Princess Puck

Bill was a privileged intruder at the rectory now, coming and going as she chose, saying and doing what she chose, with no one to hinder her.

At first the old rector had not known whether he hated or loved this grandchild of the dead past, this creature who was Wilhelmina, and Gipsy Alardy, and a score of other things half bitter and half sweet. But after a time he forgot to think of hatred or love; he never thought now of that dead past, for she was not Wilhelmina, nor Gipsy Alardy, nor anything but her untutored, half-developed self. So he buried the past again, and, accepting the present as he found it, turned to the work in hand. In that work he included Bill, and the queerest, pleasantest, most incomprehensible work he found her. So to the rectory she came for all manner of things and to the rector for all manner of information; he seldom refused her, never repulsed her, listened to her plans and fancies, never condemned nor ridiculed, lending a sympathetic ear to all things, even including those which some would have had him condemn. From her heart Bill longed to tell him of her promise to Harborough, feeling it almost a breach of confidence to shut him out of this secret; but when she asked Theresa if she might speak, Theresa said she had better not. She knew Mr. Dane was kind to her young cousin, but she did not understand the odd friendship there was between them, and, as she no doubt wisely said, should Bill tell one person, Harborough could justly claim the right to tell one on his side, and the secret would be a secret no longer; it must either remain among themselves or else be public to all the world. Bill saw no reason why it should be a secret, but as Polly advised her to say just what she thought best to Mr. Dane, she let the matter drop; she did not know Polly’s motives, but she would not in this follow her advice in opposition to Theresa’s. So Mr. Dane knew nothing about the arrangement, knowing only, as all Ashelton knew, that Gilchrist Harborough went to Haylands, but, owing to what he himself knew of Bill, he attached little importance to that.

On the day when Bill came to borrow the baskets the rector was busy, so busy that he was not disturbed by her light footstep nor aware of her presence until she was by his chair making her request.

“Baskets, Princess Puck?” he said; “of course, take what you like.”

And she had gone again before the ink in his pen was dry.

“Away already?” he said, looking up as the handle rattled when she closed the door after her.

“Yes, I’m very busy, and so are you.” She opened the door again an inch or two to say it.

“Ah, I see; you’re always busy.”

“I’m gathering plums. We have all three been doing it most of the day, and we shall keep on till dark; there are heaps to be gathered, the whole lot are ripe together. Would you like some? I’ll send some this evening.”

“Thank you, thank you, you are very kind. I dare say I shall be down your lane this evening, and if I am perhaps I can take them away with me; that will save your time and let me see you busy people at work.”

“You will come?” Bill opened the door wider to put the question joyously. “Monseigneur, you shall have the biggest and best, and as many as you can carry!”

Harborough’s visit had passed entirely out of her mind, and when it came back to her on her way home with the baskets she did not regret the rector’s promise to come. She went to the orchard with a light heart, and an ungainly appearance, having slung the two biggest hampers across her shoulders, to facilitate their transport, while she carried the smaller baskets in her hands. She went by way of the fields, and as Miss Minchin was engaged in chasing the course of the sun with her window-blinds on the other side of the house, she reached the orchard unobserved.

Jack Dawson and Bella were on the same ladder, and in the heart of the same plum-tree. They did not see Bill until she, having unburdened herself and discovered Polly’s absence, announced herself by the question, “Where is Polly?”

A ripe plum fell heavily from the branch above as Bella started at the voice. “I,—she’s gone in,—Mr. Dawson is helping me while she rests.”

“How long has she been resting?”

“Ever since you went away,—but, Bill—”

“Don’t disturb her,” entreated a masculine voice from the branches, and the masculine legs descended the ladder a little way. “I can stay and take her place; she must be awfully tired, you know.”

“She isn’t,” announced the inexorable Bill; “she’s lazy, that’s all. It is very good of you to offer to take her place, but if you really will help, you had much better take Bella’s; she has worked hard, as hard as possible.”

“If Miss Waring will allow me to help her?” Jack suggested persuasively.

“You will, won’t you, Bella?” Bill said; “and I’ll go and fetch Polly.” And she suited the action to the word.

“It is a pity to disturb Miss Hains,” Jack said and Bella agreed with him, sincerely hoping Bill would not succeed in the difficult task of uprooting the reposeful Polly.

However she was disappointed; in a very short time Polly, gracious and serene, accompanied Bill to the orchard. But the indefatigable couple were not disturbed in their industry, Polly, after polite greeting, going to work on a distant tree and taking Bill with her.

Jack Dawson helped them all the remainder of the afternoon, and Harborough found him still hard at work when he arrived in the evening. Polly, in her position of chaperone, regarded the two pairs with a judicial eye and felt dissatisfied. Jack and Bella were well enough, and their relative output of work and conversation was more calculated to satisfy her than the amateur market-gardener; it was the market-gardener herself and Gilchrist Harborough who displeased Polly.

“That young man is a splendid agricultural implement,” was her opinion as she watched him. “He might as well be Darby’s digger or somebody’s steam-plough, and Bill—well.” Here Polly sniffed aloud, but whether from contempt for Bill or sympathy with her own difficulties one could not say. At that moment her attention was arrested by Bill’s voice.

“You have come then, Monseigneur! You shall have the very best.”

Polly looked round sharply; the tone of the girl’s voice was so unlike that in which she usually spoke to Harborough, there was something of caress in it, of the frank familiarity of assured welcome and response. It was not wonderful that Polly looked to see if Theo answered to this new nickname, and when it was evident he did not, that she looked still more eagerly to see who did.

Mr. Dane, the courteous but somewhat exclusive rector of Ashelton! He was Monseigneur, it was for him Bill was opening the rickety gate, he whom she welcomed so gladly! It was surprising, Polly felt, but safe. Perhaps Harborough felt the same, for he did not seem to resent Bill’s evident satisfaction in Mr. Dane’s presence, and he did not, as Polly did, lecture Bill afterwards on the impropriety of addressing elderly gentlemen in so free and easy a fashion.

Of course Bill did not in the least mind what was said, and went to bed as indifferent to Polly’s remarks as Mr. Dane himself would have been. He went home thinking kindly of the young folks under the orchard trees, pretty Bella and her suitors, as he took both young men to be, the favoured and the unfavoured one. The favoured one,—and in judging Jack Dawson to be such the rector was right—did not retire to rest in the peaceful manner of the other plum-gatherers, having first had to endure an extremely stormy interview with his mother.

Perhaps Bella had some idea of what might be taking place, for she lay awake long that night, though Bill, with whom she shared the room, did not know it. The younger girl slept soundly and dreamlessly, not troubling at all about Jack or Harborough, nor yet about her own plans for the morrow. Those same plans necessitated getting up at a very early hour the next morning; fortunately Bella was sleeping quietly at the time, so without challenge Bill dressed and went out.

It was cold out of doors, everything drenched with dew; everything still, almost awfully still,—the dead world, the motionless air, the opaque sky, dark except where at the horizon’s rim it showed faintly grey like the ashes of yesterday. It was not really dark; Bill wondered why all things were so clear in this ghostly, shadowless twilight. “It is as if the world were dead,” she thought, “burned out and finished, resurrection and judgment over, and just me left behind forgotten.”

Then she unlocked the stable-door and, putting fancies aside, set seriously to work, first harnessing the old roan horse to the roomy light cart, and afterwards climbing in beside the hampers of plums placed there over-night. She had told Polly and Bella that she herself would take the plums away, and that she would have to start before breakfast to do it. Bella was too much disturbed about her own concerns to feel much interest, and Polly saw no reason to object, as had Theresa been at home she possibly might have done. As it was, the two remaining cousins had breakfast without Bill, though Polly was much annoyed by a note the girl had left saying she would not be back till the afternoon. All thoughts of Bill, however, were soon driven out of her head by the confidence Bella could withhold no longer.

And thus it was that Bill drove away with her plums in the grey dawn, not to Wrugglesby and the railway-station, but to Darvel, the regimental town, a far longer distance but a bigger town with richer inhabitants, military and civil. The strawberry roan was a good old horse though terribly ugly: he would trot well along the winding lanes and empty highways on the journey, and at the journey’s end stand patiently beside the curb while Bill went to the back doors to sell her plums. That was her notion of doing business; untroubled by any idea of license, and fortunately remaining untaught by painful experience, she went from house to house selling her fruit by the pound, having taken the dairy scales with her for the purpose. And a very good trade she did, for plums were scarce and hers were beyond reproach; she asked a fair price and gave good weight, dealing as an honest and humble trader should.

It was with a clear conscience and satisfied mind that she drove home, light in load and heavy in pocket. She came back by the Wrugglesby road, which was further but better going now that dry weather had loosened the roads. The afternoon was far advanced and the shadows stretched long on the cropped grass fields and matted seed-clover. In the distance the air still quivered with heat, and the red-roofed farms glowed warmly in it. Now and again came the whirl of machinery, some stack in process of erection or a reaper in a wheat-field near at hand. Bill looked around her, at the dusty hedgerows, the deep green trees, the poppies by the road, it was all very good in the drowsy afternoon; the whole world was so good, she could have sung aloud for joy.

Propriety, however, demanded that she should not, and moreover some one accosted her at that moment, a stranger asking the way to Sales Cross. She pulled up to tell him and then, as she was passing that way herself, offered him a lift. He accepted, glancing at her curiously; the voice and manner were not quite what he had expected from the general appearance of herself and her equipage. However, he seated himself beside her and began to speak of the harvest-prospects and the weather, equally popular topics of conversation just then. A small farmer or bailiff’s daughter, he thought her, concluding that latter-day education must in some way be responsible for her unusual manner.

So he talked to her on various topics, incidentally learning a little about herself, among other things that she had been to Darvel to sell fruit. In this way, Bill making no effort to learn anything of him and his business, they reached Sales Cross and there for the first time she asked him of his concerns, inquiring which way he wanted to go.

“There is a footpath leading off from the road on the left, I am told,” he said, and when she pointed it out to him he got down and bidding her good-afternoon went on his way.

“I wonder where he is going,” she thought. “He could get to part of Ashelton that way, but I don’t suppose he is going there, and he could get to several other places equally well.” Then she drove on dismissing the subject from her mind.

Now, Polly, though she had talked and thought principally about Bella that day, had found time, as the afternoon wore on, to wonder a little what mischief Bill had in hand, and to wonder a great deal more as to who would find her out. Polly’s morals were of a strictly utilitarian character, and being a great believer in the eleventh commandment Thou shalt not be found out, she was prepared to measure her wrath with Bill’s misdoings in proportion to the publicity of their nature. Therefore when, at about five o’clock in the afternoon the offender came to her on the lawn, she proceeded to catechise her in a brief and business-like way, reserving her most important question till the last.

“And whom did you meet? Who knows about this?”

“Who? Why, of course, all the people I sold plums to, and—”

“No, no, the people about here I mean, people whom we know.”

“Oh, no one.”

“No one in Ashelton or Wrugglesby? Didn’t you see anyone to speak to?”

“Yes; I gave a lift to a stranger who wanted to find the way to Sales Cross. He asked me if I had been to Wrugglesby market, and I told him that it was not market-day, and that I had been to Darvel with fruit.”

Polly was extremely angry at this indiscretion, and said so in no measured terms. She reflected, however, that, the man being a stranger, no harm had been done unless he happened to be visiting any of their acquaintances in the neighbourhood, in which case he might perhaps recognise Bill on some future occasion.

“But I don’t see what harm I have done,” Bill objected. “I dare say T. won’t like it when I tell her, she is rather particular, but you are not proud and it is no good saying you are; there is no reason why you should object any more than Theo will when I tell him.”

But Polly was not at all sure that Theo would approve of Bill’s performance, and she said so, without convincing Bill; she also reproved her sharply without showing her wherein lay the wrong. Bill, who did not at all believe in Polly, was entirely unimpressed, and Bella just then came out from the house.

“Have you told her?” she asked, and Bill noticed that she looked troubled and excited.

“No,” Polly said, “I have not; I had enough to do thinking about her behaviour.”

“Told me what?” Bill asked. “What is it?”

And because they felt the news they had to tell was of greater importance than her own comparatively obscure misdoings, they told her. Soon even Polly had forgotten about Bill in the greater news; as for Bill herself, she thought no more of anything but Bella and her happiness in Jack’s love and her fear of Jack’s mother. Bill could not quite understand the fear; if you were sure of the love, in her opinion, you could not be afraid, for nothing would matter. And the love,—she looked rather wistfully at Bella, wondering why she could not feel as this cousin did. But she said nothing of these things, forgetting them for the time being in the engrossing talk which was only closed when they all went indoors, Bill saying as they went: “But, Polly, how about your lodgings now? By next summer you will have no one to help you.”

“I shall go on alone,” Polly answered magnanimously. “I shall be able to do it, and even if I could not, I should not dream of standing in the way of either of you.”

“But you seem to want us both to get married,” Bill said.

“I do, if you marry well. I am sure that neither of you would forget all I have done for you, and I am sure you will both remember how valuable even trifles are to me.”

There was something faintly suggestive of the beggar’s whine in Polly’s tone, which made both the younger cousins laugh as they went into the house completely forgetful of Bill’s doings.

But there was one who did not forget them, who felt he had good reason to be angry with them, and that one was Gilchrist Harborough. It was to him that the stranger Bill met was going. He was a Sydney lawyer and the fortunate possessor of private means; he had been a friend of Harborough’s in the new country, and now that he was home for a holiday in the old, Harborough had thought it worth while to tell him the story of his claim to the Gurnett estates, asking his opinion rather than his help. The lawyer, however, was so much impressed with the strength of the case when he first heard the story in June, that he immediately set to work on his own account to verify one or two necessary points. Having by this week’s mail received from Australia the information he wanted, he came to tell Harborough of his success. At first he intended to write, but as he was going to stay a week or two with some friends further down the line, he broke his journey at Wrugglesby and spent a couple of hours discussing the situation with Harborough.

Unfortunately, he did not confine himself entirely to business during that couple of hours, for he casually mentioned the little fruit-seller who gave him a lift in her empty cart. “The queerest little oddity I have ever seen,” he said. “I wonder if you know who she is; let’s see if I can describe her. She was small, dark, shabby, shabbier than any cottage-girl I have yet come across in this well-favoured old country—untidy, simple, though ’cute I should say, frank as an American, brown as a berry, hair dark but reddish, face,—I don’t know, a provoking little face, and perfectly irresistible eyes.”

Harborough knew who she was though he did not say; a slighter description would have served him. There were not two such about; two brown girls who spoke good English and sold fruit by the pound in Darvel, who wore their right boots laced with string (Harborough knew that boot well) and had brown eyes with the sunshine in them; who made friends with all comers, who whistled to the birds in the hedges, who was, in fact,—Bill, his promised wife.