Chapter IV: Part 4

For the best part of a week after that memorable evening when little Daisy had fallen into the river—it had remained absolutely silent: no smoke had ascended heavenward from its old brick chimney, no voice, either sober or merry, had been heard from out its latticed windows or its orchard-garden.

To the dismay of the neighbours and most of all to the maker of the whole mischief, Tom Wycombe’s house was bolted and barred, and when “the perlice” in the person of one man who had overlooked the village morality for many years, considered it its duty to scale the garden wall and investigate the premises—it was found to be swept and garnished, but deserted.

Men had gathered outside the inn above the old Church Square, or under the public shed that overlooked the marsh and—between the puffs of an evening pipe—had declared it to be their solemn opinion that the “pore old chap had ’eard somethin’ at last,” though who had been “so blackguardly as tell ’im and them two dead and buried,” they couldn’t think, and would dearly have liked to know.

The women whispering across the counter to the old post-mistress, who always knew everything, had their suspicions.

They had them, and they aired them, but they got no satisfaction. For Mrs. Goodenough herself was too frightened to be indiscreet, and Tom Wycombe—when he returned—kept his own counsel. For he did return, to the relief of all, but he returned alone—a changed and aged man—and he kept his own counsel in solitude.

To the kindly inquiries of timid neighbours, he answered civilly but very curtly that “Daisy was livin’ at the sea for the sake of ’er ’ealth.”

The reply eased the minds of those who had loved the little one, but it had not deceived them. For the child had always been perfectly strong, and if she had not been, Wycombe would have been less than ever likely to part from her.

Less than ever likely unless something had happened to change his blind devotion to her, and that that something had happened, no one had any doubt, but everybody pitifully respected his silence and left him alone in his wretchedness.

And thus the weeks wore away till the harvest had ripened and been gathered in.

“Oo’d ha’ thought he’d ha been so old,” said the neighbours, watching him totter back from the village well, with his two pails of water hanging on hooks from a bar of wood across his shoulders. “’E seemed a likely man too, when ’e married the girl, but folk didn’t ought to wed where there’s such a breach in years.”

“Ah, ’e feels that now,” said an old man wisely. “And yet it seems a pity ’e couldn’t ha’ kep’ the comfort o’ the little ’un. It wern’t _’er_ fault no ways, and it do seem rough on a child too.”

Was that what he was beginning to think himself also?

When their backs were all turned, and they had gone back to their work or their pleasure, to friends or to home; when the door was safely shut behind him and he was alone once more with the lonely, silent plain—the distant, murmuring sea—his face let go of that cruel hold on secrecy, he dared to think of his pain—to tell it—to himself and to the land that was his most familiar friend.

For his pain was there, it never left him. Only from having been a furious beast, flying at his throat, it had become merely a constant and wearisome companion, who would leave him no peace even in his loneliness—a persistent aching—a weary, weary longing.

Yes, that was it: a weary, weary longing—a longing for the little duties that used to need fitting in to his rougher man’s work, the care of a tender little body, the care of a sunny little soul, the daily anxieties and the hourly joys, the rare punishments, the frequent rewards, the mischief, and the noise and the laughter—the endless vitality of the day and the deep and tender rest of even.

Where were they all?

To use her own little phrase—the phrase that came back to him at every turn—“all gone—all gone!”

The words echoed through his brain most days, but, when the bells of which the parish was so proud pealed on Sundays, and he closed his door and sat by his lonely hearth, instead of leading her forth to church in her best as he had been wont to do—then they fairly maddened him.

For the first chime of seven bells would seem to ring out other words that were almost as often in his mind; those last appealing words of his poor erring wife, that he so little understood at the time: “It ain’t ’er fault no ways, Tom!” and then the last short bell would say over and over again: “All gone, all gone!” until he could have sworn at it to bid it stop.

But it never stopped; it went on in his head all the time.

And the long summer was at an end, and was fading into the sad autumn, and after autumn would come the long winter.

He used to sit upon the wooden bench outside the door into his garden and smoke his pipe when his work was done, and watch the autumn come.

He would have no woman about the house now; he would do everything for himself—so that he was alone,—always alone, for never a neighbour was admitted even if one dared to intrude,—and for the most part they all let him be. The hollyhocks still stood tall and quiet, with their black and crimson tufts against the grey stone of his outer wall, and the sunflowers bowed heavy heads to the setting sun where the white lilies had bloomed against its rising one day in summer.

He sat there every evening and remembered it, but one evening in particular he wished the autumn flowers away more regretfully than usual, and wondered what he would do if the June lilies were blooming there once more, and he had that to fight and that to do again which he had fought and had done that day.

He always thanked his God who had numbed his arm and his senses—thanked Him whenever the memory of that one moment forced itself upon him: the only moment of all the bad moments when his hate had taken strange shape against _her_: the awful moment when her innocent face upon the pillow had been the face of the false comrade who had robbed him, and when the dawn had swum red in his sight.

He thanked Him for the dew of that summer morning that had cooled his rage and taught him, at least, to wait; but of late when he thought of it and brooded on his grief, another sense but that of mere selfish regret at his loss mingled with his weight of weary loneliness: the sense of _her_ loss, the realization of what the neighbours had remembered but he had forgotten till now, that it “weren’t ’er fault,” and that it did seem “rough on a child.”

Rough on a child! A child! A creature who had not desired to come into this world—who would have, sure enough, to fight its cruel thrusts in later life, but who might have a few years of complete happiness—of time in which to grow strong and beautiful and valiant.

To whom could this child look to give her these short years of happiness that were hers by right?

He looked around him on the village children, who had once been her comrades: they were sick sometimes, they were sometimes hungry, they were often cuffed and scolded in the haste of a moment’s vexation, but they were all of them beloved. There was always some one to pick them up where they fell, to comfort them when they suffered, to bid them play and be glad.

Who was there to comfort this motherless child now that he had forsaken her?

He paid that she should be fed—that she should be clothed; but who pitied her in her childish troubles, who heard her prayers and gave her her morning and evening kiss,—who loved her?

And yet she, whom he had doated on and spoiled to his heart’s delight, was she not likely to crave love more than any of them?

"Ye’ll make ’er that tender and fearsome she won’t be fit to stand up to the world"—his enemy, Mrs. Goodenough, had many a time said to him.

He had hated her for her warning and had spurned it, thinking that he had plenty of time to harden her to the world in future. But was it fair now that he had made her tender, that he should leave her to stand up to the world before she was fit?

The thought troubled him sore, and on this Sabbath evening, as the cruel bells sang their cruel tune: “It ain’t ’er fault no ways, Tom,” it troubled him more than ever.

What was she doing?—who was making the day of rest sweet to her?

And instead of asking himself bitterly why God had saved her from death that He might take her from him after all and leave him desolate, he asked himself why _he_ had snatched her from the river that he might forsake her in her helplessness the very next day? And a heartbreaking picture rose up before him of his little maid thin and sad, hungering for love, pining for him—unconsciously made to feel, in her childish sensitiveness, that she was different from other children; set apart by something that she could not understand, to be less loved—perhaps even to be shunned, despised, neglected! His pretty Daisy—his good little maid—who had never done any harm!

The last bell was dinning it into his ears: “All gone—all gone!” But there was silence at last. The folks were all safe in church, and he was alone in the quiet evening.

Alone, but not at peace; though the land that lay stretched below him, miles upon miles of serene pastures, studded with browsing cattle and brown with tender shades, might well have brought him some measure of serenity.

Mechanically he thought of the words that the parson would speak when the service was ended: “And the peace of God which passeth all understanding.”

Was it because no one could understand, that it was never to be found? It was no use going to church to find it—for he had tried that ... “parson” he could not grasp, and the sight of the neighbours and the knowledge that they guessed his grief, put peace further from him than ever. Where was it to be found? He did not know ... but something within him knew, and whispered to him that it was to be found doing the right; yes, and again—that it was to be found in the heart of his little maid.

She had known it; she had breathed it forth from her sunny innocence; she had brought it to him often and often. Would she not bring it again? Was she changed because others had sinned?

A sound of distant singing came to him across the hollyhocks and the sunflowers: it was the evening hymn. It was kinder than the bells—it brought him nearer to peace: _she_ had been so fond of it, so proud to raise her baby voice with the rest. Was she singing it to-night? Was she happy? He lost himself in his dream of her; not that she was not always in his thoughts, in work or in leisure, but that when he was at leisure he could live only in his dreams.

Bitterness—or at least active anger and resentment—had long ago died out of him; all _that_ was dead as the dead woman whom he had once loved—buried in her grave. It was always of his little maid that he dreamed.

The sun had set; the west was still glorious behind the cottages, and even the grey downiness of the lightly-veiled sky overhead was warm with the memory of the borrowed flush, but the twilight was gathering, dusky and tender: the great plain took a sorrowful farewell of the day, lingering over it softly: the red harvest moon crept slowly between the sea and the sky.

Vaguely he remembered that it was on just such a night, ten years and more ago, that he had wooed his wife down yonder by the distant harbour. Yet it was less of her that he thought than of his maid—of his dear little maid.

He dreamed of her as he saw her that last time framed in the doorway, with the first of the sunlight upon her and the dew of the morning and the springtime. And even as he dreamed—there she was! There was a little rustle in the cabbages below the garden wall—and there she stood with her golden head just in front of the red moon.

Only it was not quite like his little maid; this little one was taller and thinner, and her cheeks were not so round and had not the sweet flush that he knew, and her eyes were bigger and had a wistful look in them that she had never had cause to wear. It was a vision—but it was like her—oh, very like her as she had looked in her whiteness and her innocence....

He took his pipe from his mouth; it dropped between his fingers on to the bench beside him; and he sat staring at her; but he would not move for fear the sweet figure should vanish, for fear the joyful dream should come to an end and he should be awake again and alone with his loneliness.

But _she_ moved.

She swung her little arms on high as she had been wont to do whenever she was happy; then she ran forward—ran straight towards him across the lawn—ran, with a cry of joy, straight to her old place upon his bosom.

Then he knew that it was no vision, but just his little maid in the flesh, warm and living and loving—his little maid come back to him. He asked no questions; he just held her there—where she had flown—to his heart; he just held her there and was content.

But she spoke.

“I be come ’ome, Daddie,” she said. “Daisy didn’t like bein’ away down there by the far beach where there wasn’t no Daddie. And she didn’t know whativer er old Daddie would do wivout ’is little maid. ’Cos when I was near drownded dead in the river ’oo said I mustn’t niver—niver go away from my old Dad.”

He clasped her a little tighter, but still he did not speak.

“I be very tired, Daddie,” she said in a minute. “I be dreadful tired.”

Then he opened his lips.

“’Owever did you get ’ere, little ’un?” he said.

“I runned,” she answered simply.

“What, all the way?” asked he.

She nodded her head.

“First I runned very fast,” she said, “’cos I was f’ightened Mrs. Low’d ’ave me and whop me. And then I runned slower, but I runned all the time. _I_ remembered the way, I did,” said she, wisely nodding her head again.

A spasm of fury seized him, but it turned to self-reproach, and then again, quickly, it turned to simple thankfulness.

“That _was_ clever of you,” said he mechanically as he had often been wont to say when he knew she expected praise.

“Yes, that _was_ clever of me,” assented she, well-contented, “but I wanted to get ’ome quick. They said down there I ’adn’t got no Dad, they did. But I knew THAT weren’t true, so I come. And I didn’t stop on the way, neither—not to look at the sweets nor nothin’—’cos I wanted my Daddie, I did!”

She paused for an answer but none came—only the arm held her a little more firmly in her place.

So she added, shaking him a little as she had used to do: “But I wants my supper bad. I be very hungry, I be!”

“Pore little ’un!” murmured he, thinking of her face that was not so plump or so rosy as it once had been, and of her eyes that were more wistful: “Pore mite!”

“And we’ll go and buy sweets one day, Daddie, won’t we?” insisted she. “’Cos you promised, ye know.”

“Did I?” said he dreamily.

“O’ course you did!” she declared. “And folk must allers do what they promises.”

Again he did not reply, because, though he heard, his heart was too full to heed. This was why his arm had been sure that day when he had saved her from death.

But a sudden misgiving seemed to seize her at his silence, and she cried defiantly: “’Cos I ain’t niver goin’ away no more, Daddie. Niver no more!”

Then the torrent of his joy was loosed. He pressed her convulsively to his heart and kissed her ... kissed her for all the weary days that were past ... for all the many hours of longing emptiness, when he might have had her to kiss and had not chosen to do so! Kissed her for all the kisses that he had cheated her of.

“No, never no more!” echoed he fervently. “Daisy sha’n’t go away from ’er old Daddie never no more!”

The moon was high up in the sky; the red had waned in her but the gold glowed, for she was the harvest moon. Over the dim marsh-land faint mists were beginning to rise, like tender ghosts of the day that was gone,—and the mystery of dusk hovered abroad.

Tom Wycombe sat as he had sat three months ago, when he had given thanks to his God for restoring his child to him from the grave.

And now he understood what was the meaning of the peace which passeth all understanding.

A FARM TRAGEDY

A FARM TRAGEDY

The moon shone fitfully into the wood; shone fitfully because wild clouds were hurrying across the sky at intervals, so that the feeble radiance could not even pierce, as it might have done, the tender shadows of the forest that autumn gales had not yet stripped of its golden glory.

At the foot of the dell two figures stood leaning against the gate that led from the wood on to the undulating ground beyond.

The damp, russet leaves made a carpet under their feet, and fluttered softly down upon them as the gusts flew past; for their heads were bare, his cap had fallen off and bonnet she had none, and golden curls mingled with black ones as her face lay upon his shoulder and his rested against her cheek.

They were lovers and they were young—very young. Any one could have told that—even in the fitful moonlight, even in the shadow: slender and strong and supple of pose—boy and girl still.

“Oh, Charley, what ever shall I do when you’re gone!” moaned she. “I don’t see as ’ow I can get along anyways! It’d be bad enough for any girl, but it’s worse for me, ye must own, ’cos I can’t never say a word to nobody about ye. It’s as much as my life’s worth to let it be knowed as I wish ye a good-even. Ye don’t guess ’ow father ’ates you and yours, I’ll be bound ye don’t. I b’lieve as ’e’d sooner see me dead than wed to ye. Oh, Charley, _must_ ye go away?”

There was a plaintive prophecy of tears in the soft murmuring voice, and the lad’s tones were nearly as rueful as he answered.

“I don’t see whatever I can do else, Bess,” said he, pressing her closer than ever to his side. “Father won’t never give me no proper share in the farm, I know. There’s Ben to come afore me, and if ever he had a soft place for me, it’s pretty nigh froze over since that row last night. That’s what ’ave made my mind up, ye see?”

“Tell me about it, dear,” said she, lifting her face.

“I don’t see as that’ll do no good,” answered he, kissing her face instead.

“I’d sooner know,” she sighed.

“Well, there, ’e said as if ever ’e caught me a-courtin’ of ye, ’e’d turn me out neck and crop that very day, and never a penny of ’is should I see. It’s real onnat’ral it is, ’ow them two old blokes keep up that ’ere old row over a darned bit o’ land that was sold away a year ago. They must ’ave a real mind to quarrel, they must. So, ye see, as ’e said ’e’d turn me out neck and crop, says I to myself, the best way for me is to turn myself out first and save trouble. There’ll be no bones broke that way. For it’s sartin’ sure I ain’t goin’ to give ye up.”

And then he kissed her again more passionately than before.

For a few minutes neither spoke; there was no need. They were together, the world was far and parting was near and love sang aloud with triumphant and commanding voice.

But at last she sighed and with infinite tenderness whispered simply: “And I won’t never give you up neither, Charley. No, not if I was to die for it.”

“I know ye won’t,” said he, “I ain’t a bit afraid, else I wouldn’t go.” He paused a moment, looking into her eyes. A ray of moonlight filtered through the trees and lit her face; it made it white as the face of death. But the lips were parted in wondering rapture, and after a few moments he laughed a little laugh and repeated dreamily: “No, I ain’t a bit afraid. Ye’d never give me up.”

Then he sighed too, and in a different tone, striving for cheeriness, added: “And it won’t be so bad, ye know, arter all, darlin’. I’ll be bound I shall get on. Where there’s a will there’s a way, they say, and there ain’t no mistake about the will, is there? Besides, I’m a man now—twenty-one last March—and I’m strong, and school-master used to say I’d got a precious good head-piece when I’d a mind. I _’ave_ got a mind now, ye see, though I never ’ad before. I’ll soon come back and fetch you, you bet. It ain’t so much as we shall want.”

“No,” said she eagerly, “a very little ’d do to keep me on. I don’t eat much, and I’m very quick at things and real hearty, though some might think I _looked_ a bit slim. Why, I could do a bit of earnin’ too,—take in needlework or some such-like, though I’d rather work out-doors, with you. Oh, Charley,” cried she again entreating, “I don’t see why we shouldn’t just be wed now, somewheres on the quiet, and me go away with you wherever you be bound for. It’d be much safer, and they won’t never say ‘yes’ to us, not if we was to wait till Doomsday.”

A great gust of wind swept them furiously, and she clutched his arm and looked up at him with bewildering pleading in her eyes.

But the boy turned his away and shook his head with a superior air of wisdom.

“It’d never do, Bess,” said he. “Ye’re too young. Why, you ain’t seventeen yet! Ye might be fallin’ sick on my ’ands. We mightn’t ’ave enough to eat. A man can starve a bit, but a girl can’t—not one like you.”

She sighed again, it was almost a moan, and lay her cheek against his once more. Then, suddenly, a tremor ran through her. They were standing within the edge of the wood with their backs to the open land beyond it. But in seeking his face she had turned hers towards the sky upon which low thorn-trees stood black, studding the rising ground.

“What’s that there?” she whispered terrified.

A cloud was hurrying across the moon and had laid a shadow on the whiteness of the open.

“Where?” he asked, turning to follow her gaze.

“There, there,” she repeated. “Didn’t ye see some one a-movin’ across behind the bushes? Charley, Charley, there’s father’s eyes everywheres—a-gleamin’ out at us all the time. Let’s get away from ’em—do!”

The lad moved forward, though still holding her fast with one hand.

“No, no,” said he reassuringly. “Ye’re a bit excited, that’s what it is,—ye fancy things. We should ha’ been bound to see any one move across the open there, you take my word for it.”

She pressed closer to his side, but she trembled still.

“I b’lieve father ’d kill me if he knowed as I’d been with ye to-night,” she whispered. “Ye don’t know what ’e’s like, father. It’s bad enough when ’e ’aven’t got the drink in ’im. ’E’s mad agin you and yours—downright crazy-mad. Oh, Charley,” she moaned again, clinging to him with trembling hands, “take me with ye, do, now! Don’t leave me wi’ father! I’d not be a bit o’ trouble to ye, that I wouldn’t! You try me. I’d rather live on a crust for weeks than stay ’ere alone. I’m frightened, I am. It seems as if somethin’ bad was bound to ’appen if ye go away and leave me. Take me along with ye, Charley!”

The boy wavered. He too was frightened, though he would not have acknowledged it. He too, with the headlong recklessness of youth, would have adventured all to hold what he had won, to have what he wanted; but a vague sense of responsibility born of this new and strangely constraining love, an uncomprehended instinct to protect what clung to him, prevailed at last. He kissed her again, but it was no longer feverishly; he was as he had said—a man.

“There, now, there,” said he soothingly, “ye mustn’t be onreasonable, ye know. I shouldn’t be actin’ right by ye if I was to take ye from yer ’ome afore I’d somethin’ to keep ye on. I ’aven’t acted just as I should ha’ done by ye, may be, but I can make that right. Only ye must let me go and work for ye. If I was a ’cute un like my brother Ben, I’d say to the Guv’nor: ‘Give me the bit o’ money what’d be mine some day, and let me go and take my own chance wi’ it.’ But it’d be trickin’ ’im to do that for to marry the darter o’ the man as ’e ’ates—and I ain’t a bad lot. No, I’ll make my own way, and we’ll be man and wife, fair and open, and please God father ’ll come to love ye too—some day. ’Tain’t in nature as both on ’em shouldn’t forgive when it’s done. Ay, we’ll be man and wife come Lady Day, Bess. I swear it, and it shall be done square. I ain’t a bad lot, dear, and I’ll make ye a good ’usband, s’elp me God.”

His voice shook a little, but he lifted one hand to the moon that was bright on them for a moment, while he strained her wildly to his breast with the other; and she felt the purpose in him and bowed to the inevitable.

But her tears flowed softly, and though he stroked her cheek to dry them, they flowed still and her body shook with her grief.

“Tell me ye’ve faith in me, dear?” whispered he. “Tell me ye feel as ye can trust me?”

She did not answer; the sobs that she strove against would not be stilled.

“Why, Bess!” whispered he again, half frightened. “Ye’ll never be afraid to trust me?”

Then she understood and raised her head.

“Trust ye?” she echoed bravely, and her eyes shone in the moonlight. “Trust ye? D’ye think I take ye for a blackguard?”

He kissed her passionately and she dried her eyes.

“It ain’t that,” said she, and tried to smile. “It’s only as Lady Day’s a long way off.”

The moon had topped the tallest tree that bent and quivered in the wind; she might have been hurrying herself, so wildly the clouds hurried past her, so cruelly the moments hurried onward.

“They’ll be waitin’ supper for me,” said the girl with a little shudder, looking up at the trees. “Father’s been to market. He was to be late ’ome, but ’e’ll ’ave been back long afore this. Oh dear!”

“Well, ye mustn’t notice ’im too much,” declared he bravely. “’E won’t plague ye, if ye stand up agin’ ’im. Ye must be a bit saucier. I’m sure ye used to be saucy enough to me when first I fancied ye!”

“That was ’cos I knowed ye loved me,” smiled she, and then they kissed again. But they couldn’t keep the sauciness up, and the next thing she said was said sadly enough.

“It’s near six months to Lady Day,” she whimpered. “And I sha’n’t ’ave no news of ye till then!”

“I’ll write when I get a bit settled,” he said.

“I’d never get the letter,” moaned she.

“Ye must go to the Post-office for it,” he answered.

“Post-mistress might tell,” objected she. But then with a sudden inspiration: “May be Nan Fordham ’d fetch it for me. She’s a good child. And ye might put A. B. on it, same as the girls do when they ’vertise for a situvation.”

“Why, yes, that’s capital,” he cried. “What a clever one you is, to be sure! Nobody’d find _that_ out, I’ll be bound.”

The comfort was a little one, but they hugged it and planned their plan with fresh courage. But it was parting all the time, bitter-sweet, though they painted the future brightly for one another, and took their fill of the kisses the memory of which was to keep them alive: it was parting and it hurt.

They made it last as long as they could; sheltering her from the blasts with his arm around her, he took her to the edge of the wood, and many a time did he leave her, yet was fain to come back for a last word, a last embrace. But it was all over at last; he was gone, and she was left on the empty road, swallowing her tears, alone.

Some one stood at the house-door as she crossed the common; the moon had sailed forth from among the clouds again and stared at her grief, and would not cover her sorrow. She could see the figure plain enough in the hard, white light, and her heart leapt to her mouth and she thanked the chance that had made Charley run down the grass slope to the railway-station instead of coming round with her by the road.

She knew to whom the figure belonged, and she knew what it would say, and try as she would to call to mind her lover’s brave banter, try as she would to steel herself as he had bade her, her cheek was as white as the moonlight and her heart fell against her side.

“Where’ve ye been?” thundered the figure as she came up, and the first word told her that the man was in drink.

“Down the village,” she faltered, faintly.

“That’s a lie,” he shouted. “Why’s your feet soppin’ wet, and what are them dead leaves a-stickin’ in yer ’air for?”

She put her hand up vaguely; it was true—the leaves of the wood had left upon her the loving memory of her happiness. She took the two withered witnesses from her curls and pressed them to her bosom.

“Ye’ve been down in the copse, and ye’ve been and met a man there, ye shameless slut,” shrieked the father, shuffling a step nearer to her and seizing her by the arm. “Now, don’t tell me no more darned lies. It ain’t no use. You’ve been see’d a-cuddlin’ and a-kissin’, fit to shame the mother that bore ye. And I tell ye what, I’ve ’ad my suspicions this fortnight past, and if this lover o’ yours—damn ’im!—’ave got aught to do with that stuck-up good-for-nothing son of a scamp—ye know well enough who I mean!—I’ll break every bone in his blasted body! So now ye’re warned, and ye know me well enough to guess I’ll do what I say.”

Bess stood still and said not a word; she was cold and she trembled, but a blessed peace glowed within her, and she was not afraid, for she was happy. The glamour of her bliss was fresh upon her, his kisses still burned her lips, his heart still beat against hers. She stood still, rapt and listening—listening for the whistle of the train that should tell her he was being carried far from _her_ but far from harm also.

It struck upward from the valley, and she sighed a sigh of relief. For herself she could bear much—and _he_ was safe. No one could break every bone in his blessed body now.

“Why don’t ye answer?” snarled the man. “Am I to be fooled and cheeked by a mere brat, a chit as ain’t fit to be tret as a woman at all? Am I to be gainsayed by the likes o’ you?”

And he shook her violently by the arm.

“I don’t gainsay ye, father,” said she, quietly. “I ’aven’t said nothin’. I ain’t got nothin’ to say.”

The words seemed to exasperate him to frenzy.

“Oh, you won’t speak, won’t ye?” cried he. “You ain’t goin’ to give the young blackguard away, eh? Well, then, ye can take what I meant for _’im_ instead.”

And with a violent jerk he threw her from him, kicking her even as she fell.

She went down, striking the garden gate, which in her fear she had left unlatched, and lay, huddled together, with her head in the dust of the road, and her face as marble under the moon.

He looked at her a moment, muttering curses still, and lurched up the path again, calling fiercely to some one within as he went.

“Ye’d best come and fetch this precious darter o’ yours, marm,” cried he. “And ye’d better lock her up when ye get ’er. D’ye ’ear me? Lock her up, I say! She’s not fit to be let out doors. I thought she were only a chit,—but she’s a slut, that’s what she is—a dirty slut. But _I’ve_ punished ’er for it! Oh, and I’ll do it again if I find ’er at ’er tricks! That I swear! So now ye both on ye know.”

A feeble, spiritless-looking woman appeared on the threshold. She gave a little moan when she saw what had happened, but she attempted no remonstrance, only ran foolishly crying down the path to where the figure lay motionless in the dust.

But Bess, though stunned and bruised, was not dead. As her mother slid an arm under her head to raise it, she turned towards her.

“Never mind,” she gasped, “it ain’t so bad. Father’s been drinkin’—’e didn’t mean no ’arm. Take me indoors, mother, or the neighbours’ll see.”

Mrs. Benson looked round nervously. There was nothing she minded so much in the world as “the neighbours seeing” anything.

But luckily it was night, farm work was over, and the farm buildings that clustered close together opposite the house were deserted and silent: and the village proper lay further down the hill.

Bess tried to sit up, and the woman helped her; she helped her with her arm, but word of comfort for the young and sore spirit there was none.

“Whatever ye must needs go and take up with that young Chiswick for I’m sure I don’t know,” whimpered she. “Ain’t there trouble enough a’ready? You did ought to ha’ knowed better—your father so set on agin them Chiswicks as ’e is! One’d think there weren’t no other chaps about! But, Lor’, ye can’t count on girls!”

She had her arm round the slender waist and helped the drooping figure up the path. And in the kitchen she set her in a chair and wiped the blood from her forehead, and then took her up and put her to bed. It was done deftly enough, but all the time the same moan went on till the child was glad when the candle was taken away and she was left to her thoughts.

For in her thoughts she could live over again the happy moments that were so near in the past ... and of the future she would not think. That was grim enough, for she guessed pretty surely that her home would give her nothing but what it had given her to-night, and Charley was gone: gone to some unknown spot in that vast and unknown London, that to Bess was as the wilderness itself.

She had not put it too strongly when she had said that her fight would be a worse fight than another’s.

It _was_ a bad fight, but it was a brave one. For a while there was a lull in the persecution; either sobriety brought shame for the brutal assault on his daughter, or the departure of young Chiswick from the village removed his excuse, but anyhow Farmer Benson quieted down to sullen moroseness within-doors, and to bitter attacks upon his neighbour without.

Christmas came and went, and on Christmas Day Bess wore a face so bright that her mother looked at her wondering, and her father swore beneath his breath in sheer perplexity.

The night before a red-haired little maid had run into the kitchen with eager eyes, and the girl’s heart had leapt into her mouth. Luckily there had been no one by, but Bess had snatched the child in her arms and carried her into the orchard, kicking and screaming at the indignity, ere she had dared to ask her for what she carried. It was a letter, addressed A. B., and was supposed to be for some person unknown.

Bess took possession of it, in exchange for a good scolding for instructions of secret delivery not adhered to, and a bright penny for acid-drops. And then she ran away into the wood.

The leaves were all off the trees, and lay rotting in the purple brushwood; a hard sky looked on a hard and frozen land, and there was a promise of snow in the air in place of the soughing of the wind in the watching forest on that night when every gust had borne a tale of love through the moonlight.

But Bess knew nothing of wind or weather: Charley was beside her once more; his kisses made her heart beat again, and her face was hot in the frost as it lay, in her thought, against his. He was well, he loved her, he had never looked at another girl, he had got work at last, and he was coming back for her soon. And she kissed the letter as girls do, and cried over it in her joy.

That was why her face shone over the plum-pudding as it used to do when she was a little maid, and that was why the Christmas bells were sweet to her.

But Christmas went by, and New Year went by, and the frost held unrelenting sway, and Bess drooped. The crispness went out of her pretty hair, and her tall young figure grew quite too slim, and her fair, fresh skin became wan and transparent. The mother sighed, as any mother must, but dared make no remark, for she lived in terror of her man, and if it was for love of one whom he had said must not be loved that Bess grew pale,—pale she must grow, and there was no help: Farmer Benson never changed his mind, other folk had to change theirs.

But it was not only with the hunger of love unsatisfied that Bess was growing white; her health was strange, and a great fear was growing in her mind. Yes, young as she was, she was too much of a country girl not to know very well what things meant, and an awful chill struck at her heart.

What should she do? Whither turn for help, with whom consult, in whom confide?

Her mother? She loved her mother, and would never have dreamed of blaming her for being what she was; but was it wonderful that she should feel the burthen would only weigh the heavier on herself for endeavouring to share it with one who was too weak to bear any part of it? Perhaps—perhaps if she had known more of mother’s love she would have trusted it a little, and perhaps she might have been right; perhaps even that wavering heart would have swelled to a sense of its greatest duty, have yearned to protect that which it had borne. But Bess never gave it a thought.

“Not to worry mother” had always been her motto, it was her motto still.

The one person in the world who should have helped her, she held to be useless; the one person in the world who would have helped her was far away, and knew naught of her distress.

For that one cherished Christmas letter was the only one that she had had, and in that he had given her no address to which she could have written, even had she dared. He had said that he was changing it, and he had said that he was coming—coming very soon.

So she waited, hoping every day that “very soon” might mean the morrow; but her smile grew rarer and sadder, and her eyes more wistful and her cheek more white.

One Sunday in early February, when the sun was shining gay upon the crisp snow and icicles hung rainbow-tinted from the cottage-eaves, Farmer Benson strode into the farm kitchen. His wife was busy mixing the Sunday pudding, but Bess, contrary to her wont, was sitting listless in a chair. She rose quickly as her father entered, but not before he had had time to notice her attitude.

“Now what’s that puling face for, pray?” said he sharply. “Let’s ’ave none o’ them airs and graces ’ere. It won’t pay wi’ me, I can tell ye! No, nor get ye a ’usband, neither!”

Bess looked up with a new fear in her face, and Mrs. Benson said, half-appealing: “What, Lor’, she don’t want a ’usband yet awhile, do she, John? She’s but a child, sure_ly_.”

“Get out wi’ yer ‘_do she, John_!’” snarled the man. “Most women’s pleased to get their darters out o’ hand, but you’re such a lazy one ye want to keep ’er ’angin’ round to do yer work for ye, I suppose? But whether you want or whether _she_ wants, she’s got to ’ave one. A child she is, but if she’s woman enough to play tricks, she’s woman to ’ave a ’usband. And a child does as it’s bid.”

Bess gave a great start and went paler than ever, and her father held his bleary eye fixed fast on her.

“Yes, _she’s got to ’ave a ’usband_,” repeated he doggedly, emphasizing every word, “and ’igh time too!”

“What d’ye mean, father?” faltered the girl faintly.

“I mean what I says,” insisted he, still watching her. “Ye’ve got to ’ave a ’usband if ye can get one, and one o’ my choosin’ too, and that in just about as jolly quick time as I can do it in! Ye’ve got yerself talked about i’ the parish, a-prowlin’ round with a young vagabond at dead o’ night, and I ain’t a-goin’ to ’ave no girl o’ mine talked about, not if I knows it!”

“It’s ’ard lines, that it is,” sniffed the woman irrelevantly. “And we with on’y that one.”

“It’s ’ard lines to ’ave such a slut for a darter,” snarled the man, drawing up his bloated figure to its awful height and turning his drink-sodden face upon his wife. “The Bensons ’ave been respectable folk ever sin’ I can remember, though _you_ be a bit of a fool, Mary, and I ain’t a-goin’ to ’ave ’em blowed upon.”

“I _can’t_ get married,” faltered Bess, with a break in her voice.

“Oh, can’t ye!” sneered the father. “We’ll soon see about that, leastways if there’s a man fool enough to take ye. And that’s where I’m comin’ to. Jim Preston, from over Harraden way, is a-comin’ in this arternoon to ask ye to walk out wi’ ’im. ’E’s not much to look at, but ’e can keep a wife, and ’e saw ye over in the town one day, and was flat enough to fancy ye. Ye’re lucky to git the chance, and ye’d best catch ’old of it. Leastways, if ye don’t, I’ll know the reason why.”

“I can’t git married, father,” was all Bess said again.

And then the man went up to her with his heavy fist raised above his head, as on the night when she had come home from her tryst in the wood. She shrank against the dresser, and Mrs. Benson murmured frightened words beneath her breath.

But he seemed to think better of it, for his arm dropped at his side, and he turned from her with a muttered curse.

“Yes, I’ll know the reason why, so sure as my name’s John Benson,” he repeated. “And if I find you sittin’ pulin’ and whinin’ ’ere over that darned scapegrace lad o’ Ben Chiswick’s—damn ’im!—I tell ye fair and square I’ll turn ye out of ’ouse and ’ome.”

“I knowed it’d come to this,” moaned the mother.

“Come to this?” laughed he. “Ay, and it’ll come to wus afore I’ve done if ye can’t make ’er mind my orders, marm. Ye may think it’s tall talk, miss,” he added, turning to his daughter again, “but as sure as this is the Sabbath Day and there’s a God above us, I’ll turn ye out sooner than see ye wed to Ben Chiswick’s son. I’ll turn ye out, be the disgrace what it may.”

He brought his great fist down on the dresser with a thud that made the plates and dishes rattle on the rack, and turned upon his heel.

At the door he faced her once more, with the latch in his hand.

“Jim Preston ’ll be round somewheres about three o’clock,” said he. “Ye’d best look alive arter dinner and smarten yerself up.”

After that first shrinking from his hand, Bess had not moved while he had been speaking. She had not even dropped her eyes. And now that he was gone, she just sat down again quietly, but with a sort of slowness that told of momentarily spent energy though not of waning courage.

“Ye’ll give the young man a nice welcome, leastway, Bess,” begged the mother, half frightened without knowing it, of this silent daughter, whose moods and intentions were as a foreign tongue to her. “Even if ye did fancy young Chiswick a bit, ’e’s left the place, and out o’ sight ’s out o’ mind wi the men, they say. Very like ’e knowed it weren’t no go, for they do say th’ old man’s as set agin father as father’s agin ’im. I call it main reason’ble o’ the lad to take ’isself off: most girls fancy another lad afore the one they weds. I did myself—’andsomer than John ’e was—but, Lor’, what’s to be, ’ave got to be. And there’s no tellin’ ye mightn’t take to this Preston chap once ye got used to ’im. Anyways ye’ll speak the man civil. I don’t know whatever I shall do wi’ father if ye don’t.”

“All right, mother,” said Bess quietly, “I’ll speak ’im civil.”

The winter evening fell softly.

Jim Preston had been and gone.

He had proved to be “not much to look at;” indeed, a stout, plain young man, with a scanty wit, but Bess had been kinder to him than if he had been smart, for he had paid her no court, and for the matter of that had scarce spoken half-a-dozen words to her.

And now he was gone, and for a while at least he would not come back, and she sat alone, trying to think what she should do.

The garden stretched away on the right towards the common, but at its foot it ended in a sort of dry water-cress moat, beyond which were pastures where the cattle grazed in summer, but that were now deserted and barren, staring at the barren trees that flanked their two sides. Snow lay white over them and clung to the broad frost-bitten leaves of the winter cabbages in the garden; snow was sprinkled on the privet hedge, and the skeleton boughs of the beeches and maples that began the wood were set clear and black upon a brilliant frosty sunset. The sky was the softest thing to be seen; and all unconsciously Bess kept her eyes on the sky, and forgot the hard earth, and dreamed of love again.

Her song still had the same old rhythm; there had crept into it first one little natural womanly moan of regret because Charley had not heeded her presentiment—had not taken her with him, but the burthen of it had not changed: she loved Charley—Charley loved her; Charley would come back, he would come back soon. It was only a matter of waiting, of being plucky a little longer, and all would be well yet. To be brave, to be silent, to let matters take their course, and to wait and to trust—that was her only instinct, and that instinct she obeyed.

So when her father came in that night from the “Public” he found her restored to her usual simple sweet serenity, and was appeased in his wrath; the silly girl had thought better of it, said he to himself, and would be safely married yet before the year was much older.

But he did not quite know his gentle daughter. To him she was a child still; he did not guess that in the last few months she had become a woman: a woman strong to suffer because she loved.

Lady Day drew near, Lady Day when Charley had promised to come back and fetch her that they might be wed. But there was no news of him; no letter had come save that one long ago, and the fear that had come upon Bess was a certainty, and she knew that she could not wait much longer.

March that had come in as a lion bid fair to go out like a lamb. A sudden fit of balmy spring weather had sprung upon the heels of the cruel winter; the wood had a tender flush over its brown bareness that told of tiny buds struggling forth into the new world, a hope and a promise of green leaves and of blossoms, of summer and the sun. A few primroses opened pale petals to the unwonted warmth, like the wondering eyes of little children; a few violets in warm, moss-covered corners burst their buds amid sheltering leaves; the almond tree in the garden began to look pink, and the old thorns on the common to stud their black boughs with the tiny white stars that first tell of a winter that is past; the birds twittered and Bess sang, for it was Lady Day—the spring was come and the sun of love shone fair.

But, lo! a shower struck across the world; the sky had grown black in a moment, the geese on the common huddled drearily together, the ducks waddled disconsolate beside the pond, the chickens in the yard stood under shelter, and the little newborn lambs ran to their mothers for comfort in the meadow.

Through the sheet of wet a thick, squat figure pounded along the shining road towards the farm. Bess could see it from the parlour window where she was dusting the china. It was Jim Preston, and her heart sank a little and she wished the rain would not patter so against the window; she noticed weather now-a-days as she never used to do.

He undid the latch of the gate and came up the garden path.

Bess drew back behind the window-curtain; somehow she hoped he would not see her, she hoped she might not have to see him. She had seen him several times since that day of her father’s brutal bidding, but she had never been frightened of him, for he got so little—so very little—“forrarder,” but to-day a sudden instinct bade her beware. It was a working day and she had not expected him.

He knocked, but she did not move.

“Bess,” called her mother from the kitchen, “open the door, I can’t go just now.”

Still she did not answer.

The woman pushed open the door of communication.

“Don’t stand gapin’ there, child,” whispered she. “Didn’t you ’ear a knock? Why, Lor’, it’s Mr. Preston,” she added, peeping through the muslin and seeing the broad back on the threshold. “It’s a good job you’ve got a clean frock on. Look sharp, I ain’t fit to be seen. I must go up-stairs and change.”

And she went into the kitchen again and closed the door softly.

There was no help for it; Bess opened the front door.

Preston turned round, he looked a bit shame-faced; he had on his best, but it was wet and he looked his worst; he put down his umbrella and stood there fumbling with it.

“Won’t you step in?” she said at last.

He crossed the threshold, and then she saw that he had a letter in his hand. Something in the look of it made her heart beat. She pushed open the door of the sitting-room and went in before him.