Take Courage (9 page)

My father slept late next morning and I did not disturb him, though I rose early myself in order to get a message to John. At that time Mr. Thorpe's lameness of foot, due to a sciatica, was beginning to trouble him, and John often came to market of a Thursday in his father's place. The Market Cross, round which most of the clothiers gathered, was just a few yards down the hill from our house, and I meant to send Sarah out to find him. But as it chanced I did not need to do so, for the apprentice Lister came in early with a gift of eggs from Mrs. Thorpe. I gave him the message, which it seems he took over-eagerly, for in ten minutes John stood before me breathless, having broken off his business to come immediately to me. I was sorry for this and said so; John said it was no matter, and looked at me expectantly.

In early life, when young folk are growing, a difference of a few years in age seems a very great one, and John, who was barely five years older than me, then seemed a grown man, very steady and sober and settled, compared with myself or Francis. He was still short and sturdy in stature—Francis far overtopped him—dark and plain in visage and rather sombre in manner. He did not smile easily, and was not given to many words; he cared nothing for musical instruments or poetry, and abominated facetious jests such as his father and Mr. Ferrand delighted in. But he was already known as an honest, trustworthy merchant and a skilled clothier. The Thorpe cloths were always of proper width and woven of well-seasoned wool; I have seen John feel a cloth between his fingers, not looking at it, and with a blunt scornful air declare promptly what was
wrong. He knew his own mind, made few promises but kept them, and always meant just what he said; I sometimes thought he was a little chafed by the rule of his father, whose notions, whether of cloth or of godliness, were not as lofty as his son's, but he gave him a strict and perfect obedience. I trusted John, and did not hesitate to tell him fully what was in my mind, and ask him to cast the week's accounts for my father.

John looked grave.

“This is not an easy thing, Penninah,” he said. “It is an invasion of your father's private business, which no man suffers gladly.” Seeing that I did not take his meaning, he explained: “If I do this I shall know all your father's moneys, his stocks of wool and cloth, the merchants to whom he sells, just as I know my father's.”

“My father has no son to help him,” I murmured, somewhat at a loss.

John's eyes flashed. “I should be very glad to be a son to your father,” he said promptly.

There was a warmth in his tone the significance of which I did not then catch; I took his words simply for acceptance of the task I offered him, and as I thought I heard my father stirring, I proposed we should go up together to him.

“I think it better I should go alone,” said John after a moment's thought.

He came down after a little to say that my father was not well enough to go to market; he himself would do his business for him, and return that night to give an account of it.

All this he did, and was closeted for a long while that night in the loom-chamber with my father. The length of their discussion, and the sound of their voices rising and falling, John's ever seeming to question and my father's to answer, made me uneasy; and indeed when they at last came down to supper John looked grave and my father tired and troubled. Next day my father bade me be a little stricter in the housekeeping; there had been much adversity in the cloth trade of late, he said, what with wars abroad and political dissensions at home, and the plague, it seemed,
hanging about the country; his accounts had grown a little confused, and now John had put them in order he saw that we should need to be careful for a while. I gladly assented; if this were all that troubled him, I thought, we should soon make him well again, for Sarah was very honest and loved us all though she had a queer harsh way of showing it, and it was easy for me to be frugal since my heart was not set on outward shows or luxuries. We all agreed that David, being young and growing, should not know any curtailment.

To cut down our expenses was easy, and John, coming every week on the eve of Market Day to cast our accounts, gave me praise for our retrenchment which I scarcely deserved, but it was not so easy to cure my father, whose melancholy grew every day upon him. Bishop Laud continually gave orders about communion tables, candles, saints, and so on, which to my father appeared pure papistry, but instead of exciting him as of old, these served merely to depress him, now that there was no Parliament sitting to take the lead in resistance. When it was ordained by those in authority that the afternoon exercises in church should be no longer sermons, but consist only of catechism out of the Prayer Book, he seemed to despair of religion and freedom.

“It is the death of all pious learning,” he muttered dejectedly, his head on his breast.

“Aye, if it be observed,” said John. “But it won't be observed in Bradford.”

His staunch steady tone gave my father some comfort, and his face brightened, only to slip back, when John had gone, into its now customary look of wistful sadness.

It was indeed a sad time for me, for beside the grief of my father's slow decay, I had another trouble.

As peace was shortly made with Spain, though I think more for lack of supplies on our King's part than for any result accruing to the war, certain of our armies returned from those ill-fated expeditions of Buckingham's abroad about which Parliament and all honest men had complained so bitterly. Amongst these returning soldiers came a young man, a cousin or some connection of the Tempests of Boiling Hall. He had learned much beside soldiering, on the continent and in London, and was a very fine gentleman, using great licence in clothes, in drink, in gaming, and, as I understand now, with women. Our young gentry round Bradford had a desire to ape him, and be as like soldiers as they could; and as Boiling Hall was but a mile or two from Little Holroyd and Mr. Ferrand was friendly there, Francis got into the acquaintance of this young Tempest, and soon fell into the same courses. My first intimation of this was that he began to swagger to me a good deal about his fine friends. I not knowing the harm of it encouraged him by listening and smiling—it cheered my father to hear his bright lively talk. His tales grew wilder, and began to contain matters that I was ashamed to listen to; my cheek burned and I bent more closely over my needle. It was my poor father's growing infirmity gave Francis the opportunity for this kind of talk, for he was apt in an evening to drop off to sleep suddenly in the middle of a sentence, and on waking a few minutes later be ignorant that he had slept. For my part I knew not whether it was less maidenly to speak or be silent when my love told these wild tales. At last one night
when he was flushed and loud and laughing continually over his lewd jests I could bear it no longer; I rose up quietly and gathered my needlework together and went towards the stairs. Francis, his face changed, sprang after me and seized me by the waist.

“Penninah!” he said, urgently, but in a whisper so as not to wake my father.

“I can't stay with you while your talk is so ungodly,” I told him, trembling.

“Puritan!” murmured Francis with a teasing smile.

He bent his handsome head and kissed my lips. His breath smelt of wine, and his kisses seemed lecherous; his hand sought my breast caressingly. At this touch my whole soul took fright; I cried “No! No!” and sprang from him, panting. My father stirred and muttered my name drowsily, and we stood very still for a moment till he should sleep again.

“Why are you so cold to me, Pen?” Francis then murmured reproachfully.

“I am not cold to you, Frank,” I told him, the tears thick in my eyes. “I love you wholly.”

He seemed pleased at this, threw up his head and smiled and swung his shoulders.

“But I cannot endure you when you are gross and wanton,” I continued, my voice shaking. “I have not deserved it of you, Francis, that you should treat me so. My father has not deserved it. If we are not rich like the Tempests, we are decent honest people.”

By this time my sobs had gained upon me so that I could keep them down no longer; I burst into tumultuous weeping and ran upstairs. My last glimpse of Francis as I fled showed him hurt and very sorry, with the kind sweet look on his face he used to have as a boy.

Next day he came to me with a jewel in his hand as a present for me, whereat I was very angry. He seemed astonished that I refused it, which vexed me still further; I scolded him roundly for daring to think he could buy my favour, but at last could not help smiling, he looked so
hangdog. He revived at once beneath my smile, sprang to me and kissed me very sweetly, and begged me, calling me his dearest love and such fond terms, to forgive him. Ah, how glad I was to do so!

We were very happy that evening, I at my needle, Francis sitting quietly at our fireside opposite my father, our Tabby and his dog Thunder, both now growing somewhat old and heavy, lying friendly between them.

“It's good to be here, Pen,” murmured Francis when my father slept. He sighed with a kind of relief and comfort, and repeated: “Quietly here with you, Pen.”

Whenever I raised my head I found his eyes fixed on me in a bright sweet look of love.

“I have copied a piece of poetry for you, Pen,” he said presently.

He fumbled in his pocket, and brought out a piece of paper, dirty and crumpled.

“Three mains, Dick's Red, two o'clock Saturday,” I read.

“No, no!” cried Francis, laughing and colouring. “That's a cockfight. Turn it over.”

I turned it; in his large round schoolboyish hand, much misspelt, I read:

0 thou art fairer than the evening sky

Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars

“It is for thee, Pen,” whispered Francis, suddenly kneeling beside me. “With thy starry eyes and dusky hair. I copied it from a playbook Dick Tempest has. Dick has seen many plays,” he added somewhat wistfully, “in London.”

Yes, that evening I was very happy.

For a few days he came thus every evening, and everything was right between us; then suddenly he came no more for a week, and when at last he did appear, he was flushed with wine again and loud and talkative. I was so overjoyed to see him that I ran to him when he plied his rhythmical knock, crying “Oh, it has been so long since you came, Francis!” forgetting that such behaviour was
not maidenly. He soon put me in mind of that, however, by saying with a jaunty air:

“If you were kinder to me, Pen, I would come more often.”

“How could I be kinder to you, Frank?” I wondered.

His laugh, and the look in his eyes, told me partly what he meant, though I was yet too young and innocent to understand him fully. I was angered and drew back, whereupon he begged me to forgive him.

So we went on; some days he told me most lovingly that it was good to be with me, some days he neglected me utterly, and when he returned told me again that if I were kinder to him he would come more often. I grew to hate this saying; at first my pride would not give me leave to answer it, but at last, goaded beyond endurance, I told him quietly but plainly that the way to my kindness was through an honourable marriage. At this Francis frowned and stood first on one foot then on the other, and at last muttered that his father was against the match because of the rift of opinion between him and my father.

“If you do not intend marriage, Francis,” said I in the quietest tone I could command, “let us part now and see each other no more.”

“Of course I intend marriage, Pen!” said Francis peevishly. “But I am waiting a good time to speak to my father.”

I accepted his assurance and strove to be content.

But Francis was ever one to dislike trouble, to put off and delay what would be irksome in the doing. So he did not speak to Mr. Ferrand. Although I never asked whether he had spoken, and he knew I would never ask, yet he was ashamed to come to me with that word unspoken, and therefore he came to Fairgap less often. Yet when he came, our time together was sweet to both of us, and I never doubted I was his true love and we should one day dash aside all hindrances and marry, only I thought it a little hard that he was not kinder just now, seeing I was in such distress about my father.

For the vigour of my poor father's mind now sank a little every day under the melancholy that oppressed him.

Gradually it came that he went abroad little, and took no pleasure in either reading or conversation because of the sudden sleep which weighed on him; he sat long hours in his chair by the fire, silent and brooding. Sometimes he would rouse up and be very busy sorting wools in his spectacles, or sit at the loom, panting a little as he laboured at the treadles. But he made little progress at the piece, which stayed on the loom for weeks; at last John, perceiving this one evening, sat himself at the loom and as it were by chance, while talking, began to weave, and the next evening did the same, and the next, and so on, till the piece was finished. John sent it away to a distant market—for it was ill woven—and sold it for a low price, lest my father's reputation should suffer for it.

Then my father began to set up the warp for a new piece. But he found the task too difficult for him; he often came to the stairhead and called: “Penninah! Penninah!” in a loud shouting voice, and when I ran up I found the threads all in a tangle. (Once he called: “Faith! Faith!” and at that my heart was nearly broken.) I tried my best to set the threads in order, but not being trained to the trade I made but a poor success of it, and my father was very impatient. At length he understood he could never complete the warping, and this I could see was a very severe blow to him. The next time John came in my father asked him, in a somewhat lofty and careless tone, if he would set it straight. John spent many long hours over the business; the threads were so muddled, he said to me,
that it was almost impossible to bring order into them, and since the piece would be of little value when woven, why should my father trouble about it. But I begged him urgently to continue, and he did so, and at last had it all straight, and called my father upstairs to see it, gladly. But alas, my father no longer cared about the piece; he dismissed it peevishly, and made light of John's services. John looked disappointed, and I was grieved for his sake.