To begin, Mrs. D----, my master's better-half, though she seldom
condescended to our house, and when engaged in her kitchen premises
affected to ignore the proximity of ours, enjoyed in Ware the
reputation of a shrewd and capable house-wife. Whether she owed this
solely to the possession of a sharp temper and voluble voice, I cannot
say; but only that during all the time I was there I scarcely ever
passed an hour in our miserable playground without my ears being
deafened and my brain irritated by the sound of her chiding. She had
the advantage, when I first came to the school, of an elderly servant,
who went about her work under an even flow of scolding, and, it may
be, had become so accustomed to the infliction as to be neither the
better nor worse for it. But about the time of which I am writing,
when, as I have said, I had been there twelve months, I remarked a
change in Mrs. D----'s voice, and judged from the increased acerbity
and rising shrillness of her tone that she had passed from drilling an
old servant to informing a new one. To confirm this theory, before
long, "Lazy slut!" and "Dirty baggage!" and "Take that, Insolence,"
were the best of the terms I heard; and these so frequently mingled
with blows and slaps, and at times with the sound of sobbing, that my
gall rose. I had listened indifferently enough, and if with
irritation, without much pain, to the chiding of the old servant; and
I knew no more of this one. But by the instinct which draws youth to
youth, or by reason of Mrs. D----'s increased severity, I began to
feel for her, to pity her, and at last to wonder what she was like,
and her age, and so forth.
Nothing more formidable than a low paling separated the garden of Mrs.
D----'s house from our yard; but that her eyes might not be offended
by the ignoble sight of the trade by which she lived, four great
water-butts were ranked along the fence, which, being as tall as a
man, and nicely arranged, and strengthened on the inner side by an
accumulation of rubbish and so forth, formed a pretty effective
screen. The boys indeed had their spyholes, and were in the habit of
peeping when I did not check them; but in only one place, at the
corner farthest from the house, was it possible to see by accident, as
it were, and without stooping or manifest prying, a small patch of the
garden. This gap in the corner I had hitherto shunned, for Mrs.
D---- had more than once sent me from it with a flea in my ear and hot
cheeks: now, however, it became a favourite with me, and as far as I
could, without courting the notice of the wretched urchins who whined
and squabbled round me, I began to frequent it; sometimes leaning
against the abutting fence with my back to the house, as in a fit of
abstraction, and then slowly turning--when I did not fail to rake the
aforesaid patch with my eyes; and sometimes taking that corner for the
limit of a brisk walk to and fro, which made it natural to pause and
wheel at that point.
Notwithstanding these ruses, however, and though Mrs. D----'s voice,
raised in anger, frequently bore witness to her neighbourhood, it was
some time before I caught a glimpse of the person, whose fate, more
doleful than mine, yet not dissimilar, had awakened my interest. At
length I espied her, slowly crossing the garden, with her back to me
and a yoke on her shoulders. Two pails hung from the yoke, I smelled
swill; and in a trice seeing in her no more than a wretched drab, in
clogs and a coarse sacking-apron, I felt my philanthropy brought to
the test; and without a second glance turned away in disgust. And
thought no more of her.
After that I took a distaste for the gap, and I do not remember that I
visited it for a week or more; when, at length, chance or custom
taking me there again, I saw the same woman hanging clothes on the
line. She had her back to me as on the former occasion; but this time
I lingered watching her, and whether she knew or not that I was there,
her work presently brought her towards the place in the fence beside
the water-barrels, at which I stood gazing. Still, I could not see her
face, in part because she did not turn my way, and more because she
wore a dirty limp sun-bonnet, which obscured her features. But I
continued to watch; and by-and-by she had finished her hanging, and
took up the empty basket to go in again; and thereon, suddenly in the
act of rising from stooping, she looked directly at me, not being more
than two, or at the most three, paces from me. It was but one look,
and it lasted, I suppose, two seconds or so; but it touched something
in me that had never been touched before, and to this time of writing,
and though I have been long married and have children, my body burns
at the remembrance of it. For not only was the face that for those two
seconds looked into mine a face of rare beauty, brown and low-browed,
with scarlet, laughing lips, and milk-white teeth, and eyes of
witchery, brighter than a queen's jewels, but in the look, short as it
was and passing, shone a something that I had never seen in a woman's
face before, a something, God knows what, appeal or passion or
temptation, that on the instant fired my blood. I suppose, nay, I know
now, that the face that flashed that look at me from under the dirty
sun-bonnet could change to a marvel; and in a minute, and as by a
miracle, become dull and almost ugly, or the most beautiful in the
world. But then, that and all such things were new to me who knew no
women, and had never spoken to a woman in the way of love nor thought
of one when her back was turned; so new, that when it was over and she
gone without a second glance, I went back to the house another man, my
heart thumping in my breast, and my cheeks burning, and my whole being
oppressed with desire and bashfulness and wonder and curiosity, and a
hundred other emotions that would not permit me to be at ease until I
had hidden myself from all eyes.
[Illustration: SHE LOOKED DIRECTLY AT ME]
Well, to be brief, that, in less than the time I have taken to tell
it, changed all. I was eighteen; the girl's shining eyes burned me up,
as flame burns stubble. In an hour, a week, a day, I can no more say
within what time than I can describe what befel me before I was
born--for if that was a sleeping, this was a dream, and passed swift
and confused as one--I was madly and desperately in love. Her face
brilliant, mischievous, alluring, rose before the thumbed grammar by
day, and the dim casement of the fetid, crowded bedroom by night, and
filled the slow, grey dawnings, now with joy and now with despair. For
the time, I thought only of her, lived for her, did my work in dreams
of her. I kept no count of time, I gave no heed to what passed round
me; but I went through the routine of my miserable life, happy as the
slave that, rich in the possession of some beneficent drug, defies the
pains of labour and the lash. I say my miserable life; but I say it,
so great was the change, in a figure only and in retrospect. Mrs.
D---- might scorn me now, and the boys squabble round me, yet that
life was no longer miserable nor dull, whereof every morning flattered
me with hopes of seeing my mistress, and every third day or so
fulfilled the promise.
With all this, and though from the moment her eyes met mine across the
fence, her beauty possessed me utterly, a full fortnight elapsed
before I spoke with her. In the interval I saw her three times, and
always in the wretched guise in which she had first appeared to me;
which, so far from checking my passion, now augmented it by the full
measure of the mystery with which the sordidness of her dress, in
contrast with her beauty, invested her in my mind. But, for speaking
with her, that was another matter, and one presenting so many
difficulties (whereof, as the boys' constant presence and Mrs. D----'s
temper were the greatest, so my bashfulness was not the least) that I
think we might have gone another fortnight, and perhaps a third to
that, and not come to it, had not a certain privilege on which Mr.
D----'s good lady greatly prided herself, come to our aid in the nick
of time, and by bringing us into the same room (a thing which had
never occurred before, and of itself threw me into a fever) combined
with fortune to aid my hopes.
This privilege--so Mrs. D---- invariably styled it--was the solemn
gathering of the household on one Sunday in each month to listen to a
discourse which, her husband sitting meekly by, she read to us from
the works of some Independent divine. On these occasions she delivered
herself so sonorously and with so much gusto, that I do not doubt she
found compensation in them for the tedium of the sermon on Passive
Obedience, or on the fate of the Amalekite, to which, in compliance
with the laws against Dissent, she had perforce listened earlier in
the day. The master and mistress and the servant sat on one side of
the room, I with the boys on the other; and hitherto I am unable to
say which of us had suffered more under the infliction. But the
appearance of my sweet martyr--so, when Madam's voice rang shrillest
and most angrily over the soapsuds, I had come to think of her--in a
place behind her master and mistress (being the same in which the old
servant had nodded and grunted every sermon evening since my coming),
put a new complexion on the matter. For her, she entered, as if
unconscious of my presence, and took her seat with downcast eyes and
hands folded, and that dull look on her face which, when she chose,
veiled three-fourths of its beauty. But my ears flamed, and the blood
surged to my head; and I thought that all must read my secret in my
face.
With Mrs. D----, however, this was the one hour in the month when the
suspicions natural in one of her carping temper, slept, and she tasted
a pleasure comparatively pure. Majestically arrayed in a huge pair of
spectacles--which on this occasion, and in the character of the family
priest, her vanity permitted and even incited her to wear--and
provided with a couple of tall tallow candles, which it was her
husband's duty to snuff, she would open the dreaded quarto and prop it
firmly on the table before her. Then, after giving out her text in a
tone that need not have disgraced Hugh Peters or the most famous
preacher of her persuasion, it was her custom to lift her eyes and
look round to assure herself that all was cringing attention; and this
was the trying moment; woe to the boy whose gaze wandered--his back
would smart for it before he slept. These preliminaries at an end,
however, and the discourse begun, the danger was over for the time;
for, in the voluptuous roll of the long wordy sentences, and the
elections and damnations, and free wills that plentifully bestrewed
them, she speedily forgot all but the sound of her own voice; and,
nothing occurring to rouse her, might be trusted to read for the hour
and half with pleasure to herself and without risk to others.
So it fell out on this occasion. As soon, therefore, as the steady
droning of her voice gave me courage to look up, I had before me the
same scene with which a dozen Sunday evenings had made me familiar;
the dull circle of yellow light; within it Madam's horn-rimmed glasses
shining over the book, while her finger industriously followed the
lines; a little behind, her husband, nodding and recovering himself by
turns. Not now was this all, however: now I saw also _imprimis_, a dim
oval face, framed in the background behind the two old people; and
that, now in shadow now in light, gleamed before my fascinated eyes
with unearthly beauty. Once or twice, fearing to be observed, I
averted my gaze and looked elsewhere; guiltily and with hot temples.
But always I returned to it again. And always, the longer I let my
eyes dwell on the vision--for a vision it seemed in the halo of the
candles--and the more monotonous hung the silence, broken only by
Mrs. D----'s even drone, the more distinctly the beautiful face stood
out, and the more bewitching and alluring appeared the red lips and
smiling eyes and dark clustering hair, that moment by moment drew my
heart from me, and kindled my ripening brain and filled my veins with
fever!
"Seventhly, and under this head, of the sin of David!"
So Mrs. D---- booming on, in her deep voice, to all seeming
endlessly; while the air of the dingy whitewashed room grew stale, and
the candles guttered and burned low, and the boys, poor little
wretches, leaned on one another's shoulders and sighed, and it was
difficult to say whether Mr. D----'s noddings or his recoveries went
nearer to breaking his neck. At last--or was it only my fancy?--I
thought I made out a small brown hand gliding within the circle of
light. Then--or was I dreaming?--one of the candles began to move; but
to move so little and so stealthily, that I could not swear to it; nor
ever could have sworn, if Mr. D----'s wig had not a moment later taken
fire with a light flame, and a stench, and a frizzling sound, that in
a second brought him, still half-asleep, but swearing, to his feet.
Mrs. D----, her mouth open, and the volume lifted, halted in the
middle of a word, and glared as if she had been shot; her surprise at
the interruption so great--and no wonder--that she could not for a
while find words. But the stream of her indignation, so checked, only
gathered volume; and in a few seconds broke forth.
"Mr. D----!" she cried, slamming the book down on the table. "You
disgusting beast! Do you know that the boys are here?"
"My wig is on fire!" he cried for answer. He had taken it off, and now
held it at arm's length, looking at it so ruefully that the boys,
though they knew the danger, could scarcely restrain their laughter.
"And serve you right for a weak-kneed member!" his wife answered in a
voice that made us quake. "If you had not guzzled at dinner, sir, and
swilled small beer you would have remained awake instead of spoiling a
good wig, and staining your soul! Ay, and causing these little
ones----"
"I never closed my eyes!" he declared, roundly.
"Rubbish!" she answered in a tone that would brook no denial. And
then, "Give the wig to Jennie, sir!" she continued, peremptorily. "And
put your handkerchief on your head. It is well that good Mr. Nesbit
does not know what language has been used during his discourse; it
would cut that excellent man to the heart. Do you hear, sir, give the
wig to Jennie!" she screamed. "A handkerchief is good enough for
profane swearers and filthy talkers! And too good! Too good, sir!"
He went reluctantly to obey, seeing nothing for it; but between his
anger and Jennie's clumsiness, the wig, in passing from one to the
other, fell under the table. This caused Mrs. D----, who was at the
end of her patience, to spring up in a rage, and down went a candle.
Nor was this the worst; for the grease in its fall cast a trail of hot
drops on her Sunday gown, and in a flash she was on the maid and had
smacked her face till the room rang.
"Take that, and that, you clumsy baggage!" she cried in a fury, her
face crimson. "And that! And the next time you offer to take a
gentleman's wig have better manners. This will cost you a year's
wages, my fine madam! and let me hear of your stepping over the
doorstep until it is earned, and I will have you jailed and whipped.
Do you hear? And you," she continued, turning ferociously on her
husband, "swearing on the Lord's day like a drunken, raffling,
God-forsaken Tantivy! You are not much better!"
It only remains in my memory now as a coarse outburst of vixenish
temper, made prominent by after events. But what I felt at the moment
I should in vain try to describe. At one time I was on the point of
springing on the woman, and at another all but caught the sobbing girl
in my arms and challenged the world to touch her.
Fortunately, Mr. D----, now fully awakened, and the more inclined to
remember decency in proportion as his wife forgot it, recalled me to
myself by sternly bidding me see the boys to their beds.
Glad to escape, they needed no second order, but flocked to the door,
and I with them. In our retreat, it was necessary for me to pass close
to the shrinking girl, whom Mrs. D---- was still abusing with all the
cruelty imaginable; as I did so I heard, or dreamed that I heard,
three words, breathed in the faintest possible whisper. I say, dreamed
I heard, for the girl neither looked at me nor removed the apron from
her face, nor by abating her sobs or any other sign betrayed that she
spoke or that she was conscious of my neighbourhood.
Yet the three words, "Garden, ten minutes," so gently breathed, that I
doubted while I heard, could only have come from her; and assured of
that, it will be believed that I found the ten minutes I spent seeing
the boys to bed by the light of one scanty rushlight the longest and
most tumultuous I ever passed. If she had not spoken I should have
found it a sorry time, indeed; since the moment the door was closed
behind me I discerned a hundred reasons to be dissatisfied with my
conduct, thought of a hundred things I should have said, and saw a
hundred things I should have done; and stood a coward convicted. Now,
however, all was not over; I might explain. I was about to see her, to
speak with her, to pour out my indignation and pity, perhaps to touch
her hand; and in the delicious throb of fear and hope and excitement
with which these anticipations filled my breast, I speedily forgot to
regret what was past.