Carlton Priors

Front matter

BY THE SAME AUTHOR Crown 8vo., cloth extra, 3s. 6d. DORIS AND I ; and Other Stories ' An exquisitely written volume of short stories, which it is a delight to read for the style alone. The style, indeed, is so tender, and the tales are so pathetic, that the effect is like that of moonlight upon ruins, or of moonlight shining through the painted windows described in one of these idylls.' — Truth. ' In this volume, " The Vicar of Wrocksley " stands out from the other sketches as does a clean-cut diamond from its setting, even though that setting be of pearls. John Stafford is a prose poet.' — Vanity Fair. 'There is a certain Arcadian simplicity about the little pieces which is decidedly pleasant. The writer is evidently a love, of nature, and he has clothed some pretty ideas in simple, natural language.' — World. ' Mr. Stafford has a pleasant manner, has a great deal that is amiable to say of human nature, no poses of any kind, and a fresh out-of door tone about him.'— Bookman. ' Mostly describable as short love stories, some of which have considerable tenderness, here and there reaching true pathos. . . .

They have been written with great care, and in the slightest of them there is a thoughtfulness and a delicacy of feeling which promise well for the future efforts of the author.' — Scotsman. ' Around even well-worn themes he can throw some of the tints of romance, some murmuring pathos, a little caressing tenderness.' — Sun. ' The influence of Mr. Thomas Hardy is apparent in the collection of ten short stones which Mr. Stafford has gathered together. . . . The workmanship is generally good. . . . The treatment is fresh and pleasing. Mr. Stafford shows a capacity for able work.' — Literary World. ' Mr. Stafford has an elegant if somewhat flamboyant style, and his stories . . . are related with a certain literary skill, and with a strong sense of scenic effect. . . . We shall be glad to read more from Mr. Stafford's pen.'— Pall Mall Gazette. ' " Doris and I " furnishes the title of a most welcome series of short stories. . . .

They are admirably suited to pleasantly wile away an idle half-hour. . . . The stories are interestingly told, and full of bright and pleasing incident.' — Birmingham Mercury. London: CHATTO &J2£H£pUS, m ST. Martin's Lane, W.C. BY JOHN STAFFORD AUTHOR OF 'DORIS AND I, ETC. LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS ' The god of love, a ! benedicite, How mighty and how grete a lord is he !' Chaucer. TO ALBERT CROMPTON I CARLTON PRIORS

Chapter I

Life at Carlton Priors was a slow-pulsed affair at the best of times ; and there were days when it seemed to slumber on the edge of the world. Standing as it did at the junction of three or four narrow, grass-margined roads leading to nowhere in particular, but connecting it, like so many capillaries, with more or less remote arteries of the body politic, it had a dull consciousness of dependence on a mightier life, but with little sense of obligation to it, or heed for its existence, save when the taxman came, pen in ear, to remind it of Queen and country. Then it owned its nationality in a manner familiar to taxmen, but did its duty, and bent to plough and scythe again, to forget as soon as it might that it, too, was part of Merry England. Yet it was when plough and scythe were busiest, in the rich autumn days when the yearly in gathering was in full swing, that, if you looked no farther than the village street, especially in the late afternoon hours, while the reapers were still afield, and the cows in the meadows were awaiting the welcome ' coop-coop ' of the milkers, and Mrs. Hitchings, the postmistress, was leisurely getting ready for the little red mail-cart which picked up the bags on its way to Wrixbury, you would say Carlton Priors was at its drowsiest.

Stretched then full in the sun's eye, and swept from church to bridge by the white heat-waves, its quaint gables seemed to nod, and its open windows to yawn with heaviness ; and in the long pauses of silence the bark of a dog, or a cock-crow from the paddocks, or the crack of a gun from the woods, was an acoustic event to be mentally noted, if not com mented upon. So that it was all in order, and quite in the way of nature, that the sharp click of a garden gate, sounding across one of these lulls on a certain September evening, and striking full on Mr. Crickle's left ear, should have made him look up from his sugar-weighing to survey the cause of it. ' God bless me, how the girl ages !' he exclaimed. ' She looks thirty to a day.' 'Who's that?' said a voice, a woman's, from behind a stack of tinned goods. ' Why, Miss Fielding.

How old will she be now?' said Mr. Crickle, twisting a bag. 'When did Dick Sheldon leave ?' ' Dick Sheldon ? It'll be three years come Michaelmas, just before she was turned twenty. She's young enough, Caleb, an' looks it to my mind. Why only this morning — but where is she?' said Mrs. Crickle, going to the door and raising her chin to gaze through her glasses. ' Posting a letter ; 'taint often she does that now Dick's thrown her over. This morning, as I was saying, I met her as I was coming from Harveys', after seeing poor Molly. Mrs. Newman was with her, dry as a nut an' wrinkled as a prune, poor old soul, an' to see Ruth beside her was like May giving an arm to December, that fresh an' bright eyed she looked. But she does change, I'll allow. Them natures do ; an' when she's under one of her i — clouds the sun may stare her in the eyes an' she'll never see a beam of it.

She's turning down the weir lane ; going to the mill, maybe. What a bonny, straight creature she is, to be sure ! Dick was a fool, if ever there was one ; an' Lawyer Mallam's another, to my thinking. Lois is well enough, but she's little better than stalk an' pith beside her sister — an' he might have had Ruth for the asking, if all they say be true.' ' I doubt it,' said Mr. Crickle, finishing another bag and taking up his shovel. ' I doubt it, Sue ; an', for all the tattle, I believe Ruth Fielding has known all the while where his eye was fixed. She may like him well enough, for he's good stuff is Frank Mallam, as his father was before him ; but she's thorough, too, an' she's not one to give her hand to a man if she couldn't let her love go with it. Dick Sheldon took all she had o' that, an', if I'm not mistaken, he's got more than a bit of it now, spite of what's passed.

It's likely as not that some o' them clouds blow up from the westward still, Sue.' ' Maybe, maybe. A woman's heart must do a lot o' beating to drive a man out, once he's in possession. An' when she thinks she's well rid of him, she'll look inside often enough to find him still there, snug as ever. But I can't think as Ruth frets much about Dick at this time o' day ; an' though she can't bolt an' bar the memories out, she's had them long enough now to be almost friends wi' them, just as I am wi' the rheumatiz. There's nothing to prevent her pairing again, if she's a mind to, without waiting for love to give her leave, as if affection an' sound judgment couldn't do the dovetailing just as well, an' better. I believe, now, that Mallam could have had her if he'd said the word, an' that he should look beyond her, an' choose Lois, beats not me alone but all Carlton Priors.' ' Which only shows that Carlton Priors deserves the beating for being cross-eyed,' said Mr. Crickle warmly. ' Mallam's been fond o' young Lois ever since her pinafore an' sun-bonnet days — an', for the matter o' that, we all have, for a prettier little fairy never nursed a doll.

But she's been his particular favourite all along ; an' he's shown it Look at the toys an' things he'd buy her, an' the candysticks an' that, enough to sweeten a brinepit ! An' when she was ill that time — when they had to cut all her hair off, an' strap her down lest she should go to heaven with a leap — didn't he ride over every day as regular as the doctor ? An' when she took the turn, an' was quietly sleeping in a sane world again, didn't he stand blinking by the gate there, as if he couldn't see straight, an' then fling into the saddle, an' race off across country, as if Death had turned fox an' he wanted his brush ? An' when he'd worked it off a bit, didn't he come back just to crave a sight of her, with his eyes like blue lights for the more than joy in them? An' they've glowed like that, more or less, ever since.

Of course it's been Lois! An' now she's growing up an' shaping to the woman, with her winsome ways an' dog-rose colouring, I don't wonder he should wish to have her all his days. You've been mating the wrong pair, every one of you, an' — but what was that you was saying about Molly Harvey ?' ' Why, that she can't credit it,' said Mrs. Crickle, turning, half querulously, to brush the pickles. ' It's knocked her back, as if she'd laid a wager on it, poor wench. Ever since she returned from that seaside place, saying if she must die she'd do it in her own bed, she's talked o' little else when she's talked at all ; an', from what Mrs. Silver says, her tongue gets busy with it sometimes in her sleep, an' lets things out about all concerned, which th' old lady can't quite piece together. Molly always was a queer girl, an' she can't even fall sick like other people.

You can never rightly tell what's at the back o' them eyes of hers, or what her thoughts are doing behind the shut lips of her. She's not been herself since Nat Hitchings died, though there was little more than flirtation between them, from what people say. But if 'twas only a touch o' calf love, such as young folks have when they're all sap an' gristle, an' their hearts have growing pains, like their legs, why should she mope about it after all this time ? She's a sullen mystery of a woman, if ever there was one ; an' if she's shunned anyone in the world as she would a leper, it's been Ruth Fielding. I told you about the grapes as Mrs. Newman sent her ; how she flung them from the bed as if they'd been nightshade, just because it was Ruth as brought them ? Mrs. Hitchings says it's a worm in her head.

More like one in her heart, say I. An' if th' old doctor can get at it, an' let her die like a Christian, he '11 have about earned his i guineas. ' Strikes me, Sue, that the name o' that worm is conscience,' said Mr. Crickle, with a crease of thought in his brow ; ' an' it isn't old Sankey as '11 put the salt on it, either. He's clever enough in his way, is Sankey. He can cut an' sew up an' mix his drugs with the best of them ; but 'taint for him to ease a sick mind, or physic a heart ache ; an' he'll tell you himself that it wasn't to learn how souls were made that he walked the hospitals in his callow days. That's the doctor Molly wants' — nodding in the direction of a spare black figure then passing — 'she wants a dose or two of religion, an' of the parson's own mixing ; an' if, when she does slip off, she leaves a smile on her face to show how she went, it '11 be Mr. Newman's doings, if it's anyone's. I don't suppose she's done much amiss, poor lass ; but she's one o' them as magnifies things, an' sees crows in meat-flies, an' kestrels in beetles, as if their eyes were fish-bowls.' ' It may be so,' returned Mrs. Crickle ; ' for when a body's sick, it's hard always to see the true size o' things ; the mind gets vapourish, an' twists 'em out o' feature.

There's them, more over, whose broodings will clothe about the smallest sin, till it's as ugly as a potato-bogle, an' fit to scare away the best o' thoughts. That's how it is with Molly, I reckon ; an' if she does turn to the Vicar to ease her mind of the load that's on it, he'll lift it off, like enough, in a couple o' minutes, an' leave her staring at a straw which she'd thought was a rick. For he's a wonderful way with him, has Mr. Newman, once he sees how the land lies. Strange he should be such a different man to what he used to be. When he first came to Carlton he was hard as them scales.' ' An' as true in the beam,' added Mr. Crickle. ' He was always that ; but he's softened a deal of late years, an' since we had that pestilence in the place. That was a fight, Sue ; fit to take the stiffness out of any heart.

He came from a fashionable parish, you see, where 'taint respectable to be human ; where you can't see across the street for conventions ; an' where tall hats cover a multitude o' sins, an' frock-coats, out o' charity, keep 'em safely buttoned up. It's a queer cure o' souls, where you never see a sign o' one ; where etiquette's the one religion, an' the only sinners them as breaks it ; where " watch an' pray " means " play an' watch," an' " love your neighbour as yourself" exchanging cards an' sending empty broughams to his funeral. No ; the Vicar's learned more, I take it, since he came to little Carlton Priors than he would in Belgravia in a dozen lifetimes. We've about made a man of him — we, that is, an' ' 'An' what?' said Mrs. Crickle, going to the door at a sound of wheels. ' Have you never guessed, Sue ?' — in a lower voice. ' Has it never crossed your mind ?' ' Give it a name, an' I'll tell you.' ' Ruth Fielding, Sue.' ' It's crossed my mind, but never stayed there.

What's made it lag in yours?' asked Mrs. Crickle, turning about with ill-concealed sur prise. 'He's just the same to her as to anyone ; an' besides — why, he's old enough to be her father !' ' An' young enough to feel that she's the best woman God ever made. If she's not been making sun for him to ripen in, my name's not Caleb Crickle. But there, we needn't talk about it ; an', somehow, I feel as if we hadn't a right to, so long as it's the Vicar's secret, or he thinks it is. They're just my private thoughts, Sue ; an' if yours get busy with them, keep 'em clear o' your tongue, then they'll bide safe at home, an' not start the common talk. Here's Mrs. Wheatley, in the gig ; she'll be wanting her yeast.' ' But, Caleb ' Her mouth hangs a bit, as if things weren't as they should be. Old Isaac bad again perhaps.

Shouldn't be surprised if they give up Springfield some fine day ; they've never had the capital to run a farm o' that size.' ' But d'ye think Ruth — ' It about ruined the Sheldons,' continued Mr. Crickle, trying not to smile, as she turned im patiently away ; ' an' it'll ruin Wheatley if he's not very careful. The land's poor, an' wants feeding — a lot o' feeding. You might as well look for chickens from blown eggs as fat harvests from hungry acres. Ah, Mrs. Wheatley ! how are you, ma'am? An' how is Mr. Wheatley to-day?'

Chapter II

Unconscious of the flow of talk which she had unwittingly started, and absorbed in her own thoughts, Miss Fielding, leaving the village by the lane she had turned into, walked steadily on, but with listless aspect and heavy eyes which saw nothing. Otherwise she had the firm, rhythmic tread of a healthy well-knit woman ; and if she lacked buoyancy this evening, there was a certain vigour in her moving which implied pur pose, though it were only a walking away from herself. Flushed already with exercise, or the hot friction of thought, she appeared to have fewer years than Mr. Crickle had credited her with ; but the mouth, which was too full and shapely ever to seem hard, was trying its best to be so, and there was a tenseness at the brows, and a set, fighting look i4 CARLTON PRIORS at the chin, which ought not to have been there, so soft as it was and rounded.

It was plain to see that something had gone amiss, and that one half of Miss Fielding was striving with the other, to some loss of facial charm, though very little. Leaving the mill and weir on her left, and following the lane by the river till it rose to the main road at the bridge, she turned into another by-road, which she followed in all its windings doggedly. The air was cooling, moving with a gentle motion which might have reached a breeze had it been less laden with the sweet odours in it. Here and there in the tree-tops a late throstle sang ; and from the ragged hedgerows came occa sional notes from lesser voices — broken remi niscences of happier singings, but serving in their way to break-up the day's hot silence and make a pleasant stirring where all had been lethargy ; for the sun, after an ardent run, was going his way in milder mood, and his yellowing light ribbed the fields with long tree-shadows, touched the rustier leaves till they seemed like nuggets growing, made animated gold-dust of the gnats at their gaming, and gilded pool and stream and tumbling freshet, till the green and russet countryside was all ablaze with splendour.

Walking on with senses shut to these things, Miss Fielding, reaching the foot of a hill, paused by a wayside gate, and, leaning an arm upon it, gazed across to the distant church. It was some thing definite, like a ship at sea, and her tired eyes fastened on it restfully. But soon, without knowing why, or that her wearied brain was stealing a moment's breathing space, she was counting the rooks which made black dots about it. A cow lowed near by, and, half turning her head, her eyes found an old plough deep in a nettle-bed, and she saw how primitive it was, wondering if oxen had ever drawn it. She glanced across the field, where corn for mice and men was finely growing, and thought of the spears which Cadmus saw. Then came a whiff of meadow-sweet, and the quick, brief song of a robin ; and she drew a long breath, and looked up and around her for a few sensuous seconds ; then, finding the church again, 'Why not?' said she, and fell again to thinking.

But, whatever the pros were, the cons seemed to hold the field ; and all at once a rush of some thing came which had nearly ended the debate ; but she turned quickly away, holding the sob down, and crushing her lip as she bit back the momentary weakness. And her brows drew to gether, and her eyes said ' Coward !' as plainly as could be. Thought straightway took a healthier turn, and by-and-by, after a further sorting out of the con tending things within her, she began to arrive at a better understanding, and, little by little, to look about her again, noticing with half an ear her muffled steps, and the soft ' frou-frou ' of her gown as the only sounds that reached her. For she had mounted the Ridgeway to the old grassy tract on the spine of it, and away, on either hand of her, stretched the rich autumn landscape.

Stopping at last, she looked away to the west, letting her eyes drink in all they would of the sun feast the day was ending with. It was a frank, outward look, and from the set of her features she had found a contented humour, so that when she caught sight of a tiny red speck gliding away in the distance, a smile came easily to her, lingering agreeably at her eyes and lips, while she followed the object till it passed from her sight behind a leafy turn in the road. ' Selah !' she cried. ' Let it be ! But I must tell him. He must know truthfully how it is ! Ah, how they did rise up, those memories, as she knelt there by me, with her dear blushes, telling me the tale. It was like a Walpurgis dance of my own past, and I had to sit there and watch it by the lovelights of Lois's eyes. And it was not only galvanism — the touch of another's joy.

It was he who sent them from my innermost heart, and I knew then — but there ! Lois shall have none of them in the old shoe,' said she, stepping on again ; ' they shall go back to their sleep, and not even the bells shall rouse them. . . . And after wards ' — here her smile lost its balance a second — ' but — soil / It will be better than living alone. Could I do that, after all, I wonder? Could I live on in the darkness which Lois will leave, in the echoing emptiness of the place, with the old ghosts flying in at the windows, and gibbering at me, perhaps, in the long night-hours? Could I face that, and let Lois see that her own light had cast no shadow ? No, no ! I will take his hand and let him lead me. It's a gentle hand, with a dear, kind heart behind it, and perhaps, some where in the journeyings we may find happiness, though we go no farther than our own village.

Yes— let it be !' When she crossed the bridge again and passed up the village to the small chalet-like house which was her home, the first stars were trimming, and in the dull, bronzy air the bats were begin ning to gambol with eerie squeakings across the low moan of the weir. But Ruth fastened on the cheering lights in the window, and, though half conscious as she passed them of the dim shape they threw beside her — like her old, weak self still dogging her— she pushed the thought back, with others of Molly Harvey, as she went by the cottage with an eye on the dormered window that marked her room; — which was why she started slightly at seeing Mr. Newman on the path in front of her. ' She is just the same,' said he, turning to accompany her. ' Molly ? It is very sad. I wish she would let me see her sometimes.

It seems so pitiful that her enmities should only die with herself,' said Ruth, slowing her steps, but seeming a little nervous. ' She sees no one willingly, as you know. She troubles me rather,' said the Vicar, looking straight before him. ' I can't quite diagnose the girl ; she gives one so few data to work on. There seems nothing in her past to serve as an end to unravel her by.' 'But why should she be such a moral tangle ? Do you think she is quite — quite ' Ruth hesitated. ' Compos mentis V said the Vicar, smiling. 'Yes, I think so. She is one of those emotional, ill balanced natures, which, if allowed to develop of themselves without proper social correctives, generally become abnormal, one way or another. But for her morbid silence Molly's case might seem simple enough, if we only knew it.

Well, well, I was looking out for you, by-the-way. Lois was getting anxious.' 2 — ' You have seen her ?' ' Yes.' ' You know, then?' — with a lower voice and a look away. ' It came out. She is a kindled lamp trying not to shine.' Ruth laughed, imagining Lois under a bushel. Her heart was lighter now, moreover. She had flung the last doubts away, and by the little fire flies of thought which lit the dimness she saw her course again ; but with this difference now, that another's feet stepped with hers along it, and she listened to the gentle fall of them as if to a pleasant tune. ' They will be very happy, I think. I could hardly say no, though Lois feared I would, and did not bring it up till this afternoon. Mr. Mallam spoke to her yesterday at the lawn party. It was to rest with me, and my answer is now on its way.

She is rather young, but, girlish as she is, she will be eighteen in October : and if marriages are made in heaven they were mated there months ago. It must rest with you to bring them together, really, Mr. Newman. Won't you come in ?' Her face was alight, and in her frank, level look was something which started a song behind the Vicar's albert. He listened to it, thinking of Atalanta in bosky shadows, she had such an air of having run a race and won it. ' No ; not now. I will bear this happy news to madre.1 ' Ah ; yes ! She will be glad. She likes him so.' ' Yes, there will be rejoicing in both our houses. He is liked by everyone, I fancy. All the parish will toss its cap.' ' Dear Lois, I am so glad !' cried Ruth, from her heart's abundance. ' But she will be wondering where I am. I told her I was going to Springfield, but I never called.

I ' 'You went for a walk instead?' filled in the other. ' Yes ; right up the Ridgeway, and all along it. It was lovely,' said Ruth, looking so herself as a flush played on the cream of her features, and her lashes trembled shyly. ' And I did so want a turn. But I must try to see Mr. Wheatley to-morrow. He likes me to read to him. Have you been there lately ?' 'Yesterday,' said the Vicar, willing to make the talk. ' We sat in the garden and chatted of bees. His tongue ran on honey and his thoughts on wormwood. The man is eaten up with worries. Between them and his pains he has a poor time of it, I am afraid. But he is very patient, and glad to find what he can of silver linings.' ' I wish I could strip them off, and melt them to crown pieces for him.' Mr. Newman smiled. ' He would thank you more for a new sciatic nerve.

But you manage to give him something. He always rejoices to see you. And so will Lois now, I fancy. I am keeping you from her. We shall see you to-morrow ?' 'Yes.' ' Good-night.' ' Good-night.' A genial bass note, and an alto one ; a touching of hands ; eyes which barely met. So they had parted, these two, a thousand times before, and gone each to a quiet pillow. But behind the scaffolding of commonplaces a brave edifice will grow when Hope is the architect and Love the master-builder. And if the fond desire have become the familiar sight of every day, thought's own companion, like the sculptor's goddess in the marble block, a man may reach fruition, or persuade himself he sees it, and display little outward sign ; especially if he have five-and-forty years and the Church's cloth upon him.

Mr. Newman walked homewards looking much as usual, save for the quiet glow under the brows which Ruth had noticed as he turned away. She stood gazing after him, remembering with a kind of wonderment the time, so long ago it seemed, when she had last seen in the same deep-set eyes that soft, peculiar light. She recalled her heart's consterna tion of two or three hours ago, when the half forgotten promise had waved back upon her. Neither by word nor look had he once reminded her of it. Such patient, reticent waiting touched her strangely ; her eyes dimmed, but a dominant thrill of gladness went through her, and with a catch of the breath, and a sudden longing to throw her arms round something and hold it tight, she passed indoors and filled them with the white softness of Lois.

Chapter III

The incidents in our lives, like the cells in our tissues, grow from each other, and often in the same silent and hidden fashion. So that when, now and again, we are roused to the trend of our fortune by the push of some crowning event, we are ready to sigh, if not to wring our hands, for that so much of our time our destinies should be shaping without either our will or knowledge. And in such moments some sense of helplessness will perhaps sweep over us, and we taste, accord ing to our moral palate, the sweets or bitters of resignation, wondering that, grown men and women as we are, we should seem such children in the hands of circumstance. But submission, the wise men tell us, is the beginning of victory, and Providence is kindest when we take its hintings, and rough-hew our way on the lines of them.