The Widow in the Bye Street Part 5

She love you? She? O Jimmy, let her go; I was so happy, dear, before she came, And now I'm going to the grave in shame.

I bore you, Jimmy, in this very room.

For fifteen years I got you all you had, You were my little son, made in my womb, Left all to me, for G.o.d had took your dad, You were a good son, doing all I bade, Until this strumpet came from G.o.d knows where, And now you lie, and I am in despair.

Jimmy, I won't say more. I know you think That I don't know, being just a withered old, With chaps all fallen in and eyes that blink, And hands that tremble so they cannot hold.

A bag of bones to put in churchyard mould, A red-eyed hag beside your evening star.'

And Jimmy gulped, and thought 'By G.o.d, you are.'

'Well, if I am, my dear, I don't pretend.

I got my eyes red, Jimmy, making you.

My dear, before our love time's at an end Think just a minute what it is you do.

If this were right, my dear, you'd tell me true; You don't, and so it's wrong; you lie; and she Lies too, or else you wouldn't lie to me.

Women and men have only got one way And that way's marriage; other ways are l.u.s.t.

If you must marry this one, then you may, If not you'll drop her.'

'No.' 'I say you must.

Or bring my hairs with sorrow to the dust.

Marry your wh.o.r.e, you'll pay, and there an end.

My G.o.d, you shall not have a wh.o.r.e for friend.

By G.o.d, you shall not, not while I'm alive.

Never, so help me G.o.d, shall that thing be.

If she's a woman fit to touch she'll wive, If not she's wh.o.r.e, and she shall deal with me.

And may G.o.d's blessed mercy help us see And may He make my Jimmy count the cost, My little boy who's lost, as I am lost.'

People in love cannot be won by kindness, And opposition makes them feel like martyrs.

When folk are crazy with a drunken blindness, It's best to flog them with each other's garters, And have the flogging done by Shropshire carters, Born under Ercall where the while stones lie; Ercall that smells of honey in July.

Jimmy said nothing in reply, but thought That mother was an old, hard jealous thing.

'I'll love my girl through good and ill report, I shall be true whatever grief it bring.'

And in his heart he heard the death-bell ring For mother's death, and thought what it would be To bury her in churchyard and be free.

He saw the narrow grave under the wall, Home without mother nagging at his dear, And Anna there with him at evenfall, Bidding him dry his eyes and be of cheer.

'The death that took poor mother brings me near, Nearer than we have ever been before, Near as the dead one came, but dearer, more.'

'Good-night, my son,' said mother. 'Night,' he said.

He dabbed her brow wi's lips and blew the light, She lay quite silent crying on the bed, Stirring no limb, but crying through the night.

He slept, convinced that he was Anna's knight.

And when he went to work he left behind Money for mother crying herself blind.

After that night he came to Anna's call, He was a fly in Anna's subtle weavings, Mother had no more share in him at all; All that the mother had was Anna's leavings.

There were more lies, more lockets, more deceivings, Taunts from the proud old woman, lies from him, And Anna's coo of 'Cruel. Leave her, Jim.'

Also the foreman spoke: 'You make me sick, You come-day-go-day-G.o.d-send-plenty-beer.

You put less mizzle on your bit of d.i.c.k, Or get your time, I'll have no slackers here, I've had my eye on you too long, my dear.'

And Jimmy pondered while the man attacked, 'I'd see her all day long if I were sacked.'

And trembling mother thought, 'I'll go to see'r.

She'd give me back my boy if she were told Just what he is to me, my pretty dear: She wouldn't leave me starving in the cold, Like what I am.' But she was weak and old.

She thought, 'But if I ask her, I'm afraid He'd hate me ever after,' so she stayed.

IV

Bessie, the gipsy, got with child by Ern, She joined her tribe again at Shepherd's Meen, In that old quarry overgrown with fern, Where goats are tethered on the patch of green.

There she reflected on the fool she'd been, And plaited kipes and waited for the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, And thought that love was glorious while it lasted.

And Ern the moody man went moody home, To that most gentle girl from Ercall Hill, And bade her take a heed now he had come, Or else, by cripes, he'd put her through the mill.

He didn't want her love, he'd had his fill, Thank you, of her, the bread and b.u.t.ter sack.

And Anna heard that Shepherd Ern was back.

'Back. And I'll have him back to me,' she muttered, 'This lovesick boy of twenty, green as gra.s.s, Has made me wonder if my brains are b.u.t.tered, He, and his lockets, and his love, the a.s.s.

I don't know why he comes. Alas! alas!

G.o.d knows I want no love; but every sun I bolt my doors on some poor loving one.

It breaks my heart to turn them out of doors, I hear them crying to me in the rain; One, with a white face, curses, one implores, "Anna, for G.o.d's sake, let me in again, Anna, belov'd, I cannot bear the pain."

Like hoovey sheep bleating outside a fold "Anna, belov'd, I'm in the wind and cold."

I want no men. I'm weary to the soul Of men like moths about a candle flame, Of men like flies about a sugar bowl, Acting alike, and all wanting the same, My dreamed-of swirl of pa.s.sion never came, No man has given me the love I dreamed, But in the best of each one something gleamed.

If my dear darling were alive, but he...

He was the same; he didn't understand.

The eyes of that dead child are haunting me, I only turned the blanket with my hand.

It didn't hurt, he died as I had planned.

A little skinny creature, weak and red; It looked so peaceful after it was dead.

I have been all alone, in spite of all.

Never a light to help me place my feet: I have had many a pain and many a fall.

Life's a long headache in a noisy street, Love at the budding looks so very sweet, Men put such bright disguises on their l.u.s.t, And then it all goes crumble into dust.

Jimmy the same, dear, lovely Jimmy, too, He goes the self-same way the others went: I shall bring sorrow to those eyes of blue.

He asks the love I'm sure I never meant.

Am I to blame? And all his money spent!

Men make this shutting doors such cruel pain.

O, Ern, I want you in my life again.'

On Sunday afternoons the lovers walk Arm within arm, dressed in their Sunday best, The man with the blue necktie sucks a stalk, The woman answers when she is addressed.

On quiet country stiles they sit to rest, And after fifty years of wear and tear They think how beautiful their courtships were.

Jimmy and Anna met to walk together The Sunday after Shepherd Ern returned; And Anna's hat was lovely with a feather Bought and dyed blue with money Jimmy earned.

They walked towards Callows Farm, and Anna yearned: 'Dear boy,' she said, 'This road is dull to-day, Suppose we turn and walk the other way.'

They turned, she sighed. 'What makes you sigh?' he asked.

'Thinking,' she said, 'thinking and grieving, too.

Perhaps some wicked woman will come masked Into your life, my dear, to ruin you.

And trusting every woman as you do It might mean death to love and be deceived; You'd take it hard, I thought, and so I grieved.'