Chapter III Flags in the Wind
Godleigh forest was paying its debt to the Mother in good gold, and a myriad leaves flew and whirled aloft, tumbled and sailed downwards, rustled and hustled over the green grass, dropped amongst the forest boughs, floated away on Teign’s bosom, eddied in sudden whirlwinds at gates and wind-swept gaps of the woodlands. The summer glory was extinguished once again, the tree-top life was ended for another generation of foliage; and now, final livery of russet or crimson won, the leaves fell and flew at the will of a wild wind, or waited in some last resting-place for latter rains, for alchemy of frost and for the sexton worm. Their dust is the food of the whole earth, and to the blind and patient roots, twisting gigantically at the hidden heart of things, they return obedient. For to them they owe every aerial happiness in gleaming dawns, every joy of the moonlight and starlight and deep nocturnal dews, song of birds and whisper of vernal rain, cool purple from shadows of clouds and all the glorious life of a leaf—of each small leaf that joins its particular jewel to the green coronet of summer.
Little Silver took a holiday from the affairs of working-day life on the occasion of the Squire’s official return to Godleigh Park, and the day was set aside for rejoicing and marked with a white stone. A great banquet under canvas formed the staple attraction; the grounds were thrown open, and Christopher invited his small world to lunch with him in a noble marquee tricked out with flags and streamers. But the season and the day proved out of harmony with campestral merry-making. Nature’s October russets, pale gold and red gold, killed the crude bunting colours; a high wind rollicked and raved through the woods and over the waste places; the great tents and the lesser creaked and groaned, billowed and bent; yet those driven from them by fear were sent back by heavy squalls of rain. The autumnal equinox welcomed Yeoland roughly to his home; but happily he drove under the triumphal arch of laurel and oak before an envious gust sent it sprawling; happily also the increasing wind blew the sky clean towards nightfall, though the rockets that then shrieked aloft chose perilous, unexpected places for their descent, and the bonfire was abandoned, for its conflagration must have threatened every rick of hay within half a mile east of it. Upon the whole, however, this celebration was counted successful, though one uncanny incident marred the day. At earliest dawn Mr. Brimblecombe discovered that some genius unknown had decorated the Yeoland mausoleum with heavy wreaths of autumn flowers and evergreens; but even the least imaginative recognised that such accentuation of the tomb at this moment showed a triumph of wrong-headedness.
Upon that great occasion did Henry Collins, whose patience, even in affairs of the heart, was almost reptilian, avail himself of the general holiday. And when Sally Cramphorn, who still philandered with him, though fitfully, promised that she would take a walk by his side after the feasting, Henry believed that the moment for speech was come at last. He had debated the form of his proposition for several months, and the girl’s attitude now naturally led him to suspect an agreeable termination to his protracted sufferings. The time was that of eating and drinking, and Sally, who perceived that Mr. Gregory Libby, from his standpoint as carver at the head of one of the tables in the banqueting tent, viewed her position beside Collins with concern, hastened her meal and shortened it. Then, as soon as possible upon the speech-making, she took Henry by the arm and led him forth very lovingly under the nose of the other man. Together they proceeded through the woods, and the graciousness which she exhibited while Gregory’s eye was yet upon her, diminished a little. Still the woman felt amiably disposed to her innocent tool, and even found it in her heart to pity him somewhat, for she guessed what now awaited her. Mr. Collins walked slowly along, with some strain and creaking of mental machinery as he shook his thoughts and ideas into order. He passed with Sally under pine trees, and at length found a snug spot sheltered from the wind.
“Us might sit here ’pon the fir-needles,” suggested Henry.
“’Tis damp, I doubt,” answered his companion, thinking of her best gown.
“Then I’ll spread my coat for ‘e. I want to have a tell along with you, an’ I caan’t talk travellin’. ’Tis tu distractin’, an’ what I’ve got to say’ll take me all my power, whether or no.”
He spread his black broadcloth without hesitation, and Sally, appreciating this compliment, felt she could not do less than accept it. So she plumped down on Henry’s Sunday coat, and he appeared to win much pleasure from contemplation of her in that position. He smiled to himself, sighed rather loudly, and then sat beside her. Whereupon his tongue refused its office and, for the space of two full minutes, he made no remark whatever, though his breathing continued very audible.
“What be thinking ’bout?” asked Sally suddenly.
“Well, to tell plain truth, I was just taking pleasure in the idea as you’d ordained to sit ’pon my jacket. ’Twill be very comfortin’ to me to call home as you’ve sat on un every time I put un on or off.”
“If ’twas awnly another party!” thought the girl. “Doan’t be such a fule,” she said.
“That’s what everybody have been advisin’ me of late,” he answered calmly, without the least annoyance or shame. “’Tis the state of my mind. Things come between me an’ my work—a very ill-convenient matter. But, whether or no, I’ll be proud of that coat now.”
She sat comfortably beside him, and presently, after further silence, Henry lolled over towards her, and, taking a straw, sought with clumsy pleasantry to stick it into her hand under the white cotton glove which she was wearing.
“What be about?” she asked sharply. “Go along with ’e! Doan’t ’e knaw me better than to think I be so giddy?”
Thus repulsed, Mr. Collins apologised, explained that in reality he did know Sally better, that his action was one of pure inadvertence, and that he admired her character by special reason of its sobriety. Silence again overtook them, and, while Sally fidgeted impatiently, the man’s owl eyes roamed from off her face to the woods, from the woodland back again to her. He stuffed his pipe slowly, then returned it to his pocket; he sighed once or twice, tied up his boot-lace, and cleared his throat. After a painful pause the woman spoke again.
“Be us at a funeral or a junketing? You look for all the world as if you’d catched something hurtful. Wheer’s your manners? What’s in your mind now?”
Henry gulped, and pointed to an oak immediately opposite them—a great tree bound about in a robe of ivy.
“Was just considerin’ ’bout thicky ivydrum, an’ what gude sneyds for scythe-handles her’d make.”
“Then you’d best to bide here with your scythe-handles, an’ I’ll go back-along to the company. I didn’t come out to sit an’ stare at a ivybush if you did.”
“Doan’t ’e be so biting against me, woman!” said Collins indignantly. “I be comin’ to it so fast as I can, ban’t I? ‘Tedn’ so easy, I can assure ‘e. Maybe chaps as have axed a score o’ females finds speech come quick enough; but I’ve never spoke the word to wan afore in all my life; an’ ’tis a damn oneasy job; an’ I ban’t gwaine to be hurried by you or any other.”
Sally appeared awed at this outburst. She suddenly realised that Mr. Collins was a man, a big one, a strong one, and an earnest one.
“Sorry I took you up tu quick, I’m sure. I didn’t knaw as you felt so deep.”
“If I could have trusted pen an’ ink, I should have written it out for ’e,” he answered, “but my penmanship’s a vain thing. I’ll have the handkercher out of that pocket you’m sittin’ on, if ’tis all the same to you. Theer’s a dew broke out awver my brow.”
She rose and passed to him a large red handkerchief. Then he thanked her, mopped his face, and continued—
“When fust I seed you, I felt weak by reason of your butivul faace, an’ the way you could toss hay an’ keep so cool as a frog. An’ I will say that the laugh of you was very nigh as fine as a cuckoo’s song. Then I got to see what a gude gal you was tu, an’ how you scorned all men-folk—’cept Libby.”
These words he added hastily, as he saw her colour rising.
“Libby, I do allow, you gived your countenance to, though, if I may say it, ban’t no gert sign of love to see a chap in two minds between such a piece as you an’ your sister. But I never looked at no other but you—not even when I was up to Exeter. An’ if you see your way to keep comp’ny along wi’ me, God’s my judge you’ll never be sorry you done it. I be a man as stands to work an’ goes to church Sundays when let alone. An’ I’d trust you wi’ every penny of the money an’ ax for no more’n a shillin’ here an’ theer. An’ I’d stand between you an’ your faither, as doan’t ’pear to be so fond of you of late as he used to be.”
Sally moved uneasily, for he had echoed a recent, dim suspicion of her own.
“Best let that bide,” she said. “If my faither likes Margery better’n what he do me, that’s his business, not yours.”
“’Tis a fault in him, however,” answered Henry. “You’m worth ten thousand o’ she; an’ he’ll live to find it out yet. He’m grawin’ auld an’ tootlish, I reckon, else he’d never set her up afore you.”
“She’m a crafty twoad,” declared the other gloomily. “I knaw she’m clever’n what I be, but flesh an’ blood counts for somethin’. He sees me twice to her wance—Gregory do; an’, whether or no, the man’s free as ban’t achsually married.”
Mr. Collins grew warm again, to see the drift of his lady’s thoughts, and endeavoured to bring her conversation back to the matter in hand.
“Ban’t for me to speak nothin’ ’gainst Libby or any other man. An’ ‘twouldn’t be fair fightin’ if I said what I’d say wi’ pleasure to the faace of un if he was here; but I want ’ess’ or ’no’ for myself, an’ I do pray, my dear woman, as you’ll consider of it afore you decide.”
“Ban’t no need, an’ thank you kindly, I’m sure,” said Sally. “But you must look some plaace else than me, Henery; an’ I’m sure you’ll find many so gude, an’ plenty better.”
He sat silent, staring and sniffing.
“Doan’t ’e cry ’bout it,” she said.
“I ban’t cryin’—merely chap-fallen,” he answered, “an’ theer’s none ’pon the airth so gude as you that ever I see; an’ I do wish as you’d take your time an’ not be so sudden. I can wait—I can wait if theer’s a shade of doubt in your mind. Ess fay, I can wait weeks, an’ months, an’ years, so easy as a tree, for you to decide. But do ‘e take a bit of time. ’Tis cruel short just to say ‘no,’ after all as I’ve felt for ’e so long.”
She accepted the alternative, half from pity, half from policy. Any hint of an understanding might galvanise the cold-blooded Libby into action.
“Wait then,” she said, “an’ us’ll see what time sends.”
“Thank you, I’m sure—cold comfort, but a thought better’n nought. Now, if you’ll rise up off my coat I might get ’e a few braave filbert nuts; then us’ll join the people.”
Sally dusted the coat and helped its master into it. They then returned towards the central festivity, and upon the way, at the bend of a narrow path, came suddenly upon Christopher Yeoland, Honor and her husband, Mark Endicott, with his arm in that of Mr. Scobell, Doctor Clack, and other local celebrities and men of leading in the neighbourhood.
“Lard! how can us pass all this mort o’ gentlefolks an’ me that down-daunted,” moaned Henry; but his companion, secure in her pretty face and trustful of her best gown, felt quite equal to the ordeal.
“So easy as they can pass us,” she answered. “They’m awnly men an’ women when all’s said, an’ us be so gude as them, ’pon a public holiday or in church. I mind a time when Squire Yeoland never passed me by wi’out a civil word, an’ I shouldn’t wonder if he didn’t now for all his riches.”
She was right. Observing that no parent accompanied her and recollecting her blue eyes very well, Christopher stopped.
“Ah, Sally, glad to see you again. Not married yet—eh? But going to be, I’ll warrant. That’s your man? Lucky chap. And remember, the day of the wedding I’ve got twenty pounds for you to make the cottage vitty.”
Miss Cramphorn blushed and murmured something, she knew not what, while Henry, now safely past his betters, shook at these bold words. Then the company proceeded, and Myles Stapledon, recollecting when these two had last met, mused upon the nature of the man, while Honor chid him.
“That’s the way you’ll send your money spinning, by putting a premium on improvident marriages. Ask Mr. Scobell what he thinks of such folly.”
“A sentiment. I’ve always liked Sally. I kissed her once and her father saw me. Myles will tell you about that. Not that she ever liked me much—too good a judge of character, I expect.”
Meantime Mr. Collins and his companion passed back to the tents and flags, and as they did so Henry could not refrain from commenting upon the squire’s handsome promise.
“Did you hear what the man said?” he asked.
“Not being deaf, I did,” answered Sally with evasion. “A wonnerful offer. Twenty pound! An’ just for to make a place smart.”
“Best to find a maid as won’t keep ’e hanging round. ’Tis mere gapes-nestin’ for you to wait for me—a wild-goose chase for sartain.”
“I hope not.”
“Twenty pounds ban’t much arter all’s said.”
“Not to your faither, as he be a snug man enough by accounts; but ’tis tidy money to the likes of me—big money to come in a heap an’ all unearned. Not as I’d want it. You should have every penny-piece if you’d awnly—”
“I doan’t want to hear no more ’pon that head. I’ve promised to think of it, an’ I ax you not to speak another word till I tell you to.”
“’Twas the thought of the money that carried me away like, an’ I’ll be dumb from to-day, I do assure ’e.”
Somewhat later they met Mr. Cramphorn, but it was significant of a lessened interest in his elder daughter that Jonah, instead of reproaching her for thus walking apart with one of the other sex, merely called to Collins and bid him bring his strength where it was needed to brace the tackle of a tent.