II
Again Deb and Keturah confronted each other in the kitchen.
“Och, och, to think it!” sighed Deb.
“Well, ’tis natural, now isn’t it? They were old people.”
“Aye, but she’s that lonely; ’tis pitiful to see her distress.”
“But they died peaceful; neither one wanted other more than three hours; I’m thinkin’ the old man barely set foot in heaven before the old woman was travellin’ after him. If the Lord had ’a’ planned that,—and perhaps He did,—He couldn’t have done better, now could He? If Peter has the keys, as master says he has, he must have smiled to see those two old people hurryin’ so to get in together, the old woman with that hasty step of hers a-skippin’ after him.”
“Aye, aye, they went together,” sighed Deb, wiping away tears; “but, och! the mistress is like a distracted creature, pacin’ up and down, up and down the house, wringin’ her hands, her soft, pretty eyes all cried out, an’ goin’ every day to the grave where those poor souls lie.”
“Poor souls,” sniffed Keturah, “nothin’ could satisfy ye, Deborah. They’re lyin’ side by side in the same grave on earth, an’ singin’ an’ rejoicin’ hand-in-hand in heaven. Ye think too little an’ talk too much,” concluded Keturah, who thus far had done most of the talking herself.
The old woman had no patience with sentimentality about death, for she had served forty years in a minister’s family, where life in its birth, its growth, its death, had come and gone about her with epical fullness. There was little human history that Keturah’s old eyes had not as calmly surveyed as they looked now upon the tearful face of Deb.
“But she weeps so, poor dear, an’ the only time she seemed more cheerful was when the pastor came to bury the old people. When they came back from the grave she begged him to stay awhile, but he couldn’t, an’ then she cried an’ cried again, poor child.”
“Well, well,” said Keturah, with a shrewd, troubled look, “’tis a pity.”
“But he loves her, now doesn’t he?”
“Aye, he does whatever.”
“T’was only a week ago,” said Deb, patting herself on her corsage again, “I was sayin’ somethin’ was comin’; an’ I thought then, when we were talkin’ ’twould be their gettin’ married, aye, I did indeed.”
“Indeed, so ye did,” Keturah repeated. “Tut, there’s the knocker clappin’. Now who would be comin’ this late, and the master so tired?”
Keturah hobbled swiftly through the kitchen and narrow hallway to the door.
“Well, Mrs. Morgan!”
“Yes, Keturah, is your master in?”
“Aye, in his study; will ye go in there?”
To the Reverend Samson Jones, since the death of the widow Morgan’s parents, life had seemed nothing more dignified than a low gambling game. He had done what he believed a man should do; after protracted delay and a final self-conquest greater than any one knew, he had done the thing duty told him to do. Had he delayed twenty-four hours longer to do this duty, that for which he had waited and longed through six years would have been his. Now, horse and rider had stumbled together, and all the principles which have been as a guide-post to his fervid spirit lay prostrate with him.
When the door opened and the widow Morgan came in, Samson Jones was sitting idly in his study-chair, nerveless and confused, one moment saying to himself that he would send for Jane Elin and tell her all, the next minute terrified at the very thought, and the third moment condemning himself for lack of courage to accept what had come upon him through no fault of his own. The aspect of his thin, long face had become so ghastly, and the confusion of his words so unusual, that not only had Keturah and Jane Elin watched him with alarm, but the deacons and good-wives of Gelligaer began to question, to talk of the oncoming of the spring and its bad effect on the system, to suggest a holiday for their beloved pastor; and one good-wife had gone so far as to consult Keturah and to write to Mrs. Jones, his mother. His thoughts and feelings were like filings with no centrifugal force to gather them in. As he jumped to his feet with the exclamation, “Dolly!” these thoughts and feelings flocked swiftly about the love he had for her.
The widow’s eyes looked red and her voice quavered as she said, “I am so lonely, Samson, och, so lonely!”
“Aye,” said Samson, trying to shift his glance from her appealing face.
Dolly dropped into a chair and slipped back her scarf. Her chin trembled pitifully. “I am so lonely, Samson; I thought perhaps you had forgotten me?”
“No, I’ve not indeed.”
“Well, and don’t you love me any more? I thought you’d never forget.”
“Aye, I love you but—but——”
At this Dolly rushed upon him like an impulsive, gladdened child. “Och, then, nothing else matters, nothing at all whatever!” She clung to him eagerly, and with her arms about him the last vestige of Samson Jones’s resolution was quenched.
After that, through the blissful evening he knew nothing but blind snatching at ecstasy. He tried to forget everything. That night, when he saw Dolly home, she was an appeased, contented child whose only thought of the morrow is the untroubled one that it will come again and again with the same delicious happiness.
But never had Samson Jones known anything like the week that followed, with its dissimulations petty and large, its pained irresolution, its alternations between ecstasy and despair. The surface of his mild zealous eyes had come to have the feverish look of a man living in a delirium. With Jane Elin he was gallant, attentive, punctilious, a finished lover. With Dolly he gave himself up so to the luxury of their love, that the widow Morgan wondered why she had not seen before the extravagant passionateness of his nature.
For her part, Jane Elin rang again and again on the surface of this emotion called love and listened with troubled ears to the hollow sounds within. Jane Elin had had just twenty-four hours in which to rejoice undisturbed in her new happiness. She was no idle sentimentalist, afraid to face the truth, or with rose-coloured glasses through which to look at the truth. Up to this point she had seen clearly the course of events and the ninepins fate had played with a question she believed finally settled. At last the widow was free, and Jane Elin was sober-thoughted at the new aspect that that fact put upon her relations to the minister. With both, despite the fact that Samson Jones was exceeding in devotion to each the highest expectation either could have held, intuition of something wrong about their lover made them keenly anxious.
On the Sunday after this week that Gelligaer will never forget, the minister, without a note of any kind on the desk or in his hand, preached a sermon of extraordinary power. And the old white-haired deacons sitting in a row around the pulpit nodded their heads approvingly, for it seemed to them that the good old times of fifty years ago were coming back, when all preaching in Wales was extemporaneous. Keturah alone looked with troubled face upon the minister, certain that a catastrophe was overtaking him, at the nature of which she had shrewdly guessed. And it was the Monday following this Sunday that the Reverend Samson Jones made a convulsive resolution to see Jane Elin and tell her all. He would send for her to come to his pastoral study; it would be easier to talk with her there. His action in sending for Jane Elin was like the action of the man who instinctively puts out his hand to shield his head from a blow, for Samson Jones saw the calamity coming upon him.
He stood with down-dropped eyes as she came into the study, fingering the objects on his writing-table.
Jane Elin went up to him swiftly. “What is it, Samson? Has anything happened? Do you need me?”
“Aye, I have been meaning this last week—it seemed only right—I don’t see how it is possible—I——”
“Och, tell me, Samson, tell me quickly, what is it?”
“Well, that day two weeks ago——”
“Dear, dear!” Jane Elin interjected, turning pale.
Samson Jones was thinking of an escape, any escape—this was too horrible, he could not continue with it—when his eye fell on a letter just received from his mother in answer to the one sent by the deacon’s wife, and the word “mother” flashed over his whole being like a great light revealing a path in the darkness. The joy in the freedom that came to him with this thought was almost too great for him to bear. His mother would help him.
“My mother,” he stammered, “my mother, och, it is too horrible!”
“Dear anwyl!” said Jane pitifully, thinking of sickness or of death. “Is it that bad?”
“Aye,” he muttered, looking around wildly, and then at his watch; “there’s just time to catch the narrow-gauge to Qwyllyn. Och, goodbye!” And he was gone.
With a sense of real relief, Jane Elin stood still a moment. It was that, after all, which had been worrying him. Why had he not told her before that his mother was ill?
She walked thoughtfully toward the kitchen. “Keturah, is she very ill?”
“Who?”
“The master’s mother; he told me to tell you he’d gone to catch the narrow-gauge. Is she?”
Keturah’s eyes widened and contracted as she said, “Aye, very.”
“Och, ’tis too bad! I must go to him.”
“Nay, nay, there’s no need, Miss Williams, he’ll manage somehow.”
“Aye, but I can nurse her; yes, I must go; I can get the next train.”
“Well, ye know best,” replied Keturah.
Keturah continued to sit by the fire, muttering to herself: “Well, well indeed, ’tis as I thought; dear, the poor lass, the poor lad! Trouble, trouble, trouble!” She leaned forward to stir the pot. “He’ll not be wantin’ it, not at all.” Keturah dwelt moodily on her thoughts, with no change in attitude except when she took the oat-cake from the skillet and reached forward to stir the pot. “’Tis certain disgrace whatever; och, och, the poor lad!”
Suddenly there was the rush of hurrying feet and Deb came in breathless and excited. “Well, well, he’s gone, and I didn’t know that his mother——” she gasped.
“Aye, he went over an hour ago,” interrupted Keturah.
“He was passin’ the window, an’ my mistress saw him an’ called to him; but he wouldn’t stay, he said he couldn’t, he was runnin’ to catch the train.”
“Aye, so he was indeed,” agreed Keturah.
“An’ she ordered me to pack up an’ call the coach, an’ so I did; she thought she’d get there all the quicker to help him than by takin’ the train an’ makin’ so many changes.”
“Jane Elin’s gone, too; she left Gelligaer over half an hour past,” said Keturah slowly.
“The schoolmistress gone?” questioned Deb.
“What for, indeed?”
“To be with him.”
“To be with him!”
“Aye, ye’re blind, blind as a bat, Deborah, an’ that trustin’ ye see nothin’ and believe anythin’. Believin’ the whale swallowed Jonah is nothin’ to what ye’re capable of takin’ on faith,” ended Keturah, with infinite sarcasm.
“Dear, dear, dear, Keturah, I cannot believe this whatever! What shall we do? Och, the disgrace it’ll be!”
There was an imperative rap on the door: “Keturah, where is my sister?”
“Gone, Mr. Tudur, to be with the minister.”
“She left word his mother was ill. I do not believe it. Is she?”
“Nay, to my knowledge, the old lady Jones is not ill.”
“Och, the scoundrel! I thought it of him. There, you Deb, where’s your mistress?”
“She’s—she’s gone, too,” Deb answered, shaking from her ankles up.
“Gone where?”
“To Qwyllyn.”
“I’ll go after,” he shouted, slamming the door.
Keturah sank back by the fire. “Well, indeed, well, indeed!” she said, with the peaceful accent of one who has accomplished an end, “they’re all off now. Ye’ve no need to cry, for what will be, will be,” she continued dryly to Deb, who was sobbing. “The old lady Jones will manage.”
“Och, but ’tis shockin’, shockin’; an’ they’ll never have him in Gelligaer again.”
“So ’tis. Well, they’re all on the road now. The master’s about at Dinas; Jane Elin, if her train’s on time, is at Llanengan; the widow Morgan, if her coach is makin’ good speed, is about at Abersoch; and Tudur’s just leavin’ Gelligaer. The old lady Jones will have her hands full, but she’s a wise old lady, a very wise old lady. ’Twill all get settled when she takes it up, aye, so ’twill.”
[A Last Discipline]
“Barbara, the flummery’s sour!”
Samuel pushed back his dish and dropped his spoon.
“Aye, dad, a bit sour; I’m sorry.”
“A bit sour!” exclaimed the husband, “a bit sour! tut, more’n a bit sour, whatever!”
Barbara looked at him, the corners of her sweet old mouth trembling, “Father, I’m sorry; I thought it was better nor usual.”
“Better nor usual! Ye’re full of fancies, Barbara, a-runnin’ round nursin’ other folks, an takin’ other folks’ troubles, all except your own. Yesterday ye made broth for the servant-men, an’ it was every bit meat; broth like that’ll ruin my pocket, an’ anyhow we arn’t providin’ for gentlemen’s families.”
“Aye, father dear, but for a long while they’ve had nothin’ but barefoot porridge, an’ there was a little extra meat in the house, an’ I thought——”
“An’ ye thought! Ye needn’t think, mother. Such thinkin’ as ye do is ruinin’ my prospects.”
“Dad dear, I’ll not do it again if ye say no.”
“I did not say ’no,’ I said yesterday ye gave the men an all-meat broth an’ it was no holiday.”
The old man’s voice grew petulantly angry, the childlike appeal of his wife’s eyes, the trembling lips, her gentle sweetness, irritated him.
“Very well, dear.”
“Mother, they’ve milk on the farm, which is more’n they’d have in their own homes; if they lived at home they’d be scramblin’ with their children to suck herrin’-bones. Stirabout with plenty of milk is good for any man, an’ it’s especially good for a workin’ man; they have all the stirabout they can eat here, an’ some kind of meat-broth an’ tart every day.”
“Very well, dear, I’ll see that it doesn’t happen again.”
“Aye, an’ mother, I found one of the tubs of butter in the dairy touched; there was most a half a pound of butter taken out. Do ye know who took it?”
“Dad, I took it for Mrs. Powell the carpenter, who’s ill.”
“For Mrs. Powell the carpenter! An’ then how are we goin’ to pay the landlord, think ye, if ye go takin’ the butter to sick people?”
“She’s very sick, father, an’ they’re very poor, an’ I thought it would be such a nice to her just now, and she did relish it so.”
“Relish it! Aye, soon ye’ll be distributin’ the sheep to the neighbours. An’, mother, I found some broken crockery in the garden out by the corner of the hedge. It looked most as if it had been hidden there; do ye know anythin’ about it?”
“Aye, I know somethin’ about it.”
“An’ what do ye know?”
“Father, that I shall not be tellin’ ye, whatever.”
“Not be tellin’ me! not be tellin’ me?” he exclaimed hotly. “Tut, Barbara, what’s come over ye?”
“No, father, not be tellin’ ye,” answered Barbara, with gentle deliberateness.
“Indeed, we’ll see. Maggie, Maggie,” shouted Samuel, “Maggie, come here!”
Maggie came hurrying to the door, anxiety in every feature of her face.
“Maggie Morgan, what do ye——” began Samuel.
“Father, that will do,” interrupted Barbara; “Maggie, ye may go.”
The girl turned and went; speechless, Samuel regarded his wife.
“Father,” she continued gently, “I broke it an’ I hid it. I was—mixin’ oat-cake in the bowl an’ the bowl was on my knee, an’ suddenly it slipped an’ fell on to the flaggin’s an’ broke. Then I hid it ’cause,”—the quiet voice faltered,—”’cause—why ’cause, of course, father, I thought ye’d be troubled over it if ye saw it, an’ ye’d not miss it if ye didn’t.”
“Alack, mother!” There was genuine astonishment in the husband’s exclamation. “Barbara! to think we’d be livin’ together forty-five years an’ ye deceivin’ me at the last like this. I’ve just one thing the more to say to ye. There’s no cause for makin’ a duck-pond out’n the kitchen floor an’ if——”
“But, father,” interrupted Barbara, wiping her eyes with her apron, “father dear, the lads was just foolin’ a little an’ they spilt a bit of water on the flaggin’s, an’ before Maggie could mop it up ye came in.”
“Tell them an’ such as them to go live with the pigs!” And Samuel, pushing back his chair, rose hastily to his feet, and left the room.
“Father, father dear!” called Barbara.
There was no answer, and she was alone.
“Oh, father, if ye but loved me as ye used to! There were never any words then. Oh, lad, lad!”
There was no reproach, no bitterness in her voice, only longing; she loved him so, and their time at best was short, and she couldn’t manage to please him in anything. And perhaps this was their one chance—a few years at best, perhaps a few weeks, and it might be only days. She cried patiently as if she had lost something irrecoverable, an ideal, a hope, a child. Their past, the past of their youth, lay before her now, in its human romance and young love, like something perished; and, wistful, she dwelt in its memories, on its common human beauty. Suddenly she ceased crying.
“Aye, but I lied to him an’ I never did before, indeed. I was afraid Maggie’d lose her place if he knew she broke it; an’ to think that I hid the pieces from him! Oh, Sammie, Sammie! I’m deservin’ what’s come to-day, deservin’ it,” she concluded with satisfaction, “for sinnin’ so against conscience.”
She sat up straight in her chair as if to receive punishment.
“An’ I’m more blessed than most. Samuel’s a good man an’ well respected—no man better respected. He’s honest in his dealin’s, he’s more generous than some to his men. There was Eilir’s little lad he paid the doctor’s bill for, an’ Morgan’s old mother he buried an’——” Barbara was sitting very straight in her chair now, with one wrinkled hand spread before her, telling off on its fingers Samuel’s good deeds; her eyes shone joyously, there were so many, and in their numbering she forgot a sore heart, a cap askew, a kerchief wet over the bosom, and a wrinkled apron. “An’ there was old Silvan he’d partly fed an’ clothed these ten years, an’ an old crot no one would do anything for, an’ Sammie helped her, too. An’ there was the dress he brought me from the fair, an’ the gold-rimmed spectacles from Liverpool, an’ the beautiful linen for caps, better nor any one else in the valley has. An’ he’s done everythin’ for the children, an’ one of them’s fine a scholar as any in Wales, which is sayin’ much. Aye, he’s a good man, an’ I’m a wicked woman to be dreamin’ so; but oh, lad, lad dear,” she ended lamely, “if ye’d only love me as ye used to!”
Samuel went out on to the farm with irritable thoughts, indignant against extravagances which he laid to Barbara, and which meant a slender purse even in their old age. He was willing to admit that she was a good woman, aye, a more than ordinarily good woman, but where she fell short, he thought, was in managing. Yes, he had prospered a little; for an instant he had an uncomfortable sense of owing this prosperity in part to the efforts of some one besides himself. But there was this constant leakage, and again his mind flamed up over the broth and the broken pottery. It was the woman’s business to see to it that no ha’penny was wasted; he failed to recall a certain rusted spade, some moulded straps, and a snapped fill in the year’s calendar. And then, at last, manlike, in the midst of the work out on the farm, he not only washed his lungs with the keen mountain air, but he washed his mind of the whole difficulty, straightway forgetting it.
When once more he entered the house for his tea, he found Barbara in the kitchen knitting before the fire—knitting socks for him. There was no trace of what had passed, no trace of her care, her grief. Her cap was fresh and tied with new ribbons, her kerchief was folded neatly over her shoulders, her apron clear white and starched, and out from beneath the short skirt peeped two brass-toed shoes bright-eyed as mice. Samuel did not know how quaint and sweet she looked. But then, why should he? she had been always just so. He took her, all of her, for granted,—the bit of red in her old cheeks, red that matched the bright cap-ribbons; the soft white hair, the tender eyes, the kind tired mouth, the little figure dainty as the sweet alyssum in their garden—in short, there was nothing to be remarked upon; he simply took her for granted as he had done always, or as, for example, one takes the fresh air till one is in prison, or the sky till one goes blind, or love till it is gone.
The tea and bread and butter were on the table. Barbara poured out his cup, put in the sugar, the top of the cream, and passed the cup to him as he sat toasting his feet before the fire. Then she handed him the bread.
“Well, father,” she said, patting him on the shoulder, “did ye have a successful afternoon?”
“Aye, Barbara,” he answered, “fine.”
Without touching the tea, she took up her knitting.
“Are the lambs comin’, dear?”
“Aye, mother, they’re most as big as yearlin’s now. Are ye not goin’ to take tea?”
“No, I’ve a bit distress, no more’n I have often.”
“Have ye tried the peppermint?”
“Aye, but it’s no good. Did Eilir say what the shearin’ ’d be?”
“He did; it’ll be heavier nor usual. It’ll make a big shipment this year.”
“Good, father, we’ll be takin’ a trip to the lad’s college yet, what with the lambs comin’ fine, the wool heavy, the calves double the number they were last year. Father, do ye think the boy’d be ashamed of his old mam?”
“Ashamed? He’s no lad of mine if he is. Well, mother, if it’s all really comin’ as well as it seems to be, we’ll be takin’ that trip to see the boy.”
“Oh, father dear, ’twould be grand, what I’ve dreamed of these many, many years!” Barbara dropped her knitting and clasped her hands in childlike abandonment of pleasure.
“Tut, mam,” added Samuel, his face lengthening, “it’s not absolutely certain, what with waste in the kitchen, the breakin’ of crockery, an’ the men eatin’ themselves out’n house an’ home, it’s no tellin’. It might be an extravagance, but we’ll see.”
“But, father!” exclaimed Barbara impulsively, and stopped.
“Well, mam, maybe it’ll be; maybe we’ll see the boy an’ see him a great man in his college, aye, a most successful man, as good’s the best.”
“Oh, dearie, to think we’ll be seein’ him—perhaps. But, dad, do ye think he’ll forget he’s my boy?”
“Why should he? Mother, if we’re goin’ it’ll be in six weeks.”
“Aye, but father,”—Barbara paused, her head reflectively to one side,—”there’s the shoes. I’ll have to be havin’ shoes; these clogs’ll not do for the lad’s college.”
“No matter, mother,” replied Samuel, thrusting his hands into his pockets with boyish energy, “we’ll have proper shoes for ye an’ we’ll go first to Liverpool for a travellin’ suit for ye an’ a proper bonnet for me an’——”
“Listen to what ye are sayin’—a bonnet for ye!” And Barbara laughed merrily.
“Dear me!” laughed Samuel, slapping his knee, “I mean a proper bonnet for ye an’ for me a proper suit of clothes. Aye, we’ll afford it all if the lambs keep comin’.”
“Dearie, it’ll be most too much happiness, the boy, the trip, an all the clothes. I’ll be takin’ him some socks an’——” Barbara gasped and touched her side with her hand.
“What ails ye, mother?”
“It’s just a stitch in my side.” Samuel did not notice that Barbara had turned white up to the very edges of her cap. “An’ what’ll ye be takin’ him, dearie?”
“Dear, dear, I’ll bring him a—a—well, mother, what’ll I take him? He’s such a great man ’twouldn’t do to fetch him a cheese or eggs or a fowl, now would it?”
“That’s so, father,” replied Barbara reflectively. “Aye, he’s a great man an’ ’twouldn’t do, whatever. I have it, dad, we’ll be buyin’ him books in Liverpool.”
“Good, so we will, mam, as many books as we can afford.” And Samuel thrust his hands still further into his pockets, pursed out his lips, spread his legs apart, and contemplated the fire earnestly. “Aye, mother, books is the very thing; the lad’ll be more’n pleased to have them an’ to think I thought of them.”
“Aye, that’s so, dearie.”
“Well, I’ll be goin’ now; we’ll have to be makin’ haste to have all done in six weeks, an’ we’ll go, mother, we’ll go if we can afford it.”
Samuel strode out of the room; he was over seventy, but he walked with youthful elation; indeed, in some marked fashion, despite white hair, wrinkled skin, and limbs that were beginning to bend with years, he was still a boy.
Barbara looked after him, sighing wistfully as he left the room. “It seems a bit like bein’ young once more, a bit like old times.” She caught her side again. “This stitch is worse than common. Aye, dearie, I was unjust to ye the mornin’, an’ I’m a bad old woman.”
When Samuel came in for supper, he found Barbara lying down. Nothing was the matter, she assured him, “just a stitch worse than common, aye, an’ they’d be goin’ to Liverpool the same.” But as the night wore on it grew worse still, and by morning she was a very sick woman, suffering what even his man’s eyes could see was intense pain. The old cheeks had shrunk in the night, the face blanched to an ashen gray; only the eyes remained unchanged and shone sweetly and serenely upon him.
The physician was sent for, and while one of the men was fetching him, Samuel told Barbara at least fifty times that she would “be better the morrow,” and each time Barbara, too weak for speech, nodded as much as to say that she certainly would be. When the doctor came he saw her extremity and sent Samuel and Maggie from the room. A quick examination followed.
“Samuel,” said the doctor, stepping into the kitchen, “Barbara is a very sick woman.”
“Aye, sir, but she’ll be better the morrow.”
“No, Samuel, not to-morrow.”
“Not to-morrow, sir? Then next day?”
“No, man, nor the next day.”
“But, sir, Barbara’s never ill.”
“She can never get well here.”
“Not the week, sir?”
“Samuel, ye do not understand. Barbara will never be well here.“
“Och!”
“She’s dying, man; there’s nothing to do for her that could be done out of Liverpool.”
“Liverpool,” said Samuel.
His thoughts seemed to be somewhere in the back of his mind, inaccessible, walled up from contact with the reality of what he heard and saw. He appeared unable to grasp what had happened, what was coming. Surely he was walking in a dream, and every minute there was the chance, so he thought, that he might awake from it. What was this that had come upon him in a night? Certainly not the reality, for with that he had been living for years—that was life. Barbara was dying; the words rang oddly in his ears without reaching his mind. Some stranger was speaking with him; he did not understand. Barbara was dying; no, not Barbara, somebody else; other people did die. Barbara, was dying; not his Barbara, not the mother of his children, the wife of his fireside, his companion during a lifetime. Somebody was dying; no, not his Barbara but somebody else; just give him time to think. Barbara was dying—could it be his Barbara?
“Dyin’?” asked Samuel aloud, “Barbara dyin’?” He repeated the words as if questioning and testing them.
“Aye, man,” replied the doctor sharply, “she’s dying; she’s caught herself lifting something. With an operation there might be some chance; but there’s none here in this place, only in Liverpool.”
“Aye, Liverpool,” answered Samuel, “we’re goin’ to Liverpool soon.”
The doctor glanced at him keenly; before this he had seen childishness with some shock of grief take a sudden, unrelinquishing hold on old age.
“Well,” continued Samuel, still as if talking to himself or to some one outside the room, “we’ll go now; aye, we’ll take the chance.”
“But, man,” replied the doctor, “it’ll cost more money than ye spend in two years.”
“No matter, sir, we’ll sell the sheep, if need be. Aye, dearie,” he added gently, “we’ll take the chance.”
“There’s no time to spare, then,” said the doctor looking at his watch.
“Aye,” replied Samuel, “we’ll be ready.”
“Then be sharp about it,” said the doctor, alert for the one chance of life.
“Aye, sir”; and Samuel went into the room where Barbara lay.
He looked down upon her lying in bed; he could see that her strength was slipping, slipping away. He dropped on his knees beside her. He patted her hand, he smoothed her forehead.
“Mother!” he called.
Her eyes smiled confidingly, reassuringly up at him.
“Och, mother, I never thought of this!”
There came a feeble answering pat from her hand.
“Mother, we’re goin’ to Liverpool; aye, dear, they’re goin’ to make ye well.”
Barbara moaned, and her eyes brimmed with tears.
“Father dear,” she whispered, “let me—oh! Sammie—let me die—here.”
“Tut, mam, ye’re not goin’ to die—aye, they’ll be makin’ ye well in Liverpool.”
“Dad dear,” she plead, “let me—die—here.”
“But, mam,” argued Samuel, “the lad’ll be there waitin’ for us—an’—an’ to see ye,” he ended weakly.
“Sammie, Sammie,” she begged, “let me die here—not—away—from—home; the lad—will—understand.”
“Barbara, there’s a chance for ye to get well; will ye not take it for me, dearie—aye, will ye not do it for me, Barbara, for my sake?”
The big eyes that had looked into his without anger, without selfishness, through all the circumstances of life, smiled now with sudden sweetness. The hand lying in his hand tightened, her lips trembled.
“Aye, Sammie, lad, I will.”
“Dearie, Barbara, my Barbara!” he exclaimed, struggling to control himself. “Oh, mam, I do love ye so, an’ I’ve not been good to ye!”
“Sammie, not been good to me? but ye have been, lad, an’ I’m a bad old woman an’ before I leave the house——”
“Mam dear, ye’re not to say such things. I’ve found fault with ye an’ neglected ye, but ye do know I love ye?”
“Aye, lad dear, I know—ye—love me but I’m a bad—old—woman, an’ I must tell ye before—I—leave the house——”
“Tut, mother, mother, ye’re not to say such things. I’ll do for ye now, oh! I will. Mam, I’d never thought of this.”
“But lad,” she persisted, “I’m a bad old woman an’——”
“Tut, dearie, no, no,” he silenced her. “We’ve just a little while an’ I must see about some things. I’ll call Maggie an’ she’ll have ye all ready, dear.”
Preparations were soon made, and when Maggie had her mistress wrapped up for the journey, Samuel and the doctor hastened into the room. It was evident that Barbara’s strength was ebbing more and more rapidly away.
After she was lying on the stretcher she reached out a hand to Maggie. “Goodbye, my dear,” she faltered; “be—a—good—girl.”
“Och, mistress, please let me tell——”
“No, Maggie, no, not—a—word,” she answered. Then suddenly Barbara cried out, “Sammie!” the first terror of death in her voice.
“There, there, mam dear; aye, dearie, I’m here.”
“Oh, Sammie, to die—away—from home,—aye, once—over—the threshold,” she murmured.
For an instant her eyes tried to smile into his, then consciousness slipped away, and a wing swept over them,—they fluttered and they closed. The doctor’s stern “No matter, she will recover in the air,” checked the sobs of Maggie; and so they bore her, still and white, over the threshold of her home, past the farm-servants, to the carriage.
Fields, hills, buildings flashed by, seeming with their shadows and forms to flick the windows of the railway coach. The doctor and Samuel sat side by side, and opposite on the long seat lay Barbara, quiet and semi-conscious. The half-day’s journey to Liverpool stretched out interminably, even now the most of it had been covered. Samuel was thinking, thinking, thinking, as he had never thought before, and the discipline of these thoughts was biting into him like acid. There were lines graven on his face which years alone could never write there. Aye, to learn a lesson like this in a few hours which should be learned through a lifetime,—to learn it thus in one last brief discipline! Oh, Barbara, Barbara, what had he done for her, what had he been to her? And now if—the thought strangled him—where, where was she going?
Then came to him the years when he might not be able to tell her any more how he regretted the selfishness of weeks and months, aye, of half a century. Even now the separation had begun; she was too weak to listen to him, he could not tell her, and in a few hours the one chance might be gone. Already, as she lay there hovering between life and death, she was no longer his in the old substantial way, but merely a hostage, fragile, ethereal, of a past life. If he had loved her every hour of those days that seemed so lastingly secure, if he had tried in every way—all the little ways—to show her how tenderly, how deeply he really loved her, the years would have been too short. And to-day, at the best, there was the one chance growing less certain every minute; there were but a few years at the most when he might try to make her know what she was to him.
Then, with a revulsion of feeling, the little commonplace joys dear to them both crowded in upon him; he felt benumbed in their midst, helplessly conscious that the heart of them all was slipping, slipping away. The road of their life flowed swiftly behind him, receding ribbonlike, as the hills and trees and fields passed the coach-window, into indistinguishable distance. Their tea-time with its happy quiet, their greeting at night, their rest side by side, their goodbye in the morning, Barbara’s caps, Barbara’s knitting, the shining eyes, the smile—each daily commonplace thing a part of his very being. He had a sickening sense of having the roots of existence torn out.
With a pang came the thought of that other trip to Liverpool they had planned to take. What would the boy say now? And he must know how that mother-life had been wasted, neglected. And the books they were going to bring the lad, and the socks Barbara had made, and the shoes that were to delight her, and the new clothes for both, and the bonnet over which they had laughed so merrily—the agony of these simple things, remembered, ate at his thoughts like fire. They were so little; he had never known before what they meant, or he had forgotten; now, surely, they could not be taken from him. Samuel’s mind prostrated itself in petition to that Inexorable in whose power lay these little joys, his, his only, of account only to him, sacred to him only, that he might be allowed to keep them.
His face was gray with the battle of these hours when the doctor spoke, telling him that they were almost in Liverpool and must move quickly. Their voices aroused Barbara; her eyes sought Sammie’s and smiled faithfully into them.
“Dearie!” he said, leaning forward with such an expression that Barbara, if she saw it clearly, could never doubt his love again.
“Lad!” she whispered in reply.
But Samuel’s eyes shrank when he saw the ambulance at the station, waiting. The doctor was going in it with Barbara. Oh! this cut, cut, as that knife would cut Barbara. Already they were being separated. They were taking her out of the train, away from him, and he was looking around the great station blindly, when he felt a strong grip on his arm and heard the word, “Father!” Nothing else seemed clear after that, and the way, the long way, rumbling through those streets, was like a narrow lane in the night. Barbara was in the streets, alone, without him, or she was already at that place where lay the one chance for him.
“There, father,” the lad was comforting him, “there’s no better place for her; you did just right.”
Samuel sobbed convulsively, tears rolling out of his eyes unnoticed, his hands clenching the chair.
“Father, father, don’t; we shall know soon.”
But the old face over which he leaned paid no heed to what was said; nor did Samuel hear the quick entrance into the room and the whispered words.
“Father, do you hear? Mother’s safe.”
Then Samuel rose to his feet, started forward, and swayed uncertainly. The lad took his arm.
“Father,” he said, “mother’s very weak, and we must be careful; we can see her only a minute, that is all, the doctor says.”
When they entered, Barbara lay on the bed, smiling. The nurse stepped outside; ah! she had seen so many, many moments like this, and yet her heart ached for the old man coming through the door, coming through to take into his arms the few precious years that were left.
“Mother!” he said simply.
“Sammie dear!” she answered, her heart shining in her eyes.
Then she espied the lad standing behind his father.
Samuel watched their greeting, his lips twitching. “Lad, lad,” he cried, unable to withhold the words, “I’ve not been good to mam.”
A flush overspread Barbara’s face.
“Tut, Sammie dear, ye never——” she commenced indignantly.
“Be still, mother, I’m goin’ to say it now; ye know I’ve not been good to ye. Lad,” he continued, turning to him, “when ye marry, as ye will, don’t think any way is too little to show her that ye love her.”
“Tut, tut, Sammie dear,” insisted Barbara, “ye are good to me, an’ I lied to ye an’——”
“It’s time to leave,” said the nurse, coming in.
“But I’m going to have one word more,” Barbara replied, the life springing into her eyes with this gentle defiance. “Sammie, Sammie dear,” she called as the two men were urged through the door, “I lied about the bowl—I didn’t break it but I did hide it. Maggie broke it, an’ I was afraid she’d lose her place, so I hid it. Father, did ye hear?”
“There!” said the nurse, shutting the door.
[Respice Finem]
“Good-mornin’, Mrs. Rhys,” said Megan Griffiths, as she stooped to save her high beaver.
“’Tis kind of ye to come,” answered Nance.
“How is Mr. Rhys?”
“Och, he’s no——” Nance began, but she was hindered by a merry voice singing in the next room.
“Dear, dear, I can’t hear ye. Did ye say he is the same?”
“Aye, he’s no better.”
“Is that him singin’?”
“Aye,” admitted Nance.
“He’s not got any cause to sing, I’m thinkin’. ’Tis a pity,” she continued significantly, “ye couldn’t attend Harry James’s funeral. ’Twas grand. They had beautiful black candles with Scripture words written on them.”
Chuckles and a protesting bark followed this observation. Megan stiffened.
“Such a funeral, Mrs. Rhys,” she snapped, “is an honour to Rhyd Ddu! An’ such loaves as she handed over the bier to that hungry Betsan! An’ the biggest cheese in the parish, with a whole guinea stuck in it! At every crossin’ they rung the bell, an’ we knelt down to pray in all that drenchin’ wet.”
“’Tis seldom Rhyd Ddu sees black candles with Scripture words on them,” assented Nance.
“Pooh! the candles, they was nothin’ to the cards Mrs. James had had printed for him—nothin’. Here’s mine. They have his last words.”
Nance looked eagerly towards the card.
“Scripture words, too,” added Megan. “’Tis sanctifyin’ how many people in Rhyd Ddu die repeatin’ such words.”
“What was they, Mrs. Griffiths?” asked Nance, her eagerness turning into trembling.
Megan opened the large card with its wide border of black and inner borders of silver and black, and read the words. The verses were long, and during their reading no sound came from the adjoining room. Then, aloud, Megan counted off on her fingers neighbours who had left life in this approved fashion, while the excitement in Nance’s eyes was deepening and her cheeks were quivering.
“Show it me,” she said.
“Indeed, ’tis a safe way to——” Megan commenced speaking, but commands and a sudden breaking forth of song interrupted her.
“’Tis the dog takin’ him his slippers,” Nance apologised.
“Yes, a safe way to die,” concluded Megan testily.
In the midst of a blithe refrain of “Smile again, lovely Jane,” she rose to go, muttering as she repocketed the card.
In Rhyd Ddu the rush of the modern world had not cut up the time of the folk into a fringe of unsatisfying days. With these Welsh mountain people from sunrise to sunset was a good solid day, full of solid joys and comforts or equally solid woes and sorrows. In Rhyd Ddu a man might know the complete tragic or joyous meaning of twenty-four hours, with solemn passages from starlight to dawn and manifold song from sunrise to dusk. There was no illusion in such a day, so that when he came to the Edge of the Great Confine, sharper than the ridge of his own thatched roof, that, too, seemed merely a part of the general illusion. Rather, he knew that step from the green and gold room of his outdoor world, with its inclosed hearth of daily pleasures, was a step into another room not known to him at all. But he said to himself, especially when he had spent his days among the hills and amid mountain winds and valleys, that he could not get beyond the love in the room he knew well; so trusting what he could not see, he stepped forward quietly. And the deep waters of an infinite space closed over his head. One soul after another came to the Great Edge. There were no outcries, no lamentations over lost days, no shattering questions, no wail to trouble the ears of those who made grave signs of farewell. But there was a pang, part of the pang of birth and of love, and taken as the workman takes the ache in his crushed finger—silently. So simple were they that the coming and going of the mown grass was as an allegory of their own days, and the circumstance of death was as natural to them as the reaping of their abundant valley fruit, or the dropping of a leaf from a tree.
In Rhyd Ddu, however, the acceptance of death differed from life in one respect, for the simple pride of life was as nothing compared with the pride centring about some incident of death. They honoured dying with the frank, unhushed voice with which they praised a beautiful song or the narration of some stirring tale. They discussed it freely at a knitting-night or a merry-making; even at the “bidding” of a bride the subject was acceptable discourse. The ways of their living taught them no evasion of this last moment.
To Nance the little old man in the next room, with his arched eyebrows, delicate features, and whimsical sprightly look, had been more than life itself, and more completely than she had words to express, her hero. The one object through the years of living that seemed worth remembering at all—those with Silvan—had been to Nance the glorification of this husband about whom the Rhyd Ddu folk were by no manner of means in concord, for pranks of speech and hand are disconcerting to the slow-moving wits of the average human being. Now, in the end, Nance foresaw wrested away from Silvan the last of the distinctions she had hoped to win for him. When she entered the room revolving these ambitions, beautiful only because love was their source, he was shaking his finger at Pedr and taking advantage of his good humour.
“Och, mam, this poor dog has had nothin’ to eat. Ye’re pinchin’ him, whatever.”
“Pinchin’ him!” exclaimed Nance. “Tut, he’ll not be gettin’ in an’ out’n the door much longer, an’ I see the neighbours a-laughin’ now when they look at him. He’ll die with over-feedin’, he will.”
“He will,” mocked Silvan, “die of over-feedin’, he will!”
“Lad, Mrs. Griffiths’s been here.”
“Well, dearie, do ye think I didn’t know Megan Griffiths was here? She’d crack the gates of heaven with that voice. Was she tellin’ ye everythin’ that didn’t happen, now was she?”
“Dad, what will ye say such things about Megan for? She was tellin’ of Harry James’s funeral.”
“Nance, she’s a bell for every tooth, an’ they jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle.”
Nance’s eyes filled.
“Och, mam, I’m just teasin’ ye; an’ ye were thinkin’ of me the while, now weren’t ye?”
“Aye, father. ’Twas a grand funeral, an’ he died with them wonderful verses on his lips.”
“Did he so!” exclaimed Silvan. “Well, the man had need to, drinkin’ as he did.”
“But, lad, there’s been others, too.”
“Aye, dearie, I heard Megan shoutin’ them for my entertainment. I’m not deaf. But, mam,” he continued, the merriment leaving his eyes, “ye’re ambitious for me? Aye?”
“Aye, lad, I am,” she whispered, looking away from Silvan, “I am, lad, for ye have been so long the cleverest man in Rhyd Ddu, an’ the handsomest an’ the kindest, an’ nothin’s too fine for ye. There’s no woman ever had a better man nor I have, lad.”
“These girls——”
Nance put up her hand.
“Lad, lad, I cannot stand it, I cannot.”
“Och, dearie, I’m just teasin’ ye; come here.”
She went over to him and sat beside him, her head turned away from the bright eyes.
“Father, have ye thought of what’s comin’, have ye?”
“Nance, I’m thinkin’ of it all the while, but I’m not afraid, only for ye. Dearie, ye’re not to believe everythin’ ye hear; Megan has a good memory, an’ it takes a good memory to tell lies. ’Tisn’t everybody dies repeatin’ Bible verses.”
“Aye, but father, Harry James did say those words on the card, an’ all the time he never was a good man, swearin’ an’ drinkin’ so, an’ ye’ve been so good, dad, for all your teasin’ an’ fun.”
“Tut, mam, ye’re just wantin’ to spoil me, a-makin’ out I’m the best man in Rhyd Ddu. An’ ye’re wantin’ me to have more honour among the neighbours nor any one else when I’m gone, now isn’t that it?”
“Aye,” she whispered.
“An’ ye’re wishin’ me to promise to say some text? Would it comfort ye, mam?”
“Aye,” she answered.
“What text?”
Nance thought and repeated some verses.
“No, I can’t,” he said, shaking his head, “I can’t. They’re sad, an’ I’ve always been merrylike.”
In the silence that followed these words Silvan turned to Nance.
“I might, if ’twould please ye, say these words.” Silvan repeated a verse. “But I cannot promise even these.”
As she listened Nance’s face fell.
“Aye, well, dad darlin’,” she said, as bravely as she could, “they’re good words indeed, over-cheerful, I’m thinkin’, but Holy Writ, aye, Holy Writ.”
Whatever happened in the luxuriant green of the Rhyd Ddu valley, which the bees still preferred to Paradise, and the flowers to the Garden of Eden itself,—whatever happened in this valley—some phenomenal spring season, the flood that swept away their plots of mid-summer marigolds, the little life that suddenly began to make its needs felt, or the life with its last need answered—was adjudged with the most primitive wisdom and philosophy.
Megan Griffiths lost no time in distributing the gleanings from her visit with Nance, information which was often redistributed and to which new interest accrued daily as the end of Silvan Rhys’s life drew near.
“Tut,” said Megan, “she’s that ambitious for him, it fairly eats her up. ’Twas always so from the day of their biddin’, an’ here ’tis comin’ his funeral, an’ he’ll never end with a word of Holy Writ on his lips, that he won’t.”
“There, there!” Dolly Owen objected, compassionately, her motherly face full of rebuke.
“Aye, he won’t, that he won’t,” affirmed Morto Roberts, wagging his head, and sniffing the pleasant odours from the browning light-cakes.
Dolly made no reply, but turned a cake with a dexterous flip, and pulled forward the teapot to fill it with hot water. The quiet glow from the fire mirrored itself equally in her kind eyes and in the shining brass pots and kettles of the flanking shelves, and was multiplied in a thousand twinkles on the glistening salt of the flitches hanging above her head. The table was already spread with a gaily-patterned cloth, and set with china bright as the potted fuchsias and primroses blooming in the sunshine of her windows. There was nothing garish about this humble dwelling of Dolly’s, yet everywhere it seemed as if sunshine had been caught and were in process. Warmth, odour, gleam, colour, and the soft heavy wind travelling by outside, made this the workroom of a golden alchemy. Dolly smiled with benevolence as she piled up the light-cakes.
“The fat’s snappish to-day; it sputtered more nor usual,” she said to Megan, who was seated in the shadow of the high settle.
“Aye,” responded Megan, in an irritable voice. “When I went by the house this mornin’,” she persisted, “I heard him singin’ some gay thing, a catch—singin’ in bed, indeed, an’ dyin’.”
“Singin’ in bed,” puffed Morto, “singin’ in bed whatever, an’ dyin’. Up to the last a-caper-in’ an’ a-dancin’ like a fox in the moonlight.”
“There, there!” Dolly objected again, filling Morto’s plate with cakes; “he’s been a kind man, a very kind man. There was Tom bach he put to school an’ clothed would follow him about like a puppy, an’ so would Nance, an’ so would his own dog.”
“Pooh! what’s that?” asked Megan. “Mrs. Rhys has had the managin’ of most everythin’, I’m thinkin’, an’ his houses he’s been praised for keepin’ in such fine repair, an’ the old pastor’s stipend—aye, well, ask Nance,” ended Megan, with a shrug of her shoulder, and a gulp of hot tea.
“Aye, well, ask Mrs. Rhys,” echoed Morto, “an’ ye mind it was the same pastor’s coat-tails he hung the dog-tongs to when he was some thirty years younger, an’ by twenty too old for any such capers. He’s an infiddle, he is, a-doin’ such things.”
“An’ ’twas he, wasn’t it,” Megan added, “who put that slimy newt in Sian Howell’s hat?”
“Aye, so ’twas, an’ she had a way of clappin’ her beaver on quick, an’ down came that newt a-hoppin’ on her white cap.”
“An’ he tied the two Janes’s cap-strings together, the one who always prayed sittin’ straight up, an’ the other in the pew behind leanin’ forward, didn’t he?” demanded Megan. “They went quite nasty with him for that.”
“Well,” said Dolly, cutting a generous slice of pound cake for Megan, “I’m thinkin’ it’s not just, talkin’ so; the lad was full of life. He could no more keep his feet on earth than the cricket in the field. ’Tis come he’s old an’ dyin’, an’ I can see no harm in his havin’ had a little fun, an’ singin’ now an’ then.”
“Tut, now an’ then!” exclaimed Megan. “’Tis over foolish he is, now isn’t he?”
“Aye,” agreed Morto, “he’s light.”
“He’d have gone quite on the downfall years ago, hadn’t it been for Nance.”
“Quite on the downfall,” echoed Morto.
“Aye, an’ there’ll be no word of Scripture crossin’ his lips,” concluded Megan.
Morto had his private reasons for losing no love upon Silvan, and Megan hers of a similar nature. Even the kindest villagers had taken to considering the words Silvan would or would not speak at the last. Rumour, peering into corners with antiquarian diligence and nodding his white head in prophecy, sat down by every fireside as much at home as the cottage cat or the fat bundle of babyhood that rolled upon the hearth. Wherever Rumour seated himself, “he will” and “he won’t” was tossed about excitedly under thatched roofs. The very shepherd on the hills cast a speculative glance upon Nance’s cottage, and Mr. Shoni “the coach“ added another question to his daily questionnaire.
There was no begging the fact that precedent had begun to weigh heavily on the last moments of speech of the Rhyd Ddu inhabitants. A man of years thought anxiously, like one skating on thin ice, how far out he dare venture without some talismanic and now established words. There were neighbours in Rhyd Ddu, however, probably no more accomplished with their tongues than motherly Dolly Owen, who speculated but little and whose hearts went out to Nance and Silvan. Although they had never seen the Silvan Nance saw, nevertheless they considered him a good neighbour, and the path to Nance’s cottage was much travelled by kindly thoughts and by helpful feet.
While the news, old Rumour panting in the rear, was running swiftly from door to door, Nance was watching Silvan with passionate devotion, no expression of the face that had lain close to her own for so many years escaping her. Rhyd Ddu must know at the last, must have some solemn sign of the eminent goodness he had meant to her. She could not let him go with one of his jests on his lips—every day was fit enough for that, but not these minutes. Her thoughts clung even to the words of the over-cheerful verse she believed he would say. And yet there was a tantalising merriness in his eyes.
“Father,” she said, “do ye mind?”
“Aye, dearie, I’m to be sayin’ that ye—have the faith an’ I—I have the works?”
“Och, lad!”
“There, mam, I’m just teasin’ ye—just teasin’ ye.”
“But, lad, it’ll be soon.”
“Mam,” he whispered, “closer.”
Nance bent her head.
“Mam—ye—are a darlin’, an’—I’ll—no—forget.”
Every word came more faintly.
“Lad, lad,” plead Nance, “quick, now!”
Silvan cast one imploring look at Nance, and his lips struggled for speech, then his gaze slipped away like a light withdrawing into deep woods.
Coming down the lane sounded the tread of many feet. Nance heard the steps approaching; she rose, shook the tears from her eyes, and closed the bedroom door behind her. Already the latch had been lifted and her neighbours were filing in, the men taking off their caps and making way for the women. Nance, confronting them, leaned against the door frame.
“Och, dear,” said Dolly compassionately, “he’s gone already.”
There was no reply.
“Were his last words——” asked Megan.
“Aye,” answered Nance, her voice courageous, proud, “aye, these words: ’In the shadow of Thy wings I will rejoice.’”
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.
Transcriber's Note
Archaic and inconsistent spelling and punctuation were retained.