“I tell you a girl likes being made a victim of in this particular kind of way. They’re much less fastidious, when it comes to the point, than we are. As a matter of fact what does trouble them is being married to a man they really have a passion for. Then, jealousy bites through their soft flesh like Cleopatra’s serpent, and all sorts of wild ideas get into their heads. It’s not natural, Luke, it’s not natural, for girls to marry persons they love! That’s why we country dogs treat the whole thing as a lewd jest.
“Do you think these honest couples who stand giggling and smirking before our dear clergyman every quarter, don’t hate one another in their hearts? Of course they do; it wouldn’t be nature if they didn’t! But that doesn’t say they don’t get their pleasure out of it. And Lacrima’ll get her pleasure, in some mad roundabout fashion, from marrying Goring, — you may take my word for that!”
“It seems to me,” remarked Luke slowly, “that you’re trying all this time to quiet your conscience. I believe you’ve really got far more conscience, Maurice, than I have. It’s your conscience that makes you speak so loud, at this very moment!”
Mr. Quincunx got up on his feet and stroked his beard. “I’m afraid I’ve annoyed you somehow,” he remarked. “No person ever speaks of another person’s conscience unless he’s in a rage with him.”
The stone-carver stretched out his legs and lit a cigarette. “Sit down again, you old fool,” he said, “and let’s talk this business over sensibly.”
The recluse sighed deeply, and, subsiding into his former position, fixed a look of hopeless melancholy upon the sunlit landscape.
“The point is this, Maurice,” began the young man. “The first thing in these complicated situations is to be absolutely certain what one wants oneself. It seems to me that a good deal of your agitation comes from the fact that you haven’t made up your mind what you want. You asked my advice, you know, so you won’t be angry if I’m quite plain with you?”
“Go on,” said Mr. Quincunx, a remote flicker of his goblin-smile twitching his nostrils, “I see I’m in for a few little hits.”
Luke waved his hand. “No hits, my friend, no hits. All I want to do, is to find out from you what you really feel. One philosophizes, naturally, about girls marrying, and so on; but the point is, — do you want this particular young lady for yourself, or don’t you?”
Mr. Quincunx stroked his beard. “Well,”—he said meditatively, “if it comes to that, I suppose I do want her. We’re all fools in some way or other, I fancy. Yes, I do want her, Luke, and that’s the honest truth. But I don’t want to have to work twice as hard as I’m doing now, and under still more unpleasant conditions, to keep her!”
Luke emitted a puff of smoke and knocked the ashes from his cigarette upon the purple head of a tall knapweed.
“Ah!” he ejaculated. “Now we’ve got something to go upon.”
Mr. Quincunx surveyed the faun-like profile of his friend with some apprehension. He mentally resolved that nothing, — nothing in heaven nor earth, — should put him to the agitation of making any drastic change in his life.
“We get back then,” continued Luke, “to the point we reached on our walk to Seven Ashes.”
As he said the words “Seven Ashes” the ice-cold finger of memory pierced him with that sudden stab which is like a physical blow. What did it matter, after all, he thought, what happened to any of these people, now Daddy James was dead?
“You remember,” he went on, while the sorrowful grey eyes of his companion regarded him with wistful anxiety, “you told me, in that walk, that if some imaginary person were to leave you money enough to live comfortably, you would marry Lacrima without any hesitation?”
Mr. Quincunx nodded.
“Well,”—Luke continued—“in return for your confession about that contract, I’ll confess to you that Mr. Taxater and I formed a plan together, when my brother first got ill, to secure you this money.”
Mr. Quincunx made a grimace of astonishment.
“The plan has lapsed now,” went on Luke, “owing to Mr. Taxater’s being away; but I can’t help feeling that something of that kind might be done. I feel in a queer sort of fashion,” he added, “though I can’t quite tell you why, that, after all, things’ all so work themselves out, that you will get both the girl and the money!”
Mr. Quincunx burst into a fit of hilarious merriment, and rubbed his hands together. But a moment later his face clouded.
“It’s impossible,” he murmured with a deep sigh; “it’s impossible, Luke. Girls and gold go together like butterflies and sunshine. I’m as far from either, as the sea-weed under the arch of Weymouth Bridge.”
Luke pondered for a moment in silence.
“It’s an absurd superstition,” he finally remarked, “but I can’t help a sort of feeling that James’ spirit is actively exerting itself on your side. He was a romantic old truepenny, and his last thoughts were all fixed — of that I’m sure — upon Lacrima’s escaping this marriage with Goring.”
Mr. Quincunx sighed. He had vaguely imagined the possibility of some grand diplomatic stroke on his behalf, from the astute Luke; and this relapse into mysticism, on the part of that sworn materialist, did not strike him as reassuring.
The silence that fell between them was broken by the sudden appearance of a figure familiar to them both, crossing the field towards them. It was Witch-Bessie, who, in a bright new shawl, and with a mysterious packet clutched in her hand, was beckoning to attract their attention. The men rose and advanced to meet her.
“I’ll sit down a bit with ’ee,” cried the old woman, waving to them to return to their former position.
When they were seated once more beneath the bank, — the old lady, like some strange Peruvian idol, resting cross-legged at their feet, — she began, without further delay, to explain the cause of her visit.
“I know’d how ’twould be with ’ee,” she said, addressing Luke, but turning a not unfriendly eye upon his companion. “I did know well how ’twould be. I hear’d tell of brother’s being laid out, from Bert Leerd, as I traipsed through Wild Pine this morning.
“Ninsy Lintot was a-cryin’ enough to break her poor heart. I hear’d ’un as I doddered down yon lane. She were all lonesome-like, under them girt trees, shakin’ and sobbin’ terrible. She took on so, when I arst what ailed ’un, that I dursn’t lay finger on the lass.
“She did right down scare I, Master Luke, and that’s God’s holy truth!’ Let me bide, Bessie,’ says she, ‘let me bide.’ I telled her ’twas a sin to He she loved best, to carry on so hopeless; and with that she up and says, — ‘I be the cause of it all, Bessie,’ says she, ‘I be the cause he throw’d ’isself away.’ And with that she set herself cryin’ again, like as ’twas pitiful to hear. ‘My darlin’, my darlin’,’ she kept callin’ out. ‘I love no soul ‘cept thee — no soul ‘cept thee!’
“’Twas then I recollected wot my old Mother used to say,’ bout maids who be cryin’ like pantin’ hares. ‘Listen to me, Ninsy Lintot,’ I says, solemn and slow, like as us were in church. ‘One above’s been talking wi’ I, this blessed morn, and He do say as Master James be in Abram’s Bosom, with them shining ones, and it be shame and sin for mortals like we to wish ’un back.’
“That quieted the lass a bit, and I did tell she then, wot be God’s truth, that ’tweren’t her at all turned brother’s head, but the pleasure of the Almighty.” Tis for folks like us,’ I says to her, ‘to take wot His will do send, and bide quiet and still, same as cows, drove to barton.’