Book 2 — chapter three: “Or Die in ’tempting It”

IT wasna near so bad as I’d feared at the inn, for the old men were gone with their droves, and the Camperdines were by this at their dinner. It is often so, if you are in heavy dread of summat and yet brave it, and behold! it is nought. The landlord and his missus, thinking little of us, sent the maid-servant to wait on us—a frightened, simple creature, like Miller’s Polly, and nothing to be feared of. We had the parlour to ourselves, for folk go home early from Lullingford market in the winter, seeing what the roads are, even to this day. I was glad of the red fire and the steaming tea, after the sadness of that house with its dead light.

Gideon began to talk after a while, very slow, and as if the words cost gold.

“Now, Prue, I’ve gotten a deal to say, and if we dunna want to be benighted, I’d best start. You know as me and Jancis have taken up together in good sadness?”

“Ah.”

“I didna think to care about any wench like I do about that girl, Prue. Catches at a chap’s vitals, she do. I never meant to go furder than a bit of fun. I didna reckon to marry, nor yet I didna mean lawless love. I meant fair by Jancis, and so long as we had our Sunday evenings it was all right. When there’s no gainsaying there’s no burning in the blood. Gainsay, and the blood’s on fire. Afore old Beguildy found us out we were contented enow and as innicent as two pinks on a stem.”

“And still be that last,” I says.

“Ah.”

He looked strangely on me for a while, and said—

“You’ve got the second sight, seemingly, our Prue.”

“No. Only a bit of sense.”

“Well, now as the old man’s given me the go-by, I do hunger and thirst after Jancis pretty near as much as I do after the place yonder, and the money and all as goes with it.”

“Not more?”

“Laws, no!”

“Then you dunna love Jancis in good sadness, Gideon. You do but lust after the girl in carnality.”

“Dear to goodness! It met be Parson preaching. That’s what the book-learning does to a woman.”

He laughed a bit, awkward like, and began stuffing baccy into his pipe. But I knew that if I’d got any wisdom it was never book-learning as gave it to me, but just the quietness of the attic.

“Well, big words or not, it’s no matter,” he said. “I want the wench. I want her so bad that I’d very near set my heart to give up all and bring her to Sarn and order one of them rush cradles off Missis Beguildy. So then, to conquer the longing, I planned to bring you to see the place, and talk about it, and maybe begin to buy some bits of things agen we furnish.”

“To harden your heart the more.”

“Ah. And I planned to get some education off you after a while, and gather power to me at election times, and be so well thought of that I could even put my heart on a squire’s girl.”

“Miss Dorabella!”

“No less. What be she, after all, but a woman? She hanna got more to give than any other woman, and what would any man, even the Lord of the Manor, do more for a girl than get her with child?”

“Husht! They’ll hear in the kitchen and be angered at such wild talk.”

“True talk.”

“Maybe true. But nobody’d like it the better for that.”

“Ever since she threw me that first saucy look I’ve had it in mind. She angered me and pleased me both. So I thought if so be I could bring myself to give up Jancis—for either I mun give up Jancis or I mun give up all thought of the other—then Jancis met have taken up with Sexton’s Sammy.”

“It would nigh kill the girl, Gideon, and Sammy’s no woman’s man, and he’s pretty well crazed with learning texts, into the bargain.”

“Oh, he’d take her if I’d let un. She stirs him to anger with her flighty ways and being a wizard’s wench and all. I see a look in Sammy’s face time and agen. Wed with her and tame her, that’s what Sammy ud do.”

“But that would be a cruel thing, Gideon.”

“Well, I’d a mind for it when we set out for market. I thought to throw Jancis at the fellow’s yeard like I throw a crust to Towser, for it mun be one thing or other. And she’d have been contented enough when the children came. Though, Lord help ’em, they’d ha’ had Sammy’s scowl and bin born with their mouths full of texes. But she’d have seen nought wrong with ’em. Anyway, that’s what I’d settled in my own mind.”

“Dear to goodness, what a God Almighty!” I says, mocking a bit, though I knew he could ha’ done it if he’d a mind. He was ever a strong man, which is almost the same, times, as to say, a man with little time for kindness. For if you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your path. So when folk tell me of this great man and that great man, I think to myself, Who was stinted of joy for his glory? How many old folk and children did his coach wheels go over? What bridal lacked his song, and what mourner his tears, that he found time to climb so high?

“But now,” said Gideon, “my mind’s set, and I shanna change agen. I wunna give up either Jancis or the place at Lullingford here; I’ll have both. And I’ll lead Jancis out in a gown as would stand of itself, with her bosom bare as a lady’s, at the ’unt Ball, in front of Miss Dorabella. Not only that neither. But when you and Jancis be at the grand place, and the gentry calling in their carriages——”

“And Mother! You’ve missed out Mother.”

“And me a man of standing, more looked up to than Squire, and not yet old, nor near it, then——”

He was quiet a long while, thinking.

“Well, Gideon,” I says, “what then?”

“Why then, if Dorabella Camperdine comes across my path with them black eyes and that red smile, let her look to herself. I’ll take her. Out of wedlock, I ool, for what she said to you and me to-day. And when the poor wizard’s wench is my lawful missus, I’ll make Squire’s girl a w’ore.”

With that word he banged down his fist on the table so that the tankard of ale rolled on the floor.

“If you be so set in your ways,” I says, “there’ll be more than a flagon of ale spilled, my dear.”

“You talk like an old ancient woman, Prue. I be as I was made. None can go widdershins to that.”

I can hear Gideon say that now, gruff and short and with a kind of broken-hearted sound. It was as if he’d give all to be as he could never be; as if his soul in that hour, away from Sarn and all its ancient power, wrestled mightily to be free of itself. Maybe you’ve seen a dragon-fly coming out of its case? It does so wrostle, it does so wrench, you’d think its life ud go from it. I’ve seen ’em turn somersets like a mountebank in their agony. For get free they mun, and it cosses ’em a pain like the birth pain, very pitiful to see. But in our Gideon it was worse to watch. There he sat, by the comfortable fire, with the spilled beer gleaming on the quarries like dark blood, and he said no word for above an hour. I know it was that, for when he went into his trance I heard the missus of the inn call to the maid-servant to turn the spit and hasten on the meat, for supper must be served in an hour. Then all was still, and I sat with folded hands, seeing Gideon’s dark face there opposite when the fire blazed up. I sat as mum as a winter blackbird. It seemed to me that the mighty hand was upon him, striving with him to make him go widdershins to what he was, to what Father had made him, and Grandad, and all of them, back to Timothy, that had the lightning in his blood. I could see in mind Lullingford New House, and the light wandering, as if it wanted to steady and shine. I wished it might be well with Gideon, and that he met take Jancis, not for vengeance but for love, and because she was the candle of his eye, and his dear acquaintance, and not for lust. And I wished he might take thought for Mother, and even for me, that I be not like his dog or his bought slave.

After a long lapse of time I heard a voice outside say, “Is all finished?” And another voice answered, “Ah, all’s done.” It had a solemn sound, though I knew it was only the dinner they meant.

Gideon stirred and muttered to himself.

“Or die in ’tempting it,” he said.

So I knew we were all set out on a dark road, Gideon and Mother and me, and now Jancis.

We went out and saddled the nags, and set forth for home through a world as stiff as a rock, driving the oxen afore us. The dumbness had come back upon Gideon. The outing was over. The road puddles were gone beyond crackling-stiff, and were iron. And the hedges were even as the wrought-iron gates of Lullingford New House. It was the middle of the night when we came past Sarn Mere, and saw the ice a deal further out, and the lily leaves frozen under.

“Well, it’s bin a very costly day,” says Gideon, “and I’m in behopes you’ve enjoyed yourself.”

I knew it hurt the lad sore to spend. It was a crust in pocket and a sup of water mostly on market days. So I put the old men and Miss Dorabella out of mind, and only said—

“Ah, it was grand, and thank you kindly, lad.”

“And you’ll agree to all?”

“Ah, didna I vow it?”

“But that was afore Jancis.”

“I agree to Jancis. But it ud be all one if I didna.”

“Not if you wouldna work.”

“Oh, I’ll work. I never was afeard of work.”

All of a sudden a sweet scattered whistling came falling from the dim moony sky.

“Hark!” he says. “The Seven Whistlers!”

But I said I thought it was only some magpie-widgeon we’d disturbed at the end of the mere, being mortally afeard to think of those other ghostly birds.

“No,” he says. “No. It be the Seven Whistlers, sure enough. It bodes no good.”

This was a strange thing for Gideon to say, for he mostly laughed at signs and bodings, and I could not but think of it, up in the attic after.

Mother and Tivvy were sitting up for us, and seemingly Mother had seen us in the tea leaves, drownded in Sarn. She’d scarce believe in us for a long while, but cried and wrung her hands and said, “They binna real. It’s only the know of them.” So I was bound to give her one of my Christmas presents to comfort her. She was ever a child in heart, was poor Mother. She was so simple and trustful that I always thought it would be as wicked to hurt her as to hurt a babe in swaddling clothes, or a poor moth flittering in the dusk. Ah, an evil thing, a devil’s trick, to betray such a trusting heart, such trembling, praying little hands!

“I be to lie in your chamber, Prue,” says Tivvy. “I be glad, for it’s cold lying alone in black frost weather.”

She looked slanting at Gideon, and I could see she was nearly wild with jealousy of Jancis. And indeed Gideon did look a proper fine man, with his face all frosty red and his eyes lit up with the day’s doings. He’d but to nod, and Tivvy ud follow. But he was never one to chop and change, and his mind was made up, so I knew it was Jancis or none. I didna want Tivvy in my bed, she did so snore and snoffle in her slumber. So I waited till she was fast, and then I took the lanthorn and Father’s old sheepskin coat that lapped me up feet and all, and I went to the attic and wrote in my book. It was always my custom, if things grieved me or gladdened me, to write them down in full. Also I had much need of the peace that was in the attic, after such a bitter dose of the world beyond Sarn. Because I had no lover, I would lief have been the world’s lover—such world, that is, as I could reach. I was like a maid standing at the meeting of the lane-ends on May Day with a posy-knot as a favour for a rider that should come by. And behold! The horseman rode straight over me, and left me, posy and all, in the mire.