X. THE MATCH-MAKING VIRTUES OF A DOUBLE GARDEN
Anne was so flurried by the military incidents attending her return homethat she was almost afraid to venture alone outside her mother'spremises. Moreover, the numerous soldiers, regular and otherwise, thathaunted Overcombe and its neighbourhood, were getting better acquaintedwith the villagers, and the result was that they were always standing atgarden gates, walking in the orchards, or sitting gossiping just withincottage doors, with the bowls of their tobacco-pipes thrust outside forpoliteness' sake, that they might not defile the air of the household.Being gentlemen of a gallant and most affectionate nature, they naturallyturned their heads and smiled if a pretty girl passed by, which wasrather disconcerting to the latter if she were unused to society. Everybelle in the village soon had a lover, and when the belles were allallotted those who scarcely deserved that title had their turn, many ofthe soldiers being not at all particular about half-an-inch of nose moreor less, a trifling deficiency of teeth, or a larger crop of frecklesthan is customary in the Saxon race. Thus, with one and another,courtship began to be practised in Overcombe on rather a large scale, andthe dispossessed young men who had been born in the place were left totake their walks alone, where, instead of studying the works of nature,they meditated gross outrages on the brave men who had been so good as tovisit their village.
Anne watched these romantic proceedings from her window with muchinterest, and when she saw how triumphantly other handsome girls of theneighbourhood walked by on the gorgeous arms of Lieutenant Knockheelmann,Cornet Flitzenhart, and Captain Klaspenkissen, of the thrilling YorkHussars, who swore the most picturesque foreign oaths, and had awonderful sort of estate or property called the Vaterland in theircountry across the sea, she was filled with a sense of her ownloneliness. It made her think of things which she tried to forget, andto look into a little drawer at something soft and brown that lay in acurl there, wrapped in paper. At last she could bear it no longer, andwent downstairs.
'Where are you going?' said Mrs. Garland.
'To see the folks, because I am so gloomy!'
'Certainly not at present, Anne.'
'Why not, mother?' said Anne, blushing with an indefinite sense of beingvery wicked.
'Because you must not. I have been going to tell you several times notto go into the street at this time of day. Why not walk in the morning?There's young Mr. Derriman would be glad to--'
'Don't mention him, mother, don't!'
'Well then, dear, walk in the garden.'
So poor Anne, who really had not the slightest wish to throw her heartaway upon a soldier, but merely wanted to displace old thoughts by new,turned into the inner garden from day to day, and passed a good manyhours there, the pleasant birds singing to her, and the delightfulbutterflies alighting on her hat, and the horrid ants running up herstockings.
This garden was undivided from Loveday's, the two having originally beenthe single garden of the whole house. It was a quaint old place,enclosed by a thorn hedge so shapely and dense from incessant clippingthat the mill-boy could walk along the top without sinking in--a featwhich he often performed as a means of filling out his day's work. Thesoil within was of that intense fat blackness which is only seen after acentury of constant cultivation. The paths were grassed over, so thatpeople came and went upon them without being heard. The grass harbouredslugs, and on this account the miller was going to replace it by gravelas soon as he had time; but as he had said this for thirty years withoutdoing it, the grass and the slugs seemed likely to remain.
The miller's man attended to Mrs. Garland's piece of the garden as wellas to the larger portion, digging, planting, and weeding indifferently inboth, the miller observing with reason that it was not worth while for ahelpless widow lady to hire a man for her little plot when his man,working alongside, could tend it without much addition to his labour. Thetwo households were on this account even more closely united in thegarden than within the mill. Out there they were almost one family, andthey talked from plot to plot with a zest and animation which Mrs.Garland could never have anticipated when she first removed thither afterher husband's death.
The lower half of the garden, farthest from the road, was the most snugand sheltered part of this snug and sheltered enclosure, and it was wellwatered as the land of Lot. Three small brooks, about a yard wide, ranwith a tinkling sound from side to side between the plots, crossing thepath under wood slabs laid as bridges, and passing out of the gardenthrough little tunnels in the hedge. The brooks were so far overhung attheir brinks by grass and garden produce that, had it not been for theirperpetual babbling, few would have noticed that they were there. Thiswas where Anne liked best to linger when her excursions became restrictedto her own premises; and in a spot of the garden not far removed thetrumpet-major loved to linger also.
Having by virtue of his office no stable duty to perform, he came downfrom the camp to the mill almost every day; and Anne, finding that headroitly walked and sat in his father's portion of the garden whenevershe did so in the other half, could not help smiling and speaking to him.So his epaulettes and blue jacket, and Anne's yellow gipsy hat, wereoften seen in different parts of the garden at the same time; but henever intruded into her part of the enclosure, nor did she intoLoveday's. She always spoke to him when she saw him there, and hereplied in deep, firm accents across the gooseberry bushes, or throughthe tall rows of flowering peas, as the case might be. He thus gave heraccounts at fifteen paces of his experiences in camp, in quarters, inFlanders, and elsewhere; of the difference between line and column, offorced marches, billeting, and such-like, together with his hopes ofpromotion. Anne listened at first indifferently; but knowing no one elseso good-natured and experienced, she grew interested in him as in abrother. By degrees his gold lace, buckles, and spurs lost all theirstrangeness and were as familiar to her as her own clothes.
At last Mrs. Garland noticed this growing friendship, and began todespair of her motherly scheme of uniting Anne to the moneyed Festus. Whyshe could not take prompt steps to check interference with her plansarose partly from her nature, which was the reverse of managing, andpartly from a new emotional circumstance with which she found itdifficult to reckon. The near neighbourhood that had produced thefriendship of Anne for John Loveday was slowly effecting a warmer likingbetween her mother and his father.
Thus the month of July passed. The troop horses came with the regularityof clockwork twice a day down to drink under her window, and, as theweather grew hotter, kicked up their heels and shook their headsfuriously under the maddening sting of the dun-fly. The green leaves inthe garden became of a darker dye, the gooseberries ripened, and thethree brooks were reduced to half their winter volume.
At length the earnest trumpet-major obtained Mrs. Garland's consent totake her and her daughter to the camp, which they had not yet viewed fromany closer point than their own windows. So one afternoon they went, themiller being one of the party. The villagers were by this time driving aroaring trade with the soldiers, who purchased of them every descriptionof garden produce, milk, butter, and eggs at liberal prices. The figuresof these rural sutlers could be seen creeping up the slopes, laden likebees, to a spot in the rear of the camp, where there was a kind of market-place on the greensward.
Mrs. Garland, Anne, and the miller were conducted from one place toanother, and on to the quarter where the soldiers' wives lived who hadnot been able to get lodgings in the cottages near. The most shelteredplace had been chosen for them, and snug huts had been built for theiruse by their husbands, of clods, hurdles, a little thatch, or whateverthey could lay hands on. The trumpet-major conducted his friends thenceto the large barn which had been appropriated as a hospital, and to thecottage with its windows bricked up, that was used as the magazine; thenthey inspected the lines of shining dark horses (each representing thethen high figure of two-and-twenty guineas purchase money), standingpatiently at the ropes which stretched from one picket-post to another, abank being thrown up in
front of them as a protection at night.
They passed on to the tents of the German Legion, a well-grown and ratherdandy set of men, with a poetical look about their faces which renderedthem interesting to feminine eyes. Hanoverians, Saxons, Prussians,Swedes, Hungarians, and other foreigners were numbered in their ranks.They were cleaning arms, which they leant carefully against a rail whenthe work was complete.
On their return they passed the mess-house, a temporary wooden buildingwith a brick chimney. As Anne and her companions went by, a group ofthree or four of the hussars were standing at the door talking to adashing young man, who was expatiating on the qualities of a horse thatone was inclined to buy. Anne recognized Festus Derriman in the seller,and Cripplestraw was trotting the animal up and down. As soon as shecaught the yeoman's eye he came forward, making some friendly remark tothe miller, and then turning to Miss Garland, who kept her eyes steadilyfixed on the distant landscape till he got so near that it was impossibleto do so longer. Festus looked from Anne to the trumpet-major, and fromthe trumpet-major back to Anne, with a dark expression of face, as if hesuspected that there might be a tender understanding between them.
'Are you offended with me?' he said to her in a low voice of repressedresentment.
'No,' said Anne.
'When are you coming to the hall again?'
'Never, perhaps.'
'Nonsense, Anne,' said Mrs. Garland, who had come near, and smiledpleasantly on Festus. 'You can go at any time, as usual.'
'Let her come with me now, Mrs. Garland; I should be pleased to walkalong with her. My man can lead home the horse.'
'Thank you, but I shall not come,' said Miss Anne coldly.
The widow looked unhappily in her daughter's face, distressed between herdesire that Anne should encourage Festus, and her wish to consult Anne'sown feelings.
'Leave her alone, leave her alone,' said Festus, his gaze blackening.'Now I think of it I am glad she can't come with me, for I am engaged;'and he stalked away.
Anne moved on with her mother, young Loveday silently following, and theybegan to descend the hill.
'Well, where's Mr. Loveday?' asked Mrs. Garland.
'Father's behind,' said John.
Mrs. Garland looked behind her solicitously; and the miller, who had beenwaiting for the event, beckoned to her.
'I'll overtake you in a minute,' she said to the younger pair, and wentback, her colour, for some unaccountable reason, rising as she did so.The miller and she then came on slowly together, conversing in very lowtones, and when they got to the bottom they stood still. Loveday andAnne waited for them, saying but little to each other, for the rencounterwith Festus had damped the spirits of both. At last the widow's privatetalk with Miller Loveday came to an end, and she hastened onward, themiller going in another direction to meet a man on business. When shereached the trumpet-major and Anne she was looking very bright and ratherflurried, and seemed sorry when Loveday said that he must leave them andreturn to the camp. They parted in their usual friendly manner, and Anneand her mother were left to walk the few remaining yards alone.
'There, I've settled it,' said Mrs. Garland. 'Anne, what are youthinking about? I have settled in my mind that it is all right.'
'What's all right?' said Anne.
'That you do not care for Derriman, and mean to encourage John Loveday.What's all the world so long as folks are happy! Child, don't take anynotice of what I have said about Festus, and don't meet him any more.'
'What a weathercock you are, mother! Why should you say that just now?'
'It is easy to call me a weathercock,' said the matron, putting on thelook of a good woman; 'but I have reasoned it out, and at last, thankGod, I have got over my ambition. The Lovedays are our true and onlyfriends, and Mr. Festus Derriman, with all his money, is nothing to us atall.'
'But,' said Anne, 'what has made you change all of a sudden from what youhave said before?'
'My feelings and my reason, which I am thankful for!'
Anne knew that her mother's sentiments were naturally so versatile thatthey could not be depended on for two days together; but it did not occurto her for the moment that a change had been helped on in the presentcase by a romantic talk between Mrs. Garland and the miller. But Mrs.Garland could not keep the secret long. She chatted gaily as she walked,and before they had entered the house she said, 'What do you think MrLoveday has been saying to me, dear Anne?'
Anne did not know at all.
'Why, he has asked me to marry him.'