What Necessity Knows Part 43

"Packed up; paid his bill; gone clear off--did you know?"

"Yes, I knew," said Eliza, although she had not known till that moment.

"Said he was so cut up, and that he wouldn't stay to give evidence against poor Job, or be hauled before the coroner to be cross-questioned about the old man. He's a sharp 'un; packed up in less time than it takes most men to turn round--adjustable chair and all."

Eliza had come to the threshold of the bar-room door to hear all he said. The sunshine of a perfect summer day fell on the verandah just outside, and light airs came through the outer door and fanned her, but in here the sweet air was tarnished with smoke from the cigars of one or two loiterers.

Two men of the village were sitting with their hats on. As they said "Good-day" to Eliza, they did not rise or take off their hats, not because they did not feel towards her as a man would who would give this civility, but because they were not in the habit of expressing their feelings in that way. Another transient caller was old Dr. Nash, and he, looking at Eliza, recognised in a dull way something in her appearance which made him think her a finer woman than he had formerly supposed, and, pulling off his hat, he made her a stiff bow.

Eliza spoke only to Mr. Hutchins: "I shall be gone about four hours; I am going to the Rexfords to tea. You'd better look into the dining-room once or twice when supper's on."

"All right," said he, adding, when the clock had had time to tick once, "Miss White."

And the reason he affixed her name to his promise was the same that had compelled Dr. Nash's bow--a sense of her importance growing upon him; but the hotel-keeper observed, what the old doctor did not, that the gown was silk.

"Fine woman that, sir," he remarked, when she was gone, to anyone who might wish to receive the statement.

"Well," said one of the men, "I should just think it."

"She seems," said Dr. Nash, stiffly, "to be a good girl and a clever one."

"She isn't _just_ now what I'd call a gurl," said the man who had answered first. "She's young, I know; but now, if you see her walking about the dining-room, she's more like a _queen_ than a _gurl_."

Without inquiring into the nature of this distinction Dr. Nash got into his buggy. As he drove down the street under the arching elm trees he soon pa.s.sed Eliza on her way to the Rexfords, and again he lifted his hat. Eliza, with grave propriety, returned the salutation.

The big hawthorn tree at the beginning of Captain Rexford's fence was thickly bedecked with pale scarlet haws. Eliza opened the gate beside it and turned up the cart road, walking on its gra.s.sy edge, concealed from the house by ragged lilac trees. She preferred this to-day to the open path leading to the central door. This road brought her to the end of the long front verandah. Here she perceived voices from the sitting-room, and, listening, thought she heard Princ.i.p.al Trenholme talking. She went on past the gable of the house into the yard, a sloping straggling bit of ground, enclosed on three sides by the house and its additions of dairies and stables, and on the fourth side bounded by the river. For once the place seemed deserted by the children. A birch, the only tree in the enclosure, cast fluttering shadow on the closely cropped sod. Sunlight sparkled on the river and on the row of tin milk pans set out near the kitchen door. To this door Eliza went slowly, fanning herself with her handkerchief, for the walk had been warm. She saw Miss Rexford was in the kitchen alone, attending to some light cookery.

"I heard company in the front room, so I came round here till they were gone."

"You are not usually shy," said Sophia.

Eliza sat down on a chair by the wall. With the door wide open the yard seemed a part of the kitchen. It was a pleasant place. The birch tree flicked its shadow as far as the much-worn wooden doorstep.

"I was very sorry to hear about last night, Miss Sophia," said Eliza, sincerely, meaning that she was sorry on Winifred's account more immediately.

"Yes," said Sophia, acknowledging that there was reason for such sympathy.

"Is that Princ.i.p.al Trenholme talking?" asked Eliza. The talk in the sitting-room came through the loose door, and a doubt suddenly occurred to her.

"No; it's his brother," said Sophia.

"The voices are alike."

"Yes; but the two men don't seem to be much alike."

"I didn't know he had a brother."

"Didn't you? He has just come."

Sophia was taking tea-cakes from the oven. Eliza leaned her head against the wall; she felt warm and oppressed. One of the smaller children opened the sitting-room door just then and came into the kitchen. The child wore a very clean pinafore in token of the day. She came and sat on Eliza's knee. The door was left ajar; instead of stray words and unintelligible sentences, all the talk of the sitting-room was now the common property of those in the kitchen.

In beginning to hear a conversation already in full flow, it is a few moments before the interchange of remarks and interrogations makes sense to us. Eliza only came to understand what was being talked of when the visitor said "No, I'm afraid there's no doubt about the poor girl's death. After there had been two or three snow-storms there was evidently no use in looking for her any more; but even then, I think it was months before _he_ gave up hopes of her return. Night after night he used to hoist a pinewood torch, thinking she might have fallen in with Indians and be still alive and trying to make her way back. The fact of the matter was, Mrs. Rexford, Bates _loved_ her, and he simply _could not_ give her up for dead."

The young man had as many emphasised words in his speech as a girl might have had, yet his talk did not give the impression of easily expressed feeling.

"Ah, it was very sad."

"Yes, I didn't know I could have minded so much a thing that did not affect me personally. Then when he had given up hope of finding her living, he was off, when the spring came, everywhere over the woods, supposing that if she had perished, her body could be found when the snow was gone. I couldn't help helping him to search the place for miles round. It's a fine place in spring, too; but I don't know when one cares less about spring flowers than when one's half expecting the dead body of a girl to turn up in every hollow where they grow thickest. I've beaten down a whole valley of trillium lilies just to be sure she had not fallen between the rocks they grew on. And if I felt that way, you may suppose it was bad enough for Bates."

"He seems to have had a feeling heart."

"Oh well, he had brought the girl up. I don't think he cared for anything in the world but her."

"And Dr. Nash saw Mr. Bates as soon as you got him to your brother's? If Dr. Nash thinks he'll pull through I should think you must feel hopeful."

"Yes--well, I left him on the sofa. He's rather bad."

There was a pause, as if Mrs. Rexford might be sighing and shaking her head over some suffering before described.

Sophia had gone to the milk cellar to get cream for tea. Eliza followed her out into the yard.

"I had better not stay to tea," said she, "there won't be room."

"Oh yes, there will; I have a headache, so I'm not going into the dining-room."

"Then I won't stay. I would rather come some night when you are there."

"How handsome your dress looks! You are getting quite a fine lady, Eliza."

"My dress!" said Eliza, looking down at it. It seemed to her so long since she thought of it. "Yes," she continued, stroking it, "it looks very nicely, doesn't it?"

Sophia a.s.sented heartily. She liked the girl's choice of clothes; they seemed to remove her from, and set her far above, the commoner people who frequented the hotel.

"You're very tired, Miss Sophia, I can see; and it's no wonder after last night. It's no fun staying to-night, for we all feel dull about what's happened; I'll go now."

Eliza went quietly down the lane again, in shadow of the lilac hedge, and let herself out of the wooden gate; but she did not return to the village. She looked down the road the other way, measuring with her eyes the distance to the roof of Trenholme's house. She walked in that direction, and when she came to Captain Rexford's pasture field, she got through the bars and crossed it to a small wood that lay behind. Long golden strips of light lay athwart the gra.s.s between elongated shades cast by cows and bushes. The sabbath quiet was everywhere. All the cows in the pasture came towards her, for it was milking time, and any one who came suggested to them the luxury of that process. Some followed her in slow and dubious fashion; some stopped before her on the path. Eliza did not even look at them, and when she went in among the young fir trees they left her alone.

It was not a thick wood; the evening sun shone freely between the clumps of young spruce. In an open glade an elm tree stood, stretching out branches sensitive to each breath of air, golden in the slant sunlight above the low dark firs. The roots of this tree were raised and dry.

Eliza sat down on them. She could see between the young trees out to the side of the college houses and their exit to the road. She could see the road too: it was this she watched.

CHAPTER III.

Eliza sat still in her rough woodland chamber till the stray sunbeams had left its floor of moss and played only through the high open windows in the elm bough roof. She had seen the cows milked, and now heard the church bells ring. She looked intently through the fissures of the spruce shrub walls till at length she saw a light carriage drive away from the college grounds with the clergyman and his brother in it. She knew now that their house would be left almost empty. After waiting till the last church-going gig had pa.s.sed on the road and the bells had stopped, she went into the college grounds by a back way, and on to the front of Trenholme's house.

As was common in the place, the front door yielded when the handle was turned. Eliza had no wish to summon the housekeeper. She stood in the inner hall and listened, that she might hear what rooms had inmates.