There"s an end of Mrs. c.o.x, who was a mother to many, if not to Woods.
There"s an end to good old times and dancin" and singin", and honest Robert, though he was a cross "un--there"s an end to it all now, miss, for the inn"s changed "ands, and I"m the first in the village as knows it."
"Good gracious. Is it possible?" said Charlotte, genuinely surprised.
"Who can have succeeded Mrs. c.o.x and why? I thought she was so popular and making so much money, and what--what will become of the Mr.
Foxleys?"
Mrs. Woods gave a triumphant grin. "It"s them, theirselves, miss; it"s them that "as it now. And the younger one will be marrying Milly in a little while and settling down comfortable in the inn. It"s gentlefolks and aristocrats we"ll have now at the inn, miss, and "ard workin" people like me and Woods may trudge all day and freeze all night, and never a pot of beer or a warm at the kitchen fire and meat paid regular for year in, year out!"
Charlotte stood aghast. The woman"s injured volubility rushed past her as a scene outside a railway car rushes past us, leaving only one idea, one word caught at, as from the window through which we apprehend the landscape, one scene or portion of a scene enchains the eye and lingers in the mind though other scenes fly past in varied succession.
"Marry?" she repeated. "Marry! Milly, did you say? That is the girl, isn"t it, Mrs. c.o.x"s niece? Which--"
"Ay," said the woman, "that"s Milly, the "ired girl; she"s no I more than that, if she be her aunt"s niece. And "ard work for one"s niece.
Me and Woods, if we"d "ad one, would have done better for her nor that, makin" her work like a slave or a dummy. Cows, and pigs, and poultry, and dish-washing, and scrubbing, and lamps, and starched fronts, and fine gentlemen--but she"s well paid, she"s well paid. She"s to marry one of the fine gentlemen, Mr. Joseph it is, and they"re to live on at the Inn with Milly as mistress, and her fine husband behind the bar, very like. Well, good-mornin", Miss Dexter; I wish you joy of the mutton. Me and Woods often says--we"ll take this or that little Dexter"s Oak, but it"s most times forgot, for Woods is "alf crazed, Miss Dexter, and I"ve got to do the whole. Good-mornin"."
Having adjusted her bonnet and the donkey-cart to her satisfaction, Mrs.
Woods drove off rather disappointed on the whole at Miss Dexter"s calm demeanour. Astonishment, perplexity, doubt, contempt and disgust she had undoubtedly shown, but not a single sigh of weakness. Charlotte Dexter was not the woman to swoon or lament or even turn pale as her sister Ellen would have done. But when she came into her house and sat down in her lonely parlour, she enacted a scene which would have petrified with astonishment any inhabitant of the prosy little village in which she had dwelt so long and indeed many other people as well, for when you and I, dear reader, go to see one of these emotional plays in which the French actress writhes on the sofa; grovels on the floor, rolls up her handkerchief into a ball or tears it into strips, prays, weeps, curses, censures, implores, looks at herself in the gla.s.s until she is on the point of going mad, and strides about the stage as no woman in real life has ever been seen to stride, ending by throwing herself across an arm-chair as rigid as marble thereby a.s.suring the audience that she is in a "dead faint"--I say, that when we see all this performed by a travelling "star," and her truly eclectic Company, comprising a Diva, a Duenna, a Diner-out and a Devil, we are apt to look around at the placid Canadian or the matter-of-fact American audience and wonder if they understand the drift of the thing at all, the situations, the allusions, even in the slightest degree, forgetting that perhaps the most placid, most commonplace person in the theatre has gone through some crisis, some tragedy as thrilling, as subtle and as terrible as the scene we have just witnessed. "Not out of Paris," we say, "can such things happen?" Do we know what we are saying? Is it only in Paris that hearts are won and tossed aside this night--as in the play? Is it only in Paris that honor is forgotten and promises are broken this night--as in the play? Is it only in Paris that money allures and rank dazzles, and a dark eye or a light step entrances, this night--as in the play? Is it only in Paris that nature is human and that humanity is vile, or weak, or pure, or firm, as this night in the play? Oh! in that obscure little Canadian village, a lonely old maid locked her door that morning and pulled down her blind that the daylight might not come in and see her misery, might not mock even more malignantly than the ignorant, impertinent and hard-hearted woman who had dealt her this blow. Like most women in such a crisis, she lost the habit of thought. Reason entirely deserted her, and she never dreamed but that it was true. For when a women has to own to herself that she holds no dominion over a man, that it is only too perfectly clear that the impulse of loving is all on her side and that she has neither anything to expect nor anything to fear from him, since indifference is the keynote of his att.i.tude to her, she will all the more readily believe that he loves elsewhere, worthily or unworthily the same to her. A woman is not a n.o.ble object in such a situation. All trusting feminine instincts, all sweet emotions of hope, all sentiment, all pa.s.sion even, retreat and fall away from her, leaving either a cold, bitter, heartless petrifaction, in a woman"s clinging robe, or the Fury that is the twin sister of every little red-lipped, clear-eyed girl born into the world. She never dreamed but that this story was true. In fact so entirely had her woman"s wit deserted her, she said to herself of _course_ it was true. Her brain could work sufficiently to conjure up hints, phrases, words, looks, events, accidents that all bore testimony to the truth of the extraordinary tale. For it was extraordinary. Miss Dexter herself was the great grand-daughter of an Admiral, and the grand-daughter of a judge, and as such, respected all these accidents of birth which we are supposed to ignore or at least not expected to recognize in a new country. That such men as the Mr. Foxleys could make themselves as completely at home in the Inn as rumor had frequently a.s.serted, and with truth, seemed at all times monstrous to her. She had lived so long out of England, over thirty years now, that she had forgotten the sweet relations that prevailed there between the aristocracy or landed gentry and their inferiors. The Mr. Foxleys were simply doing in Canada what they would have done had they been still in England, only they were a.s.sisted in so doing by the unusually English surroundings in which they found themselves. Miss Dexter looked around her in the yellow inclosed light. There was a sampler in a frame, worked by herself when a little child, another exactly similar, worked by Ellen, a couple of fine old family portraits in heavy gilt frames, half a dozen ivory miniatures scattered about on the walls, some good carvings in ivory, a rare old Indian shawl festooned over the wooden mantle-board, a couple of skins on the floor, a corner piece of furniture known as a "whatnot" crowded with bits of egg-sh.e.l.l china, birds" eggs and nests, a few good specimens of spar and coral and a profusion of plants everywhere. It was all neat, respectable, even dignified, superior. There was no such other room in the village. In the village? There were not many at that time even in the town. Sooner than part with the eggsh.e.l.l china or the Indian shawl the Miss Dexters had suffered the pains of poverty and hunger; these cherished reminders of an absent father and an artistic youth could never be lost or borne away by the hands of a stranger. And how glad those foolish Miss Dexters had been to possess such beautiful and interesting objects when it pleased Mr. George Foxley to drink tea out of the cups on summer afternoons on the verandah of the little cottage looking up into the splendid vault of the mighty oak, or when Mr. Joseph would wind the Indian shawl round his silly head in the winter evenings when the draughts of cold air would rush in through the thin walls.
These and other memories crowded into Charlotte Dexter"s brain as she looked around her room, crowded thick and fast, crowded fast and furious, surged, broke, leaving an empty moment of perfect blankness, then crowded again thicker, faster, surged and seethed and then broke again, leaving in the void of perfect blankness this time a fixed idea, a resolve, a determination, seen in the dark like a luminous point of phosphorus.
That afternoon as Farmer Wise was driving slowly along the road, the main road leading through Ipswich to the town, he was accosted by Miss Dexter from her verandah. She had her jacket on and held her bonnet in her hand.
"Can you give me a seat as far as the Albion?" said she. "I would have sent a message to you yesterday if I had known I was going. But if it will not trouble you--"
"Oh! no trouble no trouble at all, Miss Dexter," replied Farmer Wise.
"I"m sorry I"ve only the waggon to offer ye. But I"m takin" in apples as you see, nine barrel of "em, and only a waggon will do for them."
"Certainly, certainly," said Miss Dexter, hurriedly trying on her bonnet. "Can you wait a moment? I won"t be longer, Mr. Wise, it is just to lock the back door."
The farmer nodded and drew up under the shade of Dexter"s oak. It was a beautiful afternoon late in November, characterized by the clear cold air, the blue and gold of the sky, and the russet coloring of the foliage that mark the close of the Autumnal season. He looked in at Miss Dexter"s little garden, admirably neat and well-trimmed; dahlias, hollyhocks, sweet William and asters, though done with blossoms, still bore their green leaves unsmitten by the frost. The windows appeared full of flowers too, but the blinds were skimp and faded and drawn down behind them. He started when he noticed this, for he knew the outer aspect of the house well, and had never seen such a thing before, except in case of sickness or death. The honest farmer thought and thought until Miss Dexter reappeared and a.s.sisted by him, got up in her place beside him. Even after that he went on thinking, and I must here tell you that it was not the first time Farmer Wise"s thoughts had dwelt so persistently upon his companion and her house and personal history.
For twelve years he had nursed a kind of mild distant pa.s.sion for Miss Dexter at the Oak, unguessed at by her and his family, and only half understood by himself. He could not have said he was in love with her.
He had been in love once when he married his first wife, who bore him a triad of splendid sons, one "keeping store" in the Western States and the other two at home on the farm, all three great giants of fellows, handsome in the fields or at barn-doors or in market-waggons, but plain on Sundays in black coats or at evening dances in the big ball-room at the Inn, when they would shuffle noisily through cotillons or labor clumsily through a Highland Schottische.
For himself, Farmer Wise was an honest, sincere, good-hearted man, a maker of money and a spender thereof--witness the fine red ploughs, the painted barns, the handsome team, Kentucky bred, and the inner decorations of his house, situated about five miles out of Ipswich, on the main-road. After Mr. Simon P. Rattray, he was the representative man of the district, although he did not come so closely into contact with the villagers. This _penchant_ for the elder Miss Dexter had been a gradual, a slow but very sure and steady thing. Her father"s death had increased it, so had that of Ellen her sister, and the farmer lived too far away to know as much as other people knew about the advent of the Mr. Foxleys. Had there been a sister or a daughter, or a wife or a mother, or an aunt or a cousin about the farm, he would have known very quickly. As it was, the girl who did the housework on the farm was as ignorant of gossip, its existence and the laws which govern its nature, as any male farm hand could be. When Farmer Wise put up his horses at the Inn three or four times a year, and sat down in the cheerful bar-room to drink a gla.s.s of whisky with his feet to the fire if it were winter, or a taller gla.s.s of Belfast ginger ale if it were summer, did he never notice Mrs. c.o.x? Mrs. c.o.x, well-to-do and popular herself, fresh, blooming and hearty, a young woman yet, and just the woman one would say, for him, and above all, the woman who thought most of him and ran to change her cap--the black one with the knot of rusty widow"s c.r.a.pe--for the smart new one that held the velvet pansy when she saw the team coming. There"s where he should have chosen the second time, there was the woman he should have noticed instead of poor, proud, foolish Charlotte Dexter, whom he half feared as a "lady born," and who held in her heart, had he only knew it, the image of Mr. Joseph Foxley. The farmer got on with the English gentlemen at the Inn whenever he saw them "first-rate," and it was of them he began most unsuspiciously to talk when he and Miss Dexter had crossed the bridge, ascended the hill on the other side of the river, and the team were settling to their work as they entered upon the dreary eight miles called the Plains which lay between them and the city. The farmer was consciously happy as he moved his ponderous body slightly nearer to his companion and tucked her in with his great hands, a single touch of one of them hurting her thin frame as if they were made of iron or stiff rope. He thought he was gentle too--poor man--but long years of manual labor had changed the natural soft flesh to the consistency of leather, in which immense muscles and joints seemingly of marble had been imbedded.
Besides, there was the delicate touch of another hand, as fine, as soft as a woman"s and yet almost as strong as the farmer"s, in her mind, a hand whiter than her own, though somewhat freckled, a hand that had taper fingers and well-kept nails, a hand that bore an antique seal ring and a fine pearl, a hand alas that had often retained her own in its warm clinging pressure, and once--only once, and that was three years ago--clasped her unresisting waist for a moment in the dark under the Oak while her sister fumbled at the gate. And just as she cherished these memories of Mr. Joseph, so did the widowed farmer retain the few occasions in his mind on which he had met Miss Dexter, spoken with her, given her a "lift" into town or up the road to the village store, for this was not the first use she had made of his gallant good nature and the Kentucky team.
He looked down at her now as they drove along in silence and noticed her thin black gown, her short jacket, her bit of black veil drawn over her bonnet, and her dingy travelling-bag with its tarnished clasp, and he heaved a sigh.
Charlotte was a "sizeable woman" thought Farmer Wise "and wants a good live garment sometimes, to bring her figure out and make more of it and do justice to it. A shawl now! How much would a good shawl be? I miss a woman round the place; I wouldn"t know what to ask for. I might ha"
stopped nigh the Inn and asked Mrs. c.o.x." Ay, you might Farmer Wise, and have done another mischievous thing, upsetting Mrs. c.o.x for a week as she waited for a parcel from town and breaking her heart altogether as day after day followed and no parcel arrived.
"I ha" never seen the ekil of those Mr. Foxleys yonder," began the honest farmer as something to start a conversation with. "I ha" never seen their ekil."
"Oh!" said Miss Dexter. "Yes? In what way?"
"So gentle and so funny as they be. Gentlemen both of them with delicate hands and fine clothes--"
"Yes, yes," murmured Miss Dexter under her breath, clutching at her bag and closing her eyes.
"And not above anybody or anything going. I see the pale one this day, and pale he is and weak they say, enough to be walked about on the girl"s shoulder--I see him to-day as I pa.s.sed the Inn, he was on a long chair out in the bit of paved yard, you know Miss Dexter, and when he saw me he raises his head and says "Farmer Wise, is that you?"" May be you don"t remember just how he speaks. He speaks better now nor when he came, and his brother too. At first It was all in a jumble like one word run into the other and hard to understand at least for us country folks.
But now "tis a bit clearer, more as you speak, begging your pardon, Miss Dexter, for noticing that or anything else that concerns you, Miss Dexter. And I says, stopping these fellows a bit. "Yes it"s me. I"m on my way to town with nine barrels of apples."
"How many?" he calls out again.
"Nine," I replies.
"Let"s taste one," he says.
"A barrel?" I says, and Milly, the girl, she come oat by the door, with another quilt to put over him, laughing, and showing her teeth, rare ones too, they be and says she. "Throw us down one, Farmer Wise," and I did, for I had a couple in my pocket, and here"s the tother, "now Miss Dexter, if you see your way to eatin" it now in the waggon alongside of me, or will you wait till we get to the Albion?" Charlotte Dexter put her hand out mechanically and took the apple, a large red one, from the farmer who again managed to hurt her as his great wrist touched her fingers for an instant. He blushed perceptibly and moved a little nearer still. And how unconscious Charlotte Dexter was of his mere presence, let alone tender thoughts, except when he hurt her!
"I have heard this morning, that is I believe everyone has known for some time, though it is only spoken about generally today, for the first time, that Mrs. c.o.x is giving up the Inn. Her niece, the girl you mention, is going to be married--indeed, it is one of those gentlemen--the Mr. Foxleys--whom she is to marry, and they will take the Inn out of Mrs. c.o.x"s hands."
The farmer was as surprised as she had been.
"Well," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed "didn"t I say I"d never seen their ekil? Milly"s going to marry one of the Mr. Foxleys? Which--"
"It is Mr. Joseph," returned Miss Dexter, staring down at the apple in her lap. "The youngest one, you know. He is a very merry young gentleman and always has something to say. I daresay it will be a very comfortable arrangement."
"But it"s a great thing for Milly," said her companion, "it"ll be a great thing for her. She"ll live in the tone, no doubt and may be cross the ocean to see his home and his parents--it"ll be a great thing for Milly. A gentleman born! Ay, ay; ay, ay!"
"No, no," said Miss Dexter, irritably. "Don"t I tell you, Farmer Wise, that they will live on at the Inn? These young gentlemen like comfort, like being waited upon. They do this in order to insure--in order to--oh! it is difficult to explain my meaning, but you must see, Farmer Wise, that it is not a proper marriage at all, it is a very sad thing for the girl, I should consider, and some one--some friend should tell her so. She can never be a lady, and what kind of life will it be for him, a gentleman born, as you say, when he could have chosen too, where he liked. My great grandfather, Mr. Wise, was an Admiral, and my grandfather was a Judge. My father was a member of a respected profession, although not brought up to it in early life, and _none_ of my relations, or ancestors _ever_ married out of their own proper circle, except my poor father. He made a most perverse and foolish marriage, Farmer Wise, which though only lasting a few years, brought sorrow and trouble and poverty and oppression to his family."
"Ay, ay," said the farmer, softly. He was thinking still about those down-drawn blinds.
"Ay, ay. You"re right in the main, Miss Dexter--yes, you"re right in the main. Now, I thought I"d ask ye--I said to myself this morning, when I see Miss Dexter the next time, her as is a lady, and no mistake, I"ll ask her--what would you say, or what your sister have said if someone here right in this village, that is, there in Ipswich, I mean of course, someone who wanted to just be kind and lend an "elpin "and, had asked ye--or her--say her--had asked her anytime to marry him, startin"
fair, startin" fair, with a year to think on it. And a comfortable "ome awaitin" "er with two "ired girls to do the work and plenty of hands on the farm and the best of cheese and b.u.t.ter and the Harmonium in the parlor and drives to and fro" the Church and behind it all a--solid man--a solid man--what do ye think she"d "uv said?"
Was ever man more in earnest, now that it had suddenly broken from him after all these years, than honest Farmer Wise? The team jogged on, but the reins were lying loosely in their owner"s hands.
"I thought I"d ask ye," he repeated looking away from his companion. "I thought I"d ask ye."
Miss Dexter had hardly gathered the import of his speech. She looked up startled.
"My sister?" she said with increased irritability. "Ask my sister?
What do you mean? I never knew that anybody here, in the village, had proposed to her, or dared--dared to think of her at all as a possible mate--wife, whatever it is you mean. Surely you don"t mean yourself, Farmer Wise! It would never enter your head, I am sure, to propose to my sister!"
"No it never did," said the farmer quietly.
"Then it is someone else? Really, you must tell me, if you know anything about it, Farmer Wise. But I think you are making some mistake, it is quite impossible that anyone in the village--any native of the village, or indeed any native of this country should so far forget himself as to propose to my sister."
"Of course," said the farmer as quietly, "it is quite impossible. No one "ud "av done it. No one did do it, that I know on. But I thought I"d ask ye. And about yourself, too? There"d be no gettin" ye to forget all--all that has been and to take up with things as they be, to be makin" a new start, startin" fair, as I said, startin" fair, both parties agreed to think a year on it, and one party to save up and buy nothin" till the year "d be out and then the other party to give the word for both to take "ands and make the start together! For what"s past is past, and what"s done is done, and ye can"t make this out the old country any more nor ye can bring back those that are gone, which they wouldn"t be, I "low to say, if they"d stayed behind in it. This" said the farmer, in a louder firmer voice, indicating with his whip the dreary pine forests that bordered the road on either side, "isn"t the old country. I come from it myself, and I know it taint. Them rustlin" leaves ain"t the old country, heaps of brown and yella up to your knees after a while, nor yet this road, nor that sky, nor this waggon, nor them apples, nor them horses. Nor me myself. I"m no longer old country. I"m fond of it--sho!
I"m fonder of it now than I was forty years ago, when I come away from it, I"m fonder of it every year that goes by. But it"s the New Country that"s made me, that"s give me all I have and more than all I want, and accordin" I"m grateful to it, and wouldn"t turn my back on it. No Miss Dexter I wouldn"t, and so I says, to all as come out to it, it"s better to try and forget the past, or at least as much of it as "ll bear forgetting in order to let you live, and to take up with things as they be, and not lookin" always to things as they were, and to make the best of what the New World has to offer to ye And I don"t think that in England--G.o.d bless her--to-day, you "ll find a finer team, nor redder apples, nor an easier going waggon, nor even a prettier sky, than that there yella light breakin" all over the landscup like!"
There was perfect silence after that. It had suddenly dawned upon Charlotte Dexter with accession of disgust and embittered hostility that the farmer"s words related to himself. What new and hateful complication was this to be reminded by such an ill-timed declaration of the ironical in her life which had always been near enough to her apprehensions!
Anything and everything but what she wanted, she could have. It had always been so. A dark frown gathered on her forehead, she clutched her bag and drew herself away from the side of the honest farmer.
"I do not know what you are talking about," she cried. "Such words can have nothing to do with me. I could not disgrace myself and my father"s family by allying myself with anybody out here, least of all, one of the working cla.s.ses, or a farmer. You are very inconsiderate, Farmer Wise, and I must ask you to distinctly understand that even conversation on such a subject is quite out of the question. I cannot even discuss it with you or with anyone in your position. I have told you what my connections are; what my family is, you have now, I hope, some correct idea, and you will see how utterly impossible it is that I should, even to better my circ.u.mstances which I admit are somewhat precarious, make such a _mesalliance_--such a mistake, I mean, as you refer to.
"Well," said the farmer very quietly this time. "You"re right in the main, Miss Dexter, you"re right in the main. But I thought I"d ask ye, I thought I"d ask ye. Far from harm bein" done, there"s only good, there"s only good, for now you understand me and I understand _you_ and thank ye for your confidences and there"s an end on it."