Читать книгу Eli's Children: The Chronicles of an Unhappy Family - Fenn George Manville - Страница 7

There was a dark shadow over Polly Morrison’s mind, and she started and shivered at every step when her husband was away at work, but only to brighten up when the great sturdy fellow came in, smelling of wood, and ready to crush her in his arms with one of his bear-like hugs.

Polly had been furtively gazing from the window several times on the afternoon of that market-day, and turned hot and cold as she had heard steps which might be those of some one coming there; but the cloud passed away in the sunshine of Tom Morrison’s happy smile, now that he had come in, and she felt, as she expressed it, “oh! so safe.”

“There, let me go, do, Tom,” she cried, merrily. “Oh, what a great strong, rough fellow you are!”

“No, no; stop a minute,” he said here. “I oughtn’t to be smiling, for I’ve just heard something, Polly.”

“Heard something, Tom!” she faltered, and she turned white with dread, and shrank away.

“Here, I say,” he cried, “you must get up your strength, lass. Why, what a shivering little thing thou art!”

“You – you frightened me, Tom,” she gasped.

“Frightened you? There, there, it’s nothing to frighten thee. I have just heard about Jock.”

“Oh! about Jock,” cried Polly, drawing a breath full of relief. “I hope he has got off.”

“Well, no, my lass, he hasn’t, and I’m sorry and I’m not sorry, if thou canst understand that. I’m sorry Jock is to be punished, and I’m not sorry if it will do him good. Arn’t you ashamed of having a husband with such a bad brother?”

“Ashamed! Oh, Tom!” she cried, throwing her arms about his neck.

“Well, if you are not, I am,” said Tom, sadly; “and I can’t help thinking that if old Humphrey Bone had done his duty better by us, Jock would have turned out a different man.”

“But tell me, Tom, are they going to do anything dreadful to him?”

“Three months on bread and water, my lass,” said Tom Morrison, – “bread of repentance and water of repentance; and I hope they’ll do him good, but I’m afraid when he comes out he’ll be after the hares and pheasants again, and I’m always in a fret lest he should get into a fight with the keepers. But there, my lass, I can’t help it. I’d give him a share of the business if he’d take to it, but he wean’t. I shan’t fret, and if people like to look down on me about it, they may.”

“But they don’t, Tom, dear,” cried Polly, with her face all in dimples, the great trouble of her life forgotten for the time. “I’ve got such a surprise for you.”

“Surprise for me, lass? What is it? A custard for tea?”

“No, no; what a boy you are to eat!” cried Polly, merrily.

“Just you come and smell sawdust all day, and see if you don’t eat,” cried Tom. “Here, what is it?”

“Oh, you must wait. There, what a shame! and you haven’t kissed baby.”

She ran out to fetch the baby and hold it up to him to be kissed, while she looked at him with all a young mother’s pride in the little one, of which the great sturdy fellow had grown so fond.

“It makes me so happy, Tom,” she said, with the tears in her eyes.

“Happy, does it, lass?”

“Oh, yes. So – so happy,” she cried, nestling to him with her baby in her arms, and sighing with her sense of safety and content, as the strong muscles held her to the broad breast. “I was afraid, Tom, that you might not care for it – that you would think it a trouble, and – and – ”

“That you were a silly little wife, and full of foolish fancies,” he cried, kissing her tenderly.

“Yes, yes, Tom, I was,” she cried, smiling up at him through her tears. “But come – your tea. Here, Budge.”

Budge had been a baby herself once – a workhouse baby – and she looked it still, at fourteen. Not a thin starveling, but a sturdy workhouse baby, who had thriven and grown strong on simple oatmeal fare. Budge was stout and rosy, and daily putting on flesh at Tom Morrison’s cottage, where her duty was to “help missus, and nuss the bairn.”

But nearly always in Polly’s sight; for the first baby was too sacred a treasure in that cottage home to be trusted to any hands for long.

She was a good girl, though, was Budge; her two faults prominent being that when she cried she howled – terribly, and that “the way” – to use Tom Morrison’s words – “she punished a quartern loaf was a sight to see.”

Budge, fat, red-faced, and round-eyed, with her hair cut square at the ends so that it wouldn’t stay tucked behind her ears, but kept coming down over her eyes, came running to take baby, and was soon planted on a three-legged stool on the clean, red-tiled floor, where she began shaking her head – and hair – over the baby, like a dark-brown mop, making the little eyes stare up at it wonderingly; and now and then a faint, rippling smile played round the lips, and brightened the eyes, to Budge’s great delight.

For just then Budge was hard pressed. Workhouse matron teaching had taught her that when she went out to service it would be rude to stare at people when they were eating; and now there was the pouring out of tea, and spreading of butter, and cutting of bread and bacon going on in a way that was perfectly maddening to a hungry young stomach, especially if that stomach happened to be large, and its owner growing.

Budge’s stomach was large, and Budge was growing, so she was hard pressed: and do what she would, she could not keep her eyes on the baby, for, by a kind of attraction, they would wander to the tea-table, and that loaf upon which Tom Morrison was spreading a thick coating of yellow butter, prior to hacking off a slice.

Poor Budge’s eyes dilated with wonder and joy as, when the slice was cut off, nearly two inches thick, Tom stuck his knife into it, and held the mass out to her, with —

“Here, lass, you look hungry. Tuck that away.”

Budge would have made a bob, but doing so would have thrown the baby on the floor; so she contented herself with saying “Thanky, sir,” and proceeded to make semicircles round the edge of the slice, and to drop crumbs on the baby’s face.

“Well, lass,” said Tom, as Polly handed him his great cup of tea, “about the christening? When’s it to be?”

“On Sunday, Tom, and that’s what I wanted to tell you – it’s my surprise.”

“What’s a surprise?”

“Why, about the godmothers, dear. Why, I declare,” she pouted, “you don’t seem to mind a bit.”

“Oh, but I do,” he said, “only I’m so hungry. Well, what about the godmothers?”

“Why, Miss Julia and Miss Cynthia have promised to stand. Isn’t it grand?”

“Grand? Oh, I don’t know.”

“Tom!”

“Well, I suppose it is grand, but I don’t know. It’s all right if they like it. But about poor Jock?”

“Oh, that won’t make any difference, dear. They’ve promised, and I know they won’t go back. They’ll be the two godmothers, and you the godfather.”

“Of course,” cried Tom, eating away; “two godmothers and a godfather, eh, lass? that’s right, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Tom,” said the little woman, eagerly attending to her husband’s wants, “and two godfathers and a godmother if it’s a boy.”

“It’ll be a grand christening, won’t it, Polly?” said Tom.

“Oh, no, dear. Miss Julia and Miss Cynthia are the dearest and best of girls, and they have no pride. Miss Julia talked to me the other day just like a friend.”

“I say,” cried Tom, eagerly.

“What, dear?”

“Why not do the thing in style while we’re about it. What do you say to asking young Mr Cyril to be godfather?”

If Tom Morrison had looked up then he would have been startled at the livid look in his young wife’s face, but he was too intent upon his tea, and Polly recovered herself and said —

“Oh, no, dear, that would not do, and the young ladies would not like it. Look here, Tom.”

Polly tripped to a basket, from which she produced a white cloak and hood, trimmed with swan’s-down; and these she held up before her husband, flushed and excited, as, in her girlish way, she wondered whether he would like them.

Budge left off eating, and wished for a white dress on the spot, trimmed with silk braid, like that.

“Say,” said Tom, thickly, speaking with his mouth fall, “they’re fine, arn’t they? – cost a lot o’ money.”

“No,” said Polly, gleefully, “they cost nothing, Tom. Miss Julia made me a present of the stuff, and I made them.”

“Did you, though?” he said, looking at her little fingers, admiringly. “You’re a clever girl, Polly; but I often wonder how it was you came to take up with a rough chap like me.”

Polly looked up in his steady, honest eyes, and rested one hand upon his, and gazed lovingly at him, as he went on —

“My old woman said it was because I’d got a cottage, and an acre of land of my own.”

“Did she say so, Tom?”

“Yes,” he said, taking her hand, patting it, and gazing up in the pretty rustic face he called his own; “but I told her you were a silly little girl, who would have me if I’d got a cottage and an acre less than nothing to call my own.”

“And you told the truth, Tom, dear,” she whispered. “Tom, you make me so happy in believing in me like this.”

“Tut, tut, my girl. I’m not clever; but I knew you.”

“And married me without anything, only enough to buy my wedding dress and a little furniture.”

“D’yer call that nothing?” said the hearty, Saxon-faced young fellow, pointing to the baby; “because I don’t. And I say, Polly, dear,” he whispered, archly, “perhaps that’s only the thin end of the wedge.”

“Hush, Tom, for shame!” she said, trying to frown, and pointing to Budge; while he took a tremendous bite of bread and bacon, and chuckled hugely at his joke.

“The old lady used to have it that you were too fine for me, Polly, and would have been setting your cap at one of the young gentlemen at the rectory when you was abroad with them.”

“Tom!” she panted, as his words seemed to stab her, and she ran out of the room.

“Why, Polly, Polly,” he cried, following her and holding her to his breast, “what a touchy little thing thou art since baby came! Why, as if I didn’t know that ever since you were so high you were my little sweetheart, and liked great rough me better than the finest gentleman as ever walked. There, there, there! I was a great lout to talk like that to thee. Come, wipe thy eyes.”

“I can’t bear it, Tom, if you talk like that,” she sobbed, smiling at him through her tears. “There, it’s all over now.”

There was a little cold shiver at Polly Morrison’s breast, though, all the same, and it kept returning as she sat there over her work that evening, rocking the cradle with one foot, and wondering whether she could gain strength enough to tell her husband all about Cyril Mallow, and the old days at Dinan.

But no, she could not, and they discussed, as Tom smoked his pipe, the state of affairs at the rectory; how Mrs Mallow remained as great an invalid as ever, and how they seemed to spare no expense, although people had said they went abroad because they had grown so poor.

“Folk seem strange and sore against parson,” said Tom at last.

“Then it’s very cruel of them, for master is a real good man,” cried Polly.

“They don’t like it about owd Sammy Warmoth. They say he killed him,” said Tom, between the puffs of his pipe.

“Such nonsense!” cried Polly; “and him ninety-three.”

“Then they are taking sides against him for wanting to get rid of Humphrey Bone.”

“And more shame for them,” cried Polly, indignantly.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Tom; “I’ve rather a liking for old Humphrey. He taught me.”

“He’s a nasty wicked old man,” cried Polly. “He tried to kiss me one day when he was tipsy.”

“He did?” cried Tom, breaking his pipe in the angry rush that seemed to come over him.

“Yes, Tom, and I boxed his ears,” said the little woman, shivering again, for the fit of jealous anger did not escape her searching eyes.

“That’s right, lass. I’m dead on for a new master now.”

Then a discussion arose as to the baby’s name, Tom wanting it to be called after his wife, who was set upon Julia, and she carried the day.

“There,” said Tom, “if anybody had told me a couple of years ago that any bit of a thing of a girl was going to wheedle me, and twist me round her finger, and do what she liked with me, I should have told him he didn’t know what he was talking about.”

“And you don’t mind, Tom, dear?”

“No,” he said, smiling, “I don’t mind, if it pleases thee, my lass.”

“And it does, dear, very, very much,” she said, kissing him.

But Polly Morrison did not feel happy, and several times that night there was the little shiver of dread at her heart, and she wished she could tell Tom all.