Houses sprang up like mushrooms on the Cropstone Wood Estate, and
rents were soon at a premium. Mr. Littleham's activities were
transferred, by arrangement with Jacob, to a builder of more
conservative type, and the Estate speedily became one of the show
places of the neighbourhood. It combined the conveniences of a suburb
with the advantages of a garden city. The special motor-omnibuses
run by the Company, connected the place with the railway. The
telephone company were induced to open an exchange, and the Cropstone
tradespeople, speedily abandoning their attitude of benevolent
indifference, tumbled over themselves in their anxiety to obtain the
orders of the neighbourhood. Jacob somewhat surreptitiously furnished
a room for himself over the offices of the company and, soon after the
coming of Mrs. Bultiwell and her daughter, paid a visit to the place.
In fear and trembling he stole out, after an early dinner on the night
of his arrival, and, seated on a hummock at the top of the ridge,
looked down at the little colony.
It was not long before the expected happened. A girl in a white gown
appeared in the garden immediately below him, singing softly to
herself and wielding a watering can. Presently she saw Jacob and
paused in her task. Jacob raised his hat and she came slowly towards
him. His heart thumped against his ribs. He thought of "Maud" and
other sentimental poems, where the heroine was scornful and of high
degree, and the lover very much her slave. Sybil Bultiwell's
expression was certainly not encouraging.
"You don't mean to tell me, Mr. Pratt," she began coldly, "that you
are coming to live out here yourself?"
"No idea of it," Jacob hastened to explain, as he sprang to his feet.
"I have just furnished a room over the office, so as to spend a night
or two here, now and then, and see that everything is going on all
right. A new enterprise like this needs a watchful eye. No intention
of making a nuisance of myself, I can promise you, Miss Bultiwell."
In her relief she forgot that the watering can was half full. Jacob
stepped quickly backwards, glancing a little disconsolately at his
bespattered trousers.
"I am exceedingly sorry, Mr. Pratt," she apologised, biting her lip.
"No consequence at all," he assured her. "My fault entirely. By the
bye, I hope you are quite comfortable. No complaints?"
"None whatever," she conceded a little grudgingly.
"Water supply all right?"
"Quite."
"And the lighting?"
"Excellent. In fact," the girl went on bitterly, "the place is a
perfect Paradise for paupers and people who have to earn their own
living."
"There is no need for you to do that," he ventured.
She looked at him in most disconcerting fashion. All the pleasant
lights which lurked sometimes in her blue eyes seemed transformed into
a hard stare. Her eyebrows were drawn together in an ominous frown.
Her chin was uplifted.
"What do you mean?" she demanded.
Jacob hesitated, floundered and was lost. Not a word of all the
eloquence which was stored up in his heart could pass his lips. He who
had already made a start, and later on was to hold his own in the
world of unexpected happenings, shrank like a coward from the mute
antagonism in the girl's eyes.
"You know," he faltered.
"The only alternative I am aware of to earning my own living," she
said quietly, "is charity. Were you proposing to offer me a share of
your wonderful fortune?"
"Only if I myself were attached to it," he answered, with a spark of
courage.
She turned and looked at him.
"I am afraid," she said, "that you are inclined to take advantage of
your position, Mr. Pratt."
"I want to say nothing to worry or annoy you," he assured her. "It is
only an accident that I am interested in this estate. I am not your
benefactor. You pay your rent and you are quite independent."
"If I felt that it were otherwise," she replied, "we should not be
here."
"I am sure of it," he declared. "I am only taking the privilege of
every man who is honest, in telling the truth to the girl whom he
prefers to any one else in the world."
"You are an ardent lover, Mr. Pratt," she scoffed.
"If I don't say any more," he retorted, "it is because you paralyse
me. You won't let me speak."
"And I don't intend to," she answered coldly. "If you wish to retain
any measure of my friendship at all, you will keep your personal
feelings with regard to me to yourself."
Jacob for a moment cursed life, cursed himself, his nervousness, and
the whole situation. A little breeze came stealing down the hillside,
bringing with it an odour of new-mown hay, of honeysuckle and wild
roses from the flower-wreathed hedges. The girl lifted her head and
her expression softened.
"It is a wonderful country, this," she admitted. "You are to be
congratulated upon having discovered it, Mr. Pratt. We ought to
consider ourselves very fortunate, my mother and I, in having such a
pleasant home."
"It isn't half good enough for you," he declared bluntly.
She treated him to one of her sudden vagaries. All the discontent
seemed to fade in a moment from her face. Her eyes laughed into his,
her mouth softened into a most attractive curve.
"Some day," she said, as she turned away, "I may find my palace, but I
don't think that you will be the landlord, Mr. Pratt.--Bother!"
Her ill-temper suddenly returned. A tall, elderly lady had issued from
the house and was leaning over the gate. She was of a severe type of
countenance, and Jacob remembered with a shiver her demeanour on his
visit to the Manor House in the days of the Bultiwell prosperity. She
welcomed him now, however, with a most gracious smile, and beckoned
him to advance.
"I am very glad to see you, Mr. Pratt," she said, as they shook hands.
"I have not had an opportunity of congratulating you upon your access
to fortune."
"Very good of you, I'm sure," Jacob murmured.
"We," Mrs. Bultiwell continued, "are progressing, as you perceive, in
the opposite direction. I suppose it is an idea of mine, but I feel
all the time as though I were living in a sort of glorified
almshouse."
"It must seem very small to you after the Manor," Jacob replied
politely, "but the feeling you have spoken of is entirely misplaced.
The Estate is conducted as a business enterprise, and will, without
doubt, show a profit."
"You are, I believe," Mrs. Bultiwell said, "connected with the
Estate?"
Jacob admitted the fact. Sybil, who had recommenced her watering, drew
a little closer.
"There are a few things," Mrs. Bultiwell observed, "to which I think
the attention of the manager should be drawn. In the first place, the
garden. It all requires digging up."
"Surely that is a matter for the tenants," Sybil intervened.
"Nothing of the sort," Jacob pronounced. "It is a very careless
omission on the part of the owners. I will give orders concerning it
to-morrow."
Mrs. Bultiwell inclined her head approvingly. Having once tasted
blood, she was unwilling to let her victim go.
"If you will step inside for a moment, Mr. Pratt," she went on, "there
are one or two little things I should like to point out to you. The
cupboard in Sybil's room--"
"Mother," Sybil protested, "Mr. Pratt has nothing to do with these
matters."
"On the contrary," Jacob replied mildly, "I am just the person who has
to do with them. You are paying a very good rent, Mrs. Bultiwell, and
any little thing the Estate can do to make you more comfortable--"
"Come this way, Mr. Pratt," Mrs. Bultiwell interrupted firmly....
Sybil was still watering the garden when he came out. She waited until
he had exchanged cordial farewells with Mrs. Bultiwell, and then
summoned him to her. Mrs. Bultiwell was still standing on the
threshold, smiling at them, so she was compelled to moderate her
anger.
"What have you been doing in there with mother?" she demanded.
"There were one or two little things my clerk of the works has
neglected," he answered. "I promised to see to them, that's all."
"You know perfectly well that we arranged for the house as it was."
"I don't look upon it in that way," he said. "There are certain
omissions--"
"Oh, be quiet!" she interrupted angrily. "And the garden, I suppose,
should all have been prepared for us?"
"Certainly it should have been all dug up," he declared, "and not only
that little bit where you have your roses."
"Of course," she answered sarcastically, "and asparagus beds made, I
suppose, and standard roses planted!"
"I think, Miss Bultiwell," he ventured, "that you might allow me the
privilege of having the place made as attractive as possible for you."
She glanced back towards the house. Mrs. Bultiwell, well pleased with
herself, was still lingering. Sybil conducted their visitor firmly
towards the gate.
"Mr. Pratt," she said, "I will try and not visit these things upon
you; but answer me this question. Have you given my mother any
indication whatever of your--your ridiculous feelings towards me?"
"Your mother gave me no opportunity," he replied. "She was too busy
talking about the house."
"Thank goodness for that, anyhow! Please understand, Mr. Pratt, that
so far as I am concerned you are not a welcome visitor here at any
time, but if ever you should see my mother, and you should give her
the least idea of what you are always trying to tell me, you will make
life a perfect purgatory for me. I dislike you now more than any one I
know. I should simply hate you then. You understand?"
"I understand," he answered. "You want me, in short, to join in a sort
of alliance against myself?"
"Put it any way you like," she said coldly.
"I am a perfectly harmless person," he declared, "who has never
wronged you in thought or deed. It is my misfortune that I have a
certain feeling for you which I honestly don't think you deserve."
She dropped the watering can and her eyes blazed at him.
"Not deserve?" she repeated.
"No!" he replied, trembling but standing his ground firmly. "Every
nice girl has a feeling of some sort for the man who is idiot enough
to be in love with her. I am just telling you this to let you know
that I can see your faults just as much as the things in you
which--which I worship. And good night!"...
Jacob sat out on the hillside until late, smoking stolidly and
dreaming. Inside the little white-plastered house below, from which
the lights were beginning to steal out, Sybil was busy preparing
supper and waiting upon her highly-pleased and triumphant parent.
Later, she too sat in the garden and watched the moon come up from
behind the dark belt of woodland which sheltered the reservoir.
Perhaps she dreamed of her prince to come, as the lonely man on the
hillside was dreaming of the things which she typified to him.