Baring-Gould Sabine
The Broom-Squire
CHAPTER XIX
BACK AGAIN
Fever boiled in the heart of Mehetabel. A mill-race of ideas rushed through her brain.
She found no rest in her household work, for it was not possible for her to keep her mind upon it. Nor was there sufficient employment to be found in the house to engage all her time.
Do what she would, make for herself occupation, there was still space in which to muse and to torment herself with her thoughts. Whilst her hands were engaged she craved for leisure in which to think; when unemployed, the ferment within rendered idleness intolerable.
When the work of the house was accomplished, she went to the fountain where she had been drawn by Iver, and there saw again the glowing brown of his eyes fixed on her, and reheard the tones of his voice addressing her. Then she would start as though stung by a wasp and go along the track up the Punch-Bowl, recalling every detail of her walk with Iver, and feeling again his kiss upon her lips. She tried to forget him; with a resolution of which she was capable she shut against his entry every door of her heart. But she found it was impossible to exclude the thoughts of him. Had she not looked up to him from early childhood, and idolized him? She had been accustomed to think of him, to talk of him daily to his mother, after he had left the Ship. That mother who had forcibly separated her from him had herself ingrafted Iver into her inmost thoughts, made of him an integral portion of her mind. She had been taught by Mrs. Verstage to bring him into all her dreams of the future, as a factor without which that future would be void and valueless, She had, indeed, never dreamed of him as a lover, a husband; nevertheless to Mehetabel the future had always been associated in a vague, yet very real, manner with Iver. His return was to inaugurate the epoch of a new and joyous existence. It was not practicable for her to pluck out of her heart this idea, which had thrust its fibres through every layer and into every corner of her mind. Those fibres were now thrilling with vitality, asserting a vigorous life.
She asked herself the same question that had presented itself to his mind, what if Iver had returned one day, one hour, before he actually did? Then her marriage with Jonas would have been made impossible. The look into his eyes, the pressure of his hand would have bound her to him for evermore.
"Why, why, and oh why!" with a cry of pain, "had he not returned in time to save her?"
"Why, why, and oh why!" with blood from her heart, "did he return at all when too late to save her?"
Mehetabel had a clear and sound understanding. She was not one to play tricks with her conscience, and to reason herself into allowing what she was well aware was wrong. She nourished herself in no delusion that her marriage with Jonas was formal and devoid of the sanction of a spiritual bond.
She took her Prayer Book, opened the marriage service, and re-read the vows she had made.
She had been asked, "Wilt thou have this man, Jonas, to thy wedded husband, to live together after God's ordinance.. and forsaking all other keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?" and thereto, in the sight of God and of the congregation, she had promised. There was no escape from this.
She had said – "I, Mehetabel, take thee, Jonas, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish and obey, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance, and thereto I give thee my troth."
There was no proviso inserted, as a means of escape; nothing like: I will be true to thee unless Iver return; unless, thou, Bideabout, prove unworthy of my love and obedience; unless there be incompatibility of temper; unless I get tired of thee, and change my mind.
Mehetabel knew what the words meant, knew that she had been sincere in intent when she said them. She knew that she was bound, without proviso of any kind.
She knew that she could not love Iver and be guiltless. But she was aware also, now, when too late, that she had undertaken towards Jonas what was, in a measure, impossible.
Loyal to Jonas as far as outward conduct could make her, that she was confident she would remain, but her heart had slipped beyond her control, and her thoughts were winged and refused to be caged.
"I say, Matabel!"
The young wife started, and her bosom contracted. Her husband spoke. He had come on her at a moment when, lost in day-dreams, she least expected, desired, his presence.
"What do you want with me, Jonas?" she asked as she recovered her composure.
"I want you to go to the Ship. The old woman there has fallen out with the maid, and there are three gentlemen come for the shooting, and want to be attended to. The old woman asked if you would help a bit. I said 'Dun know:' but after a bit we agreed for a shilling a day."
"Never!" gasped Mehetabel.
"I tried to screw more out of her necessity, but could not. Besides, if you do well, you'll get half a crown from each of the gents, and that'll be seven and six; and say three days at the Inn, half-a-guinea all in all. I can spare you for that."
"Jonas, I do not wish to go."
"But I choose that you shall."
"I pray you allow me to remain here."
"There's Mr. Iver leaves to-day for his shop at Guildford, and I reckon the old woman is put about over that, too."
After some hesitation Mehetabel yielded. The thought that Iver would not be at the Ship alone induced her to consent.
She was hurt and angry that her husband had stipulated for payment for her services. After the kindness, the generosity with which she had been treated, this seemed ungracious in the extreme. She said as much.
"I don't see it," answered Jonas. "When you wos a baby she made the parish pay her for taking you. Now she wants you, it is her turn to pay."
Bideabout did not allow his wife much time in which to make her preparations. He had business in Godalming with a lawyer, and was going to drive old Clutch thither. He would take Mehetabel with him as far as Thursley.
On reaching the tavern Mrs. Verstage met her with effusion, and
Iver, hearing his mother's exclamation, ran out.
Mehetabel was surprised and confused at seeing him. He caught her by the hand, helped her to descend from the cart, and retained his hold of her fingers for a minute after it was necessary.
He had told his mother that he must return to Guildford that day; and when she had asked for Mehetabel's help she had calculated on the absence of her son, who had been packing up his canvas and paints. To him she had not breathed a word of the likelihood that Mehetabel would be coming to her aid.
"I daresay Bideabout will give you a lift, Iver," she said.
"I don't know that I can," said Jonas. "I've promised to pick up
Lintott, and there ain't room in the trap for more than two."
Then the Broom-Squire drove away.
"See, Matabel," said Iver, pointing to the signboard, "I've redaubed the Old Ship, quite to my father's satisfaction. By Jove, I told mother I should return to Guildford to-day – but now, hang me, if I do not defer my departure for a day or two."
Mrs. Verstage looked reproachfully at her son.
"Mother," said he in self-exculpation. "I shall take in ideas, a model costs me from a shilling to half-acrown an hour, and here is Matabel, a princess of models, will sit for nothing."
"I shall be otherwise employed," said the girl, in confusion.
"Indeed, I shan't spare her for any of that nonsense," said Mrs.
Verstage.
The hostess was much perplexed. She had reckoned on her son's departure before Mehetabel arrived. She would not have asked for her assistance if she had not been convinced that he would take himself off.
She expostulated. Iver must not neglect his business, slight his engagements. He had resolved to go, and had no right to shilly-shally, and change his mind. She required his room. He would be in the way with the guests.
To all these objections Iver had an answer. In fine, said he, with
Mehetabel in the house he could not and he would not go.
What was Mehetabel to do? Jonas had locked up his house and had carried away the key with him; moreover, to return now was a confession of weakness. What was Mrs. Verstage to do? She had three visitors, real gentlemen, in the house. They must be made comfortable; and the new servant, Polly, according to her notion, was a hopeless creature, slatternly, forgetful, impudent.
There was no one on whom the landlady could fall back, except Mehetabel, who understood her ways, and was certain to give satisfaction. Mrs. Verstage was not what she had once been, old age, and more than that, an internal complaint, against which she had fought, in which she had refused to believe, had quite recently asserted itself, and she was breaking down.
There was consequently no help for it. She resolved to keep a sharp lookout on the young people, and employ Mehetabel unremittingly. But of one thing she was confident. Mehetabel was not a person to forget her duty and self-respect.
The agitation produced by finding that Iver purposed remaining in the house passed away, and Mehetabel faced the inevitable.
Wherever her eye rested, memories of a happy girlhood welled up in her soft and suffering breast. The geraniums in the window she had watered daily. The canary – she had fed it with groundsel. The brass skillets on the mantelshelf – they had been burnished by her hand. The cushion on "father's" chair was of her work. Everything spoke to her of the past, and of a happy past, without sharp sorrows, without carking cares.
Old Simon was rejoiced to see Mehetabel again in the house. He made her sit beside him. He took her hand in his, and patted it. A pleasant smile, like a sunbeam, lit up his commonplace features.
"Mother and I have had a deal to suffer since you've been gone," said Simon. "The girl Polly be that stupid and foreright (awkward) we shall be drove mad, both of us, somewhen."
"Do you see that window-pane?" he asked, pointing to a gap in the casement. "Polly put her broom handle through. There was not one pane broke all the time you was with us, and now there be three gone, and no glazier in the village to put 'em to rights. You mind the blue pranked (striped) chiney taypot? Mother set great store on that. Polly's gone and knocked the spout off. Mother's put about terrible over that taypot. As for the best sheets, Polly's burnt a hole through one, let a cinder fly out on it, when airing. Mother's in a pretty way over that sheet. I don't know what there'll be to eat, Polly left the larder open, and the dog has carried off a leg of mutton. It has been all cross and contrary ever since you went."
Simon mused a while, holding Mehetabel's hand, and said after a pause, "It never ort to a' been. You was well placed here and never ort to a' left. It was all mother's doing. She drove you into weddin' that there Broom-Squire. Women can't be easy unless they be hatchin' weddin's; just like as broody hens must be sittin' on somethin'. If that had never been brought about, then the taypot spout would not have been knocked off, nor the winder-pane broken, nor the sheet riddled wi' a cinder, nor the dog gone off wi' the leg o' mutton."
Mehetabel was unable to suppress a sigh.
"Winter be comin' on," pursued the old man, "and mother's gettin' infirm, and a bit contrary. When Polly worrits her, then I ketches it. That always wos her way. I don't look forward to winter. I don't look forward to nuthin' now – " He became sorrowful. "All be gone to sixes and sevens, now that you be gone, Matabel. What will happen I dun' know, I dun' know."
"What may happen," said Mehetabel, "is not always what we expect.
But one thing is certain – lost happiness is past recovery."
CHAPTER XX
GONE
During the evening Iver was hardly able to take his eyes off
Mehetabel, as she passed to and fro in the kitchen.
She knew where was every article that was needed for the gentlemen.
She moved noiselessly, did everything without fuss, without haste.
He thought over the words she had uttered, and he had overheard: Lost happiness is past recovery. Not only was she bereft of happiness, but so was he. His father and mother, when too late, had found that they also had parted with theirs when they had let Mehetabel leave the house.
She moved gracefully. She was slender, her every motion merited to be sketched. Iver's artistic sense was excited to admiration. What a girl she was! What a model! Oh, that he had her as his own!
Mehetabel knew that she was watched, and it disconcerted her. She was constrained to exercise great self-control; not to let slip what she carried, not to forget what tasks had to be discharged.
In her heart she glowed with pride at the thought that Iver loved her – that he, the prince, the idol of her childhood, should have retained a warm place in his heart for her. And yet, the thought, though sweet, was bitter as well, fraught with foreshadowings of danger.
Mrs. Verstage also watched Mehetabel, and her son likewise, with anxious eyes.
The old man left the house to attend to his cattle; and one of the gentlemen came to the kitchen-door to invite Iver, whose acquaintance he had made during the day, to join him and his companions over a bowl of punch.
The young man was unable to refuse, but left with reluctance manifest enough to his mother and Mehetabel.
Then, when the hostess was alone with the girl, she drew her to her side, and said, "There is now nothing to occupy you. Sit by me and tell me about yourself and how you get on with Bideabout. You have no notion how pleased I am to have you here again."
Mehetabel kissed the old woman, and a tear from her eye fell on the withering cheek of the landlady.
"I dare be bound you find it lonely in the new home," said Mrs. Verstage. "Here, in an inn, there is plenty of life; but in the farm you are out of the world. How does the Broom-Squire treat you?"
She awaited an answer with anxiety, which she was unable to disguise.
After a pause Mehetabel replied, with heightened color, "Jonas is not unkind."
"You can't expect love-making every day," said the hostess. "It's the way of men to promise the sun, moon, and planets, till you are theirs, and after that, then poor women must be content to be given a spark off a fallen star. There was Jamaica Cheel runn'd away with his Betsy because he thought the law wouldn't let him have her; she was the wife of another, you know. Then he found she never had been proper married to the other chap, and when he discovered he was fast tied to Betsy he'd a run away from her only the law wouldn't let him. Jonas ain't beautiful and young, that I allow."
"I knew what he was when I married him," answered Mehetabel. "I cannot say I find him other than what I expected."
"But is he kind to you?"
"I said he was not unkind."
Mrs. Verstage looked questioningly at her adopted child. "I don't know," she said, with quivering lips. "I suppose I was right. I acted for the best. God knows I sought your happiness. Do not tell me that you are unhappy."
"Who is happy?" asked Mehetabel, and turned her eyes on the hostess, to read alarm and distress in her face. "Do not trouble yourself about me, mother. I knew what I was doing when I took Jonas. I had no expectation of finding the Punch-Bowl to be Paradise. It takes a girl some time to get settled into fresh quarters, and to feel comfortable among strangers. That is mainly my case. I was perhaps spoiled when here, you were so kind to me. I thank you, mother, that you have not forgotten me in your great joy at getting Iver home again."
"There was Thomasine French bought two penn'orth o' shrimps, and as her husband weren't at home thought to enjoy herself prodigious. But she came out red as a biled lobster. With the best intentions things don't always turn out as expected," said Mrs. Verstage, "and the irritation was like sting nettles and – wuss." Then, after a pause, "I don't know how it is, all my life I have wished to have Iver by me. He went away because he wanted to be a painter; he has come back, after many years, and is not all I desire. Now he is goyn away. I could endure that if I were sure he loved me. But I don't think he does. He cares more for his father, who sent him packin' than he does for me, who never crossed him. I don't understand him. He is not the same as he was."
"Iver is a child no longer," said Mehetabel. "You must not expect of him more than he can give. What you said to me about a husband is true also of a child. Of course, he loves you, but he does not show it as fully as you desire. He has something else now to fill his heart beside a mother."
"What is that?" asked Mrs. Verstage, nervously.
"His art," answered Mehetabel.
"Oh, that!" The landlady was not wholly satisfied, she stood up and said with a sigh, "I fancy life be much like one o' them bran pies at a bazaar. Some pulls out a pair of braces as don't wear trousers, and others pull out garters as wears nuthin' but socks. 'Tis a chance if you get wot's worth havin. Well, I must go look out another sheet in place of that Polly has burnt."
"Let me do that, mother."
"No, as you may remember, I have always managed the linen myself."
A few minutes later, after she had left the room, Iver returned.
He had escaped from the visitors on some excuse.
His heart was a prey to vague yearnings and doubts.
With pleasure he observed that his mother was no longer in the kitchen. He saw Mehetabel hastily dry her eyes. He knew that she had been crying, and he thought he could divine the cause.
"You are going to Guildford to-morrow morning, are you not?" she asked hastily.
"I don't know."
Iver planted himself on a stool before the fire, where he could look up into Mehetabel's face, as she sat in the settle.
"You have your profession to attend to," she said. "You do not know your own mind. You are changeful as a girl."
"How can I go – with you here?" he exclaimed, vehemently.
She turned her head away. He was looking at her with burning eyes.
"Iver," she said, "I pray you be more loving to your mother. You have made her heart ache. It is cruel not to do all you can now to make amends to her for the past. She thinks that you do not love her. She is failing in health, and you must not drip drops of fresh sorrow into her heart during her last years."
Iver made a motion of impatience.
"I love my mother. Of course I love her."
"Not as truly as you should, Iver," answered Mehetabel. "You do not consider the long ache – "
"And I, had not I a long ache when away from home?"
"You had your art to sustain you. She had but one thought – and that of you."
"She has done me a cruel wrong," said he, irritably.
"She has never done anything to you but good, and out of love," answered the girl vehemently.
"To me; that is not it."
Mehetabel raised her eyes and looked at him. He was gazing moodily at the fire.
"She has stabbed me through you," exclaimed Iver, with a sudden outburst of passion. "Why do you plead my mother's cause, when it was she – I know it was she, and none but she – who thrust you into this hateful, this accursed marriage."
"No, Iver, no!" cried Mehetabel in alarm. "Do not say this. Iver! talk of something else."
"Of what?"
"Of anything."
"Very well," said he, relapsing into his dissatisfied mood. "You asked me once what my dream had been, that I dreamt that first night under your roof. I will tell you this now. I thought that you and I had been married, not you and Jonas, you and I, as it should have been. And I thought that I looked at you, and your face was deadly pale, and the hand I held was clay cold."
A chill ran through Mehetabel's veins. She said, "There is some truth in it, Iver. You hold a dead girl by the hand. To you, I am, I must be, forever – dead."
"Nonsense. All will come right somehow."
"Yes, Iver," she said; "it will so. You are free and will go about, and will see and love and marry a girl worthy of you in every way. As for me, my lot is cast in the Punch-Bowl. No power on earth can separate me from Bideabout. I have made my bed and must lie on it, though it be one of thorns. There is but one thing for us both – we must part and meet no more."
"Matabel," he put forth his hand in protest.
"I have spoken plainly," she said, "because there is no good in not doing so. Do not make my part more difficult. Be a man – go."
"Matabel! It shall not be, it cannot be! My love! My only one."
He tried to grasp her.
She sprang from the settle. A mist formed before her eyes. She groped for something by which to stay herself.
He seized her by the waist. She wrenched herself free.
"Let me go!" she cried. "Let me go!"
She spoke hoarsely. Her eyes were staring as if she saw a spirit. She staggered back beyond his reach, touched the jambs of the door, grasped them with a grasp of relief. Then, actuated by a sudden thought, turned and fled from the room, from the house.
Iver stood for a minute bewildered. Her action had been so unexpected that he did not know what to think, what to do.
He went to the porch and looked up the road, then down it, and did not see her.
Mrs. Verstage, came out. "Where is Matabel?" she asked, uneasily.
"Gone!" said Iver. "Mother – gone!"
