DOORWAYS IN DRUMORTY
DOORWAYS
IN DRUMORTY
_By_
LORNA MOON
[Illustration]
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1921, 1922, 1924, 1925
BY THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
_Printed in the United States of America_
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
_To My Dad_
_This, His Wee Nottie’s First Book_
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE CORP’ 11
SILK BOTH SIDES 27
THE SINNING OF JESSIE MACLEAN 41
WANTIN’ A HAND 65
THE TATTIE-DOOLIE 79
THE COURTIN’ OF SALLY ANN 115
DOORWAYS IN DRUMORTY
THE CORP’
_THE CORP’_
By shutting the door to within three inches of the jamb, and moving her
chair nearer the cat’s hassock by the fire, old Kirsty could see Mistress
MacNab’s door and watch the mourners come and go.
She had been sitting there for three days, secretly watching, her dismay
growing with every hour as she realized that it was possible that
Mistress MacNab could carry her rage about the butter prize to the extent
of not bidding her to see the corpse.
When Mistress MacKenty brought the startling news on Sunday evening that
“Sandy MacNab had choked on a cold potato and hiccoughed himself to
death,” Kirsty had had a momentary qualm of doubt. She wished she hadn’t
openly scoffed at Mistress MacNab’s butter and flaunted her own first
prize on the way back from the show. It was “an unwise-like thing to do
with death so sure and life so uncertain; but who would expect a braw man
like Sandy MacNab to choke to death on a potato?”
“And besides,” she reflected, “Mistress MacNab, be she as angry as she
may, would never bury Sandy without all the honor that was due him.” And
who in all Drumorty would think of being buried without Kirsty Fraser to
cry as the lid was screwed down? Had she no’ cried at every funeral for
forty-five years? And was it no’ part and parcel of the ceremony for her
to have a fit when the body was carried out? And was it no’ true that the
laddies of the village hung round the house of sorrow waiting for the
chance to run for the doctor to bring her round?
She recalled the first time. What a day that had been! Never would she
forget looking into the coffin of Maggie Sclessor and seeing her lying
there so satisfied-like with the best-looking mutch[1] in Drumorty on
her head. Never would she forget the rage that had filled her at the
sight. For who would have expected Maggie Sclessor, poor as she was, to
have a hand-made lace mutch laid away to be buried in and never to say a
word about it? She had cried with envy, but the neighbors thought it was
with grief, and they had turned their attention from Maggie and her braw
mutch to Kirsty as her sobs grew louder; and when the doctor averred that
Kirsty had been “on the very verge o’ a fit,” they screwed the lid down
on Maggie without further to-do.
And as they carried the body out, Kirsty reflected with satisfaction,
“Weel, she had a fine mutch, but wha will think o’ that noo?”
And then, with each succeeding funeral, she had added to her laurels;
having once tasted the joy of stealing the attention from the corpse,
she could not forego the excitement and the commiseration and the secret
gratitude of the mourners. Her “fits” grew more and more masterly, until
the neighbors argued boastfully:
“I’m tellin’ ye, when my man died, she had the worst fit she ever had.”
And the answer, as positive, would be:
“Mistress MacPherson, hae I no’ got the use o’ my sight, praise be to
God? Did I no’ see her eyes roll up to heaven and her legs stiffen when
my Jeannie was carried oot?”
Certainly, Mistress MacNab would never think of burying her man without
Kirsty’s being there, butter prize or no butter prize. Thus reassured,
Kirsty had resolved to outdo all her past efforts at the funeral of
Sandy MacNab. Always in the back of her head she had had a notion that
by biting the sides of her cheeks till they bled, and frothing the blood
upon her lips, she could give a more convincing and gruesome fit than any
she had ever given. She had saved this for some great day. And this was
the day. The world would see that Kirsty Fraser scorned to bear a grudge
in the face of death. She would treat Mistress MacNab better than if she
had been a friend.
On Monday morning she felt so kindly toward Mistress MacNab that she was
minded to step over and say a word of comfort to her. She even thought of
offering to do the “biddin’,” although she knew full that her legs would
never stand it.
But Mistress MacKenty came in to say that Maggie Tate was to do the
“biddin’,” and that the funeral was on Wednesday, adding meaningly, “But
there’s no need to tell ye that; ye’ll be the first to be bidden, nae
doot.”
Her tone made Kirsty uneasy.
At sundown, when Tammas, her son, came wearily in, she watched him wash
his face in the tin basin, and as he spluttered and blew the water,—he
never thought he was clean unless he made a noise about it,—she started
to ask if he had heard anything, but stopped, mistrusting her voice.
It would no’ do to let Tammas know that she was anxious. And should it
be that some were already bidden, Tammas would know that she had been
slighted, being left to the last.
On Tuesday the coffin was brought home. Jimmy Tocher tripped on the step
as they carried it in, and it banged against the door. Kirsty could hear
Mistress MacNab raking them up-hill and down-dale for their fecklessness,
and she wanted to join them and see for herself if they had dented the
mountings, but she couldn’t make the first advance.
At dusk she saw Maggie Tate on her rounds doing the bidding. She cried in
at Jessie MacLean’s and then went on to Mistress MacKenty’s. “She’ll be
here inside ten minutes,” Kirsty reflected, and rose to put the kettle
on, so that she could make her a cup of tea. “It’s unco thirsty work,
biddin’ to funerals.”
It was getting too dark to see. The kettle boiled dry, and she pulled
it forward on the crane. “Mistress MacKenty is talking her stone-blind.
She’ll never get here to-night,” she decided, but she couldn’t give up
watching.
Tammas came home. He had heard something, and was uneasy in his mind.
Kirsty could tell, because he was whistling _The Lass o’ Ballochmyle_
between his teeth, which was a sign. And forby that, he said the _long_
grace before supper, and he said it slowly, as she always had begged him
to. He was trying to be kind to her; he even blew the smoke from his pipe
up the chimney instead of out across the room. It was unnatural-like, and
Kirsty knew that his behavior meant that he was sure that she would not
be bidden to see the corpse. She resented his giving up hope before she
did. He had never valued her fits. On occasions he had even advised her
to bide away if funerals made her take on so. He was like his father,
that he was. He was reliable-like, but he was dull. All the Frasers were
dull. Why could he no’ speak up and say, “Ye’ll no’ be bidden to see the
corp’, and I’m glad o’ ’t,” if that was what he was thinking? She’d give
him just a minute more; then she’d ask him outright.
“Mither.” She looked at him as he spoke. To avoid her eyes, he bent down,
and used the heel of his boot to press the tobacco into the bowl of his
pipe.
“Weel?” she prompted, and there was an edge on her voice.
“I’m thinkin’ o’ drivin’ up to Skilly’s the morn ti borrow their rake.
Would ye like to go wi’ me?”
So he believed she wouldn’t be bidden, and he was trying to save her
face. He little knew. _He_ had never set store by her fits, but others
had. Mistress MacNab might wait till the last to bid her, as was natural;
she’d do the same herself, but bid her she would, as Kirsty knew well. So
she answered tartly:
“I’m thinkin’ yer losing the wee bit o’ sense ye were born wi’, Tammas.
The morn’s Sandy MacNab’s funeral.”
Tammas reddened guiltily.
“Oh, aye,” he murmured. “I had forgotten, mither.”
And now this was the day of the funeral. Through the small space between
the jamb and the door Kirsty could see Mistress MacPherson knocking for
admission to the house of sorrow. She had a small parcel in her hand,
which she held gingerly upright.
“A jar o’ calf’s-foot jelly, nae doot,” Kirsty informed Tammas as she
called his attention to it. “That’s the tenth parcel since ten o’clock.
Mistress MacNab will no’ need ti buy a bite o’ food for a fortnight.” She
said this exultantly. Funerals were Kirsty’s art, and she liked them to
be successful. “Tammas, keep out from between me an’ the door. I can no’
see through ye.”
Tammas had made another attempt to shut the door in a yearning desire to
spare her. Manlike, he could not understand why she tortured herself by
looking on. He had seen her put on her black mutch in readiness, and his
heart was sick for her. He wondered why she could not give up hope. He
paced the floor silently, stopping every now and then to do some kindly
useless thing; and she, knowing what prompted him, would snap at him
furiously.
The minister came. Kirsty sat rigidly forward in her chair as he was
admitted and the door closed after him. Tammas stopped pacing. He didn’t
know what to do with his hands. He tried them in his pockets, and then
took them out again, hanging them limply by his sides.
From over the street came the singing. Kirsty picked nervously at the
crochet edging on her knitted wristlets. She half turned to look at
Tammas, and her voice quavered:
“They’re no’ to bid me, Tammas.” But as Mistress MacNab’s door opened and
Skilly’s lad came running out, Kirsty rose to her feet, eager and joyous.
“Aye, they’re sendin’ for me _noo_.” She started toward the door. But the
laddie ran past. Tammas helped her back to her chair. Then, for a Fraser,
he rose to great heights.
“I’m sorry for them, mither,” he said. “It will be feckless[2]-like
funeral without a fit at it.”
She sat up at the thought, grasping at it eagerly.
“Aye, will it no’, Tammas? Will it no’?” she cried gratefully.
Then, turning it over in her mind, she found it sweet with comfort, and
she chuckled while the tears were still wet upon her face.
“They’ll value my fits more than ever noo, Tammas. Puir Sandy MacNab!”
She nursed the thought joyously. She was sorry that it had happened to
Sandy MacNab, for he had been a good man, and deserving of honor; but she
was glad that Mistress MacNab must share the humility.
“She’s cuttin’ off her nose ti spite her face, puir body! I could feel it
in my heart ti pity her, Tammas.”
Fully recovered in spirit, she got up lightsomely, and began to unfasten
the strings of her mutch.
“We’ll shut the door on the rest o’ ’t, Tammas,” she said, and was moving
toward it when Mistress MacKenty came breathlessly in. She was burning
with news to tell, and greedy to see its effect.
“Mistress MacNab is havin’ a fit, an’ Skilly’s laddie has gone for the
doctor,” she cried.
“A fit!” Kirsty screamed the words in a hysteria of unbelief. “What would
_she_ be knowing of a fit, she that has never had one?”
Gloating with the joy of telling it, for she had always envied Kirsty
her fits, Mistress MacKenty’s voice swelled with gratification as she
answered:
“Such a fit as I have never seen. Her eyes are rollin’ to heaven, and the
blood is frothin’ on her lips.”
At that Kirsty’s knees began to tremble beneath her. She put out a
wavering hand and gripped Tammas by the sleeve, striving to keep upright
and face Mistress MacKenty, who continued maliciously:
“Drumorty will never forget this fit. I’ll mind on ’t mysel’ if I ever
hae a corp’.”
And Kirsty Fraser knew that her glory was gone. Another had stolen the
chief jewel of her crown. There would be none in all Drumorty who would
do her homage again.
But not before Mistress MacKenty would she bow her head. She took her
hand from Tammas’ sleeve and stood alone, and nothing in her voice as she
spoke told Mistress MacKenty that her pride lay stricken.
“Gie her the ammonia bottle to take over, Tammas. I hae had slight fits
mysel’, an’ I ken ammonia’s good.”
And Mistress MacKenty wondered at this heroic thing that made Kirsty
Fraser disclaim the glory of her fits and hand her laurels to another.
She stood shamed before it, and she hung her head and crept away, unable
longer to look Kirsty Fraser in the face.
Kirsty stood till she had gone; then her hand went feeling blindly for
her chair. She cupped one hand helplessly in the other as she sat. The
string of her black mutch hung down like a weary pendulum that had
wagged its hour. As Tammas knelt by her, dumbly anxious to comfort, she
whispered:
“Think ye she knows I care, Tammas?”
“Niver, mither. I would no’ have known it mysel’.”
Assured of that, she let the tears steal down her wrinkled cheeks. Her
hands trembled together helplessly in her lap. Tammas reached out and
held them firmly in his, and they sat there silently together.
Her thoughts went seeking comfort everywhere, but found none. With every
funeral her pride would die a little more; with every funeral Mistress
MacNab would reap a greater triumph. None would think of Kirsty’s fits
except to say how poor they were, and how great were the fits of Mistress
MacNab. And so until the end.
“O Tammas,” she cried, “when I am dead and lying helpless, ye’ll no’ let
that Mistress MacNab have fits at my funeral! Promise me that, Tammas!”
SILK BOTH SIDES
_SILK BOTH SIDES_
“—And two and a half yards o’ four inch black satin ribbon.”
Jessie MacLean added this last fatal item with an upward jerk of her head
lest Mistress MacKenty, at the other side of the counter, should think
she was ashamed of her purchase. But Mistress MacKenty had a nose for
news rather than an instinct for tragedy, and by the suppressed eagerness
in her voice as she asked, “And ye’ll want it silk on both sides I’ll
warrant?” you could see that she was already half-way down the road to
the smithy to spread the news that: “Jessie MacLean had lost heart and
would be out in a bonnet in the morn, so help her Davey.”
“Aye, silk both sides,” Jessie answered, letting her eyes range the
shelves carelessly to prove that there was nothing momentous in her
buying bonnet strings.
Silk both sides proved it! A satin-faced ribbon might have many uses, but
silk both sides was a bonnet string by all the laws of millinery known to
Drumorty.
Telling about it five minutes later, Mistress MacKenty said, “I might
hae been wrang when she bought the silk geraniums, and I may hae been
over-hasty when she said ‘half a yard o’ black lace’—but silk both sides
is as good as swearing it on the Bible.”
In Drumorty, a bonnet with strings tied below the chin means that youth
is over. About the time the second baby is born, the good wife abandons
her hat—forever—and appears in a bonnet with ties. She may be any age
from eighteen to twenty-five; for matrimony, and motherhood, and age,
come early in Drumorty. The spinster clings longer to her hat, for while
she wears it, any bachelor may take heart and “speer”[3] her; and if she
be “keeping company” she may cling to her hat until she be thirty “and a
bittock”; but after that—if she would hold the respect of her community,
she must cease to “gallivant” about “wi’ a hat” and dress like a decent
woman, in a bonnet with ties.
And Jessie MacLean was six and thirty as Baldie Tocher could tell you,
for did he no’ have the pleasure of burying the exciseman the very
morning that Jessie first saw the light of day, and was it no’ the very
next year that Nancy MacFarland’s cow got mired in the moss?
Drumorty had been very lenient with her. Many a good wife thought it was
high time that Jessie laid aside her hat, but always she held her peace,
remembering her bridal gown and the care with which Jessie had made it,
for Jessie was the village seamstress, and it was a secret, whispered,
that she charged only half price for making wedding gowns, because she
liked to make them so much.
Another reason for their lenience was Jock Sclessor. For fifteen years
Jock had “kept company” with her; not one Sunday morning had he missed
“crying by” for Jessie to go to morning service. He would come round the
bend of the road from Skilly’s farm just as the sexton gave the bell that
first introductory ring which meant “bide a wee till I get her goin’ full
swing and then bide at hame frae the kirk if ye dare”; and Jessie would
come out of her door and mince down the sanded walk between the rows of
boxwood to the gate, and affect surprise at seeing Jock just as if she
had not been watching for him behind her window curtain this past five
minutes.
Jock was the cotter[4] on Skilly’s farm. Every year he intended to
“speer” Jessie when thrashing was over. Tammas, his dog, will tell you
how many times he had been on the very point of asking her the very next
day, but—always the question of adding another room came up and not for
the life of him could he decide whether to level the rowan tree and build
it on the east—or to move the peats and build it on the west; and by the
time he had made up his mind to cart the peats down behind the byre and
build it on the west, lambing was round again and he let it go by for
another year.
And every year Jessie was in a flutter as thrashing was nearing the
finish. One year she had been so sure that he would “speer” her that she
bought a new scraper; for Jock could make your very heart stand still, he
was that careless about scraping the mud off his boots. Often when she
was alone, she would practise ways of telling Jock that he must clean
his boots before he came in: “Good man, hae ye forgotten the scraper?”
was abandoned because it wasn’t strictly honest, for Jessie knew full
well that he always forgot the scraper. “Gang back and clean your feet,”
was set aside also, because it was too commanding and “Dinna forget the
scraper” was also discarded because it isn’t good to nag a man before he
has set foot in the door. But none of the expressions had been tried out
yet—for when Jock dropped in with her, after service, Jessie hurried him
by the scraper as if it might shout at him, “She expects you to speer
her!” and so put her to shame.
But now thrashing had been over for weeks, and every Sunday since then,
she had looked for the white gowan[5] in Jock’s coat, for what swain
“worth his ears full of cold water” ever asked the question without that
emblem of courage in his buttonhole? It is a signal to the world that he
means to propose, that he is going in cold blood to do it—and forever
after his good wife can remind him of that, should he suggest that he was
inveigled into it by some female wile.
Last Sunday, on their way to church, Jessie cleared her throat nervously
and grasped her new testament, bracing herself as she asked in a thin
voice that was much too offhand: “Would your peats no’ be better
sheltered in the lea o’ the byre?” and Jock replied: “Na, they are better
where they are.”
And so a hope, nourished fifteen years, died, and through the service she
sat gazing straight ahead, with her eyes wide open, for the wider eyes
are open, the more tears they can hold without spilling over. And next
Saturday she bought black satin ribbon “silk both sides” and the world,
meaning Drumorty, knew that Jessie’s tombstone would not read “Beloved
wife of ——”.
In Jessie’s cottage the blinds were drawn on Saturday evening, and you
who have suffered will not ask me to pull them aside and show you how a
faded spinster looks when she weeps; nor how her fingers tremble when she
sews upon bonnet strings; but let me tell you how bravely she stepped out
next morning wearing her bonnet, with never a look through the curtain
to see if Jock was on his way, nor a glance to see if the neighbors were
watching. Her step was just as firm upon the sanded path, and her head
just as high; perhaps she grasped her testament more tightly than usual,
but what soul on the rack would not do that?
Jock came round the bend as she reached the gate. She clung to the latch
to keep herself from tearing the bonnet from her head. Oh, Fate, that
sits high and laughs, have you the heart to laugh now? Jock was wearing
a white gowan. It was just a dozen steps or so back to the house, and a
hat, and happiness; but the world knew that she had bought bonnet strings
and was that not Mistress MacKenty watching from behind her curtain? Go
forward, Jessie—there is no turning back, and go proudly! Open the latch
and answer his “guid morning” and smile—and don’t, don’t, let your hands
tremble so, or he will surely guess!
Look your fill from behind the curtain, Mistress MacKenty! You can not
see a heartache when it is hidden by a black alpaca gown and when the
heart belongs to Jessie MacLean!
Jock Sclessor, your one chance of happiness is now! Lead her back into
the house and take the bonnet from her head! No, laggard and fool that
you are, you are wondering if she has noticed the gowan! Has she not!
She has watched for it for fifteen years! Speak, you fool! Don’t keep
staring at her bonnet! You dullard, Jessie must come to your rescue, and
she does, “Is the sexton no’ late this morning?” Jessie turned out of the
gate as she spoke, snapping the latch with the right amount of care.
“Aye, later than usual,” Jock agreed. (The sexton was never late in his
life, and at that moment the bell rang out to give Jock the lie.) But
Jock was so dazed, he would have agreed if she had said, “Let us choke
the minister.”
As they walked to the church, he meditated, “Evidently she never expected
me to speer her, and she’s never so much as glimpsed the gowan. I’ll slip
it out when we kneel in the kirk. But maybe I better sound her out first.
It’s gey[6] and lonesome for a man biding by himself.”
They were just turning round by the town hall where the rowan trees are
red, when he said, “I had been thinkin’ o’ levelin’ my rowan tree.”
Jessie’s heart thumped. Here it came! (That was why he wouldn’t move the
peats.) But she wouldn’t help him a foot of the road—she had waited too
long—he must come every step himself.
“Oh, that would be a pity—it’s a bonnie tree,” she answered.
Not much help here, but he would try again. “I was thinking o’ building.”
“Building? My certies! What could ye be building so near the house?” this
with some malice for all the fifteen long years. But you have gone too
far, Jessie; he needs help.
“I—oh—I thought I’d build a shed for peats.”
Thud! That was Jessie’s heart you heard and that queer thin voice is
Jessie’s, saying, “I thought—ye were minded to leave the peats the other
side o’ the house.”
“Aye, I am minded to leave them there—but a body canna hae too many
peats.”
And as they knelt in kirk, he slipped the gowan out—and Jessie did not
need to widen her eyes to hold the tears this time. That sorrow was past,
she would never weep over it again.
At home, she brewed her tea, looking round at her rag rugs and white
tidies with pleasure. The tidy on the big chair was as white and smooth
as when she pinned it there in the morning, and there was no mud to be
carefully washed off the rug by the door. There was a certain contentment
in knowing that it would never be; a certain exhilaration in knowing that
next Sunday she could not be disappointed, because next Sunday she would
not hope. She sipped her tea peacefully and smiled at the bonnet sitting
so restful-like on the dresser, and at the tidy on the big chair so
spotless and smooth, and thought, “Jock Sclessor would have been a mussy
man to have about a house. I’m thinkin’ his mother was over-lenient when
she brought him up.”
And Jock, at Skilly’s, was thinking, “I wouldna had time to build it
anyway. Lambing is here—and that is too bonnie a tree to be cut down.”
THE SINNING OF JESSIE MACLEAN
_THE SINNING OF JESSIE MACLEAN_
Jessie MacLean felt that their romance belonged also to her, for she
had seen their first meeting. It was on a Sunday morning after service,
and Jessie was returning from her walk along by Skilly’s wood. She was
wondering as she stepped daintily, rustling her Sunday-best alpaca
gown, if the gold chain she wore had marked her neck; and whether the
gimlet-eyed Mistress MacKenty had seen it as she sat behind her in kirk.
(Well, it wasn’t all gold, but, as Jessie protested defensively to
herself: “Pure gold’s that soft ye have ti mix it.”)
On hot Sundays it was always a race between the sermon and the chain;
about the time the minister got to the “thirdlies” and “lastlies” Jessie
was in a fidget. She could wear the chain a bare hour and a half without
it marking if the weather was cool; but this had been a very hot Sunday.
Out of the sight of inquisitive eyes she stopped and spread her handkie
between the chain and her neck. Then she turned along Skilly’s burnside
intending to cross it at the stepping-stones; and it was here she came
upon them. So flustered was she, that she forgot the dangling handkie,
but then she might have worn ram’s horns and they would not have noticed
it.
Gawky and shy, they were exchanging their first “It’s waurm the day” and
“What’s yer hurry” which in Drumorty may mean: “Who is this gallant youth
who stirs my bosom?” or, “Fair maid, eternity were too brief, could I but
spend it gazing in your eyes.”
Jessie understood, and seeing their embarrassment, blushed in sympathy
and tilted her parasol between herself and them. She had meant to cross
the burn at the stepping-stones, but, her heart pleasantly aflutter with
a sense of being a sharer in a secret, she kept on down the burnside
until she was out of sight; and there she sat down and removed her shoes
and stockings before hitching her dress to her knees and wading the burn.
Jessie’s own romance laid away in the lavender of memory, stirred again
at the thought of the two. Walking home she pondered who the lad might
be. He was a stranger in Drumorty. The lass was Bella Tocher, the kitchen
wench at Skilly’s farm; a well-favored lass, and hard working, rosy and
full-bosomed although barely sixteen.
So engrossed was she, that she went all the way home without remembering
to remove the telltale handkie from her neck; and never gave it a
thought, until, as she was turning in at her own door, Mistress MacKenty
leaned over the gate and sweetly malicious, called, so that Jessie would
know she had seen: “Ye do weel ti guard agin’ blood-poisinin’, Jessie
lass.”
Next Sunday Jessie did an unheard-of thing. She stayed at home from the
morning service and watched the road to Skilly’s farm to see if the
lad would come back. She had fortified herself against disappointment
by boiling dumplings in the broth. No matter how keen the edge of
disappointment, Jessie had proved that dumplings in the broth could ease
it a little. And after spending all morning at the window watching, with
a bandage bound about her neck to advertise to the curious that a sore
throat had kept her at home from the kirk, she was just about to turn to
the dumplings for solace, when he came by whistling and heading up the
road to Skilly’s.
“My certies!” she cried, pretending to herself that she was shocked at
his ardor. “He’s back _again_, doesna gie the lassie time to draw a
lanely breath.”
Feeling the need of some one to rejoice with her, she gave the cat a
dumpling. It sniffed it, and showed its contempt for her frivolity by
crossing to the other side of the fireplace and seating itself with its
back to her. Jessie, taking this rebuff with unusual spirit, retorted:
“You’re a persnickety old maid, there’s no’ a romantic hair on yer head.”
And to show that she wouldn’t be brow-beaten by the cat on this joyful
day, she opened the glass-door of the what-not with a loud click; and
later, ate her dumplings off the best willow-pattern china.
Through that winter Jessie didn’t need the dumplings to fortify her.
The lad was attentive enough. She would see the two by the hayricks, or
wandering with fingers entwined by the burnside every Sunday evening. But
in the spring he stopped coming. And Bella would stand for hours watching
the empty road; while Jessie in an anguish of sympathy would watch both
the girl and the road from her corner window.
Bella was listless and pale. There was something pathetic in the way she
made no pretense of doing anything but watching. This was intolerable to
Jessie who wanted the girl to save her pride, so when she would see a
neighbor coming, she would whisper fiercely: “Walk along as if ye were
looking for gowans, dinna let them see yer looking for the lad,” but only
the muslin curtains heard Jessie’s advice. Bella, dazed with despair, was
indifferent to gossip.
Then it was rumored that, “Bella Tocher’s lad had gone to Edinburgh to
the soldierin’.” And after that Bella watched the road no more.
It was Mistress MacKenty who said: “I’m thinkin’ Skilly’s will be needin’
a new kitchen wench afore Whitsuntide; and there’s them that will learn
that nae guid ever came o’ gallivantin’ wi’ a strange lad on the Sabbath
day.” And having delivered this darkly meaning speech she pursed withered
lips with vindictive relish and refused to say more, adding only: “I
hae lassies o’ my ain, it ill becomes me to speak; but mark my words,
there’ll be an elders’ meeting in Drumorty afore many weeks.”
Jessie understood now the pale watching face of Bella; and understood,
also, the despair that made her watch for him without pretense. “Puir wee
lass,” she whispered. “Watching for her man, and him awa’ to no’ come
back.”
When Mistress MacKenty came in that evening to say, that: “Skilly
was sendin’ the shameless limmer packin’ the morn’s mornin’,” Jessie
furtively hid something white and small upon which she had been sewing.
She stood up while Mistress MacKenty spoke, and no line of her figure,
nor any tone of her voice, could be taken to mean that she invited
Mistress MacKenty to take a chair.
“It’s a sore disgrace to the whole parish, and harder forby on Skilly
himsel’ and him an elder o’ the kirk.” Mistress MacKenty’s voice was
dulcet with sympathy for the poor elder. She was looking around for a
seat in which to sink and continue her lamentations, when, in the chill
silence of the usually sympathetic Jessie, she sensed something strange.
Jessie was clasping and unclasping her hands in front of her thin waist,
and her eyes were glinting. Could it be that the gentle Jessie MacLean
was fighting to keep her hands from flying in the face of Mistress
MacKenty? Mistress MacKenty must have shared that wild thought also,
for, catching sight of Jessie, she paused and backed away, suddenly
remembering that she had “a pot o’ kale on the fire,” and was gone
without even closing the door as she went.
Jessie closed the door after her and bolted it, and drew down the blinds.
The little bit of white sewing came out from its hiding-place. Mistress
MacKenty vowed next day that Jessie’s light had burned all night but
added that she didn’t know why, because; “Jessie MacLean is _that_
secretive her window-blinds fit all the way round.”
All next morning Jessie sat by the window watching Skilly’s road, her
head propped wearily on her palms, a bright red spot on the wrinkled
apple of each cheek. All Drumorty was watching Skilly’s road, but _not_
with the tender purpose that was in the heart of Jessie MacLean. Drumorty
was swollen with righteous wrath. The virtue of Drumorty was outraged;
and it was waiting to visit its saintly indignation on the head of “the
shameless limmer.”[7] Jessie shut up alone knew nothing of this.
At noon she saw Bella coming along the road toward the village street,
a bundle with all her belongings slung on her arm. She would proceed in
little tumbling runs, then stop and sway, gather strength again, and run
a little more. Sometimes she would drop the bundle and have to get down
laboriously on one knee to pick it up.
Then Jessie saw the thing that stilled her heart for a moment. As Bella
turned into the street, the blinds of Mistress MacPherson’s cottage
snapped down and remained, like eyelids in death. Then, down with swift
vindictiveness came the blinds of the next cottage; Bella heard, and
looked about her, as blinds on either side of her hurried down to their
righteous window-sills. She stopped and tottered feebly, then, as if
blows were showering upon her, she flung her arm across her face, and
lowered her head and ran.
“Click” went the blind of Mistress MacKenty’s window as she passed; this
brought Jessie to her feet with blazing eyes. Rushing out, she ran along
the street after the fleeing girl, calling: “Bella—Bella Tocher.”
Thinking she was being pursued only to be taunted, Bella gathered her
strength anew and ran faster. Sobs rose in Jessie’s throat as she saw her
reel in her efforts to get away; and she called her name again, trying
to make her voice both loud and coaxing. As Jessie caught up and touched
her arm, the girl stopped and faced her panting, a driven thing, ready to
fight if she must.
“Come back to my house, Bella,” Jessie urged breathlessly.
“So ye can take yer ease while ye tell me I’ve disgraced the parish o’
Drumorty?—So ye can tell me I am justly punished for my sins?” Bella’s
voice rose in hysterical gasps, her white face twitched piteously.
“Na, na,” urged Jessie, speaking in soothing accents. “Come so I can show
ye the wee shirts I’ve been makin’.”
It was the tone of her voice and tears on Jessie’s cheeks, not her
words, that brought the answering sob in Bella’s throat and softened the
defensive lines of her form.
“Come back and stay wi’ me,” Jessie’s tone was tender.
Responding to it, the tears streamed down Bella’s face, but she shook her
head: “I winna stay an’ face the elders. I’ll walk till I drop first.”
“Ye’ll no’—I’ll face them for ye. Come awa’,” Jessie coaxed, then in a
warning whisper: “The blinds are down; but they are peekin’ out below
them.” She put an arm round the girl and, reaching out a hand for the
bundle, said tenderly: “Yer nathing but a bairn yersel’—come.”
Bella relinquished the bundle to Jessie’s urging hand, and, faltering
like a tired child, turned back with her along the street of drawn blinds.
2
With what terror, or with what bravery, these two met the turmoil of that
night we may not tell. Nor may we echo the brave words that a gentle
spinster used, to hearten an erring child in her hour of sore trial.
These things are written by the angels, and only mothers may read them.
But we may look in with dawn, and see the puckered pink velvet son of
Bella Tocher as he lies on Jessie’s lap screaming, for he can not see yet
how near is Jessie’s lap to the tender heaven of her heart. But we can
see, and we are shamed to look unbidden upon the glory of a spinster’s
face, when mother-love has wakened in her breast.
3
There was defiance in Jessie’s gait as she stepped up to the entrance of
Mistress MacPherson’s byre at milking time that evening. She rattled the
two flagons she carried challengingly, and forestalled any comment from
Mistress MacPherson about the extra flagon, by saying cheerily: “I’ll
need a quart extra ilka[8] day now.”
Her boldness had the effect of completely winding Mistress MacPherson,
who had been waiting all day for milking time so that she could “gie
Jessie MacLean a piece o’ her mind.” “Let her come creepin’ up here
askin’ for milk for that hussy—” Mistress MacPherson had finished the
implication with a grim-faced nod, as she discussed the “goin’s on” with
Mistress MacKenty that morning.
But Jessie hadn’t “come creepin’,” and Mistress MacPherson, ready to
attack, hesitated with that confusion which comes also to a dog, when it
has got all ready to chase a cat that refuses to run. Jessie, palpitating
with victory, airily handed over the two flagons; and Mistress
MacPherson, unable to rally for the moment, took them murmuring only,
“Oh, aye.”
But if it was a victory for Jessie, it only added to the virtuous
indignation Drumorty felt toward Bella. Had Bella been found dying in a
ditch that morning, the good women of Drumorty would have found pity for
her in their hearts. But that Bella should have faced her hour with a
roof over her head and a bed beneath her, and a kindly hand to meet her
needs; that, in the opinion of Drumorty was nothing short of “lauding the
evil-doer.”
“Revelin’ in her sins,” “Made o’ and tended, as if she were an honest
woman,” these and other denunciations flew rife at mart and meeting as
the weeks passed, and it was reported that “Jessie MacLean was sleepin’
on a shake-down while that limmer was lying like a queen in Jessie’s
feather bed.” But that was only hearsay, for not once did Jessie let one
of them pass the door, though many were the pretexts devised by Mistress
MacKenty to gain admission, from the borrowing of an egg which she
returned the next day (the same egg, as Jessie could prove, for did she
not mark it on purpose; for what use would Mistress MacKenty be having
for an egg three days before Sunday?) to the bringing of a bottle of
raspberry-vinegar to see if Jessie had a corkscrew that could get the
cork out.
Bella sensed it all with sullen resentment which would show in her eyes
when the baby’s cries forced its existence more sharply upon her. She
hated her motherhood. Motherhood, that was thrust cruelly upon her while
she was still a child; motherhood, robbed of its honor and covered with
shame; motherhood and its pains, stripped of the love which makes its
agony a glory. This was the motherhood Bella knew, and her heart was
bitter against it. She felt trapped. Perhaps the child, helpless in
her arms, crying to her for food, might have saved her from this, and
have roused in her girl-heart that compassion for the helpless which is
mother-love. But Jessie, all eagerness to surround Bella with comfort,
took the care of the baby upon herself; and as love for it fastened upon
her heart, Jessie could not bear to let any hand touch it but her own.
Its morning bath was a rite to be lingered over with exclamations of
wonder and delight. If Jessie noticed at all that Bella did not share
her ecstasy she didn’t think it strange; for Jessie had quickly ceased
to think of Bella as the baby’s mother. Her feeling for Bella was in a
smaller measure the same feeling she had for the baby. She felt herself
mother to both of them. So while Jessie’s heart was greatened and stirred
by her care of these two, Bella, robbed of the saving outlet of service,
became daily more morose. The memory of the drawn blinds seared her; and
she knew that the day would come soon when she must face Drumorty again.
She felt little gratitude toward Jessie, and just a cool wonder that a
good woman could also be kind.
The baby was about six weeks old, when Jessie came in one day with
heightened color, and her step brisk with excitement. She opened her hand
to disclose three gold sovereigns and a half-sovereign.
“Three pounds ten, Bella; the gentry at the big hoose hae paid their
sewing bill.” Then turning swiftly to the baby she cried crooningly:
“Jessie’s wee lamb will no’ need ti sleep in the clothes-basket noo; it’s
a pram an’ a cradle he’ll be havin’.”
Jessie dropped the money into the toby-mug on the mantel and was
preparing to gather the baby up from the clothes-basket when she heard
a step on the path outside. She glanced through the window, then dodged
back with the warning whisper: “It’s Skilly!”
Like a flash she clapped on her bonnet, and seized a basket and was
stepping sedately out at the door just as Skilly raised his hand to knock
upon it.
“My certies, Skilly,” exclaimed Jessie, shutting the door carefully
behind her as she stopped facing him on the step. “Wha wid expect _you_
to be visitin’ this time o’ day?”
“I hae come ti see Bella Tocher,” said Skilly, looking suggestively at
the closed door before which Jessie stood like a sentinel.
“Weel, I’m vexed for ye;” cooed Jessie. “Bella’s oot bye somewhere, an’
I’m on my way ti the flesher’s.”
Skilly was not deceived, and indeed Jessie didn’t expect him to be. She
smiled grimly as she caught his eye glancing searchingly at the window as
the muslin curtains moved under Bella’s touch; but she continued to stand
barring his way to the door, her arms folded militantly through the empty
basket which posed like a shield upon her breast.
Skilly lengthened out his gangling inches to a greater assumption of
dignity, and, ignoring Jessie’s hostility with a lofty tolerance, said in
the tone he usually kept for reading the first lesson:
“As an elder o’ the kirk it is my duty to speak wi’ Bella Tocher aboot
her misbegotten bairn; and wha we may name as the father o’ ’t.”
“An’ it was yer godly duty as an elder, nae doot, that made ye turn her
oot to die by the roadside?” Jessie’s tone was the essence of sweetened
venom.
But Skilly, not meaning to lose his unimpeachable superiority by bandying
words with a woman, answered calmly:
“I hae no call to shelter a wanton and unrepentant woman; if Bella Tocher
is minded to face the elders and make admission o’ her sins——”
“Her sins!” Jessie broke in. “It’s no’ her sins Drumorty is punishin’ her
for; it’s the evidence, Skilly. It’s the bairn. There’s them that sit
on the elders’ bench and gie judgment, that ken more o’ sin than Bella
Tocher, but they dinna get found out: their siller in the collection
plate blinds the minister.”
This was a home thrust, and Skilly reddened under it, but he clambered
back to his official dignity by booming pontifically:
“It behooves us to deal kindly wi’ the repentant. If Bella Tocher is
humble of spirit and contrite of heart, I will see mysel’ that her bairn
is housed in the alms-house; an’ I’ll take her back—” Then, seeing the
chance to make a bargain, Skilly dropped his oratorical tone, and added
hastily: “But mind ye, no’ at the old price; I’ll gie her half o’ ’t.”
At that Jessie laughed grayly, and two red lights flashed battle from her
eyes.
“Yer a sainted and godlike man, Skilly, wi’ a heart sweet wi’ charity.
Now that the lass is able to work again, ye’ll put her bairn in the
alms-house at nae cost to yersel’; and ye’ll let her carry swill to yer
pigs at half the siller ye’d have to pay anither; it’s a forgivin’ an’
tender heart ye have—”
Skilly bridled impatiently and turned away; the woman would try the
patience of a saint!
“Aye! Run, run, Skilly,” urged Jessie tauntingly. “If ye bide, I may let
ye see yersel’; and the sight will make ye sick.”
It was too much! An elder of the kirk couldn’t be expected to stand it
any longer. Skilly left her and stalked down the path, his back stiff as
buckram.
Jessie turned back into the house all aflutter. Nature had not made her
a fighter; she could not have lifted a whisper to defend herself; but
accident had made her play mother and so she could fight like a tiger,
although her knees might tremble for hours afterward.
“Did ye hear, Bella?” she asked the girl who sat stolidly on the bench by
the window, ignoring the whimperings from the clothes-basket.
“Aye.” There was nothing in the girl’s tone to indicate her thoughts.
After a moment her eyes wandered up to the toby-jug on the mantel, and
she said:
“How much will the pram an’ the cradle cost?”
Jessie, with most of her attention centered on the commotion in the
basket, answered:
“I can get the pram for thirty shillings; an’ I’ve been promised the use
o’ Maggie Duncan’s cradle for naething—but she kens fine I’ll make her
next gown on account o’ ’t.”
4
In the straggling light next morning, Jessie slipped a long thin leg out
of bed, and her toes went searching with cat-like caution for a crocheted
slipper; finding it, they wriggled into its woolly depth.
Jessie was making one of her countless trips to the clothes-basket by the
fireside in the next room to see if all was well. She clutched her long
pink flannelette night-gown to keep it from touching the floor; and was
moving carefully past Bella’s bed, when its unusual flatness made her
look at it again.
It was empty! Jessie hastened into the next room with fussy concern, sure
that whatever Bella was doing for the baby was wrong.
But Bella wasn’t there! Her hat wasn’t hanging on the back of the door
where it had hung for six weeks. Her shoes weren’t on the peat-backet[9]
where she had put them last night.
The baby! Jessie gave a cry that ended in a strangled sound, half laugh,
half sob, as she sprang to the clothes-basket and dropped down beside it.
The baby was there. Jessie’s heart resumed action again, she bent over
the basket and tenderly touched the baby’s warm sleeping face; then her
thoughts returned to Bella. She looked about for fresh proof that she had
really gone.
Against the toby-jug a sheet of writing-paper was propped. Jessie reached
for it and carried it to the window. In the graying light she peered at
the words written upon it until they formed into things of meaning. And
she read:
“I am going to Edinburgh. I have taken two pounds from the
toby-jug; that leaves enough for the pram. It is ill done of
me, but I will no stay in Drumorty. If I get a place I’ll send
back the siller, and if Geordie will wed me I’ll come back for
the bairn. You have been kinder to me than I am deserving, and
I will no forget. You can send the bairn to the alms-house; it
will be better there than with me if Geordie will no have me.”
Jessie trembled as she read. Bella had gone! And the baby was here,—was
hers to keep! Joy sent her heart racing heavenward. She turned and sank
to her knees beside the clothes-basket, stretching greedy arms about it
and whispering passionately to the sleeping child:
“She’ll no’ come back. She’ll no’ come back;—and ye’ll be my ain, my ain
wee lamb.”
Then in the flush of her riches, kneeling there in the still gray
morning, she thought of Bella and her poverty. Bella, stealing out
loveless in the night. Bella who had borne the suffering and shame. Bella
with empty arms. And a great remorse for the greed of her own rejoicing
tore at her breast, and she clasped her hands and cried in anguish:
“God be merciful to her!—And forgie me, a covetous sinner.”
WANTIN’ A HAND
_WANTIN’ A HAND_
The moisture from the tub curled her hair into babyish ringlets that
hung about her flushed face. Despite her form made broad with the daily
travail of washing clothes, and her face pouchy with drink, suggestions
of beauty still lingered about her as perfume might cling to a garment
after it was soiled and torn.
There was no hint of age or decay in the square tower of her body, no
thought of handicap in her actions as she squeezed and rubbed the clothes
upon the board with her one powerful hand. The small stump of her missing
arm jerked vigorously from the shoulder in time to the hand upon the
board. She would stop at times to pin the empty sleeve more snugly to her
side and then resume the crawling, gripping motion of her one hand in the
tub. It was a great-jointed hand, corded along the back, and broad, and
when it had squeezed the water from a garment she could defy any woman
with two hands to wring one drop more from it. The clothes washed by Jean
Sclessor were truly washed, and clear and fragrant when she took them
from the line.
And so, although she tried them sorely by her frequent drinking spells,
the good wives of Drumorty would rather wait for Jean than have
some feckless two-handed woman wash in her stead. And the greatest
church-goers among them would ignore the smell of whisky on her breath
and would even comment sympathetically upon her bunions when her steps
began to waver.
But Jean was long past caring what Drumorty thought about her drinking,
long past the time when she turned her head away so that they wouldn’t
catch her breath. She cared only for evening to come, and she worked
through the day with a driving force which became a frenzy of haste
as night-fall drew near, for she was going home to the kist under the
stairs, home to dreams, home to love and revenge and despair, home to
forgetfulness, home to the flat-sided bottle of whisky wrapped in a gray
petticoat.
And when at evening she groped her way toward the kist in the musty
hole beneath the stairs filled with the odor of sprouting potatoes, she
was already tearful with welling memories, melting with the vision of
the lass that once was Jean Sclessor and the lad that had been Sandy
Morrison. They came to her as always, bright with the sunlight of a
harvest day and fragrant with the breath of reaping time. _He_ stood by
the reaper bareheaded in the high noon sun. Lesser lads had sought the
shade panting and weary, but he, foreman of them all and master of them
all by height and strength, stood stretching in the glare. And _she_ came
laden with the scones fresh from the griddle and the mulled ale cool in
its great earthen bottle. There was a power in him that brought her eyes
to his, and whether she would or no’ she looked at him, and he looked
back at her.
And then at milking time he came. She knew it was his shadow in the door
as she sat milking there. But never a move made she, and never a turn of
her head, although her heart was singing louder than the milk that struck
the pail. And never a word she said about the singing of her heart, and
never a word said he. But every night he came and watched, and every
night he waited while she strained the milk.