AT THE GREEN DRAGON VIII
By Beatrice Hararden
THE DISTANCE GROWS.
So the days slipped away, and Joan came regularly to the Green Dragon to write to the historian’s dictation. These mornings were red-letter days in her life; she had never before had anything which she could have called companionship, and now this best of all pleasures was suddenly granted to her. She knew well that it could not last; that very soon the historian would go back into his own world, and that she would be left lonely, lonelier than ever. But meanwhile she was happy. She always felt after having been with him as though some sort of peace had stolen over her. It did not hold her long, this sense of peace. It was merely that quieting influence which a mellowed nature exercises at rare moments over an unmellowed nature, being indeed a snatch of that wonderful restfulness which has something divine in its essence. She did not analyze her feelings for him, she dared not. She just drifted on, dreaming. And she was grateful to him too, for she had unburdened her heavy heart to him, and he had not laughed at her aspirations and ambitions. He had certainly made a little fun over her, but not in the way that conveyed contempt; on the contrary, his manner of teasing gave the impression of the kindliest sympathy. He had spoken sensible words of advice to her, too; not in any formal set lecture–that would have been impossible to him–but in detached sentences given out at different times, with words simple in themselves, but able to suggest many good and noble thoughts. At least that was what Joan gathered, that was her judgment of him, that was the effect he produced on her.
Then he was not miserly of his learning. He was not one of those scholars who keep their wisdom for their narrow and appreciative little set; he gave of his best to every one with royal generosity, and he gave of his best to her. He saw that she was really interested in history, and that it pleased her to hear him talk about it. Out then came his stores of knowledge, all for her special service! But that was only half of the process; he taught her by finding out from her what she knew, and then returning her knowledge to her two-fold enriched. She was eager to learn, and he was interested in her eagerness. It was his nature to be kind and chivalrous to every one, and he was therefore kind and chivalrous to his little secretary. He saw her constantly in “school hours,” as he called the time spent in dictating, and out of school hours too. He took such an interest in all matters connected with the village that he was to be found everywhere, now gravely contemplating the cows and comparing them with Mr. Benbow’s herd, now strolling through the market-place, and now passing stern criticisms on the butter and poultry, of which he knew nothing. Once he even tried to sell Joan Hammond’s butter to Mrs. Benbow.
“I assure you, ma’am,” he said to the landlady of the Green Dragon, “the very best cooking butter in the kingdom! Taste and see.”
“But it isn’t cooking butter!” interposed Joan hastily.
But she laughed all the same, and Hieronymus, much humbled by his mistake, made no more attempts to sell butter.
He seemed thoroughly contented with his life at Little Stretton, and in no hurry to join his friends in Wales. He was so genial that every one liked him and spoke kindly of him. If he was driving in the pony-carriage and saw any children trudging home after school, he would find room for four or five of them and take them back to the village in triumph. If he met an old woman carrying a bundle of wood, he immediately transferred the load from herself to himself, and walked along by her side, chatting merrily the while. As for the tramps who passed on the highroad from Ludlow to Church Stretton, they found in him a sympathetic friend. His hand was always in his pocket for them. He listened to their tales of woe, and stroked the “property” baby in the perambulator, and absolutely refused to be brought to order by Mrs. Benbow, who declared that she knew more about tramps than he did, and that the best thing to do with them was to send them about their business as soon as possible.
“You will ruin the reputation of the Green Dragon,” she said, “if you go on entertaining tramps outside. Take your friends over to the other inn!”
She thought that this would be a strong argument, as Hieronymus was particularly proud of the Green Dragon, having discovered that it was patronized by the aristocrats of the village, and considered infinitely superior to its rival, the Crown Inn opposite.
But the historian, so yielding in other respects, continued his intimacies with the tramps, sometimes even leaving his work if he chanced to see an interesting-looking wanderer slouching past the Green Dragon. Joan had become accustomed to these interruptions. She just sat waiting patiently until Hieronymus came back, and plunged once more into the History of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, or the Attitude of the Foreign Powers to each other during the latter years of Henry VIII.
“I’m a troublesome fellow,” he would say to her sometimes, “and you are very patient with me. In fact, you’re a regular little brick of a secretary.”
Then she would flush with pleasure to hear his words of praise. But he never noticed that, and never thought he was leading her further and further away from her surroundings and ties, and putting great distances between herself and the exciseman.
So little did he guess it that one day he even ventured to joke with her. He had been talking to her about John Richard Green, the historian, and he asked her whether she had read “A Short History of the English People.” She told him she had never read it.
“Oh, you ought to have that book,” he said; and he immediately thought that he would buy it for her. Then he remembered the exciseman’s library, and judged that it would be better to let him buy it for her.
“I hear you have a very devoted admirer in the exciseman,” Hieronymus said slyly.
“How do you know that?” Joan said sharply.
“Oh,” he answered, “I was told.” But he saw that his volcanic little companion was not too pleased; and so he began talking about John Richard Green. He told her about the man himself, his work, his suffering, his personality. He told her how the young men at Oxford were advised to travel on the Continent to expand their minds, and if they could not afford this advantage after their university career, then they were to read John Richard Green. He told her, too, of his grave at Mentone, with the simple words, “He died learning.”
Thus he would talk to her, taking her always into a new world of interest. Then she was in an enchanted kingdom, and he was the magician.
It was a world in which agriculture and dairy-farming and all the other wearinesses of her everyday life had no part. Some people might think it was but a poor enchanted realm which he conjured up for her pleasure. But enchantment, like every other emotion, is but relative after all. Some little fragment of intellectuality had been Joan’s idea of enchantment. And now it had come to her in a way altogether unexpected, and in a measure beyond all her calculations. It had come to her, bringing with it something else.
She seemed in a dream during all that time; yes, she was slipping further away from her own people, and further away from the exciseman. She had never been very near to him, but lately the distance had become doubled. When she chanced to meet him her manner was more than ordinarily cold. If he had chosen to plead for himself, he might well have asked what he had done to her that he should deserve to be treated with such bare unfriendliness.
One day he met her. She was riding the great white horse, and David rode along beside her. She chatted with him now and again, but there were long pauses of silence between them.
“Father has made up his mind to sell old Nance,” she said suddenly, as she stroked the old mare’s head. “This is my last ride on her.”
“I am sorry,” said David kindly. “She’s an old friend, isn’t she?”
“I suppose it is ridiculous to care so much,” Joan said; “but you know we’ve had her such a time. And I used to hang round her neck, and she would lift me up and swing me.”
“I remember,” said David eagerly. “I’ve often watched you. I was always afraid you would have a bad fall.”
“You ran up and caught me once,” Joan said, “And I was so angry; for it wasn’t likely that old Nance would have let me fall.”
“But how could I be sure that the little arms were strong enough to cling firmly to old Nance’s neck?” David said. “So I couldn’t help being anxious.”
“Do you remember when I was lost in that mist,” Joan said, “and you came and found me, and carried me home? I was so angry that you would not let me walk.”
“You have often been angry with me,” David said quietly.
Joan made no answer. She just shrugged her shoulders.
There they were, these two, riding side by side, and yet they were miles apart from each other. David knew it, and grieved.