Part 2 (1/2)
”Excuse me, miss, but I should ha' made you two known to each other.
Miss 'Olden, this is Mr. Evans of the 'All, an' this is my new tenant, sir; a lady from London, Miss 'Olden, who's taken the cottage for twelve months for a sort of a whim, as far as I can make out.” He touched his cap, and turned on his heel once more.
The situation was amusing and a little embarra.s.sing, but I was left in no suspense. The old gentleman smiled and looked down into my eyes.
He is a fine old man, something over seventy years of age, I should say, but very erect, with deep, rather cold eyes, surmounted by bushy eyebrows, and a head of thick, steely-grey hair. One glance at his face told me that he was a man of intellect and culture.
”We may as well be companions, Miss Holden, if you do not object,” he said smilingly. ”I should like to ascertain for myself whether the village report is true, for I may inform you that I have heard all that my butler can tell me, which means all that he can ascertain by shrewd and persistent inquiry.”
”I am flattered by the attention of my neighbours,” I replied, ”and I can quite understand that in a little place like this the advent of a stranger will create a mild sensation, but I was not aware that there was anything so dreadful as a 'report' in circulation. The knowledge makes me uneasy; can you relieve my anxiety?”
He was walking along with his hands holding the lapels of his jacket, his light overcoat blowing about behind him, and he looked quizzically at me for a moment or two before he replied:
”I think you are able to take it in good part, for--if you will permit me to say so--I judge that you have too much common sense to be easily offended, and therefore I will admit that the villagers are prepared to look upon you as slightly 'daft,' to use their own expression. They cannot understand how, on any other supposition, you should act on a momentary impulse and leave the excitements of the metropolis for the simple life of a tiny village. I need hardly say that I realise that this is distinctly your own affair, and I am not asking you to give me your confidence, but you will not mind my telling you in what light the village regards this somewhat--unusual conduct.”
I laughed. Goodness knows I am not touchy, and the opinion of my neighbours only amused me. But somehow I felt that I must justify my action to the squire, and my Inner Self put on her defensive armour in readiness for the battle. I seemed to know that this rather stern old man would regard my action as childish,--and indeed the scheme could not be regarded as reasonable; it was simply intuitive, and who can defend an intuition? I therefore replied:
”You have certainly relieved my disquietude. I thought the villagers might have conceived the notion that I was a fugitive from justice, and had a good reason for hiding myself in an out-of-the-way place. If they consider me inoffensive in my daftness I am quite content; for, after all, there are hundreds of people of much wider experience who would be not a whit more lenient in their judgment. In fact, I suspect that you yourself would endorse it emphatically, especially when I admit that the premise is correct from which the conclusion is drawn.”
”You invite my interest,” he returned, ”but your silence will be a sufficient rebuke if my inquiries over-step the bounds of your indulgence. You tell me that the premise is correct. I understand, therefore, that you admit that you have acted on mere impulse; that, in fact, our friend Goodenough was speaking truly when he called it bluntly a 'whim.'”
”I am not skilled in dialectics,” I said, feeling rather proud of the word all the same, and mightily astonished at my coolness; ”but I should not call it a whim, but rather an intuition. I suppose there is a difference?”
He bent his brows together and paused in his walk; then he replied:
”Yes: there is a distinct difference. I cannot deny or disregard the power of the mind to discern truth without reasoning, but the two have so much in common that I think a whim may sometimes be mistaken for an intuition. Can you prove to me that this was an intuition?”
”No,” I said, and I think it was a wise answer; at any rate it seemed to please him; ”n.o.body could do that. Time alone can justify my action even to myself. I am going to be on the lookout for the proof daily.”
He smiled again. ”You know what would have been said if a man had done this?” he said deliberately; ”it would be asked, Who is the woman?”
I blushed furiously, and hated myself for it, though he was nearly old enough to have been my grandfather. ”I always feel glad that Eve did not blame the other s.e.x,” I replied, ”and, in spite of the annoying colour in my face, I can say with a clear conscience that there is no man in the case at all.”
”Do not be grieved with me,” he said, just as calmly as ever. ”I realised that I was taking a big risk, but I wished to clear the ground at the outset. I have done so, but I hesitate to venture further.”
His tone was so very kindly that I, too, determined to take a big risk, though I half feared he would not understand, or understanding would be amused. So I told him something of my life in London, and how its problems had perplexed and depressed me, and I told him of the heather and how it had called me; and I think something of the pa.s.sion of life shook my voice as I spoke, and I expressed more than I had realised myself until then.
He listened with grave and fixed attention, and did not reply at once.
Then, halting again in his walk, though only for a second, he said:
”Miss Holden, subconscious influences have been at work upon you for some time past. You have experienced the loneliness which is never so hard to bear as when one is jostled by the crowd. I gather that the wickedness of London--its injustice and inequalities--have been weighing upon your spirits, and you feel for the moment like some escaped bird which has gained the freedom of the woods after beating its wings for many weary months against the bars of its city cage. You may have done well to escape, but beware of false ideals, and beware of the inevitable reaction when you discover the wickedness of the village, and learn that injustice and vice and slander, and a hundred other hateful things, are not peculiar to city life.”
”But surely,” I Interposed, ”the overcrowding, and the sweating and the awful, awful wretchedness of the poor are wanting here.”
”My dear young lady,” he said, ”I suppose you think that the devil is a city gentleman whose attention is so much occupied with great concerns that he has had no time to discover so insignificant a place as Windyridge. You will find out your mistake. There are times when he is very active here, but he has wit enough to vary his methods as occasion requires.
”Sometimes, as Scripture and experience have shown you, he goes about as a roaring lion, and there is no mistaking his presence; but at other times he masquerades as an angel of light. You speak of the evils you know, and it may be admitted that most of these are absent from Windyridge, at any rate in their aggravated forms. But a.n.a.lyse these various evils which have caused you to chafe against your environment, and you will find that selfishness is at the root of them all, and selfishness flourishes even in the soil which breeds the moorland heather.
”Don't let this discourage you, however,” he continued, as he held out his hand, for we had now reached the gateway of the Hall; ”the devil has not undisputed possession here or elsewhere, and Windyridge may help you to strike the eternal balance.