A CLOAK WITH BEADS
On weekdays the women who passed the window were meagrely dressed;
mothers in draggled winsey gowns, carrying infants that were armfuls of
grandeur. The Sabbath clothed every one in her best, and then the
women went by with their hands spread out. When I was with Hendry
cloaks with beads were the fashion, and Jess sighed as she looked at
them. They were known in Thrums as the Eleven and a Bits (threepenny
bits), that being their price at Kyowowy's in the square. Kyowowy
means finicky, and applied to the draper by general consent. No doubt
it was very characteristic to call the cloaks by their market value.
In the glen my scholars still talk of their school-books as the
tupenny, the fowerpenny, the sax-penny. They finish their education
with the ten-penny.
Jess's opportunity for handling the garments that others of her sex
could finger in shops was when she had guests to tea. Persons who
merely dropped in and remained to tea got their meal, as a rule, in the
kitchen. They had nothing on that Jess could not easily take in as she
talked to them. But when they came by special invitation, the meal was
served in the room, the guests' things being left on the kitchen bed.
Jess not being able to go ben the house, had to be left with the
things. When the time to go arrived, these were found on the bed, just
as they had been placed there, but Jess could now tell Leeby whether
they were imitation, why Bell Elshioner's feather went far round the
bonnet, and Chirsty Lownie's reason for always holding her left arm
fast against her side when she went abroad in the black jacket. Ever
since My Hobart's eleven and a bit was left on the kitchen bed Jess had
hungered for a cloak with beads. My's was the very marrows of the one
T'nowhead's wife got in Dundee for ten-and-sixpence; indeed, we would
have thought that 'Lisbeth's also came from Kyowowy's had not Sanders
Elshioner's sister seen her go into the Dundee shop with T'nowhead (who
was loth), and hung about to discover what she was after.
Hendry was not quick at reading faces like Tammas Haggart, but the
wistful look on Jess's face when there was talk of eleven and a bits
had its meaning for him.
"They're grand to look at, no doubt," I have heard him say to Jess,
"but they're richt annoyin'. That new wife o' Peter Dickie's had ane
on in the kirk last Sabbath, an' wi' her sittin' juist afore us I
couldna listen to the sermon for tryin' to count the beads."
Hendry made his way into these gossips uninvited, for his opinions on
dress were considered contemptible, though he was worth consulting on
material. Jess and Leeby discussed many things in his presence,
confident that his ears were not doing their work; but every now and
then it was discovered that he had been hearkening greedily. If the
subject was dress, he might then become a little irritating.
"Oh, they're grand," Jess admitted; "they set a body aff oncommon."
"They would be no use to you," said Hendry, "for ye canna wear them
except ootside."
"A body doesna buy cloaks to be wearin' at them steady," retorted Jess.
"No, no, but you could never wear yours though ye had ane."
"I dinna want ane. They're far ower grand for the like o' me."
"They're no nae sic thing. Am thinkin' ye're juist as fit to wear an
eleven and a bit as My Hobart."
"Weel, mebbe I am, but it's oot o' the queistion gettin' ane, they're
sic a price."
"Ay, an' though we had the siller, it would surely be an awfu' like
thing to buy a cloak 'at ye could never wear?"
"Ou, but I dinna want ane."
Jess spoke so mournfully that Hendry became enraged.
"It's most michty," he said, "'at ye would gang an' set yer heart on
sic a completely useless thing."
"I hinna set my heart on't."
"Dinna blether. Ye've been speakin' aboot thae eleven and a bits to
Leeby, aff an' on, for twa month."
Then Hendry hobbled off to his loom, and Jess gave me a look which
meant that men are trying at the best, once you are tied to them.
The cloaks continued to turn up in conversation, and Hendry poured
scorn upon Jess's weakness, telling her she would be better employed
mending his trousers than brooding over an eleven and a bit that would
have to spend its life in a drawer. An outsider would have thought
that Hendry was positively cruel to Jess. He seemed to take a delight
in finding that she had neglected to sew a button on his waistcoat.
His real joy, however, was the knowledge that she sewed as no other
woman in Thrums could sew. Jess had a genius for making new garments
out of old ones, and Hendry never tired of gloating over her cleverness
so long as she was not present. He was always athirst for fresh proofs
of it, and these were forthcoming every day. Sparing were his words of
praise to herself, but in the evening he generally had a smoke with me
in the attic, and then the thought of Jess made him chuckle till his
pipe went out. When he smoked he grunted as if in pain, though this
really added to the enjoyment.
"It doesna matter," he would say to me, "what Jess turns her hand to,
she can mak ony mortal thing. She doesna need nae teachin'; na, juist
gie her a guid look at onything, be it clothes, or furniture, or in the
bakin' line, it's all the same to her. She'll mak another exactly like
it. Ye canna beat her. Her bannocks is so superior 'at a Tilliedrum
woman took to her bed after tastin' them, an' when the lawyer has
company his wife gets Jess to mak some bannocks for her an' syne
pretends they're her ain bakin'. Ay, there's a story aboot that. One
day the auld doctor, him 'at's deid, was at his tea at the lawyer's,
an' says the guidwife, 'Try the cakes, Mr. Riach; they're my own
bakin'.' Weel, he was a fearsomely outspoken man, the doctor, an' nae
suner had he the bannock atween his teeth, for he didna stop to
swallow't, than he says, 'Mistress Geddie,' says he, 'I wasna born on a
Sabbath. Na, na, you're no the first grand leddy 'at has gien me
bannocks as their ain bakin' 'at was baked and fired by Jess Logan, her
'at's Hendry McQumpha's wife.' Ay, they say the lawyer's wife didna
ken which wy to look, she was that mortified. It's juist the same wi'
sewin'. There's wys o' ornamentin' christenin' robes an' the like
'at's kent to naebody but hersel; an' as for stockin's, weel, though
I've seen her mak sae mony, she amazes me yet. I mind o' a furry
waistcoat I aince had. Weel, when it was fell dune, do you think she
gae it awa to some gaen aboot body (vagrant)? Na, she made it into a
richt neat coat to Jamie, wha was a bit laddie at the time. When he
grew out o' it, she made a slipbody o't for hersel. Ay, I dinna ken a'
the different things it became, but the last time I saw it was ben in
the room, whaur she'd covered a footstool wi' 't. Yes, Jess is the
cleverest crittur I ever saw. Leeby's handy, but she's no a patch on
her mother."
I sometimes repeated these panegyrics to Jess. She merely smiled, and
said that the men haver most terrible when they are not at their work.
Hendry tried Jess sorely over the cloaks, and a time came when, only by
exasperating her, could he get her to reply to his sallies.
"Wha wants an eleven an' a bit?" she retorted now and again.
"It's you 'at wants it," said Hendry, promptly.
"Did I ever say I wanted ane? What use could I hae for't?"
"That's the queistion," said Hendry. "Ye canna gang the length o' the
door, so ye would never be able to wear't."
"Ay, weel," replied Jess, "I'll never hae the chance o' no bein' able
to wear't, for, hooever muckle I wanted it, I couldna get it."
Jess's infatuation had in time the effect of making Hendry
uncomfortable. In the attic he delivered himself of such sentiments as
these:
"There's nae understandin' a woman. There's Jess 'at hasna her equal
for cleverness in Thrums, man or woman, an' yet she's fair skeered
about thae cloaks. Aince a woman sets her mind on something to wear,
she's mair onreasonable than the stupidest man. Ay, it micht mak them
humble to see hoo foolish they are syne. No, but it doesna do't.
"If it was a thing to be useful noo, I wouldna think the same o't, but
she could never wear't. She kens she could never wear't, an' yet she's
juist as keen to hae't.
"I dinna like to see her so wantin' a thing, an' no able to get it.
But it's an awfu' sum, eleven an' a bit."
He tried to argue with her further.
"If ye had eleven an' a bit to fling awa," he said, "ye dinna mean to
tell me 'at ye would buy a cloak instead o' cloth for a gown, or
flannel for petticoats, or some useful thing?"
"As sure as death," said Jess, with unwonted vehemence, "if a cloak I
could get, a cloak I would buy."
Hendry came up to tell me what Jess had said.
"It's a michty infatooation," he said, "but it shows hoo her heart's
set on thae cloaks."
"Aince ye had it," he argued with her, "ye would juist hae to lock it
awa in the drawers. Ye would never even be seein' 't."
"Ay, would I," said Jess. "I would often tak it oot an' look at it.
Ay, an' I would aye ken it was there."
"But naebody would ken ye had it but yersel," said Hendry, who had a
vague notion that this was a telling objection.
"Would they no?" answered Jess. "It would be a' through the toon afore
nicht."
"Weel, all I can say," said Hendry, "is 'at ye're terrible foolish to
tak the want o' sic a useless thing to heart."
"Am no takkin' 't to heart," retorted Jess, as usual.
Jess needed many things in her days that poverty kept from her to the
end, and the cloak was merely a luxury. She would soon have let it
slip by as something unattainable had not Hendry encouraged it to
rankle in her mind. I cannot say when he first determined that Jess
should have a cloak, come the money as it liked, for he was too ashamed
of his weakness to admit his project to me. I remember, however, his
saying to Jess one day:
"I'll warrant you could mak a cloak yersel the marrows o' thae eleven
and a bits, at half the price?"
"It would cost," said Jess, "sax an' saxpence, exactly. The cloth
would be five shillins, an' the beads a shillin'. I have some braid
'at would do fine for the front, but the buttons would be sax-pence."
"Ye're sure o' that?"
"I ken fine, for I got Leeby to price the things in the shop."
"Ay, but it maun be ill to shape the cloaks richt. There was a queer
cut aboot that ane Peter Dickie's new wife had on."
"Queer cut or no queer cut," said Jess, "I took the shape o' My
Hobart's ane the day she was here at her tea, an' I could mak the
identical o't for sax and sax."
"I dinna believe't," said Hendry, but when he and I were alone he told
me, "There's no a doubt she could mak it. Ye heard her say she had
ta'en the shape? Ay, that shows she's rale set on a cloak."
Had Jess known that Hendry had been saving up for months to buy her
material for a cloak, she would not have let him do it. She could not
know, however, for all the time he was scraping together his pence, he
kept up a ring-ding-dang about her folly. Hendry gave Jess all the
wages he weaved, except threepence weekly, most of which went in
tobacco and snuff. The dulseman had perhaps a halfpenny from him in
the fortnight. I noticed that for a long time Hendry neither smoked
nor snuffed, and I knew that for years he had carried a shilling in his
snuff-mull. The remainder of the money he must have made by extra work
at his loom, by working harder, for he could scarcely have worked
longer.
It was one day shortly before Jamie's return to Thrums that Jess saw
Hendry pass the house and go down the brae when he ought to have come
in to his brose. She sat at the window watching for him, and by and by
he reappeared, carrying a parcel.
"Whaur on earth hae ye been?" she asked, "an' what's that you're
carryin'?"
"Did ye think it was an eleven an' a bit?" said Hendry.
"No, I didna," answered Jess, indignantly.
Then Hendry slowly undid the knots of the string with which the parcel
was tied. He took off the brown paper.
"There's yer cloth," he said, "an' here's one an' saxpence for the
beads an' the buttons."
While Jess still stared he followed me ben the house.
"It's a terrible haver," he said, apologetically, "but she had set her
heart on't."