Comin' Thro' the Rye (Mathers)/Seed Time/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
"Wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding mannerly-modest as a measure full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and with his bad legs fell into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sinks into his grave."
Jack and I went to see a wedding this morning that began yesterday, and was only finished to-day. It was not a mannerly-modest one though; far from it. We make a rule of attending all the weddings and funerals we can, but school hours are a sad hindrance to me, and Jack often has to go by himself. We always watch the mourners with great attention, and have, after careful study of their countenances, made up our minds that it is almost always those who care least who are most demonstrative, and that dry-eyed grief is far more deep and deadly than a tempest of sobs and cries and wails. Not that poor people as a rule regret their dead very passionately; their hard, dull, working lives are so heavy to bear, that a little more or less misery matters but little. You will even see a mother with many children taking some comfort from the thought that the Lord has "provided" for the little ones taken away from her.
But I am forgetting all about yesterday's wedding. It was at a convenient hour, nine o'clock. So, having watched papa safely into the stables, we were soon across the lawn and churchyard, and in our usual hiding-place in the organ-loft. Mr. Skipworth was already waiting before the altar, book in hand, and looking decidedly cross, when the bride and bridegroom came in, followed by a few people. We couldn't see their faces, but theer seemed something very wrong about the bridegroom's back, for he was lurching, tripping and rolling from side to side, and strange to say, the bride, a stout and buxom young woman, was supporting him! They reached the altar, and Mr. Skipworth began to read the service, but when it became necessary for the young man to make his vows, nothing was heard but a series of hiccoughs; and although the bride pinched and shook and whispered him energetically, no responses were forthcoming, and in another minute he had fallen an inert mass upon the chancel floor.
"Oh my!" exclaimed Jack in high glee, "he's drunk!"
Mr. Skipworth shut the book in disgust and walked away; but the intrepid bride, with no trace of anger, raised her man, and with her friend's assistance conveyed him to the door.
We followed the couple to the village as far as we dared, and during the day contrived to get posted up as to the latest particulars. At noon he was fast asleep, with his head on the bride's lap; at three he was recovering, and calling loudly for beer; at five he was locked up by her friends for safety; at nine he was sitting with his head in a basin of cold water, forced thereto by the same in hopes of enabling him to go to church on the morrow. And their indefatigable efforts have been rewarded, for this morning he came up to time, and was able to make his vows, if somewhat unsteadily, at least audibly. The bride's beaming face was a study as she bore her swinish-sulky mate away. Truly matrimony must have had charms for her.
It is a never-ending puzzle to Jack and me how people can like being married. Dorley has a wife, a very fine woman, who beats him, and of whom he is intensely proud. Once she rather overdid it; and as a worm will turn, so did Dorley; and, having represented to her that her little attentions were incompatible with the respectability of appearance Colonel Adair required from his gardener, it was agreed that they should separate, she possessing one-half of his wages and household goods, he the other. They had not been apart a week when Dorley came and gave papa warning. "He could not live without his missus," he said, "and he was going to her." And go he did; but matters were ultimately arranged, and Dorley came back to us with his spouse, who beats him more than ever, to his great satisfaction and content.
Dorley, however, if meek at home, is not meek to us. He is a tyrant, and looks upon the fruits and flowers of the garden as his, while we are little thieves and pickpockets, who menace the same. And oh! he has to be sharp, has Dorley, or there would be never a gooseberry, peach, or apricot to send in for dessert. I wonder where he is this afternoon? I wonder where everybody is? Though I have been prowling round the garden for half an hour I have not met a soul.
It is very mean of Jack to go off and leave me in this way—on a Wednesday afternoon too. I did not think he would bear me so much malice about the pig; boys aren't forgiving like girls. I wonder what he is doing? Fishing? Bathing? Taking a scramble across country with Pepper? It is too hot for that, for Jack loves his ease as well as anybody else. I wonder if any apples have fallen from the quarantine tree? I turn my steps towards it and look about; there is not one on the grass. I cast my eyes upwards, and mark with approving eyes the rosy fruit hanging so stirlessly on the boughs. If only a breeze would spring up, and give those boughs a gentle shake, down would fall the apples at my feet, but the sky is one hard, fierce glare, and there is not the ghostliest shadow of a breeze abroad on the land.
Looking begets longing, longing in a depraved and energetic mind begets acting; and seeing that the gentle gale my soul craves refuses to blow, I conceive the daring thought of myself acting the part of gentle zephyr. I look around; no one is to be seen. Dorley is invisible; the governor I saw fast asleep in the library a while ago the coast is clear. In the twinkling of an eye I have swung myself up into the tree, and am shaking with a will. The fruit is falling in a bounteous red shower, when a voice directly below me makes me start so violently, that I drop the bough and lose my footing. But, alas! instead of respectably smiting mother earth with my nose, I remain suspended, petticoats above, legs below. Even in this awful moment, the verse over the barber's shop comes into my mind—
If thou hadst only worn a wig, thou hadst not been undone."
Only in this case, if I had been clad in Jack's clothes, not my own, I should not be undone. My face has disappeared into the crown of my sun bonnet in my abrupt descent, so I cannot see my discoverer. Can it be—can it be the governor? No, for if it had I should have received palpable evidence of his wrath before this.
"I wish your pa could see you," says Dorley's deliberate voice, sounding more sweetly in my ears than ever did song of nightingale; "'ow he would whack you?"
"I know he would," I murmur indistinctly from the depths of my bonnet. "Do, there's a good, kind Dorley, take me down!"
But Dorley has suffered many things at my hands, and now his day has come, he means to enjoy it for a little while.
"You've been a bad young lady to me, Miss Ullen," he says slowly (and at the sound of his leisurely voice I aim a sudden kick at him with my dangling legs, for oh! at any moment he may appear on the scene and then———). "You and your beasts has trampled my flower-beds and messed my lawn beyond believing, and you've stole my paches, broken my glass, and misbehaved yourself ginerally; and if it wasn't for yer pa, and his being so vilent, I'd leave you there for an hour, Miss Ullen, I would. Pr'aps, with the Lord's mercy, it might be a warning to yer. But I don't want to have nothing to do with murder, so I'll take yer down this time; only if ever I finds yer a disgracing yerself in this misbecoming manner again, I'll leave yer there, Miss Ullen, sure as my name's Dorley. And kickin' won't do no good when you're in the wrong, miss, leastways, it won't wi' me."
He departs slowly in search of the steps, while I dangle at my ease in creeping, curdling terror, lest even now the governor may be turning the corner.
Dorley comes back at last, and disentangles me with some difficulty, and oh! with what joy do I once more plant my waggling feet on firm ground; never, never will I play the part of gentle zephyr again.
In the depths of my pocket, tenderly hoarded, fondly cherished, lurks a sixpence, which I disinter and hand to Dorley, with my lips pursed up very tight.
"There, take it," I say; "it's for you."
"No, no, Miss Ullen," says Dorley, holding it out in his earth-stained hand, "I won't deprive 'ee of it! Happen you want it worse than I do!"
"Dorley," I say, drawing myself up with dignity, "I am amazed at you! Sixpences are no object with me, or—or—shillings, or—half-crowns."
Having uttered this last astounding lie without winking, I walk away with a stately strut that I hope impresses him, and which is, I suppose, born of the occasion, for I never owned it before.
What a burning, breathless, sleepy afternoon it is! The earth seems lapped in a nerveless, luxurious, indolent slumber. The very flowers seem to have gone to sleep, and the birds to be taking a siesta. Passing the school-room window, I see Alan, the solemn-faced, who is apparently not so overcome with heat as the rest of the world, indulging in the rather active recreation of spinning Dolly round and round on the top of the large school-room table. It is evidently a new treat to them, and I have not time to give the warning that painful experience has taught Jack and me, when whirr! whiff! the top of the table flies to the other end of the room, shooting Dolly into the fireplace, and Alan dances up and down, as though the perils his toes have just escaped make him anxious to assure himself of their integrity.
Piteous whimpers and groans from the fireplace announce extensive and painful damages to the poor little maid who was riding aloft so triumphantly a minute ago. Bruises and tears are however alike merged in the all-absorbing question of how the table is to be joined together again. In the middle of the room its legs stand stark and bare, like a thin little man, from whom his ample and overflowing spouse has departed.
All this while they have not been aware of my presence on the scene, but now as I remark, "A very pretty amusement, certainly," with all the gravity and weight my thirteen years entitle me to display, they hail me joyfully, and with my assistance, and much puffing and straining, the divorced parts are put together, and Dolly has time to bewail her misfortunes, and Alan to rub his unharmed shins responsive.
Pursuing my prowl, I wander round the irregularly built, three-sided court, and am shortly awakened from my abstraction by hearing a door bang violently.
Have you ever lived in a house, reader, where the merest chance sound, the bang of a door, the sound of a loud voice, or a distant noise makes you start up, your nerves tingling, your heart beating, your body trembling, while an instantaneous photograph of falling chairs, flying crockery, broken bell-ropes, and dancing china, with a dervish dancing in the midst of the confusion, presents itself vividly to your eyes.
All this I see when that distant bang reaches my ears. To-day it means "Bills." It is an insult to papa's understanding for any one to dare ask for his money. We must be clothed, it is true, and fed but shall the paying for these small trifles be taken as a legitimate, every-day duty? Perish the thought! It is disgraceful, it is unseemly, it is an upside-downness of everything, that these rascals should, week after week, be sending their paltry bits of blue paper in to him, and he resents the impertinence accordingly. Ah, poor mother! You are in the midst of that hurly-burly yonder; when I am older I will walk straight in and share it with you, now I should be ordered out. Experience tells me that the sooner I hide myself the better, for when papa is in one of those furies there is no safety for any one from garret to coal cellar; in this mood he may even feel that a slaughter of the innocents is necessary for the rehabilitation of his peace of mind, so I hastily retire to the rabbit-hutch, which is in a central position, and from thence watch the march of events. From my coign of 'vantage I presently see him come out, and throw his eyes hither and thither in search of prey, then he goes down through the garden and out of sight. I am just thinking that perhaps the house will be safer than my present quarters, when in the distance I see dogs, fowls, fry, nurses, Amberley, Jack, Alice, Milly, and Dolly, all flying towards the house, like autumn leaves before the wind. No need to ask what is behind them, only one person on earth could have that effect; so, remembering that there is safety in numbers, I join the flying squadron and reach the house with the rest. As we enter by the side door, the rusty front-door bell is smartly pulled by a business-looking man in black, at whom we all peep privily from convenient lattices, and make up our minds that Providence sent him straight from heaven to be our deliverer. He has come to see papa, we ascertain later, and is even now closeted with him. I wonder how he will manage to so far smooth his ruffled plumes as to carry on any conversation that is not strictly vituperative?
We are all sitting together save Jack, when we hear his steps coming down the passage, and he enters and closes the door with a cheerful bang, that does not make us all bound on our seats as the bangs of a certain other person do. There is a peculiar look on Jack's face, a kind of knowing twinkle in his eye, a modest elation in his glance, that owes its origin, I am certain, to some bit of news that he has possessed himself of, and which he is secretly enjoying in its full relish before imparting it to us.
"News!" we all cry starting from our seats, "surely he cannot—cannot be—going away?"
Oh! those two delicious words, can any others in the whole dictionary contain such sweet music?
"I say," says Jack, vigorously repulsing the avalanche of female charms that threatens to overwhelm him, I can't tell you anything, can I, if you stifle me?"
"Go on! go on!" we all cry, withdrawing hastily from the oracle.
"Well," says Jack complacently surveying the row of open eyes, mouths, and ears, "he is going away" (shouts of delight); "he is going to-morrow" (fresh rejoicings); "and he is coming back next day" (howls of dissatisfaction). "Nevertheless there is one assuaging circumstance, he is going early, so we shall have one clear day in which to accomplish our deeds of darkness."
"Hurrah! I know what I shall do."
"You'll take me with you," I say, imploringly, "do."
"Can't," says Jack, briefly, "I shall go out shooting."
We all gasp; Jack with a gun in his hands! Oh, if the governor could but———
"What are you going to shoot?" asks Alice, with interest.
"Blackbirds."
"Yourself, you mean," I say, nodding and feeling much hurt, and somewhat spiteful that I may not go with him to see the fun. "Only if you do, you must do it thoroughly; the governor hates sickness, you know; and if you did have a bad accident, how you would catch it."
"Funerals are expensive," says Alice. "On the whole, I think papa would rather he only crippled himself."
"I shall take his new gun," says Jack, pursuing his own train of thought, and paying no heed to our cackle, "it's sure not to burst."
"I shall make treacle tarts," I say, feeling my abasement very keenly, and wondering if Jack will relent. (I could make myself useful in picking the birds up.)
"What are you going to do, Alice?"
"I don't know," she says, turning a lovely thoughtful face upon me, "there is so little mischief girls can get into. I think I shall make Amberley take me into Pimpernel, and I will have my photograph taken; it has never been done yet, you know."
"Whatever do you want a likeness for?" asks Jack, opening his eyes; "can't you look at your face in the glass fifty times a day if you like? And there's nobody to give it to, for we haven't a friend in the world, and you wouldn't give one to us, surely?"
But Alice does not answer, she is wondering what the sun will make of her face, of which—
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on."
"I shall go with Alice," says Milly, promptly.
"And I," says Alan the solemn-faced, "shall look over papa's new edition of the 'Ingoldsby Legends;' I've had one or two peeps at it already."
"What are you going to do, Dolly?"
"I shall take two Seidlitz powders with sugar, you know. They are so nice, and nurse says they make me thinner. I am never able to take them when papa is at home, because they make me look pale."
"Bravo, Dolly!" cries Jack, "happy the mind that a little contents. Well, girls, you shall have a fine dish of blackbirds for supper, and Nell's treacle tarts, if they are eatable."
"Will you?" cries a terrible voice behind us, that galvanizes our recumbent forms into most intense and rigid uprightness, while every soft hair on our miserable young heads stands on end with freezing, curdling horror. "Will you, I'll teach you, miss (with a fierce nod at Alice's pretty trembling figure), to go gallivanting off to Pimpernel, to simper at a low photographer, you miserable, doll-faced, conceited puppet; (to Jack): I'll teach you, sir, to use my guns, and bring me in a doctor's bill a yard long for mending your wretched bones: (to me): I'll teach you, you object, to waste my substance with your filthy treacle tarts; and you, sir (to Alan), to maul over my books; while as to you (to Dolly), although I can't offer you Seidlitz powders, perhaps brimstone and treacle will do as well, oo—oo—oo—ooh! You deceitful, vagabond, shameless pack, get out of my sight; go!"
He need not tell us that twice, away we flee, every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost; along the passage, up the stairs, in at the nursery, to which we always go on these occasions, for mother is usually there. At our heels comes the governor, and a lively time follows; we become a prose version of that deplorable story of ten little niggers, which we all know; as rapidly as they dropped off, so do we this one for a cane, that for a bible, another into space with boxed ears, until, from beginning with a goodly number, we end a forlorn remnant. Over and above our other punishments, we are one and all sent to bed, and thither, when he had stormed himself away, we retire, only too thankful to have that refuge to sneak into. Anything is bearable while we are together, the only real misery he could inflict upon us would be to commit us all to solitary confinement. Jack comes in by-and-by, and sits down on the edge of Alice and Milly's bed, while I perch myself on a chair hard by.
"What fools we were," he says, with a dark look in his blue eyes, "not to have set a scout to watch; the sneakiness of him—why couldn't he have walked in like a man instead of hanging about outside?" He gives his shoulders, which are still tingling with the sharp lash of the governor's cane, an impatient shake.
"I can't think what fathers were invented for," I say, dolefully. "I am sure we should have got on much better without ours. For my part, if I had been asked whether I would or would not come into the world, I should have said, 'Yes, and thank you kindly, sir, if you can manage for me to have no papa!'"
"And yet he almost forgives our daring to exist, when he reflects on the number of times we have afforded him the exquisite satisfaction of whipping us," says Jack. "Well, when I come back from school next Christmas, if he tries to beat the devil's tattoo on my back again, he shall find he won't get it all his own way."
"And we will hang upon his coat tails," I say, comfortingly, "while the fry harass him fore and aft in countless swarms."
"Don't forget that he is going away," puts in Milly; "I was turning that sweet thought over in my mind the whole time he was making that row."
"He will lock us all up," I say, with conviction. "He will never go away and leave us free to do all the things he heard us arranging to-night."
"You little silly!" says Jack, crushingly; "don't you know that he thinks us all dummies, and no more believes us capable of daring to do anything that he has forbidden, than that the moon is made of green cheese? I shan't shoot to-morrow; I mean to do something worse."