Princess Puck

Bill, of course, knew nothing of what was in the rector’s mind; she only wondered once or twice about the song, and decided to sing it no more in public since the greater number of her acquaintances disapproved of it, and the one whose opinion she most valued did not like it. Harborough liked it or had seemed to like it on the night she sang it at the Dawsons’. But she was not quite sure of him, for she had begun to think there were two separate persons in Gilchrist Harborough,—one a strong, cool, somewhat old young man whose only weakness was theories, and who was the normal and usual person in possession; the other a very different person, who only looked out now and then, by accident as it were. It was to this last that the song appealed, this last who waked once or twice under her influence. She was not sure, but she rather fancied Harborough despised this second self, even denied its existence. That was a pity, in her opinion, for the second self was the thing in him which played, which laughed, and enjoyed life and despised theories. For this reason, and also for pure mischief, Bill tried occasionally to rouse this other self.

She had not many opportunities, for Harborough was very guarded, and by degrees, since she was much absorbed in her work, she forgot all about it, though she saw him often while Theresa was at Wrugglesby. It is true, if he passed when she was working in the garden he did not usually stop to say more than “good-afternoon”; indeed, had she only known it, his demeanour on those occasions suggested “lead us not into temptation” in a manner which was scarcely complimentary. However, as it happened, about this time business brought Harborough to Robert, and Robert brought him to Haylands, where of necessity he saw Bill. Even when he did not come to the house, he met her in the yard or barns or dairy, “looking diligently to the ways of her household.” There could be no doubt as to her capabilities and diligence as a housewife; Harborough never saw her now without being impressed with her ability and, indeed, with her great suitability for the post of mistress of a working-farm.

Events, or rather his opinions, culminated on the afternoon when he invited her to take shelter from the rain in Crows’ Farm. It was very heavy rain and very sudden, and she had on her best hat; in ordinary circumstances she would have declined his hospitality and paddled cheerfully home, but the hat was not ordinary; so she accepted his offer and took shelter under his roof for the hour that the rain lasted. While there she made tea for him without disturbing the method of his arrangements; she washed the cups without splashing his scrubbed table, and she did not, even when asked for her opinion, say that his way of keeping kitchen utensils was wrong. Finally she sat by the smouldering fire with folded hands saying with unmistakable sincerity that his manner of living was one after her own heart.

“You would like it?” he asked.

“Yes, better than anything except gipsying.”

“You would not like that,” he told her smiling. “At least when you came to know what it was really like, you would not.”

“You think not? Perhaps so; I don’t know much about it: have you tried?”

“Rather not,” he said; “I have tried bush-life though.”

“Is that like it?”

“No; not altogether. There are not so many fellow-gipsies in that; also there are not necessarily dirt and dishonesty.”

“But there are sometimes?” Bill asked as if she were anxious there should be.

“Occasionally you run against queer customers, men from the ends of the earth, who had very much better have stayed there, if they could not contrive to drop off altogether.”

“I should think they were worse than fellow-gipsies,” Bill observed.

“That’s a matter of opinion; besides, there is always plenty of room there, and you don’t come across them often. I think the thing which strikes me most of all here is the smallness; it is all so ‘preserved.’”

Bill was interested. “I should like to see the bush,” she said.

“It is not much to see,” he told her, but added, “station-life would suit you; I believe you would like that.”

“Tell me about it.” And he told her what he thought would interest her, she listening with eager face.

And thus they spent the time pleasantly enough until the rain ceased sufficiently for her to go home. He walked to the gate with her, and then went back to his barns and sheds revolving in his mind a theory he had not much considered before,—the theory of natural selection, which he interpreted to mean the wisdom of choosing your wife as you choose your horse, for general suitability to your purpose.

She was young, it was true, and perhaps a little wild, but she could be trained; she would also sober down of herself, and she would probably never develop her latent possibilities for mischief if she married early. She was not what one would describe as tractable, though she was accommodating, far too accommodating not to be more or less submissive to superior experience. And she was all one could desire for practical purposes.

Practical purposes! That was just it; in adopting a practical farmer’s life he found he needed a practical farmer’s wife; there was no room at his hearth for the stately lady whom fancy (not yet dead) had once painted in that position. There was something wrong with the present arrangement; a man either wanted to be something less or else to have something more than modern codes allowed. The patriarch Abraham supplied what must even then have been a long-felt want, in taking, besides the chief and lady wife, a humbler working partner.

Harborough was not a man given to acting hastily, at least the paramount person in his character was not; concerning the other person he did not know much. He thought a long time of Bill and her suitability for his purpose, entirely oblivious for the moment of her curious attractions; but he could come to no conclusion either as to whether he wanted her or whether, if he did, she wanted him. However, he need not have wearied himself with the consideration that night, for, as it chanced, he had almost a month in which to think it over before he saw her again. That very evening she went to Wrugglesby and did not come back to Ashelton for some weeks.

As she crossed the yard on her homeward way, Robert met her, his heavy face wearing a look of real concern.

“Bear up, little girl!” was his greeting, for he saw that his face had already broken the bad news. “Cheer up! It hasn’t come to the worst yet, and we’re not going to be frightened into thinking it’s coming, either;—we’re just going to drive in to Wrugglesby and see.”

“Have they sent for me?” she asked, her face whitening.

“Yes,—you’re not going to cry, are you? It mayn’t be so bad as all that. There’s a brave girl! Run in and get a wrap or something, you’ll be cold before you get there. They’ll have Beauty in the cart in a twinkling, and you shall drive her if you like.”

Bill smiled a little; he was trying to comfort her as well as he could and she was grateful for the intention. She even pretended to be pleased to drive the spirited mare hitherto forbidden to her; it might have hurt him if she had not. It might have hurt him if she had refused the sweets he kept popping in her mouth, and she ate them though each one seemed as if it would choke her.

He talked a little during the first part of the drive and she tried to answer him, but after a while he felt the wisdom of silence, and they both became quiet until just as he handed her out at Langford House he said awkwardly: “You shall never want for anything while I live, I swear you sha’n’t! Theresa and I will always have a home for you,—mind that, little girl.”