by E. F. Benson
Then there would come a movement, or a mumbled counting of stitches from the chair beside him, where Mollie sat knitting, and his mind skidded off on to the third topic that filled these silent hours. All that fierce energy which tor years had lain bubbling in her had been absorbed by the passion with which she looked forward to the bearing of her expected child, for whom she was for ever knitting and sewing. Already there was made for him-she knew it would be a boy-a cap of pink wool that would come down over his ears against the March winds, and a jersey with long sleeves, and a pair of teeny woollen gloves with one stall for the thumb and another for the bits of fingers to keep warm in together, and a pair of woollen breeches reaching down to his ankles to be tucked into his socks. They’d keep him warm, the pet, in case he was like his mammy and felt the cold as she did. The first thing she would do with him would be to have him rubbed over with fish-oil, and then Sally Austell should take him to be dipped in the spring that bubbled up in the heart of Penrirh copse, for that was a rare spell to make a baby’s blood run brisk. She would drop a word or two about such things to John, as they sat together by the fire, but then catch herself up, for to speak of them might bring ill-luck. Every night when she went up to bed she took her knitting to her room, and put it handy on her table, so that if she lay awake in the night she could light her candle and get to work again.
Sometimes as the two sat together Mollie’s certainty that she was waxing with child would convince John she was right: a woman surely knew the symptoms, and besides, he thought she was beginning to grow a bit big. But at other times he could not bring himself to imagine it possible that her hands and limbs growing ever thinner and more emaciated could be the harbour-age for new life, and she was yellowing like an autumn leaf, when the sap has drained out of it; whereas Nell was like a bud in spring-time, and radiant with blooming vitality. Mollie was ill; one night she had had spasms of sharp pain; and he had got her consent to let Dr. Symes have a look at her. But in the morning she was better again, and no persuasion would induce her to see him. She crawled very slowly about the house now, stopping two or three times to get her breath if she must go upstairs, often not leaving her bed till near on noonday, but corning down eager to count the eggs which Nell brought in from the hen-yard. Sometimes she would go out to have a look at the new run, or go forth into the garden at dusk, saying she would be the better for a saunter, but for the most part she sat over the fire, bunched up and stooping low over her work.
December slipped away and January: on those short days the sun scarcely cleared the trees beyond the garden, and had sunk before it could look into the kitchen window to the west. Harry Giles had gone back to London many weeks before, so now Nancy was never in a hurry to get supper done. She had heard from him two days ago, and he had asked her to come up to London and live with him as his housekeeper. It required but little thought to make her decision, and she intended to write to him to-morrow, to say she would come. She had had enough of the farmhouse and its dark ways: twenty years she’d spent there, in cooking and housework, and it was time she had a bit of life of her own, before the greyness of age came on her. It was enough to give anyone the creeps to look at those two sitting by the fire all evening, and never a bit of joy came to her now that Harry had gone.
On this Sunday evening late in January she and Nell were washing-up, and when that was done Nell came and sat with Dennis in the window-seat to wait for John to have had enough drink to be ready for his prayings. There was a new moon that night, and Dennis pointed to it.
“Just a sliver of a moon,” he said. “’Tis new.”
Mollie turned round quickly in her chair by the fire.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Naught, Granny,” said he. “Just the young moon.”
She got up, putting her hands over her eyes.
“Just the young moon, say you?” she cried. “As if that’s naught indeed! I mustn’t see a glint of it through glass. Here, one of you, lead me out into the yard, so’s I may see it fair.”
“Eh, I’ll go with you,” said Nancy, “and I hope a breath of air’ll do you good, Mrs. Pentreath, for you’ve taken neither bite nor sup to-night.”
“That’s a kind woman,” said Mollie. “Now lead me careful, for I’ll go blindfold till I’m out.”
Nancy led her far out into the yard, from where she could get a view of the slim crescent uncrossed by tree branches, and, as bidden, left her there, casting a rather fearful glance behind her, as she closed the kitchen door again.
“Lor’, Mrs. Pentreath fair frightens me sometimes,” she said. “Such mutterings and curtseyings you never saw. It’s as if there was someone nigh to her to talk to. Well, I hope they may do her good, pore old lady.”
Soon Mollie came back, stepping more briskly. At the moment Dennis said something to the girl that made her laugh, and Mollie snapped her fingers and joined in with a high cackle.
“Eh, that’s right, Nell,” she cried. “’Tis proper for us as’ll soon be mothers to laugh for the joy of our hearts. And ’tis a fine pure maid of a moon, up on high, and kind she looked on me. She’ll be a good friend to us whose time is nigh, and I feel easier nor I’ve felt all day. And if it ain’t a trouble, you might get me a bit 0’ -that cold beef you had for supper, for I must see that I’m well nourished. Eh, you buxom wench, ’tis good for such as us to laugh loud and eat solid.”
She sat down by the fire again, and took a mouthful of the meat which Nell brought her, sucked it with mumbling movements of her mouth, and swallowed it with an effort.
“Yes, ’tis good,” she said, “but I don’t know as I relish more of it now. And it’s time for you, John, to get to your prayings, for we can’t go wrong with having friends on all sides, maybe, as are looking after us. Eh, I’d best not have swallowed that meat, but it’s gone now. But do you have your prayers, and put up a word about me, and we’ll see what comes of it all.”
She sat smiling to herself as the others gathered round the table. John had drunk handsomely that night, and when Mollie called to him to begin prayers he Was in drunken meditation on one of his standard topics, that of Dennis. It was no wonder then that he led off with a marrowy passage about the sins and offences of youth, about the stiff-necked and adulterous generation that honoured not their fathers nor yet their fathers’ fathers. A fine bawling piece it was, with phrases culled from the savager psalms of King David, but it was familiar now, and Dennis and Nell, kneeling opposite along the kitchen table, sent a smile and a nod of recognition to each other.
Then following on to his next topic of meditation, John closed his eyes and raised his voice in more urgent appeal.
“And for us, Lord, who fear Thy holy ways, and bow to Thy judgments, and walk in Thy paths with Thy rod and Thy staff to comfort us, grant the fulfilment of our just desires. Bless, O Lord, the union of marriage ordained and sanctified by Thee. May the wife be as the fruitful vine on the walls of my house, and her children like the olive branches—”
Suddenly Mollie bent herself together, clutching the arms of her chair, and screamed aloud for the pain that stabbed her.
“Eh, ’tis enough, ’tis enough,” she cried, “for sure my time’s come. The fruitful vine, aye, the fruitful vine’s what did it. But come and hold me tight, John, for it’s more’n I can bear.”
She slid forward from her chair, collapsed on to the floor, and lay there writhing.
“Run like hell, Dennis, for the doctor chap,” cried his grandfather, shuffling to his feet. “Bring him with you if you have to take him up and carry him. ’Tis her seventh month, by her reckoning, and maybe she’s right, and the pains are on her. There, Mollie, just hold yourself together, and think what’s coming to you, why, the desire of your heart, and Nancy and I will get you up to your bed as easy as easy. Nay; can carry you myself: run on, Nancy, and get her bed ready for her-do you bring along the lamp, Nell.”
It was scarcely a quarter of an hour before Dennis was back again with Dr. Symes, carry
ing his case of instruments. Nell was waiting at the garden door to show them a light: she told them that Nancy was upstairs with Mrs. Pentreath, while loud bawling supplications from the kitchen indicated that John had resumed s praying.
“What’s that row?” asked the doctor, as Dennis, carrying the light, preceded him upstairs.
“Grandfather at his Sunday prayers,” said he.
“Drunk, I suppose?”
“Drunk as a lord,” said Dennis, “and full o’ prayers as any passon. He stopped a bit when Granny was took bad, but I reckon he’s off again now. That’s her door.”
“Give me my case then, and go downstairs and stop your grandfather making that unholy noise, if you call yourselves a Christian household.”
“Sure I never did that,” said Dennis.
John ceased his supplications when Dennis entered.
“And you brought the doctor for the old woman?” he asked. “You’ve been quick.”
“Yes: he’s gone up to her.’
“Good, and she’ll soon be out o’ her pain now, I reckon, for great’s the power I’ve put into my praying to-night. I fair wrestled with the Lord; I did, same as Jacob. And there’s a sign for you, if ever there was, for ’twas just when I prayed as she might be like the fruitful vine that the pangs took her. Astonishing it was, even to me as knows the strength of the arm of the Lord! But a fine fright it gave me, and I want a bit of steadying. I’ll thank you to get another jugful of water, for Dr. Symes will surely want a drink when he’s through with his job. Eh, to think that a son’ll be born to me this very night!”
He settled himself in his chair again, and went maundering on, with hiccups for punctuation.
“There were times when I misdoubted whether she was with child. ’Twas a lack of faith, was that. But now I reckon I’ll have a son to be a bit o’ comfort to me in my old age, though all others turn their faces from me. Your mother and Nell and you, you’re not a friendly household for a God-fearing man, a man’s foes you may say ‘stead of friends. Nancy behaved kind to me, I’ll say that for her, when you’d bitten me like a mad dog, and she’d come in her shift to my bedside when I lay tossing and fevered with your teeth, but then came a hitch: things turned out different from what I thought. And talking o’ teeth, just look round about the oven and see if your Granny’s not spilt hers there. I thought as much! None gives a thought o’ kindness to her but me. Put them in a mug of water, and I’ll take them to her soon. Let’s see, I was talking of Nancy.”
He chuckled to himself.
“She’d other fish to fry,” he said, “and I hope she did them brown. But there! You’re the son of her, and it’s little you’d honour your mother if I told you, though, maybe, you’ve guessed. But don’t you ask me.”
“Don’t be feared o’ me: I’ll not ask you,” said Dennis.
“Well, I’m sure that’s mighty kind o’ you. You may take a drink for that handsome speech, and by God, everyone in this house’ll take a drink when the news comes that there’s an uncle born to you. That’s queer, that is, to think that you’re nigh to being a father yourself before your uncle’s born: a comical thing indeed! ... I wonder how they’re getting on up above. There was groanings and screamings a while back, when you was gone for the doctor, and that put me on my knees again, thinking o’ your granny, whom I’ve brought to bed after all these years.”
“I heard you at it,” said Dennis, “as soon as ever I got inside the door.”
John looked round for his whisky bottle, though his hand was closed on the neck of it.
“And where’s my drink gone?” he said. “Who’s been meddling with my bottle? Eh, there’s another comical thing, for my hand was on it all the time. ’Tis like we shall have to sit here and wait, for I’m not going to sleep while Mollie’s got the pains on her, and I’ll have a nip to pass the time. So you heard me at my prayers when you came in. As you came across the garden was there no sound of me?”
“Not to my ears,” said Dennis, yawning, but keeping an eye on him, in case he got up to some trick. “Faith, and I’ll tell you the reason o’ that,” said John with drunken solemnity. “’Twas like this: there are enemies of the Lord out in the garden, owls tuwhooing and what-not other crittures o’ the night, and they dulled the sound of my praying, lest it should be a protection from all evil things abroad. They fear the voice of a godly man calling on the Lord, and, by God, well they may! I’m a match for them, and they know it. ’Twas like that.”
“Yes, maybe ’twas like that,” said Dennis.
“Maybe, d’you say? I tell ‘ee that was how it was. Who should know better nor I? The whole black brood o’ them wamble with fear o’ John Pentreath when the spirit of prayer’s on him, and with good reason, too. There’s not one O’ them as is not afraid of old John when he calls on the Lord. You’ve been powerful ‘feared of me, too, sonny, when I tied your hands up and licked the skin off your back with yon whip, so you know how the evil spirits feel. Maybe, I’ll give you another bashing yet, for I stand no nonsense in my house.”
“Aye, you’re a terrible fearsome man, for sure,” said Dennis.
The old man was nodding and mumbling now: another touch of the drink and he’d be snoring. But there were a few more religious speculations first.
“Yes, terrible I can be,” he said, “and always seeking to map my ways to the path of godliness. Perhaps I should ‘a’ been a bit stricter yet. Happen I ought to have put Nell to sleep in your granny’s room, and put a bed for you in mine, and then there wouldn’t ‘a’ been all this trouble about a brace o’ babies coming, and one conceived in sin. Eh, there’s a peck o’ pain and trouble in the world, and I wonder God Almighty ain’t scared sometimes, when He looks down on us all, and beholds what He did when He set the world going. But that can’t be mended now, and here’s the whole bilin’ of us miserable worms messing about and hating and loving. God, how I hate you, and there’s Nell loving you, and Nancy bedizening herself, the whoresome slut, and the old woman upstairs with her withered bosom and her fruitful womb, and me just praying the Lord to soften your sinful hearts. The fruitful vine! Why, the words were on my lips—”
“Aye, we’ve talked o’ that,” said Dennis. John gave a great yawn.
“I’ll take a snooze,” he said, “while we’re waiting for that doctor chap. A queer thing that the barren woman’s to become a joyful mother o’ children at her time o’ life, for barren she was but for the little dead puppy years ago. Eh, if it had only been t’other way about, and I’d had my son sitting here, ‘stead of you.”
He dropped back in the chair and fell asleep: Dennis was wondering whether he couldn’t leave him; and go up to Nell, who had slipped away to bed, when he heard a step coming down the stairs. Slight though the sound was, it roused his grandfather, as it someone had shaken him awake.
“There’s news on the way,” he said in a voice quite steady and sober, and he jumped up. “Hush, it comes down step by step, as if ’twas a Jacob’s ladder.”
There was a hand on the latch, and Dr. Symes came in. So you’ve come to tell me, doctor,” he said. “Out with it, and we’ll drink a health.”
Dr. Symes had expected to see a tipsy fellow, who had best be sent to bed, and told in the morning when he was fit to understand. But his suspense seemed completely to have sobered John, and here he was erect and steady and master of himself.
“Is it a boy, man?” he asked.
“No, there’s no boy.”
“A girl, then? Well, there’s no harm in a girl...You don’t mean to tell me it’s another little dead thing like what she had before?”
“Sit down, Pentreath,” said the doctor. “I’ve got news for you, and it’s bad news.”
“Mollie’s not died?”
“No. But there’s neither boy nor girl, nor ever will be. She’s not with child at all.”
“But she was growing great,” said John. “’Twas there to see.”
“Yes, I’ve seen it. But she’s got no child that’s mak
ing her great. It’s a tumour; the wonder is that it hasn’t killed her already.”
“Tumour? Is that what they call the lump hereabouts?”
“Yes.”
John stared at him a moment, his teeth raking his lip. “God! Them as should have holpen her have tricked her fine!” he said. “She danced in the circle, she did, on Midsummer Eve, and she’s been busy with her spells and what-not, ever courtin’ them, and ’tis this they’ve sent her. Often I ‘monished her to turn to the Lord, but she wouldn’t hear, and now here’s the end of it all. I’ll pray constant for her night and day... Doctor, hasn’t it broken Mollie’s heart to know it?”
“She doesn’t know it, and we’ve got to keep her from knowing it. The woman can’t have many weeks to live, and I’ve told her that she’s with child all right, and that she’ll be delivered when her time comes. She’s in her seventh month now, she thinks.”
“And can’t you cut the lump from her?” asked John. “Quite impossible. All that can be done is to save her pain; perhaps she won’t have much, for sometimes it happens so. Now I’ve given her a drug that will keep her drowsy, and I’ll be up here again in the morning.”
“And how do you reckon the lump came?” asked John.
“Maybe some injury started it. Can you remember her having a fall or bruising herself low down on her stomach? There’s a mark of such.”
John Pentreath had stood steady enough during this, but now he felt his knees weaken, and he gripped the table hard to stiffen himself.
“’Twas that as might have started it?” he asked, feeling the cold sweat stand on his forehead as on a pitcher of water.
“Pretty certain.”
John passed the back of his hand over his forehead.
“Nay, I can’t remember any such a thing,” he said, “and ’twouldn’t be likely that I’d forget it.”