It had been generally expected that when all was over the cottage upon
the Knoll Road would be closed and deserted, but some secret fancy held
Joan to the spot. Perhaps the isolation suited her mood; perhaps the
mere sense of familiarity gave her comfort.
“I should na be less lonely any wheer else,” she said to Anice Barholm.
“Theer's more here as I feel near to than i' any other place. I ha' no
friends, yo' know. As to th' choild, I con carry it to Thwaite's wife
i' th' mornin' when I go to th' pit, an' she'll look after it till neet,
for a trifle. She's getten childern o' her own, and knows their ways.”
So she went backward and forward night and morning with her little
burden in her arms. The child was a frail, tiny creature, never strong,
and often suffering, and its very frailty drew Joan nearer to it. It
was sadly like Liz, pretty and infantine. Many a rough but experienced
mother, seeing it, prophesied that its battle with life would be brief.
With the pretty face, it had inherited also the helpless, irresolute,
appealing look. Joan saw this in the baby's eyes sometimes and was
startled at its familiarity; even the low, fretted cry had in it
something that was painfully like its girl-mother's voice. More than
once a sense of fear had come upon Joan when she heard and recognized
it. But her love only seemed to strengthen with her dread.
Day by day those who worked with her felt more strongly the change
developing so subtly in the girl. The massive beauty which had almost
seemed to scorn itself was beginning to wear a different aspect; the
defiant bitterness of look and tone was almost a thing of the past; the
rough, contemptuous speech was less scathing and more merciful when at
rare intervals it broke forth.
“Summat has coom over her,” they said among themselves. “Happen it wur
trouble. She wur different, somehow.”
They were somewhat uneasy under this alteration; but, on the whole, the
general feeling was by no means unfriendly. Time had been when they had
known Joan Lowrie only as a “lass” who held herself aloof, and yet in
a manner overruled them; but in these days more than one stunted,
overworked girl or woman found her hard task rendered easier by Joan's
strength and swiftness.
It was true that his quiet and unremitted efforts had smoothed Grace's
path to some extent. There were ill-used women whom he had helped and
comforted; there were neglected children whose lives he had contrived
to brighten; there were unbelievers whose scoffing his gentle simplicity
and long-suffering had checked a little. He could be regarded no longer
with contempt in Riggan; he even had his friends there.
Among those who still mildly jeered at the little Parson stood foremost,
far more through vanity than malice, “Owd Sammy Craddock.” A couple of
months after Lowrie's death, “Owd Sammy” had sauntered down to the mine
one day, and was entertaining a group of admirers when Grace went by.
It chanced that, for some reason best known to himself, Sammy was by no
means in a good humor. Something had gone wrong at home or abroad, and
his grievance had rankled and rendered him unusually contumacious.
Nearing the group, Grace looked up with a faint but kindly smile.
“Good-morning!” he said; “a pleasant day, friends!”
“Owd Sammy” glanced down at him with condescending tolerance. He had
been talking himself, and the greeting had broken in upon his eloquence.
“Which on us,” he asked dryly; “which on us said it wur na?”
A few paces from the group of idlers Joan Lowrie stood at work. Some
of the men had noted her presence when they lounged by, but in the
enjoyment of their gossip, they had forgotten her again. She had seen
Grace too; she had heard his greeting and the almost brutal laugh that
followed it; and, added to this, she had caught a passing glimpse of the
Curate's face. She dropped her work, and, before the laugh had died out,
stood up confronting the loungers.
“If theer is a mon among yo' as he has harmed,” she said; “if theer's
one among yo' as he's ivver done a wrong to, let that mon speak up.”
It was “Owd Sammy” who was the first to recover himself. Probably he
remembered the power he prided himself upon wielding over the weaker
sex. He laid aside his pipe for a moment and tried sarcasm,--an
adaptation of the same sarcasm he had tried upon the Curate.
“Which on us said theer wur?” he asked.
Joan turned her face, pale with repressed emotion, toward him.
“There be men here as I would scarce ha' believed could ha' had much
agen him. I see one mon here as has a wife as lay nigh death a month or
so ago, an' it were the Parson as went to see her day after day, an'
tuk her help and comfort. Theer's another mon here as had a little un
to dee, an' when it deed, it wur th' Parson as knelt by its bed an' held
its hond an' talkt to it when it were feart. Theer's other men here as
had help fro' him as they did na know of, an' it wur help from a mon as
wur na far fro' a-bein' as poor an' hard worked i' his way as they are
i' theirs. Happen th' mon I speak on dunnot know much about th' sick
wife, an' deein choild, an' what wur done for 'em, an' if they dunnot,
it's th' Parson's fault.”
“Why!” broke in “Owd Sammy.” “Blame me, if tha art na turned Methody!
Blame me,” in amazement, “if tha art na!”
“Nay,” her face softening; “it is na Methody so much. Happen I'm turnin'
woman, fur I conna abide to see a hurt gi'en to them as has na earned
it. That wur why I spoke. I ha' towd yo' th' truth o' th' little chap
yo' jeered at an' throw'd his words back to.”
Thus it became among her companions a commonly accepted belief that Joan
Lowrie had turned “Methody.” They could find no other solution to her
championship of the Parson.
“Is it true as tha's j'ined th' Methodys?” Thwaite's wife asked Joan,
somewhat nervously.
She had learned to be fond of the girl, and did not like the idea of
believing in her defection.
“No,” she answered, “it is na.”
The woman heaved a sigh of relief.
“I thowt it wur na,” she said. “I towd th' Maxys as I did na believe
it when they browt th' tale to me. They're powerful fond o' talebearing
that Maxy lot.”
Joan stopped in her play with the child.
“They dunnot understand,” she said, “that's aw. I ha' learned to think
different, an' believe i' things as I did na use to believe in. Happen
that's what they mean by talkin' o' th' Methodys.”
People learned no more of the matter than this. They felt that in some
way Joan had separated herself from their ranks, but they found it
troublesome to work their way to any more definite conclusion.
“Hast heard about that lass o' Lowrie's?” they said to one another;
“hoo's takken a new turn sin' Lowrie deed; hoo allus wur a queer-loike,
high-handed wench.”
After Lowrie's death, Anice Barholm and Joan were oftener together than
ever. What had at first been friendship had gradually become affection.
“I think,” Anice said to Grace, “that Joan must go away from here and
find a new life.”
“That is the only way,” he answered. “In this old one there has been
nothing but misery for her, and bitterness and pain.”
Fergus Derrick was sitting at a table turning over a book of engravings.
He looked up sharply.
“Where can you find a new life for her?” he asked. “And how can you help
her to it? One dare not offer her even a semblance of assistance.”
They had not spoken to him, but he had heard, as he always heard,
everything connected with Joan Lowrie. He was always restless and eager
where she was concerned. All intercourse between them seemed to be at an
end. Without appearing to make an effort to do so, she kept out of his
path. Try as he might, he could not reach her. At last it had come to
this: he was no longer dallying upon the brink of a great and dangerous
passion,--it had overwhelmed him.
“One cannot even approach her,” he said again.
Anice regarded him with a shade of pity in her face.
“The time is coming when it will not be so,” she said.
The night before Joan Lowrie had spent an hour with her. She had come in
on her way from her work, before going to Thwaite's, and had knelt down
upon the hearth-rug to warm herself. There had been no light in the room
but that of the fire, and its glow, falling upon her face, had revealed
to Anice something like haggardness.
“Joan,” she said, “are you ill?”
Joan stirred a little uneasily, but did not look at her as she answered:
“Nay, I am na ill; I nivver wur ill i' my loife.”
“Then,” said Anice, “what--what is it that I see in your face?”
There was a momentary tremor of the finely moulded, obstinate chin.
“I'm tired out,” Joan answered. “That's all,” and her hand fell upon her
lap.
Anice turned to the fire.
“What is it?” she asked, almost in a whisper.
Joan looked up at her,--not defiant, not bitter, not dogged,--simply in
appeal against her own despair.
“Is na theer a woman's place fur me i' th' world? Is it allus to be this
way wi' me? Con I nivver reach no higher, strive as I will, pray as I
will,--fur I _have_ prayed? Is na theer a woman's place fur me i' th'
world?”
“Yes,” said Anice, “I am sure there is.”
“I've thowt as theer mun be somewheer. Sometimes I've felt sure as theer
mun be, an' then agen I've been beset so sore that I ha' almost gi'en it
up. If there is such a place fur me I mun find it--I mun!”
“You will find it,” said Anice. “Some day, surely.”
Anice thought of all this again when she glanced at Derrick. Derrick was
more than usually disturbed to-day. He had for some time been working
his way to an important decision, fraught with some annoyance and
anxiety to himself. There was to be a meeting of the owners in a few
weeks, and at this meeting he had determined to take a firm stand.
“The longer I remain in my present position, the more fully I am
convinced of the danger constantly threatening us,” he said to Anice.
“I am convinced that the present system of furnaces is the cause of more
explosions than are generally attributed to it. The mine here is a
'fiery' one, as they call it, and yet day after day goes by and no
precautions are taken. There are poor fellows working under me whose
existence means bread to helpless women and children. I hold their lives
in trust, and if I am not allowed to place one frail barrier between
them and sudden death, I will lead them into peril no longer,--I will
resign my position. At least I can do that.”
The men under him worked with a dull, heavy daring, born of long use and
a knowledge of their own helplessness against their fate. There was
not one among them who did not know that in going down the shaft to
his labor, he might be leaving the light of day behind him forever. But
seeing the blue sky vanish from sight thus during six days of fifty-two
weeks in the year, engendered a kind of hard indifference. Explosions
had occurred, and might occur again; dead men had been carried up to
be stretched on the green earth,--men crushed out of all semblance to
humanity; some of themselves bore the marks of terrible maiming; but
it was an old story, and they had learned to face the same hazard
recklessly.
With Fergus Derrick, however, it was a different matter. It was he who
must lead these men into new fields of danger.