Victorian Short Stories: Stories of Courtship
single-handed, and the stone had to be fetched from off the fell-side.
Two or three times a day he led his rickety, lumbering cart along the
lane that passed the vicarage gate, pausing on each journey to glance
furtively up at the windows. But he saw no sign of Rosa Blencarn; and,
indeed, he felt no longing to see her: he was grimly exultant over the
remembrance of his wooing of her, and over the knowledge that she was
his. There glowed within him a stolid pride in himself: he thought of
the others who had courted her, and the means by which he had won her
seemed to him a fine stroke of cleverness.
And so he refrained from any mention of the matter; relishing, as he
worked, all alone, the days through, the consciousness of his secret
triumph, and anticipating, with inward chucklings, the discomforted
cackle of his mother's female friends. He foresaw without misgiving, her
bitter opposition: he felt himself strong; and his heart warmed towards
the girl. And when, at intervals, the brusque realization that, after
all, he was to possess her swept over him, he gripped the stones, and
swung them almost fiercely into their places.
All around him the white, empty fields seemed slumbering breathlessly.
The stillness stiffened the leafless trees. The frosty air flicked his
blood: singing vigorously to himself he worked with a stubborn,
unflagging resolution, methodically postponing, till the length of the
wall should be completed, the announcement of his betrothal.
After his reticent, solitary fashion, he was very happy, reviewing his
future prospects, with a plain and steady assurance, and, as the
week-end approached, coming to ignore the irregularity of the whole
business: almost to assume, in the exaltation of his pride, that he had
won her honestly; and to discard, stolidly, all thought of Luke Stock,
of his relations with her, of the coming child that was to pass for his
own.
And there were moments too, when, as he sauntered homewards through the
dusk at the end of his day's work, his heart grew full to overflowing of
a rugged, superstitious gratitude towards God in Heaven who had granted
his desires.
About three o'clock on the Saturday afternoon he finished the length of
wall. He went home, washed, shaved, put on his Sunday coat; and,
avoiding the kitchen, where his mother sat knitting by the fireside,
strode up to the vicarage.
It was Rosa who opened the door to him. On recognizing him she started,
and he followed her into the dining-room. He seated himself, and began,
brusquely:
'I've coom, Miss Rosa, t' speak t' Mr. Blencarn.'
Then added, eyeing her closely:
'Ye're lookin' sick, lass.'
Her faint smile accentuated the worn, white look on her face.
'I reckon ye've been frettin' yeself,' he continued gently, 'leein'
awake o' nights, hev'n't yee, noo?'
She smiled vaguely.
'Well, but ye see I've coom t' settle t' whole business for ye. Ye
thought mabbe that I was na a man o' my word.'
'No, no, not that,' she protested, 'but--but--'
'But what then?'
'Ye must not do it, Mr. Garstin ... I must just bear my own trouble the
best I can--' she broke out.
'D'ye fancy I'm takin' ye oot of charity? Ye little reckon the sort o'
stuff my love for ye's made of. Nay, Miss Rosa, but ye canna draw back
noo.'
'But ye cannot do it, Mr. Garstin. Ye know your mother will na have me at
Hootsey.... I could na live there with your mother.... I'd sooner bear
my trouble alone, as best I can.... She's that stern is Mrs. Garstin. I
couldn't look her in the face.... I can go away somewhere.... I could
keep it all from uncle.'
Her colour came and went: she stood before him, looking away from him,
dully, out of the window.
'I intend ye t' coom t' Hootsey. I'm na lad: I reckon I can choose my
own wife. Mother'll hev ye at t' farm, right enough: ye need na distress
yeself on that point--'
'Nay, Mr. Garstin, but indeed she will not, never... I know she will
not... She always set herself against me, right from the first.'
'Ay, but that was different. T' case is all changed noo,' he objected
doggedly.
'She'll support the sight of me all the less,' the girl faltered.
'Mother'll hev ye at Hootsey--receive ye willin' of her own free
wish--of her own free wish, d'ye hear? I'll answer for that.'
He struck the table with his fist heavily. His tone of determination
awed her: she glanced at him hurriedly, struggling with her
irresolution.
'I knaw hoo t' manage mother. An' now,' he concluded, changing his tone,
'is yer uncle about t' place?'
'He's up the paddock, I think,' she answered.
'Well, I'll jest step oop and hev a word wi' him.'
'Ye're ... ye will na tell him.'
'Tut, tut, na harrowin' tales, ye need na fear, lass. I reckon ef I can
tackle mother, I can accommodate myself t' parson Blencarn.'
He rose, and coming close to her, scanned her face.
'Ye must git t' roses back t' yer cheeks,' he exclaimed, with a short
laugh, 'I canna be takin' a ghost t' church.'
She smiled tremulously, and he continued, laying one hand affectionately
on her shoulder:
'Nay, but I was but jestin'. Roses or na roses, ye'll be t' bonniest
bride in all Coomberland. I'll meet ye in Hullam lane, after church
time, tomorrow,' he added, moving towards the door.
After he had gone, she hurried to the backdoor furtively. His retreating
figure was already mounting the grey upland field. Presently, beyond
him, she perceived her uncle, emerging through the paddock gate. She ran
across the poultry yard, and mounting a tub, stood watching the two
figures as they moved towards one another along the brow, Anthony
vigorously trudging, with his hands thrust deep in his pockets; her
uncle, his wideawake tilted over his nose, hobbling, and leaning stiffly
on his pair of sticks. They met; she saw Anthony take her uncle's arm:
the two, turning together, strolled away towards the fell.
She went back into the house. Anthony's dog came towards her, slinking
along the passage. She caught the animal's head in her hands, and bent
over it caressingly, in an impulsive outburst of almost hysterical
affection.
VII
The two men returned towards the vicarage. At the paddock gate they
halted, and the old man concluded:
'I could not have wished a better man for her, Anthony. Mabbe the
Lord'll not be minded to spare me much longer. After I'm gone Rosa'll
hev all I possess. She was my poor brother Isaac's only child. After her
mother was taken, he, poor fellow, went altogether to the bad, and until
she came here she mostly lived among strangers. It's been a wretched
sort of childhood for her--a wretched sort of childhood. Ye'll take care
of her, Anthony, will ye not? ... Nay, but I could not hev wished for a
better man for her, and there's my hand on 't.'
'Thank ee, Mr. Blencarn, thank ee,' Anthony answered huskily, gripping
the old man's hand.
And he started off down the lane homewards.
His heart was full of a strange, rugged exaltation. He felt with a
swelling pride that God had entrusted to him this great charge--to tend
her; to make up to her, tenfold, for all that loving care, which, in her
childhood, she had never known. And together with a stubborn confidence
in himself, there welled up within him a great pity for her--a tender
pity, that, chastening with his passion, made her seem to him, as he
brooded over that lonely childhood of hers, the more distinctly
beautiful, the more profoundly precious. He pictured to himself,
tremulously, almost incredulously, their married life--in the winter,
his return home at nightfall to find her awaiting him with a glad,
trustful smile; their evenings, passed together, sitting in silent
happiness over the smouldering logs; or, in summer-time, the midday rest
in the hay-fields when, wearing perhaps a large-brimmed hat fastened
with a red ribbon, beneath her chin, he would catch sight of her,
carrying his dinner, coming across the upland.
She had not been brought up to be a farmer's wife: she was but a child
still, as the old parson had said. She should not have to work as other
men's wives worked: she should dress like a lady, and on Sundays, in
church, wear fine bonnets, and remain, as she had always been, the belle
of all the parish.
And, meanwhile, he would farm as he had never farmed before,
watching his opportunities, driving cunning bargains, spending
nothing on himself, hoarding every penny that she might have what
she wanted.... And, as he strode through the village, he seemed to
foresee a general brightening of prospects, a sobering of the fever
of speculation in sheep, a cessation of the insensate glutting, year
after year, of the great winter marts throughout the North, a slackening
of the foreign competition followed by a steady revival of the price
of fatted stocks--a period of prosperity in store for the farmer at
last.... And the future years appeared to open out before him, spread
like a distant, glittering plain, across which, he and she, hand in
hand, were called to travel together....
And then, suddenly, as his iron-bound boots clattered over the cobbled
yard, he remembered, with brutal determination, his mother, and the
stormy struggle that awaited him.
He waited till supper was over, till his mother had moved from the table
to her place by the chimney corner. For several minutes he remained
debating with himself the best method of breaking the news to her. Of a
sudden he glanced up at her: her knitting had slipped on to her lap: she
was sitting, bunched of a heap in her chair, nodding with sleep. By the
flickering light of the wood fire, she looked worn and broken: he felt a
twinge of clumsy compunction. And then he remembered the piteous, hunted
look in the girl's eyes, and the old man's words when they had parted at
the paddock gate, and he blurted out:
'I doot but what I'll hev t' marry Rosa Blencarn after all.'
She started, and blinking her eyes, said:
'I was jest takin' a wink o' sleep. What was 't ye were saying, Tony?'
He hesitated a moment, puckering his forehead into coarse rugged lines,
and fidgeting noisily with his tea-cup. Presently he repeated:
'I doot but what I'll hev t' marry Rosa Blencarn after all.'
She rose stiffly, and stepping down from the hearth, came towards him.
'Mabbe I did na hear ye aright, Tony.' She spoke hurriedly, and though
she was quite close to him, steadying herself with one hand clutching
the back of his chair, her voice sounded weak, distant almost.
'Look oop at me. Look oop into my face,' she commanded fiercely.
He obeyed sullenly.
'Noo oot wi 't. What's yer meanin', Tony?'
'I mean what I say,' he retorted doggedly, averting his gaze.
'What d'ye mean by sayin' that ye've _got_ t' marry her?'
'I tell yer I mean what I say,' he repeated dully.
'Ye mean ye've bin an' put t' girl in trouble?'
He said nothing; but sat staring stupidly at the floor.
'Look oop at me, and answer,' she commanded, gripping his shoulder and
shaking him.
He raised his face slowly, and met her glance.
'Ay, that's aboot it,' he answered.
'This'll na be truth. It'll be jest a piece o' wanton trickery!' she
cried.
'Nay, but't is truth,' he answered deliberately.
'Ye will na swear t' it?' she persisted.
'I see na necessity for swearin'.'
'Then ye canna swear t' it,' she burst out triumphantly.
He paused an instant; then said quietly:
'Ay, but I'll swear t' it easy enough. Fetch t' Book.'
She lifted the heavy, tattered Bible from the chimney-piece, and placed
it before him on the table. He laid his lumpish fist on it.
'Say,' she continued with a tense tremulousness, 'say, I swear t' ye,
mother, that 't is t' truth, t' whole truth, and noat but t' truth,
s'help me God.'
'I swear t' ye, mother, it's truth, t' whole truth, and nothin' but t'