Princess Puck

It was in June that the accident happened, early June, but the season was warm that year and already the little white roses were in bloom. They were in bloom the year of Theresa’s marriage,—white roses for the wedding, and now, with but one other June to intervene, white roses for the burying. It was Bill who thought of this, not Theresa, although Theresa, smelling the scent of the flowers under the window, thought of her wedding-day as she sat waiting that night.

She shivered a little as she recollected; it may have been at her thoughts, it may have been with cold, for the air was chilly. It was very late; she rose, and going to the window closed it, shutting out the sweet scents of the night. Then she glanced at the clock,—how late it was!—past twelve,—Robert had never been so late before. Surely nothing could have happened to him? Nothing ever happened; he was late, that was all, and she sat down again with a set look on her face.

There was a letter in her work-basket; she had read it once, but something made her put her sewing down and take it from its envelope to read again. It was from Bella, who had gone to spend a few days with some relations of her husband’s at Kensington. How happy Bella seemed! How delighted that Jack was going to join her that day! It was such a pleasant letter, though it told little. Theresa read it and folded it, smiling as she did so; then for a moment she sat listening, thinking she heard the sound of a horse’s feet. The road was not near, but the night was so still that she could almost have heard in her present state of tension. She might be mistaken, but there was certainly a sound of some kind. Wheels,—someone driving home—then she was mistaken, for Robert was riding to-night; this must be some other wayfarer, perhaps Gilchrist Harborough come down by the mail from London. She set herself to watch again; the sound of the wheels had passed now, the vehicle may have driven out of earshot, or it may have paused by the gate where the road was dark. The last must have been the case for, after a moment, she caught the sound again; perhaps the horse started suddenly, for the noise was much plainer now. It was coming nearer—surely there was not some one driving up to the house?

She rose quickly, a nameless dread at her heart, and went into the hall. There she paused a moment listening; the noise of wheels came nearer, then ceased, and through the closed door she heard, or her over-wrought senses told her she heard, the sound of a horse breathing. A man came up the steps; she heard him as she stood there, her hand upon the door, nerving herself to meet she knew not what. He stopped, and she opened the door to find herself face to face with Gilchrist Harborough.

For a second he shrank from her, and in the starlight she saw it.

“What is it?” she asked with lips that seemed too dry to speak.

“Robert has been hurt,” he answered, avoiding her eyes. “I—I have brought him home.”

“Hurt?”

Her voice rang distinct, almost sharp, and Harborough knew the question she was asking herself, although she was too loyal to put it to him.

“Yes,” he answered, meeting her eyes now; “he has been hurt, badly hurt, I am afraid.”

“Badly? How badly?” Fear was whitening her face and quickening her perceptions. “You don’t mean—oh Robert!—Why, I can see him out there! Robert!”

She passed Harborough and would have gone down the steps but he stopped her. “That is Dr. Bolton,” he said gently; “I brought him with me. Robert is there,—but,—you can’t see him.”

She leaned against the door-post and caught her breath, searching his face with questioning eyes. “He is dead?”

He felt the words were spoken, though he hardly heard them. “Come in here,” he said gently. He led her to the room she had just left, and put her unresisting in a chair.

“Dead,” she whispered, “dead?” Her breath was coming in gasps; she shook a little, but she did not weep or faint. For some reason Gilchrist was afraid to look at her; he moved to the door. “Are you going to bring him in?” she asked in that same low, breathless voice.

“Yes.”

“Up-stairs?”

“It would be better.” That was the doctor’s voice outside; both the doors were open and he had heard what was said.

“You will want a light; there is none in the room.”

She had risen as she spoke, but the doctor, seeing her white strained face, said: “No, no, wait here; Harborough will go up first, and set a light.”

She paid no heed to him, but tried to light a little hand-lamp. Gilchrist took the matches from her trembling fingers and, lighting it for her, put it into her hand. She gave him a look of thanks and then went slowly up-stairs.

It was early the next morning when Bill received the telegram that summoned her to Ashelton. That Bill should be summoned both annoyed and surprised Polly; she objected to parting with her for one reason, and for another she considered that she herself was the right person to be sent for in an emergency. “I don’t see what good you can do,” she said.

But Bill did not argue the point; she looked at the time-table, and then went up-stairs to dress for the journey. Polly picked up the telegram and having read it again followed Bill. “‘Come at once, Mrs. Morton wants you. Harborough.’” She read the message aloud to Bill when she reached her room. “What has Gilchrist got to do with it, I should like to know?”

“Robert is ill, I expect,” Bill said. “If it were Theresa, Robert would have sent the telegram; but as neither of them did, I expect Robert is ill.”

“Robert ill!” Polly sniffed contemptuously, then with the air of a prophet who sees his evil prognostications fulfilled, she added: “It is very likely you are right; he never was much good. Still I don’t see why Gilchrist Harborough should telegraph for you; he has no connection with the matter, neither have you.”

“Jack and Bella are away. I expect Gilchrist is looking after things; he would be very good in an emergency.”

Bill got her dress out of the cupboard as she spoke, and Polly looked at the telegram again. “Robert’s not ill,” she said with sudden conviction; “he’s dead!” Bill, from the wording of the telegram, thought it just possible too; still she did not say so, and Polly went on: “I always said he would die young and die suddenly; now he has done it and probably left Theresa very badly off.”

Bill was used to seeing Polly in moral undress by this time; the elder cousin did not always think it necessary to keep up appearances with the younger now that she knew how little the girl appreciated or was deceived by them. Bill had so often been treated to Polly’s unvarnished opinion of late that she was not much surprised by her way of regarding the possible death of Theresa’s husband.

“Really I never saw anyone so unlucky as we are,” Polly was saying; “no sooner do we get Bella settled than we have Theresa thrown back on our hands. It is hard, just as we are beginning to get on a little too, and make things pay. You and I have worked things up and managed splendidly, and this is our reward! It seems to me that, manage as we may, we shall never reap any benefit from it. We can work and it seems we always may. As for those Warings, I have no patience with them!”

“So it seems, since you won’t wait to hear how Robert is before deciding not only his death, but his widow’s future as well.”

“Oh, I know he is dead,” Polly said irritably as she followed the younger girl down-stairs. And Bill felt nearly sure of it too, even before she got to Wrugglesby station and saw Sam, who had been sent to meet her. When she saw him there was room for doubt no longer.

On the homeward drive he told her all he knew about the accident. The master had gone to Wrugglesby yesterday and returned late; he was riding a skittish young horse and must have been thrown and probably killed on the spot. Mr. Harborough, who had come from London by the mail-train, drove home along the same road and found him, but it was thought he must have been lying there for several hours. Dr. Bolton had been called up and came with Mr. Harborough to Haylands; but it was quite useless, the master was beyond help when he was found; “and the missus”—so Sam concluded—“was somethin’ terrible, quite stunned, not sheddin’ so much as a tear.”

Bill could believe that; it seemed to her quite natural that Theresa should be stunned. But when she reached Haylands it seemed just as natural that Theresa, when she met her and put her arms round her, should burst into a paroxysm of weeping. Bill wept with her of course; it was her nature; but she wept for the pity of life’s tangle, while Theresa wept for the husband dead last night and the lover dead months ago, for the widowhood of name which had fallen upon her now and the widowhood of heart which had fallen long before; wept for her grief and her loss and her double grief that the loss and grief were not greater, and for all combined till thought was vague and her heart was eased.

So she wept, and no longer dreaded that the world, seeing her grief, should also see that which lay behind. She had feared lest the secret she had guarded during Robert’s life should be revealed after his death. It was for this reason she would not have Polly or Bella or anyone but Bill,—Bill whose eyes were not quick to mark anything amiss. The others might discover or think, but Bill—no one minded Bill. And then, when Bill came with her sympathy and her pliant changing nature, there suddenly seemed no secret to hide, nothing amiss which could be marked—all was melted in a gush of tears.

Thus Theresa became widow indeed, and though she sorrowed as such she was all the better for the sorrowing. Quite unconsciously she turned to the girl, whom she still persisted in regarding as a child, for comfort and help. Bill gave all the comfort she could, listened when Theresa told her how Robert went out yesterday and she had not said good-bye; wept when Theresa wept over this omission and over the hundred trifles which seemed to speak of his presence still near,—his pipe on the mantelpiece, his whip behind the door, his dog waiting wistfully in the hall. Bill listened, but she also worked, for that suited her best. Theresa was really prostrate with grief; so Bill assumed, by the quiet right of the one who can, the management of the household, and the management so assumed remained with her some time.

It was during the days which followed that Gilchrist Harborough found himself thinking that Bill, viewed in a light other than that of prospective wife, had something to recommend her. He had not seen her since the December day when she cancelled their engagement; but in the time that followed Robert’s death he saw her often, for she stayed at Ashelton till the summer was well advanced. Polly wanted her back in town, but she was obliged to allow that Theresa needed her more at Haylands. Very reluctantly she gave permission for Bill to remain; very reluctantly, with the wages Bill forfeited by absence, she hired a girl to help with the work. And Bill spent a second June at Haylands, very unlike the first, excepting only that she saw Gilchrist Harborough often, though even in seeing him there was one great and essential difference, for they met now on a new footing, a footing much nearer equality.

Jack was a good brother-in-law, but Greys was some way from Haylands, and he, being but recently married, and having besides a great deal of land to look after, found it somewhat difficult to give Theresa’s farm the supervision it required. Harborough lived much nearer, had more time and possibly more inclination, for the lawsuit did not occupy so much of his attention just now, therefore he came often to Haylands that summer, and in coming, met Bill often, but always in her working capacity; a capacity, he thought, which suited her so well that he wondered how he had ever come to think of her,—the most able collaborator man could wish,—as wife.

But Theresa’s domestic arrangement, admirable as she found it, did not suit Polly at all. To begin with she did not find the girl at all an efficient substitute for Bill, and to go on with she “wanted to know how it was all going to end.” Bill also wanted to know that, not because she found the arrangement any less pleasant than did Theresa, but because it was her custom to plan several miles in advance of the elder cousin’s range of vision. So, before Theresa had contemplated the future as a working possibility, Bill had answered Polly’s enquiries.

“I’m afraid,” so she wrote, “things are not much better than you expected; Theresa will be left very badly off. Still, I think she will most likely have a little, so there is a certain amount of choice as to what is to be done; I have not properly talked it over with her so I do not know if she has any wishes. As far as I can see we three (she and you and I) must live together; we can’t afford two houses, but together I believe we might live here or in town. If we stop here we should have to give up most of the land, only keeping enough for a certain amount of dairy work. The dairy, with pigs, poultry, and vegetable growing, I reckon would keep us in food and pretty well pay the rent—I believe this could be made to answer. We could have a boarder in the summer if you liked. Of course the other choice is for you and me to go on as before and take Theresa in; I don’t know what else can be done, unless she goes to Jack and Bella, which seems hardly fair.”

Polly read this letter and digested it thoughtfully, and her thoughts, it is to be feared, were not so much for the common good as for her own personal comfort, and that did not incline her towards going to Ashelton. She preferred town to country; she liked her present life in many respects, and she certainly did not relish the idea of making pigs and poultry pay with Bill’s assistance, not because she thought they would not pay but because she knew quite well that the assistance would be on the wrong side in such a venture. Theresa she did not consider in the matter, and fortunately for her, Theresa had no very strong wishes; she did not greatly care whether she remained at Haylands or went to London; it seemed to her that her life had been snapped and could go on as well, or as ill, in one place as another. Jack was in favour of giving up the farm, pronouncing Bill’s scheme to be a mad one. Gilchrist, who knew Bill better, was not so sure of that; but he saw that it would entail much hard work on all, on Theresa, who in his opinion was not fit for it, as well as on Bill who was. Therefore, as the general voice was with Polly, she carried the day, to her own great satisfaction, and at Michaelmas the farm was given up.

It is not to be supposed that Bill remained undisturbed at Haylands all the summer. She was merely keeping Theresa company, and when Bella’s husband spared her to do that for a time, Bill, very reluctantly, returned to town, to Polly and her domestic difficulties. It is hard, when one can do work and has half done it, that it should be taken away and given to another, who not only cannot do it but does not recognise that it exists to be done. Bill did not want her work recognised, but she did want to finish it; but since that was impossible there was no choice but to silently resign it half-finished, without a hope of its being anything but wasted by the one who came after. So she went back to town, and Bella, it is to be feared, fulfilled her anticipations; the seed plants died, the vegetables languished, the ducks laid away, and the poultry intermarried disastrously. Later on Polly went down to Haylands, for a rest, she said; and Bill did not ask her to look after any of her pet projects, thinking perhaps that it would only be useless. When Polly returned she did enquire how the fruit was that year, and was told that the trees were breaking with the weight of plums.

“Does no one pick them?” Bill asked.

“Some of them,” Polly told her; “but fruit fetches so little this year; it is not worth a man’s time to pick it, at least so Gilchrist says, and he is managing everything, you know.”

Bill was not thinking of Gilchrist’s management but of private enterprise; Polly was thinking of something quite different and it was she who spoke first. “Did it strike you, Bill,” she said, “that Gilchrist takes a great interest in Theresa and her affairs?”

“Yes, of course; he likes managing, and he does it thoroughly.”

But this was not what Polly meant at all and she said so. “What I want to know,” she concluded, “is, why did he begin it? Why does he do it?”

“Because it wanted doing, and because he can do it. Somehow or other the people who can do things always have to do them whether it is their business or not; they have a sort of right to the jobs that want doing.”

This was not Polly’s opinion. “It’s my belief,” she said, “that he has an interest in what he does.”

“An interest? He does not get the profits.”

“No,” Polly retorted impatiently, “but Theresa does; that’s his interest.”

“Do you mean he is fond of Theresa?” Bill asked in astonishment.

Polly did, and explained herself at some length, without convincing Bill who, when she had come to the conclusion that this was only one of Polly’s fancies, went back to the subject of the plums. Polly was not interested in plums, and when Bill asked if she and Theresa picked any, answered snappishly, “No, we did not; we did not choose to spend our days up ladders.”

A recollection of last year lent viciousness to this remark; Bill remembered last year too and sighed. Had she been at Ashelton early enough very likely there would have been a repetition of the plum-selling. But she was not there in time to do anything, for, though she did go down to Haylands to help Theresa to pack at the last, the fruit was practically over. It was a bad year for apples; there were hardly any in the orchard at Haylands, and Bill saw at once, when she went to look round, that there was nothing to be done with them. As for the plums, they were a real grief to her when she saw them lying rotten on the grass beside the branches which the heavy fruit had broken down.

“Gilchrist could not look after everything,” she told herself, “and Theresa would not know.”

After all, the waste of the plums did not trouble her so much as did the sight of the withered plants in the garden, and the raspberry-canes, still loaded with shrivelled fruit, dried up for want of water. But bad as the garden was, it was not the worst, for in one short tour of the stackyard she found, besides the feathers of many untimely victims of stray cats, five lots of addled eggs laid and lost in the summer months. She had her last find of eggs in a basket on the Saturday afternoon when she went to the orchard to look for fallen apples. There were not many, but she picked up what there were and took the eggs to the ditch to throw them away to make room for the apples.

It was just then that Mr. Stevens came by. He was a busy man, but he sometimes allowed himself a little holiday on Saturdays in September to shoot a friend’s partridges; he had been shooting partridges that day and very good sport he had had to judge from the beaming good-humour he was carrying back to Wrugglesby.

When he saw Bill he pulled up. “Good-afternoon,” he cried; “I didn’t know you were back. You haven’t been over to see me; don’t you want to have a talk about your affairs?”

Bill came to the gate. “There isn’t much to say about them, is there?” she asked. “I thought nothing much could be done at this time of year.”

“Well, no, not much certainly; everybody is out of town now. Still, if you’d like to have a chat, you might look in when you’re in Wrugglesby; I’m not very busy just now.”

“Thank you, I will if I have time; I am only here for a few days just to help Theresa to pack.”

“Ah, of course, she is leaving soon, poor thing. Going to live in London with you, isn’t she?”

Mr. Stevens felt very sorry for Theresa, of whose affairs he knew all that was commonly reported and a little more besides. He felt sorry for Bill, too, that afternoon; she did not seem to be so cheerfully and completely satisfied with life as usual.

“We must make the best of a bad job,” he said encouragingly, “and look for better times. Let’s hope your business will be through before Christmas,” and he shook his reins as if he were going on.

“Do you think it could be done so soon as that?” Bill asked with animation.

“I dare say; I don’t see why not, or at the latest early in the new year. Woa, my beauty!” and he pulled up again. “Mr. Briant is a rich man and can afford to fight as a poorer could not; but you’re too strong for him, and since the business of the divorce and remarriage was settled he knows it. It’s my belief—though as I’m not professionally connected with the case perhaps you will say I have no right to an opinion—it’s my belief Briant never suspected a second marriage. But owing to the rector’s help you have incontestable proofs, and the other side haven’t a case worth mentioning.”

“Then you think it will be settled soon?” Bill asked. “I am very glad; and I am glad, too, that Mr. Briant is so rich that one need not much mind taking money from him; even if I win he will still have plenty left.”

Mr. Stevens, though he was amused by her scruples, assured her that she might be quite easy on that score. “He’ll have plenty,” he said, “plenty, seeing that he has neither son nor daughter to take it after him. Bless my soul, he ought to be quite pleased to make provision for a young lady in that way!”

The lawyer laughed as he spoke and Bill laughed too. “I am afraid he won’t see it in that light,” she said.

“I’m afraid not either. No; I think if you win your case you will have to thank your good aunt’s care in keeping old bills and letters and recipes for herb-tea. That is what will have the most to do with it, since she managed to keep with them several of old Roger’s useless documents, and one valuable one. Yes, you will have to thank her for her care and Mr. Dane for his generosity. Good-bye, and a speedy success to you.”