The Years that the Locust hath eaten

Front matter

BY THE SAME AUTHOR JOANNA TRAILL, SPINSTER By ANNIE E. HOLDSWORTH In cloth, 35. net ; or ornamental wrapper, 2s. 6d. net (_f.um.cr cSmcs) The Athenæum. — " Miss Traill is drawn with a tender and delicate touch that makes her as lively and charming to the reader as she seems to be to the author. . . . Christine Dow is also a delightful personage." The Saturday Review. — '"Joanna Traill, Spinster,' is so grave in subject, so passionate and earnest in treatment, and so absolutely right in morals, that one might suppose the series intended to lead into high regions of pure reason." The Observer. — "Every word tells that it is the work of a true woman who has thought deeply and lovingly on a most painful subject. . . . The picture is a beautiful one, which it would be well for many women to ponder over. . . .

In her claims for wider sympathy, a higher understanding of right and wrong, and her noble picture of woman helping woman, the authoress has done a good work." The Daily Telegraph. — "The character of the spinster is admirably drawn throughout, with a sympathy and insight which reveal no small measure of artistic gift. Miss Holds worth evidently has both power and pathos." The Daily News. — "The story is one of pathos and power. . . . The character-drawing is subtle and incisive." The Pall Mall Gazette. — " The interesting story is powerfully told. Boas is drawn with keen fidelity; the touch of humour is supplied in the characters and proceed ings of Joanna's married sisters, who are skilfully worked into the closing tragedy of her noble and selfless life." JOANNA TRAILL, SPINSTER Press Opinions, continued.

Pall Mall Budget.—" The theme of the rescued girl is ambitious, successfully done on the whole. . . . one or two of the scenes in connection with her are admirable. The theme of the old maid is done with great delicacy and thoroughness as well." The Guardian. — "Shows marked power of drawing character, and character of no commonplace kind. ... A very clever and very suggestive book." The Methodist Recorder. — "The book is thoroughly unconventional, full of genius, evidenced alike in its pathos and its humour, and promises for its author a place in the very front rank of modern novelists." The Methodist Times. — "This is an exceedingly fine work of fiction." The Gentlewoman. — "Will rank among the prominent books of the year." St. Paul's. — " It is a problem book, and the problem is courageous, and one of the newest in fiction."

Chapter I. One Of The Queen's Daughters

THE street was off the great thoroughfare of the Euston Road, one of the backwaters into which drifted some part of the city's human tide. It was a dingy street ; blocks on either side, leaving visible only a ribbon of sky. One of the houses had not yet donned London's smoky livery ; it still wore the red that prates of youth and a future. Here and there in its front it flaunted clean windows, curtains too, a pot or so of flowers. Up near the roof a cage hung, and the bars did not confine the lark's song that thrilled and fluttered and rose, as if on strong wings, sky ward. i B The music flooded the streets and the flats, and sounded pleasantly in No. 30, where the furniture, newly unpacked, had about it a quaint sugges tiveness of the country. The same suggestive ness might have been seen in the young man who was lounging ineffectually about the flat elaborately accomplishing nothing.

In No. 37 the lark's song silenced a girl's voice airily run ning up and down a scale. "It is time she was here," she said to herself impatiently. Then she lifted her voice on the bar of a song, bounded to a trill, and, pausing on a shake, tumbled a melody about the ears of the artist in the flat underneath. He stopped to listen, humming over the merry bars — " Hier kommt die Braut ! " " Miss Tennant is getting on," he said. " You would think there was spring in the air, or love, or something. For a month she has lived in a winter of scales, and the bird hasn't sung a note, and now they are matching each other. Confounded grey day, too — no light to speak of. What a row those people are making next door! Beastly nuisance moving! " He whistled an air, "See the Conquering Hero Comes." When he recognised it he broke off laughing.

"It's a regular chorus of welcome! the three ONE OF THE QUEEN'S DAUGHTERS. of us hailing the new tenant — probably a fat charwoman with a nebulous ' dear departed ' — another of life's little ironies." He shrugged his shoulders and settled to his painting. But he could not work — a vague ex pectation controlled the brush ; the noise next door made him restless, and overhead he could hear Gertrude Tennant moving about, crossing to the window, strumming a bar on the piano, going to the window again. She spent a good deal of time at the window. He had often thought it would be pleasant to live opposite to her. But hers was not the only face at the window that day. There were noses flattened against many panes in the Regent's Buildings, and heads hanging across the sills. At the window where the lark sang a red handkerchief made a show as of bunting.

The dancing rag caught Gertrude's eye. She threw her sash wide, glancing impatiently to the pavement. " Four o'clock, and no sign of her! ... I won der what all this excitement is about? " Down on the flags she could see a group of residents — working men's wives chiefly, and work ing women's husbands; and further along the street knots and clusters of people, thickening towards the Euston Road end. "What can be happening? It is not a funeral; they seem to be expecting someone." She drew in her head and looked round her dis contentedly ; but the discontent was not levelled at the room. That satisfied her sense of fitness. It was essentially feminine — all "art" screens and down cushions. There was a piano, but it was subdued by a standard lamp in a frilled shade. No, it was not the room that was wrong.

She had been expecting her fate all the after noon — in fact, had put off her singing lesson in order to hear it, and she was still unsentenced. She felt the earnest woman's disgust at the loss of an opportunity. "Perhaps she has met with an accident, and the crowd has gathered to see her carried into the hospital," she thought, fondling the idea of Nemesis arm-in-arm with Lachesis. Suddenly the gay chorus broke again from her lips — " Treulich gefiihrt Hier kommt die Braut It stopped as suddenly. . "Mrs. Gibson, what is going on?" she called to one of the heads at the next window. ONE OF THE QUEEN'S DAUGHTERS. Mrs. Gibson turned a bulging eye towards her. " Some o' the r'yalties going to the station." "Oh! Which of them?" ' ' I can't rightly tell. Some says one thing, some another. But it's one of the Queen's darters."

Gertrude drew in her head. "That all?" But restlessness drove her forth again. " What is Jimmy saying, Mrs. Gibson? " " He wants to know if she will 'ave on a crown, so as he can tell 'er by; and I tells 'im she will look just like common flesh and blood." "Then how will I know what one she is, mother? " " Oh, you'll tell her easy ; she'll smile and bow, and p'raps she will 'ave a carriage and pair all to 'erself." " Mother, won't she be lonely? " Lor no! she's r'yalty, child. They're used to it." " I hear the music ! I can see sojers! She is coming, mother! " " Bless the boy! Keep still, will yer? You'll fall out the windy. There won't be no music and no sojers — she'll just go by in a carridge." " Then wot's the good of lookin', mother? " "You're right, child. We looks because every - THA T THE LOCUST HA TH EA TEN. body looks, and that's the long and short of it.

But you may just as well look at Miss Tennant for all that you'll see — better. I'll be bound the princess ain't so good-looking! " "Oh yes, Jimmy," put in Miss Tennant; "it is worth while looking, if only to say you've seen a noble lady — one of the greatest in the land. Besides, she has made a success of her position ; and a successful woman is a spectacle for gods," she added cynically. "I think she is coming now — see, the people are moving! But it was only to make way for a furniture van that had turned into the street and was rolling up to the Buildings. " That's the worst of these buildins," said Mrs. Gibson, giving one eye to the van and the other to the road. " Folks is always comin' and goin' —it's only gentry like you and Miss Cardrew and Mr. Maiden that stops any time. And I'm sure I don't knowr wot gentlefolks does livin' here."

Gertrude laughed lightly. "Gentlefolks are working people nowadays. Besides, we can't afford to move often — Mr. Mai den can't put extra windows into his studio every few months ; and my piano is a very fast anchor. Do you know whose furniture that is coming in?" o ONE OF THE QUEEN'S DAUGHTERS. " The new peopled 30, I expect. They was to come in to-day. Newly married they are." " Yes, I know. They are friends of Miss Car drew's." " Mother, mother! ain't she comin' now? " "No, child. And I'm sure I wish she was, keeping me idlin' all day! " "I am wasting my time too; I must go in," said the girl, retreating from temptation and gos sip. Inside the room the absentee again ruffled her brows. " I felt certain she would come, so much hangs upon it — my career — everything. Well, it is use less to wait any longer ; I will have tea and go out."

Stephen Maiden was going out too, as she ran down the steps ten minutes afterwards. He waited for her, lifting his soft felt. In spite of his shabby tweed coat, he was attractive, and his eyes looking down at the girl's little figure were kind and pleasant. He was thinking that her short nose made her face piquant. It was not the first time he had thought so. "Do you share the general expectation, Miss Tennant? " " What of ? Oh, the princess. All this fuss is a little absurd, isn't it? Jimmy Gibson has THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN. been flying his red handkerchief in her honour all the afternoon." "And you have been singing royally. Was that in her honour? " "Indeed, no! I sang royally because I was disappointed royally. Madame Schombert was to have come to hear me, and she didn't. I am afraid you have been idle again ; you never listen when you are busy.

How much work have you done to-day?" "Very little — this confounded expectation made me restless . . . Jove, what a perfect face ! " He sank his voice and was silent. They drew aside to make way for a girl coming up the steps. She seemed unconscious of their presence — her eyes smiling, her lips parted, her face brilliant with eager life. Maiden turned and stared after the figure swinging lightly upward. Then he rejoined Ger trude. " What is that girl doing in a place like this? Do you happen to know her? " "It is Mrs. Momerie — the new tenant at No. 30."

Chapter II. Priscilla Hangs Her Pictures

The tidiness that Priscilla Momerie loved was at length evident in No. 30. Barrels of straw, empty packing-cases, rags of paper had all dis appeared. Even the hall was swept and gar nished. She had herself washed the flags of the passage. Mrs. Gibson passing had turned up her nose at the streaky effect: "If she couldn't do things properly she should ha' let 'em alone." Priscilla had been disappointed that no one had gone by to admire her bare arms, and her hands in the dirty suds. She was proud of her work ; and distinctly surprised that her husband had taken it for granted. He neither noticed nor admired her skill as furnisher and decorator; yet only a week before his talk had crystallised around the strings of the little bonnet she had made. She could never wear it again without thinking of the charming fancies with which he had decked it.

She reflected, blushing as her thoughts alighted on THA T THE LOCUST HA TH EA TEN. the fence dividing them, that in his class woman was naturally a housewife. It was only in her set that a practical woman was a person of dis tinction. " The necessary virtues may be admirable," she thought, "but it is only when they are unnecessary that they are admired. At Frods ham, now, if I had swept a room it would have been thought a flight of genius." She laughed, and travelled round the flat with a pleased eye. Bedroom, sitting-room, kitchen; the plain garments of existence, no frills, no embroideries. Well, she could not have done the work of a larger flat. Besides, for two people — and Dunstane out the most part of the day — three rooms were ample. She lingered in the sitting-room ; that was where she would write, at the bureau that had seen the birth of her novel.

Her father's anger had sent the furniture of her rooms after her: "He would have nothing in the Rectory to remind him of her." "To be sure, he had long since got rid of his conscience," she thought. She shook off unpleasant memories. The merry light came back to her eyes. After all, what a help the things had been in furnishing! IO PRISCILLA HANGS HER PICTURES. "Dunstane, I wish you would do more and dream less." Her husband raised himself from the sofa, and stood up, his air half-amused, half-apologetic, wholly devoted. He was a thin man, loosely made. He had a clever face; it would have been keen but for the dreaminess of his pale eyes. They looked long-sighted, as if they missed earth and saw the heavens. As a matter of fact they could not see the horizon. He had a soft, fair moustache.

His forehead was high, promising imagination and fine instincts. It was his expression that had caught Priscilla's fancy. "You healthy young women have no respect for the ideal," he said with a tender glance at her. "You teach me the connection between ideals and hysteria," she laughed. "But what have they to do with hanging pictures? " " The pictures represent your young ideals . . . They satisfied the girl ; but they can have no place in the life of a married woman." " Is marriage the bourn from which no ideal returns? " she laughed. "But still, I don't un derstand you." He came forward, and pinched her ear, THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN. " What a dense little goose it is! Don't you see that these things look rather out of place in the parlour of mature married people? They were appropriate enough in your school-room or bou doir."

" Do you mean the furniture? " "Yes; but especially the prints — they are not large enough and the frames are not handsome enough; I like massive frames." Priscilla's face flushed " They are Botticellis, dear. They don't need frames." "Botticellis, are they? Well, they look old masterly . . . But I never could understand the craze for saints and angels and madonnas. Give me something modern — a good Cooper." ' ' The gentle domestic cow ! " Priscilla mocked. " Meanwhile the pictures are not hung." " Well, what's the hurry, sweetheart? There's the whole evening before us. Come and sit beside me ; I want to talk to you. For three days I have lost my wife in the housewife." " And a capital way in which to lose her," she said vigorously. There was a moment's interlude. From below there came the sound of a low, regular tapping.

It was the coffin-maker at his trade in the base- PRISCILLA HANGS HER PICTURES. ment. Priscilla's face changed as she heard him. Then she freed herself from Dunstane's arms. "We must really get on, Dunstane. They have a baby at No. 29, and the knocking will disturb it later." A mild amusement dawned on the man's face. " Are you always going to measure your con duct in the bushel of the community? " "What else can we do? We are part of the Buildings now; there are other people." " They will not affect us. You don't want to be on visiting terms with the chimney-sweep's wife, do you? By the way, he has already left his card." Priscilla's eyes sparkled ; her face dimpled. " If she has babies I do! Dunstane, have you ever thought how grubby, and sooty, and dear the wee mites will be in a place like this?

I shall want to begin by a general tubbing." ' ' You might, with advantage, begin on your self — I know someone who is very grubby, and very sooty, and very, very dear." Priscilla examined her hand and laughed — a gay chime of laughter that passed the walls and tinkled in Maiden's ears in the next flat. He looked up from his work with a delighted smile. It was the prettiest thing that Regent's TEN. Buildings had heard for many a day; prettier than Gertrude Tennant's surprising vocal gym nastics, rarer than the lark's song. People might sing in the Buildings, professionally; they seldom laughed there. Momerie looked at the girl with a funny pro test in his eyes. "Priss! Priss! what a bad child you are! Hide your laugh under the bushel of the com munity. You will wake all the babies in the building." •' If I could only wake you from your dreams!" she cried gaily.

"Here, give me the hammer. I am going to put up the pictures myself." He watched her climb the step-ladder and stand gingerly on the top. Her pose set him talking of heights, ideals, ambition. Priscilla listened as she worked. Dun stane talked so well on these subjects, it was an inspiration to hear him. "Steep is the road to the gods," he said. And then he talked of the book he had come to London to write — "A New Religion," he called it ; and his fancy played about Priscilla and his work. " His New Religion was a ladder. Scaling it, the soul hung the world with pictures — saints u PRISCILLA HANGS HER PICTURES. and angels and madonnas. Life was the nail, opportunity the hammer." " The hammer on your own nail prints failure," Priscilla mumbled, her thumb in her mouth. He was so busy talking that he forgot to pity her; he forgot to hand picture or hammer or nail to her.

She had to mount and descend and mount again before her work was done. He was roused at last by a cry, and looking up, he saw her sitting on the top step, her back against the wall, her hands over her eyes. " My darling, what is the matter? " " Please help me down, I am so giddy." But he did not move. Priscilla opened her eyes, looking reproachfully. " Are you not going to help me, Dunstane? " He went forward then, anxious and solicitous, and guided her down. His arm was round her. The colour came back to her face. She glanced at him brightly. " Stupid, wasn't it? But it is an old trick of mine to get dizzy. I was not meant for the heights." "You are a headstrong person. You should have let me hang the pictures." " You were so busy talking. And you wouldn't help me when I called." TEN. "Dearest!

No, for the life of me I couldn't move." "Dear boy! I nearly fell. After all," she went on meditatively, " it was my place to set up my ideals in my new life, my saints and angels and madonnas. I feel I have really achieved something." She surveyed the walls, triumph changing to dismay. "You are right, Dunstane," she said with a tragic air, " my ideals are all crooked ! " "Ah, I knew you would agree with me! Confess now. Don't you call this room a maiden's bower? " Her eyes travelled round, seeing the bureau with bursting pigeon-holes, the cupboard whose glass doors hinted of old china, the twine carpet on the floor, the wide Chester field, the straw-seated chairs. They did not convict her of maidenliness. They had al ways appeared too strenuous in the old days, but she had been proud to suggest a vigour of mind in the things she gathered round her.

It was perhaps their simplicity that Dunstane confounded with effeminacy. She swung away from the thought. io c 17 PRISCILLA HANGS HER PICTURES. " Tell me how you would have furnished your room, Dunstane." But though she listened to his description with peals of laughter, pointing his periods with ' ' Silly boy ! " and " Old goose ! " her heart dropped like a dead bird. " Dunstane, tell me about your mother," she cried, " I am tired of furniture." My mother? There is nothing to tell about her. ' ' Oh yes ; she was a nice little apple-faced woman, and her shop was the prettiest and clean est in Frodsham. I loved to go in. I know she used to put sand in the sugar, and she went without it in her tea. She skimped herself for the clever son at Cambridge, dear old thing! " " It was my uncle who sent me to Cambridge," said Dunstane prosaically; "he left the money for the purpose.

He had faith in my abilities. Not like my father. Before he died he bought me that annuity because I was ' a poor tool and would make nothing out.' The prophet in his country again!" He shrugged his shoulders — a movement that betrayed the forgiveness he accorded his father's memory. "He was paralysed for years, wasn't he?" TEN. Priscilla asked. "I remember him — he was a shrewd man and very much respected." "He did not live to see his mistake, poor father! Do you know, Priscilla, I am proud of my pass degree. I sacrificed my ' Honours ' to a son's love for his mother." "But, Dunstane," Priscilla opened her eyes, " I heard of it at the time. Poor old lady, she wanted so to see you before she died, and you were only in time for the funeral." " That was the sad part of it. My finals were ruined by my anxiety for her.

She died while I was taking the last paper." " I didn't know that was what kept you away," she said coldly. " I would have sacrificed a hun dred degrees sooner than disappoint her. Poor old mother! " Her voice was passionate with reproach. "Ah, Priscilla! there comes in the girlish ideal!" he answered lightly. " Now let us dis miss the past. I have turned my back on the grocer's shop for ever and ever. I hold nothing but the future ! "

Chapter III

"BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH." PRISCILLA had married without her father's consent, but not without his knowledge. She had always been too proud and fearless to con ceal any act of hers. The step had been taken in broad daylight, in sight of all Frodsham, tearful at losing the Rec tor's daughter, scandalised that she should throw herself away on the grocer's son. Priscilla's first memories of Dunstane hovered round triangular little packets of peppermint that he used to give her over the counter, she, on tip toe, stretching up a chubby hand to receive them. She had offered to kiss him in those days, and had only been prevented by the coun ter between them. Dunstane did not like these reminders. The years at Cambridge had cloven a sharp division between his birth and himself. It was possible, he thought, for anyone to live with him and not TEN. discover his humble origin.

Priscilla had not lived with him a month. But his origin troubled her less than it troubled him. From the days of proffered kisses to the grocer's son she had been regardless of class differences. She scarcely knew the stern Rector, who could not forget that the child had cost her mother's life. He had left her to servants who had spoiled her as far as was possible. So she grew up with no fine distinctions to teach her that flesh and blood in itself cannot inherit the king dom of society. No gospel of gold had been thrown at her, stunning her humanity. Who ever showed her kindness was kin to her; and there was not a person in the village that was not gentle to the child who loved everybody and claimed love as her right. When her governess arrived it was too late to teach Priscilla that she did not belong to the people.

But it was not too late to set her mind to work. Miss Cardrew was a spinster who min gled sentiment and fiction, and was known in literary circles as a purveyor of sensations. In real life she lived by her knowledge of grammar and kindred excellences. She taught Priscilla all she knew, and found her an apt imitator in the art of novel-making. The scholar had more "BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH." imagination than the teacher ; and it was easy to weave romances round the stories she heard in the village. Before Miss Cardrew left her, Pris cilla was contributing to a magazine of the hum bler sort. As she grew up, people called her unconventional, and the adjective, clinging like a burr, pricked her curiosity. The study of con ventions opened out what was not conventional, and she learned a good deal of human nature and some elemental truths in her quest after know ledge.

She accepted a few rules of society — she learned to dress her hair, to wear gloves on occasion, to leave her book when a visitor called, a rare event at the Rectory. For the rest . . What could be expected of a girl who tramped the moor at all seasons, in all weathers; who made friends with gypsies, and was intimate with gamekeepers? She might be seen any day wheeling out old Betsy Huggins in the wicker chair she had bought for her by sacrificing a new frock. And when she had taken Betsy home she would be flying across the green, a baby on her shoulder, and a troop of shouting children at her heels. She was the darling of the village ; but Frods ham society — the doctor's wife, the three Miss TEN. Speaights, and the auctioneer's widow — would have given her a stronger adjective than " unconventional " if they had known one.

But with Priscilla's gay face beaming on them, and Pris cilla's laugh, the brightest thing in their drab lives; with her demure gratitude for their advice, and equally demure ignoring of it — what could they do but whisper the word among themselves? It was some relief to them that while it con demned Priscilla it gave her a certain distinc tion. At twenty she published a novel. It achieved a succes de scandale. One day in her little white bed in her little white room at the Rectory, Priscilla awoke and found herself — yellow. She would have fled and hidden herself and the hot consciousness the press comments gave her; but where could she be better hidden than in her own village? Literature halted painfully and grudgingly at Frodsham. All London might be straining to catch a glimpse of the daring young author.

At Frods ham she was only " Parson's Lass," and nobody would have troubled to read her book if they had known she had written one. She hid her success like the Spartan his fox. "BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER COMETH." It was when the thing was tearing at her vitals and threatening betrayal that Dunstane Momerie came back to Frodsham to his mother's funeral. His eyes told her that he had read her book. For the first time in her life she could not meet the gaze of a fellow-creature. With an excellent discernment he avoided all allusion to literature. When his reticence had restored her confidence he spoke of her success. It was his hand that drew the fangs from the beast hidden in her bosom, and he earned her passionate gratitude by giving back the self-respect she had lost. Her book had reached an other soul.

There was one who had read and not misunderstood her. The subject opened was entrancing; they were at once intimate. She spent long hours on the moors with him ; walking, talking, planning the future's real suc cess. He, too, had ambition. He had drawn up a scheme for a great work, its title " A New Religion." Everything was ready but the needed data. He was going to London. The British Museum would furnish the materials he wanted. He had an annuity ; he would do some coaching, and write the book that was to give a new hope and a new faith to the world. He talked to her of his ideals, his aims. TEN. Priscilla listened with wistful eyes. They were high and noble and large, making her own am bitions insignificant. She only wanted to write a book that would touch some heart. Momerie's aspirations coursed the universe, travelling too swiftly and too far for self to keep pace with them.