Some friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh, ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly!
SHAKESPEARE.
WHEN Sunday came round Isaac Sharpe surprised his nephew by inviting him
to accompany him on his usual visit to Littlecomb.
‘I don’t think you want me,’ said Richard, colouring and hesitating; ‘I
should only be in the way. Two are company, and three are none, you
know.’
‘Nay now, ’t is a silly notion that. “The more the merrier,” I say.
Besides, I have particular reasons for wanting you to come to-day. You
and Mrs. F. have n’t met since that night as ye ’polygised, have ye?’
‘No,’ said Richard.
‘And I noticed you hung behind when I was talkin’ to her arter church
this mornin’. Was ’ee ashamed o’ meetin’ her?’
‘That’s about it,’ said Richard.
‘Nay, but that will never do. If ye go on a-hangin’ back, and a-keepin’
out o’ her way, things will get awk’arder and awk’arder a-tween ye. Now,
take my advice and come along wi’ I quite quiet and nat’ral; it’ll all
pass off so easy as ye could wish. Just drop in same as myself. I want
’ee to be friends.’
‘Well, I can’t refuse if you put it like that,’ said Marshall. And the
two sallied forth together.
In spite of Mr. Sharpe’s prognostication, there was decidedly a little
awkwardness about the young people’s meeting. Rosalie greeted Richard
somewhat stiffly, and invited him with formal politeness to take a seat.
‘’T is a fine day,’ began Isaac, as he installed himself in the
high-backed elbow-chair which had now become his by consecrated right.
Rosalie responded hastily that it was a very fine day.
‘Ah,’ remarked the farmer, with a covert note of warning in his voice,
‘my nevvy was a-sayin’ as we come along that it was a wonderful fine day
for the time o’ year—did n’t ’ee, Richard?’
As it happened to be the time of year when fine days were not uncommon,
this alleged observation would not have testified to any extraordinary
perspicacity on Richard’s part; but as a matter of fact it was entirely
fictitious. Nevertheless the young man did not repudiate it.
‘Yes,’ he said, with his eyes on the floor; ‘yes, to be sure.’
‘Did n’t ’ee find it oncommon warm in church, Mrs. F.?’ pursued Mr.
Sharpe, after a short silence.
‘Yes, I did,’ agreed she. ‘I was longing for someone to open the door.’
‘Mrs. F. d’ say,’ cried Isaac, turning to his nephew with an explanatory
bawl, which was intended to stimulate him to further efforts at
conversation—‘Mrs. F. d’ say, Richard, as she found it oncommon warm in
church.’
Richard’s eyes travelled slowly from the carpet to his uncle’s face,
where they rested; for the life of him he could not muster courage to
move them to the blooming face on the other side.
‘Oh,’ he commented faintly, ‘did she?’
‘’Ees,’ said Isaac emphatically; ‘do ’ee ax her—’ Here he jerked his
thumb significantly in Rosalie’s direction. ‘She d’ say as she was
a-wishin’ as somebody ’ud open the door—did n’t ’ee, my dear?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Rosalie.
‘Ah, she’ll tell ’ee about that, Richard,’ went on Isaac; and his
enormous boot came slowly sliding across the floor till it reached
Richard’s foot, which it proceeded to kick in an admonitory fashion.
‘Jist ax her about that—If ye’d ha’ known she was wantin’ the door open
you’d ha’ opened it fast enough for Mrs. F., would n’t ’ee, Richard?’
‘Certainly,’ responded Marshall, with his eyes still glued on his uncle’s
face.
‘Ah, you can jist talk about that,’ hinted the latter, as he proceeded to
search in his pocket for his pipe.
A dead silence ensued. Isaac looked from one to the other, and the
perspiration stood upon his brow. His strenuous efforts had exhausted
him, but the desired consummation seemed just as far off as ever.
‘Have you got your tobacco-box, Uncle Isaac?’ inquired the dutiful nephew
presently.
‘Let me give you a light,’ said Rosalie.
There they were again! What was the good of their talking to him? He
wanted them to talk to each other.
‘Richard,’ said Isaac, after sucking for a moment at his pipe—when
Rosalie applied the match a flash of inspiration had come to
him—‘Richard, my boy, ye have n’t been round this here farm since ye come
home, have ’ee?’
‘No,’ said Richard; ‘but I know it well of old.’
‘Ah, but there’s been improvement since ye left—there’s been a many
improvements. Ye’d better take him round, Mrs. F., and show him all
what’s been done the last few years. He be oncommon fond o’ stretching
his legs—Richard be—and it’ll just suit him—won’t it, Richard?’
Richard stammered confusedly that he should like it of all things.
‘And you be a wonderful one for fresh air yourself, Mrs. F.,’ went on the
diplomatist. ‘Jist take ’en out and show ’en everything, there’s a good
soul.’
Rosalie had risen willingly enough, for she had found the previous
constraint exceedingly uncomfortable; but she now paused hesitatingly.
‘Are n’t you coming, Mr. Sharpe?’
‘Nay, my dear, I’ll stay where I be. ’T is very comfortable here i’ th’
chimney corner, and I bain’t so young as I was, d’ ye see? Nay, you two
young folks can go out and freshen yourselves up a bit, and make
acquaintance; and the wold man will bide at home, and smoke his pipe, and
be ready for tea when you come back.’
He nodded at them both with an air of finality, and twisted round his
chair so as to present to their gaze a large and inflexible back.
‘Well, then, we had better start if we are to be back by tea-time,’ said
Rosalie, a little sharply; and Richard took up his hat, and followed her
out in silence.
The whole place was wrapped in Sabbath stillness; milking was over, and a
distant line of red and dappled cows was vanishing down the lane,
followed by one or two of the dairy ‘chaps,’ with white pinners
protecting their Sunday clothes. Save for the calves, which thrust their
blunt, moist noses through the bars of their enclosure, and the fowl
cackling lazily as they lay sunning themselves in the angle of the barn,
the barton was absolutely deserted.
‘We drained the big mead four years ago,’ said Rosalie, ‘and threw the
twenty-acre into it; ’t is beautiful pasture now. Would you like to see
it?’
Richard hurriedly expressed a desire to that effect, and the two betook
themselves in silence along a narrow farm-track to the rear of the house,
which led to the field in question. They walked with the breadth of the
lane between them, and in unbroken silence; their eyes, by common accord,
gazing straight in front, and both secretly rebelling against the
expedient which Isaac had deemed so happily devised. At length they came
to a gate set in the hedge, and turned to look over it. A great green
expanse stretched away before their gaze, meeting the sky-line on one
side where it sloped upwards, and melting on the other into the lighter,
more delicate green of springing corn; beyond were the woods, which, as
well as the low line of hills behind them, were covered by a gentle haze.
Richard leaned his elbows on the topmost rail of the gate, and his face
gradually cleared as his eyes roamed over the landscape.
This county of Dorset has given birth to more than one great writer of
lowly origin, whose early nurture amid field, and heath, and woodland has
fostered an intimate and loving sympathy with Nature, to which each in
turn has given exquisite expression. Richard Marshall, born of the same
sturdy peasant stock, brought up amid the same pastoral surroundings,
possessed a somewhat kindred spirit, though he was denied this gift of
expression. Yet the inglorious rustic Milton was not always mute; he had
read so much, and meditated so much, and, above all, felt so deeply, that
at times something of what he thought and felt struggled to his lips and
found vent in words, inadequate, indeed, but suggestive.
‘How beautiful it all is!’ he said, turning to Rosalie, with a very
poet’s rapture in his eyes. ‘It seems to fill one like music.’
‘Yet I suppose you have seen far finer sights during your travels,’
returned she, speaking naturally for the first time, as she too leaned
over the gate.
‘Finer things? Oh, yes, perhaps; but this homely beauty touches me as no
other sight could do. Something about a great sketch of green like this
always affects me curiously. I love these wide fields.’
‘Yes, I remember your saying so,’ said Rosalie. The ice was broken now
and she could talk to him freely, even taking courage to broach a subject
which had much occupied her thoughts lately. ‘You told me, you know, how
pleased you were at the sight of the cornfield in—in my picture.’
He did not turn towards her, and continued to scan the mead; but over his
brown face she saw the colour rush quickly.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said; ‘of course I remember telling you about it.’
‘I wanted to ask you was—was the picture a very large one; and was it
well painted?’
‘Yes, very large indeed, and beautifully painted. There was an iron
railing in front of it because people pressed round it so. I was told it
was the picture of the year.’
‘Was it?’ cried Rosalie; and at the note of delight in her voice he
turned and looked at her with a smile. Her cheeks were pink with
excitement, her eyes shining. ‘Oh!’ she cried, with a sigh of longing,
‘I would give anything to see it.’
‘I have a little print of it here,’ returned he impulsively; ‘I cut it
out of a paper. It will give you some idea of it, though of course a
very poor one.’
In another moment he partly withdrew from its enclosure the print in
question, holding the envelope firmly in his own hand, however, so that
the charred margin was hidden.
‘See,’ he said, pointing with his disengaged hand, ‘there is your
house—over there in the corner, and here are your men, and here, under
the piled-up sheaves, are you. But of course the figure in the picture
is far more like you.’
‘I see,’ said Rosalie. ‘Yes, it must be a nice picture; and you say it
is beautifully done?’
‘It is beautifully done. It is so real, so vivid, that I felt as if I
could walk into the picture. These sheaves stand out so that one might
think it easy to pass behind them.’
He glanced up as he said these words, and was surprised to see Rosalie
colour almost to the temples. His own heart gave a sudden throb. Was it
possible that she had divined the audacious thought which had so often
come to him as he recalled that picture, and which, since his uncle’s
revelations, he had resolutely striven to banish?
As a matter of fact there did happen to be a certain similarity between
this thought of his and that which had caused Rosalie to change colour.
For there had flashed across her mind the remembrance of the unknown
artist’s words: ‘Perhaps if I come across a very attractive specimen of a
rustic I may place him just behind the stook.’
‘This is the name underneath, I suppose?’ she said hastily. ‘What is the
picture called? I cannot see from here.’
‘It is called “A Sleeping Beauty,”’ returned Richard.
She was dumb for a moment, hot waves of colour rushing over brow and
neck. What was it the man had said last year? ‘You will wake up some
day, my beauty.’ Words of ill omen! They had often tantalised and
tormented her, but now, as they recurred to her, her heart seemed to
stand still. Ashamed of her burning face, on which the young man’s eyes
were now fixed, and of the agitation which she could not master, she
suddenly bent forward confusedly.
‘What is the name of the painter? Let me look.’
Before Richard could divine her intention she had snatched the print from
his hand, its black and jagged edges immediately catching her eye.
‘Why,’ she said in an altered tone—‘why, it is burnt.’
It was now Richard’s turn to look confused. ‘I began to burn it, but
repented of my intention.’
‘You wanted to burn it,’ said Rosalie, ‘because you were so angry with
me. Why were you so angry with me? Was it because of—of what your uncle
told you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know he did not mean to do me harm,’ said Rosalie tremulously, ‘but I
don’t think he—he can have made you understand properly. Everything was
going wrong, and—and I was so much bothered; I found I could not manage
by myself, and he had been my poor Elias’s friend’—she was beginning to
sob now—‘and I knew I could trust him not to do anything Elias would n’t
have liked, and—oh, it is so difficult to explain!’
‘Pray do not try to explain,’ said Richard very gently.
‘But you should n’t misjudge me as you do,’ cried she, and then burst
into tears.
‘I do not misjudge you now,’ said Richard in a low voice. ‘Oh, don’t
cry! I assure you I understand. You have been quite right—quite right
all along.’
The big tearful blue eyes looked at him over the crumpled handkerchief.
‘But you said—you said I sold myself,’ she gasped. ‘You should n’t have
said that! I loved my husband.’
‘I am sure you did,’ said Richard gravely and tenderly.
‘Yes, indeed I did. I loved him from the first. He was like a father to
me.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Richard, and he looked at her with an odd mixture of
wonder and compassion.
‘He was just as kind and dotingly fond of me as my own dear granfer.’
‘To be sure,’ said Richard. ‘Yes; no wonder you loved him.’
Something in his tone caused Rosalie to pull down her handkerchief and to
cast a keen glance at him.
‘Why do you look at me like that?’ she said passionately.
‘Was I looking at you in any particular way?’ returned he, averting his
eyes quickly.
‘Yes, you were. You were looking at me as if you were sorry for me! How
dare you be sorry for me?’
‘Were you not telling me,’ he said quietly, ‘how much you felt the loss
of your good old husband?’
‘You know it was not that,’ she retorted. ‘You looked at me as if I were
a child who had no sense—as if I did not know what I was saying.’
‘Did I?’ said Richard. ‘I beg your pardon.’
‘Is that what you really think of me?’ pursued she, her eyes full of
wrathful fire, though the tears were still standing on her cheeks.
‘Answer me—I insist on your answering me!’
Richard’s gaze had been fixed on the little print which she was holding,
and Rosalie, marking this, had felt an increase of indignation. Did he
dare to share the opinion which the artist had so impertinently
pronounced? Rousing himself, however, he turned towards her, and their
eyes met.
‘I do think,’ he said, ‘that you know very little of life. Perhaps it is
all the better for you. The fruit of the tree of knowledge is nearly
always bitter—and sometimes it is poisonous.’
Rosalie was about to make a very angry rejoinder when the sound of steps
close to them made them both suddenly start; on looking round they beheld
a loving couple, such as are so frequently to be met with in rural
districts on Sunday afternoons, sauntering down the lane.
Rosalie hastily restored her handkerchief to her pocket, and again leaned
over the gate, endeavouring to assume a careless attitude; but she was
secretly much annoyed, for the young man who was so gallantly escorting a
much befringed and beribboned lady was no other than Sam Belbin. At any
other time she would have been somewhat amused on discovering how soon
her lowly admirer had consoled himself. He was working at Branston now,
and his companion was evidently a townswoman; but that he should come on
her just then, in the midst of her tears and wrath, with Richard Marshall
in such close proximity, was most vexatious.
Sam stared hard as he approached, taking in, as Rosalie felt though she
did not again look towards him, every compromising detail of the
situation. When they had passed on he made some facetious remark to the
girl on whose arm he was hanging, to which she responded by loud
laughter.
The little incident impressed Rosalie disagreeably: she turned to Richard
petulantly, holding out the little print which had been the cause of so
much agitation.
‘You had better finish burning this,’ she said.
‘Perhaps I had,’ returned he, with unexpected docility.
Isaac looked so placid and cheery when they entered, and greeted them
with so bright a smile, that Rosalie was conscious of a sudden rush of
remorse.
Going up to him she placed her hand upon his shoulder, a caress which
astonished its recipient mightily, for he was not accustomed to
endearments from her. Rosalie kept her hand there, however, glancing
defiantly at Richard the while, as though to say, ‘You are wrong in
thinking me so ignorant; see how I love and appreciate this good man;’
and Richard smiled back kindly, as if replying, ‘I see it, indeed, and I
am glad that you are content.’
‘Well,’ said Isaac, squinting down sideways at Rosalie’s hand. ‘Well,
Mrs. F., did you take ’en all over the place?’
‘I took Mr. Marshall to see the big mead,’ returned she, a little
doubtfully.
‘Ah, I’m sure he thought that improved. Well, and then you took ’en up
to see the root crop?’
‘No—no, we did n’t go there; we did n’t like to go too far, as you were
here by yourself.’
‘Why, I were all right.’ Here Isaac slowly lifted the shoulder on which
Rosalie’s hand still lingered, and again glanced down at it. As, taking
the hint, she withdrew it, he gently rubbed the place where it had
rested.
‘You took ’en down to the carnfield, though,’ he continued. ‘I’ll engage
he thought them oats was a-comin’ on wonderful.’
But they had not been to the cornfield, it appeared, nor yet to see the
potatoes, nor round by the vegetable garden, nor through the orchard;
they had just been to the big mead and back.
‘Well,’ commented Mr. Sharpe, gazing at them in amazement, ‘ye must ha’
walked oncommon slow!’
‘We stood for some time looking at the view,’ said Richard, seeing
Rosalie somewhat confounded.
‘Lookin’ at the view, eh?’ echoed his uncle. ‘There bain’t any view to
speak on from the mead. If you’d ha’ gone a bit further up the lane and
turned the corner ye’d ha’ had a beautiful view o’ Branston. But if you
enj’yed yourselves it’s all right.’
He wheeled round in his chair as he made this last remark, and looked
from one to the other of the young folks. Both faces were alike
downcast, and somewhat paler than usual. After a moment’s scrutiny Isaac
became as crestfallen as they.
‘So long as you enj’yed yourselves,’ he repeated slowly. ‘So long as
ye’ve a-made friends—I want ’ee to be friends, d’ ye see?’
Rosalie and Richard glanced at each other. He read in her face a kind of
antagonism mingled with fear, and dropped his eyes quickly lest they
might betray the anguish and longing with which his heart was full to
bursting.
‘I want ’ee to be friends, d’ ye see?’ repeated the farmer anxiously and
pleadingly. ‘There’s me and you, Mrs. F., as friendly as can be; and
there’s you and me, Richard—you’re much the same’s a son to me, bain’t
ye?—well, then there’s you and Mrs. F., why should n’t ’ee be friendly
wi’ her?’
Richard, to whom the question was directed, remained dumb. _Friends_!
Could they ever be friends?
Rosalie, however, made a step forward and extended her hand.
‘Why should we not, indeed?’ she said. ‘To tell you the truth, Isaac, we
have done nothing but quarrel since we first met each other, which was
very silly and unreasonable of us. Now, for your sake I am determined
not to quarrel any more; and for your sake, I think, he too should be
willing to keep the peace.’
‘Well said!’ cried Isaac heartily. ‘Well said, Mrs. F.! Now, Richard,
my boy, where’s your hand? Just catch hold o’ Mrs. F.’s. That’s
it—that’s it! Shake it well!’ Here he thumped the arm of his chair
jubilantly. ‘You’ll be the best o’ friends from this day for’ard! Here
we be, we three, friends all! Jist as me and poor ’Lias and Mrs. F. was
friends—dear heart alive! yes, we was friends too—the best o’ friends!
We was three then, and we be three now, bain’t us, Mrs. F.? We three! I
do mind a old song as your poor dear mother used to sing, Richard:
‘When shall we three meet agen?
In starm, in zunshine, ar in rain!’
Lard, yes, she used to sing it, poor soul! Well, now we be three agen,
bain’t us? Three good friends! So, if you’ll mix the usu’l glass, Mrs.
F., we’ll drink to the bond o’ good fellowship.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Rosalie indistinctly. ‘I forgot all about your
glass, Isaac; I’m so sorry; I’ll see to it at once.’
She ran out of the room, glad to make her escape, and Richard sat down
near the hearth.
Friends! They were to be friends as his uncle, and Elias, and Rosalie
had once been friends! He had felt her hand twitch in his as Isaac had
spoken; to her the proposition was doubtless as distasteful as to him it
was impossible. What was his uncle thinking of? There were some things
which flesh and blood—young flesh and blood—could not brook, and this
triangular bond was one of them. But he would be patient for a little
while; he would choke down his rebellious sense of injury. His secret,
thank Heaven! was secure; neither the guileless Isaac nor Rosalie herself
had the faintest idea of the miserable passion which he was striving so
hard to conquer. What was it she had said? They were to be
friends—friends for his uncle’s sake. His uncle, to whom he owed
everything—his kind, faithful, generous old benefactor. Well, he would
try.
That night, in the seclusion of his attic room, he once more drew forth
Rosalie’s picture.
‘Sleep on, Beauty,’ he said. ‘Sleep on in peace! I shall not try to
wake you. Sleep soundly; do not even dream.’
And, after a last silent look, he held it steadily in the flame of the
candle, watching its destruction unflinchingly until the last feathery
film dropped from his fingers.