Robin made a quick stride towards her.
“Go out of this place!” he said, fiercely— “How dare you come here with such lies!”
He stopped, half choked with rage.
Jenny looked at him and laughed — then snapped her fingers in his face.
“Lies, is it?” she said— “Well, lies make good crops, an’ Farmer Jocelyn’s money’ll ‘elp them to grow! Lies, indeed! An’ how dare I come here? Why, because your old uncle is stiff an’ cold an’ can’t speak no more — an’ no one would know what ‘ad become o’ Ned Landon if I wasn’t here to tell them an’ show his own letter! I’ll tell them all, right enough! — you bet your life I will!”
She turned her back on him and began to walk, or rather slouch, out of the garden. He went up close to her, his face white with passion.
“If you say one word about Miss Jocelyn—” he began.
“Miss Jocelyn!” she exclaimed, shrilly— “That’s good! — we ARE grand!” — and she dropped him a mock curtsey— “Miss Jocelyn! There ain’t no ‘Miss Jocelyn,’ an’ you know it as well as I do! So don’t try to fool ME! Look here, Mr. Robin Clifford” — and she confronted him, with arms akimbo— “you’re not a Jocelyn neither! — there’s not a Jocelyn left o’ the old stock — they’re all finished with the one lyin’ dead upstairs yonder — and I’ll tell ye what! — you an’ your ‘innocent’ are too ‘igh an’ mighty altogether for the likes o’ we poor villagers — seein’ ye ain’t got nothin’ to boast of, neither of ye! You’ve lost me my man — an’ I’ll let everyone know how an’ why!”
With that she went, banging the gate after her — and Clifford stood inert, furious within himself, yet powerless to do anything save silently endure the taunts she had flung at him. He could have cursed himself for the folly he had been guilty of in telling his uncle about the fight between him and Landon — for he saw now that the old man had secretly worried over the possible harm that might be done to Innocent through Landon’s knowledge of her real story, which he had learned through his spying and listening. Whatever that harm could be, was now intensified — and scandal, beginning as a mere whispered suggestion, would increase to loud and positive assertion ere long.
“Poor Uncle Hugo!” and the young man looked up sorrowfully at the darkened windows of the room where lay in still and stern repose all that was mortal of the last of the Jocelyns— “What a mistake you have made! You meant so well! — you thought you were doing a wise thing in sending Landon away — and at such a cost! — but you did not know what he had left behind him — Jenny of the Mill-Dykes, whose wicked tongue would blacken an angel’s reputation!”
A hand touched him lightly on the arm from behind. He turned swiftly round and confronted Innocent — she stood like a little figure of white porcelain, holding her dove against her breast.
“Poor Robin!” she said, softly— “Don’t worry! I heard everything.”
He stared down upon her.
“You heard — ?”
“Yes. I was at the open window there — I couldn’t help hearing. It was Jenny of the Mill-Dykes — I know her by sight, but not to speak to — Priscilla told me something about her. She isn’t a nice woman, is she?”
“Nice?” Robin gasped— “No, indeed! She is — Well! — I must not tell you what she is!”
“No! — you must not — I don’t want to hear. But she ought to be Ned Landon’s wife — I understood that! — and she has a little child. I understood that too. And she knows everything about me — and about that night when you climbed up on my window-sill and sat there so long. It was a pity you did that, wasn’t it?”
“Yes! — when there was a dirty spy in hiding!” said Robin, hotly.
“Ah! — we never imagined such a thing could be on Briar Farm!” — and she sighed— “but it can’t be helped now. Poor darling Dad! He parted with all that money to get rid of the man he thought would do me wrong. Oh Robin, he loved me!”
The tears gathered in her eyes and fell slowly like bright raindrops on the downy feathers of the dove she held.
“He loved you, and I love you!” murmured Robin, tenderly. “Dear little girl, come indoors and don’t cry any more! Your sweet eyes will be spoilt, and Uncle Hugo could never bear to see you weeping. All the tears in the world won’t bring him back to us here, — but we can do our best to please him still, so that if his spirit has ever been troubled, it can be at peace. Come in and let us talk quietly together — we must look at things squarely and straightly, and we must try to do all the things he would have wished—”
“All except one thing,” she said, as they went together side by side into the house— “the one thing that can never be!”
“The one thing — the chief thing that shall be!” answered Robin, fiercely— “Innocent, you must be my wife!”
She lifted her tear-wet eyes to his with a grave and piteous appeal which smote him to the heart by its intense helplessness and sorrow.
“Robin, — dear Robin!” she said— “Don’t make it harder for me than it is! Think for a moment! I am nameless — a poor, unbaptised, deserted creature who was flung on your uncle’s charity eighteen years ago — I am a stranger and intruder in this old historic place — I have no right to be here at all — only through your uncle’s kindness and yours. And now things have happened so cruelly for me that I am supposed to be to you — what I am not,” — and the deep colour flushed her cheeks and brow. “I have somehow — through no fault of my own — lost my name! — though I had no name to lose — except Innocent! — which, as the clergyman told me, is no name for a woman. Do you not see that if I married you, people would say it was because you were compelled to marry me? — that you had gone too far to escape from me? — that, in fact, we were a sort of copy of Ned Landon and Jenny of the Mill-Dykes?”
“Innocent!”
He uttered the name in a tone of indignant and despairing protest. They were in the oak parlour together, and she went slowly to the window and let her pet dove fly.
“Ah, yes! Innocent!” she repeated, sadly— “But you must let me go, Robin! — just as I have let my dove fly, so you must let me fly also — far, far away!”
CHAPTER IX
No more impressive scene was ever witnessed in a country village than the funeral of “the last of the Jocelyns,” — impressive in its solemnity, simplicity and lack of needless ceremonial. The coffin, containing all that was mortal of the sturdy, straightforward farmer, whose “old-world” ways of work and upright dealing with his men had for so long been the wonder and envy of the district, was placed in a low waggon and covered with a curiously wrought, handwoven purple cloth embroidered with the arms of the French knight “Amadis de Jocelin,” tradition asserting that this cloth had served as a pall for every male Jocelyn since his time. The waggon was drawn by four glossy dark brown cart-horses, each animal having known its master as a friend whose call it was accustomed to obey, following him wherever he went. On the coffin itself was laid a simple wreath of the “Glory” roses gathered from the porch and walls of Briar Farm, and offered, as pencilled faintly on a little scroll— “With a life’s love and sorrow from Innocent.” A long train of mourners, including labourers, farm-lads, shepherds, cowherds, stable-men and villagers generally, followed the corpse to the grave, — Robin Clifford, as chief mourner and next-of-kin to the dead man, walking behind the waggon with head down-bent and a face on which intense grief had stamped such an impress as to make it look far older than his years warranted. Groups of women stood about, watching the procession with hard eager eyes, and tongues held in check for a while, only to wag more vigorously than ever when the ceremony should be over. Innocent, dressed in deep black for the first time in her life, went by herself to the churchyard, avoiding the crowd — and, hidden away among concealing shadows, she heard the service and watched all the proceedings dry-eyed and heart-stricken. She could not weep any more — there seemed no tears left to relieve the weight of her burning brain. Robin had tend
erly urged her to walk with him in the funeral procession, but she refused.
“How can I! — how dare I!” she said— “I am not his daughter — I am nothing! The cruel people here know it! — and they would only say my presence was an insult to the dead. Yes! — they would — NOW! He loved me! — and I loved him! — but nobody outside ourselves thinks about that, or cares. You would hardly believe it, but I have already been told how wicked it was of me to be dressed in white when the clergyman called to see me the morning after Dad’s death — well, I had no other colour to wear till Priscilla got me this sad black gown — it made me shudder to put it on — it is like the darkness itself! — you know Dad always made me wear white — and I feel as if I were vexing him somehow by wearing black. Oh, Robin, be kind! — you always are! — let me go by myself and watch Dad put to rest where nobody can see me. For after they have laid him down and left him, they will be talking!”
She was right enough in this surmise. Not one who saw Farmer Jocelyn’s coffin lowered into the grave failed to notice the wreath of “Glory” roses that went with it— “from Innocent”; — and her name was whispered from mouth to mouth with meaning looks and suggestive nods. And when Robin, with tears thick in his eyes, flung the first handfuls of earth rattling down on the coffin lid, his heart ached to see the lovely fragrant blossoms crushed under the heavy scattered mould, for it seemed to his foreboding mind that they were like the delicate thoughts and fancies of the girl he loved being covered by the soiling mud of the world’s cruelty and slander, and killed in the cold and darkness of a sunless solitude.
All was over at last, — the final prayer was said — the final benediction was spoken, and the mourners gradually dispersed. The Reverend Mr. Medwin, assisted by his young curate, had performed the ceremony, and before retiring to the vestry to take off his surplice, he paused by the newly-made grave to offer his hand and utter suitable condolences to Robin Clifford.
“It is a great and trying change for you,” he said. “I suppose” — this tentatively— “I suppose you will go on with the farm?”
“As long as I live,” answered Clifford, looking him steadily in the face, “Briar Farm will be what it has always been.”
Mr. Medwin gave him a little appreciative bow.
“We are very glad of that — very glad indeed!” he said— “Briar Farm is a great feature — a very great feature! — indeed, one may say it is an historical possession. Something would be lacking in the neighbourhood if it were not kept up to its old tradition and — er — reputation. I think we feel that — I think we feel it, do we not, Mr. Forwood?” here turning to his curate with affable condescension.
Mark Forwood, a clever-looking young man with kind eyes and intelligent features, looked at Robin sympathetically.
“I am quite sure,” he said, “that Mr. Clifford will take as much pride in the fine old place as his uncle did — but is there not Miss Jocelyn? — the daughter will probably inherit the farm, will she not, as nearest of kin?”
Mr. Medwin coughed obtrusively — and Clifford felt the warm blood rushing to his brows. Yet he resolved that the truth should be told, for the honour of the dead man’s name.
“She is not my uncle’s daughter,” he said, quietly— “My uncle never married. He adopted her when she was an infant — and she was as dear to him as if she had been his own child. Of course she will be amply provided for — there can be no doubt of that.”
Mr. Forwood raised his eyes and eyebrows together.
“You surprise me!” he murmured. “Then — there is no Miss Jocelyn?”
Again Robin coloured. But he answered, composedly —
“There is no Miss Jocelyn.”
Mr. Medwin’s cough here troubled him considerably, and though it was a fine day, he expressed a mild fear that he was standing too long by the open grave in his surplice — he, therefore, retired, his curate following him, — whereupon the sexton, a well-known character in the village, approached to finish the sad task of committing “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
“Eh, Mr. Clifford,” remarked this worthy, as he stuck his spade down in the heaped-up earth and leaned upon it,— “it’s a black day, forbye the summer sun! I never thort I’d a’ thrown the mouls on the last Jocelyn. For last he is, an’ there’ll never be another like ’im!”
“You’re right there, Wixton,” said Robin, sadly— “I know the place can never be the same without him. I shall do my best — but—”
“Ay, ye’ll do your best,” agreed Wixton, with a foreboding shake of his grizzled head— “but you’re not a Jocelyn, an’ your best’ll be but a bad crutch, though there’s Jocelyn blood in ye by ye’r mother’s side. Howsomever it’s not the same as the male line, do what we will an’ say what we like! It’s not your fault, no, lad!” — this with a pitying look— “an’ no one’s blamin’ ye for what can’t be ‘elped — but it’s not a thing to be gotten over.”
Robin’s grave nod of acquiescence was more eloquent than speech.
Wixton dug his spade a little deeper into the pile of earth.
“If Farmer Jocelyn ‘ad been a marryin’ man, why, that would a’ been the right thing,” he went on— “He might a’ had a fine strappin’ son to come arter ’im, a real born-an’-bred Jocelyn—”
Robin listened with acute interest. Why did not Wixton mention Innocent? Did he know she was not a Jocelyn? He waited, and Wixton went on —
“But, ye see, ’e wouldn’t have none o’ that. An’ he took the little gel as was left with ’im the night o’ the great storm nigh eighteen years ago that blew down three of our biggest elms in the church-yard—”
“Did you know?” exclaimed Clifford, eagerly— “Did you see — ?”
“I saw a man on ‘orseback ride up to Briar Farm, ‘oldin’ a baby in front o’ him with one hand, and the reins in t’other — an’ he came out from the farm without the baby. Then one mornin’ when Farmer Jocelyn was a-walkin’ with the baby in the fields I said to ’im, secret-like— ‘That ain’t your child!’ an’ he sez— ‘Ow do you know it ain’t?’ An’ I sez—’ Because I saw it come with a stranger’ — an’ he laughed an’ said— ‘It may be mine for all that!’ But I knew it worn’t! A nice little girl she is too, — Miss Innocent — poor soul! I’m downright sorry for ‘er, for she ain’t got many friends in this village.”
“Why?” Robin asked, half mechanically.
“Why? Well, she’s a bit too dainty — like in ‘er ways for one thing — then there’s gels who are arter YOU, Mister Clifford! — ay, ay, ye know they are! — sharp ‘ussies, all of ’em! — an’ they can’t abide ‘ER, for they thinks you’re a-goin’ to marry ‘er! — Lord forgive me that I should be chitterin’ ’ere about marryin’ over a buryin’! — but that’s the trouble — an’ it’s the trouble all the world over, wimmin wantin’ a man, an’ mad for their lives when they thinks another woman’s arter ’im! Eh, eh! We should all get along better if there worn’t no wimmin jealousies, but bein’ men we’ve got to put up with ’em. Are ye goin’ now, Mister? — Well, the Lord love ye an’ comfort ye! — ye’ll never meet a finer man this side the next world than the one I’m puttin’ a cold quilt on!”
Silently Clifford turned away, heavy-hearted and lost in perplexed thought. What was best to be done for Innocent? This was the chief question that presented itself to his mind. He could no longer deny the fact that her position was difficult — almost untenable. Nameless, and seemingly deserted by her kindred, if any such kindred still existed, she was absolutely alone in life, now that Hugo Jocelyn was no more. As he realised this to its fullest intensity, the deeper and more passionate grew his love for her.
“If she would only marry me!” he said under his breath, as he walked home slowly from the church-yard— “It was Uncle Hugo’s last wish!”
Then across his brain flashed the memory of Ned Landon and his malignant intention — born of baffled desire and fierce jealousy — to tarnish the fair name of the girl he coveted, —
then, his uncle’s quixotic and costly way of ridding himself of such an enemy at any price. He understood now old Jocelyn’s talk of his “bargain” on the last night of his life,-and what a futile bargain it was, after all! — for was not Jenny of the Mill-Dykes fully informed of the reason why the bargain was made? — and she, the vilest-tongued woman in the whole neighbourhood, would take delight in spreading the story far and wide. Five Hundred Pounds paid down as “hush-money”! — so she would report it — thus, even if he married Innocent it would be under the shadow of a slur and slander. What was wisest to do under the circumstances he could not decide — and he entered the smiling garden of Briar Farm with the saddest expression on his face that anyone had ever seen there. Priscilla met him as he came towards the house.
“I thought ye’d never git here, Mister Robin,” she said, anxiously— “Ye haven’t forgot there’s folks in the hall ‘avin’ their ‘wake’ feed an’ they’ll be wantin’ to speak wi’ ye presently. Mister Bayliss, which is ye’r uncle’s lawyer, ’e wants to see ye mighty partikler, an’ there ain’t no one to say nothin’ to ’em, for the dear little Innocent, she’s come back from the cold churchyard like a little image o’ marble, an’ she’s gone an’ shut ‘erself up in ‘er own room, sayin’ ‘Ask Mister Robin to excuse me’ — poor child! — she’s fair wore out, that she is! An’ you come into the big ‘all where there’s the meat and the wine laid out, for funeral folk eats more than weddin’ folk, bein’ longer about it an’ a bit solemner in gettin’ of it down.”
Robin looked at her with strained, haggard eyes.
“Priscilla,” he said, huskily— “Death is a horrible thing!”
“Ay, that it is!” and Priscilla wiped the teardrops off her cheeks with a corner of her apron— “An’ I’ve often thought it seems a silly kind o’ business to bring us into the world at all for no special reason ‘cept to take us out of it again just as folks ‘ave learned to know us a bit and find us useful. Howsomever, there’s no arguin’ wi’ the Almighty, an’ p’raps it’s us as makes the worst o’ death instead o’ the best of it. Now you go into the great hall, Mr. Robin — you’re wanted there.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 808