In Homespun Part 10

'Now Mattie, if you have forgot me, or think more of some other chap, don't let anything stand in the way of your letting me know it straight and plain. But if you do remember how we used to walk from church, and the valentine, and the piece of poetry about Cupid's dart that I copied for you out of the poetry-book, you will come and meet me in the little ash copse, you know where. I may be prevented coming, for I've a lot of things to see to, and I am going to Liverpool on Thursday, and if we are to be married you will have to come to me there, for my business won't bear being left, and I must get back to it. But if so I will put a note in your prayer-book in the church. So you had best look in there on your way up on Wednesday evening.

'I am taking this way of seeing you because I don't want there to be any unpleasantness for you if you are tired of me or like some other chap better.

'I mean to take a wife back with me, Mattie, for I have done well, and can afford to keep one in better style than ever your father kept his. Will you be her, dear? So no more at present from your affectionate friend and lover,

JACK HALIBUT.'

I am quicker at reading writing than Mattie, and I had finished the letter and was picking up the raspberries before she come to the end, where his name was signed with all the little crosses round it.

'Well?' says I, as she folded it up and unb.u.t.toned two b.u.t.tons of her dress to push it inside. 'Well,' says I, 'what's the best news?'

'He's come home again,' she says. And I give you my word she did look like a rose as she said it. 'He's come home again, Jane, and it's all right, and he likes me just as much as ever he did, G.o.d bless him.'

Not a word, you see, about his having made his fortune, which I might never have known if I hadn't read the letter which I did, acting for the best. Not that I think it was deceitfulness in the girl, but a sort of fondness that always kept her from noticing really important things.

'And does he ask you to have him?' says I.

'Of course he does,' she says; 'I never thought any different. I never thought but what he would come back for me, just as he said he would--just as he has.'

By that I knew well enough that she had often had her doubts.

'Oh, well!' says I, 'all's well that ends well.

I hope he's made enough to satisfy uncle--that's all.'

'Oh yes, I think so,' says Mattie, hardly understanding what I was saying. 'I didn't notice particular. But I suppose that's all right.'

She didn't notice particular! Now, I put it to you, Was that the sort of girl to be the wife of a man who had got on like Jack had? I for one didn't think so. If she didn't care for money why should she have it, when there was plenty that did? And if love in a cottage was what she wanted, and kisses and foolishness out of poetry-books, I suppose one man's pretty much as good as another for that sort of thing.

So I said, 'Come along in, dear, and we will get along with the jam-making, and talk it all over nicely. I'm so glad he's come back.

I always say he would, if you remember.'

Not that I ever had, but she didn't seem to know any different, anyhow.

The next few days Mattie was like a different girl. I will say for her that she always did her fair share of the work, but she did it with a face as long as a fiddle. Only now her face was all round and dimply, and like a child's that has got a prize at school.

On Wednesday afternoon she said to me, 'I'm going to meet Jack, and don't you say a word to the others about it, Jane. I'll tell father myself when I come back, if you'll get the tea like a good girl, and just tell them I've gone up to the village.'

'I don't tell lies as a rule, especially for other people,' I says; 'but I don't mind doing it for you this once.'

And she kissed me (she had got mighty fond of kissing these last few days), and ran upstairs to get ready. When she come down, if you'll believe me, she wasn't in her best dress as any other girl would have been, but she had gone and put on a dowdy old green and white delaine that had been her Sunday dress, trimmed with green satin piping, three years before, and the old hat she had with all the flowers faded and the ribbons crumpled up, that was three year old too, and the very one she used to walk home from church with him on Sundays in. And her with a really good blue poplin laid by and a new bonnet with red roses in it, only come home the week before from Maidstone.

She come through the kitchen where I was setting the tea, and she took the key of the church off the nail in the wall. Our farm was full a mile from the village, and half way between it and the church. So we kept one key, and Jack's uncle, who was the s.e.xton, he had the other.

'What time was you to meet Jack?' I says.

'He didn't say,' said she; 'but it used to be half-past six.'

'You're full early,' says I.

'Yes,' she says, 'but I've got to take the b.u.t.ter down to Weller's, and to call in for something first.'

And, of course, I knew that she meant that she had to call in for that note at the church.

Minute she was out of the way, I runs into the kitchen, and says to our maid--

'Poor Mrs. Tibson's not so well, Polly. I'm going over to see her.

Give the men their tea, will you? there's a good girl.'

And she said she would. And in ten minutes I was dressed, and nicely dressed too, for I had on my white frock and the things I had had at a girl's wedding the summer before, and a pair of new gloves I had got out of my b.u.t.ter-money.

Then I went off up the hill to the church after Mattie, even then not making up my mind what I was going to do, but with an idea that all things somehow might work together for good to me if I only had the sense to see how, and turn things that way.

As I come up to the church I was just in time to see her old green gown going in at the porch, and when I come up the key was in the door, and she hadn't come out. Quick as thought, the idea come to me to have a joke with her and lock her in, so she shouldn't meet him, and next minute I had turned the key in the lock softly, and stole off through the church porch, and up to the ash copse, which I couldn't make a mistake about, for there's only one within a mile of the church.

Jack was there, though it was before the time. I could see his blue tie and white s.h.i.+rt-front s.h.i.+ning through the trees.

When I locked her in I only meant to have a sort of joke--at least, I think so,--but when I come close up to him and saw how well off he looked, and the diamond ring on his fingers, and his pin and his gold chain, I thought to myself--

'Well, you go to Liverpool to-morrow, young man! And she ain't got your address, and, likely as not, if you go away vexed with her, you won't leave it with your aunt, and one wife is as good as another, if not better, and as for her caring for you, that's all affectation and silliness--so here goes.'

He stepped forward, with his hands held out to me, but when he saw it was me he stopped short.

'Why, Miss Jane,' he said, 'I beg your pardon. I was expecting quite a different person.'

'Yes, I know,' I says, 'you was expecting my cousin Mattie.'

'And isn't she coming?' he asks very quick, looking at me full, with his blue eyes.

'I hope you won't take it hard, Mr. Halibut,' says I, 'but she said she'd rather not come.'

'Confound it!' says he.

'You see,' I went on, 'it's a long time since you was at home, and you not writing or anything, and some girls are very flighty and changeable; and she told me to tell you she was sorry if you were mistaken in her feelings about you, and she's had time to think things over since three years ago; and now you're so well off, she says she's sure you'll find no difficulty in getting a girl suited to your mind.'

'Did she say that?' he said, looking at me very straight. 'It's not like her.'

'I don't mean she said so in those words, or that she told me to tell you so; but that's what I made out to be her mind from what she said between us two like.'

'But what message did she send to me? For I suppose she sent you to meet me to-day.'

Then I saw that I should have to be very careful. So to get a little time I says, 'I don't quite like to tell you, Mr. Halibut, what she said.'

'Out with it,' says he. 'Don't be a fool, girl!'

'Well, then,' I says, 'if it must be so, her words were these: "Tell Jack," she says, "that I shall ever wish him well for the sake of what's past, but all's over betwixt him and me, and--"'

'And what,' says he.