Windyridge Part 15

"I'll drive, la.s.s," said Barjona, holding out his hand.

"I'll keep 'em mysen, lad," replied his wife; "I've 'eld 'em all this time while t' mare was still: I'll 'old 'em now when she's on t' move.

Come up, la.s.s!"

She threw me another portentous wink, and the mare moved slowly down the lane.

"Poor Barjona!" murmured Mother Hubbard, as we sauntered back to the cottage.

"I wonder if you are right," I remarked rather viciously. "I certainly hope you are. At present my sympathies lie in the other direction, and I am disposed to say 'Poor Maria!'"

"Yes, love," said Mother Hubbard, "perhaps she has the worse of the bargain; but I think the old fox has got into a trap that is going to hold him very tight this time, and it will nip hard."

"I hope it nips until he squeals," I said impenitently.

This was on the Monday following Whitweek. The next day brought me a long, chatty letter from the squire, who feels wonderfully better and talks of coming home again soon. He cannot understand why the doctors always say "not just yet." He is at Sorrento now, and chaffingly condoles with me on the remote prospects of a continental trip, at any rate on his account. I wonder if he guesses how relieved I am, and how eagerly I antic.i.p.ate his home-coming.

In him I seem to have a friend who understands, and I am beginning to think that is the only real kind of friend. I have said all along that I do not understand myself. I am always coming across odd little tracts of territory in my nature which surprise me and make me feel something of an explorer, whereas I cannot help feeling, somehow or other, that the squire knows all about me, and could make a map of my character if he chose, with all my moods and whims and angularities accurately indicated, like so many rivers and mountains. And so far from resenting this I am glad of it, because he is so kind and fatherly with it all, and not a bit superior. Now the Cynic, although he is no doubt a mighty clever man, makes you so frightfully conscious of his cleverness.

By the way, I have made a discovery about him. He is a barrister, and quite an eminent one in his way. I suppose I might have found this out long ago by asking any of the Windyridge men, but for some occult reason I have never cared to inquire. The discovery came about in this way.

When I had finished reading the squire's letter, and before proceeding to my work, I took up the _Airlee Despatch_ which Farmer Goodenough had left with us, solely because it contained a short paragraph on the "Wedding of a well-known Windyridge character"--no other, in fact, than our friend Barjona.

As my eyes travelled cursorily over the columns they were arrested by the following:

"Mr. Philip Derwent, whose brilliant advocacy admittedly secured a verdict for the plaintiff in the recently concluded case of Lessingham v. Mainwaring, which has occupied so much s.p.a.ce in all the newspapers recently, is, as most of our readers will know, a native of Broadbeck.

His father, Mr. Stephen Derwent, was engaged in the staple trade of that town, but was better known for the interest he took in many religious and philanthropic movements, and in those circles his death five years ago occasioned a considerable gap. If report may be relied upon Mr. Philip Derwent's decision to read for the bar was a disappointment to his father, but the striking success which has attended him all through his legal career has sufficiently justified his choice. It was a matter of general comment in legal circles during the recent proceedings that Mr. Derwent more than held his own against such eminent luminaries as Sir George Ritson and Mr. Montgomery Friend, who were the King's Counsel opposed to him. He showed remarkable versatility in the conduct of his case, and his cross-examinations and repartees were brilliant in the extreme. Whether his law is as reliable as his rhetoric may be open to question, but one looks forward to his future career with special interest, as he is still on the sunny side of forty, and is therefore young enough to win many laurels. His mother died when he was quite young, and he is himself unmarried."

Why I should have felt low-spirited when I put the paper down I do not know. It is just these unexplained "moodinesses" which make me feel so cross with myself. The squire's letter had been bright, and the paragraph about Barjona amusing, and certainly the reference to Mr.

Derwent was ordinary enough. Still I stared at nothing quite intently for a few minutes after reading it. Then I shook myself.

"Grace Holden!" I said, "plunge your face into cold water, and go straight to your work in the studio. You have negatives to retouch, and prints to tone and develop, and nearly a dozen miniatures to paint, all of which are shamefully overdue; and no amount of wool-gathering will bring you in the thirty shillings which you have fixed as your weekly minimum. Now be a sensible woman, and 'frame,' as your neighbours say."

So I "framed," thinking the while how contemptuously the Cynic would smile at my thirty shillings.

CHAPTER XV

ROSE ARRIVES

The surprises of life are sometimes to be counted amongst its blessings. I daresay Reuben Goodenough, who is one of the most religious men I have met--though I am puzzled to know where his religion comes from, seeing that he rarely visits church or chapel--would affirm that all life's incidents are to be regarded as blessings. "All things work together for good," as "t' Owd Book" says.

He argued this point with me at considerable length one day, and though he did not convince my head he secured the approval of my heart. He is distinctly a philosopher after his kind, with the important advantage that his philosophy is not too ethereal and transcendent, but designed for everyday use. He professes to believe that there are no such things as "misfortunes," and so takes each day's events calmly. For the life of me I cannot see it, but I rather cling to the thought when the untoward happens.

Be that as it may, the surprise which "struck me all of a heap," to use a common expression of my neighbours, in the last week of June was a blessing that one could count at the time.

It was evening, and I was standing in the garden among the roses and pinks, engaged in removing the few weeds which had escaped Mother Hubbard's observant eye, and pausing occasionally to wonder which I admired the more--the stately irises in their magnificent and varied robes, or the great crimson peonies which made a glorious show in one corner--when the gate was pushed open, and an elegant young lady, in a smart, tailor-made costume and a becoming toque, glided towards me. I took another look and gasped for breath.

"Well, Grace," said the apparition, holding out a neatly gloved hand, "one would say that you were astonished to see me."

"Rose, you darling!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "come and kiss me this minute, and show me which particular cloud has dropped you at my feet! My dear girl, you have stunned me, and I feel that I must pinch you to see if you are really flesh and blood."

"If there is to be any pinching, my dear Grace, _I_ prefer to do it.

It will prove my corporeal existence just as conclusively, and be less painful--to me. So this is Windyridge?"

"Rose!" I exclaimed, "for goodness' sake don't be so absurdly practical and commonplace, but tell me why you have come, and where you are staying, and how everybody is at old Rusty's, and how long you are going to be in the north, and all about yourself, and--and--everything."

"All that will take time," replied Rose calmly, as she removed her gloves; "but I will answer the more important parts of your questions.

I am staying here, with you. If you are very nice and kind to me you will press me to remain ten days with you, and I shall yield to pressure, after the customary formal and insincere protests. Then you will put on your hat and walk with me down to Fawkshill station, and as there are no cabs to be had there we will bring up my bag between us."

"_That_ we need not do," I said. "There are half a dozen strong boys in the village, any one of whom would fetch your belongings for love of me and threepence of your money."

"Happy Grace!" she sighed; "'love rules the court, the camp, the grove,' as saith the poet. Be it even so. Summon the favoured swain, discharge his debt, and I will be in thine."

"Rose! Rose! you are the same incorrigible, pert, saucy girl as of yore, but you have filled my heart with joy. I am treading on air and giddy with delight. We will have ten days of undiluted rapture. Come inside and look round my home. Mother Hubbard is 'meeting for tickets'

to-night, and will not be back for a good half-hour."

"Meeting for what?" inquired Rose blankly.

"Meeting for tickets," I repeated. "My dear old lady is a Methodist cla.s.s leader, and to 'meet for tickets' is a shibboleth beyond your untutored comprehension. But the occasion is one of vast importance to her, and you are not to make fun of her."

She was pleased with everything and expressed her pleasure readily. In spite of her composed manner she is a very dear girl indeed, and though she is years younger than I am she and I always. .h.i.t it exactly. When she saw the tiny bed and realised that we should have to share it she laughed merrily.

"_I_ will sleep next to the wall to-night," she said, "because I am very tired, and it would be annoying to be always falling out. I shall sleep so soundly that your b.u.mping the floor will not disturb me, so you will have nothing to worry about. Then to-morrow night I will take the post of danger, and so alternately."

"We might rope ourselves together," I suggested, "and fasten the ends to a stake outside the window. I don't think the b.u.mping idea appeals to me."

But Mother Hubbard planned a better way on her return, and contrived a simple and ingenious addition to the width of the bed by means of chairs and pillows, which served our purpose admirably.

Over the supper table Rose told us all about her visit. "You see, I have not been quite the thing lately: nervy and irritable and that sort of nonsense, which the chief charitably construed into an indication of ill-health. He was awfully decent about it and suggested that I should see a doctor. I told him I was all right, but he insisted, so I saw Dr. Needham, and he told me I was run down and required bracing air.

'Mountain air would be better than the seaside,' he said. 'You haven't friends in Scotland or Yorkshire, I suppose?' Then I thought of you.

'I have a friend who went wrong in her head about twelve months ago,' I said (or words to that effect), 'and she ran away to the Yorkshire moors. She might take me in if I could get off.' 'The very thing,' he said. 'Will you have any difficulty with your employer?'

"'I don't think so,' I replied; 'not if it is really necessary. The chief is a discriminating man, and I believe realises that my services are invaluable, and he will put up with a little temporary inconvenience in order to retain them permanently, I imagine.' You are accustomed to my modesty, Grace, and will not be surprised that I spoke with humility.

"Well, he smiled and said he would give me a certificate, so I took the certificate and my departure and interviewed the chief in his den! It was as I had antic.i.p.ated. I was to get away at once. Ten days on the moors would put the wine of life into my blood. That was theory. The practical a.s.sumed the form of a five-pound note, which enables me to play the part of the grand lady--a role for which I was designed by nature, but which providence spitefully denied me. I stated my intentions to the Rusty one, who coldly sent you her regards, but I determined to take you by surprise, hoping to catch you unprepared and unadorned, whereas you are neither the one nor the other. Then I boarded the two o'clock Scotch express at St. Pancras, changed trains at Airlee, and _me voila_! By the way, what about my bag?"

The bag came all right in due course, and in the days that followed Rose and I gave ourselves up to enjoyment. It was like living one's life twice over to share the delight she showed in her surroundings.

Fortunately I had got abreast of my work, and we ordinarily devoted our afternoons to business and spent the mornings and evenings in Nature's wonderland.

During those ten glorious days the sun worked overtime for our special benefit, and put in seventeen hours with unfailing regularity. He smiled so fiercely on Rose's cheeks that she would have justified her G.o.dmother's choice if she had not preferred the hue of the berry, and turned a rich chestnut.

Mowing was in full swing in the meadows, and we took our forks and tossed the hay about and drank barley-water with the rest. We followed the men whose heads were lost in the loads of hay which they carried on their backs, and saw how they dropped their burden in the haymow. We stood like children, open-mouthed, admiring the skill and industry of the man who there gathered it up and scattered it evenly round and round the mow.

We went into Reuben Goodenough's farmyard, and I showed her the barn owls which have taken up their abode in his pigeon loft, and which live amicably with their hosts and feed on mice. We descended the fields to the woods, which the recent felling has thinned considerably, but which have all the rank luxuriance of summer, and revelled amid the bracken and trailing roses. We stood by the streamlet where the green dragon-flies flitted in the sunshine, and where millions of midges hovered in the air to become the prey of the swallows which rushed through with widely open mouths and took their fill without effort.

We spent hours on the moor, where the heather, alas! had not yet appeared, but which was a perfect storehouse of novelties and marvels.

Who would have thought, for instance, that the little golden bundles which cling to the furze, and which we thought were moss, were just so many colonies of baby spiders? We watched the merlins, the fierce cannibals of the moors, which dash upon the smaller birds and are even bold enough to attack the young grouse at times. What did we not do!