Chapter II: Settling Down

WHEN the morning came, Tomina crept to her window and looked out. A most wonderful stretch of country met her view. She gazed at it in delight, and then was surprised at herself for enjoying it so much.

"Perhaps, after all, I may have a country soul. I'm certainly thankful to be away from our ceaseless grind in town: 'The treadmill of dissipation,' I heard a preacher say once—and he hit the right nail on the head."

She dressed herself leisurely, then went downstairs to find a simple breakfast waiting for her.

It was a bright sunny morning; the birds were full of song outside; the air again struck Tomina as being peculiarly sweet and fresh. She opened the window and looked across at the little church.

"I suppose you are all very good here, Susan?"

Susan gave a little smile.

"We are much as most folk are," she said.

"And have you no shops near you—no town? Surely the village girls want to buy little fineries sometimes?"

"We're seven miles from Damerton; they walk in and out. I've done it myself scores of times."

"I suppose a carrier comes along."

"Ah, miss, I only wish it would! When I was a girl, we had one. John Thomas his name was, and he died, and we've never had one since. There seems nobody with a spark of gumption to do it, and the roads are bad, and we're off the high-road, and they say it wouldn't pay one: Why, I remember we used to take our eggs and creams and butter to market, and make quite a lot out of 'em. I'm sure it would pay. It would be a downright blessing to many of us if we had a carrier."

"Well, the question is, how am I to get into Damerton? I want to buy a few cushions and an easy-chair or two. I really cannot live like this. I must have some alleviation from my Spartan rule of life. And books—oh, Susan, I shall want a lot of books to keep me going!"

"Maybe the Rector is going in; he drives himself in to a rare lot o' meetings, and 'tis mostly on a Friday, for that be the market day."

"The first step, then, is to get hold of the Rector."

Tomina demolished her breakfast thoughtfully. By the time it was over, she had changed her mind: her moods were variable. She assured herself that she was too tired to make the effort. Then she sauntered out into the sunshine.

"What a blessing to be a stranger in a strange land! I needn't speak a word to a single soul."

She crossed the road and peeped into the church. The door was open, and she saw that it was a very simple unpretentious little building.

She was not much interested in churches, so she did not pursue her investigation. Then she went on up a little narrow road, and suddenly caught sound of her own name.

Two people were talking the other side of the hedge.

"'Gavin,' did you say, John? I wonder if she is one of the Gavins of Cheshire? I shall call this afternoon. An elderly woman, I suppose? She could not come to a better place for quiet. I wonder if she would like to come to my working party? I must ask her."

Tomina quickened her pace.

"I shan't be in. Now for a horse. Where shall I find one? I won't be drawn into parish working-parties. That must be the Rectoress."

She caught sight of a snug red-gabled house between some budding lilac trees, and concluded it was the Rectory. She walked along an empty road for some distance without meeting a soul, and then she suddenly came upon a green wooden gate leading up to a very pretty old thatched farmhouse.

Leaning over the gate, smoking his pipe, was a stalwart-looking man dressed in rough tweeds and leggings.

"The farmer," Tomina assured herself.

Encountering rather a keen glance from a pair of very blue eyes under some fiercely shaggy eyebrows, Tomina lifted her head and with sweet hauteur spoke—

"Good morning. Can you tell me if I can hire a trap in this neighbourhood?"

The pipe and cap were removed at once.

"Were you wanting to drive yourself?"

"I should prefer to do so."

"Perhaps Crake at the 'Red Bull' would oblige you. It's a little way farther on, half a mile or so, just on the turnpike road."

"Thank you."

Tomina hesitated for a moment, and glanced over the gate.

"What a sweet old house!" she said, and a note of enthusiasm crept into her tone.

The farmer smiled.

"It's my own," he said almost boyishly, "and it's good to hear it admired."

"And you are married, I suppose?"

His face turned scarlet.

"Two months ago, and I'm waiting for the postman. My wife is expecting to hear from her mother."

His voice was that of a gentleman. Tomina began to feel interested.

"Is this your wife coming down the path? Please forgive a stranger's inquisitiveness, but I have come to live in this village, and I am bound to know you sooner or later."

He turned, and seeing the light flash from his eyes Tomina knew the answer to her question and walked on.

"A bride and bridegroom," she murmured to herself. "How I have disliked the species amongst my own kind! But here it seems fitting, and it's spring and the time for youth and love. Now, here is the postman. I hope he has not anything for me."

He had not, but he looked Tomina up and down with a kindly critical eye, and she asked him in that sweet calm tone of hers—

"What do you think of me?"

"You 'em woll sott up," was his brief reply.

Tomina shook her head comically.

"I do hope I shall learn to speak like you soon," she said. "Now, listen to me, postman. Don't you dare to bring me any letters for a week at least. I am supposed to be buried, and a buried person receives no communications from her friends."

"But you be a long way from churchyard," said the postman, with a twinkle in his eye. "We did hear tell you weer in a gallopin' disease of the nerves, akin to consoomption, Mary Anne said. But you look fair well and saucy."

"Thank you. We mustn't stop gossipping, for there's somebody waiting for his letters."

The postman had put down his bag upon the ground, and was now leaning against the hedge lighting up his pipe.

As Tomina pointed to the farm, he hastily shouldered his burden again.

"Eh, day! That be John Merryweather; he be a terrible one for lickin' the toime. But he be high stock: his feyther was Parson Merryweather to Crottesley, an' he be wedded fresh. Makes 'im testy and short in his temper."

He strode away.

Tomina pursued her road, and eventually found the "Red Bull" and hired a rather shabby trap. It was to call for her at two o'clock that afternoon. She returned home very pleased with her morning's work.

Susan shook her head when she noted her white cheeks and her scanty appetite for her midday meal.

"You be going too fast, ma'am. You haven't got over your journey yesterday. You 'ad best go upstairs and have a lie down; 'tis a long drive to Damerton."

Tomina laughed wilfully.

"I have been stagnating all this morning," she said. "My good Susan, you have no idea of my strenuous life in town. We fill every minute of every day. I can't drop into my grave with too big a flop. I shall bury myself gradually."

Susan said no more.

The trap came round. It was indeed a shabby one, and the horse was huge and bony. Tomina was a good whip, and had more than once driven a four-in-hand through Hyde Park: but as she started, and the springless trap bumped and jolted and swung her from side to side and the old horse ambled and cantered in the most unexpected and ungainly fashion, she began to wish she had not been so impatient over her shopping.

It was past six o'clock before she returned. And she staggered up the garden path, to fall into Susan's arms in a dead faint.

The trap was loaded with packages, and a man had been picked up at the "Red Bull" to deposit them inside the house and take the trap back.

Susan was too concerned with Tomina to think of taking in the parcels.

She got her upon the little couch in the sitting-room, and by trying different restoratives brought her round to consciousness again. Then she helped her up the narrow stairs and put her to bed like a baby.

"It's my stupid heart," Tomina explained. "That brute of a horse pulls your arms out, and I did a lot of shopping. I shall be all right to-morrow."

But she was not, and another faint occurred when she tried to dress herself the next morning.

Susan began to get alarmed, for Tomina's face was a grey-blue.

"You must have the doctor, ma'am. We have such a nice one—a real gentleman he is—and he only lives three miles off. I'll send Jack Gigg; he'll pass the house on his way to the farm where he works."

"I don't want doctors," murmured Tomina. "I will go to bed again."

"If only you hadn't tried to do so much! And Mrs. Herbert were round to see you yesterday. She were fair disappointed not to find you in."

Susan was determined to have her way. And before noon, Tomina heard from her bed a horse canter up to her gate, and a very cheery voice say—

"Well, Susan, and who is your patient now? I thought your good lady had left us?"

Tomina did not hear Susan's reply. But in a moment or two, her door opened, and in walked a tall broad-shouldered man with dark eyes that invariably twinkled and a short square-cut brown beard.

"A country bumpkin," was Tomina's first impression. But when he spoke, his soft mellow voice had the ring of a gentleman, and his hands were a true doctor's—slender and strong and delicately made.

Tomina was now sitting up in a pink silk tea-jacket, resting back on her pillows, with a faint flush on her face.

"I did not send for you," she said; "Susan is responsible."

"Well, she has forestalled my visit. Only I did not put two and two together, and had no notion I was coming to see Carisbrooke's patient. He has written to me about you. He and I are both Guy's men, and did our terms together. But he gave me no address, and I did not expect to see you in such simple quarters."

"Dr. Carisbrooke might have given me a fair start. He never told me he had written."

A little wrinkle came between Tomina's eyes, then she laughed.

"You know all my iniquities. I simply overdid it yesterday. This is an experiment, my coming down here. If you knew what my life has been, you would feel sorry for me; for I assure you I have some brain left, and to stagnate like a vegetable will need some determination."

"Oh, we don't stagnate here!" said the doctor, cheerfully, putting his hand out and feeling her pulse. "Life goes on as strongly and fully and unexpectedly with us as with you in town. It is not stagnation to change from one world to another. It's rather interesting. You are the second patient sent down here to rest; you have both been burning the two ends of your candles, and yet you are as far asunder in circumstances as the poles."

"Who is my fellow-sufferer?"

"She is a Miss Merryweather—a very clever and cultured woman, who has treated her body disgracefully and is now paying for it. She has been working in London, and has dipped into countless philanthropic business ventures, has been poor law guardian and a matron of an institution for convalescent gentle-people, and a board school mistress, and heaven knows what else! And then the crash came, and she's at present lodging in a farmhouse. Her brother lives close by, but she's too exhausted to have speech with him. She's doing a rest cure, and like you, she is resenting the fate which has overtaken her."

"Oh, I don't know," said Tomina, perversely. "I think I welcome this as a change. I am a traveller leaving the busy high-road and turning down a green bye-lane. I don't know what is going to turn up, but am ready for anything. Why don't you stagnate down here?"

"Too many human beings," said the doctor looking at her with his twinkling eyes. "I'm very interested in humanity. People are always surprising and edifying me."

"Have I done either?" asked Tomina.

The doctor looked at her in silence. Then he got up and paced the room.

"Oh, you young creatures!" he said. "Why won't you be temperate and moderate in all things? Health is the best gift ever given us, and you murder it and throw it away for mere soap-bubbles."

"Please, go on. You're very like Dr. Carisbrooke. We all have our worlds. Your clever Miss Merryweather has hers, and considers that working the brains that have been given to her comes before everything else. I—well, you consider me a fool, I know. I'll own that I have blown many bubbles and seen them burst and disperse. But I've had a full life, and been much too engrossed and busy to let my health stop me in anything that I wished to do. Now you are a slave to health; you think of it, you work for it, you worship it—it is your profession. Perhaps one day you may find that other treasures outweigh it in the scales."

Tomina was nothing if she was not audacious.

The country doctor only smiled at her.

"You are feeling better," he said. "I'll send you a tonic I should like you to take. Is it any use telling you to take a week's quiet—very quiet—living before you attempt another drive to Damerton?"

"I might try it," said Tomina, very meekly.

She felt snubbed, and was too surprised to resent it.

He stayed a short time longer, then got up to go.

"When you are more sociably inclined," he said, "I should like you to know Miss Merryweather."

"Must I know everybody round?" Tomina protested. "My old doctor has banished me from people."

The doctor gave a little nod.

"There is plenty of time," he remarked, "What you have to do now is to sleep and eat and cultivate a serene disposition."

"I have always been considered most even-tempered," Tomina remarked.

He shook hands with her.

"And when I am out of hearing, you will say, 'What rude bears these country practitioners can be'!"

She gave a little laugh.

When he had gone, she did not know whether she liked him or disliked him.

But she was tired and exhausted, and slipped down amongst her pillows and went fast asleep.

It took Tomina four days to pull up after that drive to Damerton. But when she came downstairs, her usual energy began to assert itself. She made Susan undo the unwieldy packages which were blocking up the narrow hall. Two very comfortable easy-chairs, some soft, rich rugs, half a dozen cushions of different shapes and sizes, a couple of footstools, and over a dozen books, were all distributed and arranged in the sitting-rooms.

Then Tomina went out into the spring garden and brought in great bowls of budding sweet-briar, golden daffodils, and red japonica.

When she rested that afternoon in the most comfortable chair, with two novels by her side, and inhaled the perfume of the sweet-briar and listened to the far-away call of the cuckoo, she owned to herself that life here would be bearable.

When Susan brought her tea, she was in a mood for gossip.

"Susan, who is this gifted Miss Merryweather? Do you know her?"

"Indeed I do, ma'am. The Merryweathers lived in the next parish to this, four mile by the road, and he was the vicar there. There were a long family, but four died young of a dreadful outbreak of diphtheria, and the poor mother wore herself out and was buried with twins within a twelvemonth. I was brought up in their parish, so I knew them all. Mr. George went into the Navy, and Mr. Harry went to India as a judge, I believe. And then there were Miss Alice and Mr. Philip left, and when the vicar died, she went up to London. But Mr. Phil he has always lived here; he just dotes on farming. And before the vicar died, he took the Glebe Farm, and then there was a bit of money, and he bought the Brook Farm just outside the village."

"Oh yes; I know. I thought the name seemed familiar, I saw him the other day. Hasn't he just married?"

Susan nodded a little mysteriously.

"'Twas a trial to Miss Alice. She always came back and forwards to the farm when she got a holiday from her work, and she were powerful fond of her brother. I went up to take their cook's place when she were home one Christmas; and my dear life, she talked as clever as a parson. She were always reading and spouting to Mr. Phil. Her favourite words were:

"'Let us cultivate our intellect, Phil.'

"But he—well, he used to smoke and say nothing. She were learning him all she could to take to her books, and she is a rare scholar. She had a room all got up for herself at the farm, and 'twas nothing but books on every side.

"Well, men are men, ma'am, and Mr. Phil it was his way to live at peace and say nothing. But he rather wearied, I used to think of his sister's clever talk. And then, when she went back to London, he used to ride over Damerton and courted pretty Miss May, a parson's daughter who lived with her widowed mother who taught a small private school. And when Miss Alice come home next, 'twas all fixed up, and the weddin' was talked of. I always said 'twere a heavy blow to her, but she went right away again, and when the weddin' came off two months ago, she were too broken in health to come to it.

"Just six weeks ago, Mr. Phil he went up to London and fetched her back, and said his home were hers, but I haven't heard the full rights of it. I know she and Miss May only had two weeks together, and then Dr. Merton he stepped in, and took her over to the Glebe Farm where Mrs. Tubbs has been nursing her back to health.

"I always do say a bride and bridegroom must be left clear of outsiders for a full year, and 'tis only two months now since they were wed. Miss Alice be a dear by herself, but she and Miss May—I ought to say Mrs. Merryweather—are just the very opposite of dispositions, and with one man atween them—well, there was a bit of friction, and our dear doctor just settled it. We all love Dr. Merton; he puts puzzles together and cures other ills besides that of the body."

"Is he married?"

"He was, ma'am; and the sweetest lady you ever set eyes on to look at, but a nasty stinging tongue and a jealous temper. God forgive me for speaking so, and she in her grave. But she did bring bitterness into his life, only it seemed to make him the sweeter! Then she left him after givin' birth to a boy which died with her. And he have lived on quiet and happy with his housekeeper. Only I've seen him look wistful like at small boys. He be very fond of children."

Susan paused for breath. Tomina gave a little yawn. She was tired of her neighbours histories, and Susan wisely slipped away.