Читать книгу Precious Bane - Mary Webb - Страница 7

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WE climbed up into the old pippin tree, where we had a favourite place between the boughs. Looking at Gideon’s face among the bright leaves, I thought it was very queer to think of all those sins being on him. Ever since Father was a little baby, roaring and beating on his cot of rushes, on through the time when he was a lad, taking dog’s leave from church, and after, when he went cockfighting and courting, all the evil he did, Gideon had got to carry. All his rages were Gideon’s rages.

“Now, Prue,” says Gideon, “listen what I be going to tell ye. You and me has got to get on.”

“And Mother?”

“Oh, well, Mother too. But she’s old.”

“She’d like to get on though, sure.”

“That be neither here nor there. If we get on, she will. You and me ha’ got to work, Prue.”

“I amna afeerd of work,” I said.

“Well, there’ll be a plenty. I want to make money on the place—a mort of money. Then, when the time’s ripe, we’ll sell it. Then we’ll go to Lullingford and buy a house, and you shall hold up your head with the best, and be a rich lady.”

“I dunna mind all that about being rich and holding up my head.”

“Well, you must mind. And I’ll be churchwarden and tell the Rector what to do, and say who’s to go in the stocks, and who’s to go in the almshousen, and vote for the parliament men. And when any wench has a baby that’s a love-child, you’ll go and scold her.”

“I’d liefer play with the baby.”

“Anybody can play with a baby. None but a great lady can scold. And we’ll buy a grand house. I hanna put my eye on one yet, but there be time enow. And a garden with a man to see to it, and serving-wenches, and the place full of grand furniture and silver plate and china.”

“I dearly like pretty china,” I said. “Can we get some of them new cups and saucers from Staffordshire, with little people on ’em?”

“You can get anything you like, and a gold thimble and a press full of gowns into the bargain. Only you mun help me first. It’ll take years and years.”

“But couldna we stop at Sarn, and get just a little bit of new furniture and china, and do without so many maids and men?”

“No. There’s not enow of folks at Sarn, saving at the Wake, and that’s only once a year. What’s once a year? And what use being chief if there’s nobody to be chief of? ‘Chief among ten thousand.’ That’s a good sounding text. I’d lief be chief among ten thousand.”

“I wonder if it be the lightning in you,” I said, “makes you feel like that?”

I always used to think he looked as if he’d got it in him when there was anything out of the common going on. His eyes would be all of a blaze, but cold too. And he’d make you feel as if you wanted what he wanted, though you didna. Times, when he wanted to look for badger-earths in the woods, he made me think I did too. And all the while, what I wanted in my own self was to go and gather primmyroses.

“Well, it’ll take a deal of lightning in the blood to do what I’m set to do,” he said. “The place never did more than keep us, Mother says. And Father left nought—not but just enough to pay the weaver and Sexton and buy the wax candles and gloves and that for the burying.”

“Whatever shall we do, if we’d only just enough afore,” I wondered, “and Father to work for us? We can never put by money, lad.”

“I shall do what he did and a deal more beside.”

“You never can.”

“I can do all as I’ve a mind to do. I’ve got such a power in me that nought but death can bind it. And with you to give a hand——”

He stopped a bit there, and pulled a leaf, and tore it.

“Being as how things are, you’ll never marry, Prue.”

My heart beat soft and sad. It seemed such a terrible thing never to marry. All girls got married. Jancis would. Tivvy would. Even Miller’s Polly, that always had a rash or a hoost or the ringworm or summat, would get married. And when girls got married, they had a cottage, and a lamp, maybe, to light when their man came home, or if it was only candles it was all one, for they could put them in the window, and he’d think “There’s my missus now, lit the candles!” And then one day Mrs. Beguildy would be making a cot of rushes for ’em, and one day there’d be a babe in it, grand and solemn, and bidding letters sent round for the christening, and the neighbours coming round the babe’s mother like bees round the queen. Often, when things went wrong, I’d say to myself, “Ne’er mind, Prue Sarn! There’ll come a day when you’ll be queen in your own skep.” So I said—

“Not wed, Gideon? Oh, ah! I’ll wed for sure.”

“I’m afeerd nobody’ll ask you, Prue.”

“Not ask me? What for not?”

“Because—oh, well, you’ll soon find out. But you can have a house and furniture and all just the same, if you give a hand in the earning of ’em.”

“But not an ’usband, nor a babe in a cot of rushes?”

“No.”

“For why?”

“Best ask Mother for why. Maybe she can tell you why the hare crossed her path. But I’m main sorry for ye, Prue, and I be going to make you a rich lady, and maybe when we’ve gotten a deal of gold, we’ll send away for some doctor’s stuff for a cure. But it’ll cost a deal, and you must work well and do all I tell you. You’re a tidy, upstanding girl enough, Prue, and but for that one thing the fellows ud come round like they will round Jancis.”

I thought about it a bit, while the water lapped on the banks at the foot of the orchard. Then I said I’d do all Gideon wanted.

“You mun swear it, Prue, a solemn oath on the Book. Maybe, if you didna, you’d tire and give over soon. And I’ll swear what I promised, too.”

He went into the house to fetch the Book. I sat still and listened to the rooks going over to the rookery at the back of the house, beyond the garden and the rickyard. They were coming back from their breakfast in the fields away towards Plash. I wanted my breakfast, too; for whoever’s dead, we poor mortals clem. And as I listened to the sleepy sound of the cawing, and the flapping of their wings when they came over low down, I thought it seemed a criss-cross sort of world, where you bury your Father at night, and straightway begin to think of breakfast and housen and gold with the first light of dawn; where you’ve got to go cursed all your life-long because a poor silly hare looked at your Mother afore you were born; where a son, eating his Mother’s batch-cake and drinking of her brewing, loads his poor soul with all his Father’s sins.

Gideon came running back with the great Book in his hands, very heavy, and fastened with a silver clasp.

“Come down, Prue, and swear,” he said. “Now hold the Book.”

I asked him if he was sure Mother would give us leave to do it.

“Give us leave? It’s not for her to give us leave. She canna hinder me. The farm be mine. Didna you hear her say so when I took the sin upon me?”

“But will you make Mother abide by that?”

“Will folk pawn their souls for nought? Is another’s sin sweet in the mouth that I should eat it save at a price? The farm be mine for ever and ever, until I choose to sell it. Now swear! Say—

“I promise and vow to obey my brother Gideon Sarn and to hire myself out to him as a sarvant, for no money, until all that he wills be done. And I’ll be as biddable as a prentice, a wife, and a dog. I swear it on the Holy Book. Amen.”

So I said it. Then Gideon said—

“I swear to keep faith with my sister, Prue Sarn, and share all with her when we’ve won through, and give her money up to fifty pound, when we’ve sold Sarn, to cure her. Amen.”

After we’d done, I felt as if Sarn Mere was flowing right over us, and I shivered as if I’d got an ague.

“What ails you?” says Gideon. “Best go and light the fire if you be cold, and get the breakfast. We can talk while we eat. Mother’s asleep. There’s a deal to say yet.”

So I went in and lit the fire, and set the table as nice as I could, for it seemed a bit of comfort in a dark place. I wondered if it would be unfeeling to pull a few rosebuds to put in the middle. And seeing that it wasna unfeeling to eat and drink, I thought it wouldna hurt to pull a rose or two.

When Gideon came in from the milking, we sat down, and he told me all that was in his mind. First, I was to learn to make cheeses as well as butter. Then he was going to make some withy panniers for Bendigo, and every market day he’d ride to Lullingford with butter and eggs, cheeses and honeycomb, fruit and vegetables, and even flowers.

“Them roses, now,” he said, “you could bunch ’em up, and they’d bring in a bit.”

Times there’d be dressed poultry and ducks, rabbits, fish, and mushrooms.

“You’ll see, Prue, we’ll make a deal,” he said.

“But what a journey! Thirty mile in the day.”

“I’ll plough a bit of land to grow corn for Bendigo. As for me, I’m never tired.”

When we’d saved a bit, we were to buy another cow. She’d calve in the spring, and then there’d be two cows milking when one was dry. That ud mean more market butter. After that, we were to buy two oxen to plough and turn the flail and lug manure, and save hiring Beguildy’s beasts. When our sow farrowed, we were to keep all the piglets and turn them loose in the oakwoods, and Mother was to take her knitting and mind them. Then there’d be a deal of bacon for market, over and above what we could eat. We’d only got five sheep, but Gideon said we’d mend that by keeping all the lambs, and so have wool to sell and a big flock of sheep next year. Mother and me were to spin yarn all winter, and he’d sell it at the draper’s or change it for things we were bound to have at the grocer’s, such as salt for curing, yeast and sugar. Soap we made ourselves out of lye. Rushlights we made too, out of fat and large dry rushes. Rye we had, and one small field of wheat. Father used to take a few sacks at a time to be ground at the mill where Tivvy’s uncle lived.

“I shall grow more corn, acres of corn,” he said, “and take it to the mill in the ox-wain. Whatsoever the French do, corn wunna come amiss. And though it’s cheap now, it wunna be if they tax it, which I hear tell is more than likely. It’ll be better, a power, to have one acre under wheat then than to be coddling about with twenty acres under ought else. We’ll grow hops as well, and never be short of a drop of good ale, for though I mean to work you, Prue, I wunna clem you. Good plain food, as much as you can eat, but no fallals. The rough honey after we’ve put by the best for market, fruit when it’s cheap, bacon and taters and bread, and eggs and butter when the roads are too bad for market.”

“I shall put up a prayer for bad roads,” I said.

Gideon looked at me very sharp, but seeing it was only my fun, he laughed.

“A’ right, but it’ll take the Devil’s own weather to stop me.”

He’d got a plan that I should learn to do sums and keep accounts and write. I was glad, for I dearly loved the thought of being able to read books, and especially the Bible. It always werrited me in church when Sexton read out of the Bible, for no matter what he read, it all sounded like a bee in a bottle. It didna matter when he was reading—“And he took unto him a wife and begat Aminadab ...” for it was nought to me if he did. But when there were things to be read with a sound in ’em like wind in the aspen tree, it seemed a pitiful thing that he should mouth it over so, being very big-sorted at being able to read at all. I wanted to be able to read

“Or ever the silver cord be loosed”

for myself, and savour it. It would be grand to be able to write, too, and put down all such things as I wanted to keep in mind. So when Gideon said I was to learn, I was joyfully willing.

“But if Mister Beguildy learns me, how can I pay?” I said. “You can dig taters for ’em, and give a hand in the hay, and drive plough for ’em now and again. Beguildy’s so mortal lazy, and so big-sorted with being a wise man, there’s not a hand’s turn of work in the man. Mooning, mooning! A salve for every sore, he’s got, saving for idleness. You be strong. You can pretty near dig spade for spade with me. Pay that way. And if you’ve a mind, you can put on your black and go and ask him this evening.”

He went off to the hay meadow with his scythe, and I set about my work with a will, and should have sung a bit, but called poor Father to mind. It made me gladsome to be getting some education, it being like a big window opening. And out of that window who knows what you metna see?

When I took Gideon’s nooning, going through the rookery, I called to mind that we’d never told the rooks about a death in the place. It’s an old ancient custom to tell them. Folk say if you dunna, a discontent comes over them, and they fall into a melancholy and forget to come home. So in a little while there are your ellums with the nests still like dark fruit on the sky, but all silent and deserted. And though rooks do a deal of mischief, it’s very unlucky to lose them, and the house they leave never has any prosperation after. So I remembered Gideon of this, and we went to the rookery.

They were the biggest ellum trees I’ve ever seen, both common and wych ellums. Under them it was all dimmery with summer leaves. The ground was green with celandine, that had just left blowing, and enchanter’s nightshade, not quite in blow. The leaves were white with droppings. It was a very still, hot day, with only a little breeze rocking the very tops of the trees, and a sleepy caw coming down to us time and again. I used to like to come to the rookery on days like this, after tea, when I’d cleaned myself. And on Ascension Day in special I liked to come and watch if they worked. For they say no rook’ll work on Ascension Day. And sure enough I never saw them bring even a stick on that day, but they seemed very thoughtful and holy in their minds, sitting each in his tree like Parson in pulpit.

“Ho, rooks!” shouted Gideon. “Father’s dead, and I be maister, and I’ve come to say as you shall keep your housen in peace, and I’ll keep ye safe from all but my own gun, and you’re kindly welcome to bide.”

The rooks peered down at him over their nests, and when he’d done there was a sudden clatter of wings, and they all swept up into the blue sky with a great clary, as if they were considering what was said. In a while they came back, and settled down very serious and quiet. So we knew they meant to bide.

When we were back in the field, Gideon laughed a bit, while he was whetting his scythe on the hone, and he said—“I’m glad they mean stopping. I be despert fond of rooky-pie.”

With that, he swept the scythe through the grass, thinnish and full of ox-eye daisies, and sighing with a dry sound. And because the grass was so thin, you could watch the scythe, like a flash of steely light, through the standing crop before the swath fell. And it seems to me now that it was like the deathly will of God, which is ever waiting behind us till the hour comes to mow us down; yet not in unkindness, but because it is best for us that we leave growing in the meadow, and be brought into His safe rickyard, and thatched over warm with His everlasting loving-kindness.