Frances Hodgson Burnett

“ Derrick was always reminded by it of the shadow on Anice's face.
“I want to tell you something,” Miss Barholm said this evening to Grace at parting. “I do not think I am afraid of Riggan at all. I think I shall like it all the better because it is so new. Everything is so earnest and energetic, that it is a little bracing—like the atmosphere. Perhaps—when the time comes—I could do something to help you with that girl. I shall try at any rate.” She held out her hand to him with a smile, and the Reverend Paul went home feeling not a little comforted and encouraged. ”

“ He belongs to a bad crew.”
“Bad enough,” said Derrick.
“Is it a grudge? He is just the rascal to bear a grudge.”
“Yes,” said Derrick. “It is a grudge against me.”
He looked up then across the table at Anice and smiled reassuringly.
“You did not tell us that you had seen him,” she said.
“No. You think I ought to be afraid of him, and I am too vain to like to admit the possibility that it would be better to fear any man, even a Riggan collier.”
“But such a man!” put in Mrs. Barholm. “It seems to me he is a man to be feared.”
“I can thrash him,” said Derrick. ”

“ During a visit to the rectory one day, Jud's eyes fell upon a book which lay on Anice's table. It was full of pictures—illustrations depicting the adventures and vicissitudes of a fortunate unfortunate, whose desert island has been the paradise of thousands; whose goat-skin habiliments have been more worthy of envy than kingly purple; whose hairy cap has been more significant of monarchy than any crown. For the man who wore these savage garments has reigned supreme in realms of romance, known only in their first beauty to boyhood's ecstatic belief. ”

“ Though they saw comparatively little of each other, the friendly feeling established between Anice and Joan, in their first interview, gained strength gradually as time went on. Coming home from her work at noon or at night, Joan would see traces of Anice's presence, and listen to Liz's praises of her. Liz was fond of her and found comfort in her. The days when the gray pony came to a stop in his jog-trot on the roadside before the gate had a kind of pleasurable excitement in them. They were the sole spice of her life. She understood Anice as little as she understood Joan, but she liked her. ”

“ Anice did not remain in the garden. The spirit of Joan Lowrie's intense mood communicated itself to her. She, too, trembled and her pulse beat rapidly. She thought of Paul Grace and wished for his presence. She felt herself drawn near to him again. She wanted to tell him that his harvest had come, that his faithfulness had not been without its reward. Her own labor she only counted as chance-work. ”

“ After Lowrie's death, Anice Barholm and Joan were oftener together than ever. What had at first been friendship had gradually become affection.
“I think,” Anice said to Grace, “that Joan must go away from here and find a new life.”
“That is the only way,” he answered. “In this old one there has been nothing but misery for her, and bitterness and pain.”
Fergus Derrick was sitting at a table turning over a book of engravings. He looked up sharply.
“Where can you find a new life for her?” he asked. “And how can you help her to it? One dare not offer her even a semblance of assistance.” ”

“ Joan Lowrie is, I can assure you, a weight upon me. I cannot help her and I cannot rid my mind of her. She stands apart from her fellows. She has most of the faults of her class, but none of their follies; and she has the reputation of being half feared, half revered. The man who dared to approach her with the coarse love-making which is the fashion among them, would rue it to the last day of his life. She seems to defy all the world. ”

“ Before it, as Anice opened the door, stood Joan Lowrie, with Liz's sleeping child on her bosom. She had come upon the picture suddenly, and it had seized on some deep, reluctant emotion. She had heard some vague history of the Man; but it was different to find herself in this silent room, confronting the upturned face, the crown, the cross, the anguish and the mystery. She turned toward Anice, forgetting all else but her emotion. ”

“ He had been attracted by the sound of voices—men's voices—the voices of men who were evidently crouching under the shadow of the hedge on the other side, and whose tones in a moment more reached him distinctly, and were recognized.
The first was Dan Lowrie's, and before he had heard him utter a dozen words, Jud dropped upon his knees and laid his hand warningly upon Nib's neck. The dog pricked his pointed ears and looked up at him restlessly. All the self-control of his nature could scarcely help him to suppress a whine. ”

“ After the meal was ended they drew their seats to the hearth again, and Liz went back to her brooding over the fire. Joan, lulling the child, sat and watched her. All Liz's beauty had returned to her. Her soft, rough hair was twisted into a curly knot upon her small head, her pretty, babyish face was at its best of bloom and expression—that absent, subdued look was becoming to her.
"Theer's honest men as mought ha' loved her," said Joan, inwardly. "Theer's honest men as would ha' made her life happy." ”

“ For a few minutes the Reverend Paul paced the room in silence.
“Among the men who were once his fellow-workers, Craddock is an oracle,” he went on. “His influence is not unlike Joan Lowrie's. It is the influence of a strong mind over weaker ones. His sharp sarcastic speeches are proverbs among the Rigganites; he amuses them and can make them listen to him. When he holds up 'Th' owd parson' to their ridicule, he sweeps all before him. He can undo in an hour what I have struggled a year to accomplish. He was a collier himself until he became superannuated, and he knows their natures, you see.” ”

“ Nobody seemed to side with him, and everybody seemed ready—when once the tongues were loosed—to say a word for Jud and "th' best tarrier i' Riggan." For a few minutes Anice could scarcely make herself heard.
"You are a good boy to take care of your dog," she said to Jud—"and though fighting is not a good thing, perhaps if I had been a boy," gravely deciding against moral suasion in one rapid glance at the enemy— "perhaps if I had been a boy, I would have fought myself. You are a coward," she added, with incisive scorn to the other lad, who slinked sulkily out of sight. ”

“ Grace lost appetite, and grew thin with protracted anxiety and watching. He would not give up his place even to Anice or Mrs. Barhohn, who spent much of their time in the house. He would barely consent to snatch a few minutes' rest in the day-time; in truth, he could not have slept if he would. Joan held to her post unflinchingly. She took even less respite than Grace. Having almost forced her to leave the room one morning, Anice went down-stairs to find her lying upon the sofa,—her hands clasped under her head, her eyes wide open. ”

“ It was Fergus Derrick.
He recognized Joan immediately, and went to her.
"For pity's sake," he exclaimed, "don't go with them. If what they say is true, this is no place for you. Let me take you home. You ought not——"
"It wur me," interrupted Joan, in a steady voice, "as found him."
He could not persuade her to remain behind, so he walked on by her side. He asked her no questions. He knew enough to understand that his enemy had reaped the whirlwind he had himself sown.
It was he who knelt first by the side of the prostrate man, holding the lantern above the almost unrecognizable face. ”

“ But the oftener he saw Joan Lowrie, the more heavily she lay upon his mind. Every day his conscience smote him more sorely for his want of success with her. And yet how could he make way against her indifference. He even felt himself a trifle spell-bound in her presence. He often found himself watching her as she moved to and fro,—watching her as Liz and the child did. ”

“ I am sure it is always best, that conscientious, thinking people—and Mr. Grace is a thinking man—should have paths of their own."
Mr. Barholm pushed his hair from his forehead. His own obstinacy confronted him sometimes through Anice, in a finer, more baffling form.
"Grace is a young man, my dear," he said, "and—and not a very strong-minded one."
"I cannot believe that is true," said Anice. "I do not think we can blame his mind. It is his body that is not strong. Mr. Grace himself has more power than you and mamma and myself all put together." ”

“ Going down to the mine, Derrick found on approaching that there was some commotion among the workers at the pit's mouth, and before he turned in to his office, he paused upon the threshold for a few minutes to see what it meant. But it was not a disturbance with which it was easy for an outsider to interfere. A knot of women drawn away from their work by some prevailing excitement, were gathered together around a girl—a pretty but pale and haggard creature, with a helpless despairing face—who stood at bay in the midst of them, clasping a child to her bosom—a target for all eyes. ”

“ The time came, before many days, when the last tie that bound Joan to her present life was broken. The little one, who from the first had clung to existence with a frail hold, at last loosened its weak grasp. It had been ill for several days,—so ill that Joan had remained at home to nurse it,—and one night, sitting with it upon her knee in her accustomed place, she saw a change upon the small face. ”

“ She had a vague fancy that in some way Anice was like Joan; that there was the same strength in her,—a strength upon which she herself might depend. And then she found even a stronger attraction in her visitor's personal adornments, in her graceful dress, in any elegant trifle she wore. She liked to look at her clothes and ask questions about them, and wonder how she would look if she were the possessor of such beautiful things. ”

“ Barholm while Anice and Fergus Derrick sat apart and talked. Sometimes he wondered if the time could ever come, when his friend would be less his friend because he had rivaled him. The idea of such a possibility only brought him fresh pain. His gentle chivalric nature shrank within itself at the thought of the bereavement that double loss would be. There was little room in his mind for the envies of stronger men. ”

“ He was struck, too, by a painful sense of incongruity.
“If she had been in this other girl's niche,” he said, “if she had lived the life of this Anice——”
But he did not finish his sentence. Something, not many yards beyond him, caught his eye—a figure seated upon the road-side near a collier's cottage—evidently a pit girl in some trouble, for her head was bowed upon her hands, and there was a dogged sort of misery expressed in her very posture.
“A woman,” he said aloud. “What woman, I wonder. This is not the time for any woman to be sitting here alone.” ”

“ Derrick read it twice or three times before putting it in his pocket. Upon the whole, he was not unprepared for the intelligence. He knew enough of human nature—such human nature as Lowrie represented—to feel sure that the calm could not continue. If for the present the man did not defy him openly, he would disobey him in secret, while biding his time for other means of retaliation.
Derrick had been on the lookout for some effort at revenge; but so far since the night Joan had met him upon the road, Lowrie outwardly had been perfectly quiet and submissive. ”

“ She did not understand at first, and wondered if it would last; but the nearer she was drawn to the girl, the less doubting and reluctant she became. There was no occasion for doubt, and her proud suspiciousness melted like a cloud in the spring sunshine. Having armed herself against patronage and curiosity, she encountered earnest friendship and good faith. She was not patronized, she was not asked questions, she was left to reveal as much of herself as she chose, and allowed to retain her own secrets as if they were her own property. ”

“ She was capable of making any effort for the ultimate good of the man she could have loved with the whole strength of her nature.
When she entered her room that night, Joan Lowrie was moved to some surprise by a scene which met her eyes. It was a simple thing and under some circumstances would have meant little; but taken in connection with her remembrance of past events, it had a peculiar significance. Liz was sitting upon the hearth, with some odds and ends of bright-colored ribbon on her knee, and a little straw hat in her hand. ”

“ Joan paused a moment and stood looking over the hedge.
Mrs. Galloway, sitting at her work-table near the window, had found her attention attracted a few moments before by a tall young woman coming down the road which passed on one side of the hedge.
"There is something a little remarkable about her," she said. "She certainly does not belong to Ashley-Wold."
Then Joan stopped by the hedge and she saw her face and uttered a low exclamation of surprise at its beauty. She drew nearer to the window and looked out at her.
"She must be very cold," said Mrs. Galloway. ”