Chapter XXVI: Not Her Husband

FARMER PAINE in his garden was whistling softly, while he plucked a bunch of rosebuds for Winnie. She had drooped a good deal of late; and he was very fond of the girl. Big strong man that he was, her gentleness appealed to him, and he had a tender heart.

The niece "Molly" had disappointed him a good deal; she was so changed from the winsome maiden of earlier years, so "shut-up" and nonresponsive. And Jane was a trial. But he clung to Winnie.

As he stood in his rough coat and gaiters, putting the buds together with large careful fingers, a man came through the field, and stopped at the gate. Not a gentleman; not a farmer; not an ordinary labourer; hardly a beggar. Mr. Paine was at a loss how to label him.

He was short and knock-kneed, with toes that turned in, and a heavy narrow-browed face, a contrast to the fine old farmer. He might have been fifty or more, and he slouched along with an uncertain gait. Not the easy powerful swing of a sailor, or the characteristic roll of the Rector; but hesitating, dubious, wanting in aim.

"Good morning," he said. "Farmer Paine, I s'pose. I'd know you agen, anywhere. Fine figure of a man you was—and you're that still. You dunno me—easy to see!"

Farmer Paine looked up and down the sorry face, the backboneless, shambling figure.

"No. I don't know you, my man. Perhaps I ought."

A short laugh came in response.

"Didn't much s'pose you would—not expectin'. It's hard on twenty-seven years since you and me met. And you wasn't over-much perlite to me then, neither. You and your missus didn't think I was fit for your pretty Molly. Nor I wasn't. But all the same—"

The farmer fell back a step.

"Yes—I'm him. You know me now."

"Phil—Morris!"

"Same!" He held out his hand.

"But—but I say!—we thought you'd been dead, years and years ago."

"Well, I wasn't—that's all. I'm alive now."

"Molly said you'd been drowned—out in South America."

"Told that, was she? Wonder however she heard! Did she mind?" He showed interest.

"Why, of course she minded."

"Glad to hear it. Didn't think she'd have cared. No—I didn't."

"And you're here—alive! All these years after."

"I'm alive. I aint much more. And I've got about what's on my back—and nothin' beyond. I can tell 'ee that."

Paine hesitated. Was this unlooked-for return good for Molly—for the girls? A penniless failure, for husband and father! He had not liked Morris in the past, and he had strenuously opposed the engagement; but Molly had been wilful, and had taken her own way in this as in other matters. He liked the man even less now. Lines in the face told of a life of dissipation. Still—here he was!

"To think that Molly isn't a widow, after all! And hasn't been, all this while."

Morris stared in his turn.

"Dunno what you're after now. She married—of course."

"No, no,—never."

"Eh? Then she must ha' cared a lot more for me than ever I thought."

"Of course she did. Molly ain't one of the talkin' sort. Leastways, she ain't now. Different when she was a girl. But of course she cared. Wouldn't be natural-like, if she didn't."

"And never married, after all. I wonder what became of the chap that was after her. And she's kep' her own name. Whatever did you mean, farmer,—talkin' as if you'd thought she was a widow?"

They were at cross purposes still. Farmer Paine turned towards the house. He had not taken in the sense of the last words.

"Come along. Come in," he said heartily. "She'll give you a welcome, Molly will. It'll startle her, maybe, just at first,—but you'll have a welcome, man. Care. Of course she cared."

With great strides the farmer reached the door, opened it, and called in lusty tones—

"Molly! Molly! Here's one come back, that we thought never to see again." A voice within him murmured—"And didn't wish to see again!"— but he put that down. "Now, don't you be taken aback," he called energetically. "Where's Jane? Where's Winnie? Here's your father, girls,—come back from the grave, as one may say. Never drowned at all, Molly. It's all a mistake."

"Their father! No, no!" Morris tried to interpose, as the nature of the farmer's error dawned upon him. But Mr. Paine, all the more because of that protesting voice within, pressed forward, talking eagerly—

"Here you are, girls. Aint this a bit of news? Your father's come back. Wasn't drowned at all, and never wrote. But he's back at last. Here, Jane,—Winnie—Molly—come along. It's your husband, Molly."

The two were confronted. Farmer Paine dragged forward the wanderer, a sheepish, puzzled figure; and Mrs. Morris moved to meet him.

She was imperturbable even now, though her face showed that she was startled. Jane stared with round eyes. Winnie trembled like a leaf.

"Molly, my dear, it's your husband. Him as you thought was dead."

Mrs. Morris stood stock still, one hand folded over the other, after the style of the superior housekeeper receiving orders from her mistress.

"Some mistake or other," muttered Morris, holding back.

"Yes, it's a mistake," she agreed. She looked at the farmer. "That aint my husband."

"Not!" The farmer's jaw fell.

"And Molly she never was my wife, though she was to have been, if she hadn't gone and jilted me."

"Well, I never!" uttered Mr. Paine. "And if you're not Phil Morris, who are you, man?"

"I'm Phil Morris, sure enough. But I aint Molly's husband—worse luck." He turned to the girls. "Nor I aint their father. Wish I was!"

"Never been married!" The farmer was all astray still.

"Well, I did marry, and she's dead, and I've come back. I'd no luck out there, and I thought I'd try the old country agen. And a sort of a wish corned over me, to see if Molly was alive." He turned to Mrs. Morris. "And you married that other chap, did you?" She nodded, and his gaze went to Mr. Paine. "Whatever did you mean—saying she wasn't married?"

The farmer seemed dazed, and he spoke slowly.

"I thought she was your widow. I meant—she'd never married again."

"Well, she never was my wife, though she'd promised to be. She was comin' out to me in Canada; and all of a sudden she wrote and chucked me. Said she was goin' to marry another feller, and I shouldn't never hear from her agen. That hit hard, I can tell 'ee— it did, farmer. I cared a lot for Molly."

Other questions were thronging on Farmer Paine.

"Molly went to Canada," he said; and his fine rugged face had grown hard. "If she didn't go to you, what did she go for?"

A moment's silence.

"Who was it you married, Molly,—if it wasn't Phil Morris?"

Mrs. Morris spoke stolidly, one hand still folded neatly over the other.

"It was another man," she said. "I came across him; and I found I didn't care for Phil. I'd thought I did, and I didn't. It was the other I cared for—not him. He was a bit above me—a gentlemen out and out—and he didn't want his folks to know about me being his wife— he didn't want the fuss there'd be. So I just kept it secret, and let nobody know. It didn't matter to other people."

"It mattered to me," the farmer said, his voice grieved and hoarse. "It mattered to me and my wife. And you took us in too."

"Yes. It had to be, uncle."

"And you went to Canada with the other man."

"No, I didn't go to Canada—not at all. That was all a make-up, just to stop talk. We stopped a good bit where we were after we were married."

"Where was it?"

"We stopped abroad—all the time till my husband died. And then I went to Norfolk."

"And all these years you've been deceivin' me. And I thought you true, Molly. Whatever your faults might be, I've judged you true."

"I couldn't help it," she said. "There was reasons why I couldn't say more; and there's reasons now."

Morris was staring about the room.

"There's the picture I painted and gev to you, Molly," he remarked. "I gev it you when I went off to Canada—thinkin' as you'd come after me."

"I didn't know my own mind then."

"And they told you I was drowned. Who said it?"

"I heard it. And after that, I wrote to uncle here. I'd never been sure before that you wouldn't turn up, and say I wasn't your wife."

Jane broke in with a jarring laugh.

"And this—" she said, taking up the shut frame which Mrs. Brutt had noticed,—"we thought it was our father, and it isn't. Mother never showed it to us, till we came to Wyldd's Farm. We couldn't think why."

Mrs. Morris offered no explanation.

"It's me, anyway," said Morris. "But I ain't your father, my dear. Shouldn't mind if I was."

Jane giggled, and Winnie shivered.

Farmer Paine could not get over the blow. His straightforward nature recoiled at the thought of this long deliberate deceit. He had trusted Molly utterly; and at one blow his trust was shattered. With him, to doubt once was to doubt always. He would never again, after this, put confidence in her. Besides, he recognised that she had not told him all. She was shuffling; hiding something still.

Questionings thronged upon him. Why should she have pretended that she had been married to this man, when she had not? Why should she have passed all these years under his name? Why should she have displayed his painting, his likeness, as of her husband? Why should she have made believe to have gone to Canada? Why should she never have revealed her whereabouts, even to her nearest relatives, till years after her husband's death? The whole tissue of lies seemed so needless, so foolish, over and above the actual wrong-doing. Each new aspect increased the mystery of her conduct. The more he thought, the more his spirit was stirred within him.

It was at this juncture that Mr. Stirling, on his way from the Rectory, arrived at the farm. Finding doors open, and his ring unnoticed, he walked into the midst of them.

"How do you do?" were his first words. His glance passed carelessly over the stranger.

"This is Phil Morris, sir," spoke the farmer. "That we all thought dead. That we thought was her husband!" He indicated his niece with a backward twist of his thumb.

Jane laughed once more, and the man snickered feebly.

"Eh? What do you say?" Mr. Stirling turned sharply, and his eyes sent forth a lightning-flash.

"It's Phil Morris, sir,—that we thought was Molly's husband, drowned twenty years agone. And he wasn't drowned. And she and he they both has it that they wasn't ever husband and wife. She jilted him for another man; and she never went to Canada. And all these years that I've thought her true, she's been deceivin' me—takin' me in right and left. Livin' a lie, as the sayin' is. And it beats me, it does, to know what all the tellin' of lies has been for."

The Squire's face was set rigidly; his forehead dented and lined; his eyes bent, as in stern demand, upon Mrs. Morris. She came two steps forward, looking straight at him, with no sign of fear.

"It's Phil Morris that I was once engaged to," she said composedly. "And that I was to have married, as soon as I'd done nursing little Miss Katherine. I was to have gone out to him in Canada. And I let folks think I'd done it. But I didn't." She breathed a trifle harder, and seemed thinking what to say next. Her eyes and the Squire's met during this pause. "He wrote to say he was going to South America, and I was to make haste, and we'd be married before he left Canada."

"And you did not go."

"No. I'd met another by that time, that I liked a lot better. And I married him, and jilted Phil. And their names was pretty much the same, leastways in sound; and he didn't want his home-folks to know. And I didn't care. I'd got him, and that was all I wanted." The impassive face changed, just a little, with these words. "So I promised him I'd keep it dark; and I did."

Mr. Stirling listened thus far in silence. "A singular tale!" he said then thoughtfully.

"I'd got my reasons. They didn't matter to anybody else. If my husband wanted it, I'd got to do what he wanted."

"And after he died—why didn't you speak out then?" demanded the farmer.

"I couldn't!" was all she said. Her eyes sought the Squire still, oddly, as if asking his approval.

"And the painting—and the likeness—and the name—and the peck o' lies!" groaned Farmer Paine.

"That was all of a piece, uncle. It's no use to half do things. I'm no story-teller, not in a common way. But if a thing's got to be done, I do it thorough. And this had got to be done."

She folded one hand again over the other, and was silent. Mr. Stirling seemed lost in consideration.

"Could you ever have thought it of our Molly, sir?" the farmer asked.

"I should like a few words with Mrs. Morris in another room." The speaker glanced towards Morris, who muttered—

"I'd best be off. Don't see as I'm wanted here. I've got to look for work."

The Squire paused.

"What kind?"

"I ain't particular. Any sort of odd job 'ud do. I've got to live."

"Wait for me in the field. I can probably help you, if you do not mind going to a distance."

Morris signified his readiness, and disappeared one way, Mr. Stirling and Mrs. Morris going another way. The farmer dropped heavily into his chair.

"Who'd have thought it? Whoever would have thought it?" he groaned.

"But oh, I'm glad that man isn't—father!" whispered Winnie.