CHAPTER XXXV.—THE MAID WAS IN THE GARDEN.
Madge was glad that it was in her power to comfort Philip, most glad, because, in spite of the relief which he found in her presence, a vague fear was beginning to creep into her mind that somehow this power was slowly weakening. Was it his fault or hers? Was it the knowledge that the confidence which they had desired to keep perfect between them was no longer perfect? Was it the knowledge that she had accepted a secret which could not be shared with him that, disturbing her mind, suggested changes in him which had no existence? Maybe, maybe, and yet ... relieved as he had been for a little while, there was no mistake, there was no mistake about the weary look in his eyes when he was going away, or about his nervously lingering manner of saying ‘Good-night,’ as if he were afraid to leave her, lest the bogeys which had arisen in his path should seize upon him the moment he should be alone.
She had many bitter reflections that night before she went to sleep: first, about the position in which she was placed against her will; and next about the customs which allowed a woman so few opportunities to give practical assistance to the man she loved. If he had been only a labourer and she a washerwoman, then she could have been of some real value to him. As it was, she must stay at home, await his coming when the struggle was over, give him sympathy when he was in difficulty, and nurse him when he was sick. That was all. She wanted to be by his side in the heat of the struggle, helping him with hands and head as well as heart. She wished that his enterprise had assumed some other form than its present one, so that she might have had a full share in the actual work of it. To her it was absurd that, because she wore petticoats and happened to be above the necessity to earn a living, she should be excluded from his office, or go to it under the penalty of bringing ridicule upon him. She knew how many times in those weary chambers, and in that weary office during this period of worry and disappointment, he must long for her to cheer and steady him as only she could do.
As for Wrentham, she had not much faith in him, although, having no specific charge to make against him, and aware of Philip’s confidence in him, she remained silent. She could only have said: ‘I do not like him;’ and Philip would have laughed at her, or chid her for being ungracious to his friend. She had not forgiven Wrentham for the accident with the horse; and she was not yet satisfied about it, for she could not forget what Uncle Dick had said in his passion.
‘If I wanted to kill anybody, do you know what I’d do?—that is, supposing I could go about it in cold blood. Well, I’d keep a mettlesome mare in the stable for three or four days, feed her high, and then ask the man I wanted to hurt to take a ride on her. Five hundred to one but he’d come back in a worse plight than Philip did. And that’s what I’d have said the man was trying on, if they hadn’t been such close friends.’
Uncle Dick did not repeat this angry exclamation; but Madge could not forget it, and the remembrance of it made her this night the more discontented that she could not be always with Philip during the ordeal through which he was passing.
However, there was one way in which she might render him practical assistance; that was, by setting Caleb Kersey’s mind at ease, and so enabling him to serve his master with a light heart, which is always a brave one. She had delayed speaking to Sam Culver until she could tell him that Caleb was not only working steadily but was successful, and could offer Pansy a comfortable home. She would not wait any longer: she would speak to them both in the morning. That thought helped her to sleep. For the time, the more serious business which she had to do with Mr Hadleigh held only a distant place in her mind.
Caleb had not been making progress in his wooing, and when he became aware of that fact, he grew discontented with the nature of things in general and especially with himself. The discontent with the condition of his fellow-labourers which had earned for him an ill repute amongst the farmers, had some grains of reason in it. There was no doubt that the majority of the labourers had large families and scant fare; that their cottages were in many instances examples of the deplorable state of ruin into which roof and walls may fall and still be reckoned fit for human habitation; whilst in harvest-time, when there was an influx of labouring men, women, and children from the large towns and from Ireland, the lodging arrangements were disreputable. But in the present case, he could discover no reason to justify his discontent, and that made him feel bad.
He had never been a regular churchgoer, and for some time he had ceased going altogether; but lately he had become so punctual in his attendance, that the beadle-sexton, the clerk, with old Jerry and young Jerry Mogridge, had held more than one consultation on the subject in the taproom of the Cherry Tree. They shook their heads very wisely, and thought that there must be something wrong about this sudden conversion. But the vicar, who had as quick an eye for every face in his congregation as the thorough shepherd has for every sheep in his flock, was pleased, and concluded that there was some good spirit at work in the Agitator’s mind. He would not speak to him yet. He knew how easily a hesitating sheep may be frightened away by over-zeal on the part of the shepherd. He would wait until the man felt quite at his ease.
So, in a distant corner of the church, Caleb sat Sunday after Sunday, his eyes fixed on the back of Pansy’s hat, and brightening when any of her movements enabled him to catch a glimpse of her face. At first he merely dawdled along the road in the wake of Pansy and her father on their way home, until they entered the gates of Ringsford. There it was Sam’s custom to halt and gossip with the gatekeeper; whilst Pansy hastened home by a bypath through the trees, in order to have dinner ready for her father. Then Caleb, by hurrying to the home-field and crossing it, would catch another glimpse of her before she entered the cottage.
He was ashamed of dogging their steps in this fashion, and could not help himself. Several times he made up his mind to speak to the gardener, and find some excuse for walking along with them; but he could not yet muster courage to grasp so much joy, although it was well within his reach. One bright day, however, he was as usual standing in the porch to see Pansy as she went out, and receive from her as usual a bashful glance and timid smile, which made the food he lived on for the week, when he was almost startled by her father speaking to him:
‘Come up the road a bit wi’ us, Kersey, if you have naething better ado.’
Caleb muttered that he was ready, and muttered still more awkwardly to Pansy that he hoped he saw her quite well.
‘Quite well, thank you,’ was the demure reply; and there was no further conversation.
She took her place on one side of her father, Caleb walked on the other. But she was there quite close to him, and—although decidedly ill at ease—he began to feel a degree of content which he had not known for many days.
The gardener had been amongst those who had observed Caleb’s conversion in the matter of church attendance, and being already sensible of the young man’s intelligent appreciation of his flowers, he was willing to credit him with having turned over a new leaf, and had charitably set aside his doubts of him.
‘Man, Kersey,’ said Sam, as soon as they were free from the crowd, ‘I have got one of the bonniest geraaniums that ever mortal set een on, and I want you to see it for yoursel’. I wouldna have asked you to come on the Sabbath, if it hadna been that I can never get sight of you on a week-day noo.’
‘I don’t suppose there can be any harm in looking at the flower,’ said Caleb, restraining the much more decided opinion he would have expressed on the subject if Pansy had not been there, or if he had been able to guess what she might have thought of it. One strong principle of his creed was that the more beautiful things men look at, the more refined their natures will become, and that for this purpose Sunday was the most appropriate day.
‘That’s just my opinion,’ was the satisfied comment of the gardener; ‘and I wonder you that’s fond o’ flowers, dinna take to studying them in earnest. Do you know anything at all about botany?’
‘Nothing,’ was the honest and regretful reply, for it was not easy to confess absolute ignorance in her presence.
‘Then you’ll just have to come whiles to see me, and I’ll learn you something about it. You will have to come especially in the spring-time; and it’s wonderful how soon you’ll find a real pleasure in it—especially in the geraaniums.’
In this way Caleb became a prospective pupil of the gardener, and after this he walked home with the father and daughter every Sunday. And Pansy became more and more shy in his presence, and blushed more deeply at his coming; whilst his heart swelled and throbbed, and the words he wanted to speak played tantalisingly about his tongue, but found no voice. By-and-by there was a curious change in Pansy. Her shyness and her blushes disappeared: she spoke to him in much the same manner as she did to Jacob Cone or Jerry Mogridge or any of the other men about the place. At first he was disposed to be pleased with the change, for it seemed to make him more at home when he visited the cottage. Presently he began to fancy that she tried to keep out of his way, and he did not understand it. Then one day she had a basket of flowers to take up to the house for the young ladies, and Caleb accompanied her. As they neared the house, he surrendered the basket to her, and he had only done so when they met Coutts.
‘Ah, early birds!’ he said, with his cynical smile; ‘good-morning.—Will you give me a flower for my button-hole, Pansy?—Thank you. That is a very pretty one—it will make me think of you all day.’
He passed on, and Pansy was blushing as she used to do when Caleb spoke to her.
Caleb drew a long breath, and with it inhaled the poison which distorted all his thoughts. He spoke no word; but the gloom which fell upon him spoiled him for work, and checked his visits to the cottage until he heard that warning cry from Philip:
‘Trust her, man; trust her. That is the way to be worthy of a worthy woman.’
The words seemed to rouse him from a wretched nightmare and to clear his eyes and head. The words kept ringing in his ears, and when he peered through the black span which lay between this day and the one on which Pansy gave Coutts Hadleigh the flower, he felt that the darkness was due to films on his own eyes, not to change in the atmosphere.
He straightened his shoulders and raised his head: he was able to look his future in the face again.
‘I will trust her,’ he said to himself bravely. When he went to Gray’s Inn in obedience to his master’s instructions, he had only to say: ‘Thank you, sir; you have done me a deal of good, and I’ll do what you tell me.’
‘Spoken like the sensible fellow I always believed you to be,’ rejoined Philip, much relieved. He would have rejoiced, but he was at the time too much distracted by his own affairs to be able to feel elated by anything. ‘There will be no more sulks, then, no more losing heart and seeing mountains in molehills?’
‘I hope not.’
‘That’s right; and ... look here, Caleb. I have a notion, from something you said, that I know the man you have been worrying yourself about. Take my word for it, if my guess is right, he is much too cautious a fellow—to put it on no higher ground—and too careful of himself, to be a poacher. He likes a joke, though; and if I were you, I would not let him see that he was making me uneasy. You understand—he might for the fun of the thing get up some hoax.’
Caleb thought he understood, and at anyrate the main point was quite clear to him—he was to trust her. And he kept faith with himself in that respect. Whenever she seemed cold to him, he blamed himself for bothering her at the wrong time. She had other things to take up her attention—all the work of the cottage, many odd jobs to do for her father, besides the hens to look after and their eggs to gather for the breakfast-table of the Manor. When she seemed to be trying to keep out of his way, he set it down to the fact that she had something particular to do. He found excuses for every change, real or imaginary, that had come over her manner of treating him. Come what might of it, he would trust her.
Then there was a bright forenoon on which Philip sent him out to Ringsford to fetch a small box, and he had an hour to spare before he had to start for his return train. So he went over to the cottage. The sun was gleaming whitely on the little green in front, and the grass was sparkling with frozen dewdrops. There was Pansy—eyes in their brightness rivalling the flashing dewdrops, cheeks aglow with healthful exercise, and sleeves tucked up above the elbows—hanging out the clothes she had just taken from the tub.
Caleb halted at the corner of the green. He had never in this world seen anything so graceful as that lithe figure moving actively about in the clear sunlight casting the clothes over the lines, now reaching up on tiptoe to place a peg in some high place, and again whipping up her basket and marching farther along with it.
She had covered one long line and taken a clothes-pole to raise it. That was a feat of strength, and Caleb sprang to her side.
‘Let me do that for you, Pansy.’
‘Gracious!’ was the startled exclamation; and at the same moment he planted the pole upright, the clothes thus forming a screen between them and the vine-house where Sam Culver was at work.
‘You didn’t expect to see me here at this time of day,’ he said, laughing, but already beginning to feel awkward, and looking everywhere except where he most desired to look—in her face. ‘I had to come down for this box; and as there was time enough, I thought I’d come round this way.’
She laughed a little, too, at her scare, and then began to hang out more clothes on another line as hastily as if she had not a minute to spare. He looked on, his eyes glancing away whenever she turned towards him. She also began to feel a little awkward, and somehow she did not fasten the pegs on the line with such deft firmness as she had done before he made his presence known.
‘Father is in the vine-house,’ she said by-and-by, compelled to seek relief by saying something.
‘I wish you would let me do something for you,’ was his inconsequent reply.
‘Something for me!’
‘Yes, carry the basket—anything.’
‘The basket is empty, and I have to go back to the washhouse.’
‘I will go with you.’
‘But there is nothing to do except wring out the clothes.’
‘Let me help you with that.’
‘Pretty work it would be for you!’ This with a nervous little laugh, which she evidently intended to convey an impression of good-natured ridicule.
‘It doesn’t matter what it is, so being it is for you.’
She stooped quickly, seizing one handle of the basket; he took the other, and they lifted it between them. He looked straight in her face now, and he fancied that the colour faded from her cheeks.
‘Father is in the vine-house,’ she repeated, looking in another direction.
‘I want to tell you something, Pansy.’ He was a little husky, and unconsciously moved the basket to and fro.
She knew what he wanted to tell her, and she did not want to hear—at least not then.
‘I can’t stay—I must run in now.’ She tried to take the basket from him.
‘Don’t go yet. I made up my mind to tell you when I was standing over there looking at you. I was meaning to do it many a time afore, but just when I was ready, you always got out of my way, and I couldn’t say it when you came back.’
‘I wish you’d let me go. I don’t want to hear anything—I’m in a hurry. Won’t father do?’
She was nervous; there were signs even of distress in her manner, and she could not look at him.
‘Ay, your father will do,’ he answered earnestly, ‘if you say that I may tell him we have agreed about it.’
‘About what?—No, no, no; you must not tell him that. We are not agreed. We never will agree about that.’
She was frightened, dropped the basket, and would have run away, but he had caught her hand. He was pale, and although his heart was hammering at his chest, he was outwardly calm.
‘Don’t say never, Pansy,’ he pleaded in a low voice; and she was touched by the gentleness of it, which contrasted so strangely with the manner of the loud-voiced orator when speaking to a crowd on the village green. ‘I’ve scared you by coming too sudden upon you. But you’ll think about it, and you’ll give me the right word some other time.’
‘There is no need to think about it—I cannot think about it,’ she answered with tears of mingled vexation and regret in her eyes.
‘But you’ll come to think about it after a bit, and I’ll wait—I’ll wait until you come to it.’
‘I never will—I never can.’
‘You’re vexed with me for being so rough in my way of asking you. I couldn’t help that, Pansy: but I’ll be patient, and I’ll wait till you come round to it or ... until you say that you can’t do it because your head is too full of somebody else.’
Pale and earnest, his lips trembled as these last words passed them. She uttered a half-stifled ‘Oh!’ and ran into the cottage. He stood in the bright sunlight looking after her, and the gloom fell upon his face again. There was something in that cry which seemed to tell him that her head was already too full of somebody else for him to find the place he yearned to hold in her thoughts. He knew the somebody.
(To be continued.)