XXIV

Felise gave Ruy an apple, and then another till the six were gone. He thrust his nostrils into her hand, and pushed her with his face for more. As he moved it brought Robert, who held him, close to Felise. Once again he felt the caress of her dress, even the touch of her arm.

The contrast between them was very marked. Her clear complexion, her golden hair; her form so beautifully shaped that even the loveliness of her face was overlooked. You must forget her form before you could see her features.

His black countenance⁠—black like a piece of wood that has lain for years in the rain; his colourless eye; his round stout frame expressive of ungraceful strength.

But Ruy, greedy for more apples, would not stand still. Robert lost the touch of her arm, and the caress of her dress.

“He is a fine horse,” said Felise; “I cannot understand why his owner sold him. Did you not say he wanted money?”

“His rent was overdue,” said Robert. At ordinary times he would not have let this out; at the moment he was abstracted from himself to such a degree that his lips answered without the consent of his mind. “His Lady Day rent was overdue⁠—and⁠—and I bought the horse.”

“That he might have the money to pay.”

“Yes.”

“And the price was?”

“Sixty pounds.”

“I thought you said seventy yesterday.”

“No⁠—did I?”

The horse-dealer’s instinct had for the time deserted him. He forgot to add ten pounds to the sum he had really given.

“Is he very much in difficulty?” asked Felise, growing bolder.

“I am not sure” (this was the truth); “I should like to know.”

Felise was obliged to move, as Ruy worked his face too forcibly against her. She walked with Robert towards the stables, thinking if there was any other leading question she could put. She could not think of another.

“Now may I ask you a favour?” said Felise, as Robert, having handed Ruy over to the charge of a carter, was returning with her towards the house.

“Certainly.”

“Will you not let old Abner Brown stay in his cottage? He cannot live very much longer.”

Robert’s mental condition stiffened instantly. The request brought him back from the glamour into which he had been thrown.

“He has already been there much longer than he ought,” he said. “I believe it is a year since he ceased to work.”

“Yes⁠—think; he worked up to within one year of eighty-four⁠—surely that should plead for him.”

“I have to consider the estate,” said Robert. “You know the circumstances⁠—he cannot do any work, nor can his wife; we want the cottage for those who can.”

“But has he not earned a little repose, Mr. Godwin?”

“He can have it in the workhouse.”

“Do not say so⁠—do not mention that dreadful place. It would kill the old man to leave his garden.”

“They will let him sweep up the leaves and weed the paths at the workhouse.”

“He is very, very old, Mr. Godwin; he has lived in that cottage more than forty years, and all the trees in the garden are his own planting⁠—there are apples, and a cherry⁠—”

“We want the cottage⁠—we must have it; I know several who will be glad of it.”

“They are no expense,” continued Felise, “because their son keeps them; let them stay.”

“It is impossible! as for young Abner, he ought not to live in our cottage and work off the estate.”

“He works for Mr. Goring,” said Felise, beginning to grow angry; but she checked it for the sake of the aged couple. “Mr. Godwin, I will pay you⁠—what is the rent of the cottage?”

“Two shillings a week.”

“I will pay it, then you will lose nothing.”

“The rent is paid now,” said Godwin. “You misunderstand; we lose the man’s work who should live there.”

“Oh, but they are so old!”

“There is the workhouse.”

“They will never go there.”

“They must; the parish will not allow outdoor relief.”

“Mr. Godwin, do let them stay; I have set my heart upon it.”

Who else could have resisted her? The argument and the trace of anger which had begun to rise had brightened her colour and warmed her whole appearance. Robert refused her point-blank. The stored-up passion of so many years, causing an irresistible reflex action, forced him to oppose her. After this appeal from her, now he knew she wished it, had a sign shone in the heavens still he would not have yielded.

Felise, recognising his stubborn mood, forbore to press further; she spoke for a few minutes with Miss Godwin, and left.

In the afternoon Mr. Goring came home, having consulted his solicitor, who thought that probably there was a right to enclose the spring, as it was on private property, though within a few yards of the highway. The question would be an awkward one; it might cost hundreds of pounds to decide it; he advised his client to have nothing to do with it.

“This is indeed a right!” said Mr. Goring “Time it is that such ‘rights’ should be abolished⁠—the word itself is reversed in alluding to them. Has any man a ‘right,’ then, to enclose the air, the light? Doubtless, if it could be done, there are those who would enclose the ocean and claim it as private property.”

He set out that very evening with Abner to construct a dipping-place in a part of the stream that passed through his little property, intending also to open a footpath to it for the use of the inhabitants.

Felise inquired if he had heard anything in Maasbury about Mr. Barnard’s alleged pecuniary difficulties.

“No,” said Goring. “Why do you wish to know?”

“There seems so much trouble about us,” replied Felise discreetly. “So many farmers failing⁠—that is all.”

Nor had Mary Shaw discovered anything.

Felise turned over Miss Barnard’s Dante scrapbook, wishing the owner would come for it.

Next morning she went over again to Godwin’s, fed Ruy with apples, petted him and praised him, talked a little while with Robert, and begged for old Abner’s cottage. In vain.

Four times in succession she visited Ruy, fed him, petted him, stroked him, and seemed more and more loth to leave him.

The fifth morning she did not come; Robert waited and worked with his hands, but she did not come. This was the Saturday; Sunday he did not think it at all likely she would come. He never slept, nor even attempted to do so on the Saturday or Sunday night. How he passed them it is difficult to tell, but he constantly moved something or other about with his hands. Two nights without sleep did not leave much trace on his bronze face; but his heart’s bitterness was worn deeper within him, as a storm wears gullies in the rock.

Already, so swift is gossip, the hamlet had begun to talk of Miss Goring and Mr. Godwin. Though Felise had helped them in so many ways, though her uncle was actually at that moment working for them, they could not say a good word, they could not credit her with any motive but greed of money.

“She be a-looking after old Godwin’s gold.” “Selling herself to the old miser.” “Hope his money will choke her.” “Never thought there was much in her, did you?”

Such was the tone of their comments.

Felise was disappointed; Miss Barnard had not called for the Dante scrapbook; after her bold effort she seemed no nearer her object. But an idea had been gradually forming itself in her mind, and on Monday she started, always impetuous, to put it into practice.

She went over and fed Ruy once more with apples, Ruy was as greedy of them as a miser of coin; she talked with Robert, and presently asked him for how much he would sell the horse?

“Seventy pounds,” said Robert.

“But you only gave sixty for him.”

“I have to make my turn⁠—my profit,” said Robert.

“Will you sell him to me?”

“Of course.”

“I will buy him,” said Felise.

“You shall have him⁠—seventy pounds.”

“Sixty.”

“No⁠—no.”

“Sixty-five.”

“Impossible.”

“Sixty-seven.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Sixty-seven⁠—that is seven pounds profit, and all in a few days,” said Felise.

“Seventy pounds,” said Robert decidedly, and Felise saw that it was no use to bargain.

“Very well, seventy⁠—I will bring you the money this evening; you will not part with him to anyone else in the meantime?”

“Why, no⁠—certainly not.”

“I will come then, this evening.”

She returned home, and asked Mr. Goring for the pony-carriage to drive into the town; it was prepared, and she started alone.

So soon as she had left, Robert Godwin said to himself that he had been foolish to part with the horse so easily. She had so set her mind on the horse, he might have asked ninety safely. If he had kept him till the hunting-season some gentleman might have taken a fancy for him and gone still higher, perhaps a hundred and twenty. For the price of a horse is the price of a fancy, and goes up like stocks and shares when buyers are in the vein. Why, very likely she knew of someone who would give her ninety or a hundred for such a horse; very likely that was the secret of her eagerness to secure him. Robert felt that he had been “had;” it hurt his semiprofessional pride as a horse-dealer now and then, generally heavily to his gain.

The miser and the lover⁠—despair, hope, and anger⁠—were they not strangely mingled in this man?

A passionate lover would have given his lady the horse in a moment, especially if as rich as Robert Godwin. With all his riches, and his secret passion, he had but once given her a present. One fair-day⁠—eight years since⁠—for a marvel he spent fourpence (the groat is still a unit in country places) at a stall on “fairings,” a sort of sweet biscuit, thinking he might see her as he came home. He did see her, and gave her the groat’s worth of “fairings;” the child took them silently, not without some awe of his black face.

He had cleared ten pounds profit, and he was torturing himself because he feared he had missed an opportunity to make twenty.

Yet his hands were never still because of his unmanageable passion⁠—he must work with them constantly; his heart’s bitterness was full to overflowing because he could not have her; the hope her presence gave was like a sword splitting his very heart in two. She stood by him and his lips were dumb⁠—commonplaces are dumbness⁠—his lips were closed with iron-bolts; he could not say one word to indicate his meaning, to seek her favour.

Are we cynical moderns right, after all, in our discredit of Fate? Could there possibly be some fate here, some of that irresistible destiny which in Sophocles carries its tyrant will through generation after generation? Petty circumstances unregarded lead men on, from step to step, from thought to thought, action to action; is this Fate?

The greed of the miser; the agony of the lover who knows that he cannot be loved; the pitiless animosity of the tyrant turning by reflex action against the creature of his love; the sharp sword of a hope that only shows what might be if⁠—these are terrible goads.