The White Peacock Part 71

"Well A'nt, how does ta feel by now?" he said.

"Eh, sadly, lad, sadly! It'll not be long afore they carry me downstairs head first--"

"Nay, dunna thee say so!-I'm just off to Nottingham-I want Meg ter come."

"What for?" cried the old woman sharply.

"I wanted 'er to get married," he replied.

"What! What does't say? An' what about th' licence, an' th' ring, an ivrything?"

"I've seen to that all right," he answered.

"Well, tha 'rt a nice'st un, I must say! What's want goin' in this pig-in-a-poke fas.h.i.+on for? This is a nice shabby trick to serve a body!

What does ta mean by it?"

"You knowed as I wor goin' ter marry 'er directly, so I can't see as it matters o' th' day. I non wanted a' th' pub talkin'--"

"Tha 'rt mighty particklar, an' all, an' all! An' why shouldn't the pub talk? Tha 'rt non marryin' a n.i.g.g.e.r, as ta should be so frightened-I niver thought it on thee!-An' what's thy 'orry, all of a sudden?"

"No hurry as I know of."

"No 'orry--!" replied the old lady, with withering sarcasm. "Tha wor niver in a 'orry a' thy life! She's non commin' wi' thee this day, though."

He laughed, also sarcastic. The old lady was angry. She poured on him her abuse, declaring she would not have Meg in the house again, nor leave her a penny, if she married him that day.

"Tha can please thysen," answered George, also angry.

Meg came hurriedly into the room.

"Ta'e that 'at off-ta'e it off! Tha non goos wi' 'im this day, not if I know it! Does 'e think tha 'rt a cow, or a pig, to be fetched wheniver 'e thinks fit. Ta'e that 'at off, I say!"

The old woman was fierce and peremptory.

"But gran'ma!--" began Meg.

The bed creaked as the old lady tried to rise.

"Ta'e that 'at off, afore I pull it off!" she cried.

"Oh, be still Gran'ma-you'll be hurtin' yourself, you know you will--"

"Are you coming Meg?" said George suddenly.

"She is not!" cried the old woman.

"Are you coming Meg?" repeated George, in a pa.s.sion.

Meg began to cry. I suppose she looked at him through her tears. The next thing I heard was a cry from the old woman, and the sound of staggering feet.

"Would ta drag 'er from me!-if tha goos, ma wench, tha enters this 'ouse no more, tha 'eers that! Tha does thysen my lady! Dunna venture anigh me after this, my gel!"-the old woman called louder and louder.

George appeared in the doorway, holding Meg by the arm. She was crying in a little distress. Her hat with its large silk roses, was slanting over her eyes. She was dressed in white linen. They mounted the trap. I gave him the reins and scrambled up behind. The old woman heard us through the open window, and we listened to her calling as we drove away:

"Dunna let me clap eyes on thee again, tha ungrateful 'ussy, tha ungrateful 'ussy! Tha'll rue it, my wench, tha'll rue it, an' then dunna come ter me--"

We drove out of hearing. George sat with a shut mouth, scowling. Meg wept awhile to herself woefully. We were swinging at a good pace under the beeches of the churchyard which stood above the level of the road.

Meg, having settled her hat, bent her head to the wind, too much occupied with her attire to weep. We swung round the hollow by the bog end, and rattled a short distance up the steep hill to Watnall. Then the mare walked slowly. Meg, at leisure to collect herself, exclaimed plaintively:

"Oh, I've only got one glove!"

She looked at the odd silk glove that lay in her lap, then peered about among her skirts.

"I must 'a left it in th' bedroom," she said piteously.

He laughed, and his anger suddenly vanished.

"What does it matter? You'll do without all right."

At the sound of his voice, she recollected, and her tears and her weeping returned.

"Nay," he said, "don't fret about the old woman. She'll come round to-morrow-an' if she doesn't, it's her lookout. She's got Polly to attend to her."

"But she'll be that miserable--!" wept Meg.

"It's her own fault. At any rate, don't let it make you miserable"-he glanced to see if anyone were in sight, then he put his arm round her waist and kissed her, saying softly, coaxingly: "She'll be all right to-morrow. We'll go an' see her then, an' she'll be glad enough to have us. We'll give in to her then, poor old Gran'ma. She can boss you about, an' me as well, tomorrow as much as she likes. She feels it hard, being tied to her bed. But to-day is ours, surely-isn't it? To-day is ours, an' you're not sorry, are you?"

"But I've got no gloves, an' I'm sure my hair's a sight. I never thought she could 'a reached up like that."

George laughed, tickled.

"No," he said, "she _was_ in a temper. But we can get you some gloves directly we get to Nottingham."

"I haven't a farthing of money," she said.

"I've plenty!" he laughed. "Oh, an' let's try this on."

They were merry together as he tried on her wedding ring, and they talked softly, he gentle and coaxing, she rather plaintive. The mare took her own way, and Meg's hat was disarranged once more by the sweeping elm-boughs. The yellow corn was dipping and flowing in the fields, like a cloth of gold pegged down at the corners under which the wind was heaving. Sometimes we pa.s.sed cottages where the scarlet lilies rose like bonfires, and the tall larkspur like bright blue leaping smoke. Sometimes we smelled the suns.h.i.+ne on the browning corn, sometimes the fragrance of the shadow of leaves. Occasionally it was the dizzy scent of new haystacks. Then we rocked and jolted over the rough cobblestones of Cinderhill, and bounded forward again at the foot of the enormous pit hill, smelling of sulphur, inflamed with slow red fires in the daylight, and crusted with ashes. We reached the top of the rise and saw the city before us, heaped high and dim upon the broad range of the hill. I looked for the square tower of my old school, and the sharp proud spire of St. Andrews. Over the city hung a dullness, a thin dirty canopy against the blue sky.

We turned and swung down the slope between the last sullied cornfields towards Basford, where the swollen gasometers stood like toadstools. As we neared the mouth of the street, Meg rose excitedly, pulling George's arm, crying:

"Oh, look, the poor little thing!"

On the causeway stood two small boys lifting their faces and weeping to the heedless heavens, while before them, upside down, lay a baby strapped to a shut-up baby-chair. The gim-crack carpet-seated thing had collapsed as the boys were dismounting the curb-stone with it. It had fallen backwards, and they were unable to right it. There lay the infant strapped head downwards to its silly cart, in imminent danger of suffocation. Meg leaped out, and dragged the child from the wretched chair. The two boys, drenched with tears, howled on. Meg crouched on the road, the baby on her knee, its tiny feet dangling against her skirt.

She soothed the pitiful tear-wet mite. She hugged it to her, and kissed it, and hugged it, and rocked it in an abandonment of pity. When at last the childish trio were silent, the boys shaken only by the last ebbing sobs, Meg calmed also from her frenzy of pity for the little thing. She murmured to it tenderly, and wiped its wet little cheeks with her handkerchief, soothing, kissing, fondling the bewildered mite, smoothing the wet strands of brown hair under the sc.r.a.p of cotton bonnet, twitching the inevitable baby cape into order. It was a pretty baby, with wisps of brown-gold silken hair and large blue eyes.

"Is it a girl?" I asked one of the boys-"How old is she?"

"I don't know," he answered awkwardly, "We 've 'ad 'er about a three week."