Part 17

“Yigh, ma’am; and it wur theer he took his last look at me afore he went away and left me. We’d been married then a good few month and I niver thought he’d be for leaving me again till I noticed as he wur gettin’ a bit onsattled-like. And wan neet he sot up in bed and shriked out, ‘Say’s callin’ me, Molly! say’s callin’ me.’ I towd him ’twere nonsense and he mun ha’ been dreamin’, and he said no moor, but next day he went wanderin’ up and down, up and down, yon by the shore. An’ he didn’t seem like hissel’. And a two’three days at arter a letter coom for him, and when he read it he went first red and then white as a sheet. ‘What does it say?’ I axed. ‘It’s fro’ my owd captain,’ says he. ‘He wants me to jine th’ ship agin. Molly, Molly,’ says he; ‘I towd thee say was callin’ me.’ ‘Nay, Will, dunnot be a fool,’ says I. ‘Thou mun write and tell captain as thou’s wed and has gettin’ wark upo’ dry lond, and as he mun look out for soombry else.’ But Will he coom aroun’ table to me and looked into my e’en, an’ his own face were half-sorrowful, and half-j’yful. ‘Nay, my lass,’ says he, ‘but I mun go. Sailors same as me connot live long wi’out they feel the wayter under them. I’s not be long away fro’ thee, my bonny wench—captain says it ’ull be nobbut a short v’yage, an’ I’ll be fain to get awhoam again—but I feel as I mun go.’ I pulled his two hands down and I pushed him fro’ me. ‘Thou’rt be fain to get back,’ says I—‘nay, but thou’rt fain to go. I tell thee if thou goes I’ll ne’er ha’ no more to say to thee. If thou can do wi’out me I can do wi’out thee.’ And then I geet agate o’ cryin’. ‘Eh,’ I said, ‘I didna think thou’d sarve me that gate. Thou’rt a false ’ard-’arted deceivin’ felly—that’s what thou art, Will Davis! What brought thee here wi’ thy soft words, an’ thy lovin’ ways—lees all on ’em—to tak’ all as I had, and mysel’ along wi’ it—to tee me, hand and foot, and then to go away and leave me?’ I throwed apron over my head and sobbed like a child, but my cheeks were as hot as two coals wi’ anger. First Will tried to pull away th’ apron, but I held fast and stopped my ears as soon as ever he began o’ speakin’, and arter a bit he gave o’er, and went away whistlin’. I wouldna speak a word all that day, nor yet the next, though I see him gettin’ together his things and makkin’ ready.

“Late i’ th’ arternoon he coom and stood by my cheer.

“‘My wench,’ says he, ‘sin’ thou wunnot speak to me nor look at me, I may as well be off at wonst. Captain towd me jine him soon as ever I could.’ My heart wur like lead, but I kept my face turned away from him. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘sin’ thou wants to go, thou can go for aught I care.’ He stood a bit longer, and then he stooped his face down to mine. ‘Coom, Molly,’ he says, ‘gie us a kiss, and let’s part good freends. Thou’rt a bit vexed still, but when thou cooms to think it ower thou’lt see I wur nobbut reet. A man mun stick to the lot he’s chose.’

“‘And what about the wife he’s chose?’ cries I. And I pushed away his face and pushed back cheer. ‘Nay, I’ll noan gi’e thee a kiss. Go thy ways and leave me.’ He waited a bit longer, but I didn’t turn my head; and then he took up his bundle and went out. I heard his step on th’ sand, very slow and lingerin’, and then I heard his tap on th’ window. ‘Coom, my wench,’ he called out; ‘gi’e us a look then. Gi’e us a look sin’ thou’lt gie me naught else.’

“But I hitched my cheer round and turned my back on him. Eh, my lad! Eh, my poor lad, I might ha’ seen thy bonny face then and I wouldna look. Eh, I wonder the Lord didna strike me down dead that day for my wicked pride and anger.”

She brought down one clenched hand upon the open palm of the other with such sudden fiery energy that for a moment the veil of years was lifted, and I saw before me the passionate, resentful girl-wife who has sent her husband from her with such a sore and angry heart.

By-and-by I saw tears upon her withered cheeks, and gently patting the nearest hand I said consolingly, “Do not fret; it is all over long ago, and you know you told me you felt he had forgiven you.”

“Ah, that’s true,” she sighed, lifting the corner of her apron to her eyes with her disengaged hand. “I knowed that long ago. I’ll tell yo’ about it. It seems to coomfort me like to talk about him. ’Twas jest sich a neet as this—I wur sittin’ nigh to fire thinkin’ on him—he’d been gone a good few months then, and I began o’ wonderin’ how soon I met reckon to see him back, and to plan what a welcome I’d gi’e him. Eh, I wur ashamed o’ mysel’ and my ill-tempers by that time, and I thought soon as ever I see him comin’ I’d run and throw my arms round’s neck and ax his parden. And then I’d bring him in, I thought, and set him i’ th’ cheer here, and tell him that the wife and the whoam would always be ready and waitin’ for him. But all on a sudden I bethought mysel’ that it wur a very stormy neet, and I geet all of a shake thinkin’ of him out yon on the dark wayter, and every time the big waves ’ud lep up an’ roar upo’ the shore, I’d beat my breast and pray to the Lord to ha’ mercy on the folks at say, and not to let my dear lad dee wi’out I see him agin and knowed he forgive me. It got to be a dark neet, but I couldna go to bed, but sot here cryin’ and prayin’ by the fire till the cowd grey morn coom. And then there coom a quiet minute, as if storm was howdin’ back for summat, and I heard plain the three taps o’ th’ window as Will always made, and I looked up and there he wur, lookin’ at me and smilin’ so lovin’. I jumped up fro’ my cheer—this here cheer as was stood in this here corner jest as it is now, and I ran towards window, and I see him plain—as plain as I see you jest now. His face were a bit pale, and the wayter wur drippin’ fro’s hair, and fro’s cloo’es—he was as weet as weet. But he stood there smilin’, and lookin’ at me lovin’.

“‘Bide a bit,’ says I, ‘I’ll oppen door in a minute.’ And I ran to door, and oppened it, and wind and rain coom rushin’ in. Down yon on the shore I could hear waves rushin’ and roarin’—I could scarce mak’ my voice heerd wi’ th’ din. ‘Coom in, Will,’ says I, ‘coom in. Dunnot stond theer i’ th’ wind and the rain. Coom in to thy wife.’ But nobry answered, and then I run round the corner, wrastlin’ wi’ the wind as was near liftin’ me off my feet, and when I come to the window there weren’t nobry theer. Eh, you may think how I skriked out. I run round the house agin and looked in at door, but theer warn’t nobry inside, and then I coom out agin, and sarched and sarched, an’ called an’ called, but I heerd naught but wind and rain, and the waves thunderin’ o’ th’ beach.

“An’ then I knew he wur dead.”

Her voice, which had been lifted excitedly as she told her tale, dropped at its close, and the hand, which had twitched convulsively in mine, lay passive once more. It was an eerie tale, but convincing withal, and my eyes again stole towards the window nervously.

“Did you think he had come again when I knocked to-night, then?” I inquired, after a pause.

She nodded.

“Have you ever seen him or his spirit since the night you told me of?”

“Nay, ma’am, but I’m all’ays waitin’ for him.”

“You think he will come?”

“I know he’ll come,” she said. “Eh, I wish to the Lord he would coom. I am longing for’t.”

“Yet when I looked in I thought you seemed—almost frightened.”

“I am afeared,” she returned in a low voice, “but I’m not afeard o’ him—I’m afeared o’ what he’ll bring when he cooms. And yet, God knows, I’ll be fain to—”

“What do you mean?”

“Nay, never mind. Maybe ’tis foolish talk. . . . The rain has gived ower now, ma’am, and yo’d happen do well to mak’ a start.”

There was no disputing the advisability of this course, and I took my leave, promising to come and see the old woman again on my next visit to the neighbourhood.

Two years passed, however, before I again found myself in that part of the world, and even then I had been staying at Saltleigh for a week or two before I could make time to betake myself to the cottage on the lonely dunes. I walked along the shore as I had done on that former occasion, and, as I drew near, my eyes instinctively sought the little window which had played so important a part in the old woman’s story, and I stared in surprise at its altered aspect. The ledge behind the casement hitherto left blank—no doubt because Molly would tolerate no intervening objects between her and the panes on which her eyes loved to linger—was now closely packed with flower pots; gay scarlet geraniums pressing forward to the light. I quickened my steps, but before I could reach the house a yet more astonishing sight appeared amid the clusters of bloom; neither more or less than the laughing face of a little child, which peered curiously out at me, and was by-and-by supplemented by two fat, dimpled hands, which hammered gleefully upon the glass.

Full of forebodings I knocked at the cottage door, which was presently opened by a tall young woman with a baby in her arms.

“I came to see Molly Davis,” I said hesitatingly. “Is she—is she—”

“Eh, ma’am, hoo’s dead,” returned the young woman, answering my wistful look rather than the unfinished sentence. “Hoo deed nigh upon a year ago—last autumn it wur. Poor soul, hoo was glad to go, I doubt, for hoo was but ’onely here.”

“Do you know—what she died of? Was she long ill?”

“Hoo seemed to be failin’ like, but hoo wasn’t not to say sick. Eh, it gived every one a turn when they coom and found her.”

“Do you mean to say they found her dead?”

“Yigh, ma’am, little Teddy down yon fro’ Frith’s farm coom up wi’ the milk—hoo couldn’t fotch it for hersel’ for two-three weeks afore hoo died—he hommered at door and couldna get no answer, and then he run round to window, and theer he found her, poor body, leein’ close under it on her face. He ran down to farm and they coom and brok’ oppen door and fotched doctor, but doctor said hoo’d been dead for mony hours. . . . Dunnot tak’ on ma’am”—for I was weeping—“coom in and set yo’ down. I doubt it giv’ yo’ a turn to hear o’ poor Molly goin’ that way. But we’ll all ha’ to go when we’re turn cooms,” she added philosophically.

Wiping my eyes I went into the little kitchen which I remembered so well; its aspect was changed and modernised. A gay square of oil-cloth covered the tiled floor, the walls were decked with gaudily coloured pictures; Molly’s great elbow-chair was gone, and in its place stood a horsehair covered sofa.

“Ah, we’s all ha’ to go when we’re turn cooms,” repeated my new hostess with the gloomy relish, with which your rustic enunciates such statements; “and Molly, hoo were fain to goo. Onybody could see that as coom to see her laid out—so peaceful hoo looked, wi’ a smile upon her face.”

“She was found under the window you say?”

“Ah! Her knittin’ wur throwed on the floor nigh to her cheer, and hoo’d knocked down a stool on the way to the window—doctor said hoo’d wanted to oppen it and let in fresh air, very likely—for her arms were stretched out towards it. But hoo didn’t ha’ time, poor soul, hoo was took afore hoo could get theer. Eh, dear, yes. That was the very way they found her, lyin’ on her face wi’ her arms stretched out, and smilin’—smilin’ quite joyful like.”

So there had been no fear at the last—no fear either of Will himself or of the grim comrade who had accompanied him. Molly’s presentiment had been realised; the much loved spirit of her husband had come to seek and sustain her in the last solemn moment. Stormy youth and lonely middle-age had alike been forgotten; for Molly the end had been peace.

And as I took my way homewards to the sound of the gentle lapping waves, I thought of her, not as she had described herself to me, handsome, wilful, impetuous; not as I had seen her, expectant, regretful—not even starting forward at the sound of the well-known signal, or lying prone with outstretched arms upon the floor. No, I pictured to myself the placid face smiling on the pillow, the folded hands at rest, every line of the quiet figure bearing the imprint of a peace that would never more be broken.

APRIL FOOLS

THE late spring dusk had at length fallen; the horses had been led home from the plough, which remained in characteristic Dorset fashion at the angle of the last furrow, the merciful twilight hiding the rich coating of rust with which a lengthy course of such treatment had endued it; the elder labourers had donned their coats, and lit their pipes, and gone sauntering homewards along the dewy grass border of the lane. Farmer Bellamy had laid aside his pinner—the last cow having long been milked and sent pasturewards in the rear of her fellows—and likewise smoked ruminatively in the chimney corner; his wife faced him, a large basket at her feet containing sundry arrears of mending, a sock upon her outspread left hand, a needle threaded with coarse yarn in the other. It was getting too dark to darn now, and she wondered impatiently why Alice and Lizzie did not come in to light the lamp and do their share of needlework.

But Mrs Bellamy’s daughters formed part of a little group of men and girls who had gathered round the low stone wall at the extremity of the yard; the central point of interest being a certain flat-topped gatepost which marked off the entrance to a disused pig-sty. Lizzie Bellamy was bending over this, her face in close proximity to the paper on which she was writing, her eyes strained in the endeavour to make the most of such light as yet remained. A boy, standing near her, held, at a convenient angle, a penny ink-bottle which he obligingly tilted each time that she required to dip her pen; occasionally in Lizzie’s increasing excitement, the pen missed its mark, whereupon he seized it in his stumpy fingers and guided it to its rightful destination.

Little spasmodic bursts of laughter escaped the writer every now and then, and a kind of smothered chorus of giggles was kept up by the bystanders; while from time to time one of the more adventurous squinted over her shoulder, being admonished in return by a vigorous dig from the girl’s elbow.

At last she threw back her head and dropped her pen with a laughing exclamation—

“I d’ ’low that’ll do.”

“Read it, read it!” cried the others.

“Somebody’ll have to light a match, then,” retorted she.

Jem Frisby produced one, struck it on the wall, and stepped forward.

The light fell on the girl’s face—a good-looking one enough, of the dark-eyed, red-cheeked Dorset type—and illuminated now one, now another, of her companions. All these faces were young, all bore the same expression of expectant, mischievous glee.

“‘MY DEAR GILES,’” read Lizzie, “‘I take up my pen to write these few lines to let you know a wish what’s long been in my mind—”

“I d’ ’low it ’ud be better if ye did put ‘What’s been in my mind since the death o’ Missus Neale,’” suggested a tall lad, with a smothered roar of laughter.

“No, ’twouldn’t do at all,” said Lizzie. “It ’ud put him in mind o’ the poor body, and he’d be that down-hearted he wouldn’t have no fancy for cwortin’ Hannah. Keep quiet, else I can’t read. There, the match be out now; ’tis your fault.”

“Let the maid alone till she’ve a-read us what she’ve a-wrote,” growled somebody from the darkness, which seemed intense now that the little flickering light had vanished. Jem struck another match, and Lizzie continued, reading quickly—

“‘You must find it terr’ble hard to manage without no missus; an’ I’m beginning to feel lonesome now I be gettin’ into years—’”

“I d’ ’low that’ll sp’ile her chances!” exclaimed someone in the background. Lizzie twisted her head round angrily:

“Nothin’ o’ the kind; Giles ’ud never look at nobody without it were a staid ’ooman. Second match is near out now. I won’t be bothered readin’ the letter to ye at all if ye keep on a-interruptin’ of I. Well—

“‘I’ve been a-thinkin’ we might do worse nor make a match. I could do for you, and you’d be company for I. Besides’—here Lizzie’s voice quavered with laughter—‘I’ve took a mortal fancy to you, Giles, an’ think you the handsomest man ever I see. My heart have been yours two year an’ more. If you think well on the notion you might meet me to-morrow in the Little Wood at breakfast time.—Yours truly,

“HANNAH PETHIN.

“‘_P.S._—As I’m feelin’ a bit timid along o’ writin’ this here letter, I’d be obliged if ye’d kindly not mention it when we meets face to face.’”

The match had burnt itself out a moment or two previously, but Lizzie remembered her composition sufficiently well to recite it without such aid, and was rewarded for the effort by shouts of approving laughter.

“The very thing!” exclaimed one.

“The last touch is the best!” cried another; while all united in declaring the letter to be “jist about clever.”

“I’ll pop it under his door late to-night!” cried Jem. “So soon as I’m sure he be asleep. Now, let’s write his to her.”

“You’d better do that,” said Lizzie. “The two writin’s mustn’t be the same, an’ she’d know my hand along o’ my makin’ out the milk bills.”

“Hold the match, then, somebody,” cried Jem. “Here, ’Ector, catch hold; an’ mind ye keep it studdy. Give me the pen, Liz.”

He took up his position at the flat stone, and was so long in squaring his elbows, arranging the pen in his clumsy fingers, and thrusting his tongue into his cheek—a necessary preliminary to rustic letter writing—that Hector announced that the match was burning him, before he had begun work in earnest.

“Hold hard a minute!” cried another man. “Best be thinkin’ out what you want to say afore we lights another. It comes terr’ble expensive on matches, an’ it’s enough to put anybody off to have to start to light one in the middle of a line.”

“True, true!” agreed the others.

Lizzie, flushed with her recent triumph, again took the lead—

“‘DEAR HANNAH—’”

“Best put ‘Miss Pethin’” suggested Rose Gillingham, one of the dairymaids.

“He do never call her anything but Hannah,” retorted Lizzie; “an’ they’ve been workin’ together now for nigh upon ten year.”

“That’s the very reason she’ll think he’s more in earnest-like; she’ll be terr’ble pleased if he treats her so respectful.”

There was something in that, the others agreed, and even Lizzie gave way, and it was decided that the amorous document should begin after the somewhat distant fashion suggested by Rose.

“Well now,” resumed Lizzie—“‘I write these few lines to say as I’ve been a-turnin’ over somethin’ in my mind, as I hope you’ll be glad to hear. Bein’ a widow-man, I feels mysel’ by times at a terr’ble loss, an’ I be wishful to take a second—’”

“Bain’t that comin’ to the p’int a bit too quick?” interrupted Rose.

“Lord, no!” interpolated Jem very quickly. “Mercy me, it’ll take I all my time to get that much in. We have but the one sheet of paper, look see; an’ there’ll be a deal o’ writin’ in what ye’ve thought on a’ready.”

“‘There’s nobody,’” went on Lizzie, disregarding both disputants, “‘my dear Miss Pethin, what I could like better to fill the empty post nor yourself—’”

“I never knowed a post could be empty,” said some facetious bystander, who was, however, nudged and hushed into silence.

“‘I do think you the vittiest maid in the whole o’ Dorset,’” pursued the intrepid author, being unable, however, to proceed with her composition for some moments, owing to the storm of ironical applause; for, indeed, the destined recipient of this tender document was not only “a staid ’ooman,” but had never, at any period of her life, possessed any claim to good looks.

“‘If ye think well on my offer, will ye meet I at the Little Wood at breakfast-time to-morrow? But, as I’m a shy man by natur’, I’d thank ye not to say nothin’ about me havin’ wrote to ye.

“‘Your true and faithful,

“‘GILES NEALE.’”

When the hubbub of applause had subsided, a match was duly lighted, and Jem set to work. His task concluded, after much labour and consequent burning of matches, the document was read aloud, directed, and handed over to Lizzie, who undertook to slip it under Hannah’s door before retiring to rest herself.

“If she do say anythin’ to I about it, I’ll tell her I did hear a man’s foot goin’ through the cheese-room very late,” she added, giggling.

“Well, then, us’ll all post ourselves behind the hedge at back o’ the Little Wood,” cried Rose, jubilantly; “an’ then us’ll all run out an’ call ‘April Fools!’ so soon as they’ve a-made it up.”

“’Ees,” agreed Lizzie, “but don’t you sp’ile sport by runnin’ out too soon. Best wait till brewery whooter goes, an’ then all run out together—that’s the ticket.”

The resolution was carried unanimously, and the party separated for the night. The female section made its way towards the farmhouse, for the two milkmaids employed by Farmer Bellamy in addition to his own stalwart daughters, lodged on the premises; while the men and boys betook themselves to the little cluster of houses, a kind of off-shoot from the village proper, in which they had their homes.

Hannah Pethin was usually the first of that busy household to awake, and it was her duty to call her less alert companions. When, on the morning of this momentous first of April, she jumped out of bed, she stood for a moment or two rubbing her eyes and staring. There, in the centre of the very small patch of boarded floor which intervened between her bed and the door, lay a large white envelope, which bore her name in bold characters—

“MISS HANNAH PETHIN.”

“’Tis for me,” she said to herself, after gazing at this object for a minute or two. It generally took Hannah some little time to grasp an idea, but this one presented itself in a concrete form. “Dear, to be sure, I wonder what anyone can be writin’ to me for?”

She had pulled on her stout knitted stockings, and assumed the greater part of her underwear, before it occurred to her to open the letter and ascertain its contents. Even then she grasped the paper with a diffident finger and thumb, and turned it over and over before she could make up her mind to embark on its perusal.

“Dear!” she exclaimed, looking at the end in true feminine fashion, “’Tis from Giles!”

Her eyes opened wider and wider as she read the line which preceded the signature. “Your true and faithful.” She turned over the page, the colour deepening in a countenance already ruddy as the brick floor of the milk-house which she so frequently scrubbed.

“Well!” she ejaculated at last, drawing a long breath, “’Tis a offer—that’s what it be! Who’d ha’ thought o’ me gettin’ a offer!”

She mused for a little time, her face wreathed in smiles, and spelt over the letter again with increasing satisfaction.

“‘_Meet I at the Little Wood at breakfast-time to-morrow_’—that’s to-day.” Hannah’s wits were brightening under the influence of this unexpected stroke of good fortune. “‘I’d thank ye not to say nothin’ about me havin’ wrote.’. . . Well, an’ that’s well thought on. I d’ ’low I be jist so shy as he, an’ it ’ud ha’ been terr’ble arkward to ha’ talked about sich a letter as this here. . . . ‘I be wishful to take a second’—well, the man couldn’t speak plainer. . . . ‘The vittiest maid!’ _Fancy_ him sayin’ that!”

At this period of her meditations Hannah was constrained to cross the room on tip-toe to the window, near which a small square looking-glass was suspended from a nail. She surveyed her own image with some curiosity but no little satisfaction, as with Giles’s eyes; regretted that her hair was growing grey about the temples, but consoled herself with the fact that it was still abundant and curly, and finally smiled broadly to herself.

“I d’ ’low if I do for him it’s all right!”

Suddenly she recollected with a start that if she was to be at the tryst at the hour named, she would have to get through her intervening labours with more than usual celerity.