IN THE PORCH.
The marriage had taken place; the banns were no further opposed. Old
Cleverdon, indeed, sought a lawyer's advice; but found he could do
nothing to prevent it. Anthony was of age, and his own master. The only
control over him he could exercise was through the strings of the purse.
The threads of filial love and obedience must have been slender, they
had snapped so lightly. But the Squire had never regarded them much, he
had considered the others tough to resist any strain--strong to hold--in
the wildest mood.
He was not only incensed because Anthony defied him, but because the
defiance had been open and successful. He had proclaimed his disapproval
of the match by forbidding the banns before the entire parish;
consequently, his defeat was public.
Urith had been carried, as by a whirlwind, out of one position into
another, without having had time to consider how great the change must
necessarily be. She had, in her girlhood, hardly thought of marriage.
Following her own will, independent, she had not pictured to herself
that condition as invested with any charm which must bring upon her some
sort of vassalage--a state in which her will must be subordinate to that
of another.
The surroundings were the same: she had spent all her days since infancy
in that quaint old thatched manor-house; looked out on the world through
those windows; seen what of the world came there flow in through the
same doors; had sat at the same table, on the same chairs; heard the
tick-tick of the same clock; listened to the same voices--of Uncle Sol
and the old family maid. The externals were the same; but her whole
inner life had assumed a new purpose and direction.
She could think, at first, of nothing save her happiness. That rough
home was suddenly invested with beauty and fragrance, as though in a
night jessamine and rose had sprung up around it, covered its walls,
and were breathing their fragrance through the windows.
The course of her life had not been altered, broken by a leap and fall,
but had expanded, because fuller, and at the same time deeper.
Now and then there came a qualm over her conscience at the thought of
her mother. She had defied her last wishes, and her marriage had
followed on the burial with indecent haste, but in the dazzle of
sunshine in which she walked the motes that danced before her served but
to intensify the brilliance of the light.
Summer was advancing. The raw winds of early spring were over, and the
east wind when it came down off the moor was no longer edged as a razor,
but sheathed in velvet. The world was blooming along with her heart, not
with a lone flower here and there, but with exuberance of life and
beauty.
Her mother had kept but a single domestic servant, a woman who had been
with her for many years, and this woman remained on. A charwoman came
for the day, not regularly, but as frequently as she could.
The circumstances of the Malvines had been so bad that they could not
afford a large household. Mistress Malvine had helped as much as she was
able, and Urith, now that she was left mistress, and had introduced
another inmate into the house, was called on to consider whether she
would help in the domestic work, or keep another servant. She wisely
resolved to lend a hand herself, and defer the enlargement of the
household till the farm paid better than it did at present. That it
would be doubled in value under prudent management, neither she nor
Anthony doubted.
She believed his assurances, and his assurances were well-grounded. To
make it possible to double its value, however, one thing was wanted,
which was not available--capital, to buy sheep and cattle.
Anthony attacked the task with great energy. He knew exactly what was
wanted, and he had great physical strength, which he did not spare.
Some of the walls of moonstone--uncemented, unbound together by mortar,
piled one on another, and maintaining their place by their own
weight--had fallen, and presented gaps through which the moor-ponies
and cattle invaded the fields, and their own beasts escaped.
Anthony set to work to rebuild these places. The stones were there, but
prostrate, and, through long neglect, overgrown with moss, and embedded
in the soil. Urith brought out her knitting and sat on a stone by him,
as he worked, in the sun and sweet air. Never had Urith been so
happy--never Anthony so joyous. Never before had Urith cared about the
preparation of a meal, and never before had Anthony so enjoyed his food.
They were like children--careless of the morrow, laughing, and in
cloudless merriment. The old servant, who had grumbled and shaken her
head over the precipitate marriage of Urith, was carried away by the
joyousness of the young couple, unbent, smiled, and forgave the
indiscretion.
They received visitors--not many, but some. Urith and her mother had had
few acquaintances, and these came to wish the young couple happiness.
Those of old Cleverdon kept aloof, or came hesitatingly: they were
unwilling to break with the rich father for the sake of the son out of
favour. Luke made his formal call. He came seldom; he had not
sufficiently conquered his own heart to be able to look on upon the
happiness of his cousin and Urith without a pang. When, a month after
the wedding, he met Anthony one day, the latter flew out somewhat hotly
in complaint of the neglect with which he had been treated.
"I suppose you also, Cousin Luke, are hedging, and trying to make
friends with my father by showing me the cold shoulder."
"You say this!" exclaimed Luke, in pained surprise.
"You have rarely been to see me since my marriage. I hardly know what is
going on in the world outside our boundary-walls. But it does not
matter--I have a world of work, and of content within."
Luke made no reply.
"There is Bessie, too--I thought better of her--she has not been over to
us. I suppose she knows on which side her bread is buttered."
"There you wrong her," answered Luke, hotly. "You little have understood
and valued Bessie's generous, unselfish, loving heart, if you can say
such a word as that of her."
"Then why has she not been near me?"
"Because she has been forbidden by your father. You know, if you have
any grace in you, Anthony, that this prohibition troubles her, and costs
her more tears and heartaches than you."
"She should disobey in this matter. I see neither reason nor religion in
blind obedience to irrational commands."
"She may serve your interests better by submission. You may be well
assured that your welfare is at her heart; and that she seeks in every
way to bend your father's stubborn will, and bring him to a
reconciliation with you."
"By the Lord, Luke!" exclaimed Anthony, "I wish you would take Bessie
yourself. She would make an admirable parson's wife."
Luke paused a moment before he replied, then he answered, in a
constrained voice, coldly: "Anthony, in such matters I follow my own
impulse, and not the directions of others. You speak thinking only of
yourself, and your wish to be able once more to see your sister makes
you suggest what might be distasteful to her and unsuitable to me."
"There, there, it was a joke," said Anthony. "Excuse me if I be a little
fretted by separation from Bessie. She would be of the greatest possible
assistance to Urith, and Urith has no one----"
"There is still one course open to you, which may lead to
reconciliation," said Luke.
"And that----?"
"Is to go to Hall and see your father. Try what effect that has on him.
It cannot make matters worse, and it may make them better."
"Oh, repeat the story of the Prodigal Son! But I am not a prodigal. I
feel no repentance. I cannot say, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven
and against thee--make me as one of thy hired servants.' I cannot say
what I do not feel. It is he who has transgressed against me."
"And you expect him to come to you, beating his breast; and then you
will kill the fatted calf and embrace and forgive him?"
Anthony laughed, with a heightened colour. "Not so, exactly; but--it
will all come right in the end. He can't hold out, and in the end must
take me back into favour. To whom else could he leave Hall?"
One market day Anthony and Urith were in Tavistock. Every one was there
that he knew; market was attended by all the gentry, the farmers, and
tradespeople of the country side; by all who had goods to sell or wanted
to buy, and by such as wanted to, or were able to do, neither one the
other, but who could exchange news and eat and drink at the ordinary,
and perhaps thereat get drunk.
Urith rode to market on pillion behind Anthony, holding to the leather
belt about his waist. The day was bright, and as they rode, he turned
his head over his shoulder and spoke to her, and she answered him. They
were as children full of mirth, only one little cloud on the horizon of
each--on that of Anthony the lack of warmth with which his old
acquaintance greeted him, a matter that vexed him more than did the
estrangement from his father; on that of Urith, the consciousness that
she had disobeyed her mother's last wishes; but in the great splendor of
their present happiness these little clouds were disregarded.
In Urith's bosom was a rose--the first rose of summer--that Anthony had
picked, and he had himself fastened in with a pin to her bodice, and she
had kissed his head as he was engaged thereon.
The day was not that of ordinary market; it was the Whitsun fair as
well; and, as Anthony approached Tavistock, numbers of holiday makers
were overtaken, or overtook him, on his way to the town. The church
bells were ringing, for there was Divine Service on such festival days,
and this was usually attended by all the women who came to fair, whilst
their husbands saw to the putting away of their horses, saving only such
as had wares for sale, and these occupied themselves during worship with
their stalls, if they had them; if not, with spreading their goods on
the ground in such advantageous manner as best to attract purchasers.
"You will come to me to the church porch, Tony!" said Urith, as she
dismounted. "In the crowd we may miss each other, and I shall like to go
on your arm."
So it was agreed, and Urith entered the church. This, a fine four-aisled
building, was in ancient times, as it is now, the parish church; it
stood in the shadow of the mighty Minster of the Abbey, dwarfed by it, a
stately pile, second only in size in the county to the Cathedral Church
of Exeter. Ruins of it remained at the time of this tale, tall pillars
and arches, and the main road from Plymouth had, out of wilful
wickedness, been run, in the days of the commonwealth, up what had been
the nave, and the east end torn down, so that market could be held in
the desecrated House of God, under the partial shelter of the vaulted
aisles. All is now gone, quarried away to supply every man with stone
who desired to rebuild his house; most of it removed for the
construction of the stately mansion of the Earls of Bedford, who were
possessed of the Abbey property.[5]
"What--you here! So we see you again?" exclaimed Fox, as Anthony
dismounted in the inn-yard. Fox Crymes held forth his hand, and it was
warmly grasped by Anthony, who at once looked at his eye. Crymes had
discontinued the bandage, but all did not seem right with the orb. "I
can see with it," said the latter, observing the look of Anthony, "but
with a cloud; that, I fear, will ever hang there."
"You know that I would pluck out one of my own eyes and give it you,"
said Anthony, with sincerity and emotion. "I shall never forget that
unhappy blow."
"Nor I," answered Crymes, dryly.
"Is your sister here?" asked Anthony.
"Yes--in the church. By the way, Tony, how is it that we never see you
at the Hare and Hounds? Does not the apron-string extend so far? Or are
your legs so clogged with the honey in the pot into which you are
dipping for you to be able to crawl so far?"
"Oh, you will see me there some day; but now I am too hard-worked. All
Sol Gibbs's muddles to mend, you understand, and neglects to be made up
for. I work like a slave?"
"How about your father? Any nearer a reconciliation?" There was a leer
in Fox's eye as he asked this.
Anthony shrugged his shoulders.
"I must be off," said he.
"Where to?"
"To the porch. I promised Urith to meet her there."
"Oh! she is pulling at the apron-string. Let me not detain you."
Anthony walked away. He was annoyed. It was absurd, preposterous of Fox
to speak to him as if he were in subjection to his wife. The words of
Fox left an uneasy feeling in his breast, as if it had been touched by a
nettle, a tingle, a sting, nothing to signify--but a perceptible
discomfort.
He reached the church-porch as Urith and Julian were leaving the church,
and he arrived at a critical moment.
That morning before leaving Willsworthy, Urith had taken her gloves to
draw them on, when she found them stuck together with some adhesive
matter. On pulling them over she found that the palms and fingers were
covered with pitch. It then occurred to her that she had laid her hands
on some rails that been recently blackened with pitch to preserve them
from decay, by her husband and that it was not dry as she had supposed.
The gloves were spoiled--she could not wear them. She was not possessed
of another pair, and could not ride to Tavistock with hands uncovered.
Her eyes fell on the pair that had belonged to Julian, and which had
been cast at her in defiance. After hesitating for a moment, she drew
these on, and resolved to purchase herself fresh gloves in the fair.
On reaching church, she drew off her gloves, and laid them across the
rail of the pew.
Julian Crymes was near, in the Kilworthy pew--that belonging to the
Glanvilles, as did the pew in Peter Tavy Church also, attached to
another house owned by the family in that parish.
Urith did not give her gloves a thought till she saw Julian's eyes fixed
on them, and caught a dark glance from her.
Then she coloured, conscious of the mistake she had made, but recovered
herself immediately. She had won in the match--a fair one, and had
carried off the stakes. A sense of elation came upon her, she held up
her head, and returned Julian's look with one of haughty triumph. She
saw Julian's colour darken, and her lips tremble; a passage of arms took
place in the church, the weapons being but glances of sharp eyes.
What was played and sung neither considered, each was engaged on her
own thoughts. Elated Urith was--happiness fills the heart with pride.
She--she whom no one hitherto had regarded, had wrested away the great
prize against tremendous odds--Julian's beauty, family position, wealth,
and the weight of his own father's advocacy. For her sake he had thrown
away everything that others esteemed. She had cause to be proud--reason
to feel her heart swell with the sense of victory: and who that has won
a victory does not desire a public triumph?
No sooner was service over, than Urith, with a little ostentation, drew
on the gloves, then took the rose Anthony had pinned to her stomacher,
and looking fixedly at Julian, loosened it, pressed it to her lips, and
replaced it. Her rival read in the act the very thoughts of her heart.
That rose which had been given her was the pledge of Anthony's love.
Julian panted with anger. It was well for her that none was in the pew
by her to notice her emotion. At the last Amen she flung open the door,
and stepped out into the aisle, at the same moment as Urith, and both
made their way to the porch, side by side, without a look at each other.
They passed through the doorway together, and saw Anthony standing
there.
Instantly--the whole thing was done so quickly as to escape Anthony's
notice--Julian turned with flashing eye on Urith, plucked the rose from
her bosom, pressed it to her own lips, then threw it on the ground and
crushed it under her foot.
There was no time--that was no place for retaliation. Urith's blood
rushed to her heart; then she caught her husband's arm, and with him
walked away.
All that day a sense of alarm and unrest troubled her. Julian had
renewed her defiance; had threatened both her and Anthony. Would this
threat be as vain as her former defiance? Urith swallowed her fears,
scorned to entertain them--but the sting remained.
In the evening, when about to start on her return, when his horse was
ready--"You must wait for me a moment, Tony," she said, and hurried back
to the porch.
The rose, trampled out of shape, trodden on by many feet, lay there,
soiled and petalless.
If Julian were to snatch him away, were to cast him down under foot and
crush him--what would she do? Would she wear him again? Would she stoop
to him?
She stood in the grey, cool porch, looking at the battered flower. Then
she bent, picked up the rose, and hid it in her bosom.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] Now the Bedford Inn.