The Hurly Burly and Other Stories

by A. E. Coppard

  “Beg pardon, ma’am?” he exclaimed.

  “You haven’t got a sweetheart, have you?” she asked, most deliberately.

  Harvey grinned sheepishly: “Ha ha ha,” and then he said: “No.”

  “I want to see my daughter married,” the widow went on significantly.

  “Miss Mary!” he cried.

  “Yes,” said she; and something in the higgler’s veins began to pound rapidly. His breast might have been a revolving cage and his heart a demon squirrel. “I can’t live for ever,” said Mrs. Sadgrove, almost with levity, “in fact, not for long, and so I’d like to see her settled soon with some decent understanding young man, one that could carry on here, and not make a mess of things.”

  “But, but,” stuttered the understanding young man, “I’m no scholar, and she’s a lady. I’m a poor chap, rough, and no scholar, ma’am. But mind you . . .”

  “That doesn’t matter at all,” the widow interrupted, “not as things are. You want a scholar for learning, but for the land . . .”

  “Ah, that’s right, Mrs. Sadgrove, but . . .”

  “I want to see her settled. This farm, you know, with the stock and things are worth nigh upon three thousand pounds.”

  “You want a farmer for farming, that’s true, Mrs. Sadgrove, but when you come to marriage, well, with her learning and French and all that . . .”

  “A sensible woman will take a man rather than a box of tricks any day of the week,” the widow retorted. “Education may be a fine thing, but it often costs a lot of foolish money.”

  “It do, it do. You want to see her settled?”

  “I want to see her settled and secure. When she is twenty-five she comes into five hundred pounds of her own right.”

  The distracted higgler hummed and haaed in his bewilderment as if he had just been offered the purchase of a dubious duck. “How old is she, ma’am?” he at last huskily inquired.

  “Two and twenty nearly. She’s a good healthy girl for I’ve never spent a pound on a doctor for her, and very quiet she is, and very sensible; but she’s got a strong will of her own, though you might not think it or believe it.”

  “She’s a fine creature, Mrs. Sadgrove, and I’m very fond of her, I don’t mind owning up to that, very fond of her I am.”

  “Well, think it over, take your time, and see what you think. There’s no hurry I hope, please God.”

  “I shan’t want much time,” he declared with a laugh, “but I doubt I’m the fair right sort for her.”

  “Oh, fair days, fair doings!” said she inscrutably, “I’m not a long liver, I’m afraid.”

  “God forbid, ma’am!” His ejaculation was intoned with deep gravity.

  “No, I’m not a long-living woman.” She surveyed him with her calm eyes, and he returned her gaze. Hers was a long sallow face, with heavy lips. Sometimes she would stretch her features (as if to keep them from petrifying) in an elastic grin, and display her dazzling teeth; the lips would curl thickly, no longer crimson but blue. He wondered if there was any sign of a doom registered upon her gaunt face. She might die, and die soon.

  “You couldn’t do better than think it over, then, eh?” She had a queer frown as she regarded him.

  “I couldn’t do worse than not, Mrs. Sadgrove,” he said gaily.

  They left it at that. He had no reason for hurrying away, and he couldn’t have explained his desire to do so, but he hurried away. Driving along past the end of the moor, and peering back at the lonely farm where they dwelled amid the thick furze snoozing in the heat, he remembered that he had not asked if Mary was willing to marry him! Perhaps the widow took her agreement for granted. That would be good fortune, for otherwise how the devil was he to get round a girl who had never spoken half a dozen words to him! And never would! She was a lady, a girl of fortune, knew her French; but there it was, the girl’s own mother was asking him to wed her. Strange, very strange! He dimly feared something, but he did not know what it was he feared. He had still got the pink rose in his buttonhole.

  IV

  At first his mother was incredulous; when he told her of the astonishing proposal she declared he was a joker; but she was soon as convinced of his sincerity as she was amazed at his hesitation. And even vexed: “Was there anything the matter with this Mary?”

  “No, no, no! She’s quiet, very quiet indeed, I tell you, but a fine young woman, and a beautiful young woman. Oh, she’s all right, right as rain, right as a trivet, right as ninepence. But there’s a catch in it somewheres, I fear. I can’t see through it yet, but I shall afore long, or I’d have the girl, like a shot I would. ’Tain’t the girl, mother, it’s the money, if you understand me.”

  “Well, I don’t understand you, certainly I don’t. What about Sophy?”

  “Oh lord!” He scratched his head ruefully.

  “You wouldn’t think of giving this the go-by for Sophy, Harvey, would you? A girl as you ain’t even engaged to, Harvey, would you?”

  “We don’t want to chatter about that,” declared her son. “I got to think it over, and it’s going to tie my wool, I can tell you, for there’s a bit of craft somewheres, I’ll take my oath. If there ain’t, there ought to be!”

  Over the alluring project his decision wavered for days, until his mother became mortified at his inexplicable vacillation.

  “I tell you,” he cried, “I can’t make tops or bottoms of it all. I like the girl well enough, but I like Sophy, too, and it’s no good beating about the bush. I like Sophy, she’s the girl I love; but Mary’s a fine creature, and money like that wants looking at before you throw it away, love or no love. Three thousand pounds! I’d be a made man.”

  And as if in sheer spite to his mother; as if a bushel of money lay on the doorstep for him to kick over whenever the fancy seized him in short (as Mrs. Witlow very clearly intimated) as if in contempt of Providence, he began to pursue Sophy Daws with a new fervour, and walked with that young girl more than he was accustomed to, more than ever before; in fact, as his mother bemoaned, more than he had need to. It was unreasonable, it was a shame, a foolishness; it wasn’t decent and it wasn’t safe.

  On his weekly visits to the farm his mind still wavered. Mrs. Sadgrove let him alone; she was very good, she did not pester him with questions and entreaties. There was Mary with her white dress and her red hair and her silence; a girl with a great fortune, walking about the yard, or sitting in the room, and casting not a glance upon him. Not that he would have known it if she did, for now he was just as shy of her. Mrs. Sadgrove often left them alone, but when they were alone he could not dish up a word for the pretty maid; he was dumb as a statue. If either she or her mother had lifted so much as a finger, then there would have been an end to his hesitations or suspicions, for in Mary’s presence the fine glory of the girl seized him incontinently; he was again full of a longing to press her lips, to lay down his doubts, to touch her bosom—though he could not think she would ever allow that! Not an atom of doubt about her ever visited him; she was unaware of her mother’s queer project. Rather, if she became aware he was sure it would be the end of him. Too beautiful she was, too learned, and too rich. Decidedly it was his native cunning, and no want of love, that inhibited him. Folks with property did not often come along and bid you help yourself. Not very often! And throw in a grand bright girl, just for good measure as you might say. Not very often!

  For weeks the higgler made his customary calls, and each time the outcome was the same; no more, no less. “Some dodge,” he mused, “something the girl don’t know and the mother does.” Were they going bankrupt, or were they mortgaged up to the neck, or was there anything the matter with the girl, or was it just the mother wanted to get hold of him? He knew his own value if he didn’t know his own mind, and his value couldn’t match that girl any more than his mind could. So what did they want him for? Whatever it was, Harvey Witlow was ready for it whenever he was in Mary’s presence, but once away from her his own craftiness asserted itself; it was a snare, they were
trying to make a mock of him!

  But nothing could prevent his own mother mocking him, and her treatment of Sophy was so unbearable that if the heart of that dusky beauty had not been proof against all impediments, Harvey might have had to whistle for her favour. But whenever he was with Sophy he had only one heart, undivided and true, and certain as time itself.

  “I love Sophy best. It’s true enough I love Mary, too, but I love Sophy better. I know it; Sophy’s the girl I must wed. It might not be so if I weren’t all dashed and doddered about the money; I don’t know. But I do know that Mary’s innocent of all this craftiness; it’s her mother trying to mogue me into it.”

  Later he would be wishing he could only forget Sophy and do it. Without the hindrance of conscience he could do it, catch or no catch.

  He went on calling at the farm, with nothing said or settled, until October. Then Harvey made up his mind, and without a word to the Sadgroves he went and married Sophy Daws and gave up calling at the farm altogether. This gave him some feeling of dishonesty, some qualm and a vague unhappiness; likewise he feared the cold hostility of Mrs. Sadgrove. She would be terribly vexed. As for Mary, he was nothing to her, poor girl; it was a shame. The last time he drove that way he did not call at the farm. Autumn was advancing, and the apples were down, the bracken dying, the furze out of bloom, and the farm on the moor looked more and more lonely, and most cold, though it lodged a flame-haired silent woman, fit for a nobleman, whom they wanted to mate with a common higgler. Crafty, you know, too crafty!

  V

  The marriage was a gay little occasion, but they did not go away for a honeymoon. Sophy’s grandmother from a distant village, Cassandra Fundy, who had a deafness and a speckled skin, brought her third husband, Amos, whom the family had never seen before. Not a very wise man, indeed he was a common man, stooping like a decayed tree, he was so old. But he shaved every day and his hairless skull was yellow. Cassandra, who was yellow too, had long since turned into a fool; she did not shave, though she ought to have done. She was like to die soon, but everybody said old Amos would live to be a hundred; it was expected of him, and he, too, was determined.

  The guests declared that a storm was threatening, but Amos Fundy denied it and scorned it.

  “Thunder p’raps, but ’twill clear; ’tis only de pride o’ der morning.”

  “Don’t you be a fool,” remarked his wife, enigmatically, “you’ll die soon enough.”

  “You must behold der moon,” continued the octogenarian; “de closer it is to der wheel, de closer der rain; de furder away it is, de furder der rain.”

  “You could pour that man’s brain into a thimble,” declared Cassandra of her spouse, “and they wouldn’t fill it—he’s deaf.”

  Fundy was right; the day did clear. The marriage was made and the guests returned with the man and his bride to their home. But Fundy was also wrong, for storm came soon after and rain set in. The guests stayed on for tea, and then, as it was no better, they feasted and stayed till night. And Harvey began to think they never would go, but of course they couldn’t and so there they were. Sophy was looking wonderful in white stockings and shiny shoes and a red frock with a tiny white apron. A big girl she seemed, with her shaken dark hair and flushed face. Grandmother Fundy spoke seriously, but not secretly to her.

  “I’ve had my fourteen touch of children,” said Grandmother Fundy. “Yes, they were flung on the mercy of God—poor little devils. I’ve followed most of ’em to the churchyard. You go slow, Sophia.”

  “Yes, granny.”

  “Why,” continued Cassandra, embracing the whole company, as it were, with her disclosure, “my mother had me by some gentleman!”

  The announcement aroused no response except sympathetic, and perhaps encouraging, nods from the women.

  “She had me by some gentleman—she ought to ha’ had a twal’ month, she did!”

  “Wasn’t she ever married?” Sophy inquired of her grandmother.

  “Married? Yes, course she was,” replied the old dame, “of course. But marriage ain’t everything. Twice she was, but not to he, she wasn’t.”

  “Not to the gentleman?”

  “No! Oh no! He’d got money—bushels! Marriage ain’t much, not with these gentry.”

  “Ho, ho, that’s a tidy come-up!” laughed Harvey.

  “Who was the gentleman?” Sophia’s interest was deeply engaged. But Cassandra Fundy was silent, pondering like a china image. Her gaze was towards the mantelpiece, where there were four lamps—but only one usable—and two clocks—but only one going—and a coloured greeting card a foot long with large letters KEEP SMILING adorned with lithographic honeysuckle.

  “She’s hard of hearing,” interpolated Grandfather Amos, “very hard, gets worse. She’ve a horn at home, big as that . . .” His eyes roved the room for an object of comparison, and he seized upon the fire shovel that lay in the fender. “Big as that shovel. Crown silver it is, and solid, a beautiful horn, but”—he brandished the shovel before them—“Her won’t use ’en.”

  “Granny, who was that gentleman?” shouted Sophy. “Did you know him?”

  “No! No!” declared the indignant dame. “I dunno ever his name, nor I don’t want to. He took hisself off to Ameriky, and now he’s in the land of heaven. I never seen him. If I had, I’d ’a’ given it to him properly; oh, my dear, not blay-guarding him, you know, but just plain language! Where’s your seven commandments?”

  At last the rain abated. Peeping into the dark garden you could see the fugitive moonlight hung in a million raindrops in the black twigs of all sorts of bushes and trees, while along the cantle of the porch a line of raindrops hung, even and regular, as if they were nailheads made of glass. So all the guests departed, in one long staggering, struggling, giggling, guffawing body, into the village street. The bride and her man stood in the porch, watching, and waving hands. Sophy was momentarily grieving: what a lot of trouble and fuss when you announced that henceforward you were going to sleep with a man because you loved him true! She had said good-bye to her Grandmother Cassandra, to her father and her little sister. She had hung on her mother’s breast, sighing an almost intolerable farewell to innocence—never treasured until it is gone—and thenceforward a pretty sorrow cherished more deeply than wilder joys.

  Into Harvey’s mind, as they stood there at last alone, momentarily stole an image of a bright-haired girl, lovely, silent, sad, whom he felt he had deeply wronged. And he was sorry. He had escaped the snare, but if there had been no snare he might this night have been sleeping with a different bride. And it would have been just as well. Sophy looked but a girl with her blown hair and wet face. She was wiping her tears on the tiny apron. But she had the breasts of a woman and decoying eyes.

  “Sophy, Sophy!” breathed Harvey, wooing her in the darkness.

  “It blows and it rains, and it rains and it blows,” chattered the crumpled bride, “and I’m all so bescambled I can’t tell wet from windy.”

  “Come, my love,” whispered the bridegroom, “come in, to home.”

  VI

  Four or five months later the higgler’s affairs had again taken a rude turn. Marriage, alas, was not all it might be; his wife and his mother quarrelled unendingly. Sometimes he sided with the one, sometimes with the other. He could not yet afford to install his mother in a separate cottage, and therefore even Sophy had to admit that her mother-in-law had a right to be living there with them, the home being hers. Harvey hadn’t bought much of it; and though he was welcome to it all now, and it would be exclusively his as soon as she died, still, it was her furniture and you couldn’t drive any woman (even your mother) off her own property. Sophy, who wanted a home of her own, was vexed and moody, and antagonistic to her man. Business, too, had gone down sadly of late. He had thrown up the Shag Moor round months ago; he could not bring himself to go there again, and he had not been able to square up the loss by any substantial new connections. On top of it all his horse died. It stumbled on a hill one day and fell, and
it couldn’t get up, or it wouldn’t—at any rate, it didn’t. Harvey thrashed it and coaxed it, then he cursed it and kicked it; after that he sent for a veterinary man, and the veterinary man ordered it to be shot. And it was shot. A great blow to Harvey Witlow was that. He had no money to buy another horse; money was tight with him, very tight; and so he had to hire at fabulous cost a decrepit nag that ate like a good one. It ate—well, it would have astonished you to see what that creature disposed of, with hay the price it was, and corn gone up to heaven nearly. In fact Harvey found that he couldn’t stand the racket much longer, and as he could not possibly buy another it looked very much as if he was in queer street once more, unless he could borrow the money from some friendly person. Of course there were plenty of friendly persons but they had no money, just as there were many persons who had the money but were not what you might call friendly; and so the higgler began to reiterate twenty times a day, and forty times a day, that he was entirely and absolutely damned and done. Things were thus very bad with him, they were at their worst—for he had a wife to keep now, as well as a mother, and a horse that ate like Satan, and worked like a gnat—when it suddenly came into his mind that Mrs. Sadgrove was reputed to have a lot of money, and had no call to be unfriendly to him. He had his grave doubts about the size of her purse, but there could be no harm in trying so long as you approached her in a right reasonable manner.

  For a week or two he held off from this appeal, but the grim spectre of destitution gave him no rest, and so, near the close of a wild March day he took his desperate courage and his cart and the decrepit nag to Shag Moor. Wild it was, though dry, and the wind against them, a vast turmoil of icy air strident and baffling. The nag threw up its head and declined to trot. Evening was but an hour away, the fury of the wind did not retard it, nor the clouds hasten it. Low down the sun was quitting the wrack of storm, exposing a jolly orb of magnifying fire that shone flush under eaves and through the casements of cottages, casting a pattern of lattice and tossing boughs upon the interior walls, lovelier than dreamed-of pictures. The heads of mothers and old dames were also imaged there, recognizable in their black shadows; and little children held up their hands between window and wall to make five-fingered shapes upon the golden screen. To drive on the moor then was to drive into blasts more dire. Darkness began to fall, and bitter cold it was. No birds to be seen, neither beast nor man; empty of everything it was, except sound and a marvel of dying light, and Harvey Witlow of Dinnop with a sour old nag driving from end to end of it. At Prattle Corner dusk was already abroad: there was just one shaft of light that broached a sharp-angled stack in the rickyard, an ark of darkness, along whose top the gads and wooden pins and tilted straws were miraculously fringed in the last glare. Hitching his nag to the palings he knocked at the door, and knew in the gloom that it was Mary who opened it and stood peering forth at him.