Mainstone's Housekeeper

Chapter I. The Peacocks In The Sun

The ploughmen were at plough in the fields around ; the hedges were full leafed ; it was the sunniest morning of a sunny spring. The mistress of the " Brown Hen," a little roadside inn about two miles from Mainstone vicarage, was brushing up her house-place when some one stepped across the threshold and asked if that was the way to Mainstone. She turned round and beheld a young woman very simply appareled. " Why, there b'ain't much of a village of that name, for ye see this is a country sort o' place ; but if you mean the vicarage, it's about a mile. Take the turning to the left — keep on — and thee won't miss it, for it's a high up, nicish sort of VOL. I. B place, though a bit lonely. But my Barbie will tell you better." Saying this, the mistress, who was a decent, comely sort of woman, of about fifty, went to the foot of the little crooked staircase and called her daughter.

Barbie, who had gone upstairs ostensibly to make the beds and dust the chambers, but who in reality was leaning on a back casement, watching a young farmer and his labourers at work in a neighbouring field, gave a glance in the looking glass and hurried down. The morning glory flooded on the old oaken floors could be darkened by no sweeter shadow than this of Barbie Bell. She found her mother and the stranger standing outside by the horseblock. " This young woman wants to know the way to Mainstone. I tell her there ain't much of a village like, but thou canst show her the lane. Though maybe, young woman, it's the vicarage you need." "Yes, I am going there," was the brief reply. " Well, that's a new thing ! Mr. Radnor don't have visitors often — it might be a deal better if he had. But, maybe, you're going to see old Betty Jack ; she's relations, I've heard, of some sort or another."

" No ; I know nothing of those you speak of. My business is with Mr. Radnor." " Mother," interposed Barbie, who knew full well that some more direct question would soon follow, " we're keeping the lady waiting ; if you please, miss, if you'll go on a step or two, I'll get my bonnet and come after." And half curtseying to the stranger as sne spoke, Barbie ran in-doors, and soon returned. Nothing of all this was lost upon the young woman, but, taking Barbie's first word at its full worth, she said a civil good day, and passed on beneath the orchard hedgerow which flecked the sunlight with its shadow. Mrs. Bell watched her and Barbie out of sight, and then went slowly in-doors. "My girl takes her for a lady, that's pretty sure, and she ain't one over-ready with her manners, all folks know. But la ! her dress ain't much ways like a lady's, unless it be a primish sort o' one as goes to Meeting.

Plain bonnet, plain gown, plain silk cape, wi' hardly a mite o' trimming on it — well, she's all the world just like those Methodee women in Welton, as thinks dress a sin o' Satan. But her voice was like a lady's, and her words just as nice as the parson's. So perhaps Barbie was right in making her manners, though it don't do to be over-humble to folks one knows nothing of." Mrs. Bell said this to herself as she went about the house-place dusting the old-fashioned furni ture, for she was a dainty housewife. Presently, B raising her eyes to the clock and seeing that noon was advancing, she set a table and some chairs, as though she expected customers. Yet she was still pursuing her old train of thought, for when she had put on a clean apron, fetched her knitting, and sat down, she added : — " That's just it ! — she's going up to the vicarage to be housekeeper !

But I'll ask the doctor when he comes. Young Mr. Greene '11 be sure to" know, if anybody does." The young woman pursued her way for some minutes, as though unconscious that her steps were followed, and, reaching a gate which was partly open, for it led into the field where the ploughs were at work that Barbie had been watching, she stopped, and, turning round, beheld the girl. " This is kind of you," she said, in the same refined voice which Mrs. Bell had remembered when her disparagement of the young woman's wardrobe had reached its climax, " though Main stone vicarage seems easy enough to find." " But it'll be easier if I go on with you to the bottom of the lane," replied Barbie quickly ; " leastways, if you like, miss." " Oh ! I have no objection, for I am quite a stranger. But this is a pleasant country.

Is Mainstone as pleasant 1 " " A deal nicer, miss. There ain't such a garden as Mr. Radnor's for many a mile, and the woods and fields which lie away to Mainstone church make the walk right pleasant the summer long." "Indeed!" Then, as if not wishing to pursue the subject further, she asked Barbie the name of the large field which lay before them, and of the whitewashed farmhouse on the upland bevond. " It's called the Abbey-lea ; and that's Moore's farm, for folks of the name of Moore have lived there many a year. Now, two young men and their old grandmother keep it. A miserly body she is ; and that young man in the velveteen coat, as stands watching the plough, is Silas Moore, the youngest of the masters." Barbie's voice faltered as she spoke. Moving abruptly away, she began to gather some of the scented violets which filled the shady hollows of the bank.

Without heeding her — for she seemed to have matter enough of her own for anxious thought — the young woman, whether lady or servant, leant for some minutes against the gate, and only con tinued her walk when she saw the men unyoking their horses from the plough for such time as they sat to eat their dinner in the hedgerow, and that the master of the field came quickly towards the gate along the hollow of a furrow. The scene was very^fair, and might well be turned from with reluctant feet. For there was beauty in the fresh turned furrows, as they glistened in the sun, beauty in the distant uplands, new leaved and green, beauty in the whole landscape, because He who gives us all things was there in the glory of His vernal season. She had gone some little distance, when her at tention was attracted by voices in the rear.

Look ing round she saw that the farmer had come forth from the field and met Barbie, and that for some cause or another there was angry speech between them. She passed on, not liking to seem curious ; but, as their voices rose, the words were audi ble in the extreme stillness of the breezeless noon. " No, I won't be in the house-place, Silas, when you come," said Barbie, determinately ; " I won't, and there's an end of it, and so good morning. I have to shew the lady there as far as Mainstone Lane." He seemed to detain her forcibly, for he said betwixt his teeth : " I will know what it is, and who it is, that has thus set strife between us. Barbie, thy love was the only comfort I had, for there is none in the house up yonder. I am but my brother's servant, and the old woman's rule is harder and crueller than ever."

" That's nothing to me, Silas, let me go. Thou hast got Mary Smith to walk with ; if not her, plenty of Welton girls. And thou canst ease thy mind of what thou say'st is thy trouble about me, by talking against me as loud, and as long, and as often as thou pleasest, at the ' Bull.' " "I never have, and never shall, Barbie, and those who say so lie. As to Mary Smith, her father, thou knowest, works on our farm, and I but drove the poor lass to Marley on a wet February day, to see a sister that died a few days after. And as to that, my love for thee shall never make less a man of me to do a kindness to any decent lass or woman. But I guess what the truth be," he said, raising his voice still higher, "and that thy path through Halliford Wood last week was not for naught. But, if thou thinkest to go home there as an honest man's wife, the woe of thy mistake '11 be thine, not mine; for Ae '11 not go to the ' Brown Hen ' to choose a wife, nor would madam his mother, nor the high-bred misses, his sisters, receive thee as such — on that thou may be well content."

" What I do is no business of thine, Silas, so let me go." " It is," he said, with a vehemence which showed the mortal pain he was enduring ; " I love thee, and I have asked thee to be my wife, and it is much to me to see thee going wrong." Barbie must now have broken from the young man's restraining grasp, for no further words were audible, and a few minutes after she could be heard coming slowly onwards. When the young woman turned to speak to her, Barbie's eyes were red with weeping, and the flowers she had gathered had been plucked to pieces, for she was even then scattering the fragments before her with nervous fingers. "With whom is it that you are thus at strife?" asked the stranger, with the voice and manner of one accustomed to command. " It is a pity for a young girl like you to be partner in a quarrel, particularly when those you oppose seem to be in the right ; and to speak as a good and truthful man should, at least as far as I can judge from the little which has unavoidably met my ear."

"Oh! it's nothing," said Barbie with petulance, though not impudence ; " Silas Moore and I often fall out. He's as jealous as can be. If he'd his own way, the ' Brown Hen ' wouldn't have a cus tomer." "Do you give him no cause for jealousy ? " said the questioner again ; " the love of a good man should never be trifled with." " It's just his own way," answered the girl evasively, " and that's all. He 's a sore sort of life of it, I daresay, with his old grandmother and his brother Robert, who 's every bit as miserly. But that's nothing to me. His tempers must go elsewhere." " Yet, you love Silas," said the young woman, in a voice which added as plainly as could be, " this is my opinion, and it is true." Barbie made no reply. She was abashed by the penetration of the stranger, and yet attracted by a singularity of manner so new to her experience.

So, as she could not answer, and was pro bably made nervous by the keen gaze which read her looks, she solved the difficulty by beginning to cry. " Come ! tears are useless, and duty much better," said the stranger, in the same firm yet womanly voice ; " and as I am coming to be one amongst you, I shall be interested in the Use which lies around. So, tell me — who is the other of whom the young man spoke ? " Barbie's tears gave place to an intense blush ; and thinking, perhaps, that she had no right to answer such a question, she muttered something about "Silas and his nonsense," and went onwards, as though to lead the way. Since the stranger had left the little railway station at Horton Wood — a long straggling vil- O OO o lage in the heart of that great moorland ridge of coal pits, iron paines, and blast furnaces, which runs at intervals through two of the finest of our north-western counties — the country had become more and more beautiful ; till now, in its intense rusticity and dreamy stillness, no one would have thought that a teeming population lay so near as four or five miles.

But here the upland pas tures to the right grew into a rocky hill, seen far and wide ; the fields undulated, clear pools lay in their hollows, and old woods and little brooks lent their own beauty to the half-pastoral, half sylvan scene. Mainstone lay to the left, and the lane leading thereto was in sight. Barbie had hitherto kept ahead, but now, as she reached the lane, she turned round, pointed to it, and stayed. Just then a turnpike-gate at a little distance in the main-road was opened, and a horseman came quickly through. When he saw the girl and recognised her, he bent eagerly forward, and, when opposite to where she stood, he reined in his horse. " Well, Barbie," he said, as he cast his searching glance round, and saw the stranger at the distance of a few yards, "how's Mrs. Bell — and where are you going?

" The girl made no direct answer to this last brief question, but said that she had come to show the turning to Mainstone vicarage to a stranger, who was going there. In an instant the rider had stooped lower, and said something in a whisper. Then changing his too familiar manner to one of deference, he sat again upright in his saddle, and slightly raised his hat. He was a handsome man, of perhaps thirty years of age; his manner and dress were gentle manly in the extreme ; his horse such a one as only a man of wealth could own; yet so many hid den mysteries of sin lent their expression to his face, as to make it in some degree repulsive to those who had penetration enough to read his character aright. As he settled his hat again upon his head, he pointed in the direction of the vicarage, and seemed about to speak, but perceiving the search ing gaze which was fixed upon him, he checked the impulse, bowed once more, shook the reins, and went onwards.

In an instant he had stayed again, leant back in the saddle, called out to Barbie that he should be at the " Brown Hen " in half-an-hour, as he had to tell her mother about her old uncle, Davie Ford, and then he spurred his horse into a gallop. " Who is that gentleman ? " asked the young woman, as soon as he was out of sight. ' o " It's Mr. Greene, the doctor," said Barbie, a little hesitatingly. " Indeed ? And how far off is the vicarage now." " It may be half a mile, but the road's quite straight, and it's the first house you'll come to, so you can't miss." " But if you will come with me as far, or nearly so, I shall be glad " said the stranger, with a quick ness which was singular, seeing that she had hi theito exhibited no desire for the girl's company ; " my basket, though a light one, rather wearies me, and, with you as a guide, I shall not mistake the place."

The basket was the lightest thing in the world, and might have been carried by a child ; but the girl being blind to the real purpose of the request, took it and went onwards with some show of dog gedness; for, to say the truth, she would rather have been on her way back to the " Brown Hen," and so at home when the doctor's horse should pause beside the door. However, Barbie was good-natured, though silly, because she was ignorant and vain. Soon for getting her disappointment, she slackened her steps, and began to talk to the stranger, who paid enforced heed, as might be clearly seen. More and more beautiful the country grew. The road was wide, its banks turfed and decked with flowers ; and presently a railway-arch, built of the red sandstone of the district, spanned it, and lessened, by the thoughts it suggested of rapid transit and distant populousness, the otherwise intense solitude and stillness of the scene.

Then came fields again, and then, as the upland grew, the parsonage came in sight. It was built of red sandstone, like most of the older houses of the district ; its gabled chimneys were wreathed in a profusion of long grown ivy ; and though it was of no great height, and thus the rooms could not be very lofty, the large space of ground it covered, the solidity of the walls, the breadth and depth ofthe stone-wrought mullioned casements, and the immense mass of impervious evergreens which grew around, gave an air of comfort, and of well to-do lettered retirement ; as well as suggested per haps, to some who might pass along, that the days spent therein were lengthened out by simplicity, happiness, and peace. The upland on which the house stood trended away in the distance to fields of breezy height, across which you could trace the footpaths and the rustic stiles ; and in front, the acclivity very slowly fell towards a rivulet, that even at that distance could he heard trickling o amidst mossy stones — and thus forming a garden of great extent.

A natural terrace, of considerable length and width, woundroundthe hill at a distance nearer the house than the brook, and on this fell the glory of the noon-day sun, except where it was shadowed by the leafy green of some overarching tree. A wooden seat, russet and weather-stained, stood in one or two places ; wide sweeps of close shaved turf crept to the terrace and hemmed it in, except where little beds of flowers enamelled its sunny places with tints of gold, white, amaranth, and green. The highway went upwards with the hill, and thus the house faced you, as you passed on ; and this side the brook an undulating field, broken by clumps of old trees, came from the dis tance towards the road, from which it was divided by a low stone wall, formed of rough blocks of sand stone. As soon as Barbie reached this, she set down the basket, and leant thereon.

After a pretty close survey, she looked round for the stranger, whom she saw standing some httle distance on wards beside the wall, her face turned towards the parsonage, so that the girl could not see it, and her hands pressed one upon another on the rude stonework. One of these she had ungloved, perhaps unconsciously, for Barbie saw that it was very small and white; and by the ringless finger, for it was the left hand, that she was unmarried. Her curiosity increased ; she watched the stranger still more closely ; thus she thought she saw a tear trickle down across the little hand, and thence into a rift of the unmortared stone. " It's just well I made my manners, and took her for what she is — a real lady," said Barbie to herself; "for if she's going to live here, she may marry the parson, and so be missis in earnest.

That's just to say — if — " and certain village scandals here recurred to Barbie's mind, and she stayed her speculations. " I say, miss," she said presently, as she went nearer, and stood by the stranger, "Mainstone parsonage is a nicish sort o' place, ain't it ? " "Very!" " Ay ! and you'll like the inside just as well. Do you see that open window, with the coloured panes ? " The stranger bent her head in assent. " Well, that's one of the windows in the par son's study. And it's such a big room — with hundreds and hundreds of books in it — ay, more than I should know how to count ; for I once peeped in when I went up to the house with a message for mother." " Indeed ! And is there no other parlour? " "Yes, two or three. One's called the oak parlour, because it's got a lot of old carved wood about the walls.

Mother knows the house well, for she'd a sister lived there, years ago, in the old vicar's time ; and a rare nice parlour it would be if old Missis Jack kept it properly; but this she don't, for Mr. Radnor never goes into any rooms but his study and bed-room, and so she don't care. As you'll see, miss, she's an untidy body." The stranger gave countenance to neither scandal nor loquacity, for she made no reply whatever ; and was about resuming her walk up the hill, at the top of which was the white gate that led, by a carriage-road, to a gabled porch at this end of the building, when the girl, in her countrified, yet not unrespectful, manner, said quickly: — "Look there, miss — look there ! Do you see those green and purple colours — all mixed to gether and shining in the sun — there at the far end of the terrace ?

" The stranger shaded her eyes with her hands, looked as directed, and presently detected what Barbie pointed out. "It's the parson's two peacocks — Peery" (Barbie meant Peri), " and Pearl — and pretty favourites they are. Just wait a minute, and you'll be sure to see the parson himself. As everyone the country round knows, if he's in the garden the peacocks be with him. All the summer long they follow him up and down that old terrace, and every morning he feeds them from his study window. Old Missis Jack lets him do that — and that's a wonder ! " Not a word did the stranger say. She was listening intently to the girl, and yet watching a gentleman who came slowly along the terrace, his head bent in meditation, his hands clasped be hind beneath the tails of his rusty black coat, his whole bearing like a man who walked in a dream.

He was in age nearer fifty than forty, for his head, as you could see in the strong sunlight, was a little bald, and his hair turning grey. His favourites kept close beside him, one a little in advance, the other behind, sometimes stopping an instant to peck the glistening gravel, or snap at some little fly as it flitted past, but soon resuming their stately step, as though to spread out their gorgeous plumage, and let it radiate in the noon day sun, was an honour to him who fed them with so gentle and tender a hand. " Those pretty creatures," said Barbie, " never go out of the garden ; but the parson, when he goes a little way beyond, ain't alone for all that, for there's an old guinea-fowl as loves him just as well as the peacocks. She follows the master about the fields, and as sure as he crosses the upland towards Mainstone church, she'll follow him as far as a certain stile, and then won't go a bit farther, but flies back again.

On Sunday mornings, old Lisha, the parson's man, has to shut her up, or she'd be amongst the country folks on their way to church. With all their care she gets out sometimes, and more than once Silas Moore has seen her." Not a word did the stranger say. She was watching Mr. Radnor, who had come to the end of the terrace, and now retraced his steps, slower and slower than before. Presently he was lost to view in the shadow of a great cedar tree ; and probably he sat down on a seat there, for he came no more. " He did once take to poultry, and had a fine fowl-house built ; but old Missis Jack soon put an end to his going there, because, as folks say, he might sometimes have seen more than she liked on his way to it. So I 'spose there ain't a chicken kept there, except for the spit or the pot.

Well, it's a pity, for the doctors say that, but for the dumb cre'turs he takes to so kindly, the parson would have moped himself out of his wits many a day ago." Speaking thus, the young girl took up the little basket, and followed the footsteps of the stranger, who, as soon as Mr. Radnor returned no more, had resumed her walk. When they were within a few yards of the white gate, a little country, shandry-dan sort of chaise drove up from an opposite direction, and VOL. I. C stayed, or rather strove to do so, for the pony in the shafts, by name Pickle, seeing much on the opposite bank he longed to nibble, and not heeding in the least the young lady who drove him, wanted to draw the chaise thither, instead of staying and waiting patiently at the parson's gate. So just as Barbie and the stranger came up, the young lady was pulling one way, and Pickle the other, and in this contest the pony had the best of it, as he always had.

Barbie, dropping a curtsey, for she knew the young lady, hastened to assist, and thus make two to one against Pickle; when, a3 she did so, a little tiny brown dog, in form and size like a small barrel-shaped pot of old-fashioned Delft ware, jumped from a cloak on which he had been lying curled up asleep, and, winding about the stranger's feet, barked with the intensest joy- " Down, Tippo, down !" said the lady ; " don't be naughty too, Pickle's quite enough." But Tippo would go on with his httle bark, and whines, and show of joy. " Tippo's rule is to bark at all strangers," said the young lady, apologetically, as it were ; " and when he shows joy it is for some one very genuine." And as she spoke she pressed up the rim of her wide straw hat and looked with great curiosity at the stranger. She was struck by her refined and thoughtful face, as well as earnest manner, and she felt sure that though her garb was plain, affectedly so, it was evident to see she belonged to a superior grade in life.

" I accept it as a good omen," was the answer; " apart from that, I am very fond of dumb creatures, though I cannot in that respect exceed you, as I perceive." A blush repaid the compliment. " In that case — but may I ask, are you going up to the parsonage?" " Yes." "Perhaps then you will permit Barbie to carry this basket ;" and as she spoke the young lady loosened her hold of the obstreperous Pickle, who now wanted to go forward instead of aside, and took from the back seat of the little chaise a small fowl basket, in which were two young Cochin chicks of great beauty. "These are for Mr. Radnor," she said, "though he mustn't be told that a lady made the pre sent, or he would be nervous for a month." She smiled here with innocent archness ; " the truth is, that neither Judith, that is my sister, nor I know Mr. Radnor to speak to, though on summer after noons we occasionally attend the service at his church.

But the clerk — old Johnny Wigpit — is a relative of our maid's, and he told us awhile ago that the parson had taken the loss of his fowls greatly to heart, though he had not courage enough to expostulate with Mrs. Jack on the enor mity of roasting fowls worth three guineas a couple. c So, if you can see Elisha, the old gardener, will you consign these to his care, or else they may see the inside of Mrs. Jack's pot as soon as plump enough." This appeal was very genuine, though graced with another smile. " I myself will see to their care and safety," said the stranger ; " for I remain here as house keeper." " Indeed ! " was the reply, in a tone of such marked surprise as to express far more than words could do. " I am sincerely glad, and so will Judith be ; for no house, if all reports be true, so sadly wants a mistress.

I heartily wish you success, and if at any time you walk our way, and do not object to call at Holly Cottage, about a mile and a half in the valley below Mainstone church, I shall be glad to hear of the welfare of the chicks. Say nothing to Mr. Radnor as to the gift — it is really nothing after all, as our broods have been so prosperous this spring; and it is our duty, as you know, when we can give pleasure, at a little cost, to make the attempt thereto." She bowed as she spoke, took the reins from Barbie, and jumped lightly into the low chaise; for she was very thin and frail, though so full of joy and animation. She loosened the reins, and Pickle had set forward, when her eye caught a nosegay of early greenhouse flowers, in a little carriage basket hooked to the splash-board. Taking thence, with the hand which held the whip, some of the choicest flowers, she leant back and held them to the stranger.