Gertie bent lower over her frying-pan and sc.r.a.ped harder than ever.
"Do stop that confounded row one second!" shouted Frank.
The noise stopped abruptly. Gertie glanced up and down again. Then she began again, more gently.
"That"s better," said Frank.... "Well, I hope you have," he went on paternally. "You"re a good girl, Gertie, and you know better. Go on thinking about it, and tell me when you"ve made up your mind. When"ll dinner be ready?"
"Half an hour," said Gertie.
"Well, I"ll go out for a bit and look round."
He took up the letter carelessly and went out.
(III)
As he pa.s.sed the window Gertie glanced towards it with the corner of her eye. Then, frying-pan still in hand, she crept up to the angle and watched him go down the quay.
A very convenient barrel was set on the extreme edge of the embankment above the water, with another beside it, and Frank made for this immediately. She saw him sit on one of the barrels and put the letter, still unopened, on the top of the other. Then he fumbled in his pockets a little, and presently a small blue cloud of smoke went upwards like incense. Gertie watched him for an instant, but he did not move again.
Then she went back to her frying-pan.
Twenty minutes later dinner was almost ready.
Gertie had spread upon the table, with great care, one of the Major"s white pocket-handkerchiefs. He insisted upon those being, not only retained, but washed occasionally, and Gertie understood something of his reasons, since in the corner of each was embroidered a monogram, of which the letters were not "G.T." But she never could make out what they were.
Upon this tablecloth she had placed on one side a black-handled fork with two p.r.o.ngs, and a knife of the same pattern (this was for Frank) and on the other a small pewter tea-spoon and a knife, of which the only handle was a small iron spike from which the wood had fallen away. (This was for herself.) Then there was a tooth-gla.s.s for Frank, and a teacup--without a handle, but with a gold flower in the middle of it, to make up--for herself. In the center of the pocket-handkerchief stood a crockery jug, with a mauve design of York Minster, with a thundercloud behind it and a lady and gentleman with a child bowling a hoop in front of it. This was the landlady"s property, and was half full of beer.
Besides all this, there were two plates, one of a cold blue color, with a portrait of the Prince Consort, whiskers and hat complete, in a small medallion in the center, and the other white, with a representation of the Falls of Lodore. There was no possibility of mistaking any of the subjects treated upon these various pieces of table-ware, since the t.i.tle of each was neatly printed, in various styles, just below the picture.
Gertie regarded this array with her head on one side. It was not often that they dined in such luxury. She wished she had a flower to put in the center. Then she stirred the contents of the frying-pan with an iron spoon, and went again to the window.
The figure on the barrel had not moved; but even as she looked she saw him put out his hand to the letter. She watched him. She saw him run a finger inside the envelope, and toss the envelope over the edge of the quay. Then she saw him unfold the paper inside and become absorbed.
This would never do. Gertie"s idea of a letter was that it occupied at least several minutes to read through; so she went out quickly to the street door to call him in.
She called him, and he did not turn his head, nor even answer.
She called him again.
(IV)
The letter that Frank read lies, too, with a few other papers, before me as I write.
It runs as follows:
"MY DEAR FRANK,
"I know you won"t like what I have to say, but it has to be said. Believe me, it costs me as much to write as you to read--perhaps more.
"It is this: Our engagement must be at an end.
"You have a perfect right to ask me for reasons, so I will give them at once, as I don"t want to open the subject again. It would do no kind of good. My mind is absolutely made up.
"My main reason is this: When I became engaged to you I did not know you properly. I thought you were quite different from what you are. I thought that underneath all your nice wildness, and so on, there was a very solid person. And I hinted that, you will remember, in my first letter, which I suppose you have received just before this. And now I simply can"t think that any longer.
"I don"t in the least blame you for being what you are: that"s not my business. But I must just say this--that a man who can do what you"ve done, not only for a week or two, as I thought at first, as a sort of game, but for nearly three months, and during that time could leave me with only three or four postcards and no news; above all, a man who could get into such disgrace and trouble, and actually go to prison, and yet not seem to mind much--well, it isn"t what I had thought of you.
"You see, there are a whole lot of things together. It isn"t just this or that, but the whole thing.
"First you became a Catholic, without telling me anything until just before. I didn"t like that, naturally, but I didn"t say anything. It isn"t nice for a husband and wife to be of different religions. Then you ran away from Cambridge; then you got mixed up with this man you speak of in your letter to Jack; and you must have been rather fond of him, you know, to go to prison for him, as I suppose you did. And yet, after all that, I expect you"ve gone to meet him again in York. And then there"s the undeniable fact of prison.
"You see, it"s all these things together--one after another. I have defended you to your father again and again; I haven"t allowed anybody to abuse you without standing up for you; but it really has gone too far. You know I did half warn you in that other letter. I know you couldn"t have got it till just now, but that wasn"t my fault; and the letter shows what I was thinking, even three months ago.
"Don"t be too angry with me, Frank. I"m very fond of you still, and I shall always stand up for you when I can. And please don"t answer this in any way. Jack Kirkby isn"t answering just yet. I asked him not, though he doesn"t know why.
"Your father is going to send the news that the engagement is broken off to the newspapers.
"Yours sincerely, "JENNY LAUNTON."
PART II
CHAPTER I
(I)
Barham, as all Yorkshire knows, lies at the foot of a long valley, where it emerges into the flatter district round Harrogate. It has a railway all to itself, which goes no further, for Barham is shut in on the north by tall hills and moors, and lies on the way to nowhere. It is almost wholly an agricultural town, and has a curious humped bridge, right in the middle of the town, where men stand about on market days and discuss the price of bullocks. It has two churches--one, disused, on a precipitous spur above the town, surrounded by an amazingly irregular sort of churchyard, full, literally, to bursting (the Kirkbys lie there, generation after generation of them, beneath pompous tombs), and the other church a hideous rectangular building, with flat walls and shallow, sham Gothic windows. It was thought extremely beautiful when it was built forty years ago. The town itself is an irregular and rather picturesque place, with a twisting steep High Street, looking as if a number of houses had been shot at random into this nook among the hills and left to find their own levels.
The big house where the Kirkbys have lived since the middle of the seventeenth century is close to the town, as the squire"s house ought to be, and its park gates open right upon the northern end of the old bridge. There"s nothing of great interest in the house (I believe there is an old doorway in the cellar, mentioned in guide-books), since it was rebuilt about the same time as the new church first rose. It is just a big, comfortable, warm, cool, shady sort of house, with a large hall and a fine oak staircase, surrounded by lawns and shrubberies, that adjoin on the west the lower slopes, first of the park and then of the moors that stretch away over the horizon.
There is a pleasant feudal air about the whole place--feudal, in a small and neighborly kind of way. Jack"s father died just a year before his only son came of age; and Jack himself, surrounded by sisters and an excellent and beneficently-minded mother, has succeeded to all the immemorial rights and powers, written and unwritten, of the Squire of Barham. He entertained me delightfully for three or four days a few months ago, when I was traveling about after Frank"s footsteps, and I noticed with pleasure as we drove through the town that there was hardly a living creature in the town whom he did not salute; and who did not salute him.
He took me first to the bridge and pulled up in the middle of it, to point out a small recess in it, over the central pier, intended, no doubt, to give shelter to foot-pa.s.sengers before the bridge was widened, in case a large vehicle came through.
"There," he said. "That"s the place I first saw Frank when he came."
We drove on up through the town, and at the foot of the almost precipitous hill leading up to the ruined church we got out, leaving the dog-cart in charge of the groom. We climbed the hill slowly, for it was a hot day, Jack uttering reminiscences at intervals (many of which are recorded in these pages) and turned in at the churchyard gate.
"And this was the place," said Jack, "where I said good-by to him."
(II)