Take Courage (13 page)

“Why, Pen!” he stammered. “Why, Pen! Betrothed to John! But you and I—why, Pen!” He seemed so astounded, so taken aback, so boyish and loving in his hurt, that my heart throbbed, and if he had left speaking there I might have melted to him. But he went on, and all the differences between us and his lack of understanding of them were in his words.

“On my word of honour, Pen,” he said, “I did not know it was Will. Don't you believe me?”

“I believe you, Francis,” I said. “But that is not the argument.”

“Don't talk as if you were David,” said Francis impatiently.

“I can only speak as my heart teaches me,” said I. “And you and I do not speak alike, Francis.”

He stared at me as if he could not believe his ears. I gazed back at him, very sadly but very steadily.

“But, Pen!” he pleaded. “Pen?”

Slowly and softly and irrevocably, I shook my head.

Without a wordFrancis swung on his heel and left the house.

I stood there for a moment, gazing after Francis, while Thunder with a protesting murmur rose and padded heavily
after him, then I thought I heard a muttering sound above-stairs, and ran back to my father. He was half raised in bed, with his eyes wide open, and as I came in he pointed at the door and muttered thickly some words that I took for a question as to who was below. I told him: “It was Francis, Father.” It seemed to me that he received this with a troubled look, so I bent over him and took his hand and said: “Father, I have promised to wed John.” He nodded to show he understood, pressed my fingers and smiled at me, but his look did not clear; still clinging to my hand he lay back, and gazed very earnestly at the candle as though considering. Then all of a sudden he murmured quietly:

“For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory. Amen.”

His voice was low but very clear; closing his eyes, he sighed once, and was gone.

John and I were married by licence the day after we buried my father.

I had set my hand to the plough of a sober and godly life in my marriage to John, and I would not let myself falter in my course or fail in my duty as a wife, though at first I laboured under many difficulties. On the day of our marriage itself, as we came along Kirkgate after the wedding, man and wife, my hand resting on John's arm, our friends and family following after, a woman stepped out from the side of the street and stood in our path. I did not recognise her, and made to pass, but she snatched at my sleeve, and thinking she wished to offer us felicitations on our marriage, I halted.

“Well, you have got your way, Penninah Clarkson, and my son is gone!” she cried out shrilly.

Then I saw that it was Mrs. Ferrand, though her pretty face was all haggard and her golden hair bedraggled.

“Francis has gone to the Low Countries to fight!” screamed Mrs. Ferrand, throwing her words in my face. (Her lisp somehow made them all the more affecting.) “He would not stay to dance at your wedding. You have got your way!”

“Frank's comings and goings are no concern of my wife's, Aunt Sybil,” said John steadily.

“Come away, Sybil,” said Mr. Ferrand, coming up behind her and taking her arm. “As John says, it is no concern of theirs whether or no we have lost our son.”

His voice was so bitter that I almost fainted under its reproach and the public disgrace, and would have sunk to the ground but for John's arm to which I clung heavily; then it came to me how cruel and how unjust it was that the Ferrands should blame me for what had happened, and
a flame of anger sprang up in my heart. I raised my head up proudly and walked very steadily along at John's side.

But it was not a propitious beginning to our married life, nor one which could be acceptable to Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe or to John. When we reached The Breck, I expected some enquiry from my new relatives about Francis, and indeed Mrs. Thorpe's face was full of question; but, owing I think to a sign from John, the Ferrands' name was not mentioned by anyone. This was a decent forbearance on their part, but I wished it otherwise, and that night when John and I were alone together at last, I prepared to open my heart about Francis, to my husband; for I desired there should be nothing but what was clear and open between us. To begin the subject, which was not easy for me, I asked him if he blamed me, as the Ferrands did, for Francis's departure.

“I blame you for nothing, Penninah,” said John.

“I wish to explain to you,” I began.

“Some other time,” he said. “Not now. Not now.”

“But, John,” I protested: “I must clear myself to you in this matter.”

“There is no need,” said John.

His voice was vexed; he frowned and turned aside; bewildered and heartsore, I desisted.

It was not the last time John was to perplex me, for I found—as perhaps many of those newly wedded find—that in spite of all the many years I had known him, I had married a stranger. There were sombre depths and strange fires in John's nature which I had not understood. Nor did I ever altogether understand him, even in our best years of love or in our old age together; I came to love him strongly and know him well, but there was always a shadowed recess in his nature into which I never penetrated, though I believe he would gladly have had me come there. He had never many words; he never praised my beauty or told me that he loved me; he had no quickness or expressiveness in action, which indeed he disliked as ostentatious; he was taciturn and stubborn, his strength lay in steadiness and
persistence. It was not a nature which made the first steps in married life easy for me.

It was not easy, in any case, for a young girl brought up as I was to become a wife. Being motherless, and having always lived very quietly and modestly, I knew little of men's desires or my own nature, and it was not until I lay in John's arms that I knew what I had lost in losing Francis. With the help of God, to whom I cried in the dark hour of this discovery, I put the thought aside; but to say the truth, during the first days of my marriage I was frightened by the strength of John's passion for me. Yet though I feared it, I respected him for a feeling so powerful and real and stable. Presently I began to feel for him, as I believe many women feel for men who love them, a kind of compassion, a loving pity; I felt sorry that a man so strong should seek with such a burning intensity something which to me meant so little, and I took his rough dark head on my breast with a wish to cherish and protect him, as if he were a child. All these emotions, so violent and contradictory, were very perplexing and troubling to one who had, like myself, always been proud and grave and self-controlled. Then, too, I did not for some few months conceive, and though John said nothing to me on the matter, I knew he was disappointed, for Mrs. Thorpe made it a great trouble to me. She did not hesitate to make me out a barren woman, though I was barely twenty; and when poor little Martha died, Mrs. Thorpe hinted that her early fading came from some delicacy she had inherited from the Clarksons, though truly it was due to the failing of Eliza's milk because of her grief over Will's summons to Starchamber.

In truth most of the troubles in my life at The Breck sprang from Mrs. Thorpe. She was vexed with me because of my early refusal of John—at the time I found this harsh and unreasonable, but since I have had sons of my own I understand it perfectly. She was vexed with me because she did not know the bottom of the history between myself and Francis. She was vexed with me because Mr. Thorpe
showed more fondness for me than for his own daughter—though she herself often spoke sharply enough to Eliza when she displayed some weakness or pettiness of character. Mrs. Thorpe was vexed with me, too, for another reason, of which I learned for the first time on the day after my marriage.

There was some scruple about opening and reading my father's will, because Mr. Thorpe was the only one of the executors named who could be present, Will being away and Mr. Ferrand refusing to take up the charge. But this being got over, the will was read that afternoon at The Breck, and explained by the Thorpes' lawyer to us, that is to the Thorpes and Eliza and myself and David, whom the Thorpes had brought to live at The Breck for the present. I was astounded by the will's contents; so many closes of land, and houses, seemed to be my father's property, that he must surely have been a rich man, with no need to trouble himself over business. I thought to myself: “There will be no hindrance to David's going to Cambridge,” and rejoiced, and smiled across at him. But I noticed that the Thorpes' faces all remained very still and gloomy, and the lawyer's next words explained the reason, for he began:

“The mortgages——”

The Thorpes all sighed and shifted their position, and kept their eyes from me as the lawyer went on talking. It seemed everything my father owned had long since been mortgaged to Mr. Thorpe. His trade as a clothier had been going the wrong way, and he had been borrowing, even before I knew the Thorpes—which explained to me both why he had not taken Joseph Lister as an apprentice and why he had been distressed about Will's wanting to marry Eliza. And, the cloth trade having suffered so much of late, his estate had never recovered, but sunk continually deeper and deeper into debt. Oh, I understood so many things now; the quietness and emptiness of our loom chamber, my father's trouble over his accounts the time John first came to cast them for him, his eagerness that I should marry John, his hesitation over David's going to
the University. I understood it all; and my heart ached as I thought of my poor father bearing this distress alone through his last troubled years, not sharing it with anyone.

“My father has nothing to leave his children, then?” I asked the lawyer quietly.

“Less than nothing,” blurted the lawyer. He explained that the value of all the property was far below that of the mortgages.

Then indeed I bowed my head and suffered, to think that my father's good name was marred, and David murmured: “Oh, Pen!” in a tone of anguish, and the Thorpes were all very still, and said nothing.

“You have lost by my father, and I have no jointure to bring you,” I said to them at last.

“Mr. Clarkson's life was doubtless more acceptable to the Lord than gold,” said Mrs. Thorpe, but not as if she altogether believed it.

“He was too soft for trade,” said Mr. Thorpe in a tone of apology.

“No jointure was necessary,” muttered John gruffly.

“David and I knew nothing of this indebtedness, and we are deeply grateful to you and sorry for it,” I forced out, my cheeks burning with shame.

“There is no cause for you to distress yourself, Penninah,” said Mrs. Thorpe. “You are our daughter now, and Will is our son. And David shall not lose by it.”

Her tone was cold, save when she spoke of David, and I felt our dependence very bitterly. Indeed, what with this grief of my father's bankruptcy, John's sombre passion, Mrs. Thorpe always hinting to me about my childlessness, Will in a London prison, Eliza poor thing at home at The Breck, weeping over Will and Martha and complaining because David took up room at the table, and David's future so uncertain—I forbade myself all thoughts of Francis—during the first months of my married life the storms of adversity seemed to beat upon me very heavily.

There were smaller matters too which yet added their share of grief. Sarah, saying her task with the Clarksons
was now performed and she could enter into her rest, married her faithful Denton, and went to live in a small noisome house at the back of Church Bank. I smiled a little wryly to hear her call the state of matrimony “rest,” and thought she might soon learn to regard it differently; for I judged, if the quiet-seeming John were not easy, Denton might indeed be difficult, as a husband. He was a short swarthy man with large ears and a high colour, somewhat bow-legged and tremendously opinionated; he had a strong singing voice, and fancied himself a good deal in prayer and praise—no, I did not think he would prove a restful partner. But whether Sarah had found rest or no she had certainly left my service. I had often suffered from her prim ways and sharp tongue, but now that she was gone I understood how good and trusty a friend she had been to me, and missed her greatly.

Tabby, too, gave us a deal of trouble. Mrs. Thorpe disliked cats, which she thought newfangled, but for the sake of David, who loved Tabby dearly, she was content to put up with her and give her a home at The Breck. But the ungrateful Tabby, old as she was, would not remain at The Breck; she wandered away constantly down towards Bradford, and was several times returned to us, thin and scared, her glossy coat all dull and matted, by reproachful Fairgap neighbours. The amount of trouble this caused at The Breck was quite out of proportion to Tabby's size, for Mrs. Thorpe was vexed at the slight to her hospitality. She said: “She doesn't know when she's well off,” in a tone so meaning that it identified the cat with her mistress, and I felt guilty of Tabby's misdeeds as if they were ingratitude on my part. Then one evening as we sat at table there was a knock at the door, and a liveried servant of Mr. Ferrand's stood there with Tabby in his arms, smirking slyly and asking if the cat belonged to The Breck; she had been found at Holroyd Hall, lying beside Thunder. His tone as he said this, and Mrs. Thorpe's look at me, were hard to bear, and the air seemed thick with jealousy and suspicion. But David ran happily to take the cat, and John said quietly:

“Have you any news of my cousin?”

The man said, aye, they had news; Master Francis had sent a letter, very ill writ Mr. Ferrand had said peevishly, telling how he was in a leaguer, that is a siege, explained the fellow importantly, before some outlandish city in the Low Countries. He had asked for money, which made Mr. Ferrand roar angrily, and seemed to be enjoying himself in camp. Ralph was with him as a body-servant. John nodded to show his interest, and gave the man a coin, at which his father frowned. Next week the same man brought Tabby back again with the same story, adding that Mr. Ferrand had sworn an oath to shoot the cat if she came on his land again. But, said the man, we need not trouble ourselves, he thought, for Thunder was to be shot, so there would be nothing to attract Tabby to Holroyd Hall. Thunder had fretted himself sick over the loss of Master Francis, he went on, though we were all silent and asked no questions; the dog lay on Master Frank's bed all day and would not eat or stir, and it started Mrs. Ferrand off weeping again, every time she saw him. At this there was another heavy silence and pursed lips and a sour look from Mrs. Thorpe, and my spirit fell so low that I reproached Tabby in my heart for causing so much sorrow to her mistress.