REALITIES.
Iver was gone.
The light that had sparkled in Mehetabel's eyes, the flush, like
a carnation in her cheek, faded at once. She was uneasy that Mrs.
Rocliffe had surprised her and Iver, whilst he gave her that
ill-considered though innocent parting salute.
What mischief she might make of it! How she might sow suspicion of
her in the heart of Jonas, and Iver would be denied the house!
Iver denied the house! Then she would see him no more, have no
more pleasant conversations with him. Indeed, then the cold,
clammy fog into which she descended was a figure of the life hers
would be, and it was one that no sun's rays could dissipate.
After she had returned to the house she sank in a dark comer
like one weary after hard labor, and looked dreamily before her
at the floor. Her hands and her feet were motionless.
A smile that every moment became more bitter sat on her lips. The
muscles of her face became more rigid.
What if through jealousy, open discord broke out between her and
Jonas? Would it make her condition more miserable, her outlook
more desperate? She revolved in thought the events that were past.
She ranged them in their order--the proposal of Jonas, her refusal,
the humiliation to which she had been subjected by Mrs. Verstage
which had driven her to accept the man she had just rejected, the
precipitation with which the marriage had been hurried on, then
the appearance of Iver on her wedding day.
She recalled the look that passed over his face when informed that
she was a bride, the clasp of his hands, and now--now--his kiss
burned on her lips, nay, had sunk in as a drop of liquid fire, and
was consuming her heart with anguish and sweetness combined.
Was the kiss that of a brother to a sister? Was there in it, as
Iver said, no harm, no danger to herself? She thought of the journey
home from the Ship on her wedding evening, of the fifteen pounds of
which she had been robbed by her husband, the money given her by
"father" against the evil day. She had been deceived, defrauded by
the man she had sworn to honor, love, and obey. She had not
acquired love for him. Had he not by this act forfeited all claim
to both love and honor?
She thought again of Iver, of his brown, agate-like eyes, but eyes
in which there was none of the hardness of a stone. She contrasted
him with Jonas. How mean, how despicable, how narrow in mind and
in heart was the latter compared with the companion of her youth.
Mehetabel's face was bathed in perspiration. She slid to her knees
to pray; she folded her hands, and found herself repeating.
"Genesis, fifty chapters; Exodus, forty; Leviticus, twenty-seven;
Numbers, thirty-six; Deuteronomy, thirty-four; these are the books
that constitute the Pentateuch. The Book of Joshua--"
Then she checked herself. In her distress, her necessity, she
was repeating the lesson last acquired in Sunday-school, which
had gained her a prize. This was not prayer. It brought her no
consolation, it afforded her no strength. She tried to find
something to which to cling, to stay her from the despair into
which she had slipped, and could only clearly figure to herself
that "the country of the Gergesenes lay to the southeast of the
Sea of Tiberias and that a shekel weighed ten hundred-weights and
ninety-two grains, Troy weight, equal to in avoirdupois--" her brain
whirled. She could not work out the sum. She could not pray. She
could recall no prayer. She could look to nothing beyond the
country of the Gergesenes. And yet, never in her life had she so
needed prayer, strength, as now, when this new guilty passion
was waking in her heart.
Shuddering at the thought of revolt against her duty, unable
altogether to abandon the hope, the longing to see Iver again,
filled with vague terror of what the future might bring forth,
she remained as struck with paralysis, kneeling, speechless, with
head bowed, hands fallen at her side, seeing, hearing, knowing
nothing; and was roused with a start by the voice of Jonas who
entered, and asked--,
"Wot's up now?"
She could not answer him. She sprang to her feet and eagerly
flew to the execution of her domestic duties.
Iver returned from his visit to the Punch-Bowl with a mind occupied
and ill at ease.
He had allowed himself, without a struggle, to give way to the
impression produced on him by the beauty of Mehetabel. He enjoyed
her society--found pleasure in talking of the past. Her mind was
fresh; she was intelligent, and receptive of new ideas. She alone
of all the people of Thursley, whom he had encountered, was
endowed with artistic sense--was able to set the ideal above what
was material. He did not ask himself whether he loved her. He knew
that he did, but the knowledge did not trouble him. After a
fashion, Mehetabel belonged to him as to none other. She was
associated with his earliest and sunniest recollections.
Mehetabel could sympathize with him in his love for the beautiful
in Nature. She had ever been linked with his mother in love for
him. She had been the vehicle of communication between him and his
mother till almost the last moment; it was through her that all
tidings of home had reached him.
When his father had refused to allow Iver's name to be mentioned
in his presence, for hours daily the thoughts of him had been in
the hearts of his mother and this girl. With united pity and love,
they had followed his struggles to make his way.
There was much obstinacy in Iver.
Resolution to have his own way had made him leave home to follow
an artistic career, regardless of the heartache he would cause
his mother, and the resentment he would breed in his father.
Thus, without consideration of the consequences to himself, to
Mehetabel, to Jonas, he allowed his glowing affection for the
young wife to gather heat, without attempt to master or extinguish
it.
There is a certain careless happiness in the artistic soul that
is satisfied with the present, and does not look into the future.
The enjoyment of the hour, the banquet off the decked table, the
crown of roses freshly blown, suffice the artist's soul. It has no
prevision of the morrow--makes no provision for the winter.
That the marriage of Mehetabel with Jonas had raised barriers
between them was hardly considered. That the Broom-Squire might
resent having him hover round his young flower, did not enter
into Iver's calculations; least of all did it concern him that
he was breaking the girl's heart, and forever making it impossible
for her to reconcile herself to her position.
As Iver walked home over the common, and enjoyed the warmth and
brilliancy of the sun, he asked himself again, why his mother
had not prepared him for the marriage of Mehetabel.
Mehetabel had certainly not taken Jonas because she loved him.
She was above sordid considerations. What, then, had induced her
to take the man? She had been happy and contented at the Ship;
why, then, did she leave it?
On reaching home, he put the question to his mother. "It is a
puzzle to me, which I cannot unravel, why has Matabel become
Bideabout's wife?"
"Why should she not?" asked his mother in return. "It was a catch
for such as she--a girl without a name, and bare of a dower. She
has every reason to thank me for having pushed the marriage on."
Iver looked at his mother with surprise.
"Then you had something to do with it?"
"Of course I had," answered she. "I did my duty. I am not so young
as I was. I had to think for Matabel's future. She is no child of
mine. She can expect nothing from your father nor from me. When a
good offer came, then I told her to accept and be thankful. She
is a good girl, and has been useful in the house, and some people
think her handsome. But young men don't court a girl who has no
name, and has had three men hanged because of her."
"Mother! what nonsense! The men were executed because they murdered
her father."
"It is all one. She is marked with the gallows. Ill-luck attaches
to her. There has been a blight on her from the beginning. I mind
when her father chucked her down all among the fly-poison. Now she
has got the Broom-Squire, she may count herself lucky, and thank
me for it."
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Iver. "Then this marriage is your doing?"
"Yes--I told her that, before you came here, I must have her clear
out of the house."
"Why?"
A silence ensued. Mrs. Verstage looked at her son--into his great,
brown eyes--and what she saw there alarmed her. Her lips moved to
speak, but she could utter no words. She had let out her motive
without consideration in the frankness that was natural to her.
"I ask, mother, why did you stop Matabel from writing, and take
up the correspondence yourself at last; and then, when you did
write to me at Guildford, you said not one word about Mehetabel
being promised to the Broom-Squire?"
"I could not put all the news of the parish into my letter. How
should I know that this concerned you?"
"We were together as children. If ever there were friends in the
world, it was we."
"I am a bad writer. It takes me five minutes over one word, just
about. I said what I had to say, and no more, and I were a couple
o' days over that."
"Why did you ask me to postpone my coming home?--why seek to keep
me away till after Mehetabel's marriage?"
"There was a lot to do in the house, preparation for the weddin'--her
gownds--I couldn't have you here whilst all the rout was on. I
wanted to have you come when all was quiet again, and I could
think of you. What wi' preparations and schemin' my head was full."
"Was that the only reason, mother?"
She did not answer. Her eyes fell.
Iver threw his hat on the table, and went to his room. He was
incensed against his mother. He guessed the reason why she had
urged on the marriage, why she had kept him in ignorance of the
engagement, why she had delayed his return to Thursley.
She had made her plans. She wished to marry him to Polly Colpus,
and she dreaded his association with Mehetabel as likely to be
prejudicial to the success of her cherished scheme, now that the
girl was in the ripeness of her beauty and to Iver invested with
the halo of young associations, of boy romance.
If his mother had told him! If she had not bidden him postpone his
coming home! Then all would have turned out well. Mehetabel would
not have been linked to an undesirable man, whom she could not
love; and he would have been free to make her his own.
His heart was bitter as wormwood.
Mrs. Verstage saw but too plainly that her son was estranged from
her; and she could form a rough estimate of the reason. He addressed
her indeed with a semblance of love and showed her filial attention,
but her maternal instinct assured her that something stood between
them, something which took the reality and spontaneity out of his
demonstrations of affection.
Iver occupied himself with the picture of Mehetabel at the fountain.
It was his great pleasure to work thereon. If he was not engaged at
his canvas in the tavern, he was wandering in the direction of the
Punch-Bowl to make studies for pictures, so he said. His mother
saw that there was no prospect of retaining her son at the Ship
for long. What held him there was not love for her, desire to
recover lost ground with his father, not a clinging to his old
home, not a desire to settle and take up his father's work; it
was something else--she feared to give utterance to the thought
haunting her mind.
"You are a fool, old woman," said her husband to her one night.
"You and I might have been easy and happy in our old age had you
not meddled and made mischief. You always was a great person for
lecturin' about Providence, and it's just about the one thing you
won't let alone."
"What do you mean, Simon?" she asked, and her heart beat fast
with presage of what he would say.
"Why, Susan, if you had not thrust Mehetabel into the Broom-Squire's
arms when she didn't want to be there no more nor among brimbles,
then Iver would have taken her and all would have been peace."
"What makes you say that?" she asked, in a flutter of terror.
"Oh, I'll be bound it would have been so. Iver has been asking
all manner of questions about Matabel, and why she took Jonas.
I sed it was agin my wishes, but that you would have it, so
Matabel had to give in."
"Simon, why did you say that? You set the boy against me."
"I don't see that, Sanna. It is you who have put the fat in the
fire. If you try to turn a stream to run uphill, you will souse
your own field, and won't get the water to go where you drive it.
It's my belief that all the while he has been away, Iver has had
his mind set upon Matabel. I'm not surprised. You may go through
Surrey, and won't find her match. Now he comes home and finds that
you have spoiled his chance, with your meddlesomeness--and there'll
be the devil to pay, yet. That's my opinion."
The old man turned on his side and was asleep, but self-reproach
for what was past and doubt as to the future kept his wife awake
all night.