"To be sure," said the woman. "The rooms have never been let since James
Barton was first took ill; but I dare say she'll be glad to get
somebody. You go past the church and along the road till you come to the
duck-pond, then turn off to the right and walk on till you see it."
Mrs. Barton was spreading the white linen, which Towsey Pook had just
washed, over the bushes in the Dutch garden, when suddenly she beheld
not ten yards away a tall man in gray tweed, with dust-covered shoes and
a knapsack on his shoulders. He was young--thirty or less, though at a
first glance he might have been older; he looked studious, and as if he
were a somebody, Mrs. Barton told herself later. His manner was a little
awkward for the moment, but in his eye was courteous inquiry. The widow
stopped and criticised him with quiet excitement, while he thought how
good a picture she made with the sunflowers and sweet peas on either
side of her, and the rose-bushes and patches of white linen spread out
to dry in the foreground; and the yew hedges and the taller greenery
behind added to the effect of her. For she was comely still, though she
was nearly seven-and-thirty by this time; not stout, or even inclined
that way, since, being an active woman, she took plenty of exercise and
worried over much in secret, which prevented the spoiling of her figure.
Mr. Vincent asked if it would be possible to have some bread-and-butter
and tea, to which she assented readily; and while he ate and drank in
the living-place, he explained that he wanted to find a lodging in the
neighborhood, to which he could bring his books and peacefully read and
write for a few months. He hardly liked to propose himself as a lodger
all at once, for there was an air of something that was almost
distinction about the widow; it made him feel that if there were any
social difference between them the advantage was on her side. She stood
at first beside the oak table, and then was persuaded to sit, and she
made a picture, framed in one of the big arm-chairs, that he never
forgot, while she explained that there was a spare room that had not
been slept in for three years past, and the best parlor that had not
been used since Barton's funeral day. She bethought herself of the odor
of mustiness which was beginning to pervade them both, since she had
grudged a fire by which no one sat and gathered warmth. The farm
produce, too, was good and plentiful; it would be easy to feed the
stranger, and his stay would put some easily earned pounds into her
pocket. Thus the arrangement came about, and each of them was satisfied.
He stayed all through the summer months, and when the autumn came he
showed no signs of going. The widow grew more and more interested in
him, and they often--he being a lonely man and she a lonely woman, and
both unconsciously aware of it--had an hour's talk together; but it was
a long time before it was other than rather awkward and even formal
talk. Sometimes as he passed through the house to his own rooms he
stopped to notice Hannah; but she was always ill at ease with him, and
hurried away as fast as possible. He heard her speaking to Towsey
sometimes, and occasionally even to her mother, in a way that made him
call her "a spiteful little cat" to himself; but it was no concern of
his; there was nothing of the cat about the mother, and that was the
main thing.
Mrs. Barton was surprised at first that her lodger did not go to church
on Sundays, and the neighbors were curious about it, which embarrassed
her; but she felt that it was no business of hers, and that, since Mr.
Vincent was evidently above them in position and learning, it did not
become them to make remarks. Besides, as Towsey was always busy in the
kitchen at the back, it was comfortable to remember, while she herself
was in church on Sunday mornings, that some one was left in the house
who might be called a protection to it; for tramps had been known to
come so far, and even such a thing as a fire might happen. So when she
departed in her alpaca gown with crape trimmings, her widow's cap inside
her bonnet, and her prayer-book and black-edged handkerchief (she had
six of a goodly size and serviceable thickness) in her hand, across the
fields with Hannah by the short cut to the church, it was with a sense
of calm contentment. Mr. Vincent used to stand in the porch and watch
them start; then, filling his pipe, he smoked in peace, and revelled in
the extra quiet of the Sabbath day. The incumbent of St. Martha's, a man
of no particular attainments, who had slipped into orders through the
back door of a minor theological college, had thought of calling on the
stranger and tackling him about his soul, till he heard incidentally
that one of the writers of _Essays and Reviews_, who had been staying at
Guildford, had driven over to Woodside Farm. Then he came to the
conclusion that he might possibly get worsted in argument, and it would
be the better part of valor to leave his doubtful parishioner in peace,
even though it ended in perdition.