Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “Well, I should have thought you had better be married and have a home of your own than go out as dairy-maid, Grizzel.”

  “That depends upon who the husband is, sir,” she said, laughing slightly. “I’d rather be a dairy-maid to the end o’ my days — I’d rather be a prisoner in a cage like this poor bird — than have anything to say to that there nephew of aunt’s. He had red hair, and I can’t abide it.”

  Grizzel proved to be a good servant, and became a great favourite in the house, except with Molly. Molly, never taking to her kindly, was for quarrelling ten times a day, but the girl only laughed back again. She was superior to the general run of dairy-maids, both in looks and manners: and her good-humoured face brought sweethearts up in plenty.

  Two of them were serious. The one was George Roper, bailiff’s man on a neighbouring farm; the other was Sandy Lett, a wheelwright in business for himself at Church Dykely. Of course matters ran in this case, as they generally do run in such cases, all cross and contrary: or, as the French say, à tort et à travers. George Roper, a good-looking young fellow with curly hair and a handsome pair of black whiskers, had not a coin beyond the weekly wages he worked for: he had not so much as a chair to sit in, or a turn-up bedstead to lie on; yet Grizzel loved him with her whole heart. Sandy Lett, who was not bad-looking either, and had a good home and a good business, she did not care for. Of course the difficulty lay in deciding which of the two to choose: ambition and her friends recommended Sandy Lett; imprudence and her own heart, George Roper. Like the donkey between the two bundles of hay, Grizzel was unable to decide on either, and kept both the swains on the tenter-hooks of suspense.

  Sunday afternoons were the great trouble of Grizzel’s life. Roper had holiday then, and came: and Lett, whose time was his own, though of course he could not afford to waste it on a week-day, also came. One would stand at the stile in one field, the other at a stile in another field: and Grizzel, arrayed in one of the light print gowns she favoured, the many-coloured shawl, and the dangerous blue-ribboned bonnet, did not dare to go out to either, lest the other should pounce upon his rival, and a fight ensue. It was getting quite exciting in the household to watch the progress of events. Spring passed, the summer came round; and between the two, Grizzel had her hands full. The other servants could not imagine what the men saw in her.

  “It is those blue ribbons she’s so fond of!” said Mrs. Todhetley to us two, with a sigh. “I doubted them from the first.”

  “I should say it is the blue eyes,” dissented Tod.

  “And I the white teeth and laughing face. Nobody can help liking her.”

  “You shut up, Johnny. If I were Roper — —”

  “Shut up yourself, Joseph: both of you shut up: you know nothing about it,” interrupted the Squire, who had seemed to be asleep in his chair. “It comes of woman’s coquetry and man’s folly. As to these two fellows, if Grizzel can’t make up her mind, I’ll warn them both to keep off my grounds at their peril.”

  One evening during the Midsummer holidays, in turning out of the oak-walk to cross the fold-yard, I came upon Grizzel leaning on the gate. She had a bunch of sweet peas in her hand, and tears in her eyes. George Roper, who must have been talking to her, passed me quickly, touching his hat.

  “Good evening, sir.”

  “Good evening, Roper.”

  He walked away with his firm, quick stride: a well-made, handsome, trustworthy fellow. His brown velveteen coat (an old one of his master’s) was shabby, but he looked well in it; and his gaitered legs were straight and strong. That he had been the donor of the sweet peas, a rustic lover’s favourite offering, was evident. Grizzel attempted to hide them in her gown when she saw me, but was not quick enough, so she was fain to hold them openly in her hand, and make believe to be busy with her milk-pail.

  “It’s a drop of skim milk I’ve got over; I was going to take it to the pigs,” said she.

  “What are you crying about?”

  “Me crying!” returned Grizzel. “It’s the sun a shinin’ in my eyes, sir.”

  Was it! “Look here, Grizzel, why don’t you put an end to this state of bother? You won’t be able to milk the cows next.”

  “‘Tain’t any in’ard bother o’ that sort as ‘ll keep me from doing my proper work,” returned she, with a flick to the handle of the pail.

  “At any rate, you can’t marry two men: you would be taken up by old Jones the constable, you know, and tried for bigamy. And I’m sure you must keep them in ferment. George Roper’s gone off with a queer look on his face. Take him, or dismiss him.”

  “I’d take him to-morrow, but for one thing,” avowed the girl in a half whisper.

  “His short wages, I suppose — sixteen shillings a week.”

  “Sixteen shillings a week short wages!” echoed Grizzel. “I call ’em good wages, sir. I’d never be afraid of getting along on them with a steady man — and Roper’s that. It ain’t the wages, Master Johnny. It is, that I promised mother never to begin life upon less than a cottage and some things in it.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Poor mother was a-dying, sir. Her illness lasted her many a week, and she might be said to be a-dying all the time. I was eighteen then. ‘Grizzy,’ says she to me one night, ‘you be a likely girl and ‘ll get chose afore you be many summers older. But you must promise me that you’ll not, on no temptation whatsoever, say yes to a man till he has a home of his own to take you to, and beds and tables and things comfortable about him. Once begin without ‘em, and you and him ‘ll spend all your after life looking out for ‘em; but they’ll not come any the more for that. And you’ll be at sixes-and-sevens always: and him, why perhaps he’ll take to the beer-shop — for many a man does, through having, so to say, no home. I’ve seen the ill of it in my days,’ she says, ‘and if I thought you’d tumble into it I’d hardly rest quiet in the grave where you be so soon a-going to place me.’ ‘Be at ease, mother,’ says I to her in answer, ‘and take my promise, which I’ll never break, not to set-up for marriage without a home o’ my own and proper things in it.’ That promise I can’t break, Master Johnny; and there has laid the root of the trouble all along.”

  I saw then. Roper had nothing but a lodging, not a stick or stone that he could call his own. And the foolish man, instead of saving up out of his wages, spent the remnant in buying pretty things for Grizzel. It was a hopeless case.

  “You should never have had anything to say to Roper, knowing this, Grizzel.”

  Grizzel twirled the sweet peas round and round in her fingers, and looked foolish, answering nothing.

  “Lett has a good home to give you and means to keep it going. He must make a couple of pounds a week. Perhaps more.”

  “But then I don’t care for him, Master Johnny.”

  “Give him up then. Send him about his business.”

  She might have been counting the blossoms on the sweet-pea stalks. Presently she spoke, without looking up.

  “You see, Master Johnny, one does not like to — to lose all one’s chances, and grow into an old maid. And, if I can’t have Roper, perhaps — in time — I might bring myself to take Lett. It’s a better opportunity than a poor dairy-maid like me could ever ha’ looked for.”

  The cat was out of the bag. Grizzel was keeping Lett on for a remote contingency. When she could make up her mind to say No to Roper, she meant to say Yes to him.

  “It is awful treachery to Roper; keeping him on only to drop him at last,” ran my thoughts. “Were I he, I should give her a good shaking, and leave — —”

  A sudden movement on Grizzel’s part startled me. Catching up her pail, she darted across the yard by the pond as fast as her pattens would go, poured the milk into the pig-trough with a dash, and disappeared indoors. Looking round for any possible cause for this, I caught sight of a man in light fustian clothes hovering about in the field by the hay-ricks. It was Sandy Lett; he had walked over on the chance of getting to see her. But she did not come out again.

&
nbsp; The next move in the drama was made by Lett. The following Monday he presented himself before the Squire — dressed in his Sunday-going things, and a new hat on — to ask him to be so good as to settle the matter, for it was “getting a’most beyond him.”

  “Why, how can I settle it?” demanded the Squire. “What have I to do with it?”

  “It’s a tormenting of me pretty nigh into fiddle-strings,” pleaded Lett. “What with her caprices — for sometimes her speaks to me as pleasant as a angel, while at others her won’t speak nohow; and what with that dratted folk over yonder a-teasing of me” — jerking his head in the direction of Church Dykely— “I don’t get no peace of my life. It be a shame, Squire, for any woman to treat a man as she’s a-treating me.”

  “I can’t make her have you if she won’t have you,” exploded the Squire, not liking the appeal. “It is said, you know, that she would rather have Roper.”

  Sandy Lett, who had a great idea of his own merits, turned his nose up in the air. “Beg pardon, Squire,” he said, “but that won’t wash, that won’t. Grizzel couldn’t have nothing serious to say to that there Roper; nought but a day-labourer on a farm; she couldn’t: and if he don’t keep his distance from her, I’ll wring his ugly head round for him. Look at me beside him! — my good home wi’ its m’hogany furniture in’t. I can keep her a’most like a lady. She may have in a wench once a week for the washing and scrubbing, if she likes: I’d not deny her nothing in reason. And for that there Roper to think to put hisself atween us! No; ‘twon’t do: the moon’s not made o’ green cheese. Grizzel’s a bit light-hearted, sir; fond o’ chatter; and Roper he’ve played upon that. But if you’d speak a word for me, Squire, so as I may have the banns put up — —”

  “What the deuce, Lett, do you suppose I have to do with my women-servants and their banns?” testily interrupted the Squire. “I can’t interfere to make her marry you. But I’ll tell you thus much, and her too: if there is to be this perpetual uproar about Grizzel, she shall quit my house before the twelvemonth she engaged herself for is up. And that’s a disgrace for any young woman.”

  So Sandy Lett got nothing by coming, poor unfortunate man. And yet — in a sense he did. The Squire ordered the girl before him, and told her in a sharp, decisive tone that she must either put an end to the state of things — or leave his service. And Grizzel, finding that the limit of toleration had come, but unable in her conflicting difficulties to decide which of the swains to retain and which discard, dismissed the two. After that, she was plunged over head and ears in distress, and for a week could hardly see to skim off the cream for her tears.

  “This comes of hiring dairy wenches at a statty fair!” cried wrathful Molly.

  The summer went on. August was waning. One morning when Mr. Duffham had called in and was helping Mrs. Todhetley to give Lena a spoonful of jam (with a powder in it), at which Lena kicked and screamed, Grizzel ran into the room in excitement so great, that they thought she was going into a fit.

  “Why, what is it?” questioned Mrs. Todhetley, with a temporary truce to the jam hostilities. “Has either of the cows kicked you down, Grizzel?”

  “I’m — I’m come into a fortin!” shrieked Grizzel hysterically, laughing and crying in the same breath.

  Mr. Duffham put her into a chair, angrily ordering her to be calm — for anger is the best remedy in the world to apply to hysterics — and took a letter from her that she held out. It told her that her Uncle Clay was dead, and had left her a bequest of forty pounds. The forty pounds to be paid to her in gold whenever she should go and apply for it. This letter had come by the morning post: but Grizzel, busy in her dairy, had only just now opened it.

  “For the poor old uncle to have died in June, and them never to ha’ let me hear on’t!” she said, sobbing. “Just like ‘em! And me never to have put on a bit o’ mourning for him!”

  She rose from the chair, drying her eyes with her apron, and held out her hand for the letter. As Mrs. Todhetley began to say she was very glad to hear of her good luck, a shy look and a half-smile came into the girl’s face.

  “I can get the home now, ma’am, with all this fortin,” she whispered.

  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 butter, 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 assuring 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 cock 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 Saturday, the day before that fixed for the wedding, I and Tod were passing 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!”