THE FIRST MAN
The mystery of the apparently occult methods of communication among the natives of India, between whom, it is said, news flies by means too strange and subtle to be humanly explainable, is no more difficult a problem to solve than that of the lightning rapidity with which a knowledge of the transpiring of any new local event darts through the slowest, and, as far as outward signs go, the least communicative English village slumbering drowsily among its pastures and trees.
That which the Hall or Manor House believed last night, known only to the four walls of its drawing-room, is discussed over the cottage breakfast tables as though presented in detail through the columns of the Morning Post.The vicarage, the smithy, the post office, the little provision shop, are instantaneously informed as by magic of such incidents of interest as occur, and are prepared to assist vicariously at any future developments.Through what agency information is given no one can tell, and, indeed, the agency is of small moment.Facts of interest are perhaps like flights of swallows and dart chattering from one red roof to another, proclaiming themselves aloud.Nothing is so true as that in such villages they are the property and innocent playthings of man, woman, and child, providing conversation and drama otherwise likely to be lacked.
When Miss Vanderpoel walked through Stornham village street she became aware that she was an exciting object of interest.Faces appeared at cottage windows, women sauntered to doors, men in the taproom of the Clock Inn left beer mugs to cast an eye on her; children pushed open gates and stared as they bobbed their curtsies; the young woman who kept the shop left her counter and came out upon her door step to pick up her straying baby and glance over its shoulder at the face with the red mouth, and the mass of black hair rolled upward under a rough blue straw hat.Everyone knew who this exotic-looking young lady was.She had arrived yesterday from London, and a week ago by means of a ship from far-away America, from the country in connection with which the rural mind curiously mixed up large wages, great fortunes and Indians."Gaarge" Lunsden, having spent five years of his youth labouring heavily for sixteen shillings a week, had gone to "Meriker" and had earned there eight shillings a day.This was a well-known and much-talked over fact, and had elevated the western continent to a position of trust and importance it had seriously lacked before the emigration of Lunsden.A place where a man could earn eight shillings a day inspired interest as well as confidence.When Sir Nigel's wife had arrived twelve years ago as the new Lady Anstruthers, the story that she herself "had money" had been verified by her fine clothes and her way of handing out sovereigns in cases where the rest of the gentry, if they gave at all, would have bestowed tea and flannel or shillings.There had been for a few months a period of unheard of well-being in Stornham village; everyone remembered the hundred pounds the bride had given to poor Wilson when his place had burned down, but the village had of course learned, by its occult means, that Sir Nigel and the Dowager had been angry and that there had been a quarrel.Afterwards her ladyship had been dangerously ill, the baby had been born a hunchback, and a year had passed before its mother had been seen again.Since then she had been a changed creature; she had lost her looks and seemed to care for nothing but the child.Stornham village saw next to nothing of her, and it certainly was not she who had the dispensing of her fortune.Rumour said Sir Nigel lived high in London and foreign parts, but there was no high living at the Court.Her ladyship's family had never been near her, and belief in them and their wealth almost ceased to exist.
If they were rich, Stornham felt that it was their business to mend roofs and windows and not allow chimneys and kitchen boilers to fall into ruin, the simple, leading article of faith being that even American money belonged properly to England.
As Miss Vanderpoel walked at a light, swinging pace through the one village street the gazers felt with Kedgers that something new was passing and stirring the atmosphere.She looked straight, and with a friendliness somehow dominating, at the curious women; her handsome eyes met those of the men in a human questioning; she smiled and nodded to the bobbing children.One of these, young enough to be uncertain on its feet, in running to join some others stumbled and fell on the path before her.Opening its mouth in the inevitable resultant roar, it was shocked almost into silence by the tall young lady stooping at once, picking it up, and cheerfully dusting its pinafore.
"Don't cry," she said; "you are not hurt, you know."The deep dimple near her mouth showed itself, and the laugh in her eyes was so reassuring that the penny she put into the grubby hand was less productive of effect than her mere self.She walked on, leaving the group staring after her breathless, because of a sense of having met with a wonderful adventure.The grand young lady with the black hair and the blue hat and tall, straight body was the adventure.She left the same sense of event with the village itself.They talked of her all day over their garden palings, on their doorsteps, in the street; of her looks, of her height, of the black rim of lashes round her eyes, of the chance that she might be rich and ready to give half-crowns and sovereigns, of the "Meriker" she had come from, and above all of the reason for her coming.
