Hetty Wesley Part 27

"C-can you fight?"

"A bit. Here, keep on your coat, boy, and don't be a fool.

Hands off, you young dolt!"

There was barely room on the causeway for two to pa.s.s. As Mr. Wright thrust by, Johnny s.n.a.t.c.hed furiously at his arm and with just enough force to slew him round. Letting go, he struck for his face.

The plumber had no wish to hurt the lad. Being a quick man with his fists, he parried the blow easily enough.

"No more of this!" he shouted, and as Johnny leapt again, hurled him off with a backward sweep of his wrist.

He must have put more weight into it than he intended. Johnny, flung to the very edge of the causeway, floundered twice to recover his balance; his feet slipped on the mud, and with hands clutching the air he soused into the water at Mr. Wright's feet.

"Hallo!" called out a cheerful voice. "Whar you two up to?"

d.i.c.k Ellison was coming down the causeway towards the house, somewhat advanced in liquor, though it wanted an hour of noon. Wright, who knew him only by sight, did not observe this at once. "Come and help," he answered, dropping on his knees by the brink and offering Johnny a hand.

Johnny declined it. He was a strong swimmer, and in a couple of strokes regained the bank and scrambled to firm ground again, dripping from head to heel and looking excessively foolish.

"Wha's matter?" demanded Mr. Ellison again.

"Nothing he need be ashamed of," answered Mr. Wright. "Here, shake hands, my boy!"

But Johnny dropped his head and walked away, hiding tears of rage and shame.

"Sulky young pig," commented Mr. Ellison, staring blearily after him.

A thought appeared to strike him.--"Blesh me, you're the new son-'law!"

"Yes, sir: Miss Hetty has just honoured me with her consent."

"Consent? I'll lay she had to! Sukey--tha's my wife--told me you were in the wind. _I_ said the old man's wrong--all right, patching it up--Shtill--" He paused and corrected himself painfully.

"_Still_, duty to c'nsult family; 'stead of which, he takes law in's own hands. Now list'n this, Mr.--"

"Wright."

"Qui-so." He pulled himself together again. "_Quite_ so. Now _I_ say, it's hard on the jade. _You_ say, 'Nothing of the sort: she's made her bed and must lie on it.'"

"No, I don't."

"I--er--beg your pardon? You must allow me finish my argument.

_I_ say, 'Look here, I'm a gentleman: feelings of a gentleman'-- _You're_ not a gentleman, eh?"

"Not a bit like one," the plumber agreed cheerfully.

"Tha's what I thought. Allow me to say so, I respect you for it--for speaking out, I mean. Now what I say is, wench kicks over the traces--serve her right wharrever happens: but there's _family_ to consider--"

Here Mr. Wright interrupted firmly. "Bless your heart, Mr. Ellison, I quite see. I've made a mistake this morning."

"No offence, you understand."

"No offence at all. It turns out I've given the wrong man a ducking."

"Eh?"

"It can easily be set right. Some day when you're sober. Good morning!"

William Wright went his way whistling. d.i.c.k Ellison stared along the causeway after him.

"Low brute!" he said musingly. "If she's to marry a fellow like that, Sukey shan't visit her. I'm sorry for the girl too."

Beyond the hedge, in a corner of the kitchen-garden, Johnny Whitelamb lay in his wet clothes with his face buried in a heap of mown gra.s.s.

He had failed, and shamefully, after preparing himself for the interview by pacing (it seemed to him, for hours) the box-bordered walks which Molly had planted with lilies and hollyhocks, pinks and sweet-williams and mignonette. It was high June now, and the garden breaking into glory. He had tasted all its mingled odours this morning while he followed the paths in search of Hetty; and when at length he had found her under the great filbert-tree, they seemed to float about her and hedge her as with the aura of a G.o.ddess. He had delivered his message, trembling: had watched her go with firm step to the sacrifice. And then--poor boy--wild adoration had filled him with all the courage of all the knights in Christendom. He alone would champion her against the dragon. . . . And the dragon had flung him into the ditch like a rat! He hid his face in the sweet-smelling hillock.

For years after, the scent of a garden in June, or of new-mown hay, caused him misery, recalling this the most abject hour of his life.

CHAPTER XII.

Six weeks later Mr. Wesley married William Wright and Hetty in the bare little church of Wroote. Her sisters (among them Patty, newly returned from Kelstein) sat at home: their father had forbidden them to attend. A fortnight before they had stood as bridesmaids at Nancy's wedding with John Lambert, and all but Molly had contrived to be mirthful and forget for a day the shadow on the household and the miserable woman upstairs. Hetty had no bridesmaids, no ringing of bells. The church would have been empty, but for a steady downpour which soaked the new-mown hay, and turned the fields into swamps, driving the labourers and their wives, who else had been too busy, to take recreation in a ceremony of scandal. For of course the whole story had been whispered abroad. It was to keep them away that the Rector had chosen a date in the very middle of the hay-harvest, and they knew it and enjoyed his discomfiture. He, on his part, when the morning broke with black and low-lying clouds, had been tempted to read the service in the parlour at home; but his old obstinacy had a.s.serted itself. Hetty's feelings he did not consider.

The congregation pitied Hetty. She, with Molly to help, had been the parish alms-giver, here and at Epworth; and though the alms had been small, kind words had gone with the giving. Of grat.i.tude--active grat.i.tude--they were by race incapable: also they were shrewd enough to detect the Wesley habit of condescending to be kind. She belonged to another world than theirs: she was a lady, blood and bone.

But they were proud of her beauty, and talked of it, and forgave her for the sake of it.

They hated the Rector; yet with so much of fear as kept them huddled to-day at the west end under the dark gallery. A s.p.a.ce of empty pews divided them from Mrs. Wesley, standing solitary behind her daughter at the chancel step.

"O G.o.d, who hast consecrated the state of Matrimony to such an excellent mystery that in it is signified and represented the spiritual marriage and unity betwixt Christ and his Church: look mercifully upon these thy servants. . . ."

A squall of rain burst upon the south windows, darkening the nave.

Mrs. Wesley started, and involuntarily her hands went up towards her ears. Then she remembered, dropped them and stood listening with her arms rigid.

Under a penthouse in the parsonage yard, Molly and Johnny Whitelamb watched the downpour, and the c.o.c.ks and hens dismally ruffling under shelter of the eaves.

"She was the best of us all, the bravest and the cleverest."

"She was like no one in the world," said Johnny.

"And the most loyal. She loved me best, and I have done nothing for her."

"You did what you could, Miss Molly."

"If I were a man--Oh, Johnny, of what use are my brothers to me?"

Johnny was silent.

"The others were jealous of her. She could no more help excelling them in wit and spirits than she could in looks. None of them understood her, but I only--and you, I think, a little."