In a Country Town. A story unfounded on fact

Part I. Chapter Page

I. BRUNHILD AWAKENEIi - - 3 II. BRUNHILD AND MR. DAGMORE - - 15 III. A TENNIS-PARTY - 25 IV. BRUNHILD AND GRACE MORRIS - 39 V. GRACE MORRIS AND MR. DAGMORE - - 46 VI. THE SECOND START - - - 72 VII. BRUNHILD AND THE CHEVNES - - 82 VIII. BRUNHILD AND DICK - - - IOO IX. THE MISTAKE - - 114 X. YOUNG BLOOD - - - 119 XI. THE MISTAKE CONTINUED - - - 1 26 XII. WHAT THE CHEYNES SAID - - - 132 XIII. BRUNHILD AND HER UNCLE - - 148 XIV. THE CHEYNE WEDDING - - CONTENTS VI

Part II. Chapter Page

I. MALTA - - - - - 177 II. THE THIRD START - I94 in. sir Humphrey's wedding - - 207 IV. DISTRICT-VISITING - 223 V. COMRADES ----- 229 VI. THE NEGLECTED DUTY - - - 238 VII. SOME CONVERSATIONS - - - 249 VIII. THE BABY - - - 260 IX. PECULATION - - - - 268 X. THE QUARREL - - - - 279 XI. 'SWEET AND LOW ' - - - - 300 XII. NOT LOVE, BUT FRIENDSHIP- - - IN A COUNTRY TOWN

PART I CHAPTER

I. BRUNHILD AWAKENED. ' He comes, scarce knowing what he seeks ; He breaks the hedge ; he enters there ; The colour flies into his cheeks ; He trusts to light on something fair.' The Sleeping Beauty. ' I saw the girl yesterday,' said Dagmore, closing the front-door behind him with firm ness and precision. Dagmore was one of the Farnley curates, a neat, dapper figure in short black serge coat and straw hat. ' What is she like ?' asked his companion and fellow-lodger, a young land-agent, who by the recent death of an uncle had become Sir Humphrey Hope. The curate did not answer immediately, being engaged in discontentedly fingering the blisters of the paint on the door. ' The sun is so hot on this side of the house in the afternoon,' he complained ; ' this door wants doing again already.' Sir Humphrey stood in the path leading from the street through their little front garden waiting for his friend.

Though bound for different destinations, their way would lie together for twenty yards, and he seemed to wish for an answer to his question before starting. ' What is Evans' niece like ?' he asked. Dagmore turned away from the door at last, and meditatively pressing down the freshly-laid gravel with his feet, replied : ' A hobbledehoy — quite unformed. Not more than sixteen. She ought to be at school' ' She will be company for Evans.' Evans was another bachelor land-agent residing in this little country town, and occupying a roomy dwelling two doors beyond Sir Humphrey's cottage, called the Gray House. Sir Humphrey was a great contrast to his clerical companion. Six feet high in his stockings, bronzed by an outdoor life in all weathers, with blue eyes as clear and shining as the ideal sailor's, and clad, as was his wont, in grayish-brown tweed Nor folk jacket, knickerbockers, and stockings. ' Is she pretty ?' was his next question. ' Who ?' asked Dagmore, whose attention had already wandered away from Evans' niece. ' Why, what a fellow you are, Dag !

Miss Evans, of course !' ' Well, she's not Miss Evans of course ! Her mother was Evans' sister, and her name is Fayne. There now, ta-ta! I'm off to the Band of Hope.' It was half-past two on a Saturday after noon early in May. Dagmore turned quickly up a sunny, sandy road to the Girls' National School, whilst Hope, with a swinging, even stride, tramped off along the water-meadow path to attend to various matters on the estate. Unknown to most of the inhabitants of Farnley, with the death of Sir James Hope the property, as well as the title, fell to his nephew Humphrey, who for the last six years had been acting as land-agent to his uncle. Sir James, during all the sixty years of his possession, had never lived at Hope Chase. The house had been let all these years to good tenants, and probably the majority of the inhabitants, of Farnley had forgotten that the tenants were not the owners.

However, for Sir Humphrey the preserves, the palings, and the timber possessed an interest over and above their natural value in -a careful agent's eyes ; the ground he trod on was his own, though till the lease of Hope Chase expired he chose to share a cottage with the curate, and act as his own land-agent. Ready money was scarce ; times were bad for landlords ; a rich old lady tenant was a convenient caretaker at the house until Sir Humphrey had the requisite cash or inclina tion to take up his abode there himself. At Sheepwash, in North Farnley, some farm buildings had to be inspected, improvements to be discussed, the cost to be estimated, and damages investigated with the tenant farmers, Sir Humphrey carefully entering into all par ticulars with laborious patience. At last, business over, he left the smelly rickyard, with its gambolling herd of youthful black pigs and their admiring owner, to return through one of his own pheasant preserves to Farnley.

A coppice such as this, starred with primroses and anemones on a ground of bluebells, is a pleasant place for a ramble on a mild spring day ; but the keen sportsman, its owner, had added a stern notice anent ' Trespassers ' to the redoubtable barbed wire fence, sufficient, one would have thought, to daunt the most determined flower gatherer. Sir Humphrey sauntered thoughtlessly along the moss-grown path, smiling to him self at the prospect of the autumn's shooting held out to him by the low clucking of the pheasants to their broods in the inner under wood. He had now almost reached the southern boundary of the copse, where the path took a sudden turn to the right, round a steep mound of rocks and earth. ' Great Scot !' exclaimed Sir Humphrey. What Scotchman Sir Humphrey was al luding to did not transpire.

The young lady whom he had discovered by abruptly turning this corner into a little dell, down which a stream gurgled pleasantly — this young lady, who was fast asleep, with her head pillowed among the bluebells, was English, and not Scotch. She clasped a shady hat in one sleepy hand, and a bunch of dying anemones had slipped from the grasp of the other. Her feet and ankles — not to mention anything further — were in what was perhaps a com fortable, but certainly not an elegant, position. Sir Humphrey stood and looked down at the white-robed trespasser. But even the charm of the black eyelashes resting on a shellpink cheek, the rosy, pouting mouth, the glory of * BRUNHILD AWAKENED 9 the tumbled auburn hair, could not prevent his thinking of his baby pheasants. What is it that tells one in one's sleep that one is watched ?

Suddenly the girl opened a wonderful pair of gray eyes — eyes dazed and bewildered by slumber, yet which almost instantly comprehended the situation with alarmed surprise. Before Sir Humphrey had realized that she had awakened, the girl with the startled eyes had bounded down the path, and, with a flying leap over the ditch, had disappeared into the fields. But she had dropped a couple of books beside her flowers, and Sir Humphrey picked them up. One, a collection of poetry — 'The Poets' Walk ' — had the name ' Ralph Fayne ' written in it ; and the other, a manuscript book of extracts, belonged, so it appeared, to ' Brunhild Fayne.' ' Evans' niece, I suppose,' muttered Sir Humphrey. 'A land-agent's niece might have more sense. Brunhild — what a name ! Well, Miss Brunhild, I can't have you here in hatching-time.

You must go to your uncle's, or, rather, to the Cheyne woods, for meditation.' Sir Humphrey walked slowly home, carry ing the books. ' That girl must be a good walker,' he said to himself. ' It is four miles from Farnley out here. I suppose she finds it dull all alone with Evans, and no wonder ! Very imprudent to go to sleep out here all alone. Suppose it hadn't been myself coming by ? I shall speak to Evans about it to-morrow, and restore her books.' ' Mr. Evans is out, sir,' said the capless and slatternly Julia at the Gray House, in answer to Sir Humphrey's inquiries for her master next day. ' But Miss Brunhild — Miss Fayne, I should say : she's allus at me for not Miss Fayneing her now she's growed up and thinks herself mistress — she's in the garden.' The maid conducted him through the artistic, but gloomy and untidy, drawing room on to the sunshiny lawn. ' Miss Brunhild !' she called, and then turning to Hope, remarked : ' She's sitting below the sunk fence, sir, so please go on by yourself As a rule, Sir Humphrey entered the Gray House without ringing, but the presence of a lady had made him change his habit for the nonce.

He walked on down the sloping lawn, his footsteps making no sound on the velvet turf. Consequently he again surprised Brunhild. She was sitting on a stone below the sunk fence, as Julia had said, engaged in sketching the lake and the fort crowned hills opposite. She was hatless, and the sunbeams on her untidy wisps of hair made it look almost golden. Sir Humphrey stood looking down on her bent head, and wondered if her hair were nominally 'up' or 'down.' It seemed to be a case of half and half. There was a little button-like twirl on the very top of her head, but a sort of beard of short hairs hung over her ears and neck. The cows in the meadow had been interested in the girl and her sketch, and she had evidently pulled off one slipper to throw at them. It lay sadly amid a clump of nettles a few yards away, and, looking at the shoeless foot below him, Sir Humphrey was not sur prised to see a very big hole in the toe of the stocking. . . .

Brunhild turned round and looked up. The expression of those almond-shaped, black-fringed gray eyes was anything but friendly. ' I beg your pardon,' said Hope ; and. plunging down from the top of the wall, he stood beside her. What a queer little figure she was ! He noticed her limp, short-waisted frock, and guessed that it was outgrown. He thought the skirt was rather funny, too. A woman could have told him that it was ' gored ' as skirts were gored twenty years ago, and that its present owner had shortened it at the back by gathering it up and puffing it over a crinolette ; for this was the year 1888. The effect was odd. Brunhild's face was very red. She was uncomfortably conscious of her shoeless foot, and, to make matters worse, Sir Humphrey now picked up her slipper from among the nettles, remarking, with twinkling eyes : ' I see you don't patronize a shoehorn.' ' How do you know ?' she asked quickly. ' Your shoe would not split down the heel like that if you did.' ' Would not it ?

I never thought of that.' ' Well, what did you think shoehorns were for ?' ' Oh, a sort of conventionality, like veils and gloves and parasols. I hate meaning less conventionalities.' She jerked her shoulders impatiently. ' When you are grown up,' he answered slowly, 'you will think differently.' ' I am grown up,' said Brunhild. He did not contradict her ; he only looked down at her, the puckers on his mobile face more accentuated than usual. ' I have almost completed my seventeenth year. She said this in an antagonistic way, as if she expected contradiction. ' That reminds me of what I came to speak to your uncle about,' remarked Hope quickly, in a matter-of-fact tone. ' It won't do for you to stray so far away in the woods alone.' ' I must be alone with Nature. It is what Wordsworth teaches.' ' I don't care twopence for Wordsworth,' replied Hope briskly ; ' I care for my young pheasants.

The copse where I found you yesterday is mine. I can't allow you there again.' - 'Who are you ?' asked Brunhild slowly and quietly, looking him over. ' I beg your pardon,' said Sir Humphrey for the second time ; ' you must think me a boor. My name is Hope. Good-bye.' He put down her books, which he had brought, on the top of the wall, raised his cap, and walked away across the field to his own garden.

Chapter II. Brunhild And Mr

DAGMORE. SEIZE ANS. ' Vous souvient-il, Marie, Du bois silencieux Ou votre reverie Errait des fleurs aux cieux ? Le bois etait si sombre, Vos reves si brillants, Les reves n'ont pas d'ombre Alors qu'on a seize ans.' ' There is a note for you, Dag,' said Sir Humphrey a few weeks later, coming into his friend's study. ' Whose handwriting is it ? It is uncommonly good.' 'How inquisitive you are, Hope! It is from Miss Fayne.' ' Brunhild ! Why, you are over there every day.' ' I don't always mean to go, so she can't know I'm coming ; and as often as not she writes when she wants to know anything.' ' Writes to you ? What sort of things ?' ' Why, all sorts of things. She has no mother, or aunt, or any lady, with her, and there are lots of things she doesn't under stand. Evans can't or won't answer her ques tions, so I try to be as much use as I can.' ' What does she want now ?' ' There ! take her letter.' Sir Humphrey tweaked the note rather contemptuously between his fingers, with a sarcastic expression on his expressive, clean shaven face, and the mocking look deepened as he read the letter, balancing himself idly on the arm of a chair.

The handwriting was certainly bold and vigorous ; a ' J ' pen was evidently used, and till the contents were perused the note looked more like the pro duction of a man than a girl. ' My dear Mr. Dagmore, ' I forgot to ask you this morning after matins what will be the Sunday-school lesson in the morning on the 25th. You know I have not taught in the morning for several weeks, and have lost count. It is very stupid of me. Some more people have called, mostly High Street denizens. I wish you would tell me what to do about them. ' Very sincerely yours, ' Brunhild Fayne.' ' That girl will fight with you before a year is over.' ' Why do you say that, Hope ?' ' Because those sort of girls who take up people hotly at first always do. I doubt if her parochial craze will last much longer, either. She has pugnacious eyes.' ' Hope, if you are going by the Gray House,' said Dagmore, his pen between his lips, and paying not the slightest regard to his friend's dismal prophecies, ' leave a note there for me, will you ?

There's a good fellow.' ' Oh, so you're going to write instead of calling ?' ' Not instead ; I am only going to write to say that I'll call about twelve.' ' And you met her after matins as usual. Well, well ! what waste of time and ink and paper. I'll take your note, though.' ' It is more civil to write,' said Dagmore, as he hastily scrawled a line on his beautiful crested vellum paper. ' A lady likes a warning before a morning call. I always notice that Miss Fayne is much neater, and the room much tidier, when I write to say I am coming, than when I don't.' ' Well, that's an advantage, certainly. She is usually revoltingly untidy. I hope she won't be so this morning if I see her. I must go in to speak to Evans about North Lane.' Perhaps Brunhild expected a morning visit without a warning, for the long, low drawing room, with its black oak furniture and heavy green curtains, was in good order.

Bowls of fresh roses were distributed about the room. A thundering sound on the stairs in the distance announced the descent of the gawky young mistress. ' Six steps at a time at least,' thought Sir Humphrey to himself, with a smile. Finally a thud announced that Brunhild had alighted in the hall ; another second, and she burst into the room. Her face fell when she saw her visitor ; the thin, pale little curate would have been far more interesting. ' I am afraid I'm not the right man,' said Sir Humphrey grimly ; ' but I have brought you a note.' She took it eagerly, and read it at once, whilst he amused himself by examining the photographs on mantelpiece and tables. One young fellow, a dark-eyed cadet, appeared in various uniforms, sizes and positions. ' That's my only brother, Ralph,' explained Brunhild ; ' there are only us two.

He has just joined his regiment in Burmah. When he is at home we do have such fun.' Sir Humphrey knew the girl well enough by now to know that the two sentences she used more frequently than any others were, ' We did have such fun !' and ' We shall have such fun !' ' I suppose you are rather lonely sometimes here ?' he asked. ' Not very,' she replied ; then, checking a sigh, ' only in the evening when Uncle Percy goes to sleep. I mayn't say a word at dinner after dessert comes on the table. But all day long I am very busy. I should like to go to college, but they can't afford it — so I work at French two hours a day.' ' By yourself ?' She nodded. ' With whom should I do it ? Nobody with any daughters has called on me yet. she Cheynes are away. Mr. Dagmore told me to wait a good while before I returned the visits that have been paid.

The wives of the rival doctors called the day after I came here. Mr. Dagmore says the nice people never call till one has been six months or a year in the place. He says the people who have called already form the town clique, and that I shan't have anything in common with them. But some of the old ladies were very kind to me.' She had been speaking in a very high key, and indistinctly, swallowing her words some how, but the last sentence was said slowly and regretfully. ' I would not mind what Dagmore says if I were you, Miss Fayne. He is apt to form harsh, if correct, judgments. It is better to have a great many kind friends than a few. Dagmore is rather bigoted on the subject, however.' ' I like him. He does not say half such disagreeable things as you do. Anyhow, I am glad you think I may be nice to the old frumps.

They all like me very much.' He laughed. ' Where is your uncle ? I want him.' ' Come out to the stables ; he is there. On the lawn was a pile of books ' I sit here to study,' she said. ' On the grass ? It's awfully bad for i you. ' I don't care.' ' Do you ever do any sewing or dress making ?' ' No ; I have not time. I mean, I think it is waste of time to spend it over clothes.' ' You are wrong, for it gives much pleasure.' She stared with elevated eyebrows. ' If you neglect your clothes,' he continued, ' you lose the chance of pleasing people.' ' I don't want my friends to care for me because of my clothes and outside. They must look through and care for my inside.' Her chin was well up in the air. In this mood argument with Brunhild was useless, but Sir Humphrey never could resist an argument. ' A good tailor-made dress would last you two or three years without any thought,' he said. ' But a tailor-made dress costs about four pounds straight away, so if you have only just begun to get an allowance of four pounds a quarter to fit yourself out with everything, how can you get a tailor-made dress ?

Besides, I have not done growing.' This was an admission from the grown-up young lady. ' Oh, ho !' laughed Sir Humphrey, looking quizzically at her slight, lanky figure, with its awkward jerky movements ; ' then a tailor made dress would not be an economy for you.' Mr. Evans here appeared, stepping out through the stable gate. He was a grizzled, delicate, queer-tempered man of about forty, with nervously blinking gray eyes, a slight stutter, and heavy arched black eyebrows that were constantly elevating themselves on their owner's much-lined forehead. Brunhild returned to her French as soon as she saw her uncle. ' Your niece has been amusing me im mensely by her conversation,' laughed Hope. ' Drat the girl !' exclaimed Mr. Evans with an oath. ' I wish you'd take it all, and leave her nothing to say to me.

She does nothing but talk, talk, talk from morn till night. It will drive me crazy !' ' She is young.' ' And I am old — and crabbed. What's it Shakespeare says about " crabbed age and youth " not being able to live together ? But, you see, we've got to.' ' Well, your niece seems to make the best of it,' remarked Sir Humphrey genially. He had always had a warm liking for the cantankerous uncle, who, despite his gruff tongue, had a kind heart. His bark was certainly worse than his bite.

Chapter III

A TENNIS-PARTY. Bear through sorrow, wrong and ruth In thy heart the dew of youth, In thine eyes the light of truth. Oh, that dew like balm shall steal Into wounds that cannot heal, E'en as sleep our eyes doth seal ; And that light, like sunshine, dart Into many a sunless heart, For a smile of God thou art.' Longfellow. The two land-agents were standing together in the stable-yard at the Gray House. ' Bother her !' exclaimed Evans, hitting the cobble-stones so violently with his spud that the head came off. Sir Humphrey Hope stooped in silence and picked it up. ' Bother her !' repeated Evans, more calmly. ' It is talk, talk, talk, from morning till night. Singing before breakfast, piano before dinner, singing after dinner, and talk, talk, talk, whenever I see her.' ' Which is not often ' Thank goodness !' ' What does she talk about ? ' Dagmore mostly.

I never cared for him much, and I'm sick of him now.' 'Well, you could give him a hint not to come so often.' ' Then she would talk about something else. When she is not talking about him, it is about church services, the choir, or her Sunday-school class. She cares for nothing but parochial gossip.' ' Well, she must have something to occupy her. She has a vigorous mind and high spirits and good health. She must have some outlet for her steam. Church work is a good channel.' ' Well, Hope, perhaps you are right. I suppose she is lonely, and young and vigorous. Queer friendship that, now, between her and Dagmore, hey ? I wonder he can tolerate her ! When her present admiration for him has worn off, and she ceases to flatter his vanity, they will irritate each other like mad.' ' Yes. He is very happy as Mentor, now.

If I read your niece's character aright, it won't last. But in these cases the woman represents, as a rule, the earthen pot, and suffers accordingly.' ' Brunhild won't suffer. She has not a scrap of a heart. She is the proudest little devil I ever saw, and the most self-willed into the bargain.' ' The proudest women suffer most because they don't show it.' ' No, no, Hope ; I know better. Why, she was bent — so I thought — on getting me to take her to a tennis party yesterday — no, it's to-morrow. I couldn't be bothered to — not possibly. If once I began that sort of thing, I should have no peace. I said " No " ■ — quite short, like that — and said that was reason enough. Up went her chin in the air. " I am sure I don't want to go with you," she said, as stiff as— a Jew. I do believe if she had gone on as some women do — cried, perhaps— I do believe I should have said " Yes."

But to see her back up, and her eyes so proud and scornful, glaring at me across the table— why, it makes me say " No " to everything she asks.' ' And you only see her at meals ?' ' That is all ; and not always at breakfast. Some days she will lie in bed till eleven, so the maids say.' ' Why, I have met her at church some mornings at eight.' ' Dare say. But when she is not at church she stays in bed till eleven ; and a blessing it is. I like to eat my breakfast in silence. One likes to be quiet first thing in the morning.' ' Children do not.' The two men had strolled down the large kitchen-garden during this conversation, and stood now between two long alleys of peas. Hope plucked a pod, and, absently picking out the baby peas and chewing them, muttered : ' Poor little Brunhild ! — poor little woman !

You won't take her to the party ?' ' No ; I'll try and do my duty by the child, but no tennis-parties. I will ask Mrs. Woods to take her to the party. She is a vulgar woman, but no matter.' Brunhild had been nearly six weeks at Farnley before she went to a single tennis party. This one, to which she was to be chaperoned by Mrs. Woods, was a great event. Ever since she received the invitation — a fortnight ago — she had been saving up a thick white drill skirt with a sailor blouse. Yesterday, with infinite care, she had retrimmed a blue sailor-hat with many bows. But the ribbon was cheap and floppy, and the wire with which she had laboriously propped up the ribbon was painfully demon strative. ' Nevermind ; he will see that I have tried to be tidy.' Needless to say, the ' he ' referred to Mr. Dao-more.

Although he had never, with Hope's brutality, actually commented on her habitual untidiness, yet his looks spoke volumes. Not generally observant, Brun hild noticed every word, every glance, every inflection in the voices of those for whom she cared. That was a black-letter day, that day of her first tennis-party — not a red-letter day at all, as she had expected. It was foolish of her to expect it. She could not play tennis. If not shy, she was certainly ill at ease in society ; and if her boots (bought at a shop recommended by Mr. Dagmore) and gloves were first-rate, her hat and dress were not. Perhaps the chief good of going into society is to find one's own level, and to learn to bear with equanimity seeing someone else preferred before one's self. Brunhild had never been into society before, therefore she felt the ' finding her level ' a very severe ordeal.

Just inside the gate, where the hostess stood to welcome her guests, almost the first person Brunhild saw when she arrived was Mr. Dagmore, looking so cool and calm and gentlemanly in his black straw hat and white flannels. ' Now,' thought Brunhild, ' I shall not feel shy and lonely any more.' And with this thought in her eyes, those windows to her heart, she beamed at him, her whole face lit up by the gleam of her smile, and her hand already extended. No answering gleam shone in his blue eyes. He took off his hat coldly, and continued to talk to his lady companion. Very natural. He met and talked to Brunhild by the hour every day- — day after day, and always on improving subjects. Now he found a change of listener in his hostess's pretty daughter, who had just returned home from France. ' Who is that girl with the golden hair ?' asked Brunhild abruptly of Mrs. Woods. ' Miss Everitt that is.' ' How old is she ?' ' About four-and-twenty, I should think. ' How old is Mr. Dagmore ?' ' Dear child!' laughed Mrs. Woods, ' what will you ask next ?

Well, he is a few years younger than Sir Humphrey. I suppose he is between twenty-six and thirty. Now I see Dicky Cheyne coming towards us. I will get him to give you some strawberries. His sisters are such lovely girls ; but they are away now. Dicky !' she called. Everyone in Farnley called Richard Cheyne ' Dicky.' Poor boy ! how he loathed it ! but being only seventeen and a half, he could not yet assert his manhood. He was very miserable, and out of his element. He liked tennis, but he hated parties. He had nothing to do and nobody to talk to. If he had not loathed Mrs. Woods, he would have been thankful for her call. He came up sheepishly— a tall, hand some, black-headed, hazel-eyed boy. ' What a guy !' he thought, as he returned Brunhild's stare ; but he was glad of the excuse to visit the strawberry tent.