NAN’S FIGHT FOR POLLY
Cherry sat in his ingle-nook during the weeks that followed, watching
the drama of Nan fighting death. His own part was necessarily that of
an onlooker. Sometimes he stretched his hand to lift a little pan from
the hob, when it boiled too quickly. Occasionally, he went out and
came back restless. To all inquiries as to when he would visit farms
again he sent diplomatic postcards. Tear himself from that agony-hope
of watching Polly he could not. It seemed to him, now, that all the
work of his life was in danger of downfall. Always it was Polly the
child--who lay there. In the lucid seconds that came between hours of
raving Polly’s ghost-like “Mam, I want a drink,” or “Is my Dad there?”
came as moments of heaven in a hell-like nightmare.
Nan’s “Yes, luv. He’s there,” was a miracle of revelation, but it had
the absurd effect of making him want to laugh. Polly dying, as the
doctor had told Granny she was, it only being “a question of time,”
was treated with almost grovelling reverence. Nan lifting Polly’s head
and letting her drink, and laying her back again, was so like a big,
horror-stricken savage in charge of a broken doll, it had a weird
ludicrousness. Whilst in between was the attending on Becky, and the
pink baby, who was, said Cherry, “a most awful drinker.”
The cobbler’s wife came every morning at nine and what she called “saw
Becky right” in that little room upstairs, and each time argued with
Becky on the reasons why she should call the boy Saul, after an uncle
of herself, the cobbler’s wife. To all of which Becky would only reply,
“How’s Polly?” Which the cobbler’s wife told Cherry (a safety-pin in
her mouth) showed a lack of motherly feeling.
After her outcast misery Becky had seen in Polly an angel, whose
influence had brought her to a clean bed, and a window that looked out
on hope.
The strange way in which the Cherry castle, once the stronghold of
individual selfishness, had been turned into a port of rescue, was
another of the things that amazed the boss of the castle.
But the most amazing feature was--Nan.
It seemed as though Nan’s astounding vigour of body, tenacity of
mind, even her very savagery had been given her for this one supreme
struggle. It was not the tender patience of the average woman appealing
to Omnipotence. It was the unreasonable, superhuman efforts of a
hooligan struggling against deity. Always, in her blue-checked apron
and the gaudy little shoulder-shawl that was Cherry’s Christmas
present, he saw her, fighting for the life of her cub, in this
flowering of motherhood that made her a cactus rather than a rose. She
was never tired. She never seemed to sleep. She was jealous if any
other woman took a turn for even an hour. If some one would be almost
dead always, Cherry saw Nan with a pair of wings budding.
It was Cherry who did the wincing when Polly’s head was shaved.
“What’s a bit o’ hair? It’ll grow again,” she yapped.
Her maternity was almost an iron thing.
But the only attribute in it of human pathos was her endeavour to
surround her daughter with those foolish trifles they had known to
give her joy. Polly, with shorn head, dwindled body, her eyes fixed
unseeingly on the rose-sprigged wall opposite, had on her bed a
counterpane with bright-coloured birds and flowers, specially chosen by
Nan from Cherry’s selection. Every day, too, on the little table sacred
to the medicine bottle, berried sprays had fresh water given to them.
But it was each morning, as the dawn came up once more, and a small,
fat, round-eyed little boy said “Milk” very quietly, just outside the
door, that Cherry felt the mother’s softness make him want to cry--like
a woman. Always he watched Nan hold the jug and the boy pour it in (how
gravely and with what purpose!) with a feeling that Polly had lived
through another of those black, endless nights--that she was here for
another morning.
One morning the fat little boy brought a pigeon, held head downward.
His face was yet smudged.
“Who sent this?” asked Nan.
She was on guard against Martha Jay trying to salve her conscience by
sending food for the sick girl.
And--the fat little boy blushed, saying the pigeon was his, and he
hoped Polly would get well. He had had his pet killed because he heard
they were strengthening. He had used to hear Polly sing--his eye at a
crack in the blind of Old Fiddlestick’s parlour.
“Oh--she’ll mend when she’s eaten that,” said Cherry.
The fat little boy ran out to hide a new rush of tears at his pet
being eaten--and stumbled against a chair, which crashed over.
Polly, who had lain making little groans, sat straight up in bed.
“Take the snow away,” she screamed. “Take it away,” and her thin hands
made a motion to throw it off the bed.
The obsession about music, and the taking of her father’s ribbed coat
for a mass of writhing eels, magnified by her feverish sight, the whim
that always a little black lion stood on the bed-rail looking fiercely
at her--all gave way before this new craze about snow.
Startled by the noise, the poor brain went back to some sensation that
had worried her. Day and night, night and day, there was snow on the
bed, which she shrieked to have taken away. It was as he watched whilst
Nan tended Becky that Cherry heard a name linked up with this snow idea.
The little brass knocker was muffled and the milk-boy kept outside the
door, now. But Polly became wilder.
“There’s one thing,” said Granny, “she’ll end or mend soon, Will.”
All day there was coming and going from the village to the house on Tom
Hill.
So many fair things were now remembered about the giddy girl. Nan kept
the people outside, gave them to understand they hadn’t time for them.
The doctor advised strapping Polly down in bed.
It was Nan who fought with the girl, remorselessly laying her down,
again, again, again, until, worn out, the automatic action of springing
up ceased. Susan Thorpe came every other night, to let Cherry sleep.
Sometimes, Cherry dozed in the corner. Always he found Nan with
wide-open eyes. Sometimes he thought she prayed. He fancied sometimes
she thought this a punishment for her past blasphemies. Nan had never
been the same woman since the voice in the night.
As Polly became worse Nan became more of an Amazon--withal a
christianised Amazon.
She lifted Polly in her arms like a baby whilst Susan drew on the clean
sheets.
It was as though she had set herself by sheer strength, bodily and of
will, to save her daughter’s life. Nothing in the house was neglected.
Always, in between tasks performed silently, Nan sat--watching, pouring
drops of nourishment between the girl’s lips, or fixing the ice-bags,
or giving medicine. The doctor found an iron disciple in Nan.
As she watched, Cherry knew that Nan was promising the Omnipotent to be
a saint, if He’d let Polly live. Funny, he mused, how some women had to
see devils before they believed in an Almighty, or did what they should
by men.
There were three intolerable days and nights in which Granny Harker
so far broke down as to accuse them of being keeping the poor lass in
misery, when it was plain that the Lord wanted her, and advised that
they take her off the feather-bed, as folk couldn’t die in beds full o’
feathers plucked whilst the geese were wick, as everybody knew.
But Nan did not offer to let Polly go out of her misery.
Cherry and she were more in harmony than ever they had been in their
lives.
Cherry sat in his ingle-nook, waiting--moving the little pan sometimes
when it didn’t need it. Nan sat watching and keeping the spoon
going--little drops.
“I’m afraid she’s rather worse,” said the doctor, as he came and went.
“Two in the morning, I should say, will see the turn.”
He went out quite cheerfully.
Nan refused to have any one stay up that night. Cherry settled himself
down in the nook.
Again they went through the drama of the snow--and she would leap up,
and Nan firmly made her lie down.
At nine o’clock the striking of the hour disturbed her. She became
conscious for a moment.
It was the old cry.
Her gaze fell on Nan.
“Mam! I want to drink,” said a weak child’s voice.
These were moments when Nan found strength to go on battling.
She looked around the place after drinking.
“Susan Thorpe was here a bit sin’. Where is she?” she asked.
Susan had called at four in the afternoon.
Polly had lost consciousness again when Nan was going to tell her about
Susan.
“She’s going to get better, old girl,” said the man in the corner.
Nan said nothing.
Cherry tried to read, to while away those dreadful hours before two.
Hamlet’s Soliloquy, Mark Antony’s Oration--but they failed to grip.
Always the fascination of that hour drawing near, whilst Cherrydale
slept, made all other things less than nothing. He could see Polly’s
thin cheek, the big eyes that dwarfed her face--the thin hands doing
what old wives called “weaving their winding sheet.” There was
Nan--more little drops--fresh ice--watching the clock for medicine.
“Nan!” said the Yorkshireman.
She looked at him crossly.
“If I had my time to do again,” he said, “I’d wed thee again.”
She dropped more liquid nourishment. She hadn’t heard him. The ticking
of the clock became an awful thing.
“She’s changin’, Will,” said Nan, at length. “There’s summat. Her
breath’s slackenin’!”
“Wheel us up,” said Cherry.
Nan came and wheeled him up to the other side of the bed. She stood for
a moment, behind his chair. Then she said, “Bill, if she gets reight,
I’ll--give the Army up, except once a month. Cowd dinners isn’t nice on
Sundays.” She passed her hand over his hair. It was the first caress
she had given him.
Then she went over to the other side of the bed.
The flush, the excitement was dying out of Polly’s face.
It grew pale and peaked.
How the great chin-dimple made a hollowy shadow, now.
Nan looked across at her mate, in terror.
Nan was breaking up at the last minute.
“Bill! say summat. I’m flayed,” she said.
“Howd thy din,” said Cherry.
He had taken control now.
It was the rational manhood of him, that placid strength she had used
to try and shatter.
She was mum.
She was subjugated by the strength of the male.
Cherry was watching.
“Go on spooning,” he said.
Nan gave more little drops.
It was half-past one. The fire was a little low. Upstairs they could
hear the future Saul carrying on a small revolution for more drink.
Polly moved restlessly.
Her hands were ceasing the motion that had got to be a haunting picture.
She slowly turned on one side, face towards the wall, with a weary
little sigh.
“Bill!”
“Shut up.”
Cherry’s gaze went back again to Polly.
She was quietening down.
The hands had ceased the restless motion altogether, now.
The house grew a still thing, save for the importunities of the infant
upstairs.
“Leet a cannel, an’ shade it so’s it doesn’t shine on her eyes,”
commanded Cherry.
Nan did so.
“She’s asleep,” she said, with tragic hope.
There was another half-hour in which life battled with death. Then Nan
said, “She’s breathin’ nice, Bill. She’s--comin’ back, Bill,” and went
upstairs to console the infant Saul, and astounded Becky by wrapping
her shoulders up.
Whilst outside, in the snow-slush, stood Adam, keeping watch until the
blind went up, to say Polly lived, or remained down, to say the sun had
gone out for him.
A week later, Polly was sitting up in bed, wondering how she would
face the world without hair. For the rest, she was taken up with
Becky’s baby. Sarah Wild came to see her one day, bringing a bag of
rosy-cheeked winter apples, from Ashdale, where Adam was working for
Uncle Nat--a proud Wild become a hireling. When Sarah tried to find
out Polly’s attitude towards Adam, she was non-plussed. Polly the
transparent had become Polly the enigma. Without being aggressive,
Polly was not encouraging--nor discouraging. So far as Sarah could see,
it was worse. But she wrote to her brother that she believed he had a
chance.
“Where’s Rag, Dad?” asked Polly, suddenly, one day.
She had thought of him before--but imagined some one had been keeping
him to “train.”
Cherry stammered a little--then decided to make a clean breast of
it. He looked sadly at Polly, who was sitting up, and then at Becky,
who was also sitting up, for the first time, very humble and white,
but not utterly unhappy. “He made such a noise--barking, an’ pullin’
th’ bedclothes,” he said, apologetically. “So--one neet--when I’d
had eight pints, Polly, and it seemed as if his legs would never be
straight--well, there were a chap wi’ a gun came into the ‘Peep In’
an’ we gave Rag four pints an’ he mopped ’em all up--and fell, like a
soldier an’ a man.”
By this time Polly burst out crying--and Cherry, almost crying too,
said consolingly, “He’s buried yon under a little sycamore tree behind
the ‘Peep In.’ Poor old Rag.” The thought of all Rag’s idiosyncrasies
was too much for him. He began to laugh. Rag had left a humorous ghost
behind him.
But Polly cried for some time.
She did not know how he could have done it, she said. And Cherry
said he didn’t either, but he believed it was kindest. The dog that
couldn’t fight didn’t have half a life.
In two days Polly came to be less certain that Rag had enjoyed himself
as well as any one. By this time Adam had got Sarah’s letter, written
from her place in “service”--her place that was breaking her heart.
How it came about that shortly afterwards, as Polly and Becky sat
in the parlour, Polly sewing for the baby (who had actually been
hawked round Cherrydale in the identical coat that had caused such
heart-burning, with Granny not forgetting to point it out and laugh), a
knock came to the door.
Nan answered it.
She saw Adam by the light of the lamp Cherry had bought for the porch.
“Oh--come in,” she said.
Cherry had given her instructions.
Adam entered.
He was a long time wiping his feet on the mat.
Then, “Can I see Miss Cherry?” he asked.
Nan had to ask him what he said. He repeated the query.
“Oh--” she said. Then, “Ay.”
She went into the parlour.
“Becky,” she said, “I think it’s time that child went to bed.”
Becky took the hint, and came out.
“Go on,” said Nan, and gave Adam a push.
Holding his cap very tightly, he crept in.
Polly looked up to see him standing there.
“Ooo!” she exclaimed.
He gripped the cap a little tighter.
“I came to see if you would marry me,” he asked, humbly.
She was staring at him with those big eyes.
That close-cropped head gave her a nunnish look, further carried out
by the candle at her side, the worn look of the face that had been so
blurred and soft.
Then--she shook her head from side to side.
“Polly!” he appealed.
“No,” said a hard little voice.
He did not move.
“No,” she repeated.
She had been to the gates of death and back and had come through with
that same kernel of hardness he had realised that night.
No Wild ever asked a woman twice.
He went out.
He walked about quite a time, then swung over to Witch Gate. The Wild
pride that hemmed him in was a thing that riled him to-night. He had
lost all, by wisdom. Wisdom tired him to-night. The cheerful stamping
of feet on a sanded inn-floor to the strains of a concertina seemed the
wisest thing in the world to-night. He cast off the self-esteem that
had divided him from other men, and crept in humbly amongst them.
When he left it was quite dark.
He never remembered much about that night, excepting that a man he
had never seen before invited him to sleep in his bed, and that his
refusal hurt the man’s feelings, so that eventually they were fighting.
Somebody--he didn’t know whom--parted them. He fell down a bank
near the river, scrambled out again, and somehow blundered along to
Cherrydale, going by the links. There was a moon--which he was sure was
drunk. It was as he went by the path that led to the Cherry castle that
it seemed nothing to ask a woman twenty times, if you wanted.
Somehow, he remembered that Polly had once told him, oh, a thousand
years ago, that she wouldn’t have him if he crept on his hands and
knees. It became a ludicrous thing. He refused to believe that any
woman could refuse any man who crept on his hands and knees.
When he got up the hill again, he could hear supper pots clinking, a
baby crying, and Cherry’s voice, and Polly’s giggle--weak as it was.
There was so much talking they did not hear him open the door.
With the stealth of a madman he came along the passage, and
then--dropped upon hands and knees.
“Ooo!” said Polly, upsetting her tea.
The thing that had wambled in looked up.
“P-ple-ease, Miss Cherry, will you marry me?” it said.
It was an indescribable scene that followed.
Everybody laughed--except Polly.
“Get up,” she kept saying, angrily. “Get up.”
“Ay. Stand on thy hind legs, Wild,” urged Cherry.
“P-ple-ease, Miss Cherry, will you marry me?” asked Adam.
“Ooo, yes,” said Polly. “Get up.”
She was tugging at his collar.
Adam got up.
He was so drunk that he could scarcely stand.
But he got hold of Polly’s hands.
He gazed at her very fixedly--in the way of a man seeing two, though,
and not quite sure which is the right one.
“I love you,” he said, with dignity (staggering a little) “better
than I love the Clouds, better than I love the heather when it’s
purple--better than I loved Sagg Farm.”
Then, putting his cap on his head, back to fore, he went out--rather
uncertainly, but on his hind legs.
“You never know a man till he’s drunk,” said Cherry, afterwards, of the
event, “an’ I never liked Wild so well as when I see how he made a fool
on himself. He’s a gentleman.”