Jeffray

“ The shots from the cottage seemed to have sobered the gentry for the moment. Jeffray heard old Isaac screaming and cursing, urging on the men to break in the door. Gathering together in a bunch, they lunged at it again with the wagon-pole, the door splitting from floor to lintel and the pole starting fully three feet into the room. Jeffray had a confused vision of tanned throats and fierce faces, a brandished cutlass, an upraised arm. He fired once, saw a red blotch show on one sun-tanned cheek, and the men hesitate and edge back from the broken door. ”

“ The cornet looked sadly at Jeffray, as though taking him for a very eccentric person or a most human and devoted fool. Being an amiable and sentimental creature, and not given to legal methods of reflection, he showed himself very ready to assist Jeffray with the true courtesy of a cavalier.
“Shall I lend you two troopers and a guide,” he said, “to convey you to Rodenham? Is the lady fit to travel?” ”

“ Jeffray excused himself from joining the Lady Letitia in her coach, asserting that he had a headache, and that a brisk ride would clear his brain. He mounted his mare, and followed the coach at a trot as it took the southward road through Pevensel.
How strange and mobile are the moods of youth, April-hued, covered with the gold and purple of sunlight or of shadow! Richard Jeffray was almost wroth with his own heart that day as he rode through the woods and saw the great green downs cleave the distant blue. How was it that Miss Jilian’s face seemed less fair to him than it had yesterday? ”

“ Wilson, who was whistling an old Jacobite song, glanced curiously at Jeffray from time to time, wondering what made the lad look so fierce.
“You seem more yourself again, Richard,” he said.
Jeffray changed his posture restlessly and unbuttoned his cloak. It is not easy to confide at times even in the best of friends, and sensitive mortals shrink from the first explanatory plunge. Jeffray had not the heart to unburden himself of his misery at that moment.
“I am well enough now, Dick,” he said, quietly.
“You looked deuced green, sir, down by the chapel.” ”

“ I tell you that you have insulted my affections, sir, compromised my honor and the honor of my family.”
Jeffray stood stock-still in the middle of the room, staring at Miss Hardacre’s red and angry face. Her fury had transfigured her, as though some witch’s wand had changed her from smiling youth into a fierce and scolding shrew. Few women look well when they are the creatures of wrath, and Jeffray was astonished and repelled by the transformation he beheld before him. Three months ago he would have been on his knees at Jilian’s feet. ”

“ There on the bureau lay the brown-covered Thomas à Kempis that had been daily in his dead father’s hands. Jeffray seemed to see the old man’s figure moving dimly in the dusk, with Roger, his black spaniel, at his heels. Poor Roger lay in the rose garden under a red rose-tree. The bent but stately figure in its black coat, white ruffles, and cravat, with the heavy peruke falling on either side of the pale and courtly face, had vanished hardly a year ago from the old house. Jeffray wondered like a child whether his father could see him still, whether he was grieved by his son’s madness. ”

“ Hardacre’s vitality will pull him through.”
“Thank God,” said the younger man, with genuine and hearty relief.
The surgeon’s broad face beamed. He liked Jeffray, and felt that he was sincere in his spirit of regret.
“It was a narrow margin, sir,” he said, “another finger’s-breadth, and your sword would have touched the heart. Young blood, Mr. Jeffray, young blood! You gentlemen in the twenties are apt to be hot in the head, and the mischief’s sooner made than mended. I have nothing to do with the quarrel, sir, and I hope the incident will breed no ill-feeling between us.” ”

“ It was not long before the trees began to thin before him, the open west shining a wall of amber pilastered by the dark boles of the pines. Jeffray, growing cautious, dismounted and led his mare aside from the path, and tethered her in a slight hollow of the ground where she was hidden from the path by undergrowth and bracken. He took the pistols out of the holsters, reprimed them, and pushed on towards the hamlet. Looking down from the converging aisles of the forest, he saw the green break in the woods lying calm and quiet under the western sun. ”

“ Jeffray drew close to him and held out his hand.
“Then, Dick,” he said, “I can take my destiny like a brave man. Better to stand for the truth—than shirk it for a lie. May I call you still my friend?”
Wilson turned with something between a snort and a sigh.
“Egad, sir, I will remain your friend despite all the women in Christendom.”
And the two men shook hands.
Jeffray, remembering what had happened at the parsonage, and realizing that the Grimshaws of Pevensel were desperate men, determined to remain on the watch all night with pistols and a drawn sword on the table before him. ”

“ The pretty puppet could no longer ply her fan, flash her gray eyes, simper, and show her teeth. She seemed to realize of a sudden that courteous pity alone could make a man look kindly at her face. Jeffray’s first stare had told her that. ”

“ Jeffray pricked up his horse, and came at a fast trot into Rodenham village. Already there were vague mutterings running athwart the distant sky. Outside the Wheat Sheaf Inn Jeffray came upon some twenty troopers of a regiment of Light-Horse drinking beer at the wooden tables, their horses picketed upon the green. Some of the men were watching the thunder-clouds, reckoning on the drenching of the outer man as they were moistening the inner. Their cornet, a dark-faced youth with a hooked nose and a libidinous mouth, came to the doorway of the inn with George Gogg as Jeffray passed. ”

“ Jeffray looked up with a frown.
“No, not that, Dick. I am preparing for what I hold to be my duty.”
“Well, sir, well?”
“I am going to save this woman from the past, and act with honor for her, even though our love may come to nothing.”
Wilson sat up and looked hard at Jeffray, profoundly interested in the problem-play before him.
“You can trust me, sir; what do you mean to do?”
“Make her a new life, Dick.”
“Yes.”
“Money is nothing to me. I can give her all of it she needs in this world, a home, and safety from all sordid care and dread.” ”

“ The innkeeper bowed, rubbed his double chin, and pointed Jeffray to the door of the parlor. The sound of voices came from the room, bluff with the burliness of the sea.
“Captain George, of the Sussex Queen, is within, sir,” he said, pushing open the door, and giving Jeffray a glimpse into the foggy atmosphere of the room. Richard walked in.
“Thanks. Captain George, I believe?”
A big man in a blue coat and white breeches, with dirtier buckles on still dirtier shoes, rose cumbrously from a leather-backed chair, and held out a paw to the Squire of Rodenham. ”

“ Jeffray laughed, and lay back with a thoughtful light in his eyes, as he watched the cloud shadows playing over the sunny heights of Pevensel. Wilson was drumming on the window-sill with his fingers, and still holding the Annual Register upon his knee. He was watching Richard with a grave and bent-browed tenderness, seeming to see in him the spirit of the coming age, when fine gentlemen would give up the carrying of muffs and the writing of odes in imitation of Horace. Men would wake again to the beauty that lived in the woods and upon the mountains. ”

“ Richard Jeffray is, to give himself airs before a Hardacre of Hardacre? His grandfather was an ‘iron man,’ as we all know, I reckon; he made his money by turning the country-side upside down, and cutting down all the trees. And hasn’t Mr. Jeffray been down with the small-pox himself, and didn’t he give it to you, sure; for you must have had it of him, my dear, or I never heard Parson Jessel read the Bible. As for your purty face, my dear, it’ll just mend superb with all the fine stuffs you may be using in that there box. And the hair always grows stronger, like a tree, for being pruned. ”

“ He had rattled his poetical notions against the skulls of his Sussex peers, and half-fooled himself into imagining that he was in love with gray-eyed Mistress Jilian, his cousin, who wore flaming petticoats and preposterous hoops, and rouged and ogled like the veteran of thirty that she was. Richard Jeffray confessed himself a fool as he rode down that day through the wilds of Pevensel and cogitated upon the beauties of a rustic life. The landscape was certainly not at fault, and the man of sentiment believed himself in sympathy with nature. The human element was the poison in the pot. ”

“ The Lady Letitia, still talking, subsided again into her chair. She looked very yellow and ugly despite her rouge, and she was short of breath, as Richard noticed. Age seemed to be gaining fast on her, and even a liberal remittance from her bankers could not keep her from growing feeble. Jeffray was astonished at the change that even two months had wrought in her. Her fierce, peering eyes were bright as ever, but he could see that her hands trembled, and that a senile tremor was shaking the feathers in her “head.” ”

“ She deigned to listen to the painter’s stumbling platitudes about the weather, and then discovered suddenly that she was afflicted with deafness and a sick headache, and declared that she would go and rest in her bedroom until dinner.
When the Lady Letitia had sailed out of the room, Wilson stood and stared pathetically at Jeffray.
“There, sir,” he exclaimed, with tragic emphasis, “you see, my poor face always frightens them away, and I fall over my own tongue as well as over my feet. Nature did not breed me for a courtier, Jeffray. Damn it, I can’t flatter the fools in the gallant style. ”

“ Unconsciously, Jilian had put all the strained self-shame of her poor soul into the cry. She took two steps forward, holding out her hands. Jeffray closed the door slowly, like a man seeking to compose his thoughts. He turned and looked at Jilian. Unwittingly, in her agitation, she had taken her stand where a sunbeam slanted full upon her face, disclosing all its seamed and pitted ugliness with a brilliance that was almost brutal.
A woman’s eyes are quick in piecing together the emotions on a man’s face. ”

“ I have to mend bodies, sir, not to tinker at hearts.”
“True,” answered the younger man, thoughtfully, “and whatever you may hear said against me in the future, Stott, you may remember that I acted as my honor desired. We are not always our own masters in this world, sir; there is a thing called destiny that pushes us forward through the thorns.”
And with a last hand-shake, Jeffray clattered out of Rookhurst market-place, feeling a happier man than when he had entered it. ”

“ She spoke very softly to him, as she turned aside and walked a little unsteadily to a settle standing by the harpsichord. Jeffray felt a great flush of shame and a miserable sense of reluctance that made him gauche and clumsy. He followed her as though under compulsion, and sat down beside her on the settle.
“Of course I am glad to see you, Jilian,” he said.
Miss Hardacre’s hands were fidgeting in her lap. She had prepared a gay and airy part, but all her brave impudence and coquetry seemed to have deserted her. She was too conscious of her ugliness ”

“ He stared into the distance and shook his head.
“The girl might go,” he observed, slowly, “and yet I don’t think it is right lest she might carry the pest with her. No, sir, I don’t think it would be honest. As for me, Mr. Jeffray, I have no intention of turning tail. What would the poor folk think of their spiritual father if he tucked up his gown and scuttled directly the devil came down on them in the shape of a damnable disease?”
There was a look of blunt heroism on Dr. Sugg’s commonplace old countenance that refreshed Jeffray’s spirit of revolt against the Lady Letitia’s cynicism. ”

“ As Jeffray watched on the dawn began to creep up into the eastern sky. The trees about the house, still wrapped in the mystery of the night, stood outlined against a broadening sheet of gold. The chanting of birds flooded up from the thickets; wild life began to wake; the stars sank back behind the deepening blue of day. Rabbits scurried over the dew-drenched grass-land of the park and came and went amid the bracken. Blackbirds bustled and chattered in the garden. ”

“ She kissed Jeffray on both cheeks, leaving in each case a patch of powder behind, and then held him at arm’s length, gazing in his face.
“Ha, ha, mon cher; why, you look quite brave and well, though a little thin. By the Queen of Hearts, I am overjoyed at seeing you, with hardly a spot or a pock-mark either! You are a credit to your physician, Richard; all’s well that ends well; a wise proverb. And when did you arrive, sir? What, last night! To be sure, Richard, you ought to have shown yourself to a poor old woman earlier. And how is the dear Jilian, is she with you?” ”

“ Let me warn you against her, Richard. She has led a wicked life, and has no respect for God or the truth.”
Here followed certain very proper expressions of affection that made Jeffray wince and color. The letter ended with a veiled threat, the significance of which the man was world-wise enough to understand. He suspected, and suspected rightly, that Miss Hardacre was not singly responsible for the document before him. He had received letters from Jilian of old, formless, feeble, and vaporish things, indifferent as to spelling, commonplace as to style. ”

“ Bucolic melancholy does not pass for fine breeding in elegant circles.”
Jeffray smiled somewhat cynically at his aunt as he watched her clutching at poor Sugg’s shillings. He was heartily tired of his elderly relative’s imperial patronage. She condescended to accept his hospitality, and improved the occasion by pestering him with her worldly superficialities, abusing his “bookishness” and amending his manners. The nephew looked forward to his aunt’s departure with a sincerity that was ingenuous and enthusiastic. The Lady Letitia was still, however, bent upon economy. ”