Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (818 page)

“It is a dress,” said Darton. “Not exactly a wedding dress; though she may use it as one if she likes. It is rather serviceable than showy — suitable for the winter weather.”

“Good,” said Johns. “Serviceable is a wise word in a bridegroom. I commend ‘ee, Charles.”

“For,” said Darton, “why should a woman dress up like a rope-dancer because she’s going to do the most solemn deed of her life except dying?”

“Faith, why? But she will, because she will, I suppose,” said Dairyman Johns.

“H’m,” said Darton.

The lane they followed had been nearly straight for several miles, but they now left it for a smaller one which after winding uncertainly for some distance forked into two. By night country roads are apt to reveal ungainly qualities which pass without observation during day; and though Darton had travelled this way before, he had not done so frequently, Sally having been wooed at the house of a relative near his own. He never remembered seeing at this spot a pair of alternative ways looking so equally probable as these two did now. Johns rode on a few steps.

“Don’t be out of heart, sonny,” he cried. “Here’s a handpost. Ezra — come and climb this post, and tell us the way.”

The lad dismounted, and jumped into the hedge where the post stood under a tree.

“Unstrap the baskets, or you’ll smash up that wine!” cried Darton, as the young man began spasmodically to climb the post, baskets and all.

“Was there ever less head in a brainless world?” said Johns. “Here, simple Ezzy, I’ll do it.” He leapt off, and with much puffing climbed the post, striking a match when he reached the top, and moving the light along the arm, the lad standing and gazing at the spectacle.

“I have faced tantalization these twenty years with a temper as mild as milk!” said Japheth; “but such things as this don’t come short of devilry!” And flinging the match away, he slipped down to the ground.

“What’s the matter?” asked Darton.

“Not a letter, sacred or heathen — not so much as would tell us the way to the town of Smokey hole — ever I should sin to say it! Either the moss and mildew have eat away the words, or we have arrived in a land where the natives have lost the art o’ writing, and should ha’ brought our compass like Christopher Columbus.”

“Let us take the straightest road,” said Darton placidly; “I shan’t be sorry to get there — ’tis a tiresome ride. I would have driven if I had known.”

“Nor I neither, sir,” said Ezra. “These straps plough my shoulder like a zull. If ‘tis much further to your lady’s home, Maister Darton, I shall ask to be let carry half of these good things in my innerds — hee, hee!”

“Don’t you be such a reforming radical, Ezra,” said Johns sternly. “Here, I’ll take the turkey.”

This being done, they went forward by the right-hand lane, which ascended a hill, the left winding away under a plantation. The pit-a-pat of their horses’ hoofs lessened up the slope; and the ironical directing-post stood in solitude as before, holding out its blank arms to the raw breeze, which brought a snore from the wood as if Skrymir the Giant were sleeping there.

II

Three miles to the left of the travelers, along the road they had not followed, rose an old house with mullioned windows of Ham-hill stone, and chimney so flavish solidity. It stood at the top of a slope beside King’s-Hintock village-street, only a mile or two from King’s-Hintock Court, yet quite shut away from that mansion and its precincts. Immediately in front of it grew a large sycamore tree, whose bared roots formed a convenient staircase from the road below to the front door of the dwelling. Its situation gave the house what little distinctive name it possessed, namely, “The Knap.” Some forty yards off a brook dribbled past, which, for its size, made a great deal of noise. At the back was a dairy barton, accessible for vehicles and live-stock by a side “drong.” Thus much only of the character of the homestead could be divined out of doors at this shady evening-time.

But within there was plenty of light to see by, as plenty was construed at Hintock. Beside a Tudor fireplace, whose moulded four-centred arch was nearly hidden by a figured blue-cloth blower, were seated two women — mother and daughter — Mrs. Hall, and Sarah, or Sally; for this was a part of the world where the latter modification had not as yet been effaced as a vulgarity by the march of intellect. The owner of the name was the young woman by whose means Mr. Darton proposed to put an end to his bachelor condition on the approaching day. The mother’s bereavement had been so long ago as not to leave much mark of its occurrence upon her now, either in face or clothes. She had resumed the mob-cap of her early married life, enlivening its whiteness by a few rose-du-Barry ribbons. Sally required no such aids to pinkness. Rose ate good-nature lit up her gaze; her features showed curves of decision and judgment; and she might have been regarded without much mistake as a warm-hearted, quick-spirited, handsome girl.

She did most of the talking, her mother listening with a half-absent air, as she picked up fragments of red-hot wood ember with the tongs, and piled them upon the brands. But the number of speeches that passed was very small in proportion to the meanings exchanged. Long experience together often enabled them to see the course of thought in each other’s minds without a word being spoken. Behind them, in the centre of the room, the table was spread for supper, certain whiffs of air laden with fat vapours, which ever and anon entered from the kitchen, denoting its preparation there.

“The new gown he was going to send you stays about on the way like himself,” Sally’s mother was saying.

“Yes, not finished, I daresay,” cried Sally independently. “Lord, I shouldn’t be amazed if it didn’t come at all! Young men make such kind promises when they are near you, and forget ‘em when they go away. But he doesn’t intend it as a wedding-gown — he gives it to me merely as a gown to wear when I like — a travelling-dress is what it would be called by some. Come rathe or come late it don’t much matter, as I have a dress of my own to fall back upon. But what time is it?”

She went to the family clock and opened the glass, for the hour was not otherwise discernible by night, and indeed at all times was rather a thing to be investigated than beheld, so much more wall than window was there in the apartment. “It is nearly eight,” said she.

“Eight o’clock, and neither dress nor man,” said Mrs. Hall.

“Mother, if you think to tantalise me by talking like that, you are much mistaken! Let him be as late as he will — or stay away altogether — I don’t care,” said Sally. But a tender, minute quaver in the negation showed that there was something forced in that statement.

Mrs. Hall perceived it, and drily observed that she was not so sure about Sally not caring. “But perhaps you don’t care so much as I do, after all,” she said. “For I see what you don’t, that it is a good and flourishing match for you; a very honourable offer in Mr. Darton. And I think I see a kind husband in him. So pray God ‘twill go smooth, and wind up well.”

Sally would not listen to misgivings. Of course it would go smoothly, she asserted. “How you are up and down, mother!” she went on. “At this moment, whatever hinders him, we are not so anxious to see him as he is to be here, and his thought runs on before him, and settles down upon us like the star in the east. Hark!” she exclaimed, with a breath of relief, her eyes sparkling. “I heard something. Yes — here they are!”

The next moment her mother’s slower ear also distinguished the familiar reverberation occasioned footsteps clambering up the roots of the sycamore.

“Yes it sounds like them at last,” she said. “Well, it is not so very late after all, considering the distance.”

The footfall ceased, and they arose, expecting a knock. They began to think it might have been, after all, some neighbouring villager under Bacchic influence, giving the centre of the road a wide berth, when their doubts were dispelled by the new-comer’s entry into the passage. The door of the room was gently opened, and there appeared not the pair of travellers with whom we have already made acquaintance, but a pale-faced man in the garb of extreme poverty — almost in rags.

“O, it’s a tramp — gracious me!” said Sally, starting back.

His cheeks and eye-orbits were deep concaves — rather, it might be, from natural weakness of constitution than irregular living, though there were indications that he had led no careful life. He gazed at the two women fixedly for a moment: then with an abashed, humiliated demeanour, dropped his glance to the floor, and sank into a chair without uttering a word.

Sally was in advance of her mother, who had remained standing by the fire. She now tried to discern the visitor across the candles.

“Why — mother,” said Sally faintly, turning back to Mrs. Hall. “It is Phil, from Australia!”

Mrs. Hall started, and grew pale, and a fit of coughing seized the man with the ragged clothes. “To come home like this!” she said. “O, Philip — are you ill?”

“No, no, mother,” replied he impatiently, as soon as he could speak.

“But for God’s sake how do you come here — and just now too?”

“Well, I am here,” said the man. “How it is I hardly know. I’ve come home, mother, because I was driven to it. Things were against me out there, and went from bad to worse.”

“Then why didn’t you let us know? — you’ve not writ a line for the last two or three years.”

The son admitted sadly that he had not. He said that he had hoped and thought he might fetch up again, and be able to send good news. Then he had been obliged to abandon that hope, and had finally come home from sheer necessity — previously to making a new start. “Yes, things are very bad with me,” he repeated, perceiving their commiserating glances at his clothes.

They brought him nearer the fire, took his hat from his thin hand, which was so small and smooth as to show that his attempts to fetch up again had not been in a manual direction. His mother resumed her inquiries, and dubiously asked if he had chosen to come that particular night for any special reason.

For no reason, he told her. His arrival had been quite at random. Then Philip Hall looked round the room, and saw for the first time that the table was laid somewhat luxuriously, and for a larger number than themselves; and that an air of festivity pervaded their dress. He asked quickly what was going on.

“Sally is going to be married in a day or two,” replied the mother; and she explained how Mr. Darton, Sally’s intended husband, was coming there that night with the groomsman, Mr. Johns, and other details. “We thought it must be their step when we heard you,” said Mrs. Hall.

The needy wanderer looked again on the floor. “I see — I see,” he murmured. “Why, indeed, should I have come to-night? Such folk as I are not wanted here at these times, naturally. And I have no business here — spoiling other people’s happiness.”

“Phil,” said his mother, with a tear in her eye, but with a thinness of lip and severity of manner which were presumably not more than past events justified; “since you speak like that to me, I’ll speak honestly to you. For these three years you have taken no thought for us. You left home with a good supply of money, and strength and education, and you ought to have made good use of it all. But you come back like a beggar; and that you come in a very awkward time for us cannot be denied. Your return to-night may do us much harm. But mind you are welcome to this home as long as it is mine. I don’t wish to turn you adrift. We will make the best of a bad job; and I hope you are not seriously ill?”

“O no. I have only this infernal cough.”

She looked at him anxiously. “I think you had better go to bed at once,” she said.

“Well — I shall be out of the way there,” said the son wearily.

“Having ruined myself, don’t let me ruin you by being seen in these togs, for Heaven’s sake. Who do you say Sally is going to be married to — a Farmer Darton?”

“Yes — a gentleman — farmer — quite a wealthy man. Far better in station than she could have expected. It is a good thing, altogether.”

“Well done, little Sal!” said her brother, brightening and looking up at

he with a smile. “I ought to have written; but perhaps I have thought of you all the more. But let me get out of sight. I would rather go and jump into the river than be seen here. But have you anything I can drink? I am confoundedly thirsty with my long tramp.”

“Yes, yes, we will bring something upstairs to you,” said Sally, with grief in her face.

“Ay, that will do nicely. But, Sally and mother — ” He stopped, and they waited.

“Mother, I have not told you all,” he resumed slowly, still looking on the floor between his knees. “Sad as what you see of me is, there’s worse behind.”

His mother gazed upon him in grieved suspense, and Sally went and leant upon the bureau, listening for every sound, and sighing. Suddenly she turned round, saying, “Let them come, I don’t care! Philip, tell the worst, and take your time.”

“Well, then,” said the unhappy Phil, “I am not the only one in this mess. Would do Heaven I were! But — ”

“O, Phil!

“I have a wife as destitute as I.”

“A wife?” said his mother.

“Unhappily!”

“A wife! Yes, that is the way with sons!”

“And besides — ” said he.

“Besides! O, Philip, surely — ”

“I have two little children.”

“Wife and children!” whispered Mrs. Hall, sinking down confounded.

“Poor little things!” said Sally involuntarily.

His mother turned again to him. “I suppose these helpless beings are left in Australia?”

“No. They are in England.”

“Well, I can only hope you’ve left them in a respectable place.”

“I have not left them at all. They are here — within a few yards of us. In short, they are in the stable.”

“Where?”

“In the stable. I did not like to bring them indoors till I had seen you, mother, and broken the bad news a bit to you. They were very tired, and are resting out there on some straw.”

Mrs. Hall’s fortitude visibly broken down. She had been brought up not without refinement, and was even more moved by such a collapse of genteel aims as this than a substantial dairyman’s widow would in ordinary have been moved. “Well, it must be borne,” she said, in a low voice, with her hands tightly joined. “A starving son, a starving wife, starving children! Let it be. But why is this come to us now, to-day, to-night? Could no other misfortune happen to helpless women than this, which will quite upset my poor girl’s chance of a happy life? Why have you done us this wrong, Philip? What respectable man will come here, and marry open-eyed into a family of vagabonds?”