Chapter XIII: Kingsford Farm

"And one, an English home—gray twilight pour'd
On dewy pastures, dewy trees,
Softer than sleep—all things in order stored
A haunt of ancient peace."—Tennyson.

WHEN tea was over, Chris took Jean upstairs.

"We are rather proud of this old house," she said, as she pointed out to her the ornamental carving round the balustrade of the staircase. "If one had money, how delicious it would be, to do it all up. This is your bedroom; it is very simple, but we hope you will like it."

Jean saw a large, rather bare-looking room. A very small square of carpet was laid in the centre of the floor; a little white dimity bed was in one corner, an old-fashioned washstand in the other; a hanging wardrobe, small chest of drawers, and modest dressing table completed the furniture, with the exception of one cane-bottomed chair and a bowl of pink roses on the deep window-ledge.

"It looks most cool and comfortable," was Jean's remark.

Then Chris took her farther down the old passage, and threw open a carved oak door.

"This is our show-room," she said. "Sometimes Barbara and I come up and sit here with our work. We imagine ourselves ladies of leisure, and expect a stately old butler to throw open the door and announce some guests dressed in Caldecott's fashion."

It was indeed a show-room. Ceiling and walls were all panelled and carved, the mantelpiece was in beautiful preservation, and the coat-of-arms and motto of the owner was carved above it; the floor was of polished oak.

"I spent two days last week rubbing it up," said Chris proudly; "for I was determined you should see it at its best. We settled when we came here, that nothing new should ever come into this room. That Chippendale cabinet belonged to our grandmother. The old oak chest we picked up cheap at a sale. The spinning-wheel an artist friend brought from Brittany, and that queer old cradle we got at a cottager's sale. These Chippendale chairs used to be in our drawing-room at home, and so did that oval table."

Jean's eyes were busy. Three casement windows looked out over valleys and woods, and the river dashed over granite boulders below. As she leant out of one window which was framed with creepers, a deep crimson rose touched her cheek, and the scent of the honeysuckle from below filled the air with its fragrance.

"It is perfect," she said. "May I use this room?"

"Of course. You are going to paint it, are you not? I often wish I could paint. I think I am better with my pen than with my brush. I wrote a little story about this room when we first came here. You know the place is called King's-ford, because Charles I forded the river during the Civil Wars. It is easy to make up a nice little tale about this house being his refuge for the time. It belonged to some Hollingsworths long, long ago. I am sure the name sounds loyal, does it not? There is Barbara calling; I must go, for I have a good hour's work in the dairy. We have supper at half-past eight. Your trunk has been carried up to your room, and you will find Barbara downstairs if you want anything."

She ran out of the room, singing in a fresh young voice—

"Should one of us remember
And one of us forget,
I wish I knew what each will do—
But who can tell as yet?"

Jean pulled a chair up to the window and sat down. She wanted quiet, for she wanted to think.

The quaint old-fashioned room, the scent of the climbing roses, the sleepy chirps of the birds outside as they prepared to retire to rest, all seemed like some delicious dream. She could hardly believe that that very morning, she had been in the midst of the roar and bustle of London. And more serious thoughts took possession of her as she sat at that window—thoughts that made her at last murmur to herself:

"This has been a day of great beginnings."

She did not go downstairs till the supper bell rang, and then she found every one in a pleasant, talkative mood. Conversation was not wholly on farming; Barbara, Jean found, knew London well, and had plenty to say on art and literature.

"My first visit was when I was quite a young girl," she explained. "I used to stay with an old uncle and aunt. They did not go out themselves, and never entertained, but they sent me to every museum and picture gallery in town, and very often to a good concert. I learnt a good deal whilst with them."

"I have never been out of Devonshire, since I was two years old," said Chris, with a sigh, "though I was born in Edinburgh."

"Were you?" said Jean, with interest. "I wonder if you have any relations still in Scotland?"

"No, none, except my godmother, whom I have never seen. She is a very distant connection of ours—a Mrs. Fergusson. She lives about sixteen miles out of Edinburgh."

"At a house called 'Duncommon'?" exclaimed Jean. "I wonder if it is the same!"

"'Duncommon' is the name of her house," said Barbara gravely. "Do you know her?"

"Yes. How very strange! It must be the same."

Jean began to tell them of her Scotch visit with great animation. There was no difficulty in proving that Chris's godmother and Jean's Mrs. Fergusson were one and the same.

"She has asked me at different intervals to go and stay with her," said Chris, "but I have never been able to do it as yet."

"It seems so strange to come down to Devonshire and find a link at once with the people I have been staying with in Scotland," said Jean presently.

"Not so strange as you imagine. The Douglases and Lorraines both lived in our father's parish in Hampshire. The living was in the Douglas gift, and was given to my father, because they had known him in Edinburgh. You went to Scotland through Mrs. Talbot, Colonel Douglas's sister. The Fergussons were mutual friends. Scotch folk always help each other and hang together."

A little sigh followed Barbara's words.

"Then do you know Colonel Douglas as well as Miss Lorraine?" asked Jean.

"Yes, slightly; but he was in the service when we knew the family, so was only home occasionally."

When supper was over, Michael McTaggart went out. Jean lingered on in the room, watching Chris clear away the remnants of the meal, with some surprise. Barbara asked to be excused, and followed Chris into the kitchen, leaving Jean by herself for a short time.

When the sisters came back, they brought work with them, and talk began again. Jean listened in wonder to an account of what seemed to her a hard, barren life, with an ever-present anxiety as to how to make both ends meet. Yet the sisters were perfectly cheerful and happy. When she went up to her bedroom that night, she felt a decided interest in the family into which she had come as a paying guest.

Early hours were kept in Kingsford Farm, but Jean came down fresh and vigorous at eight o'clock the next morning. She was surprised to hear that Chris had been up since five.

"I do all my dairy work before breakfast," she said, "and in summer, the best part of the day is in the early morning."

Jean went up to the panelled room directly the meal was over.

"I will take the morning for work and enjoy myself for the rest of the day," she announced.

And Barbara smiled in her quiet amused fashion, but said nothing.

Jean got her canvas out, and made a little progress before one o'clock.

"Now," she said, as she joined the others at their early dinner, "I want one of you to come out with me this afternoon and show me the premises and the country round."

"We are busy folk, Miss Desmond," Michael said good-naturedly. "You will not often find any of us at leisure till about five o'clock."

"I am going to pick currants for jam," said Chris. "Will you talk to me while I work? It is very pleasant in our kitchen garden."

"I will come and help you," said Jean. "What is your sister going to do?"

"I am going to bake bread," said Barbara, "and make a cake. I'm sure a cool garden would be pleasanter than a hot kitchen this weather."

"Yes," said Jean, with pity in her tone. "I couldn't stay in a kitchen five minutes, a day like this."

She put on a shady hat, and followed Chris out. They went through the farm and into a walled garden, with rows of apple and pear trees bordering the walls. Currants and gooseberries of all sorts and sizes were there in profusion, and they set to work with a will, though Jean's tongue went faster than her fingers.

"I like currant-picking," said Chris cheerfully, "but I can't bear doing the gooseberries; they tear one's hands so!"

"I shouldn't do them, then," said Jean, "but make some one else do it."

"But if there is no one else?"

"Then pay a small boy to do it."

"Do you always get over your difficulties so easily?" laughed Chris. "If you are not rich, you cannot afford to pay some one to do your disagreeables for you."

"Then I would just leave them," Jean persisted.

Chris shook her head, but did not argue the subject.

"I wish, if you don't think me curious, you would tell me how you came to this place," said Jean presently. "You all seem so contented and happy here, and yet from what you say, you have not always been accustomed to a farm life. Who taught you to do dairy work and cook and manage everything?"

"I will tell you," said Chris, and a shade of gravity crept into her frank, laughing eyes. "We never have been comfortably off. My father had a very poor living, barely three hundred a year, and there were eight of us children to feed, clothe, and educate. Our mother was not strong, and of course, from the time we were quite little children, we learnt to help ourselves and others."

"Barbara was the eldest, then came Jack and Tom, then Lilian, then Mick, then me, then Rob and Martin. The elder boys went to school, but mother taught us girls, and Barbara, in her turn, taught the younger boys till they were old enough to join the others at school. We girls did all the mending, and as we grew older made our own dresses, and helped in the house as much as we could."

"Then mother's health failed, and she died. Barbara came home from the hospital just in time to nurse her before the end. She couldn't be spared from home again. Two years afterwards, Lilian married a soldier, a Captain Dunbar, who took her straight out to India with him; she has been there ever since. Jack and Tom went out to Canada. They are just getting a livelihood, no more. Rob went to sea; Martin died. He had diphtheria. Father would nurse him, and caught it, too. He died three weeks afterwards."

Chris stopped abruptly. Jean hardly knew how to express her sympathy. But with a catch in her breath Chris went on—

"Mick was wild to follow the others to Canada, but a friend of father's offered us this farm very cheap, and we three determined to come and work it. We are making it pay, which is more than any one has done in it before. We always said from the time Mick was quite a boy, that he was a born farmer. He used to be always talking to the country people and helping them with their fields. Of course, his idea was to go out to the Colonies, but we had not any capital to start him, and after talking it over, we determined to stick together and come here. Lilian did ask me to come out to her, but of course, it couldn't be thought of."

"Why not? I have always heard that India is a delicious place for girls."

"Yes, if you have money for your passage and outfit, and no one wanting you at home. One of us could not have done the work here; there must be two—I mean two women. We have only a woman who comes by the day to help us with the rough work. Barbara would not have been able to manage everything; I could not have left her."

"I should have done so," said Jean thoughtfully. "I should have been thankful to have a chance of getting away from poverty and work. I shouldn't have thought of Barbara at all, I should have thought only of myself. I should argue if I were dead, or if I had never been born, she would have got on without me, so she might as well do so now."

Chris paused in her currant-picking and looked at Jean.

"You have never had brothers or sisters?" she said.

"No," said Jean, "I have not."

"Then you have only had yourself to consider. That must be a strange experience."

She went on picking in silence for some minutes. Jean went on impetuously—

"Do tell me, have you and your sister had any pleasures in your life at all? I have thought my life a dull and dismal one, but it was a life of ease compared with yours, and that I fled from. I wanted my liberty, and I got it. Have you done nothing but slave and work since you were children? Wouldn't you like to go out to India, or to Scotland to see your godmother, or to London to do a little sightseeing?"

"We have never had time or opportunity to do what we like," said Chris, laying down her basket and straightening herself for a minute. "I don't know that I have given much thought to it. I suppose I have had my daydreams, as most have, and Barbara has given up something tangible. She could have married once, but father could not spare her, and she sent him away. But I can't say we are unhappy, either of us. We get a good deal of enjoyment out of our lives, and fancy what we might be doing! Governessing in some tradesman's family, or perhaps typewriting and starving in London. Clergymen's daughters have a hard time of it when their fathers are taken from them. Don't pity us. I enjoy every minute of my day. Now I have filled my basket. Shall we go in?"

"I haven't filled mine," said Jean, in rueful tones.

"Never mind; perhaps you will help me again to-morrow for a short time. I am going to hunt for eggs now; will you come with me?"

Jean willingly agreed, and they were busy till tea-time, Jean experiencing for the first time the engrossment and fatigue of labour.