‘Half a minnit,’ he said, stooping to retrieve it. Having done so, instead of putting it under his arm and walking on, he stood still, holding the gun as though he hoped to see something at which to take a pot-shot. The brandy— which was like nothing he’d ever drunk before—was by this time moving swiftly in Danny’s blood, breeding dreams in his brain. He saw himself, the bachelor, the misogynist, riding about the six parishes, to and from market, on the blood mare that Fred Clopton envied.
‘Come on, Matt,’ he said, impatiently.
‘We ain’t in no hurry.’ Matt’s voice, though still amiable, had suffered a slight change. ‘I s’pose you ain’t minded to marry my gal, Sally?’
‘Good God, no!’
‘Then you’d better be! Don’t move, Danny; this here owd gun is likely to go off and blow you to Glory. ‘Naccident that’d be; but they’d only hev to look at it to see how unaccountable she is on the trigger.’ His voice was laconic but his stare was stony, and Danny knew that he was not joking. Nevertheless he said:
‘Don’t be daft, Matt. And don’t point the old blunderbuss at me, even in joke.’
‘I ain’t joking. Nor I ain’t preaching. We’re all young once. But there’s my gal in the family way and she hold you to blame, so …”
‘But I… I haven’t had anything to do with Sally since last Midsummer Fair.’
‘You think again.’ ‘Bout March, I seem to recollect.’
‘Yes. That’s true. But we only want for a bit of a ride. Nothing happened.’
‘Ah, thass what you think! Fact is we’re most of us better bulls than we reckon—or wanta be at times. We
‘on’t about that. There’s Sally four months gone, you can see by the hang of her apron, and you was out with her in March; and if you ain’t ready to stand up like a man and do the right thing by her, I swear to God you ‘on’t stand up never no more, Danny Fuller.’ ‘I don’t want to marry Sally, nor anybody.’ “Tain’t what you want, ‘s’what I want; and I’m the one with the gun! I warned you—stand still; don’t this touchy trigger might cut your meditations. I’m fair; giving you a chance to think, I am. But think quick. And don’t go off with some half-cocked idea about saying yes now and no tomorrow. That hare ‘on’t run. If you diddle me I shall wait for you and get you for certain. Anyway, I’m sick of this argyfying. Yes or no? I’m gonna count three now; then this gun is gonna go off. One …’
It was all very well to think—This is ludicrous, this can’t be happening to me. It was happening. Matt’s eyes were the eyes of a man with a purpose. The worn, touchy trigger was there, his finger was ready. ‘Two,’ Matt said in a voice of doom. And there was nobody about; here on the edge of the Waste it was as though they two were alone in the world. ‘All right then. If I must, I must.’ ‘Thass the spirit. Now I should be obliged if you’d just stroll along to Parson’s and fix for the banns, starting Sunday. I shall be right behind you, but I’ll be careful. And as soon’s that done we’ll to to the owd Horse and wet the bargain. You could hev done worse, you know, Danny. Sal’s a bit wild, but a clout or two’ll settle her; and she do make as good a dumpling, when she’s in the mind, as ever I set my teeth into.’
When Damask’s August Saturday came round, the banns had been read twice and were due to be read for the third time on the morrow. How soon after the first reading the news had reached Amos’s ears no one could know. He did not report it and Julie learned it by overhearing a chance conversation started by somebody bringing a pair of shoes to be cobbled. Never before had she
ISO
realised the full bitterness and exasperation of having a husband whose mind was set on ‘higher things’. Amos refused to share her feelings, refused to speculate upon the truth or falsity of the rumour, refused to be concerned.
‘Somebody must go and break the news to Damask, gently,’ Julie said.
‘Well, I ain’t got time to go chasing over to Muchanger to carry a bit of gossip. We’re still digging out the foundations and the timber is due to arrive any day now.’
‘Then will you ask Shad if I could hev the donkey-rig?’
‘I shall hev enough favours to ask of Shad time we start carting the timber, Julie. Besides, if you go to Muchanger in the donkey-rig Damask’ll think there’d been a death, to say the least.’
‘It’s as bad as.’
‘Don’t talk so wild, woman. Danny Fuller he backslid, there’s the long and the short of it. He fell into sin and got a girl into trouble and is making the only amends he can. We should be glad he’s going to make an honest woman of the poor girl. Why Damask should mind and you say it’s as bad as a death I fail to see.’
‘But she thought he was going to marry her. You must have seen that I’
‘And I thought he’d turned over a new leaf. And maybe he did. Maybe if it wasn’t for his mended ways he’d hev left the girl in the lurch. Ah, there is that to think of.’
‘It’s Damask he’s left in the lurch.’ Julie said, beginning to cry.
‘Now thass a shocking thing to say, and I’m surprised at you, her own mother. Damask is a good girl; she’d never do with Danny Fuller, nor no other man, anything so he could leave her in the lurch. You know that. Why you should be so upset and seem to reckon she’ll be, I can’t understand.’
‘But she loved him. I’m sure of that, though she never said it in so many words.’
‘Come, come, Mother! How could you know? And even so—well, we all hev our troubles and trials. The Lord knows what is best for us; the Lord knows what is
best for Damask! You just take comfort in that thought! Remember the psalmist, “The Lord is my shepherd”.’
It was quite useless. All she could hope was that Damask would not hear the dreadful news from somebody casual or cruel. Then, as the day for the visit drew near and she realised that if Damask arrived in ignorance she would have the task of telling her, she almost wished that someone might have forestalled her.
The day came and Damask came running in, carrying the parcel of beef pieces and another, larger parcel. It was a hot sultry day and a faint odour of meat already on the turn was perceptible immediately.
‘I must get this on quicker than usual, it’s half cooked already,’ Damask said as soon as she had greeted her mother.
The kitchen table was bare; not one of the ‘three of everything’ was to be seen. She laid the large parcel aside carefully and began to gather together the things she needed for the pudding-making. Then she realised that her mother was looking at her queerly, and that she seemed to have shrivelled and shrunk.
‘Are you all right, Mother?’ she asked, dipping a cup into the flour sack.
‘I’m all right,’ Julie said in a tone which implied that her health was the one lonely thing that was right in the world. She looked at the larger parcel. ‘Thass your stuff? Oh, my dear, my dear!’ She burst into tears.
(Miss Lee, kindly and obliging, had tried to buy a golden-brown lindsey away back in the spring, had put it on order and here it was and Mother crying over it.)
‘Mother, what is the matter?’ Damask stood still, holding the cup of flour and the bowl into which she had meant to pour it. ‘Is it Father? What then? Has anything happened?’
‘Lots has happened,’ sobbed Julie. ‘Ain’t you heard anything? Ain’t you got even a glimmer of suspicion?’ It sounded as though she pleaded with Damask to know, to suspect, to spare her the task of telling.
‘Danny?’
Julie nodded.
‘Ill? Not dead? What is it, then? Tell me. Tell me.’
‘He’s going to marry Sally Ashpole. He got her in the family way, my dear, so he …’ She broke off, shocked by the pallor, ‘the very look of death’, as she said later, which had come into her daughter’s face.
‘It isn’t true,’ the white lips said.
‘My poor dear, it is. Spitty Palfrey brought his shoes, but you know how he mumble, I couldn’t hear all; and you know your Dad—what ain’t said about chapel might as well not be said for all he know. So I went across to the Ashpoles’ and asked straight out. And there the hussy was, four months gone if a day and as proud as Punch and Mrs Ashpole the same, telling me the banns had been asked….’