“So long as we’ve got the bees, Mother, we’re the better of it, die who
may.”
Eh, dear! I’m afraid Gideon had a very _having_ spirit, even then. But
Father thought he was a sensible lad, and he laughed and said—
“Well, we’ve got such a mort of bees now I’m in behopes it wunna be me
as has the telling of ’em if anybody does die.”
“Where be your sprigs of rosemary and your Prayer Books and your clean
handkerchers?” says Mother.
Gideon had been in behopes to leave them behind, but now he ran to fetch
them, and Mother began setting my kerchief to rights over my shoulders.
She put in her big brooch with the black stone, that she had when George
the Second died, and while she was putting it in she kept saying to
herself—“Not as it matters what the poor child wears. Deary, deary me!
But could I help it if the hare crossed my path? Could I help it?”
Whenever she said that, her voice went very mournful and I thought again
of somebody in a dark passage, groping.
“Now then, Mother! Hold the skep whilst I keep the bough up,” said
Father; “they’ve knit so low down.”
I’d lief have stayed, for I dearly loved to see the great tossy-ball of
bees’ bodies, as rich as a brown Christmas cake, and to hear the heavy
sound of them.
We went through the wicket and along the top path, because it was the
nighest way to the church, and we wanted to catch Tivvy afore she went
in. The coots were out on the mere, and the water was the colour of
light, with spears in it. “Now,” said Gideon, “we’ll run for our lives!”
“What’s after us?”
“The people out of the water.”
So we ran for our lives, and got to the church just as the two last
bells began their snabbing “_Ting_ tong! _Ting_ tong!” that always
minded me of the birch-rod.
We sat on the flat grave where we mostly sat to play _Conquer_, and the
church being on a little hill we could watch the tuthree folks coming
along the fields. There was Tivvy with her father, coming from the East
Coppy, and Jancis in the flat water-meadows where the big thorn hedges
were all in blow. Jancis was a little thing, not tall like me, but you
always saw her before you saw other people, for it seemed that the light
gathered round her. She’d got golden hair, and all the shadows on her
face seemed to be stained with the pale colour of it. I was used to
think she was like a white water-lily full of yellow pollen or honey.
She’d got a very white skin, creamy white, without any colour unless she
was excited or shy, and her face was dimpled and soft, and just the
right plumpness. She’d got a red, cool, smiling mouth, and when she
smiled the dimples ran each into other. Times I could almost have
strangled her for that smile.
She came up to us, very demure, in her flowered bodice and blue skirt
and a bunch of blossom in her kerchief.
Although she was only two years older than I was, being of an age with
Gideon, she seemed a deal older, for she’d begun to smile at the lads
already, and folks said, “Beguildy’s Jancis will soon be courting.” But
I know old Beguildy never meant her to get married. He meant to keep her
as a bait to draw the young fellows in, for mostly the people that came
to him were either young maids with no money or old men who wanted
somebody cursed cheap. So at this time, when he saw what a white,
blossomy piece Jancis was growing, he encouraged her to dizen herself
and sit in the window of the Cave House in case anybody went by up the
lane. It was only once in a month of Sundays that anybody did, for Plash
was nearly as lonesome as Sarn. He made a lanthorn of coloured glass,
too, the colour of red roses, and while Jancis sat in the stone frame of
the window he hung it up above her with a great candle in it from
foreign parts, not a rushlight such as we used. He had it in mind that
if some great gentleman came by to a fair or a cockfight beyond the
mountains he might fall in love with her, and then Beguildy planned to
bring him in and give him strong ale and talk about charms and spells,
and offer at long last to work the charm of raising Venus. It was all
written in one of his books: how you went into a dark room and gave the
wise man five pound, and he said a charm, and after awhile there was a
pink light and a scent of roses, and Venus rose naked in the middle of
the room. Only it wouldna have been Venus, but Jancis. The great
gentleman, howsoever, was a long while coming, and the only man that saw
her in the window was Gideon one winter evening when he was coming back
that way from market, because the other road was flooded. He was fair
comic-struck about her, and talked of her till I was aweary, he being
nineteen at the time, which is a foolish age in lads. Before that, he
never took any account of her, but just to tell her this and that as he
did with me. But afterwards he was nought but a gauby about her. I could
never have believed that such a determined lad, so set in his ways and
so clever, could have been thus soft about a girl. But on this evening
he was only seventeen, and he just said, “Take dog’s leave oot, Jancis,
and come with us after conkers.”
“O” said Jancis, “I wanted to play ‘_Green Gravel, Green Gravel_.’”
She’s got a way of saying “O” afore everything, and it made her mouth
look like a rose. But whether she did it for that, or whether she did it
because she was slow-witted and timid, I never could tell.
“There’s nought to win in _Green Gravel_,” said Gideon, “we’ll play
_Conquer_.”
“O I wanted _Green Gravel_! You’ll beat me if we play _Conquer_.”
“Ah. That’s why we’ll play.”
Tivvy came through the lych-gate then, and we told her what she’d got to
do. She was a poor, foolish creature, and she could hardly mind her own
name, times, for all its outlandishness, let alone a sermon. But Gideon
said, so long as she got an inkling of it he could make up the rest. And
he said if she didna remember enough of it he’d twist her arm proper. So
she began to cry.
Then we saw Sexton coming across the ploughed field, very solemn, with
his long staff, black and white in bands, and we could hear Parson’s
piebald pony clop-clopping up the lane, so we made off, and left Tivvy
with her round chin trembling, and her mouth all crooked with crying,
because she knew she’d never remember a word of the sermon. Tivvy at a
sermon always used to make me think of our dog being washed. He’d lie
down and let the water souse over him, and she did the same with a
sermon. So I knew trouble was brewing.
It was a beautiful evening, with swallows high in the air, and a
powerful smell of may-blossom. When the bells stopped, ours and the
others, we went and looked down into the water, to see if we could get a
sight of the village there, as we did most Sundays. But there was only
our own church upside down, and two or three stones and crosses the
same, and Parson’s pony grazing on its head.
Times, on summer evenings, when the sun was low, the shadow of the spire
came right across the water to our dwelling, and I was used to think it
was like the finger of the Lord pointing at us. We went down into the
marshy places and found plenty of conkers, and Gideon beat Jancis every
time, which was a good thing, for at the end he said he’d play _Green
Gravel_, and they were both pleased. Only we were terrible late, and
nearly missed Tivvy.
“Now, tell!” says Gideon. So she began to cry, and said she knew nought
about it. Then he twisted her arm, and she screamed out, “Burning and
fuel of fire!”
She must have said that because it was one of the texts the Sexton was
very fond of saying over, keeping time with tapping his staff the while.
“What else?”
“Nought.”
“I’ll twist your arm till it comes off if you dunna think of any more.”