The Burden of a Woman

Chapter I

In the village of Maen Gorsedd, in a Welsh border county, there lived, some years ago, a woman of lowly station, who was known as Mrs. Redwing. She supported herself and her little daughter by dressmaking, millinery, ironing, and the like, and supplemented her income on market-days by tending the children of such of her neighbours as business took to the neighbouring town. The number of her charges on those days fluc tuated with circumstances, but rarely was there a Monday which did not see a child or two en trusted to her care. The institution of the weekly creche came of seeing Mrs. Owen, of Maen Gorsedd Lane, trudging off to Borderhampton with her fat baby on one arm, and her heavy basket of butter and eggs on the other. " Takin' her in to market ? " Mrs. Redwing said, p. from her gate, in her English voice, that was beginning to acquire a Welsh intonation.

"I am indeed," said Mrs. Owen. "I did mean to leave her with Lucy, but Lucy was to go to help in the fields this mornin' ; an', indeed, I was afraid of the sun, an' thought I am rather carry her all the way myself, than not be sure she was bein' looked after." Will you leave her with me ? " 0 — oh ! " said Mrs. Owen. :t Why not ? " Indeed I don't like to trouble you." "I shall be in the house all day," said Mrs. Redwing: " Well, indeed, I don't know." The child was very heavy. It was four miles to Borderhampton, and the sun was hot. She availed herself of Mrs. Redwing's offer. In the evening, when Mrs. Owen returned for the baby, Mrs. Redwing would accept nothing for her pains. " It was no trouble," she said, pleasantly. " I was in all day sewin', and it was just as easy for me to have her here as not.

You bring her to me just as often as you like, Mrs. Owen, and I'll mind her for you and welcome." Mrs. Owen demurred. In the course of the week she returned. She had an idea. What would Mrs. Redwing think of minding one or two ? Mrs. Roberts and Mrs. Evans and she had been comparing notes. They were often at a loss to know what to do with the little ones on market-days. "An', indeed," said Mrs. Owen, in conclusion, " if you could see your way to it — an' it must be on a right, square footin' — we'd all be very thankful." The thing was established. " I do feel as safe again," Mrs. Roberts said, one August morning, "now I leave baby with you, Mrs. Redwing. I can take my chickens in to Borderhampton, an' never fret fear Jenny was let him get near the fire. You'll careful not to let him suck the paint off his soldier, won't you ?

" Mrs. Redwing promised. A young woman passed jauntily up the village street. "That Hughes girl gets bolder-looking every day, I believe," said Mrs. Roberts, gazing after her. " She a right bad one, I think." Mrs. Redwing was silent. " Well, I must be gettin' on. Here's Mrs. Effance, bringin' Johnny. Mornin', Mrs. Effance." "Mornin', Mrs. Roberts. Mornin', Mrs. Red wing. Will you please to mind Johnny to-day ? " " See that girl Hughes go by ? " asked Mrs. Roberts, who seemed in a mood for gossip. " I wonder she stops in Maen Gorsedd," said Mrs Evans. " H'm ! she's none too particular what's thought of her." Mrs. Roberts pursed her mouth sententiously. " Light o' love ! There's too many of them about. What do you say, Mrs. Redwing ? " But Mrs. Redwing had gone with the first child into the house.

She returned presently. The talk had turned to Mrs. Evans's little boy. " An' if he's troublesome, Mrs. Redwing, you smack him — I can trust you not to hurt him. He's been a naughty boy, Johnny. Naughty. Wouldn't eat his bread an' milk, and spilt it on his pinny, as I did put on clean. Mrs. Roberts shocked at you ! Well, then, go to Mrs. Redwing, and be a good boy till mother comes home. And I've brought some things, Mrs. Redwing ; if you could please to iron them against I get back, or else to-morrer'd do; and Peggy could bring 'em, p'raps." Peggy was Mrs. Redwing's daughter. Mrs. Red wing promised to see what could be done. " An' this is what I owe you for last week," said Mrs. Evans, opening her big leathern purse ; " and I've brought you a bit of honey. Peggy likes it, I know, and our bees have done wonderful this year."

Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Roberts went their way into the town. Mrs. Redwing, holding Johnny's little fist in one hand, and in the other the large cabbage-leaf, on which lay the piece of honeycomb, looked after them. A slight frown passed away from her forehead. People were very good to her. The village lay in a wide valley. The chapel was the only ugly thing in it. The houses were low-roofed, some of them gabled, many of them thatched, and the gardens were full of flowers. The presence of a few limes close by Mary's cottage, in the uneven street, and of many hives in the immediate vicinity, accounted for the hum of wings that made, just then, a background of sound to all sound. "There's bees there that made this, perhaps," Mrs. Redwing said, glancing at the honey and then up into the trees ; " unless," she added, after a pause, and looking down at Johnny Evans, " unless your mother smokes them.

You don't know, Johnny. You're not old enough. And so you were naughty to-day, were you, and wouldn't eat your bread and milk ? Kiss me, then, and be a good boy all the time till mother comes back, and she'll forgive you. Oh, you dear little round fat thing. Don't your mother love you all she knows?" Peggy ran out ; a little girl of unusual grace and beauty. The sun sparkled in her wayward hair. Mrs. Redwing entrusted the child to her own, and went into the house. She put away the honey in a cupboard, saw that Mrs. Roberts's baby, who was crawling after a kitten, could get into no mischief, and went about her duties. She had some dressmaking to do, before she could begin the ironing for Mrs. Evans ; accordingly, having finished such small domestic arrangements as required her attention, she seated herself at her sewing-machine by the window.

The click of the wheels and the jerking of the shuttle drowned then the humming of the bees, but at every pause, for the cutting of a thread, or the examining of the work, the mellow droning insisted that it was permanent, while other noises, were they of spasmodic machine, or passing cart, or human voice, were transient. Mrs. Redwing worked steadily and with few interruptions, till her task was done, by which time the clock on the church tower was striking twelve, and she set about preparing the midday meal. Johnny Evans and Mrs. Roberts's baby were put to sleep after dinner. Mrs. Redwing pinned up her work in a newspaper — The Borderhampton Weekly Newsand Maen Gorsedd Chronicle — and despatched Peggy with it — the parcel well-nigh as big as the bearer — to the New Farm on the hill. Then she spread her ironing-blanket upon the table, fetched from the pump in the garden a bowl of water, wherewith to sprinkle the linen, and put her irons to heat at the fire, while she washed up the things that had been used at dinner.

Soon it was the sound of the iron that played against the humming of the bees, and then thereto was added the humming of Mrs. Redwing herself. She hummed an air over many times. Some words she had read somewhere were running in her head. Presently she found herself singing. She had fitted the words unconsciously to the air, and they ran smoothly together in double harness — ■' Oh, tell me whence love cometh ! Love comes uncalled, unsent. Oh, tell me where love goeth ! That was not love that went." When she had sung the verse once, she sung it again, and then again, and again even after that. Her voice had little power, but it was very sweet and true. She broke the time, now and then, to suit her movements as she worked — prolonging a note while she pressed strongly on a white collar or cuff, or hurrying an interval as she stooped to rub the hot surface of her iron upon the rug before holding it, for an instant, to her face to test the heat.

There was a pleasant smell of scorching which proceeded not from the linen (that was white as driven snow), but from the duster with which she polished the hot metal before running it firmly and smoothly over the clothes. Mary Redwing was as comely a young woman as was to be seen for many a mile round. So thought Peter Davidson, who stood for some moments at the window observing her before he made his presence known to her. She was of a fair height, and a supple but ample figure. Her bosom showed curves that were little short of beautiful under the black cotton dress. The line of her unbleached apron marked the neat proportions of of a Woman. 8 her waist. Her dark hair was straightly parted and drawn off a low forehead, and she had a habit of smoothing it lightly back with the tips of her fingers.

It was brown and glossy, and ignorant of the touch of the oils and pomades with which Mrs. Owen pasted hers down, as it was of the curling-tongs, with which that of Mrs. Roberts was, once a week, burnt and twisted. Her eyes were grey, and gentle in their expression. The village was not observant, or it might have noticed that the serenity of their outlook from under the level eyebrows was a thing of gradual acquisition. A stranger riding through the village one day, and encountering by chance the peaceful gaze of Mary Redwing, found himself seeking a phrase to express the meaning that he attached to it. It had the calmness, he thought, that in nature succeeds a tempest. It made him think of the years of recuperative rest that are vouchsafed in the end to a land long harassed by war. He was a poet in his way, and he made, in his pocket-book, a couple of notes for later development.

His ideas were scarcely formulated. He wrote in pencil, "... that are at peace, and have looked on sorrow," and the words, "desired haven." These last he erased some days later, when the verse he had vaguely been thinking of arrested his wandering attention one Sunday morning in church. He scribbled a number and a date upon his shirtcuff, and after wards wrote therefrom in his note-book, " Then are they glad because they are at rest; and so He bringeth them unto the haven where they would be." Whether he ever made use of his memoranda I know not. He was a man of many beginnings. But I know that on his return from the ride, in the course of which he had remarked the face that had so deeply impressed him, he spoke of it to his hostess. He was staying at the neighbouring Castle of Maen Gorsedd.

" You must mean Mary Redwing," Lady Llan drindod said, when she had heard him out. " Tell me something about her," said he. " A most respectable, worthy young woman," said she. "Dear lady !" said the poet, in gentle expostula tion. " Dear poet," said the lady ; " she is all that. I am sorry if it disappoints you." " But something more," pleaded the poet, smiling ; " we are all respectable and worthy. Tell me. Her face is not of the type that one sees here ? " "She is not a native," said Lady Llandrindod. " She came here eight or nine years ago. She bought the little dressmaking business when old Miss Rowlands gave it up. Goodness me, the garments good Martha Rowlands made for her customers ! Mary Redwing's advent to Maen Gorsedd meant a sort of small renaissance in the clothes of the village."

" Where did she come from ? " Lady Llandrindod shook her head. "Really, she said, "it never occurred to me before how little I knew of Mary Redwing ! But, then," she added, after a pause, "I never saw all that you have seen in her eyes. For that, I suppose, one has to be a poet." Peter Davidson, whom in my digression I left standing outside the open window of Mary Red wing's cottage, was not a poet. He was a well-to do young farmer, who, for some months past, had been awaking to the knowledge that he was ap proaching his thirty-second year ; that he was prosperous ; that he was free to marry, if he felt so inclined, and that Mary Redwing was the woman of all others who attracted him. But, at the moment, when he stood watching her through the casement, and listening to her soft singing, some thing that was not unlike poetry possessed his soul.

Where he was standing he could hear at the same time the round humming of the bees, the voice of Mary Redwing, and the sound of her iron, while from the forge, higher up the village street, came the ring of the blacksmith's hammer. Mrs. Redwing, all unconscious of the presence of Davidson, continued to sing the same song. To meet the exigencies of the air, the last line had to be repeated twice, and as Peter Davidson heard the verse sung three times, he heard the last line six, and it rang afterwards in his head — " That was not love that went."

Chapter II

Mary Redwing looked up and saw Peter. She blushed like a young girl. Her face was hot from her work, and, after the more fleeting colour had disappeared, a rosiness lingered under her eyes. " That you, Mr. Davidson ? " she said, going to the door. " I didn't hear you knock. I suppose I was too busy. Will you please to step in ? " Peter took off his hat, and accepted the invi tation. " You was singin', Mrs. Redwing," he said, as if to add to the reasons why she should not have heard the knock which had never been given. " I believe I was," said Mary Redwing. " Won't you sit down, Mr. Davidson ? " " Do I hinder you, Mrs. Redwing ? " " No ; I'm always glad to see you," said Mary. " Won't you go on with your ironin', Mrs. Redwing ? " "Well, I'll do that," said Mary, "because I promised Mrs. Evans to get these things done against she got back from market.

I've got Johnny here, while she's away ; and that's Mrs. Roberts's baby in the cradle." Peter looked over in the direction she indicated, and saw the sleeping child. A sound from the inner room told of the waking of Johnny, and Mary Redwing fetched him thence. He played about on the floor, and presently Davidson took him up on his knee, and amused him with a big silver watch, and kept him quiet. Mary Redwing then proceeded with her work. Peter looked on. He did not appear to have much to say. He had called once or twice lately, and had sat on in the same desultory way. But at the back of his silence, and behind his remarks about crops, grain and root, the weather, live-stock and the like, just as the permanent humming of the bees lay behind all other sounds, his thoughts were turbulent. His face expressed little of the agitation that was going on below the surface.

It was a hand some face, with features of sufficient regularity. It had all the honest frankness of clear, unshifty eyes, and of an inherited ignorance of the want of any of the things without which life is anxious. For generations prosperity had smiled upon the Davidsons of Maes Derwen. Peter owed his serenity to very different causes from those of the serenity of Mary Redwing. Something in the manner of Davidson, however little the element of disturbance showed its presence, occasioned Mary some nervousness. She had been glad of the excuse to go on with her work. It was almost as if the linen and the iron afforded her protection. She made her task last as long as she could for reasons which were vaguely troubling, but which she did not care to face. At length, however, the last apron was ironed, the last handkerchief folded.

She pinned the things up in a newspaper, and her work was done. A longer silence had fallen. It held an inde finable suggestion of what might be. Mary sought hurriedly in her mind for a remark with which to break it. Johnny had slidden down from Peter's knee, and was playing on the ground at his feet. The child had found a reel. He put it to roll down Peter's leg, which was outstretched. It fell off, almost at the first button of his gaiters, and Johnny crawled away towards it. The kitten sprang after it too. Mary saw these things, but, in her momentary dumbness, they offered her no help. Peter had ceased to regard the boy. Mary knew that he was looking at her. A sound of voices outside broke the spell. Peter rose to his feet as the door, opened to admit Peggy, who was followed by a young woman.

The new-comer was Hannah, the daughter of John Rees, of the New Farm. There was a moment's awkwardness. "I'm afraid I'm disturbin' you, Mrs. Redwing," she said. " Peggy didn't tell me you had a visitor. Good afternoon, Mr. Davidson ! We haven't seen you up at the New Farm lately. Father was wonderin'. Shall I call again, Mrs. Redwing ? " She was a girl with bold outlines. She could claim good looks, of a sort, and, so far as the present was concerned, her figure lost nothing of comeliness by a tendency to stoutness. Her eyes, big and dark, were showy rather than beautiful. She concealed a defect in the rim of one of her ears by means of her hair. Her teeth were fairly sound, but a trifle crowded. Peggy put the paper parcel she was carrying down on the table. "I hope there's nothing amiss with the dress," said Mary.

"Oh, nothing to signify. I tried it on before Peggy went, to see if it was all right. It doesn't fasten quite straight, and I thought you'd better see it on me." She glanced at Peter, who had taken up his hat. " I must be gettin' on," he said. "Or else I could look in another time," said Miss Rees, tentatively. Her big eyes went from Davidson to the dressmaker. Peter looked annoyed. Mary began to unfasten the parcel. " If you'll please to step into the next room, Miss Rees," she began. Peter moved towards the door. " Well, good day, Mrs. Redwing," he said. " Good day, Miss Hannah. Will you tell your father, please, that I shall come up to see him one day this week about the heifers ? If I get the short horns as I'm biddin' for to-day at Borderhampton — or, rather, Mr. Evans is biddin' for, for me, for I haven't gone into market, as you see — I might be able to let your father " "I shan't remember all that," said Miss Rees.

" I'll tell father we may, p'raps, hope to see you some day up at the New Farm — on business." "On business," replied Davidson. It was like accepting a challenge. He lifted the latch, and went out. Hannah Rees smiled oddly. '"Fraid I frightened your visitor away, Mrs. Redwing," she said. " I'm sure I'm very sorry. I could 've come just as easily another time, if I'd only known." "It's the same to me, Miss Rees, whether you come now or any other time," said Mary, quietly. She resented the apology and the manner of it. " I'm always ready to attend to my customers." "And I dare say he often calls in as he passes ? " said Miss Rees. "If you'll take off your bodice " said Mary Redwing, ignoring the last remark. Miss Rees began leisurely to unhook the front of her dress. Mary fetched some pins from the paper which lay on the window-sill.

She stuck a few for use into the bosom of her own gown, and then stood with the body of the new dress in her hands waiting to help her client on with it. Hannah Rees moved over towards the looking glass, and surveyed herself as she thrust her fat white arms into the sleeves of the garment Mrs. Redwing held for her. Mary pulled up the collar at the back, and smoothed out the wrinkles, and then proceeded to fasten the buttons. She saw what was wrong at once. " We'll soon put it right," she said. She took some of the pins from her bosom, and with them pinned the stuff together. In doing this, her face was brought very close to the face of Hannah. The two women were as nearly as possible of the same height, though Mary's slighter build allowed her to look the taller. When she stooped, in adjusting the pins, Hannah Rees, standing bolt upright, looked down at her from over the little mounds of her own cheeks.

" You haven't a grey hair, Mrs. Redwing. How lucky you are to keep its colour like that. Father's wife " — Miss Rees was accustomed thus to designate her step-mother — "father's wife's hair's as black as ink, and she's forty-six ; but she uses some stuff." Mary raised her eyes quickly. There was no malice apparent in the tone of the speaker. "It's not time for me to be grey," Mary said, smiling. She returned to her work, and, having put pins here and there for her guidance, she declared that she need trouble Miss Rees no further. "I'll send it round in the morning by of a Woman. 17 Peggy. It won't take me half an hour. You could have it this evening, if you like." Miss Rees said that the morning would be soon enough. " How thin your wedding-ring wears," she said abruptly. The sunlight had flashed on it as Mary helped her to dress.

Yes. Mary looked down at her hand. Hannah held and stayed it for a moment. " It can't have worn down in your time ? " she said, interrogatively. " Peggy's nearly ten," said Mary. She withdrew her hand gently but forcibly, and gave Miss Rees her brooch from a table where it had been put when it was taken off. " But ten years — eleven years, wouldn't wear a ring down like that." Mary Redwing was silent. " Was it very thin when it was new ? " asked Hannah. " It was mother's wedding-ring," Mary answered. A colour rose to her face as soon as she had spoken, and left it gradually .. " Your mother's ? " said Miss Rees, with curiosity. " But did she take it off for you to be married in ? Weren't you afraid of ill luck ? " Mary's face was troubled. " She was dead," she said shortly. " And you were married in the ring of a dead woman.

Oh, I wouldn't have dared to let that happen. Didn't it frighten you, when it was slipped on your finger ? How was it ? Did Mr. Redwing forget the ring, or what ? I've heard of people being married with the top of a key." "That was it," said Mary; "the ring was for gotten. I — had this one. I've worn it ever since. One is the same as another. Had you a shawl or anything, Miss Rees ? " " A day like this ? No fear. Well, good after noon, Mrs. Redwing. You'll send the dress in the morning, won't you ? " She was at the door now. Mary held it open for her, and the humming of the bees sounded loudly. Hannah glanced once more at the thread of gold upon the dressmaker's finger. " If it wears any thinner, you'll almost want another," she said, and then swung round on her heels and walked away.

Chapter III

Peter Davidson strode away from the cottage with a gait that expressed his impatience more definitely than did the frown to which his smooth forehead had lined itself. In a more normal mood, he would have stopped to exchange remarks with the two or three people to whom he nodded as he passed. John Jones, the blacksmith, looked out from the forge. Andrew, his son, always ready to idle, left the bellows and followed him to the door. " Looks in a hurry, don't he ? " Andrew laughed as if he had made a joke. "I saw him go by some time ago," said his father. " I was hopin' he'd look in on his way back, whatever. I was want to know about them shoes." " He ain't thinkin' o' no shoes," said Andrew, with a wink. " Well, indeed, I don't know," said John. " Except it's the shoes of a dead man he wants to step into, p'raps," said Andrew.

" Eh ! " said his father. " What's that ? " Andrew hinted at his suspicions. "Well, indeed!" said John Jones. The words in Maen Gorsedd seemed to have been framed to fit every case. Meanwhile, Peter Davidson was passing the Cambrian Arms. Mrs. Pughs saw him from over the muslin blind that was stretched across the lower half of the window, behind the bar. " There goes Mr. Davidson, of Maes Derwen," said she. It was her business to gossip ; it made the bar bright; it kept her customers in good temper. "He's oftener round about here than what he used to be. I wonder why he ain't at market ? Whatever'll he do when his sister marries I don't know." " An' that'll have to be soon, indeed, I'm told," said Abel Wynne, the wheelwright, taking his pipe slowly from between his lips, "if she don't want to lose Lloyd Morgan, however.

They say he's beginnin' to fret at bein' kept waitin', and she don't like to leave her brother." " He ought to marry himself," said Mrs. Pughs ; " there's lots o' nice girls, I'm shu-er, as'd be glad enough to call themselves Mrs. Davidson of Maes Derwen, for the askin'. He's gettin' on for thirty, if he ain't already. Why, Mr. Pughs was but twenty when he married me, and when he would have been thirty if he'd lived, I was a widow." " Why don't you go in for him, Mrs. Pughs ? " " Don't you give me none o' your nonsense, Mr. Wynne," said the landlady, with twinkling eyes ; "and pray what are you laffin' at, mister? I dersay I'm none too old to find another host for the Cambrian Arms neither. Annie, you giggling thing, wash up them glasses. No, you ain't to serve James Humphrey with another drop.

No no, Mr. Humphrey, you fell asleep over your last." James Humphrey extended his tankard in silence. "He don't hear me," said Mrs. Pughs. " Tell 'im, one of you." Wynne shouted Mrs. Pughs's edict into the old man's ear. " Not any more ? " he asked, in a clear, thin pipe. The voice seemed to come from an immense distance. Yet distance must have been comparatively short in so small a body. He was shrivelled and meagre, but tough as nails. His age was unknown, but he was commonly believed to be well on in the nineties. His pate, under his white hat, was bald as an egg. The skin of his face and his hands was brownish and like leather, and was marked, here and there, with round patches of a lighter colour. But his eyes were bright and clear, as those of a child. " This once, missis," he said, extending his tankard again.

" Only half, then," said Mrs. Pughs. " Only half ; he ain't to have more than half. He wants to drink like you young ones, an' I oughtn't to serve 'im. But there, I always was soft-hearted." The wheelwright took the pewter pot from her hand. " An' before you touch it, grandfather," he said, loudly into the old man's ear, " you tell us whether it's any good Mrs. Pughs here settin' her cap at Peter Davidson o' Maes Derwen." The old man glanced from Abel Wynne — to whom he nodded in token that he understood — to the hostess of the Cambrian Arms. " I've know Davidsons o' Maes Derwen," he said, in his far-off treble, that was yet very clear, " this eighty year an' more. Peter Davidson and his father, and his father's father, and I say this, missis, with all respect to you, an' askin' your pardon for makin' bold to say it " " It's all Abel Wynne's nonsense, James Humphrey," Mrs. Pughs interrupted him to say.

" Don't you take no notice of his foolin'." "Askin' your pardon," continued the old man, waving his arm, and ignoring the interruption, if indeed he heard it, " there isn't the woman born as was get a Davidson against his will, if he wasn't set on it, nor the woman born whatever who could hold out against him, if he was set upon her. No offence, I hope to you, missis. I only answer what I was asked. An' here's your very good health." While the affairs of Peter were being thus discussed, he was striding up Maen Gorsedd Lane. The blackberries were ripe, or ripening in the hedges, where the nuts, too, were changing from a of a Woman. 23 lighter to a darker hue. The hard road was rutted deeply, and in places the sun caught the polished metallic trace left by the shoe on the wheel of some heavy cart.