The history of Aythan Waring

Front matter

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Contents

The Road from Liangarth .

The Boys

Hester .

Chapter III Hester

Eustace walked on to the house. The road ended in front of its door, for, having passed the farm-gate beyond the mansion, it became a mere field-track winding towards the mountain.

Crishowell House was by no means a large place; standing as it did in the teeth of the western gales it was marked by weather in the same way that a human being is marked by the wear of life. The entrance fronted on the lane, on the further side of which the ground rose so abruptly that the carved wood gables of the windows above the door looked straight into the rocky bank set with tree-roots. The house, built by a royalist squire who had suffered for concealing adherents of Charles I., had been given by Cromwell to the Matthew Bridges of his day as a reward for having fought three times beside the Protector; and this man had transmitted his name through the centuries to Aythan’s godfather. It was said that the long barn huddled against the bank—an eyesore to Hester, as it thrust its unabashed utilitarianism in her face every time she crossed the threshold—was the old banqueting hall; above the hay and straw, piled almost to the rafters, its ornate cornice proclaimed that it had been made for grander uses than the storing of litter. Hester had once spoken of pulling it down, but Aythan’s face and the unexpected sympathy Eustace gave to his horror, had kept her from doing more. The boys had rolled each other about among the straw inside it years before she had heard the name of Bridges.

On the western side, Crishowell House was plain and square, catching the red lights of sunset on its windows and seeming higher than it was by reason of the ground, which fell away down the garden to the fields. It was homely, though it suggested history; intimate, yet incongruous; perhaps from its position, perhaps because of the mountain a couple of miles away, there hung round it something that, in a human being, would be called detachment. It was as though that great presence had reached across the space and laid its shadow upon its walls.

Eustace went down the narrow passage beyond the oak door; it led straight through the house to the drawing-room in which Hester sat. As he entered the afternoon sun was warming the garden beyond the panes, nevertheless, the room, like most rooms in the house, looked dark. The windows, set in their wooden panelling, were not wide; and the ceiling, tinted a dull mauve and decorated in plaster with a garlanded thyrsus, seemed near enough to be oppressive.

Hester sat by a little mahogany table, sewing; she did not look up, though she knew very well who had come in; yards of white lawn stock lay on the table beside her open workbox, and her thick, white fingers whisked the thread in and out with the measured regularity of a shuttle as she hemmed the frayed end of the folds.

He sat down on the window-seat and began playing with the tassel of the blind.

*“ Aythan ought to be obliged to you,’’ he said at last, rather mischievously.

‘“Does Aythan wear such fine stocks as these?’’ she asked, without lifting her eyes.

He gave the tassel a twirl that sent its fringes flying out like the skirts of a ballet dancer.

*“You should leave that for the maids to do,’’ said he.

She looked up suddenly, straight at him, and the whole light from the window struck on her face, showing how few lines thirty-six years had brought to it. Though there was something hard and changeless in the impression she gave, the stiff hair-dressing of the period became her. Her hair was as glossy as satin, very brown, and banded above her forehead to meet the rows of ‘ cannon curls’ above her ears. It was drawn up from the back and stood in two high loops tied with a black bow above her parting. Her eyes were of a keen light blue, with brows finely arched; her face full, yet narrow; reminding one, in its too long, too smooth contours, of one of those set-looking female faces in illustrated books of English history. She had a firm figure, broad white teeth, and a look of youth mixed with the manner of maturity. It was a month since she had put off her mourning for Matthew, and her high-waisted grey dress with close stripes of pale blue looked new. She was not pretty, scarcely handsome, certainly not beautiful, but she was what a man—a young man especially—would call ‘a good-looking woman.’

‘‘T wish you would not prick your fingers on my account,’’ said Eustace as she resumed her work.

‘“Oh, Emma is busy,’’ she replied, rather shortly. The tassel whirled again.

‘“ Aythan is a strange fellow,’’ he began, after a pause. ‘“I know that,’’ replied Hester, with a little laugh; he is beyond me.”’

herie’s.sulky.”’

‘“ And pray, why ?”’

‘“He objects to my manners to women, I believe.’’ ‘“To women? What women?’’ said Hester, leaning back in her chair and putting down her needle.

‘“ Hardly a woman—Mad Moll,’’ replied Eustace, narrowing his eyes and smiling. ‘‘ He takes everything seriously.”’

‘“ And you take nothing !’’ she exclaimed, with a sudden vehemence.

‘Oh, Hester !’’

‘‘Hush! You are not to call me that, Eustace !’’

‘But why—who hears? While your aunt was here, did I ever do it once? And why must it be different? I have never called you anything else when we are alone, have IP’?

Bayou did at first.”’

‘‘ At first! That is long ago.”’

** Eustace, Aunt Mary’s tongue is a dangerous thing ; she i

‘* What do I care for your Aunt Mary’s tongue ?’’

‘*Ah, but you don’t understand. She spoke to me more than once in a most annoying way.”’

‘But what did she say? A woman with such a nose has no right to speak to any one but her Maker.’’

‘* She said that my position here is not—not delicate; that I have no business to be living here alone with two young men.’’

““Then dispense with Aythan. That will only leave one,’’ said Eustace.

‘“ If you will not be serious there is no use in talking !”’ cried Hester, getting up and shutting her workbox, her eyes full of angry tears.

‘“T will be serious,’’ said he. ‘‘ What did you reply to that ?’’

**T said I looked upon you as my step-sons. Then she said that no one else would do so, and—oh, Eustace, I hate to tell you !—that you ought to get your commission and leave the place. Will there ever be an end of that eternal commission ?’’

‘““And what about Aythan?’’ inquired Eustace, who had grown serious enough to please anybody.

‘“She seemed to think that different. He was really adopted by my husband. She said it was you that people would not understand.’’

‘“Do you wish me to go, Hester?’”’ he asked, after a moment’s pause.

‘‘ Of course not, Eustace.’’

He got up and went to her, taking her hand.

‘* Hester, what am I to do?’’

‘‘Do?’’ she cried, turning away; ‘‘ be reasonable. Oh, Eustace, you must be discreet before others—you must not call me Hester! Now that I am out of mourning I must be doubly careful; the black dress was a barrier to gossip and curiosity. It would be dreadful if there were any fuss—if you had to go away.”’

‘‘ But what is all this? Are you not your own mistress? You have never talked like this before.”’

‘TI have been tormenting myself and lying awake at night ever since Aunt Mary was here,’’ said she. ‘*‘ What should I do without you? You are the only friend I have had since I came to this house.’’

The tears rose again.

He had never seen her so much upset ; she was.a woman in whom tears were so unnatural that he suspected some cause of which he knew nothing. Whether wisdom or ill-nature lay behind the words of the departed guest he was aware that his position might need explaining. He made no mysteries with himself; he had been brought up by Matthew with the army in view, but he had not the slightest desire to work for his living. He had his small allowance and the money wherewith to purchase what Hester had called ‘that eternal commission.’ It was his, out and out. When he told himself that Matthew had acted for his own interests in what he had done for him he stated no more than the truth. For his convenience Bridges had allowed him to put off his departure, and now Bridges had departed himself and he was free to do as. he pleased. Perhaps it was not very dignified, but there were other things in the world besides dignity; Hester had called him the only friend she had, and she was now absolute mistress at Crishowell. So long as mischief-makers left her alone all would be well. Why should he go while she needed him? How he hated old women and their tongues !

She faced him again; her eyelashes were wet, but the composed expression she generally wore was coming back, and she sat down and took up her work from the table.

‘‘ You would really miss me?’’ he said, standing before her.

‘“ Of course,’’ she replied. ‘‘ I should be most unfeeling if I did not.’”’

There was a certain watchful fierceness in her eyes. Birds guarding their young have the same look.

He took her hand again and held it a moment; it seemed as though he were going to kiss her.

She sprang up, pushing past him, and went out of the room; her skirt overturned the slim-legged table and the workbox fell on the floor. The reels of silk and cotton went down in a shower and rolled about round Eustace’s feet as he stood looking at the yards of stock, marked with his own initials, lying in a puffy heap.

He picked the thing up and set the table on its legs. Then he opened the long window which Matthew had cut for his wife into the garden and passed through it, leaving everything else where it lay. He could hear Hester’s footsteps as she entered her room overhead.

Outside the threshold was a wide stone flag, from either end of which a flight of steps ran to the grass below. He remained standing on it, knowing that she could see him if she looked from the room above. Her window was open and he could almost hear her breathe.

““Mrs. Bridges,’’ he called, turning up his face.

There was no reply for a moment, and then Hester looked out. | |

“Will you please pick up my reels?’’ she said.

Her voice was quite calm, but her colour was high and he could see her nostrils moving.

He went in and did as she desired. Her window shut down while he was replacing her possessions, so he betook himself to the study which he and Aythan had occupied jointly since their college days and sat down among the litter of game-bags, fishing-tackle and account-books stacked on floor and table. He threw himself back in his chair and stuck his long legs out in front of him, whistling. The notes came clear and running from his pursed lips, like the mellow ripple of a blackbird, for he was musical through and through and the sound flowed as a commentary to his thoughts. He had learned a good deal in the last half-hour, but the knowledge was scarcely new; Hester’s flight from the drawing-room had told him no more than he had practically known for some time. All the same it seemed to bring him more definitely face to face with reality. There were days, not so far back in his experience, when he had admitted himself in love with her; he had admitted it, yet known in his heart that he was not. He had liked to cheat himself, because he knew just how far the deception would go and because it was a pleasant deception. He had cultivated it, and it had gained hold on him with all the wonderful strength of an acquired taste. His love of approbation, his love of comedy, his interest, had all helped it on. Proximity— that worker of magic—had lent a hand, too. With its assistance he had given himself many inexpensive thrills and screwed himself up to a real enjoyment of them. He understood Hester as her husband and Aythan had never tried to understand her. The one had looked upon her without curiosity, the other without comment. He alone knew how skin-deep was the calm that sat on her so naturally, and how much of her acceptance of the merely suitable was the result of stereotyped education and late © development. Before her marriage she had lived exclusively among women, and, after it, exclusively among men. Hester Corbett had no suspicion of any point of view but the feminine one; small wonder if, to Hester Bridges, the proportions of life had become different.

Eustace was not introspective for introspection’s sake ; he was so because he had not much to occupy him. He might have been ambitious had he expected less of fate, and it was to his undoing that such advantages as he had enjoyed had all been brought to his feet without effort of his own. Though that had taught him not to move a finger till a thing was within his reach it had given him a compensating faculty of seeing opportunities. His talent was less with the rod than with the landing-net.

He knew beyond a doubt what his landing-net had brought him in; if Hester did not love him already she was on the verge of doing so; and now, though he had anticipated it and even played for it, the certainty made him grave. The worst of it was that there could be no pausing where they stood, either for himself or for her, and he had hardly made up his mind whether he would fain go forward or back. To step back might break up the idle smoothness of his days, with their accompaniment of ease, varied by the pleasant absences in London which he allowed himself from time to time. Hester would mean all these on a permanent footing were he to take her seriously. How if he found himself compelled to the routine of soldiering which Matthew had marked out for him, to foreign voyages and service in rough countries, to curtailment of liberty? He had no mind for any of these. He hated responsibility as he hated hardship and the shoulderings of a world where effort was a necessity. He had no quarrel with life; he was well off and he knew it.

Men had married women ten and fifteen years their seniors without repentance, and there was only a difference of eight years between himself and the woman in the room above. There might be forty before them of solid leisure, and no special reason that she should pre-decease

D na AYTHAN WARING him. At her death Aythan would succeed her; but, meantime, Aythan was as much on sufferance at Crishowell House as he was himself; and who was to say when he might leave it? For all his cousin’s regard for every acre that had been Matthew’s, something told Eustace that he would scarcely fit into his place, should the present order give way to the one he was contemplating. He had none of his own love of ease, and his very face had the restrained virility of a man capable of taking and giving hard knocks in the struggle of the world. And, should anything happen to him, he, Eustace, eldest son of his father’s next brother, would be the heir. But Hester now held the horn of plenty and he had only to reach out and take it. He felt quite sure that he might do with it as he would, for, in common with many men, he had no doubt but that he would sway his wife completely.

On the other hand, he understood that what feeling he had for her was unreal, the result of proximity; an easy distraction, easily come by. He had never been in love in his life, though women had played the same part in his college experiences as they had played in those of his companions. He wondered what people would say were he to marry Hester Bridges; he did not care, particularly, but to be pointed at as the young husband of an old wife was scarcely an alluring prospect. Would the neighbourhood point at him? Hardly, he thought, as he remembered Aunt Mary’s remark that, though her niece might look on the young men as her step-sons, nobody else would. And Hester was well-looking, well-dressed; one who appeared certainly five years short of her age; one who would do him no discredit. They could go away after their marriage and stay away a year, or more if necessary; long enough to let the local mind get accustomed to their deed before it should be called upon to welcome them. There was a great deal to be said for the arrangement. He wished he could get an outside opinion upon it, but, unfortunately, his cousin’s would be the only available one. The bare idea made him smile.

He asked himself as he looked round on the paraphernalia of Aythan’s occupation, which suggested him so vividly, whether he really liked him; it was a difficult question to answer, for though they had been excellent friends as boys, as men they did not stand on quite the same footing. If any one had told him that he was afraid of his cousin he would have laughed aloud, not because he would be ashamed to admit it, but because he would have thought it pre-eminently untrue.

So far, no one had known Eustace so well as he knew himself; yet there was a limit even to his self-comprehension.

Chapter IV

It would be difficult, now-a-days, to imagine the state of slow-moving ferment that prevailed in villages where the yearly ‘feast’ was about to come round. Unlike most of its compeers, Crishowell had chosen to hold its licensed jollification at the end of June instead of at the end of harvest.

Here, on the border-line of two countries, where a man whose mother-tongue was English had neighbours a mile away who spoke Welsh alone, a strange mingling of accent and language prevailed. There were Englishspeaking Welshmen with a smattering of broad Herefordshire that rang absurdly on their ascending intonations, and Englishmen whose few words of Welsh were strung on a stout thread of h’less talk. Such a gathering as Crishowell feast showed every variety of the mixture, and, if English prevailed in the loud voice of the festivity, it was only because the quicker Welshman, whose wits jumped more readily with his interests, found the latter better served by two languages than by one.

The heavy summer green which made a background to the revels was suffocating under its layer of dust as the preparations went forward round the White Cow. Children passing on the road would peep warily through the hedge into the orchard to get stolen glimpses of the rows of benches at its nearer end. The ‘ mounty-bags ’ were coming, and, as the sight of the tumblers and stiltwalkers who came under ae) denomination would cost a penny, the scene of their exploits was already sacred ground.

In the village lane two sturdy women were baking at the hastily-built oven which faced the path just outside Jane Dolley’s house, and a sympathetic smell of pies could be enjoyed as far off as the church gate. Earthen jars of milk, sent by the farmers and slopping over in the grasp of their emissaries, had been, for days past, among the common features of the road; and Sarah Ukyn, who had come down from one of the hovels in the straggling hamlet of Wern, high up in the parish near the mountain, stood, her red arms akimbo, weary with the stirring of puddings.

‘* Where be we to leave they puddin’s for to-night ?’’ she inquired, as she came out to the threshold of Jane’s abode.

Near the oven the huddle of petticoats containing Jane Dolley straightened itself.

*“To be sure I never thought o’ that,’’ remarked its occupant, raising herself from the attitude of a half-shut penknife to that of an open one. ‘‘ They’ll come to no "arm in my kitchen surely, will they ?’’

‘“Too near the path,’’ said Sarah, smiling with large knowing ness.

‘“My! ye’d need to be as strong as Mad Moll to be off wi’ the potful ye’ve got yonder,’’ replied Jane, pointing to the kitchen.

‘“There’s nothin’ too ’ot nor too ’eavy for a thief,’’ observed Mrs. Ukyn, solemnly. ‘‘ Best put ’em i’ the church.’’

Jane Dolley’s countenance expressed all her sense of the yawning gap which lay between orthodoxy and dissent. She almost choked. Sarah, though English, was chapelbred; her mouth now extended half across her face and her vast figure shook with an ungodly humour. She was one. of those whose slow bodies are mere ambushes for their unexpectedly nimble minds. To the unwary she was acurse. Her small eyes devoured her companion’s plight.

In person she was not unlike a resolute pig. Before Jane could find speech she had returned to the kitchen, where the bubbling had grown excessive, and left her to adjust her mind to a foreign point of view as best she might.

Jane Dolley looked upon the feast more as a lapse than an anniversary, and it was almost under protest that she took her yearly part in the preparations for it. Judging by its results there was something to be said for her feeling; sore heads and addled brains were among the minor effects of the isolated burst of excitement which disjointed the dull routine of agricultural life; the ensuing lost places, queasy stomachs and empty pockets were, to many, the only unbefogged memories of the occasion. The excited girls and heated young men let loose by evening to find their homeward ways together through the darkness knew its results, possibly for a lifetime; and strong drink, like a torch lit in a black night, had a fell way of revealing the greed, lust and envy which some sentimentalists believe to be decreased by contact with the soil, but which lurk in all communities, rustic or urban, of this buffeting world.

And, before the entertainment, things were not much better. It did not do to let your poultry get far afield. A duck here, or a pullet there, were not things that lay heavy on the rural conscience. An owner who knew his brood to a feather as it wagged and waddled from barn to pond might come face to face with its members as they emerged from the maw of that leveller, the pot, and be none the wiser. It was a guilty season.

The great day dawned on Crishowell in the midst of a wave of heat; the burning blue spanning the world was dim behind a veil of sultry atmosphere and tremulous vibrations of air throbbed visibly above the ground. The wych-elm near the door of the Cow was encircled by a temporary wooden bench, and old women, who had walked from Llangarth before the sun was well up, were setting out their baskets of cakes and nuts. Tuning fiddles squeaked periodically, their outcries voicing the suppressed fervour of public excitement; in a triangular field at the end of the orchard swings and giddy-go-rounds stood like skeletons against the greenness.

Announced by a cloud of dust kicked up by attendant children, a procession of pies and dumplings from the village travelled towards the inn. Wheelbarrows and bags staggered and swung under the delicacies they held, and, below the apple-trees, the long tables were set like so many altars awaiting the advancing sacrifice.

By midday the orchard was full and general interest converged upon the mugs and platters being set out; only the children raced about after their kind, heedless of the onslaughts of their mothers, who were anxious to have them under their wings when the rush for places should begin. The savoury smell from the inn premises was almost unbearable; young men nudged each other covertly, old ones licked their lips and the crowd grew gradually closer. When the last dish was set the oldest man in the parish was asked to give the signal, which he did by waving his staff over his head.

Like a mill-stream when the sluice is opened, like a flock at a fallen gate, the living mass surged upon the benches. Some few of the girls, to whom traditions of fashionable female delicacy had filtered through channels of domestic service, hung back; and those whose admirers were fervid enough to remember their existence at such a time pushed them gallantly into empty places. The married men, with whom Cupid had ceased to concern himself, sat down in blocks of five and six together, as far as possible from their wives; even the children, fitted with slaps into their places, became impressed and ceased to pull each other’s hair. The sun poured down on the assembly, scarcely mitigated by the sparse shade of the apple-leaves.

‘“ Seems like as Ukyn ’ud get nothin’,’’ observed Sarah to Jane Dolley as they found themselves side by side when the meal had begun; ‘‘’t isn’t often ’e be late for is victuals. ”’

Jane made no reply beyond looking additionally respectable. Her companion’s husband was a man about whom lurid rumours were apt to hang; for such settled work as was done by the family was done by Sarah. Ukyn picked up what jobs he could.

‘* This here be a proper good duck,’’ slyly observed a man who was enjoying himself opposite; ‘‘ it'll be a pity if ’e do come too late for it. Ukyn have a fine notion o’ powltry, I’m told.’’

Sarah made no reply. Ducks and geese were a sore point, for her husband had once or twice been connected with their disappearance. The speaker was an old enemy who had never forgiven Ukyn some rough handling.

‘°F’ ll be ’ere, never fear,’’ he remarked again, leaning over the table; ‘‘ Ukyn don’t lose much. ’E can teach ye how many beans makes five.”’

‘*°E can teach ye how many clouts makes a hidin’,’’ observed Sarah. ‘‘’E’s done that afore now.’’

A snigger broke from their corner of the table.

Sarah went on with her food, as little disturbed as a browsing animal. The heat had made her cheeks shine.

‘*T don’t mind if I ’ave another mouthful o’ this,’’ she said, handing her empty plate up the table; ‘‘ send it up-along to the pot, young feller.’’

The recipient passed it on with a wink at his companions. Mrs. Ukyn leaned back, her arms folded; in intervals of business she had a way of abstracting herself from her surroundings not common in a class whose outlook is entirely personal.

““There be Ukyn!’’ she exclaimed suddenly, as a head appeared beyond the hedge dividing road and orchard. ‘“Come on, Tom, or there'll be nowt for ’e but the pickin’s! Put thy leg through the briers, lad, an’ take a short cut—there be a place ’ere!”’

She began to slide herself sideways along the bench to make room for him. The man took her advice and slipped through the hedge with the nicety of long practice. His own advantage had long forbidden him to look upon his wife as a nonentity, yet his attitude towards her was strictly that of other men towards the necessary woman; the unwholesome knowledge that she would never fail him sanctioned an outward contempt for a person he thought uncommonly well of in the depth of his mind. He took no notice of her beckonings nor of the place she was clearing for him at the expense of other people’s ribs, but strode on to the far end of the table where he was received with a good deal of consideration by the looser-minded among the guests.

‘“°Edges don’t stand much i’ the Green Jiner’s way,”’ observed the man opposite.

Tom Ukyn and his wife lived in Wern village, a clustered handful of dwellings which hardly deserved the name of cottages. High up it lay among the lanes that crawled towards the mountain and ended upon the lower slopes of unenclosed turf; the rough stone hovels were so much one with the ground on which they stood, that, but for its smoke, the squalid hamlet clinging to the hillside among broom and thorn was scarcely to be distinguished from the. valley. Round it were thickets of stunted growth, the last wind-blown stragglers of the woods that flourished below. Grim-looking hollows whence the stone for its building had been quarried made playgrounds for the children it contained; over some the kindly turf had grown; some were choked with nettles.

The only pretence of an industry carried on in the village was a semi-illicit trade in ‘ whiskets’ and besoms, the raw material for which precedent had made it allowable to cut from the neighbouring scrub. Between Wern people and the agent of Sir Helbert Bucknall, on whose land the hamlet stood, there was eternal embarrassment ; for while the agent allowed himself to be conveniently blind to a theft which did little harm to his employer’s pocket, the owner was a hard man; one impossible in the present state of society when socialism is a fad of the rich and subservience an affectation in the poor. Sir Helbert reaped where he had not sown and gathered where he had strawed very little indeed, and the only thing which saved these, his light-fingered tenants, from calamity, was the fact that he lived principally at his place in Herefordshire and seldom came near his mountain belongings. But, while the stunted covert from which the besoms were cut was almost legitimate plunder, there were stories which troubled the agent. Down the hill where the wood was of marketable value were traces of the knife, and mutilated spots weakened the hedgerows. Farmers and their men had tales of figures carrying away bundles in the moonlight, and the inefficient village constabulary of those days had been warned more than once to keep its weather eye open and to fix it especially upon Tom Ukyn. Crishowell folk found their smug contempt of Wern people comfortably fed by what they heard, and ‘the Green Jiner,’ as they had named Ukyn, became a kind of whetstone for verbal righteousness. ‘‘ The Green Jiner ’ll come for you !’’ was a favourite threat with Crishowell mothers. Ukyn’s personal appearance did him no good. He was a tall, angular man, with a slight stoop and a way of walking that was almost a challenge to the law. When at rest, he leaned against the nearest obstacle; when moving, he seemed to stroll, though he covered more ground in a minute than his neighbours did in two; when speaking, he looked beyond the person he addressed. The streaks of grey beginning to show in his beard gave him no dignity, though a battered hat and a coat which a scarecrow might have despised could not hide a kind of misplaced grace of movement that fitted him better than his clothes. The name of the Green Jiner had been given him because his besoms were believed to be made, not from the hill-scrub, but from the forbidden green boughs of the valley.