“Make up your mind, and go off and see what this farmer-minister is like,
and come back and tell me—I should like to hear.”…
I went along the lane, I recollect, switching at all the taller roadside
weeds, till, after a turn or two, I found myself close in front of
the Hope Farm. There was a garden between the house and the shady,
grassy lane; I afterwards found that this garden was called the court;
perhaps because there was a low wall round it, with an iron railing on
the top of the wall, and two great gates between pillars crowned with
stone balls for a state entrance to the flagged path leading up to the
front door. It was not the habit of the place to go in either by these
great gates or by the front door; the gates, indeed, were locked, as I
found, though the door stood wide open. I had to go round by a side-path
lightly worn on a broad grassy way, which led past the court-wall, past
a horse-mount, half covered with stonecrop and a little wild yellow
fumitory, to another door—“the curate,” as I found it was termed by the
master of the house, while the front door, “handsome and all for show,”
was termed the “rector.” I knocked with my hand upon the “curate” door; a
tall girl, about my own age, as I thought, came and opened it, and stood
there silent, waiting to know my errand. I see her now—Cousin Phillis.
The westering sun shone full upon her, and made a slanting stream of
light into the room within. She was dressed in dark blue cotton of some
kind; up to her throat, down to her wrists, with a little frill of the
same wherever it touched her white skin. And such a white skin as it was!
I have never seen the like. She had light hair, nearer yellow than any
other colour. She looked me steadily in the face with large, quiet eyes,
wondering, but untroubled by the sight of a stranger. I thought it odd,
that so old, so full-grown as she was, she should wear a pinafore over
her gown.
Before I had quite made up my mind what to say in reply to her mute
inquiry of what I wanted there, a woman’s voice called out, “Who is it,
Phillis? If it is anyone for butter-milk send them round to the back
door.”
I thought I could rather speak to the owner of that voice than to the
girl before me; so I passed her, and stood at the entrance of a room, hat
in hand, for this side-door opened straight into the hall or house-place
where the family sate when work was done. There was a brisk little woman
of forty or so ironing some huge muslin cravats under the light of a long
vine-shaded casement window. She looked at me distrustfully till I began
to speak. “My name is Paul Manning,” said I; but I saw she did not know
the name. “My mother’s name was Moneypenny,” said I—“Margaret Moneypenny.”
“And she married one John Manning, of Birmingham,” said Mrs. Holman
eagerly. “And you’ll be her son. Sit down! I am right glad to see you.
To think of your being Margaret’s son! Why, she was almost a child not
so long ago. Well, to be sure, it is five-and-twenty years ago. And what
brings you into these parts?”
She sate herself down, as if oppressed by her curiosity as to all the
five-and-twenty years that had passed since she had seen my mother. Her
daughter Phillis took up her knitting—a man’s long grey worsted stocking,
I remember—and knitted away without looking at her work. I felt that the
steady gaze of those deep grey eyes was upon me, though once, when I
stealthily raised mine to hers, she was examining something on the wall
above my head.
When I had answered all my cousin Holman’s questions, she heaved a long
breath, and said, “To think of Margaret Moneypenny’s boy being in our
house! I wish the minister was here. Phillis, in what field is thy father
to-day?”
“In the five-acre; they are beginning to cut the corn.”
“He’ll not like being sent for then, else I should have liked you to
have seen the minister. But the five-acre is a good step off. You shall
have a glass of wine and a bit of cake before you stir from this house,
though. You’re bound to go, you say, or else the minister comes in mostly
when the men have their four o’clock.”
“I must go—I ought to have been off before now.”
“Here, then, Phillis, take the keys.” She gave her daughter some
whispered directions, and Phillis left the room.
“She is my cousin, is she not?” I asked. I knew she was, but somehow I
wanted to talk of her, and did not know how to begin.
“Yes—Phillis Holman. She is our only child—now.”
Either from that “now,” or from a strange momentary wistfulness in her
eyes, I knew that there had been more children, who were now dead.
“How old is Cousin Phillis?” said I, scarcely venturing on the new name,
it seemed too prettily familiar for me to call her by it; but Cousin
Holman took no notice of it, answering straight to the purpose.
“Seventeen last May-Day; but the minister does not like to hear me
calling it May-Day,” said she, checking herself with a little awe.
“Phillis was seventeen on the first day of May last,” she repeated in an
emended edition.
“And I am nineteen in another month,” thought I to myself; I don’t know
why.
Then Phillis came in, carrying a tray with wine and cake upon it.
“We keep a house-servant,” said Cousin Holman, “but it is churning
day, and she is busy.” It was meant as a little proud apology for her
daughter’s being the handmaiden.
“I like doing it, mother,” said Phillis, in her grave, full voice.
I felt as if I were somebody in the Old Testament—who, I could not
recollect—being served and waited upon by the daughter of the host. Was
I like Abraham’s steward, when Rebekah gave him to drink at the well? I
thought Isaac had not gone the pleasantest way to work in winning him a
wife. But Phillis never thought about such things. She was a stately,
gracious young woman, in the dress and with the simplicity of a child.
As I had been taught, I drank to the health of my new-found cousin and
her husband; and then I ventured to name my Cousin Phillis with a little
bow of my head towards her; but I was too awkward to look and see how she
took my compliment. “I must go now,” said I, rising.