Princess Puck

“It is my belief,” said Miss Minchin to Miss Gruet, when the sultry days of August had reduced the two ladies to visiting one another in the cool of the evening only, “it’s my belief that Mr. Harborough is courting Mrs. Morton’s cousin; he goes to Haylands so very regularly now.”

“Very likely,” Miss Gruet made answer, “although I should hardly have thought so poorly of him.”

“So poorly?” Miss Minchin repeated.

“Yes, so poorly, for she is little more than a child.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Miss Minchin bridled at some recollection. “I had an offer before I was her age.”

That was true, although, since the suitor was still younger it could hardly be regarded as eligible. Miss Gruet, having no such testimony to bring forward, contented herself with saying, “Girls don’t marry so young nowadays.”

“No,” Miss Minchin was forced to admit, “no, perhaps you are right. But what takes Mr. Harborough so often to Haylands? He must go to see someone; who is it?”

Now, oddly enough, that was exactly the question Polly was propounding to herself, and seeing how entirely she considered the engagement (except for the secrecy) her own arrangement, it was strange. Fortunately about this time she had ample opportunities for studying the question, for she and Bella came to Ashelton as often as they could during the summer months. They usually walked from Wrugglesby, nearly a six miles’ tramp along dusty country roads; but as compensation they always drove home with a certain quantity of spoil stowed under the seat. Sometimes it was butter they brought back packed in a damp cloth, or eggs carefully held in Bella’s lap, or chickens showing under the back seat; sometimes it was only vegetables, or a basket of fruit, or a pigeon pie, or a basin of dripping, or some equally humble subscription to the larder. Polly despised nothing and refused nothing. When Theresa hardly liked to offer such trifles to the elder housekeeper, Bill relieved her of any difficulties by putting various small articles in the old safe which stood in the corner of the wash-house, and which came in the course of time to be kept for Polly’s sole use. “That’ll do for Polly,” she would say when Theresa debated how to use this or that; and if Theresa demurred saying, “I can’t offer her such things,” Bill assured her: “You can offer her anything you don’t mind her having; the only thing you can’t offer her is anything you don’t want her to have and only offer out of politeness. Put it in her cupboard; she’ll take it.”

And take it she always did. So, partly because this collecting of odds and ends suited her near, but effective, style of housekeeping, and partly from a sense of responsibility which prompted her to see how things went on at Haylands, Polly came often to Ashelton that summer. And what she saw there led her to ask herself the question which Miss Minchin asked: “Whom did Gilchrist Harborough come to see?” And the answer she gave herself was the one which with great truthfulness she gave in different words to Miss Minchin, “I don’t know.”

Miss Minchin asked the question, or rather, by less bald methods sought the answer, when Polly came to stay at Haylands in August. It was the middle of the month when she and Bella came; they had had to continue school during the earlier part of the month to compensate the pupils for the time lost at Miss Brownlow’s death, but by the middle they came to Ashelton to stay for a fortnight. For the first week Theresa would be there; for the second the three cousins would be left in charge as she and Robert were going away. It was a busy time for a farmer to leave, but Robert did not seem to mind; as he said that he would much rather leave now than in September, partridge-shooting possibly had more to do with his decision than farming. However that might be, he decided to go, and Polly and Bella came to Haylands with the understanding that they would look after Bill and the house during Theresa’s absence. It was a few days after their arrival that Polly met Miss Minchin in the lane. As they were going the same way they walked on together, Miss Minchin making many enquiries as to the health and general welfare of the cousins. Polly gave all suitable answers, and talked in her best style, with perhaps more regard for effect than accuracy. What she said in reference to Harborough, however, was mainly true, more true than she herself liked under the circumstances.

Of course, so she told herself, Harborough came to see Bill, and since, being a busy man with no spare time, his visits were paid at fixed hours, he usually did see Bill. It sometimes happened, though not often, that the time of his coming varied a little, and also it sometimes happened, even when he was regular, that Bill was busy or not to be found for a few minutes. On these occasions Theresa entertained him until Bill appeared, when she would have been quite willing to leave them to enjoy each other’s society undisturbed. But they did not show the least wish for such a thing. “We haven’t got anything private to say,” Bill told her once when Theresa remonstrated with her. So by degrees it came about that if the cousins were indoors Harborough joined them, and if they were out of doors he sat under the elm-tree with them, helping Bill to shell peas or string currants, or whatever peaceful occupation she might be engaged upon that evening. Theresa would willingly have taken such work from her on the evenings when Harborough came, but if she did Bill only got something else to do, and that possibly of a less suitable nature. Theresa could not understand the girl at all; she never seemed shy or eager to see her lover; she was never anxious to put on her best frock for his coming; and yet she appeared happy in the engagement. Of course Harborough himself was not demonstrative; he was always grave and serious when Theresa saw him, but no doubt, so she thought, he was different in her absence, thinking which she went away. Whereupon, the currants being done, the pair took to watering the garden with a silent industry and a strict attention to business.

Polly saw all this and more still with her shrewd little eyes, and before Theresa went away she spoke to her on the subject.

“You have noticed it too?” Theresa said, as if relieved to find it not all her own fancy. “Do you think Bill is really fond of him?”

“Yes, I do, and I think it is very hard on her that you should take so much of his attention.”

“I!” exclaimed Theresa flushing. “I! How can you say such a thing, Polly?”

Polly both could and did say such a thing, and she said it with the repetitions and variations she so well knew how to use, until Theresa, hurt and angry and mortified by turns, first denied the charge and then defended the action.

“Somebody must be civil to him,” she said at last. “Bill never wants to see him alone; she makes him work in the garden if I leave them; she won’t be nice to him or put her best dress on, or anything.”

“Bill is a little goose, and the chances are she does all that out of pride and contradiction because she is jealous of you.”

“She can’t be jealous of me, it is impossible,” Theresa said, and the next moment added, “and if she is, why does she not try to please him? When he wants her to talk seriously she won’t; she says the most ridiculous things in the gravest manner, and the gravest in the most ridiculous, till he never knows how to take her, and that’s annoying to a man, you know. And then she will persist in calling him Theo. For a long time she did not call him anything, at least not when I was there, always beginning, ‘I say,’ just as if that was his name; it was so rude, I told her about it. She said she did not like Gilchrist, there had been too many of them. I told her to settle that with him, but I’m sure I don’t know what she said, for now she calls him Theo which she says is short for theory, and I know he can’t bear it.”

To this recital of Bill’s misdeeds Polly only said: “I must have a good talk with Bill, I think she minds me more than you; only, you know, my dear Theresa, your being nice to Gilchrist will hardly compensate for Bill being nasty. I am sure you don’t mean anything but the very best, still, quite unintentionally of course, you sometimes make it a little hard for her.”

Theresa was truly grieved as Polly meant her to be, and determined to be very careful of her conversation with Harborough in the future. It must be admitted that she could not disguise from herself the fact that she really did enjoy talking to him, and he could not disguise from her woman’s wit the respectful and quite impersonal admiration he had for her.

Theresa was easy enough to deal with; Bill was the real difficulty, as Polly knew, a difficulty she did not feel at all sure of being able to tackle successfully. She thought over the subject for some time, and finally decided to leave it for the present. Theresa was going away in a day or two, and when she returned Bill herself was to leave with Polly and Bella. In these circumstances it hardly seemed necessary to open the question now, and Polly determined to study the matter for the present and speak of it while they were away together.

Theresa was only away for a week, but the three cousins left behind contrived to get a certain amount of excitement into the week. It was really Bill’s fault, Polly said, Bill and her plums. Plums were very scarce that year, not only in Ashelton but in all that part of the country. There had been every promise of a good yield in the spring, but a few late frosts had terribly damaged the crop; many trees were quite bare and many others had but little fruit; those in the Haylands orchard had escaped. The plums were decidedly the best of the trees in the orchard; they were younger and in better condition than the apples or pears, and they were, moreover, very good kinds. In the spring they had shown every promise of abundance of fruit, and when the late frosts came, damaging the neighbouring trees, they did not suffer much owing to good luck and a sheltered position. Bill was delighted by their escape, and during the summer took great interest in the health of the trees, propping up the overloaded branches and regretfully thinning the too abundant crop. By the end of August the fruit was ripe and a source of great satisfaction to her.

“I don’t see what you are going to do with them,” Polly said one morning as she looked at the trees from which Bill was filling Bella’s pudding-basin.

“We can’t eat them all,” Bella said, biting one as she spoke, “nor make jam, nor pies, nor give them away; there are far too many; they have all got ripe together. What a pity Theresa is not here; I wonder what she does with the fruit.”

“Sells it,” said Bill as she went on to look at the next tree.

“To whom?”

“I don’t know. The apples used to go away last year; I have seen some of the baskets about. These plums ought to be picked; they are quite ripe and the wasps are getting at them.”

“Yes,” Polly said judicially, “they ought to be picked to-day. I think, Bill, you had better get what we want for jam and perhaps you might get a basketful for Mrs. Dawson. Mr. Dawson was saying the other day that they had none at all. You had better gather all we can use this morning.”

“I mean to,” Bill replied, “but you have got to help. Oh, yes you have; they must be all, or at least the greater part picked to-day; you will have to help.”

“Bill,” Polly began with dignity, but Bella, disturbed about her sister’s property, interposed. “It does seem a pity not to sell them: I do think it is silly of Theresa not to have left any orders about them; can’t we write to her?”

“Not in time,” Bill answered. “I expect she left no orders because she did not think; she and Robert always call these my trees, because I take such an interest in them. Robert said I should keep anything I could make out of them; I don’t want to do that, but I mean to make something.”

“I don’t see how you are going to sell them,” Polly called from the gate as she was leaving the orchard.

“Don’t you? I have seen for several days. Don’t go, Polly, you must help to pick; it is going to be a busy day and you will have to help; you might begin at once while I find the baskets.”

“I’ll come too as soon as I have taken this to Jessie,” and Bella went away with the basin as she spoke, leaving Bill and Polly in animated conversation. When she came back to begin her share of the plum-picking she found Polly at work; Bill had coerced her into it somehow, and, what was more remarkable still, kept her at it. They all three worked steadily, finding it decidedly more tiring than they had anticipated. Not only did they gather the fruit, but they also packed it in the baskets in which it was to travel. In time the baskets gave out, and Bill proposed to borrow some from Mr. Dane. “I know he has got some,” she said; “I saw them round by his back door the last time I went for books. It won’t take me long to go and borrow them.”

“You can’t,” Polly said; “besides we have done enough; it is nearly four o’clock.”

“We sha’n’t have done enough,” Bill observed, descending her ladder, “until we have done all we can.”

“It would be a great pity to waste any,” Bella added; “there are heaps more just perfect, and this weather they won’t hang.”

“Do you intend to keep on till dark?” Polly demanded. “How absurd! Have you forgotten that Gilchrist Harborough is coming this evening?”

“All the better,—he can help,” was the only answer, and the gate closed after Bill as she went in quest of the rector’s baskets.

“It is perfect nonsense,” Polly said wrathfully; “why couldn’t she have got one of the men about the farm to do this work?”

“They are busy,” Bella answered; “I expect she does not want to take their time, more especially as Robert said she could have the profits.”

“There won’t be any; and if there are I see no reason why I should work for her profit.”

“It is not bad work. I wonder how she found out where to sell them; I expect she made Theo tell her. Do you like him, Polly? I think I do.”

“I don’t like this work,” was Polly’s only answer, “and I am not going to do any more of it at present; I shall lie down for half an hour.”

And away she went, calculating that Bill could not be less than half an hour in borrowing the baskets, and in any case she would hear her return through the open window. Bella, left to herself, went on industriously with her work until the sound of footsteps in the lane arrested her attention. She was standing on a high rung of the ladder, and peering through the plum-branches, she looked to see who might be passing, secure that she herself was unseen. In this belief she was, however, mistaken, for the passer by glancing up at that moment had the vision of a flushed face and a frame of golden hair, the curls all loosened and caught by the tiresome interwoven branches, the whole surrounded by those same branches in a way which he found almost bewildering.

“Good-afternoon, Miss Waring,” he said. “I was just on my way to Haylands about the bees,—is any one at home?”

Polly was at home, but Polly might not like to be disturbed; still of course the bees were a matter of business, so Bella looked out again, or rather, partly looked out, having in the moment’s retirement given some infinitesimal but effective touches to her tie and hair. Jack Dawson found her irresistible, but he had found her that before. Mrs. Dawson could hardly have selected a more momentous time for acquiring a hive of bees than the one she did, for her son Jack discovered that the Mortons’ bees were the best, in fact the only really good bees to be had, and even these he found needed a great deal of investigation before purchase. At least such must have been the case to judge by the number of calls of inquiry he paid and the length of time he spent looking at the hives with Bella. Mrs. Dawson is reported to have said at the end of the month that that hive cost her more than anything she ever bought, but eventually she came to a gentler way of thinking; for after all, though it undoubtedly is a criminal offence for only sons to marry, it is an offence they will commit, and Jack’s partner in guilt, or rather promised partner, won her way into Mrs. Dawson’s heart in time.

But that was all in the future; in the present, Jack, on his mother’s behalf, was industriously following up his quest for bees, and Bella, on her sister’s behalf, was helping him. It is to be presumed that these were their motives, though a casual observer might have thought their interests, though mutual, were more circumscribed on the occasion when they helped each other to gather Bill’s plums. Bella said she could not leave off till Bill came back; it would be so unkind if both she and Polly went away without a word of explanation. Jack agreed, saying that there was no hurry and he could wait any time, and while he waited he helped to make up for Polly’s desertion. Polly, meanwhile, slept peacefully, and Bill went by way of the rector’s back door into the rector’s presence.