Chapter IV

The blackthorn-flower hath fallen away—
The blackthorn-flower that wise men say
Keeps wild and variable skies
As long as it may stay;
But here’s the gorse, and here’s the whin,
And here the pearlèd may appears,
And poison-weeds of satin skin
Through every bank prick long green ears
To hear the cuckoo-cries.

ELINOR SWEETMAN.

To gather flowers Sappho went,
And homeward she did bring,
Within her lawny continent,
The treasure of the spring.

HERRICK.

RICHARD MARSHALL drove the plough slowly up the brown slope, half turned at the summit, halted, and, having established his horses at a comfortable angle, sat down, with his back against a tall mossy bank sheltered by a little copse, to eat his breakfast.

He had already partaken of a ‘dew bit’ shortly after dawn; but two or three hours’ exercise in the brisk morning air had whetted his appetite afresh, and he now fell to work on his bread and bacon with the utmost zest and relish.

The great field, all glittering green save for the brown strip which testified to recent labours, stretched away for many goodly acres. On a lesser slope beneath he could see the roofs of Littlecomb Farm and its appurtenances, but the sight of the amber and ruddy outlines awakened in him now no feeling of repulsion. During the past weeks he had laughed himself out of his whilom fancy for the fascinating and disappointing widow; he had even taken himself to task somewhat severely for his strictures on that unconscious young woman. Was it her fault, after all, that her outer parts belied her real self? Why had he been so unreasonably angry because she had failed to correspond to the high estimate which he had formed on slight and inadequate premises? She was a very beautiful creature, and, no doubt, good enough in her way; if she was common-place, and had a sharp eye for the main chance, she would make the better wife to a practical farmer. He would in all probability get on well enough with her when she became his aunt, but meanwhile life was too full of congenial work and ever-growing interest to admit of his wasting time in improving his acquaintance with the future Mrs. Sharpe.

He had thrown himself into his new pursuits with characteristic energy, and found them daily more and more engrossing. He possessed a gift not often to be met with in the cultivator of the soil—a love of Nature for her own sake—a sympathy with her moods, not from the practical, but from the poetical standpoint. Clouds and sunlight, frosts and dew, meant more to him than to his brother-toiler; the very odour of the damp earth, the fragrance of the bursting buds in copse and hedgerow, of the crushed herbage beneath his feet, intoxicated him. The homely thud of the horses’ hoofs as they trod the furrow, the ripping up of the green sod as he drove the plough through it, the mere consciousness of his own vigour and life and manhood dominating this solitude, filled him with a kind of ecstasy. ‘This is what I want,’ he had said to himself over and over again that morning; ‘this is what I have always wanted!’

He had finished his breakfast now, but he permitted himself the luxury of repose for a few moments longer. He threw himself back on the bank, his head resting on his clasped hands, and his eyes gazing up, up, through the interlacing boughs of the trees, outlined now with shifting silver in the morning light, through the ethereal leafage, still half unfolded, up to the heights of delicate blue beyond. He had fancied that there was not much breeze this morning; yet, as he lay thus quiet he could hear a faint rustling in the undergrowth, and the occasional crackling of twigs—a squirrel perhaps; but when was a wood known to be absolutely still? Besides the incidental noises attending the passage of living things—flying, running, creeping—the creaking and swaying of boughs, the fluttering of leaves, had not such places a mysterious movement and vitality of their own? Was there not always a stir, a whisper, in their midst produced by no ostensible cause?

Smiling upwards, his head still pillowed on his hands, Richard was meditating on some half-forgotten page of Thoreau which seemed to bear upon this fancy of his, when suddenly a woman’s figure appeared on the crest of the bank close to him, and without warning sprang down beside him. Rosalie Fiander, with the skirt of her print gown gathered up so as to form a receptacle for the mass of primroses which she had been gathering, and the fragrance of which was now wafted to Richard’s nostrils—Rosalie Fiander, with minute dewdrops clinging to her dark hair, with morning roses on her cheeks, and the morning light shining in her eyes—a vision of grace and beauty, more captivating even than the glowing pictured Rosalie of the cornfield or the stately heroine of Yellowham Woods.

Richard sat up, the colour rushing over his sunburnt face; he had divested himself of hat and coat, his waistcoat hung loosely open, and his shirt was unfastened at the throat. For a moment Rosalie did not identify him; then, as he slowly rose to his feet, she too blushed.

‘I beg your pardon; I did not know anyone was here. I had a half-hour to spare before breakfast and ran out to pick some primroses. This is my wood, you know,’ she added hastily; ‘I am not trespassing unless when I take a short cut home across your uncle’s field.’

Ploughman Richard, with his bare brown arms and ruffled head, was not at all alarming. She scarcely recognised in him the trim, severe young man who had called on her ceremoniously a few weeks before, still less the mysterious personage who had driven her home from Dorchester, who had said such strange things, and looked at her so oddly—Isaac Sharpe’s nephew was just like anybody else after all. Being blithe of heart this bright spring morning, she smiled on him pleasantly, and, lowering the folds of her gown, displayed the primroses.

‘Are they not lovely? I like them better than any other flower—in fact, I love them. Almost the first thing that I can remember is holding on to my mother’s finger while she took me up to a bank of primroses; afterwards, when I grew old enough to pick them for myself, oh, the delight, each spring, of finding the first primrose!’

Now, curiously enough, the gay tone and easy manner had the effect of filling Richard with wrath; the very grace of her attitude, the child-like candour of her eyes were to him obnoxious, the more so because he could not repress a momentary thrill of admiration. He knew how much they were worth; he knew the sordid nature beneath this attractive disguise.

‘Primroses are fine things,’ he said, with assumed carelessness. ‘You should have picked some before the nineteenth; then you would have had a good sale for them.’

‘But I don’t want to sell them,’ cried she, her white teeth flashing out as she laughed, and the dimples coming and going. ‘I picked them for myself—I shall fill every vase in the house. Primroses should never be sold; those you see in the streets look so miserable, all huddled together with their dear little faces crushed and faded, and even their scent gone! It seems a sin to sell primroses.’

‘Yes, particularly as I don’t suppose they fetch a big price in the market.’

She had gathered up a bunch in one hand, and now raised it to her soft cheek.

‘They are like satin,’ she said.

Somehow the gesture and the smile which accompanied it provoked Richard beyond endurance.

‘They are pretty little yellow things,’ he said, ‘but not worth the attention of practical people. There are other yellow things more deserving of admiration—rolls of beautiful fresh butter, for instance; fine round cheeses!—The beauty of these is that they can be exchanged for still finer yellow things—golden coin, Mrs. Fiander, that is the only yellow thing really worth thinking about.’

‘Are you so fond of money?’ she asked innocently; and once more she laid the dew-drenched flowers caressingly against her cheek. How could she look so guileless; how had she the face to turn the tables on him thus; above all, how dared she be so beautiful! He had almost succeeded in forgetting his transitory hallucination; he wanted to ignore her charm—and here she was tantalising him afresh.

‘Are we not all fond of money?’ he said, with a forced laugh. ‘Are not you fond of money?’

‘Am I?’ queried she; and the blue eyes glanced up with genuine astonishment.

‘Why, of course you are! We’re all fond of it, I say. We men toil for it: we sell our brains for it—we sell our strength and power, and the best years of our lives for it. And you women—’

He paused. Rosalie, surprised at his vehemence, but still half amused, inquired lightly:

‘Well, what do we do? Take care of it when we’ve got it, and do without it when we have n’t?’

‘Not always,’ he added; and this time there was no mistaking the deliberate insolence of his tone. ‘Sometimes a woman sells herself when she has n’t got it, and sometimes, mistrusting her own powers of management, she invites other people to take care of it for her.’

There was a dead silence for a moment. Richard, fixing his merciless gaze upon her face, saw the colour ebb from it, leaving the very lips white. His shot had struck home—he was glad of it.

‘What do you mean?’ said Rosalie at last, lifting her eyes, which she had involuntarily lowered, and looking at him steadily.

‘I think you must know what I mean,’ he returned, with a smile almost insulting in its contemptuousness.

‘Why should you attack me?’ she inquired, without flinching, though her large eyes looked pathetic in their surprise and pain.

‘Am I attacking you? I am merely stating facts. When a penniless young girl marries a prosperous old man one is bound to conclude that his money is the chief attraction, and when that same girl, finding herself a few years later rich and free, offers herself for the second time to a man forty years older than herself—’

‘Offers herself?’ cried Rosalie, turning upon him fiercely while the blood returned impetuously to her face; ‘how dare you say such an insulting thing to me?’

‘Is it not true?’ he inquired. ‘I have the statement on most excellent authority.’

Rosalie dropped her flower-laden skirt, a yellow shower falling at her feet, and buried her face in her hands.

‘Oh,’ she groaned, ‘Isaac told you that! He—he said—oh, how could he!’

The beautiful shoulders heaved, tears trickled through her fingers, but Richard steeled his heart against her. Let her suffer—let her cry! These selfish tears could not expiate the things that she had done. Tears and subterfuges were woman’s natural weapons, but they should not avail her. She should be made to realise her own vileness.

‘Do you deny it?’ he said sternly.

Rosalie dropped her hands, and raised her head: her lip was still quivering, but her eyes shone through the tears.

‘I deny nothing,’ she said; and without another word walked away from him, down the slope, and across the field, passing through a gate at the further end.

Richard stood looking after her until she was out of sight; then his eyes reverted to the heap of primroses lying at his feet—a tumbled heap, sweet, and dewy, and fresh—just as they had fallen from her gown.

Mechanically he stooped and began to gather them together, but presently he threw back again the flowers he had picked up.

‘What should I do with them?’ he murmured, half aloud. Straightening himself he passed his hand across his brow, and looked round him with a blank stare. ‘What have I done?’ he said.