Harvest - Mrs. Humphry Ward (free novels .TXT) 📗

power over her. But all the same there was no happy, spontaneous growth in it. Rachel seemed to take her increasing subjection hardly, to be fighting obscurely against it all the time, as though she were hampered by thought and motives unknown to the other two. Ellesborough, Janet thought, was often puzzled by the cynical or bitter talk with which Rachel would sometimes deliberately provoke him. And yet it was clear that he possessed the self-confidence of a strong man, and did not really doubt his ultimate power to win and hold the woman he was courting.

One bitterly cold evening at the very end of September, Ellesborough, arriving at the farm, was welcomed by Janet, and told that all hands were in the fields "clamping" potatoes. She herself left a vegetable stew ready for supper, safely simmering in a hay-box, and walked towards the potato field with Ellesborough. On the way they fell in with Hastings, the bailiff, who was walking fast, and seemed to be in some excitement.

"Miss Leighton--that old fool Halsey has given notice!"

Janet stopped in dismay. Halsey was a valuable man, an old-fashioned labourer of many aptitudes, equally good as a woodman, as an expert in "fagging" or sickling beaten-down corn, as a thatcher of roofs or ricks, as a setter of traps for moles, or snares for rabbits. Halsey was the key-stone of the farm labour. Betts was well enough. But without Halsey's intelligence to keep him straight--Janet groaned.

"What on earth's the matter, Hastings? We raised his wages last week--and we did it before the county award was out!"

Hastings shook his head.

"It's not wages. He says he's seen the ghost!"

Janet exclaimed, and Ellesborough laughed.

"What, the defunct gamekeeper?"

Hastings nodded.

"Vows he's seen him twice--once on the hill--on the green path--and once disappearing round the corner of the farm. He declares that he called to the man--who was like nobody he had ever seen before--and the man took no notice, but went along, all hunched up--as they say the ghost is--and talking to himself--till all of a sudden he vanished. I've argued with him. But nothing'll hold him--old idiot! He vows he'll go---and if he talks to the others they'll all go."

"Has he gone home?" asked Janet.

"Long ago. He left the horses to Jenny, and just marched off. In the lane he met me, and gave notice. Such a cock-and-bull story as you never heard! But I couldn't do anything with him."

"I'll go and tackle him," said Janet at once. "We can't lose him. The work will go to smash."

She waved a farewell to Ellesborough, and ran back to the house. The others, watching, saw her emerge on her bicycle and disappear towards the village.

"Well, if anybody can move the old fellow, I suppose it's Miss Leighton," said Hastings disconsolately. "She's always managed to get the right side of him so far. But I'm nearly beat, captain! Things are getting too hard for me. You can't say a word to these men--they're off in a moment. And the wages!--it's sinful!"

"We're supposed only to be fighting a war, Hastings," said Ellesborough with a smile as they walked on together. "But all the time there's revolution going on beside it--all over the world!"

Hastings made a face.

"Right you are, captain. And how's it going to work out?"

"Don't ask me!" laughed Ellesborough--"we've all got to sit tight and hope for the best. All I know is that the people who work with their hands are going to get a bit of their own back from the people who work with their heads--or their cheque-books. And I'm glad of it! But ghosts are a silly nuisance. However, I dare say Miss Leighton will get round the old man."

Hastings looked doubtful.

"I don't know. All the talk about the murder has come up again. They say there's a grandson come home of the man that was suspected sixty years ago--John Dempsey. And some people tell me that this lad had the whole story of the murder from his grandfather--who confessed it--only last year, when the man died."

"Well, if he's dead all right, and has owned up to it, why on earth does the ghost make a fuss?"

Hastings shook his head.

"People get talking," he said gloomily. "And when they get talking, they'll believe anything--and see anything. It'll be the girls next."

Ellesborough tried to cheer him, but without much success. The "poor spirit" of the bailiff was a perpetual astonishment to the American, in the prime of his own life and vigour. Existence for Hastings was always either drab or a black business. If the weather was warm, "a bit of cold would ha' been better": if a man recovered from an illness, he'd still got the "bother o' dyin' before him." He was certain we should lose the war, and the rush of the September victories did not affect him. And if we didn't lose it, no matter--prices and wages would still be enough to ruin us. Rachel grew impatient under the constant drench of pessimism. Janet remembered that the man was a delicate man, nearing the sixties, with, as she suspected, but small provision laid up for old age; with an ailing wife; and bearing the marks in body and spirit of years of overwork. She never missed an opportunity of doing him a kindness; and the consequence was that Hastings, always faithful, even to his worst employers, was passionately faithful to his new mistresses, defending them and fighting for their interests, as they were sometimes hardly inclined to fight for themselves.

After showing Ellesborough the way to the "clamps," Hastings left him. In succession to the long days of rain there had been a sudden clearing in the skies. The day had been fine, and now, towards sunset, there was a grand massing of rosy cloud along the edge of the down, and windy lights over the valley. Rachel, busy with the covering of the potato "clamps," laid down the bundle of bracken she had been handing to Peter Betts, and came quickly to meet her visitor. Her working dress was splashed with mire from neck to foot, and coils of brown hair had escaped from her waterproof cap, and hung about her brilliant cheeks. She looked happy, but tired.

"Such a day!" she said, panting, as they met. "The girls and I began at six this morning--lifting and sorting. It was so important to get them in. Now they're safe if the frost does come. It's a jolly crop!"

Ellesborough looked at her, and her eyes wavered before the ardour in his.

"I say! You work too hard! Haven't you done enough? Come and rest."

She nodded. "I'll come!"

She ran to say a word to the others and rejoined him.

They went back to the farm, not talking much, but conscious through every nerve of the other's nearness. Rachel ran upstairs to change her dress, and Ellesborough put the fire together, and shut the windows. For the sun had sunk behind the hill, and a bitter wind was rising. When Rachel came down again, the wood-fire glowed and crackled, the curtains drawn, and she stared in astonishment at a small tea-tray beside the fire.

Ellesborough hurriedly apologized.

"I found some boiling water in the kettle, and I know by now where Miss Janet keeps her tea."

"Janet brought us tea to the field."

"I dare say she did. That was four--this is six. You felt cold just now. You looked cold. Be good, and take it easy!" He pointed to the only comfortable chair, which he had drawn up to the fire.

"Are you sure it boiled?" she said sceptically, as she sank into her chair, her eyes dancing. "No man knows when a kettle boils."

"Try it! For five winters on the Saguenay, I made my own tea--and baked my own bread. Men are better cooks than women when they give their minds to it!" He brought her the cup, hot and fragrant, and she sipped it in pure content while he stood smiling above her, leaning against the mantelpiece.

"I wanted to see you," he said presently. "I've just got my marching orders. Let's see. This is October. I shall have just a month. They've found another man to take over this job, but he can't come till November."

"And--peace?" said Rachel, looking up.

For Prince Max of Baden had just made his famous peace offer of October 5th, and even in rural Brookshire there was a thrilling sense of opening skies, of some loosening of those iron bonds in which the world had lain for four years.

"There will be no peace!" said Ellesborough with sudden energy, "so long as there is a single German soldier left in Belgium or France!"

She saw him stiffen from head to foot--and thrilled to the flame of avenging will that suddenly possessed him. The male looked out upon her, kindling--by the old, old law--the woman in her.

"And if they don't accept that?"

"Then the war will go on," he said briefly, "and I shall be in for the last lap!"

His colour changed a little. She put down her cup and bent over the fire, warming her hands.

"If it does go on, it will be fiercer than ever."

"Very likely. If our fellows set the pace there'll be no dawdling. America's white hot."

"And you'll be in it?"

"I hope so," he said quietly.

There was a pause. Then he, looking down upon her, felt a sudden and passionate joy invade him--joy which was also longing--longing irresistible. His mind had been wrestling with many scruples and difficulties during the preceding days. Ought he to speak--on the eve of departure--or not? Would she accept him? Or was all her manner and attitude towards him merely the result of the new freedom of women? Gradually but surely his mounting passion had idealized her. Not only her personal ways and looks had become delightful to him, but the honourable, independent self in him had come to feel a deep admiration for and sympathy with her honourable independence, for these new powers in women that made them so strong in spite of their weakness. She had become to him not only a woman but a heroine. His whole heart approved and admired her when he saw her so active, so competent, so human. And none the less the man's natural instinct hungered to take her in his arms, to work for her, to put her back in the shelter of love and home--ith her children at her knee....

And how domestic was this little scene in which they stood--the firelight, the curtained room, the tea-things, her soft, bending form, with the signs of labour put away!...

The tears rushed to his eyes. He bent over her, and spoke her name, almost unconsciously.

"Rachel!"

His soul was in the name!

She started, and looked up. While he had been thinking only of her, her thoughts had gone wandering--far away. And they seemed to have brought back--not the happy yielding of a woman to her lover--but distress and fear. A shock ran through him.

"Rachel!--" He held out his hands to her. He could not find words, but his eyes spoke, and the agitation in every feature.

But she drew back.

"Don't--don't say anything--till--"

His look held her--the surprise in it--the tender appeal. She could not take hers from it. But the disturbance in him deepened. For in the face she raised to him there was no flood of maidenly joy. Suddenly--her