This etext was transcribed by Les Bowler

FIANDER’S WIDOW

A Novel

BY

M. E. FRANCIS

(Mrs. Francis Blundell)

Author of “Pastorals of Dorset,” “The Duenna of a Genius,”
etc., etc.

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

LONDON AND BOMBAY

1901

Copyright, 1901,
By Longmans, Green, and Co.

All rights reserved

UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.

I dedicate this Rural Romance

to

MY KIND HOSTESSES OF TENANTREES

True Daughters of “Dorset Dear,”

Under whose auspices I first became acquainted
with the peculiarities of its dialect and
the humours of its people

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE
THE BRIDE

A man of reverend age,
But stout and hale . . .

Wordsworth.

A wife’s be the cheapest ov hands.

William Barnes.

The sale was over: live stock, implements, corn and hay, turnips and potatoes, even apples, had duly been entered to their various buyers; and now such smaller articles as milk-pails, cheese-tubs, cream-tins, weights and scales, and other items of a dairy-farmer’s gear were passing under the hammer. The auction had been well attended, for it had been known beforehand that things would go cheap, and though the melancholy circumstances under which the sale took place called forth many expressions of regret and compassion, they in no way lessened the general eagerness to secure good bargains.

Old Giles Stelling had always kept pace with the times, and had been among the first to adopt new appliances and avail himself of the lights which advancing science throws even upon the avocations of the farmer. He had gone a little too fast, as his neighbours now agreed with many doleful ‘ah’s’ and ‘ayes’ and shakings of heads. All these grand new machines of his had helped to precipitate the catastrophe which had overtaken him—a catastrophe which was tragic indeed, for the old farmer, overcome by the prospect of impending ruin, had been carried off by an apoplectic fit even before this enforced sale of his effects.

Nevertheless, though many considered these strange new-fangled reapers-and-binders, these unnatural-looking double-ploughs, a kind of flying in the face of Providence, a few spirited individuals had made up their minds to bid for them, and one energetic purchaser had even driven eighteen miles from the other side of the county to secure one particularly complicated machine.

The bidding was still proceeding briskly in the great barn when this person shouldered his way through the crowd and made a tour of inspection of the premises, previous to setting forth again on his return journey. He was a middle-sized elderly man, with bright blue eyes that looked forth kindly if keenly from beneath bushy grizzled brows; the ruddy face, set off by a fringe of white beard and whisker, looked good-humoured and prosperous enough, but the somewhat stooping shoulders bore witness to the constant and arduous labour which had been Elias Fiander’s lot in early life.

He sauntered across the great yard, so desolate to-day albeit crowded at the upper end nearest the barn; the suspension of the ordinary life of the place gave it an air of supreme melancholy and even loneliness. The cattle thrusting at each other in their enclosures and bellowing dismally, the sheep hurdled off in convenient lots, the very fowl penned up and squawking lamentably, for the more valuable specimens were tied together in bunches by the legs—all these dumb things seemed to have a kind of instinctive understanding that something unusual and tragic was going forward.

‘Poor beasts, they do make a deal o’ noise,’ muttered Elias half aloud; ‘a body might think they was a-cryin’ for their master. Well, well, ’t is an ill wind what blows nobody good, and that there turnip-hoer was a wonderful bargain. It won’t do him no harm as I should ha’ picked it up so cheap. Nay, nay, ’t won’t do him no harm where he be gone to; and I might as well ha’ bought it as another.’

Having satisfied a passing twinge of conscience with this reflection, he stepped into the great rickyard, and stood a moment gazing from one to the other of the golden and russet stacks.

‘Prime stuff!’ he muttered to himself. ‘That be real old hay in the corner, and this here wheat-rick—there’s a goodish lot o’ money in that or I’m much mistaken. Here be another, half thrashed—ah, fine stuff. ’T is a pity the poor old master did n’t live to see the end o’ that job—though if the money were n’t a-goin’ into his own pocket he wouldn’t ha’ been much the better for ’t.’

He was wandering round the rick in question, gazing at it from every point, and even thrusting his hands upwards into the loosened sheaves of that portion which had been unroofed and partially thrashed, when a sudden rustle close to him made him start.

Lo! perched high upon the ledge of the half-demolished stack a figure was standing, knee-deep among the roughly piled-up sheaves, the tall and shapely figure of a young girl. She was dressed in black, and from under the wide sombre brim of her straw hat a pair of blue eyes looked down fiercely at the farmer. The face in which they were set was oval in shape, and at that moment very pale; the lips were parted, showing a gleam of white teeth.

‘Why, my dear,’ said Fiander, stepping a little further away from the stack and gazing up at her in mild astonishment—‘why, whatever might you be doin’ up there? You did gi’ me quite a start, I do assure ye.’

‘I’m looking at something I don’t like to see,’ returned the girl in a choked voice; and her bosom heaved with a quick angry sob.

‘Ah!’ said the other tentatively. Setting his hat a little further back on his head and wrinkling up his eyes he examined her more closely. The black dress, the wrathful, miserable face told their own tale. ‘I do ’low ye be somebody belongin’ to the poor old master?’ he continued respectfully.

She sobbed again for all response.

‘Ah!’ said Fiander again, with a world of sympathy in his blue eyes, ‘’t is a melancholy sight for ye, sure. You’re Mr. Stelling’s daughter very like.’

‘Granddaughter,’ corrected the girl.

‘Dear heart alive, ’t is sad—’t is very sad for ye, miss, but I’m sure I’d never keep a-standin’ on the stack frettin’ yourself so, I would n’t, truly. ’T is a very sad business altogether, Miss Stelling, but you’ll be upsettin’ yourself worse if ye bide here.’

The girl stepped across the sheaves and drew near the edge of the stack. Fiander stretched out his hand to assist her down.

‘That’s it,’ he remarked encouragingly; ‘I’m main glad to see you are so sensible and ready to take advice, Miss Stelling. Here, let me help ye down.’

‘No, thank you,’ she replied, ‘and my name is n’t Stelling!’

Stooping, and supporting herself with one hand against the edge of the ledge, she swung herself gracefully down, her hat dropping off as she did so; the face thus exposed to view proved even younger than Fiander had anticipated, and, were he a more impressionable man, he might well have been startled at its beauty.

Even though he had attained the respectable age of fifty-eight and had not long buried a most faithful and hard-working helpmate, the worthy farmer was conscious of a glow of admiration. Though the girl’s eyes were blue, the hair and brows were distinctly dark, and the complexion of the brunette order—a combination somewhat unusual and very striking. Her figure was, as has been said, tall and slight, yet with vigour as well as grace in every movement: she alighted on the ground as easily and as lightly as though she had been a bird.

‘Well done!’ ejaculated Fiander. ‘And what might your name be if it bain’t Stelling?’

‘My name is Goldring,’ she replied a little haughtily. ‘Rosalie Goldring. My mother was Mr. Stelling’s daughter.’

‘Well now,’ returned the farmer, smiling cheerfully, ‘Goldring! and that’s a pretty name too—partic’lar for a maid—a token I might say! Rosalie did you tell me, miss? I do mind a song as I used to hear when I were a boy about Rosalie the Prairie Flower.’ She had picked up her hat and stood gazing at him discontentedly.

‘I suppose everything is sold by this time?’ she said. ‘My dear grandfather’s mare, and the trap, and even my cocks and hens. Dear grandfather! he always used to tell me that everything in the whole place was to be mine when he died—and now they won’t so much as leave me the old rooster.’

‘Poor maid!’ ejaculated Fiander, full of commiseration, and guiltily conscious of having bought that turnip-hoer a bargain. ‘’T is unfort’nate for ye, I’m sure. Did n’t your grandfather make no provision for ’ee?’

‘Oh, it is n’t that I mind,’ retorted Rosalie quickly; ‘it’s seeing everything go. Everything that I love—all the live things that I knew and used to take care of—even my churn, and my cheese-presses—granfer used always to say I was wonderful about cheese-making—and the pails and pans out of my dairy—everything that I kept so nice and took such pride in. They’ll all go to strangers now—all scattered about, one here, one there. And to-morrow they’ll be selling the things out of the house. If they leave me the clothes I stand up in that’ll be all.’

She sobbed so pitifully and looked so forlorn that Fiander’s heart was positively wrung.

‘My word!’ he ejaculated, ‘I do ’low it’s hard—’t is that, ’t is cruel hard; what was ye thinkin’ o’ doin’, my dear? You’ll have some relations most like as ’ll be glad to take ye in?’

‘I have n’t a relation in the world,’ returned Rosalie with another sob; ‘I had nobody but grandfather. If I had,’ she added quickly, ‘I don’t know that I should have gone to them—I don’t like to be beholden to anybody. I’ll earn my own bread, though I don’t know how I shall do it; grandfather could never bear the notion of my going to service.’

‘Ah! and could n’t he?’ returned Fiander, deeply interested.

‘No, indeed. Of course when he was alive we never thought of things coming to this pass. He always told me I should be mistress here when he was gone, and that I should be well off. Dear granfer, he grudged me nothing.’

‘Such a good education as he gi’ed ye too!’ observed Elias commiseratingly.

‘Oh, yes. I was at boarding-school for three years. I can play the piano and work the crewel-work, and I learnt French.’

‘Dear heart alive!’ groaned Fiander, ‘and now ye be a-thrown upon the world. But I was meanin’ another kind of education. Cheese-making and dairy-work and that—you was sayin’ you was a good hand at suchlike.’ While he spoke he eyed her sharply, and listened eagerly for the response.

‘Yes, yes,’ agreed Rosalie, ‘I can do all that. We made all kinds of cheeses every day in the winter, “Ramil,” and “Ha’skim,” and “Blue Vinny” and all. Yes, I was kept busy—my butter always took top price in the market; and then there were the accounts to make up of an evening. My life was n’t all play, I can tell you, but I was very happy.’

‘My missus,’ remarked Fiander, following out his own train of thoughts—‘that’s the second one: I buried her a year come Michaelmas—she was a wonderful hand at the Ha’skim cheeses. A very stirring body she was! I do miss her dreadful; and these here dairy-women as ye hire they be terrible folk for waste—terrible! I reckon I’ll be a lot out of pocket this year.’

‘We all have our troubles, you see,’ said Rosalie, with tears still hanging on her black lashes. ‘Well, I thank you for your kind words, sir; they seem to have done me good. I think I’ll go in, now. I don’t want to meet any of the folk.’

‘Bide a bit, my dear,’ said the farmer, ‘bide a bit! I’ve summat to ax ye. You bain’t thinkin’ of going to service, ye say, and ye don’t rightly know where to look for a home?’

Rosalie stared at him. He was laughing in a confused, awkward way, and his face was growing redder and redder. Before she could answer he went on:

‘There’s your name now—it be a pretty ’un. I do ’low it ’ud seem almost a pity to change it, an’ yet if ye was to lose the name ye might get the thing.’

‘I don’t understand you, sir,’ cried she, growing red in her turn.

‘Why, Goldring, you know. ’T is a token, as I said jist now. If you was to get married you would n’t be Goldring no more, and yet ye’d be getting a Gold Ring, d’ye see—a weddin’-ring!’

‘Oh,’ said Rosalie distantly.

‘If I might make so bold as to ax, have ye been a-keepin’ company wi’ any young man, miss?’

‘No,’ she returned, ‘I don’t care for young men.’

‘Well done,’ cried Fiander excitedly, ‘well done, my dear! That shows your spirit. Come, what ’ud ye say to an old one?’

His blue eyes were nearly jumping out of his head, his honest face was all puckered into smiles.

‘Come,’ he cried, ‘’t is an offer! Here be I, an old one, yet not so very old neither, and uncommon tough. I wants a missus terrible bad. I’ve a-been on the look-out for one this half-year, but I did n’t expect to take up with a leading article like you. Well, and ye be lookin’ for a home, and ye bain’t a-keepin’ company wi’ nobody. I ’d make ye so comfortable as ever I could. I ’d not grudge ye nothing, no more than your grandfather. I’ve a-worked hard all my life and I’ve got together a nice bit o’ money, and bought my farm. There’s seventy head of milch cows on it now, not to speak o’ young beasts and pigs and that. Ye might be missus there, and make so many cheeses as ever ye pleased. How old might ye be, my maid?’

‘Eighteen,’ returned Rosalie tremulously; she had been gazing at him with large startled eyes, but had made no attempt to interrupt him.

‘Eighteen! Well, and I’m fifty-eight. There’s forty years a-tween us, but, Lord, what’s forty years? I can mind when I were eighteen year of age the same as if ’t were yesterday, and I can mind as I did think myself as old and as wise as I be now. Come, my dear, what’s forty year? I’m hale and hearty, and I’d be so good to ye as ever I could; and you be lonesome and desolate—thrown upon the world, as I say. Come, let’s make it up together comfortable. Say the word, and ye can snap your fingers at anyone who interferes wi’ ye. My place is just so big as this—bigger. Well, now, is it a bargain?’

‘I think it is,’ murmured Rosalie. ‘I—I don’t know what else to do, and I think you look kind.’

* * *

Late on that same evening Mr. Fiander reached home; and after attending to his horse and casting a cursory glance round to ascertain that nothing had gone wrong in his absence, he betook himself across the fields to the house of his next neighbour and great crony, Isaac Sharpe.

He found his friend seated in the armchair by the chimney corner. Isaac, being a bachelor-man, paid small heed to the refinements which were recently beginning to be in vogue among his class, and habitually sat in the kitchen. The old woman who acted as housekeeper to him had gone home, and he was alone in the wide, flagged room, which looked cheerful enough just now, lit up as it was by the wood fire, which danced gaily on the yellow walls, and threw gigantic shadows of the hams and flitches suspended from the great oaken beams, on the ceiling. He was just in the act of shaking out the ashes from his pipe, previous to retiring for the night, when Elias entered, and greeted him with no small astonishment.

‘Be it you, ’Lias? I were just a-goin’ to lock up and go to roost.’

Elias creaked noisily across the great kitchen, and, standing opposite Sharpe in the chimney corner, looked down at him for a moment without speaking. The other tapped his pipe on the iron hob nearest him and continued to gaze interrogatively at the new-comer. He was about the same age as Fiander but looked younger, his burly form being straight and his sunburnt face more lightly touched by the hand of time. Hair, beard, and whiskers, alike abundant, were of a uniform pepper-and-salt—there being more pepper than salt in the mixture; when he smiled he displayed a set of teeth in no less excellent preservation.

As Elias continued to gaze down at him with an odd sheepish expression, and without speaking, he himself took the initiative.

‘Ye called round to tell me about the sale, I suppose? Well, I take it very kind of ye, ’Lias, though I was n’t for your goin’ after that new-fangled machine. I do ’low ye’ll ha’ give a big price for ’t.’

His tone had a tinge of severity, and it was noticeable throughout that his attitude towards Fiander was somewhat dictatorial, though in truth Fiander was the older as well as the richer man.

‘Nay now, nay now,’ the latter returned quickly, ‘ye be wrong for once, Isaac. ’T is a wonderful bargain: things was goin’ oncommon cheap. There was hurdles to be picked up for next to nothin’. I were a-thinkin’ of you, Isaac, and a-wishin’ ye’d ha’ comed wi’ me. Yes, hurdles was goin’ wonderful cheap. They’d ha’ come in handy for your sheep.’

Isaac grunted; since he had not thought fit to accompany his friend, he was rather annoyed at being told of the bargains he had missed.

‘It was a long way to travel,’ he remarked. ‘Did you have to go into Dorchester?’

‘Nay I turned off by Yellowham Hill. Banford’s about four mile out o’ Dorchester, and I cut off a good bit that way.’

‘Well, ye’ve a-got the hoer,’ grunted Isaac. ‘Did you bid for anything else?’

‘No, I did n’t bid for it,’ returned Elias with a sheepish chuckle; ‘but I’ve a-met with a wonderful piece of luck out yonder.’

He paused, slowly rubbed his hands, chuckled again, and, finally bending down so that his face was on a level with Sharpe’s, said slowly and emphatically:

‘Isaac, you’ll be a-hearing summat on Sunday as ’ull surprise ye.’

Isaac, who from force of habit had replaced his empty pipe in his mouth, now took it out, gaped at his interlocutor for a full half-minute, and finally said:

‘What be I a-goin’ to hear o’ Sunday?’

‘Banns! My banns,’ announced Fiander, triumphant, but shamefaced too.

‘What!’ ejaculated Isaac, in a tone of immeasurable disgust. ‘Ye be at it again, be ye? I never did see sich a man for wedlock. Why, this here ’ull make the third of ’em.’

‘Come,’ returned Elias plaintively, ‘that’s none of my fault. My missuses don’t last—that’s where ’t is. I did think the last ’un ’ud ha’ done my time, but she goes an’ drops off just at our busiest season. If I be so much o’ a marryin’ man, ’t is because the Lord in His mystreerious ways has seen fit to deal hardly wi’ I. Ye know as well as me, don’t ye, Isaac, as a dairy-farmer can’t get on nohow wi’out a wife.’

‘Aye, ’t is what I’ve always said,’ agreed Isaac. ‘There may be profit in the dairy-farming, but there’s a deal o’ risk. What wi’ cows dyin’, and bein’ forced to toll a woman about, ’t is more bother nor it’s worth. Why did n’t ye do same as me, and keep sheep and grow roots? Ah, what with roots, and what with corn, a man can get on as well that way as your way—and there’s less risk.’

‘Well, I’ve a-been brought up to it, d’ye see, Isaac—that’s it. My father was a dairyman before me—in a less way, to be sure. Ah, it were a struggle for him, I tell ye. He did ha’ to pay thirteen pound for every cow he rented of old Meatyard, what was master then. Thirteen pound! Think of that. Why, I used to hear him say as pounds and pounds went through his hands before he could count as he’d made a penny.’

‘Ah!’ remarked Mr. Sharpe, with the placid interest of one who hears an oft-told tale. But then pastures and house-rent and all were counted in that—your father paid no rent for ’em, did he? And Meatyard found him in cows, and kept him in hay and oil-cake and that?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Elias unwillingly; for the enumeration of these extenuating circumstances detracted from the picturesque aspect of the case. ‘Oh, yes, he did that, but my father he al’ays said it were a poor way o’ makin’ a livin’. “Save up, ’Lias, my boy,” he al’ays did use to say to I. “Save up and buy a bit o’ land for yourself.” So I scraped and scrimped and laid by; and my first missus, she were a very thrifty body, a very thrifty body she were. She put her shoulder to the wheel too, and when old Meatyard died we bought the farm, and things did prosper wi’ us very well since—till my last poor wife died; then all did go wrong wi’ I. Aye, as I say, if I do seem more set on matrimony than other folks, ’t is because the Lord ha’ marked I out for ’t. Now you, Isaac, never was called that way, seemingly.’

‘Nay,’ agreed Isaac, ‘I never were a-called that way. I never could do wi’ women-folk about. I’ve seed too much of ’em when I were a young ’un. Lord, what a cat-and-dog life my poor father and mother did lead, to be sure! He liked a drop o’ drink, my father did; and when he’d had a glass too much I’ve seen my mother pull the hair out of his head by handfuls—ah, that I have. But father, he’d never complain. Soon as she ’d leave go of him he’d stoop down and pick up all the hair as she ’d a-pulled out of his head. He’d put it in a box—ah, many’s the time he’ve a-showed it to me arter him and her had had a fallin’ out, and he’d say to me, “Never you go fur to get married, my boy,” and I’d say, “Nay, father,” and I’ve a-kept my word.’

‘Your poor sister kep’ house for you a good bit, though, did n’t she, after she lost her husband? And you were uncommon fond o’ the boy.’

‘Yes, it be different wi’ a sister—particularly one as knows she have n’t got no right to be there. She were a very quiet body, poor Eliza were. I were quite sorry when she and the little chap shifted to Dorchester; but she thought she’d do better in business.’

‘Well, but you were a good friend to she,’ remarked Elias, ‘both to she and her boy. Ye paid his passage to ’Merica arter she died, poor thing, did n’t ye?’

‘Ah, I did pay his passage to ’Merica, and I did gi’ him a bit o’ money in hand to start wi’, out there. Well, but you ha’n’t told me the name o’ your new missus.’

‘Rosalie Goldring is her name,’ returned Elias, lowering his voice confidentially. ‘Rosalie Goldring—nice name, bain’t it? Soon’s I heard her name I took it for a kind o’ token.’

‘Ah! there be a good many Goldrings Dorchester side,’ remarked Isaac. ‘Was that what took you off so far away? You’ve been a-coortin’ and never dropped a hint o’ it.’

‘Nay now, I never so much as set eyes on her till this very day. But being so bad off for a wife, and so put about wi’ all the waste as is a-goin’ on at my place, I thought I’d make sure o’ her, so I axed her. And she were glad enough to take me—she’s Giles Stelling’s granddaughter, d’ ye see, and she has to turn out now.’

‘Old Stelling’s granddaughter,’ repeated Isaac with emphasis. ‘Granddaughter? He must ha’ been a terrible old man.’

‘I do ’low he were—old enough,’ replied Elias hastily. ‘Well, now I’ve a-told ye the news, Isaac, I think I might as well take myself home again. My head be all in a whirl wi’ so much travellin’ and one thing and another. Good-night to ye, Isaac; ye must be sure an’ come over to see the new turnip-hoer to-morrow.’

A little more than three weeks later Fiander brought home his bride, and Isaac Sharpe cleaned himself, and strolled up in the evening to congratulate the couple. Elias admitted him, his face wreathed with smiles, and his whole person smartened up and rejuvenated.

‘Come in, Isaac, come in. The wife’s gone upstairs to get ready for supper, but she’ll be down in a minute.’

‘I give you joy,’ said Sharpe gruffly.

‘Thank’ee, Isaac, thank’ee. Come in and take a chair. Ye may fill your pipe too—she does n’t object to a pipe.’

‘Who does n’t object to a pipe?’ said Isaac staring, with a great hand on each knee.

‘Why, Mrs. Fiander does n’t. Oh, Isaac, I be a-favoured so. I told you the A’mighty had marked me out for wedlock; well, I can truly say that this here missus promises to be the best o’ the three. Wait till ye see her, and you’ll think I’m in luck.’

Isaac gazed at him with a kind of stolid compassion, shook his head, deliberately filled his pipe, and fell to smoking. Elias did the same, and after he had puffed for a moment or two broke silence.

‘Ah! ye’ll find her most agree’ble. I did mention to her that you be used to drop in of a Sunday, and she did make no objections—no objections at all.’

‘Did n’t she?’ returned Isaac. ‘Come, that’s a good thing.’ He paused for a moment, the veins in his forehead swelling. ‘I don’t know but if she had made objections I should n’t ha’ come all the same,’ he continued presently. ‘I’ve a-come here Sunday arter Sunday for twenty year and more. It would n’t seem very natural to stop away now.’

‘Nay, sure,’ agreed Fiander nervously; ‘’t would n’t seem at all natural.’

The sound of a light foot was now heard crossing the room overhead and descending the stairs.

‘That be her,’ remarked Elias excitedly.

The door opened, and a tall well-formed figure stood outlined against the background of fire-lit kitchen. It was almost dusk in the parlour where the two men sat.

‘Why, you’re all in the dark here!’ observed a cheerful voice. ‘Shall I light the lamp, Elias?’

‘Do, my dear, do. This here be Mr. Isaac Sharpe, our next neighbour, as you’ve a-heard me talk on often. Isaac, here’s Mrs. Fiander.’

Isaac wedged his pipe firmly into the corner of his mouth, and extended a large hand; according to the code of manners prevalent in that neighbourhood, it was not considered necessary to rise when you greeted a lady.

‘How d’ ye do, mum? I give you joy,’ he remarked.

When her hand was released Mrs. Fiander sought and found lamp and matches, and removed the shade and chimney, always with such quick decided movements that Isaac remarked to himself approvingly that she was n’t very slack about her work. She struck a match, bending over the lamp, and suddenly the light flared up. Isaac leaned forward in his favourite attitude, a hand on either knee, and took a good look at the new-comer; then drawing himself back, and removing his pipe from his mouth, he shot an indignant glance at Fiander.

‘Come, that looks more cheerful,’ remarked the unconscious bride; ‘and supper will be ready in a minute. I’ll go and get the cloth.’

As she vanished the new-made husband bent over anxiously to his friend.

‘What do you think of her?’ he remarked, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

‘Elias,’ returned his friend wrathfully and reproachfully, ‘I did n’t expect it of ye; no, that I did n’t. At your time of life and arter buryin’ two of ’em! Nay now, I did n’t think it of you. The least you might do was to pick out a staid woman.’

‘Come, come,’ retorted Fiander; ‘she’s young, but that’ll wear off, Isaac—she’ll mend in time.’

‘It bain’t only that she be young,’ resumed Sharpe, still severe and indignant. ‘But I do think, ’Lias, takin’ everything into consideration, that it ’ud ha’ been more natural and more decent, I might say, for you to ha’ got married to somebody more suited to ye. Why, man, your new missus be a regular beauty!’

PART I
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

CHAPTER I

Oh, Sir! the good die first . . .

Wordsworth.

Aa! Nichol’s now laid in his grave,
Bi t’ side of his fadder and mudder;
The warl not frae deoth could yen save,
We a’ gang off,—teane after t’ other.

A Cumberland Ballad.

Sunday noontide; and a warm Sunday too. The little congregation pouring out of the ivy-grown church in the hollow seemed to have found the heat within oppressive; the men were wiping their moist brows previous to assuming the hard uncompromising hats which alone could do justice to the day, and the women fanned themselves with their clean white handkerchiefs, or sniffed ostentatiously at the squat, oddly shaped bottles of smelling-salts, or nosegays of jessamine and southernwood, with which they had provided themselves. In the village proper sundry non-churchgoers waited the return of their more pious brethren; one or two lads sat expectantly on stiles, on the look-out for their respective sweethearts, whom they would escort homewards, and with whom they would possibly make appointments for a stroll at some later hour of the day. Children, with important faces, might be seen returning from the bakehouse, carefully carrying the Sunday dinner covered with a clean cloth; and a few older men and women stood about their doorsteps, or leaned over their garden gates, with the intention of waylaying their homeward-bound neighbours and extracting from them items concerning a very important event which had recently taken place in the vicinity.

One very fat old lady, propping herself with difficulty against the lintel of her door, hailed her opposite neighbour eagerly.

‘Good-day, Mrs. Paddock. Did ye chance to notice if master have a-gone by yet?’

‘Nay, he have n’t a-come this way—not so far as I know,’ returned the other. ‘They do say he takes on terrible about poor Mr. Fiander.’

‘Ah!’ said the first speaker with a long-drawn breath, ‘he’d be like to, I do ’low, seein’ what friends they was. Folks d’ say as Fiander have very like left him summat.’

‘Nay, nay, he’ll leave it all in a lump to she. He thought the world of the missus. He’ll be sure to ha’ left it to she—wi’out she marries again. Then—well, then, very like Mr. Sharpe will come in. Poor Mr. Fiander, ’t is a sad thing to ha’ never chick nor child to leave your money to.’

‘Ah, sure, ’t is a pity they did n’t have no children. I reckon Mr. Fiander looked to have ’em, seein’ he’d picked out such a fine shapely maid. He were a fine man too, though he were gettin’ into years, to be sure, when he wed her. Not but what a body ’ud ha’ expected the old gentleman to last a good bit longer. Sixty-two they d’ say he were.’

‘Well, and that’s no age to speak on! Lord, I were that upset when I heerd he were took I’m not the better of it yet.’

‘Ay, ’t is a terrible visitation! All as has hearts must feel it.’

‘I do assure ye, Mrs. Belbin, I’ve scarce closed my eyes since, and when I do drop off towards mornin’ I do dream—’t is fearful what I do dream! This very night, I tell ye, I thought the End had come, and we was all a-bein’ judged yon in church. The Lord A’mighty Hisself was a-sittin’ up in gallery a-judging of we—’

‘Bless me,’ interrupted Mrs. Belbin, ‘and what were A’mighty God like to look on, Mrs. Paddock?’

‘Oh, He were beautiful—wi’ broad large features and a very piercin’ eye—but He had a beautiful smile. I thought, if ye can understand, that some was a-goin’ up to the right and some to the left. Yes, we was all bein’ judged, taking our turns. Squire fust, and then his lady, and then all the young ladies and gentlemen a-goin’ up one after t’ other and a-bein’ judged—’

‘Well, well!’ commented Mrs. Belbin, throwing up her eyes and hands. ‘All so natural like, wa’ n’t it?’

She had evidently been much impressed by the strict order of precedence observed by the actors in this visionary drama.

‘Well, then I seed farmers a-goin’ up—’

‘Did ye see poor Farmer Fiander?’ inquired the other eagerly.

‘Nay, nay. He were n’t there, strange to say. ’T ’ud ha’ been natural to see him—him bein’ dead, ye know—but he were n’t there. But I see master a-bein’ judged.’

‘Did ye, now? and where did he go? He’s a good man—he ’d be like to go up’ards. Were Hamworthy there—the butcher, I mean? I wonder what the A’mighty ’ud say to the short weights that he do give us poor folk!’

‘Nay, I did n’t see him, fur it were a-comin’ nigh my turn, and I were that a-feared I could n’t think o’ nothin’ else. And when I did get up to walk up under gallery I thought my legs did give way and down I plumped—and that did awaken me up.’

‘Well, it was a wonderful dream, Mrs. Paddock. I’m not surprised as you be feelin’ a bit poorly to-day. ’T is astonishing what folks d’ dream when they’re upset. I do assure ye when my stummick’s a bit out of order I’m hag-rid all night. Last Sunday ’t was, I did dream I seed a great big toad sittin’ on piller, and I hollered out and hit at him, and Belbin he cotched me by the hand, “Good gracious!” says he, “what be’st thumpin’ me like that for?” “Why,” says I, “bain’t there a toad on piller?” “Nay now,” says he, “there’s nothin’ at all; but you’ve a-hit me sich a crack upon the chops that I’ll lay I’ll have the toothache for a week.”’

‘I’d never go for to say as dreams did n’t mean summat, though,’ said Mrs. Paddock.

‘Aye, I’ve great faith in dreams and tokens and sich. Ye mind old Maria Gillingham? Folks always used to think her a bit of a witch, but she never did nobody much harm seemingly. It were but the day before she died as I did meet her. “You look poorly, Maria,” says I. “I be like to be poorly, Mrs. Paddock,” says she. “I’m near my end,” she says. “I ’ve had a token.” “You don’t tell me?” says I. “Yes,” she said. “I were a-sittin’ in chimbly corner just now, and three great blue-bottles did come flyin’ in wi’ crape upon their wings, and they did fly three times round my head, and they did say, Soon gone! Soon gone! Soon gone!”’

‘Ah,’ commented Mrs. Belbin, ‘and she were soon gone, were n’t she?’

‘She were,’ agreed Mrs. Paddock lugubriously. ‘They did find her lyin’ wi’ her head under the table next day, stone dead. . . . But here’s Rose Bundy a-comin’ down the road. Well, Rose, was the widow in church?’

‘Ay, I seed her,’ cried Rose, a fat red-cheeked girl, with round black eyes at this moment gleaming with excitement. ‘She did have on such lovely weeds—ye never saw such weeds. There was crape on ’em very nigh all over. She did have a great long fall as did come to her knees very near, and another much the same a-hanging down at the back o’ her bonnet, and her skirt was covered with crape—and I think there was truly more black than white to her han’kercher. Ah, it was a-goin’ all the time under her veil—fust her eyes and then her nose. Poor thing! she do seem to feel her loss dreadful.’

‘And well she may,’ said Mrs. Paddock emphatically. ‘A good husband same as Fiander bain’t to be picked up every day.’

‘Why, he was but a old man,’ retorted the girl. ‘Mrs. Fiander’ll soon have plenty o’ young chaps a-comin’ to coort her; they d’ say as Mr. Fiander have a-left her every single penny he had, to do what she likes wi’! She’ll soon take up wi’ some smart young fellow—it is n’t in natur’ to expect a handsome young body same as her to go on frettin’ for ever after a old man, let him be so good as he may.’

‘Nay now, nay now,’ cried Mrs. Belbin authoritatively, ‘’t will be this way, as you’ll soon see. Mr. Fiander will ha’ left the widow his money and farm and all, as long as she do be a widow, but if she goes for to change her state, why then o’ coorse it’ll go to somebody else. There never was a man livin’—and more particularly a old one—as could make up his mind to leave his money behind him for a woman to spend on another man. That’ll be it, ye’ll find. Mrs. Fiander’ll keep her money as long as she d’ keep her mournin’.’

‘Here be master, now,’ announced her opposite neighbour, craning her head a little further out of the doorway. ‘The poor man, he do look upset and sorrowful.’

The eyes of all the little party fixed themselves on the approaching figure. Mr. Sharpe was clad in Sunday gear of prosperous broadcloth, and wore, somewhat on the back of his head, a tall hat so antiquated as to shape and so shaggy as to texture that the material of which it was composed may possibly have been beaver. His large face was at that moment absolutely devoid of all expression; Mrs. Paddock’s remark, therefore, seemed to be dictated by a somewhat lively imagination. He nodded absently as the women greeted him, which they did very respectfully, as both their husbands worked under him, but wheeled round after he had passed the group to address Mrs. Paddock.

‘I’ll take those chicken off you as you was a-speakin’ on if you’ll fetch ’em up to my place to-week. The fox have a-took a lot of mine, and I be loath to disappoint my customers.’

‘I’ll fetch ’em up, sir, so soon as I can. These be terrible times, Mr. Sharpe, bain’t they? Sich losses as we’ve a-had last week! The fox he ’ve a-been terrible mischeevous; and poor Mr. Fiander—he were took very unexpected, were n’t he?’

‘Ah!’ agreed Mr. Sharpe.

‘You’ll be the one to miss him, sir. As we was sayin’, Mrs. Belbin and me, Mr. Sharpe ’ull be the one to miss him. Ye did use to go there every Sunday reg’lar, Mr. Sharpe, did n’t ye?’

‘Ah!’ agreed the farmer again. His large face seemed just as expressionless as before, but a close observer might have detected a sudden suffusion of colour to the eyelids.

‘They d’ say as Mrs. Fiander be takin’ on terrible,’ put in Mrs. Belbin, folding her arms across her ample bosom, and settling herself for a good chat with an air of melancholy enjoyment. ‘She is a nice young woman—yes, she’s that; and the marriage did turn out wonderful well, though folks did think it a bit foolish o’ Mr. Fiander to choose sich a young maid at his time o’ life. But he was lonesome, poor man, losing his first wife so long ago, and the children dying so young, and his second missus bein’ took too. But, well, as I d’ say, the last marriage turned out wonderful well; there was never a word said again’ Mrs. Fiander.’

‘There was never a word to be said,’ returned Mr. Sharpe somewhat sternly.

‘Yes, just what I d’ say,’ chimed in Mrs. Paddock. ‘His ch’ice was a good ’un. She be a nice body, Mrs. Fiander be.’

‘Ah!’ agreed the farmer, ‘I d’ ’low she be a nice plain young woman. Her husband have a-proved that he did think his ch’ice a good ’un, for he’ve a-left her everything as he had in the world.’

‘But not if she marries again, sir, sure?’ cried both the women together.

‘Lard,’ added Mrs. Belbin, ‘he’d never ha’ been sich a sammy as to let her keep everything if she goes for to take another man.’

‘She be left house and farm, stock and money, onconditional,’ returned Mr. Sharpe emphatically. And he passed on, leaving the gossips aghast.

CHAPTER II

The time I’ve lost in wooing,
In watching and pursuing
The light that lies
In woman’s eyes,
Has been my heart’s undoing.

Thomas Moore.

The subject of the conversation recently recorded was slowly removing her ‘blacks,’ and laying them carefully away on the lavender-scented shelves in the desolate upper chamber of the home which had suddenly grown so lonely. Divested of the flowing mantle, the tall, well-moulded figure was set off by its close-fitting black robe; and the face, which had been hidden from view by the thick folds of crape, proved able to stand the test of the glaring summer sunshine. The adjective ‘plain,’ applied to the widow by her late husband’s friend, must be taken only in its local sense as signifying ‘simple and straightforward;’ even to the indifferent eyes of this elderly yeoman Rosalie’s beauty had ripened and increased during the four years that had elapsed since her marriage with his friend. The black lashes which shaded her lovely eyes were still wet; the red lips quivered, and the bosom heaved convulsively. Most of the friends and neighbours of the late Mr. Fiander would have been astonished—not to say scandalised—at the sight of such grief. It was quite decent and becoming to cry in church where everybody was looking at you, but to cry when you were alone for an old man of sixty-two—when you had been left in undisputed possession of all his property, and might with perfect impunity marry again at the earliest possible opportunity—it was not only unreasonable and foolish, but rank ingratitude for the most merciful dispensation of Providence.

But Mrs. Fiander continued to sob to herself, and to look blankly round the empty room, and out at the wide fields where the familiar figure had been wont to roam; and when, taking the new widow’s cap from its box, she arranged it on the top of her abundant hair, she could not repress a fresh gush of tears.

‘Poor Fiander!’ she said to herself, ‘he would n’t let me wear it if he knew. It makes me a perfect fright, and is so cumbersome and so much in the way. But I’ll wear it all the same. Nobody shall say I’m wanting in respect to his memory. Dear, dear, not a week gone yet! It seems more like a year.’

She descended the stairs slowly, and entered the parlour. There was the high-backed chair where Fiander used to sit waiting for the Sunday midday meal; there also was the stool on which he supported his gouty leg. Opposite was another chair, invariably occupied by Farmer Sharpe on Sunday afternoons, when, after a walk round his neighbour’s land, he came in for a chat and a smoke. Mrs. Fiander herself had always sat at the table, joining in the conversation from time to time, after she had mixed for her husband and his friend the stiff glass of grog of which it was their custom to partake. Fiander said nobody mixed it so well as she, and even Mr. Sharpe occasionally nodded approval, and generously agreed that she was a first-rate hand.

She wondered idly if Mr. Sharpe would come to-day; she almost hoped he would. She did not like to walk round the fields alone—people would think it strange, too—and it was so lonely and so dreary sitting by herself in the house.

But Mr. Sharpe’s chair remained empty all that afternoon; Mrs. Fiander, however, had other visitors. It was getting near tea-time, and she was looking forward somewhat anxiously to the arrival of that meal which would make a break in the dismal hours, when a genteel knock at the door startled her. She knew it was not Isaac, for it was his custom to walk in uninvited, and thought it might be some other neighbour coming with a word of comfort. She was surprised, however, when the maid ushered in a tall, stout young man, whom she recognised as the son of one of the leading tradespeople in the town. Andrew Burge’s father was, indeed, not only cab and coach proprietor on a large scale, but also undertaker, and Rosalie now remembered that her actual visitor had taken a prominent part at her husband’s funeral.

‘I jest called to see how you might be getting on, Mrs. Fiander,’ he remarked, ‘and to offer my respectful condoliences. ’T was a melancholy occasion where we met last, Mrs. Fiander.’

‘It was indeed,’ said Rosalie; adding, somewhat stiffly, ‘Take a seat, Mr. Burge.’

Mr. Burge took a seat—not one of the ordinary chairs which Mrs. Fiander indicated with a general wave of the hand, but poor Elias’s own particular one, which was, as has been stated, established in the chimney-corner. It happened to be directly opposite to the one in which Rosalie had been sitting—Isaac Sharpe’s usual chair—and was no doubt chosen by the visitor on account of its agreeable proximity to his hostess. Anybody more unlike its former occupant it would be hard to imagine. Andrew was, as has been said, tall and stout, with black eyes, closely resembling boot-buttons in size and expression, a florid complexion, and very sleek black hair. He conveyed a general impression of bursting out of his clothes; his coat appearing to be too tight, his trousers too short, his collar too high, and his hat, when he wore it, too small. This hat he carefully placed upon the ground between his legs, and drew from its crown a large white pocket-handkerchief, which he flourished almost in a professional manner.

‘I feels,’ he went on, attuning his voice to the melancholy tone in harmony with this proceeding—‘I feels that any condoliences, let them be so sincere as they may, falls immaterially short of the occasion. The late Mr. Elias Fiander was universally respected by the townsfolk of Branston as well as by his own immediate neighbours.’

‘You are very kind,’ said Rosalie, feeling that she must make a remark, and inwardly chiding herself for the frenzied impatience with which she had longed to turn him out of her husband’s chair. After all, the poor young man was unconscious of offence, and meant well.

‘It was, I may say, Mrs. Fiander, a object of congratulation to me that I was able to pay the deceased a last melancholy tribute. P’r’aps you did n’t chance to observe that it was me druv the ’earse?’

‘I knew I had seen you there,’ said the widow, in a low voice, ‘but I could n’t for the moment recollect where.’

‘It would ha’ fallen in better wi’ my own wishes,’ went on Andrew, ‘if I could ha’ driven both o’ you. But my father told me you did n’t fancy the notion o’ the Jubilee ’earse.’

‘You mean that combined hearse and mourning coach?’ cried Rosalie. ‘No, indeed! Why, the coffin is put crosswise behind the driver’s legs, just like a bale of goods. I think it’s dreadful!’

‘Nay now,’ returned Andrew, ‘we are most careful to show every respect to the pore corpse. The compartment is made special—glazed, and all quite beautiful. Some people thinks it a privilege for the mourners to be sittin’ behind, so close to their dear departed. And then think of the expense it saves—only one pair of horses needed, you know! Not but what expense is no object to you; and of course, your feelin’s bein’ o’ that delicate natur’, you felt, I suppose, it would be almost too ‘arrowing.’

‘I know I could n’t bear the idea,’ she cried. ‘The Jubilee hearse, do you call it? How came you to give it such a name?’

‘Ah! Why, you see, it was entirely my father’s idea, and he had it built in the Jubilee year. He thought, you know, he’d like to do something a little special that year by way of showin’ his loyalty. Ah, he spared no expense in carryin’ of it out, I do assure ’ee. Well, as I was sayin’, Mrs. Fiander, it would have been a great pleasure to me to have given you both a token of respect and sympathy at the same time, but, since it was n’t to be, I followed what I thought would be most in accordance with your wishes, and I showed my respect for your feelin’s by driving the remains.’

Here he flourished the handkerchief again and raised the boot-button eyes to Mrs. Fiander’s face.

‘I am, of course, grateful for any tribute of respect to my dear husband,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ resumed Mr. Burge, ‘I thought you’d look on it in that light; but I should have thought it a privilege to drive you, Mrs. Fiander.’

Rosalie made some inarticulate rejoinder.

‘I thought I’d just call round and explain my motives,’ he went on, ‘and also take the opportunity of offering in person my best condoliences.’

‘Thank you,’ said Rosalie.

‘I may speak, I think,’ remarked Andrew pompously, ‘in the name of the whole borough of Branston. There was, I might say, but one mournful murmur when the noos of his death came to town. But one mournful murmur, I do assure ’ee, Mrs. Fiander.’

Rosalie looked up gratefully; the young man certainly meant well and this information was gratifying. She felt a little thrill of melancholy pleasure at the thought of the universal esteem and respect in which her poor Elias had been held. But meeting the hard expressionless gaze of Mr. Burge’s tight little eyes, the appreciative compliment died upon her lips.

‘So now,’ resumed the visitor, diving for his hat and carefully tucking away the handkerchief in its lining—‘now, Mrs. Fiander, having spoken for myself and for my fellow-townsmen, and having assured myself that you are no worse in health than might have been expected under these extraneous circumstances, I will withdraw.’

He rose, ducked his head, extended his hand, and solemnly pumped Rosalie’s up and down for about two minutes; finally backing to the door.

As he let himself out he almost fell over another caller who was at that moment raising his hand to the knocker. This was a dapper gentleman of about his own age, with an alert and sprightly air and a good-humoured, sharp-featured face.

Rosalie, just standing within the half-open parlour-door, caught sight of the new-comer and wondered who he might be. In a moment he had set her doubts at rest.

‘Good-day, ma’am,’ he remarked, advancing cheerily with outstretched hand. ‘I must introduce myself, I see; I’m not so well known to you as you are to me. My name is Cross—Samuel Cross—and I am one of Mr. Robinson’s clerks. Robinson and Bradbury, solicitors, you know—that’s who I am. I just called round to—to make a few remarks with regard to certain business matters in the hands of our firm.’

‘Won’t you sit down?’ said Rosalie, hastily taking possession of her husband’s chair. It should not, if she could help it, again be desecrated that day. She pointed out a small one, but Mr. Samuel Cross, without noticing the intimation, stepped quickly forward and seated himself opposite to the widow in the chair she had just vacated—Isaac Sharpe’s chair. Rosalie contemplated him with knitted brows; since Mr. Sharpe, that trusted friend, had not thought fit to occupy his customary place himself that afternoon, she felt ill pleased at the intrusion of this presumptuous stranger.

What a callow little shrimp of a man it was, to be sure, and how unlike, with his spare form and small narrow face—a face which she mentally compared to that of a weasel—to the large, bland personality of Isaac!

‘A matter of business,’ she said drily. ‘I am surprised that Mr. Robinson should send you on Sunday.’

‘Oh, this is quite an informal visit, Mrs. Fiander; not at all official. I came of my own accord—I may say, in my private capacity. This here is n’t a six-and-eightpenny affair. He! he!’

‘Oh!’ said Rosalie, even more drily than before.

‘No; seeing, Mrs. Fiander, that you are left so peculiarly lonely and desolate, I just thought to myself that it would be only kind to call in in passing and mention that your business matters, Mrs. Fiander, are in a most satisfactory position. I have frequently heard our firm remark that they seldom had to deal with affairs more satisfactory and straightforward.’

‘My husband had a very clear head for business,’ said Mrs. Fiander. ‘I always found that.’

‘’T is n’t that alone,’ rejoined the young man, ‘it is, if I may be permitted to express an opinion, the very satisfactory manner in which he has disposed of his property, on which I feel bound to congratulate you. I called round, private as I say, jist to let you know as all was most satisfactory.’

‘Thank you. I had no doubt about it,’ said Rosalie, surveying her visitor with increasing disfavour as he leered at her from the depth of Isaac’s capacious chair.

‘Ladies,’ he pursued, with an ingratiating wriggle—‘ladies is apt to be easily alarmed when legal matters is under discussion. The very terms which come so natural to us are apt to frighten them. Lor’ bless you, I des-say when Mr. Robinson do talk about testamentary dispositions and such like it makes you feel quite nervous. But ’t is only the sound of the words as is strange; the thing itself [meaning the testamentary dispositions of the late lamented Mr. Fiander] is, I do assure you, most satisfactory. What with the freehold property, meanin’ the farm and the money invested in such good and safe securities—you may be sure that they are good and safe, Mrs. Fiander; for I may ventur’ to tell you in confidence that the late lamented used to consult our firm with regard to his investments—I have pleasure in assuring you that very few ladies find theirselves in so satisfactory a position as you do find yourself to-day. I jist dropped in, unofficial like, to let you know this, for, as I said to myself, it may be a satisfaction to pore Mrs. Fiander to know her circumstances, and to understand that, desolate as she may be left, there is some compensations; and that, moreover, she has been left absolutely free and independent, the late lamented not having hampered her by no conditions whatever.’

Here Mr. Cross, who had been leaning forward in his chair so that his face, with its narrow jaws and its little twinkling eyes, had been a good deal below the level of the slightly disdainful countenance of his hostess, now slowly straightened himself, clapped an exultant hand on either knee, and brought the jaws aforesaid together with a snap.

Mrs. Fiander could not help contrasting him once more with the friend who should by right be sitting opposite to her; how far more welcome would have been the sight of the good-tempered rubicund visage, the placid portly form! Even the contented, amicable taciturnity which Mr. Sharpe usually maintained during the greater part of his visits would have been far more to her mind than this loquacity, which somehow seemed unpleasantly near familiarity. Still, it was unreasonable to take a dislike to the poor young man merely because he looked like a weasel and was disposed to be a little over-friendly; no doubt his intention was kind.

She thanked him, therefore, with somewhat forced politeness, but could not repress a little forward movement in her chair which a sensitive person would have recognized as a token of dismissal. Mr. Cross was not, however, of this calibre, and prolonged his visit until his hostess’s patience fairly wore out. She rose at last, glancing at the clock, and observing that she thought it was time to get ready for evening church.

‘I will have the pleasure of escorting you,’ announced Samuel promptly and cheerfully.

Thereupon Mrs. Fiander sat down again.

‘On second thoughts I’m too tired,’ she said; ‘but I will not allow you to delay any longer, Mr. Cross—you will certainly be late as it is.’

He had no course but to withdraw then, which he did, unwillingly enough, after tenderly pressing the widow’s hand and assuring her, quite superfluously, that she might depend on him to look after her interests in every way in his power.

Rosalie was disconsolately polishing the hand which had received this undesired token of interest, when the door creaked slowly open, and a tall, gaunt, elderly female, clad in rusty black, and wearing somewhat on the back of her head a flat black bonnet, with the strings untied, entered the room. This was Mrs. Greene, a personage generally to be met with in this neighbourhood in households whose number had recently been either increased or diminished. She was equally at home, as she once remarked, with babies and with corpses; and she filled up the intervals by ‘charing.’ Her appearance was so genteel, and her manner of fulfilling her various duties so elegant, that the clergyman’s daughter had once remarked that she was wonderfully refined for a char-woman; the appellation had stuck to her, and she was commonly known as the ‘refined char-woman’ among such of the ‘gentry’ as occasionally employed her in that capacity.

She had come to Littlecomb Farm to ‘lay out’ poor Elias Fiander, and she was remaining on as chief factotum and comforter. For it was n’t to be supposed that the poor young widow ’ud be eq’al to lookin’ after the maids—much less to turn her thoughts to doin’ for herself. She now advanced slowly to the table, and after heaving a deep sigh proceeded to lay the cloth. Rosalie knew that she was burning to enter into conversation, but was too much dispirited to encourage her. But by-and-by, after a preliminary cough, Mrs. Greene remarked in a lugubrious tone:

‘That’s a lovely cap, mum. Everybody was a-sayin’ that you did look charmin’ in your weeds. Ay, that was what they said. “She do look charming”—that was the very thing they said; “’t is a comfort, too,” says they, “to see how nice she do mourn for Mr. Fiander.” They was all a-passing the remark one to the other about it, mum—admirable they said it was.’

‘Nonsense,’ cried Rosalie wrathfully, but with a little quaver in her voice; ‘it would be very strange, I think, if I did not grieve for such a good husband. I wish people would n’t talk about me,’ she added petulantly.

‘Talk!’ ejaculated Mrs. Greene dismally. ‘Ah, they will talk, mum, you may depend on it. They’ll al’ays talk, and perticlarly about a young widow. Lord, how they did go on about me when poor Greene died! They did n’t leave so much as my furnitur’ alone. Whether I could afford to keep it, or whether I’d be for ridden house and goin’ into lodgin’s, and whether I’d put the children in an orphanage and get married again—it was enough to drive a body silly the way they did go on.’

‘Disgusting,’ cried Rosalie, now faintly interested. ‘The idea of talking of a second marriage when your poor husband was only just dead.’

‘Why, that be the first thing they’d talk on,’ with a kind of dismal triumph—‘more perticlar if a woman be young and good-lookin’. In your own case, mum, I do assure ye they be all a-pickin’ out your second. Ah, that’s what they be a-doin’, but as they all picks different men they don’t so very well agree.’

‘Mrs. Greene!’ ejaculated her mistress indignantly, wheeling round in her chair, ‘what do you mean? How dare you come and repeat such things to me—it’s positively indecent!’

‘That be the very remark as I did pass myself to the men yesterday,’ retorted Mrs. Greene, pausing to contemplate Mrs. Fiander with her hands upon her hips. ‘The very thing. “’t is most onbecomin’,” says I, “to be settin’ yourselves up to pry into the affairs o’ your betters. Missus,” says I, “be a-thinkin’ of nothing but her mournin’ so far, and when she do make her ch’ice,” says I, “she’ll please herself and pick out him as is most suitable.” Them was my words, mum.’

‘Well,’ cried Rosalie, rising to her feet impetuously, ‘I wonder you dare to own them to me, Mrs. Greene. I think that, considering you are a widow yourself, you ought to know better than to accuse another woman of such faithlessness. If you think I could ever, ever forget my good kind husband, you are much mistaken.’

Mrs. Greene coughed drily behind her hand.

‘Why should I marry again any more than you?’ cried Rosalie, with angry tears starting to her eyes.

‘Well, mum, the cases be very different. Nobody never axed I—’t was n’t very likely as they should, considering I had six children and only my own labour to keep ’em. As for you, mum, nobody could n’t think it at all strange if you was to get married again—considerin’ everything, you know. Your station in life,’ continued Mrs. Greene delicately, ‘and your not bein’ blessed with no children, and your fortun’ and your oncommon looks—it ’ud be very strange if there was n’t a-many a-coming coortin’ ye—and you may depend upon it they will,’ she cried with conviction. ‘And seein’ how young you be, mum, and how lonesome like, I should say it be a’most your dooty to take a second.’

‘Now listen to me, Mrs. Greene,’ said Rosalie very emphatically, ‘I wish to put an end to this foolish gossip at once. You can tell everybody that you hear talking about the matter that I never intend to marry again. Never!—do you hear me?’

‘Yes, mum,’ returned Mrs. Greene, with every feature and line of her countenance expressing disbelief, ‘I hear. P’r’aps I better begin by lettin’ them two chaps know what called here to-day. I do ’low they’ll be disapp’inted!’

‘I wish you would n’t talk such nonsense, Mrs. Greene,’ cried Rosalie almost pettishly, though the colour rushed over her face, and a startled expression showed itself for a moment in her heavy eyes. ‘Go away! I don’t want to be worried any more; remember what I have said, that’s all.’

CHAPTER III

Nothing coming, nothing going—
Landrail craking, one cock crowing;
Few things moving up and down,
All things drowsy.

North-Country Song.

Rosalie passed a very unquiet night, and woke from a troubled sleep shortly after dawn. The dead-weight of grief, ever present to her since her bereavement, was now, as she dimly felt, supplemented by something else—something irritating, something unpleasant. As her scattered faculties returned to her she gradually recognised that this state of feeling was produced by several small causes. The two visits which she had received yesterday, and which she had supposed to proceed from mere officious goodwill, had, as she now acknowledged, been prompted in all probability by aspirations as unjustifiable as they were unseemly. Her subsequent interview with Mrs. Greene had disagreeably enlightened her on this point, and had also made her aware of the kind of gossip to which she must expect to be subjected. Then—all through that long, lonely, heavy day Isaac Sharpe had not once put in an appearance. He, her husband’s faithful friend, the only real friend whom she herself acknowledged, had not thought fit to look in for so much as five minutes to cheer her in her desolation. As she thought of these things hot tears welled afresh to her eyes. Oh, how desolate she was! No one really cared for her, and, what was almost worse, no one seemed to believe in the sincerity of her affliction.

As she lay tossing uneasily on her pillow, and as the light grew and brightened, and the birds’ jubilant songs mingled with the distant lowing of cows, a new sense of disquietude came to her, proceeding from a different and very tangible cause. It was broad day—Monday morning—a morning of exceptional importance at the farm—and no human being seemed yet to be afoot. Reaching up her hand to the old-fashioned watch-pocket which hung in the centre of the bed, she took down Elias’s heavy silver repeater and pressed the spring. Ting, ting, ting, ting, ting! Five o’clock. Sitting up, she sent the two cases flying open and gazed almost incredulously at the dial beneath. Ten minutes past five—no less! She sprang out of bed and flung open her door.

‘Jane! Susan! What are you about? ’t is past five o’clock, and churning morning. How did you come to oversleep yourselves like that?’

There was a muffled murmur, a thud upon the floor, a pat, pat of bare feet across the room above, and a door overhead opened.

‘Was ye callin’, mum?’

‘Was I calling? I should think I was calling! Have you forgotten what morning it is?’

‘Nay, missus, that I haven’t. Lord, no. ’T was this day se’ennight as poor master was buried. Dear, yes, so ’t was.’

A lump rose in Rosalie’s throat, but she steadied her voice and said coldly:

‘I am not talking of that. It is churning morning, as you know very well. You should have been up and about an hour ago. Make as much haste as you can, now, and come down.’

She closed the door with just sufficient noise to indicate the condition of her feelings, and hastened across the room to the open window. Drawing the curtains apart, she looked out. A glorious summer’s day. Not a cloud upon the pearly-blue expanse of sky, the leaves stirring gently in a fresh breeze—a breeze laden with all the exquisite spicy scents of morning: the fragrance of dewy grasses, of sun-kissed trees, of newly-awakened flowers. The monthly rose-tree climbing round her mullioned window thrust its delicate clusters of bloom almost into Rosalie’s face, but she pushed it impatiently aside. Her eyes cast a keen glance on the homely scene beyond. Above the time-worn roofs of the farm-buildings, where the green of the moss and the mellow red and yellow of the tiles were alike transfigured by this mystic glow, she could see last year’s ricks shouldering each other, their regular outlines defined, as it were, with a pencil of fire; the great meadow beyond, which sloped downwards till it reached the church-yard wall a quarter of a mile away, broke into light ripples, tawny and russet, as the breeze swept over it.

Surely these were sights to gladden a young heart—even a heart that had been sorrowing—yet the expression of Rosalie’s eyes grew more and more discontented and displeased, and a frown gathered on her brow.

The fowl were flocking impatiently about the gate of the great barn-yard; yonder, on the further side, from beneath the tiled roof of the line of pigsties she could hear loud vociferations; turning her eyes towards the stable-buildings which ran at right angles to them, she could see that the doors were fast closed, and could hear the rattling of chains and stamping of heavy hoofs within. The Church Meadow ought to have been cut to-day—the grass was over-ripe as it was; men and horses should have been at work since three o’clock. No figures appeared even in the neighbourhood of the barn; and looking beyond to the barton proper, she could see that it was empty. No wonder that the lowing of the cows had sounded distant in her ears: they were still in their pasture by the river. Poor creatures! crowding round the gate, no doubt, as the fowl were doing close at hand, all clamouring alike for the attention which was evidently withheld from them. What was everyone about? Why had not the men come to their work as usual?

She performed her toilet hastily and somewhat perfunctorily, and when at last a sleepy-looking red-haired man came slouching up the lane which led to the farm, he was surprised to see a figure in rustling print and broad-brimmed chip hat standing in the midst of a bevy of cocks and hens, scattering handfuls of grain with wide impetuous sweeps of a round, vigorous arm.

‘Hallo! What’s the hurry, Sukey?’ he inquired pleasantly.

But the face which was flashed upon him was not the rosy and somewhat vacant one of Susan, but belonged to no less a person than Missus herself.

‘What’s the hurry, Job?’ she repeated severely. ‘I should like to know why there is n’t a little more hurry? What has become of all the men? Has anybody gone to fetch the cows? What is everyone about, I say?’

Job tilted his hat a little sideways on his red locks, the better to scratch his head, and gazed at his mistress with a puzzled and somewhat scandalised expression.

‘Ye must expect things to be a bit onreg’lar for a bit, mum,’ he remarked. ‘Seein’ the loss we’ve had, and us all bein’ so upset like about poor master, we ha’n’t a-got the ’eart to go about our work as if nothin’ had happened. It bain’t to be looked for. Nay now,’ he continued mildly, ‘an’ we did n’t look to find yerself a-goin’ about this way—we did n’t, sure. It scarce seems nait’ral. If I may make so bold as to say so, it do seem’—here Job fixed an expostulatory glance on the angry young face that was confronting him—‘it d’ seem scarce right, mum.’

‘Job Hunt,’ returned his mistress haughtily, ‘you are not called upon to make remarks upon my actions; but I will tell you so much: it is my duty to see that the work in this place is properly done, and I intend that it shall be properly done. Go and call the other men at once. Tell them if they are ever again so disgracefully late they shall all be fined. Call them quickly,’ she added with an imperative tap of the foot, ‘and then go and fetch the cows.’

As she turned to re-enter the house she caught sight of Susan, who was evidently exchanging astonished and depreciatory grimaces with Job, while Mrs. Greene, in the background, was raising hands and eyes to heaven.

‘Come, get to work,’ she cried sharply. ‘Skim the cream, Susan; and you, Jane, get the churn ready. Well, Mrs. Greene, what are you staring at? Have you never seen me work before, that the fact of my turning up my sleeves need astonish you so much? I suppose you can find something to do about the house. Give me that other skimmer, Jane.’

‘Ho dear, yes, mum, I can find a plenty to do about this here house. I wur but a-lookin’ at you, mum, because it do really seem a’most too much for flesh an’ blood to be a-takin’ on itself as you be a-takin’ on yourself now, mum. Dear, yes! but it’s to be hoped as ye won’t overtax your constitootion, Mrs. Fiander.’

‘Go and clean the kitchen grate,’ said Rosalie, beginning to skim with great rapidity and decision; ‘and see that you blacklead it properly.’

‘Ho yes, mum, I’ll blacklead it,’ returned the elder matron, without, however, attempting to move from the spot where she stood, and continuing to fix her eyes mournfully on her mistress—‘I’ll blacklead it right enough,’ she repeated, with a kind of groan, after a pause, during which she had meditatively polished first one skinny bare arm and then the other with a not over-clean apron.

‘Well, why in Heaven’s name don’t you go, then?’ cried Rosalie impatiently, for she felt Mrs. Greene’s sorrowfully disapproving gaze right at the back of her head.

‘I be going, mum, I be going. If I mid take the liberty of remindin’ you, mum—’t is your hat as you’ve a-got on your head.’

‘Well?’ inquired Rosalie, reddening ominously.

‘Well, Mrs. Fiander,’ returned the char-woman with an insinuating smile, ‘would n’t you like me to run upstairs wi’ it now and fetch you down your cap?’

‘No,’ replied her mistress very shortly; ‘if I had wished for it I should have sent for it. You need not be so officious. The strings would get in my way while I worked,’ she added a little inconsequently. She felt she was lowering herself by making this explanation, yet she could not bear that even Mrs. Greene and the two maids should think her wanting in respect to Elias’s memory.

Mrs. Greene withdrew, murmuring under her breath that it was to be ’oped as nobody would n’t chance t’ look in that morning, which was not, indeed, very likely, the hands of the old-fashioned clock in the kitchen beyond just pointing to the quarter-past six.

For some minutes nothing was heard but the clinking of the skimmers against the sides of the vats as the rich cream, clotted and crinkled and thick, was removed therefrom. The scene was a pretty one; indeed, such a dairy on such a summer’s morning must always hold a charm and a picturesqueness of its own; and now that the angular presence of Mrs. Greene was removed there was absolutely no discordant element in this cool harmony. The dairy itself was a wide, pleasant room, its buff walls and red-flagged floor throwing out the exquisite tints of the vast tracts of cream, each marked off by its own barrier of glancing tin, and varying in tone from the deep yellow of that portion destined for the morning’s churning to the warm white of the foaming pailfuls which Job poured from time to time somewhat sulkily into the vat nearest the door. Then there was the green of the gently swaying boughs without, seen through windows and open door, the brilliant patch of sunlight creeping over the uneven threshold, the glint of blue sky between sunlit green and sunlit stone. The brave array of glittering cans on the topmost shelf added their own share of brightness; the great earthenware crocks and pans, some the very colour of the cream itself, some ruddy in tone, some of a deep rich brown, lent also valuable aid; then there were tall white jars containing lard, carefully-packed baskets and smooth wooden vessels piled high with eggs, little squares of filmy gauze hung out on lines in readiness for the golden rolls of butter which they were soon to enfold. The figures of the girls themselves—for the mistress of Littlecomb Farm was no more than a girl in years—gave the necessary and very delightful touch of human interest. Susan and Jane, in cotton dresses and large aprons so immaculate that the mere sight of them was sufficient to recall that it was the first day of the week, were not without a certain rustic charm of their own; as for Rosalie, standing in the foreground, with her sleeves rolled up on her white arms, her print dress fitting so closely to her beautiful form, the hair hastily rolled up escaping into such exquisite curls and tendrils round brow and ear and shapely neck—Rosalie was as ever what her admiring old Elias had once called her—the leading article.

When the churn was fairly at work, the skim-milk duly meted out to the pigs, and the long procession of dairy cows were sauntering back to their pasture under the guardianship of Job and the three ‘chaps’ who had till then been busily milking, Rosalie removed her hat and sat down to breakfast.

The flush of annoyance still lingered on her face, and, while she ate, her glance wandered through the window to the premises without. She could hear Robert Cross and James Bundy leisurely leading out the horses, inducing them with many objurgations to stand while they were being harnessed to the rattling, creaking mower. How slow they were! They should have been in the field hours ago, and yet they slouched about as though the beautiful golden morning were not already half over. Now, at last they were starting—no, here was James coming back for something they had forgotten. Rising hastily from her chair, she leaned out of the open window, tapping impatiently on the pane. ‘What are you about, Bundy? Why on earth don’t you try and make a little more haste?’

‘Mum?’ gasped Bundy, turning round a vacant, weather-beaten countenance adorned with the smallest fraction of a nose which it was possible for the face of man to possess.

‘I say, why don’t you make more haste when you have lost so much time already?’

‘I be making so much haste as ever I can,’ responded James, much aggrieved. ‘I be just a-comin’ to fetch the ile-can. ’T would n’t be no use to get to work without the ile-can.’

‘Why did n’t you think about the oil-can while Cross was harnessing the horses? ’t is nearly eight o’clock—you have lost half your morning’s work.’

Bundy looked up at the sky; then, still in an aggrieved manner, at his mistress.

‘We was all so upset,’ he was beginning, when she interrupted him fiercely:

‘Don’t let me hear another word about your being upset! If I can attend to my business, you can attend to yours, I should think. ’T is but an excuse for disgraceful laziness.’

‘We was upset,’ asserted Bundy with much dignity, ‘and, as for bein’ behind, if it comes to that we can keep on workin’ a bit later this a’ternoon.’

‘You must certainly work later this afternoon; but how long will this fine weather last, think you? Besides, you know as well as I do that it is much better for the horses to work in the early morning. There! get started now, and try to make up for lost time.’

She returned to her breakfast, and James rejoined his companion at a slightly accelerated pace. But, by-and-by, her attention was caught by the sound of voices, apparently in placid conversation. Back to the window again flew she: the village carpenter, who was supposed to be repairing the yard-gate, had just arrived, and was leaning negligently against one of the posts, while Abel Hunt, Job’s brother, a large bucket of pig-food in either hand, was leisurely talking to him.

‘I will give them a few minutes,’ said Rosalie to herself. ‘After all, I must n’t be too hard on them.’

Once more she went back to the table, finished her egg, and drank her second cup of tea, the trickle of talk meanwhile continuing without ceasing.

Pushing back her chair, she returned to the window impatiently. The carpenter had remained in the same attitude, without even unfastening his bag of tools; Abel had set down his pails, and propped himself up against the other gate-post; the pigs were wildly protesting in the background.

Rosalie recrossed the room hastily and went to the door.

‘Do you intend to gossip here all day?’ she inquired with flashing eyes.

‘We was jest a-talkin’ about the melancolly event,’ explained the carpenter.

‘You will oblige me,’ said Rosalie, ‘by keeping to your work. Abel, take those pails across to the sties at once. Remember, I will have no more dawdling.’

Abel took up his pails, and the carpenter unfastened his tools, the expression of both faces alike shocked, wounded, and astonished.

‘If this goes on,’ murmured Rosalie to herself, ‘I shall not only break my heart, but go out of my mind. Oh, Elias, you were clever as well as kind—everything seemed to go by clock-work when you were here—oh, why did you leave me?’