Now, Richard Jeffray sent Peter Gladden on ahead with the mare that morning, thus casting doubt on his sincerity in asking for guidance through the woods. He walked with Bess, who had thrown her red cloak over her shoulders and thrust her feet into her best buckled shoes. The woods were full of dancing sunlight and of dew. A brisk breeze played through the branches, chanting desirously, and sweeping the white clouds over the forest in the blue sky above. The promise of spring seemed in the air; already the green gorse was budding gold, and the cry of the world’s youth was on the wind.
Richard noticed for the first time that Bess was taller than he was as they walked together under the trees. Her eyes looked down on him a little from under her glorious wreath of sable hair. In truth, she seemed Richard’s master in the matter of mere physical strength; her arms were of greater girth than his by two inches or more, and her supple body would have turned the scale by a stone against Jeffray’s slim but wiry frame. They had little to say to each other for the first furlong or so. The girl appeared farouche and silent, looking at Richard as though half in awe of him. And yet some subtle net of sympathy seemed to have been cast about them both in the course of a single night.
“Bess,” said the man, suddenly plunging towards the thoughts that lay close about his heart.
Being slightly ahead, she hung back and waited, with her eyes at gaze on the deeps of the woods.
“I spoke to Isaac Grimshaw about you last night,” he continued, watching the play of the sunlight upon her face.
Bess’s eyes darkened and she pouted out her lips. Her walk seemed more spirited, the carriage of her head more rebellious at the mention of Dan’s name.
“I told your uncle that Barbara Gladden, my butler’s wife, could give you a home at Rodenham—”
“You found your cousin’s company too rough for you.”
Bess flashed a look at Richard, and walked on in silence for some moments, with a fine color upon her face. There was no suggestion of patronage in Jeffray’s manner.
“I am not afraid of Dan,” she answered, “though I am grateful to you—for this.”
A sudden realization of the gulf between them had taken hold of the girl’s heart. This Richard Jeffray was one of the gentry, and she, a poor forest wench not fit to stand before women, less handsome and less honest than herself. At Rodenham she would take her meals in the servants’ hall, and sleep in an attic under the roof. It would even be considered a favor if the young squire spoke to her. No. She loved Pevensel and her forest liberty better than that.