TWO PARTS OF A TOKEN.
Anthony had, as his father surmised, gone to see his Aunt Magdalen. His
heart was soft within him--softened at the sense of his own
unworthiness, and with the return flow of his old love to Urith. And as
he did not desire at once to go back to Willsworthy, and at the same
time remembered that some time had elapsed since he had seen his aunt,
he went to her house. There he found his grandmother, Mistress Penwarne.
Some of the bitterness of the old woman seemed to be rubbed away.
Perhaps daily association with the gentleness of Luke Cleverdon had done
this.
She was in tears when Anthony entered. Magdalen had been talking with
her over the plan mapped out for Bessie, to the complete, final
exclusion of Anthony from return to his father's house.
"Now--now does the righteous God pay back to old Anthony Cleverdon all
the wrong he did my daughter," she said. "See--drop for drop of gall.
Where there fell one on my child's heart, his own son spirts a drop on
to his father's heart. There is retribution in this world."
"Oh, Mistress Penwarne," remonstrates Magdalen. "How can you take
delight in this?"
"I delight only in seeing justice done," answered the old woman. "You
hold with your brother--naturally--to some extent; but you never loved
my daughter. You never showed her kindness----"
"Indeed, now," interrupted Magdalen, "there you do me a wrong. It was
Margaret who would not suffer me to enter the house and be of any
consequence more in Hall, who withstood me when I would draw near to my
brother."
"She had no power to withstand any one. That you know full well. She
weighed naught with her husband. But let that be. If you sinned against
her, God is bringing the whip down on your shoulders as well, for I know
that what is now falling out is to you great pain and affliction."
"That it is indeed," sighed Magdalen.
"Anthony is used by the hand of Providence as its rod with the father;
Heaven rewards on the proud Squire of Hall every heartache, every
humiliation to which he subjected my child. You know not how I have
prayed that I might be suffered to see the day when the rod should fall
and beat and bruise the back of the offender."
"You do not reckon," said Magdalen, "that the chief suffering falls, not
on my brother, but on your daughter's son. Is not Anthony the very image
of his mother? Has he not her eyes and hair--all the upper part of his
countenance? Does not her blood run in his veins? You have desired
revenge on my brother, and you have got it through the breaking to
pieces of your own grandson."
Mistress Penwarne was silent. It was as Magdalen said.
"Yes, and whom does Bessie resemble most? She has none of the
handsomeness of your Margaret. It is true that she is her child, but she
has inherited the plain homeliness of the Cleverdons. Look at yonder
picture over the mantel-shelf. That was drawn of me when about her age.
Does she not so resemble me at that time that you would say she had
taken nothing of the Penwarnes, that she was altogether and only
Cleverdon? Yet to her will come Hall. She will be mistress there, and
to her child it will descend, to the utter exclusion of Anthony. Nay, I
cannot think that the judgment of God, to which thou appealest ever, is
falling all to thy side in its weighted scale."
The old woman was about to answer when Anthony entered. He was pale, and
his pallor reminded her of her daughter as the wan picture recalled
Bessie. Mrs. Penwarne rose from her chair and stepped up to him, took
him by both his hands, and looked him steadily in the face. As she did
so great tears formed in her eyes and rolled down her wrinkled cheeks.
"Ah!" said she, seeing in him her dead daughter, and her voice quivered,
"how hardly did the Master of Hall treat her, but Magdalen--aye, and
Bessie--know that better than thou. He was rough and cruel, and now thou
hast felt what his roughness and cruelty be--now thou canst understand
how he behaved to thy poor mother; but thou art a man and able to go
where thou wilt, fight thine own way through the world, carve for
thyself thine own future. It was not so with my poor Margaret. She was
linked to him--she could not escape, and he used his strength and
authority and wealth to beat and to torment and break her. And Margaret
had a spirit. Have you seen how a little dog is mended of lamb worrying?
It is attached to an old ram--linked to it past escape, and at every
moment the ram lets drive at the little creature with his horns, gets
him under his feet and tramples him, kneels on him and kneads him with
his knees, ripping at him all the while with his horns. Then, finally,
the little dog is detached and taken away, covered with wounds and
bruises, before the ram kills it. It was so with my Margaret, but she
was no lamb-killer--only had a high spirit--and she was tied to that
man, your father. He rent her away from Richard Malvine, whom she loved,
just because it was his pleasure, and he broke her heart. Look here."
The old grandmother drew from her bosom a token, a silver crown-piece of
Charles I., on which the King was figured mounted on horseback; but the
coin was broken, and to her neck hung but one half.
"Look at this," said Mrs. Penwarne. "Here is the half-token that Richard
Malvine gave to my daughter, and the other half he kept himself. That
was the pledge that they belonged to each other. Yet Anthony Cleverdon
of Hall would not have it so. He took her away, and on her marriage day
she gave me the broken half-token. She had no right to retain that; but
with her broken heart she could not part so readily. As if it were not
enough that he had torn her away from the man she loved, your father
left not a day to pass without ill-treating her in some way. He was
jealous, because he thought her heart still hung to Richard Malvine;
though, as God in heaven knows, she never failed in her duty to him, and
strove faithfully to cast out from her heart every thought of the man
she had loved, and to whom the Squire of Hall had made her unfaithful.
As he could not win her love, he sought to crush her by ill-treatment.
Now, O my Lord! how it must rejoice my poor Margaret, and Richard also,
in Paradise, to think that their children should come together and be
one--be one as they themselves never could be."
She ceased and sobbed. Then with shaking hands, she put the ribbon to
which the broken token depended round Anthony's neck.
"Take this," she said. "I never thought to part with it; but it of right
belongs now to thee. Take it as a pledge of thy mother's love, that her
broken heart goes with thee to Willsworthy, and finds its rest there;
and with it take my blessing."
Anthony bowed his head, and looked at the silver coin, rubbed very much,
and placed it on his breast, inside his coat.
"Thank thee, grandmother," he said. "I will cherish it as a remembrance
of my mother."
"And tell me," said she, "is it so, that thou art forever driven away
from Hall, that thy father will take thy name, even, and give it to
another, and that thou and thy children are forever to be shut off and
cast away from all lot and inheritance in the place where thy
forefathers have been?"
"It is even so," answered Anthony. "But hark!"
A horn was being blown in the street, and there was a tramp of running
feet, and voices many in excitement.
"What can be the matter?" exclaimed Magdalen, going to the window.
"Mercy on us! What must have taken place?"
Anthony ran out of the house. The street had filled; there were people
of all sorts coming out of their houses, asking news, pressing inward
toward the man with the horn. Anthony elbowed his way through the
throng.
"What is this about?" he inquired of a man he knew.
"The Duke of Monmouth has landed at Lyme in Dorsetshire. Hey! wave your
hat for Protestantism! Who'll draw the sword against Popery and
Jesuitism?"
More news was not to be got. The substance of the tidings that had just
come in was contained in the few words--the Duke has landed at Lyme;
with how many men was not known. What reception he had met with was as
yet unknown. No one could say whether the country gentry had rallied to
him--whether the militia which had been called out in expectation of his
arrival had deserted to his standard.
Anthony remained some time in the street and market-place discussing the
news. His spirits rose, his heart beat high; he longed to fly to Lyme,
and offer himself to the Duke. His excitement over, the tidings
dispelled his concern about his own future and gloomy thoughts about his
troubled home. In that home there was at the time much unrest. After he
had departed from Willsworthy, Uncle Sol Gibbs had burst into laughter.
"Ah, Urith!" said he, "I hope, maid, thy hand is not hurt. It was not a
fair hit. The lad was nettled; he thought himself first in everything,
and all at once discovered that an old fool like me, with one hand
behind my back, could beat him at every point. Your young cockerells
think that because they crow loud they are masters in the cockpit. It
disconcerts them to find themselves worsted by such as they have
despised. There, I shall bear him no grudge. I forgive him, and he will
be ashamed of himself ere ten minutes are past in which his blood has
cooled. None of us are masters of ourselves when the juices are in
ferment."
He took his niece's hand and looked at the palm; it was darkened across
it, by the stroke of the stick.
"So! he has bruised thee, Urith! That would have cracked my old skull
had it fallen athwart it, by heaven! Never mind, I kiss thee, wench, for
having saved me, and I forgive him for thy sake. Look here, Urith, don't
thou go taking it into thy noddle that all married folks agree like
turtle-doves. Did'st ever hear me sing the song about Trinity Sunday?
When bites the frost and winds are a blowing,
I do not heed and I do not care.
When 'Tony's by me--why let it be snowing,
'Tis summer time with me all the year.
The icicles they may hang on the fountain,
And frozen over the farmyard pool,
The east wind whistle upon the mountain,
No wintry gusts our love will cool.
That is courtship, Urith--summer in the midst of winter. Now listen to
matrimony--what that is:--
I shall be wed a' Trinity Sunday,
And then--adieu to my holiday!
Come frost, come snow on Trinity Monday,
Why then beginneth my winter day.
If drudge and smudge on Trinity Monday,
If wind and weather--I do not care!
If winter follows Trinity Sunday,
It can't be summer-time all the year.
That's the proper way to regard it. After marriage storms always come;
after matrimony nipping frosts and wintry gales. It can't be summer-time
all the year. Now just see," continued Uncle Sol, climbing upon the
table and seating himself thereon, and then fumbling in his pocket.
"Dos't fancy it was ever summer-time with thy father and mother after
they were wed? Not a bit, wench--not a bit. They had their quarrels. I
don't say that they were exactly of the same sort as be yours, but they
were every whit as bad--aye! and worse, and all about this." He opened
his hand and showed a broken silver crown piece of Charles I.,
perforated, and with a ribbon holding it. "I'll tell thee all about it.
Afore thy father was like to be married to my sister, he was mighty
taken in love with someone else. Well, Urith, I won't conceal it from
thee--it was with Margaret Penwarne, that afterward married old Squire
Cleverdon, and became the mother of thy Anthony. Everyone said they
would make a pair, but he was poor and she had naught, and none can
build their nest out of love; so it was put off. But I suppose they had
passed their word to each other, and in token of good faith had broken a
silver crown and parted it between them. This half," said Uncle Sol,
"belonged to thy father. Well, I reckon he ought, when he married thy
mother, to have put away from his thoughts the very memory of Margaret
Cleverdon. I could not see into his heart--I cannot say what was there.
Maybe he had ceased to think of her after she was wed to Anthony
Cleverdon, and he had taken thy mother; maybe he had not. All men have
their little failings--some one way, some another. Mine is--well, you
know it, niece, so let it pass. I hurt none but myself. But thy father
never parted with the broken half-token, but would keep it. Many words
passed between them over it, and the more angry thy mother was, the more
obstinate became thy father. One day they were terrible bad--a regular
storm it was, Urith. Then I took down my single-stick, and I went up to
Richard, and said I to him, 'Dick, thou art in the wrong. Give me up the
half-token, or, by the Lord, I'll lay thy head open for thee!' He knew
me, and that I was a man of my word. He considered a moment, and then he
put it into my hand--on one condition, that I should never give it to my
sister. I swore to that, and we shook hands, and so peace was made for
the time. There"----said the old man, descending from the table. "I will
give thee the half-token, maid, for my oath does not hold me now. Thine
it shall be; and when thou wearest it, or holdest it, think on
this--that there is no married life without storms and vexations, and
that the only way in which peace is to be gotten is for the one in the
wrong to give up to the other."
He put the half-token into Urith's hand.
She received it without a word, and held it in her bruised palm. Her
face was lowering, and she mused, looking at the coin.
Yes, he who is in the wrong must abandon his wrongful way--give up what
offended the other. What had she to yield? Nothing. She had done her
utmost to retain Anthony's love. She had not been false to him by a
moment's thought. She had striven against her own nature to fit herself
to be his companion. She loved him--she loved him with her whole soul;
and yet she hated him--hated him because he had slighted and neglected
her at the Cakes, because he was suffering himself to be lured from her
by Julian, because he was dissatisfied with his house, resented against
her his quarrel with his father. She could hardly discriminate between
her love and her hate. One merged into the other, or grew out of the
other.
"Come!" said the old man, looking about for his hat. "By the Lord! the
boy has gone off with my wet cap. Well, I shall wear his, I cannot tarry
here. I will go seek out my friend Cudlip at the Hare and Hounds. I
shall not be late, but I want to hear news. There is a wind that the
Duke of Monmouth has set sail from the Lowlands. The militia have been
called out and the trainbands gathered. Come, Urith, do not look so
grave. Brighten up with some of the humours of the maid who sang of
winter on Trinity Monday. It cannot be summer-time all the year--why,
neither can it be winter."
Then he swung out of the house trolling:--
So let not this pair be despised,
That man is but part of himself;
A man without woman's a beggar,
If he have the whole world full of wealth,
A man without woman's a beggar,
Tho' he of the world were possessed,
But a beggar that has a good woman,
With more than the world is he blessed.