Johnny Ludlow, First Series

“Do you mean to set up a pig, Grizzel?”

Grizzel’s face was all one smile. Of course they did. With such a fortune as she had come into, she intended herself and her husband to have everything good about them, including a pig.

“I’ll give Grizzel away,” wrote Tod when he heard the news of the legacy and the projected marriage. “It will be fun! And if you people at home don’t present her with her wedding-gown it will be a stingy shame. Let it have a good share of blue bows.”

“No, though, will he!” exclaimed Grizzel with sparkling eyes, when told of the honour designed her by Tod. “Give me away! Him! I’ve always said there’s not such another gentleman in these parts as Mr. Joseph.”

The banns were put up, and matters progressed smoothly; with one solitary exception. When Sandy Lett heard of the treason going on behind his back, he was ready to drop with blighted love and mortification. A three-days’ weather blight was nothing to his. Quite forgetting modesty, he made his fierce way into the house, without saying with your leave or by your leave, and thence to the dairy where Grizzel stood making-up butter, startling the girl so much with his white face and wild eyes that she stepped back into a pan of cream. Then he enlarged upon her iniquity, and wound up by assuring her that neither she nor her “coward of a Roper” could ever come to good. After that, he left her alone, making no further stir.

Grizzel quitted the Manor and went into the cottage, which the Squire had agreed to let to them: Roper was to come to it on the wedding-day. A daughter of Goody Picker’s, one Mary Standish (whose husband had a habit of going off on roving trips and staying away until found and brought back by the parish), stayed with Grizzel, helping her to put the cottage in habitable order, and arrange in it the articles she bought. That sum of forty pounds seemed to be doing wonders: I told Grizzel I could not have made a thousand go as far.

“Any left, Master Johnny? Why of course I shall have plenty left,” she said. “After buying the bed and the set o’ drawers and the chairs and tables; and the pots and pans and crockeryware for the kitchen; and the pig and a cock and hen or two; and perviding a joint of roast pork and some best tea and white sugar for the wedding-day, we shall still have pounds and pounds on’t left. ’Tisn’t me, sir, nor George nether, that ’ud like to lavish away all we’ve got and put none by for a rainy day.”

“All right, Grizzel. I am going to give you a tea-caddy.”

“Well now, to think of that, Master Johnny!” she said, lifting her hands. “And after the mistress giving me such a handsome gownd!—and the servants clubbing together, and bringing a roasting oven and beautiful set o’ flat irons. Roper and me’ll be set up like a king and queen.”

On Saturday, the day before that fixed for the wedding, I and Tod were passing the cottage—a kind of miniature barn, to look at, with a thatched roof, and a broken grindstone at the door—and went in: rather to the discomfiture of Grizzel and Mrs. Standish, who had their petticoats shortened and their arms bare, scouring and scrubbing and making ready for the morrow. Returning across the fields later, we saw Grizzel at the door, gazing out all ways at once.

“Consulting the stars as to whether it will be fine to-morrow, Grizzel?” cried Tod, who was never at a loss for a ready word.

“I was a-looking out for Mary Standish, sir,” she said. “George Roper haven’t been here to-night, and we be all at doubtings about several matters he was to have come in to settle. First he said he’d go on betimes to the church o’ Sunday morning; then he said he’d come here and we’d all walk together: and it was left at a uncertainty. There’s the blackberry pie, too, that he’ve not brought.”

“The blackberry pie!” said I.

“One that Mrs. Dodd, where he lodges, have made a present of to us for dinner, Master Johnny. Roper was to ha’ brought it in to-night ready. It won’t look well to see him carrying of a baked-pie on a Sunday morning, when he’ve got on his wedding-coat. I can’t think where he have got to!”

At this moment, some one was seen moving towards us across the field path. It proved to be Mary Standish: her gown turned up over her head, and a pie in her hands the size of a pulpit cushion. Red syrup was running down the outside of the dish, and the crust looked a little black at the edges.

“My, what a big beauty!” exclaimed Grizzel.

“Do take it, Grizzel, for my hands be all cramped with its weight,” said Mrs. Standish: who, as it turned out, had been over to Roper’s lodgings, a mile and a half away, with a view to seeing what had become of the bridegroom elect. And she nearly threw the pie into Grizzel’s arms, and took down her gown.

“And what do Roper say?” asked Grizzel. “And why have he not been here?”

“Roper’s not at home,” said Mary Standish. “He come in from work about six; washed and put hisself to rights a bit, and then went out with a big bundle. Mrs. Dodd called after him to bring the pie, but he called back again that the pie might wait.”

“What was in the bundle?” questioned Grizzel, resenting the slight shown to the pie.

“Well, by the looks on’t, Mother Dodd thought ’twas his working clothes packed up,” replied Mary Standish.

“His working clothes!” cried Grizzel.

“A going to take ’em to the tailor’s, maybe, to get ’em done up. And not afore they wanted it.”

“Why, it’s spending money for nothing,” was Grizzel’s comment. “I could ha’ done up them clothes.”

“Well, it’s what Mother Dodd thought,” concluded Mary Standish.

We said good night, and went racing home, leaving the two women at the door, Grizzel lodging the heavy blackberry pie on the old grindstone.

It was a glorious day for Grizzel’s wedding. The hour fixed by the clerk (old Bumford) was ten o’clock, so that it might be got well over before the bell rang out for service. We reached the church early. Amongst the few spectators already there was cross-grained Molly, pocketing her ill-temper and for once meaning to be gracious to Grizzel.

Ten o’clock struck, and the big old clock went ticking on. Clerk Bumford (a pompous man when free from gout) began abusing the wedding-party for not keeping its time. The quarter past was striking when Grizzel came up, with Mary Standish and a young girl. She looked white and nervous, and not at all at ease in her bridal attire—a green gown of some kind of stuff, and no end of pink ribbons: the choice of colours being Grizzel’s own.

“Is Roper here yet?” whispered Mary Standish.

“Not yet.”

“It’s too bad of him!” she continued. “Never to send a body word whether he meant to call for us, or not: and us a waiting there till now, expecting of him.”

But where was George Roper? And (as old Bumford asked) what did he mean by it? The clergyman in his surplice and hood looked out at the vestry twice, as if questioning what the delay meant. We stood just inside the porch, and Grizzel grew whiter and whiter.

“Just a few minutes more o’ this delay, and there won’t be no wedding at all this blessed morning,” announced Clerk Bumford for the public benefit. “George Roper wants a good blowing up, he do.”

Ere the words were well spoken, a young man named Dicker, who was a fellow-lodger of Roper’s and was to have accompanied him to church, made his appearance alone. That something had gone wrong was plainly to be seen: but, what with the publicity of his present position, and what with the stern clerk pouncing down upon him in wrath, the young man could hardly get his news out.

In the first place, Roper had never been home all night; never been seen, in short, since he had left Mrs. Dodd’s with the bundle, as related by Mary Standish. That morning, while Dicker in his consternation knew not what to be at—whether to be off to church alone, or to wait still, in the hope that Roper would come—two notes were delivered at Mrs. Dodd’s by a strange boy: the one addressed to himself, John Dicker, the other to “Miss Clay,” meaning Grizzel. They bore ill news; George Roper had given up his marriage, and gone away for good.

At this extraordinary crisis, pompous Clerk Bumford was so taken aback, that he could only open his mouth and stare. It gave Dicker the opportunity to put in a few words.

“What we thought at Mother Dodd’s was, that Roper had took a drop too much somewhere last evening, and couldn’t get home. He’s as sober a man as can be—but whatever else was we to think? And when this writed note come this morning, and we found he had gone off to Ameriky o’ purpose to avoid being married, we was downright floundered. This is yours, Grizzel,” added the young man in as gently considerate a tone as any gentleman could have used.

Grizzel’s hand shook as she took the letter he held out. She was biting her pale lips hard to keep down emotion. “Take it and read it,” she whispered to Mary Standish—for in truth she herself could not, with all that sea of curious eyes upon her.

But Mary Standish laboured under the slight disadvantage of not being able to read writing: conscious of this difficulty, she would not touch the letter. Mr. Bumford, his senses and his tongue returning together, snatched it without ceremony out of Grizzel’s hand.

“I’ll read it,” said he. And he did so. And I, Johnny Ludlow, give you the copy verbatim.

“Der Grisl, saterdy evenin, this comes hoppin you be wel as it leves me at presint, Which this is to declar to you der grisl that our marage is at an end, it hav ben to much for me and praid on my sperits, I cant stand it no longer nohow and hav took my leve of you for ivir, Der Grisl I maks my best way this night to Livirpol to tak ship for Ameriky, and my last hops for you hearby xprest is as you may be hapy with annother, I were nivir worthey of you der grisl and thats a fac, but I kep it from you til now when I cant kep it no longer cause of my conshunse, once youv red this hear letter dont you nivir think no mor on me agen, which I shant on you, Adew for ivir,

“your unfortnit friend George Roper.

“Ide av carred acros that ther blakbured pi but shoud have ben to late, my good hops is youl injoy the pi with another better nor you ivir could along with me, best furwel wishes to Mary Standish. G R.”

What with the penmanship and what with the spelling, it took old Bumford’s spectacles some time to get through. A thunderbolt could hardly have made more stir than this news. No one spoke, however; and Mr. Bumford folded the letter in silence.

“I always knowed what that there Roper was worth,” broke forth Molly. “He pipe-clayed my best black cloak on the sly one day when I ordered him off the premises. You be better without him, Grizzel, girl—and here’s my hand and wishing you better luck in token of it.”

“Mrs. Dodd was right—them was a change a’ clothes he was a taking with him to Ameriky,” added Mary Standish.

“Roper’s a jail-bird, I should say,” put in old Bumford. “A nice un too.”

“But what can it be that’s went wrong—what is it that have took him off?” wondered the young man, Dicker.

The parson in his surplice had come down the aisle and was standing to listen. Grizzel, in the extremity of mental bitterness and confusion, but striving to put a face of indifference on the matter before the public, gazed around helplessly.

“I’m better without him, as Molly says—and what do I care?” she cried recklessly, her lips quivering. The parson put his hand gravely on her arm.

“My good young woman, I think you are in truth better without him. Such a man as that is not worthy of a regret.”

“No, sir, and I don’t and won’t regret him,” was her rapid answer, the voice rising hysterically.

As she turned, intending to leave the church, she came face to face with Sandy Lett. I had seen him standing there, drinking in the words of the note with all his ears and taking covert looks at Grizzel.

“Don’t pass me by, Grizzel,” said he. “I feel hearty sorry for all this, and I hope that villain’ll come to be drowned on his way to Ameriky. Let me be your friend. I’ll make you a good one.”

“Thank you,” she answered. “Please let me go by.”

“Look here, Grizzel,” he rejoined with a start, as if some thought had at that moment occurred to him. “Why shouldn’t you and me make it up together? Now. If the one bridegroom’s been a wicked runagate, and left you all forsaken, you see another here ready to put on his shoes. Do, Grizzel, do!”

“Do what?” she asked, not taking his meaning.

“Let’s be married, Grizzel. You and me. There’s the parson and Mr. Bumford all ready, and we can get it over afore church begins. It’s a good home I’ve got to take you to. Don’t say nay, my girl.”

Now what should Grizzel do? Like the lone lorn widow in “David Copperfield,” who, when a ship’s carpenter offered her marriage, “instead of saying, ‘Thank you, sir, I’d rather not,’ up with a bucket of water and dashed it over him,” Grizzel “up” with her hand and dealt Mr. Sandy a sounding smack on his left cheek. Smarting under the infliction, Sandy Lett gave vent to a word or two of passion, out of place in a church, and the parson administered a reprimand.

Grizzel had not waited. Before the sound of her hand had died away, she was outside the door, quickly traversing the lonely churchyard. A fine end to poor Grizzel’s wedding!

The following day, Monday, Mrs. Todhetley went over to the cottage. Grizzel, sitting with her hands before her, started up, and made believe to be desperately busy with some tea-cups. We were all sorry for her.

“Mr. Todhetley has been making inquiry into this business, Grizzel,” said the Mater, “and it certainly seems more mysterious than ever, for he cannot hear a word against Roper. His late master says Roper was the best servant he ever had; he is as sorry to lose him as can be.”

“Oh, ma’am, but he’s not worth troubling about—my thanks and duty to the master all the same.”

“Would you mind letting me see Roper’s note?”

Grizzel took it out of the tea-caddy I had given her—which caddy was to have been kept for show. Mrs. Todhetley, mastering the contents, and biting her lips to suppress an occasional smile, sat in thought.

“I suppose this is Roper’s own handwriting, Grizzel?”

“Oh, ma’am, it’s his, safe enough. Not that I ever saw him write. He talks about the blackberry pie, you see; one might know it is his by that.”

“Then, judging by what he says here, he must have got into some bad conduct, or trouble, I think, which he has been clever enough to keep from you and the world.”

“Oh yes, that’s it,” said Grizzel. “Poor mother used to say one might be deceived in a saint.”

“Well, it’s a pity but he had given some clue to its nature: it would have been a sort of satisfaction. But now—I chiefly came over to ask you, Grizzel, what you purpose to do?”

“There’s only one thing for me now, ma’am,” returned poor crestfallen Grizzel, after a pause: “I must get another place.”

“Will you come back to the Manor?”

A hesitation—a struggle—and then she flung her apron up to her face and burst into tears. Dairy-maids have their feelings as well as their betters, and Grizzel’s “lines” were very bitter just then. She had been so proud of this poor cottage home; she had grown to love it so in only those few days, and to look forward to years of happiness within it in their humble way: and now to find that she must give it up and go to service again!

“The Squire says he will consider it as though you and Roper had not taken the cottage; and he thinks he can find some one to rent it who will buy the furniture of you—that is, if you prefer to sell it,” she resumed very kindly. “And I think you had better come back to us, Grizzel. The new maid in your place does not suit at all.”

Grizzel took down her apron and rubbed her eyes. “It’s very good of you, ma’am—and of the master—and I’d like to come back only for one thing. I’m afraid Molly would let me have no peace in my life: she’d get tanking at me about Roper before the others. Perhaps I’d hardly be able to stand it.”

“I will talk to her,” said Mrs. Todhetley, rising to leave. “Where is Mary Standish to-day?”

“Gone over to Alcester, ma’am. She had a errand there she said. But I think it was only to tell her folks the tale of my trouble.”

Molly had her “talking to” at once. It put her out a little; for she was really feeling some pity for Grizzel, and did not at all intend to “get tanking” at her. Molly had once experienced a similar disappointment herself; and her heart was opening to Grizzel. After her dinner was served that evening, she ran over to the cottage, in her coarse cooking apron and without a bonnet.

“Look here,” she said, bursting in upon Grizzel, sitting alone in the dusk. “You come back to your place if you like—the missis says she has given you the option—and don’t you be afeard of me. ’Tisn’t me as’ll ever give back to you a word about Roper; and, mind, when I says a thing I mean it.”

“Thank you, Molly,” humbly replied poor Grizzel, catching her breath.

“The sooner you come back the better,” continued Molly, fiercely. “For it’s not me and that wench we’ve got now as is going to stop together. I had to call the missis into the dairy this blessed morning, and show her the state it was in. So you’ll come back, Grizzel—and we’ll be glad to see you.”

Grizzel nodded her head: her heart was too full to speak.

“And as to that false villain of a Roper, as could serve a woman such a pitiful trick, I only wish I had the doctoring of him! He should get a—a—a–” Molly’s voice, pitched in a high tone, died gradually away. What on earth was it, stepping in upon them? Some most extraordinary object, who opened the door softly, and came in with a pitch. Molly peered at it in the darkness with open mouth.

A cry from Grizzel. A cry half of terror, half of pain. For she had recognized the object to be a man, and George Roper. George Roper with his hair and handsome whiskers cut off, and white sleeves in his brown coat—so that he looked like a Merry Andrew.

He seemed three parts stupefied: not at all like a traveller in condition to set off to America. Sinking into the nearest wooden chair, he stared at Grizzel in a dazed way, and spoke in a slow, questioning, wondering voice.

“I can’t think what it is that’s the matter with me.”

“Where be your whiskers—and your hair?” burst forth Molly.

The man gazed at her for a minute or two, taking in the question gradually; he then raised his trembling hand to either side his face—feeling for the whiskers that were no longer there.

“A nice pot o’ mischief you’ve been a getting into!” cried sharp Molly. “Is that your own coat? What’s gone of the sleeves?”

For, now that the coat could be seen closely, it turned out that its sleeves had been cut out, leaving the bare white shirt-sleeves underneath. Roper looked first at one arm, then at the other.

“What part of Ameriky be you bound for, and when do the ship sail?” pursued sarcastic Molly.

The man opened his mouth and closed it again; like a born natural, as Molly put it. Grizzel suddenly clung to him with a sobbing cry.

“He is ill, Molly; he’s ill. He has had some trick played on him. George, what be it?” But still George Roper only gazed about him as if too stupid to understand.

In short, the man was stupid. That is, he had been stupefied, and as yet was only partially recovering its effects. He remembered going into the barber’s shop on Saturday night to have his hair cut, after leaving his bundle of clothes at the tailor’s. Some ale was served round at the barber’s, and he, Roper, took a glass. After that he remembered nothing: all was blank, until he woke up an hour ago in the unused shed at the back of the blacksmith’s shop.

That the ale had been badly drugged, was evident. The question arose—who had played the trick? In a day or two, when Roper had recovered, an inquiry was set on foot: but nothing came of it. The barber testified that Roper seemed sleepy after the ale, and a joke went round that he must have been drinking some previously. He went out of the shop without having his hair cut, with several more men—and that was all the barber knew. Of course Sandy Lett was suspected. People said he had done it in hope to get himself substituted as bridegroom. Lett, however, vowed through thick and thin that he was innocent; and nothing was traced home to him. Neither was the handwriting of the note.

They were married on the Thursday. Grizzel was too glad to get him back unharmed to make bones about the shorn whiskers. No difficulty was made about opening the church on a week-day. Clerk Bumford grumbled at it, but the parson put him down. And the blackberry pie served still for the wedding-dinner.

XVII.

BREAKING DOWN

“Have him here a bit.”

“Oh! But would you like it?”

“Like it?” retorted the Squire. “I know this: if I were a hard-worked London clerk, ill for want of change and rest, and I had friends living in a nice part of the country, I should feel it uncommonly hard if they did not invite me.”

“I’m sure it is very kind of you to think of it,” said Mrs. Todhetley.

“Write at once and ask him,” said the Squire.

They were speaking of a Mr. Marks. He was a relation of Mrs. Todhetley’s; a second or third cousin. She had not seen him since she was a girl, when he used sometimes to come and stay at her father’s. He seemed not to have got on very well in life; was only a clerk on a small salary, was married and had some children. A letter now and then passed between them and Mrs. Todhetley, but no other acquaintanceship had been kept up. About a month before this, Mrs. Todhetley had written to ask how they were going on; and the wife in answering—for it was she who wrote—said her husband was killing himself with work, and she quite believed he would break down for good unless he had a rest.

We heard more about it later. James Marks was clerk in the great financial house of Brown and Co. Not particularly great as to reputation, for they made no noise in the world, but great as to their transactions. They did a little banking in a small way, and had mysterious money dealings with no end of foreign places: but if you had gone into their counting-house in London you’d have seen nothing to show for it, except Mr. Brown seated at a table-desk in a small room, and half-a-dozen clerks, or so, writing hard, or bending over columns of figures, in a larger one. Mr. Brown was an elderly little gentleman in a chestnut wig, and the “Co.” existed only in name.

James Marks had been thrown on the world when he was seventeen, with a good education, good principles, and a great anxiety to get on in life. He had to do it; for he had only himself to look to—and, mind you, I have lived long enough to learn that that’s not at all the worst thing a young man can have. When some friends of his late father’s got him into Brown and Co.’s house, James Marks thought his fortune was made. That is, he thought he was placed in a position to work up to one. But no. Here he was, getting on for forty years of age, and with no more prospect of fortune, or competency either, than he had had at the beginning.

How many clerks, and especially bankers’ clerks, are there in that City of London now who could say the same! Who went into their house (whatsoever it may be) in the hey-day of youth, exulting in their good luck in having obtained the admission for which so many others were striving. They saw not the long years of toil before them, the weary days of close work, with no rest or intermission, except Sunday; they saw not the struggle to live and pay; they saw not themselves middle-aged men, with a wife and family, hardly able to keep the wolf from the door. It was James Marks’s case. He had married. And what with having to keep up the appearance of gentlepeople (at least to make a pretence at it) and to live in a decent-looking dwelling, and to buy clothes, and to pay doctors’ bills and children’s schooling, I’ll leave you to guess how much he had left for luxuries out of his two hundred a year.

When expenses were coming upon him thick and fast, Marks sought out some night employment. A tradesman in the neighbourhood—Pimlico—a butterman doing a flourishing business, advertised for a book-keeper to attend two or three hours in the evening. James Marks presented himself and was engaged. It had to be done in secrecy, lest offence should be taken at head-quarters. Had the little man in the chestnut wig heard of it, he might have objected to his clerk keeping any books but his own. Shut up in the butterman’s small back-closet that he called his counting-house, Mr. Marks could be as private as need be. So there he was! After coming home from his day’s toil, instead of taking recreation, the home-sitting with his wife, or the stroll in the summer weather, in place of throwing work to the winds and giving his brain rest, James Marks, after snatching a meal, tea and supper combined, went forth to work again, to weary his eyes with more figures and his head with casting them up. He generally managed to get home by eleven except on Saturday; but the day’s work was too much for any man. Better for him (could he have pocketed pride, and gained over Brown and Co.) that he had hired himself to stand behind the evening counter and serve out the butter and cheese to the customers. It would at least have been a relief from the accounts. And so the years had gone on.