IVER.
Next day was bright; but already some rime lay in the cold and
marshy bottom of the Punch-Bowl.
Mehetabel went round the farm with Bideabout, and with some pride
he showed her his possessions, his fields, his barn, sheds and
outhouses. Amongst these was that into which she had been taken
on the night of her father's murder.
She had often heard the story from Iver. She knew how that every
door had been shut against her except that of the shed in which
the heather and broom steels were kept that belonged to Jonas, and
which served as his workshop.
With a strange sense, as though she were in the hands of Fate
thrusting her on, she knew not whither, with remorseless cogency,
the young wife looked into the dark shed which had received her
eighteen years before.
It was wonderful that she should have begun the first chapter of
her life there, and that she should return to the same spot to
open the second chapter.
She felt relieved when Jonas left her to herself. Then she at
once set to work on the house, in which there was much to be done.
She was ambitious to get it into order and comfort before Mrs.
Verstage came to visit her in her new quarters.
As she worked, her mind reverted to the Ship. Would she be missed
there? Would the new maid engaged be as active and attentive as
she had been? Her place in the hearts of the old couple was now
occupied by Iver. However much the innkeeper might pretend to be
hard of reconciliation, yet he must yearn after his own son; he must
be proud of him now that Iver was grown so fine and independent,
and had carved for himself a place in the world.
When the first feeling of regret over her departure was passed
away, then all their thoughts, their aspirations, their pride
would be engrossed by Iver.
Mehetabel was scouring a saucepan. She lowered it, and her hands
remained inactive. Iver!--she saw him, as he stood before her in
the Ship, extending his hands to her. She almost felt his grasp
again.
Mehetabel brushed back the hair that had fallen over her face; and
as she did so a tear ran down her cheek.
Then she heard her husband's voice; he was speaking with Samuel
Rocliffe, his nephew; and it struck her as never before, how
harsh, how querulous was his intonation.
During the day, Mrs. Rocliffe came in, looked about inquisitively,
and pursed up her lips when she saw the change effected, and
conjectured that more was likely to follow.
"I suppose nuthin' is good enough as it was--but you must put
everything upside down?"
"On the contrary, I am setting on its feet everything I have
found topsy-turvy."
To the great surprise of all, on the following Sunday, Bideabout,
in his best suit, accompanied Mehetabel to church. He had never
been a church-goer. He begrudged having to pay tithes. He begrudged
having to pay something for his seat in addition to tithes to the
church, if he went to a dissenting chapel. If religious ministrations
weren't voluntary and gratuitous, "then," said Jonas, "he didn't
think nuthin' of 'em."
Jonas had been disposed to scoff at religion, and to work on
Sundays, though not so openly as on other days of the week. He
went to church now because he was proud of his wife; not out of
devotion, but vanity.
Some days later arrived a little tax-cart driven by Iver, with
Mrs. Verstage in it.
The hostess had already discovered what a difference it made in
her establishment to have in it a raw and dull-headed maid in
the room of the experienced and intelligent daughter. She did
not regret what she had done--she had removed Mehetabel out of
the reach of Iver, and had no longer any anxiety as to the disposal
of his property by Simon. For her own sake she was sorry, as she
plainly saw that her life was likely to run less smoothly in the
future in her kitchen and with her guests. Now that Mehetabel was
no longer dangerous, her heart unfolded towards her once more.
The young wife received Mrs. Verstage with pleasure. The flush
came into her cheeks when she saw her, and for the moment she had
no eyes, no thoughts, no welcome for Iver.
The landlady was not so active as of old, and she had to be assisted
from her seat. As soon as she reached the ground she was locked in
the embrace of her daughter by adoption.
Then Mehetabel conducted the old woman over the house, and showed
her the new arrangements she had made, and consulted her on certain
projected alterations.
Jonas had come to the door when the vehicle arrived; he was in his
most gracious mood, and saluted first the hostess and then her
son, with unwonted cordiality.
"Come now, Matabel," said Mrs. Verstage, when both she and the
young wife were alone together, "I did well to push this on, eh?
You have a decent house, and a good farm. All yours, not rented,
so none can turn you out. What more could you desire? I dare be
sworn Bideabout has got a pretty nest egg stuck away somewhere,
up the chimney or under the hearth. Has he shown you what he has?
There was the elder Gilly Cheel was a terrible skinflint. When he
died his sons hunted high and low for his money and couldn't find
it. And just as they wos goin' to bury him, the nuss said she
couldn't make a bootiful corpse of him, he were that puffed in
his mouth. What do you think, Matabel? The old chap had stuffed
his money into his mouth when he knew he was dyin'. Didn't want
nobody to have it but himself. Don't you let Bideabout try any
of them games."
"Have you missed me greatly, dear mother?" asked Mehetabel, who
had heard the story of Giles Cheel before.
Mrs. Verstage sighed.
"My dear, do you know the iron-stone bowl as belonged to my
mother. The girl broke it, and hadn't the honesty to say so, but
stuck it together wi' yaller soap, and thought I wouldn't see it.
Then one of the customers made her laugh, and she let seven
pewters fall, and they be battered outrageous. And she has been
chuckin' the heel taps to the hog, and made him as drunk as a
Christian. She'll drive me out of my seven senses."
"So you do miss me, mother?"
"My dear--no--I'm not selfish. It is all for your good. There wos
Martha Lintott was goin' to a dance, and dropped her bustle. Patty
Pickett picked it up, and thinkin' she couldn't have too much of
a good thing, clapped it on a top of her own and cut a fine figure
wi' it--wonderful. And Martha looked curious all up and down wi'out
one. But she took it reasonable, and said, 'What's one woman's loss
is another woman's gain.' O, my dear life! If Iver would but settle
with Polly Colpus I should die content."
"Is not the match agreed to yet?"
"No!" Mrs. Verstage sighed. "I've got my boy back, but not for
long. He talks of remaining here awhile to paint--subjects, he
calls 'em, but he don't rise to Polly as I should like. Polly is
a good girl. Master Colpus was at your weddin', and was very civil
to Iver. I heard him invite the boy to come over and look in on
him some evening--Sunday, for instance, and have a bite of supper
and a glass. But Iver hasn't been nigh the Colpuses yet; and when
I press him to go he shrugs his shoulders and says he has other
and better friends he must visit first."
Mrs. Verstage sighed again.
"Well, perhaps he doesn't fancy Polly," said Mehetabel.
"Why should he not fancy her? She will have five hundred pounds,
and old James Colpus's land adjoins ours. I don't understand
Iver's ways at all."
Mehetabel laughed. "Dear mother, you cannot expect that; he did
not think with his father's head when a boy. He will think only
with his own head now he is a man."
"Look here, Matabel. I'll leave Iver to you for half-an-hour. Show
him the cows. I'll make Bideabout take me to his sister. I want to
have it out with her for not coming to the wedding. I'm not the
person to let these things pass. Say a word to Iver about Polly,
there is a dear. I cannot bring them together, but you may, you
are so clever."
Meanwhile Iver and Jonas had been in conversation. The latter had
been somewhat contemptuous about the profession of an artist, and
was not a little astonished when he heard the prices realized by
pictures. Iver told the Broom-Squire that he intended making some
paintings of the Punch-Bowl, and that he had a mind to draw Kink's
farm.
In that case, said Bideabout, a percentage of the money such a
picture fetched would be due to him. He didn't see that anyone had
a right to take a portrait of his house and not pay him for it. If
Iver were content to draw his house, he must, on no account, include
that of the Rocliffes, for there was a mortgage on that, and there
might be trouble with the lawyers.
Mrs. Verstage proposed to Bideabout that she should go with him
to his sister's house, and he consented.
"Look here, Matabel," said he, "there is Mister Iver thinks he can
make a pictur' of the spring, if you'll get a pitcher and stand
by it. I dare say if it sells, he'll not forget us."
"I wish I could take Mehetabel and her pitcher off your hands, and
not merely the portrait of both," laughed Iver, to cover the
confusion of the girl, who reddened with annoyance at the grasping
meanness of Jonas.
When Iver was alone with her, as they were on their way to the
spring, he said, "Come, this will not do at all. For the first time
we are free to chat together, as in the old times when we were
inseparable friends. Why are you shy now, Matabel?"
"You must be glad to be home again with the dear father and
mother," she said.
"Yes, but I miss you; and I had so reckoned on finding you there."
"You will remain at the Ship now," urged she.
"I don't know that. I have my profession. I have leisure during
part of the summer and fall, making studies for pictures--but I
take pupils; they pay."
"You must consider the old folk."
"I do. I will visit them occasionally. But art is a mistress, and
an imperious one. When one is married one is no longer independent."
"You are married?" asked Mehetabel, with a flush in her cheeks.
"Yes, to my art."
"Oh! to paints and brushes! Tell me true, Iver! Has no girl won
your heart whilst you have been from home?"
"I have found many to admire, but my heart is free. I have had no
time to think of girls' faces--save as studies. Art is a mistress
as jealous as she is exacting."
Mehetabel drew a long breath. There went up a flash of light in
her mind, for which she did not attempt to account. "You are
free--that is famous, and can take Polly Colpus."
Then she laughed, and Iver laughed.
They laughed long and merrily together.
"This is too much," exclaimed Iver. "At home father is at me to
exchange the mahl-stick for an ox-goad, and mother wearies me with
laudation of Polly Colpus. I shall revolt and run away, as I did
not expect you to lend a hand with Polly."
"You must not run away," said Mehetabel, earnestly. "Iver! I was
all those years at the Ship, with mother, after you went, and I
have seen how her heart has ached for you. She is growing old.
Let her have consolation during the years that remain for the
sorrow of those that are past."
"I cannot take to farming, nor turn publican, and I will not
have Polly Colpus."
"Here is the spring," said Mehetabel.
She set the pitcher beside the water, leaned back in the hedge,
musing, with her finger to her chin, her eyes on the ground, and
her feet crossed.
"Stand as you are. That is perfect. Do not stir. I will make a
pencil sketch."
The spring gushed from under a bank, in a clear and copious jet.
It had washed away the sand, and had buried itself in a nook
among ferns and moss. On the top of the bank was a rude shed, open
at the side, with a cart at rest in it. Wild parsnips in full
flower nodded before the water.
"I could desire nothing better," said Iver, "and that pale blue
skirt of yours, the white stockings, the red kerchief round your
head--in color as in arrangement everything is admirable."
"You have not your paints with you."
"I will come another day and bring them. Now I will only sketch
in the outline."
Presently Iver laughed. "Matabel! If I took Polly she would be of
no use to me whatever, not even as a model."
Presently the Broom-Squire returned with Mrs. Verstage, and looked
over the shoulder of the artist.
"Not done much," he said.
"I shall have to come again and yet again, to put in the color,"
said Iver.
"Come when and as often as you like," said Bideabout. Neither of
the men noticed the shrinking that affected the entire frame of
Mehetabel, as Jonas said these words, but it was observed by Mrs.
Verstage, and a shade of anxiety swept over her face.