A Pastoral Played Out

Front matter

IHew SijsSbilliiiG IRovels. THE EBB-TIDE. By Rouert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osiiourne. Fourteenth Thousand. THE MANXMAN. Bj>_H ALL Caine. Thirty-ninth Thousand. THE HEAVENLY TWINS. By Sarah Grand. Forty-fifth Thousand. IDEALA. By Sarah Grand. Tenth Thousand. OUR MANIFOLD NATURE. By Sarah Grand. AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA. By W. J. Locke. A VICTIM OF GOOD LUCK. By W. E. Norris. ELDER C0NKLIN, and other Stories. By Frank Harris. THE STORY OF A MODERN WOMAN. By Ella Hepworth Dixon. A SUPERFLUOUS WOMAN. Seventh Thousand. A DAUGHTER OF THIS WORLD. By F. Battershall. THE COUNTESS RADNA. By W. E. Norris. FROM THE FIVE RIVERS. By Flora Annie Steel. RELICS. Fragments of a Life. By Frances MacNab. A RECIPE FOR DIAMONDS. By C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne. THE LAST SENTENCE. By Maxwell Gray. Sixth Thousand. THE TOWER OF TADDEO.

By O.ida. New Edition, with Illustrations by Holland Trincham. THE KING OF SCHNORRERS. Ily I. Zangwill. Illustrated. CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO. By I. Zangwill. Eighth Thousand. THE PREMIER AND THE PAINTER. By I. Zangwill and Louis Cowen. Third Edition. THE NAULAHKA. By Rudyard Kipling and Wolcott Balestier. Second Edition. THE O'CONNORS OF BALLINAHINCH. By Mrs. Hunger- FORD. APPASSIONATA. By Elsa d'Esterre Keeling. AVENGED ON SOCIETY. By H. F. Wood. A COMEDY OF MASKS. By Ernest Dowson and Arthur MOORE. THE JUSTIFICATION OF ANDREW LEBRUN. By Frank Barrett. LONDON : WM. HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford St., W.C. And at all Booksellers and Bookstalls, i;V MARY L. PENDERED \fJTHOR OF '* UUST AND r,.\VREW ETC. "Do not be too moral. Vou may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good ; be good for something.

All fables, indeed, have their morals ; but the innocent enjoy the story- Let nothing come between you and the light." — Thorf.au. LON DON WILLIAM HEINE M A N N 1895 IA/i lights rfifrii41

Chapter I

Have you seen but a bright lily grow, Before rude hands have touched it ? — Ben Jonson. " I can't see to read any more now, grannie ; may I leave off?" " Yes, dearie. Don't try those precious eyes. I ought to have stopped you long ago. But it was so pleasant to listen to your voice." " I am sorry to leave off, too. I want to know what happens to her. I suppose there's the usual ending — ' they married and lived happily ever afterwards,' that's how they always do finish, don't they ? " " Mostly." " Oh, always. Everybody gets married some time or other, I suppose ; though, judging from some of the villagers, they don't always seem to live happily ever after ! But that's because they're poor, and the men will go to the publics, so Betsy says. I hope when I am married my husband won't go to publics," with a light laugh.

" Better not be married at all, than that." " I suppose so," doubtfully ; " and then I would have to be an old maid like Sarah'an King, — but " " But what, precious ? " " But that's the funniest part of it. I always thought Sarah'an was an old maid, didn't you ? She's never had a husband." "Well?" " Well, I said to Betsy, only the other day, ' Sarah'an King's an old maid, isn't she ? ' and what do you think Betsy answered ? " " I don't know." " She said, 'Hardly that, Miss Gylda.' So I should just like to know what Sarah'an is, if she never was married and yet isn't an old maid. What do you think Betsy meant ? " " I can't say, precious ; she's a stupid old thing, and doesn't know what she's talking about half the time. Be sides, we mustn't want to know too much." " I don't," said the girl, who had taken up some knitting and was working with eyes half closed.

" I seem to have very little curiosity, grannie, but I suppose that will come some day." " God forbid, child." " Why ? Is it wicked to want to know things ? " " Not wicked, but dangerous. You know what happened to Eve through being too inquisitive when the tree of knowledge was denied her ? " The girl was silent for a few minutes. She was thinking. Suddenly she put down her knitting and stretched out her long limbs. " Do you mind if I go and pick those currants now, grannie ? " she asked. " I feel as if it would be lovely out there, and it was so hot this morning, I really couldn't." " You can't see, child, and you may get stung by a sleepy wasp." " Oh, I'll risk that. Currants are bright things, and the moon is rising — look ! — like a piece of curd. I shall see well enough. I'd love to go, if you don't mind, dear."

" Go, then, while Betsey lays supper. Put something over your head ; and your shoes — are they thick ? It will be damp on the beds." " Quite thick," her voice sounded from outside, and then she put her head in at the lattice window. A large white sunbonnet lay on her hair. She nodded and disappeared. The garden glistened all over its leaves, in the silver of the young moon just rising opposite to where a rose and opal sea was melting into soft blueness. There was scarcely a breeze to stir the drowsy foliage, and all lay silent in a trance under the spell of coming night. Mrs. Mariold's cottage nestled right into its garden, and the roses that climbed the porch to peer in at all the windows looked straight down on the tall sunflowers, hollyhocks, and foxgloves growing up under the shadow of the eaves at moonrise.

There were no invidious distinctions in this garden. It is true the front was dedicated to pinks and larkspurs, mignonette and sweetbriar, cornflowers and nasturtiums, stocks and sweetwilliams, while the back held apple trees, strawberries, gooseberry bushes, and delicious arcades of scarlet runners — yet was sweet confusion everywhere. In the very embrace of stickled peas would lie a cornflower or a hollyhock ; sweetbriar, rosemary, and lavender flirted with currant bushes. A cluster of pansies would smile out from the ranks of radishes, and sage grew with thyme and mint among the auriculas adorning the walk up from the front garden gate. The very paths refused to be conventional. Heart's-ease, forget-me-not, and Virginia stock sprang up to meet the tread, and slender grasses seeded at the edges.

Here and there a beautiful golden dandelion flaunted his little sun amid the legitimate flowers and raised his dainty " shepherd's clock " to show the time o' day to busy wandering insects. It was into this garden the girl Gylda went with her basket, softly, on tiptoe, lest she should disturb the dozing flowers. She carried a small three-legged stool, and, after depositing it by the biggest currant bush, she sat down upon it, folding her legs under her skirts as best she might. The white sunbonnet was a very becoming thing, and it framed a face which did not require the aid of moonlight to make it poetic. It was an unawakened face, the shadow of a woman's, the face of a seventeen-year-old girl with the promise of such beauty as we are accustomed to hear of but seldom see. A beauty likely to become rarer as the ages grow in rapidity and intellectuality.

The features were almost faultless, the eyes gloriously colourless and full of changing lights, the brows rather level, but delicately marked, the nose short, straight, and expressive, and the mouth just red enough, just weak enough, just strong enough, and just flexible enough, to be worth watching every moment. The chin as soft and rounded as a chin could be, the whole contour of the face and pose of the head fully satisfying. Beauty always beggars description, and a catalogue of charms is ever inadequate, because items go for nothing. But the impression may perhaps be given of a tall beautiful maiden, according to our modern notions of beauty — eyes deep, ex pressive ; mouth mutable and inviting ; skin purely tinted ; and abundant crinkly hair the colour of the outer circle of a peacock's feather, gold when it isn't brown and bronze when it is neither.

This hair was collecting dead currant leaves from the dewy garden earth. For a few minutes Gylda rested with her chin on her hands, as still as the sylvan world around her. Then she spoke softly : " Dear things ! If you would only let me hear you speak ; if you would only let me hear you ! " she said, " I would tell no one ; no, not even grannie. I do want to hear what you have to say, you old apple tree. I know you could tell me most lovely stories, and I will never believe that you have no soul. Perhaps your scent is your soul, who knows ? If you would only speak to me, Gylda, who loves you so, so much more than the birds love you." She bent forward her lips, and pressed them to a leaf, tenderly. " Yes, I know well that it's now, now when all the world is still, and the bees have gone to bed, you talk, talk, talk, in sweet language the whole night through.

You sleep and breathe in the day, and drink the sunshine, but at night you think and speak. How I would love to know what you say! Whether you talk of love, or of other places, or of the clouds, and sun, and rain, and moon. I should so much like to know whether the sweetbriar is crying or laughing when she throws out those delicious whiffs which reach me here " — there was a cluster of sweetbriar and rosemary under the old apple tree. " I believe she is laughing when she lets go her breath like that. I shouldn't like to think those little puffs were sobs — dear things, I love you all." She raised her head and began to search for the red berries, slowly and thoughtfully. There were tears in her eyes, but she brushed them away with the back of her hand. '' Why does one always want something ?

" she murmured. " I have the love of these things, even if they will not speak tome ; I know that. But one always seems to want some thing, even when one is most happy, and I — I have not a trouble in the world. Perhaps it is a trouble I want, and when I have a real one I shall cease wanting anything more." She laughed a little. "Yes, I suppose we are made with wants so as to get to Heaven better, else we should live here like plants — and why not? Ah, teach me to be like you, wanting nothing but sunlight and air ! " she breathed, laying her forehead against the cool leaves. And all the foliage seemed to shiver for a moment, in the moon light white and mysterious. Had she invoked the spirit of the garden at last ? But no ; it was only the ghost of a zephyr floating through, and the shadows lay, as before, across the path, still and inky.

She drew a long sigh, and was disappointed. By this it may be known what foolish fancies gather to the undeveloped mind of a young maid, to whom has been given a free imagination and a large amount of solitude.

Chapter II

For I hate to breathe The breaths, and think the thoughts of other men. — Festus. Conway Etheredge leaned back in his first-class rail way compartment seat, and yawned vigorously. If ever a man was sick and tired to death of everything upon this earth, that man was the brilliant author of " Her Serene Highness," whose hundred and fiftieth night was being celebrated at the Prometheus Theatre, Charing Cross. Lon don had bored him so terribly for the past three months that he felt constrained to shake its dust from his feet ; to exchange literary and theatrical jargon for rustic pleasant ries ; to forget that he was a cultured writer and critic, and to recall that he was a man. He had come to the conclusion that to meet one clever person a month would fully satisfy his mental cravings, and he rather fancied he would like all the others to be fools, to rest his brain in the in terval.

Of course, this was only a mood, the mood of a tired spirit who has been lauded, and bullied, and feted, and interviewed nearly to the death. He had revolted in a manner somewhat characteristic of a man who wished, at least, to be thought original. The day after the big dinner at the Thespian Club, at four o'clock, he had slunk from his chambers, with a small bag in his hand, and walked to St. Pancras ; walked because he was so tired, and to St. Pancras for no other reason save that he did not know the station very well. When there, he had taken a ticket to Nottingham, upon learning that the Nottingham train was the next due. At three o'clock he had had no intention of leaving London. At four o'clock he had started for St. Pancras. At a few minutes past five he had found himself on his way northward, without the remotest idea of a particular destination.

He had gazed out of the window at the scurrying pas sengers and busy officials, wondering whether they did not get more pleasure out of life than he did, on the whole, and vaguely curious to know what the sensations of eagerness and hurry were like. It was then he leaned back in his seat, and yawned a yawn that must have almost dislocated his jaw. He had not even energy enough to open the papers he had bought by the way. Why should he have bought them ; what should he find in them ? Nothing fresh. He could make up a whole paper in his own mind, war news and advertisements included. He could wager his imagined news would be as near the mark as any in the dailies ! Following up this idea he began a leading article on the political situation, and was thinking out a thrilling peroration when something struck him.

Suddenly his spirits rose, as he discovered that he was actually amusing himself, and feeling interested in what he was doing. The cure had begun, he reflected ; either the motion of the train, the inconsequence of his action, or the fact of being adrift from the precious exigencies of his set, had given his mind a twist, a quick reverse that arrested its sick giddiness. He knocked the ash off his cigar and considered. Where was he to stop ? Nothing was further from his mind than going on to Nottingham ; there were theatres and news papers in Nottingham. Where then, should be his resting place for the nonce ? He felt that there ought to be waiting for him somewhere a primitive spot, some miles from a tiny station with carefully kept flower beds on either side ; and it is a curious fact that while he was thus reflecting the train pulled up at just such a station.

There were the iden tical flower beds of his fancy ! We sometimes find this odd correlation of dreams and realities. Such a conjunction had never happened to Etheredge before, and he instantly jumped to the conclusion that his star had something to do with the matter — his next move had been decided for him outside himself. In other words he was prepared to stake himself on the accident. " Hulloa there ! " he called out to a solid individual who loomed out of a doorway and shouted a word in elongated syllables at regular intervals. "Hulloa there! What station is this ?" The man sauntered towards him. " This yere's Cloveden," he said ; " gittin' out, sir ? " How many miles is Cloveden from here ? " " Three an' 'alf." Without further hesitation Etheredge landed down from the carriage. The train moved off slowly.

The man stared at Etheredge with some curiosity. They did not often see lunatics at large in Cloveden. "This seems to be a particularly festive and enlightened spot," Etheredge remarked, looking round. " Does any body ever travel by rail from here ? " " Mostly in the daytime when they do, sir," said the solid official. " Ah, daytime. Let me see, it must be after seven. I suppose the good folk in this neighborhood retire about seven, don't they ? " " Not quite so early as that, sir. Generally between eight and nine." "Um — burn the midnight oil so late; shocking dissi pation ! I suppose there's no such thing as an inn in the vicinity ; I mean a place where one could get a bed?" "There's the 'Black 'Oss ' sir, just nigh upon Cloveden. Parties 'ave put up there sometimes. Don't yer know nobody in these yere parts, sir ?

" " Nobody. I'm a lonely wandering soul, without a friend in the world. My name's Jones, but you needn't tell every body." , "Right you are, sir. I can rekermend the ' Black Oss. My gal's barmaid and ' general ' there. An' I've got a bwoy who can take yer bag down fer yer, if yer loike." "Trot out that bwoy, my friend," said Etheredge, beginning to feel more and more pleased with himself. He hoped the accommodation at the Black Horse would not be too nice, and was prepared to find a manger a delightful and inspiring novelty if it should come by way of a bedroom. " Tom ! " sang out the solid one, in the same uninflected bawl with which he had bellowed the name of the station. " Tom ! leave that theer diggin' and come yere's minnit. 'Ere's a gent's got a job fer yer." A long youth in a grey shirt and corduroys appeared from a back garden somewhere.

He touched his forehead and vanished. His father hinted he had gone to wash his hands, adding that " tater-diggin' was mullocky work." He was visibly satisfied with Etheredge's concrete acknowledgment of his civility, and, after a parting injunction to the "bwoy" to be " kerful with that yer bag," disappeared once more through the doorway. So Etheredge set out for the village accompanied by Tom, to whom he talked with more animation than he had talked for months, and whom he found more interesting than any mortal he had seen for a considerable time. If he was amused, Tom was also. The latter concluded he had never met such a fool in his life. He seemed to know nothing of any moment, Tom thought, not even his own mind, and talked double Dutch mostly ! There is no one like your true rustic for summing up his fellows ; though he is not the only kind of person who puts the label of " foolishness " on the uncomprehended.

When Tom talked of "Mr. Jones" afterward, he called him " a queer cuchoo," and " a bit cracked," but a perfect gentleman, and comparatively harmless. If Etheredge could only have known ! He thought he was impressing that " bwoy " with his wit. The Black Horse was eminently satisfactory, and not only able to provide a bedroom, but a parlour ; a parlour with the usual attractions— stuffed animals, worsted flowers under a glass case, and pictures of terrible mendacity, all of which Etheredge enjoyed vastly. There was one coloured print of Daniel in the lions' den which gave him more acute satisfaction than he had drawn from all the picture galleries of the year. Daniel was so deliciously dressed in sky blue, and his smirk so beautifully self-satisfied ! It was a perfect banquet of humour. With a savage pleasure, only marred by the regret that his town acquaintances could not see him, the pampered Londoner supped off bread, cheese, onions, and beer, smoked a long clay and retired to bed at nine.

By ten he was sleeping peacefully in a quaint little bow roofed chamber smelling of mice and yellow soap, with an occasional whiff of honeysuckle from the open window. And he passed the best night he had enjoyed for many a weary month.

Chapter III

She looked at him as one who awakes ; The past was a sleep, and her life began. — Robert Browning. It was nearly the end of June, and the weather was warm for jam-making. Gylda Mariold felt it so, and when she had scraped the saucepan for the last time, leaving the big wooden spoon in it for Betsy's washing, she went out and sat on the stone step of the kitchen leading into the little yard where chickens clucked and pecked cheerfully. There, with a large plate of strawberries and cream on her lap, she looked dreamily content, her limpid eyes reflecting the blue sky opposite, as it mingled with the aspens beyond the yard gate. Betsy, the old factotum of Mrs. Mariold, was bustling about the kitchen clearing up, and making as much noise as possible during the process. Her step alone was calculated to cause no slight shock to unaccustomed ears, but Mrs. Mariold and Gylda had grown used to it ; they never even noticed it now.

Betsy had been with her present mistress ever since Gylda's father had first seen the light, with the exception of a short interval, during which she had married, gone away, lost her husband and buried her baby. She had returned, a kind of virtuous prodigal, to her old service and taken up her duties where she had left them off. It was her firm intention only to end them with her life. She had as much in the "say" of the household as Mrs. Mariold herself, and if Gylda had not invariably thrown her right of veto on her grandmother's side, the old domestic would undoubtedly have ruled the roast. As it was she felt herself prime minister of the little realm, with the crown under her special protection and control. The colour in Gylda's face faded down as the strawberries disappeared one by one into her mouth.

The long loose holland pinafore she always wore while making butter or jam almost covered her blue cotton frock, which she had outgrown till now it reached barely to her ankles ; indeed, as she sat now on the step, hardly more than over her knees. She wore out these old childish frocks in the morning, when no one but grannie and Betsy were likely to see her, unless it might be one of the farm labourers, who didn't count. In the afternoon she put off her childhood and donned much longer skirts, while her Sunday attire was full of such sedate dignity that she was obliged to do up her hair to match ! The pinafore fastened behind, and had long sleeves which buttoned at the wrist. It was rather a picturesque garment, but Gylda despised it utterly. That was why a hot blush of shame tingled to her cheek when she became aware of a pair of eyes fixed steadily upon it from over the yard gate, where the form of a man suddenly appeared, to startle her.

She rose hurriedly and fled into the house. Conway Etheredge mused several minutes before he lifted the latch of the gate and entered the yard. His sense of amusement was struggling with something else, half irritation, half interest. He had trespassed certainly, and was in for an adventure. Why, then, could there not have been a pretty woman in it, instead of a lovely lanky child ? Before he had time to analyse these reflections, however, Gylda stood before him in the yard, righteous indignation having got the better of her shame. He sound to his surprise that she stood nearly as tall as he did. "May I ask what you want? "she demanded somewhat fiercely. "I suppose you know this is not the front door?" " Indeed I did not think about it," he said simply, raising his hat. " I lost my way in the fields and saw your gate, so thought I might come in and ask my way back to the village.

You must accept my apology if I have trespassed." He spoke with a smile that was really insolent, though he did not intend it to be so. Gylda did not take it in that way. She was mollified by his words and the lifting of his hat, so she smiled too and said : " I am very sorry you got lost. If you just turn round there to the right and keep straight on till you see a gate, that '11 put you on the high-road." But Etheredge, after noting the brilliancy of that smile, inwardly determined on a further acquaintance with this very pretty girl, upon the corners of whose lips still lurked traces of her late strawberry repast. " I regret to trouble you," he said, " and its very kind of you to point out the way ; but, if you're a good Christian, you'll let me have a rest here and a glass of milk. I have been walking ever since seven and am dead beat."

He took off his hat and wiped his brow as he spoke. He looked very pale, though hot, and tired, Gylda thought. She was smitten with compassion. Still she hesitated. At this juncture Betsy appeared on the doorstep. She had been undiscoverable when Gylda had retreated so rapidly indoors, or probably the girl would not have faced the intruder as she had done. Now the old woman "stood there in blank amazement to see her young lady in converse with a strange gentleman. Such a thing was past reasoning ! " Miss Gylda ! " she exclaimed, in her cracked treble which always sounded out of tune. The girl turned upon her. "This gentleman's tired ; he's missed his way and been walking ever since seven," she stated clearly, but with obvious embarrassment ; " I — I think I'll lead him round to the front, hadn't I better, or take him right through the kitchen ?

" The old body looked at Etheredge as if he were some strange kind of animal. " Lawks ! not through the kitchen, lovey," she protested. Then turning to Etheredge : "Are yer fur from 'ome, sir?" "A long distance," was the reply; "my home is in London." " But you haven't tramped all the way from there?" said Gylda in a tone which implied her readiness to believe a good deal, but suggested a limit. He smiled. " No ; I am staying at an inn near here. Are you far from Cloveden ? " " Cloveden ! Why, it's a weary five moile from yere if it's a yard ! " creaked Betsy. " Bless my soul, sir, you'll never walk back if you're toired a' ready." " You are very encouraging." Etheredge turned from one to the other. Gylda hesitated no longer. " Come right round here," she said, and, leading the way through the gate, she skirted the out-buildings to the road, and led her visitor straight up the garden path to the front door.

Mrs. Mariold could scarcely believe her eyes when she saw Gylda with a handsome stranger advancing toward the house, the girl without even a sunbonnet on her hair, and she stood up in the parlour with a look almost of fright on her old face as the pair entered. " Grannie, here's a lost gentleman, who's tired out and thirsty," said Gylda, much as she might have said "a lost dog"; " I'm going to get him some milk, and he's to rest on the sofa." With that she vanished. " You're very welcome, sir ; pray be seated," said the old lady. Etheredge thought how charming these words we7., how gracious the hospitality. He felt strangely moved as he sank into a seat with murmured thanks. " It's a warm day to be walking far. I suppose you're a stranger in these parts. Let me take your hat and stick, Mr. ; if you'll tell me your name I'll be glad to know it, sir," continued Mrs. Mariold, in her soft old voice that somehow reminded Etheredge of the tone of a spinet.

" My name is — Jones," he said, after a moment's hesitation. It did not seem fair to deceive such innocent people, but having once given the false name it was impossible to change it. He rendered up his hat and stick with profuse thanks and apologies for allowing her to wait on him. Then Gylda entered with a jug of milk and a tumbler, augmented by a dish of strawberries and some cream. " I thought you might like these, too," she said with fresh shyness, the long eyelashes dropping over her eyes. He looked up at her and experienced a curious thrill. Despite the brown holland pinafore, the clumsy shoes, the tan freckles under her eyes, she wa; quite beautiful and stately. " You are very kind," he said, with an intonation almost of awe in his voice.

Chapter IV

She looked and saw over her the strange wide eyes of Love, and Life now knew for whom she had sat there waiting. — Olive Schreiner. Up in the beamy-roofed bedroom looking out on the garden, Gylda stood before her small square of glass trying to brush her rough hair into some order. The scent of woodbine and mignonette floated past the white dimity curtains, and the blind flapped with a gentle persistent monotony against the diamond panes. Gylda had taken off the despised frock and pinafore, and now stood in her white under-garments with bare arms upraised, as round, as smooth as if they had been chiselled out of marble by someone who knew his craft. Thee was a hot flush on her face, a flush of ashamed remembrance, of excitement, and of hurry, for she was desperately anxious to get down stairs again.