Chapter Nine.
Alice decides for herself.
“Not that road, Mistress!”
Alice had nearly reached the end of the Market Place, when her husband’s harsh call arrested her. She had been walking slowly on, so that he might overtake her. On hearing this, she paused and waited for him to come up.
“That’s not the way to Canterbury!” said Mr Benden, seizing her by the wrist, and turning her round.
“I thought we were going home,” said Alice quietly.
“Methinks, Mistress, there’s somewhat wrong with your hearing this morrow. Heard you not the Justice commit you to gaol?”
“Truly I so did, Edward; but I heard also the constable to say that he would come for me when it should stand with his conveniency, and I reckoned it was thus settled.”
“Then you reckoned without your host. The constable hath given me money to carry you thither without delay, and that will I with a very good will.”
“Given you money!”
Through six years of unhappy married life Alice Benden had experienced enough of her husband’s constant caprice and frequent brutality; but this new development of it astonished her. She had not supposed that he would descend so far as to take the price of innocent blood. The tone of her voice, not indignant, but simply astonished, increased Mr Benden’s anger. The more gently she spoke, the harsher his voice grew. This is not unusual, when a man is engaged in wilfully doing what he knows to be wrong.
“Verily, your hearing must be evil this morrow, Mistress!” he said, with some wicked words to emphasise his remark. “The constable hath paid me a royal farthing, and here it is”—patting his pocket as he spoke—“and I have yet to earn it. Come, step out; we have no time to lose.”
Alice came to a sudden stand-still.
“No, Edward,” she said firmly. “You shall not carry me to gaol. I will have a care of your character, though you little regard mine. I pray you, unhand me, and I will go mine own self to the constable, and entreat him to take me, as his office and duty are.” (This part of the story, however extraordinary, is pure fact.)
In sheer amazement, Mr Benden’s hand unloosed from Alice’s arm; and seizing her opportunity, she walked rapidly back to the Court House. For a moment he stood considering what to do. He had little more concern for his own reputation than for hers; but he felt that if he followed her to the constable, he could scarcely avoid refunding that half-crown, a thing he by no means desired to do. This reflection decided him. He went quickly to the inn where he had left his horse, mounted, and rode home, leaving Alice to her own devices, to walk home or get taken to Canterbury in any way she could.
The constable was not less astonished than Mr Benden. He was not accustomed to receive visits from people begging to be taken to gaol. He scratched his head, put it on one side and looked at Alice as if she were a curiosity in an exhibition, then took off his cap again, and scratched his head on the other side.
“Well, to be sure!” he said at last. “To tell truth, my mistress, I know not what to do with you. I cannot mine own self win this day to Canterbury, and I have no place to tarry you here; nor have I any to send withal save yon lad.”
He pointed as he spoke to his son, a lad of about twelve years old, who sat on the bench by the Court House door, idly whistling, and throwing up a pebble to catch it again.
“Then, I pray you, Master Constable,” said Alice eagerly, “send the lad with me. I am loth to put you to this labour, but verily I am forced to it; and methinks you may lightly guess I shall not run away from custody.”
The constable laughed, but looked undecided.
“In very deed,” said he, “I see not wherefore you should not go home and tarry there, till such time as I come to fetch you. But if it must be, it must. I will go saddle mine horse, and he shall carry you to Canterbury with George.”
While the constable went to saddle the horse, and Alice sat on the bench waiting till it was ready, she fought with a very strong temptation. Her husband would not receive her, so much she knew for a certainty; but there were others who would. How welcome Roger would have made her! and what a perfect haven of rest it would be, to live even for a few days with him and Christabel! Her old father, too, at Frittenden, who had told her not many days before, with tears in his eyes, how bitterly he repented ever giving her to Edward Benden. It must be remembered that in those days girls were never permitted to choose for themselves, whether they wished to marry a man or not; the parents always decided that point, and sometimes, as in this instance, they came to a sadly mistaken decision. Alice had not chosen her husband, and he had never given her any reason to love him; but she had done her best to be a good wife, and even now she would not depart from it. The temptation was sore, and she almost gave way under it. But the constant habit of referring everything to God stood her in good stead in this emergency. To go and stay with her brother, whose visits to her Mr Benden had forbidden, would be sure to create a scandal, and to bring his name into even worse repute than it was at present. She must either be at Briton’s Mead or in Canterbury Gaol; and just now the gaol was the only possible place for her. Be it so! God would go with her into the gaol—perhaps more certainly than into Roger’s home. And the place where she could be sure of having God with her was the place where Alice chose and wished to be.
Her heart sank heavily as she heard the great door of the gaol clang to behind her. Alice was made of no materials more all-enduring than flesh and blood. She could enjoy rest and pleasantness quite as well as other people. And she wondered drearily, as she went down the steps into the women’s room, how long she was to stay in that unrestful and unpleasant place.
“Why, are you come again?” said one of the prisoners, as Alice descended the steps. “What, you wouldn’t conform? Well, no more would I.”
Alice recognised the face of a decent-looking woman who had come in the same day that she was released, and in whom she had felt interested at the time from her quiet, tidy appearance, though she had no opportunity of speaking to her. She sat down now on the bench by her side.
“Are you here for the like cause, friend? I mind your face, methinks, though I spake not to you aforetime.”
“Ay, we row in the same boat,” said the woman with a pleasant smile, “and may as well make us known each to other. My name’s Rachel Potkin, and I come from Chart Magna: I’m a widow, and without children left to me, for which I thank the Lord now, though I’ve fretted o’er it many a time. Strange, isn’t it, we find it so hard to remember that He sees the end from the beginning, and so hard to believe that He is safe to do the best for us?”
“Ay, and yet not strange,” said Alice with a sigh. “Life’s weary work by times.”
“It is so, my dear heart,” answered Rachel, laying a sympathising hand on Alice’s. “But, bethink you, He’s gone through it. Well, and what’s your name?”
“My name is Alice Benden, from Staplehurst.”
“Are you a widow?”
Had Tabitha been asked that question in the same circumstances, she would not improbably have replied, “No; worse luck!” But Alice, as we have seen, was tender over her husband’s reputation. She only returned a quiet negative. Rachel, whose eyes were keen, and ears ditto, heard something in the tone, and saw something in the eyes, which Alice had no idea was there to see and hear, that made her say to herself, “Ah, poor soul! he’s a bad sort, not a doubt of it.” Aloud she only said,—
“And how long look you to be here—have you any notion?”
Prisoners in our milder days are committed to prison for a certain term. In those days there was no fixed limit. A man never knew for a certainty, when he entered the prison, whether he would remain there for ten days or for fifty years. He could only guess from appearances how long it might be likely to be.
“Truly, friend, that know I not. God knoweth.”
“Well said, Mistress Benden. Let us therefore give thanks, and take our hearts to us.”
Just then the gaoler came up to them.
“Birds of a feather, eh?” said he, with not unkindly humour. For a gaoler, he was not a hard man. “Mistress Benden, your allowance is threepence by the day—what shall I fetch you?”
The prisoners were permitted to buy their own food through the prison officials, up to the value of their daily allowance. Alice considered a moment.
“A pennyworth of bread, an’ it like you, Master; a farthing’s worth of beef; a farthing’s worth of eggs; and a pennyworth of ale. The halfpenny, under your good pleasure, I will keep in hand.”
Does the reader exclaim, Was that the whole day’s provision? Indeed it was, and a very fair day’s provision too. For this money Alice would receive six rolls or small loaves of bread, a pound of beef, two eggs, and a pint of ale,—quite enough for supper and breakfast. The ale was not so much as it seems, for they drank ale at every meal, even breakfast, only invalids using milk. To drink water was thought a dreadful hardship, and they had no tea or coffee.
The gaoler nodded and departed.
“Look you, Mistress Benden,” said Rachel Potkin, “I have thought by times to try, being here in this case, on how little I could live, so as to try mine endurance, and fit me so to do if need were. Shall we essay it together, think you? Say I well?”
“Very well, Mistress Potkin; I were fain to make the trial. How much is your allowance by the day?”
“The like of yours—threepence.”
“We will try on how little we can keep in fair health,” said Alice with a little laugh, “and save our money for time of more need. On what shall we do it, think you?”
“Why, I reckon we may look to do it on fourpence betwixt us.”
“Oh, surely!” said Alice. “Threepence, I well-nigh think.”
While this bargain was being made, Mr Benden sat down to supper, a pork pie standing before him, a dish of toasted cheese to follow, and a frothed tankard of ale at his elbow. Partly owing to her mistress’s exhortations, Mary had changed her tactics, and now sought to mollify her master by giving him as good a supper as she knew how to serve. But Mr Benden was hard to please this evening. “The pork is as tough as leather,” he declared; “the cheese is no better than sawdust, and the ale is flat as ditch-water.” And he demanded of Mary, in rasping tones, if she expected such rubbish to agree with him?
“Ah!” said Mary to herself as she shut the door on him, “’tis your conscience, Master, as doesn’t agree with you.”