Harvest | Page 9

of manner which had attracted the bailiff
Hastings was, at first at any rate, entirely absent. Her attitude was
almost that of a woman defending herself against possible intrusion,
and Janet Leighton, looking on, and occasionally sharing in the
conversation, was surprised by it, as indeed she was by so many things
concerning Rachel now that their acquaintance was deepening;
surprised also, as though it were a new thing, by her friend's good looks
as she sat languidly chatting with the vicar. Rachel had merely put on a
blue overall above her land-worker's dress. But her beautiful head, with
its wealth of brown hair, and her face, with its sensuous fulness of
cheek and lip, its rounded lines, and lovely colour--like a slightly
overblown rose--were greatly set off by the simple folds of blue linen;
and her feet and legs, shapely but not small, in their khaki stockings
and shoes, completed the general effect of lissom youth. The flush and
heat of hard bodily work had passed away. She had had time to plunge
her face into cold water and smooth her hair. But the atmosphere of the
harvest field, its ripeness and glow, seemed to be still about her. A
classically minded man might have thought of some nymph in the train
of Demeter, might have fancied a horn of plenty, or a bow, slung from
the sunburnt neck.
But the vicar had forgotten his classics. _En revanche_, however, he
was doing his best to show himself sympathetic and up-to-date with
regard to women and their new spheres of work--especially on the land.
He had noticed three girls, he said, working in the harvest field. Two of
them he recognized as from the village; the third he supposed was a
stranger?
"She comes from Ralstone," said Rachel.
"Ah, that's the village where the new timber camp is. You really must
see that camp, Miss Henderson."

"I hate to think of the woods coming down," she said, frowning a little.
"We all do. But that's the war. It can't be helped, alack! But it's
wonderful to see the women at work, measuring and checking, doing
the brain work, in fact, while the men do the felling and loading. It
makes one envious."
The vicar sighed. A flush appeared on his young but slightly
cadaverous face.
"Of the men--or the women?"
"Oh, their work, I mean. They're doing something for the war. I've done
my best. But the Bishop won't hear of it."
And he rather emphatically explained how he had applied in vain for an
army chaplaincy. Health and the shortage of clergy had been against
him. "I suppose there must be some left at home," he said with a shrug,
"and the doctors seem to have a down on me."
Janet was quite sorry for the young man--he was so eagerly apologetic,
so anxious to propitiate what he imagined ought to be their feelings
about him. And Rachel all the time sat so silent and unresponsive.
Miss Leighton drew the conversation back to the timber camp; she
would like to go and see it, she said. Every one knew the Canadians
were wonderful lumbermen.
The Vicar's eyes had travelled back to Rachel.
"Were you ever in Canada, Miss Henderson?" The question was
evidently thrown out nervously at a venture, just to evoke a word or a
smile from the new mistress of the farm.
Rachel Henderson frowned slightly before replying.
"Yes, I have been in Canada."
"You have? Oh, then, you know all about it."
"I know nothing about Canadian lumbering."
"You were on the prairies?"
"I lived some time on a prairie farm."
"Everything here must seem very small to you," said the vicar
sympathetically. But this amiable tone fell flat. Miss Henderson still sat
silent. The vicar began to feel matters awkward and took his hat from
the floor.
"I trust you will call upon me for any help I can possibly be to you," he
said, turning to Janet Leighton. "I should be delighted to help in the
harvest if you want it. I have a pair of hands anyway, as you see!" He

held them out.
He expatiated a little more on his disappointment as to the front. Janet
threw in a few civil words. Rachel Henderson had moved to the
window, and was apparently looking at the farm-girls carrying straw
across the yard.
"Good-night, Miss Henderson," said the young man at last, conscious
of rebuff, but irrepressibly effusive and friendly all the time. "I hope
you will let your Ralstone girl come sometimes to the clubroom my
sister and I have in the village? We feel young people ought to be
amused, especially when they work hard."
"Thank you, but it's so far away. We don't like them to be out late."
"Certainly not. But in