Wood Magic: A Fable

by Richard Jefferies

This gentleman was very rich, and the owner of a large estate in the neighbourhood; he did not often reside there, for he did not care for sport or country life, but once when he came down he happened to see the young lady, and was much attracted towards her. Doubtless she did not mean any harm, but she could not help liking people to admire her, and, not to go into every little particular, in the course of time (and not very long either) she and the gentleman became acquainted. Now, when her own true lover was aware of this, he was so jealous that he swore if ever he saw them together he would shoot his rival with his long-barrelled gun, though he were hung for it the next day.

The lady was not a little pleased at this frantic passion, and secretly liked him ten times better for it, though she immediately resorted to every artifice to calm his anger, for she knew his violent nature, and that he was quite capable of doing as he had said. But the delight of two strings to her bow was not easily to be foregone, and thus, though she really loved the farmer, she did not discourage the gentleman. He, on his part, finding after a while that although she allowed him to talk to her, and even to visit her at the cottage, and sometimes (when she knew the young farmer was at market) go for a walk with him, and once even came and went over his grand mansion, still finding that it was all talk, and that his suit got no further, he presently bethought him of diamonds.

He gave her a most beautiful diamond locket, which he had had down all fresh and brilliant from London. Now this was the beginning of the mischief. She accepted it in a moment of folly, and wished afterwards ten times that she had refused, but having once put it on, it looked so lovely she could not send it back. She could not openly wear it, lest her lover should see it, but every morning she put it on indoors, and frequently glanced in the glass.

Nor is it any use to find fault with her; for in the first place she has been dead many years, and in the second she was then very young, very beautiful, and living quite alone in the world with an old woman. Now her lover, notwithstanding the sweet assurances she gave him of her faithfulness, and despite the soft kisses he had in abundance every day in the orchard, soft as the bloom of the apple-trees, could not quite recover his peace of mind. He did not laugh as he used to do. He was restless, and the oneness of his mind was gone. Oneness of mind does not often last long into life, but while it lasts everything is bright. He had now always a second thought, a doubt behind, which clouded his face and brought a line into his forehead.

After a time his mother, observing his depression, began to accuse herself of unkindness, and at last resolved to stand no longer in the way of the marriage. She determined to quit the house in which she had lived ever since she came to it a happy bride half-a-century before. Having made up her mind, that very morning she walked along the footpath to the young lady's cottage, intending to atone for her former unkindness, and to bring the girl back to lunch, and thus surprise her son when he came in from the field.

She had even made up her mind to put up with the cold reception she would probably meet with, nor to reply if any hard words were used towards her. Thus thinking, she lifted the latch, as country people do not use much ceremony, and stepped into the cottage, when what was her surprise to find the girl she had come to see with a beautiful diamond locket about her neck, gleaming in the sunshine from the open door! She instantly understood what it meant, and upbraiding the girl with her falseness, quitted the place, and lost no time in telling her son, but first she took the precaution of hiding his gun. As he could not find that weapon, after the first storm of his jealous anger had gone over he shut himself up in his room.

The lady came the same evening to the rendezvous in the orchard, but her lover did not meet her. She came again next day, and in the evening; and again the third day, and so all through the week, and for nearly a month doing all she could without actually entering the house to get access to him. But he sullenly avoided her; once seeing her in the road, he leaped his horse over the hedge rather than pass her. For the diamond locket looked so like a price—as if she valued a glittering bauble far above true love.

At last one day she surprised him at the corner of the village street, and notwithstanding that the people (who knew all the story) were looking on, she would speak to him. She walked by his side, and said: "George, I have put the locket in the arbour, with a letter for you. If you will not speak to me, read the letter, and throw the locket in the brook."

More she could not say, for he walked as fast as he could, and soon left her behind.

He would not go near the orchard all day, but at last in the evening something prompted him to go. He went and looked, but the locket and the letter were not there.