CHAPTER XXVI

SILVER PENINKS

As soon in the morning as Kate could disengage herself from the tasks which her aunt at once imposed on her, she ran to the cottage occupied by the wife and children of Roger Redmore. It was of cob, or clay and straw beaten and trampled together, then shaved down, and the whole thatched.

Such cottages last for centuries, and are warm and dry. So long as the thatch is preserved over the walls, there is simply no saying how long they may endure, but if the rain be suffered to fall on the top of the walls, the clay crumbles rapidly away. The cob is usually whitewashed, and the white faces of these dwellings of the poor under the brown velvet-pile thatched roofs, with the blinking windows beneath the straw thatching just raised, like the brow of a sleepy eye, have an infinitely more pleasing, cosy appearance than the modern cottages of brick or stone, roofed with cold blue slate.

The cottage of the Redmores was built against a red hedge, rank with hawthorn and primroses. But in verity it was no longer the cottage of the Redmores, for the family had been given notice to quit, and although after Lady-Day Farmer Pooke had suffered the woman to inhabit it for a few weeks, yet now the term of his concession was exceeded. He had a new workman coming in, and the unhappy woman was forced to leave.

When Kate arrived at the dwelling, she found that some sympathetic neighbours were there, who were assisting Jane Redmore to remove her sticks of furniture from the interior. The labourer who was incomer was kindly, and also lent a hand. Her goods had been brought out into the lane, and were piled up together against the bank, and on them she sat crying, with her children frightened and sobbing around her. Neighbours had been good to her, and now endeavoured to appease the tears and distress of the children with offers of bread and treacle, and bits of saffron cake, and endearments. The woman herself was helpless; she did not know whither she should betake herself for the night, where she should bestow her goods.

The incomer urged Mrs. Redmore to tell him what were her intentions. He must bring in his own family that afternoon, and would help her, as much as he was able, to settle herself somewhere. It was not possible for her to remain in the road. The parish officers would interfere, and carry her off to the poorhouse; but it was uncertain whether she could be accommodated there, interposed a neighbour, as the house was full of real widows.

Mrs. Redmore was a feeble, incapable creature, delicate, without the mental or moral power of rising to an emergency and forming a resolution. She sat weeping and crying out that she was without Roger, and he always managed for her.

“But you see, Jane,” argued a neighbour, “as how Roger can’t be here for very good reasons, which us needn’t mention, and so someone must do something, and who else is there but you?”

“I wish I was dead,” wailed the poor creature.

“Well, now, Jane,” said the neighbour, “don’t ye be so silly. If you was dead, what ’d become o’ the childer?”

At this juncture Kate arrived, breathless with running.

“It is well.” She stood panting, with her eyes bright with pleasure at the consciousness that she brought relief. “I asked my father, and he says Mrs. Redmore and the little ones may go into his cottage at Roundle Post, and stay there till something is settled.”

“That’s brave!” exclaimed the women who were standing round. “Now, let me take the little ones, Jane, and you lead the way, and Matthew Woodman, he’ll help to carry some of your things.”

“I have the key,” said Kate; “and the distance is nothing.”

“Lawk a mussy!” exclaimed one of the women; “what would us ever a’ done wi’out you, Kitty. The poor creetur is that flummaged and mazed, her don’t seem right in her head, and us couldn’t do nothing with she.”

Mrs. Redmore caught Kate’s hand, and kissed it.

“We’d all a’ died here, but for you,” she said.

“Indeed,” answered Kate, hastily snatching her hand away, “it is my father who has come to your assistance not I. He lends you the house.”

“But you axed him for it. Oh, if Roger could do anything for you!”

“I assure you my father is the one to be thanked, if anyone is.”

“Well, if Roger could do aught for he, it would be the same as to you.”

“Come, let us be on the move.”

A little procession formed—women carrying the children, or crocks, a couple of men with wheelbarrows, removing some of the heavier goods. Then up came Jan Pooke, and at once offered his assistance, and worked as hard as any.

As soon as the poor woman was settled into her new quarters, Jan sidled up to Kate, and, seizing her hand and breathing heavily, said, “Kitty, I want to say something to you.”

The girl looked at him inquiringly, waiting for what he had to say.

“I mean, Kitty, alone.”

“I am Kitty Alone,” observed she, with a smile.

“I don’t mean that. I have something I want to say to you.”

“What is it?” said she. “You look very odd.”

“It’s—it’s—the silver peninks.”

“What of them?”

It must be premised that the “silver peninks” are the _narcissus poeticus_.

“They are in an orchard.”

“I know it,” said Kate. “Lovely they are—and yet, somehow, I like the daffodils as well.”

“Now, it’s a curious thing,” said Jan, “that the same roots bring up first daffies, and then silver peninks.”

“That is not possible,” objected Kate.

“But it is so. Come into the orchard, Kitty, and see for yourself.”

“I know, without seeing, that it cannot be.”

“If you will come and look, Kitty, you will see that just where the daffies were, there the peninks are now. When the daffies die down, the peninks bloom.”

“Exactly, Jan, because their time for blooming is a month later than the daffodils.”

“But they come out of the same roots.”

“That cannot be, by any means.”

Pooke rubbed his head, and said humbly, “I know, Kitty, I’m a duffer, and that you’re clever, but I’ve seen ’em with my own eyes.”

“Have you ever dug up the bulbs?”

“No, I can’t say I have done that.”

“Till you have, you cannot say that the golden flower and the silver flower spring from one root.”

“It isn’t only the peninks, Kitty—can’t you understand?”

“I do not. You are very wonderful to-day.”

“I want to talk to you in the orchard.”

“You can say what it is, here.”

“No, I cannot. I want to show you the silver peninks, and I want to say”—he let go her hand, with which he had been sawing.

Kate looked round. It would be considerate to leave the poor woman alone with her children to get settled into her new quarters, and she desired to escape another outburst of gratitude.

“Well, Jan, I will go and look at the flowers, and I hope to show you your mistake—the withered heads of daffodil apart from the bursting bud of the penink.”

The two young people walked together down the lane to the gate into the orchard. Jan threw this open, and Kate, without hesitation, stepped in.

“Now,” said Jan, “I said it was not the peninks.”

“What is not the peninks—the daffodils? I thought you said that the one plant was the same which throws up yellow flowers and white ones.”

“You try not to understand me, Kitty.”

“I am trying hard to understand you, Jan.”

“Look here,” he exclaimed, letting go the gate. Kate did as desired; she looked him full in the face. His mouth was twitching. “Tell me, Kate”—

She waited for him to conclude the sentence, and as he did not, she asked him gently what it was that he desired her to tell him.

“You know already what I mean,” he exclaimed, breathing short and quick.

Kate shook her head.

“Look here, Kitty. My father has given his consent at last, and I am going to be married.”

“I am so glad to hear it, Jan.”

“Kate, you tease me. You—you”—

“Indeed, I wish you all happiness.”

“That I can only have with you.”

“With me?” Kate was frightened, drew back, and fixed her great, dark blue, tranquil eyes on him. The sweat rolled off his brow.

“Oh, Jan! What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. You shall be my missus.”

“Jan—that cannot be.”

“Why not? Give me your hand—no, give me both.”

“I cannot do that.”

A pause ensued.

“Kitty, you don’t care for me?”

“I do care for you, Jan.”

“Then love me—take me. Sister Sue will be so pleased.”

“I cannot do it, Jan, even for sister Sue.”

“You cannot love me?” he gasped, and his face lost its colour. “Oh, Kitty, since we were in the boat together I have thought only of you.”

“And before that, of Rose. Was it not so?”

“No, Kitty. Rose rather teased me.”

“Jan, you are a dear, good old fellow, and I like you better than any—I mean, almost better than anyone else in the world.”

“Whom do you like better?” he inquired in a tone between sulk and anger.

“My dear father, of course.”

“Oh, your father!—anyone else?”

“I love the dear old parson.”

“The parson? why so?”

“Because one can learn so much from him.”

“Oh, learn, learn!” exclaimed Pooke impatiently. “At that rate you will love the schoolmaster, for he can teach you all sorts of things—why some stars twinkle and others do not; and why the tides do not come regular by half an hour. If that sort of foolery suits you, he’ll do.”

“It is no foolery, dear friend Jan. I have said that I did regard and like you.” Her face had become crimson.

“But you will not love me.”

“Jan, I shall always think of you as a brother or a cousin. You are so good, so true, so kind. You deserve the best girl in Coombe, and I am not that.”

He wanted to interrupt her, but she proceeded, laying her finger-tips on his breast.

“No, Jan, I am not that—I know it well; and I know that your father, not even sister Sue, would have you marry me. I cannot love you, and you would be unhappy with me.”

“Why that?”

“Because I would be for ever asking you questions which you could not answer. And I, with you, would not be happy, because I could get no answers out of you. You would be telling me such things as that silver peninks sprang out of daffodil roots, and that—I could not believe.”

“So you refuse me?”

“Jan, you must get a good dear wife, who will believe that silver peninks grow out of daffodil bulbs—will not bother whether they do or not—one who loves you with her whole heart. I know one who does that—no—listen to me!” as he made a gesture of impatience, as if he would turn away. “Let me speak plainly, Jan. Rose is a merry, good-hearted girl; and if she has done an unkind thing to me, it has not been out of malice, but because it made her mad to think that you did not love her, and cared a little for me. No one in Coombe can say a bad word against her. She is the prettiest girl in all the country round. She is always neat and fitty (dapper). If you know at all what love is, Jan, you must judge how miserable Rose is, when, loving you with all her heart, she finds you indifferent, and even rough towards her; she hates me, only because you prefer me to her. Your father, I am quite sure, has no wish to see you marry anyone but Rose. Sister Sue is her friend, and Sue knows and cares nothing about me. Let us always remain friends. I shall ever value you for your goodness of heart, dear Jan. I wish I could love you enough to accept you, but I cannot—I cannot, Jan—and after saying that silver peninks”—

“Oh, confound the peninks!” he used a worse word than “confound.”

“Jan! Do not say that. It is a necessity of my heart to learn. I must ask questions, and I never can love a man who cannot give me something to satisfy my mind. Dear Jan, if we were married, and you said that silver”—

He stamped his feet.

“Well, never mind the peninks. It cannot be, Jan. It cannot be. We were never created for each other. Woman is made out of a rib of the man to whom she must belong. If I am so eager to ask questions, and get to know things, that shows, Jan, I was never made out of your rib, never taken from your side, and so never can go there.”