Chapter III

Butter? rolls o’t!
Cream? why, bowls o’t!

WILLIAM BARNES.

Come, come away,
Or let me go;
Must I here stay?
* * *
Troth, lady, no!

HERRICK.

ISAAC was somewhat disappointed at his nephew’s lack of enthusiasm over a project which had at first seemed to take his fancy so much. Talk as he might about Richard’s future, and his own desire that he should pass the remainder of his days on the Down Farm, he could extract nothing from the young man but vague expressions of gratitude, and a doubtful promise to think the matter over.

‘I’m goin’ up yonder to Fiander’s,’ remarked Isaac, after breakfast; ‘there’s a little matter there as I must see to. Ye mid as well step up along wi’ me, Richard.’

‘I was thinking of taking a stroll round this place,’ rejoined Richard.

‘Why, what’s all your hurry? Ye may as well wait till I am ready to go wi’ ye. I’ll not be above two or three minutes at Littlecomb, and then we mid walk round together. Besides, ye’ll be wantin’ to pay your respects to Mrs. Fiander, won’t ye, arter drivin’ her from Dorchester yesterday—and her that’s goin’ to be your aunt?’

‘To be sure: I must keep on good terms with my aunt, must n’t I? Else perhaps she won’t make me welcome when I come to see you.’

‘No fear o’ that—she’ll make ’ee welcome enough. She al’ays behaved uncommon civil and respectful to I in ’Lias’s time. Ah, sure, that she did.’

‘Perhaps she won’t be pleased at my calling so early?’

‘Early! Dear heart alive! You don’t know that woman, Richard. She’s astir soon arter four in the morning, and she has her maids afoot afore that. Aye, and the men knows if they comes late they’ll get fined. Ah, she be a wonderful manager.’

‘Then, what in the name of wonder,’ said Richard to himself, as he followed the portly white figure across the yard and over the downs—‘what in the name of wonder can she want with you?’

Despite Farmer Sharpe’s protest most people would have considered the hour at which they betook themselves to call at Littlecomb Farm a sufficiently early one. The dew lay thick and sparkling upon the short herbage of the downs, and the air was still sharp and keen. A lark was circling over their heads, its jubilant notes piercing Richard’s heart with an odd sense of pain. What was this heaviness which had come upon him, and which even the brisk walk through the exhilarating air, and the delightfully familiar scents, and sounds, and sights could not drive away?

Now they had entered Rosalie’s demesne. These wide fields were hers; yonder were her cattle grazing by the river; and here, peeping through the trees and compassed about by a goodly array of stacks, was her house with its bodyguard of farm-buildings.

Richard, who had not spoken much throughout the walk, became altogether silent as he crossed the well-kept yard, and even lagged behind when his uncle approached the open milkhouse door. Through this open door the sound of female voices could be heard, raised, one in voluble excuse, another, whose tone Richard recognised with a little shiver of inexplicable anguish, in vituperation. But Isaac Sharpe boldly advanced into the building, and beckoned to him to follow.

‘Why, what’s the matter here?’ he inquired good-humouredly. ‘Fine mornin’, Mrs. F. I’ve brought my nevvy to see ye.’

‘He’ll find us rather in a mess, I’m afraid,’ returned Rosalie’s clear voice, still with a distinct note of sharpness in it; ‘but I am very glad he has come; I want to thank him for his kindness to me yesterday.’

Peering over his uncle Richard descried the mistress of the establishment stooping over the large cheese-vat already alluded to, one white arm, bare almost to the shoulder, vigorously kneading and stirring a huge mass of curds. Her buff print dress appeared to imprison the sunshine, and attitude and movement alike showed off her supple figure to the very best advantage.

Most lovers, thought the young man, would have been unable to resist the temptation of putting an arm about that inviting waist for the morning greeting—the arm of the future husband had surely a right to be there. But Isaac Sharpe stood bluff and square in the doorway, his hands in his pockets, his hat on his head.

‘You’ll excuse my shaking hands,’ said Rosalie, looking up with eyes in which the angry light still lingered, and a puckered brow. ‘Everything is upset, and I can’t leave the curds for a minute. Indeed, as it is I fancy the whole of this batch will be good for nothing.’

A hitherto imperceptible dimple peeped out near her lips when she spoke—such red ripe lips! Such a bewitching dimple! Isaac, however, merely thrust his hands a little deeper into his pockets, and again inquired with increased concern:

‘Why, what’s wrong?’

‘This morning I happened to be late,’ said Rosalie, uplifting her voice, evidently for the benefit of the culprit, Jane, who had suddenly melted into tears; a fact which was betrayed by her heaving shoulders as she stood with her back to the visitors.

‘I happened to be a little late,’ repeated Rosalie severely, ‘so I desired one of the maids’—here Jane sniffed deprecatingly—‘to start work without me. And when I came down, what do you think? I actually found the careless girl pouring the rennet in out of the bottle.’

‘Tch, tch, tch!’ commented the farmer, clicking his tongue commiseratingly.

‘There were n’t but a few spoonfuls left,’ explained Jane, almost inarticulately.

‘How could you possibly tell how many were left?’ retorted her mistress, with increased acerbity. ‘You know how particular I always am to measure it out drop for drop almost—a spoonful too much may make all the difference—particularly at this time of year. I call it downright wicked of you to run the risk of spoiling the whole vat-ful! There are a hundred and fifty gallons of milk in this vat—it should make nearly a hundredweight of cheese. And just because you are so idle and careless it may all go to waste!’

Jane turned her pretty tear-bedabbled face over her shoulder, and inconsequently and incoherently protested that she always did her best; then, with a gasp and a moan, she darted past the group in the doorway and ran round the house.

Richard looked after her with a disgusted air, and then his glance reverted to Mrs. Fiander, whose beautiful round arm was still embedded in curds, and whose face, a little paler than its wont, continued to be full of ire. What could this trifling mistake matter after all to such a rich woman, a woman who would soon be richer still? Besides being cold-blooded and self-interested, she was evidently miserly; she was, moreover, distinctly bad-tempered. His imagination, already warped by the revulsion of feeling consequent on his uncle’s disclosures, was ready to take alarm at every trivial detail. Rosalie’s pallor, and the slightly drawn look on her face—both due in reality to a sleepless night, resulting from an unaccountable perturbation of mind—were immediately attributed to an acute and unreasonable disappointment over an insignificant money loss. The eyes which had gazed on Rosalie so ardently yesterday were now busily tracing lines of fancied meanness in her face; those frowning brows surely revealed the shrew, the compressed lips spoke of parsimony. When that lovely colour faded, and those clear-cut features had become coarsened by age and self-imposed toil, what would remain? None of that beauty of soul which he had thought to find there.

‘Well, well,’ remarked Isaac placidly, ‘these accidents will happen, but I would n’t advise ’ee to be cast down by ’em. These here curds d’ seem to be a-settin’ all right. I know how ’t is wi’ young folks. A body has to stand over them all the time. Why, when we be a-shearin’ I d’ scarce dare go in for a bit o dinner for fear o’ findin’ them poor ewes snipped to pieces when I come back.’

Rosalie jerked the mass of curds up with additional impetuosity, but made no reply.

‘My nevvy,’ pursued Isaac, ‘thought he’d like to drop in an’ pay his respects to ’ee, my dear, an’ inquire how you was a-feelin’ arter the accident yesterday.’

Here he nudged Richard as a tacit reproach for his muteness.

‘I hope,’ said the young man formally, ‘that you are none the worse for the shock, Mrs. Fiander?’

The blue eyes shot up an inquiring glance, and the industrious arm paused for a moment. What was the meaning of this altered tone, and why was the gaze now bent on her fraught with such cold disapproval? They had parted like old friends, and she had looked forward more than she knew to their next meeting.

‘Thank you,’ she returned, in a tone almost as frigid as Richard’s own; ‘my nerves are not easily upset.’

She believed the statement to be true; yet the equilibrium of her system was at that moment, if she had but realised it, very seriously disturbed.

‘Have ’ee sent for Nigger, Mrs. F.?’ inquired Isaac.

‘I sent James Bundy to look after him. He may not be fit to move for a day or two.’

‘Ah, he were a good beast,’ remarked the farmer; ‘’t is a pity ye did let ’en slip. ’T was wi’ drivin’ fast down-hill, my nevvy here d’ tell me, an’ that’s what he’ve never been used to. Ye should have druv ’en more carefully, my dear.’

Rosalie thought of the cause of her unusual haste on the previous day; it was her anxiety to escape from the too evident admiration of the grey eyes which were now bent on her with so different an expression. The memory confused her; the contrast stung her; she answered sharply, and with assumed indifference:

‘One cannot crawl down every slope to suit the convenience of a worn-out animal!’

‘He bain’t worn-out, though,’ returned her future husband, who invariably took things literally. ‘Nay, I should say he’d last a good few years yet, though he be past ’ard work. ’Lias al’ays used ’en gentle; ’t is wonderful how far that’ll go both with man an’ beast. “Fair an’ soft do go far in a day,” the sayin’ goes. Fair an’ soft—ah, ’t is trew, ’t is trew!’

Rosalie bent her head over the vat in silence, her face averted, so that her visitors could see only the outline of her cheek, the exquisite curves of ear and neck.

‘Fair and soft,’ muttered Richard to himself. ‘Fair and soft enough to look at, but her heart is as the nether millstone!’

His uncle gazed reproachfully at him; he was proud of his travelled and book-learned nephew, and had eagerly looked forward to the impression he was sure to produce on ‘Mrs. F.,’ who had also been highly educated, and was considered an authority on matters appertaining to culture—and he was not showing off at all! He was standing there, mum-chance, as stupid as any other body might be. He gave him another admonitory nudge and remarked:

‘Richard, that’s my nevvy, did quite take me by surprise last night. I was n’t expectin’ to see ’en at all. To tell the trewth I had no kind o’ notion o’ where he mid be. He had n’t wrote—How long were it since you’ve a-wrote me last, Richard?’ inquired Isaac, driving home the query with his elbow, and again frowning and winking.

‘I don’t know,’ answered his nephew, in muffled tones. ‘A long time, I’m afraid; but, you see, you never wrote to me,’ he added with a laugh.

‘That be different, my boy,’ returned the farmer seriously. ‘There was reasons why I did n’t write, Richard. I never was a writin’ man. Lard, no,’—and here he relaxed, and uttered a jolly laugh,—‘’t is as much as I can do to put my name to a receipt, an’ then Bithey d’ do it for I, and I do jist stick my mark under it. Nay, Richard, I never was one for writing much—nay, I was n’t.’

He continued to roll his shoulders and to chuckle ‘nay’ meditatively at intervals, but his eyes were meanwhile fixed appealingly upon the face of Richard, who remained obstinately dumb.

Presently their hostess came to his assistance.

‘I suppose, now that you are here, you’ll remain some time, Mr. Marshall?’ she asked, without looking round; her voice in consequence sounding nearly as muffled as the young man’s own as she bent over her cauldron.

‘That depends, Mrs. Fiander. Of course I want to see as much as I can of my uncle, but I’m restless by nature, and—and I never stay very long in one place.’

‘There now,’ cried Isaac, in loud remonstrance. ‘What, ye be at it again, be ye? Did n’t we arguefy enough about it last night? I’ll not take No, an’ so I tell ’ee! Ye’ve a-comed home, and now ye may bide at home. Lard, I did n’t think ye could be sich a voolish chap. What need have ye to go travellin’ the world when ye have a good berth offered ye, an’ them that’s al’ays been your friends ready an’ anxious to keep ye? Here’s Mrs. F. will tell ’ee the same as I do, won’t ’ee, my dear?’

‘I don’t quite understand what it is all about,’ said Rosalie, pausing in her labours, however, and straightening herself.

Why, ’t is this way,’ explained the farmer. ‘When Richard come last night he says to me, says he, “I’ve been a-longing for years an’ years to get back to the wold place. An’ now,” says he, “I d’ feel as if I could n’t settle to naught but the old work. Farm-work,” he says. “Well then, this here house ’ull be empty afore very long; an’, moreover,” says I, “I shall need to have somebody responsible to look after this place,” for it stands to reason, Mrs. F., as I can’t be in two places at one time.’

Rosalie endorsed this statement with an inarticulate murmur, and he continued:

‘“Well, then,” says I, “since you want to come back to the wold place an’ take up the farm-work, why not live here and work for I?”’

‘Why not, indeed?’ said Rosalie.

‘Jist what I d’ say,’ said the farmer indignantly; ‘why not? First he were quite took wi’ the notion, but arter a bit he did n’t seem to relish it. Now I want to know,’ pursued Isaac, extending an aggrieved forefinger, ‘why don’t ’ee relish it, Richard?’

‘Suppose you should be disappointed in me—suppose I should n’t give you satisfaction?’ said Richard hesitatingly.

‘Pooh! nonsense! I’ll let ’ee know fast enough if ye don’t give satisfaction. Have n’t I brought ’ee up? Bain’t he much same as a son to I?’

‘But if—if I should find I could n’t settle, then you’d be more vexed than if I had n’t given in to the plan.’

‘But why should n’t ’ee settle, that’s what I want to know? Ax ’en that, Mrs. F., ax ’en why he should n’t settle? Ha’n’t ’ee travelled enough?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Rosalie, ‘I should think you ought to be glad of a little quiet, Mr. Marshall.’

‘Well said!’ cried Isaac. ‘Tell ’en he’ll be a fool if he lets my offer slip.’

‘Indeed,’ repeated Rosalie, gazing in surprise from the heated and excited countenance of the elder man to the inscrutable one of his nephew—‘indeed I think Mr. Marshall would be very unwise if he did not accept it. It seems to me entirely to his advantage.’

‘And of course,’ said Richard, with a momentary gleam in his steel-grey eyes, ‘of course my personal advantage should outweigh every other consideration! It is obvious. Nothing like a woman’s clear head for solving a difficulty. I will take your advice.’

Rosalie’s pretty face wore a look of such absolute bewilderment, and she was evidently so much at a loss to account for his sarcastic tone, that Richard suddenly burst out laughing; the cloud lifted from his brow, giving place to an expression of frank good-humour. ‘Uncle Isaac,’ he cried, clapping him heartily on the shoulder, ‘forgive my chopping and changing so often; this time my mind is made up. I accept your offer. Shake hands on it!’