CHAPTER VIII
Next day Anne arose to be at once aware of the heavy task before her. As she set her house in order she would stop abstractedly and sit down to think what was best to be done. Then she would work feverishly as if that, at any rate, was a thing that could be accomplished.
It was a wet day, chilly and rueful. There were not even clouds in the sky to vary the steady grey, and the heaven itself seemed to have slipped from its height and to be close upon the earth. Trees, grass, hedges were drenched, and remained motionless with leaves drooping under an added weight. The ditches were noisy, but beyond the occasional rattle of a cart there was no other sound than the rain, a sound so unvaried that it presently became as a silence, and one imagined that the world had ceased to have a voice. Anne opened the door many times and looked out to see always the same grey sheet before her. The gutter on the shippon splashing its overflow on the flags of the yard, the hens crowding dejectedly within the open door of the henhouse, and the water lying green between the cobble-stones of the path. Nothing could be done in the garden. The sodden flowers would not be fit for to-morrow's market. The pony had cast its shoe and must be shod before next day.
"This is more important than the pony," Anne said to herself, putting on her market-cloak and drawing on with difficulty her elastic-sided boots. She fastened her skirt high with an old silk cord and took her umbrella. Remembering that she had not covered the fire, and that it would have burnt away before she returned, she took a bucket out to the coal-house. The wet dross hissed and smoked as she covered the fire. She drew out the damper to heat the water, turned back the rag hearthrug lest a cinder should fall on it in her absence, and once more taking her umbrella, and lifting the key from its nail on the cupboard door, went out into the rain. She locked the door on the outside, and hid the big key on the ledge of the manger in the shippon. Then she was outside in the steady rain, on the gritty turnpike road washed clean to the stones. As she set off, it was a small relief to her that she would not be noticed, unless when she passed the cottages, because there were few workers in the fields, and none who could help it out of doors.
It was a walk of five miles which was before her, and soon the sinking of heart with which she had set out, began to disappear before the necessity of setting one foot before the other in a steady walk. The irritating pain of rheumatism began, too, to vex her and distract her thoughts. It was not a very familiar country to her after she had passed the Ashley high road. There were fewer houses. The farms were larger, and portions of an old forest remained here and there uncut. But there was no variation in the gloom of the sky or the folding curtain of rain. She grew tired and hot, and a little breathless, and as again the dryness of her throat and tightness of her lips reminded her of the humiliation of her unsought and unaided errand, she saw before her about a quarter of a mile on the high road which led to Marwell, the new red brick house with stucco ornaments, built by the horse-breeder, Burton. She went towards it with lagging feet.
It was a prosperous and vulgar building, with a beautiful garden, for his garden was Burton's pride. Even in the sodden wet the flowers, not wholly beaten down, showed how well cared for and excellent their quality. The sward was even and trim, and the fruit-trees on the side of the house had yielded prizes to their owner. The path to the door was of new red tiles, and two large red pots held standard rose trees on either side of the stained-glass entrance. Anne rang the new bell which clanged loudly and followed the servant (a girl from a distance), to the showy drawing-room, chilly and unused in its atmosphere. It was the kind of house which impressed the country people by its "improvements," and at which Anne went to the side door to leave her butter. But she was so absorbed in her duty to the girl that she gave no thought to this, which at another time she would have considered to be "taking a liberty." She alone of the girl's old friends seemed to have this burden laid upon her, and as she entered the house she was overwhelmed with the blame of its having happened, and the difficulty now of recovering innocence lost.
CHAPTER IX
She had scarcely had time to recover breath before Burton, the horse-breeder, came into the room—a big-bearded man, of heavy build, with a familiar loudness and fussiness which would have been better in the open air, than even in the new vulgarity of his drawing-room. His weight was the first thing one thought of. It would have taken a powerful horse to carry him. He always wore his hat, whether indoors or out, and bright tan leggings, with riding-breeches. Among his men and the neighbours he passed as a good master, and free with his money, standing for local purposes (as, indeed, he himself considered), in place of the lord of the manor who owned a more interesting house in another shire of the country. Like the rest of mankind he earned a reputation for generosity by being liberal with those things by which he set little store. He was neither avaricious nor surly, and, being in full health and vigour himself, was able to spare a rough chivalry to women which made allowance for their weaker bodies and greater difficulty in coping with existence. It was probably this soft-heartedness which, in the first place, had stirred a vague pity for the pretty blonde dressmaker, and this quality which the pliable girl had interpreted into the hope that he'd do her justice. He had, indeed, often stood up for Anne Hilton herself when her peculiarities had been discussed, and it was with the warm feeling of being rather a friend of hers, and not being the man to hear a single woman abused, that he came into the room and shook hands noisily.
"Well, Miss Hilton! I am very pleased to see you. You've come a long way in the wet. You must have a glass of something hot. Jane! Jane!" he shouted, stamping to the door and looking up the staircase. There was a sudden clatter, and Jane appeared in the doorway laughing, because she had run downstairs so quickly that she had almost fallen.
"That's smart work," said Burton.