Books: Under the Storm
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Charlotte M. Yonge >> Under the Storm
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Stead went away overflowing with happiness, and full of plans of
raising the means of bringing back this sunshine of his hearth.
Perhaps it was well that, though slow of thought, Patience still had
wit enough in the long hours of the day to guess that the nosegay
boded something. She could not daunt or damp Steadfast's joy--nay,
she had affection enough for the pretty little being she had
cherished for seven years to think she shared it--but she knew all
the time that there would be no place in that new farmhouse for her,
and there was a chill over her faithful heart at times. But what
would that signify, she thought, provided that Stead was happy?
CHAPTER XIX.
PATIENCE.
"I'm the wealthy miller yet."
TENNYSON.
Most devoted was the diligence with which Steadfast toiled and saved
with the hope before him. Since the two young girls were no longer
at home, and Ben had grown into a strong lad, Stead held that many
little indulgences might be dispensed with, one by one, either
because they cost money or prevented it from being acquired. No
cheese was bought now, and he wanted to sell all the butter and all
the apples that were not defective.
Patience contrived that Ben should never be stinted of his usual
fare; and she would, not allow that he needed no warm coat for the
winter, but she said nothing about the threadbare state of her own
petticoat, and she stirred nothing but the thinnest buttermilk into
her own porridge, and not even that when the little pigs required it.
It was all for Stead.
Patience at twenty was not an uncomely maiden so far as kindly blue
eyes, fresh healthy cheeks, and perfect neatness could make her
agreeable to look at, but there was an air of carefulness, and of
having done a great deal of hard work, which had made her seem out of
the reach of the young men who loitered and talked with the maidens
on the village green, and looked wistfully at the spot where the
maypole had once stood.
Patience was the more amazed by a visit from the Miller Luck and his
son. The son was a fine looking young man of three or four and
twenty, who had about three years before married a farmer's daughter,
and had lost her at the birth of her second child. There he stood,
almost as bashful as Stead himself could have been under the
circumstances, while his father paid the astonished Patience the
compliment of declaring that they had put their heads together, and
made up their minds that there was no wench in those parts so like to
be a good mother to the babes, nor so thrifty a housewife as she;
and, that, though there were plenty of maids to be had who could
bring something in their hands, her ways were better than any portion
she could bring.
It really was a splendid offer. The position of miller's wife was
very prosperous, and the Lucks were highly respected. The old miller
was good and kindly, Andrew Luck the steadiest of young men, and
though not seen to much advantage as he stood sheepishly moving from
leg to leg, he was a very fine, tall, handsome youth, with a certain
sweetness and wistfulness in his countenance. Patience had no
scruples about previous love and courtship. That was not the point
as she answered--
"Thank you, Master Luck, you are very good; but I cannot leave my
brothers."
"Let the big one get a wife of his own then," and, as Patience shook
her head, and glanced at where Ben, shy of strangers, was cutting
rushes, "and if you be tender on the young one, there would be work
for him about the place. I know you have been a good mother to him,
you'd be the same to our little ones. Come, Andrew, can't ye say a
word for yourself?"
"Come, Patience, do 'ee come!" pleaded poor Andrew, and the tears
even sprang to his eyes. "I'd be very good to thee, and I know thou
would'st be to my poor babes."
Patience's heart really warmed to him, and still more to the babes,
but she could only hold out.
"You must find another," she said.
"Come, you need not be coy, my lass," said the old miller. "You'll
not get a better offer, and Andrew has no time nor heart either for
running about courting. What he wants is a good wife to cheer him
up, and see to the poor little children."
It was powerful pleading, and Patience felt it.
"Aye, Master Miller," she said, "but you see I'm bound not to leave
Steadfast till he is married. He could not get on no ways without
me."
"Then why--a plague on it--don't he wed and have done with it?"
"He cannot," said Patience, "till he has made up enough to build up
our old house, but that won't be yet awhile--for years maybe; and he
could not do it without me to help him."
"And what's to become of you when you've let your best years go by a-
toiling for him, and your chance is gone by, and his wife turns you
to the door?" said Master Luck, not very delicately.
"That God will provide," said Patience, reverently. "Anyway, I must
cleave to Steadfast though 'tis very good of you, Master Luck and
Master Andrew, and I never could have thought of such a thing, and I
am right sorry for the little ones."
"If you would only come and see them!" burst out the poor young
father. "You never see such a winsome little poppet as Bess. And
they be so young now, they'd never know you were not their own
mother."
"Don't, don't, Master Andrew!" cried Patience, "I tell you I'd come
if I could, but you can't wait, and they can't wait; and you must
find a good mother at once for them, for I have passed my word to
hold by Stead till he is married, and I must keep to it."
"Very well, my lass," said the miller, grimly. "There's wenches
better portioned and better favoured than you, and I hope you won't
have to repent of missing a good offer."
Of course he said it as if he hoped she would. Patience cried
heartily when they were gone. Ben came up to her and glowered after
them, declaring he wouldn't have his Patty go to be only a step-
mother to troublesome brats; but Stead, when he came to know of it,
looked grave, and said it was very good of Pat; but he wished she
could have kept the young fellow in play till she was ready for him.
Goody Grace, who was looking after the children till the stepmother
could be found, came and expostulated with Patience, telling her she
was foolish to miss such a chance, and that she would find out her
mistake when Stead married and that little flighty, light-headed
wench made the place too hot to hold her. What would she do then?
"Come and help you nurse the folk, Goody," said Patience, cheerfully.
Her heart would fail her sometimes at the outlook, but she was too
busy to think much about it. Only the long evenings had been
pleasanter when Stead used to teach Ben to read Dr. Eales's books and
tell her bits such as she could understand than now when he grudged a
candle big enough to be of any use, and was only plaiting rushes and
reckoning up what everything would bring.
Ben was a bright little fellow, and could read as well as his
brother. He longed for school, for when boys were not obliged to
learn, some of them wished to do so. There was a free grammar school
about three miles off to which he wanted to go, and Patience, who was
proud of his ability, wished to send him, neither of them thinking
anything of the walk.
Stead, however, could see no use in more learning than he had
himself. Neither he nor Jeph had been to school. Why should the
child go? He could not be spared just as he was getting old enough
to be of some use and save time, which was money.
And when the little fellow showed his disappointment, Stead was even
surly in telling him "they wanted no upstarts."
It was a hard winter, and the frost was followed by a great deal of
wet. One of the sheep was swept away by the flood; three or four
lambs died; and Stead, for about the first time in his life, caught a
severe feverish cold in looking after the flock, and was laid by for
a day or two, very cross and fretful at everything going wrong
without him.
Poor little Ben was more railed at for those few days than ever he
had been before, and next he broke down and had to be nursed; and
then came Patience's turn. She was ill enough to frighten her
brothers; and Goody Grace, who came to see to her, finding how thin
her blanket was, and how long it was since she had had any food but
porridge, gave Steadfast a thorough good scolding, told him he would
be the death of a better sister than he deserved, and set before him
how only for his sake Patience might be living on the fat of the land
at the mill.
To all appearance, Stead listened sulkily enough, but by-and-by Goody
found a fowl killed and laid ready for use. It was an old hen, whose
death set Patience crying in her weakness. Nevertheless, it was
stewed down into broth which heartened her up considerably, and a
blanket that came home rolled up on the donkey's back warmed her
heart as much as her limbs.
Mrs. Elmwood spared Rusha for a week, and it was funny to see how the
girl wondered at its having been possible to live in such a den. She
absolutely cried when Ben told her how hard they had been living, and
said she did not think Stead would ever have used Patience so.
"Then why did she make as if she liked it?" said Stead, gruffly.
But for all that Stead was too sound-hearted not to be grieved at
himself, and to see that his love and impatience had led him into
unkindness to those who depended on him; and when Master Woodley
preached against love of money he felt pricked at the heart, though
it had not been the gain in itself that he aimed at. And when he had
to go to the mill, the sight of the comfortable great kitchen, with
the open hearth, glowing fire, seats on either side, tall settle, and
the flitches of bacon on the rafters, seemed to reproach him
additionally. The difficulties there had been staved off by the old
miller himself marrying a stout, motherly widow, who had a real
delight in the charge of a baby.
"For," said Master Luck, "Andrew and I could agree on no one for
him."
Moreover, Stead ceased to grunt contemptuously when Patience, with
Goody Grace to back her, declared that Ben was too young and slight
for farm work.
The boy was allowed to trudge his daily three miles to school, and
there his progress was the wonder and delight of his slower-witted
brother and sister.
CHAPTER XX.
EMLYN'S SERVICE.
"Oh, blind mine eye that would not trace,
And deaf mine ear that would not heed
The mocking smile upon her face,
The mocking voice of greed."
LEWIS CARROLL.
When Lady-day came round, Steadfast found to his delight and surprise
a little figure dancing out to meet him from Mrs. Lightfoot's.
"There, Master Stead. Are not you glad to see me, or be you too
dumbfounded to get out a word, like good old Jenny?" stroking the
donkey's cars. "Posies of primroses! How sweet they be! You must
spare me one."
"As many as you will, sweetheart. They be all for you, whether given
or sold. And you've got a holiday for Lady-day."
"Have a care! I got my ears boxed for such a Popish word. 'Tis but
quarter day, you know, being that, hang, draw, and quarter is more to
the present folks' mind than ladies or saints. I have changed my
service, you must know, as poor Dick used to sing:--
"Have a new master, be a new man."
"You have not heard from your own folk," cried Stead, this being what
he most dreaded.
"Nay. But I can away no more with Dame Sloggett, and Cross-patch
Rachel, white seam and salmon, and plain collars. So I bade her
farewell at the end of the year, and I've got a new mistress."
Stead stood with open mouth. To change service at the end of a year
was barely creditable in those days, and to do so without
consultation with home was unkind and alarming.
"There now, don't be crooked about it. I had not time to come out
and tell you and Patience, the old crones kept me so close, stitching
at shirts for a captain that is to sail next week, and I knew you
would be coming in."
"Where is it?" was all Stead uttered.
"What think you of Master Henshaw's, the great merchant, and an
honest well-wisher to King and Church to boot?"
"Master Henshaw, the West Indian merchant? His is a good, well-
ordered household, and he holds with the old ways."
"Yes. He was out that Whitsun morning we wot of," said Emlyn. "I
wist well you would be pleased."
"But I thought his good lady was dead," said Steadfast.
"So she is. She that came out to the gully, but there's a new
Mistress Henshaw, a sweet young lady, of a loyal house, the Ayliffes
of Calfield. And I am to be her own woman."
"Own woman," said Mrs. Lightfoot, for they were by this time among
the loaves in her stall. "Merchants' wives did not use to have women
of their own in my time."
For this was the title of a lady's maid, and rules as to household
appointments were strictly observed before the rebellion.
"Mistress Henshaw is gentlewoman born," returned Emlyn, with a toss
of her head. "She ought to have all that is becoming her station in
return for being wedded to an old hunks like that! And 'tis very
well she should have one like _me_ who has seen what becomes good
blood! So commend me to Patience and Rusha, and tell Ben maybe I
shall have an orange to send him one of these days. And cheer up,
Stead. I shall get five crowns and two gowns a year, and many a fee
besides when there is company, so we may build the house the sooner,
and I shall not be mewed up, and shall see the more of thee. 'Tis
all for you. So never look so gloomy on it, old Sobersides."
And she turned her sweet face to him, and coaxed and charmed him into
being satisfied that all was well, dwelling on the loyalty and
excellence of the master of the house.
He found it true that it was much easier to see Emlyn than before.
Mrs. Henshaw, a pretty young creature, not much older than Emlyn, was
pleased to do her own marketing, and came out attended by Emlyn, and
a little black slave boy carrying a basket. She generally bought all
that Steadfast had to sell, and then gave smiling thanks when he
offered to help carry home her purchases. She would join company
with some of her acquaintance, and leave the lovers to walk together,
only accompanied by little Diego, or Diggo as they called him, whose
English was of the most rudimentary description.
Emlyn certainly was very happy in her new quarters. Neither her lady
nor herself was arrayed with the rigid plainness exacted by
Puritanism, and many disapproving glances were cast upon the fair
young pair, mistress and maid, by the sterner matrons. Waiting women
could not indulge in much finery, but whatever breast knots and tiny
curls beyond her little tight cap could do, Emlyn did without fear of
rebuke. Stead tried to believe that the disapproving looks and
words, by which Mrs. Lightfoot intimated that she heard reports
unfavourable to the household were only due to the general distrust
and dislike to the bright and lively Emlyn. Mrs. Lightfoot was no
Puritan herself, but her gossips were, and he received her
observations with a dull, stony look that vexed her, by intimating
that it was no business of hers.
Still it was borne in upon him that, good man as Mr. Henshaw
certainly was, the household was altered. It had been poverty and
distress which had led the Ayliffe family to give their young sister
to a man so much her elder, and inferior in position; and perhaps
still more a desire to confirm the Royalist footing in the city of
Bristol. The lady's brothers were penniless Cavaliers, and one of
them made her house his home, and a centre of Royalist plots and
intelligences, which excited Emlyn very much by the certainty that
something was going on, though what it was, of course, she did not
know; and at any rate there was coming and going, and all sorts of
people were to be seen at the merchant's hospitable table, all manner
of news to be had here, there, and everywhere, with which she
delighted to entertain Steadfast, and show her own importance.
It was not often good news as regarded the Cavalier cause, for
Cromwell was fixing himself in his seat; and every endeavour to hatch
a scheme against him was frustrated, and led to the flight or death
of those concerned in it. However, so long as Emlyn had something to
tell, it made little difference whether the tidings were good or bad,
whether they concerned Admiral Blake's fleet, or her mistress's
little Italian greyhound. By-and-by however instead of Mrs. Henshaw,
there came to market Madam Ayliffe, her mother, a staid, elderly
lady, all in black, who might as well, Emlyn said, have been a
Puritan.
She looked gravely at Stead, and said, "Young man, I am told that you
are well approved and trustworthy, and that my daughter suffers you
to walk home with this maiden, you being troth plight to her."
Stead assented.
"I will therefore not forbid it, trusting that if you be, as I hear,
a prudent youth, you may bring her to a more discreet and obedient
behaviour than hath been hers of late."
So saying, Mrs. Ayliffe joined company with the old Cavalier Colonel
and went on her way as Emlyn made that ugly face that Stead knew of
old, clenched her hand and muttered, "Old witch! She is a Puritan at
heart, after all! She is turning the house upside down, and my poor
mistress has not spirit to say 'tis her own, with the old woman and
the old hunks both against her! Why, she threatened to beat me
because, forsooth, the major's man was but giving me the time of day
on the stairs!"
"Was that what she meant?" asked Stead.
"Assuredly it was. Trying to set you against me, the spiteful old
make-bate, and no one knows how long she will be here, falling on the
poor lads if they do but sing a song in the hall after supper, as if
she were a very Muggletonian herself. I trow she is no better."
"Did you not tell me how she held out her house against the
Roundheads, and went to prison for sheltering Cavaliers?"
"I only wish they had kept her there. All old women be Puritans at
heart. I say Stead, I'll have done with service. Let us be wed at
once."
Stead could hardly breathe at this proposition. "But I have only
nine pounds and two crowns and--" he began.
"No matter, there be other ways," she went on. "Get the house built,
and I'll come, and we will have curds and whey all the summer, and
mistress and all her friends will come out and drink it, and eat
strawberries!"
"But the Squire will never build the place up unless I bring more in
hand."
"You 'but' enough to butt down a wall, you dull-pated old Stead,"
said Emlyn, "you know where to get at more, and so do I."
Stead's grey eyes fixed on her in astonishment and bewilderment.
"Numskull!" she exclaimed, but still in that good humoured voice of
banter that he never had withstood, "you know what I mean, though
maybe you would not have me say it in the street, you that have
secrets."
"How do you know of it?"
"Have not I eyes, though some folk have not? Could not I look out at
a chink on a fine summer morning, when you thought the children
asleep? Could not I climb up to your precious cave as well as
yourself; and hear the iron clink under the stone. Ha, ha! and you
and Patience thought no one knew but yourselves."
"I trust no one else does."
"No, no, I'm no gad-about, whatever you may be pleased to think me.
They say everything comes of use in seven years, and it must be over
that now."
"Ten since 'twas hidden, nigh seven since that Whitsuntide. There's
never a parson who could come out, is there? Besides, with Peter
Woodward nigh, 'tis not safe to meet."
"That's what your head is running on. No, no. They will never have
it out again that fashion. The old Prayer-book is banished for ever
and a day! I heard master and the Captain say that now old Noll has
got his will, he will soon call himself king, and there's no hope of
churches or parsons coming back; and old madam sat and cried. The
Jack Presbyters and the rest of the sectaries have got it all their
own way."
"Dr. Eales said I had no right to give it to Master Woodley, or any
that was not the right sort."
"So why should you go on keeping it there rotting for nothing, when
it might just hinder us from wearing our very lives out while you are
plodding and saving?"
Stead stood stock still, as her meaning dawned on him, "Child, you
know not what you say," at last he uttered.
"Ah well, you are slow to take things in; but you'll do it at last."
"I am slow to take in this," said Stead. "Would you have me rob
God?"
"No, only the owls and the bats," said Emlyn. "If they are the
better for the silver and gold under them! What good can it do to
let it lie there and rot?"
"Gold rots not!" growled Stead.
"Tarnishes, spoils then!" said Emlyn pettishly. "Come, what good
is't to any mortal soul there?"
'It is none of mine."
"Not after seven years? Come, look you now, Stead, 'tis not only
being tired of service and sharp words, and nips and blows, but I
don't like being mocked for having a clown and a lubber for my
sweetheart. Oh yes! they do, and there's a skipper and two mates,
and a clerk, and a well-to-do locksmith, besides gentlemen's valets
and others, I don't account of, who would all cut off their little
fingers if I'd only once look at them as I am doing at you, you old
block, who don't heed it, and I don't know that I can hold out
against them all," she added, looking down with a sudden shyness;
"specially the mates. There's Jonah Richards, who has a ship
building that he is to have of his own, and he wants to call it the
'Sprightly Emlyn,' and the other sailed with Prince Rupert, and made
ever so many prizes, and how am I to stand out when you don't value
me the worth of an old silver cup?"
"Come, come, Em, that's only to frighten a man." But she knew in his
tone that he was frightened.
"Not a bit! I should be ever so much better off in a tidy little
house where I could see all that came and went than up in your lane
with nought to go by but the market folk. 'Tis not everyone that
would have kept true to a big country lout like you, like that lady
among the salvage men that the King spoke of; and I get nothing by it
but wait, wait, wait, when there's stores of silver ready to your
hand."
"Heaven knows, and you know, Emlyn, 'tis not for want of love."
"Heaven may know, but I don't."
"I gave my solemn word."
"And you have kept it these ten years, and all is changed." Then
altering her tone, "There now, I know it takes an hour to beat a
notion into that slow brain of yours, and here we be at home, and I
shall have madam after me. I'll leave you to see the sense of it,
and if I do not hear of something before long, why then I shall know
how much you care for poor little Emlyn."
With which last words she flitted within the gates, leaving Steadfast
still too much stunned to realise all she meant, as he turned
homewards; but all grew on him in time, the idea that Emlyn, his
Emlyn, his orphan of the battlefield, bereaved for the sake of King
and Church, should be striving to make him betray his trust! "The
silver is Mine and the gold is Mine," rang in his ears, and yet was
it not cruel that when she really loved him best, and sought to
return to him as a refuge from the many temptations to her lively
spirit, he should be forced to leave her in the midst of them--
against her own warning and even entreaty, and not only himself lose
her, but lose her to one of those godless riotous sailors who were
the dread and bane of the neighbourhood? Was not a human soul worth
as much as a consecrated Chalice?
These were the debates in Steadfast's much tormented soul. He could
think, though he could not clothe his thoughts in words, and day
after day, night after night he did think, while Patience wondered at
the heavy moodiness that seemed to have come over him. He would not
open his lips to ask her counsel, being quite certain of what it
would be, and not choosing to hear her censure of Emlyn for what he
managed to excuse by the poor child's ignorance and want of training,
and by her ardent desire to be under his wing and escape from
temptation.
He recollected a thousand pleas that he might have used with her, to
show it was not want of love but a sacred pledge that withheld him,
and market day after market day he went in, priming himself all the
way with arguments that were to confirm her constancy, arm her
against temptation, and assure her of his unalterable love, though he
might not break his vow, nor lay his hand upon sacred things.
But whether Emlyn would not, or could not, meet him, he did not know,
for a week or two went by before he saw her, and then she was
carrying a great fan for her young mistress, who was walking with a
Cavalier, as gay as Cavaliers ever ventured to be, and another young
lady, whose waiting woman had paired with Emlyn. They were mincing
along, gazing about them, and uttering little contemptuous titters,
and Stead could only too well guess what kind of remarks Emlyn's
companion might make upon him.
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