Women of the Country Part 3

It was a wet day, chilly and rueful. There were not even clouds in the sky to vary the steady grey, and the heaven itself seemed to have slipped from its height and to be close upon the earth. Trees, gra.s.s, hedges were drenched, and remained motionless with leaves drooping under an added weight. The ditches were noisy, but beyond the occasional rattle of a cart there was no other sound than the rain, a sound so unvaried that it presently became as a silence, and one imagined that the world had ceased to have a voice. Anne opened the door many times and looked out to see always the same grey sheet before her. The gutter on the shippon splashing its overflow on the flags of the yard, the hens crowding dejectedly within the open door of the henhouse, and the water lying green between the cobble-stones of the path. Nothing could be done in the garden. The sodden flowers would not be fit for to-morrow's market. The pony had cast its shoe and must be shod before next day.

"This is more important than the pony," Anne said to herself, putting on her market-cloak and drawing on with difficulty her elastic-sided boots.

She fastened her skirt high with an old silk cord and took her umbrella.

Remembering that she had not covered the fire, and that it would have burnt away before she returned, she took a bucket out to the coal-house.

The wet dross hissed and smoked as she covered the fire. She drew out the damper to heat the water, turned back the rag hearthrug lest a cinder should fall on it in her absence, and once more taking her umbrella, and lifting the key from its nail on the cupboard door, went out into the rain. She locked the door on the outside, and hid the big key on the ledge of the manger in the shippon. Then she was outside in the steady rain, on the gritty turnpike road washed clean to the stones.

As she set off, it was a small relief to her that she would not be noticed, unless when she pa.s.sed the cottages, because there were few workers in the fields, and none who could help it out of doors.

It was a walk of five miles which was before her, and soon the sinking of heart with which she had set out, began to disappear before the necessity of setting one foot before the other in a steady walk. The irritating pain of rheumatism began, too, to vex her and distract her thoughts. It was not a very familiar country to her after she had pa.s.sed the Ashley high road. There were fewer houses. The farms were larger, and portions of an old forest remained here and there uncut. But there was no variation in the gloom of the sky or the folding curtain of rain.

She grew tired and hot, and a little breathless, and as again the dryness of her throat and tightness of her lips reminded her of the humiliation of her unsought and unaided errand, she saw before her about a quarter of a mile on the high road which led to Marwell, the new red brick house with stucco ornaments, built by the horse-breeder, Burton.

She went towards it with lagging feet.

It was a prosperous and vulgar building, with a beautiful garden, for his garden was Burton's pride. Even in the sodden wet the flowers, not wholly beaten down, showed how well cared for and excellent their quality. The sward was even and trim, and the fruit-trees on the side of the house had yielded prizes to their owner. The path to the door was of new red tiles, and two large red pots held standard rose trees on either side of the stained-gla.s.s entrance. Anne rang the new bell which clanged loudly and followed the servant (a girl from a distance), to the showy drawing-room, chilly and unused in its atmosphere. It was the kind of house which impressed the country people by its "improvements," and at which Anne went to the side door to leave her b.u.t.ter. But she was so absorbed in her duty to the girl that she gave no thought to this, which at another time she would have considered to be "taking a liberty." She alone of the girl's old friends seemed to have this burden laid upon her, and as she entered the house she was overwhelmed with the blame of its having happened, and the difficulty now of recovering innocence lost.

CHAPTER IX

She had scarcely had time to recover breath before Burton, the horse-breeder, came into the room--a big-bearded man, of heavy build, with a familiar loudness and fussiness which would have been better in the open air, than even in the new vulgarity of his drawing-room. His weight was the first thing one thought of. It would have taken a powerful horse to carry him. He always wore his hat, whether indoors or out, and bright tan leggings, with riding-breeches. Among his men and the neighbours he pa.s.sed as a good master, and free with his money, standing for local purposes (as, indeed, he himself considered), in place of the lord of the manor who owned a more interesting house in another shire of the country. Like the rest of mankind he earned a reputation for generosity by being liberal with those things by which he set little store. He was neither avaricious nor surly, and, being in full health and vigour himself, was able to spare a rough chivalry to women which made allowance for their weaker bodies and greater difficulty in coping with existence. It was probably this soft-heartedness which, in the first place, had stirred a vague pity for the pretty blonde dressmaker, and this quality which the pliable girl had interpreted into the hope that he'd do her justice. He had, indeed, often stood up for Anne Hilton herself when her peculiarities had been discussed, and it was with the warm feeling of being rather a friend of hers, and not being the man to hear a single woman abused, that he came into the room and shook hands noisily.

"Well, Miss Hilton! I am very pleased to see you. You've come a long way in the wet. You must have a gla.s.s of something hot. Jane! Jane!" he shouted, stamping to the door and looking up the staircase. There was a sudden clatter, and Jane appeared in the doorway laughing, because she had run downstairs so quickly that she had almost fallen.

"That's smart work," said Burton.

"These stairs is so steep it's the easiest way of coming down 'em," said Jane with an air of proprietorship, with the familiarity and importance also of one who knows she is welcome, and, whatever other people may think, has a power which no one else present has with the only man in the room.

"Well, you have chosen a wet day to pay us a visit, Miss Hilton," she said, with a hospitality too effusive to be spontaneous.

She was a very attractive girl, with fair hair and pretty eyes, made for affection and to take a spoiling prettily. At present she had no misgiving about her lover's good intentions, and this gave her the confidence which naturally she lacked. Besides, she had never thought Anne Hilton important. Anne, seeing the handsome room, the gaiety of Jane, and affection of Burton, found herself wishing that there were no reason why it should not continue so, to all appearance a happy home of newly-married people. She saw none of the signs of shame in Jane which she herself had suffered.

"I've not just come to pay you a visit, Jane, my dear," she said. "I've come in the place of your grandmother who's dead, to take you away with me."

"Whatever for?" exclaimed Burton, loudly. "Do you think I can't make her comfortable? She's never been so happy in her life, have you, Jane?"

"No!" returned Jane, very red. "And I don't see what Miss Hilton's got to do with it anyway."

"No more don't I," returned Burton, with a laugh. "But let's hear what she's got to say about it. So you want Jane to go back to starving at dressmaking, Miss Hilton? She's a lot more comfortable here, I can tell you. She's got a servant, and she can have her dresses made out. She's no need to do anything but fancy work."

"It's the sin of a good, respectable girl taking such things for a price," interrupted Anne, "and of you, Mr Burton, to entice her to it, and keep her like this. It's not on _you_ the judgment'll fall, but on _her_. How's she to face the neighbours and everybody she's known from a child when you've done with her?"

"I've not done with her yet by a good way," said Burton. "Don't you worry yourself, Miss Hilton."

"You're a man of money and position, and a newcomer in the neighbourhood," went on Anne, "and the neighbours are afraid to say anything before you. But they say plenty about Jane, whom they've known all their life. Young people she used to play with talk of her with shame, and when you've finished with her she'll not have a friend to go to."

"But I tell you I've not done with her yet, and shan't for many a good while," repeated Burton. "I dare say she'll be tired first if it comes to that."

"Can you ever give her back what you've taken from her?" asked Anne breathlessly, trying to pierce the self-confidence she did not understand.

"Well, it was something like slaving all one day and then starving the next before," said Burton, "and she lives like a lady now. You should just see the fancy-work she gets through--no dressmaking now!"

Anne turned to Jane, who was sitting flushed and resentfully embarra.s.sed in the satin armchair, looking expectantly to Richard to see her through, shocked, too, and ready to cry at this first contact and opinion of her neighbours upon her doings.

"Where's your sister Lizzie, Jane?" she asked.

"Out at service," replied Jane, unwillingly, fidgetting with her hands and feet.

"So your coming here has meant that _she's_ got no home," said Anne.

"She could have had one if she'd liked," said Burton. "The house is big enough for us all."

"Thank G.o.d for His protecting grace!" said Anne, "she was able to resist the temptation."

"She'd have had to go out to service in any case," said Jane, spitefully; "the neighbours was so very kind to two girls."

"Jane, I knew your grandmother," said Anne, "and I know how hard she had to work to keep you two girls respectably dressed and cared for. I know you think I'm an interfering, peculiar woman and an old maid, but your grandmother was no old maid. She lost your mother who'd have worked and kept her when she was old, and instead of having an arm to lean on, she'd to work morning, noon, and night, to give you two girls a home.

She was working when other people was sleeping. It's better even to go to the Union than to do as you've done."

Jane, after twisting her fingers together, pulled out her handkerchief with a jerk and began to cry, thus rousing the indolent anger of Richard Burton, who, with a bl.u.s.tering tone, as though he wanted to shout down an opponent, burst out--

"Well, she's here now and she's not going away. And you can tell the kind neighbours that we can look after ourselves without their a.s.sistance. And as for them good girls that used to play with Jane, I know several who wouldn't have been slow to take the place. _I'll_ look after Jane all right. And we're much obliged for your visit, Miss Hilton," he continued, ironically. "We can spare you for quite a long time now. You can save yourself the walk another time. If you want to be home for dinner-time, you'd better be starting, don't you think?"

Anne rose stiffly, limping with rheumatism.

"Jane love, come with me," she said; "I can shelter you for a time, I can give you--"

"No I won't," retorted Jane, petulantly, turning her back.

Anne went slowly out of the room. Richard Burton accompanied her with offensive heartiness.

"Well, good morning, Miss Hilton," he said, opening the door with the stained gla.s.s window, and stepping into the red-tiled porch, he looked up at the sky. "I believe it's stopped raining--all the better for your rheumatism, eh? Well! give my love to the neighbours you think so much of," he shouted with a laugh, and shut the door. Anne opened the wooden gate with bra.s.s nails, and shutting it behind her stood again in the dripping lane.

CHAPTER X

The stirring of anger at Richard Burton's callousness gave way almost at once to a feeling of fatigue and defeat as she started on her return home, and a persistent image of Jane, a little girl playing skipping-ropes in red stockings, kept coming before her eyes. One or two gigs pa.s.sed her, splashing among the pools of the road. The birds began to sing with a clarity as sweet as that of the purified air. There was still a tinkling of running water from every side, but the clouds were in shreds, and patches of blue sky were uncovered here and there.

Three-quarters of the way to her home she pa.s.sed a fair sized cottage, in front of which a tall grey-haired woman was sweeping the standing water from the path with a yard brush. She stopped brushing as she heard footsteps and looked over the gate.

"Why, it's Miss Hilton," she exclaimed. "What a wet walk you've had.

Come in and stop a bit before you go further," she said, with the eagerness of an active, talkative woman, who had seen no one to speak to all day. She took the drenched umbrella and set it on its end in the doorway, and Anne, tired, hot, and discouraged, sat down gladly on the chair she offered her.

It was a comfortable kitchen, full of furniture, and bearing evident signs of men in the house. There were hats hanging behind the door and two guns over the fireplace. Such furniture as was placed there must have been long ago settled in its position. No one could mistake the room for that of young people. There was something in the mult.i.tude of worn objects, their solidity, their position in the room, each accommodating the other so that one could think of no other place for any of them, in the polish which had worn into the heart of the wood by constant rubbing which betrayed the presence and pa.s.sage of many people through the room for many years; a used, comfortable, taken-care-of appearance, very pleasant to feel around one, a room from which one would not easily take oneself away at night and which seemed to Anne Hilton to set around her the company of many cheerful people.

Mrs Crowther was too much occupied with her own affairs, and too eager to talk to enquire what had brought Anne Hilton that way. She was a tall, spare, robust woman, the mother of nine children, all grown up and well placed. She was a "worker." She had considered the bearing and rearing of her children as a piece of work to be done, in the same way in which she looked upon the spring-cleaning of her house. It had been done to her satisfaction, and done well. She had had little time for sentiment in her married life, but now, still active, strong, and with only the work of her house and garden, the meals for her four sons who still lived at home, and their mending and washing, she had leisure to express her opinions, and always having been obliged to hold her imagination within the visible realities of life and death, with which all her life had been concerned, she had arrived at a definiteness of judgment, and an honesty of speech which one frequently finds among women of her cla.s.s out of reach of poverty, but not beyond the necessity of work. Her husband was not a country man, but had come from a town florist's to work with a nurseryman about two miles distant. She began to tell Anne Hilton how they had first come to the country.