And Janet had felt no difficulty whatever in becoming Rachel Henderson's partner on these terms. Nor had she ever yet regretted it.
The light farm cart which had been sent to the station for stores drove up to the yard gate as Rachel left it. She turned back to receive some parcels handed out by the "exempted" man who drove it, together with some letters which had been found lying at the village post office. Two of the letters were for Janet. She sent them up to the house, and went herself towards the harvest field.
There they stood—the rows of golden "shocks" or stooks. The "shockers" had just finished their day's work. She could hear the footsteps of the last batch, a cheerful chatter, while talk and laughter came softened through the evening air. The man who had been driving the reaping machine was doing some rough repairs to it in a far corner of the field, with a view to the morrow, and she caught sight of her new bailiff, Hastings, who had waited to see everybody off, disappearing towards his own cottage, which stood on a lonely spur of the down. The light was fast going, but the deep glow of the western sky answered the paler gold of the new-made stubble and the ranged stooks, while between rose the dark and splendid masses of the woods.
Rachel stood looking at the scene, possessed by a pleasure which in her was always an ardour. She felt nothing by halves. The pulse of life beat in her still with an energy, a passion, that astonished herself. She was full of eagerness for her new work and for success in it, full of desires, too, for vague, half-seen things, things she had missed so Far—her own fault. But somewhere in the long, hidden years, they must, they should be waiting for her.
The harvest was magnificent. She had paid the Wellins a high price for the standing crops, but there was going to be a profit on her bargain. Her mind was full of schemes, if only she could get the labour to carry them out. Farming was now on the up-grade. She had come into it at the very best moment, and England would never let farming go down again, after the war, for her own safety's sake.
The War! She felt towards it as to some distant force, which, so far as she personally was concerned, was a force for good. Owing to the war, farming was booming all over England, and she was in the boom, taking advantage of it. Yet she was ashamed to think of the war only in that way. She tried to tame the strange ferment in her blood, and could only do it by reminding herself of Hastings's wounded son, whose letter he had showed her. And then—in imagination—she began to see thousands of others like him, in hospital beds, or lying dead in trampled fields. Her mood softened, the tears came into her eyes.
Suddenly—a slight whimper—a child's whimper—close beside her. She paused in amazement, looking round her, till the whimper was renewed; and there, almost at her feet, cradled in the fragrant hollow of a wheat stook, she saw a tiny child—a baby about a year old, a fair, plump thing, just waking from sleep.
At sight of the face bending over her, the child set up a louder cry, which was not angry, however, only forlorn. The tears welled fast into her blue eyes. She looked piteously at Rachel.
"Mummy, mummy!"
"You poor little thing!" said Rachel. "Whose are you?"