IV

Ellesborough allowed a week to pass before making the call at Great End

he had arranged with Rachel. But at last, when he thought that her

harvesting would be really over, he set out on his motor bicycle, one

fine evening, as soon as work at the camp was over. According to summer

time it was about seven o'clock, and the sun was still sailing clear

above the western woods.

Part of his way lay over a broad common chequered with fine trees and

groups of trees, some of them of great age; for the rest he ran through a

world where harvest in its latest stages was still the governing fact. In

some fields the corn was being threshed on the spot, without waiting for

the stacks; in others, the last loads were being led; and everywhere in

the cleared fields there were scattered figures of gleaners, casting long

shadows on the gold and purple carpet of the stubble. For Ellesborough

the novelty of this garden England, so elaborately combed and finished in

comparison with his own country, was by no means exhausted. There were

times when the cottage gardens, the endless hedge-rows, and miniature

plantations pleased him like the detail in those early Florentine

pictures in the Metropolitan Museum, for which, business man as he was,

and accustomed to the wilds, he had once or twice, on visits to New York,

discovered in himself a considerable taste. He was a man, indeed, of many

aptitudes, and of a loyal and affectionate temper. His father, a country

doctor, now growing old, his mother, still pretty at sixty, and his two

unmarried sisters were all very dear to him. He wrote to them constantly,

and received many letters from them. They belonged to one of the old

Unitarian stocks still common in New England; and such stocks are

generally conspicuous for high standards and clean living. "Discipline"

was among the chief marks of the older generation. A father or mother

dreaded an "undisciplined" child, and the word was often on their lips,

though in no Pharisaical way; while the fact was evident in their lives,

and in those private diaries which they were apt to keep, wherein, up to

old age, they jealously watched their own daily thoughts and actions from

the same point of view.

And though the younger generation, like the younger generation of

Quakers, shows change and some disintegration, the old Puritan

traditions and standards are still, as we all know, of great effect

among them. Especially with regard to women, and all that concerns them.

Among the Ellesborough clan, which was a large one, there prevailed,

along with the traditional American consideration for women, and

especially among the women of the family themselves--a strict and even

severe standard of sexual morals. There was no hypocrisy in it; they

talked of it but little, but they lived by it; and their men were brought

up in the atmosphere created by it. And as affection and tenderness and

self-sacrifice were freely mixed with the asceticism, there was

no rebellion--at any rate no open rebellion--among their men folk. The

atmosphere created led, no doubt, to certain evasions of the hard

problems of life; and to some quiet revaluations of things and persons

when the sons of the family came to men's estate. But in general the "ape

and tiger," still surviving in the normal human being, had been really

and effectively tamed in the Ellesborough race. There was also a

sensitive delicacy both of thought and speech among them; answering to

more important and tested realities. Their marriages were a success;

their children were well brought up, under light but effective control;

and, if it be true, as Americans are ready to say, that the old

conception of marriage is being slowly but profoundly modified over large

sections of their great Commonwealth, towards a laxity undreamt of half a

century ago, the Ellesboroughs could neither be taxed nor applauded in

the matter. They stood by the old ways, and they stood by them

whole-heartedly.

Ellesborough himself, no doubt, had knocked about the world more than

most of his kindred, and had learnt to look at many things differently.

But essentially, he was the son of his race. His attitude towards women

was at once reverential and protective. He believed women were better

than men, because practically he had found it so in his own circle; but

he held also very strong beliefs, seldom expressed, as to their social

disadvantages and their physical weakness. The record of the Germans

towards women in France and Flanders, a record he had verified for

himself, had perhaps done more than anything else to feed the stern flame

of war in his own soul. At thirty-two, he would probably have already

been a married man, but for the war. He rather fiercely held that it was

a man's duty to marry and have children. But beyond a few passing fancies

he had never been in love; and since the American declaration of war, he

had been, like his President, out to "make the world safe for democracy";

and the ardour of the struggle had swept his private interests out of

sight.

All the same here he was, walking his motor cycle up the field road

leading to Great End Farm, and looking eagerly about him. A lonely

position, but beautiful! On the woods behind the house he turned a

professional eye. Fine timber! The man who was to succeed him at Ralstone

would no doubt have the cutting of it. The farm quadrangle, with its

sixteenth century barn, out of which the corn seemed to be actually

bursting from various open doors and windows, appeared to him through

that glamour which, for the intelligent American, belongs to everything

that medieval and Elizabethan England has bequeathed to the England of

the present. He will back himself, he thinks, to plan and build a modern

town better than the Britisher--in any case quicker. But the mosses and

tiles of an old Brookshire barn beat him.

Ellesborough paused at the gate to watch two land lassies carrying

pails of milk across the yard towards a prolongation of the farm-house,

which he supposed was the dairy. Just beyond the farm-yard, two great

wheat-stacks were visible; while in the hayfields running up to the

woods, large hay-stacks, already nearly thatched, showed dimly in the

evening light. And all this was run by women, worked by Women! Well,

American women, so he heard from home, were doing the same in the fields

and farms of the States. It was all part, he supposed, of a world

movement, by which, no less than by the war itself, these great years

would be for ever remembered.

The farm-house itself, however, seemed to him from the outside a poor,

flimsy thing, unworthy of the old farm buildings. He could see that the

walls of it were only a brick thick, and in spite of the pretty curtains,

he was struck by the odd feature of the two large windows exactly

opposite each other, so that a spectator on either side of the house

might look right through it.

"Seems like being in the street. However, if there's nobody to look at

you, I suppose it don't matter."

Then he laughed, for just as he led his motor cycle into the yard, and

passed the sitting-room window, he was struck by the appearance of two

large sheep, who seemed to be actually in the sitting-room, at its

farther end. They were standing, he presently perceived, upon the steep

down beyond the house, on the slope of which the farm was built; which on

the southern side of the farm quadrangle came right up to the house wall.

At the same moment he saw a woman inside get up and shoo them from the

open window, so that they ran away.

But when Jenny Harberton had admitted him, and he was waiting in the

sitting-room, from which the woman he had seen had disappeared, he was in

the mood to admire everything. How nice the two women had made it! His

own rough life, both before and since the war, had only increased a

natural instinct for order and seemliness. The pretty blue paper, the

fresh drugget, the photographs on the wall, the flowers, and the delicate

neatness of everything delighted him. He went round looking at the

pictures and the few books, perfectly conscious that everything which he

saw had a more than common interest for him. The room seemed to be

telling a story--opening points of view.

"Ah!"

He paused, a broad smile overspreading his bronzed face.

For he had perceived a popular History of the War lying open and face

downwards on the table, one that he had recommended to the mistress of

the farm. So she had followed his advice. It pleased him particularly! He

had gathered that she was never a great reader; still, she was an

educated woman, she ought to know something of what her country had done.

And there was actually a piano! He wondered whether she played, or her

friend.

Meanwhile Rachel was changing her dress upstairs--rather deliberately.

She did not want to look too glad to see her visitor, to flatter him by

too much hurry. When he arrived she had just come in from the fields

where she had been at the threshing machine all day. It had covered her

with dirt and chaff; and the process of changing was only half through

when she heard the rattle of Ellesborough's cycle outside. She stood now

before the glass, a radiant daughter of air and earth; her veins, as it

were, still full of the sheer pleasure of her long day among the stubbles

and the young stock. She was tired, of course; and she knew very well

that the winter, when it came, would make a great difference, and that

much of the work before her would be hard and disagreeable. But for the

moment, her deep satisfaction with the life she had chosen, the congruity

between it and her, gave her a peculiar charm. She breathed content, and

there is no more beautifying thing.

She had thought a good deal about Ellesborough since their meeting; yet

not absorbingly, for she had her work to do. She was rather inclined to

quarrel with him for having been so long in making his call; and this

feeling, perhaps, induced her to dawdle a little over the last touches of

her toilet. She had put on a thin, black dress, which tamed the

exuberance of her face and hair, and set off the brilliance and fineness

of her skin where the open blouse displayed it. The beautiful throat was

sunburnt, indeed, but not unbecomingly so; and she was about to fasten

round it a slender gold chain, when she suddenly dropped the chain. Some

association had passed through her mind which made her shrink from it.

She chose instead a necklace of bluish-green beads, long, and curiously

interwoven, which gave a touch of dignity to the plain dress. Then she

paused to consider the whole effect, in a spirit of meditation rather

than mere vanity. "_I wish he knew_!" she thought, and the glass

reflected a frown of perplexity. Had she been wise, after all, to make

such a complete mystery of the past? People in and about Ipscombe would

probably know some time--what all her Canadian friends knew. And then,

the thought of the endless explanations and gossip, of the horrid

humiliation involved in any renewed contact whatever with the ugly things

she had put behind her, roused a sudden, surging disgust.

"Yes, I was quite right," she thought vehemently. "I was quite right!"

Voices in the room downstairs! That meant that Janet had gone in to greet

the visitor. Should they ask him to stay for supper? The vicar was

coming, and his pious little sister. There would be quite enough to eat.

Cold ham, potatoes and salad, with their own butter and bread--Janet made

beautiful bread--was enough for anybody in war time. Rachel was in the

mood to feel a certain childish exultation in the plenty of the farm,

amid the general rationing. The possession of her seven milch cows, the

daily pleasure of the milk, morning and evening, the sight of the rich

separated cream, and of the butter as it came fresh from the churn, the

growing weight and sleekness of the calves; all these things gave her a

warm sense of protection against the difficulties and restrictions of the

war. She and Janet were "self-suppliers." No need to bother about ounces

of butter, or spoonfuls of cream. Of course they sold all they could, but

they could still feed their few guests well--better, perhaps, than any of

the folk in the villa houses round Millsborough.

"Yes! and no one's leave to ask!"

She threw out her arms in a vehement gesture as she turned away from the

glass. It was the gesture of a wild bird taking flight.

By which, however, she was not hurling defiance at the gentle but most

efficient little lady who represented the Food Control of the

neighbourhood, and the mere sight of whom was enough to jog uneasy

consciences in the matter of rations. Rachel was long since on the best

of terms with her.

* * * * *

Captain Ellesborough was asked to stay to supper, and gladly accepted.

The vicar and his young sister arrived and were introduced to the

American. Betty and Jenny, alarmed at so much company and the quality of

it, hurriedly asked to be allowed to take their meal in the tiny scullery

behind the living room. But the democratic and dissenting Janet would not

hear of it. There was room for everybody, she said, and while she lived

in it there should only be one table for all who worked on the farm. If

the vicar and Miss Shenstone objected, she was sorry for them. But they

wouldn't object.

So the small living room of the farm was soon full of a merry company:

the two mistresses, in their Sunday frocks, the land girls in their

uniforms, the young vicar in a short coat and round collar, his little

sister of nineteen, who was training to be a missionary, and carried

about with her already the sweet and dedicated look of her calling; and

Ellesborough, a striking and manly figure in full khaki. Ellesborough was

on Rachel's right, the vicar on Janet's; Miss Shenstone sat between the

two girls, and was so far from objecting to their company that she no

sooner found she was to sit next the daughter of her brother's handy-man

than her childish face flushed with pleasure. She had seen Jenny already

at her brother's Bible-class, and she had been drawn to her. Something in

the character of the labourer's daughter seemed to make a special appeal

to the delicate and mystical temper of the vicar's sister, in whom the

ardour of the "watcher for souls" was a natural gift. Jenny seemed to be

aware of it. She was flushed and a little excited, alternately shy and

communicative--like the bird under fascination, already alive to the

signal of its captor. At any rate, Margaret Shenstone kept both her

companions happy through the meal.

The vicar employed himself in vigorously making friends with Janet

Leighton, keenly alive all the time to that vivid and flower-like vision

of Miss Henderson at the farther end of the table. But some instinct

warned him that beside the splendid fellow in khaki his own claim on her

could be but a modest one. He must watch his opportunity. It was natural

that certain misgivings had already begun to rise in the mind of his

elder sister, Eleanor, who was his permanent companion and housekeeper at

the vicarage. For why should her brother be so specially assiduous in the

harvest operations at Great End? She was well aware that it was the right

and popular thing for the young clergy who were refused service at the

front to be seen in their shirt sleeves as agricultural volunteers, or in

some form of war work. A neighbouring curate in whom she was greatly

interested spent the greater part of his week, for instance, on munition

work at a national factory. She thought him a hero. But if it was to be

harvesting, then it seemed to her that her brother should have divided

his help more evenly among the farms of the village. She was afraid of

"talk." And it troubled her greatly that neither Miss Henderson nor Miss

Leighton came to church.

Meanwhile, the vicar, like a wise man, was securing the position with

Janet. What he wished, what he was really driving at, he would not let

himself inquire. What he _knew_ was that no woman had ever fluttered his

quiet mind as Miss Henderson had fluttered it during these summer weeks.

To watch her, erect and graceful, "pitching" the sheaves on to the

harvest cart, where he and a labourer received and packed them; to be

privileged to lead the full cart home, with her smile and thanks at the

barn door for reward, or to stand with her while she proudly watched her

new reaping machine, with the three fine horses abreast, sweeping round

her biggest field, while the ripe sheaves fell beside it, as of old they

fell beside the reapers that Hoephoestus wrought in gleaming gold on the

shield of Achilles; and then perhaps to pay a last visit with her to the

farm buildings in the warm dusk and watch the cattle coming in from the

fields and the evening feed, and all the shutting up for the night after

the long, hot, busy day: these things had lately made a veritable idyll

of the vicar's life. He felt as though a hundred primitive sensations and

emotions, that he had only talked of or read about before, had at last

become real to him. Oxford memories revived. He actually felt a wish to

look at his Virgil or Theocritus again, such as had never stirred in him

since he had packed his Oxford books to send home, after the sobering

announcement of his third class. After all, it seemed these old fellows

knew something about the earth and its joys!

So that a golden light lay over these past weeks. And in the midst of it

stood the figure of a silent and--as far as he was concerned--rather

difficult woman, without which there would have been no transfiguring

light at all. He confessed to himself that she had never had much to say

to him. But wherever she was she drew the male creature after her. There

was no doubt as to that. She was a good employer--fair, considerate,

intelligent; but it was the _woman_--so the vicar believed--who got her

way.

From which it will be seen that Miss Eleanor Shenstone had some reason

for misgiving, and that the vicar's own peace of mind was in danger. His

standards also were no longer what they were. He had really ceased to

care that Miss Leighton was a Unitarian!

"I suppose you have been horribly busy?" said Rachel to Ellesborough,

when, thanks to the exertions of Janet and the two girls, everybody had

been provided with a first course.

"Not more than usual. Do you mean--" He looked at her, smiling, and

Rachel's eyebrows went up slightly. "Ah, I see--you thought I had

forgotten?"

"Oh, no," she said indifferently. "It is a long way to come."

He flushed a little.

"That never occurred to me for a moment!" he said with emphasis. "But you

said you would have finished with the harvest in a week. So I waited. I

didn't want to be a nuisance."

At which she smiled, a smile that overflowed eyes and lips, and stirred

the senses of the man beside her.

"How is the prisoner?"

"Poor boy! He died the day before yesterday. We did everything we could,

but he had no chance from the first. Hard lines!"

"Why, he might have been home next year!"

"He might, indeed. Yes, Miss Henderson, it'll be peace next year--perhaps

this year! Who knows! But I hope I'll have a look in first. I've got my

orders. As soon as they've appointed my successor here, I'm off. About a

month, I suppose. They've accepted me for the Air Force."

His eyes glowed. Rachel said nothing. She felt hurt that he expressed no

regret at going. Then the vicar struck into the conversation with some

enthusiastic remarks about the steady flowing in of the American army.

That, indeed, was the great, the overpowering fact of these August days.

Ellesborough responded eagerly, describing the huge convoy with which he

himself had come over; and that amazing, that incredible march across

three thousand miles of sea and land, which every day was pouring into

the British Isles, and so into France, some 15,000 men--the flower of

American manhood, come to the rescue of the world. He told the great

story well, with the graphic phrases of a quick mind, well fed on facts,

yet not choked by them. The table hung on him. Even little Jenny, with

parted lips, would not have missed a word.

He meanwhile was led on--for he was not a man of facile or boastful

speech--by the eyes of Rachel Henderson, and those slight gestures or

movements by which from time to time when the talk flagged she would set

it going again.

Margaret Shenstone was particularly stirred.

"What friends we shall be!" she said presently, with a long, quivering

breath--"I mean America and England. Friends for ever! And we quarrelled

once. That's so wonderful. That shows good does come out of evil!"

"I should jolly well think so," said Ellesborough, looking kindly at the

young girl. "Why, if it hadn't been for this war, millions of these boys

who are coming over now would never have seen England or Europe at all.

It'll change the face of everything!"

"Only we must play up," said the vicar anxiously. "We must get rid of our

abominable shyness, and let your people really see how we really welcome

them."

Rachel gave a little defiant shake of the head.

"America's got to thank us, too!" she said, with a challenging look at

Ellesborough. "We've borne it for four years. Now it's your turn!"

"Well, here we are," said Ellesborough quietly, "up to the neck. But--of

course--don't thank us. It's our business just as much as yours."

The talk dropped a moment, and Janet took advantage of it to bring in

coffee as a finish to the meal. Under cover of the slight bustle,

Ellesborough said to Rachel, in a voice no longer meant for the table,--

"Could you spare me a letter sometimes, Miss Henderson--at the front?"

He had both elbows on the table, and was playing with a cigarette. There

was nothing the least patronizing or arrogant in his manner. But there

was a male note in it--perhaps a touch of self-confidence--which

ruffled her.

"Oh, I am a bad letter-writer," she said, as she got up from the table.

"Shall we go and look at the cows?"

They all went out into the warm September night. Ellesborough followed

Rachel, cigarette in hand, his strong mouth twisting a little. The night

was almost cloudless. The pale encircling down, patched at intervals with

dark hanging woods, lay quiet under a sky full of faint stars. The scent

of the stubblefields, of the great corn-stack just beyond the farmyard,

of the big barn so full that the wide wooden doors could not be closed,

was mingled with the strong ammonia smells of the farm-yard, and here

and there with the sweetness left in the evening air by the chewing cows

on their passage to the cow-house on the farther side of the yard.

Rachel led the way to the cow-house--a vast fifteenth-century barn, with

an interlacing forest of timber in its roof, where the six cows stood

ranged, while Janet and the two land lassies, with Hastings the bailiff

to help them, were changing the litter and filling up the racks with hay.

Rachel went along the line pointing out the beauties of each separate

beast to Ellesborough, and caressing two little calves whom Jenny was

feeding by hand. Ellesborough was amused by her technical talk and her

proprietor's airs. It seemed to him a kind of play-acting, but it

fascinated him. Janet had brought in a lantern, and the light and shade

of it seemed to have been specially devised to bring into relief Rachel's

round and tempting beauty, the bright brown of her hair where it curled

on the temples, and the lovely oval of the cheeks. Ellesborough watched

her, now passing into deep shadow, and now brilliantly lit up, as the

light of the lantern caught her; overhead, the criss-cross of the arching

beams as of some primitive cathedral, centuries old; and on either side

the dim forms of the munching cattle, and the pretty movements of the

girls busy with their work.

"Take care," laughed Rachel as she passed him. "There are horrid holes in

this floor. I haven't had time to mend them."

As she spoke, she slipped and almost fell. Ellesborough threw out a quick

hand and caught her by the arm. She smiled into his face.

"Neatly done!" she said composedly, submitting to be led by him over a

very broken bit of pavement near the door. His hand held her firmly. Nor

did she make any effort to release herself till they were outside. Here

were the vicar and his sister waiting to say good-night--the vicar much

chagrined that he had seen so little of his chief hostess, and inclined

to feel that his self-sacrificing attention to Miss Leighton at supper

had been but poorly rewarded. Rachel, however, saw that he was out of

humour, and at once set herself to appease him. And in the few minutes

which elapsed before she parted with him at the gate she had quite

succeeded.

Then she turned to Ellesborough.

"Shall we go up the hill a little?"

They slipped through a side gate of the farmyard, crossed a field, and

found themselves on an old grass road leading gently upward along the

side of the down into the shadow of the woods. The still, warm night held

them enwrapped. Rachel had thrown a white scarf over her head and throat,

which gave a mysterious charm to the face within it. As she strolled

beside her hew friend she played him with all the arts of a woman

resolved to please. And he allowed himself to be handled at her will.

He told her about his people, and his friends, about the ideas and

ambitions, also, with which he had come to Europe, which were now in

abeyance, but were to spring to active life after the war. Forestry on a

great scale; a part to be played in the preservation and development of

the vast forest areas of America which had been so wilfully wasted;

business and patriotism combined; fortune possible; but in any case the

public interest served. He talked shrewdly, but also with ardour and

imagination; she was stirred, excited even; and all the time she liked

the foreignness of his voice, the outline of his profile against the sky,

and all the other elements of his physical presence.

But in the midst of his castle-building he broke off.

"However, I'm a silly fool to talk like this. I'm going out to the front

directly. Perhaps my bullet's waiting for me."

"Oh, no!" she said involuntarily--"no!"

"I hope not. I don't want to die just yet. I want to get married, for one

thing."

He spoke lightly, and she laughed.

"Well, that's easy enough."

He shook his head, but said nothing. They walked on till they reached the

edge of the hill, when Rachel, out of breath, sat down on a fallen log to

rest a little. Below them stretched the hollow upland, with its

encircling woods and its white stubble fields. Far below lay the dark

square of the farm, with a light in one of its windows.

Rachel pointed to the grass road by which they had come.

"We haven't seen the ghost!"

He asked her for the story, and she told it. By now she had pieced it all

together; and it seemed to Ellesborough that it had a morbid fascination

for her.

"He dragged himself down this very path," she said. "They tracked him by

the blood stains; his wounds dripped all along it. And then he fell, just

under my cart-shed. It was a horrible, bitter night. Of course the silly

people here say they hear groans and dragging steps: That's all nonsense,

but I sometimes wish it hadn't happened at my farm."

He couldn't help laughing gently at her foolishness.

"Why, it's a great distinction to have a ghost!"

She disagreed--decidedly.

"Any one can have my ghost that wants. I'm awfully easily scared."

"Are you?" There was a deep note in his voice. "No, I don't believe that.

I'm sure you're a plucky woman. I know you are!"

She laughed out.

"How do you know?"

"Why, no one but a plucky woman could have taken this farm and be working

it as you're doing."

"That's not pluck," she said, half scornfully. "But if it is--well, I've

got plenty of pluck of that kind. But I am often scared, downright

scared, about nothing. It's just fear, that's what it is."

"Fear of what?"

"I don't know."

She spoke in a sombre, shrinking tone, which struck him uncomfortably.

But when he tried further to discover what she meant, she would say

nothing more. He noticed, indeed, that she would often seem to turn the

talk upon herself, only to cut it short again immediately. She offered

him openings, and then he could make nothing of them; so that when they

reached the outskirts of the farm on their return, he had given her all

the main outlines of his own history, and she had said almost nothing of

hers.

But all the same the walk had drawn them much nearer.