Though all the gay stuffs, the reds and the greens and the rich
brocades, were put aside for a season, and though Barbara wore a plain
black gown that Mrs. Winnie bought of Mr. Bannister at Battle, they made
ready for Christmas at Furze Farm in country fashion, with a great
abundance of food and liquor, with a yule-log the size of a tub, and
holly boughs gathered out of the woods. Mrs. Winnie would have quieted
the day out of curtesy to her “little lady,” but Barbara would have none
of their pleasure spoiled because she wore a black gown for her mother.
To cheat the living of their good cheer would not comfort the sleeping
dead, and the very kitchen seemed warming itself for the wassail-bowl,
and the beef and the pies, and the women with their ribbons.
Now, Barbara had no money and a great deal of pride despite her love, so
that John Gore, who knew how matters stood with her, had to resort to a
lover’s stratagem to fill her purse. He told her a solemn tale of how
the lord chancellor managed the affairs of the nation, and how she was
her father’s heiress, though the estates were in the lawyers’ hands till
the time came for her to step forward and prove herself a very comely
young woman without a mad whim in her head, save that whim of loving a
sailor. He also related that a very good friend of his had certain
matters in hand, and was likely to receive on her behalf certain moneys
that had been found in the house in Pall Mall. That money might come to
her any day by private messenger, and so it did, though delivered to
John Gore, and greatly to the girl’s secret delight, for she knew
nothing of law, and, believing the lover’s invention, guessed not that
the money was his.
Yet here John Gore wellnigh landed himself in a dilemma. She began to
plead that she owed him money for all the things he had bought at
Battle, nor could he silence her for a long while, and then only by
pretending to be a little hurt. Whereat she dropped the money as though
it had burned her, and went to him and asked his pardon.
The gold pieces had rolled hither and thither over the kitchen floor,
and they gathered them and counted them into little piles. Barbara’s
eyes had begun to dance with a multitude of generous desires, and she
was already planning how to spend it.
“I must go a-shopping, John,” she said, “for Christmas. If we could only
borrow Mr. Jennifer’s wagon.”
“A wagon, sweetheart! Do you want to empty all the shops in the town?”
“No, dear; but I feel that I cannot give enough to these good people
here. It has been a home, and a very dear home, John; I shall not forget
it to the day of my death.”
Now, John Gore talked privately to Mr. Jennifer, and Mr. Jennifer took
counsel privately of his wife, and the result of all this talking was
that Christopher prepared for a day’s jaunt into the county town of
Lewes. He cleaned up his wagon, put straw and bracken in the bottom
thereof, tied his horses’ manes with ribbons, and put out his Sabbath
best. One of his men and his wife came into Furze Farm for the day,
while the household went a-wagoning to Lewes, starting two hours before
dawn because the roads were heavy and the days short. Barbara, Mrs.
Winnie, and son William rode in the wagon, and John Gore on his horse,
while sturdy Kit marched beside his cattle, his whip over his shoulder,
and a sprig of holly in his hat.
Barbara had a radiant face and but little money left by noon that day in
Lewes, for even if the heart has cause for sadness there is joy in
giving others joy. She seemed incarnate womanhood that Christmas-tide,
taking a delight in all the little mysteries and mummeries of the season
and in the revels that were held. John Gore had bought all manner of
merchandise: a new gun for Mr. Christopher; a great family Bible for the
wife; toys, sweetmeats, and oranges for son William and the laborers’
children; a beautiful chain of amethysts for his love. There was much
giving and receiving that Christmas-tide at Furze Farm. The three
laborers came with their wives and youngsters to the state dinner in the
kitchen. Mr. Jennifer brewed punch, got a flushed face, and talked more
than he had talked for a whole year. Little Will nearly fell into the
fire while roasting chestnuts. John Gore played with the Sussex children
till Mrs. Winnie exclaimed at “the gentleman’s good-nature.” Pipes were
smoked in the ingle-nooks. The three countrywomen tried their best
manners, and stared hard yet kindly at “the lady” about whom there was a
mystery that had set their tongues a-clacking. Yet a woman who is sweet
to other women’s children wins a way into the hearts of mothers. “A
gracious lady, surely,” they whispered to one another, and thought the
better of her because she touched their children’s lips. And when
ribbons and blankets and good woollen stuffs came to them from her
hands, they may have regretted the disobedience of Mrs. Winnie’s orders
as to the minding of their own business, for Mrs. Jennifer had forbidden
them to gossip about the “quality biding at Furze Farm.” Yet gossip had
gone abroad, for all Mrs. Winnie’s caution, and even the lazy parson
knew that there were strangers in his parish.
With Christmas fare and festivity questions of the past, and St. Stephen
claiming his day in the calendar, Mr. Jennifer had his cart-horses out
for a gallop to sweat them well before the yearly bleeding, for it was
the custom to give horses a warming and then to bleed them on St.
Stephen’s day. Whether John Gore subscribed to the superstition or not,
he saddled his own beast early and went out alone for a canter, having
the Christmas dinner upon his conscience, and, what was more, a certain
hankering to visit Thorn. For several weeks he had intended riding over
to the place, but Barbara had been nearly always with him, and they had
taken happier and less sinister paths. He desired to see whether there
were signs of folk having been there since that November night when the
horseman whom he had taken for Captain Grylls had ridden back to inquire
after his lost packet.
It was a still and rather misty morning with moisture dropping from the
trees, and the grass wet and boggy. The fog did not hinder him greatly,
for he had learned to pick up his landmarks at every furlong, and the
track was familiar and simple when once known. About ten of the clock he
came into the valley of thorns, and saw the dim mass of the tower
glooming amid the mist. The place seemed infinitely melancholy with the
fog about it, and the dripping thorn-trees and the black, stagnant water
that showed never a ripple. The very ivy looked wet and sodden with the
raw vapor of that December day.
John Gore tethered his horse to one of the thorn-trees, and, finding the
gate open, much as he had left it, he crossed the court-yard where the
mist hung in the air like breath upon a mirror. He saw that the dog was
gone, but, what was more, the kennel also, and this slight detail
puzzled him a little and made him more cautious in his exploring. Going
to the kitchen entry and finding the door ajar, he stood there and
listened. The moisture was pattering down from the ivy leaves all about
the house, yet from the kitchen came a sound that could not be easily
mistaken—the regular, heavy breathing of a man in a deep sleep.
John Gore saw that his sword was loose in its sheath, and, pushing the
door open cautiously, he passed on into the kitchen. The figure of a man
lay upon the floor with nothing between him and the stones but what
appeared to be a tatter of rags. A sword, a leather bottle, and two
mouldy biscuits lay beside him. His head was thrown back and his throat
showing, with the stubble of a beard making the jaw look gray and
slovenly.
John Gore crossed the room softly, and recognized in that ragged,
haggard thing my Lord Gore—his father.
* * * * *
It was well past noon when John Gore mounted his horse again, and rode
away from the mist and shadows of Thorn, with the look of a man who had
spoken, even as Dante spoke, with some soul in the deeps of hell. He was
thinking of an old, yellow-faced man, maimed, dirty, servile, with
clothes worn into holes, and an intelligence that had flapped between
emotional contrition and paroxysms of selfish fear. This thing had been
the mighty man of manners, the serene gentleman of Whitehall and St.
James’s, whose body had smelled of ambergris and whose fine raiment had
shamed the sheen of tropical birds. Pride, vanity, even self-honor, in
the dust and dirt! A white, flaccid, furtive face that had lost all its
buxom boldness, most of its intellect—almost its very reason.
What had they said to each other, those two?
Murderer and adulterer; lover and son.
Yet John Gore had filled the leather bottle for his father that morning,
lit a fire with odd wood gathered from the rotting out-houses, and
brought in an armful of musty straw to soften the sick man’s bed.
And my lord had wept—miserable, senile tears that had no dignity and no
true passion. He had fawned on the man, his son, grovelled to him
without shame, till the son’s manhood had revolted in him, for he would
have welcomed savagery and cursing rather than moral slime. It had been
like a polluted river bringing all manner of drift to the lip of a weir.
And though he had ministered to his father, he had kept an implacable
face and a firm mouth. He had acted as a man who knew everything, and
chosen to let my lord realize that he knew it, even assuming the truth
that Barbara was dead.