ONLY A CHARITY GIRL.
Simon Verstage sat outside the door of his house, one hot June
evening, smoking his pipe.
By his side sat his wife, the hostess of the Ship. Eighteen years
have passed since we saw her last, and in these years she has
become more plump, a little more set in features, and mottled in
complexion, but hardly otherwise older in appearance.
She was one of those women who wear well, till a sickness or a
piercing sorrow breaks them down, and then they descend life's
ladder with a drop, and not by easy graduation.
Yet Mrs. Verstage had not been devoid of trouble, for the loss of
her son, the very apple of her eye, had left an ache in her heart
that would have been unendurable, were not the balm of hope
dropped into the wound. Mehetabel, or as she was usually called
Matabel, had relieved her of the most onerous part of her avocation.
Moreover, she was not a woman to fret herself to fiddle-strings;
she was resolute and patient. She had formed a determination to
have her son home again, even if she had to wait for that till
his father was put under ground. She was several years younger
than Simon, and in the order of nature might calculate on enjoyment
of her widowhood.
Simon and his wife sat in the wide porch. This had been constructed
as an accommodation for wayfarers, as an invitation to take shade
and shelter in hot weather or Mustering storm; but it also served
what was uncontemplated, as an ear to the house. Whatever was
uttered there was audible within--a fact very generally forgotten
or unsuspected by such as occupied the porch. And, indeed, on the
present occasion, this fact was wholly unconsidered by the taverner
and his spouse, either because it escaped their minds that the
porch was endowed with this peculiarity, or else because the only
person then in the house was Mehetabel, and her hearing or not
hearing what was said was an indifferent matter.
Had there been customers present, drinking, the two would not have
been together when and where they were, nor would the topic of
conversation between them have been of a private nature.
The innkeeper had begun with a remark which all the world might
hear, and none would controvert, viz., that it was fine hay-making
weather, and that next day he purposed carrying the crop.
But Mrs. Verstage was indisposed to discuss a matter so obvious as
the weather, and so certain as that it would be utilized for
saving the hay. She plunged at once into that which lay near her
heart, and said, "Simon, you'll answer that there letter now?"
"Whose? Iver's?"
"Of course, Iver's letter. Now you yourself have heard from him,
and what does that mean but he wants all square between you. He
has got into a famous business. He sells his pictures and gives
lessons in drawing and painting at Guildford. It's but a matter of
time and he will be a great man."
"What! as a drawing master? I'd as lief he played the fiddle and
taught dancing."
"How can you say that, Simon?"
"Because it is what I feels. Here he had a good farm, a good inn,
and a good business--one that don't dwindle but is on the increase,
and the land bettering every day--and yet off he went, chucked
aside the blessin's of Providence, to take up wi' scribblin' and
scrawlin' on paper. If it weren't a thing altogether shameful it
would be clear ridic'lous."
Simon sucked in smoke enough to fill his lungs, and then blew it
forth leisurely in a long spiral.
"Odds' life," said he, "I don't see why I shu'd concern myself
about the hay, nor anythin' else. I've enough to live upon and to
enjye myself. What more do I want now?"
"What more?" inquired the landlady, with a sigh and a catch in
her voice--a sigh of sorrow, a catch of resentment. "What more--when
your son is away?"
"Whose fault is that? Home weren't good enough for he. Even the
Old Ship on the sign-board didn't give him satisfaction, and he
must alter it. I don't see why I should worrit myself about the
hay or any other thing. I'll just put up my feet an enjye myself."
"Simon, I pray you answer Iver's letter. Opportunities be like
fleas, to be took sharp, or away they goes, they be terrible
long-legged. Opportunities only come now and then, and if not
caught are lost past recall. 'Twas so wi' Temperance Noakes, who
might a' had the chimbley-sweep if she'd a kissed him when he
axed. But she said, Wipe and wash your face fust--and she's an
old maid now, and goin' sixty. Consider, Simon. Iver be your son,
your only child. It's Providence makes us wot we is; that's why
you're a man and not a woman. Iver hadn't a gift to be a farmer,
but he had to paintin'. It can't be other--it's Providence orders
all, or you might be a mother and nursin' a baby, and I smokin'
and goin' after the plough in leggin's."
"That's all gammon," growled the landlord.
"We be gettin' old," pursued Mrs. Verstage. "In the end you'll
have to give up work, and who but Iver is to come after you here?"
"Him--Iver!" exclaimed Simon. "Your own self says 'e ain't fit to
be a farmer."
"Then he may let the farm and stick to the inn."
"He ain't got the makin' of a publican in him," retorted the man;
"he's just about fit for nothin' at all."
"Indeed, but he is, Simon," pleaded the woman, "only not in the
way you fancies. What good be you now in a public-house? You do
nothing there, it is I who have all the managin'."
"I attend to the farm. Iver can do neither. All the money you and
I ha' scraped together he'll chuck away wi' both hands. He'll let
the fences down I ha' set up; he'll let weeds overrun the fields
I ha' cleared. It shall not be. It never shall be."
"He may marry a thrifty wife, as you have done."
"And live by her labor!" he exclaimed, drawing his pipe from his
mouth and in knocking out the ash in his anger breaking the stem.
"That a child o' mine should come to that!"
"Iver is your own flesh and blood," persisted the woman, in great
excitement. "How can you be so hard on him? It's just like that
old fowl as pecked her eggs, and we had to wring her neck. It's
like rabbits as eat their own young. Nonsense! You must be
reconciled together. What you have you cannot leave to a stranger."
"I can do what I will with my own," retorted Simon. "Look here,
Susanna, haven't you had that girl, Matabel, with you in place of
a child all these years? Don't she work like a slave? Don't she
thoroughly understand the business? Has she ever left the hogs
unmeated, or the cow unmilked? If it pleases you to go to market,
to be away for a week, a fortni't you know that when you come
home again everything will be just as you left it, the house
conducted respectable, and every drop o' ale and ounce o' 'backy
accounted for."
"I don't deny that Matabel's a good girl. But what has that to do
with the matter?"
"What! Why everything. What hinders me leavin' the whole pass'l
o' items, farm and Ship to her? She'll marry a stiff man as'll look
after the farm, and she'll mind the public-house every mite as
well as ever have you, old woman. That's a gal as knows chalk from
cheese."
Mrs. Verstage leaned back with a gasp of dismay and a cramp at
her heart. She dropped her hands on her lap.
"You ain't speaking serious, Simon?"
"I might do wuss," said he; "and the wust I could do 'ad be to
give everythin' to that wastrel, Iver, who don't know the vally of
a good farm and of a well-established public-house. I don't want
nobody after I'm dead and gone to see rack and ruin where all
were plenty and good order both on land and in house, and that's
what things would come to wi' Iver here."
"Simon, he is a man now. He was a boy, and what he did as a boy
he won't do as a man."
"He's a dauber of paints still."
The taverner stood up. "I'll go and cast an eye over the hay-field,"
he said. "It makes me all of a rage like to think o' that boy."
He threw away the broken pipe and walked off.
Mrs. Verstage's brain spun like a teetotum; her heart turned cold.
She was startled out of her musings by the voice of Mehetabel, who
said, "Mother, it is so hot in the kitchen that I have come out to
cool myself. Where is father? I thought I heard him talking with
you?"
"He's gone to the hay-field. He won't answer Iver's letter. He's
just about as hard as one o' them Hammer Ponds when frozen to the
bottom, one solid lump."
"No, mother, he is not hard," said Mehetabel, "but he does not
like to seem to give way all at once. You write to Iver and tell
him to come here; that were better than for me to write. It will
not seem right for him to be invited home by me. The words from
home must be penned by you just as though spoke by you. He will
return. Then you will see that father will never hold out when he
has his own son before his eyes."
"Did you hear all that father and I was sayin'?" asked the hostess,
suspiciously.
"I heard him call out against Iver because he altered the
signboard; but that was done a long time agone."
"Nuthin' else?"
"And because he would never make a farmer nor an innkeeper."
"It's a dratted noosence is this here porch," muttered the
hostess. "It ort to 'a been altered ages agone, but lor', heart-alive,
the old man be that stubborn and agin' all change. And you heard
no more?"
"I was busy, mother, and didn't give attention to what didn't
concern me."
"Oh!" said Mrs. Verstage, "only listened, did you, to what did
concern you?"
A fear had come over the hostess lest the girl had caught Simon's
words relative to his notion, rather than intention, of bequeathing
what he had away from Iver and to the child that had been adopted.
Of course, Simon did not seriously purpose doing anything of the
sort. It was foolish, inconsiderate of him to give utterance to
such a thought, and that in such a place as the porch, whence
every whisper was conveyed throughout the interior of the house.
If Mehetabel had overheard his words, what a Fool's Paradise she
might create for herself! How her head might be turned, and what
airs she might give herself.
Leave the farm, the inn, everything to a girl with whom they were
wholly unconnected, and to the detriment of the son. Hoity-toity!
such a thought must not be allowed to settle, to take root, to
spring up and fructify.
"Mother," said the girl, "I think that you ought to write to Iver
with your own hand, though I know it will cost you trouble. But
it need not be in many words. Say he must come himself without
delay and see father. If Iver keeps at a distance the breakage
will never be mended, the wound will never be healed. Father is
a resolute man, but he is tender-hearted under all, and he's ever
been wonderful kind to me."
"Oh, yes, so long as he ain't crossed he's right enough with
anyone," answered Mrs. Verstage quickly. She did not relish the
allusion to the old man's kindness towards Mehetabel, it seemed to
her suspicious heart due to anticipation of what had been hinted
by him. She considered a moment, and determined to have the whole
matter out, and to dash any expectations the girl might have formed
at once and for ever. A direct woman Mrs. Verstage had ever been.
"Matabel," she said, and drew her lips together and contracted her
brows, "whatever father may scheme about making a will, it's all
gammon and nonsense. I don't know whether he's said any tomfoolery
about it to you, or may do so in time to come. Don't think nuthin'
of it. Why should he make a will? He has but Iver to whom he can
leave what he has. If he don't make a will--where's the odds? The
law will see to it; that everything goes to Iver, just as it ort."
"You will write to Iver to come?"
"Yes, I will. Matters can't be worse than they be, and they may
come to a betterment. O dear life of me! What I have suffered all
these years, parted from my only child."
"I have tried to do what I could for you, dear mother."
"Oh, yes"--the bitterness was still oozing up in the woman's heart,
engalling her own mind--"that I know well enough. But then you
ain't my flesh and blood. You may call me mother, and you may
speak of Simon as father, but that don't alter matters, no more
nor when Samuel Doit would call the cabbage plants broccaloes did
it make 'em grow great flower heads like passon's wigs. Iver is
my son, my very own child. You, Matabel, are only--"
"Only what, mother?"
"Only a charity girl."