“No, no!”
“Perhaps I have that in me that can make you happy.”
“Need you ask that?”
“You are giving me everything. And I?”
“You—are everything, Bess,” he answered.
So the coach swung along on the road to Lewes, the wheels grinding cheerily over the stones, and Peter Gladden on the back seat solacing himself surreptitiously with a bottle of wine that he had hidden under his cloak. Bess and Richard turned their faces towards the green slopes of Pevensel, and took a long look at the forest that still spoke to them of mystery. The wild woodland sank back against the northern sky, melting into a purple mist against the blue. On the right, a good mile from the high-road, stood Thorney Chapel where Bess and Dan Grimshaw had been married. They could not see the place from the road, for it lay in the valley that ran northward to Pevensel and the vale of yews. Hidden though it was, the bleak stone chapel, with its rusty bell and rotten porch, rose vividly before the thoughts of both. They drew closer to each other in the coach, smiling half sadly into each other’s eyes, remembering all that they had suffered.
The morning sped for them swiftly, like a river running under a rainless sky. The beauty of the earth seemed to grow more strange and alluring to their eyes. The great downs were rising and rising, green, gracious, and magnificent towards the south, speaking of the blue sea and the white cliffs that front the foam. The road ran now through fields and meadows, with here and there a wood filling a shady bottom, or topping the crest of a low hill. The crops in the fields rippled and glistened in the sunlight. The cows browsing in the meadows stopped to stare at the coach with liquid, violet eyes. Now and again a church-spire cleft the blue, and flashed white under the sun. From the hamlets along the road the sturdy Saxonlings, with their fair skins and tawny hair, would run out to cheer, and cling to the great springs behind, to be warned off by Mr. Gladden with imperious and unpardoning scorn.
Now, Peter Gladden was a Lewes man, and having received confidential instructions from his master, he took charge of the coach when it had once entered the town. They rumbled along the quaint old streets, with the gray castle towering above the chimney-stacks and gables, the great, green downs bulwarking the place like giant ramparts. Smoke hung in a blue haze over the town, the sun warming the tiled roofs and the red walls, flashing on the plastered gables, glimmering upon the casements. Lewes, buxom and stirring in those Georgian days, still carried in its Old World heart the memories of great happenings in the past. Spears and surcoats no longer bristled and blazed on bluff Mount Harry. Mighty St. Pancras and his Climiacs watched no more over the souls of Gundrada and her husband. The days of kingliness, tyranny, and flaming martyrdom were passed. Soon Tom the Exciseman would be holding forth on the noble rights of scavengers and cooks.
The Rodenham coach rolled up the High Street, dropping a serving-man at the Star on the way, and turned into a little side street towards the western end of the town not far from the old castle. Peter Gladden sprang down and appeared at the window. Across the narrow pavement at the corner of the street the round, white-framed windows of a sedate little shop, where coy hats and alluring scarfs showed through the panes of glass. A brown front-door carried a modest brass plate with “Madame Michael, Milliner,” inscribed thereon. Gladden, standing hat in hand, assured his master as to the excellence of the establishment.
Jeffray could see a couple of girls peering down at the coach from an open window above. He stepped out of the coach and gave his hand to Bess. Opening the door and setting a bell tinkling as in maidenly trepidation, he found himself in a little room with the wood-work painted white, a pier-glass in one corner, hats and caps ranged round on brass stands, and shelves filled with rolls of gay stuffs, cotton, satin, silk, and rich brocade. A demure, yellow-faced woman in a black sack, and wearing a white cap over her beautifully ordered gray ringlets, came forward from an inner room, courtesied, and gazed with polite curiosity at Jeffray and at Bess.