Lifting her skirt daintily, she picked her way across the dirty yard, and fumbled at a door opposite--the door whence she had seen old Daffady come out at dinner-time.
"Who"s there?" shouted a threatening voice from within.
Laura succeeded in lifting the clumsy latch. Hubert Mason, from inside, saw a small golden head appear in the doorway.
"Would you kindly help me get the pony cart?" said the light, half-sarcastic voice of Miss Fountain. "I must be going, and Polly"s feeding the calves."
Her eyes at first distinguished nothing but a row of dim animal forms, in crowded stalls under a low roof. Then she saw a cow lying on the ground, and Hubert Mason beside her, amid the wreaths of smoke that he was puffing from a clay pipe. The place was dark, close, and fetid. She withdrew her head hastily. There was a muttering and movement inside, and Mason came to the door, thrusting his pipe into his pocket.
"What do you want to go for, just yet?" he said abruptly.
"I ought to get home."
"No; you don"t care for us, nor our ways. That"s it; an I don"t wonder."
She made polite protestations, but he would not listen to them. He strode on beside her in a stormy silence, till the impulse to p.r.i.c.k him overmastered her.
"Do you generally sit with the cows?" she asked him sweetly. She shot her grey eyes towards him, all mockery and cool examination. He was not accustomed to such looks from the young women whom he chose to notice.
"I was not going to stay and be treated like that before strangers!" he said, with a sulky fierceness. "Mother thinks she and Daffady can just have their own way with me, as they"d used to do when I was n.o.bbut a lad.
But I"ll let her know--aye, and the men too!"
"But if you hate farming, why don"t you let Daffady do the work?"
Her sly voice stung him afresh.
"Because I"ll be measter!" he said, bringing his hand violently down on the shaft of the pony cart. "If I"m to stay on in this beastly hole I"ll make every one knaw their place. Let mother give me some money, an I"ll soon take myself off, an leave her an Daffady to draw their own water their own way. But if I"m here I"m _measter_!" He struck the cart again.
"Is it true you don"t work nearly as hard as your father?"
He looked at her amazed. If Susie Flinders down at the mill had spoken to him like that, he would have known how to shut her mouth for her.
"An I daur say it is," he said hotly. "I"m not goin to lead the dog"s life my father did--all for the sake of diddlin another sixpence or two oot o" the neighbours. Let mother give me my money oot o" the farm. I"d go to Froswick fast enough. That"s the place to get on. I"ve got friends--I"d work up in no time."
Laura glanced at him. She said nothing.
"You doan"t think I would?" he asked her angrily, pausing in his handling of the harness to throw back the challenge of her manner. His wrath seemed to have made him handsomer, better-braced, more alive. Physically she admired him for the first time, as he stood confronting her.
But she only lifted her eyebrows a little.
"I thought one had to have a particular kind of brains for business--and begin early, too?"
"I could learn," he said gruffly, after which they were both silent till the harnessing was done.
Then he looked up.
"I"d like to drive you to the bridge--if you"re agreeable?"
"Oh, don"t trouble yourself, pray!" she said in polite haste.
His brows knit again.
"I know how "tis--you won"t come here again."
Her little face changed.
"I"d like to," she said, her voice wavering, "because papa used to stay here."
He stared at her.
"I do remember Cousin Stephen," he said at last, "though I towd you I didn"t. I can see him standing at the door there--wi" a big hat--an a beard--like straw--an a check coat wi" great bulgin pockets."
He stopped in amazement, seeing the sudden beauty of her eyes and cheeks.
"That"s it," she said, leaning towards him. "Oh, that"s it!" She closed her eyes a moment, her small lips trembling. Then she opened them with a long breath.
"Yes, you may drive me to the bridge if you like."
And on the drive she was another being. She talked to him about music, so softly and kindly that the young man"s head swam with pleasure. All her own musical enthusiasms and experiences--the music in the college chapels, the music at the Greek plays, the few London concerts and operas she had heard, her teachers and her hero-worships--she drew upon it all in her round light voice, he joining in from time to time with a rough pa.s.sion and yearning that seemed to transfigure him. In half an hour, as it were, they were friends; their relations changed wholly. He looked at her with all his eyes; hung upon her with all his ears. And she--she forgot that he was vulgar and a clown; such breathless pleasure, such a humble absorption in superior wisdom, would have blunted the sternest standard.
As for him, the minutes flew. When at last the bridge over the Bannisdale River came in sight, he began to check the pony.
"Let"s drive on a bit," he said entreatingly.
"No, no--I must get back to Mrs. Fountain." And she took the reins from his hands.
"I say, when will you come again?"
"Oh, I don"t know." She had put on once more the stand-off town-bred manner that puzzled his countryman"s sense.
"I say, mother shan"t talk that stuff to you next time. I"ll tell her--"
he said imploringly.--"Halloa! let me out, will you?"
And to her amazement, before she could draw in the pony, he had jumped out of the cart.
"There"s Mr. Helbeck!" he said to her with a crimson face. "I"m off.
Good-bye!"
He shook her hand hastily, turned his back, and strode away.
She looked towards the gate in some bewilderment, and saw that Helbeck was holding it open for her. Beside him stood a tall priest--not Father Bowles. It was evident that both of them had seen her parting from her cousin.
Well, what then? What was there in that, or in Mr. Helbeck"s ceremonious greeting, to make her cheeks hot all in a moment? She could have beaten herself for a silly lack of self-possession. Still more could she have beaten Hubert for his clownish and hurried departure. What was he afraid of? Did he think that she would have shown the smallest shame of her peasant relations?