Part 68 (1/2)

”It's no trouble; I should like some myself. The fire's out in the kitchen. We can boil the kettle here.”

They went through the baize door into the long pa.s.sage. Mrs. Barfield told Esther where was the pantry, the kitchen, and the larder. Esther answered that she remembered quite well, and it seemed to her not a little strange that she should know these things. Mrs. Barfield said--

”So you haven't forgotten Woodview, Esther?”

”No, ma'am. It seems like yesterday.... But I'm afraid the damp has got into the kitchen, ma'am, the range is that neglected----”

”Ah, Woodview isn't what it was.”

Mrs. Barfield told how she had buried her husband in the old village church. She had taken her daughter to Egypt; she had dwindled there till there was little more than a skeleton to lay in the grave.

”Yes, ma'am, I know how it takes them, inch by inch. My husband died of consumption.”

They sat talking for hours. One thing led to another and Esther gradually told Mrs. Barfield the story of her life from the day they bade each other good-bye in the room they were now sitting in.

”It is quite a romance, Esther.”

”It was a hard fight, and it isn't over yet, ma'am. It won't be over until I see him settled in some regular work. I hope I shall live to see him settled.”

They sat over the fire a long time without speaking. Mrs. Barfield said--

”It must be getting on for bedtime.”

”I suppose it must, ma'am.”

She asked if she should sleep in the room she had once shared with Margaret Gale. Mrs. Barfield answered with a sigh that as all the bedrooms were empty Esther had better sleep in the room next to hers.

XLVI

Esther seemed to have quite naturally accepted Woodview as a final stage.

Any further change in her life she did not seem to regard as possible or desirable. One of these days her boy would get settled; he would come down now and again to see her. She did not want any more than that. No, she did not find the place lonely. A young girl might, but she was no longer a young girl; she had her work to do, and when it was done she was glad to sit down to rest.

And, dressed in long cloaks, the women went for walks together; sometimes they went up the hill, sometimes into Southwick to make some little purchases. On Sundays they walked to Beeding to attend meeting. And they came home along the winter roads, the peace and happiness of prayer upon their faces, holding their skirts out of the mud, unashamed of their common boots. They made no acquaintances, seeming to find in each other all necessary companions.h.i.+p. Their heads bent a little forward, they trudged home, talking of what they were in the habit of talking, that another tree had been blown down, that Jack was now earning good money--ten s.h.i.+llings a week. Esther hoped it would last. Or else Esther told her mistress that she had heard that one of Mr. Arthur's horses had won a race. He lived in the North of England, where he had a small training stable, and his mother never heard of him except through the sporting papers. ”He hasn't been here for four years,” Mrs. Barfield said; ”he hates the place; he wouldn't care if I were to burn it down to-morrow.... However, I do the best I can, hoping that one day he'll marry and come and live here.”

Mr. Arthur--that was how Mrs. Barfield and Esther spoke of him--did not draw any income from the estate. The rents only sufficed to pay the charges and the widow's jointure. All the land was let; the house he had tried to let, but it had been found impossible to find a tenant, unless Mr. Arthur would expend some considerable sum in putting the house and grounds into a state of proper repair. This he did not care to do; he said that he found race-horses a more profitable speculation. Besides, even the park had been let on lease; nothing remained to him but the house and lawn and garden; he could no longer gallop a horse on the hill without somebody's leave, so he didn't care what became of the place. His mother might go on living there, keeping things together as she called it; he did not mind what she did as long as she didn't bother him. So did he express himself regarding Woodview on the rare occasion of his visits, and when he troubled to answer his mother's letters. Mrs. Barfield, whose thoughts were limited to the estate, was pained by his indifference; she gradually ceased to consult him, and when Beeding was too far for her to walk she had the furniture removed from the drawing-room and a long deal table placed there instead. She had not asked herself if Arthur would object to her inviting a few brethren of the neighbourhood to her house for meeting, or publis.h.i.+ng the meetings by notices posted on the lodge gate.

One day Mrs. Barfield and Esther were walking in the avenue, when, to their surprise, they saw Mr. Arthur open the white gate and come through.

The mother hastened forward to meet her son, but paused, dismayed by the anger that looked out of his eyes. He did not like the notices, and she was sorry that he was annoyed. She didn't think that he would mind them, and she hastened by his side, pleading her excuses. But to her great sorrow Arthur did not seem to be able to overcome his annoyance. He refused to listen, and continued his reproaches, saying the things that he knew would most pain her.

He did not care whether the trees stood or fell, whether the cement remained upon the walls or dropped from them; he didn't draw a penny of income from the place, and did not care a d.a.m.n what became of it. He allowed her to live there, she got her jointure out of the property, and he didn't want to interfere with her, but what he could not stand was the snuffy little folk from the town coming round his house. The Barfields at least were county, and he wished Woodview to remain county as long as the walls held together. He wasn't a bit ashamed of all this ruin. You could receive the Prince of Wales in a ruin, but he wouldn't care to ask him into a dissenting chapel. Mrs. Barfield answered that she didn't see how the mere a.s.sembling of a few friends in prayer could disgrace a house. She did not know that he objected to her asking them. She would not ask them any more. The only thing was that there was no place nearer than Beeding where they could meet, and she could no longer walk so far. She would have to give up meeting.

”It seems to me a strange taste to want to kneel down with a lot of little shop-keepers.... Is this where you kneel?” he said, pointing to the long deal table. ”The place is a regular little Bethel.”

”Our Lord said that when a number should gather together for prayer that He would be among them. Those are true words, and as we get old we feel more and more the want of this communion of spirit. It is only then that we feel that we're really with G.o.d.... The folk that you despise are equal in His sight. And living here alone, what should I be without prayer? and Esther, after her life of trouble and strife, what would she be without prayer?... It is our consolation.”

”I think one should choose one's company for prayer as for everything else. Besides, what do you get out of it? Miracles don't happen nowadays.”