The Weavers, Complete - Gilbert Parker
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"Three years! Time hasn't flown. Is it not like an old memory, his living
here in this house, Soolsby, and all that happened then?"
Soolsby looked at her over his glasses, resting his chin on the back of
the chair he was caning, and his lips worked in and out with a suppressed
smile.
"Time's got naught to do with you. He's afeard of you," he continued. "He
lets you be."
"Friend, thee knows I am almost an old woman now." She made marks
abstractedly upon the corner of a piece of paper. "Unless my hair turns
grey presently I must bleach it, for 'twill seem improper it should
remain so brown."
She smoothed it back with her hand. Try as she would to keep it trim
after the manner of her people, it still waved loosely on her forehead
and over her ears. And the grey bonnet she wore but added piquancy to its
luxuriance, gave a sweet gravity to the demure beauty of the face it
sheltered.
"I am thirty now," she murmured, with a sigh, and went on writing.
The old man's fingers moved quickly among the strips of cane, and, after
a silence, without raising his head, he said: "Thirty, it means naught."
"To those without understanding," she rejoined drily.
"'Tis tough understanding why there's no wedding-ring on yonder finger.
There's been many a man that's wanted it, that's true--the Squire's son
from Bridgley, the lord of Axwood Manor, the long soldier from Shipley
Wood, and doctors, and such folk aplenty. There's where understanding
fails."
Faith's face flushed, then it became pale, and her eyes, suffused,
dropped upon the paper before her. At first it seemed as though she must
resent his boldness; but she had made a friend of him these years past,
and she knew he meant no rudeness. In the past they had talked of things
deeper and more intimate still. Yet there was that in his words which
touched a sensitive corner of her nature.
"Why should I be marrying?" she asked presently. "There was my sister's
son all those years. I had to care for him."
"Ay, older than him by a thimbleful!" he rejoined.
"Nay, till he came to live in this hut alone older by many a year. Since
then he is older than me by fifty. I had not thought of marriage before
he went away. Squire's son, soldier, or pillman, what were they to me! He
needed me. They came, did they? Well, and if they came?"
"And since the Egyptian went?"
A sort of sob came into her throat. "He does not need me, but he may--he
will one day; and then I shall be ready. But now--"
Old Soolsby's face turned away. His house overlooked every house in the
valley beneath: he could see nearly every garden; he could even recognise
many in the far streets. Besides, there hung along two nails on the wall
a telescope, relic of days when he sailed the main. The grounds of the
Cloistered House and the fruit-decked garden-wall of the Red Mansion were
ever within his vision. Once, twice, thrice, he had seen what he had
seen, and dark feelings, harsh emotions, had been roused in him.
"He will need us both--the Egyptian will need us both one day," he
answered now; "you more than any, me because I can help him, too--ay, I
can help him. But married or single you could help him; so why waste your
days here?"
"Is it wasting my days to stay with my father? He is lonely, most lonely
since our Davy went away; and troubled, too, for the dangers of that life
yonder. His voice used to shake when he prayed, in those days when Davy
was away in the desert, down at Darfur and elsewhere among the rebel
tribes. He frightened me then, he was so stern and still. Ah, but that
day when we knew he was safe, I was eighteen, and no more!" she added,
smiling. "But, think you, I could marry while my life is so tied to him
and to our Egyptian?"
No one looking at her limpid, shining blue eyes but would have set her
down for twenty-three or twenty-four, for not a line showed on her smooth
face; she was exquisite of limb and feature, and had the lissomeness of a
girl of fifteen. There was in her eyes, however, an unquiet sadness; she
had abstracted moments when her mind seemed fixed on some vexing problem.
Such a mood suddenly came upon her now. The pen lay by the paper
untouched, her hands folded in her lap, and a long silence fell upon
them, broken only by the twanging of the strips of cane in Soolsby's
hands. At last, however, even this sound ceased; and the two scarce moved
as the sun drew towards the middle afternoon. At last they were roused by
the sound of a horn, and, looking down, they saw a four-in-hand drawing
smartly down the road to the village over the gorse-spread common, till
it stopped at the Cloistered House. As Faith looked, her face slightly
flushed. She bent forward till she saw one figure get down and, waving a
hand to the party on the coach as it moved on, disappear into the gateway
of the Cloistered House.
"What is the office they have given him?" asked Soolsby, disapproval in
his tone, his eyes fixed on the disappearing figure.
"They have made Lord Eglington Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs," she
answered.
"And what means that to a common mind?"
"That what his Government does in Egypt will mean good or bad to our
Egyptian," she returned.
"That he can do our man good or ill?" Soolsby asked sharply--"that he,
yonder, can do that?"
She inclined her head.
"When I see him doing ill--well, when I see him doing that"--he snatched
up a piece of wood from the floor--"then I will break him, so!"
He snapped the stick across his knee, and threw the pieces on the ground.
He was excited. He got to his feet and walked up and down the little
room, his lips shut tight, his round eyes flaring.
Faith watched him in astonishment. In the past she had seen his face
cloud over, his eyes grow sulky, at the mention of Lord Eglington's name;
she knew that Soolsby hated him; but his aversion now was more definite
and violent than he had before shown, save on that night long ago when
David went first to Egypt, and she had heard hard words between them in
this same hut. She supposed it one of those antipathies which often grow
in inverse ratio to the social position of those concerned. She replied
in a soothing voice:
"Then we shall hope that he will do our Davy only good."
"You would not wish me to break his lordship? You would not wish it?" He
came over to her, and looked sharply at her. "You would not wish it?" he
repeated meaningly.
She evaded his question. "Lord Eglington will be a great man one day
perhaps," she answered. "He has made his way quickly. How high he has
climbed in three years--how high!"
Soolsby's anger was not lessened. "Pooh! Pooh! He is an Earl. An Earl has
all with him at the start--name, place, and all. But look at our
Egyptian! Look at Egyptian David--what had he but his head and an honest
mind? What is he? He is the great man of Egypt. Tell me, who helped
Egyptian David? That second-best lordship yonder, he crept about coaxing
this one and wheedling that. I know him--I know him. He wheedles and
wheedles. No matter whether 'tis a babe or an old woman, he'll talk, and
talk, and talk, till they believe in him, poor folks! No one's too small
for his net. There's Martha Higham yonder. She's forty five. If he sees
her, as sure as eggs he'll make love to her, and fill her ears with words
she'd never heard before, and 'd never hear at all if not from him. Ay,
there's no man too sour and no woman too old that he'll not blandish, if
he gets the chance."
As he spoke Faith shut her eyes, and her fingers clasped tightly
together--beautiful long, tapering fingers, like those in Romney's
pictures. When he stopped, her eyes opened slowly, and she gazed before
her down towards that garden by the Red Mansion where her lifetime had
been spent.
"Thee says hard words, Soolsby," she rejoined gently. "But maybe thee is
right." Then a flash of humour passed over her face. "Suppose we ask
Martha Higham if the Earl has 'blandished' her. If the Earl has
blandished Martha, he is the very captain of deceit. Why, he has himself
but twenty-eight years. Will a man speak so to one older than himself,
save in mockery? So, if thee is right in this, then--then if he speak
well to deceive and to serve his turn, he will also speak ill; and he
will do ill when it may serve his turn; and so he may do our Davy ill, as
thee says, Soolsby."
She rose to her feet and made as if to go, but she kept her face from
him. Presently, however, she turned and looked at him. "If he does ill to
Davy, there will be those like thee, Soolsby, who will not spare him."
His fingers opened and shut maliciously, he nodded dour assent. After an
instant, while he watched her, she added: "Thee has not heard my lord is
to marry?"
"Marry--who is the blind lass?"
"Her name is Maryon, Miss Hylda Maryon: and she has a great fortune. But
within a month it is to be."
"Thee remembers the woman of the cross-roads, her that our Davy--"
"Her the Egyptian kissed, and put his watch in her belt--ay, Kate
Heaver!"
"She is now maid to her Lord Eglington will wed. She is to spend to-night
with us."
"Where is her lad that was, that the Egyptian rolled like dough in a
trough?"
"Jasper Kimber? He is at Sheffield. He has been up and down, now sober
for a year, now drunken for a month, now in, now out of a place, until
this past year. But for this whole year he has been sober, and he may
keep his pledge. He is working in the trades-unions. Among his
fellow-workers he is called a politician--if loud speaking and boasting
can make one. Yet if these doings give him stimulant instead of drink,
who shall complain?"
Soolsby's head was down. He was looking out over the far hills, while the
strips of cane were idle in his hands. "Ay, 'tis true--'tis true," he
nodded. "Give a man an idee which keeps him cogitating, makes him think
he's greater than he is, and sets his pulses beating, why, that's the
cure to drink. Drink is friendship and good company and big thoughts
while it lasts; and it's lonely without it, if you've been used to it.
Ay, but Kimber's way is best. Get an idee in your noddle, to do a thing
that's more to you than work or food or bed, and 'twill be more than
drink, too."
He nodded to himself, then began weaving the strips of cane furiously.
Presently he stopped again, and threw his head back with a chuckle. "Now,
wouldn't it be a joke, a reg'lar first-class joke, if Kimber and me both
had the same idee, if we was both workin' for the same thing--an' didn't
know it? I reckon it might be so."
"What end is thee working for, friend? If the public prints speak true,
Kimber is working to stand for Parliament against Lord Eglington."
Soolsby grunted and laughed in his throat. "Now, is that the game of
Mister Kimber? Against my Lord Eglington! Hey, but that's a joke, my
lord!"
"And what is thee working for, Soolsby?"
"What do I be working for? To get the Egyptian back to England--what
else?"
"That is no joke."
"Ay, but 'tis a joke." The old man chuckled. "'Tis the best joke in the
boilin'." He shook his head and moved his body backwards and forwards
with glee. "Me and Kimber! Me and Kimber!" he roared, "and neither of us
drunk for a year--not drunk for a whole year. Me and Kimber--and him!"
Faith put her hand on his shoulder. "Indeed, I see no joke, but only that
which makes my heart thankful, Soolsby."
"Ay, you will be thankful, you will be thankful, by-and-by," he said,
still chuckling, and stood up respectfully to show her out.
CHAPTER XVI
THE DEBT AND THE ACCOUNTING
His forehead frowning, but his eyes full of friendliness, Soolsby watched
Faith go down the hillside and until she reached the main road. Here,
instead of going to the Red Mansion, she hesitated a moment, and then
passed along a wooded path leading to the Meetinghouse, and the
graveyard. It was a perfect day of early summer, the gorse was in full
bloom, and the may and the hawthorn were alive with colour. The path she
had taken led through a narrow lane, overhung with blossoms and greenery.
By bearing away to the left into another path, and making a detour, she
could reach the Meeting-house through a narrow lane leading past a now
disused mill and a small, strong stream flowing from the hill above.
As she came down the hill, other eyes than Soolsby's watched her. From
his laboratory--the laboratory in which his father had worked, in which
he had lost his life--Eglington had seen the trim, graceful figure. He
watched it till it moved into the wooded path. Then he left his garden,
and, moving across a field, came into the path ahead of her. Walking
swiftly, he reached the old mill, and waited.
She came slowly, now and again stooping to pick a flower and place it in
her belt. Her bonnet was slung on her arm, her hair had broken a little
loose and made a sort of hood round the face, so still, so composed, into
which the light of steady, soft, apprehending eyes threw a gentle
radiance. It was a face to haunt a man when the storm of life was round
him. It had, too, a courage which might easily become a delicate
stubbornness, a sense of duty which might become sternness, if roused by
a sense of wrong to herself or others.
She reached the mill and stood and listened towards the stream and the
waterfall. She came here often. The scene quieted her in moods of
restlessness which came from a feeling that her mission was interrupted,
that half her life's work had been suddenly taken from her. When David
went, her life had seemed to shrivel; for with him she had developed as
he had developed; and when her busy care of him was withdrawn, she had
felt a sort of paralysis which, in a sense, had never left her. Then
suitors had come--the soldier from Shipley Wood, the lord of Axwood
Manor, and others, and, in a way, a new sense was born in her, though she
was alive to the fact that the fifteen thousand pounds inherited from her
Uncle Benn had served to warm the air about her into a wider circle. Yet
it was neither to soldier, nor squire, nor civil engineer, nor surgeon
that the new sense stirring in her was due. The spring was too far
beneath to be found by them.
When, at last, she raised her head, Lord Eglington was in the path,
looking at her with a half-smile. She did not start, but her face turned
white, and a mist came before her eyes.
Quickly, however, as though fearful lest he should think he could trouble
her composure, she laid a hand upon herself.
He came near to her and held out his hand. "It has been a long six months
since we met here," he said.
She made no motion to take his hand. "I find days grow shorter as I grow
older," she rejoined steadily, and smoothed her hair with her hand,
making ready to put on her bonnet.
"Ah, do not put it on," he urged quickly, with a gesture. "It becomes you
so--on your arm."
She had regained her self-possession. Pride, the best weapon of a woman,
the best tonic, came to her resource. "Thee loves to please thee at any
cost," she replied. She fastened the grey strings beneath her chin.
"Would it be costly to keep the bonnet on your arm?"
"It is my pleasure to have it on my head, and my pleasure has some value
to myself."
"A moment ago," he rejoined laughing, "it was your pleasure to have it on
your arm."
"Are all to be monotonous except Lord Eglington? Is he to have the only
patent of change?"
"Do I change?" He smiled at her with a sense of inquisition, with an air
that seemed to say, "I have lifted the veil of this woman's heart; I am
the master of the situation."
She did not answer to the obvious meaning of his words, but said:
"Thee has done little else but change, so far as eye can see. Thee and
thy family were once of Quaker faith, but thee is a High Churchman now.
Yet they said a year ago thee was a sceptic or an infidel."
"There is force in what you say," he replied. "I have an inquiring mind;
I am ever open to reason. Confucius said: 'It is only the supremely wise
or the deeply ignorant who never alter.'"
"Thee has changed politics. Thee made a 'sensation, but that was not
enough. Thee that was a rebel became a deserter."
He laughed. "Ah, I was open to conviction! I took my life in my hands,
defied consequences." He laughed again.
"It brought office."
"I am Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs," he murmured complacently.
"Change is a policy with thee, I think. It has paid thee well, so it
would seem."
"Only a fair rate of interest for the capital invested and the risks I've
taken," he answered with an amused look.
"I do not think that interest will increase. Thee has climbed quickly,
but fast climbing is not always safe climbing."
His mood changed. His voice quickened, his face lowered. "You think I
will fail? You wish me to fail?"
"In so far as thee acts uprightly, I wish thee well. But if, out of
office, thee disregards justice and conscience and the rights of others,
can thee be just and faithful in office? Subtlety will not always avail.
The strong man takes the straight course. Subtlety is not intellect."
He flushed. She had gone to the weakest point in his defences. His vanity
was being hurt. She had an advantage now.
"You are wrong," he protested. "You do not understand public life, here
in a silly Quaker village."
"Does thee think that all that happens in 'public life' is of
consequence? That is not sensible. Thee is in the midst of a thousand
immaterial things, though they have importance for the moment. But the
chief things that matter to all, does thee not know that a 'silly Quaker
village' may realise them to the full--more fully because we see them
apart from the thousand little things that do not matter? I remember a
thing in political life that mattered. It was at Heddington after the
massacre at Damascus. Does thee think that we did not know thee spoke
without principle then, and only to draw notice?"
"You would make me into a demagogue," he said irritably.
"Thee is a demagogue," she answered candidly.
"Why did you never say all this to me long ago? Years have passed since
then, and since then you and I have--have been friends. You have--"
He paused, for she made a protesting motion, and a fire sprang into her
eyes. Her voice got colder. "Thee made me believe--ah, how many times did
we speak together? Six times it was, not more. Thee made me believe that
what I thought or said helped thee to see things better. Thee said I saw
things truly like a child, with the wisdom of a woman. Thee remembers
that?"
"It was so," he put in hastily.
"No, not for a moment so, though I was blinded to think for an instant
that it was. Thee subtly took the one way which could have made me listen
to thee. Thee wanted help, thee said; and if a word of mine could help
thee now and then, should I withhold it, so long as I thought thee
honest?"
"Do you think I was not honest in wanting your friendship?"
"Nay, it was not friendship thee wanted, for friendship means a giving
and a getting. Thee was bent on getting what was, indeed, of but little
value save to the giver; but thee gave nothing; thee remembered nothing
of what was given thee."
"It is not so, it is not so," he urged eagerly, nervously. "I gave, and I
still give."
"In those old days, I did not understand," she went on, "what it was thee
wanted. I know now. It was to know the heart and mind of a woman--of a
woman older than thee. So that thee should have such sort of experience,
though I was but a foolish choice of the experiment. They say thee has a
gift for chemistry like thy father; but if thee experiments no more
wisely in the laboratory than with me, thee will not reach distinction."
"Your father hated my father and did not believe in him, I know not why,
and you are now hating and disbelieving me."
"I do not know why my father held the late Earl in abhorrence; I know he
has no faith in thee; and I did ill in listening to thee, in believing
for one moment there was truth in thee. But no, no, I think I never
believed it. I think that even when thee said most, at heart I believed
least."
"You doubt that? You doubt all I said to you?" he urged softly, coming
close to her.
She drew aside slightly. She had steeled herself for this inevitable
interview, and there was no weakening of her defences; but a great
sadness came into her eyes, and spread over her face, and to this was
added, after a moment, a pity which showed the distance she was from him,
the safety in which she stood.
"I remember that the garden was beautiful, and that thee spoke as though
thee was part of the garden. Thee remembers that, at our meeting in the
Cloistered House, when the woman was ill, I had no faith in thee; but
thee spoke with grace, and turned common things round about, so that they
seemed different to the ear from any past hearing; and I listened. I did
not know, and I do not know now, why it is my duty to shun any of thy
name, and above all thyself; but it has been so commanded by my father
all my life; and though what he says may be in a little wrong, in much it
must ever be right."
"And so, from a hatred handed down, your mind has been tuned to shun even
when your heart was learning to give me a home--Faith?"
She straightened herself. "Friend, thee will do me the courtesy to forget
to use my Christian name. I am not a child-indeed, I am well on in
years"--he smiled--"and thee has no friendship or kinship for warrant. If
my mind was tuned to shun thee, I gave proof that it was willing to take
thee at thine own worth, even against the will of my father, against the
desire of David, who knew thee better than I--he gauged thee at first
glance."
"You have become a philosopher and a statesman," he said ironically. "Has
your nephew, the new Joseph in Egypt, been giving you instructions in
high politics? Has he been writing the Epistles of David to the Quakers?"
"Thee will leave his name apart," she answered with dignity. "I have
studied neither high politics nor statesmanship, though in the days when
thee did flatter me thee said I had a gift for such things. Thee did not
speak the truth. And now I will say that I do not respect thee. No matter
how high thee may climb, still I shall not respect thee; for thee will
ever gain ends by flattery, by subtlety, and by using every man and every
woman for selfish ends. Thee cannot be true-not even to that which by
nature is greatest in thee.".
He withered under her words.
"And what is greatest in me?" he asked abruptly, his coolness and
self-possession striving to hold their own.
"That which will ruin thee in the end." Her eyes looked beyond his into
the distance, rapt and shining; she seemed scarcely aware of his
presence. "That which will bring thee down--thy hungry spirit of
discovery. It will serve thee no better than it served the late Earl. But
thee it will lead into paths ending in a gulf of darkness."
"Deborah!" he answered, with a rasping laugh. "Continuez! Forewarned is
forearmed."
"No, do not think I shall be glad," she answered, still like one in a
dream. "I shall lament it as I lament--as I lament now. All else fades
away into the end which I see for thee. Thee will live alone without a
near and true friend, and thee will die alone, never having had a true
friend. Thee will never be a true friend, thee will never love truly man
or woman, and thee will never find man or woman who will love thee truly,
or will be with thee to aid thee in the dark and falling days."
"Then," he broke in sharply, querulously, "then, I will stand alone. I
shall never come whining that I have been ill-used, to fate or fortune,
to men or to the Almighty."
"That I believe. Pride will build up in thee a strength which will be
like water in the end. Oh, my lord," she added, with a sudden change in
her voice and manner, "if thee could only be true--thee who never has
been true to any one!"
"Why does a woman always judge a man after her own personal experience
with him, or what she thinks is her own personal experience?"
A robin hopped upon the path before her. She watched it for a moment
intently, then lifted her head as the sound of a bell came through the
wood to her. She looked up at the sun, which was slanting towards
evening. She seemed about to speak, but with second thought, moved on
slowly past the mill and towards the Meeting-house. He stepped on beside
her. She kept her eyes fixed in front of her, as though oblivious of his
presence.
"You shall hear me speak. You shall listen to what I have to say, though
it is for the last time," he urged stubbornly. "You think ill of me. Are
you sure you are not pharisaical?"
"I am honest enough to say that which hurts me in the saying. I do not
forget that to believe thee what I think is to take all truth from what
thee said to me last year, and again this spring when the tulips first
came and there was good news from Egypt."
"I said," he rejoined boldly, "that I was happier with you than with any
one else alive. I said that what you thought of me meant more to me than
what any one else in the world thought; and that I say now, and will
always say it."
The old look of pity came into her face. "I am older than thee by two
years," she answered quaintly, "and I know more of real life, though I
have lived always here. I have made the most of the little I have seen;
thee has made little of the much that thee has seen. Thee does not know
the truth concerning thee. Is it not, in truth, vanity which would have
me believe in thee? If thee was happier with me than with any one alive,
why then did thee make choice of a wife even in the days thee was
speaking to me as no man shall ever speak again? Nothing can explain so
base a fact. No, no, no, thee said to me what thee said to others, and
will say again without shame. But--but see, I will forgive; yes, I will
follow thee with good wishes, if thee will promise to help David, whom
thee has ever disliked, as, in the place held by thee, thee can do now.
Will thee offer this one proof, in spite of all else that disproves, that
thee spoke any words of truth to me in the Cloistered House, in the
garden by my father's house, by yonder mill, and hard by the
Meeting-house yonder-near to my sister's grave by the willow-tree? Will
thee do that for me?"