THE visitor to whom reference has been made in the last chapter was a Mr. Selby, a relative of the doctor in the village, who had recently come down to these regions in the interests of a secondary line of railway which was then being made. He was not a very young man, nor, presumably, a very successful one, since at his mature age, he was no more than engineer to a little local railway; but he had other qualities not unattractive. He was what the village people called “a fine-made man.” He had a handsome head, with grizzled hair and beard, which, though touched by this mark of age, were otherwise very symbols of vigour and strength, so crisp were the twists and rings of curl in them, so strong and thick their growth. It was said that there was not a navvy on the line who could lift such weights as he could or perform such feats of strength: “he would put his hand to anything.” Dr. Selby was proud of his relation. “I’ll back him to run, or jump, or throw with any fellow of twenty-five in the Fell-country, though he’s forty-five if he’s a day,” the Doctor said; and he did everything else besides that a man ought to do. He was a good shot, rode well, walked well, played football even when one was wanted to make up a team, though the game is not adapted for persons of mature years. There was never much society about the White House, but Philip Selby—as he was called even by strangers, to distinguish him from the Doctor and the Doctor’s son, who was young Selby—had come up repeatedly to see the horses, of which he was supposed a judge. Indeed, he went so far as to buy a horse from Joscelyn, a colt which was not thought much of in the stables when it was born. It was this selection which established a kind of friendship between Joan and the new-comer. She was standing by when the horses were shown to him, and delivered her opinion, as she was wont to do, on the subject.
“You may say what you like against that brown colt: he’s not a beauty just now, but I like the looks of him,” Joan said, and she indicated various points in which she saw promise, which the present writer, not sharing Joan’s knowledge, is unwilling to hazard her reputation on. Philip Selby caught her up with great quickness.
“I thought the same from the moment I set eyes on him,” he said, and he took off his hat to Joan with a bow and smile which were unusual in these parts. She felt herself “colour up,” as she said, though afterwards she laughed. The men Joan was most acquainted with thought these little courtesies belonged to tailors and Frenchmen, but to no other class of reasonable beings, and there was a slight snigger even on the part of the attendant grooms to see this little incident. Mr. Selby was invited in afterwards to dinner to clench the bargain, and lingered and talked Shakespeare and the musical glasses with Mrs. Joscelyn when the meal was over, going back with her upon the elegant extracts of her youth in a way which brightened the poor lady’s eyes and recalled to her the long past superiorities of the Vicarage parlour, where it was considered right and professional to belong to the book club, and to keep up some knowledge of the new books which were supposed to be discussed in intellectual society.
“That is an educated man,” she said to her daughter, with a little air of superior knowledge which did her a great deal of good, poor lady. There was nobody else, she felt, about the White House, whose verdict would be worth much on such a subject. But she knew an educated man when she saw one: and the little talk brought some colour to her cheeks.
“Tut, mother,” said Joan, good-humouredly; but she had listened to the talk with some secret admiration, and an amused and gratified wonder that “mother” should show herself so capable. “I am sure you are the only one that can talk about these sort of things here,” she said. “Father stared, and so did I. He must have taken us for a set of ignoramuses.”
“I read a great deal in my youth,” Mrs. Joscelyn replied, with a gentle pride which was mingled with melancholy, “though I cannot say that it has been of much use to me in my married life; but I hope the gentleman will come back, for he would be a good friend for Harry.”
This was when Harry was expected, before the visit which ended so disastrously had begun.
And then after a few days Mr. Philip Selby called. Such a thing was almost unknown at the White House; the few people about who were on friendly terms with the Joscelyns, who were neither too high nor too low—and these were very few, for the county people had ignored the last generation of the fallen family, and the farmers and yeomen about were beneath their pretensions—were on very familiar terms, and would stalk straight in without any preliminaries, with perhaps a knock before they opened it at the parlour-door, but nothing more. All the other Selbys did this, marching in even in the middle of a meal without ceremony, never pausing to ask if anyone was at home. If they found nobody they walked out again, if they came into the midst of a family party they drew in a chair and sat down. But when Mary Anne, the maid who fulfilled the functions of parlour-maid, came in much flustered, with a card between her finger and thumb, both she and her young mistress felt that a very odd event had occurred, which they did not know what to think of. As for Mrs. Joscelyn it was her turn to “colour up” with pleasure. “Show the gentleman in, Mary Ann,” she said, drawing herself up and feeling as if the world, her old world, was rolling back to her.
She gave a glance round to see if the room was nice. It was a room that was too tidy, and Mrs. Joscelyn felt it. She would have been horrified with the littered rooms which are fashionable now-a-days, but her parlour she knew was too tidy; the chairs which were not being used were put back in a straight line against the wall, and everything was in its proper place. She put out her hand and drew one of these chairs out of the line, with that gentle air of knowing better which amused Joan so much.
“This is a gentleman that is accustomed to society. I told you so, Joan.”
“So you did, mother,” said Joan, rising up and putting back her chair carefully. “If he is that kind of man we may as well put our best foot foremost:” and with that she smoothed the table cover carefully and lifted Mrs. Joscelyn’s basket of work, which was the chief thing that made it home-like, out of the way. Joan even put away her knitting, and sat with her hands before her, which was sad punishment to herself, in order to look as Miss Joscelyn ought before the stranger. As for Mrs. Joscelyn, she saw this done with a kind of anguish; but she was not strong enough to resist. Then Mr. Selby was ushered in by the alarmed Mary Ann, who, instead of announcing him as she ought, said in a frightened tone, “Here’s the maan,” and vanished precipitately with such an attack of the nerves that she had to go and lie down upon her bed. Very soon, however, he put them both at their ease. He found Joan’s knitting laid away on the top of the work basket, to which Mrs. Joscelyn directed his attention by frequent wistful glances at it, and said he was sure it was this she was looking for, though Joan’s anxious desire had been to look at nothing. And then he sat and talked. Joan could scarcely contain her wonder, and amusement, and admiration at this talk. After a few minutes her fingers unconsciously sought the familiar needles which restored the balance of her mind, and made her free to listen. She was not young, nor had she any air of being young. Her figure was trim and round, but well developed, ample and matronly, though not with any superabundance of flesh. She had a pair of excellent serviceable brown eyes, with a great deal of light in them; not sparkling unduly, or employing themselves in any unauthorised way, but seeing everything, and making a remark now and then of their own, which an intelligent spectator could not but be interested by. The way in which she turned those eyes from her mother to the visitor and back again, with that surprise which made them round, and that amused gratification which came the length of a smile upon her opened lips, opened with wonder and pleasure, was quite a pleasant sight. She was more like an innocent mother listening to the unsuspected cleverness of her child’s opinions, than to a daughter admiring her mother. Now and then, when Mrs. Joscelyn said something unusually fine, a little snap of a cough came from Joan’s parted lips. She was astonished and she was delighted. “Who would have thought mother had so much in her?” she was saying all the time. She was not in the least handsome; but there was nothing in her that was unpleasant or objectionable; not a harsh line, or a sharp angle, or a twist of feature. Sometimes there is a curve at the corner of a mouth which will spoil the harmony of a face altogether; but Joan had no defect of this kind. She had a dimple in her smooth, round chin, and another in her cheek. When she laughed there were two or three other lurking pin-points which made themselves visible about her face. Her eyes were delightful in their surprise. She had a great deal of smooth, brown hair, brushed to the perfection of neatness, which was wound in a thick plait round the back of her head. Altogether, though there was no beauty about her, she was such a woman as gives comfort to a house from the very sight of her; a woman of ready hand and ready wit, and plenty of sense, but no more intellect than is necessary for comfort—which perhaps is not saying very much. Her presence in an empty house would have half furnished it at once, and she could say her say on all subjects she knew. About that brown colt she had formed an opinion of her own, which, as his chimed in with it, appeared extraordinarily sensible to Philip Selby: and she knew as much about all farming operations, and especially those which were connected with her own sphere of the dairy, as any farmer round. She was not, as the reader has perceived, a woman at all timid about her own opinions, or unwilling to express them. But when Mrs. Joscelyn and the new visitor talked about literature, and the pleasures of reading, Joan listened with open eyes and lips, and a broad smile of ignorant and admiring pleasure. “Think of mother talking away thirteen to the dozen! and who’d have thought she had all that in her,” Joan said to herself.
As for Mrs. Joscelyn, her cheeks were pink all the evening after, and her eyes quite bright. “I have not had so much conversation for years. Dear, dear! how it does one good, after never seeing anybody that has ever opened a book, to get a good talk with a well-informed person! I hope Harry will take to Mr. Selby,” Mrs. Joscelyn cried; “what a chance for him, Joan! a man that really knows; and will give him such good advice—and so good for Liddy, too, when she comes home.” Joan acquiesced in all this, with a laugh.
“It was as good as a play to hear you,” she said, “and me gaping all the time, saying to myself, ‘I never knew mother had so much in her!’” At this Mrs Joscelyn drew herself up a little; but she was not displeased with the praise.
“I read a great deal when I was young,” she said. “Papa always insisted upon it. You have not had my advantages, Joan; but you have strong sense, my dear, which, perhaps, I never had.”
“I daresay I will do, mother,” said Joan, with another laugh. She admired her mother’s cleverness with a kind of amused delight; but the idea of being less valued than her mother did not enter Joan’s head. It made her laugh, with a comfortable sense of practical superiority. “I’ll do,” she repeated, smiling broadly, all the dimples showing in her cheeks. She had a good deal of colour. Mrs. Joscelyn’s fragile looks and elegant extracts were alike out of Joan’s way.
After this Mr. Philip Selby came several times. Joan always assisted at the interviews in the same pleased spectatorship. It occurred to her after a while that the information of the talkers was not very extensive. She seemed to hear the same names over and over again—almost the same remarks—which reduced Joan’s admiration, and made her feel that perhaps after all it was only a way they had, and did not imply the profound erudition she had admired so much: but still it was finer talk than anything she had heard before. Then Harry, came interrupting these elegant conversations. Harry did not think anything of them at all; he had no literary tastes any more than the rest of the family. He was not at all given to reading, and the consequence of Mrs. Joscelyn’s recommendation to him of Mr. Philip Selby, and his society, resulted in a strong dislike on Harry’s part to Mr. Selby, and desire never to see him again. Young Selby was Harry’s friend, a young man who was not good for very much; and he also had the strongest objection to his cousin. There had not been much heard of Mr. Selby while Harry was at the White House; but just after the luggage and the hamper had been sent off, and when peace had for a little while returned, he came to pay one of his usual visits. And perhaps it was that Mrs. Joscelyn was preoccupied; perhaps that Mr. Selby had something on his mind. The conversation flagged. Joan, who now never made any attempt to put by her knitting, and permitted her mother’s basket to exhibit its store of mending freely, took notice of a long pause that occurred in the talk, and she hastened to do what she could, in her straight-forward way, to fill up the gap.
“Mother’s had a deal to think of lately,” she said. “I think she should take a nap in the afternoon. Many are a bit drowsy after dinner. I think it would do her a deal of good if she were to put up her feet upon the sofa, and take a bit of a doze.”
“Joan,” cried poor Mrs. Joscelyn, wounded in her tenderest feelings, “when did you ever see me doze?”
“There,” said Joan, promptly, “that’s just what I say. It would do you a deal of good. You were always one for keeping up; but ‘a stitch in time saves nine,’ and you’ve had more to think of than ordinary. Just you close your eyes a little bit, and I’ll talk to Mr. Selby. He’ll not mind for ten minutes. They tell me you’re getting on wonderfully with the railway; and is there enough of travellers from Wyburgh to Ormsford to make it pay?”
“I have my doubts,” Selby said.
“I have more than doubts. I hope you have not got money in it. There is no traffic, nor manufactories, nor anything like that. Just two or three farmers, and ordinary folk, and potatoes, and such like, and milk-cans; but nothing to keep up a railway. I’ve often wondered, now, a clever man like you, what made you take it in hand?”
“I am very glad you think me a clever man, Miss Joscelyn. I’m afraid I haven’t much to say for myself. They offered me the job, and I took it. If I hadn’t taken it, somebody else would; and it is not my affair. I am making it as good a piece of work as I can. Perhaps something else may come of it,” he said.
“Well, I hope something else may come of it,” said Joan, “for your sake. I don’t think very much will come of it, itself. It’s fine making roads when there is somebody to walk upon them: and the Fell country’s a fine country—but perhaps not fit for railways. You see,” said Joan, “there never can be much of a population; you can’t break down the hills, and sow corn upon them. One line straight through, that stands to reason—but I would have nothing to do with more, for my part.”
“What you say is very sensible, Miss Joscelyn. What do you think of Brokenriggs as a bit of land? They tell me it has a good aspect, and is capable of being improved—”
“Brokenriggs? you are not taking the railway there? Oh, you were meaning in the way of farming? It’s a good enough aspect, but it’s cold soil. Speak to old Isaac Oliver about that, and he will tell you; it’s not a generous soil. You put a great deal into it, and take little out; that’s what I’ve always heard. Indeed, I’ve seen it for myself, as you may too, any day, if you turn down by the old tower—what they call Joscelyn tower, you know; but the house is a very poor place; I hope you were not thinking of it for yourself?”
“It was for—a friend,” said Selby, with a smile.
“Then tell him no; I would not recommend it. There’s another place. It was once in our family, so I’ve always heard; but we are people, as I daresay you know, that have come down in the world.”
“Have had losses—like—so many people,” said Selby. He was going to say Dogberry, but the words woke no consciousness in Joan’s eyes.
“So many losses, that we’ve got little left. It is about ten miles from here, Heatonshaw. It’s a nice little property, and a house that could be repaired: they say it was once the Dowerhouse in our family when we were grander folk. A nice bit of pasture,” said Joan, with enthusiasm. “I have always thought if I could turn out my cows there, there would not be butter like it in all the North country. There is not much to better my butter anyhow, I can tell you—though I say it that shouldn’t,” she said, with a little pride, then laughed at herself.
“And this—what do you call it, Heatonshaw? is a place you would like for yourself.”
“Dearly,” said Joan, “I was telling you—there’s no better pasture; a bit of meadow, just as sweet as honey, and all the hill-side above. And there’s a good bit of arable land lying very well for the sun. I have heard of great crops in some of the fields; I cannot tell you how many bushels to the acre, but you will easily find out. And if your friend has a taste for a dairy—that’s what I could give my opinion upon.”
“There is nobody whose opinion he would sooner take,” Selby said, and as he did so he looked at Joan in a way that somewhat startled her. It was not such a look as she had been in the habit of seeing directed to herself. She had seen other people so regarded, and had laughed. Somehow this gave her an odd sensation, a sensation chiefly of surprise; then she felt inclined to laugh also, though at herself. Bless us all, what had the man got into his head? surely not any nonsense of that sort! It so tickled Joan that she felt herself shaking with laughter, to which she dared not give vent—and she turned her eyes upon her stocking, which was the last thing she ever looked at, lest an incautious contact with someone else’s should produce an explosion of mirth.
“Are you rested now, mother?” she said, “I’ll have to go presently and look after Bess.” Bess was the dairy woman, who had no head for anything, but was Joan’s dutiful slave.
“I was not so tired as you thought, Joan,” said Mrs. Joscelyn, half aggrieved, “I have been doing my work, as you might see—”
“Now, mother, that is a real deception; when I thought you were taking a doze, and was entertaining Mr. Selby with country matters, to let you get your rest! however when there’s a question of farms or the lie of the land, or anything like that, I may take it upon me to say I am better than mother, though she’s far cleverer than me,” said Joan, laying aside her knitting. Selby got up to open the door for her, which was an attention quite unusual, and increased the overpowering desire to laugh with which she had been seized.
“I wonder if I might ask to see your dairy?” he said in a low tone, detaining her at the door.
“Not to-day,” said Joan, briskly, “I never let anybody see my dairy but when it is in prime order; and we are busy to-day.”
“I am sure no dairy of yours is ever in anything but prime order,” he said, with another look that completely overpowered Joan’s gravity. She almost pulled the door from his hand, shutting it quickly between them, and ran off, not to the dairy, as she had said, but to her own room, giving forth suppressed chokes of sound at spasmodic intervals as she flew upstairs. Joan’s was no fairy foot, but a firm substantial tread, which made the old stairs creak. When she got into the shelter of her own chamber, she threw herself into a chair, and laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks. “The lasses have been true prophets after all; I believe I have gotten a lad at last,” she said to herself. But even when her fit of laughter was over, she did not venture downstairs, or near the dairy, until she was certain that Philip Selby must have taken himself away. She bustled about the room, looking over clothes that wanted mending, and “tidying” drawers which wanted no tidying, still pausing now and then to give vent to another laugh; nothing so laughable had occurred before in Joan’s career. She had been asked in marriage by an enterprising “vet” when she was a girl, a poor fellow who had not considered the daughter of a man who was an evident horse-dealer to be so very far above him, but who was all but kicked out of the house by Ralph Joscelyn, and his long-legged sons. Joan had never heard of it even, till after the episode was over, and though she was duly indignant at his presumption, she had felt rather an interest in the man himself, hoping to hear for some time that his disappointment had not affected his health, or interfered with his career. But the “vet” had found a more suitable match, and all had gone well with him, which utterly ended any little bit of romance she might have had a capacity for. Since that time Joan had not had any “lad.” Everybody who was good enough for a Joscelyn to marry, was too good for Ralph Joscelyn’s daughter, and though she was homely she was proud. She could work like a dairy-maid, but she would not have married beneath her. Besides, she was not a marrying woman. There is such a variety of the species, just as there is a non-marrying man; and the more independent women get to be, no doubt the more this class will increase, though it is in a very small minority now. Joan was not at all independent in means, but she was independent in her character, and her work. There was no one to interfere with her in her share of the labours of the establishment. Her mother did not even understand what that work was, and her father, though he was a bold man, did not venture to interfere. She had everything her own way, and guided the house in general according to her will, notwithstanding an occasional outburst, which she soon quieted, on her father’s part. Having thus a great deal to do, a position of weight, and domestic authority, an absolute sovereignty so far as it went, why should she have wanted to marry? She did not; and it was the sentimental consciousness of Selby’s looks that was too much for her gravity. “Just like a dog when it’s singing music,” said Joan to herself. When she went down to the dairy Selby was gone, and Mrs. Joscelyn all uncomprehending seated alone in the parlour. Her mending (which she was always doing; never was a man who wore out his under-clothing so!) required her eyes and her full attention, not like Joan’s knitting; she had never even seen those looks which Joan called “sheep’s eyes.” But Joan herself was much on the alert afterwards, and fully foresaw what was going to happen if she did not take care; and, indeed, notwithstanding all her care, something did happen, as will be seen, within the short space of two days.