surgeon stott, that blue-coated member of the company of surgeons, pounced upon jeffray next morning, and delivered a most professional condemnation of his patient’s method of convalescence.
“too much riding—too much riding, sir, eh? hardacre house yesterday; fourteen miles there and back! not very gentle exercise, to be sure.”
richard jeffray had the mopes that morning, and stott fully believed that he knew the cause thereof. he sniffed, pulled out his gold repeater, and sat with his head cocked on one side as he held jeffray’s wrist between his thumb and fat, pink fingers.
“i am going to order you to the wells, sir,” he said, bluntly.
“the wells!”
“yes, for the good of both parties. pardon the suggestion, but ladies need time for proper and reasonable convalescence. let there be an interlude, mr. jeffray; i recommend it as a man of sentiment.”
jeffray caught the surgeon’s meaning, and discovered himself not so very prejudiced against the proposal, in that it offered him time for procrastinating with the future. he had had but little sleep the previous night, with jilian’s scarred face haunting him and her patheticisms and her sneers ringing changes in his brain. he experienced an almost fierce desire to escape for a while from the importunate responsibilities of the present.
“very probably, stott, the change would do me good,” he said.
“certainly, sir, certainly; pack your books away, and leave the thinking part of you at home. that is my advice—take it or leave it, as you like.”
jeffray flattered the surgeon by acknowledging his authority, and by straightway deciding to join the lady letitia at the wells for one month. he was glad of the excuse to commend himself to jilian by letter, pleading ill-health and surgeon stott’s advice. he imagined that his absence might prepare miss hardacre for a possible parting, and at least he would gain leisure to face the future calmly and without haste.
he rode out that same evening, and found bess in the valley of yews, a dusky fiord that ran from the green levels about thorney chapel into the towering gloom of pevensel. hundreds of yews were crowded about piled-up rocks that looked like the broken towers and battlements of a ruin. a path ran amid the trees, leading to a little glade where a pool covered with the white stars of the water-crowfoot glimmered before the old, rock-cut hermitage.
she started up on seeing him, the blood in her cheeks, sunlight in her eyes. jeffray was as red as bess, the sense of her nearness adding the charm of strangeness to the meeting.
“so you have found your way?”
she held out her hands, and jeffray took them, brown and rough-skinned as they were. they seemed to smell of new mown hay and milk to him, and of the pots of musk that grow in cottage windows.
“i rode here last night, but you did not come.”
“no, i could not get free from dan.”
they stood looking at each other awhile in silence, as though letting the subtle consciousness of love steal in upon their hearts. all about them the brown trunks of the yews broke into sheaves of dusky pinnacles and slender spires. the silence of the place was as the silence of some sacred wood. the grass grew green and deep in the glade, while the thickets above seemed dusted with lapis lazuli, so thick were the bluebells.
bess seated herself on a stone beside the pool, jeffray lying in the grass at her feet. the happy abandonment of children was theirs, for the sordidness of life seemed far from them for the moment. bess’s eyes darkened a little when jeffray told her of surgeon stott’s warning to him that morning, but there was no distrust upon her face. stott’s month at the wells was dwindling to vanishing point in jeffray’s mind as he talked to bess, and watched the play of feeling on her face.
it was then that bess spoke for the first time to jeffray of miss hardacre. she had thought often of the great lady in her silks and brocades queening it in the stately house guarded by its ancestral trees. bess wished to hear jeffray speak of this woman whom he was to marry, and to watch his eyes to see whether they lit up like a lover’s eyes.
jeffray’s face and mood changed on the instant; he was no longer the dreamer watching the sun sinking behind the yews.
“why do you ask me about miss hardacre?”
bess saw that the thought was bitter to him, and yet felt glad at heart.
“i know,” she said, slowly, “you are to marry her.”
“who told you that?”
“miss sugg, before—”
“before you married dan?”
“yes.”
jeffray turned, and leaned upon one hand, looking at the pool and the reflection of the sky that colored the water.
“did you believe it?” he asked her, quietly.
“yes, i had to.”
“what did you think?”
“i thought it wonderful that you should have been so kind to me.”
jeffray plucked at the long grass with his hands, and laughed, and the note of bitterness in his laughter made her understand all that was hidden in his heart.
“you were generous to me, bess,” he said, grimly; “and how often i have hated myself, you cannot tell. still, child—” and he looked up at her with brightening eyes—“it is not for me to put the weight upon your shoulders. i do not know whether i shall marry this fine lady. let us forget her to-night, you and i.”
he might have told bess that he hated jilian, for her woman’s instinct had seized the truth, a secret joy finding rebellion easy in her heart. jeffray had no love for the woman he was to marry, a confession that bess had almost hoped to hear. she felt now that she could lean on jeffray, and look perhaps for a more mysterious thing than pity.
bess understood but vaguely what the future might devise. it was sufficient for her to know that jeffray’s thoughts were hers and not miss hardacre’s. a great barrier seemed to have been beaten down between them, and she felt happier that night than she had felt for many days. they talked on as the twilight gathered, like children beside a deep and treacherous river, the one bank rich with sunshine, the other a chaos of light and shade. as yet they would not dare the deeps. sufficient unto the hour was their joy in each other’s presence.
when the twilight deepened, bess went away through the solemn yews, smiling to herself over the new hope born within her heart, while jeffray rode back like one in a dream through the darkening thickets, and the long, odorous grass towards his home. before noon next day he had shaken dick wilson by the hand, and was travelling over the heavy sussex roads, peter gladden wondering why his master looked so sad.
the night after bess’s meeting with jeffray in the yew valley, dan told his wife that he was going out after wild duck to the holy cross pools, and, shouldering his gun, left bess alone to go to bed. the sky was clear, with a full moon swinging up in the east above the tangled boughs of the pines. dan slipped away to old isaac’s cottage with his black spaniel at his heels, and, keeping under the shadows of the orchard, knocked at the heavy door. a candle was burning in the lower room, the pewter and china, the brass work, and quaint furniture showing through the curtainless window. a figure rose up from an arm-chair before the fire, stopped a moment by the table to snuff the candle. then the bolts were shot back, and isaac’s white head came peering out into the moonlight. he had a lantern in one hand and a canvas-bag in the other, while with a keen glance at dan he jerked his head in the direction of an out-house standing in the garden.
“get the pick and spade, lad.”
isaac slammed the door after him by the bobbin-cord, and waited by the garden-gate while dan groped in the shed for the tools. finding them at last, he swung the spade and pick over one shoulder, and carried the gun sloped over the other. they set off together in the moonlight and took a southward path that plunged into the deeps of pevensel.
bess was creaming the milk in the little dairy next morning when dan came in to her, grinning and looking good-humored. his clumsy shoes were foul with muck from the byre, his shirt open, showing his hairy chest. he hugged bess, flattening his coarse lips on her cheek, the girl taking the kiss with dull-eyed self-restraint.
“i’ve got a present for ye, bess.”
the wife kept her color and looked calmly at her husband.
“ay, and a purty one. you shall be giving me three smacks for it. come, fetch a glimpse.”
he fumbled in his pocket, his eyes fixed the while on the girl’s face. bess saw a scrap of gold in his palm, green stones shining like a dog’s eyes in the light. dan chuckled, his hairy and sweating chest heaving. he held the brooch out to her.
“there’s a purty bauble! a flash bit of stuff! how be you liking it, bess?”
she took it from dan’s palm, and, as by instinct, pinned it on the red handkerchief that covered her bosom. the man’s clumsy courting reminded her by contrast of richard jeffray. she hated her husband’s sweating bulk and the stare of his eyes.
“i like it well enough, dan,” she said.
“now don’t you be for asking questions. give me the kisses, wench. lud, but i like ye; i like every limb and tooth of ye, bess.”
dan kissed her twice, though she shuddered as his hairy arms crushed her against his chest. when dan had gone she shook her clothes as though to rid them of the scent of him, and dashed water from the pump into her face. then she took the brooch, and, standing before the lattice-window with the great beams dark overhead, gazed at it a long while, holding it in the hollow of her hand.
a rush of strange memories had flooded back into her brain, dim and tantalizing, yet full of meaning. this was the brooch she remembered at the throat of the tall lady who had run to comfort her when she had fallen and cut her knees as a little child. how had dan come by it? to whom had it belonged?
