GONE.
During the evening Iver was hardly able to take his eyes off
Mehetabel, as she passed to and fro in the kitchen.
She knew where was every article that was needed for the gentlemen.
She moved noiselessly, did everything without fuss, without haste.
He thought over the words she had uttered, and he had overheard:
Lost happiness is past recovery. Not only was she bereft of
happiness, but so was he. His father and mother, when too late,
had found that they also had parted with theirs when they had let
Mehetabel leave the house.
She moved gracefully. She was slender, her every motion merited
to be sketched. Iver's artistic sense was excited to admiration.
What a girl she was! What a model! Oh, that he had her as his own!
Mehetabel knew that she was watched, and it disconcerted her. She
was constrained to exercise great self-control; not to let slip
what she carried, not to forget what tasks had to be discharged.
In her heart she glowed with pride at the thought that Iver loved
her--that he, the prince, the idol of her childhood, should have
retained a warm place in his heart for her. And yet, the thought,
though sweet, was bitter as well, fraught with foreshadowings of
danger.
Mrs. Verstage also watched Mehetabel, and her son likewise, with
anxious eyes.
The old man left the house to attend to his cattle; and one of
the gentlemen came to the kitchen-door to invite Iver, whose
acquaintance he had made during the day, to join him and his
companions over a bowl of punch.
The young man was unable to refuse, but left with reluctance
manifest enough to his mother and Mehetabel.
Then, when the hostess was alone with the girl, she drew her to
her side, and said, "There is now nothing to occupy you. Sit by me
and tell me about yourself and how you get on with Bideabout. You
have no notion how pleased I am to have you here again."
Mehetabel kissed the old woman, and a tear from her eye fell on
the withering cheek of the landlady.
"I dare be bound you find it lonely in the new home," said Mrs.
Verstage. "Here, in an inn, there is plenty of life; but in the
farm you are out of the world. How does the Broom-Squire treat
you?"
She awaited an answer with anxiety, which she was unable to
disguise.
After a pause Mehetabel replied, with heightened color, "Jonas is
not unkind."
"You can't expect love-making every day," said the hostess. "It's
the way of men to promise the sun, moon, and planets, till you are
theirs, and after that, then poor women must be content to be
given a spark off a fallen star. There was Jamaica Cheel runn'd
away with his Betsy because he thought the law wouldn't let him
have her; she was the wife of another, you know. Then he found
she never had been proper married to the other chap, and when he
discovered he was fast tied to Betsy he'd a run away from her
only the law wouldn't let him. Jonas ain't beautiful and young,
that I allow."
"I knew what he was when I married him," answered Mehetabel. "I
cannot say I find him other than what I expected."
"But is he kind to you?"
"I said he was not unkind."
Mrs. Verstage looked questioningly at her adopted child. "I don't
know," she said, with quivering lips. "I suppose I was right. I
acted for the best. God knows I sought your happiness. Do not
tell me that you are unhappy."
"Who is happy?" asked Mehetabel, and turned her eyes on the
hostess, to read alarm and distress in her face. "Do not trouble
yourself about me, mother. I knew what I was doing when I took
Jonas. I had no expectation of finding the Punch-Bowl to be
Paradise. It takes a girl some time to get settled into fresh
quarters, and to feel comfortable among strangers. That is mainly
my case. I was perhaps spoiled when here, you were so kind to me.
I thank you, mother, that you have not forgotten me in your great
joy at getting Iver home again."
"There was Thomasine French bought two penn'orth o' shrimps, and
as her husband weren't at home thought to enjoy herself prodigious.
But she came out red as a biled lobster. With the best intentions
things don't always turn out as expected," said Mrs. Verstage,
"and the irritation was like sting nettles and--wuss." Then, after
a pause, "I don't know how it is, all my life I have wished to
have Iver by me. He went away because he wanted to be a painter;
he has come back, after many years, and is not all I desire. Now
he is goyn away. I could endure that if I were sure he loved me.
But I don't think he does. He cares more for his father, who sent
him packin' than he does for me, who never crossed him. I don't
understand him. He is not the same as he was."
"Iver is a child no longer," said Mehetabel. "You must not expect
of him more than he can give. What you said to me about a husband
is true also of a child. Of course, he loves you, but he does not
show it as fully as you desire. He has something else now to fill
his heart beside a mother."
"What is that?" asked Mrs. Verstage, nervously.
"His art," answered Mehetabel.
"Oh, that!" The landlady was not wholly satisfied, she stood up
and said with a sigh, "I fancy life be much like one o' them bran
pies at a bazaar. Some pulls out a pair of braces as don't wear
trousers, and others pull out garters as wears nuthin' but socks.
'Tis a chance if you get wot's worth havin. Well, I must go look
out another sheet in place of that Polly has burnt."
"Let me do that, mother."
"No, as you may remember, I have always managed the linen myself."
A few minutes later, after she had left the room, Iver returned.
He had escaped from the visitors on some excuse.
His heart was a prey to vague yearnings and doubts.
With pleasure he observed that his mother was no longer in the
kitchen. He saw Mehetabel hastily dry her eyes. He knew that she
had been crying, and he thought he could divine the cause.
"You are going to Guildford to-morrow morning, are you not?" she
asked hastily.
"I don't know."
Iver planted himself on a stool before the fire, where he could
look up into Mehetabel's face, as she sat in the settle.
"You have your profession to attend to," she said. "You do not
know your own mind. You are changeful as a girl."
"How can I go--with you here?" he exclaimed, vehemently.
She turned her head away. He was looking at her with burning eyes.
"Iver," she said, "I pray you be more loving to your mother. You
have made her heart ache. It is cruel not to do all you can now to
make amends to her for the past. She thinks that you do not love
her. She is failing in health, and you must not drip drops of
fresh sorrow into her heart during her last years."
Iver made a motion of impatience.
"I love my mother. Of course I love her."
"Not as truly as you should, Iver," answered Mehetabel. "You do
not consider the long ache--"
"And I, had not I a long ache when away from home?"
"You had your art to sustain you. She had but one thought--and that
of you."
"She has done me a cruel wrong," said he, irritably.
"She has never done anything to you but good, and out of love,"
answered the girl vehemently.
"To me; that is not it."
Mehetabel raised her eyes and looked at him. He was gazing moodily
at the fire.
"She has stabbed me through you," exclaimed Iver, with a sudden
outburst of passion. "Why do you plead my mother's cause, when
it was she--I know it was she, and none but she--who thrust you
into this hateful, this accursed marriage."
"No, Iver, no!" cried Mehetabel in alarm. "Do not say this. Iver!
talk of something else."
"Of what?"
"Of anything."
"Very well," said he, relapsing into his dissatisfied mood. "You
asked me once what my dream had been, that I dreamt that first
night under your roof. I will tell you this now. I thought that
you and I had been married, not you and Jonas, you and I, as it
should have been. And I thought that I looked at you, and your
face was deadly pale, and the hand I held was clay cold."
A chill ran through Mehetabel's veins. She said, "There is some
truth in it, Iver. You hold a dead girl by the hand. To you, I am,
I must be, forever--dead."
"Nonsense. All will come right somehow."
"Yes, Iver," she said; "it will so. You are free and will go
about, and will see and love and marry a girl worthy of you in
every way. As for me, my lot is cast in the Punch-Bowl. No power
on earth can separate me from Bideabout. I have made my bed and
must lie on it, though it be one of thorns. There is but one
thing for us both--we must part and meet no more."
"Matabel," he put forth his hand in protest.
"I have spoken plainly," she said, "because there is no good in
not doing so. Do not make my part more difficult. Be a man--go."
"Matabel! It shall not be, it cannot be! My love! My only one."
He tried to grasp her.
She sprang from the settle. A mist formed before her eyes. She
groped for something by which to stay herself.
He seized her by the waist. She wrenched herself free.
"Let me go!" she cried. "Let me go!"
She spoke hoarsely. Her eyes were staring as if she saw a spirit.
She staggered back beyond his reach, touched the jambs of the
door, grasped them with a grasp of relief. Then, actuated by a
sudden thought, turned and fled from the room, from the house.
Iver stood for a minute bewildered. Her action had been so
unexpected that he did not know what to think, what to do.
He went to the porch and looked up the road, then down it, and did
not see her.
Mrs. Verstage, came out. "Where is Matabel?" she asked, uneasily.
"Gone!" said Iver. "Mother--gone!"