The two Richards walked through the park towards the priory, Jeffray
laughingly explaining how he had come by a broken head, and pointing out
the many beauties of the place as they went. There were the cedars his
father had planted, already lusty and handsome trees. Pine and beech
woods spread romantic and mysterious gloom upon the slopes. Here were
gnarled and dying oaks that still lived on, torn and shattered, after
the storms of centuries. There on a green knoll stood the holy thorn
that was said to have sprung from the bones of some old saint, and had
flowered in popish days at Christmas. A myriad rushes streaked the
grass-land where mole-hills studded the dew-silvered grass with brown.
When they came in sight of the old house lying in the hollow, lapped in
the purple gloom of the woods, its chimneys towering to the blue, its
fish-ponds glimmering in the sun, Wilson stopped and laid a hand on
Jeffray’s shoulder.
“By Heaven, this is splendid!” he said. “See the purple, the green, the
blue, the brave bronze! See the silver showers of light on the old
trees! The toning of the moss and lichen on those walls is enough to
make an impotent mortal weep!”
Jeffray’s face kindled. He loved the old place, and was glad to hear so
blunt a critic as Richard Wilson wax eloquent over the home of his
fathers.
“You must stay with me, Dick,” he said, warmly. “Can you leave your
portrait-painting in town?”
“I have given up the flattering of fools,” quoth the painter, almost
with a snarl; “and in turn the fools are giving me up. See here,
Richard, this is how the gay world treats its servant.”
He turned up the tails of his shabby coat, and smiled with a species of
rueful bitterness.
“English gentlemen like to behold their own smug faces, sir,” he added,
“better than waving woods and smiling plains.”
Before introducing Wilson to the Lady Letitia in the afternoon, Richard
delicately assisted the painter in making his toilet, lending him a
frilled shirt, and a green waistcoat that was much too tight for him,
and providing him with a pair of Peter Gladden’s buckled shoes.
“My aunt is something of a great lady, Dick,” he said, with an
apologetic twinkle; “she loves to see a man’s buttons and cravat in
order. I am always being scolded for slovenliness and lack of
distinction, so to appease her taste I take more trouble with my dress.”
The painter, who was worming his huge feet into the butler’s shoes,
grimaced at Jeffray, and ran the professional eye over the black-coated
figure.
“You have not grown fatter, Richard,” he said. “I could still make an
Apollo of you in the nude, as I did that day when you bathed at Baiæ.
What a graceful trunk, sir!—what a hand and foot! Don’t blush, lad,
your lines are splendid, so far as they go, though, on my honor, you are
reading too much, to judge by your shoulders. I’ll wager you have set
the country nymphs a-simpering, the dear Phœbes. Deuce take these shoes!
Is my wig on straight?”
“Perfectly,” said Jeffray, with a smile.
Wilson expanded his chest, turned out his right foot and knee, put his
hand over his heart, and bowed.
“How’s that, Richard?” he asked, gravely.
“Worthy of St. James’s.”
“My professional bow, Richard. I detest it, sir—detest it! The
money-getting tricks are not part of my art. I leave them to Mr. Joshua,
who could flatter the moon into a trance, as his namesake did in Canaan,
and talk the sun into believing that his complexion was not fiery. Now,
sir, lead on.”
Meanwhile, the Lady Letitia had heard strange and distorted accounts of
the person and profession of her nephew’s visitor. Peter Gladden had
unpacked Mr. Wilson’s knapsack and red bundle, and had discovered
besides canvas, brushes, and paints, a tooth-brush, a few handkerchiefs,
a razor, a soiled shirt, two night-caps, a piece of flannel, and a
prayer-book. It was all over the house and into Aunt Letitia’s ears in
half an hour that this eccentric person had borrowed Mr. Jeffray’s
waistcoat and a pair of Peter Gladden’s shoes. The dowager’s pride
bristled, despite the saintly emotions of the morning. A common painter
fellow, a mere vulgar artist, whose name she did not even know, received
as a guest at Rodenham Priory! What could Richard be thinking of, by
associating with such a low and uncultured creature! Why, he would be
for entertaining next that awful author fellow, Mr. Johnson, a man who
spilled soup down his waistcoat, sneezed over the table, and was so bold
as to contradict a lady flatly.
Hence, the Lady Letitia’s reception of Mr. Richard Wilson in the parlor
that afternoon, was not calculated to put that gentleman at his ease.
The dowager was polite, portentously and oppressively polite, “to please
poor Richard,” as she would have phrased it. Her eyes searched Mr.
Wilson from wig to buckles, started at his wrinkled and complaining
waistcoat, and recognized Peter Gladden’s shoes. She deigned to listen
to the painter’s stumbling platitudes about the weather, and then
discovered suddenly that she was afflicted with deafness and a sick
headache, and declared that she would go and rest in her bedroom until
dinner.
When the Lady Letitia had sailed out of the room, Wilson stood and
stared pathetically at Jeffray.
“There, sir,” he exclaimed, with tragic emphasis, “you see, my poor face
always frightens them away, and I fall over my own tongue as well as
over my feet. Nature did not breed me for a courtier, Jeffray. Damn it,
I can’t flatter the fools in the gallant style. Beg pardon, Richard, I
was not referring to your august and noble relative.”
“Come and see the garden, Dick.”
“Do you keep peacocks there, sir?”
“Peacocks, Dick! Why, peacocks?”
“A mere whim, sir—a mere whim,” quoth the painter, with a queer twist
of the mouth.
A mysterious change had fallen upon the Lady Letitia’s temper by
dinner-time, a change that betrayed itself in her attitude towards
Richard Wilson. She was peculiarly gracious and urbane, and no one could
be more gracious than the Lady Letitia when she so chose. The painter,
astonished at his sudden acceptance into favor, found himself talking to
the dowager with an ease and a fervor that made him fancy for the moment
that Jeffray’s wine had got into his noddle. Aunt Letitia beamed and
sparkled, crowed and chuckled at Dick’s jokes, and seemed wholly to have
abandoned the air of hauteur that had repulsed Wilson in the afternoon.
Jeffray himself was thoroughly mystified as to the miracle. He could
only conclude that the dear old lady had spoken the truth when she had
complained of a headache, and that it was not the painter’s shabby
clothes or his rough and unfashionable face that had shocked her
aristocratic susceptibilities.
Aunt Letitia had been spending the afternoon gossiping with her maid,
and that trusted servant had let fall Mr. Richard Wilson’s name into her
mistress’s pensive ear. The four syllables had suddenly struck some
rusty note of by-gone scandal in the dowager’s brain. “Wilson! Wilson!
Yes, to be sure, there used to be a painter fellow in town of that name.
She had not heard him spoken of lately, though some of the gentry had
sat to him for their portraits years ago. Wait! Could this be the Mr.
Richard Wilson concerning whom a merry tale had been spun one season in
the fashionable seats? Sir Peter Hardacre had had a house in town seven
years or so ago, before economy had been forced like a bolus down the
poor baronet’s throat.” The Lady Letitia had knitted her brows over
these curious and interesting reminiscences. She had determined to
discover more about Mr. Richard Wilson and his past that evening. Hence
her amazing and gracious affability to that honest but slovenly
individual, an affability that made Mr. Wilson expand his chest, set his
shabby wig straight, and imagine that there was yet hope for him in the
world of Mammon.
“You have been long abroad, sir, I believe?” said the dowager, sweetly,
after drawing the painter into a discussion on Italian art.
“Years, madam, years.”
“You painted many clever portraits in town some seasons ago.”
Mr. Wilson bowed in his chair, and was flattered to hear my lady had so
kindly a memory.
“I was honored at one time, madam,” he said, stroking his broad chin,
“by the presence of certain of the beauties of the fashionable world in
my studio. Yes, madam, I painted Sir Toby Gilhooly and his lovely
daughters; Mr. Walsh, the poet; Admiral Timberbuck, and many others,
madam.”
The Lady Letitia twinkled, and exhaled perfumes. Her nephew was engaged
at the other end of the table in a scholarly debate on Roman
architecture with Dr. Sugg. The lad had desisted from fathering Richard
Wilson, and was delighted to see that his aunt showed the poor fellow so
much favor.
“Did you ever paint Sir Peter Hardacre, Mr. Wilson?” asked the old lady,
innocent as a paschal lamb.
The painter darted a look at her, flushed, and began to fidget in his
chair.
“Sir Peter Hardacre, madam?”
“Yes, sir. I thought I remembered seeing the picture—”
Richard Wilson adjusted his wig, and drank down a glass of wine.
“I believe I did, madam—I believe I did,” he said.
“Dear Sir Peter; he must have made such an aristocratic study! I think I
must really ask you to honor me with a sitting, Mr. Wilson.”
The painter blinked, and then bowed low across the table. He appeared
glad in measure to escape the subject, nor was his discomfort lost upon
the Lady Letitia.
“I shall be proud, madam, proud,” he said; “the honor is on my side,
madam. I shall be proud to paint Richard Jeffray’s grandmother—pardon
me, madam—aunt, I mean. Upon my word, madam, you look extraordinarily
young to have so old a nephew.”
Aunt Letitia, not in the least disturbed by the painter’s slip, received
his clumsy apologies and awkward apings of flattery with infinite good
humor.
“La, Mr. Wilson,” she said, frankly, “I am an old woman, and, thank God,
I know it. I think it is a pitiful sight, sir, to see an old woman
frittering away the solemn and awful years of age in folly, when she
should be preparing herself to meet her Maker.”
“Upon my soul, madam,” said the painter, much relieved, “your wisdom is
as admirable as—ahem—as—as your distinguished and aristocratic
person. Ahem. I shall be proud, madam, to put my poor powers at your
service.”
“What a blundering and honest fool it is,” thought the Lady Letitia.
“Yes, it is the very fellow who painted old Sir Peter, and made love to
the daughter. Or was it Miss Jilian who made love to him? Egad, dear
nephew, there is no need for your old aunt to play the scandal-monger,
if this good ass can be got to bray. Mr. Wilson must be made welcome
here, and the secret coaxed out of his ugly mouth.” And thus the Lady
Letitia continued to beam upon the painter with all the waning sunshine
of her November years. She made him draw droll sketches for her in the
parlor after dinner, laughed at his whimsies, promised to send her dear
friends Lady Boodle and Miss FitzNoodle to be painted by Wilson when he
returned to town. When Peter Gladden set the card-table in order, the
dowager insisted that Richard Wilson should be her partner, and that
Richard should challenge them with Dr. Sugg. And though poor Dick
managed his cards disgracefully, trumped the Lady Letitia’s tricks,
bungled the returns and lost her money, she continued to beam on him
with undiminished brightness, and to encourage the good oaf with all the
sweetness she could compel.
“Yes, Richard, mon cher,” she said to her nephew, as she bade him
good-night, “my headache has left me; I felt quite vaporish this
afternoon. Your friend is a dear creature, so droll and refreshing; not
polished, of course, but quite charming. I have fallen in love with the
dear bear, Richard. It is so delightful to talk to a man of sense and
humor, even though he may smell—faintly, of the soil.”
* * * * *
Bess had wandered back from Beacon Rock through her well-loved woods
that morning, thinking more of Richard Jeffray than was good for a
woman’s heart. There was a charm about Bess that no mortal could
gainsay. She looked fit for carrying a milking-pail over meadows golden
with cowslips, for playing the Miss Prue gathering rosemary and thyme in
some red-walled garden, or walking in brocade and lace amid the
close-clipped yews, statues, and terrace ways of some stately manor.
Despite her strength and her brilliant vitality she was no hoyden, and
even in her wild beauty seemed to suggest the subtle delicacy of high
birth. Richard himself had been puzzled by her quaint stateliness, such
stateliness as a child might have inherited from a noble mother and
treasured unconsciously as she grew to womanhood.
The thoughts uppermost in Bess’s mind that morning dealt with the
worldly gulf between Jeffray and herself. The girl had been content
hitherto with the forest life, content to accept old Ursula as her
foster-mother and the rest of them as her kinsfolk. She had grown up
with Dan and David, and the forest children, ignorant as they were of
the great world beyond the shadows of Pevensel. Yet beyond the forest
life a dim and forgotten past seemed to rise up in the blue distance of
the mind. A few strange incidents, which she had never been able to
explain, still lived on like relics of a vanished age. She had prattled
of them to old Ursula as a child, and had been laughed at and chided for
her pains. The old woman had always told her that Rachel, her mother,
Ursula’s younger sister, had run away from the hamlet before Bess was
born, and that when her mother had died—“down in the west”—a peddler
man had brought Bess back to the Grimshaws of Pevensel. Ursula had
always shed a species of reticent mystery over the past, and had waxed
dour if Bess had pressed her questions too boldly or too far.
The girl had been content these years to let these vague memories glide
away into oblivion. Now and again they would rise up to haunt her with
strange vividness, frail ghostly images of other days. How was it that
she often saw a negro man with black, woolly hair in her dreams, she who
had never seen such a man in Pevensel? Then there was that memory of her
falling and cutting her bare knee upon a stone, and of a tall lady with
bright eyes and a brooch with green stones at her throat running to
catch her in her arms. Vaguely, too, she believed that she had once been
in a great ship at sea. There were incidents that lived more vividly
than the rest in her mind; one, the memory of her standing at night on
the deck of a ship with the dark sails flapping above and rough men
swearing and quarrelling about her; she had seen blows given, heard a
wild cry and the plash of a body thrown over the bulwarks into the sea.
Then again she remembered being taken in a boat by night to land; the
same rough men were with her; she could still recall one who wore a
great pig-tail and had a black patch over one eye and a cloven lip. They
had come with her to the shore and taken her into the woods, carrying
bales that had seemed wondrous heavy. Thence they had disappeared, and
the life in Pevensel had begun, its very beginnings dim as the
mysterious past.
These memories came back with strange vividness to her mind that morning
after her parting with Jeffray on the heath. For the first time in her
life she found herself wondering whether old Ursula had told her the
truth. Could she have dreamed these mind pictures that still clung to
her? Were these memories but the dim and fantastic fancies of childhood,
mere myths begotten of a child’s brain. She puzzled over them earnestly
as she walked through the woods that morning, and promised herself that
she would tell them to Richard Jeffray when they should meet again.
Old Ursula sat up after Bess had gone to bed that night, huddled snugly
in the ingle-nook with her black cat at her side. The pewter glistened
on the shelves as the handful of sticks that the dame had thrown on the
sulky fire kindled and broke into busy flame. Bess had been in bed half
an hour or more, and was lying with her black hair loose upon the
pillow, thinking of Richard Jeffray and her adventure with him. She had
primed the pistols from the powder-horn kept in the kitchen-press, and
had hidden them away in the cupboard in her bedroom, meaning to carry
one whenever she went abroad in the woods. Bess had fallen asleep, when
old Ursula, dozing in the ingle-nook, was awakened by a knocking at the
cottage door. She started up, hobbled across the kitchen, and let Isaac
Grimshaw in.
The old man sat himself down on the settle before the fire, drew out a
short pipe and a tobacco-box, and began to smoke. He looked at Ursula
with his shrewd, calculating eyes, jerked his thumb over his shoulder,
and smiled.
“The wench is above, eh?”
“This hour or more.”
“Dame, I have much to gossip over with ye about our Bess. She is a
dangerous wench and needs a master. There’ll be no peace with us, dame,
till the girl is stalled.”
Isaac, kindling to his subject, began to talk to the old woman,
significantly, about betrothing the girl to Dan without delay. He had
much to put forward in justification of the measure. Bess’s beauty had
become an apple of discord in the hamlet; all the young men wanted her,
and Black Dan would put up with no rival. Isaac spoke mysteriously of
the need for good-fellowship among the forest-folk; there must be no
mating of Bess to a bachelor outside the hamlet; she was one of them and
with them she must remain. Old Ursula looked surly and displeased during
the patriarch’s harangue. The match was little to her liking, and she
distrusted Dan’s ability to make marriage bearable to such a woman as
Bess.
“I may as well tell ye, Isaac,” she said, sourly, “that the wench does
not care a brass button for your Dan.”
“Who does she fancy then, dame, eh?”
“I thought once she was for liking young David. She is a
powerful-tempered wench is Bess, and she don’t like being driven.”
Isaac puffed at his pipe and frowned.
“Odd’s my life,” he said, “the wench must be taught her place. My Dan’s
the first man in the forest, eh? What better lad does the wench look
for? I’ll wager that we will soon persuade her.”
“You be careful of Bess,” quoth the old woman, solemnly.
“Careful, dame! That’s the very text I’m preaching on. How much does the
wench remember, eh? Deuce take me, sister, we have reared her here, and
here she must remain. And Dan will be breaking all the youths’ heads
unless he has her, and have her he shall.”
Isaac laid down his pipe and, leaning forward with his hands spread to
the fire, began to speak further to the old woman in his grim and
didactic way. There was an expression of almost ferocious earnestness on
his thin and clever face, and it was difficult to believe that an old
man could be possessed of so much fire and vigor. Isaac had ruled the
hamlet these forty years; his will had been law unto them all. Old
Ursula’s one feeling was known to the patriarch well enough. He played
upon it that night as she sat in the ingle-nook and listened. The dame
kept a stockingful of guineas hid under the floor in one of the upper
rooms. She would often go up secretly and play with the pretty golden
pieces, counting and recounting them, letting them fall and jingle in
her lap.
“A hundred gold guineas, dame,” said Isaac at the end of his persuading.
“I’ll bring them to you on the betrothal day. Why, look you, the wench
will be spry and gay enough when she is mated. Unbroken fillies are
always wild.”
Ursula nodded over the fire, stroked the black cat reflectively, and
watched Isaac’s face with her greedy eyes.
“You take your oath on it?” she asked.
The patriarch grinned, and drew a leather pouch from the tail-pocket of
his coat. He jingled it and tossed it into his sister’s lap.
“There are twenty,” he said, curtly; “keep them, dame, as a proof of the
bargain. I’ll give you the rest when the gold piece is broken.”
X
Richard Jeffray could not break from the thoughts of Bess that had
followed him from out the green glooms of Pevensel. Why, because she had
a comely body and a comely face, should he be forever recalling the
flash of her red-stockinged ankles under her short gown of green, the
fine lifting of her handsome head, the way she had of putting her right
hand up to her throat and of letting her eyes dwell with strange
intentness upon his face? Jeffray was honestly troubled by these
haunting thoughts, these visions of passion that flashed on him out of
his own heart. Despite his romanticism he did not lack for character and
discretion, and pedagogic reason told him that such dreams were neither
obedient to philosophy nor to his loyalty to Miss Hardacre.
The news of Jeffray’s misadventure in the woods had been duly carried to
Hardacre house; nor was it long before Mr. Lancelot and Miss Jilian rode
over to inquire after their dear cousin. Richard was idling in the
garden, planning color schemes for the summer, when he heard the clatter
of hoofs coming down the road through the park. Richard recognized Mr.
Lot in scarlet mounted on a great, rawboned roan, and Miss Jilian beside
him in a green riding-habit, a black beaver on her auburn hair. Richard
crossed the terrace and went down the steps to meet them. His head was
still bandaged, a fact that Mr. Lancelot remarked upon with his usual
blunt brevity.
“Egad, cousin,” he said, with a laugh, “so the forester broke your pate
for you, deuce take his insolence! Ha, Jill, how do you like our Richard
in bandages? You should wear a mob-cap, cousin. How’s the dowager? Got
over the mumps yet?”
Mr. Lot roared over his own facetiousness, while Richard stood beside
Miss Jilian’s gray mare and pressed the young lady’s hand.
“I should have been at Hardacre before this,” he said, blushing, “but
Surgeon Stott ordered me to bide quiet.”
There was a look of delicious anxiety in Miss Hardacre’s eyes.
“Are you sure you ought to be up and about, Richard?” she asked.
“There is nothing much amiss with me,” he answered, looking up at her
shyly. “Won’t you dismount and come into the house? I will call Gladden
and have your horses taken.”
Mr. Lot winked and inclined his head knowingly in the direction of the
house.
“Has she got her war-paint on, Richard?”
“Who?”
“Your revered relative. I am ready to make peace though she did send me
down to supper with the ugliest girl this side of Lewes. It’s uncommon
hot to-day. What do you say, Jill? Shall we tumble in and have a glass
of wine and a chat with the old lady?”
Miss Hardacre simpered, blushed prettily, and glanced at Richard. The
lad read her inclination on the instant, and helped her to dismount. She
pressed his hand kindly, her gray eyes holding his a moment with a look
that did not lack for eloquence.
“Hold there; what a deuced ass I am,” quoth Mr. Lot, who had rolled out
of the saddle and was thumping his manly chest. “Here’s a certain
precious document buttoned up in my breast-pocket. We are giving a
masked ball next week at Hardacre. Quite a gorgeous affair, and Sir
Peter thought he’d send the dowager a state summons, just to show there
is no ill-feeling. Of course you’ll come, cousin.”
Mr. Lot drew a sealed letter from his pocket, and handed it to Richard
with a mock bow.
“Let old Gladden give it to her in state,” he said, with a wink; “it
will make a better show on a silver salver.”
Richard was looking at Miss Jilian’s pink face and at her pretty figure
sheathed in green.
“It is very magnanimous of Sir Peter,” he said, warmly, “to let by-gones
be by-gones. I am sure Aunt Letitia is sorry for what happened that
evening. She asked me, Jilian, to try and persuade you to forgive her.”
Lancelot Hardacre chuckled.
“Dear old Mohawk,” he said.
“Of course I will forgive her,” quoth Miss Hardacre, sweetly.
“That’s the game, Jill. These women, Richard, are moral prodigies. Deuce
take me, Jill, you have the temper of an angel. Don’t I know it.”
Miss Hardacre’s gray eyes flashed a curious look at her brother.
“Heavens, Lot,” she said, “how you do chatter.”
Jeffray had rung the stable-bell, and Peter Gladden and a groom came out
to take the horses. Richard ordered the butler to bring cake and wine
into the dining-room, and to send the Lady Letitia’s maid to inform her
mistress, who was taking her afternoon nap, that Miss Hardacre was in
the house. They went into the porch together and through the hall into
the wainscoted dining-room, Miss Jilian holding her riding-skirt
daintily in either hand, Mr. Lot swinging his velvet cap and whip and
grinning affectionately at Richard.
The Lady Letitia appeared in due course, as gracious as could be, decked
out in a handsome sack, her hair freshly powdered, her mittens on, and
her fan swinging at her wrist. She kissed Miss Hardacre on either cheek,
squeezed the young lady’s hand, beamed at her nephew, and was very
affable to Mr. Lancelot. She had received the invitation to Sir Peter’s
ball from Mr. Gladden’s salver, and expressed herself charmed at Sir
Peter’s courtesy. After wine had been drunk and cake crumbled, Richard
proposed that they should walk out into the garden. The dowager rang for
her black mantilla, requested Mr. Lancelot to honor her with his arm,
and led the way through the opening upon the terrace. Jilian and Richard
lingered behind the Lady Letitia, Miss Hardacre very coy and ready to
blush, Richard feeling with some shame that pretty speeches came less
glibly from his tongue than they had done of yore.
The sky was a rare blue above the green lawns, the old red walls, and
the silvery grass-land of the park. As they walked the box-edged paths
betwixt the stately yews and hollies Miss Jilian began to rally Richard
on his adventure in the woods. “How gallant and romantic it was, to be
sure! Do you think, Richard, that you would have rescued me from some
wicked ruffian had your poor cousin been at his mercy?”
Jeffray was convincing in his chivalrous protestations.
“Why, Jilian, can you doubt it?”
“And you would have fought for me, Richard?” queried the young lady,
with charming wonder.
“Fight for you, Jilian? Why I would defend you with my life.”
“La, Richard,” she exclaimed, blushing, “how brave you are! Tell me, was
the girl pretty?”
“Pretty, Jilian?”
“Now, Richard, I am sure she was pretty.”
“Perhaps she was,” said Richard, with studied carelessness. “Were she
ugly or otherwise, I only did my duty as a gentleman and a man.”
“You dear lad,” quoth Miss Hardacre, tenderly.
“Jilian!”
“Now don’t pretend you don’t know how brave and noble you are. Ah,
Heavens, only to think of it; the wretch might have killed you! It makes
me shudder, Richard; it does indeed.”
Jeffray, much touched, looked at the young lady with affectionate and
chivalrous candor.
“And should you have cared, dear cousin?” he asked her.
Miss Hardacre flushed crimson and hung her head. How pretty her downcast
lashes looked as they swept her fair cheeks; what a sweet, sad smile
hovered about her lips.
“Oh, Richard,” she said, “can you not believe—?”
“I believe all that is good and pure and kind of you, dear cousin.”
“There, sir, there; you are making me blush so that I shall hardly be
able to face your aunt. You must not flatter a simple girl so. Ah,
Richard,”—and she sighed—“thank Heaven that you are safe and well.”
How could Mr. Jeffray bear himself under such delicate flattery but
declare Miss Hardacre to be the kindest and best of women, and to abuse
his own foolish heart for dreaming dreams about young ladies with red
petticoats and coal-black hair? What a weak creature he was, and what a
noble being this cousin of his appeared! He was very tender and
attentive to Miss Jilian that day, nor did the lady fail to encourage
such an admirable display of affection. She flashed shy and melting
glances into Mr. Richard’s face, blushed dearly when he spoke to her,
and was as gentle and as sweet as any convent saint. Jeffray strove to
forget poor Bess of the Woods, whose fierce blue eyes blazed out at him
continually.
Meanwhile, Aunt Letitia appeared determined to erase from the minds of
the Hardacres the unpleasant memories that her own strategies had
created. Her amiability puzzled Mr. Lancelot that afternoon as he walked
the terrace with her, and looked down upon the lawns and prim paths
beneath, the statuary shining white amid the yews and cedars. The old
lady’s eyes dwelt often on Richard and Miss Jilian who were drifting to
and fro absorbed in their mutual confidences. From time to time she
would scan the park as though watching for some person to appear. Dick
Wilson had gone forth sketching to study the effects of light and shade
upon the distant summits of the “downs.” The Lady Letitia was eagerly
expecting the painter’s return. It would be so interesting to watch his
introduction to Miss Hardacre.
“Look at those dear innocents,” she said, with a twinkle, to Mr. Lot.
“To be frank with you, sir, I was not eager to see my nephew married;
early marriages are such lotteries, Mr. Hardacre. But now that I am
beginning to see more of your sweet sister, I must confess that I am
becoming converted.”
Lot Hardacre gave the old lady a queer look. He was no fool was Mr. Lot,
and he did not trust the dowager with all the manly innocence of his
fox-hunting heart.
“I observe, madam,” he said, bluntly, “that you are a sportswoman. You
don’t mind confessing when you’re off the scent.”
“The truth, sir, is always easily understood,” quoth the dowager,
cheerfully.
“Egad, you’re right, madam.”
“And I shall have much pleasure in attending your father’s ‘rout,’ Mr.
Hardacre. Sir Peter has shown a magnanimous spirit; and I trust that a
woman of my birth knows how to receive so graceful a pardon.”
Mr. Lot grinned. He recalled to mind how his sister had been compelled
to weep and threaten hysterics before the baronet could be prevailed
upon to include the Rodenham folk among his guests. “Richard was a
decent lad, to be sure, but that damned old cat, no, egad, he’d see her
hanged before he had her at Hardacre.” It was only after much persuasion
that Sir Peter had been brought to see that it would be wiser to appease
the old lady than to tempt her malice.
“I trust that we have buried the hatchet, madam,” said Mr. Lot, with a
bow.
“The hatchet, sir!”
“You and Sir Peter, madam, had better leave whist alone.”
The old lady chuckled as though Mr. Hardacre had delivered himself of an
excellent jest. She wagged her head at him, and gave him an arch smile
that carried no malice.
“You are a wicked fellow, sir,” she said, with a pat of the hand. “I can
see that you have been laughing all the time at your father and myself.
La, Mr. Hardacre, I can take a joke, to be sure. You are a wicked, sly
fellow, sir, and you are no fool, I see that clearly enough.”
Much to Aunt Letitia’s chagrin, Dick Wilson did not return in time that
day to be introduced to Miss Jilian Hardacre. She confessed to the young
lady that her nephew had a painter friend staying at the priory, a droll
and charming creature, but the Lady Letitia did not divulge the
gentleman’s name. Might they bring him to the masked ball at Hardacre?
Of course Miss Jilian declared that any friend of her cousin’s would be
welcome. And thus Mr. Lot and his sister departed from Rodenham, on the
best of terms with Richard Jeffray, and apparently reconciled to the
Lady Letitia, his aunt. Richard walked with them across the park, and
took leave of his sweet cousin with an ardent look and a significant
pressure of the hand.
As they climbed the road up the long hill towards Pevensel, Miss Jilian
looked at her brother with a questioning smile, and remarked on the Lady
Letitia’s change of temper.
“Richard must have terrified the poor old woman,” she said. “I should
never have thought that the lad had so much spirit in him.”
Mr. Lot thrust out his lower lip and swore.
“Devil take the old cat,” he said; “she is too deuced polite and purry
to make me fancy her. Do you think she loves us, Jill? Damme, I’ll wager
she’d like to slap your face.”
“And yours too, Lot, eh?”
They laughed and whipped up their horses to a trot as they topped the
hill.
“Cousin Richard’s a little gentleman,” quoth Mr. Hardacre, “though he is
a bit of a fool.”
“No, no, Lot, he is too honest, that is all. I like the lad. He has a
sweet nature.”
“What I should like to know is,” returned the brother, “what sort of
mischief that old catamaran is plotting. She’s a regular Jezebel, Jill.
Deuce take it, she would cheat Old Nick into believing her an angel, but
she won’t cheat me.”
Meanwhile poor Bess, in Pevensel, had already been confronted with Isaac
Grimshaw’s authority. She had told old Ursula of the pistols Jeffray had
given her, and while the girl was away milking just before sunset, the
old lady had crept up the stairs, filched away the pistols from the
cupboard, and hidden them in the hole under the floor where she kept her
guineas. The same evening, as Bess was sitting on the settle before the
fire, thinking of Jeffray, her work lying idle in her lap, there came a
sudden knocking at the cottage door. Old Ursula jumped up, shot back the
bolt, and let in Isaac and his son. She locked the door after them and
pocketed the key. Bess, starting up from the settle, became aware
instinctively that there was some conspiracy afoot against herself.
Isaac, glib and smiling, thrust Dan forward—Dan, upon whose hairy face
there was a suggestive and sheepish grin.
“I be come to claim you, Bess,” he said, shifting his fur cap from hand
to hand.
“Claim me!”
“Mr. Isaac has ordered it. You and me are to break a coin together.
Come, lass, I’ll be kind and easy with you. Give me a kiss, and let’s
call it a bargain.”
Bess, flashing fierce scorn out of her eyes at Dan, turned on Isaac with
rebellious and glowing face.
“I’ll not wed Dan,” she said. “No, I’ll have none of him. Press me if
you dare.”
Grimshaw smiled at her, rubbed his hands together, and nudged Dan with
his elbow. The giant made a step towards Bess, grinning through his
beard. In an instant the girl had turned and darted towards the stairs,
only to find the door closed and old Ursula leaning against it. Trapped,
Bess drew herself up and looked at the old woman with wistful anger.
“Are you against me, too, mother?”
Ursula smiled painfully.
“Isaac’s word is law, girl,” she said.
“I’ll not marry Dan, no—I hate him. I’ll not be married against my
will.”
She turned and faced old Grimshaw and his son, her eyes fierce as the
eyes of some wild thing caught in a snare.
“Dan,” she cried, “will you marry me? Ha, I hate you; I hate your great,
ugly face. Will you marry me, I say? You oaf, you great, black, hairy
fool, I hate you. Be careful, all of you. I am not to be bought and
sold.”
The three were silent a moment while Bess stood in the centre of the
room, passionately defiant, her fists clinched, her strong chin up. Old
Isaac watched her, and still rubbed his hands together. Dan, looking
sullen and foolish, fidgeted with his cap, and glanced first at Bess and
then at his father. Old Ursula had the corner of her apron between her
teeth. She was wavering betwixt greed and love for Bess, her
foster-child.
Isaac gave his son a sudden, fierce glance and a whispered command. Dan
edged across the room towards Bess. In a flash she had picked up a heavy
stool, and stood at bay behind the table.
“Come at me, Dan,” she cried, “and I’ll kill ye.”
There was a sudden squeak from old Ursula. She had flung open the door
that closed the stairs, the love in her overmastering the greed for
gold.
“Bess,” she squealed, “quick, lass, the door’s open. Dan, you great
coward, back, keep your hands off her. I’ll have no bullying in my
cottage.”
Bess had flung the stool at Dan, turned and darted towards Ursula. She
kissed the beldam, and fled up the stairs, while the old woman closed
the door on her and covered it with her body.
“Brother Isaac,” she said, with a certain dignity that became her gray
hairs well, “I’ll have no bullying in my cottage. Let Dan win the girl
like a man, and not like a coward. You shall not have Bess to-night save
over my body.”
Dan slunk back behind his father, who was looking at his sister with a
peculiar smile. He rubbed his hands together, his white hair falling
benignantly about his face.
“There, there, dame,” he said, mildly, “don’t put yourself out about the
wench. We mean no harm by her, and she shall not be browbeaten. Come,
son, you must wait and try what patience will do. Good-night, old lady.
Bess can go to sleep in peace.”