Dorset dear

by M. E. Francis

MRS. SIBLEY AND THE SEXTON.

It was Christmas Eve, and Mrs. Fry was returning home from Branston with a bulging pocket and a piled-up market-basket. Clinging to her skirts was the youngest baby but one, while Selina, her eldest daughter, trundled along the “pram,” the occupant of which was almost smothered amid parcels of various shapes and sizes. The intermediary members of Mrs. Fry’s family straggled between the two, all very clean and tidy and all beaming with good humour. Stanley, indeed, evinced a propensity to tumble into the gutter every now and then, while Wyndham and ’Erbert occasionally delayed the advance of the procession by playfully sparring at each other almost beneath the perambulator wheels. The little cortège made slow progress, for, as Mrs. Fry laughingly observed, it was the hardest job in the world to get a big little family home-along; nevertheless, the general serenity remained undisturbed. It was pleasant enough to loiter on this fine dry afternoon, for the air was clear and crisp, and the roads clean and hard as iron. Even the baby cooed and chuckled as it squinted upwards at its sister from behind the whitey-brown parcel which reposed on its small chest.

The party at length turned off from the high road, and was proceeding tranquilly down the “dip” which led to the small group of cottages of which the Frys’ home made one, when from the farmyard gate on the right a tall woman emerged carrying a jug of milk.

“Be that you, Mrs. Fry? I stepped over to your place an hour ago, but there was no one at home.”

“We all comed out to do a bit o’ Christmas shoppin’, Mrs. Sibley, d’ye see. But I’m sorry I missed ye. Will ye step in and have a drop o’ tea wi’ us? Selina will hurry on and get it ready.”

“No, thank ye,” returned Mrs. Sibley gloomily; “I’ll not go in now, Mrs. Fry—not when all your family’s about. I was a-lookin’ for a word wi’ ’ee confidential-like. I was a-wantin’ for to ax your advice, Mrs. Fry.”

“Oh, and was ye?” said Mrs. Fry, much impressed. “Tell ’ee what—I’ll send the childern home wi’ ’Lina an’ I’ll step in to your place, Mrs. Sibley, my dear. But all Foyle’s family ’ull be there, won’t they?—there’ll not be much chance to talk private.”

“There will, though,” returned Mrs. Sibley. “I sent the childern out wi’ their father a-purpose. Things is gettin’ serious, Mrs. Fry; but there! I can’t converse out here. Best let the matter bide till we be safe in my house.”

Mrs. Fry hastily detached the small chubby hands of Halfred—she had a pretty taste in nomenclature—who was clinging to her skirts, and desiring the child to run home-along wi’ ’Lina, gave her undivided attention to her neighbour.

“Not here,” said Mrs. Sibley impressively, as she began to ply her with questions; “at my house.”

They turned aside into the first cottage of the group, and Mrs. Sibley, opening the gate, stalked in front of her crony along the flagged path, and flung open the house-door. Pausing in the middle of the kitchen, she added emphatically, “In Foyle’s house I should say.”

“It be the same thing, bain’t it?” returned Mrs. Fry cheerfully, “or like to be soon.”

“Be it?” said Mrs. Sibley witheringly. “Be it, Martha?”

Mrs. Fry set down her market-basket, and dropped into the nearest chair.

“Lard, my dear, you do make I feel quite nervish. Be things a-goin’ wrong?”

Mrs. Sibley folded her arms, and surveyed her for a moment in silence. She was an angular woman with a frosty eye, which she now fixed grimly on Mrs. Fry.

“I don’t say as they be a-goin’ wrong,” she remarked after a pause, “but they don’t seem to be a-goin’ right. Foyle, there, he haven’t got the spirit of a mouse.”

“Hasn’t he said nothin’—nothin’ at all?” inquired Mrs. Fry, resting a plump hand on either knee and leaning forward.

“Not a single word,” replied her friend; “that’s to say, not a word wi’ any sense in it. An’ Sibley have been gone six months now, mind ye.”

“So he have!” replied Mrs. Fry. “An’ ye mid say as you’ve been so good as a widder for nigh upon six year—ye mid indeed. A husband what’s in the ’sylum is worse nor no husband at all. An’ ye’ve a-been keepin’ house for Foyle these four year, haven’t ye?”

“Four year an’ two month,” responded Mrs. Sibley. “There, the very day after Mrs. Foyle were buried he did come to me an’ he says so plain-spoke as anything, ‘Mrs. Sibley,’ he says, ‘here be you a lone woman wi’out no family, an’ here be I wi’ all they little childern. Will ’ee come an’ keep house for I an’ look after ’em all? Ye’ll not be the loser by it,’ he says. So I looks him straight in the face: ‘I bain’t so sure o’ that, Mr. Foyle,’ I says. ‘I do look at it in this way, d’ye see. A woman has her chances,’ I says. ‘I don’t think Sibley ’ull last so very long—they seldom does at the ’sylum—an’ then here be I, a lone woman, as you do say. I mid very well like to settle myself again; an’ if I go an’ bury myself so far away from town in a place where there’s sich a few neighbours, I don’t see what prospects I’ll have.’”

“Well, that was straightforward enough,” commented Mrs. Fry. “He couldn’t make no mistakes about your meanin’.”

“He could not,” agreed Mrs. Sibley triumphantly; “an’ what’s more, he didn’t. He up an’ spoke as plain as a man could speak. ‘Well, Mrs. Sibley,’ he says, ‘there’s a Fate what rules us all.’ He be always a-sayin’ off bits o’ po’try an’ sich-like as he gets from the gravestones, ye know.”

“Ah,” remarked Mrs. Fry nodding, “being the sexton, of course, it do come nat’ral to ’en, don’t it?”

“‘There’s a Fate what rules us all,’ he says,” resumed Mrs. Sibley, “‘an’ we didn’t ought to m’urn as if we had no hope. If you was a free ’ooman, Mrs. Sibley—well, I’m a free man, and I’d make so good a husband as another. Maria did always find I so,’ he says.”

“Well, the man couldn’t have said more.”

“So you’d think. But why don’t he say summat now? There, I’ve a-kept his house an’ seen arter his childern for more nor four year. Time’s gettin’ on, ye know; I bain’t so young as I was.”

Mrs. Fry began a polite disclaimer, but was overruled by the other.

“I bain’t—’tisn’t in natur’ as I could be. I wer’ gettin’ a bit anxious this year when poor Sibley did seem to be hangin’ on so long, so I axed Rector to have ’en prayed for——”

“A-h-h-h?” ejaculated Martha, as she paused. “An’ that did put the Lard in mind of ’en, I should think.”

“It did put the Lard in mind of ’en,” agreed Mrs. Sibley with gusto. “The Lard see’d he warn’t no good to nobody in the ’sylum, an’ so he wer’ took.”

“An’ Foyle have never come forward?” remarked Mrs. Fry, after a significant pause.

“He’ve never made no offer, an’ he’ve never said a single word to show he were thinkin’ o’ sich a thing. Not one word, Mrs. Fry. I’ve given ’en the chance many a time. A month arter poor Sibley was buried I says to ’en, ‘Here be I now, Mr. Foyle,’ I says, ‘a widow ’ooman, the same as you be a widow man’.”

“An’ what did he say?” queried her neighbour eagerly.

“Oh, summat about the ’opes of a glorious resurrection,” returned Mrs. Sibley scornfully. “An’ another time I says to ’en, ‘Mr. Foyle,’ I says, ‘d’ye mind the talk what you an’ me did have when you first did ax I to keep house for ye?’ ‘What talk,’ says he. ‘Why,’ I says, ‘about me bein’ free an’ you makin’ a good husband.’ ‘Free,’ says he sighin’; ‘this life’s a bondage, Mrs. Sibley.’ An’ off he went.”

“Ah!” commented Mrs. Fry, “he wer’ thinkin’ o’ them verses what’s wrote on old Farmer Reed’s tombstone. I mind they do begin this way:—

‘This life is but a bondage,

My soul at last is free.’”

“That’s it,” agreed Mrs. Sibley nodding. “I says to ’en this marnin’, ‘Mr. Foyle,’ I says, ‘the New Year’s a-comin’, an’ I think there ought to be some change in the early part of it for you an’ me.’ ‘I don’t want no changes,’ he says; ‘I’m very well satisfied as I be.’ I’m gettin’ desperate, Mrs. Fry.”

“Well, ’tis very onconsiderate,” returned Martha, “very. I’m sure ye’ve said all ye could an’ done all ye could. ’Tis hard, too, for a woman to have to go a-droppin’ hints an’ a-takin’ the lead in such a delicate matter. I’m sure I don’t know what to advise, my dear.”

Mrs. Sibley rubbed her nose, and gazed at her friend meditatively.

“I’m about the only ’ooman in this ’ere place as Foyle could get to keep house for him,” she remarked. “I’ll tell ’ee what I’ll do, Mrs. Fry—I’ll march! Leastways,” she added, correcting herself, “I’ll tell ’en I be goin’. We’ll see how he’ll like that.”

“Ye mid try it,” said Martha reflectively; “it ’ud be a bit ark’ard, though, if he was to take ’ee at your word.”

“He’ll not do that,” returned Mrs. Sibley, continuing emphatically: “Now, Mrs. Fry, my dear, I’ll expect ’ee to act the part of a friend by me. If he do ax ye to lend ’en a hand or send over Selina to help ’en, don’t ye go for to do no such thing.”

“I won’t,” promised Mrs. Fry.

“An’ if he do say anything to ’ee about my leavin’, do ye jist let on as my mind be quite made up.”

“I will,” said Mrs. Fry.

“I’ll start packin’ at once then, to show ’en as I be in earnest,” said Mrs. Sibley, with a dry chuckle as her friend rose.

No sooner had Mrs. Fry edged through the narrow door with her market-basket than Mrs. Sibley set to work.

When Mr. Foyle, who united the double functions of carrier and sexton, unhitched the horse from his van, and, having seen to the animal’s comfort, went indoors, he was surprised to find his children, who had preceded him into the house, standing with scared faces round the packing-case, which occupied the centre of the kitchen, while Mrs. Sibley, with an air of great determination, was stowing away various articles therein.

“Hullo!” cried he, pausing in the doorway. “What’s the matter here? Isn’t tea ready?”

“You’d best put on the kettle, Florence,” said Mrs. Sibley, turning to the eldest child. “I haven’t had time to ’tend to it. Oh, be that you, Mr. Foyle? Would you kindly hand me down that there clock? I’m afeard the childern mid break it. Henery, just roll up that door-mat an’ fetch it here.”

“Dear heart alive, what be about, Mrs. Sibley?” ejaculated honest Foyle. “You haven’t had no bad noos, I hope?”

“Oh, no noos at all, Mr. Foyle. Nothin’ noo do never come a-nigh this ’ere place. I be goin’ to have a bit of a change—I did tell ’ee this marnin’ as I wanted a change, didn’t I? I be a-goin’ to shift, Mr. Foyle.”

“To shift!” ejaculated the sexton.

He slowly unwound the lengths of black and white comforter which were swathed about his neck, gaping at her the while.

“You’d best make tea, hadn’t you?” remarked Mrs. Sibley, ostentatiously counting over the plated spoons which were her property. “Florence ’ud very likely scald herself.”

The sexton dropped heavily into the nearest chair.

“Ye bain’t goin’ away to-night!” he gasped.

Mrs. Sibley straightened herself and eyed him reflectively. It might be a little awkward to say she was leaving that night, for if by chance he did take her at her word, she had not the remotest notion of where she could go.

“Not to-night,” she said at length, with the air of one making a concession. “I reckon to-morrow ’ull be time enough.”

Florence laid down the teapot and approached, her eyes round with consternation.

“Ye’re never goin’ to leave us on Christmas Day!” she ejaculated. “Oh, Auntie!”

“Auntie” was the title unanimously bestowed on Mrs. Sibley by the young Foyles, and accepted by that lady pending its exchange for a more intimate one.

In a moment Florence burst into tears, and the other children immediately followed suit, little Rosanna being indeed so overcome by her feelings that she was constrained to lie on the floor and scream.

Mrs. Sibley stooped over her and set her on her feet. Beneath her stiff and somewhat chilly demeanour she had a warm enough heart, and was sincerely attached to her charges, particularly the youngest, whom she had brought up from infancy.

“Ye’ll have to get another Auntie, my dear,” she remarked, winking away a tear. “And ’tis to be hoped as she’ll take as good care of you as I’ve a-done.”

The sexton breathed hard, but did not venture to protest, and Henery, after rubbing his eyes on his jacket sleeve, inquired in a reproachful tone why Auntie was going away.

“I wants a change, my dears,” reiterated Mrs. Sibley, bestowing a gentle shake on Rosanna, as a means of bringing her round, for the child, following her favourite mode of procedure when her feelings were too many for her, was rapidly growing black in the face. “I did tell Father so this marnin’—Father knows. He bain’t surprised, I’m sure. What must be, must be!” summed up Mrs. Sibley oracularly. Thereupon casting an inquiring eye round the room, she descried the warming-pan, which was hanging behind the door, pounced upon it, and stowed it away in the packing-case on top of the hearthrug.

Silence reigned for some moments, broken only by the sobs of the children and the rustling of Mrs. Sibley’s packing-papers.

“Ye’d best give the children their tea, Mr. Foyle,” she remarked, looking up presently. “They be in need of it, poor things. There, don’t ye cry so, Florence. Ye’ll be gettin’ another Auntie soon—at least, I hope so. Though reelly I don’t quite see who ye can call in, Mr. Foyle, I don’t indeed. I passed the remark to Mrs. Fry to-day, an’ she said she was sure she didn’t know who you could turn to. Her own hands was full, she said. Poor ’Lina was worked a deal too hard for a maid of her age, already. Them was her words. But sit down to your tea, do, Mr. Foyle. Get the bread, Florence; ’tis time for you to be growin’ handy. ’Tis you as ’ull have to be keepin’ the house most like.”

It might have been the result of Florence’s emotion, or it might have been owing to the fact that the shelf was a high one and Florence’s arms were short, but in some way or other in reaching down the loaf she managed to tumble it into the coal-box.

Foyle rose hastily, pushed the child on one side, picked up the loaf, dusted it with his sleeve, set it on the table, and went out, banging the door behind him.

As the sound of his retreating footsteps echoed down the path, Mrs. Sibley rose to her feet and smiled upon the children, who were now sobbing afresh.

“There, don’t ye make such a fuss,” she remarked soothingly. “Father’s a bit upset; ye mustn’t mind that. Get on with your teas, dears. There, ye may have a bit of jam to it to-night, as it’s Christmas Eve; and afterwards we’ll stick up some green, and you must all hang up your stockin’s and see what you’ll find there in the marnin’.”

Cheerfulness was immediately restored; little faces grimed by tears smiled afresh; plates were extended for plentiful helpings of blackberry jam, and soon little tongues were gleefully discussing the morrow’s prospects, and particularly the treasures which might be looked for in the stockings.

“But I’ve only got such a ’ittle stockin’,” lisped Rosanna, contemplating a chubby leg, which was, indeed, but imperfectly protected by about three inches of sock. “My stockin’ won’t hold half so much as the others.”

“There, I’ll lend you one of mine, then,” said Auntie, graciously; and, going to the chest of drawers in the corner, she drew forth a pair of her own substantial stockings, and presented one to the child.

As the children retired for the night, Henery paused beside her for a moment.

“You won’t truly go to-morrow, Auntie?” he pleaded coaxingly.

Mrs. Sibley paused a moment, and in the interval the sound of the sexton’s slouching step was heard without, and his hand fumbled at the latch.

“It do all depend on Father, Henery,” said Mrs. Sibley, raising her voice slightly. “He do know very well as I do want a change.”

Mr. Foyle entered, looking weary and depressed, and sat down in his customary chair. Mrs. Sibley cast a searching glance round the kitchen, and, possessing herself of a pair of spotted china dogs which adorned the mantel-piece, added them to her collection, and retired.

The sexton lit his pipe, and had been smoking in gloomy silence for some time, when Mrs. Sibley re-entered. Going to the dresser, and opening a drawer, she abstracted a number of oranges, nuts, crackers, and other such wares, and filled her apron with them.

“What be them for?” inquired the sexton diffidently.

“Why, they be surprises for the childern,” returned she.

“Ah,” rejoined John Foyle, “surprises, be they?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Sibley, “they do look for ’em reg’lar, they do. I do always fill their stockin’s wi’ ’em every Christmas.”

“Oh,” said the sexton, “put their surprises in their stockin’s, do ’ee?”

Mrs. Sibley nodded and withdrew, leaving John sunk in profound thought.

“This ’ere be a vale o’ tears,” he remarked presently, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe. He rose, went to the table, turned up the lamp a little more, and fetching pen, ink and paper from the window-sill on which they usually reposed, sat down to indite a letter. It cost him much labour and thought, but, after all, it was a brief enough document. When completed it ran thus: “If Mrs. Sibley will meet Mr. Foyle in the churchyard to-morrow morning about nine o’clock when nobody’s about she will hear of something to your advantage. Yours truly, John Foyle.”

“I couldn’t,” said the sexton to himself, “put the question in any sort of public way. The childern is in and out, and the neighbours mid pop in. The churchyard is best and most nat’ral.”

He folded the letter, put it in an envelope, and addressed it; then, looking round, descried hanging over a chair-back one of Mrs. Sibley’s stockings—the fellow to the one she had lent little Rosanna.

“The very thing!” exclaimed John. “The Christmas surprises do always go in stockin’s. It’ll be a surprise for she, I d’ ’low—not but what she didn’t look for it,” he added with a grim chuckle.

He placed the letter in the stocking, fastened it securely with a loop of string, and, going cautiously upstairs, slung it over Mrs. Sibley’s door-handle. He paused a moment, winking to himself, and then made his way on tiptoe to his own room.

The usual Christmas bustle and excitement prevailed in the little household next morning. The children ecstatically compared notes over their fruit and toys; the sexton himself was quite unaccountably jovial, with a nervous kind of joviality nevertheless, hardly venturing to glance in Mrs. Sibley’s direction. She, on her side, wore a sedate, not to say chastened, aspect, and was attired in her deepest “weeds”.

Foyle’s jocularity diminished after a time, and he set off for the churchyard in a depressed and uncomfortable frame of mind. What was the woman driving at—what more in the name of goodness could she want?

He paced up and down the path nearest the gate for some time, and then, suddenly recalling the fact that he had not yet attended to the stove connected with the heating apparatus of the church, hurried off to accomplish this duty.

On his return he descried a tall figure in black making its way, not towards him, but towards that portion of the churchyard wherein reposed the mortal remains of the lamented Mr. Sibley.

After some hesitation the sexton followed, and Mrs. Sibley, having deposited a wreath of evergreens on the grave, turned round with a mournful expression.

“At such times as these, Mr. Foyle,” she remarked, “the mind do nat’rally feel m’urnful.”

“True, true!” agreed the sexton uncomfortably.

“He was a good husband, Mr. Foyle,” said the widow in a melancholy tone.

“To be sure,” said John doubtfully.

“I shall never look upon his like again,” resumed Mrs. Sibley, shaking her head.

The sexton glanced from her disconsolate face to the wreath of evergreens, and then back again. Mrs. Sibley was still shaking her head with an air of gentle resignation.

“I think I’ll be goin’,” said Mr. Foyle with sudden desperation. “I thought you did step out to this ’ere churchyard with another intention.”

Mrs. Sibley glanced at him in mild surprise.

“Ye didn’t chance to get no letter this marnin’, I s’pose?” continued the sexton with some heat.

“A letter!” repeated Mrs. Sibley.

“E-es, the letter what I did put in your stockin’ for a surprise,” added John emphatically.

Mrs. Sibley’s melancholy vanished as by magic; she smiled on the sexton, not only affably, but positively coyly.

“An’ it was a surprise!” she exclaimed, “it was indeed. E-es, Mr. Foyle.”

She paused again, and then, all scruples apparently vanquished by the delicacy of John’s attitude, she extended a bony hand from beneath the folds of her black shawl.

“That’s why I’m here,” she said.