Deborah of Tod's

Chapter I

" And you live alone? " ''Quite alone," she said serenely. "I am not at all nervous." General Sir Arthur d'Alton had not meaiio to infer that the young woman to whom he was addressing himself was likely to he nervous in any sense of the word. Her vigorous, rather awe-inspiring presence, and healthy, placid countenance, gave him indeed no warrant for any such supposition. His question merely referred delicately to the pro prieties, which in this world forhid a maid of great personal attractions, and evident youth, to reside alone. But this was out of the world — a wayside farm in East Devon, owned, inhahited, and worked hy the young woman in question. " Will yu please tu come in ? " asked Dehorah, smiling. She had a slight though undeniable touch of native dialect, hut it did not render her speech nor accent common.

It is impossible to connect vulgarity with repose. There was a complete sense of repose iu the presence of Deborah. n. B DEBOKAH OF TOD'S. 2 Sir Arthur accepted her invitation with alacrity, and walked up the narrow garden path which led direct to the porch of the farmhouse from the gate. As he walked it did not occur to him how markedly, even ridiculously, their figures contrasted. There was nothing attractive in this wreck of a gallant soldier, save a certain old-world courtesy of manner and speech which distinguished him. The sharpened out line of his pointed features indicated past good looks ; but his face was shrivelled, and of an unwholesome yellowness, whilst the unmistakable lines of a dissipated life had been deeply graven upon it by a never-failing Nemesis. Eyes that had once been bold, bright, and blue, were bold still, but with the pitiable boldness that has lost shame ; their colour was faded, their whites bilious and bloodshot.

His walk was crippled by the stiff gait of advancing age, which even his dapper attire failed to conceal ; and though still upright and carefully padded, his small shrunken figure was the more pathetic from the very jauntiness of his air. The crown of his hat barely reached the heavy knot of raven hair which rested on his companion's neck. Her large, finely-moulded figure was clearly defined by the straight folds of her blue linen gown. There were no hideous vagaries of flounced fashion to disguise or mar the long and graceful outline of the beautiful limbs. She was magnificently developed, and walked with the state liness of an Italian woman carrying a pitcher full of water on her head. The General stole a glance at her face, and told him self he was disappointed. It was too peculiar to be as beautiful as he had imagined at first sight.

The brow was low and broad, and above it was parted black hair — ■ coarse, as raven hair often is, thickly waving, as it seldom is. The eyebrows were straight, and far too heavily marked for our notions of beauty ; their luxuriant growth was repeated in the lashes that shaded her large clear eyes. Eyes so black that they held every colour under heaven reflected and imprisoned in their shadowy circles. Her skin was bronzed, her dusky colour warm and rich, and save for the heaviness of the brow, the thickly moulded lips, and the straight, almost flattened nose, the General would have admired her excessively. He was too cultivated not to observe the magnificence of the type ; too conventional to appreciate it wholly. "If yu be so tired and thirsty," said Deborah, "I cude fetch yu a drop o' cider — we don't get so many visitors here," delicately implying that his acceptance would confer an obligation upon her.

" Wude yu come in? Or mebbe yu'de find it pleasanter in the porch." The General looked at her searchingly for the least indication of a twinkle in her large grave eyes, but they met his own with a directness which baffled him. It is not easy to be gallant in the presence of absolute unconsciousness. " It is very pleasant out here," he said politely, " and a glass of cider would be most refreshing. But it is too good of you to he so hospitable to a stranger." She offered him a rustic seat with kind simplicity, and then, not hurrying in the least, but with the intentness that characterized her, she fetched a couple of glasses, and placed them beside him. Then she produced a brown jug. and went across the yard to the cider cellar, b2 where he could see the blue gown in the darkness of the interior, as she bent over the casks.

The General looked after her regretfully. He was thinking of the cider. " It will play the dickens with my digestion," he said to himself. "And — she's no more sense of— of — fun than an old tabby cat." "It's only the rough cider we make here, but 'tis a very gude brew," said Deborah, anxiously setting the jug on the rustic table. " I daresay, now, yu are more accustomed tu drink it bottled ? ' ' The General did not explain that he was not an habitual cider drinker. He took a hasty draught, and was relieved to find it less acid than he had expected. Deborah gravely contemplated him as he drank, while she sipped contentedly at the glass she had poured out to bear him company. She stood opposite him, outside the shelter of the porch, her raven head towering against the blue sky — the queen of a kingdom of colour and sweet scents.

The herbaceous borders of her little garden, which sloped down, facing southwards, to the gate, were crowded with old-fashioned flowers. Clusters of pinks carpeted the brown earth like drifts of new-fallen snow. Red and white roses scattered their petals on the grass, or held up lovely heads on straight standards. Sweet peas, purple and white and pink, clothed the low wall which separated the flower-beds from the red-walled kitchen garden. Scaidet and variegated poppies flamed next the porch, which, under its glass shelter, was covered with the tender green leaves, and heavy yellow heads of Marechal Niel roses. Orange and blue pansies gaily edged all the borders, and stiff white and pale magenta stocks stood among forests of mignonette. Across the valley of the little lane and meadow below the garden gate his eye travelled over the landscape that rose opposite the house : the rich red earth, luxuriant vegetation, and emerald pastures of Devonshire, stretching away until the view melted into the purple of the distant hills.

It occurred to him that when he had finished his cider he would be able to find no further excuse for prolong ing his stay. He therefore renewed apologies for his intrusion. " It du not matter," said Deborah, receiving them graciously ; " I am not very busy tu-day,not considering," she added honestly — "I mean, last week we were busy; I had a good lot tu du. But we got all the hay in wi'out a drop o' rain, an' it rained the next day. I never thought 'twude hold over till we finished, but it did." "How extremely fortunate," said the General, with animation — " er — providential, eh ? " " Yu will see the stack," said Deborah, looking with fond absorbed eyes towards the slanting front meadow. " This is a turble small farm, yu know," she added ; "yu mustn't be expecting much, but 'tis wonnerful gude land ; they reckon 'tis the best land here about, they du, indeed."

" Are you — er — renting it, or does it belong to you? " said the General. " It is my own, freehold," said Deborah, with a touch of pride. " 'Twas my gran'father's, and his father's. I doan't know how long it has belonged to we ; I've heard say 'twas hundreds of years in our family. My gran'father he left it tu my uncle, and my uncle he left it tu's wife, and she tu I, as he did wish it ; 'twude ha' been my mother's, but he left it tu my aunt, owing tu her runnin' away, and my aunt she farmed it same as I du. She was turble bad before she died, so she learnt I tu manage it. They say 'tis always a woman what farms Tod's." " Is that the name of the farm ? " " I never heard ony other," said Deborah ; " 'tis putt down ' Tod's ' on the map." " And so your mother ran away ; I suppose she found the farm too dull ?

" said the General, leaning on the rail of the porch, and trying to instil a sentimental expression into his lack-lustre eyes. " Dull ! " said Deborah in surprise, " you cude not call this place dull. Why, my gran'father kept it alive wi' stock ! No, 'twas my father came courting of her when she wasn't more, they say, than seventeen year old. Her was turble gude-looking ; hor had tlie prettiest skin. Oh, a wonnerful £iule skin ! And when men court, yu know, maids du listen." The quaint simplicity of her seriousness in stating this fact was inimitable. It reanimated the General's Hagging interest. " Ah ! " he said, delighted, " and so he persuaded your mother to run away with him. I don't wonder at it ! " " 'Twas fulish," said Deborah, but her eyes softened; " but a young maid wunnot think on her interests when she's gotten a lad.

And she was turble feared o' gran'father." " And — hum — ha — so they were married, I suppose," said Sir Arthur, chuckling, and supposing nothing of tho kind. " Oh, yes," said Deborah, " and I was left an orphan when I was a little maid of five or six, and my aunt fetched me home." " And — and has no one come to persuade you to follow your mother's example?" said the General, growing a little bolder under the influence of her rustic frankness. " I've luked too high," said Deborah simply. " They bid me luke high, seeing I've gentle blood in me. There was a farmer — a straightforward man — but I cuden't fancy him ; and the lads in Westacombe be mostly working on the farms about, of they'd be glad tu get me, if 'twas only for Tod's ; but gran'father did use tu say a maid shude never have more gold than her man, and there's time for me tu think of such things later.

There bain't no hurry, I'm but six-and-twenty yet." "Then your father, what was he? An artist, I suppose?" said the General, with an air of respectful interest. " He was a soldier," said Deborah, half apologetically and half proudly. " He was just a boy," she added, " and my gran'father he wude never have consented, so they ran away wi' each other." "A soldier!" said the General in rather disgusted accents, picturing a smart young recruiting sergeant. " He was staying tu Kingsfold," said Deborah, " on a visit. It's a matter of six miles from here, or more. They are grand folk, I've heard tell, but I've never seen them myself. This lane, it doan't lead tu nowhere, and they be always away pleasuring." "History repeats itself," said Sir Arthur in surprise. "lam staying at Kingsfold, too. Then your father was in the army, like myself?

" " Yu ! " said Deborah, colouring faintly. " Then yu wuden't think the worse of him ? " "For being an officer and a gentleman?" said Sir Arthur, smiling. " Why, hardly." " Aunt was that prejudiced," said Deborah. " She was most a foreigner in these parts. Come from Plymouth, her did. She belonged tu a sect what cuden't abide soldiers. She was always so thankful it all happened wi' my mother before ever she married uncle." " Ah ! " said Sir Arthur, evincing little interest in this curious fact. " And what was your father's regiment ? " " The 25th Hussars," said Deborah. "If yu will come into the parlour, I will show yu his sword. I hung it up the day my aunt died, tu show 'em all I wasn't ashamed on his memory." "But this is a most extraordinary coincidence," cried the General. "It is my old regiment.

I must have known your father. What was his name ? " " Jack Neville." " I knew him perfectly well five-and-twenty years ago. Why, my dear," said the General, with quite a genuine emotion for the moment, " I commanded the regiment." " Yu knew my father ! " gasped Deborah. "I should think I did," said the General somewhat ruefully. He remembered that the young gentleman had died considerably in his debt. "And yu — yu commanded my father's regiment?" said Deborah in hushed tones. " What wude your name be? " " I was Colonel d'Alton then," said the General, " but now I am General Sir Arthur d'Alton." "Oh!" said Deborah. She beheld suddenly, not a small and wizened elderly dandy, but a worn veteran, the hero of a thousand fights. " He was a fine fellow," said the General. " He exchanged soon after I got the regiment, and went out to India."

"He died of cholera," said Deborah. "I can't remember him — but " She had no great power of expression. Emotion made her dumb ; but her silence, and the deep tenderness and reverence which transfigured her placid face, were eloquent. The tears hung on her long, black lashes. The one romance of her life had been the vague tradition of her father's memory. Of his faults she had heard much and often. That he was young (a grave reproach in the eyes of her grand father), extravagant, and reckless — all this had been dinned into her ears ever since she could remember. But she had other memories which she treasured throughout the condemnations so freely bestowed upon him. Deborah recollected her mother faintly, but yet well enough to know that it was no untrue report which accused her of having died of grief for her husband.

She had also a packet of letters, tied up and directed to herself by her mother's dying hand, his photo graph, and a few pathetic mementoes of his life and profession. She was naturally better read and better educated than her grandfather — who, although a shrewd, respectable man, had been almost illiterate — or even than her prejudiced uncle and aunt. She had read some of the old-world romances, which in childhood and youth stir our blood, and our fancies, as no later histories ever will ; and she had likened her father to her favourite heroes, building up from them all an imaginary character that was not, perhaps, so very unlike his own. Deborah's nature was, on the surface, as practical and matter-of-fact as the sternest relative could wish ; but at the bottom of her heart lay a hidden substratum of romance, the stronger for its depth, the purer for its silence.

Her whole power of idealization had been brought to bear on the memory of her father. " An officer and a gentleman " — a being, she believed, as utterly removed from the commonplace men surrounding her as though he had been an archangel. Her mother was different ; she had been a maid on a farm like herself, or any of the other maidens on the farms around. But the other maidens could not boast a Lieutenant Neville for their father. It set her, she thought, apart from the other maids and their fathers altogether. And now here was something still more wonderful. Some one much greater than her father had been, who was yet no more than an " officer and a gentleman," as he was, and who had kno.vn him well. Deborah had been brought up in the quiet bye-ways of life, where events, save deaths, births, and marriages, are very rare.

Each one was felt to the uttermost. The merest trivialities assumed an important aspect. Her very knees trembled as she led the way into the best parlour and showed the General the sword which she had hung up on the day of her aunt's death, as her first independent act — a dumb tribute to her father's memory. And the neighbours saw her do it, and felt that " Deborah Neville, up to Tod's, her was a woman now, and no mistake." The halo which had in her eyes always surrounded the sword now shed the greater part of its lustre over the figure by her side. The General was unconscious of his sudden glorification. Perhaps he was hardly aware that he needed it. He glanced round the parlour with a strong inclination to laugh, its innocent Philistinism was so rampant. Such a parlour may be seen any day in almost any farmhouse in the West of England.

A white-and-gold paper, and a gaudy Brussels carpet; a set of six oleographs, and a horse-hair sofa with three white antimacassars ; an upright arm-chair on either side of a grate ornamented with coloured paper, and four chairs ranged round the wall ; a polished mahogany table, with woolly mats holding blue vases ; a glass bookcase, a beautifully japanned coal-scuttle, and a brilliant hearthrug. The Lieutenant's sword shuddered in the glancing sunlight at its surroundings. The General could think of nothing more suitable than to return to his original remark, but he managed this time to infuse a good deal of compassion into his tone. " And so you live all alone here — and you are Jack Neville's daughter ! Do you — sit much in this room — is this your " " Oh, no," said Deborah, rather shocked, " only on a Sunday afternoon.

I've kept it just like aunt used. Nothing's changed, except — but of course I don't sit in it o' weekdays. On a farm there is tu much tu du tu sit in the parlour." She did not smile ; she instructed him seriously. " Will yu please tu sit down ? " she asked, advancing a chair. «I_I fear I cannot trespass longer on your time now," said the General. " I have to return to Kingsfold, you see, and though I am a great walker I am not so young as I was," jocosely. "Wude yu take the cart?" said Deborah timidly. "The springs are not very gude, and the horse is old, but it takes me in tu market comfortable enough." For the first time she found herself wishing she had a pretty pony carriage, like the rector's wife, or a smart dogcart like the doctor who drove past occasionally from the nearest town. She knew that she could pay for it as well or better than they.

It had simply never been in the tradition of Tod's to keep one, that was all. The General hid certainly spoken truth in saying he was not so young as he had been, and moreover, his wanderings had tired him considerably. Devonshire lanes wind in and out in a manner sufficiently puzzling to a stranger, and they are too deeply sunk to afford much view to a pedestrian of the surrounding landmarks. He had lost his way pretty completely when it led him to Deborah's farmhouse, and it was rather his despair of being able to retrace his path, than his sudden admiration of her striking face and figure, which had caused him to hail her from her own gate. " I should be very grateful," he said, " but really — " I shude be proud tu du even a little service tu yu," said Deborah in a low voice. With equal surprise and embarrassment he observed the tears in her eyes.

" If — if my father had been alive, his whole house, everything he had, wude have been at your service, yu — his commanding officer. Please think it the same now." Her notions of obedience, loyalty, and devotion, were evolved from ancient history, but of this the General was not aware. He drew up his shrunken form, and pulled at his moustache. " You are very good," he said gallantly. If she had been smaller and less in earnest, and a little self-conscious, and had rhapsodized (as he mentally termed it) thus, his course of procedure would have been so easy. He could have put his arm round her, in a manner that she could have interpreted as either fatherly or the reverse, and perhaps taken her hand affectionately, and kissed her into the bargain. He was not generally embarrassed in the presence of a pretty woman, though more than once younger men had heard the pretty woman's opinion of him afterwards, and it hardly tallied with his own.

But this tall and stately goddess abashed him strangely ; the pure reverence in her eyes somehow quenched the bold stare in his own. He felt small, mentally and physically, though she was utterly unconscious of his being either. He was simply to her the most important and grandest personage she had ever seen. He had been her father's commanding officer, and as such, the expression of her face denoted that she was ready to fall down and worship him — but it did not invite him to make love to her. She glanced at the sword, and very suddenly took his withered hand in both her own, bent her head over it, and pressed her fresh soft lips upon it. It was the passionate expression of her long stifled loyalty to her father's memory, and the General, personally, had nothing to do with it. But it is not to be supposed he could understand this. She was gone before he recovered his surprise, and he heard her calling a man to catch the horse and put it into the market cart.

Chapter II

Deborah, by some happy instinct, did not put on her Sunday bonnet, as was her first intent, to drive Sir Arthur back in the market cart. She went quietly upstairs to the attic which had been hers since her early childhood. She retained it in preference to the large room with the old-fashioned four-poster on which her grandfather, uncle, and aunt, had successively passed from life to death, as respectably and quietly as they could have desired had each chosen a method of decease beforehand. It is given to few of us to attain even our last wishes. Deborah, though free from personal vanity, was yet obliged to cross to her looking-glass and see that her thick raven hair was neatly done, and her collar spotless and unrumpled. She put on her garden hat, and took a pair of gloves frorn a box whereon was inscribed " A present from Exeter."

The gloves were her tribute to the General's greatness ; she wore them very seldom. When she went down the uncarpeted wooden staircase, she found he had escaped from the fusty, horsehair atmosphere of the parlour into the rose-scented porch, and there she joined him. "Are you really going to drive me yourself?" he asked ceremoniously. "I cuden't take Jimmy from his work," said Deborah frankly ," but this afternoon I am not so busy. There's the ironing, but Keziah will du it for me ; I need only tu tell her I'm going." A few moments later the General, seated by Deborah's side in a far from aristocratic conveyance, was driving through the narrowest lanes it had ever been his fate to behold. His companion drove with an indifference begotten of the age and experience of the animal she was conducting.

Her eyes were generally fixed on the glimpses of blue hills and distant scenery that were occasionally afforded them by gaps ha the hedge-tops, or by the gateways between the banks. When she spoke she turned towards her companion, and at such close quarters he was enabled to perceive the purity of her bronzed skin, the unusual length and thickness of the pointed black lashes above and below the large eyes. It had never been his lot before to encounter such an exuberance of perfect health as those clear eyes, rich colour, and magnificently developed form suggested. It made him feel vigorous and inspired even to look at her. It made him, on the other hand, look more shrivelled and dried up and unwholesome than ever. But we are, happily, for the most part, unaware of the extent of our personal deficiencies.

The General's favourite motto was a hackneyed but consoling one — " A woman is as old as she looks, a man is as old as he feels." And, indeed, on this perfect summer afternoon it is doubtful if he felt a day more than thirty-five, which is an ideal age — for a man. " How long are yu going tu stay over tu Kingsfold ? " asked Deborah. The country mode of expression was too quaint, so earnestly spoken, to be offensive. The General, as an old campaigner, seized his opportunity. " I was going away to-morrow," he said, looking into the beautiful eyes, " but now I shall stay on hoping for a chance of seeing Jack Neville's daughter again, if I may." "Yu'll be kindly welcome," said Deborah. A warm blush flooded her dusky face. The honour of being thus recognized by her father's friend and equal — nay, superior — produced a glow of pride and pleasure in her simple heart.

The General's experienced eyes marked the blush, and the General's mind marvelled at the ease with which a rustic heart was fluttered. There is no saying what advances he might not have been emboldened to make save for the opportune jolting of the cart down a remarkably (even for Devonshire) steep hill. Deborah had no idea of a cautious descent. It was the local habit to get out and walk up the hills, and to sit in and be trotted as fast as possible down them, and she mechanically followed custom. Having no whip, she raised the reins and brought them down with a light " click " on the horse's back, upon which he obediently set off downhill at a brisk pace, the General clutching nervously at the side of the cart, and finding the greatest difficulty in keeping his seat at all. When they arrived, with a bump, at the foot of the hill, the horse relaxed his speed of his own accord, and jogged quietly on, turning the sharp corners of the lanes d. c with the same perfect independence he had manifested throughout.

"Do you always go so fast downhill?" asked Sir Arthur, rather out of breath. Deborah looked surprised. " Don't yu like it?" she said solicitously. "But the old horse is very safe. May be yu bain't used tu driving ? " Sir Arthur was speechless. " Or, perhaps," she added, " the carriages yu are used tu have better springs?" She blushed again, and hazarded an ingenuous remark. " I have thought, times, tu get a newer cart. First time I know of any one who has gotten one tu sell, I doan't know but I shall du it sune. If I'd known I was tu drive yu," she added, with a shy smile, " I shude have had one more comfortable like for yu." "It is quite good enough for me," said Sir Arthur gallantly. "I suppose there are — surely I saw carriage works of some kind in the little town I passed through ? " " Oh, but they'd want a lot of money for a new one," said Deborah.

" We doan't trouble shops much out here." " I wonder," said the General, after contemplating her for a moment, " why your father's relatives haven't sought you out. There are a lot of Nevilles about. They must be related to you." "My father was an only child," said Deborah, "so there wuden't be any such very near blood tu I." " Still, there must be uncles and aunts and cousins of his," said the General, " who should know of your existence." "It was Aunt Tod that brought me up," said Deborah. " There's no more Tods left. Them's died out. My father's people never offered tu du nought for me when I was a little maid, and now I be independent like, I doan't know I shude care tu ha' aught tu du wi' 'em. Not but what I shude make 'un welcome if they came tu luke for me." "It is very strange you should be so utterly alone in the world, so young as you are."

" I bain't just so young as I luke," said honest Deborah. "I'll be twenty-six come next August; I was tu-and-twenty when aunt was tuke, and I'd learnt all her ways long before that. The time has gone won nerful fast, wi' so much tu luke tu in the farm." "I wonder," said the General, hesitating, "that it has never occurred to you to sell the farm, and seek a — a gayer kind of life, more suitable for a young lady. Your father would surely have wished his daughter to know something of his own world, to go out a little, to go to London sometimes. I think you told me you had never left Westacombe." Deborah was too much overcome with amazement to answer for a moment. To sell Tod's ! To quit the old farmhouse and be no more owner of the old-fashioned garden wherein she knew every tree and plant and bulb and root by heart !

To leave the boards her aunt had scrubbed for so many years to be trodden by strangers — to desert the old corner in the big kitchen where the patchwork-covered chair stood that had held in turn so many weary generations of Tods ! To give up the right of even entering the rooms ! She could not picture life without Tod's farm ; still less could she picture Tod's without her. She who had sometimes so c2 much difficulty in keeping the "helps" up to the old traditions of the place, and had often felt the want of her aunt's scolding voice to aid her in training aright the young and careless maidens who succeeded each other in the establishment. And old Keziah, who was her right hand, and remembered just how everything was done in her grandfather's time. "Pray pardon me for venturing to offer a suggestion which I can see gives you pain," said Sir Arthur hastily.