“Nought, nought, but why not the weaver’s man? It ud be cheaper.”
“I like the best weaving.”
I fell into a dream, for if Kester was going to weave for us he’d have
to come into the attic, walking to and agen round the weaving frame,
looking out of my little window, making the place his place, so I should
have him there for ever after. Yet still I couldna abide the thought of
him seeing me, and I argufied for having the weaver’s man till Gideon
thought I was in love with the fellow, though he was said to be simple
and had got fourteen children into the bargain. But Mother put on her
spectacles and looked at me, and pushed them up and looked again, and
settled them in place to look a third time.
“We’ll have the weaver,” she said, and that was all.
It was the day after this that Jancis came rushing in, all wild, to say
that Beguildy was going to take her to the hiring fair on May Day,
unless Gideon could stop it. She came into the dairy where I was
churning, and she said—
“Oh, Prue, the young gentleman’s been again, and have me he will,
leastways you!”
She gave a giggle in the midst of her crying.
“And Father says it’s that or the hiring fair. It’ll be three years,
Prue. I’ll be bound for a dairymaid or a kitchen wench for three years,
that is, unless Gideon offers to wed with me now.”
“Gideon wunna, my dear, he’s fixed in mind about the ploughing.
Nought’ll turn him from that.”
“But I shouldna stop it.”
“You’d be another mouth to feed. And if you ailed—”
“I shouldna. I be stronger than I look.”
“You canna tell, Jancis. When you wed, you begin a game of Blind Man’s
Buff that ends you canna tell where. And if little uns came, what about
all that money Gideon’s set on making?”
“Oh, deary me! Oh, I canna bear it, Prue. I do love Gideon right well,
and once parted may be as bad as never met.”
“Well, you talk to Gideon.”
“And will you put in a word wiselike?”
“Ah, I’ll put in a word. But what he wunna do for you, that be his dear
acquaintance, he wunna do for me, that be nought but his hard-drove
sister.”
Just then Gideon came across the fold to fetch the buttermilk for the
pigs.
He stood in the dairy door, and I thought it small wonder she was sweet
on him, for in his smock and leather breeches, with his black head bare
and his eyes blazing on Jancis, he was as well-favoured a man as you
could meet in ten parishes. And I thought, as I looked round the dairy,
that it was as good a place as anybody could wish for asking to wed. The
sun shone slanting in, though it was off the dairy most of the day. The
damp red quarries and the big brown steans made a deal of colour in the
place, and the yellow cream and butter and the piles of cheeses were as
bright as buttercups and primmyroses. Jancis matched well with them,
with her pretty yellow hair and her face all flushed at the sight of
Gideon. She was like a rose in her pink gown. Outside the window, in the
pink budded may tree, a thrush was singing. I mind it all so clear, and
should, even if it wasna written in my book.
“You be early,” says Gideon.
“And welcome?”
“Oh, ah! You be surely welcome.”
She looked at me mischievously as if she was asking me if I did mind,
and stood tiptoe for Gideon to kiss her.
“I’ve got news,” she says. “Good news or bad, as you do make it.”
“Me?”
“Ah, it’s this-a-way, Sarn, Feyther says I mun—”
She looked at me, helpless like.
“Beguildy wants to sell the child, Gideon. What’s the use of mincing
words? He wants to sell her to young Camperdine for his pleasure.”
Jancis hid her face in her hands.
“And if so be she says no, she’s to go as a kitchen wench to the May
Fair and be prenticed for three years.”
“What! Sell my girl? Beguildy’ll sell my girl? Dang me, I could drown
him dead for that!”
“He’s not sold her yet, Gideon.”
“The better for un.”
“But she’ll be bound prentice for three years, away somewhere beyond
Lullingford.”
Gideon stooped and pulled away her hands, looking fiercely on her face.
“Be you a true wench to me?” he says. “Dang me, if you’ve lost your
maiden’ead to young Camperdine, I’ll lay un out with the pole-axe. Ah!
And you I’ll strangle.”
“No, no, Sarn, I hanna, I hanna,” she cried out. “I be a good maid to
you, Sarn, indeed I be.”
“But what’s she to do, Gideon? For unless she’ll be the young man’s
light-o’-love she’s bound to go away.”
“I canna abear to go away.”
She burst out crying again. I waited for Gideon to speak, but he said
nought.
“There’s one other way, Gideon.”
I said it coaxing, for I knew it was his hour of choice for the two of
them. The good road for both was in their power to take this day. It was
one of the times in Gideon’s life when he might choose his blessing, the
path of love and merry days where the pretty paigle grew, the keys of
heaven, or the path of strange twists and turns, where was the thing of
dread, the bane, the precious bane, that feeds on life blood.
Jancis seemed to know also that their lives in some fashion hung upon
this hour. She stooped down and kissed his hand, and she said in a soft
hoarse voice—
“O, be my sweetheart, Sarn!”
Gideon gave a kind of groan.
“I know where you be dragging me, Prue,” he said, “with your eyes so
strongly upon me. You be pulling me down to poverty and the loss of all
I’ve dreamt of.”
“I’d work double, lad,” I said.
“What use? You know right well what would happen. Could any man do other
with a pretty piece like that for missus? Mouths to feed, mouths to
feed. Never no grand house nor maids and men, nor pew in church. No
money for you. No ’unt Ball for Jancis. No hail-fellow-well-met with the
gentry for me. If ever we make any money it wunna be for years and
years. We shall lose the house and go pottering on, eating up all we
make. A man with a wife and family never gets on. He mun make his money
first.”
“But wouldna you work better if you were happy, lad, with Jancis happy
too?”
“Why, no. Happiness and idleness be twins. If you want to work, you
munna be happy nor miserable. You mun just think of work and nought
else. Another thing, if I take Jancis now, in the teeth of young
Camperdine’s longing after her, he’ll be agen me himself and he’ll set
all the gentry agen me. Whatever’s made the man so mad in love, it’s
done now, and we mun take care.”
He looked at Jancis suspiciously, and she prayed me with her eyes to
explain all. But that I couldna do. I’d done a deal for Jancis, but that
was too much. For I was afraid that if I spoke at all it would get round
to Kester Woodseaves. Jancis was under promise that none should know,
saving only, in the utmost need, Gideon. So I kept silence, and I canna
see that it made any difference, for speaking would only have put it
off, and Beguildy had made his mind up about Jancis, and if it wasna the
young squire then it ud be somebody else. It was best for Gideon to
decide once for all, then if he chose right he and Jancis could be wed,
and it would be out of Beguildy’s power to make any more plans.
“It’ll only put off the riches for a bit, Gideon,” I said.
“No. It ud put ’em off for ever and ever. The best thing to put off is
getting wed. We’ll wait three year. That’ll give us time to turn round.
Not as I want to put it off.”
He fell silent, looking at Jancis. I could see the longing in his face,
and he was all of a tremble. It was strange to see such a great strong
fellow shaking like a woman that’s seen frittening.
He took a step towards Jancis, and I made to go out, for I thought he’d
take her in arms and all be well. But all of a sudden he muttered—
“No, no!” and drew back. Then he said—
“There’d be no satin gown for ye to dance Sir Roger in at the ’unt Ball
then, Jancis. You’d be sorry for that.”
“Ah.”
“Well, if you go for a dairymaid or summat you’ll be yearning for it as
well as me. Three year inna long. By the end of three year all the
ploughland should be bearing well, and us’ll be reaping what we’ve
sown.”
“Dear Lord forbid,” I says.