I faltered when I saw that the bed-chamber was draped with curious Indian silks and ribbons and the bed decorated with spangles of silver and gold, and that a little love-feast had been prepared, with wine in a silver beaker and choice fruits and little caraway cakes again. “Oh, husband,” said I, “why have you hit upon this night for such bravery? For you cannot company with me now, as you might have done on any of the twelve nights that I have been with you.”
“And why may I not, pray?” he asked, going as wan as the gills of a sick turkey-cock.
“Because,” said I, “the flowers have come upon me to-night.”
“The flowers!” he cried. “The flowers again!”
“Roll out that truckle-bed,” said I, not knowing whether to laugh or weep.
“But did you not tell me—?” he began.
“And did you not interruptingly command me to silence?” I asked.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I Come Back to Forest Hill
The more pertinaciously I tried to make my husband understand how he hindered his own end by an impatience and severity towards me, the more impatient and severe he grew. He is a man who never graciously acknowledges himself at fault, fearing by any such admission to impugn his own authority and judgment. For though he has often changed his mind and turned cat in pan even upon matters of religious principle, yet (this I write without irony or reproach, but as a mere matter of fact) he is constant and loyal to one thing at least, which is a humble faith in his own infallibility: no man in the world was ever so sincere and modest in his self-devotion. Now, as a punishment for what he called my foolish glozing and deceit, he banished me from his chamber altogether for the space of three weeks, giving me a bed in a cramped back closet that opened from it; and by day kept me a close prisoner in the house and garden. I had no work to employ me, because my clothes and his were all in good repair, and at broidery I have no skill, and we kept no poultry nor brewed our own beer. Kitchen work I love, but my husband told me that Jane and Trunco needed no third pair of hands in the kitchen, and that I would but delay their necessary work by gossiping with them. Since also he would not suffer me to play and sing on my guitar, which he said distracted him from his studies, and since there was no one to play at cards with me, I could find little to do besides reading; yet every time I wished to take a book from his shelves I must first ask his leave, and if he considered the book to be improper for my reading he would forbid it me. When I asked whether I might sit and listen while he taught our nephews Latin, forasmuch as I had not yet forgotten the rudiments learned from our curate, the Reverend Fulker, he answered that my presence would distract the boys and be a great inconvenience to himself. “And besides,” said he, humorously, “one tongue is enough for a woman.”
Those days drew heavily, as it were a train of old broken carts with huge loads and axles ungreased, hauled uphill through the mire by weary oxen. The post brought me a letter from my mother, in which she wrote how sadly she missed me, and not only for my company, but for the great help I had afforded her in managing the younger children, and for my dairy-work and care of the geese and poultry; and “even I have learned to value that whoreson Trunco who was the cunningest woman in the stilling-room that ever I saw, and a good-tempered, willing rogue into the bargain.” This brief, blotted letter ended with: “Oh, to have you back again in this house until Michaelmas at least; ‘twould be a great blessing and lighten a thousand burdens. I confess, dear child, that though you have proved the most troublesome by far of all my eleven children, yet there is none lies closer to the heart of your harassed, real affectionate mother, Ann Powell. Your father sends his loving remembrances to Mr. Milton and yourself.”
She had put into the envelope another little shred of paper, which she rightly expected that I would conceal from my husband, on which was written: “I sorely fear you will go through purgatory for a month or two, with that stiff-necked, canting, Judasly rogue, before at last you have him there where I would fain have him be. If you have any guts in your brains you will yield nothing, no, not a half-inch; else he will make a dull-eyed spiritless scape-trencher of my princely daughter, who deserves better of life than that, God help her!”
I had heard that my husband loved cheerful faces about him, and true it is that though he kept me confined still, yet, perhaps for shame’s sake, he did not alter his countenance towards me in the presence of the household; and at meal-times would seek to engage me in pleasant conversation. However, I saw no cause why I should be bound by the rules of his game of make-peace. I answered with “Yes” or “No” or “I know not” but not a word more; and feigned no happiness which I could not feel. I moped, refused my meat, moved sluggishly, sighed often, yawned during his discourses, and put my kerchief frequently to my eyes. The more this irked him, the more melancholically I mumped; yet without open complaint or incivility.
Trunco fell foul of her fellow-servant Jane after a day or two. Jane did not like me, either at first or second sight, nor I her. But since she durst not show any direct spite against me, she showed it indirectly by her injurious treatment of Trunco, whom she abused up and down stairs, whenever my husband was within earshot, accusing her of idleness, impudence, and pilfering. Trunco had resolved to be patient Grizel, and never to answer Jane back; and Jane, who had the name of God ever in her mouth but the Devil himself in her heart, grew still more incensed against her, and made the kitchen a little hell for her and contrived crooked plots to bring her into ill-favour. She would herself come into the dining-chamber, where Trunco had neatly set the table, and would lay the spoons and knives awry and, snatching away a platter or a cup, put it back on a shelf; or would herself disorder my husband’s papers after that Trunco had cleaned his study. At last one day I caught her in the act of taking a pan of dust, which Trunco had collected by hard sweeping, and emptying it upon the stairs. I said nothing, but waited for her to accuse Trunco to my husband of leaving the stairs unswept; but he, coming upstairs soon after began to rail at the litter and called Trunco himself and asked her, how had she neglected to sweep the stairs?
Then I said: “Husband, this is no neglect of my Trunco’s. Your Jane Yates, whom I watched with mine own eyes, took a pan of dust and sprinkled it upon the stairs, I suppose to the end that you would find fault with my poor woman; for this lick-dish Jane, you know, who has wrought herself so much into your favour is, for all that, a very spiteful, deceitful, greedy creature.”
Then ensued a great commotion, Jane Yates solemnly declaring her innocence and accusing me of bearing false witness against her in the hope of covering up Trunco’s ill-doings by a cruel injury; and asking my husband: “Have I not served you faithfully, Master, since both of us were children, with never a single error or transgression? Would you accept the word of this pert girl, your wife, her word before mine, when she charges me with a crime which, were I guilty of it, would unfit me to keep house for you an hour longer?”
My husband soothed her, and appeared to be in a sad perplexity whether to vindicate my honour or slight hers; but old Mr. Milton coming along settled the matter very judiciously. He declared that doubtless I had been mistaken, and pressed Jane until she admitted to have taken a pan of dust downstairs in her hand, of which perhaps a few grains had overspilt in her passage; but it was certainly agreed by the three of them that Trunco was to blame for the unswept stairs. Against them I argued that if the stairs had not been swept, as they said, it was strange how the dust lay in little heaps, intermingled with little shreds of green wool from the carpet in the old gentleman’s study; yet they would not heed nor hearken to me, and my husband said that he had “raked long enough in that puddle” and ordered me to keep silence, lest I make matters worse for my woman. Then he laid his stick across Trunco’s shoulders, three or four times, pretty roughly; but for my sake she uttered no complaint.
My husband’s frustration in the matter of our companying together and the settled glumness with which I accepted my unjust punishment altered him so st
rangely that I began to fear what would become of us all; and whether it happened that Ned and Johnny Phillips were afflicted at this time with a coincidental fit of dullness and sloth, or whether it was that he vented his spleen upon these poor innocents, I know not. But twice or three times every day I heard the heavy whack of his stick upon their tender bodies or the sharp clap of his flat, pear-shaped ferule upon their inky fingers, and they yelped and howled most lamentably. Without his permission, they might never speak to him except in Latin or Greek; yet when an ash-stick whistles down, or the ferule blisters, how can a child remember case, gender and conjugation in his pleas for mercy?
I asked my husband privily one day, when he had trounced Johnny so hard that he could not eat his meal but standing upright and with his pale face pitiably beblubbered, whether this severity were needful.
“Why, Wife,” he answered, “do you think yourself wiser than Solomon, whose considered judgment it was that a rod spared is a child spoilt? Besides, this morning the child added obstinacy to his stupidity, and tried to justify his fault.”
My ears still rang with Johnny’s howls and his yells of “Miserere, Domine! Ignosce, Domine, ignosce!” and I asked my husband impudently: “Did not your tutor at Cambridge ever ferule you for the same fault?” Then I walked away, not waiting for his answer.
This was the tenth day of my captivity, just before supper, and going to my coffer in the closet I took out my vellum book, and unlocked it and began to write. I was trembling with rage and could hardly shape the letters as I set down: “Marie Powell was married to John Melton, alias Milton, Junior, and he altered her name to Mary Milton. Thus she exchanged the honourable arms of Powell (which her father blazoned for her on the title page of this book) for the arms of Mitton, which were in error bestowed upon his father, a scrivener, by the Garter King-at-Arms, who thereby endowed the said ungenteel John Melton Junior, with the fraudulent titles of Armiger and Gentleman.”
Then I left off writing and began to read and dream of Mun. My husband came to the door and pushed it open without knocking, as was his custom. He saw me with the book and asked me what I read.
“Nothing,” I replied.
“Were an answer of that nature given me by a pupil of mine I should beat him severely,” said he.
“I do not doubt it, Husband,” I answered, my rage rising again. “You seem to be more generous with the ferule than with the fruit pastry.”
“What book do you read without my permission?” he asked again, threateningly.
“My own book,” I answered, and locking the clasp hastily, I put it underneath me where I sat upon the coffer.
“Give it to me,” said he, “or I will pluck it out from under you.”
“Not I!” was my answer. “It is my book, and was given to me by my Godmother Moulton, with advice never to show it to any person living.”
“Wife,” he said, “beware to remember your bridal vow: you have now no worldly chattels that are not mine.”
“Very, very true,” said I. “You also made the same endowment of your chattels to me; but since you have withheld several of your books from me, you cannot complain if I withhold this single one from you.”
“You disobey my plain command to yield up this book?” he asked. “You dare to oppose me in a point of house-rule?”
“I do,” said I, beside myself with wrath, “and if you lay a finger upon me you must beware, you leather-sided villain! I will not cry out for pity in the Latin tongue as your miserable pupils do, but defend myself, tooth and nail, as once you defended yourself against your tutor, Mr. Chappell; and, s’blood! I warrant I will leave my mark upon you.”
“So!” he said, breathing heavily. “So it has come to this! My fire, my spirit, my blood!—your earth and phlegm, your cold, muddy, scolding nastiness! Well did Solomon write that a bad wife is to her husband as rottenness to his bones, as continual dropping!”
“Do not provoke me to bandy the rhetoric of Turnbull Street and Billingsgate with you, Stinkard, Base Slubberdegullion, Cheesy Plagiarist, Immortal Whip-Arse, Eater of Stinking Beef!” I cried; for, by God, when I was angered beyond endurance, I was my mother’s eldest daughter. “Do you take me for Issachar’s ass that I should bear all your scandalous revilements and submit to them in patience?”
He looked incredulous loathing, and with no more farewell than, “I shall speak with you again to-morrow morning,” he went out again, locking the door after him. I laid me soberly down upon my bed, pulled off my gown, drew the quilted coverlet over me and with no more ado fell asleep. I slept sound, with very cheerful dreams at first, but meeting suddenly with Mun, in the last dream that I had, I found him rolling bowls by a river, with a ruinous castle behind him, and soldiers coming and going. I asked him: “How do you do, sweet Mun?” He answered “Do? How should I do, when you are married to another? I roll bowls, I smoke my pipe, I look forward to better days.” He turned his back upon me and walked into the castle, where I could not follow him because a sentry stood guard upon the door. The sentry was armed with a pike, and began to show me the several postures, with “Mary, this is how the pike is trailed; see, Mary, this is how the pike is ordered.” I looked more closely at his face and lo, it was my husband! “Oh, go off and leave me!” said I. “Where shall I go, Wife?” he asked plaintively. “Why,” said I, “to whom else but to your evanishing mistress Micol, the Queen of the Fairies, whom once in a thicket at Babraham, near to Cambridge, you invocated with candle and wand and with whom you bargained immortality at a high price.” (Why I said this, I know not.) Then I made to push past him, but his shoulders began to heave up and down with sobs. I was sorry for him, and said: “Nay, Husband, I did not mean to vex you!” Then he thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper in which were wrapped several little caraway-cakes, and proffered them to me. “By now they are musty and stale,” said he, weeping again.
I remember no more, but I awoke laughing and there was my husband in coat and hat and shoes standing over me. The dawn had come, but it was as yet too early for me to rise, so I wished him good-morning and asked him why he was already astir.
When he made no answer, I told him that I was heartily sorry for the quarrel between us, and was resolved to be a good wife to him; but that being confined strictly in his house all day, like a prisoner, with no employment nor any means of exercising my body, the gross humours were naturally pent up and worked upon my mind like a poison, so that I had said I knew not what.
He answered shortly: “Nay, Mary, we did not quarrel; for there can be no such thing as a quarrel between master and servant. You were rebellious and impudent and disobedient; and all this night I have watched and pondered upon my trial, and at last with the dawn I have been granted illumination. To correct you corporeally as you deserve I cannot, or not without scandal—and, as wise Virgil says, no man can win a memorable name by conquest of a woman; to prolong your confinement would be neither convenient nor healthy; I cannot mulct you of money, for you receive no wages; you are insensible to gentle chiding; to forgive you would be weakness. I am determined to put you to public shame, by sending you back to your father’s house at Forest Hill; nor will I receive you to my bosom again until I be assured of your hearty repentance. Moreover, at Michaelmas-tide, when I expect your return, Esquire Powell must pay me your promised marriage portion of one thousand pounds, as also the other money owed me, five hundred pounds; without the money you will not be welcome, as he must understand plainly.”
I began to laugh and when, being taken aback, he asked me why I was so unseasonably merry, I answered that by Michaelmas-tide the little cakes would be every whit as mouldy as my Aunt Jones’s biscuit.
“What little cakes?” he asked.
“Cry pardon,” said I, “they were but little dream-cakes which a sentry fetched out of his breeches-pocket in my dream. I am still between waking and dreaming.”
I believe, by the manner of his eyeing my naked arms and shining hair, where it straggled over th
e pillow, that if I had then pleaded humbly, with a tragical show of tears, that he would mitigate his anger towards me, he would have relented speedily enough; indeed if, without a word said, I had made room for him to come into the bed to me, he would have there and then cast off his coat and breeches and made me passionate addresses; nor given a thought for the poor trembling little boys who waited downstairs in the cold study, ready to read him out the passage that he had set for them from Pomponius Mela or Julius Solinus Polyhistor. However, I had a proud spirit. I remembered his partiality for Jane Yates, and poor Trunco’s sufferings, and how severely he had used me, and his rude demand to see my vellum book, and the unnecessary beatings he had administered to his nephews. Besides, had he not threatened to send me back to Paradise? Wherefore, all that I said was: “Why, do as you please, Whey-face, it is all one with me. Yet I confess that of two disproportionate evils I prefer public shame at Forest Hill to private misery in Aldersgate Street.”
He glowered magisterially at me, griping at the air with his hands, until I drove him out of my chamber with these words: “Since I am your wife in name only, and since you are determined to pack me off home again, a virgin yet, it ill becomes you to stand there gaping at me, with offence to my modesty. Mercy guard me! Remember how the chaste Lady in your Ludlow Masque answered the lascivious wizard when he held her prisoner in his castle and lusted after her with his rolling eye.”
When I was apparelled and had dressed my hair, I went downstairs to breakfast, with a calmness of spirit that I doubt not but that he remarked; and ate a good breakfast. At table I said to the old gentleman, in the hearing of the boys: “Father, I am sorry to take leave of you, but the fault (if fault it be) lies with your son John, who has been a wonderful indulgent husband to me. For, seeing how little work there is for my employment in this neat house, whereas my mother has written beseeching me (if it be in any way possible) to come back and help her for a few weeks in the management of the Manor-house, John has consented to let me go, for he has perfect faith in my discretion; and he will send me off by the public coach this morning, with my woman Trunco to see that I come to no harm.”
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