Harvest

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

VII

The October night rang stormily round Great End Farm. The northwest wind rushing over the miniature pass just beyond the farm, where the road dropped from the level of the upland in which Ipscombe lay, to the level of the plain, was blowing fiercely on the square of buildings which stood naked and undefended against weather from that quarter of the heaven, while protected by the hills and the woods from the northeast. And mingled with the noisy or wailing gusts came the shrieking from time to time of one of the little brown owls that are now multiplying so fast in the English midlands.

The noise of the storm and the clamour of the owl were not the cause of Rachel's wakefulness; but they tended to make it more feverish and irritable. Every now and then she would throw off the bed-clothes, and sit up with her hands round her knees, a white and rigid figure lit by the solitary candle beside her. Then again she would feel the chill of the autumn night, and crouch down shivering among the bed-clothes, pining for a sleep that would not come. Instead of sleep, she could do nothing but rehearse the scene with Ellesborough again and again. She watched the alterations in his face—she heard the changes in his voice—as she told her story. She was now as sorry for him as for herself! The tears came flooding into her eyes as she thought of him. In her selfish fears of his anger she had forgotten his suffering. But the first true love of her life was bringing understanding. She realized the shock to him, and wept over it. She saw, too, that she had been unjust and cowardly in letting the situation go so far without speaking; and that there was no real excuse for her.

Would he give her up? She had told him that all was at an end between them; but that was only pride—making a virtue of a necessity. Oh, no, no, he must not give her up! It was only six weeks since their first meeting, and though it would be untrue to say that since the meeting he had wholly possessed her thoughts, she had been capable all through them of that sort of dallying with the vicar which Janet thought unkind. She had been able to find plenty of mind for her work, and for the ambitions of her new profession, and had spent many a careless hour steeped in the sheer physical pleasure of the harvest. Yet, from the beginning, his personality had laid its grip on hers. She had never been able to forget him for long. One visit from him was no sooner over than she was calculating on and dreaming of the next. And as the consciousness of some new birth in her had grown, and sudden glimpses had come to her of some supreme joy, possibly within her grasp, so fear had grown, and anxiety. She looked back upon her past, and knew it stained—knew that it must at some point rise as an obstacle between her and him.

But how great an obstacle? She was going to tell him, faithfully, frankly, all the story of her marriage—accuse her own rash self-will in marrying Delane, confess her own failings as a wife; she would tell no hypocritical tale. She would make it plain that Roger had found in her no mere suffering saint, and that probably her intolerance and impatience had contributed to send him to damnation. But, after all, when it was told, what could Ellesborough do but pity her?—take her in his arms—and comfort her—for those awful years—and her lost child?

The tears rained down her cheeks. He loved her! She was certain of that. When he had once heard the story, he could not forsake her! She already saw the pity in his deep grey eyes; she already felt his honest, protecting arms about her.

Ah—but then? Beyond that imagined scene, which rose, as though it were staged, before her, Rachel's shrinking eyes, in the windy darkness, seemed to be penetrating to another—a phantom scene in a dim distance—drawn not from the future, but the past. Two figures moved in it. One was herself. The other was not Roger Delane.

The brown owl seemed to be shrieking just outside her window. Her nerves quivered under the sound as though it were her own voice. Why was life so cruel, so miserable? Why cannot even the gods themselves make undone what is done? She was none the worse—permanently—for what had happened in that distant scene—that play within a play? How was she the worse? She was "not a bad woman!"—as she had said so passionately to Janet, when they joined hands. There was no lasting taint left in mind and soul—nothing to prevent her being a pure and faithful wife to George Ellesborough, and a good mother to his children. It was another Rachel to whom all that had happened, a Rachel she had a right to forget! She was weak in will—she had confessed it. But George Ellesborough was strong. Leaning on him, and on kind Janet, she could be all, she would be all, that he still dreamed. The past—that past—was dead. It had no existence. Nothing—neither honour nor love—obliged her to disclose it. Except in her own mind it was dead and buried—as though it had never been. No human being shared her knowledge of it, or ever would.

And yet the Accuser came closer and closer, wrestling with her shrinking heart. "You can't live a lie beside him all your life!" "It won't be a lie. All that matters to him is what I am now—not what I was. And it wasn't I!—it was another woman—a miserable, battered creature who couldn't help herself." "It will rise up between you, and perhaps—after all—in some way—he will discover it." "How can he? Dick and I—who in all the world knew, but us two?—and Dick is dead." "Are you sure that no one knew:—that no one saw you? Think!"

A pale face grew paler in the dim light, as thought hesitated:—

"There was that wagon—and the boy—in the storm." "Yes—what then?" "Well—what then? The boy scarcely saw me." "He did see you." "And if he did—it is the commonest thing in a Canadian winter to be caught by a storm, to ask shelter from a neighbour." "Still—even if he drew no malicious conclusion, he saw you—alone in that farm with Dick Tanner, and he probably knew your name." "How should he know my name?" "He had seen you before—you had seen him before." "I didn't know his name—I don't know it now." "No—but in passing your farm once, he had dropped a parcel for a neighbour—and you had seen him once—at a railway station." "Is it the least likely that I shall ever see him again—or that he remembers seeing me at Dick Tanner's door?" "Not likely, perhaps—but possible—quite possible."

And while this question and answer passed through the brain, the woman sitting up in bed seemed to be transported to a howling wintry scene of whirling snow—a November twilight—and against that background, the hood of a covered wagon, a boy holding the reins, the heavy cape on his shoulders white with snow, the lamps of the wagon shining dimly on him, and making a kind of luminous mist round the cart. She heard a parley, saw a tall and slender man with fair hair go out to the boy with hot milk and bread, caught directions as to the road, and saw herself as a half-hidden figure in the partially open door.

And then afterwards—the warm farm kitchen shutting out the storm—a man at her knees—his arms round her—his kisses on her cheek.

And again the irrevocableness of it closed down upon her. It could never be undone: that was the terrible commonplace which held her in its grasp. It could never be wiped out from one human mind, which must bear the burden of it as best it could, till gradually—steadily—the life, had been killed out of the ugly, haunting thing, and it had been buried—drowned, out of sight and memory.

But the piteous dialogue began again.

"How could I have resisted? I was so miserable—so lonely—so weak!" "You didn't love him!" "No—but I was alone in the world." "Well, then, tell George Ellesborough—he is a reasonable man—he would understand." "I can't—I can't! I have deceived him up till now by passing as unmarried. If I confess this, too, there will be no chance for me. He'll never trust me in anything!—he'll suspect everything I do or say—even if he goes on loving me. And I couldn't bear it!—nor could he."

And so at last the inward debate wore itself out, and sleep, sudden and deep, came down upon Rachel Henderson. When she woke in the morning it was to cleared skies both in her own mind and in the physical world. The nightmare through which she had passed seemed to her now unreal, even a little absurd. Her nerves were quieted by sleep, and she saw plainly what she had to do. That "old, unhappy, far-off thing" lurking in the innermost depth of memory had nothing more to do with her. She would look it calmly in the face, and put it finally—for ever—away. But of her marriage she would tell everything—everything!—to George Ellesborough, and he should deal with her as he pleased.

* * * * *

The day was misty and still. October, the marvellous October of this year, was marching on. Every day, Foch on the battlefield of France and Belgium was bringing down the old Europe, and clearing the ground for the new. In English villages and English farms, no less than in the big towns, there was ferment and excitement, though it showed but little. Would the boys be home by Christmas—the sons, the brothers, the husbands? What would the change be like—the life after the war? If there were those who yearned and prayed for it—there were those who feared it. The war had done well for some, and hideously for others. And all through the play of individual interests and desires, and even in the dullest minds there ran the intoxicating sense of Victory, of an England greater and more powerful than even her own sons and daughters had dared to dream—an England which knew herself now, by the stern test of the four years' struggle, to be possessed of powers and resources, spiritual, mental, physical, which amazed herself. In all conscious minds, brooding on the approaching time, there rose the question: "What are we going to do with it?" and even in the unconscious, the same thought was present, as a vague disturbing impulse.

Janet had just read the war telegrams to Rachel, who had come down late, complaining of a headache; but when Janet—the reserved and equable Janet—after going through the news of the recapture of Ostend, Zeebrugge, and Bruges, broke into the passionate, low-spoken comment: "The Lord is King—be the people never so unquiet!" or could not, for tears, finish the account of the entry into recaptured Lille, and the joy of its inhabitants, Rachel sat irresponsive—or apparently so.

How would it affect Ellesborough—this astounding news? Would it take him from her the sooner, or delay his going? That was all she seemed capable of feeling.

Janet was troubled by her look and attitude, and being well aware that the two had had a long tête-à-tête the day before, wondered how things were going. But she said nothing; and after breakfast Rachel joined the two girls in the potato-field, and worked as hard as they, hour after hour. But her usual gaiety was gone, and the girls noticed at once the dark rims under her eyes. They wondered secretly what Miss Henderson's "friend" had been doing. For that the "Cap'n" was courting their employer had long been plain to them. Betty, of course, had a "friend," the young soldier whose sick leave was nearly up, and the child's deep velvety eyes were looking nearly as tired as Miss Henderson's. While Jenny, too, the timid, undeveloped Jenny had lately begun to take an interest in a "friend," a young fellow belonging to Ellesborough's forestry camp whom she had met in Millsborough the day of the Harvest Festival. They had hardly exchanged half an hour's real conversation. But he had bought her some sweets at Millsborough, and walked a bit of the way home with her. Then she had seen him in the village once or twice. He had some relations there—there was some talk of him, and that old murder at the farm—she didn't know rightly what it was. But she felt somehow that Miss Henderson wouldn't want to have him about—Miss Henderson didn't like talk of the murder—so Jenny had never asked him to look her up. But her raw, childish mind was full of him, and the ferments of sex were stirring. In the secret opinion of both girls, "friends" were quite as much pain as pleasure. No girl could do without them; but they were pretty certain to cause heart-aches, to make a girl wish at some time or other that she had never been born. A London factory-girl would have expressed it in the Cockney way: "Blokes are no good—but you must have a bloke!"

The two girls then concluded that Captain Ellesborough had been causing trouble, as all men did, at some point; and being sympathetic little souls, they worked especially hard in the potato-field, and would not allow Rachel to carry the heavier baskets to the "clamp."

Meanwhile Janet had been wrestling with old Halsey, till he had very reluctantly yielded to her persuasion, and returned to work.

"I'm not the man I wor," he confided to Peter Betts, as they were eating their dinner under a hedge in the damp October sunshine. "When I wor a young man, I wouldn't ha' minded them things, not if it was iver so. But now they do give me the shivers in my inside."

"What do?" said Peter Betts, with a mouthful of cold bacon. He was still greatly in the dark as to why Halsey had left work so early in the afternoon the day before, and why he was now in such a gruff and gloomy mood. There was indeed a rumour in the village that old Halsey had seen "summat," but as Halsey had gone to bed immediately after Miss Leighton had had her say with him, and had refused to be "interviewed" even by his wife, there was a good deal of uncertainty even in the mind of his oldest pal, Peter Betts.

"Why—ghostisses!" said Halsey, with a frown, removing his pipe for a moment to give emphasis to the word. "I don't see as a man can be expected to deal with ghostisses. Anythin' else yer like in a small way—mad dogs, or bulls, or snakes, where they keep 'em, which, thank the Lord, they don't in these parts—but not them."

"What did yer see?" said Betts, after a few ruminating pulls.

"Well, I saw old Watson, the keeper, as was murdered sixty years since, 'at's what I saw," said Halsey with slow decisiveness.

"An' what might be like?" asked Betts, with equal deliberation. The day was mild and sunny; the half-ploughed field on which they had been working lay alternatively yellow in the stubbles and a rich brown purple in the new turned furrows under the autumn noon. A sense of well-being had been diffused in the two old men by food and rest. Halsey's tongue grew looser.

"Well, I saw a man come creepin' an' crouchin' down yon grass road"—(it was visible from where they sat, as a green streak on the side of the hill)—"same as several people afore me 'as seen 'um—same as they allus say old Watson must ha' come after Dempsey shot 'im. He wor shot in the body. The doctors as come to look at 'im fust foun' that out. An' if ye're shot in the body, I understan', yo naterally double up a bit if yo try to walk. Well—that's jes' how I saw 'im—crouchin' along. Yo remember it wor a dull evenin' yesterday—an' it wor gettin' dark, though it worn't dark. It wor not much after fower, by my old watch—but I couldn't see 'im at all plain. I wor in Top-End field—you know?—as leads up to that road. An' I watched 'im come along making for that outside cart-shed—that 'un that's back to back wi' the shippen, where they foun' Watson lyin'. An' I wor much puzzled by the look on 'im. I didn't think nothink about old Watson, fust of all—I didn't know what to think. I was right under the hedge wi' the horses; 'ee couldna' ha' seen me—an' I watched 'im. He stopped, onst or twice, as though he wor restin' hisself—pullin' 'isself together—and onst I 'eered 'im cough—"

Halsey looked round suddenly on his companion as though daring him to mock.

Betts, however, could not help himself. He gave an interrupting and sceptical chuckle.

"Ghostisses don't cough, as ever I 'eered on."

"And why shouldn't they?" said Halsey testily. "If they can do them other things they'd used to do when livin'—walkin' an' seein' an' such-like—why not coughin'?"

Betts shook his head.

"Never 'eered on it," he said, with conviction.

"Well, anyways I seed him come down to that shed, an' then I lost 'im. But I 'ad the creeps somehow and I called to Jenny to come an' take the 'orses. An' then I went after 'im. But there was all the field an' the lane to cross, and when I come to the shed, there wasn't no one and nothink to be seen—excep'—"

The old man paused, and again looked doubtfully at his companion.

"Well?" said Betts eagerly, his philosophic attitude giving way a little.

"Excep'—a large patch o' blood—fresh blood—I touched it—on one of them ole sacks lyin' near the cart," said Halsey slowly. "An' it worn't there in the afternoon, for I moved the sacks mysel'."

Betts whistled softly. Halsey resumed,—

"There was nothin' moved—or taken away—nothin' at all!—only that patch. So then I went all round the farm, and there was nobody. I thought 'ee might ha' turned back by the grass road, p'raps, without my seein' 'im, so I went that way, and there was nothin'—until—a little way up the road—there was blood again"—the old man's voice dropped—"every couple o' yards or so—a drop or two here—an' a drop or two there—just as they tracked old Watson by it, up the hill, and into yon wood—where Dempsey set on him."

The two old men looked at each other. Betts was evidently impressed.

"Are you sure it was blood?"

"Sure. Last night, Hastings said it was sheep-dip! After I tole 'im, when 'ee went to look under the shed, it wor so dark 'ee couldn't see nothin'. Well, 'ee knew better this mornin'. 'Ee fetched me, an' asst me if I'd said anythin' to Miss Janet. And I said, no. So then he tole me I wasn't to say nothin' to the ladies, nor the girls, nor anybody. An' 'ee'd done summat wi' the sack—I dunno what. But 'ee might ha' held 'is tongue last night about sheep-dip! Who's been dippin' sheep about here? 'As Miss Henderson got any ruddle anywhere about the farm? I know she ain't!—an' Muster Hastings knows she ain't."

"Why didn't yer tell Miss Janet?—about the bleedin'?"

"Well, I was a bit skeered. I thought I'd sleep on't, before I got talkin' any more. But on the way 'ome, as I tellt yer, I met Hastings, an' tole 'im, an' then give 'im notice."

"That wor a bit hasty, worn't it?" said Betts after a moment, in a judicial tone. But he had been clearly much exercised by his companion's account, and his pipe hanging idly from his hands showed that his thoughts were active.

"Well, it might ha' bin," Halsey admitted, "but as I said afore, I'm gettin' an old man, and I don't want no truck wi' things as I don't unnerstan'. It give me the wust night as I've had since I had that bad turn wi' the influenza ten year ago."

"You didn't see his face?"

"No."

"An' 'ee didn't mind you of anybody?"

Halsey hesitated.

"Well, onst I did think I'd seen one o' the same build—soomwhere. But I can't recolleck where."

"As for the blood," said Betts reflectively, "it's as curous as the coughin'. Did you iver hear tell as ghosts could bleed?"

Hastings shook his head. Steeped in meditation, the two men smoked silently for a while. Then Betts said, with the explosiveness of one who catches an idea,—

"Have yer thought o' tellin' John Dempsey?"

"I hain't thought o' tellin' nobody. An' I shouldn't ha' told Miss Leighton what I did tell her, if she 'adn't come naggin' about my givin' notice."

"You might as well tell John Dempsey. Why, it's his business, is old
Watson! Haven't yer seen 'im at all?"

Halsey said "No," holding his handsome old head rather high. Had he belonged to a higher station in life, his natural reticence, and a fastidious personal dignity would have carried him far. To a modern statesman they are at least as valuable as brains. In the small world of Ipscombe they only meant that Halsey himself held rather scornfully aloof from the current village gossip, and got mocked at for his pains. The ordinary human instinct revenged itself, however, when he was tête-à-tête with his old chum Peter Betts. Betts divined at any rate from the expression in the old man's eyes that he might talk, and welcome.

So he poured out what he knew about John Dempsey, a Canadian lad working in the Forestry Corps at Ralstone, who turned out to be the grandson of the Dempsey who had always been suspected of the murder of Richard Watson in the year 1859. This young Dempsey, he said, had meant to come to Ipscombe after the war, and put what he knew before the police. But finding himself sent to Ralstone, which was only five miles from Ipscombe, he saw no reason to wait, and he had already given all the information he could to the superintendent of police at Millsborough. His grandfather had signed a written confession before his death, and John Dempsey had handed it over. The old man, it appeared, had "turned pious" during a long illness before his death, and had wished to square matters with his conscience and the Almighty. When his grandson had volunteered for the war, and was about to sail for Europe, old Dempsey had sent for him, had told him the story, and charged him, when he was able, to place his confession in the proper hands. And having done that, he died "very quiet and comfortable"—so John Dempsey reported.

"Which is more than poor Jem Watson did," growled Halsey. He felt neither respect nor sympathy for a man who, having set up a secret, couldn't keep it; and the confession itself, rather than the crime confessed, confirmed the poor opinion he had always held of the elder Dempsey when they were young men in the village together. But he agreed to let Betts bring "young John" to see him. And thereupon they went back to the sowing of one of Miss Henderson's big fields with winter wheat.

When the milking was done, and work was nearly over for the day, a note brought by messenger arrived at the farm for Miss Henderson. It was from Ellesborough—a few scribbled words. "I am prevented from coming this evening. The Chief Forestry Officer of my district has just arrived, and stays the night. I hope to come over to-morrow between six and seven. Shall I find you?"

Rachel scribbled an answer, which a small boy on a bicycle carried off. Then she went slowly back to the sitting-room, so disappointed and unnerved that she was on the brink of tears. Janet who had just come in from milking, was standing by the table, mending a rent in her waterproof. She looked up as Rachel entered, and the needle paused in her hand.

"I say, Rachel!—you do look overdone! You've been going at it too hard."

For all day long Rachel had been lifting, and sorting, and carrying, in the potato-field, finding in the severe physical exertion the only relief from restlessness. She shook her head irritably and came to stand by the wood fire which Janet had just lit, a welcome brightness in the twilight room.

"Suppose you knock up—" began Janet in a tone of remonstrance. Rachel cut her short.

"I want to speak to you—please, Janet."

Janet looked round in astonishment and put down her work. Rachel was standing by the fire, with her hands behind her back, her eyes fixed on Janet. She was still in the graceful tunic and knee-breeches, in which her young and splendid youth seemed always most at home. But she had taken off her cap, and her brown hair was falling round a pale face.

"Janet—you know Captain Ellesborough and I had a long talk last night?"

Janet smiled.

"Of course I do. And of course I have my own thoughts about it!"

"I don't know what they are," said Rachel slowly. "But—I'd better tell you—Captain Ellesborough asked me to marry him."

She paused.

"Did you think that would be news to any of us?" said Janet, laughing, and then stopped. The sudden contraction of pain in Rachel's face, and something like a sob startled her.

"Don't, Janet, please. I told him something—which made him wonder—whether he did want to marry me after all."

Janet's heart gave an uncomfortable jump. A score of past conjectures and misgivings rushed back upon her.

"What did you tell him?"

"What I see now I ought to have told you—as well as him—long ago. Henderson is my maiden name. I was a married woman for three years. I had a child which died. I divorced my husband, and he's still alive."

The colour had flamed back into her cheeks. Janet sat silent, her eyes fixed on Rachel's.

"I did tell you I had a story, didn't I?" said Rachel insistently.

"You did. I took my chance. It was you who—who brought the action?"

"I brought the action. There was no defence. And the judge said—I'd been awfully badly treated—it was no wonder I wanted—to get free. Well, there it is. I'm sorry I deceived you. I'm sorry I deceived him."

"You didn't deceive me," said Janet. "I had practically guessed it." She rose slowly, and going up to Rachel, she put her hands on her shoulders,—

"Why didn't you tell me, you poor thing!" Her voice and eyes were full of emotion—full of pity. But Rachel shrank away a little from her touch, murmuring under her breath, "Because I wanted never to hear of it—or think of it again." Then, after a pause, she added, "But if you want to know more, I'll tell you. It's your right. My married name was Delane."

"Don't tell me any more!" said Janet peremptorily. "I don't want to hear it. But you ought to be—quite frank—with him."

"I know that. Naturally—it was a great shock to him."

There was something very touching in her attitude. She stood there like a shamefaced boy, in her quasi-male dress; and the contrast between her strong young beauty, and the humility and depression of her manner appealed with singular force to Janet's mind, so constantly and secretly preoccupied with spiritual things. Rachel seemed to her so much cleverer and more vigorous than herself in all matters of ordinary life. Only in the region of religious experience did Janet know herself the superior. But Rachel had never made any outward sign that she cared in the least to know more of that region, whether in Janet or other people. She had held entirely aloof from it. But self-reproach—moral suffering—are two of the keys that lead to it. And both were evident here. Janet's heart went out to her friend.

"When is he coming?"

"To-morrow evening. I dare say he'll give me up."

Janet marvelled at the absence of self-assertion—the touch of despair—in words and tone. So it had gone as deep as this! She blamed herself for lack of perception. An ordinary love-affair, about to end in an ordinary way—that was how it had appeared to her. And suddenly it seemed to her she had stumbled upon what might be tragedy.

No, no—there should be no tragedy! She put her arms round Rachel.

"My dear, he won't give you up! As if I hadn't seen! He worships the ground you tread upon!"

Rachel said nothing. She let her face rest on Janet's shoulder. When she raised it, it was wet. But she kissed Janet quietly, and went away without another word.