XLV
Though all the gay stuffs, the reds and the greens and the rich brocades, were put aside for a season, and though Barbara wore a plain black gown that Mrs. Winnie bought of Mr. Bannister at Battle, they made ready for Christmas at Furze Farm in country fashion, with a great abundance of food and liquor, with a yule-log the size of a tub, and holly boughs gathered out of the woods. Mrs. Winnie would have quieted the day out of curtesy to her “little lady,” but Barbara would have none of their pleasure spoiled because she wore a black gown for her mother. To cheat the living of their good cheer would not comfort the sleeping dead, and the very kitchen seemed warming itself for the wassail-bowl, and the beef and the pies, and the women with their ribbons.
Now, Barbara had no money and a great deal of pride despite her love, so that John Gore, who knew how matters stood with her, had to resort to a lover’s stratagem to fill her purse. He told her a solemn tale of how the lord chancellor managed the affairs of the nation, and how she was her father’s heiress, though the estates were in the lawyers’ hands till the time came for her to step forward and prove herself a very comely young woman without a mad whim in her head, save that whim of loving a sailor. He also related that a very good friend of his had certain matters in hand, and was likely to receive on her behalf certain moneys that had been found in the house in Pall Mall. That money might come to her any day by private messenger, and so it did, though delivered to John Gore, and greatly to the girl’s secret delight, for she knew nothing of law, and, believing the lover’s invention, guessed not that the money was his.
Yet here John Gore wellnigh landed himself in a dilemma. She began to plead that she owed him money for all the things he had bought at Battle, nor could he silence her for a long while, and then only by pretending to be a little hurt. Whereat she dropped the money as though it had burned her, and went to him and asked his pardon.
The gold pieces had rolled hither and thither over the kitchen floor, and they gathered them and counted them into little piles. Barbara’s eyes had begun to dance with a multitude of generous desires, and she was already planning how to spend it.
“I must go a-shopping, John,” she said, “for Christmas. If we could only borrow Mr. Jennifer’s wagon.”
“A wagon, sweetheart! Do you want to empty all the shops in the town?”
“No, dear; but I feel that I cannot give enough to these good people here. It has been a home, and a very dear home, John; I shall not forget it to the day of my death.”
Now, John Gore talked privately to Mr. Jennifer, and Mr. Jennifer took counsel privately of his wife, and the result of all this talking was that Christopher prepared for a day’s jaunt into the county town of Lewes. He cleaned up his wagon, put straw and bracken in the bottom thereof, tied his horses’ manes with ribbons, and put out his Sabbath best. One of his men and his wife came into Furze Farm for the day, while the household went a-wagoning to Lewes, starting two hours before dawn because the roads were heavy and the days short. Barbara, Mrs. Winnie, and son William rode in the wagon, and John Gore on his horse, while sturdy Kit marched beside his cattle, his whip over his shoulder, and a sprig of holly in his hat.
Barbara had a radiant face and but little money left by noon that day in Lewes, for even if the heart has cause for sadness there is joy in giving others joy. She seemed incarnate womanhood that Christmas-tide, taking a delight in all the little mysteries and mummeries of the season and in the revels that were held. John Gore had bought all manner of merchandise: a new gun for Mr. Christopher; a great family Bible for the wife; toys, sweetmeats, and oranges for son William and the laborers’ children; a beautiful chain of amethysts for his love. There was much giving and receiving that Christmas-tide at Furze Farm. The three laborers came with their wives and youngsters to the state dinner in the kitchen. Mr. Jennifer brewed punch, got a flushed face, and talked more than he had talked for a whole year. Little Will nearly fell into the fire while roasting chestnuts. John Gore played with the Sussex children till Mrs. Winnie exclaimed at “the gentleman’s good-nature.” Pipes were smoked in the ingle-nooks. The three countrywomen tried their best manners, and stared hard yet kindly at “the lady” about whom there was a mystery that had set their tongues a-clacking. Yet a woman who is sweet to other women’s children wins a way into the hearts of mothers. “A gracious lady, surely,” they whispered to one another, and thought the better of her because she touched their children’s lips. And when ribbons and blankets and good woollen stuffs came to them from her hands, they may have regretted the disobedience of Mrs. Winnie’s orders as to the minding of their own business, for Mrs. Jennifer had forbidden them to gossip about the “quality biding at Furze Farm.” Yet gossip had gone abroad, for all Mrs. Winnie’s caution, and even the lazy parson knew that there were strangers in his parish.
With Christmas fare and festivity questions of the past, and St. Stephen claiming his day in the calendar, Mr. Jennifer had his cart-horses out for a gallop to sweat them well before the yearly bleeding, for it was the custom to give horses a warming and then to bleed them on St. Stephen’s day. Whether John Gore subscribed to the superstition or not, he saddled his own beast early and went out alone for a canter, having the Christmas dinner upon his conscience, and, what was more, a certain hankering to visit Thorn. For several weeks he had intended riding over to the place, but Barbara had been nearly always with him, and they had taken happier and less sinister paths. He desired to see whether there were signs of folk having been there since that November night when the horseman whom he had taken for Captain Grylls had ridden back to inquire after his lost packet.
It was a still and rather misty morning with moisture dropping from the trees, and the grass wet and boggy. The fog did not hinder him greatly, for he had learned to pick up his landmarks at every furlong, and the track was familiar and simple when once known. About ten of the clock he came into the valley of thorns, and saw the dim mass of the tower glooming amid the mist. The place seemed infinitely melancholy with the fog about it, and the dripping thorn-trees and the black, stagnant water that showed never a ripple. The very ivy looked wet and sodden with the raw vapor of that December day.
John Gore tethered his horse to one of the thorn-trees, and, finding the gate open, much as he had left it, he crossed the court-yard where the mist hung in the air like breath upon a mirror. He saw that the dog was gone, but, what was more, the kennel also, and this slight detail puzzled him a little and made him more cautious in his exploring. Going to the kitchen entry and finding the door ajar, he stood there and listened. The moisture was pattering down from the ivy leaves all about the house, yet from the kitchen came a sound that could not be easily mistaken—the regular, heavy breathing of a man in a deep sleep.
John Gore saw that his sword was loose in its sheath, and, pushing the door open cautiously, he passed on into the kitchen. The figure of a man lay upon the floor with nothing between him and the stones but what appeared to be a tatter of rags. A sword, a leather bottle, and two mouldy biscuits lay beside him. His head was thrown back and his throat showing, with the stubble of a beard making the jaw look gray and slovenly.
John Gore crossed the room softly, and recognized in that ragged, haggard thing my Lord Gore—his father.
It was well past noon when John Gore mounted his horse again, and rode away from the mist and shadows of Thorn, with the look of a man who had spoken, even as Dante spoke, with some soul in the deeps of hell. He was thinking of an old, yellow-faced man, maimed, dirty, servile, with clothes worn into holes, and an intelligence that had flapped between emotional contrition and paroxysms of selfish fear. This thing had been the mighty man of manners, the serene gentleman of Whitehall and St. James’s, whose body had smelled of ambergris and whose fine raiment had shamed the sheen of tropical birds. Pride, vanity, even self-honor, in the dust and dirt! A white, flaccid, furtive face that had lost all its buxom boldness, most of its intellect—almost its very reason.
What had they said to each other, those two?
Murderer and adulterer; lover and son.
Yet John Gore had filled the leather bottle for his father that morning, lit a fire with odd wood gathered from the rotting out-houses, and brought in an armful of musty straw to soften the sick man’s bed.
And my lord had wept—miserable, senile tears that had no dignity and no true passion. He had fawned on the man, his son, grovelled to him without shame, till the son’s manhood had revolted in him, for he would have welcomed savagery and cursing rather than moral slime. It had been like a polluted river bringing all manner of drift to the lip of a weir. And though he had ministered to his father, he had kept an implacable face and a firm mouth. He had acted as a man who knew everything, and chosen to let my lord realize that he knew it, even assuming the truth that Barbara was dead.