jeffray lay back in the chaise with the landscape moving unmeaningly before his eyes. he felt numb and cold, utterly humiliated for bess’s sake. painter dick, who had scarcely so much as heard of this belphœbe of the woods, was the last person to suspect that the fierce-faced girl who had smitten her husband on the mouth had any tragic hold over jeffray’s destiny. the eager joy in the loveliness of the may morning had overtaxed richard’s strength. wilson knew something of the exhaustion that may follow even an innocent intoxication of the senses.
as for richard, he was as a man who had held some rich and precious vase between his hands, gazing at it wonderingly, only to find it slip and shatter itself in fragments at his feet. what had happened in the forest that bess should have become dan grimshaw’s wife? had she despaired of escaping the man, and in a fit of dumb indifference pledged her troth in token of surrender? richard’s hope in her rebelled at such a paltry reading of the riddle. no, bess had more heart, more pride than that. they had tricked her, dan and old isaac between them—isaac, that white-haired and soft-voiced old devil whom he had once taken for a saint. they had tricked her, and this marriage had been the only end.
question and counter-question played through jeffray’s brain. why had not bess come to him for help? perhaps the news of his illness had reached her; perhaps she had heard of his betrothal to miss hardacre? he had read that jealousy was a strong and subtle passion in a woman, but yet why should she be jealous, unless she loved him? his egotism might be confusing the inspiration. but—had bess come to rodenham while he was ill? the thought flashed through jeffray like the news of a good friend’s death. why had he never asked so simple a question—and yet surely peter gladden would have told him if such a thing had happened! and yet the news of jilian’s illness had been kept from him till three days ago!
it was nearly noon when the spire of rodenham church rose up against the blue. dame meg was going lazily, the reins slack upon her loins. wilson, who was whistling an old jacobite song, glanced curiously at jeffray from time to time, wondering what made the lad look so fierce.
“you seem more yourself again, richard,” he said.
jeffray changed his posture restlessly and unbuttoned his cloak. it is not easy to confide at times even in the best of friends, and sensitive mortals shrink from the first explanatory plunge. jeffray had not the heart to unburden himself of his misery at that moment.
“i am well enough now, dick,” he said, quietly.
“you looked deuced green, sir, down by the chapel.”
“faintness—nothing more.”
wilson’s words seemed to send jeffray’s thoughts winging back to the chapel in the valley. he remembered the whole scene as though it had been burned into his brain with fire. that look, so shamed and piteous, that bess had given him, as though she yearned to him from amid the ruins of her pride! there would be the brutal bride—ale, the lewd jesting, the drinking, the rough, clownish games. then would come scrambling for the bride’s ribbons and for the rosemary she had worn. her clean shift would be laid out on the bed all decked with bays and flowers. cake and wine would be taken betwixt the bellowing of coarse and indecent songs.
peter gladden’s placid and imperturbable face seemed to offer an unconscious admonition towards calmness as he came forward to help his master out of the chaise. jeffray appeared to have become oblivious of the fact that he was a convalescent; he brushed gladden’s arm aside, threw off his cloak, and tossed it aside in the porch.
“gladden,” he said, with a peculiar tightness about the mouth, “i want to speak with you alone in the library.”
“at once, sir?”
there was just the faintest shade of curiosity upon the butler’s face.
“yes, gladden, at once. dick, you will excuse me, i have some private business on hand.”
wilson, who was rubbing dame meg’s black muzzle and wondering what spiritual quicksilver had diffused itself in jeffray’s blood, looked hard at richard, and warned him not to try his strength too greatly.
“you must keep an eye on your master, gladden,” he said, with a twinkle. “i thought we should have had him in a dead faint on the road this morning.”
the butler was still standing in the porch, leaning forward slightly from the hips, with an expression of deferential concern on his colorless face.
“dr. sugg is in the garden, sir,” he interposed. “shall i tell him that you are tired or request him to wait till i have received your orders in the library.”
jeffray frowned and hesitated a moment.
“i will see the rector, gladden,” he said. “attend me in the library in half an hour.”
wilson, who was pulling dame meg’s ears, watched jeffray go lightly along the terrace as though he had forgotten such trifles as fever, physics, and small-pox scars. the flushed alertness of richard’s face, his restless yet decisive manner, puzzled the painter not a little. it was as though he had drunk of some wonderful elixir since they had turned back from thorney chapel after the rustic wedding.
jeffray, passing the warm walls and high gables of the house as the clock in the turret chimed twelve, went down from the terrace towards the green lawns and the flowering shrubberies, and saw dr. sugg, in the distance, holding a critical and appreciative nose over his tulip beds and banks of gilliflower. the borders were gay under the glare of the sun, yet to richard the red tulips recalled the blood-red flower that bess had plucked at holy cross in her dream.
sugg’s jovial and ruddy face, with its apple cheeks and merry, black eyes, was turned towards jeffray as he came down the box-edged path. his broad and humanistical mouth wreathed itself into a hearty smile as he held out both his hands to the squire.
“thank heaven, sir,” he said, “that i find you looking so alive and well. i had heard less flattering accounts of you. i am rejoiced to see you so speedily recovered.”
jeffray’s sympathies leaped out to this jovial old fellow with his twinkling eyes, and shrewd, smiling mouth.
“i am mending fast,” he said, as he blushed and gripped the rector’s hands; “and i am glad to see you, sir, at last. stott has forbidden me visitors hitherto, as you know, but i can turn the tables on him now. how is mary?—well, and untouched, eh?”
sugg’s face beamed heartily.
“indeed, sir, mary is martha-like as ever. she sent you all her good wishes in my pocket. it is good to know that you are with us once more, richard.”
they turned by mutual and tacit consent towards the arbor of clipped yews that stood at the upper end of the gravel walk. the beds cut in the glistening, dew-drenched turf of the lawns were full of pansies and auriculas, whose gold-and-purple faces shone like rich enamels in the sun. the fountain below the terrace, a slim wood-nymph in the nude, was throwing spray from a cypress bough held above her head. peacocks were sunning themselves upon the balustrades, and the white pigeons coquetted and basked on the red-tiled roof of the columbary.
the rector took out his snuffbox as they seated themselves in the arbor, and, after a proper and dignified amount of snuffing and dabbing, returned the tortoise-shell case reflectively to his waistcoat-pocket. the courtly expressions of sympathy with regard to miss hardacre’s illness were duly forthcoming, and were met by jeffray with all the sensibility and grace that he could muster. the rector laid his hat on the seat beside him, smoothed his wig, and approached jeffray on the very subject that was filling the romanticist’s heart.
“will it tire you, sir,” he said, “if i mention a matter to you that has much exercised my mind of late?”
jeffray imagined that sugg was for discussing the outbreak of small-pox in rodenham and the necessity for keeping the pest-house in proper repair for the future. the rector nodded consentingly, but confessed to a more delicate and picturesque inspiration.
“perhaps you may remember, sir,” he said, “the girl, bess grimshaw, who caused you to come by a broken head in pevensel?”
jeffray shot a rapid glance at dr. sugg’s face, and felt the blood rushing tumultuously to his cheeks.
“yes, i remember her,” he said, steadying himself. “the girl was not treated well in the hamlet, and, to be frank with you, i was sorry for her, and promised her help.”
“so i understood, sir,” quoth the rector, tersely.
jeffray had moved to the end of the seat where he could lean against the hedge of yew. he felt himself trembling in most unmanly fashion, and was wondering whether his emotion was evident to the parson. dr. sugg’s eyes appeared fixed reflectively on a distant tulip bed, and he sat with his hands together, his elbows resting on his knees.
“may i ask whether it is true, sir,” he continued, “that you offered to give the girl a home at rodenham?”
jeffray’s face was still afire. he had to steady himself before he could reply.
“that is the truth,” he said, slowly, “and i have even been wondering whether bess grimshaw could have come to the priory while i was ill.”
“she did come, sir,” quoth dr. sugg, rubbing his hands together solemnly.
“ah!”
“and when they frightened her away i took her in at the parsonage, for the poor lass had run away from home rather than marry a man whom she piously hated.”
the rector turned suddenly and looked with perfect innocence into jeffray’s face. its strained and restless expression startled the good man considerably, as did the dull gleam in the sunken eyes.
“i hope i am not vexing your infirmity, sir,” he said, with some concern.
jeffray, shaking himself free from his thoughts, met sugg’s stare with quiet composure.
“rector,” he said, “tell me all you know about this girl.”
sugg, pocketing his christian curiosity for the moment, told jeffray, very simply, how bess had stopped to speak to him at the parsonage gate, how he had felt pity for her, and by mary’s advice taken her as a servant. he confessed his liking for poor bess, and spoke with some heat of the way she had been ambuscaded and snatched away out of his house.
“well, sir,” said the rector, at the end of the recital, “i was not a little vexed by the rough handling the girl received. she was a handsome, well-spoken lass, and gracious and kind as could be to mary. my daughter saw the whole thing, sir, and blubbered over it all night. but what could i do, sir? i had no authority over the young woman’s person. i suppose by now they have forced her to marry that oaf of a cousin.”
“i saw bess married this morning,” jeffray said, quietly.
dr. sugg twitched his eyebrows.
“indeed, sir—indeed!”
“wilson and i were out driving and happened to turn down to thorney chapel. the wedding-party was coming out, and i suppose mr. mossop had been conducting the service. i can assure you, sir, that it was something of a shock to me.”
the rector drummed on his knees with his right fist, and looked at jeffray with a certain amount of puzzled sympathy. he was at loss to know why the master of rodenham should feel himself so deeply concerned in the matter, nor was it usual for a young gentleman of birth to take a brotherly interest in a girl of bess’s station. the suspicion glimmered across the rector’s mind that there might have been some unlawful passage of romance between the two, but he dismissed it as an insult to his belief in jeffray’s honor.
richard himself had been touched by the reflection that dr. sugg might be concerned about his motives. flushing at the thought, he marched out his forces boldly to the sound of the drum, like a general who is not ashamed either of his cause or of his men.
“rector,” he said, “i suppose there is nothing in the world so convincing as the truth. i tell you, as man to man, that i have felt very tenderly towards this girl, for she saved my life, sir, and has had much to bear. i hold that reverence for the purity of womanhood is a virtue more honorable than the giving of gold. therefore, i was shocked at the thought that this young girl should be sacrificed to the unclean appetite of a coarse and loose-mouthed savage. the fellow filled her with dread and with disgust. that is why i strove to save her from this shame.”
sugg’s round face beamed sympathetically.
“and by the ever-living prophets, sir, i shake your hand on it.”
jeffray’s eyes had kindled.
“moreover,” he said, earnestly, “i believe that there is a secret connected with the girl’s birth. she is no grimshaw, or i am no gentleman. i know that she has recollections of another and distant past. i wanted to save her from this savage, but they have tricked her, and i am sorry.”
the rector dived for his snuffbox and vented his feelings disguisedly therein.
“i agree with you, i agree with you, sir,” he said, “she’s a fine lass; the more’s the pity, the more’s the pity. god knows what will become of her in the future!”
“sugg,” said jeffray, “i hope to save her yet.”
when the rector had gone with a hearty grip of his muscular fist, richard made his way to the library and found peter gladden waiting for him, suave and subservient. the tenor of the interview astonished the butler not a little. what had come to the young master that he looked so stern and masterful and spoke in a way that made poor gladden’s ears tingle?
