in her
amazement. ‘Why, Nell, when did that happen? Wasn’t it very sudden? You
said nothing about it when we were in London.’
‘Oh, it seems he had been thinking of it for a long while, but
gentlemen don’t tell their secrets to their servants, you know. They
take the responsibility and trouble and expense, and all the servants
have to do is to smile and look happy and dance at the wedding. Come
along, Hugh,’ she continued, pulling that young man by the arm, ‘you
shall be my partner. Hetty and Will must open the ball, of course, but
we’ll show them how to dance at it. Up the middle and down again; hands
across and turn your partner; as we used in the days gone by. That’s
right, Mr Owen, give us “Yankee Doodle.” That’s the tune to make one’s
feet fly. Now, Hugh!’
She was dragging at his arm as hard as she could to make him rise from
his seat, and she looked so beautiful, with her flushed cheeks and
disordered hair, that he found it hard to resist her.
‘But Nell--Miss Llewellyn,’ he remonstrated shyly, ‘you forget--I
cannot--it would not be seemly for me in my character as minister to
dance. I have not done such a thing for years, and I shall never do it
again.’
Nell regarded him for a moment with grave surprise, and then, with a
hard laugh, flung his hand away from her.
‘You stupid! Do you really mean it? So much the worse for you. I shall
dance with my dad, then. _He_ won’t refuse me; will you, daddy? You’ll
have a fling with your girl in honour of her master’s wedding.’
And she pulled the old farmer into the middle of the room as she spoke,
whilst he, well pleased at her audacity and good spirits, allowed
himself to be turned and twisted at the will of his handsome daughter,
who flew up and down the dance as if she had never had a care or a
sorrow in her life. Hugh Owen sat by and watched her with troubled,
anxious eyes. He almost regretted at that moment that his chosen
vocation forbade his joining in the festivities before him. He would
have given a good deal to have had his arm round his old sweetheart’s
waist and danced hand in hand with her to the merry tune his father
played with so much spirit. Mrs Llewellyn, though still on hospitable
cares intent, and engaged at the sideboard with currant and orange wine
and queen cakes, was delighted to watch the antics of her daughters
as they beat time with their flying feet to the strains of “Yankee
Doodle,” but her pleasure was somewhat tempered by anxiety lest Nell
should fatigue herself too much after her long journey.
‘There, there, my lass,’ she remonstrated, as she heard her urging Mr
Owen to play them another country dance, ‘you mustn’t forget you have
come off a tiring journey, and haven’t eaten a morsel since you entered
the house. You ought to be in bed, my Nell, instead of cutting such
jinks. I shall have you ill to-morrow if you don’t take care.’
‘Ill? Tired?’ cried Nell. ‘Fiddle-de-dee, mother; no such thing. I
shall be up at cock-crow to see after the hens and chickens, or to have
a ride on Kitty. How’s the dear old mare, father?’
‘Old Kitty, my lass?’ replied Farmer Llewellyn. ‘Why, she’s been dead
the best part of a year. Surely your mother or Hetty told you that. You
must have forgotten it, Nell.’
A shade came over the young woman’s laughing face.
‘Old Kitty dead,’ she murmured in a subdued voice. ‘Dear old Kitty,
that I used to ride astride when I was in short frocks. Oh, I _am_
sorry. No one told me, I am sure. I couldn’t have forgotten it. I loved
old Kitty so well. She was part of home to me.’
‘Ah, my girl,’ said her father, ‘if the old mare is the only thing
you’ve forgotten in Usk you’ve no call to blame yourself. I’ve been
sometimes afraid that your grand ways and friends up in London might
make you too fine for Panty-cuckoo Farm, but it don’t seem so now.
They’ve made a lady of you, Nell; but not too fine a one to forget the
old folks at home. Thank God for that! You won’t look down on your
mother and sister because their ways of speaking are not so grand as
what you’ve been accustomed to hear, nor despise them and the old farm
if we can’t give you as many luxuries as you get in your fine place in
London.’
‘Despise them! Look down on them!’ echoed Nell. ‘Oh, dad, you don’t
know what you are talking of. It is London that I hate and despise
and look down upon. It is the people there who are false and cold and
cruel. I want to forget it all. I want to forget I ever went there. I
hate service. It is degrading and despicable, and oh! so lonely to be
far away from home and mother and you. When I heard Hetty speak of you
both I could stand it no longer. I was obliged to come straight back to
you all again.’
‘And now we’ve got you we sha’n’t let you go again in a hurry, Nell.
You must stay and be the comfort of our old age. But you had better
be handing round your wine and cakes, wife. It’s getting on for ten
o’clock, and our friends here have a matter of a couple of miles to
walk to Dale Farm. I’ll have the mare put in the cart in two minutes,
farmer, and drive you home myself, if you’ll only say the word.’
‘Not for us, sir,’ replied Owen. ‘My missus here likes a walk, and as
for the young ’uns it does them good. Come on, Hetty. You’ll be main
proud and happy now you’ve got your sister back again, and I expect we
shall have a job to keep you at Dale Farm. There’ll a be message or a
summat for Panty-cuckoo most days of the week _I_ know.’
Meanwhile Hugh Owen had drawn near to Nell Llewellyn.
‘I am glad to find you haven’t quite forgotten me,’ he said, as he held
her hand, ‘and I hope you will let me come sometimes and pay you a
visit at Panty-cuckoo Farm as I used to do.’
‘Why, surely. You are often here with Hetty and Will I suppose?’
‘Not often. My duties take up so much of my time. But sometimes I
have an hour to spare in the evening, and I shouldn’t like to let our
friendship drop now it has been renewed. Are you fond of reading?’
‘It depends on what I have to read. I’m not over fond of sermons, such
as you used to give me in the old days, Hugh.’
The young man coloured.
‘Used I to give you sermons? It must have been very presumptuous of me.
I will promise to give you no more--at least in private. But I have a
very fair library of books, and they are all at your service if you
should require them.’
‘Thank you. I will tell you if I should want something to amuse me, but
for the present I shall be too busy helping mother, and getting my hand
in for dairy and laundry work.’
‘You will never come back to that now. You have grown above it,’
replied the young man, gazing admiringly at her smooth, pallid
complexion and white hands.
‘What do you know about it?’ said Nell curtly. ‘Don’t bet against me,
Hugh, or you’ll lose your money. Good-night. Mother says you preach out
in the fields, and some day I’ll come with her to hear you, just for
old times’ sake. But if you are very prosy I shall walk straight home
again, so I give you fair warning.’
‘Only tell me when you’re coming, and I’ll not be prosy,’ cried Hugh
eagerly.
The rest of the party had put on their wraps by this time, and were
prepared to start. Hetty wound her arm around her sister’s waist, and
they walked together up the steep incline to the wide, white gate,
where the Dale Farm people joined forces and set out for home. Nell
stood in the moonlight, gazing after them till they had disappeared
round the turning of the road, and then retraced her footsteps. As she
found herself alone in the white moonlight, with only the solitude and
the silence, all the forced gaiety she had maintained throughout the
evening deserted her, and she staggered and caught at the slender trunk
of an apple tree to prevent herself from falling, ‘Oh, my God, my God,’
she prayed, ‘how shall I bear it?’
Her eyes were strained to the starry sky; her face looked ghastly
in the moonlight; her frame trembled as if she could not support
herself. She might have remained thus for an indefinite time had she
not been roused by the sound of her mother’s voice calling her from the
farm-house door.
‘Nell, my lass, where are you? Come in quick; there’s a dear. You will
catch a chill standing out there with nought on.’
She was hungering, poor mother, to take her stray lamb back to her
bosom, and have her all to herself. She had seen with concern that Nell
had neither eaten nor drank since she had returned home, and she feared
the effect of the excitement on her health.
At the sound of her appeal, Nell came slowly down the dell again, and
entered the sitting-room.
‘Now, my lass,’ said Mrs Llewellyn, ‘you must just sit down here on
the old settle, and eat and drink a bit. I’m afraid our fare seems
different from what you’ve been accustomed to in London; but you’ll
soon relish it again. London folk haven’t the appetites of country
people, so they’re obliged to coax their stomachs; but you’ll take this
junket, I’m sure, and a glass of wine, just to please your mother.’
And as she sat her on the settle, and pressed the dainties on her, Nell
felt constrained to eat them, though they tasted like leather in her
mouth.
Now that the excitement was over, her white, strained looks and hollow
cheeks went to her mother’s heart.
‘Ay,’ she said complainingly, ‘but you are thin and pale, my lass. I
haven’t had time to see you rightly till now. Why, you’re shaking like
an aspen. Have you been ill, Nell, or is this the effects of London?’
‘No, indeed, I am not ill,’ returned Nell, with quivering lips, ‘only
rather tired after my journey, and maybe the excitement of coming to
my dear old home. I think I had better go to bed now. I have taken you
terribly by surprise; but I’m sure you’ll find a bed for me somewhere,
mother.’
‘Find a bed for you, darling!’ said Mrs Llewellyn. ‘Why, your father
and I would turn out of our own sooner than you shouldn’t lie easy the
first night you come back to us. But your own room is ready for you,
Nell. No one has slept in it since you went away,--not even Hetty--and
Martha has been setting it to rights for you all the evening. Will you
come to it now, my dear, for you look ready to drop with fatigue?’
Nell was only too glad to accept the offer, and Mrs Llewellyn conducted
her upstairs, and undressed her, and put her to bed with all the
tenderness and solicitude she had shown in performing the same offices
when she was a little child.
Is there ever a time when a mother ceases to regard the creature
she has brought into the world as other than a child? He may be a
bearded man, the father of a family, or the hero of a nation--or she
may be a weary and harassed woman, full of care and anxieties; but
to their mothers they are always children, to be looked after, loved
and cared for. There is no position in which maternal love shines
more brightly than when the infant she has nourished at her breast is
returned upon her hands, a man or woman, perhaps in middle age, but
weak, ill, helpless, and requiring a mother’s care. She may mourn over
the necessity, but how she revels in having her baby back again, as
dependent on her as when he or she had not yet begun to walk! Who would
nurse him and watch him, and know neither fatigue or privation for his
sake as she can do? Happy those who have a mother to fly to when they
are ill or miserable!
Mrs Llewellyn smoothed out Nell’s luxuriant braids of hair, revelling
in their beauty, and put her own best night-dress on her, and laid
her between the snow-white sheets as if she had been four years old,
instead of four-and-twenty. But this latter necessity brought an
awkward question in its train. Where had Nell left her own things? Had
she brought them with her and deposited them at the railway station, or
were they to follow her from London?
At first the girl was silent. She did not know what to say. The
awkwardness of the situation had not struck her before. Her face
blanched still paler, and her mother saw she had introduced an
embarrassing subject. Nell had turned round on her pillow and hidden
her face from view.
‘Never mind thinking about it to-night, my dear,’ said Mrs Llewellyn
kindly; ‘you’re too tired. Try and go to sleep, Nell, and you can tell
me everything to-morrow.’
‘Yes,’ murmured Nell, with her face still hidden, ‘you shall hear all
about it to-morrow. I have no box with me, mother. I--I got into a
little scrape--debt, you know--and I had to part with my clothes. You
won’t be angry with me?’
‘Angry with you, my dear? Don’t get any foolish notions like that into
your head. If you sold your things to pay your debt, it was an honest
thing to do, and we’d be the last, father and I, to blame you for it.
And we’ve got enough money in the stocking to buy you more. So set your
mind at rest about that, my girl, and now go to sleep and wake bright
to-morrow.’
She kissed her daughter as she spoke, and went back to the parlour to
rejoin her husband. But the first words the farmer uttered fanned
the little breath of suspicion which she had entertained about Nell’s
sudden coming home into a flame.
‘Well, how is she?’ demanded Llewellyn, as his wife entered the parlour.
‘Oh, well enough, Griffith,’ she replied; ‘very tired, as you may have
seen, and a bit inclined to be hysterical, but that’ll all wear off by
to-morrow.’
‘I hope it may,’ said the farmer; ‘but I don’t quite understand why
she came home without giving us the least warning. It seems queer now,
don’t it? Here was the girl in a first-class place, drawing big wages,
as Hetty said she must from the lavish way in which she spent money
whilst they were in town, and without word or warning she chucks it all
up and rushes home to us.’
‘Well, father, you wouldn’t be the one to blame her for that, surely?’
‘Not I, if she’d done it in a decent way. Haven’t I asked her a dozen
times since she left us to come home if she felt inclined? But big
situations ain’t thrown up in that way, Mary. Servants have to give
a month’s notice before they leave. Has she left Lord Ilfracombe’s
service before he has got someone to fill her place? There’s something
I don’t understand about it all, and I wish Nell had come back in a
more regular manner. Where’s her boxes and things? Has she left them in
London, or brought them with her? And if so, why didn’t she bring them
on in Johnson’s fly, or ask me to send Bob with the cart to fetch them?’
At this query Mrs Llewellyn almost began to cry.
‘Oh, Griffith, my man, you mustn’t be hard on the lass, but she hasn’t
got anything with her. No box, nor nothing--only the clothes she stands
upright in. She has just told me so.’
‘What, from a situation like Lord Ilfracombe’s!’ exclaimed the farmer.
‘What has she done with them then? There’s some mystery about all this
that I don’t like, Mary, and I mean to get to the bottom of it.’
‘There’s no mystery, Griffith, only a misfortune. Nell has told
me all about it. I think she must have spent more than she could
afford--perhaps on her sister when she was in London--any way our Nell
got in debt, and sold her things to pay it. It was very unfortunate,
but it was honourable, you see. And she is but a girl after all.
We mustn’t judge her too hardly. She didn’t know how much she owed
perhaps, or she thought she’d make it up from her wages, and then this
marriage took place, and she left and found herself in a fix. It seems
very plain to me.’
‘But why should she leave when his lordship got married? He’ll want a
housekeeper just the same. And likely would have raised Nell’s wages.
It was the very time for her to stay on.’
‘Ah, well, father, she longed to see us all again. You heard the dear
lass say so, and you’d be the last to blame her for that, I’m sure.’
‘Of course,’ replied her husband, ‘no one is better pleased to have
the girl back than I am, but I wish it had been all straight and above
board, and with no mystery about it. For I’d lay my life you haven’t
got at the bottom of it yet, wife, nor ever will if the jade don’t mean
you to. You don’t know the tricks they learns them up in London. Well,
now she’s come back, she stays. I won’t have no more London, and no
more mysteries. She’s welcome back as the flowers in May, but I wish
she’d told the whole truth about it.’