[JEREMY, _followed by the cousins_, _enters_. _He holds a bunch of
leaves towards_ MARY.
JEREMY. There you be, mistress. Fools’ drink for fools. A mug of good
cider would have fetched them to their senses quicker.
[MARY _takes the bunch_, _and still holding_ JOHN’S _hand_, _leads him to
the kitchen_. JEREMY _watches the pair sarcastically_.
JEREMY. ’Tis all finished with the master, then.
[_The sisters seat themselves on the couch and mop their faces with
handkerchiefs_.
LIZ. Dear me, ’tis warm.
JANE. I hope my face don’t show mottled, sister?
JEREMY. I was saying as how ’twas all finished with the master.
[MARY, _followed by_ JOHN, _comes forward carrying two glasses_. _She
gives one to_ ROSE _and the other to_ ROBERT.
MARY. Now do you take a good draught of this, the both of you. With
violet leaves the fever of the mind is calmed, and heartsease lightens
every trouble caused by love. Rosemary do put new life to anyone with
its sweetness, and cold spring water does the rest.
[_She leaves the table and stands far back in the room by_ JOHN’S _side_.
ROSE _slowly lifts her glass and begins to drink_. ROBERT _does the
same_. _They are watched with anxiety by all in the room_. _When they
have emptied their glasses_ ROSE _dries her tears and pushes the flowers
a little way from her_. ROBERT _shakes himself and moves the cotton
bonnet so that it falls unheeded to the floor_. _Meanwhile_ KITTY _has
come quietly to the garden door and stands there watching the scene
intently_.
LIZ. Bain’t we going to get a drink too?
JANE. Seems as though master have been and forgot we.
JEREMY. [_Starting up and going to the kitchen_.] If I’ve been and
forgot you two old women, I’ve remembered myself. Be blowed if I can get
through any more of this foolishness without a wet of my mouth.
[_He goes out_.
ROSE. [_Speaking faintly_.] Does it show upon my face, the crying,
Robert?
ROBERT. [_Looking at her_.] No, no, Rose, your eyes be brighter nor
ever they were.
ROSE. [_Pushing the forget-me-nots yet further away_.] Those flowers
are dying. My fancy ones were best.
KITTY. [_Coming forward with the orange blossoms_.] Here they are, dear
Rose.
ROSE. [_Taking them_.] O how beautiful they do look. I declare I can
smell the sweetness coming out from them, Robert.
ROBERT. All the orange blossom in the world bain’t so sweet as one kiss
from your lips, Rose.
ROSE. Now is that truly so?
ROBERT. Ah, ’tis heavy work a-waiting for the coach, Rose.
JOHN. [_Coming forward and taking_ MARY’S _hand_.] And yours won’t be
the only marriage Rose-Anna. Did you never think that me and Mary might—
KITTY. [_Running forward_.] But I did—O so many times, John. [JEREMY
_enters with_ LUBIN _and_ ISABEL.
JEREMY. Servants be comed back. Man was to the Red Bull, I count.
Female a-washing and a-combing of herself in the barn.
ROSE. [_Coldly_.] I don’t care whether they be here or not. Set them
to work, Jerry, whilst we are to church.
LIZ. That’s it, Master Jeremy. I was never so put out in my life, as
when sister did keep on ringing and the wench was not there to help us on
with our gowns.
[ROSE _and_ ROBERT _get up and go towards the door_. _They pause before_
LUBIN _and_ ISABEL.
ROSE. The man puts me in mind of someone whom I knew before, called
Lubin. I thought I had a fancy for him once—but ’twasn’t really so.
ROBERT. And the girl do favour a little servant wench from Framilode.
ROSE. [_Jealously_.] You never went a-courting with a servant wench,
now did you, my heart’s dearest?
ROBERT. Never in all my days, Rose. ’Twas but the fanciful thoughts of
a boy towards she, that I had.
ROSE. [_Putting her arm in_ ROBERT’S.] Well, we have nothing to do with
anything more of it now, dear Robert.
ROBERT. You’re about right, my true love, we’ll get us off to the
church.
JEREMY. Ah, coach have been waiting a smartish while, I reckon. ’Tis on
master as expense’ll fall.
[ROSE _and_ ROBERT _with cold glances at_ LUBIN _and_ ISABEL, _pass out
of the door_.
JOHN. [_Giving his arm to_ MARY.] Now, Mary—now, Kitty. [_They pass
out_.
LIZ. Now, Jeremy, sister and me bain’t going off all alone.
JEREMY. [_Offering an arm to each_.] No further than the church door, I
say. I’ve better things to do nor a-giving of my arm to females be they
never so full of wiles. And you two do beat many what bain’t near so
long in the tusk, ah, that you does.
[JEREMY _goes out with the sisters_.
LUBIN. [_To_ ISABEL.] And shall we go off into the meadows, Isabel,
seeing that we are quite forgot?
ISABEL. No—’tis through these faithless ones as us have learnt to
understand the hearts within of we. Let’s bide and get the marriage
dinner ready for them first.
[_She stretches both her hands towards_ LUBIN, _who takes them reverently
in his as the Curtain falls_.
THE NEW YEAR
CHARACTERS
STEVE BROWNING, _a Blacksmith_, _also Parish Clerk_.
GEORGE DAVIS, _a Carpenter_.
HARRY MOSS, _a young Tramp_.
MAY BROWNING.
JANE BROWNING.
DORRY BROWNING, _aged twelve_.
ANNIE SIMS.
ROSE SIMS.
VASHTI REED.
ACT I.—Scene 1.
_A country roadside_. _It is late afternoon and already dusk_. MAY
BROWNING _with_ HARRY MOSS _come slowly forward_. _Close to a stile
which is a little off the road_, MAY _stops_.
MAY. There, you don’t need to come no further with I, Harry Moss. You
get on quick towards the town afore the night be upon you, and the snow,
too.
HARRY. I don’t care much about leaving you like this on the roadside,
May. And that’s the truth, ’tis.
MAY. Don’t you take no more thought for I, Harry. ’Tis a good boy as
you’ve been to I since the day when we fell in together. But now there
bain’t no more need for you to hold back your steps, going slow and heavy
when you might run spry and light. For ’tis home as I be comed to now, I
be. You go your way.
HARRY. I see naught of any house afore us or behind. ’Tis very likely
dusk as is upon us, or may happen ’tis the fog getting up from the river.
MAY. [_Coughing_.] Look you across that stile, Harry. There be a field
path, bain’t there?
HARRY. [_Taking a few steps to the right and peering through the
gloom_.] Ah, and that there be.
MAY. And at t’other end of it a house what’s got a garden fence all
round.
HARRY. Ah—and ’tis so. And now as I comes to look there be a light
shining from out the windows of it, too, though ’tis shining dim-like in
the mist.
MAY. ’Tis that yonder’s my home, Harry. There’s the door where I must
stand and knock.
[_For a moment she draws the shawl over her face and is shaken with
weeping_.
HARRY. I wouldn’t take on so, if ’twas me.
MAY. And did you say as how there was a light in the window? ’Twill be
but fire light then, for th’ old woman she never would bring out the lamp
afore ’twas night, close-handed old she-cat as her was, what’d lick up a
drop of oil on to the tongue of her sooner nor it should go wasted.
HARRY. There, ’tis shining better now—or maybe as the fog have shifted.
MAY. ’Tis nigh to home as I be, Harry.
HARRY. Then get and stand up out of the wet grass there, and I’ll go
along of you a bit further. ’Twill not be much out of my way. Nothing
to take no count of.
MAY. No, no, Harry. I bain’t going to cross that field, nor yet stand
at the door knocking till the dark has fallen on me. Why, is it like as
I’d let them see me coming over the meadow and going through the gate in
this? [_Holding up a ragged shawl_.] In these? [_Pointing to her
broken shoes_.] And—as I be to-day.
[_Spreading out her arms and then suddenly bending forward in a fit of
anguished coughing_.
HARRY. There, there, you be one as is too handy with the tongue, like.
Don’t you go for to waste the breath inside of you when you’ll be wanting
all your words for they as bides up yonder and as doesn’t know that you
be coming back.
MAY. [_Throwing apart her shawl and struggling with her cough_.] Harry,
you take the tin and fill it at the ditch and give I to drink. ’Tis all
live coals within I here, so ’tis.
HARRY. You get along home, and maybe as them’ll find summat better nor
water from the ditch to give you.
MAY. No, no, what was I a-saying to you? The dark must fall and cover
me, or I won’t never go across the field nor a-nigh the house. Give I to
drink, give I to drink. And then let me bide in quiet till all of the
light be gone.
HARRY. [_Taking out a tin mug from the bundle beside her_.] Where be I
to find drink, and the frost lying stiff upon the ground?
MAY. [_Pointing_.] Up yonder, where the ash tree do stand. Look you
there, ’tis a bit of spouting as do come through the hedge, and water
from it, flowing downwards away to the ditch.
[HARRY _goes off with the can_. MAY _watches him_, _drawing her shawl
again about her and striving to suppress a fit of coughing_.
[HARRY _returns and holds out the can_.
MAY. ’Tis not very quick as you’ve been, Harry Moss. Here—give it to I
fast. Give!
[HARRY _puts the can towards her and she takes it in her hands_, _which
shake feverishly_, _and she drinks with sharp avidity_.
MAY. ’Tis the taste as I have thought on these many a year. Ah, and
have gotten into my mouth, too, when I did lay sleeping, that I have.
Water from yonder spout, with the taste of dead leaves sharp in it.
Drink of it, too, Harry.
HARRY. ’Tis no water as I wants, May. Give I summat as’ll lie more warm
and comfortable to th’ inside like. I bain’t one for much water, and
that’s the truth, ’tis. [_He empties the water on the ground_.
MAY. Then go you out upon your way, Harry Moss, for the dark be
gathering on us fast, and there be many a mile afore you to the town,
where the lamps do shine and ’tis bright and warm in the places where
they sells the drink.
HARRY. Once I sets off running by myself, I’ll get there fast enough,
May. But I be going to stop along of you a bit more, for I don’t care
much about letting you bide lonesome on the road, like.
MAY. Then sit you down aside of me, Harry, and the heat in my body,
which is like flames, shall maybe warm yourn, too.
HARRY. [_Sitting down by her side_.] ’Tis a fine thing to have a home
what you can get in and go to, May, with a bit of fire to heat the limbs
of you at, and plenty of victuals as you can put inside. How was it as
you ever came away from it, like?
MAY. Ah, and that’s what I be asking of myself most of the time, Harry!
For, ’tis summat like a twelve or eleven year since I shut the door
behind me and went out.
[_A slight pause_.
MAY. Away from them all, upon the road—so ’twas.
HARRY. And never see’d no more of them, nor sent to say how ’twas with
you, nor nothing?
MAY. Nor nothing, Harry. Went out and shut the door behind me. And
’twas finished.
[_A long pause_, _during which the darkness has gathered_.
HARRY. Whatever worked on you for to do such a thing, May?
MAY. [_Bitterly_.] Ah now, whatever did!
HARRY. ’Tweren’t as though you might have been a young wench, flighty
like, all for the town and for they as goes up and about the streets of
it. For, look you here, ’tis an old woman as you be now, May, and has
been a twenty year or more, I don’t doubt.
MAY. An old woman be I, Harry? Well, to the likes of you ’tis so, I
count. But a twelve year gone by, O, ’twas a fine enough looking maid as
I was then—Only a wild one, Harry, a wild one, all for the free ways of
the road and the lights of the fair—And for the sun to rise in one place
where I was, and for I to be in t’other when her should set.
HARRY. I’d keep my breath for when ’twas wanted, if ’twas me.
MAY. Come, look I in the face, Harry Moss, and tell I if so be as
they’ll be likely to know I again up at home?
HARRY. How be I to tell you such a thing, May, seeing that ’tis but a
ten days or less as I’ve been along of you on the road? And seeing that
when you was a young wench I never knowed the looks of you neither?
MAY. Say how the face of I do seem to you now, Harry, and then I’ll tell
you how ’twas in the days gone by?
HARRY. ’Tis all too dark like for to see clear, May. The night be
coming upon we wonderful fast.
MAY. The hair, ’twas bright upon my head eleven years gone by, Harry.
’Twas glancing, as might be the wing of a thrush, so ’twas.
HARRY. Well, ’tis as the frost might lie on a dead leaf now, May, that
it be.
MAY. And the colour on me was as a rose, and my limbs was straight.
’Twas fleet like a rabbit as I could get about, the days that was then,
Harry.
HARRY. ’Tis a poor old bent woman as you be now, May.
MAY. Ah, Death have been tapping on the door of my body this long while,
but, please God, I can hold me with the best of them yet, Harry, and that
I can. Victuals to th’ inside of I and a bit of clothing to my bones,
with summat to quiet this cough as doubles of I up. Why, there, Harry,
you won’t know as ’tis me when I’ve been to home a day or two—or may be
as ’twill take a week.
HARRY. I count ’twill take a rare lot of victuals afore you be set up as
you once was, May.
MAY. Look you in my eyes, Harry. They may not know me up at home by the
hair, which is different to what ’twas, or by the form of me, which be
got poor and nesh like. But in the eye there don’t come never no change.
So look you at they, Harry, and tell I how it do appear to you.
HARRY. There be darkness lying atween you and me, May.
MAY. Then come you close to I, Harry, and look well into they.
HARRY. Them be set open wonderful wide and ’tis as though a heat comed
out from they. ’Tis not anyone as might care much for to look into the
eyes what you’ve got.
MAY. [_With despondence_.] Maybe then, as them’ll not know as ’tis me,
Harry Moss.
HARRY. I count as they’ll be hard put to, and that’s the truth.
MAY. The note of me be changed, too, with this cold what I have, and the
breath of me so short, but ’twon’t be long, I count, afore they sees who
’tis. Though all be changed to th’ eye like, there’ll be summat in me
as’ll tell they. And ’tis not a thing of shape, nor of colour as’ll
speak for I—But ’tis summat what do come straight out of the hearts of we
and do say better words for we nor what the looks nor tongues of us might
tell. You mind me, Harry, there’s that which will come out of me as’ll
bring they to know who ’tis.
HARRY. Ah, I reckon as you’ll not let them bide till they does.
MAY. And when they do know, and when they sees who ’tis, I count as
they’ll be good to me, I count they will. I did used to think as Steve,
he was a hard one, and th’ old woman what’s his mother, hard too—And that
it did please him for to keep a rein on me like, but I sees thing
different now.
HARRY. Ah, ’tis one thing to see by candle and another by day.
MAY. For ’twas wild as I was in the time gone by. Wild after pleasuring
and the noise in the town, and men a-looking at the countenance of I, and
a-turning back for to look again. But, hark you here, ’tis powerful
changed as I be now.
HARRY. Ah, I count as you be. Be changed from a young woman into an old
one.
MAY. I’m finished with the road journeying and standing about in the
streets on market days and the talk with men in the drinking places—Men
what don’t want to look more nor once on I now, and what used to follow
if ’twasn’t only a bit of eyelid as I’d lift on them, times that is gone.
HARRY. Ah, ’twould take a lot of looking to see you as you was.
MAY. Yes, I be finished with all of it now, and willing for to bide
quiet at the fireside and to stay with the four walls round I and the
door shut.
HARRY. I reckon as you be.
MAY. And I’m thinking as they’ll be rare pleased for to have I in the
house again. ’Twill be another pair of hands to the work like. And when
I was young, ’twas not on work as I was set much.
HARRY. Ah, I did guess as much.
MAY. But when I gets a bit over this here nasty cough, ’tis a strong arm
as them’ll have working for they; Steve, th’ old woman what’s his mother,
and little Dorry, too.
HARRY. Dorry? I han’t heard tell of she.
MAY. That’s my little baby as was, Harry Moss. I left she crawling on
the floor, and now I count as she be growed into a rare big girl. Bless
the innocent heart of her!
HARRY. Whatever led you to do such a thing, I can’t think! You must
have been drove to it like, wasn’t you?
MAY. ’Twas summat inside of me as drove I, then. ’Twas very likely the
blood of they gipsies which did leap in I, so that when I was tied up to
Steve, ’twas as if they had got I shut in a box. ’Twas the bridle on my
head and the bit in the mouth of I; and to be held in where once I had
gone free. [_A short pause_.
MAY. And I turned wild, Harry, for the very birds seemed to be calling I
from the hedges to come out along of they, and the berries tossing in the
wind, and the leaves blowing away quick from where they’d been stuck all
summer. All of it spoke to I, and stirred I powerful, so that one
morning when the sun was up and the breeze running, I comed out into the
air, Harry, and shut the door behind I. And ’twas done—so ’twas.
HARRY. And didn’t they never try for to stop you, nor for to bring you
back, May?
MAY. No, Harry, they did not.
HARRY. And where was it you did go to, May, once you was out and the
door shut ahind of you?
MAY. Ah—where! To the east, to the south, every part. ’Twas morning
with I in that time, and the heart of I was warm. And them as went along
of I on the road, did cast but one look into the countenance of I. Then
’twas the best as they could give as I might take; and ’twas for no
lodging as I did want when dark did come falling.
HARRY. And yet, look you here, you be brought down terrible low, May.
MAY. The fine looks of a woman be as grass, Harry, and in the heat of
the day they do wither and die. And that what has once been a grand
flower in the hand of a man is dropped upon the ground and spat upon,
maybe. So ’twas with I.
[_She bows her head on her knees_, _and for a moment is shaken with
sudden grief_.
HARRY. Don’t you take on so, May. Look you here, you be comed to the
end of your journeying this day, and that you be.
MAY. [_Raising her head_.] Ah, ’tis so, ’tis so. And ’tis rare glad as
them’ll be to see I once again. Steve, he’s a hard man, but a good
one—And I’ll tell you this, Harry Moss, he’ll never take up with no woman
what’s not me—and that he won’t—I never knowed him much as look on one,
times past; and ’twill be the same as ever now, I reckon. And little
Dorry, ’twill be fine for her to get her mammy back, I warrant—so ’twill.
[_A slight pause_.
MAY. Th’ old woman—well—I shan’t take it amiss if her should be dead,
like. Her was always a smartish old vixen to I, that her was, and her
did rub it in powerful hard as Steve was above I in his station and that.
God rest the bones of she, for I count her’ll have been lying in the
churchyard a good few years by now. But I bain’t one to bear malice, and
if so be as her’s above ground, ’tis a rare poor old wretch with no
poison to the tongue of she, as her’ll be this day—so ’tis.
HARRY. Look you here—the snow’s begun to fall and ’tis night. Get up
and go in to them all yonder. ’Tis thick dark now and there be no one on
the road to see you as you do go.
MAY. Help I to get off the ground then, Harry, for the limbs of me be
powerful weak.
HARRY. [_Lifting her up_.] The feel of your body be as burning wood,
May.
MAY. [_Standing up_.] Put me against the stile, Harry, and then let I
bide alone.
HARRY. Do you let me go over the field along of you, May, just to the
door.
MAY. No, no, Harry, get you off to the town and leave me to bide here a
while in the quiet of my thoughts. ’Tis of little Dorry, and of how
pleased her’ll be to see her mammy once again, as I be thinking. But
you, Harry Moss, as han’t got no home to go to, nor fireside, nor
victuals, you set off towards the town. And go you quick.
HARRY. There’s summat in me what doesn’t care about leaving you so, May.
MAY. And if ever you should pass this way come spring-time, Harry, when
the bloom is white on the trees, and the lambs in the meadows, come you
up to the house yonder, and may be as I’ll be able to give you summat to
keep in remembrance of me. For to-day, ’tis empty-handed as I be.
HARRY. I don’t want nothing from you, May, I don’t.
MAY. [_Fumbling in her shawl_.] There, Harry—’tis comed back to my mind
now. [_She takes out part of a loaf of bread_.] Take you this bread.
And to-night, when you eats of it, think on me, and as how I be to home
with Steve a-holding of my hand and little Dorry close against me; and
plenty of good victuals, with a bed to lie upon warm. There, Harry, take
and eat.
[_She holds the bread to him._
HARRY. [_Taking the bread_.] I count ’twill all be well with you now,
May?
MAY. I warrant as ’twill, for I be right to home. But go you towards
the town, Harry, for ’tis late. And God go with you, my dear, now and
all time.
HARRY. I’ll set off running then. For the night, ’tis upon us, May, and
the snow, ’tis thick in the air.
[MAY _turns to the stile and leans on it heavily_, _gazing across the
field_. HARRY _sets off quickly down the road_.
ACT II.—Scene 1.
_The living room in the Brownings’ cottage_. _The room is divided by a
curtain which screens the fireside end from the draught of the principal
door_.
_To the right of the fireplace is a door leading upstairs_. _Chairs are
grouped round the hearth_, _and there is a table at which_ JANE BROWNING
_is ironing a dress by the light of one candle_. DORRY _leans against
the table_, _watching her_.
JANE. [_Putting aside the iron_.] There, you take and lay it on the bed
upstairs, and mind you does it careful, for I’m not a-going to iron it
twice.
[_She lays the dress carefully across_ DORRY’S _arms_.
DORRY. Don’t the lace look nice, Gran’ma?
JANE. You get along upstairs and do as I says, and then come straight
down again.
DORRY. Couldn’t I put it on once, Gran’ma, just to see how it do look on
me?
JANE. And get it all creased up afore to-morrow! Whatever next! You go
and lay it on the bed this minute, do you hear?
DORRY. [_Leaving the room by the door to the right_.] I’d like to put
it on just once, I would.
[JANE BROWNING _blows out the candle and puts away the iron and ironing
cloth_. _She stirs up the fire and then sits down by it as_ DORRY _comes
back_.
DORRY. Dad’s cleaning of himself ever so—I heard the water splashing
something dreadful as I went by his door.
JANE. ’Tis a-smartening of hisself up for this here dancing as he be
about, I reckon.
DORRY. [_Sitting down on a stool_.] I’d like to go along, too, and see
the dancing up at the schools to-night, I would.
JANE. And what next, I should like to know!
DORRY. And wear my new frock what’s ironed, and the beads what Miss Sims
gived me.
JANE. [_Looking out at the window_.] I’m thinking as we shall get some
snow by and bye. ’Tis come over so dark all of a sudden.
DORRY. Couldn’t I go along of they, Gran’ma, and wear my new frock, and
the beads, too? I never see’d them dance th’ old year out yet, I
haven’t.
JANE. Get along with you, Dorry. ’Tis many a year afore you’ll be of an
age for such foolishness. And that’s what I calls it, this messing about
with dancing and music and I don’t know what.
DORRY. Katie Sims be younger nor me and she’s let to go, she is.
JANE. You bain’t Katie Sims, nor she you. And if the wedding what’s
to-morrow isn’t enough to stuff you up with nonsense, I don’t know what
is.
DORRY. I wish it was to-morrow now, Gran’ma, I do. Shall you put on
your Sunday gown first thing, or wait till just afore we goes to church?
JANE. How your tongue do go! Take and bide quiet a bit, if you knows
how.
DORRY. I shall ask Dad if I may go along of him and Miss Sims to the
dance, I shall. Dad’s got that kind to me since last night—he gived me a
sixpence to buy sweets this morning when I hadn’t asked. And won’t it be
nice when Miss Sims comes here to live, and when you has someone to help
you in the work, Gran’ma?
JANE. Well—’tis to be hoped as ’twill be all right this time.
DORRY. This time, Gran’ma! Why, wasn’t it all right when Dad was
married afore, then?
JANE. [_Getting the lamp from a shelf_.] I don’t light up as a rule
till ’tis six o’clock, but I count it’s a bit of snow coming as have
darkened the air like.
DORRY. Gran’ma, isn’t Miss Sims nice-looking, don’t you think? I’d like
to wear my hair like hers and have earrings a-hanging from me and
a-shaking when I moves my head, I would.
JANE. [_Setting the lamp on the table_.] Here, fetch me the matches,
do.
DORRY. [_Bringing the matches_.] Was my mammy nice-looking, like Miss
Sims, Gran’ma?
JANE. I’m one as goes by other things nor looks—For like as not ’tis
fine looks as is the undoing of most girls as has them—give me a plain
face and a heart what’s pure, I says, and ’tis not far out as you’ll be.
DORRY. Was my mammy’s heart pure, Gran’ma? [_A moment’s silence_. JANE
_lights the lamp_. DORRY _leans at the table_, _watching her_.
DORRY. Was my mammy’s—[_A loud knock on the outside door_.
JANE. Who’s that come bothering round! Run and see, Dorry, there’s a
good child.
DORRY. It’ll be Gran’ma Vashti, I daresay. She do mostly knock at the
door loud with her stick.
[DORRY _runs to the window and looks out_.
DORRY. ’Tis her, and the snow white all upon her.
[DORRY _goes to the door to open it_.
JANE. [_To herself_.] Of all the meddlesome old women—why can’t her
bide till her’s wanted.
[DORRY _opens the door wide_, _and_ VASHTI _Comes slowly in to the room_,
_leaning on a big staff_.
JANE. Well, Vashti Reed, and what brings you down from the hill to-day?
’Twould have been better had you bid at home, with the dark coming on and
the snow.
DORRY. [_Who has closed the door_.] Sit down, Granny—there, close
against the fire, do.
[VASHTI _stands in the middle of the room_, _looking from one to
another_.
DORRY. Sit down, Granny, by the fire, do.
VASHTI. ’Tis in the house and out of it as I have went. And down to the
pool where the ice do lie, and up on the fields where ’tis fog, And there
be summat in I what drives I onward, as might the wind. And no where may
the bones of me rest this day.
JANE. If ’tis to talk your foolishness as you be come, you’d best have
stopped away. Here, sit you down, Vashti Reed, and behave sensible, and
maybe as I’ll get you summat warm to drink presently.
DORRY. Yes, Grannie, sit you down along of we.
[VASHTI _sits stiffly down by the hearth_, _leaning on her stick_. JANE
_resumes her place_, _and_ DORRY _puts her little stool between them_.
VASHTI. And in the night when I was laid down, against the windowpane it
fled a three times. A three time it fled and did beat the pane as though
’twould get in. And I up and did open the window. And the air it ran
past I, and ’twas black, with naught upon it but the smell of a shroud.
So I knowed.
DORRY. What did you know, Granny?
VASHTI. [_Leaning forward and warming her hands at the fire_, _speaking
as though to herself_.] Summat lost—summat lost, and what was trying to
get safe away.
DORRY. Safe away? From what, Granny?
VASHTI. And there be one what walks abroad in the night time, what holds
in the hand of him a stick, greater nor this staff what I holds here, and
the knife to it be as long again by twice.
DORRY. O, Granny, I’ll be a-feared to go across the garden after dark, I
shall.
JANE. What do you want to go and put that there into the child’s head
for? I’d like for Steve to hear you talking of such stuff.
VASHTI. I sat me down at the table, but the victuals was as sand in the
mouth, and the drink did put but coldness within I. And when the door
was closed, ’twas as if one did come running round the house and did beat
upon it for to be let in. Then I did go for to open it, but the place
outside was full of emptiness, and ’twas they old carrion crows what did
talk to I out of the storm.
JANE. How you do go on, to be sure! Why don’t you speak of summat
what’s got some sense to it? Come, don’t you know as Steve, his wedding
day, ’tis to-morrow as ever is.
DORRY. ’Tis the New Year, too, Granny, as well as Dad’s marriage.
VASHTI. [_Suddenly_.] Be this house made ready for a-marrying, then?
DORRY. Why, of course it be, Granny. Don’t you see how ’tis cleaned and
the new net curtains in the windows, and the bit of drugget ’gainst the
door where the old one always tripped me up?
VASHTI. I see naught but what ’tis more like a burial here. So ’tis.
And ’tis a burial as I’ve carried in my heart as I comed down from the
hills.
DORRY. [_Looking out of the window_.] Granny, you’ll be forced to bide
the night along of we, ’cause the snow be falling thick, and ’twill be
likely as not as you’ll lose your way if you start for to go home again
when ’tis snowing.
JANE. Th’ old thing may as well bide the night now she be come. Hark
you, Vashti, ’twill save you the journey down to-morrow like, if you
bides the night, and the chimney corner is all as you ever wants.
VASHTI. And what should I be journeying down to-morrow for, Jane
Browning?
DORRY. Why, Granny, ’tis Dad’s wedding day to-morrow, and ’tis a white
frock with lace to it as I’m going to wear, and beads what Miss Sims
gived me, and the shoes what was new except for being worn to church
three times. Shall I fetch them all and show to you, Granny?
JANE. Yes, run along and get them, Dorry; very likely ’twill give her
thoughts a turn, looking at the things, seeing as she be in one of her
nasty moods to-day when you can’t get a word what isn’t foolishness out
of her. [DORRY _runs upstairs_.
VASHTI. [_Leaning forward_.] Was her telling of a marriage?
JANE. Why, yes, Vashti Reed. And you know all about it, only you don’t
trouble for to recollect nothing but what you dreams of yourself in the
night. ’Tis our Steve what’s going to marry Annie Sims to-morrow.
VASHTI. Steve Browning?
JANE. I haven’t patience with th’ old gipsy! Yes—Steve. And ’tis a
twelvemonth or more as you’d knowed of it.
VASHTI. Our Steve, what’s husband to my May?
JANE. ’Tis a fine thing to fetch up May this evening, that ’tis. May,
what went out trolloping along the roads ’stead of she biding at home to
mind the house and child! ’Tis how you did breed she up, Vashti Reed,
what led her to act as her did. And if you’d have bred her different,
’twould have been all the same; for what’s in the blood is bound to out
and show; and when you picks a weed and sets it in the room, ’tain’t no
flower as you must look for.
VASHTI. ’Tis summat like a twelve year since her went. But in the
blinking of an eye the latch might be raised, and she come through the
door again. God bless the head an feet of she!
JANE. There you are, Vashti, talking so foolish. A bad herb like she,
was bound for to meet her doom. And ’twas in the river up London way
where the body of her was catched, floating, and the same petticoat to it
as I’ve seed on May a score of times. Don’t you recollect how ’twas
parson as brought the news to we?
VASHTI. ’Taint with no parsons as I do hold, nor with what may come from
the mouths of they, neither.
JANE. And Steve, I knowed what was in his mind when parson was gone out.
’Twas not much as he did say, being a man what hasn’t many words to his
tongue. But he took and fetched down his big coat what do hang up
yonder, and told I to put a bit of black to the sleeve of it. Leastways,
he didn’t speak the words, but I seed what he was after, and I took and
sewed a bit on, and he’s wore it ever since till yesterday—And that’s
eleven year ago it be—so there.
VASHTI. Her be moving about upon the earth, her be. And I seems to feel
the tread of she at night time, and by day as well. Her bain’t shrouded,
nor boxed, nor no churchyard sod above the limbs of she—you take my
words—and there shall come a day when the latch shall rise and her be
standing among us and a-calling on her child and husband what’s forgotten
she.
JANE. For goodness sake, Vashti, have done speaking about such things
to-night. If Steve was to hear you, why I shouldn’t wonder if he was to
put you out of the door and into the snow—and ’tis most unfitting for to
talk so afore the child.
VASHTI. [_Calling out loudly_.] Come back to I, May—you come back to
I—there bain’t no one what thinks on the name of you, or what wants you
but your old mother. You come back to I!
JANE. I’ll thank you for to shut your mouth, old Vashti! ’Tain’t
nothing to be proud on as you’ve got, and ’twould be better if you was to
be less free in your hollering. Look, here’s Dorry coming.
[DORRY _comes into the kitchen_; _she is wearing her new white frock_.
DORRY. See, Granny, I’ve been and put it on for to show you better. See
the lace? Isn’t it nice? And the beads, too. I didn’t stop for to put
on my shoes, nor my new stockings. Nor my hat, what’s got a great long
feather all round of it.
JANE. You bad, naughty girl, Dorry, you’ll crease and tumble that frock
so as it’s not fit to be seen to-morrow! Whatever did you go to put it
on for?
DORRY. So as that Gran should see something pretty, and so as she should
come out of her trouble. Gran’s always got some trouble in her mind,
han’t you, Granny?
VASHTI. A twelve year gone by, my child.
JANE. I’ll give it you if you starts off again.
VASHTI. A twelve year gone by—
DORRY. A twelve year gone by, what then, Granny?
VASHTI. ’Tis more’n eleven years since her wented out of the door, my
child—your poor mammy. Out of the door, out of the door! And likely as
not ’twill be feet first as her shall be brought in again.
DORRY. Granny, was my poor mammy, what’s dead, nice looking like Miss
Sims as is going for to marry Dad, to-morrow?
VASHTI. ’Twas grand as a tree in full leaf and the wind a-moving all the
green of it as was your mammy, my dear.
DORRY. And did she have fine things to her, nice gowns and things, like
Miss Sims, Granny?
JANE. ’Twas the looks of her and the love of finery and pleasuring what
was her undoing, as ’twill be the undoing of you, too, Dorry, if you
don’t take care. ’Tis she as you favours, and none of your father’s
people, more’s the pity, and ’tis more thoughtful and serious as you’ll
have to grow if you don’t want to come to harm. You take and go right
up, and off with that frock, do you hear me?
DORRY. O, I wanted to be let to go to the dancing now I’d got it on, I
did.
JANE. Dancing, there you are! Dancing and finery, ’tis all as you do
think on, and ’tis plain to see what’s got working in the inside of you,
Dorry. ’Tis the drop of bad blood as you has got from she what bore you.
But I might as well speak to that door for all you cares. Only, hark you
here, you’ll be sorry one of these days as you han’t minded me better.
And then ’twill be too late.
[STEVE _comes down the stairs_, _pushes open the door and enters_.
STEVE. Well, Mother, what’s up now? Gran, you here? Why, Dorry, what
be you a-crying for?
DORRY. I wants to be let to go to the dancing, Dad—now that I’ve got my
frock on and all.—O, I wants to be let to go.
STEVE. Well, Mother—what do you say? ’Twouldn’t hurt for she to look in
about half an hour, and Annie and me we could bring her back betimes.
DORRY. O, Dad, I wants to go if ’twas only for a minute.
STEVE. There, there—you shall go and we’ll say no more about it.
JANE. I never knowed you give in to her so foolish like this afore,
Steve.
STEVE. Well, Mother, ’tain’t every day as a man’s married, that ’tain’t.
VASHTI. And so you’re to be wed come to-morrow, Steve? They tells me as
you’re to be wed.
STEVE. That’s right enough, Gran.
VASHTI. [_Rising_.] And there be no resting in me to-day, Steve. There
be summat as burns quick in the bones of my body and that will not let me
bide.—And ’tis steps as I hears on the roadside and in the fields—and
’tis a bad taste as is in my victuals, and I must be moving, and peering
about, and a-taking cold water into my mouth for to do away with the
thing on my tongue, which is as the smell of death—So ’tis.
JANE. Now she’s off again! Come, sit you down, Vashti Reed, and I’ll
give you summat as’ll very likely warm you and keep you quiet in your
chair a while. Just you wait till I gets the water boiling.
[_She begins to stir up the fire and sets a kettle on it_.
DORRY. [_From the window_.] Here’s Miss Sims coming up the path, and
Rosie too. O, they’re wrapped up all over ’cause ’tis snowing. I’ll
open, I’ll open.
[_She runs to the door and unlatches it_. ANNIE _and_ ROSE SIMS _come
in_, _shaking the snow from them and unbuttoning their cloaks_, _which_
STEVE _takes from them and hangs on the door_.
ACT II.—Scene 2.
ANNIE. [_As_ STEVE _takes off her cloak_.] ’Tis going to be a dreadful
night. The snow’s coming down something cruel.
ROSE. There won’t be many to the dance if it keeps on like this, will
there?
STEVE. Get you to the fire, both of you, and warm yourselves before we
sets out again.
DORRY. Miss Sims, Miss Sims—Miss Rosie—I’m going along with you to the
dance, Dad says as I may.
JANE. Bless the child! However her has worked upon her father, and he
so strict, I don’t know.
ANNIE. Well, you be got up fine and grand, Dorry—I shouldn’t hardly know
’twas you. [_Turning to_ VASHTI REED.] Good evening, Mrs. Reed, my eyes
was very near blinded when I first got in out of the dark, and I didn’t
see as you was there.
ROSE. Good evening, Mrs. Reed, and how be you keeping this cold weather?
VASHTI. [_Peering into their faces as they stand near her_.] What be
you a-telling I of?
ANNIE. We was saying, how be you in this sharp weather, Mrs. Reed?
VASHTI. How be I?
ROSE. Yes, Mrs. Reed, how be you a-keeping now ’tis come over such nasty
weather?
VASHTI. And how should an old woman be, and her one child out in the
rain and all the wind, and driv’ there too by them as was laid like
snakes in the grass about the feet of she, ready for to overthrow she
when her should have gotten to a time of weakness.
JANE. Take no account of what she do say, girls, but sit you down in the
warm and bide till I gets the time to take and look on the clothes which
you have upon you. [_Moving about and putting tea things on the table_.]
I be but just a-going to make a cup of tea for th’ old woman, with a drop
of summat strong to it as will keep her from using of her tongue so free
till morning time.
ANNIE. [_Sitting down_.] Poor old woman, ’tis a sad thing when folks do
come to such a pass as she.
ROSE. And han’t got their proper sense to them, nor nothing. But she’s
better off nor a poor creature what we saw crouching below the hedge as
we was coming across the meadow. “Why,” I says to Annie, “it must be bad
to have no home to bide in such a night as this!” Isn’t that so, Mrs.
Browning?
STEVE. Ah, you’re right there, you’re right.
ROSE. I wouldn’t much care to be upon the road to-night, would you,
Steve?
VASHTI. And at that hour when th’ old year be passing out, and dark on
all the land, the graves shall open and give up the dead which be in
they. And, standing in the churchyard you may read the face to each, as
the corpses do go by. There’s many a night as I have stood and have
looked into they when them did draw near to I, but never the face I did
seek.
[_Here_ JANE, _who has been making a cup of tea_, _and who has poured
something in it from a bottle_, _advances to_ VASHTI.
JANE. Here, Vashti Reed, here’s a nice cup of hot tea for you. Take and
drink it up and very likely ’twill warm th’ inside of you, for I’ll lay
as you haven’t seen a mouthful of naught this day.
STEVE. Ah, that’s it, that’s it. When folks do go leer ’tis a powerful
lot of fancies as do get from the stomach to the heads of they.
[VASHTI _takes the cup and slowly drinks_.
DORRY. O, Miss Sims, you do look nice. Look, Gran’ma, at what Miss Sims
have got on!
VASHTI. [_Putting down her cup and leaning forward_.] Which of you be
clothed for marriage?
JANE. Get along of you, Gran, ’tis for the dance up at the school as
they be come.
VASHTI. Come you here—her what’s to wed our Steve. Come you here and
let I look at you. My eyes bain’t so quick as they was once. Many tears
have clouded they. But come you here.
DORRY. Go along to her, Miss Sims, Granny wants to look at your nice
things.
ANNIE. [_Steps in front of_ VASHTI.] Here I be, Mrs. Reed.
VASHTI. Be you the one what’s going to wed our Steve come New Year.
ANNIE. That’s it, Mrs. Reed, that’s it.
VASHTI. And be these garments which you be clothed in for marriage or
for burial?
STEVE. Come, Granny, have another cup of tea. Annie, don’t you take no
account of she. ’Tis worry and that as have caused the mind of she to
wander a bit, but she don’t mean nothing by it.
ANNIE. All right, Steve. She don’t trouble me at all. [_To_ VASHTI.]
’Tis to be hoped as I shall make a good wife to Steve, Mrs. Reed.
VASHTI. Steve! What do Steve want with another wife? Han’t he got one
already which is as a rose among the sow-thistles. What do Steve want
for with a new one then?
STEVE. Come on, girls. I can’t stand no more of this. Let’s off, and
call in to George’s as we do go by.
ROSE. We did meet Mr. Davis as we was coming along and he said as how
’twouldn’t be many minutes afore he joined us here, Steve.
STEVE. That’s right, then we’ll bide a bit longer till George do call
for we, only ’tis more nor I can stand when th’ old lady gets her tongue
moving.
DORRY. Why, look, Gran’s fell asleep! O, Miss Sims, now that Gran’s
dropped off and can’t say none of her foolish things any more, do stand
so as Dad and Gran’ma can see the frock which you’ve got for the dance.
ANNIE. O, Dorry, you’re a little torment, that’s the truth.
[_She gets up and turns slowly round so that all can see what she has
on_.
ROSE. Well, Steve?
STEVE. Well, Rosie.
ROSE. Haven’t you got nothing as you can say, Steve?
STEVE. What be I to say, Rose?
ROSE. Well, something of how you thinks she looks, of course.
STEVE. O, ’tis all right, I suppose.
ROSE. All right! And is that about all as you’ve seen? Why, bless you,
Steve, where have you gone and hid your tongue I should like to know!
STEVE. Well, there bain’t nothing wrong, be there?
ROSE. Of course there isn’t. But I never did see such a man as you,
Steve. Why, I don’t believe as you’d know whether Annie haves a pair of
eyes to her face or not, nor if they be the same colour one to t’other.
STEVE. I sees enough for me. I sees as Annie is the girl as I’ve picked
out of the whole world. And I know that to-morrow she and I is to be
made man and wife. And that be pretty nigh enough for me this night, I
reckon.
DORRY. O, Miss Sims, do you hear what Dad is saying? O, I wonder what I
should feel if ’twas me that was going to be married!
ROSE. You get and ask Annie how ’tis with her, Dorry. I could tell a
fine tale of how as she do lie tossing half the nights, and of the
candles that’s burned right down to the very end of them, I could.
ANNIE. Don’t you go for to listen to her, Dorry, nor Steve, neither.
She’s that flustered herself about the dance to-night that she scarce do
know what she’s a-saying of. But suppose you was just to ask her what
she’s got wrapped so careful in that there paper in her hand.
DORRY. O, Rosie, whatever is it?
STEVE. What’s that you’ve got hold on now, Rosie?
ANNIE. Come, show them all, Rose.
[ROSE _slowly unfolds the paper and shows them all a hothouse carnation
and a fern_.
ROSE. There ’tis, then.
DORRY. O my, Rosie—isn’t it beautiful. Be you going to wear it to the
dance?
ROSE. No, Dorry, ’tisn’t for me.
ANNIE. You just ask her for whom it is, then, Dorry.
DORRY. O, who is it for, Rosie—who is it for?
ROSE. No—I’m not a-going to tell none of you.
[_She wraps it up carefully again_.
ANNIE. I’ll tell then, for you.
ROSE. No, you shan’t, Annie—that you shan’t!
ANNIE. That I shall, then—come you here, Dorry—I’ll whisper it to your
ear. [_Whispers it to_ DORRY.
DORRY. [_Excitedly_.] I know who ’tis—I know—’tis for Mr. Davis—for Mr.
Davis! Think of that, Dad—the flower ’tis for George Davis.
ROSE. O, Annie, how you could!
STEVE. George—
VASHTI. [_Suddenly roused_.] Who named George? There was but one man
as was called by that name—and he courted my girl till her was faint and
weary of the sound and shape of he, and so on a day when he was come—
DORRY. There’s Gran gone off on her tales again.
[JANE _crosses the hearth and puts a shawl over the head of_ VASHTI, _who
relapses again into sleep_.
STEVE. [_Sitting down by_ ROSE.] What’s this, Rose? I han’t heard tell
of this afore. Be there aught a-going on with you and George, then?
ROSE. No, Steve, there isn’t nothing in it much, except that George and
me we walked out last Sunday in the evening like—and a two or three time
before.
STEVE. And is it that you be a-keeping of that flower for to give to
George, then?
ROSE. Well—’tis for George as I’ve saved it out of some what the
gardener up at Squire’s gived me.
STEVE. [_As though to himself_.] ’Tis a powerful many years since
George he went a-courting. I never knowed him so much as look upon a
maid, I didn’t since—
ROSE. Well, Steve, I’m sure there’s no need for you to be upset over it.
’Tis nothing to you who George walks out with, or who he doesn’t.
STEVE. Who said as I was upset, Rose?
ROSE. Look at the long face what you’ve pulled. Annie, if ’twas me, I
shouldn’t much care about marrying a man with such a look to him.
ANNIE. What’s up, Steve? What’s come over you like, all of a minute?
STEVE. ’Tis naught, Annie, naught. ’Twas summat of past times what
comed into the thoughts of me. But ’tis naught. And, Rose, if so be as
’twas you as George is after, I’d wish him to have luck, with all my
heart, I would, for George and me—well, we too has always stuck close one
to t’other, as you knows.
JANE. Ah—that you has, George and you—you and George.
ANNIE. Hark—there’s someone coming up now.
DORRY. O, let me open the door—let me open it!
[_She runs across the room and lifts the latch_. GEORGE _stands in the
doorway shaking the snow from him_. _Then he comes into the room_.
DORRY. I’m going to the dance, Mr. Davis. Look, haven’t I got a nice
frock on?
STEVE. Good evening, George, and how be you to-night?
GEORGE. Nicely, Steve, nicely. Good evening, Mrs. Browning. Miss Sims,
good evening—Yes, Steve, I’ll off with my coat, for ’tis pretty well
sprinkled with snow, like.
[STEVE _helps_ GEORGE _to take off his overcoat_.
ROSE. A happy New Year to you, Mr. Davis.
JANE. And that’s a thing which han’t no luck to it, if ’tis said afore
the proper time, Rosie.
ROSE. Well, but ’tis New Year’s Eve, isn’t it?
GEORGE. Ah, so ’tis—and a terrible nasty storm as ever I knowed! ’Twas
comed up very nigh to my knees, the snow, as I was a-crossing of the
meadow. And there lay some poor thing sheltering below the hedge, with a
bit of sacking throwed over her. I count ’tis very near buried alive as
anyone would be as slept out in such a night.
STEVE. I reckon ’twould be so—so ’twould. But come you in and give
yourself a warm; and Mother, what do you say to getting us a glass of
cider all round afore we sets out to the dancing.
JANE. What do you want to be taking drinks here for, when ’tis free as
you’ll get them up at the school?
STEVE. Just a drop for to warm we through. Here, I’ll fetch it right
away.
JANE. No, you don’t. I’ll have no one meddling in the pantry save it’s
myself. Dorry, give me that there jug.
DORRY. [_Taking a jug from the dresser_.] Here ’tis, Gran’ma, shall I
light the candle?
JANE. So long as you’ll hold the matches careful.
ANNIE. Well—’tis to be hoped as the weather’ll change afore morning.
ROSE. We shall want a bit of sunshine for the bride.
GEORGE. That us shall, but it don’t look much as though we should get
it.
[JANE BROWNING _and_ DORRY _go out of the room_.
STEVE. Sit you down, George, along of we. ’Tis right pleased as I be
for to see you here to-night.
GEORGE. Well, Steve, I bain’t one for a lot of words but I be powerful
glad to see you look as you does, and ’tis all joy as I wishes you and
her what’s to be your wife, to-morrow.
ANNIE. Thank you kindly, Mr. Davis. I shall do my best for Steve, and a
girl can’t do no more, can she?
ROSE. And so you’re going to church along of Steve, Mr. Davis?
GEORGE. ’Tis as Steve do wish, but I be summat after a cow what has
broke into the flower gardens, places where there be many folk got
together and I among they.
ROSE. O, come, Mr. Davis!
GEORGE. ’Tis with me as though t’were all hoof and horn as I was made
of. But Steve, he be more used to mixing up with the quality folks and
such things, and he do know better nor I how to carry his self in parts
when the ground be thick on them.
ANNIE. Very likely ’tis a-shewing of them into their places of a Sunday
and a-ringing of the bell and a-helping of the vicar along with the
service, like, as has made Steve so easy.
ROSIE. But, bless you, Mr. Davis, you sees a good bit of the gentry,
too, in your way, when you goes in to houses, as it might be the Squire’s
for to put up a shelf, or mend a window, and I don’t know what.
GEORGE. Ah, them caddling sort of jobs don’t much agree with I, Miss
Rose. And when I gets inside one of they great houses, where the maids
do pad about in boots what you can’t hear, and do speak as though ’twere
church and parson at his sermon, I can’t think of naught but how ’twill
feel for to be out in the open again. Why, bless you, I do scarce fetch
my breath in one of they places from fear as there should be too much
sound to it, and the noise of my own hammer do very near scare I into
fits.
ROSE. Well, Mr. Davis, who would ever have thought it?
[MRS. BROWNING _and_ DORRY _come back and the cider is put upon the
table_, DORRY _and_ ANNIE _getting glasses from the dresser_.
GEORGE. [_Drinking_.] Your health, Steve, and yours, too, Miss Sims.
And many years of happiness to you both.
STEVE. Thank you kindly, George.
ANNIE. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
DORRY. Hasn’t Miss Sims got a nice frock on her for the dance, Mr.
Davis?
GEORGE. Well, I’m blessed if I’d taken no notice of it, Dorry.
DORRY. Why, you’re worse nor Dad, I do declare! But you just look at
Rosie, now, Mr. Davis, and ask her what she’s got wrapped up in that
there paper in her hand.
ROSE. O, Dorry, you little tease, you!
DORRY. You just ask her, Mr. Davis.
ROSE. [_Undoing the parcel_.] There, ’tis nothing to make such a
commotion of! Just a flower—see, Mr. Davis? I knowed as it was one what
you was partial to, and so I just brought it along with me.
GEORGE. That there bain’t for I, be it?
ROSE. Indeed ’tis—if so as you’ll accept of it.
GEORGE. O, ’tis best saved against to-morrow. The freshness will be
most gone from it, if I was to wear it now.
DORRY. No, no, Mr. Davis, ’tis for now! To wear at the dance. Put it
on him, Rosie, put it on him.
ROSE. [_Tossing the flower across the table to_ GEORGE.] He can put it
on hisself well enough, Dorry.
GEORGE. [_After a moment’s hesitation_.] I don’t know so well about
that.
ANNIE. Go on, Rosie—pin it into his coat. Come, ’tis getting late.
DORRY. O, pin it in quick, Rosie—come along—and then we can start to the
dancing.
ROSE. Shall I, Mr. Davis?
[GEORGE _gets up and crosses the room_; ROSE _takes the flower and_ DORRY
_hands her a pin_. _She slowly pins the flower in his coat_.
STEVE. [_Stretching out his hand to_ ANNIE.] You be so quiet like
to-night, Annie. There isn’t nothing wrong, is there, my dear?
ANNIE. ’Tis only I’m that full of gladness, Steve, as I don’t seem to
find words to my tongue for the things what I can talk on most days.
STEVE. And that’s how ’tis with I, too, Annie. ’Tis as though I was out
in the meadows, like—And as though ’twere Sunday, and such a stillness
all around that I might think ’twas only me as was upon the earth. But
then summat stirs in me sudden and I knows that you be there, too, and
’tis my love for you what has put me right away from the rest of them.
ANNIE. Steve, you’ve had a poor, rough time, I know, but I’ll do my best
for to smooth it like for you, I will.
STEVE. See here, Annie—I be comed out of the rain and into the sun once
more.
DORRY. [_Leading_ GEORGE _forward_.] See how fine Mr. Davis do
look—see, isn’t he grand? O, Miss Sims, see how nice the flower do look
what Rosie has pinned in his coat! See, Gran’ma.
JANE. I’ve enough to do putting away all these glasses which have been
messed up. What I wants to know is when I shall get off to bed this
night, seeing as ’tis late already and you none of you gone off yet.
DORRY. O, let us be off, let us be off—and what am I to put over my
dress, Gran’ma, so as the snow shan’t get to it?
JANE. If you go careful and don’t drop it in the snow may be as I’ll
wrap my big shawl around of you, Dorry, what’s hanging behind the door.
ROSE. Give me my cloak, Steve—O, how I do love a bit of dancing, don’t
you, Mr. Davis?
GEORGE. I be about as much use in the ball room as one of they great
drag horses, Miss Rose.
ROSE. O, get on, Mr. Davis! I don’t believe half what you do say, no
more does Annie.
ANNIE. If Mr. Davis don’t know how to dance right, you’re the one to
learn him, Rose. Come, Dorry, you take hold of my hand, and I’ll look
after you on the way. Good-night, Mrs. Browning. Good-night, Mrs. Reed.
DORRY. Why, Granny’s sound asleep, Miss Sims, you know.
JANE. And about time, too. ’Tis to be hoped as we shan’t have no more
trouble with her till morning.
DORRY. [_Her eyes raised to the door latch_.] Just look, why the latch
is up.
ANNIE. Whoever’s that, I wonder?
ROSE. ’Tis very likely someone with a horse what’s lost a shoe, Steve.
JANE. I guess as ’tis a coffin wanted sudden, George Davis.
STEVE. I bain’t a-going to shoe no horses this time of night, not if
’twas the King hisself what stood at the door.
GEORGE. If ’tis a corpse, I guess her’ll have to wait till the dancing’s
finished, then.
[VASHTI _groans in her sleep and turns over in the chair_, _her face to
the fire_.
STEVE. [_Going to the door and speaking loudly_.] Who’s there?
GEORGE. Us’ll soon see.
[GEORGE _unbolts the door and opens it_, _first a little way_, _and then
wide_. MAY _is seen standing in the doorway_. _Her shawl is drawn over
head and the lower part of her face_.
GEORGE. Here’s someone what’s missed their way, I count.
ROSE. Why, ’tis like the poor thing we seed beneath the hedge, I do
believe.
ANNIE Whatever can she want a-coming-in here at this time of night!
JANE. [_Advancing firmly_.] ’Tis one of they dirty roadsters what
there’s too many of all about the country. Here, I’ll learn you to come
to folks’ houses this time of night, disturbing of a wedding party. You
take and get gone. We don’t want such as you in here, we don’t.
[MAY _looks fixedly into_ JANE’S _face_.
GEORGE. I count ’tis very nigh starved by the cold as she be.
STEVE. Looks like it, and wetted through to the bone.
JANE. Put her out and shut the door, George, and that’ll learn the likes
of she to come round begging at folks’ houses what’s respectable.
GEORGE. ’Tis poor work shutting the door on such as her this night.
STEVE. And that ’tis, George, and what’s more, I bain’t a-going for to
do it. ’Tis but a few hours to my wedding, and if a dog was to come to
me for shelter I’d not be one to put him from the door.
JANE. ’Tain’t to be expected as I shall let a dirty tramp bide in my
kitchen when ’tis all cleaned up against to-morrow, Steve.
STEVE. To-morrow, ’tis my day, Mother, and I’ll have the choosing of my
guests, like. [_Turning to_ MAY.] Come you in out of the cold. This
night you shall bide fed and warmed, so that, may be, in years to come,
’twill please you to think back upon the eve afore my wedding.
[STEVE _stands back_, _holding the door wide open_. MAY, _from the
threshold_, _has been looking first on one face and then on another_.
_Suddenly her eyes fall on_ ANNIE, _who has moved to_ STEVE’S _side_,
_laying her hand on his arm_, _and with a sudden defiance_, _she draws
herself up and comes boldly into the room as the curtain falls_.
ACT II.—Scene 3.
_The same room_, _two hours later_. VASHTI REED _seems to be sleeping as
before by the fireside_. _On the settle_ MAY _is huddled_, _her head
bent_, _the shawl drawn over her face_. JANE BROWNING _moves about_,
_putting away work things_, _cups and plates_, _seeing that the window is
closed_, _winding the clock_, _etc._ _There is a tap at the outer door
and_ JANE _opens it_. STEVE, ANNIE _and_ DORRY _enter_.
JANE. Whatever kept you so late, Steve, and me a-sitting up for to let
you all in and not able to get away to my bed?
DORRY. O, Gran’ma, it was beautiful, I could have stopped all night, I
could. We comed away early ’cause Miss Sims, she said as the dancing
gived her the headache, but the New Year han’t been danced in yet, it
han’t.
JANE. You get and dance off to bed, Dorry, that’s what you’ve got to
do—and quickly.
DORRY. All right, Gran’ma. Good-night, Miss Sims; good-night, Dad. O,
why, there’s Granny! But her’s tight asleep so I shan’t say nothing to
her. O, I do wish as there was dancing, and lamps, and music playing
every night, I do!
[DORRY _goes towards the staircase door_.
JANE. [_Calling after her_.] I’m a-coming along directly. Be careful
with the candle, Dorry.
[JANE _opens the door and_ DORRY _goes upstairs_. STEVE _and_ ANNIE
_come towards the fireplace_.
STEVE. Was there aught as you could do for yonder poor thing?
JANE. Poor thing, indeed! A good-for-nothing roadster what’s been and
got herself full of the drink, and that’s what’s the matter with she.
See there, how she do lie, snoring asleep under the shawl of her; and not
a word nor sound have I got out of she since giving her the drop of tea a
while back.
STEVE. Well, well—she won’t do us no harm where she do bide. Leave her
in the warm till ’tis daylight, then let her go her way.
JANE. She and Gran’ be about right company one for t’other, I’m
thinking.
STEVE. Ah, that they be. Let them sleep it off and you get up to bed,
Mother.
JANE. That I will, Steve. Be you a-going to see Annie safe to home?
ANNIE. Do you bide here, Steve, and let me run back—’tis but a step—and
I don’t like for you to come out into the snow again.
STEVE. I’m coming along of you, Annie. Get off to bed, Mother. I’ll be
back to lock up and all that in less nor ten minutes.
JANE. All right, Steve, and do you cast an eye around to see as I han’t
left nothing out as might get took away, for ’tis poor work leaving the
kitchen to roadsters and gipsies and the like.
[JANE _lights a candle and goes upstairs_. STEVE _takes_ ANNIE’S _hand
and they go together towards the outer door_. _As they pass to the other
side of the curtain which is drawn across the room_, MAY _suddenly rears
herself up on the settle_, _throwing back her shawl_, _and she leans
forward_, _listening intently_.
STEVE. To-morrow night, Annie!
ANNIE. There’ll be no turning out into the snow for us both, Steve.
STEVE. You’ll bide here, Annie, and ’tis more gladness than I can
rightly think on, that ’tis.
ANNIE. Steve!
STEVE. Well, Annie.
ANNIE. There’s summat what’s been clouding you a bit this night. You
didn’t know as how I’d seen it, but ’twas so.
STEVE. Why, Annie, I didn’t think as how you’d take notice as I was
different from ordinary.
ANNIE. But I did, Steve. And at the dancing there was summat in the
looks of you which put me in mind of a thing what’s hurted. Steve, I
couldn’t abide for to see you stand so sad with the music going on and
all. So I told you as I’d the headache.
STEVE. O Annie, ’twas thoughts as was too heavy for me, and I couldn’t
seem to get them pushed aside, like.
ANNIE. How’d it be if you was to tell me, Steve.
STEVE. I don’t much care for to, Annie. But ’twas thoughts what comed
out of the time gone by, as may be I’d been a bit too hard with—with her
as was Dorry’s mother.
ANNIE. O, I’m sure, from all I hear, as she had nothing to grumble at,
Steve.
STEVE. And there came a fearsome thought, too, Annie, as you might go
the same way through not getting on comfortable with me, and me being so
much older nor you, and such-like. Annie, I couldn’t bear for it to
happen so, I could not. For I holds to having you aside of me always
stronger nor I holds to anything else in the world, and I could not stand
it if ’twas as I should lose you.
ANNIE. There’s nothing in the world as could make you lose me, Steve.
For, look you here, I don’t think as there’s a woman on the earth what’s
got such a feeling as is in my heart this night, of quiet, Steve, and of
gladness, because that you and me is to be wed and to live aside of one
another till death do part us.
STEVE. Them be good words, Annie, and no mistake.
ANNIE. And what you feels about the days gone by don’t count, Steve,
’cause they bain’t true of you. You was always a kind husband, and from
what I’ve hear-ed folks say, she was one as wasn’t never suited to
neither you nor yours.
STEVE. Poor soul, she be dead and gone now, and what I thinks one way or
t’other can’t do she no good. Only ’tis upon me as I could take you
to-morrow more glad-like, Annie, if so be as I had been kinder to she,
the time her was here.
ANNIE. Do you go off to bed, Steve, you’re regular done up, and that’s
what ’tis. I never hear-ed you take on like this afore.
STEVE. All right, my dear, don’t you mind what I’ve been saying. Very
like ’tis a bit unnerved as I be this night. But ’tis a good thought,
bain’t it, Annie, that come to-morrow at this time, there won’t be no
more need for us to part?
ANNIE. [_As he opens the door_.] O, ’tis dark outside!
[_They both leave the cottage_. MAY _throws back her shawl as though
stifled_. _She gets up and first stands bending over_ VASHTI. _Seeing
that she is still sleeping heavily_, _she goes to the door_, _opens it
gently and looks out_. _After a moment she closes it and walks about the
kitchen_, _examining everything with a fierce curiosity_. _She takes up
the shawl_ DORRY _has been wearing_, _looks at it hesitatingly_, _and
then clasps it passionately to her face_. _Hearing steps outside she
flings it down again on the chair and returns to the settle_, _where she
sits huddled in the corner_, _having wrapped herself again in her shawl_,
_only her eyes looking out unquietly from it_. STEVE _re-enters_. _He
bolts the door_, _then goes up to the table in front of the fire to put
out the lamp_.
STEVE. Can I get you an old sack or summat for to cover you up a bit
this cold night?
[MAY _looks at him for a moment and then shakes her head_.
STEVE. All right. You can just bide where you be on the settle. ’Tis
warmer within nor upon the road to-night, and I’ll come and let you out
when ’tis morning.
[MAY _raises both her hands in an attitude of supplication_.
STEVE. [_Pausing_, _with his hand on the burner of the lamp_.] Be there
summat as you wants what I can give to you?
[MAY _looks at him for a moment and then speaks in a harsh whisper_.
MAY. Let I bide quiet in the dark, ’tis all I wants now. [STEVE _puts
out the lamp_.
STEVE. [_As though to himself_, _as he goes towards the door upstairs_.]
Then get off to your drunken sleep again, and your dreams.
[_Curtain_.
ACT II.—Scene 4.
_The fire is almost out_. _A square of moonlight falls on the floor from
the window_. VASHTI _still sleeps in the chimney corner_. MAY _is
rocking herself to and fro on the settle_.
MAY. Get off to your drunken sleep and to your dreams! Your dreams—your
dreams—Ah, where is it as they have gone, I’d like for to know. The
dreams as comed to I when I was laid beneath the hedge. Dreams!
[_She gets up_, _feels down the wall in a familiar way for the
bellows—blows up the fire and puts some coal on it gently_. _Then she
draws forward a chair and sits down before it_.
MAY. [_Muttering to herself_.] ’Tis my own hearth when ’tis all said
and done.
[_She turns up the front of her skirt and warms herself_, _looking
sharply at_ VASHTI REED _now and then_.
[_Presently_ VASHTI’S _eyes open_, _resting_, _at first unseeingly_, _and
then with recognition_, _on_ MAY’S _face_.
VASHTI. So you be comed back, May. I always knowed as you would.
MAY. How did you know ’twas me, then?
VASHTI. ’Cause I knowed. There ’tis.
MAY. I be that changed from the times when I would sit a-warming of
myself by this here fire.
VASHTI. Ah, and be you changed, May? My eyes don’t see nothing of it,
then.
MAY. Ah, I be got into an ugly old woman now, mother, and Steve—Steve,
he looked in the face of I and didn’t so much as think who ’twas. “Get
off to the drunken sleep of you and to your dreams.” ’Twas that what he
did say to I.
VASHTI. Your old mother do know better nor Steve. Ah, ’tweren’t in no
shroud as I seed you, May, nor yet with the sod upon the face of you, but
stepping, stepping up and down on the earth, through the water what layed
on the roads, and on the dry where there be high places, and in the grass
of the meadows. That’s how ’twas as I did see you, May.
MAY. And I would like to know how ’twas as Steve saw I.
VASHTI. Ah, and there was they as did buzz around as thick as waspes in
summer time and as said, “She be under ground and rotting now—that her
be.” And they seed in I but a poor old woman what was sleeping in the
chimney corner, with no hearing to I. “Rotting yourself,” I says, and I
rears up sudden, “She be there as a great tree and all the leaves of it
full out—and you—snakes in the grass, snakes in the grass, all of you!”
There ’tis.
MAY. [_Mockingly_.] “It’s a good thought, bain’t it, Annie, that
to-morrow this time there won’t be no need for us to part?” And in the
days when I was a young woman and all the bloom of I upon me, ’twouldn’t
have been once as he’d have looked on such as her.
VASHTI. And ’tis full of bloom and rare fine and handsome as you appear
now, May, leastways to my old eyes. And when you goes up to Steve and
shows yourself, I take it the door’ll be shut in the face of the mealy
one what they’ve all been so took up with this long while. I count that
’twill and no mistake. So ’tis.
MAY. [_Fiercely_.] Hark you here, Mother, and ’tis to be wed to-morrow
as they be! Wed—the both of them, the both of them! And me in my flesh,
and wife to Steve! “Can I cover you up with a bit of old sack or
summat?” Old sack! When there be a coverlet with feathers to it
stretched over where he do lie upstairs. “I’ll let you out when ’tis
morning.” Ah, you will, will you, Steve Browning? Us’ll see how ’twill
be when ’tis morning—Us’ll see, just won’t us then!
VASHTI. Ah, ’tis in her place as th’ old woman will be set come
morning—And that her’ll be—I count as ’tis long enough as her have
mistressed it over the house. [_Shaking her fist towards the ceiling_.]
You old she fox, you may gather the pads of you in under of you now, and
crouch you down t’other side of the fire like any other old woman of your
years—for my May’s comed back, and her’ll show you your place what you’ve
not known where ’twas in all the days of your old wicked life. So ’tis.
MAY. Her han’t changed a hair of her, th’ old stoat! Soon as I heard
the note of she, the heat bubbled up in I, though ’twas chattering in the
cold as I had been but a moment afore. “One of they dirty roadsters—I’ll
learn you to come disturbing of a wedding party, I will.” [_Shaking her
fist towards the ceiling_.] No, you bain’t changed, you hardened old
sinner—but the words out of the cruel old mouth of you don’t hurt I any
more—not they. I be passed out of the power of such as you. I knowed
I’d have to face you when I comed back, but I knowed, too, as I should
brush you out of the way of me, like I would brush one of they old maid
flies.
VASHTI. Ah, and so I telled she many a time. “You bide till my May be
comed home,” I says. “She be already put safe to bed and ’tis in the
churchyard where her do take her rest,” says she. Ah, what a great liar
that is, th’ old woman what’s Steve’s mother! And the lies they do grow
right out of she tall as rushes, and the wind do blow they to the left
and to the right. So ’tis.
MAY. Ah, she han’t any more power for to hurt I in the ugly old body of
her. I be got beyond she. There be but one or two things as can touch I
now—But one or two. And I be struck to the heart, I be, struck to the
heart.
[_She bends forwards_, _rocking herself to and fro and weeping_.
MAY. [_As though speaking to herself_.] Back and fro, back and fro—On
the dark of the earth and where ’twas light. When ’twas cold and no
sound but the steps of I on the road, and the fox’s bark; when ’twas hot
and the white dust smouldered in the mouth of I, and things flying did
plague I with the wings of they—But ’twas always the same thought as I
had—“Some day I shall come back to Steve,” I did tell me. And then
again—“Some day I shall get and hold Dorry in my arms.” And now I be
comed. And Steve—and Steve—Ah, I be struck deep to the heart, ’tis so.
Struck deep!
VASHTI. You get upstairs to Steve, May. Get you up there and take the
place what’s yours.
MAY. My place, my place! Where’s that I want to know! ’Tis another
what’s got into the nest now, to lie snug and warm within. And ’tis for
I to spread the wings of me and to go out into the storm again. So ’tis.
VASHTI. Get you to Steve, May, and let him but look on the form of you
and on the bloom, and us’ll see what he will do with t’other hussy then.
Ah, they sneaking, mealy wenches what have got fattened up and licked
over by th’ old woman till ’tis queens as they fancies theirselves, you
shall tell they summat about what they be, come morning. And your poor
old mother, her’ll speak, too, what hasn’t been let sound her tongue
these years gone by. Ah, hern shall know what us do think of they, hern
shall squat upon the floor and hear the truth.
MAY. He thought as I was sleeping; but I looked out on her and seed the
way his eyes was cast upon the girl. Steve, if you had cast your eyes on
me like that but once, in days gone by—maybe, maybe I’d not have gone out
and shut the door behind I.
VASHTI. Get you to Steve and let him see you with the candle lit. Her
bain’t no match for he, the young weasel! ’Tis you as has the blood of
me and my people what was grand folk in times gone by, ’tis you, May, as
is the mate for he, above all them white-jowled things what has honey at
the mouth of they, but the heart running over with poison—Ah, and what
throws you the bone and keeps the meat for their own bellies. What sets
the skin afore you and laps the cream theirselves. Vipers, all of them,
and she-cats. There ’tis.
MAY. Sit you down, Mother, and keep the tongue of you quiet. We don’t
want for to waken they.
VASHTI. [_Sitting down heavily_.] But we’ve got to waken Steve for he
to know as how you be comed home again.
MAY. And where’s the good of that, when there bain’t so much as a board
nor a rag, but what’s been stole from I?
VASHTI. You go and say to him as ’tis his wife what have come back to
her place. And put th’ old woman against the chimney there, and let her
see you a-cutting of the bread and of the meat, and a-setting out of the
food so as that they who be at the table can loose the garments of them
when the eating ’tis finished, if they has a mind to, ’stead of drawing
they together so not to feel ’tis leer. Ah, ’tis time you be comed, May,
’tis time.
MAY. [_Bitterly_.] I’m thinking ’tis time!
VASHTI. ’Tis the lies of they be growed big as wheat stalks and the
hardness of their hearts be worse nor death. But ’tis to judgment as
they shall be led, now you be comed home, May, and the hand of God shall
catch they when they do crawl like adders upon the earth. “Ah, and do
you mind how ’twas you served old Vashti, what never did harm to no one
all the life of her,” I shall call out to th’ old woman in that hour when
her shall be burning in the lake. And her shall beg for a drop of water
to lay upon the withered tongue of she, and it shall be denied, for other
hands nor ours be at work, and ’tis the wicked as shall perish—yes, so
’tis.
MAY. [_Who has been bending forward_, _looking steadily into the fire_.]
Stop that, Mother, I wants to get at my thoughts.
VASHTI. Be you a-going to set on I, too, May, now that you be comed
home. ’Tis poor work for an old woman like I.
MAY. [_As though to herself_.] And as I was laid beneath the
hedge—“’Tis cold as my limbs is, now,” I says, “but I shall be warm this
night.” And the pangs what was in the body of me did fairly quail
I—“’Tis my fill of victuals as I shall soon put within,” thinks I. And
they was laid a bit. The bleakness of the tempest fell on I, but “I
shan’t feel lonesome no longer than this hour,” I telled me. For to my
thinking, Steve, he was waiting all the time till I should be comed back.
And Dorry, too. There ’tis. [_A long silence_.
MAY. I’d have been content to bide with the door shut—so long as it was
shut with they two and me inside the room—th’ old woman—well, I count I
shouldn’t have took many thought for she—she could have bided in her
place if she’d had a mind—I’d have set me down, when once my clothes was
decent and clean, and put my hands to the work and made a tidy wife for
Steve, as good nor better than that there dressed-up thing out yonder—And
bred Dorry up the right way, too, I would. But ’tis done with now, so
’tis.
VASHTI. [_As though to herself_.] And when ’tis morning and she gets
her down—“There, ’tis my girl as is mistress here, I’ll say to her—and
’tis my girl as shall sit cup end of the table—and you get you to the
fire corner and bide there, like the poor old woman as you be, spite that
you do slip about so spry on the wicked old legs of you.”
MAY. And I could set she back in her place, too, that tricked-up, flashy
thing over the way. I’ve but to climb the stairs and clap my hand on
Steve—“Get you from your dreams,” I have got but to say, “the woman
what’s yourn be comed home. Her have tasted the cup of death, very near,
and her have been a-thirst and an hungered. But her has carried summat
for you in her heart all the way what you wouldn’t find in the heart of
t’other, no, not if you was to cut it open and search it through.” And
the right belongs to I to shut the door on t’other hussey, holding Steve
to I till death divides we.
VASHTI. Going on the road I seed the eyes of they blinking as I did pass
by. “And may the light from out the thunder cloud fall upon you,” I says
to them, “for ’tis a poor old woman as I be what has lost her child; and
what’s that to you if so be as the shoes on her feet be broken or no?
’Tis naked as the toes of you shall go, that hour when the days of this
world shall be rolled by. Ah, ’tis naked and set on the lake of burning
fire as the hoofs of you shall run!”
MAY. I could up and screech so that the house should ring with the sound
of me, “I be your wife, Steve, comed back after these many years. What’s
this that you’ve got doing with another?” I could take hold on him and
make him look into the eyes of I, yes, and th’ old woman, too. “See
here, your ‘dirty roadster,’ look well on to her.” “Why, ’tis May.” But
the eyes of him would then be cast so that I should see no more than a
house what has dead within, and the blind pulled down. And I, what was
thinking as there might be a light in the window!
VASHTI. “And you may holler,” I says to them, “you may holler till you
be heard over the face of all the earth, but no one won’t take no account
of you.” And the lies of them which have turned into ropes of hempen
shall come up and strangle they. But me and my child shall pass by all
fatted up and clothed, and with the last flick, afore the eyelids of they
drop, they shall behold we, and, a-clapping of the teeth of them shall
they repent them of their sins. Too late, too late! There ’tis.
MAY. Too late! There ’tis, I be comed home too late.
[_She rises and takes up her shawl_, _wrapping it about her shoulders_,
_and muttering_.
MAY. But I know a dark place full of water—’Tis Simon’s pool they calls
it—And I warrant as any poor wretch might sleep yonder and be in quiet.
VASHTI. Be you a-going up to Steve now?
MAY. No, I bain’t. ’Tis out from here that I be going. And back on to
the road.
VASHTI. May, my pretty May, you’re never going for to leave I, what’s
such a poor old woman and wronged cruel. You step aloft and rouse up
Steve. He’ll never have you go upon the roads again once he do know as
you’ve comed back.
MAY. Steve! What’s it to Steve whether the like of I do go or bide?
What be there in I for to quell the love of she which Steve’s got in him?
Dead leaves for new. Ditch water for the clear spring.
VASHTI. Give him to drink of it, May.
MAY. [_Looking upwards to the ceiling_.] No, Steve. Hark you here. I
bain’t a-going to do it. I bain’t going to knock over the spoonful of
sweet what you be carrying to your mouth. You take and eat of it in
quiet and get you filled with the honey. ’Tain’t my way to snatch from
no one so that the emptiness which I has in me shall be fed. There, ’tis
finished now, very nigh, and the sharpness done. And, don’t you fear,
Steve, as ever I’ll trouble you no more.
VASHTI. [_Rising_.] I be a-going to fetch him down, and that’s what I’m
a-going for to do.
MAY. [_Pushing her back into her chair_.] Harken you, Steve, he’s never
got to know as I’ve been here.
VASHTI. I tell you, May, I’ll screech till he do come!
MAY. [_Sitting down by_ VASHTI _and laying her hand on her_.] I’ll put
summat in your mouth as’ll stop you if you start screeching, mother.
Why, hark you here. ’Tis enough of this old place as I’ve had this
night, and ’tis out upon the roads as I be going. Th’ old woman—there’s
naught much changed in she—And Steve—well, Steve be wonderful hard in the
soul of him. “Can I get you an old sack,” says he—and never so much as
seed ’twas I—Ah—’tis more than enough to turn the stomach in anyone—that
it is. [_A slight pause_.
MAY. I was never a meek one as could bide at the fireside for long. The
four walls of this here room have very near done for me now, so they
have. And ’tis the air blowing free upon the road as I craves—Ah, and
the wind which hollers, so that the cries of we be less nor they of lambs
new born.
VASHTI. God bless you, May, and if you goes beyond the door ’tis the
mealy-faced jade will get in come morning, for Steve to wed.
MAY. So ’tis. And if I stopped ’twould be the same, her’d be between us
always, the pretty cage bird—For look you here on I, Mother, and
here—[_pointing to her feet_]—and here—and here—See what’s been done to I
what’s knocked about in the world along the roads, and then think if I be
such a one as might hold the love of Steve.
VASHTI. [_Beginning to whine desolately_.] O, do not you go for to
leave your old mammy again what has mourned you as if you was dead all
the years. Do not you go for to leave I and the wicked around of I as
might be the venomous beasts in the grass. Stop with I, my pretty
child—Stop along of your old mother, for the days of I be few and
numbered, and the enemies be thick upon the land.
MAY. Hark you here, Mother, and keep your screeching till another time.
I wants to slip out quiet so as Steve and th’ old woman won’t never know
as I’ve been nigh. And if you keeps your mouth shut, maybe I’ll drop in
at our own place on the hill one of these days and bide comfortable along
of you, only now—I’m off, do you hear?
VASHTI. I can’t abide for you to go. ’Tis more nor I can stand. Why,
if you goes, May, ’tis t’other wench and th’ old woman what’ll get
mistressing it here again in your place. [_Rising up_.] No—you shan’t
go. I’ll holler till I’ve waked them every one—you shan’t! My only
child, my pretty May! Ah, ’tis not likely as you shall slip off again.
’Tis not.
MAY. Look you here, Mother—bide still, I say. [_Looking round the room
distractedly_.] See here—’tis rare dry as I be. You bide quiet and
us’ll have a drink together, that us will. Look, th’ old woman’s forgot
to put away the bottle, us’ll wet our mouths nice and quiet, mother—she
won’t hear I taking out the cork, nor nothing. See!
[MAY _gets up and crosses the room_; _she takes the bottle off the shelf
where she has just perceived it_, _and also two glasses_; _she fills one
and hands it to her mother_.
VASHTI. [_Stretching out her hand_.] ’Tis rare dry and parched as I be,
now I comes to think on it, May.
MAY. That’s right—drink your fill, Mother.
VASHTI. ’Tis pleasant for I to see you mistressing it here again, May.
MAY. Ah, ’tis my own drink and all, come to that.
VASHTI. So ’tis. And the tea what she gived me was but ditch water. I
seed her spoon it in the pot, and ’twas not above a half spoon as her did
put in for I, th’ old badger. My eye was on she, though, and her’ll have
it cast up at she when the last day shall come and the trumpet sound and
all flesh stand quailing, and me and mine looking on at her as is brought
to judgment. How will it be then, you old sinner, says I.
MAY. [_Re-filling the glass_.] Take and drink this little drop more,
mother.
[VASHTI _drinks and then leans back in her chair again with half closed
eyes_.
MAY. [_Putting away the bottle and glasses_.] Her’ll sleep very like,
now. And when her wakes, I take it ’twill appear as though she’d been
and dreamt summat.
VASHTI. Do you sit a-nigh me, May. The night be a wild one. I would
not have you be on the roads.
MAY. [_Sitting down beside her_.] O, the roads be fine on nights when
the tempest moves in the trees above and the rain falls into the mouth of
you and lies with a good taste on your tongue. And you goes quick on
through it till you comes to where the lights do blink, and ’tis a large
town and there be folk moving this way and that and the music playing,
and great fowls and horses what’s got clocks to the inside of they,
a-stirring them up for to run, and girls and men a-riding on them—And the
booths with red sugar and white, all lit and animals that’s wild
a-roaring and a-biting in the tents—And girls what’s dancing, standing
there in satin gowns all over gold and silver—And you walks to and fro in
it all and ’tis good to be there and free—And ’tis better to be in such
places and to come and to go where you have a mind than to be cooped in
here, with th’ old woman and all—’Tis a fine life as you lives on the
roads—and ’tis a better one nor this, I can tell you, Mother.
VASHTI. [_Who has gradually been falling into sleep_.] I count ’tis so.
’Tis prime in the freshening of the day. I count I’ll go along of you,
come morning.
MAY. That’s it, Mother, that’s it. Us’ll take a bit of sleep afore we
sets off, won’t us? And when morning comes, us’ll open the door and go
out.
VASHTI. That’s it, when ’tis day.
[_Her head falls to one side of the chair and she is presently asleep_.
[MAY _watches her for some moments_. _Then she gets up softly and wraps
her shawl round her_. _The window shews signs of a gray light outside_,
MAY _goes quietly towards the outer door_. _As she reaches it_, DORRY
_comes into the room from the staircase_.
DORRY. [_Going up to_ VASHTI.] Granny, ’tis the New Year! I’m come
down to see to the fire and to get breakfast for Dad and Gran’ma. Why,
Granny, you’re sleeping still. And where’s that poor tramp gone off to?
[_She looks round the room and then sees_ MAY _by the door_.
DORRY. O, there you are. Are you going out on the road afore ’tis got
light?
MAY. [_In a hoarse whisper_.] And that I be. ’Tis very nigh to
daybreak, so ’tis.
DORRY. Stop a moment. [_Calling up the stairs_.] Daddy, the tramp
woman, she’s moving off already.
STEVE. [_From upstairs_.] Then give her a bit of bread to take along of
she. I don’t care that anyone should go an-hungered this day.
DORRY. [_Turning to_ MAY.] There—you bide a minute whilst I cuts the
loaf. My Dad’s going to get married this day, and he don’t care that
anyone should go hungry.
[MAY _comes slowly back into the room and stands watching_ DORRY, _who
fetches a loaf from the pantry and cuts it at the table_. _Then she
pulls aside the curtain and a dim light comes in_.
DORRY. The snow’s very nigh gone, and ’tis like as not as the sun may
come out presently. Here’s a piece of bread to take along of you.
There, it’s a good big piece, take and eat it.
[MAY _hesitates an instant_, _then she stretches out her hand and takes
the bread and puts it beneath her shawl_.
MAY. And so there’s going to be a wedding here to-day?
DORRY. ’Tis my Dad as is to be married.
MAY. ’Tis poor work, is twice marrying.
DORRY. My Dad’s ever so pleased, I han’t seen him so pleased as I can
remember. I han’t.
MAY. Then maybe the second choosing be the best.
DORRY. Yes, ’tis—Gran’ma says as ’tis—and Dad, he be ever so fond of
Miss Sims—and I be, too.
MAY. Then you’ve no call to wish as her who’s gone should come back to
you, like?
DORRY. What’s that you’re saying?
MAY. You don’t never want as your mammy what you’ve lost should be
amongst you as afore?
DORRY. I never knowed my mammy. Gran’ma says she had got summat bad in
her blood. And Granny’s got the same. But Miss Sims, she’s ever so nice
to Dad and me, and I’m real pleased as she’s coming to stop along of us
always after that they’re married, like.
MAY. And th’ old woman what’s your gran’ma, Dorry?
DORRY. However did you know as I was called “Dorry”?
MAY. I heard them call you so last night.
DORRY. And whatever do you want to know about Gran’ma?
MAY. What have her got to say ’bout the—the—wench what’s going to marry
your dad?
DORRY. O, Gran’ma, she thinks ever such a lot of Miss Sims, and she says
as how poor Dad, what’s been served so bad, will find out soon what ’tis
to have a real decent wife, what’ll help with the work and all, and what
won’t lower him by her ways, nor nothing.
MAY. Look you here—’tis growing day. I must be getting off and on to
the road.
DORRY. [_Moving to the door_.] I’ll unbolt the door, then. O, ’tis
fine and daylight now.
MAY. [_Turning back at the doorway and looking at the room_.] I suppose
you wouldn’t like to touch me, for good luck, Dorry?
DORRY. No, I shouldn’t. Gran’ma, she don’t let me go nigh road people
as a rule. She’s a-feared as I should take summat from them, I suppose.
MAY. [_Hoarsely_, _her hand on the door_.] Then just say as you wishes
me well, Dorry.
DORRY. I’ll wish you a good New Year, then, and Gran’ma said as I was to
watch as you cleared off the place. [MAY _goes out softly and quickly_.
DORRY _watches her until she is out of sight_, _and then she shuts the
door_.
ACT III.—Scene 1.
_The same room_. _It is nearly mid-day_, _and the room is full of
sunshine_. JANE BROWNING, _in her best dress_, _is fastening_ DORRY’S
_frock_, _close to the window_.
DORRY. Dad’s been a rare long time a-cleaning of his self up, Gran.
JANE. Will you bide still! However’s this frock to get fastened and you
moving this way and that like some live eel—and just see what a mark
you’ve made on the elbow last night, putting your arm down somewhere
where you didn’t ought to—I might just as well have never washed the
thing.
DORRY. Granny’s sound asleep still—she’ll have to be waked time we goes
along to the church.
JANE. That her shan’t be. Her shall just bide and sleep the drink out
of her, her shall. Do you think as I didn’t find out who ’twas what had
got at the bottle as Dad left on the dresser last night.
DORRY. Poor Gran, she do take a drop now and then.
JANE. Shame on th’ old gipsy. Her shall be left to bide till she have
slept off some of the nonsense which is in her.
DORRY. Granny do say a lot of funny things sometimes, don’t she, now?
JANE. You get and put on your hat and button your gloves, and let the
old gipsy be. We can send her off home when ’tis afternoon, and us back
from church. Now, where did I lay that bonnet? Here ’tis.
[_She begins to tie the strings before a small mirror in the wall_.
STEVE _comes downstairs in his shirt sleeves_, _carrying his coat_.
DORRY. Why, Dad, you do look rare pleased at summat.
STEVE. And when’s a man to look pleased if ’tis not on his wedding morn,
Dorry?
DORRY. The tramp what was here did say as how ’twas poor work twice
marrying, but you don’t find it be so, Dad, do you now?
STEVE. And that I don’t, my little wench. ’Tis as nigh heaven as I be
like to touch—and that’s how ’tis with me.
JANE. [_Taking_ STEVE’S _coat from him_.] Ah, ’tis a different set out
altogether this time. That ’tis. ’Tis a-marrying into your own rank,
like, and no mixing up with they trolloping gipsies.
DORRY. Was my own mammy a trolloping gipsy, Gran?
JANE. [_Beginning to brush_ STEVE’S _coat_.] Ah, much in the same
pattern as th’ old woman what’s drunk asleep against the fireside. Here,
button up them gloves, ’tis time we was off.
DORRY. I do like Miss Sims. She do have nice things on her. When I
grows up I’d like to look as she do, so I would.
STEVE. [_To_ JANE.] There, Mother, that’ll do. I’d best put him on
now.
JANE. [_Holding out the coat for him_.] Well, and you be got yourself
up rare smart, Steve.
STEVE. ’Tis rare smart as I be feeling, Mother. I’m all a kind of a
dazzle within of me, same as ’tis with the sun upon the snow out yonder.
JANE. Why, look you, there’s George a-coming up the path already.
DORRY. He’s wearing of the flower what Rosie gived him last night.
STEVE. [_Opening the door_.] Good morning, George. A first class New
Year to you. You’re welcome, if ever a man was.
JANE. You bide where you do stand, George, till your feet is dry. My
floor was fresh wiped over this morning.
GEORGE. [_Standing on the door mat_.] All right, Mrs. Browning. Don’t
you fluster. Good morning, Dorry. How be you to-day, Steve?
JANE. Dorry, come you upstairs along with me and get your coat put on,
so as your frock bain’t crushed.
DORRY. O, I wish I could go so that my nice frock was seen and no coat.
[_They go upstairs_. GEORGE _rubs his feet on the mat and comes into the
room_, _walking up and down once or twice restlessly and in evident
distress of mind_.
STEVE. [_Who has lit a pipe and is smoking_.] Why, George, be you out
of sorts this morning? You don’t look up to much, and that’s the truth.
GEORGE. [_Stopping before_ STEVE.] Hark you, Steve. ’Tis on my mind to
ask summat of you. Did you have much speech with the poor thing what you
took in from the snow last night?
STEVE. No, George, and that I didn’t. Her was mostly in a kind of
drunken sleep all the time, and naught to be got out from she. Mother,
her tried. But ’twas like trying to get water from the pump yonder, when
’tis froze.
GEORGE. Your mother’s a poor one at melting ice, Steve, and ’tis what we
all knows.
STEVE. Ah, ’twasn’t much as we could do for the likes of she—what was a
regular roadster. Bad herbs, all of them. And if it hadn’t been so as
’twas my wedding eve, this one shouldn’t have set foot inside of the
house. But ’tis a season when a man’s took a bit soft and foolish, like,
the night afore his marriage. Bain’t that so, George?
GEORGE. And when was it, Steve, as she went off from here?
STEVE. That I couldn’t rightly say, George, but I counts ’twas just upon
daybreak. And ’twas Dorry what seed her off the place and gived her a
piece of bread to take along of her.
GEORGE. And do you think as she got talking a lot to Dorry, Steve?
STEVE. I’m blest if I do know, George. I never gived another thought to
she. What’s up?
GEORGE. They was getting the body of her from out of Simon’s Pool as I
did come by. That’s all.
STEVE. From Simon’s Pool, George?
GEORGE. I count her must have went across the plank afore ’twas fairly
daylight. And, being slippery, like, from the snow, and her—her—as you
did say.
STEVE. In liquor.
GEORGE. I reckon as her missed her footing, like.
STEVE. Well, upon my word, George, who’d have thought on such a thing!
GEORGE. I count as her had been in the water and below the ice a
smartish while afore they catched sight of she.
STEVE. Well, ’tis a cold finish to a hot life.
GEORGE. They took and laid her on the grass, Steve, as I comed by.
STEVE. If it had been me, I’d have turned the head of me t’other side.
GEORGE. There was summat in the fashion her was laid, Steve, as drawed I
near for to get a sight of the face of she.
STEVE. Well, I shouldn’t have much cared for that, George.
GEORGE. Steve—did you get a look into the eyes of yon poor thing last
night?
STEVE. No, nor wanted for to, neither.
GEORGE. There was naught to make you think of—
STEVE. Of what, George?
GEORGE. There—Steve, I can’t get it out, I can’t.
STEVE. Then let it bide in.
GEORGE. ’Twas the way her was laid, and the long arms of she, and the
hands which was clapped one on t’other, as it might be in church.
STEVE. [_Looking through the window_.] You shut up, George. Here’s
Annie with Rose a-coming up to the door. Don’t you get saying another
word about yon poor wretch nor the end of her. I wouldn’t have my Annie
upset for all the world to-day. ’Tis a thing as must not be spoke of
afore they, nor Dorry neither, do you hear?
[_He moves towards the door and puts his hand to the latch_.
GEORGE. Hold back, Steve, a minute. There’s summat more as I’ve got to
say.
STEVE. You take and shut your mouth up, old George, afore I opens the
door to the girls.
GEORGE. ’Tis bound for to come from me afore you goes along to church,
Steve.
STEVE. I warrant ’twill keep till us do come home again, George.
[_He throws the door wide open with a joyous movement_. ANNIE _and_ ROSE
_in white dresses stand outside_.
STEVE. Well, Annie, this is a rare surprise, and that’s the truth.
[ANNIE _and_ ROSE _come into the room_.
ROSE. Father, he’s outside, and Jim and Bill and Katie, and all the
rest. We said as ’twould be pleasanter if we was all to go up together
along to the church.
STEVE. So ’twould be—so ’twould be—’Twas a grand thought of yourn,
Rosie.
ANNIE. Steve—
STEVE. [_Taking her hand_.] Annie, I’m fair beside myself this day.
ANNIE. O, Steve, there was never a day in my life like this one. [DORRY
_and_ JANE _come down_.
DORRY. O, Miss Sims, you do look nice! Gran’ma, don’t Miss Sims look
nice? And Rosie, too. O, they have nice gowns and hats on, haven’t
they, Dad?
STEVE. I don’t see no gowns nor hats, and that’s the truth. But I sees
summat what’s like—what’s like a meadow of grass in springtime afore the
sun’s got on to it.
DORRY. Why, Dad, ’tis white, not green, as Miss Sims is wearing.
STEVE. ’Tis in the eyes of her as I finds my meadow.
DORRY. O, let me see, Dad, let me look, too!
ROSE. [_Going up to_ GEORGE, _who has been standing aloof and moody in
the background_.] Come, Mr. Davis, we must have a look, too.
JANE. ’Get along, get along. We han’t time for such foolishness. It be
close on twelve already.
ANNIE. O, let me be, all of you! I declare, I don’t know which way to
look, I don’t.
STEVE. I’ll show you, Annie, then.
ROSE. [_To_ GEORGE.] Well, Mr. Davis, you don’t seem over bright this
morning.
STEVE. ’Tis with the nerves as he be took!
DORRY. Look at what he’s wearing in his buttonhole, Rosie.
ROSE. ’Tis kept beautiful and fresh.
STEVE. Come on, come on, all of you. ’Tis time we was at the church.
ROSE. Hark to him! He’s in a rare hurry for to get out of the house
to-day.
GEORGE. Bain’t the old lady a-coming?
JANE. That she bain’t, the old drinking gipsy—’tis at the spirits as her
got in the night—and put away very near the best part of a bottle. Now
she’s best left to sleep it off, she be.
STEVE. Come on, George. Come, Dorry.
DORRY. O, isn’t it a pity as Granny will get at the drink, Mr. Davis?
And isn’t Miss Sims nice in her white dress? And don’t Dad look smiling
and pleased? I never did know Dad smile like this afore.
GEORGE. [_Heavily_.] Come on, Dorry—you take hold of me. You and me,
we’ll keep nigh one to t’other this day, won’t us?
ROSE. [_Calling from outside_.] Come on, Mr. Davis.
[_They all go out_.
ACT III.—Scene 2.
_Nearly an hour later_. _The cottage room is full of sunlight_.
VASHTI REED _is awake and gazing vacantly about her from the same chair
by the fire_. _Someone knocks repeatedly at the door from outside_.
VASHTI. And ’tis no bit of rest as I gets for my bones, but they must
come and hustle I and call I from the dreams which was soft. [_The
knocking is heard again_.
VASHTI. And I up and says to they, “Ah, and you would hustle a poor old
woman what’s never harmed so much as a hair out of the ugly heads of you.
You would hunt and drive of her till she be very nigh done to death. But
there shall come a day when you shall be laid down and a-taking of your
bit of rest, and the thing what you knows of shall get up upon you and
smite you till you do go screeching from the house, and fleeing to the
uttermost part of the land—whilst me and mine—”
[_The door opens and_ HARRY MOSS _enters_.
HARRY. Beg pardon, old Missis, but I couldn’t make no one hear me.
VASHTI. Seeing as them be sick of the abomination which was inside of
they. [_Perceiving_ HARRY.] Well, and what be you as is comed into this
room?
HARRY. ’Tis Moss as I be called, old Missis. And as I was a-going by
this place, I thought as I’d look in a moment, just for to ask how ’twas
with May.
VASHTI. They be all gone out from the house. All of them. They be in
clothes what do lie in boxes most of the time with lumps of white among
they. Them be set out in the best as they has, and in grand things of
many colours. There ’tis.
HARRY. And be you th’ old lady what’s Steve’s mother?
VASHTI. I be not, sir. ’Tis mother to May as I be. May, what’s comed
back, and what’ll set t’other old vixen in her place soon as they get
home.
HARRY. Then May, she be gone out, too, have her?
VASHTI. [_Looking round vaguely_.] Ah, I counts as her be gone to
church along of t’other.
HARRY. To church, Missis?
VASHTI. There’s marrying being done down here to-day.
HARRY. Marrying, be there? Well, but I was ’most feared as how it might
have been t’other thing.
VASHTI. Ah, that there be—marrying. But there bain’t no more victuals
got into the house as I knows of. Th’ old woman’s seen to that.
HARRY. And be May gone out, too, along of them to see the marrying?
VASHTI. Ah, I counts as her be. But her’s a-coming back in a little
while, and you may sit down and bide till she does.
HARRY. I’d sooner be about and on my way, Missis, if ’tis all the same
to you. But I thanks you kindly. And you get and tell May when she do
come home, that ’tis particular glad I be for to know as her bain’t took
worse, nor nothing. And should I happen in these parts again, ’tis very
likely as I’ll take a look in on she some day.
VASHTI. Ah, her’ll have got t’other old baggage set in the right place
by then.
HARRY. [_Looking round him_.] Well, I be rare pleased to think of May
so comfortable, like, for her was got down terrible low.
VASHTI. T’other’ll be broughted lower.
HARRY. Look you here, old Missis, ’tis a stomach full of naught as I
carries. If so be as you has a crust to spare—
VASHTI. [_Pointing to a door_.] There be a plate of meat inside of that
cupboard. You take and fill your belly with it.
HARRY. Thank you kindly, Missis, but I counts I han’t the time for heavy
feeding this morning.
VASHTI. ’Twould serve she right, th’ old sinner, for the place to be
licked up clean, against the time when her was come’d back, so ’twould.
HARRY. Well, Missis, you can tell May ’tis a brave New Year as I do wish
she.
VASHTI. [_Listening to bells which are heard suddenly ringing_.] There,
there they be! Harken to them! ’Tis with bells as they be coming out.
Bells what’s ringing. I count ’tis fine as May do look now in her
marriage gown. Harken, ’tis the bells a-shaking of the window pane. I
be an old woman, but the hearing of me bain’t spoiled.
HARRY. I warrant it bain’t, Missis. Why, they’re ringing wonderful
smart. ’Tis enough, upon my word, for to fetch down every stone of the
old place.
VASHTI. Get you out upon the garden path and tell I if you sees them
a-coming.
HARRY. That’s it, old Missis, and so I will.
[_He goes outside the house_.
VASHTI. [_Sitting upright and looking with fixed vacancy before her_.]
And when they was all laid low and the heads of them bowed. “You would,
would you,” I says, for they was lifting the ends of their ugly mouths at
I. And I passed among they and them did quail and crouch, being with
fear. And me and mine did reach the place what was on the top. “See now
yourselves,” I says, “if so be that you do not go in blindness and in
dark.” ’Twas May what stood there aside of I. And “Look you,” I says,
“over the bended necks of you my child shall pass. For you be done to
death by the lies which growed within you and waxed till the bodies of
you was fed with them and the poison did gush out from your lips.” But
my little child stood in the light, and the hands of her was about the
stars.
HARRY. [_Coming in_.] Look, they be all a-coming over the meadow, old
Missis. But May han’t comed with they—May han’t come too.
[_The wedding party enters the room as the curtain falls_.]
FOOTNOTES
{1} “_As I walked Out_.” _From Folk Songs from Essex collected by R.
Vaughan Williams_. _The whole_, _or two verses can be sung_.
{2} “The Seeds of Love,” “Folk Songs from Somerset,” edited by Cecil J.
Sharp and Charles L. Marsden.