PISGAH
Zita was standing in the room Drownlands called his office, in
conversation with the master.
'What did you mean by that which you said to the magistrates—that you
were tied here by frost, held by mud, and that when frost went and mud
dried you would be free to go?'
'It is so.'
'You will leave me?'
'I would go as soon as the van could roll along the drove,' replied
Zita, 'but that there are other difficulties than frost and mud, and
how to get out of these I do not as yet see. I work at them in my head,
but cannot find a way of escape.' She considered a while, with her
hands folded and her eyes on the floor. 'You see, there is the stock.
It seems sinful to let it lie idle—if it don't breed money, it will
breed moths and rust. Father always said money was made to jump—just
the same as frogs were so created. Here is all this store of goods
doing nothing. Here is myself—born a Cheap Jack, and a Cheap Jack to
my fingers' ends. I am not in my right place if not going about in my
van to fairs and markets, selling my goods, and making the money jump,
as it was ordained to.' Zita pursed her lips. 'That is on one side.
On the other there are considerations also. In the first place, it is
awkward for a young girl to be cheap-jacking over the country—it's
awkward, and it's not respectable. She cannot manage by herself. As
the gentleman said, a Jill must have a Jack. That was true, though I
did not like to hear him say it. I could not manage the van and Jewel
and the selling alone. I must have some man with me. And if I were to
take a servant, he might set his head to make himself Jack and make me
Jill. And to take a proper Jack,' pursued Zita,—'I mean, to have a
husband,—why, I don't fancy it. I don't like the notion of it at all.
There is my great difficulty.'
'Then stay at Prickwillow.'
'I don't know. If I were here, you would not leave me in peace and
quietness. I do not desire to remain here, but I do not know where else
to go. Now, you see, I am in a cleft stick.'
'Take me, and remain.'
'That, I have told you, can never be. If you ask that again, I will go.
If you say nought about it, I will make shift to stay till something
turns up.'
'Till you find a Jack?'
'I do not want a Jack. I said so. I want to remain free—Jack and Jill
all in one.' Her expression suddenly changed as she asked, 'Have they
taken Pip Beamish yet?'
'No; he has been seen, but he eluded capture. He is in the Fens. He
has some hiding-place, but where it is we have not yet discovered. The
constables are out and watching. He cannot leave the Fens.'
'Cannot? He escaped the dragoons. He has escaped the constables, as you
tell me now.'
'Ah! the dragoons were not accustomed to fen ways. The constables will
take him. They will form a ring and close in. There is a reward for
whoever takes him, and I have added five guineas.'
'And I will give ten to any constable who lets him slip through his
fingers. Publish that.'
'We have had enough of Ephraim Beamish,' said the master. 'We were
speaking about ourselves. You have your difficulties and troubles, but
I also have mine.'
Drownlands seated himself at the table, placed his arms on the board,
and for a moment rested his head on his folded arms. Then he looked up
and said—
'I have my distresses, but they are of other nature to yours, and
different in degree. Do you know Scripture? Did your father ever read
the Bible to you?'
'My father was a God-fearing man,' answered Zita, with warmth and
pride. 'He made me learn passages by heart, and there was one tale
he read over every Sunday, and never tired of it. It was how the
Israelites borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver and gold, and
spoiled the Egyptians, then went off and got the Egyptians drowned, and
so were able to keep their borrowings. Father said there was the making
of Cheap Jacks in them Israelites.'
'Did you ever read of Moses, how he went up the mountain to view the
Promised Land,—the land flowing with milk and honey,—and he looked on
it from afar, but was never allowed to set foot thereon? And he died
there, in the mount. The wind came to him sweet with thyme, and he saw
the green cattle pastures by the waters of comfort, but he might not
drink of its milk or eat its honey. And he died there, looking at the
land that was so near and yet so far, a land he might see, but never
set foot on. He died there, for it broke his heart.'
Drownlands laid his head again on his folded arms. Zita remained in the
same position. She had an inkling of his drift, and was uneasy, and
cast about for some means of relief from a painful scene.
'I suppose,' she said, 'there were fine bargains to be driven in the
Promised Land, and that the Canaanites were as soft-headed as the
Egyptians. To a man of proper feeling it was vexing.'
Drownlands paid no attention to the remark. He continued—
'Do you remember why Moses was not suffered to go in and possess the
Good Land? There was something betwixt him and it. He had done that
which was against the law, therefore the Lord showed him the fields of
Canaan, but said he must never lay his head in the dewy grass, never
smell its upturned earth, never touch its fair flowers.'
'Yes, I remember something about it,' said Zita.
'What killed Moses was the seeing the land, and being told it never
might be his,' continued Drownlands. 'But he could not go back from
Pisgah into the wilderness. He could not turn his back on Canaan. He
must sit among the rocks, and look on the pleasant land, till his heart
broke, and he died.'
The girl fixed her eyes on the quivering face of Drownlands. She saw
that he was in terrible earnest, and she did not see her way out of an
embarrassing situation. He spoke again.
'Zita, do you think it would have been wise for Joshua to have come up
into Pisgah when Moses was there? Would not Moses have sprung up and
cried out, "This man will enter on what is denied me!" and have held
him by the throat?' Drownlands was now on his feet, his hands extended
before him, suiting his action to his words. 'He would have held him by
the throat, have thrown him on a rock, put his knee to his chest, and
bent his back so—and have broken his back.'
As he spoke, he hit and split and crushed down half the table. Then he
drew a long inhalation, reseated himself, wiped his brow, and said—
'There is no Joshua. You swore to me there was none.'
'I think I can comprehend this roundabout talk,' said Zita. 'But if
you mean that I am your Promised Land, you are mistaken. I never was
promised to you.'
'No, that is true; you are the Loved Land, the Desired Land. No, you
never were promised.'
'And it is quite certain that I am not for you.'
'I know it.'
'And I will trouble you to keep your Pisgah at a distance, and stick to
it,' said Zita.
'You have told me that you never can be mine, and you have told me also
why. My sin stands between us, as a sin stood between Moses and Canaan.
And yet—I would do it again if I met him. You do not know how Runham
wronged me; you have never learned what was my provocation. I pay the
penalty of my sin, as did Moses. That very night I killed him—that
very same night, not two minutes after the last bubbles came from his
lips—I first saw you. The punishment followed on the crime faster than
the thunder-clap after the lightning-flash. Well, then, so long as you
remain before my eyes, that I can see your golden hair, and hear your
lark-like voice, I am content. I have all I can expect. I will try to
be content. But I could not endure to have a Joshua near me.'
'There is none—if you mean a Jack.'
'I trust your word. Mark Runham is nothing to you?'
'I am nothing to Mark,' said Zita, with slight evasion. 'He would not
even look at me in court.'
'So long as you remain here, I will bear my burden, though it break
my heart, bit by bit. But that is better than to lose you altogether.
No'—he stood up again, went to the window, leaned his arm and head
against the shattered casement, and let the wind blow in on him through
the broken glass—'no, that I can bear—to have you here. But to lose
you—to see you no more—I cannot even endure to think of that.'
Zita made a movement to escape. He heard her, and, without turning his
head, made a sign to her with his hand to stay.
'Do not leave me. I have still something I must say. I want to strike
a bargain with you.'
'A deal? I am ready.'
Zita resumed her place. Drownlands came slowly back to the table.
'Listen to me,' he said, with a thrill in his deep tones. 'I have made
up my mind to this—that _his_ blood lies between me and you, as a
Dead Sea I may never cross. I must sit on my Pisgah and look at you as
unapproachable. That is all I can hope for; that is all I demand; and
in order to secure this, I am ready to make you an offer. I shall never
marry—never. All the land round Prickwillow is mine, and I have money
in the bank—many thousands of pounds. You know what money is worth.
You can judge what this land brings in every year to heap the pile.
It shall all be yours if you will stay with me till I die. I ask for
nothing else but to have you here in this house, that I may hear you
laugh, that I may see your smiling face. That is all. I will not open
my mouth to ask for anything but that—just to see you and hear you
every day; now and then to touch your hand; happy, if as you pass me
your skirts brush me; glad for a day if you condescend to cast a word
at me. That is all—the full, the sum of all. And for that I will pay
away everything I have. Command me. Do with me what you please, only do
not banish me. My money is at your disposal, and when I die everything
that I have becomes yours. See here.' He went to his desk, unlocked it,
and drew forth a paper. 'I have made my will, but it is not yet signed
and attested. It could not be so till we had come to an arrangement
together. If you will undertake to remain with me on the terms I
propose, then you will be a wealthy woman some day when I am gone. And
whilst I am here cumbering the place,'—his tone was bitter,—'you have
but to ask and I will give you what you require. Agree with me, and
this document shall be signed and attested forthwith. For a very slight
concession on your part you will receive a rich repayment. As you said,
you could not go about the country in your van, and you have no settled
home to which you can go. Surely you will concede this to me.'
He placed the paper on the table before Zita.
She took up the will and read it through.
In few words, and to the point, Drownlands had constituted her sole
heir and legatee to everything he possessed, on the one condition that
she remained in his house through the rest of his life.
She put the paper down on the table again, without, however, releasing
it from her hand, and stood considering.
'There is one thing,' she said, after a long pause, 'one thing I must
stick out for whether I stay here for a short time or for long.'
'What is that?'
'That you board up the shed where my van is kept, so that the fowls may
not roost on it.'
Then in at the door came Mrs. Tunkiss.
'There's Mark Runham come,' she said to the master, after looking
suspiciously first at Zita, then at him. 'And he says he must speak
with you on business.'
'Mark?—Mark again? Bring him here. I am not afraid of him now. Come,
Zita, what say you to my offer?'
For a few moments she remained with her hand to her head, breathing
hard, her eyes dim.
'Come, Zita—what answer?'
She looked at him with glazed eyes. She was in pain and sorrow. She
would in one moment see Mark,—Mark, whom she loved,—and see him with
the knowledge that she never could be his. But the demand made of her
to surrender was not so great as it might have been had Mark loved and
respected her. He liked, or had once liked her. Now he loved another.
He despised her for some reason she could not understand. He held by
Kainie, to whom he was bound by promise, and to whom, after a short
wavering of his affections, he had returned.
'Come, Zita, what say you to my offer?'
In a whisper, with sunk head, her chin in her bosom, and with folded
hands—
'I accept.'