Innocent : her fancy and his fact Part 13

Innocent raised her hand, warningly.

"Hush, Priscilla! Dad himself told me--"

"Well, he might just as well have kept a still tongue in his head,"

retorted Priscilla, sharply. "He's kept it for eighteen years, an' why he should let it go wagging loose now, the Lord only knows! There's no making out the ways of men,--they first plays the wise and silent game like barn-door owls,--then all on a suddint-like they starts cawing gossip for all they're worth, like crows. And what's the good of tellin' ye, anyway?"

"No good, perhaps," answered Innocent, sorrowfully--"but it's right I should know. You see, I'm not a child any more--I'm eighteen--that's a woman--and a woman ought to know what she must expect more or less in her life--"

Priscilla leaned on the newly scrubbed kitchen table and looked across at the girl with a compa.s.sionate expression.

"What a woman must expect in life is good 'ard knocks and blows," she said--"unless she can get a man to look arter her what's not of the general kicking spirit. Take my advice, dearie! You marry Mr.

Robin!--as good a boy as ever breathed--he'll be a kind fond 'usband to ye, and arter all that's what a woman thrives best on--kindness--an'

you've 'ad it all your life up to now--"

"Priscilla," interrupted Innocent, decidedly--"I cannot marry Robin!

You know I cannot! A poor nameless girl like me!--why, it would be a shame to him in after-years. Besides, I don't love him--and it's wicked to marry a man you don't love."

Priscilla smothered a sound between a grunt and a sigh.

"You talks a lot about love, child," she said--"but I'm thinkin' you don't know much about it. Them old books an' papers you found up in the secret room are full of nonsense, I'm pretty sure--an' if you believes that men are always sighin' an' dyin' for a woman, you're mistaken--yes, you are, lovey! They goes where they can be made most comfortable--an' it don't matter what sort o' woman gives the comfort so long as they gits it."

Innocent smiled, faintly.

"You don't know anything about it, Priscilla," she answered--"You were never married."

"Thank the Lord and His goodness, no!" said Priscilla, with an emphatic sniff--"I've never been troubled with the whimsies of a man, which is worse than all the megrims of a woman any day. I've looked arter Mr.

Jocelyn in a way--but he's no sort of a man to worry about--he just goes reglar to the farmin'--an' that's all--a decent creature always, an' steady as his own oxen what pulls the plough. An' when he's gone, if go he must, I'll look arter you an' Mr. Robin, an' please G.o.d, I'll dance your babies on my old knees--" Here she broke off and turned her head away. Innocent ran to her, surprised.

"Why, Priscilla, you're crying!" she exclaimed--"Don't do that! Why should you cry?"

"Why indeed!" blubbered Priscilla--"Except that I'm a doiterin' fool! I can't abear the thoughts of you turnin' yer back on the good that G.o.d gives ye, an' floutin' Mr. Robin, who's the best sort o' man that ever could fall to the lot of a little tender maid like you--why, lovey, you don't know the wickedness o' this world, nor the ways of it--an' you talks about love as if it was somethin' wonderful an' far away, when here it is at yer very feet for the pickin' up! What's the good of all they books ye've bin readin' if they don't teach ye that the old knight you're fond of got so weary of the world that arter tryin' everythin'

in turn he found nothin' better than to marry a plain, straight country wench and settle down in Briar Farm for all his days? Ain't that the lesson he's taught ye?"

She paused, looking hopefully at the girl through her tears--but Innocent's small fair face was pale and calm, though her eyes shone with a brilliancy as of suppressed excitement.

"No," she said--"He has not taught me that at all. He came here to 'seek forgetfulness'--so it is said in the words he carved on the panel in his study,--but we do not know that he ever really forgot. He only 'found peace,' and peace is not happiness--except for the very old."

"Peace is not happiness!" re-echoed Priscilla, staring--"That's a queer thing to say, lovey! What do you call being happy?"

"It is difficult to explain"--and a swift warm colour flew over the girl's cheeks, expressing some wave of hidden feeling--"Your idea of happiness and mine must be so different!" She smiled--"Dear, good Priscilla! You are so much more easily contented than I am!"

Priscilla looked at her with a great tenderness in her dim old grey eyes.

"See here, lovey!" she said--"You're just like a young bird on the edge of a nest ready to fly. You don't know the world nor the ways of it.

Oh, my dear, it ain't all gold harvests and apples ripening rosy in the sun! You've lived all your life in the open country, and so you've always had the good G.o.d near you,--but there's places where the houses stand so close together that the sky can hardly make a patch of blue between the smoking chimneys--like London, for instance--ah!--that's where you'd find what the world's like, lovey!--where you feels so lonesome that you wonders why you ever were born--"

"I wonder that already," interrupted the girl, quickly. "Don't worry me, dear! I have so much to think about--my life seems so altered and strange--I hardly understand myself--and I don't know what I shall do with my future--but I cannot--I will not marry Robin!"

She turned away quickly then, to avoid further discussion.

A little later she went into the quaint oak-panelled room where the fateful disclosures of the past night had been revealed to her. Here breakfast was laid, and the latticed window was set wide open, admitting the sweet scent of stocks and mignonette with every breath of the morning air. She stood awhile looking out on the gay beauty of the garden, and her eyes unconsciously filled with tears.

"Dear home!" she murmured--"Home that is not mine--that never will be mine! How I have loved you!--how I shall always love you!"

A slow step behind her interrupted her meditations--and she looked around with a smile as timid as it was tender. There was her "Dad"--the same as ever,--yet now to her mind so far removed from her that she hesitated a moment before giving him her customary good-morning greeting. A pained contraction of his brow showed her that he felt this little difference, and she hastened to make instant amends.

"Dear Dad!" she said, softly,--and she put her soft arms about him and kissed his cheek--"How are you this morning? Did you sleep well?"

He took her arms from his shoulders, and held her for a moment, looking at her scrutinisingly from under his s.h.a.ggy brows.

"I did not sleep at all," he answered her--"I lay broad awake, thinking of you. Thinking of you, my little innocent, fatherless, motherless lamb! And you, child!--you did not sleep so well as you should have done, talking with Robin half the night out of window!"

She coloured deeply. He smiled and pinched her crimsoning cheek, apparently well pleased.

"No harm, no harm!" he said--"Just two young doves cooing among the leaves at mating time! Robin has told me all about it. Now listen, child!--I'm away to-day to the market town--there's seed to buy and crops to sell--I'll take Ned Landon with me--" he paused, and an odd expression of sternness and resolve clouded his features--"Yes!--I'll take Ned Landon with me--he's shrewd enough when he's sober--and he's cunning enough, too, for that matter!--yes, I'll take him with me.

We'll be off in the dog-cart as soon as breakfast's done. My time's getting short, but I'll attend to my own business as long as I can--I'll look after Briar Farm till I die--and I'll die in harness.

There's plenty of work to do yet--plenty of work; and while I'm away you can settle up things--"

Here he broke off, and his eyes grew fixed in a sudden vacant stare.

Innocent, frightened at his unnatural look, laid her hand caressingly on his arm.

"Yes, dear Dad!" she said, soothingly--"What is it you wish me to do?"

The stare faded from his eyeb.a.l.l.s, and his face softened.

"Settle up things," he repeated, slowly, and with emphasis--"Settle up things with Robin. No more beating about the bush! You talked to him long enough out of window last night, and mind you!--somebody was listening! That means mischief! _I_ don't blame you, poor wilding!--but remember, SOMEBODY WAS LISTENING! Now think of that and of your good name, child!--settle with Robin and we'll have the banns put up next Sunday."

While he thus spoke the warm rose of her cheeks faded to an extreme pallor,--her very lips grew white and set. Her hurrying thoughts clamoured for utterance,--she could have expressed in pa.s.sionate terms her own bitter sense of wrong and unmerited shame, but pity for the old man's worn and haggard look of pain held her silent. She saw and felt that he was not strong enough to bear any argument or opposition in his present mood, so she made no sort of reply, not even by a look or a smile. Quietly she went to the breakfast table, and busied herself in preparing his morning meal. He followed her and sat heavily down in his usual chair, watching her furtively as she poured out the tea.

"Such little white hands, aren't they?" he said, coaxingly, touching her small fingers when she gave him his cup--"Eh, wilding? The prettiest lily flowers I ever saw! And one of them will look all the prettier for a gold wedding-ring upon it! Ay, ay! We'll have the banns put up on Sunday."

Still she did not speak; once she turned away her head to hide the tears that involuntarily rose to her eyes. Old Hugo, meanwhile, began to eat his breakfast with the nervous haste of a man who takes his food more out of custom than necessity. Presently he became irritated at her continued silence.

"You heard what I said, didn't you?" he demanded--"And you understood?"

She looked full at him with sorrowful, earnest eyes.

"Yes, Dad. I heard. And I understood."

He nodded and smiled, and appeared to take it for granted that she had received an order which it was her bounden duty to obey. The sun shone brilliantly in upon the beautiful old room, and through the open window came a pleasant murmuring of bees among the mignonette, and the whistle of a thrush in an elm-tree sounded with clear and cheerful persistence.

Hugo Jocelyn looked at the fair view of the flowering garden and drew his breath hard in a quick sigh.

"It's a fine day," he said--"and it's a fine world! Ay, that it is! I'm not sure there's a better anywhere! And it's a bit difficult to think of going down for ever into the dark and the cold, away from the sunshine and the sky--but it's got to be done!"--here he clenched his fist and brought it down on the table with a defiant blow--"It's got to be done, and I've got to do it! But not yet--not quite yet!--I've plenty of time and chance to stop mischief!"

He rose, and drawing himself up to his full height looked for the moment strong and resolute. Taking one or two slow turns up and down the room, he suddenly stopped in front of Innocent.

"We shall be away all day," he said--"I and Ned Landon. Do you hear?"