Under the projection of the thatch she saw a figure.
The young lady had come.
Her presence so exceptionally substantiated the girl’s utmost hopes that she almost feared her good fortune.
Fancies find rooms in the strongest minds.
Here, in a churchyard old as civilization, in the worst of weathers, was a strange woman of curious fascinations never seen elsewhere: there might be some devilry about her presence.
However, Elizabeth went on to the church tower, on whose summit the rope of a flagstaff rattled in the wind; and thus she came to the wall.
The lady had such a cheerful aspect in the drizzle that Elizabeth forgot her fancy.
“Well,” said the lady, a little of the whiteness of her teeth appearing with the word through the black fleece that protected her face, “have you decided?”
“Yes, quite,” said the other eagerly.
“Your father is willing?” “Yes.” “Then come along.”
“When?”
“Now—as soon as you like.
I had a good mind to send to you to come to my house, thinking you might not venture up here in the wind.
But as I like getting out of doors, I thought I would come and see first.”
“It was my own thought.”
“That shows we shall agree.
Then can you come to-day?
My house is so hollow and dismal that I want some living thing there.”
“I think I might be able to,” said the girl, reflecting.
Voices were borne over to them at that instant on the wind and raindrops from the other side of the wall.
There came such words as “sacks,” “quarters,” “threshing,” “tailing,” “next Saturday’s market,” each sentence being disorganized by the gusts like a face in a cracked mirror.
Both the women listened.
“Who are those?” said the lady.
“One is my father.
He rents that yard and barn.”
The lady seemed to forget the immediate business in listening to the technicalities of the corn trade.
At last she said suddenly,
“Did you tell him where you were going to?”
“No.”
“O—how was that?”
“I thought it safer to get away first—as he is so uncertain in his temper.”
“Perhaps you are right....Besides, I have never told you my name.
It is Miss Templeman....Are they gone—on the other side?”
“No.
They have only gone up into the granary.”
“Well, it is getting damp here.
I shall expect you to-day—this evening, say, at six.”
“Which way shall I come, ma’am?”
“The front way—round by the gate.
There is no other that I have noticed.”
Elizabeth-Jane had been thinking of the door in the alley.
“Perhaps, as you have not mentioned your destination, you may as well keep silent upon it till you are clear off.
Who knows but that he may alter his mind?”
Elizabeth-Jane shook her head.
“On consideration I don’t fear it,” she said sadly. “He has grown quite cold to me.”
“Very well.
Six o’clock then.”
When they had emerged upon the open road and parted, they found enough to do in holding their bowed umbrellas to the wind.
Nevertheless the lady looked in at the corn-yard gates as she passed them, and paused on one foot for a moment.
But nothing was visible there save the ricks, and the humpbacked barn cushioned with moss, and the granary rising against the church-tower behind, where the smacking of the rope against the flag-staff still went on.