PREPARING TO GO
Almost close to St. Goram were the lodge gates of Hamblyn Manor. The
manor itself was at the end of a long and winding avenue, and behind a
wide belt of trees. As Ralph reached the lodge gates he walked a little
more slowly, then paused for a moment and looked at the lodge with its
quaint gables, its thatched roof and overhanging eaves. Beyond the gates
the broad avenue looked very majestic and magnificently rich in colour.
The yellow leaves were only just beginning to fall, while the evergreens
looked all the greener by contrast with the reds and browns.
He turned away at length, and came suddenly face to face with "the
squire's little maid." She was seated in her rubber-tyred bath-chair,
which was drawn by a white donkey. By the side of the donkey walked a
boy in buttons. Ralph almost gasped. So great a change in so short a
time he had never witnessed before. Only eight or nine weeks had passed
since the accident, and yet they seemed to have added years to her life.
She was only a girl when he carried her from Treliskey Plantation down
to the high road. Now she was a woman with deep, pathetic eyes, and
cheeks hollowed with pain.
Ralph felt the colour mount to his face in a moment, and his heart
stabbed him with a sudden poignancy of regret. He wished again, as he
had wished many times during the last two months, that he had pocketed
his pride and opened the gate. It might be quite true that she had no
right to speak to him as she did, quite true also that it was the most
natural and human thing in the world to resent being spoken to as though
he were a serf. Nevertheless, the heroic thing--the divine thing--would
have been to return good for evil, and meet arrogance with generosity.
He would have passed on without presuming to recognise her, but she
would not let him.
"Stop, James," she called to the boy; and then she smiled on Ralph ever
so sweetly, and held out her hand.
For a moment a hot wave of humiliation swept over him from head to foot.
He seemed to realise for the first time in his life what was meant by
heaping coals of fire on one's head. He had the whole contents of a
burning fiery furnace thrown over him. He was being scorched through
every fibre of his being.
At first he almost resented the humiliation. Then another feeling took
possession of him, a feeling of admiration, almost of reverence. Here
was nobleness such as he himself had failed to reach. Here was one high
in the social scale, and higher still in grace and goodness,
condescending to him, who had indirectly been the cause of all her
suffering. Then in a moment his mood changed again to resentment. This
was the daughter of the man who had broken his father's heart. But a
moment ago he had looked into his father's hopeless, suffering eyes, and
felt as though it would be the sweetest drop of his life if he could
make John Hamblyn and all his tribe suffer as he had made them suffer.
But even as he reached out his hard brown hand to take the pale and
wasted one that was extended to him, the pendulum swung back once more;
the better and nobler feeling came back. The large sad eyes that looked
up into his had in them no flash of pride or arrogance. The smile that
played over her wan, pale face seemed as richly benevolent as the
sunshine of God. Possibly she knew nothing of the calamity that had
overtaken him and his, a calamity that her father might have so
wonderfully lightened, and at scarcely any cost to himself, had he been
so disposed. But it was not his place to blame the child for what her
father had done or left undone.
The soft, thin fingers were enveloped in his big strong palm, and then
his eyes filled. A lump came up into his throat and prevented him from
speaking. Never in all his life before had he seemed so little master of
himself.
Then a low, sweet voice broke the silence, and all his self-possession
came back to him.
"I am so glad I have met you."
"Yes?" he questioned.
"I wanted to thank you for saving my life."
He dropped his eyes slowly, and a hot wave swept over him from head to
foot.
"Dr. Barrow says if you had not found me when you did I should have
died." And she looked at him as if expecting an answer. But he did not
reply or even raise his head.
"And you carried me such a long distance, too," she went on, after a
pause; "and I heard Dr. Barrow tell the nurse that you bound up my head
splendidly."
"You were not much to carry," he said, raising his head suddenly.
"But--but you are less now." And his voice sank almost to a whisper.
"I have grown very thin," she said, with a wan smile. "But the doctor
says I shall get all right again with time and patience."
"I hoped you would have got well much sooner," he said, looking timidly
into her face. "I have suffered a good deal during your illness."
"You?" she questioned, raising her eyebrows. "Why?"
"Because if I had not been surly and boorish, the accident would not
have happened. If you had died, I should never have forgiven myself."
"No, no; it was not your fault at all," she said quickly. "I have
thought a good deal about it while I have been ill, and I have learnt
some things that I might never have learnt any other way, and I see now
that--that----" And she dropped her eyes to hide the moisture that had
suddenly gathered. "I see now that it was very wrong of me to speak to
you as I did."
"You were reared to command," he said, ready in a moment to champion her
cause, "and I ought to have considered that. Besides, it isn't a man's
place to be rude to a girl--I beg your pardon, miss, I mean to a----"
"No, no," she interrupted, with a laugh; "don't alter the word, please.
If I feel almost an old woman now, I was only a girl then. How much we
may live in a few weeks! Don't you think so?"
"You have found that out, have you?" he questioned. And a troubled look
came into his eyes.
"You see, lying in bed, day after day and week after week, gives one
time to think----"
"Yes?" he questioned, after a brief pause.
She did not reply for several seconds; then she went on as if there had
been no break. "I don't think I ever thought seriously about anything
before I was ill. I took everything as it came, and as most things were
good, I just enjoyed myself, and there seemed nothing else in the world
but just to enjoy one's self----"
"There's not much enjoyment for most people," he said, seeing she
hesitated.
"I don't think enjoyment ought to be the end of life," she replied
seriously. Then, suddenly raising her eyes, she said--
"Do you ever get perplexed about the future?"
"I never get anything else," he stammered. "I'm all at sea this very
moment."
"You? Tell me about it," she said eagerly.
He shrugged his shoulders, and looked along the road toward the village.
Should he tell her? Should he open her eyes to the doings of her own
father? Should he point out some of the oppressive conditions under
which the poor lived?
For a moment or two there was silence. He felt that her eyes were fixed
intently on his face, that she was waiting for him to speak.
"I suppose your father has never told you that we have lost our little
farm?" he questioned abruptly, turning his head and looking hard at her
at the same time.
"No. How have you lost it? I do not understand."
"Well, it was this way." And he went on to explain the nature of the
tenure on which his father leased his farm, but he was careful to avoid
any mention of her father's name.
"And you say that in twelve years all the three 'lives' have died?"
"That is unfortunately the case."
"And you have no longer any right to the house you built, nor to the
fields you reclaimed from the downs?"
"That is so."
"And the lord of the manor has taken possession?"
"He has let it to another man, who takes possession the day after
to-morrow."
"And the lord of the manor puts the rent into his own pocket?"
"Yes."
"And your father has to go out into the world and start afresh?"
"We leave Hillside to-morrow. I'm going to St. Goram now, to see if the
little cottage is ready. After to-morrow father starts life afresh, in
his old age, having lost everything."
"But wasn't your father very foolish to risk his all on such a chance?
Life is always such an uncertain thing."
"I think he was very foolish; and he thinks so now. But at the time he
was very hopeful. He thought the cost of bringing the land under
cultivation would be much less than it has proved to be. He hoped, too,
that the crops would be much heavier. Then, you see, he was born in the
parish, and he wanted to end his days in it--in a little home of his
own."
"It seems very hard," she said, with a distant look in her eyes.
"It's terribly hard," he answered; "and made all the harder by the
landlord letting the farm over father's head."
"He could have let you remain?"
"Of course he could, if he had been disposed to be generous, or even
just."
"I've often heard that Lord St. Goram is a very hard man."
He started, and looked at her with a questioning light in his eyes.
"He needn't have claimed all his pound of flesh," she went on. "Law
isn't everything. Nobody would have expected that all three 'lives'
would have died in a dozen years."
"I believe the law of average works out to about forty-seven years," he
said.
"In which case your father ought to have his farm another thirty-five
years."
"He ought. In fact, no lease ought to be less than ninety-nine years.
However, the chances of life have gone against father, and so we must
submit."
"I don't understand any man exacting all his rights in such a case," she
said sympathetically. "If only people would do to others as they would
be done unto, how much happier the world would be!"
"Ah, if that were the case," he said, with a smile, "soldiers and
policemen and lawyers would find all their occupations gone."
"But, all the same, what's religion worth if we don't try to put it into
practice? The lord of the manor has, no doubt, the law on his side. He
can legally claim his pound of flesh, but there's no justice in it."
"It seems to me the strong do not often know what justice means," he
said, with an icy tone in his voice.
"No; don't say that," she replied, looking at him reproachfully. "I
think most people are really kind and good, and would like to help
people if they only knew how."
"I'm afraid most people think only of themselves," he answered.
"No, no; I'm sure----" Then she paused suddenly, while a look of
distress or of annoyance swept over her face. "Why, here comes Lord
Probus," she said, in a lower tone of voice, while the hot blood flamed
up into her pale cheeks in a moment.
Ralph turned quickly round and looked towards the park gates.
"Is that Lord Probus?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Good----" But he did not finish the sentence. She looked up into his
face, and saw that it was dark with anger or disgust. Then she glanced
again at the approaching figure of her affianced husband, then back
again to the tall, handsome youth who stood by her side, and for a
moment she involuntarily contrasted the two men. The lord and the
commoner; the rich brewer and the poor, ejected tenant.
"Please pardon me for detaining you so long," he said hurriedly.
"You have not detained me at all," she replied. "It has been a pleasure
to talk to you, for the days are very long and very dull."
"I hope you will soon be as well as ever," he answered; and he turned
quickly on his heel and strode away.
"And I hope your father will soon----" But the end of the sentence did
not reach his ears. For the moment he was not concerned about himself.
The tragedy of his own life seemed of small account. It was the tragedy
of her life that troubled him. It seemed a wicked thing that this
fragile girl--not yet out of her teens--should marry a man old enough
almost to be her grandfather.
What lay behind it, he wondered? What influences had been brought to
bear upon her to win her consent? Was she going of her own free will
into this alliance, or had she been tricked or coerced?
He recalled again the picture of her when she sat on her horse in the
glow of the summer sunshine. She was only a girl then--a heedless,
thoughtless, happy girl, who did not know what life meant, and who in
all probability had never given five minutes' serious thought to its
duties and responsibilities. But eight or nine weeks of suffering had
wrought a great change in her. She was a woman now, facing life
seriously and thoughtfully. Did she regret, he wondered, the promise she
had made? Was she still willing to be the wife of this old man?
Ralph felt the blood tingling to his finger-tips. It was no business of
his. What did it matter to him what Sir John Hamblyn or any of his tribe
did, or neglected to do? If Dorothy Hamblyn chose to marry a Chinaman or
a Hindoo, that was no concern of his. He had no interest in her, and
never would have.
He pulled himself up again at that point. He had no interest in her, it
was true, and yet he was interested--more interested than in any other
girl he had ever seen. So interested, in fact, that nothing could happen
to her without it affecting him.
He reached the cottage at length at the far end of the village. It was
but a tiny crib, but it was the best they could get at so short a
notice, and they would not have got that if Sir John Hamblyn could have
had his way.
Ralph could hardly repress a groan when he stepped over the threshold.
It was so painfully small after their roomy house at Hillside. The
whitewashers and paperhangers had just finished, and were gathering up
their tools, and a couple of charwomen were scouring the floors.
A few minutes later there was a patter on the uncarpeted stairs, and
Ruth appeared, with red eyes and dishevelled hair.
"There seems nothing that I can do," he said, without appearing to
notice that she had been crying.
"Not to-day," she answered, looking past him; "but there will be plenty
for you to do to-morrow."
Half an hour later they walked away together toward Hillside Farm, but
neither was in the mood for conversation. Ralph looked up the drive
towards Hamblyn Manor as they passed the park gates, but no one was
about, and the name of Hamblyn was not mentioned.
During the rest of the day all the Penlogans were kept busy getting
things ready for the carts on the morrow. To any bystander it would have
been a pathetic sight to see how each one tried to keep his or her
trouble from the rest, and even to wear a cheerful countenance.
Neither talked of the past, nor uttered any word of regret, but they
planned where this piece of furniture should be placed in the new house,
and where that, and speculated as to how the wardrobe should be got up
the narrow stairs, and in which room the big chest of drawers should be
placed.
David seemed the least interested of the family. He sat for the most
part like one dazed, and watched the others in a vague, unseeing way.
Ruth and her mother bustled about the house, pretending to do a dozen
things, and talked all the while about the fittings and curtains and
pictures.
When evening came on, and there was no longer any room for pretence,
they sat together in the parlour before a fire of logs, for the air was
chilly, and the wind had risen considerably. No one attempted to break
the silence, but each one knew what the others were thinking about. The
wind rumbled in the chimney and whispered through the chinks of the
window, but no one heeded it.
This was to be their last evening together in the old home, which they
had learned to love so much, and the pathos of the situation was too
deep for words. They were silent, and apparently calm, not because they
were resigned, but because they were helpless. They had schooled
themselves not to resignation, but to endurance. They could be silent,
but they could never approve. The loathing they felt for John Hamblyn
grew hour by hour. They could have seen him gibbeted with a sense of
infinite satisfaction.
The day faded quickly in the west, and the firelight alone illumined the
room. Ralph, from his corner by the chimney-breast, could see the faces
of all the others. Ruth looked sweeter and almost prettier than he had
ever seen her. The chastening hand of sorrow had softened the look in
her dark-brown eyes and touched with melancholy the curves of her rich,
full lips. His mother had aged rapidly. She looked ten years older than
she did ten weeks ago. Trouble had ploughed its furrows deep, and all
the light of hope had gone out of her eyes. But his father was the most
pathetic figure of all. Ralph looked across at him every now and then,
and wondered if he would ever rouse himself again. He looked so worn, so
feeble, so despairing, it would have been a relief to see him get angry.
Ruth had got up at length and lighted the lamp and drew the blind; then,
without a word, sat down again. The wind continued to rumble in the
chimney and sough in the trees outside; but, save for that, no sound
broke the silence. There were no sheep in the pens, no cows in the
shippen, no horses in the stable, and no neighbour came in to say
good-bye.
The evening wore away until it grew late. Then David rose and got the
family Bible and laid it on the table, so that the light of the lamp
fell upon its pages.
Drawing up his chair, he sat down and began to read--
"'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.'"
His voice did not falter in the least. Quietly, and without emphasis, he
read the psalm through to the end; then he knelt on the floor, with his
hands on the chair, the others following his example. His prayer was
very simple that night. He made no direct allusion to the great trouble
that was eating at all their hearts. He gave thanks for the mercies of
the day, and asked for strength to meet the future.
"Now, my dears," he said, as he rose from his knees, "we had better get
off to bed." And he smiled with great sweetness, and Ruth recalled
afterwards how he kissed her several times.
But if he had any premonition of what was coming, he did not betray it
by a single word.