The Making of a Soul Part 30

The work progressed quickly; and gradually, as the fascination of his work grew upon him, Owen became more and more absorbed in his book. He was always planning some incident, rehearsing, mentally, some situation or some telling dialogue; and the outer life around him receded into a dim and misty distance, in which Toni's pathetic little figure was almost lost.

Toni did not give in easily. She made feeble tentative attempts to share his author's rapture. She asked him timid little questions, to which he gave smilingly vague answers; and once she even suggested that he should read to her the chapters he had already finished.

Owen refused, quite gently, but inexorably; and Toni felt a miserable certainty that he did not think her capable of understanding or appreciating his work.

The day this happened she ordered the car and went for a long and solitary excursion into the country. Of late she had not used the car, preferring to hang wretchedly about the house and garden, half-resenting the absorption of the two workers shut up in the library, not daring to interrupt their toil, yet longing, vaguely, for the courage to enter boldly and claim her share of the mutual labour.

But to-day she felt that she could stand the house no longer. A great desire was upon her for the sunny places of the earth, and in her present mood the slow, gliding traffic of the river held for her no attraction. She longed for the swift, exhilarating rush through the air which, the car would give her; and Fletcher took her orders with alacrity.

"A long round--yes, ma'am." He deliberated. "It's not three yet, and I suppose you don't care to be 'ome much before dinner-time?"

"No, I want to be out for hours," she said feverishly, and Fletcher was only too pleased to oblige her.

Even Toni's depression could not hold beneath the tonic of that glorious ride. It was a splendid September day, when the country lay bathed in floods of rolling suns.h.i.+ne, and there was just enough bite in the air to set the blood racing through one's veins, and bring the sparkle to one's eyes.

Toni sat upright in the car, gazing out over the golden fields to the misty hills beyond, and everything she saw filled her with the true and vivid happiness which the lover of the "sweet things" of the earth knows so well.

A field of yellow corn ablaze with scarlet poppies, a group of trees among which the copper beech blazed with a glory as of the sunset, a glimpse of a wide common all aflame with sweet-scented gorse ... now and again a hint of the river flas.h.i.+ng and sparkling beneath the s.h.i.+ning sky--Toni, the ignorant, despised Toni, knew how to appreciate the glories of the earth as the brilliant Millicent Loder could never do.

On and on they rushed. Fletcher, who in common with the other servants respected Owen and adored Toni, was only too glad to please his young mistress by taking her far afield; and he utilized his wide knowledge of the countryside in her service, treating Toni indeed to such a panorama of the fertile country as she had never yet been privileged to behold.

They were running through a little village on their homeward way when a tyre burst with a loud report; and Fletcher pulled up with an expression of dismay.

"I'm sorry, ma'am--I shall have to delay you a bit while I put on a new tyre." He looked round him rather doubtfully. "I suppose you wouldn't care to take a cup of tea while I put it right?"

"Mrs. Rose!" A cyclist had halted by the car, and looking up Toni saw Herrick standing beside her. "Had an accident? Nothing serious, I hope."

"Tyre burst, sir," announced the chauffeur, who with the rest of the village looked upon the shabby inhabitant of the Hope House as a harmless eccentric. "I was just asking my mistress if she would care to have some tea while I repair it."

"A capital idea," said Herrick, whose amused eyes saw quite well the chauffeur's estimate of him. "Mrs. Rose, may I take you to get some tea?

One of these cottages will supply it, I daresay--or there is quite a decent little inn over yonder."

"Thanks very much." Toni was thirsty, and she liked Herrick. "I'd love some tea--if you'll have some too."

"To be sure I will." He propped his bicycle carelessly against a fence and opened the door of the car. "Which shall we try? A cottage or the inn?"

In the end they decided for the inn; and leaving Fletcher to set to work, Herrick escorted Toni down the village street to the door of the old-fas.h.i.+oned inn which called itself, rather ambiguously, the "c.o.c.k and Bottle."

The landlady, who spoke with a Northern burr which made, Herrick glance curiously at her, came bustling into the flagged pa.s.sage to greet them, and when she had taken their order for tea she ushered them into the parlour with a hospitable smile.

"I'll fetch tea in a minute," said she, "t' kettle's boilin' an' I've a cake on the griddle just about fit."

When she had gone Toni turned two perplexed eyes on Herrick.

"Mr. Herrick, what does she mean? Does the cake fit the griddle, or what?"

Herrick laughed l.u.s.tily.

"Oh, you Londoner--you poor little Southern kid! Haven't you ever been in Yorks.h.i.+re--good old Yarks.h.i.+re, as they call it--the country of tykes and gees and men that can't be beat?"

"Oh, is that Yorks.h.i.+re!" Toni coloured with excitement. "Mr. Herrick, my father came from there! All his people did--but they're dead now, and I've never been North!"

"Really?" He was to the full as much interested in the coincidence as she. "Well, our good landlady is certainly a Yorks.h.i.+re woman--and I hope she'll give us a real Yorks.h.i.+re tea!"

His hope was fulfilled when the buxom Mrs. Spencer returned, which she speedily did. She carried a tray laden not only with cups and saucers, but with an a.s.sortment of cakes which would have rejoiced the heart of a Yorks.h.i.+re child.

"Them's crud cheesecakes," said she, beaming on the pair, "an' these fat rascals is to-day's bake--and the griddle cakes an' all." She laid the table deftly. "I'll fetch the tea-pot and t' cream, and then ye can help yersens."

When she put down the tea-pot, however, Herrick detained her with a question.

"You don't belong to these parts, Mrs. Spencer?"

"No, sir." She shook her head blithely. "I'm a Yorks.h.i.+re woman, praise the pigs! Married a South-country man, I did--and often wished as I 'adn't--when 'e wur alive, that's to say."

"Since his demise you've altered your mind?"

"Well, he left me pretty well provided for," returned the late Spencer's widow comfortably, "an' I won't say as 'e wur an out-an-out bad 'usband.

But somehow I can't abide South-country folk."

"They say we Yorks.h.i.+re tykes are a rough lot," said Herrick, smiling, and she took up the challenge at once.

"Oh, that's all my eye and Betty Martin," she returned in the vernacular of her youth, "I grant you there's a lot of soft-sawder about the fellers down here, but they ain't in it wi' us up in Yorks.h.i.+re."

"Where do you come from, Mrs. Spencer? I'm a dalesman myself; Wensleydale's my native land."

"I'm from Thirsk, sir. My mother was washerwoman to lots of the gentry round, and my people still lives there, in a cottage on the Green."

"Ah, I know Thirsk--fine old church there, one of the finest in the North Riding. You've never been there, Mrs. Rose?" He turned to include Toni in the conversation, and found her wide-eyed and flushed with excitement.

"Mr. Herrick, my people lived near Thirsk--in a farm at Feliskirk in the hills. Oh, do you think she knew them?"

Mrs. Spencer, who had hitherto overlooked Toni, turned to her in surprise.

"If you'll tell me the name, miss--ma'am. We knew most of t' people in t' neighbourhood."

"Gibbs--their name was Gibbs." She spoke breathlessly. "The house was called the Green Farm. Oh, do you know anything about them?"

"Gibbs? The Green Farm?" Mrs. Spencer stared incredulously. "Why, I knew old Gregory Gibbs well--and a fine old fellow he was too. And Fred and Roger--why, I knew 'em both. They used to come down into t' town on market days with their dad, and a pair of jolly little lads they were an' all--especially Roger."

"Roger was my father," said Toni quietly, and Mrs. Spencer uttered an exclamation.

"You don't say! But Roger, he ran away--leastways e went off to furrin parts and we 'eard as 'ow 'e'd married an Heyetalian young lady out there. And you are really Roger Gibbs' bairn?"

"Yes; he married my mother--an Italian girl--in Naples. I was born there. But they're both dead now," said Toni sadly.

"Oh, I'm sorry to 'ear that!" Mrs. Spencer spoke sincerely. "To think as I should live to see young Roger's la.s.s 'ere in my 'ouse! You don't favour the Gibbs, miss, if I may say so."

"No, Mrs. Rose is more like her mother's people, I expect," said Herrick, noticing as he spoke how pale Toni looked now that the flush of excitement had died away. "But if she has never been to Yorks.h.i.+re, at least she can taste her native cakes, eh, Mrs. Spencer?"