Book 2 — chapter six: The Game of Costly Colours

HOW did he look? What like was he? Was he well-favoured? It be hard to say. There are no looks in love, no outward seeming, no telling over of features. When you are but a moth in the candle of his eye, can you tell his stature, or if he be dark or fair? Did Magdalene, that was like Felena, know, when she lay at the feet of the only man she ever loved yet never loved, whether the carpenter’s Son featured His mother or not, whether He was big or little in stature? Shall we know, when we be come into His presence that made us, what outward seeming His majesty has? No. Only our hearts will tremble in the light. I could never tell you how he looked as he stood there; but I can tell you how the women looked that glassed him.

Tivvy and Polly gaped in wonder, finger on lip. Moll and Sukey leaned forrard as you lean to a fire in winter, and their mother gathered them to herself jealously. Missis Sexton spread her flounces, and Jancis coloured up and said “O!” and set one of her ringlets straight, and said “O!” again. Mother smiled at him, and Felena—well, Felena’s eyes settled on him as a brown owl drops to its prey.

I sat down farther back in my corner, and a faintness came over me. For here was my lover and my lord, and behold! I was hare-shotten.

The room was all so still, you could hear the drip of water off the roof.

All of a sudden he laughed out, and indeed it must have been a comical thing to see us all like mice when Pussy goes by, and to hear us one minute making such a to-do, and the next making no to-do at all.

He off with his hat and made us a little bow and said—

“Sarvant, ladies! The weaver, if you please.”

If we pleased! As if we wouldna be pleased with anything he met say! So he was the weaver! Well, it made no manner difference to me. If he’d said he was the king of Fairyland or a murderer with the bloodhounds after un, it would ha’ been all one to me.

“Kester Woodseaves, if you please, missus,” he says in a kind of merry mockery, looking towards Missis Sexton, she being the biggest, both in tallness and roundness.

Then Missis Beguildy brought him to the fire and made him take bite and sup. But I kept out of sight.

“Be you from far, sir?” asks Felena in her lingering way. Her lips were red and pleasant, though not kind.

“Lullingford, missus,” he made answer, with a measuring look. “Neither very near nor very far.”

“As the crow flies, near,” she said, as if she pleaded.

“Only we bain’t crows, missus.”

“I live on the mountain over yonder,” she says; “and I’m nigher to Lullingford, a power, than these.”

“A longish ride.”

“Not far! It be on your road to—a’most everywhere.”

I thought, “She says all I’d like to say.”

“By gum, missus, I doubt it’s on the way to hell,” he made answer.

They were like folk wrestling, but we did not know their quarrel.

“Oh, I be glad it’s you that’s to weave my wedding linen, and not the ugly hired man,” said Jancis.

“So you’re to be wed, child?”

“Ah. To Gideon Sarn, sir. Dun you know Gideon?”

“I’ve heard tell of him.”

I wondered what he’d heard of Gideon. All in a minute it was more to me that he should like Gideon and Mother and me than that I should master the reading of Revelations, which beat me still, because of the strange words and the roundabout way of the telling. I’d laboured over it a long while, and labour brings a thing near the heart’s core. Above and beyond that, I wanted to know the mind of John, he being lonesome on his bylet in the sea as we were at Sarn, and having many thoughts in his mind, both deep and bright. Now one like Tivvy had no thoughts at all, and you soon tire of looking in an empty porringer. And Mother had two thoughts or three, and Gideon two. So the mind of John had drawn me as none other did afore; but now the book of Revelations was but a windle-straw to this man’s whim.

“Oh, Mister Woodseaves, will you come to my wedding if Prue writes you a bidding-letter?” asked Jancis.

“Maybe I ool,” he made answer, looking at her mother as much as to say that she could give him the go-by if she would. “And who’s Prue, that can write bidding-letters?”

I was in a swelter, but just as Jancis was going to rush on me and drag me out of hiding, Sukey and Moll, who could never be quiet for long, burst out—

“Please, mister, ool you come to our weddings too?”

Then they giggled mightily, and put their heads together, shaking their curls and bending their long necks. Then they put their hands afore their mouths and ran across the kitchen to him, and one whispered in this ear and one whispered in that, and then they ran back, to their bench, two-double with laughter. Jancis, being near, heard Sukey whisper, “I’d lief you were bridegroom!” I hoped their mother wouldna get to know, and slipper them again, for they’d saved me from being seen. I couldna bear that he should see me, for fear of a cold look, or scorn. I’d liefer stay down-under, like the daffadily, lest the weather be winterly. For if she too eagerly comes up, desirous of the sun, she can but stand and shudder in the bitter frost, torn by the fangs of the winds. So she has lost her warmship, and yet hanna won through to summer.

“Sir! Be you wed?” asked Felena, and her voice was pretty and slippery like a grass snake.

“Why, no to that, missus.”

“Nor handfasted?”

“I’m thinking you were an attorney once,” he says, “and stuck questions into poor men like skewers before you put ’em out of their misery.”

She took no notice, but only said—

“You be not of this country. You come from afar.”

“Oh, indeed to goodness, he is of this country, Missis Felena,” Mother chirped up like a little bird. “He came back from being ’prentice after his uncle was drownded. It was his uncle wove the mourning when my poor maister died, falling down in a fit and dying in his boots on the sabbath the bees did play.”

“And, now he’s dead and your A’ntie’s dead, you live by your lonesome, I suppose,” says Jancis.

“Well, I do and I don’t.”

“Dear to goodness, Mister, have you got a kept ’oman?”

This was Felena.

“Your thoughts be all beaded on one string,” says Kester.

Then Sukey and Moll burst out—

“Who cooks for ye?”

“Who sweeps for ye?”

“Who sews yer buttons on?”

“Who knits yer stockings?”

“I do for myself, my dears, and my thoughts be my company.”

He looked round very contented, and I could see he was thankful that none of all these women had a right to come over his door-sill.

“Well, thank you for me, Missus,” he said, putting down his mug and plate. “And now for work. The loom’s in the attic, I suppose?”

“Ah, I’ll show you. There’s a bed there too. You wunna finish for two days or three. There’s a plenty for you to do. But come down and get your supper along with us, for it inna every day we have a randy.”

By the time she came back every tongue was at it. Sukey and Moll were quarrelling as to which of them, if they could do as they willed and go and work for him, should pour his supper ale and fill his pipe. It was enough to make an owl laugh.

“A nice young fellow,” says Missis Sexton, “and a God-fearing, I’ll lay, if the women let un alone.”

She looked very meaningly at Felena.

But Felena was fallen into a muse.

“I like him better than Gideon, a power, though Gideon be your brother, Prue,” says Tivvy.

Missis Miller spoke for the first time.

“He’s as different,” she said, “as different as mortal man could be, from the Miller!”

It was the greatest praise she could give.

Polly gave a loud whoop, as if to say that she agreed.

“Well, time goes by, and even a toothache must be cured some day,” said Missis Beguildy. “So we’d best set to at the caking afore my maister comes back. Thank you kindly for the spinning. We’ve done enough to keep that young man busy for above a bit.”

She brought out a big willow-pattern dish stacked with cakes, saffron and sponge-fingers and gingerbread babies. These last are little men of gingerbread, with currants for eyes.

Sukey and Moll screamed with joy to see them.

“I dunna care about the others, if so be I can win a gingerbread man!” says Sukey.

“I’ll win six,” says Moll. “Six curranty babies for me!”

“You’ll need more gumption than you’ve got then,” says Missis Sexton, “For there’s no game so hard as the game of Costly Colours. I’ve played it at every randy since I was a maid, and I’ll lay that your Ma has too, and Missis Sarn and Missis Miller. Yet it’s a difficult game to us still. And for you that have played it seldom or never, it’ll go hard, but you’ll lose every cake.”

“Tell ’em the way of it,” says Missis Beguildy, “you’ve got such a head.”

Though she meant it in good sadness, it made me laugh. For indeed Missis Sexton’s head was marvellous to see, with oiled hair in rolls and bobs and bands, and a high comb, and ribbons, and a vasty cap on top of all.

She went across the kitchen like a coach and six, and stood by the fire, telling us about the game of Costly Colours—how you counted, and of the trumps, and how three of a suit was a prial, and four of a suit was Costly, and how you could mog, or change, your cards, and of the deuces and Jacks, and “Two for his heels,” and how if you made nought of your hand it was called a cock’s nest, and you were bound to give a cake all round.

“I canna mind a word!” says poor Tivvy.

“Nor me,” says Polly.

So they stood out and left us ten, and it was only eight we wanted for two tables. So I offered to stand out.

“Why, you be the best player of all,” says Jancis. And the mother of Sukey and Moll settled it, saying—

“Stand out, girls. You can play turn-the-trencher with Polly and Tivvy. But no noise!”

They burst out crying, wanting to win the cakes. But their mother said did they want more slipper, so they hushed. Then she bought them each a gingerbread man, and promised them some more at the end.

Felena drew at the same table with me. That is to say, it was the pig-killing bench with a board and a white cloth on it, for they had but one table.

“There’s not one of us women but ud like a gingerbread man, is there, Prue Sarn?” she says. “So, us being too old for cakes, shall us make-believe to be playing for the soul of the weaver?”

“As you please,” I says. “But it seems to me to be none of our business.”

“Why, Prue Sarn, you’re as white as a shroud one minute, and as red as a peony the next, and such burning eyes! What ails you?”

I was angry, yet there was a warmship in this one thing, that she seemed to be counting me as one like herself, and not as one that was set aside from the game of love. I suppose, being under suspicion of dancing with the devil, she had a fellow-feeling with me for being mixed up with tales of witchcraft. For they’d even begun to say of me that I took shape as a hare on dark moonless nights, and went loping across the hills, and had a muse running under the churchyard. Such things were first said in idleness or mischief or to scare children, and then, in the loneliness of old farms, full of creakings and meanings on windy nights, they grew. And none can tell what such things will grow into at long last, nor what harm they may do. I didna like it much when Felena took his name on her lips, for all on a sudden it was a precious name to me. And it seemed to me then, as it ever has, that he was not a man to speak of lightly. Watching him out of my darkness beyond the settle, I had thought his wrath would be like a cloud-burst, though his smile was a spring day full of warm gillyflowers.

Felena drew me farther from the rest.

“A man,” she said, “whose like I’ve not seen afore, neither on the roads nor at market. The others are gaubies to him. Did you see the colour of his eyes?”

“No.”

“Nor could I see. His eyelids cut across them so straight, and the candle of his eye is so big and black, you canna see the colour. I’d lief be nigh him, to see.”

Her glass-green eyes misted, and a rich, swooning look came over her.

“A man to gamble for,” she said.

“Take your places! Take your places! Cut for first deal in the game of Costly Colours!” cries Missis Sexton.

As I sat down I twisted the words of Felena in my mind, and said in the deeps of myself—

“Not a man to gamble for. A man to die for.”

We gave our minds to the game, and the four girls having been sent into the yard, the room was as silent as a dream.

I could hear them singing Barley Bridge out there.

Shift your feet, in nimble flight,

You’ll be home by candlelight.

Open the gates as wide as the sky,

And let the king come riding by.

After a while the singing died away, and I wondered what mischief was brewing. But I’d enough to do, for I was determined to beat Felena, and as Missis Sexton was her partner and Missis Miller was mine, I knew I should have my work cut out.

The fire, mended with pine wood, gave a good, sweet smell and a warm light, enough to play by. It lit up the walls, and the sticky gingerbread men on the blue dish, and Jancis, as fair to see as if she’d been made out of solid gold in old time, for an altar. In the quietness, with Barley Bridge in my mind, a sort of waking dream came to me.

I saw a great crowd of people beside the troubled water of Sarn. They were dressed in holiday colours, but their faces were evil. Then one came riding through them on a tall horse, and his face was the face of the weaver. A woman stood forth from the crowd. She had a necklace of green glass beads and green blazing eyes. She cried out—

“My body, my body, for a ride on your saddle!”

But he turned aside from her to one who stood hidden, in a torn, sad-coloured dress, with a hare-shotten lip.

He stooped to her, saying—

“Ah, my dear acquaintance!”

And she gave him a sprig of rosemary. She said no word, and she supposed he would go by her. But he set his arms about her and gathered her up before him on the saddle, and his right arm was strong around her. So they rode away, and the sound of the people died till it was less than the hum of a midge, and there was nothing but a scent of rosemary, and warm sun, and the horse lengthening its stride towards the mountains, whence came the air of morning.

“Two for his nob!” called Missis Sexton. “Your deal, Prue.”

So I tucked my legs under the bench as well as I could for her furbelows, and went at it with a will. And I may say that Missis Miller and I won, out and out, to her everlasting astonishment. For she seemed to think it an impertinence on her part to beat Missis Sexton.

“You played like a demon, Prue Sarn,” said Felena.

It was late, so Jancis opened the door and called, “Supper!” and in rushed the four hoydens, who seemed children to me, though I was nearly of an age with them. They burst out with their doings, though they had better have kept them to themselves.

“We’ve bin in the attic.”

“We sat on the bed!”

“He can whistle like a throstle.”

“He weaves as quick as ninepence!”

“He’s got a green coat for Sundays and a Bible with pictures in it, and he can read the Bible.”

“He’s got a watch, and a pipe with a silver band, and he won the wrestlers’ medal at Silverton.”

“He canna abide bull-baiting nor cock-fighting nor shameless women.”

“He likes a good song and home-brewed in reason, and a dance in the meadow, and the sound of bells.”

“He’s got a great lump of muscle on his arm, like a frozen snowball.”

“We measured un on the attic door, and found the inches with the weaver’s measure.”

“He be thirty-eight inches round the middle and five foot ten inches high!”

“He’s got a pair of Wellington boots, but he dunna wear ’em much, being above his station and a dommed lot of trouble to clean.”

“He said dommed, we didna.”

“He likes children and dogs and a quiet life.”

“He wouldna mind a missus of his own if she was biddable. Only he’s never seen the woman he’d lief have yet.”

“His eyes be watchet blue, what you can see of ’em for the black middles and the lids and the lashes.”

“And if so be he’d got any sisters he’d like ’em to favour Sukey and me!”

“God bless me!” says the mother of Sukey and Moll, and I could see the slipper threatening, “God bless me, not a thousand starlings in the reeds make such a din.”

It was lucky for the girls that their mother happened to have won.

“Get your tippets on now, this instant minute!” she said.

“Call un down, Jancis!” they pleaded.

So she called him to supper. The sound of the treadles and the thud of the batten stopped, and he came down.

Sukey ran to him and put summat into his hand. Then they made their curtsies and said—

“Thank you for me,” and followed their mother.

But Sukey put her head in at the door again, and gave a bit of a giggle and whispered—

“I gid him my gingerbread baby!”

“Out, girls!” ordered their mother, and off they went, with a lanthorn to light them, and the ox-goad in case of gentlemen of the road.

I went out to the barn, that Kester Woodseaves might not see me, and when I came back he was gone to the attic again. Felena had gone early, with a luring smile and a word for him.

“If you come our way, Mister, I’ll learn you the story of Adam and Eve.”

The two from the mill were very unwilling to part, but at last they went, and we made ready to go also.

“A right good caking!” says Missis Beguildy. “I’ve made enough on the cakes to pay weaver, and we’ve spun a deal. A Love Spinning’s a great salvation. So now you can tell your son, Missis Sarn, as we shall be ready with the bride and the linen as well, when he gives the word to make the bed.”

Beguildy raught back as we set out. He was a bit peart, but not drunk. He said he’d met Miss Dorabella’s cousin, and that he wouldna believe Beguildy could raise Venus. So he’d told him to come and see for himself.

“Venus? Where is the baggage?” says his wife. “How can you raise her if she inna here?”

But he’d only sing—

“Peter sat a-weeping,”

and play, very dot-and-go-one, on his little flints.