dan’s fury cooled out of him as he looked at the white face half hidden by a grass tussock, and caught a glint of the polished barrels of bess’s pistols. jeffray’s beaver had fallen off, and he lay with the blood soaking from a scalp-wound into his hair. dan drew back, swinging his stick, and staring sheepishly at the blood trickling across jeffray’s forehead.
bess, seeing that dan had come to his senses, put back one of the pistols into the holster, but kept the other in her hand. she ordered dan back, and kneeling down on the wet grass turned jeffray’s head gently into her lap. a look of wonder flashed into her eyes as she considered his face, for this was the man st. agnes had showed her in her dream. he even wore black, with white ruffles at his wrists, and his blood had been spilled for her in saving her from dan’s savagery.
she looked wonderingly at jeffray, remembering him at last as the gentleman who had ridden by when dan and david were fighting in the mist by the queen’s circle. the sight of the blood trickling across his forehead roused her from such reveries to womanly pity. she flashed a glance at dan, and bade him give her the scarf he wore about his neck. with this she bound up jeffray’s head, smoothing back his hair with her strong brown hands.
“take him up,” she said to dan; “we must carry him home to mother ursula.”
dan was swinging his stick and watching bess holding jeffray’s head in her lap with a sullen jealousy that he could not dissemble. he obeyed the girl, however, and lifted jeffray as though he had been a child. bess picked up the fallen sword, and taking jeffray’s mare by the bridle, pointed to the path that led towards the hamlet.
old ursula held up her hands when dan appeared at her cottage door with jeffray still unconscious in his arms. bess told her foster-mother all that had happened, not deigning to spare dan shame in the telling of it. they laid jeffray on the settle before the fire, and sent in haste for isaac, who knew all the gentry by sight who lived within ten miles of the beacon rock.
isaac, sleek and authoritative, cursed dan when he recognized the squire of rodenham.
“dan ’ll swing for it,” quoth ursula, with an unloving glance at her nephew.
“bah, there’s no great harm done. get him to bed, dame, and when he wakes see that you put the youngster in a good temper.”
isaac beckoned his son away, ursula hobbling off to drag clean sheets from the linen-press. calling bess, who was watching jeffray, she bade her fetch a new blanket and the best quilt from the oak chest on the stairs. isaac had taken jeffray’s mare, and, still rating dan, stabled her in the byre where ursula kept her cows.
the old woman pattered into her bedroom on the ground floor, dragged the clothes from the four-poster, while bess came in bearing a new blanket and a patch-work quilt of many colors. between them they spread the clean sheets, stripped off jeffray’s clothes, and put him to bed there in his shirt. ursula made a stew of friar’s-balsam, and after tearing soft linen into strips, washed jeffray’s wound and bound up his head. then she went out to speak with isaac in the kitchen, leaving bess alone to watch by the bed.
it was growing dark when jeffray recovered consciousness, and awoke to find great beams above his head, and the sunset reddening the narrow casement of a room. he fingered his bandaged head, looked round him curiously, and would have struggled up in the bed but for the swooping of bess’s strong brown hand upon his shoulder. she had been sitting there silently in the twilight, thinking of the dream she had dreamed on st. agnes’s eve, and studying jeffray’s pale and inanimate face.
at his wakening she had set her hand upon his shoulder, as though to hint that he was under fair protection. old ursula had whispered to the girl that she was to be polite, nay, servile, to the gentleman, since the squire of rodenham might prove a troublesome neighbor should he care to charge dan with violence. servility, however, was not part of bess’s nature. she did not even call mr. richard “sir,” and though she abated her masterfulness, she spoke to him as to an equal.
“bide still,” she said, leaning over him and looking in his eyes, “you are safe with us.”
richard could see the girl’s face in the dusk, white beneath the dead black hair. there was the deliciousness of youth in the rare roundness of her cheek, the smooth low forehead, the strong chin and pouting mouth.
“where am i?” he asked her, quietly, with his hands lying on the many-colored quilt.
“in our cottage—ursula’s cottage. i made dan carry you home from the woods.”
“ah, i had the worst of it. what happened? tell me.”
bess was pleased with his voice.
“dan hit you over the head,” she said.
“i can believe that,” quoth richard, with a smile.
“i picked your pistols out of the holsters, and swore i would shoot him if he struck you again.”
jeffray’s thoughts were not of himself for the moment. he lay silent, looking up at bess, still feeling the pressure of her hand upon his shoulder. the room was growing very dark. he could see only her hair as a deep shadow above the white oval of her face.
“you are one of the forest-folk?” he asked.
“i am bess—bess grimshaw.”
“and ursula?”
“is my mother. i live with her.”
“and dan—?”
“is my cousin.”
the tawny light had melted out of the sky. from the kitchen came the murmur of isaac’s voice as he argued with old ursula. they were speaking of richard and of dan. the same subjects were in bess’s thought, and perhaps the man in the bed divined the same.
“bess,” he said, suddenly, calling her by her christian name as he would have called a child.
she started and bent over him, leaning more heavily upon his shoulder.
“what happened to david?”
she seemed puzzled for the moment, and then flushed up redly in the dusk.
“david ran away,” she said.
“yes.”
“he was terrified of dan. they pressed him at portsmouth for the king’s navy. we heard it from a peddler who had seen the lad marched off.”
they were both silent for a while, richard’s eyes turned towards the window, bess’s hand still on jeffray’s shoulder. the same thoughts were in either heart. by some strange flash of sympathy jeffray and the girl seemed to understand each other.
“are you afraid of your cousin?” he asked, suddenly.
“of dan?”
“yes.”
she looked down into the man’s face.
“i shall carry a knife,” she said, with peculiar significance. “i am a match for dan—”
“i will leave you my pistols.”
then came the pattering of dame ursula’s slippers across the flagged floor of the kitchen. the door opened and bess of the woods was called away.
isaac grimshaw was something of a sylvan diplomat, a suave, sweet-voiced old sinner, who could bleat texts or snarl out fantastic oaths as the emergency required. he had sworn at dan for laying his hands on one of the gentry and risking his bull neck for a wench’s lips, and had driven his giant of a son cowering from old ursula’s cottage. then he had entered in and preached to the dame in the ingle-nook, wagging a long forefinger and brushing his white hair back from his forehead. squire jeffray must be appeased, tickled into a good temper. that was the mark towards which isaac winged his words.
in due course he took the two candles in the brass sticks from the mantle-shelf, and lighting them with a fagot from the fire, bade ursula open the bedroom door and call bess out. the patriarch went in mincingly, set one candle on a table by the bed, and the other on an oaken press. he stood very humbly before richard jeffray, his white hair waving over his forehead, his clean-shaven mouth sweet and benignant as the mouth of some tender-souled old priest.
“i trust your honor is feeling comfortable.”
“not much the worse, grimshaw, for your son’s stick.”
isaac rubbed his palms together and beamed.
“i have come to ask your honor’s pardon, sir.”
the patriarch sniffed pathetically, and fidgeted as he stood with limp humbleness beside the bed. how could jeffray appear angry with such an old fellow whose soul was overwhelmed in contrition for his son’s misdeeds.
“do not vex yourself, grimshaw, on my account,” said the master of rodenham, frankly, “your son’s blood was up, and i drew my sword on him. he is a dangerous fellow, grimshaw, and beyond your handling, i imagine.”
isaac bowed his head into his hands.
“the lord help me, sir,” he said, sobbing, “he’s a wild lad, your honor, but not bad at heart.”
“this may be a lesson to him, grimshaw.”
“please god, sir, it will. bess, sir, bess is a good wench, but she has a tongue that would drive a young man crazy.”
“i don’t blame her, grimshaw, so far as your son is concerned.”
“dear heaven, no, your honor. i will see to it, sir; i will speak to dan like a father. he shall not pester the wench, and she shall be taught to bridle her tongue.”
“if she has a temper, grimshaw, you can best mend it by teaching your son to mind his business.”
“true, your honor, true; it is good to hear you speak so kindly.”
jeffray lay quiet a moment, while isaac still sniffed and fidgeted beside the bed, watching the master of rodenham with his shrewd, gray eyes. old ursula was clattering her pans in the kitchen, humming some old ditty, while bess, her brown hands white with flour, was making pastry for squire jeffray’s supper.
“grimshaw,” said the younger man, at last.
“sir?”
“i shall not set the law against your son.”
“god bless your honor’s noble heart.”
“if there is more trouble betwixt him and the girl—”
isaac grimshaw was all reverent attention.
“you may like to find a good home for her—”
“ah—your honor—”
“well?”
“we should sorely miss her pretty face.”
“better lose her than have her ruined, grimshaw.”
“the words of a prophet, sir.”
“we could take her at rodenham. old mrs. barbara, my butler’s wife, could give her a good home.”
had richard jeffray seemed less innocent a youth, isaac might have winked at him, and grown gay over so disinterested a proposal. old grimshaw was a fair connoisseur of rogues, and his instincts told him that jeffray was not of the intriguing order. therefore he made richard a very humble and grateful speech, and declared he would keep such a benefactor’s advice in mind. “deuce take me,” he thought, “here is an honest simpleton. why, the lad needs no more bribing to be generous than a drunken paddy. he’ll grow fat on sentiment, without a morsel of real kissing to put him into a good temper.”
jeffray discovered himself served royally in ursula grimshaw’s cottage that night. isaac had sent a chicken, his best cutlery, and silver forks and a flask of wine, bidding his sister serve up a supper fit for a city alderman. there was red wine, white meat, nutty bread, savory herbs, custard and sugared fruits. bess tricked out in her best green gown, with a white lawn apron, red stockings and shoes, and a silver chain set with amethysts about her throat, waited on the master of rodenham as though to serve him were her whole heart’s desire. she drank wine with richard, showed her white teeth, courtesied and blushed when he thanked her and old ursula for their courtesies. she smoothed his pillow, talked to him in her quaint, bold way, and altogether reconciled richard to his lodging for the night. solomon grimshaw, isaac’s brother, had ridden over on his pony to rodenham to ease the lady letitia of any anxiety on her nephew’s account. bess had brought jeffray a quill, inkhorn, and paper, and stood by the bed watching the man’s clever hand at work. he was a being full of strangeness and mystery to this forest elf, who had learned to look on men of coarser fibre. there was a frank yet courtly simplicity about jeffray that charmed all women and made them trust him. the world-wise among them might think him a fool, and such folly women easily forgive.
thus it befell that bess of the woods and richard jeffray stepped for the first time into that subtle maze of circumstance whose weavings spell out the passionate strangeness of tragedy. had not isaac counselled dame ursula to bewitch squire jeffray into as noble a temper as statecraft would permit? and what more pleasant to the eyes of youth than the unfolding beauty of a buxom girl?
about bedtime old ursula clattered in the kitchen, coughed, and stamped up the wooden stairs. she would sleep with bess that night, since the young squire had her bed. bess, unaffected as could be, bent over richard to smooth his pillow. she looked at him a moment with a queer light in her eyes, and then—stooping, kissed his lips.
“that’s for my sake,” she said, with a half-frightened laugh. “dan would have had it but for you.”
she fled away, red as fire, and closed the door very gently after her. richard heard her climb the stairs. he lay awake for many hours, listening to the wind in the trees without, as the candles burned down towards their sockets.
