JOY AND SORROW JOIN HANDS
Wonston market-place was on market-days an animated scene. It was filled with booths and stalls, and crowded with country-people with their produce and townspeople with their purses. On bright days parasols vied in brilliancy with the flower and fruit stalls. Butter and eggs, pottery, meat, and corn were displayed in baskets or on the cobbles. In one corner an auction was going on, in another a patent medicine vendor shouted to a crowd of gaping half-hearted customers, who fumbled their coppers and cudgelled their brains to make sure his wares would suit their own complaints, or those of Ben or Sally at home. Through the crowd, with its kaleidoscopic shifting of colour and action, drags and four with excursionists would pilot their way with much tooting of horns; or a red or yellow omnibus, laden to once again its own height with poultry hampers, would slowly wend. In the midst rose the town-cross, an obelisk on steps, with the civic horn slung at its top and a Crimean cannon at its base. The sunshine glared over all, whitening the booth awnings, and giving a dazzling cheerfulness to the whole scene.
The sleepy old town awoke on these days. Its normal stagnation on every topic but its neighbour's affairs disappeared and it went in genially for dissipation of perambulation, expenditure, and acquaintanceship. Everybody was glad to see everybody else, as conducing to the general liveliness; and though everybody did not bow to everybody to whom under an inconvenient strain of circumstance they might have been introduced, there was certainly less of the eyelid bow on that day than on any other. It was the harvest of money and mind. Groaning tills afterwards disbursed to the banks; replete minds gave their surplus coin to their morals. All was grist of impression or profit.
On one such day Borlase was standing before the Town Hall talking to a friend. It was later in the year, grouse-shooting was now waived in conversation for partridge prospects, à propos of stubble and turnips. He had just expressed his opinion when Mr. Severn hailed him from the corn-market opposite and crossed the road.
Mr. Severn had not visibly aged much in these years since his second marriage. He was still upright and little gray showed in his black hair; but Borlase, with his habits of close observation and his knowledge of facts, knew also that his cheerfulness was always, to a certain extent, assumed. His face, when at rest, was sad, and he often roused himself with an effort from depressing thought. This expression was strikingly evident as he stood by Borlase, whose face was singularly happy and sanguine. His height dwarfed Borlase, whose inches were scarcely up to the average and appeared less so from his breadth of chest and good muscular development. The two men shook hands with a smile; the keen eyes of the one and the quietly-perceptive eyes of the other met with genuine liking. Borlase knew no one to whom he looked up in every sense with more confidence than to Mr. Severn, who, on his part, found comfort in the knowledge that he was not ignorant of facts in his home-life of which the world had only vague suspicions and that they had secured for him and his the loyal sympathy of a less burdened heart.
'Well, Borlase,' he said, 'you're a perfect stranger, don't know when we've seen you. Called once or twice, and every one out? pshaw! that doesn't count. Now I was just coming to ask you a favour. Will you stand godfather for this baby we're going to christen next week? She's to be called Deborah Juliana, after Mrs. Marlowe. It's a name that's nearly killed my wife, but we couldn't pass over a whim of Mrs. Marlowe's. She thinks this will be our last, as we must realise now that we can't overrule Providence to another boy to mitigate the spoiling that's evidently in store for Jack, and she wants to ratify this confidence by being its godmother. Very good of her and very quaint—all put into Lord Chesterfieldisms by Mrs. Hennifer. You must dine with us and Tremenheere too. He always christens our babies. I'm going on to ask Tremenheere.'
'I shall be most happy,' said Borlase.
'My dear fellow, the favour is on your side. Anna's to be the other godmother. I meant the little thing to be called after her, that I might have an Anna left when she takes flight, as I suppose she will some day. I hope it'll be a fine day. Now I must go on to the Canon. Anna's down shopping. If you come across her you can tell her this arrangement.'
Borlase had not gone much farther when he saw Anna at the other side of the street. She had seen him first, however, and had lowered her parasol to hide her blush. He crossed over, and she waited on the edge of the pavement. It seemed to him that all the sunshine pouring into the street settled for the moment on her sparkling face. But her manner was as frank as usual. This gave him a slight shock of disappointment, for he had counted upon a shadow of the remembrance of their last parting. He was far from guessing that this very remembrance gave a buoyancy to her tones and air born of the fear that otherwise he might think she remembered too well, and had dwelt on it with wonder and happy hope. He turned and walked on with her.
'I have just had a most unexpected pleasure,' he said.
'And what is that?' said Anna.
'I am to be godfather to little Miss Deborah Juliana.'
'Indeed! Everything combines to overwhelm this baby with good luck at the beginning of her life.'
'If she is overwhelmed, it won't be good luck,' said Borlase. His fair face flushed with pleasure and he laughed light-heartedly. He had been premature in resenting a frankness which led to such a mood. 'Are you as pleased as I am, Miss Hugo?' he asked, glancing down at her.
'At baby's impending discomfiture? Are you always so benevolently disposed towards the babies, Mr. Borlase?'
'No indeed. If I have been asked once to be sponsor in this parish I have been asked a score of times and have always refused.'
'Then you are a most inconsistent individual. What excuse can you offer for breaking your rule?'
'That one must draw the line somewhere.'
'So you will be open to all offers?'
'On the contrary this is the only one I shall accept. The rule immediately comes into practice again. No other baby would have induced me to break it.'
'But you won't have the felicity of standing by Mrs. Marlowe. Mrs. Hennifer is her proxy.'
'I shall have another felicity, however.'
'And what is that?'
'The felicity of standing by you.'
As he spoke, looking straight at her, he was startled by a change in her face. Its sparkle of archness suddenly faded, and her eyes dilated with astonishment. Evidently she had not heard what he said. She was looking at some object in the crowded street. Involuntarily she put her hand on his arm, as though she could not stand steadily. He drew her to one side to lean against a doorway, but with a resentful gesture she freed herself and began to make her way down the pavement. He kept close to her, but there was no need to ask what had alarmed her. Elias Constantine, astride of a cart-horse, was a figure easily to be discerned above the heads of foot-passengers, and at his first following of her gaze Borlase too saw him. But he had not seen them yet and was glancing eagerly from side to side. He was red with heat and looked scared and angry. The horse had evidently been unloosed from a cart and mounted at once. Its foamy mouth and streaming flanks spoke of a gallop.
'Make him see us,' said Anna.
He was attracting attention, and various voices were shouting the addresses of the different doctors, one of whom it was taken as a matter of course that he wanted. Borlase seized Anna's parasol and swung it above his head. Elias caught the movement. A look of mingled relief and more urgent anxiety possessed his face as his eyes fell on Anna. He dug his spurless heels into the horse's flanks, sending it forward with a plunge that cleared his course, and in another moment pulled up by her.
'She's off,' he said hoarsely.
'Who?' said Anna. Her voice was scarcely audible.
'Clo, t' missis, that limb o' the devil.'
'Oh, hush!' said Anna.
She put her hand over her eyes as though to collect her thoughts for grappling an emergency. But Borlase saw her stricken look. He had seen it before. He knew what must have happened at Old Lafer—only one calamity could make Anna Hugo look as she looked now. Yet when she took her hands from her eyes she managed to smile. It wrung his heart. He had experience of that smile on a woman's face which hides the deepest wound and buries its own grief in hopes of assuaging another's.
'Come this way,' he said, placing her hand on his arm and turning down a by-street; 'every one will observe us here and some officious fool be volunteering to find Mr. Severn. As it happens, I know where he is and that he is safe from hearing of this for the present at least.'
'Do you really?' she said. Her voice trembled but she looked up at him with unutterable gratitude.
'He is gone to the Canon's, to Tremenheere's, about this christening. Now, Constantine, bring the mare quietly to this corner and tell Miss Hugo what she must know at once. I have a patient near who will take me a moment.'
He seized her hand, wrung it and turned away. She was scarcely conscious of a force of sympathy that almost unmanned him. Her attention was fixed on Elias.
He leant over her, clutching the horse's mane to steady himself. His face worked with an emotion more of rage than grief. He would not allow himself to be miserable; he was fired, not numbed. He could have sworn at Anna for the quenching of her spirit, she, the good, the true, to be overwhelmed by what such a hussy as Mrs. Severn could do.
'She slipped off as neat as a weasel through a chink in a wall none other ud see,' he said. 'Dinah wer scouring t' dairy as she allus does after the week's butter's off to market, and I wer sledging peats off t' edge, and Peggy minding t' baärns in the beck-side meadows. Mrs. Hennifer had been though; she came clashing ower t' flags in Madam's coach, and it went back empty, and Mrs. Hennifer walked home to t' Hall by the woods, and so she did. And an hour on there wasn't a soul in t' house but Clo and her babby, and Dinah clashing in her pattens ower her pail and clouts. As I came ower t' edge I seed a figure flit off t' door stanes, but niver gev it a thought. It must ha' been her, and she'd slipped into t' gill and bided there while I crossed t' watter. Then she sallied forth frev t' shadow o' the firs, and when I'd reached the flags and stopped to mop a bit, I happed look across and there was my leddy tripping it ower t' ling for all the world as if she'd wings to her heels. I kenned her then, her shape and her dark gown and the way she took, due west for Kendrew's lal cottage ower at t' Mires. It wer t' old trick, but I couldn't believe my eyes, it's that long since she tried it. I shouted for Dinah, and she came and I swore, ay, God Almighty, I did, and Dinah none chided me. I lay she wished she'd been a man to swear too! She's gone after her, and I loosed t' mare and came for thee. And neither on us thought we were leaving t' babby alone. She'd none thought on it neither, her two months' babby. Shame on her!'
His voice shook. He raised his hand, held it an instant, and let it fall heavily on his knee.
Anna had stood motionless, her face absolutely blank. Now a spasm of returning emotion crossed it. Tears rushed to her eyes; she turned pale to the very lips.
'Woe to her by whom the offence cometh,' said Elias.
She lifted her head and looked at him in mute reproach. His heart misgave him.
'It fair caps me how you can care about her,' he said deprecatingly. 'Ye ken she gangs from bad to worse there, and t' Almighty alone can say where she'll stop. If she gets to drink again, t' Master must ken, it'll reach him. Scilla Kendrew's getting scared on her, and Hartas'll spread it. When Scilla told Dinah afore, she said she'd tell you next time. Nay, nay, if she can tak off like this, and leave her babby to spoon meat, she's hopeless; she's worse a deal nor last time, when there wer no babby to think on. She's possessed by t' devil hissel——' He paused a moment, forcing down a lump in his throat whose presence he disdained.
'Thee and t' Master are alike,' he said. 'It's allus "Till seventy times seven." But I dinna ken if it would be wi' t' Master, if he kenned all we do. Now don't fret, my honey. If ought can stir her to come back afore she gets drink and he gets his heart-break, it'll be yoursel.'
He spoke to her but he looked at Borlase, who had returned and was standing by her. Borlase had already laid his plans. She was stunned, but he knew she would do what he told her.
'Constantine,' he said, 'walk the mare quietly out on the Mires road, and Miss Hugo will keep up with you. I shall follow immediately and drive her to the Mires. Mr. Severn is certain to lunch at the Canon's, and will hear nothing.'
Then he turned to Anna.
'When you are out of the town, find a seat and rest until I come,' he said.
He started at once, disappearing down an alley, by which there was a short cut to his house. The look in Anna's eyes sickened him. He was astonished too. It was so long, above three years he was certain, since Mrs. Severn had last gone to the Mires, that he had been convinced the fancy had left her. Her indulgence there could not now be her excuse, for she now indulged at home. He had discovered the fact for himself and had warned Dinah Constantine, whom he considered perfectly faithful. It was certain that she had told Anna, for he had overheard Elias's words. His doing so had not, assuredly, occurred to either. If, however, it were necessary to exert authority, he would own his knowledge to Anna, for the sake of using it as a leverage with Mrs. Severn. If not, Anna should not guess his knowledge until he could be certain it would relieve her to know he knew. As he ran down the alley, haunted by the hunted shame in her eyes, his feelings were strangely compounded of burning sympathy with her and professional interest in the case. What possessed Mrs. Severn to act thus? Was the problem based on the physical or the moral? Was it his duty to tell her husband?
