“DEAR ROBIN,” — it ran— “I have left this beloved home. It is impossible for me to stay. Dad left me some money in bank-notes in that sealed letter — so I want for nothing. Do not be anxious or unhappy — but marry soon and forget me. I know you will always be good to Priscilla — tell her I am not ungrateful to her for all her care of me. I love her dearly. But I am placed in the world unfortunately, and I must do something that will help me out of the shame of being a burden on others and an object of pity or contempt. If you will keep the old books Dad gave me, and still call them mine, you will be doing me a great kindness. And will you take care of Cupid? — he is quite a clever bird and knows his friends. He will come to you or Priscilla as easily as he comes to me. Good-bye, you dear, kind boy! I love you very much, but not as you want me to love you, — and I should only make you miserable if I stayed here and married you. God bless you! “INNOCENT.”
She put this in an envelope and addressed it, — then making sure that everything was ready, she took a few sovereigns from the little pile of housekeeping money which Priscilla always brought to her to count over every week and compare with the household expenses.
“I can return these when I change one of Dad’s bank-notes,” she said to herself— “but I must have something smaller to pay my way with just now than a hundred pounds.”
Indeed the notes Hugo Jocelyn had left for her might have given her some little trouble and embarrassment, but she did not pause to consider difficulties. When a human creature resolves to dare and to do, no impediment, real or imaginary, is allowed to stand long in the way. An impulse pushes the soul forward, be it ever so reluctantly — the impulse is sometimes from heaven and sometimes from hell — but as long as it is active and peremptory, it is obeyed blindly and to the full.
This little ignorant and unworldly girl passed the rest of the night in tidying the beloved room where she had spent so many happy hours, and setting everything in order, — talking in whispers between whiles to the ghostly presence of the “Sieur Amadis” as to a friend who knew her difficult plight and guessed her intentions.
“You see,” she said, softly, “there is no way out of it. It is not as if I were anybody — I am nobody! I was never wanted in the world at all. I have no name. I have never been baptised. And though I know now that I have a mother, I feel that she is nothing to me. I can hardly believe she is my mother. She is a lady of fashion with a secret — and I am the secret! I ought to be put away and buried and forgotten! — that would be safest for her, and perhaps best for me! But I should like to live long enough to make her wish she had been true to my father and had owned me as his child! Ah, such dreams! Will they ever come true!”
She paused, looking up by the dim candle-light at the arms of the
“Sieur Amadis” — who “Here seekinge Forgetfulnesse did here fynde
Peace” — and at the motto “Mon coeur me soutien.”
“Poor ‘Sieur Amadis!’” she murmured— “He sought forgetfulness! — shall I ever do the same? How strange it will be not to WISH to remember! — surely one must be very old, or sad, to find gladness in forgetting!”
A faint little thrill of dread ran through her slight frame — thoughts began to oppress her and shake her courage — she resolutely put them away and bent herself to the practical side of action. Re-attiring herself in the plain black dress and hat which Priscilla had got for her mourning garb, she waited patiently for the first peep of daylight — a daylight which was little more than darkness — and then, taking her satchel, she crept softly out of her room, never once looking back. There was nothing to stay her progress, for the great mastiff Hero, since Hugo Jocelyn’s death, had taken to such dismal howling that it had been found necessary to keep him away from the house in, a far-off shed where his melancholy plaints could not be heard. Treading with light, soundless footsteps down the stairs, she reached the front-door, — unbarred and unlocked it without any noise, and as softly closed it behind her, — then she stood in the open, shivering slightly in the sweet coldness of the coming dawn, and inhaling the fragrance of awakening unseen flowers. She knew of a gap in the hedge by means of which she could leave the garden without opening the big farm-gate which moved on rather creaking hinges — and she took this way over a couple of rough stepping-stones. Once out on the old by-road she paused. Briar Farm looked like a house in a dream — there was not enough daylight yet to show its gables distinctly, and it was more like the shadowy suggestion of a building than any actual substance. Yet there was something solemn and impressive in its scarcely defined outline — to the girl’s sensitive imagination it was like the darkened and disappearing vision of her youth and happiness, — a curtain falling, as it were, between the past and the future like a drop-scene in a play.
“Good-bye, Briar Farm!” she whispered, kissing her hand to the quaintly peaked roof just dimly perceptible— “Good-bye, dear, beloved home! I shall never forget you! I shall never see anything like you! Good-bye, peace and safety! — good-bye!”
The tears rushed to her eyes, and for the moment blinded her, — then, overcoming this weakness, she set herself to walk quickly and steadily away. Up the old by-road, through the darkness of the overhanging trees, here and there crossed by pale wandering gleams of fitful light from the nearing dawn, she moved swiftly, treading with noiseless footsteps as though she thought the unseen spirits of wood and field might hear and interrupt her progress — and in a few minutes she found herself upon the broad highway branching right and left and leading in either direction to the wider world. Briar Farm had disappeared behind the trees, — it was as though no such place existed, so deeply was it hidden.
She stopped, considering. She was not sure which was the way to the nearest railway-station some eight miles distant. She was prepared to walk it, but feared to take the wrong road, for she instinctively felt that if she had to endure any unexpected delay, some one from Briar Farm would be sent to trace her and find out where she went. While she thus hesitated, she heard the heavy rumbling of slow cart-wheels, and waited to see what sort of vehicle might be approaching. It was a large waggon drawn by two ponderous horses and driven by a man who, dimly perceived by the light of the lantern fastened in front of him, appeared to be asleep. Innocent hailed him — and after one or two efforts succeeded at last in rousing his attention.
“Which is the way to the railway-station?” she asked.
The man blinked drowsily at her.
“Railway-station, is it? I be a-goin’ there now to fetch a load o’ nitrates. Are ye wantin’ to git?”
“Wantin’ to git” was a country phrase to which Innocent was well accustomed. She answered, gently —
“Yes. I should be so glad if you’d give me a lift — I’ll pay you for it.
I have to catch the first train to London.”
“Lunnon? Quiet, ye rascals!” — this to the sturdy horses who were dragging away at their shafts in stolid determination to move on— “Lunnon’s a good way off! Ever bin there?”
“No.”
“Nor I, nayther. Seekin’ service?”
“Yes.”
“Wal, ye can ride along wi’ me, if so be ye likes it — we be goin’ main slow, but we’ll be there before first engine. Climb up! — that’s right! ‘Ere’s a corner beside me — ye could sit in the waggon if ye liked, but it’s ‘ard as nails. ‘Ere’s a bit of ‘oss-cloth for a cushion.”
The girl sprang up as he bade her and was soon seated.
“Ye’re a light ‘un an’ a little ‘un, an’ a young ‘un,” he said, with a chuckle— “an’ what ye’re doin’ all alone i’ the wake o’ the marnin’ is more than yer own mother knows, I bet!”
“I have no mother,” she said.
“Eh, eh! That’s bad — that’s bad! Yet for all that there’s bad mothers wot’s worse than none. Git on wi’ ye!” — this in a stentorian voice to the horses, accompanied by a sounding crack of the whip. “Git on!”
The big strong creatures tugged
at the shafts and obeyed, their hoofs making a noisy clatter in the silence of the dawn. The daylight was beginning to declare itself more openly, and away to the east, just above a line of dark trees, the sky showed pale suggestions of amber and of rose. Innocent sat very silent; she was almost afraid of the coming light lest by chance the man beside her should ever have seen her before and recognise her. His sleep having been broken, he was disposed to be garrulous.
“Ever bin by train afore?” he asked.
“No.”
“No! Eh, that’s mighty cur’ous. A’most everyone goes somewhere by train nowadays — there’s such a sight o’ cheap ‘scursions. I know a man wot got up i’ the middle o’ night, ’e did, an’ more fool ’e! — an’ off ’e goes by train down to seaside for the day— ‘e’d never seen the sea before an’ it giv’ ’im such a scare as ’e ain’t got over it yet. ’E said there was such a sight o’ wobblin’ water that ’e thort it ‘ud wobble off altogether an’ wash away all the land and ’im with it. Ay, ay! ’e was main scared with ’is cheap ‘scursion!”
“I’ve never seen the sea,” said Innocent then, in a low clear tone— “but I’ve read about it — and I think I know what it is like. It is always changing, — it is full of beautiful colours, blue and green, and grey and violet — and it has great waves edged with white foam! — oh yes! — the poets write about it, and I have often seen it in my dreams.”
The dawning light in the sky deepened — and the waggoner turned his head to look more closely at his girl-companion.
“Ye talks mighty strange!” he said— “a’most as if ye’d been eddicated up to it. I ain’t been eddicated, an’ I’ve no notions above my betters, but ye may be right about the sea — if ye’ve read about it, though the papers is mostly lies, if ye asks me, telling ye one thing one day an’ another to-morrow—”
“I don’t read the papers” — and Innocent smiled a little as in the widening light she began to see the stolid, stupid, but good-natured face of the man— “I don’t understand them. I’ve read about the sea in books, — books of poetry.”
He uttered a sound between a whistle and a grunt.
“Books of poetry! An’ ye’re goin’ to seek service in Lunnon? Take my word for’t, my gel, they won’t want any folks there wi’ sort o’ gammon like that in their ‘eds — they’re all on the make there, an’ they don’t care for nothin’ ‘cept money an’ ‘ow to grab it. I ain’t bin there, but I’ve heerd a good deal.”
“You may have heard wrong,” said Innocent, gathering more courage as she realised that the light was now quite clear enough for him to see her features distinctly and that it was evident he did not know her— “London is such a large place that there must be all sorts in it — good as well as bad — they can’t all be greedy for money. There must be people who think beautiful things, and do beautiful work—”
“Oh, there’s plenty o’ work done there” — and the waggoner flicked his long whip against the sturdy flanks of his labouring horses— “I ain’t denyin’ that. An’ YOU’ll ‘ave to work, my gel! — you bet! you’ll ‘ave to wash down steps an’ sweep kitchens a good while afore you gits into the way of it! Why not take a service in the country?”
“I’m a little tired of the country,” she answered— “I’d like a change.”
“An’ a change ye’re likely to git!” he retorted, somewhat gruffly— “Lor’ bless yer ‘art! There ain’t nothin’ like the country! All the trees a-greenin’ an’ the flowers a-blowin’ an’ the birds a-singin’! ‘Ave ye ever ‘era tell of a place called Briar Farm?”
She controlled the nervous start of her body, and replied quietly —
“I think I have. A very old place.”
“Ah! Old? I believe ye! ’Twas old in the time o’ good Queen Bess — an’ the same fam’ly ‘as ‘ad it these three ‘undred years — a fam’ly o’ the name o’ Jocelyn. Ay, if ye could a’ got service wi’ Farmer Jocelyn ye’d a’ bin in luck’s way! But ‘e’s dead an’ gone last week — more’s the pity! — an’ ’is nephew’s got the place now, forbye ’e ain’t a Jocelyn.”
She was silent, affecting not to be interested. The waggoner went on —
“That’s the sort o’ place to seek service in! Safe an’ clean an’ ‘onest as the sunshine — good work an’ good pay — a deal better than a place in Lunnon. An’ country air, my gel! — country air! — nuthin’ like it!”
A sudden blaze of gold lit up the trees — the sun was rising — full day was disclosed, and the last filmy curtains of the night were withdrawn, showing a heavenly blue sky flecked lightly with wandering trails of white cloud like swansdown. He pointed eastward with his long whip.
“Look at that!” he said— “Fine, isn’t it! No roofs and chimneys — just the woods and fields! Nuthin’ like it anywhere!”
Innocent drew a long breath — the air was indeed sweet and keen — new life seemed given to the world with its exhilarating freshness. But she made no reply to the enthusiastic comments of her companion. Thoughts were in her brain too deep for speech. Not here, not here, in this quiet pastoral scene could she learn the way to wrest the golden circlet of fame from the hands of the silent gods! — it must be in the turmoil and rush of endeavour — the swift pursuit of the flying Apollo! And — as the slow waggon jogged along — she felt herself drawn, as it were, by a magnet — on — on — on! — on towards a veiled mystery which waited for her — a mystery which she alone could solve.
Presently they came within sight of several rows of ugly wooden sheds with galvanised iron roofs and short black chimneys.
“A’most there now,” said the waggoner—”’Ere’s a bit o’ Lunnon a’ready! — dirt an’ muck and muddle! Where man do make a mess o’ things ’e makes a mess all round! Spoils everything ’e can lay ’is ‘ands on!”
The approaches to the railway were certainly not attractive — no railway approaches ever are. Perhaps they appear more than usually hideous when built amid a fair green country, where for miles and miles one sees nothing but flowering hedgerows and soft pastures shaded by the graceful foliage of sheltering trees. Then the shining, slippery iron of the railway running like a knife through the verdant bosom of the land almost hurts the eyes, and the accessories of station-sheds, coal-trucks, and the like, affront the taste like an ill-done foreground in an otherwise pleasing picture. A slight sense of depression and foreboding came like a cloud over the mind of poor little lonely Innocent, as she alighted at the station at last, and with uplifted wistful eyes tendered a sovereign to the waggoner.
“Please take as much of it as you think right,” she said— “It was very kind of you to let me ride with you.”
The man stared, whistled, and thought. Feeling in the depth of a capacious pocket he drew out a handful of silver and counted it over carefully.
“’Ere y’are!” he said, handing it all over with the exception of one half-crown— “Ye’ll want all yer change in Lunnon an’ more. I’m takin’ two bob an’ sixpence — if ye thinks it too much, say so!”
“Oh no, no!” and Innocent looked distressed— “Perhaps it’s too little — I hope you are not wronging yourself?”
The waggoner laughed, kindly enough.
“Don’t ye mind ME!” he said— “I’M all right! If I ‘adn’t two kids at ‘ome I’d charge ye nothin’ — but I’m goin’ to get ’em a toy they wants, an’ I’ll take the ‘arf-crown for the luck of it. Good-day t’ye! Hope you’ll find an easy place!”
She smiled and thanked him, — then entered the station and, finding the ticket-office just open, paid a third-class fare to London. A sudden thrill of nervousness came over her. She spoke to the booking-clerk, peering wistfully at him through his little ticket-aperture.
“I have never been in a train before!” she said, in a small, anxious voice.
The clerk smiled, and yawned expansively. He was a young man who considered himself a “gentleman,” and among his own particular set passed for being a wit.
; “Really!” he drawled— “Quite a new experience for you! A little country mouse, is it?”
Innocent drew back, offended.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, coldly — and moved away.
The young clerk fingered his embryo moustache dubiously — conscious of a blunder in manners. This girl was a lady — not a mere country wench to joke with. He felt rather uncomfortable — and presently leaving his office, went out on the platform where she was walking up and down, and slightly lifted his cap.
“I beg your pardon!” he said, his face reddening a little— “If you are travelling alone you would like to get into a carriage with other people, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh yes!” she answered, eagerly— “If you would be so kind—”
He made no answer, as just then, with a rush and crash and clatter, and deafening shriek of the engine-whistle, the train came thundering in. There was opening and shutting of doors, much banging and confusion, and before she very well knew where she was, Innocent found herself in a compartment with three other persons — one benevolent-looking old gentleman with white hair who was seated opposite to her, and a man and woman, evidently husband and wife. Another shriek and roar, and the train started — as it began to race along, Innocent closed her eyes with a sickening sensation of faintness and terror — then, opening them, saw hedges, fields, trees and ponds all flying past her like scud in the wind, and sat watching in stupefied wonderment — one little hand grasping the satchel that held all her worldly possessions — the other hanging limply at her side. Now and then she looked at her companions — the husband and wife sat opposite each other and spoke occasionally in monosyllables — the old gentleman on the seat facing herself was reading a paper which showed its title— “The Morning Post.” Sometimes he looked at her over the top of the paper, but for the most part he appeared absorbed in the printed page. On, on, on, the train rushed at a pace which to her seemed maddening and full of danger — she felt sick and giddy — would it never stop, she thought? — and a deep sense of relief came over her when, with a scream from the engine-whistle loud enough to tear the drum of a sensitive ear, the whole shaking, rattling concern came to an abrupt standstill at a station. Then she mustered up courage to speak.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 812