The Broom-Squire
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His hand, that had felt so chill, was out of the bed, and the coverlet had slid off him, and was heaped on the floor.
The wind had shifted, and now pressed the clouds together, rolled them up and swept them into the lumber-house of clouds below the horizon. He dressed leisurely, shook himself, to shake off the impression produced by his dream, and laughed at himself for having been disturbed by it.
When he came downstairs he found that both Mehetabel and Jonas were already on their feet, and that the former was preparing breakfast. Her eyes were red, as if she had been crying.
"How did you sleep?" she asked, with faint smile – "and what were your dreams?"
"They say that the first dream in new quarters comes true," threw in the Broom-Squire; "but this is the idle chatter of old wives. I make no count of it."
Mehetabel observed that Iver started and seemed disconcerted at this question relative to his dream. He evaded an answer, and she saw that the topic was unpleasant, and to reply inconvenient. She said no more; and Jonas had other matters to think about more substantial than dreams. Yet Mehetabel could not fail to perceive that their guest was out of tune. Was he annoyed at having lost money, or was he in reality troubled by something that had occurred during the night? An hour later Iver prepared to leave.
"Come with me a little way," he pleaded with the hostess, "see me safe off the premises."
She did as was desired, though not without inner reluctance. And yet, at the same time she felt that with his departure a something would be gone that could not be replaced, a light out of her sky, a strain of music out of her soul.
The white fog lay like curd at the bottom of the Punch-Bowl. Here and there a tree-top stood above the vapor, but only as a bosky islet in the surface of mist, dense and chill. The smoke from the chimneys of the squatter houses rose like steaming springs, but the brick chimneys were submerged. So dense was the fog that it muffled all sound, impeded the breath, struck cold to the marrow. It smelt, for the savors of hog-pen and cow-stall were caught and not allowed to dissipate.
A step, and those ascending the side of the great basin were out of the mist, and in sunshine, but it still held their feet to the knees; another step and they were clear, and then their shadows were cast, gigantic, upon the white surface below, and about each head was a halo of light and rainbow tints.
Every bush was twinkling as hung with diamonds of the purest water. Larks were trilling, pouring forth in song the ecstasy that swelled their hearts. The sky was blue as a nemophyla, and cloudless.
As soon as Iver and Mehetabel had issued from the fog and were upon the heath, and in the sunshine, she stayed her feet.
"I will go no further," she said.
"Look," said he, "how the fog lies below at the bottom of the Punch-Bowl, as though it were snow. Above, on the downs all is sunshine."
"Yes, you go up into the light and warmth," answered she. "I must back and down into the cold vapors, cold as death."
He thought of his dream. There was despondency in her tone.
"The sun will pierce and scatter the vapors and shine over and warm you below."
She shook her head.
"Iver," she said, "you may tell me now we are alone. What was your dream?"
Again he appeared disconcerted.
"Of what, of whom did you dream?"
"Of whom else could I dream but you – when under your roof," said he with a laugh.
"Oh, Iver! and what did you dream about me?"
"Arrant nonsense. Dreams go by contraries."
"Then what about me?"
"I dreamt of your marriage."
"Then that means death."
He caught her to him, and kissed her lips.
"We are brother and sister," he said, in self-exculpation. "Where is the harm?"
She disengaged herself hastily.
She heard a cough and looked round, to see the mocking face of Sarah Rocliffe, who had followed and had just emerged from the curdling fog below.
CHAPTER XVIII
REALITIES
Iver was gone.
The light that had sparkled in Mehetabel's eyes, the flush, like a carnation in her cheek, faded at once. She was uneasy that Mrs. Rocliffe had surprised her and Iver, whilst he gave her that ill-considered though innocent parting salute.
What mischief she might make of it! How she might sow suspicion of her in the heart of Jonas, and Iver would be denied the house! Iver denied the house! Then she would see him no more, have no more pleasant conversations with him. Indeed, then the cold, clammy fog into which she descended was a figure of the life hers would be, and it was one that no sun's rays could dissipate.
After she had returned to the house she sank in a dark comer like one weary after hard labor, and looked dreamily before her at the floor. Her hands and her feet were motionless.
A smile that every moment became more bitter sat on her lips. The muscles of her face became more rigid.
What if through jealousy, open discord broke out between her and Jonas? Would it make her condition more miserable, her outlook more desperate? She revolved in thought the events that were past. She ranged them in their order – the proposal of Jonas, her refusal, the humiliation to which she had been subjected by Mrs. Verstage which had driven her to accept the man she had just rejected, the precipitation with which the marriage had been hurried on, then the appearance of Iver on her wedding day.
She recalled the look that passed over his face when informed that she was a bride, the clasp of his hands, and now – now – his kiss burned on her lips, nay, had sunk in as a drop of liquid fire, and was consuming her heart with anguish and sweetness combined.
Was the kiss that of a brother to a sister? Was there in it, as Iver said, no harm, no danger to herself? She thought of the journey home from the Ship on her wedding evening, of the fifteen pounds of which she had been robbed by her husband, the money given her by "father" against the evil day. She had been deceived, defrauded by the man she had sworn to honor, love, and obey. She had not acquired love for him. Had he not by this act forfeited all claim to both love and honor?
She thought again of Iver, of his brown, agate-like eyes, but eyes in which there was none of the hardness of a stone. She contrasted him with Jonas. How mean, how despicable, how narrow in mind and in heart was the latter compared with the companion of her youth.
Mehetabel's face was bathed in perspiration. She slid to her knees to pray; she folded her hands, and found herself repeating. "Genesis, fifty chapters; Exodus, forty; Leviticus, twenty-seven; Numbers, thirty-six; Deuteronomy, thirty-four; these are the books that constitute the Pentateuch. The Book of Joshua – "
Then she checked herself. In her distress, her necessity, she was repeating the lesson last acquired in Sunday-school, which had gained her a prize. This was not prayer. It brought her no consolation, it afforded her no strength. She tried to find something to which to cling, to stay her from the despair into which she had slipped, and could only clearly figure to herself that "the country of the Gergesenes lay to the southeast of the Sea of Tiberias and that a shekel weighed ten hundred-weights and ninety-two grains, Troy weight, equal to in avoirdupois – " her brain whirled. She could not work out the sum. She could not pray. She could recall no prayer. She could look to nothing beyond the country of the Gergesenes. And yet, never in her life had she so needed prayer, strength, as now, when this new guilty passion was waking in her heart.
Shuddering at the thought of revolt against her duty, unable altogether to abandon the hope, the longing to see Iver again, filled with vague terror of what the future might bring forth, she remained as struck with paralysis, kneeling, speechless, with head bowed, hands fallen at her side, seeing, hearing, knowing nothing; and was roused with a start by the voice of Jonas who entered, and asked – ,
"Wot's up now?"
She could not answer him. She sprang to her feet and eagerly flew to the execution of her domestic duties.
Iver returned from his visit to the Punch-Bowl with a mind occupied and ill at ease.
He had allowed himself, without a struggle, to give way to the impression produced on him by the beauty of Mehetabel. He enjoyed her society – found pleasure in talking of the past. Her mind was fresh; she was intelligent, and receptive of new ideas. She alone of all the people of Thursley, whom he had encountered, was endowed with artistic sense – was able to set the ideal above what was material. He did not ask himself whether he loved her. He knew that he did, but the knowledge did not trouble him. After a fashion, Mehetabel belonged to him as to none other. She was associated with his earliest and sunniest recollections.
Mehetabel could sympathize with him in his love for the beautiful in Nature. She had ever been linked with his mother in love for him. She had been the vehicle of communication between him and his mother till almost the last moment; it was through her that all tidings of home had reached him.
When his father had refused to allow Iver's name to be mentioned in his presence, for hours daily the thoughts of him had been in the hearts of his mother and this girl. With united pity and love, they had followed his struggles to make his way.
There was much obstinacy in Iver.
Resolution to have his own way had made him leave home to follow an artistic career, regardless of the heartache he would cause his mother, and the resentment he would breed in his father.
Thus, without consideration of the consequences to himself, to Mehetabel, to Jonas, he allowed his glowing affection for the young wife to gather heat, without attempt to master or extinguish it.
There is a certain careless happiness in the artistic soul that is satisfied with the present, and does not look into the future. The enjoyment of the hour, the banquet off the decked table, the crown of roses freshly blown, suffice the artist's soul. It has no prevision of the morrow – makes no provision for the winter.
That the marriage of Mehetabel with Jonas had raised barriers between them was hardly considered. That the Broom-Squire might resent having him hover round his young flower, did not enter into Iver's calculations; least of all did it concern him that he was breaking the girl's heart, and forever making it impossible for her to reconcile herself to her position.
As Iver walked home over the common, and enjoyed the warmth and brilliancy of the sun, he asked himself again, why his mother had not prepared him for the marriage of Mehetabel.
Mehetabel had certainly not taken Jonas because she loved him. She was above sordid considerations. What, then, had induced her to take the man? She had been happy and contented at the Ship; why, then, did she leave it?
On reaching home, he put the question to his mother. "It is a puzzle to me, which I cannot unravel, why has Matabel become Bideabout's wife?"
"Why should she not?" asked his mother in return. "It was a catch for such as she – a girl without a name, and bare of a dower. She has every reason to thank me for having pushed the marriage on."
Iver looked at his mother with surprise.
"Then you had something to do with it?"
"Of course I had," answered she. "I did my duty. I am not so young as I was. I had to think for Matabel's future. She is no child of mine. She can expect nothing from your father nor from me. When a good offer came, then I told her to accept and be thankful. She is a good girl, and has been useful in the house, and some people think her handsome. But young men don't court a girl who has no name, and has had three men hanged because of her."
"Mother! what nonsense! The men were executed because they murdered her father."
"It is all one. She is marked with the gallows. Ill-luck attaches to her. There has been a blight on her from the beginning. I mind when her father chucked her down all among the fly-poison. Now she has got the Broom-Squire, she may count herself lucky, and thank me for it."
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Iver. "Then this marriage is your doing?"
"Yes – I told her that, before you came here, I must have her clear out of the house."
"Why?"
A silence ensued. Mrs. Verstage looked at her son – into his great, brown eyes – and what she saw there alarmed her. Her lips moved to speak, but she could utter no words. She had let out her motive without consideration in the frankness that was natural to her.
"I ask, mother, why did you stop Matabel from writing, and take up the correspondence yourself at last; and then, when you did write to me at Guildford, you said not one word about Mehetabel being promised to the Broom-Squire?"
"I could not put all the news of the parish into my letter. How should I know that this concerned you?"
"We were together as children. If ever there were friends in the world, it was we."
"I am a bad writer. It takes me five minutes over one word, just about. I said what I had to say, and no more, and I were a couple o' days over that."
"Why did you ask me to postpone my coming home? – why seek to keep me away till after Mehetabel's marriage?"
"There was a lot to do in the house, preparation for the weddin' – her gownds – I couldn't have you here whilst all the rout was on. I wanted to have you come when all was quiet again, and I could think of you. What wi' preparations and schemin' my head was full."
"Was that the only reason, mother?"
She did not answer. Her eyes fell.
Iver threw his hat on the table, and went to his room. He was incensed against his mother. He guessed the reason why she had urged on the marriage, why she had kept him in ignorance of the engagement, why she had delayed his return to Thursley.
She had made her plans. She wished to marry him to Polly Colpus, and she dreaded his association with Mehetabel as likely to be prejudicial to the success of her cherished scheme, now that the girl was in the ripeness of her beauty and to Iver invested with the halo of young associations, of boy romance.
If his mother had told him! If she had not bidden him postpone his coming home! Then all would have turned out well. Mehetabel would not have been linked to an undesirable man, whom she could not love; and he would have been free to make her his own.
His heart was bitter as wormwood.
Mrs. Verstage saw but too plainly that her son was estranged from her; and she could form a rough estimate of the reason. He addressed her indeed with a semblance of love and showed her filial attention, but her maternal instinct assured her that something stood between them, something which took the reality and spontaneity out of his demonstrations of affection.
Iver occupied himself with the picture of Mehetabel at the fountain. It was his great pleasure to work thereon. If he was not engaged at his canvas in the tavern, he was wandering in the direction of the Punch-Bowl to make studies for pictures, so he said. His mother saw that there was no prospect of retaining her son at the Ship for long. What held him there was not love for her, desire to recover lost ground with his father, not a clinging to his old home, not a desire to settle and take up his father's work; it was something else – she feared to give utterance to the thought haunting her mind.
"You are a fool, old woman," said her husband to her one night. "You and I might have been easy and happy in our old age had you not meddled and made mischief. You always was a great person for lecturin' about Providence, and it's just about the one thing you won't let alone."
"What do you mean, Simon?" she asked, and her heart beat fast with presage of what he would say.
"Why, Susan, if you had not thrust Mehetabel into the Broom-Squire's arms when she didn't want to be there no more nor among brimbles, then Iver would have taken her and all would have been peace."
"What makes you say that?" she asked, in a flutter of terror.
"Oh, I'll be bound it would have been so. Iver has been asking
all manner of questions about Matabel, and why she took Jonas.
I sed it was agin my wishes, but that you would have it, so
Matabel had to give in."
"Simon, why did you say that? You set the boy against me."
"I don't see that, Sanna. It is you who have put the fat in the fire. If you try to turn a stream to run uphill, you will souse your own field, and won't get the water to go where you drive it. It's my belief that all the while he has been away, Iver has had his mind set upon Matabel. I'm not surprised. You may go through Surrey, and won't find her match. Now he comes home and finds that you have spoiled his chance, with your meddlesomeness – and there'll be the devil to pay, yet. That's my opinion."
The old man turned on his side and was asleep, but self-reproach for what was past and doubt as to the future kept his wife awake all night.
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."