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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76967 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+  PRINCESS PUCK
+
+  BY
+  U. L. SILBERRAD
+
+  London
+  MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
+  1902
+
+  _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                 PAGE
+
+       I. MISS BROWNLOW’S NIECES,                            1
+
+      II. BILL,                                             12
+
+     III. ROBERT MORTON,                                    20
+
+      IV. HARBOROUGH OF CROWS’ FARM,                        31
+
+       V. FOR BILL’S GOOD,                                  44
+
+      VI. THE RIGHT OF WAY,                                 57
+
+     VII. HARBOROUGH OF GURNETT,                            72
+
+    VIII. THE COURTSHIP OF HARBOROUGH OF GURNETT,           88
+
+      IX. “RED IS THE ROSE,”                               107
+
+       X. IN THE GARDEN,                                   124
+
+      XI. WILHELMINA I. AND II.,                           138
+
+     XII. NATURAL SELECTION,                               150
+
+    XIII. CHASING A SHADOW,                                156
+
+     XIV. THE COURTSHIP OF HARBOROUGH OF CROWS’ FARM,      171
+
+      XV. FAMILY HISTORY,                                  187
+
+     XVI. A GRANDFATHER,                                   198
+
+    XVII. THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF A GUARDIAN,              208
+
+   XVIII. THE PLUM HARVEST,                                219
+
+     XIX. PETER HARBOROUGH: SHOT,                          231
+
+      XX. HARBOROUGH OF BYBRIDGE,                          248
+
+     XXI. THE ACQUISITIVE FACULTY,                         266
+
+    XXII. POLLY SETTLES THINGS,                            279
+
+   XXIII. PETER HARBOROUGH’S SHOE-BUCKLES,                 285
+
+    XXIV. THE COURTSHIP OF HARBOROUGH OF BYBRIDGE,         303
+
+     XXV. GENERAL SERVANT,                                 317
+
+    XXVI. AN OLD WOUND,                                    337
+
+   XXVII. A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK,                         346
+
+  XXVIII. THE OAK BOX GOES TO WRUGGLESBY,                  364
+
+    XXIX. POLLY PROVES A TRUE PROPHET,                     378
+
+     XXX. A RELISH WITH TEA,                               392
+
+    XXXI. THE FULFILLING OF THE DREAM,                     399
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+MISS BROWNLOW’S NIECES.
+
+
+It was in March that Bill Alardy went to Ashelton. She was sent there
+“to grow up,” Polly said, and added some sceptical remarks with regard
+to both place and person. “Poor little Wilhelmina,” said Miss Brownlow,
+“she has never had a fair chance among us all; the best possible thing
+for her would be to go to Ashelton with Theresa.” And Miss Brownlow
+should have known, for she was acquainted with Ashelton, and even
+better acquainted with Bill, having had the doubtful pleasure of her
+charge and company from early childhood. Polly did not know much about
+Ashelton; she had only been there once to spend the day with Theresa,
+which was a grievance in itself, for Theresa had lived there ever since
+her marriage last June. That, however, was beside the point; Polly did
+not so much base her doubts of the efficacy of the plan on Ashelton as
+on Bill, and she had known her as long as Miss Brownlow, for she was
+the eldest, as Bill was the youngest, of the four nieces Miss Brownlow
+had taken into her household. Polly’s opinion and Miss Brownlow’s were
+not identical on the subject of Bill; but when the matter of the going
+to Ashelton was being discussed Polly did not consider it necessary to
+give undue prominence to the difference, thinking Bill might as well go
+even if it did her no good.
+
+It was a Monday evening when the plan was first mentioned, and Miss
+Brownlow was making up her accounts at the time. She always made up
+her accounts on Monday evenings. In her opinion there was no other
+time half so satisfactory, because, as she said, there was Sunday just
+before, and it was so easy to remember forgotten things on a Sunday.
+Perhaps it was not right to think of such things then, and of course
+she never did so on purpose, only one cannot help things flashing
+across one’s mind. Occasionally the things flashed away again before
+she had time to secure them on Monday evening; occasionally also, the
+flashes were delusive and baseless; but on the other hand, sometimes
+they did chance to be correct, and then it was most satisfactory. This
+did not make any material difference to Miss Brownlow’s accounts, which
+never by any chance came right; they never had come right since she
+first began keeping them in her girlhood, more years ago than she ever
+mentioned.
+
+“My father always insisted on our keeping an account of our money, and
+how we spent it,” she used to say to her nieces. “It is an excellent
+plan, my dears, for then you know where you are and how you stand.”
+These desirable results did not always occur in her own case, though
+that did not deter her nieces from following the suggestion, each
+according to her nature,--Theresa with neatness and some success,
+Bella with results not unlike her aunt’s, Polly--there were commercial
+instincts in Polly’s blood and her untidy books were kept with an
+accuracy which might have savoured of sharp practice to any one who
+could comprehend them. Bill, of course, was too young to be considered,
+and too penniless to keep a record of her non-existent income;
+moreover, she was only “Poor little Bill--Wilhelmina”--Miss Brownlow
+invariably made the correction in mind and sometimes in speech. She
+sighed as she thought about the girl,--she had just come to the item
+_one shilling, a bottle of Stephens’s blue-black writing-ink_. Bill had
+on Thursday upset the last bottle on the schoolroom-floor, in class,
+too, with all the little girls looking on. How they giggled! Polly said
+afterwards that Bill made them, but Miss Brownlow did not think so.
+Bill was too old to do anything so wrong; she was seventeen now, though
+she seemed such a child. Polly, who was perhaps not without authority
+on the subject, was of opinion that age had little to do with iniquity,
+but Miss Brownlow was not convinced. In any case she had to pay the
+shilling for another bottle of ink. The column of figures she was now
+counting up did not come to the total she expected: “Now what have I
+forgotten?” she said.
+
+Bella and Theresa glanced up but did not hazard a suggestion; they
+knew the remark was not addressed to them, and they went on correcting
+French exercises in silence. These French exercises were really Bella’s
+work, but Theresa was helping her with them to-night. A year ago they
+were Theresa’s own, but when she married her sister had taken up that
+part of her work. Theresa was on a visit to Miss Brownlow, and finding
+herself back among the familiar surroundings it came quite natural to
+her to take up some part of the old duties; besides, she liked to help
+Bella.
+
+As the two tall sisters sat close together, sharing the same dictionary
+and sometimes bending over the same page, Miss Brownlow thought they
+made a beautiful picture; possibly even a less prejudiced observer
+might not have entirely disagreed. Polly was certainly not a prejudiced
+observer, yet even she admitted the sisters’ beauty in a general way.
+She did not look in their direction now, for she was busy with her
+needlework. She sat opposite to Miss Brownlow, close to the lamp, her
+dressmaking scattered around her. She possessed a perfect genius for
+what is technically known as “doing up” her clothes; consequently some
+of them were always undergoing alterations and repairs, and none of
+them kept the same appearance for long together.
+
+“I cannot account for sixpence,” Miss Brownlow said at last; “on what
+can I have spent sixpence?”
+
+“Cabbages,” Polly said briefly.
+
+“Cabbages! My dear Polly, one cannot buy cabbages at this time of year,
+nor hardly anything else either; vegetables are so dear and scarce, it
+is really quite dreadful.”
+
+“Sweep,” was Polly’s only comment.
+
+But it was not the sweep, Miss Brownlow said. “We have not had him this
+fortnight past,” she declared. “Don’t you remember, the last--”
+
+“Then we ought to have had.”
+
+“Oh, I am sure we do not need him yet, don’t you remember the last time
+he came--”
+
+Polly did not remember, and she showed no interest in the reminiscence;
+but Theresa, who did not like to hear Miss Brownlow treated so
+cavalierly, encouraged her aunt to describe the last coming of the
+sweep and the delinquencies of the maid-servant who overslept herself
+on that occasion. “And I really do believe he would never have got in
+at all if it had not been for Bill; she heard him ringing and went down
+and let him in,--in her nightdress too!”
+
+“That sixpence is for mending Bill’s boots.” This was Polly’s remark.
+
+“What a memory you have!” Miss Brownlow exclaimed, and Polly showed
+signs of remembering the incident of the sweep. “Bill did go down to
+him,” she said, “in her nightdress and _nothing else_. I should like to
+know how long she stopped down with him!”
+
+Polly had a habit of talking in italics; her treatment of the English
+language made it acquire an almost double value, her intonation giving
+the words an additional worth and meaning. Her last speech was an
+admirable example of her methods; there were many more things implied
+in it than were said. It was the implications which made Bella exclaim,
+“You are hard on the child.”
+
+“Oh, well!” And Polly shrugged her shoulders and bent over her work
+again.
+
+“Poor little Bill, poor little Wilhelmina!” Miss Brownlow sighed softly.
+
+Polly sniffed and Theresa asked: “How much longer are you going to let
+her be in the school?”
+
+“Oh, a long time,” Miss Brownlow answered readily; she had not begun
+to contemplate the problem of Bill’s future, nor even to admit its
+existence. Polly knew that and her small dark eyes showed that she knew
+it as she remarked: “I began to teach the little ones before I was
+seventeen.”
+
+Miss Brownlow looked distressed, but Bella said cheerfully: “That was
+long ago; Auntie wanted help then. Now it is quite different; if Bill
+were ever so able to teach there would not be the slightest need for
+her to do it; in fact I don’t see whom she would teach.”
+
+This speech, though perhaps hardly likely to fulfil its comforting
+intention, was unfortunately only too true. It was indisputable that
+Miss Brownlow’s school was not what it had been, that its best days
+lay behind it. At one time it had been almost an Establishment, the
+recognised school of Wrugglesby, the place to which the country
+clergymen and gentlemen-farmers of the surrounding districts sent their
+daughters. The boarders were so many then that it had been necessary
+to have a _mademoiselle_ and a visiting English governess. That was
+some time ago, but even when Theresa first began to help with the
+teaching, things were more prosperous than they were now. Gradually
+they had changed; times had changed, boarders had fallen off one by
+one, new ones did not come; girls went further now,--to Brighton, to
+Bournemouth, even to France and Germany. Mademoiselle left, and it
+hardly seemed necessary to fill her place, for Theresa was a very good
+French scholar. The English governess married, and Bella was found
+equal to doing all that was left of her work. Then, rather more than a
+year ago, Theresa married, and though Miss Brownlow talked of finding
+some nice well-educated girl to fill her place, nothing came of it.
+Theresa used to take the elder girls, and they were so few now that
+Bella could quite well help Miss Brownlow with them, especially as she
+was rather clever; she had passed the Cambridge Local Examination and
+attended some history lectures. Polly, of course, still taught the
+little ones; she always had done so, and had always contrived to drill
+a certain amount of information into them. It is to be feared that
+she did not know very much herself; even Miss Brownlow was obliged to
+admit that; yet she possessed a far greater faculty for teaching than
+did the more accomplished Bella. As the school was chiefly composed
+of little girls, it really was important that they should be well
+taught. Sometimes Miss Brownlow felt a passing regret when she saw them
+struggling for their overshoes in the lobby; they were not what her old
+pupils had been, not of the same social position, not of the same age;
+most of them were “reductions” on account of sisters past, present, or
+to come; none of them were likely to remain any length of time, none of
+them were even weekly boarders. There were only two boarders besides
+Wilhelmina, who could hardly be counted since she belonged to the
+household.
+
+Miss Wilson, the principal of the High School two stations up the line,
+thought of Miss Brownlow when, in her able paper on the education of
+girls, she had written of teachers of the past. Miss Brownlow was
+of the past, not highly educated, not clever, but kindly, simple,
+pleasant, well loved by those pupils of long ago, a gentle power for
+good in those past best days,--and in the present? Ah, well, the school
+was going; there were no boarders to be influenced one way or the
+other now, and the little girls who came daily did not trouble about
+Miss Brownlow. She was of a race of schoolmistresses fast disappearing
+from the earth, vanishing under the inexorable law of the survival of
+the fittest. She was not the fittest. Inefficient? Yes, that was it;
+inefficient for modern needs, modern wants; growing old, just a little
+past the work she once did, not at all fit for the work now to be
+done; never a very wise woman, thank God, not wise enough to know that
+she was a failure.
+
+“Wilhelmina will teach somewhere else,” Miss Brownlow said, after she
+had mentally reviewed the prospect called up by Bella’s words; and
+mercifully the prospect she reviewed was not quite that which other
+people saw.
+
+“Where?” Polly asked casually, as if the matter were of small moment.
+
+Miss Brownlow did not know. She had not thought, and the question was
+embarrassing.
+
+Bella came to the rescue. “Mrs. Caxton will want a governess if her
+little girls are leaving at Easter. They are leaving because they
+always catch colds from the other children, so she is sure to want a
+governess.”
+
+“Yes, of course,” Miss Brownlow said enthusiastically; “it would be the
+very thing for Bill; she never has a cold.”
+
+“H’m! What is she to teach? How not to catch cold? It is about the only
+thing she knows, and she does that by accident.”
+
+“They are so young,” Miss Brownlow went on, delighted with the plan and
+regardless of Polly’s interruption; “they will only want elementary
+teaching, reading and writing and spelling.”
+
+“Bill can’t spell, not that that matters so very much though”--Polly
+perhaps knew by experience that it was possible to teach a subject in
+which you were not very deeply learned. “It certainly would not matter
+to Bill, nothing would matter. If she could spell every word in the
+dictionary, do you suppose any one would have her for a governess?”
+
+“I don’t know why not,--when she is a little older of course. She is
+such a child yet; wait till she is grown up.”
+
+“We have been waiting,” Polly observed grimly.
+
+“She is very young for her age; I am sure I don’t know how it is.”
+
+“She was born without gumption,” said Polly with conviction, “and she
+has never been able to acquire any general knowledge.”
+
+“She is not clever,” Miss Brownlow admitted sadly.
+
+“Cleverness has nothing to do with it,” Polly retorted. “If you
+start in life lacking what Bill lacks, you must do what you can with
+common-sense. That will teach you a few things,--what not to say, and
+how to say it, and--and all that. Bill has no common-sense.”
+
+“We have always treated her like a child;” and here Miss Brownlow
+sighed again.
+
+It was then that Theresa suggested that Bill should come home with her
+to stay at Ashelton for a little while. Miss Brownlow was delighted
+with the suggestion; it was just the thing, she was sure. No doubt the
+girl would develop; Theresa would use her influence, and her young
+cousin had always been so fond of her, had always respected and admired
+her so much; such a visit would be the best possible thing. Theresa
+herself did not anticipate very great results, but she promised to do
+her best, and after some discussion of details regarding the proposed
+visit, Miss Brownlow returned to her accounts and the sisters to the
+exercises, interrupted only now and again by a repetition of the elder
+lady’s satisfaction with the plan. After the third interruption Polly
+yawned aggressively. When there was silence again she bit her cotton
+and looked thoughtfully across at Miss Brownlow, at the kindly face,
+the thin hair, the black stuff gown she knew so well. She did not
+approve of the whole effect; she thought it “snuffy,” and as such
+unlikely to create a favourable impression on the parents of possible
+scholars. She looked beyond Miss Brownlow to the wall behind,--to the
+pale-toned paper with faint gold lines and fainter grey flowers, to the
+old-fashioned water-colours in shabby gilt frames, the white marble
+mantelpiece with red glass candlesticks upon it, and to the rosewood
+chairs covered with green rep, standing one on either side of the
+fireplace. The room was no more attractive than Miss Brownlow’s dress,
+she thought; it was terribly old-fashioned in comparison with Miss
+Wilson’s flatted walls and artistic green cushions. Polly had a poor
+opinion of art-colours, but she seriously considered the advisability
+of draping some of the household gods with the best of the shades of
+yellow. She was, in her own mind, reckoning the quantity of material
+necessary, when Miss Brownlow again broke in on her reflections.
+
+“Are you sure Robert won’t mind?” she asked for the fourth time.
+
+“Quite sure,” was Theresa’s answer.
+
+“That’s all right; I should not like to put him about at all. You are
+quite certain?”
+
+Theresa was quite certain, and the subject was dismissed. Polly
+breathed a heavy sigh, and once more fell back on her own thoughts.
+These now turned from the art-materials to Robert Morton, Theresa’s
+husband. Polly had not a very high opinion of Robert Morton; she liked
+him well enough, but considered him a bad speculation. “He’ll die of
+apoplexy--poor Theresa--I’m sorry for that poor girl. He’ll certainly
+die of it, and I expect he’ll die young.” So she had once said to the
+indignant Bella, and she thought of the verdict again this evening as
+she glanced at the sisters and mentally dressed Theresa in widow’s
+weeds. She would make a handsome widow, though perhaps not so effective
+as Bella. Polly glanced meditatively at Bella; a widow’s cap would
+look well on that golden head. Theresa was darker and older too by
+nearly four years; she would be twenty-six in the summer and she looked
+her age; in fact, Theresa was almost too dignified. Bella was not
+dignified, though she was tall. They were both tall and graceful and
+clear-skinned; both had blue eyes, Theresa’s grave and sweet, Bella’s
+holy, innocent, suggesting a madonna’s eyes to the observer until he
+became aware of the turned-up nose between; “a flirt’s nose,” Polly
+called it. Theresa’s features were better, though less attractive; she
+had not a flirt’s nose, but also she had no tantalising dimple in her
+chin. Still they were both undeniably beauties, and Polly was nothing
+of the sort.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+BILL.
+
+
+Theresa and Bella Waring were beauties when they came to Miss
+Brownlow’s seven years ago, well-educated, well-informed, used to the
+ways of society (of small professional society), and possessed of sixty
+pounds a year between them. Their father had been dead some years then;
+it was their mother’s death which sent them and their sixty pounds to
+Langford House. Theresa came to help with the teaching, Bella to finish
+her education first, and afterwards to fill her sister’s place. Of
+course Miss Brownlow received them gladly, loved them warmly, mothered
+them to the best of her ability. She would have done that for any
+number of nieces, and she did it heartily for these four. Polly felt
+angry as she thought of their numbers, and thought contemptuously of
+the Brownlow family and its faculty for dying. There had been five Miss
+Brownlows originally; one died young, three married first and then
+died at their earliest convenience, leaving their children as a legacy
+to the remaining sister who neither married nor died. She, possessed
+of short views, a large heart, and an inexhaustible supply of hope,
+welcomed them with open arms. Two of them she had to adopt entirely;
+the other two, Theresa and Bella, came to her better endowed, better
+equipped, and at a more convenient age.
+
+And what had they done with their advantages? Polly put the case to
+herself with contemptuous irritation. Bella, so she summed it up, Bella
+at twenty-two had done nothing; Theresa at twenty-six had contrived to
+marry a small farmer. No doubt his family had originally been good,
+but one cannot live on a good family, especially if it is all but
+extinct; and the goodness did not prevent Robert from being a farmer
+in a small way, and an unsuccessful one too. He was undoubtedly a poor
+speculation; his tastes were expensive, his inclinations horsey, his
+income small, his tendencies apoplectic; he would soon, no doubt, die,
+and die suddenly, leaving Theresa no better off than she was a year
+ago. Really these two girls were stupid, as stupid as the Brownlow
+family. And yet their mother had been the best of the five sisters,
+according to all accounts; the strongest as well as the prettiest,
+for she had managed to live to quite a respectable age. Possibly her
+daughters were like her; they were sensible enough for any ordinary
+occasion but they were not, in Polly’s opinion, able to take advantage
+of adverse circumstances. “They would die off easily,” she thought,
+“and they haven’t an idea between them worth mentioning.”
+
+Polly was not like the Brownlow family. She took after her father,
+a dubious advantage, and she flattered herself that she had ideas
+worth,--well, something, although perhaps they were not always quite
+suitable for public mention. She also had an easy conscience, and
+in her youth some little acquaintance with social byways. She had a
+tenacious hold on life, and was not likely to follow her mother’s and
+aunts’ example and die easily. “So has Bill,” she thought; “she is
+silly and she is ugly, but she won’t fade out of the world in a hurry,
+though I can’t see what good she will ever be in it.”
+
+This last sentiment found something like an echo, albeit unexpressed,
+in the minds of two other inmates of Langford House, the two boarders
+Carrie and Alice. They were quiet, inoffensive girls, a year or two
+younger than Bill, and forced by circumstances to have more of her
+company than they desired. The greater part of the day the three were
+together, and for the night they shared one room so that the sisters’
+nocturnal confidences had to be held in common with their companion.
+It must be admitted that Carrie and Alice did not altogether like
+Bill, though they felt a sort of superior pity for her which was not
+all unpleasant. On the evening when Miss Brownlow and her nieces were
+planning Bill’s future good, Carrie and Alice were giving her a little
+advice while going to bed. It was on the subject of hairdressing,
+Carrie thinking it was time Bill coiled her hair on the top of her head.
+
+“It’s quite time,” she concluded. “Are you going to wait till you are
+eighteen? When are you going to do it up?”
+
+Bill considered: “To-morrow,” she said at last.
+
+“To-morrow?” Carrie repeated, and Alice added: “You can’t, you haven’t
+got any hairpins.”
+
+“I’ll get some of Bella’s.”
+
+“You can’t,” Carrie said again, and turning to the glass began to
+arrange her own hair.
+
+“Miss Waring has gold-coloured hairpins,” Alice remarked; “you could
+not use them.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Because it would look horrid to have brass hairpins sticking out of
+your hair.”
+
+“Is that all?” Bill did not seem impressed.
+
+Carrie turned away from the glass. “That is how I shall do my hair,”
+she said. “I shall do it up the day I leave school, the very day.”
+
+“I like plaits better,” Alice observed; but Bill examined the
+head-dress thoughtfully, and then asked: “And what else will you do
+when you leave school,--besides your hair, I mean?”
+
+“Besides my hair? How ridiculous you are!” Carrie did not seem
+displeased by the question. She condescended to answer it rather fully,
+and as she took off her shoes and stockings talked of the possibilities
+of evening parties, the certainty of afternoon calls, the charms of
+long dresses, and of the young men who stayed at the Rectory. Alice
+joined in this explanation, and in fact the sisters were soon talking
+to and for each other only, having almost forgotten Bill’s presence
+until she exclaimed suddenly: “Men! It’s all men! Why are they nicer
+than women?”
+
+She was sitting on her pillow in her favourite position, her knees
+drawn up, her elbows resting upon them, and her chin framed in her
+hands; she was looking straight in front of her and only turned her
+eyes on the sisters when she spoke. They objected to her method of
+looking round without turning her head; that, in addition to the
+impropriety of the remark, made Carrie answer severely: “Men are not
+nicer than women; nobody thinks so except those who are fast.”
+
+“Yes, they are nicer. You think so, Polly thinks so, Bella thinks so,
+every girl thinks so, though I don’t see why.”
+
+“You don’t know any men”; this was said with great contempt.
+
+“No, nor any girls either, except you two, and you are nice!” Bill had
+an enormous mouth and the beginning of a smile curved it as she spoke.
+
+“Then it is more than you are,” Alice retorted with irritation, “or you
+would not talk about men like that.”
+
+“Men aren’t half so amusing as women,” Bill went on, ignoring the last
+speech; “and women aren’t half so amusing when men are there. I can’t
+see where the attraction comes in with any of them--the rector, the
+curates, the masters at the grammar-school, Robert Morton, any of them.”
+
+“Of course they don’t take any notice of you,” Carrie said, and Alice
+added: “You only think about people being amusing; you like people whom
+you can imitate.”
+
+“That’s why I like you,” Bill said sweetly. “Why do you like
+people--men?”
+
+“I don’t like men; you have never heard me speak of them!”
+
+“Heard!” Bill laughed. “I have felt; I have felt you crinkle up for a
+boy!”
+
+“You haven’t! How dare you say such things!”
+
+“Why not? Where is the harm? You talk about men to each other, why not
+to me? You never have before, but I see no reason why you should not.
+Do you consider it wrong to like men? How queer it is; you all like men
+and you all pretend you do not. There is a deal of humbug about it.”
+
+“Some people,” Carrie said with severity, “have a sense of decency.”
+
+“A sense of decency? That’s what Adam and Eve had when they hid
+themselves; a sense of decency often seems to mean hiding something.”
+
+“You are very wicked!” Alice said scandalised, and would have nothing
+more to say to Bill for some time, though after the light was out and
+all three were in bed the sisters continued to talk to each other about
+the wonderful future, the first ball Carrie would attend, and the
+events that would follow.
+
+“And after that,” came the voice from Bill’s bed,--“what are you going
+to do after that?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know,” Carrie answered; “marry I suppose. There is a use
+for your despised men; you can’t marry without them.”
+
+“Marry--h’m!--Yes, I expect you will marry.”
+
+“Do you really think so? I don’t know--and yet,--yes, I suppose I
+should rather like to; not yet of course, but by and by, to marry and
+to have several children.”
+
+“Oh, you are sure to; you are like the old white hen with feathers down
+her legs; you would make a splendid sitter.”
+
+“Bill!”
+
+“Now what’s the matter? Is it the sense of decency again?”
+
+But the sisters would not answer her question and, having told her so,
+went on to say that, as it was forbidden to talk after the light was
+out, they were not going to do it any more, especially to her. Then
+they went to sleep, leaving Bill to her own reflections. She, thus
+left, rolled over on her back and lay staring up into the darkness
+above her and thinking. At her age one does not always think with a
+definite coherent clearness; dreaming is more to the mind of seventeen.
+Bill dreamed, fancies and thoughts flitting to and fro in her mind.
+
+About marriage, for instance; last year Theresa had tried the great
+experiment to which Carrie looked forward. Carrie would try it by and
+by; she would become Mrs. Somebody and grow staid and stout and placid;
+she would talk about “my house” and “my husband”; she would bound the
+universe, almost the Kingdom of Heaven by those two; she would wear a
+black silk dress and a heavy gold chain like Mrs. Bodling; she would
+get fatter and fairer and calmer; she would entirely lose sight of her
+feet----
+
+Bill stretched out her own feet, and then lay still to listen. The wind
+crept in at the open window and stirred the curtains; the cloth on the
+toilet-table flapped idly, reminding her of quiet, slumberous summer
+afternoons, of a certain Thursday afternoon in June especially,--it
+was in June that Theresa had entered on the great experiment. In
+the first freshness of early summer she left the school and the old
+routine-work and the narrow, cosy, feminine life and went out to try
+a wider, fuller, new life. She was to have a house of her own and a
+servant; there had been a lot of talk about the house (here Bill built
+an ideal house for herself), a lot of things to be bought, a lot of
+new clothes for Theresa. Miss Brownlow and the girls had pinched and
+scraped and worked; Bill had been allowed to help a little, though her
+work was more strong than neat. Evening after evening Bella and Polly
+and Theresa had sat at work with Miss Brownlow--how they seemed to
+enjoy it! Theresa must have missed that when she went to her new home;
+Bill wondered what she did during those first evenings of the new life.
+Then the great day had come; Bill recalled every detail of it. There
+had been excitement and bustle and people and flowers, Theresa in her
+bridal gown, and everywhere the scent of the little white roses--the
+white roses which made Bill think of funerals, though she did not know
+why.
+
+Then Theresa had gone away. She kissed them all and cried, and smiled
+and cried again, and went. Robert Morton looked rather cross during the
+kissing and crying, but nobody seemed to mind. They were quite sure
+Theresa was happy, quite sure she had attained to all that she desired;
+only Bill thought she must be very lonely. She had also an inward
+conviction, founded on nothing, that Theresa would be desperately
+disappointed in her venture. There was no reason for these thoughts,
+and Theresa had said nothing to suggest them; she seemed happy, and
+they all thought her so except Bill, and Bill was so childish that she
+could not be expected to know anything about the matter. She had only
+once been to Theresa’s home at Ashelton. They had all driven there one
+September day and enjoyed it greatly. Bill could recall every detail of
+the expedition, her memory was vivid and her experiences few. She had
+never been again to Ashelton; she had never been on a visit--
+
+She was growing very sleepy now, and her thoughts became confused with
+the words of the cousins who were speaking just outside the door.
+
+“I shall be very glad to have her.”
+
+“You will be more glad to be rid of her; besides, she has no clothes.”
+
+At the Day of Judgment Polly would still be considering her
+clothes--she would probably want to let out her garment of
+righteousness if--but sleep mastered Bill here.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ROBERT MORTON.
+
+
+It was September,--rich September, with warm lights and red
+shadows--when Bill went first to Haylands, Robert Morton’s farm. It
+was March when she went again; a grey afternoon, level light, and
+dead stillness over the bare ploughed land and the low white house.
+She drove from Wrugglesby with Theresa, a tedious drive along winding
+lanes,--not that she found it tedious, for nothing was tedious to Bill.
+Theresa, too, had enjoyed her homeward journey more than usual. She
+had talked gaily all the way until they turned in at her own gateway;
+then somehow her spirits flagged, and in silence they drove up the
+long chase which meandered across a grassy field, passed a duck-pond
+where grey geese waded, and so on to the little gate which shut in
+the overgrown garden. Bill looked quickly at the garden. It had been
+a flowery, weedy wilderness when she was there in September; it was
+bare now, so dry that the earth rose in dust at the touch of Theresa’s
+skirts, so bare that the leafless raspberry-canes, still though they
+were, seemed to shiver in their nakedness.
+
+There was no one about; Robert, no doubt, was busy somewhere on the
+farm. For a moment Theresa hesitated with the reins in her hand, then a
+man appeared from the stables and took the pony away. Theresa led the
+way into the house, covertly casting an anxious glance at Bill.
+
+“It is very cold,” she said, as she pushed open the door of her
+favourite room and went to the fire.
+
+“Yes, I suppose it is,” Bill answered cheerfully. “I’m not cold though.
+What a jolly room! It is cubby, T.!”
+
+“Do you like it? You saw it when you were here before,” Theresa said,
+feeling somehow a little warmer and very glad that Bill was with
+her. If it had been Polly or Bella they might have thought Robert
+neglectful, but as it was only Bill it did not matter.
+
+By-and-bye Robert came in. He did not know that Bill was coming back
+with his wife, and when the guest was safely shut in her room he asked,
+“Why on earth did you bring her?”
+
+“Do you mind?” Theresa asked in distress. “I am sorry; I did not think
+you would mind; she won’t trouble you much.”
+
+“No, she won’t trouble me; still I don’t see what you wanted to have
+her for.”
+
+“We thought--I thought, it might do her good.”
+
+“Ill?” Morton asked, looking up sharply. “If she is ill, we certainly
+don’t want her here.”
+
+“She is not ill. She does not get on very well at school; I mean--”
+Theresa felt the matter was difficult of explanation--“I mean, she is
+very young for her age.”
+
+“She is very ugly,” Morton said, beginning to unlace his boots.
+
+Theresa flushed. “She is my cousin,” she said.
+
+“That don’t make her handsome, my dear,” he observed, without looking
+up.
+
+“I don’t think her at all ugly.” Theresa’s voice showed that she was
+hurt. “If she were, it would not be her fault. Do you wish me to send
+her home at the end of the week?”
+
+“I? No, please yourself as to that. Keep her as long as you like, as
+far as I am concerned.”
+
+And he left her to take his boots to the wash-house with no idea that
+there were tears in her eyes. She forced them back, turning to the
+fire as she did so. It was certainly cold, a dreary, dreary afternoon.
+She was still standing by the fire, standing stiffly with something of
+unapproachable dignity about her, when Bill came down a few minutes
+later; but Bill was not troubled by the dignity, and curled herself
+up in the big chair on the other side of the fire evidently quite
+satisfied. She spent the evening helping Robert to mend whips, quite
+satisfied with that too; possibly she found it an improvement on
+learning grammar with Carrie and Alice.
+
+Theresa was relieved to find that Bill and Robert showed so much
+inclination to friendliness; indeed, at the end of two days she came
+to the conclusion that they were better friends than ever Robert and
+Bella had been. It was a very good thing, she thought, as she watched
+Bill wandering about the cow-yard and investigating the pig-styes. Bill
+took the keenest interest in pigs and poultry, cows and butter; her
+interest extended to the dairy, the kitchen, and the store-room; she
+seemed anxious to do any work she could. Theresa gave her dusting and
+churning, and she worked with a will, though when the churning was done
+Theresa was rather horrified to find her young cousin scrubbing the
+dairy-floor.
+
+“Bill! What are you doing?”
+
+“Clearing up,--I upset some butter-milk.” Bill was kneeling on the
+bricks and she did not cease scrubbing to give the answer.
+
+“But, my dear child, there is no necessity,--get up.”
+
+“I like it, I like clearing up. I did the old fowls’ house just before
+I came in here; you should see it; it’s beautifully clean. This
+afternoon I am going to lime-wash it, and then I shall put in the
+biggest family of chickens. They have not half enough room where they
+are; Robert said I might move them if I liked.”
+
+“Yes, but,--surely you need not lime-wash the house yourself; one of
+the men can do it. You must not do it; you will make yourself in such a
+state.”
+
+“I am afraid I am rather a dirty worker.”
+
+Theresa glanced at Bill’s present condition and saw that the statement
+was only too true. “You must leave off,” she said: “the soapsuds are
+all up your sleeves; besides, I want to speak to you.”
+
+“All right, I can hear; you sit down on that wooden tub; I’m just done,
+and I can finish while you are talking.”
+
+Theresa sat down in spite of her protestations. “I want to talk to
+you about the prayer-meeting,” she said. “You know, during Lent Mr.
+Johnson holds meetings once a week, a kind of Bible-reading. We meet at
+different houses and read passages from the Bible, and he explains them
+and gives a little address. They are really rather nice, and not too
+long. We meet at seven and it is all over quite early; we usually have
+supper about half-past eight.”
+
+“Yes?” Bill was working industriously at the last corner.
+
+“I meant--do you think you would care to go?” Theresa asked this
+somewhat doubtfully. Bella and Polly had been amused by the idea of
+the Ashelton prayer-meetings, and Bill, according to Polly’s account,
+was not likely to treat them more respectfully. However, to Theresa’s
+satisfaction, Bill answered with enthusiasm: “I should like it
+tremendously; is it to-night?”
+
+“No, to-morrow. To-day is market-day at Wrugglesby, you know; nothing
+here is ever fixed on a market-day.”
+
+“I see,” Bill said, taking up her pail of water; “then it’s to-morrow?
+I’ll come if you will take me,” and she went away to empty the pail.
+
+Theresa watched her go, and then went into the house feeling that her
+guest was easy to entertain, and gave really very little trouble, in
+spite of Polly’s prognostications. Indeed she had been very glad of her
+company ever since her arrival, and especially so to-day as Robert had
+gone to market and was not likely to be back till late. The day seemed
+all the shorter for the girl’s presence in the house. The weather was
+gray and cloudy, and Theresa had a headache; she was very glad Bill was
+with her in the afternoon. Later on, in the evening, when her headache
+became bad, she was persuaded by her young cousin to go to bed and
+leave her to wait for Robert.
+
+“I hardly like to go; you don’t think it will seem unkind?” Theresa
+offered this last protest standing by the door, her candle in her hand.
+
+“No, of course not, I’ll explain.”
+
+Bill somehow knew, though Theresa did not, that Robert did not view
+things in the same light as his wife did; so she persuaded her to go to
+bed and settled herself by the fire until the servant was ready to go
+up-stairs. After that she went round the house and fastened the doors,
+standing a moment in the hall curiously impressed by the silence of
+the place. “I have never been up alone in a sleeping house before,”
+she meditated as she put out the light and stretched out her hands in
+the darkness as if to feel to the full the sense of solitary night. At
+that moment she remembered that she had fastened the back door which
+Theresa had told her particularly to leave unlocked, as Robert always
+let himself in that way.
+
+She went back and unfastened it, turned the handle to see if it were
+really unbolted, and stood a moment looking out. The night-breeze
+stirred her hair; the moist fragrance of the earth came to her; she
+drew her breath in deeply, slowly, turning her head from side to side,
+listening to the intense stillness; it seemed to her that she could
+almost hear things growing. Her heart began to beat faster; the blood
+in her veins stirred in unison with the moving sap in the hidden trees;
+some wild creature of the woods was waking in her, bidding her go forth
+into the darkness. A board creaked; it was only the timbers settling
+down for the night, but it recalled her to the house and to her task of
+waiting for its master’s return. With a last glance at the cloudy sky,
+she went in and shut the door.
+
+There was another that night who found it dark, so dark that more than
+once he missed his way in the deep lanes which lay between Sales Green
+and Ashelton. More than once he anathematised the business which led
+him to come home from Wrugglesby market by way of the little village;
+the cross-roads were intricate and in bad repair, and under the
+darkness of the trees it was impossible to see so much as the hedgerow
+elms on either side. At last he heard the sound of wheels away on the
+left; he was clear of the lanes and out on the high road now; just as
+he emerged a vehicle without lights passed, or rather, nearly collided
+with him.
+
+He pulled his horse up and demanded angrily: “Where the devil are you
+going? If you want the whole road you might at least carry lights so
+that one can see what you are doing!”
+
+“Where--going ’self?” a thick voice retorted. “Damn your clumsiness!
+Wha’--what ’yer mean by running a man down li’ that!”
+
+“Where are you trying to go?” The man was evidently too drunk to be
+argued with.
+
+“Home;--that’sh if--if can get there. Brute pulls li’--like the devil.”
+
+“You had better let me drive you home, Morton--it is Morton? I expect I
+can see better in the dark than you can.”
+
+Morton raised no objection and the other dismounted as he spoke and
+climbed up beside him. “Pleashed, I’m sure,” Robert muttered. “Been to
+market? Oh, forgot,--saw you there myself, but you lef’ early; very
+cred’able, Mr. Harborough, you’ shober young man.”
+
+He laughed in a maudlin way, and they started on a straight course in
+the darkness, Harborough’s horse, fastened by the bridle, trotting
+behind. A straight road lay before them, the ground rising clear from
+the shade of the trees, just showing paler against the blackness,
+then sloping gently downwards to deeper shadow until the turning by
+the village; there the road forked, now to the left, through the open
+gateway, up the chase, and so to the stables and home.
+
+“Come on, ol’ chap, come in and have a--a glass of whishky,--don’t b’
+unsociable.”
+
+Harborough hesitated and thought of Mrs. Morton. He glanced up at the
+house; there was a light in one of the lower windows, the rest were
+dark--was she sitting up for her husband? He thought of the young wife
+with her serene, unconscious face, waiting for this, and yielding to
+the affectionate pressure on his arm he went in.
+
+“There does not seem to be any one up,” he said, as he opened the door
+and paused on the threshold.
+
+“Oh, yes, sure to be, sure--confound--”
+
+As Morton stumbled, Harborough held him up, and then stood listening a
+moment. The house was very quiet except for the chirping of crickets
+in the kitchen. Guided more by instinct than by his companion he made
+his way to Mrs. Morton’s favourite sitting-room and opened the door,
+expecting yet dreading to meet the sweet face of the young wife. But
+she was not there; involuntarily he breathed a sigh of relief and
+braced himself to face her substitute. There was a substitute, someone
+curled up in the big chair by the fire, a slim young girl. She had been
+reading, and apparently had but just discovered their presence in the
+house, for she only looked up from her book as they entered.
+
+“Theresa has gone to bed,” she said, rising as she spoke. She did not
+seem at all surprised to see them both. Harborough wondered if she
+understood, or if Morton returned in this condition so often that she
+was prepared for it. “Poor Theresa’s head was so bad that I persuaded
+her to go, and to let me sit up,” she added.
+
+“That ’ch al’right, you’n I--quite happy without her,” Morton said
+thickly, smiling upon the girl.
+
+“You won’t want to disturb her to-night,” she went on. “Her head is
+ever so bad; you will sleep in the blue room, won’t you? That will do
+nicely.”
+
+“That’ll do--we won’t dish’turb her, poor--poor T.”
+
+“Is the room ready?” Harborough asked quickly.
+
+She shook her head, and flitted away with light noiseless feet. Morton
+stretched out a hand to detain her, but she passed him like a shadow
+and was gone.
+
+“Make her sing when ’comes back--sing to you,--cap’tal song.”
+
+Harborough turned away abruptly. Evidently she had not expected this
+sort of home-coming, or surely the room would have been ready. Probably
+it had not occurred before, to Mrs. Morton’s knowledge at least; if
+it had, she would never have left this child to face it alone; for a
+child she was, fifteen, sixteen perhaps, but a child certainly. A great
+anger rose in Harborough’s heart against the man who had brought his
+beastliness home here. He glanced round the room, which impressed him
+as daintily feminine, doubtless arranged by the bride nine months ago.
+Her work-basket stood on the table, a few spring flowers were on the
+mantelpiece; the whole place was pathetically eloquent of her presence.
+Harborough picked up a book which lay on the table and looked at the
+title--ROMANCES AND DROLLS OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND--an old book of
+West Country legends and folk-lore, fairy tales of a primitive order,
+the book that the girl, who had just left the room, had been reading.
+Pleasant to call a child from her fairy-stories to meet a drunkard!
+
+“Now come to bed.” She had returned as noiselessly as she had gone.
+
+“Bed? Not ’f I know it!”
+
+“Yes, come along.”
+
+“I will see Mr. Morton to bed,” Harborough said. “Which is the room?
+No, tell me, don’t trouble to come.”
+
+“Second door from the top of the stairs,” was the direction she
+gave, and Harborough, coercing his charge, went up-stairs. With the
+door safely shut on them he used more force than persuasion, feeling
+heartily sick of the whole business. When he came down again the girl
+was in her old position, reading her fairy-book as before.
+
+“Is he in bed?” she asked.
+
+“Yes. Are you alone here--I mean, are you going to shut the house up?”
+
+“Yes, all that is still open. I must, you see, there is no one else.
+You can’t do it when you are outside, and you won’t want to stop in to
+do it; it is not difficult.”
+
+“No. You are rather young to be left alone--I won’t keep you up;
+good-night.”
+
+She went to the door with him, the one opening on to the yard by
+which he and Morton had entered a little while before. On the step he
+hesitated; he was standing in shadow, she in the light of the lantern
+she had brought that she might see to fasten the door after him.
+
+“If I were you,” he said doubtfully, “I should not disturb Mr. Morton
+more than I could help. I would not pass his room unless it were
+necessary.”
+
+“No.”
+
+Nevertheless, after he had gone she stole noiselessly to the door
+and turned the key outside for fear the sleeper should awake and
+disturb Theresa in the night. But then that was quite necessary in her
+opinion, and no one was the wiser, for she unlocked it again between
+four and five in the morning.
+
+As for Harborough, having given the caution, he felt satisfied and
+after repeating “good-night” went down the yard. He looked back
+once before she closed the door. She was still standing in the same
+position, the lantern in her hand, an elfin thing in its glow against
+the brown shadows of the passage, herself all brown and red, skin and
+hair and eyes, colours such as Rembrandt loved. She moved, scattering
+splashes of light from her lantern, then shut the door; and Harborough
+mounted his horse and rode a good mile home to Crows’ Farm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+HARBOROUGH OF CROWS’ FARM.
+
+
+Nobody could make farming pay, at least no one about Wrugglesby.
+This was an axiom in the Ashelton district, which no one attempted
+to confute though each had an explanation for it, according to his
+political opinions and education, or want of education. But one and all
+believed it, though they continued to farm and to grumble, both the
+small men and the great. The small men were very small, little more
+than peasant tenants with neither the capital nor the ability to farm
+their small holdings with any show of justice to the starved land,
+living from hand to mouth, employing no labour, themselves and their
+families practically doing the work, and doing it indifferently. The
+great men were quite another class, a cross between a landed gentry
+and a yeoman squirearchy, socially ranking with the professional
+classes and for all practical purposes supplying the place of the
+county-families, now for the most part either impoverished or else
+removed to more congenial centres. The greater farm-owners undoubtedly
+did make some profit out of the land, or appeared to do something very
+like it, though possibly they might have done so more successfully had
+they inclined more towards the yeoman squirearchy and less towards the
+landed gentry in their tastes and habits.
+
+At least such was the opinion of one who, a little more than six months
+previous to Bill’s advent in the Morton household, had come to settle
+among the yeoman-farmers and to prove to himself and to them some of
+the theories he held with regard to farming. His theory-in-chief was a
+short one, and could be summed up in one word,--work. A working farmer
+could make it pay; there were one or two of the old-fashioned sort of
+large working farmers still left, who made it pay, even though they had
+no social position and wanted none. Their net profits were small, it
+is true, but then they had not the benefit of a modern education; they
+were also abnormally pig-headed, and, in spite of experience, would
+do as their fathers had done in the palmy days of Protection. Young
+Gilchrist Harborough was of opinion that, were it only possible to
+unite the work in detail of these men with the knowledge and capital of
+the gentleman-class, results of surprising grandeur could be obtained.
+
+He held this theory long ago, before ever he saw the English farmer
+at work; he held it still more firmly now that fate had given him
+an opportunity of putting it to the test. The opportunity had come
+unexpectedly in the shape of a legacy from a friend of his father’s,
+a man who had at one time stayed in the bush home where Gilchrist
+was reared, and who, half amused and half pleased by the young man’s
+earnestness, had left him Crows’ Farm and a sufficiency on which to try
+his theories on a small scale.
+
+An unpretentious, whitewashed building was the farm, not unlike two
+cottages knocked into one. For many years it had been inhabited by a
+bailiff who farmed the adjoining land, the owner, frequently absent
+abroad, only coming down for the partridge-shooting. Ashelton was fond
+of this man, and genuinely sorry to hear of his death; he was the kind
+of man those good folks understood, and was sadly missed at the social
+functions which always took place in September and in which he usually
+joined. But the new owner, the young Australian to whom he had left
+the farm, was something of a puzzle to them. Of course he had a right
+to his theories: everyone has in these highly educated days; but it
+is not everyone who tries to put his theories into practice, nor who,
+moreover, has such uncomfortable ones. Harborough lived the life of a
+working farmer in his little old house; lived, so report said, almost
+like Robinson Crusoe, doing his own cooking and cleaning, rising early
+and sharing even the most menial toil with his few labourers. This
+was not all strictly correct, but it was near enough to the truth
+to satisfy Ashelton, and the parish talked and wondered, and said
+dubiously that the experiment might answer, questioning for a while how
+Mr. Harborough would be received. But in the winter the question was
+settled by Mrs. Dawson, who, perhaps, alone was capable of settling it
+finally. She, under the influence of her son Jack, decided that Mr.
+Harborough was as one of themselves, notwithstanding his theory and his
+colonial origin,--a decision which scarcely did justice to Harborough,
+but gave great satisfaction to everyone, even including Mr. Dane, the
+old rector. He, indeed, had seemed particularly to appreciate it, and
+had even listened to Mrs. Dawson’s judgment on the case with a faint
+smile flickering in his grey eyes. It is true he made Harborough’s
+acquaintance without waiting for Mrs. Dawson’s decision, but then,
+as she said, the rector, of course, knew everybody. Mr. Johnson, the
+curate, being only a curate, had waited for her decision.
+
+But none of these matters troubled Harborough. He lived his life in
+his own way, working hard as long as he was able, smoking hard when
+work was done; reading sometimes, and the books had nothing to do with
+the theory, neither were they such as Jack Dawson would have chosen;
+dreaming sometimes in spite of the theory, in spite also of the pure
+reason with which he was still young enough to believe he governed his
+life. Of his neighbours he thought little; he was friendly when he came
+across them, but with the friendliness of the self-contained man who
+regards the rest of his kind as supernumeraries, necessary parts of
+the world-play, but as well filled by one set of actors as by another.
+He knew about his neighbours, of course, since he could not well live
+in Ashelton without doing so; but he did not care greatly about them,
+nor was there any reason to care; nothing to his knowledge had gone
+seriously wrong or seriously right in Ashelton until that night when he
+took Robert Morton home.
+
+That night there had been something seriously wrong, and the more
+he thought about Morton, the more wrong the whole matter seemed.
+Drunkenness looked such a beastly thing in this quiet little village,
+in that peaceful home with that fair young wife. “The man’s a brute,”
+was his disgusted verdict, “coming home to a wife like that! Lucky it
+wasn’t her. By the way, I wonder who the girl was, queer little thing.”
+
+But he did not wonder very much, for he was too sleepy that night
+and too busy the next day till the time when the girl revealed her
+identity to him. It was somewhere about noon when he saw her, as he was
+returning by a lane which bordered one side of the Haylands property.
+He had been that way once before during the morning, but was not aware
+that anyone had been watching him. As he came back, however, he met
+the girl of last night’s adventure evidently waiting for his return.
+The Morton’s orchard was here; an untidy orchard, with old stooping
+apple-trees, lichen-covered and unpruned, a thicket of nuts and pollard
+quinces and, beyond, a briery tangle of blackberries. As yet there was
+neither flower nor leaf, except for one plum-tree near the gate white
+as snow in its blossom.
+
+It was in the orchard that Harborough saw the girl. She was sitting on
+the gate deliberately waiting for him, and when he came in sight she
+made the fact known.
+
+“I want to speak to you,” she announced. “I have been waiting ever so
+long.”
+
+“I’m sorry,” he answered, in some surprise; “now I have come, what can
+I do for you?”
+
+“It is about Robert, Robert Morton--is he often drunk?”
+
+If Harborough had any delusions as to her not grasping the situation
+last night, they were now dispelled. “I don’t know,” he said; “I have
+never seen him so before.”
+
+“Do you think he often is?”
+
+“I really cannot tell you; I am only very slightly acquainted with him.”
+
+A little smile crept round the corners of the girl’s mouth. “I didn’t
+suppose you were great friends,” she said.
+
+Harborough bit his lip. His tone had not implied it, yet he was
+conscious that there had been a slight feeling of annoyance at the
+suggestion of intimacy conveyed by her words; there was now a second
+feeling of annoyance that she should have discovered the first.
+
+“I am a comparatively new comer in the place,” he said somewhat
+stiffly; “you would perhaps do better to ask someone who has lived here
+longer.”
+
+“Umph!” As she made the oracular answer she drew her legs up to the
+top bar of the gate and clasped her hands round them in a position
+Harborough considered most unsafe. As he watched her, fascinated,
+wondering which way she would fall, she turned a little towards him.
+
+“Take care!” he exclaimed.
+
+“Theresa does not know,” she said, answering her own thoughts. “She has
+no idea; but she will, you know.”
+
+Harborough thought it possible, but he only said: “I suppose her
+husband told her he did not wish to disturb her last night?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then I do not see how she is to know, if you do not tell her.”
+
+“No, not this time; but next,--I may not be here then.”
+
+“How do you know there will be a next time?” he asked. “You have no
+reason to suppose this was anything but,--but an accident which might
+happen to any of us.”
+
+“You, for instance?”
+
+Her blandly innocent eyes were turned on him. “Any man,” he answered
+briefly. The eyes showed neither surprise nor disgust; in fact they did
+not seem much convinced, and he went on. “There is no reason to say it
+must occur again; why do you?”
+
+“Why do _you_?”
+
+“I do not,” he answered; “I should be very sorry to give such a
+definite opinion on the subject.”
+
+“Well, then,” she replied cheerfully, “that is the difference between
+us. I give the opinions, you only have them, but we mean the same
+thing.”
+
+“I have not formed any opinion.”
+
+“No, but you know him,--not very well, I dare say,--but you know other
+men. I don’t know him very well either, better than you do, of course,
+but not well. I came here on Tuesday, and to-day is Friday; before that
+I don’t think I saw him more than six times; but, all the same, I know
+he will get drunk again.”
+
+“Pray, did you expect him to be drunk last night?” Harborough asked.
+
+“No,” she answered; “I had never thought about it. Until I saw him last
+night I never thought about his drinking; now, of course, I know.”
+
+“I must say you took it very coolly,” he observed, “that is, if it was
+a revelation to you.”
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, till he thought she must inevitably fall
+off the gate; she did not, but turned to him, asking, “What would you
+have had me do?”
+
+“Nothing different from what you did. I meant that you did not seem at
+all upset.”
+
+“No, I don’t think I can be upset easily.” He unconsciously looked at
+the squirrel-like perch on the gate. “You see,” she went on, “there was
+a good deal to be done till you went; after that I thought.”
+
+“Yes?” He wondered what she thought, what sort of brain she had under
+that thatch of copper-brown hair.
+
+“It is about Theresa,” she went on to explain; “she does not know, and
+she must sooner or later; he is bound to let it out some time. He may
+have got drunk and hidden it in the past: he may do so in the future;
+but sooner or later there will come another time like last night, and
+she will find out.”
+
+He drove his stick into the ground thoughtfully. “Well,” he said at
+last, “if this is all as inevitable as you say, if this takes place, I
+suppose Mrs. Morton will have to bear it, as other women have borne it
+before. There is nothing else for it; we can’t help her; she will just
+have to bear it.”
+
+Harborough felt this was cold comfort. It was easy talking out here in
+the spring sunshine, easy adjusting the burden to the accompaniment of
+the thrushes’ love-songs; but to bear it was another matter, and the
+girl evidently thought so.
+
+“You don’t know Theresa,” she said. “She just can’t bear it; I think it
+would kill her.”
+
+Harborough repressed a smile. “I don’t think it would do anything of
+the kind,” he said, from his wider knowledge of mankind. “Mrs. Morton
+by this time knows, what you, too, will find out some day, that the
+world is peopled with men not heroes, and that you must take men, even
+husbands, as you find them, and not despair and die because they are
+not heroes of romance.”
+
+“That’s just what Theresa has not found out,” Theresa’s cousin
+persisted, “at least not properly. She and Robert don’t quite
+understand one another, I’m afraid. It’s an awful pity for people to
+get married; they can’t really know one another unless they have lived
+together for a long time first. You see, T. has lived such a different
+life. It was a kind of she-life, quiet and dainty and small, and nice
+as nice could be,--weak tea in old china and wash the cups up carefully
+afterwards--that is how we lived. The pity is she married Robert; it
+might have answered if she had married some other man, better, perhaps,
+or more,--more watered down, or something; I don’t know how to say it,
+but you understand how it is. They just belong to different kinds of
+people.”
+
+Harborough leaned against the gate-post, the one opposite to the end
+of the gate on which the girl sat; he was careful not to give her the
+least jar as he considered the connubial problem presented to him. “Of
+course you think Morton is to blame,” he said at last. “You would blame
+him far more than your sister--cousin is it?--your cousin then. He is,
+I suppose, a low hound, drunken and all the rest of it?”
+
+“Well,” she answered slowly, “it isn’t so much that; he has his good
+points of course, though I don’t altogether like him. It isn’t exactly
+a case of right and wrong; it’s how the thing seems to the other
+person, and it’ll seem bad to T. For myself, I don’t think I should
+like getting drunk, but I don’t so much mind about things; I can
+understand how it is in a way, and besides, it is not such a sin to his
+nature; it isn’t nice, but it is all of a piece with himself.”
+
+Harborough nodded. “That’s so,” he said and added: “To come home drunk
+is not, after all, such a dreadful thing from a man’s point of view;
+it is not nice, as you say, but it is not the most awful thing in the
+world. Life’s entire happiness does not cease because of it; it is not
+the end of all things.”
+
+“No,” she said thoughtfully looking past him into some fancy picture.
+“No, there is always the necessity to get up and have breakfast next
+morning, even after a big tragedy; things don’t end.”
+
+He laughed a little. “Naturally not, and a good thing too on the whole,
+though perhaps it is not dramatic. Why not induce Mrs. Morton to take
+your truly judicial view of the case?”
+
+“My view? It couldn’t be done.”
+
+“Why not? I think I understood you to say that she had lived in the
+same circumstances as yourself; if the view is possible to you, why not
+to her?”
+
+“I don’t know, but it is not.” Bill spoke with absolute conviction.
+“Besides, I can’t speak about it to her; I can’t even warn her what to
+expect. If she had been with me when you brought him home last night, I
+should have been obliged to pretend I did not know what was the matter,
+and I should have kept up the pretence afterwards.”
+
+“Would you?” he said, eyeing her curiously. “I suppose you would, and
+she would have helped you; women always try to hide the shortcomings of
+their loved ones. She won’t admit it when she finds him out; she will
+stand by him with a sort of proud deceit to the end.”
+
+“Of course,” Bill answered simply; “he is her family now, and you must
+stand by your family, right or wrong.”
+
+“I suppose that is what you call loyalty,” Harborough said with a
+laugh. “I was born in a land where we don’t think so much of our
+families, where we have not always reason to think much of them.”
+
+“Mine isn’t much to boast of,” Bill admitted. “But that has nothing to
+do with it; I must stand by them all the same,--why, I should bolster
+up Polly. But we are no nearer the settling of Theresa; I suppose we
+never shall be, so there is no more to be said. Thank you for telling
+me all you knew.”
+
+“All I didn’t know; that is what it amounts to.”
+
+She moved as if she were going to get off the gate, then stopped in the
+act and said suddenly: “Polly said Robert would die of apoplexy,--die
+young. What do you think?”
+
+“I think it is a solution of the difficulty I should not dwell on, if I
+were you.”
+
+“Why not? Isn’t it likely?”
+
+“I should say it was at least uncertain; also it is not usually
+considered decent to think about such things, at all events to talk
+about them.”
+
+“Oh, decent!” she said, and laughed softly as she remembered Carrie’s
+and Alice’s lecture. Then she dropped off the gate and was immediately
+lost among the orchard bushes. He stood for a moment, half-expecting
+her to come back, though he did not know why. As she did not, he went
+on, smiling a little.
+
+Gradually the smile died away. It was all very well to smile out there
+in the sunshine, all very well to talk under the apple-boughs, but the
+fact remained, the grim, stern fact. It was no concern of his, it is
+true, but he could not help thinking about it. Of course he knew that
+Morton drank, not desperately, nor enough to do any serious harm, not
+more than did plenty of other men, nothing more than occasionally a
+little too much; so serious an affair as last night’s occurrence would
+probably be an exception. It was not exactly a cardinal sin, it was
+just part of his nature, as the little brown girl had said, a kind of
+nature for which Harborough had a tolerant contempt when regarded as
+a detached specimen; as a personal acquaintance it naturally wore a
+different aspect. “If a man drinks, he drinks, and it is his affair.
+One can forgive lapses; we are none of us exactly bread-and-butter
+saints when we are nearing the thirties.” Harborough emphasised the
+words with his stick; he had almost said them aloud, not quite, but
+loud enough for the man, who that moment joined him, to guess part of
+the speech.
+
+“Who is not a saint when he is nearing the thirties?” he asked.
+“Forgive me for surprising your thoughts, Mr. Harborough; you really
+should not think so loud, you know.”
+
+“I will forgive you more easily than I fancy you would forgive me
+for thinking them.” So Harborough answered, for he had certain very
+definite notions as to what was and what was not acceptable to the
+clergy, and it was a clergyman who had accosted him, the rector of
+Ashelton on his way to the rectory by a field-path well known to at
+least one of his parishioners.
+
+Perhaps Harborough misjudged this clergyman; at all events he promised
+forgiveness for all sins of thought before they were expressed. “I give
+absolution beforehand,” he said; “now confess the whole.”
+
+“The whole? I am afraid I was speech-making to myself, a bad habit
+I have got from living so much alone; still you shall have it all.
+Here goes,--If a man drinks, he drinks, and it is his affair. One can
+forgive lapses; we are none of us bread-and-butter saints when we are
+nearing the thirties. But a man whom the divine wisdom has, it would
+seem, for its own purposes, made something of a beast, should keep
+his beastliness for suitable places. There is a lot done ‘somewhere
+east of Suez’ and in other places nearer at hand, which one does
+not blame a man for doing there; but when he does it in his wife’s
+drawing-room,--when he is such an egregious fool, such an unmitigated
+brute--why then he wants kicking, and he should be soundly kicked.”
+
+Mr. Dane laughed a little, but whether at the length of the speech or
+the unconscious earnestness of its delivery did not appear. “Yes,” he
+said, “yes, brutes want kicking; I’m not sure we don’t all want kicking
+sometimes. Poor little wife; God help the wife, whoever she is!”
+
+Harborough acquiesced. “And yet,” he said doubtfully, “if she
+understood, it would be easier, much easier; a good woman is a hard
+judge.”
+
+“Ay, possibly.” The rector’s cold gray eyes seemed to summon up the
+memory of some good woman who had judged hardly. “They were not made to
+understand some things.”
+
+“Not all women,” Harborough interposed.
+
+“Not all; are you sure she was a good woman, this exception of yours?
+But perhaps we had better not start a controversy now; it is too late.
+I suppose the good women will judge the bad men, and love them too, to
+the end of the story. Bad men? No, I beg pardon, average men, neither
+good nor bad, just human, no bread-and-butter saints--good-bye.”
+
+They parted at the rectory-gate. Just as it closed after Mr. Dane he
+turned to call after Harborough: “How about the beef and beer saints?
+What of them?”
+
+“Are there any?”
+
+“Yes, and they’re good for three-score years and ten.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+FOR BILL’S GOOD.
+
+
+Theresa was a conscientious person, and really had Bill’s welfare at
+heart. Miss Brownlow said she exercised a good influence over her young
+cousin. Theresa was rather doubtful on the subject herself, but she
+felt the responsibility of her aunt’s expectations, and determined to
+fulfil them if possible; only she did not quite know how to set about
+it. Bill proved so very mild; there seemed no occasion for a preventive
+and negative influence, and a positive one Theresa found difficult to
+compass. The only definite suggestion she had as yet made for Bill’s
+mental and moral benefit was the invitation to the prayer-meeting.
+That, both in its religious and social aspects, was good; the religious
+side, Theresa felt, must benefit her charge, though she did not stop
+to consider how, religion being to her much what charms were to her
+forebears, good and protective, though operating in methods neither
+understood nor questioned. The social side of the prayer-meeting was
+obviously beneficial, for it was in every way desirable that Bill
+should mix with her elders, it would help her to grow up. Altogether
+the prayer-meeting was a good thing, and to it, accordingly, Theresa
+took her cousin on Friday evening.
+
+They drove in the dog-cart: “We can walk home,” Theresa had said; “it
+is not far.”
+
+So Robert, who did not affect prayer-meetings, drove them and took
+the cart home again; and as Theresa disliked driving very much, this
+arrangement suited her better than any other. It suited Bill also, for
+she sat on the back seat, and was as entirely oblivious of the two in
+front as if she had been alone in her silent survey of the country.
+It was still very black and white, she found, though a day of showers
+and sunshine would alter the whole face of the land now. She was
+conscious of the coming change; there was a feeling of waiting in the
+air, as though the unconscious earth stood patient on the threshold
+of life. There were no leaves as yet among the elms, no blade in the
+dry, crumbling fields, no hint of green in the close-cut hedge, so
+black by contrast with the white road. So white the road was, so hard,
+stretching before them, stretching behind them; Bill looked at it and
+thought what a long way it could be seen in the pale strong light.
+Every thing could be seen, the heap of faggots, the pump by the road,
+the old man working in a cottage-garden,--she could even see what kind
+of belt he wore; she could see everything near and far,--truly a March
+evening was a beautiful thing. She drew in deep breaths of the thin
+air; it seemed like wine within her, making the young blood dance and
+throb in her veins. She felt, though she hardly knew it, that it was a
+splendid thing to be alive: “I should like to live as long as the world
+lasts,” she thought.
+
+Just then they turned in at a gateway. The short drive beyond sloped
+down rapidly and the dog-cart entered with a jerk which nearly
+unseated the back passenger, who, however, was examining the garden too
+intently to be troubled by that. There was a large raised flower-bed
+in the centre of the gravel sweep, the drive dividing right and left
+of it. It was a circular bed planted in a geometrical pattern with
+Dutch bulbs; as yet the hyacinths and tulips were only green shoots,
+but the crocuses were in full flower and wound like a coloured ribbon
+across the intricate design. Bill was wondering how it was that none
+of the crocuses had gone blind, when the cart stopped before a square,
+ivy-covered house.
+
+“T.,” she said, as she got down, “every single one of those crocuses
+has come up; they must be a good sort.”
+
+“I dare say. Mr. Perry is fond of his garden, and he has plenty of
+money.”
+
+Bill’s acquaintance with people possessing plenty of money was
+limited; indeed, she could not recall anyone she knew who was in that
+affluent state. She looked at the Perry’s house critically to see how
+“plenty of money” looked when it was translated into furniture and
+fittings. There were lots of white curtains, three or four at every
+window. “That is expensive,” she thought; “it means so much washing.”
+There were thick carpets on the floors, old-fashioned in design,
+excellent in preservation, and prodigiously ugly; the furniture in the
+drawing-room was rosewood, the chairs as like as peas in a pod and
+all neatly covered in chintz. “I shall tell Polly our things are all
+right,” Bill mentally determined as she sat down in a retired corner.
+She had been duly presented to the host and hostess, had duly made an
+inaudible answer to their polite remarks, and had then sunk into her
+corner, still safe under her cousin’s wing, as became one of her youth
+and shyness. No one in Mrs. Perry’s drawing-room expected anything
+different; indeed all would have been surprised if she had shown
+greater forwardness of demeanour. Her nearest neighbour, a little old
+lady with a cheerful countenance and a great mosaic brooch, spoke to
+her; but at first Bill could not catch what she said, for she lowered
+her voice out of deference to the more important persons present, until
+it was little more than a sigh in her listener’s ear. But after a word
+or two Bill became used to the sound and made out, as she might have
+guessed, that the subject of conversation was the weather.
+
+“Dry evening,” was the first she heard, and then “a nice walk from
+Ashelton.”
+
+Bill did not catch the connecting words, but she answered what she
+heard, although she did not know that she had come beyond the boundary
+of Ashelton that evening, and contented herself with saying that they
+had not walked.
+
+“Driven?” suggested the old lady. “I expect Mr. Morton drove you and
+took the pony home again; such a good arrangement, and much safer than
+for Mrs. Morton to drive those spirited horses herself. I’m sure I
+wonder she has never had an accident; I quite thought there would be
+one when I saw her go by on Tuesday afternoon.”
+
+“Did you see us then?” Bill asked, and her neighbour explained that
+she lived at the house at the corner where the roads divided. Then
+Bill knew that this must be Miss Minchin, the lady who, Theresa said,
+made ample use of the opportunities for observation offered by the
+commanding position of her house. At that moment the entrance of some
+fresh arrivals caused such a buzz of conversation that Miss Minchin
+ventured to inquire in quite a loud voice whether Bill herself could
+manage a horse.
+
+“I never tried until I came here,” she answered; “I only came on
+Tuesday, but I have done a little since then. I drove a waggon of straw
+home yesterday. Tom Griggs told me he thought I should soon be able to
+handle most things on four legs, but I don’t suppose he knows.”
+
+“You are learning to drive?” Miss Minchin asked, somewhat mystified.
+“Mr. Morton is teaching you? But, my dear, do be careful, he has
+such mettlesome horses; gentlemen seem all alike for that; there’s
+Mr. Harborough, now, he’s nearly as bad. You know Mr. Harborough?”
+Before Bill could answer the old lady went on: “Hush! Mr. Perry is
+going to speak. You must come with Mrs. Morton to see me to-morrow; I
+have a cat and a canary, and several things that will interest you.”
+The last words were spoken in a shrill whisper in Bill’s ear as the
+company settled themselves, and Mr. Perry, a trim little man some years
+retired from the grocery trade, called attention to the fact that the
+reading was about to begin. When he had made this announcement in a
+redundancy of words (for he was not averse to speech-making and had few
+opportunities), the proceedings commenced.
+
+The subject for the evening was faith. Mr. Johnson was giving a course
+of Christian virtues during that Lent, and faith happened to be the
+one under consideration on the evening when Bill was present. She was
+very much interested, though it was not a matter in which she had erred
+greatly hitherto; she believed largely, had much imagination, and as
+yet had thought little and felt less; consequently Mr. Johnson’s
+flowery periods slid harmlessly off her still unconscious mind. She
+was interested, at first a little in the words, afterwards entirely
+by the man. Mr. Johnson was a fair man with a tendency towards the
+sandy, smooth, slightly florid, and with more than a tendency towards
+plumpness. He had for many years been curate at Ashelton, and, though
+he was now past middle life, it seemed that he was likely to remain
+curate at Ashelton, for it appeared that the Church dignitaries had not
+the same opinion of his worth as had some other people who need not be
+named. After all, curate at the three Asheltons was on the whole well
+enough. There was not too much work in the big straggling parish, and
+there was much sociability of a sort well suited to a man who had a
+nice taste in tea and pale sherry, and more fancy for being a whale
+among minnows than a minnow among whales. At Ashelton, though perhaps
+not exactly a whale, he could pass as a very tolerably sized fish
+among others of congenial dimensions, at all events when the rector
+was not there. As for the rector--well, poor man, he was eccentric, he
+had had trouble--Mr. Johnson said so leniently without any idea as to
+what the trouble was. For the eccentricity he could vouch: the rector
+had a cousin who was a bishop, in a genuine, important bishopric,
+and another, it was hinted, who was a peer. What man, not eccentric,
+would have remained all these years in a little country parish when he
+possessed these advantages? Then there was his passion for music, and
+also his inability to appreciate Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson had at last
+come to the conclusion that this inability did exist; yet even now he
+was not sure that it was not partly the expression of a not unnatural
+jealousy of his own social and parochial triumphs.
+
+On that particular March evening Mr. Johnson knew that he had added
+one more to the long list of those triumphs. It was a small matter, of
+course, but, as he told his wife, trifles like that showed how easily
+he could have influenced a larger audience, had he been in command
+of one. The trifle in question was Bill Alardy, whose face showed
+how deeply interested she was in Mr. Johnson’s words. She had the
+most expressive face imaginable, and that evening it was alive with
+interest. She had never taken her eyes off the speaker; she listened
+to every word, the tell-tale face expressing the keenest enjoyment
+and appreciation. So marked was this that after supper, when all were
+leaving, Mr. Johnson came to Theresa and shook hands with her and Bill,
+telling the latter impressively that he was very glad to see her at the
+reading.
+
+To this Bill answered with equal impressiveness, “I am very glad I
+came.”
+
+Mr. Johnson smiled encouragingly. “I shall be happy if at any time I
+can be of help to you,” he said; “I am always pleased to help any one.”
+
+Bill thanked him vaguely and went out with Theresa. She did not know
+what he meant, but it did not matter, as she did not feel conscious
+of wanting his help. In her opinion he could not improve upon that
+evening’s performance, which had been perfectly delightful; so
+delightful that when she went to her room she thought about him until
+it became too much for her, and turning to the little wooden bed and
+the chair which stood beside it, she addressed them, inanimate though
+they were. “My brothers and sisters,” she said--and her flexible voice,
+far more flexible even than her face, rolled out in unctuous tones--“my
+brothers and sisters, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
+only evidence we can present to our spiritual senses, the only evidence
+they need. It is the be-all and end-all, the beginning and the end of
+all things.” She rolled the words lovingly on her tongue, swelling
+her face until it became almost Johnsonian in size. “Everything is
+faith, faith is everything.” Here she stretched out a persuasive hand
+to the quaint little bed. “In it we live and move and have our being;
+being dead, we die not if in faith, being alive, we live not without
+it. Whatever is, is not, whatever is not, is, was and shall be, world
+without end, amen.”
+
+But Theresa did not hear this, and held to her first opinion as to the
+kind of spiritual good Bill derived from the prayer-meeting. Of the
+social good she was not so sure, until her young cousin came to her on
+Saturday morning and suggested that they should go and see Miss Minchin
+in the afternoon. “Let us go,” she said; “she promised to show me her
+cat and bird and other things.”
+
+Theresa acceded to the request, feeling that last night’s meeting was
+not without results since it had introduced Miss Minchin, and implanted
+a desire to visit in Bill’s mind.
+
+Miss Minchin’s house was set at the corner where the high road from
+Wrugglesby divided, the one way to go through Ashelton to the church,
+the other to the lanes and so to the more distant village of Sales
+Green. “It is a terribly public place,” Miss Gruet, Miss Minchin’s
+particular friend, always said with commiseration. Her own house
+was privacy itself, the lower windows looking solely on the laurel
+bushes tall and elderly, the upper as effectually screened by a great
+horse-chestnut tree. “It was most secluded,” Miss Gruet said, and, out
+of pity no doubt, she often left her seclusion to cheer her friend
+in the publicity which had fallen to her share. She did so on the
+afternoon when Theresa and Bill made their call, but did not arrive
+until Miss Minchin had duly shown her treasures. Bill was interested
+in them all,--in the cat asleep on the violet bed, only dislodged with
+the end of an umbrella, and the canary before the window in a green
+cage with a piece of grey paper neatly tacked round the lower part
+to keep the seeds in and the draughts out. This piece of paper was
+often changed, varying in colour with the Church festivals and other
+important events, always going into mourning on the death of royalty;
+at least, the cage did. Black paper Miss Minchin found difficult to
+obtain, as she explained to Bill.
+
+“When the poor dear Duke of Clarence died,” she said, “I could not get
+a scrap. I put a piece of black cashmere round the cage, but the little
+fellow (it was not this canary then but another one) did not like it a
+bit.”
+
+The subject of discussion here gave a short burst of song. When he
+ceased Miss Minchin encouraged him to continue. “Swee-e-t!” she said;
+“go on, my pretty, swee-e-t! He likes someone to whistle to him, but of
+course I can’t do that.”
+
+“I can,” said Bill, and gave a trilling imitation of the caged singer.
+
+“I declare,” exclaimed Miss Minchin, “it’s quite charming! I’m sure
+if girls had whistled like that in my young days no one would have
+thought it unladylike. They did think so, then, my dear, but now, to be
+sure, things are quite changed; everyone can do as they like, and more
+besides.”
+
+It was just then that Miss Gruet came in. “I thought you must be
+coming here,” Miss Minchin said briskly. “I said so to Mrs. Morton just
+now, when I saw you coming down the road.”
+
+“You can see everyone from your window,” Miss Gruet said with a touch
+of severity. “I do believe from your back bedroom you could almost see
+the field-path that leads to the rectory.”
+
+“Yes,” Miss Minchin admitted, “I can if I move the toilet-glass. Of
+course I never do move it, unless it happens that the blind goes wrong,
+as it does sometimes. It is such a tiresome blind; I remember I had to
+see to it the day Tom Davies went to put his banns up; he thought no
+one saw him go sneaking to the rectory, but I did, for I was mending my
+blind.”
+
+Miss Gruet professed herself properly shocked--and interested. “There
+is no telling what you might not see,” she said, “and Mr. Dane a
+bachelor too!”
+
+Miss Minchin hastened to assure the company that she had never seen
+anything bad; indeed, only yesterday morning, when the troublesome
+blind went wrong again, she had seen quite a pleasant sight--Mr. Dane
+and young Mr. Harborough in earnest conversation. “So nice,” she said,
+“for a young man like that to be such friends with the rector.”
+
+The others agreed with her, and talked over this item of intelligence
+in all its aspects. A little later, Theresa and Miss Gruet being at the
+time deep in a discussion of the difficulty of preventing mice from
+eating cheese-mats, Bill led the conversation back to Harborough.
+
+“The Harboroughs of Gurnett,” she said; “does this Mr. Harborough
+belong to them?”
+
+“No, indeed,” Miss Minchin answered, almost shocked at the idea. “The
+Harboroughs of Gurnett are the Harboroughs of Wood Hall, one of the
+oldest families of the county, just as Wood Hall is one of the finest
+places. At least, it used to be, but times are sadly changed from what
+they were. The Harboroughs are poor now and cannot afford to keep the
+place up; not but what it is fine still,--have you ever seen it?”
+
+“No, but I have heard about it,” Bill said eagerly. “There is a room
+there, the library I think, with a fireplace so big that a quadrille
+could be danced on the hearth; and the great hall is so wide that a
+coach and four could turn in it without touching the wall on either
+side.”
+
+“Yes, my dear, yes.” The old lady’s tone was sad, as of one who
+remembers departed greatness. “Yes; so they say; they say many things
+about the place. It is sad to think of the way in which it is being
+left, sad to think of the Harboroughs, a good old family.”
+
+“I thought they were bad,” Bill remarked, remembering the common report
+of the district.
+
+“So they were, bad and extravagant too; they nearly all were, and that
+is why they are so poor now.”
+
+Bill did not express any opinion on good old families which were also
+bad; she only remarked meditatively, “I think I shall go to Wood Hall.”
+
+“You can’t,” Miss Minchin said; “Mr. Harborough lives there now.”
+
+“Yes; but parts of the grounds are open, are they not? I could see
+them, as much as can be seen.”
+
+“I would not, if I were you.” Miss Minchin’s voice was a solemn warning.
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Because,--it does not seem exactly right for a young girl to go into
+those grounds.”
+
+“But why?”
+
+Miss Minchin dropped her voice half a tone lower. “Mr. Harborough is a
+bad old man,” she said, “a very wicked old man. It does not become me
+to speak ill of one in his station, belonging to this county too; still
+facts are facts and they are terrible.”
+
+“What has he done?”
+
+Bill showed, or Miss Minchin thought she showed, too much interest in
+the subject, and, either because she would not, or else because she
+could not, she gave no further information. Whereupon Bill, failing to
+hear anything about the one Mr. Harborough turned to the other.
+
+“Is he related to the Wood Hall people?” she asked.
+
+“No, oh dear, no,” Miss Minchin answered. “He is an Australian, or
+a New Zealander, or something American and colonial; I am rather
+uncertain about those places, but he comes from one of them. Besides,
+my dear, consider, he is a farmer, nothing but a farmer,--a very good
+profession; I am not saying anything against it,” she added, hastily
+remembering Theresa’s husband; “indeed, I should be very sorry to,
+seeing that all the patriarchs were farmers, so to say. Still, you must
+admit it is not quite suitable to a member of the county-families. I
+know old families are not respected as they used to be, but no one
+would think of classing them with farmers even now.”
+
+Bill acquiesced and then observed: “It is queer he should have the same
+name.”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know,” Miss Minchin said, bridling a little. “It is not
+such an uncommon name; besides the old families spread so. Long ago
+they were, no doubt, much larger than they now are; there is no telling
+where all the younger branches go.”
+
+“You think he is a younger branch? Then he should be as good as the
+others.”
+
+“Certainly not: for one reason he has not lived in the same place so
+long; he and his forebears have gone out from among the family; they
+have not kept up the family traditions. There are many traditions in
+a family like that, many, and much property too. Why, do you know the
+side chapel in our parish church is the property of the Harboroughs?”
+
+Bill did not know it, neither did she see the force of it as an
+argument; nevertheless she was interested. “The whole chapel?” she
+asked.
+
+“Yes, the little chapel and the little altar and all complete. Of
+course they never go there, for they are Catholics. I sometimes
+think perhaps if Mr. Harborough had not been a Catholic--but there!
+We mustn’t be uncharitable. Do you like reading? Yes? Then I should
+advise you to read the history of the county; you will find all about
+Wood Hall there and many other things you will like. I don’t think
+Mrs. Morton has a history, but Miss Gruet has a very nice book of
+Selections, which I have no doubt she will lend to you; I do believe I
+have it in the house now.” She had borrowed it when Harborough first
+came and had not yet returned it. “We can ask her to allow you to take
+it home with you; I’m sure she will.”
+
+This Miss Gruet expressed herself happy to do, and Bill carried the
+book away with her when she left with Theresa a few minutes later.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE RIGHT OF WAY.
+
+
+The parish church of Ashelton was very old. It was said in Miss Gruet’s
+selected history of the county to be of great antiquarian interest; but
+antiquaries did not abound in Ashelton, and neither the inhabitants nor
+their friends troubled their heads much about the stone-work of the
+fourteenth century, or any of the other commended points of interest.
+At one time there had been a couple of letters in a Wrugglesby paper
+about a little Last Judgment window of obscure meaning; but the letters
+had long been forgotten, and the rector’s new organ partly hid the
+window now.
+
+Bill paid particular attention to the window on the first Sunday that
+she went to Ashelton church; but she had just been reading about it and
+knew where to look for it. For the rest, that which chiefly pleased
+her were the grinning goblin faces which looked out from the capitals
+of pillars and the niches of windows,--from every place where the
+old builders could put them; there was even one carved at the end of
+Theresa’s pew. Everybody had a pew, and almost everybody went to church
+in Ashelton. The Morton’s pew was conveniently situated for keeping an
+eye on the rest of the congregation. There was only one better placed
+for that purpose, Miss Minchin’s; but she, as she always maintained,
+had not selected it herself, her dear mother having done so long before
+her time,--in which case, it is possible to conceive that Miss Minchin
+inherited her tastes, as well as her pew, from her mother. Bill, from
+her place of vantage, looked at everybody, and everybody, with even
+greater interest, looked at her. In fact so much did they look that
+she, though as a rule somewhat indifferent on the subject of clothes,
+was rather glad that Polly had furbished up her winter hat before she
+left Wrugglesby. She gave the hat a little pull forward as she thought
+of it, and looked across Mrs. Perry’s purple bonnet to the Harborough
+chapel. It was to the left of the chancel, a step higher than the main
+body of the church and in a measure cut off from it by a continuance
+of the slender oak screen which stood before the chancel itself. Bill
+looked at it thoughtfully, opining that there could never have been
+enough Harboroughs to fill it, unless they brought their servants with
+them. There was a small altar with a cross upon it, and above, an old
+window where fat cherubs smiled in starch-blue smoke. She wondered what
+its meaning was, as others had wondered before her, and came to the
+conclusion that it was a pity the starch clouds, if they were clouds,
+were not red instead of blue: “It could not possibly make the place
+darker than it now is,” she thought, “and it would look very much
+nicer.”
+
+It is to be feared that Bill did not pay very much attention to the
+sermon. She looked about her over much, but she could still say with
+truth, when asked by Miss Gruet afterwards, that she had enjoyed the
+service, for she had a keen ear for music, and the music at Ashelton
+church was very good. She listened with rapt attention to what Miss
+Minchin called “the set pieces,” and joined enthusiastically in the
+hymns, singing loud and sweet, for though her flexible voice was
+perhaps better suited to the mimicry of other sounds than anything
+else, it still possessed a rich sweetness in its many-noted variations.
+
+When Bella came home from visiting Theresa in the winter she confessed
+to Polly that she had found Sunday afternoon a little dull; that is to
+say the first Sunday afternoon; on the second she had gone for a walk
+and--Bill had not heard any more, so she did not know what prevented
+the second Sunday afternoon from being as dull as the first. She did
+not herself find the afternoon dull, as she went up to the garret to
+look over some books. Theresa in bringing away her girlish treasures
+from Miss Brownlow’s had accidentally brought a few things which were
+not hers.
+
+“I have been meaning to take them back several times,” she said, “but I
+keep forgetting. I really hardly know what they are now; there are one
+or two books belonging to Polly and to you, or your father. I put them
+in a box in the garret when I had to turn the spare room out; you might
+get them down some time and put them with your things, if you will.”
+
+Bill said she would, and chose Sunday afternoon to do it. She left
+Robert and Theresa reading and dozing by the fire with the port and
+oranges on the table beside them. “Don’t you want any dessert?” Theresa
+had said. But Bill did not care about port and oranges; she filled
+her pocket with nuts and went to the garret to eat them while she
+looked over the books. These she found in a lidless packing-case neatly
+covered over with brown paper. The one on the top was HOLY LIVING AND
+DYING. “That’s Auntie’s: Theresa must have got it from the top shelf
+in the dining-room; the books there were mostly hers; I suppose she
+thought they all were and took the lot.” The next was a small brown
+volume, PLAIN TRUTHS FOR PLAIN PEOPLE, in which she found Polly’s
+name--“That’s just the book for Polly; a plain person she certainly
+is, and the plain truth is a very good thing for her to start on,
+considering how she can trim it.” The two volumes were laid aside, and
+the next dive into the box brought out a book she was pleased to see
+but did not before know that they possessed, an old history of that
+part of the county. “Whose is this, I wonder?--why, it’s mine!” She had
+turned to the first page and seen her own name Wilhelmina Alardy.
+
+“That’s funny,”--she was cracking her nuts with her teeth as she
+looked. “At least, I don’t know that it is so funny after all; I expect
+it was stuck up at the top with the other old things, so I never knew
+about it. Of course I am not that Wilhelmina; that’s Grandmother.”
+
+Bill looked long at the book, for she had not many relics, or even
+tales, of her own grandmother, as she counted her father’s mother in
+distinction from her mother’s mother whom she shared equally with the
+cousins. There was not, to be sure, much of this lady to share; not
+one of the four cousins had even a memory of her, though of their own
+grandmothers the others each had something to tell. Polly had a good
+many tales about hers, with an ugly old portrait, too, and a heavy
+locket she used to wear. Bella and Theresa could remember theirs
+plainly; they had stayed with her when they were little girls, and
+still had the coral necklaces she gave them the last Christmas she was
+alive. But Bill had neither tales nor trinkets; her parents had both
+died when she was very young, and Miss Brownlow knew no traditions of
+the Alardys and few facts concerning them, except that Bill’s father
+was an only son, and that for relations the girl must depend on her; so
+it happened that Bill knew little about her grandmother, except that
+she herself was named after her. There was a little wooden box-ottoman
+in the spare bedroom at Langford House, which, she had been told,
+used to belong to this grandmother. She had looked inside it once and
+found nothing but papers, which did not prove very interesting; a few
+letters, not easy to decipher and not, so far as she had tried them,
+entertaining; half a dozen bills, part of an old account-book, some
+recipes for cough-mixture and tea-cakes, a few odd sheets of paper
+and manuscript music, and some legal-looking documents which were
+quite beyond her comprehension. The greater part of this miscellaneous
+collection seemed to have belonged to her mother; a few of the less
+intelligible were of an older date, and the music and some scraps of
+poetry were not dated at all. Bill had thought of carrying the poetry
+away, as the only thing there which interested her; but since she had
+gone to the box without Miss Brownlow’s permission, she decided that
+she had better not take anything out, and learned the lines by heart
+instead. Then she shut the box, and gave up any hope of boasting as
+intimate an acquaintance with her grandmother as the other cousins did
+with theirs.
+
+That was in the winter. She had not thought any more about it until
+this Sunday afternoon when she unexpectedly came upon the history
+of the county with her grandmother’s name on the fly-leaf. She was
+delighted with her discovery, partly because it was her grandmother’s,
+but chiefly because it was the very book she wanted. Settling herself
+comfortably on an empty tea-chest, she proceeded to study it and the
+old map of the district which she found folded inside. When at last she
+was called down-stairs for tea she was still full of her treasure, and
+told Robert and Theresa about it. They listened, amused by the interest
+she attached to it and the attraction she found in both book and map.
+
+“I believe the map must be a good one,” she said at last; “it is so
+clear, I think I could find my way anywhere by it.”
+
+“Where do you want to find your way?” Robert asked smiling.
+
+“Oh, to lots of places, to Gurnett for one. I think I shall walk to
+Gurnett to-morrow; may I, Theresa?”
+
+“It is rather a long way, but go if you like.” Theresa perhaps thought
+a long walk would be better for her young cousin than spending too much
+time with the animals in the yard.
+
+The next morning, accordingly, Bill, armed with her map and some
+sandwiches for refreshment by the way, started on her walk. The
+distance might be long, but she could not remember any time in her life
+when she had been really tired. It seemed to her that mere walking
+was not enough, and once fairly started in the lonely lanes and quiet
+fields, she broke into a run for pure lightness of heart and ecstasy
+of living. Soon she was out on a road again, and here she walked more
+soberly, looking to right and left, noting the veil of green that was
+spreading over the hedges, enjoying to the full the day and the walk
+and the solitude.
+
+And so Gurnett was reached, almost too soon, and the sandwiches eaten
+behind a grassy bank, very much too soon considering it was not yet
+twelve. After that the map was pulled out and considered thoughtfully.
+It was some time before she could find on it the exact spot where she
+now was, but at last she did. “Here I am, here--oh, yes, these must be
+the cross-roads; there is Wood Hall, over there, and here comes the
+lane between, the second turning after the cross-roads. The little
+path ought to cross just where the road joins the lane; I wonder if I
+shall find it; it seems to go straight from Corbycroft on one side of
+the lane to Wood Hall on the other, or rather to the little church in
+Wood Hall grounds. I don’t see what it can have been made for, but it
+must be a real path since it is marked; if anyone says anything to me I
+shall show him the map.”
+
+Having come to this satisfactory conclusion Bill folded up her map and
+went on. In due time she came to the junction of the road and lane, but
+there was no indication that a footpath existed in any direction. In
+fact, the country itself on the left-hand side had undergone something
+of a change, for whereas her map showed that there had been a sort of
+park, the property of the distant hall, Corbycroft, there now seemed
+to be nothing but pasture-fields. She climbed the steep bank, the lane
+here being considerably below the level of the fields, and looked
+round. There was nothing but pasture-land, green, curving, sloping
+gradually away from her. A clump of elms stood in the centre, beautiful
+trees, tawny with the catkins which hung from their black branches;
+but there was no park, only pasture-land sloping down to the farm in
+the distance. And the farm looked very much as if it were a farm and
+not a hall; perhaps it was the remains of the old hall patched up and
+serving as a farm-house; though, to be sure, her history had spoken of
+a hall, a small off-manor belonging to the Corbys, a family who seemed
+to have had their head-quarters and more important property away in the
+north of the county, in the direction of the coast. The map and history
+were alike old, and Bill was forced to admit that things might have
+changed since they were made.
+
+But if the left side of the lane was disappointing, the right more
+than fulfilled expectations. The ground sloped sharply up on that
+side; Wood Hall evidently stood on a hill and appeared to be hidden
+among trees, for the slope as far as Bill could see was covered with
+wood. It was not a trim park but a thicket, a wild young forest
+growing up as it could about the stumps of veteran oaks and beeches
+long since sacrificed to the axe. In some places the young trees
+almost choked each other with their crowded growth; in others they
+struggled for existence with the old pollards that still held their
+ground. Brambles and moss and last year’s fern covered the paths and
+choked the water-courses; here and there a tree, too lightly rooted to
+withstand the winters’ storms, or too old to bear the weight of its
+years, had fallen and lay as it fell. All was neglected, all growing,
+in crowded thicket or open glade, as only nature unassisted can grow;
+for it was genuine woodland, where the sunshine filtered through a
+close-woven roof of branches and chased dancing shadows over last
+year’s leaves; thickets of thorn breaking into leaf, primroses hiding
+in the moss at their feet; beeches, tall and straight as pillars of
+stone, a cathedral twilight in their shade; pollard oaks still brown in
+sheltered places; the glossy darkness of holly, the stately grace of
+slim young larches lightly tasselled in earliest green; silver birches,
+old trees, their white bark cracked and swelled, blackened by many
+years; young trees, a lace-work of branches, a tangle of supple stems
+and bursting buds.
+
+Bill was over the low boundary fence now. There was no evidence of a
+path, but there ought to have been; it was marked on her map and she
+was going to find it, so she began the ascent in the direction in which
+it should have been. Up she went, the ground soft and irregular, here
+the dead leaves of many years blown into hollows rustling about her
+feet, there the rich black earth patched with moss, emerald and gray
+and golden brown. An old pollard lay as it had fallen; about its head
+fungus had gathered, and under its side primroses grew. Higher up,
+where the leaves were fewer, in sheltered ledges, beneath the twisty
+coils of beech-roots there were more primroses, plenty of them, and
+everywhere anemones, fairy flowers that danced among the dead bracken.
+The sun, hidden by the hill, looked down through the forest aisles,
+threading the whole place with arrows of light so that all around there
+was a lattice of woven light and shadow, while, before, there lay a
+path golden as Jacob’s way to heaven.
+
+Involuntarily the girl stood still, clasping her hands tight on one
+another, while her breath came fast. All round stretched this living
+woodland, thrilling with its growing, stirring life; the bare trees,
+brown and purple and deep blue in their shadows, yet touched with the
+breath of spring, faintest green, or gold, or sparkling where the sun
+caught their yet unopened buds. The very earth was audible, alive, as
+it breathed forth its moist sweetness; and the birds sang their anthem
+of praise for the world’s eternal, ever recurring youth.
+
+She stood, a little brown figure in the lonely wood, her whole
+soul going out to the great mother Earth, her heart filled with a
+passionate, inarticulate gladness. “Oh, God!” she said, “how good, how
+good it all is!”
+
+She said it aloud because she had not outgrown that stage of savagedom
+which feels, with the Druids of old, that God is in the woods. A
+chaffinch on a crab-tree above her head looked down and to another hid
+in the catkinned branches of a hornbeam cried, “Come and see, what d’ye
+think! What d’ye think!” And the other replied with exactly the same
+words, or at least it seemed so to Bill; she listened a moment, then
+answered them with a call so like their own that they might well have
+been puzzled by it if she had not at that moment begun to sing and
+frightened them both to the safe distance of a higher bough--
+
+  “There’s laughter for the May-time,”--
+
+She sang and her voice was like a lark’s in its complete gladness--
+
+  “The morning of the year--the year”--
+
+and the singing was merged into ripples of sound neither song nor
+laughter and yet a wild sweet blending of both.
+
+“Well, young woman, I hope you are satisfied.”
+
+Bill stopped abruptly and faced the speaker, an old man on the higher
+ground just above her. He may have approached by some path hidden in
+the thicket on the right, or he may have been close at hand waiting
+till now to declare himself; she did not know which, neither did she
+know what was expected of her, so she only answered truthfully, “Yes.”
+
+“I am glad to hear it.” She looked puzzled, and he added abruptly: “You
+are trespassing,--do you know it?”
+
+The light began to dawn on Bill’s mind; she had forgotten all about
+the map and the footpath, but now she remembered and answered eagerly:
+“No, no, I am not really, at least I don’t think I can be; there is a
+footpath somewhere about here; I can’t have got far from it.”
+
+“There is no footpath.”
+
+“But it is marked on my map,” and Bill began to unfold the paper in
+which she had for greater security wrapped her treasure.
+
+“I can’t help your map; there is no footpath here and there never was.
+I think I should know considering that the place belongs to me.”
+
+“Are you Mr. Harborough?” Bill’s face beamed with satisfaction.
+
+“I am; the fact seems to afford you pleasure.”
+
+“I am pleased,” Bill admitted. Having once got herself into a
+difficulty she never had any hesitation about going through with it, in
+which course she was often helped by a serene unconsciousness of her
+position and offences, a quality Polly reckoned high in the list of her
+condemned exhibitions of no “gumption.” “I am pleased. I--I had heard
+about you.”
+
+“I am indeed gratified”; he spoke with a sarcastic courtesy somewhat
+wasted on his hearer. “Judging by your flattering anxiety to make my
+acquaintance, I must conclude that what you heard was to my credit.”
+
+“It was interesting,” Bill said doubtfully.
+
+Whereupon the old man laughed. “In that case,” he said, “I must
+conclude it was not to my credit.”
+
+Without replying Bill unfolded her map. “This is the footpath,” she
+said, and began tracing it with her finger.
+
+“I don’t want to see your map, child.” He was looking curiously at the
+small brown figure. “Look up,” he said, “I would rather see your face.
+Tell me where you learnt to sing and laugh and whistle to the birds all
+in a breath.”
+
+“I don’t know; I suppose I was made like that,” she still persistently
+spread out the map. “My cousin Polly,” she explained, without glancing
+up, “says my father was a singer, a poor one, you know, not anything
+much, but perhaps I inherited it from him. Sometimes, though, Polly
+says he was a ventriloquist or even a clown; I don’t think she really
+knows.--See, here is the footpath.”
+
+“Whose is this map?” Mr. Harborough asked; he had taken it from her and
+was examining it through a gold-rimmed glass.
+
+“Mine.”
+
+“But you did not mark that path; it was done years ago.”
+
+“Yes, when the map was made.”
+
+“No, certainly not; it was put in afterwards, that is easy to see. Even
+if I did not know that, as no such path exists, it could not have been
+printed then or at any other time.”
+
+He dropped his glass and handed the map back to Bill who, after looking
+at it a little, began to see that he was correct.
+
+“Then there is no path here after all,” she said in a tone of woful
+disappointment. “I should like to know who marked it on the map?”
+
+“So should I, so should I very much. Where did you get the thing?”
+
+“I found it in an old book of my grandmother’s.”
+
+“Your grandmother?” he said impatiently. “What was your grandmother,
+who was she, how did she come by the book and the map, whose were they
+before?”
+
+Bill could give him no information, and he held out his hand for the
+map again. She gave it to him and he examined it critically. “There
+were very few people who could have put that in,” he said thoughtfully.
+
+“Then there is a path!” Bill exclaimed.
+
+“No, there is not, and there never was. Come with me, just a few steps.
+There,--now look down, your path should pass the pond by that stream,
+do you see? That boggy place, that is where it is marked to go; that
+place has always been the same. What do you think of men who chose that
+way by preference,--is it likely they would do it? What should you
+think of them?”
+
+“I should think they were in a great hurry, and perhaps, that it was
+night,” and Bill looked down into the marshy, overgrown hollow, at a
+loss to understand.
+
+Her companion’s voice aroused her: “What about this grandmother of
+yours?” he asked abruptly.
+
+“I don’t know anything; she has been dead a long time, but I will find
+out if I can.”
+
+“Will you? Perhaps you think you will also find out about this
+mysterious path?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Bill was a painfully persistent person. It may have been that Mr.
+Harborough thought so, or it may have been that he still wished to keep
+her to enliven the tedium of the day, for he said coolly: “I will tell
+you if you like. There is no path, it is true, but the way marked on
+your map was taken one night by men in a hurry to reach the chapel of
+ease further on in these grounds.”
+
+“They made a path for themselves!” Bill cried. “They were in a hurry
+and went the nearest way! What were they doing? Why did they want to go
+to the chapel?”
+
+Mr. Harborough laughed at her eagerness. “My dear young lady,” he said,
+“I will explain if you wish, only we must really walk on. I am sorry to
+say I can no longer stand an indefinite time even to discuss anything
+so romantic as you seem to think this tale. Let us go on,--this
+way. Now for the romance: to begin with, do you know a certain old
+tradition in connection with carrying a corpse? It may linger still,
+though I hardly think it, but at the time I am speaking of it was not
+infrequently believed that the way along which a body had been carried
+for burial became a path for ever, became what is called a right of
+way. Mind, this is tradition I am telling you, not fact; it is not fact
+and it never was. If twenty bodies were carried through my grounds
+for burial no right of way would be established, but at one time some
+people firmly believed such a thing to be the case.”
+
+“Then the men were carrying a body?” Bill’s face was flushed with
+excitement. “And the person who marked my map knew about it and
+believed the tradition?”
+
+“Yes. The question is, who marked your map?”
+
+“Did not many people know about carrying the body that way?”
+
+“Not many, and certainly very few could have marked your map with the
+accuracy with which I believe it to be marked.”
+
+“The burying was private, then?”
+
+Bill was anxious to make the most of her romance. Her companion watched
+her eagerness with an amused face, and as they came suddenly on to
+a gravel path, he said with an air of impenetrable mystery: “Very
+private, I should say, at that time, very private indeed.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+HARBOROUGH OF GURNETT.
+
+
+It was an axiom of Polly’s that if you can’t be clever, you had better
+be a fool. This, needless to state, was first said in reference to
+Bill who, Polly considered, fell into the last category and fell there
+comfortably. “Providence, or something else, helps fools,” was Polly’s
+opinion, “while it leaves moderately sensible people to shift for
+themselves. Things always turn out right for fools. Whatever muddle
+Bill blundered into, I believe she would blunder out of it again not
+one bit the worse.” The day that Bill went in search of the right of
+way at Wood Hall was possibly an illustration of this faculty; for on
+that occasion, though she had the ill-luck to blunder on the owner
+of the property, she was not ignominiously turned out of the place,
+threatened with prosecution and other penalties; on the contrary, she
+was--“Well, treated in a way in which I should not have been treated,”
+Polly said with an indignant sniff. Wherein she certainly spoke the
+truth, but then, as Bella pointed out, Bill was not Polly; though what
+Bill was that she should please the master of Wood Hall, neither could
+quite say. They did not know him.
+
+After all, there was not much to know, only a lonely old man who had
+outlived friends and health and amusements. He had come to Wood Hall
+to die, he said, for it was well fitting that he, the last of the
+family in a direct line, should die in the neglected home. Certainly
+he had never used it much as a home; perhaps he had not cared to do
+so in reduced state, perhaps, more likely, he had little interest in
+a country life. One autumn, a long time ago, he had spent a month or
+two at the old hall, which was only some five miles from the house
+where the high sheriff for the year was living. People said that
+this proximity had something to do with Mr. Harborough’s visit; and
+certainly there was some scandal about the sheriff’s wife which had the
+effect of closing the doors of the neighbouring gentry upon him for a
+time, at least of those who still cherished certain provincial notions
+of morality. But that was all a very old tale, a tale almost forgotten
+now. Miss Minchin and her compeers might recall it, but to the younger
+generation Mr. Harborough and his doings were little more than a
+name, for since that time Wood Hall had seen but very little of him.
+Indeed, he affected a cynical indifference for the old house, which
+was possibly genuine enough, though it had not prevented his coming
+to pass his last lonely days there. Lonely they were, and tedious he
+often found them; tedious when he was ill, more tedious still when he
+was well. It was to this tedium, and to the fact that he was moderately
+well that day, that Bill owed the interest she had for him; that and,
+perhaps, some little charm her youth had for the old rake.
+
+Whatever may have been the cause, certainly she did interest him,
+for when he led her through the wood and out on to the path he showed
+no inclination to let her go. The path was a weed-grown gravel sweep,
+dividing the wood on the one side from a shrubbery on the other. Here a
+man with a wheeled chair was waiting the arrival of his master.
+
+“Oh,” Bill exclaimed as she saw the path between the trees, “I have
+come out at the wrong place! I had better go back.”
+
+“And lose your way, and trespass still further on my property?”
+
+“I will be very careful.”
+
+“I dare say.” The old man seated himself in the chair as he spoke.
+“Don’t you think you have trespassed enough for one day?”
+
+Bill did not consider that she had exactly trespassed, but she was not
+sure that she could make anyone else, say a magistrate, take the same
+view; neither was she sure what the penalty for trespass might be, so
+she only said: “I am very sorry; I thought the map was right, though I
+certainly did not see a path.”
+
+“On the strength of the thought you went to look? Yes? Well, supposing
+I let you off this time--”
+
+“I will never do it again.”
+
+“--Let you off, I say, on a condition.”
+
+“What condition?” Bill asked cautiously.
+
+“That as a penance for coming here, you finish that song you began in
+the wood.”
+
+“Is that all? I’ll certainly do that. It is not a real song, only a
+verse of poetry and I don’t sing it quite right. The last line should
+be ‘In winter rest is sweet,’ only I like it best the other way. Shall
+I sing it now?” And receiving an answer in the affirmative, she sang
+without more ado:
+
+  “There’s laughter for the May-time,
+   The morning of the year;
+   There’s work for all the day-time,
+   When summer’s noon is here;
+   The victor’s crown of glory
+   The harvest home shall greet;
+   But after life’s long story
+   There’s the devil’s bill to meet!
+   The devil’s bill--”
+
+she sang till all the wood around her seemed full of laughing voices--
+
+  “The devil’s bill, the devil’s bill, the devil’s bill to meet!”
+
+Seeing that the condition laid upon her was a light one she felt bound
+to fulfil it to the uttermost and to do her best, using all the tricks
+of voice and tone that she knew. In this laudable endeavour her success
+was such that even the stoical attendant with the chair, who, it might
+have been presumed, had outlived astonishment in his master’s service,
+looked at her in surprise, while Mr. Harborough himself was delighted.
+
+“Bravo!” he exclaimed. “What a voice it is! They ought to put you on
+the stage, the variety-stage.”
+
+Bill was gratified, but not unduly moved. She had a tolerably clear
+idea that her vocal tricks had not much real value, and, as she wanted
+to get home, she did not care to stay for more compliments.
+
+“You see, I have got to get back to Ashelton,” so she concluded her
+explanation.
+
+“Ashelton?” Mr. Harborough exclaimed; “you cannot get there till after
+three o’clock. You surely do not mean to go fasting? You must not do
+that. You will perhaps give me the pleasure of your company at lunch?
+Yes? You had better; they will have eaten up everything by the time you
+get home. Come, you must not say no; that song deserves something more
+than a wander in the wood. Little Miss Tucker sang for her supper,--no,
+for her lunch. I promise that you shall not be late in getting home,
+the carriage can take you as far as you like on your return journey.”
+
+Bill was not troubled with many even rudimentary ideas of propriety.
+The sandwiches were little more than a memory, and, besides,--a reason
+which influenced her most of all--if she accepted the invitation she
+would see Wood Hall. Consequently she did accept and, walking beside
+the chair, accompanied Mr. Harborough to the house.
+
+What was it like? Bill sometimes tried to describe it, but she never
+succeeded, and always ended by saying: “If it were mine, I would never,
+never give it up; I would fight for every brick of it, every timber,
+every stone. I would sell everything to keep it; it would break my
+heart to let it go after it had belonged to my people for so many
+generations. It is a house that is just weighed down with years; I
+think it must be almost awful to have all those years behind you.”
+
+It was with a hushed sense of the awe belonging to a great house which
+had reached its declining days that Bill entered the wide arched
+doorway. She had said, as they came from the wood, how much she wanted
+to see the big hall of local fame, so, by Mr. Harborough’s orders,
+they went by the long west front of the house. It was a great pile,
+built of bricks which were neither purple nor red, the tint which
+only the centuries can mix, with rows of mullioned windows, set not
+too straight by the hands of Tudor builders, and pressed yet more
+aslant by the weight of time upon them. Above, was a roof high-gabled,
+many-peaked, running this way and that; below, stretching to right and
+left, a terraced walk led to gardens where yew hedges and pleached
+alleys recalled the days of hooped petticoats and powdered heads, or
+even of older times when the men of trunk-hose and mighty hand cast
+bowls on the smooth turfed green. But everywhere was decay; even the
+spring sunshine and the glad singing birds could not destroy the sense
+of death and decay,--blistered paint and lichened stone, sagging roof
+and darkened windows, grass on the terrace, weeds between the stones,
+unclipped hedges, and rose-walks a tangle of thorns; and the great,
+sad, grand old house looking down on it all.
+
+To this place Bill came, out of the spring sunshine and the living air
+into the great hall. It was not quite so great as tradition said, but
+still of size enough to tempt some mad Harborough of bygone days to try
+to turn his coach in its width. Vast it was, with its dark walls hung
+with tapestry rotten past repair, its polished floor, and its fireplace
+where a man might well share the hearth with the logs and not then be
+overnear the blaze. Above the mantelpiece were the arms of the house,
+the house that had seen its best days; the dragons’ heads, deep cut in
+polished wood, grinned down malignantly on the little intruder whom the
+Harborough of to-day had brought from his woods. She paused a moment,
+awed by the sense of past greatness, by the weight of the years that
+lay behind, by the thought of the stately women who had passed that way
+before her. Then she went on, and as she went her light step gained a
+stateliness, her figure a dignity which well became the place and made
+old Harborough ask himself if the child had not some good blood in her
+after all.
+
+He found himself pondering over the same question again later on, for
+Bill, like most born mimics, often unconsciously imitated those she
+was with, frequently, without being aware of it, catching her manner
+from theirs, sometimes shaping even her speech and accent according to
+those of the person to whom she spoke. Thus, as Mr. Harborough treated
+her with an almost exaggerated courtesy, she returned him the same,
+and, since she was keenly conscious of the dignity belonging to the old
+house, she shaped her behaviour in accordance with it. As for her host,
+he was half surprised, half amused, the amusement growing, however, as
+he led her to talk. Nobody had found her conversation amusing before;
+Carrie and Alice, though they sometimes laughed, more often professed
+a contempt for her and all her sayings, even while they half feared
+her many mocking voices. Certainly no one had laughed at her thoughts
+and replies; she could not herself always see a reason for her host’s
+laughter, but it was plain that he did. He was old, she thought, and
+therefore easily pleased, lonely and therefore not very critical; but
+his appreciation encouraged her, the wine (the first she had ever
+tasted) excited her, and she talked as she had never talked before, he
+leading her on till she had bewitched herself:
+
+“I tried to amuse him a little while, poor old man,” she told Polly
+meekly afterwards. “I really owed him something for the good food he
+gave me. Still, I think I did it more because I liked it than for
+anything else.”
+
+To which Polly, having but small opinion of Bill’s powers of amusing,
+only made reply, “I dare say.”
+
+Mr. Harborough, however, who had lived in seclusion so long now that a
+small thing entertained him, vowed, far on in the afternoon, that Bill
+was the best of good company. In acknowledgment of which compliment
+Bill swept him a curtsey, with three fingers on her lips in the fashion
+of the china ladies on Miss Minchin’s mantelpiece. Then she said she
+must go home, and in so saying, it is to be feared that the imp in her
+got the upper hand, prompting her to the character she loved, for the
+tone and manner of her words suggested Mr. Johnson.
+
+Carrie and Alice did not like Bill’s mimicry, but Mr. Harborough was
+otherwise, and he recognised the original almost before Bill was aware
+of it herself.
+
+“I must come and hear that parson of yours,” he laughed.
+
+“Why don’t you?” Bill suddenly became serious. “There is the Harborough
+chapel in Ashelton church; what is the good of having a chapel all to
+yourself if you never use it?”
+
+“I do not belong to the Church of England.”
+
+Bill remembered Miss Minchin’s words. “Oh,” she began apologetically,
+but then a magnificent idea occurred to her or to some spirit of
+mischief that possessed her. She cast a quick glance at Harborough, her
+eyes ablaze with light.
+
+“What is it now?” he asked.
+
+“Nothing; at least, you would not do it--I don’t believe you could.”
+
+“Try me,” he answered; “lay your commands upon me and they are obeyed.”
+
+“It is not a command; but it would be,--I should like to see what would
+happen.”
+
+“In what case?”
+
+“If you had a service in your chapel. I don’t know if you could, but I
+should almost think so; it is your own; you could have a Roman Catholic
+service there as well as we could have a Protestant one in our part,
+couldn’t you? I should like to see what would happen if you did!”
+
+“I should probably be prosecuted,” Harborough said; “that is what would
+most likely happen.”
+
+Bill sighed. “I never thought of that,” she said.
+
+“Did you not?” he answered. “Neither should I if I wanted the service,
+or rather, wanted to see what would happen.”
+
+“You would risk it?”
+
+“What will you give me if I do?”
+
+Harborough had little respect for either religion, less still for his
+neighbours’ feelings. As for Bill, neither thought occurred to her; the
+thing appealed to her as many an act, incomprehensible to a man for its
+folly or its wanton mischief, appeals to the superabundant energy of
+boyhood. It was simply a desire to see what would happen, a sporting
+appreciation of an explosion with no realisation of consequences
+painful to other people.
+
+“What would you give me?”
+
+“What do you want?”
+
+He hesitated a moment, and then said: “Come and see me again, and we
+will talk it over.”
+
+She agreed readily: “Yes, if Theresa will let me.”
+
+“Theresa must let you.”
+
+Bill thought it was probable that she would and said so, but Mr.
+Harborough, possibly judging from a wider experience, was not so sure
+and did not seem content with the arrangement.
+
+“Why ask?” he said.
+
+“Because I must; she won’t mind.”
+
+“But supposing she does?”
+
+“She won’t; I shall be able to come.”
+
+“You think so? Then let us make this bargain: if I do as you suggest,
+you will come once more to talk over the terms.”
+
+“Very well; I will come once, she is sure to let me; but when I come,
+supposing I don’t like your terms, supposing they don’t seem fair to
+me, what am I to do? Must I fulfil them?”
+
+He told her that she need not, laughing at her caution, as a servant
+announced that the carriage was waiting.
+
+So Bill took her leave and drove away in state, though she did not
+think it necessary to complete her journey in the Harborough carriage;
+in fact she dismissed it at the entrance of one of the lanes and went
+the rest of the way home on foot.
+
+“Did you have a nice walk?” Theresa asked her young cousin when she met
+her at the door.
+
+“Oh, yes, glorious! I have had such a good time. I went into Wood Hall,
+not the grounds only, but the house too. You never saw such a place; it
+is,--I can’t describe it.”
+
+“Into Wood Hall!” Theresa exclaimed in astonishment.
+
+“Yes, and I saw Mr. Harborough; he was ever so kind, not the least like
+what you would expect--”
+
+And then out came the story of Bill’s adventures, a brief and rather
+incoherent story with some things left out and some told twice,
+and, naturally, no mention of the surprise in store for the people
+of Ashelton. That was the only thing she intentionally suppressed,
+but unintentionally she suppressed many details and most of the
+conversation, though enough was told to puzzle and disturb Theresa.
+
+“Bill, I don’t know what to say. I am sure you ought not to have gone.
+I wish I had never let you go that walk.”
+
+Theresa, completely astonished by Bill’s tale, now for the first time
+realised the responsibility of her charge. The charge herself had no
+idea of the nature of her offence. “Ought not to have gone?” she said.
+“Why not?”
+
+“Because--because you ought not. I wonder you did not know; you should
+have known by instinct.”
+
+Theresa’s sense of the enormity of Bill’s conduct was increasing, but
+with it there was also increasing a recognition of the difficulty of
+making it clear to the offender; certainly if she depended on Bill’s
+instinct she was not likely to be successful, for, as Polly had rightly
+said, Bill possessed little of that in connection with matters of
+social behaviour.
+
+“Well, for a moment I did wonder if I ought, because, of course, I had
+on my old dress and the place is so splendid.”
+
+“That is not the reason at all. You ought not to have gone,--I mean, he
+should not have asked you. He would not have done so if he had been a
+nice man; he could not have done so properly.”
+
+“Oh, yes he did--”
+
+“I mean, he could not have asked you with propriety. You know he cannot
+think you--did not ask you as an equal; besides, you must have heard
+about him, the sort of man he is.”
+
+“About his being bad? Miss Minchin did say that, and certainly he did
+say himself that he had the devil’s bill to meet.”
+
+Bill did not think it wise to explain, in answer to Theresa’s
+exclamation, that she herself had supplied the expression. She let that
+pass and Theresa began: “If you thought him all that--”
+
+“But I am not sure he is bad exactly; and if he were, I don’t see what
+harm it would do. Besides, is he bad? Of course I shouldn’t say he
+was good in our sense of the word, but then there are so many senses.
+He gave me the idea of being like a person who had lost his taste for
+all except one kind of thing. You can’t blame a person for not liking
+strawberry jam when he can only properly taste peppers; I should think,
+in a way, he could only taste peppers; and I should not be surprised if
+he had tried them very hot.”
+
+“Don’t talk nonsense, Bill,” Theresa said severely; and Bill, acting
+on the suggestion, did not talk at all, except when she explained to
+her cousin that she had promised to go to Wood Hall once again. This
+Theresa naturally forbade, absolutely refusing to permit it on any
+condition whatever. Bill did not press the point, nor go into too many
+details, for, as she said to herself, “Perhaps he won’t do it, and
+then I sha’n’t have to go after all.” If he did, it would be then time
+enough to settle with Theresa, and arrange some satisfactory compromise
+between breaking her own word on the one hand and her cousin’s command
+on the other.
+
+But would he do it? Bill wondered about it once or twice during the
+week. Would he be able to get a priest to read the service for him?
+She had a very vague idea as to how he would set about it. He had said
+something about knowing a man, and had smiled when he said it, not a
+very nice smile, but it looked rather as if he thought the man would do
+as he was asked. So Bill wondered, and the week passed quietly.
+
+Sunday came, a still, peaceful spring day. April was fairly in now,
+every bush and tree was waking to the fact even in the grey weather.
+Sunday was grey, quiet and calm, but a Sunday long remembered in
+Ashelton. The congregation assembled in church at the usual time,
+wearing the usual clothes, for it was not yet Easter. There was nothing
+much to look at, but from force of habit the congregation looked at
+each other. Bill, from her corner seat, looked across the old pews to
+the Harborough chapel. Was he coming? The clock began to strike eleven.
+No, he was not coming after all, he--was he?--she watched. The small
+side door of the chapel was opened from without and into the fretted
+twilight an old man stepped--he had come!
+
+A great smile of satisfaction spread over Bill’s face; a pleasant
+sensation of excitement and expectancy took possession of her. To
+tell the truth, something like a thrill of excitement ran through the
+whole congregation, though they expected nothing, at least nothing
+definite. Miss Minchin said afterwards that she wondered what was going
+to happen when she saw him come in, but then the saying came after
+the event. At the time she certainly looked earnestly enough to have
+seen anything there was to see, though that did not amount to a great
+deal. Mr. Harborough, attended by his manservant, entered; the verger,
+who hastened forward for the purpose, disposed of the servant in a
+side seat and shut the master in the great front pew. The congregation
+stared intently; Mr. Harborough stared in return with the vacant stare
+of a superior being,--they had always said he was very haughty; his eye
+met Bill’s for a moment, and a faint smile of recognition passed over
+his face, but the general public did not notice it.
+
+The clock had ceased striking, and the first notes of the organ filled
+the church with a soft vibrating sound. Forth from the new vestry on
+the right came the choir and clergy; forth from the old vestry on the
+left, built originally for the sole use of the Harborough chapel, came
+a priest with shaven face set in a mask of stolid endurance. Bill,
+with the wanton cruelty of youth, saw the enduring face, but, not
+recognising its pain, felt no compunction, no pity for the man forced
+by some threat he feared to a task hateful to him. She felt nothing
+at all except a thrilling excitement. For a moment the event was
+all she had expected. All around her she could feel the mute horror
+and astonishment of the congregation; she could see it uncontrolled
+on their faces, so comical, she thought, in their blank, speechless
+amazement at this unparalleled conduct of the lord of the manor. At the
+end of the aisle was the verger, motionless, dumb; in their pews, the
+churchwardens, alike dumb, incapable of action, watching, fascinated,
+the rival clergy who, owing to the situation of the altar in the
+Harborough chapel, were hidden from each other’s sight by the wooden
+screen. No one in the chancel knew of those in the chapel; no one in
+the chapel showed any sign of knowledge of those in the chancel; all
+knelt in silence. But as the last choir-boy on the right rose from his
+knees, he leaned a little forward and saw the priest beyond the screen.
+His eyes grew round with astonishment; he almost fell forward on his
+head in his eagerness to be quite sure; then the situation struck him
+as it struck Bill, and doubled him up in spasms of suppressed laughter.
+
+“When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness,”--Mr. Johnson
+began, at the same time becoming aware of an unusual rustle and
+movement among the hitherto spell-bound people.
+
+The priest should, no doubt, have begun to read at the same time, but
+he did not. Mr. Harborough apologised to Bill afterwards for the way in
+which he failed in his part, for he hesitated and waited a moment. In
+that moment the verger, a shrewd old brickmaker, hastened up the aisle,
+and, without waiting for orders from the churchwardens, delivered some
+whispered information to Mr. Dane.
+
+There was a breathless pause; then low but distinct came the voice of
+the priest,--“_Introibo ad altare Dei_--”
+
+Miss Minchin started violently and looked about her in an awed
+fashion. She had seen all that had passed, but she hardly thought, as
+she said afterwards, that he would really venture to hold a service
+in the parish church. Mr. Dane passed quietly between the slender
+pillars of the side screen and approached the priest. A second
+whispered conversation, a glance, possibly an appealing glance, at Mr.
+Harborough, and Mr. Dane went on to him. Mr. Johnson, in the absence
+of the rector, went on with the service, but when Mr. Dane returned to
+his place he silenced his curate with a glance, and the priest, either
+more courteous or more sure of a hearing, did not attempt to begin his
+reading anew.
+
+Mr. Dane turned to the congregation. “My brethren,” he said, “our
+neighbour, Mr. Harborough, has expressed a wish to hear the mass read
+in his chapel of St. Mary Magdalen. As the hour he has chosen for the
+reading coincides with that of our morning-service, and as both cannot
+be conducted simultaneously in a seemly manner, I ask you to wait with
+me while the reverend Father reads the mass, which may God bless both
+to him and his hearers.”
+
+No one left the church; to a man they stood by their rector, though
+there were those among them who had strong feelings and would have much
+liked to enter a protest. The priest turned back to his mass-book;
+his hands shook a little, for the rector’s words had distressed him
+curiously; but Mr. Dane composed himself to listen with quiet dignity.
+
+And deep hidden in the shadow of a high old pew was one whose grief
+and self-abasement knew no bounds. The event had not been what she had
+anticipated; things looked quite different now.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE COURTSHIP OF HARBOROUGH OF GURNETT.
+
+
+There can be no doubt that few things are so well concealed as the
+perfectly obvious, no course of conduct so little observed as that
+which is open to all observation. If Bill had wished to conceal her
+doings on Sunday afternoon she would probably have been found out;
+since she was perfectly indifferent as to who knew what she did, no one
+discovered it. If she had been anxious for concealment she would have
+gone to the rectory by way of the field-path, and would inevitably have
+been seen by Miss Minchin and catechised by her in due season. But,
+since she was far too absorbed in other matters to care what any one
+thought, she went by the public way and no one knew it; no one, till
+Mr. Dane’s old housekeeper admitted her and took her to the study where
+Mr. Dane, but lately returned from a children’s service at Ashelton
+End, sat before his beloved piano.
+
+The rector of Ashelton knew every one in his parish and, to a certain
+extent, all about every one; consequently he knew of Mrs. Morton’s aunt
+and sister and cousins in Wrugglesby. To be sure, he knew about them
+before Theresa was Mrs. Morton, for Miss Brownlow was an institution of
+such long standing that he, being also an institution of long standing,
+could hardly fail to know of her. Still, this knowledge did not give
+him much information about Bill, of whom he only knew that she was a
+niece of Miss Brownlow and a cousin of Mrs. Morton. At one time he
+had tried to find out more about her, though not from any personal
+interest, for he did not know her even by sight then. It was on account
+of her name that he had made the enquiries, having good reason to
+remember the name of Alardy. However, he could discover nothing to
+couple her with the other Alardy, nor indeed had he been very hopeful
+of discovering anything. It was the familiarity of the name that had
+tempted him; and it was this familiarity which caused him an almost
+painful start when she was announced on that Sunday afternoon. He did
+not know her, nor her business, nor could he guess what it might be.
+
+Bill did not leave him long in doubt; her very face betrayed her; there
+was about her whole manner a contrition and self-abasement almost
+suggestive of a dog in disgrace. “I have come to tell you I did it,”
+she said, standing in the centre of the room; and the old rector at
+once perceived that he was to hear a confession, the enormity of which
+seemed terrible to the offender.
+
+“Sit down,” he said kindly. “There is something you want to tell me,
+something which seems very bad? Let us hear what is the matter, and we
+will see what can be done.”
+
+“Nothing can be done or undone.” She spoke with absolute conviction. “I
+want to tell you in case you should blame anyone else, and because I
+owe it to you,--that is the reason. The thing can’t be altered now.”
+And then she plunged straight into her confession. “It is about this
+morning’s service. It was all my fault; I got Mr. Harborough to have
+it.”
+
+Mr. Dane had known the owner of Wood Hall more years than he had
+known Ashelton. He was considerably surprised by Bill’s confession,
+considerably more surprised than he had been by the affair of the
+morning.
+
+“You induced Mr. Harborough to have the mass read?” he asked. “You? But
+why?--how?”
+
+“I thought of it,” she answered, “and,--he did it. This is how it
+happened. I was in the wood, and he found me and took me to the house
+to amuse him a little while, and I amused him as well as I could. It
+was rather like the daughter of Herodias dancing before Herod, though
+I did not dance, he did not ask me; but I sang and talked and pleased
+him. It is true he did not ask me at the end what I would like, but
+when I thought of this he half promised to do it; and now,--he has done
+it.”
+
+“Then it was your idea? He did it to please you, or rather because you
+asked him?”
+
+“Yes; it was my fault; he would not have done it if it had not been for
+me. I suppose,” she added doubtfully, “he hardly knew what it would be.”
+
+Mr. Dane had other opinions, but he only said: “Perhaps we had better
+not consider his action in the matter. I have known him long enough
+to be tempted to judge him as one man is sometimes tempted to judge
+another; but we will not do it. Let us talk about you; you persuaded
+him, or at least suggested the idea?”
+
+“Yes; I suggested,--I did not persuade, I only suggested; but I had
+pleased him first so that he was ready to do as I wished; it was almost
+as good as persuading.”
+
+Her eyes were honest, but the rector was perplexed. He could not quite
+understand the case; the nature of the offence and the manner of the
+committal were clear enough; but the nature of the offender puzzled
+him. “Tell me,” he said, “what made you suggest such a thing; why did
+you do it?”
+
+“I thought it would be--” Bill hesitated for a word,--“not exactly
+fun, though still funny,--it was, too, at first”; and in spite of her
+genuine penitence a smile stole over her face at the recollection. “I
+believe I wanted to see what would happen more than anything else,” she
+concluded after a pause.
+
+“Were you satisfied with what did happen?”
+
+“No; oh, no, no! If I had thought of that I would never have suggested
+it; I never thought about hurting you or the poor priest. When I saw
+how you took it, and how he hated what he had got to do, I felt as if
+I should like to get up and tell Mr. Harborough to stop. But it would
+have been no use, I am sure,--I had done it and I could not undo it.”
+
+“No,” he answered her very gravely, “no, you could not.”
+
+There was a moment’s silence, and Bill for the first time in her life
+faced the irrevocable. At last the old man spoke again. “And it never
+occurred to you,” he said, “that it would be painful to other people?
+Tell me, did another and a higher consideration never occur to you
+either?”
+
+“That it was irreverent? I did not think of it at the time; now, of
+course, I know it was; but I really did not mean to be, and I think God
+must know. That is the best of it; you need never pretend or explain
+to Him. He knows, but other people,--I am very, very sorry.”
+
+Mr. Dane pressed that point no further; perhaps the offender was
+beginning to explain herself to him a little, and so he judged it
+unwise. He led her to talk of the events which preceded her suggestion;
+she told him all readily, the walk to Gurnett, the ramble in the wood,
+even her own rapture when alone there.
+
+“And to think,” she concluded, “that I should have felt like that,--as
+if the whole world were holy--and then, a little later think of such a
+thing!”
+
+“I know,” he said, “I know. The human mind is a very strange thing, and
+evil thoughts, in spite of what some people say to the contrary, are
+perhaps the very strangest things which ever come there.”
+
+“Yes,”--and she drew a deep breath. “I was so glad to be alive that
+morning,” she went on; “I was glad about everything; I was fairly crazy
+with,--with life I think. I can’t explain, and I am afraid you don’t
+understand.”
+
+Did he not? It was a great many years ago, but he too knew what it
+meant--life and the joy of living, the wanton madness of youth. He
+understood so well that he said little more about the act she deplored
+but could not undo. Instead, he tried to prepare for the future, and
+he prepared by asking some few questions about the past, about life
+at Ashelton, life at Wrugglesby with Miss Brownlow, poor dear Miss
+Brownlow. And again she told him readily, but her answers only deepened
+the wrinkles in his forehead. She thought they were for her wrong
+doings, but she confessed them all bravely, including her enjoyment of
+the prayer-meeting.
+
+“I liked it,” she admitted, “because Mr. Johnson was so fine when he
+talked about faith, the evidence of the spirit, and the things which
+are not as they are, and all the rest of it. I suppose it is wrong? I
+have not imitated him very much yet; I will try not. That is the chief
+reason why I liked the prayer-meeting and why I went to the second
+one. There was another reason,--I liked driving there. It was such a
+splendid evening, one of those that make you feel as if you would like
+to live for ever.”
+
+He ruffled his hair thoughtfully, and looked at her with a still
+troubled brow.
+
+“You don’t understand?” she said, mistaking him. “I don’t mean eternal
+life that we--that Mr. Johnson talks about; but never to leave the
+world. It is so beautiful, so,--so dear! I can’t”--and there was almost
+a sob in her voice--“I can’t bear to think I shall have to die and lose
+sight of it all; that the thrushes will sing and I shall not hear them,
+the leaves come and go, the suns rise and set, and I never see them. It
+is sad to think how much I have lost already, though inside myself I
+always feel as if I had not really lost it, as if I had been there all
+the time from the beginning and seen all the changes. You know what I
+mean; you can learn lots about the past but nothing about the future;
+nothing helps you about that, and by-and-bye there will be, must be,
+more earth-history--it does not seem possible that I shall not know; I
+do not feel as if I could die!”
+
+She looked up, appealing almost passionately for mercy on this first
+time that her soul had been betrayed into words. Perhaps the old rector
+was a lenient judge; his eyes were almost wistful as he said half to
+himself: “And you are never ill, and never tired.”
+
+“I never have been.”
+
+“And you have not nearly enough to do--” he was speaking solely to
+himself now--“God help you!”
+
+It is possible Mr. Dane thought this was a case for man’s help also; at
+all events he did not dismiss it with some brief fatherly advice and a
+blessing. He talked to Bill as he had not talked before to anyone in
+Ashelton; he, who, as it were, kept all on the outskirts of his life,
+spoke of those things which were the innermost shrine of his faith,
+the things which, like the priests of old, he believed should be kept
+for the initiated. And Bill was not initiated. Possibly she did not
+quite understand him; but it did not matter, she would do so some day.
+Possibly he did not quite understand her; how should he with all the
+gap of years between them? Nevertheless he treated the girlish fancies
+delicately, almost as holy things.
+
+In the end he set her a penance, for, though a believer in spiritual
+repentance, he also held that work was very good for the soul; so for
+her wrong-doing he set her a task, at least he said it was for that.
+
+“What shall I do?” she asked eagerly.
+
+“You know that long bed at the bottom of Mrs. Morton’s garden? Dig it
+up. First pull up all the weeds and burn them, then dig it up, dig
+deep, put in manure and plant potatoes. I do not think Mrs. Morton will
+object; I fancy she would let you do what you like in her garden.”
+
+“Yes, oh yes, she won’t mind. I will begin to-morrow morning; is there
+nothing else? I shall like doing that.”
+
+“Do that first,” he said, and she promised, not questioning his right
+to set her a task nor the fitness of the one he set. In fact, so
+satisfied did she seem with his wisdom that, just as she was leaving,
+she told him of the promise to go to Wood Hall again and of the
+difficulties attending it.
+
+“I promised,” she said, “thinking Theresa would let me go, and now she
+won’t; but I must still go.”
+
+“You should not have promised;” and he looked very grave.
+
+“But I have; I thought Theresa would not mind.”
+
+“She is quite right; nevertheless one must keep a promise.”
+
+It is to be feared that here spoke the man dowered with family
+tradition, and not the clergyman and spiritual adviser. The sentiment,
+however, was one which Bill understood. “Yes,” she said, “I must go.”
+
+“But not alone,” he answered; “she must go with you.”
+
+This Bill did not understand; she was also very certain that Theresa
+would not agree, and proceeded to explain the difficulty.
+
+“She would take you, surely she would drive with you?” Mr. Dane
+persisted.
+
+But Bill shook her head. “She would say the promise was wrong and could
+not be kept, and she would think she was encouraging wrong by going;
+that is her way of looking at it.”
+
+Mr. Dane felt he was brought face to face with a difficulty, but he
+only repeated firmly, “You must not go alone.” Perhaps he could think
+of nothing else to say.
+
+Fortunately just then Bill thought of a possible way out of the
+trouble. “Do you think it would do if Polly were to drive with me?” she
+asked. “Polly is my eldest cousin. I should have to leave her outside
+the house, but I would not be many minutes gone.”
+
+Mr. Dane did not know Polly, but he thought she would do. He strongly
+recommended also that she should, if possible, accompany Bill into the
+house. Bill was not at all sure that Polly would do this, and she was
+very sure indeed that she did not want her to do it; however, she could
+not explain all this to Mr. Dane in the time now at her disposal, so
+she prepared to say good-bye.
+
+“There is one thing I should like to ask you before you go,” said Mr.
+Dane, looking at her thoughtfully as she stood by his chair. “It is
+about yourself.”
+
+“I will tell you if I can,” she answered, “but I think I have already
+told you all there is to tell.” Indeed, she had told him a great deal,
+far more than she was aware of, but it was not quite what he meant.
+
+“Your mother was Miss Brownlow’s sister?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, the youngest, Kate; but I do not remember her at all; she died
+when I was very little.”
+
+Mr. Dane looked at her thoughtfully. “I should doubt if you were like
+your mother,” he said; “you are not at all like your cousins, or Miss
+Brownlow either.”
+
+“No, I am not like them; sometimes Polly says I am like my father; but
+she did not know him, and she only says it when she is angry. I don’t
+think I can be like him really, except that I am dark. He was dark, but
+then he was very clever and fascinating; Auntie says he bewitched my
+mother, so that she would marry him in spite of what they all said. I
+believe they did not think him good enough for her. I don’t quite know
+what he was; he used to come sometimes to sing at the town where she
+lived, but he was not a grand professional singer. Some people said he
+was half a gipsy; he loved wandering about.”
+
+“Do you remember him?”
+
+“Not clearly; he did not live long after my mother; still I remember
+him better than I do her. I can just remember going about with him, or
+at least I think I can; it is difficult to tell which is memory and
+which fancy, it is all so long ago. I came to Auntie when I was very
+small.”
+
+“And remained there ever since?”
+
+“Yes, remained there ever since,” and she held out her hand to him.
+
+He took it. “Good-bye,” he said, “good-bye, little maiden. Do they call
+you Katie, too?”
+
+“No; Bill,--Wilhelmina.”
+
+“Wilhelmina!”
+
+Perhaps the other Alardy had been called Wilhelmina; the old man’s face
+almost looked as if it were so, or as if some ghost had sprung to life
+at the name. But Bill did not see his face; for a moment he stood in
+the shadow of the door, then turned and went stooping into the dimness
+of the passage; and she went onward down the road, thinking only how
+she could compass to-morrow’s visit.
+
+Polly was shrewd enough after her fashion, and if she saw Mr.
+Harborough would, Bill felt certain, find out more than was desirable
+concerning her cousin’s share in the reading of the mass. Therefore
+Polly must not set foot inside Wood Hall. Bill had some respect for
+her shrewdness, though she was depending on being able to outwit it
+when she said she would get her chaperonage for the intended call. “But
+I’ll get her,” Bill assured herself as she walked home that Sunday
+afternoon; and the chances were that she would, for she was a tenacious
+little person, and also, while much lacking in perception on some
+points, she had an instinctive comprehension of character which gave
+her a truer conception of the turns and twists of Polly’s nature than
+either of the other cousins possessed.
+
+On Monday morning Bill set to work to carry out her plan. Her newly
+acquired mastery over the reins was the first thing pressed into
+her service. She would drive the old pony over to Wrugglesby, pack
+some clothes she wanted, and bring Polly (Bella would be giving
+music-lessons) home to Haylands with her for the night. At first
+Theresa demurred, but Robert only laughed at her fears; and finally
+Bill was allowed to go, with Henry, the boot-boy, in attendance in case
+of accidents. Bill accepted Henry’s escort to Wrugglesby, but said he
+would have to walk back as she intended to take Polly for a drive by
+herself. Theresa demurred again, but Robert was on Bill’s side; and
+finally, as might have been foreseen, Henry walked back alone, while
+Bill and Polly went for their drive.
+
+Not, however, before Bill had encountered another obstacle, which
+presented itself in the attractive form of Bella. Bella wanted to make
+one of the party; she pointed out that there was room for her in the
+pony-carriage, and that Theresa was sure not to mind an extra guest for
+one night. Of course, in the ordinary way it would have been impossible
+for her to get out in the afternoon, but to-day it happened that nearly
+the whole school was going to a birthday party and there were only two
+music-lessons to give. These two lessons were Bill’s salvation: she and
+Polly would take their drive while Bella gave them; as soon as she had
+done she was to walk to Sales Cross Roads, where they would meet her
+with the pony-chaise at a quarter to four.
+
+The plan met with Polly’s entire approval; she did not at all wish to
+waste the early part of the afternoon waiting for Bella, and she was
+not troubled with many unselfish scruples. When Bella inconveniently
+said, “I think I could be at Sales Cross before that,” Polly answered
+decidedly, “But we cannot.” Whereupon the good-natured Bella gave way,
+and, with matters at last satisfactorily arranged, the other two drove
+away.
+
+Polly leaned back with great satisfaction; Bill had borrowed a cushion
+from Theresa for her and she appreciated it. “Really, Bill,” she said
+benignly, “I should never have thought you would learn to drive so
+well; you are quite getting on.”
+
+“Do you think I have grown up any more?” Bill asked.
+
+Polly looked at her thoughtfully. “I don’t think you have developed
+much,” she said, after consideration. Before she reached the end of her
+journey that day she changed her opinion and came to the conclusion
+that Bill had developed surprisingly, in one direction at least.
+
+“We are going to Gurnett,” Bill announced, and Polly, to whom one place
+was as good as another, acquiesced.
+
+“We can easily get from there to Sales Cross to meet Bella,” Bill went
+on to explain when they were nearing the village. “I want to see some
+one at Gurnett, or rather, just this side of it; we don’t go through
+the village.”
+
+“Whom are you going to see? I will hold the reins while you go in;
+I don’t care about going with messages to strange farms; there are
+always geese and cows about.”
+
+Bill entirely agreed with this suggestion. “Yes,” she said, “you must
+wait outside while I go in; I won’t be long, not more than ten minutes
+I expect. It is not to a farm we are going, though; it is to Wood Hall.”
+
+“Wood Hall? Whatever does Theresa want from there?”
+
+“Theresa does not want anything; I am going on my own business. She
+does not know I am going, and she would be very angry if she did.”
+
+“Well, Bill!”
+
+“But I have got to go all the same,” Bill continued, ignoring the
+exclamation.
+
+“What about me? Pray, why should I allow it if Theresa does not? I
+insist on hearing all about it at once.”
+
+Curiosity as well as indignation prompted this speech, which Bill
+proceeded to gratify to a certain extent. “I will tell you as much as
+there is time for,” she said, and there was not time for a great deal.
+Polly’s explosions of righteous wrath, not so judicial and certainly
+not so genuine as Theresa’s, helped to shorten the narrative.
+
+“Well, Bill, I could not have believed it of you! No, I could not, even
+if anyone had told me! I know a good deal about you, it is true, but I
+should never have expected--well--” Words failed, and Polly took refuge
+in a superlatively expressive sniff; she had brought the language of
+sniffs to a rare perfection.
+
+But Bill was not at all impressed, and when Polly asked with stern
+dignity, “Do you think I, any more than Theresa, will allow you to go
+to Wood Hall?” she answered, “You can’t help yourself.”
+
+“Can’t help myself, indeed!”
+
+“No, we are just there.” That was undeniably true; they were in the
+drive and must soon reach the house. “If you did not mean to come,”
+Bill went on composedly, “why did you not say so before we turned in?”
+
+“I did not notice.”
+
+Bill was politely doubtful. “Look here, Polly,” she said, “what is the
+good of pretending? It is not what things are that matters to you, it
+is how they look. I am sure that this is quite right; you are not; but
+that does not count, as you only want it to look right--”
+
+“Bill! You are a wicked girl. How dare you say such things?”
+
+“I dare say them, and you dare think them,” Bill retorted, vaguely
+aware that she must have outraged the sense of decency again. At that
+moment a sharp turn in the drive showed them the house just in front,
+the chaise swayed to one side, for the ground dipped suddenly down
+before it rose again for the last little ascent.
+
+“I shall come in with you,” Polly said heroically, as she gripped the
+sides of the chaise with a firm, though nervous, grasp. “I shall not
+leave you--Bill, do be careful how you drive!--not leave you in spite
+of your conduct to me.”
+
+“Yes, you will. You will wait outside, and think how it can be made to
+look best.”
+
+“I shall do nothing of the kind!”
+
+“Then I shall frighten the pony and make him run away. He won’t run
+far, but by the time you get back here I shall have gone inside.
+Good-bye for the present; I sha’n’t be long.”
+
+Bill jumped out as she spoke, and the indignant, though discreet,
+Polly took the reins and patiently waited in the pony-carriage. Bill
+certainly had developed, and developed, among other things, a painful
+plainness of speech. This hurt Polly more than anything else, for
+she believed in observing all the decencies of life, in saying and
+seeming all that was suitable to the occasion, even to a certain extent
+persuading herself to feel it too. She always acted, for herself if
+there was no other audience; she could not help it, and the fact
+that there was not the least chance of anyone being deceived did
+not deter her from taking a part. More often than not people were a
+little deceived; they believed in her more or less, as she believed
+in herself. Bill did not, which was her misfortune; but she said so
+baldly, and that was her fault, a fault Polly found it hard to forgive
+just then. “Yet,” Polly thought when she sat in the chaise waiting and
+meditating on Bill’s development, “she is proving to be rather as I
+expected; she has twenty times the go of the other two, if only one
+could make her sensible.” From which it may be seen that Polly had a
+keen eye to the main chance, and even in matters of personal affront
+sought first a possible advantage; afterwards, if expedient, she
+resented the annoyance. During the ten minutes that she waited for Bill
+she had serious thoughts of making common cause with that offender.
+
+Bill was as good as her word. Mindful of a limit to Polly’s patience,
+she came to the point as soon as possible, and asked what Mr.
+Harborough demanded in return for fulfilling her wish. But he, not
+aware of any urgent reason for haste, set the question aside and asked
+instead if she had been satisfied with Sunday’s comedy.
+
+She did not think it a comedy; indeed, to tell the truth, she was not
+quite sure what a comedy was; certainly she had not been satisfied,
+but, as she hastened to explain, that was not his fault. “It was my
+own,” she said.
+
+“Your own, daughter of Eve? Dissatisfied as soon as gratified? It’s the
+way with ’em all. Still I own this affair did not turn out as well as
+it might.”
+
+“You did not expect it to be like that? Neither did I; if I had
+thought--”
+
+“You would have chosen a day when the curate was in sole command? It
+certainly would have been better from a sporting point of view.”
+
+For a moment the vision of what might have occurred in those
+circumstances flitted through Bill’s mind, but she banished it and said
+gravely: “It would have been funnier, I dare say, but no better; worse,
+I think, for I should not then have found out that it was wrong.”
+
+Mr. Harborough laughed, seeming to find a good deal of amusement in the
+idea of Bill’s tardy conscientious scruples; but on account, he said,
+of her disappointment he asked nothing further of her, saying that they
+would now cry quits to the bargain. Bill was relieved, having been
+afraid he would lay some fresh difficulty upon her; as it was, she felt
+she had escaped easily, and prepared to make her adieux with a light
+heart, explaining at the same time that, as Polly was waiting outside,
+she must go at once. The idea of Polly waiting outside also seemed to
+amuse Mr. Harborough.
+
+“Dear me, how they have been talking to you!” he said. “Bringing home
+the enormity of your conduct to you with a vengeance! They won’t
+leave me my unsophisticated little maiden long; good women are great
+teachers of the ways of this wicked world.”
+
+Bill scarcely understood him; still, she fancied he was insinuating
+something against her cousin whose words really had had no weight at
+all in determining her action. “It was not exactly Theresa’s doing,”
+she said.
+
+“Not Theresa?” He laughed. “Yet you have brought a dragon, a chaperone
+to watch over you. You need scarcely have taken the trouble; I should
+have done you no harm.”
+
+“They would not let me come alone.”
+
+“I wonder they let you come at all.”
+
+“Theresa would not; Polly could not help herself.” Bill did not explain
+Mr. Dane’s share in the matter, and Harborough did not ask it. “When
+are you coming again?” was all he said.
+
+“Never.”
+
+“Never? Are you going to leave me all alone in my desolate old age?”
+
+“They won’t let me come.”
+
+The old man’s tone had been but half serious, yet as he spoke the
+extreme silence of the house suddenly impressed Bill, the loneliness
+of the great room where they two made an oasis of humanity in a desert
+of shadowy memories. The polished floor stretched around her, only
+quivering into life when she moved and sent distorted reflections of
+herself along the boards; the mirrors on the wall never waking till she
+turned for them to cast back her brown face and ruddy hair. Away at the
+far end of the room there were chairs and cabinets, but they were too
+distant to reflect her on their polished wood, too far off to have any
+connection with this life. They belonged to the folks who looked down
+from the walls. It was a wondrous house, a wondrous lonely house for
+an old man who did not care for memories, whose taste, vitiated by the
+hot peppers of his manhood, could not appreciate the _pot-pourri_ of
+the centuries that were gone.
+
+“Could you not get someone else to come,” Bill said at last, “someone
+belonging to you? You haven’t got anyone?”--he had shaken his head and
+she felt the case was a bad one till a happy idea occurred to her. “Why
+not pay a girl?” she said. “You could, you know; you could get one that
+way.”
+
+“For what would you undertake the post?”
+
+The question was asked with all gravity, but she was not quite sure
+that he was in earnest. It would be a good thing if he were, for
+this was work she could do, and, since she had to earn her living,
+it seemed much better that she should do it in this way which fitted
+her small abilities. She glanced quickly at him, uncertain what to
+answer. “Twenty-five pounds a year,” she said at last, at a venture,
+naming a sum which seemed to her exorbitant considering his straitened
+circumstances.
+
+He smiled a little and shook his head. “Can’t be done,” he said, and
+she prepared to reduce her terms cautiously, but he explained the
+obstacles.
+
+“It is the aunts and cousins who are in the way, my dear; if you were
+alone in the world we would not quarrel as to terms.”
+
+“Oh, but I could easily explain to them.”
+
+Bill was confident, but Mr. Harborough reminded her of her confidence
+with regard to Theresa’s permission to repeat her visit. She was forced
+to admit his superior knowledge there, and to allow of its possibility
+again, although it seemed foolish to carry social objections into a
+purely commercial transaction.
+
+“Believe me,” he said, “there are no terms on which they would allow
+you to enter my service, except the cover of my name.” She did not
+understand. “If the salary were a marriage settlement,” he explained,
+“they would permit you to take it, and, under the name of Mrs.
+Harborough, they would raise no objection to your accepting the post of
+companion.”
+
+In spite of her disappointment at finding the offer not a genuine one
+after all, Bill burst out laughing; laughing principally at her own
+stupidity in taking him seriously. Then she said: “I must go; Polly
+will be tired of waiting.”
+
+“Laugh and go,” he said. “Do you laugh at Wood Hall? I could--by
+Heaven, it is almost worth doing!” he exclaimed with a sudden access of
+energy. “There are some who would not laugh then, my little brown elf.”
+
+He laughed himself at the idea, laughed softly with a bitter spite
+in his eyes. Afterwards it occurred to Bill vaguely that perhaps he
+really had been in earnest, and that she was to have played a part in
+some scheme of vengeance. But she never seriously thought so, and at
+the time it did not appear to her as anything but a jest. As such she
+laughed again so that her merriment rang in the great room; and she was
+still smiling when a minute later she came out to Polly waiting in the
+chaise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+“RED IS THE ROSE.”
+
+
+The four roads which met at Sales Cross were the four which went
+everywhere in the district. “You can’t go anywhere without going by
+Sales Cross,” said Bella, basing her opinion on the number of people
+who had passed while she was waiting for Bill and Polly on that April
+afternoon. None of these travellers were mentioned by name except Mr.
+Jack Dawson, who could hardly be said to have passed since he was still
+there when the pony-chaise came in sight. He looked, too, as if he had
+meant to stay some time, seeing that he had dismounted from his horse
+and was standing, with the bridle over his arm, so deeply absorbed in
+conversation that he did not notice the approaching carriage. Bella
+explained later that he got down to help her free herself from the long
+bramble she had twisted round her ankles while gathering primroses a
+few minutes earlier. From the conversation which ensued between the two
+elder cousins Bill gathered that Jack Dawson had had something to do
+with Bella’s second Sunday afternoon at Ashelton being less dull than
+the first.
+
+But she did not listen very attentively; Polly’s eloquence had not much
+interest for her, especially since, during the drive from Gurnett,
+she had settled her own differences with her cousin, telling exactly
+what she pleased of the doings at Wood Hall. There had been a battle
+royal during that drive conducted with a good many words, and, it is
+to be feared, some vigour of expression on both sides. But it had its
+advantages, it was the first time that Bill and Polly had crossed
+swords as equals, and each understood the other the better for doing
+so; also it gave Polly a further indication that Bill was growing
+up,--“Though not in the way we should wish,” as she said to Bella with
+melancholy dignity. “No, Bella,” she went on as her listener showed no
+signs of distress at the news, “Bill is not a lady, and nothing will
+ever make her one.”
+
+To which Bill agreed, adding: “I don’t believe I have got all the
+instincts and so on, and I’m sure I don’t feel things the way I ought.
+I suppose I have got a little bad blood somewhere.”
+
+“Somewhere!” Polly’s sniff was impressive. “With your father--well! we
+need say no more.”
+
+“Considering what you have already said,” replied Bill, “I think you
+need not.”
+
+Bella wondered what had been said, but she did not hear, for soon
+afterwards they reached Haylands, where Theresa declared herself
+delighted to receive the two visitors instead of one. Later on, she
+heard of Bill’s other doings, and with them she was not so well
+pleased. She was distressed as well as angry when she was told about
+the visit to Wood Hall.
+
+Polly had been much opposed to telling her anything about it. “Leave it
+alone,” she counselled; “it can’t be altered now. There will only be a
+great fuss, and how shall I look for letting you go?”
+
+But Bill disagreed. It would not be honest, she said.
+
+“None of it was honest,” retorted Polly; and certainly the part she
+took upon herself was open to question, although, no doubt, it was
+the one best fitting the situation. “I thought it better to let her
+go to-day,”--so she concluded a most able explanation of affairs to
+Theresa. “You see, to-day I was with her; another day she might have
+been alone. She was certain to go, sooner or later, with or without
+me,--she is so dreadfully obstinate--and so I was determined that she
+should go under the most favourable circumstances.”
+
+Theresa agreed, and blamed Bill severely; but Bella remarked: “You
+stayed outside for her good, I suppose, Polly?”
+
+“I stayed outside,” Polly replied with dignity, “because she would not
+let me come in without a scene.”
+
+The truth of this statement was obvious and effective. Indeed Polly’s
+manner while at Haylands was altogether effective; more especially
+when, on their first arrival, they found Mrs. Dawson talking to
+Theresa on business connected with the Church Missionary Society. Mrs.
+Dawson had the cause of missions very much at heart; she attended many
+meetings and paid many visits in connection with it, with what exact
+result to the cause no one knew, but doubtless it was beneficial. The
+principal results of the call on Theresa was entirely unconnected with
+missions, being the postponement of Bill’s confession for half an hour
+and the social opportunity afforded Polly.
+
+Polly made such good use of the occasion that Mrs. Dawson, a rather
+imposing personage, unbent to quite a rare extent. She even hoped that
+Miss Hains would be able to come to her tea-party next day with her
+cousin, Miss Alardy. Polly regretted she could not do so, since she was
+unfortunately obliged to return to Wrugglesby in the morning.
+
+“And I really did regret it too,” she informed the others when they
+were discussing Mrs. Dawson late that evening; “I wish I had been
+staying on here.”
+
+“We could not both have gone,” said Bill, for whom the invitation had
+already been accepted; “there’s only the one skirt, you know.”
+
+“It is my skirt.”
+
+“But you have lent it to Bill,” Bella said; “besides she is the
+youngest, and has never been to anything yet.”
+
+Polly did not consider this a very valid argument, though, as she
+said, it really did not matter since she could not stay any longer at
+Ashelton.
+
+It was at bedtime that this discussion took place. Bella was to sleep
+with Bill, and Polly had come into their room to brush her hair and
+edify them with her views on several subjects. The fact that she did so
+in Bill’s presence showed plainly that she recognised her as something
+like an equal.
+
+“I will tell you all about the tea-party,” Bill said, feeling rather
+greedy in that the festivity had fallen to her share.
+
+“Yes, but you will not be able to do as I should,” Polly answered
+regretfully. “I made an impression on Mrs. Dawson this afternoon; I
+should go on making one if I were to see her again, a good impression.”
+
+Bill laughed irreverently.
+
+“Don’t be rude, Bill.” Polly’s manner was momentarily that of an elder
+and teacher, but almost immediately she dropped it and returned to the
+terms of familiar intercourse. She at least possessed the merit of
+adapting herself quickly to altered circumstances and relationships.
+
+“My dear girls,” she said, sitting down in the one easy-chair the room
+boasted, “one has to make good impressions, one never knows when they
+may be useful.”
+
+“You have no use for Mrs. Dawson,” Bella said quickly.
+
+“No, she does it to keep her hand in, for pure pleasure and practice,
+and because she can’t help it. She would try to make a good impression
+on us if there were no one else.”
+
+This was Bill’s opinion, but Polly only said, “You are a silly child,”
+and began to put her hair into curl-papers, and at the same time giving
+the cousins her views on many things, notably on matrimony. On this
+subject she had very decided opinions which she did not at all mind
+expressing with a degree of frankness which shocked Bella.
+
+“You are horrid, Polly!” she exclaimed at last.
+
+“I have the courage of my opinions,” Polly retorted; “I say what others
+think.”
+
+“They do not think such things.”
+
+Bill, who had hitherto paid small attention to the conversation,
+debated this point in her mind as she sat perched on the bed in her
+favourite position. “I don’t believe people think much at all,” was her
+conclusion.
+
+Polly told her that she knew nothing about it, but, nothing daunted,
+she went on to explain herself, “They don’t think; they do things
+because the things come along, do them by instinct, or impulse, or
+something; they don’t half know what will happen. I am nearly sure
+they don’t think about the before and after. Nobody can see the real
+beginnings and ends, and some people don’t seem able to see even a
+little bit to right and left,--I wonder why.”
+
+Neither of the elder cousins was prepared to go into the question,
+Bella possibly because she herself belonged to the class who cannot
+look before and after, Polly, certainly because she wished to discuss
+more practical matters. By way of putting an end to Bill’s speculations
+she introduced the topic, suggested by her previous remarks, of their
+own future.
+
+“Say that you, Bella,” she said, “marry money,--”
+
+“I sha’n’t do any such thing!”
+
+“Oh, well--” and then followed another exposition of Polly’s views
+which Bill lost little by not heeding. She had picked up the fairy-book
+which she had taken to bed with her a few nights ago, and had become
+too absorbed in its pages to hear what Polly said until the mention of
+her own name arrested her attention.
+
+“And what is to become of Bill?” said Polly, who had by this time
+settled the future for the rest of them.
+
+“There is the school she could help--”
+
+“The school!” said Polly disdainfully. “What good would Bill be, what
+can she do?”
+
+“Nothing,” the culprit answered, before Bella could speak in her
+defence. “It is quite true, I should be of no use. I don’t know what I
+could do, unless, perhaps, be a general servant; they are scarce now,
+and I can work like a steam-engine. I never get tired and I can get up
+ever so early--you should just see how I can scrub and iron, and I can
+cook a little too.”
+
+“You ridiculous child!” laughed Bella. “Do you suppose we should ever
+let you do that?”
+
+“She might do worse,” was Polly’s opinion.
+
+“She could not do that,” Bella replied emphatically; “neither Theresa
+nor I would allow it. And Polly, you might as well say good-night now;
+we want to go to sleep.”
+
+Polly took her candle, casting a grotesque shadow of herself and her
+curl-papers on the low ceiling. “Good-night,” she said with severity.
+“I am glad you can sleep; I don’t find it so easy when I look forward
+to what must happen.”
+
+“Don’t look,” Bill called after her, “except at your candle; look at
+that, and mind you don’t spill the grease.”
+
+None the less Bill lay awake a long time, thinking not only of the
+future but also of the post which might almost have been hers that
+day were it not for the aunts and cousins. Also she thought of Bella
+and her future, and from that she mentally went to Jack Dawson, who
+appeared a very pleasant sort of person, and to Mrs. Dawson, who did
+not, though in Bill’s opinion she was an entertaining one. At least she
+had thought so when she sat meekly silent during the lady’s call that
+afternoon.
+
+On the next day she had another opportunity of studying Mrs. Dawson,
+for that was the day of the state tea-party which Polly had so deeply
+regretted missing. Polly and Bella had gone back to Wrugglesby, and
+Bill was left in undisputed possession of the skirt. It was not
+new, neither was it in the latest fashion, but Bill thought it very
+beautiful, as she contemplated herself in her little mirror on Tuesday
+evening. Of course one needed the best clothes the family could
+muster for such an occasion as the present; the tea-party at Grays,
+Mrs. Dawson’s house, was really quite an important social function
+besides being the first which Bill had ever attended. She was somewhat
+impressed and tremendously interested by everything, the solemn
+mahogany grandeur of the bedroom where she and Theresa took off their
+wraps, the spotless whiteness of the linen covers of the stair-carpets,
+the giant hat-stand by which Robert waited for them in the hall.
+
+The drawing-room was large; the main part of the furniture dated from
+the Sixties, the wonderful blue of the upholstery being unmistakably
+of that era. But the sundry tides of fashion that have swept through
+the land since then had left a few deposits even in this conservative
+house: some peacock-feathers and a silk-covered palm-leaf, a present
+possibly in the decorative days; a small black table, a relic of
+æstheticism; a rococo photograph-screen of later date,--a few such
+things could be seen here and there. “They were given to her,” thought
+Bill gazing earnestly at the immovable black-silk dignity of Mrs.
+Dawson; “they were given by _her_.” This was Bill’s decision when her
+eye lighted on a girl standing near the hostess. The girl was tall
+and muscular, turned four and twenty, athletically built, and dressed
+in the fashion of the day, the fashion which obtains in Ealing and
+similar exclusive suburbs. Her face, it is true, did not express much,
+but then other people’s faces do not as a rule express much, and she
+naturally did not wish to do anything but what everyone else did. She
+was doubtless an expert at lawn-tennis and hockey, and an authority
+on the technique of golf. Probably she thought her aunt at Ashelton
+much behind the times, though, as she informed her friends, she liked
+staying with her: “It was such a deliciously unsophisticated place
+still.”
+
+Bill looked at her with interest and at first with some admiration,
+for to her inexperienced eyes Miss Gladys Dawson was a new and fine
+specimen of humanity. Miss Gladys Dawson looked at Bill only with a
+careless curiosity, she found her a little odd, and wondered why she
+had never seen her at Ashelton before. She also (and here came in the
+insult) looked at the skirt. A light blazed up in Bill’s eyes, a light
+that was almost like a red flame, and there rose in her heart a great
+wrath and a feminine desire to pay back the offence, to criticise
+in some way the offender and bring ridicule on her. Bill had never
+felt the sentiment before, being in the main indifferent to opinions
+of all sorts. Miss Dawson’s glance on herself would have passed
+unnoticed; she cared nothing for criticism and had a very poor opinion
+of herself,--but the skirt was another matter, Polly’s cherished
+skirt which she had made with so much labour out of two old silk
+dresses of Miss Brownlow’s! Bill felt that the look, half amused, half
+supercilious, wholly, indescribably feminine in its critical survey,
+was an insult to the absent Polly and cried aloud for vengeance. “I
+wish I could do something,” she thought vindictively. “I wonder what
+she would mind most.”
+
+It was now six o’clock, and there was a general move to the dining-room
+for tea. Mrs. Dawson had always dined at two and taken tea at six, and
+she always would do so as long as she was able to dine and take tea
+at all. She made no difference for visitors, except in the quantity
+of food prepared, and in that respect she certainly planned lavishly.
+The table that night was loaded with the dainties which have gone out
+of fashion with six o’clock teas. Bill noticed everything carefully,
+trying to remember all she could for the sake of her absent cousins.
+There was a wonderful table-cloth, she observed, of fine unbleached
+linen whereon drab dogs hunted drab stags over a greyish ground much
+interspersed with drab trees whose leafy branches met in the centre
+of the table and were hidden under the pot of a pink azalea. Arranged
+everywhere, almost crowding each other off, were cakes both hot and
+cold, so many of them that Bill could not taste them all. There were
+also several preserves, notably one of pineapple, very sticky, very
+difficult of manipulation, inspiring one (if that one were Bill) with a
+desire to take the pot and a spoon to the store-room and eat in comfort
+unobserved. “It wants practice,” Bill decided as she watched the ease
+with which Mr. Johnson, who might reasonably be expected to have had
+practice, managed the pineapple. “I expect he has been here heaps of
+times before,” she thought, and no doubt she was right for he seemed
+much at his ease. Mr. Perry, on the other hand, was never quite able to
+forget the grocer’s shop when he sat down with Mrs. Dawson; he talked
+nervously and rapidly all through the meal, forgetting his tea in his
+anxiety to be polite, and remembering that he wanted a third cup when
+everyone had finished and the tea-pot was dry. Bill felt sorry for Mrs.
+Dawson when she saw her pouring tepid water through the tea-pot so as
+to supply the late comer, sorrier still for Mr. Perry when he received
+his large shallow cup and made manful efforts to drink its contents
+while the guests waited for him.
+
+Bill sat next to Mrs. Johnson, a placid matron, not much given to
+general conversation; and as she returned becoming answers to the few
+remarks made to her, she was voted by her neighbour to be “a nicely
+brought-up girl.” Gladys Dawson, of course, was different; being
+older, and “from London,” she was expected to talk, and she did do so;
+in fact she took the lion’s share of the entertainment upon herself.
+Mrs. Dawson was not averse to this, but, as Bill noticed, neither was
+Gladys. “She likes it,” thought the silent watcher; and there came into
+Bill’s mind, by reason of the insult offered to Polly’s skirt, a desire
+which is a natural instinct in most of her more developed sisters,--the
+desire to outshine the other woman.
+
+“It would not be easy,” Bill thought, feeling that she did not know
+much about the subjects of greatest interest to the ladies present;
+but then, as she soon found, Miss Dawson did not either, and so wisely
+confined herself to entertaining the men. Bill did not feel very
+hopeful of her own powers in that direction, and before she could
+make any definite plans her thoughts were interrupted by Mr. Dane’s
+entrance into the drawing-room to which everyone had now returned.
+Mr. Dane never joined these parties till after tea, on the excuse of
+parish-work. After the little disturbance created by his entrance had
+subsided, and he had shaken hands with everybody, Bill found that he
+had taken the chair next to her. She knew that he wanted to hear if
+she had been to Wood Hall, and she was quite ready to tell him. It was
+easy enough to do this unnoticed in the buzz of general conversation;
+and accordingly she told him how she and Polly had driven to Wood
+Hall, how Polly had waited outside, and how Mr. Harborough had laid
+no fresh conditions upon her. This was all very well, but it was not
+so well when she went on to talk of Mr. Harborough’s loneliness, and
+so, incidentally, of her suggestion of a paid companion, and his offer
+of the post to herself. “Of course he did not mean it really,” she
+concluded; “it was only in fun, but for a moment I thought he meant
+it.”
+
+“What made you think he did not mean it?”
+
+“What he said afterwards;” and she related all that followed. “He meant
+he would have to marry me before they would let me come,” she said,
+laughing a little.
+
+But Mr. Dane did not laugh. “Yes, marry him,” he said, “marry him for
+Wood Hall, for his name and position,--would you do that?”
+
+“I did not have the chance; he did not ask me really; it was all fun.”
+
+“Have you told your cousins of the fun?”
+
+The old man was looking earnestly at her, waiting for her answer, and
+she hesitated before she gave it. She plainly heard Mrs. Perry saying,
+“I never had a sitting of eggs from the Possets turn out badly,” before
+she said, “No, I have not told them.” And she wondered why she had not,
+and why she never would, for she knew then that she never would.
+
+“If he had meant it, would you have taken him and Wood Hall and the
+name, and the little you know, and the infinitely more which you do not
+know?”
+
+“No,” she answered frankly. “I would like Wood Hall immensely; I would
+do a good deal for a place like that--I don’t believe I would be too
+particular what; but I could not marry him. I could not marry anyone; I
+could not possibly be cooped up with one person. I believe I would like
+more than anything else to be a gipsy and wander from place to place,
+mending chairs and stealing fowls.”
+
+Mr. Dane did not reprove the lax morality of this speech; all he said
+was: “Then I suppose you are never going to see Mr. Harborough again?”
+
+“No,” answered Bill, and as she did so Mr. Johnson, who had caught
+the name, tried to draw his rector into a discussion of Sunday’s
+enormities. But Mr. Dane would not be drawn; he was polite, but firm
+and most uncommunicative. The only opinion he would give was that he
+believed Mr. Harborough’s proceedings were not actionable, since he
+himself had given consent for the mass to be finished.
+
+“But I am sure we could prosecute,” Mr. Johnson persisted. “I was
+speaking to Stevens,--Stevens of Wrugglesby you know--about it; he
+says it is quite possible to prosecute for brawling and creating a
+disturbance in church during divine service, if for nothing else.”
+
+“No doubt he is right, but I do not think the churchwardens will wish
+to prosecute. The case would offer several nice points to a lawyer,
+for, though the mass was begun without our permission, and so was
+technically a disturbance, the offence was partly condoned by the
+permission to continue which was afterwards given. Moreover, though
+our church is of course a church of England as by law established,
+the Harborough chapel is held on a very old tenure which it would be
+necessary to understand clearly before any move could be made in the
+matter. I don’t mean to say we could not prosecute: I dare say we
+could; but I hardly think it is necessary. What do you think?”
+
+Mr. Johnson almost thought it was, on account of the precedent: “Solely
+on account of the precedent; it might occur again.”
+
+“I do not think it will,” Mr. Dane answered, just in time to prevent
+Bill declaring the same thing warmly. Then someone began to sing and
+they all listened, placidly or otherwise according to their natures.
+When the song was over, Bill, finding Mr. Johnson’s attention diverted
+elsewhere, turned to her neighbour for information on a subject which
+had puzzled her since her first visit to Wood Hall.
+
+“You know all about this part of the country,” she said. “Perhaps you
+can tell me if it is true that a good many years ago a body was carried
+by night from Corbycroft to the little church in Wood Hall park.”
+
+“Yes, certainly it is true; but what makes you ask? Who has told you of
+it?”
+
+“Mr. Harborough, but he did not say much; is it a secret?”
+
+“No, oh no; some of the old folks at Gurnett still tell the tale,
+though there are not many now who can tell much except from hearsay.
+It was not much talked about at the time, and is pretty well forgotten
+now.”
+
+He spoke as if the subject had long lost its interest for him, but to
+Bill it was all fresh; she felt that her romance was becoming exciting
+again. “Who was it?” she asked. “Who were they going to bury?”
+
+“Roger Corby, the old Squire he was called, though he was not squire
+of Gurnett. He died at Corbycroft, and he died very much in debt. His
+servants and--and some other people believed that his body would,
+according to a barbarous old practice, be arrested for debt, so they
+removed it by night to the church in Wood Hall park.”
+
+“And was it arrested?”
+
+“No, and I do not believe there was any likelihood that it would have
+been. Long ago bodies were sometimes arrested, legally or illegally,--I
+do not know which--but so late as that--it was in 1833--it was more
+than improbable.”
+
+“But they must have believed it,” Bill objected; “they must have
+thought it would happen.”
+
+“Yes, but the servants were ignorant, and the girl, the Squire’s
+granddaughter, was a child of thirteen, headstrong, daring,
+imaginative; she heard the servants’ chatter and believed it. The thing
+was practically her doing. She was fond of her grandfather, and there
+was no one to take charge at his death; her father was abroad and she
+and the old butler managed everything. She always did as she liked, and
+grew up as she pleased, with no one to thwart her.”
+
+Bill wondered if Mr. Dane had known the granddaughter, or if this too
+was only part of the local tale; she would have liked to ask him but
+thought that perhaps she ought not, as the last words scarcely seemed
+addressed to her. She contented herself with inquiring, “Did you live
+here then?”
+
+“No,” he roused himself with an effort. “No; I was not born in this
+part of the country and at that time I was a lad at school; a little
+lad I must have been, for I am younger than Harborough.”
+
+“And he? Did he know at the time? How old was he then?”
+
+“Yes, he knew; he must have known, for he was at home when the thing
+happened.”
+
+There were more questions Bill wanted to ask, but she was not able to
+do so for at that moment Miss Dawson’s well-trained soprano informed
+the company that she was “a monkey on a stick.”
+
+By the time she had reached the end of her song Mr. Perry had claimed
+the rector’s attention, and Bill was left to meditate on the half-told
+story until Mrs. Dawson asked her with awful politeness for a little
+music. Theresa had warned her that this would occur, telling her to
+bring her music in anticipation. Bill had obediently brought it,
+making up her mind to play one of her pieces if required, but now when
+the time came she did no such thing. She cast a quick glance at Miss
+Dawson, who was now talking to Gilchrist Harborough, and thinking
+of the covert sneer at Polly’s skirt, went to the piano in no very
+Christian frame of mind. “I can sing as well as you,” was the defiance
+she mentally hurled at the young lady as she sat down to the piano and
+began to play from memory, or, more correctly speaking, by ear from
+some half forgotten melody. It was curious music, at first compelling
+attention by its strangeness, afterwards holding it by a charm of its
+own,--a love-song of long ago, low, yet with an almost harsh refrain
+in it, vibrating with a passion at first suppressed, but afterwards
+breaking forth into a tumult of emotion likely to tingle strangely in
+the nerves of those who listened.
+
+  “Red is the rose thou hast bound in thy hair,
+     Redder thy lips, love.
+   Soft is thy breath, aye, the sweetest of air,
+     Incense to me, love;
+   E’en though it choketh the voice of my prayer,
+     (I pray not now, love.)
+   Stars are thine eyes,--ill stars some declare,
+     Beacons to me, love.
+   Oh, heart of my heart, I want nought but thy beauty,
+     Of here and hereafter, I ask only thee!
+   Sinner or saint, thou art God of my worship,
+     In time and eternity Heaven to me!”
+
+Silently Mr. Dane rose and went out of the room, closing the door
+noiselessly after him. At the time Bill’s astonished audience hardly
+noticed it; afterwards it was said by some of the more severe that he
+went out to mark his disapproval of the tone and tenor of the song,
+which was certainly most unbecoming in a young girl. This may have been
+the case; it obviously was not because his Christian forbearance and
+courtesy were tried beyond endurance, as sometimes happened, by false
+notes, for to a musician the rendering of this song left little to
+be desired. Whatever the reason, Mr. Dane left the drawing-room, and
+passing through the hall went out by the open garden-door, out into the
+sweet spring night where the song could not reach him. His lips moved
+once as he went:
+
+  “If God in His anger hath shut thee from Heaven,
+   Then closed on us both let its golden gates be.”
+
+And the strange thing was that these words did not occur in the first
+part of the song which he had heard, but in the second part which he
+did not hear, and of which Bill was now singing the last verses.
+
+  “Dark is the future, dark as despair,
+     Dark as thine eyes, love.
+   Cursed is our troth--for curse dost thou care?
+     Curse of the church, love?
+   Death and dishonour, e’en both we must dare,
+     Fearest with me, love?
+   Fearest to love me? Yet still thou’ll not tear
+     Thyself from my heart, love.
+   Now and henceforward, forever thou’rt there,
+     Nor can’st thou go, love.
+   Oh, soul of my soul, if damned is thy beauty,
+   Then damned be my spirit forever with thee!
+   If God in His anger hath shut thee from Heaven,
+   Then closed on us both let its golden gates be!
+   For thou, oh, beloved, art the God of my worship,
+   In time and eternity Heaven to me!”
+
+And between the box-edged borders, where drooping daffodils glimmered
+in the moonlight, an old man stood and murmured in the ghostly,
+tearless upheaval of some dead passion:
+
+  “Thou, oh beloved, art the God of my worship,
+   In time and eternity Heaven to me!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+IN THE GARDEN.
+
+
+Doubtless the ladies of Ashelton were right in saying that the song
+sung by Bill Alardy at Mrs. Dawson’s tea-party was most unsuitable and
+highly improper. It was not only the words, though, as was pointed
+out, they were reprehensible, but also the terrible earnestness with
+which they were sung. Ashelton was justly shocked, and Theresa,
+although agreeably surprised by the unexpected richness of her cousin’s
+voice, was overcome with shame. Even Gladys Dawson, who was naturally
+beyond old-fashioned prejudices, looked at Bill with something more
+intelligent than her previous stare. Gilchrist Harborough, sitting by
+Miss Dawson, remembered the words spoken by Morton that Thursday night;
+the “little girl” certainly could “sing a capital song” of a sort.
+
+But he did not remark on it to Miss Dawson; indeed he seemed to have
+forgotten all about her, and looked across to the singer, who had
+twisted round on the piano-stool and now sat uneasily regarding the
+company with a comical mixture of fear and defiance in her eyes. She
+was painfully conscious of their feelings, though not entirely able
+to understand them. She was both surprised and angry at the unexpected
+storm she had raised. Her eyes met Harborough’s; he at any rate was
+not shocked; he understood, he was even a little amused. Bill’s face
+began to clear, and the tantalising chameleon eyes changed. Miss Dawson
+addressed a remark to the young man, and receiving no reply, glanced in
+the direction where his interest obviously lay. Bill saw the glance and
+experienced a two-fold gratification; one person in the room sided with
+her, and another (she who had sneered at Polly’s skirt!) was annoyed
+thereby. Her face cleared entirely, and her eyes absolutely shone. The
+mischief was done.
+
+Somehow or other, Bill did not quite know how, she found herself soon
+afterwards talking to Harborough, about the song and about all manner
+of other things. It was quite easy to talk to him, though he seemed a
+grave sort of young man given to taking things seriously, so seriously
+that it was rather strange he should approve of the song. He asked her
+where she had learned to sing it, and she told him she did not quite
+know. “I found the verses written out,” she said, “and I think I must
+have heard them sung when I was young. Perhaps my father sang them; I
+don’t know.”
+
+“You sang as if you meant it,” he observed.
+
+“So they should be sung.”
+
+“But you have not felt that; you don’t know what you were talking
+about.”
+
+“Oh, no,” she agreed readily, “it is all pretending; but that does not
+matter; one can pretend anything. Almost it feels sometimes,” she went
+on thoughtfully, “as if one had felt it in another first life; don’t
+you think so? Or perhaps it is that those who went before--the mothers
+and fathers and grandfathers--felt it and passed the memory on.”
+
+Harborough shrugged his shoulders. “That is an old problem,” he said,
+“which does not trouble me much. I never think about my ancestry as you
+seem to; I find enough to do without seeking for the grip of the dead
+hand.”
+
+“Some people do not have to seek for it,” Bill answered. She was
+thinking of the Harboroughs of Gurnett. “Have you ever been to Wood
+Hall?” she asked abruptly.
+
+“No; I have ridden past it once or twice, but I have not had occasion
+to go in that direction often,--why?”
+
+“You know there are Harboroughs there,--people of your name?”
+
+“Yes, possibly distant connections; I have heard my father say that
+his people came originally from this part of the country. But I am not
+proud of the fact, if it is one; they appear to have been a pretty bad
+lot.”
+
+“Yes,” Bill admitted, “and they are poor, desperately poor for the
+position: at least, so it is said, and certainly the place looks like
+it. Still they have been there for hundreds of years.”
+
+“What the better are they for that? Nothing, I should say, seeing that
+each generation seems to have been worse than the previous one, till we
+come to the present, last and worst, bankrupt alike in means, morals
+and constitution, played out, worn out, done for,--and a good thing
+too.”
+
+“It is the grip of the dead hand,” Bill said with conviction, and when
+he looked at her, doubtful as to her meaning, she explained: “They have
+an awful lot against them; the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the
+children have not much choice left them.”
+
+“Much income, you mean.”
+
+“No, I don’t, though they have not very much of that either. I believe
+the estate is mortgaged, but so are their natures and characters; they
+could hardly go straight if they would. Think what it must be to have
+all that weight of tradition and fathers’ sins pulling against you.”
+
+Harborough was not convinced. “Most of us have as many ancestors as
+have the great people of Gurnett,” he said, “yet some of us seem
+capable of independent action.”
+
+“We don’t know about them; that makes a difference. We have not got
+them, in a way, stored up as the Harboroughs have. If you had been into
+Wood Hall you would know what I mean.”
+
+“Then you think the next Harborough is bound to go and do likewise?”
+
+“I don’t know him,” Bill said; “but I think he has a bigger chance of
+doing likewise than you have.”
+
+“Yes; because if I believed I was doomed to be the same kind of
+blackguard as my ancestors I should blow my brains out.”
+
+Bill looked at him gravely. “You wouldn’t really,” she said; “because
+you would not be as you are now if you were one of them. I wonder how
+nearly you are related?”
+
+“What does it matter?”
+
+“Nothing,--unless you could claim Wood Hall.”
+
+“I am generations away from that,” he laughed; “and I don’t want to be
+any nearer.”
+
+“You are not a Catholic? No? I wonder if the owner of Wood Hall must
+be?”
+
+“Certainly not; a man’s conscience is his own.”
+
+Bill nodded. “And his family?” she said.
+
+“Have nothing to do with it; a man has a right to his own opinion.”
+
+Harborough spoke warmly: he almost looked as if he defied Bill to
+defend the position; but she only said: “A woman is better off then;
+she has a right to two opinions,--her own and that of the person she is
+with.”
+
+“That is scarcely the point,” Harborough said; but he did not get her
+back to the point, for she would have no more serious discussion;
+either her ability or her interest was exhausted. Harborough, whose
+bent of mind was habitually grave, tried in vain to bring the
+conversation back, and was half amused, half vexed by her evasions.
+He was certainly wholly vexed when Miss Dawson, from the ottoman,
+introduced the labour-problem as a subject likely to interest him.
+
+Bill perceived the vexation and was amused. If she had been truly
+feminine she would probably have been gratified; but her nature was
+lacking in some of these girlish characteristics, and though she was
+pleased by the annoyance of Gladys, her enjoyment partook more of the
+pleasure of vengeance than of a womanly appreciation of pre-eminence.
+She was glad to have avenged the insult offered to Polly’s skirt, but
+she had no other feeling about it. She certainly never thought of
+Gilchrist; by the next morning, when she set about her penance in the
+garden, she had forgotten all about him.
+
+She enjoyed the penance immensely. It was hard work in the open air
+and there was something to show for the labour; moreover, it appealed
+strongly to her, for it was a clearing up and setting straight with
+the prospect eventually of a productive yield. She had already made
+plans for the improvement of other parts of the garden when the long
+bed should be finished. There was plenty of room for improvement, for
+the garden seemed to be nobody’s business; Robert was not interested in
+it, and Theresa,--more because she had never been used to doing so than
+for any other reason--never thought of working in it.
+
+“She does not like digging and she hates worms,” Bill said. “You would
+not expect T. to grub out here; besides, she has work in the house.”
+
+This was said to Gilchrist, who apparently had not entirely forgotten
+her existence, whatever she may have done with regard to his. At all
+events, when he saw her from the footpath which crossed the field
+beyond the garden, he came to enquire how she was and what she was
+doing. She told him her intentions with regard to the plot of ground on
+which she was engaged, but she did not cease work to do so.
+
+He watched her half amused. “I wonder Morton did not set one of the men
+to dig this for you,” he said.
+
+“Why should he? I can do it well enough.”
+
+“Yes,” he admitted, “but it is hard work for you.”
+
+“Work,” she replied oracularly, “is an excellent thing. You yourself
+believe in the dignity of labour.”
+
+“Who told you that?” he asked reddening slightly.
+
+She had stooped down and was wrestling with a giant worm as yet but
+half above the soil. “Don’t you believe it?” she inquired. “Out you
+come--” this was addressed to the worm--“you’re not going to stop here,
+come along now!” It came, and she threw it over the iron fence to find
+a new home in the field. “This is the dignity of labour,” she said as
+she returned to her work.
+
+There was very little dignity about the small, hatless figure on the
+deeply dug plot. Bill had a great faculty for putting trade-marks of
+her occupation on herself and clothes; labour she might represent, but
+dignity never.
+
+Harborough laughed a little; it was impossible to know when the girl
+was in fun and when in earnest. “Mrs. Morton will have a lot of
+potatoes if your crop is a good one,” he observed.
+
+“Yes, but they’ll keep,--besides, she can bring them to Wrugglesby for
+us if she likes. There is an awful lot of waste in this garden; one
+could grow heaps of things--it does seem a pity. While I am here I am
+going to try what can be done with it.”
+
+“In the way of growing potatoes?”
+
+“All manner of things. I don’t know much about it, but I’ll find out;
+there is a book about gardening here, and Mr. Dane has got another, a
+big one, I saw it in his bookshelf. I expect you know a good lot.”
+
+She stopped work for a moment as the idea occurred to her, then went on
+again with it and her questions at the same time till Harborough soon
+found himself giving information on the subject of fruit and vegetable
+culture; flowers did not seem to enter into the girl’s consideration at
+all.
+
+“Some grow themselves,” she said of them, “and there are heaps of wild
+ones to be got. I would see about flowers afterwards; the other things
+must come first.”
+
+“But,” Harborough objected, “in such a garden as this it would be
+possible to grow many more eatables than Mrs. Morton could use; surely
+it would be better to devote the surplus time and room to flowers.
+Unless,” he added slily, “you think the other vegetables could be
+brought to Wrugglesby like the potatoes.”
+
+“Well, yes,” Bill admitted, “some could, and the rest could be sold.”
+
+“To whom? Believe me there is no profit attached to market-gardening on
+a small scale; your profits would not pay your freight to London.”
+
+“I should not send them to London.” Bill was at the end of the row now,
+and Harborough had moved farther along the fence to keep even with her.
+“I should take some in the light cart to Wrugglesby and sell to people
+who had no gardens, and some I should take to Darvel. It is rather a
+long distance off, but it is quite a big town with barracks and lots of
+houses without gardens. People with things to sell come to our house
+in Wrugglesby like that; at first we did not buy much, but now we have
+a good deal from them--that is how it would be with me. I should sell
+rabbits too, I think, and fowls and eggs; Theresa does not half make
+them pay.”
+
+“I fancy she would raise objections to your making them pay in that
+way.”
+
+Bill was forced to admit that such a thing was probable. “Still,” she
+said, “if it was really right I might do it all the same if I lived
+here; I could easily get round Robert. But I don’t live here, so I am
+afraid there is an end of the matter.”
+
+Harborough watched her curiously for a moment. “You don’t appear to
+suffer from any class-prejudices,” he observed.
+
+“What are they? Do you mean I don’t mind what I do? If that is it, I
+don’t; why should I? Do you?”
+
+“No.”
+
+The question was superfluous, he thought, for did not his manner of
+living demonstrate his theory to Bill as to everyone else?
+
+“You work your own farm,” she said, so she evidently knew, “and I
+should work my own cabbage garden. We should not make big profits, but
+we should make enough to live on with what we grew for ourselves, and
+we should enjoy ourselves at the same time.”
+
+“You would like it.”
+
+“Yes, very much. I do not mean I should do it if I were rich. I should
+find some other work then; there is sure to be some belonging to being
+rich; but if I were not rich, only rich enough to have a farm or a
+cabbage garden, I should work them like that.”
+
+“I wonder if you know what real work is?”
+
+The remark was more speculation than question, and seemed to emanate
+from a different and much older being. Bill was not piqued, for indeed
+she regarded him in the light of a different and older being.
+
+“I have not done much,” she said, “but I mean to get this garden a
+little straight before I go back to Wrugglesby.”
+
+“If you don’t get tired of it first.”
+
+“I sha’n’t do that; you can come every morning if you like, to see if I
+am at work or not.”
+
+This was something of a challenge. Harborough at first had not intended
+accepting it, yet, since on the next day circumstances caused him to
+come home at mid-day by the field-path, he thought he might as well see
+if the girl was really at work. The day was moist and close, and a warm
+fine rain, which fell at intervals, might have offered some excuse for
+remaining indoors. But she had not availed herself of the excuse; very
+likely, he thought, because she expected he would come, thinking which
+he wished he had not done so, and even for a moment meditated going
+away without betraying his presence. But it was too late for that; she
+had seen him and glanced up from her work to ask, “Are you going to
+market this afternoon?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I suppose you can’t see Robert off in good time? Theresa will be
+waiting for him.”
+
+“I will do what I can.”
+
+“Thank you.” She resumed her work, and he went on his way determined to
+keep his promise.
+
+And either he did keep it, or else some other circumstance brought
+about the desired results, for Robert came home early that night; and
+Bill, who was sitting with Theresa, was satisfied, trying to persuade
+herself that Harborough was right in saying that the one escapade was
+an accident not likely to be repeated.
+
+She did not see Harborough for the next few days, and so could not
+thank him for his good offices. She did not altogether expect to see
+him; indeed, to tell the truth, she had forgotten about him in the
+engrossing interest of her work. But after nearly a week he passed
+that way again and found her still very busy, though now at a spot
+some little way from the railing. She did not cease work to come to
+him, and as he did not jump the rail to come to her, they carried on
+their conversation in tones suitable to the distance that separated
+them,--an arrangement which struck Harborough as more practical than
+pleasant, though he would not take the initiative in improving upon
+it. The conversation itself was practical, strictly horticultural, and
+mostly concerned with the growing of lettuces, which, though it showed
+a laudable attention to business on Bill’s part, was uninteresting. She
+was attending very much to business and not very much to Harborough;
+she even once went unceremoniously away to fetch some water-cans,
+singing as she went.
+
+Harborough turned to go; the water-cans, it is true, were not far
+away, but she had gone for them without a word of apology. He was an
+extremely practical young man, believing in utility, in the importance
+of work above all things; but he did not quite appreciate seeing
+manners (and himself) sacrificed to some one else’s notion of work.
+
+“‘There’s work for all the day-time,’” Bill sang, repeating to herself
+fragments of the song she had sung to the other Harborough, and quite
+unconscious of having offended this one. “The rose of this can has
+rather big holes in it; I believe it will wash the seeds out of the
+ground--‘the victor’s crown of glory,--of glory, glory’--now, then, I
+have filled my shoes with water. ‘But after life’s long story there’s
+the devil’s bill to meet.’”
+
+“What are you singing?” Harborough stopped to ask.
+
+“Nothing,” and Bill stood on one foot while she emptied the water out
+of her shoe.
+
+“Yes, but what was it?”
+
+Bill recited the verse to him and began to water her seed-patch.
+
+“Why don’t you come nearer?” Harborough asked. “All the men in the yard
+will hear what you are saying.”
+
+“There are none there now, they are all eating their lunch in the barn;
+besides what does it matter if they do? It will do no harm.”
+
+“Oh, no; it might even do some good; it is almost a pity they should
+not be edified by your--hymn is it?”
+
+Bill looked up arrested by his tone. “It isn’t a hymn,” she said, “but
+it is true all the same, every bit of it, the laughter and the work and
+the bill, only I don’t think you always have to wait till the end of
+life’s long story for that. After all it is only fair; you must expect
+to pay a good price for a good thing,--and it is good!”
+
+“Which? The broken cucumber-frame or your own work? You are admiring
+both.”
+
+“Everything,--just being alive.”
+
+“Do you consider one is in the devil’s debt for life? It is a new idea.”
+
+“No, not exactly that. The debt you owe is the wrong you do. You have
+not half lived if you have done no wrong; you miss an awful lot if you
+never do any wrong,--don’t you think so?”
+
+She looked up as she spoke. Wrong so prefigured appeared wonderfully
+alluring, for there was an indescribable provocation in her face and
+figure, a fascination, nay, a temptation personified, which roused the
+youth in him, stirring the pulses usually so cool. Theory and reason
+are all very well, admirable in fact for ordinary use, but young blood
+will course in spite of them; the world’s spring will not always take
+_no_ for answer.
+
+Harborough went home that day vibrating with an emotion which was
+strange to him. Afterwards, when he was cool again, he was ashamed of
+it, for it did not seem exactly a good thing, and he vowed he would
+not go near the garden again. Yet how could he help himself? In a
+rash moment he had offered to mend the broken cucumber-frame for the
+girl, and she, serenely unconscious of his emotions, had accepted the
+offer. There had not been time then: Theresa wanted her in the house
+in five minutes; but he would come some other time. She had suggested
+to-morrow, or any day he liked. It did not matter when it was done, but
+it had to be done; he had left himself no choice.
+
+That same evening he met Theresa in the lane, and, acting on impulse,
+he told her of his offer to mend the frame. On the whole, he thought
+it better, even if she put a false construction on his actions, than
+jumping the fence some morning when Bill was alone in the garden. But
+Theresa did not put any construction whatever on his actions; she
+looked upon her young cousin as more of a child than she really was,
+and much more of one than Harborough thought her. “She told me you
+offered to do it,” Theresa said; “it is very kind of you, I’m sure. She
+has taken a great fancy to gardening, and I am glad of it, though I
+cannot give her much help myself, for I know so little about it, and am
+so busy besides.”
+
+Harborough assured her he was pleased to give any assistance he could,
+and Theresa thanked him again for sparing his valuable time, and
+invited him to do so to-morrow afternoon, and to have tea afterwards.
+
+This he did, he and Bill spending an hour in the garden before tea.
+That afternoon Bill did not arouse any sentiments, unholy or otherwise,
+in his breast, neither did she sing or whistle; she devoted herself to
+business, and Harborough, having of late worked with farm-labourers,
+found it a refreshing change to work with a person who understood what
+was wanted and did as she was told. “She has more common-sense than
+most of the men I know,” was the opinion he formed that day, both when
+they were at work before tea, and when they were at the table later
+on. Her intercourse with Robert Morton impressed him very much; she
+had gauged the man’s character to a nicety, and Harborough could not
+but see that she understood him better, blamed him less, and could do
+infinitely more with him than could his stately young wife. He was
+not sure that he liked her the better for that. “An odd girl,” was
+his opinion, when at last he had convinced himself that she was not
+really conscious of the part she was playing; “she simply reflects
+her surroundings, but--” His ideal of womanhood was not a changing
+elf, a will-o’-the-wisp, a creature who could in mind enter into all
+things, reflect all things, good, bad, and indifferent, without judging
+or condemning. Woman should be above man; she should not understand
+evil except when he taught her; she should be merciful, of course,
+with the mercy of love, the pity of superiority, but not tolerant
+with the liberality of good fellowship; she should have nothing in
+common with a man like Robert Morton; she should be something fairer,
+better--unconsciously he looked at Theresa.
+
+Yet Bill fascinated him. She was not fair, above, apart; she was of
+the earth earthy, a brownie by the hearth, not a goddess for a shrine.
+And yet the last thing in his waking thoughts that night was the dark
+glowing face watching him from the gate, the first thing that haunted
+his dreams was the small figure gliding into the green twilight of the
+nut-bushes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+WILHELMINA I. AND II.
+
+
+Polly always declared she foresaw the end from the very beginning of
+the affair, and certainly at the outset of Miss Brownlow’s illness she
+prophesied fatal results; but then she always did foretell the worst,
+and Bella said she did not believe her, though she sobbed as she said
+it. But it seemed so impossible: Miss Brownlow only slipped down the
+last four or five of the cellar-stairs; Jane was getting coals at the
+time, and declared she saw her and could swear it was not more than
+five steps. She must have struck her head on the corner at the bottom,
+for it was so long before she recovered consciousness, and she seemed
+to so wander in her mind when she did recover. This was before she
+became very ill; after that took place Polly did not prophesy anything;
+the cousins only looked at one another in silence.
+
+But before that time Theresa had come. Bella was so intensely relieved
+by her coming, that she did not for a moment dispute with Polly for
+the right of bringing her. She sat by Miss Brownlow’s side alone while
+Polly was away; the room was so dark, for the blinds were pulled down
+and the day was overcast, that she could barely see to correct the
+pile of exercise-books before her. As yet the school had not been
+broken up; but the noise of the children did not seem to disturb Miss
+Brownlow, hardly even to reach her as she lay in semi-stupor. Neither
+of the cousins felt it wise to dismiss their pupils lightly, and,
+notwithstanding Polly’s prophetic warnings, neither really anticipated
+the worst, or fully realised the serious nature of the accident.
+
+On account of the school Polly was not able to leave Wrugglesby till
+after four o’clock; but, seeing the grave nature of her errand, she
+ordered a fly from the Red Lion in spite of Bella’s demur at the
+extravagance, and drove away in becoming state and solemnity. Bill was
+working in the garden at the time of the arrival at Haylands; when she
+went to the pump for water to wash her hands before tea she saw the fly
+standing in the yard.
+
+“Whose is that?” she asked as she pumped water into a wooden bowl.
+
+Sam, with the milk-pails on his way to the dairy, stood contemplating
+the object.
+
+“Don’t roightly know,” he said.
+
+Bill carried her bowl to a wooden bench outside the dairy door, brought
+a large piece of yellow soap from the wash-house, rolled up her sleeves
+and proceeded to wash; the refinements of life did not at that time
+greatly trouble her. The man with the pails followed her to the dairy,
+went in and began pouring the milk into the pans.
+
+“Oi shouldn’t be s’proised if that b’longed to Wazzel,” he said
+glancing down the yard; “looks loike ’is shay, that do.”
+
+“Wazzel of the Red Lion? Who has come from Wrugglesby?”
+
+“Come fr’ Wrugglesby? Oh, it’s one o’ the Misses’s sisters as come, but
+I’m not sartin that is Wazzel’s--”
+
+“Which one? Bella, the pretty one?”
+
+“No, the old ’un. Wazzel--”
+
+But Bill had gone with still wet hands to see what had brought Polly to
+Ashelton. She knew, directly she looked into the room, that there was
+something wrong, or that Polly was persuading herself there was. There
+was an air of momentous gravity about Polly, of depressing, dignified
+solemnity which pervaded the whole room and infected all present. Even
+the frivolous young maid, who was setting out the tea-things, looked
+awed and spread the best cloth out of respect for the gravity of the
+visitor. Robert, who was also there, seemed glum and silent, and Polly
+was not attempting to entertain him according to her usual manner; she
+was acting up to the situation and enjoying it proportionately.
+
+“What’s the matter?” Bill asked.
+
+Theresa turned, and Bill knew when she saw her face that there was real
+trouble.
+
+“Aunt is very ill,” Polly answered, “and I have come for Theresa.”
+
+“Ill?”
+
+“Yes, but not dangerously,” Theresa hastily explained; “at least we
+hope not,--we are sure it cannot be,--she was quite well a day or two
+ago. She has had a tumble down-stairs which has shaken her a good deal.
+It is so difficult for Polly and Bella to nurse her and look after the
+school too, that they want me to go and help.”
+
+“I see.” Bill was greatly relieved.
+
+“How long has she been ill? How bad is she?”
+
+They told her, Polly characteristically painting the case black,
+Theresa white. Bill was left to draw her own conclusions, based on
+the one fact that Polly usually served the truth in the sauce she
+considered most fitting, and on the other that Theresa really knew very
+little of the state of the case. In the end she did not know what to
+think; her fears were half aroused, yet she could not believe matters
+really were serious; nothing serious had happened within her memory,
+and it did not seem possible that it could now. That which needed the
+most consideration, however, was not so much what had happened as
+the more immediate question of Theresa’s leaving home. This proved
+difficult to arrange; she hardly knew what to do.
+
+“The dairy needs a lot of management just now,” she said, “and Jessie
+really is very inexperienced; she has been with us such a little time
+too.”
+
+“Do you think I could do anything?” Bill asked.
+
+Theresa looked at her doubtfully, but Robert, who was tired of the
+discussion, said shortly: “Of course she could; there is not such a lot
+to do. You had better get your things together and go back at once;
+there’s no need for any more talk about it.”
+
+It was nice of Robert to give permission so readily, even if he did not
+give it graciously. No doubt Polly thought so, as she cast a quick,
+comprehending glance at him from the corner of her small dark eyes.
+“Thank you,” she said; “I’m sure it is very nice of you to spare her;
+we are so much obliged, so very much. Now, Theresa, you can come with a
+light heart,--as soon as we have had tea; we may as well wait for that.
+We must have tea somewhere, and it takes no longer in one place than
+another.”
+
+So Theresa drove away with Polly, leaving Bill for a day or two only,
+she said, though in her heart she thought it likely to be longer. Bill
+also thought it possible, and took over the charge of the house and
+dairy rather in anticipation of such an event. Taking over the charge
+was a serious matter in Bill’s opinion; Jessie also found it a serious
+matter, for with the cheerful and friendly Bill she found herself
+working as she had never worked before. Bill loved work in all its
+branches, and somehow those with her usually had to work too, either
+because they were infected by her energy, or because they could not
+avoid it; but for some reason they usually worked. Jessie worked now as
+she never did before or afterwards, until she got a house of her own
+and a husband to keep.
+
+It must be admitted Bill did a great deal more than there was any
+necessity to do, a great deal more than Theresa did or expected to be
+done; the only thing which prevented her from doing yet more was a
+desire to go on with her gardening. It was one morning when she was
+hurrying over the last of the butter-making so as to get out to her
+plants that Mr. Dane came and hindered her awhile. He came to ask if
+some of the skimmed milk could be sent to Mrs. Hutton, an old woman at
+Ashelton End. He was going to the front door in the orthodox manner
+but, hearing Bill singing gaily in the dairy, he went round the end
+of the house and came to seek her at her work. He knew Theresa had
+gone to Wrugglesby; all Ashelton knew that, for Miss Minchin, from the
+vantage-point of her corner window, had seen the fly from the Red Lion
+drive past. She had kept a careful watch on the road till the same
+vehicle drove back, even sitting at tea with one eye on the window and
+the other on the tea-pot, so as to have a really good look at it on
+its return journey and to see Mrs. Morton and another lady inside.
+
+On account of this sight, doubting that Mrs. Morton could have left her
+cousin alone at Haylands, thinking that, had she done so, the young
+creature might be lonely, or want a little help, Miss Minchin set off
+to see her the very next afternoon. Bill was in the garden at the time,
+fortunately out of sight of the drawing-room window, when Jessie came
+to tell her of the visitor.
+
+“What does she want?” Bill asked.
+
+“To see you, Miss. I expect she wants to find out about the Missis, if
+the truth were known.” Jessie knew Miss Minchin by reputation.
+
+“Well, you could have told her that,” said Bill, loth to leave her
+gardening.
+
+“But she didn’t ask me. Lor’, miss, she pretends she’s come to see you.”
+
+“To call?” Bill asked, and Jessie nodded.
+
+“Oh!” said Bill delighted, and ran to the pump. She made a back-door
+toilette and presented herself in the drawing-room quite unconscious
+of the quantity of loam on her short skirts. Miss Minchin found out
+all Bill could tell her, offered (and really meant it) any assistance
+she could give, and had, as she said, “a very nice little chat,” Bill
+playing hostess most successfully. She went away quite satisfied, told
+Miss Gruet all she had heard and all she surmised, and at the end of
+three days everyone in Ashelton and Ashelton End and Brook Ashelton,
+even including Mr. Dane, knew something of Mrs. Morton’s summons to
+Wrugglesby. Consequently, when on that sunny April morning the rector
+heard the vigorous young voice singing in the dairy, he knew that the
+lady of the house was to be found there.
+
+Bill was singing a perfectly irreproachable hymn, occasionally, when
+her work became very engrossing, leaving off or perhaps humming a bar
+or two; but just as Mr. Dane drew near she broke out at the top of her
+voice so that she did not hear his approach, nor did she know that he
+was there until he stopped in the doorway.
+
+“Good-morning,” he said.
+
+“Good-morning,” she replied, giving him a large smile of welcome. “Do
+you want me?”
+
+“Yes, but please don’t let me interrupt you; you look very busy.”
+
+Bill was making butter-pats, and apparently had been churning earlier,
+for the butter-milk still dripped from her bare elbows. She was
+standing on a small inverted wash-tub, for the shelves were high and
+she liked to be well above her work. “I am rather busy,” she said;
+“come in and sit down, won’t you? That pickle-tub is quite safe; the
+lid won’t give way.”
+
+The rector came in and sat down, making his request for milk at the
+same time.
+
+“She shall have some,” Bill said after a moment’s thought. “I will take
+her some by-and-bye, if that will do; or do you want her to have it
+earlier?”
+
+Mr. Dane said that would do, though on second thoughts he suggested
+that, if convenient, he would take the milk himself as he was going to
+Mrs. Hutton.
+
+Bill mentally rearranged the milk at her disposal and said he could
+have it now. Had she been Theresa, she would have insisted that the boy
+should carry the can to the cottage; being Bill she did no such thing,
+for she had set the boy some weeding which would take all his time. She
+volunteered to carry it herself as soon as the butter should be done,
+and would have been pleased to do so. It never occurred to her that the
+carrying of a milk-can could appear to Mr. Dane in a different light
+from that in which it did to her; and fortunately she was right.
+
+She went off to find a can, and it took her some few minutes to do so.
+As she searched, the old man heard her softly complete the interrupted
+verse of the hymn she had been singing, and the varied richness of her
+voice struck him forcibly.
+
+“You have a very remarkable voice, my child,” he said when she came
+back.
+
+Bill coloured a little with pleasure. “I believe I can imitate other
+sounds better than I can do anything else,” she said; and to illustrate
+her words she mimicked with rare perfection the liquid recurrent
+whistle of a thrush in the apple-tree outside the window. “Perhaps it
+is because I have got a correct ear,” she added, as if apologising for
+her own skill.
+
+“I think you must have,” he answered, “and a good memory too. You
+remember what you have once heard perhaps? Yes? Tell me, then, where
+did you hear the song you sang at Mrs. Dawson’s?”
+
+The old man was looking at her very keenly, almost eagerly. She gave
+the butter an unnecessary thump as she answered, “I don’t know,” and
+then added somewhat defiantly, “I never thought they would mind it.”
+
+“Mind it? Who minded it? How did you learn it? Think,--tell me whom you
+have heard sing it.”
+
+Bill saw that Mr. Dane had found no offence in the song, and being
+reassured she set herself to answer his question. “I cannot tell you
+how I came to know it,” she said; “I have never seen the music in
+print that I can remember. The greater part of the words I found with
+some letters and things which are kept in an old box at home. When I
+read them I seemed to recognise them, and remembered the part that was
+missing,--you know the way I mean, the way you grope things out of your
+mind. At first I thought I would take the paper away: then I thought
+I ought not to, so I just learned them by heart. As for the music, it
+seems to belong to the words--don’t you think so? I can only suppose my
+father used to sing the song, perhaps very often, and I have remembered
+it, though in that case it may not be quite right.”
+
+“There was one mistake; you did not repeat the refrain with sufficient
+accuracy in the latter part of the song.”
+
+“You have heard it before!” Bill exclaimed in astonishment. “You know
+it too!”
+
+“Yes, I have heard it--many years ago, very many; that is why I
+wondered how you came to know it; I did not think it had been sung
+lately.”
+
+He rose as he spoke, and held out his hand for the can. He looked
+old and weary, yet withal a very fine and courteous gentleman though
+standing among milk-pans talking to a little dairy-maid. Bill wondered
+if he had heard the song when he was young, and if it were very long
+ago. She gave him the milk-can saying, “I will send the same quantity
+to-morrow.”
+
+“Thank you, thank you, little Mistress Bill. Bill,--it’s a name to fit
+you.”
+
+She laughed. “Better than Wilhelmina,” she said. “That is ever so much
+too long; I was called Wilhelmina after my grandmother.”
+
+He stopped on the threshold. For a moment he leaned against the
+door-post; the lined face looked gray in the shaded light, though
+perhaps only by reason of it, for he merely said, “Yes, yes, of course,
+Wilhelmina Alardy,--good-bye,” and so went away with his milk-can.
+
+Wilhelmina Alardy! Of course she was Wilhelmina Alardy; he knew that
+before. And the other Wilhelmina was her grandmother; of course he
+had known that too, or at least he almost felt as if he had. Not that
+she was like, not like at all, not even in face; he could trace no
+resemblance to the first Wilhelmina, tall and slim and queenly, with
+her beautiful black hair. Bill’s hair was dark, it is true, but with a
+glowing, coppery darkness, brown shot with red, a colour of which a man
+was never sure even when he thought he saw it in her eyes. Wilhelmina’s
+eyes were different, dark, proud, passionate. Bill’s were not proud,
+nor were they passionate; but they took possession of a man’s mind;
+they held an indescribable charm not to be forgotten, they were,--they
+were other eyes, another face--
+
+Mr. Dane turned abruptly from the painting he was contemplating; he was
+at home now, his visit to Mrs. Hutton having been an unusually brief
+one. When he reached home he locked himself in his study so that he
+should not be disturbed. His housekeeper thought he was busy over his
+sermon; but if he was, his text was an old portrait taken from a locked
+drawer, and his subject a beautiful woman, young and proud, to whom
+the painter had given a milk-white skin and curling black hair. Her
+gown sloped away on the shoulders in the fashion of forty years ago,
+and her brow curved softly in that fashion too; but the painter, in
+spite of a laudable desire to bring the face within the then prevailing
+standard of beauty, had not been able to flatter the chin out of its
+imperious waywardness nor the eyes out of their proud unrest.
+
+There was no likeness to Bill in this face of the other Wilhelmina; and
+yet--this was but one of the looks she had worn--who should say there
+was not some of her sleeping undeveloped in the girl of to-day? Men
+know so little of the working of such things. Who could say how many
+of Wilhelmina’s reckless ancestors had gone to the making of Bill, had
+revived in Bill, gipsy Bill? Of course she was gipsy; Anthony Alardy
+was half a gipsy, dark-faced, lawless, part sinner, part saint, knight
+and churl in one; a child of nature alive with a glowing vitality,
+impregnated with a magnetism, a charm, a quality without a name, hard
+to define yet harder still to defy. To this day the man who sat with
+the old portrait in his hand could recall, ay, and acknowledge, the
+charm, even though he owed to it so much of sorrow and dishonour in
+the long ago. And the voice! He remembered the voice too; the musician
+in him could never forget it, for he would never hear such another. He
+might hate it,--he did hate it, all the man in him hated it--but the
+musician could not, and could never forget.
+
+  Red is the rose thou hast bound in thy hair.
+
+That night there were red roses in her hair, he remembered,--how he
+remembered! And the song--what music, what passion of melody! It was
+not art, it was nature, man’s nature, woman’s nature crying out,
+passion which swelled up and spoke, to be answered, to be satisfied.
+
+Mr. Dane put the portrait of his young wife away, put it away and, by
+degrees put away too the scenes and memories which had returned to him.
+Strange that after so many years the past should return thus, stranger
+still, since it did return, that pain should outweigh all other
+feelings now. Where had gone the sense of injury, the shame, the agony,
+the unforgiving hate? They were gone, all was only a pain now; thank
+God for it, and for the mercy of the years, the pity and the merciful
+wisdom learned of the long, patient years.
+
+He locked the drawer and put away the key. She was dead, dead long
+ago. And her grandchild was here, singing the old passionate song;
+looking out on the world with eager, unknowing eyes; containing in
+herself funded possibilities handed down from a dead past, acquired
+from circumstance, environment, a hundred things of which a man cannot
+judge, on which he cannot reason. Her grandchild! A little brown
+creature full of untold possibilities! Her grandchild? Almost she might
+have been his own--for a moment he fancied he hated her for it. Might
+have been? Had she been she would not have been such as she now was;
+and after all, that was the thing which concerned him, the thing which
+he had, if need be, to help.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+NATURAL SELECTION.
+
+
+Bill, of course, knew nothing of what was in the rector’s mind; she
+only wondered once or twice about the song, and decided to sing it
+no more in public since the greater number of her acquaintances
+disapproved of it, and the one whose opinion she most valued did not
+like it. Harborough liked it or had seemed to like it on the night
+she sang it at the Dawsons’. But she was not quite sure of him, for
+she had begun to think there were two separate persons in Gilchrist
+Harborough,--one a strong, cool, somewhat old young man whose only
+weakness was theories, and who was the normal and usual person in
+possession; the other a very different person, who only looked out now
+and then, by accident as it were. It was to this last that the song
+appealed, this last who waked once or twice under her influence. She
+was not sure, but she rather fancied Harborough despised this second
+self, even denied its existence. That was a pity, in her opinion, for
+the second self was the thing in him which played, which laughed, and
+enjoyed life and despised theories. For this reason, and also for pure
+mischief, Bill tried occasionally to rouse this other self.
+
+She had not many opportunities, for Harborough was very guarded, and
+by degrees, since she was much absorbed in her work, she forgot all
+about it, though she saw him often while Theresa was at Wrugglesby. It
+is true, if he passed when she was working in the garden he did not
+usually stop to say more than “good-afternoon”; indeed, had she only
+known it, his demeanour on those occasions suggested “lead us not into
+temptation” in a manner which was scarcely complimentary. However, as
+it happened, about this time business brought Harborough to Robert,
+and Robert brought him to Haylands, where of necessity he saw Bill.
+Even when he did not come to the house, he met her in the yard or barns
+or dairy, “looking diligently to the ways of her household.” There
+could be no doubt as to her capabilities and diligence as a housewife;
+Harborough never saw her now without being impressed with her ability
+and, indeed, with her great suitability for the post of mistress of a
+working-farm.
+
+Events, or rather his opinions, culminated on the afternoon when he
+invited her to take shelter from the rain in Crows’ Farm. It was very
+heavy rain and very sudden, and she had on her best hat; in ordinary
+circumstances she would have declined his hospitality and paddled
+cheerfully home, but the hat was not ordinary; so she accepted his
+offer and took shelter under his roof for the hour that the rain
+lasted. While there she made tea for him without disturbing the method
+of his arrangements; she washed the cups without splashing his scrubbed
+table, and she did not, even when asked for her opinion, say that his
+way of keeping kitchen utensils was wrong. Finally she sat by the
+smouldering fire with folded hands saying with unmistakable sincerity
+that his manner of living was one after her own heart.
+
+“You would like it?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, better than anything except gipsying.”
+
+“You would not like that,” he told her smiling. “At least when you came
+to know what it was really like, you would not.”
+
+“You think not? Perhaps so; I don’t know much about it: have you tried?”
+
+“Rather not,” he said; “I have tried bush-life though.”
+
+“Is that like it?”
+
+“No; not altogether. There are not so many fellow-gipsies in that; also
+there are not necessarily dirt and dishonesty.”
+
+“But there are sometimes?” Bill asked as if she were anxious there
+should be.
+
+“Occasionally you run against queer customers, men from the ends of the
+earth, who had very much better have stayed there, if they could not
+contrive to drop off altogether.”
+
+“I should think they were worse than fellow-gipsies,” Bill observed.
+
+“That’s a matter of opinion; besides, there is always plenty of room
+there, and you don’t come across them often. I think the thing which
+strikes me most of all here is the smallness; it is all so ‘preserved.’”
+
+Bill was interested. “I should like to see the bush,” she said.
+
+“It is not much to see,” he told her, but added, “station-life would
+suit you; I believe you would like that.”
+
+“Tell me about it.” And he told her what he thought would interest her,
+she listening with eager face.
+
+And thus they spent the time pleasantly enough until the rain ceased
+sufficiently for her to go home. He walked to the gate with her, and
+then went back to his barns and sheds revolving in his mind a theory he
+had not much considered before,--the theory of natural selection, which
+he interpreted to mean the wisdom of choosing your wife as you choose
+your horse, for general suitability to your purpose.
+
+She was young, it was true, and perhaps a little wild, but she could be
+trained; she would also sober down of herself, and she would probably
+never develop her latent possibilities for mischief if she married
+early. She was not what one would describe as tractable, though she was
+accommodating, far too accommodating not to be more or less submissive
+to superior experience. And she was all one could desire for practical
+purposes.
+
+Practical purposes! That was just it; in adopting a practical farmer’s
+life he found he needed a practical farmer’s wife; there was no room
+at his hearth for the stately lady whom fancy (not yet dead) had once
+painted in that position. There was something wrong with the present
+arrangement; a man either wanted to be something less or else to
+have something more than modern codes allowed. The patriarch Abraham
+supplied what must even then have been a long-felt want, in taking,
+besides the chief and lady wife, a humbler working partner.
+
+Harborough was not a man given to acting hastily, at least the
+paramount person in his character was not; concerning the other
+person he did not know much. He thought a long time of Bill and her
+suitability for his purpose, entirely oblivious for the moment of her
+curious attractions; but he could come to no conclusion either as to
+whether he wanted her or whether, if he did, she wanted him. However,
+he need not have wearied himself with the consideration that night,
+for, as it chanced, he had almost a month in which to think it over
+before he saw her again. That very evening she went to Wrugglesby and
+did not come back to Ashelton for some weeks.
+
+As she crossed the yard on her homeward way, Robert met her, his heavy
+face wearing a look of real concern.
+
+“Bear up, little girl!” was his greeting, for he saw that his face had
+already broken the bad news. “Cheer up! It hasn’t come to the worst
+yet, and we’re not going to be frightened into thinking it’s coming,
+either;--we’re just going to drive in to Wrugglesby and see.”
+
+“Have they sent for me?” she asked, her face whitening.
+
+“Yes,--you’re not going to cry, are you? It mayn’t be so bad as all
+that. There’s a brave girl! Run in and get a wrap or something, you’ll
+be cold before you get there. They’ll have Beauty in the cart in a
+twinkling, and you shall drive her if you like.”
+
+Bill smiled a little; he was trying to comfort her as well as he could
+and she was grateful for the intention. She even pretended to be
+pleased to drive the spirited mare hitherto forbidden to her; it might
+have hurt him if she had not. It might have hurt him if she had refused
+the sweets he kept popping in her mouth, and she ate them though each
+one seemed as if it would choke her.
+
+He talked a little during the first part of the drive and she tried to
+answer him, but after a while he felt the wisdom of silence, and they
+both became quiet until just as he handed her out at Langford House
+he said awkwardly: “You shall never want for anything while I live, I
+swear you sha’n’t! Theresa and I will always have a home for you,--mind
+that, little girl.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+CHASING A SHADOW.
+
+
+Mr. James Brownlow was a busy man; a hard-working solicitor, partner
+in an old firm, and a good firm though scarcely a rich one. He was
+not rich himself; he had worked hard all his life to attain moderate
+comfort, and he continued to work hard, though he was now past
+middle-age, partly to maintain the same standard of comfort, and partly
+because he cherished a delusion that nothing in the firm could go on
+without him. But, in spite of his business and its importance, he felt
+bound to devote a certain amount of time to the affairs of the late
+Miss Isabella Brownlow. It is true she was not a very near relation,
+but he had been legal adviser as well as relation, and moreover, the
+nieces she left seemed to be in a particularly solitary condition.
+
+“But one is married, I thought,” Mrs. Brownlow objected from the
+further end of the dinner-table. The train from Wrugglesby had
+been late, and made the dinner late too; accordingly the lamb was
+overcooked, and the clockwork regularity of the household disturbed.
+Mrs. Brownlow felt slightly annoyed; also she considered that if one of
+the nieces was married her husband should have taken over the affairs
+of the family, instead of troubling somebody else’s husband,--and,
+incidentally, somebody else’s excellent cook.
+
+Mr. Brownlow probably knew these sentiments, but he was not disturbed
+by them that night for the importance of business was great in his
+eyes; moreover, he had been discreetly handled earlier in the day.
+“Yes,” he said, “yes, one is married, comfortably married, I should
+say; but a man is not bound to take over his wife’s family. He has
+professed himself quite ready to give a home to the youngest girl; the
+others will carry on the school.”
+
+“A wise plan, I should think,” Mrs. Brownlow said, with a sigh. She
+was always sadly affected by the delinquencies of the present age,
+which she possessed great abilities for discovering. “It is liberal of
+him,” she went on. “I suppose he will be repaid by the girl finding out
+one day that she is unable to bear a dependent position and must make
+her own way in the world, after having had a long training for it at
+somebody else’s expense. Girls usually get such ideas nowadays.”
+
+Mr. Brownlow agreed with the general sentiment, but defended this
+particular girl. “I don’t think she is that sort at all,” he said. “She
+is very young, a plain, quiet little thing; she looked docile; Miss
+Hains spoke of her as if she were a child.”
+
+“There is no family?” Mrs. Brownlow asked. “I mean the married
+one,--Mrs. Morton, didn’t you say the name was--has no family?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“But if she has by-and-bye, what will become of this girl? Can they
+afford to keep her? Is it wise, do you think?”
+
+“I have talked it all over with Miss Hains who really is a sensible
+woman. She is five and thirty, I dare say, and a sensible, clever
+woman.” Polly might have been considered clever in some senses of the
+word; that she had certain claims to ability was proved by the opinion
+she had produced in Mr. Brownlow’s mind. “She and I,” went on the
+worthy gentleman unconsciously placing the persons in their right order
+of importance, “she and I have decided that her cousin Wilhelmina had
+better return home with Mrs. Morton for the present. The school is
+not larger than she herself, with the assistance of Miss Waring, can
+manage. In the course of time they hope to increase it, when Wilhelmina
+can come back to help them with the younger pupils.”
+
+Mrs. Brownlow thought this an excellent arrangement and asked for
+personal details of its originator.
+
+“Miss Hains? No, she is not handsome,” her husband said in answer to
+her question, “but a sensible, practical woman. Really it is quite
+surprising how business-like she is when you come to think that she
+has lived so long in that little country town,--how business-like
+and yet how very womanly, how essentially feminine, not in the least
+self-assertive and opinionated.”
+
+Such were the golden opinions Polly had won from Mr. Brownlow. Hardly
+so flattering was her opinion of him, which she was at that same time
+expressing to Bella and Bill as they sat together in the twilight.
+
+The first shock of their grief was now over. It is true there was an
+aching blank left in their lives by the death of this kindly, not
+over-wise aunt, but the first sharpness was over, the first ache a
+little dulled. Bella and Theresa had lost their own mother not so many
+years ago, and though they had dearly loved their aunt, the loss of her
+was not what the earlier grief had been, nor yet what it was to Bill
+who could remember no mother. Bill’s loss was greatest, and greatest
+also to her was the shock, for this was the first time real sorrow had
+touched her life. She had, too, more time and opportunity to think
+about it, having, as the youngest, but little to do with all the plans
+and work consequent upon Miss Brownlow’s death. Polly, of course, was
+very busy: mourning alone offered a large field for her energies, for
+the cousins could not afford to employ even the local milliner and
+dressmaker.
+
+“We must let them dress us for the funeral,” Polly had said, but added,
+“I hardly think we need get Bill’s hat there; I will do that myself,
+for we must save wherever we can. As for other clothes, we must manage
+somehow; one good dress apiece is all we can afford.”
+
+And she had sighed; extensive mourning would have compensated her
+somewhat for a much heavier bereavement. Not but that she did mourn for
+Miss Brownlow; her grief was real, though perhaps not quite so deep
+as theirs, thought Bella and Theresa. As for Bill, when she had cried
+herself sick with the abandonment of childhood, she felt an hysterical
+inclination to laugh as she watched the perfection of Polly’s sorrow.
+It was real, as real as any other of Polly’s feelings; she felt it
+after her fashion, but principally because it was the fashion to feel
+it.
+
+By the May evening when Mr. Brownlow so much commended Polly, that
+“sensible and practical woman” considered it time to abate the first
+intensity of her grief. She had been abating it by degrees, and during
+Mr. Brownlow’s visit had shown a demeanour of subdued sorrow blent
+with practical common-sense. After his departure she subdued her
+sorrow still more, and when the cousins sat together that evening she
+discussed matters with the air of one who, having paid off the funeral
+_cortège_, now opens the shutters and prepares to return to the normal
+condition of things. Theresa had gone home to Haylands; she had been
+obliged to go back there some time before, but had driven to Wrugglesby
+with Robert that day so as to be present during Mr. Brownlow’s visit.
+The school was to re-open at the beginning of the next week, the
+holidays on account of Miss Brownlow’s death being deducted from the
+midsummer vacation; an unavoidable arrangement not much to Polly’s
+taste.
+
+“We are too poor to afford sorrow,” she observed; “at least comfortable
+sorrow.”
+
+“As if comfort mattered at such a time!” Bella replied with scorn.
+She was leaning with her elbows on the sill, looking through the open
+window into the street.
+
+Polly was of opinion that it did matter, but she did not explain her
+views at length, for she wanted to talk over Mr. Brownlow’s suggestion.
+
+“You and I,” she said to Bella, “are to keep on this school for the
+rest of our lives. We must move into a smaller house to do it when the
+lease of this one is up. How would Chestnut Villa do? It is empty now,
+and I don’t expect anyone will take it before then; it is too mouldy.”
+
+“Yes,” acquiesced Bella in a spiritless voice. She looked across the
+empty, darkening street to the doctor’s prim house opposite; the
+scent of the laburnums came to her from his garden, the sound of a
+wheel-barrow from a neighbour’s close by. It was all very dull and
+narrow and small--and the prospect offered? It is hard to be young and
+fair and told at two-and-twenty that to live at Chestnut Villa (too
+mouldy for anyone else) and teach small girls is one’s fate beyond
+redemption.
+
+“We are to keep on with the school,” Polly was saying.
+
+“I suppose so.” Bella did not look round.
+
+“Do you?” Polly retorted. “I don’t then! For one thing, I don’t suppose
+the school will keep on with us.”
+
+Bella did look round now. “It will, it must!” she exclaimed. “What else
+are we to do?”
+
+“It won’t,” Polly affirmed with confidence. “Look how it has gone down
+even while poor Aunt, whom everyone knew, was here. If she,--and people
+sent their children to her out of friendship or because their cousins
+or someone used to come--if she could not keep it together, what are we
+likely to do? You can teach, but you have not passed many examinations,
+and you are young and not at all imposing; as for me, I have no
+certificates at all.”
+
+“But, Polly, you are clever in your own way; surely you could get
+pupils?”
+
+Polly did not think so, and she proceeded to make a statement of the
+case,--which girls were leaving, which likely to leave, and which among
+those living in the district were likely to come to Langford House, the
+last appearing to be very few. The case as set forth by her was not
+inspiriting.
+
+“But,” said Bella at last, “why did you not tell Mr. Brownlow this? You
+seemed to think it all satisfactory when you were talking to him.”
+
+“Mr. Brownlow!” Polly replied contemptuously. “What would be the good
+of telling a person like that?”
+
+“We have no one else to advise or help us, no one at all; Robert does
+not know and I am sure you don’t think much of his opinion.”
+
+Seeing Bella in real consternation, Bill shut her book. It was A
+MIDSUMMER-NIGHT’S DREAM, recommended by Mr. Dane, and she had found a
+great delight in it during those days. “What is your plan?” she asked
+Polly, as she put the book away and seated herself on the table.
+
+“I cannot say I have a plan,” Polly answered slowly, “not exactly a
+plan,--I may not do it; it depends on several things.”
+
+“Several persons?” Bill suggested; “persons or a person?” Polly did not
+answer, and Bill followed up her suspicions: “A person who you are not
+sure will do what you want?”
+
+Polly shifted uneasily; she seldom reckoned persons as obstacles to her
+plans, but in this case Bill was right, for she herself was the person
+in question, and Polly was not at all sure of the worth of her own
+authority over her ward--she and Theresa had been appointed guardians.
+
+“It is all very perplexing,” she said with a sigh. “I hardly know what
+will be best to do for you and me. It principally concerns you and me,
+as poor Aunt said, for Bella has a little money of her own, and, even
+if she does not marry, she is never likely to want a home with Theresa
+living so near.”
+
+“Neither is Bill,” Bella said. “Robert has offered it to Bill; I don’t
+see how you can expect him to take us both. I am very glad he has
+offered it to her; she wants it much more than I do.”
+
+Polly agreed. “But,” she added, “I should not think Bill would like to
+quarter herself on Robert and Theresa for the rest of her life; that is
+what it would amount to, for she could never be a governess and come
+and go as you could. It was very kind of them to offer it, but I should
+not think Bill would take it, except, of course, just for the present.
+I know I should not.”
+
+“You will mostly take all you can get,” Bill observed not without
+truth. Before Polly could deny the charge she asked: “On whom does your
+plan depend? Not on Bella; she evidently has nothing to do with it;
+have I?”
+
+“Yes, Bill,” Polly said severely; “it is for your good as well as
+mine. You don’t deserve to be considered, but I have a sense of
+responsibility.”
+
+“What can I do that is any good to you?” Bill speculated. “What is it,
+Polly? Something you hardly expect me to do?”
+
+“Nothing of the sort! I should always expect you to do as I wished,
+especially as I am your guardian.”
+
+An audience of two was quite sufficient for Polly, who even when alone
+could hardly refrain from taking a part. Bill knew the value of her
+efforts. “What is your plan?” she asked simply, and Polly, after a few
+more preliminary flourishes, set it forth. Briefly it was this: to let
+things remain as arranged with Mr. Brownlow until Christmas, when the
+lease of the house expired; then to give up the school,--sell it if
+there was anything to sell--Bella to obtain a situation as resident
+governess, making Haylands her home in the holidays; Polly and Bill to
+move to London or the suburbs--
+
+“And take lodgers!” cried Bill.
+
+“Yes, probably,” Polly said; “we should not have enough to live on
+without doing something, and that would be the best we could do. I have
+thought about boarders, but that won’t do; you want more capital for a
+boarding house; besides boarders are a nuisance, nor do they really pay
+so well as lodgers, though of course they sound much better. We need
+not tell people about here that we are letting lodgings; we can say we
+are taking a few paying guests, because we could not get a house small
+enough for just our two selves.”
+
+This plan, except for the unnecessary deception, met with Bella’s
+entire approval. Bill, to Polly’s annoyance, did not give an opinion,
+but sat thinking, probably of what part she was to play and why she,
+rather than Bella, had been chosen for the venture. The same question
+occurred to Bella. “Why should not you and I do this?” she asked.
+“I should do just as well as Bill, and besides, we should have more
+capital as I could put my money into it. And then there would be no
+need to upset Robert’s arrangement; I am sure he really meant Bill to
+make Haylands her home.”
+
+“My dear Bella”--Polly was motherly--“there are two or three reasons
+why it should not be you. To begin with, you are too pretty; our
+lodgers will probably be men, very likely young city men,--you
+understand? To go on with, why should not Bill be independent? If she
+puts her share of the money in and helps me she would be independent in
+a measure, and I certainly know of no other way in which she could be.”
+
+Bella was not altogether satisfied; but Bill was, for she had solved
+the problem on her own account. “There is going to be no servant kept
+in that house!” she exclaimed.
+
+“What nonsense!” Bella said, and Polly explained that she should
+have a girl. Then they talked the plan over afresh, Bill remaining
+aggravatingly silent. At last, Bella going into the kitchen to speak to
+the maid, Polly turned angrily to the table where the small figure was
+almost lost in the darkness. “I suppose,” she said sharply, “you are
+going to oppose me?”
+
+Bill laughed softly. “Fancy you being afraid of me and my opposition,”
+she said half to herself.
+
+Polly did not attempt to deny the fact. “You are the most obstinate,
+contrary, silly little creature in the world,” was her only answer.
+
+Bill seemed still more amused. “Why did you let me know you were
+afraid?” she asked.
+
+“What is the good of pretending?” was Polly’s only answer, and Bill
+quoted some past words of her cousin’s in reply. “‘Truth is a luxury
+poor people cannot always afford;’ I have heard you give that to
+somebody as an excuse for your pretending. I don’t think it a very good
+one myself, but I have heard you make it. I suppose you can afford to
+be truthful with me?”
+
+“I am not going to pretend with you,” Polly said. “Look here, Bill, you
+are only a child and you are very ignorant and not at all clever,--I
+hope you don’t mind me saying these things, I am only telling the plain
+truth--you are all this, but in some respects you have much more sense
+than Bella and Theresa; you have more vitality, more--I don’t know
+what--but more backbone; you are not so much a Brownlow, not a Brownlow
+at all.”
+
+“Thank you.” Bill did not seem overwhelmed with the flattery.
+
+“What is your objection?” Polly asked after a pause: “I suppose you
+think you would have to work too hard.”
+
+“No I don’t. Oh, no I don’t at all; we should share the work out
+fairly, Polly, very fairly.”
+
+Just then Bella came back, and the discussion was dropped, but Polly
+was not altogether dissatisfied, concluding from Bill’s manner then,
+and later, that she would probably fall in with the plan when the time
+came. As for Bill there was no hesitation in her mind about accepting
+the proposition; there was nothing else she could do, for she could not
+live with Robert and Theresa permanently, unless they would let her
+work their garden for a profit and look upon the proceeds as payment
+from her. They would not let her do this, so, though she would have
+preferred the garden to the lodgings, she was quite willing to accept
+the latter, since the former was unattainable. Live with Theresa
+without the garden she would not, for she had discovered, or rather she
+had gradually come to know of certain things which led her to believe
+that Theresa and Robert could not afford to offer her a permanent home.
+“I don’t believe Theresa knows,” she said to herself, “or if she does,
+she does not realise how things are. I wonder if Robert does? He was
+always telling me separate bits; I wonder if he looks at things whole;
+but he must, of course he must do so.”
+
+These thoughts occupied Bill’s mind a good deal, and another was added
+to them at this time, surprise at her own power over Polly. Either
+openly or covertly Polly’s will had been supreme at Langford House;
+she had always planned and decided for them all; it was a strange and
+wonderful thing that she should have considered Bill in this plan,
+feared her opposition even while she sought her help--strange yet
+perhaps not altogether unreasonable. Bill felt a childish amusement
+in the novelty of the situation, and also a sense of responsibility.
+But of course she had, and she knew she had, a certain compelling
+power over Polly, else why had she taken her to Wood Hall? Shrewd,
+unprincipled Polly! To be sure, Bill did not call her that: she did
+not think about her principles, but, true to her nature, accepted her
+cousin as she found her, and never judged her at all.
+
+What with one thing and another Bill seemed to be fast growing older:
+when she went back to Ashelton at the end of May she felt that years
+instead of weeks had elapsed since she had left it. A month makes a
+difference to the country in the spring-time, and she noticed many
+changes during the drive to Haylands. The grass had grown: in some of
+the fields it had come up into little billows, where a patch of more
+fertile soil had caused some part to rise above the rest; in other
+fields it was all long and soft, spiked here and there with the shafts
+of its unopened flowers. Everywhere there were butter-cups, a golden
+cloth of butter-cups; everywhere hawthorn, each hedge snow-powdered
+with its blossom, each thorn-bush a bride in its white veil. The earth
+had been busy, Bill felt, very busy; the early fruit was set in the
+orchard, the blossom was off the apples, the oaks fully in leaf, the
+cow-parsley, waist-high, made every ditch a fairy-land.
+
+It had all changed very much, and Bill felt that she had changed too;
+then she turned to the garden, and in a sudden rebound from the trouble
+of the past weeks forgot about herself and her changes. There was so
+much, so very much to be done, to have lost a month at this time of
+year was a sad thing. She worked desperately, enthusiastically, to make
+up for it; and at dusk she struck work and forgot all about her age
+and her responsibilities, wandering forth with Shakespeare’s fairies
+(she knew them all by heart now) into the orchard and the fields and
+the deep, grass-grown ditches almost as if she expected to find the
+fairy-folk there.
+
+And thus it was that Gilchrist Harborough found her. During her absence
+at Wrugglesby he had debated his problem of natural selection more than
+once, and had at last decided to let matters drift. He did not phrase
+his decision thus; he put it that, since he was not likely to see her
+again for a long time, it was not worth thinking about it any more. So
+he did not think; indeed, he thought so little that, when he saw Bill
+again, he forgot the problem and never for an instant thought of her as
+an integral part of it, or as a practical farmer’s wife, or anything
+else practical. He himself on that occasion could hardly be regarded
+as a practical person seeking a wife in a cool and reasonable manner.
+There was no suggestion of a carefully thought out plan about it; it
+was just man and woman, and the dewy fragrance of trodden grass in the
+dusk of an evening when May and June meet to make it neither spring nor
+summer but a mid-heaven between.
+
+He heard Bill’s curious many-noted voice as he passed down the lane
+where he had talked with her on the day they first spoke of Robert
+Morton. She had been in the orchard then, as she was now. She had
+discovered an echo in the orchard,--the back of some barns, the end of
+an old wall, something caused it; it pleased her, and she sang softly,
+pausing to hear the repeated sound. “Fearest to love me”--and “love
+me” came the echo distinctly. “Love me,” she cried again to the clear
+repetition, “love me--me!” answering the sound as it answered her, till
+the twilight seemed filled with passionate whispering melody.
+
+Harborough stopped abruptly. If he had been wise he would have gone
+on, but he forgot to be wise; we are none of us always wise. The old
+love-song had wooed another on a summer night long ago; it held him
+now, it roused something in him, and he could not go. The singer
+ceased; she must have felt his presence, for she turned where she stood
+knee-deep in the coarse grasses and white-flowered weeds, and saw him
+leaning against the gate.
+
+“Go on,” he said; “finish it.”
+
+It was perhaps not a polite form of greeting after her weeks of absence
+and trouble, but he had forgotten that; he had forgotten everything in
+his desire to hear the words that he knew should follow. The natural
+man in him was urging him to leap the gate, to stand beside her, and to
+make her say those words for him.
+
+She hesitated in silence for a moment. In the dusk she could not see
+his face very clearly, yet she must have known that the self in him to
+which she appealed was in the ascendant; she wanted to play and to make
+him play, yet she was half afraid. “No,” she said standing still among
+the grasses.
+
+“Yes,” he answered, “yes--I will come and make you!”
+
+Then the witchcraft of the night took possession of her, and the
+unnamed, irresistible impulses, thought of our simple ancestry to be
+born of the elfin-folk, came upon her. “Come then!” she cried.
+
+In an instant he was over the gate, under the green twilight of the
+apple-trees, among the grasses where she stood. But she, now wild as a
+kitten at evening, had fled; from the denser shadow of the nut-bushes
+she called to him, yet when he reached their shade her voice came from
+a far corner of the orchard--“Fearest to love me--fearest”--and because
+she was now in the best possible position for her echo the answer came
+back “Fearest,” “fearest!” till it was hard to say which was the fickle
+varying voice and which the repeated sound.
+
+It was like hunting a shadow, about as easy, about as wise, but--but
+he was young and she was younger still, and the earth redecked was
+young too, young with eternal youth. The fragrance of its breath was
+like wine to them, the scent of the falling laburnum and lilac in the
+garden, the smell of the hawthorn in the hedge, the trodden grass under
+foot, the dew that was upon the ground, the wind that whispered in the
+darkness of the trees. He was intoxicated with it, intoxicated with
+the chase; an instinct of the days when man wooed maid with swiftness
+of foot and strength of arm was upon him. He was--ah, well, it did not
+matter, there was no explanation; only when suddenly he startled her
+all unawares among the tall weeds, he completed the line which surprise
+had stayed on her lips. “Fearest,” she had called thinking him far
+away; and “To love me?” he finished, crushing her to silence in his
+arms.
+
+For a moment she was still in his arms; it might have been her will, it
+might not;--then, with a sudden effort she wrenched herself free, and
+he was alone in the darkening orchard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE COURTSHIP OF HARBOROUGH OF CROWS’ FARM.
+
+
+Man is a triple development; call him, body, soul and spirit, or
+mind, matter and extension,--he is, however regarded, a trinity. A
+man who recognises his three natures (which fortunately all do not),
+and who in his wife or work gratifies two of the three, is asking
+much of Providence when he complains that the third is unsatisfied.
+Yet this was Gilchrist Harborough’s case. Mind had counselled him to
+seek Wilhelmina Alardy as his wife; reason pointed out her unique
+suitability to his requirements; common-sense told him that she was
+exactly and precisely the person for all practical purposes. Yet he
+had hesitated, perhaps because he had an intuitive, if unexpressed,
+idea that such excellent logic was not always the best foundation for
+domestic happiness. That was a month ago; but then, last night in the
+twilight came Matter, and, forgetting Mind’s cool selection, discovered
+that the girl was desirable, sought and made her captive in a somewhat
+savage fashion, asking no better reason than her voice, no stronger
+proof than her contact when his arms held her.
+
+Yet in the morning the man was not satisfied with this double choice.
+To begin with, he despised himself because he had allowed Matter to
+get the upper hand; as a consequence he--well, no, he did not exactly
+despise the cause--but at least he did not altogether respect her just
+then. “The woman tempted me,”--it was a coward’s excuse and he would
+not make it. She was not to blame, at least not much; he would do her
+justice. And he honestly tried, though he did not altogether succeed,
+for he did not understand the childish folly which had prompted her to
+the game in the orchard. Sheer folly it had been, and nothing more; she
+knew nothing of his sensations and emotions, and his capture of her at
+the end had come like a thunderclap in its stunning suddenness and left
+her even now not fully aware of the true state of the case.
+
+So Harborough in his mind did her justice so far as he could; and in
+his actions he determined without delay to explain his equivocal words
+of last night and make her a formal offer of marriage. And when he
+felt not altogether glad about this decision, he reminded himself how
+entirely reason had chosen her before impulse had dictated last night’s
+words. As for the ideal, the fair and stately woman, a queen with holy
+face and ways of gentle dignity,--there was not room at his hearth for
+her. She could not rise early to milk his cows; she could not toil and
+work and stand beside him in the dirt and drudgery of his daily round;
+at least his queen could not, for so she would not be queen. There is
+doubtless a dignity in labour, but it is not easily discernible when
+labour is translated into soap and water, mud and ashes, red hands and
+tumbled hair. He could not afford an ideal: he did not need a woman
+to worship, but one to live with, human, likeable, one to work with,
+strong, capable,--and he went to look for Bill.
+
+But Bill was not easy to find; she should have been working in
+the garden at this time, but from the field-path he could not see
+her. He retraced his steps, and from another point sought her as
+unsuccessfully. He climbed a little hill and looked down upon the
+garden, but she was not there. Then he went back, by way of the lane,
+to the orchard, but she was not there either; she must have gone on
+some message for Theresa: he would come again in the afternoon, and
+find her then. But he did not find her, for then, as earlier, she saw
+him coming and ran away to hide. She did not exactly know why; she
+was afraid of what he would say, of what he had said; she did not
+altogether understand herself or him or anything; only she was afraid.
+She longed to tell someone,--Mr. Dane--her world held no one else who
+was likely to be of any use. She would have liked to tell him as she
+told him of Harborough of Gurnett, but, for some reason that she could
+not fathom, she was ashamed; so she only worked hard and tried not to
+think, and when she saw her lover coming (if lover he was) she hid
+herself.
+
+But Gilchrist Harborough was not to be turned from his purpose like
+this, and, having sought her in vain the next day, he presented himself
+at the house in the evening and asked Jessie for Miss Alardy. It was
+raining, a fine soft rain, which rejoiced the heart and made things
+almost grow before the eyes. Bill would be indoors now, for the rain
+clouds had closed the evening in early, and in the drawing-room, where
+he waited, it seemed already dark.
+
+Jessie went to find Bill. “She has just gone to the attic for a sieve,”
+Theresa said, and Jessie went up the attic-stairs. “Miss Bill!” she
+called, standing at the top and looking down the long passage from
+the right of which the three attics opened. The place looked ghostly
+in the grey twilight; there was a spot of wet on the low ceiling, the
+roof leaked by the chimney where the starlings had built last year,
+there was a great hole in the floor under the window, and there were
+rats in the attic. Jessie gathered her skirts about her, and, after a
+preliminary _sh-oo!_ to frighten any chance creatures that might be
+about, came into the passage. “Miss Bill,” she called again, “you’re
+wanted; Mr. Harborough wants to see you.”
+
+Now that was precisely the information for which Bill was waiting.
+She had heard the door-bell ring as she looked over some tools in the
+back attic, but she had not associated the sound with herself until
+Jessie began to ascend the stairs. Then she had guessed that the
+visitor was Gilchrist Harborough, and that he had come to see her. She
+fully intended to go down and see him; it was, of course, what she
+must do, and there certainly was no reason why she should not; yet
+when she heard Jessie’s voice an uncontrollable impulse to escape took
+possession of her. She looked round; there was no escape, no way out
+but the door by which Jessie would enter. The door of a big cupboard,
+however, stood ajar behind her; quick as thought she opened it, pulled
+it to after her and stood pressed against the wall within, holding the
+door close by its rough planking.
+
+Jessie peeped into each of the attics in turn, and then muttering, “She
+ain’t here after all,” went down-stairs again; but Bill remained in the
+cupboard till she heard the front door shut after Harborough. It was
+some time, for they looked thoroughly for her before he went away. Her
+prison was cramped, dark, and very close, and there was a warm smell
+of old hops about it which afterwards she always associated with that
+evening and her folly. It was folly, and as such she regretted it when
+it was too late and would have gladly undone it if she could.
+
+Later, when she came down-stairs, Theresa told her of Harborough’s
+visit and asked her where she was when they called her. She did not
+tell and her reply, guardedly given, left only a vague impression on
+her cousin’s mind. Theresa, believing she must have gone to the barn
+with her tools, thought no more about it until the next afternoon when
+Harborough presented himself again. This time he asked for Theresa,
+having learned from Robert that his wife and Polly were left guardians
+of their young cousin.
+
+It was Sunday, and by Theresa’s invitation Bella and Polly had walked
+from Wrugglesby that morning to spend the day at Haylands; they had
+come early and would stay till the evening, when Robert was going to
+drive them home. Polly was dozing placidly on the dining-room sofa
+when Harborough came, and Bill was curled up in the orchard with a
+book, oblivious alike of impending events and the dampness of the
+grass. Harborough might almost have caught her now had he tried; but
+he did not, for he decided that his best plan would be to apply in the
+old-fashioned way to Mrs. Morton for permission to address her cousin.
+
+Accordingly he did so, and he did it with some self-possession, for the
+whole thing was now very clear in his own mind and he wished to get it
+settled. It was, after all, to him a very simple and straightforward
+matter now.
+
+But to Theresa it was very different, very overwhelming, it might
+almost be said, in its unexpectedness. She gazed at him blankly for
+a moment, too much astonished for speech. “Bill?” she said at last,
+“Bill? She is a child!”
+
+“She is young,” Harborough admitted, “but she must be nearly eighteen;
+that is not so very young, you know.”
+
+“She is not eighteen till the winter; we have always looked upon her as
+a child. You must forgive my astonishment, she seems such a child to
+us.”
+
+Harborough said he could easily understand her feelings; indeed, he
+allowed, in some respects Bill seemed a child to him, though in others
+the very reverse.
+
+“She is very capable,” Theresa said, “but I am afraid when you come to
+speak to her on this subject you will find her very childish,--I mean,
+she will be so unprepared for it, it will be difficult.”
+
+Harborough smiled slightly. “I do not think it will be an entire
+surprise to her,” he said. “I do not mean that I know how she will
+receive me, but that I should come will not, I fancy, altogether
+astonish her.”
+
+Theresa felt more and more bewildered. “I think you must be mistaken,”
+was all she could say; but he was persistent in his opinion, and
+certainly, whether he was right or wrong, there was no valid reason why
+he should not speak to Bill. Theresa, however, still believing in the
+girl’s complete ignorance, stipulated for one thing: Bill’s decision,
+whatever it was, should not be considered final. “For,” Theresa said,
+“I am very much afraid she will not really know her own mind.”
+
+Harborough acquiesced to this, and also to the suggestion that Polly
+should be consulted. “She is here now,” Theresa told him; “perhaps it
+would be better if you were to see her, as Bill is really more her
+charge than mine.”
+
+Harborough had no particular wish to consult the unknown Polly, but
+he could not do less than agree, so Theresa went to find her. She was
+still dozing on the sofa in the dining-room, and there was no one else
+there. Theresa roused her and told her the news briefly, wishing the
+while that Polly had not slept so soundly, and fearing lest she should
+not fully understand. But she need have had no fears; Polly grasped the
+situation completely. “Has he any money?” she asked.
+
+“Yes, oh yes, some, not a great deal, of course; he has a little farm.
+But, Polly, Bill--”
+
+“A farm? Oh, he is the man who lives by himself and does his own work
+to prove something, I remember. That will just suit Bill.”
+
+Polly got up, went to the glass above the mantelpiece and began to
+arrange her front hair.
+
+“It is impossible to think of that child marrying him, of her marrying
+anyone yet,” Theresa protested.
+
+Polly did not think so. “I don’t see why she should not,” she said
+coolly; “you may be pretty sure she has given him encouragement, or he
+would not come here like this.”
+
+“That proves nothing,” said Theresa. “He does not know in the least
+whether she will have him or not; he spoke to me first because she is
+so very young.”
+
+“Possibly, but she knows what is coming; he as good as told you so.”
+
+“He is mistaken; I am sure he is.”
+
+“I’ll tell you whether I think so or not after I have seen him. I don’t
+much expect he is; and knowing Bill as well as I do, well--” Polly
+broke off and with an impressive silence conveyed more than words could.
+
+Theresa did not altogether believe her, but she felt that she herself
+was far from understanding Bill. “At all events,” she said, “I told him
+he could speak to her. There is nothing against him as far as I know,
+and whatever she says now is not to be considered absolutely binding.”
+
+“What do you mean?” Polly stopped abruptly to ask the question as she
+was opening the door.
+
+“I mean,” Theresa answered, “that if she accepts him she is not to be
+considered engaged; she shall be free to change her mind if she likes,
+for I am sure she cannot really know anything about it.”
+
+“Not to be engaged?” Polly repeated. “Is it to be kept private? No one
+is to be told, we are to have no hold over him?”
+
+“I will not have her bound; it is not right,--you can’t think it right.”
+
+Theresa was surprised at Polly’s manner, and still more surprised when
+she turned upon her in low-voiced wrath,--“You idiot!” she said.
+
+“Polly!” Theresa exclaimed reddening, and then added: “I will not have
+it; mind, I will not have her bound!”
+
+And then the two passed into the drawing-room. Polly was affability
+itself; she spoke of “dear little Wilhelmina’s” youth, and of her own
+surprise, but held out some hopes of success to Harborough, who did not
+altogether trust her, though owing to her skill he did not distrust her
+as much as might have been expected. Nothing was said about Theresa’s
+condition, except that as Harborough was leaving she repeated it, and
+Polly, unable to do anything else, seconded her.
+
+“I expect he wanted to see Bill this afternoon,” Theresa said when he
+had gone.
+
+“I expect he did,” Polly replied; “but I want to see her first. I mean
+to know what she has been doing.”
+
+“What she intends to do,” was also part of Polly’s meaning, and she set
+off at once to the orchard, feeling the remainder of the afternoon was
+all too short for her investigations.
+
+“Bill,” she said, sitting down beside her cousin on a cushion she had
+brought for the purpose, “Bill, what about Mr. Harborough?” Polly
+wasted no time over preliminaries. “The Mr. Harborough who lives here,
+I mean.”
+
+“What about him?” Bill inquired, looking up from her book.
+
+Polly closed the book for her. “Yes, what?” she said. “When and where
+have you seen him?”
+
+“Oh in lots of places,--why? He does not belong to Wood Hall.”
+
+“I know that. Bill,” she added suddenly, “has he been making love to
+you?”
+
+Then the time had come; Bill felt it intuitively and braced herself to
+meet it. But for the life of her she would have found it hard to say
+whether he had or had not committed the offence in question. She would
+not permit herself to do more than ask cautiously, “Why?”
+
+“He has!” Polly exclaimed.
+
+“Well, I’m not sure;” and Bill so evidently meant what she said that
+Polly for a moment was nonplussed. “He has been here this afternoon,”
+she said.
+
+“To see me?” Bill asked, and Polly felt that was something of an
+admission. “No,” she answered, “to see Theresa and me about you.”
+
+“Whatever for?”
+
+“To ask our permission--”
+
+“To make love to me?” At first the idea struck Bill as comical, but its
+gravity soon came home to her.
+
+“I suppose you think that absurd,” Polly said, “since he has already
+done it without our permission; and he has done it, Bill, or something
+very like it. It is no use denying it; something must have happened,
+something fairly pronounced, before a man of his stamp would come to
+Theresa and me as he came this afternoon. You must have given him very
+direct encouragement.”
+
+Polly paused for Bill to deny the charge, but the denial did not come;
+the girl sat silently considering the matter, tearing a leaf to pieces
+as she did so.
+
+“Well?” Polly said at last interrogatively.
+
+“Did he tell you I had encouraged him? I mean, did he absolutely say
+so? I shall ask him myself if I think you are deceiving me.”
+
+Polly thought it very likely that she would do so, and accordingly
+made answer: “No, of course he did not say so in so many words, but
+his coming to us showed it; besides he told Theresa, when she said you
+would be astonished, that he did not think you would be, that he had
+reason to believe you expected him.” _Not be surprised to see him_ and
+_expected him_ were convertible, if not synonymous, terms.
+
+“Oh!” was Bill’s only answer.
+
+“Did you expect him?” Polly demanded.
+
+“I suppose I did; I don’t know.”
+
+“You must know what you expect if you are not absolutely stupid, and
+you might as well be honest about it; some people would have a good
+deal to say about your underhand dealings.”
+
+Bill suggested that her cousin should say all she wished on the
+subject, but Polly, regarding it as a waste of time, went on to observe
+with dignity: “I don’t want to inquire into your actions nor yet your
+intentions, but all I can say is that you have made an honourable
+man,--a good man, Bill--believe you care for him; and if you do not, if
+you mean nothing, you must settle the matter with him.”
+
+“I don’t believe you!” Bill exclaimed. “I ran away from him, though I
+did tell him to come--I was only in fun--he hardly held--”
+
+She broke off, feeling that she could not lay the matter bare to her
+cousin. Polly was disappointed at the confession ending so abruptly,
+but she only said: “Tell him you were only in fun. If he knew you
+as well as I do he might not be surprised at such a questionable
+proceeding; but as he loves you, I am afraid it will be rather a shock
+to him.”
+
+“Loves me!--he loves me!” Bill repeated the words gently, her whole
+face softening. She had not thought of this before. She had such high,
+idyllic notions of love, hardly definite notions at all, only a feeling
+that it was very great and supreme and far removed from her own life.
+
+“Of course he does,” Polly said, surprised at having touched an
+answering chord here, “else why should he want to marry you? You have
+nothing to recommend you.”
+
+“No,” Bill admitted, “no, I have not. How strange that he should want
+to marry me,--how strange and wonderful!”
+
+She sat looking across the orchard, her eyes filled with a great
+shining, her heart thrilled with gratitude to one who could love her.
+For herself, she did not know; his emotion would arouse an answering
+emotion in her; if he loved her she could not choose but love him, just
+as when he held her she could not choose but stay for just a moment.
+She was very humble and submissive in heart just then.
+
+On the whole Polly was well satisfied with her talk. Bill would accept
+Harborough. Two things were in his favour, the girl’s joy and pride
+in this, the first love offered to her, her innocence of life and all
+it held, and also her curious, one-sided sense of honour. The first,
+aided by her oddly sympathetic, almost reflective, nature, would make
+her wish to accept the lover; the second, aided by Polly’s statement of
+the case, would make it impossible for her to refuse the man. So Polly
+was satisfied that Bill would marry Harborough; probably next summer,
+as Theresa would not allow it before then, and Polly herself did not
+wish it. She wanted to begin her lodging-venture in the winter, and,
+though she would take Bella into partnership when Bill was married,
+she would prefer to have the younger cousin at the beginning of the
+enterprise. She considered that Bill was now settled for life, her
+future assured in a most unexpected fashion. Harborough, she judged,
+was the sort of man she could depend upon to do his duty by his wife,
+and in spite of Theresa’s words, she would take care that at least a
+little of the arrangement was known to a few mutual friends. In this
+laudable intention, however, she was eventually frustrated by Bill.
+She had reckoned that Bill would see no reason for secrecy; being sure
+of herself, whatever motives ruled her decision now would rule it in
+a year’s time, and so she would oppose Theresa. But she did no such
+thing, not because she objected to publicity or saw any reason against
+it, but because Polly was in favour of it and Theresa against it.
+
+“It may be wise,” she said to Polly, “if you urge it, but if Theresa
+does it is right; in this I would rather do what is right than wise.”
+
+In vain Polly pointed out the wisdom, and explained that publicity was
+the only hold they had. Bill retorted haughtily that she wished for no
+hold, and went on to add that, if any rumour of her affairs should get
+about, she should consider Polly the culprit, and behave accordingly.
+And Polly, having an inward conviction that she would keep her word in
+some unpleasant way, was obliged to remain silent.
+
+On that same Sunday evening, when Harborough spoke to the cousins, came
+Theresa to Bill’s room after she had gone to bed, and kissed her and
+cried over her and asked her if she really loved him. And Bill flung
+her arms round the young wife’s neck, almost suffocating her in the
+wealth of her hair, and said she did not know, feeling vaguely sorry
+for Theresa, and wondering if loving and being loved always brought
+tears.
+
+All the next day she was quiet and subdued, and in the evening the time
+came. She went into the orchard, thinking it likely that he would come
+down the lane to her. He did come; he saw her, and jumped the gate and
+came to her as she stood in the soft grass, her heart beating, a shy
+fearing happiness in her half-awakened soul. He came to her striding
+over the grass in the twilight of the apple-trees; but he did not
+know the tumult in her breast, did not recognise the half-awakened
+womanhood. He was not to-night, as once before, the strong man wooing
+the maid, nor was he the lover come to claim a girl’s heart. He came
+to ask her to be his wife because he believed it right to do so,
+because he believed it wise, because he thought for all practical
+purposes she was the woman best suited to his needs. He had desired
+her, it is true, but to-night it was not desire, not impulse; it was
+a deliberate plan, the wise performance of a wise act. But it lacked
+fire, lacked it woefully. And she, who shyly lifted shining eyes to
+those of the sober lover, could not kindle it; nay, she herself was not
+the same as the alluring shadow of the other night. He did not love the
+woman; the elf-child fascinated him, the housewife pleased him, but
+the woman he did not recognise. The best of his nature was untouched
+by her; he knew that he did not in the highest sense love her, and he
+did not pretend that he did. But, the pity was she thought he did; they
+had told her so, and, after all, as _to love_ is often translated into
+daily life, perhaps they were right, though in her idyllic, almost
+childish rendering of the word, they were entirely and hopelessly wrong.
+
+So the question was asked and answered under the lichen-covered
+branches; coolly, dispassionately, yet withal gently he asked; shyly
+she answered, not yet aware of the lack in it all. She was so ignorant,
+what should she know of love’s ways? So awed, she could not criticise
+his words, so subdued and humble she could not doubt him. Thus she
+gave her word not knowing, stood awhile under the trees a little
+disappointed but not yet aware, and bade him good-bye with only a
+half-wakened doubt.
+
+He left her, thinking perhaps she would prefer to see her cousin alone
+first, refusing her invitation to come to the house from a sense of
+delicacy. She did not know his reason, but she was vaguely glad
+he refused. They walked together to the gate, talking ordinarily,
+rationally, his manner as usual, hers as calm as it was reflective
+of his. There was no passion, no shyness; it would not have been
+embarrassing to meet Theresa, though she was glad they were not going
+to meet her. Glad, too, she was, consciously glad that he was going;
+she wanted him to go,--she hated to have him there--she was beginning
+to realise the lack in it all.
+
+They parted at the orchard-gate; the first wild roses were opening,
+their fragrance filled the air, a spray showed faintly pink against
+the girl’s hair as she leaned over the gate. Something in the scent
+and the face, half seen in the twilight, stirred Harborough; he made
+an impulsive movement, but he had himself well in hand that night, and
+the impulse ended in nothing more than stooping to kiss her without
+any demonstration of emotion. So he bade her good-bye and went, she
+standing to watch him till he was lost in the dusk of the summer night,
+standing to watch him quite calmly though her breast heaved, until he
+was out of sight; then with a movement of passionate rage she wiped the
+kiss from her face and flung the handkerchief into the hedge.
+
+“He did not make love to me a little bit!” she wailed. “‘Will you marry
+me?’ ‘Will you scrub the floor?’ It might as well have been one as the
+other. ‘Can you make butter?’ ‘Can you love me?’ Can I? I could hate
+you! How I shall hate you, if you don’t take care!”
+
+There was someone talking in the garden, Theresa and Robert perhaps;
+she almost thought it was, and fearful of discovery crept into the
+deep dry ditch and lay hid among the tall stalks of the cow-parsley.
+In that green darkness she sobbed out her grief for the loss of her
+dream, the dream of loving and being loved which comes to all women
+at some time. It had come to her only yesterday; it had died unborn
+to-day,--unborn, for she did not love the man; had he loved her, or
+had he wooed her with the passion of the other night, her responsive
+nature might have replied, or at least she would have thought it did.
+But he had not done so, and the thing was only a dream; loving and
+being loved,--both must be mourned as never known, both buried together
+in the twilight of the white-flowered weeds. Nevertheless she was in
+honour bound to the man, that curious, distorted, inviolable law of
+honour which she had from some ancestry and could not break. The spoken
+word must be fulfilled, the unspoken pledge redeemed, the unconscious
+encouragement, of which Polly had made so much, justified. Polly had
+done well to trust to this other bond.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+FAMILY HISTORY.
+
+
+Mr. Wagnall was an antiquary, avowedly an antiquary. A man of means and
+leisure, he had ample time to devote to his subject, and so well had
+he devoted it that there was unknown to him little that was strange in
+family tradition and village history throughout the Eastern Counties,
+which, as his birthplace and home, were the principal scenes of his
+research. He never studied architecture or building to any great
+extent; churches, Druidical stones, and Roman remains had little charm
+for him; the land and those who owned it chiefly claimed his attention.
+He had at one time intended to follow the profession of the law, and
+had spent his earlier days in a solicitor’s office; it was this early
+training, possibly, which gave him his taste for family histories and
+involved land tenures. One other thing he owed to it,--and that was of
+more obvious value than his love of land-lore--a friend, in the person
+of a former fellow-student now developed into Stevens, solicitor of
+Wrugglesby, consulted by Mr. Johnson on the subject of the Harborough
+chapel and the service held therein.
+
+Now and again Mr. Wagnall visited his friend at Wrugglesby, and it
+happened that this very subject of the Harborough chapel and service
+brought him there at the time that Gilchrist Harborough was arranging
+his matrimonial affairs at Ashelton. About this time Mr. Stevens,
+remembering that he had not seen his friend lately, wrote to invite
+him to the little town, at the same time mentioning such affairs of
+interest as had recently taken place. The Harborough service was not a
+recent event, but he had not written since it occurred, and, knowing
+his friend’s love of such things, he used it, and the chance of
+investigating it, as an inducement to his friend to visit Wrugglesby.
+Events justified his expectations; Mr. Wagnall accepted his invitation,
+came to Wrugglesby at the earliest possible date, and plagued his
+host with questions, seeking information about “this most interesting
+revival.”
+
+Mr. Stevens was obliged to confess himself not very well informed on
+the subject, but in a happy moment Mrs. Stevens thought of inviting
+Mr. and Mrs. Johnson to meet the antiquary. She had no notion of
+satisfying his thirst for information, her idea being solely to give
+an entertainment. She was a lady of aspiring mind, and longed for
+society on other lines than those obtainable at the solemn dinners and
+more humble teas which were in vogue in Wrugglesby. Mr. Johnson was
+particularly flattered by the pointed way in which Mr. Wagnall singled
+him out for conversation, and the interest with which he listened to
+all he had to say about the Harborough chapel and service. Considering
+the warmth his feelings still retained on these subjects, he was
+a little disappointed to find his patient listener of the opinion
+that the family had a right to hold a service in their own chapel,
+according to their professed religion, even during the time of morning
+prayer.
+
+“Mind, I do not say they have a legal right,” the antiquary said,
+“though I am of opinion it would be difficult to get a decision
+against them; but whatever their legal right, they have a moral right,
+most decidedly a moral right. I think your rector was wise in his
+determination to take no steps in the matter; it is not an occurrence
+likely to be repeated. It has not been done within anyone’s memory
+until this time; it has not been repeated since then, and take my word
+for it, sir, it never will be. It was done to revive an old right, my
+dear sir, that is what it was done for, to revive an old right and
+establish a claim; an old family does not like to let its traditions
+lapse entirely.”
+
+Mr. Johnson thought this was a very probable explanation of the
+“outrage,” though, as he pointed out, there was no necessity for the
+mass to have been said during morning-service; the claim could have
+been established without that.
+
+“Well, yes, yes,” Mr. Wagnall admitted; “still it would hardly have
+been so emphatic; no, under those circumstances, it would not have been
+so emphatic.”
+
+Mr. Johnson again agreed with him. He also asked Mr. Wagnall if he
+would care to walk over some day and have a look at the Harborough
+chapel, offering to act as cicerone should he do so. Mr. Wagnall
+accepted the offer with pleasure, and from that they got to talking
+about the Harboroughs and their family history, with which Mr. Wagnall
+was very well acquainted, though he did not attempt to set the
+clergyman right even when he gave sundry strange pieces of information
+about them. There was, however, one piece of information given
+which was both new and interesting to Mr. Wagnall,--the existence of
+Gilchrist Harborough of Crows’ Farm.
+
+“A member of the family he--” “may be,” Mr. Johnson was going to say,
+preparatory to enlarging upon his nature and pursuits, but Mr. Wagnall
+cut him short.
+
+“Of course he is a member of the family,” he said; “Gilchrist is a
+family name, the next heir to the property is a Gilchrist. You would
+not get Gilchrist and Harborough in combination without some connection
+with the old stock.”
+
+“Just so,” said Mr. Johnson, “just so, a member of the family, although
+he comes from Australia; a younger branch, I have heard it suggested,
+though he claims no connection with the Harboroughs of Gurnett.”
+
+“_Not_ a younger branch,” Mr. Wagnall’s tone was emphatic; “_not_ a
+younger branch, or he could claim something more than a connection.”
+
+Unfortunately for Mr. Johnson’s further enlightenment the conversation
+was interrupted here, not to be resumed again that evening, and he had
+to content himself with waiting to hear more until Mr. Wagnall should
+come to Ashelton. But Mr. Wagnall did not have to wait so long for his
+enlightenment, for he questioned his host at the earliest opportunity.
+From him he learnt little, for Mr. Stevens was not professionally
+connected with Harborough of Gurnett, although he had sometimes done
+a little legal work for the agent during the master’s long absences
+abroad. Owing to this he knew something of the affairs of the estate,
+and, like most people in the neighbourhood, he also knew the name,
+age, and whereabouts of the next heir, and sundry of the reports
+concerning Mr. Harborough besides. But of Harborough of Crows’ Farm he
+knew little, except that he was an Australian with a theory, that he
+worked his own farm, and that he himself had been favourably impressed
+by the young man on the occasion when he had personally come across
+him. “But,” he concluded, “I shouldn’t wonder if he was in at the
+office to-morrow as it is market-day. He is thinking of buying a bit
+of meadow which cuts into his land, and I should not wonder if he were
+to look in during the afternoon to see me about it. You might drop in
+and meet him if you like; but I tell you beforehand that he won’t repay
+investigation or appreciate it either, and he certainly won’t know
+anything about the affair of the mass.”
+
+Mr. Wagnall was by no means discouraged, and determined to look in at
+the office on Thursday afternoon in case the lawyer’s anticipation
+proved correct. It did so: Harborough presented himself somewhere
+about four o’clock, and almost before his business was discussed, Mr.
+Wagnall also presented himself and was duly introduced to the younger
+man as one interested in antiquities in general and family histories
+in particular. Harborough himself had small interest in such things,
+but he was quite willing to sympathise with another, and obligingly
+gave all the information he could concerning himself and his family.
+Of the Harboroughs of Gurnett, their history and chapel, he knew even
+less than Mr. Johnson, but of himself and his own people he told all he
+could.
+
+“But,” he asked, “what purpose does it serve? We are a long way from
+this part of the family, a younger branch who emigrated years ago.”
+
+“If you are a younger branch in direct line, if you can prove such a
+thing,--and I cannot help saying I think it would be difficult--it
+would be--very interesting.”
+
+“Why? Is there no younger branch? You mean to say you think we come of
+bastard stock?”
+
+“No, oh dear no, not at all, not necessarily. Only the Harboroughs used
+to hold their estates according to an old tenure by which the property
+goes to the youngest instead of the eldest son, and if you really were
+the representative of a younger branch than those in possession--”
+
+“I could claim?”
+
+“Nonsense,” the lawyer here broke in, “the Harboroughs have given up
+that manner of succession for several generations.”
+
+“It could be revived,” Mr. Wagnall suggested; “it would be interesting
+to revive it, as interesting as reviving the right to hold service in
+the chapel.”
+
+“Interesting from an antiquarian point of view it might be,” Mr.
+Stevens observed drily; “but Mr. Harborough here would find it an
+expensive form of amusement. Old Mr. Harborough has been in possession
+at Wood Hall for over fifty years, and it would take something
+considerable to turn him out now. Why, bless you, my friend, if I had
+squatted unmolested at Wood Hall for all those years you would find
+it difficult to turn me out, though I had not a shadow of right to
+the place originally. Possession is rather more than nine points of
+the law if you only have it long enough; whatever the weakness of old
+Harborough’s original claim you would find it a tough and expensive job
+to make your own good now.”
+
+Gilchrist Harborough laughed at the lawyer’s warmth. “I was not
+thinking of making a claim,” he said; “I would rather invest my surplus
+cash in other and more profitable ways than fighting for encumbered
+estates.”
+
+Mr. Stevens applauded such a decision. “Quite right,” he said, “quite
+right, though the estate is hardly so much encumbered as people think;
+of late years old Harborough has lived carefully, and things are not
+so bad as they are made out to be. I don’t mean to say the place is
+free; it is not, and no doubt the next man will get into a worse state
+than ever, for they are all alike, an extravagant lot. But I believe a
+careful man with a little capital and reasonable ideas, in fact not a
+Harborough--beg pardon, I was not thinking of you--might do a good deal
+towards getting things straight.”
+
+“You think so?” Harborough asked. “They have got to get their
+reasonable man first, and they don’t seem great at producing such
+articles. As for me, I don’t belong to them; and if I did I don’t
+know that I can lay claim to all your requirements, small capital and
+reasonable ideas as well. At any rate, I don’t think I am the man for
+the job; it does not seem that I am within measurable distance of the
+base of operations.”
+
+He turned to Mr. Wagnall as he spoke, but the lawyer answered for him.
+“No, no, certainly not,” he said; but Mr. Wagnall asked: “Are you
+sure that your family is a younger branch? May it not be an elder,
+but, owing to the fact that the idea of disqualification is usually
+associated with the younger ones, you have in the course of time come
+to consider yourself as such?”
+
+Harborough allowed this to be possible, though he hardly thought it
+the case. Mr. Wagnall hardly thought it likely either. “So far as I
+know anything about the family,” he said, “it is not very likely, the
+Harboroughs have not been such a prolific family that the elder and
+younger ones need be confused. There never have been many of them;
+the heads of the house, as a rule, lived hard and died young, their
+legitimate children have been few in number. Indeed,” the antiquary
+went on turning to Stevens, “when you say the old manner of succession
+has fallen into disuse you are hardly doing them justice, for there has
+not been much choice lately. The family is practically extinct when
+the old man dies; he has no children living; the heir is the grandson
+of his only sister, not a Harborough at all except that he has been
+given the name. He is an only son, too, the sole representative of
+the younger generation,--strange how these old families seem to wear
+themselves out.”
+
+Gilchrist Harborough did not think it strange at all, neither did he
+think it to be regretted; the only thing which surprised him in the
+matter was the interest felt in them and the detailed record kept of
+their history. “It is not as if they were anything much,” he said,
+“or had done anything much; they are only twopenny-halfpenny country
+squires who have never done anything worth remembering; in fact, the
+only thing which can be said about them is that they have been a
+little more rich and a good deal less respectable than their yeoman
+neighbours.”
+
+Such a view was not likely to commend itself to the antiquary, but
+as he was unable to make his own view any more commendable to young
+Harborough, he had to content himself with admitting the family under
+discussion to be country squires, and to have been country squires so
+long that they counted themselves at least the equals of the newer
+nobility; and moreover to have kept their own records and traditions
+with jealous care from the days when their manor was first granted to
+them, at which time, doubtless, they were far other than they now were
+in the days of their decadence.
+
+“If the records are kept with such care,” Harborough observed, “it
+should be easy to see where I come in, if come in I do.”
+
+“Yes,” Mr. Wagnall agreed; “I can put my finger on the only spot where
+at all recently we can expect to find that your people joined the
+common stock. I know something about the Harborough history; I was
+enabled through the good offices of a friend to study it at the time
+that I was writing my little volume on EAST ANGLIAN HEIRSHIPS. You have
+perhaps seen the book? It was noticed in several of the papers.”
+
+Harborough had not seen it, and it is to be feared he was less
+interested in it than in the family history. Mr. Stevens, seeing that
+his friend was now well mounted on his hobby, suggested that he and his
+listener should go into the private room, and leave the office clear
+for other visitors.
+
+He half regretted being obliged to do so, for he felt he was giving
+the elder man an admirable opportunity for firing the imagination and
+ambition of the younger. Still, as the kind-hearted lawyer reflected,
+the young Australian was a cool and well-balanced individual, with
+a not too exalted opinion of the value of landed property and old
+families to depreciate his idea of the prize at stake. “He won’t take
+fire like a young fellow from about here,” thought the lawyer, “but if
+he does he’ll fight and fight to the end.” And again he wished he could
+have prevented this unearthing of family history. But it was too late,
+as he found when, after the young man had gone, he asked the elder one
+what had passed.
+
+“He was very interested, very interested indeed,” Mr. Wagnall said. “He
+seems to think it highly probable that he derives from the Gilchrist
+Harborough who turned Protestant and left England in 1843.”
+
+“In 1843,” the lawyer said raising his eyebrows; “that brings it very
+near.”
+
+“Very near indeed,” Mr. Wagnall replied with satisfaction; “but so he
+seems to think.”
+
+“Seems to think,” Stevens repeated; “that is not worth much.”
+
+“To think that he is legitimately derived I should have said; he is
+positive that he is derived, he has excellent reasons for thinking so;
+it is a mere question of legitimacy.”
+
+“It often is with these respectable old families,” Stevens observed
+drily. “What did you want to put all these ideas in his head for? You
+had much better have left him alone.”
+
+Mr. Wagnall did not think so; he considered the whole subject most
+interesting, and, as he pointed out, there was a good deal of
+information he could not have obtained without this talk with young
+Harborough.
+
+“Who,” Mr. Stevens said, “naturally does not regard the matter in the
+same placid way in which you do, seeing that he has a personal interest
+in it. By Jove, though, if it is as you say, and he can prove the
+legitimacy, he would have a good case, a very good case indeed. But he
+won’t be able to prove it, sure not,--he would have an infernally good
+case if he could!”
+
+From a purely legal point of view the subject had less interest for Mr.
+Wagnall, who had no particular desire that the right man should come
+to his own; and in spite of a genial nature, he felt small compunction
+about the trouble which might possibly arise from his investigations.
+
+“A nice hornet’s nest you are likely to have routed out,” said Mr.
+Stevens, who was differently constituted, “and a nice squabble there
+will be! If Harborough of Crows’ Farm waits till the old man dies (and
+the chances are he won’t last another winter), I should say it will be
+a bad look-out for young Kit Harborough. Not that the place is worth
+such a great deal, and I dare say he would muddle it if he got it; but
+it is hard to lose what you have always looked upon as your own. The
+Australian--” the lawyer laughed a little--“he’s the man I described
+after all, the man with a little capital and reasonable ideas. He might
+pull the place round, cut down the timber, put some of the park-land
+under cultivation, drive the plough--”
+
+But Mr. Wagnall cried out in dismay at such impossible barbarity.
+Nevertheless it was exactly what Gilchrist Harborough was thinking as
+he drove home by way of Gurnett, and looked thoughtfully at the woods
+and broad park-lands which surrounded the hall. It was exactly too what
+he said to Bill in the orchard on the next Sunday afternoon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A GRANDFATHER.
+
+
+It was now three weeks since the day when Gilchrist Harborough came
+to see Theresa and Polly, three weeks since they told Bill he loved
+her, almost three weeks since she found out what they meant by love
+and buried her dream among the tall weeds in the orchard-ditch. The
+grass was long in the orchard now, its flowers were covered in seed,
+brown and yellow and purple dust blowing off at the lightest breath.
+The leaves on the trees were thick, so thick that when one looked up it
+seemed an unbroken roof of green. The year had grown older, much older,
+it was the first maturity of summer; the light was the warmer light
+of summer, the shadows the slow-moving shadows of summer; the scents,
+richer, fuller, were the scents of summer,--the pink briar-roses in the
+hedge, the wreath of honeysuckle from the tree, the hay half cut in the
+field beyond the lane. Spring had gone, and even if its indescribable
+freshness and youth were missing one could hardly ask for anything more
+than summer.
+
+Bill’s was a supremely contented disposition; after her one outburst on
+the night when Harborough did not make love to her she accepted fate
+resignedly. There was, as she herself had said, always to get up and
+have breakfast next morning even after a tragedy, and she was herself
+what in domestic parlance is called “a good getter up.” So in the early
+morning after Harborough’s formal offer of marriage, she thought the
+matter out and put it on a reasonable basis.
+
+It is true he did not love her in the superlative and ideal way she had
+imagined, but then neither did other people seem to love in that way.
+She thought over the married couples of her acquaintance, and came to
+the conclusion that they loved each other after a fashion. Harborough
+must have loved her in a fashion, too, or else why had he sought to
+marry her, seeing how little she had to commend her? Yes, he must
+have loved her, even though he did not make love to her that night.
+There were two of him, she knew, and she also knew that she sometimes
+appealed to one of the two, the one that made love, the lesser and
+weaker part of his nature. Under these circumstances she had reason to
+be glad that the other part, the cleverer, more dominant part, liked
+her well enough to ask her to be his wife. On the whole she did not
+find the situation impossible. Why should she? Her limited experience
+showed her no better things; her sunny philosophy led her to take the
+world as she found it, teaching her to judge it according to a more
+lenient and elastic standard than any ideal one. It is true that she
+did not in the present case quite extend this tolerance to Harborough;
+perhaps she unconsciously gauged his nature, and, measuring it by his
+own standards, found his love wanting.
+
+But on the whole she was moderately content, and certainly there was no
+possibility of avoiding the contract; honour demanded its fulfilment,
+and since it was unavoidable Bill was not likely to dwell on the dark
+side. She was pre-eminently of that nature which, when its hopes
+are wrecked, makes a fire of the drift-wood to warm itself and its
+friends. Moreover, let it be remembered, to supreme ignorance and a
+sunny temperament the life marked out did not seem an unendurable one.
+“Besides,” so she had concluded her reflections that morning when she
+faced facts, “there will be the farm and the dairy and heaps to do.”
+
+So Bill accepted matters, and she and Harborough established themselves
+on an easy and friendly footing in which love-making played but a
+small part. Theresa thought them an extraordinarily prosaic and
+matter-of-fact couple, but it suited Harborough well enough; he did
+not, as a rule, want to make love to Bill, and she did not now want
+him to make love to her; in fact, she would not now meet any of his
+overtures, and had a curiously wayward but uncompromising way of
+receiving his occasional tendernesses. Even in these early days he
+found there was a tantalising, untamed trait in her nature with which
+it would be hard to deal, and yet which constantly attracted while it
+annoyed him. He felt once or twice that he should like to come to close
+quarters with and understand it, even as he had come to close quarters
+on the night when he chased her like a shadow; but the moment for that
+was passed, and he could not recapture it; the shadow always eluded
+him now. This feeling occasionally troubled him, but not often, and in
+other respects he was satisfied. It was as a matter of course that he
+turned his steps to the orchard that Sunday afternoon, and as a matter
+of course he told Bill of Mr. Wagnall’s words and the extraordinary
+possibilities they presented.
+
+Bill listened with absorbed attention. Wood Hall, and all that
+concerned it, had a great fascination for her, but she could hardly
+realise that his words contained a bare chance of its coming within her
+own reach.
+
+“You don’t mean to say,” she said at last, “that there is any way by
+which you could claim?”
+
+“I am not sure,” Harborough answered cautiously, anxious not to
+encourage the building of any castles in the air.
+
+“Tell me what you mean then,” she said, and he explained the case as
+clearly as he could.
+
+“My grandfather,” he said, “is the nearest we can get to the
+Harboroughs of Gurnett; he was called Gilchrist as I am, and was the
+middle one of three brothers. About the year 1843 he quarrelled with
+his family and left England; I think he turned Protestant.”
+
+“He must have had convictions; I wonder if he was like you,” Bill
+observed under her breath with a particularly provoking look; but
+Harborough ignored the remark and went on with his history.
+
+“Part of this,” he said, “I heard from Mr. Wagnall on Thursday, part I
+knew before. I have always been told that my grandfather left England
+on account of a quarrel; the story was usually told me as a warning
+against quarrelling, but I don’t know that it made much impression.
+What he did after he left England I do not know, travelled a bit I
+think at first, and then the next year he married in Paris. But his
+wife’s family, though they were living in France, were English; indeed
+it was from my grandmother, who knew this part of the country, that we
+had the tradition of our people. She does not seem to have known much
+about them; my father always said she was vague in her tales, and never
+knew anything personally of her husband’s relations. My grandfather
+died the same year that he married and before his son was born; my
+grandmother continued to live on in Paris with her own people, teaching
+English, I think, for she must have been poor from what my father said.”
+
+“And he?” Bill asked.
+
+“Lived in Paris too till he was about nineteen when, my grandmother
+being dead, he emigrated to Australia with a notion of gold-mining. At
+first he was unlucky; then he married when he was only twenty-two, and
+after that his luck changed, but as soon as he had made enough he cut
+the mining and bought a share in a sheep-run. I don’t know if he would
+have made anything more at the mining, but he was not very successful
+with the sheep; still there was always enough to live on as far back
+as I can remember. I am the second of his three sons; my elder brother
+died when he was a boy, my younger in 1882.”
+
+“And your mother and father?”
+
+“Yes, they died some while ago.”
+
+“You are the only one left?”
+
+“Yes, the only son of an only son. The family curse seems to have
+fallen upon us inoffensive colonists too; we are near dying out.”
+
+Bill looked at him thoughtfully. “You are a long way from dead,” she
+remarked and then enquired as to the fate of the brothers of the elder
+Gilchrist.
+
+“The younger,” Harborough answered, “died in 1845, so Mr. Wagnall told
+me, that is the year after my grandfather’s death; the elder came
+into the property and has it still. He is the man at Wood Hall now,
+a childless widower with no one nearer than a sister’s grandson to
+succeed him. He was two years older than my grandfather, I think, born
+in 1820.”
+
+“In 1820,” Bill repeated thoughtfully; “then he was thirteen in 1833.
+Of course he remembered about the old Squire’s body; why he was the
+same age as the granddaughter who planned it!”
+
+“Planned what? Whose granddaughter? What are you talking about?”
+
+“Only a tale that is told in Gurnett,” Bill made answer; “I will tell
+you some other time; finish your family history first.”
+
+He knew nothing as yet about her visit to Wood Hall. She would tell
+him of course, as she saw no reason why he should object to it; but it
+was a pity to interrupt his narrative, so she asked him to go on and
+explain the way in which all this family history bore on his connection
+with Wood Hall. Accordingly he told her of the custom of the succession
+of the youngest. “And it appears,” he concluded, “that, as the
+Harboroughs inherited according to this custom, the youngest son should
+always have succeeded to the estates.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“I don’t know why,” he answered, feeling the question to be entirely
+beside the point. “It does not matter why; it was so, that is all. It
+is a tenure called Borough English by which some estates are held, and
+apparently the Harboroughs’ originally was so held.”
+
+“I see,” Bill cried; “until the time of your grandfather Gilchrist it
+was so, and then, owing to his going away before his son was born and
+the other man not knowing he had a son at all, the elder brother got
+it.”
+
+“Something of the sort.” Harborough was not inclined so entirely to
+attribute the chain of events to the ignorance of those in possession,
+but that did not matter to Bill.
+
+“And you are going to claim through your grandfather?” she said.
+
+“Yes, I expect so, in time,” Gilchrist answered. “But you are in too
+much of a hurry; wait a bit, and I will explain. Most likely I shall
+not claim in the present owner’s lifetime, that is if I ever do it at
+all; he is an old man in bad health, and they say he is not likely to
+outlast the year; I think I should wait till after his death.”
+
+“It would be kinder,” said Bill.
+
+But that was not Harborough’s reason, and though he did not say so, he
+made his real motive fairly clear. “It is a very difficult thing,” he
+said, “to turn out a man who has been in possession such a long time;
+indeed, it is just possible that if I could not prove that neither I
+nor my father knew that we had the right to claim for all those years,
+I should not be able to do it at all. If we had known it, and had for
+some reason left Mr. Harborough in possession, I don’t believe we could
+turn him out; but as we did not know I ought to be able to do it,
+though I don’t think I shall try unless he shows signs of living longer
+than now seems likely.”
+
+“I see; then he will never know you have a claim?”
+
+“No, not if I can prevent it. I will tell you why. He does not care
+much for the heir, it is said, though he wishes him to have the
+property for family reasons; he is altogether rather an eccentric old
+man”--Bill knew that--“and it is possible that if he is left to himself
+he will make no will. Now, I don’t want him to make a will, which
+would only complicate the case. If he has no right to the property he
+can’t bequeath it; but the existence of a will, bequeathing it to the
+recognised heir, would give him a show of right which he would not
+otherwise have. So, you see, I do not want a will made, and I do not
+want to give Mr. Harborough any reason for making one by hinting at my
+claim yet.”
+
+“Is that fair?” Bill asked.
+
+“Of course it is fair. What do you mean?”
+
+“I don’t know, I am not quite sure,” she answered thoughtfully; “I
+shall have to think about it. But don’t let’s bother now; tell me about
+your case.”
+
+“I don’t know what you mean by fairness,” Harborough said somewhat
+severely. “If there is anything unfair it is the way in which my people
+have been kept out all these years. As to my case, there is very little
+more to tell about it, except, of course, that I shall have to prove my
+legitimate descent from Gilchrist Harborough, that my grandmother was
+legally married to him, and all that.”
+
+“How could she be anything else?” Bill asked wondering.
+
+“He could have had another wife living at the same time, or he could
+have been married before, or something of the sort.”
+
+This was a new but impossible difficulty to Bill. “Oh, but he
+wouldn’t,--at least, seeing that he was a Harborough--” She paused and
+then added demurely: “I thought you did not wish to belong to that
+played-out family, and had a poor opinion of their mortgaged property.”
+
+“I can’t help my ancestors,” Harborough replied, “and besides, they are
+some way back; we have been honest working men for two generations. As
+for the property, it is not so much encumbered as is usually thought,
+so Stevens, the lawyer at Wrugglesby, says; it is his opinion that a
+practical man with a small capital and reasonable notions could pull
+the place together yet.”
+
+“You!” Bill cried. “‘Thou art the man’!” and she made the best
+obeisance to him that she could without getting down from her perch on
+the low branch of an apple-tree.
+
+“I don’t know about the reasonable notions,” Harborough said seriously,
+“and as for the small capital, what I have is not large for such
+a job; still, since I made the lucky speculation which emboldened
+me to ask you to be my wife, I suppose I can lay claim to a little
+capital. Something could be done with the place I am sure; I drove
+past the other day and made observations; there is a lot of fine
+timber still among all the rubbish in the wood and more in the open
+park-land--that’s worth something; then a good lot of that park could
+be cultivated profitably; it would take time, but I believe it could be
+done.”
+
+“And the house,” Bill added, “is big too. If we lived there we could
+take boarders in the summer; if we advertised among the seaside and
+farm-house lodgings in the time-table, we should be sure to get some
+answers.”
+
+Harborough never was quite sure whether she was in fun or in earnest;
+he was not sure now, but in either case he was annoyed and felt his
+annoyance to be justifiable. “That would be impossible,” he said
+severely, though had he given expression to what was in his mind he
+would have requested her not to be absurd. However, for politeness
+sake he contented himself with the milder speech, rising as he uttered
+it.
+
+“Why?” Bill asked jumping down from her perch.
+
+“Why? Because it would be out of the question. As Mrs. Harborough of
+Wood Hall how could you receive boarders? It may be all very well for
+you and Miss Hains to do it in London, though, as you know, I don’t
+altogether approve of the plan, but here--here it would be impossible.”
+
+“Why impossible? You don’t explain.”
+
+He was holding the gate open for her, and jerked it with annoyance as
+he answered. “To begin with, in that position--”
+
+“Oh, but there wouldn’t be one,” Bill interrupted; “there would be no
+position. The stiff-necked county would hardly recognise you on the
+strength of your grandfather if you ploughed your park; and as for
+me--even if I were Madame La Princesse your wife I should still be
+‘only Bill.’”
+
+She uttered the name with the wealth of contempt and annoyance which
+Polly, at times of extreme irritation, could concentrate into its one
+syllable. Harborough felt irritated too; no man who has all his life
+assumed an indifference to position likes to be shown that he too has a
+trace of the universal respect for it.
+
+“If you think,” he said coldly, “that I care for the county you are
+very much mistaken. Other people’s opinion is not of the slightest
+importance to me as you should know, and though I care a good deal
+what manner of woman my wife is, it is for myself I care, not for my
+neighbours.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF A GUARDIAN.
+
+
+“It is my belief,” said Miss Minchin to Miss Gruet, when the sultry
+days of August had reduced the two ladies to visiting one another in
+the cool of the evening only, “it’s my belief that Mr. Harborough is
+courting Mrs. Morton’s cousin; he goes to Haylands so very regularly
+now.”
+
+“Very likely,” Miss Gruet made answer, “although I should hardly have
+thought so poorly of him.”
+
+“So poorly?” Miss Minchin repeated.
+
+“Yes, so poorly, for she is little more than a child.”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know.” Miss Minchin bridled at some recollection. “I had
+an offer before I was her age.”
+
+That was true, although, since the suitor was still younger it could
+hardly be regarded as eligible. Miss Gruet, having no such testimony
+to bring forward, contented herself with saying, “Girls don’t marry so
+young nowadays.”
+
+“No,” Miss Minchin was forced to admit, “no, perhaps you are right.
+But what takes Mr. Harborough so often to Haylands? He must go to see
+someone; who is it?”
+
+Now, oddly enough, that was exactly the question Polly was propounding
+to herself, and seeing how entirely she considered the engagement
+(except for the secrecy) her own arrangement, it was strange.
+Fortunately about this time she had ample opportunities for studying
+the question, for she and Bella came to Ashelton as often as they could
+during the summer months. They usually walked from Wrugglesby, nearly
+a six miles’ tramp along dusty country roads; but as compensation they
+always drove home with a certain quantity of spoil stowed under the
+seat. Sometimes it was butter they brought back packed in a damp cloth,
+or eggs carefully held in Bella’s lap, or chickens showing under the
+back seat; sometimes it was only vegetables, or a basket of fruit, or a
+pigeon pie, or a basin of dripping, or some equally humble subscription
+to the larder. Polly despised nothing and refused nothing. When Theresa
+hardly liked to offer such trifles to the elder housekeeper, Bill
+relieved her of any difficulties by putting various small articles in
+the old safe which stood in the corner of the wash-house, and which
+came in the course of time to be kept for Polly’s sole use. “That’ll do
+for Polly,” she would say when Theresa debated how to use this or that;
+and if Theresa demurred saying, “I can’t offer her such things,” Bill
+assured her: “You can offer her anything you don’t mind her having; the
+only thing you can’t offer her is anything you don’t want her to have
+and only offer out of politeness. Put it in her cupboard; she’ll take
+it.”
+
+And take it she always did. So, partly because this collecting of odds
+and ends suited her near, but effective, style of housekeeping, and
+partly from a sense of responsibility which prompted her to see how
+things went on at Haylands, Polly came often to Ashelton that summer.
+And what she saw there led her to ask herself the question which Miss
+Minchin asked: “Whom did Gilchrist Harborough come to see?” And the
+answer she gave herself was the one which with great truthfulness she
+gave in different words to Miss Minchin, “I don’t know.”
+
+Miss Minchin asked the question, or rather, by less bald methods
+sought the answer, when Polly came to stay at Haylands in August. It
+was the middle of the month when she and Bella came; they had had to
+continue school during the earlier part of the month to compensate the
+pupils for the time lost at Miss Brownlow’s death, but by the middle
+they came to Ashelton to stay for a fortnight. For the first week
+Theresa would be there; for the second the three cousins would be left
+in charge as she and Robert were going away. It was a busy time for
+a farmer to leave, but Robert did not seem to mind; as he said that
+he would much rather leave now than in September, partridge-shooting
+possibly had more to do with his decision than farming. However that
+might be, he decided to go, and Polly and Bella came to Haylands with
+the understanding that they would look after Bill and the house during
+Theresa’s absence. It was a few days after their arrival that Polly met
+Miss Minchin in the lane. As they were going the same way they walked
+on together, Miss Minchin making many enquiries as to the health and
+general welfare of the cousins. Polly gave all suitable answers, and
+talked in her best style, with perhaps more regard for effect than
+accuracy. What she said in reference to Harborough, however, was mainly
+true, more true than she herself liked under the circumstances.
+
+Of course, so she told herself, Harborough came to see Bill, and
+since, being a busy man with no spare time, his visits were paid at
+fixed hours, he usually did see Bill. It sometimes happened, though
+not often, that the time of his coming varied a little, and also it
+sometimes happened, even when he was regular, that Bill was busy or not
+to be found for a few minutes. On these occasions Theresa entertained
+him until Bill appeared, when she would have been quite willing to
+leave them to enjoy each other’s society undisturbed. But they did not
+show the least wish for such a thing. “We haven’t got anything private
+to say,” Bill told her once when Theresa remonstrated with her. So
+by degrees it came about that if the cousins were indoors Harborough
+joined them, and if they were out of doors he sat under the elm-tree
+with them, helping Bill to shell peas or string currants, or whatever
+peaceful occupation she might be engaged upon that evening. Theresa
+would willingly have taken such work from her on the evenings when
+Harborough came, but if she did Bill only got something else to do, and
+that possibly of a less suitable nature. Theresa could not understand
+the girl at all; she never seemed shy or eager to see her lover; she
+was never anxious to put on her best frock for his coming; and yet she
+appeared happy in the engagement. Of course Harborough himself was not
+demonstrative; he was always grave and serious when Theresa saw him,
+but no doubt, so she thought, he was different in her absence, thinking
+which she went away. Whereupon, the currants being done, the pair took
+to watering the garden with a silent industry and a strict attention to
+business.
+
+Polly saw all this and more still with her shrewd little eyes, and
+before Theresa went away she spoke to her on the subject.
+
+“You have noticed it too?” Theresa said, as if relieved to find it not
+all her own fancy. “Do you think Bill is really fond of him?”
+
+“Yes, I do, and I think it is very hard on her that you should take so
+much of his attention.”
+
+“I!” exclaimed Theresa flushing. “I! How can you say such a thing,
+Polly?”
+
+Polly both could and did say such a thing, and she said it with the
+repetitions and variations she so well knew how to use, until Theresa,
+hurt and angry and mortified by turns, first denied the charge and then
+defended the action.
+
+“Somebody must be civil to him,” she said at last. “Bill never wants to
+see him alone; she makes him work in the garden if I leave them; she
+won’t be nice to him or put her best dress on, or anything.”
+
+“Bill is a little goose, and the chances are she does all that out of
+pride and contradiction because she is jealous of you.”
+
+“She can’t be jealous of me, it is impossible,” Theresa said, and the
+next moment added, “and if she is, why does she not try to please
+him? When he wants her to talk seriously she won’t; she says the most
+ridiculous things in the gravest manner, and the gravest in the most
+ridiculous, till he never knows how to take her, and that’s annoying to
+a man, you know. And then she will persist in calling him Theo. For a
+long time she did not call him anything, at least not when I was there,
+always beginning, ‘I say,’ just as if that was his name; it was so
+rude, I told her about it. She said she did not like Gilchrist, there
+had been too many of them. I told her to settle that with him, but I’m
+sure I don’t know what she said, for now she calls him Theo which she
+says is short for theory, and I know he can’t bear it.”
+
+To this recital of Bill’s misdeeds Polly only said: “I must have a good
+talk with Bill, I think she minds me more than you; only, you know, my
+dear Theresa, your being nice to Gilchrist will hardly compensate for
+Bill being nasty. I am sure you don’t mean anything but the very best,
+still, quite unintentionally of course, you sometimes make it a little
+hard for her.”
+
+Theresa was truly grieved as Polly meant her to be, and determined to
+be very careful of her conversation with Harborough in the future. It
+must be admitted that she could not disguise from herself the fact that
+she really did enjoy talking to him, and he could not disguise from her
+woman’s wit the respectful and quite impersonal admiration he had for
+her.
+
+Theresa was easy enough to deal with; Bill was the real difficulty, as
+Polly knew, a difficulty she did not feel at all sure of being able to
+tackle successfully. She thought over the subject for some time, and
+finally decided to leave it for the present. Theresa was going away
+in a day or two, and when she returned Bill herself was to leave with
+Polly and Bella. In these circumstances it hardly seemed necessary to
+open the question now, and Polly determined to study the matter for the
+present and speak of it while they were away together.
+
+Theresa was only away for a week, but the three cousins left behind
+contrived to get a certain amount of excitement into the week. It was
+really Bill’s fault, Polly said, Bill and her plums. Plums were very
+scarce that year, not only in Ashelton but in all that part of the
+country. There had been every promise of a good yield in the spring,
+but a few late frosts had terribly damaged the crop; many trees were
+quite bare and many others had but little fruit; those in the Haylands
+orchard had escaped. The plums were decidedly the best of the trees in
+the orchard; they were younger and in better condition than the apples
+or pears, and they were, moreover, very good kinds. In the spring they
+had shown every promise of abundance of fruit, and when the late frosts
+came, damaging the neighbouring trees, they did not suffer much owing
+to good luck and a sheltered position. Bill was delighted by their
+escape, and during the summer took great interest in the health of the
+trees, propping up the overloaded branches and regretfully thinning the
+too abundant crop. By the end of August the fruit was ripe and a source
+of great satisfaction to her.
+
+“I don’t see what you are going to do with them,” Polly said one
+morning as she looked at the trees from which Bill was filling Bella’s
+pudding-basin.
+
+“We can’t eat them all,” Bella said, biting one as she spoke, “nor make
+jam, nor pies, nor give them away; there are far too many; they have
+all got ripe together. What a pity Theresa is not here; I wonder what
+she does with the fruit.”
+
+“Sells it,” said Bill as she went on to look at the next tree.
+
+“To whom?”
+
+“I don’t know. The apples used to go away last year; I have seen some
+of the baskets about. These plums ought to be picked; they are quite
+ripe and the wasps are getting at them.”
+
+“Yes,” Polly said judicially, “they ought to be picked to-day. I think,
+Bill, you had better get what we want for jam and perhaps you might
+get a basketful for Mrs. Dawson. Mr. Dawson was saying the other day
+that they had none at all. You had better gather all we can use this
+morning.”
+
+“I mean to,” Bill replied, “but you have got to help. Oh, yes you have;
+they must be all, or at least the greater part picked to-day; you will
+have to help.”
+
+“Bill,” Polly began with dignity, but Bella, disturbed about her
+sister’s property, interposed. “It does seem a pity not to sell them: I
+do think it is silly of Theresa not to have left any orders about them;
+can’t we write to her?”
+
+“Not in time,” Bill answered. “I expect she left no orders because she
+did not think; she and Robert always call these my trees, because I
+take such an interest in them. Robert said I should keep anything I
+could make out of them; I don’t want to do that, but I mean to make
+something.”
+
+“I don’t see how you are going to sell them,” Polly called from the
+gate as she was leaving the orchard.
+
+“Don’t you? I have seen for several days. Don’t go, Polly, you must
+help to pick; it is going to be a busy day and you will have to help;
+you might begin at once while I find the baskets.”
+
+“I’ll come too as soon as I have taken this to Jessie,” and Bella went
+away with the basin as she spoke, leaving Bill and Polly in animated
+conversation. When she came back to begin her share of the plum-picking
+she found Polly at work; Bill had coerced her into it somehow, and,
+what was more remarkable still, kept her at it. They all three worked
+steadily, finding it decidedly more tiring than they had anticipated.
+Not only did they gather the fruit, but they also packed it in the
+baskets in which it was to travel. In time the baskets gave out, and
+Bill proposed to borrow some from Mr. Dane. “I know he has got some,”
+she said; “I saw them round by his back door the last time I went for
+books. It won’t take me long to go and borrow them.”
+
+“You can’t,” Polly said; “besides we have done enough; it is nearly
+four o’clock.”
+
+“We sha’n’t have done enough,” Bill observed, descending her ladder,
+“until we have done all we can.”
+
+“It would be a great pity to waste any,” Bella added; “there are heaps
+more just perfect, and this weather they won’t hang.”
+
+“Do you intend to keep on till dark?” Polly demanded. “How absurd! Have
+you forgotten that Gilchrist Harborough is coming this evening?”
+
+“All the better,--he can help,” was the only answer, and the gate
+closed after Bill as she went in quest of the rector’s baskets.
+
+“It is perfect nonsense,” Polly said wrathfully; “why couldn’t she have
+got one of the men about the farm to do this work?”
+
+“They are busy,” Bella answered; “I expect she does not want to take
+their time, more especially as Robert said she could have the profits.”
+
+“There won’t be any; and if there are I see no reason why I should work
+for her profit.”
+
+“It is not bad work. I wonder how she found out where to sell them; I
+expect she made Theo tell her. Do you like him, Polly? I think I do.”
+
+“I don’t like this work,” was Polly’s only answer, “and I am not going
+to do any more of it at present; I shall lie down for half an hour.”
+
+And away she went, calculating that Bill could not be less than half
+an hour in borrowing the baskets, and in any case she would hear
+her return through the open window. Bella, left to herself, went on
+industriously with her work until the sound of footsteps in the lane
+arrested her attention. She was standing on a high rung of the ladder,
+and peering through the plum-branches, she looked to see who might be
+passing, secure that she herself was unseen. In this belief she was,
+however, mistaken, for the passer by glancing up at that moment had
+the vision of a flushed face and a frame of golden hair, the curls all
+loosened and caught by the tiresome interwoven branches, the whole
+surrounded by those same branches in a way which he found almost
+bewildering.
+
+“Good-afternoon, Miss Waring,” he said. “I was just on my way to
+Haylands about the bees,--is any one at home?”
+
+Polly was at home, but Polly might not like to be disturbed; still of
+course the bees were a matter of business, so Bella looked out again,
+or rather, partly looked out, having in the moment’s retirement given
+some infinitesimal but effective touches to her tie and hair. Jack
+Dawson found her irresistible, but he had found her that before. Mrs.
+Dawson could hardly have selected a more momentous time for acquiring
+a hive of bees than the one she did, for her son Jack discovered that
+the Mortons’ bees were the best, in fact the only really good bees to
+be had, and even these he found needed a great deal of investigation
+before purchase. At least such must have been the case to judge by the
+number of calls of inquiry he paid and the length of time he spent
+looking at the hives with Bella. Mrs. Dawson is reported to have said
+at the end of the month that that hive cost her more than anything she
+ever bought, but eventually she came to a gentler way of thinking; for
+after all, though it undoubtedly is a criminal offence for only sons to
+marry, it is an offence they will commit, and Jack’s partner in guilt,
+or rather promised partner, won her way into Mrs. Dawson’s heart in
+time.
+
+But that was all in the future; in the present, Jack, on his mother’s
+behalf, was industriously following up his quest for bees, and Bella,
+on her sister’s behalf, was helping him. It is to be presumed that
+these were their motives, though a casual observer might have thought
+their interests, though mutual, were more circumscribed on the occasion
+when they helped each other to gather Bill’s plums. Bella said she
+could not leave off till Bill came back; it would be so unkind if both
+she and Polly went away without a word of explanation. Jack agreed,
+saying that there was no hurry and he could wait any time, and while he
+waited he helped to make up for Polly’s desertion. Polly, meanwhile,
+slept peacefully, and Bill went by way of the rector’s back door into
+the rector’s presence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE PLUM HARVEST.
+
+
+Bill was a privileged intruder at the rectory now, coming and going as
+she chose, saying and doing what she chose, with no one to hinder her.
+
+At first the old rector had not known whether he hated or loved this
+grandchild of the dead past, this creature who was Wilhelmina, and
+Gipsy Alardy, and a score of other things half bitter and half sweet.
+But after a time he forgot to think of hatred or love; he never thought
+now of that dead past, for she was not Wilhelmina, nor Gipsy Alardy,
+nor anything but her untutored, half-developed self. So he buried
+the past again, and, accepting the present as he found it, turned to
+the work in hand. In that work he included Bill, and the queerest,
+pleasantest, most incomprehensible work he found her. So to the rectory
+she came for all manner of things and to the rector for all manner
+of information; he seldom refused her, never repulsed her, listened
+to her plans and fancies, never condemned nor ridiculed, lending a
+sympathetic ear to all things, even including those which some would
+have had him condemn. From her heart Bill longed to tell him of her
+promise to Harborough, feeling it almost a breach of confidence to
+shut him out of this secret; but when she asked Theresa if she might
+speak, Theresa said she had better not. She knew Mr. Dane was kind to
+her young cousin, but she did not understand the odd friendship there
+was between them, and, as she no doubt wisely said, should Bill tell
+one person, Harborough could justly claim the right to tell one on
+his side, and the secret would be a secret no longer; it must either
+remain among themselves or else be public to all the world. Bill saw
+no reason why it should be a secret, but as Polly advised her to say
+just what she thought best to Mr. Dane, she let the matter drop; she
+did not know Polly’s motives, but she would not in this follow her
+advice in opposition to Theresa’s. So Mr. Dane knew nothing about
+the arrangement, knowing only, as all Ashelton knew, that Gilchrist
+Harborough went to Haylands, but, owing to what he himself knew of
+Bill, he attached little importance to that.
+
+On the day when Bill came to borrow the baskets the rector was busy, so
+busy that he was not disturbed by her light footstep nor aware of her
+presence until she was by his chair making her request.
+
+“Baskets, Princess Puck?” he said; “of course, take what you like.”
+
+And she had gone again before the ink in his pen was dry.
+
+“Away already?” he said, looking up as the handle rattled when she
+closed the door after her.
+
+“Yes, I’m very busy, and so are you.” She opened the door again an inch
+or two to say it.
+
+“Ah, I see; you’re always busy.”
+
+“I’m gathering plums. We have all three been doing it most of the day,
+and we shall keep on till dark; there are heaps to be gathered, the
+whole lot are ripe together. Would you like some? I’ll send some this
+evening.”
+
+“Thank you, thank you, you are very kind. I dare say I shall be down
+your lane this evening, and if I am perhaps I can take them away with
+me; that will save your time and let me see you busy people at work.”
+
+“You will come?” Bill opened the door wider to put the question
+joyously. “Monseigneur, you shall have the biggest and best, and as
+many as you can carry!”
+
+Harborough’s visit had passed entirely out of her mind, and when it
+came back to her on her way home with the baskets she did not regret
+the rector’s promise to come. She went to the orchard with a light
+heart, and an ungainly appearance, having slung the two biggest hampers
+across her shoulders, to facilitate their transport, while she carried
+the smaller baskets in her hands. She went by way of the fields, and
+as Miss Minchin was engaged in chasing the course of the sun with her
+window-blinds on the other side of the house, she reached the orchard
+unobserved.
+
+Jack Dawson and Bella were on the same ladder, and in the heart of the
+same plum-tree. They did not see Bill until she, having unburdened
+herself and discovered Polly’s absence, announced herself by the
+question, “Where is Polly?”
+
+A ripe plum fell heavily from the branch above as Bella started at the
+voice. “I,--she’s gone in,--Mr. Dawson is helping me while she rests.”
+
+“How long has she been resting?”
+
+“Ever since you went away,--but, Bill--”
+
+“Don’t disturb her,” entreated a masculine voice from the branches, and
+the masculine legs descended the ladder a little way. “I can stay and
+take her place; she must be awfully tired, you know.”
+
+“She isn’t,” announced the inexorable Bill; “she’s lazy, that’s all. It
+is very good of you to offer to take her place, but if you really will
+help, you had much better take Bella’s; she has worked hard, as hard as
+possible.”
+
+“If Miss Waring will allow me to help her?” Jack suggested persuasively.
+
+“You will, won’t you, Bella?” Bill said; “and I’ll go and fetch Polly.”
+And she suited the action to the word.
+
+“It is a pity to disturb Miss Hains,” Jack said and Bella agreed with
+him, sincerely hoping Bill would not succeed in the difficult task of
+uprooting the reposeful Polly.
+
+However she was disappointed; in a very short time Polly, gracious and
+serene, accompanied Bill to the orchard. But the indefatigable couple
+were not disturbed in their industry, Polly, after polite greeting,
+going to work on a distant tree and taking Bill with her.
+
+Jack Dawson helped them all the remainder of the afternoon, and
+Harborough found him still hard at work when he arrived in the
+evening. Polly, in her position of chaperone, regarded the two pairs
+with a judicial eye and felt dissatisfied. Jack and Bella were well
+enough, and their relative output of work and conversation was more
+calculated to satisfy her than the amateur market-gardener; it was the
+market-gardener herself and Gilchrist Harborough who displeased Polly.
+
+“That young man is a splendid agricultural implement,” was her opinion
+as she watched him. “He might as well be Darby’s digger or somebody’s
+steam-plough, and Bill--well.” Here Polly sniffed aloud, but whether
+from contempt for Bill or sympathy with her own difficulties one could
+not say. At that moment her attention was arrested by Bill’s voice.
+
+“You have come then, Monseigneur! You shall have the very best.”
+
+Polly looked round sharply; the tone of the girl’s voice was so unlike
+that in which she usually spoke to Harborough, there was something of
+caress in it, of the frank familiarity of assured welcome and response.
+It was not wonderful that Polly looked to see if Theo answered to this
+new nickname, and when it was evident he did not, that she looked still
+more eagerly to see who did.
+
+Mr. Dane, the courteous but somewhat exclusive rector of Ashelton! He
+was Monseigneur, it was for him Bill was opening the rickety gate, he
+whom she welcomed so gladly! It was surprising, Polly felt, but safe.
+Perhaps Harborough felt the same, for he did not seem to resent Bill’s
+evident satisfaction in Mr. Dane’s presence, and he did not, as Polly
+did, lecture Bill afterwards on the impropriety of addressing elderly
+gentlemen in so free and easy a fashion.
+
+Of course Bill did not in the least mind what was said, and went to
+bed as indifferent to Polly’s remarks as Mr. Dane himself would have
+been. He went home thinking kindly of the young folks under the orchard
+trees, pretty Bella and her suitors, as he took both young men to be,
+the favoured and the unfavoured one. The favoured one,--and in judging
+Jack Dawson to be such the rector was right--did not retire to rest in
+the peaceful manner of the other plum-gatherers, having first had to
+endure an extremely stormy interview with his mother.
+
+Perhaps Bella had some idea of what might be taking place, for she lay
+awake long that night, though Bill, with whom she shared the room,
+did not know it. The younger girl slept soundly and dreamlessly, not
+troubling at all about Jack or Harborough, nor yet about her own plans
+for the morrow. Those same plans necessitated getting up at a very
+early hour the next morning; fortunately Bella was sleeping quietly at
+the time, so without challenge Bill dressed and went out.
+
+It was cold out of doors, everything drenched with dew; everything
+still, almost awfully still,--the dead world, the motionless air, the
+opaque sky, dark except where at the horizon’s rim it showed faintly
+grey like the ashes of yesterday. It was not really dark; Bill wondered
+why all things were so clear in this ghostly, shadowless twilight. “It
+is as if the world were dead,” she thought, “burned out and finished,
+resurrection and judgment over, and just me left behind forgotten.”
+
+Then she unlocked the stable-door and, putting fancies aside, set
+seriously to work, first harnessing the old roan horse to the roomy
+light cart, and afterwards climbing in beside the hampers of plums
+placed there over-night. She had told Polly and Bella that she herself
+would take the plums away, and that she would have to start before
+breakfast to do it. Bella was too much disturbed about her own concerns
+to feel much interest, and Polly saw no reason to object, as had
+Theresa been at home she possibly might have done. As it was, the two
+remaining cousins had breakfast without Bill, though Polly was much
+annoyed by a note the girl had left saying she would not be back till
+the afternoon. All thoughts of Bill, however, were soon driven out of
+her head by the confidence Bella could withhold no longer.
+
+And thus it was that Bill drove away with her plums in the grey
+dawn, not to Wrugglesby and the railway-station, but to Darvel, the
+regimental town, a far longer distance but a bigger town with richer
+inhabitants, military and civil. The strawberry roan was a good old
+horse though terribly ugly: he would trot well along the winding lanes
+and empty highways on the journey, and at the journey’s end stand
+patiently beside the curb while Bill went to the back doors to sell her
+plums. That was her notion of doing business; untroubled by any idea of
+license, and fortunately remaining untaught by painful experience, she
+went from house to house selling her fruit by the pound, having taken
+the dairy scales with her for the purpose. And a very good trade she
+did, for plums were scarce and hers were beyond reproach; she asked a
+fair price and gave good weight, dealing as an honest and humble trader
+should.
+
+It was with a clear conscience and satisfied mind that she drove home,
+light in load and heavy in pocket. She came back by the Wrugglesby
+road, which was further but better going now that dry weather had
+loosened the roads. The afternoon was far advanced and the shadows
+stretched long on the cropped grass fields and matted seed-clover. In
+the distance the air still quivered with heat, and the red-roofed farms
+glowed warmly in it. Now and again came the whirl of machinery, some
+stack in process of erection or a reaper in a wheat-field near at hand.
+Bill looked around her, at the dusty hedgerows, the deep green trees,
+the poppies by the road, it was all very good in the drowsy afternoon;
+the whole world was so good, she could have sung aloud for joy.
+
+Propriety, however, demanded that she should not, and moreover some
+one accosted her at that moment, a stranger asking the way to Sales
+Cross. She pulled up to tell him and then, as she was passing that way
+herself, offered him a lift. He accepted, glancing at her curiously;
+the voice and manner were not quite what he had expected from the
+general appearance of herself and her equipage. However, he seated
+himself beside her and began to speak of the harvest-prospects and
+the weather, equally popular topics of conversation just then. A
+small farmer or bailiff’s daughter, he thought her, concluding that
+latter-day education must in some way be responsible for her unusual
+manner.
+
+So he talked to her on various topics, incidentally learning a little
+about herself, among other things that she had been to Darvel to sell
+fruit. In this way, Bill making no effort to learn anything of him and
+his business, they reached Sales Cross and there for the first time she
+asked him of his concerns, inquiring which way he wanted to go.
+
+“There is a footpath leading off from the road on the left, I am told,”
+he said, and when she pointed it out to him he got down and bidding her
+good-afternoon went on his way.
+
+“I wonder where he is going,” she thought. “He could get to part of
+Ashelton that way, but I don’t suppose he is going there, and he could
+get to several other places equally well.” Then she drove on dismissing
+the subject from her mind.
+
+Now, Polly, though she had talked and thought principally about Bella
+that day, had found time, as the afternoon wore on, to wonder a little
+what mischief Bill had in hand, and to wonder a great deal more as to
+who would find her out. Polly’s morals were of a strictly utilitarian
+character, and being a great believer in the eleventh commandment
+_Thou shalt not be found out_, she was prepared to measure her wrath
+with Bill’s misdoings in proportion to the publicity of their nature.
+Therefore when, at about five o’clock in the afternoon the offender
+came to her on the lawn, she proceeded to catechise her in a brief and
+business-like way, reserving her most important question till the last.
+
+“And whom did you meet? Who knows about this?”
+
+“Who? Why, of course, all the people I sold plums to, and--”
+
+“No, no, the people about here I mean, people whom we know.”
+
+“Oh, no one.”
+
+“No one in Ashelton or Wrugglesby? Didn’t you see anyone to speak to?”
+
+“Yes; I gave a lift to a stranger who wanted to find the way to Sales
+Cross. He asked me if I had been to Wrugglesby market, and I told him
+that it was not market-day, and that I had been to Darvel with fruit.”
+
+Polly was extremely angry at this indiscretion, and said so in no
+measured terms. She reflected, however, that, the man being a stranger,
+no harm had been done unless he happened to be visiting any of their
+acquaintances in the neighbourhood, in which case he might perhaps
+recognise Bill on some future occasion.
+
+“But I don’t see what harm I have done,” Bill objected. “I dare say T.
+won’t like it when I tell her, she is rather particular, but you are
+not proud and it is no good saying you are; there is no reason why you
+should object any more than Theo will when I tell him.”
+
+But Polly was not at all sure that Theo would approve of Bill’s
+performance, and she said so, without convincing Bill; she also
+reproved her sharply without showing her wherein lay the wrong. Bill,
+who did not at all believe in Polly, was entirely unimpressed, and
+Bella just then came out from the house.
+
+“Have you told her?” she asked, and Bill noticed that she looked
+troubled and excited.
+
+“No,” Polly said, “I have not; I had enough to do thinking about her
+behaviour.”
+
+“Told me what?” Bill asked. “What is it?”
+
+And because they felt the news they had to tell was of greater
+importance than her own comparatively obscure misdoings, they told
+her. Soon even Polly had forgotten about Bill in the greater news; as
+for Bill herself, she thought no more of anything but Bella and her
+happiness in Jack’s love and her fear of Jack’s mother. Bill could
+not quite understand the fear; if you were sure of the love, in her
+opinion, you could not be afraid, for nothing would matter. And the
+love,--she looked rather wistfully at Bella, wondering why she could
+not feel as this cousin did. But she said nothing of these things,
+forgetting them for the time being in the engrossing talk which was
+only closed when they all went indoors, Bill saying as they went: “But,
+Polly, how about your lodgings now? By next summer you will have no one
+to help you.”
+
+“I shall go on alone,” Polly answered magnanimously. “I shall be able
+to do it, and even if I could not, I should not dream of standing in
+the way of either of you.”
+
+“But you seem to want us both to get married,” Bill said.
+
+“I do, if you marry well. I am sure that neither of you would forget
+all I have done for you, and I am sure you will both remember how
+valuable even trifles are to me.”
+
+There was something faintly suggestive of the beggar’s whine in Polly’s
+tone, which made both the younger cousins laugh as they went into the
+house completely forgetful of Bill’s doings.
+
+But there was one who did not forget them, who felt he had good reason
+to be angry with them, and that one was Gilchrist Harborough. It was
+to him that the stranger Bill met was going. He was a Sydney lawyer
+and the fortunate possessor of private means; he had been a friend of
+Harborough’s in the new country, and now that he was home for a holiday
+in the old, Harborough had thought it worth while to tell him the story
+of his claim to the Gurnett estates, asking his opinion rather than
+his help. The lawyer, however, was so much impressed with the strength
+of the case when he first heard the story in June, that he immediately
+set to work on his own account to verify one or two necessary points.
+Having by this week’s mail received from Australia the information he
+wanted, he came to tell Harborough of his success. At first he intended
+to write, but as he was going to stay a week or two with some friends
+further down the line, he broke his journey at Wrugglesby and spent a
+couple of hours discussing the situation with Harborough.
+
+Unfortunately, he did not confine himself entirely to business during
+that couple of hours, for he casually mentioned the little fruit-seller
+who gave him a lift in her empty cart. “The queerest little oddity
+I have ever seen,” he said. “I wonder if you know who she is; let’s
+see if I can describe her. She was small, dark, shabby, shabbier
+than any cottage-girl I have yet come across in this well-favoured
+old country--untidy, simple, though ’cute I should say, frank as an
+American, brown as a berry, hair dark but reddish, face,--I don’t know,
+a provoking little face, and perfectly irresistible eyes.”
+
+Harborough knew who she was though he did not say; a slighter
+description would have served him. There were not two such about; two
+brown girls who spoke good English and sold fruit by the pound in
+Darvel, who wore their right boots laced with string (Harborough knew
+that boot well) and had brown eyes with the sunshine in them; who made
+friends with all comers, who whistled to the birds in the hedges, who
+was, in fact,--Bill, his promised wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+PETER HARBOROUGH: SHOT.
+
+
+Bella was not proud, neither was she exacting in any particular; but
+there are times when even the least proud is tried by his family. Bella
+was so tried on the day that she went with Polly and Bill to Bymouth.
+
+Bymouth was the place selected by the three for the change which Polly
+said they needed after all their trouble. They could not afford a
+change, it is true; but as Polly also said: “It is no good waiting till
+you can afford a thing; by that time you will probably not want it.”
+Bella agreed with Polly; Bill’s cautious vote on the opposite side was
+overruled, and to Bymouth they went. Bymouth, being four miles from a
+railway-station, had the merit of being a cheap place; a railway-line
+was indeed on its way there, but had not yet got very far. Visitors who
+wished to go to Bymouth drove from Bybridge, or walked, sending their
+luggage by the carrier’s cart. The cousins walked, and as the carrier
+charged threepence for each package Polly said, “We must not take too
+much.”
+
+Bella agreed: it was easy to agree, for they had not much to take, and
+they were only going for a week; but Polly’s notion of luggage and
+Bella’s were not identical. This was the first of Bella’s trials; the
+matter of provisions was another question which needed settlement.
+Polly said they had better take all they could with them, for
+Bymouth (she had never been there) was a very out-of-the-way place
+where everything would be difficult to get: also (she added as an
+afterthought) what they took with them they would have free, while
+what they bought there they would have to pay for. Bella did not see
+the necessity of provisioning themselves as if they were going to a
+desert-island; however, she gave way to a certain extent, and Polly put
+a cold fowl in her hat-box (Bella would not have it in hers), three
+large lettuces rolled up in Bill’s bathing-dress, and a neat packet
+of fat ham in slices securely wedged among the same obliging cousin’s
+underwear.
+
+“You can take the tea,” Polly said, handing Bella a large paper bag.
+
+Bella took it in so pleasant a manner that Polly was induced to try her
+with some plum turnovers which she was anxious not to leave behind,
+because she said, “they would be so nice to eat in the train.”
+
+“You can’t eat things in the train,” Bella exclaimed scandalised,
+“least of all plum turnovers. Besides, do you think I am going to open
+my luggage in the train to get them out? Why, it will be in the van!”
+
+“So it will,” Polly agreed; “I forgot that. Still, they will be nice to
+eat when we get there; we shall be hungry then, for we must dine very
+early to leave in time.”
+
+But Bella was obdurate; she would not take the turnovers, which she was
+sure would not be wanted.
+
+“Oh, well, please yourself,” Polly said good-humouredly, and packed
+them in the crown of Bill’s hat. “She will have to wear her best one,”
+she said; “this is much easier to pack.” And she crammed in hat and
+turnovers together.
+
+Bella, not seeing what she was doing, raised no objections, but on
+the subject of apples she was firm. There were a certain number of
+windfall apples Polly wanted to bring, because, she said, fruit was
+always dear at the seaside; but she could not get them in among her
+things or Bill’s, and Bella absolutely declined to have them. Polly
+was annoyed, but at last gave it up, leaving the apples scattered over
+the dressing-table, while she turned her attention to strapping up
+waterproofs. Bill had begun to do this, putting in with them an extra
+petticoat; Polly added the subscription of a dressing-jacket, but she
+was called down-stairs just then and Bella took the straps from Bill
+and persuaded her to give up the idea of taking the additions. “You
+don’t want them,” she said, “and we can’t go about looking as if we
+were bringing home the family washing in a mackintosh.”
+
+“Why does Bella want to look so respectable?” Bill asked Polly, when
+they were alone later on.
+
+“Because,” Polly answered severely, “she is a lady.”
+
+Bill, not at all impressed, smiled her derision, and enquired: “Why
+was she so cross when she found out too late that my best boots were
+packed?”
+
+“Because Jack Dawson will be at the station. Just as if”--Polly was
+contemptuous--“he would look at your boots! It is market-day, so he
+is going to Wrugglesby; he is going to drive Bella--you and I and the
+luggage will go in the chaise with Sam.”
+
+“I see,” Bill said, and began to make various odds and ends, refused
+accommodation elsewhere, into a parcel. She had no idea of annoying
+Bella, but she had two different pieces of brown paper, both too small,
+and no genius for making parcels.
+
+Polly glanced round to see if there was anything forgotten; her eye
+fell on the apples. “It does seem a pity to leave them,” she sighed.
+Then an idea occurred to her and her face brightened. “I know what I
+will do,” she said.
+
+She turned to an open drawer and stirred it over till she found a
+small calico bag. She had many such,--Bill called them nosebags--which
+she used to hold all manner of odds and ends collected from various
+people. The one she brought out now contained scraps of ribbon, the
+accumulation of many years. She emptied it, finding a home for most of
+its contents in a smaller bag already used to hold some fifteen pieces
+of pencil. Then she put the best of the apples into the empty bag and
+forced it some way up the centre of Bella’s neat roll of waterproofs.
+“It is a pity to unfasten them,” she said; “they are so nicely done up.
+I am sure the bag won’t fall out, and it hardly shows at all.”
+
+That may have been, but the first thing Bella saw when she came on the
+platform at Wrugglesby was the bag, mouth-end foremost, sticking out of
+the roll which Bill held under her arm.
+
+“Are they here?” Jack asked as he came out of the booking-office with
+her ticket. They were here, very much here; poor Bella almost wished
+they were not.
+
+“I don’t see them,” Jack went on, looking down the crowded platform:
+the train stopped everywhere and was always full. “Oh yes,” he said at
+last, “there’s Miss Hains, but I don’t see the luggage.”
+
+Bella could hardly see anything else, she was so painfully conscious
+of it--Polly’s round tin hat-box, packed to bursting, with the white
+string of some garment shut in the hinge; the little hair-trunk with a
+broken handle (the property of the late Mr. Hains), Bill’s paper parcel
+resting on the top; Bill herself, with her old boots very much in
+evidence, standing beside.
+
+Polly caught sight of Bella and smiled pleasantly as they approached;
+Jack took charge of the luggage and the train came in.
+
+“Jump in, and I’ll hand the things to you,” he said. “Are you going to
+have this in the carriage?” and he lifted the tin hat-box which would
+neither go under a seat nor in a rack.
+
+“Yes, yes, please!” Polly cried, and took it from him.
+
+He picked up Bill’s parcel; the two ends drooped in a dangerous
+manner, but he handed it to its owner without mishap, while Polly
+tried to force the unwieldy hat-box under a seat. It would not go, and
+after disturbing efforts Polly left it among the legs of the other
+passengers, straightening herself just in time to see Bill drop her
+parcel in Bella’s lap and take the roll which Jack handed to her, the
+bag of apples falling out with a thud as he did so.
+
+“Hullo!” said Jack; “what have I dropped?”
+
+Bella grew scarlet, and prayed that the bag might have fallen down on
+the line. No such thing,--it lay on the platform, one of the apples
+shaken out by the fall beside it. Jack picked it up and gave it to
+Bill. “Here you are, Miss Bill,” he said; “wait a moment, here’s
+another one,--you nearly lost your refreshment that time.”
+
+Fortunately the train started almost immediately and so prevented Bill
+from explaining that the apples were Polly’s and not hers. Bella leaned
+back in the carriage overcome with shame, while Bill serenely restored
+the apple to the bag, and then tried in vain to get it back into its
+original hiding-place. “It won’t go,” she said at last; “we shall
+either have to undo the straps or carry it separately: which would you
+rather, Bella?”
+
+“I don’t care; it does not matter.” Bella felt that to be asked which
+she preferred now was adding insult to injury.
+
+“Let us undo the straps,” Polly said; “then we can put your parcel in
+too; it does not look very strong.”
+
+Bill unfastened the straps, and finding the parcel too broad to
+go inside comfortably, she unfastened that too and rearranged its
+miscellaneous contents. Then she packed it and the apples into a
+waterproof; one of the apples rolled on to the floor and was pounced
+upon by a small fellow-traveller.
+
+“Mustn’t, mustn’t,” the mother said; “it belongs to the ladies; give it
+to the ladies.”
+
+But the ladies, as represented by Polly, were benign and made a present
+of the apple, afterwards entering into conversation with the mother on
+the subject of the age and habits of the child. Bella took no part, and
+Bill applied herself to the refastening of the straps. When that was
+done she listened to what was being said, for the talk by this time had
+worked round to Bymouth, which, it seemed, the mother knew well.
+
+Now Bymouth had been Bill’s own choice; she did not know much about
+it, nor did the others, except that the journey there was a cheap
+one and that, after all, was an important piece of knowledge. The
+thing, however, which attracted Bill was the fact that the recognised
+heir to Wood Hall had been spoken of in her presence as Harborough of
+Bybridge. She did not exactly expect to come across him while passing
+through the small town on her way to Bymouth, but she had a vague idea
+that she might see him, and she was anxious to know what he was like.
+Yet another reason for her interest in the place was that her history
+of the county had told her that it was the home of the Corby family,
+they who had also owned the small manor of Corbycroft whence the old
+Squire’s body had been carried to the Chapel at Wood Hall. Somewhere
+between Bybridge and Sandover, a place somewhat higher up the coast
+than Bymouth, had been their ancestral home. It had been pulled down
+long ago, and the family had died out, probably in great poverty from
+the story of the old squire’s body being in danger of arrest for debt.
+But in their day the Corbys had been rich: all the ground on which the
+now fashionable watering-place of Sandover stood had been theirs; and
+though as agricultural land it had not been worth much, its annual
+rental now was more than enough to reinstate the family fortunes twice
+over.
+
+Bill asked many questions of their talkative travelling-companion when
+she found that, besides being born at Bymouth, she had lived since
+her marriage at Sandover. However, she could tell little of what Bill
+wanted to know; she could speak of the extravagant price of lodgings
+at Sandover, the beauty of the pier, the number of the grocers’
+shops,--her husband owned one, the very best in the town. There were
+tombs, she said, lots of old tombs in St. Clement’s churchyard; people
+often came to see them. “Old gentlemen come with spades and things,”
+she went on, becoming somewhat mixed in her ideas, “and poke about and
+read inscriptions and find no end--why, the cliffs are full of queer
+things, fossils as big as your hand and little tiny shells. Sandover is
+a very interesting place.”
+
+“I dare say,” Polly said with vacant affability; “we must try to go
+there one day.”
+
+She had not the least intention of going, but Bill, who did not say so,
+had, and she brought their loquacious informant back to St. Clement’s
+and the tombs. After some time she learned that the interesting
+churchyard was situated on the outskirts of Sandover, on the landward
+side. The particular attraction of the tombs she could not learn, her
+informant having only been there once: “When my Joey was nine months
+old, and it was a hot day too, I carried him all the way; my sister,
+she did offer to help me but--”
+
+Here she addressed herself to Polly, who sympathised on the subject of
+heat and the weight of nine months old babies until the tombs seemed
+forgotten. But Bill, patient and persistent, was at last rewarded by
+hearing that the charm of one lay in the fact that it commemorated a
+man who shot himself nearly a hundred years ago.
+
+“They say,” continued Joey’s mother, taking the core of the apple from
+the disappointed Joey, to the great relief of a maiden lady in a light
+gown, “they do say he didn’t ought to’ve been buried there at all,
+for they were very particular in those days about burying suicides at
+the cross-roads. However, some thought he hadn’t really shot himself,
+but that his friend, who he’d been gambling with, murdered him or
+something. They didn’t rightly know, so they put him in the churchyard
+on the chance, as the nearest cross-roads had already been took up for
+a farmer who cut his throat with a sickle.”
+
+Bill, who had handled one, wondered how he did it, but contented
+herself with asking the name of the other suicide.
+
+“I can’t call to my mind,” was the answer she received, “but he was one
+of the gentlefolks. I’ve heard my good man say he was squire, but of
+course it was long before his time; there’s none of the name about now;
+but my husband, he’s a great one for finding out things, he’s--”
+
+And there followed a detailed account of his peculiarities and
+accomplishments, at the conclusion of which Bill suggested that the
+forgotten name might be Corby.
+
+“That’s it!” the voluble lady exclaimed with delight. “Fancy you
+remembering it and me not! I have got a head! Corby, that’s it--or is
+it Harborough? There are both there, but I think it’s Corby; they were
+the great people hereabouts; my man says they used to own all the land,
+but they are dead and gone now, every one of them.”
+
+“Who owns the land now?” asked Bill.
+
+“A Mr. Briant, a rich man living in London; he comes to Bymouth for
+shooting, but he don’t trouble Sandover much. He’s made a good thing
+of it, a fine man of business he’s called, though I should call him
+precious close myself.”
+
+A list of Mr. Briant’s delinquencies followed, with an account of the
+way in which he was bringing other seaside places into fashion, a form
+of speculation to which he seemed addicted. Bill did not listen very
+much, she was thinking of the long dead Corbys and Harboroughs. She
+thought of them a good deal both then and later, determining to pay
+their graves a visit at the first opportunity. But she did not put this
+determination into practice at once, for she forgot all about it during
+the first two days at Bymouth. The cousins arrived there on a Thursday
+evening; Friday and Saturday were two golden, never-to-be-forgotten
+days to Bill, in which she cannot be said to have thought of anyone
+or anything. She did precisely what she pleased, and, according to
+Polly, undid all the little good she had gained during the past months.
+“She is five years younger, and ten times worse than she ever was,”
+said that remorseless critic, and debated how best she could speak to
+the offender about Gilchrist and her behaviour to him. Bill did not
+trouble herself much about Gilchrist at this time; Polly told her that
+she ought to write to him every day as Bella did to Jack, but this she
+entirely declined to do, and only under great pressure could she be
+induced to write every other day, considering even that a great waste
+of time and stamps as she had nothing to say to him.
+
+While Polly was still pondering on the subject of Gilchrist Harborough,
+Bill’s thoughts returned to the other and older members of the family.
+On Sunday she recalled her intention of visiting their graves, and went
+to St. Clement’s, Sandover, for the afternoon service. She walked in
+the heat of the day (thereby losing her dinner), reached the church
+in time for the _Magnificat_, and heard the dreariest music and the
+most unedifying sermon in the world. But it did not matter; she was
+seventeen, sound in wind and limb, body and soul, and consequently
+quite unconscious of herself mentally, morally and physically. The
+womanhood, which had timidly tried to assert itself during the early
+summer, had slipped away; the thoughts and cares, the hopes and fancies
+which had begun to grow in the past months were lulled to sleep now by
+the sea and the sunshine, playmates which had called her irresistibly
+during these last days. She was a child still though she was not
+conscious of it; afterwards, in looking back, she knew those three
+perfect days were the last of her childhood.
+
+When the service was over she went out into the churchyard to examine
+the gravestones, which did not prove so numerous or so interesting as
+she had expected. A fair proportion of the older ones were in memory
+of the Corbys, who also, as she had seen during the service, had two
+tablets within the church inscribed to them. One she could not read;
+the other was to the honour and glory of a lady named Jane, wife of
+one Richard Corby, and evidently the pattern and model of what a wife
+should be; she possessed so many virtues that Bill felt, when she saw
+how young she had died, that, though sad, it was but natural.
+
+“She must have been the mother of the granddaughter who managed the old
+Squire’s burial,” she thought as she craned her neck to see the date.
+“I expect Jane would have objected to that business. I wonder what
+became of the granddaughter; perhaps she is buried outside.”
+
+But she was not; there were no more recent tombs to the family outside.
+Jane’s husband had died and been buried abroad some years after his
+wife, the event being announced briefly at the foot of the encomium of
+that lady’s virtues. The old Squire, who must have died later still,
+was not buried in this part of the country; the few graves in St.
+Clement’s churchyard which bore the Corby name were all of older date,
+the inscriptions of some half effaced, none in their briefness telling
+a story, romantic or tragic, of that forgotten past. The stone slab in
+memory of the suicide was hardly an exception to this rule, and the man
+whose brief record it bore was not a Corby at all. _Peter Harborough,
+died at Corby Dean in this parish. March 12th, 1799. Shot._ That was
+all; of the history of his life and the tragedy of his death there had
+been found nothing to say but the one word, _shot_. To Bill it seemed
+almost terrible in its uncompromising briefness. As she stood looking
+at the stone, a brown-winged butterfly rested for a moment on the
+moss-grown lettering. “Who did it?” She asked herself. “Who and why?”
+But there was no answer; she did not know who, nor yet why some unknown
+hand had left this single record of the tragedy.
+
+She turned away at last, and unfolding the cheap little map of the
+district she had borrowed to help her on the way to St. Clement’s,
+she spread it on a flat tombstone and searched for Corby Dean. It
+used to be the seat of the Corby family, she knew; now that the house
+was pulled down the name seemed to have passed to a small farm and a
+handful of cottages built, apparently, on the spot where the house once
+stood.
+
+“Corby Dean meant the house where Peter Harborough was shot,” Bill
+said with her finger on the map. “He was with the Corbys then. What
+happened? What were they doing?”
+
+She clasped her hands round her knee and gave herself up to dreams.
+All round her was the peace of earliest September, rich in its haze of
+tender warmth, summer still except for the opalescence of its lights,
+the coolness of its lengthening shadows. But Bill did not see it; she
+was building in her mind a history of the past, reconstructing the
+life which had been, groping in her memory, feeling that there, if she
+could but find it, was a picture of this old tragedy; a tale, nay, more
+than a tale, an actual experience if she could but recall it. A robin
+chirped shrilly in the churchyard yew; she started at the sound and the
+half-awakened memory was gone from her, the ghosts crept back to their
+graves, the past was merged in shadows again. Here was nothing but the
+stillness of Sunday afternoon, the peace of the earth’s sabbaths of
+September. Such golden restful days had been before these men lived,
+and still were though they were gone.
+
+She rose, and folding her map, went out of the churchyard shutting the
+gate behind her. Dead; that generation was dead, gone, forgotten, that
+generation--and the next? That too was lost in mist--and the next? The
+Corbys were ended, exhausted, but the Harboroughs? This brought her to
+the present day and to Harborough of Bybridge. She remembered that as
+yet she had heard nothing of him, and so remembering, she determined
+if possible to find out what manner of man he was--a determination she
+need hardly have troubled to make, for the next day, without effort on
+her own part, she knew.
+
+Monday did not seem a propitious day for discoveries; the weather was
+unsettled in the morning and the afternoon was one of ceaseless rain.
+Polly, seeing the state of affairs, prepared to spend three pleasant
+hours over her wardrobe; she pulled the table to the window, brought
+out her Sunday hat, took off the trimming, and proceeded to rearrange
+it with the bows behind instead of before. Bella retired to the bedroom
+(they only had one between the three) to write a letter, and Bill found
+a delightful occupation down-stairs. Their rooms were over the village
+shop which was also the post-office for a wide district. The rain
+seemed to make very little difference to the business done there; in
+fact it appeared to rather increase the number of customers, those who
+were not obliged to come finding some excuse to spend ten minutes or so
+in this cheerful little centre of gossip.
+
+Mrs. Rose, the landlady and post-mistress, was short-handed just
+at present, her assistant having gone home to nurse a sick mother.
+The girl who helped with the housework came in to lend a hand, but
+she was not clever, and the drawing-room lodgers had an elaborate
+tea at five o’clock which seemed to require much preparation in the
+afternoon. Thus it was without much trouble that Bill persuaded Mrs.
+Rose to let her help in the shop that day. The permission once given
+she set to work with great satisfaction, and soon found out something
+of the whereabouts of the articles most in demand. The stock was a
+very miscellaneous one, ranging from boots and twine through strange
+specimens of crockery and many-coloured cottons to Gregory’s Powder
+and treacle. Occasionally it took some little while to find the
+thing required, but the customers were in no hurry; indeed, most of
+them seemed more inclined to talk than to buy, Mrs. Rose seconding
+them when she was not despatching a telegram or otherwise conducting
+State-affairs through the medium of her post-office. Bill talked a good
+deal and listened even more; her parcels, it is to be feared, were not
+of the neatest, but her conversation was admirable and the customers
+seemed satisfied.
+
+These customers were a representative lot. Some were visitors who
+found the afternoon tedious and came to while away the time by buying
+sweetmeats or papers or strange little penny dolls, according to their
+age and tastes; some were neighbours from near by come for a pound of
+marmalade and a gossip; others were from the next village, genuine
+customers really anxious to transact business. The landlady from the
+house next door came once, being in trouble because her lodgers would
+have curry that night, and “she without a mite of curry-powder in the
+house.” A man from the coastguard station came asking for a species of
+tobacco that Bill took ten minutes to find, during which time he gave
+limitless information about the prospects of the weather. One of the
+customers was an anxious mother who wanted to buy castor-oil, but Bill,
+discovering that there was none, induced her to have Gregory’s Powder
+instead. “It will do just as well if he is five years old,” she said
+putting up a small dose. “Now, my dear, what for you?” This was said to
+a little girl with eyes just level with the top of the high counter.
+
+“Treacle, half cup,” was the answer, and the cup, with the coppers
+wrapped in paper reposing inside it, was handed up.
+
+Bill turned to the green barrel-shaped tin canister with the label
+_golden syrup_ and the spigot-tap she had been itching to turn all the
+afternoon. As the purchaser of Gregory’s Powder left the shop, another
+customer came in, a young fellow in splashed gaiters and streaming
+mackintosh. Bill did not notice him much, being engaged in a struggle
+with the tap grown stiff by reason of age and treacle. He held a paper
+in his hand, perhaps a telegram, but he waited patiently enough while
+an animated conversation went on between Mrs. Rose and an elderly lady
+whom she had just served. The tap moved a little, and the treacle began
+to run, slowly, it must be admitted, but still it ran, in the course of
+time doubtless the cup would be half filled. Bill glanced at the last
+comer; “a member of the surrounding aristocracy” she thought, noticing
+an indefinable something about his clothes and bearing and clear-cut
+profile. When he turned the accuracy of the profile was lost, but the
+eyes, very grave young eyes, met hers and--
+
+Her heart began to beat very fast, though she could not in the least
+tell why. She ought to have lowered her eyes, but she did not; they
+were fixed; she could not look away, and he did not look away either.
+She could hear the beating of her heart plainly, almost as if some
+giant hand were clutching it. She was afraid, she knew not of what,
+afraid to look, afraid to look away, most terribly afraid of herself,
+ashamed, yet foolishly, triumphantly glad. Her hands grew very cold and
+moist, her breath came short, she lost consciousness of what was going
+on around her; the little dim shop vanished, the pile of boots and pans
+and seaside pails, the child who peered at her over the counter, the
+women who talked by the desk. They two were alone, he and she, alone in
+all the world.
+
+“Cup’s runnin’ ower.”
+
+Bill started like one waking from a deep sleep; the dark, greenish
+fluid was slowly running over the sides of the cup. She forced the
+tap back; her hands seemed so weak it was difficult to move it, and
+they trembled till she could hardly hold the cup. She gave it to the
+child,--one cannot put surplus treacle back into a tightly closed
+canister--she gave it, full as it was, and the child took it, carefully
+licking the edges to prevent any running to waste, and walked sedately
+out of the shop. Bill sat down on a little high stool behind the
+counter; her face was very pale and she was shaking all over. Mrs.
+Rose, who had disposed of her last customer, saw her. “Why Missie,” she
+said, “you’re tired out. I oughtn’t of kep’ you here all this blessed
+afternoon.”
+
+“I am not tired, thank you,” Bill protested mechanically.
+
+But Mrs. Rose was unconvinced. “That I’m sure you are; I never saw
+such a lot of folks as we had this afternoon, a gossipin’ lot too. As
+for that Mrs. Randal, I thought she’d never go, taking up the room
+like that! I’m sure that gentleman was going to send a telegram and he
+never did; he walked out of the shop without sayin’ a word, a loss of
+sixpence to the Government.”
+
+“Who is he, do you know?” Bill’s voice sounded curiously stifled in her
+own ears; she looked down as she spoke, but she could feel the colour
+rising to her forehead.
+
+“Who? Why, young Mr. Harborough of Bybridge.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+HARBOROUGH OF BYBRIDGE.
+
+
+Kit Harborough paced the lane restlessly. The rain had ceased but he
+still wore his long mackintosh, and in one pocket the unsent telegram
+was crushed forgotten. For a moment he stood, then walked his five
+yard beat of wet road again. A church-bell sounded on the moist
+air,--curfew, they still tolled curfew at Bymouth; it was eight o’clock
+and nearly dark in the deep lane. On either hand rose high banks
+luxuriant with unclipped nuts and dogwood and sharp-thorned sloes,
+the late rain still dripping from every spray; the pleasant scent of
+wet ferns filled the air, the pungent flavour of the fungus on some
+tree-stump in the hedge mingling with the smell of the drenched grass
+growing tall and rank beside the road. The fragrance of the refreshed
+earth reached Kit but he hardly knew it, hardly heard the creak of the
+hidden grasshoppers in the moist darkness of the banks, hardly saw the
+wild flowers glimmering in the roadside grass.
+
+He leaned against a gate and looked across the darkening land,
+across the stubble-field whence the corn had been carried, over the
+slope of the hill to the village in the hollow, a huddle of roofs
+in the gathering gloom, the chimneys sharp against the sky and the
+smoke-wreaths hanging low in the wet air. Lights were beginning to
+twinkle here and there, one in the house at the corner, the little shop
+where he had seen her.
+
+He settled himself against the gate-post and watched. He was
+two-and-twenty and had never looked consciously at a woman before.
+Two and twenty, and now he had found, among the mouse-traps and
+string-balls and miscellaneous gear of a village shop, a little brown
+witch with the spell of a dead man’s charm in her eyes, the passion of
+a dead woman’s love in her blood!
+
+A partridge rose suddenly on the further side of the stubble-field;
+there was a whirr of wings, and then silence again and the soft drip of
+the wet trees. Then he heard a swift, light footfall, and saw a little
+figure speeding up the lane, perhaps to reach the high ground near the
+gate whence to look at the surrounding country in the beauty of this
+tearful twilight.
+
+Kit Harborough stepped out of the shadow by the gate to the centre of
+the road: the girl stopped abruptly with a little cry.
+
+“I knew you would come,” he said.
+
+He did not know how he knew, or if he really knew; he did not stop to
+consider and she did not ask him. “You!” was all she said, “You!”
+
+“Yes,” he answered.
+
+“Oh,” and it seemed almost as if she were distressed. “I--I wanted to
+speak to you; I have something I must tell you.”
+
+“Me? I am very glad.”
+
+He was astonished at himself, being a curiously diffident boy in
+some respects; so inexperienced, too, that had he stopped to think he
+would never have known what to say. But he did not think, he spoke on
+impulse, and the words came naturally enough; his only fear was lest
+she should escape and he should lose her in the gloom, but even that
+was not a real fear; he felt as if he could prevent her.
+
+She was standing in the middle of the road now. “You are glad?” she
+said. “That is because you do not know.”
+
+She looked up at him as she spoke and he, because he could not help it,
+or because he willed it, or for some other reason, or the want of one,
+looked down at her.
+
+Ah the smell of the rain-washed earth and the wood-smoke from the
+cottage below the hill, the chirp of hidden grasshoppers, the drip,
+drip, drip from the nut-boughs near the gate! Ah youth and ignorance
+and the first sweet taste of love and life!
+
+The partridge, disturbed by the girl’s coming, returned to rest
+chuckling softly. Kit looked round but did not move; he was not very
+close to her; it seemed almost as if he thought the place whereon she
+stood was holy ground.
+
+“Bill!”--Polly’s voice rang shrilly--“Bill! Are you up the lane? Come
+in at once!” For an instant even the grasshoppers ceased, then--“Bill!
+Bill!” came again, but no nearer, Polly did not wish to brave the mud
+of the lane needlessly.
+
+“I must go,” Bill said; “and oh,”--with sudden remorse for the lost
+moments--“I have not told you!”
+
+“Tell me to-morrow.” He was surprised at his own boldness. “I am
+staying here, at the River House, and you--”
+
+“We are staying at the shop--you know.” Bill grew rosy in the darkness.
+
+“Yes, I know,” he answered very softly.
+
+“We go away on Thursday, and I must tell you.”
+
+“Thursday!”
+
+“Bill!” Polly could not make up her mind whether Bill was in the lane
+or not.
+
+But the culprit, who was thinking solely of the news she had to tell
+Kit Harborough, did not heed Polly. “I must tell you,” she said, “you
+must hear, it is so unfair! But when? How?--oh, it is hard!”
+
+“Hard?”
+
+“Bi-ill!”
+
+“I must go!”
+
+“Yes, but first, when shall I see you? When will you tell me?”
+
+“To-morrow early.” Bill instinctively fixed her clandestine affairs
+for the time when the less energetic cousins were not awake to their
+responsibilities or her proceedings. “Early,--I’ll bathe before
+breakfast.”
+
+“So will I; I often go for a swim first thing, and afterwards--”
+
+“I will meet you,”--she finished for him--“about seven; I will tell you
+then.”
+
+“Bill! I can hear you talking! You are in the lane!”
+
+“Yes, Polly, and I am going back across the field so I shall be home
+before you.” And she was over the gate and down the field almost before
+Kit realised she was gone.
+
+Polly turned round and went home; she had never ventured further than
+the mouth of the lane, neither was she certain that she heard Bill’s
+voice in conversation, but she was exceedingly annoyed with Bill
+for having kept her standing there so long in the damp. She was also
+slightly annoyed with herself for being kept. “As if it mattered what
+Bill did!” Only, as she was out (Bella had a romantic idea that she
+wanted to look at the sea by night) she thought she might as well see
+what Bill was doing. She had an instinctive feeling, based on her
+general distrust of humanity, that Bill was sure to be doing something
+wrong.
+
+For the sake of her own satisfaction--Polly not possessing the
+disposition which “rejoiceth not in iniquity”--it is a pity she did
+not penetrate a little way up the lane, for she certainly would have
+seen Kit Harborough had she done so. He stood where he was for a full
+minute after Bill had left him, absolutely still in the middle of the
+road. It did not matter; he was already so hopelessly late for dinner
+at the River House that a minute either way could make no difference.
+If he changed very quickly there was a chance that he would be in time
+for the cheese; earlier than that he could not expect to appear. Dinner
+and such mundane matters did not occur to him till after Bill had gone,
+and when they did he wondered what excuse he was to give to his host.
+On this subject he need not have troubled himself, for his elaborate
+explanations were thrown away, Mr. Briant not being deceived by them
+for a moment.
+
+“Petticoat,” he observed briefly in answer to all Kit had to say. He
+was a man of some experience, and there was something in the boy’s
+manner, in his very indifference to dinner, which betrayed him to his
+elders.
+
+He flushed hotly; it was desecration even to think of Bill and the
+meeting in the lane here.
+
+“Hullo! It seems a serious case,” some one observed, and a man at Kit’s
+elbow inquired: “First, isn’t it, Harborough? Lucky young dog, he’s
+never met a divinity before; he has got it all to come.”
+
+Kit’s eyes flashed. “You are entirely mistaken,” he said coldly.
+
+“All right,” his host said with great good-humour. “Did you send my
+telegram?”
+
+Until that moment he had not thought of it; “I--I forgot it,” he was
+obliged to answer confusedly.
+
+“What a deuce of a time she kept you!”
+
+“She did not! She did no such thing.”
+
+There was a roar of laughter, and Kit, realising his blunder, had the
+good sense to leave it and apologise for the neglect of the telegram.
+This being of but slight importance was forgotten by the party far more
+quickly than his unfortunate admission.
+
+In the meantime Bill was also taking the consequences of her wanderings
+in the lane. Polly was severely reprimanding her for going out after
+dark, for keeping other people waiting about in the damp, and for
+gossiping with farm-labourers and other persons. To all of which Bill
+listened with the tolerant indifference with which she often treated
+Polly’s harangues. “Let’s have supper,” she said at last. “I have told
+you I went out because I felt as if--as if I should burst if I stopped
+in any longer. I had to go out, to get away; it was a pure accident
+that I met any one.”
+
+Polly said, “Oh, I dare say,” and repeated several of her previous
+remarks with variations. Then they had supper, Polly still a little
+difficult in temper; the drawing-room lodgers had had steak and onions
+for tea, and she being one who dearly loved what she called “a relish
+with her tea,” had not yet got over the appetising odour which had not
+served as a relish to her own bread and jam.
+
+Never before in her life had Bill so longed to be alone--to be
+absolutely by herself, if it were only for half an hour. But it was
+out of the question; even when they went to bed the only solitude
+possible was the compromise of companionship offered when the cousins
+were asleep. She thought once of stealing softly down to the darkened
+sitting-room to spend an hour there in the starlight, but the bedroom
+door rattled so terribly that she was certain in opening it to awaken
+Bella if not Polly. She was afraid of facing their curious inquiries,
+she who so seldom had been afraid before, who never knew when her
+conduct was strange or worthy to invite inquiry until the fact was
+plainly shown her; there was some subtle change in her.
+
+She lay still on the outer edge of the wide low bed she shared with
+Polly, and tried to think. The room was very dark and quiet, yet she
+could not think. There was neither Kit nor Gilchrist in her mind,
+neither past, present, nor future; it was all a whirl, with for
+paramount feeling the thought of that unmade claim to the Harborough
+estates.
+
+“It is not fair,” she thought. “He shall know; they shall fight fairly;
+I will tell, whether it makes a difference or not.” Then the picture
+of Wood Hall came into her mind, the stately house in the autumn of
+its days, the great hall, the solemn rooms, “Theo’s, all Theo’s! Theo
+there, Theo and the boarders!” She laughed softly, half hysterically,
+at the idea. “He thought I meant it,” she said.
+
+Polly muttered indistinctly in her sleep. Wood Hall and the gardens,
+the tangled rose-walk and the lawns, how green the grass would be
+now! The wood on the slope of the hill--there would be yellow leaves
+here and there, and the bracken would be golden--how very beautiful
+it all would be! September suited the place, but October would suit
+it even better, the long west front in the afternoon glow, the great
+arched doorway, all of it. And so on and on, a hundred vague ideas, a
+tangle of emotions, but never Kit; she never once faced the thought of
+him. At last she slept and dreamed--our dreams are our own; we are not
+accountable for them. In the morning things looked clearer and emotions
+fainter. Sleep blots out some of the fancies and brings facts into a
+better working perspective. When in the morning Bill rose early to keep
+her appointment she had a distinct notion of what she was going to do.
+She got up and dressed quietly: for the first time in her life she was
+troubled because her gown was shabby; but she did not know why, for she
+had not consciously considered the question of Kit Harborough at all.
+She was going to meet him, it is true, but that was solely to warn him
+of the danger which threatened him. Still she was sorry her frock was
+shabby, and her old straw hat a little the worse for the plum turnovers
+and a good deal the worse for wear.
+
+But she did not trouble herself much. By the time she had finished
+her bath she had forgotten about appearances; also to a certain
+extent she had forgotten her troubles, washed them away in the kindly
+sea or evaporated them in the sunny air: there was not, up to the
+present, anything so very much amiss in her world that still September
+morning. She was whistling softly when Kit found her, wringing her wet
+bathing-dress the while.
+
+“Let me do that for you,” he said.
+
+She held the dress a moment. “You had better not,” she said, “it will
+make your hands blue; the dye comes out like anything. The first time
+it got wet I was like an ancient Briton; it is not so bad now, but it
+still makes one a bit stripy.”
+
+Kit protested that he did not mind the dye and took the dress while
+she gathered up her towels and hung them in festoons about the tent,
+whistling when she was on the far side.
+
+“Is that you?” he asked.
+
+“Yes,” she admitted, wondering if he thought it unladylike.
+
+He did not; he seemed to think it clever. “What a mimic you are!” he
+said. “It was just like a chaffinch.”
+
+“I can imitate some things,--birds.” Bill forgot her mockery of her
+fellow-men; she forgot all those things, for there was a curious holy
+feeling about her just then.
+
+Kit had finished wringing the dress and was carrying it now as they
+walked slowly along the shore. “Not all birds?” he was saying; “not a
+lark!”
+
+“No, not a lark, I have never tried to do that; I don’t think I could.
+I don’t think there is anything quite like a lark’s song; it is so
+completely, absolutely happy; I don’t believe anyone could imitate
+that.”
+
+He agreed with her and then asked if she knew Shelley’s Ode to the
+Skylark. They were not approaching the business of their interview very
+rapidly.
+
+Bill shook her head. “I don’t know any of his poetry,” she said,
+“except a piece about the moon which we had to analyse in our
+grammar-class last Christmas. It was beautiful poetry, though I never
+could find the principal sentence.”
+
+“What a shame to give you Shelley for that!”
+
+Bill thought it was too, and then Kit told her he believed she would
+like the Ode to the Skylark.
+
+“Tell me some,” she said.
+
+He obeyed and repeated the greater part. Business was receding even
+further into the distance.
+
+His was somewhat of a studious nature, and he had, moreover, the
+musician’s ear for harmonious sound and the unspoiled heart to delight
+in beautiful thought. She was a greedy listener, her mind an empty well
+in its ignorance, in its insatiable desire to be filled; she, too, had
+the love of melody, though never till that moment had she felt the
+need of the universe and of her own soul to be expressed in rhythm.
+But now the whole world somehow became one pulsing harmony, and they
+two wandered along the lonely shore in that dream which comes twice to
+no man. The air around them was delicate and crisp, fresh yet tenderly
+soft, the sunlight chastened and mild, threading with sloping bars the
+mist on the land, gleaming bright and pale on the wet sand and the
+incoming tide and the great white gulls that played in the creeping
+waves.
+
+Business and the purpose of their meeting receded further and further;
+indeed, it might almost have been forgotten entirely had it not been
+reached by a most circuitous route through Byron and Heine. They had
+been speaking of the sea’s place in poetry and concluded with the
+opinion that none of the poets had quite expressed their sentiments on
+the subject.
+
+“They don’t seem to get at the sort of mother-feeling,” Bill said at
+last; “at least none of those we know do. I mean the kind of feeling
+of going home that you get when you come near the sea--you know what
+I mean? It seems sometimes as if it stretched out its arms to you and
+called you,--don’t you hear?”
+
+She listened and he listened too, for of course he understood what she
+was trying to say for both. He had felt it as she had, and neither had
+said it before, and both were certain of an understanding now, wherein
+lay the delight and the danger.
+
+“Once,” Bill said, “I saw four lines which were a little about the
+feeling I mean; do you know them?
+
+  ‘Hail to thee, oh thou Ocean eterne!
+   Like voices of home thy waters are rushing,
+   Like visions of childhood saw I a glimmering
+   Over thy heaving billowy realm.’”
+
+Kit said he did not know the lines and asked whose they were; but she
+could only tell him that she had found them quoted in a book of Mr.
+Dane’s. “I’ll ask him,” she said; “I dare say he will know, and he
+is sure to tell me. He is my great friend, you know, the rector of
+Ashelton.”
+
+“Ashelton!” Kit exclaimed. “Do you know Ashelton?”
+
+“Yes,” and then Bill remembered, and the mutual acquaintance with
+Ashelton and the surrounding district, which seemed so very delightful
+to her companion, wore quite another aspect to her. “I had almost
+forgotten,” she went on; “I mean, forgotten what I had come to say; but
+I must tell you, I will tell you about it.”
+
+And forgetting the poets and the seductive calling of the sea she told
+him all,--of the Australian and his claim, of its strength, and of his
+decision to be silent until after old Mr. Harborough’s death; she told
+him exactly how it stood, and how she thought it unfair he should not
+know what threatened him. He listened quietly as she talked, coldly,
+unconsciously demonstrating to her one good gift that an old family
+bestows upon its children, the power to receive a blow unmoved, to
+hear with the silence of pride and to speak with the indifference of
+studied self-control. Kit Harborough had not much for which to thank
+his ancestors; the dead hand of the past was heavy upon him and the
+weight of tradition but little in his favour; nevertheless his birth
+and breeding helped him to receive Bill’s blow with a proud composure,
+almost an indifference which roused her deepest admiration, though at
+the same time it touched her curiously.
+
+She talked on fast to hide her own feelings. “They seem to think,” she
+said, though she had said it before and the whole case was painfully
+clear now, “they seem to think that if Mr. Harborough is left to
+himself he will not make a will; I don’t know why.”
+
+“Because he does not like me,” Kit told her.
+
+“He wishes me to have the property simply on account of the name. I am
+called Harborough because of the property, and I am,--was to have had
+it because of the name; but he wishes it so little that since he is
+sure I should have it, he would not set it down.”
+
+“But if he knew of Theo--of the other one?”
+
+“He still would not make a will, or if he did it would not be in
+my favour; the other man is a Harborough and so fulfils his only
+condition. I have told you he dislikes me.”
+
+“He would dislike Theo a good deal more if he knew him,” Bill said
+warmly; “he is going to cut down the wood if he gets the estate, and
+plough the land, and grow turnips in the park.”
+
+“I don’t think you could make my uncle believe that.” Kit’s composure
+belied his feelings. “And if one could, if one could induce him to make
+a will, I don’t believe I should care to do it, and, besides, you know,
+it might not make much difference after all. Thank you, thank you very
+much for telling me,”--the composure was not nearly so marked; stoicism
+is not perfect at two-and-twenty; “it was very good of you to do it.
+I’m glad to know; it’s much easier when one knows what’s coming, but I
+can’t exactly take advantage of it; you didn’t really mean me to, you
+know.”
+
+“But the house,” Bill pleaded, “the beautiful, beautiful house! Think
+of it, the long west front with the sunset on it,--the great hall with
+the dragons on the mantelpiece--the rooms where all your people were
+born and died!”
+
+“I know.”
+
+They were sitting on a pebbly ridge now; Kit ground his stick into the
+shingles and answered in a muffled voice, not looking at her. “But the
+thing is not settled yet,” he went on after a pause. “He will have to
+fight for it whether there is a will or not; he may not win, and,--and
+if he does, they are his people too; he is more really Harborough than
+I am.”
+
+“He does not care for them,” Bill said; “he despises old families and
+he does not care for tradition; he would like the position but he does
+not really care for anything else; he would not love nor understand the
+place a little bit. He would save money, I dare say, perhaps make it,
+and in time build up a new family on the old foundation. He is just
+fitted to found a new family; he would do it splendidly, he has the
+right kind of brains and opinions; but he is not in the least fitted to
+carry on an old name,--he has not been bred up to it or educated for
+it. You don’t know him or else you would understand.”
+
+“I understand very well indeed. But what is the use? Why do you talk
+about it?”
+
+“Because,” Bill answered vehemently, “the place is what it is; because
+of the house and the wood--think of cutting down the wood! Because it
+seems so likely he will get it, and if it were mine I would never let
+it go. If it had belonged to my people, as it has to yours, I would do
+anything--I should not care what--to get it and keep it.”
+
+The shingles rattled sharply against one another as Kit moved. “Do
+you think I don’t care?” he asked almost savagely. “But if it is that
+business of the will you mean, I can’t do it. I don’t suppose it would
+make a difference, and anyhow I can’t do it; you know I can’t.”
+
+“Then I will,” Bill said. “I will see Mr. Harborough and explain. I
+will get him to make a will; I believe I could.”
+
+“No,” Kit exclaimed, “no, you must not do that. It would be no better
+than if I did; it would be taking an unfair advantage of the other
+man,--promise me you will not do it.”
+
+Bill hesitated. “I have taken an advantage of him already in telling
+you,” she said.
+
+“That is different; it was only warning, preparing me for what is to
+come; you were not using your knowledge against the other man; you
+would not do that.”
+
+Bill was not so sure; though, true to her reflective nature, she felt
+at the moment that perhaps he was right. “Then you will give it up,”
+she said at last, “you will let a man who does not understand have the
+house and everything?”
+
+“Not unless I am compelled.”
+
+“And will you be compelled? What do you think?”
+
+“I don’t know; it sounds pretty bad as you have told it, of course. It
+may not be; I can’t tell.”
+
+Bill looked hopelessly out to sea. “It is my fault,” she said, more to
+herself than to him, “all my fault.”
+
+“Your fault?” he asked. “How? What have you to do with it?”
+
+“It was through me that Theo knew of his claim, through the mass in the
+Harborough chapel, and it was I who got the mass to be read. Yes, you
+have heard about it, of course, but you did not know it was my doing;
+nobody does except one person, but it was, all the same. Mr. Harborough
+had it said to please me, or at least because I suggested it; it was my
+idea, and it was all through that service that Theo heard of his claim
+to Wood Hall. A man, an antiquary, one of those interfering people who
+are always digging in ancestral dust-heaps and finding things which had
+much better not be found, heard about the service and came to enquire
+into it. He came and he inquired, and poked about, and found out a lot
+about the chapel and the Harboroughs; then he met Theo, and talked to
+him, and found out all about him too. Before that nobody knew anything
+of Theo, and he did not know anything of the claim; he never troubled
+about his relationship to you other Harboroughs; but between them he
+and Mr. Wagnall pieced it all out, and there you are; that is how he
+found out he had a claim. If it had not been for that mass bringing Mr.
+Wagnall to Wrugglesby it would never have been discovered; it is all
+my fault.”
+
+Kit did not share this opinion. “It is not your fault,” he said
+decidedly; “not a bit in the world; you never knew what would come of
+it.”
+
+“I did it, all the same.”
+
+“But you are not to blame; you are not responsible because the truth,
+if it is the truth, has been found out, and no one would blame you for
+it if you were. I don’t think you to blame, and I am the person most
+concerned, after this Theo.”
+
+“Oh, he doesn’t think I have had anything to do with it,” Bill said,
+smiling a little at the idea.
+
+“Very well then, that is settled,” Kit said more lightly; “you are
+not to blame; nobody thinks so, neither you, nor I, nor Theo. By the
+way, you seem to be very intimate with Theo,--great friends or great
+enemies, which is it?”
+
+“Both,” said Bill smiling; “I am going to marry him.”
+
+Then suddenly the smile died out of her eyes, out of her heart, out
+of sea and sky and world, and for the first time in her life she was
+afraid to think.
+
+Kit turned and looked at her full, his well-bred, stoical face
+expressing nothing, only his grave eyes very grave as he said slowly:
+“You are going to marry him?”
+
+She nodded, meeting his eyes for a minute; and then she looked out to
+sea, driving her palms deep among the small pebbles as she sat, one
+hand on either side, staring rigidly before her.
+
+The gulls dipped down to the breaking waves and circled above in the
+pale-toned sky; sea and sky alike were as tinted silver, the whole day
+delicate, tender-hued, like the colours found in a pearl. A great
+peace, a great silence everywhere; no sound but the ripple of the waves
+that crept up the sand, crept till they reached the shingle where the
+girl sat, and broke with tiny spray almost at her feet.
+
+“We had better move; the tide is coming up.”
+
+The voice of the man beside her aroused her. He suddenly seemed a man
+to her, a boy no longer: it seemed too as though there was a great gulf
+between them. She rose automatically and they walked along the shore in
+the direction of the village. He was very kind and polite; there was an
+indefinable difference between his manners and those of the people she
+usually met, but it only made her the more conscious of the difference
+between herself and him. He talked as they went, easily and well, on
+indifferent topics, the cliffs, the shore, the places of interest
+about, the peculiarity of the stones on the beach. Once he picked one
+up, dark grey and heavy, a flint sea-urchin, he told her it was, rather
+an uncommon fossil, he said, as he gave it to her. She took it, and
+talked about it and a dozen other things, in spite of her consciousness
+of the gulf, as easy and as self-possessed as he. Why not? Was she not
+Bill, the mimic, the player’s child? She was sure just then that he had
+been a player, a strolling mummer, a singer ever on tour, perhaps even
+the circus-clown Polly called him. And she,--she was a clown too, a
+buffoon, a fool, for all that she wore no motley, to make old men laugh
+with her songs and quips, to charm young men for a moment with her
+hundred changes,--“all things by turn and nothing long”--nothing except
+the little gipsy creature that was under all and that was miles and
+miles away from Kit Harborough of Bybridge, from him and the women of
+his class. She knew those women, tall, fair, white-skinned, serenely
+unconscious. She was a long way from them, from everyone in the
+universe, farthest of all from this boy with his considerate courtesy,
+his polite speech, his accurate clothes. She was painfully conscious
+of his clothes and even more so of her own, of her work-stained hands,
+her too rapid movements. She was conscious of it all, but more than all
+of a passionate desire to run away and hide with the wild things which
+were her kin, to run away not from him alone but from all her world, to
+run right away into the woods and hide even from herself, if it could
+be.
+
+But she did not run away, as she would have done some months earlier;
+pride held her back and crushed the wild nature down, helping her to
+politeness and teaching her to give her little brown hand at parting
+much as Kit Harborough did. So with some formality they said good-bye,
+and parted at the top of the cliff-path, he to the left to the River
+House, she to the right to the little shop where Bella was waiting
+breakfast and Polly finishing a belated toilet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE ACQUISITIVE FACULTY.
+
+
+Polly may have been a clever woman, as Mr. James Brownlow had said
+she was, but in his catalogue of her abilities he omitted to mention
+her one great gift, her undeniable talent for getting things. She
+was a true collector and picker-up of trifles; she had brought this
+too little appreciated art to a rare perfection, and she never went
+anywhere without acquiring something, never came home completely
+empty-handed, never declined or passed by a single article or
+opportunity however trivial or cumbersome. Her motto was _It might be
+useful._ “If she went to the Sahara,” Bill said, “she would bring home
+sand for the chickens’ run.” But besides the collectors’ art Polly
+possessed the true genius for getting, not begging nor demanding,
+but annexing calmly as by right divine, or acquiring gracefully as
+bestowing a favour in accepting one. “I don’t ask for things,” she used
+to say; “people always offer them to me. I am sure I don’t know how it
+is, but they do, and it looks so rude to refuse.”
+
+So she never refused, and seldom went anywhere or met anyone without
+directly or indirectly turning the occasion to profit. Bymouth did not
+promise a very likely field for her abilities, but even here she found
+and seized an opportunity. It was late in the visit certainly, not till
+after their fellow-lodgers had gone. This took place on Tuesday, the
+day on which Bill told Kit Harborough of the claim.
+
+The drawing-room family left at one o’clock, the cousins watching them
+go. They drove to Bybridge in a small wagonette, and it was interesting
+to see them getting into it, for the family was large, far too large
+for the wagonette.
+
+“They will never do it,” Bella said as she watched them.
+
+“After the way in which they packed into that bedroom,” Polly remarked
+severely, “I should say they could go anywhere or anyhow.”
+
+“They had two bedrooms,” Bill said; “there was another up the yard.”
+
+“I call it positively indecent,” was Polly’s opinion, but Bill asked:
+“Where is the indecency? The girls were in one and the boys in the
+other. Mrs. looked after the girls and Mr. after the boys; they had
+more space apiece than we three have, and I am sure we are all right.”
+
+Polly explained that their own arrangement was quite different and much
+better, but Bill, who had now joined Bella at the window, did not pay
+any attention to her.
+
+“Oh, do come and look, Polly,” she said; “they have nearly done it.
+They would do it easily if it were not for the luggage; they ought to
+have a cart for that.”
+
+“They are far too stingy,” Polly observed contemptuously.
+
+“The mother will nurse the baby,” Bill went on, “and the father the
+next-sized one, and the little girl that big bundle. They have left one
+box out.”
+
+“Where will they put it?” Bella said.
+
+“They can’t get it in front,” was Bill’s opinion; “the coachman can
+hardly see round the rampart of luggage as it is. They are going to try
+though. If they would put it inside it could be managed. There it goes!
+I knew it would fall off the front! If you were to put it--”
+
+“Come in, Bill!” Polly seized Bill’s arm. “Come in at once! It is no
+business of yours; let people manage their own concerns. I am ashamed
+of you!”
+
+But Bill was not ashamed of herself; she was far too much absorbed in
+the difficulties of the family to care for Polly, and when someone in
+the wagonette below having heard her voice called up to know what she
+had said, she leaned out of the window again and told them. “Put it
+inside; I believe you could do it then,--not that way, small end down.
+You don’t mind me suggesting it, do you? It would have been such a
+pity” (“Bill!”) “if you couldn’t all get in. That’s right; now” (“Bill!
+Shut that window, Bella.”) “if the two little boys sit on it and the
+biggest one stands on the step--that’s splendid!”
+
+“Shut that window, Bella!”
+
+Bella shut the window almost on to Bill’s neck, leaving her no choice
+but to draw her head in. The family, who did not appear to resent her
+interference, shouted their thanks to where she had been, while Bella,
+who had been as much annoyed as Polly by Bill’s behaviour, joined the
+elder cousin in telling the culprit so.
+
+But Bill did not mind much. “It would have been such a pity if they had
+not managed it,” she said, “and I don’t believe they could any other
+way.”
+
+“It was no affair of yours,” Bella said; “I don’t see why you wanted
+to make such an exhibition of yourself. There were people passing too,
+one of those shooting men from the River House had just come out of the
+post-office; he did stare at you, and no wonder!”
+
+Bill said she did not care, which was true; but she did not know that
+the man described the incident, inclusive of her and her directions,
+in Kit Harborough’s hearing that evening. Kit recognised her from the
+description, as Gilchrist had done when his lawyer-friend Ferguson
+described her, and Kit, like Gilchrist, did not betray her identity.
+He said even less about her than did Gilchrist, though he experienced
+a youthful desire to knock the informant down when he announced an
+intention of finding out who the girl was. But the pugilistic wish was
+restrained, Kit reflecting that, as Bill was leaving the day after
+to-morrow, it was most unlikely the fellow would find out anything
+about her; and, after all, that he should wish to do so was, in Kit’s
+opinion, quite natural and only what was to be expected. It was also,
+in the same opinion, quite natural that Bill should assist the family
+in the wagonette with her advice, quite natural and quite right;
+indeed, so right that Kit never questioned its propriety at all,
+possibly because she did it; though in his defence it must be said that
+he troubled less about the correctness of an action than did Gilchrist,
+thinking not at all of “how it looked.” He had been brought up among
+people who, being quite sure of themselves and their public, never
+troubled as to how a thing might look.
+
+Polly had not been so brought up, and, conscious that her actions would
+not always bear investigation, she was most anxious that appearances
+should, when possible, be beyond reproach. She lectured Bill
+proportionately, and was, as usual, listened to with indifference; but
+when at last Polly brought her remarks to a close with, “It was like
+everything else you do, most unladylike,” Bill said rather wistfully:
+“I suppose I am unladylike, Polly?”
+
+“Hopelessly,” was the crushing answer.
+
+“I should like to be better,” the voice was a shade more wistful; “I
+would try if I knew what to do.”
+
+“Don’t lean out of the window to give advice to strangers,” Polly
+said, and Bill making no reply, she began to perceive that her young
+cousin was in an unusually pliant mood. Seeing this she seized the
+opportunity, the first that had offered, of speaking to her on her
+behaviour to Gilchrist. As a preliminary she heaved a deep sigh, and,
+after a quick glance at the girl, began with chastened mildness.
+
+“After all,” she said, “to lean out of the window like that is only a
+small thing, but it is an illustration of your ways. Your ways often
+trouble me, Bill, do you know that? Sometimes I feel as if I shall
+give you up entirely, and then again sometimes I think you really are
+ignorant and would try to do better if you only knew how your behaviour
+looked.”
+
+Bill twisted restively, Polly’s voice having taken on the melancholy
+semi-nasal drawl which belonged to her part of the grieved guardian.
+Bill did not believe in her at any time, and that afternoon the manner
+irritated instead of amusing. But she was sincerely convinced of her
+own shortcomings, and though she had no great opinion of Polly, there
+was no one else to whom she could go; so she said: “Tell me what I do
+wrong; you need not put in all that about being sorry and the rest; I
+know how that goes, and can fill it in for myself.”
+
+“Thank you, Bill,” Polly said with dignity; but quickly seeing the
+girl’s attitude of mind and the precariousness of her own opportunity,
+she shortened her part and, after a brief remark on her cousin’s
+impoliteness and her own forbearance, got to business without further
+delay.
+
+“You want to know where I think you wrong? I will tell you one or two
+things,”--she spoke as one who has a wide range of examples from which
+to choose. “There is your behaviour to Gilchrist to begin with; you do
+not behave at all nicely to him.”
+
+“To Theo!” Bill exclaimed in astonishment, “to him! What do I do wrong
+to him?”
+
+“You call him Theo for one thing; he objects to it and it is
+ridiculous; all nicknames are ridiculous.”
+
+“All?”
+
+“Yes, all; and abbreviations of names are almost as bad.--I don’t see
+why you should not be called Wilhelmina instead of Bill. It does not
+suit you, it is true, but I am sure he would prefer it, besides Bill is
+vulgar; don’t you think so yourself?”
+
+“He can call me Wilhelmina if he likes,” Bill said in a subdued voice.
+“And as for Theo, that is easily altered; He can be Gilchrist if he
+wishes it, though I think it is quite as unsuitable as Wilhelmina for
+me.”
+
+“My dear Bill,”--Polly was delighted to have made so much
+impression--“it is not a question of what you think but of what he
+wishes. You ought to consider his wishes; you ought to try to please
+him and consult his tastes; remember, he is proposing to give you a
+great deal, and as you can give him nothing in return except a little
+consideration, it is hardly right to withhold that as you do.”
+
+“What do you mean?” Bill’s voice, quiet and cold, was almost like that
+of one who faces an unexpected shock.
+
+Polly, really in her element now, enumerated a list of the things
+Bill had done wrong, or might have done right, concluding her remarks
+with,--“Try to be pleasant to him, talk seriously when he wants you to,
+be cheerful and lively when he is in the humour for it, put on your
+best dress and try to make yourself nice when he comes. It is your
+duty, you know, you owe it to him. Make the most of yourself; don’t set
+him to water the garden and so on, but talk to him and be pleasant.”
+
+“Always, do you mean?”
+
+There was something very like consternation in Bill’s tone, but Polly
+did not know it, and answered readily,--“Yes, of course.”
+
+“Always?” Bill dropped her hands on the table. “I can’t do it,” she
+said vehemently; “it is simply no use, Polly, I can’t do it; I shall
+have to throw it up.”
+
+“Throw what up? What do you mean?”
+
+“I can’t be respectable always; it is no use trying; he would be sure
+to find me out after we were married, if not before. He knew the sort
+of person I was when he asked me to marry him; if he did not like it
+why did he ask me?”
+
+“You did not call him Theo before you were engaged,” Polly said, wisely
+attacking the details and not the mass of Bill’s protest. “And of
+course,” she went on, “people usually expect their _fiancées_ will be
+nice to them. The average girl does it as a matter of course because
+she wishes to; it is because you do not seem to know what is expected
+of you, and never wish to do what is right, that I have had to speak to
+you.”
+
+“It is part of the contract, you think?” Bill asked.
+
+“Certainly not; there is no contract in the matter.”
+
+So Polly said, but Bill took her meaning otherwise, as it was intended
+she should, and there was a long silence. Polly, feeling the subject
+was closed, rose and moved about the room, while Bill sat lost in
+thought. At last the younger cousin spoke. “I will try to do what is
+right,” she said, “I will really. I’ll write to Theo--to Gilchrist this
+afternoon, though I did write yesterday. I’ll take the letter out on
+the sands with me.”
+
+Polly was very much pleased; here was an obvious sign of repentance,
+and one moreover which would keep Bill from wading for shrimps, an
+occupation she herself strongly disapproved of. She set off for the
+shore that afternoon with a really happy mind; she had settled Bill’s
+affairs, she had arranged for a good tea when she should come in, and
+the drawing-room family, a great source of annoyance to her, were gone.
+She felt very well pleased with the world in general and herself in
+particular as she sat watching Bill writing her letter, a grotesquely
+and pathetically polite letter it was too, if only she had known it.
+Polly felt that the stay at Bymouth had been most successful; before
+she finally left she was even more convinced of this, for while at
+the little seaside resort she achieved a piece of business which
+even astonished herself. “Fancy,” she used to say with complacency
+afterwards, “fancy meeting my future landlord at a little place like
+that!”
+
+But this she did in the person of the old gentleman who came to the
+drawing-room floor on Tuesday evening. He only arrived on Tuesday, and
+Polly left on Thursday; but she made good use of her time and struck
+up a great friendship with him and his wife, sympathising with their
+ailments, recommending a butcher, telling them in the course of time
+something of her own difficulties. They were interested, pleased,
+favourably impressed. They gave her a good deal of advice,--this she
+asked for but did not necessarily take; they also eventually gave her
+a little help,--this she did not ask for but, true to her rule, took
+without hesitation.
+
+The old gentleman had some house property in London, small
+houses Bayswater way, “a shrewd investment,”--Polly was sure of
+it. The tenants had been giving a great deal of trouble lately,
+“disgraceful,”--Polly was sympathetic. It was a capital place for
+apartments, and Polly could not do better than settle in that part when
+she made her “plucky venture;” that was the old gentleman’s advice. One
+of the houses was empty now, and before Polly left on Thursday, she was
+warmly pressed to take it on the most advantageous terms; that was the
+old gentleman’s offer.
+
+Polly thanked him in her very best manner, saying she doubly
+appreciated his kindness since she was so much alone in the world.
+Mr. Brownlow had died during the summer, and Polly said at the time
+that it was convenient as they were already in mourning; she said it
+was convenient now, since she was consequently free to conduct her
+affairs without his advice and criticism. She did not say this to the
+old gentleman, but told him, after thanking him for his offer, that
+she must talk it over with her cousins before finally accepting it;
+adding that she was nearly sure of their approval, quite sure of their
+obligation on her behalf and their own for his kindness,--and so forth.
+
+Polly was vastly pleased with herself and detailed the whole affair
+with much satisfaction to the two younger girls as they had a hurried
+lunch before starting on their walk to Bybridge station. Bella was
+not at all congratulatory; she did not like having the family affairs
+discussed with strangers, neither did she like posing as part of
+Polly’s responsibilities.
+
+“I am not,” she said, “and I don’t see why you should say I am. I
+am only your cousin and that is no responsibility, and not such a
+wonderfully near relationship either.”
+
+“No,” Polly retorted, “not when you are married to a rich man like Jack
+Dawson and I let lodgings in town for a bare living; the relationship
+will not be near then, I admit,” and Polly sniffed.
+
+“I didn’t mean that!” Bella cried; “Oh, you are unkind! I don’t look
+down on you and I never shall; it is with your cadging ways that I hate
+to be mixed up.”
+
+“Polly is a born cadger,” Bill said resignedly, “and we are part of her
+stock in trade. She is like a beggar-woman singing in the street and
+never asking for pennies, but always getting them. I am her hired baby
+and you are her imitation cough; she would not get on nearly so well
+without us.”
+
+“Well, at all events you reap the benefit of what I get,” Polly said.
+
+“Oh, yes,” Bill agreed readily.
+
+“And I don’t think, Bill, that you will ever despise me.” Polly’s tone
+was becoming highly moral. “It is a great comfort to me to think that
+when you leave me and marry you will never look down on or ignore me.
+It is true you will never have Bella’s temptation, but I am sure you
+would not do it.”
+
+“You are unkind!” Bella repeated. But Bill’s face had suddenly
+hardened; she was thinking of Gilchrist and Wood Hall and the county
+who were going to be compelled to recognise him and his wife,--his wife
+who would have to reform and perhaps forget.
+
+“No,” she said suddenly, almost passionately; “I will never forget you,
+Polly, never look down on you, never, no matter where I am, nor what I
+become. If I lived in a palace you should come and stay with me; if I
+married a king he should receive you and take you in to dinner, and all
+the silly courtiers should bow down to you because you were mine. You
+are an old fraud, Polly, and a cadger, and a bit of a humbug too, but I
+am fond of you all the same. We are not swells, you and I, but we will
+stand by each other, and I will never, never forget!”
+
+“That is a very nice spirit,” Polly said impressively and very much
+through her nose.
+
+“Do you think I would forget?” Bella asked rather hurt. “You seem to
+think I am a horrid creature.”
+
+“No, we don’t,” Bill answered her, “of course we don’t; we know really
+that you never would be ashamed of your grubby relations. Don’t let us
+talk any more nonsense about it.”
+
+So peace was restored, and Polly began cutting slices of the cold
+shoulder of mutton while the younger girls finished their lunch.
+
+“If you married a king,” Bella said to Bill laughing, “he might object
+to Polly walking up to the palace with a nosebag of apples sticking out
+of the middle of her mackintosh.”
+
+“Not if he had married me; he would have got used to that sort of
+thing.”
+
+Bella laughed again. “It is a good thing your Theo is not very
+particular about appearances.”
+
+“You don’t know very much about Theo,” Bill answered quietly.
+
+“I know this much,” Bella replied; “he will not let you do just as you
+like if it happens to be something he does not like and has good reason
+to think wrong.”
+
+“There may be difficulties,” Bill admitted with the glimmer of a smile,
+her war-smile which Polly knew to her cost.
+
+“Bill is very easy to manage when you understand her,” that lady said
+as she sharpened her knife. “Gilchrist will find out how to do it in
+time; at least he may.”
+
+She added the last words under her breath, neither of the others
+hearing her, for Bella was asking in astonishment: “You would never
+really oppose a man you loved, would you, Bill?”
+
+Bill debated the question for a moment looking straight before her.
+“No,” she said at last, “I suppose I should not.” Then she changed the
+subject abruptly: “What is that meat for, Polly?”
+
+“To take home with us. I am not going to leave all that good meat
+behind; there is quite enough now on the bone to look decent, and it
+would be a great pity to leave all this.”
+
+Bella did not approve of this proceeding, but Polly, untroubled by her
+objections, packed the meat up. “There,” she said, giving the parcel
+a final pat, “it will come in very nicely for our supper when we get
+home, and I am sure there is quite a lot on the joint still.”
+
+Bill examined it gravely. “There is enough for our cat here,” she said:
+“it seems a pity to leave that. Let’s take it; we haven’t time to
+scrape it off, but you might put the bone in your hat-box; it would go
+in if I broke it in half.”
+
+“Don’t be ridiculous, Bill,” Polly said with dignity, “ridiculous and
+mean. I don’t see anything to laugh at, Bella.”
+
+Apparently Bella did, but Polly never minded being laughed at, and it
+was in a friendly fashion that the three cousins started for home.
+In the main the three agreed admirably; Bella seldom opposed Polly,
+and Bill, since she had developed an opposing individuality, had been
+little with them; moreover, she was of a nature with which it was not
+easy to quarrel. Polly, however, having a respect for her ability to
+give trouble on occasions, sent her back to Theresa at Ashelton two
+days after their return to Wrugglesby. “I have got a lot of things to
+settle,” she explained to Bella, “and I can do them better without her.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+POLLY SETTLES THINGS.
+
+
+So Bill was packed off to Ashelton, and then Polly proceeded to settle
+things to her own complete satisfaction. She saw the house in Bayswater
+and settled that; she saw the parents of the few pupils remaining
+to her and settled them very completely; and then she wound up her
+connection with Wrugglesby with but few difficulties and not a single
+regret.
+
+“Well, I cannot say I ever cared for it,” she said when Bella expressed
+some natural sorrow at leaving the town which had been her home for
+nearly seven years. “I never was fitted for a pokey little place like
+this; I need a wider life.”
+
+“It may be pokey,” Bella declared with tears in her eyes, “but I like
+it, and I am sorry to leave it, and to leave the shabby old house and
+the shabby old furniture.”
+
+“We are not leaving the furniture,” Polly said quickly. “We are taking
+all we want with us, and only selling what is of no use to any of us.
+You and Theresa have each chosen what you wanted; one can’t keep all
+the rubbish.”
+
+The last was added very decidedly, for there had been some discussion
+about the furniture. Bella had fallen in quietly enough with Polly’s
+judicious arrangements, but Bill, who cherished ridiculous sentiments
+about old and cumbersome articles of furniture, had disputed Polly’s
+decision article by article, winning sometimes, losing sometimes, and
+only desisting when it was obvious that the little house at Bayswater
+could hold no more. All this had taken place during the visits she and
+Theresa occasionally paid the cousins at Wrugglesby during the time
+of the settlement. It was all over now, arranged finally some days
+ago; Polly was only afraid of reopening the question. The three were
+assembled for the last time at Langford House, Robert having driven
+Bill to Wrugglesby that afternoon to see the last of the old place
+and the old associations. There was nothing at all to be done, it
+was really nonsense for her to come, Polly said, and was not at all
+surprised that Bill did not arrive till almost dark.
+
+Robert had been delayed in starting, and when Wrugglesby was reached
+Bill would not be driven to the house, but got down from the dog-cart
+at the stables and walked, with something clinking forgotten in her
+pocket, down the familiar streets, saying a silent good-bye. It was a
+grey, gusty afternoon, the first of October. There were dead leaves
+in the quiet corners,--all the corners were quiet here--and the wind
+came now and then whirling them about her feet. It was a good wind,
+fresh and sweet for all its strength, and the girl felt she loved it;
+it was the home-wind to her, the wind of the Eastern Counties. And the
+greyness and the peace and the great sense of space and abundant room
+were home to her, the land of the Eastern Counties, not grand at all,
+but still and wide, and very, very dear.
+
+She stood a moment on the outskirts of the little town looking across
+the well remembered country. Then she turned and walked home through
+the small, ill-paved streets, past the familiar shops,--those with
+the new fronts, those with the old many-paned windows; past the
+police-station, the Georgian house with the legend _County Police_ set
+over the door; past the church with its ancient burying-ground where,
+five steps above the town, Aunt Isabel slept under the dark green grass
+and fluttering sycamore leaves; past genteel houses with small gardens
+where sunflowers lingered with hollyhocks and dahlias still unhurt by
+frost; past each familiar thing until at last, just as the lamps in the
+town were being lighted, Langford House was reached.
+
+But the cousins who received her knew nothing of Bill’s lonely walk,
+nor yet of the something which clinked in her pocket. Indeed, she
+herself did not think of the last immediately; she did not think of
+it until after Bella had made the remark on her regret at leaving
+Wrugglesby. Bill did not speak of her regret, and as for Polly, she had
+none of which to speak. “As we have got to go some time,” she said, “it
+may as well be now as later; better in fact, for though the lease is
+not up till Christmas, we could not expect to get such another chance
+of a house as the one now offered.”
+
+To which wisdom Bella assented; after all, leaving the house now did
+not concern her so very much, for in any circumstances she would have
+had to leave before the spring, as Jack insisted that they should be
+married in February. Mrs. Dawson, though she had at first objected
+to this arrangement, finally came to the conclusion that since it
+was inevitable it might as well be soon as late. Indeed after a time
+she came to accept it with so much meekness (other people called it
+pleasure) that she invited Bella to come to Greys when Polly left
+Wrugglesby and stay there till the winter set in. Therefore Bella,
+though she assented to them, cannot be said to have had a very personal
+interest in Polly’s plans.
+
+As for Bill, on this particular afternoon she said nothing even with
+regard to the furniture, except that in reply to Polly’s emphatic
+remark to the effect that they could not take all the rubbish with
+them, she said she hoped it would get a good home and be well treated.
+Polly considered such sentiments foolish in the extreme and, having
+said so, dismissed the subject from her mind and remarked: “I flatter
+myself that we have done very well on the whole.”
+
+Bella agreed, but Bill corrected. “It is not we but you who have done
+it. It was you who cadged the house in London on very low terms, you
+who first impressed Mrs. Dawson with the fact that we are a nice
+family,--oh yes, she likes Bella for herself now, but she began by
+liking you, or rather what she takes you to be. You arranged that, just
+as you arranged the contract for the repairs of this house at the end
+of the lease. You are a champion cadger, Polly, whatever else you are.”
+
+Polly was not certain whether to be pleased or offended by this
+tribute. “I think you have a great deal to thank me for,” she said
+complacently; “I am glad you appreciate it, though I object to the word
+_cadger_.”
+
+“What shall I say?” Bill asked, “If you don’t cadge things what do you
+do? Acquire them?”
+
+“Well, yes, perhaps I do,” Polly admitted; “yes, I suppose I have the
+acquisitive faculty.”
+
+“I should say you have.”
+
+“So have you,”--Polly did not like Bill’s tone. “I am sure you have it;
+people give you things and you don’t refuse them.”
+
+Bill laughed and went over to the fireplace, the something in her
+pocket clinking audibly as she moved.
+
+“What is that?” asked the inquisitive Polly.
+
+“Oh, I had forgotten.” Bill put her hand into her pocket. “It is
+something I brought to show you,” she said, and drew out first a piece
+of crumpled paper in which the articles had been wrapped and then two
+large old-fashioned shoe-buckles.
+
+“What are they?” Polly made a pounce on one.
+
+“Where did you get them?” Bella took the other from the table where
+Bill had put them. “What are they?”
+
+They gleamed in the fading light as the cousins held them, gleamed
+and shimmered with wonderful changing splendour, flashing when the
+firelight touched them and found a dozen answering tongues of flame.
+
+“Paste,” Polly said, “old paste; they must be worth a lot of money.”
+
+“Diamonds,” Bill corrected.
+
+“Diamonds? Nonsense! They might be worth as much as a hundred pounds
+apiece if they were!”
+
+“They are diamonds,” Bill persisted, “though they can’t be worth that.
+They are mine.”
+
+“Yours?” Polly almost screamed. “Diamonds--and yours? Talk about the
+acquisitive faculty!”
+
+Bill flushed. “I did not acquire them,” she said rather illogically;
+“at least, I hated to have them, and I have promised to give them
+to somebody as a wedding-present, not yet, some day, when there is a
+wedding. I will give them back,--I don’t care what you say,--you need
+not think about selling them,--they are not going to be sold.”
+
+“Don’t talk nonsense to me,” was Polly’s answer. “If they are diamonds
+they shall be sold, that is, if you have any right to them, which I am
+sure you have not. They must be paste!”
+
+Bill took the buckle out of her hand, Bella placing the fellow on the
+table beside it: “Are they really diamonds?” she asked. “How did you
+come by them, and whose were they?”
+
+Bill stood looking at them a moment as they flashed in the firelight.
+“They were Peter Harborough’s shoe-buckles,” she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+PETER HARBOROUGH’S SHOE-BUCKLES.
+
+
+Polly had no doubt done wisely in sending Bill to Ashelton while she
+herself was settling affairs at Wrugglesby. Not only was she thus freed
+from Bill’s interference, but also Bill had an opportunity for putting
+into practice her good resolutions regarding Gilchrist Harborough.
+Polly was sure she would make use of the opportunity, for Bill could
+always be relied on to keep her word. In the main she fulfilled Polly’s
+expectations; she certainly tried to do so. Theresa found her curiously
+subdued on her return to Ashelton, and found also that she herself was
+watched and sometimes imitated with an embarrassing closeness. Bill was
+trying to be a lady.
+
+She obeyed to the letter Polly’s instructions concerning Gilchrist,
+always putting on her best dress for his coming, never calling him
+Theo now, never baffling him by tantalising moods and goblin mockery
+and playful defiance. Indeed so circumspect was her behaviour that
+Gilchrist not unnaturally concluded that the lecture he had given
+her after the affair of the plums had taken effect. Of course he was
+humanly gratified to find that his words had not been wasted, but it
+is to be feared that he found Bill in her new character of lady, as
+copied from Theresa, something of a disappointment; she did not always
+compare favourably with her model.
+
+Bill did not know how her efforts impressed Gilchrist, neither did she
+greatly care, for his opinion was not her highest standard. But she was
+herself by no means satisfied, and one day, soon after her return to
+Ashelton, she took her difficulties to her friend the rector. He, by
+right of his office and reason of his experience, had been consulted
+on many points in his time, some rather peculiar ones since his
+acquaintance with Bill; but even she had never faced him with anything
+quite so unexpected as on the day when she brought him the problem of
+her own behaviour. She was examining the high shelves of his book-case
+at the time, standing on the back of an arm-chair to do so, having
+first weighted the seat with encyclopaedias.
+
+“THE DIARY OF A LADY,” she read the title of one of the books, then
+stood a moment looking at it thoughtfully. “Monseigneur,” she said,
+“you know I told you I was trying to behave better? Well, I am not
+getting on a bit.”
+
+Mr. Dane was busy with his parish accounts; as a rule the girl’s
+presence did not disturb him at all, but now he looked up, arrested by
+her tone.
+
+“What is it?” he asked, putting down his pen. “What have you been
+doing?”
+
+“Nothing; I haven’t done anything wrong and I do all the right things I
+can find to do. Theresa thinks I am much improved, but I’m not really.”
+As she reached up to replace the book, the chair tilted a little.
+“Would you mind kneeling on the seat?” she said. “The chair tips when I
+reach up. Thank you.”
+
+She jumped to the ground and drawing a chair to the writing-table faced
+the rector. “What is your notion of a lady?” she asked abruptly.
+
+Mr. Dane considered a moment, before hazarding an opinion, knowing that
+his answer would be taken literally and perhaps translated into action.
+“One,” he said at length, “who considers others, who never by word
+or deed causes unnecessary pain, who listens sympathetically, talks
+pleasantly, never says a great deal even when she feels much or knows
+more. One who does her mental and moral washing in private, but is not
+afraid to do her duty in public; who respects the secrets of others,
+the honour of her family, and her own self more than all. One who
+speaks with tact, acts with discretion, and places God before fashion
+without needlessly advertising the fact to the annoyance of the rest of
+the world.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Bill, and a long silence followed; perhaps she was
+learning the definition for her own benefit. At last she spoke again.
+“You think I could be a lady if I learned to control myself and,--and
+did not run away when I wanted to, and all those sorts of things?”
+
+Mr. Dane did think so; possibly he did not regard her as so hopeless a
+case as did Polly. Then there was another silence during which there
+came the sound of wheels on the drive at the other side of the house.
+Neither noticed it, and Bill, thinking of Polly’s lectures on her
+disreputable appearance, asked a second question. “I suppose a lady
+always wants to look right? It matters very much how she looks, how she
+is dressed?”
+
+“It matters very much for some,” the rector answered; “but others--”
+he was only a man after all, and though old not altogether wise--“with
+others,” he said, “you are so busy wondering what colour their eyes
+are that you never notice their gowns; so much perplexed as to what
+they are, Princess Puck, that you never know what they wear--”
+
+He broke off smiling as the housekeeper opened the door: “A gentleman
+to see Miss Alardy,” she announced.
+
+“Me?” Bill exclaimed.
+
+“Yes, miss; he has been to Haylands, he says, and they told him you
+were here; he’s waiting in the hall now,--young Mr. Harborough.”
+
+“Mr. Harborough?” Bill repeated rising. “Whatever can he want?”
+
+“Not Mr. Harborough from Crows’ Farm,” the housekeeper explained;
+“young Mr. Harborough from Wood Hall.”
+
+“Oh!--I’ll come and speak to him.”
+
+Ladies controlled themselves; they said nothing even when they felt
+much; they respected themselves, the honour of their family, the
+secrets of their friends. Bill was going to be a lady, and she would
+not even allow herself to feel surprised.
+
+Mr. Dane took up his pen again. Old Mr. Harborough was worse no doubt;
+he had been ill all the week, and that it was a mere question of days
+everyone knew. Probably it was a question of hours now, and for that
+reason they had summoned the heir. And for what reason had the heir
+come for Bill? If old Mr. Harborough had a fancy for seeing her again
+before he died Mr. Dane was not the man to gainsay him. Bill knew that,
+the instant he came into the hall where she stood with Kit Harborough.
+
+“Go, by all means,” was his advice, “go at once; I will explain to Mrs.
+Morton.”
+
+So Bill fetched her hat from the study where it lay on the
+encyclopaedias, and without another word drove away with Kit to Wood
+Hall. And Mr. Dane had time to finish his accounts and then explain
+matters to Theresa before lunch.
+
+Theresa was very much surprised to hear of Bill’s going, but since the
+rector approved she was quite willing to do the same. As the afternoon
+wore on and Bill did not return, she began to wonder a little what the
+girl was doing; and when in the evening Gilchrist called and Bill was
+still absent, she found the situation rather awkward. Gilchrist showed
+such an unreasonable displeasure at her absence that Theresa wished
+Mr. Dane could have explained to the impatient lover the propriety
+and justice of Bill’s going. To tell the truth, Gilchrist was both
+displeased and anxious, for he did not feel at all sure what Bill might
+be saying with regard to the Wood Hall estate. She had told him how
+she had met and warned Kit Harborough at Bymouth; and though it is
+true that she had listened with commendable humility to his natural
+explosion of anger, and at the end had assured him (with the shadow of
+contempt in her voice) that the heir had declined to take advantage
+of the warning, what guarantee was there that she might not, for some
+reason of her own, think fit to warn the old man in time to create
+unnecessary complications? Gilchrist was very uneasy indeed, not at all
+sure what Bill would do.
+
+But Kit had no doubts at all. He was perfectly sure she would say
+nothing; and, as certain of her as he was of himself, he never once
+during the drive to Gurnett reopened the question of the claim. He
+never even mentioned it when he helped her to alight at the great door,
+never spoke of it or referred to it as he led her across the echoing
+hall to the wide stairs and the rooms above.
+
+Old Harborough was dying, but dying elegantly, almost as if with a
+subtle and unconscious recollection of what was due to the traditions
+of his family. He was powerless in body but terribly alert in mind,
+keenly conscious of the situation and accepting the inevitable with the
+cynicism he had shown to so many of the happenings of his life, neither
+curious nor afraid, politely indifferent, almost politely sceptical.
+Bill, the many-sided, the sympathetic, felt something like a touch of
+admiration for this survival of a passing type. He, on his part, feeble
+as he was, still received her with something of his former mocking
+courtesy, thanked her for troubling to come to him, apologised for the
+manner of her reception, and prayed her to be seated.
+
+There was a nurse present when Bill entered the room, a tall, quiet
+woman who looked curiously at the girl. The man who had met Mr.
+Harborough with the chair that April day in the woods was also present;
+but he did not look curiously at Bill, either because he thought it
+bad manners, or else because he understood her claim to his master’s
+interest. Both of them, however, withdrew to a more distant part of the
+large room. Kit remained standing near the bed, but Mr. Harborough took
+no notice of him, only once indirectly acknowledging his presence and
+then in no pleasant manner; it was when he himself apologised to Bill
+for not handing her to a chair.
+
+“You must take the will for the deed,” he said, “since I cannot do
+it; it is clear such trifling attentions will not survive the old
+generation.”
+
+He did not look at Kit, nevertheless the lad coloured hotly. Bill
+sat down, wondering a little how the old manners would suit the
+new generation; but she did not say so and in a minute she dropped
+the thought out of her mind, turning her entire attention on Mr.
+Harborough. She did not find it difficult to talk to him, though Kit
+was a listener, even when the old man referred to her last visit and
+the offer then made she felt little embarrassment.
+
+“Are you not sorry you did not take it?” he asked her. “I’d have left
+you Wood Hall for as long as you remained a Harborough. Pity it was
+not done! It might have saved the old place; an heiress isn’t always
+the only thing or the best thing to mend a broken family.” He seemed
+almost to be speaking to himself, but he addressed her directly when he
+asked abruptly: “Are you not sorry you did not take it? By this time
+to-morrow it would all have been yours.”
+
+“I don’t want it,” she answered him vehemently. “I don’t want it; I
+would hate to have it!”
+
+“Hate to have it? Why, I thought you liked it?”
+
+“I do, so much that I would hate to have it.”
+
+A priest had come quietly into the room, but, seeing Mr. Harborough
+engaged in conversation, he went to a distant window and opened a book
+he carried. Bill recognised him at once for the same man who had read
+the mass at Ashelton Church. Mr. Harborough followed her eyes but, not
+being aware that she recognised him, thought she was only wondering as
+to the reason of his presence.
+
+“The last relic of the Catholic faith here,” he explained in his weak
+harsh voice. “I have to be dressed for the next world, the last of us
+who ever will be. Kit is not a Catholic; he is a Purist or a Deist
+or something sincere and modern. He troubles about his soul and his
+Creator like any other mental dyspeptic, and believes something on his
+own account. When I was young it was thought ill-bred to interfere with
+the concerns of the Almighty, and the minding of souls was left to
+those who were paid to do it. We were not tied down by a Sunday-school
+morality in those days, and we had the courage of our convictions.”
+
+Bill nodded. “I know,” she said.
+
+“How do you know?” he asked sharply.
+
+“By you,” she answered.
+
+“By me? What have I said to you? What do you know?”
+
+“I can’t exactly explain,” she said doubtfully; “only the world was
+different then. One can’t measure you by the people of to-day, nor the
+people of to-day by you.”
+
+He fixed her with eyes which were still keen. “How do you know that?”
+he persisted.
+
+“I don’t know; I suppose I feel it.”
+
+“You are a lenient judge,” he said almost softly, “about the most
+lenient judge I have ever had, you odd child. What an odd child! I did
+not know how odd the day I found you in the wood, the day you found God
+in the wood; you did find Him, did you not?”
+
+“Yes,” she answered simply. “He seemed very close; but then I think the
+devil was too.”
+
+“God and the devil at your right elbow and your left. A survival of
+Puritan days,--to find God in the woods now!”
+
+The tone was not wholly mocking; there was a touch of wistfulness
+in it, and Bill hearing it answered it from the depth of her own
+convictions. “Everywhere it is beautiful one feels God,” she said
+softly, “in forest and sea and sky.” She raised her eyes and met Kit’s.
+He may have been guilty of a Sunday-school morality; he certainly was
+guilty of a belief, and he betrayed its existence then to one who
+shared it.
+
+But Mr. Harborough did not know it; he was not thinking of Kit at all
+as he lay looking curiously at the girl. His lips moved once: “Shall
+see God,” he said as if to himself, then raising his voice slightly he
+asked: “Who is it that shall see God, Father Clement?”
+
+The priest turned. “‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see
+God,’” he answered drawing nearer.
+
+“The pure in heart,” Mr. Harborough repeated, “that is it; I had
+forgotten. Well, little witch, you have seen something that I, for
+all my years and experience, have not; something that I--I suppose
+because of those years and experience--cannot see. But now I must ask
+you to go; there is a heavenly toilet to be made. Go down and get some
+lunch, but come back by-and-bye. Kit must take you; I apologise for him
+beforehand.”
+
+Bill rose. “Kit does not need anyone’s apology,” she said hotly; then
+she followed the young man out of the room feeling ashamed. Kit that
+day was like the Kit of Bymouth, the Kit she had met in the lane; there
+did not seem such a gulf between them as when they parted, nor yet such
+terrible courtesy. They were boy and girl in the great house together,
+boy and girl watching together, by an odd chain of circumstances, for
+the coming of the great shadow. They went to the solemn old dining-room
+and lunched in state as Bill had once lunched with Mr. Harborough.
+During the meal Kit did not mention to his guest the subject which
+had never really been absent from his mind since she herself first
+put it there that morning on the sands at Bymouth. A little while
+back he had had some talk with a solicitor of his acquaintance, and
+without betraying a personal interest in the test-case he described,
+had learned the very serious position of the man placed as he was. But
+he did not speak of it to Bill then, although, in spite of the still
+intangible nature of it all, he felt the shadow of this man from the
+new country spread over the stately old house, filling its most secret
+corners, taking possession of its most sacred spots. And Bill, though
+he did not speak of it, knew the thought that was in her companion’s
+mind, and felt with him this haunting presence.
+
+After lunch the doctor and nurse agreed in forbidding either Kit or his
+guest to see the patient before four o’clock, saying that they should
+be summoned then unless some unexpected change made their presence
+necessary earlier. There were nearly two hours before them, two hours
+for Kit to play host in the house which might soon pass to another.
+With an effort he tried to banish the thought from his mind as he asked
+Bill to come to the library.
+
+“This is the room I like best,” he said when they stood in the great
+low room where some past Harborough had gathered a store of books.
+Mercifully the later comers, not thinking them of sufficient value to
+sell, had left them intact, even, indeed, adding a volume now and then,
+each man according to his taste, for there was no lack of intellect
+even among the wildest of them. The September sunlight slanted
+through the broad low windows where weedy sunflowers and uncut trails
+of late-blooming roses looked in on a big room, irregular in shape,
+full of angles, with bookshelves jutting out in unexpected places,
+and a silence in it which was a luxury of the brain. The light was a
+warm brown gloom cast back from book-lined shelves; the smell was the
+wonderful, indescribable smell of an old library, Russia leather, and
+oak shelves, and book-dust blended into one, a perfume never to be
+forgotten. For, as the rose on his mistress’s bosom to a lover, or the
+breath of the clover which filled the air when he pledged his vows, so
+is the smell of such a library to the man of books, and above all, to
+the man who has been reared to it, the man who has learned by common
+use and childish association to love the outside of the volumes before
+ever he could read them within.
+
+Bill felt her breast heave suddenly, and a great lump came in her
+throat. She had never been in such a library before, never to her
+knowledge smelt its sweet familiar smell, yet her breast heaved and she
+could not speak. It was absurd, of course; it was nothing to her, the
+books were not her friends, and as an alien she could claim no kinship
+with them; yet she felt for them, felt so that she could not speak. As
+for Kit, he had followed her into the room and stretched out a hand to
+set straight a book on a lower shelf, but he did not touch it; his hand
+dropped and he turned abruptly to a window, and for a long minute both
+stood silent, not regarding one another. Then Bill mastered herself
+with an effort.
+
+“What is this?” she asked, taking a book at random.
+
+It was Sir Thomas Brown’s VULGAR ERRORS, an old folio edition with
+wonderful woodcuts. Kit looked at it for a moment, though he knew it
+well enough, and then recovering himself he told her. They took the
+book to the broad window-sill and together turned its pages, looking
+at the curious pictures. After that he took down another book and then
+another; Bill was sitting on the window-sill now, the books piled
+beside her, while Kit drew a great wooden chair in front. In this way
+he showed her a Chaucer massively bound and clamped with brass, a Pope
+of 1717, a PILGRIM’S PROGRESS grotesquely illustrated,--the books he
+loved, wonderful old German prints, poets of a later date, and stout
+old sermon-writers with whose solid works he had built houses in
+childish days.
+
+So the afternoon passed with strange pleasure to both, though neither
+quite forgot the shadow that hung over the house, nor the even deeper
+shadow not only of death, that brooded over the library and in some
+unexplained way touched every book they looked at and every passage
+they read. Once Kit took down a Milton, old and shabby and unopened,
+except by himself, for many years, and began to read a passage from IL
+PENSEROSO.
+
+  “Oft on a plat of rising ground
+   I hear the far-off curfew sound,
+   Over some well watered shore,
+   Swinging slow--”
+
+He stopped abruptly; each heard the curfew as on that night, each smelt
+the scent of the wet grass in the lane. There was a pause when neither
+looked at the other; then he went on hurriedly, a little lower down the
+page:
+
+  “Some still removèd place will fit,
+   Where glowing embers through the room
+   Teach light to counterfeit a gloom--”
+
+Kit shut the book sharply and gave it up. All round him lay the heaped
+up volumes as they used to lie on the winter afternoons when he had
+built towers with the works of the divines in that same glowing gloom.
+He glanced at the wide fireplace; Bill had glanced at it before him,
+because she too had thought of it, though she had never seen it when
+the fire burned low at twilight. So they each looked, and then each
+looked at the other and neither, for all their resolutions, hid the
+thought nor pretended to hide it. Bill’s throat began to swell again. A
+volume of Hooker, balanced on the window-sill, fell with a thud to the
+floor. Kit took a long time in picking it up, and when at last he put
+it in a place of safety with Marcus Aurelius on the top, he said: “He
+would love the books.”
+
+It was perfectly unnecessary to explain who _he_ was; Bill knew and
+thought of Gilchrist’s tastes and bookshelf before she answered: “Yes,
+I think he would.” She picked up the MEDITATIONS. “He has got this,”
+she said; “his is in English, though, bound in green cloth, and cost
+one and sixpence. I believe he would like his own edition better; it is
+cheaper and clearer.”
+
+Kit silently took the imperial philosopher from the girl’s hand, as
+she got down from the window-seat and helped him to put the books back
+in their places. Neither spoke of Gilchrist again; and a little later
+someone came to fetch them to Mr. Harborough.
+
+They went up-stairs together and quietly into the old man’s room. Bill
+noticed a difference directly she entered; she needed no one to tell
+her that she had been called to say good-bye to the eccentric old man
+she had so little known.
+
+“Come here,” he said hoarsely when he saw her hesitate near the door.
+
+She came and stood close to him, Kit standing on the other side of the
+bed.
+
+“Here’s a keepsake for you,” he whispered, trying to raise his
+nerveless hand. “I give it you in the presence of witnesses,” he
+glanced at the nurse as he spoke, “so there will be no dispute
+afterwards. It is not an heirloom, and I can do with it as I like. Put
+your hand on mine, take it, here.”
+
+Bill put her hand in his as requested and the cold powerless fingers
+beneath her warm touch fumbled feebly before the two glittering buckles
+fell into her hand.
+
+“There,” he said triumphantly, “they are for you; that is, if you will
+do me the favour of accepting them.”
+
+“For me?” she said gazing half bewildered, half fascinated by the
+brilliancy of the stones.
+
+“Yes, for you,” Mr. Harborough told her. “They are yours now, the gift
+is witnessed,” he went on, for she hardly seemed to realise the fact.
+Then she stooped and kissed the hand that gave them.
+
+“They were Peter Harborough’s shoe-buckles,” he whispered, “about the
+only thing he did not lose at cards; he lost everything else even
+including--” there was a little cough for breath--“including his life.
+My father left them to me; they are my own; I can do with them as I
+like, and I like to give them to you. They are all the diamonds we have
+now and,” addressing Kit with a sudden access of spite, “no wife of
+yours can have them now.”
+
+Bill dropped the buckles as if they had burnt her; they fell with a
+clink on the counterpane and lay there, a sparkle of light. “I can’t
+take them,” she said. “I won’t have them; you--you don’t understand.”
+
+Kit leaned across and, picking them up, gently gave the buckles back to
+her. He did not speak, but there was something in his manner she could
+not resist.
+
+“That’s right,” the old man muttered as if he had not fully understood.
+“They are yours, little witch; he can’t take them; I have given them to
+you.”
+
+Bill grasped them in silence, pressing the sharp stones into her flesh.
+
+“Now good-bye,” Harborough said more clearly, “good-bye, or shall
+we say _au revoir_?” His breath failed him for a moment but he
+recovered himself and went on cynically, “I have to go through with
+this business, and being new to it I may bungle. In case I do not die
+decently I would rather not disgrace myself in the presence of a lady.”
+
+So Bill said good-bye and went out. Kit opened the door for her, and
+shutting it after her, left her standing alone outside. So she stood
+a moment, like one in a dream, the diamonds still pressed into her
+flesh; then she turned and went with slow steps down the stairs, with
+quickening steps across the hall to the open door, and so out into the
+garden where the afternoon shadows were long and the tender warmth of
+September lay over everything. She followed the terraced path awhile,
+and then, her steps still quickening, crossed the lawn where the grass
+was emerald green and the elm leaves lay scattered here and there. She
+was almost running now, quite running when she came to the shrubbery,
+running at full speed, running blindly, wildly, faster and faster
+until she reached the wood and flung herself down in the waist-deep
+bracken and sobbed as if her heart would break.
+
+It was much later when Kit found her, knowing perhaps where to look
+for her. She had told him of her first ramble in the wood; at any rate
+when all was over, he found her under the yellowing beeches half hidden
+among the ferns. She started when she heard his step beside her, and
+at first was minded to pretend she had not been crying and practise
+a belated self-control. But she did not, chiefly because he did not
+pretend; he made no pretence of anything, nor yet behaved in the manner
+expected of him and worthy of his breeding. He sat down beside her
+without speaking, whereupon she obstinately buried her face in the
+bracken and would not so much as look up though the stiff fern-stalks
+pricked her neck. She moved her head uneasily and he gently broke a
+stalk away; in doing so his hand came in contact with her hair, a
+little curl of which, having become loosened, had contrived to get wet
+with tears. The contact with it, and the recognition that it was wet
+with tears, were things Kit did not soon forget; but he drew his hand
+away and only said stupidly: “Don’t cry, please don’t cry; I didn’t
+know you cared about him like that.”
+
+“He was good to me”--Bill’s voice was muffled by the ferns--“but it
+isn’t exactly that.”
+
+He had not been good to Kit, yet Kit felt vaguely grieved and shocked
+by his death; he looked in some perplexity at the girl beside him.
+“What is it then?” he asked, but she did not answer, so he fell back on
+his first remark and entreated her not to cry any more.
+
+“I shall,” she answered without looking up. “I have not cried half
+enough yet,--there are so many things.--I haven’t nearly done.”
+
+Kit glanced rather hopelessly at the half-buried figure. “Are you going
+to cry for them in order?” he asked attempting to smile.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Nevertheless Bill, with the sunny lights coming back to her eyes, sat
+up, rustling the dead leaves as she did so. “I wonder if the wood will
+be cut down,” she said wistfully, as she glanced up at the interwoven
+branches above her.
+
+“No,” Kit told her, “for neither you nor I would allow it.”
+
+“I?”
+
+“Yes; if it is not mine it will be yours, or as good as yours.”
+
+“Mine?”
+
+“Yes; if it is Theo’s--you said you were going to marry him--it will be
+yours too, and I am glad.”
+
+“Glad! I am not.”
+
+Her voice was passionate, almost vindictive, and Kit went on quickly:
+“I am glad, and you ought to be too. You said once that, were you in my
+place, you would do anything to get Wood Hall; surely you ought not to
+mind if you have it.”
+
+“I’m not in your place,” Bill said, “and I don’t want it a bit. Do
+anything to get it! A woman can’t do anything but be married. I don’t
+want Theo to have it, and I don’t want to come here.”
+
+She buried her face in the ferns again, but now she did not cry. Kit
+broke the stiff fern-stalk into little pieces, and as he threw them
+away caught sight of the buckles shining among the ferns near the
+girl’s arm. Bill heard them clink as he picked them up, and sat up
+again, facing him now with a calm determination. “I am not going to
+have them,” she said quietly.
+
+“You must; you can’t help yourself. They were given to you, and you
+must have them,” and he dropped them into her lap.
+
+“I am not going to have them,” she repeated; “had he known, he would
+not have given them to me.”
+
+“No, because very probably they would have come to you in any case; I
+don’t know how such things go, but it is likely they would have come to
+you. At all events they are yours beyond dispute now.”
+
+“Mine, not my husband’s?”
+
+“Certainly, yours absolutely.”
+
+“Mine to do with as I like?” The sense of ownership seemed to please
+the girl. Kit wondered why a little, but he did not ask and her next
+words explained. “Then I can give them to whom I please? I shall give
+them to your wife on her wedding-day.”
+
+Bill put the rejected buckles in her pocket, but Kit said quietly:
+“That you will never do, for I shall never marry.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE COURTSHIP OF HARBOROUGH OF BYBRIDGE.
+
+
+Polly said it was quite unnecessary for Bill to go to old Mr.
+Harborough’s funeral, though the wish to do so showed a nice feeling
+on her part; and since she did wish it (and had a black dress) there
+really was no reason why she should not go, more especially as she was
+leaving for London the next day and would thus escape Miss Minchin’s
+cross-questioning. But Gilchrist had other opinions; he strongly
+disapproved of Bill’s going, seeing no reason for it and a great many
+against it. He himself had never claimed any connection with the
+Harboroughs during the old man’s life and did not intend to do so at
+his death, except through the medium of the law. He said he should
+consider it an impertinence on his own part to go to the funeral. Bill
+agreed with him as to the propriety of his staying away, but persisted
+in going herself. Gilchrist became really angry, and told her it was
+absurd to go simply because Mr. Harborough had given her the diamond
+shoe-buckles; people who did not know the circumstances might put
+another construction on her actions. Bill said she did not mind that,
+and also that the shoe-buckles were only part of her reason for going.
+
+“What other reason is there?” he asked.
+
+“I want to speak--” she began and then broke off. “Oh, I can’t tell
+you,” she said impatiently. “I don’t mind your knowing if only I had
+not the bother of explaining; as it is, I really can’t go into it. You
+say so much about things, ask so many questions, see so many motives,
+and foresee so many consequences, that I really shall be obliged to
+give up telling you. I don’t mind your knowing, and up till now I have
+told you things; but I am afraid I shall have to begin taking you in to
+save trouble.”
+
+“Do you know what you are saying?” was the beginning of Gilchrist’s not
+unnaturally severe answer: the end was less pacific. However, there was
+no quarrel between them, but he was exceedingly angry with her sayings
+then, and even more so with her doings later on, for she went to the
+funeral in spite of him. It was not easy to quarrel with Bill, as she
+did not retaliate and did not mind; but also, as Polly knew, she could
+not be moved, quietly taking her own course unless you could convince
+her it was wrong; “and Gilchrist can’t convince her,” Polly said after
+the affair of the funeral. She herself advised Bill not to go when she
+found how strong was Gilchrist’s opposition; but it did not make the
+slightest difference. Bill had promised Kit she would go, and she went.
+
+It was soon after five on the afternoon when old Mr. Harborough died
+that Kit found the girl in the wood; yet it was nearly nine when she
+reached Haylands. The intervening time was not entirely occupied in
+the drive home, nor yet in the conversation concerning the reason for
+Bill’s tears. Most of that conversation was carried on while she was
+half buried in the ferns; but there was another and a longer one when
+she faced the facts of the case in the old library. Indeed, after a
+while her position and Kit’s were to a certain extent reversed; it was
+she who comforted and planned, arraying the future in its best colours,
+he who at first declined to see hope anywhere, even though he faced
+that future with much apparent indifference.
+
+Truly, as Bill was forced to admit, the future did not look promising.
+Both from what she had learned from Gilchrist--and she had made many
+inquiries of late--and from what Kit had heard from the solicitor and
+confided to her now, she could not help seeing that the case looked bad
+against him. Even if a will existed--and Kit seemed to think that by no
+means likely--it would do little more than complicate the case without
+giving him a title to the estates, unless he could make good his
+uncle’s title first. He told her all he knew about it, and she returned
+the compliment; but they cannot be said to have advanced matters very
+much or come to any resolution. Of course, Kit was going to win the
+lawsuit,--that was a foregone conclusion--but Bill, whose universe was
+always constructed with a convenient back door for use when foregone
+conclusions failed, strongly recommended him to consider how he would
+stand if the impossible were to happen. And it must be admitted that,
+if the catastrophe really took place, he would not stand very well,
+for with Wood Hall and all it entailed gone there was not a great deal
+left; briefly, a hundred a year inherited from his mother, a liberal
+education and studious tastes which together had enabled him to take a
+good classical degree at Oxford in the previous summer, and had further
+allowed him to study modern languages and literature with rather more
+than usual thoroughness. These, besides youth and health, were the only
+passably serviceable possessions he could claim. There was a taste for
+writing poetry and an aptitude for translating Greek verse, but neither
+was any use; there were several other tastes which were no use, and yet
+others which were positively detrimental.
+
+“I am afraid you would find it awfully hard,” Bill said once. She felt
+a compassion which was almost motherly for him in his ignorance of the
+shifts and turns of the genteel poverty in which she had been reared.
+
+“No harder than other people,” he answered rather curtly.
+
+Bill knew better. A hundred a year would have been wealth to her
+and Polly; sixty between Bella and Theresa seemed almost a fortune;
+however, she did not say so, but talked of small privations instead.
+
+“You would not be able to have a clean shirt every day,” she said, and
+Kit winced at the mention of such sordid trifles. “Washing costs such
+a lot,” the girl went on; “besides it wears things out. You would not
+be able to have an evening paper if you had a morning one, and you
+certainly would not be able to have many new books; you would have to
+have your boots mended over and over again, and think what tips you
+would give the porters. Saving in big things is not so hard; it is the
+little things you would hate, filing the edges,--you have to file the
+edges when you are making money or saving it either--it would set your
+teeth on edge horribly, I’m afraid.”
+
+“Not more than it does yours,” Kit retorted.
+
+But Bill did not agree with him. “It does not hurt me,” she said; “I’m
+used to it and my people have been used to it; we have been poor long
+enough not to mind about these things. Besides, I love work; I don’t
+care much what it is; I like to do things, and I don’t care what I do.
+I am afraid, too, I am not so very refined; things that would hurt you
+don’t hurt me; I don’t believe I have got very ladylike tastes.”
+
+But Kit turned on her here: in his opinion she was the most perfect
+lady living, not even she herself should question it in his hearing;
+and for a time the conversation became personal, but eventually it
+returned to the original subject. Bill learned a good deal of Kit’s
+history that day,--of his mother, dead rather more than a year, but
+beloved and tenderly revered, as indeed she deserved to be seeing
+that he owed to her all the better part of himself,--of the quiet
+life at Bybridge, the red Queen Anne house, with the walled garden,
+the pleasant homecomings there to the widowed mother,--the student’s
+days at Oxford, the travels in continental cities, tales of times and
+sights which fired Bill’s ready imagination and set her gipsy blood
+aflame to be free to wander and to see and learn. In their interest in
+these tales both listener and narrator almost forgot the graver matters
+before them. But there were other things, memories of still earlier
+days which brought them back, the recollection of boyish days spent
+at Wood Hall, holidays when the parents were abroad and silently and
+unconsciously there grew in the young mind that love of the old place
+which is as an entail binding one generation to the next.
+
+Bill listened greedily, forgetting all about home and Gilchrist who was
+waiting for her there. At last, however, she did remember and somewhat
+hastily departed, feeling that in this talk of the past they had rather
+neglected considerations of the future. Before she went she promised
+she would come to the funeral, partly to remedy the omission of that
+evening and partly to do honour to the old man who would not have many
+real mourners.
+
+In one respect, however, Bill made something of a mistake, for
+she had that day without knowing it helped Kit Harborough for the
+future. Unconsciously she had preached to him the gospel which was so
+completely incorporated into her own nature that she did not even know
+she believed it,--the gospel of work;--the delight and satisfaction in
+work for its own sake irrespective of kind or place, just doing for
+the sake of doing, and doing now, not waiting the time and opportunity
+for a great work, but setting to at once on the nearest thing that
+offered. Not lamenting because the beautiful edifice of faith or hope
+has tottered and fallen, but taking, instead, stones from the ruin to
+build a shelter while the plans for some greater work are maturing.
+
+Bill did not think these things; she did not even know she believed
+them; only she unconsciously translated them into action, and as
+unconsciously, by her words and by her attitude of mind, preached them
+to Kit.
+
+She went to the funeral and stood respectfully on the outskirts of the
+group which gathered in the little churchyard in Wood Hall park. She
+did not attach herself to the party, feeling herself an alien, but
+Kit, who as recognised heir was chief mourner, saw her though he could
+not come to her till a good deal later in the afternoon. She had said
+she would wait for him among the beeches, and she did wait, for a
+time almost forgetting him in the exquisite perfection of the silent
+October wood. When at last he came they finished the conversation begun
+the other day, and they did not hurry over it unduly. Bill knew that
+Gilchrist and the cousins would be angry with her late return, but so
+angry that half an hour one way or the other would make no difference.
+
+Before the interrupted conversation was resumed Kit told her a piece
+of news which at first seemed of great importance to her, though
+afterwards she was obliged to agree with him in not attaching too much
+value to it. It appeared that old Mr. Harborough had made a will after
+all, and by the terms of it Kit would, were it not for the Australian,
+succeed to the property exactly as he used to anticipate.
+
+Bill clasped her hands with excitement. “Oh, I am so glad,” she said.
+
+“So am I, although I don’t think it will make much difference to the
+case.”
+
+“You don’t?”
+
+He shook his head but repeated that he was glad, and there was a few
+moments’ silence before Bill said softly: “I am so glad you did not
+speak about the will; it has happened without your speaking; you were
+right and I was wrong.”
+
+Kit did not agree with her there, thinking they had been of one mind on
+the subject of the will: but they did not discuss the point at length,
+turning instead to the consideration of Kit’s future, should the case
+be decided against him.
+
+Doubtless if this really occurred his friends and relations would find
+or do something for him but he and Bill planned, curiously though
+practically, without considering the relations at all. Bill’s plans
+seldom depended on outside help, and usually, however absurd, had the
+merit of being such that they could start working at once. She was
+rather anxious that Kit should start at once, for, as she said, if he
+could earn anything the money would be no disadvantage should the case
+go in his favour, and a decided advantage should it go against him.
+The only difficulty was, to find anything he could do in his present
+circumstances and with his modest talents.
+
+“You could teach,” Bill said doubtfully, having but a poor opinion
+of that refuge of the destitute; “with your degree you could get a
+mastership, but then I suppose your people would not like it; besides
+it would be rather awkward for other reasons. You might get some
+translating to do, as you know languages pretty well. I believe it is
+awfully hard to get, and not well paid; still it would be better than
+nothing, and if it is really so difficult to get, it would be just as
+well to see after it before the need comes; you would be ready then
+if it did come. You said it might take as long as two years to settle
+about Wood Hall? In two years you ought to be able to get a little
+translating, I should think.”
+
+Kit thought so too, and they talked over ways and means, he telling
+her sundry youthful dreams, she listening with admiring sympathy
+not untouched with practical common-sense. Eventually he did make a
+start as she suggested, and finding, as they feared, that such work
+as he could do was almost impossible to obtain, he turned, till it
+came, to one of the youthful dreams and translated some of the lesser
+known dialogues of Lucian into scholarly English. And though even his
+inexperience could not but tell him that the work, when done, would
+not be a marketable commodity, the doing of it was a great satisfaction
+to him. Later, through the good offices of a college friend, he got
+a German book on botany to translate, and very uninteresting work he
+found it. Nevertheless, because it was the first work he had ever been
+paid for, he was pleased with it, and so pleased with the small sum he
+received for it that he invested the whole in a large crystal of rough
+amethyst, remembering how rapturous Bill had been in her admiration of
+the small crystal he had shown her in the collection of such specimens
+at Wood Hall. When, however, it came to the point of sending his
+crystal to the girl his courage failed; afraid of displeasing her he
+put the amethyst away, and no one knew of its existence for a long time.
+
+But all this happened later and had no part in the conversation on
+that October afternoon. It must be admitted, however, that if the
+conversation had entirely confined itself to plans for the future, Bill
+would have reached home earlier than she did. Some chance reference
+to the shoe-buckles and the value Polly put upon them brought Peter
+Harborough to her mind, and with him the recollection of the gravestone
+at Sandover and its record of his tragic death. Who Peter Harborough
+was, and how he died, were questions which perplexed her on the Sunday
+afternoon when she saw his grave; they returned to her with redoubled
+interest now that his buckles had come into her possession; and she
+sought information of Kit.
+
+He could tell her little more than that the man was the younger brother
+of old Mr. Harborough’s grandfather, and as such should have succeeded
+to the property if death had not intervened. “He was great friends
+with the Corbys; it was at Corby Dean he was shot,” Kit concluded.
+
+“I know, but who shot him? Was it one of the Corbys, or did he do it
+himself?”
+
+“No one knows, but his brother apparently was satisfied that it was all
+right; he asked no questions, took the property, and said nothing.”
+
+Bill pondered the matter for a minute. “Which Corby was it?” she asked.
+“I mean with which one was he friendly and played cards? What relation
+was he to Roger Corby, the old Squire?”
+
+“It was Roger Corby himself,” Kit told her; “Roger, the last of them.”
+
+“Roger Corby, himself,” Bill repeated. It was curious how she seemed to
+stumble upon fragments of this man’s history. She tried vainly to piece
+out his life, but she had so little to go on. At length she said: “But
+he was not the last of them; he had a granddaughter who outlived him.”
+
+“She can hardly be counted.”
+
+“But why? I suppose she could have taken the property if there was any,
+even if she did marry and change her name.”
+
+“There was nothing to take; in fact the old squire was so much in
+debt at his death that, although they sold all that was left of the
+property, it was little more than enough to pay everything off. Of
+course there was not much to sell then; there was little about here;
+Corby Dean, the house near Bybridge, was heavily mortgaged and nearly
+tumbling down, and most of the land near Sandover and Bybridge had
+already been disposed of.”
+
+“You mean where Sandover now stands? It belongs to Mr. Briant now,
+doesn’t it? By the way, you must have been staying with him at Bymouth,
+for you were staying at the River House and that is where he lives.
+Polly found out; she always asks about the people who live in the big
+houses.”
+
+Kit said he had been staying with Mr. Briant and added: “It was the
+grandfather of that man who first had the land from Roger Corby. It was
+not worth much then, the present owner being the one who has developed
+it so tremendously; still even at that time it was a good lot for a man
+with the old squire’s income to give to his steward.”
+
+“His steward? Was Mr. Briant’s grandfather Roger Corby’s steward?”
+
+“Yes; steward or bailiff or something of the sort; at least he was at
+one time, but he left his service and went abroad, I think soon after
+Peter Harborough was shot.”
+
+Bill considered the matter a moment. “And Roger gave him the land?” she
+asked at length.
+
+“Something very like it; he granted it to him absolutely, subject
+only to some nominal rental payable if demanded, and that practically
+amounts to a gift, at least to the first owner if not to his children.”
+
+“Roger Corby must have had some reason,” Bill said with conviction.
+
+Kit agreed with her, though he could not say for certain what it may
+have been. “Briant was steward at Corby Dean when Peter Harborough was
+shot,” he said; “that may have had something to do with it. But whether
+he knew something about it and threatened to speak, or whether he did
+not know and only threatened to make a charge which Roger Corby could
+not disprove because of the secrecy of the affair I could never find
+out. Of course it is all very long ago now, and people do not seem to
+take much interest in such things as a rule.”
+
+This was said almost apologetically, as if the speaker were ashamed
+of his own interest; but he need not have apologised to Bill, who was
+herself more fascinated by these tales of the past than he was.
+
+“It was an awful lot to give,” she said at last, “but I suppose he had
+no choice. I wonder why he put in the nominal rental; has it ever been
+demanded, do you know?”
+
+“I should not think so; there has been no one to demand it. I expect
+that it was put in so that it might be possible for the Corbys
+eventually to recover the land at the end of the time for which it was
+granted. But it does not matter much now, for there are no more Corbys.”
+
+“But the granddaughter,” Bill asked, “what became of her? Did she not
+marry and have children?”
+
+“She married but had no children; I don’t think anybody knows what
+became of her.”
+
+“Did she run away?” Bill thought it just possible, considering what was
+told of her childhood, that this last of the Corbys might have run away
+if her fate demanded that solution of a difficulty.
+
+“Yes, that is it,” Kit said; “she ran away from her husband. I don’t
+know the name of the man she went with, but they say she was never
+very fond of her husband, and I should think she must have been rather
+difficult to deal with; my uncle knew her, and he always spoke as if
+she were. The man she married was younger than she, a clergyman--but
+you know him, I expect you know all this; at least you must have heard
+something of Mr. Dane’s wife?”
+
+“Mr. Dane!” Bill exclaimed, her eyes growing wide. “Was she his wife?
+His wife--and he would have loved her so! Oh, Monseigneur, poor
+Monseigneur,” and her voice took the almost tender wail of a primitive
+woman who mourns her loved ones.
+
+“Did you not know?” Kit asked, trying to remember if she had expressed
+pity for his troubles in that tone.
+
+She shook her head. “I knew he had been married,” she said, “though
+people at Ashelton usually speak as if he had not; perhaps they don’t
+know. He never speaks about his wife, so I thought she must have died
+very long ago.”
+
+“She did, or rather she left him long ago, forty years or more. I am
+surprised you did not know, though now I come to think of it, people
+about here hardly would; it did not happen here, and Mr. Dane did not
+come to Ashelton till some time afterwards. Wilhelmina Corby had not
+lived here since she was quite a young girl, and there was nothing to
+connect Mr. Dane with her in people’s minds.”
+
+“Was her name Wilhelmina? Then I wonder he puts up with me! I am
+Wilhelmina; he ought to hate me. He ought to do that for several
+things; I asked him something yesterday I would never have asked had I
+known this.”
+
+“What was it? Will you tell me?”
+
+Bill hesitated a moment before she said: “Yes, if you like. I asked him
+what he did when things went utterly wrong with his life, when”--the
+girl’s tone had taken a passionate ring as if the occasion were not
+entirely impersonal--“when he felt like Job’s wife and wanted to curse
+God and die because things were so hopelessly, incurably wrong.”
+
+“Why did you ask?”
+
+The words were uttered almost before Kit knew what he said. When they
+were once spoken, he would sooner have bitten his tongue through than
+that they should have been said.
+
+She sat silent for a long moment pulling the fern to pieces in her
+hands; when at last she did speak it was to repeat to him, with a
+curious quietness, Mr. Dane’s words to herself.
+
+“He said,” so she told him, “on such a day as you speak of I shut
+a door in my mind and went away without speaking or looking back;
+afterwards I played cricket at the school-treat, and I think I played
+as well as usual.”
+
+That was all she said; after she had spoken there was a great silence
+in the yellow wood, except when the beech-nuts fell pattering on the
+dead leaves, and the robins, the year’s grandchildren, sang shrill and
+sweet in the branches.
+
+At last she spoke again, scarcely above a whisper now: “I think I am
+going to try to do that.”
+
+Kit turned and faced her; there was a faint flush on his cheek, but his
+eyes met hers unflinchingly--“And I too,” he said; and then they walked
+on in silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+GENERAL SERVANT.
+
+
+It is an old saying, and doubtless a good one, that two is company and
+three none; yet the presence of a third person who stands somewhat
+apart from the other two is frequently a great assistance to domestic
+happiness and a great preventive of domestic friction. Polly took Bill
+to London during the first week in October and Theresa missed her at
+every turn. There was no one to play bézique with Robert in the long
+dull evenings; Theresa hated cards, and though she tried to play from a
+sense of duty her skill was so small that her efforts were a failure.
+There was no one to talk and amuse him when he came in at odd times;
+Theresa was somewhat silent by nature, and she did not seem to have
+grasped the details of his work. She could not remember the points
+of his horses or the names of his dogs; it all came natural to Bill
+who, Theresa reflected, had less on her mind and so of course might be
+expected to remember better. She missed the girl herself, too, in the
+dairy and store-room, in the house and orchard and garden. She missed
+her when the late apples fell, and when the dead leaves gathered thick
+in the garden; she missed the all-pervading sunshine of her nature,
+and she missed the regular visits Gilchrist Harborough used to pay on
+Bill’s account.
+
+Of course she had nothing but the most impersonal interest in
+Gilchrist,--no one, not even Polly had suggested otherwise, though
+Theresa flushed as she remembered what Polly had suggested--still it
+was pleasanter when he used to come. If Bill had been here he would
+have come to-night; it was one of his evenings. Robert had gone to a
+political meeting at Wrugglesby and would not be home till late, and
+Theresa sighed a little, to think of the weary number of hours before
+her. She wondered a little, over her sewing, if Gilchrist had gone too.
+
+But Gilchrist had not gone to the political meeting; he did not even
+know Robert had gone, for he came to Haylands that evening to speak
+to him, and finding he was not at home, came in to leave a message
+with Theresa. She was sincerely glad to see him, and he, to judge from
+his manner, was sincerely glad to be there again. To tell the truth
+he too missed those pleasant evenings at Haylands, the refinement and
+indescribable femininity of the house appealing to him in a way that
+surprised even himself.
+
+“One needs a woman about a place,” he reflected that evening when he
+went once more to the house and found that though Bill was gone, the
+femininity remained,--flowers, needlework, delicate womanly atmosphere,
+all as before, all as attractive. It must be admitted that he did
+not expect otherwise, for to him Bill did not suggest such things;
+she could arrange flowers as well as grow them, and she often sat at
+needlework when he saw her, sewing very strongly, very intently; yet to
+him there was something unfeminine in the very energy with which she
+did the smallest things. Theresa,--he did not think much about Theresa,
+except to decide that it was an advantage to be sure what a woman
+meant, and sometimes what she thought, advantages he did not feel he
+possessed with regard to Bill.
+
+She, it is true, had been surprisingly docile of late, but her docility
+was flat and uninteresting, and there was besides an uneasy feeling
+in Gilchrist’s mind that he did not know what lay behind. He did not
+feel that he had grasped Bill at all. He had been exceedingly angry
+on the occasion of Mr. Harborough’s funeral, and there had followed
+an interview with Bill which should have been stormy. It was not,
+however; Bill was truly sorry for having annoyed him so much, confessed
+her sins, and promised more respect for his wishes in future. She was
+honestly trying to do her duty now, and to behave in the way she ought.
+Gilchrist did not altogether believe in her repentance, which was
+perhaps not unnatural; and when she confessed herself wrong, he agreed
+with her and accepted her self-accusations as a matter of course. It is
+sometimes a pity to accept another’s self-accusations so readily; just
+it may be, but it is not always encouraging. Fortunately it mattered
+less to Bill than to most people and peace was patched up between
+them, though things were not perhaps in the most satisfactory state
+when she left for London. Had the engagement not rested on something
+more reliable than mutual affection it would hardly have been wise of
+Polly to take the girl to London, for in spite of her faults, she had a
+species of fascination for Gilchrist when she was present, and when she
+was absent there was Theresa to consider.
+
+However, about that time Gilchrist did not give much attention to
+either Theresa or Bill, for the opening of the Harborough lawsuit
+occupied most of his thoughts. It also occupied the thoughts of his
+neighbours, and was looked upon as a matter of tremendous local
+interest; Ashelton even split into factions over the question of the
+justice or injustice of the claim, of which, by the way, very little
+was generally known. Mr. Stevens was much pressed for information, or
+at least for his opinion as to the probable issue, but though he had
+no professional connection with either party he maintained a discreet
+silence. He once went so far as to say that a lot of good money would
+be wasted by two young men who could ill afford it, and that without
+knowing a great deal more than he now knew he should be sorry to bet on
+either. This discreet opinion was more moderate than those held by most
+of his neighbours.
+
+Theresa knew little more than the rest of the village on the great
+subject of the Harborough claim, for Gilchrist had not had time to
+explain it to her since the case opened, and before that time he had
+thought it wiser to keep silence even with members of Bill’s family.
+
+“Not that I minded you knowing,” he said to Theresa the night Robert
+went to the political meeting. “I had not the least objection to that,
+only I was afraid if Bill told you she would also tell Miss Hains, and
+she, you know, is perhaps not quite so discreet. I am sure she would
+not mean to betray a confidence, but she talks a good deal, and people
+who do that often say more than they intend.”
+
+In this he scarcely did Polly justice, for though she might betray a
+secret it was not by accident or through foolishness. But Theresa said
+she understood, and led him to talk of his chances of success. He was
+very cautious and would not commit himself at all, but she persisted in
+speaking as if a favourable issue were certain.
+
+“Fancy little Bill mistress of such a place as Wood Hall!” she said,
+when at last she had in her own mind brought all to a satisfactory
+conclusion. She was evidently delighted with the idea, but this
+particular side of the termination was exactly what Gilchrist did not
+fancy; however, he only replied to Theresa by saying with a smile:
+“Things have not quite reached that point yet, and I almost doubt if
+Bill expects them to do so; she hardly seems to quite realise what the
+position would be if they did.”
+
+“I expect not. She little thought when once or twice she went to see
+old Mr. Harborough that she herself might one day live at Wood Hall. It
+will take her a long time to get used to the idea; she is such a child.”
+
+That was not her worst complaint in Gilchrist’s eyes, but he only said,
+“Time will cure that.”
+
+It was just then that there came the sound of a stumble in the passage.
+Theresa started from her chair. “I did not hear Robert’s horse,” she
+exclaimed. “I--you--I’m afraid--”
+
+Gilchrist had heard that heavy stumble, that muttered oath before; he
+had reached the door as soon as she and put out his hand to open it
+first.
+
+“I am afraid Robert is not well;” she faced him unflinchingly with the
+lie. “Will you excuse me? I must go to him--good-night;” and she passed
+out leaving him alone.
+
+Bill had been right; she had found him out, and she stood between him
+and all the world, hiding his fall with her pitiful little pretence.
+And he--Gilchrist ground his teeth in impotent rage as he walked home
+through the darkness that night--what was he to receive such loyalty,
+such service!
+
+It was perhaps fortunate for Gilchrist Harborough that he had a good
+deal to think of just now; the lawsuit absorbed a large proportion
+of his time and interests, and it was just as well that it did, for,
+although it prevented him from paying much attention to Bill, it also
+prevented him from paying much to other subjects which were better
+let alone. After the evening when he saw Theresa he devoted himself
+more assiduously than ever to the matter of the suit, and so really
+absorbing did he find it that, though he was in town pretty often that
+autumn, he was not once able to spare an hour to go to Bayswater to see
+Bill. However, about the beginning of December he fancied he should be
+able to manage it, and wrote to tell her that he hoped to come.
+
+Bill and Polly had been well established now for some time, for they
+did not take long settling down, though the process had not been all
+that Polly had anticipated. If the truth must be known, her position
+now was not altogether unlike that of the old magician who, having
+raised a spirit to help him in his schemes, finds the obliging goblin
+to be of such unexpected magnitude that it proves not only embarrassing
+but likely to constitute itself master instead of servant. Polly’s
+spirit, very obliging, very hard-working and even-tempered, presented
+one serious drawback,--it would rule. It was useless for Polly to
+attempt any of the little shifts dear to her heart; Bill, who knew
+her, was equal to them all, and forestalled her in the pleasantest
+but completest way possible. Once or twice at the beginning of the
+partnership Polly threatened to turn her all too active partner out,
+but she never did it. Probably she never seriously thought of it, for
+Bill was very useful; there was no need to employ a girl with Bill in
+the house, no need to have either a boot-boy or a charwoman; no need
+for Polly herself to do more than a very moderate share of the work.
+Bill also got on well with the lodgers and with the tradespeople, and,
+when once they two had got to understand their relative positions,
+excellently well with Polly herself.
+
+Bill had altered in several ways besides in this development of the
+ruling spirit. Polly found her quieter than she used to be, on the
+whole more a woman and less a child, though she occasionally lapsed
+into her old ways. She had shut a door in her mind, and was trying
+hard to do well the thing which came next. It was easy enough when it
+was housework or cooking; she did them to the best of her ability, too
+well, in fact, according to Polly, who was no advocate for superfluous
+thoroughness. But there were other things she tried to do which were
+not easy; she was trying under somewhat adverse circumstances to be
+more of a lady, more like Theresa to please Gilchrist, more like the
+gentlewoman of Mr. Dane’s definition to please herself.
+
+On the whole the cousins lived happily and let their rooms with a fair
+amount of success. Polly’s lot was occasionally brightened by a hamper
+from Haylands, or shaded by the loss of a paying lodger or the all too
+previous departure of one who had not paid. But in the beginning of
+December when Gilchrist came to town things were not very prosperous;
+the rooms had been empty some time, the cold weather had set in early,
+and the fog, which preceded and sometimes accompanied the frost, was
+both depressing and likely to be expensive in gas. Polly economised in
+candle-ends, bemoaning her fate, and then indulged in buttered muffins
+“to cheer us up.” It was on the occasion of the muffins that Bill
+received Gilchrist’s letter.
+
+“I wonder if he is going home again the same night,” Polly speculated.
+“He had much better stay here,--there is plenty of room. I shall ask
+him; it will be more correct for me to do it than for you.”
+
+Bill did not know why it was more correct, but knowing Polly liked
+these small details she raised no objection, and in due time the
+invitation was given and accepted. Polly was much pleased, being
+genuinely hospitable and moreover very proud of her dingy little house;
+she also thought a great deal of Gilchrist since the matter of Wood
+Hall had come to her knowledge, and she prepared for his reception
+accordingly. The best bedroom was made ready, the best sitting-room
+set in order. Bill did most of that, but Polly, with an eye to effect,
+brought their work-baskets and books from the kitchen, where they were
+usually kept.
+
+“We must make it look as if we sat here always,” she said, as she put a
+reel of cotton on the mantelpiece.
+
+“Then we must bring the cat,” Bill replied, “for he always sits with
+us. But it is rather nonsense; why should not Gilchrist know we live
+in the kitchen? He knows that somebody must do the work, and he won’t
+think the worse of us for doing it.”
+
+But Polly thought otherwise. “It was different when he was only a
+working farmer,” she said. “Now, since all this about Wood Hall has
+happened, he won’t look at it in quite the same way.”
+
+“I don’t see any reason for pretending, when he knows that we work.”
+
+“He knows it in a general way, but it is one thing to know it and quite
+another to see it being done.”
+
+With which incontestable opinion Polly closed her remarks and carried
+her point, and when Gilchrist came soon after six o’clock the best
+sitting-room looked as snug as though it were the family’s habitual
+living-room. Bill had on her best frock and her best manners, and
+everything was as pleasant as possible. Polly was delighted; she had
+been a little afraid that Gilchrist, in his position of claimant to
+the Wood Hall estate, might wish to make a more advantageous marriage
+than the one in prospect. She was very much afraid that he might
+use the private and not very binding nature of the engagement as an
+excuse to repudiate it, or to induce Bill to release him. But on that
+December evening she was perfectly satisfied, he and Bill evidently
+understanding one another, and Bill was behaving beautifully; she was
+so gentle and submissive, she might almost have been anybody.
+
+Polly, in spite of her low financial ebb, had prepared what she called
+a “tasty supper” in honour of the guest. It was not altogether unlike
+her millinery--an ingenious “do-up” finished off with a few new
+trimmings, but it was undeniably successful. She was very gratified
+by its success and by things in general, and it was with a cheerful
+countenance that she withdrew after the meal.
+
+“I know you must have a lot to talk about,” she said, beaming upon the
+other two; “and as I have some letters to write, I think I will go and
+do them down-stairs.”
+
+So she went, though the letters resolved themselves into the
+supper-things which she washed, while up-stairs Gilchrist told Bill
+all about Wood Hall and the progress of the case, which was not rapid,
+and his opinion of the rival claimant, which was not enthusiastic. Bill
+listened and answered as sympathetically as she could, though it is
+possible she would rather have been washing dishes in the kitchen.
+Still she did her share in the conversation admirably, and when they
+spoke of things other than those concerning Wood Hall she was really
+splendid in her efforts to be like Theresa. Nevertheless Gilchrist did
+not commend her improvement; perhaps he was not satisfied with it, nor
+with the submissive girl, who was trying so hard to please him.
+
+Bill felt the failure when she went to bed that night. “I expect it did
+not ring true,” she thought; “I must try to feel like Theresa as well
+as behave like her. I’ll do it in time; I believe I could be anything
+if I tried long enough.” And so she fell asleep, resolutely trying to
+school herself to what she conceived to be Theresa’s attitude of mind.
+She woke next morning with the same thought uppermost and continued her
+practice of what she called “Theresaing” her mind while she cleaned the
+guest’s boots in the basement.
+
+At breakfast that morning Gilchrist said he should not leave for
+Wrugglesby until the six o’clock train. Bill felt a pleasurable
+expectancy; perhaps he would suggest that they two should go for a walk
+somewhere; she knew where they would go, the British Museum was free to
+all comers and they would go there and look at all the mummies. There
+was so little work to do now, Polly would not mind, and it would be
+very nice.
+
+Gilchrist said he had business which would occupy him during the
+morning. That was natural, but the afternoon--Polly supposed, with
+an affable smile, that he “would want her to spare Bill part of the
+afternoon.” But Gilchrist, looking out of the window, said it did not
+promise to be a very nice day, adding that he probably would not be
+back before four, when it would be quite dark.
+
+“Just as if it is not possible to go out after dark and enjoy it too!”
+Polly observed indignantly later on in the day. The cousins were
+clearing up after their mid-day dinner and Polly slammed the plates
+into the rack in a dangerous manner as she spoke, her disgust with
+Gilchrist having been simmering all the morning.
+
+But Bill hardly glanced round. “I don’t care,” she said indifferently;
+“I did not want to go so very much.”
+
+“Oh, I dare say!” Polly snorted indignantly. “He ought to have taken
+you all the same; I don’t think it is at all nice behaviour on his
+part. He has not brought you a present or anything, in spite of all his
+fuss about Wood Hall.”
+
+“I don’t want presents. He is no richer than he was, and he has no time
+to think of it, and--and--I don’t want things.”
+
+Bill’s face was rosy and her tone hurt, but Polly went on volubly:
+“Look at Jack Dawson; besides a lovely engagement-ring (which you have
+not got through Theresa’s nonsense) he has given Bella--”
+
+“I tell you, Polly, I don’t want presents; I won’t have you say any
+more about it!”
+
+“Oh, well, of course I can quite understand you don’t like to have it
+mentioned, but I must say I don’t think it is at all nice of him. You
+haven’t cost him much, in fact nothing at all; I suppose he thought,
+as he could have you for the asking, he need not trouble, but it isn’t
+very flattering. I do think he might have taken you out--might have
+taken us both out--after all the trouble we have had too, that lovely
+supper last night, and fried bacon for breakfast this morning, and all.”
+
+Bill laughed. “A truly commercial mind!” she said. “But perhaps
+Gilchrist will leave a tip for our invisible servant; if so, you could
+take that in payment for the supper.”
+
+But Polly was much annoyed with the guest, more than was just, for he
+was really too busy to think of anything at present, and he certainly
+had not intended to slight or wound either of the cousins. Nevertheless
+he had wounded Polly’s pride; as for Bill, no one knew what she
+thought, for which reason, if for no other, Polly reflected that she
+had done very foolishly to speak as she had done. She was herself
+dressing to go out now because she “felt so upset that she could not
+stay in.” While she dressed she came to the conclusion that she had
+been most indiscreet, for if it were true that Gilchrist had been
+neglectful it was her place to pour balm on Bill’s wounds, not to point
+out Gilchrist’s misdemeanours. She had certainly been foolish, and
+accordingly, before going out, she went to the kitchen and apologised
+for what she had said.
+
+“I didn’t mean anything,” she explained. “I was annoyed by that butcher
+sending in his bill as he did, and I was put out and cross altogether.
+Of course I would not say a word against Gilchrist. You know what a lot
+I think of him; he’s worth twenty of Jack Dawson; nobody would expect
+him to waste his money on silly presents.”
+
+Bill said it was “all right,” and Polly went out leaving her young
+cousin cleaning the kitchen-hearth. And possibly it would have been all
+right but for what followed. Bill had not thought of receiving presents
+from Gilchrist, nor yet of going out with him; she did not expect
+either, and though she was disappointed about the mummies, she did not
+regard his actions as an index of his affections.
+
+It was when she had almost finished the hearth that there came a ring
+at the front door. It was not much after three yet, and Polly had said
+she would be home at half-past so as to be ready by the time Gilchrist
+returned at four. Bill came to the conclusion that it must be the
+baker who rang, and since the summons sounded peremptory, she went
+up-stairs without waiting to take off the sacking apron she had put
+on for cleaning the hearth. She wore her oldest frock, which she had
+put on as soon as their visitor went out; it was short as well as old,
+and her disreputable shoes showed well below it. It was not wonderful
+that Gilchrist looked at her blankly for a moment when she opened the
+door to him and his friend Ferguson. Only for a moment he looked, and
+then Bill, withdrawing herself behind the door after the manner of
+maids-of-all-work, spoke: “Miss ’Ains is out,” she said; “but walk in,
+won’t yer, sir?”
+
+Gilchrist walked in, half paused, and then went on without speaking.
+It was impossible to present her to Ferguson as his future wife, more
+especially impossible in the light of her stupidly unrecognising look;
+she herself made the introduction impossible by the very perfection
+with which she had assumed her part. So the introduction was not made,
+and the two men went up to the sitting-room to examine a document
+Gilchrist had left there, while Bill, with a clatter of ill-shod feet,
+went back to the kitchen.
+
+By-and-bye the street door was closed, and soon after, the work being
+done, Bill went up-stairs to change her dress. She thought Gilchrist
+had gone out with his friend, but she was mistaken. As she passed the
+half-open door of the sitting-room she saw him standing before the
+fireplace, where, for economy’s sake, the fire had been allowed to go
+out after he had left that morning. Bill paused: Polly had told her to
+re-light the fire before half-past three. It must be done; moreover,
+she in her own character never hesitated about going through with any
+difficulty into which she might have blundered; in the character of
+Theresa it was impossible to know how to act, for Theresa never got
+into these difficulties. Consequently the character of Theresa was
+forgotten, and it was the original Bill who walked into the room with
+genuine regret for what had occurred, but not entirely without a little
+amusement too.
+
+“I’ll light the fire,” she said, turning back the hearth-rug before
+she knelt down and beginning to arrange paper in the grate. “I am very
+sorry, Gilchrist,” she went on penitently as she glanced up at the
+young man’s gloomy face. “I never expected you back so early; I thought
+it was the baker.”
+
+“Are you in the habit of going to the baker like that?”
+
+“Oh, yes, sometimes, if I am in a hurry or he is. I thought the ring
+sounded like a hurry. I really am sorry, but Mr. Ferguson didn’t know
+me, so there’s not much harm done.”
+
+“I think there is a great deal of harm done.” Gilchrist’s face did not
+relax. “Don’t trouble about the fire just now, I want to talk to you.
+Tell me, is it necessary for you to get in this condition?”
+
+Bill obediently left laying the fire and answered apologetically: “I am
+afraid I am a dirty worker.”
+
+“But surely it is hardly necessary to do this work. What have you been
+doing? What do you do?”
+
+“I was cleaning the kitchen-stove when you rang,” Bill answered meekly,
+though something in the masterfulness of his tone was rousing the old
+Bill whom it was not easy to drive. “Perhaps,” she went on with a spark
+of fun in her eyes, “it was hardly necessary to do the stove, but I
+don’t know; it is a point open to discussion; the same with the knives
+which I have cleaned since; but your boots, which I did earlier in the
+day, really were necessary, don’t you think so?”
+
+“Did you clean my boots?”
+
+“I cleaned your honour’s noble boots,” and she swept him a courtesy and
+then looked up with a dawning smile.
+
+But he did not smile. “You ought not to have done it,” he said.
+
+“Why? I did not mind.”
+
+“I mind.”
+
+Yet his tone somehow told her that he minded because she was his future
+wife and the possible mistress of Wood Hall, rather than because she
+was herself.
+
+“I told you I should be a general servant,” she said. “Do you remember
+that night we went to the Dawsons and Miss Dawson was so contemptuous?”
+and she set her mobile face into Miss Dawson’s supercilious stare. But
+Gilchrist did not seem pleased by the recollection, and the imp in Bill
+getting the upper hand, she went on somewhat recklessly. “Well, I am
+a general servant now, though not a very good one. What a queer little
+slavey you’ve got here, Harborough,” and her change of tone made the
+man start, and for a moment almost think Ferguson was back. “Who the
+devil is she? I believe I know her face--by Jove, she’s like the plum
+girl I met near your place last summer. But I don’t think Gilchrist
+told her name.”
+
+“No”--his tone was cold with suppressed anger--“I did not tell your
+name; I was not exactly proud of my future wife.”
+
+The smile died out of her face. “I am very sorry,” she said penitently,
+and the penitence was genuine, but Gilchrist was not mollified.
+
+“You do not show it,” he said; “mimicking my friends and making fun
+of what you have done hardly suggests regret. I think under the
+circumstances it would be as well if we said no more about it. Perhaps
+you had better go and change your dress; talking will not make matters
+any better.”
+
+She began to move towards the door humbled by his words, but half
+turned before she opened it. “Are matters very bad?” she asked
+wistfully.
+
+“Can you think them very good? Do you think your life, or ways, or,--or
+anything at all fitting to the position you may have to occupy? I don’t
+mean to blame you, but things do not promise to be quite the same as
+they were, and I wish you would try to remember the difference.”
+
+She turned fully now, and unconsciously both tone and manner had
+changed, becoming quiet and firm. “You mean,” she said, “that what was
+fitting for your wife when you were only Harborough of Crows’ Farm is
+not fitting now? You are quite right; I agree with you.”
+
+“Then I wish you would act upon it.”
+
+“I cannot, the unfitness goes too deep, for it is I myself who was fit
+to be your wife then but am not now.”
+
+“Bill! What nonsense is this? I am no different from what I was: the
+case is not decided, may never be decided in my favour; and if it were
+it would make no difference. I have never suggested such a thing and I
+never meant it.”
+
+“You did not say it, but I do; it is true. Listen a minute--I have
+tried to be ladylike, as I thought you would wish me to be, and
+sometimes I think I succeed a little,--this afternoon doesn’t count, it
+was an accident--but my ladylikeness, even if it were more successful,
+is not what is wanted. It is I, my real self, who am unfit to be your
+wife under the present circumstances.”
+
+“I don’t know what right you have to say such a thing; I suppose you
+are angry because of what I said this afternoon.” If she were angry the
+young man could not help thinking she had a strange way of showing it,
+for her whole manner suggested clear-sighted calmness; the excitement
+was his. “I own I spoke sharply,” he went on, “and I am sorry for it,
+but I was annoyed.”
+
+“You had a right to be,” she told him; “I deserved it and I am not
+angry at all. It is not what you said just now that makes me say this,
+it is the whole thing; I cannot help seeing I am not fit for you now.”
+
+“Yes, you are; the position has not altered, and if it did you are as
+fit for the new as the old if you choose to be.”
+
+But the girl shook her head. “No,” she said, “I am not. I was fit for
+Crows’ Farm; that life would have drawn out a good side of me, just as
+it drew out a side of you which wanted me. Wood Hall acts differently.
+Oh, I know you have not got it yet, may never have it; but the fact
+that you have claimed it, that you have a close acknowledged connection
+with the other Harboroughs has altered your position, has altered you
+and your ideas. No matter what happens now you cannot be only the
+working farmer of Crows’ Farm who wants a working wife.”
+
+“You mean to say you believe I don’t think you good enough?”
+
+“No, oh no; it is not that exactly; I think it is that we don’t fit
+now.”
+
+“Do you want to fit?” Gilchrist eyed her sternly as he asked the
+question.
+
+“I did want to,” she told him. “I tried hard to be what you would like
+while I thought you wanted to marry me--”
+
+“You think I don’t want to marry you now?”
+
+“Yes,” she answered simply, and her school companions Carrie and Alice
+would have told her that she had not yet acquired a sense of decency,
+for she certainly did not know how to mince matters. “You did want
+to marry me,” she said, “and I would have married you; but the new
+position makes you and your wants different and would make me different
+too. The whole thing had better end.”
+
+“In plain terms, you won’t marry me now?”
+
+“Yes, I will,” she said meeting his eyes bravely. “I will marry you if
+you can truthfully say you still wish it.”
+
+He hesitated a moment. “Of course I do,” he answered.
+
+But that was not what Bill meant and she said so.
+
+“You don’t believe me?” he said rather stiffly. “You must please
+yourself about that, but if you wish to be free of course you can be;
+our engagement was on those terms; you are not bound.”
+
+“I am bound by my own word,” she answered; “so long as you want me I am
+bound. But you don’t really want me. Look at me; am I suited to be your
+wife? Tell me--you know me now--do you wish it?”
+
+She stood at the end of the room, the murky light of the winter dusk
+falling upon her, intensifying not concealing the faults in her dress,
+her shoes, her sacking apron. A small, odd, shabby figure she looked
+in that cheerless little parlour with its empty grate, small and odd,
+not alluring at all in the gloom. The man saw each detail, and seeing,
+wondered how she had ever bewitched him.
+
+He could not but look at her, and as he looked he moved slightly. “You
+are talking nonsense,” he said, turning to the empty grate; “to-morrow
+you will think better of all this.”
+
+He glanced at her as he ceased speaking, but it was too late. He should
+have met her eyes before if he wished to convince her.
+
+“Thank you,” she said simply; “now you have told me.”
+
+“I--told you?”
+
+“Yes; you need not mind, you did it quite honourably. Don’t mind. See
+here, I will square it with Polly and Theresa; it will be better so;
+they will only think I have changed my mind. Theresa will be sorry and
+Polly angry, but they won’t say anything to you; they won’t know about
+you: they will think it is all me.”
+
+“Do you mean to tell me you consider our engagement at an end and you
+will tell your cousins so?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You shall do no such thing!”
+
+“I shall tell Polly to-day; she is not in yet, but she will be soon. I
+shall tell her as soon as she comes.”
+
+“Then you do it against my will.”
+
+“Yes,”--Bill spoke doubtfully--“telling is against the grain I dare
+say, but the breaking off is not. It is no good, Theo; don’t let us
+pretend any more. I know you would have honourably gone through with it
+because you gave your word, and I would have honourably done the same
+because I gave mine and believed you wished it; and we should have both
+done what we could to make the best of it afterwards. But all through
+me getting so grubby this afternoon I have found out the truth, and you
+are freed from your word, and it is all over; so let us say so, and be
+friends.”
+
+Five minutes later Polly found the street door ajar and entered the
+house mentally abusing Bill’s carelessness. She went up-stairs and
+seeing the sitting-room door open, she looked into the room. Neither
+fire nor gas was lighted; in the cold twilight she saw the small figure
+by the window.
+
+“Bill,” she exclaimed, “not dressed yet! And the fire not laid, nothing
+done and Gilchrist will be here directly. This is nice!”
+
+“Gilchrist is not coming; he has gone away altogether.”
+
+“Not coming! Not coming back, do you mean? And I have bought two lovely
+tea-cakes and half-a-pound of fresh butter!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+AN OLD WOUND.
+
+
+“Do come here for Christmas,” wrote Bella to Bill from Haylands about
+the middle of December. “You must come, if it is only for a week. It is
+nonsense for Polly to say she can’t spare you; she simply must. Theresa
+thinks that it will do you good. She won’t believe what Polly says
+about the way in which you have taken this breaking off with Gilchrist;
+she thinks you must be upset, and that to come here might do you good.
+I enclose a postal order for six shillings for the fare. Polly is sure
+to say you can’t afford it; Theresa and I can, and we want you to come.”
+
+And in spite of Polly’s protestations and objections Bill went. Polly
+could not go; she had one lodger now and could not shut the house up.
+But seeing that he was only one, and one who did not require much
+waiting on, and seeing also that Bella and Theresa had paid Bill’s
+fare, there was no reason why she should not go. So Bill went to
+Wrugglesby, and Bella and Theresa, who had driven from Ashelton for
+some shopping, met her and brought her home.
+
+Bella was glad Bill was coming, although, she reflected, if the girl
+was really as disturbed as Theresa imagined about her broken engagement
+she would be but poor company and not much relief from the dulness of
+Haylands. For some reason or other it had been dull there that autumn,
+at least on the days when Jack did not come. Theresa, who had always
+been quiet, was more quiet than ever now; she seemed to have aged
+during the past months, or else Bella, used to associating with the
+livelier if more unprincipled Polly, thought so. “Marriage does alter
+people,” thought Bella, and fell to speculating about herself and Jack.
+There really was very little to think about at Haylands, very little
+to talk about in all Ashelton. Even Miss Minchin, at the fortnightly
+working-parties, had nothing fresh to say, and so went untiringly over
+the nine days’ wonder of Gilchrist Harborough’s claim to Wood Hall.
+
+Miss Minchin might not be tired of that, but Bella was, and by the
+beginning of December she had heard quite enough of that and most
+other subjects of Ashelton conversation. But about that time she
+and Theresa found a fresh subject in the letter Bill wrote to them
+after Gilchrist’s visit to London. She wrote by one post, and by the
+next Polly wrote a good two ounces of lamentation, indignation, and
+abuse, the last both of Theresa and her “ridiculous secrecy,” and
+also, in a far larger degree, of Bill and her obstinacy. Theresa was
+much perplexed; neither she nor Bella could understand how it had
+come about; there was no explanation, except that Bill had availed
+herself of their permission to change her mind, and that somehow seemed
+unlikely. Bella was inclined to blame Gilchrist, and cited several
+instances when his devotion had fallen short of Jack’s. Theresa, on
+the other hand, was for putting the change down to girlish caprice.
+She made a point of talking to Gilchrist on the subject, but without
+enlightening herself to any great extent. “Of course I could not
+cross-question him,” she wrote to Polly, and was naturally not aware of
+that lady’s wrathful exclamation,--“I know I could then!”
+
+Although Theresa did not hear this, or any other of Polly’s remarks,
+she could guess their nature, and her invitation to Bill was given
+partly with a view of saving the girl from the ceaseless bombardment
+of the elder cousin’s wrath. As it happened, however, Polly was
+comparatively merciful in her indignation; she knew when words were a
+waste of breath, and understood with some precision when she could,
+and when she could not, move her partner. Consequently Bill was let
+off easily, and for that, or for some other reason, she did not seem
+at all unhappy when she stepped out on the platform at Wrugglesby
+station. The sisters, who met her, recognised the fact at once, and
+Bella at least was glad of it as she helped to carry Polly’s hat-box
+to the pony-carriage. Bill talked a good deal on the homeward way,
+seeming anything but depressed. Once when they were clear of the town
+she looked round and said softly: “How beautiful it is! How very, very
+beautiful it is out here!”
+
+Bella thought the girl must be expressing her delight at leaving
+London and all her troubles behind her. She could see no beauty in the
+landscape,--bare fields spread wide beneath the winter sky; gaunt,
+black-limbed elms and leafless hedgerows where the twilight crept
+mysteriously; a pale flare of sunset breaking through the ashen clouds
+to make the level land luminous and show near objects with a wonderful
+distinctness; stacks and barns and low-roofed cottages whence the
+smoke in thin spirals went straightly up into the evening air.
+
+Robert came out to meet the pony-carriage with quite a cheerful smile
+of welcome.
+
+“Here, brother-in-law Laziness,” Bill said, filling his arms with
+Theresa’s parcels; “take some more, you can have these. I’ve got the
+sugar, T.”
+
+And they went indoors, Robert’s setter slobbering over Bill,--she
+never had a dress that could be hurt by a dog’s caress--and sheepishly
+following them into the forbidden precincts of the house.
+
+“You are jolly cold, I expect,” Robert said as he poked the fire into a
+blaze. “Get your boots off and warm your feet. Where are your slippers?
+In this thing? Is this the key tied on outside?”
+
+Bill said it was; in her opinion to tie its key to the handle of an
+article was a sure way of having the key when you wanted it. Robert
+unfastened the box and rummaged over the contents with clumsy hands
+till he found the shoes; afterwards he put the things back anyhow, so
+that the box had to be carried up-stairs with the lid open.
+
+How they talked that evening! Bella and Robert, even Theresa as well as
+Bill. Bill wanted to know everything, about the horses and dogs, the
+cows and pigs; what that stack had yielded when it was threshed, how
+the potatoes were keeping, why the long meadow was ploughed. She wanted
+to know all about everybody in the place, how they were and what new
+clothes they had; she wanted to know when Jack came last and when he
+was coming next, what quantity of butter Theresa was getting now, and
+the pattern of the lace Bella had bought for her petticoats.
+
+Somehow or other the commonplaces of life, the veriest trivialities
+assumed a vivid interest with Bill; the life which had seemed rather
+dull in the living became full of humour and incident when told to her.
+Her own life in London, when she told them about it, seemed almost
+fascinating. Bella found herself wishing that she had insisted on
+joining the lodging-venture; she did not realise that the life, like
+the flat wintry landscape, required to be looked at through the lens of
+a particular kind of mind to assume the aspect it did for Bill.
+
+One could not help being conscious of Bill’s presence in the house. By
+the next afternoon Theresa was beginning to be aware of the difference
+she made. Bill had been in the attic that morning and looked over the
+nuts and apples that she herself had put there; she had brought down
+the rotten ones and brought down also the rose-leaves, put away to dry
+and forgotten. She had been round the barns and stables and out into
+the frozen garden, round the orchard to look for broken branches and
+dead wood for burning, into the icy dairy to help Jessie and hear about
+her love-affairs.
+
+“It’s like openin’ the winders on a summer mornin’,” Jessie said, when
+just before dinner Bill passed the kitchen-door with some Christmas
+roses she had found in a sheltered corner of the garden. She had gone
+to the pantry to arrange them in a glass, singing as she did so.
+Strangely enough she had not sung or whistled since that September
+morning at Bymouth when she mimicked the birds while Kit Harborough
+wrung out her wet bathing-dress. But she did not know this, neither
+did Jessie, though she heard the singing appreciatively now. Still, it
+was not that which caused her remark when Bill, now quiet, passed the
+kitchen-door.
+
+“It do freshen the house up wonderfully to have you here again, miss;
+it’s for all the world like openin’ the winders on a sunny mornin’.”
+
+But Bill scarcely understood the allusion any more than Theresa did the
+fact. Theresa certainly did not understand; she was glad to have the
+girl back again, but she felt that she was more incomprehensible than
+ever. Her whole attitude towards Gilchrist and the broken engagement
+was extraordinary to Theresa. She questioned Bill of course, and
+learned practically nothing, though her questions were answered freely
+enough. Bill was glad when the questioning was over; she was very tired
+of the subject and she wanted to hear about Bella’s _trousseau_; also
+she wanted to go and see Mr. Dane.
+
+Mr. Dane knew nothing about the engagement; there was no reason now
+why Bill should tell him, yet that afternoon, as she knelt on his
+hearth-rug in the twilight, she suddenly determined to do so and to
+ask his opinion on her own course of action. It was after one of those
+pleasant, companionable silences which often fell between them that she
+approached the subject, entirely without introduction, as was her way.
+“Monseigneur,” she said abruptly, “do you think it is ever right to
+break a promise,--a promise to marry someone, I mean?”
+
+“To marry someone?” Mr. Dane repeated, and though his tone was only
+surprised there was a gravity in his manner as if he feared trouble in
+the near future. “Yes,” he said after a moment’s consideration, “in
+some circumstances I do think it right to break such a promise.”
+
+“What circumstances?”
+
+“If the person giving the promise finds out afterwards that he or she
+does not love the one to whom it is given.”
+
+“If one of the two finds that out?” Bill said in surprise. “You do not
+really think that is enough? You would not break a promise for that,
+you would not think it honourable; it would not be either--neither
+honourable nor right.”
+
+“It would not be right for some people,” Mr. Dane admitted; “but for
+others--” he broke off abruptly, and after a pause turned to her with
+an almost terrible earnestness. “Child,” he said, “do not think I am
+trifling with right and wrong; indeed I am not. Yet still I say that,
+though it might not be honourable for some to break such a promise, for
+you it would not be a question of honour or dishonour but of absolute
+necessity.”
+
+“I did not think so.”
+
+“You?” he exclaimed with an excitement which astonished her; “you did
+not think so?”
+
+“No,” she said, “I did not. I promised to marry Gilchrist Harborough,
+but I did not love him.”
+
+“Then, in God’s name, do not marry him! You don’t know what you are
+doing. Do you think it worse to break your promise and dishonour your
+word, or to break a man’s heart and dishonour him, yourself, and God’s
+law, all that is most holy and most binding on earth?”
+
+And then Bill realised what she had done, and how her words had wounded
+her friend. Had he not married a woman who did not love? Had he not
+suffered to the full the uttermost bitterness of which he spoke? As
+she realised how she had reopened the tragedy of his life the girl
+was struck dumb with remorse, too grieved for the moment to think of
+explaining the circumstances of her own affairs.
+
+But Mr. Dane did not know the reason of her silence, and he went on,
+his face drawn and stern. “You do not know your own history nor the
+danger which may threaten you. I do; and knowing, I say you must not,
+cannot marry a man you do not truly love. It is a mockery to pray ‘lead
+us not into temptation’ and then to put yourself in temptation’s way.
+There is a passion which is stronger than you; it may sleep now but it
+will not always sleep, believe me, it will not always sleep. Listen
+now: first concerning your mother. You did not know her, neither did I,
+but you yourself told me she married in defiance of her parents; she
+loved the man and counted them well lost for him. And he,--he loved
+her, bewitched her, desired her,--she had no will but to go,--I know
+how it was done.”
+
+“You knew my father!”
+
+“No, I knew his father. I saw the spell at work; I know the will of
+those Alardys and the power of their love; I have good reason to know.
+Your grandmother, the first Wilhelmina, I knew her too. She was another
+man’s wife; she married him though she did not love him; she thought it
+was safe; she did not know--then came this other--”
+
+He stopped abruptly. He was pacing the far side of the room with
+the restlessness almost of a young man; he stood in the shadow now,
+but she sat regarding him wide-eyed, something almost of horror in
+her face. That he should tear open these old wounds for her, his
+wife’s grandchild, Wilhelmina’s grandchild! Wilhelmina! Yes, she knew
+now, the links in the chain were joined and she knew, although she
+murmured,--“My grandmother, Wilhelmina Corby?”
+
+“Yes,” he said, and then he came into the firelight and his face was
+very pitiful. “Child, child,” he said sadly, “there are passions of
+which you know nothing; pray God you never may!”
+
+The girl’s eyes suddenly filled with tears: “Do you not hate me?” she
+whispered.
+
+But he did not hate her. The blessed years which had taught him not to
+hate, taught him to be merciful as well as just. “No, Princess Puck,”
+he said, smiling gently, “I do not think I hate you.”
+
+She crept dog-like to his side of the fire. “Shall I tell you
+something,” he said, reaching a hand down to touch her hair, “something
+which I do not count the least of my blessings this year?--God’s
+goodness in sending to me, whom He has denied wife or child, a little
+brown elf for a granddaughter.”
+
+Bill could not speak. She only mutely pressed against his chair, and
+for a long time they sat silent while he softly stroked her hair and
+the ashes fell quietly on the hearth. At last the old man spoke again;
+he had been thinking of the girl’s half-made confidence and it troubled
+him greatly. “This promise of which you spoke,” he said,--“is it to be
+kept or broken?”
+
+Bill started like one awakening. “Broken,” she said, “I have broken
+it”; and she told him the whole story, always, of course, excepting
+that which was said, or rather was not said, when she and Kit
+Harborough met under the beeches on a day when a dream proved to be a
+dream no longer. But perhaps Mr. Dane discovered a little of that for
+himself, for when he said good-bye to her that night he realised that
+his Princess Puck was a child no more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK.
+
+
+It was towards the end of January that Bella came to town to finish
+buying her _trousseau_. A _trousseau_ is a really momentous affair,
+and Bella, feeling that the shops at Wrugglesby were not equal to the
+occasion, came to Bayswater, where Polly gave her limitless advice and
+all the help in her power. Polly really enjoyed Bella’s visit, and
+Bill, who knew Polly’s weakness, did all the housework so that the
+elder cousin should be free to go shopping or help with the needlework
+according as opportunity offered. During the time Bella was in London
+it seemed to Bill that they thought of, talked of, and considered very
+little beyond clothes, except perhaps once or twice in the evenings
+when Bella told them a little about Ashelton. Such conversations did
+not interest Polly, but as Bill liked them Bella talked to her. Once
+indeed Polly showed some interest, when Bella spoke of the change in
+Theresa and Robert.
+
+“They both have altered a good deal,” she concluded,--“especially
+Robert. You saw him at Christmas, Bill; don’t you think he is changing?”
+
+“Not changing exactly,” Bill said, “he is,--I think he is developing,
+growing to what you would expect. Some kinds of people are bound to
+grow in particular kinds of ways; they can hardly help themselves.”
+
+“I don’t like Robert’s kind of way, then. I think he has changed a good
+deal, and for the worse; so would you if you had stayed at Haylands as
+long as I have.”
+
+Bill did not explain that what Bella called “a change for the worse”
+and she “a natural growing” were one and the same thing; she did not
+say anything about it, though she felt a good deal, and knew that she
+could not help Theresa now any more than she could have helped her last
+spring.
+
+Bella had gone on to speak of the change in Theresa and of the quiet
+of Haylands. “Hardly a soul comes there now,” she said; “Theresa
+keeps them all at arm’s length. I expect that is why Miss Minchin and
+Mrs. Johnson and the rest of them never come now. Of course Gilchrist
+Harborough would not come.”
+
+Polly heaved a sigh. “I expect Bill’s breaking with Gilchrist troubled
+Theresa a good deal,” she said.
+
+But Bella laughed at such an idea, and afterwards went on to speak of
+Gilchrist and the lawsuit. “He has so little spare time just now,”
+she said, “that I don’t believe he would go to see anyone except on
+business. Jack sees him sometimes, and that is how I get to hear about
+him and his case. He is rather disgusted with it just now, Jack says,
+abuses the lawyers, and professes a great contempt for the slowness of
+the law.”
+
+Bill opened her eyes. “Why,” she said, “he has only just begun! It will
+be two years before it is over. What did he expect?”
+
+“How do you know?” demanded Polly.
+
+“I was told,” Bill answered, and Bella saved her further explanation by
+remarking: “That is what Mr. Stevens says; he told Jack so, and Jack
+told Gilchrist.”
+
+“What did he say?” Bill inquired.
+
+“Oh, that he did not see how they were going to make the time out, but
+he supposed they would do it somehow. Jack said he seemed disgusted
+with everything that day, and vowed he would not mind selling his
+chances for a good sum down.”
+
+“Did he say that?” Bill asked quickly. “He told Jack that? But he
+couldn’t do it, he couldn’t sell his chances; they would be no good to
+anyone else.”
+
+“He could sell them to the other side,” Bella said with the pride of
+recently acquired knowledge. “Jack told me that if the Harboroughs were
+rich they would probably by the autumn, if his claim seemed pretty
+good, try to compromise,--pay him to withdraw, you know. But then they
+are not rich; they have no spare money at all, and Jack says he does
+not think they could raise any. It seems rather a pity, for Jack says
+he believes Gilchrist would agree to a reasonable arrangement; he
+does not care a bit about Wood Hall now and only wants to go back to
+Australia.”
+
+“We all know why that is,” Polly said with pious conviction. “Bill has
+only herself to thank if he does leave England like that.”
+
+“I don’t suppose it would make any difference to Bill if he did go,”
+Bella retorted; “and she certainly has nothing to do with his wanting
+to go. Jack says he is disgusted with people in general, with the
+lawyers and the other claimant much more than with Bill.”
+
+“Poor Gilchrist!” Polly said with commiseration, and continued to look
+in a meaning manner at Bill, who, however, was far too absorbed in the
+thoughts suggested to her by Bella’s words to heed her.
+
+Long that night she lay thinking of these new ideas, her brain full
+of conflicting thoughts, impossible plans, crazy fancies. Money,
+money,--she had never felt the want of it before, never, for all her
+poverty, felt any desire to be rich. She had always been poor and she
+had never minded; she had never been tempted by girlish superfluities,
+had never cared for ribbons and lace and nice food. But now,--now she
+wanted money desperately, not a few shillings, or a few pounds as
+Polly, who did mind being poor, wanted it; but money in the big sense
+of the word, in the sense in which Polly never wanted it, in which she
+herself had hardly contemplated it before. Not that it mattered whether
+she wanted much or little, shillings or pounds or hundreds of pounds;
+one seemed about as attainable as the other.
+
+It was always part of Bill’s work to get up and clean the boots and
+light the fires before breakfast; it was no very great effort to her,
+and seemed moreover to fall naturally to her share. On the morning
+after she had lain so long thinking over the problem of ways and means,
+she got up as usual, cleaned the lodgers’ boots, lighted the fires,
+washed her hands, and then, taking a candle from the kitchen-dresser,
+climbed on the back of a chair that stood against the wall. Moving
+an almanack hanging high above it, a hole became visible from which
+she drew out, wrapped in paper, Peter Harborough’s shoe-buckles. For
+a long time she stood looking at them. Once she rubbed them on the
+corner of her apron; once she held them close to the candle so that the
+brilliant, refracted light flashed back from the gems and scattered
+sparks of white fire over her face and hands. She could not tell what
+they were worth, perhaps a hundred pounds, perhaps two hundred,--Polly
+had said two; diamonds were very valuable she knew, but how valuable
+she could not tell. At last she wrapped the buckles up again, put them
+back in their hiding-place and went about her work with a thoughtful
+face.
+
+She wore a thoughtful face all that day, for she was revolving a plan
+in her mind. In the afternoon she went to her bedroom and there opened
+the little oak box which used to stand in the spare room at Langford
+House. She had only been to it once since last winter, but now she
+turned over its contents carefully. She was not much the wiser for her
+examination; the only papers old enough to interest her conveyed little
+to her mind, beyond the indisputable fact that the name Corby appeared
+in them. However, her failure to find anything important in the little
+chest did not alter her plans, and in the evening, when the elder
+cousins were at leisure, she spoke to Polly about them. Bella and Polly
+had been busy with the _trousseau_ all day, but by the evening they
+were able to listen to Bill when she informed them that she was going
+to Wrugglesby the next day.
+
+“To Wrugglesby!” Bella exclaimed. “What on earth are you going there
+for?”
+
+But this Bill was not prepared to say; she expected to be asked
+the question and several others, and to give much annoyance by not
+answering them, but it could not be avoided. She felt that she could
+not explain matters yet. Things fell out exactly as she anticipated;
+Bella was only curious, but Polly was decidedly angry; she felt that
+she had a right to inquire, and she exercised it,--with no good
+results, for when, on Bill’s refusing to assign any reasons, she
+forbade her going to Wrugglesby, the girl showed every intention of
+going in spite of her. Whereupon Polly, who by this time knew she
+could not always drive the stubborn Bill, became very dignified,
+retreating from her post of dictator behind a manner of superior and
+chilling indifference, after which she climbed down from her pinnacle
+of outraged authority and informed the offender that she should not pay
+her fare.
+
+“No, of course not,” Bill said readily; “I have some money.”
+
+And she had; for it so happened that after a battle royal with Polly
+one day she had succeeded in arranging for wages of a pound a month,
+the same as any other little servant. Polly had vowed that she should
+not have it, that she was a partner in the firm and not a paid servant,
+but Bill stood to her guns, foregoing any future profits but insisting
+on present wages; and as she struck work when they were not paid she
+contrived to get them regularly, and so to have a little money for an
+emergency. Remembering which Polly said ungraciously: “At any rate you
+can’t go until the one o’clock train.”
+
+The one o’clock train was a very slow one, but it suited Bill
+admirably, and by it she went the next day.
+
+It was nearly three when the one clerk who looked out on Wrugglesby
+High Street from Mr. Stevens’s office-window saw the small figure cross
+the road and come towards the door.
+
+“A lady to see you, sir,--Miss Alardy.”
+
+The clerk announced this to his employer, although he thought Miss
+Alardy an exceedingly young lady to consult a lawyer on her own
+account. Mr. Stevens thought so too; he had a hazy recollection on
+hearing the name that she must be one of Miss Brownlow’s nieces, but
+he was not sure of the relationship until he saw the girl. Then he
+remembered her as the youngest of the nieces, the one whom, it seemed
+only the other day, he used to see walking beside the governess with a
+dusky mane of hair hanging about her shoulders and a general appearance
+suggestive of a tendency to turn restive on provocation.
+
+“Well, and what has brought you to Wrugglesby?” he said when he had
+asked after the other cousins. No one treated Bill in a business-like
+way; even the grocer at Bayswater regarded her as a man and a brother.
+Mr. Stevens certainly had no idea of being professionally consulted by
+this slip of a girl.
+
+“I have come to see you,” she answered simply. “I want to ask you a
+question, a law question.”
+
+She had her purse in her hand and looked somehow as if she were
+prepared to pay six-and-eightpence, cash down, for his opinion.
+
+“I will try to answer you,” he said with as much gravity as he could
+contrive. “What is this question?”
+
+“It begins in the year 1799,” she said without more ado. “In that
+year a man, Roger Corby,--perhaps you have heard of him? But that
+does not matter--in the year 1799 he gave a piece of land to another
+man--Briant. He gave it for ninety-nine years, but no rent was to be
+paid.”
+
+“A lease, that is,” the lawyer said, “and the rental probably one
+peppercorn payable if demanded. Yes, proceed.”
+
+“This year,” Bill said, “the time will be up, and I imagine Roger Corby
+would get his land back if he were alive?”
+
+“Naturally.”
+
+“But he is not alive, so I suppose his descendants would get it?”
+
+“Yes, that is what is usually expected to take place.”
+
+“He has only got one descendant; she comes like this,” and Bill took
+up some books which lay on the table. “Roger Corby’s only son died a
+year after him,”--she put a thin black book down,--“he is dead, you
+see”--pushing the book away--“and so does not count. The son’s only
+child, a daughter, is dead too, but she married when she was fairly
+young and she married twice. She ran away from her first husband and
+he divorced her; then she married the other man and had one son, the
+only child she had. Well, the son is dead too and the only person left
+is his daughter. Would she be able to get the land at the end of the
+ninety-nine years?”
+
+“Most probably, if she has the necessary documents and can prove she is
+legally descended from Roger Corby.”
+
+Bill said “Thank you,” and sat thinking a minute. The lawyer watched
+her curiously, feeling sure there must be something behind all this,
+and wondering a little what it could be.
+
+“Mr. Briant,” Bill said at last,--“I mean the Mr. Briant who now has
+the land--does not think it will be claimed, at least I believe not; he
+probably does not know of the second marriage of Wilhelmina Corby, and
+the son and the granddaughter.”
+
+“Which means,” Stevens observed, “that he will very strongly object to
+acknowledging their existence and will do his best to keep what he has
+got. Were I the granddaughter, I think I should first make quite sure
+that the thing in question is worth fighting for, and also I should be
+very clear that Wilhelmina Corby was divorced from her first husband
+and legally married to her second; can you tell me these things?”
+
+Bill could tell him one of the things. “Do you know Sandover?” she
+asked. “Yes? A good part of Sandover now stands on the land; of course
+at the time it was given it was only corn fields and grass, but now it
+must be valuable.”
+
+Mr. Stevens whistled, although it was supposed to be a business
+interview. “It is worth something, I admit. Now for Wilhelmina
+Corby,--how about her?”
+
+“It would have to be found out,” Bill said, “but I believe it is all
+right. But tell me, what did you mean by necessary documents?”
+
+“First and principally the counterpart of the lease. You don’t know
+what that is? It is an exact copy of the deed, the lease which is in
+possession of the man who now has the land and by right of which he has
+it. There is certain to have been such a deed; this man, Briant, is
+sure to have his lease, and unless the granddaughter can produce her
+counterpart she would find it well-nigh impossible to prove her case.
+Has she got it, do you think?”
+
+Bill did not know, and Mr. Stevens went on to say:--“In the first
+instance it would probably have been among Roger Corby’s papers, and
+so it may have passed into his granddaughter’s keeping; if it did,
+the question is what became of it when she changed husbands? And if
+she kept it in her possession, has her granddaughter got it still, or
+failing that, is it possible to trace it?”
+
+Bill considered a while; she was thinking of the little oak box and her
+search in it. “There is an oak box,” she said at last; “it is used
+as an ottoman in my bedroom, but I have heard that it belonged to my
+grandmother. It is full of papers, mostly letters and recipes of my
+mother’s, but there are a few which are older, one or two very large,
+tough, yellowish ones, not written in the ordinary way. I looked at
+them yesterday but I could not make them out, except that the name
+Corby occurs in them, and that at least one has the date 1799. Do you
+think the thing we want is there?”
+
+“I think it is just possible.” Mr. Stevens was not altogether surprised
+at this dropping of the impersonal. “So you are the granddaughter of
+Wilhelmina Corby, are you?”
+
+“Yes. I did not bring the box with me, but I wish I had now.”
+
+“Perhaps there is nothing of value in it. What are these old papers
+like? Can you describe them to me?”
+
+Bill did as well as she could, and though the description was not very
+detailed Mr. Stevens seemed satisfied. “I do not know,” he said, “if
+you have the counterpart, but I should say from what you tell me that
+you must have one or two of the old Corby documents. Don’t think that
+I mean they are of any pecuniary value, as the chances are all against
+it; the counterpart, if we could find it, might be, but the others are
+just so much legal lumber.”
+
+Bill did not seem troubled by this discouraging remark, nor yet by the
+lawyer’s next words: “If it is not a rude question, may I ask how much
+of all this does your cousin’s solicitor know?”
+
+“We have not got a solicitor,” Bill answered readily. “Mr. Brownlow
+made Aunt Isabel’s will, but he is dead now, and when he was alive we
+did not see anything of him. Polly thought him very stupid.”
+
+“Polly? That’s Miss Hains, is it not? Has your coming to me her
+sanction?”
+
+It had not, for the very good reason that Bill had not consulted her
+on the subject, or even informed her that any such subject existed;
+accordingly she told Mr. Stevens so, and explained that the affair was
+her own entirely.
+
+“Am I to understand,” the puzzled man enquired, “that she knows nothing
+at all about this?”
+
+“No,” Bill told him, “she doesn’t even know my grandmother was a Corby.
+I did not know much myself before Christmas, and when I did know, it
+hardly seemed worth while telling her. I did not realise then that it
+might be valuable; I did not realise that till the night before last.”
+
+“The night before last? What happened then?”
+
+“I wanted money desperately, and I thought and thought of ways of
+getting it.”
+
+Mr. Stevens repressed an inclination to smile. “You have by no means
+got it yet in spite of your interesting story,” he said. “Let me
+enumerate some of the difficulties in the way. Supposing you have
+the counterpart of the lease and it is all correct, you have got to
+be sure of several things,--that none of all these people between
+yourself and Roger Corby were bankrupt, that they made no awkward
+marriage-settlements, and, if they died intestate, left no more than
+one child apiece to survive them.”
+
+“These things will have to be found out,” Bill said calmly.
+“Marriage-settlements I don’t know anything about; children I do. There
+were no more than I have said, or at least none that lived to grow up;
+I have no relations at all on my father’s side. As for bankrupt, I
+believe it is all right, but I am not sure; Roger Corby died in debt,
+though I think it was all paid off after his death. But I know he was
+in debt when he died, that is why Wilhelmina, my grandmother, had his
+body carried away by night.”
+
+Mr. Stevens had heard something of this story, but always believed it
+to be a mere local tradition. “I had no idea it really happened,” he
+said.
+
+Bill assured him that she had excellent reasons for believing that
+it did; then she returned to the subject of more direct interest to
+herself. “Supposing,” she said, “that all these things of which you
+spoke were right, what then?”
+
+“Then, if you can get over the difficulty of the divorce and remarriage
+and subsequent birth of a son, you should have a very good case and
+ought, if all goes well, eventually to get the money you so much need;
+or rather certain persons in authority would get it to hold in trust
+for you.”
+
+“In trust for me?” Bill said with rather an anxious look.
+
+“Certainly; you are not of age yet, are you? Eighteen! The law does
+not consider you of age till you are twenty-one. Until that time the
+money, if you get it, will be in the hands of guardians who will manage
+it entirely and only allow you the use of a moderate and reasonable
+proportion.”
+
+“Polly and Theresa are called my guardians; would they have to look
+after the money?”
+
+“That depends,” Mr. Stevens said. “If they are only ‘called’ your
+guardians, the court, if the case were decided in your favour, would
+appoint some one to look after you and your money, you would be a
+ward of the court, and the court takes very great care of its wards
+and looks after them in a manner not always permitted to parents
+nowadays. If, on the other hand, your cousins are legally appointed
+your guardians, they would, until you were twenty-one, have the control
+of your property, applying it solely for your benefit and allowing you
+a certain amount for your use. But, remember, they could not do as
+they chose with it, for they could be called upon to give a very exact
+account of their proceedings.”
+
+Bill breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s all right,” she said. “Polly
+and Theresa, more especially Polly, are set down in Aunt Isabel’s will
+as my guardians; I should be able to manage if I got the money.”
+
+“They would not allow you more than a comparatively small sum; you
+could not touch any great amount. I don’t fancy you would be much
+better off than under the court if you wanted to do anything foolish,
+unless of course, the folly took the form of an unwise marriage, when
+you certainly would have more liberty if you were not a ward of the
+court.”
+
+Bill laughed softly. “I will tell you what I will do if I get the
+money,” she said. “I shall give Polly so much a year for the rest of
+her life; she deserves it and I would give her as much as I could
+afford; and with the rest I should do what I liked. We should arrange
+it somehow; Polly would do as I told her. There is time at least to try
+to find some way of doing it legally, but if I could not find one I
+don’t see that it would so very much matter, because Polly would be the
+person who did wrong according to the law and I should be the person
+who suffered wrong, and consequently the one who ought to have her
+up when I was old enough. As the case would really be the other way
+round, I should not have her up, and she could not have me up, so it
+would be all right.”
+
+“Oh,” Mr. Stevens remarked drily, “that is how you think you will
+arrange matters, is it? It strikes me you are a worthy granddaughter of
+Wilhelmina the wilful. I fancy, though, you will find more obstacles
+than you bargain for in this little game; where, for instance, does the
+other cousin and guardian come in?”
+
+“I should have to explain to Theresa that it was right. You would think
+it so if you knew. Theresa will always do what she thinks right, and
+Polly will do what she is made to do. To get your own way is mostly a
+matter of time.”
+
+“This time I should not be surprised if it took you till
+one-and-twenty. Law is not so easy to play with as you think; and cases
+of this sort are not so easy to win either, neither are they settled in
+a hurry.”
+
+Bill was prepared for that. “How long do you think it would take?” she
+asked. “A year?”
+
+“Probably; it might be longer, or it might, if you have very good luck
+and few difficulties, be a little shorter.”
+
+“Would it cost a great deal?”
+
+“It could not be done for nothing.”
+
+“Would a hundred pounds be any good to start with?”
+
+“It would be excellent.”
+
+Bill put her hand into her pocket and drew out the diamond buckles: “I
+don’t know what they are worth,” she said as she placed them before the
+astonished lawyer, “but at least a hundred pounds; more than that, I
+expect.”
+
+“Where did you get them?” Mr. Stevens had taken one to the window, and
+glanced from it to the girl.
+
+“Old Mr. Harborough gave them to me before he died.”
+
+“What!” The lawyer lost all interest in the buckles and stood staring
+at their owner, wondering what new surprise this granddaughter of the
+Corbys was going to develop.
+
+“Mr. Harborough gave them to me,” she repeated. “They are my very own;
+young Mr. Harborough was there at the time they were given, and he said
+they were my own and no one could take them away. I did mean to keep
+them for another purpose, but I believe it would be more right to use
+them for this.”
+
+“Have you any idea what these buckles are worth?”
+
+“More than a hundred pounds,” Bill said readily; “they will do to begin
+the case, won’t they?”
+
+“It is altogether extraordinary,” the lawyer muttered, and began to
+wrap the buckles in paper with the resigned air of one who gives up a
+problem.
+
+He offered the parcel to Bill, but she put her hands behind her back;
+“I want you to keep them,” she said, “and begin at once.”
+
+It was perhaps as well that Mr. Stevens was not busy that afternoon,
+for he found there were several more points to be explained to his
+young client, among others that she herself could not bring an
+action or give directions for legal proceedings. This difficulty she
+disposed of by undertaking to arrange matters with Polly within two
+days. Another point the good man had to explain was that no one would
+undertake the case without first knowing a great deal more about
+it. This the indefatigable Bill met with a promise to send the oak
+box to him by an early train the next morning, and to set to work at
+once to find out any and every detail she could concerning the first
+Wilhelmina. When at last Mr. Stevens, again handing her the buckles,
+told her that her method of payment was not according to custom, she
+was still not nonplussed. “Shall I get them sold,” she asked, “and give
+you the money?”
+
+“Certainly not; don’t attempt to sell them. And listen to me: I should
+not in any circumstances undertake this business for you; I will
+examine the contents of the box if you like, and tell you how I think
+you stand; but I would not undertake the case, which is completely out
+of my range. I am a country lawyer with quite as much country work as I
+can do; I am not a very young man, not a very poor one, and not at all
+an ambitious one. I have neither the time nor the inclination for such
+a piece of work as this.”
+
+“But you could find someone who would do it?” Bill asked, not in the
+least impressed by the gravity of his manner.
+
+“I suppose I could,” he said, smiling in spite of himself. “But even if
+I were to find someone, and there really was something for that someone
+to do, you must see that there are a good many things to settle before
+it comes to terms. When, and if, it does your cousin is the proper
+person to be consulted.”
+
+But Bill did not agree with him there. She pointed out that the affair
+was hers and the buckles hers; still she conceded that Polly could be
+talked to, and, since he wished it, she would take the buckles back to
+town. She put them in her pocket again, to the no small uneasiness of
+Mr. Stevens, although, as she herself said, they were too big to drop
+out, and no one would expect to find anything of value in her pocket.
+
+She was about to leave, by no means dissatisfied with the interview,
+when Mr. Stevens made a remark which caused her to pause. After saying
+that she must not make sure of her position, and that he himself could
+give her no hope until he had examined the contents of the oak box,
+he concluded: “And even if everything else proves satisfactory, it is
+quite possible you will come to grief over the matter of the divorce;
+the other side would be sure to make the most of that; it will have to
+be gone into very thoroughly.”
+
+Bill stopped on the threshold. “Do you mean,” she asked, “that you
+will have to go into it thoroughly, or that it will have to be done in
+public?”
+
+“I should not have much to do with it, but both your lawyers and those
+on the opposite side would have plenty; it is a point on which a good
+deal might turn.”
+
+“I had not thought of that,” and Bill’s face clouded.
+
+“You had better think of it,” the lawyer said, “for it will certainly
+arise. You must be sure, and the other side would insist on being sure,
+that there was a divorce; they would want the date of it and the date
+of the second marriage and the date of the birth of the child.”
+
+“Will they want the name of the first husband?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Will it be published in the papers?”
+
+“It would probably figure in the reports of the case.”
+
+“Then I am not at all sure the case can ever come off,” Bill said, to
+Mr. Stevens’s great astonishment.
+
+“Why not?” he asked.
+
+“Because the first husband is alive, and I would not hurt him for all
+the world.”
+
+Mr. Stevens regarded this as a matter of sentiment, but a sentiment he
+could honour, though he hardly knew how to advise. “Well,” he said at
+last, “you need not, and indeed cannot, do anything for a long time. I
+will look over your papers and tell you how I think you stand, and by
+that time you will have been able to decide what you wish to do.”
+
+But this was not Bill’s manner of going to work at all. “Thank you very
+much,” she said, “but I think I must decide sooner than that. When does
+the last up-train leave for London? Eight o’clock, is it? Thank you, I
+will decide before that. Perhaps I had better not come to see you so
+late; I will write from town.”
+
+“My dear young lady,” the lawyer said, moved by the gravity of her face
+and manner, “there is no need to take the matter so seriously, or to do
+anything in such a hurry. Send me the box, and afterwards we will talk
+over what can be done.”
+
+But though Bill again thanked him, not disagreeing with him this time,
+he was not at all sure that he had convinced her.
+
+“It’s a pity if she drops it,” he meditated as he watched her go down
+the street. “She would win if she went in, somehow--and probably do
+precisely what she pleased with her fortune when she got it. She is the
+kind that does; she would bamboozle the Court of Chancery and dance
+through an Act of Parliament.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE OAK BOX GOES TO WRUGGLESBY.
+
+
+The waiting-room of a railway-station is not usually selected as the
+best place in which to think seriously over a matter of perplexity.
+But if the waiting-room be attached to the station at a very small
+country town where trains are infrequent and passengers few, a worse
+place might be chosen; it has at least the merit of freedom from
+friendly advice. Moreover the fact of a person sitting there doing
+absolutely nothing for an hour or more creates no surprise, as it is
+to be presumed he is only waiting for the next train. On the January
+afternoon of Bill’s visit to Wrugglesby she found the waiting-room an
+admirable place for quiet thought. When she left Mr. Stevens’s office
+she went straight to the station and, sitting down with her back to the
+window, tried to think over the difficulties suggested by the lawyer’s
+words.
+
+The difficulties resolved themselves into one and one only,--Mr. Dane.
+The other obstacles to the success of her undertaking might or might
+not prove insurmountable; at any rate Bill would face them undauntedly
+with a light heart and a clear conscience. But Mr. Dane was another
+matter; she could not wilfully, and with her eyes open, do what she
+felt sure would give him pain; and yet,--how could she give up this
+enterprise?
+
+At this point two stout women entered the waiting-room. They were
+going to Darvel by the next down train in some twenty minutes’ time,
+and had walked in three miles from a neighbouring village; when
+one walks three miles the balance of a spare half-hour is not much
+to allow for catching a train. They were in “nice time,” they told
+each other, though they seemed flustered and annoyed when they found
+the booking-office still closed. Bill heard what they said without
+understanding, just as she saw them without perceiving; she sat looking
+straight before her though her true gaze was inwards. They glanced at
+her once or twice. “A natural, poor thing,” was the conclusion they
+came to. “They didn’t oughter let her be about alone like that,” was
+their final opinion as she rose from her seat and walked out of the
+waiting-room.
+
+Bill left the station, turned out of the main street, and took the
+road to Ashelton. She had decided what to do: she would go to Mr.
+Dane, not to ask his permission to claim her connection with the Corby
+family and consequently to drag him and his past before the eyes of his
+neighbours, but to tell him her story and ask his advice. She loved him
+so well that she felt sure he would give his advice without prejudice;
+she was absolutely certain that he would not misunderstand or misjudge.
+She started on her walk with a comparatively quiet mind, not an
+absolutely quiet one, for she knew she must give a full confidence or
+none at all. She must tell all, even including that which concerned
+Kit Harborough, and the dream which was a dream no more.
+
+At first Bill thought of nothing but what she had to tell, but bit
+by bit the solitude of the road and the exhilaration of the exercise
+soothed her so that she thought no more. Six miles of lonely road, a
+level country wide spread and bare on either hand, a silent wintry
+afternoon with the suggestion of twilight gathering before the village
+was reached,--what more could one ask to minister to a mind diseased?
+Nothing in Bill’s opinion, as she walked the six miles in something
+under an hour and a half, without a single doubt of her ability to walk
+them back again after dark and her pleasure in doing it.
+
+But she did not walk those six miles back; the proprietor of the White
+Horse at Ashelton received a request during the evening for the little
+cart and old pony for Mr. Dane. And it is to be presumed he drove Bill
+to Wrugglesby in time for the eight o’clock train, for some sort of
+vehicle brought her to the station in time for that train, and a little
+after eight o’clock Mr. Dane rang at the private house of Stevens the
+lawyer.
+
+Mrs. Stevens wanted very much to know what had brought Mr. Dane to see
+her husband at that time in the evening. She had a great opinion of
+Mr. Dane, of whom she knew little, and of his Family (with a capital
+F), of which she knew less. She and Mr. Johnson had conferred more
+than once on the subject of the relative who was a lord and the other
+relative who was a bishop, and the mystery why Mr. Dane himself was--if
+not a bishop or a lord--at least something more than a country parson.
+On that particular evening, after Mr. Dane had left, Mrs. Stevens
+naturally wished to know the reason of his visit; first she sought
+indirectly for information and learned nothing; then she asked boldly
+what had brought him there that night.
+
+“A small pony-cart, my dear,” Mr. Stevens said amiably; “and the same
+vehicle has taken him away again. I hope he will reach his destination
+safely, for he is not as young as he was and the night is dark, though
+the pony, I must admit, looks a safe beast.”
+
+Mrs. Stevens, being somewhat annoyed by this answer, condescended to
+no more questions and maintained a dignified silence for the rest of
+the evening,--a proceeding which it is to be feared did not greatly
+trouble Mr. Stevens, since he was so completely engrossed in his own
+meditations that he was not aware of it. After Mrs. Stevens had gone to
+bed he poked the fire into a blaze and observed to the crackling coals:
+“You were a fool, Wilhelmina the first, a fool! You threw away a very
+fine and noble gentleman for your gipsy lover.” And being a country
+lawyer of somewhat prosaic practice, and being also a man of genial
+sympathies, he once more gave himself up to meditations on the story
+which had been told him that night.
+
+And Mr. Dane, having reached home in safety, also thought a little
+of the story which had been revived that night. But not for long; he
+resolutely put it away from him as he put away the diamond buckles
+Bill had left. She had left them on purpose and with a definite
+understanding. “You must keep them, Monseigneur,” she said. “I can
+reclaim them, if I ever have the money, and if you do not sell them
+before. I cannot have you undertake this great thing for me unless you
+will have them as a sort of guarantee; I would rather you kept them;
+it is better so.” So he kept them, for after he had seen how she
+carried them loose in her pocket and heard how she kept them in a hole
+in the kitchen-wall, he also thought that it was better so.
+
+Bill went back to London without her buckles, but Polly was not aware
+of the fact. Indeed Polly did not hear anything much about the visit
+to Wrugglesby that evening, for Bill did not reach home till late, too
+late to tell all about it, she said, and put off the explanation till
+the next day, when she promised to tell Polly everything. Bella was
+rather disappointed by this arrangement for she would be out then,--at
+the dressmaker’s in the morning and at Mrs. James Brownlow’s in the
+afternoon. It must be admitted that, fond as Bill was of her cousin,
+Bella’s absence suited her well, for she wanted to have a long and
+somewhat difficult talk with Polly.
+
+Bella went out early, and early also went the little oak box by rail
+to Wrugglesby, carefully addressed and properly insured as Mr. Stevens
+had impressed upon Bill it must be. Before it went she pulled off the
+chintz cover from the top and took one thing from the inside; not a
+document or deed, or even one of her mother’s recipes, only a fossil
+sea-urchin found on the beach at Bymouth on a sweet September morning.
+She hid it away among her linen; then she nailed down the lid of the
+box, tied a rope round it, and sent it away.
+
+Polly did not know it had gone until later when Bill told her in the
+course of their talk. This talk did not prove so difficult as Bill had
+anticipated, for Polly was quick to grasp the possibilities of the
+case. It was true, Bill had acted without her consent and in a measure
+outraged her in her part of guardian; but Polly was not always playing
+that part, and she was, as the late Mr. Brownlow had said, a capital
+woman of business; when it came to plain facts apart from appearances,
+Bill’s conduct and communication wore a very different aspect. As
+Polly said: “You risk nothing; even if you lose you are no worse off
+than you were except for those diamond buckles--” (here, in spite of a
+previous and very eloquent statement of her opinion of Bill’s giving
+them up, Polly could not forbear from making a short digression and
+recapitulation of her sentiments)--“except for those buckles, you lose
+nothing since Mr. Dane is going to advance the money and take all the
+trouble. You are quite sure he means you only to pay if you win? You
+lose nothing if you fail and if you succeed--well!”
+
+The prospect seemed almost too much for Polly, and Bill forbore to
+mention any of her own plans regarding the money, should she win it.
+Polly, of course, had something to say about the way in which she had
+not been consulted, though not much, for, as she admitted, Bill “had
+done very well”; moreover, she was somewhat mollified by the nominal
+share in future transactions which Bill assured her would be hers. Bill
+explained matters as clearly as she could to Polly’s great satisfaction
+and sufficient enlightenment. In a matter of this sort Polly was quick
+to grasp the essential points, and in a matter of any sort even quicker
+to accommodate herself to the part she was to play. There was one
+thing, however, which Polly did not understand, and which Bill would
+not explain,--the reason that had induced Mr. Dane to follow such an
+extraordinary course as he had, and not only to give his sanction to
+the proceedings but also to lend active and financial assistance.
+
+“I can’t tell you,” was all Bill would say; “you would not understand.
+I hardly know myself and I certainly can’t explain. I can’t talk about
+him, he is,--he is too good.”
+
+Polly was not satisfied, but she could get no other explanation,
+and when Bill left her after some rather able though unsuccessful
+cross-examination, she hurled after her as a parting shot: “It is a
+very peculiar thing, Bill, very peculiar indeed, the way in which
+elderly gentlemen do things for you. One gives you a pair of diamond
+buckles, and another is undertaking a law-case for you. It is most
+peculiar, not to put too fine a point upon it,--most peculiar!”
+
+And though Polly went to the kitchen-door and raised her voice so that
+Bill, who had gone up-stairs, should not lose any of the remark, she
+still contrived to throw a vast deal of meaning into the last words and
+the sniff which followed them. But Bill, if she heard, did not answer,
+which was wise; and Polly, who was too satisfied with the results of
+Bill’s “peculiarity” to trouble very much about explanations, went back
+to her work and asked no more unanswerable questions.
+
+Bella and Theresa had to be taken into confidence of course, but
+neither of them thought the matter so important as Bill and Polly did.
+It was interesting to know all about Bill’s people, but the substantial
+benefits to be reaped from it seemed uncertain and shadowy. “It was all
+rather improbable and unwise,” Theresa said, while Bella, being full of
+her own concerns, hardly understood what was being discussed; and both
+sisters entirely failed to realise the value of success should it ever
+be attained.
+
+“They are so stupid,” Polly once said impatiently; “they don’t grasp
+anything out of their own groove. I’ve no patience with either of
+them; they are thorough Brownlows, without an ounce of vitality
+between them. They’re all right so long as you put them in ordinary
+circumstances,--a decent house with a decent servant, decent meals at
+regular hours, and a decent husband to come home at regular times and
+provide the money. But as for striking out a line for themselves, or
+saving a situation, or doing or even understanding anything which is
+out of their ordinary rut or wants a small amount of enterprise, they
+simply can’t do it!”
+
+Bill laughed a little, though she could not deny the truth of at least
+part of the indictment. She could not deny to herself either that this
+same characteristic of the sisters made it easier for her to carry
+through, unquestioned and undisturbed, the enterprises which they
+could neither undertake nor understand. However, she did not remark on
+this to Polly, but merely said: “I think Bella and T. are both rather
+occupied with their own concerns just now.”
+
+Polly would not allow this excuse to Theresa, though she admitted it
+might hold good for Bella, whose wedding-day was so near. Bella’s
+wedding occupied all their minds about this time, Polly being
+determined that it should be of suitable though quiet magnificence.
+“Of course we are still in mourning,” she said, “or at least we can
+reckon we are; Aunt was almost like a mother to us, besides an out of
+mourning wedding would cost so much. As it is, we can make a very good
+show indeed at a reasonable price. And I mean to do it too, Bill; we
+are quite as good as the Dawsons, and I’m not going to let them think
+we are not.” And Polly made all the preparations in her power; her
+chief cause of trouble being that, since Bella was to be married at
+Ashelton, she herself could not be at the base of operations very long
+beforehand.
+
+Bella left town early in February, in the company of Jack, who had come
+to town on business. When Polly heard of his coming she regretted that
+she could not offer him the hospitality she had offered Gilchrist, but
+her house was too full now to allow of it. However, Jack came to see
+them and stopped some time, and was, as Polly said, “as pleasant as
+possible and quite different from Mr. Gilchrist Harborough.” Indeed,
+Jack, instead of disapproving of Bill’s working, insisted on helping
+her to clear the table, making much fun over it. He always seemed to
+regard Bill as a jolly little school-girl not to be taken seriously;
+that day he teased her about the apples she took to eat in the train
+on her journey to Bymouth. Bill told him they were Polly’s, but he
+would not believe her, and they laughed over it for some time. Later
+on, however, she became serious and asked him some questions about the
+Harborough lawsuit. Of late Jack had become somewhat intimate with
+Gilchrist; Bill had gathered this from Bella’s talk, and thinking that,
+if anyone could tell her of the present condition of the Harborough
+case, Jack could, she questioned him on it.
+
+“Why, Lady of Law,” he exclaimed when he found out how much she knew of
+the original claim, “you seem to know a good deal about it already!”
+
+“Yes, I heard all about that part,” she told him; and he remembered
+that Gilchrist had been very often to Haylands during the summer, so
+often that he had once thought there was some sort of an understanding
+between Bill and the Australian, though latterly he had begun to doubt
+it. “I am afraid,” he said, thinking her interest in the case was on
+Gilchrist’s account, “I am afraid your friend won’t get this affair
+settled in a hurry; there seem to be a hundred and one things to prove.”
+
+“Yes? What? Tell me.”
+
+He smiled at her earnestness. “Let me see,” he said, “what shall I tell
+you? I have heard about it no end of times, but I am not so very much
+the wiser and I’m sure you won’t be; still here goes. The lawyers now,
+I believe, are busy trying to find out whether this precious rule of
+the youngest son inheriting applies to sons only, or whether it can be
+extended to other relations when the sons give out.”
+
+“Can’t it? I should have thought it could.”
+
+“Ah, but you’re not a lawyer; lawyers don’t think, they prove. They
+say sometimes the extension is allowed and sometimes it is not,
+according to early arrangement or tradition or something; they have
+got to find out how the first Harborough had his affairs arranged.
+Then another question they are busy about is how much old Harborough
+knew of the existence of another claimant, and I don’t see how they
+are ever to discover that under the circumstances. Things are rather
+mixed altogether; for instance, your friend’s father was born in 1845,
+old Harborough came into the property that same year, and that year
+also there died his youngest brother, the one who should have had
+the property,--that is what I call indecently crowding events to no
+purpose. Then the old man’s will seems likely to prove another bone of
+contention,--whether he had a right to make a will, why he made it,
+whether he believed his position insecure and made it to strengthen
+it, or whether he thought it secure and made it in good faith,--oh,
+it is a lovely tangle I can tell you! Harborough has talked to me
+about it till I have completely forgotten which party wants to prove
+what, and have got so mixed myself that I have gone home deciding to
+sow estates-tail in the home-field, drain the pond and turn it into an
+estate in fee simple to settle on my bonny bride.”
+
+He drew Bella’s hand into his own as he spoke, and it was easy to
+see from their faces that there would be no more discussion of the
+Harborough case for the present. But Bill could not forbear asking one
+last question: “I suppose it will take a long time to settle?”
+
+“Years! You’ll have time to grow up twice over before they are done
+squabbling, and Bella will be a staid and sober matron by the time the
+decision is given.”
+
+Bella combated this opinion, not because she doubted the length of the
+Harborough lawsuit but because she vowed she would never be staid and
+sober. A conversation natural to the circumstances ensued, and lasted
+until Jack and Bella left the house together.
+
+It was of course quite out of the question for both Bill and Polly to
+attend Bella’s wedding, as they could not leave the house to take care
+of itself, so it had been arranged for Bill to stay and Polly to go. It
+was really important that she should be present at the function, if for
+no other reason than her own belief that Bella and Theresa would not
+be equal to the situation and the Dawson family in its strength. “They
+would never manage without me,” Polly said with conviction. “I shall go
+down a day or two beforehand,--I really must, to see after things. You
+can do here quite as well as I can, and no one need know you are alone;
+I am not afraid to trust you, as I know you can take very good care of
+yourself and the house.”
+
+To this Bill agreed. “Of course I shall be all right,” she said. “You
+had better stay as long as Bella and Theresa want you.”
+
+But Polly had decided not to remain after the wedding. “There will be
+no need for me to do that,” she said. “I shall go several days before
+to see that everything is arranged properly and I shall come back
+directly after. Or,--no, on second thoughts, I think it had better
+be the day after; it would perhaps be nicer if I waited till the day
+after, as there will be such a lot of clearing up to do.”
+
+Bill heard this last decision with a smile, she knew that Polly’s
+“clearing up” would mean a substantial hamper-shaped addition to her
+luggage. But she said nothing, as she knew Theresa would not mind,
+and Polly fulfilled her plan exactly. She went to Wrugglesby three
+days before the wedding with the most wonderful costume that even her
+ingenuity had ever compassed, safely packed in a cardboard box and
+placed on the seat beside her.
+
+Polly’s work, and she certainly did work during those three days,
+was not in vain. Bella’s wedding was in every way successful. The
+Dawson family was properly impressed with the desirability of the
+new connection; Mrs. Dawson was almost satisfied, and Miss Gladys
+Dawson charmingly (and unpleasantly) put in her place by the presiding
+genius. Polly really was in her element that day and showed to the best
+advantage. Mrs. Stevens was warm in her praises, and even Gilchrist
+Harborough, who was there more as the bridegroom’s friend than the
+bride’s, thought that his former opinion of Miss Hains had been unjust.
+
+“It really was as nice a wedding as I have ever seen,” was Miss Gruet’s
+opinion, and in the main Ashelton agreed with her, finding in the event
+a delightful subject of conversation during the lengthening days.
+
+“It is quite _the_ event of the spring,” Miss Minchin said gaily. So it
+was in Ashelton, and beyond Ashelton the ladies did not take very much
+account.
+
+Beyond Ashelton, at the little house at Bayswater, there was another
+event, and one of such interest to those concerned that even Polly
+for a time regarded Bella’s wedding as of secondary importance. Mr.
+Stevens had examined the contents of Bill’s box and found that the deed
+dated 1799 was indeed the counterpart of the lease granted by Roger
+Corby in the year that Peter Harborough was shot. Mr. Dane, acting
+upon this information, had been to a certain old established firm of
+solicitors in London and had seen the senior partner. He was not the
+man who, something more than forty years ago, had helped to cut the
+bond Wilhelmina Corby had tried to break for herself; nevertheless
+he soon knew all about it, for it was recorded in the annals of the
+firm and only needed to be looked up. Looked up it accordingly was,
+together with other events, dates, and certificates; and the lease and
+the information and everything else there was to place were placed in
+the hands of this lawyer who, at Mr. Dane’s request, undertook the case
+Mr. Stevens had refused. Altogether, what with one thing and another,
+things were progressing surprisingly well, and Polly and Bill had good
+reason to congratulate themselves.
+
+Before the spring was over Mr. Briant of Sandover felt the consequences
+of the energy and inquiry Bill had provoked, for he received the most
+unwelcome intelligence that a descendant of the Corbys existed and
+claimed, in a purely legal and formal manner, a large piece of his
+valuable Sandover estate. He did not believe the claim genuine; and
+then he did not believe it could be substantiated; and in any case he
+was, if possible, going to contest it, for he had always believed there
+were no legitimate descendants of the Corbys left.
+
+“It rains lawsuits,” he grumbled once; “before Kit Harborough is
+through with his trouble I am let in for one. Although,” so he added to
+a friend, “between you and me, I should be glad to see the boy clear of
+his business half as well as I shall be of Mary Ann Hains, guardian of
+somebody Corby’s granddaughter.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+POLLY PROVES A TRUE PROPHET.
+
+
+It was in June that the accident happened, early June, but the season
+was warm that year and already the little white roses were in bloom.
+They were in bloom the year of Theresa’s marriage,--white roses for the
+wedding, and now, with but one other June to intervene, white roses for
+the burying. It was Bill who thought of this, not Theresa, although
+Theresa, smelling the scent of the flowers under the window, thought of
+her wedding-day as she sat waiting that night.
+
+She shivered a little as she recollected; it may have been at her
+thoughts, it may have been with cold, for the air was chilly. It was
+very late; she rose, and going to the window closed it, shutting out the
+sweet scents of the night. Then she glanced at the clock,--how late
+it was!--past twelve,--Robert had never been so late before. Surely
+nothing could have happened to him? Nothing ever happened; he was late,
+that was all, and she sat down again with a set look on her face.
+
+There was a letter in her work-basket; she had read it once, but
+something made her put her sewing down and take it from its envelope
+to read again. It was from Bella, who had gone to spend a few days
+with some relations of her husband’s at Kensington. How happy Bella
+seemed! How delighted that Jack was going to join her that day! It was
+such a pleasant letter, though it told little. Theresa read it and
+folded it, smiling as she did so; then for a moment she sat listening,
+thinking she heard the sound of a horse’s feet. The road was not
+near, but the night was so still that she could almost have heard in
+her present state of tension. She might be mistaken, but there was
+certainly a sound of some kind. Wheels,--someone driving home--then
+she was mistaken, for Robert was riding to-night; this must be some
+other wayfarer, perhaps Gilchrist Harborough come down by the mail from
+London. She set herself to watch again; the sound of the wheels had
+passed now, the vehicle may have driven out of earshot, or it may have
+paused by the gate where the road was dark. The last must have been the
+case for, after a moment, she caught the sound again; perhaps the horse
+started suddenly, for the noise was much plainer now. It was coming
+nearer--surely there was not some one driving up to the house?
+
+She rose quickly, a nameless dread at her heart, and went into the
+hall. There she paused a moment listening; the noise of wheels came
+nearer, then ceased, and through the closed door she heard, or her
+over-wrought senses told her she heard, the sound of a horse breathing.
+A man came up the steps; she heard him as she stood there, her hand
+upon the door, nerving herself to meet she knew not what. He stopped,
+and she opened the door to find herself face to face with Gilchrist
+Harborough.
+
+For a second he shrank from her, and in the starlight she saw it.
+
+“What is it?” she asked with lips that seemed too dry to speak.
+
+“Robert has been hurt,” he answered, avoiding her eyes. “I--I have
+brought him home.”
+
+“Hurt?”
+
+Her voice rang distinct, almost sharp, and Harborough knew the question
+she was asking herself, although she was too loyal to put it to him.
+
+“Yes,” he answered, meeting her eyes now; “he has been hurt, badly
+hurt, I am afraid.”
+
+“Badly? How badly?” Fear was whitening her face and quickening her
+perceptions. “You don’t mean--oh Robert!--Why, I can see him out there!
+Robert!”
+
+She passed Harborough and would have gone down the steps but he stopped
+her. “That is Dr. Bolton,” he said gently; “I brought him with me.
+Robert is there,--but,--you can’t see him.”
+
+She leaned against the door-post and caught her breath, searching his
+face with questioning eyes. “He is dead?”
+
+He felt the words were spoken, though he hardly heard them. “Come in
+here,” he said gently. He led her to the room she had just left, and
+put her unresisting in a chair.
+
+“Dead,” she whispered, “dead?” Her breath was coming in gasps; she
+shook a little, but she did not weep or faint. For some reason
+Gilchrist was afraid to look at her; he moved to the door. “Are you
+going to bring him in?” she asked in that same low, breathless voice.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Up-stairs?”
+
+“It would be better.” That was the doctor’s voice outside; both the
+doors were open and he had heard what was said.
+
+“You will want a light; there is none in the room.”
+
+She had risen as she spoke, but the doctor, seeing her white strained
+face, said: “No, no, wait here; Harborough will go up first, and set a
+light.”
+
+She paid no heed to him, but tried to light a little hand-lamp.
+Gilchrist took the matches from her trembling fingers and, lighting it
+for her, put it into her hand. She gave him a look of thanks and then
+went slowly up-stairs.
+
+It was early the next morning when Bill received the telegram that
+summoned her to Ashelton. That Bill should be summoned both annoyed and
+surprised Polly; she objected to parting with her for one reason, and
+for another she considered that she herself was the right person to be
+sent for in an emergency. “I don’t see what good you can do,” she said.
+
+But Bill did not argue the point; she looked at the time-table, and
+then went up-stairs to dress for the journey. Polly picked up the
+telegram and having read it again followed Bill. “‘Come at once, Mrs.
+Morton wants you. Harborough.’” She read the message aloud to Bill when
+she reached her room. “What has Gilchrist got to do with it, I should
+like to know?”
+
+“Robert is ill, I expect,” Bill said. “If it were Theresa, Robert would
+have sent the telegram; but as neither of them did, I expect Robert is
+ill.”
+
+“Robert ill!” Polly sniffed contemptuously, then with the air of a
+prophet who sees his evil prognostications fulfilled, she added: “It is
+very likely you are right; he never was much good. Still I don’t see
+why Gilchrist Harborough should telegraph for you; he has no connection
+with the matter, neither have you.”
+
+“Jack and Bella are away. I expect Gilchrist is looking after things;
+he would be very good in an emergency.”
+
+Bill got her dress out of the cupboard as she spoke, and Polly looked
+at the telegram again. “Robert’s not ill,” she said with sudden
+conviction; “he’s dead!” Bill, from the wording of the telegram,
+thought it just possible too; still she did not say so, and Polly went
+on: “I always said he would die young and die suddenly; now he has done
+it and probably left Theresa very badly off.”
+
+Bill was used to seeing Polly in moral undress by this time; the elder
+cousin did not always think it necessary to keep up appearances with
+the younger now that she knew how little the girl appreciated or was
+deceived by them. Bill had so often been treated to Polly’s unvarnished
+opinion of late that she was not much surprised by her way of regarding
+the possible death of Theresa’s husband.
+
+“Really I never saw anyone so unlucky as we are,” Polly was saying;
+“no sooner do we get Bella settled than we have Theresa thrown back
+on our hands. It is hard, just as we are beginning to get on a little
+too, and make things pay. You and I have worked things up and managed
+splendidly, and this is our reward! It seems to me that, manage as we
+may, we shall never reap any benefit from it. We can work and it seems
+we always may. As for those Warings, I have no patience with them!”
+
+“So it seems, since you won’t wait to hear how Robert is before
+deciding not only his death, but his widow’s future as well.”
+
+“Oh, I know he is dead,” Polly said irritably as she followed the
+younger girl down-stairs. And Bill felt nearly sure of it too, even
+before she got to Wrugglesby station and saw Sam, who had been sent to
+meet her. When she saw him there was room for doubt no longer.
+
+On the homeward drive he told her all he knew about the accident. The
+master had gone to Wrugglesby yesterday and returned late; he was
+riding a skittish young horse and must have been thrown and probably
+killed on the spot. Mr. Harborough, who had come from London by the
+mail-train, drove home along the same road and found him, but it was
+thought he must have been lying there for several hours. Dr. Bolton had
+been called up and came with Mr. Harborough to Haylands; but it was
+quite useless, the master was beyond help when he was found; “and the
+missus”--so Sam concluded--“was somethin’ terrible, quite stunned, not
+sheddin’ so much as a tear.”
+
+Bill could believe that; it seemed to her quite natural that Theresa
+should be stunned. But when she reached Haylands it seemed just as
+natural that Theresa, when she met her and put her arms round her,
+should burst into a paroxysm of weeping. Bill wept with her of course;
+it was her nature; but she wept for the pity of life’s tangle, while
+Theresa wept for the husband dead last night and the lover dead months
+ago, for the widowhood of name which had fallen upon her now and the
+widowhood of heart which had fallen long before; wept for her grief and
+her loss and her double grief that the loss and grief were not greater,
+and for all combined till thought was vague and her heart was eased.
+
+So she wept, and no longer dreaded that the world, seeing her grief,
+should also see that which lay behind. She had feared lest the secret
+she had guarded during Robert’s life should be revealed after his
+death. It was for this reason she would not have Polly or Bella or
+anyone but Bill,--Bill whose eyes were not quick to mark anything
+amiss. The others might discover or think, but Bill--no one minded
+Bill. And then, when Bill came with her sympathy and her pliant
+changing nature, there suddenly seemed no secret to hide, nothing amiss
+which could be marked--all was melted in a gush of tears.
+
+Thus Theresa became widow indeed, and though she sorrowed as such she
+was all the better for the sorrowing. Quite unconsciously she turned to
+the girl, whom she still persisted in regarding as a child, for comfort
+and help. Bill gave all the comfort she could, listened when Theresa
+told her how Robert went out yesterday and she had not said good-bye;
+wept when Theresa wept over this omission and over the hundred trifles
+which seemed to speak of his presence still near,--his pipe on the
+mantelpiece, his whip behind the door, his dog waiting wistfully in the
+hall. Bill listened, but she also worked, for that suited her best.
+Theresa was really prostrate with grief; so Bill assumed, by the quiet
+right of the one who can, the management of the household, and the
+management so assumed remained with her some time.
+
+It was during the days which followed that Gilchrist Harborough found
+himself thinking that Bill, viewed in a light other than that of
+prospective wife, had something to recommend her. He had not seen her
+since the December day when she cancelled their engagement; but in the
+time that followed Robert’s death he saw her often, for she stayed at
+Ashelton till the summer was well advanced. Polly wanted her back in
+town, but she was obliged to allow that Theresa needed her more at
+Haylands. Very reluctantly she gave permission for Bill to remain; very
+reluctantly, with the wages Bill forfeited by absence, she hired a girl
+to help with the work. And Bill spent a second June at Haylands, very
+unlike the first, excepting only that she saw Gilchrist Harborough
+often, though even in seeing him there was one great and essential
+difference, for they met now on a new footing, a footing much nearer
+equality.
+
+Jack was a good brother-in-law, but Greys was some way from Haylands,
+and he, being but recently married, and having besides a great deal
+of land to look after, found it somewhat difficult to give Theresa’s
+farm the supervision it required. Harborough lived much nearer, had
+more time and possibly more inclination, for the lawsuit did not
+occupy so much of his attention just now, therefore he came often to
+Haylands that summer, and in coming, met Bill often, but always in her
+working capacity; a capacity, he thought, which suited her so well
+that he wondered how he had ever come to think of her,--the most able
+collaborator man could wish,--as wife.
+
+But Theresa’s domestic arrangement, admirable as she found it, did
+not suit Polly at all. To begin with she did not find the girl at all
+an efficient substitute for Bill, and to go on with she “wanted to
+know how it was all going to end.” Bill also wanted to know that, not
+because she found the arrangement any less pleasant than did Theresa,
+but because it was her custom to plan several miles in advance of the
+elder cousin’s range of vision. So, before Theresa had contemplated the
+future as a working possibility, Bill had answered Polly’s enquiries.
+
+“I’m afraid,” so she wrote, “things are not much better than you
+expected; Theresa will be left very badly off. Still, I think she will
+most likely have a little, so there is a certain amount of choice as to
+what is to be done; I have not properly talked it over with her so I do
+not know if she has any wishes. As far as I can see we three (she and
+you and I) must live together; we can’t afford two houses, but together
+I believe we might live here or in town. If we stop here we should have
+to give up most of the land, only keeping enough for a certain amount
+of dairy work. The dairy, with pigs, poultry, and vegetable growing, I
+reckon would keep us in food and pretty well pay the rent--I believe
+this could be made to answer. We could have a boarder in the summer if
+you liked. Of course the other choice is for you and me to go on as
+before and take Theresa in; I don’t know what else can be done, unless
+she goes to Jack and Bella, which seems hardly fair.”
+
+Polly read this letter and digested it thoughtfully, and her thoughts,
+it is to be feared, were not so much for the common good as for her
+own personal comfort, and that did not incline her towards going to
+Ashelton. She preferred town to country; she liked her present life in
+many respects, and she certainly did not relish the idea of making pigs
+and poultry pay with Bill’s assistance, not because she thought they
+would not pay but because she knew quite well that the assistance would
+be on the wrong side in such a venture. Theresa she did not consider
+in the matter, and fortunately for her, Theresa had no very strong
+wishes; she did not greatly care whether she remained at Haylands or
+went to London; it seemed to her that her life had been snapped and
+could go on as well, or as ill, in one place as another. Jack was in
+favour of giving up the farm, pronouncing Bill’s scheme to be a mad
+one. Gilchrist, who knew Bill better, was not so sure of that; but he
+saw that it would entail much hard work on all, on Theresa, who in his
+opinion was not fit for it, as well as on Bill who was. Therefore, as
+the general voice was with Polly, she carried the day, to her own great
+satisfaction, and at Michaelmas the farm was given up.
+
+It is not to be supposed that Bill remained undisturbed at Haylands all
+the summer. She was merely keeping Theresa company, and when Bella’s
+husband spared her to do that for a time, Bill, very reluctantly,
+returned to town, to Polly and her domestic difficulties. It is hard,
+when one can do work and has half done it, that it should be taken away
+and given to another, who not only cannot do it but does not recognise
+that it exists to be done. Bill did not want her work recognised, but
+she did want to finish it; but since that was impossible there was no
+choice but to silently resign it half-finished, without a hope of its
+being anything but wasted by the one who came after. So she went back
+to town, and Bella, it is to be feared, fulfilled her anticipations;
+the seed plants died, the vegetables languished, the ducks laid away,
+and the poultry intermarried disastrously. Later on Polly went down
+to Haylands, for a rest, she said; and Bill did not ask her to look
+after any of her pet projects, thinking perhaps that it would only be
+useless. When Polly returned she did enquire how the fruit was that
+year, and was told that the trees were breaking with the weight of
+plums.
+
+“Does no one pick them?” Bill asked.
+
+“Some of them,” Polly told her; “but fruit fetches so little this year;
+it is not worth a man’s time to pick it, at least so Gilchrist says,
+and he is managing everything, you know.”
+
+Bill was not thinking of Gilchrist’s management but of private
+enterprise; Polly was thinking of something quite different and it
+was she who spoke first. “Did it strike you, Bill,” she said, “that
+Gilchrist takes a great interest in Theresa and her affairs?”
+
+“Yes, of course; he likes managing, and he does it thoroughly.”
+
+But this was not what Polly meant at all and she said so. “What I want
+to know,” she concluded, “is, why did he begin it? Why does he do it?”
+
+“Because it wanted doing, and because he can do it. Somehow or other
+the people who can do things always have to do them whether it is their
+business or not; they have a sort of right to the jobs that want doing.”
+
+This was not Polly’s opinion. “It’s my belief,” she said, “that he has
+an interest in what he does.”
+
+“An interest? He does not get the profits.”
+
+“No,” Polly retorted impatiently, “but Theresa does; that’s his
+interest.”
+
+“Do you mean he is fond of Theresa?” Bill asked in astonishment.
+
+Polly did, and explained herself at some length, without convincing
+Bill who, when she had come to the conclusion that this was only one of
+Polly’s fancies, went back to the subject of the plums. Polly was not
+interested in plums, and when Bill asked if she and Theresa picked any,
+answered snappishly, “No, we did not; we did not choose to spend our
+days up ladders.”
+
+A recollection of last year lent viciousness to this remark; Bill
+remembered last year too and sighed. Had she been at Ashelton
+early enough very likely there would have been a repetition of the
+plum-selling. But she was not there in time to do anything, for, though
+she did go down to Haylands to help Theresa to pack at the last, the
+fruit was practically over. It was a bad year for apples; there were
+hardly any in the orchard at Haylands, and Bill saw at once, when she
+went to look round, that there was nothing to be done with them. As for
+the plums, they were a real grief to her when she saw them lying rotten
+on the grass beside the branches which the heavy fruit had broken down.
+
+“Gilchrist could not look after everything,” she told herself, “and
+Theresa would not know.”
+
+After all, the waste of the plums did not trouble her so much
+as did the sight of the withered plants in the garden, and the
+raspberry-canes, still loaded with shrivelled fruit, dried up for want
+of water. But bad as the garden was, it was not the worst, for in one
+short tour of the stackyard she found, besides the feathers of many
+untimely victims of stray cats, five lots of addled eggs laid and lost
+in the summer months. She had her last find of eggs in a basket on the
+Saturday afternoon when she went to the orchard to look for fallen
+apples. There were not many, but she picked up what there were and took
+the eggs to the ditch to throw them away to make room for the apples.
+
+It was just then that Mr. Stevens came by. He was a busy man, but he
+sometimes allowed himself a little holiday on Saturdays in September to
+shoot a friend’s partridges; he had been shooting partridges that day
+and very good sport he had had to judge from the beaming good-humour
+he was carrying back to Wrugglesby.
+
+When he saw Bill he pulled up. “Good-afternoon,” he cried; “I didn’t
+know you were back. You haven’t been over to see me; don’t you want to
+have a talk about your affairs?”
+
+Bill came to the gate. “There isn’t much to say about them, is there?”
+she asked. “I thought nothing much could be done at this time of year.”
+
+“Well, no, not much certainly; everybody is out of town now. Still, if
+you’d like to have a chat, you might look in when you’re in Wrugglesby;
+I’m not very busy just now.”
+
+“Thank you, I will if I have time; I am only here for a few days just
+to help Theresa to pack.”
+
+“Ah, of course, she is leaving soon, poor thing. Going to live in
+London with you, isn’t she?”
+
+Mr. Stevens felt very sorry for Theresa, of whose affairs he knew all
+that was commonly reported and a little more besides. He felt sorry for
+Bill, too, that afternoon; she did not seem to be so cheerfully and
+completely satisfied with life as usual.
+
+“We must make the best of a bad job,” he said encouragingly, “and look
+for better times. Let’s hope your business will be through before
+Christmas,” and he shook his reins as if he were going on.
+
+“Do you think it could be done so soon as that?” Bill asked with
+animation.
+
+“I dare say; I don’t see why not, or at the latest early in the
+new year. Woa, my beauty!” and he pulled up again. “Mr. Briant
+is a rich man and can afford to fight as a poorer could not; but
+you’re too strong for him, and since the business of the divorce and
+remarriage was settled he knows it. It’s my belief--though as I’m not
+professionally connected with the case perhaps you will say I have no
+right to an opinion--it’s my belief Briant never suspected a second
+marriage. But owing to the rector’s help you have incontestable proofs,
+and the other side haven’t a case worth mentioning.”
+
+“Then you think it will be settled soon?” Bill asked. “I am very glad;
+and I am glad, too, that Mr. Briant is so rich that one need not much
+mind taking money from him; even if I win he will still have plenty
+left.”
+
+Mr. Stevens, though he was amused by her scruples, assured her that
+she might be quite easy on that score. “He’ll have plenty,” he said,
+“plenty, seeing that he has neither son nor daughter to take it after
+him. Bless my soul, he ought to be quite pleased to make provision for
+a young lady in that way!”
+
+The lawyer laughed as he spoke and Bill laughed too. “I am afraid he
+won’t see it in that light,” she said.
+
+“I’m afraid not either. No; I think if you win your case you will have
+to thank your good aunt’s care in keeping old bills and letters and
+recipes for herb-tea. That is what will have the most to do with it,
+since she managed to keep with them several of old Roger’s useless
+documents, and one valuable one. Yes, you will have to thank her for
+her care and Mr. Dane for his generosity. Good-bye, and a speedy
+success to you.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+A RELISH WITH TEA.
+
+
+Bella’s baby was born in January, and Theresa went to Greys’ for the
+event. Indeed she went there a good deal before the event, for, if
+the truth must be known, life in London with Bill and Polly was not
+entirely successful. Two women who have each had a home of their own
+do not always get on when they come to share one between them. Bella
+wrote in November inviting Theresa to come to her, and Polly urged the
+acceptance of the invitation with unnecessary warmth. Theresa hesitated
+a while as to her duty and then finally accepted it and went. “And a
+good thing too,” Polly said frankly.
+
+She said this to Bill when they were at tea on the afternoon Theresa
+left. Polly sat at her ease with her feet on the fender and her tea-cup
+on the hob; she liked this position, and she liked the table drawn
+on to the hearth-rug so that she could sit between it and the fire.
+Theresa did not approve of such things; she did not exactly say so, but
+she looked it, and when she set the tea-things she never pulled the
+table up.
+
+“It’s all very well, Bill,” Polly went on to say. “Theresa may be a
+very nice person,--I dare say she is, but she does not do here, and if
+she is going to live here she will have to alter a good deal.”
+
+“She will settle down in time.”
+
+Polly had her doubts about that and expressed them; she also expressed
+a hope that Theresa would stay with Bella while the settling process
+went on. “The longer she stays there the better,” she concluded.
+“Perhaps if she is there long enough and Gilchrist Harborough sees her
+often enough, he may marry her and take her to Wood Hall where she
+could be as elegant as she pleased without interfering with me.”
+
+Bill laughed. “You are in rather a hurry,” she observed. “Theresa has
+only been a widow six months, and Gilchrist has not by any means got
+Wood Hall yet. You finish things off rather too quickly.”
+
+“I wish somebody else would,” and Polly turned up her gown to preserve
+it from the fire.
+
+“Don’t be too hard on T.,” Bill said rather sadly. “I don’t believe she
+is more particular than she used to be; she always was,--well, you used
+to call it ladylike.”
+
+Polly ignored her own past attitude with regard to Theresa and only
+remarked: “I could be ladylike if someone else did the dirty work. I
+should like to be ladylike; but some people can’t have what they wish
+in this world; they have to work that others may.”
+
+“Poor old Polly! I’m so sorry you have had to do the stoves lately.
+That place on my finger is nearly well, and I believe I shall be able
+to do them again to-morrow.”
+
+“I’m not grumbling about you,” Polly said magnanimously.
+
+“What is the use of grumbling about anything?” Bill asked. “It may let
+off steam, but I believe it rusts the pipes. Don’t let’s talk about
+Theresa; let us talk about hats.”
+
+Millinery was a subject of perennial interest to Polly, but to-night
+she refused to discuss it. “I don’t know anything about hats,” she
+said; “how should I? I haven’t seen anything but these four walls since
+I don’t know when.”
+
+“Why not go to Regent Street to-morrow afternoon?” Bill suggested. “My
+finger is really quite well, so I can do the work and you have not been
+out for ages; take an omnibus to Oxford Circus and go and look at all
+the shops.”
+
+This was Polly’s favourite recreation and invariable panacea for
+dulness, but she still refused to be cheered. “What is the use?” she
+said. “I shall only see a hat I want and can’t afford.”
+
+“You will see some new way of trimming up your old one,” Bill assured
+her; and though Polly persisted that she would not go, when the
+afternoon came she changed her mind and went.
+
+It was during Polly’s absence that the great news came to Bill. Mr.
+Dane brought it; he had come to town for a few days on business, he
+said, probably on her business. At all events it was fortunate that
+his coming to town was at this time, for he was able to bring the
+news to Bill in person. Of course Polly received a formal intimation;
+Polly always received formal intimations and requests from the lawyers
+as did Mr. Dane; she was the guardian of the plaintiff, a person of
+importance, and he was a great factor in the case, more especially as
+the lawyers were his lawyers and the money his money. But Bill was only
+the “infant,” so she was not greatly troubled with intimations and
+consultations; and she, in the first instance, was not the person to be
+formally acquainted with the decision of the court. Nevertheless she
+was the person to whom Mr. Dane came, even before Polly had received
+her legal information and while that lady was out looking at the
+bonnet-shops in Regent Street.
+
+It was four o’clock when Mr. Dane came. Bill had no idea of seeing him
+when she went to answer his knock; and the sight of him standing on the
+doorstep in the November dusk was so unexpected that she forgot in her
+delight to wonder why he had come. She led him to the kitchen, their
+living-room now, and gave him Polly’s shabby old arm-chair. She never
+thought of apologising; it was the best she had to offer and so needed
+no apology; moreover he was her friend and would expect none.
+
+“Well, Princess,” he said at last,--at first it had not seemed possible
+to speak of his errand--“what do you think brings me here to-day?”
+
+Bill looked at him doubtfully for a moment. “I have something to tell
+you,” he went on, and then her whole face became illuminated with
+understanding. “Oh, Monseigneur!” she said, clasping her hands with an
+eagerness begotten half of hope, half of fear.
+
+“Yes, my child,” he said gently, “yes, you have won. That which Roger
+Corby gave as a price for wrong is paid back a hundred fold; and you,
+you little Bill, are an heiress in your own right.”
+
+Bill gave a great gasp. “Thank God,” she said, “it is in time! Thank
+God, thank Him, very, very much!” And there followed a pause; perhaps
+she thanked the God who always seemed so close to her. When she spoke
+again it was in hushed tones. “It seems very wonderful,” she said.
+“And,--and I owe it to you!”
+
+But Mr. Dane did not think she owed it all to him; perhaps he shared
+Mr. Stevens’s opinion and thought she was the stuff that wins under any
+circumstances. As for the particular circumstances of this case he set
+them aside, and when she persisted, her voice quivering with emotion
+as she recounted all he had done, he still set them aside. “It seems
+a great thing to do, does it?” he said at last. “Ah, you are young;
+things look different when you are young. I am old and I have lived
+much and loved much, and outlived much too perhaps, and to me,”--and
+he put a tender hand on the glowing hair--“to me it does not seem such
+a very great thing to do for the child of my past, the daughter of
+consolation to me.”
+
+Then she said no more, but she kissed him with tears in her eyes.
+Afterwards they talked of this fortune, and what it would mean,
+and the debt that Bill thought she owed to the Harboroughs--to
+Peter Harborough, shot, to hide whose death the price which was the
+foundation of her fortune had been paid--to Kit Harborough, whose rival
+through an act of hers had learned the claim that he had made,--and
+to the old man, last of the Harboroughs of Gurnett, who slept in the
+little churchyard among the ferns where Roger Corby lay.
+
+It was past five o’clock before Polly returned. Mr. Dane had left only
+a little while before, and she must have almost passed him at the end
+of the street, though, if she did, she failed to recognise him. She
+did not notice anything particularly until she reached her own house,
+and was surprised to see there were no lights at any of the windows.
+Miss Scrivens, who now occupied the drawing-room, must have fallen
+asleep and forgotten to ring for the lamp; and Polly decided with some
+satisfaction that Bill for once had followed her instructions and not
+taken the light until it was rung for. With a gratified feeling at this
+unusual display of obedience she let herself in and went up-stairs;
+while she was up-stairs the drawing-room bell rang sharply and Bill
+went to answer it. She was still attending to the lamp, or the lady,
+when Polly entered the kitchen and found to her surprise that the
+tea-tray was not set.
+
+“What has the girl been doing?” she muttered as she went to the
+dresser. She was reaching up to get a jug from a high hook when there
+came a dancing step behind her and, before she could look round, Bill’s
+arms were thrown round her neck from behind and Bill’s strong hands
+took hers prisoner.
+
+“Polly!” she exclaimed, possessing herself of the jug and then twisting
+Polly round. “Polly, dear old Polly! It has come at last! You shall
+have the finest hat in all Regent Street even if it’s a salad of roses
+with a cockatoo rampant on the top! You shall have it and we will drive
+all the way in a hansom cab to buy it!”
+
+“Bill! What is the matter with the girl? Bill, put down that jug and
+tell me what you mean!”
+
+“I mean,”--but Bill did not put down the jug, she filled it with milk
+instead--“I am going to get Miss Scrivens’s tea,” she said. “I ought to
+have got it before only I have been hindered this afternoon, and I’m
+crazy I think. But, oh, Polly! I’ve got it, got it at last; the money I
+mean, or at least as good as got it, it is going to be mine. I expect
+you will have to do things and sign things first, but the case is
+decided for us and it is all as good as mine already!”
+
+“My dear Bill!” Polly was momentarily overwhelmed by the news, then she
+recovered herself and fetched a tin of sardines from the cupboard. “Oh,
+well,” she said, “if that’s the case we can afford to have a relish
+with our tea.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE FULFILLING OF THE DREAM.
+
+
+In the opinion of certain members of the Chancery bar the conclusion
+of the Harborough case was disappointing, for from a legal point of
+view, there was no conclusion. In spite of all that had been said on
+both sides, all the facts and traditions and curious crooks that had
+come to light, the case was in the end as far from a legal decision as
+ever; it was merely withdrawn. This was the best thing possible for the
+litigants and certainly the wisest; still, it was to be deplored, for
+a decision would have been interesting. Apart from the legal aspect
+the conclusion could not be regretted; the buying of the claimant
+was undeniably wise, and at the same time almost romantic, for there
+was something of mystery about it. Nobody, not even the Harboroughs,
+knew who paid for it. Someone, whose name was not mentioned and who
+apparently had no personal interest in the case, found the money, which
+Gilchrist accepted in lieu of his chance of the Gurnett estates, and
+for the consideration of which he duly undertook that neither he nor
+his should ever raise the claim again.
+
+Thus it happened, when the case was well on in its second year, that
+all ended and came to nothing, and Kit Harborough found himself very
+much where he used to expect he would be; but with an addition he did
+not expect in those days,--a certain price to pay for having defended
+his right to be there. Gilchrist had something to pay too, but it
+did not so much matter to him, for he had thought of the costs when
+he bargained for the price of his withdrawal. On the whole he was
+satisfied with the terms; they were not so high as he had tried to get,
+but they were all his chance was worth to him, and all, apparently,
+that the benevolent person unknown was willing to pay.
+
+There was one man, in no way connected with the case, who took a keen
+interest in that benevolent person unknown; not so much at the time,
+but a little later. In the light of subsequent events Mr. Stevens chose
+to find that individual most interesting. “Unless I am much mistaken,”
+he once said, though wisely in no one’s hearing but his own, “there
+is stuff for a good Chancery suit in that buying off of Gilchrist
+Harborough. Certain persons have been juggling with the law, or I’m a
+Dutchman; persons, too, who should have been above suspicion. Mistress
+Wilhelmina has a deal to answer for, bless her wicked little heart!
+I wonder how it was done? I’d give something to know.” But he never
+did know; only, in later years, he used sometimes to doubt if there
+had been much juggling with the law after all; if rather a certain
+childless old man, who was so much richer than most people knew, had
+not chosen secretly to serve a girl in his life instead of benefiting
+her after his death. But of this fancy Mr. Stevens never spoke, for he
+knew, if it were true, that it was a secret hidden even from the girl
+herself, and he, though only a country lawyer, was a man possessed of
+that best wisdom, the knowledge when to keep silent.
+
+But all this was long after; at the time when the Harboroughs’ suit
+was concluded no one even suspected who their benefactor might be. The
+Harboroughs themselves puzzled over it for some time and then, as is
+the nature of man, turned to the consideration of their own affairs.
+Those affairs were identical for both of them in one particular
+at least,--the question of Gilchrist’s return to Australia. It was
+generally understood among those whom it concerned that Gilchrist was
+going back to Australia; he had said he should go so soon as the case
+was settled, but now when it came to the point he did not seem so sure
+about it. Kit took a most surprising interest in his rival’s departure,
+and he noticed his hesitation directly the subject was introduced.
+There was only one occasion when the two Harboroughs spoke of the
+matter, the only occasion on which they met on purely social terms,
+the day they lunched together at Wood Hall. Kit had invited Gilchrist
+there as it were to shake hands after the fight, possibly feeling
+it his duty to do so. Gilchrist accepted the invitation, partly for
+similar reasons, and partly because he had never been inside Wood Hall
+and thought he would rather like to see the old house for which he had
+been fighting; coming with this motive, there is no doubt he also came
+prepared to observe critically and to put a market-value on all he saw.
+
+“I think I have the best of the bargain,” he told Theresa afterwards;
+“the place is in bad repair and at the best of times would take a lot
+of keeping up. Still, I admit it has a charm of its own, a charm
+which cannot be bought or exchanged, and would not, I believe, stand a
+change of ownership. If the house were mine, I should do it up, and, I
+suppose, change its nature; since it is his, he will let things remain
+as they are; he can’t afford to do anything else, poor beggar! But he
+will keep the charm and a few absurd, inimitable, medieval prejudices
+which even an enlightened education cannot make us altogether despise.”
+
+It is to be feared that Gilchrist was not far from the truth in his
+estimate of the poverty likely to reign at Wood Hall. The estate,
+crippled before, could ill afford the money spent in defence of its
+owner’s claim to it. Kit knew this, and knew that the Australian was
+quick to mark signs of prosperity or decay.
+
+The two Harboroughs did not lunch in the big dining-room where Kit
+had sat with Bill on the day that old Mr. Harborough died, but in
+a smaller, more modern room where neither length of possession nor
+shortness of means stood out so plainly. There was little here to
+suggest that evil days had fallen upon the old place, excepting only
+the view from the windows. Gilchrist glanced out once; the pale
+February sunlight was wan on the crack in the stone-work of the
+terrace, on the unswept leaves of the autumn and the untouched borders
+by the wall. Unconsciously he looked towards his host and observed
+him curiously--the well-bred, stoical face, the grave eyes, the
+well-finished hands--the whole man which told so little.
+
+“Are you going to live here?” he asked suddenly.
+
+“Probably not.”
+
+There was a moment’s silence. Kit was evidently not communicative on
+that subject, and Gilchrist looked out of the window again before
+giving expression to the thoughts in his mind. “Pity the old place
+should go to pieces!” he said at last. “I could have saved it--spoiled
+it, perhaps you would have said--still, saved its life after a fashion,
+but you--”
+
+“I shall probably go abroad for the next twenty years; after which, if
+I am not an inveterate wanderer by that time, I shall come home and
+think about getting some bricks and mortar to mend the hole in the
+terrace which we can see so well from here.”
+
+Gilchrist laughed, although he was a little annoyed; he had felt
+vaguely sorry for Kit and the decline of the house of Harborough. But
+Kit kept him well at arm’s length, and the house of Harborough was
+plainly not his concern, so he withdrew his sympathy from the end he
+had himself hastened, and the subject was pursued no further.
+
+It was then that Kit enquired concerning the return to Australia, and
+learned that there was a good deal of uncertainty connected with the
+date of Gilchrist’s departure; indeed, it seemed almost possible that
+he would not leave England at all that year. Kit did not ask why;
+he knew that it was a woman’s will and a woman’s preparations that
+ruled the time of the Australian’s going. Herein he was quite right,
+though he was not right in thinking that woman Bill Alardy. Bill’s
+preparations, like her will, were never long in making; but the woman
+for whom Gilchrist waited was different; who is to hurry a nine months’
+widow, and who make love to the wife of a man whose grave has not long
+been green?
+
+But of this difficulty Kit knew nothing, and since he was very well
+aware that Bill’s betrothal was of a private nature, he could not make
+any remark upon it even had he wished. So he was still unenlightened as
+to the name of the woman whose pleasure Gilchrist waited when a little
+later the Australian took his leave.
+
+Kit went to the door with him, stood on the step looking after him even
+when he was out of sight, stood there until the sound of his horse’s
+feet had died away in the distance. The sun was gone now; ashy clouds
+had crept over the sky, and all the world was still and grey with the
+soft, tired look of endless afternoon. Kit went down the steps and
+walked slowly past the west front of the house; once he glanced up at
+the crooked windows and the sloping, many-peaked roof, but he looked
+away again quickly as if the sight hurt him. He reached the end of the
+terrace but he did not go back; instead he wandered aimlessly across
+the lawn, down the rose-walk, past the box-edged beds and the yew
+trees once trimly clipped into quaint devices. The devices were lost
+now, the clipping had not been done for many years. Bill had once said
+that, were the trees hers, she would learn to clip them herself rather
+than that they should be left. So she would, too; she would clip the
+trees and weed the paths and save the house from its approaching decay!
+Gilchrist had said that day he would have saved it; how could he fail
+to save it with her for wife? Old Harborough himself had testified that
+she, and such as she, penniless though they might be, alone could save
+an exhausted family, a proud, poor, played-out race.
+
+Kit had come to the outskirts of the wood now; he stopped for a moment,
+not from indecision as to which path to follow, but because he wished
+to call a halt in his mind and force himself to face the truth. Why
+should he pretend to look upon Bill as the saviour of his family, the
+prop of his house? It is true she could have been all that, but it was
+also true that she was something else to him; not prop nor saviour, but
+the only woman the world held. He had been but a boy eighteen months
+ago when he first looked into her eyes; he had grown to manhood in
+those eighteen months, but it did not matter, the look thrilled him
+still. He had not seen her since that October day when they pledged
+each other to duty, but he had not forgotten; he would never forget;
+there are some it is not easy to forget.
+
+He had been following the footpath that led from the gardens to the
+little church, but he turned away before he reached the low boundary
+wall and wandered on through the waste of dead bracken till he struck
+the public footpath which gave upon the lane by a swing-gate. There
+was someone standing by the gate, someone with arms resting upon the
+topmost bar, and eyes fixed, not upon the path with its approaching
+figure, but upon the leafless tree-tops of the wood.
+
+For half a second Kit paused, a sensation almost of fear at his
+heart--how could she be here in the flesh? Then, at a bound he had
+reached the gate; flesh or phantom, he must see her, must touch her
+hand once again.
+
+“Bill!”
+
+He had put his hand on the hands on the gate. They were warm, living
+hands; he held them fast and there was no effort made to draw them
+away. She did not start nor cry out; she did not move at all; she only
+looked up at him, silent yet with throbbing breast. So they stood, the
+gate between them, for the space of a full minute, and the world seemed
+to hold but them alone.
+
+From the main road there came the sound of horse’s feet, steady,
+slow-going, some farm-horse on its way to the blacksmith’s in the
+village. The sound of hoofs recalled to Kit the last time he had heard
+it and recalled also the thought of the man who rode away from his
+house not an hour ago. He dropped the hands he held almost as if they
+burnt him.
+
+“He cannot--shall not have you!” The words were hardly spoken; they
+seemed wrung from him against his will.
+
+The discarded hands pulled a splinter off the gate. “He,--he doesn’t
+want me”--their owner seemed much interested in the splinter.
+
+“Not want you? You--”
+
+The gate was between them no longer.
+
+A while later the farm-horse, having been to the blacksmith’s, was
+led home by way of the lane; the man who led him saw no one about the
+lonely spot; there was no one by the swing-gate or on the footpath
+going to the church, no one visible at all. In the shelter of the
+leafless wood, however, there were two who explained many things. There
+were many things which needed explanation they found,--the mystery of
+Bill’s freedom, for one, and Kit’s ignorance of it, for another. The
+first was easy to recount; the second Bill found harder to explain.
+
+“I could not tell you,” she said at last; “of course I could not tell
+you. Do you know the feeling, the consciousness almost, that you can
+have and get whatever you make up your mind to have? That has been my
+feeling so long; but I was afraid to seek for this; I wanted it to be
+the free gift of God to me; I wanted it an unsought gift, or not at
+all. Do you understand what I mean?” And in case he did not, she went
+on to give another reason. “I have been getting so much lately,” she
+said, flashing a shy smile at him, “getting and willing and taking that
+I think I wanted someone to take me.”
+
+And it is to be presumed that Kit understood the art of taking her,
+for the next explanation did not follow immediately. When it did come
+it had reference to Bill’s unexpected appearance at the gate that
+afternoon.
+
+“There is no mystery about that,” Bill said. “I came to look at a
+house at Sales Green. We are thinking of moving in the spring or
+early summer, and we are looking out for a house with a large garden
+somewhere in this part--the garden is for me, the house for Polly, the
+part for Theresa who wants to be near Bella. However, the Sales Green
+house is no good at all; we shall have to look out for another.”
+
+“Did you come from town to-day?”
+
+“Yes; Bella met me at Wrugglesby and drove me to look at the house
+and then home with her to lunch. Afterwards I started to walk to the
+rectory, having promised to go to tea with Mr. Dane; he is going to
+drive me to the station this evening.”
+
+“You do not seem to have chosen a very direct route to the rectory.”
+
+“No,” Bill was obliged to admit; “but I thought I would like to go down
+the lane once more and,--and I did not know you were at home.”
+
+Kit showed the utmost satisfaction in having been at home on this
+occasion, and they passed on to the next explanation which was of a
+different nature and was given by Kit. It had to do with his prospects
+and the narrow means he had to offer; the thought of them made him
+remember now it was too late that he had but small right to ask her to
+share his lot.
+
+“Don’t you know?” Bill exclaimed eagerly almost before she had heard
+him out. “Haven’t you heard? I have got money now,--oh, I am so glad!
+I thought perhaps Mr. Briant would have told you, but I suppose he
+thought you had worries enough of your own.”
+
+Perhaps this was the case; at all events, as Mr. Briant had not told
+the tale in full, Bill told it now, and with it the name of the unknown
+benefactor who had put an end to the Harborough suit. Possibly she
+did not tell it well, certainly Kit was astonished almost beyond
+comprehension.
+
+“You?” he said and he stood to look at her. “You did it?”
+
+“Yes,” and she stood still too, twisting a dry twig she held. She
+snapped the brown thing nervously. “I’m sorry, Kit,” she said humbly.
+She knew that it is not always easy to receive a favour. “I’m sorry,
+but there did not seem anyone else to settle it, and it had to be done.
+I know it is hard to take things from a woman but,--do you mind so very
+much from me?”
+
+Kit’s throat swelled painfully. After all, he was very much a boy
+still; but he took the favour and the giver of the favour all in one.
+
+Later, as they went up the forest path together, he asked her what
+she would have done had he not met her at the gate that day. “It is
+all very well,” he said, “to say that you have saved Wood Hall for
+yourself as well as for me, but supposing I had not met you to-day,
+supposing I had never learned you were free?”
+
+“Then I should have gone to live in a house with a big garden and grown
+tons of cabbages.”
+
+Kit laughed. “But tell me,” he persisted, “would you have never let me
+know?”
+
+She shook her head. “I made up my mind to tell no one,” she said,
+“only Polly assured me that if ever I married I would have to tell
+my husband; for one reason because he might find out if I did not,
+for another because it would be wrong to hide things from him. For
+the first reason I do not care, I would have risked that; but for the
+second it is different. I am not afraid that you will misunderstand and
+it seems a pity to begin with secrets.”
+
+“Yes;”--Kit had possessed himself of the small strong hand,--“a great
+pity since we are to have all things in common.”
+
+And so they passed through the silent wood where the shadows lay,
+brown and purple and deepest blue; they followed the wet path still
+studded with the autumn’s funguses, crossed the deep hollows where last
+year’s leaves glowed in the even light, under the old trees, twisted
+pollards and stately beeches, and so on, up the hill. Once a startled
+jay flashed from the covert of a thorn-bush low down across their path;
+once a rabbit looked out from among the beech-roots; nothing else
+moved, and in the stillness of a holy world they came to the gardens
+and to the house.
+
+Together they went by the western front to the great door still open as
+Kit had left it; together they entered the wide, dim hall. Kit turned
+as he stood on the threshold and looked up at the old house. “Not
+yours nor mine,” he said, “but ours, sweetheart.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the diamond buckles came to Kit Harborough’s wife after all, for
+they were given to her on her wedding-day by one who still called her
+“Princess Puck, child of the Lord’s consolation.”
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
+
+
+  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
+
+  Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
+
+  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76967 ***