Knowing that to speak on the matter to her mother only served to make the latter more irritable, Winefred at last shut up her trouble in her breast; but it haunted her by night, it accompanied and overshadowed her by day, and this served to embitter her against the little world that surrounded her. The sole person in whom she could confide was Mrs. Jose, and on her sympathetic bosom she shed floods of tears, whilst the good woman patted and soothed her.
But although Mrs. Jose might comfort her she could not drive back the growing sense of resentment wherewith Winefred encountered every one else. Not only was the girl wounded by finding her mother charged with dishonesty, but a new self-esteem had been quickened in her, born of the insistence of her mother that she was a gentleman's daughter, and was destined to be a lady, and to occupy a position high above the heads of those who now depreciated her.
A lonely child is liable to become proud, and a wronged child waxes resentful. Hitherto Winefred had been sharp with her tongue, with a good-humoured tartness, but now the cutting words she uttered shot from an angry heart. She must fight her mother's battles, and defend her mother's character with what weapons she possessed.
The cottage that had been owned by Captain Job, and was now the property of Mrs. Marley, stood, as has already been said, on a sort of terrace a few feet below the level of the down. This terrace had been formed at some unknown period by a sinkage. It was not extensive; it comprised an abrupt dip and a congeries of isolated humps and prongs of chalk, lost in dense thickets of ivy, thorn, and briar, above all of elder. In spring the depression showed like a sea of white blossom, and in autumn it was purple with the berries.
So sheltered was the spot from every wind, save that wafted from the south over the sea, that flowers grew thereon throughout the winter even, and the sap began to return in the hollow elder-sticks in January.
Jack Rattenbury came there one day, a warm winter's day, impelled by recollections of his childhood, for among these rocks and brakes he had been wont to play.
He was in low spirits, as he was out of employ. His future was uncertain. He had been given no definite direction for his energies. Into the smuggling trade he would not enter, and he was half inclined to offer for the British Navy; but a common sailor's life at that date was not attractive, and the European war being over, many of the crews of our men-of-war had been discharged. Moreover, he was, by inclination, disposed to take some situation in which his education would be of service to him.
He had picked a bit of elder and was chewing it, as he sauntered into a little dell in the midst of the thicket, where the turf was broad, and which had been to him in the old days a garden of wild strawberries.
Hearing a movement, he turned his head, and next moment Winefred burst through the bushes and was upon him.
She was better dressed than he had been accustomed to see her in the past. She wore a winter bonnet trimmed with turquoise-blue ribbon, and a navy-blue gown.