ABOUT THE FEAST OF ST. GOOSE
The cult of the goose, so far as it concerns Tavistock Fair, is
gastronomic entirely, and has no religious significance. At dedication
festivals of a church some particular saint is flattered with
decorations and services, and his existence upon this world at one time
is taken for granted. In certain places a few bones are produced for the
edification of the faithful, and advertised as the great toe or the jaw
of the patron in question. Goose bones are displayed at the "gurt vair"
in lieu of the living creature, and they are unmistakably genuine, for
there is plenty of sound meat upon them. St. Goose is honoured with the
fun of the fair, while he himself is offered up on a charger. The
congregation of countryfolk devour their canonised bird, and wash him
down with beer and cider. There is not a living goose to be seen about
the town, but the atmosphere of the principal street is thick and
fragrant with sage and onions.
Peter and Mary trod the wide roads as delicately as large boots could,
feeling far too nervous to enjoy themselves. Peter would not enter into
the pleasure of the fair until he had swallowed several stimulating
pints, and even Mary was willing to take a little cordial for the sake
of her nerves. It was not so much the noises which disconcerted
her--there was plenty of howling wind and roaring water down Tavy
Cleave--as their unaccustomed nature. She was not used to steam
roundabouts, megaphones, and all the drums and shoutings of the showmen.
When Peter proposed an aërial trip upon wooden horses, Mary moved an
amendment in favour of light refreshment. Peter could not object to a
suggestion so full of sense, so they passed beside the statue of Francis
Drake, crossed the road, and were getting clear of the crowd, when a
familiar laugh reached their ears, and Mary saw a fresh and happy pair
of youngsters. Boodles and Aubrey, in high spirits and good health,
laughing at everything merely because they were together for a good long
day. Boodles had never looked nicer. West-country beauty is nothing but
fair hair and tinted skin; but Boodles was all glorious just then. She
was a flame rather than a flower. Her hair had never looked so radiant,
or her skin more golden. She was as happy as she could be; and when a
girl is like that she has to look splendid, whether she likes it or no.
Mary was soon after her, bellowing like a bullock, lunging with the
umbrella, shouting! "Aw, Miss Boodles! Aw, my dear! I be come to the
vair tu. Me and Peter has come to Goosie Vair. Where be ye going, my
dear?"
Boodles turned with a look of amazement. She had her flaming hair up,
beneath a big straw hat which was trimmed with poppies, and her dainty
frock just touched her ankles. She looked so deliciously clean that Mary
hardly liked to come near her, and she smelt, not like a chemist's shop,
but like the sweet earth after a shower. Mary drew her right hand
swiftly across her big tongue, rubbed the palm upon her buttock, and
held it out. She always shook hands with Boodles whenever they met. She
felt that the civilising contact lent her some of the womanhood which
nature had withheld.
"It's so jolly!" cried the child. "Such a lovely day, and everything
perfect. I'm glad you have come--and Peter too! Aubrey, this is Mary who
gives us eggs and butter. She and Peter live upon Tavy Cleave. You
know!"
Mary cleansed her right hand again.
"Why, Where's Peter?" cried Boodles.
Peter was already across the road, following his little turned-up nose
in the direction of a door which suggested pewters.
"He'm thirsty," explained Mary.
"Poor Peter!" laughed Boodles. "You must look after him, Mary. Don't
bring him home staggery."
Mary was not listening. Of course Peter would go home staggery. It was
the proper thing to do. How could a man be said to enjoy a fair if he
went home sober? Mary was regarding the young man. She was able to
reason with a good deal of clearness sometimes. It was not easy to
believe that the title _man_ included beings So far apart as Aubrey and
her brother, just as she found it hard to understand how the word
_woman_ could serve for Boodles and herself.
"Bain't he a proper young gentleman?" she exclaimed. "A main cruel
butiful young gentleman. Aw ees, my dear! I'd like to kiss a gentleman
like yew."
Mary had not felt so womanly for a long time. She comprehended there was
something in life beyond breeding geese, and cleaning turnips, and
bringing the furze-reek home; something that was not for her, because
she was too much of a man to be a woman.
Their answering laughter did not upset her, although it was in a way
expressive of the truth that there could never be any pleasant gilt upon
her gingerbread.
"It wouldn't do here. Rather too public," said the boy, with a sly look
in his blue eyes, squeezing his sweetheart's fingers as he spoke.
Boodles had flushed with pleasure. She would rather have heard Aubrey
praised than be praised herself. She was quite right when she had
declared Aubrey was the prettiest boy ever made. It was obvious even to
poor old wooden-faced half-man Mary.
Boodles and Aubrey hurried on, representatives of fun and laughter,
which were otherwise somewhat wanting. It was too early in the day for
excitement. The countryfolk were not yet warmed up; they were reserved,
and took the holiday seriously; hanging about the streets with a lost
expression, unwilling to change their shillings into pence, oppressed
with the idea that it would be necessary soon to enjoy themselves,
studiously avoiding the pleasure-ground in order that they might cling
to their cash a little longer, and quite content to look on and listen,
and welcome acquaintances with prolonged handshakes. The spending of the
first penny was difficult; the rest would be easy. There were some who
had not a penny to spend, and even they would be happy when the
temperature went up. A poor plain girl from some remote village will
stand in a puddle all day, and declare when she gets home she has never
enjoyed herself so much in her life. It is a sufficient pleasure, for
those who live in lonely places, to stand at a corner and stare at a
rollicking crowd for a few hours.
There was the fair within the town, and the fair without. That within
was beside the Tavy and among the ruins of the Abbey; that without was
also beside the Tavy, but upon the opposite bank. There was also the
business-fair, where beasts were bargained for: ponies, bullocks, pigs,
sheep, everything except geese. It was a festival which would have
delighted the hearts of Abbot Cullyng's gay monks, who, it is recorded,
wore secular garments about the town, divided their time between hunting
the deer on Dartmoor and holding drunken suppers in their cells, and
cared not at all for religious discipline or black-lettered tomes. Part
of the fair is held upon the former site of those monastic buildings,
and the ruin of Betsey Grimbal's tower looks down upon more honest
pleasures from what was once the Abbey garden. The foundation was
despoiled of its gold and silver images, and the drones were smoked out
of their nest, centuries ago, and what was their refectory is now by the
irony of fate a Unitarian chapel; and St. Goose has become a greater
saint than St. Rumon, who was claimed as a bishop of renown by his
Church, although secular history suggests no such gentleman ever lived.
Certain objects were against the railings of the church, objects neither
beautiful nor necessary; Brightly and his mongrel, hungry and
business-like as ever. They occupied very little space, and yet they
were in the way, principally because they were not pleasant to look
upon, being rather like heaps of refuse which the street-cleaners had
overlooked. Brightly was not there for the fun of the thing. He did not
know the meaning of such words as holiday and pleasure. Had any one
given him five shillings, and told him to go and enjoy himself, he would
not have known what to do. Both he and Ju were thinner, though that was
only interesting as a physiological fact. Brightly held up his
ridiculous head and sniffed continually. Ju did the same. The atmosphere
was redolent of sage and onions; and they were trying to feed upon it.
"Trade be cruel dull," muttered Brightly.
Ju did not acknowledge the remark. She had heard it so often, or words
to the same effect, that she deemed it unnecessary to respond with a
tail-wag. Besides, that sort of thing required energy, and Ju had none
to spare. She was wondering, if she followed up that wonderful odour,
whether she would obtain gratuitous goose at the other end.
"Tie-clips, penny each. Dree for duppence. Butiful pipes, two a penny,"
sang Brightly; but his miserable voice was drowned by the roundabouts
and megaphones.
Brightly was celebrating the general holiday by exchanging one form of
labour for another. It would have been useless to follow his usual
calling of purveyor of rabbit-skins that day, so he had become for the
time being a general merchant. He had obtained a trayful of small goods
on credit. Brightly had one fault, a grave one in business; he was
honest. So far he had sold nothing. He was merely demonstrating the
marvellous purchasing powers of a penny. It never occurred to him that
he was opposing his miserable little trayful of rubbish to all the
booths and pleasures of the great fair. Tie-clips and clay-pipes were
all he had to offer in competition with attractions which had delighted
kings and princes, if the honesty of the showmen could be accepted as
advertised. Even the fat woman admitted that royal personages had
pinched her legs. If Brightly had followed the fat lady's example, and
declared in a loud enough voice that autocrats smoked nothing but his
clay-pipes, and kept their decorations in place with his tie-clips, he
might have acquired many pennies.
Above the town, where the cattle-fair was in full swing, various hawkers
had established themselves; men who looked as if they had been made out
of metal, with faces of copper and tongues of brass. One man was giving
away gold rings, and if a recipient was not satisfied he threw in a
silver watch as well. He couldn't explain why he did such things. It was
his evil fate to have been born a philanthropist. He owned he had come
to the fair with the idea of selling his goods; but when he found
himself among so many happy, smiling people, fine young men, beautiful
girls, dear old folks who reminded him of his own parents, all making
holiday and enjoying themselves, with the sun shining and Nature at her
best, he felt totally unable to restrain his benevolence. He couldn't
take their money. It was weak and foolish of him, he knew, but he had to
give them the rings and watches, which, as they could see for
themselves, had cost him pounds, shillings, and pence, because he wanted
to send them home happy. His only idea was to give them a little present
so that they would remember him, and tell their friends what a simple
and generous creature they had encountered at the fair. So he flowed on,
with an eloquence which any missionary would have envied. And then he
produced a black bag, and said he wished to draw their attention to
something which he must really ask them to buy, not because he wanted
their money, but because he knew that people never really valued a thing
unless they gave something for it. It was a fatal thing, this
philanthropy, but it made him happy to be kind to others. Out of the bag
came some more rubbish, and the rascal was soon doing a roaring trade.
What chance had Brightly against a metallic creature like that?
Higher up the road another gentleman established himself. He was well
dressed, his mottled hands were gleaming with immense rings, and his
clean-shaven face was as red as rhubarb. He assumed an academic cap and
gown, casually informing those who gathered around that he was entitled
to do so, as he was not only a man of gentle birth, but a graduate of
"one of our oldest universities," and a duly qualified physician also.
He stated with emphasis, and a slight touch of cynicism, that he was no
philanthropist. He belonged to an overcrowded profession; he had no
settled practice; and knowing how unwilling country-people were to come
to a medical man until they had to, when it was usually too late, and
knowing also how grievously afflicted many of them were with divers
diseases, he had decided to come out by the wayside and heal them. It
was entirely a matter of business. He was going to cure them of a number
of ailments which they were harbouring unawares, and they would pay him
a trifling sum in return. He wasn't going to give anything away. He
couldn't afford to be generous. He begged the people not to crowd about
him so closely, as there was plenty of time, and he would undertake to
attend to every one.
This man ought to have been a genius, if he hadn't been a rogue. He went
on to warn his listeners against quack doctors and patent medicines.
They were all frauds, he assured them, and he described in homely
language how he had often restored some poor sufferer whose health had
been undermined by the mischievous attentions of unqualified impostors.
He took a small boy, set him in the midst, and in flowing phrase
explained his internal structure. It was the liver which was the origin
of disease among men; liver, which caused women to faint, and men to
feel run down. Heart disease, consumption, eczema, cold feet, red nose,
and a craving for liquor were all caused by an unhealthy liver, and were
so many different names for the same disease. So far nobody but himself
had discovered any safe cure for the liver. There were a thousand
remedies mentioned in the _British Encyclopædia_--possibly he meant
pharmacopoeia--but not a genuine medicine among them. He had devoted his
life and fortune to discovering a remedy, and he had discovered it; and
his listeners should be allowed to benefit by it; for it needed but a
glance at their faces to convince him that the liver of every man and
woman in that circle was grievously out of order.
At that moment Peter and Mary came up, considerably elevated, and gazed
with immense satisfaction at the figure in cap and gown, Mary exclaiming
in her noisy way: "Aw, Peter! 'Tis a preacher."
The quack wiped his hands and face with a silk handkerchief, opened a
bag, and producing a small green bottle half full of grimy pellets,
continued solemnly; "The result of a life devoted to medical studies, my
friends. The one and only liver cure. The triumph of the human
intellect; more wonderful than the Pyramids of America; long life and
happiness in a small bottle; and the price only one shilling."
There was not much demand at first for long life and happiness in bottle
form. The listeners had come to Goose Fair to enjoy themselves, not to
buy pills. They were all obviously as healthy as wayside weeds. But the
artful rogue had only been playing with them so far. He made his living
by the gift of a tongue, and so far he had not used it. The time had
come for him to terrify them. He removed his cap, threw his shoulders
back and his arms out, and lectured them furiously; telling them they
were dying, not merely ill, but hovering every one of them on the brink
of the grave; that tan of health upon their faces was a deception; it
was actually a fatal symptom, a sign of physical degeneracy, a herald of
bodily impotence. They were all suffering from liver in some shape or
form, and with the majority, he feared, the disease was already too far
advanced to be arrested by any treatment, except one only--the little
green bottle of pills, which might be theirs for one shilling. He choked
them with eloquence for ten minutes, frightening, converting, and making
them feel horribly ill. He was irresistible, especially when he spoke
with pathos of his devotion for his fellow-creatures, and his pain when
he saw them suffering. That man would have made an ideal preacher, if he
had known how to speak the truth.
Mary listened open-mouthed. A bee flew in, and she spat it out and
gasped. For the first time in her life she realised she was in a state
of delicate health.
The quack advanced to Peter, who was looking particularly despondent,
being fully persuaded he had not long to live, and with a grave shake of
the head punched him in the body. "Does that hurt?" he asked.
"Cruel," said Peter.
"Enlarged liver, my friend," said the rogue. "It is not too late to save
the patient if he takes the remedy at once. Let me tell you how you
feel," and he went on to describe a condition of ill-health, which most
of his other hearers felt coming upon themselves also under the potent
influence of mere suggestion.
"Du'ye feel like that, Peter?" demanded Mary with great anxiety.
"I du," said Peter miserably.
"So du I," declared Mary. "I feels tired when I goes to bed, just like
he ses."
"Better have three bottles each," said the friend of mankind. "One
arrests the disease, three remove it."
That would have meant six shillings, which of course was not to be
thought of. Even ill-health was to be preferred to such an expenditure.
As Peter reminded his sister, he could almost bury her for that sum.
Finally they bought one bottle of pellets. Not even the quack's
conviction that Mary was suffering from an undue secretion of bile could
persuade them to purchase more. The rogue collected a pound's worth of
silver from the circle, and went on his way to capture a fresh lot of
gulls; and so the dishonesty and fun of the fair went on side by side;
while there was half-blind Brightly, squeezing against the railings of
the church, with his ridiculous honesty, and his trayful of pipes and
tie-clips which never grew less. Honesty is a money-making policy in the
land of Utopia, but not elsewhere; and Utopia means nowhere.
Christianity has been preached for nearly two thousand years, and still
the man is a fool who leaves his silver-mounted stick outside the door.
The next thing was luncheon, as elegant folk have it; or a proper old
guzzle, according to Peter. The savages had made up their minds to do
the fair properly, and eating was certainly a chief item of the
programme. Savoury goose, with plenty of sage and onions, was the dish
of the day. Peter put the pills in his pocket, and forgot that his liver
was out of order, as Mary ignored the untruth that she suffered from
"too much oil." It was useless to try strange words upon her. While she
was eating that portion of goose appointed for the day she tried to make
her brother explain how the oil had got into her system, but Peter was
much too busy to answer. He was guzzling like a monkey, with his face in
the plate, half choking in his hurry, gulping, perspiring, gasping with
sheer greediness, and splashing in the rich gravy very much as the goose
he was feeding on had once flopped through some moorland bog.
Boodles and Aubrey went to the Queen's Hotel for their goose dinner; a
place where good English fare may still be seen and eaten. Boodles had
witnessed the pleasure-fair only, the gay and noisy side of things, and
though the debased faces of some of the booth proprietors had alarmed
her at first, she had seen nothing actually nasty. Cruelty was not
there, or at least it had been out of sight. She did not go upon the
other side, where the rogues foregathered, and where beasts were bought
and sold; where sheep were penned in a mass of filth, with their mouths
open, tasting nothing but heat and dust; where ponies were driven from
side to side, half mad with fright, while drovers with faces like a
nightmare yelled and waved their hats at them, and brought their cudgels
down like hammers upon their sweating flanks; where calves, with big
patient eyes protruding with pain and terror, were driven through the
crowd by a process of tail-twisting; where fowls were stuffed in crates
and placed in the full heat of the sun; and stupid little pigs were
kicked on their heads to make them sensible. Boodles saw nothing of
that, and it was just as well, for it might have spoilt her day, and
have reminded her that, for some cause unexplained, the dominant note of
all things is cruelty; from the height of the unknown God, who gives His
beings a short life and scourges them through it, to the depth of the
invisible mite who rends a still smaller mite in pieces. Living
creatures were placed in the world, it is said, to perform the duty of
reproducing their species. It seems as reasonable to suggest that their
duty is to stamp out some other species; for the instinct of destruction
is at least as strong as the instinct of reproduction, making the world
a cold place often for the tender-hearted.
It was not a cold place for Boodles that day, because she was in a happy
state of love and ignorance. She was not worrying herself about Nature,
who vivisects most people under the base old plea of physiological
research. She and Aubrey went up a sage-and-onion-scented street, into
the similarly perfumed hotel, up a flight of stairs fragrant with
stuffing, and into a long room, to find themselves in a temple of
feasting, with incense to St. Goose streaming upward, and two score
famished and rather ill-bred folk licking their lips ostentatiously and
casting savage glances at the knives and forks.
Everything was on the grand scale. It was just such a meal as the
eighteenth-century post-houses gave passengers on the road before
railways had come to ruin appetites. It was a true Hogarthian dinner;
not a meal to approach with a pingling stomach; not a matter of "a
ragout of fatted snails and a chicken not two hours from the shell"; but
mighty geese, and a piece of beef as big as a Dartmoor tor--the lusty
cook's knees bowed as he staggered in with it--mounds of vegetables,
pyramids of dumplings, gravy enough to float a fishing-smack, and beer
and cider sufficient to bathe in. The diners were in complete sympathy
with the vastness of the feast, being mostly from ravenous Dartmoor. A
beefy farmer was voted to the chair, and carved until perspiration
trickled down his nose. A gentleman of severe appearance insisted upon
saying grace, but nobody took any notice. They were too busy sniffing,
and one who had been already helped was making strange noises with his
lips and throat. Boodles was laughing at his manners, and pinching
Aubrey's hand. "Such fun," she whispered.
"Ladies first," cried the carver.
"Quite right," gasped the man who had been served first, having snatched
the plate from the waiter as he was about to pass him. Then he gaped and
admitted an entire dumpling, nearly as big as a cricket-ball, and had
nothing else to say, except "Bit more o' that stuffing," for ten
minutes.
"What am I to do with it?" sighed Boodles, when the heaped plate was set
in front of her.
"Eat 'en, my dear!" said a commoner, who was wolfing bread until his
time came. "'Tis Goosie Vair," he added encouragingly.
"Take it, Aubrey," she said, with a slight titter.
"Go ahead," he replied. "Eat what you can, and leave the rest."
"I wish we were alone," she whispered. "These people are pigs."
Had they been alone they would probably have fed off the same plate, and
given each other kisses between every mouthful. As it was they could do
nothing, except play with each other's feet beneath the table. Everybody
else was hard at work. Faces were swollen on every side, and the sounds
were more suggestive of a farmyard at feeding time than a party of
immortal beings taking a little refreshment. There was no conversation.
All that had been done during the time of waiting. "'Tis a butiful day,
sure enough," and "A proper fine vair," had exhausted the topics.
Boodles was rather too severe when she called the feasters pigs, but
they were not pleasant to watch, and they seemed to have lost the divine
spark somehow. Philosophers might have wondered whether the species was
worth reproducing.
The young people soon left the table, and a couple very differently
constituted pressed themselves into the vacant places. The others were
not half satisfied. Some of them would stuff to the verge of apoplexy,
then roll down-stairs, and swill whisky-and-water by the tumblerful. It
was holiday; a time of over-eating and over-drinking. They had little
self-control. They unbuttoned their clothes at table, and wiped their
streaming faces with the cloth.
"I'm glad we went to goose dinner, but I shouldn't go again. It was
gorging, not eating," said Boodles, as they went along the street.
"Let's go and see the living pictures," said Aubrey.
"But we've seen them."
"We'll go again. Perhaps they will turn on a fresh lot."
They liked the living pictures, because the lights were turned down, and
they could snuggle together like two kittens and bite each other's
fingers.
"Then we'll go for a walk--our walk. But no," sighed Boodles; "we can't.
It will be time for the ordeal."
The fairy-tale was getting on. Ogre time had come. Boodles was to go and
drink tea with her boy's parents.
"Perhaps we can go our walk later on."
"It won't be a real day if we don't," said she.
"Our walk" was beside the Tavy, where they had kissed as babies, and
loved to wander now that they were children. They thought they were
grown up, but that was absurd. People who are in love remain as they
were, and never grow up until some one opens the window and lets the
cold wind in. "Our walk" was fairyland; a strange and pleasant place
after goose dinner and Goose Fair.
Brightly was against the railings, and had done no business, although
the day was far spent. There was no demand for tie-clips or clay-pipes.
Somebody was playing the organ in the church, and Brightly had that
music for his dinner. Everybody seemed to be doing well, and he was the
one miserable exception. He put up his sharp face, and chirped
pathetically: "Wun't ye buy 'em, gentlemen? Tie-clips, penny each. Dree
for duppence. Butiful pipes, brave and shiny, two a penny."
The roundabout over the way was taking pennies by the bushel; but the
roundabout supplied a demand, and Brightly did not. A fat be-ribboned
dog passed and snapped at Ju. She took it patiently, having learnt the
lesson from her master. Then two young people swept round, and one of
them collided with Brightly, and almost knocked his thin figure through
the railings.
"I beg your pardon," said a bright young voice. "I hope I didn't hurt
you."
"You'm welcome, sir," said Brightly, wondering what on earth the young
gentleman was apologising for.
"Why, it's the man with the rabbit-skins. What does he do with them? Now
he's selling pipes. Aubrey, I'm going to buy some. Oh, look at the poor
little dog! How it shivers! What is the matter with it?"
"She'm hungry," explained Brightly.
"You look as if you were hungry too," said Aubrey with boyish candour.
"I be a bit mazed like, sir," admitted Brightly.
"I want some pipes, please--a lot. Don't laugh, Aubrey," said Boodles,
looking down on the tray, with moisture in each eye and a frown on her
forehead. She had no money to spare, poor child, only a threepenny-bit
and four coppers; but she would have parted with the lot to feed the
hungry had not Aubrey taken and restrained her charitable little hand.
"Give him this," he whispered.
"Feed the little dog," said Boodles, as she gave Brightly the coin,
which was half-a-crown, as white and big, it seemed to Brightly, as the
moon itself. Then they went on, while Brightly was left to see visions
and to dream. He called out to tell them they had taken neither pipes
nor tie-clips, but his asthmatic voice was drowned as usual by the
noises of the fair, and it was quite a different set of faces and
figures that went before him. He picked Ju up, tucked her under his arm,
and shuffled away to buy food. He had seen the girl's face with pity on
it through his big glasses, only dimly, but it was enough to show him
what she was; something out of the church window, or out of the big
black book they read from, the book that rested upon the wings of a
golden goose, or perhaps she had come from the wonderful restaurant
called Jerusalem just to show him and Ju there was somewhere or other,
either in Palestine or above Dartmoor, some very superior Duke of
Cornwall who took a kindly interest in worms, himself, and other
creeping things. Brightly stopped, oblivious to holiday-makers, and
tried to think of Boodles' name. He found it just as he reached the
place where he could obtain a royal meal of scraps for threepence.
"Her's a reverent angel, Ju," he whispered.
* * * * *
Beyond the bridge, which crossed the Tavy near the entrance to the field
where the main pleasure-fair was making noises curiously suggestive of a
savage war-dance, Thomasine walked slowly to and fro. She had been doing
that ever since eleven o'clock, varying the occupation by standing still
for an hour or so gazing with patient cow's eyes along the road.
Pendoggat had promised to meet her there, and treat her to all the fun
of the fair. He had told her not to move from that spot until he
arrived, and she had to be obedient. She had been waiting four hours in
her best clothes, sometimes shaking the dust from her new petticoat, or
wiping her eyes with her Sunday handkerchief, but never going beyond the
bridge or venturing into the fair-field. One or two young men had
accosted her, but she had told them in a frightened way she was waiting
for a gentleman. She had seen her former young man. Will Pugsley, pass
with a new sweetheart upon his arm; and although Thomasine was unable to
reason she was able to feel miserable. Pendoggat was upon the other
side, kicking a calf he had purchased along the road, enjoying himself
after his own manner. He had forgotten all about Thomasine, and all that
his promise and the holiday meant to her. Besides, Annie Crocker was
with him like a sort of burr, clinging wherever he went, and not to be
easily shaken off; and she too wanted to be in the fair-field; only, as
she kept on reminding him, it was no place for a decent woman alone, and
she couldn't go unless he took her. To which Pendoggat replied that she
wasn't a decent woman, and if she had been nobody would want to speak to
her. They swore at each other in a subdued fashion whenever they found
themselves in a quiet corner.
"Come on, my love! Come along wi' I, and have a ride on the whirligig,"
shouted a drunken soldier with a big wart on his nose, staggering up to
Thomasine, and grabbing at her arm. The girl trembled, but allowed the
soldier to catch hold of her, because she did not know she had a legal
right to resist. After all this was a form of courtship, though it was
rather rough and sudden. Like many girls of her class Thomasine did not
see anything strange in being embraced by a man before she knew what his
name was. The soldier dragged her to the parapet of the bridge and
kissed her savagely, heedless of the passers-by. Then he began to take
her to the fair-ground, swearing at her when she hung back.
"I've got to bide here," she pleaded. "I'm waiting for a gentleman."
The drunken soldier declared he would smash the gentleman, or any one
else, who tried to take his prize from him; but he proved to be a man
whose words were mightier than his deeds, for when he saw a big
policeman approaching with a question in his eye he abandoned Thomasine
and fled. The girl dusted her clothes in a patient fashion and went on
waiting.
The next local excitement was the arrival of Peter and Mary in a kind of
whirlwind, both of them well warmed with excitement and Plymouth gin.
Thomasine nodded to them, but they did not see her. Mary had been buying
flower-seeds for her garden, a whole packet of sweet-peas and some
mignonette. Peter had objected to such folly when he discovered that the
produce would not be edible. Their garden was small, and they could not
waste good soil for the purpose of growing useless flowers. But Mary was
always insisting upon being as civilised as she could. "Miss Boodles du
grow a brave lot o' flowers in her garden, and she'm a proper young
lady," she said. Mary knew she could not become a proper lady, but she
might do her best by trying to grow "a brave lot o' flowers" in her
garden.
Later Thomasine saw Boodles and Aubrey pass over the bridge, walking
solemnly for the first time that day. The little girl was about to be
tried by ordeal, and she was getting anxious about her personal
appearance. Her shoes were so dusty, and there was a tiny hole in her
stocking right over her ankle, and her face was hot, and her hat was
crooked. "You did it, Aubrey," she said. She wasn't looking at all nice,
and her hair was tumbling, and threatening to be down her back any
moment. "And I'm only seventeen, Aubrey. I know they'll hate me."
They went up the hill among the green trees; and beneath the wall, where
nobody could see them, Aubrey dusted his sweetheart's shoes, and put her
hat straight, and guided her hands to where hairpins were breaking loose
from the radiant head, and told her she was sweetness itself down to the
smallest freckle. "Well, if they are not nice I shall say I'm only a
baby and can't help it. And then you must say it was all your fault,
because you came and kissed me with your pretty girl's face and made me
love it."
Thomasine watched Boodles as she went out of sight, trying to think, but
not succeeding. She regarded Boodles as a young lady, a being made like
herself, and belonging to her species, and yet as different from her as
Pendoggat was different from old Weevil. Boodles could talk, and
Thomasine could not; Boodles could walk prettily, while she could only
slouch; Boodles adorned her clothes, while she could only hang them upon
her in a misfitting kind of way. The life of the soul was in the eyes of
Boodles; the life of the body in Thomasine's. It was all the difference
between the rare bird which is costly, and the common one which any one
may capture, had Thomasine known it. She knew nothing except that she
was totally unlike the little girl of the radiant head. She did not know
how debased she was, how utterly ignorant, and how vilely cheap. She had
been accustomed to put a low price upon herself, because the market was
overstocked with girls as debased, ignorant, and cheap, as herself;
girls who might have been feminine, but had missed it somehow; girls
whose bodies cost twopence, and whose souls a brass ring.
The Bellamies had a pretty home on the hill above Tavistock overlooking
the moor. There was a verandah in front where every fine evening the
mistress sat to watch the tors melting in the sunset. She and her
husband were both artistic. Aubrey might have been said to be a proof of
it. Tea was set out upon the verandah, where Mr. Bellamie was frowning
at the crude noises of the fair, while his wife observed the old fashion
of "mothering" the cups. They were a fragile couple, and everything
about them seemed to suggest egg-shell porcelain--their faces, their
furniture, and even the flowers in their garden. It was useless to look
for passion there. It would have broken them as boiling water breaks a
glass. They never lost their self-control. When they were angry they
spoke and acted very much as they did when they were pleased.
"Here is the little girl," said Mr. Bellamie in his gentle way. "The red
poppies in her hat go well with her hair. Did you see her turn then? A
good deal of natural grace there. She does not offend at present. It is
a pretty picture, I think."
"Beauty and love--like his name. He is always a pretty picture,"
murmured the lady, looking at her son. "I wish he would not wear that
red tie."
"It suits on this occasion, with her strong colour. She is quite
artistic. The only fault is that she knocks her ankles together while
walking. That is said, though I know not why, to be a sign of innocence.
She is Titianesque, a combination of rich surface with splendid tints.
Not at all unfinished. Not in the least crude."
"Mother, here she is!" cried Aubrey, "I had to drag her up the hill. She
is so shy."
"It's not true," said Boodles. She advanced to Mrs. Bellamie, her golden
lashes drooping. Then she put up her mouth quite naturally, her eyes
asking to be kissed; and it was done so tastefully that the lady
complied, and said: "I have wanted to see you for a long time."
"A soft voice," murmured Mr. Bellamie. "I was afraid with that colour it
might be loud."
"They are very young. It will not last," said the lady to herself. "But
she will not do Aubrey any harm."
Boodles was soon talking in her pretty sing-song voice, describing all
their fun, and saying what a jolly day it had been, and how nice it was
to have Aubrey at home, and she hoped he would never be away for so long
again, until Mr. Bellamie roused himself and began to question her. The
child had to describe Lewside Cottage and her quiet dull life; and it
came out gradually--for Boodles was perfectly honest--how poor they
were, and the respectable Bellamies were shocked to hear of the numerous
housekeeping difficulties, and the limited number of the little girl's
frocks, and what was still worse, the fact that old Weevil was no
relation; until Mr. Bellamie began to fear that things were getting
inartistic, and his fragile wife asked gently whether the child's
parents were still living.
"I don't know," said Boodles, flushing painfully because she felt
somehow she had done wrong.
Aubrey could not stand that. He jumped up and tried to choke his
sweetheart with small cakes, while Mr. Bellamie began to examine her
concerning her favourite pictures, and found she hadn't any, as she had
not been east of Exeter, and knew nothing whatever about the big town,
which is chiefly in Middlesex and Surrey, and partly in most of the
other counties. Mr. Bellamie was rather upset. No girl could be really
artistic if she had not seen the picture galleries. He began to feel
that it would be necessary either to check Aubrey's amorous propensities
or to divert them into some more artistic channel. Mrs. Bellamie had
already arrived at much the same conclusion. Girls who know nothing of
their parents could not possibly be well-bred, and might easily become a
source of danger to those who were. Aubrey, of course, was not of their
opinion. While his father was weighing Boodles in the æsthetic balance
and finding her wanting, he went round to his mother, passed his arm
about her neck, and whispered fervently: "Isn't she sweet? I may get her
a ring, mother, mayn't I?"
"Don't be foolish, Aubrey," she whispered back. "You are only children."
They went soon afterwards, but not back to the fair, which was beginning
to be marred by the drunkard and his language; they went into the very
different atmosphere of Tavy woods; and there picked up the thread of
the story, with the trees and the kind weather about them. But it was
not the same somehow. Boodles had been to the gate of Castle Dolorous,
had looked inside, and thought she had seen the skulls and bones of the
young men and maidens, who had wandered in the woods to hear
nightingales and pick the tender grapes of passion, but had been caught
instead by the ogre, that he might trim his mantle with their hearts.
She began at last to wonder whether it could be a sin to have no
recognised parents and no name. Even the mongrel can be faithful, and
the hybrid flower beautiful; and in their way they are natural, and for
themselves they are loved. But they have no names of their own. The
plant may cast back in its seed to the weed stage, and the owner of the
mongrel may grow ashamed of it at last. Such a splendid name as Bellamie
could hardly be hyphened with a blank. Still Boodles was very young,
only a baby, as she said; and she soon forgot the ogre; and they went
down by the river and smeared their kisses with ripe blackberries.
Aubrey's parents strolled in their garden, and agreed that Miss Weevil's
head was perfect. They also agreed that the boy had better fall in love
with some one else.
"He is so constant. It is what I love in him," said the mother. "He has
been devoted to the child always, and now that he is approaching the age
when boys do foolish things without consulting their parents, he loves
her more than ever. I thought the last time he went away he would come
back cured. What a nose she has!"
"She is a perfect Romney," said, her husband.
"I don't believe she knows her name. Boodles, she told me, means
beautiful, and her foster-father is called Weevil. Boodles Weevil does
not go at all with Aubrey Bellamie," said the lady.
The fragile gentleman agreed that the girl's name violated every canon
of art. "If Aubrey will not give her up--" he began, breaking off a twig
which threatened to mar the symmetry of the border.
"I shall not influence him. It is foolish to oppose young people. Leave
them alone, and they usually get tired of each other as they get older.
She is a good child. Aubrey is perfectly safe. He may go about with her
as much as he likes, but we must see he does not run off with her and
marry her."
"We had better find out everything that is to be known," said Mr.
Bellamie. "I will go and see this old Weevil. He may be a fine old
gentleman with a Rembrandt head for all we know. She may be well-born,
only it is remarkable that she remembers nothing about her parents. She
would be a daughter to be proud of, if she had studied art. She offended
slightly in the matter of drapery. I noticed a hole in her stocking, but
it might have been caused during the day."
"You did not kiss her, I think?" said his wife quickly.
"No, certainly not," came the answer.
"I don't want you to. Her mouth is pretty."
"We must go in," said Mr. Bellamie decisively. "They are beginning to
light up the fair. How horribly inartistic it all is!"
Peter and Mary were being pushed about in the crowd below, still
enjoying themselves, although somewhat past riding on wooden horses, for
Mary was stupid and Peter was sleepy and absent-minded. They had
followed custom and done the fair thoroughly, and had not forgotten the
liquor. It was an unusual thing for Mary to have a head like a swing and
a body like a roundabout, but Peter was used to it. He had been throwing
at cocoa-nuts, without hitting anything except a man's knee; and for
some time he had admired the ladies dancing in very short skirts to the
tune of a merry music-hall melody until Mary, who was terribly hampered
by her big umbrella, dragged him away from a spectacle so degrading. It
was time for them to return home. They got clear of the crowd, and set
their faces, as they supposed, towards the station.
Thomasine was upon the bridge no longer. She had been joined by Will
Pugsley, who had lost sight of his new sweetheart, as they had managed
to drift apart in the crowd, and were not likely to meet again. She had
probably been picked up by some one and would be perfectly happy with
her new partner. Thomasine went off with young Pugsley, and it was only
in the natural order of things that she should meet Pendoggat at last,
not alone, but accompanied by Annie Crocker. It was unfortunate for
Thomasine that she should have Pugsley's arm round her waist, although
it was not her fault, as he had placed it there, and she supposed her
waist had been made for that sort of thing. It was impossible to tell
whether Pendoggat had seen her, as he never looked at any one. It was
not a happy holiday for Thomasine, although she did go home between
Pugsley and another drunken man, a young friend of his, who ought to
have made her feel common, had she been capable of self-examination.
It was at the bridge that Peter and Mary went wrong. They ought to have
crossed it, only they were so confused they hardly knew what they were
doing. It was another bridge of sighs. Lovers, who had probably met for
the first time that day, were embracing upon it; and a couple of young
soldiers were outraging the clear water of the Tavy by being sick over
the parapet. Peter and Mary stumbled on, found themselves in darkness
and a lonely road, and soon began to wonder what had become of the town
and the station. They had no idea they were walking straight away from
Tavistock in the direction of Yelverton.
"Here us be!" cried Mary at length. "A lot o' gals in white dresses
biding for the train. Us be in time."
"There be hundreds and millions of 'em," said Peter sleepily.
The road was very dark, but they could see a low wall, and upon the
other side what appeared to be a host of dim white figures waiting
patiently. They went up to a building and found an iron gate, but the
gate was locked, and the house was in darkness. It looked as if the last
train had gone, and the station was closed for the night.
"Us mun climb the wall," said Mary. She began to shout at the girls in
the white dresses: "Open the gate, some of ye. Open the gate."
There was no reply from the white figures; only the murmuring of the
river, and a dreary rustling of dry autumnal foliage. Peter rubbed his
eyes and stared, and put his little peg-nose over the wall.
"It bain't the station," he muttered, with a violent belch. "It be a
gentleman's garden."
"Aw, Peter, don't ye be so vulish. It be vull o' volks biding to go
home."
They climbed the wall, far too sleepy and intoxicated to know they were
in the cemetery; and finding themselves upon soft grass they went to
sleep, using the mound of a young girl's grave for their bolster, adding
their drunken slumbers to the heavier sleep of those who Mary thought
were "biding to go home."
About the middle of the night Peter awoke, much refreshed and less
absent-minded, and discovered the nature and the dampness of their
resting-place. The little man was not in the least dismayed. He aroused
Mary with his fist and facetious remarks. "Us be only lodgers. Us bain't
come to bide," he said cheerfully.
Mary also saw the fun of the thing. It was a fitting climax to her
travelling experiences. Without being at all depressed by her
surroundings she said: "Aw, Peter! To think us be sleeping among the
corpses like." To the novelty of this experience was to be added the
fact that she had slept at last outside her native parish.
They went back to Tavistock, to find the town at rest, and the fair dark
and silent. Returning to the house where they had eaten at midday, they
banged upon the door and shouted for sleeping accommodation, which was
at last provided. Peter felt a thrill of satisfaction when he
comprehended that he was putting up at what he was pleased to style an
hotel. While he was examining the furniture, the insecure bed, the chair
without a back, the cracked crockery, and all the other essentials of
the civilised bedroom, Mary began to shout violently--
"Aw, Peter, du'ye come along and see the light! 'Tis a hot hair-pin in a
bottle on a bit o' rope, and yew turns 'en on and off wi' a tap like
cider."
Peter had to admit that electric light was something startling. He
perceived that the same phenomenon occurred in his bedroom, and he was
at a loss to account for it. Mary's shouts had alarmed the young slut of
a maid who had introduced them to their rooms, and she hurried up to see
what was wrong, well accustomed, poor wench, to be on her feet most of
the day and night. She found Peter and Mary regarding their luminous
bottles with fear and amazement, not venturing to go too close lest some
evil should befall them.
"Where be the oil?" asked Mary.
The ignorant little wench said there wasn't any oil; at least she
thought not. She knew nothing about the light, except how to turn it on
and off. It had only been put into the house lately, and she confessed
it saved her a lot of work. She believed it was expensive, as her master
had told her not to waste it. A man had come in one day and hung the
little bottles in the rooms, and they had given light ever since when
they were wanted. They did not seem to wear out, and nothing was ever
put into them. Some telegraph-wires had been put about the house at the
same time, but she didn't know what they were for, as they did not
appear to have anything to do with the post-office. That was all the
little slut could tell them. She demonstrated how easy it was to turn
the light on and off. She plunged them into darkness, and restored them
to light. She couldn't tell them how it was done, but there was a big
barrel in the top attic, and perhaps the light was kept in that.
Peter was unable to concur. He had recovered from his first
bewilderment, and his learning asserted itself. He considered that the
light was natural, like that of the sun. It was merely a matter of
imprisoning it within an air-tight bottle; but what he could not
understand was where the light went to when the tap was turned. This,
however, was nothing but a little engineering problem, which a certain
amount of application on his part would inevitably solve. He could make
clocks and watches; at least he thought he could, though he had never
tried; and the lighting of Ger Cottage with luminous bottles would, he
considered, be an undertaking quite within his powers.
"Us wun't have no more lamps," he said. "Us will hang up thikky bottles.
Can us buy 'em?" he asked the little slut.
"There be a shop where they sells 'em, bits o' rope and all. I seed 'em
in the window," said the girl.
"Us will buy two or dree in the morning," declared Mary. "Can us hang
'em up, du'ye reckon, Peter?"
Her brother replied that the task would be altogether beyond her; but it
was not likely to present any serious difficulties to him. He promised
to hang up one light-giving bottle in his own hut-circle, and another in
Mary's. She would pay for the fittings, and he would in return charge
her a reasonable sum for his services.
The proprietor of the lodging-house made a poor bargain when he took in
Peter and Mary. They spent most of the remainder of the night turning
the wonderful light on and off, "like cider," as Mary said.