Neighbours on the Green; My Faithful Johnny

‘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.

‘About John’s going away. Oh, he’s sick of this quiet place! I can see it—and mother takes no notice. Men are not like us women. He’s dying to get away, and mother she can’t see it. She humours him in words, but she will not do anything. Oh, ma’am, speak for us! He’s had all we have to give him, and he’s tired of it, and he will never be happy till he gets away.’

‘Do you wish him to go?—You, Jane?’

‘Yes,’ she cried passionately, ‘I wish it too!—it will make me happier. I mean not so—miserable. Oh, ma’am, that’s not what I mean. I am all confused like. I know—I know it’s for his good to go away–’

‘But it’s your good I think of—and your mother, too,’ said Mrs. Mowbray. ‘We care for you, and not for him. You’ve avoided me, Jane, and never told me if you were happy—now that you’re engaged, you and he.’

‘It was a mistake,’ she said, ‘all a mistake! We didn’t know our own minds. Don’t you know, ma’am, that happens sometimes? I always felt it was a mistake: but mother deceived herself. It’s so easy to believe what you wish. And he deceived himself. But now that he’s done it it drives him wild– Oh, he must go—that’s the only thing that will do any good. If she would only see it, and let him go!’

‘Do you want to break it off, Jane?’

‘Oh,’ she cried, with a moan, ‘break it off! Am I one to break it off? But he can’t abide the place, and he wants to go.– If he has any true—respect—for me—he’ll feel it when he’s gone. That’s what I think. Oh! ma’am, speak a word to mother, and tell her to let him go.’

‘There is more in your mind,’ said the old lady: ‘but if it is as serious as this—I’ll go there straight, my dear. I’ll go straight and speak to your mother. I know you’ve got more in your mind.’

Jane did not make any reply, but quickened her steps to keep up with the active old woman as she hurried on. Poor Jane was past all make-believe. ‘Think!’ she said, almost under her breath, ‘what it is when he comes and pretends to be fond of me– Oh, ma’am! pretends as if he loved me—after all I know!’ She wrung her hands, and there was a suppressed anguish in her voice, such as only a tender creature outraged could have been driven to. Then Mrs. Mowbray, who knew all the gossip of the place, remembered to have heard that Ellen Turner, who was a dressmaker, had been working at Mrs. Aikin’s—no doubt that was the cause. She went along quickly, almost dragging the girl with her. It was a beautiful evening, soft and cool after a hot day. The lights were beginning to twinkle about the Barley Mow. There were people sitting out on the bench, and people visible at the open windows with the lights behind them, and a murmur of cheerful voices. The scene was very homely, but the night was so soft, the shadows so grateful upon the refreshed earth, the dews so sweet, and nothing but rest and refreshment in the air. Overhead the sky was veiled, a few modest stars peeping from the edges of the clouds, nothing bright to jar upon the subdued quiet. All this went to Jane’s heart. She began to cry softly, as she looked with wistful eyes at her home. The sensation subdued her. So peaceful and quiet, with the vague, half-dim figures about, the cheerful lights in the windows, was it possible that there could be such trouble there?

But all at once there came a jarring note into this tranquillity—the sound of a woman’s voice raised in anger. They were going towards the garden door, but before they reached it somebody was pushed out violently, and, half falling forward, came stumbling against Jane, who was straight in the way. ‘Get out of my sight, you little baggage, you treacherous, wicked, lying creature, you bad girl!’ cried Mrs. Aikin in a furious voice. Jane clutched at Mrs. Mowbray’s arm, and shrank back, while the girl who had stumbled against her gave a sudden scream of dismay. It was Ellen Turner, her cheeks blazing red with anger, though the sight of Jane cowed her. ‘What have you been doing, you little flirt?’ cried old Mrs. Mowbray. ‘If a man speaks to me, ain’t I to give him a civil answer?’ cried the girl, standing still, and preparing to give battle. Jane did not say a word. She shook herself free of the old lady without knowing what she did, and went in to her mother, without as much as a look at the other. As soon as she had disappeared John showed himself out of the darkness like a spectre. ‘Run, Nell, run,’ he said. ‘She’s to-morrow. She’s in Jane’s hands, I’ll see you safe now. Run. Nell, run.’ And he darted back again among the guests, and threw himself into his work with devotion. Never before had John been seen so busy and so civil. Who could interfere with him in the middle of his work? He was as safe as if he had been at church.

What had happened was that Mrs. Aikin had found her nephew and the little dressmaker together, on very affectionate terms, and her outburst of sudden wrath was very hot and violent. But after the first moment it was entirely against Ellen that her anger was directed, and she was as little willing as before to listen to Mrs. Mowbray’s suggestion that he should be sent away. She was, like most women of her class, perhaps like most women of all classes, furious against the girl, half sorry for, half contemptuous of, the man. ‘Lord, what could Johnny do against one of them artful things?’ she said, when she had calmed down. ‘It’s Jane’s fault, as don’t talk to him enough, nor keep him going. That minx shall never set foot in my house again.’ Jane said very little while her mother talked thus. She was very pale, and her breath came quickly, but she betrayed no emotion either of grief or anger. She stood still by her mother’s side while Mrs. Aikin cried and sobbed. Jane was past all that. She said, ‘He don’t know his own mind, mother. Let him go as he wishes.’ They were both made incapable of work by this sudden incident. But John—John had turned into a model of industry and carefulness. While the two women retired into their little parlour with the door shut, he, safe from all interference, kept everything going. He ran about here and there, attending to everybody, civil and thoughtful. When he was asked what was the matter, he answered carelessly, ‘Some row among the women,’ as if that was too trifling and too everyday a matter for his notice. He had never shown so much cleverness in all his life before.

Even after this however the widow still temporized. Yes, she said in words, she would let him go, but after the bustle was over—after the summer work was done with. She gave a hundred excuses, and invented new reasons constantly for her delay. Jane said little, having said all she could. A new reserve crept over her, she talked to nobody—went no more to talk to Mrs. Peters, and never saw her old friend at the Thatched Cottage when she could help it. She was sick of her false position, as well as of those pangs which she told to nobody, which were all shut up in her own heart. No more in church or otherwise did the look of happiness come back to her face. When John sang she would stand with her eyes fixed on her book, or else would cover her face with her hand. The beautiful song was no longer hers to be offered up to God’s praise. But sometimes during the sermon her eyes would turn unconsciously to that foolish pretty face in the free seats—the pink and white countenance of Ellen Turner, inferior in beauty as in everything else to herself. ‘What is there in her that is better than me? Why should she be preferred to me?’ was what Jane was asking herself, with a wondering pain that was half self-abasement and half indignation. Just so good Mr. Peters, in the school pew, gazed from her to the loutish baritone in his surplice and back again. Why should fate be so contradictory and hearts so bitterly deceived?

This state of affairs however could not go on very long—and it came to a conclusion quite suddenly at last. There was an agricultural show in the neighbourhood some twenty miles off from Dinglefield, to which all the rural people of the neighbourhood, and John among them, went at the end of August. In other circumstances Jane would have gone with her cousin; but she had no heart for shows of any kind. In the evening most of the Dinglefield people came home, but not John. Mrs. Aikin was evidently frightened by his non-appearance, but she made the best of it. ‘He had gone off with some of his friends,’ she said, ‘and of course he had missed his train. He was always missing trains. He was the carelessest lad!’ But when next day came, and the next, with no news of John, the mother and daughter could no longer disguise their alarm. The widow ‘was in such a way’ that her friends gathered round her full of condolence and encouragements; and Mrs. Mowbray herself put on her bonnet, and went to tell her not to be a fool, and to bid her remember that young men cannot be held in like girls. ‘I know that, ma’am, I know that,’ said Mrs. Aikin, soothed. The rest of her consolers had encouraged her by telling her they had always foreseen it, and that this was what over-indulgence always came to at last. The widow turned her back upon these Job’s comforters, and clutched at Mrs. Mowbray’s shawl. ‘I’ve held him too tight, ma’am, and I should have taken your advice,’ she said. They had sent expresses in all directions in search of him, and that very evening they had information that he had enlisted in the regiment to which his father had formerly belonged, and which was at the time quartered in the town where the show had been held. This is always, though it is hard to say why, terrible news for a decent family. ‘’Listed!’ do not all the vagabonds, the good-for-nothings, ’list? It was Mr. Peters who brought this news to the two anxious women. He had been in Castleville ‘by accident,’ he said; the truth being that he had given the children a holiday on purpose to offer this humble service to the woman who had his heart. It was good news, though it was such bad news, for the widow’s imagination had begun to jump at all sorts of fatal accidents, and he was made kindly welcome, and allowed to remain with them until Mrs. Aikin’s first fit of distress and relief, and shame and vexation, and content was over. ‘It’s his father, it’s all his father,’ she said. ‘Such a thought would never, never have come into our Johnny’s head.’ Mr. Peters, with trembling anxiety, observed that Jane did not say a word. She was moving about with her usual quickness, preparing tea, that the kind visitor who had taken so much trouble should have some refreshment after his long walk. She was full of suppressed excitement, her cheek less pale than usual, her eyes shining. But she said nothing till her mother’s outburst was over. Mrs. Aikin was a foolish, softhearted, sanguine woman. As soon as she knew the worst her mind leapt at a universal mending and making up. She had no sooner dried her eyes and swallowed a cup of tea, after protesting that she ‘could not touch it,’ than she began with a certain timidity in another tone.