Chapter 28 Girls of the Forest by L. T. Meade
FARMER KING
Since Pauline’s illness she had very often not been down in time for breakfast. The fact, therefore, that she did not appear on this special morning caused no excitement in the mind of any one. Miss Tredgold was so much absorbed in the task which lay before her that she scarcely noticed the little girl’s absence; nurse would see to her, would take her a proper meal, would do all that was necessary. Very often nurse did not disturb Pauline until long after the others had breakfasted, for the doctor had said that she ought never to be wakened when asleep, and that she ought to have as much rest and sleep as possible. So breakfast came to an end. There was a weight in the air. Now, it happened that the day was a specially fine one, for the skies, after crying so many tears, had cleared up, the sun had come out, and the few flowers that were left held up their heads gayly and tried to forget the storm through which they had lived and the winter days which were before them.
Mr. Dale had, of course, forgotten what he had promised his sister-in-law to do on the previous night. But Miss Tredgold had not the slightest idea of letting him off.
“Come, Henry,” she said; “we will go into the schoolroom to prayers.”
Accordingly they went, and Mr. Dale read prayers in his somewhat sleepy tones. The children, with the exception of Pauline, were all present. At last family worship was finished and the servants were allowed to leave the room. As nurse was going she looked at Verena.
“Miss Pauline is sleeping longer than usual,” she said. “She asked me a few days ago never to waken her, and said she would ring her bell when she wanted breakfast or hot water. I had better find out if she is awake.”
“Yes, do, nurse,” said Miss Tredgold briskly; “and ask her to be quick and come downstairs. I want all the children except little Marjorie to be present.”
“Oh, my dear Sophia!” said Mr. Dale at that moment, “you cannot expect me to wait here with all my morning’s work neglected while one of the girls chooses to dress herself.”
“Here’s a very interesting paper on Plato,” said Miss Tredgold suddenly, and as she spoke she handed Mr. Dale the last number of the Spectator. “I thought you might like to see it.”
“Eh? What?” he cried. “An article on Plato. By whom?”
“By the great classical scholar, Professor Mahaffy,” replied Miss Tredgold calmly.
Mr. Dale was in an intense state of excitement.
“When did this come?”
“On Saturday morning.”
“But this is Wednesday. How is it I did not see it before?”
“To tell you the truth, Henry, I read it and kept it back on purpose. I want to keep your attention until all the family are assembled. Here is your chair, here are your spectacles, and here is the paper.”
Mr. Dale took the paper, muttering to himself:
“Mahaffy—Mahaffy; one of the greatest scholars of the time;” and then he was lost to external things.
Yes, Mr. Dale of The Dales, the head of an ancient house, the father of a large family, forgot everything on earth except a certain disputed passage in which he and Professor Mahaffy diametrically disagreed. He continued to forget everything else, even when nurse rushed into the room.
“Why, she has gone!” cried the good woman. “She ain’t in her bed; and what’s more, she’s been out of it for hours, and the window is open. Oh, whatever has come to the child? Where in the world is she?”
Miss Tredgold looked terribly startled. Verena’s face turned like a sheet. Briar and Patty clasped each other’s hands. Pen said to herself:
“This is the time for a good sort of child like me to do something.”
Then a clatter of horse’s hoofs was heard on the gravel outside, and a stoutly built, rubicund man, on a very large horse, drew rein at the front door.
“It’s Farmer King!” cried Verena.
“Yes, it’s Farmer King,” said Pen.
“Penelope, be quiet,” said her aunt.
The next moment the door was opened, and the parlor-maid said that Farmer King had come and was anxious to see Mr. Dale and Miss Tredgold.
“Show him in here,” said Miss Tredgold. “Henry, have the goodness to give me that paper.”
“But I—— My dear Sophia, I have not finished reading it. I don’t agree a bit with Mahaffy—not a bit. He takes the text in its literal meaning. He ought to read it with the context. Now, there is not the slightest manner of doubt that Plato meant——”
“Henry! Are you mad? Give me that paper.”
It is to be regretted that Miss Tredgold snatched the Spectator from Mr. Dale’s unwilling hand.
“Now, Henry, wake up,” she said. “Pauline is lost, and Farmer King has come to speak to us both on a matter of importance.”
Just then Farmer King came into the room. Now, the Kings may have been the humble retainers of the Dales for generations, but there was not the slightest doubt that Farmer King made a far more imposing appearance at that moment than did Mr. Dale of The Dales; for Mr. Dale stood up, thin, bewildered, shivering, his mind in the past, his eyes consumed by a sort of inward fire, but with no intelligence as far as present things were concerned; and Farmer King was intensely wide awake, and, so to speak, all there.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Dale,” he said. “And I beg your pardon, miss. I presume I am speaking to Miss Tredgold?”
“You are, Mr. King,” said that lady.
“Good-day to you all, misses,” said the farmer.
He looked round at the somewhat frightened little group of sisters in the background.
“I have come to say something,” said the farmer. “It is something about Miss Pauline. It is something about myself and Nancy, and it has to do with you, sir”—here he bowed low to Mr. Dale—“and with you, madam”—his bow was not quite so reverential when he turned to the lady.
“What is it? Please speak,” said Miss Tredgold. “We are very anxious about Pauline. Our nurse has just told us that she is not in her bedroom. Do you know where she is?”
“Well, madam, about half an hour ago I left Miss Pauline seated in my warm kitchen, in the company of my good daughter, Nancy, and eating as good a breakfast as I could provide for her. She did not eat much, madam, but it is there for her acceptance. The young lady is heartily welcome. She prefers us to you for the time being. She did not want you to know anything about it, but that ain’t quite my way, so I came to explain.”
“Please, please, Aunt Sophy, don’t be too angry,” here came from Verena’s lips.
“Silence, Verena!” said her father.
Surely there was quite a new note in his voice! He rose; his languor left him; he came up to Farmer King and held out his hand.
“Why, good old friend,” he said, “it seems ages since we met. Do you remember that day when we were boys together and went in search of robins’ eggs?”
“Don’t I?” said the farmer.
He gave an embarrassed laugh, which ended in a sort of roar.
“And haven’t I the eggs safe still?” he said. “I have parted with many things, but not with the eggs the young squire and I took together.”
“It is ages since we met,” said Mr. Dale. “You are looking very well, Robert—admirably well. I am pleased to see you. Sit down, won’t you? Pray sit down.”
“That man is enough to turn the brain of any one,” was Miss Tredgold’s private ejaculation. Aloud she said:
“I presume, Farmer King, that you have not come here without a story to tell.”
“That is just it, madam. And now, if I may speak, I will tell you my story.”
“We are all prepared to listen,” said Miss Tredgold.
“Yes, Robert, and with attention—with attention and interest,” said Mr. Dale. “Why, upon my word, this is almost as good as a fresh rendering of the immortal Plato. Sit down, farmer, sit down.”
The farmer did not sit down.
“It’s no use mincing matters,” he said, “nor walking round the bush. It is just this. If there is a family on this earth that I have been proud to have to do with, it is that of the Dales. If there were children that I loved next to my own, it was the Dales. Why, I was brought up, so to speak, to look on them as my liege lords. My mother had the old feudal principles in her, and she never went with the times. She never held that we were as good as our betters. We were good enough, straight enough, honest enough, but we hadn’t the blue blood of the Dales in us. That is how I was brought up. Well, you, sir, were married, and came to live here with your good lady. It was the will of the Almighty that she should be taken, and the children were left motherless; and my little Nancy and I, we used to watch to do them a kindness. They were right pleased to come over and see us, and to ride barebacked on my two Forest ponies, and have their fun whenever they could get as far away as The Hollies. And Nancy was free to come to your house, and much she enjoyed it.”
“Well, Robert, very natural—very natural indeed,” said Mr. Dale.
“So I took it; so I took it.”
Here the farmer flashed an angry eye in the direction of Miss Tredgold.
“But never mind,” he continued. “I did not presume—far from that—far indeed from that. It pleased the Almighty to give you ten daughters, Mr. Dale, and to give me but one. And I love my one as much, perhaps, as you love the whole of your ten. But be that as it may, when Nancy went to The Dales to have her fun and her larks and her gay time, I was as pleased as Punch. And then this good lady came, and she said to herself, ‘Who is Nancy King?’ and the young ladies told her the plain truth; and then this good lady did not take the trouble to inquire. A farmer’s daughter was only a farmer’s daughter to her. Oh, I am not blaming her; but a little thought, a little less prejudice, would have prevented a lot of mischief. Anyhow, the good aunt gave the word—my girl and the young ladies were to have nothing to do with each other in the future. Mark you that, sir, when they were brought up, so to speak, together—always tumbling about in the same hay-field, and riding the same ponies, and playing the same games. It was all to end because of madam. Now, Mr. Dale, I was real mad when Nancy came and told me what had happened. My feelings were hot and strong and bitter, and I thought the treatment dealt out to my child and me none too just. So, sir, when Nancy asked me to help her, I helped with a will. When Miss Pauline came over to see us—which she did unknown to her aunt—I gave her the best of welcomes, and we started our midnight picnic for no other reason in life but to have her with us.”
“When did you have your midnight picnic?” asked Miss Tredgold very gently. “When? Kindly give me the date.”
The farmer looked into her face. When he saw how white she was, and when he glanced at the two little girls, Briar and Patty, his heart smote him.
“I was given over to evil feelings at that time,” he said, “and I don’t pretend for a moment I did right. Miss Pauline didn’t want to be coaxed, but Nancy was a rare temptress. We did our best, and the children came—three of them. You want to know the date, madam. It was the date of Miss Pauline’s birthday—the night after her birthday. Oh, yes, madam, we had our wild time—a right good time, too.” The farmer gave a short laugh. “You thought your young ladies quite out of the reach of the influence of Farmer King and his family; but you never guessed, madam, that all through one long beautiful summer night we had revels in the woods—dancing, madam; and a picnic, no less; and the young miss crowned with flowers as queen, and given the best presents we could give her. We took a drive under the oaks and elms and beeches of the New Forest, and you never guessed, madam—never. But Miss Pauline, Miss Briar, and Miss Patty were there, and Miss Pauline was our queen. Ah! she had a gay birthday, but you ask her what sort of a birthnight she had. It is true she was queen of the day, but that was nothing to the time when she was queen of the night. Well, sir”—the farmer’s eyes shone as he spoke—— “I meant it as a big joke, and I was desperately proud of myself; but I saw even then that Miss Pauline was fretting, and I spoke to her quite seriously, and I said, ‘If ever the time comes when you want a friend, I am the man for your purpose. Don’t you forget that; because you are a Dale and I am a King, and you Dales have always been our liege lords, so don’t you forget that.’ And the child, sir, she believed me. Lots of things happened afterwards, but of them I have nothing to say until last night. Miss Pauline came back to me, and she reminded me of what I had said to her that night in the woods. And, sir—and, madam—I mean to keep my promise. I came home at midnight, and there she was standing at the gate, white and slim and pretty as though she was a moonbeam. And she said, ‘You promised to help me when I was in trouble, and I have come to you to get you to keep your promise.’ Now, sir and madam, I have come here about that. The young lady wants to be helped. She has got a shock, and wants a bit of humoring. She says some words which have no meaning to me, but they mean something to her, and she must be humored. ‘I want to wash and be clean,’ she keeps saying; and she wants Nancy and me to take her away to the seaside where the waves are big and strong, and she insists on it that she will only go with Nancy and me. So, Miss Tredgold and Mr. Dale, I have come here to-day to say that we mean to take her.”
“Can I see her?” asked Miss Tredgold. “I have nothing to say. Perhaps I did wrong that time. We all make mistakes sometimes. I ought to have known you better, Mr. King. But that time is over. The important thing now is to restore the balance of Pauline’s mind. Can I see her?”
“You can, madam, when the right time comes; but that is not to-day, and it won’t be to-morrow. This is my business now, madam, and you must leave it to me.”