BERTHA VELDERKAUST.
Harry Fairfield, when, crossing Cressley Common, he reached the road
that diverges eastward, took that turn, and rode towards Hatherton.
Surely enough he looked when he slackened his pace to a walk at the
foot of the long low hill that interposes between the common and that
town.
He had a short pipe in his pocket, with a big bowl, and a metal cover
to it, into which he stuffed some pinches of tobacco--a shilling went
a good way in that sort of smoking, and Harry was economical--and soon
his pipe was in full play.
This narcotic helped his cogitative powers, and he had a good deal to
think about. He was going to see his old friend Bertha Velderkaust, in
her new situation, and he was considering how best to approach her.
From such ruminations--too vague and irregular to be reduced to
logical sequence and arrangement--there arise, nevertheless,
conclusions by no means unimportant, and quite distinct enough. By
this time he had smoked his pipe out, and looked down from the summit
of this rising ground upon the pretty town spreading among the trees,
with its old tower and steeple, its court-house, its parsonage, and
that high-walled stronghold on the right, in which the object of his
visit was at present secluded.
When, having complied with all formalities, he obtained an entrance,
and obtained permission to visit that person, it was her pleasure to
keep him waiting for some time for his audience. Harry grew cross and
impatient, the more so as he heard that she had a friend with her,
drinking tea, and reading the newspaper to her.
As Harry Fairfield was one of those persons who are averse to
sacrificing themselves without a good consideration, the reader will
conclude that his object was not altogether to serve the “old
soldier.” If it had been only that, I think he would have left the
town of Hatherton _re infectâ_. As it was, he waited, and at last was
admitted.
This lady, Bertha Velderkaust, chose to be known among her neighbours
in misfortune as Madame Bertha Fairfield of Wyvern, which style and
title she preferred to that by which she had been committed to the
safe keeping of the gaoler.
When Harry Fairfield stepped into her small apartment he found her
dressed and bedizened in a way that a little surprised him.
She had on a sky-blue satin dress, caught up at one side with a bunch
of artificial flowers. She had a lace scarf and a lace coiffure lying
flat across her head, with a miniature coronet of Roman pearl in the
centre, and lappets depending at each side. She had a double necklace
of enormous Roman pearls about her throat, and a pair of pink velvet
slippers, embroidered with beads and bugles, and this tawdry figure
sat on the side of her truckle-bed to receive him, with the air of a
princess in a pantomime. She accumulated her finery in this way, I
think, for the purpose of impressing the people about the prison with
a due sense of her position and importance. It may not have been
quite without its effect.
“Hullo! madame, I came to tell you some news,” said he, as soon as the
door was closed. “But, by the makins! you ’most took my breath away at
first sight o’ ye.”
“Pity to have so nice a man breathless--deplorable pity!”--or _biddy_,
as she pronounced it. “Suppose you go away. I did not ask you to come
and get your breath again in the air of my place.”
“What place may that be--not Hoxton Old Town, hey?”
“Not at all--Wyvern, dear child?” she said, with a quiet sneer.
“Oh, thank ye--yes--well I will, I think, take a mouthful there as you
are so good.”
As he concluded this speech Master Harry put out his tongue at the
blind lady with a grimace that was outrageous.
“I’ll hide my name no longer,” she said, “I’m Mrs. Fairfield of
Wyvern.”
“That’s as it may be,” he answered, serenely.
“I say, I’m Mrs. Fairfield of Wyvern,” repeated she.
“Boo!” answered Harry.
“Beast! By that noise what do you mean?”
“I’ll tell ye, by-and-by. Come, you mustn’t be cross, it wastes time.”
“More time than we know what to do with in this house,” she sneered.
“Well, that’s true for some, I’ll not deny; but there’s some as is
pretty well worked I hear--eh?--and so long as we baint, we may endure
the leisure, for as bad as that is, business here, I’m told, is a deal
worse,” and Harry laughed.
“Pleasant was my Harry always,” again sneered the lady.
“And ye heard of poor Charlie, of course?” he asked.
“Yes, of course. Every one is not like you. I did hear. I don’t thank
you,” she answered, tartly, and turned her pale, malignant face toward
him.
“But, dear girl, I could not. There was difficulties, eyes a-watchin’
on all hands, and ears cocked, and I knew you could not be long
without knowing. So you heard; but mayhap you haven’t heard
this--there’s a child born o’ that marriage.”
“Marriage!” and with an oath the big Dutchwoman burst into a
discordant laugh.
For a moment Harry was alarmed, but the laugh was not
hysterical--purely emotional, and an escape for pent-up scorn and
fury.
“Well, anyhow there’s a child--a boy--and a fine hale little chap, wi’
a big bald head and a bawlin’ mouth as ever a mother hugged--the
darlin’.”
“Well, let the brat lie on the dung heap, you’ll not lift him,” said
the lady.
“I’ll not meddle or make. I’m not over-hot about Wyvern. I’d rather
have a pocket full o’ money than a house full o’ debts any day; and
anyhow there he is, and four bones that’s to walk off with my share
o’t.”
“I should have got mourning,” said Bertha Velderkaust, speaking from
some hidden train of thought.
“Bah! No one to see you here,” said Harry.
“If I had money or credit, I’d have got it,” she said.
“That’s very affectionate of you,” said Harry; “but why do you dress
like that--why do you dress like the lady wi’ the glass slipper,
Cinderella, at the king’s ball, in the story book?”
“I should dress, you think, like Cinderella over the coal-scuttle?”
“Well, I wouldn’t set the folk a-laughing when I was in no laughing
humour myself--not that it makes much odds, and I do suppose it don’t
matter--not it.”
“It does matter something, perhaps, and perhaps nothing; but I know
who I am, and I won’t let myself down,” said she. “I don’t want to
lose myself among these people; I’ll keep myself distinct. I’m too
high to put my foot in the mud.”
“Too high to put your foot in the mud--too high to put your foot on
the pavement,” said Harry, mischievously, with his eyes on this
impulsive lady, and hitching his chair off a little to secure a fair
start. “You’ll be too high, I’m thinkin’, to get your foot to ground
at all, one o’ these days, if you don’t look sharp. It’s too high a
flight, I’m told, to touch _terra firma_ wi’ the top o’ your toe--the
gallows, I mean--and that’s what you’re coming to quick, I’m afeard.”
As Harry concluded, he stood up, intending to get out, if possible,
without the indignity of coming to hand-grips with a woman.
The Herculean lady, in sky-blue satin and Roman pearls, leaned forward
with sharpened features, but neither extended her arm nor attempted to
rise. Then she sighed deeply, and leaned with her shoulders to the
wall.
“Off in a coach for this bout,” thought Harry.
“Thank you, kind lad, always the same,” she sneered, quietly. “You
wish it, no doubt, but, no, you don’t think it. I know better.”
“Why the devil should I wish you hanged, Bertha? Don’t be a fool;
you’re not in my way, and never can be. There’s that boy, and, for
reasons of my own, I’m glad he is--I’m _glad_ he’s where he is--and
Wyvern will be for him and not for me--never!”
“Harry, dear, you know quite well,” she drawled, softly, with a
titter, “you’ll poison that boy if you can.”
“You lie!” said Harry, turning scarlet, and then as suddenly pale.
“You _lie_!--and so that’s answered.”
Here followed a silence. The woman was not angry, but she tittered
again and nodded her head.
“Wyvern’s out o’ my head. I never cared about it. I had my own
reasons. I never did,” he swore, furiously, striking his hand on the
table. “And I won’t see that boy ruined--my flesh and blood--my own
nephew. No, no, Bertha, that would never do; the boy must have his
own. I’ll see you made comfortable, but that lay won’t do--you’ll find
it won’t pay nohow.”
“Speak out, man--what do you mean?” said Bertha.
“Come, come, come, Bertha, you’re no fool,” wheedled he, “there isn’t
a sounder head from this to London; and though you be a bit
hot-headed, you’re not as bad as you’d have us believe--’taint the
worst, always, that has an o’er-hasty hand. Why, bless ye, girl, I’d
be sorry ye were hurt, and I’ll help to get ye out o’ this, without
scathe or scorn, if you’ll let me.”
“Well, come; what’s in your mind, Harry Vairfield?” she asked.
“I tell ye what it is, it can do you no good, nohow, bein’ hard on
that boy, and I know, and you know, you never were married to poor
Charlie.”
“You lie!” cried the lady, bitterly. So they were quits on the point
of honour.
“Now, Bertha, lass, come now--reason, reason; don’t you be in a hurry,
and just listen to reason, and I’ll make it better to you than fifty
marriages.”
“Don’t you think I have no advice--I’ve engaged Mr. Wynell, the best
attorney in Hatherton; I know what I’m about.”
“The better you know it, the better I’m pleased; but the lawyerfolk
likes always a bit of a row--they seldom cries kiss and be friends
until their hands be well greased, and their clients has a bellyful o’
law; therefore it’s better that friends should put their heads
together and agree before it comes to that sort o’ milling, and I tell
ye, ye shall be cared for; _I_’ll see to it, if you don’t be kickin’
up no rows about nothing.”
She laughed a quiet, scornful laugh.
“Oh ho! Master Harry, poor little fellow! he’s frightened, is he?”
“You’re damnably mistaken,” said he. “Frightened, indeed! I’ll see
whose frightened: I know there was no marriage--I _know_ it, and it
won’t do tryin’ it on me, you’ll just get yourself into the wrong box;
where’s the use of runnin’ your head into a cotton bag?”
“Cotton bag your own head. Who’s to do it?”
“They’ll be clumsy fingers that can’t tie that knot, lass. Come,
you’re a clever girl, you’re not to be talking--not like a fool. I
know everything about it. If you try that on, it will turn out bad.
’Taint easy to green Harry Fairfield; I don’t think he was ever yet
fooled by a lass but where he chose to be fooled, and it’s pretty well
allowed there’s no use trying to bully him.”
“I ought to like you, if all that be so,” said she, “for you are very
like my own self.”
“I’m not tryin’ to bully you, girl, nor to sell ye, neither; ye were
always a bit rash, and too ready wi’ your hand; but them’s not the
worst folk goin’. We Fairfields has a touch o’ it, and we shouldn’t be
o’er hard on quick-tempered folk like that. There was no lass that
ever I met, gentle or simple, that could match ye for good looks and
pleasant talk, and ye dress so beautiful, and if ye had but your eyes
this minute, you’d have who ye liked at your feet.”
And Harry Fairfield repeated this view of her charms with an oath.
“If ifs and ans were pots and pans,” repeated the lady with a sigh of
gratification, and with that foreign accent and peculiar drawl which
made the homely proverb sound particularly odd; “I forget the
end--there would be no use in tinkers, I think.”
“Well said, Bertha! but there’s none like ye, not one, this minute, so
handsome,” exclaims he.
“Not that chit down at Carwell Grange, I dare say--eh?”
“Alice! Not fit to stand behind your chair. If ye could but see her,
and just look in the glass, ye’d answer that question yourself,” he
replied.
“There it is again--_if_ I could look in the glass--it is fourteen
years since I did that--_if_ I could see that fool of a
girl--if--if--_if_!” she said, with an irrepressible simper--“the old
proverb again--ifs and ans were pots and pans--’twas old Mistress
Tarnley used to say that--a d----d old witch she always was,” she
broke out, parenthetically, “and should be broke alive on the wheel.”
“Bang away wi’ the devil’s broomstick, and break her to smash for me,”
said Harry. “But I’d sooner talk o’ yourself. Hang me, if you ever
looked better--there’s no such figure; and, by the law, it’s looking
up--it _is_--better and better every day. I like a tall lass, but ye
beat them all, by the law, and ye shows off a dress so grandly.”
“Now don’t think, foolish thing, I like compliments--in at one ear and
out of the other,” she said, with the same smirk, shaking her great
head.
“Hoot, lass! Compliments, indeed! Why should I? Only this, that
knowing you so long I just blurts out everything that comes uppermost,
and it’s a pity ye shouldn’t have money to dress as ye should.”
“I never had that,” said the lady.
“Never--I know that well--and if ye won’t be said by me, ye’ll have
less,” said Harry.
“I don’t think you know much about it,” said Bertha, serenely.
“Now, Bertha, child, you mustn’t keep contradictin’ me. I do know a
deal about it--_everything_. There was no marriage, _never_.”
“As long as Charlie lived, ye never said that--you always backed me.”
“I’m not going to tell lies for no one,” said he, sulkily.
“Not going! Why you have been lying all your life--you’d lie for a
shilling any day--all lies, you mean, miserly liar.”
“Come, Bertha, draw it mild, won’t ye? Did you never hear say o’ the
Fairfields that they were a quick-tempered folk? and it’s an old
saying, don’t knock a mad horse over the head.”
“It’s true all I said,” she laughed; “and that’s why it stings.”
“And did ye never hear that true jests breed bad blood?” he laughed.
“But no matter, I’m not a bit riled, and I won’t. I like ye better for
speaking out; I hate that mealy-mouthed talk that fine-spoken folk
goes on wi’. I likes a bit of a rub now and then; if ye were too civil
I couldn’t speak my own mind neither, and that would never do.”
“Get along with ye. Have you any more to say?”
“Shall I say it out, plain and short, and will ye hear it through?” he
asked.
“Ay.”
“Well, here it is; if ye don’t sign that, I think ye’ll be hanged.”
“No, you don’t,” she said, more quietly.
“I do, by ----,” he swore.
“No, you don’t,” she repeated, in the same tone, “who is to do it?
Charlie’s gone, and vilely as he used me, he never would have done
that; and Alice won’t, she told you so. I’m better informed, I
believe, than you fancied. So don’t you suppose I am at all anxious.”
“I wanted to take you off in a coach, and you won’t let me,” said he.
“Thanks, simple Harry,” she sneered.
“And I’m coming this day week, and then it will be within ten days o’
the ’sizes.”
“And I’ll be discharged; and I’ll bring separate actions against every
soul that had a hand in putting me here. Ask my attorney,” said the
lady, with a pale angry simper.
“And Judge Risk is coming down, and you’d better ask your attorney, as
you talk of him, whether he’s a hangin’ judge or no.”
“Cunning beast! all won’t do,” she said, sarcastically.
“Well, Bertha, this day week I’ll be here, and this day week will be
your last chance, for things will begin that day, and no one can stop
them.”
“Lord have mercy upon us!” she whined, with an ugly mockery and an
upturning of her sightless eyes.
“You may be saying something like that in the press-room yet, if you
won’t take the trouble to think in earnest before it’s too late. Now,
listen, once for all, for it’s the last words I’ll say. That’s all
true you say: Charlie’s gone, and if he was here, instead of in
kingdom come, ’twould ’a been all one, for he wouldn’t never ’a moved
a hand in the matter, nor ’a suffered it; and as for Alice, she won’t
neither. But if you don’t sign that paper by this day week, and make
no bones about it”--here he swore a hard oath--“blind as you be, I’ll
open your eyes--and I’ll prosecute the indictment myself. Good-by,
ma’am, and _think_ between this and then.”
Harry Fairfield strode from the room, and was still full of the grim
emotion which had animated the close of his interview, when he reached
the little inn at which but a few weeks before his brother Charles had
stabled his horse, when making his last visit to Hatherton.