As Josh, by special permit, was not due in Barracks before next day’s Revally, the newly-wedded couple supped on cold scraps put by from dinner,—or pretended to, for the trooper’s cut lip hurt him, and Mrs. Joshua couldn’t have eaten a mouthful, seeing him so cast down—not if you had tempted her with Turkey Soup—as understood to be consumed by the Lord Mayor of London out of a gold spoon—and Roast Venison—and betook themselves to rest. Nelly had comforted the swollen lip with old linen rags and hot water; but the swollen heart of its owner was not to be eased, even by her gentle touch.... Long after her soft even breathing had convinced him that his young wife slept, the man lay open-eyed and wakeful; staring at the narrow line of watery moonlight that outlined the edges of the square of dirty blind....
And presently he knew that Nelly had not been sleeping; for he heard her sob out in the darkness the question that could not be kept back.
“Oh, Josh, dear love! Why ever did he do it? Why should even a grand, rich gentleman have the right to treat my husband so?”
She hardly knew the hard, stern voice that answered:
“You ask why he called me dog,—and struck me? Being th’ dog’s wife, med-be ye have a right to know! ’Twas because the gaslight showed my soldier’s cloth and buttons.... We’re housed like dogs, and fed like ’em—and take our pleasures come-by-chance as dogs do—and are sometimes whipped as dogs are.... Why shouldn’t he call me dog? He was in his right—I was in my wrong! There’s little else to say!...”
She sobbed out some indignant, incoherent words of protest. He filled his vast chest with a long, deep quivering breath, and sent it slowly out again, and said, still sternly, but less bitterly:
“In th’ old days, dear lass, when, as I’ve heard tell, Leprosy were common in England, smitten folks went about th’ roads and byways, sounding bell and clapper to warn wholesome people out of their tainted way. In some such manner—as I have no learning to word as should be—my uniform, that ought to be my honor, is my shame, in the eyes of my superiors and even many o’ my equals. And gentlefolks like him and his, shrink from the rub o’ the soldier’s sleeve as if it carried th’ pest. Now you and me’ll speak no more of this, my Pretty. Let it be buried deep—and covered up—and hid away.”
She promised amidst tears and wifely kisses, and thenceforwards the sore subject was touched upon no more. But Nelly was to learn that there are some things that, however deep their grave be dug, and though whole tons of figurative earth be heaped above them, cannot be kept buried. Long after the trooper’s wounded lip had healed and the small scar left by the ivory fan had paled and vanished, she saw the bleeding scar.
LXX
Blueberry’s purchase-money had long been spent—Josh’s hoarded pound or so had melted, crown by crown, out of the green netted purse,—the last shillings of Mrs. Joshua’s small store of savings had been swallowed up by those three shrieking needs of Humanity—more particularly Humanity reared under the inclement skies of Great Britain, for Food, Fire, and Shelter—before capricious Fortune relented in some degree towards the poor young lovers; permitting the missing certificate of their marriage at the yellow iron church at the bottom of the Stoke Road near Dullingstoke Junction, to be discovered within the covers of that sacred volume, the trooper’s “small book,” tucked snugly away in a fold of the parchment binding.