The Challenge of Love. Victorian Romance Novel
“Ha, ha, ha!”
“Oh, you are silly.”
“Why, indeed?”
“What is there to laugh at?”
“Ask Thomas and the basket, and——”
“And what?”
“Me.”
“You?”
“And yourself.”
She shook her hair, as though shaking her laughter off like spray. Her eyes became serious.
“You are a nice doctor, to stand laughing here——”
“Oh, come, now. It was lucky that Bob caught me. I’ve been up Herongate way. Your mother—is it——”
“Yes.”
“I’ll go up at once.”
“Please do. It’s Flemyng’s Cross to-night. Mother won’t be able to go. She says I must.”
“What is Flemyng’s Cross? An out-of-door service for bad-tempered people? If so, your mother certainly needn’t be there. I forbid it.”
“What nonsense you talk!”
She was climbing the old oak stairs, and turning back to look at him. A stream of sunlight from a window splashed the panelling behind her, so that Wolfe saw her hair black against a background of glimmering light.
“It’s one of the Manor Courts, and the steward of the Lord of the Manor has held it for hundreds and hundreds of years. All the tenants have to take their dues, and no one must speak above a whisper.”
“And Mrs. Mascall is going to send—you?”
“I can whisper. I’ll show you.”
“Do.”
“Not now. You’ve got to be serious.”
In the sunny south bedroom Wolfe found Jess’s mother sitting in an arm-chair by the open window. There was a bowl full of bluebells on a table beside her, and she had been trying to write a letter, for a writing pad still lay upon her knees.
Her eyes welcomed Wolfe, though she was in too great distress to talk much.
“You’re a good angel, doctor.”
“They caught me as I was passing.”
“I ought to be at the Manor Court at Flemyng’s——”
“But you’ll not go. Miss Jess has been explaining.”
He stood and looked down at her in that grave penetrating way that made women and children trust him.
“Jess must go. I’ve been trying to write to Lawyer Fyson, Lord Blackwater’s steward.”
“Now don’t worry about all this. It bothers you to talk. I’ll sit down and plan things out for you. Stop me if you have anything to suggest.”
He sat down at the table, reached for the writing pad, and began to write.
“Here’s a certificate for Mr. Fyson. That settles that gentleman. Let’s see; Miss Jess will have to act for you, and she’ll drive down in the gig. Master Bob goes off to Navestock at once for medicine, and with a message to say I’m detained. That’s it. I stay here, ride to Flemyng’s Cross with Miss Jess, deliver my certificate to Mr. Fyson, see your daughter through the ordeal, and then ride home to Navestock. That sounds very practical.”
Mrs. Mascall’s eyes brightened.
“How you do think of things! I’ve been putting Jess through her paces; old Fyson’s a kind sort of man. Three dozen fresh eggs, that’s what the tenant of Moor Farm has to give the Lord of the Manor. You all have to whisper. They call it the Whispering Court.”
“So Jess told me.”
“Call the girl, doctor. Oh Jess, child, you’re there? Dr. Wolfe’s going to Flemyng’s Cross with you. It’s a weight off my chest. He’ll stay and take tea. And Jess—the eggs?”
Jess had one of her solemn moments.
“I haven’t got them yet, mother.”
“Good gracious, child, go out and get them.”
Wolfe had been writing a prescription.
“And Bob had better take this. I see no reason why I shouldn’t go egg hunting.”
“You! Oh, come along; what fun! I bet I’ll find more eggs than you will. And Sally can get tea.”
They left Mary Mascall smiling in her chair. She was one of those women who could enjoy the playfulness of life, even in the midst of an attack of asthma. Jess might rush out on one of her escapades, and her mother would laugh over it and share in the girl’s spirit. Mrs. Mascall had no particular liking for your Goody Two-Shoes child, who darned stockings, was fussily and piously sentimental, and played the sweet angel with bleatings of “dearest mamma.”
In the porch Wolfe picked up the egg basket.
“Yes, you can carry it,” said Jess.
He made her a grave bow.
“Madam, your very humble servant.”
Bob was sent to the stable with Wolfe’s horse, and told to saddle the fat pony and take the prescription and the note that Wolfe had written to Dr. Threadgold at Navestock. The serious man of eight-and-twenty and the tall girl of sixteen plunged in among the out-buildings and stacks of Moor Farm that were jumbled together with the picturesque complexity that belongs to old towns. Great black doors let one into huge, cool interiors where sunlight crept in through chinks in the walls, and sparrows fluttered about the beams. There was the red-brick granary, where you might wade knee-deep in golden grain or be weighed on the sack-weighing machine in the corner. There was the wagon shed, where the swallows built; the cakehouse, a queer, dark, fragrant place with its cake breaker ready to reduce the brown slabs to fragments. Cattle sheds abounded, clean, white-washed loggias with sunlit yards yellow with straw.
Jess made for the largest of the cattle sheds.
“Come along.”
She did not unlatch the byre gate, but was over it with the flick of the skirt. Mrs. Mascall had abetted Jess in a wild revolt against crinolines. No girl walking in a species of tent could have trampled like Jess Mascall over the yellow straw. As for climbing gates! Wolfe blessed mere Nature, and vaulted after her.
“You ought to be handicapped.”
“And you call yourself a man!”
She made for the long manger, the recess below it being a favourite haunt of matronly-minded hens. Wolfe made a rush. A brown bird fled in absurd terror, flustered round Wolfe’s legs, and flew cackling over the gate.
“Here—one, two, three——”
“I say, wait a moment, let me have a chance!”
“Well, look then, don’t stand and——”
“I was feeling sorry for that hen.”
“Four, five——”
Wolfe made a dash for the far corner, and pounced on an egg lying amid the straw.
“I’ve got one, anyhow.”
She came up, laughing in his face.
“It’s a chalk one!”
“Oh, confound it!”
“And I’ve got six in my skirt. Where’s the basket? You’ll have to be very careful.”
“I’ll walk like an old maid. Just like this—see!”
“Oh, you great silly! We mustn’t waste time.”
They