Читать книгу Precious Bane - Mary Webb - Страница 11

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IN telling this story I take little count of time. For when the heart is in stress, what is time? It is nought. Does the bridegroom, that has clemmed for his love a long while, hearken to the watchman’s voice telling over the hastening hours? Does he that dies in the dawn care to what hour the dial points when the sun arises, that rises not on him? And when we poor beings take up our stand against all the might of the things that be, striving to win through to our peace, or to what we think is our peace, when we are dumbfounded like a baited creature in the bull-ring, then we forget time. So four years went by, and though a deal happened out in the world, nought happened to us.

Rumours came to us of battles over sea and discontents at home. The French went to Russia and never came back, save a few.

At last, one golden summer evening, there came one riding all in a lather to tell of the great victory of Waterloo. But the news Gideon liked best, which came in the same year, was the news of the corn tax.

“Fetch me a mug of home-brewed, Prue,” he shouted, when he raught home from market and told me. “It’s the best news ever we had. We’ll be rich in a tuthree years. We must get more land under corn. I thought corn would never come amiss, but I didna hope for anything like this’ll be. When Callard came up to my stall with the tidings, I was fair comic-struck. ‘Dang me!’ I says. ‘What?’ I says. ‘Make the furriners pay to lug their corn to us?’ ‘Ah, that’s the size of it,’ says Callard. ‘And that’ll make it scarce, seesta, and that’ll make it dear, seesta!’ ‘Why, mon, I’ve seen that this long while,’ I says. ‘But I never thought they’d do it.’ And what d’ye think I did then, Prue? Why, I axed un to the Mug of Cider and stood un a drink! So you can tell how comic-struck I must ha’ bin. And now all we’ve got to do is to drive plough, both of us.”

So there was a prospect of living harder than we had in the four years gone, when we’d slaved from daybreak to dark, and in the dark too, by the wandering light of the horn lanthorn. It wouldna have come so hard to me, if it hadna been all for the money, if I could have been a bit house-proud, and if Gideon had taken a pride in fettling the farm. But there was none of that. It was just scrat and scrape to get the money out of the place and be off.

I grew as lanky as a clothes prop, and Mother began to show signs of wringing her hands about that too. For being little herself, and Missis Beguildy and Jancis and most of the women about being little, it seemed meet to Mother that a woman should be small. So when I grew and grew, and was very slender also (for indeed, with such a deal of work and little time to eat, anybody would be slender) she said I was like a poplar in an unthinned woodland or an o’er-tall bulrush in the mere, and I got used to being ashamed of my tallness as well as the other trouble, until—but I munna be too forrard with the tale.

Gideon wore his smock and looked right well in it. He was two-and-twenty now, a man grown, very personable, broad in the shoulder, with a firm, well-knit figure. As his body set, his mind set with it, harder than ten-days’ ice. He’d no eye for the girls at market, though there was a many looked at him. And once at market when he was wearing Father’s blue coat with the brass buttons, Squire Camperdine’s daughter (not the squire in the bottle, but his great-grandson) came riding past his booth, and smiled at him. But Gideon would only laugh when I questioned him, and stroke his chin, and look at me warily. There was no doubt he was a very comely man, and it used to seem to me unfair that it was me, and not Gideon, that was born after the hare looked at Mother. For Gideon could have grown what they call a moustachio and looked very well, and none need have known he’d got a hare-shotten lip. But with me it was past hiding.

As to the farm, it was doing pretty well. We’d got a big flock of sheep, so that the shearing took us above a week. We’d got a herd of pigs that kept Mother busy all the time the acorns lasted, tending them in the oakwood. The grass-meadow by the orchard was under wheat, but we had no good of it the first year, for the wheat sprouted and ackerspired in the ear, it being a very wet season.

There was enough saved to buy two oxen for ploughing and other heavy work about the place. Being a bit out of fashion, they were not very dear. Gideon said that when he went to buy them I could go too and give a hand driving them back. And I could look in the shop windows while he haggled over the beasts, and then we could look at the house he’d set his mind on buying when it should come into the market. But Mother must know nought about the house, or she’d tell folk. “And if they thought I had such a thing in mind, they’d bant all my prices and double all their own, and where should we be then?” said Gideon.

You may guess I was glad to be going pleasuring, for I’d scarcely been away from Sarn since Father died, and Lullingford always seemed a wonderful place to me.

I was in the cornfield, leasing, when Gideon said it, he being just back from market, coming across the field in the last light of evening; and the shadows of him and Bendigo stretched away over the grass from the far gate to the orchard as I watched them come.

“But how’ll I go?” I asked. “I canna ride pillion, for there be the panniers.”

“If you’ll do a bit extra leasing, I’ll hire the mill pony when I take the next corn to be ground. Going to Plash for a lesson to-morrow?”

“Ah.”

“Then fetch back the beasts, oot, and I’ll go with corn Saturday.”

“But I’ve leased till there’s scarce an ear left in any part of this field or the other,” I said.

“Ask Beguildy to let you lease his. I saw them lugging their corn.”

“But Jancis and Missis Beguildy—”

“Now you know very well Jancis is too bone-idle to pick up as much as an ear. Though I like her right well, and as for looks—”

He stopped, and stood with his hand on Bendigo’s neck, gazing away to where Plash shone like bright honey in the long light, dreaming.

It was but seldom Gideon sat still, and very seldom he gave his mind to any thought but the thought of making money. But the name of Jancis would often quieten him, and when he fell into one of his silences he would make me think of a tranced man that was once brought to Beguildy to be awakened. And he made me think of a brooding summer tree on a windless day, minding its own thoughts above the water. He was like the lych-gate yew that dreams the year long, and keeps its dream as secret as it keeps its red fruit under the boughs. Gideon had been used to fall into a dream like this ever since he saw Jancis under the rosy light. Times, he’d mutter “No, no!” and shift his shoulders as though from a weight, and bestir himself, and be more of a driver than ever. For Gideon was a driver if ever there was one, and what he drove was his own flesh and blood. It seemed a pity to me that a young man should be so set in his ways, and have no pleasant times, for I was mighty fond of Gideon. I knew well where he went of a Sunday, when he took off his smock and put on the bottle-blue coat. He was a deal more regular at Plash than ever he was at church. The rosy light started it, but it would have likely been the same, anyway. Missis Beguildy told me how he’d come and knock, and Jancis would run to the door in her best gown and a ribbon or a flower in her hair, and go red and white by turns. And I saw for myself too, when she came to our place, how she would pant under her kerchief, and I wondered how this might be. For Gideon was just Gideon to me, but to her he was fire and tempest and the very spring, and his voice was as the voice of the mighty God.

He’d come in, Missis Beguildy said, with no word, and he’d sit down, and Beguildy would scowl, having no mind for Jancis to marry. He’d scowl from the inner-most chimney corner, for he felt the cold very bad, living in such a damp place and being a very stay-at-home man. And Gideon would scowl back.

Jancis blushed and trembled over her spinning, taking sideways looks at Gideon as a wren will. And Missis Beguildy set her face like a flint, and laid plans to get her goodman out of the kitchen. She dearly loved to see a bit of lovering going on, being short of summat to think of and talk of. She wanted to be a granny too. So she’d go to any length, but she’d get Beguildy out of the room. Once, when Gideon was glowering more than common, being very desirous to kiss Jancis because she’d put on some new ribbon or what-not to set her off, and when Missis Beguildy had called her man, and come back and argufied, and gone out and called again, but still he’d only sit there like a goblin in the dark of the fire, she even went so far as to set a light to the thatch on the barn. Ah! She did! She was a very strong-minded woman. And she kept the poor man, who couldn’t abide any work with his hands, running to-and-agen with buckets all evening. When he’d nearly douted one place, she set light to another while he was dipping water from the lake.

“I kept the flint and tinder right hot, my dear,” she said to me. And she laughed! I never saw a woman laugh more lungeously over anything than she did over that. She said she took a peep at the window, just to encourage her, and she could see through the clear bits in among the bottle-glass that they were sitting side by side on the settle.

“Very right and proper!” she says, and runs back to her work.

Another time she loosed the sow, and it made straight for our oakwood, she having taken it there afore. Beguildy liked his rasher, and the sow meant many a bacon-pig, so for fear she should come to harm, he took stick and went after her, cursing considerable. After a bit he began to be suspicious, because any ill that came, came on a Sunday, and he liked his day of rest, though he was a heathen man. So he said to Gideon, “There’s no luck with you. When you come, harm brews. Keep off.”

So he had to give over going. Then he wiled Jancis into the woods, and I’d see them going up the dim ways, rainy or frosty was no matter, she with her face like a white rose, shining, and he looking down at her, loving, and angered to be loving. When they were in the woods, Missis Beguildy was so interested in the wizard’s bottles with the ghosts in them (so he said) that he’d have hard work to answer her questions. And she’d give him such a tea that it lasted nearly to supper. But he found out. He began to wonder why Jancis had taken such an affection for Tivvy, it being Tivvy she said she went to see. And as he couldn’t speak to Sexton, being at daggers drawn, he followed her one evening unbeknown. And when she got home, he leathered her so that her eyes were red for weeks, and she came running to Gideon all bedraggled with tears. He was in a rage with Beguildy, and he told Jancis he’d lief wed with her, only not till he’d won through, and was rich. For how could he get along, he said, with a helpless one like Jancis clinging to him, and a tribe of children, very likely? But he was moody and troubled in mind, for he could see Jancis but seldom, Beguildy being so watchful. I thought maybe the plan to show me the house he wanted was to comfort himself and strengthen his will, because he was afraid of giving in. He wanted to give in, mind you, for he was sore set on Jancis, only he was fixed, and when he was fixed he couldna let himself give in, not if it was ever so.

It turned out that we couldna borrow the mill pony for a good few weeks, because she’d gone lame. So the harvest was long over, winter upon us, and Christmas drawing nigh, when they sent a message to say we could have the loan of it for the Christmas market, for they’d just bought one of the old horses from the Lullingford and Silverton coach, and they would drive that to market themselves. I may say I was very pleased to think of the outing, and watched the weather very anxiously, for it boded snow.

I was up at four on market day, setting the place to rights for Mother and getting the things together for market. Eggs and dressed fowl we had in plenty, and greens and apples and a bit of butter. Polishing the apples in the attic, peace came upon me, as it ever did up there, since the time I told of. While the rushlight flickered in the cold air, and the mice scuttled, I stood at the open window that was like an oblong of black paper. No sound came in. Nought stirred outside. Even the mere was frozen round the edges, so that the ducks must go skating every morning afore they could come at the water. The world was all so piercing still that it was almost like a voice crying out. It was used to seem to me that when the world was so quiet, it was like being along of somebody as knew you very well, ah! like being with your dear acquaintance.

Down in the dark barn the cock crew, thin and sweet, and I thought it sounded like no earthly bird; but maybe that was because I was in the attic, where things were always new. You may think it strange that a woman like me should think such things, being one that worked with my hands always, at poor harsh tasks, whereas you’d expect such thoughts to come to fine ladies sitting at their tapestry work. But I was so lonesome, and had such a deal of time for thinking, and what with that and the booklearning I was getting, all sorts of thoughts grew up in my mind, like flowering rushes and forget-me-nots coming into blow in a poor marshy place, that else had nought. And I can never see that it did much harm, for the thoughts seldom came but in the attic, and they did never make me dreamy over my work.

So now, hearing the clear sound of our game-cock crying out upon the dawn, that was yet more than two hours away, I ran downstairs all of a lantun-puff to get the breakfast. When Gideon came in, it was all ready, and a great fire roaring, for we need never stint of wood at Sarn, which was much to be thankful for at a time when many poor families in England must herd together six or seven in one cottage to boil their kettles all on one fire. I was always thankful for our plenteous wood, that cost nought, and need not take up too much of Gideon’s time neither, for if I burnt more than he cut I could make shift to chop it myself.

We were as snug as could be, sitting in the merry firelight with a red glow shining on the quarries and the ware and the spinning-wheels in the corner. I was pleased to think Mother wasna to be lonesome, for I’d asked Tivvy to come and keep her company, since I never could enjoy anything if one I loved was lonesome or sad. Shaking the cloth out of the door after it got light, I could see her red cloak coming along under the dark woods; for as Tivvy never did anything nor thought anything, she had all her time to herself, as you met say, and so she had no cause to be late.

Gideon had roughed Bendigo and the mill pony overnight, so all being ready and the sun just risen, we set off.

All the lake was full of red lights, as if our farm was on fire, reflected in the water. The black pines stood with their arms out, dripping with hoar-frost, all white-over, so that the tips of their drooping branches were like your fingers when you take them from the suds. The rooks were very contented, cawing soft and pleasant, as if they knew their breakfast was ready so soon as our ploughland thawed a bit, and in the stackyard there was a great murmuration of starlings.

“Bring me a fairing!” screams Tivvy from across the water.

Gideon looked sullen, and I knew the only fairing he’d a mind to bring was one for Jancis. So I called out—“I will. What shall it be?”

“A bit of cherry-coloured sarsnet to tie up my hair,” she calls. For though she was a foolish piece in most things, she knew very well she’d got pretty curls, bright brown and thick. She’d toss them ever so when Gideon was there, and take every chance to miscall Beguildy, though she durstna say anything against Jancis, for fear Gideon might blaze out. But she was clever enough in this, as oftentimes a stupid girl is when she’s in love, and she could always make it seem a very poor, ill-liking sort of thing to be sweet on a wizard’s wench, and a grand thing to be in love with the sexton’s daughter, whose dad could mouth texts as fast as the wizard could mouth charms.

It was a grand morning, very crispy underfoot, with moor-fowl about, especially widgeon. We were riding to the hills. Across the far woods and the rough moors beyond, and the bits of ploughland here and there, and the frosty stubble where partridges ran from the noise of the trotting, we could see the hills, as blue as pansies. Promising hills, they seemed to me. There was a clatter in the spinney, and a flock of wood-pigeons got up and took their flight, with wings flashing blue in the sun, for the same hills. It was as if some wonderful thing was there, as it might be a healing well, or some other miracle, or a holy person such as there were of old time.

I said as much to Gideon, but he was looking away over shoulder to Plash and the long spire of blue smoke going up from the Stone House. He began to whistle below his breath, for he’d never whistle outright, even at the merriest, but always very quiet and to his mommets. So I said no more, and in a while our old road ended, and we came into the main road where it was bad going, for whatever the weather was, the road the Romans made was good going, and even better than the turnpike. In a little we passed the milk folk going soberly along, and then a tuthree more, and soon we were riding up the hill into the town, with the plovers crying about us in their winter voices.

So we rode to Lullingford to look upon a dream. For the house we were about seeing was woven into the dream of Gideon’s life. The house, that is, along with what it meant, the maids and the men, the balls and the dinners with the gentry at the Mug of Cider at election time.

When we were going through the ford as you come into the lower part of the place, Gideon said—

“I wish Jancis was riding pillion with me.”

“Why, so she shall,” I said, “the very next time we come. Why shouldna she come every time?”

“There be Beguildy.”

“Oh, Beguildy! I’ll wile un with his own spells and charm un with his own charms,” I said, and I laughed as we went up the narrow street, so that heads came out of windows here and there to see what it might be.

“Husht now, girl!” says Gideon. “Laugh quiet. Not like a wild curlew.”

“But a curlew’s very good company, and a pleasanter voice I seldom heard, and I’m pleased with the compliment, lad.”

And indeed I was pleased with the world and all. For there was summat about Lullingford, as if a different air blew there, and as if there was a brighter sun and a safer daylight. I knew not why it was. It was a quiet place, though not near so quiet as now. Folk go off to the cities these days, but when I was young they gathered together from many miles around into the little market towns. Still, it was quiet, and very peaceful, though not with the stillness of Sarn, that was almost deathly, times. There was one broad street of black and white houses, jutting out above, and gabled, and made into rounded shop windows below. They stood back in little gardens. At the top of the street was the church, long and low, with a tremendous high steeple, well carved and pleasant to see. Under the shadow of the church was the big, comfortable inn, with its red sign painted with a tall blue mug of cider. It had red curtains in the windows, and a glow of firelight in the winter, and it seemed to say, in being so nigh the church, that its landlord’s conscience was clear and his ale honest, and that none would get more than was good for him there. But of the last I a little doubt.

Of a Sunday the shops had each a bit of white canvas stuff hung afore the window like an apron, which made it seem very pious and respectable. There were few shops, and only one of each kind, so you could never run from one to another, cheapening goods.

There was the Green Canister, where they kept groceries and spools and pots and pans, and there was the maltster’s and the butcher’s and the baker’s, for Lullingford was well up with the times, since it wasna all towns could boast a baker in days when nearly everybody baked at home. Then there was the leather shop, for boots and harness, and the tailor’s, which was only open in winter, for in summer he travelled round the country doing piecework. There was the smithy too, where the little boys crowded after Dame-School every winter dusk, begging to warm their hands and roast chestnuts and taters. It was a pleasant thing to see the sparks go up, roaring, and to feel the hearty glow about you, warming you to the heart’s core, with nothing to pay or to do, like love. Near by the smithy was the row of little cottages where was the weaver’s. Like the tailor, he went abroad over the countryside in summer, and sometimes to a village in winter, if it was open weather. But in hard weather he stayed in his snug slip of a house and heard the wind roaring over from the mountains north to the mountains south. I never could tell why this cottage drew me, even from a child. It had a narrow garden and a walk of red brick, an oaken paling, and bushes of lavender on either side the walk. Three well-whitened steps led up to the door, and there was a window of many little panes, not bottle-glass. Above was another window. At the back, a patch of garden ran down to the meadows, and there was a second window in the living-room that looked over this garden and the meadows, to the mountains. This I knew, because I went there once with a message in the old weaver’s time. Upon the front of the house was a vine, very old and twisted. This was a rare thing in a place of such hard winters, but the town was sheltered by the mountains, and the weaver’s house faced south, so the vine throve, and though in cold seasons the grapes didna always ripen, in some years they ripened very well. What with the vine and the lavender and the pleasant shadows on the strip of green lawn, and the lilac tree that stood beside the door, and what with the great weaving frame in the living-room, which was comfortable with firelight shining on brasses and copper vessels, and very well kept, what with it all, I could never pass it without a look of longing. I was used to envy the fat thrushes hopping on the lawn. It drew me as heaven draws the poor sinner, weary of his miry wanderings.

So to-day, as we rode by, I said—

“Gideon, what is it makes that house different to the other housen?”

“It inna different.”

“Oh, but it’s as different as if it was builded of stone fetched from another world!” I cried out. “It’s as different as if the timbers were falled in the forests of the Better Land.”

“Dear to goodness, girl, you bin raving,” says he. “Husht, or the beadle’ll put you in pound.”

So I hushed, and we came to the Mug of Cider, and after turning our beasts in among the rest, we set out our goods in the market.