God's Good Man by Marie Corelli (best young adult book series .txt) đ
- Author: Marie Corelli
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âI know whatâs to be done, and I shall do it,â Leach repeated in a louder tone; âAnd all the sentimental rot ever talked in the village about the Five Sisters wonât make me change my mind,âno, nor all the sermons on meek and quiet spirits neither! Thatâs my last word, Mr. Walden, and you may take it for what it is worth!â
Walden swung round on his heel and went his way without replying. Outwardly, he was calm enough, but inwardly he was in a white heat of anger. His thoughts dwelt with a passionate insistence on the grand old trees with their great canopies of foliage, where hundreds of happy birds annually made their homes,âwhere, with every recurring Spring, the tender young leaves sprouted forth from the aged gnarled boughs, expressing the joy of a life that had outlived whole generations of menâwhere, in the long heats of summer broad stretches of shade lay dense on the soft grass, offering grateful shelter from the noon-day sun to the browsing cattle,âand where with the autumnâs breath, the slow and glorious transformation of green leaves to gold, with flecks of scarlet between, made a splendour of colour against the pale grey-blue sky, such as artists dream of and with difficulty realise. All this wealth of God-granted natural beauty,âthe growth of centuries,âwas to perish in a single morning! Surely it was a crime!âsurely it was a wicked and wanton deed, for which, there could be no sane excuse offered! Sorrowfully, and with bitterness, did Walden relate to his gardener, Bainton, the failure of his attempt to bring Oliver Leach to reason,âsolemnly, and in subdued silence did Bainton hear the tale.
âWell, well, Passon,â he said, when his master had finished; âYou doos your best for us, and no man canât say but what youâve done it true ever since you took up with this âere village,âand youâve tried to save the Five Sisters, and if âtainât no use, why thereâs no more to be said. Josey Letherbarrow was for walkinâ up to the Manor anâ seeinâ Miss Vancourt herself, as soon as iver she gets within her own door,âbut Lord love ye, heâd take âarf a day to jog up there on such feet as heâs got left after long wear and tear, anâ there ainât no liftinâ âim into a cart nohow. Sez he to me: âIâll see the little gel wot I used to know, and Iâll tell âer as âow the Five Sisters be chalked, anâ sheâll listen to meâyou see if she donât!â I was rather took with the idee myself, but I sez, sez I: âLet alone, Josey,âyou be old as Methusaleh, and you canât get up to the Manor nohow; let Passon try what he can do wiâ Leach,ââand now youâve been and done your best, and canât do nothinâ, why we must give it up altogether.â
Walden walked up and down, Ms hands loosely clasped behind his back, lost in thought.
âWe wonât give it up altogether, Bainton,â he said; âWeâll try and find some other wayââ
âThereâs goinâ to be another way,â declared Bainton, significantly; âThereâs trouble brewinâ in the village, anâ mâappen when Oliver Leach gets up to the woods to-morrow morninâ heâll find a few ready to meet âim!â
Walden stopped abruptly.
âWhat do you mean?â
ââTainât for me to say;â and Bainton pretended to be very busy in pulling up one or two plantains from the lawn; âBut I tells ye true, Passon, the Five Sisters ainât goinâ to be laid low without a shindy!â
Johnâs eyes sparkled. He scented battle, and was not by any means displeased.
âThis is Tuesday, isnât it?â he asked abruptly; âThis is the day Miss Vancourt has arranged to return?â
âIt is so, sir,â replied Bainton; âand itâs believed the arrangements âolds goodâfor changeâer mind as a woman will, âer âosses anâ groomâs arrivedâand a dog as large as they make âem, which âis name is Plato.â
Walden gave a slight gesture of annoyance. Here was a fresh cause of antipathy to the approaching Miss Vancourt. No one but a careless woman, devoid of all taste and good feeling, would name a dog after the greatest of Greek philosophers!
âPlatoâs a good name,â went on Bainton meditatively, unconscious of the view his master was taking of that name in his own mind; âIâve âeard it somewheres before, though I couldnât tell just where. And itâs a fine dog. I was up at the Manor this morninâ lookinâ round the grounds, just to see âow theyâd been a-gettinâ onâand really it isnât so bad considerinâ, and I was askinâ a question or two of Spruce, and he showed me the dog lyinâ on the steps of the Manor, lookinâ like a lionâs baby snoozinâ in the sun, and waitinâ as wise as ye like for his mistress. He donât appear at all put out by new faces or new groundsâheâs took to the place quite natâral.â
âYou saw Spruce early, then?â
âYes, sir, I see Spruce, and arter âollerinâ âard at âim for âbout ten minutes, he sez, sez he, as gentle as a child sez he: âYes, the Five Sisters is a-cominâ down to-morrow morninâ, and weâs all to be there a quarter afore six with ropes and axes.ââ
John started walking up and down again.
âWhen is Miss Vancourt expected?â he enquired.
âAt tea-time this arternoon,â replied Bainton. âThe train arrives at Riversford at three oâclock, if so be it isnât behind its time,âand if the lady gets a fly from the station, which if she ainât ordered it afore, mâappen she wonât get it, sheâll be âere âbout four.â
Instinctively Walden glanced at his watch. It was just two oâclock. Another hour and the antipathetic âSquire-essâ would be actually on her way to the village! He heaved a short sigh. Forebodings of evil infected the air,âimpending change, disturbing and even disastrous to St. Rest suggested itself troublously to his mind. Arguing inwardly with himself, he presently began to think that notwithstanding all his attempts to live a Christian life, after the manner Christianly, he was surely becoming a very selfish and extremely narrow-minded man! He was unreasonably, illogically vexed at the return of the heiress of Abbotâs Manor; and why? Why, chiefly because he would no longer be able to walk at liberty in Abbotâs Manor gardens and woods,âbecause there would be another personality perhaps more dominant than his own in the little village, and becauseâyes!âbecause he had a particular aversion to women of fashion, such as Miss Vancourt undoubtedly must be, to judge from the brief exhibition of her wardrobe which, through the guilelessness of Mrs. Spruce, had been displayed before his reluctant eyes.
These objections were after all, so he told himself, really rooted in masculine selfishness,âthe absorbing selfishness of old bachelorhood, which had grown round him like a shell, shutting him out altogether from the soft influences of feminine attraction,âso much so indeed that he had even come to look upon his domestic indoor servants as obliging machines rather than women,âmachines which it was necessary to keep well oiled with food and wages, but which could scarcely be considered as entering into his actual life more than the lawn-mower or the roasting-jack. Yet he was invariably kind to all his dependants,âinvariably thoughtful of all their needs,ânevertheless he maintained a certain aloofness from them, not only because he was by nature reserved, but because he judged reserve necessary in order to uphold respect. In sickness or trouble, no one could be more quietly helpful or consolatory than he; and in the company of children he threw off all restraint and was as a child himself in the heartiness and spontaneity of his mirth and good humour,âbut with all women, save the very aged and matronly, he generally found himself at a loss, uncertain what to say to them, and equally uncertain as to how far he might accept or believe what they said to him. The dark eyes of a sparkling brunette embarrassed him as much as the dreamy blue orbs of a lily-like blonde,âthey were curious dazzlements that got into his way at times, and made him doubtful as to whether any positive sincerity ever could or ever would lurk behind such bewildering brief flashes of light which appeared to shine forth without meaning, and vanish again without result. And in various ways,âhe now began to think,â he must certainly have grown inordinately, outrageously selfish!â his irritation at the prospective return of Miss Vancourt proved it. He determined to brace himself together and put the lurking devil of egotism down.
âPut it down!â he said inwardly and with sternness,ââput it downâ trample it under foot, John, my boy! The lady of the Manor is perhaps sent here to try your patience and prove the stuff that is in you! She is no child,âshe is twenty-seven years of ageâa full grown woman,âshe will have her ways, just as you have yours,âshe will probably rub every mental and moral hair on the skin of your soul awry,âbut that is really just what you want, John,âyou do indeed! You want something more irritating than Sir Morton Pippittâs senile snobberies to keep you clean of an overgrowth or an undergrowth of fads! Your powers of endurance are about to be put to the test, and you must come out strong, John! You must not allow yourself to become a querulous old fellow because you cannot always do exactly as you like!â
He smiled genially at his own mental scolding of himself, and addressing Bainton once more, said:
âI shall probably write a note to Miss Vancourt this afternoon, and send you up with it. I shall tell her all about the Five Sisters, and ask her to give orders that the cutting down of the trees may be delayed till she has seen them for herself. But donât say anything about this in the village,â here he paused a moment, and then spoke with greater emphasisââI donât want to interfere with anything anybody else may have on hand. Do you understand? We must save the old beeches somehow. I will do my best, but I may fail; Miss Vancourt may not read my letter, or if she does, she may not be disposed to attend to it; it is best that all ways and means should be, tried,ââ
He broke off,âbut his eyes met Baintonâs in a mutual flash of understanding.
âYouâre a straight man, Passon, and no mistake,â observed Bainton with a slow smile; âNo beatinâ about the bush in the likes oâ you! Lord, Lord! What a mussy we ainât saddled with a poor snuffling, addle-pated, whimperinâ man oâ God like we âad afore you come âereâ what found all âis dooty anâ pleasure in dininâ with Sir Morton Pippitt up at the âAll! And when there was a man died, or a baby born, or some other sich like calamity in the village, he wornât never to âand to âelp,but he would give a look in when it was all over, and then he sez, sez he: âIâm sorry, my man, I wasnât âere to comfort ye, but I was up at the âAll.â And he did roll it round and round in his mouth like as âtwas a lump oâ butter and âoney-âup at the âAllâ! Hor-hor-hor! It must aâ tasted sweet to âim as we used to say,âand takinâ into consideration that Sir Morton was a bone- melter by profession, we used to throw up the proverb âthe nearer the bone, the sweeter the meatâânot that it had any bearinâ on the matter, but a good sayinâs a good thing, and a proverb fits into a fancy sometimes betterân a foot into a shoe. But you ainât
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