Chapter XV: Ben Bamsey's Doubts

As the summer advanced, Jane Bamsey let it be known that she proposed to wed Enoch Withycombe's son, Jerry. For some time her parents refused to believe it, but as Jane persisted and brought Jerry to see them, they began to accept the fact. Benjamin felt hopeful of the match, while Jane's mother did not. In the first place she was disappointed, for while a fine and amiable man, of good repute, not lacking in respect, Jerry could not be considered a very promising husband. He was too old; he was only a woodman and would always remain a woodman. Mrs. Bamsey held that a daughter of hers should have looked higher.

Jane, however, now declared her undying love, and, for the moment, it was undoubtedly true that she did love and desire the son of the huntsman better than anything in the world. She did not share her parents' estimate of him but perceived possibilities and believed that, with her help and supported by the dowry she expected to bring him on their marriage, Jerry would prove--not her head, but her right hand. For Jane had her own private ambitions, and though they staggered Jerry when he heard them, such was his devotion that he agreed to propositions for the future inevitably destined to upset his own life and plunge it into a wrong environment. Their absurdity and futility were not as yet apparent to him, though Jane's ideas from anybody else had been greeted with contempt. They embraced a radical change in his own existence that had been unbearable to contemplate save in one light. But that light his sweetheart created; and when she described her ambitions to leave Dart Vale and set up a little shop in town, Jerry, after some wondering protests, found that the choice might actually lay between this enterprise and Jane herself. Therefore, he did not hesitate. He stated his case, however, when she agreed to marriage on her own conditions.

"Away from trees, I'm much afraid I should be but a lost man," declared Jerry.

"And in the country, I'm but a lost woman," replied Jane. "I'm sick of trees, and fields too."

She had never hinted at the possibility of accepting him at all before the occasion of these speeches; and it was natural that no stipulation could long daunt Jerry in the glorious hour of success. Jane was actually prepared to accept him at last, and since life with Jane in a dungeon had been better than life without her under any conditions whatsoever, Jerry, after a display of argument that lasted not five minutes, agreed to her terms, and found his sweetheart on his knees, his arms round her, the astounding softness of her cheek against the roughness of his own.

How far Jane might be looking ahead, neither her future husband, nor anybody else knew; but one guessed; and since it was Enoch Withycombe who received this spark of divination, he kept it to himself for the present. Now the invalid spoke to Jane's father, who came to see him upon the subject; but both old men considered the situation without knowledge of the facts, because Jane, with greater insight than Jerry and shrewd convictions that her terms would meet with very hearty protests from her lover's family, if not her own, had counselled Jerry, indeed commanded him, to say nothing of their future intentions until the marriage day was fixed.

"And how's yourself, Enoch?" asked Benjamin, as he smiled and took Mr. Withycombe's hand.

"Middling, but slipping down, Ben. The end's getting nearer and the bad days getting thicker sprinkled in the pudding. I shan't be sorry to go."

"Well, well, if you ban't, there's a cruel lot will be when you do," said Mr. Bamsey. "And often and often I catch myself asking if the deaders do really go at all. Married to Faith, as I am, I can't help but feel we've got a cloud of witnesses round about. How it may be in other places, of course, I can't say, but there's no doubt that the people who drop around here, hang about after; and if you've got Faith's amazing gift, they ban't hidden. She see widow Nosworthy last week, down by the stile in 'five acre,' where there's a right of way. She was standing there, just like she used to stand time without count waiting for her drunken son of a night, to steer him past the pond to his home. I say naught, however, whatever I may think."

Mr. Withycombe showed a little impatience.

"'Tis no good prattling about ghosts to a man who'll damn soon be one himself," he said. "As you very well know I don't believe in 'em, Ben; and if us understood better, we'd be able to prove, no doubt, that your wife don't see nothing at all, and that the ghosts be in her own mind's eye and nowhere else. Not a word against her, of course. I respect her very much. But' second sight,' so to call it, be just a thing like gout, or bad teeth--handed down, and well inside nature, like everything else. I don't believe in no future life myself, but I don't quarrel with them that do. I'm like my old master--large-minded, I hope. And if another life there is, then this I will swear, that the people as be called home have got their senses, and the next world have its duties and its upper ghosts set over the unknown country to rule and direct it. You can't suppose that everybody's on his own there, to moon about and poke about, like a lot of birds, with no law and order. When the men and women go out of this world, they've done with this world, and I never will believe they be allowed back, to waste our time and fright the silly ones and talk twaddle to people in dark rooms and play senseless tricks we'd whip a child for."

"Leave it," said Ben. "I go largely along with you, and for that matter my wife herself thinks no more of it than her power to make butter."

"How's Johnny?"

"Got a lot more silenter than he was. Comes and goes; and he's civil to Dinah now, but don't see her alone. Us be a bit hopefuller about him, but not her. In fact Dinah's one of the things I be come to tell about. I'm a bit afeared in that quarter. I might see a ray of light where she's concerned; but John, being what he is, the light, even if there is any, looks doubtful."

"Leave him then. You want to talk of this here match between my Jerry and your Jane."

"I do. I'm very wishful to hear you speak out on the subject, Enoch. For myself, being a great believer that marriages are made in heaven and 'tis only our human weakness mars 'em on earth, I'm always willing to hope the best and trust true love. And true love they've gotten for each other I'm very sure indeed, though I wish they was nearer of an age."

"What does Faith Bamsey say?"

"It don't so much matter as to her. She's a right to her opinions, and seldom we differ, but in this affair, to be honest, we don't see eye to eye. In marriage, the woman be more practical than the man."

"I'll tell you what she says, Ben. She don't like it. All her reasons I cannot tell: one I'm dead sure about. It's a come-down for her Jane to marry Jerry. I grant that. I've told Jerry so too."

"Perfect love casteth out any such thought," said Mr. Bamsey.

"It may cast it out, but it will come back. In some girls it wouldn't. In Jane it will. Jane's on powerful good terms with herself, as you'll grant. The toad knows she's a beauty, and she knows a lot else--a lot more than Jerry knows for that matter."

"You don't like her," said Mr. Bamsey.

"I do not; and she don't like me."

Ben was silent.

"She came up to tea Sunday, and I seed 'em side by side. She's sly and she's making Jerry sly. How the devil she's larned such an open sort of creature as Jerry to keep secrets I don't know. But secrets they've got. I dare say they'll be married. But I agree with Faith Bamsey that it won't come to overmuch good. I don't think Jane is a very likely pattern of wife."

"She's young and there's bright points to her. She wasn't saucy nor anything like that I hope?"

"Oh no--butter wouldn't melt in her mouth."

"What does Melinda think about her?"

"Melinda thinks better of her than what I do. She didn't before the match, but now, womanlike, she's all for it."

"That's to the good then. They talk of late autumn."

"Have you asked your girl where she thinks to live?"

"We haven't raised that yet."

"I did, and she put me off. There's things hidden. What are you going to give her?"

"Five hundred pound, Enoch."

"Don't, Ben. Keep it against their future. That's a hugeous lot of money and Lord knows what she'd do with it. I hope you haven't told her no such thing."

"My only daughter must have a good start. It's none too much; she knows about it."

Mr. Withycombe considered.

"Then I'll tell you what she's doing, Ben. She's marrying for money! Yes, she is. Not Jerry's, because he won't have a penny till I die, and then he can only have one-third of the lot, which ain't much. But Jane's marrying for your money, and I'll lay my life that she's going to spend it, thinking that there'll be plenty more where that comes from."

"You mustn't say such things. She knows the value of money better than most."

"Then have it out and learn what's in their minds. They've no right to secrets if you're going to pay the piper and start 'em in that generous way. Keep her money and let her have the interest on it and no more, till you see how they get on."

"Secrets there didn't ought to be I grant," said Benjamin. "But, mind you, I'm not allowing there are any. You may be mistook."

"Then find out where they be going to live and how Jane thinks to handle that dollop of cash," warned Mr. Withycombe. "You've a right to know: it's your duty to know, and your wife will tell you the same. And don't let Jane throw dust in your eyes. She's a tricky piece, like most of them beauties. I wish she'd took after the pattern of Orphan Dinah."

"So do I," admitted the other. "And now, to leave this, I'd like to speak a word about Dinah, because there's some things you may know bearing upon her that I do not. I'm struck with doubt, and I've been keeping her on along with me for two reasons. Firstly, because the right sort of place in my opinion don't offer."

"It never will," said Enoch. "Truth's truth, and the truth is you can't part from her."

"No, you mustn't say that. She's a very great deal to me, but I ban't selfish about her. I'm thinking of her future, and I don't want her placed where her future will be made dark and difficult. There's a lot to consider. And while I've been considering and withstanding Faith, here and there, and Dinah also for that matter, there's drifted into my mind the second point about Dinah. And that's in my mind still. But I begin to feel doubtful, Enoch, whether it's very much use for us old people to worry our heads as we do about the young ones. This generation will go its own way."

"Pretty much as ours did before them no doubt," answered the sick man. "We ancient folk love to bide in the middle of the picture so long as we can, and when I was a lot younger than now, yet not too young to mark it, I often thought it was rather a sad sight to see the old hanging on, and giving their opinions, and thinking anybody still cared a damn for what they said, or thought."

"Yes, only the little children really believe in us," confessed Mr. Bamsey; "and that's why I say we squander a good bit of wisdom upon the rising race, for they'll go on rising, for good or evil, without much troubling their heads as to whether we approve, or don't. They put education before experience, so, of course, what we've got to offer don't appeal to 'em. But Dinah--she does heed me, and now there's come a shadow of a suspicion in my mind about another man for her. That's why I'm so content to mark time a little and get hard words for doing it. She don't know herself, I believe, and very like the man don't know yet. Or he may know, and be biding his time. But more than once or twice--more, in fact, than she guesses--Dinah, when she's been talking to me, have named a certain person. I very near warned her against it, for women's ears are quicker than ours, and if Jane and my wife had marked it, evil might have risen out of it at once. But Dinah says a lot more in my hearing than in theirs and they don't know so far. And, as I tell you, Dinah herself don't know. But the name echoes along. In a word, what do you think of Maynard at Falcon Farm? You know him better than I do, though the little I've seen of the man leads me to like him. He's a sensible soul and none too cheerful--rather a twilight sort of man you might say; but that's a way life have with some of the thinking sort. It turns 'em into their shells a bit."

"He's a kindly, well-meaning chap and old for his years," said Withycombe. "I should say he's not for a wife."

"How d'you know?"

"I don't know. We never talk about himself, nor yet myself. He gives me his company sometimes and we tell about pretty high matters, not people. He's got a mind, Ben."

Melinda Honeysett joined them at this moment and entered their conversation.

"He's got a mind, no doubt," said Mr. Bamsey. "But he's also got a body, and it would be unnatural in a young, hearty man of his years, prosperous too I suppose, because, with his sense, he's sure to have put by a bit--it would be unnatural, I say, if he'd never turned his thoughts to a home of his own."

Enoch spoke to his daughter.

"Here's Ben trying to hatch up a match for Dinah," he said.

"No, no--too wise, I'm sure," answered Melinda.

"Far too wise," declared the visitor. "But if such a thing was possible in fulness of time, it would cut a good many knots, Melindy."

"Dinah likes freedom now she's got it, I believe, and I wouldn't say she was too fond of children neither," answered Enoch's daughter.

"They never like children, till they meet the man they can see as father of their own children," answered Ben; "and if Dinah ever said she didn't want 'em, that's only another proof that she never loved poor John."

"The love of childer be knit up with other things no doubt," admitted Enoch.

"There's lots love childer as never had none, like myself," answered Melinda.

"True, my dear. There's lots love game as never shot it. But the snipe you brought down yourself be always the one that tastes best. A mother may love her own children, or she may not; but it depends often enough on the husband."

It was Mrs. Honeysett's father who spoke.

"There's some child-lovers who only wed because that's the way to get 'em," he continued. "Such women don't think no more of the husband than the doctor--I've known such. But perfect love of childer did ought to begin with the perfect love of the man that got 'em. Take me. I had but three, but they were the apple of my wife's eye, because they was mine as well as hers."

"My brother, Robert, be coming home presently," said Melinda. "My sailor brother, Mr. Bamsey. How would you like him for Dinah? I'm sure she'd make a proper wife for him. He's like Jerry, only quicker in the uptake. But not so clever as father."

"Wouldn't like Dinah to marry a sailor man," confessed Ben. "I know Robert is a fine chap; but they've got a wife in every port. A sailor sees a lot more than the wonders of the deep."

Mr. Withycombe laughed.

"He ain't that sort, I promise you," he said.

"The point is, in strictest confidence, Melindy," explained Ben, "that I believe, though she scarce knows it herself, Dinah's interested in the Falcon Farm cowman. She's seen him off and on and, in my ear alone, speaks of the man. And your father here has nought but good to say of him."

"He's not for a wife, so Joe tells me. He was naming him a bit agone," answered Melinda, "and he said that the most comforting thing about him, and Mr. Palk also, was that they were cut out for the bachelor state for evermore. Perhaps you'd best to name that to Dinah. Though, for my part, I should hope it would be years after her last adventure afore she ever dared to think upon a man again."

"So it would be--so it would be in the course of nature," granted Ben. "No doubt you're right; and yet--there it is. He seems to attract her--against her own reason I dare say."

"When that happens, it means love," declared Enoch.

Melinda spoke like a woman. She was fond of Dinah, but had been exceedingly sorry for Johnny.

"Queer--sure enough," she said. "If Dinah, now, was to feel drawn to a man as hadn't any use for her, it would be fair justice in a manner of speaking, wouldn't it, Mr. Bamsey?"

"In a manner of speaking I dare say it might, Melindy," he admitted. "But I'll not hear Dinah tongue-handled over that no more."

"I'll sound Lawrence on his next visit," promised Enoch. "But he's very shy where his own affairs are concerned."

"And another thing be certain," added Melinda, "Joe Stockman would be terrible put about if he thought any such doings as that was in the wind."

Then Mr. Bamsey went his way, as doubtful as when he came.