Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 67

Molly banged her pans about worse than ever, partly in envy at the good luck of the girl, partly because she had to do the dairy work during Grizzel's absence in Gloucestershire: a day and a half, which was given her by Mrs. Todhetley.

"There won't be no standing anigh her and her finery now," cried rampant Molly to the servants. "She'll tack her blue ribbons on to her tail as well as her head. Lucky if the dairy some fine day ain't found turned all sour!"

Grizzel came back in time; bringing her forty pounds in gold wrapped-up in the foot of a folded stocking. The girl had as much sense as one here and there, and a day or two after her arrival she asked leave to speak to her mistress. It was to say that she should like to leave at the end of her year, Michaelmas, if her mistress would please look out for some one to replace her.

"And what are you going to do, Grizzel, when you do leave? What are your plans?"

Grizzel turned the colour of a whole cornfield of poppies, and confessed that she was going to be married to George Roper.

"Oh," said Mrs. Todhetley. But she had nothing to urge against it.

"And please, ma'am," cried Grizzel, the poppies deepening and glowing, "we'd like to make bold to ask if the master would let to us that bit of a cottage that the Claytons have went out of."

The Mater was quite taken aback. It seemed indeed that Grizzel had been laying her plans to some purpose.

"It have a nice piece o' ground to grow pertaters and garden stuff, and it have a pigsty," said Grizzel. "Please, ma'am, we shall get along famous, if we can have that."

"Do you mean to set up a pig, Grizzel?"

Grizzel's face was all one smile. Of course they did. With such a fortune as she had come into, she intended herself and her husband to have everything good about them, including a pig.

"I'll give Grizzel away," wrote Tod when he heard the news of the legacy and the projected marriage. "It will be fun! And if you people at home don't present her with her wedding-gown it will be a stingy shame. Let it have a good share of blue bows."

"No, though, will he!" exclaimed Grizzel with sparkling eyes, when told of the honour designed her by Tod. "Give me away! Him! I've always said there's not such another gentleman in these parts as Mr. Joseph."

The banns were put up, and matters progressed smoothly; with one solitary exception. When Sandy Lett heard of the treason going on behind his back, he was ready to drop with blighted love and mortification. A three-days' weather blight was nothing to his. Quite forgetting modesty, he made his fierce way into the house, without saying with your leave or by your leave, and thence to the dairy where Grizzel stood making-up b.u.t.ter, startling the girl so much with his white face and wild eyes that she stepped back into a pan of cream. Then he enlarged upon her iniquity, and wound up by a.s.suring her that neither she nor her "coward of a Roper" could ever come to good. After that, he left her alone, making no further stir.

Grizzel quitted the Manor and went into the cottage, which the Squire had agreed to let to them: Roper was to come to it on the wedding-day. A daughter of Goody Picker's, one Mary Standish (whose husband had a habit of going off on roving trips and staying away until found and brought back by the parish), stayed with Grizzel, helping her to put the cottage in habitable order, and arrange in it the articles she bought. That sum of forty pounds seemed to be doing wonders: I told Grizzel I could not have made a thousand go as far.

"Any left, Master Johnny? Why of course I shall have plenty left," she said. "After buying the bed and the set o' drawers and the chairs and tables; and the pots and pans and crockeryware for the kitchen; and the pig and a c.o.c.k and hen or two; and perviding a joint of roast pork and some best tea and white sugar for the wedding-day, we shall still have pounds and pounds on't left. 'Tisn't me, sir, nor George nether, that 'ud like to lavish away all we've got and put none by for a rainy day."

"All right, Grizzel. I am going to give you a tea-caddy."

"Well now, to think of that, Master Johnny!" she said, lifting her hands. "And after the mistress giving me such a handsome gownd!--and the servants clubbing together, and bringing a roasting oven and beautiful set o' flat irons. Roper and me'll be set up like a king and queen."

On Sat.u.r.day, the day before that fixed for the wedding, I and Tod were pa.s.sing the cottage--a kind of miniature barn, to look at, with a thatched roof, and a broken grindstone at the door--and went in: rather to the discomfiture of Grizzel and Mrs. Standish, who had their petticoats shortened and their arms bare, scouring and scrubbing and making ready for the morrow. Returning across the fields later, we saw Grizzel at the door, gazing out all ways at once.

"Consulting the stars as to whether it will be fine to-morrow, Grizzel?"

cried Tod, who was never at a loss for a ready word.

"I was a-looking out for Mary Standish, sir," she said. "George Roper haven't been here to-night, and we be all at doubtings about several matters he was to have come in to settle. First he said he'd go on betimes to the church o' Sunday morning; then he said he'd come here and we'd all walk together: and it was left at a uncertainty. There's the blackberry pie, too, that he've not brought."

"The blackberry pie!" said I.

"One that Mrs. Dodd, where he lodges, have made a present of to us for dinner, Master Johnny. Roper was to ha' brought it in to-night ready. It won't look well to see him carrying of a baked-pie on a Sunday morning, when he've got on his wedding-coat. I can't think where he have got to!"

At this moment, some one was seen moving towards us across the field path. It proved to be Mary Standish: her gown turned up over her head, and a pie in her hands the size of a pulpit cushion. Red syrup was running down the outside of the dish, and the crust looked a little black at the edges.

"My, what a big beauty!" exclaimed Grizzel.

"Do take it, Grizzel, for my hands be all cramped with its weight," said Mrs. Standish: who, as it turned out, had been over to Roper's lodgings, a mile and a half away, with a view to seeing what had become of the bridegroom elect. And she nearly threw the pie into Grizzel's arms, and took down her gown.

"And what do Roper say?" asked Grizzel. "And why have he not been here?"

"Roper's not at home," said Mary Standish. "He come in from work about six; washed and put hisself to rights a bit, and then went out with a big bundle. Mrs. Dodd called after him to bring the pie, but he called back again that the pie might wait."

"What was in the bundle?" questioned Grizzel, resenting the slight shown to the pie.

"Well, by the looks on't, Mother Dodd thought 'twas his working clothes packed up," replied Mary Standish.

"His working clothes!" cried Grizzel.

"A going to take 'em to the tailor's, maybe, to get 'em done up. And not afore they wanted it."

"Why, it's spending money for nothing," was Grizzel's comment. "I could ha' done up them clothes."

"Well, it's what Mother Dodd thought," concluded Mary Standish.

We said good night, and went racing home, leaving the two women at the door, Grizzel lodging the heavy blackberry pie on the old grindstone.

It was a glorious day for Grizzel's wedding. The hour fixed by the clerk (old b.u.mford) was ten o'clock, so that it might be got well over before the bell rang out for service. We reached the church early. Amongst the few spectators already there was cross-grained Molly, pocketing her ill-temper and for once meaning to be gracious to Grizzel.

Ten o'clock struck, and the big old clock went ticking on. Clerk b.u.mford (a pompous man when free from gout) began abusing the wedding-party for not keeping its time. The quarter past was striking when Grizzel came up, with Mary Standish and a young girl. She looked white and nervous, and not at all at ease in her bridal attire--a green gown of some kind of stuff, and no end of pink ribbons: the choice of colours being Grizzel's own.

"Is Roper here yet?" whispered Mary Standish.

"Not yet."

"It's too bad of him!" she continued. "Never to send a body word whether he meant to call for us, or not: and us a waiting there till now, expecting of him."

But where was George Roper? And (as old b.u.mford asked) what did he mean by it? The clergyman in his surplice and hood looked out at the vestry twice, as if questioning what the delay meant. We stood just inside the porch, and Grizzel grew whiter and whiter.

"Just a few minutes more o' this delay, and there won't be no wedding at all this blessed morning," announced Clerk b.u.mford for the public benefit. "George Roper wants a good blowing up, he do."

Ere the words were well spoken, a young man named d.i.c.ker, who was a fellow-lodger of Roper's and was to have accompanied him to church, made his appearance alone. That something had gone wrong was plainly to be seen: but, what with the publicity of his present position, and what with the stern clerk pouncing down upon him in wrath, the young man could hardly get his news out.

In the first place, Roper had never been home all night; never been seen, in short, since he had left Mrs. Dodd's with the bundle, as related by Mary Standish. That morning, while d.i.c.ker in his consternation knew not what to be at--whether to be off to church alone, or to wait still, in the hope that Roper would come--two notes were delivered at Mrs. Dodd's by a strange boy: the one addressed to himself, John d.i.c.ker, the other to "Miss Clay," meaning Grizzel. They bore ill news; George Roper had given up his marriage, and gone away for good.

At this extraordinary crisis, pompous Clerk b.u.mford was so taken aback, that he could only open his mouth and stare. It gave d.i.c.ker the opportunity to put in a few words.

"What we thought at Mother Dodd's was, that Roper had took a drop too much somewhere last evening, and couldn't get home. He's as sober a man as can be--but whatever else was we to think? And when this writed note come this morning, and we found he had gone off to Ameriky o' purpose to avoid being married, we was downright floundered. This is yours, Grizzel," added the young man in as gently considerate a tone as any gentleman could have used.

Grizzel's hand shook as she took the letter he held out. She was biting her pale lips hard to keep down emotion. "Take it and read it," she whispered to Mary Standish--for in truth she herself could not, with all that sea of curious eyes upon her.

But Mary Standish laboured under the slight disadvantage of not being able to read writing: conscious of this difficulty, she would not touch the letter. Mr. b.u.mford, his senses and his tongue returning together, s.n.a.t.c.hed it without ceremony out of Grizzel's hand.

"I'll read it," said he. And he did so. And I, Johnny Ludlow, give you the copy verbatim.