Bess passed back in her red cloak between the cedars with Mrs. Barbara’s
taunts still sounding in her ears. She felt benumbed at heart, baffled
and very miserable, not knowing whither to turn for shelter now that
Jeffray’s promise could have no fulfilment. Mrs. Gladden’s insolence had
not hurt her so much as the thought of Richard stricken down so suddenly
by this disease. Had but two days passed since he had talked with her in
Holy Cross, and gazed with such earnestness upon her face? As she
crossed the park Bess looked back wistfully at the great house where
Jeffray lay sick of the fever. Her heart waxed very tender towards the
man, despite her wounded pride and Mrs. Barbara’s insolence. If only it
had been her lot to wait on Jeffray and spend her desire in such sweet
service! If he had only fallen sick in Ursula’s cottage and lain there
to be nursed by her as she had tended him that night not long ago! She
felt desperate enough for her own sake as she thought of Dan. Ursula
would have discovered her flight by now, and doubtless the whole hamlet
was as wise as Ursula.
Passing under the yews and out by the lodge gates, she leaned against
the park walls to rest and think. She had little money in her pocket,
and knew next to nothing of the world. Where should she go, and how
should she come by food and shelter? The very thought of returning to
Pevensel was an utter abhorrence to her soul, and now at Rodenham Priory
she could win no welcome. To hide herself from Dan and Isaac, that was
her whole desire. She would beg, slave, feed pigs to escape their
treachery until Jeffray was recovered of his disease.
Much beset by her dreads and her dilemmas, she took the road for
Rodenham village after a last look at the priory half hidden amid its
trees. She felt tired and hungry, having forgotten to take even a loaf
with her in her fever to be gone. Her shoes were dusty, her mouth dry,
for she had not drunk since dawn, when she had taken water in her palms
from a brook that ran through the woods. She would go down to the
village to buy food, despite the danger that the boors might set Dan on
her track if he hunted her by way of Rodenham. Then, with her strength
refreshed, she could trudge on towards Rookhurst, and perhaps find
refuge as a servant in some farm-house.
As Bess was passing the garden gate of the rectory above the church, she
saw a fat gentleman in his shirt-sleeves weeding the gravel path that
wound up to the house. The place looked very peaceful in the morning
light, with its tiled gables showing above chestnuts, yews, and hollies,
and a single trail of smoke ascending from one tall chimney-stack. Bess
conjectured that it was the parsonage, and that the stout gentleman was
the incumbent. She knew nothing much of parsons save that they preached
on the ten commandments, made wedlock honest, and baptized babies. Dr.
Sugg’s red face was turned towards her as she stood outside the gate
looking wistfully in. The rector had a garden-trug beside him and a hoe
in his right hand. He was proud of his flowers and fruit trees, and was
more severe on weeds than he was on sinners.
Bess was looking at Dr. Sugg very steadfastly. Surely the old gentleman
had a good-tempered face and a pair of kindly eyes that were inclined to
twinkle. Why should she not lay the burden of her distress before his
broad, buckled shoes, and, being a man of God, he should be able to
advise her. She turned in suddenly at the gate, purposing to try the
sincerity of the old gentleman’s profession.
“May I speak with you, sir?”
Dr. Sugg stood up with several daisy roots in his hand, and stared at
Bess with his shrewd and genial eyes. At the first glance, with her
black hair and ruddy face, she might have been taken for a gypsy. A
closer scrutiny suggested a more romantic and interesting vagrant. The
girl was strangely handsome, with a fine carriage and almost the air of
a great lady, and Dr. Sugg always had an appreciative smile for a comely
woman.
“Well, Susan, what can I do for you?”
The rector addressed all young women as “Susan,” a fatherly and
comprehensive pseudonyme that mingled benignity with good-humor. Bess’s
lips parted in a smile. The old gentleman’s manner pleased her, and she
thought he appeared capable of being trusted.
“Are you a parson, sir?”
Dr. Sugg seemed amused by the blunt innocence of the question. He threw
the daisy roots into the trug, and reached for his coat that was hanging
on a neighboring laurel.
“I happen to be the rector of Rodenham, young woman,” he said, studying
her with the professional eye.
“Will you give me your advice, sir?”
“My advice is at your service, my dear, for what it is worth.”
Bess had come well within the gate. She stood before the rector, with
her black hair peeping out from under the hood of her cloak and her eyes
fixed steadfastly on Dr. Sugg’s face. The rector had never heard a
professional beggar ask him for his advice, and there was much in the
girl’s manner that pleased him. He had perused her lines admiringly, and
noticed the beautiful cleanliness of her clothes. It was not often that
so tall and fine a girl was to be seen trudging the high-road through
Rodenham.
“Well, my dear,” he said, with a shrewd smile, “how can I advise you?”
Bess’s eyes were still fixed frankly on his face. Their expression
convinced the reverend gentleman that this red-mouthed Phœbe was telling
the truth.
“My trouble is just this, sir,” she confessed: “My kinsfolk want to
bully me into marriage against my will, and I ran away from home last
night, and came to see Mr. Jeffray yonder, who had promised to be my
friend.”
Parson Sugg elevated his eyebrows and noticed that Bess was blushing
prettily.
“Mr. Jeffray’s ill with the small-pox,” he said.
“So they told me, sir, at the house. It was a great distress to me.”
Dr. Sugg took snuff, sneezed twice with emphasis, and glanced at Bess
with a curious twinkle in his eyes.
“Are you from Pevensel, my dear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“One of the Grimshaws, eh?”
Bess nodded, and watched the stolid passage of thought over the rector’s
good-natured countenance.
“And are you the girl, my dear, for whom Mr. Jeffray had his head broken
in the woods?”
Bess laughed and colored, her eyes brightening wonderfully.
“Mr. Jeffray saved me from my cousin Dan,” she confessed.
Dr. Sugg shook his head reprovingly, and yet smiled as though he
thoroughly sympathized with Mr. Richard in the adventure. He had heard
of the affair from Jeffray himself. His respect for the young squire was
solid and sincere. Possibly it was this same affection for his patron
and a lively liking for this forest wench that persuaded the
good-natured old gentleman to interest himself in her behalf.
“So Mr. Jeffray offered to play the protector to you?” he asked.
“He is an honorable gentleman, sir.”
“Egad, you are quite right, my dear. And this would-be husband of yours,
you don’t fancy him, eh?”
The sincerity of her disrelish was passioned forth on the girl’s face.
“I hate him,” she answered, hotly, “for he has tried to play many a
coward’s trick by me. It was only the pistols Mr. Jeffray gave me that
saved me last night. I want to hide myself, sir, till Mr. Jeffray is
recovered.”
Dr. Sugg looked grave and not a little puzzled. The girl’s frank and
childish trust in the master of Rodenham was certainly a charming
Platonism, but one that might lead to delicate complications. Richard
Jeffray might be a generous young gentleman, and a man of honor, but he
had hardly arrived at that patriarchal and convincing age when romantic
philanthropy becomes disinterested in the eyes of the world. Bess
Grimshaw’s spirit pleased the old gentleman not a little. He was a born
sportsman as well as a Christian, and was honestly concerned for the
girl’s future.
“What’s your age, my dear?” he asked, settling his wig and brushing the
snuff from his waistcoat.
“Two-and-twenty, sir.”
“Can you milk and cook and use your needle?”
Bess smiled and confessed to all these accomplishments.
“I would serve in a farm-house,” she said, “to get myself an honest
home.”
Dr. Sugg appeared to be pondering the matter with all the gravity he
could gather. That he was justified in abetting the girl’s frank spirit
of independence he had no doubt at all. Besides, his efforts on her
behalf could not fail to please Richard Jeffray should that gentleman
recover.
“Listen to me, my dear,” he said, at length. “Farmer Pelham, of
Beechhurst, needs a girl. He is an honest fellow, and his wife is a
kindly body. Supposing I take my nag and see about the place for you?”
Bess looked as though she were ready to embrace Dr. Sugg and his
proposal at one and the same moment.
“I should bless the chance, sir,” she said.
“That is spoken like a woman of sense.”
“I don’t mind about the pay, sir.”
Dr. Sugg twinkled and patted the girl’s shoulder.
“You leave it to me, my dear,” he said. “I like your honesty and the way
you have trusted me. It is a pleasure to help those who are willing to
help themselves. You can make yourself comfortable at the rectory for
the day; my daughter Mary will make you welcome. There, give me a kiss,
my dear, to show your good feeling.”
And Bess kissed the old gentleman, a display of gratitude that might
have shocked most grievously the more straitlaced of Dr. Sugg’s
parishioners.
Mary Sugg assumed an air of mild and genteel hauteur when her father
brought Bess into the parlor and desired his daughter to exercise his
hospitality in the girl’s behalf. Like many plain and pious young women,
Mary Sugg was inclined to view beauty with suspicion and to make of
virtue a Madonna of Ugliness. She conceived it to be distinctly
indiscreet of her father to introduce a strange girl into the house,
especially when Janet and Sarah, the housemaid and the cook, had fled
the place because of the small-pox. Mary Sugg atoned for her grimness,
however, by being the possessor of a kind heart and a sympathetic
nature. She made Bess a gracious little courtesy, and looked shyly at
the girl, who was gazing round the parlor, with its solid Dutch
furniture, its bookshelves, and its prints. A tall clock ticked
sententiously beside the door. The chintz-curtained windows looked out
upon the lawn and flower-beds, where Dr. Sugg’s daffodils and crocuses
were in bloom.
The rector took his daughter apart into the hall, and, after closing the
door, told her the whole of Bess’s trouble. Dr. Sugg was a great man
when giving voice to his opinions, and his daughter still believed him
certain of a bishopric. Perhaps, also, it was Bess’s very virtuous
disinclination to be married that impressed Miss Mary’s virgin heart.
Besides, Richard Jeffray had promised the girl help, and poor Mary
thought Mr. Richard one of the sweetest fellows in Christendom.
Therefore, she kissed her father and declared that she approved heartily
of his sentiments and his sensibility.
“Why should not the girl stay with us?” she said, of a sudden, her tired
eyes brightening. “Now that Janet and Sarah have left us I should like
some help, and I do not want to get a woman up from the village.”
Dr. Sugg slapped his thigh, and regarded Mary as though she were a
genius.
“Bless my soul,” he said, “what a clodpoll I am, to be sure. The very
thing, my dear. The wench has been clear of the fever, and if she will
stay with us there is no need for me to ride to Beechhurst. Go in and
talk to her yourself, Mary.”
Miss Sugg’s sallow face had flushed a little.
“To be sure,” she exclaimed, “she looks a very decent young woman, clean
and capable. I am surprised, sir—”
“Surprised, Mary?” asked the rector, with an amused twinkle.
“That a girl out of Pevensel should look so neat and respectable.”
“Can any good thing come out of Nazareth, eh?”
“Yes, father.”
“Egad, many good things do originate from Nazareth, my dear—more, I
imagine, than from polite Jerusalem.”
Mary Sugg returned to the parlor, and confessed with some shy courtesy
to Bess that the rector himself was in need of a servant. Could Bess
cook and milk and mend stockings? Bess’s eyes were fixed searchingly on
Miss Sugg’s face for the moment as though probing her sincerity.
Contrasts that they were, there was a gentleness and an air of quiet
sympathy about the parson’s daughter that appealed instinctively to the
child of the woods. She met Mary’s offer in the spirit that prompted it,
and thanked her with a tremulous light in her eyes.
“Madam,” she said, with simple stateliness, holding out her hand and
making poor Mary look utterly commonplace, “I thank you for your
kindness and your trust in me. I will serve you with all my heart.”
There is magic in gratitude, and Mary, blushing shyly, took Bess’s hand
and liked the girl unreservedly from that moment.
“My father is a kind man,” she said, a little confusedly; “he is always
ready to help those who are in trouble.”
“And I see that you are his daughter, madam.”
“I hope I try to be worthy of him, my dear.”
It was a quaint sight to see Mary Sugg with her awkward little body and
her ugly face mothering Bess, who could have carried her in her arms
like a child. Bess seemed to become strangely sweet and gentle. Her
heart had gone out to this faded, shrivelled little person with the
quiet face and the pale, short-sighted eyes. She was soon talking to
Mary of her life in Pevensel, and Miss Sugg’s shocked face was a study
in pained propriety when she heard of Dan’s brutality. Yet Mary Sugg was
a very simple and untainted young woman for all her primness, and there
was a certain inevitable ardor in Bess’s personality that appealed to
good women and to children.
Mary took the girl into the kitchen, brewed her some coffee, and saw
that she ate an honest meal. Then she showed her the whole house—the
attic that was to be her bedroom, the press where the clean linen was
kept, the closet where the pans and brushes were. She gave Bess one of
her own aprons, an old pair of house shoes, and a cap. Bess had much of
the practical in her constitution, and, moreover, she was burning to
prove her gratitude to her friends. There was to be a leg of mutton for
Dr. Sugg’s dinner that day. Bess bared her brown forearms, fastened on
her apron, and blessed old Ursula for having taught her to be useful.
Dr. Sugg was delighted with her cooking and with the quiet and graceful
way she waited at table. Mary, a perfect housewife herself,
congratulated her father on their refugee’s success.
“The girl looks quite a lady,” she said. “I must say I am in love with
her, though she has only been with us half a day. I trust her terrible
kinsfolk will not trouble her here.”
Dr. Sugg frowned and looked bellicose.
“The authority of this house,” he answered, “is sufficient to awe the
rascals. My sympathies are wholly with the girl, my dear, and I shall
protect her to the best of my ability.”