On the following Saturday, when Geake called, Naomi was standing at
her wash-tub. She had seen him pass the window, and, hurriedly wiping
her hands, and pulling out her shilling, placed it ostentatiously in
the very centre of the deal table by the door; then had just time to
plunge her hands in the soap-suds again before he knocked. Try as she
would, she could not keep back a blush at the remembrance of last
week's scene, and half looked for him to make some allusion to it.
His extremely business-like air reassured her. She nodded towards
the shilling without removing her hands from the tub. He took it,
including in a polite good-morning both Naomi and her mother, who was
huddled in an arm-chair before the fire and recovering from an attack
of the fever, wrote out his voucher solemnly, set it in the exact spot
where the shilling had stood, took up his hat, hesitated for less than
a second, replaced his hat on the table, and, pulling a chair towards
him, dropped on his knees, and began to pray aloud.
The old woman by the fire slewed her head painfully round and stared
at him, then at Naomi. But Naomi was standing with her back to them
both, and her hands soaping the linen in the tub--gently, however, and
without any splashing. She therefore let her head sink back on the
cushion, and assumed that peculiarly dejected air, commonly reserved
by her for the consolations of religion.
On this occasion William Geake prayed in a low and level tone, and
very briefly. He made no allusion to last Saturday, but put up an
earnest petition for blessings upon "our two sisters here," and that
they might learn to accept their appointed portion with resignation,
yea, even with a holy joy. At the end of two minutes he rose, and
was about to dust his knees, after his usual custom, but, becoming
suddenly aware of the difference in cleanliness between Naomi's
lime-ash and the floors of the various meeting-houses of his
acquaintance, refrained. This little piece of delicacy did not escape
Naomi, though her shoulders were still bent over the tub, to all
seeming as resolutely as ever.
"Well, I swow that was very friendly of Mister Geake!" the old woman
ejaculated, as the door closed behind him. "'Tisn't everybody'd ha'
thought what a comfort a little scrap o' religion can be to an old
woman in my state."
"He took a great liberty," said Naomi snappishly.
"Well, he might ha' said as much as 'By your leave,' to be sure;
an' now you say so, 'twas makin' a bit free to talk about our
dependence--an' in my own kitchen too."
"He meant our dependence on th' Almighty," Naomi corrected, still more
snappishly. "William Geake's an odd-fangled man, but you might give
'en credit for good-feelin'. An', what's more, though I don't hold
wi' Christian talk, if a man have a got beliefs, I respect 'en for
standin' to 'em without shame."
"But I thought, a moment ago--" her mother began, and then subsided.
She was accustomed to small tangles in her own processes of thought,
and quite incapable, after years of blind acceptance, of correcting
Naomi's logic.
No more was said on the matter. The next Saturday, after receiving his
shilling, Mr. Geake knelt down without any hesitation. It was clear he
wished this prayer to be a weekly institution, and an institution it
became.
The women never knelt. Naomi, indeed, had never sanctioned the
innovation, unless by her silence, and her mother assisted only with a
very lugubrious "Amen," being too weak to stir from her chair. As the
months passed, it became evident to Geake that her strength would
never come back. The fever had left her, apparently for good; but the
rheumatism remained, and closed slowly upon the heart. The machine was
worn out.
When the end came, Naomi had been doing the work single-handed for
close upon twelve months. She could always get a plenty of work, and
now took in a deal too much for her strength, to settle the doctor's
and undertaker's bills, and buy herself a black gown, cape, and
bonnet. The funeral, of course, took place on a Sunday. Geake, on the
Saturday afternoon, knocked gently at Naomi's door. His single
intent was to speak a word or two of sympathy, if she would listen.
Remembering her constant attitude under the Divine scourge, he felt a
trifle nervous.
But there lay the shilling in the centre of the table, and there stood
Naomi in a cloud of steam, hard at work on an immoderate pile of
washing--even a man's miscalculating eye could see that it was
immoderate.
"I didn't call--" he began, with a glance towards the shilling.
"No; I know you didn't. But you may so well take it all the same."
Geake had rehearsed a small speech, but found himself making out and
signing the voucher as usual; and, as usual, when it was signed, he
drew over a chair, and dropped on his knees. In prayer-meeting he was
a great hand at "improving" an occasion of bereavement; but here again
his will to speak impressively suddenly failed him. His words were:
"Lord, there were two women grinding at a mill; the one was taken, and
t'other left. She that you took, you've a-carr'd beyond our prayers;
but O, be gentle, be gentle, to her that's left!"
He arose, and looked shyly, almost shamefacedly, at Naomi. She had not
turned. But her head was bowed; and, drawing near, he saw that the
scalding tears were falling fast into the wash-tub. She had not wept
when her husband was lost, nor since.
"Go away!" she commanded, before he could speak, turning her shoulders
resolutely towards him.
He took up his hat, and went out softly, closing the door softly
behind him.
His eye, which was growing quick to read Naomi's face, saw at once,
as he entered the room a week later, that she deprecated even the
slightest reference to her weakness. It also told him--he had not
guessed it before--that her emotional breakdown had probably more to
do with physical exhaustion than with any eloquence of his. The pile
of washing had grown, and the woman's face was grey with fatigue.
Geake, as he made out the voucher, cast about for a polite mode of
hinting that this kind of thing must not go on. Nevertheless it was
Naomi who began.
"Look here," she said, as he put down the voucher; "there ain't goin'
to be no more prayin', eh?"
"Why, to be sure there is," he answered with a show of great
cheerfulness; and reached for a chair.
"I'd liefer you didn't. I don't want it. I don't hold by any o't.
You'm very kind," she went on, her voice trembling for an instant and
then recovering its firmness, "and I reckon it soothed mother. But I
reckon it don't soothe me. I reckon it rubs me the wrong way. There's
times, when I hears a body prayin', that I wishes we was Papists again
and worshipped images, that I might throw stones at 'em!"
She paused, looked up into Geake's devouring eyes, and added, with a
poor attempt at a laugh:
"So you see, I'm wicked, an' don't want to be saved."
Then the man broke forth:
"Saved? No, I reckon you don't! Wicked? Iss, I reckon you be! But
saved you shall be--ay, if you was twice so wicked. Who'll do it? I'll
do it--I alone. I don't want your help. I want to do it in spite of
'ee: an' I'll lay that I do! Be your wickedness deep as hell, an' I'll
reach down a hand to the roots and pluck it up: be your salvation
stubborn as Death, I'll wrestle wi' the Lord for it. If I sell my own
soul for't, yours shall be redeemed!"
He slammed down his fist on the rickety deal table, which promptly
collapsed flat on the floor, with its four legs splayed under the
circular cover.
"Bein' a carpenter--" Geake began to stammer apologetically, and in a
totally different tone.
For a second--two seconds--the issue hung between tears and laughter.
An hysterical merriment twinkled in Naomi's eyes.
But the strength of Geake's passion saved the situation. He stepped up
to Naomi, laid a hand on each shoulder, and shook her gently to and
fro.
"Listen to me! As I hold 'ee now, so I take your fate in my hands.
Naomi Bricknell, you've got to be my wife, so make up your mind to
that."
She cowered a little under his grasp; put out a hand to push him off;
drew it back; and broke into helpless sobbing. But this time she did
not command him to go away.
Fifteen minutes later William Geake left Vellan's Rents with joy on
his face and a broken table under his arm.
And two days later Naomi's face wore a look of demure happiness when
Long Oliver stopped her on the staircase and asked,
"Is it true, what I hear?"
"It is true," she answered.
"An' when be the banns called?"
"There ain't goin' to be no banns."
"Hey?"
"There ain't goin' to be no banns; leastways, there ain't goin' to be
none called. We'm goin' to the Registry Office. You look all struck of
a heap. Was you hopin' to be best man?"
"Well, I reckoned I'd take a hand in the responses," he answered; and
seemed about to say more, but turned on his heel and went back to his
room, shutting the door behind him.