Chapter I: Paula Is Married

Hal Rushton was very anxious that Mrs Sutton should live with Paula and himself at Deepdale. The old lady was fragile, and he thought it would gratify his future wife to make the last years of her mother’s life comfortable. He would have liked to see the unfortunate offspring of Carl Bjornsën put away in an asylum, or under judicious guardianship, and so have removed from his sight and memory for ever all trace of Paula’s first marriage. And if he could only forget it, as if it had never been (he said to himself), he should be so inexplicably happy. But, as Paula had anticipated, Mrs Sutton refused either to live at Highbridge Hall or to give up the charge of her little grandson. She loved the helpless child--that was the first reason, but there was another. The local practitioner of Grassdene, who had known the little imbecile from his birth, and all the circumstances of the case, had persuaded a friend of his--a famous brain doctor, who was taking a holiday at Lynmouth--to see the child and pass an opinion on him, and his verdict had been that Paulie would never be any better, and was very unlikely to live over fourteen or fifteen years of age. So, as long as he lived, his grandmother declared she would never part with him. This settled the question, for much as Hal would have liked his wife to enjoy the society of her mother, the resolution they had arrived at, not to let the public of Deepdale into the secret of Paula’s former life, entirely prohibited the presence of the little boy at Highbridge Hall. So he spent the few weeks before his marriage in a state of feverish anxiety, rushing about after painters and upholsterers, and ready to fly in a temper with everybody, and to declare nothing was being done well enough, nor quickly enough, for the divinity that was coming to bring the sunshine of Heaven upon the old place. Mr and Mrs Measures were both very good to the hot-headed young man in those days--the lady especially so. She it was who restrained his extravagance, and prevented his destroying the calm and mellow tone of the old Hall by the introduction of a lot of modern furniture and pictures that would have killed half its beauty. Hal had never had his taste educated or directed. All he wanted to do was to provide everything that Paula could possibly desire, and he was ready, in consequence, to take any advice that Mr Snoad of Haltham chose to give him. But Mrs Measures was his guardian angel in this particular, and the old rooms bloomed anew in soft, subdued colours under her guiding hand. She took a delight in making the house look as superior to all other houses in Deepdale as she possibly could. She was secretly overjoyed at the idea of Paula Stafford coming back to queen it over the Gribbles and Axworthys, and the rest of the parishioners, who had hounded her from the village, and she had taken such a dislike to her successor, rosy-cheeked, glossy-haired Miss Brown, that the vicar could hardly persuade her to enter the schoolhouse.

‘A vulgar, presuming, underbred little body, who talks to me as if I were her equal,’ she exclaimed. ‘Who can expect these ignorant children to improve under her auspices? They have lost half that Miss Stafford taught them already. Ah, what short-sighted fools they were to drive that girl away, and how glad I am that Hal Rushton had the wisdom to see what a pearl had been cast amongst swine.’

And, notwithstanding the vicar’s remonstrances, the steadfast hearted little woman made use of the same expression in the very teeth of Mr Gribble.

‘Good-morning, ma’am,’ he said one day as he met her coming out of the schoolroom; ‘you have been to see our dear Miss Brown engaged in her labours of love.’

‘Labours of love! do you call them, Mr Gribble? Is not Miss Brown receiving the usual teacher’s stipend?’ asked Mrs Measures.

‘Surely, ma’am, and well she deserves it, too. Such a pious young woman, affording so hexcellent an example to our dear little ones. I am sure my good lady and I say that we can never be sufficiently thankful as we found Miss Brown. Quite a godsend in every sense of the word.’

‘Indeed, I fancy I heard you say something of the same kind respecting Miss Stafford when she first came to Deepdale.’

‘Ah! but pardon me, ma’am, _I_ knows, and all Deepdale knows, as you take an uncommon interest in that young person--so you’ll pardon me, ma’am, for saying as we was grossly deceived.’

‘I quite agree with you, Mr Gribble,’ retorted the vicar’s wife; ‘you _were_ grossly deceived in Miss Stafford, but it was not your fault so much as your ignorance and the ignorance of your friends. Miss Stafford was a great deal too good for the position she held here, and you were unable to appreciate her. She is a lady by birth and breeding, and I rejoice to think she is coming back to hold her proper position amongst us as Mr Rushton’s wife. It was misfortune that compelled her to stoop to the office of teacher to the children of Deepdale, and I think it was very brave of her to accept it. But she was a pearl cast before swine, and so anyone who compared her with Miss Brown would say.’

‘A _what_, ma’am?’ demanded the churchwarden, unable to believe his ears.

‘A pearl cast before swine, Mr Gribble,’ repeated Mrs Measures, ‘and I have told the vicar so several times.’

Mr Gribble did not know what to answer. He was boiling over with rage, and yet he dared not offend the vicar’s wife by expressing his real feelings. So he smiled in a sickly manner, and said,--

‘Well, ma’am, of course we all know as Miss Stafford is a favourite of yours and the vicar’s, and I daresay she made her story good in your eyes. Still, ma’am, when you talk of a _pearl_, ma’am, and _swine_, ma’am, I must say I consider the comparison ’ard.’

‘I can’t help what you think about it, Mr Gribble. It will not change my opinion. Miss Stafford is my friend, and Mrs Hal Rushton will be my friend, and whoever thinks anything but what is good of her will have to keep it to himself or answer to Mr Rushton for it. Good-day,’ and without further comment Mrs Measures passed on.

‘Well, my dear, things _is_ come to a pretty pass,’ Mrs Gribble confided to Mrs Axworthy later on, ‘when a clergyman’s wife calls her ’usband’s parishioners _pigs_ to their faces. That’s what _we_ all are, Mrs Axworthy, ma’am--pigs and swine. And Miss Stafford, who had gentlemen in to supper unbeknown to all, is a pearl of great price. Why, it’s blasphemous, that’s what it is, and Mr Gribble says it ought to be reported to the bishop. Swine, indeed! I’d like to know what Mrs Measures is herself, then. Why, she ain’t got a dress in her bureau as is worth the value of my Sunday satin. She’s a nice person to go talking about _swine_. It makes me sick.’

And here Mrs Rushton ‘dropped in’ for five minutes’ talk, and the story was repeated to her, and soon made the round of every house in the village. But though everyone fumed and spluttered over it, no one dared to resent it, except to one another. They could not afford to make a public example of Mrs Measures’ offensive remark. Were they not all tradesmen, and dependent in a great measure on the patronage of the vicarage and the Hall? Had not even the great Mr Gribble an interest in supplying corn and oats to Mr Rushton’s stables? So they chewed the cud of bitterness in silence so far as the Hall and vicarage were concerned.

At last August drew to a close--the house was ready for the reception of the bride--and Hal Rushton packed up his portmanteau and prepared to start for Devon. Mrs Measures was the last person to shake hands with him.

‘Mind you are to bring her straight to us,’ she cried cheerily. ‘I shall expect you both in a fortnight’s time. Tell Paula she must take us as she finds us. There will be no preparation, and no fuss--only a hearty welcome--unless, indeed,’ she added, laughing, ‘Mr Gribble takes it into his head to erect a flowery arch, with an appropriate motto on it.’

‘And Mrs Rushton, senior, stops the carriage to present her with a bouquet,’ said Hal, infected with the idea. ‘No, no, Mrs Measures, we shall look for only one honour, and that will be your welcoming smile. Good-bye.’ And with a touch of his hat, off he flew in his dog-cart, with a radiant face, to catch the train at Haltham.

Paula had objected to being married in Grassdene. Her first wedding had taken place there, and the church was full of unpleasant remembrances. So it had been arranged that they should go over to Lynmouth, with only Mrs Sutton and the good old doctor, whose name was Gibbon, and after the ceremony and a lunch at the hotel the elders were to return to Grassdene together, and leave the bride and bridegroom to themselves. Hal had pleaded for a quiet honeymoon. He hated the idea of leaving England, and rushing about foreign towns like two strangers--dragging his wife about from one place of amusement to another, and leaving themselves no leisure for quiet talk or mutual acquaintance with each other’s minds. Happily, Paula held the same opinions. She loved her promised husband dearly. All she wanted was himself, and the less they mixed with other people the better she should be pleased. So they agreed to spend their short holiday at Lynmouth, where they were equally unknown, and Hal had secured rooms at a quiet hotel close to the lovely wooded slopes of Devon, the land of ferns and rocks and rivulets, and everything that is dreamy, poetical and romantic. Here, for the time being (mamma and the doctor having been carted back to Grassdene), they were absurdly and ridiculously happy. The weather was glorious, and as soon as their breakfast was completed they would wander forth together, armed with books and shawls and a luncheon basket, and try to lose themselves in the lovely glades by which Lynmouth is surrounded. Then, when Hal had found a particularly enticing little bower, where the leafy branches made a canopy overhead, and the carpet was formed of moss and tiny fern fronds, he would spread out the shawls for Paula to rest upon, and cast himself full length at her feet, with his head upon her lap and his eyes cast upward to her face. And she would open a book and commence to read to him, but there were so many interruptions of a frivolous nature that she would generally lay it aside in despair, and drift into conversation instead. And these conversations proved the first real insight she gained to her lover’s soul. Now, with the sweet familiarity of husband and wife, they could talk to each other as they had never talked before, and Hal told her all that was in his mind, and all that had been there since he had waked up to the knowledge that he had a mind at all. She had known him hitherto as a frank, generous hearted and pleasant spoken man, who was brave and fearless, fond of all field sports and country amusements, and especially fond of herself. But she had had no notion, until she married him, of how much more there was in Hal Rushton than all that. He was no student, and not much of a reader, but he had studied nature deeply, and he had thought upon all sorts of subjects. _She_ interested him because she was a little encyclopedia of knowledge, and had a most retentive memory for chapter and verse, and _he_ interested her because he seemed to have arrived at so many of the same conclusions as she had entirely by thinking out the subject for himself, without any aid from literature. And so they grew to be great friends--these two--and confidants, which is quite apart from and very much better than being great lovers.

‘I know that I am an awful duffer,’ said Hal one day, when Paula had expressed her surprise at the accuracy of his scientific knowledge, ‘but you see I’ve got into a habit of thinking out things by myself, as I ride or walk about the country fields and lanes. I’ve led a very lonely life, you know, darling, hitherto. My father never associated with me. He was an old man when I was born, and I suppose my society bored him. And when that detestable woman took up a position in the house, I saw less of him still. And since his death you may imagine the life I’ve led with the widow and her son. The only pleasure I had was trying to get out of their presence. So I have grown up very much alone, and been accustomed to puzzle out my ideas by myself, without appealing to the opinion of anyone. I am afraid you will find me a very rough, ignorant sort of fellow, darling (I warned you of that, you may remember, long ago), but you will bear with me, won’t you, and teach me better, because I worship the very ground you tread on.’

‘But, Hal, you underrate yourself,’ Paula replied. ‘You must possess a very deep-thinking brain to have arrived at the opinions you hold without the help of anybody. It is easy enough to learn what others have written down for us, but a very different thing to work the problems out for ourselves. I will not let you depreciate your talents any more. I am never tired of hearing you talk. I could listen for hours. You know so much about plants and flowers and animals, and the weather, and all that concerns that sweet, happy nature, the memory of which even seems to have been obliterated from my mind by--’

But Hal put his hand over her mouth.

‘Against orders,’ he cried gaily. ‘We are going to live together, please God, for many years, amidst the sweet, happy nature you admire, and all that you do not know about it I will teach you. Paula, have you ever ridden on horseback?’

‘No, dear, I have never had the opportunity to learn.’

‘I will teach you, darling. What a pleasure it will be to me. For I flatter myself that if I _do_ know anything, it is about horses. And my friend Ashfold of Haltham has the prettiest little mare for sale you ever saw, and as quiet as a lamb. I will write to him about her to-morrow.’

‘You mustn’t be extravagant, dear Hal, to procure me luxuries. I can be quite content without riding on horseback.’

‘But I shall never be content till I see you there. Your lovely figure will be shown off to perfection in a habit. Only, you must promise me one thing, Paula.’

‘What is that?’

‘Not to take to hunting.’ She laughed merrily at the idea of flying over hedges and ditches when she had never yet sat in the saddle. ‘Ah, you may laugh, darling, but you don’t know how soon the desire may come to you, nor how infectious it is. But I couldn’t bear it, Paula. It would destroy all my nerve to know you were in the field. I should give up following the hounds myself. I should be so terribly anxious.’

‘Dear boy, don’t excite yourself about it. I expect I shall have enough to do looking after that big house without thinking of hunting, neither have I any desire that way. But if the idea makes you nervous, I will promise you never to do it.’

‘Thank you, dear. It is a great relief to my mind. I don’t think that without it I could ever have taught you to ride. I have seen such horrible accidents occur in the field--and to think of one’s wife, one’s own flesh and blood, being mangled or killed in that manner--’ He shut his eyes for a moment, as though to shut out the sight, and then continued: ‘There is a girl, Amy Willard, whom I have known from childhood. She is the daughter of a neighbouring farmer, and is a splendid horsewoman--indeed, she was put in the saddle almost as soon as she could sit there by herself--and she attends all the meets. Well, do you know, she has spoiled many a good day’s hunting for me, for when the run is unusually hard, or the ground is broken up, I cannot get her out of my head, and am always wondering if she has come to grief, or not. Women are at such a terrible disadvantage in the hunting field.’

‘Well, I will never spoil your pleasure in that way, Hal, for I know how much you enjoy it.’

‘Oh, I like a run, now and then, as well as the best of them, but I expect I sha’n’t hunt as regularly this season as I have been used to do.’

‘Yes, you must. It will vex me if you give up any of your usual habits for my sake. Besides, I am proud of your prowess in the hunting field, and last autumn I used to think you looked so handsome in your pink coat and top-boots, as you rode home past the schoolhouse window.’

‘Little flatterer! I shall want you to drive out in your pony chaise sometimes and see the hounds throw off. It is such a pretty sight. You will have to learn to drive as well as ride, Paula. Did I tell you that I had sold the phaeton and bought a low basket-carriage instead, with a nice little black pony, for you to jog along the country lanes in? And your great lumbering husband will jog with you sometimes, sweetheart, if you will let him.’

‘Oh, Hal, you are too good to me. Driving about in my own carriage! Why, I sha’n’t know myself. And that dear old garden, too, at which I sometimes peeped through the drive gates, I look forward so to wandering about it. I shall feel as if I were in a dream when I find myself settled down for ever at Highbridge Hall.’

‘You don’t know half the treasures I have to show you yet, Paula. I hope you like dogs, my dear?’

‘Very much. I had a little terrier once, long, long ago, that I loved like a child. It had grown up with me from a puppy. It was my little friend.’

‘And what became of it?’

Paula flushed.

‘You had better not ask me,’ she replied in a low voice.

‘That brute wouldn’t let you keep it?’ said Hal interrogatively.

‘Worse than that. He nearly kicked it to death because--because--it came on the quarter-deck after me, and then he flung it into the sea. I can’t think of it even now, Hal,’ said Paula in a faltering voice, ‘I loved the poor little thing so.’

‘I wonder the fellows on board ship didn’t lynch that man twenty times over. However, let’s hope he’s got it hot now,’ replied Hal fiercely. ‘But don’t cry, my angel. I know one dog can’t make up for the loss of another, but you shall keep as many as you like at the Hall. You have seen some of my golden setters. I am considered rather famous for them in the county, and sell a couple of dozen puppies sometimes in the year. I am sure you must love puppies?’

‘Oh, yes, and kittens and chickens, and everything that is young,’ she replied eagerly, and then, checking herself, she continued slowly: ‘Isn’t it sad, Hal, that loving them all as I do I should feel it so difficult to love my own child? I don’t care for him half so much as mother does. Poor little fellow! He repels me sometimes, and seems to be an epitome of all my miserable past.’

‘Dearest, I can quite understand the feeling. It is one of the unhappinesses I mean to strive to make you forget. It would have been better if God had seen fit to take the poor little chap. But as He hasn’t, I am glad your mother is so fond of him. But don’t dwell on the subject, Paula. Your best comfort lies in the fact that the child is unconscious of his loss. _He_ is happy enough, there is no doubt of that.’

‘Oh, yes, and this is the last time in my life in which to worry myself unnecessarily. For you have made me so happy, love. I cannot recognise in myself the wretched, despondent girl who used to toil to put something like sense into the brains of those awful children at Deepdale. And now to go back to the very same place as _your wife_--_I_, whom Mr Gribble used to think he highly honoured by giving a seat in his gig to Haltham. Oh, it does make me laugh so to think of it, dear, all the time I am ready to weep with gratitude for your having changed my prison to a paradise.’

‘And what have you done for me, Paula? Made me know happiness for the first time in my life. I can conceive in all the world no greater bliss than this. To be alone with the woman I love best--with my own wife--and to know that neither of us has a thought that is not shared by the other. You have seen that I am a jealous man, dear. That is true, though I do not anticipate that you will ever make me jealous of any other man in the future.’

‘Oh! never, _never_, Hal.’

‘But if anything _could_ rouse my jealous feelings again, it would be to know that you had any greater _friend_ than myself, that there was anyone in the wide world who shared a thought you would not confide to me. That conviction would make me so hopeless, in thinking that though I held your body I had no power to enchain your mind. One soul, one body. That is my idea of a true marriage. And though your body were to decay, I could still be happy, knowing I held the key to your soul. But your body, however fresh and beautiful, would be worthless to me without the other and dearer claim. I don’t know if I make myself plain to you. I tumble all my stupid thoughts out at your feet. But that is the delight of having a friend, that one need never be at the trouble of appearing at one’s best.’

‘But you are always at your best to me, Hal, and I agree with every word you say. And you need never be afraid I shall have a closer friend or confidant than yourself. Indeed, with the exception of dear kind Mrs Measures, I do not expect to have many friends in Deepdale. I wonder what attitude your stepmother will assume towards me. She cannot feel very cordially disposed, since my advent ousts her from the Hall.’

‘I won’t answer for what she _feels_, but I am quite sure she will not display any open hostility towards you. I am rather afraid of having too much of the other thing. But pray don’t encourage her, Paula. Place her visits to the Hall at once on a formal footing, and don’t let her get too familiar with you. If you do, she will try to re-establish herself as one of the family. And I have had more than enough of her, darling. She is a vulgar, illiterate woman, not fit to be your companion, and though my father unfortunately gave her our name, I will never own her as a relation. She has her own house now, and let her stay in it. I will have the Hall no longer polluted by her presence.’

‘It will be rather difficult, I am afraid, to keep her out of it, when it has been her home for so many years,’ said Paula dubiously.

‘It will require tact, but I am determined it shall be done,’ replied her husband. ‘If we don’t make a stand against it, we shall have that woman and her son sitting down with us at every meal, and offering to share our drives and walks. No, no; I have married you for myself, and I mean to keep you to myself. I will not have you herding with Mrs Rushton and Mrs Gribble and Mrs Axworthy, and others like them. There are one or two ladies in Deepdale besides Mrs Measures, and a few more in Haltham, and if they don’t care to know us, we’ll do without any society but our own; for I am determined you shall never be pulled down to the level of the envious, back-biting crew who drove you out of your appointment.’

‘Oh, Hal,’ sighed Paula, ‘sometimes I think, suppose I should bring you into an atmosphere of strife and disunion, instead of peace and happiness?’

‘Strife and disunion!’ he echoed, laughing, ‘how should they hurt us so long as there is love and unity in our own hearts? But I have plucked my White Rose, and I will not have her dragged down again to the dirty level of these people. You were placed on it by the appointment you held amongst them, but you have risen above it to your proper position, and you shall not descend again, unless it be through condescension. But they will not easily forgive you for having frustrated their designs, and the less you have to say to them at all the better. But come, my darling, the dew is beginning to fall. We had better stroll back to dinner. I must not risk your taking cold, even for such a lovely time as this.’

After a fortnight spent much in the same manner, the lovers began to think of turning their steps homeward in right earnest. For though they dearly loved each other, they were both sensible that life held too many serious duties to permit of such a time of idle dalliance lasting for ever or even being satisfactory for very long. Hal began to think of his stables more often than he had done, and to wonder if his head-groom Derrick was doing his duty by the horses, and checking the corn-chandler’s account regularly. And Paula was secretly longing to view her new possessions and mount authority over the domestic arrangements at the Hall--to enter, in fact, upon the little kingdom of which Hal had made her queen.

‘Such a notable housekeeper as you are, who can make tea as beautifully as you did for me once or twice in the schoolhouse,’ he said, laughing, ‘will be delighted with the stores of linen and china and glass at the Hall. Not that I know much about it myself, but Mrs Measures assured me they were quite _unique_. But I am not going to have you turn yourself into a drudge, my Paula, mind that. You may superintend your maids as much as you like, but they must do the work for you, or they must go. I want you to sing and play, and read and ride, and enjoy your life to the utmost. You have had enough hardship already, poor child, God knows. The future shall be as bright and pleasant as I can make it for you.’

Paula could not answer him. A big ball rose in her throat to prevent it. But she squeezed his arm tight, and a prayer went up from her very heart to God to make her grateful for all His benefits.