Chapter XI: Cairns Farm

JOHN CAIRNS was, as Mrs. Brooke had said of him, “quite a respectable farmer.” Nobody except disdainful Mrs. St. John would have thought of applying the term “milkman” to that gray-headed well-to-do old man, owner of many broad acres, even though he did largely supply the “gentry” of the neighborhood with butter and milk.

The farm occupied a position about equally distant from Woodleigh Hall and Mr. St. John’s residence, being within three miles of either. It was an aged, ivy-grown house, with divers sheds and out-buildings hard by, and several hay ricks in the near background.

A smart little drawing-room, swathed in brown holland and yellow gauze, was so seldom employed as to be practically useless. There was, however, a small cosy parlor, close to the big kitchen, where the farmer permitted himself to sit and smoke. Occasionally his son did the same; but Jervis was more of a reader than a smoker. The daughter, Hannah, might also be found there, darning stockings, once in a while; not often, since she had no great love for sitting still, and was commonly busy about the house and farm.

Hannah Cairns was not the old farmer’s only daughter, and Jervis Cairns was not the only son. Many years back there had been, twice over, times of great trouble at the farm—trouble of a kind which tends either to break the heart or to harden the nature.

First, the eldest son, William Cairns, the pride and hope of his parents, went wrong. Up to the age of twenty all seemed well. He had always had an aversion to farming; but he was rising to a position of trust in the employ of a neighboring gentleman of property—no other than George Rutherford, himself in those days a young man. Then William was led astray by bad companions, ran into debt, and fell under temptation into dire and deliberate dishonesty.

The generous kindness of George Rutherford averted the more terrible disgrace of open trial and condemnation; but remorse in his case did not mean reformation, and from that day to this, his face had never been shown in his own land. John Cairns never wrote to him or invited his return.

The eldest daughter, Marian, commonly known as “Polly,” was an unusually pretty girl, her father’s especial darling, and not a little spoilt by him. When William so disgraced himself at the age of twenty-one, Polly was only seventeen, while Hannah and Jervis were not more than twelve and six years old.

Five years passed, and the second great family trouble came. Polly went to pay a long visit to a farmer-uncle in the next county. While she was there a young Cantab,* Hubert Brooke by name, who was spending part of his long vacation at a large country house near, fell in with her accidentally, and speedily lost his heart and head. Polly was very taking, no doubt, and Hubert was very young—more than a year her junior. Polly went home, and Hubert followed her, taking up his abode for a week at an inn, not far off. He did not show himself to Polly’s parents, but contrived to meet her two or three times; and a runaway marriage was an early ending to the brief, foolish affair. Hubert’s family immediately cut all connection with him, and Hubert insisted on the entire separation of his wife from her family. He had friends who helped him to find work, and while her husband lived Polly knew no lack of tolerable comfort.

* Undergraduate in Cambridge University

Had Hubert openly sought Marian as his wife from her parents they might not have objected. But that she should marry without leave, and should give them to understand that all intercourse between herself and them must thenceforth cease—this did come with a terribly heavy blow. The farmer grew hard and cold in his hurt pride, and forbade the mention of Marian’s name; and Hannah, young as she was, sternly followed suit. The mother said little, but quietly drooped and died. Only Jervis still cherished loving recollections of the sister who had always been kind to him.

Strange as it may seem, George Rutherford had never heard the details of this story. From the time of William’s disgrace—the facts of which had oozed out in some measure, though not through George Rutherford, the Cairns family had lived as far as possible in strict seclusion. No neighbors were admitted to intimacy at the farm, and few among their few acquaintances knew how Marian left her home, or conjectured the cause of her absence.

When Marian wrote to George Rutherford, “You will not know my married name,” she was rather making a happy shot than asserting what she knew to be a fact. It really was so, however. The Cairnses, as a family, were grateful to George Rutherford for his forbearance, but the very sight of him was by association painful, and they had quietly dropped themselves as far as possible out of his ken. The farm lay beyond Woodleigh parish limits; and while they often heard of him, he did not hear of them. In a passing way it came to his ears that the eldest daughter of old Cairns had married and gone away, but that was all. If her “married name” was ever mentioned to him, it made no impression. He could recall “Polly” as a pretty sweet-mannered girl, overwhelmed with grief, at the time of her brother’s wrong-doing; but he had not exchanged a word with her since; and he could not guess the deep girlish admiration and gratitude with which she had ever regarded him for William’s sake.

During all the seventeen years that Joan, the granddaughter of old John Cairns, had lived at Woodleigh Hall, no passing breeze had ever brought to light the fact of this unsuspected connection. Perhaps it was not surprising. Intercourse between George Rutherford and the Cairns family had become absolutely nothing in amount. John Cairns did not know that he had a granddaughter. When he or his met Joan—as doubtless they did in the country lanes—they could have seen nothing in her face or manner to recall the vanished Marian.

The Brooke family did know of the probable existence of a grandchild, and of her relationship to the Cairnses of Cairns farm. But they had not the slightest wish to know more, always excepting Hubert’s mother, whose desires were overborne by her husband’s determination. They were under no anxiety to rake up the smouldering ashes of a past fire. Until their old friend Mrs. St. John had come to live near Woodleigh none of them had ever wished to visit the neighborhood. Thus it had come to pass, both easily and naturally, that the matter had slumbered all these long years.

John Cairns at seventy-five was a fine old man still, tall and massive, with strong features, and unsmiling expression. He overlooked everything on the farm himself, trusting to nobody’s memory except his own, and tramping about in all weathers, with a hardy disdain of cold and wet not often to be surpassed by younger men.

Hannah Cairns resembled her father, alike in appearance and in character. She too was tall and big-boned, with harsh mouth and cold eyes. Within a few months of forty in age, she might have been taken for ten years older, judging from the marked features and deep intervening hollows.

Jervis Cairns, her brother, six years her junior in reality, and fifteen years her junior in look, was a widely different subject from the other two. Delicate in health from babyhood; always more or less a sufferer from alternations of asthma and bronchitis; an intelligent reader and thinker, and a man of warm affections; he seemed to be singularly planted in the unsympathetic companionship of a silent father and a morose sister. He would have enjoyed the kindly warmth of real family life; but from this he had been debarred ever since the loss of his sister Marian, and the death of his mother. The farm servants all loved Jervis Cairns; but their affection could not make up for the lack of loving-kindness from his own people.

They did not mean to be otherwise than good to him. Cairns and Hannah would alike have been amazed at any complaint on his part. All his bodily wants were attended to; and in illness no expense was spared. Nevertheless, Jervis was keenly conscious of a want.

“It’s going to be a boisterous night,” old Cairns said, coming in late one evening. A lamp was on the little parlor table, and he sat down, pulling off a woollen comforter, and drawing out a short pipe, which he proceeded to light. “Have up the shutters, Hannah. The wind blows in cold.”

“Winter seems coming before its time,” remarked Jervis. “I never knew it turn suddenly cold like this, quite so early. Well, we’ve had a lovely autumn till to-day, so we needn’t complain.”

“At your books for ever,” said Cairns discontentedly. “And whatever in the world is the use?”

“Hannah wouldn’t let me go out, and one can’t sit idle. Reading keeps me happy, father, if there’s no other use.”

“I should just think I wouldn’t,” responded Hannah.

“It’s a sharp wind. Best take care,” said old Cairns. He seemed to fall into a musing fit; his brows knitted. Hannah presently moved out of the room, and he said then—“Met old Elton just now; and he couldn’t let me pass without stopping.”

“Elton?” said Jervis.

“You don’t remember him, of course. Used to be butler at Woodleigh Hall—time our troubles began. You were a little chap then. He broke down in his health after, and Mr. Rutherford pensioned him off. That’s some eighteen years ago, I should reckon. I didn’t know but he might be dead before this; but he isn’t. I shouldn’t have known him, but he knew me.”

“Staying near here?” asked Jervis.

“Yes; he’s got a daughter married and come lately to live in Woodleigh. I met him near there.”

“Have you been so far? And did he tell you any news?” Jervis, in his secluded, sickly life, liked an occasional voice from the outside world.

“Not much. Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford’s been away, he said—to Wales, I think—and they’re expected back this evening. I told him I hadn’t spoken to Mr. Rutherford for years, and he said he could hardly believe it. He asked why I didn’t go to the Hall; and I said I’d no wish. I cut it short, and got away as soon as I could.”

Jervis bent his head, looking on the ground. “Elton—yes, I remember him now. Polly took me once to the Hall, when I was a little fellow, and I saw him there. Did he ask after Polly?”

“Yes,” the old man said shortly.

“And you told him—?”

“The truth, of course—that she was married and gone off more than twenty years ago, and I’d never seen her since. He asked if she had any children. I said I didn’t know—Polly hadn’t thought it worth her while to write and tell us. He said he was sorry to hear it. He’s been to stay at the Hall two or three times, and always thought of us, but he couldn’t walk so far as here, and nobody seemed to know how we were getting on. I said—so much the better; we didn’t want to be talked about; and then I went away.”

Hannah had not come back. Jervis lifted his face, speaking quietly. “Sometimes I have a downright craving for Polly come over me,” he said—“as if I’d do anything to get hold of her again. She was more like mother in her ways than any.”

“Your mother was a good woman, if ever there was one,” said the old farmer, with an accent which seemed to imply that he counted Polly the reverse.

“They were like in their ways,” repeated Jervis.

John Cairns made no answer. He only smoked vigorously, till a deepening blue mist began to pervade the room. Father and son sank into their usual evening silence.

This day it was not to remain uninterrupted. Perhaps an hour had passed, when a ring sounded faintly. After a pause it was heard again, and Hannah’s voice called—

“Do see what’s wanted, Jervis. My hands are in the flour, and that girl’s loitering somewhere upstairs.”

Jervis obeyed. It afterwards seemed singular that he should have been the one to respond to the bell on this particular occasion, for he was very seldom called upon to do so.