Renie

Front matter

RENIE RENIE BY JAMES PRIOR LONDON HUTCHINSON & CO. 34 PATERNOSTER ROW PRINTED AT NIMEGUEN (HOLLAND) BY H. C. A. THIEME OF NIMEGUEN (HOLLAND, A N D TALBOT HOUSE, ARUNHEL STREET, LONDON, W.C. CONTENTS CHAPTER PACK I. MAY DAY AND HEY DAY I II. QUEEN FOR A DAY 8 IU. UNQUEENED 2 2 IV. HALF-EXPLANATIONS 3 I V. ENDS AND BEGINNINGS 39 VI. NOR KITH NOR KIN 54 VII. LEAVE-TAKINGS 68 VIII. THE SCAPEGOAT 8 1 IX. IN THE VESTRY 9 1 X. RE BOUGHTFLOWER, OTHERWISE — ? IOO XI. RE JENNAWAY AND JENKINSON 109 XII. THE ENVELOPE ' 121 XIII. THE POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF 133 XIV. FATHER AND DAUGHTER I47 XV. HALF CONFIDENCES 158 XVI. ABOUT A MARE 171 "STEADY, JEZEBEL !" 1 83 XVII. XVIII. WITHOUT PREJUDICE 1 VI CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XIX. IN THE PLAYGROUND 209 XX. LEAST SAID SOONEST MENDED 22 1 XXI. WHY5 231 XXII. EIGHT MONTHS PASS 244 XXIII.

THE DEAD MAN'S HAND 252 XXIV. THE CERTIFICATE OF BIRTH 260 XXV. ON THE BRIDGE 2/7 XXVI. THE ATTRACTIONS OF NORWICH 29O XXVII. BROKEN CLUES 301 XXVIII. THE SERMON 310 XXIX. AT LAST 322 XXX. THE END RENIE

Chapter I. May Day And Hey Day

It is the first of May, and nigh on half-past seven by the little bustling time-piece on the high mantel-shelf, but that is habitually half an hour fast by the sun ; which luminary blazes with horizontal ray through the casement and traces a bright pattern of it, flecked with moving shadows of rose-leaves, among the pol ished utensils on the opposite wall. The outer door is open and lets in a broad band of light which also strikes the wall, wrapping up the copper warming-pan that hangs there in a brilliance that hides its form. The rest of the room lies in what by comparison is gloom. It is the humble living-place of a tiny four roomed cottage, unevenly paved with stone, and without any decoration but the exact clean liness and common use of every article. If we wait we shall presently see a woman enter, carrying kindling wood in her apron ; an old splay-footed, stooping woman, dressed in rusty black, all but the white apron and a small RENIE, red shawl about her shoulders.

She slowly crosses the room with much grunting — she could not have told herself whether it was altogether for rheumatism or partly from habit — and places her burden of chips on the hob to dry. When she has done that she turns stiffly away with a final and complete grunt. She starts. At the foot of the stairs, just where the band of light from the door beats on the wall, stands a figure clad from head to foot in dazzling white. "Child!" says the woman querulously, "how you did make me jump to be sure ! Whatever were you thinking about to come down so quiet? And you know very well how weak my nerves is." That apparition then, though so sudden and so incongruous, is so indubitably flesh and blood that it may be scolded for the shortcomings of another person's nerves. The answer comes from the foot of the stairs.

"Why, mother, you were so in the dark I didn't see you at first. Besides, I couldn't make much noise in these slippers if I tried to. I put them on on purpose to show you." There is no mystery at all about it now. It is a slim, lithe girl, tall, but not so old yet but that the folds of her wavy muslin dress may rightly fall a few inches short of her ankles. We notice that and the white silk stockings the more as she lifts her foot to exhibit her white satin slipper. When we look higher the whiteness MAY DAY AND HEY DAY. 3 of her dress makes her hair appear black, though it is only the duskiest of browns ; it is gathered in a white ribbon and falls in rippling clouds behind her, confused with the dark background of the painted wall. The woman still remains by the shadowy hearth, but a reflection of broken light from glistening utensils catches her whitening hair and pallid, wrinkled face, which is slightly drawn on one side, the mark of an old paralytic seizure.

She stands with one hand to her ailing back and the other to her ailing side, bent into an altogether ungraceful splay-footed posture. " Will this do for a queen, mother ? " The girl stepped three steps into the bright middle of the room with more than mock dignity, her right arm bent as if it held the sceptre ; the sunlight went through and through her hair, making what had seemed black to seem almost golden. She took a breath and broke into loud song: " I am the Queen — (Sotto voce) For to-day; With a brow serene and a gracious mien — {Sotto voce) By the way. I may do well — (Sotto voce) To-morrow ends it ; I may do ill — (Sotto voce) To-morrow mends it I am the Queen — (Sotto voce) For the spell." She put on the imperious look easily, her breast heaved with the song, her naked arms i RENIE. 4 were fair.

The mother looked on with queru lous admiration. "It's a pretty tune, I daresay," said she, " but I don't know it. And the words are very pretty too. Ugh ! my back ! What is a blou serine? Some new style, I suppose? There's so many names to what there was when I was young. " " A blouserine, mother? " "Something that's gray and green." The girl appeared to be running over the words in her mind, then answered doubtfully : "With brow serene and gracious mien?" " Ah, I thought it was something of that. It's very nice, Renie ; but when I was young, young people didn't use to sing so loud as that." "But I'm the queen, mother — for to-night." Was there the slight shadow of regret at the addition? "The queen always speaks and sings the loudest. Shall I do?" "Yes, it's very pretty. But we must put away vanities, you know."

"Oh! when I'm old." "Ah, p'raps you may be called upon whilst you're young, child. There's never any knowing ; it's best to be prepared." "Don't, mother!" But it seemed the mother had done her admonitory duty, and was free to let her eyes rest on her daughter in unrestrained admiration. MAY DAY AND HEY DAY. 5 " I just wish — somebody — could see you now, child." "Who?" "Your— father." The words came forth with some difficulty. The girl turned her back, as the young will on the most distant view of the grave. " How does the bodice fit behind ? " " Beautiful. But you're getting too old, child, to wear your hair down your back." The old woman had come forward. She laid her hand gently on the girl's shoulder where the tresses fell thickest, and murmured: " I wonder whether — he — would like a lock of it."

The direction of her voice was inward, and the daughter easily refrained from hearing. Presently the woman withdrew her hand with one of her frequent ejaculations of pain. "What's the matter, mother?" asked the girl in the tone of wont. It's my side. Oh dear!" Sit down, mother," said the girl, with the compassion of wont, and placed a chair. "You'll soon be better." " Nay, child," answered the woman, sitting down with one grunt for her back and another for her side, " I shall never be any better this side the Better Land." " Oh, don't, mother ! I'm sure you look a deal better than you did last week. Now don't RENIE sit up for me ; there's not the least need. Leave the candle and matches on the table and the key on the nail; then I shall do very well." There was something very like a tone of command in what she said.

Probably she had got into the habit of so addressing her mother when she was quite a little child, and had never been chidden out of it; for her mother did not appear to see anything unusual in it. It is also to be noted that there was a difference between the woman's drawling country bred speech and the production of the girl's clear, well-modulated voice, which the neighbours insufficiently explained by her having been educated at Miss Adams' Seminary at so much a term, instead of the Board School at so little a week. While the daughter was speaking, she had substituted walking shoes for the satin slippers. She then threw on a black cloak, which con cealed all her dress except the snowy hem and three inches of snowy stocking, drew the hood of it over her head, bade her mother good-bye with a light, emotionless kiss, and the next moment there was the sound of her quick foot on the gravel.

The mother looked through the casement from where she stood, and followed the flicker of the white stockings down the steep path; for the cottage was built upon a hill-side. A few strides and the stockings were hidden by the ground, then at every stride MAY DAY AND HEY DAY. 7 more and more of the body, until there was nothing visible but the nodding black hood, and suddenly that too went under as the wearer of it skipped down the final step. Mrs Bought flower's communings were usually anything but cheerful, even when they turned, as they often did, upon death. The thought came to her that it was as if the girl had walked down into her grave habited in funereal colours. She turned from the window with a shiver, which was partly on her own account, for the sun had gone down, and the evening though bright was chilly.

Chapter II. Queen For

A DAY. The Bawton Band of Hope was holding its May Festival in the Primitive Methodist Schoolroom. The children who sang chorus had already taken their places on the ranked benches, tier above tier, of the platform. The girls had white frocks on for the most part, anyhow the best they could muster, with nosegays pinned to their breasts, and bore themselves with becoming seriousness. A furtive hand went up every now and then to make sure the curls were all right, and if a little one stirred hand or foot she was sharply chidden in a whisper for apprehended damage to some body's finery. The boys, as being much fewer in number and less ornamental in appearance, were stowed away in the obscurest corner. They had clean collars on, and seemed painfully conscious of it. Also they had washed faces and dingy hands, and their behaviour was a mixture of bashfulness and recklessness.

They laughed and blushed and chewed suck, and pulled the girls' hair in front of them, until they were sternly reproved by some official, when they subsided into blameless innocence for a minute. The front of the platform was masked with flowers and plants in pots ; and festoons were hung from wall to wall. The scent of hawthorn and narcissus was everywhere, and gilliver, that never comes amiss ; and there was the dark blue-bell from the woods, and the stately crown imperial from the gardens, and masses of a little white star-like flower which we call new mown hay but others woodruff, and bunches of tulips, each like a tongue of flame. The place was none too well lighted, for the daylight was declining fast and the supply of gas brackets was niggardly ; nevertheless the broad smiles on the faces of many were not to be hidden.

Those were the parents of the children ; and in the case of the unthinking male sex, the smile might on the whole be taken to be what it seemed, the token of an I-don't care-if-you-know-it pride in his kids ; but for the mothers it was not only that, but the cover for many a heart-gnawing care ; a doubt whether she had got the little ones' frocks up stiff enough to last the night — Eliza Ann was such a fidget, bless her; an itching to slap Emma's back for fingering her already lapsing curls ; a jealousy that Silvy Jones was better placed than her own more deserving Betsy; an unfaceable RENIE suspicion that her own Betsy was not really so much better looking than the said brazen-faced Silvy, as if right ruled she would be; a well nigh irresistible longing to shout out, " Do sit nice, Phoebe, and behave yourself, and don't, for goodness, pull them there sower faces ; " a bitter consciousness that her Sarah's poor, hardly contrived finery was cruelly eclipsed by the splendour of the tradesman's daughter who sat beside her; all that and more, besides the backache come of getting up at three in the morning and skurrying through the day's mul tifarious work, in order to start the children off betimes and be present herself.

But one of them, who had ceased smiling some little while, suddenly jumped up from her seat and with threatening gesticulation exclaimed, " If yer don't leave my gell be, George Sharp, as thinks yerself so fause, I'll come and larn yer. " There was a many-breathed hum of satisfaction, as though many an outraged mother had taken the cork out of her mouth. George Sharp was a serious boy with responsible views of life for at least five minutes. The audience continued to arrive, bustling, and were welcomed and inducted into their places by the friendly persons appointed to that duty, and notably by one who almost effaced the others, a hearty voiced, boisterously jovial fellow, short but thick, in a decent black coat. When he was not laughing he had a wide-mouthed smile, which discovered not only his large strong irregular teeth but most of the upper gums.

That was Spooge the wheelwright, commonly called Sponge, his birthname being only remembered during his periodical conversions to chapel-going and cold water. He had just undergone such a process, and appeared to consider it as great a lark as his drinking bouts. "Come in, friends," he shouted, " come and welcome. The charge is only sixpence and a penny for the programme. But you can get salvation, like me, for nothing, and no extries. Ah, that's it! Hallelujah!" He burst into hearty, tuneless song. "Intoxicants are expensive, but water is free — " Glory to God ! — Except at Nottingham, where there's a rate; but He don't collect that. "It's the beverage of the Bible and the tipple for me; "For water is free — "With exceptions, as I intimated " Yes, water is free, free, free ! " And so's Blood !

Ah, that's it ! Hallelujah ! Free! And no extry charge for taking your umbrella from you and loasing it! Glory to God!" He seized hold of a quiet, shabby, red-faced man. "You'll sign to-night, brother? Won't you? You don't know you'll ever be favioured with another opportunity. Come, think o' the missis. " RENIE, 12 "No, ah wain't," said the quiet man, firmly; "not till ah'm at 'um an' fo'ced." "She is a — a hear-waker and no mistake. Well, sink the missis, fix your heye on glory, brother, and sign to-night, sign to-night. Don't hark to the Devil's pleas. He'll tell you to put it off till to-morrer, till next week, till there's no wesh-days. But he's kidding you, brother; there allus was wesh-days and allus will be till the new Jeroozalum, when we shall do wi'out weshing. Hallelujah! Won't you sign?

Look at my coat. And look at yourn." " Ah'm waiting for to buy yourn hafe-price, Sponge," said the quiet man; "it'll fit me grand." And he took his seat. Spooge's black coat was as well-known as himself at Bawton ; his appearance in one was the first public sign of a repentant fit being upon him, and his disposal of it for what it would fetch marked the culmination of his next booze. You must not suppose he was at all put out by the quiet man's repartee. He stood erect, and took in the audience. "Nay, friends," he said, jollity, "no more of that; no more backslidings. I'm fixed this time, safe enough. One's got a holt of me this time, as'll never let go, never ! " Quite true, brother Spooge; the only doubt is whether he holds you by that sleek black coat of yours. But the room had filled; Miss Burton's pianoforte overture had come to an end because it could not go on for ever; whereupon every body ceased talking against everybody else, settled himself heavily back in his seat, and directed his eyes, as well as he could between the intervening bonnets, towards a door at the upper end of the hall, whence the appearance of the principals was apparently expected.

Has ever any short-statured man at play or concert striven to obtain some glimpse of what is proceeding, by racking his joints to their utmost distention and with an almost acrobatic distortion of neck, but every time he congratu lates himself upon having at last contrived a narrow prospect of some part of the stage where nothing is going on, he inevitably, before he has time to settle into unanxious enjoyment of it, finds it cut off by the causeless incli nation that way of some vast woman's propor tionate head-gear? That was what happened that night to Simeon Pacey, the eager little thatcher, repeatedly, until he could bear it no longer, and called out: "Ho'd yer thack still, Mrs. Tomkins; please. There een't no sense in the worst built hay stack as ever was see-sawing that how." Mrs. Tomkins slowly turned round at him, but he underwent her eye.

He was a plucky little man, was Pacey; and she was five rows off. After that there was a hush, only broken by the cry of " Programmes, one penny each ! " RENIE. The programme-boys, being amateurs and enthu siastic, appeared to consider their performance an equal rival, or better, to the concert that should follow. But at last even they were silenced, or seemed to be; you can never depend on a programme-boy. One boy, I'm afraid — I don't know — there was a sound like smothering; but everybody of course stood up to see, and so nobody of course saw any thing. I hope they didn't carry it quite so far as Richard the Third did without the excuse. Then after a short prelude on the piano, which like most preludes simply advised you to expect nothing and wait to see if you got it, the ranked girls on the platform took up the chorus, supported by a few obscure unlocalisable basses and two elderly over-prominent knife voiced contraltos.

We could see Alfred Greaves lift his eyebrows and turn over his music when the others did, and that was all the tenor we had ; and quite enough too, for us. For Greaves is popular at Bawton ; even folks who object to music don't at all mind his singing. THE CHORUS. Since the hay was all got, And the apples away, And the hay-rick thacked, And the hens did not lay, And the cow came up With more night than day, And the swallow must go Though the robin stay, We have only been waiting for May, for May, We have only been waiting for May. Since cotton and linen In lavender lay, And the children's tempers The woollen did fray ; Since the dog and the gun Were out all day, And cricket made room For football play, We have only been waiting for May, for May, We have only been waiting for May, 1st Semichorus : (giojosamente): And now May is in. 2nd (forte e con risoluzione) : Nay, nay ! 1st (incertamenie) : Yea, Yea!

(The incertamenie was very well done ; and we who could read knew which went co?i risoluzione, because it was prudently marked in the book of words, and for greater surety in English ; though I have put it into Italian, for fear it should be thought I couldn't.) 2nd (piii forte e con maggiore risoluzione) : No, No!! 1st (interrogandd): How so? 2nd (fortissimo e con massima risoluzione) : May doth not begin, Till we see our Queen. Tutti: Till we see our Queen, May doth not begin! In the excitement of this fortissimo, Bagnall, the ancient basso, forgot he was only good for C, and cracked his voice with a sound like a pistol-shot, attempting E flat. Whereupon Mrs. Walker fainted right off under the belief that her husband had followed her thither to commit RENIE, suicide in her presence. She had had a little difference with him at parting, as to whether six or only five of the children should be left at home under his charge, and she had been brooding over it ever since, as much as the music would let her.

She accounted him a desperate character because once, twelve years before, he had darkly threatened to " do something, " if the then baby didn't cut his teeth quicker. When she had come to, and had been per suaded to have done asking to see the corpse, and the confusion was allayed, the concert pro ceeded. There was a faint rumbling something on the piano, which to really good-natured people might have seemed almost anything. Then the little ones sang in chorus, and were responded to by the elder girls with brief elderly austerity. Little ones : Is the Queen coming ? Elders: Sh, Sh ! and be still. Little ones: I can hear the drumming. Elders: If you listen you will. Then the rumble on the instrument grew louder and louder, and everybody on being told had already recognised it as being wonderfully real-like of what they were told ; except old farmer Bell who was quite deaf and impervious to outside opinion, and besides never assented to anything but reductions of rent — and not heartily to them.

Then the little ones sang again, their curt seniors answering. Little ones: Isn't it the Queen? Isn't that the drum, The great big drum ? Elders: Children shouldn't be heard, but seen. Then Miss Burton jumped at the bottom keys of the instrument and banged them all she could. It was a masterpiece of execution and the piano never seemed quite itself again all the evening. Mr. Hughes the druggist, who was highly critical and looking the other way, as critical people generally are, would never believe but she had sat on it. Mr. Hughes was never quite just even where he praised. However, at the sound of it the full chorus burst forth, as though they had only been playing with us till then. The drums, drums ! The Queen comes ! She is here, I can see her! Hurrah, hurrah ! The Queen The boys came out powerfully on that " hurrah," though tremendously flat ; all the rest simply made faces.

I have respected boys in my timid way ever since. But hush! Two and two a band of maidens, a dozen of them, habited in as many colours and bedizened with flowers, entered as gracefully as the steep steps to the platform would allow, singing a country courtier-like song to the tune of the Bridesmaids' chorus in Der Freischiitz, or very nearly. After them one alone bearing a coronal of flowers; RENIE. then the Queen, followed by more obsequious attendants singing. They traversed the stage, still singing, until they formed a semicircle with the Queen and the crown-bearer in the middle. Then a silence, if only those boys at the back would have kept their tongues and boots still ; the girls at each extremity of the half-circle advanced to the Queen and ceremoniously con ducted her to the throne, a raised seat in the highest place, canopied with ivy leaves and other dim undistinguishable foliage.

The bearer of the crown placed it respectfully upon her head, and with obeisance all then withdrew to their places. Have you ever caught sight of the first white campion of summer in the bottom of the dull and dusty hedge? And have you stopped a moment to make sure of it, it looked so daz zlingly pure and fresh in the midst of the rank, sun-scorched growths that all but hid it? They all knew beforehand that the girl on that leafy seat was Irene Boughtflower; but Dr. Fletcher took off his spectacles and rubbed them, just as he did when there was a momentary hesi tation between measles and scarlatina. Miss Sanders, the National Schoolmistress, who had a taste for epigram, said to Mrs. Baker, who had one ear pushed out to receive it, " Fine feathers make fine birds." "They must have done something to her," said Mrs. Newton, who habitually explained difficulties by impossibilities.

" They ought to be ashamed to turn the poor child's head so," said Mrs. Summers back to her; Mrs. Summers' principal weapon was Pity- After those ladies in the shilling seats I feel a cultivated hesitation at condescending to the sixpenny places. Well, there was Polly Letts on the seat nearest the door, so that she might slip out conveniently to "The Vaults" opposite in case the singing made her thirsty, as she more than half feared it would. " Bless her ! " she said ; " she looks as good as summat to drink. " And at the next thought the tears came into her eyes, and she vowed upon peril of her liver that if it would trans form her rickety Mary Ann into such a picture of youth and beauty, she would never taste another drop after the next twopennorth. But Dr. Fletcher had wiped his spectacles, and carefully fitted them upon his nose as though he expected to , see something quite different.

No ; it was Irene Boughtflower, and she sat amid that rustic encirclement like a true queen, if native grace and self-possession be the gift of queens. But it was after an acclamatory chorus (rather marred by a difference of opinion between George Sharp and another boy about the fun of a hard pellet in the ear-hole), it was after that when she herself condescended — it was even so — to stand up and sing that the surprise was at its highest. RENIE, I am the Queen (For to-day) With a brow serene and a gracious mien (By the way). I may do well, (An hour ends it). I may do ill, (To-morrow mends it) I am the Queen, (For the spell). I am the Queen, (For to-day) Defend my reign, my person screen, (Or nay). My statute allow, (Or disdain) Worship my brow, (Or refrain). I am the Queen, (For as now)."

The alternate sotto voce lines were but just audible, sung as it were by a real sovereign, reminding herself that she too was mortal, but what was addressed to the audience was rendered in a bold resonant forte without a trace of first night nervousness. There was but little applause when she sat down again, the surprise was so great, nor did she seem to ask for any. "So dreadfully theatrical," gasped Miss Prim, who had never been in a theatre in her life. The rest of the programme was gone through according to printed promise, but nobody seemed to pay much heed to it. If it hadn't been for the dear boys, nothing would have been encored, instead of everything. While Mrs. Burrow's Bella, aged six, chanted "Buttercups and Daisies," very staccato, Mrs. Burrow was decorously attentive, and by dint of pinching Lottie's arm, who sat next her, for coughing, managed to restrain herself from calling out, "Sing up, Bella!"

But as soon as the boys had encored Bella as often as the grown ups would stand it, and she had been lifted back into her seat, Mrs. Burrow felt at liberty to con tinue where she had left off, being surprised in Mrs. Drew's ear that Renie Boughtflower's mother should allow it. "Well," said Mrs. Drew, with protruded lip, " she says she's her mother, but none of us ever saw Mr. Boughtflower. She says he's dead ; but she do?i't say who's paid for that frock and them silk gloves and stockings. A child like her! And look at her shoes — three half-crowns wouldn't pay for 'em." "Well, I 'ope her 'ead won't be turned," said Mrs. Burrow. " Turned?" answered Mrs. Drew. " It's turned a'ready. She's looking down on you and me as if we was dirt under her feet." " As if nubbudy could sing but her ! I really did think they'd never a done ancoring Bella." "If Bella hasn't a nyst voice, she's a nyst way with her, and that's a deal more consequence, Mrs. Burrow."

Chapter III. Unqueened

The concert was over. A table was set for receiving signatures to the book of pledges. Spooge led Simon Walker up by main force and made him sign as an example to the others. Simon was sodden-drunk, but had wit enough to know Spooge was the stronger. " Glory to God ! " shouted Spooge, " and the devil sold again! Who's the next? If there's grace for me and Sim Walker there's grace for anybody. Never mind the blot, Sim, it's a big full stop to damnation. Hallelujah ! " Bateman signed next, for the same reason that he signed every parliamentary petition that went out of the place — because he could sign. Rog ers had been a water-drinker for five-and-twenty years and signed to see if it would make any difference. Philips, a well-meaning man, who would rather have been sober than drunken, put his cross in the hope it would make self-denial easier than indulgence.