For two summers and a winter Gerald Vincent lodged at Woodside Farm. He
was a singularly silent man, and Mrs. Barton knew no more about him in
the last month than she had done in the first. But gradually she grew
fond of him. She watched him out of sight when he went for his walks,
and felt her heart bound when she heard his returning footsteps. The
best roses were cut for his writing-table, the ripest fruit for his
dessert and breakfast, and once when she lingered in the best parlor,
dusting it before he was down, she lifted a half-written slip and kissed
it, knowing that his hand must have rested on it; for youth does not
monopolize romance, and even eight-and-thirty can know its agitations.
After a time Mr. Vincent became aware of her feeling for him; it
embarrassed him a good deal, but he was touched by it. Then he realized
almost with surprise the clear outline of her face and the sweet, firm
curve of her lips. He told himself of her merits, her domestic virtues,
and the manner in which, single-handed and calm-headed, she managed the
farm. Gradually it came about that, instead of staying in his own room
in the evening, he sat with her--he on one side and she on the other of
the great fireplace in the living-room; and the companionship was all
the more pleasant because Hannah was away. For Hannah was a good twelve
years old by this time, and, for the sake of school advantages, staying
with her grandparents at Petersfield, where she learned more and more
fervently to despise the particular forms of the devil and all his works
in which those who were not of her own way of thinking most delighted.
It was on those evenings, and while Mrs. Barton knitted socks which he
knew well enough would be offered to himself, that Mr. Vincent noticed
the disappearance, first of crape and then of black in the widow's
dress. He saw, too, the little arts, such as an odd bit of finery and
the management of her hair by which she strove to add to her
attractions, and he never pretended to himself that he misunderstood
them. He realized, too, the good points of her figure--the set-back of
her shoulders, and that she was tall and had a certain presence, even
dignity, born of adherence to simple rules of life. And somehow, in a
quiet, unexcited way, he became fascinated. Here was the natural human
being, he thought, as God had meant it to be, unadulterated by
scholarship or passion or knowledge of the world. He felt that he and
she and nature made a trinity framed by the Surrey hills and all the
beautiful country round them. He wanted no other home than the farm, no
other method of getting about than the brown, wooden cart and the
broken-winded cob, no other companion than this sedate woman who knew
nothing of his history or inward life, yet who somehow gave all his
thoughts a setting, and put him into moods that helped him to write down
many things that he hoped some day to give to the world. It is difficult
to say how these things come about, or what will lead a man and woman
knowing little of each other to marry; but the unaccountable happens too
often to need dilating upon, and the great facts of life that stare us
in the face occasionally make in themselves a grotesque argument in
favor of spontaneous generation. Thus it happened that one night, after
a long silence, Gerald Vincent said, quite simply:
"Mrs. Barton, I have been wondering lately whether it is right of me to
go on staying at the farm on our present footing?"
"Why, Mr. Vincent!" She looked up at him with her pure, grave eyes, and
surprise was in her voice. "I'm sure, if James knew, he'd like to feel
that you were here."
"I wonder if he would; I have heard that he was a godly man, and I am
not."
"Don't say that," she answered, anxiously. "I've always held with doing
what was right rather than with the saying of prayers, though James's
people, of course, are different and very strict in their notions."
"You know nothing about me," he said, going on with his own train of
thoughts, "of my family, nor my doings before I came here, and yet I
have been wondering if you would marry me?" It did not seem necessary to
him to tell her that his father had been a peer, or that his brother had
made a foolish marriage and gone to the Antipodes, or that he himself
had thrown over the church and wrecked his prospects on a metaphysical
rock. These things, and knowledge of them, were so far outside her world
and thoughts that telling her could serve no good end. It was better to
be silent.
She went on with her knitting for half a minute, then put it down and
asked, and there was a something in her voice that reached his heart:
"Do you mean that you've got to care for me?"
"I think you are the kindest soul in the world," he said, and his own
voice was not very steady, "and too young still, and too handsome," he
added, with a little smile, "for it to be right that I should go on
living here, whether it is as your lodger or your friend. We have been
friends for a long time, you know--"
"I have come to think of you as one," she said, simply.
"You wouldn't like me to live anywhere else?"
"I couldn't bear the thought of it," she answered under her breath.
"But I can't go on staying here, except as your husband. I think we
could be content enough."
She turned her head away from him; a happy smile struggled to her lips.
He saw that she trembled. He rose and pulled her gently from her seat,
and they stood together in front of the fireplace.
"Well?" he asked.
"I don't know what folk would say."
"Does it matter? We shall live outside the world, not in it."
"And then you never go to church?"
"I will make an exception to the rule by taking you there for half an
hour while the parson prays over us. How is it to be? Perhaps you should
think it over before you answer. I have nothing to give you--"
"Oh--" she raised her eyes and looked at him reproachfully.
"I am a poor man, with a couple of hundred a year, and no more to come.
I can be no help to you in your home, but I want nothing more from it
than I have now. You can keep it all for Hannah by-and-by. Well?" he
asked again.
With a little sigh she drew closer to him. "I couldn't say 'No,' Mr.
Vincent, for I'm fonder of you than of any one in the world." He tried
to look into her eyes, but they were downcast, and a twitch came to her
lips. He stooped and kissed her forehead, and waited till she spoke
again. "You'll be good to Hannah?" she said, anxiously. "You see she
won't be away so much by-and-by, and she'll look to come to her home.
You wouldn't interfere with her?"
"My dear soul, I should interfere with nothing. I don't know why I am
trying to disturb our present relationship, except that it seems to be
the only way of preventing it from coming to an end. Things will go on
just the same as they have done. I don't propose to alter anything. We
will be married one morning at Haslemere--or Guildford, perhaps; no one
will be likely to come upon us there--and Woodside Farm will be Woodside
Farm still, though you are Mrs. Vincent. We will settle down for the
rest of our lives and let nothing in the distance disturb us."
"I will make you as comfortable as I can," she said in a low voice, at
which he smiled a little ruefully and looked round the living-room. Then
he put his arms slowly round her and drew her to him with quiet
affection and as if he thought their new relationship demanded it. This
was their sober betrothal.