Neighbours on the Green; My Faithful Johnny

Next morning Mrs. Mowbray had made up her mind to send for Jane and open the subject at once—merely to represent to her how much more satisfactory this man was than such a lout as John. What a suitable union it would be! just her own quiet tastes and ways. And a man able to sustain and help her, instead of a lad of her own age, whom she would have to carry on her shoulders, instead of being guided by. The pleas in his favour were so strong, that the old lady could not see what pretence Jane could find for declining to listen to the schoolmaster. But she was not so certain about it next morning—and she neither went to the Barley Mow nor sent for Jane—but gave herself, as she said, time to think. And but for an accident that happened that very evening, prudence might have overcome the livelier impulse in her mind.

That evening however Mrs. Mowbray went out again to see the sunset, taking a short turn down the lane from her house. The lane ran between her house and the Barley Mow, and a back door from Mrs. Aikin’s garden opened into it. It was a very green, very flowery bit of road, leading nowhere in particular except due west; and as the ground was high here—for Dinglefield stood on a gentle eminence raised above the rest of the valley—this lane of an evening, when the sun was setting, seemed to lead straight through into the sunset. It was an exceptional evening: the sunset glowed with all the colour that could be found in a tropical sky, and the whole world was glorified. It drew Mrs. Mowbray out in spite of herself; she had thrown a scarf over her cap and about her shoulders, being so near home, and was ‘stepping westward,’ like the poet, but with the meditative step of age which signifies leisure from everything urgent, and time to bestow upon this great pageant of Nature. To be so at leisure from everything in thought as well as in life is a privilege of the aged and solitary. And there is nobody who enjoys the beauty of such a scene or dwells upon it with the same delight. But the privilege has its drawbacks, like most human things. Those busy folks who give but a glance, and are gone, have perhaps a warmer, because accidental pleasure: the more deliberate enjoyment is a little sad. Mrs. Mowbray however was one to feel this as little as could well be. She walked briskly, and her mind, even in the midst of this spectacle, was full of her plans. She was half-way down the lane, with all the light in her face, when she suddenly perceived two figures black against the light in front of her, standing out like black silhouettes on the glow of lovely colour. She saw them dimly; but they, having their backs to the dazzling light, and being totally unmindful of the sunset, saw her very clearly, and were much alarmed by her appearance. They had been so much occupied with each other that the sound of the old lady’s step upon some gravel was the first thing that roused them. The girl gave a frightened exclamation, and sprang apart from her companion, who for his part backed into the hedge, as if with the hope of concealing himself there. Though Mrs. Mowbray’s attention and curiosity were immediately roused, she did not even then recognize them, and they might have escaped her if they had not been so consciously guilty. The girl was the first to be detected. She ran off after that startled look, with a half-laughing cry, leaving the other to bear the consequences.

‘Bless me! Ellen Turner. The little flirt! She is after some mischief,’ Mrs. Mowbray said to herself; and even then she thought nothing of the young man. But he was not aware of this. He did not know that her eyes, which had been fixed on the glow in the sky, were dazzled by it, and unable to see him; and feeling himself detected, it seemed to John safer to take the matter into his own hands. He made a step into the middle of the road, in front of her. He could not have done anything less wise. Mrs. Mowbray was thinking only of Ellen, and nothing at all of the man she was fooling. This was the way she put it to herself: What did it matter who the silly fellow was? If he put any dependence on such a little coquette as that, he was to be pitied, poor fellow. The old lady had half a mind to warn him. But she was much surprised to find him confront her like this, and even a little frightened. And it was only now that she recognized who he was.

He had forgotten what little manners he had, and all his awe of ‘the quality’ in the excitement of the moment. ‘You’ll go telling of us!’ he cried, in sudden excitement, almost with a threat of his clenched hand.

A thrill of apprehension ran through the old lady’s frame, but she stood still suddenly, confronting him with the courage of her nature. ‘How dare you speak to me so, with your cap on your head?’ she said.

John’s hand stole to his hat in spite of himself. He fell back a step. ‘I beg your pardon, my lady; but I was a-going to say—You won’t say nothing to them?—It was a—accident—it wasn’t done a-purpose. You won’t tell—about her and me?’

‘Whom am I to tell?’ The old lady had seized the position already, and it made her herself again. She perceived in a moment the value of the incident. And he had taken his hat off by this time, and stood crushing it in his hands. ‘I don’t mean nothing,’ he said. ‘It’s only a lark. I don’t care nothing for her, nor I don’t suppose she do for me.’

‘That I’ll answer for,’ said Mrs. Mowbray briskly; ‘neither for you nor any one else, you vain blockhead! But if it’s only a lark, as you say, what are you frightened for? And what do you want of me?’

He stared at her for a moment with his mouth open, and then he said, ‘Haunt and Jeyeyne thinks a deal of you.’

‘I dare say they do,’ said the old lady; ‘but what of that? And they think a deal of you, you booby—more’s the pity. If you have a fancy for Ellen Turner, why don’t you let them know? Why don’t you marry her, or some one like her, and have done with it? I don’t say she’s much of a girl, but she’s good enough for you.’

His hand gripped his hat with rising fury; the very dullest of natures feels the keen edge of contempt. And then he laughed; he had a sharp point at his own command, and could make reprisals.

‘They’d kill her,’ he said, ‘if they knew it. They’re too sweet upon me to put up with it. They think as I don’t see what they’re after; but I see it fast enough.’

‘And what are they after, if you are so clear-sighted?’

‘They mean as I’m to settle down and marry Jeyeyne—that’s what they mean. They think, ‘cos I’m a quiet one, that I can’t see an inch from my nose. They think a fellow is to be caught like that afore he’s had his fling, and seen a bit of the world.’

‘Oh,’ said the old lady; ‘so you want to have your fling, and see the world?’

‘That is just about it, my lady,’ said the lout, taking courage. ‘I talks to her just to pass the time; but what I wants is to see the world. I won’t say as I mightn’t come back after, and settle down. Jeyeyne’s a good sort of girl enough—I’ve nothing to say against her; and she knows my ways—but a man isn’t like a set of women. I must have my fling—I must—afore I settle down.’

‘And who is to do your work, Mr. John, while you have your fling? Or are you clever enough to see that you are not of the least use at the Barley Mow?’

‘Oh, ain’t I of use! See what a fuss there will be when they think I’m going! But Haunt can afford a good wage, and there’s lots of fellows to be had.’

‘You ungrateful cub!’ cried the old lady; ‘is this all your thanks for their kindness, taking you in, and making a man of you! You were glad enough to find a home here when you were a wretched, hungry little boy.’

‘Begging your pardon, my lady, I never was,’ said John, with a gleam of courage. ‘I’d have been a deal better with father if they’d let me alone. He’d a got me into the regiment as a drummer, and I’d have been in the band afore this. And that’s the sort of life to suit me. I ain’t one of your dull sort—I likes life. This kind of a dismal old country place never was the place for me.’

‘You ungrateful, unkind, impertinent’!—

Mrs. Mowbray stopped short. She could not get out all the words that poured from her lips, and the sight of him there opposite silenced her after all. Mrs. Aikin’s goodness to this boy had been the wonder and admiration of everybody round. They had considered her foolishly generous—Quixotic, almost absurd, in her kindness; and now to hear his opinion of it! This bold ingratitude closes the spectator’s mouth. Perhaps, after all, it is better to leave the bramble wild, and the street boy in the gutter, and give up all attempts to improve the one or the other. But there is nothing which so silences natural human sentiment and approval of charity and kindness. Mrs. Mowbray was struck dumb. Who could tell that he had not even some show of justice in his wrong—something that excused his doubt, if nothing to excuse his unkindness? This strange suggestion took away her breath.

‘They’ve had their own way,’ said John; ‘they did it to please themselves; and that’s what they’d like to do again—marry me right off—a fellow at my age, and stop my fun! But I’m not the sort to have a girl thrust down my throat. I’ll have my fling first, or else I’ll have nothing to say to it. Now, my lady,’ he added, lowering his voice, and coming a step nearer,’ if you’ll stand my friend! There’s nobody as Haunt and Jeyeyne thinks so much of as you. If you says it they won’t oppose. I don’t want to quarrel with nobody; but I will have my fling, and see the world!’

‘And so you shall!’ cried Mrs. Mowbray; ‘if I can manage it. So you shall, my man! Get out of Jane’s way—that’s all I want of you. And I think better of you since you proposed it! Yes, yes! I’ll take it all upon me! There’s nothing I wish for more than that you should take yourself out of this. Have your fling! And I hope you’ll fling yourself a hundred miles out of reach of the Barley Mow!’

John looked at her with dull amazement. What did she mean? His thanks were stopped upon his lips. For, after all, this was not a pleasant way of backing up. ‘Get out of Jane’s way!’ His heavy self-complacency was ruffled for the moment. ‘I don’t mind how far I go,’ he said, with a suspicious look.

‘Nor I, I assure you,’ cried Mrs. Mowbray briskly; ‘I’ll plead your cause;’ and with that she turned round and went back again, forgetting all about the sunset. Nature is hardly treated by the best of us; we let her come in when we have nothing else in hand, but forget her as soon as a livelier human interest claims our attention. This was how even the old lady, who had been so meditatively occupied by Nature, treated the patient mother now.

Next day was Sunday, and of course Mrs. Mowbray could not enter upon the business which she had undertaken then. But when there is any undercurrent of feeling or complication of rival wishes in a family, Sunday is a very dangerous day, especially when the family belongs to the lower regions of society, and the Sunday quiet affords means of communication not always to be had on other days. This, of course, was scarcely the case among the household at the Barley Mow, but the habit of their class was upon them, and the natural fitness of Sunday for an important announcement, joined, it is to be supposed, with the fact that he had already unbosomed himself to one person, drew John’s project out. When Mrs. Mowbray accordingly took her way to Mrs. Aikin’s on the Monday morning, more and more pleased as she thought of it, with the idea of getting John out of the way, she saw at once by the aspect of both mother, and daughter that her news was no news. The two women had a look of agitation and seriousness which on Mrs. Aikin’s part was mingled with resentment. She was discoursing upon her chickens when Mrs. Mowbray found her way into the barn-yard. ‘They don’t care what troubles folks has with them, not they,’ she was saying with a flush on her cheek. ‘The poor hen, as has sat on her nest all day, and never got off to pick a bit o’ food. What’s that to them, the little yellow senseless things? And them as we’ve brought up and cared for all our lives, and should know better, is just as bad.’ Jane was putting up a setting of Brahmapootra eggs for somebody. She was very pale, and made no reply to her mother, but her hand trembled a little as she put them into the packet. ‘What is the matter?’ said the old lady as she came in. Jane gave her a silent look and said nothing. ‘La, bless us, ma’am, what should be the matter?’ said Mrs. Aikin. They were so disturbed that Mrs. Mowbray did a thing which she was not at all in the habit of doing. She departed from her original intention, and said nothing at all of her mission, concluding, as was the fact, that John himself had spoken. No later than that afternoon however her self-denial was rewarded, for Mrs. Aikin came to the Thatched Cottage, curtseying and apologetic. ‘I saw as you didn’t believe me, ma’am,’ she said. ‘There is nobody like you for seeing how things is. A deal has happened, and I don’t know whether I’m most pleased or unhappy. For one thing it’s all settled between Johnny and Jane.’

‘All settled!’ the old lady was so much surprised that she could scarcely speak.

‘Yes, ma’am, thank you, the poor dears! I always said that as soon as he knew his own mind—There ain’t a many lads as one can see through like our John.’

‘You didn’t wish it then?’ said Mrs. Mowbray. ‘I should have thought this morning that something bad had happened. You didn’t wish it! Then we’ve all been doing you injustice, my dear woman, for I thought you had set your heart on this all along.’

‘And so I have; and I’m as happy—that happy I don’t know what to do with myself,’ said Mrs. Aikin, putting her apron to her eyes.

‘Happy! nobody would think it to look at you—nor Jane. I thought I knew you like my A, B, C, but now I can’t tell a bit what you mean.’

‘Jane, she’s all of a flutter still, and she’s that humble-minded, all her thought is, will she make him happy? But you don’t suppose, ma’am, as I think any such nonsense—lucky to get her, I say, and so does everybody. It ain’t that. But he’s been seeing his father, and his father’s put nonsense in the lad’s head. I always said as he’d do it. Johnny’s the best of boys; he’d never have thought of such a thing if it hadn’t been put in his head. He says he wants to go out into the world and see a bit of life afore he settles down.’

‘And that is what troubles you? If I were you I should let him go,’ said the old lady. ‘Lucky! I should think he was lucky. A young fellow like that! He is not half good enough for Jane.’

‘Well, ma’am,’ said Mrs. Aikin, half ruffled, half pleased, ‘it is well known who was always your pet, and a great honour for her and me too—and I don’t know how it is as folks do such injustice to our John. It’s all the father, well I know; leave him to himself and a better boy couldn’t be. But I’ve written him a letter and given him a piece of my mind. It’s him as always puts fancies in the boy’s head. See the world! Where could he see the world better than at the Barley Mow! Why there’s a bit of everything at our place. There’s them gentlemen cricketers in the summer, and the best quality in the kingdom coming and going at Ascot time, and London company in the best parlours most every Sunday through the season. All sorts there is. There was never a week, summer or winter, so long as I can remember, but something was going on at the Barley Mow. Summer, it’s nothing but taking money from morning to night. I don’t mean to say,’ said Mrs. Aikin, suddenly recollecting that this sounded like a confession of large profits such as no woman in trade willingly acknowledges—‘I don’t mean to say as the expenses ain’t great, or as it’s all profit, far from it. But what I says to Johnny I don’t deny anywhere—it’s a living—and it’s the amusingest living and the most variety of any I know.’

‘And yet he wants to see the world; there’s no accounting for men’s depravity. Do you mean to let him go?’

Mrs. Aikin laughed. ‘I ain’t a good one to deceive,’ she said; ‘this morning I was all in a way, but now I’ve had time to think. You know yourself, ma’am, that to say “No” is the way to make a boy more determined than ever. Seemingly I’m a giving in, but I don’t mean to take no steps one way or other. I’ll let things take their course. And now that Jane and him understands one another, and the summer trade’s so brisk, who can say? Maybe it’ll go out of his head if he ain’t opposed. I’ve give my consent—so far as words goes—but I tell him as there’s no hurry. We can wait.’

She laughed again in thorough satisfaction with her own tactics. And Mrs. Mowbray, with a different sentiment, echoed the laugh. ‘Yes, we can wait,’ the old lady said; ‘my poor little Jane!’ That was all, but it made Mrs. Aikin angry, she could not tell why.

Mr. Peters at this period kept putting himself perpetually in Mrs. Mowbray’s way. He went past her house for his walk, he came back again past the Thatched Cottage. She could scarcely go out in the evening that he did not turn up in her path: and for some days the old lady was cruel enough to say nothing to him. At last one evening she called the poor schoolmaster to her. ‘You must make up your mind to it like a man,’ she said, ‘Jane is going to marry her cousin. It is all settled. The mother told me, like a fool.’

‘All settled!’ Poor Mr. Peters grew so pale that she thought he was going to faint. ‘I saw him,’ he gasped, ‘only yesterday, with–’

‘Never mind, yes; that’s quite true,’ said the old lady. ‘That woman has settled it like a fool. They are going to throw the girl away among them. But we cannot do anything. You must make up your mind to it like a man.’

The schoolmaster’s stiffness and embarrassment all melted away under the influence of strong feeling. He took off his hat unconsciously, showing a face that was like ashes. ‘Then God bless her,’ he said, ‘and turn away the evil. If she is happy, what does it matter about me!’

‘She will never be happy,’ said the old lady, ‘never, with that lout; and the thing for us to do is to wait. I tell you, what you’ve got to do is to wait. After all, the devil seldom gets things all his own way.’

Mr. Peters put on his hat again, and went away with a heavy heart. He did not go near the Barley Mow. He went home to his room, and sat there very desolate, reading poetry. He could bear it, he thought; but how could she bear it when she came to hear of Ellen Turner and those meetings in the lane?

At present however nothing was known of Ellen Turner at the Barley Mow. The very next Sunday after that the women had forgotten all the dangers of John’s perversity, and remembered only the fact of the engagement, and that all doubt was over on the point which they thought so essential to their happiness. Mrs. Aikin had a new bonnet on, resplendent in red ribbons, and the happiness in Jane’s face was better than any new bonnet. As it happened, there was a solo in the anthem that day which John sang standing up in his white surplice, and rolling out Handel’s great notes so that they filled the church. He had a beautiful voice, and while he sang poor Jane’s face was a sight to see: her countenance glowed with a kind of soft rapture. She clasped her hands unawares with the prayer-book held open in them, her eyes were raised, her lips apart, her nostrils slightly dilated. She had the look of a votary making a special offering. Poor simple Jane! There was no consciousness in her mind of any elevation above the rest, as she lifted that ineffable look, and praised God in a subdued ecstasy, offering to Him the voice of her beloved. For the moment Jane was as the prophets, as the poets, raised up above everything surrounding her, triumphing even over the doubt that was too ready to invade her mind at other times. She was but a country girl, the maid of the inn, occupying the most unelevated and most unelevating of positions, but yet no lady of romance could have stood on a higher altitude, for the time.

CHAPTER IV

This however was the last time that Jane’s look of modest, silent happiness could touch any heart. Whether she caught sight of some private telegraphing which passed between her newly-betrothed and Ellen Turner in the very church that very day, is not known, but other people saw it with wonder and forebodings. Mr. Peters, who had seen the rapture in Jane’s upturned face with a mingled pity and sympathy and pain which made him, too, heroic for the moment, perceived the nod and look of intelligence which passed between the baritone in the surplice and the little dressmaker in the free seats with an impulse of suppressed wrath which it took all the moral force he could command to resist. It was the first time the betrothed pair had appeared, as it were, in public, since it was known that ‘all was settled.’ And was it for this, for a vulgar reprobate who betrayed her at the moment of union, while the first happiness ought still to have been in delicate blossom, that she had overlooked altogether the far more worthy love of the other? He could not help wondering over that any more than Jane herself, a little while later, could help wondering. The best thrown aside, the worst chosen—is not this a far more poignant and wonderful evil than the tyrannies of parents or hindrances of fate which keep lovers apart? But no more from that day did Jane’s celestial content wound any sufferer. She grew grave, pale, almost visibly older from that moment. She withdrew herself from everybody. Even the old lady at the Thatched Cottage, who depended upon her for so many things, did not see her for weeks together. And their next meeting was a chance one, and took place on an August evening, about a month after these events. How Jane could have kept out of sight for so long was a mystery which nobody could have explained; but she had managed it somehow, sending respectful messages of regret by her mother. This time they met face to face without warning, as Mrs. Mowbray was returning in the cool of the evening from Sir Thomas Denzil’s, where she had been dining. The old lady sent her maid away instantly, so anxious was she to have a conversation with her favourite. Jane for her part would fain have escaped, but she could not be rude to her kind old patroness, and Mrs. Mowbray took her arm quite eagerly. ‘You may go home, Morris,’ she said; and almost without waiting till the maid was gone, ‘What has become of you, Jane? Where have you been hiding? Is it because you are so happy, my dear, or for some other reason, that you run away from me?’ A nervous quiver went over poor Jane; she said with a trembling voice, ‘For another reason.’ She did not even look her old friend in the face.

‘Then what is it, my dear? Come, tell me. Don’t you know, whatever it is, you can’t hide it from me?’

To this Jane made answer by drooping her head and turning away her face; and then she pressed the old lady’s hand, which was on her arm, to her side, and said hastily, ‘I was coming—I wanted you to speak for me—oh! ma’am, if you would speak to mother! about—about–’

‘What! my poor little Jane! What, dear? Tell me, tell me freely,’ said the old lady, almost crying. There could be but one subject that could excite the poor girl so.