I have been here a whole week, and as for being busy, I think the proverbial bee would have to give me points. Monday was occupied with a variety of odd jobs which were individually insignificant enough but meant a good deal in the aggregate. First of all I attended to household duties under the keen but kindly supervision of Mother Hubbard, and acquitted myself fairly well.
Then I turned my attention to the studio and drew up my plans for its equipment. A young girl from the village readily undertook the work of cleaning, and the muscle she put into it was a revelation to me after my experience of the leisurely ways of London charwomen! I soon discovered that she is a sworn enemy of every form of dirt—or "muck" as she prefers to call it—that she has a profound contempt for all modern cleansing substances and mechanical methods, and a supreme and unshakable belief in the virtues of soft soap, the scrubbing-brush, and "elbow-grease."
Four hours of "Sar'-Ann" brought joy to my heart and sweetness to my studio.
Then, with some difficulty, for he was at work in the fields, I found a sturdy and very diffident young man who has had some experience of carpentry, and who can also wield a paint-brush. To him I explained my requirements, and also handed over the plan I had prepared. He stood chewing the neb of his cap, and repeated in most irritating fashion: "Aw, yes 'm" whenever I paused to plumb the depths of his intelligence; but would only promise to do his best. As a matter of fact his "best" is not at all bad.
Sar'-Ann informed me in his presence, when he showed a little difficulty in understanding one of my requirements, that he was "gurt and gawmless," whereat he blushed furiously, and most unnecessarily so far as I was concerned, for the description was Greek to me. His awkwardness disappears, I find, when my back is turned; and he is really a very capable workman, and he and Sar'-Ann between them have made my studio most presentable.
But I am anticipating.
Tuesday morning brought me a small budget of letters and several parcels. I opened Madam Rusty's first, with some mischievous anticipation of its contents. I knew the sort of thing I might expect: the quasi-dignified remonstrance, the pained surprise, and the final submission to the will of an inscrutable providence which had seen fit to relieve me of my senses and her of a great responsibility.
I leaned back in my chair, put my feet upon thy fender, and prepared for a good time. The precise, angular handwriting was as plain as the estimable lady herself, and no difficulty in decipherment impeded my progress.
"MY DEAR MISS HOLDEN," it ran,
"I have received your most extraordinary communication, which I have perused with mingled feelings of astonishment, sorrow and dismay. I am astonished that you should leave my house, where I am sure you have been surrounded by every home comfort, without a single expression of your intention to do so, or one word of explanation or farewell to myself or your fellow-boarders. Conduct of this kind I have never experienced before, and you must pardon me saying that next to an actual elopement it seems to me the most indelicate thing a young person in your position could do. And I am sorry because I feel sure there is more behind all this than you have been willing to inform me of, and I do think I have not deserved to be deceived, for I can honestly say that I have endeavoured to act a mother's part towards you; and as to any little differences we have had and complaints and so on, I did not think you had an unforgiving spirit. Not that one expects gratitude from one's boarders in the ordinary way, which being human is unlikely, but there are exceptions, of which I thought you were one. But if you believe me I am dismayed when I think of you going out into these wild parts which I have always understood are as bad as a foreign country, and without anyone to look after you, and no buses and policemen, and what you would do in case of fire I don't know. However, they do say that providence takes care of babies and drunken people and the insane, and we can only hope for the best. I know it's no use trying to persuade you different, for if there's one thing about you that is known to all the boarders it is that you are self-willed, and you must excuse me telling the plain truth, seeing that it is said for your good. So I have had your things packed up, and Carter Patersons have taken them away to-day. You will find it all in the bill enclosed, and I have filled in the cheque accordingly. Of course if you change your mind I shall try to accommodate you if I am not full up. I cannot help signing myself
"Yours sorrowfully,"MARTHA RUSSEN.
"N.B.—I may say that the other boarders are very shocked."
Poor old Rusty! She is really not half a bad sort, and I am glad to have known her: almost as glad as I am to get away from her. It is my misfortune, I suppose, to be "nervy," and the sound and sight of Madam in these latter days was enough to bring on an attack.
I turned to the letter from Rose, which was short, sharp and sisterly—sisterly, I mean, in its shameless candour and freedom from reserve. Rose rather affects the rôle of the superior person, and has patronised me ever since I discovered her. This is what she wrote:
"MY DEAR GRACE,
"I am not sure that I ought not to write 'disgrace.' I always have said that you are as mad as the March hare in 'Alice' and now I am sure of it. Your letter has not one line of sense in it from beginning to end except that in which you suggest that I may come to see you some time. So I may, if the funds ever run to it. It will be an education to do so. I would go to see you in your native haunts just as I would go to see any other natural freak in which I might be interested. But I won't pay ordinary railway fare, so that's flat. If the railway companies won't reduce their charges by running cheap excursions as they do for other exhibitions, I shall not come. For if you are not an exhibition (of crass folly) I don't know what an exhibition is. However, you have a bit of money and a trade (sorry! I mean a profession) at your finger-ends, so I can only hope you'll not starve whilst your native air is bringing you to your senses. I will see to your various commissions, and if I can be of further use to you up here,
"I am, as I have ever been,
"Your humble, but not always obedient servant,"ROSE."
This concluded what may be termed the social portion of my correspondence, and I took up the other letters with less zest. One, a mere formal acknowledgment of my changed address, was from the bankers who have the privilege of taking care of my money, and who have never manifested any sense of oppression under the responsibility. Nevertheless, two hundred and forty odd pounds is something to fall back upon, and it looms large when it represents savings; and in any case it is all I have except the interest which comes to me from a few small investments—all that was rescued from the wreck of my father's fortunes. Well, well! I am a good deal richer than some very wealthy people I have met.
Two others were business communications from firms which give me employment, and I may frankly admit that I was just a little relieved to find that distance was not going to affect our relationships. Not that I had been actually uneasy on that score, for I have discernment enough to know my own value. I am not a genius, but what Icando iswelldone; and I have lived long enough to discover that that counts for much in these days. The parcels which accompanied the letters contained sufficient work for a month at least.
Then came a letter from Shuter and Lenz with all sorts of suggestions for the furnishing of my studio. The consideration of this occupied a couple of hours, but my list was made out at last, and I expect I shall receive the bulk of the goods before the end of next week. Transit between London and Windyridge is quick—much more so than I anticipated, for my boxes were delivered during the afternoon, and I spent the rest of the day and some part of the night in unpacking them. It was no easy matter to find storage for my small possessions, but I accomplished it in the end, and arranged all my household goods to the best possible advantage.
Since then I have been sewing for all I am worth. The joint establishments do not boast the possession of a sewing machine, so I have had to make my studio curtains by hand. Mother Hubbard was delighted to be able to help in this department, and between us we finished them yesterday, and with Ginty's assistance I have hung them to-day! "Ginty" is the carpenter. The "g" is hard and the name is unusual, but I am inclined to doubt whether it was ever bestowed upon him by his godparents in baptism. I suspect Sar'-Ann of having a hand in that nomenclature.
If my landlord could see my studio now he would hardly recognise his conservatory. One end has been boarded off for a dark-room, and the whole has been neatly painted slate colour. When my few backgrounds and accessories arrive I shall have a very presentable studio indeed.
Ginty is now engaged painting the outside in white and buff, and he is then going to make me a board which will be placed at the bottom of the garden to inform all and sundry that "Grace Holden is prepared to do all kinds of photographic work at reasonable prices." I don't anticipate that barriers will be needed to keep back the crowd.
How tired I am, and yet how wonderfully fresh and buoyant! My limbs tremble and my head aches, but my soul just skips within me. I have had a week in which to repent, and I have never come within sight of repentance. And yet I have seen no more of Windyridge. I have not been near the heather. I have not even climbed to the top of the hill behind my cottage in order to look over the other side. I have wanted to, but I dare not; I am terrified lest there should be factory chimneys in close proximity.
Once or twice it has been warm enough for me to stretch myself full length upon the grass, and I have lain awhile in blissful contemplation of the work of the Great Architect in the high vault of His cathedral. That always rests me, always fills me with a sense of mystery, always gives me somehow or other a feeling of peace and of partnership. I rise up feeling that I must do my best to make the world beautiful, and use all my abilities—such as they are—to bring gladness into the lives of other people. I cannot make clouds and sunsets, but I can paint miniatures, and I can take portraits (or I think I can), and these things make some homes bright and some folk happy. But I must not moralise.
More often I bring out the deck-chair, which is one of my luxuries, and sit in front of the cottage with Mother Hubbard as a companion. She is splendid company. If I encourage her she will tell me interesting stories of her youth and married life, or repeat the gossip of the village; for none is better versed than she in all the doings of the countryside. If, however, I wish to be quiet she sits silently by my side, as only a real friend can. But whether she talks or is silent her knitting needles never stop their musical clatter. What she does with all the stockings is beyond my knowledge, but I believe Sar'-Ann could tell me if she would, and I am sure all this knitting contributes no little to Mother Hubbard's happiness.
So I lean back in my chair and feast upon the scene before me and am satisfied. I wonder if it would appeal to many as it does to me. Probably not, for, after all, I suppose there are many more beautiful places than Windyridge, but I have never travelled and so cannot compare them. Then again, this is Yorkshire and I am "Yorkshire," and that explains something. Still, I ought to try to write down what it is that impresses me, so I will paint as well as I can the picture that is spread before me as I sit.
First of all, as a fitting foreground, the garden—past its best, I can see, but still gay with all the wild profusion of Flora's providing; plants whose names are as yet unknown to me, but which are a constant delight to sight and smell. Then the road, with its border of cool, green grass, winding down into the valley between hedges of hawthorn and holly—ragged, untidy hedges, brown and green where the sun catches them, blue-grey and confused in the shadows. Beyond them a stretch of fields—meadow and pasture, and the brown and kindly face of Mother Earth dipping steeply down to meet the trees which fill the narrow valley, and are just beginning to catch the colours of the sunset. Footpaths cross the fields, and I see at times those who tread them and climb the stiles between the rough grey walls; and I promise myself many a good time there, but not yet.
On the other side, beyond the trees, the climb is stiffer, and the hills rise, as it sometimes seems, into the low-lying clouds. I can see a few houses under the shelter of a clump of chestnuts and sycamores, the farthest outposts of their comrades in the valley, but far above them rises the moor, the glorious moor, heather-clad, wild, and, but for the winding roads, as God made it. Far away to the west it stretches, and when the day is clear I catch the glow of the gorse and the daily decreasing hint of purple on the horizon miles away; but in these autumn days the distance is often wrapped in a diaphanous shawl of mist, which yet lends a charm to the glories it half conceals.
High up the hill to the left is the village of Marsland, with its squat, grey church, which I must visit one day; and farther away still—for I must be candid at all costs—there are a few factory chimneys, but they are too distant to be obtrusive.
Such is my picture: would that I could paint it better. Looking upon it my spirit bathes and is refreshed.
My studio is complete at last, and I have already had one customer, not counting Mother Hubbard, who had the privilege of performing the opening ceremony, and who was my first sitter. I insisted upon that, all the more because the dear old soul had never been photographed before in her life, and was disposed to regard the transaction in the light of an adventure.
She is altogether too gentle and pliant to oppose her will to mine on anything less important than a matter of principle, but I could see that she was grievously disappointed when I would not let her put on her very best garment, a remarkable black satin dress in the fashion of a past generation, which she keeps in lavender and tissue paper at the bottom of the special drawer which is full of memories and fading grandeur.
I wanted her just as she was, with the shawl loose upon her shoulders, and the knitting-needles in her hand, and that pleasant expression of countenance which makes all soulful people fall in love with her at first sight.
I succeeded in the end, and the delight of the old lady when I showed her a rough print a day or two later was good to see.
"But I wish you could have taken me in my satin, love, and with the lace collar. Matthew always thought I looked nice in them."
"You look nice in anything," I replied, "and I am sure your husband thought so; butIwant the dear old Mother Hubbard of to-day; for, do you know, I am going to send you to a big News Agency, and if you are accepted you and I will make holiday, and do it right royally."
But my real customer arrived on the second Wednesday in October. My board had been in position for several days, and had attracted a good deal of curiosity but no clients, which was as much as one had a right to expect. I knew, of course, that sitters would be rare, but I had my own plans for turning the studio to profitable use, and I did not worry. "Everything comes to him who waits."
I was busy with my miniatures, and was just deciding to lay them aside for a time and do a little re-touching on Mother Hubbard's negatives, when I happened to glance out of the window, and saw an elderly man stop to read my board. He stood quite a long time looking at it, and then turned in at the gate.
I went to the door to meet him, and asked if he would like me to take his portrait, and he replied: "Ay, if it doesn't cost too much, I should."
I led the way into the studio and asked him to sit down, but he would not do so until we had discussed terms. I soon satisfied him on this point, for, of course, high charges in Windyridge would be ridiculous, and then I inquired how he would like to be "taken."
"I shan't make much of a picter, miss," he said, "but there's them 'at'll like to look at my face, such as it is. If you can make ought o' my head and shoulders it'll do nicely."
I looked at him as I made my preparations, and was puzzled. He was a tall man, somewhat bent and grey, his face tanned with exposure to the weather. It was clean shaven, and there was character in the set of his features—the firm mouth, the square jaw, and the brown eyes. They were dreamy eyes just now, and I wondered why, and was surprised that he should seem so natural and free from constraint. I judged him to be a farmer clad in his Sunday clothes, but why he should be so garbed on a bright afternoon in mid-week I could not guess. That he was no resident in the village was certain, for by this time I know them all; or rather I should say that I can recognise them all—to know them is another thing.
He gave me no trouble, except that I had some difficulty in driving the sad look away from his eyes. It went at last, however, though only momentarily, yet in that moment I got my negative. It was in this way.
"Cheer up!" I said, when I was ready for the exposure. "Your friends would think me a poor photographer if I should send them home such a sad-looking portrait."
"Ay, right enough," he agreed; "that 'ud never do. But I'm not much of a hand at looking lively."
"I want to do you justice for my own sake as well as yours," I said. "Now ifIwanted to have a pleasing expression I should just think of the moors, radiant in gold, and the cloud-shadows playing leap-frog over them, and that would be sufficient."
"Ay, ay, I can follow that," he said; and before the glow left his eyes I had gained my point.
"Shall I post the proof to you?" I asked. He did not understand, and I explained.
"No, no," he replied; "if you're satisfied 'at they'll do it'll be right to me, miss. This is your line, not mine, and there's nobody at our end 'at knows ought much about photygraphs. And there's one thing more 'at I want to say, only I hardly know how to say it. But it comes to this: I don't want you to send any o' these photygraphs home until you hear from Dr. Trempest. When he lets you know, just send 'em on, and put a bit of a note in, like, to say 'at they're paid for. It'll none be so long—a matter o' five weeks, maybe."
He unbuttoned a capacious pocket and drew out a bag of money, from which he carefully counted out the amount of my bill, but when I offered him a receipt he declined to take it.
"Nay, nay," he said, "I want nowt o' that sort. I can trust you; but you'll have 'em ready when t' time comes, won't you?"
I assured him confidently, and as he turned to leave I expressed the hope that he would like the prints when he saw them. Then it all came out.
"I shall never see 'em. I shall be on t' moorside, with t' cloud-shadows you talk about playing loup-frog aboon me by then. That's why I wanted t' photygraphs. I only thought on 't when I passed t' board, but there's them at home 'at 'll be glad to have 'em when I'm gone."
Tears filled my eyes, for I am a woman as well as a photographer, and I felt that I was face to face with a tragedy.
"Cannot you tell me about it?" I asked. "Believe me, I am very sorry. Perhaps I could help. But please don't say anything if you would rather not."
"There's not much to tell," he responded, "but what there is 'll soon be all round t' moorside. You see, I've lived at yon farm, two miles off, all my life, and I'm well known, and folks talk a good deal in these country places, where there isn't much going on.
"I walked into Fawkshill to see Dr. Trempest this morning, and he's been with me to Airlee to see a big doctor there—one o' these consulting men—and he gives me a month or happen five weeks at t' outside. There's nought can be done. Summat growing i' t' inside 'at can't be fairly got at, and we shall have to make t' best on 't. But it'll be a sad tale for t' missus and t' lass, and telling 'em is a job I don't care for.
"You see, we none of us thought it was ought much 'at ailed me, for I've always been a worker, and I haven't missed many meals i' five and fifty year, and it comes a bit sudden-like at t' finish."
What could I say? I saw it all and felt the pity of it. God knows I would have helped him if I could. The old wave of emotion which used to sweep over me so often surged forward again; and again I was powerless in the presence of the enemy.
I said something of this, but my friend shook his head in protest.
"Nay, but I don't look at it i' that way. I'm no preacher, but there's One above 'at knows better than us, and I wouldn't like to think 'at t' Old Enemy 'ad ought to do wi' it. I've always been one to work wi' my hands, and book-learning hasn't been o' much account to me, but there'soneBook, miss, 'at I have read in, and it says, 'O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God which givethusthe victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.'"
I sat with my head in my hands for a long time after Farmer Brown had left, and when at length I raised my eyes the shadows had left the moor, and I saw that the sun would set in a clear sky.
We have had our promised holiday, Mother Hubbard and I, and a right royal one. On those rare occasions when work may be laid aside and hard-earned coin expended upon the gratification of the senses, our younger neighbours turn their steps to Airlee or Broadbeck, and seek the excitements of the picture palace or the music-hall; their elders are seldom drawn from the village unless to the solemn festivities of a "burying."
We spent our day in the great alfresco palace of Nature, amid pictures of God's painting, and returned at night, tired in body, but with heart and soul and brain refreshed by unseen dews of heaven's own distilling.
Fortunately we have had a spell of fine, dry weather, with occasional strong winds—at least, they were strong to me, but the folk about here dismiss them contemptuously as "a bit of a blow." Had the weather been wet Mother Hubbard's cherished desire to "take me across the moor" to Romanton would have had to be postponed indefinitely.
We were to drive as far as "Uncle Ned's" in Mr. Higgins' market cart, Mr. Higgins having volunteered to "give us a lift," as it was "nowt out of his way."
We started early, before the morning mists had forsaken the valleys, and whilst night's kindly tears still sparkled on the face of the meadows. It was good to lean back, my hand in Mother Hubbard's and my feet resting on the baskets in the bottom of the cart, and drink in sight and sound and crisp morning air.
What a peaceful world it was! I thought for a moment of the mad rush of petrol-driven buses along Holtorn, and the surging tide of sombre humanity which filled the footpaths there. This had been the familiar moving picture of my morning experience for more years than I care to remember, and now—this. Beyond, the meadows and the shawl of mist in the valley, a long stretch of gold and golden-brown where gorse and bracken company together, the one in its vigorous and glowing prime, the other in the ruddy evening of its days, but not a whit less resplendent.
Overhead, a grey-blue sky, with the grey just now predominating, but a sky of promise, according to Mr. Higgins, with never a hint of breakdown. By and by the blue was to conquer, and the sportive winds were to let loose and drive before them the whitest and fleeciest of clouds, but always far up in high heaven.
In the distance, just that delightful haze which the members of our Photographic Society so often referred to as "atmosphere"—a mighty word, full of mystic meaning.
Here and there we pass a clump of trees, heavily hung with bright scarlet berries, whose abundance, our conductor informs us, foretells a winter of unusual severity. "That's t' way Providence provides for t' birds," he says. It may be so, though I daresay naturalists would offer another explanation. All the same, it is pleasing to see how the blackbirds and thrushes enjoy the feast, though they have already stripped some of the trees bare, and to that extent have spoiled the picture.
Mr. Higgins was not disposed to leave us to the uninterrupted enjoyment of the landscape. He is a thick-set little man, on the wrong side of sixty, I should judge, with a clean top lip and a rather heavy beard; and I suspect that the hair upon his head is growing scanty, but that is a suspicion founded upon the flimsiest of evidence, as I have never yet seen him without the old brown hat which does service Sundays and weekdays alike.
He jogged along by the side of the steady mare, who never varied her four-miles-an-hour pace, and who, I am sure, treated her master's reiterated injunction to "come up" with cool contempt; but he fell back occasionally to jerk a few disjointed remarks towards the occupants of the cart.
"Fox," he said, inclining his head vaguely in the direction of a lonely farm away on the hillside to the right. "Caught him yesterda' ... been playin' Old 'Arry wi' t' fowls ... shot him ... good riddance."
We made no comment beyond a polite and inquiring "Oh?" and he continued to be communicative.
"Just swore, did Jake ... swore an' stamped about ... but t' missus ... now there's a woman for you ... she played Old 'Arry wi' him ... set a trap herself ... caught him."
Mother Hubbard ventured to surmise that it was the fox which had been captured and not the husband, and Mr. Higgins acquiesced.
"Nought like women for ... settin' traps," he continued, with a chuckle, shaking his head slowly for emphasis; "they're all alike ... barrin' they don't catch foxes... Man-traps mostly ... aye, man-traps."
"That is just like Barjona, love," Mother Hubbard whispered; "he has never a good word for the women."
"You have managed to evade them so far, Mr. Higgins?" I suggested meekly.
"Nay ... bad job ... bad job ... been as big a fool as most ... dead this many a year ... dead an' buried twenty year ... wide awake now ... old fox now ... no traps ... no, no, no!"
He strode forward to the mare's side again, but I saw him wagging his head for many a minute as he chewed the cud of his reflections. Meanwhile Mother Hubbard, with some hesitation and many an apprehensive look ahead, told me something of his story.
"His mother was a very religious woman, love, but she was no scholar, though she knew her Bible well. And you know, love, the best of people have generally their little fads and failings, and shewouldcall all her boys after the twelve Apostles. At least, love, you understand, she had four sons—not twelve—but she called the first John because he was the beloved disciple, and the next James because he was John's brother. Then came Andrew and afterwards Simon Barjona. They do say—but you know, love, how people talk—that she would have liked eleven boys, missing out Judas because he was a thief and betrayed his Master, but she had only nine children, and five of them were girls.
"I have heard my husband say, love, that when they came to christen the youngest boy the minister was quite angry, and would not have the 'Barjona,' but the mother was much bent on it, and would not substitute Peter, which was what the parson suggested. Anyhow, she registered him in his full name."
"Which name was he called by?" I inquired.
"Oh, Barjona, love, always. And behind his back he is Barjona yet, though he likes to be called Mr. Higgins. But you may give a man a good name when you cannot give him a good nature, and he might as well have been christened Buonaparte for all it has done for him. Oh yes, love, he is close-fisted, is Barjona, and it is said that his wife was so tired of his nagging ways that she was quite pleased to go. I'm sure I thank the Lord that I am not Mrs. Higgins, though they do say in the village that Widow Robertshaw would have had him this many a year back."
"But he is an old fox now," I remarked, "and avoids the trap."
It lacked still a couple of hours of noon when Mr. Higgins deposited us at Uncle Ned's lonely hostelry, and drove off in the company of the tired mare and his own complacent thoughts. Ten minutes later I had completely forgotten his existence in the joy of a new experience.
I was there at last! The moors of which I had dreamed so long were a conscious reality. Before me, and on either hand, they stretched until they touched the grey of the sky. The glory of the heather was gone, though sufficient colour lingered in the faded little bells to give a warm glow to the landscape, and to hint of former splendour. My heart ached a wee bit to think that I had come so late, but why should I grudge Nature's silent children their hour of rest? The morning will come when they will again fling aside the garb of night and deck themselves in purple. Besides, there was the gorse, regal amid the sombre browns and olives and neutral tints of the vegetation; and there were green little pools and treacherous-looking bogs, and the uneven, stony pathway which made a thin, grey dividing line as far as the eye could see. What more could the heart of man desire?
How sweet the breath of the air was as it covered my cheeks with its caresses! Itastedthe fragrance of it, and it gave buoyancy to my body, and the wings of a dove to my soul. I flew back down the years to the dingy sitting-room which held my sacred memories, and saw dear old dad painting his moorland pictures in the glowing embers on the hearth; and I flew upwards to the realms which eye hath not seen, and was glad to remember that the moors are not included amongst the things that are not to be.
Then, characteristically, my mood changed. The sense of desolation got hold of me. I looked for sound of throbbing life and found none: only tokens of a great, an irresistible Power. It may seem strange, but in the silence of that vast wilderness I felt, as I had never felt before, that there must be a God, and that He must be all-powerful. I have not tried to analyse the emotion, but I know my heart began to beat as though I were in the presence of Majesty, and a great awe brooded over my spirit.
Suddenly there was a fluttering of wings in the tangled undergrowth a few yards away, and as my soul came back to earth I saw a hawk swoop down and seize its prey, and then I choked. "If I take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth," I said to myself, "I cannot escape the tragedy of life and death—the mystery of suffering."
Mother Hubbard put an arm around my waist and looked questioningly into my eyes, her own being bright with tears. I put my hands upon her cheeks and kissed her.
"Grace Holden is a goose," I said. "How many hours have I been standing still or floating about in vacancy? I believe my dear old Mother Hubbard thought her companion had flown away and left only her chrysalis behind!"
We moved on, and my spirits came out with the sun and the blue sky. After all, I fear I am an emotional creature, for I am my father's daughter, but I think my mother must have been a very practical woman, and bequeathed to me somewhat of the counterpoise, because on the whole I am sure I have more common sense than dreaminess.
We had the moor pretty much to ourselves except for the game, which we rarely saw, and the snipe which frequented the swamps. The one outstanding recollection of the remainder of our two hours' tramp is of a young couple (of human beings, not snipe) who came sauntering along, sucking oranges and throwing the peel on the heath. It seemed like sacrilege, and I went hot with indignation.
"I feel as if I could swear and stamp around, like the ineffective Jake," I exclaimed.
"Yes, love," said Mother Hubbard, but I doubt if she understood.
Mother Hubbard was in excellent trim, and I am beginning to think that there must be a good deal of reserve force in her delicate-looking little body. She led me to the brow of the hill whence one gets an unexpected view of the enchanting beauty of the Romanton valley, and said "There!" with such an air of proud proprietorship, as if she had ordered the show for my special gratification, that I laughed outright.
I negotiated the steep downward path with difficulty, but she went steadily on with the assurance of familiarity, pausing at intervals to point out the more notable landmarks.
We had lunch at one of the large hotels, and if Rose had seen the spread I ordered she would have had good cause to charge me with "swankiness," but I was having a "day out," and such occurrences at Windyridge are destined to be uncommon. Besides, no fewer than three magazines are going to print my old lady's picture, so the agents have sent me thirty shillings—quite a decent sum, and one which you simplycannotspend on a day's frolicking in these regions.
When it was over Mother Hubbard showed me all the lions of the place; and after we had drunk a refreshing cup of tea at a café that would do no discredit to Buckingham Palace Road we set out on the return journey.
I was tired already, but I soon forgot the flesh in the spirit sensations that flooded me. We were now traversing the miniature high road which skirts the edge of the moor, and reveals a scene of quiet pastoral beauty along its entire length which is simply charming. I cannot adequately describe it, but I know that viewed in the opalescent light of the early setting sun it was just a fairy wonderland.
The valley is beautifully wooded, and Solomon and the Queen of Sheba together were not so gorgeously arrayed as were the trees on the farther side. A white thread of river gleamed for a while through the meadows, but was soon lost in the haze of evening.
Comfortable grey farms and red-tiled villas lent a homely look to the landscape, and at intervals we passed pretty cottages with old-fashioned gardens, where the men smoked pipes and stood about in their shirt-sleeves, whilst the women lounged in the gateways with an eye to the children whose bed-time was come all too soon for the unwilling spirit.
And, best of all, my journey ended with a great discovery. We had climbed a steep hill, and after a last long look back over my fairy valley I set my face to the dull and level fields. Two hundred yards farther and my astonished eyes saw down below—the back of my own cottage!
That night no vision of factory chimneys disturbed the serenity of my sleep, for a haunting fear had been dispelled.
"Woman," said the Cynic sententiously, "may be divided into five parts: the Domestic woman, the Social woman, the Woman with a Mission, the New Woman, and the Widow."
"Nonsense!" snapped the vicar's wife, "the widow may be any one of the rest. The mere accident of widowhood cannot affect her special characteristics. The worst of you smart men is that you entirely divorce verity from vivacity. The domestic woman is still a domestic woman, though she become a widow."
"No," returned the Cynic, "the widow is a thing apart, if I may so designate any of your captivating sex. Domestic she may still be in a certain or uncertain subordinate sense, just as the social woman or the woman with a mission may have a strain of domesticity in her make-up; but when all has been said she is still in a separate class; she is, in fact—a widow."
"I remember reading somewhere," I remarked, "that a little widow is a dangerous thing. Manifestly the author of that brilliant epigram was of your way of thinking. He would probably have classed her as an explosive."
He turned to me and smiled mockingly.
"I think all men who have seriously studied the subject, as I have, must have formed a similar opinion. The widow is dangerous because she is a widow. She has tasted of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. She knows the weak places in man's defensive armour. She has acquired skill in generalship which enables her to win her battles. Added to all this is the pathos of her position, which is an asset of no inconsiderable value. She knows to a tick of time when to allure by smiles and melt by tears, and woe to the man who thinketh he standeth when she proposes his downfall."
"My dear Derwent," interposed the squire from the other side the hearth; "you speak, no doubt, from a ripe experience, if an outside one, and no one here will question your authority; but surely the new woman and the woman with a mission may be bracketed together."
The squire was leaning back in a comfortable saddle-bag, one leg thrown easily over the other and his hands clasped behind his head. A tolerant half-smile hung about the corners of his lips and lurked in the shadows of his eyes. He has a grand face, and it shows to perfection on an occasion like this.
The vicar sat near him. He is a spare, rather cadaverous man, who lives among Egyptian mummies and Assyrian tablets and palimpsests and first editions, and knows nothing of any statesman later than Cardinal Wolsey. An open book of antiquities lay upon his knee, and his finger-tips were pressed together upon it, but the eyes which blinked over the top of his gold-rimmed spectacles were fixed upon space, and the Cynic's vapourings were as unheeded as yesterday.
The vicar's wife is the very antithesis of her husband. She is a plump, round-faced little body, and was tidily dressed in a black silk of quite modern style with just a trace of elegance, and a berthe of fine old lace which made me break the tenth commandment every time I looked at her. She was evidently on the best of terms with herself, and stood in no awe of anybody, and least of all of the Cynic, whom she regarded with a half-affectionate, half-contemptuous air. She had a way of tossing her head and pursing her lips when he was more than usually aggressive that obviously amused him. I had soon found out that they were old antagonists.
The Cynic himself puzzled me. I scarcely dared to look at him very closely, for I had the feeling that none of my movements escaped his notice, and I had not been able to decide whether his age was thirty or fifty. He is of average height and build, and was somewhat carelessly dressed, I thought. His dinner jacket seemed rather loose, and his starched shirt was decidedly crumpled. I wondered who looked after his ménage.
His hands are clean and shapely, and he knows where to put them, which is generally an indication of good breeding and always of a lack of self-consciousness, and from their condition I judged that he earned his bread in the sweat of his brain rather than of his brow.
As to his face—well, I liked it. It is dark, but frank and open, and he has a good mouth, which can be seen, because he is clean shaven, and his teeth are also good. But then in these degenerate days anyone who has attained middle life may have good teeth: it is all a matter of money.
I think it is the eyes that make the face, however. They are deep grey and remarkably luminous, and on this occasion they simply bubbled over with mischievousness. His smile was never very pronounced, and always more or less satirical, but his eyes flashed and sparkled when he was roused, though they had looked kindly and even plaintive when he arrived, and before he was warmed. He is the sort of man who can do all his talking with his eyes.
A high forehead is surmounted by a mass of hair—once black, but rapidly turning grey—which he evidently treats as of no importance, for it lies, as the children say, "anyhow." But how old he is—I give it up.
He passed his hand through his hair now, with a quick involuntary movement, as he turned to the squire.
"You may bracket the new woman and the woman with a mission together, but you can never make them one. That they have some things in common is nothing to the point. The new woman, as I understand her, has no mission, not even a commission. The new woman is Protest, embodied and at present skirted, but with a protest against the skirt. Her most longed-for goal is the Unattainable, and if by some chance she should reach it she would be dismayed and annoyed. Meantime, with the vision before her eyes of the table of the gods, she cries aloud that she is forced to feed on husks, and as she must hug something, hugs a grievance."
"Philip Derwent," interposed the vicar's wife, "you are in danger of becoming vulgar."
"Vulgarity, madam," he rejoined, "is in these days the brand of refinement. It is only your truly refined man who has the courage to be vulgar in polite society. No other dares to call a spade a spade or a lie a lie. Those who wish to be considered refined speak of the one as an 'agricultural implement' and of the other as a 'terminological inexactitude.' But to return to our sheep who are clamouring for wolves' clothing——"
"Really, Philip!" protested the vicar's wife, pursing her lips more emphatically than ever.
"The latest incarnation of Protest, if I may so speak, takes the form of a demand for the suffrage, and is accompanied by much beating of drums and——"
"Smashing of windows," I ventured.
He bowed. "And smashing of windows. By and by they will get their desire."
"And so have fulfilled their mission," the squire smiled.
"By no means; they have no mission; they have simply a hunger, or rather a pain which goes away when their appetite is stayed, and comes on again before the meal has been well digested. Then they go forth once more seeking whom or what they may devour."
"Tell us of the woman with a mission," I pleaded.
"Miss Holden is anxious to discover in what category she is to be classed," laughed the squire. "You are treading on dangerous ground, Derwent. Let me advise you to proceed warily."
"Mr. Evans, when a boy at school I learned the Latin maxim—'Truth is often attended with danger,' but I am sure Miss Holden will be merciful towards its humble votary."
I smiled and he continued: "The woman with a mission, Miss Holden, is an altogether superior creature. She may be adorable; on the other hand she may be a nuisance and a bore. Everything depends on the mission—and the woman."
"A safe answer, Philip," sneered the vicar's wife, and the squire smiled.
"There is no other safe way, madam, than the way of Truth, and I am treading it now. Even if the woman be a nuisance, even if the mission be unworthy, she who makes it hers may be ennobled. Let us assume that she believes with all her heart that she has been sent into the world for one definite purpose—shall we say to work for the abatement of the smoke nuisance? That involves, amongst other things——"
"Depriving poor weak man of his chief solace—tobacco," snapped the vicar's wife.
"Exactly. Now see how this strengthens her character, and calls out qualities of endurance and self-sacrifice. The poor weak man, her husband, deprived of his chief solace, tobacco, turns to peppermints, moroseness and bad language. His courtesy is changed to boorishness, his placidity to snappishness. All this is trying to his wife, but being a woman with a mission she regards these things philosophically as incidental to a transition period, and she bears her cross with ever-increasing gentleness and——"
"Drives her husband to the devil and herself into the widows' compartment," interrupted the vicar's wife, with disgust in her voice. "Miss Holden, do you sing?"
"I have no music," I replied, "but may I 'say a piece' instead, as the village children put it?" I turned to the Cynic and made him a mock curtsey:
"Small blame is oursFor this unsexing of ourselves, and worseEffeminising of the male. We wereContent, sir, till you starved us, heart and brain.All we have done, or wise or otherwiseTraced to the root was done for love of you.Let us taboo all vain comparisons,And go forth as God meant us, hand in hand.Companions, mates and comrades evermore;Two parts of one divinely ordained whole."