A HERALD OF STRIFE.
The winter passed without any change in the situation. Iver did not
come home for Christmas, although he heard that his mother was
failing in health and strength. There was much amusement in
Guildford, and he reasoned that it would be advantageous to his
business to take part in all the entertainments, and accept every
invitation made him to the house of a pupil. Thursley was not so
remote but that he could go there at any time. He was establishing
himself in the place, and must strike root on all sides.
This was a disappointment to Mrs. Verstage. Reluctantly she admitted
that her health was breaking down, and that, moreover, whilst Simon
remained tough and unshaken. The long-expected and hoped for time
when Iver should become a permanent inmate of the house, and she
would spend her declining years in love and admiration, had vanished
to the region of hopes impossible of fulfilment.
Simon Verstage took the decline of his wife's powers very
philosophically. He had been so accustomed to her prognostications
of evil, and harangues on her difficulties, that he was case-hardened,
and did not realize that there was actual imminence of a separation
by death.
"It's all her talk," he would say to a confidential friend; "she's
eighteen years younger nor me, and so has eighteen to live after
I'm gone. There ain't been much took out of her: she's not one as
has had a large family. There was Iver, no more; and women are
longer-lived than men. She talks, but it's all along of Polly that
worrits her. Let Polly alone and she'll get into the ways of the
house in time; but Sanna be always at her about this and about that,
and it kinder bewilders the wench, and she don't know whether to
think wi' her toes, and walk wi' her head."
In the Punch-Bowl the relations that subsisted between the
Broom-Squire and his wife were not more cordial than before. They
lived in separate worlds. He was greatly occupied with his solicitor
in Godalming, to whom he was constantly driving over. He saw little
of Mehetabel, save at his meals, and then conversation was limited
on his part to recrimination and sarcastic remarks that cut as a
razor. She made no reply, and spoke only of matters necessary. To
his abusive remarks she had no answer, a deepening color, a
clouding eye showed that she felt what he said. And it irritated
the man that she bore his insolence meekly. He would have preferred
that she should have retorted. As it was, so quiet was the house
that Sally Rocliffe sneered at her brother for living in it with
Mehetabel, "just like two turtle doves,--never heard in the
Punch-Bowl of such a tender couple. Since that little visit to
the Moor you've been doin' nothin' but billin and cooin'." Then
she burst into a verse of an old folks song, singing in harsh
tones--
"A woman that hath a bad husband, I find
By scolding won't make him the better.
So let him be easy, contented in mind,
Nor suffer his foibles to fret her.
Let every good woman her husband adore,
Then happy her lot, though t be humble and poor.
We live like two turtles, no sorrows we know,
And, fair girl! mind this when you marry."
"What happens, in my house is no concern of yours, Sally," Jonas
would answer sharply. "If some folk would mind their own affairs
they wouldn't be all to sixes and sevens. You look out that you
don't get into trouble yet over that foolish affair of Thomas and
the Countess. I don't fancy you've come to the end of that yet."
So the winter passed, and spring as well, and then came summer,
and just before the scythe cut the green swath, for the hay harvest,
Mehetabel became a mother.
The child that was born to her was small and delicate, it lacked the
sturdiness of its father and of the mother. So frail, indeed, did
the little life seem at first, that grave doubts were entertained
whether the babe would live to be taken to church to be baptized.
Mehetabel did not have the comfort of the presence of Mrs. Verstage.
During the winter that good woman's malady advanced with rapid
strides, and by summer she was confined to her room, and very
generally to her bed.
To Mehetabel it was not only a grief that she was deprived of the
assistance of her "mother," but also that, owing to her own
condition, she was unable to attend on the failing woman. Deprived
of the help of Mrs. Verstage, Mehetabel was thrown on that of her
sister-in-law, Sally Rocliffe. Occasions of this sort call forth
all that is good and tender in woman, and Sally was not at bottom
either a bad or heartless woman. She had been embittered by a
struggle with poverty that had been incessant, and had been allowed
free use of her tongue by a husband, all whose self-esteem had been
taken out of him by his adventure with the "Countess Charlotte,"
and the derision which had rained on him since. She was an envious
and a spiteful woman, and bore a bitter grudge against Mehetabel
for disappointing her ambition of getting her brother's farm
for her own son Samuel. But on the occasion when called to the
assistance of her sister-in-law, she laid aside her malevolence,
and the true humanity in the depths of her nature woke up. She
showed Mehetabel kindness, though in ungracious manner.
Jonas exhibited no interest in the accession to his family, he
would hardly look at the babe, and refused to kiss it.
At Mehetabel's request he came up to see her, in her room; he stood
aloof, and showed no token of kindliness and consideration. Sarah
went downstairs.
"Jonas," said the young mother, "I have wished to have a word with
you. You have been very much engaged, I suppose, and could not well
spare time to see me before."
"Well, what have you to say? Come to the point."
"That is easily done. Let all be well between us. Let the past be
forgotten, with its differences and misunderstandings. And now
that this little baby is given to us, let it be a bond of love
and reconciliation, and a promise of happiness to us both."
The Broom-Squire looked sideways at his wife, and said, sulkily,
"You remind one of Sanna Verstage's story of Gilly Cheel. He'd
been drinking and making a racket in the house, and was so
troublesome that she had to turn him out into the street by the
shoulders. What did he do, but set his back to the door, and kick
with his heels till he'd stove in some of the panels. Then he went
to the windows, and beat in the panes, and when he'd made a fine
wreck of it all, he stuck in his head, and said, 'This is to tell
you, Sanna Verstage, as how I forgive you in a Christian spirit.'"
"Bideabout! What has that to do with me?"
"Everything. Have you not wronged me, sought to compass my death,
given your love away from me to another, crossed me in all my
wishes?"
"No, Jonas; I have done none of this. I never sought your death,
only the removal of one who made happiness to me in my home
impossible. It was for you, because of you, that I desired his
removal. As for my love, I have tried to give it all to you, but
you must not forget that already from infancy, from the first
moment that I can remember anything, Iver was my companion, that
I was taught to look up to him, and to love him. But, indeed, I
needed no teachin' in that. It came naturally, just as the
buttercups in the meadow in spring, and the blush on the heather
in July. I had not seen him for many years, and I did not forget
him for all that. But I never had a thought of him other than as
an old playmate. He returned home, the very day we were married,
Jonas, as you remember. And since then, he often came to the
Punch-Bowl. You had nothin' against that. I began to feel like the
meadow when the fresh spring sun shines on it, that all the dead
or sleepin' roots woke up, and are strong again, or as the heather,
that seemed dry and lifeless, the buds come once more. But I knew
it must not be, and I fought against it; and I went to Thor's Stone
for that reason, and for none other."
"A likely tale," sneered Jonas.
"Yes, Bideabout, it is a likely tale; it is the only tale at all
likely concerning an honest heart such as mine. If there be truth
and uprightness in you, you will believe me. That I have gone
through a great fight I do not deny. That I have been driven almost
to despair, is also true. That I have cried out for help--that you
know, for you heard me, and I was heard."
"Yes--in that a lump of lead was sent into my shoulder."
"No, Jonas, in that this little innocent was given to my arms. You
need doubt me no more: you need fear for me and yourself no longer.
I have no mistrust in myself at all now that I have this." Lovingly,
with full eyes, the mother held up the child, then clasped it to
her bosom, and covered the little head and tiny hands with kisses.
"What has that to do with all that has been between us?" asked
Bideabout, sneeringly.
"It has everything to do," answered Mehetabel. "It is a little
physician to heal all our wounds with its gentle hand. It is a
tiny sower to strew love and the seeds of happiness in our united
lives. It is a little herald angel that appears to announce to us
peace and goodwill."
"I dun know," muttered Jonas. "It don't seem like to be any of
that."
"You have not looked in the little face, felt the little hands,
as I have. Why, if I had any ache and pain, those wee fingers
would with their touch drive all away. But indeed, Jonas, since
it came I have had no ache, no pain at all. All looks to me like
sunshine and sweet summer weather. Do you know what mother said to
me, many months ago, when first I told her what I was expecting?"
"Dun know that I care to hear."
"She gave me a cookery book, and she said to me that when the
little golden beam shone into this dark house it would fill it
with light, and that, with the baby and me--cooking you nice
things to eat, as wouldn't cost much, but still nice, then all
would be right and happy, and after all--Paradise, Jonas."
"It seems to me as Sanna Verstage knows nuthin about it."
"Jonas," pleaded Mehetabel, "give the little one a kiss. Take it
in your arms."
He turned away.
"Jonas," she said, in a tone of discouragement, after a pause, and
after having held out the child to him in vain, and then taken it
back to her bosom, "what are you stampin' for?"
He was beating his foot on the flooring.
"I want Sally to come up. I thought you had something to say, and
it seems there is nuthin'."
"Nothing, Jonas? Do not go. Do not leave me thus. This is the first
time you have been here since this little herald of goodwill
appeared in my sky. Do not go! Come to me. Put your hand in mine,
say that all is love and peace between us, and there will be no
more mistrust and hard words. I will do my duty by you to the very
best of my power, but, oh, Jonas, this will be a light thing to
accomplish if there be love. Without--it will be heavy indeed."
He continued stamping. "Will Sally never come?"
"Jonas! there is one thing more I desired to say, What is the name
to be given to the little fellow? It is right you should give him
one."
"I!" exclaimed the Broom-Squire, making for the stairs. "I! Call
him any name you will, but not mine. Call him," he turned his mean
face round, full of rancor, and with his lip drawn up on one side,
"as you like--call him, if it please you--Iver."
He went down the stairs muttering. What words more he said were
lost in the noise of his feet.
"Oh, my babe! my babe!" sobbed Mehetabel; "a herald not of goodwill
but of wicked strife!"