Chapter IV: Ima's Lessons

She had odd ways, Percival found--oddly attractive; sometimes oddly disconcerting. She did not at first contribute to the conversation while they ate. She was very quiet; and that, and the way in which, as he noticed, she kept her eyes upon him, was in itself odd. Dusk was veiling the camp as they took the stew she had prepared. They had the meal on the grass near the van, and Percival, not eating with great ease in the squatting pose, noticed how erect she sat, as though her back were invisibly supported--her plate on her lap, the soles of her bare feet together.

He deferred his trouble, as Japhra had proposed, till the meal should be done. He was interested to know where the van had been all these months; and when he questioned Japhra, "We have had the solitary desires, Ima and I," Japhra told him. "The solitary desires, master, whiles thou hast been growing. A sudden wearying of Maddox's and all the noisy ones. North to Yorkshire, we have been; west to Bristol's border; deeper west to Cornwall. The road has had the spell on us--calling from every bend and ever keeping a bend ahead, as the road will to those who are of it. Summers we have passed the circus on its tour and laid a night with old Stingo and then away, urgent to move quicker and lonelier. Trouble has worsened in the circus crowd."

"What, between Stingo's men and Boss Maddox's?"

"Ay," said Japhra. "Boss Maddox is the biggest showman in the west these days. He rents the pitches at all the fairs before the season begins; and the Stingo crowd, who must take what he gives, he puts in the worst places. His hand is heavy against them. One fine day the sticks will come out and there'll be heads broken, as happened on the road back in '60. I was in that and carry the mark of it on my pate to this hour. Pray I'll be there when this one falls."

"I'd like to be with you, Japhra."

Japhra showed his tight-lipped smile: "Well, a camp fight with the sticks out and the heads cracking is a proper game for a man, master. Thou'dst be a handy one at it, I warrant me."

Ima broke in with her first contribution to their talk. She said quickly: "Shame, Father. Not for such as he--fights and the rough ways."

But she was silent again and without reply when Percival sought to rally her for this opinion of him; and Japhra twinkled at him and said: "There's one would like to meet thee, though--sticks or fists"; and went on, when Percival inquired who: "Thy friend Pinsent. Thy name of Foxy for him has stuck to him and he has not forgiven thee. A fine fighter he has grown--boxed in some class rings for good purses in the winter months, and in the summer is a great attraction at the fairs. Boss Maddox is fond of him. Boss Maddox has fitted him with a booth of his own and he gets the crowds--deserves 'em, too. But 'Foxy' has stuck to him--and suits him. He hates it; and's not forgotten where he owes it."

Percival laughed. "Well, if he's done so well, I ought to be proud to have given him something to remember me by. He could wallop me to death, of course."

"There's few of his weight he could not hand the goods to," Japhra agreed. He looked estimatingly at Percival and added: "One that could keep the straight left in his face a dozen rounds'd serve it up to him, though. Foxy has no bowels for punishment. I have watched him."

And again Ima broke in. "Ah, why dost talk so?" she addressed her father. "He is nothing for such ways--fights and the fighting sort."

This time Percival would not let her opinion of him escape without challenge. "Why, Ima!" he turned to her, "that's the second time you've said that. Seems to me you think I ought to be wrapped in cotton-wool."

His voice was bantering, but had a note of impatience. The events of the day had not made him in humour to take lightly any estimate of himself that seemed to reflect on his manliness.

She noticed it. Her voice when she answered him had a caressing sound as though she realised she had vexed him and would beg excuse. "Nay, only that thou art not for the rough ways--such as thou," she said; and, mollified, he laughed and told her: "Well, you never used to think so, anyway. You've changed, you know, Ima, changed a lot since I last saw you."

"And should have changed," Japhra announced. "Scholar with lesson books, she has been these winter months."

Percival thought that very quaint. "Scholar, Ima; have you?" he asked her, and saw the blood run up beneath her dusky skin. "I can't imagine you at lessons!"

"Nor those who taught me," she replied; and paused and added very gravely, speaking in her gentle voice, "Yet have I learnt--and still shall learn."

Percival asked: "Learnt what?"

Odd her ways--oddly attractive, oddly disconcerting; speaking steadily and more as if it were to herself and not to listeners that she spoke. "Learnt to sit on a chair," she told him, "and to sit at a table nicely; to wear shoes on my feet, and stockings; to go to church and sing to God in heaven; to talk properly as house folk talk; to sleep in a bed; to wear a hat and stiff clothes; to abide within doors when the rain falls and when the stars alight in the sky--these have I learnt."

Percival was tempted to laugh, but her gravity forbade him. "How terrible it sounds--for you! But why, Ima, why?"

She did not answer the question. She smiled gently at him and went on with the same air of speaking to herself: "Lessons from books, also. Figures and the making of sums; geography--as capes and bays and what men make and where; of a new fashion of how to hold the pen stiffly in writing; of nice ways in speaking--chiefly that I should say 'you' when I would say 'thou'--that is hardest to me; but I shall learn."

Something almost pleading was in her voice as she repeated, "I shall learn;" and Percival turned for relief of his puzzlement to Japhra: "Why, whatever's it all for, Japhra?"

Japhra gave his tight-lipped smile. "Woman's reasons--who shall discover such?" But Ima made a motion of protest, and he went on: "Nay, the chance fell, and truly I was glad she should have woman's company--and gentle company. In Norfolk where we pitched the winter gone by was a doctor I had known when we were young--he and I. He shipped twice aboard a cattle boat with me, having the restlessness on him in those days. Now I found him stout and proper, but not forgetful of an indifferent matter between us. He brought his lady to the van, and she conceived a fancy for Ima, holding her a fair, wild thing that should be tamed. Therefore took Ima to her house and to her board, and taught her as she hath instructed thee. Thus was the manner of it; as to the wherefore--why, woman's reasons, as I have said," and he smiled again.

Ima got abruptly to her feet. The meal was ended, and she began to collect the plates. Her action plainly rebuked the further questions with which Percival was playfully turning to her. He offered instead to help her with her washing of the dishes, but she told him: "Nay, maid's work this. Abide thou with father, and talk men's talk." In the action of moving away she turned to Japhra and added her earlier plea: "So it is not of boxing and the rough ways."