Daniel Chaffey stood poised on a step-ladder nailing up the fine Gloire
de Dijon rose which was trailed over the wall of his house. He had
already performed the same operation for the jessamine which grew over
the porch and for the purple clematis on the right of it. He had tied
his dahlias so tightly and firmly to a variety of newly cut stakes,
that each individual scarlet bloom reminded one in some measure of a
choleric old gentleman suffering from a tight and high shirt-collar.
He had scraped the little path till the cobble-stones of which it was
composed stood revealed each almost in its entirety. From his exalted
position he could survey the whole frontage of his own roof--a sight
in which an artist would have revelled, for not only was the thatch
itself mellowed by time and weather to the most exquisite variety of
tones, but on its mouldering surface had sprung up a multitude of
blooms, vying in brightness with those of the garden beneath--not
merely your common everyday mosses and lichens, though patches of these
were to be found in every shade of emerald and topaz and silver, but
flowers, real flowers, seemed to thrive there; saxifrages, toad-flax,
snap-dragon, and, just where the bedroom gable jutted out, a flaming
bunch of poppies. It will be seen from this that Daniel Chaffey’s
house was an old one; it bore a date over the door, cut roughly in
the weather-beaten stone--1701. It had mullioned windows with diamond
panes, and an oaken door studded with nails. It had indeed once
been the village schoolhouse, though the Chaffey family had been in
possession of it now for many generations, and had farmed, more or less
successfully, the small holding attached to it.
Daniel, himself, looked prosperous enough as he stood hammering and
whistling, and occasionally pausing with his head on one side, and his
mouth screwed up but emitting no sound, to survey his handiwork. He
was a bullet-headed young man of about four or five-and-twenty, with
twinkling blue eyes, and a face, the natural ruddy tone of which was
overlaid by such a fine veneer of sunburn that it was now of a uniform
brick-colour. His expression was jovial, not to say jocular; his mouth
wore an habitual grin when it was not whistling, and on this particular
occasion some inward source of jollity appeared to entertain him, for
he not only frequently chuckled but winked to himself.
Having inserted the last tack into the crumbling wall, he paused,
removing his hat and scratching his head meditatively; for the first
time his face wore a somewhat serious, not to say puzzled expression,
and his eyes travelled dubiously over the flaunting array of blossoming
weeds on the roof.
“I wonder,” quoth Daniel to himself, “if ’twould look better if I was
to scrape out them there. Maybe the thatch wouldn’t hold together,
though--it’s a-been agrowed over sich a-many year, I d’ ’low I’ll let
’em bide--they do look well enough where they be.”
And, after coming to this decision, he was preparing to descend from
the ladder when he was suddenly hailed by a chorus of voices from the
lane on the other side of his garden-hedge.
“Hello, Dan’l!”--“Hallo, old cock!”--“Well, bwoy, bist getten’ all to
rights afore weddin’?”
Daniel put on his hat and turned slowly round on his rung.
“E-es,” he said, grinning sheepishly, “that’s about it. The job’s to be
done the day arter to-morrow.”
A party of young men had halted just outside his little gate; it was
Saturday and, though only five o’clock, their field-work was over
and they were now on their way to the allotments; a rough, sunburnt,
merry-looking group, most of them bearing the marks of the day’s toil
on heated face and earth-stained apparel; one or two of them with spade
and fork on shoulder, others with dangling empty sacks. September
was drawing to a close and potato-getting was in full swing. It was
observable that as they addressed Chaffey, each man assumed a knowing
and jocular air; this one nudged his neighbour, that one winked at
Daniel himself.
“You’m to be called home for last time to-morrow, bain’t ye, Dan’l?”
inquired Abel Bolt, elbowing himself to the front.
“E-es,” responded Daniel, “we be to be called last time to-morrow an’
tied-up o’ Monday.”
Abel threw back his head and laughed uproariously.
“I should like to come to your weddin’, Dan!” he cried ecstatically, “I
d’ ’low I should.”
“Ye won’t, though,” retorted Chaffey. “Ye’ll be jist in the thick o’
your ploughin’--I thought o’ that. I axed the Reverend to fix time
a-purpose. No, we’ll be wed on the quiet, Phœbe an’ me--I settled that.”
“There, ’tis real ill-natured o’ you, Dan,” cried one of the youths,
looking archly at his comrades. “Sich a pretty sight as ’twill be. Sure
it will! And your missus, sich a beauty!”
“Haw, haw, haw!” came the chorus again.
“Her eyes, now,” giggled Abel, “’twill be sich a convenience for the
man to have a missus what can keep one eye on the dinner an’ t’other on
the garden.”
“An’ her figure,” said Jarge Vacher, “did ye have to make the gate
anyways larger, Dan?”
“No, there’d be no need for that,” returned Abel, before Daniel could
open his mouth. “The woman could get in very nicely sideways, more
pertick’ler since she can see all round her like.”
Chaffey’s complexion had been gradually deepening from crimson to
purple, and from purple to a fine rich mahogany, his smile had widened
to an extent that was positively painful, but he spoke with unimpaired
good humour.
“Neighbours, you may laugh, but I do know what I’m about. I do know
very well Phœbe Cosser bain’t a beauty, but she’s good, and I d’ ’low
she’ll make I comfortable--an’ that’s the main p’int to look to. She
mid be a bit older nor what I be----”
Here the irreverent group in the road began to nudge each other and
chuckle afresh; Chaffey sat down suddenly on the top of his ladder.
“What I d’ say, neighbours, is,” he began, “what my notion be--if ye’d
give over sniggering for a moment,” he cried with gathering ire, “I
could make it plain to ye.”
But they wouldn’t give over; the merriment increased instead of
diminishing, and at last Daniel, exclaiming that he would be dalled if
he stood it any longer, leaped to the ground, and, dashing into his
house, bolted the door behind him.
His friends, trooping into the little garden, serenaded him with a
ballad which they thought suitable to his case, and having goaded him
into declaring he would come out in a minute and break their heads for
them, withdrew in good order and pursued their interrupted course to
the allotments.
Daniel waited until the last heavy footfall had died away, the last
battered hat brim disappeared, and then came forth with a vengeful
expression on his usually good-tempered face. He picked up the hammer
and nails which he had scattered in his flight, shouldered his ladder
and carried it round to the little shed in the rear, and then came back
slowly to resume his labours in the garden.
“She be a good ’un,” he muttered to himself, “let ’em say what they
like, she be.”
He paused to uplift and secure a tuft of golden rod which had fallen
across the path.
“I never did take so mich notice of her eyes,” he said to himself.
“They bain’t so crooked as that comes to--they can see well enough, and
that’s the p’int.”
He plucked out a tuft of groundsel which had hitherto escaped his
vigilant eye.
“There’s nothin’ so much amiss wi’ her shape neither--I d’ ’low I’d
sooner have a nice little comfortable round-about woman nor a great
gawky faymale like a zowel or a speaker. If she’s pluffy, she’s sprack,
an’ that’s the p’int.”
Whenever Daniel uttered this last phrase he seemed to pluck up courage,
and a momentary cheerfulness returned to his face, which, nevertheless,
speedily became overcast again. Dall it all, he thought, why couldn’t
folks keep their tongues quiet. What was it to them what kind of missus
Daniel chose, that they must come tormenting and ballyragging him? He
didn’t meddle wi’ nobody, and didn’t want nobody to meddle wi’ he, but
there, even the lord’s roughrider stopped him on the road to deliver,
as his opinion, that he, Daniel, had chosen a plain-headed one. Old
Mrs. Inkpen of the shop had laughed at him for marrying a woman so many
years older than himself. Well, she’d be all the more sensible.
“Let ’em laugh if they do have a mind to; it’ll not hurt Phœbe and I.
We’ll soon show ’em who’s in the right.”
And with that, he heaved a sigh and went indoors.
Next day he went to call for Phœbe, whom he had promised to escort to
afternoon church. She stood awaiting him in her own doorway, which she
filled up pretty well it must be owned--a little ball of a woman with
the ugliest, merriest face it was possible to conceive. She wore a
very fine purple hat with a feather in the middle and two red roses on
each side, and this arrangement of headgear seemed to accentuate the
somewhat roving propensities of her eyes. Pinned to her jacket was a
bunch of natural roses that vied with these in hue, and in one stout
hand she waved a posy, similar in colour and almost equal in size,
which was intended for her swain.
At sight of her bright face Daniel forgot all his troubles, and after
bestowing a sounding salute on her hard red cheek, stood straight and
stiff to be decorated, then, “Come along, my dear,” said he, and they
set forth arm-in-crook, entirely satisfied with each other.
Nevertheless, as they walked through the churchyard, Daniel was
conscious of a dawning sense of discomfort, for was not that Abel
Bolt who stood under the yew tree, and who stepped aside with such
exaggerated deference to let them pass? Even his hat seemed to Daniel
to be cocked with a sarcastic air. Martha Hansford and Freza Pitcher
nudged each other as Phœbe preceded him up the church--he was almost
sure he saw Martha spread out her hands in allusion to Phœbe’s figure,
which certainly looked particularly ample in her thick cloth jacket. To
increase his uneasiness Jarge Vacher took up his position immediately
behind him. It must be owned that this proximity was seriously
detrimental to poor Daniel’s devotions. When Phœbe found the place for
him and invited him to sing out of her own hymn-book he heard a choking
sound in his rear, which he knew proceeded from Jarge. As he stole a
cautious glance round he observed that the eyes of more than one member
of the congregation were directed towards him and the unconscious
Phœbe, who happened to be in particularly fine voice and was singing
away with entire satisfaction. Daniel fidgeted and reddened and grew
more and more wrathful. He couldn’t see anything to laugh at, not
he. The maid was right to sing out, and to be a bit more tender than
usual to the man who, before twenty-four hours were out, would be her
husband. Yes, it would be all over by this time to-morrow--that was one
comfort; and it was a mercy he had fixed an early hour; none of these
impudent chaps would be there to dather him.
At the conclusion of the service he started up and hurried from the
church with what seemed to Phœbe, as she waddled in his wake, unseemly
haste. Indeed they very nearly had their first serious “miff” on the
subject. However, once out of sight of the mockers, and wandering with
his sweetheart in the quiet lanes, where the hedgerows were all ablaze
with scarlet berries, and primrose and amber leaves made little points
of light here and there amid the more sober September green, he forgot
his discomfiture.
“We be like to have a hard winter,” said Phœbe, as they paused to look
over the first gate in the prescribed fashion of rustic lovers.
“I don’t care,” returned Daniel, gazing at her amourously from beneath
his tilted hat. “I’ve got a snug little place of my own and a missus to
make me comfortable. It may snow for all as I do care.”
Alas for Daniel! His jubilation was short-lived. Early on the morrow
he was up and doing, putting the final touches to his preparations for
welcoming his bride, and he set forth in good time to join the wedding
party, whom he found ready and waiting for him, sitting stiffly in
a row in the parlour. Mr. Cosser, magnificent in broadcloth and his
father’s deerskin waistcoat; Mrs. Cosser in a violet gown and a Paisley
shawl; Dick Cosser, Phœbe’s younger brother, in a suit of checks that
would set an æsthetic person’s teeth on edge; Phœbe herself in a
crimson silk with a white hat and a fluffy tippet, over which her eyes
twinkled with most uncanny effect. Daniel privately thought she looked
very well, and extended his arm to his future mother-in-law, with a
bosom swelling with pride. Mr. Cosser had already preceded them with
Phœbe, and Dick brought up the rear with his cousin Mary Ann, a tall
maid of sixteen, who had an unusual capacity for giggling; these two
were to officiate respectively as best man and bridesmaid. Daniel’s
parents had long been dead, and most of his relations scattered, but
his married sister who lived at some little distance, had promised to
drive over and meet them at the church. She and her husband and their
three or four olive-branches were, in fact, already installed in one of
the front pews when the little procession arrived; the clergyman was in
readiness, and the ceremony began without delay.
All went well at first; Phœbe was jubilant and extremely audible in her
replies, Daniel gruff and sheepish as it behoved a rustic bridegroom to
be, but just as the Rector uplifting his voice inquired “Dost thou take
this woman to be thy wedded wife?” a certain scuffling sound was heard
at the further end of the church, and the half-made husband might have
been seen to start and falter. “Daniel, wilt thou have this woman to be
thy wedded wife?” repeated the Rector sternly.
Suppressed titters were heard, not only from the direction of the
porch, but actually from the aisles. For the life of him, Daniel could
not resist turning his head right and left with an anguished gaze.
Horror! There was Abel Bolt peering from behind one pillar, and surely
that was Jarge’s impudent face grinning at him from the opposite side.
The Rector glared through his spectacles and uplifted his voice yet
more.
“Daniel!” he cried emphatically, “wilt thou have this woman to be thy
wedded wife?”
The best man cleared his throat warningly, and the bride turning a
reproachful glance somewhere in the direction of the west window,
nudged him with her elbow.
“Speak up!” she whispered. This was the last straw.
Hardly knowing what he did, Daniel started away from her, and whisking
round charged through the bridal party, down the nave, thrust aside the
knot of gaping onlookers in the porch, descended the flight of steps
apparently with one stride, and bounding over the lychgate fled into
the fields on the opposite side of the road.
Phœbe, with a stifled shriek, hastened after him with all the speed
that her distress of mind and amplitude of person would admit of, but
was almost knocked over by her brother Dick, who had started in hot
pursuit of the fugitive. Mary Ann, not to be outdone, gallopaded in the
rear, and Mr. Cosser with muttered threats of vengeance hobbled in her
wake at a considerable distance.
“Yoicks! Gone away!” shouted Abel Bolt, tumbling out of the church
followed by Jarge and the whole of the idle crew who had brought
about the catastrophe. In another minute, the whole party joined in
the chase, and the church was left entirely deserted except for the
astonished and scandalised Rector, his clerk and poor old Mrs. Cosser,
who remained dissolved in tears in the front bench. Even Daniel’s own
relations had joined in pursuit, his sister announcing breathlessly, as
she hastened forth, that he must have gone out of his mind.
Meanwhile the fugitive, in spite of the tightness of his wedding boots
and the stiffness of his new clothes, careered across country, with
almost incredible speed. Now his blue-coated form might be seen leaping
a hedge, now scudding over a stretch of pasture. Dick, the best man,
was the nearest to him, family pride lending wings to his long legs,
but even he was soon distanced, and by the time he had reached the
second bank and forced his way through the thorns and briars which
topped it, the runaway bridegroom was nowhere to be seen. Dick was at
fault, and though when the rest of the pursuers came up they scoured
the fields, and “drew” the thickets, and hunted up and down by the
banks, and even searched the willow-bed by the river, no trace of the
fugitive was to be found. Phœbe had come to a standstill in the midst
of the third field, where her father presently joined her. They stood
panting opposite each other for a moment or two, after which Phœbe,
unfolding a lace-bordered handkerchief, wiped her brow; then restoring
it to her pocket, she remarked in a tone of conviction:
“I d’ ’low he’ve a-changed his mind.”
“Looks like it,” returned her parent shortly. “Ye can have the law on
him for this.”
“That wouldn’t be much comfort to I,” she retorted.
“What be goin’ to do then?”
“I d’ ’low I’ll go home-along,” said the forsaken bride with decision.
“There bain’t no use in standin’ here for the folks to gawk at, an’ I
mid just so well take up one o’ they fowls. I shouldn’t think any o’
Dan’l’s folks ’ud want to show their faces at our place.”
“I d’ ’low they won’t,” returned Mr. Cosser in a menacing tone, as
though who should say, “they’d better not!”
“Let’s be steppin’ then,” said Phœbe. “You’d best look in at church and
fetch mother. I’ll make haste home.”
“That there Dan’l o’ yourn be a reg’lar rascal!” shouted her father.
Phœbe, who had already proceeded some paces on her way, turned her head
and called back over her shoulder: “I can’t say as how he’ve acted so
very well!” Then she went on again.
When the baffled hunting party finally gave up the chase and returned
to Cosser’s, partly with the hope of being commended for their zeal,
which they felt must have atoned for all previous errors, partly to
see how the forsaken bride bore herself, they found that damsel in her
working dress, “salting down” a fine piece of beef.
“There’ll be a terr’ble lot o’ waste over this ’ere job,” she remarked,
“but we must do our best to save all what we can.”
“We couldn’t find en nowheres, Phœbe,” cried Dick. “Abel here d’ say
he’s very like drownded; serve en right if he be.”
Phœbe paused in her labours to cast a reflective glance at the horizon.
“I’ll go warrant he bain’t drownded,” she said. “He don’t want to marry
I, that’s what ’tis. He wouldn’t ha’ married I a bit the more if you’d
ha’ catched en.”
“But what’s the meanin’ of it,” thundered Mr. Cosser from his corner,
“what’s the meanin’ on’t, I want to know. He did seem to know his own
mind afore--very well he did.”
“I think he was gallied like,” said Phœbe. “E-es, I d’ ’low that’s what
he wer’.”
Abel and Jarge began to edge away from the group, but Phœbe went on
without seeming to notice them.
“When Parson did ax en the question straight-out like, I d’ ’low he
felt ’fraid. That’s what ’twas, he was ’fraid.”
Withdrawing her gaze from the distant hills and heaving a gentle sigh
she carried away her beef; and as there was no indication that any
outsider was expected to join the family circle, or indeed to partake
of any refreshment, the bystanders walked slowly away, and the Cosser
family proceeded gloomily to divest themselves of their holiday clothes.
It was quite dark when Daniel rose from his cramped and exceedingly
moist hiding-place in the sedges by the river, and slowly betook
himself homewards. During the many hours he had lain cowering there,
listening to the voices of his pursuers, he had had leisure to repent
of and marvel at the senseless impulse which had brought him to his
present plight.
“Well, I be a stunpoll!” he had said to himself over and over again.
“I be a dalled stunpoll! What the mischief did I do it for? Whatever
will the poor maid think of I? She’ll never look at I again--she’ll
never take the leastest notice of me.”
More than once he had been half-inclined to rush out of his lair
and give himself up to justice, but how could he face that grinning
multitude? If they had made fun of him before, what would they do now?
Besides her family were furious, and the rustic mind loves justice of
a certain rough kind. Daniel was not more of a coward than another,
but he had a wholesome dread of broken bones. No, he dursn’t show his
face for a long time, that was certain; and as for ever making up with
Phœbe again, it was out of the question--no woman could forgive such
treatment.
Very disconsolately, indeed, did Daniel turn in at his own little gate;
even in the dusk he could see how nice the place looked, how complete
were his arrangements. He opened the door and slunk in, dropping into
the nearest chair with a groan. After quite a long time he made up his
mind to strike a match and look round, though he knew the sight of the
cosy little room would increase his melancholy. He lit the blue glass
lamp which had been placed in readiness on the dresser, and with a
heavy sigh poked up the fire which had been carefully “kept in” with
a thick layer of wet slack. The light leaped on the newly-papered
walls with their neat design of blue roses on a buff ground--he had
papered these walls himself, in honour of the coming event--on the
two elbow-chairs, just re-covered with a gay chintz. On the table in
the centre was a small tray with a biblical design in prodigiously
bright colours, which bore a curious old decanter containing elderberry
wine, a plate of mixed biscuits and two tumblers. In setting these
forth that morning he had thought with tender glee of how Phœbe’s
first wifely task would be to “hot-up” some of that wine in one of
her new saucepans. Had it not been for his own inconceivable folly,
they might at that very moment have been sitting face to face drinking
each other’s health. And now! Daniel dropped his face in his hands and
fairly sobbed.
One day about a fortnight after the untoward event which had so rudely
quenched her simple hopes, Phœbe Cosser was standing by the wash-tub up
to her eyes in suds, with Mary Ann similarly engaged; while Mrs. Cosser
in the inner room laboriously ironed out a few of the fine things which
had already passed through her daughter’s hands. All at once, Mary Ann,
raising her eyes, uttered a little scream which immediately lost itself
in a fit of giggles.
“There! I never did see such a foolish maid!” commented Phœbe severely.
“Whatever be gawkin’ at?”
“Lard! There now! Well, to be sure!” ejaculated Mary Ann between
spasmodic titters. “Look yonder behind the thorn tree!”
The Cossers’ garden sloped downwards towards the road, and a gnarled
May tree filled the angle where the front hedge joined that which
separated their piece of ground from their neighbour’s; the twisted
trunk was split down to a few feet from the ground, and through this
aperture Daniel Chaffey’s woeful face was peering. As Phœbe turned
towards him he immediately dived out of sight. After waiting a moment
and finding he did not reappear Phœbe philosophically went on with her
washing. In a few minutes, however, Mary Ann began to giggle afresh.
Phœbe whisked round so sharply that she caught a glimpse of her former
lover’s vanishing face.
“Don’t take no notice,” she said sternly, implanting a vicious nudge in
her cousin’s ribs; after which she shifted her position so as to turn
her back to the thorn.
After another short interval, however, the sound of her own name
breathed in the most dolorous of tones caused her to turn her head
once more. Daniel had thrown an arm round each half of the trunk, and
was craning forth through the gap, his face vying in colour with the
clusters of haws which surrounded it.
“Phœbe!” he pleaded with a gusty sigh.
“Well?” returned she, slowly wiping the suds from her stout red arms.
“Phœbe, I’ve acted terr’ble bad to ye.”
“E-es, you have,” replied Phœbe succinctly.
“I d’ ’low I have,” he agreed dejectedly. “I be pure sorry, dalled if I
bain’t.”
Miss Cosser snorted.
“I’ve a-repented, my dear, ever since. E-es, I have! Sure I have!
Phœbe!”
“Well?”
“I’ve a-been thinkin’--would ye go to church wi’ me now?”
“This minute?” queried Phœbe with alacrity; the muscles of her face
relaxed, and she twitched down first one of her rolled-up sleeves and
then the other.
“E-es, this very minute; the Reverend ’ull tie us up right enough if I
ax en.”
“Gie me a clean apron!” cried Phœbe, turning quickly to Mary Ann and
jerking at the string of the very damp garment which protected her
dress.
She already wore her hat, and by the time her cousin, who had vanished
with a bound, reappeared shaking out the crisp folds of the clean white
apron, she had unpinned her skirt.
“Now, then,” she remarked after tying it on, and she fixed her best
eye with a business-like air on her Daniel, who had been gazing at her
with almost incredulous rapture. He left off embracing the hawthorn and
reached the garden gate at the same moment as Phœbe herself; and before
Mrs. Cosser, attracted by Mary Ann’s shrieks of enjoyment, had had time
to reach the door they had set off arm-in-crook and disappeared round
the angle of the lane.
“A TERR’BLE VOOLISH LITTLE MAID.”
The cottage next door to Mrs. Cross had long been occupied by Mr. and
Mrs. Frizzel, but when that good couple went to live “Darchester-side”
near their married daughter Susan, their discarded dwelling was taken
by a respectable widow woman named Chaffey; and on a certain autumn
morning she entered into possession.
From under the green “shed” of his cart the carrier extracted a variety
of goods and chattels, exciting keen interest in the mind of Mrs.
Cross, who, with her nose flattened against the leaded panes of her
bedroom window, watched the proceedings closely. The large articles
of furniture had arrived on the previous day in a waggon--a wooden
bedstead, so solid in construction and uncompromising in shape that
its legs had hung over the edge; an oak settle and carved linen chest
at which Mrs. Cross had turned up her nose, deeming them “terr’ble
old-fayshioned”.
She was better pleased with the parlour suite of painted wood cushioned
with brightly coloured cretonne--couch, armchair and three small
chairs; the lot must have cost at least three pound ten, thought
Mrs. Cross, for she had seen the like in the upholsterer’s window at
Branston. Her respect for the newcomer immediately increased, and
this morning as she squinted down at her from her attic, vainly
endeavouring to see all round her at once, she was much impressed by
her appearance.
Mrs. Chaffey was a spare woman of middle height, wearing a decent
brown stuff gown and grey fringed shawl. Her black bonnet with its
yellow flowers was quite “fayshionable” in shape, and though her black
kid gloves were unbuttoned and had moreover grown somewhat grey about
the finger-tips, they nevertheless conveyed the idea of exceeding
respectability.
“Quite a genteel sort o’ body,” commented Mrs. Cross, “and do seem to
know what she be about too,” she added a moment later, as Mrs. Chaffey,
having entered the house presently emerged again, having changed her
headgear for a gathered print sun-bonnet, and protected her dress by
the addition of a large white apron.
Mrs. Cross screwed her head in the other angle of the window and again
squinted down.
“That’s a feather bed,” she observed as a large tied-up bundle was
placed in the expectant arms of the newcomer who clearly staggered
beneath its weight; “carrier did ought to carry it for she. Pillows
next! And a basket--chaney most like. Fender--fire-irons--kettle--pots
and a pan or two--very small ’uns they be. ’Tis but a lone ’ooman they
d’ say, she’ll not want so much cookin’--clock--hassock----”
The carrier’s voice now interrupted the inventory: “This ’ere basket,
mum--that do make the lot. I hope ye’ll find all reg’lar, mum, and no
damage done.”
Mrs. Cross, who had been breathing hard in her excitement, was at this
point constrained to polish the window with her apron; by the time the
operation was concluded and her nose again applied, Mrs. Chaffey had
taken out her purse and was slowly counting out a certain number of
coins into the carrier’s hand. Mrs. Cross could not for the life of her
see how many, but she observed that the man’s face lengthened.
“Bain’t there nothin’ for luck?” he inquired. “I did take a deal o’
trouble wi’ they arnaments and sich-like.”
“You’ve a-had what I did agree for,” responded Mrs. Chaffey with
dignity; her voice was high and clear, and as she spoke she turned
towards the cottage with a final air.
“I d’ ’low she’s a bit near,” remarked Mrs. Cross as she retired from
the window, rubbing her nose pensively. “Poor Martha Frizzel! She was a
good soul, she _was_! Just about!”
She stood a moment looking round the little attic chamber, but without
seeing either the somewhat untidy bed with its soiled patchwork quilt,
or the washstand with its cracked jug, or the torn curtain pinned
half-across the window; she saw instead her neighbour’s shrewd, kindly
face bending over a pot of well-stewed tea, or nodding briefly in
response to sundry requests for the use of a bucket, or the loan of a
pan, and sometimes a few “spuds”.
“Mind you do bring ’em back,” was all Mrs. Frizzel would say. Well,
sometimes Mrs. Cross did bring them back, and sometimes Martha came and
fetched ’em, but she never made a bit of fuss, and was always as kind
and neighbourly as she could be.
Mrs. Chaffey must be getting a bit settled by this time, Mrs. Cross
thought, and resolved to pop in and ask how she was getting on. She
smoothed her rough hair with the palms of her hands, jerked down her
sleeves, which she usually wore rolled up till dinner-time, not because
she fatigued herself with over-much work, but because it seemed somehow
the proper thing to do of a morning; she twitched her apron straight,
pinned over a gap in her bodice--Mrs. Cross was a great believer in the
efficacy of pins, and rarely demeaned herself by using a needle and
thread--and finally composing her features to an expression of polite
and sympathetic interest, strolled leisurely downstairs and into her
neighbour’s premises.
Mrs. Chaffey was standing by her table, busily unpacking china, but
when the other entered remarking genially that she thought she’d just
look in to see how Mrs. Chaffey liked her noo place, and if she could
lend a hand anywheres, she came forward with a somewhat frosty smile
and set a chair.
“Sit down, won’t ye?” she said. “I’m a bit busy, but there! it do do
folks good to set a bit now and then.”
“E-es, indeed, my dear,” responded Mrs. Cross enthusiastically; it
was a sentiment she cordially endorsed. “Lard! if a body was to keep
upon their legs from morn till night, churchyard ’ud be fuller at
the year’s end nor it needs to be. I be pure glad you’ve a-took this
’ere house,” she added graciously, “’tis what I scarce expected as
any respectable party ’ud come to it. The chimbley smokes,” said
Mrs. Cross delightedly; “there, ’tis summat awful how it do smoke!
And in the bedroom the rain and wind do fair beat in when a bit of a
storm do come--’tis these ’ere queer little vooty winder-panes--rain
comes through them so easy as anything. And the damp! there, Mrs.
Frizzel, what lived here last, used to say many a time: ‘Mrs. Cross,
my dear,’ she did use to say, ‘the damp do seem to creep into my very
bwones’. But I be pure glad to see you here, I’m sure,” she summed up
cheerfully, “and ’tis to be hoped as you’ll find it comfortable.”
Mrs. Chaffey’s face, always somewhat plaintive in expression, had
become more and more dismal as her neighbour proceeded, and she now
heaved a deep sigh.
“I d’ ’low ’twill do for I,” she said gloomily; “I be a lone ’ooman,
Mrs. ----?”
She paused tentatively.
“Mrs. Cross be my name, my dear. E-es--Maria Cross. E-es, that be my
name, my dear.”
“Well, Mrs. Cross,” resumed the newcomer, taking up her discourse in
a voice tuned to just the same note of melancholy patience as before,
“well, Mrs. Cross, as I was a-sayin’, I be a lone ’ooman, a widow
’ooman, and I d’ ’low I must look to be put upon. I bain’t surprised to
hear o’ the house bein’ damp and the chimbley smokin’--’tis jest what I
mid have expected; and so I’ll tell the agent when I do go for to pay
my rent.”
“It did ought to be considered in the rent,” suggested Mrs. Cross.
“It did,” agreed Mrs. Chaffey, and for a moment her eyes assumed an
uncommonly wide-awake expression. “I’ll mention it to the gentleman,
but I don’t look for much satisfaction--I don’t indeed, Mrs. Cross. A
few shillin’s back maybe, and a new chimbley-pot, and toils put right
on the roof, and a bit o’ lead paper maybe at back o’ my bed--no more
nor that, Mrs. Cross--they’ll not do more than that for a lone ’ooman.”
“And didn’t ye never ha’ no childern?” inquired Mrs. Cross, with her
head on one side; “it do seem molloncholy for ye to be left wi’out
nobody to do a hand’s turn for ’ee, poor soul.”
Mrs. Chaffey shook her head with a portentous expression.
“A-h-h-h, Mrs. Cross, my dear,” she said, “if there was sich a thing as
a bit o’ gratitood in this world, I wouldn’t be left wi’out a creature
to do for me at my time o’ life. Childern of my own I have not,” said
Mrs. Chaffey, with an air which indicated that the fact was very much
to her credit, “but there’s them livin’ now as I’ve been more than a
mother to, what have gone and left I in my ancient years--as thankless.”
“Lard, now!” ejaculated her neighbour, much interested; “ye don’t
tell I so, Mrs. Chaffey. Somebody what you’ve a-been very good to, I
suppose, mum?”
“Good!” echoed Mrs. Chaffey. “Good’s not the word for it, Mrs. Cross.
’Twas my first cousin’s child--a poor little penniless maid what was
brought up in a institootion--an orphan, my dear, as hadn’t nobody in
the world to look to. Well, when her time was up at the institootion, I
come for’ard, and I says, ‘I’ll take her,’ I says; ‘she don’t need to
go to service,’ I says. ‘I’m her mother’s cousin,’ I told ’em, ‘and she
can come to live wi’ I.’”
“And they were delighted of course,” suggested Mrs. Cross, as she
paused impressively.
“No; if you’ll believe me, they fair dathered I wi’ axin’ questions,
and wantin’ I to make promises and that. ‘Why didn’t I come and see
the maid afore?’ says they, as if ’twas likely, Mrs. Cross, as I’d go
trapesin’ off to a institootion to ax arter a maid as was too small to
be any good to anybody. Then they did want I to give her wages. Wages
to a little bit of a thing as knowed nothin’, and couldn’t do nothin’!
‘No,’ I says, ‘I’ll give her a home,’ I says, ‘and I’ll be a mother to
her, and train her same as if she was my own child, but more than that
I will _not_ do.’”
“O’ course not,” agreed Mrs. Cross; “lucky enough she was to get sich a
good offer, _I_ think.”
“And so you may,” agreed the other solemnly, “and so I did often say
to the maid herself. ‘You may think yourself lucky,’ I did say to her
often and often; ‘many another,’ I did tell her, ‘’ud put you out on
the road when you do behave so voolish. But me! look at the patience
I’ve had wi’ you!’ ’Twas a terr’ble voolish maid, Mrs. Cross--she was a
bit silly in herself to begin with, and they institootions--Lard, they
do never seem to teach a maid a thing as ’ull be a bit o’ use to ’em!
She could scrub a stone passage a mile long if she was put to it, but
there bain’t no passages in cottages, and she couldn’t so much as peel
a potato or wash a cabbage. Well, I did take so much pains wi’ her as a
mother could ha’ done--I did make her find out for herself how to hold
a knife, no matter how much she did cut herself. ‘Find out,’ I did
say; and she _did_ find out. And when grubs come up on the dish wi’ the
cabbages, I’d cut off the bits as was nearest to ’em and put ’em on her
plate; so she did soon learn, ye see. Sleep! that maid ’ud sleep many
an’ many a cold morning arter I’d pulled blankets off her--e-es, there
she’d lay so fast as anything, and never take a bit o’ notice till I
got a drap o’ cold water--an that didn’t always wake her up all to
once. There, she was fair aggravatin’!--when I did get her up at last
and get back to bed again, I couldn’t get a wink o’ sleep for thinkin’
on’t.”
“Dear, to be sure! Well now!” commented Mrs. Cross, scratching her
elbows appreciatively.
“E-es, indeed,” continued Mrs. Chaffey, warming with her theme. “I did
tell her many a time, ‘You’ll come to no good’. Ah, that I did, and she
didn’t come to no good neither.”
“Didn’t she though?” queried the other with interest. “Took up with a
soldier, very like?”
“Nothin’ o’ the kind. There weren’t no soldiers anywheres near us.
’Twas another kind of a man altogether.”
“A-h-h,” groaned Mrs. Cross sympathetically. “And I s’pose he wouldn’t
marry her, mum?”
“E-es, he married her, Mrs. Cross,” responded the widow in a tone of
dignified surprise. “E-es, he married her. Indeed he did.”
“But there was carryin’s on, I s’pose?” suggested Mrs. Cross
respectfully.
Mrs. Chaffey fixed her with a stony stare.
“I’m not one as ’ud allow no carryin’s on,” she returned loftily.
“When the man come and axed Jenny--that was her name--I says to her,
‘Not with my consent,’ I says--well, she took and got married wi’out
it.”
“Lard ha’ mercy me,” ejaculated the listener, seeing that she was
expected to say something, “well, that was----” she hesitated, “I
s’pose the man wasn’t one as you’d ha’ picked for her, Mrs. Chaffey?
Maybe,” she added darkly, “he wasn’t in work?”
“He was in work,” replied Mrs. Chaffey solemnly, “reg’lar. Oh, e-es, he
was in _work_.”
Mrs. Cross was a good deal mystified, and being too uncertain of her
ground to venture on a comment, contented herself with clicking her
tongue and turning up her eyes.
“’Tis a queer tale; ’tis indeed,” resumed the widow; “but as I did
often say to she arter the job was done: ‘Don’t blame me, Jenny--what
you did do, you did do wi’ your eyes open. I’ve a-told you plain,’ I
says, ‘I’ve gied ye the best advice. Stay,’ I says, ‘where you’re well
off. You’ve a-got a good home,’ I did tell her, ‘and one what is a
mother to ye--don’t ye go for to take up with this ’ere stranger.’”
“Ah,” interrupted Mrs. Cross, beginning to think she at last saw
daylight, “he was a stranger, was he?”
“He was a man what come to the door,” returned the other impressively,
“what come to the door like any tramp. I did take en to be a tramp
first off.”
“Oh, and he wasn’t a tramp then?” put in her neighbour, slightly
disappointed.
“He _mid_ ha’ been one,” resumed the narrator, with a dignified wave
of the hand intended to discourage further unnecessary and frivolous
questions. “I’m willing to tell ’ee about it, Mrs. Cross, if you be
willing to listen. ’Twas a Sunday of all days. We’d a’ been pretty
busy till dinner-time. I’d got Jenny up soon arter four to get through
wi’ cleanin’ up--I’m always one what likes to have the place reg’lar
perfect, ye know--and by the time I come down for breakfast she’d a’
got everything straight. Well, her an’ me fell out--she did want if ye
please to go to church wi’ I--so I says to her, ‘Who’s to get dinner
then? Be I to wait on you?’ says I. ‘No,’ I says, ‘you stay at home
and do your dooty, and you can go to the childern’s service in the
afternoon if you behave well,’ says I. Well, but she wouldn’t hear
reason; I did leave her cryin’ like a baby.
“I were a bit late comin’ back--chattin’ to this one and that one, an’
when I got in, what did I see but a strange man by the fire. Ye could
ha’ knocked I down wi’ a feather. I did jist drap in the first chair I
come to and p’int that way wi’ my finger--I couldn’t get out a word.
“‘Please ye, ma’am,’ says Jenny (I wouldn’t have her callin’ I _Cousin
Maria_, d’ye see, a little maid same as her out of a institootion! She
did offer to call I so once or twice, but I soon checked her). ‘Please
ye, ma’am,’ she says, ‘this ’ere poor chap was so terr’ble cold--froze
up he was--he’d a-been walkin’ ten mile an’ more in the snow; and when
he axed I to let en in to warm hisself a bit, I didn’t think you’d
object.’
“‘You didn’t think I’d object,’ says I. ‘You little good-for-nothin’
hussy! We might ha’ been robbed an’ murdered for all you care.’
“The man turned round laughin’ as impident as ye like. He was a
Irishman, Mrs. Cross--I could tell it the very minute I clapped eyes on
his face, afore he so much as opened his mouth, and when he did begin
to speak, Lard ha’ mercy me! I never did hear sick languidge.”
“Swearin’ an’ that?” questioned Mrs. Cross, with her head on one side.
“Oh no, nothin’ o’ that sort, but sick a queer, ignorant fayshion o’
talkin’. ‘The top o’ the mornin’ to ye, ma’am,’ says he. ‘Is it murther
ye’re talkin’ of? Sure, how could I be afther murtherin’ ye when ye
weren’t here?’ he says. ‘Don’t ye be afeerd,’ he went on--I can’t
really remember his queer talk, but he said he had come over harvestin’
an’ then got laid up wi’ a fever, an’ was a long time in hospital, and
now, he said, he was on his way to see a friend who had been in the
hospital at the same time, and after that he had the promise of work.
“A reg’lar cock-and-bull story; I didn’t believe a word on’t. I did
tell en so.
“‘Why be ye a-trapsin’ the roads then,’ says I, ‘if you’ve a-been
invited to stay with a friend?’
“‘I missed my road,’ says he, ‘I took the wrong turn; I shan’t get
there till night now,’ he says. ‘I’m a bit weak still with being sick
so long, and it’ll take me all my time to get there.’
“‘You’d best be startin’ then,’ says I, p’intin’ to the door. Then if
ye’ll believe it that little impident maid ups and interferes.
“‘Oh, ma’am,’ she says, ‘let him bide and eat a bit o’ dinner wi’ us.
I’m sure he’s a respectable man, and it’s Sunday and all. And there’s
more dinner nor we can eat.’
“Well, I could ha’ shook her--‘I’ll thank ye, Jenny, to mind your own
business,’ I says, ‘a little chit like you, what’s kept for charity.
Bain’t it enough,’ I says, ‘to be beholden to I for every bit you do
put into your own mouth wi’out wantin’ to waste the food what don’t
belong to ye on good-for-nothin’ tramps and idlers?’ I says. Then the
man gets up.
“‘That’ll do, ma’am,’ he says, ‘I wouldn’t touch bite or sup of yours,’
he says, ‘for fear it ’ud stick in my throat. Good-bye my dear,’ he
says to Jenny, ‘an’ blessin’s on your pretty face and your kind heart.
Maybe better times ’ull be comin’ for you as well as for me,’ he says.”
“Ah,” put in Mrs. Cross excitedly, “he had summat in his mind about
her, you mid be sure.”
Mrs. Chaffey threw out a warning hand once more and pursued her
narrative.
“I did give the maid a right-down good talkin’-to, you mid think, but
it didn’t seem to do her much good.
“About a week or two arter, I was sendin’ her to fetch the washin’
back--I did use to wash for a lady what lived a mile away, and
sometimes carrier did fetch it, and sometimes I did send Jenny. Well,
’twas a heavyish basket, and when I did see her marchin’ back down the
path, I says to her:--
“‘You’ve a-been quicker nor I could ha’ looked for,’ I says.
“‘Oh, e-es,’ says she, ‘somebody helped I for to carry it.’
“‘Somebody,’ I says. ‘Who?’
“She went quite red, and opened her mouth and shut it again, and then
she says very quick:--
“‘Oh, a man what I met, as said it did seem too heavy for I.’”
“Ah-h-h!” said Mrs. Cross, seizing her opportunity as the other paused
for breath, “it was him?”
Mrs. Chaffey resented the other’s eagerness to jump to a conclusion,
and continued in a voice of increased sternness, and without noticing
the interruption:--
“Next day was a Sunday again. I wasn’t feelin’ so very well, so I did
tell her she mid go to church that mornin’ an’ I’d bide at home. Well,
that there little maid took so long a-dressin’ of herself as if she was
a queen; so arter I’d called her once or twice I just went upstairs an’
looked in at her. I had my soft shoes on, and she didn’t hear I comin’.
“There she was, if you please, a-kneeling before her bed, a-turnin’ of
her head this way an’ that, an’ a-lookin’ at herself in a wold lid of
a biscuit-box, what she’d picked up somewheres an’ rubbed up till it
did seem so bright as silver. There! the little impident hussy; she
had stood it up against her pillow, an’ she was a-lookin’ at herself
an’ a-holdin’ up a bit o’ blue ribbon, fust under her chin an’ then
sideways again her hat.
“‘Jenny,’ I says, an’, dear, to be sure, how the voolish maid did jump!
“‘Lard, ma’am,’ says she, ‘you did fray me!’
“‘What be doin’ there?’ I axes her very sharp. ‘What be doin’ with that
there ribbon? Where did you get it?’ I says, for I knowed very well
she hadn’t a penny of her own.
“She went so red as a poppy, an’ stood still, gawkin’ at I, wi’out
making no answer.
“‘You did steal it, I d’ ’low,’ I says, an’ I gives a kind of a scream.
“Then she did go white, and her teeth fair chattered in her head.
“‘Oh, no, ma’am,’ she cried; ‘no, indeed. It be mine, honest. It was
give me.’
“‘Give ye,’ says I. ‘Who give it?’
“Then she did begin a-cryin’ and a-rockin’ of herself backwards an’
forrads. ‘It be mine,’ she sobs; ‘somebody did give it to I.’
“‘_Somebody!_’ I says, an’ the notion come to I all to once. ‘It was
never that man as you met on the road yesterday?’
“Not a word would she answer, but goes on cryin’.
“‘Jenny Medway,’ I says to her, ‘I’ll come to the bottom of this here
tale if I do have to call Policeman Jackson in for to take ’ee to
prison. Tell I the truth this minute, or I’ll run out an’ fetch en. It
won’t be the first time as you’ve met that man, whoever he be. Own up,
or I’ll call Jackson.’
“Well, she was real scared, an’ she ketched hold o’ my arm:--
“‘Oh don’t, ma’am, don’t do that!’ she says, ‘I’ll tell ’ee--I’ll tell
’ee. ’Twas the man what did come to the door----’
“‘You wicked, wicked wench!’ I says. ‘I d’ ’low ye’ve a-been meetin’ of
en regular.’
“‘No, indeed, ma’am,’ she cries, ‘I never set eyes on en since that
day, till yesterday, when I did meet en quite accidental-like--an’ he
did offer to carry my basket for I, an’ he did put his hand in’s pocket
an’ pull out this bit o’ ribbon--he’d a-been carryin’ it about hopin’
to meet I, he did say, for he did think it jist the same colour as my
eyes.’”
“Well! well! well!” exclaimed Mrs. Cross, clapping her hands together
and shaking her head. “Lard now! dear to be sure! What nonsense-talk,
weren’t it, ma’am?”
“I did tell her so indeed,” returned Mrs. Chaffey, severely. “I did
tell her plain what I thought of her--‘Courtin’ an’ carryin’ on wi’ a
tramp on the road!’ I says.
“‘He bain’t a tramp,’ she cries, quite in a temper, if you please.
‘He’s an honest, respectable young man. He’ve a-got good work now, an’
he be a-lookin’ for to settle.’”
“Ah!” put in the irrepressible Mrs. Cross. “He was lookin’ out for a
wife.”