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Chapter III.

The country property where Mr. and Mrs. Langridge intended to picnic for a week was only a day's journey from their own farm. Mr. Langridge had bought it for his son the year before. He did not expect that Stephen would ever farm it, not even vicariously; but it was a settled principle of his to invest all that he had in land. As he was always proclaiming that farming did not pay, it was manifest that he must have been very successful in his land speculations. Had he done business on a larger scale, with tens and hundreds of thousands of acres, he might have earned the very colonial and expressive title of ‘landshark.’ As it was, he was quite as fond of the ‘unearned increment’ as those gentlemen who swallow up land by the county, and in one sense he was quite as voracious, for he possessed himself page 32 of as much as money and credit would allow, and they could do no more.

A true landshark, however, does not cultivate, and sometimes Mr. Langridge did. He would put a thousand acres or so into grass, and sell them, just when the young fern was shooting through, with millions of stalks, tender, fresh and green. And, of course, the purchaser paid dear for this grass. On Stephen's farm he had got as far as turnips, and on the strength of these turnips, his selling price had risen with a bound. He valued the whole property as if it had been strewn with turnips, though two-thirds of it bloomed with a vegetation much more dense and not half so useful. If he had only given two pounds an acre for the land, was that any reason why he should not sell it at eight, if he could? There was no wrong in buying land, swamp, stiff clay, or loose sand, for a few shillings an acre, and selling it for as many pounds, when settlement had flowed round, and made even its barren soil of value. That was the way to gather in the ‘unearned increment,’ and very sweet it was when gathered.

He always had valuable property of this kind waiting for buyers. He paid land-tax and road-rates in several counties, and instead of being thankful that he had wherewith to be taxed, grumbled when the assessment papers came round, and Government humbly asked him for a halfpenny in the pound. Very often he held these properties in his children's names, and so Stephen had always had a farm which page 33 he had never seen, and which was sometimes in one part of the country sometimes in another.

‘It is near Mahurangi, isn't it?’ he asked, when his father requested as a favour that he would visit his farm for the first time, to oversee the labours of the industrious Mr. Wrackstraw, who was growing turnips there.

‘Mahurangi! I parted with that two years ago, Steve, and sold it too low by half. The man who bought it ran up a frame of a house which he couldn't finish, and then sold for half as much again as he gave me. I oughtn't to have let him had that profit.

‘Where is it, then?’ said Stephen. ‘Do you mean that place at Karaka I have heard you talk about?’

‘That's gone too, sold to a company who are trying to grow broom corn on soil that won't even grow flax.’

‘I am not sorry it has gone,’ said Stephen. ‘I shouldn't have liked to spend two months there.’

Mr. Langridge explained where the farm was, and expatiated on its beauties to such purpose that his son was almost interested. He consented to give Mr. Wrackstraw the benefit of his assistance.

‘But I don't know what I can do there,’ he said.

‘Oh, it will do you good. I don't want you to farm unless you please, but it's as well you should know how the thing's done, and Wrackstraw is a practical man; you'll get lots of information from page 34 him. I want you to see the cattle, and the turnips and clover; ah! we've no such clover here.’

‘I don't know good cattle from bad,’ said Stephen.

‘Time you did, then. And you ought to see more of the country, it'll enlarge your mind. You may have some fine rides there, my boy. You may gallop for twenty miles at a stretch over land as level as a bowling-green. And the prospects, Steve; you've an eye for fine scenery. Get on a hill, when you're lucky enough to find one, and I declare you may see almost everything from it.’

The result of this conversation was satisfactory to Mr. Langridge; for, when Stephen had left him, he hastened to find his wife, and burst into her presence with a loud ‘He'll go, Polly, ho, ho, ho!’

Some time after this Mrs. Langridge went to call on the ladies at Mr. Wishart's, and delivered her invitation to Miss Desmond.

‘Will she go?’ asked Mr. Langridge, taking the first opportunity of speaking to his wife after her return.

‘Yes; but I am so vexed. That little flirt Violet Palmer is coming too.’

‘Bother!’ cried Mr. Langridge. ‘It'll spoil everything.’

‘She was there staying with them,’ said Mrs. Langridge. ‘I was obliged to ask Miss Desmond before her, and she said at once how delightful it would be, and how she only wished she were going, and so—I don't know how it was exactly—I page 35 had to say I'd be glad to see her. The sly little thing!’

‘It beats everything’ said the farmer, rubbing his forehead. ‘You should have made an excuse; a fine lady would have slipped out of that trap easily. Couldn't you have said there was no room for her?’

‘I did say something about having only one room to spare. But oh! she didn't mind about sharing dear Maud's room. I know how it will be. She'll always be dragging Stephen about, teasing him to take her to this place and that. She's the kind of girl that, if there were, only one young man in the country she'd keep him to herself. Mr. Wishart is possessed to think of marrying such a girl I wonder what he can see in her.’

‘I tell you what it is,’ said the farmer suddenly, ‘I shall have to go to balance the affair.’

‘You, Edward! What in the name of fortune now?’

‘It won't do to invite two young ladies, and only have Steve to escort 'em. I'll take care of the little flighty miss. I can't go with you, but I'll be there the next day, and if between you and me the wheels of this machinery can't be moved, it'll be odd, that's all.’

‘It amazes me to hear you talk so confidently,’ said Mrs. Langridge, with a dubious shake of the head.

On the appointed day Mrs. Langridge and her charges made their excursion into the country; and page 36 were welcomed by the wondering Stephen, who had had short notice of their approach.

‘Why, mother, what is the meaning of this?’ he asked, as he helped her out of the large waggon, which, for want of a lighter vehicle, had brought the party from the station.

‘We thought to give you a little surprise, Steve,’ she answered, ‘and I hope you are glad to see us.’

‘Glad? I should think I am! I have seen no one but Wrackstraw for the last three weeks, and he has talked of nothing but turnips. But I wish I had known earlier that you were coming. The house might have been made more comfortable.’

‘Oh, don't trouble yourself, Stephen,’ said Mrs. Langridge consolingly. ‘Miss Desmond isn't finikin, and neither are we. We've not come to sit indoors, but to get the good of the country air.’ Good Mrs. Langridge! she had lived amongst green fields for the half of a century, and her round fresh-coloured face showed that she had known the benefit of pure breezes and healthy exercise for quite as long. Stephen left her to see that the luggage had been taken care of.

‘There's a wonderful lot here with Miss Palmer on it,’ said Wrackstraw, who was unloading the waggon. ‘Is that the little one with the light hair, Mr. Langridge?’

‘Yes,’ said Stephen, looking with surprise at a long row of boxes.

‘Goodness! this makes the seventh,’ said Wrack- page 37 straw. ‘Little though she be, her clothes take up a lot of room.’

Mrs. Langridge meanwhile was looking over the house.

‘Very nice indeed, Mrs. Wrackstraw,’ she deigned to say to the industrious woman who had spent two days in a fierce warfare against dust and all uncleanness.

‘The place smells of soap awful, ma'am,’ said Mrs. Wrackstraw humbly. ‘It had ought to have been done a week ago, if we'd known.’

‘It's a smell that will do no one any harm,’ said Mrs. Langridge. ‘I wish there was more of it in some places. Now, could you make us a cup of good tea. I'm tired, if the others aren't.

Mrs. Wrackstraw made tea of surpassing strength. Stephen was so anxious it should be served properly that he harassed the poor woman with orders and counter-orders.

‘Yes, Mr. Stephen, I'm going to get out a clean tablecloth. D'ye think I wouldn't?’

‘I hope you have a better cream-jug somewhere, Mrs. Wrackstraw. That one is so cracked and chipped.’

‘Massy! it's always been on the table since you came, and you've never minded. Now, Mr. Stephen, what's amiss with the knives? Do leave me to lay the cloth; it's the first time I ever saw a young gentleman meddle in such things.’

‘I can't think why you don't clean the knives regularly.’

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‘I've no time for fancy housework. They're washed; what's the use of scouring them away with bathbrick?’

‘Well, I'll clean them,’ said Stephen.

‘I rubs them on that board,’ said Mrs. Wrackstraw.

Stephen worked hard with gritty bathbrick on a board until the knives looked as if they had been polished on a grindstone. He watched Mrs. Wrackstraw so narrowly, and complained so much of her humble tea equipage, that she began to be nervous and irritable.

‘I'm sure I does all I can. Every Saturday I cleans up, I'm sure they shine like silver.’

‘Well, never mind,’ said Stephen. ‘They will not expect—’

‘If it's of the ladies you're thinking, sir, they're too sensible to expect finery and folderols here; but they'll not find a cleaner house—I dare 'em to do it!—between this and England.’

‘Very true, Mrs. Wrackstraw, everything is in order and beautifully clean,’ said Mrs. Langridge, rustling in from the next room. ‘Stephen, do you assist in the kitchen here? I may as well remind you that the partitions of this house are very thin. I could hear everything you said in the other room. I shall be glad of anything you may have, Mrs. Wrackstraw. I don't care if all the jugs are cracked and the knives haven't been cleaned for a fortnight. What a time those girls are before they come out. page 39 I suppose Violet Palmer must smarten herself up. What a trouble she has been with all that luggage of hers—ridiculous to bring so much!”

‘I think I had better remind you of the thinness of the partitions this time,’ said Stephen, and just then the young ladies entered, Violet, gay as a butterfly, in a complicated and many-coloured costume, as unsuitable to the country as any she could have chosen. But it suited her, and she knew it. Mrs. Wrackstraw was scandalised, and privately told her husband that the ‘little one’ dressed like a ‘theatrical.’ Mrs. Langridge compared her sensibly-attired daughters with the doll-like Violet, and made comforting reflections. If Violet, like the coquette she was, had made her toilet for the benefit of the only gentleman present her pains were wasted. He only looked at another person, and thought that, in her plain dark-blue dress, she was handsomer than ever.

The next morning they all got up very early, as one feels obliged to do when staying in the country. For whosoever will lie in bed, with the birds twittering just outside his window, with the sun blazing upon it, and with all the cheerful sounds of the farmyard forcing themselves on his drowsy ears, must be past all hope of redemption. People make a point of seeing the sum rise when they are in the country, that they may say they have done so when they come back to town, where no one cares to see his fiery face come up behind chimneys and house- page 40 tops. But when saying that all arose early, Violet ought to have been excepted. She was fonder of the end of the day than of the beginning. As for Stephen, he astonished Mrs. Wrackstraw by being up first of all. ‘He's rousing up,’ she said to Wrackstraw; ‘it'll do him good.’

It was Stephen's idea (and a brilliant one he thought it) that they should have a ride before breakfast. And what a glorious ride that was!—while yet the sun was low above the purple-tinted hills, which lay all in shadow, flecked with mist-wreaths curling upwards. Away, away, over the level fields, over scented clover, where the bees were humming; through brown-green fern, where the pheasants rose with a whirr, or the gentle little quail hid themselves in fear at the thud of the horses’ hoofs,—away to the border of the valley, where the hills rose, and a river hurried on its course, winding in and out, winding on and on, to a seashore beyond the faintest blue of distance.

How strange the sound of voices and laughter seemed in the morning stillness resting on these plains. The cattle turned to stare at the riders, as if offended with them for disturbing their pensive ruminations so rudely. And Stephen was somewhat nearer perfect bliss than he had been before. His sisters had been supplied with slow and aged horses. (accidentally of course), and were far behind. Amiable girls! they did not mind about that. He had found something to talk about in describing the page 41 country to Maud, and was surprised that he could say so much about it. He had thought it ugly; he had thought it dull—it. appeared so no longer. He had not cared for his property, he had not known where it was six weeks before, but now he felt a pride in pointing out to her how far it extended. He was proud to be able to look with her along the curving line of the river, and across the plain, and to say, ‘All this is mine.’ And when she asked him, ‘Will you live here some day?’ though he only said ‘I do not know,’ he thought that, one condition granted, it would not matter where he made his home.

Mrs. Langridge employed the early morning hour in inspecting the kitchen, pantry, and dairy under Mrs. Wrackstraw's care, and made her a happy woman by praising her management. Fortunately their views exactly coincided on the three crucial tests by which Mrs. Langridge judged of the ability of other housewives. In butter and cheese making and in bacon curing, Mrs. Wrackstraw agreed with her in every particular, or appeared to, inasmuch as she protested that she had always followed the rules set down by Mrs. Langridge as the only ones which a woman of sense would observe. Both of them had from their youth made their bread in the same manner, and both knew the best way of giving a satin-like gloss to starched linen, a recipe which each had imagined was unknown by any other woman. These remarkable coincidences made each feel that the other was a superior woman.

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‘A very useful couple to have on a farm, Steve,’ said Mrs. Langridge, ‘if the man is as sensible as his wife. The dairy was remarkably clean and sweet, and the milk-strainer and the pans looked as if they were scoured regularly. I've seen some strainers—ay, and in places where you'd think people would be particular—that have given me quite a turn.’ The milk-strainer had been scoured. Mrs. Wrackstraw had scoured it the day before Mrs. Langridge's arrival with a vigour which had added numerous perforations to those it already possessed. ‘And well I did it, and the other things too,’ she congratulated herself, ‘for of all the women for spying round, with eyes sharper than needles, she beats the worst I've seen. It's well for me she couldn't find speck or spot high or low. But law! she should have seen it a week ago.’

When breakfast was half over, Violet appeared, wearing another new costume, a walking dress, short to a fault, and so covered with trimmings that the eldest Miss Langridge could not help falling into mental calculations of its probable cost.

‘You see we have not waited for you, my dear,’ said Mrs. Langridge, blandly. ‘You missed a nice ride with not being up earlier.’

‘Oh, I never can get up early, Mrs. Langridge. I'm so glad you did not wait for me,’ said Violet carelessly. ‘I suppose it must be delightful, though, if one can manage it, to ride before breakfast. Mr. Langridge, remember you promised to show me all page 43 the pretty places to-day. I want to make some sketches—no, I don't want, but Mrs. Plushey expects it, and I know they will be horrid.’

‘But I made a rash promise, if I said I would show you them all in one day,’ said Stephen. ‘I am afraid you would be tired before I had finished.’

‘Well, if I may advise you, Miss Palmer,’ said Mrs. Langridge, ‘I would take the view from this window. So much pleasanter sitting in the house out of the sun, and with a table to rest your arms on.’

‘Oh, Mrs. Langridge, that would be just like drawing in the schoolroom. I shouldn't be able to fancy I was sketching from Nature at all.’

Before that day was over Stephen was very sorry he had ever spoken of the charming scenery of the place, and thus aroused a mania for sketching in Violet's mind. First he had to break open with hammer and chisel a box strong enough and screwed down sufficiently tight to have gone round the world and borne transhipping several times. Out of this box came Violet's sketching materials, her drawing-board, and a camp-stool all of which Stephen had to carry wherever she went. When she fixed on her position he had to point her pencils, to fasten the paper on the drawing-board, to bring her water in a little glass, to mix the colours, and, when he was not otherwise employed, to hold a parasol over her head. All the time he had the annoyance of being obliged to listen to a conversation that bored him, while he page 44 vainly endeavoured to catch the words uttered by another young lady, who was a little distance away with Mrs. Langridge. He could not leave Violet, for she was constantly appealing to him.

‘Do you think the ridge of this hill is high enough, Mr. Langridge?’

‘Oh, quite high enough,’ said Stephen, without looking.

‘I'm afraid this is not a bit like it’—the resemblance was very faint—‘and I haven't the least idea of perspective. Is this is perspective?’

‘I really don't understand perspective,’ said Stephen, very glad he could say so.

‘Perhaps, after all,’ cried Violet suddenly, ‘I had better have gone higher up the stream. It must be much prettier there.’

‘Oh, no, not half so pretty,’ Stephen assured her, determined he would carry the camp-stool no farther that day.

‘Isn't it really? Please grind me some cobalt. I shall put in the sky now.’ A smudge of blue appeared on the paper.

‘Is that the way you do it?’ inquired Stephen, looking over her shoulder. ‘I thought you began at one side, and worked across, finishing everything as you went on.’

‘Oh, no; we do everything with separate washes of colour,’ said Violet. And, in truth, the sketch began to look very washy. The paper rose up in blisters. Stephen thought the colour should be page 45 mixed thicker. ‘You've been mixing it too thin all along,’ said Violet, with a pout. He mixed some as thick as paste, saying he supposed that what artists called ‘body colours’ were prepared in that way. The thick paint went on no better than the thin; the paper was saturated with paint, and refused to absorb more. Stephen advised that it should be left in the sun to dry; that is, if the colours wouldn't fade out again. Violet thought they couldn't; Mrs. Plushey had told her they were permanent. The sketch was laid aside, and curled up into a cylinder in the hot sun.

Stephen felt much relieved when Violet said she did not care to paint in the afternoon. But he was mistaken if he had imagined he was to be allowed his usual freedom of action. All the afternoon was he in some way, he hardly knew how, retained in Violet's service. Mrs. Langridge noticed this with smouldering ire.

At eventide came Mr. Langridge, and Stephen wondered why he had come.

‘I thought you were very busy,’ he said.

‘So I am, Steve, so I am,’ chuckled his father, ‘but not too busy to come and see you. You're in grand style here, with a houseful of visitors. I thought I'd come up and enjoy myself too. All work and no play doesn't do for long.’

He managed, after a few minutes, to gain the ear of Mrs. Langridge and to whisper in a sepulchral tone, ‘Well, how goes it?’

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‘How goes what?’ said the lady, affecting ignorance, and carefully looking to be sure that no one was near.

‘Come, Polly, come, don't pretend you don't know what's what.’

‘Edward, I'm quite sick of your come, coming me!’

‘Well, if things have gone wrong, you needn't be cross with me,’ said her husband, in an aggrieved tone.

Mrs. Langridge unfolded her history of the day, and said that, for her part, she thought the whole thing was a waste of time. She enlarged on Violet's misdeeds, and presented that young lady in the light of a stumbling-block which would have to be removed before their plans could succeed.

‘I see you want me with you,’ the farmer said. ‘Let me alone for managing her. She must have some one to wait on her you say; well, she shall have me.’

‘We've decided to go to the bush to-morrow,’ said Mrs. Langridge. ‘Wrackstraw is to drive us in the waggon.’

‘All right; all the same to me wherever you go,’ said the farmer. ‘Well, Steve,’ he cried, walking up to his son, ‘how are all things looking? How are the cattle getting on?’

‘Well enough, I believe,’ said Stephen, who had not the remotest idea. ‘Wrackstraw attends to them very well.’

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‘I'm sorry to hear some dogs have been amongst the sheep,’ said Mr. Langridge. ‘You must lay poison, Steve.’

‘Poison?’ said his son, staring at him. He had not attended to the last remark.

‘Yes, poison—strychnine. Dear me, how absentminded the poor lad is!’—this in an undertone to Mrs. Langridge. ‘We'll go round to-morrow early, Stephen, and look at everything. Your mother says you rise with the lark now.’

The farmer was true to his promise. He attempted to manage Violet, and succeeded better than might have been expected. The shawl, parasol, camp-stool, and portfolio, that had weighed Stephen down, were as nothing to him, and he bore them along with a jaunty step as if they had been trifles light as air. He went wherever she wanted to go, and he made himself very entertaining, inventing long stories to amuse her. The worthy man was not so light of foot as he had been, but what of that? On he tramped beneath a broiling sun, red in the face, generally panting, and always perspiring. Violet believed he was mightily taken with her; in no other way could she account for his officious attentions. She told Maud that he was delightfully amusing.

‘I always laughed, at you,’ she said, ‘for liking him; but now I've seen him I'm quite fond of the dear comical old gentleman, and he is so kind.’

‘So he is,’ said Maud, and she could not help page 48 laughing. Kind! The poor old farmer was Violet's slave. Was there any flower or any fern growing in a place difficult of access? Violet wanted it. Was there any rough place, any steep bank to climb, any gully to cross, Violet was afraid to venture on it by herself, and had to be helped over with much care and deliberation. She was always losing something, a handkerchief, bracelet, or ring, which must be sought for in the tangled herbage; she was always searching for something to sketch, and was never satisfied with it when it was found. Such a companion is pretty sure to exhaust the largest fund of long-suffering human kindness before the end of many hours. At the close of a hard day Mr. Langridge said, with a groan, ‘Blessed if this picnicking isn't harder work than digging! If it's all to be like this I don't stay out the week.’

‘You are soon done up,’ said Mrs. Langridge sarcastically. ‘I'm as tired as you are. I don't know how some people can go a-jaunting day after day, and not be sick to death of it. And so far as I can tell nothing has come of your grand idea.’

‘How do you know?’ said Mr. Langridge; but the remark nettled him so much that he determined to persevere, and even to work harder yet. He became so cunning and crafty in his ways that his conduct surprised every one but Mrs. Langridge. When all the party were exploring some little dingle or dell he would mysteriously entice them away, one by one, till only Maud and Stephen were page 49 left in the secluded spot. He would either contrive that these two should walk first, and then keep every one else fifty yards behind, or he would manage to give them the slip in some bush path or quiet nook, and hurry all the rest on in front, driving them before him like a flock of sheep up a steep hill, down a hollow into a mass of thick fern or tea-tree—anywhere, so that they were out of the way. His wife submitted to this without a murmur, though worn out with continual hurrying and scrambling; his daughters also were tolerably manageable; but Violet was apt to rebel, and to insist on going the way she pleased. This gave him extra trouble, and necessitated (so he thought) frequent lapses from the way of truth. The false statements made by this formerly straightforward man during these few days would have filled a book. He invented reasons without number to explain why Violet should not do as she wished. There was always a lion in the way she wanted to go: wild cattle, impassable watercourses, rough ground, fallen trees—anything he could think of. And yet she generally took the forbidden path, and interrupted the tête-à-tête he had secured with such pains. She soon tired of always having his companionship; she would be with Maud, or she would make demands on the good nature of the useful Stephen. So at the end of the week, the farmer felt he had been exerting himself most painfully to very little purpose.

‘I don't believe she left them alone five minutes page 50 yesterday,’ he complained, ‘except when I captured her and took her right down to the far end of the paddock, pretending there was a fine view from it. But to-morrow we're going up that hill. Now, in my opinion, Polly,’—and he dropped his voice to a whisper, and looked behind him before he spoke,—‘that's the place for what they call the denoomong in novels.’

‘I never heard you mash up French among your talk before,’ said Mrs. Langridge. ‘If there's to be a “denoomong,” it will be that you and I will go home shorn of our wool. I believe that sharp, sly girl Violet knows everything, and is laughing at us in her sleeve. If you want to go match-making again, Edward, you may do it by yourself.’

‘And so I will, Polly,’ returned Mr. Langridge, ‘for you've been as cross as two sticks all this time, and haven't tried to help me a bit. I've had it all laid on me, and that's where all the blame will be laid too if it doesn't answer. But let's wait a while before we say die.’

The morrow of which such great things were hoped came in with rain. If Mr. Langridge could have controlled the clouds, he would have dispersed them at once with a mighty wind, for, to his mind, what he was trying to bring about could only take place outside. His heart bounded for joy when the sky cleared about mid-day. Then he announced that he had laid out an afternoon's work for the party, and overruled every objection. Up the hill page 51 they must go. If they went away and did not see the view from the top they would regret it ever afterwards. It was easy to climb; the most beautiful ferns grew on it; the way went through the finest piece of bush; some of the trees were monsters, perfect giants of the forest; they were not likely to see such trees again if they missed this chance. Rain? It wouldn't, couldn't rain. Road bad? dry as a bone by this time; the hillside was so steep water ran off it at once. Steep? no; didn't mean that at all—quite easy; splendid path; a lame man might hobble up it. And at last he got them out of the house, and at last he got them on the hill, and better than all, secured Violet.

But of all the toils he had gone through this last day's work was the worst. He had never felt hotter in his life than when he helped Violet up the hill, with the sun's rays, so it seemed, striking perpendicularly on the back of his neck. And, of course, when a raging thirst possessed him water was nowhere to be found, and they had forgotten to bring any. He had said the path was easy, but this had been one of his little fictions; there was no path at all, and they had to walk through fern just high enough to scratch their faces. The farmer was annoyed by spider-webs on the tops of the fern, the threads of which were of extraordinary strength, and once or twice formed a net-work before his features. Violet's shoes were always coming untied or coming off. Nearly at the top they found a page 52 peach-tree which Mr. Langridge declared to be his salvation. The fruit, which was lying on the ground in heaps, was ripe and juicy, and served to assuage their thirst. He persuaded Violet that the view which was to be seen from under this peach-tree surpassed every other view for miles round. While she sketched he lay among the fern, with a pocket handkerchief over his face, one eye excepted; it was necessary to keep that on Violet lest she should escape, for which reason also he dared not go to sleep as he fain would have done. Mrs. Langridge and her daughters strolled to a place which, the farmer had said, beat the world for ferns. Where the other two persons went was a matter of no importance.

If the farmer had had the cunning of Machiavelli he could not have withdrawn the supernumeraries from the stage at a moment more opportune. He did not know this, though he had arranged for it, and his son had never even suspected that his parents concerned themselves in the least about his evident admiration for Miss Desmond. He had never noticed the clumsy manœuvring of his father, so absorbed had he been in his own thoughts. He had been blind to everything, and he had supposed others were as blind to the inferences which might naturally be drawn from his conduct. All the week he had been in a state of vacillation and irresolution. He would speak to her—no, he would not, had been the two resolves alternately adopted page 53 by him. On the last day he had made up his mind.

Could she have known of this resolve, and could she have known why the farmer was mounting guard over Violet, the calmness of the lady looking dreamily towards the distant hills would have been suddenly shaken. Perhaps the silence told her at last that the others had gone, for she turned her head, and found that the only person near was looking at her, not at the view, and had, as his guilty confusion seemed to say, been studying her countenance all the while.

‘We came here to see the view,’ she said quietly, as if she had noticed nothing strange in his manner, ‘and I must confess I have only made a pretence of looking at it. I have been too absent-minded.’

‘I haven't even pretended to look at it,’ said Stephen, ‘and I think it is the dreariest view I ever saw. I don't agree with my father in calling it beautiful. If you have been thinking of something else all the while, so have I.’

What he proceeded to say after this was doubtless the unfolding of those thoughts, but the listener was only puzzled by his incoherent and rambling sentences. She could not imagine what he meant by starting to depreciate himself in a very thorough and unflinching manner. When he began to speak of her in a different strain she was at first ashamed, then irritated, and finally, however calm she might be to outward view, angry. It all flashed upon her at once—the ridiculous pantomime of the last few page 54 days. She had smiled at the farmer's oddities when she had seen no purpose in them; she had thought little or nothing of Stephen's persistent attentions; but now she felt indignant—insulted; she was the last woman to brook such treatment.

It seemed to Stephen that he had been talking for a long while, and had not received the slightest encouragement. It became quite clear to him that he had said all he could; quite enough, if not too much. Still she would not speak.

‘Have I offended you?’ he asked, so timidly that she was constrained to pity his embarrassment. She even thought she was behaving unkindly, and that Mr. and Mrs. Langridge merited her displeasure more than this poor confused Stephen.

‘I would not have said a word,’ he continued, ‘if I had known it would be so displeasing to you.’

‘No, you have not offended me,’ she answered. ‘I have no right to be offended when you have only been trying to say the kindest things about me’—she could not repress a faint smile—‘I should rather thank you for what you have said. I was only thinking how I ought to answer you.’

‘Oh,’ he said quickly, ‘there is only one answer—I mean, only one I wish to hear. If you cannot give it, I would even rather you would say unkind things to me than study how to tell me politely, what I can guess from your manner—that I have been mistaken. I would rather you told me you disliked me—that you were angry with me.’

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‘I cannot give you that answer; but I am not going to say unkind things to you, Mr. Langridge,’ said the lady quietly. ‘That would be an ill return. I don't dislike you, so how could I say so? I have always liked you; we have been friends for a long while.’

‘Friends—yes!’ said Stephen. ‘I thought that word would be brought in to qualify the liking. I beg your pardon; I don't know what I am saying, I believe.’

There was silence again, and this permitted distant voices to be heard. First the voice of Violet. ‘I can't think where we left Maud, Mr. Langridge. I must show her this. So good of you! I'm sure you must have been tired with waiting while I finished it.’

‘Oh, they've gone down again, I believe,’ said the farmer, who believed nothing of the kind, and hoped he might be forgiven for the falsity.

‘Gone down? Hadn't I better run up and see? We left them not far from here.’

‘Oh, dear no, you're quite mistaken,’ said the farmer, putting up his head from amongst the scrub, and hastily drawing it back again when he saw two other heads in front of him. ‘Come back! Miss Palmer, we're going all wrong.’

‘But here is the place where we had lunch.’

‘Nothing of the kind; there are hundreds of places like this.’

‘Oh, dear!’ cried Violet, struggling to get up a page 56 steep place, ‘I'm slipping. Oh, Mr. Langridge, I'm going! Oh, I've lost my portfolio!’

‘Hold on a bit till I come,’ shouted Mr. Langridge, who just then was caught up by a mass of interlaced roots. ‘Never mind the portfolio, you're worth more than many portfolios. Dash it! I'm fast myself. Hallo! there goes my hat, spinning down at the rate of sixty miles an hour. Now then, take my hand. This comes of running away. I told you that wasn't the way.’

‘We ought to let them know we are here,’ said Maud. ‘They are going down, had we not better follow?’

‘I suppose so,’ answered Stephen. He did not speak again till they were half way down the hill. Then again he said, ‘I hope I haven't offended you.’

‘Oh no,’ she said, frankly. ‘But you will do as I wish in one thing, will you not?’

‘You know I will, if I can.’

‘Then let this be forgotten. We need not think of it again.’

‘That is just the one thing I can't promise,’ said Stephen bluntly. ‘How can I help thinking of it—perhaps speaking of it again? I mean to ask you again, because I shall not be able to prevent myself from hoping that sometime you may give me a different answer.’

‘I am sorry you should say that. I can never give you a different answer.’

They joined the others at this moment. Mrs. page 57 Langridge read the story of disappointment and failure in Stephen's face. The farmer's countenance fell visibly; he also knew something was wrong.

‘Steve's rejected,’ he whispered. ‘I can see it in his face.’

‘I've seen it already,’ Mrs. Langridge replied, ‘and I've seen it from the first. Let's be thankful no one knows how silly we've been; though it's just likely, Edward, from the outrageous way you've gone on in, that Violet Palmer has guessed everything, and if so, it's as good as advertised. You never will be guided by me.’

‘There, there, don't come down on me like a thousand of bricks!’ entreated her husband. ‘Spare a fellow! You women have no generosity; you'll trample on a man when he's down. I say, though,’ he suggested, and his face brightened, ‘perhaps it's only a little quarrel. Shall I put in a word for Steve?’

‘If you meddle, Edward,’ cried Mrs. Langridge, looking aghast at this proposal, ‘you will do your very worst for him. You're wandering, I believe.’

‘Why, whatever I propose, you say it won't do. I suppose you'd have me do nothing.’

‘I've always said so. Stephen isn't going to fancy, I hope, that there's only one woman in the world. He'll find some one else better suited to him, and, meanwhile, this little disappointment will do him a great deal of good. He had far better be thinking of Miss Desmond, and studying how to please her, page 58 than be just wrapped up in himself, only caring to get along easily. Let's go into the house, or somebody will begin to wonder why we are always putting our heads together.’

What was the matter with Violet that evening? No one could imagine. She seemed to be bubbling over with mirth. She had put on a dress she had kept for the last evening a dress of a pale creamy tint, on which here and there flashed a scarlet bow. She had the audacity to wear a scarlet flower in her light hair, which, however, only gleamed the brighter for the contrast. That she had some secret fund of amusement was very plain; her blue eyes were always sparkling, her face dimpling, and her lips curving, as if she would have liked to laugh, and dared not. Not until she and Maud were alone in their room could she indulge herself in this desire. Then almost instantly she was convulsed with laughter so infectious in its kind that Maud was obliged to follow her example. Violet continued to laugh, sometimes smothering her mirth, and then brushing out again, until her friend seemed displeased as well as surprised.

‘I know it's dreadfully rude; but I can't help it. I really can't,’ said Violet, brushing the tears from her eyes. ‘Of course, they have heard me all through this little house. They won't mind; no one expects me to be sensible. Maud, I must tell you.’

‘Is it worth telling?’

‘I don't know. Oh, you innocent creature! I page 59 wondered, I really wondered what it all meant. I wondered why good old Mr. Langridge was always leading me about, and why Mrs. Langridge was always giving me looks which smote me to the heart, and why that poor blighted Stephen—’

‘Violet!’ exclaimed the other, indignantly.

‘Oh, don't be angry; I won't say a word more. Yes, I will; only this, that it all burst upon me at once when I caught a word or two from something Mr. and Mrs. Langridge were saying. Don't you feel flattered? You ought to. I can't help laughing when I think of what a marplot I've been, and how hard those two ridiculous old people have worked. And when we were on that hill—oh, Maud, I feel as if I should choke!’

‘I wish you wouldn't talk like that, I won't listen to you any longer.’

‘I don't know why you need care. You are not going to appear in the character of Mrs. Stephen Langridge surely? Perhaps you haven't been asked yet? Maud, I feel so curious; do tell me?’

‘Oh, Violet, don't! Why do you ask such questions?’

‘Because I'm silly, I suppose. Don't be vexed,’—and Violet, with a sudden change from mockery to tenderness, affectionately kissed her friend. ‘I wonder at any one like Stephen Langridge having the presumption even to look at you. After all, Maud, some people wouldn't have been in such a hurry to page 60 send him away. He isn't so bad, you know. I have known worse persons.’

‘And I have, if you come to that,’ said Maud.

‘Worse-looking, for instance, and worse-tempered, and more stupid. And then he will be so very well off. If you had been poor, Maud, would you have done the same?’

‘Yes, why not?’

‘Why not? Any one can see you've never been poor. You can please yourself; you needn't marry any one unless you like. You don't know how it is with many girls. Suppose me as a poor girl, living in a small squalid house, with ever so many tiresome little brothers and sisters to look after, and suppose a rich someone comes to ask me if I'll leave it all behind and marry him. And I don't think of him. I think of having no more to do with the poverty and its little shifts and shams, with the cross children, with pinching and saving; so I say, “Most willingly, dear sir,” and I escape at once from it all, and every one thinks ever so much more of me, because I've done well for myself.’

‘Violet,’ said her companion, looking at her closely, ‘where did you learn to talk like that?’

‘In a school you never went to,’ quickly answered the girl, ‘and oh, how happy, how thankful you ought to be that you haven't my learning! Dear me! what am I thinking of?—you are too innocent to understand anything of this.’

‘No; tell me what you mean. Do you think page 61 I ought to be happy because I don't know what poverty is? Every one says riches don't bring happiness with them.’

‘Things that every one says aren't always true. Oh, Maud, you've often asked me how I could stay so long away from home. You've wondered perhaps why I've never had you there. You haven't seen my home. Oh, so dingy and—don't be shocked—so dirty! Everything wears out before we can replace it; nothing seems fresh and nice, even when it is new. You don't know how poor people live—how can you?—I mean people like ourselves; the very poor, who care for nothing so long as they get bread, are much happier. I don't know why I say all this, and am not ashamed to let you hear it.’

‘Dear Violet, don't be ashamed because I hear it. Why did you never tell me before? You know I am rich, and though I can't do as I should like with my money, for I am not supposed to have sense enough to take care of it, I have a large allowance, more than is necessary for myself alone. Don't be offended if I ask you to help me to spend it. We are almost sisters, or shall be some day.’

‘Yes, that is just like you, Maud. It's very well you can't do as you like with your money, for if you could you'd give it all away. You are too good; but, don't you see, no one can help us. Papa has no idea of keeping money or making it, and mamma has too many ideas about wasting and spending it. page 62 If you gave us a fortune we should soon be as bad as ever, and so it must go on as it is.’

‘But I don't believe in things going on as they are when they can be made better.’

‘Who is to make them better? You needn't be surprised again that I don't care to spend my holidays at home. Why, some of the children hardly know me. I'm not sure whether I know them all. Your mother must have loved you, Maud, because every one does; but mine was very pleased when I went away to school, and she will be glad when I leave home altogether. There is only papa, and I should like to take him somewhere away from the bosom of his family, which isn't at all a happy one. But what is there in all this to distress you?’

‘Very much. You have had all these unhappy things to think of, and I have never dreamed it. I have always thought you were as gay and careless as any bird.’

‘And so I am,’ said Violet lightly. ‘Oh, don't fancy I trouble myself about this. I've everything I want for myself; have you forgotten that I'm provided for? It's selfish, of course, but I can always be happy when I'm comfortable myself. It's dreadful at home, but I never fret about what goes on where I can't see it. If I had to live amongst it I should be miserable. It is so nice to have everything handsome and pleasant about one, just as you have it, Maud. Good furniture, large rooms, page 63 and nothing shabby or worn. When anything becomes a little passe you've only to get it new again; you've no need to contrive or consider the cost.’

‘Ah, that is a great aid to happiness, I suppose.’

‘I think so. You can't say you're unhappy because you have money.’

‘I unhappy! I have everything to make me happy. But as for my money’—there was a tone of scorn in her voice—no one need envy me that. It hardly seems to be mine. I did not earn it, and I can't use it. To be sure, every year I can buy myself as much as I like of useless things—no exception would be taken to that—but if I wished to do something that was of use, that would do good to others, but which needed a large sum of money, I could not do it, not with all my thousands. I have to go like a beggar to my trustee for what is my own; and I know too well I might ask in vain for money to use in such a way. Men who make fortunes must have some pleasure in spending them as they like, I suppose. I shall never have that pleasure from mine, and I shall never be able to do much good with it; it is just like so much wasted money locked up in a chest.’

‘But you know, Maud,’ said Violet playfully, ‘if you were to marry some one who would let you do just as you liked, then you could have your own way with the money. The trustee couldn't interfere then, could he?’

page 64

‘There would be no need for his interference. In that case I should have no money of my own at all.’

‘Why, you wouldn't lose it, surely?’

‘Yes; of course I never shall—’

‘Oh, of course!’ cried Violet, with a laugh.

‘But if I did I should lose my useless fortune altogether. It was given to me on a condition that was an insult to me!’ Her face flushed, and for a moment there was a suspicious brightness in her eyes.

‘How wicked! I understand; it was to prevent some one getting it. As if any one worth a thought, Maud, would care more for your fortune than yourself! But aren't we ridiculous?’ she ended, with a laugh, ‘one talking against poverty, the other against riches. Good night; we really ought to be asleep.’