Chapter XXXI: Act III: Scene 1

_The same room_. _It is nearly mid-day_, _and the room is full of sunshine_. JANE BROWNING, _in her best dress_, _is fastening_ DORRY’S _frock_, _close to the window_.

DORRY. Dad’s been a rare long time a-cleaning of his self up, Gran.

JANE. Will you bide still! However’s this frock to get fastened and you moving this way and that like some live eel—and just see what a mark you’ve made on the elbow last night, putting your arm down somewhere where you didn’t ought to—I might just as well have never washed the thing.

DORRY. Granny’s sound asleep still—she’ll have to be waked time we goes along to the church.

JANE. That her shan’t be. Her shall just bide and sleep the drink out of her, her shall. Do you think as I didn’t find out who ’twas what had got at the bottle as Dad left on the dresser last night.

DORRY. Poor Gran, she do take a drop now and then.

JANE. Shame on th’ old gipsy. Her shall be left to bide till she have slept off some of the nonsense which is in her.

DORRY. Granny do say a lot of funny things sometimes, don’t she, now?

JANE. You get and put on your hat and button your gloves, and let the old gipsy be. We can send her off home when ’tis afternoon, and us back from church. Now, where did I lay that bonnet? Here ’tis.

[_She begins to tie the strings before a small mirror in the wall_. STEVE _comes downstairs in his shirt sleeves_, _carrying his coat_.

DORRY. Why, Dad, you do look rare pleased at summat.

STEVE. And when’s a man to look pleased if ’tis not on his wedding morn, Dorry?

DORRY. The tramp what was here did say as how ’twas poor work twice marrying, but you don’t find it be so, Dad, do you now?

STEVE. And that I don’t, my little wench. ’Tis as nigh heaven as I be like to touch—and that’s how ’tis with me.

JANE. [_Taking_ STEVE’S _coat from him_.] Ah, ’tis a different set out altogether this time. That ’tis. ’Tis a-marrying into your own rank, like, and no mixing up with they trolloping gipsies.

DORRY. Was my own mammy a trolloping gipsy, Gran?

JANE. [_Beginning to brush_ STEVE’S _coat_.] Ah, much in the same pattern as th’ old woman what’s drunk asleep against the fireside. Here, button up them gloves, ’tis time we was off.

DORRY. I do like Miss Sims. She do have nice things on her. When I grows up I’d like to look as she do, so I would.

STEVE. [_To_ JANE.] There, Mother, that’ll do. I’d best put him on now.

JANE. [_Holding out the coat for him_.] Well, and you be got yourself up rare smart, Steve.

STEVE. ’Tis rare smart as I be feeling, Mother. I’m all a kind of a dazzle within of me, same as ’tis with the sun upon the snow out yonder.

JANE. Why, look you, there’s George a-coming up the path already.

DORRY. He’s wearing of the flower what Rosie gived him last night.

STEVE. [_Opening the door_.] Good morning, George. A first class New Year to you. You’re welcome, if ever a man was.

JANE. You bide where you do stand, George, till your feet is dry. My floor was fresh wiped over this morning.

GEORGE. [_Standing on the door mat_.] All right, Mrs. Browning. Don’t you fluster. Good morning, Dorry. How be you to-day, Steve?

JANE. Dorry, come you upstairs along with me and get your coat put on, so as your frock bain’t crushed.

DORRY. O, I wish I could go so that my nice frock was seen and no coat.

[_They go upstairs_. GEORGE _rubs his feet on the mat and comes into the room_, _walking up and down once or twice restlessly and in evident distress of mind_.

STEVE. [_Who has lit a pipe and is smoking_.] Why, George, be you out of sorts this morning? You don’t look up to much, and that’s the truth.

GEORGE. [_Stopping before_ STEVE.] Hark you, Steve. ’Tis on my mind to ask summat of you. Did you have much speech with the poor thing what you took in from the snow last night?

STEVE. No, George, and that I didn’t. Her was mostly in a kind of drunken sleep all the time, and naught to be got out from she. Mother, her tried. But ’twas like trying to get water from the pump yonder, when ’tis froze.

GEORGE. Your mother’s a poor one at melting ice, Steve, and ’tis what we all knows.

STEVE. Ah, ’twasn’t much as we could do for the likes of she—what was a regular roadster. Bad herbs, all of them. And if it hadn’t been so as ’twas my wedding eve, this one shouldn’t have set foot inside of the house. But ’tis a season when a man’s took a bit soft and foolish, like, the night afore his marriage. Bain’t that so, George?

GEORGE. And when was it, Steve, as she went off from here?

STEVE. That I couldn’t rightly say, George, but I counts ’twas just upon daybreak. And ’twas Dorry what seed her off the place and gived her a piece of bread to take along of her.

GEORGE. And do you think as she got talking a lot to Dorry, Steve?

STEVE. I’m blest if I do know, George. I never gived another thought to she. What’s up?

GEORGE. They was getting the body of her from out of Simon’s Pool as I did come by. That’s all.

STEVE. From Simon’s Pool, George?

GEORGE. I count her must have went across the plank afore ’twas fairly daylight. And, being slippery, like, from the snow, and her—her—as you did say.

STEVE. In liquor.

GEORGE. I reckon as her missed her footing, like.

STEVE. Well, upon my word, George, who’d have thought on such a thing!

GEORGE. I count as her had been in the water and below the ice a smartish while afore they catched sight of she.

STEVE. Well, ’tis a cold finish to a hot life.

GEORGE. They took and laid her on the grass, Steve, as I comed by.

STEVE. If it had been me, I’d have turned the head of me t’other side.

GEORGE. There was summat in the fashion her was laid, Steve, as drawed I near for to get a sight of the face of she.

STEVE. Well, I shouldn’t have much cared for that, George.

GEORGE. Steve—did you get a look into the eyes of yon poor thing last night?

STEVE. No, nor wanted for to, neither.

GEORGE. There was naught to make you think of—

STEVE. Of what, George?

GEORGE. There—Steve, I can’t get it out, I can’t.

STEVE. Then let it bide in.

GEORGE. ’Twas the way her was laid, and the long arms of she, and the hands which was clapped one on t’other, as it might be in church.

STEVE. [_Looking through the window_.] You shut up, George. Here’s Annie with Rose a-coming up to the door. Don’t you get saying another word about yon poor wretch nor the end of her. I wouldn’t have my Annie upset for all the world to-day. ’Tis a thing as must not be spoke of afore they, nor Dorry neither, do you hear?

[_He moves towards the door and puts his hand to the latch_.

GEORGE. Hold back, Steve, a minute. There’s summat more as I’ve got to say.

STEVE. You take and shut your mouth up, old George, afore I opens the door to the girls.

GEORGE. ’Tis bound for to come from me afore you goes along to church, Steve.

STEVE. I warrant ’twill keep till us do come home again, George.

[_He throws the door wide open with a joyous movement_. ANNIE _and_ ROSE _in white dresses stand outside_.

STEVE. Well, Annie, this is a rare surprise, and that’s the truth. [ANNIE _and_ ROSE _come into the room_.

ROSE. Father, he’s outside, and Jim and Bill and Katie, and all the rest. We said as ’twould be pleasanter if we was all to go up together along to the church.

STEVE. So ’twould be—so ’twould be—’Twas a grand thought of yourn, Rosie.

ANNIE. Steve—

STEVE. [_Taking her hand_.] Annie, I’m fair beside myself this day.

ANNIE. O, Steve, there was never a day in my life like this one. [DORRY _and_ JANE _come down_.

DORRY. O, Miss Sims, you do look nice! Gran’ma, don’t Miss Sims look nice? And Rosie, too. O, they have nice gowns and hats on, haven’t they, Dad?

STEVE. I don’t see no gowns nor hats, and that’s the truth. But I sees summat what’s like—what’s like a meadow of grass in springtime afore the sun’s got on to it.

DORRY. Why, Dad, ’tis white, not green, as Miss Sims is wearing.

STEVE. ’Tis in the eyes of her as I finds my meadow.

DORRY. O, let me see, Dad, let me look, too!

ROSE. [_Going up to_ GEORGE, _who has been standing aloof and moody in the background_.] Come, Mr. Davis, we must have a look, too.

JANE. ’Get along, get along. We han’t time for such foolishness. It be close on twelve already.

ANNIE. O, let me be, all of you! I declare, I don’t know which way to look, I don’t.

STEVE. I’ll show you, Annie, then.

ROSE. [_To_ GEORGE.] Well, Mr. Davis, you don’t seem over bright this morning.

STEVE. ’Tis with the nerves as he be took!

DORRY. Look at what he’s wearing in his buttonhole, Rosie.

ROSE. ’Tis kept beautiful and fresh.

STEVE. Come on, come on, all of you. ’Tis time we was at the church.

ROSE. Hark to him! He’s in a rare hurry for to get out of the house to-day.

GEORGE. Bain’t the old lady a-coming?

JANE. That she bain’t, the old drinking gipsy—’tis at the spirits as her got in the night—and put away very near the best part of a bottle. Now she’s best left to sleep it off, she be.

STEVE. Come on, George. Come, Dorry.

DORRY. O, isn’t it a pity as Granny will get at the drink, Mr. Davis? And isn’t Miss Sims nice in her white dress? And don’t Dad look smiling and pleased? I never did know Dad smile like this afore.

GEORGE. [_Heavily_.] Come on, Dorry—you take hold of me. You and me, we’ll keep nigh one to t’other this day, won’t us?

ROSE. [_Calling from outside_.] Come on, Mr. Davis.

[_They all go out_.