A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I.

M >> Mrs. Humphry Ward >> Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I.




"I dare say he would. But why should he part with them?"

The young man hesitated. He was shaking down a load of hay for the pony,
and Laura was leaning against the door of the stall watching his
performance.

"Well, I reckon we shan't be farmin here all our lives," he said at last
with some abruptness.

"Don't you like it then?"

"I'd get quit on it to-morrow if I could!"

His quick reply had an emphasis that astonished her.

"And your mother?"

"Oh! of course it's mother keeps me at it," he said, relapsing into the
same accent of a sulky child that he had used once before.

Then he led his new cousin back to the farmhouse. By this time he was
beginning to find his tongue and use his eyes. Laura was conscious that
she was being closely observed, and that by a man who was by no means
indifferent to women. She said to herself that she would try to keep him
shy.

As they entered the farmhouse kitchen Mason hastened to pick up the
chairs he had overturned in his sudden waking.

"I say, mother would be mad if she knew you'd come into this scrow!" he
said with vexation, kicking aside some sporting papers that were littered
over the floors, and bringing forward a carved oak chair with a cushion
to place it before the fire for her acceptance.

"Scrow? What's that?" said Laura, lifting her eyebrows. "Oh, please don't
tidy any more. I really think you make it worse. Besides, it's all right.
What a dear old kitchen!"

She had seated herself in the cushioned chair, and was warming a slender
foot at the fire. Mason wished she would take off her hat--it hid her
hair. But he could not flatter himself that she was in the least occupied
with what he wished. Her attention was all given to her surroundings--to
the old raftered room, with its glowing fire and deep-set windows.

Bright as the April sun was outside, it hardly penetrated here. Through
the mellow dusk, as through the varnish of an old picture, one saw the
different objects in a golden light and shade--the brass warming-pan
hanging beside the tall eight-day clock--the table in front of the long
window-seat, covered with its checked red cloth--the carved door of a
cupboard in the wall bearing the date 1679--the miscellaneous store of
things packed away under the black rafters, dried herbs and tools,
bundles of list and twine, the spindles of old spinning wheels,
cattle-medicines, and the like--the heavy oaken chairs--the settle beside
the fire, with its hard cushions and scrolled back. It was a room for
winter, fashioned by the needs of winter. By the help of that great peat
fire, built up year by year from the spoils of the moss a thousand feet
below, generations of human beings had fought with snow and storm, had
maintained their little polity there on the heights, self-centred,
self-supplied. Across the yard, commanded by the window of the
farm-kitchen, lay the rude byres where the cattle were prisoned from
October to April. The cattle made the wealth of the farm, and there must
be many weeks when the animals and their masters were shut in together
from the world outside by wastes of snow.

Laura shut her eyes an instant, imagining the goings to and fro--the
rising on winter dawns to feed the stock; the shepherd on the fell-side,
wrestling with sleet and tempest; the returns at night to food and fire.
Her young fancy, already played on by the breath of the mountains, warmed
to the farmhouse and its primitive life. Here surely was something more
human--more poetic even--than the tattered splendour of Bannisdale.

She opened her eyes wide again, as though in defiance, and saw Hubert
Mason looking at her.

Instinctively she sat up straight, and drew her foot primly under the
shelter of her dress.

"I was thinking of what it must be in winter," she said hurriedly. "I
know I should like it."

"What, this place?" He gave a rough laugh. "I don't see what for, then.
It's bad enough in summer. In winter it's fit to make you cut your
throat. I say, where are you staying?"

"Why, at Bannisdale!" said Laura in surprise. "You knew my stepmother was
still living, didn't you?"

"Well, I didn't think aught about it," he said, falling into candour,
because the beauty of her grey eyes, now that they were fixed fair and
full upon him, startled him out of his presence of mind.

"I wrote to you--to Cousin Elizabeth--when my father died," she said
simply, rather proudly, and the eyes were removed from him.

"Aye--of course you did," he said in haste. "But mother's never yan to
talk aboot letters. And you haven't dropped us a line since, have you?"
he added, almost with timidity.

"No. I thought I'd surprise you. We've been a fortnight at Bannisdale."

His face flushed and darkened.

"Then you've been a fortnight in a queer place!" he said with a sudden,
almost a violent change of tone. "I wonder you can bide so long under
that man's roof!"

She stared.

"Do you mean because he disliked my father?"

"Oh, I don't know nowt about that!" He paused. His young face was
crimson, his eyes angry and sinister. "He's a _snake_--is Helbeck!" he
said slowly, striking his hands together as they hung over his knees.

Laura recoiled--instinctively straightening herself.

"Mr. Helbeck is quite kind to me," she said sharply. "I don't know why
you speak of him like that. I'm staying there till my stepmother gets
strong."

He stared at her, still red and obstinate.

"Helbeck an his house together stick in folk's gizzards aboot here," he
said. "Yo'll soon find that oot. And good reason too. Did you ever hear
of Teddy Williams?"

"Williams?" she said, frowning. "Was that the man that painted the
chapel?"

Mason laughed and slapped his knee.

"Man, indeed? He was just a lad--down at Marsland School. I was there
myself, you understand, the year after him. He was an awful clever
lad--beat every one at books--an he could draw anything. You couldn't
mak' much oot of his drawins, I daur say--they were queer sorts o'
things. I never could make head or tail on 'em myself. But old Jackson,
our master, thowt a lot of 'em, and so did the passon down at Marsland.
An his father an mother--well, they thowt he was going to make all their
fortunes for 'em. There was a scholarship--or soomthin o' that sort--an
he was to get it an go to college, an make 'em all rich. They were just
common wheelwrights, you understand, down on t' Whinthorpe Road. But my
word, Mr. Helbeck spoilt their game for 'em!"

He lifted another sod of turf from the basket and flung it on the fire.
The animus of his tone and manner struck Laura oddly. But she was at
least as curious to hear as he was anxious to tell. She drew her chair a
little nearer to him.

"What did Mr. Helbeck do?"

Mason laughed.

"Well, he just made a Papist of Teddy--took him an done him--brown. He
got hold on him in the park one evening--Teddy was drawing a picture of
the bridge, you understand--'ticed him up to his place soomhow--an Teddy
was set to a job of paintin up at the chapel before you could say Jack
Robinson. An in six months they'd settled it between 'em. Teddy wouldn't
go to school no more. And one night he and his father had words; the owd
man gie'd him a thrashing, and Teddy just cut and run. Next thing they
heard he was at a Papist school, somewhere over Lancashire way, an he
sent word to his mother--she was dyin then, you understan'--and she's
dead since--that he'd gone to be a priest, an if they didn't like it,
they might just do the other thing!"

"And the mother died?" said Laura.

"Aye--double quick! My mother went down to nurse her. An they sent Teddy
back, just too late to see her. He come in two-three hours after they'd
screwed her down. An his father chivvyed him oot--they wouldn't have him
at the funeral. But folks were a deal madder with Mr. Helbeck, you
understan', nor with Teddy. Teddy's father and brothers are chapel
folk--Primitive Methodists they call 'em. They've got a big chapel in
Whinthorpe--an they raised the whole place on Mr. Helbeck, and one night,
coming out of Whinthorpe, he was set on by a lot of fellows, chapel
fellows, a bit fresh, you understan'. Father was there--he never denied
it--not he! Helbeck just got into the old mill by the bridge in time, but
they'd marked his face for him all the same."

"Ah!" said Laura, staring into the fire. She had just remembered a dark
scar on Mr. Helbeck's forehead, under the strong ripples of black hair.
"Go on--do!"

"Oh! afterwards there was a lot of men bound over--father among 'em.
There was a priest with Mr. Helbeck who got it hot too--that old chap
Bowles--I dare say you've seen him. Aye, he's a _snake_, is Helbeck!" the
young man repeated. Then he reddened still more deeply, and added with
vindictive emphasis--"and an interfering,--hypocritical,--canting sort of
party into t' bargain. He'd like to lord it over everybody aboot here, if
he was let. But he's as poor as a church rat--who minds him?"

The language was extraordinary--so was the tone. Laura had been gazing at
the speaker in a growing amazement.

"Thank you!" she said impetuously, when Mason stopped. "Thank you!--but,
in spite of your story, I don't think you ought to speak like that of the
gentleman I am staying with!"

Mason threw himself back in his chair. He was evidently trying to control
himself.

"I didn't mean no offence," he said at last, with a return of the sulky
voice. "Of course I understand that you're staying with the quality, and
not with the likes of us."

Laura's face lit up with laughter. "What an extraordinary silly thing to
say! But I don't mind--I'll forgive you--like I did years ago, when you
pushed me into the puddle!"

"I pushed you into a puddle? But--I never did owt o' t' sort!" cried
Mason, in a slow crescendo of astonishment.

"Oh, yes, you did," she nodded her little head. "I broke an egg, and you
bullied me. Of course I thought you were a horrid boy--and I loved Polly,
who cleaned my shoes and put me straight. Where's Polly, is she at
church?"

"Aye--I dare say," said Mason stupidly, watching his visitor meanwhile
with all his eyes. She had just put up a small hand and taken off her
cap. Now, mechanically, she began to pat and arrange the little curls
upon her forehead, then to take out and replace a hairpin or two, so as
to fasten the golden mass behind a little more securely. The white
fingers moved with an exquisite sureness and daintiness, the lifted arms
showed all the young curves of the girl's form.

Suddenly Laura turned to him again. Her eyes had been staring dreamily
into the fire, while her hands had been busy with her hair.

"So you don't remember our visit at all? You don't remember papa?"

He shook his head.

"Ah! well"--she sighed. Mason felt unaccountably guilty.

"I was always terr'ble bad at remembering," he said hastily.

"But you ought to have remembered papa." Then, in quite a different
voice, "Is this your sitting-room"--she looked round it--"or--or your
kitchen?"

The last words fell rather timidly, lest she might have hurt his
feelings.

Mason jumped up.

"Why, yon's the parlour," he said. "I should ha' taken you there fust
thing. Will you coom? I'll soon make a fire."

And walking across the kitchen, he threw open a further door
ceremoniously. Laura followed, pausing just inside the threshold to look
round the little musty sitting-room, with its framed photographs, its
woollen mats, its rocking-chairs, and its square of mustard-coloured
carpet. Mason watched her furtively all the time, to see how the place
struck her.

"Oh, this isn't as nice as the kitchen," she said decidedly. "What's
that?" She pointed to a pewter cup standing stately and alone upon the
largest possible wool mat in the centre of a table.

Mason threw back his head and chuckled. His great chest seemed to fill
out; all his sulky constraint dropped away.

"Of course you don't know anythin aboot these parts," he said to her with
condescension. "You don't know as I came near bein champion for the
County lasst year--no, I'll reckon you don't. Oh! that cup's nowt--that's
nobbut Whinthorpe sports, lasst December. Maybe there'll be a better
there, by-and-by."

The young giant grinned, as he took up the cup and pointed with assumed
indifference to its inscription.

"What--football?" said Laura, putting up her hand to hide a yawn. "Oh! I
don't care about football. But I _love_ cricket. Why--you've got a
piano--and a new one!"

Mason's face cleared again--in quite another fashion.

"Do you know the maker?" he said eagerly. "I believe he's thowt a deal of
by them as knows. I bought it myself out o' the sheep. The lambs had done
fust-rate,--an I'd had more'n half the trooble of 'em, ony ways. So I
took no heed o' mother. I went down straight to Whinthrupp, an paid the
first instalment an browt it up in the cart mesel'. Mr. Castle--do yo
knaw 'im?--he's the organist at the parish church--he came with me to
choose it."

"And is it you that play it," said Laura wondering, "or your sister?"

He looked at her in silence for a moment--and she at him. His aspect
seemed to change under her eyes. The handsome points of the face came
out; its coarseness and loutishness receded. And his manner became
suddenly quiet and manly--though full of an almost tremulous eagerness.

"You like it?" she asked him.

"What--music? I should think so."

"Oh! I forgot--you're all musical in these northern parts, aren't you?"

He made no answer, but sat down to the piano and opened it. She leant
over the back of a chair, watching him, half incredulous, half amused.

"I say--did you ever hear this? I believe it was some Cambridge fellow
made it--Castle said so. He played it to me. And I can't get further than
just a bit of it."

He raised his great hands and brought them down in a burst of chords that
shook the little room and the raftered ceiling. Laura stared. He played
on--played like a musician, though with occasional stumbling--played with
a mingled energy and delicacy, an understanding and abandonment that
amazed her--then grew crimson with the effort to remember--wavered--and
stopped.

"Goodness!"--cried Laura. "Why, that's Stanford's music to the Eumenides!
How on earth did you hear that? Go away. I can play it."

She pushed him away and sat down. He hung over her, his face smiling and
transformed, while her little hands struggled with the chords, found the
after melody, pursued it,--with pauses now and then, in which he would
strike in, prompting her, putting his hand down with hers--and finally,
after modulations which she made her way through, with laughter and
head-shakings, she fell into a weird dance, to which he beat time with
hands and limbs, urging her with a rain of comments.

"Oh! my goody--isn't that rousing? Play that again--just that
change--just once! Oh! Lord--isn't that good, that chord--and that bit
afterwards, what a bass!--I say, _isn't_ it a bass? Don't you like
it--don't you like it _awfully_?"

Suddenly she wheeled round from the piano, and sat fronting him, her
hands on her knees. He fell back into a chair.

"I say"--he said slowly--"you are a grand 'un! If I'd only known you
could play like that!"

Her laugh died away. To his amazement she began to frown.

"I haven't played--ten notes--since papa died. He liked it so."

She, turned her back to him, and began to look at the torn music at the
top of the piano.

"But you will play--you'll play to me again"--he said
beseechingly.--"Why, it would be a sin if you didn't play! Wouldn't I
play if I could play like you! I never had more than a lesson, now and
again, from old Castle. I used to steal mother's eggs to pay him--I can
play any thing I hear--and I've made a song--old Castle's writing it
down--he says he'll teach me to do it some day. But of course I'm no good
for playing--I never shall be any good. Look at those fingers--they're
like bits of stick--beastly things!"

He thrust them out indignantly for her inspection. Laura looked at them
with a professional air.

"I don't call it a bad hand. I expect you've no patience."

"Haven't I! I tell you I'd play all day, if it'ld do any good--but it
won't."

"And how about the poor farm?" said Laura, with a lifted brow.

"Oh! the farm--the farm--dang the farm!"--said Mason violently, slapping
his knee.

Suddenly there was a sound of voices outside, a clattering on the stones
of the farmyard.

Mason sprang up, all frowns.

"That's mother. Here, let's shut the piano--quick! She can't abide it."




CHAPTER V

Mason went out to meet his mother, and Laura waited. She stood where she
had risen, beside the piano, looking nervously towards the door. Childish
remembrances and alarms seemed to be thronging back into her mind.

There was a noise of voices in the outer room. Then a handle was roughly
turned, and Laura saw before her a short, stout woman, with grey hair,
and the most piercing black eyes. Intimidated by the eyes, and by the
sudden pause of the newcomer on the threshold, Miss Fountain could only
look at her interrogatively.

"Is it Cousin Elizabeth?" she said, holding out a wavering hand.

Mrs. Mason scarcely allowed her own to be touched.

"We're not used to visitors i' church-time," she said abruptly, in a deep
funereal voice. "Mappen you'll sit down."

And still holding the girl with her eyes, she walked across to an old
rocking-chair, let herself fall into it, and with a loud sigh loosened
her bonnet strings.

Laura, in her amazement, had to strangle a violent inclination to laugh.
Then she flushed brightly, and sat down on the wooden stool in front of
the piano. Mrs. Mason, still staring at her, seemed to wait for her to
speak. But Laura would say nothing.

"Soa--thoo art Stephen Fountain's dowter--art tha?"

"Yes--and you have seen me before," was the girl's quiet reply.

She said to herself that her cousin had the eyes of a bird of prey. So
black and fierce they were, in the greyish white face under the shaggy
hair. But she was not afraid. Rather she felt her own temper rising.

"How long is't sen your feyther deed?"

"Nine months. But you knew that, I think--because I wrote it you."

Mrs. Mason's heavy lids blinked a moment, then she said with slowly
quickening emphasis, like one mounting to a crisis:

"Wat art tha doin' wi' Bannisdale Hall? What call has thy feyther's
dowter to be visitin onder Alan Helbeck's roof?"

Laura's open mouth showed first wonderment, then laughter.

"Oh! I see," she said impatiently--"you don't seem to understand. But of
course you remember that my father married Miss Helbeck for his second
wife?"

"Aye, an she cam oot fra amang them," exclaimed Mrs. Mason; "she put away
from her the accursed thing!"

The massive face was all aglow, transformed, with a kind of sombre fire.
Laura stared afresh.

"She gave up being a Catholic, if that's what you mean," she said after a
moment's pause. "But she couldn't keep to it. When papa fell ill, and she
was unhappy, she went back. And then of course she made it up with her
brother."

The triumph in Mrs. Mason's face yielded first to astonishment, then to
anger.

"The poor weak doited thing," she said at last in a tone of indescribable
contempt, "the poor silly fule! But naebody need ha' luked for onything
betther from a Helbeck.--And I daur say"--she lifted her voice
fiercely--"I daur say she took yo' wi' her, an it's along o' thattens as
yo're coom to spy on us oop here?"

Laura sprang up.

"Me!" she said indignantly. "You think I'm a Catholic and a spy? How kind
of you! But of course you don't know anything about my father, nor how he
brought me up. As for my poor little stepmother, I came here with her to
get her well, and I shall stay with her till she is well. I really don't
know why you talk to me like this. I suppose you have cause to dislike
Mr. Helbeck, but it is very odd that you should visit it on me, papa's
daughter, when I come to see you!"

The girl's voice trembled, but she threw back her slender neck with a
gesture that became her. The door, which had been closed, stealthily
opened. Hubert Mason's face appeared in the doorway. It was gazing
eagerly--admiringly--at Miss Fountain.

Mrs. Mason did not see him. Nor was she daunted by Laura's anger.

"It's aw yan," she said stubbornly. "Thoo ha' made a covenant wi' the
Amorite an the Amalekite. They ha' called tha, an thoo art eatin o' their
sacrifices!"

There was an uneasy laugh from the door, and Laura, turning her
astonished eyes in that direction, perceived Hubert standing in the
doorway, and behind him another head thrust eagerly forward--the head of
a young woman in a much betrimmed Sunday hat.

"I say, mother, let her be, wil tha?" said a hearty voice; and, pushing
Hubert aside, the owner of the hat entered the room. She went up to
Laura, and gave her a loud kiss.

"I'm Polly--Polly Mason. An I know who you are weel enough. Doan't you
pay ony attention to mother. That's her way. Hubert an I take it very
kind of you to come and see us."

"Mother's rats on Amorites!" said Hubert, grinning.

"Rats?--Amorites?"--said Laura, looking piteously at Polly, whose hand
she held.

Polly laughed, a bouncing, good-humoured laugh. She herself was a
bouncing, good-humoured person, the apparent antithesis of her mother
with her lively eyes, her frizzled hair, her high cheek-bones touched
with a bright pink.

"Yo'll have to get oop early to understan' them two," she declared.
"Mother's allus talkin out o' t' Bible, an Hubert picks up a lot o' low
words out o' Whinthrupp streets--an there 'tis. But now look here--yo'll
stay an tak' a bit o' dinner with us?"

"I don't want to be in your way," said Laura formally. Really, she had
some difficulty to control the quiver of her lips, though it would have
been difficult to say whether laughter or tears came nearest.

At this Polly broke out in voluble protestations, investigating her
cousin's dress all the time, fingering her little watch-chain, and even
taking up a corner of the pretty cloth jacket that she might examine the
quality of it. Laura, however, looked at Mrs. Mason.

"If Cousin Elizabeth wishes me to stay," she said proudly.

Polly burst into another loud laugh.

"Yo see, it goes agen mother to be shakin hands wi' yan that's livin wi'
Papists--and Misther Helbeck by the bargain. So wheniver mother talks
aboot Amorites or Jesubites, or any o' thattens, she nobbut means
Papist--Romanists as our minister coes 'em. He's every bit as bad as her.
He would as lief shake hands wi' Mr. Helbeck as wi' the owd 'un!"

"I'll uphowd ye--Mr. Bayley hasn't preached a sermon this ten year wi'oot
chivvyin Papists!" said Hubert from the door. "An yo'll not find yan o'
them in his parish if yo were to hunt it wi' a lantern for a week o'
Sundays. When I was a lad I thowt Romanists were a soart o' varmin. I
awmost looked to see 'em nailed to t' barndoor, same as stöats!"

"But how strange!" cried Laura--"when there are so few Catholics about
here. And no one _hates_ Catholics now. One may just--despise them."

She looked from mother to son in bewilderment. Not only Hubert's speech,
but his whole manner had broadened and coarsened since his mother's
arrival.

"Well, if there isn't mony, they make a deal o' talk," said
Polly--"onyways sence Mr. Helbeck came to t' hall.--Mother, I'll take
Miss Fountain oopstairs, to get her hat off."

During all the banter of her son and daughter Mrs. Mason had sat in a
disdainful silence, turning her strange eyes--the eyes of a fanatic, in a
singularly shrewd and capable face--now on Laura, now on her children.
Laura looked at her again, irresolute whether to go or stay. Then an
impulse seized her which astonished herself. For it was an impulse of
liking, an impulse of kinship; and as she quickly crossed the room to
Mrs. Mason's side, she said in a pretty pleading voice:

"But you see, Cousin Elizabeth, I'm not a Catholic--and papa wasn't a
Catholic. And I couldn't help Mrs. Fountain going back to her old
religion--you shouldn't visit it on me!"

Mrs. Mason looked up.

"Why art tha not at church on t' Lord's day?"

The question came stern and quick.

Laura wavered, then drew herself up.

"Because I'm not your sort either. I don't believe in your church, or
your ministers. Father didn't, and I'm like him."

Her voice had grown thick, and she was quite pale. The old woman stared
at her.

"Then yo're nobbut yan o' the heathen!" she said with slow precision.

"I dare say!" cried Laura, half laughing, half crying. "That's my affair.
But I declare I think I hate Catholics as much as you--there, Cousin
Elizabeth! I don't hate my stepmother, of course. I promised father to
take care of her. But that's another matter."

"Dost tha hate Alan Helbeck?" said Mrs. Mason suddenly, her black eyes
opening in a flash.

The girl hesitated, caught her breath--then was seized with the
strangest, most abject desire to propitiate this grim woman with the
passionate look.

"Yes!" she said wildly. "No, no!--that's silly. I haven't had time to
hate him. But I don't like him, anyway. I'm nearly sure I _shall_ hate
him!"

There was no mistaking the truth in her tone.

Mrs. Mason slowly rose. Her chest heaved with one long breath, then
subsided; her brow tightened. She turned to her son.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.