CHAPTER XXIX

THE SHADOW OF A CHANGE

Everything in this world is comparative, there is nothing absolute.

All creation is in scale from the animated germ to the man, through all the ranges of invertebrate and vertebrate life. And man is not a culminating superlative, for mankind is in itself a wondrous ladder made up of degrees. Taken physically, intellectually, socially, he is situated on a stage with stages above and others below him. Indeed every man in his several aspects or component parts is but relative. He may be handsomer than another, but not so clever, or handsomer and more clever, but stand on an inferior social rung.

Now when Mrs. Marley informed Mrs. Jose that nothing would satisfy her short of the introduction of Winefred into high society, Mrs. Jose ran her eye up the scale of her kindred and acquaintances, and said with confidence: 'My dear Jane, I can put her into the very 'ighest, short of a title. It is that of Tomkin-Jones of Bath'; and as Jacob's ladder lost itself in heaven so did that social scale up which Mrs. Jose looked land itself in the transcendent blaze of the Tomkin-Jones parlour. 'Yes,' said Mrs. Jose, 'it will not do to have the girl here longer; it is curdling her soul, like putting over much cider into milk posset. You are right. We must get her out of this place if she is to be reared as a lady. If you keep poultry on the same ground they get the gapes. We must shift the hutches. We will send Winefred to Bath.'

In Mrs. Jose's pleasant face little dimples formed.

'Yes, Jane,' said she, 'but I'm thinking, Mrs. Tomkin-Jones is not in the best circumstances, though she be so high. You cannot expect her to do it for nothing. It is her misfortune to be unable to teach manners for the pleasure of the thing. You see it is just the same as giving lessons on the piano――one has to be taught the fingering――and that fingering in social life they call tact. Only them as knows it can teach it.'

'I will pay――and that gladly. What I desire is, that my Winefred should become a real lady.'

'Learn the fingering――that is all she requires,' said Mrs. Jose. 'In 'igh society they hold themselves above shoppies. All things don't agree with every one. There is my cat is ill after eating herrings. You must not let out that you have been a hawker. We know that by nature all are equal. Scripture says so, just as hams be when they come from the pig. But, my! what a difference there be in the curing! It is that which gives style and flavour, and makes a prime Wiltshire or a Yorkshire stand out above your raw green hams. It is into the pickle you must put Winefred, and I'll see to it, and the pickle must get right down into her bone. I don't approve of glazing and flummery, and when you cut in――nothing but saltpetre. If she is to dress and act as a lady, she must think and feel as a lady. When I see an old woman dressed very young, I say it is mutton with mint sauce, served as lamb; we will have Winefred real, and she has a right to be that, for her father was a gentleman. Mrs. Tomkin-Jones is my cousin, but I don't presume on that. She was a Stripe, and that was the name of my mother's family.'

'And do you think you can persuade them to take my Winefred――if I pay?'

'I will try. They used to keep their carriage. I don't say that they do so now. But it is not forgotten that they did. Keeping your carriage and pair――it sticks to one just as the smell of lavender does to your linen if you have kept them together.'

Mrs. Jose considered. Presently she said, 'But not a breath of a word about the huxtering. You know very well, Jane, I want to be delicate, but I can't help myself, I must explain. There are Mrs. Ball, the greengrocer, and Mrs. Trant, who has the drapery. Have they ever asked you to take a cup o' tea with them――I mean at the same table? No, they would say it would not be fitting and proper, because you were a travelling hawker. You see what a difference it makes your having a shop counter fixed, and one you carry about with you. Now the Tomkin-Joneses are above Mrs. Ball and Mrs. Trant as the lark is above the barndoor poultry. So you may conceive that if she knew what you had been――――'

Jane Marley's face became stern. She interrupted Mrs. Jose with, 'Put me aside. If I can get my Winnie into that family I will not stand in the way. I have stood in my own light long enough, and will not spoil my child's future. It is because I am not a lady that I have been as a cloud tossed by the tempest, and never able to find repose. _He_ supposed that she could not be much, come of such as me; but when he saw her, then he discovered his error. There is the stuff in her――――'

'Yes, and all required is that it shall be properly cut out.'

'Tell your friends that her father was a gentleman who has lost his wife.'

'But Winefred will speak of you.'

'What then? Say that she has been reared from the cradle by a nurse, a common sort of woman, as can't read or write; you can say, if Winefred does not speak as ladies should, or in other little things goes contrary to their ways, put it down to me, say that she learned those manners and speech of her nurse. But, mind you, tell them that she has good blood in her, and that whatsoever is faulty comes of me, her nurse, and of that they are to rid her.'

'I don't much like saying that, Jane. I am a woman who always speaks the truth.'

'It is the truth. I have been her nurse. I held her to my bosom and soothed her when she cried. No one else ever did that. And her father did lose his wife――that is to say, he ran away and left her. He went abroad, they told me, to the other end of the earth, and put the rolling seas between us. There is no lie about that.'

'Well, well, we shall see. I will say as little as possible.'

'You must say,' said Mrs. Marley, with her fingers knitted, embracing her knees, and looking stonily before her, 'you must say as how Winnie is accustomed always to call that low thing her mother, because she has not known any other, though that creature is not worthy of her; but you may also say that the nurse loves her'――Jane's eyelids flickered and her voice became less harsh――'loves her and worships the very ground on which she walks. You can't go too far in that, and if you will you can go further and say that it was time the child should be taken out of such degrading associations and be put with gentlefolks, for and because'――Jane threw up her head――'she has gentle blood in her, and because this was her father's wish.'

The woman seemed to feel a bitter pleasure in disparaging herself.

She went on: 'The child is young, and she will be unhappy at the outset, and be longing to be back with her mother, as she styles that person who brought her up. But in time she will grow out of that and make new friends, and will learn new ways, and then――then there will be a great gulf fixed between her and that common woman who was her nurse, a gulf so wide and so profound that there will be no passing from the one to the other. I must make up my mind to that. I see that it will come. But I will endure it for Winefred's sake.'

Drops stood on Jane Marley's brow, and there was a fire in her eye, but no signs of unbending.

'I will do my best for her,' said Mrs. Jose. 'I will myself take Winefred to Bath――and to say the truth, I should like to see my high relations again, and have an excuse for a visit. Milk always gains a flavour from what it is set nigh. That is why you can't well have meat in a dairy. I shall come back with quite a smack of gentility.'

Mrs. Jose mused.

'We must go to Lyme,' she said after a while. 'I will take her there with her trunk, thence we shall get to Dorchester, and so on by coach. It can be done.'

'When?'

'Next week.'

All at once Jane's eyes were as windows against which rain has beaten, and the woman broke down utterly. It was like the collapse of an oak.

The distress, the despair of the mother were so great, so overwhelming, that the kind-hearted farmer's wife could only stand and look on, unable to offer consolation, powerless to stem the rush of passionate sorrow. She allowed her to give way without an attempt to check her, and tarried patiently till the first burst was overpast.

Then she said gently, 'Now, Jane, try to come round again. Yourself has willed it, and all for the good of the young girl. This life is full of cross roads and branching lanes, and we don't all walk along it two-and-two like the Odd-Fellows going to church on Club Feast. A few years will pass, and you will then be proud of Winefred, proud to look at her, to hear her speak, to see how beautiful and ladylike she has grown――――'

'But so far――far from me.'

'Jane, every thought in your head, every feeling in your heart will be swallowed up in pride. I will tell you my ideas, Jane. You go on consuming your black and miserable thoughts, and it makes you wretched――just like the kitchen cat as will eat black beetles and grows lanky on it――but think of things bright. Trout grow fat on Mayflies. Consider this. Winefred with her handsome face and nimble tongue is certain to catch the fancy of some great gentleman. How can you say but that this may be a lord? My people――I beg their pardon――the Tomkin-Joneses live in the most fashionable square in Bath, and although they don't keep a carriage and livery servants just now, they see carriages and footmen go by their windows. And any one who casts an eye on Winefred is sure to fall in love with her. It will be worth going through something for the sake of what may, must be.'

Jane was quieter. She said: 'When she has a house of her own, and is married, I shall ask to be allowed to darn the socks and hem the dusters.' She drew a long sigh, 'O Mrs. Jose, you do not know how I have longed for this! Yet now it is about to be, I feel sick at heart.'

Then a maid looking in said, 'Missus! I say, missus!'

'Well, Betsy, what do you want?'

'Please, missus, there be young Jack Rattenbury staying about, and sez he wants to see you.'

'What does he want?'

'I don't know, but I reckon he do want something of you.'

'Bless the boy,' said the good-natured woman, 'they all do that. Tell Jack to come in.'