Then the old gossip was glad to have something new to do that cost her nothing and she hired a barrow and on it rode the ten miles or so to the valley where her father’s house had been and to the village, and there she stayed a day or two and more. On the night when she returned she went to the mother’s house and called her out alone to the corner of the house and whispered, “The thing went very well, goodwife, and in a month it can be finished. Well, and I am very weary, too, but still I remember I did it all for you, goodwife, and we are old friends now.”
Then the woman took from her bosom a piece of silver she had kept there for this hour and she pressed it on the gossip. But the gossip pushed her hand away and swore she would not have it and it was not needful between two friends and she said this and that but had it in the end.
When all was done and the woman thought it well, or tried to, she told the son’s wife, and the son’s wife was pleased and showed it, although she took care to say, “You need not have hastened so, mother, for I bear the maid no ill will and she may stay here a year or two for all of me, and I would not mind if it were even all her life, if it were not we are so poor we must count the mouths we feed.”
But she was more kindly for the while and she offered of her own will to sew new garments for the maid, three in all, a new coat and trousers of dark blue and some red trousers for her wedding day, as even the poorest maid must have, and besides these a pair of shoes or two, and on the shoes she made a little flower and leaf in red. But they made no great wedding day of it nor any great ado, since the maid was given free and there were no gifts given because she was not good bargain for the man she was to wed.
As for the maid, she said nothing of the day. She listened when her mother told her what was done and she said nothing save once in the night she put out her hand to feel her mother’s face near her, and she whispered to her mother suddenly, “Mother, but is it too far for you to come and see me sometimes and how I do there? I am so blind I cannot come to you so far along a road I do not know and over hills and valleys.”
Then the mother put out her hand too and she felt the maid trembling and she wept secretly and wiped her tears in the darkness on the quilt and she said over and over, “I will come, my maid, be sure and I will come, and when I come you shall tell me all and if they do not treat you well I will see to it heartily. You shall not be treated ill.” And then she said most gently, “But you have lain sleepless all this night.”
And the maid answered, “Yes, and every night a while.”
“But you need not be afraid, child,” the mother answered warmly. “You are the best and quickest blind maid I ever saw, and they know you blind and they cannot blame you for it nor say we hid it from them.”
But long after the maid had fallen into light sleep at last the mother lay and blamed herself most heavily, for somehow she felt some wrong within herself that laid its punishment upon the maid, though how she did not know, only she wished she had been better. And she blamed herself lest if by any chance she should have found a nearer place to wed her maid, a village where she could go each month or so, or even found a poor man willing to move to the hamlet for a little price that she could promise. Yet even when she thought of this she groaned within her heart and doubted that her son and son’s wife would have spared even this small price, for they kept the money now. So she thought most heavily, “Yet I cannot hope she will never be beaten. Few houses be there like ours where neither man nor his mother will beat a maid new come. And it would tear my heart so, and so grieve me if I saw my blind maid beaten or even if it was done near enough so I could hear of it, or so the maid could run home and tell me, and I helpless once she is wed, that I think I could not bear it. Better far to have her where I cannot see her and where I cannot know and so be saved the pain because I cannot see and so can hope.”
And after she had lain a while more and felt how heavy life lay on her she thought of one thing she could do, and it was that she could give the maid some silver coins for her own, as her own mother had done when she left home. So in the darkness before dawn she rose and moving carefully not to stir the beasts and fowls and frighten them she went to her hole and smoothed away the earth and took out the bit of rag she kept the little store in and opened it and chose out five pieces of silver and thrust them in her bosom and covered the hole again. Then with the silver in her bosom a little comfort came and she thought to herself, “At least it is not every maid who comes from a poor house with a little store of silver. At least my maid has this!”
And holding fast on this small comfort she slept at last.
Thus the days passed and none joyfully. No, the woman took no joy even in her youngest son and cared little whether he came and went except she saw that he was well and smiling with some business of his own she did not know. So the day came at last when the maid must go and the woman waited with the heaviest heart to see what was the one who came to fetch her. Yes, she strained her heart to understand what sort of man it was who came and fetched her maid away.
It was a day in early spring he came, before the year had opened fully so that spring was only seen in a few hardy weeds the children in the village digged to eat and in a greenish tinge along the willow twigs and the brown buds on the peach trees scarcely swollen yet. All the lands lay barren still with winter, the wheat not growing yet and but small spears among the clods, and the winds cold.
On this day one came, an old man riding on a gray ass without a saddle and sitting on an old and filthy ragged coat folded under him upon the beast’s back. He came to the house where the mother was and gave his name. Her heart stopped then in her bosom, for she did not like the way this old man looked. He grinned at her and shaped his lips to be kind, but there was no kindness in the sharp old fox’s face, sharp eyes set in deep wrinkles, a few white hairs about a narrow lipless mouth curved down too long to smile with any truth this day. He wore garments well-nigh rags, too, not patched or clean, and when he came down from his ass there was no common courtesy in his manner, such as any man may have whether he be learned or not. He came limping across the threshing-floor, one leg too short to match the other, his old garments tied about him at the waist, and he said roughly, “I am come to fetch a blind maid. Where is she?”
Then the mother said, for suddenly she hated this old man, “But what pledge have you that you are the one to have her?”
The old man grinned again and said, “I know that fat goodwife who came to tell us we might have the maid for nothing for my brother’s son.”
Then the woman said, “Wait until I call her.” And she sent her younger lad who lounged about the house that day, and the old gossip came as quickly as her old legs would bear her and she stared at the man and laughed and shouted, “Aye, it is the uncle of the lad she is to wed. How are you, goodman, and have you eaten yet this day?”
“Aye,” said the old man grinning and showing all his toothless gums, “but not too well I swear.”
All this time the mother looked at him most steadfastly and then she cried out bluntly to the gossip, “I do not like the looks of this! I thought better than this for my maid!”
And the gossip answered loudly laughing, “Goodwife, he is not the bridegroom—his nephew is as soft and mild a lad as ever you did see.”
By now the cousin’s wife was come too and the son and son’s wife and the cousin came and others from the hamlet and they all stood and stared at this old man and it was true that to all he was no good one for looks and ways of any kindness. Yet was the promise given, and there were those who said, “Well, goodwife, you must bear in mind the maid is blind.”
And the son’s wife said, “The thing is set and promised now, mother, and it is hard now to refuse, for it will bring trouble on us all if you refuse.” And when he heard her say this her husband kept his silence.
The woman looked piteously at her cousin then, and he caught her look and turned his eyes away and scratched his head a while, for he did not know what to say. He was a simpl
e good man himself and he did not trust too much this old man’s looks either; still it is hard to say sometimes if poverty and evil are the same thing, and it might be his ragged garments made him look so ill, and it was hard to say nay when all the thing was set and done, and so not knowing what to say he said nothing and turned his head away and picked up a small straw and chewed on it.
But the gossip saw her honor was in danger and she said again and again, “But this is not the bridegroom, goodwife,” and at last she called, for it would shame her much if the thing were not done now, “Old man, your brother’s son is soft as any babe, is he not?”
And the old man grinned and nodded and laughed a meager laugh and said, wheezing as he spoke with laughter, “Aye, soft as any babe he is, goodwife!” And at last he said impatiently, “I must be gone if I am to fetch her home by night!”
So not knowing what else to do, the mother set her maid upon the ass’s back at last, the maid garbed in her new garments, and the mother pressed into her hand the little packet of silver and whispered quickly, “This is for your own, my maid, and do not let them have it from you.” And as the old man kicked the ass’s legs to set it going the mother cried aloud in sudden agony, “I will come, my maid, before many months are past and see how they do treat you there, and keep all in your heart and tell me then. I shall not fear to bring you home again, my maid, if aught is wrong.”
Then the blind maid answered through her dry and trembling lips, “Yes, mother, and that cheers me.”
But the mother could not let her child go yet and she cast here and there desperately in her mind to think of some last thing to say and hold her yet a little longer, and she cried out to the old man, clinging to her maid, “My maid is not to feed the fire, old man,—she shall not feed the fire, for it hurts her eyes—the smoke—”
The old man turned and stared and when he understood he grinned and said, “Oh, aye, well, let it be so—I’ll tell them—” and kicked the beast again and walked beside it as it went.
So the maid went away, and she held her sign of blindness in her hand, and had her little roll of garments tied behind her on the ass’s back. The mother stood and watched her go, her heart aching past belief, tears welling from her eyes, and this although she did not know what else she could have done. So she stood still until the hill rose between and cut the child from her sight and she saw her no more.
XVI
NOW MUST THE MOTHER somehow make her days full to ease the fears she had and to forget the emptiness where once the blind maid had sat. Silent the house seemed and silent the street where she could not hear the clear plaintive sound of the small bell her daughter struck whenever she went out. And the mother could not bear it. She went to the land again, against her elder son’s will, and when he saw her take her hoe he said, “Mother, you need not work, it shames me to have you work in the field and others see you there when you are aged.”
But she said with her old anger, “I am not so aged—let me work to ease myself. Do you not see how I must ease myself?”
Then the man answered in his stubborn way, “To me you seem to grieve for what is not so, my mother, and there is no need to let your heart run ahead into evils that may never come.”
But the mother answered with a sort of heavy listlessness that did not leave her nowadays, “You do not understand. You who are young—you understand nothing at all.”
The young man looked dazed at his mother then, not knowing what she meant, but she would say no more, but went and took a hoe and plodded out across the fields in silence.
But it was true she could not work hard any more, for when she did her sweat poured out, and when the wind blew on her, even a warm wind, it sent a chill upon her and she was soon ill again with her flux. So must she bear her idleness and she worked no more when she was well again, but sat in the doorway idle. There was no need for her to lift her hand about the house, since the son’s wife did all and did all well and carefully.
She did all well, the mother thought unwillingly, except she bore no child. The mother sitting empty there looked restlessly about that threshold where once she had been wont to see her little children tumbling in their play, and all day long she sat and remembered the days gone, and how once she had sat so young and filled with life and work, her man there, her babes, she the young wife and another the old mother. Then her man was gone and never heard from—and she winced and turned her mind from that, and then she thought how empty it seemed now, the elder son in the field all day or bickering at harvest with the landlord’s agent, some new fellow, a little weazened cousin of the landlord’s, people said—she never looked at him—and her blind maid gone, and her younger son gone always in the town and seldom home.
Well, but there was her younger son, and as she sat she thought of him more often, for she loved him still the best of all her children. Into her emptiness he came now and then, and with his coming brought her only brightness. When he came she rose and came out of her bleakness and smiled to see his good looks. He was the fairest child she had, as like his father as a cockerel is like a cock who fathered him, and he came in at ease nowadays, and not fearing his elder brother as once he did, for he had some sort of work in town that brought him in a wage.
Now what this work was he never clearly said, except that it brought him in so well that sometimes he had a heap of money, and sometimes he had none, although he never showed this money to his brother, except in the good clothes he wore. But there were times when he was free and filled with some excitement and then he pressed a bit of silver into his mother’s hand secretly and said, “Take it, mother, and use it for yourself.”
Then the mother took the silver and praised the lad and loved him, for the elder son never thought to put a bit of money in her hand; since he had been master he kept all his silver for his own. Well fed she always was and she ate heartily as she was able for she loved her food, and better than she had ever been she was with this son’s wife to clothe her and make all she needed, and even her burial garments were made and ready for her, though she did not think to die yet for a long time. Anything she asked for they let her have, a pipe to comfort her, and good shredded tobacco and a sup of yellow wine made hot. But they did not think to put a bit of silver in her hand and say, “Use it for any little thing you wish,” and she knew if she had asked for it the son and his wife would look at each other and say, one or the other of them, “But what would you buy—do we not give you everything?” So when the younger son brought her the bit of silver she loved him for it more than all else the other two did for her, and she kept it in her bosom and when the night came she rose and hid it in the hole.
But still he was not often where she could see him and there upon the empty threshing-floor the two women sat, mother and son’s wife, and to the mother it seemed all the house was full of emptiness. She sat and sighed and smoked her pipe and all she had to do these days was to think of her life, or nearly all, for there was that one thing she would not think of willingly, and when she did it brought her blind maid to her mind and she never could be sure the two were not linked somehow in the hands of the gods. Sometimes she would have gone to some temple to seek a comfort of some sort, though what she did not know, but there was the old sin and it seemed late now to seek for forgiveness and she let it be and sighed and spoke of her blind maid sadly sometimes.
But if she did the son’s wife answered always sharply, “She does well, doubtless—a very lucky thing for all that you found one who would have her for his son.”
“Now she is a clever maid, too, daughter-in-law,” the mother said hotly. “You never would believe how much she could do, I know, but before you came she did much that when you came you would not let her do and so you never knew how well she did.”
“Aye, it may be so,” said the son’s wife, holding nearer to her eyes the cloth she sewed on to see if it were right. “But I am used to working on and finishing with what I do and a blind maid potters so.”
The mother si
ghed again and said, looking over the empty threshold, “I wish you would bear a babe, daughter. A house should have a child or two or three in it. I am not used to such an empty house as this. I wish my little son could wed if you are not to have a child, but he will not, somehow, for some reason.”
Now here was the young wife’s grief, that though she had been wed near upon five years she had no child yet and not a sign of one, and she had gone secretly to a temple to pray and had done all she knew and still her body stayed as barren as it had been. But she was too proud to show how grieved she was and now she said, calmly, “I will have sons in time, doubtless.”
“Aye, but it is time,” the mother said pettishly. “I never heard of any women in our hamlet who had not babes if they had husbands. Our men are fathers as soon as they mate themselves and the women always fertile—good seed, good soil. It must be you have some hidden illness in you somewhere to make you barren and unnatural. I made you those clothes full and big, and what use has it been!”
And to the cousin’s wife the mother complained, and she said, leaning to put her mouth against the other’s ear, “I know very well what is wrong—there are no heats in that son’s wife of mine. She is a pale and yellow thing and one day is like the next and there is never any good flush in her from within, and all your luck in cutting her wedding garments cannot prevail against her coldness.”
And the cousin’s wife nodded and laughed and said, “It is true enough that such pale and bloodless women are very slow to bear.” Then her little laughing eyes grew meaningful and she laughed again and said, “But not every woman can be so full of heats as you were in your time, good sister, and well you know it is not always a good thing in a woman!”
The Mother: A Novel Page 16