Shrewsbury: A Romance, Page 3

  CHAPTER II

  To begin, Mrs. D----, my master's better-half, though she seldomcondescended to our house, and when engaged in her kitchen premisesaffected to ignore the proximity of ours, enjoyed in Ware thereputation of a shrewd and capable house-wife. Whether she owed thissolely to the possession of a sharp temper and voluble voice, I cannotsay; but only that during all the time I was there I scarcely everpassed an hour in our miserable playground without my ears beingdeafened and my brain irritated by the sound of her chiding. She hadthe advantage, when I first came to the school, of an elderly servant,who went about her work under an even flow of scolding, and, it maybe, had become so accustomed to the infliction as to be neither thebetter nor worse for it. But about the time of which I am writing,when, as I have said, I had been there twelve months, I remarked achange in Mrs. D----'s voice, and judged from the increased acerbityand rising shrillness of her tone that she had passed from drilling anold servant to informing a new one. To confirm this theory, beforelong, "Lazy slut!" and "Dirty baggage!" and "Take that, Insolence,"were the best of the terms I heard; and these so frequently mingledwith blows and slaps, and at times with the sound of sobbing, that mygall rose. I had listened indifferently enough, and if withirritation, without much pain, to the chiding of the old servant; andI knew no more of this one. But by the instinct which draws youth toyouth, or by reason of Mrs. D----'s increased severity, I began tofeel for her, to pity her, and at last to wonder what she was like,and her age, and so forth.

  Nothing more formidable than a low paling separated the garden of Mrs.D----'s house from our yard; but that her eyes might not be offendedby the ignoble sight of the trade by which she lived, four greatwater-butts were ranked along the fence, which, being as tall as aman, and nicely arranged, and strengthened on the inner side by anaccumulation of rubbish and so forth, formed a pretty effectivescreen. The boys indeed had their spyholes, and were in the habit ofpeeping when I did not check them; but in only one place, at thecorner farthest from the house, was it possible to see by accident, asit were, and without stooping or manifest prying, a small patch of thegarden. This gap in the corner I had hitherto shunned, for Mrs.D---- had more than once sent me from it with a flea in my ear and hotcheeks: now, however, it became a favourite with me, and as far as Icould, without courting the notice of the wretched urchins who whinedand squabbled round me, I began to frequent it; sometimes leaningagainst the abutting fence with my back to the house, as in a fit ofabstraction, and then slowly turning--when I did not fail to rake theaforesaid patch with my eyes; and sometimes taking that corner for thelimit of a brisk walk to and fro, which made it natural to pause andwheel at that point.

  Notwithstanding these ruses, however, and though Mrs. D----'s voice,raised in anger, frequently bore witness to her neighbourhood, it wassome time before I caught a glimpse of the person, whose fate, moredoleful than mine, yet not dissimilar, had awakened my interest. Atlength I espied her, slowly crossing the garden, with her back to meand a yoke on her shoulders. Two pails hung from the yoke, I smelledswill; and in a trice seeing in her no more than a wretched drab, inclogs and a coarse sacking-apron, I felt my philanthropy brought tothe test; and without a second glance turned away in disgust. Andthought no more of her.

  After that I took a distaste for the gap, and I do not remember that Ivisited it for a week or more; when, at length, chance or customtaking me there again, I saw the same woman hanging clothes on theline. She had her back to me as on the former occasion; but this timeI lingered watching her, and whether she knew or not that I was there,her work presently brought her towards the place in the fence besidethe water-barrels, at which I stood gazing. Still, I could not see herface, in part because she did not turn my way, and more because shewore a dirty limp sun-bonnet, which obscured her features. But Icontinued to watch; and by-and-by she had finished her hanging, andtook up the empty basket to go in again; and thereon, suddenly in theact of rising from stooping, she looked directly at me, not being morethan two, or at the most three, paces from me. It was but one look,and it lasted, I suppose, two seconds or so; but it touched somethingin me that had never been touched before, and to this time of writing,and though I have been long married and have children, my body burnsat the remembrance of it. For not only was the face that for those twoseconds looked into mine a face of rare beauty, brown and low-browed,with scarlet, laughing lips, and milk-white teeth, and eyes ofwitchery, brighter than a queen's jewels, but in the look, short as itwas and passing, shone a something that I had never seen in a woman'sface before, a something, God knows what, appeal or passion ortemptation, that on the instant fired my blood. I suppose, nay, I knownow, that the face that flashed that look at me from under the dirtysun-bonnet could change to a marvel; and in a minute, and as by amiracle, become dull and almost ugly, or the most beautiful in theworld. But then, that and all such things were new to me who knew nowomen, and had never spoken to a woman in the way of love nor thoughtof one when her back was turned; so new, that when it was over and shegone without a second glance, I went back to the house another man, myheart thumping in my breast, and my cheeks burning, and my whole beingoppressed with desire and bashfulness and wonder and curiosity, and ahundred other emotions that would not permit me to be at ease until Ihad hidden myself from all eyes.

  SHE LOOKED DIRECTLY AT ME]

  Well, to be brief, that, in less than the time I have taken to tellit, changed all. I was eighteen; the girl's shining eyes burned me up,as flame burns stubble. In an hour, a week, a day, I can no more saywithin what time than I can describe what befel me before I wasborn--for if that was a sleeping, this was a dream, and passed swiftand confused as one--I was madly and desperately in love. Her facebrilliant, mischievous, alluring, rose before the thumbed grammar byday, and the dim casement of the fetid, crowded bedroom by night, andfilled the slow, grey dawnings, now with joy and now with despair. Forthe time, I thought only of her, lived for her, did my work in dreamsof her. I kept no count of time, I gave no heed to what passed roundme; but I went through the routine of my miserable life, happy as theslave that, rich in the possession of some beneficent drug, defies thepains of labour and the lash. I say my miserable life; but I say it,so great was the change, in a figure only and in retrospect. Mrs.D---- might scorn me now, and the boys squabble round me, yet thatlife was no longer miserable nor dull, whereof every morning flatteredme with hopes of seeing my mistress, and every third day or sofulfilled the promise.

  With all this, and though from the moment her eyes met mine across thefence, her beauty possessed me utterly, a full fortnight elapsedbefore I spoke with her. In the interval I saw her three times, andalways in the wretched guise in which she had first appeared to me;which, so far from checking my passion, now augmented it by the fullmeasure of the mystery with which the sordidness of her dress, incontrast with her beauty, invested her in my mind. But, for speakingwith her, that was another matter, and one presenting so manydifficulties (whereof, as the boys' constant presence and Mrs. D----'stemper were the greatest, so my bashfulness was not the least) that Ithink we might have gone another fortnight, and perhaps a third tothat, and not come to it, had not a certain privilege on which Mr.D----'s good lady greatly prided herself, come to our aid in the nickof time, and by bringing us into the same room (a thing which hadnever occurred before, and of itself threw me into a fever) combinedwith fortune to aid my hopes.

  This privilege--so Mrs. D---- invariably styled it--was the solemngathering of the household on one Sunday in each month to listen to adiscourse which, her husband sitting meekly by, she read to us fromthe works of some Independent divine. On these occasions she deliveredherself so sonorously and with so much gusto, that I do not doubt shefound compensation in them for the tedium of the sermon on PassiveObedience, or on the fate of the Amalekite, to which, in compliancewith the laws against Dissent, she had perforce listened earlier inthe day. The master and mistress and the servant sat on one side ofthe room, I with the boys on the other; and
hitherto I am unable tosay which of us had suffered more under the infliction. But theappearance of my sweet martyr--so, when Madam's voice rang shrillestand most angrily over the soapsuds, I had come to think of her--in aplace behind her master and mistress (being the same in which the oldservant had nodded and grunted every sermon evening since my coming),put a new complexion on the matter. For her, she entered, as ifunconscious of my presence, and took her seat with downcast eyes andhands folded, and that dull look on her face which, when she chose,veiled three-fourths of its beauty. But my ears flamed, and the bloodsurged to my head; and I thought that all must read my secret in myface.

  With Mrs. D----, however, this was the one hour in the month when thesuspicions natural in one of her carping temper, slept, and she tasteda pleasure comparatively pure. Majestically arrayed in a huge pair ofspectacles--which on this occasion, and in the character of the familypriest, her vanity permitted and even incited her to wear--andprovided with a couple of tall tallow candles, which it was herhusband's duty to snuff, she would open the dreaded quarto and prop itfirmly on the table before her. Then, after giving out her text in atone that need not have disgraced Hugh Peters or the most famouspreacher of her persuasion, it was her custom to lift her eyes andlook round to assure herself that all was cringing attention; and thiswas the trying moment; woe to the boy whose gaze wandered--his backwould smart for it before he slept. These preliminaries at an end,however, and the discourse begun, the danger was over for the time;for, in the voluptuous roll of the long wordy sentences, and theelections and damnations, and free wills that plentifully bestrewedthem, she speedily forgot all but the sound of her own voice; and,nothing occurring to rouse her, might be trusted to read for the hourand half with pleasure to herself and without risk to others.

  So it fell out on this occasion. As soon, therefore, as the steadydroning of her voice gave me courage to look up, I had before me thesame scene with which a dozen Sunday evenings had made me familiar;the dull circle of yellow light; within it Madam's horn-rimmed glassesshining over the book, while her finger industriously followed thelines; a little behind, her husband, nodding and recovering himself byturns. Not now was this all, however: now I saw also _imprimis_, a dimoval face, framed in the background behind the two old people; andthat, now in shadow now in light, gleamed before my fascinated eyeswith unearthly beauty. Once or twice, fearing to be observed, Iaverted my gaze and looked elsewhere; guiltily and with hot temples.But always I returned to it again. And always, the longer I let myeyes dwell on the vision--for a vision it seemed in the halo of thecandles--and the more monotonous hung the silence, broken only byMrs. D----'s even drone, the more distinctly the beautiful face stoodout, and the more bewitching and alluring appeared the red lips andsmiling eyes and dark clustering hair, that moment by moment drew myheart from me, and kindled my ripening brain and filled my veins withfever!

  "Seventhly, and under this head, of the sin of David!"

  So Mrs. D---- booming on, in her deep voice, to all seemingendlessly; while the air of the dingy whitewashed room grew stale, andthe candles guttered and burned low, and the boys, poor littlewretches, leaned on one another's shoulders and sighed, and it wasdifficult to say whether Mr. D----'s noddings or his recoveries wentnearer to breaking his neck. At last--or was it only my fancy?--Ithought I made out a small brown hand gliding within the circle oflight. Then--or was I dreaming?--one of the candles began to move; butto move so little and so stealthily, that I could not swear to it; norever could have sworn, if Mr. D----'s wig had not a moment later takenfire with a light flame, and a stench, and a frizzling sound, that ina second brought him, still half-asleep, but swearing, to his feet.

  Mrs. D----, her mouth open, and the volume lifted, halted in themiddle of a word, and glared as if she had been shot; her surprise atthe interruption so great--and no wonder--that she could not for awhile find words. But the stream of her indignation, so checked, onlygathered volume; and in a few seconds broke forth.

  "Mr. D----!" she cried, slamming the book down on the table. "Youdisgusting beast! Do you know that the boys are here?"

  "My wig is on fire!" he cried for answer. He had taken it off, and nowheld it at arm's length, looking at it so ruefully that the boys,though they knew the danger, could scarcely restrain their laughter.

  "And serve you right for a weak-kneed member!" his wife answered in avoice that made us quake. "If you had not guzzled at dinner, sir, andswilled small beer you would have remained awake instead of spoiling agood wig, and staining your soul! Ay, and causing these littleones----"

  "I never closed my eyes!" he declared, roundly.

  "Rubbish!" she answered in a tone that would brook no denial. Andthen, "Give the wig to Jennie, sir!" she continued, peremptorily. "Andput your handkerchief on your head. It is well that good Mr. Nesbitdoes not know what language has been used during his discourse; itwould cut that excellent man to the heart. Do you hear, sir, give thewig to Jennie!" she screamed. "A handkerchief is good enough forprofane swearers and filthy talkers! And too good! Too good, sir!"

  He went reluctantly to obey, seeing nothing for it; but between hisanger and Jennie's clumsiness, the wig, in passing from one to theother, fell under the table. This caused Mrs. D----, who was at theend of her patience, to spring up in a rage, and down went a candle.Nor was this the worst; for the grease in its fall cast a trail of hotdrops on her Sunday gown, and in a flash she was on the maid and hadsmacked her face till the room rang.

  "Take that, and that, you clumsy baggage!" she cried in a fury, herface crimson. "And that! And the next time you offer to take agentleman's wig have better manners. This will cost you a year'swages, my fine madam! and let me hear of your stepping over thedoorstep until it is earned, and I will have you jailed and whipped.Do you hear? And you," she continued, turning ferociously on herhusband, "swearing on the Lord's day like a drunken, raffling,God-forsaken Tantivy! You are not much better!"

  It only remains in my memory now as a coarse outburst of vixenishtemper, made prominent by after events. But what I felt at the momentI should in vain try to describe. At one time I was on the point ofspringing on the woman, and at another all but caught the sobbing girlin my arms and challenged the world to touch her.

  Fortunately, Mr. D----, now fully awakened, and the more inclined toremember decency in proportion as his wife forgot it, recalled me tomyself by sternly bidding me see the boys to their beds.

  Glad to escape, they needed no second order, but flocked to the door,and I with them. In our retreat, it was necessary for me to pass closeto the shrinking girl, whom Mrs. D---- was still abusing with all thecruelty imaginable; as I did so I heard, or dreamed that I heard,three words, breathed in the faintest possible whisper. I say, dreamedI heard, for the girl neither looked at me nor removed the apron fromher face, nor by abating her sobs or any other sign betrayed that shespoke or that she was conscious of my neighbourhood.

  Yet the three words, "Garden, ten minutes," so gently breathed, that Idoubted while I heard, could only have come from her; and assured ofthat, it will be believed that I found the ten minutes I spent seeingthe boys to bed by the light of one scanty rushlight the longest andmost tumultuous I ever passed. If she had not spoken I should havefound it a sorry time, indeed; since the moment the door was closedbehind me I discerned a hundred reasons to be dissatisfied with myconduct, thought of a hundred things I should have said, and saw ahundred things I should have done; and stood a coward convicted. Now,however, all was not over; I might explain. I was about to see her, tospeak with her, to pour out my indignation and pity, perhaps to touchher hand; and in the delicious throb of fear and hope and excitementwith which these anticipations filled my breast, I speedily forgot toregret what was past.