Harvest

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

VIII

Four grown-ups and a child were gathered in the living-room of Halsey's cottage. The cottage was old like its tenant and had all the inconveniences of age; but it was more spacious than the modern cottage often is, since it and its neighbours represented a surviving fragment from an old Jacobean house—a house of gentlefolks—which had once stood on the site. Most of the house had been pulled down, but Colonel Shepherd's grandfather had retained part of it, and turned it into two cottages—known as 1 and 2 Ipscombe Place—which for all their drawbacks were much in demand in the village, and conferred a certain distinction on their occupants. Mrs. Halsey's living room possessed a Tudor mantelpiece in moulded brick, into which a small modern kitchener had been barbarously fitted; and three fine beams with a little incised ornament ran across the ceiling.

Mrs. Halsey had not long cleared away the tea, and brought in a paraffin lamp, small but cheerful. She was a middle-aged woman, much younger than her husband—with an ironic half-dreamy eye, and a native intelligence much superior to her surroundings. She was suffering from a chronic abscess in the neck, which had strange periodic swellings and subsidences, all of which were endlessly interesting to its possessor. Mrs. Halsey, indeed, called the abscess "she," wrapped it lovingly in red flannel, describing the evening dressing of it as "putting her to bed," and talked of "her" qualities and oddities as though, in the phrase of her next-door neighbour, "it'd a been a christened child." She had decided views on politics, and was a match for any political agent who might approach her with an eye to her vote, a commodity which she kept, so to speak, like a new shilling in her pocket, turning it from time to time to make sure it was there.

But independent as she was, she rarely interfered with the talk of Halsey and his male friends. And on this occasion when the three men—Halsey, Peter Betts, and young Dempsey—had gathered smoking round the fire, she settled herself with her knitting by the table and the lamp, throwing in every now and then a muttered and generally sarcastic comment, of which her husband took no notice—especially as he knew very well that the sarcasms were never aimed at him, and that she was as proud of him as she was generally contemptuous of the rest of the world.

Halsey had just finished a rather grudging description of his experiences two days before for John Dempsey's benefit. He was conscious that each time he repeated them, they sounded more incredible. He didn't want to repeat them; he didn't mean to repeat them; after this, nobody should get any more out of him at all.

Young Dempsey's attitude was certainly not encouraging. Attentive at first, he allowed himself, as Halsey's talk developed, a mild, progressive grin, which spread gradually over his ugly but honest face, and remained there. In face of it, Halsey's speech became more and more laconic, till at last he shut his mouth with a snap, and drawing himself up in his chair, re-lit his pipe with the expression that meant, "All right—I've done—you may take it or leave it."

"Well, I don't see that what you saw, Mr. Halsey, was so very uncommon!"
Dempsey began, still smiling, in spite of a warning look from Betts.
"You saw a man come down that road? Well, in the first place, why
shouldn't a man come down that road—it's a reg'lar right of way—"

"It's the way, mind ye, as the ghost of old Watson has allus come!" put in Peter Betts, chivalrously anxious to support his friend Halsey, as far as he could, against a sceptical stranger. "An' it's been seen twice on that road already, as I can remember: once when I was a little boy, by old Dan Holt, the postmaster, and once about ten years ago."

Dempsey looked at the speaker indulgently. To his sharpened transatlantic sense, these old men, in this funny old village, seemed to him a curiously dim and feeble folk. He could hardly prevent himself from talking to them as though they were children. He supposed his grandfather would have been like that if he'd stayed on at Ipscombe. He thanked the stars he hadn't!

But since he had been summoned to consult, as a person who had a vested interest, of a rather blood-curdling sort, in the Great End ghost, he had to give his opinion; and he gave it, while Halsey listened and smoked in a rather sulky silence. For it was soon evident that the murderer's grandson had no use at all for the supposed ghost-story. He tore it ruthlessly to pieces. In the first place, Halsey described the man seen on the grass-road as tall and lanky. But according to his grandfather's account, the murdered gamekeeper, on the contrary, was a broadly-built, stumpy man. In the next place—the coughing and the bleeding!—he laughed so long and loudly at these points in the story that Halsey's still black bushy eyebrows met frowningly over a pair of angry eyes, and Betts tried hurriedly to tame the young man's mirth.

"Well, if yer don't think that man as Halsey saw was the ghost, what do you s'pose 'ee was doin' there?" asked Betts, "and where did he go? Halsey went right round the farm. The hill just there is as bare as my hand. He must ha' seen the man—if it wor a man—an' he saw nothin'. There isn't a tree or a bush where that man could ha' hid hisself—if he wor a man."

Dempsey declared he should have to go and examine the ground himself before he could answer the question. But of course there was an answer to it—there must be. As to the man—why Millsborough, and Ipscombe too, had been full of outlandish East Enders, flying from the raids, Poles and Russians, and such like—thievin' fellows by all accounts. Why couldn't it be one of them—prowling round the farm for anything he could pick up—and frightened off, when he saw Halsey?

Betts, smoking with prodigious energy, inquired what he made of the blood. Didn't he know the old story of how Watson was tracked down to the cart-shed? Dempsey laughed again.

"Well, it's curious, grant ye. It's real funny! But where are you going to get blood without a body? And if a thing's a body, it isn't a ghost!"

The two old men were silent. Halsey was lost in a hopeless confusion of ideas, and Betts was determined not to give his pal away.

But here—say what you like!—was a strange man, seen, on the road, which had been used, according to village tradition, on several previous occasions, by the authentic ghost of Watson; his course was marked by traces of blood, just as Watson's path of pain had been marked on the night of the murder; and on reaching the spot where Watson had breathed his last, the apparition, whatever it was, had vanished. Perplexity, superstition, and common sense fought each other. Halsey who knew much of his Bible by heart was inwardly comparing texts. "A spirit hath not flesh and blood"—True—but on the other hand what about the "bodies of the saints"—that "arose"? While, perhaps, the strongest motive of all in the old man's mind was the obstinate desire to prove himself right, and so to confound young scoffers like Dempsey.

Dempsey, however, having as he thought disposed of Halsey's foolish tale was determined to tell his own, which had already made a great impression in certain quarters of the village, and ranked indeed as the chief sensation of the day. To be able to listen to the story of a murder told by the grandson of the murderer, to whom the criminal himself had confessed it, and that without any fear of unpleasant consequences to any one, was a treat that Ipscombe had seldom enjoyed, especially as the village was still rich in kinsfolk of both murdered and murderer.

Dempsey had already repeated the story so often that it was by now perfect in every detail, and it produced the same effect in this lamplit kitchen as in other. Halsey, forgetting his secret ill-humour, was presently listening open-mouthed. Mrs. Halsey laid down her knitting, and stared at the speaker over the top of her spectacles; while across Betts's gnome-like countenance smiles went out and in, especially at the more gruesome points of the tale. The light sparkled on the young Canadian's belt, the Maple Leaf in the khaki hat which lay across his knees, on the badge of the Forestry Corps on his shoulder. The old English cottage, with its Tudor brick-work, and its overhanging beams, the old English labourers with the stains of English soil upon them, made the setting; and in the midst, sat the "new man," from the New World, holding the stage, just as Ellesborough the New Englander was accustomed to hold it, at Great End Farm. All over England, all over unravaged France and northern Italy similar scenes at that moment were being thrown on the magic sheet of life; and at any drop in the talk, the observer could almost hear, in the stillness, the weaving of the Great Loom on which the Ages come and go.

There was a pause, when Dempsey came to a dramatic end with the last breath of his grandfather; till Mrs. Halsey said dryly, fixing the young man with her small beady eyes,—

"And you don't mind telling on your own grandfather?"

"Why shouldn't I?" laughed Dempsey, "when it's sixty years ago. They've lost their chance of hanging him anyhow."

Mrs. Halsey shook her head in inarticulate protest. Betts said reflectively,—

"I wouldn't advise you to be tellin' that tale to Miss Henderson."

Dempsey's expression changed at the name. He bent forward eagerly.

"By the way, who is Miss Henderson? Do you know where she comes from?"

The others stared.

"Last winter," said Betts at last, "she wor on a farm down Devonshire way. And before that she wor at college—with Miss Janet."

"Was she ever in Canada?"

"Yes!" said Halsey with sudden decision, "she wor—for she told me one day when I wor mendin' the new reaper and binder, that we in this country didn't know what harvest meant. 'Why, I've helped to reap a field—in Canada,' she ses, 'fower miles square,' she ses, 'six teams o' horses—an' six horses to the team,' she ses—'that's somethin' like.' So I know she's been in Canada."

"Ah!" said Dempsey, staring at the carpet. "And she's not married? You're sure she's not married?"

"Married?" said all the others, looking at him in disapproving astonishment.

"Well, if she ain't, I saw her sister—or her double—twice—about two-and-a-half year ago—at a place thirty miles from Winnipeg. I could ha' sworn I'd seen her before!"

"Well, you can't ha' seen her before," said Betts positively; "cause she's Miss, not Missis."

"Ah!" said Dempsey again in a non-committal voice, looking hard this time into the fire.

"Where have you seen her—in these parts?" asked Mrs. Halsey.

"At the Harvest Festival, t'other day. But I must have been mistaken—that's all. I think I'm going to call upon her some day."

"Whatever for?"

"Why—to tell her about my grandfather!" said Dempsey, looking round at Mrs. Halsey, with an air of astonishment that any one should ask him the question.

"You won't be welcome."

"Why not?"

"Because she don't want to hear nothin' about Watson's murder. And whatever's the good on it, anyhow?" said Mrs. Halsey with sudden emphasis. "You've told us a good tale, I'll grant ye. But yer might as well be pullin' the old feller 'isself out of his grave, as goin' round killin' 'im every night fresh, as you be doin'. Let 'im be. Skelintons is skelintons."

Dempsey, feeling rather indignantly that his pains had been wasted, and his audience was not worthy of him, rose to take his departure. Halsey's face cleared. He turned to look at his wife, and she winked in return. And when the young forester had taken his departure, Mrs. Halsey stroked the red flannel round her swollen neck complacently.

"I 'ad to pike 'im out soomhow. It's 'igh time she wor put to bed!"

That same evening, Ellesborough left the Ralstone camp behind him about six o'clock, and hurried through the late October evening towards Great End Farm. During the forty-eight hours which had elapsed since his interview with Rachel he had passed through much suffering, and agonies of indecision. He had had to reconstruct all his ideas of the woman he loved. Instead of the proud and virginal creature he had imagined himself to be wooing, amid the beautiful setting of her harvest fields, he had to think of her as a woman dimmed and besmirched by an unhappy marriage with a bad man. For himself, he certainly resented the concealment which had been practised on him. Yet at the same time he thought he understood the state of exasperation, of invincible revolt which had led to it. And he kept reminding himself that, after all, her confession had anticipated his proposal.

Nevertheless such men as he have ideas of marriage, both romantic and austere. They are inclined to claim what they give—a clean sheet, and the first-fruits of body and soul. In Rachel's case the first-fruits had been wasted on a marriage, of which the ugly and inevitable incidents haunted Ellesborough's imagination. One moment he shrank from the thought of them; the next he could not restrain the protesting rush of passion—the vow that his love should put her back on that pinnacle of honour and respect from which fate should never have allowed her to fall.

Well, she had promised to tell him her story in full. He awaited it. As to his own people, they were dear, good women, his mother and sisters—saints, but not Pharisees.

It was a dark and lowering evening, with tempest gusts of wind. But from far away, after he had passed Ipscombe, a light from one of the windows of the farm shone out, as though beckoning him to her. Suddenly from the mouth of the farm, he saw a bicycle approaching. The rider was Janet Leighton. She passed him with a wave and a smile.

"Going to a Food meeting! But Rachel's at home."

What a nice woman! Looking back over the couple of months since he had known the inmates of the farm, he realized how much he had come to like Janet Leighton. So unselfish, so full of thought for others, so modest for herself! There couldn't be a better friend for Rachel; her friendship itself was a testimonial; he reassured himself by the mere thought of her.

When he drew up at the farm, Hastings with a lantern in his hand was just disappearing towards the hill, and the two girls, Betty and Jenny, passed him, each with a young man, two members, in fact, of his own Corps, John Dempsey and another. They explained that they were off to a Red Cross Concert in the village hall. Ellesborough's pulse beat quicker as he parted from them, for he realized that he would find Rachel alone in the farm.

Yes, there she was at the open door, greeting him with a quiet face—a smile even. She led the way into the sitting-room, where she had just drawn down the blinds and closed the curtains of the window looking on the farm-yard. But his arrival had interrupted her before she could do the same for the window looking on the Down. Neither of them thought of it. Each was absorbed in the mere presence of the other.

Rachel was in her black Sunday dress of some silky stuff. Her throat was uncovered, and her shapely arms showed through the thin sleeves. The black and white softened and refined something overblown and sensuous in her beauty. Her manner, too, had lost its confident, provocative note. Ellesborough had never seen her so adorable, so desirable. But her self-command dictated his. He took the seat to which she pointed him; while she herself brought a chair to the other side of the fire, putting on another log with a steady hand, and a remark about the wind that was whistling outside. Then, one foot crossed over the other, her cheek reddened by the fire, propped on her hand, and her eyes on the fresh flame that was beginning to dance out of the wood, she asked him,—"You'd like to hear it all?"

He made a sign of assent.

So in a quiet, even voice, she began with an account of her family and early surroundings, more detailed than anything she had yet given him. She described her father (the striking apostolic head of the old man hung on the wall behind her) and his missionary journeys through the prairie settlements in the early days of Alberta; how, when he was old and weary, he would sometimes take her, his latest child, a small girl of ten or twelve, on his pastoral rounds, for company, perched up beside him in his buggy; and how her mother was killed by the mere hardships of the prairie life, sinking into fretful invalidism for two years before her death.

"I nursed her for years. I never did anything else—I couldn't. I never had any amusements like other girls. There was no money and no time. She died when I was twenty-four. And three months after, my father died. He didn't leave a penny. Then my brother asked me to go and live with him and his wife. I was to have my board and a dress allowance, if I would help her in the house. My brother's an awfully good sort—but I couldn't get on with his wife. I just couldn't! I expect it was my fault, just as much as hers. It was something we couldn't help. Very soon I hated the sight of her, and she never missed a chance of making me feel a worm—a useless, greedy creature, living on other people's work. If only there had been some children, I dare say I could have borne it. But she and I could never get away from each other. There were no distractions. Our nerves got simply raw—at least mine did."

There was a pause. She lifted her brown eyes, and looked at Ellesborough intently.

"I suppose my mother would have borne it. But girls nowadays can't. Not girls like me, anyway. Mother was a Christian. I don't suppose I am. I don't know what I am. I just had to live my own life. I couldn't exist without a bit of pleasure—and being admired—and seeing men—and all that!"

Her cheeks had flushed. Her eyes were very bright and defiant.

Ellesborough came nearer to her, put out a strong hand and enclosed hers in it.

"Well then—this man Delane—came to live near you?"

He spoke with the utmost gentleness, trying to help her out.

She nodded, drawing her hand away.

"I met him at a dance in Winnipeg first—the day after I'd had a horrid row with my sister-in-law. He'd just taken a large farm, with a decent house on it—not a shack—and everybody said his people were rich and were backing him. And he was very good-looking—and a Cambridge man—and all that. We danced together almost all the evening. Then he found out where I lived, and used to be always coming to see me. My brother never liked him. He said to me often, 'Why do you encourage that unprincipled cad? I'm certain there's a screw loose about him!' And I wasn't in love with Roger—not really—for one moment. But I think he was in love with me—yes, I'm sure he was—at first. And he excited and interested me. I was proud, too, of taking him away from other girls, who were always running after him. And my sister-in-law was just mad to get rid of me! Don't you understand?"

"Of course I do!"

Her eyelids wavered a little under the emotion of his tone.

"Well, then, we got married. My brother tried to get out of him what his money-affairs were. But he always evaded everything. He talked a great deal about this rich sister, and she did send him a wedding present. But he never showed me her letter, and that was the last we ever heard of her while I knew him…."

Her voice dropped. She sat looking at the fire—a grey, pale woman, from whom light and youth had momentarily gone out.

"Well, it's a hateful story—and as common!—as common as dirt. We began to quarrel almost immediately. He was jealous and tyrannical, and I always had a quick temper. I found that he drank, that he told me all sorts of lies about his past life, that he presently only cared about me as—well, as his mistress!"—and again she faced Ellesborough with hard, insistent eyes—"that he was hopelessly in debt—a gambler—and everything else. When the baby came, I could only get the wife of a neighbouring settler to come and look after me. And Roger behaved so abominably to her that she went home when the baby was a week old—and I was left to manage for myself. Then when baby was three months old, she caught whooping-cough, and had bronchitis on the top. I had a few pounds of my own, and I gave them to Roger to go in to Winnipeg and bring out a doctor and medicines. He drank all the money on the way—that I found out afterwards—he was a week away instead of two days—and the baby died. When he came back he told me a lie about having been ill. But I never lived with him—as a wife—after that. Then, of course, he hated me, and one night he nearly killed me. Next morning he apologized—said that he loved me passionately—and that kind of stuff—that I was cruel to him—and what could he do to make up? So then I suggested that he should go away for a month—and we should both think things over. He was rather frightened, because—well—he'd knocked me about a good deal in the horrible scene between us—and he thought I should bring my brother down on him. So he agreed to go, and I said I would have a girl friend to stay with me. But, of course, as soon as he was gone, I just left the house and departed. I had got evidence enough by then to set me free—about the Italian girl. I met my brother in Winnipeg. We went to his lawyers together, and I began proceedings—"

She stopped abruptly. "The rest I told you.—No!—I've told you the horrible things—now I'll say something of the things which—have made life worth living again. Till the divorce was settled I went back to my brother in Toronto. I dropped my married name then and called myself Henderson. And then I came home—because my mother's brother, who was a manufacturer in Bradford, wrote to ask me. But when I arrived he was dead, and he had left me three thousand pounds. Then I went to Swanley and got trained for farm-work. And I found Janet Leighton, and we made friends. And I love farm-work—and I love Janet—and the whole world looks so different to me! Why, of course, I didn't want to be reminded of that old horrible life! I didn't want people to say, 'Mrs. Delane? Who and where is her husband? Is he dead?' 'No—she's divorced.' 'Why?' There's!—don't you see?—all the old vile business over again! So I cut it all!"

She paused—resuming in another voice—hesitating and uncertain,—

"And yet—it seems—you can't do a simple thing like that without—hurting somebody—injuring somebody. I can't help it! I didn't mean to deceive you. But I had a right to get free from the old life if I could!"

She threw back her head proudly. Her eyes were full of tears. Then she rose impetuously.

"There!—I've told you. I suppose you don't want to be friends with me any more. It was rotten of me, I know, for, of course—I saw—you seemed to be getting to care for me. I told Janet when we set up work together that I wasn't a bad woman. And I'm not. But I'm weak. You'd better not trust me. And besides—I fell into the mud—and I expect it sticks to me still!"

She spoke with passionate animation—almost fierceness. While through her inner mind there ran the thought, "I've told him!—I've told him! If he doesn't understand, it's not my fault. I can always say, 'I did tell you—about Roger—and the rest!—as much as I was bound to tell you.' Why should I make him miserable—and destroy my own chances with him for nothing?"

They stood fronting each other. Over the fine bronzed face of the forester there ran a ripple of profound emotion—nostril and lip—and eye. Then she found herself in his arms—with no power to resist or free herself. Two or three deep, involuntary sobs—sobs of excitement—shook her, as she felt his kisses on her cheek.

"Darling!—I'll try and make up to you—for all you've suffered. Poor child!—poor little Rachel!"

She clung to him, a great wave of passion sweeping through her also. She thought, "Now I shall be happy!—and I shall make him happy, too. Of course I shall!—I'm doing quite right."

Presently he put her back in her chair, and sat beside her on the low fender stool, in front of the fire. His aspect was completely transformed. The triumphant joy which filled him had swept away the slightly stiff and reserved manner which was on the whole natural to him. And it had swept away at the same time all the doubts and hesitations of his inner mind. She had told her story, it seemed to him, with complete frankness, and a humility which appealed to all that was chivalrous and generous in a strong man. He was ready now to make more excuses for her, in the matter of his own misleading, than she seemed to wish to make for herself. How natural that she should act as she had acted! The thought of her suffering, of her ill-treatment was intolerable to him—and of the brute who had inflicted it.

"Do you know where that man is now?" he said to her presently. She had fallen back in her chair—pale and shaken, but dressed, for his eyes, in a loveliness, a pathos, that was every moment strengthening her hold upon him.

"Roger? No, I have no idea. I always suppose he's in Canada still. He never appeared when the case was tried. But the summons had to be served on him, and my lawyers succeeded in tracking him to a lodging in Calgary, where he was living—with the Italian girl. But after that we never heard any more of him—except that I had a little pencil note—unsigned, undated, delivered by hand—just before the trial came on. It said I should repent casting him off—that I had treated him shamefully—that I was a vile woman—and though I had got the better of him for the time, he would have his revenge before long."

Ellesborough shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

"Threats are cheap! I hope you soon put that out of your mind?"

She made a little restless movement.

"Yes, I—I suppose so. But I did tell you once, didn't I, that—I often had fears—about nothing?"

"Yes, you did tell me," he said, smiling. "Don't have any more fears, darling! I'll see to that."

He took her hands again, and raised them to his lips and kissed them. It astonished him to feel them so cold, and see her again so excited and pale. Was she really afraid of the villain she had escaped from? The dear, foolish woman! The man in his self-confident strength loved her the more for the vague terrors he felt himself so well able to soothe.

For half an hour more they sat together, in that first intimacy of love, which transfigures men and women, so that when they pass back from it into ordinary life they scarcely recognize life or themselves again. They talked much less of the past than of the future—and that in the light of the glorious war news coming in day by day. Austria was on the point of surrender—the German landslide might come at any moment—then peace!—incredible word. Ellesborough would hardly now get to France. They might be able to marry soon—within a few weeks. As to the farm, he asked her, laughing, whether she would take him in as a junior partner for a time, till they could settle their plans. "I've got a bit of money of my own. But first you must let me go back, as soon as there are ships to go in—to see after my own humble business. We could launch out—get some fine stock—try experiments. It's a going concern, and I've got a good share in it. Why shouldn't you go, too?"

He saw her shrink.

"To Canada? Oh, no!"

He scourged himself mentally for having taken her thoughts back to the old unhappy times. But she soon recovered herself. Then it was time for him to go, and he stood up.

"I should like to have seen Janet!" he said joyously. "She'll have to get used to Christian names. How soon will you tell her? Directly she comes in?"

"Certainly not. I shall wait—till to-morrow morning."

He laughed, whispering into her ear, as her soft, curly head lay against his breast.

"You won't wait ten minutes—you couldn't! Well, I must be going, or they'll shut me out of the camp."

"Why do you hurry so?"

"Hurry? Why, I shall be an hour late, anyway. I shall have to give myself
C.B. to-morrow."

She laughed—a sound of pure content. Then she suddenly drew herself away, frowning at him.

"You do love me—you do—you will always!—whatever people may say?"

He was surprised at the note almost of violence in her voice. He answered it by a passionate caress, which she bore with trembling. Then she resolutely moved away.

"Do go!" she said to him, imploringly. "I'd like to be a few minutes—alone—before they come back."

He saw her settle herself by the fire, her hands stretched out to the blaze. Seeing that the fire was low, and remembering the chill of her hands in his, he looked around for the wood-basket which was generally kept in a corner behind the piano.

His movement was suddenly arrested. He was looking towards the uncurtained window. The night had grown pitch dark outside, and there were splashes of rain against the glass. But he distinctly saw as he turned a man's face pressed against the glass—a strained, sallow, face, framed in straggling black hair, a face with regular features, and eyes deeply set in blackened orbits. It was a face of hatred; the lips tightly drawn over the teeth, seemed to have a curse on them.

The vision lasted only a moment. Ellesborough's trained instinct, the wary instinct of the man who had parsed days and nights with nature in her wilder and lonelier places, checked the exclamation on his lips. And before he could move again, the face had disappeared. The old holly bush growing against the farm wall, from which the apparition seemed to have sprung, was still there, some of its glossy leaves visible in the bright light of the paraffin lamp which stood on the table near the window. And there was nothing else.

Ellesborough quietly walked to the window, drew down the blind, and pulled the curtains together. Rachel looked around at the sound.

"Didn't I do that?" she said, half dreamily.

"We forgot!" He smiled at her. "Now it's all cosy. Ah, there they are! Perhaps I'll get Janet to come as far as the road with me." For voices were approaching—Janet talking to the girls. Rachel looked up, assenting. The colour had rushed back to her face. Ellesborough took in the picture of her, sitting unconscious by the fire, while his own pulse was thumping under the excitement of what he had seen.

With a last word to her, he closed the sitting-room door behind him, and went out to meet Janet Leighton in the dark.