CHAPTER XXXVI.

FROST IN MAY.

IT was on Wednesday, the fifteenth of May, as fine a day as ever shone from heaven, that my Uncle Corny came up to our cottage, soon after we had finished breakfast. I had done my two hours of early work, according to agreement, and was ready to start for the long day now, and do my best among the trees, until it should be “blind-man’s holiday.” It had been arranged between my wife and me that I was not to expect her with my noonday meal, but should carry it with me, because she was to be busy at home with a grand turn-out. We had now been home from our bridal trip, for ten days of bliss and perfect peace, and Kitty had declared that it was high time to give our little rooms a thorough cleaning. So far as I could see, they might go another month as they were, and be all the better for it; but in all such matters the wife is supreme, and the wise man never attempts to gainsay, but only hopes to find some of his property surviving. I had always been most particular about scraping my shoes and then rubbing them on the mat, not as some men do, like a dog’s feet scratching, but attending to the welting, and the heels, and toes, until they were as clean as a dinner plate. This trifle I mention, because some women said that we had a misunderstanding about the mud I brought in.

Now as Kitty had declared that there must be a turn-out for she was wonderfully fond already of our little home, I had never even asked whether it would not do next week—as many men do, and get a sharp reply—but feeling quite certain that she must know best, made up my mind accordingly. Only I suggested that she ought to have Mrs. Tompkins in to help her, instead of her daughter, our Polly, who was as nice a girl as could be, but scarcely knew the door-knocker from the boiler-tap. I suspect (perhaps basely) that my darling was afraid that she would have to play second fiddle, if Mrs. Tompkins came; but be that as it may, she would not have her; and simply asked, “How much did I give you back on Monday, dear?” The sum had been ninepence halfpenny, a handsome residue of the fifteen shillings, which under her own scheme of finance, she had drawn from our revenue for the week’s consumption. I had said that she ought to take a pound at least, but she stuck to her figure, and would have shown a balance even more considerable, if Uncle Corny had not dropped in with such geniality for supper. “Your frugality is beyond belief,” said I.

“Halloa!” cried Uncle Corny, as he came in after breakfast, without even scraping his boots, and carrying a suckering iron, which he poked into a rose—or at least we had determined that it must be a rose—of our new and artistic paper—“signs of it already! I expected it last week. Going to have a turn-out, and knock everything to pieces.”

“But we don’t carry long iron hoes,” answered Kitty, pointing to the rose which he had suckered off the wall; and he laughed and shook hands, and said, “I had better hold my tongue.”

I quite agreed in this, for he always got the worst of it, when he attempted to make light of Kitty; she never said anything rude, but contrived to roll him up in his own rudeness. And perhaps it was the liberty of saying what she pleased, after so many years of snubbing—for the freedom of their voice must be fresh air to women—which had now set her up in a liveliness of health, such as no one had ever seen her show before. For instance, she had always had a soft, clear colour, not to be quenched by her step-mother’s slaps, nor even by anxiety about her own Kit; but now ever since she had married me, there was a richness of bloom on her cheeks, and a delicate gloss you might almost call it, such as may be seen in a Tea rose only, when it has been thoroughly well managed. And now she was wearing her pink chintz wrapper, which showed the perfection of her form, with little sprigs of flowers climbing up it, just as if they vied with one another, for the honour and delight of clinging closer into her. I thought that I had never seen her look so lovely; and she knew what I thought, and her soft eyes sparkled.

“Can’t stop while you look at one another; should have to stop all day, if it came to that.” Uncle Corny was crisp in his style, this morning, because of the frost he expected; “Now, Mrs. Kit, don’t expect him, till you see him. He will have to keep the fires up, till ten o’clock, for all I know; and Tabby will have something good for supper at my place. If you can come too, it will be all the better; but after all this kick-up of dust, you will be tired. I never can understand why women are always dusting; they only make more.”

“We are not going dusting; that shows how little you know about it, Uncle Corny,” my Kitty replied with proper spirit; “we are going to have a fine good cleaning, such as you give your wall-trees with the engine. You insist upon keeping your trees clean; but you don’t care how dirty your boards are.”

“Boards don’t grow,” my uncle replied, as if that shut her up altogether.

“Yes, they grow dirty,” she answered in his own short style; and he only said, “Come along, Kit.”

But he turned back, and kissed her; for he loved her dearly. And both he and I were glad of it, when we talked about it afterwards.

Then, as he started with his swinging walk, for he was proud of his flat back and sound joints, my dear wife came to the door, and threw her round white arms about my neck. She had turned up her sleeves, to show the earnest purpose in her figure, and her scolloped apron, trimmed with pink, came nestling into my waistcoat.

“We have never been apart so long, my pet, since our wedding-day,” she whispered, and her eyes looked wistful; “don’t expect me down there now; for I don’t think that he wants me much. And I shall have something ready for you, and your new pipe filled, my dear, the one I gave you at Baycliff. I shall be lonely, I dare say; but I shall have the clock to tell me when you are certain to be home again. And it is high time for us to learn to do without one another.”

People talk of presentiments, as if nothing could happen without them. I only know that I had none; but it almost seemed as if she had some, being of a quicker mind than I. And I was glad for many a long day that I kissed her with true tenderness, and looking back caught one sweet smile from the corner where the white lilac stood.

All that day I was hard at work, attending to what I had in hand, with enough of mind to do it well, or at least as well as in me lay. And these things, when they suit the nature both enlarge and purify it; so that a man who takes delight in all these little turns of life, although he may be tried and harassed by the pest of plaguesome insects, and the shifts of weather, yet shall do his own heart good, by doing good to what he loves. Neither shall he find himself in the humour to believe half the evil that he hears of his old friends; or even to be sure when he goes to his letter-box, that the bill which he finds there a month after he has paid it, may not have been sent in again by pure mistake.

“How you are mooning!” said my Uncle Corny, who often pretended to be rougher than he was; “that bottom branch should be at least three inches lower. And do you call that leader straight? Why, I call it a ram’s horn. How often must I tell you, that to make sure of your work, you must step back, and see how it looks across the border? And here’s a great batch of scale left to hatch at its leisure. A pretty wife spoiled the best gardener I ever knew. You have been thinking of Kitty, all the blessed day, I see. But put away your nail-bag, and let the net down from the coping. What do you suppose the thermometer is now?”

“Well, perhaps about forty,” I replied, looking round, for the sun was gone down in a rich red sky, and the air was very shrewd, and my fingers getting cold.

“Thirty-six already, and will be thirty very soon; and twenty-two at four o’clock, as sure as I’m a sinner. If we only pull through this, we shall be all right. There’s a change of weather coming within twenty-four hours. Come and have a glass of ale; and then we’ll go and do the bonfires. When we have done, Tabby will give us a hot chop, and then you will be home, before Kitty breaks her heart.”

I knew that our bloom, which was now beyond its prime, had escaped very narrowly the night before, and would be in still greater peril to-night; for these frosts always strengthen, until there comes a change. So while he set off with his five-tined fork, I ran to the house for my glass of beer (which I really wanted after that long day), and another box of matches, for he thought that his were damp. And when Mrs. Tapscott handed me the ale, she asked in a tone which made me feel uncomfortable—

“Have’e got the gearden door locked vast?”

“What garden door do you mean?” I inquired. “There are two gates, and there are three doors, Tabby. And what makes you ask, in that ominous voice?”

“Dun’now what hominous manes,” she replied; “but I knows what door manes, and so ought you. Old lead-coloured door, to the back of your ouze.”

“Well, I suppose it must be locked. It always is. None of our men go that way, you know. But what makes you put such a question to-night?”

“Dun’now, no more than the dead,” she answered, “only come into my head, as such things will. Heer’d zummat down town, as zet me a-thinking. You zee her be locked, when you goes home.”

Before I could ask her what she had heard, the sound of my uncle’s impatient shout came through the still air; and I hurried off to help him, for he had more than he could well do by himself.

It was deep dusk now, and the night was falling fast. Venus, on duty as the evening star, shone with unusual size and sparkle, above the faint gleam which had succeeded the yellow glow after the red sundown. And a little white vapour was rising here and there, where the low ground leaned into the gentle slope; but there was not enough of air on the move to draw the slow mist into lines, or even to breathe it into any shape at all.

“Now look sharp!” exclaimed Uncle Corny, who was not at all concerned with Nature’s doings, except as they concerned his pocket.

“I understand things; and you don’t. You will see, if you know north from south, that I have arranged all this in a most scientific manner. Here are fifty piles on the eastern side of all these Bonlewin, and fifty on the north. The wind must be either north or east, when it freezes. We light up, according to the direction of the wind.”

He wetted one finger at his lips, and held it up according to some old woman’s nostrum for discovering what way the wind blows. And I said—“But supposing there is no wind at all?”

“Very well. It doesn’t matter what way it is;” he had made up his mind, and meant to have it out. “You are full of objections, because you know nothing. There is no cure for that, but to do as you are told. You begin at that corner, and let the air go through. I shall take this line, and see who does it best.”

“You could never have smoked that Old Arkerate out, in this sort of weather,” I said; and he laughed, as he always did, when that triumph was recalled.

“I heard something about him, the other day,” he shouted, as he was going down the row of piles; “but I can’t stop to tell you now. Remind me at supper.”

In spite of all that we both could do, and of all his long preparations, not a whiff of smoke would go near the trees, but all went up as straight as the trees themselves. And I laughed very heartily—the last hearty laugh I was to enjoy for many a day, at the excuses Uncle Corny made for the fume that would only come into his mouth. But he would not confess himself beaten; too genuine a Briton was he for that. He stamped about, and used strong words, and even strove with his broad-flapped hat, to waft the smoke, which was as stubborn as himself, into the track it should take; till I told him that he was like the wise man of Gotham, who shovelled the sunshine into his barn. Then he laughed, and said,—

“Well, it will be all right, by-and-by. As the frost draws along, this blessed smoke must come with it. You never understand the true principles of things. Just come in and have some supper, and we will have another look at it. You must never expect a thing to work at first. Other people have done it, and I mean to do it. It is nothing but downright obstinacy. Ah there, it begins to go right already! All it wants is a little common sense and patience.”

“I shall go home first,” I said, “and see that all is right. Kitty has got a bit for me to eat; and perhaps she will come down with me, in about an hour’s time, if she is not too tired. You go and have your supper, uncle.”

With this, I set off, having long been uneasy, partly perhaps at what Tabby had said, and partly at having been so long from home. But I whistled a tune, and went cheerfully along, for the night was beautiful, and the trees, still piled with blossom, rose against the starry sky, like cones of snow.

Our door was wide open, which surprised me just a little, for my wife was particular about that. Then I went into the passage, and called—“Kitty, Kitty!” but heard no sweet voice say, “Yes, dear!” Neither did any form more sweet than words of kindest greeting come. And my step rang through the passage with that hollow sound which an empty house seems to feel along every wall. With a terrible thumping in my breast, I turned into our little parlour, and struck against a straggling chair. There was no light burning, the window was wide open, the curtains undrawn, the room felt like a well, and the faint light from the sky upon the table showed that no supper-cloth was laid. Shouting for Kitty, in a voice of fear which startled myself, I groped my way to the mantelpiece where the matches stood. They were in a little ornament which we had brought from Baycliff; my trembling hand upset it, and they fell upon the rug. I picked up half a dozen, I struck them anyhow on the grate, and lit a small wax candle which we had considered rather grand. The room was in good order, there was nothing to tell any thing; but I knew that it had not been occupied for hours.

“She is gone,” I exclaimed, though with no one to hear me; “my Kitty is gone. She is gone for ever.”

I lit the fellow-candle, and left it burning on the table, while I hurried to the kitchen, though I knew it was in vain. The kitchen fireplace was gray with cold ashes; there was not a knife and fork nor a plate set out, and the white deal table had no cooking-cloth upon it. Then I gave up calling “Kitty,” as I had been doing all along, till I ran upstairs to our pretty bedroom; and there I called for her once more. When there came no answer, I fell upon the bed, and wondered whether I was mad.

All my wits must have left me in the bitterness of woe. I seemed even to accept it as a thing to be expected, not to want to know the reason, but to take it like death. Who I was, I knew not for the time, nor tried to think; but lay as in a blank of all things, only conscious of a misery I could not strive against. I did not even pray to die; for it seemed to make no difference.

Then up I got, with some sudden change, and the ring of my heel on the floor, as I struck it without measuring distance, now echoed in my brain; and anger sent anguish to the right-about. “This is the enemy’s work,” I cried; “it serves me right for not wringing their necks, for their cursed tricks at Hounslow. So help me God, who has made them and me, I will send them to Him, this time.”

My strength was come back, and the vigour of my limbs, and the iron control of every nerve. Until the sense of wrong had touched me, I was but a puling fool. I had felt that all my life was gone, with her who was the spring of it, and that nothing lay before me, but to put up my legs and moan. But praised be the Lord, who has given us that vivid sense of justice which of all His gifts is noblest, here I stood, a man again; ready to fight the Devil, and my brethren who are full of him.