Harvest

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

VI

Rain!—how it pelted the September fields day after day and week after week, as though to remind a world still steeped in, still drunk with the most wonderful of harvests, that the gods had not yet forgotten their old jealousy of men, and men's prosperity. Whenever a fine day came the early ploughing and seeding was in full swing, and Rachel on one side of the largest field could watch the drill at work, and on the other the harrow which covered in the seed. In the next field, perhaps, she would find Betty and Jenny lifting potatoes, and would go to help with them, digging and sorting, till every limb ached and she seemed to be a part herself of the damp brown earth that she was robbing of its treasure. For a time when the harvest was done, when the ricks were thatched ready for threshing, there had been a moment of ease. But with the coming of October, the pressure began again. The thought of the coming frost and of all those greedy mouths of cattle, sheep, and horses to be filled through the winter, drove and hunted the workers on Great End Farm, as they have driven and hunted the children of earth since tilling and stock-keeping began. Under the hedges near the house, the long potato caves had been filled and covered in; the sheep were in the turnips, and every two or three days, often under torrents of rain, Rachel and the two girls must change the hurdles, and put the hungry, pushing creatures on to fresh ground. On the top of the down, there was fern to be cut and carted for the winter fodder, and fallen wood to be gathered for fuel, under the daily threats of the coal-controller.

Rachel worked hard and long. How she loved the life that once under other skies and other conditions she had loathed! Ownership and command had given her a new dignity, in a sense a new beauty. Her labourers and her land girls admired and obeyed her, while—perhaps!—Janet Leighton had their hearts. Rachel's real self seemed to be something that no one knew; her companions were never quite at ease with her; and yet her gay, careless ways, the humanity and natural fairness of her mind, carried a spell that made her rule sit light upon them.

Yes!—after all these weeks together, not even Janet knew her much better. The sense of mystery remained; although the progress of the relation between her and Ellesborough was becoming very evident, not only indeed to Janet, but to everybody at the farm. His departure for France had been delayed owing to the death in action of the officer who was to have been sent home to replace him. It might be a month now before he left. Meanwhile, every Sunday he spent some hours at the farm, and generally on a couple of evenings in the week he would arrive just after supper, help to put the animals to bed, and then stay talking with Rachel in the sitting-room, while Janet tidied up in the kitchen. Janet, the warm-hearted, had become much attached to him. He had been at no pains to hide the state of his feelings from her. Indeed, though he had said nothing explicit, his whole attitude to Rachel's friend and partner was now one of tacit appeal for sympathy. And she was more than ready to give it. Her uprightness, and the touch of austerity in her, reached out to similar qualities in him; and the intellectual dissent which she derived from her East Anglican forbears, from the circles which in eighteenth-century Norwich gathered round Mrs. Opie, the Martineaus, and the Aldersons, took kindly to the same forces in him; forces descended from that New England Puritanism which produced half the great men—and women—of an earlier America. Rachel laughed at them for 'talking theology,' not suspecting that as the weeks went on they talked—whenever they got a chance—less and less of theology, and more and more of herself, through the many ingenious approaches that a lover invents and the amused and sympathetic friend abets.

For clearly Ellesborough was in love. Janet read the signs of it in the ease with which he had accepted the postponement of his release from the camp, eager as he was to get to the fighting line. She heard it in his voice, saw it in his eyes; and she was well aware that Rachel saw it. What Rachel thought and felt was more obscure. She watched for Ellesborough; she put on her best frocks for him; she was delighted to laugh and talk with him. But she watched for Mr. Shenstone, too, and would say something caustic or impatient if he were two or three days without calling. And when he called, Rachel very seldom snubbed him, as at first. She was all smiles; the best frocks came out for him, too; and Janet, seeing the growing beatitude of the poor vicar, and the growing nervousness of his sister, was often inclined to be really angry with Rachel. But they were not yet on such terms as would allow her to remonstrate with what seemed to her a rather unkind bit of flirtation; seeing that she did not believe that Rachel had, or ever would have, a serious thought to give the shallow, kindly little man.

But though she held her tongue, Janet showed her feeling sometimes by a tone, or a lifted eyebrow, and then Rachel would look at her askance, turning the vicar's head none the less on the next occasion. Was it that she was deceiving herself, as well as trying, very unsuccessfully, to deceive the lookers-on? The progress of the affair with Ellesborough made on Janet a curious and rather sinister impression, which she could hardly explain to herself. She seemed to see that Ellesborough's suit steadily advanced; that Rachel made no real attempt to resist his power over her. But all the same there was no happy, spontaneous growth in it. Rachel seemed to take her increasing subjection hardly, to be fighting obscurely against it all the time, as though she were hampered by thought and motives unknown to the other two. Ellesborough, Janet thought, was often puzzled by the cynical or bitter talk with which Rachel would sometimes deliberately provoke him. And yet it was clear that he possessed the self-confidence of a strong man, and did not really doubt his ultimate power to win and hold the woman he was courting.

One bitterly cold evening at the very end of September, Ellesborough, arriving at the farm, was welcomed by Janet, and told that all hands were in the fields "clamping" potatoes. She herself left a vegetable stew ready for supper, safely simmering in a hay-box, and walked towards the potato field with Ellesborough. On the way they fell in with Hastings, the bailiff, who was walking fast, and seemed to be in some excitement.

"Miss Leighton—that old fool Halsey has given notice!"

Janet stopped in dismay. Halsey was a valuable man, an old-fashioned labourer of many aptitudes, equally good as a woodman, as an expert in "fagging" or sickling beaten-down corn, as a thatcher of roofs or ricks, as a setter of traps for moles, or snares for rabbits. Halsey was the key-stone of the farm labour. Betts was well enough. But without Halsey's intelligence to keep him straight—Janet groaned.

"What on earth's the matter, Hastings? We raised his wages last week—and we did it before the county award was out!"

Hastings shook his head.

"It's not wages. He says he's seen the ghost!"

Janet exclaimed, and Ellesborough laughed.

"What, the defunct gamekeeper?"

Hastings nodded.

"Vows he's seen him twice—once on the hill—on the green path—and once disappearing round the corner of the farm. He declares that he called to the man—who was like nobody he had ever seen before—and the man took no notice, but went along, all hunched up—as they say the ghost is—and talking to himself—till all of a sudden he vanished. I've argued with him. But nothing'll hold him—old idiot! He vows he'll go—-and if he talks to the others they'll all go."

"Has he gone home?" asked Janet.

"Long ago. He left the horses to Jenny, and just marched off. In the lane he met me, and gave notice. Such a cock-and-bull story as you never heard! But I couldn't do anything with him."

"I'll go and tackle him," said Janet at once. "We can't lose him. The work will go to smash."

She waved a farewell to Ellesborough, and ran back to the house. The others, watching, saw her emerge on her bicycle and disappear towards the village.

"Well, if anybody can move the old fellow, I suppose it's Miss Leighton," said Hastings disconsolately. "She's always managed to get the right side of him so far. But I'm nearly beat, captain! Things are getting too hard for me. You can't say a word to these men—they're off in a moment. And the wages!—it's sinful!"

"We're supposed only to be fighting a war, Hastings," said Ellesborough with a smile as they walked on together. "But all the time there's revolution going on beside it—all over the world!"

Hastings made a face.

"Right you are, captain. And how's it going to work out?"

"Don't ask me!" laughed Ellesborough—"we've all got to sit tight and hope for the best. All I know is that the people who work with their hands are going to get a bit of their own back from the people who work with their heads—or their cheque-books. And I'm glad of it! But ghosts are a silly nuisance. However, I dare say Miss Leighton will get round the old man."

Hastings looked doubtful.

"I don't know. All the talk about the murder has come up again. They say there's a grandson come home of the man that was suspected sixty years ago—John Dempsey. And some people tell me that this lad had the whole story of the murder from his grandfather—who confessed it—only last year, when the man died."

"Well, if he's dead all right, and has owned up to it, why on earth does the ghost make a fuss?"

Hastings shook his head.

"People get talking," he said gloomily. "And when they get talking, they'll believe anything—and see anything. It'll be the girls next."

Ellesborough tried to cheer him, but without much success. The "poor spirit" of the bailiff was a perpetual astonishment to the American, in the prime of his own life and vigour. Existence for Hastings was always either drab or a black business. If the weather was warm, "a bit of cold would ha' been better": if a man recovered from an illness, he'd still got the "bother o' dyin' before him." He was certain we should lose the war, and the rush of the September victories did not affect him. And if we didn't lose it, no matter—prices and wages would still be enough to ruin us. Rachel grew impatient under the constant drench of pessimism. Janet remembered that the man was a delicate man, nearing the sixties, with, as she suspected, but small provision laid up for old age; with an ailing wife; and bearing the marks in body and spirit of years of overwork. She never missed an opportunity of doing him a kindness; and the consequence was that Hastings, always faithful, even to his worst employers, was passionately faithful to his new mistresses, defending them and fighting for their interests, as they were sometimes hardly inclined to fight for themselves.

After showing Ellesborough the way to the "clamps," Hastings left him. In succession to the long days of rain there had been a sudden clearing in the skies. The day had been fine, and now, towards sunset, there was a grand massing of rosy cloud along the edge of the down, and windy lights over the valley. Rachel, busy with the covering of the potato "clamps," laid down the bundle of bracken she had been handing to Peter Betts, and came quickly to meet her visitor. Her working dress was splashed with mire from neck to foot, and coils of brown hair had escaped from her waterproof cap, and hung about her brilliant cheeks. She looked happy, but tired.

"Such a day!" she said, panting, as they met. "The girls and I began at six this morning—lifting and sorting. It was so important to get them in. Now they're safe if the frost does come. It's a jolly crop!"

Ellesborough looked at her, and her eyes wavered before the ardour in his.

"I say! You work too hard! Haven't you done enough? Come and rest."

She nodded. "I'll come!"

She ran to say a word to the others and rejoined him.

They went back to the farm, not talking much, but conscious through every nerve of the other's nearness. Rachel ran upstairs to change her dress, and Ellesborough put the fire together, and shut the windows. For the sun had sunk behind the hill, and a bitter wind was rising. When Rachel came down again, the wood-fire glowed and crackled, the curtains drawn, and she stared in astonishment at a small tea-tray beside the fire.

Ellesborough hurriedly apologized.

"I found some boiling water in the kettle, and I know by now where Miss
Janet keeps her tea."

"Janet brought us tea to the field."

"I dare say she did. That was four—this is six. You felt cold just now. You looked cold. Be good, and take it easy!" He pointed to the only comfortable chair, which he had drawn up to the fire.

"Are you sure it boiled?" she said sceptically, as she sank into her chair, her eyes dancing. "No man knows when a kettle boils."

"Try it! For five winters on the Saguenay, I made my own tea—and baked my own bread. Men are better cooks than women when they give their minds to it!" He brought her the cup, hot and fragrant, and she sipped it in pure content while he stood smiling above her, leaning against the mantelpiece.

"I wanted to see you," he said presently. "I've just got my marching orders. Let's see. This is October. I shall have just a month. They've found another man to take over this job, but he can't come till November."

"And—peace?" said Rachel, looking up.

For Prince Max of Baden had just made his famous peace offer of October 5th, and even in rural Brookshire there was a thrilling sense of opening skies, of some loosening of those iron bonds in which the world had lain for four years.

"There will be no peace!" said Ellesborough with sudden energy, "so long as there is a single German soldier left in Belgium or France!"

She saw him stiffen from head to foot—and thrilled to the flame of avenging will that suddenly possessed him. The male looked out upon her, kindling—by the old, old law—the woman in her.

"And if they don't accept that?"

"Then the war will go on," he said briefly, "and I shall be in for the last lap!"

His colour changed a little. She put down her cup and bent over the fire, warming her hands.

"If it does go on, it will be fiercer than ever."

"Very likely. If our fellows set the pace there'll be no dawdling.
America's white hot."

"And you'll be in it?"

"I hope so," he said quietly.

There was a pause. Then he, looking down upon her, felt a sudden and passionate joy invade him—joy which was also longing—longing irresistible. His mind had been wrestling with many scruples and difficulties during the preceding days. Ought he to speak—on the eve of departure—or not? Would she accept him? Or was all her manner and attitude towards him merely the result of the new freedom of women? Gradually but surely his mounting passion had idealized her. Not only her personal ways and looks had become delightful to him, but the honourable, independent self in him had come to feel a deep admiration for and sympathy with her honourable independence, for these new powers in women that made them so strong in spite of their weakness. She had become to him not only a woman but a heroine. His whole heart approved and admired her when he saw her so active, so competent, so human. And none the less the man's natural instinct hungered to take her in his arms, to work for her, to put her back in the shelter of love and home—ith her children at her knee….

And how domestic was this little scene in which they stood—the firelight, the curtained room, the tea-things, her soft, bending form, with the signs of labour put away!…

The tears rushed to his eyes. He bent over her, and spoke her name, almost unconsciously.

"Rachel!"

His soul was in the name!

She started, and looked up. While he had been thinking only of her, her thoughts had gone wandering—far away. And they seemed to have brought back—not the happy yielding of a woman to her lover—but distress and fear. A shock ran through him.

"Rachel!—" He held out his hands to her. He could not find words, but his eyes spoke, and the agitation in every feature.

But she drew back.

"Don't—don't say anything—till—"

His look held her—the surprise in it—the tender appeal. She could not take hers from it. But the disturbance in him deepened. For in the face she raised to him there was no flood of maidenly joy. Suddenly—her eyes were those of a culprit examining her judge. A cry sprang to his lips.

"Wait!—wait!" she said piteously.

She fell back in her chair, covering her face, her breast heaving. He saw that she was trying to command herself, to steady her voice. One of those forebodings which are the children of our half-conscious observation shot through him. But he would not admit it.

He stooped over her and tried again to take her hand. But she drew it away, and sat up in her chair. She was very white, and there were tears in her eyes.

"I've got something to say to you," she said, with evident difficulty, "which—I'm afraid—will surprise you very much. Of course I ought to have told you—long ago. But I'm a coward, and—and—it was all so horrible. I am not what you suppose me. I'm—a married woman—at least I was. I divorced my husband—eighteen months ago. I'm quite free now. I thought if you really cared about me—I should of course have to tell you some time—but I've been letting it go on. It was very wrong of me—I know it was very wrong!"

And bowing her face on her knees, she burst into a passion of weeping, the weeping of a child who was yet a woman. The mingled immaturity and intensity of her nature found its expression in the very abandonment of her tears.

Ellesborough, too, had turned pale. He was astounded by what she said. His thoughts rushed back over the six weeks of their friendship—recalling his first impressions of something mysterious and unexplained.

But of late, he had entirely forgotten them. She had talked so frankly and simply of her father and mother—of her father's missionary work in Canada, and her early journeys with him; and of her brother in Ontario, his children and his letters. Once she had handed him a letter from this brother to read, and he had been struck by the refined and affectionate tone of it. Here were the same family relations as his own. His heart, his taste were satisfied. If Rachel Henderson accepted him he would be bringing his mother a daughter she would find it easy to love.

And all the time—instead of an unmarried girl, with the experiences of love and marriage before her—she had been already married—and divorced! Another man had loved and possessed her—and even if she were innocent—but of course she was innocent!—there must be some ugly story involved.

He tried to collect his thoughts—but all his consciousness seemed to be bruised and in pain. He could only put his hand on her hair, and say incoherent things,—

"Don't cry so, dear—don't cry!"

And even as he spoke he felt with bewilderment how—in a moment—their respective attitudes had changed. She checked her sobs.

"Sit there!" she said, pointing peremptorily to a seat opposite. Then she looked round her.

"Where is Janet?"

"She went to the village."

Rachel dried her eyes, and with trembling hands smoothed her hair back from her face.

"I'll try and tell it shortly. It's a horrible tale."

"Do you feel able to tell it?"

For he was aghast at her pallor—the alteration in her whole aspect.

"I must," she wailed. "Weren't you—weren't you just going to ask me to marry you?"

Strange question!—strange frowning eyes!

"I was," he said gravely. "Didn't you know I should?"

"No, no, I didn't know!" she said piteously. "I was never sure—till you looked at me then. I wouldn't be sure!"

He said nothing. Speech was ice-bound till he had heard what she had to say.

"It all began to happen three years ago," she said hurriedly, hiding her face from him with her hand while she hung over the fire. "I was living with my brother, who was then near Winnipeg. He offered me a home after my father died. But he was married, and I didn't get on with his wife. I dare say it was my fault, but I wasn't happy, and I wanted to get away. Then a man—an Englishman—bought the next section to us, and we began to know him. He was a gentleman—he'd been to Cambridge—his father had some land and a house in Lincolnshire. But he was the third son, and he'd been taught land agency, he said, as a training for the colonies. That was all we knew. He was very good-looking, and he began courting me. I suppose I was proud of his being a University man—a public school boy, and all that. He told me a lot of stories about his people, and his money—most of which were lies. But I was a fool—and I believed them. My brother tried to stop it. Well, you know from his letters what sort of man he is," and again she brushed the sudden tears away. "But his wife made mischief, and I was set on having a place of my own. So I stuck to it—and married him."

She rose abruptly from her seat and began to move restlessly about the room, taking up a book or her knitting from the table, and putting them down again, evidently unconscious of what she was doing. Ellesborough waited. His lean, sharply-cut face revealed a miserable, perhaps an agonized suspense. This crisis into which she had plunged him so suddenly was bringing home to him all that he had at stake. That she mattered to him so vitally he had never known till this moment.

"What's the good of going into it!" she said at last desperately. "You can guess—what it means"—a sudden crimson rushed to her cheeks—"to be tied to a man—without honour—or principle—or refinement—who presently seemed to me vile all through—in what he said—or what he did. And I was at his mercy. I had married him in such a hurry he had a right to despise me, and he used it! And when I resisted and turned against him, then I found out what his temper meant." She raised her shoulders with a gesture which needed no words. "Well—we got on somehow till my little girl was born—"

Ellesborough started. Rachel turned on him her sad, swimming eyes. But the mere mention of her child had given her back her dignity and strength to go on. She became visibly more composed, as she stood opposite to him, her beautiful dark head against the sunset clouds outside.

"She only lived a few weeks. Her death was largely owing to him. But that's a long story. And after her death I couldn't stand it any more. I ran away. And soon I heard that he had taken up with an Italian girl. There was a large camp of Italians on the C.P.R., quite close to us. She was the daughter of one of the foremen. So then my brother made me go to his lawyers in Winnipeg. We collected evidence very easily. I got my divorce eighteen months ago. The decree was made absolute last February. So, of course, I'm quite free—quite—quite free!"

She spoke the last words almost savagely, and after them she moved away to the window looking on the down, and stood gazing through it, as though she had forgotten Ellesborough's presence.

"The action was not defended?" he asked, in a low voice.

She shook her head without speaking. But after a minute she added,—

"I can show you the report."

There was silence. Ellesborough turned round, put his hands on the mantelpiece, and buried his face on them. Presently she approached him, looked at him with a quivering lip, and said in broken sentences,—

"It has all come so suddenly—hasn't it? I had been in such good spirits to-day, not thinking of those horrible things at all. I don't know what I meant to do, if you did ask me—for of course I knew you might. I suppose I intended to put off telling you—so as to be sure first—certain—that you loved me. And then—somehow—when you looked down on me like that, I felt—that I cared—much more than I had thought I cared—too much to let you speak—before you knew—before I'd told you. It's always been my way—to—put off disagreeable things. And so I thought I could put this off. But every night I have been awake thinking—'if only he knew!'—and I was wretched—for a while—because you didn't know. But then it went away again—and I forgot it. One does forget things—everything—when one is hard at work. But I'm awfully sorry. And now—I think—we'd better say good-bye."

Her voice faltered against her will. He raised himself quickly.

"No—no," he said passionately, "we won't say good-bye. But you must let me think—for you, as well as for myself."

"It would be better to say good-bye," she persisted. "I'm afraid—you expect in me—what I haven't got. I see that now. Because I'm keen about this work, and I can run this farm, you think—perhaps—I'm a strong character. But I'm not. I've no judgment—not in moral things. I give in—I'm weak—and then—I could kill myself!"

She had grown very white again—and her eyes were strangely fixed on him. The words seemed to him incoherent, out of touch somehow even with their tragic conversation. But his first passing bewilderment was lost in pity and passion. He stopped, took her hand, and kissed it. He came nearer.

But again she drew back.

"There's Janet!" she said, "we can't talk any more."

For she had caught sight of Janet in the farm-yard, leading her bicycle.

"Can you meet me to-morrow evening—on the Common?" he said. "I could be there about six."

She frowned a little.

"Is it worth while?"

"I beg you!" he said huskily.

"Very well—I'll come. We shall be just friends, please."

"But, of course, I'll tell you more—if you wish."

Janet's voice and step were heard in the passage. How Ellesborough got through the next ten minutes he never remembered. When they were over, he found himself rushing through the cool and silence of the autumn night, thankful for this sheltering nature in which to hide his trouble, his deep, deep distress.