by Thomas Hardy
“There’s that wife o’ mine. It was her doom to be nobody’s wife at all in the wide universe. But she made up her mind that she would, and did it twice over. Doom? Doom is nothing beside a elderly woman — quite a chiel in her hands!”
A movement was now heard along the upstairs passage, and footsteps descending. The door at the foot of the stairs opened, and the second Mrs. Day appeared in view, looking fixedly at the table as she advanced towards it, with apparent obliviousness of the presence of any other human being than herself. In short, if the table had been the personages, and the persons the table, her glance would have been the most natural imaginable.
She showed herself to possess an ordinary woman’s face, iron-grey hair, hardly any hips, and a great deal of cleanliness in a broad white apron-string, as it appeared upon the waist of her dark stuff dress.
“People will run away with a story now, I suppose,” she began saying, “that Jane Day’s tablecloths are as poor and ragged as any union beggar’s!”
Dick now perceived that the tablecloth was a little the worse for wear, and reflecting for a moment, concluded that ‘people’ in step-mother language probably meant himself. On lifting his eyes he found that Mrs. Day had vanished again upstairs, and presently returned with an armful of new damask-linen tablecloths, folded square and hard as boards by long compression. These she flounced down into a chair; then took one, shook it out from its folds, and spread it on the table by instalments, transferring the plates and dishes one by one from the old to the new cloth.
“And I suppose they’ll say, too, that she ha’n’t a decent knife and fork in her house!”
“I shouldn’t say any such ill-natured thing, I am sure — ” began Dick. But Mrs. Day had vanished into the next room. Fancy appeared distressed.
“Very strange woman, isn’t she?” said Geoffrey, quietly going on with his dinner. “But ‘tis too late to attempt curing. My heart! ‘tis so growed into her that ‘twould kill her to take it out. Ay, she’s very queer: you’d be amazed to see what valuable goods we’ve got stowed away upstairs.”
Back again came Mrs. Day with a box of bright steel horn-handled knives, silver-plated forks, carver, and all complete. These were wiped of the preservative oil which coated them, and then a knife and fork were laid down to each individual with a bang, the carving knife and fork thrust into the meat dish, and the old ones they had hitherto used tossed away.
Geoffrey placidly cut a slice with the new knife and fork, and asked Dick if he wanted any more.
The table had been spread for the mixed midday meal of dinner and tea, which was common among frugal countryfolk. “The parishioners about here,” continued Mrs. Day, not looking at any living being, but snatching up the brown delf tea-things, “are the laziest, gossipest, poachest, jailest set of any ever I came among. And they’ll talk about my teapot and tea-things next, I suppose!” She vanished with the teapot, cups, and saucers, and reappeared with a tea-service in white china, and a packet wrapped in brown paper. This was removed, together with folds of tissue-paper underneath; and a brilliant silver teapot appeared.
“I’ll help to put the things right,” said Fancy soothingly, and rising from her seat. “I ought to have laid out better things, I suppose. But” (here she enlarged her looks so as to include Dick) “I have been away from home a good deal, and I make shocking blunders in my housekeeping.” Smiles and suavity were then dispensed all around by this bright little bird.
After a little more preparation and modification, Mrs. Day took her seat at the head of the table, and during the latter or tea division of the meal, presided with much composure. It may cause some surprise to learn that, now her vagary was over, she showed herself to be an excellent person with much common sense, and even a religious seriousness of tone on matters pertaining to her afflictions.
CHAPTER VII:
DICK MAKES HIMSELF USEFUL
The effect of Geoffrey’s incidental allusions to Mr. Shiner was to restrain a considerable flow of spontaneous chat that would otherwise have burst from young Dewy along the drive homeward. And a certain remark he had hazarded to her, in rather too blunt and eager a manner, kept the young lady herself even more silent than Dick. On both sides there was an unwillingness to talk on any but the most trivial subjects, and their sentences rarely took a larger form than could be expressed in two or three words.
Owing to Fancy being later in the day than she had promised, the charwoman had given up expecting her; whereupon Dick could do no less than stay and see her comfortably tided over the disagreeable time of entering and establishing herself in an empty house after an absence of a week. The additional furniture and utensils that had been brought (a canary and cage among the rest) were taken out of the vehicle, and the horse was unharnessed and put in the plot opposite, where there was some tender grass. Dick lighted the fire already laid; and activity began to loosen their tongues a little.
“There!” said Fancy, “we forgot to bring the fire-irons!”
She had originally found in her sitting-room, to bear out the expression ‘nearly furnished’ which the school-manager had used in his letter to her, a table, three chairs, a fender, and a piece of carpet. This ‘nearly’ had been supplemented hitherto by a kind friend, who had lent her fire-irons and crockery until she should fetch some from home.
Dick attended to the young lady’s fire, using his whip-handle for a poker till it was spoilt, and then flourishing a hurdle stick for the remainder of the time.
“The kettle boils; now you shall have a cup of tea,” said Fancy, diving into the hamper she had brought.
“Thank you,” said Dick, whose drive had made him ready for some, especially in her company.
“Well, here’s only one cup-and-saucer, as I breathe! Whatever could mother be thinking about? Do you mind making shift, Mr. Dewy?”
“Not at all, Miss Day,” said that civil person.
“ — And only having a cup by itself? or a saucer by itself?”
“Don’t mind in the least.”
“Which do you mean by that?”
“I mean the cup, if you like the saucer.”
“And the saucer, if I like the cup?”
“Exactly, Miss Day.”
“Thank you, Mr. Dewy, for I like the cup decidedly. Stop a minute; there are no spoons now!” She dived into the hamper again, and at the end of two or three minutes looked up and said, “I suppose you don’t mind if I can’t find a spoon?”
“Not at all,” said the agreeable Richard.
“The fact is, the spoons have slipped down somewhere; right under the other things. O yes, here’s one, and only one. You would rather have one than not, I suppose, Mr. Dewy?”
“Rather not. I never did care much about spoons.”
“Then I’ll have it. I do care about them. You must stir up your tea with a knife. Would you mind lifting the kettle off, that it may not boil dry?”
Dick leapt to the fireplace, and earnestly removed the kettle.
“There! you did it so wildly that you have made your hand black. We always use kettle-holders; didn’t you learn housewifery as far as that, Mr. Dewy? Well, never mind the soot on your hand. Come here. I am going to rinse mine, too.”
They went to a basin she had placed in the back room. “This is the only basin I have,” she said. “Turn up your sleeves, and by that time my hands will be washed, and you can come.”
Her hands were in the water now. “O, how vexing!” she exclaimed. “There’s not a drop of water left for you, unless you draw it, and the well is I don’t know how many furlongs deep; all that was in the pitcher I used for the kettle and this basin. Do you mind dipping the tips of your fingers in the same?”
“Not at all. And to save time I won’t wait till you have done, if you have no objection?”
Thereupon he plunged in his hands, and they paddled together. It being the first time in his life that he had touched female fingers under water, Dick duly registered the sensation as rather a nice one.
“Really, I hardly know which are my own hands and which are yours, they have got so mixed up together,” she said, withdrawing her own very suddenly.
“It doesn’t matter at all,” said Dick, “at least as far as I am concerned.”
“There! no towel! Whoever thinks of a towel till the hands are wet?”
“Nobody.”
“‘Nobody.’ How very dull it is when people are so friendly! Come here, Mr. Dewy. Now do you think you could lift the lid of that box with your elbow, and then, with something or other, take out a towel you will find under the clean clothes? Be sure don’t touch any of them with your wet hands, for the things at the top are all Starched and Ironed.”
Dick managed, by the aid of a knife and fork, to extract a towel from under a muslin dress without wetting the latter; and for a moment he ventured to assume a tone of criticism.
“I fear for that dress,” he said, as they wiped their hands together.
“What?” said Miss Day, looking into the box at the dress alluded to. “O, I know what you mean — that the vicar will never let me wear muslin?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I know it is condemned by all orders in the church as flaunting, and unfit for common wear for girls who’ve their living to get; but we’ll see.”
“In the interest of the church, I hope you don’t speak seriously.”
“Yes, I do; but we’ll see.” There was a comely determination on her lip, very pleasant to a beholder who was neither bishop, priest, nor deacon. “I think I can manage any vicar’s views about me if he’s under forty.”
Dick rather wished she had never thought of managing vicars.
“I certainly shall be glad to get some of your delicious tea,” he said in rather a free way, yet modestly, as became one in a position between that of visitor and inmate, and looking wistfully at his lonely saucer.
“So shall I. Now is there anything else we want, Mr Dewy?”
“I really think there’s nothing else, Miss Day.”
She prepared to sit down, looking musingly out of the window at Smart’s enjoyment of the rich grass. “Nobody seems to care about me,” she murmured, with large lost eyes fixed upon the sky beyond Smart.
“Perhaps Mr. Shiner does,” said Dick, in the tone of a slightly injured man.
“Yes, I forgot — he does, I know.” Dick precipitately regretted that he had suggested Shiner, since it had produced such a miserable result as this.
“I’ll warrant you’ll care for somebody very much indeed another day, won’t you, Mr. Dewy?” she continued, looking very feelingly into the mathematical centre of his eyes.
“Ah, I’ll warrant I shall,” said Dick, feelingly too, and looking back into her dark pupils, whereupon they were turned aside.
“I meant,” she went on, preventing him from speaking just as he was going to narrate a forcible story about his feelings; “I meant that nobody comes to see if I have returned — not even the vicar.”
“If you want to see him, I’ll call at the vicarage directly we have had some tea.”
“No, no! Don’t let him come down here, whatever you do, whilst I am in such a state of disarrangement. Parsons look so miserable and awkward when one’s house is in a muddle; walking about, and making impossible suggestions in quaint academic phrases till your flesh creeps and you wish them dead. Do you take sugar?”
Mr. Maybold was at this instant seen coming up the path.
“There! That’s he coming! How I wish you were not here! — that is, how awkward — dear, dear!” she exclaimed, with a quick ascent of blood to her face, and irritated with Dick rather than the vicar, as it seemed.
“Pray don’t be alarmed on my account, Miss Day — good-afternoon!” said Dick in a huff, putting on his hat, and leaving the room hastily by the back-door.
The horse was caught and put in, and on mounting the shafts to start he saw through the window the vicar, standing upon some books piled in a chair, and driving a nail into the wall; Fancy, with a demure glance, holding the canary-cage up to him, as if she had never in her life thought of anything but vicars and canaries.
CHAPTER VIII:
DICK MEETS HIS FATHER
For several minutes Dick drove along homeward, with the inner eye of reflection so anxiously set on his passages at arms with Fancy, that the road and scenery were as a thin mist over the real pictures of his mind. Was she a coquette? The balance between the evidence that she did love him and that she did not was so nicely struck, that his opinion had no stability. She had let him put his hand upon hers; she had allowed her gaze to drop plumb into the depths of his — his into hers — three or four times; her manner had been very free with regard to the basin and towel; she had appeared vexed at the mention of Shiner. On the other hand, she had driven him about the house like a quiet dog or cat, said Shiner cared for her, and seemed anxious that Mr. Maybold should do the same.
Thinking thus as he neared the handpost at Mellstock Cross, sitting on the front board of the spring cart — his legs on the outside, and his whole frame jigging up and down like a candle-flame to the time of Smart’s trotting — who should he see coming down the hill but his father in the light wagon, quivering up and down on a smaller scale of shakes, those merely caused by the stones in the road. They were soon crossing each other’s front.
“Weh-hey!” said the tranter to Smiler.
“Weh-hey!” said Dick to Smart, in an echo of the same voice.
“Th’st hauled her back, I suppose?” Reuben inquired peaceably.
“Yes,” said Dick, with such a clinching period at the end that it seemed he was never going to add another word. Smiler, thinking this the close of the conversation, prepared to move on.
“Weh-hey!” said the tranter. “I tell thee what it is, Dick. That there maid is taking up thy thoughts more than’s good for thee, my sonny. Thou’rt never happy now unless th’rt making thyself miserable about her in one way or another.”
“I don’t know about that, father,” said Dick rather stupidly.
“But I do — Wey, Smiler! — ’Od rot the women, ‘tis nothing else wi’ ‘em nowadays but getting young men and leading ‘em astray.”
“Pooh, father! you just repeat what all the common world says; that’s all you do.”
“The world’s a very sensible feller on things in jineral, Dick; very sensible indeed.”
Dick looked into the distance at a vast expanse of mortgaged estate. “I wish I was as rich as a squire when he’s as poor as a crow,” he murmured; “I’d soon ask Fancy something.”
“I wish so too, wi’ all my heart, sonny; that I do. Well, mind what beest about, that’s all.”
Smart moved on a step or two. “Supposing now, father, — We-hey, Smart! — I did think a little about her, and I had a chance, which I ha’n’t; don’t you think she’s a very good sort of — of — one?”
“Ay, good; she’s good enough. When you’ve made up your mind to marry, take the first respectable body that comes to hand — she’s as good as any other; they be all alike in the groundwork; ‘tis only in the flourishes there’s a difference. She’s good enough; but I can’t see what the nation a young feller like you — wi’ a comfortable house and home, and father and mother to take care o’ thee, and who sent ‘ee to a school so good that ‘twas hardly fair to the other children — should want to go hollering after a young woman for, when she’s quietly making a husband in her pocket, and not troubled by chick nor chiel, to make a poverty-stric’ wife and family of her, and neither hat, cap, wig, nor waistcoat to set ‘em up with: be drowned if I can see it, and that’s the long and the short o’t, my sonny.”
Dick looked at Smart’s ears, then up the hill; but no reason was suggested by any object that met his gaze.
“For about the same reason that you did, father, I suppose.”
“Dang it, my sonny, thou’st got me there!” And the tranter gave vent to a grim admiration, with the mien of a man who was too magnanimous not to apprecia
te artistically a slight rap on the knuckles, even if they were his own.
“Whether or no,” said Dick, “I asked her a thing going along the road.”
“Come to that, is it? Turk! won’t thy mother be in a taking! Well, she’s ready, I don’t doubt?”
“I didn’t ask her anything about having me; and if you’ll let me speak, I’ll tell ‘ee what I want to know. I just said, Did she care about me?”
“Piph-ph-ph!”
“And then she said nothing for a quarter of a mile, and then she said she didn’t know. Now, what I want to know is, what was the meaning of that speech?” The latter words were spoken resolutely, as if he didn’t care for the ridicule of all the fathers in creation.
“The meaning of that speech is,” the tranter replied deliberately, “that the meaning is meant to be rather hid at present. Well, Dick, as an honest father to thee, I don’t pretend to deny what you d’know well enough; that is, that her father being rather better in the pocket than we, I should welcome her ready enough if it must be somebody.”
“But what d’ye think she really did mean?” said the unsatisfied Dick.
“I’m afeard I am not o’ much account in guessing, especially as I was not there when she said it, and seeing that your mother was the only ‘ooman I ever cam’ into such close quarters as that with.”
“And what did mother say to you when you asked her?” said Dick musingly.
“I don’t see that that will help ‘ee.”
“The principle is the same.”
“Well — ay: what did she say? Let’s see. I was oiling my working-day boots without taking ‘em off, and wi’ my head hanging down, when she just brushed on by the garden hatch like a flittering leaf. ‘Ann,’ I said, says I, and then, — but, Dick I’m afeard ‘twill be no help to thee; for we were such a rum couple, your mother and I, leastways one half was, that is myself — and your mother’s charms was more in the manner than the material.”
“Never mind! ‘Ann,’ said you.”