Harvest | Page 8

by five
years, was only tenderly amused by it. All Rachel's foibles, as far as she
knew them, were pleasant to her. They were in that early stage of a new
friendship when all is glamour.
Yet Janet did sometimes reflect, "How little I really know about her.
She is a darling--but a mystery!"
They had met at college, taken their farm training together, and fallen
in love with each other. Janet had scarcely a relation in the world.
Rachel possessed, it seemed, a brother in Canada, another in South
Africa, and some cousins whom she scarcely knew, children of the
uncle who had left her three thousand pounds. Each had been attracted
by the loneliness of the other, and on leaving college nothing was more
natural than they should agree to set up together. Rachel, as the
capitalist, was to choose the farm and take command. Janet went to a
Cheshire dairy farm for a time to get some further training in practical
work; and she was now responsible for the dairy at Great End, with the
housekeeping and the poultry thrown in. She was a thin, tall woman
with spectacles, and had just seen her thirty-second birthday. Her eyes
were honest and clear, her mouth humorous. She never grudged other
women their beauty or their success. It always seemed to her she had
what she deserved.
Meanwhile the vicar approached, and Miss Leighton descended the
steps and went to meet him at the gate. His aspect showed him
apologetic.
"I have come at an unearthly hour, Miss Leighton. But I thought I
should have no chance of finding Miss Henderson free till the evening,
and I came to tell you that I think I have found a woman to do your
work."
Janet bade him come in, and assured him that Rachel would soon be

visible. She ushered him into the sitting-room, which he entered on a
note of wonderment.
"How nice you have made it all," he said, looking round him. "When I
think what a deserted hole this has been for years. You know, the
village people firmly believe it is haunted? Old Wellin never could get
anybody to sleep here. But tramps often used it, I'm certain. They got in
through the windows. Hastings told me he had several times found a
smouldering fire in the kitchen."
"What sort is the ghost?" Janet inquired, as she pointed him to a chair,
devoutly hoping that Rachel would hurry herself.
"Well, there's a story--but I wonder whether I ought to tell you--"
"I assure you as to ghosts--I have no nerves!" said Janet with a
confident laugh, "and I don't think Rachel has either. We are more
frightened of rats. This farm-yard contains the biggest I've ever seen. I
dream of them at night."
"It's not exactly the ghost--" said the vicar, hesitating.
"But the story that produced the ghost? What--a murder?"
"Half a century ago," said the vicar reassuringly; "you won't mind
that?"
"Not the least. A century ago would be romantic. If it was just the other
day, we should feel we ought to have got the farm cheaper. But half a
century doesn't matter. It's a mid-Victorian, just a plain, old-fashioned
murder. Who did it?"
The vicar opened his eyes a little. Miss Leighton was, he saw, a lady,
and perhaps clever. Her spectacles looked like it. No doubt she had
been at Oxford or Cambridge before going to Swanley? These educated
women in new professions were becoming a very pressing and
common fact! As to the murder, he explained that it had been just an
ordinary poaching affair. An old gamekeeper on the Shepherd estate
had been attacked by a gang of poachers in the winter of 1866. He had
been shot in one of the woods, and though mortally wounded had been
able to drag himself to the outskirts of the farm where his strength had
failed him. He was found dead under the cart-shed which backed on the
stables, and the traces of blood on the hill marked the stages of his
struggle for life. Two men were suspected, one of them a labourer on
the Great End Farm; but there was no evidence. The suspected labourer
had gone to Canada the year after the murder, and no one knew what

had happened to him.
But having told the tale the vicar was again seized with compunction.
"I oughtn't to have told you--I really oughtn't; just on your settling in--I
hope you won't tell Miss Henderson?"
Janet's amused reply was interrupted by Rachel's entrance. The vicar
arose with eagerness to receive her. He was evidently attracted by his
new parishioners and anxious to make a good impression on them.
Miss Henderson's reception of the vicar, however, was far more
guarded. The easy friendliness