Faith raised her eyes from the paper before her and poised her head
meditatively.
“How long is it, friend, since--”
“Since he went to Egypt?”
“Nay, since thee--”
“Since I went to Mass?” he grumbled humorously.
She laughed whimsically. “Nay, then, since thee made the promise--”
“That I would drink no more till his return--ay, that was my bargain;
till then and no longer! I am not to be held back then, unless I change
my mind when I see him. Well, ‘tis three years since--”
“Three years! Time hasn’t flown. Is it not like an old memory, his
living here in this house, Soolsby, and all that happened then?”
Soolsby looked at her over his glasses, resting his chin on the back
of the chair he was caning, and his lips worked in and out with a
suppressed smile.
“Time’s got naught to do with you. He’s afeard of you,” he continued.
“He lets you be.”
“Friend, thee knows I am almost an old woman now.” She made marks
abstractedly upon the corner of a piece of paper. “Unless my hair turns
grey presently I must bleach it, for ‘twill seem improper it should
remain so brown.”
She smoothed it back with her hand. Try as she would to keep it trim
after the manner of her people, it still waved loosely on her forehead
and over her ears. And the grey bonnet she wore but added piquancy to
its luxuriance, gave a sweet gravity to the demure beauty of the face it
sheltered.
“I am thirty now,” she murmured, with a sigh, and went on writing.
The old man’s fingers moved quickly among the strips of cane, and, after
a silence, without raising his head, he said: “Thirty, it means naught.”
“To those without understanding,” she rejoined drily.
“‘Tis tough understanding why there’s no wedding-ring on yonder finger.
There’s been many a man that’s wanted it, that’s true--the Squire’s son
from Bridgley, the lord of Axwood Manor, the long soldier from Shipley
Wood, and doctors, and such folk aplenty. There’s where understanding
fails.”
Faith’s face flushed, then it became pale, and her eyes, suffused,
dropped upon the paper before her. At first it seemed as though she must
resent his boldness; but she had made a friend of him these years past,
and she knew he meant no rudeness. In the past they had talked of things
deeper and more intimate still. Yet there was that in his words which
touched a sensitive corner of her nature.
“Why should I be marrying?” she asked presently. “There was my sister’s
son all those years. I had to care for him.”
“Ay, older than him by a thimbleful!” he rejoined.
“Nay, till he came to live in this hut alone older by many a year. Since
then he is older than me by fifty. I had not thought of marriage before
he went away. Squire’s son, soldier, or pillman, what were they to me!
He needed me. They came, did they? Well, and if they came?”
“And since the Egyptian went?”
A sort of sob came into her throat. “He does not need me, but he may--he
will one day; and then I shall be ready. But now--”
Old Soolsby’s face turned away. His house overlooked every house in
the valley beneath: he could see nearly every garden; he could even
recognise many in the far streets. Besides, there hung along two nails
on the wall a telescope, relic of days when he sailed the main. The
grounds of the Cloistered House and the fruit-decked garden-wall of the
Red Mansion were ever within his vision. Once, twice, thrice, he had
seen what he had seen, and dark feelings, harsh emotions, had been
roused in him.
“He will need us both--the Egyptian will need us both one day,” he
answered now; “you more than any, me because I can help him, too--ay,
I can help him. But married or single you could help him; so why waste
your days here?”
“Is it wasting my days to stay with my father? He is lonely, most lonely
since our Davy went away; and troubled, too, for the dangers of that
life yonder. His voice used to shake when he prayed, in those days when
Davy was away in the desert, down at Darfur and elsewhere among the
rebel tribes. He frightened me then, he was so stern and still. Ah, but
that day when we knew he was safe, I was eighteen, and no more!” she
added, smiling. “But, think you, I could marry while my life is so tied
to him and to our Egyptian?”
No one looking at her limpid, shining blue eyes but would have set
her down for twenty-three or twenty-four, for not a line showed on
her smooth face; she was exquisite of limb and feature, and had the
lissomeness of a girl of fifteen. There was in her eyes, however, an
unquiet sadness; she had abstracted moments when her mind seemed fixed
on some vexing problem. Such a mood suddenly came upon her now. The
pen lay by the paper untouched, her hands folded in her lap, and a long
silence fell upon them, broken only by the twanging of the strips of
cane in Soolsby’s hands. At last, however, even this sound ceased; and
the two scarce moved as the sun drew towards the middle afternoon. At
last they were roused by the sound of a horn, and, looking down, they
saw a four-in-hand drawing smartly down the road to the village over the
gorse-spread common, till it stopped at the Cloistered House. As Faith
looked, her face slightly flushed. She bent forward till she saw one
figure get down and, waving a hand to the party on the coach as it moved
on, disappear into the gateway of the Cloistered House.
“What is the office they have given him?” asked Soolsby, disapproval in
his tone, his eyes fixed on the disappearing figure.
“They have made Lord Eglington Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs,” she
answered.
“And what means that to a common mind?”
“That what his Government does in Egypt will mean good or bad to our
Egyptian,” she returned.
“That he can do our man good or ill?” Soolsby asked sharply--“that he,
yonder, can do that?”
She inclined her head.
“When I see him doing ill--well, when I see him doing that”--he snatched
up a piece of wood from the floor--“then I will break him, so!”
He snapped the stick across his knee, and threw the pieces on the
ground. He was excited. He got to his feet and walked up and down the
little room, his lips shut tight, his round eyes flaring.
Faith watched him in astonishment. In the past she had seen his face
cloud over, his eyes grow sulky, at the mention of Lord Eglington’s
name; she knew that Soolsby hated him; but his aversion now was more
definite and violent than he had before shown, save on that night long
ago when David went first to Egypt, and she had heard hard words between
them in this same hut. She supposed it one of those antipathies which
often grow in inverse ratio to the social position of those concerned.
She replied in a soothing voice:
“Then we shall hope that he will do our Davy only good.”
“You would not wish me to break his lordship? You would not wish it?” He
came over to her, and looked sharply at her. “You would not wish it?” he
repeated meaningly.
She evaded his question. “Lord Eglington will be a great man one day
perhaps,” she answered. “He has made his way quickly. How high he has
climbed in three years--how high!”
Soolsby’s anger was not lessened. “Pooh! Pooh! He is an Earl. An Earl
has all with him at the start--name, place, and all. But look at our
Egyptian! Look at Egyptian David--what had he but his head and an honest
mind? What is he? He is the great man of Egypt. Tell me, who helped
Egyptian David? That second-best lordship yonder, he crept about coaxing
this one and wheedling that. I know him--I know him. He wheedles and
wheedles. No matter whether ‘tis a babe or an old woman, he’ll talk, and
talk, and talk, till they believe in him, poor folks! No one’s too small
for his net. There’s Martha Higham yonder. She’s forty five. If he sees
her, as sure as eggs he’ll make love to her, and fill her ears with
words she’d never heard before, and ‘d never hear at all if not from
him. Ay, there’s no man too sour and no woman too old that he’ll not
blandish, if he gets the chance.”
As he spoke Faith shut her eyes, and her fingers clasped tightly
together--beautiful long, tapering fingers, like those in Romney’s
pictures. When he stopped, her eyes opened slowly, and she gazed before
her down towards that garden by the Red Mansion where her lifetime had
been spent.
“Thee says hard words, Soolsby,” she rejoined gently. “But maybe thee
is right.” Then a flash of humour passed over her face. “Suppose we
ask Martha Higham if the Earl has ‘blandished’ her. If the Earl has
blandished Martha, he is the very captain of deceit. Why, he has himself
but twenty-eight years. Will a man speak so to one older than himself,
save in mockery? So, if thee is right in this, then--then if he speak
well to deceive and to serve his turn, he will also speak ill; and he
will do ill when it may serve his turn; and so he may do our Davy ill,
as thee says, Soolsby.”
She rose to her feet and made as if to go, but she kept her face from
him. Presently, however, she turned and looked at him. “If he does ill
to Davy, there will be those like thee, Soolsby, who will not spare
him.”
His fingers opened and shut maliciously, he nodded dour assent. After an
instant, while he watched her, she added: “Thee has not heard my lord is
to marry?”
“Marry--who is the blind lass?”
“Her name is Maryon, Miss Hylda Maryon: and she has a great fortune. But
within a month it is to be.”
“Thee remembers the woman of the cross-roads, her that our Davy--”
“Her the Egyptian kissed, and put his watch in her belt--ay, Kate
Heaver!”
“She is now maid to her Lord Eglington will wed. She is to spend
to-night with us.”
“Where is her lad that was, that the Egyptian rolled like dough in a
trough?”
“Jasper Kimber? He is at Sheffield. He has been up and down, now sober
for a year, now drunken for a month, now in, now out of a place, until
this past year. But for this whole year he has been sober, and he
may keep his pledge. He is working in the trades-unions. Among his
fellow-workers he is called a politician--if loud speaking and boasting
can make one. Yet if these doings give him stimulant instead of drink,
who shall complain?”
Soolsby’s head was down. He was looking out over the far hills, while
the strips of cane were idle in his hands. “Ay, ‘tis true--‘tis true,”
he nodded. “Give a man an idee which keeps him cogitating, makes him
think he’s greater than he is, and sets his pulses beating, why, that’s
the cure to drink. Drink is friendship and good company and big thoughts
while it lasts; and it’s lonely without it, if you’ve been used to it.
Ay, but Kimber’s way is best. Get an idee in your noddle, to do a thing
that’s more to you than work or food or bed, and ‘twill be more than
drink, too.”
He nodded to himself, then began weaving the strips of cane furiously.
Presently he stopped again, and threw his head back with a chuckle.
“Now, wouldn’t it be a joke, a reg’lar first-class joke, if Kimber
and me both had the same idee, if we was both workin’ for the same
thing--an’ didn’t know it? I reckon it might be so.”
“What end is thee working for, friend? If the public prints speak true,
Kimber is working to stand for Parliament against Lord Eglington.”
Soolsby grunted and laughed in his throat. “Now, is that the game of
Mister Kimber? Against my Lord Eglington! Hey, but that’s a joke, my
lord!”
“And what is thee working for, Soolsby?”
“What do I be working for? To get the Egyptian back to England--what
else?”
“That is no joke.”
“Ay, but ‘tis a joke.” The old man chuckled. “‘Tis the best joke in the
boilin’.” He shook his head and moved his body backwards and forwards
with glee. “Me and Kimber! Me and Kimber!” he roared, “and neither of us
drunk for a year--not drunk for a whole year. Me and Kimber--and him!”
Faith put her hand on his shoulder. “Indeed, I see no joke, but only
that which makes my heart thankful, Soolsby.”
“Ay, you will be thankful, you will be thankful, by-and-by,” he said,
still chuckling, and stood up respectfully to show her out.