[1]This story was originally issued in theRed Magazine.
[1]This story was originally issued in theRed Magazine.
"Oh, to be a farmer's wife!"
Doris Elliot paused, punt-pole in hand, to look across a field of corn-sheaves with eyes of shining appreciation.
Her companion, stretched luxuriously on his back on a pile of cushions, smiled a contemplative smile and made no comment.
The girl's look came down to him after a moment. She regarded him with friendly contempt.
"You're very lazy, Hugh," she said.
"I know it," said Hugh Chesyl comfortably.
She dropped the pole into the water and drove the punt towards the bank. "It's a pity you're such a slacker," she said.
He removed his cigarette momentarily. "You wouldn't like me any better if I weren't," he said.
"Indeed I should—miles!"
"No, you wouldn't." His smile became more pronounced. "If I were more energetic, I should be for ever pestering you to marry me. And, you know, you wouldn't like that. As it is, I take 'No,' for an answer and rest content."
Doris was silent. Her slim, white-clad figure was bent to the task of bringing the punt to a pleasant anchorage in an inviting hollow in the grassy shore. Hugh Chesyl clasped his hands behind his head and watched her with placid admiration.
The small brown hands were very capable. They knew exactly what to do, and did it with precision. When they had finally secured the punt, with him in it, to the bank he sat up.
"Are we going to have tea here? What a charming spot! Sweetly romantic, isn't it? I wonder why you particularly want to be a farmer's wife?"
Doris's pointed chin still looked slightly scornful. "You wouldn't wonder if you took the trouble to reflect, Mr. Chesyl," she said.
He laughed easily. "Oh, don't ask me to do that! You know what a sluggish brain mine is. I can quite understand your not wanting to marry me, but why you should want to marry a farmer—like Jeff Ironside—I cannot see."
"Who is Jeff Ironside?" she demanded.
"He's the chap who owns this property. Didn't you know? A frightfully energetic person; prosperous, too, for a wonder. But an absolute tinker, my dear. I shouldn't marry him—all his fair acres notwithstanding—if I were you. I don't think the county would approve."
Doris snapped her fingers with supreme contempt. "That for the county! What a snob you are!"
"Am I?" said Hugh. "I didn't know."
She nodded severely. "Do you mind moving your legs? I want to get at thetea-basket."
"Don't mention it!" he said accommodatingly. "Are you going to give me tea now? How nice! You are looking awfully pretty to-day, do you know? I can't think how you do it. There isn't a feature in your face worth mentioning, but, notwithstanding, you make an entrancing whole."
Doris sternly repressed a smile. "Please don't take the trouble to be complimentary."
Hugh groaned. "There's no pleasing you. And still you haven't let me into the secret as to why you want to be a farmer's wife."
Doris was unpacking the tea-things energetically. "You never understand anything without being told," she said. "Don't you know that I positively hate the life I live now?"
"I can quite believe it," said Hugh Chesyl. "But, if you will allow me to say so, I think your remedy would be worse than the disease. Your utmost ingenuity will fail to persuade me that the life of a farmer's wife would suit you."
"I should like the simplicity of it," she maintained.
"And getting up at five in the morning to make the butter? And having a hulking brute of a husband—like Jeff Ironside—tramping into your kitchen with his muddy boots and beastly clothes (which you would have to mend) just when you had got things into good order? I can see you doing it!" Hugh Chesyl's speech went into his easy, high-bred laugh. "You of all people—the dainty and disdainful Miss Elliot, for whom no man is good enough!"
"I don't know why you say that." There was quick protest in the girl's voice. She clattered the cups and saucers as if something in the lazy argument had exasperated her. "I like a man who is a man—the hard, outdoor, wholesome kind—who isn't afraid of taking a little trouble—who knows what he wants and how to get it. I shouldn't quarrel with him on the score of muddy boots. I should be only glad that he hadenough of the real thing in him to go out in all weathers and not to care."
"All of which is aimed at me," said Hugh to the trees above him. "I'm afraid I'm boring you more than usual this afternoon."
"You can't help it," said Doris.
Hugh Chesyl's good-looking face crumpled a little, then smoothed itself again to its usual placid expression. "Ah, well!" he said equably, "we won't quarrel about it. Let's have some tea!"
He sat up in the punt and looked across at her; but she would not meet his eyes, and there ensued a considerable pause before he said gently, "I'm sorry you are not happy, you know."
"Are you?" she said.
"Yes. That's why I want you to marry me."
"Should I be any happier if I did?" said Doris, with a smile that was somehow slightly piteous.
"I don't know." Hugh Chesyl's voice was as pleasantly vague as his personality. "I shouldn't get in your way at all, and, at least, you would have a home of your own."
"To be miserable in," said Doris, with suppressed vehemence.
"I don't know why you should be miserable," he said. "You wouldn't have anything to do that you didn't like."
She uttered a laugh that caught her breath as if it had been a sob. "Oh, don't talk about it, Hugh! I should be bored—bored to death. I want the real thing—the real thing—not a polite substitute."
"Sorry," said Hugh imperturbably. "I have offered the utmost of which I am capable. May I have my tea here, please? It's less trouble than scrambling ashore."
She acceded to his request without protest; but she stepped on to the bank herself, and sat down with her back to a corn-sheaf. Very young and slender she looked sitting there with the sunshine on her brown, elf-like face, but she was by no means without dignity. There was a fairy queenliness about her that imparted an indescribable charm to her every movement. Her eyes were grey and fearless.
"How lovely to own a field like this!" she said. "And plough it and sow it and watch it grow up, and then cut it and turn it into sheaves! How proud the man who owns it must be!"
Something stirred on the other side of the sheaf, and she started a little and glanced backwards. "What's that?"
"A rat probably," said Hugh Chesyl serenely from his couch in the punt. "I expect the place is full of 'em. Won't you continue your rhapsody? The man who owns this particular field is a miller as well as a farmer. He grinds his own grain."
"Oh, is he that man?" Eagerly she broke in. "Does he live in that perfectly exquisite old red-brick house on the water with the wheel turning all day long? Oh, isn't he lucky?"
"I doubt if he thinks so," said Hugh Chesyl. "I've never met a contented farmer yet."
"I don't like people to be too contented," said Doris perversely. "It's a sign of laziness and—yes—weakness of purpose."
"Oh, is it?" Again he uttered his good-tempered laugh; then, as he began to drink his tea, he gradually sobered. "Has anything happened lately to make you specially discontented with your lot?" he asked presently.
Doris's brows contracted. "Things are always happening. My stepmother gets more unbearable every day. I sometimes think I will go and work for my living, but my father won't hear of it. And what can I do? I haven't qualified for anything. The only thing open to me is to fill a post of unpaid companion to a rich and elderly cousin who would put up with me but doesn't much want me. She lives at Kensington, too, and I can breathe only in the country."
"Poor little girl!" said Hugh kindly.
"Oh, don't pity me!" she said quickly. "You can't do anything to help. And I shouldn't grumble to you if there were anyone else to grumble to." She leaned back against her sheaf with her eyes on the sunlit water below. "I suppose I shall just go on in the same old way till something happens. Anyhow, I can't see my way out at present. It's such a shame to be unhappy, too, when life might be so ecstatic."
"How could life be ecstatic?" asked Hugh, passing up his cup to be refilled.
She threw him a quick glance. "You wouldn't understand if I were to tell you," she said. "It never could be—for you."
He sighed. "I know I'm very limited. But it's a mistake to expect too much from life, believe me. Ask but little, and perhaps—if you're lucky—you won't be disappointed."
"I would rather have nothing than that," she said quickly.
Hugh Chesyl turned and regarded her curiously. "Would you really?" he said.
She nodded several times emphatically. "Yes; just live my own life out-of-doors and do without everything else." She pulled a long stalk of corn from the sheaf against which she rested and looked at it thoughtfully. Her eyes were downcast, and the man in the punt could not see the deep shadow of pain they held. "If I can't have corn," she said slowly, with the air of one pronouncing sentence, "I won't have husks. I will die of starvation sooner."
And with that very suddenly she rose and walked round the sheaf.
The movement was abrupt, so abrupt that Hugh Chesyl lifted his brows in astonishment. He was still more surprised a moment later when he heard her clear, girlish voice raised in admonition.
"I don't think it's very nice of you to lie there listening and not tolet us know."
Hugh sat upright in the punt. Who on earth was it that she was reproving thus?
The next moment he saw. A huge man with the frame of a bull rose from behind the sheaf and confronted his young companion. He had his hat in his hand, and the afternoon sun fell full upon his uncovered head, revealing a rugged, clean-shaven face that had in it a good deal of British strength and a suspicion of gipsy alertness. To Chesyl's further amazement he did not appear in the least abashed by the encounter.
"I'm sorry I overheard you," he said, with blunt deference. "I was half-asleep at first. Afterwards, I didn't like to intrude."
Doris's grey eyes looked him up and down for a moment or two in silence, and a flush rose in her tanned face. It seemed to Hugh that she was likely to become the more embarrassed of the two, and he wondered if he ought to go to the rescue.
Then swiftly Doris collected her forces. "I suppose you know you are trespassing?" she said.
At that Hugh laid himself very suddenly down again in the bottom of the boat, and left her to fight her own battles.
The man on the bank looked down at his small assailant with a face of grim decorum. "No, I didn't know," he said.
"Well, you are," said Doris. "All this ground is private property. Youcan see for yourself. It's a cornfield."
The intruder's eyes travelled over the upstanding sheaves, passed gravely over the man in the punt, and came back to the girl. "Yes; I see," he said stolidly.
"Then don't you think you'd better go?" she said.
He put his hat on somewhat abruptly. "Yes. I think I had better," he said, and with that he turned on his heel and walked away through the stubble.
"Such impertinence!" said Doris, as she stepped down the bank to her companion.
"It was rather," said Hugh.
She looked at him somewhat sharply. "I don't see that there is anything to laugh at," she said.
"Don't you?" said Hugh.
"No. Why are you laughing?"
Hugh explained. "It only struck me as being a little funny that you should order the man off his own ground in that cavalier fashion."
"Hugh!" Genuine dismay shone in the girl's eyes. "That wasn't—wasn't—"
"Jeff Ironside? Yes, it was," said Hugh. "I wonder you have never come across him before. He works like a nigger."
"Hugh!" Doris collapsed upon the bank in sheer horror. "I have seen him before—seen him several times. I thought he was just—a labourer—till to-day."
"Oh, no," said Hugh. "He's just your hard, outdoor, wholesome farmer. Fine animal, isn't he? Always reminds me of a prize bull."
"How frightful!" said Doris with a gasp. "It's the worstfaux pasI have ever made."
"Cheer up!" said Hugh consolingly. "No doubt he was flattered by the little attention. He took it very well."
"That doesn't make matters any better," said Doris. "I almost wish he hadn't."
Whereupon Hugh laughed again. "Oh, don't wish that! I should think he would be quite a nasty animal when roused. I shouldn't have cared to fight him on your behalf. He could wipe the earth with me were he so minded."
Doris's eyes, critical though not unkindly, rested upon him as he lay. "Yes," she said thoughtfully, "I should almost think he could."
It was on a day six weeks later that Doris Elliot next found herself upon the scene of her discomfiture. She had ridden from her home three miles distant very early on a morning of September to join a meeting of the foxhounds and go cub-hunting. There had been a heavy fall of rain, and the ground was wet and slippery.
The field that had been all yellow with the shocks of corn was now in process of being ploughed, and her horse Hector sank up to the fetlocks at every stride, a fact which he resented with obvious impatience. She guided him down to the edge of the river where the ground looked a little harder.
The run was over and she had enjoyed it; but she wanted now to take as short a cut home as possible, and it was through this particular field that the most direct route undoubtedly lay. She was alone, but she knew every inch of the countryside, and but for this mischance of the plough she would have been well on her way. Being a sportswoman, she made the best of things, and did her utmost to soothe her mount's somewhat fiery temper.
"You shall have a clean jump at the end, Hector, old boy," she promised him. "We shall soon be out of it."
But in this matter also she was to receive a check; for when they came to the clean jump, it was to find a formidable fence of wooden paling confronting them, intervening directly in their line of march. It seemed that the energetic owner had been attending to his boundaries with a zeal that no huntsman would appreciate.
Doris bit her lip with a murmured "Too bad!"
There was nothing for it but to skirt the hedge in search of a gate. Hector was naturally even more indignant than she, and stamped and squealed as she turned him from the obstacle. He also wanted to get home, and he was tired of fighting his way through ploughed land that held him like a bog. To add to their discomfort it had begun to rain again, and there seemed every prospect of being speedily soaked to the skin.
Altogether the outlook was depressing; but someone was whistling cheerily on the farther side of the field, and Doris took heart. It was a long way to the gate, however, and when she reached it at length it was to find another disappointment in store. The gate was padlocked.
She looked round in desperation. Her only chance of escape was apparently to return by the way she had come by means of a gap which had not yet been repaired, and which would lead her in directly the opposite direction to that which she desired to take.
The rain was coming down in a sharp shower, and Hector was becoming more and more restive. She halted him by the gate and looked over. Beyond lay a field from which she knew the road to be easily accessible. She hated to turn her back upon it.
Behind her over a rise came the plough, drawn by two stout horses, driven by a sturdy figure that loomed gigantic against the sky. Glancing back, Doris saw this figure, and an odd little spirit of dare-devilry entered into her. She did not want to come face to face with the ploughman, neither did she want to beat a retreat before the five-barred gate that opposed her progress.
She spoke to Hector reassuringly and backed him several paces. He was quick to grasp her desire and eager to fall in with it. She felt him bracing himself under her, and she laughed in sheer delight as she set him at the gate.
He went at it with a will over the broken ground, rose as she lifted him, and made a gallant effort to clear the obstacle. But he was too heavily handicapped. He slipped as he rose to the leap. He blundered badly against the top bar of the gate, finally stumbled over and fell on the other side, pitching his rider headlong into a slough of trampled mud.
He was up in a moment and careering across the field, but Doris was not so nimble. It was by no means her first tumble, nor had it been wholly unexpected; but she had fallen with considerable violence, and it took her a second or two to collect her wits. Then, like Hector, she sprang up—only to reel back through the slippery mud and catch at the splintered gate for support, there to cling sick and dizzy, with eyes fast shut, while the whole world rocked around her in chaos indescribable.
A full minute must have passed thus, then very suddenly out of the confusion came a voice. Vaguely she recognized it, but she was too occupied in the struggle to keep her senses to pay much attention to what it said.
"I mustn't faint!" she gasped desperately through her set teeth. "I mustn't faint!"
A steady arm encircled her, holding her up.
"You'll be all right in half a minute," said the voice, close to her now. "You came down rather hard."
She fought with herself and opened her eyes. Her head was swimmingstill, but she compelled herself to look.
Jeff Ironside was beside her, one foot lodged upon the lowest bar of the gate while he propped her against his bent knee.
He looked down at her with a certain sternness of demeanour that was characteristic of him. "Take your time," he said. "It was a nasty knock-out."
"I—I'm all right," she told him breathlessly. "Where—where is Hector?"
"If you mean your animal," he said in the slow, grim way which she began to remember as his, "he is probably well on his way home by now. He'll be all right," he added. "The gate from this field into the road is open."
"Oh!" The faintness was overcoming her again as she tried to stand. She clutched and held his arm. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I—never felt so stupid before."
"Don't be in a hurry!" he said. "You can't help it."
She sank back against his support again and so remained for a few seconds. He stood like a rock till she opened her eyes once more.
She found his own upon her, but he dropped them instantly. "You are nothurt anywhere, are you?" he said.
She shook her head. "No, it's nothing. I've wrenched my shoulder a little, but it isn't much."
"Which shoulder?"
"The right. No, really it isn't serious." She winced as he touched it with his hand nevertheless.
"Sure?" he said.
He began to feel it very carefully, and she winced again with indrawn breath.
"It's only bruised," she said.
"It's painful, anyhow," he remarked bluntly. "Well, you must be wet to the skin. You had better come with me to the mill and get dry."
Doris flushed a little. "Oh, thank you, but really—I don't want to—to trespass on your kindness. I can quite well walk home—from here."
"You can't," he said flatly. "Anyhow, you are not going to try. You had better let me carry you."
But Doris drew back at that with swift decision. "Oh no! I am quite well now—I can walk."
She stood up and he took his foot from the gate. She glanced at the top bar thereof that hung in splinters.
"I'm so sorry," she murmured apologetically.
He also looked at his damaged property. "Yes, it was a pity you attempted it," he said.
"I shall know better next time," she said with a wry smile. "Will it cost much?"
"Well, it can't be mended for nothing," said Jeff Ironside. "Things never are."
Doris considered him for a moment. He was certainly a fine animal, as Hugh Chesyl had said, well made and well put together. She liked the freedom of his pose, the strength of the great bull neck. At close quarters he certainly did not look like an ordinary labourer. He had an air of command that his rough clothes could not hide. There was nothing of the clod-hopper about him albeit he followed the plough. He was obviously a son of the soil, and he would wrest his living therefrom, but he would do it with brain as well as hands. He had a wide forehead above his somewhat sombre eyes.
"I am very sorry," she said again.
"I am sorry for you," he said. "Wouldn't it be as well to get out of this rain? It's only a step to the mill."
She turned with docility and looked towards the two horses standing patiently where he had left them on the brown slope of the hill.
"Not that way," he said. "Come across this field to the road. It is no distance from there."
Doris began to gather up her skirt. It was wet through and caked with mud. She caught her breath again as she did it. The pain in her shoulder was becoming intense.
And then, to her amazement, Jeff Ironside suddenly stooped and put his arms about her. Almost before she realized his intention, and while she was still gasping her astonishment, he had lifted her and begun to move with long, easy strides over the sodden turf.
"Oh," she said, "you—you—really you shouldn't!"
"It's the only thing to do," he returned.
And somehow—perhaps because he spoke with such finality—she did not feel inclined to dispute the point. She submitted with a confused murmur of thanks.
On an old oaken settle, cushioned like a church-pew, before a generous, open fire, Doris began to forget her woes. She looked about her with interest the while she endeavoured to sip a cup of steaming milk treated with brandy that Jeff Ironside had brought her.
An old, old woman hobbled about the oak-raftered kitchen behind her while Jeff himself knelt before her and unlaced her mud-caked boots. She would have protested against his doing this had protest been of thesmallest avail, but when she attempted it he only smiled a faint, grim smile and continued his task.
As he finally drew them off she thanked him in a small, shy voice. "You are very kind—much kinder than I deserve," she said. "Do you know I've often thought that I ought to have come to apologize for—for ordering you off your own ground that day in the summer?"
He looked up at her as he knelt, and for the first time she heard him laugh. There was something almost boyish in his laugh. It transformed him utterly, and it had a marvellous effect upon her.
She laughed also and was instantly at her ease. She suddenly discovered that he was young in spite of his ruggedness, and she warmed to him in consequence.
"But I really was sorry," she protested. "And I knew I ought to have told you so before. But, somehow"—she flushed under his eyes—"I hadn't the courage. Besides, I didn't know you."
"It wasn't a very serious offence, was it?" he asked.
"I should have been furious in your place," she said.
"It takes more than that to make me angry," said Jeff Ironside.
She put out her hand to him impulsively, the flush still in her cheeks.
"I am still perfectly furious with myself," she told him, "whenever I think about it."
His hand enclosed hers in an all-enveloping grasp. "Then I shouldn't think about it any more if I were you," he said.
"Very well, I won't," said Doris; adding with her own quaint air of graciousness, "and thank you for being so friendly about it."
He released her hand somewhat abruptly and got to his feet. "How is your shoulder now? Any better?"
"Oh, yes, it's better," she assured him. "Only rather stiff. Now, won't you sit down and have your breakfast? Please don't bother about me any more; I've wasted quite enough of your time."
He turned towards the table. "You must have some too. And then, when you're ready, I will drive you home."
"Oh, but that will waste your time still more," she protested. "I'm sure I can walk."
"I'm sure you won't try," he rejoined with blunt deliberation. "I hope you don't mind eating in the kitchen, Miss Elliot. I would have had a fire in the parlour if I had expected you."
"But, of course, I don't mind," she said. "And it's quite the finest old kitchen I've ever seen."
He turned to the old woman who still hovered in the background. "All right, Granny. Sit down and have your own."
"I'll wait on the lady first, Master Jeff," she returned, smiling upon him.
"No. I'm going to wait on the lady," said Jeff. "You sit down."
He had his way. It occurred to Doris that he usually did so. And presently he was waiting upon her as she lay against the cushions, as though she had been a princess in distress.
Their intimacy progressed steadily during the meal, and very soon Doris's shyness had wholly worn away. She could not quite decide if Jeff were shy or not. He was obviously quiet by nature. But his grimness certainly disappeared, and more than once she found herself wondering at his consideration and thought for her.
He went out after breakfast to put in the horse, and at once his old housekeeper expanded into ardent praise of him.
"He works as hard as ten men," she said. "That's how it is he gets on. I often think to myself that he works harder than he ought. It's all work and no play with him. But there, it's no good my talking. He only laughs at me, though I brought him up from his cradle. And a fine baby he was to be sure. His poor mother—she came of gentlefolk, ran away from home she did to marry Farmer Ironside—she died three days after he was born, which was a pity, for the old master was just wrapped up in her, and was never the same again. Well, as I was saying, his poor mother, she'd set her heart on his being given the education of a gentleman; which he was, but he always clung to the land did Master Jeff. He was sent toFordstead Grammar School along with the gentry, and a fine figure he cut there. But then his father died, and he had to settle down to farming at seventeen, and he's been farming ever since. He's very well-to-do is Master Jeff, thanks to his own energy and perseverance; for farming isn't what it was. But it's time he took a rest and looked about him. He's thirty come Michaelmas, and he ought to be settling down. As I say to him: 'Granny Grimshaw won't be here for always, and you won't like any other kind of housekeeper save and unless she's a wife as well.' He always laughs at me," said Granny Grimshaw, shaking her head. "But it's true as the sun's above us. Master Jeff ought to be stirring himself to find a wife. But he'll go to the gentry for one, same as his father did before him. He won't be satisfied with any of them saucy country lasses. He don't ever mix with them. He'll look high will Master Jeff if the time ever comes that he looks at all. He's a gentleman himself right through to the backbone, and he'll marry a lady."
By the time Jeff returned to announce that the rain had ceased and the cart was waiting, there were not many of his private affairs of the knowledge of which Doris had not been placed in possession.
She was smiling a little to herself over the old woman's garrulous confidences when he entered, and it was evident that he caught the smile, for he looked from her to his housekeeper with a touch of sharpness.
Granny Grimshaw hastened to efface herself with apologetic promptitude, and retired to the scullery to wash up.
Doris turned at once to her host. "Will you take me over the mill someday?" she asked.
He looked momentarily surprised at the suggestion, and then in a second he smiled. "Of course. When will you come?"
"On Sunday?" she ventured.
"It won't be working then."
"No. But other days you are busy."
Jeff dropped upon his knees again in front of her, and turned his attention to brushing the worst of the mud from her skirt. He attacked it with extreme vigour, his smooth lips firmly shut.
At the end of nearly a minute he paused. "I shan't be too busy for that any day," he said.
"Not really?" Doris sounded a little doubtful.
He looked at her, and somehow his brown eyes made her lower her own. They held a mastery, a confidence, that embarrassed her subtly and quite inexplicably.
"Come any time," he said, "except market-day. Mrs. Grimshaw will always know where I am to be found, and will send me word."
She nodded. "I shall come one morning then. I will ride round, shall I?"
He returned to his task, faintly smiling. "Don't take any five-barred gates on your way!" he said.
"No, I shan't do that again," she promised. "Five-barred gates have their drawbacks."
"As well as their advantages," said Jeff Ironside enigmatically.
"Master Jeff!" The kitchen door opened with a nervous creak and a wrinkled brown face, encircled by the frills of a muslin nightcap, peered cautiously in. "Are you asleep, my dear?" asked Granny Grimshaw with tender solicitude.
He was sitting at the table with his elbows upon it and his head in his hands. She saw the smoke curling upwards from his pipe, and rightly deduced from this that he was not asleep.
She came forward, candle in hand. "Master Jeff, you'll pardon me, I'msure. But it's getting so late—nigh upon twelve o'clock. You won't be getting anything of a night's rest if you don't go to bed."
Jeff raised his head. His eyes, sombre with thought, met hers. "Is it late?" he said abstractedly.
"And you such an early riser," said Granny Grimshaw.
She went across to the fire and began to rake it out, he watching her in silence, still with that sombre look in his dark eyes.
Very suddenly Granny Grimshaw turned and, poker in hand, confronted him. She was wearing a large Paisley shawl over her pink flannel nightdress, but the figure she presented, though quaint, was not unimposing.
"Master Jeff," she said, "don't you be too modest and retiring, my dear. You're just as good as the best of 'em."
A slow, rather hard smile drew the corners of the man's mouth. "They don't think so," he observed.
"They mayn't," said Granny Grimshaw severely. "But that don't alter what is. You're a good man, and, what's more, a man of substance, which is better than can be said for old Colonel Elliot, with one foot in the grave, so to speak, and up to his eyes in debt. He owes money all over the place, I'm told, and the place is mortgaged for three times its proper value. His wife has a little of her own, so they say; but this poor young lady as was here this morning, she'll be thrown on the world without a penny to her name. A winsome young lady, too, Master Jeff. And she don't look as if she were made to stand many hard knocks. She may belong to the county, as they say, but her heart's in the right place.She'd make a bonny mistress in this old place, and it wants a mistress badly enough. Old Granny Grimshaw has done her best, my dear, and always will. But she isn't the woman she was." An odd, wheedling note crept into the old woman's voice. "She'll be wanting to sit in the chimney-corner soon, Master Jeff, and just mind the little ones. You wouldn't refuse her that?"
Jeff rose abruptly and went across to the fire to knock the ashes from his pipe. Having done so, he remained bent for several seconds, as though he were trying to read his fortune in the dying embers. Then very slowly he straightened himself and spoke.
"I think you forget," he said, "that Colonel Elliot was the son of an earl."
But Granny Grimshaw remained unabashed and wholly unimpressed. She laid down the poker with decision. "I was never one to sneer at good birth," she said. "But I hold that you come of a breed as old and as good as any in the land. Your father was a yeoman of the good old-fashioned sort; and your mother—well, everyone hereabouts knows that she was a lady born and bred. I don't see what titles have to do with breeding," said Granny Grimshaw stoutly. "Not that I despise the aristocracy. Dear me, no! But when all is said and done, no man can be better than a gentleman, and no woman can look higher. And there are gentlemen in every walk of life just the same as there are the other sort. And you, Master Jeff, you're one of the gentlemen."
Jeff laughed a somewhat grim laugh, and turned to put out the lamp.
"You're a very nice old woman, Granny," he said. "But you are not an impartial judge."
"Ah, my dearie," said Granny Grimshaw, "but I know what women's hearts are made of."
A somewhat irrelevant retort, which nevertheless closed the discussion.
They went upstairs together, and parted on the landing.
"And you'll go to bed now, won't you?" urged Granny Grimshaw.
"All right," said Jeff.
But once in his own room he went to the low lattice-window that overlooked the mill-stream, and stood before it looking gravely forth over the still water. It was a night of many stars. Beyond the stream there stretched a dream-valley across which the river mists were trailing. The tall trees in the meadows stood up with a ghostly magnificence against them. The whole scene was one of wondrous peace, and all, as far as he could see, was his. But the man's eyes brooded over his acres with a dumb dissatisfaction, and when he turned from the window at last it was with a gesture of hopelessness.
"God help me for a fool!" he muttered between his teeth. "If I went near her, they would kick me out by the back door."
He began to undress with savage energy, and finally flung himself down on the old four-poster in which his father had lain before him, lying there motionless, with fixed and sleepless eyes, while the hours went by over his head.
Once—it was just before daybreak—he rose and went again to the open window that overlooked his prosperous valley. A change had come over the face of it. The mists were lifting, lifting. He saw the dark forms of cattle standing here and there. The river wound, silent and mysterious, away into the dim, quiet distance. A church clock struck, its tone vague and remote as a voice from another world. And as if in answer to its solemn call a lark soared upwards from the meadow by the mill-stream with a burst of song.
The east was surely lightening. The night was gone. Jeff leaned his burning temple against the window-frame with a feeling akin to physical sickness. He was tired—dead tired; but he knew that he could not sleep now. The world was waking. From the farmyard round the corner of the house there came the flap of wings and the old rooster's blatant greeting to the dawn.
In another half-hour the whole place would be stirring. He had wasted a whole night's rest.
Fiercely he straightened himself. Surely his brain must be going! Why, he had only spoken to her twice. And then, like a spirit that mocked, the words ran through his brain: "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"
So this was love, was it? This—was love!
With clenched hands he stood looking out to the dawning, while the wild fever leaped and seethed in his veins. He called up before his inner vision the light, dainty figure, the level, grey eyes, fearless, yet in a fashion shy, the glow of the sun-tanned skin, the soft, thick hair, brown in the shadow, gold in the sun.
Straight before him, low in the sky, hung the morning star. It almost looked as if it were drifting earthwards with all its purity, all its glistening sweetness, drifting straight to the heart of the world. He fixed his eyes upon it, drawn by its beauty almost in spite of himself. It was the only star in the sky, and it almost seemed as if it had a message for him.
But the day was dawning, the star fading, and the message hard to read. Why had she refused to marry Chesyl? he asked himself. The man was lukewarm in speech and action; but that surely was but the way of the world to which he belonged. No excess of emotion was ever encouraged there. Doubtless behind that amiable mask there beat the same devouring longing that throbbed in his own racing pulses. Surely Doris knew this! Surely she understood her own kind!
He recalled those words of hers that he had overheard, the slow utterance of them as of some pronouncement of doom. "If I can't have corn, I won't have husks. I will die of starvation sooner."
He had caught the pain in those words. Had Hugh Chesyl failed to do so? If so, Hugh Chesyl was a fool. He had never thought very highly of him, though he supposed him to be clever after his own indolent fashion.
Chesyl was the old squire's nephew and heir—a highly suitablepartifor any girl. Yet Doris had refused him, not wholly without ignominy. A gentleman, too! Jeff's mouth twisted. The thought came to him, and ripened to steady conviction, that had Chesyl taken the trouble to woo, he must in time have won. The girl was miserable enough to admit the fact of her misery, and he offered her marriage with him as a friendly means of escape. On other ground he could have won her. On this ground he was probably the least likely man to win. She asked for corn, and he offered husks. What wonder that she preferred starvation!
His hands were still clenched as he turned from the window. Oh, to have been in Hugh Chesyl's place! She would have had no complaint then to make as to the quality of his offering. He would never have suffered her to go hungry. And yet the feeling that Hugh Chesyl loved her lingered still in his soul. Ah, what a fool! What a fool!
It was nearly three hours later that Jim Dawlish the miller answered Jeff Ironside's gruff morning greeting with an eager, "Have you heard the news, sir?"
Dawlish was of a cheery, expansive disposition, and not much of the village gossip ever escaped him or remained with him.
"What news?" demanded Jeff.
"Why, about the old Colonel up at the Place, to be sure," said Dawlish, advancing his floury person towards the doorway in which stood the master's square, strong figure.
"Colonel Elliot?" queried Jeff sharply. "What about him?"
Dawlish wagged a knowing head. "Ah, you may well ask that, sir. He died—early this morning—quite unexpected. Had a fit or some'at. They say it's an open question whether there'll be enough money to bury him. He has creditors all over the county."
"Good heavens!" said Jeff. He drew back swiftly into the open air as if he found the atmosphere of the mill oppressive. "Are you quite sure it's true?" he questioned. "How did you hear?"
"It's true enough," said the miller, with keen enjoyment. "I heard it from the police-sergeant. He says it was so sudden that there'll have to be an inquest. I'm sorry for the widow and orphans though. It'll fall a bit hard on them."
"Good heavens!" said Jeff again. "Good heavens!"
And then very abruptly he turned and left the mill.
"What's the matter with the boss?" asked the miller's underling. "Did the Colonel owe him money too?"
"That's about the ticket," said Jim Dawlish cheerily. "That comes of lending, that does. It just shows the truth of the old saying, 'Stick to your money and your money'll stick to you.' There never was a truer word."
"Wonder if he's lost much?" said the underling speculatively.
Whereupon Jim Dawlish waxed suddenly severe. He never tolerated idle gossip among his inferiors. "And that's no concern of yours, Charlie Bates," he said. "You get on with your work and don't bother your pudden head about what ain't in no way your business. Mr. Ironside is about the soundest man within fifty miles, and don't you forget it!"
"He wasn't best pleased to hear about the poor old Colonel though for all that," said Charlie Bates tenaciously. "And I'd give something to know what'll come of it."
If he had known, neither he nor Jim Dawlish would have got through much work that morning.
It was nearly a fortnight after Colonel Elliot's death that Jeff Ironside went to the stable somewhat suddenly one morning, saddled his mare, and, without a word to anyone, rode away.
Granny Grimshaw was the only witness of his departure, and she turned from the kitchen window with a secret smile and nod.
It was an autumn morning of mist and sunshine. The beech trees shone golden overhead, and the robins trilled loudly from the clematis-draped hedges. Jeff rode briskly, with too set a purpose to bestow any attention upon these things. He took a short cut across his own land and entered the grounds belonging to the Place by a side drive seldom used.
Thence he rode direct to the front door of the great Georgian house and boldly demanded admittance.
The footman who opened to him looked him up and down interrogatively. "Miss Elliot is at home, but I don't know if she will see anyone," he said uncompromisingly.
"Ask her!" said Jeff tersely. "My name is Ironside."
While the man was gone he took the mare to a yew tree that shadowed the drive at a few yards' distance and tied her to it. There was an air of grim resolution about all his actions. This accomplished, he returned to the great front door.
As he reached it there came the sound of light, hastening feet within, and in a moment the half-open door was thrown back. Doris herself, very slim and pale, but withal very queenly in her deep mourning, came forth with outstretched hand to greet him.
"But why did they leave you here?" she said. "Please come in!"
He followed her in with scarcely a word.
She led him down a long oak passage to a room that was plainly the library, and there in her quick, gracious way she turned and faced him.
"I am very pleased to see you, Mr. Ironside. I was going to write to you to thank you again for all your kindness, but lately—there has been so much to think about—so much to do. I know you will understand. Do sit down!"
But Jeff remained squarely on his feet. "I hope you have quite recovered from your fall?" he said.
"Quite, thank you." She smiled faintly. "It seems such an age ago. Hector came home quite safely too." She broke off short, paused as if seeking for words, then said rather abruptly, "I shall never go hunting again."
"You mean not this year?" suggested Jeff.
She looked at him, and he saw that her smile Was piteous. "No, I mean never. Everything is to be sold. Haven't you heard?"
He nodded. "Yes, I had heard. I hoped it wasn't true."
"Yes, it is true." Her two hands fastened very tightly upon the back of a chair. There was something indescribably pathetic in the action. She seemed on the verge of saying more, but in the end she did not say it. She just stood looking at him with the wide grey eyes that tried so hard not to be tragic.
Jeff stood looking back with great sturdiness and not much apparent feeling. He offered no word of condolence or sympathy. Only after a very decided pause he said, "I wonder what you will do?"
"I am going to London," she said.
"Soon?" Jeff's voice was curt, almost gruff.
"Yes, very soon." She hesitated momentarily, then went on rapidly, as if it were a relief to tell someone. "My father's life was insured. It has left my stepmother enough to live on; but, of course, not here. The place is mortgaged up to the hilt. I have nothing at all. I have got to make my own living."
"You?" said Jeff.
She smiled again faintly, "Yes, I. What is there in that? Lots of women work for their living."
"You are not going to work for yours," he said.
She thrust the chair from her with a quick little movement of the hands. "I would begin to-morrow—if I only knew how. But I don't—yet. I've got to look about me for a little. I am going first to a cousin at Kensington."
"Who doesn't want you," said Jeff.
She looked at him in sharp surprise. "Who—who told you that?"
"You did," he said doggedly. "At least, you told Mr. Chesyl—in mypresence."
"Ah, I remember!" She uttered a tremulous little laugh. "That was the day I caught you eavesdropping and ordered you off your own ground."
"It was," said Jeff. "I heard several things that day, and I guessed—other things." He paused, still looking straight at her. "Miss Elliot," he said, "wouldn't it be easier for you to marry than to work for your living?"
The pretty brows went up in astonishment. "Oh!" she said, in quick confusion. "You heard that too?"
"Wouldn't it be easier?" persisted Jeff in his slow, stubborn way.
She shook her head swiftly and vehemently. "I shall never marry Mr. Chesyl," she said with determination.
"Where is he?" asked Jeff.
The soft colour rose in her face at the question. She looked away from him for the first time. "I don't quite know where he is. I believe he is up north somewhere—in Scotland."
"He knows what has been happening here?" questioned Jeff.
She made a slight movement as of protest. "No doubt," she said in a low voice.
Jeff's square jaw hardened. Abruptly he thrust Chesyl out of the conversation. "It doesn't matter," he said. "That isn't what I came to talk about. May I tell you just what I have come for? Will you give me a patient hearing?"
She turned to him again in renewed surprise. "Of course," she said.
His dark eyes were upon her. "It may not please you," he said slowly, "though I ask you to believe that it is not my intention to give you offence."
"But, of course, I know you would not," she said.
Jeff's fingers clenched upon his riding-switch. He spoke with difficulty, but not without a certain native dignity that made him impressive. "I have come," he said, "just to say to you that if it is possible that no one in your own world is wanting you, I am wanting you. All that I have is absolutely at your disposal. I heard you say—that day—that you would like to be a farmer's wife. Well—if you really meant it—you have your opportunity."
"Mr. Ironside!" She was gazing at him in wide-eyed amazement.
A dark flush rose in his swarthy face under her eyes, "I had to say it," he said with heavy deliberation, "though I know I'm only hammering nails into my own coffin. I had to take my only chance of telling you. Of course, I know you won't listen. I'm not of your sort—respectable enough, but not quite—not quite—" He broke off grimly, and for an instant his teeth showed clenched upon his lower lip. "But if by any chance, when everything else has failed," resolutely he went on, "you could bring yourself to think of me—in that way, I shall always be ready, quite ready, for you. That's what I came to say."
He straightened himself upon the words, and made as if he would turn and leave her. But Doris was too quick for him. She moved like a flash. She came between him and the door. "Please—please," she said, "you mustn't go yet!"
He stopped instantly and she stood before him breathing quickly, her hand upon the door.
She did not speak again very quickly; she was plainly trying to master considerable agitation.
Jeff waited immovably with eyes unvaryingly upon her. "I don't want to hurry you," he said at last. "I know, of course, what your answer will be. But I can wait for it."
That faint, fugitive smile of hers went over her face. She took her hand from the door.
"You—you haven't been very—explicit, have you?" she said. "Are you—are you being just kind to me, Mr. Ironside, like—like Hugh Chesyl?"
Her voice quivered as she asked the question, but her eyes met his with direct steadfastness.
He lowered his own very suddenly. "No," he said. "I wouldn't insult you by being kind. I shouldn't ask you to marry me if I didn't love you with all my heart and soul."
The words came quickly, with something of a burning quality. She made a slight movement as if she were taken by surprise.
After a moment she spoke. "There are two kinds of love," she said. "There's the big, unselfish kind—the real thing; and there's theother—the kind that demands everything, and even then, perhaps, is never satisfied. You hardly know me well enough to—to care for me in the first big way, do you? You don't even know if I'm worth it."
"I beg your pardon," said Jeff Ironside. "I think I do know you well enough for that. Anyhow, if you could bring yourself to marry me, I should be satisfied. The right to take care of you—make you comfortable—wait on you—that's all I'm asking. That would be enough for me—more than I've dared to hope for."
"That would make you happy?" she asked.
He kept his eyes lowered. "It would be—enough," he repeated.
She uttered a sudden quick sigh. "But wouldn't you rather marry a woman who was in love with you in just the ordinary way?" she said.
"No," said Jeff curtly.
"It would be much better for you," she protested.
He smiled a grim smile. "I am the best judge of that," he said.
She held out her hand to him. "Mr. Ironside, tell me honestly, wouldn't you despise me if I married you in that way—taking all and giving nothing?"
He crushed her hand in his. The red blood rose to his forehead. He looked at her for a moment—only a moment—and instantly looked away again.
"No," he said, "I shouldn't."
"I should despise myself," said Doris.
"I don't know why you should," he said.
She smiled again with lips that quivered. "No, you don't understand. You're too big for me altogether. I can't say 'Yes,' but I feel very highly honoured all the same. You'll believe that, won't you?"
"Why can't you say 'Yes'?" asked Jeff.
She hesitated momentarily. "You see, I'm afraid I don't care for you—like that," she said.
"Does that matter?" said Jeff.
She looked at him, her hand still in his. "Don't you think so?"
"No, I don't," he said, "unless you think you couldn't be happy."
"I was thinking of you," she said gently.
"Of me?" He looked surprised for an instant, and again his eyes met hers in a quick glance. "If you're going to think of me," he said, "you'll do it. I have told you, you needn't be afraid of my expecting too much."
But she shook her head. "I should be much more afraid of taking too much from you," she said. "The little I could offer would never satisfy you."
"Yes it would," he insisted. "I'm only asking to stand between you and trouble. It's all I want in life."
Again his eyes were upon her, dark and resolute. His hand held hers in a steady grip. For the first time her own resolution began to falter.
"Let me write to you, Mr. Ironside," she said at last, with a vague idea of softening a refusal that had become inexplicably hard.
"Write and say 'No'?" said Jeff.
She smiled a little, but her eyes filled with sudden tears. "You make it very hard for me to say 'No,'" she said.
"I would like to make it impossible," he said.
"Even when I have told you that I can't—that I don't—love you in the ordinary way?" she said almost pleadingly.
"I don't want to be loved in the ordinary way," he answered doggedly.
"I should be a perpetual disappointment to you," she said.
"I would rather have even that than—nothing," said Jeff.
One of the tears ran over and fell upon their clasped hands. "In fact, you want me at any price," she said.
"At any price," said Jeff.
She bent her head and choked back a sob. "And no one else wants me at all," she whispered.
He stooped towards her. Perhaps for her peace of mind it was as well that she did not see the sudden fire that blazed in his deep-set eyes as he did so.
"So you'll change your mind," he said, after a moment, to the bowed head. "You'll have me—you will?"
She caught back another sob and said nothing.
He straightened himself sharply. "Miss Elliot, if it's going to make you miserable, you had better send me away. I'll go—if it's for that."
He would have released her hand, but it tightened very suddenly upon his. "No, don't go—don't go!" she said.
"But you're crying," muttered Jeff uneasily.
She gave a big gulp and raised her head. The tears were running down her cheeks, but she smiled at him bravely notwithstanding. "I believe I should cry—much more—if you were to go now," she told him, with a quaint effort at humour.
Jeff Ironside put a strong grip upon himself. His heart was thumping like the strokes of a heavy hammer. "Then you'll have me?" he said.
She put her other hand, with a very winning gesture of confidence, into his. "I don't see how I can help it," she said. "You've knocked down all my obstacles. But you do understand, don't you? You won't—won't—"
"Abuse your trust? No, never!" said Jeff Ironside. "I will die by my own hand sooner."
"Ah, I can't help liking you," Doris said impulsively, as if in explanation or excuse. "You're so big."
"Thank you," Jeff said very earnestly. "And you won't cry any more?"
She uttered a whimsical little laugh. "But I wasn't crying for myself," she said, as she dried her eyes. "I was crying for you."
"Well, you mustn't," said Jeff. "You have given me all I want—much more than I dared to hope for." He paused a moment, then abruptly, "You won't think better of it when I'm gone, will you?" he said. "You won't write and say you have changed your mind?"
She gave him her hand again with an air of comradeship. "It's a bargain, Mr. Ironside," she said, with gentle dignity. "A very one-sided one, I fear, but still—a bargain."
"I beg your pardon," murmured Jeff.
The marriage of Jeff Ironside to Colonel Elliot's daughter created a sensation in the neighbourhood even greater than that which followed the Colonel's death. But the ceremony itself was strictly private. It took place so quietly and so suddenly very early on a misty October morning that it was over before most people knew anything about it. Jim Dawlish knew, and was present with old Granny Grimshaw; but, save for the family lawyer who gave away the bride and the aged rector who married them, noone else was in the secret.
Mrs. Elliot knew, but she and her stepdaughter had never been in sympathy, and she had already left the place and gone to town.
Very small and pathetic looked the bride in her deep mourning on that dim autumn morning, but she played her part with queenly dignity, unfaltering, undismayed. If she had acted upon impulse she was fully prepared to face the consequences.
As for Jeff, he was gruff almost to rudeness, so desperate was the turmoil of his soul. Not one word did he address to his bride from the moment of entering the church to that of leaving it save such as were contained in the marriage service. And even when they passed out together into the grey churchyard he remained grimly silent till she turned with a little smile and addressed him.
"Good-morning, Jeff!" she said, and her slender, ungloved hand, very cold but superbly confident, found its way into his.
He looked down at her then and found his voice, the while his fingers closed protectingly upon hers. "You're cold," he said. "They ought to have warmed the church."
She turned her face up to the sky. "The sun will be through soon. Will you take me home across the fields?"
"Too wet," said Jeff.
"Not if we keep to the path," she said. "I must just say good-bye to Mr. Webster first."
Mr. Webster was the family lawyer. He came up with stilted phrases offelicitation which sent Jeff instantly back into his impenetrable shell of silence. Doris made reply on his behalf and her own with a dainty graciousness that covered all difficulties, and finally extricated herself and Jeff from the situation with a dexterity that left him spellbound.
She had her way. They went by way of the fields, he and she alone through the lifting mist, while Granny Grimshaw and Jim Dawlish marched solemnly back to the mill by the road.
"It's a very good morning's work," asserted Granny Grimshaw with much satisfaction. "I always felt that Master Jeff would never marry any but a lady."
"I'd rather him than me," returned Jim Dawlish obscurely.
Which remark Granny Grimshaw treated as unworthy of notice.
As Jeff Ironside and his bride neared the last stile the sun came through and shone upon all things.
"I'm glad we came this way," she said.
Jeff said nothing. He never spoke unless he had something to say.
They reached the stile. He strode over and reached back a hand to her. She took it, mounted and stepped over, then sat down unexpectedly on the top bar with the hand in hers.
"Jeff!" she said.
He looked up at her. Her voice was small and shy, her cheeks very delicately flushed.
"What is it?" said Jeff.
She looked down at the brown hand she held, all roughened and hardened by toil, and hesitated.
"Well?" said Jeff.
She turned her eyes upon his face. "Are you going back to work to-day, just as if—as if nothing had happened?" she asked.
He looked straight back at her. "You don't want me, do you?" he said.
She nodded. "Shall we go for a picnic?" she said.
"A picnic!" He seemed surprised at the suggestion.
She laughed a little. "Do you never go for picnics? I do—all by myself sometimes. It's rather fun, you know."
"By yourself?" said Jeff.
She rose from her perch. "It's more fun with someone certainly," she said.
Jeff's face reflected her smile for an instant. "All right," he said. "I'll take a holiday for once. But come home now and have some breakfast."
She stepped down beside him. "It's nice of you to give me the very first thing I ask for," she said. "Will you do something else for me?"
"Yes," said Jeff.
"Then will you call me Dot?" she said. "It was the pet name my mother gave me. No one has used it since she died."
"Dot," repeated Jeff. "You really want me to call you that?"
"But, of course," she said, smiling, "you haven't called me anything yet. Please begin at once! It really isn't difficult."
"Very well, Dot," he said. "And where are we going for our picnic?"
"Oh, not very far," she said. "Somewhere within a quite easy walk."
"Can't we ride?" suggested Jeff.
"Ride?" She looked at him in surprise.
"I have a horse who would carry you," he said.
"Have you—have you, really?" Quick pleasure came into her eyes. "Oh,Jeff, how kind of you!"
"No, it isn't," said Jeff bluntly. "I want you to be happy."
She laughed her quick, light laugh. "So you're going to spoil me?" she said.
They reached the pretty Mill House above the stream and found breakfast awaiting them in the oak-panelled parlour that overlooked a sunny orchard.
"How absolutely sweet!" said Doris.
He came and stood beside her at the window, looking silently forth.
She glanced at him half-shyly. "Aren't you very fond of it all?"
"Yes," he said.
"And I think I am going to be," said Doris.
"I hope you will," said Jeff.
She turned from him to Granny Grimshaw who entered at the moment with a hot dish.
"I don't think we ought to have been married so early," she said. "You must be quite tired out. Now, please, Mrs. Grimshaw, do sit down and let me wait on you for a change!"
Granny Grimshaw smiled at the bare suggestion.
"No, no, Mrs. Ironside, my dear. This is for you and Master Jeff. I've got mine in the kitchen."
"I never heard such a thing!" declared Doris. "Jeff, surely you are not going to allow that!"
Jeff came from the window. "Of course you must join us, Granny," he said.
But Granny Grimshaw was obdurate on that point. "My place is in the kitchen," she said firmly. "And there I must bide. But I am ready to show you the way to your room, my dear, whenever you want to go."
Doris bent forward impulsively and kissed her. "You are much, much too kind to me, you and Jeff," she said.
But as soon as she was alone with Jeff her shyness returned. She could not feel as much at ease with him in the house as in the open air. She did not admit it even to herself, but deep in her heart she had begun to be a little afraid.
Till then she had gone blindly forward, taking in desperation the only course that seemed to offer her escape from a position that had become wholly intolerable. But now for the first time misgivings arose within her. She remembered how slight was her knowledge of the man to whom she had thus impetuously entrusted her future; and, remembering, something of her ready confidence went from her. She fell silent also.
"You are not eating anything," said Jeff. She started at his voice and looked up.
"No, I'm not hungry," she said. "I shall eat all the more presently when we get out into the open."
He said no more, but finished his own breakfast with businesslike promptitude.
"Mrs. Grimshaw will take you upstairs," he said then, and went to the door to call her.
"Where will you be?" Doris asked him shyly, as he stood back for her to pass.
"I am going round to the stable," he said.
"May I come to you there?" she suggested.
He assented gravely: "Do!"
Granny Grimshaw was in her most garrulous mood. She took Doris up the old steep stairs and into the low-ceiled room with the lattice window that looked over the river meadows.