I HAVE no patience with people who talk that kind of nonsense about
marrying for love and the like. For my part I don't know what they
mean, and I don't believe they know it themselves. It's only a sort
of fashion of talking. I never could see what there was to like in
one young man more than another, only, of course, you might favour
some more than others if they was better to do.
My cousin Mattie was different. She must set up to be in love, and
walk home from church with Jack Halibut Sunday after Sunday, the
long way round, if you please, through the meadows; and he used to
buy her scent and ribbons at the fair, and send her a big valentine
of lacepaper, and satin ribbons and things, though Lord knows where
he got the money from--honest, I hope--for he hadn't a penny to
bless himself with.
When my uncle found out all this nonsense, being a man of proper
spirit, he put his foot down, and says he--
'Mattie, my girl, I would be the last to say anything against any
young man you fancied, especially a decent chap like young Halibut,
if his prospects was anything like as good as could be expected, but
you can't pretend poor Jack's are, him being but a blacksmith's man,
and not in regular work even. Now, let's have no waterworks,' he
went on, for Mattie had got the corner of her apron up and her mouth
screwed down at the corners. 'I've known what poverty is, my girl,
and you shan't never have a taste of it with my consent.'
'I don't care how poor I be, father,' said Mattie, 'it's Jack I care
about.'
'There's a girl all over,' says uncle, for he was a sensible man in
those days. 'The bit I've put by for you, lass, it's enough for one,
but it's not enough for two. And when young Halibut can show as
much, you shall be cried in church the very next Sunday. But,
meantime, there must be no kisses, no more letters, and no more
walking home from churches. Now, you give me your word--and keep it
I know you will--like an honest girl.'
So Mattie she gave him her word, though much against her will; and
as for Jack, I suppose, man-like, he didn't care much about staying
in the village after there was a stop put to his philandering and
kissing and scent and so on. So what does he do, but he ups and offs
to America (assisted emigration) 'to make his fortune,' says he.
And never word nor sign did we hear of him for three blessed years.
Mattie was getting quite an old maid, nigh on two-and-twenty, and I
was past nineteen, when one morning there come a letter from Jack.
My father and mother were dead this long time, so I lived with uncle
and Mattie at the farm. What offers I had had is neither here nor
there. At any rate, whatever they were, they weren't good enough.
But Mattie might have been married twice over if she had liked, and
to folks that would have been quite a catch to a girl like her
getting on in years. She might have had young Bath for one, the
strawberry grower; and what if he did drink a bit of a Saturday? He
was taking his hundreds of pounds to the Bank every week in canvas
bags, as all the world knew.
But no, she must needs hanker after Jack, and that's why I say it's
such nonsense.
Well, when the letter come, I was up to my elbows in the
jam-making--raspberry and currant it was,--and Mattie, she was down
in the garden getting the last berries off the canes. My hands were
stained up above the wrist with the currant juice, so I took the
letter up by the corner of my apron and I went down the garden with
it.
'Mattie,' I calls out, 'here's a letter from that good-for-nothing
fellow of yours.'
She couldn't see me, and she thought I was chaffing her about him,
which I often did, to keep things pleasant.
'Don't tease me, Jane,' she says, 'for I do feel this morning as if
I could hardly bear myself as it is.'
And as she said it I came out through the canes close to her with
the letter in my hand. But when she see the letter she dropped the
basket with the raspberries in it (they rolled all about on the
ground right under the peony bush, for that was a silly,
old-fashioned garden, with the flowers and fruit about it anyhow),
and I had a nice business picking them up, and she threw her arms
round my neck and kissed me, and cried like the silly little thing
she was, and thanked me for bringing the letter, just as if I had
anything to do with it, or any wish or will one way or another; and
then she opened the letter, and seemed to forget all about me while
she read it.
I remember the sun was so bright on the white paper that I could
scarce see to read it over her shoulder, she not noticing me, nor
anything else, any more. It was like this--
'DEAR MATTIE,--This comes hoping to find you well, as it leaves me
at present.
'I don't bear no malice over what your father said and done, but I'm
not coming to his house.
'Now Mattie, if you have forgot me, or think more of some other
chap, don't let anything stand in the way of your letting me know it
straight and plain. But if you do remember how we used to walk from
church, and the valentine, and the piece of poetry about Cupid's
dart that I copied for you out of the poetry-book, you will come and
meet me in the little ash copse, you know where. I may be prevented
coming, for I've a lot of things to see to, and I am going to
Liverpool on Thursday, and if we are to be married you will have to
come to me there, for my business won't bear being left, and I must
get back to it. But if so I will put a note in your prayer-book in
the church. So you had best look in there on your way up on
Wednesday evening.
'I am taking this way of seeing you because I don't want there to be
any unpleasantness for you if you are tired of me or like some other
chap better.
'I mean to take a wife back with me, Mattie, for I have done well,
and can afford to keep one in better style than ever your father
kept his. Will you be her, dear? So no more at present from your
affectionate friend and lover,