CHAPTER XV.
RETURNS TO AVONWORTH VALLEY, AND GLANCES AT MRS.
SOMERTON’S SECRET.
The trees were covered with a hundred shades of brown and red and yellow. A pleasant September breeze wandered about, carrying with it here and there the report of the sportsman’s gun. Flocks of sheep cropped the sweet herbage, and crowds of happy-looking gleaners gathered the stray ears of wheat which Mr. Somerton had left in the corn-fields.
There had been an abundant harvest, and the corn was well and successfully garnered. The big yellow stacks peered out amongst the trees round about the Hall farm, and Luke Somerton sat cozily smoking his after-dinner pipe.
Peace and plenty was the prevailing characteristic of the place, and Luke Somerton was on particularly good terms, at the moment, with himself and all the world.
“I wonder how Paul is getting on,” he said, musingly, just as his wife had folded up the table-cloth and instructed her servant to “get those dinner-things washed up at once.”
“Oh, he’ll get on well enough,” said Mrs. Somerton, “if his sister doesn’t spoil him with her pack of silly letters. One would think they had nothing in the world to do but to write letters to each other.”
“Well, there’s no harm in their writing to each other; it may keep Paul out of mischief.”
“He is getting very little money for his age; he ought to have enough to keep him without assistance from us by this time. It’s little we save.”
“You think too much about saving money, Sarah. There are lots of things in life better than money.”
“You may say what you please, Luke, the great object of life should be to make money and get position. If one cannot gain it oneself, we should try to get it through our children,” said Mrs. Somerton, taking up her knitting and sitting by the window.
A stranger wandering about the quiet, peaceful, happy-looking country of which we speak in the opening of this chapter, would assuredly not have looked for the expression of such worldly views by the mistress of that comfortable-looking house amongst the trees. The thought passed over the farmer’s mind, but so lightly that he did not attempt to give expression to it, though his reply bordered slightly upon it.
“And what do you call position, Sarah? Has it anything to do with happiness?” asked Luke.
“Position! Why, to be above other people. To be looked up to instead of being looked down upon. To have servants of one’s own, and not be servants ourselves.”
“That is, your husband should be something more than a farm-bailiff, or a farmer even on his own account. The old story; it’s no use, Sarah, we can’t alter our lot. It seems to me that a clear conscience, and owing nobody a penny, is about the best position in the world, after all, whatever your station in life.”
“I know that is your opinion, Luke, and there’s something in it, for those who like to jog through the world and be nothing to nobody. We have money now, and why can’t we have a farm of our own, at least?”
“Oh, we’ve had enough of farming on our own account, Sarah. These are not the days for farmers with small incomes. It doesn’t suit me to be peddling about in the old style of farming. I have gone in for the science of the thing, and I must have the best machinery to work with; and you want a big holding for that and lots of capital besides. We are much better off as it is. Mr. Tallant is rich, and, although he gets now a fair return for his money, he’s sunk a lot in this estate.”
“And what for? That young Tallant will soon get through it all.”
“Stop until he inherits.”
“Ah, there will be changes here whenever the old man goes. Whatever will become of Phœbe? I shall take it upon myself to speak to him about that young lady.”
“I should think you’ll do nothing of the sort.”
“Why not? I say it is a burning shame to keep her mewed up here. She would pick up a duke, at least, in London; and, as sure as fate, that little painter fellow will get her if she stays at Barton much longer.”
“You seem to be quite insane upon this subject, Sarah.”
“Oh yes, of course. Everything that you can’t see through is absurd; it always was so, Luke. When you have got as far as the end of your nose there is an end to your prospect, unless you are thinking about what crop should follow wheat or barley.”
“Now, then; get into a passion. You said you would talk quietly if I would stay.”
“I am not in a passion—nothing of the kind,” said Mrs. S., knitting at double-quick speed.
“Very well, then, mind you don’t get into a passion,” said Luke, smiling.
“Phœbe Tallant was made to shine in society, and to marry well; and it is horrible to see wealth and power going out of a young girl’s grasp just because nobody puts her anywhere near the prize.”
“Happiness never seems to form part of your philosophy, Sarah.”
“Wealth and power, Luke—isn’t that happiness? To wear real diamonds, and heaps of them; to drive in the parks; to be presented at court; to make other women envy you. Happiness! Talk of clear consciences and all that stuff, to set a room full of women hating you for your wealth and beauty is bliss—joy above everything!”
Luke took his pipe from his mouth and gazed in astonishment at his wife, who had ceased knitting, and was looking out beyond where he sat,—but not at the quiet rural picture spread out before her. She was simply looking at her own thoughts.
“Women, Luke, are devils. To men they are bad enough, but they treat each other like fiends: they are mean to an extent beyond all imagination; they hate each other mortally; and a pretty woman is a mark for all their spite and slander. But she takes it out; she has her revenge; she stings them like an adder.”
“You are a strange woman, Sarah; but you say a great deal more than you believe,” said Luke.
“Do I? I believe women capable of anything. But men deserve to be deceived by them, because the first of the race was a sneak and a coward. ‘The woman tempted me, and I did eat.’”
Mrs. Somerton gave a contemptuous toss of her head, and went on with her knitting.
“What a pity you didn’t marry some great gun who could have given you your full swing of power and wealth. You were a fine showy woman when I married you, Sarah; and hang me if you wouldn’t eclipse some of the young ones now. What a blessing it would be if you hadn’t such a bitter tongue.”
Luke seemed to be turning this over in his mind, and contemplating it. He spoke half admiringly, half in regret.
“Ah, Luke, I dare say you think I am a fiend like the rest of my sex, and I feel like one at times; but if my time had to come over again, I should not alter my choice. There are some things that I’ve done which I would undo if I could, but not that, not that, Luke.”
“Come, Sarah, that does me good,” said Luke, going up to her, and putting his hand on her shoulders. “I have often thought we were an ill-assorted couple, and you’ve said many an unkind thing; but you have been a good wife to me after all, always done your duty—ay, and more; and I am sure your heart’s in the right place.”
Mrs. Somerton looked up at her husband with a disturbed expression of face. Her heart was in the right place; but her life was blighted by one act of wicked deceit, and she had struggled ever since to justify it to her conscience.
“There, you may go now, Luke. You don’t believe I am so bad as I seem?”
“You’re a good soul; try and drop all that nonsense about position, and we shall be a regular Darby and Joan in our old age.”
Luke kissed her on the forehead and went out; and the wife continued her knitting.
There were some things that she would undo if she could! The years of secret hopes and fears, and doubts and misery, revealed in this expression, were not even dreamed of by Luke Somerton. She had schemed, and plotted, and built castles in the future, and carried about with her a big, burning secret, and it had lately begun to dawn upon her that her designs would be frustrated.
There may be far-seeing readers of this book who have already plucked out the heart of Mrs. Somerton’s mystery. We have made no great effort to conceal it from this piercing foresight. It is no new thing that we have invented. Our story will not be injured by your knowing Mrs. Somerton’s secret from the beginning, neither will it be particularly enhanced by delaying the disclosure of the great plot of her married life.
But there are other things crowding upon my attention, and we must leave Mrs. Somerton at present without further explanation, to chafe against the bars of her own self-made prison-house.