Chapter 15 | A Life's Eclipse

Mrs Mostyn said but little more, though she thought a great deal. John Grange gave her his explanation. He had, he said, been into the conservatory twice that morning; and on the second visit brought the can of water to give the orchids a final freshening, when he felt something crush beneath his feet, and, startled and horrified at finding what was wrong, he had dropped the pot of water and added to the mishap.

Mrs Mostyn said, “That will do,” rather coldly; and the young man went away crushed, feeling that she did not believe him, and that the morning’s business had, in her disappointment, cast him down from his high position.

A day or two later he tried to renew the matter, but he received a short “That will do”; and, humbled and disheartened, he went away, feeling that his position at The Hollows would never be the same again.

It was talked over at the cottage, where Mary listened in agony.

“Pity he did not own to having met with an accident at once,” said her father. “Of course it is no more than one expected, it was sure to come some time; but it was a pity he was such a coward and took, refuge in a lie. Just like a child: but, poor fellow, his accident has made him weak.”

Mary flushed up in her agony and indignation, for it was as if her father had accused her of untruthfulness; but an imploring look from her mother, just as she was going to speak, silenced her, and she suffered to herself till her father had gone, and then indignantly declared that John Grange was incapable of telling a lie.

The trouble was discussed too pretty largely at old Hannah’s cottage, where Tummus’s wife gave it as her opinion that it was “one of they dratted cats.” They was always breaking something, and if the truth was known it was “the missus’s Prusshun Tom, as she allers called Shah.”

“I don’t want to accuse anybody,” said John Grange sadly, as he sat with a piteous look in his blank eyes; “but I’m afraid one of the servants must have stumbled up against the stand, and was then afraid to speak.”

“Burr-urr!” growled old Tummus, who was devouring his late meal—a meat tea, the solid part consisting of a great hunch of bread and upon it a large piece of cold boiled, streaky, salt pork.

“Don’t make noises like that at the table, Tummus,” said his wife. “What will Mr Grange think of you?”

“Only said ‘Burr-urr!’” grumbled old Tummus.

“Well, you shouldn’t; and I do wish you would use the proper knife and fork like a Christian, and keep your pork on your plate.”

“This here’s quite sharp enough, missus,” said the old man, cutting the piece of pork with the blade of his great pruning-knife, and re-arranging the piece under his perfectly clean but dirty-looking, garden-stained thumb.

“But it looks so bad, cutting like that; and how do we know what you used that knife for last.”

“Well, Muster John Grange can’t see, can he?”

“No, no, I cannot see, man,” said Grange sadly. “Go on in your own way as if I were not here.”

“Burr-urr!” growled old Tummus again.

“Why, what is the matter with the man?” cried his wife. “Have you not meat enough?”

“Aye, it’s right enow. I was only thinking about them orchards. I know.”

“Know what?” said his wife.

“Who done it. I see him go there and come away.”

“What?” cried John Grange excitedly, as he turned his eyes towards the old gardener.

“I see Muster Dan Barnett come away from the conservatory all in a hurry like, d’re’ckly after you’d been there.”

“You saw Dan Barnett?”

“Aye, that’s so. I see him: did it out o’ spite ’cause the missus didn’t give him the job.”

“Tummus, what are you a-saying of?” cried his wife, as the old man’s words made Grange start excitedly from his chair. “Why, if Dan’l Barnett heared as you said that, you’d be turned away at a moment’s notice.”

“I don’t keer; it’s the solomon truth,” said old Tummus, cutting off a cubic piece of pork and lifting it from his bread with the point of his pruning-knife.

“It can’t be anything of the sort, so hold your tongue. There, there, Mr Grange, my dear. Don’t you take any notice of his silly clat. Have another cup of tea: here’s quite a beauty left.”

“You say you saw Daniel Barnett come from the conservatory that morning?” cried Grange excitedly; and there was a wild look of agony in his eyes as he spoke.

“Nay, nay, he didn’t, my dear,” cried old Hannah; “it’s all his nonsense. Just see what you’ve done, Tummus, with your rubbishing stuff.”

“Aye, but I did see him come out, and I see him go in all of a hurry like,” said old Tummus sturdily.

“Where were you?”

“In the shrubbery, raking up the dead leaves as he told me to the night afore, and forgotten as I was there so near.”

“And you were busy raking the leaves?” said Grange.

“Nay, I warn’t; I was a-watching on him, and left off, for I didn’t see what he wanted there.”

“No, no, it’s impossible; he would have been so careful,” said Grange hurriedly.

“Keerful?” cried old Tummus contemptuously: “he did it o’ purpose. I know: out o’ spite.”

“Tummus, you’re driving us in a coach and four into the workhouse,” cried his wife passionately.

“Good job too. I don’t keer. I say Dan Barnett did it out o’ spite, and I’ll go straight to the missus and tell her.”

“No,” said John Grange sternly. “Not a word. What you say is impossible. Daniel Barnett does not like me, and he resents my being here, but he could not have been guilty of so cowardly, so contemptible an act.”

“Burr-urr!” growled old Tummus; “wouldn’t he? I know.”

“Whatever you know,” said John Grange sternly, “you must keep to yourself.”

“What, and let the missus think you done it?”

“The truth comes to the surface some time or another,” said John Grange very firmly. “I cannot believe this is the truth, but even if it is I forbid you to speak.”

“Yes; he’d better,” put in old Hannah, shaking her head severely at her husband; and the meal was finished in silence.

Another month had passed, and John Grange’s position remained unchanged. He worked in the houses, and tied up plants by the green walks; but Mrs Mostyn never came round to stand by his side and talk to him regarding her flowers, and ask questions about the raising of fresh choice plants for the garden. In those painful minutes he had fallen very low in her estimation, and was no longer the same in her eyes, only the ordinary gardener whom she kept on out of charity, and whom she would keep on to the end of her days.

John Grange felt it bitterly, and longed to get away from a place which caused him intense agony, for, from time to time, he could not help knowing that Daniel Barnett went up to smoke a pipe with James Ellis, and talk about the garden.

But the sufferer was helpless. He could not decide what to do if he went away, for there was no talk now of getting him into an asylum; and in spite of all his strong endeavours and determination to be manly and firm, he felt that it would be impossible to go away from The Hollows and leave Mary Ellis.

From time to time Barnett saw little things which convinced him that so long as John Grange was near he would have no chance of making any headway with the object of his pursuit, and this made him so morose and bitter that he would often walk up and down one of the shrubberies on dark nights, inveighing against his rival, who still did not accept his position, but hung on in a place where he was not wanted.

“The girl’s mad about him,” he muttered, “absolutely mad, and—”

He stopped short, thoroughly startled by the thoughts which came into his mind. It was as if a temptation had been whispered to him, and, looking sharply round in the darkness, he hurried back to the bothy. That night he lay awake tossing about till morning. That very day he had encountered John Grange twice at the end of the long green walk, with its sloping sides and velvet turf, at the top of which slopes were long beds filled with dahlias. These John Grange was busy tying up to their sticks, and, as if unable to keep away, Barnett hung about that walk, and bullied the man at one end who was cutting the grass by hand where the machine could not be used; and at last made the poor fellow so wroth that he threw down his scythe as soon as Barnett had gone, and said he might do it himself.

Barnett came to the other end a couple of hundred yards away, and began to find fault with the way in which the dahlias were being tied up.

But John Grange bore it all without a word, though his lips quivered a little.

This was repeated, and Grange felt that it was the beginning of a course of persecution to drive him away.

Barnett went down the long green path till nearly at the end, when the dinner-bell began to ring, and just then he came upon the scythe lying where the man had thrown it in his pet.

“Humph!” ejaculated Barnett. “Well, he won’t have Mrs Mostyn to take his part. Pretty thing if I can’t find fault with those under me.”

At that moment he turned, and there, a hundred yards away, was John Grange coming along to his dinner, erect, and walking at a fair pace along the green walk, touching the side from time to time with his stick so as to keep in the centre.

The idea came like a flash, and Daniel Barnett glanced round. No one appeared to be in sight, and quick as thought it was done. One sharp thrust at the bent handle was sufficient to raise the scythe blade and swing it round across the green path, so that the keen edge rose up and kept in position a few inches above the grass right in John Grange’s path as he came steadily on.

The next moment Barnett had sprung among the bushes, and was gone.