THE Farm was now lying in the full sunlight of noon, for the storm had swept by, and again the sky was clear, although grass was dripping and branches shone with moisture, which the sunlight had not yet had time to dry. Above it the sky was of deepest, clearest blue, and the yard at the back appeared to be bathed in light, which shone on the grey and white pigeons sunning themselves on the roofs, and consoling themselves now the rain was over. Beyond the yard was the kitchen-garden, and behind that rose the heads of some trees belonging to the Squire—a row of trees which Alice Robson did not favour, because they shut out the view of the sunset from her room. On the right, the yard-door opened upon the road near the school, down which were running the children, just released; whilst the smoke from the school-house, where dinner was no doubt being prepared, was intensely blue against the dark trees of the Hall. A pleasant yard! with its noontide lights and shadows, its roofs of house, outhouses, stables on each side of the square, with its whirr of pigeons, soon startled by a footstep, and its great black dog, stretching himself on the ground. In the noontide sunlight all seemed lazy and at peace, the more so since there was little business to be done.
For though Mr Robson had been a skilful farmer in his day, and indeed owned much land as a tenant of the Squire, he had been incapacitated some years before by an accident, which had nearly cost him his life. The land he still tenanted was farmed by his eldest son, who lived in a smaller farm-house near at hand; and to this lesser place most signs of business had retreated, leaving the Manor Farm to be quiet and at peace. Mr Robson lived there, as he had lived all his life, and with him his wife, and his pretty daughter Alice; and, since his sons had grown up and left the place, Mrs Robson had taken lodgers as an occupation for herself—Tim Nicol at first, and, that experiment proving successful, the two young strangers who had come from ‘Lon’on town.’ Whether that experiment would also be successful remained to be proved—there seemed some cause for doubt.
The Manor Farm, as a house, was of no very great extent, though larger than farm-houses generally are, and much improved by the alterations and additions which successive tenants had thought fit to make. In front it had gables and square windows which made recesses within, and an old green porch which was now gay with geraniums; and, standing as it did on the summit of the hill, it looked down over a wide extent of Fen. From the upper windows, if you awoke early in the morning, you could see white mists beneath a glow of sunrise; or, possibly, at a later period of the year, miles of water, the unfortunate result of autumn floods. These front bedrooms were the best and the largest in the house, and for some time had been left untenanted; but, just now, they had been recently given over to the use of the lady and gentleman from ‘Lon’on.’ That lady and gentleman had now inhabited them for a week, and had been the cause of much speculation, as may be supposed. It was not imagined that they would stay there long, for Lon’on people do not like country ways.
And yet even Lon’on people might have found themselves content with the brilliant flowers that were the garden’s pride, with the sweep of green field beyond, vivid in the sunlight, with the corn-fields, and the wide-stretching distance, blue against the sky. In Lon’on there is no such distance or such silence, such clearness of atmosphere without the breath of smoke, such sudden gleams upon grass and golden corn, such songs of blackbird or of thrush to break the stillness. The people of Lon’on have to content themselves with Lanes in which there is not the smallest blade of grass, with the tramp of men, and with music bought with shillings, with the glare of footlights, and the rush of cabs and trains. It is well if these pleasures do not leave them blind, deaf, and senseless to the earth and sky, so that when they are in the midst of the beauty of the country, the beauty of the country has no voice or charm for them.
It is to be supposed that it had little voice or charm for one discontented wanderer from the great city’s streets—Miss Tina Gillan, retired to her apartment, and leaning against the window of her room. Before her the sunlight shone on flowers and grass, on meadows, corn-fields, and wide blue distance. She let her glance wander over the extent of country before she turned away to express her thought to herself. ‘To think,’ she cried, petulantly, as she flung up her arms, ‘that I should have sunk as low as a village in the Fens!’
But even to a lady who has lived in London and who has been brought down to the level of the Fen, there are some consolations and alleviations that persist in haunting the most dismal paths in life. Tina almost smiled as, on turning round her head, her eyes caught sight of the litter in her room, the half-emptied trunk whose miscellaneous contents were lying strewn in disorder on the floor. For mixed with various translations of French novels, and hairpins, and combs, and curling pins, and even rouge, there were ribbons and feathers, flowers, gloves and fans, whilst the bed was covered with dresses and hats. From out of this varied assortment of articles a beautiful toilette was to be compounded—an attire so elegant and complete in all its details that it should even soften the heart of Mr Lee. For Tina was going with her brother to visit her relation—the uncle whom she had never yet beheld.
‘I am sure he will be an old fogey,’ cried Tina, with a pout, ‘and that anything pretty will be wasted upon him; so I won’t attempt to put on a bow of ribbon, or to look anything but a dowdy and a fright. In this horrid country they don’t care what you wear; they don’t look at you long enough to see; it would be better to have been born without a nose, for that might induce them to put up their spectacles!’ In making which statement, Miss Gillan was not at variance with the opinion of some Londoners on country folk; though it is true that in this instance she did the village an injustice—for the village had looked, and had also disapproved. It may be that some vague sense of being condemned gave an edge to the bitterness with which she spoke.
‘I do love London,’ cried Tina, with little dances—she was a small, light creature, who could dance easily—‘I love the streets, and the theatres, and the lights, and all the nice boys who fall in love with me! If I was to do what Mr Markham says I would be able to be a London girl—he would bring out my voice and make a fortune of it; and then I’d be on the boards for all my life. But then he keeps saying that I must work, and work, and I hate work, I can’t bear to do with it! With Mr Lee’s money I should be a lady, and could dress up in silk, and do all things that I like!’
Yes—‘be a lady—’ this was the sole ambition that had sunk deeply into the wild girl’s heart, the solitary longing that had worked in her since she had been able to choose things for herself. Brought up in the midst of the lives of adventurers, it had been impossible that she should not be aware of all the hardships, the possible wretchedness that attend too often on professional careers. Brought up by a father, adventurer and vagabond, who had been artist, musician, actor, as inclination prompted him; by a mother who had left a safe home to share his lot, and had ever afterwards regretted her choice openly, she had early learned to set an unspeakable value on the money that does not ask for years of labour, but is freely and graciously inherited. Ever since, in her early youth, she had heard of her uncle’s wealth, it had represented a means of obtaining that graciousness; since, if he left his money to her brother and herself, they would be able to be a lady and a gentleman and would not be obliged to work. The years, as they passed, increased this confidence—her uncle was a man, and all men were good to her.
So, now that her father and mother had both been dead a year—the father and mother who had not shared her hope, who, judging from their own hardly-earned experiences, had refused to appeal to her uncle for money or for help—now that she had been left with her brother to struggle as they could, and their money was almost spent, and themselves almost destitute, it was natural that they should at length resolve on one grand effort on which to stake their lives. They had come down from London to the village next to Lindum, in which town Mr Lee had lived all his life, and from thence had addressed to him a touching letter, describing their poverty and their orphanhood. To that letter they had not as yet received an answer—although they had felt that it was beautifully expressed—and so, undaunted, they had agreed in council, in person to storm the breach and win the day. Which is to say, they were about, that afternoon, to call at Mr Lee’s house, and at least leave cards on him.
One does not live in London poverty without gaining some knowledge of the world and its ways; one has not haunted back streets and theatre dressing-rooms without possessing at least some experience of life. Tina’s head was empty of solid furniture, but it could be shrewd enough in spite of that emptiness; and she had begun to perceive that it was needful to make some decided move, in order to avert various dangers of which she was aware. It was not only that both her brother and herself were short of money, and that they had not yet paid for their board or their rooms; or that it would be well to reply to the suspicions of the village by exhibiting Mr Lee as an affectionate relative—there was another peril of which she was vaguely conscious, although even its outline had not been shown to her. For some few months she had suspected that her brother had become involved in some secret attachment of whose nature she was ignorant, but which she imagined to have considerable influence upon him—she had been therefore much relieved when he had willingly consented to assist her in her scheme, and to accompany her into the country, and had himself proposed Warton, the next village to Lindum, as their place of residence. No suspicion of any secrecy on his part had crossed her mind; she had been only too glad to accept his escort, and to imagine him delivered from any adverse influence. And now .... now .... she scarcely knew what she suspected, but there was an uneasy suspicion in her heart, a lurking doubt from which she could not free herself, and yet which she could take no means to satisfy. The altered manner of her brother to herself, the conversations with Molly in which she had detected him, the confusion of the servant when she had questioned her—these things, if not amounting to absolute conviction, afforded at least most ample room for thought. In one of the conversations to which she listened secretly—for no shame restrained her from acting as a spy—the name of Salter had reached her ears more than once, and she had stored it in her mind for future use. The unexpected appearance of the handsome village lad connected itself with her doubts and fears; she imagined him to be her brother’s messenger, and was not surprised that he owned the remembered name. And although the ingenuous manner and indignation of the boy compelled her to believe that his denial was true, she considered him to be a chance thread in her hands by which she might unravel a tangled skein at last. ‘I’ll get it all out of him,’ she cried, ‘see if I don’t; I’m not unskilful in making fools of boys!’
As, saying these words, Tina pauses for a moment, with the novels and hair-pins in disorder at her feet, with her pretty hands twisted behind her back, her face uplifted, and her dark eyes bright with thoughts—in that instant’s repose let us seize the opportunity to claim for our own the picture that she makes. A dainty creature! small, slim, lithe, and dark, with a foreign grace, and a southern colouring, with full lips, whose redness relieves the darkness of her face, and with glowing eyes that have sparks and glints of light! Seeing her in this moment one might fancy her to be some wild-spirited, capricious, playful child, full of possible passion, and love of reckless daring, not easily guided, and still less easily restrained. But Tina had other moods—alas! poor girl—which could also find their expression in her face, a weary bitterness that could make her lips cold and hard, could rob her cheek of its freshness and her features of their youth. And then, besides, if she ever found herself alone with any member of the sex that was not her own, there was yet another expression to be observed in her eyes, which could impart to them the most attractive charm—a look of the softest, tenderest sympathy, which held as by magic the male glance bent on hers. If you, being a woman, not a man to be fascinated, could have seen those soft eyes and those sympathising lips, something like a doubt must have risen in your mind as to what the meaning of that tender glance could be. It meant mischief.
Reckless, capricious, improvident, with no education in the laws of right and wrong, with a love of amusement which had never been restrained by any fear for another besides herself—Tina might have been held, in spite of comparative youth and innocence, to represent one part of the darker side of life, the type of woman who through all succeeding ages has been able to be the danger, if not the ruin, of man. For though such a character presents an open snare, it is yet a snare into which feet fall easily.
But still let us think for a moment of Tina as, at length attired, she turns to leave her room, with one sidelong glance just thrown backwards at the looking-glass, as brightly and quickly as if it had come from a bird. Above her hair, which was very short, and tied behind in a knot which rippled out in curls, she had placed a little black hat with its outline softened by a black ostrich feather that curled all round the crown. Her dress was also black, an old figured silk, for she thought it best to seem in some sort of mourning; and a silver bangle was clasped upon her wrist above the long, black, embroidered glove she wore. One more thing we must notice, the daintiest black umbrella, which had at the top of its handle a pretty silver knob. Thus attired, Tina’s dress could not be accused of brightness, or of any attempt at unwarrantable display—yet it must be owned that there was still in her appearance that look of an adventuress which seemed to belong to her. If she was conscious of this fact, I do not know that she regretted it, for she liked people to turn and look at her in the street, and if you have nothing more than an ordinary appearance, it is at least possible that you may not be seen.
So, thus attired, and moving daintily, with a face more thoughtful than usual, and her great dark eyes shining beneath the shadow of her hat, little Tina was able to leave her room at last. She went slowly down the stairs, meditating as she went, for there were consequences of serious importance depending on the interview she was about to dare to-day. At the foot of the stairs her brother stood waiting for her—a young man whose appearance was not as much like that of a foreigner as her own; well-dressed, supple-figured, with delicate hands and features, and languid eyelids that were scarcely raised as she joined him. They did not exchange a single word or glance, but, moving together, went out into the yard.
Here, amidst the bright sunlight, and the shadows of the roofs, the Robson’s pony-carriage was waiting for them, with Tim standing by it as a guardian; for he was accustomed to assist in the work of the house when he was at hand. With a true artisan independence, nevertheless, he did not touch his blue cap as they came up to him, but stood at the head of the pony without paying attention to them, until they were seated in the carriage, when he moved away. The yard boy had thrown the folding doors wide open; and the rough black pony moved forwards lazily, undisturbed by the excitement of the yard-dog at his rear. By the door near the kitchen stood Mrs Robson and her daughter, who had come out to watch the start; and behind the portly form of the mistress of the house little Molly concealed her eager interest. The groups of figures were distinct in the brilliant sunlight on the yard, and so were the gleaming pigeons, and the rustle of their wings; but the occupants of the pony-carriage appeared to be abstracted, and to have little attention to give to all that surrounded them. Without speaking, even to each other, they reached the folding-doors, and turned the sharp corner into the road, and drove away.