Читать книгу Children of the Dear Cotswolds - L. Allen Harker - Страница 11

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The life of Dorcas Heaven, who keeps the Blue House Lock, is somewhat lonely and monotonous. Her post is more or less of a sinecure, for but few barges pass along that bit of the canal. Indeed, the canal itself, though winding through the prettiest bit of country in the neighbourhood, is only navigable during a wet season. After a drought it grows so shallow that cows are wont to stand derisively in the very middle of it, cooling their legs.

Elijah, husband of Dorcas, is a labourer on a farm some two miles off.

As the path alongside the canal leads to nowhere in particular, there is not much traffic; but when a barge does come, Dorcas "bustles her about sharpish," and there is a great to-do. She looks upon herself as more or less the hostess of the occupants of the barge. "They change the weather and pass the time of day," their destination and their business are exhaustively discussed, and when at length stillness settles down over the Blue House, when there is no sound but the cry of a peewit or the rustle of a water-rat in the rushes, Dorcas fetches a chair into the doorway and sinks upon it, exclaiming, "Law! what a paladum it have been, to be sure!"

On Sunday mornings Dorcas does not go to church, for "Elijah do like a bit o' meat of a Sunday," and Dorcas is a good wife first and a good churchwoman second. She therefore defers her attendance until evening, when Elijah accompanies her. While the bit o' meat is in course of preparation he strolls round for "a bit of a talk" with one "Ethni Harman, licensed to sell beer and tobacco," whose house of cheer lies on the outskirts of the town, and where the very latest election-eering news is to be had. Elijah has been heard to express an opinion to the effect that "there ain't no 'arm in going to church twice, for them as it suits, but once, along of my missus, be enough for I."

Had it been in Elijah's nature to be astonished at anything, he would have felt some surprise at the amiability with which Dorcas had lately speeded him on his way to "The Cat and Compasses" on Sunday mornings. She had at one time been rather given to inconvenient suggestions as that "them peas want sticking, and the salery be ready for banking," when Elijah would fain have been sunning himself upon the bench outside Ethni Harman's hospitable door, a mug of cider and like-minded friend beside him. He usually fell in with his wife's suggestions, for he was a man who loved a quiet life, and Dorcas—when annoyed on Sunday—was apt to carry on her domestic duties with unnecessary vigour far into the night on Monday.

The fact was that, of late, Sunday mornings had become for Dorcas the corner-stone of her week, and in this wise: it did not as a rule take long to get Elijah's dinner under way; this done, Dorcas would take her chair into the doorway, and read her Bible. She generally chose the Book of Revelation, carefully forming the words with her lips and following each with gnarled and work-worn forefinger. With Dorcas, as with many people whose lives are somewhat hard and monotonous, the prospect of a suite of rooms in one of the many mansions was extremely pleasant. Moreover, the Cotswold peasant dearly loves any form of spectacle, and although Dorcas could not pronounce, far less understand, many of the words she met with, there was a sense of pageant all around her as she read; while her appreciation of the city which has "no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it," was as purely sensuous as that of any disciple of Wagner himself.

"And now, a little wind and shy" scattered the apple-blossoms over the path, and the Sunday silence was broken by a clear child-voice. To Dorcas such sound was as the skirl of the pipes to a Highlander in a far country; her heart beat quick and her cheeks grew redder, and she rushed out to see who "was a-comin'"; for Dorcas had "put away four" in the "cemetrary" on the Fletborough road, and one had lived to be four years old. Besides, to let any one pass the Blue House without "givin' of 'em good-day!" was a thing she had never done—"not once in twenty year." So she laid her Bible on the chair, covering it with a clean white handkerchief, and crossed the few feet of garden which lay between her cottage and the towing-path.

A sturdy little boy, in reefer coat and muffin cap, with round, fresh little face, and cheeks pink as the petals of the apple-blossom nearest the calyx, danced with excitement on the bank as he watched his father gathering some yellow "flags" which grew at the water's edge. The attendant father—parents and such were always a secondary consideration with Dorcas—was not very successful, as the ground was soft and slippery.

"Is it wet down there, dad? Can I come? Oh, get that big one just over there! Won't muth be pleased? What dirty boots you'll have! Shall I hold your stick for you to cling on to?"

Then he noticed Dorcas. "Good-morning!" said he with gay courtesy. "Isn't it a fine May morning?"

"It be that surely, little master!" answered Dorcas in high delight. Then "the little gentleman's dada"—he never achieved a separate identity in the mind of Dorcas—scrambled up from the swamp in which he had been standing. He, too, proved most approachable, and she learned that the youthful potentate in the reefer jacket had never walked so far before, that the "scroped out old quarry" just beyond the Blue House was his destination, and that he would probably come again next Sunday.

He came every Sunday morning all through that summer, and always with his dad. Sometimes they went tapping for fossils in the disused quarry, sometimes they came with butterfly-nets and caught "Tortoiseshells" and "Wall-Browns," and upon one great occasion a "Fritillary." But whatever they sought or whatever they caught, Dorcas was always, as who should say, "in at the death," and shared the excitement and the triumph with them.

The little gentleman was very friendly—a child is quick to recognise an admirer as any pretty woman—and it is possible that the attendant father understood and indulged the childless woman's craving for a child's affection. Sometimes Dorcas felt a qualm of conscience, and wondered whether her adored young gentleman ought not rather to be in church these sunny Sunday mornings; though had he been in church he certainly could have been nowhere in the neighbourhood of the Blue House. But she was comforted when she heard that he went with his mother to a children's service in the afternoon. Henceforth she gave herself up to the study of natural history and the worship of her dear "little gentleman" with a light heart.

Even in winter he sometimes came "of a fine Sunday," and Dorcas would spend many hours of the following week vainly trying to determine whether she admired him most in a sailor suit, or in the breeches and gaiters of which he was so proud. One never-to-be-forgotten day the rain came down in torrents just as her sultan and his grand vizier reached the Blue House. They took shelter with Dorcas, and the sultan was graciously pleased to be lifted up that he might reach a certain mug from the top shelf of the dresser—a mug which had belonged to "'im as wer gone." Dorcas made gingerbread cats and ducks, and her artistic efforts went so far as to attempt a king "with a crown upon 'is 'ead." After regaling himself with these delicacies her sultan would hold up a rosy face, ornamented by sundry sticky streaks, to be kissed in farewell; and when she had watched him round the bend of the canal her eyes would grow dim, and she would go back to the Book of Revelation, murmuring another favourite quotation to herself, "The Lard gave and the Lard 'ave took away. Blessed be the name of the Lard."

Of course the many charms of the "little gentleman" were duly reported to Elijah, and the residence of Ethni Harman took on a reflected glory from the fact that it was but a stone's throw from that of her sultan.

It was a wet summer, and there came four wet Sundays one after the other. Vainly did Dorcas try to fix her mind on the streets of jasper, while all the time she was straining her ears for the sound of the little voice that never chimed into the stillness. She grew to hate the patter of the rain on the path outside; even the fact that the canal, for once, was full, and three barges passed in one week, did not console her. The gingerbread animals grew stale and crumbly between two plates, and the gorgeous mug, "A Present from Fairford," was put back on the top shelf of the dresser again.

The weather changed, and there came a lovely Sunday. Elijah set off to "The Cat and Compasses" as usual; Dorcas bustled about with a pleasant sense of expectation and went and stood on the towing-path, her eyes fixed on the distant bridge. Some boys went by to bathe beyond the second bend, with laughter and shouting. Then the only sound was the hum of bees settled on the purple scabious growing a-top the crumbling Cotswold wall.

On Monday Dorcas could bear it no longer. "I be that tewey and narvous, I don't know what I be about," she remarked, as she locked the door of the Blue House and hid the key under the mat. Should a barge come—well, it must manage somehow! Barges were never in a hurry. She had come to a momentous decision. She was going to inquire after her "little gentleman." Whether he was ill or gone for a holiday, or was merely forgetful, she would find out and end this dreadful suspense. She was a very simple-minded woman, but in her heart of hearts she felt a little sore with the grand vizier, for she had a notion that he was by no means ignorant of what these Sunday visits meant to her.

"I believe 'e'd 'ave come afore this if 'e'd a' been let. 'A be that meek-'earted 'a wouldn't 'urt a vloi, let alone a 'oman," she said to herself with a half sob. She was convinced that her sultan could not forget so utterly the humblest of his slaves. So she put on her best clothes and tight elastic-sided boots, with lots of little white buttons adorning the fronts.

At the Blue House, Dorcas was never either self-conscious or shy; but when she reached her sultan's palace, having timidly pushed open the drive gate, she became aware that the new boots creaked horribly, and that perspiration was dropping from her eyebrows into her eyes. Having mopped her face, and generally pulled herself together, she managed to reach the front door, though her knees trembled, and her heart fluttered like a caged bird.

Never was such a noisy bell! It clanged and echoed in most alarming fashion; she wished that the stone steps would open and swallow her up. What would they think of her for daring to make such a clatter? Besides—and at the dreadful thought she nearly cried out—of course she ought to have gone to the back door.

For full five minutes she stood on the steps, listening for any sound inside the house, but all was perfectly quiet. She turned and went into the drive, meaning to go round to the back door, when it occurred to her to look back at the house; she had been far too nervous to do so as she came in. The lower windows were shuttered, and all the blinds were down.

They had gone then! and it was empty. "And they never didn't bring 'im for to say good-bye to me."

Life's little tragedies generally happen to the lonely. What in a full and happy life ranks but as an episode, becomes an epoch in the sad-coloured days of lean monotony. Dorcas wiped her eyes more than once, on her way home, and went heavily for many days. Elijah saw that she was fretting, and tried to distract her by news from the town, and occasional suggestions that she should go over "and see sister-law" in an adjacent village; but beyond her necessary journeys to the town to buy such stores as she could afford, Dorcas never left home. She scrubbed the kitchen table till she grudged to sully its whiteness by so much as a yellow bowl, and she made herself a warm new winter dress, but, for all her industry, the time hung heavy on her hands, and she never forgot her "little gentleman." The wet season was followed by an Indian summer of exceptional beauty. "The spirit of October, mild and boon," was in the air; the tottering Cotswold wall, which laid its wayward length on the far side of the footway, was covered by sprays of crimson blackberry, mingled with the fluffy greyness of "old man's beard." Dorcas no longer stared hungrily down the towing-path on Sunday morning, but she did not forget; and, in token of her remembrance, the twenty-first chapter of the Book of Revelation was marked in her Bible by a little woollen glove with a large hole in the thumb. Her sultan had dropped it during his last visit.

The birds sang as though it were spring, and Dorcas began to read aloud to herself to keep her thoughts from wandering. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes," whispered the kind Gloucestershire voice, when suddenly, above the triumphant voices of the birds, above the soft wash of the water among the yellowing reeds, rang that clear sound for which the soul of Dorcas had hungered so cruelly.

"I wonder if the lady at the Blue House will know me again, dad!"

It seemed as though the grand vizier had not been so greatly to blame after all. He had been suddenly called away to the north of Scotland; and although he had left directions that before the sultan and the household followed him that potentate was to be taken to say good-bye "to the lady at the Blue House," although the sultan himself had repeatedly suggested the propriety of such a pilgrimage, his nurse had always considered the road too muddy.

"I thought, sir, as you was all gone fur good and all," said Dorcas, with a catch in her voice; "and I were that taken to I never made no inquiries."

On his way home the grand vizier was rather silent. Once or twice he made a queer little face, and seemed to swallow something in his throat. At last he quoted, but not to the sultan, "By heavens, it is pitiful, the bootless love of women for children in Vanity Fair." The rosy-faced child, who had been wondering why the usual Sunday service of gingerbread had been omitted, was rather surprised, but nevertheless asked curiously, "Are you thinking of the Blue House lady, dad?"

His father stooped down hastily and kissed him.