The Challenge of Love. Victorian Romance Novel
was one that persisted in laying her eggs on an old sheepskin that had been thrown into the tool loft in the wagon shed. Wolfe was made to scramble, using a cart wheel as a ladder.
“Done, by George! Dusty knees—and no egg!”
“Poor Doctor Wolfe!”
He looked down at her from above.
“Why poor?”
“I didn’t mean you were poor. Only——”
“Just a touch of sympathy, eh? You are a sweet young woman, Miss Jess.”
She laughed, and flushed momentarily with a touch of sudden self-consciousness.
“Am I? It’s nice of you to say that. We’ve got three dozen and a half. And there’s the tea bell.”
They walked back to the farm-house very sedately.
The Whispering Court at Flemyng’s Cross was held at nine o’clock, and at eight Joe Munday, the carter, dressed in a black coat for the occasion, came round from the stable with the red-wheeled gig. The farm labourers had gathered under the great cypresses in front of the house, each man carrying a lighted lantern, and a pitchfork, crook, or pole. Jess had gone to her mother’s room to dress, and Wolfe went out into the garden and joined the white-smocked group under the cypresses.
“A fine night.”
“It be.”
There was a sort of grumbling acquiescence, but the men did not appear interested in Wolfe or his opinions. As a body they stood and stared at the house, like boors in a strolling theatre, waiting for the curtain to go up. Wolfe had a feeling that he made these men uncomfortable. He could see a light in Mrs. Mascall’s room. Presently a shadow came across the blind, and there was a tapping at the window.
“Listen to’t.”
“She be comin’.”
The labourers ranged themselves on either side of the stone-paved path. Wolfe stood back from them a little, and nearer the gate. He saw the porch door open, and Sally, the maid, standing there, holding her skirts back proudly to let her lady pass. Jess came out, wearing a red cloak with the hood turned up, a green skirt, and green stockings. Resting against her bosom she carried the basket of eggs, decorated with red and green ribbons and with flowers.
The men held up their lanterns, and louted to her with quaint gravity.
“God keep thee, good Mistress.”
“May the beasts be fat in your fields, and the bins packed full o’ corn.”
“God’s blessing on thee—and the merry month o’ May.”
They were old-world phrases that had passed from generation to generation, and had been spoken by the forebears of the men gathered before Moor Farm. Wolfe stood and watched Jess Mascall as she came slowly down the path. The girl seemed to have grown taller and older of a sudden. She carried herself with a grave and simple stateliness, looking at each man in turn and saying: “Thank you, Joe—thank you, Barnaby.” She passed under the cypresses, and her eyes met Wolfe’s. He was standing bare-headed, a man touched and charmed by many suggestive memories. He bowed to Jess, and she gave him a grave curtsy, holding her head high, and looking him in the eyes.
The moon was ten days old, and the night clear and fine, and as the Moor Farm company crossed the moor, Wolfe, who was riding beside the gig, saw many other lanterns moving in the distance. They glimmered here and there, faint points of yellow light coming and going like the lights of boats on a rolling sea. Flemyng’s Cross lay westwards of Beacon Hill on a low ridge where the old coach road topped the moor. An ancient inn stood on the hill-top, with its sign of “The Rising Sun” swinging on a post before the door. It was in a little paddock behind the inn that the Lord of the Manor’s Whispering Court was held.
The lanterns came jogging over the moor, some of them following mere sheep-tracks, others moving along the roads. As they neared Flemyng’s Cross the Navestock road began to fill with silent, shadowy, striding figures, all moving towards the hill-top. The lanterns that were carried gave rise to curious illusions. In a dark cutting under the shade of a clump of firs Wolfe saw a pair of white-gaitered legs moving as though they had no body belonging to them. Nothing but the white legs and the lantern were visible, and the effect was so quaint that Wolfe pointed it out to Jess.
“Look there, somebody’s legs have walked off on their own—and left the rest behind.”
She laughed.
“Aren’t they just sweet! They’ll get lonely presently, wandering about all by themselves.”
A man on a big grey horse blundered out from somewhere, and nearly rode Wolfe down. The surgeon drew closer to the gig.
“Hallo, sir, look out——”
The gig lamps gave him a momentary glimpse of a powerfully built young man, in smartly cut clothes, who glared at Wolfe as though he had no intention of apologising for having nearly ridden over him. The young man took off his hat to Jess, but she did not seem to notice him. They left him behind them somewhere in the darkness.
“You didn’t see your friend.”
“Oh, yes, I did.”
“Who was it?”
“Hector Turrell. He’s a beast. I don’t like him.”
“Turrell the brewer’s son?”
“Yes. He’s always riding along the road when I come back from Miss Plimley’s at Navestock. He’s an awful bully; always knocking someone about.”
“That’s rather a dangerous game.”
“People are afraid of him, or of his father, I suppose. What do you say, Joe?” This to the driver at her side.
Joe Munday was terse and laconic.
“The chap learned of a swell prize fighter in Lunnon, so I’ve heard tell. Besides—he’s Turrell’s son. ’Tain’t worth no chap’s while to get old Turrell’s spite on him.”
And Wolfe supposed not.
The Lord of the Manor’s Court at Flemyng’s Cross proved to be a quaint affair, picturesquely staged. Lawyer Fyson, the steward, stood by the white post in the paddock, a brazier full of burning coal beside him, and a staff of office in his hand. Behind him were ranged his bellman, stave bearers, and foresters, while the tenants of the Court gathered in dead silence about the white post, their heads uncovered, their lanterns glimmering in a great circle. The only bold and blatant voice was the voice of the big hand-bell. The steward read the roll in a whisper, his officers proclaimed in whispers, the court-tenants swore to their pledges in whispers.
When Jess Mascall carried her basket of eggs towards the white post and the red brazier, Wolfe followed her, and thrust the certificate he had written into old Fyson’s hand. The bell gave three sharp clangs, and Wolfe found himself taken by the shoulders and marched back over a furrow cut in the turf. The ground about the white post appeared to be privileged ground, sacred to the feet of those who were tenants of the Court. In the old days Wolfe would have been whipped with furze branches over the moor, instead of being marched gravely beyond the formal furrow.
He laughed good-humouredly, and, turning to where the Moor Farm labourers were grouped with their lanterns, mounted his nag and watched the procedure of the Court. The whispering voices, the queer solemnity, the glimmering lanterns were part of the mystery of Tarling Moor. It was when Jess had played her part, and was being escorted back by the two staff-bearers towards her supporters and her gig, that Wolfe again caught sight of Mr. Hector Turrell. He saw the man moving his horse round the circle of figures as though to meet Jess as she came through the crowd.
It was something more than an impulse that made Wolfe forestall Hector Turrell. If he had made an enemy of the father, his enmity might just as well include the son. Jess went to the gig with her hand resting on John Wolfe’s arm.
At the Moor