Cheap Jack Zita

'Silence, you false-mouthed woman!'

'Can you silence all the tongues in the Fen? There's not a man over his pipe and ale in the tavern ain't jeering at you. There's not a woman over her soapsuds and scrubbing-brush ain't crying shame on you. But what can you expect of a vagabond but vice? I spit at you.'

Zita cast the woman from her, and turned and threw herself on her knees at the broken table, buried her face in her hands, and burst into tears.

Drownlands waved imperiously to the housekeeper to leave, and the woman withdrew, muttering and casting malignant glances at the broken, prostrate girl.

The table was between the master of Prickwillow and Zita. His knuckles rested on the will. He leaned on them, and looked down on the shining head that was laid low before him. Zita's hair was cut short, and her neck showed as well as her rounded cheek.

He did not speak. He breathed heavily through his distended nostrils. He waited, not knowing what direction her thoughts might take, what resolve her mind would form.

There were but few alternatives among which she might choose. She could not resume her life as Cheap Jack without taking an assistant, and from that course she shrank with maidenly repugnance, rightly estimating its dangers. If she were to throw herself among the wanderers who frequented fairs, it would be to court ruin. Was it not probable that she would maintain her resolution to remain at Prickwillow, with this difference, that she would accept his first offer, and become his wife, to save her fair name from reproach? So far as Drownlands could see, this was the only means whereby she could extricate herself from her difficulties, and his heart swelled within him at the hope that opened before him. But he saw clearly that he must allow her to work to this solution by herself unassisted. A word from him would mar everything.

He accordingly stood with bent brows and pale face, the furrows deeply graven on his forehead and seaming his cheek, his lips set, looking steadily at the chestnut-gold head and the delicate bowed neck.

There is no agony more terrible than the agony of the soul, and among the many anguishes with which that can be affected none equals in intensity and poignancy that which is caused by the sense of the loss of the respect of men.

There was an ineffable humiliation in the thought of the light in which she—Zita—had come to be regarded, if what Mrs. Tunkiss said was true. The girl who errs through over-trust in a lover, who has believed his word, his oath, is looked down on, but deserves some pity. But Zita did not occupy such a position, had not the same claim to be dealt by lightly. She had—so men thought, so men said—deliberately and calculatingly sold herself to Drownlands. Her degradation had been a piece of sordid merchandise, with haggling over terms.

That was true which Leehanna said. She was the subject-matter of talk in the taverns, of coarse and ribald jokes, of calculation of the chances she had of retaining the affections of Drownlands, of remark on her craft, her dexterity in laying hold of and managing this intractable tyrant of the Fens.

But perhaps the intensest anguish-point lay in the thought that Mark, who had loved her, or liked her—Mark, whom she had loved, whom she loved still, regarded her with disgust, held himself aloof from her, as one unworthy even of his pity, as a cold, calculating wanton.

As all these thoughts passed through the mind of Zita, the pain was so excessive that she could have shrieked, and felt relief in shrieking; that she worked with her feet on the planks of the floor, as though to bore with them a hole down which she might disappear and hide her shame.

The drops ran off her brow like the drops on a window after rain—long-gathering trickles of moisture, then a great drop, immediately succeeded by another accumulation, and again another drop. Save for the working of her feet on the floor and the movement of her fingers, she was motionless. Drownlands contemplated her steadily. He saw her, in her anguish of mind, twine and untwine her long fingers, then pluck at and strip off chips of the table where he had broken it, put them between her teeth and bite them, but still with lowered brow and eyes that she could not raise for shame. He could see flushes pass over her, succeeded by deadly pallor. It was as though flames were flickering about her head, shooting up and enveloping throat and cheek and brow, then dying down and leaving a deathly cold behind. A soul in this present life was prematurely suffering its purgatory.

Then she laid her hands flat on the table before her, then folded them, as children fold their hands in prayer, and she was still, as though her pulses had ceased to beat and her lungs to play. Then again ensued a paroxysm of distress, in which the fingers writhed and became knotted, and tears broke from her eyes and sobs from her heart.

How long would this last?

What resolutions were forming and unforming under that crown of shining locks, in that heavily-charged heart?

The door was thrust open, and in came Sarah, the maid with St. Vitus' dance.

'Please,' she said, 'there be three gem'men from Ely downstairs. They say they be come after their toastin'-forks.'

CHAPTER XXXIV

WITH TOASTING-FORKS

ZITA rose from her knees.

'Tell them to wait, and I will be down directly,' she said. 'I made them a promise, and I must keep it. I am glad they are here; they can witness the will, now that Mark Runham and Leehanna Tunkiss are gone.'

Drownlands was surprised. The girl had regained her composure; and from the look of her face he was assured that she had formed her resolution.

'That is right,' said he; 'things remain as arranged.'

'I cannot go away,' said Zita in a low voice. 'Here I am, and here I must remain. If I have done wrong to stay here, the wrong is done. If I have been foolish to accept your hospitality, the folly is past recall.' She looked over her shoulder to see that Sarah had withdrawn.

'Yes; I promised you I would remain here, and here I will remain, on a condition.'

He held up the will.

'Yes, on condition that you leave everything you have as I shall direct.'

'I leave it all to you.'

'The will must be written afresh,' said Zita; 'a change must be made in it. You have bequeathed everything to me, and because of that, evil thoughts will rise up in folks' minds, and evil words will pass over their lips. Even Mark thinks ill of me. I did not think Mark could have done that.' She heaved a sigh, and drew her hand across her eyes.

'Master,' said she, after a pause, 'you had no right to make that will and leave me all. I am not your niece. I shall never stand nearer to you than I do now. I have no claim on your house or lands. But Kainie has. She is your own sister's child. You must alter your will and leave everything to her.'

'I said I would give her nought.'

'And that made Mark believe me to be bad. I will not have anything of yours. I will have you make the writing out anew, and bequeath everything to Kainie—on the same condition, if you will, that I remain here all your days. I do not say, Give Kainie everything now. I have no right to say that. I do not say, Give me nothing at any time. I shall have a right to some payment, or some acknowledgment of my services. But what I do say is that I will not be your heir hereafter. Kainie has a claim on you that I have not. If I were to be enriched with house and lands by you, then the evil that is thought of me would be confirmed. But folks may say what they will, when, some day, after you are gone, the property changes hands and falls to Kainie; they cannot think I have been so wicked as was supposed. And I shall have repaid you for your kindness to me, in that I have saved you from committing a great injustice. Mark said I would do anything—sell body and soul—for profit. He will come to see that he was wrong there.'

Drownlands gazed on the girl with incredulity. She had hit on an arrangement that had not suggested itself to his mind. He could not believe that she was serious in her purpose.

'I will remain with you,' continued Zita, 'on the clear understanding that Kainie is to be your heir, and I would wish this understanding to be generally made known. Some day, when I am old and ugly, and you are dead and gone, then, when the new folks come into Prickwillow, I'll harness the horse and start as a Cheap Jack once more. Then I can take a man to mind the horse, when I do the business of a Cheap Jack. No one can say wrong of me then. When Mark Runham comes into this place'—

'Mark Runham will never be here.'

'He must be here, if this falls some day to Kainie.'

'That does not follow.'

'Of course it follows, if he marries Kainie.'

'Mark—marry Kainie? What do you mean?'

'I told you that Mark would have nothing more to say to me, because he was bound to another. I would not say to whom, for that was his secret. But now he has let it out himself. He is going to take Kainie home to Crumbland this evening.'

Drownlands started and threw over a chair.

'You are mistaken. You do not know.' He paced the room in agitation.

'I do know,' answered Zita. 'It is because he was bound to Kainie that he gave me up. Now he is going to take her to him for better for worse. Lawk! how dull men are in these matters—where girls see clear.'

'You are greatly mistaken.'

'No, I am not mistaken. How can you fail to understand when he speaks so plain?'

Drownlands folded his arms and walked hurriedly up and down the room. Presently he turned to Zita and said, 'You are serious when you say you will not have me make you my heir?'

'I am truly resolved,' answered the girl. 'Then he can no more say that I have sold myself body and soul for profits.'

'Let no will be made.'

'That will not do. You must rewrite it, and it must make Kainie your heir. Only on that condition will I remain in this house with you.'

'And you believe her to be your rival, who has snatched Mark from your arms?'

'I know it is so. He could not help himself. He was tied to her.'

'Mark is a Runham. A Runham may betray a woman, but never marry one who has no fortune.'

'More is the reason why you should give one to Kainie.'

'Were I to make you my heir,—there is no saying,—he might take you for the sake of this place and my savings; and, by Heaven, I will have no Runham own acres of mine, if I can prevent it!'

'He would not do that—he could not take me. He is too just and true to throw over Kainie. He may think ill of me, but I do not think so badly of him. I tried to buy of her the rights she had in him, but she would not sell them. Then I saw it was all up between Mark and me.'

'This is strange—this is very strange!' said Drownlands, turning a perplexed face on the girl as he paced the room. 'I know what is in a Runham better than you. The Runhams marry for money, not for love. Come here, Zita. What would you say were you to discover that you were mistaken about Mark and Kainie?'

'I am not mistaken.'

'Suppose, some day, that you found that he was free?'

She was silent.

'And yet he would never marry you without money. He would not be a Runham to do that. If, however, he thought you were to be my heir, he might do so, or wait till I am gone and then take you; but he will never think of you if you are poor. Be it as you propose. I will rewrite my will. I will leave to you nothing, bequeath to Kainie all.'

'Then I will remain with you.'

'As long as I live?'

She nodded her head.

'You will swear to this?'

Her eyes were full, her bosom heaving; she held out both hands, and he clasped them.

'I must go downstairs,' she said, after a struggle to gain composure. 'The justices will want their toasting-forks.'

'Keep them amused for a while. They shall witness my new will.'

Zita proceeded to her room, found the articles that she had promised, and descended to the sitting-room, where she found three of the magistrates, all laymen; the clerical members of the Bench thinking it unecclesiastical to come after toasting-forks. The red-faced chairman, Mr. Christian, was there; Admiral Abbott; and another, named Wilkins. They were all merry; they had been drinking, and they felt sensible relief that they were not cumbered by the presence of the ecclesiastical magistrates. They were also conscious of great buoyancy of spirits, due to the fact that they were beyond the shadow of the towers of Ely, and no longer within the numbing circle of cathedral decorum. Zita's arrival was hailed uproariously, with laughter and loud words. The gentlemen jumped from their chairs, and with effusion insisted on shaking hands.

'We've rode over,' said Mr. Christian, 'but couldn't persuade Sir Bates to mount a horse again. The very looks of one makes his colour fade. Nothing would induce him—not the prospect of a toasting-fork. I say, Abbott, if we could have promised the canon a kiss of those ruby lips, eh? Would that have drawn him? How now, you comical Jill?—you who upset the dignity of the Court! And to venture on bribery and corruption—you pretty little rogue! We might have had you up. What say you, Abbott? Shall we indict her for the attempt to poison the springs of justice? It is a case under common law. Fine or imprisonment? Which shall it be, Wilkins?'

'Now, come,' said the magistrate addressed, 'no law here; we have had enough of that today. Here are weapons. Arm thee, arm thee, Sir Christian, knight of the blazing countenance and the purple nose. Queen of Cheap Jacks, let your gay red-flowered kerchief be the prize. I defy thee to the death, Christian. Up with you on to the table, Queen of Cheap Jacks, or upon the mantelshelf—anywhere away from the clash of blades and the soil of battle. Come on, Christian! And after thee, Old Salt the Admiral; but, Lord! he will swash about with his toasting-fork as if 'twere a cutlass. Come on, Christian, and he who wins rides home wearing her favour.'

Justice Wilkins brandished one of the toasting-forks, and, putting himself in a posture of attack, shouted again for his opponent.

Mr. Christian at once snatched and flourished his weapon, and the two half-tipsy men began to make passes at each other.

'Bright eyes looking on! A fair maid's favour as the prize! Ah, Christian, you're off your guard; you are using your foil wildly. The man is drunk! Heigh! To the heart! I have run you through! Down with your blade, sir!' Wilkins shouted as he charged home, and drove the toasting-fork up into the handle against the breast of his adversary. 'Abbott! gallop off for Sir Bates! Make him come to shrive Christian. Rest his soul! he was a jolly dog, but too fond of lasses and the bottle. Admiral, help me; we will compose his epitaph. No, no, Christian, that is a breach of rules. You're dead, man; dead as a stone, with a stroke through your heart. Didn't you feel the toasting-fork tickle your ribs? Stand aside, or lie dead on the hearthrug. You are out of the game now. Come on, Admiral Abbott. It lies between you and me; Christian, you dog, you are dead, and must not interfere. That stroke will let some of the port wine out of your gizzard. Keep in the rear—you are a dead man. If you walk, it is your ghost. It is Abbott's turn with me now.'

'Wilkins, your tongue runs away with you. I'll cut it off and wear it in my hat. I'm your man.'

Thereupon Admiral Abbott, armed with his toasting-fork, strutted into the place lately occupied by Christian.

'No,' said he; 'Wilkins, you cheat; you took a scurvy advantage over my dear deceased brother Christian. You shall not play me the same trick. You have the window behind you.'

'I did not consider it. Change sides.'

'No, I will not have the advantage over you either. We will fight with the daylight athwart our blades.'

'Then the Queen of Cheap Jacks must shift quarters, to see that all is fair.'

'Let her shift,' said Abbott. 'I am not going to be killed or to kill you at a disadvantage. Ready!'

The passage of arms between Wilkins and Abbott was as brief as that between him and Christian. A stroke from the admiral, who used his tool as a cutlass, bent the soft metal of the toasting-fork of his opponent.

'Weapon broken. Surrender!' shouted Abbott. 'Now, Wilkins, stand aside. I am conqueror, and claim the red rag.'

'That's a way to ask! Like the bear you are, Abbott. Down on one knee—I won't say gracefully, for you can't do that—and ask in courteous tone. Red rag indeed!—a crimson favour.'

'He can't kneel,' said Christian. 'He'd never get up if he were once down.'

'Admiral! I could swear the Cheap Jack Queen has been crying. There are tears on her cheek and a drench of rain in her brown eyes. It is for you, Christian, you lucky dog; you caused them to fall, because I ran you through, and Her Royal Highness weeps for her knight bleeding his life-tide away.'

At this moment Drownlands entered the room, and was saluted by the three magistrates.

'We have been fighting,' said the admiral, 'and I am the conqueror. If you are disposed to part with the pretty housekeeper, I will carry her off en croupe on my horse.'

Drownlands disdained an answer.

'Gentlemen,' said he, 'now that you are here, let me ask a favour of you. Pray put your hands to this paper and witness my signature to this my last will and testament.'

'I hope you have put the Queen of Cheap Jacks down for something handsome. If you have done that, we will sign cheerfully.'

'Not for a penny,' answered Drownlands. 'Everything I have goes to my niece. Here is ink and here a pen. Gentlemen, this is my true act and deed.'

'My hand shakes,' said Christian; 'I have been laughing, and cannot hold a pen.'

'And mine is jarred,' said Wilkins, 'with the thundering blows of that swashbuckler, Abbott.'

Jesting, laughing, the three men complied with the request of Drownlands, hardly regarding what they were about.

'I say, Abbott,' said Wilkins, 'what was that promise that fell from ruby lips relative to an epergne?'

'We were to raffle for one,' said the admiral.

'Can't do it,' said Christian. 'We have not got the others here. We'll hoist Bates on to a horse and make him come another day, when this confounded business of the riots is over.'

'You have got the favour, Abbott,' said Wilkins, 'but not by fair swordsmanship. Whether you carry it to Ely is another matter. Christian, shall he hoist it at the end of his toasting-fork and ride? We'll give him a hundred yards, and then pursue, and he who overtakes, captures the favour and carries it into the city.'

'Done—we'll race the admiral for it.' Then, turning to Zita, 'We'll come another day and raffle for the epergne at a guinea a-piece. The pool goes to you. Now then, brother justices, away we go!'

CHAPTER XXXV

THE JACK O' LANTERNS

'TAKE it, and keep it,' said Drownlands, handing the will to Zita. 'You can read. It is as you desired, and on the same condition as before. That is as you promised.'

'Yes,' said the girl; 'with that I am content.' She put the will in her bosom.

'Then,' said Drownlands in a tone of sad bitterness, 'for life and till death we are united.'

'After a fashion, to keep apart.'

'Yes, united to be separate.'

'Like a pair of wheels,' said Zita. 'They keep the concern going, but have it always between them.'

The day had closed in, and Zita retired to her room to sit at the window and look out at the dead uniformity of the fen, and the white line of horizon between it and the darkness above, like a white fringe to a pall. She desired solitude, that she might review what was past.

The weather was cold. There had been frost, hard and biting, and the ice clad the water. The snow that had been spread over the land had in part disappeared, licked up by the dry wind that scaled the waters, and the land from whiteness had turned to blackness.

The lakes of frozen water would have attracted many skaters during the day, had not the engrossing excitement relative to the trial of the rioters engaged the public attention.

The frost had set in with redoubled hardness on the morrow of the riot, and in four days even the Lark was turned to stone within its embankments.

As Zita looked out into the night, she could see the heavy sky, burdened with black clouds, that were ragged as a torn fringe, or a moth-eaten pall, about the black hard bank of the river, that stood up sharply against the sky.

The cold was so biting in the fireless room that Zita drew the velvet curtains about her, which were suspended over her window, covered her shoulders, and wrapped them about her bosom. There was no light in the room save the wan reflection from the horizon. Had there been, she would have formed a pretty picture, folded in crimson velvet, with her oval face and dark amber hair peeping out of the folds.

She looked dreamily through the window.

A wave of regret had come over her after the exaltation caused by the sense of self-sacrifice.

She considered how that she had loved Mark, had valued his regard for herself, had delighted in his society. He had never said to her that he loved her, yet there had been a look in his blue eyes, a pressure of his fingers when he took her hand, a softness of intonation in his voice when he spoke to her, that had said more than words, that had assured her heart that she was dear to him. And how happy she had been when she believed that! A solitary child, with no belongings and belonging to none, a waif thrown upon the desolate fens, she had found herself lifted into a new region of brightness. Then Mark had become cool, and had held aloof from her. She had discovered that he was engaged to Kainie, and could not become disentangled from this tie. He had been constrained to resign himself to it. Now his interest, his sympathies, were enlisted on behalf of that girl, because she was treated with injustice and was exposed to danger. Now he was about to take Kainie to his house—now, this very evening.

A feeling of resentment against the girl who stood between herself and happiness swelled in Zita's heart; Kainie threw down the palace of delight she had built up in the cloudland of hope and fancy. Kainie snatched Mark from her; and it was for Kainie that she—Zita—had given up the inheritance offered her by Drownlands.

In the darkness Zita's brow darkened. Angry feelings surged in her bosom and sent waves of fire through her pulses. She would defy the world. What need she care for the chatter of slanderous tongues? Conscious of her own integrity, she would brave public opinion.

She snatched the will from her bosom, that she might tear it in pieces, and then she would run to the master and bid him make another in her own favour, as first proposed. Why should she not be his heir?

If Kainie robbed her of Mark, might not she retaliate and take from her the inheritance of Drownlands?

If she were struck, might she not strike back? Did Kainie need lands and houses? As Mark's wife, she would be rich without her uncle's estate added to Crumbland, whereas she—Zita—had not a particle of soil on which to set her foot and say it was her own. Had not the master of Prickwillow a right to do what he would with his own? Kainie had done nothing for him, and she—Zita—was devoting her life to his service.

As she looked out of the window, musing on these things, she saw that the light on the horizon had faded, or that the great curtain of cloud had set over it and had obscured it. Something, where she believed that the embankment ran, now attracted, without greatly engaging, her attention.

A minute flash of light travelled a little distance, and was then extinguished. Presently another wavering speck appeared, and then again all was dark.

'The Jack o'Lanterns are about,' said Zita.

Her thoughts recurred to her troubles.

A recoil of better feeling set in and washed over her heart.

'No,' said she, 'I could not have borne it. It would have killed me to have Mark believe that I was sold body and soul. Let him take Kainie, and with Kainie let him have Prickwillow when it falls;—but let him not think ill of me.'

She started up. She replaced the will in her bosom.

'I will go to Red Wings,' she said. 'He is there with Kainie. He said he would take her away this night. I will go and tell him all. I will show him what I have here;' she touched her bosom where lay the will. 'When he has heard my story and has seen that, he will think better of me.'