“You’ve got the second sight, seemingly, our Prue.”
“No. Only a bit of sense.”
“Well, now as the old man’s given me the go-by, I do hunger and thirst
after Jancis pretty near as much as I do after the place yonder, and the
money and all as goes with it.”
“Not more?”
“Laws, no!”
“Then you dunna love Jancis in good sadness, Gideon. You do but lust
after the girl in carnality.”
“Dear to goodness! It met be Parson preaching. That’s what the
book-learning does to a woman.”
He laughed a bit, awkward like, and began stuffing baccy into his pipe.
But I knew that if I’d got any wisdom it was never book-learning as gave
it to me, but just the quietness of the attic.
“Well, big words or not, it’s no matter,” he said. “I want the wench. I
want her so bad that I’d very near set my heart to give up all and bring
her to Sarn and order one of them rush cradles off Missis Beguildy. So
then, to conquer the longing, I planned to bring you to see the place,
and talk about it, and maybe begin to buy some bits of things agen we
furnish.”
“To harden your heart the more.”
“Ah. And I planned to get some education off you after a while, and
gather power to me at election times, and be so well thought of that I
could even put my heart on a squire’s girl.”
“Miss Dorabella!”
“No less. What be she, after all, but a woman? She hanna got more to
give than any other woman, and what would any man, even the Lord of the
Manor, do more for a girl than get her with child?”
“Husht! They’ll hear in the kitchen and be angered at such wild talk.”
“True talk.”
“Maybe true. But nobody’d like it the better for that.”
“Ever since she threw me that first saucy look I’ve had it in mind. She
angered me and pleased me both. So I thought if so be I could bring
myself to give up Jancis—for either I mun give up Jancis or I mun give
up all thought of the other—then Jancis met have taken up with Sexton’s
Sammy.”
“It would nigh kill the girl, Gideon, and Sammy’s no woman’s man, and
he’s pretty well crazed with learning texts, into the bargain.”
“Oh, he’d take her if I’d let un. She stirs him to anger with her
flighty ways and being a wizard’s wench and all. I see a look in Sammy’s
face time and agen. Wed with her and tame her, that’s what Sammy ud do.”
“But that would be a cruel thing, Gideon.”
“Well, I’d a mind for it when we set out for market. I thought to throw
Jancis at the fellow’s yeard like I throw a crust to Towser, for it mun
be one thing or other. And she’d have been contented enough when the
children came. Though, Lord help ’em, they’d ha’ had Sammy’s scowl and
bin born with their mouths full of texes. But she’d have seen nought
wrong with ’em. Anyway, that’s what I’d settled in my own mind.”
“Dear to goodness, what a God Almighty!” I says, mocking a bit, though I
knew he could ha’ done it if he’d a mind. He was ever a strong man,
which is almost the same, times, as to say, a man with little time for
kindness. For if you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your
path. So when folk tell me of this great man and that great man, I think
to myself, Who was stinted of joy for his glory? How many old folk and
children did his coach wheels go over? What bridal lacked his song, and
what mourner his tears, that he found time to climb so high?
“But now,” said Gideon, “my mind’s set, and I shanna change agen. I
wunna give up either Jancis or the place at Lullingford here; I’ll have
both. And I’ll lead Jancis out in a gown as would stand of itself, with
her bosom bare as a lady’s, at the ’unt Ball, in front of Miss
Dorabella. Not only that neither. But when you and Jancis be at the
grand place, and the gentry calling in their carriages——”
“And Mother! You’ve missed out Mother.”
“And me a man of standing, more looked up to than Squire, and not yet
old, nor near it, then——”
He was quiet a long while, thinking.
“Well, Gideon,” I says, “what then?”
“Why then, if Dorabella Camperdine comes across my path with them black
eyes and that red smile, let her look to herself. I’ll take her. Out of
wedlock, I ool, for what she said to you and me to-day. And when the
poor wizard’s wench is my lawful missus, I’ll make Squire’s girl a
w’ore.”
With that word he banged down his fist on the table so that the tankard
of ale rolled on the floor.
“If you be so set in your ways,” I says, “there’ll be more than a flagon
of ale spilled, my dear.”
“You talk like an old ancient woman, Prue. I be as I was made. None can
go widdershins to that.”
I can hear Gideon say that now, gruff and short and with a kind of
broken-hearted sound. It was as if he’d give all to be as he could never
be; as if his soul in that hour, away from Sarn and all its ancient
power, wrestled mightily to be free of itself. Maybe you’ve seen a
dragon-fly coming out of its case? It does so wrostle, it does so
wrench, you’d think its life ud go from it. I’ve seen ’em turn somersets
like a mountebank in their agony. For get free they mun, and it cosses
’em a pain like the birth pain, very pitiful to see. But in our Gideon
it was worse to watch. There he sat, by the comfortable fire, with the
spilled beer gleaming on the quarries like dark blood, and he said no
word for above an hour. I know it was that, for when he went into his
trance I heard the missus of the inn call to the maid-servant to turn
the spit and hasten on the meat, for supper must be served in an hour.
Then all was still, and I sat with folded hands, seeing Gideon’s dark
face there opposite when the fire blazed up. I sat as mum as a winter
blackbird. It seemed to me that the mighty hand was upon him, striving
with him to make him go widdershins to what he was, to what Father had
made him, and Grandad, and all of them, back to Timothy, that had the
lightning in his blood. I could see in mind Lullingford New House, and
the light wandering, as if it wanted to steady and shine. I wished it
might be well with Gideon, and that he met take Jancis, not for
vengeance but for love, and because she was the candle of his eye, and
his dear acquaintance, and not for lust. And I wished he might take
thought for Mother, and even for me, that I be not like his dog or his
bought slave.
After a long lapse of time I heard a voice outside say, “Is all
finished?” And another voice answered, “Ah, all’s done.” It had a solemn
sound, though I knew it was only the dinner they meant.
Gideon stirred and muttered to himself.
“Or die in ’tempting it,” he said.
So I knew we were all set out on a dark road, Gideon and Mother and me,
and now Jancis.
We went out and saddled the nags, and set forth for home through a world
as stiff as a rock, driving the oxen afore us. The dumbness had come
back upon Gideon. The outing was over. The road puddles were gone beyond
crackling-stiff, and were iron. And the hedges were even as the
wrought-iron gates of Lullingford New House. It was the middle of the
night when we came past Sarn Mere, and saw the ice a deal further out,
and the lily leaves frozen under.
“Well, it’s bin a very costly day,” says Gideon, “and I’m in behopes
you’ve enjoyed yourself.”
I knew it hurt the lad sore to spend. It was a crust in pocket and a sup
of water mostly on market days. So I put the old men and Miss Dorabella
out of mind, and only said—
“Ah, it was grand, and thank you kindly, lad.”
“And you’ll agree to all?”
“Ah, didna I vow it?”
“But that was afore Jancis.”
“I agree to Jancis. But it ud be all one if I didna.”
“Not if you wouldna work.”
“Oh, I’ll work. I never was afeard of work.”
All of a sudden a sweet scattered whistling came falling from the dim
moony sky.
“Hark!” he says. “The Seven Whistlers!”
But I said I thought it was only some magpie-widgeon we’d disturbed at
the end of the mere, being mortally afeard to think of those other
ghostly birds.
“No,” he says. “No. It be the Seven Whistlers, sure enough. It bodes no
good.”
This was a strange thing for Gideon to say, for he mostly laughed at
signs and bodings, and I could not but think of it, up in the attic
after.
Mother and Tivvy were sitting up for us, and seemingly Mother had seen
us in the tea leaves, drownded in Sarn. She’d scarce believe in us for a
long while, but cried and wrung her hands and said, “They binna real.
It’s only the _know_ of them.” So I was bound to give her one of my
Christmas presents to comfort her. She was ever a child in heart, was
poor Mother. She was so simple and trustful that I always thought it
would be as wicked to hurt her as to hurt a babe in swaddling clothes,
or a poor moth flittering in the dusk. Ah, an evil thing, a devil’s
trick, to betray such a trusting heart, such trembling, praying little
hands!
“I be to lie in your chamber, Prue,” says Tivvy. “I be glad, for it’s
cold lying alone in black frost weather.”
She looked slanting at Gideon, and I could see she was nearly wild with
jealousy of Jancis. And indeed Gideon did look a proper fine man, with
his face all frosty red and his eyes lit up with the day’s doings. He’d
but to nod, and Tivvy ud follow. But he was never one to chop and
change, and his mind was made up, so I knew it was Jancis or none. I
didna want Tivvy in my bed, she did so snore and snoffle in her slumber.
So I waited till she was fast, and then I took the lanthorn and Father’s
old sheepskin coat that lapped me up feet and all, and I went to the
attic and wrote in my book. It was always my custom, if things grieved
me or gladdened me, to write them down in full. Also I had much need of
the peace that was in the attic, after such a bitter dose of the world
beyond Sarn. Because I had no lover, I would lief have been the world’s
lover—such world, that is, as I could reach. I was like a maid standing
at the meeting of the lane-ends on May Day with a posy-knot as a favour
for a rider that should come by. And behold! The horseman rode straight
over me, and left me, posy and all, in the mire.