For two days the children lived an enchanted life, interrupted only by a visit to Miss de Gruchy, the dressmaker across the water, and by a miserable two hours in which they were supposed to entertain their Cousin Calvin, who had been sent to play with them. The boy—he was about a year older than Myra—greeted them with an air of high importance.
"I've seen the corp!" he announced in an ogreish whisper.
Myra had the sense to guess that if she gave any sign of horror he would only show off the more and tease her. She met him, therefore, on his own ground.
"Well, you needn't thinkwewant to, because we don't!"
"Oh, they'll show it to you before they screw it down. But I saw it first!"
For the next forty-eight hours this awful possibility darkened her delight. For itwasa possibility. Grown people did such monstrous unaccountable things, there was no saying what they might not be up to next. And here, for once, was an ordeal Clem could not share with her. He was blind. Alone, if it must be, she must endure it.
She did not feel safe until the coffin had been actually packed in the hearse and the long procession started. To her dismay, they had parted her from Clem. He rode in the first coach beside Aunt Hannah andvis-a-viswith her Uncle Samuel and Cousin Calvin; she in the second with Mr. Purchase, Peter Benny, and Mr. Tulse the lawyer, a large-headed, pallid man, with a strong, clean-shaven face and an air of having attended so many funerals that he paid this one no particular attention. His careless gentility obviously impressed Mr. Purchase, who mopped his forehead at half-minute intervals and as frequently remarked that the day was hot even for the time of year. Mr. Benny was solicitous to know if Mr. Tulse preferred the window up or down. Mr. Tulse preferred it down, and took snuff in such profusion that by and by Myra could not distinguish the floating particles from the dust which entered from the roadway, stirred up by the feet of the crowd backing to let the carriages pass. Myra had never seen, never dreamed of, such a crowd. It lined both sides of the road almost to the church gate—and from Hall to the church was a good mile and a half; lines of freemasons with their aprons, lines of foresters in green sashes, lines of coastguards, of fishermen in blue jerseys crossed with the black-and-white mourning ribbons of the local Benevolent Club; here and there groups of staring children, some holding tightly by their mothers' hands; here and there a belated gig, quartering to give way or falling back to take up its place in the rear of the line. The sun beat down on the roof of the coach drawing a powerful odour of camphor from its cushions. For years after the scent of camphor recalled all the moving pageant and the figure of Mr. Tulse seated in face of her and abstractedly taking snuff. But at the time, and until they drew up at the churchyard gate, she was wondering why the ships in the harbour had dressed themselves in gay bunting. The flags were all half-masted, of course; but she had not observed this, nor, if she had, would she have known the meaning of it.
In the great family pew she found herself by Clem's side, listening to the lesson, of which a few words and sentences somehow remained in her memory; and again, as they trooped out, Clem's hand was in hers. But to the ceremony she paid little attention. The grave had been dug hard by the south-east corner of the churchyard, close by a hedge of thorn, on the farther side of which the ground fell steeply to a narrow coombe. The bright sun, sinking behind the battlements of the church tower, flung their shadow so that a part cut across the parson's dazzling surplice, while a part fell and continued the pattern on the hillside across the valley. And while the parson recited high over the tower a lark sang.
Someone asked her if she wished to look down on the coffin in its bed. She shrank away, fearing for the moment that the trick of which she had stood in dread for two days was to be played on her now at the last.
But the mysterious doings of her elders were not yet at an end, for no sooner had they reached home again than she and Clem were hustled into the parlour, to find Mr. Tulse seated at the head of the long table with a paper in his hand, and Mr. Samuel in a chair by the empty fireplace with Cousin Calvin beside him. Aunt Hannah disposed herself between the two children with her back to a window, and Uncle Purchase, having closed the door with extraordinary caution, dropped upon the edge of a chair and sat as if ready to jump up at call and expel any intruder.
Mr. Tulse glanced around with that quiet, well-bred air of his which seemed to take everything for granted. Having satisfied himself that all were assembled, he cleared his throat and began to read. His manner and intonation suggested family prayers; and Myra, not doubting that this must be some kind of postscript to the burial service for the private consolation of the family, let her mind wander. The word 'testament' in the first sentence seemed to make this certain, and the sentence or two that followed had a polysyllabic vagueness which by habit she connected with the offices of religion. The strained look on Aunt Hannah's face drew her attention away from Mr. Tulse and his recital. Her ear had been caught, too, by a low whining sound in the next room. By and by she heard him speak her own name—hers and Clem's together—and glanced around nervously. She had a particular dislike of being prayed for by name. It made her blush and gave her a curious sinking sensation in the pit of the stomach. Her eyes, as it happened, came to rest on her Uncle Samuel's, who withdrew his gaze at once and stared into the fireplace.
A moment later Mr. Tulse brought his reading to an end. There was a pause, broken by someone's pushing hack a chair. She gazed around inquiringly, thinking that this perhaps might be a signal for all to kneel.
Her aunt had risen, and stood for a moment with twitching face, challenging a look from Mr. Samuel, who continued to stare at the shavings in the fireplace.
Whatever Mrs. Purchase had on her lips to say to him, she controlled herself. But she turned upon Myra and Clem, and her eyes filled.
"My poor dears!" she said, stretching out both hands. "My poor, poor dears!"
Myra thought it passing strange that, if she and Clem were to be pitied for losing their grandfather, Aunt Hannah should have waited till now. She paid, however, little heed to this, but ran past her aunt's outstretched arms to the door of the counting-house. Within, on the rug beside the empty chair, weak with voluntary starvation, lay stretched the little greyhound, and whined for her master.
Hester Marvin stood on the windy platform gazing after the train. Her limbs were cramped and stiff after the long night journey; the grey morning hour discouraged her; and the landscape—a stretch of grey-green marsh with a horizon-line of slate-roofed cottages terminated by a single factory chimney—was not one to raise the spirits. Even the breeze blowing across the marsh had an unfamiliar edge. She felt it, and shivered.
She had been the only passenger to alight here from the train, which had brought her almost all the way from the Midlands; and as it steamed off, its smoke blown level along the carriage roofs, her gaze followed it wistfully, almost forlornly, with a sense of lost companionship. She knew this to be absurd, and yet she felt it.
Between the chimney and this ridge the train passed out of sight; but still her gaze followed the long curve of the metals across the marsh. They stretched away, and with them the country seemed to expand and flatten itself, yielding to the sky an altogether disproportionate share of the prospect—at any rate in eyes accustomed to the close elms and crooked hedgerows of Warwickshire.
She withdrew her gaze at last, and glancing up the long platform spied her solitary trunk, as absurdly forlorn as herself. A tall man—the stationmaster—bent over it, examining the label, and she walked towards him, glancing up as she passed the station clock.
"No use your looking athim," said the station-master, straightening himself up in time to observe the glance. "He never kept time yet, and don't mean to begin. Breaks my heart, he do."
"How far is it from here to Troy?"
"Three miles and a half, we reckon it; but you may call it four, counting the hills."
"Oh, there are hills, are there?" said Hester, and looking around she blushed; for indeed the country was hilly on three sides of her and flat only in the direction whither she had been staring after the train.
The stationmaster did not observe her confusion. "Were you expecting anyone to meet you, miss?" he asked.
"Yes, from Troy. A Mr. Benny—Mr. Peter Benny." She felt for the letter in her pocket.
The stationmaster's smile broadened. "Peter Benny? To be sure—a punctual man, too, but with a terrible long family. And when a man has a long family, and leaves these little things to 'em—But someone will be here, miss, sooner or later. And this will be your luggage?"
"Three miles and a half, you say?—or four at the most?" Hester stood considering, while her eyes wandered across to a siding beyond the up-platform, where three men stood in talk before a goods van. Two of them were porters; the third—a young fellow in blue jersey, blue cloth trousers, and a peaked cap—was apparently persuading them to open the van, which they no sooner did than he leapt inside. Hester heard him calling from within the van and the two porters laughing. "Four miles?" She turned to the station-master again. "I can walk that easily. You have a cloak-room, I suppose, where I can leave my trunk?"
"I'll take it home with me, miss, for safety: that is, if you're really bent on walking." He jerked his thumb toward a cottage on the slope behind. "No favour at all. I'm just going back to breakfast, and it won't take me a minute to fetch out a barrow and run it home. Whoever comes for your luggage will know where to call. You'd best give me your handbag too."
"Thank you, but I can carry that easily."
"The Bennys always turn up sooner or later," he went on musingly. "If they miss one train, they catch the next. Really, miss, there's no occasion to walk. But if you must, and I may make so bold, why not step over to my house and have a cup of tea before starting? The kettle's on the boil, and my wife would make you welcome. We've a refreshment-room here in the station," he added apologetically, "but it don't open till the nine-twenty-seven."
Hester thanked him again, but would not accept the invitation. He fetched the barrow for her trunk, and walked some little distance with her, wheeling it. Where their ways parted he gave her the minutest directions, and stood in the middle of the roadway to watch her safely past her first turning.
The aspect of the land was strange to her yet, but the stationmaster's kindness had made it less unhomely. The road ran under the base of a hill to her left, between it and the marsh. It rose a little before reaching the line of slate-roofed cottages; and as she mounted this rise the wind met her more strongly, and with more of that tonic sharpness she had shrunk from a while ago. It was shrewd, yet she felt that it was also wholesome. Above the cottage roofs she now perceived many masts of vessels clustered near the base of the tall chimney. She bent her head against the breeze. When she raised it again after a short stiff climb, she looked—and for the first time in her life—upon the open sea.
It stretched—another straight line—beyond the cottage roofs, in colour a pale, unvaried grey-blue; and her first sensation was wonder at its bare simplicity. She rested her bag upon the low hedge, and stood beside it at gaze, her body bent forward to meet the wind.
For five minutes and more she stood there, so completely absorbed that the sound of footsteps on the road drew near and passed her unheard. A few paces beyond they came to a halt.
"Begging your pardon, miss, but that bag is heavy for you," said a voice.
She turned with a start, and, as she did so, was aware of a scent about her, not strong, but deliciously clean and fragrant. It came from a tuft of wild thyme on which her palm had been pressing while she leaned.
"Thank you, it is not heavy," she answered, in some confusion. "I—I just rested it here while I looked out to sea."
She knew him at once for the blue-jerseyed young man she had seen in talk with the porters; and apparently he had prevailed, for he stooped under the weight of a great burden, in which Hester recognised a blackboard, an easel, a coloured globe, and sundry articles of school furniture very cleverly lashed together and slung across his shoulder by a stout cord. He was smiling, and she smiled too, moved perhaps by the sight of these familiar objects in a strange land.
"If you'm bound for Troy, you may so well let me carry it, miss. There's a terrible steep hill to go up, and a pound or two's weight won't make no difference to what I got here."
She had taken up her bag resolutely and was moving on. The young man—it was most awkward—also moved on, and in step with her. She compressed her lip, wondering how to hint that she did not desire his company. A glance told her that he was entirely without guile, that he had made his offer in mere good-nature. How might she dismiss him and yet avoid hurting his feelings?
"They argued me down at the station," he went on. "Would have it the traps couldn' possibly be in the van. But I wasn't going to have my walk for nothing if I could help it. 'Give me leave to look,' said I; and I was right, you see!"
He nodded his head as triumphantly as his burden allowed. It weighed him down, and the stoop gave his eyes, when he smiled, an innocent roguish slant. Hester noted that he wore rings in his brown ears, and somehow these ornaments made him appear the more boyish.
"But what are you doing with a blackboard and easel?" she asked.
"They're for old Mother Butson. She lives with my mother and keeps school. Tidy little outlay for her, all this parcel! but she must move with the times, poor soul."
"Then hers is not a Board School?—since she is buying these things for herself."
"Board School? Not a bit of it. You're right there, miss: we're the Opposition." He laughed, showing two rows of white regular teeth.
"Are you a teacher too?"
She had no sooner asked the question than she knew it to be ridiculous. A teacher, in blue jersey and earrings! He laughed, more merrily than ever.
"Me, miss? My name's Trevarthen—Tom Trevarthen: and I'm a seaman; ordinary till last voyage, but now A.B." He said this with pride: of what it meant she had not the ghost of a notion. "A man don't need scholarship in my way o' life; but, being on shore for a spell, you see, miss, I'm helping the old gal to fight the School Board. 'Tis hard on her, too."
"What is hard?" Hester asked, her professional interest aroused.
"Why, to have the bread taken out of her mouth at her time of life. She sent in an application, but the Board wouldn't look at it. Old Rosewarne, they say, had another teacher in his eye, and got her appointed—some up-country body. Ne'er a man on the Board had the pluck to say 'Bo' whenheopened his mouth."
"Rosewarne?" Hester came to a halt.
"That bag is too heavy for you, miss. Hand it over—do'ee now!"
"Are you talking of Mr. John Rosewarne?"
"Ay, Rosewarne of Hall—he did it. If you was a friend of his, miss, I beg your pardon; but a raspin' old tyrant he was. Sing small, you might be let off and call yourself lucky; stand up to 'en, and he'd have you down and your face in the dust if it cost a fortune."
"Wait a moment, please!" Hester commanded, halting for breath. They had reached a steep hill, and the tall hedgerows shut out the sea; but its far roar sounded in her ears. She nodded toward the bundle on his shoulders. "Are those things meant to fight the new schoolmistress?"
"That's of it. The old woman has pluck enough for a hunderd. But, as I tell her, she may get the billet now, after all, since the old fellow's gone, and Mr. Sam—they do say—favours the Dissenters."
"I don't understand. 'Gone'? Who is gone?"
"Why, old Rosewarne. Who else?"
"You are not telling me that Mr. Rosewarne is dead?"
"Beggin' your pardon, miss—but he's dead, and buried last Saturday. There! I han't upset you, have I? I took it for certain that everyone knew. And you seeming an acquaintance of his, and being, so to speak, in black."—
"But I heard from him only last Thursday—less than a week ago!" Hester's hand went to her pocket. To be sure she possessed, with Rosewarne's letter, a second from a Mr. Peter Benny, acknowledging her acceptance of the post, and promising that she should be met on her arrival, on the day and hour suggested by her. But Mr. Benny's letter had been cautiously worded, and said nothing of his master's death.
The young sailor had come to a halt with her, evidently puzzled, and for the fourth time at least was holding out a hand to relieve her of her bag.
"No!" she said. "You must walk on, please; I am the new schoolmistress."
It took him aback, but not in the way she had expected. His face became grave at once, but still wore its puzzled look, into which by degrees there crept another look of pity.
"You can't know what you'm doing then, miss; I'm sure of that. They haven't told you. She's a very old woman, and 'tis all the bread she has."
He stared at her, seeking reassurance.
"You are certainly right, so far: I have tumbled, it seems, into mysteries. But for aught I know, Iamthe new schoolmistress, and we are enemies, it seems. Now will you walk ahead, or shall I?"
Still he paused, considering her face.
"But if you knew what a shame it is!" he stammered. "And you look good, too!"
With a movement of the hand she begged him to leave her and walk ahead. But as she did so she caught sound of hoofs and wheels on the road above. They drew apart to let the vehicle pass, she to one side of the road, the young sailor to the other. A light spring-cart came lurching round the corner; and its driver, glancing from one to the other, drew rein sharply, dragging the rough-coated cob back with a slither on the splashboard, and bringing him to a stand between them.
Hester's letter accepting the teachership had put Mr. Sam in something of a quandary. It came addressed, of course, to his father, and as his father's heir and executor he had opened it.
"'Hester Marvin'?" He read the signature and pondered, pulling his ragged whisker. "So that was the name on the letter you posted?" (No question had been asked about it at the inquest.)
"That was the name, sir," said Mr. Benny.
"Who is she? How did my father come to select her?"
Mr. Benny had not a notion.
"By her tone, they must have been pretty well acquainted," continued Mr. Sam, still pondering. "She signs herself 'Yours very truly,' and hopes he has been feeling better since his return. You know absolutely nothing about her?"
"Absolutely nothing, sir."
"I wish,"—Mr. Sam began, but checked himself. What he really wished was that Mr. Benny had used less haste in posting the letter—had intercepted it, in short. But he did not like to say this aloud. "I wish," he went on, "I knew exactly what the old man wrote; how far it committed us, I mean." And by 'us' again, he meant the Board of Managers, upon which he had no doubt of being elected to replace his father.
"You may be sure, sir," answered Mr. Benny, "that he made her a definite offer. My dear master was never one to make two bites of a cherry."
"Well, we must let her come, and find out, if we can, how far we're committed. Better write at once and fix a date—say next Thursday. You needn't say anything about my father's death. Just make it a formal letter, and sign your own name; you may add 'Clerk of the School Board.'"
"Can I rightly do that, sir?" Mr. Benny hesitated.
"Why not? Youarethe clerk, aren't you? As clerk, you answer her simply in the way of business. There's no need to call a meeting of the Board over such a trifle; though, if you wish, I'll explain it personally to the Managers. We may have a dozen cases like this before we get into working order—small odds and ends which require, nevertheless, to be dealt with promptly. We must do what's best, and risk small irregularities."
Mr. Benny, not quite convinced, fell to composing his letter. Mr. Sam leaned back in his chair and mused, tapping his long teeth with a paper-knife. He wondered what kind of a woman this Hester Marvin might be, and of what religious 'persuasion.' In a week or two he would succeed to his father's place on the Board. There would be no opposition, and it seemed to him natural and right that there should be none. Was he not by far the richest man in the parish? Samuel Rosewarne studied his Bible devoutly; but he did not seek it for anything which might stand in the way of his own will or his private advantage. When he came upon a text condemning riches, for instance, or definitely bidding him to forgive a debtor, he told himself that Christ was speaking figuratively, or was, at any rate, not to be taken literally, and with that he passed on to something more comfortable. He did not, of course, really believe this, but he had to tell himself so; for otherwise he would have to alter his whole way of life, or confess himself an irreligious man. But he was, on the contrary, a highly religious man, and he had no disposition to alter his life.
He hated the Church of England, too, because he perceived it to be full of abuses; and he supposed that the best way to counteract these abuses was to put a spoke in the Church's wheel wherever and whenever he could. In this he but copied the adversary—Parson Endicott, for example—who hated Dissent, perceiving that it rested on self-assertiveness, encouraging unlearned men to be opinionative in error. Perceiving this, Parson Endicott supposed himself to be combating error by snatching at every advantage, great or small, which exalted the supremacy of his Church and left Dissent the worse in any bargain. To neither of these men, both confident in their 'cause,' did it occur for a moment to leave that cause to the energy of its own truth.
The parson, however, was not likely to bring forward an opposition candidate; for that would conflict with a second principle of conduct, the principle of siding with the rich on all possible occasions. By doing this in his small way he furthered at once the cause of stable government—that is to say, the rule of the poor by the wealthy—and the cause of his own Church, which (he fully believed) in these times depends for existence upon mendicancy. Therefore Mr. Samuel would certainly be elected; and counting on this, he felt sorry to have missed the chance of giving the teachership, by his casting vote, to one of his own sect—some broad-minded, undenominational person who would teach the little ones to abhor all that savoured of popery. To be sure, this Hester Marvin might be such a person. On the other hand, his father had been capable of choosing some Jew, Turk, infidel, or heretic, or even papist. It remained to discover, first, what kind of woman this Hester Marvin might be; and next, whether or not the terms of her engagement amounted to a contract.
"By the way," said Mr. Sam, as Mr. Benny sat pursing his lips over the letter, "you take in a lodger now and then, I believe?"
"Now and then," Mr. Benny assented, looking up and biting the end of his quill. He did not understand the drift of the question. "Now and then, sir," he repeated; "when my wife's health allows."
"Then add a line, telling her she shall be met at the station, and that you will put her up."
"But, Mr. Samuel, I could scarcely bring myself to offer."—
"Tut, man; you don't ask her to pay. I'll see to that. Merely say that you hope she will be your guest until she finds suitable lodgings."
"That is very kind of you, sir."
"Not at all." He reached out a hand for Mr. Benny's letter, read it through, and nodded. "Yes, that will do; seal it up and let it go by next post. My father had great confidence in you, Benny."
"He ever did me that great honour, sir."
"I hope we shall get on together equally well. I daresay we shall."
"It comforts me to hear you say so, sir. When a man gets up in years— with a long family depending on him."—
"Of course, if this Miss Marvin should happen to give you further particulars of my father's offer, so much the better," said Mr. Sam negligently.
As the little man went down the hill toward the ferry he was pounced upon by Mother Butson, who regularly now watched for him and waylaid him on his way home.
"Hold hard, Peter Benny—it's no use your trying to slip by now!"
"I wasn't, Mrs. Butson; indeed, now, I wasn't!" he protested; though indeed this waylaying had become a torment to him.
"Well, and what have they decided?" The poor old soul asked it fiercely, yet trembled while waiting for his answer, almost hoping that he would have none.
Mr. Benny longed to say that nothing was decided; but the letter in his pocket seemed to be burning against his ribs. He was a truthful man.
"It don't lie with me, Mrs. Butson; I'm only the clerk, and take my orders. But I must warn you not to be too hopeful. The person that Mr. Rosewarne selected will come down and be interviewed. That's only right and proper."
All the village knew by this time what had happened at the last Board meeting.
"Coming, is she? Then 'tis true what I've heard, that the old varmint went straight from the meetin' and wrote off to the woman, and that the hand of God struck 'en dead in his chair. Say what you will,"—the cracked voice shrilled up triumphantly—"'tis a judgment! What's the woman's name?"
"That I'm not allowed to tell you. And look here, Mrs. Butson—you mustn't use such talk of my poor dead master; indeed you mustn't." He looked past her appealingly and at Mrs. Trevarthen, who had come to her doorway to listen.
"I said what I chose to 'en while he was alive, and I'll say what I choose now. You was always a poor span'el, Peter Benny; but John Rosewarne never fo'cedmeto lick his boots. 'Poor dead master!'" she mimicked. "Iss fay!—dead enough now, and poor, he that ground the poor!" At once she began to fawn. "But Mr. Sam'll see justice done. You'll speak a word for me to Mr. Sam? He's a professin' Christian, and like as not when this woman shows herself she'll turn out to be some red-hot atheist or Jesuit. To bring the like o' they here was just the dirty trick that old heathen of yours would enjoy. Some blasphemy it must ha' been, or the hand o' God'd never have struck 'en as it did."
"Folks are saying," put in Mrs. Trevarthen from the doorway, "that Sall here ill-wished 'en. But she didn't. 'Twas his own sins compassed his end. Look to your ways, Peter Benny! Your master was an unbeliever and an oppressor, and now he's in hell-fire."
Mr. Benny put his hands to his ears and ran from these terrible women. For the moment they had both believed what they said, and yet old Rosewarne's belief or unbelief had nothing to do with their hatred. They gloated because he had been removed in the act of doing that which would certainly impoverish them. They, neither less nor more than Mr. Sam and Parson Endicott, made identical the will of God with their own wants.
Peter Benny as he crossed the ferry would have been uneasier and unhappier had he understood Mr. Sam's parting words. He had not understood them because he had never laid a scheme against man, woman, or child in his life. Still he was uneasy and unhappy enough: first, because it hurt him that anyone should speak as these old women had spoken of his dead master; next, because he really felt sorry for them, and was carrying a letter to their hurt; again because, in spite of Mr. Sam's reassuring words, he could not shake off a sense of having exceeded his duties by signing that letter without consulting the Board; and lastly, because in his confusion he had forgotten his wife's state of health, and must break to the poor woman, just arisen from bed and nursing a three-weeks'-old baby, that he had invited a lodger. Now that he came to think of it, there was not a spare bedroom in the house!
The driver of the spring-cart was a brown-skinned, bright-eyed, and exceedingly pretty damsel of eighteen or twenty, in a pink print frock with a large crimson rose pinned in its bodice, and a pink sun-bonnet, under the pent of which her dark hair curtained her temples in two ample rippling bands.
"Why, hullo!" She reined up. Hester and the young sailor had fallen apart to let her pass, and from her perch she stared down from one side of the road to the other with a puzzled, jolly smile. "Mornin', Tom!"
"Mornin', Nuncey!"
"Sakes alive! What be carryin' there 'pon your back?"
"School furnitcher."
The girl's eyes wandered from the bundle to Hester, and grew wide with surmise.
"You don't mean to tell me you're the new schoolmistress!"
"Yes, I'm Hester Marvin."
"And I pictered 'ee a frump! But, my dear soul," she asked with sudden solemnity, "what makes 'ee do it?"
"Do what?"
"Why, teach school? I al'ays reckoned that a trade for old persons— toteling poor bodies, 'most past any use except to worrit the children."
"And so 'tis," put in the young sailor angrily.
"Han't been crossed in love, have 'ee? But there! what be I clackin' about, when better fit I was askin' your pardon for bein' so late? I'm sent to fetch you over to Troy. Ought to have been here more'n a half-hour ago; but when you've five children to wash an' dress an' get breakfast for an' see their boots is shined, and after that to catch the hoss and put'n to cart—well, you'll have to forgive it. That's your luggage Tom's carryin', I s'pose?—and a funny passel of traps school teachers travel with, I will say. You must be clever, though; else you couldn't have coaxed Tom Trevarthen to shoulder such a load. He wouldn't lift his little finger forme." She shot this unrighteous shaft with a mischievous side-glance, and laughed. She had beautiful teeth, and laughing became her mightily.
"But that is not my luggage."
"Not your luggage! Then where—Hullo! have you two been quarrellin'? Well, I never! You can't have lost much time about it."
"I left my trunk at the station," Hester went on, flushing yet redder with annoyance.
"And this here belongs to Mother Butson," declared Tom Trevarthen, red also. "I'm fetchin' it home for her."
"Then take and pitch it into the tail of the trap; and you, my dear, hand up your bag and climb up alongside o' me. We'll drive back to station, fetch your trunk, and be back in time to overtake Tom at the top o' the hill and give him a lift home. There's plenty room for three on the seat—that is, by squeezin' a bit."
"You're very kind, Nuncey," said Tom Trevarthen sullenly. "But I'll not take a lift alongside o'she; and I'll not trouble you with my load, neither."
"Please yourself, you foolish mortal, you. But—I declare! Youmusthave had a tiff!"
"No tiff at all," corrected Tom, sturdily wrathful. "It's despise her I do—comin' here and drivin' an old 'ooman to the workhouse!"
He turned on his heel and trudged away stubbornly up the hill.
Nuncey gazed back at him for a moment over her shoulder.
"Never saw Tom in such a tear in all my life," she commented cheerfully. "Take 'en all the week round, you couldn't find a better-natered boy. Well, jump up, my dear, and we'll fit and get your trunk. He may be cured of his sulks by time we overtake 'en."
Undoubtedly Hester had excuses enough for feeling hurt and annoyed; yet what mainly hurt and annoyed her (though she would not confess it) was that this sailor and this girl had each taken her as one on equal terms with themselves. She was a sensible girl, by far too sensible to nurse on second thoughts a conceit that she was their superior simply because she spoke better English. Yet habit had taught her to expect some degree of deference from those who spoke incorrectly; and we are all touchier upon our vaguely reasoned claims than upon those of which we have perfect assurance.
"J'p, Pleasant!" Nuncey called to the grey horse, flicking him lightly with the whip. The ill-balanced trap seesawed down the slope, and soon was spinning along the cliff-road, across which the wind blew with such force that Hester caught at her hat.
"Never mind a bit of breeze, my dear. And as for the touch of damp, 'tis nobbut the pride o' the mornin'. All for heat and pilchar's, as the saying is: we shall have it broiling hot afore noon. Now I come to think of it, 'tis high time we made our introductions. I'm Nuncey Benny—that's short for Annunciation. This here hoss and trap belongs to my mother. She's a regrater when in health; but there's a baby come. That makes eleven of us. You'll find us a houseful."
"Your father was kind enough to offer me,"—began Hester.
"Iss," broke in Nuncey; "father's kind, whatever else he may be. As for considerin' where to stow you, that never crossed his head. You mustn't think, my dear, that you bain't welcome. Only—well, I may so well get it over soon as late—you'll have to put up with a bed in the room with me. Shall you mind?"
"Of course I shall not mind," said Hester, conquered at once.
"Well, that's uncommon nice of you; and I don't mind tellin' 'ee 'tis the second load you've a-lifted off my mind. For, to start with, I made sure you was goin' to be a frump."
"But why?"
Nuncey had no time to explain, for they were now arrived at the stationmaster's cottage. The station-master himself welcomed them at the door, wiping his mouth.
"You'll step in and have a dish of tea, the both of you. It'll take off the edge of the mornin'."
Nuncey declined, after a glance at Hester, and at once fell to discussing the weather with the station-master while he hoisted in the trunk. Two of Hester's earliest discoveries in this strange land were that everyone talked about the weather, and everyone addressed everyone else as 'My dear.'
"Well, so long!" said the stationmaster. "Wind's going round wi' the sun, I see, same as yesterday. We're in for a hot spell, you mark my words."
"So long!" Nuncey shook the reins, and they started again. "Is that how sleeves are wearin', up the country?" she asked, after two or three glances at Hester's jacket.
"They are worn fuller than this, mostly," Hester answered gravely. "But you mustn't take me for an authority."
"I can see so far into a brick wall as most. Don't tell me! You're one to think twice about your clothes, for all you look so modest. Boots like yours cost more than I can spend on mine in a month o' Sundays; iss, and a trifle o' vanity thrown in. You've a very pretty foot—an' I like your face—an' your way o' dressin', if you weren't so sad-coloured. What's that for, makin' so bold?"
"It's for my father."
"There now, I'm sorry!—Always was a clumsy fool, and always will be. I thought it might be for old Rosewarne, you bein' hand-in-glove with him."
"But I scarcely knew him. It was only just now I heard the news."— Hester broke off, colouring again with annoyance. What did these people mean, that they persisted in taking for granted her complicity in some mysterious plot?
By and by, at the top of the hill, they overtook the young sailor.
"Got over your sulks, Tom?" inquired Nuncey cheerfully. "If so, climb up and be sociable—there's plenty room."
But Tom shook his head without answering, though he drew close to the hedge to let the trap pass. It is difficult to look dignified with a blackboard, an easel, and a coloured globe on one's back. The globe absurdly reminded Hester of a picture of Atlas in one of her schoolbooks, and she could not help a smile. A moment later she would have given all her pocket-money to recall that smile, for he had glanced up, glowering, and observed it.
Nuncey laughed outright.
"But all the same," she remarked meditatively as they drove on, "I like the lad for't. 'Tisn' everyone would do so much for the sake of an old 'ooman that never has a good word to fling at nobody, and maybe spanked 'en blue when he was a tacker and went to school wi' her. He's terrible simple; and decent, too, for a sailor. I reckon there's a many think Mother Butson hardly used that wouldn't crack their backs for her as he's a-doing."
"He spoke to me," said Hester, "quite as if I were doing a wickedness in coming—as if, at least, I were selfish and unjust. And I never heard of this Mother Butson till half an hour ago! Doyouthink I'm unjust?"
"Well," Nuncey answered judiciously, "if any person had asked me that an hour ago, I'd have agreed with Tom. But 'tis different now I've seen your face."
Nuncey and the stationmaster were wise weather prophets. Here on the uplands the grey veil of morning fell apart, and dissolved so suddenly that before Hester had time to wonder the miracle was accomplished. A flood of sunshine broke over the ripening cornfields to right and left; the song of larks rang forth almost with a shout; beyond the golden ridges of the wheat the grey vapour faded as breath off a mirror, and lo! a clear line divided the turquoise sky from a sea of intensest iris-blue. As she watched the transformation her heart gave a lift, and the past few hours fell from her like an evil dream. The stuffy compartment, the blear-eyed lamp, the train's roar and rattle, the forlorn arrival on the windy platform—all slipped away into a remote past. She had passed the gates of fear and entered an enchanted land.
As she looked abroad upon it she marvelled at a hundred differences between it and her native Midlands. It was wilder—infinitely wilder—than Warwickshire, and at the same time less unkempt; far more savage in outline, yet in detail sober almost to tidiness. It seemed to acknowledge the hand of some great unknown gardener; and this gardener was, of course, the sea-breeze now filling her lungs and bracing her strength. The shaven, landward-bending thorns and hollies, the close-trimmed hedgerow, the clean-swept highroad, alike proclaimed its tireless attentions. It favoured its own plants, too—the tamarisk on the hedge, the fuchsia and myrtle in the cottage garden. As the spring-cart nid-nodded down the hill towards Troy, the grey roofs of the town broke upon Hester's sight beyond a cloud of fuchsia blossoms in a garden at the angle of the road.
So steep was the hill, and so closely these roofs and chimneys huddled against it, that Hester leaned back with a catch of the breath that set Nuncey laughing. For the moment she verily supposed herself on the edge of a precipice. She caught one glimpse of a blue water and the masts of shipping, and clutched at the cart-rail as the old grey began to slither at a businesslike jog-trot down a street so narrow that, to make way for them, passers-by on foot ran hastily to the nearest doorways, whence one and all nodded good-naturedly at Nuncey. Of some houses the doors were reached by steep flights of steps tunnelled through the solid rock; of others by wooden stairways leading to balconies painted blue or green and adorned with pot-plants—geraniums, fuchsias, lemon-verbenas—on ledges imminent over Hester's head. The most of the passers-by were women carrying pails of water, or country folks with baskets of market stuff. The whole street seemed to be cleaning up and taking in provisions for the day, and all amid a buzz of public gossip, one housewife pausing on her balcony as she shook a duster, and leaning over to discuss market prices with her neighbour chaffering below. The cross-fire of talk died down as the dealers dispersed, snatching up their wares from under the wheels of the spring-cart, while the women took long, silent stock of Hester's appearance and dress. Behind her it broke forth again, louder than ever.
At the foot of the hill they swung round a corner, and passing a public-house and the rails of the parish church, threaded their way round two more corners, and entered a street scarcely less narrow than the other, but level. Here Nuncey drew up before an ope through which Hester caught another glimpse of blue-green water. They had arrived.
A grinning lad lifted out Hester's trunk and bore it down the ope to a green-painted doorway, where a rosy-faced, extremely solemn child stared out on the world over a green-painted board, fixed across with the evident purpose of confining him to the house. Having despatched this urchin to warn his mother that 'the furriner was come,' the lad heaved his burden over the board, dumped it down inside with a bang, and returned, still grinning amiably, to take charge of horse and cart.
"If you want to know t'other from which in our family," said Nuncey, "there's nothing like beginning early. This is Shake."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Father had him christened Shakespeare, but we call him Shake for short. It sounds more natural, somehow. And this here is Robert Burns," she went on, leading the way to the green-painted doorway where the small urchin had resumed his survey of the world beyond home. "That's another of father's inventions; but the poor cheeld pulled down the kettle when he was eighteen months old and scalded hisself all over, so he's gone by his full name ever since. Mother!" Nuncey called aloud, stepping over the barrier. "Here's the new school-teacher!"
A middle-aged, fair-haired woman, with a benign but puzzled smile, appeared in the passage, holding a baby at the breast.
"You're kindly welcome, my dear; that is, if you'll excuse my hair being in curl-papers. Dear me, now!" Mrs. Benny regarded Hester with a look of honest perplexity. "And I was expectin' an older-lookin' person altogether!"
Hester followed her into a kitchen which, though untidy and dim, struck her as more than passably clean; and it crossed her mind at once that its cleanliness must be due to Nuncey and its untidiness to Mrs. Benny. The dimness was induced by a crowd of geraniums in the window and a large bird-cage blocking out the light above them. A second large bird-cage hung from a rafter in the middle of the ceiling.
"And you've been travellin' all night? You must be pinin' for a dish of tea."—
But here a voice screamed out close to Hester's ear—
"What's your name? What's your name? Oh, rock and roll me over, what's your darned name?"
"Hester Marv—" she had begun to answer in a fright, when Nuncey broke out laughing.
"Don't 'ee be afraid of 'en—'tis only the parrot;" and Hester laughed too, recovering herself at sight of a grey and scarlet bird eyeing her with angry inquisitiveness from the cage over Mrs. Benny's head. Her gaze wandered apprehensively to the second cage by the window.
"Oh,hewon't speak!" Nuncey assured her. "He's only a cat."
"A cat?"
"Iss. He ate the last parrot afore this one, and I reckon he died of it. Father had 'en stuffed and put 'en in the cage instead. Just go and look for yourself; he's as natural as life."
"I was thinkin' a ham rasher," suggested Mrs. Benny, with her kindly, unsettled smile. "Nuncey, will you hold the baby, or shall I?"
"You give me the frying-pan," commanded Nuncey, turning up her sleeves. "What's the matter withyou, Robert Burns? And what's become of your manners?" she demanded of the urchin who had followed them in from the passage, and now stood gripping Hester's skirts and gazing up at her, as she in turn gazed up at the absurd cat in the parrot's cage.
"What great eyes she've got!" exclaimed Robert Burns in an awe-stricken voice.
"'All the better to see you with,'" quoted Hester, laughing and looking down on him.
"That's inRed Riding Hood. She knows about stories!" The child clapped his hands.
"Well," put in Mrs. Benny, seating herself with a sigh as the ham rasher began to frizzle, "you may say what you like about education, but mothers ought to thank the Lord for it. Sometimes, as 'tis, I feel as if the whole world was on my shoulders, and I can't be responsible for it any longer; but what would happen if 'twasn't for the school bell at nine o'clock there's no knowing. You'd like a wash, my dear?"
"I should indeed," answered Hester.
"Sometimes I loses count," went on Mrs. Benny, not pursuing her invitation, but standing with a faraway gaze bent upon the geraniums in the window; "but there's eleven of 'em, and three buried, and five at school this moment. I began with two boys—two years between each—and then came Nuncey. There's four years between her and Shake, but after that you may allow two years to each again, quite like Jacob's ladder."
"Lord bless 'ee, mother!" interrupted Nuncey, glancing up from the frying-pan, "she don't want to be told I'm singular. She've found out that already. Here's the kettle boilin'—fit and give her a cup of tea, and take her upstairs. 'Tis near upon half-past nine already, and at half-past ten father was to be here to fetch her across to see Mr. Samuel—though, for my part, I hold 'twould be more Christian to put her to bed and let her sleep the forenoon out."
When Hester descended to breakfast Mr. Benny had already arrived; and he too could not help showing astonishment at her youthful appearance.
"But twenty-five is not so young, after all," she maintained, laughing. "I feel my years, I assure you. Why are you all in conspiracy to add to them?"
"The late Mr. Rosewarne had given us no particulars," began Mr. Benny.
"He wrote at length to me about the school and his hopes for it."
"You knew him, then, Miss Marvin?"
"He was, in a fashion, a friend of my father's. He used to visit us regularly once a year.—But let me show you his letter."
"Not on any account!" Mr. Benny put up a flurried hand. "It—it wouldn't be right." He said it almost sharply. Hester, puzzled to know what offence she had nearly committed, and in some degree hurt by his tone, thrust the letter back in her pocket.