mrs. merritt who had been housekeeper to the late canon blackrod and now let lodgings in a house of her own, was amiable, and by the possession of that quality was able to keep her curiosity within bounds: but it was her daughter polly, a devon maid of apple cheeks and sloe-black eyes, who taught her enthusiasm for her lodger. polly merritt adored the quiet and pretty young lady who, though she wore such beautiful clothes, gave herself none of the airs which were clearly within her rights; who would wash her own blouses, trim her own hats, or sit below-stairs chatting affably, while she trimmed one for polly herself. in such familiar intercourse all the necessary safeguards of landladies were proved to be secure. miss middleham, it seemed, was an orphan, by profession a teacher of languages, who had found it necessary to leave her london employment to escape a gentleman’s attentions. most reasonable, most proper. the gentleman was one indeed, highly connected, in fact, cousin of an honourable; but impecunious and not very steady. girls who are orphans must look after themselves: there had been nothing for it but flight. admirable forethought! nothing, certainly, but praise could be given to miss middleham for conduct so discreet.
“it’ll bring him round, miss, depend upon it,” mrs. merritt had considered. “it’ll make him look nine ways. as good as a slap in the face, any day.”
“better, i hope,” mary said.
“some of ’em wants one thing, some another, miss. let him know that you’re in earnest, whatever you do.”
“i am quite in earnest, mrs. merritt,” mary told her; “and i think i have made that plain.”
“did you tell him so, or write it, miss?” polly must ask. “writing’s better—but it’s dull work.”
“i have done both, polly. he doesn’t know where i am. i made it quite clear to him that he could not.”
mrs. merritt, having observed her guest, passed the back of her hand rapidly across her nose. “to be sure you could, miss. it’s easy to be seen that god almighty never gave you that pair of eyes for nothing. to call a man, or send him about his business—ah, i’ll warrant you.”
“poor fellow,” mused the tender polly. “i pity him.”
in private conversation afterwards mrs. merritt assured her daughter that she need not. we should have the young gentleman here before the swallows were away: let polly mark her words. our young lady was a snug young lady—that was a certainty. she was not a girl who would go without letters of a morning for long together. letters! that sort live on ’em, as a man on his eleven o’clock beer. no, no. she was used to company, any one could see. she was meant to be somebody’s darling. how else did she get her pretty ways—and why to goodness wear her pretty frocks, but for that? meantime, she had been used to the best, you could see; and she should have it here.
what mrs. merritt, however, did not know, and polly did know, was that another gentleman stood in the background. here lay the root of polly’s passionate interest in her friend: a constant appeal to her imagination and judgment and wonder. a gentleman was to be expected; there was always a gentleman. but two gentlemen! one more gentleman, and polly might have felt the responsibilities of paris. in fact, she did feel them as things were.
mary had come to exeter, meaning no more than a passage-bird’s rest there—a night or two, and away. her cottage at the land’s end, solitary vigil face to face with the sea and the rocks, tending of the hidden garden there, a waiting and watching—and a great reward: that had been her fixed intent. nothing seemed to be in the way. she was free as air: why should she wait?
it is very odd, though, how you cannot carry through these hot-blood thoughts in the cold blood. that momentary shyness which had come upon her in the train, when she had caught herself looking out for a remembered village-green and had been abashed, came upon her the moment she began to think of cornwall with a view to going there. she found herself trembling, found herself delaying, drawing back. had she been her old self, never sought and never mated, in this tremulous plight she had remained; but she had learned to face such difficulties, and did not shirk it. the more she thought of it the plainer it became that she could not have the cottage, could not sit down there and wait for senhouse. virgin as she was, and virginal as she was now become again, the picture of herself in such an attitude, and in such an act, filled her with shame. and if to picture it was dreadful, what would the day-long reality be but unendurable? but where, then, was her sense of comradeship, of perfect amity between him and her? she did not know. it was gone. and what would he—wondrous, clear-seeing friend—say to her for this prudery? that she did know: she could see him appeal for laughter to the skies. alas, it could not be helped. she was a maiden, therefore might be wooed. she was a maiden, therefore could not go a-wooing. so he and she might never meet again! better so—oh, infinitely better—than that they should meet by her act.
thus it was that polly merritt came to learn about the other gentleman. mary’s perplexities had been stated, and polly was thrilled.
“oh, miss! and he’s never spoken?”
“no,” said mary. “at least—not about that.”
“what was the nearest he ever got to?”
mary looked wise. “he told me to go away, once.”
“he did! why were you to go then?”
“because—oh, because he could see, i suppose, that i didn’t want to; and——”
“well?”
“because—i sometimes fancy—he didn’t want me to. at least, i think he didn’t. he said, ‘you had better go home. i’m a man, you know.’”
polly opened her eyes wide. “that’s as plain as my nose. i should think so! so, of course——”
“yes, of course i had to go.” she looked down at her toes, just as if senhouse had been standing above her, bidding her go.
“i dream sometimes,” she said, “that he comes to me in the night, and looks at me—never speaks, but just looks. not at me, you know, but through me—right through to the pillow. that’s enough. then he turns and goes away, and i follow him out of door, into the warm dark—and he turns sharply upon me and is dreadfully angry. i’ve never known him angry; but dreams are like that. i see his face quite changed—wild and cold at once, and terribly stern. and i run away into the empty house, and wish that i were dead. no, no. i could never bear that—to seek him and be spurned. i would sooner never see him again.”
polly was deeply moved, but practical. a girl must look ahead—far beyond dreams. “you had best not, miss,” she said, “if that’s likely to be the way of it. is he that sort—your hot-and-cold?”
“oh, i don’t know—how can i tell? that has never been between us, save that once, when he told me to go away. he’s a wonderful talker about all sorts of things; he can make them all extraordinary. i feel, after listening to him, that i understand all life, all experience. everything seems reasonable. but when it comes to—us—he won’t speak. i believe he can’t. and i understand him better when he doesn’t.”
“so would any one, i should think,” said polly merritt. “but how’s he going to look at you if he never sees you, and don’t know where you are?”
“ah,” said mary with far-sighted eyes, “i don’t know.”
“you might write to him, i suppose—and slip in your address, by accident like.”
mary shook her head. “i couldn’t. besides, he has no address. he just comes and goes—like the wind.”
“has he no house of his own?”
“no. he lives in a tent—in a cart.”
“what! like a gipsy? oh, miss!” this would never, never do.
but mary admitted it, thoughtfully. “yes. i think he might be a sort of gipsy.”
this, to polly, was final. “i do think you’re better here, miss middleham, if you’ll excuse me.”
“perhaps i am,” said mary.
polly had veered. “i’ll warrant the other gentleman would have a house to offer you.”
“oh, yes, i suppose so. but——”
“ah, that’s just it—that’s just it.”
mary admitted it. “i suppose it is. but he says that he will never marry. he doesn’t believe in marriage.”
“ho, indeed!” cried polly. “then pray what does he believe in?”
“i don’t know. i’m not sure.”
polly tossed her young head. “it wouldn’t take long for me to be sure.”
then mary showed her face, and her eyes shone clear. “i am sure of this, that if he called me i should follow him over the world, however he chose me to be. but i know he never will. he is unlike anybody else—he comes and goes like the wind.”
“let him, for me,” said polly, “’specially when he’s going.”
the summer waned and fainted; autumn mists crept about, and found her still in exeter. pupils came slowly, but she got one or two, and there was promise of more. the vicar of the parish helped her. she taught in his sunday school, did him some visiting, danced with his boys and sang with his girls. through him she got an engagement in september, in a young ladies’ academy—to teach italian two days a week. she got to know a few people. there was a gentlemanly young man called bloxam, who escorted her home from choral evenings; then there was a curate—quod semper, quod ubique—who lent her books and professed himself ready to discuss them afterwards, by correspondence or otherwise.
these things faintly amused her; the simplicity of such devices, for instance, the little buildings-up of the little architects! she felt herself, ruefully, slipping back into the parochial, losing touch with her wide horizons. the tonic properties of freedom, which at first had been as delightful as the mere ease of it, were now staling by use. she began to find herself grow dull. the one fact upon which she could build was that she was again earning her living.
