Margaret Vincent Part 1

Margaret Vincent.

by Sophia Lucy Clifford.

I

Margaret Vincent is the heroine of this story, but there are others who play important parts in it. Her grandfather was old Lord Eastleigh, well known in his day, fascinating and happy-go-lucky, who, when he had spent his patrimony in extravagant living, and disgraced himself as a guinea-pig, discreetly died, leaving his elder son, Cyril Vincent, all his debts and most of his difficulties. Cyril was rather amused by the t.i.tle, added to the debts to the best of his ability, married a lady from the music-halls, and, finding London impossible, went a-ranching with his wife on the other side of the world. There the life and its isolation absorbed his energies and identification. But that was five-and-twenty years ago--and this, be it said, is a modern story.

Gerald, the younger son and only other survivor of the Eastleigh family, distinguished himself at Oxford, became engaged to the daughter of a bishop, accepted a living from his prospective father-in-law, and within six months changed his opinions, threw up the living, made himself notorious in the days when agnosticism was a crime, by writing some articles that closed the door of every second house in London against him and secured his being promptly jilted by the woman with whom he had been in love. He had just two hundred a year, inherited from his mother. His habits were indolent, his tastes simple. The one desire left him after the crash was to get out of everybody's sight, to think, and to smoke his pipe in peace, and presently perhaps to write a book in which he could freely express the bitterness packed away at the bottom of his heart and soul. He travelled for a few years, and thus lost sight, much to their satisfaction, of all his distant relations (near ones, with the exception of his brother, he had none), dropped his courtesy t.i.tle of Honorable, and became a fairly contented loafer. He was an excellent walker, which was lucky, seeing that two hundred a year will not go far in travelling expenses, so he trudged over every pa.s.s in Switzerland, up Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn, down into Italy over the St. Gothard--there was no rail then, of course--and back by the Corniche road to France; up France by Avignon and Dijon to Paris, and at the end of a few years back to England to realize that he was thoroughly well forgotten.

The streets of London irritated him with their noise, and the people with their hurrying. The pavement tired his feet, the manner of life--that is, the manner of life to be had on so small an income as his--he found irritating and almost impossible. One day he packed a knapsack, filled his pouch, walked through Putney and Wandsworth and onward. He breathed more freely when he reached Wimbledon, which had then an almost rustic railway station and not a building near it, drew a long breath at Surbiton, and, blessing the beautiful county of Surrey, trudged on with a light heart. It was thus that he arrived at Chidhurst and discovered Woodside Farm.

Chidhurst is some miles from Farnham, from Liphook and Fernhurst, from Blackdown and Hindhead--from anywhere, in fact, with which the reader may try to identify it. Its nearest station is Haslemere, and that is five or six miles off. The village consists of a few cottages, one of which is a general shop and the other a small beer-house. Against the side wall of the beer-house there is a pillar-box, but stamps have to be bought at Haslemere or of the local postman. There is not even a smithy, man and beast must alike travel three good miles to be reshod--to the blacksmith's near the cobbler's on the common. A little way from the village, standing high among the wooded land on the right, is the church. It is half covered with ivy; there are white tombstones round it, and on its square tower a clock that is seldom right and never to be trusted. From the churchyard there is a divine view: fir woods in the foreground, beech woods to the left, heather moors to the right, and blue in the distance--soft and misty in the memory of those who love them--are the Surrey hills. A beautiful spot to stay and muse in on a drowsy summer day, a blessed one to sleep in when time has met eternity.

A mile from the church, farther into the heart of the country, by the road-side, there is a duck-pond, and just beyond it, on the right again, a green lane with high, close-growing hedges on either side, of sweet-briar and bramble, honeysuckle and travellers'-joy, while low down are clumps of heather and the tender green of the wortleberry. There are deep ruts along the lane, suggesting that heavy carts come and go, and presently, on the right also, are the gates of Woodside Farm. Inside the farm gates there is another duck-pond; and there are haystacks and out-buildings, and all the signs of thriving agricultural life. Just beyond the wide, untidy drive you can catch a glimpse of the Dutch garden, with its green paths and yew hedges, its roses and sweet peas.

The house is an old one; moss and ivy and lichen grown; a porch, with a seat in it, to the front door, and latticed panes to the window. The door opens into a square hall or living-place, red tiled and black beamed. On either side of the big fireplace there used to be a heavy wooden chair with carved and substantial arms and a red cushion tied on its back; in the centre of the room a large oak table; against the wall a dresser, an old chest, an eight-day clock, and a portrait of Queen Victoria in her coronation robes. It was here that the Barton family always sat; for the best rooms were let to strangers in the summer and carefully covered and darkened in the winter. Going up from the living-place was a wide staircase, old and worm-eaten, with a dark hand-rail to it, that many a dweller in distant cities would have been glad to buy for an extravagant sum. Beyond the staircase was a door leading to the red-tiled kitchen, where Towsey Pook, the house-servant, who had lived at Woodside Farm for forty years, did such work as was required of her--which meant on an average fourteen hours a day given over to labor or thought of labor; but she was a strong woman, and well content.

Mrs. Barton owned the farm in her own right at the time when Gerald Vincent set out on the walk that ended at Chidhurst. It had descended from father to son, or mother to daughter, for full two hundred years.

The tradition was likely to be kept up, since at well-turned five-and-thirty, after eleven years of uneventful matrimony, Mrs. Barton had found herself a widow with one child, a girl called Hannah.

Now, Hannah, even at nine years old, was an uncompromising little person--a singer of hymns and observer of people; and this she owed to her maternal grandparents, thriving farmers and dissenters, living at Petersfield. Her father, one of a large family, had done well for himself by his marriage, since through it he became the master of Woodside Farm, which was the reason, perhaps, that his people had made no objection to the churchgoing of his wife, or even of the child. After all, too, the service at Chidhurst was a strictly evangelical one--the sermon had been known to last near upon fifty minutes, and something has to be conceded to those who hold property in their own right. Unluckily, when she was eight years old, her father being delicate, and she in the way at home, Hannah went to stay at Petersfield. Her grandfather, a stern old Methodist, initiated habits and imbued her with notions that took deep root in her nature, so that, when two years later she returned to Woodside Farm to comfort her lonely mother, the result of his training was already evident. She was a plain child, and a plain woman later, with hard, gray-blue eyes and fair hair drawn back from her forehead, a pink color that could never be counted a bloom, and a somewhat thin face, with a straight mouth and pointed chin; moreover, she had a voice that suggested a strong will and a narrow outlook.

It was a full year after James Barton's death that Gerald Vincent first set eyes on the village of Chidhurst, and was charmed by it. He looked carefully from right to left, hesitated, and stopped at the little shop to ask if there were any rooms to be had for the summer.

"There's a house, sir," said the woman; "it stands back among the trees, just as you come to the church. It was built for a vicarage, but Mr.

Walford found it too big, so it's let to strangers."

"I don't want a house," the stranger said, impatiently.

Then a voice from the back called out, "There's Woodside Farm, mother."

"To be sure," said the woman. "The rooms have never been let since James Barton was first took ill; but I dare say she'll be glad to get somebody. You go past the church and along the road till you come to the duck-pond, then turn off to the right and walk on till you see it."

Mrs. Barton was spreading the white linen, which Towsey Pook had just washed, over the bushes in the Dutch garden, when suddenly she beheld not ten yards away a tall man in gray tweed, with dust-covered shoes and a knapsack on his shoulders. He was young--thirty or less, though at a first glance he might have been older; he looked studious, and as if he were a somebody, Mrs. Barton told herself later. His manner was a little awkward for the moment, but in his eye was courteous inquiry. The widow stopped and criticised him with quiet excitement, while he thought how good a picture she made with the sunflowers and sweet peas on either side of her, and the rose-bushes and patches of white linen spread out to dry in the foreground; and the yew hedges and the taller greenery behind added to the effect of her. For she was comely still, though she was nearly seven-and-thirty by this time; not stout, or even inclined that way, since, being an active woman, she took plenty of exercise and worried over much in secret, which prevented the spoiling of her figure.

Mr. Vincent asked if it would be possible to have some bread-and-b.u.t.ter and tea, to which she a.s.sented readily; and while he ate and drank in the living-place, he explained that he wanted to find a lodging in the neighborhood, to which he could bring his books and peacefully read and write for a few months. He hardly liked to propose himself as a lodger all at once, for there was an air of something that was almost distinction about the widow; it made him feel that if there were any social difference between them the advantage was on her side. She stood at first beside the oak table, and then was persuaded to sit, and she made a picture, framed in one of the big arm-chairs, that he never forgot, while she explained that there was a spare room that had not been slept in for three years past, and the best parlor that had not been used since Barton's funeral day. She bethought herself of the odor of mustiness which was beginning to pervade them both, since she had grudged a fire by which no one sat and gathered warmth. The farm produce, too, was good and plentiful; it would be easy to feed the stranger, and his stay would put some easily earned pounds into her pocket. Thus the arrangement came about, and each of them was satisfied.

He stayed all through the summer months, and when the autumn came he showed no signs of going. The widow grew more and more interested in him, and they often--he being a lonely man and she a lonely woman, and both unconsciously aware of it--had an hour's talk together; but it was a long time before it was other than rather awkward and even formal talk. Sometimes as he pa.s.sed through the house to his own rooms he stopped to notice Hannah; but she was always ill at ease with him, and hurried away as fast as possible. He heard her speaking to Towsey sometimes, and occasionally even to her mother, in a way that made him call her "a spiteful little cat" to himself; but it was no concern of his; there was nothing of the cat about the mother, and that was the main thing.

Mrs. Barton was surprised at first that her lodger did not go to church on Sundays, and the neighbors were curious about it, which embarra.s.sed her; but she felt that it was no business of hers, and that, since Mr.

Vincent was evidently above them in position and learning, it did not become them to make remarks. Besides, as Towsey was always busy in the kitchen at the back, it was comfortable to remember, while she herself was in church on Sunday mornings, that some one was left in the house who might be called a protection to it; for tramps had been known to come so far, and even such a thing as a fire might happen. So when she departed in her alpaca gown with c.r.a.pe tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, her widow's cap inside her bonnet, and her prayer-book and black-edged handkerchief (she had six of a goodly size and serviceable thickness) in her hand, across the fields with Hannah by the short cut to the church, it was with a sense of calm contentment. Mr. Vincent used to stand in the porch and watch them start; then, filling his pipe, he smoked in peace, and revelled in the extra quiet of the Sabbath day. The inc.u.mbent of St. Martha's, a man of no particular attainments, who had slipped into orders through the back door of a minor theological college, had thought of calling on the stranger and tackling him about his soul, till he heard incidentally that one of the writers of _Essays and Reviews_, who had been staying at Guildford, had driven over to Woodside Farm. Then he came to the conclusion that he might possibly get worsted in argument, and it would be the better part of valor to leave his doubtful parishioner in peace, even though it ended in perdition.

II

For two summers and a winter Gerald Vincent lodged at Woodside Farm. He was a singularly silent man, and Mrs. Barton knew no more about him in the last month than she had done in the first. But gradually she grew fond of him. She watched him out of sight when he went for his walks, and felt her heart bound when she heard his returning footsteps. The best roses were cut for his writing-table, the ripest fruit for his dessert and breakfast, and once when she lingered in the best parlor, dusting it before he was down, she lifted a half-written slip and kissed it, knowing that his hand must have rested on it; for youth does not monopolize romance, and even eight-and-thirty can know its agitations.

After a time Mr. Vincent became aware of her feeling for him; it embarra.s.sed him a good deal, but he was touched by it. Then he realized almost with surprise the clear outline of her face and the sweet, firm curve of her lips. He told himself of her merits, her domestic virtues, and the manner in which, single-handed and calm-headed, she managed the farm. Gradually it came about that, instead of staying in his own room in the evening, he sat with her--he on one side and she on the other of the great fireplace in the living-room; and the companionship was all the more pleasant because Hannah was away. For Hannah was a good twelve years old by this time, and, for the sake of school advantages, staying with her grandparents at Petersfield, where she learned more and more fervently to despise the particular forms of the devil and all his works in which those who were not of her own way of thinking most delighted.

It was on those evenings, and while Mrs. Barton knitted socks which he knew well enough would be offered to himself, that Mr. Vincent noticed the disappearance, first of c.r.a.pe and then of black in the widow's dress. He saw, too, the little arts, such as an odd bit of finery and the management of her hair by which she strove to add to her attractions, and he never pretended to himself that he misunderstood them. He realized, too, the good points of her figure--the set-back of her shoulders, and that she was tall and had a certain presence, even dignity, born of adherence to simple rules of life. And somehow, in a quiet, unexcited way, he became fascinated. Here was the natural human being, he thought, as G.o.d had meant it to be, unadulterated by scholarship or pa.s.sion or knowledge of the world. He felt that he and she and nature made a trinity framed by the Surrey hills and all the beautiful country round them. He wanted no other home than the farm, no other method of getting about than the brown, wooden cart and the broken-winded cob, no other companion than this sedate woman who knew nothing of his history or inward life, yet who somehow gave all his thoughts a setting, and put him into moods that helped him to write down many things that he hoped some day to give to the world. It is difficult to say how these things come about, or what will lead a man and woman knowing little of each other to marry; but the unaccountable happens too often to need dilating upon, and the great facts of life that stare us in the face occasionally make in themselves a grotesque argument in favor of spontaneous generation. Thus it happened that one night, after a long silence, Gerald Vincent said, quite simply:

"Mrs. Barton, I have been wondering lately whether it is right of me to go on staying at the farm on our present footing?"

"Why, Mr. Vincent!" She looked up at him with her pure, grave eyes, and surprise was in her voice. "I'm sure, if James knew, he'd like to feel that you were here."

"I wonder if he would; I have heard that he was a G.o.dly man, and I am not."

"Don't say that," she answered, anxiously. "I've always held with doing what was right rather than with the saying of prayers, though James's people, of course, are different and very strict in their notions."

"You know nothing about me," he said, going on with his own train of thoughts, "of my family, nor my doings before I came here, and yet I have been wondering if you would marry me?" It did not seem necessary to him to tell her that his father had been a peer, or that his brother had made a foolish marriage and gone to the Antipodes, or that he himself had thrown over the church and wrecked his prospects on a metaphysical rock. These things, and knowledge of them, were so far outside her world and thoughts that telling her could serve no good end. It was better to be silent.

She went on with her knitting for half a minute, then put it down and asked, and there was a something in her voice that reached his heart: "Do you mean that you've got to care for me?"

"I think you are the kindest soul in the world," he said, and his own voice was not very steady, "and too young still, and too handsome," he added, with a little smile, "for it to be right that I should go on living here, whether it is as your lodger or your friend. We have been friends for a long time, you know--"

"I have come to think of you as one," she said, simply.

"You wouldn't like me to live anywhere else?"

"I couldn't bear the thought of it," she answered under her breath.

"But I can't go on staying here, except as your husband. I think we could be content enough."

She turned her head away from him; a happy smile struggled to her lips.

He saw that she trembled. He rose and pulled her gently from her seat, and they stood together in front of the fireplace.

"Well?" he asked.

"I don't know what folk would say."

"Does it matter? We shall live outside the world, not in it."

"And then you never go to church?"

"I will make an exception to the rule by taking you there for half an hour while the parson prays over us. How is it to be? Perhaps you should think it over before you answer. I have nothing to give you--"

"Oh--" she raised her eyes and looked at him reproachfully.

"I am a poor man, with a couple of hundred a year, and no more to come.

I can be no help to you in your home, but I want nothing more from it than I have now. You can keep it all for Hannah by-and-by. Well?" he asked again.

With a little sigh she drew closer to him. "I couldn't say 'No,' Mr.

Vincent, for I'm fonder of you than of any one in the world." He tried to look into her eyes, but they were downcast, and a twitch came to her lips. He stooped and kissed her forehead, and waited till she spoke again. "You'll be good to Hannah?" she said, anxiously. "You see she won't be away so much by-and-by, and she'll look to come to her home.

You wouldn't interfere with her?"