“I’m not so sure about that! It was a long way off, perhaps, but he would have come to it in the end. He would have sold Dockerneuk without compunction, but he left us Kilne. I once saw him half kill a keeper for starving the deer, though he kicked his own spaniel the moment after. The herd is so old, you know. He used to take off his hat to it, laughing. And you remember that he wouldn’t allow the Antiquarian Society to search the Pixies’ Parlour? It wasn’t just disobligingness, as you all thought. He didn’t want strange hands digging up his ancestors’ soil, though he stripped the woods to pay his betting-book. There were other things, too——” She stopped, frowning again. “What does it matter? He’s dead—poor Stanley! But Father’s alive, and I’ve got to keep him happy, and you must help me.”
“There is a way,” Christian said hesitatingly, “though perhaps you may think I have no right to suggest it. We’re good friends, aren’t we? and I believe we feel the same about things, though it isn’t often you show me the real Deborah. We can take care of your father between us, if you’ll give me the right to take care of you, too. You would have married Slinker. Can’t you make up your mind to marry me?”
She stepped back, staring at him, the colour leaving her face, but the surprise was too great to allow any room for self-consciousness. In all her thoughts of Christian, friendly and even tender as they had often been, such a possibility had never entered her mind. Their intercourse had struck the note of comradeship—no more. Even the tie of their distant relationship had taken them no further. Accustomed as she was, by now, to his cheerful, impartial friendliness and apparently unthinking serenity, she had never even vaguely pictured him in love with her. Nor had she thought of loving him. He was something aloof and apart, an integral but indefinite part of her dream.
“You cannot be speaking seriously!” she said at last, keeping her voice even with difficulty. “How could it possibly happen? You know nothing about me, to begin with—and Stanley hasn’t been dead a year. Mrs. Lyndesay wouldn’t consent, under any circumstances. And the County——”
“Need we take the County into consideration? As for my mother—she may rule me in other things, but at least I will choose my own wife!”
He lifted his head, and for the first time she guessed that he, too, had his share in the strain of iron running through the Lyndesay blood, in spite of the drifting acquiescence with which he seemed to accept life. This was the Christian who, as Nettie had prophesied, would some day learn to stand alone. “As for Slinker”—his voice quickened—“why should Slinker come between us? God knows we owe him nothing, either you or I!”
He took her hand as they stood by the gate in the growing dusk, two lonely young souls caught in the endless maze of temperament and heritage.
“It all sounds so cold-blooded, doesn’t it, dear? It’s new and strange at present, but you’ll think it over, won’t you? I’m giving you what Crump owes you, that’s all. And I’d be good to you, you know that. I’ve not made much of my life, yet, but you can help me to it, if you will. I’ve never wanted any woman before, but you leave a blank even when you pass me in the street. Perhaps you think I haven’t known you long enough to care, but I do. I want you for my own sake—not for Crump or your father or any other reason—only for Christian, Debbie dear!”
She listened to the kind voice speaking Larry’s cousinly endearment, yielding to the clasp of the kind hand, but she did not look at the earnest young face. This was not love—yet—whatever it might become. He was reaching out to her, half from quixotic chivalry, half from an impulse born of affinity and race, but not with the overmastering desire to which alone a true woman lays down her arms. If she took him, she would take him as she had taken Slinker, notwithstanding the deep tenderness in her heart towards him. He was too good for that; a thousand times too good; and yet—and yet—She looked up at the tired rooks, slowly forging dimly through the dusk. A few more miles, and they would be nested safe behind the Hall, in their haven of immemorial antiquity; and for all the quiet night their rest would be in the home they loved.
“Crump folk going home!” she observed irrelevantly, her wistful eyes following their faint flight. “The villagers call them that—did you know? They say it every night, when they watch them for the weather. ‘Crump folk going home!’”