Kitabı oku: «Jill: A Flower Girl», sayfa 9
“You come nigh to me,” she said; “I own as I’m awk’ard, and I’m sorry I broke a bit of your chaney.”
“Go and set near her, Jill,” whispered Silas; “your winnin’ of ’em all, my little cuttin’; I knew as yer would.”
“Jill,” said Aunt Hannah, “I ’ope as you’re a gel as is willin’ to hact up to your own words. I will say as you looks well-meaning. It worn’t your fault as you were made handsome – it’s a trial, I will own; but you must try and take it patient. But what I wants to know is this – ’ave you or ’ave you not got a light hand with chaney? Chaney is more delicate nor a woman; it has, so to speak, no constitootion. Any minute, by a rough knock or a push, or the awkardness jest now shown by Mary Ann Hatton, and there – it’ll go, shivered. The gel what can manage chaney has something to be proud on. When I was married I got a tea-sarvice of white chaney with a gold rim, and a scalloped edge round the saucer. It wor werry neat, but not a patch on this, for this blue convolvuly is too cunnin’ for anything. Well, when you come to see me, Jill, I’ll show you my chaney, every piece complete, not a crack in it, nor a chip; all the little cups, and the scalloped saucers and the plates, jest as I got ’em when I wor married. Why wor this? I’ll tell you why. I put ’em in a glass cupboard, and I never used ’em ’cept at christenings. Ef you keep this chaney for christenings why it’ll last, Jill, but ef you uses it every day, it stands to reason as the constitootions of these cups and saucers’ll give way. I ask yer now, in the presence of yer future husband, Mr Peters, Mr Hibberty Jones, the good wife of the latter, and Miss Mary Ann Hatton, what is yer intentions with regard to this beautiful chaney?”
“How can she tell jest now, Aunt Hannah?” said Silas.
“In the matter of wedding the gel I leave everything to you, Silas,” remarked his aunt, “but in the cause of the chaney I must speak my mind. Consider this question, my gel, and hanswer me true.”
There was a dead pause when Aunt Hannah came to the end of her oration. The other women, and even the men, looked at Jill with some small anxiety. She was quite silent for a moment, looking down at the delicate little cup and saucer which stood by her plate.
“I think,” she said, after a minute’s silence, “that we might have a little cupboard made for this yere chaney, Silas. The cupboard could face the door and the two windows, and when the sun come in it ’ud shine on the cups and saucers and make ’em look real fine, and when Aunt Hannah came to see us we could use the chaney. I has got some cups and saucers at home as ’ud do for you and me every day, Silas.”
“My gel,” said Aunt Hannah, “come here and kiss me. Silas, I withdraw all my hopposition to yer wedding this gel; the Lord has seen fit to give her a mind to match her face. She spoke now with rare wisdom, and my own three delf cups as I spoke on to yer last week, I’ll give to this gel as a wedding present.”
Chapter Sixteen
The tea-drinking having turned out such a success, Silas went down to the village to spend the night with old Peters in a state of rare exultation.
“I wor right, yer see,” he said. “I know’d what I were about when I asked that yere little cutting to come and strike root in my garden.”
“She’s a werry purty creter,” said old Peters. “I don’t go for to deny it, Silas, she’s rare and purty. But what ails her, man? Do yer think as she has given yer her young affection; you ain’t so young, Silas, and you ain’t to say ’ansome; do yer think that gracious, purty girl gives back love for your love, Silas?”
Silas felt as if a dash of ice-cold water had been thrown over his warm, glowing, happy heart.
“What can a gel do more nor say ‘yes?’” he remarked after a pause.
“I’m not so sure on that,” replied Peters. “Gels say ‘yes’ for lots o’ motives – the wish for a home, maybe; oh, lots o’ motives. I’d have said that a young thing like Jill ’ud choose for her mate a lad with good looks hisself, and youth; that’s what I’d have said from my experience of the faymale ’eart; but there, Silas, don’t take on, man, I wor wrong about beauty and goodness goin’ together, so maybe I’m wrong ’bout the t’other also. I can see that the gel has a great kindness for yer, Silas; but love, that’s quite another matter. What ails her eyes for instance? what’s back o’ them looking out at us all so gloomy-like? My word, them eyes haunts me; seems as ef a sperit was looking through ’em, werry patient, werry sad. I could cry when I thinks on ’em. What’s the matter, Silas? What ails yer, man?”
“You don’t s’pose as talk like yourn is pleasant to listen to,” replied Silas; “and you’re all wrong ’bout Jill not wanting to have me. Why, I’ll prove it to yer now as yer wrong. I asked her to be my wife one morning at the market, and I suppose she felt skir’t like, for she looked at me with her face as rosy as the day, and her eyes like great, deep wells, with the wonder that filled ’em, and she said, ‘No, no, Mr Lynn, it can’t be’; and she up with her basket and away she runned. Well, of course I said to myself, there’s an end o’ this; but, what do yer think, neighbour? The next morning early, soon arter daybreak, who should come down all the way from Lunnon to see me but this same little gel; she knocked at my door and called out to me to open to her; and when I come it wor, ‘Yes, yes, Mr Lynn, I will marry yer ef you’ll have me.’ Worn’t that pretty good proof of her loving me, eh, Peters?”
“I don’t deny as it wor,” said Peters.
Silas and Peters entered the small cottage of the latter, and, as Silas had to go to town in a couple of hours, they immediately parted for the night, Silas declining to go to bed, but declaring he could take a good sleep in Peters’s deep arm-chair.
Just before they said good-night the old man made a request.
“Ef yer has time, Silas,” he said, “I’d be much obleeged to yer if yer could call round to Saint Bartholomy’s Hospital and leave this little parcel for my sister, Rachel Riggs. It’s a wool shawl of hers, as she allers sets store on, and I had a card from her to say as she wor better, and wanted her shawl. You’d obleege me greatly, Silas, ef you could leave it.”
“Put it on the table there,” said Silas, “and I won’t forget.”
The old man went off to his own room, and Silas sat in the deep arm-chair and looked out at the summer night. There was nothing really to trouble him in the words that Peters had said, nevertheless they kept coming back in a teasing and irritating fashion.
It was Peters’s opinion that Jill did not love him. What folly! If ever a girl had gone out of her way to show that she loved a man, it was Jill. As to her face being somewhat pale, and as to the fact that her dark eyes were sad in their expression, was not that always the case? Had not Silas, who knew her so much better than Peters, always noticed that latent sadness in her charming face. He loved her all the better for it.
“It’s jest her kind heart,” he murmured; “it’s jest as there is trouble in the world, and she can’t help noticin’ of it. Why, see her to-night, when Mary Ann Hatton dropped the chaney saucer. Even that were too much for my Jill. Oh, yes, Peters is quite mistook. Jill loves me, for sure, and I’m jest the werry happiest feller in the wide world.”
Silas, however, notwithstanding these soothing reflections, felt too excited to sleep. He was glad when the first faint brightness in the east told him that the time had come for him to rise and begin his long day’s work.
He softly left the cottage, and, going across the fields to his own small homestead, put the horses to the already carefully-packed waggon. Then going round to the cottage-door, he tapped with his knuckles at the window of the little bedroom where Aunt Hannah and Jill were sleeping. Jill was to accompany Silas back to town. She was dressed, and came out to him at once. Her face looked almost bright this morning; she had a faint colour in her cheeks, which was further deepened by the bright shawl which she wore round her head. When she came up to Silas and slipped her little brown hand into his, he instantly felt through his whole being that a glorious sun had arisen over the earth, and that old Timothy Peters must be fast approaching idiotcy.
“Come, Jill,” he exclaimed, “we’ll have a jolly ride into town. Why, yer ain’t cold, be yer my dear?”
“No, Silas.”
“Only I thought I see’d yer shiver. It’ll be werry hot by-and-by, but ef yer finds this hour of the morning chill, I’ll fetch out my sheep’s-skin rug to wrap yer up in.”
“No, no, Silas, I ain’t really cold. Let’s start at once, and maybe when we gets to the brow of the hill we’ll see the sun rise. I has been up early enough most days o’ my life, but I never seed the sun rise for all that.”
“It’s a sight to remember,” said Lynn. “Come along then, my choice little cuttin’, and we’ll get under weigh.”
As a rule, Silas was a very taciturn man; but on this particular morning it was he who did most of the talking.
“Eh, Jill,” he said once, as they approached London, “to think as you and me ’ull be husband and wife to-morrow. The delight o’ it is a’most past belief. When I thinks on you as keeping the cottage, bright, and cooking my meals for me, and watching as nobody comes and picks off the best blooms when I’m away at the market, I can scarce contain myself, I don’t believe in all the wide world there’ll be a happier pair nor you and me, Jill, for all that I am eight-and-thirty and you not seventeen yet.”
“I hope as I’ll make yer a good wife, Silas,” replied Jill.
“Oh, there ain’t no doubt on that, my little cuttin’. There’s that in you, Jill, that can’t help being good to folk. Lor’, I could shout with larfin’ when I think how you twisted all them crabbed folk round yer little finger last night. Jest a glint o’ your eyes and a soft word or two and ’twor done. Even Mary Ann Hatton couldn’t stan’ out agen yer. But, Jill, I’m a-thinking that yer mother and yer two brothers ought to be asked proper to our wedding. Yer mother is as fine a figure of a woman as I know; and, though I don’t know what yer brothers are like, and I make no doubt they’re mischeevous little varmints as is to be found in the world, yet still wot’s yours is mine, Jill, and I’ll make them all free and welcome to come to the wedding to-morrow. Wot’s the matter, my dear? Why don’t yer speak?”
“There ain’t nothing the matter, Silas. Seems to me lately as ef I had very few words of any sort to say. I’m obleeged to yer, Silas, for your kind thought about my folk, and I’d be right glad to have them with me when I’m wed; but I han’t seen the boys for nearly three weeks. I’m thinking maybe they has run off to sea. Tom were always minded that way.”
“Well,” said Silas, “they might do worse. The sea is not so bad a life ef a lad is strong, and ef he don’t take up with bad ways. But ’bout yer mother, Jill? It’s werry odd as I han’t laid eyes on her sence you and me made up our minds to get spliced.”
“Mother ain’t werry well,” said Jill, “and – ” but here her voice failed her; she covered her face with her trembling hand, and burst into an agony of tears.
Silas, in his absolute amazement, pulled up the horses, and, looking round at the weeping girl, surveyed her from head to foot with a sudden shy terror, which gave a ludicrous expression to his plain face.
“Wot is it, Jill? Wot is it?” at last he gasped.
“Nothing, Silas, nothing,” she replied, checking her tears with a violent effort. “It were real wrong of me to give way, and you so good. But I’m troubled ’bout mother, orful, bitter troubled. She ain’t well, and I’m troubled ’bout her. Seems as ef I couldn’t speak on her lately. She won’t come to the weddin’, Silas, and you mustn’t ask me no questions ’bout the why and the wherefore. Maybe, arter we’re wed I’ll tell yer, but not now, dear Silas.”
“Well, it’s you I’m goin’ to wed,” said Silas, “and ef you’re there, no matter about t’other folks, say I. Only I’m sorry you’re in trouble ’bout anything, my own little gel, and I only wish I could, comfort you.”
“You do, Silas, you do.”
“Well, them’s good words to hear. We’re at the market now, Jill; but as you ain’t going to sell flowers to-day, maybe you’d like to be gwine home. Next time we meets it’ll be till death us do part.”
When Silas said these words Jill felt a sick agony creeping over her. They were the words she had longed to hear said over her and Nat. She turned her white face away, and, quickly leaving the market, ran home to Howard’s Buildings as fast as her feet could carry her. Silas, in excellent spirits, began to attend to his plants, flowers, and fruit. Any slight remaining uneasiness which might have lingered in his mind after old Peters’s words was now removed. Of course Jill loved him, but her pallor and the sad expression in her eyes were both accounted for by some secret sorrow in connection with her mother. Silas determined to get at this grief, and if possible to remove it after he and Jill were married. He was too busy to-day, however, to give it any further thought; he had not only to attend to his many customers, but he had to make arrangements for the two or three days’ holiday he meant to give himself after his wedding. He had to attend to a list of orders which Aunt Hannah had provided him with for the wedding-feast; and last, but not least, he must manage to call at Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital with the little shawl for old Peters’s sister, Rachel Riggs. Silas knew Mrs Riggs, and with all those new qualities which the sunshine of prosperity had awakened into being, it occurred to him that it would give her pleasure if a bunch of flowers accompanied the shawl. Silas would never have thought of giving Mrs Riggs flowers in the old days, but he did many things now which astonished himself.
When his business at Covent Garden was ended, he selected a large bunch of some of his commoner flowers, and started off to walk to the hospital. He had gone nearly half-way when it suddenly entered into his head that it would largely add to Peters’s happiness, if he, Silas, could contrive to see Mrs Riggs for a moment or two. He knew enough about hospitals to be aware that he would not be admitted until the afternoon, so, leaving his flowers at the shop of a friend, he got through his other work, and finally arrived at Saint Bartholomew’s on the stroke of two o’clock, the earliest hour when visitors are admitted.
Silas was taken at once to the women’s ward, where Mrs Riggs was sitting up in her clean bed with a “nightingale” round her shoulders. Her wizened old face was lit up with a curious mixture of surprise, pleasure, and alarm when she saw Silas coming gingerly on tiptoe down the long ward to see her. Her remembrance of Silas in the past was not a pleasant one – he was morose, intensely rough and disagreeable – a very upright man, of course, but the last to put himself out of the way to do a neighbour a kindness. It was astonishing, therefore, to see him with a little brown-paper parcel in one hand and an enormous bouquet of flowers in the other advancing to meet her. Silas’s rough face, too, was all aglow, his coarse mouth was wreathed in smiles, his little ferrity, deep-set eyes were the windows through which a happy soul looked.
Mrs Riggs said, “My sakes alive! wot’s come to the man?” under her breath. She stretched out her thin, old hand, which Silas clasped, and then, sitting down by her, he began to chat about the small doings of Newbridge and its inhabitants.
Peters’s cough was certainly better, the Hibberty Joneses were in good case, Mary Ann Hatton looked quite fine for her. In short, the village was enjoying a heyday of prosperity, and Silas felt sure that they would all give Mrs Riggs a hearty welcome when she returned. He knew that the old woman was regarding him with a sharp stare of curiosity; he was well aware that she was amazed at the change in him, but he did not feel inclined to betray his happy secret. There was a new sweet shyness about him when he thought of Jill and the great, tender love he bore her.
He had bid Mrs Riggs good-bye and was leaving the ward, when a full voice, rich in tone although somewhat weakened by recent illness, was heard pronouncing his name.
A woman who was lying stretched out flat in a bed at the far end of the ward was calling to him. Her voice had a piteous ring in it; her black eyes were fixed on him with a world of entreaty in their glance.
“Come yere, Mr Lynn, for the love o’ heaven, come yere,” said the voice.
Lynn looked up the ward and immediately recognised Poll Robinson. His heart gave a heavy thump; he was conscious of a sudden weight of apprehension on him, and then, still walking on tiptoe, he marched up the ward and stood by the sick woman’s side.
“Well, I’m blessed,” he exclaimed, looking down at her. “So you’re here, and that’s the secret wot’s troubling Jill.”
“Oh, Mr Lynn, ha’ you seen my gel?” exclaimed Poll. “Oh, you don’t know the awful ’eart hunger as is over me, never to see her or to hear of her. Oh, Mr Lynn, when I seed you a-coming in, I thought as you wor, may be, an angel fro’ heaven. I said to myself, maybe Jill has been a-buying flowers from Silas Lynn. Oh, my gel, my sweet, sweet gel. Ha’ you seen her, Mr Lynn?”
“Yes, yes, Mrs Robinson,” said Silas. “Make your mind heasy. Jill’s all right. Why I seen her this werry morning.”
“Oh, and is she well; do she look happy?”
“She ought to look well, and she ought to be happy. It’ll be her wedding-day to-morrow. Ef a gel don’t look happy on the eve of her wedding-day, why she never will, accordin’ to my thinkin’.”
“Oh, praise the Lord,” said Poll, “then I ain’t done the mischief I thought. I wor mortal feared as she had broke off with Nat Carter, but ef they’re to be married to-morrow why it’s all right, and I ain’t done the mischief I thought.”
“Who did yer say as she were to marry?” asked Silas in a queer, thick, husky voice. “Wot name did yer say, Nat – Nat Carter?”
“Yes, yes; you must know him for sure – that ’ansome young costermonger as allers goes in good time to the market. You must mind him, Mr Lynn, a tall, well-set-up lad, with blue eyes and as fair as Jill’s dark. Why they has loved each other, them two, ever since my Jill were a little dot at school. Never seen anything like the way they took on one for t’other. Wot’s the matter, Mr Lynn? You must know o’ this, surely.”
“Yes, of course,” said Lynn; he made a supreme effort to control himself and sat down on the chair by Poll’s bedside.
“You must know Nat Carter,” she continued, fixing her anxious eyes on him.
“Yes, yes, for sure.”
“It is an awful load off my mind, Silas Lynn, that they’ll be married to-morrow. Mayhap you’ll be at the weddin’.”
“Not likely,” growled Silas.
“Well, well; you look pinched somehow in the face, neighbour. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jill wor glad to see yer when she gives herself to Nat. She allers thought a sight on yer; she used to say to me, ‘Mother, his bark is worse nor his bite.’ Oh, Silas, you don’t know what a load you has lifted from my ’eart.”
“Look yere, missis,” said Silas, “I won’t go fer to deny that yer news has come to me sudden. Course, I know’d as Jill were to be married, but I never know’d as there were any hitch, so to speak. You might as well tell me what yer means, missis, for I takes a – a hinterest in the gel.”
“I don’t mind telling yer,” said Poll. “May be it’s best for yer to know. You see, it wor this way. I had an awful bad pain; I wor suffering from a sort of a tumour in my breast, and I can’t tell yer, Silas, what the suffering were like; it seemed to shrink me all up, and the only way I could get ease, day or night, was by taking a drop o’ gin. Sometimes I took perhaps mor’n I ought, and once or twice I know I forgot myself, and the sperits seemed to go into my ’ead; and what with the ease from pain, and the light, cheery sort of feeling in my ’ead, I used to sing songs in the street, and even dance, and folks collected round me, and I brought shame to my pretty, sweet gel. Oh, the goodness of her, and the tenderness of her, and the way she’d shield me and not let anybody point a finger at me; and the way she’d make s’cuses for me, and try to hush it up, and never let me even say to her as I had took a drop too much. Well, she engaged herself to Nat; it’s about a month ago now; and they two did look so ’appy; and Jill she says to me, ‘I’m his till death us do part;’ and oh, the look in her beautiful eyes, and the strength on her true, sweet face, and the way he looked at her, and he says, says he, ‘the only thing I want in a woman is to be honest, and sober, and true.’ He said the words bitter ’ard, and I said to myself, ‘I can’t keep sober, but I won’t bring disgrace on Jill; Nat Carter shan’t have it to say as he married the best gel in life only she had a drunkard for a mother.’ So I slipped away unbeknown to Jill, and I have never seen her since the day as she give herself to Nat. But three days arterwards I met Susy, Nat’s sister, and she said words to me what made me fear as Nat had found out ’bout me, and that he were taking it bitter ’ard, and that, maybe, he had broke off with Jill. Oh, you don’t know what I felt, Silas Lynn. To give the gel up, and yet not to save her arter all! Oh, I thought as my ’ead ’ud turn crazy. I tried to go back to her, and I s’pose I fainted in the street, for I don’t remember nothink more until I found myself yere. I had an awful dread of hospitals, but my word, Silas, I made a big mistake. Why, they has took that awful, fearful tumour right away, and I han’t a bit of pain now, and they say as I’ll get well again. There’s news for Jill on her wedding morning.”
“Yes, that’s good news,” replied Lynn, still speaking in that quiet, absent sort of voice. “Shall I tell her as you’ll soon be quite well and back with her again, neighbour?”
“Oh, ef you would,” said Poll; “and there’ll be no need for Nat to fear me now, for I won’t be tempted to take the awful drink. I wor a sober enough woman afore the pain troubled me, and now that the pain’s gone I’ll be sober enough again, never fear. Ef Jill has kept the secret ’bout me fro’ Nat Carter, she can always keep it fro’ him in the future. Wot’s the matter, Silas Lynn? Yer face has gone grey-like, and I thought how well you looked when you wor coming across the ward to see me.”
“So I am well,” retorted Silas; “I’m as right as rain. Now, good-bye, neighbour, I must be goin’. Ef I see Jill I’ll take her your message. Good-bye, neighbour, good-bye.”
He left the ward, still treading on tiptoe, but with a certain heaviness in his gait which was not observe able when he came in.
He went down-stairs, and out into the brilliant sunshine. The hospital ward was cool and fresh. Outside there was a glare over everything. For the first time in his life Silas felt as if he might have sunstroke, or as if the fierce heat might mount to his brain and give him fever. He had not yet realised in all its intensity the blow which had fallen on him; he was only dimly aware that the happiness which had come so late in life to take up its abode in his heart had found that dull room within him not large enough nor bright enough, and so had gone away. He was aware of this, still he went on making his preparations for to-morrow’s wedding. He ordered the necessary foods to be sent down to Kent for the wedding-feast; he bought a bonnet for old Aunt Hannah, and some cheap gimcracks to present to Mary Ann Hatton and Mrs Hibberty Jones.
At last he had finished his list of commissions, and he stood still for a minute to consider what he should do. He was not going to market to-morrow, so it was not necessary for him to return home early. It had been his intention to go back to the little cottage at Newbridge, in order to get it more completely ready for the sweet bride who was to enter it on the morrow. His flowers wanted extra watering and extra care in order to greet that one brilliant living blossom who was going to take root and settle down in their midst. Silas thought of encircling the porch of the cottage with a wreath of roses, of decking the table with which the wedding-feast would be spread with flowers in many strange and lovely devices; but the wish to do any of these things had now suddenly left him. He determined not to go home at present. He had a dim sort of consciousness that his pain would be much greater at home even than it was here.
Standing at the shady side of the street, leaning up against the door of a restaurant, he tried to bring his brain to think connectedly of Mrs Robinson’s words. He recalled them with an effort, and found that they amounted to the fact that Jill loved another man; that she had engaged herself to him before she engaged herself to Silas; that whereas Silas was old and ugly, Jill’s other lover was young, and comely to behold. There was no doubt whatever that something was troubling Jill. The facts were but too patent – she had some secret motive in consenting to wed Silas, but her heart was still with Nat.
Having brought himself to face this fact, Silas thought carefully over Jill’s possible motives. He remembered her great anxiety to borrow five pounds from him. He recalled, with a hot flush of misery, the startled look on her face when he first told her of the conditions on which he would give her the money. He remembered then her journey into Kent, her readiness to comply with his request, and her painful anxiety to have the money to take away with her, and to have no questions asked.
“I yielded at the time,” thought Silas, “but I’m blessed ef I won’t get at the bottom o’ this thing afore the day’s out. I’ll go and see Jill, and question her. We ain’t wedded yet, and I’ll know the truth afore we’re made man and wife.”
Having made up his mind, Silas acted with promptitude. He was not long in reaching Howard’s Buildings. He ran swiftly up the stairs, and knocked at Jill’s door. She was not expecting to see him again until they met the next day in Kent. There was a possibility that she might be out, but he must take his chance of that. He knocked with his knuckles on the panel of the door and waited. Partly to his relief, partly to add to his torture, he heard a light step within, and Jill came and opened the door. She started, and flushed slightly, when she saw him. There was a certain amount of pleasure in her face. She had evidently learned to lean upon Silas, to appreciate much that was in him.
“I’d ha’ thought a few hours back as that look meant the tender dawning o’ love,” thought the man, “but I know better now.”
“Come in, Silas,” said Jill, speaking in that gentle tone which she always used when addressing him. “I wor packing my few bits o’ duds, and I’m sorry the place is in a mess; but come in and set down, do.” Silas entered, and closed the door behind him. He did not intend to say anything about Mrs Robinson. He had no notion of betraying the secret which had come to him at present. Still, the heaviness of his heart was shown by his absence of compliment, by his indifference to the disordered condition of the room. He sat heavily down on the first chair he came to, and laid a big hand on each knee.
“I ha’ come to have a little talk with yer, Jill,” he said.
“Yes, Silas, of course. Is anything the matter, dear Silas?”
“No, my gel, there’s nought the matter. Only somehow, when a man takes the sort of step I’m about to take – when a man takes a young gel to his ’eart, and swears afore the Lord God Almighty to love her and cherish her, and cling only to her – why, ef he’s a man whose word is worth any think, he feels kind o’ solemn, Jill.”
“Oh, yes,” said Jill; “but when a man’s like you, Silas Lynn, he’s quite sure to keep his word; he needn’t be fretted ’bout what’s quite sure.”
Silas gazed straight up at Jill while she was speaking, and a queer, very mournful smile lingered round his lips.
“Yer think, then, Jill,” he said, “as I’d make a real good mate to yer?”
“I do, Silas.”
“Yer know as I loves you, my gel.”
“Yes, Silas, yes.” Her own lips began to tremble. She turned away.
“Jill,” continued Silas, “there’s a weight on my mind, and I must speak, or I’ll die. It’s a weight o’ love, little gel. I’m a rough man, and I has had a rough life. ’Cept the flowers, I never has had to do with anything soft or dainty. I cared for my mother, in course, and she wor good as good could be; but she worn’t like you, Jill, with the skin o’ a peach, and the look of all the loveliest flowers made by God Almighty put together. You came to me, Jill, and when you put your little ’ands into mine, then I knowed what love were. It’s a mighty thing, Jill, for any girl to get all the love of a strong man like me – the love that has been gathering up in me for close on forty year. Some folks, they love dozens o’ people; they’ll give a little love to this one, and t’other one – they, so to speak, splits up their love. But that ain’t me. In all the wide wide world I love no one but you, little Jill, so you can guess as you has got something strong – when you has won the love o’ a man like me.”
Silas’s words came out with slow pauses, they seemed to be wrung from him. His eyes were fixed upon the girl he was addressing. She turned paler and paler as he spoke. When he stopped, she burst into tears.
“Silas,” she said, “I wish as you wouldn’t love me in that sort of awful way – ”
“I can’t help it, my dear; it’s all with me, or it’s nought.”
“Silas, you frighten me.”
“I don’t want to, my pretty little dove. I won’t talk o’ it too much arter we is wedded, but I jest had to speak up to-day. Jill, the sort o’ love I can give ’ud go down into hell itself for the sake of sarving the one it loves. I’ve been thinking, my little darlin’, of you, and wondering ef maybe you hadn’t some things as yer’d like to tell me afore we were wed. Love makes us see deep down, and I can guess as you’ve a trouble, little Jill; maybe it’s ’bout your mother, or maybe it’s ’bout that five pounds as I giv’d yer. I know I ha’ no right to ask ’bout the five pounds, but, ef you felt yerself free to tell me, why, I’d like to say that ef you had the blackest secret that ever come to a gel to keep, why it ’ud be all the same to me, I’d love yer jest all the same.”
