The Devil's Garden by W. B. Maxwell

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She loved, and was loved; she lived, and had given life--bud, blossom,
and fruit, all nature and she were now in harmony.

Presently the wood that stretched so dark and so grand on her left
tempted her from the highroad. This was her first real walk, and she
decided to make it a good one. She would aim for the Hadleigh rides,
and, going on beyond Kibworth Rocks to the higher ground, get a view
of the new buildings. Will had gone across to the far side of
Rodchurch and could not be back to breakfast. It would not therefore
matter if she were a little late.

She passed rapidly through open glades, to which the great oaks and
beeches still made solid walls. The foliage of the beech trees was
merely touched with yellow here and there, while the oaks showed no
sign of fading color, and beneath all the lower branches there were
splendid deep shadows wherever the undergrowth of holly did not fill
up the green wall. This was the true wild woodland, remnant of the
ancient forest, the place of virgin timber, dense thickets, and
natural openings, that tourists always praised beyond anything else.
The stream ran babbling through it, with pretty little pools,
cascades, and fords, all owning names that spoke of bygone times--such
as White Doe's Leap, Knight's Well, and Monk's Crossing. Locally it
was not, of course, so highly esteemed. Cottagers said it was "a
lonesome, fearsome bit o'country," and, whether because of the ugly
memories that hung about it, or in view of extremely modern stories of
disagreements between Chase guardians and poachers, considered it an
undesirable short cut after dark from anywhere to anywhere.

To-day it seemed to Mavis friendly and pleasant as well as beautiful.
The mist slowly rising was now high overhead, so that one could see to
a considerable distance. Some fern-cutters in shirt-sleeves and slouch
hats were already at work, cutting with rhythmic precision, calling to
one another, and whistling tunefully.

One or two of them greeted her as she passed.

By the time she reached the straight rides and the fir trees the sun
came bursting forth bravely, the shadows just danced before vanishing,
the mist broke into rainbow streamers, and then there was nothing more
between one's head and the milky blue sky. She walked within a
stone's-throw of Kibworth Rocks, and did not feel a tremor, scarcely
even a recollection. People nowadays came here from Rodchurch and
Manninglea on Sunday afternoons, making it the goal for wagonette
drives, wandering up and down, and gaping at a scene rendered
interesting to them merely because it had once been the background of
tragedy; and Mavis was thinking more of these Sunday visitors than of
the dead man, as she hurried through the sunlight so near the spot
where he had lain staring with glassy eyes throughout the darkness of
a July night.

She thought of him a little later, when she stood on the higher ground
looking at what live men were constructing in fulfilment of his wish,
and her mind did not hold the least tinge of bitterness. At present
the Barradine Orphanage was simply an eye-sore to miles and miles of
the country-side, but no doubt, as she thought, it would be all very
fine when finished. The bad weather of the winter had caused progress
to be rather slow; the red brickwork was only about ten feet out of
the ground, but a shell of scaffolding enabled one to trace the
general plan. It would be a central block with two long, low
dependencies, apparently, and, as it seemed, there were to be terraces
and leveled lawns all about it; a great deal of clearing work as well
as building work would, however, be necessary before the whole thing
could take shape and explain itself properly. She stood outside one of
its new ugly fences, and wondered if Mr. Barradine's trustees had,
after all, chosen the site wisely. Poor old gentleman, it would be
unkind if his last fancies received scant attention. It was rather
nice of him to have this idea of doing good after his death, to plot
it all, and put it down on paper with such painstaking care.

Truly she was thinking of him now as though he had been a total
stranger, some important person that she had known well by name but
never chanced to meet. She listened to the faint clinking of
bricklayers' trowels, watched men with hods going slowly up and down
ladders, men carrying poles, men unloading half a dozen carts; thought
what a quantity of money was being expended, and how grateful in the
future the little desolate children would be when their costly home
was ready for them; and only as it were by accident did she remember
that she too had cost the estate money, and perhaps also ought to be
grateful. But she had long since ceased to think about the legacy.
What the yokels would call her "small basket fortune" had served a
purpose handsomely, and there was an end of it. The man from whom it
came had gone as completely as the morning mist went when the sun
began to shine.

The harm he had done her was nothing. If she purposely dragged out its
memory, it seemed much less strong and actual than half one's dreams.
Incredible that little more than a year ago she had been in such dire
and dreadful trouble.

She struck the highroad again a little way short of the Abbey Cross
Roads, and came swinging homeward with long strides, feeling healthy,
hungry, happy. And the nearer she drew to home, the deeper grew the
happiness. "Oh, what a lucky woman I am," she said to herself.

And with a quite unconscious selfishness that is an essential
attribute of joy, and that makes all very successful and contented
people think themselves singled out, watched over, and especially
guided by fate, she blessed and applauded the beneficently omniscient
Providence which had given just enough worry in her youth to enable
her to appreciate comfort in mature years, which had delayed
motherhood until she could best bear a hearty child, which had wiped
out Mr. Barradine and restored her husband's love, which, last of all,
had removed Aunt Petherick from North Ride and sent her to live at the
seaside.

A small thing, this, perhaps; and yet a Providential boon, a filling
of one's lap with bounties. There would have been great awkwardness in
having Aunt so near, but forbidden to darken one's door. Will was very
firm there: Auntie was not to be admitted at Vine-Pits on any pretext
whatever. But it had all worked out so neatly, without the least
friction. The new owner of the Abbey wanted North Ride. He had,
however, been very kind about the lease or the absence of a lease, and
had paid the tenant for life, as she described herself, to surrender
possession. Auntie, one might therefore say, was not at all badly
treated.

As the master was away and no kind of state necessary, she breakfasted
in the kitchen with Mary and Mrs. Goudie. Her baby was asleep in its
cradle, which she gently swung with her foot while eating; and the
three women all spoke whisperingly. The pots and pans were shining,
the hearthstone was white as snow, and through the open doorway one
had a pretty little picture of the back pathway, the end of the barn,
and a drooping branch of the walnut trees. From the yard beyond came
sounds of industrious activity--the rumble of a wagon being pulled
from the pent-house, the thump of sacks being let down on the pulleys,
and the intermittent buzz of a chaff-cutting machine.

Presently somebody appeared on the pathway, and came slowly and shyly
toward the door.

"Oh, bother," said Mary. "If it isn't Mr. Druitt again."

"Good mornin', mum," said the visitor, diffidently. "Would you be
doing with an egg or so?"

Mr. Druitt had been introduced by Mrs. Goudie as the higgler, or
itinerant poulterer and greengrocer, who served the house in Mr.
Bates' time. He was a thin middle-aged man, with light watery eyes, a
straggling beard, and an astoundingly dilatory manner. He used to pull
his pony and cart into the hedge or bank by the roadside, and leave
them there an unconscionable time, while he pottered about the back
doors of his customers, offering the articles that he had brought with
him, or trying to obtain orders for other articles that he would bring
next week; and although apparently so shy himself, no bruskness in
others ever seemed to rebuff him. His arrival now broke up the
breakfast party, and was accepted as a signal that the day's labors
must really be attacked. Mrs. Goudie and Mary pushed back their chairs
with a horrid scrooping noise, Mavis got up briskly, the baby awoke
and began to cry.

"No, thank you, Mr. Druitt. Nothing this morning."

"I've some sweet-hearted cabbages outside."

"No, thank you."

"It's wonderful late to get 'em with any heart to 'em. I'll fetch
'em."

Thus, as was usual, the higgler went backward and forward between the
door and his cart; and Mavis, with the baby on her arm, at intervals
inspected various commodities. Eventually she purchased a capon for
the Sunday dinner, paid for it, and bade Mr. Druitt good-by.

"Good-by, mum--and much obliged."

But then, quite ten minutes afterward, his shadow once more fell
across the kitchen floor. He had not really gone yet. Here he was back
again at the kitchen door, staring reflectively at his grubby little
pocketbook.

"Beg pardon--but did I mention the side o' bacon I've been promised
for Tuesday. It's good bacon."

Mavis Dale with courteous finality dismissed him; but Mary, whose
ordinarily red cheeks had become a fiery crimson, spoke hotly and
angrily.

"Drat the man. I've no patience with him. He ought to know better,
going on so."

"But what harm does he do, poor fellow," said Mavis, indulgently,
"except muddling away his own time?"

"He's up to no good," said Mary; and she flounced across to the door,
and looked out at the now empty path. "Hanging about like that! Why
can't he keep away? I don't want him."

Mrs. Goudie, at the sink, screwed up her wrinkled nut-cracker face,
and chuckled.

"No, mum, she don't want un. But he wants she."

And, astonishing as it might seem, this was truly the case. The
higgler had fallen in love with Mary; and she, apparently without a
single explicit word, had understood the nature of the emotion that
stirred his breast. He had somehow surrounded her with an atmosphere
of admiration--anyhow he had made her understand.

Mavis laughed gaily, and chaffed Mary about her conquest; and
henceforth she more or less obliterated herself when this visitor
called, and allowed the servant to conduct all transactions with him.

Mary was always very stern, disparaging his goods, and beating down
his prices; while he stood sheepishly grinning, and in no wise
protesting against her harshness. He now of course stayed longer than
ever, indeed only withdrew when Mary indignantly drove him away.

"Be off, can't you?" cried Mary. "I'm ashamed of you."

"Haw, haw," chuckled Mrs. Goudie. "Don't she peck at un fierce."

"Yes, Mary," and Mrs. Dale laughed, much amused. "I do think you're
rather cruel to him."

"'Twill be t'other way roundabout one day, Mary, preaps."

Then Mary tossed her head and bustled at her work. "I ain't afeard o'
that day, Mrs. Goudie. He isn't going the right way to win me, I can
tell him. I hate his sly ways."

Mavis and the old charwoman thought that Mr. Druitt would win the
prize in the end, and with a natural tendency toward match-making
tacitly aided and abetted his queer courtship. Except for the
disparity of years it seemed a desirable match. It was known that he
had a tidy place, almost a farm, eight miles away on the edge of the
down; and Mrs. Goudie, who confessed that she had merely encountered
him higgling, said the tale ran that he was quite a warm man.

And thus Mary's little romance, announcing itself so abruptly and
developing itself so slowly, brought still another new interest to
Vine-Pits kitchen. It was something vivid and bright and even
fantastic in the midst of solidly useful facts, like the strange
flower that blooms on a roadside merely because some high-flying
strong-winged bird has carelessly happened to drop a seed.

"What," thought Mavis, "can any of us do without love? And where
should we be without the odd chances that bring love to us?"

XIV

Fat easy years came now after the hard and lean ones; and the Dales in
the dual regions of home and trade were doing really well. Dale had a
powerful decently-bred cob to ride; on Wednesdays, when he went into
Old Manninglea for the Corn Market, he often wore a silk top-hat and
always a black coat; and at all times he looked exactly what he was,
an alert, industrious, straight-dealing personage who has risen
considerably and who intends to rise still higher in the social scale.

As to Mavis, she had another baby--a boy this time--and she was an
infinitely proud mother as well as a very busy woman. She kept cows,
poultry and bees; could and did distil a remarkably choice sloe gin,
had achieved some reputation for her early peas and late lettuces, and
had made the quadrangle in front of the house a sight that even
tourists from London talked about. It blazed with color from May to
November, and there was one of the Rodhaven drivers who on several
occasions stopped his char-a-bancs to let the passengers have a long
look at it. Wandering artists, too, fascinated by the stone walls, the
flowers, the white paint, and the green shutters, would sometimes ring
the bell and ask if Mrs. Dale let lodgings.

Mrs. Dale was rather crushing to masculine intruders of this sort,
especially when they adopted an off-handedly gallant air.

In answering their questions she drawled slightly, and smiled in a
manner that, although not contemptuous, might permit them to guess
that they had made a tactless mistake.

"Oh, no, we do not let lodgings."

"Don't you really? I think you _ought_ to, you know."

"Possibly," said Mavis, drawling and smiling. "But Mr. Dale and I do
not think so. Of course if we did, we should put up a board, or
notice--and you may observe that there isn't one."

She was, however, always gentle and forbearing with wanderers of her
own sex. To two ladies who expressed disappointment at finding no
apartments and asked if she did not at least provide afternoon tea,
she said at once, "Oh, certainly, I shall be delighted to give you
some tea."

They were tired, dusty, not young; and she showed them into the grand
front parlor that contained her piano, pictures, well-bound books, and
there laid the table and brought the tea with her own hands. Such a
tea--the best china, thick cream, three sorts of jam, cakes, and jolly
round home-made bannocks! The ladies were so pleased, until they
became embarrassed. For of course when they wished to pay, Mavis could
not accept payment.

"Oh, indeed no. You're very welcome. I hope that you'll stop and rest
as long as you like;" and faintly blushing she shied away from the
open purse and hurried out of the room.

"What on earth are we to do?" said one of the ladies.

"I saw a child in the passage," said the other lady. "Let us offer the
child a present."

"Ah. That solves the difficulty. But how much? I suppose it must be
half-a-crown."

"_Nonsense!_" said the other lady, tartly. "That is more than the
price of the whole meal if she had let us pay for it. A present of a
shilling at the _outside_. No, a shilling is absurd. Sixpence."

"Do you really think so?"

"Yes, sixpence wrapped up in a bit of paper."

"Then _you_ must offer it."

And the other lady did. "Is that your little girl? Oh, what brown
eyes--and mamma's pretty complexion. Good afternoon! We are so much
obliged. And this is for _you_, dear--to buy sweeties."

Mavis was not disposed to allow her small princess to take a tip from
a stranger's hand; but natural good-breeding forced her to acquiesce.

The ladies looked back at her, waved their hands by the garden gate,
and went away talking.

"The child never said 'Thank you.' Badly reared."

"But the mother thanked you. I liked her face. She must have been
distinctly good-looking."

The artists thought her distinctly good-looking even now, and perhaps,
after being repulsed in their quest for bed and board, drifted off
into an idle dream of how they might have met her a few years ago when
they were less famous but more magnetically attractive. What a sitter
she would have been for them, if she wouldn't be anything else! They
admired the extreme delicacy of her nose that seemed so narrow in the
well-rounded face, the loose brown hair that showed such a red flash
in it beneath her sunbonnet, the perfect modeling of full forearms,
firm neck, and ample bosom, the whole poise of her graciously solid
figure, at once so reposeful and so free. But it was the eyes
principally that set them dreaming of vanished youth, abandoned hopes,
and lost opportunities. Nowadays Mavis could meet the unduly
interested regard of male investigators with a candid unvacillating
outlook; there came no hint of feebleness in resistance, too ready
submission, or temperamental proneness to surrender; but her eyes,
whether she wished it or not, still served as messengers between all
that was feminine in her and all that was masculine outside her; and,
with no reason not to tell the truth, they told it boldly, seeming to
say, "Yes, once I had much to give, and I gave every single bit of it
to one man. I have nothing left now for cadgers, sneak-thieves, and
other outsiders."

She was a woman steadily completing her cycle. In fact, with her added
weight, broadened contours and settled mental equilibrium, she had so
changed from the slim, pallid, childish Mrs. Dale of the post office
that any old Rodchurch friends might be forgiven for saying that they
could scarcely recognize her.

"Really shouldn't have known you," said one of them frankly. "You have
furnished like a colt brought in from grass to corn."

This outspoken old friend was Mr. Allen the saddler, who turned up one
winter day when Vine-Pits had been thrown into a great state of
excitement and confusion by the passage of the hunt right across the
meadows behind the orchard. Just after dinner everybody had heard the
horn sounding in the woods, with distant holloas and deep music of
hounds, and then the pack came streaming out in full cry, and next
moment all the horsemen were galloping over the fields and leaping the
hedges. The women ran forth from the back of the house; the men
abandoned their work. "Oo, oo! Look an' look." There were shouts of
rapture each time the horses jumped. "Oo! Crimany! That _were_ a
beauty!"

Then in another minute Dale himself came galloping to the empty yard,
rode his horse along the flags into the garden, and yelled to Mavis
that she was to fetch trays of bread and cheese and bannocks as quick
as life.

"An' bring the white bob full of beer--an' whisky, an' water--an' some
o' the sloe gin; an' devel knows how many glasses."

Mrs. Dale and Mary, before one could look round, carried out into the
yard all these light refreshments, and with them Dale regaled the
large concourse of unexpected visitors that was pouring through the
opened gates. His guests were grooms, second-horsemen, one or two
farmers, and several dealers--the people who are rarely in a hurry
when out hunting; and after them came pedestrians, a sturdy fellow in
a red coat with a terrier in his pocket and a terrier under his arm, a
keeper, a wood-cutter, Abraham Veale the hurdle-maker, and just
riffraff--the very tail of the hunt, and, as the tail of the tail,
that stupid trade-neglecting Mr. Allen. For a while the yard was full
of animation, the horses pawing and snorting, Dale bustling
hospitably, his wife filling the glasses and handing the food, and
everybody talking who was not eating or drinking.

Mr. Allen was exhausted, tottering on his skinny legs, but
nevertheless burning with ardor for the chase.

"They've changed foxes," he cried breathlessly. "They've lost the
hunted fox, and they've only themselves to thank for it. I told them,
and they wouldn't listen. I knew."

"Ah, but you always know," said a second-horseman, grinning.

"If Mr. Maltby," said Allen, "had cast back instead of forward last
time I holloa'd, he'd have had the mask on his saddle rings by now."

Then he sank down upon one of the upping-stocks, snatched a hunk of
bread, munched hastily.

"Mr. Allen, you've no cheese. Here, let me fill your glass again.
How's Rodchurch?" Every time that Mavis passed, she asked a question.
"Mr. Allen, how's Miss Waddy's sister?"

"Dead," said Allen, with his mouth full.

"Dead. Oh, that's sad!" Then next time it was: "How's Miss Yorke? Not
married yet?"

"No, nor likely to be."

The horse-people soon began to move off again--"Thank you, Mr. Dale.
Good night, Mr. Dale.... You've done us proper, sir.... Just what I
wanted.... Good night, ma'am;"--but the foot-people lingered. The
red-coated earth-digger, Veale, and one or two others, had got around
Mr. Allen and were chaffing him irreverently.

"There, that'll do," said Dale, joining the group and speaking with
firmness. Then he politely offered to have a nag put into the gig and
to send Mr. Allen home on wheels.

"Thank you kindly," said Allen. "I'm not going home; but if your man
can rattle me a mile or so up towards Beacon Hill, it's a hundred to
one I shall drop in with them again. With the wind where it is, hounds
are bound to push anything that's in front of them up to the high
ground."

As soon as Dale went to order his gig the clumsy facetiousness was
renewed.

"'Tes a pity you ben't a hound yersel, Mr. Allen."

"Ah," said Veale, "if the wood pucks cud transform him on to all
fours, what a farder he'd mek to th' next litter o' pops at the
Kennels."

"By gum," said the earth-digger, slapping his leg, "they pups would
have noses. They wuddent never be at fault, would 'em?"

Old Mrs. Goudie, who had a simple taste in raillery, was so convulsed
by this jesting that she put down her tray in order to laugh at ease;
and chiefly because she was laughing, Mary laughed also.

"An' you know most o' the tricks o' foxes too, don't you, Mr. Allen?"

"Now then," said Dale, returning, "that's enough, my lads. I dropped
you the hint by now. You're welcome to as much more of my beer as you
can carry, but you won't sauce my friends inside my gates--nor
outside, either, if I chance to be there."

"Aw right, sir."

"Take no heed of them," said Allen. "It is only their ignorance;" and
he staggered to his feet.

Dale escorted the honored guest to the gig, then wiped his perspiring
face, lighted a pipe; and then reproved Mary and Mrs. Goudie for
unseemly mirth.

They still had Mary with them, and, although they did not know it,
were to enjoy her faithful service for some time to come. Now that
Mrs. Dale grew her own vegetables, purchases from Mr. Druitt, the
higgler, had become rare; only an occasional bit of bacon, or once in
a way a couple of rabbits, a hare, a doubtfully obtained pheasant,
could ever be required from him; so that the greater part of his
frequent visits were admittedly paid to the servant and not to the
mistress. But he proved an unconscionably slow courtier. Mary, for her
part, when she was teased about him and asked if he did not yet show
anxiety to reach the happy day, always tossed her head and said that
she was in no hurry, that she doubted if she could ever tear herself
away from Vine-Pits, and so on.

Then, at last, a shocking discovery was made. Mary, after an afternoon
out, came home with her face all red and blubbered, sat in the kitchen
sobbing and rocking herself, and told Mavis how she had heard on
unimpeachable authority that the higgler was a married man. He had
always been married--and poor Mary confessed that she was very fond of
him, although so angry with him for his disgraceful treatment of her.

On the next visit of the higgler Dale was lying in wait for him.

"Come inside, please. I'd like a few words with you, Mr. Druitt;" and
the higgler was led through the kitchen, and up the three steps into
the adjacent room.

Here, as soon as the door had been shut, Mr. and Mrs. Dale both
tackled him. Dale was very fine, like a magistrate, so dignified as
well as so severe, accusing the culprit of playing fast and loose with
a young woman, of arousing feelings in her bosom which he was not in
a position to satisfy.

"A girl," said Mavis, "that we consider under our charge, as much as
if she was our daughter."

"Who looks to us," said Dale, "for guardianship and protection."

Mr. Druitt, sitting on the edge of his chair, smiling foolishly,
nodded his head in the direction of the kitchen door, and gave a queer
sort of wink.

"Meaning _her?_"

"Yes, who else should we mean?"

"I've never said a word of love to her in my life."

"Oh, how," cried Mavis, "can you make such a pretense?"

"Because it's the truth."

"But," said Mavis, indignantly, "you've made her fond of you. You've
courted her."

The higgler distinctly preened himself, and smiled archly. "Ah,
there's a language of the eyes, which speaks perhaps when the lips are
sealed."

Mavis was angry and disgusted. "You, a married man!"

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