England, My England Part 41

He was a fair-haired fellow of thirty-two, with a fair moustache. He was broad in his speech, and looked like a foundry-hand, which he was. But women always liked him. There was something of a mother's lad about him--something warm and playful and really sensitive.

He had his attractions even for f.a.n.n.y. What she rebelled against so bitterly was that he had no sort of ambition. He was a moulder, but of very commonplace skill. He was thirty-two years old, and hadn't saved twenty pounds. She would have to provide the money for the home. He didn't care. He just didn't care. He had no initiative at all. He had no vices--no obvious ones. But he was just indifferent, spending as he went, and not caring. Yet he did not look happy. She remembered his face in the fire-glow: something haunted, abstracted about it. As he sat there eating his pork pie, bulging his cheek out, she felt he was like a doom to her.

And she raged against the doom of him. It wasn't that he was gross. His way was common, almost on purpose. But he himself wasn't really common.

For instance, his food was not particularly important to him, he was not greedy. He had a charm, too, particularly for women, with his blondness and his sensitiveness and his way of making a woman feel that she was a higher being. But f.a.n.n.y knew him, knew the peculiar obstinate limitedness of him, that would nearly send her mad.

He stayed till about half past nine. She went to the door with him.

'When are you coming up?' he said, jerking his head in the direction, presumably, of his own home.

'I'll come tomorrow afternoon,' she said brightly. Between f.a.n.n.y and Mrs.

Goodall, his mother, there was naturally no love lost.

Again she gave him an awkward little kiss, and said good-night.

'You can't wonder, you know, child, if he doesn't seem so very keen,'

said her aunt. 'It's your own fault.'

'Oh, Aunt, I couldn't stand him when he was keen. I can do with him a lot better as he is.'

The two women sat and talked far into the night. They understood each other. The aunt, too, had married as f.a.n.n.y was marrying: a man who was no companion to her, a violent man, brother of f.a.n.n.y's father. He was dead, f.a.n.n.y's father was dead.

Poor Aunt Lizzie, she cried woefully over her bright niece, when she had gone to bed.

f.a.n.n.y paid the promised visit to his people the next afternoon. Mrs.

Goodall was a large woman with smooth-parted hair, a common, obstinate woman, who had spoiled her four lads and her one vixen of a married daughter. She was one of those old-fas.h.i.+oned powerful natures that couldn't do with looks or education or any form of showing off. She fairly hated the sound of correct English. She _thee'd_ and _tha'd_ her prospective daughter-in-law, and said:

'I'm none as ormin' as I look, seest ta.'

f.a.n.n.y did not think her prospective mother-in-law looked at all orming, so the speech was unnecessary.

'I towd him mysen,' said Mrs. Goodall, ''Er's held back all this long, let 'er stop as 'er is. 'E'd none ha' had thee for _my_ tellin'--tha hears. No, 'e's a fool, an' I know it. I says to him, 'Tha looks a man, doesn't ter, at thy age, goin' an' openin' to her when ter hears her scrat' at th' gate, after she's done gallivantin' round wherever she'd a mind. That looks rare an' soft.' But it's no use o' any talking: he answered that letter o' thine and made his own bad bargain.'

But in spite of the old woman's anger, she was also flattered at f.a.n.n.y's coming back to Harry. For Mrs. Goodall was impressed by f.a.n.n.y--a woman of her own match. And more than this, everybody knew that f.a.n.n.y's Aunt Kate had left her two hundred pounds: this apart from the girl's savings.

So there was high tea in Princes Street when Harry came home black from work, and a rather acrid odour of cordiality, the vixen Jinny darting in to say vulgar things. Of course Jinny lived in a house whose garden end joined the paternal garden. They were a clan who stuck together, these Goodalls.

It was arranged that f.a.n.n.y should come to tea again on the Sunday, and the wedding was discussed. It should take place in a fortnight's time at Morley Chapel. Morley was a hamlet on the edge of the real country, and in its little Congregational Chapel f.a.n.n.y and Harry had first met.

What a creature of habit he was! He was still in the choir of Morley Chapel--not very regular. He belonged just because he had a tenor voice, and enjoyed singing. Indeed his solos were only spoilt to local fame because when he sang he handled his aitches so hopelessly.

'And I saw 'eaven hopened And be'old, a wite 'orse-'

This was one of Harry's cla.s.sics, only surpa.s.sed by the fine outburst of his heaving:

'Hangels--hever bright an' fair-'

It was a pity, but it was inalterable. He had a good voice, and he sang with a certain lacerating fire, but his p.r.o.nunciation made it all funny.

And nothing could alter him.

So he was never heard save at cheap concerts and in the little, poorer chapels. The others scoffed.

Now the month was September, and Sunday was Harvest Festival at Morley Chapel, and Harry was singing solos. So that f.a.n.n.y was to go to afternoon service, and come home to a grand spread of Sunday tea with him. Poor f.a.n.n.y! One of the most wonderful afternoons had been a Sunday afternoon service, with her cousin Luther at her side, Harvest Festival in Morley Chapel. Harry had sung solos then--ten years ago. She remembered his pale blue tie, and the purple asters and the great vegetable marrows in which he was framed, and her cousin Luther at her side, young, clever, come down from London, where he was getting on well, learning his Latin and his French and German so brilliantly.

However, once again it was Harvest Festival at Morley Chapel, and once again, as ten years before, a soft, exquisite September day, with the last roses pink in the cottage gardens, the last dahlias crimson, the last sunflowers yellow. And again the little old chapel was a bower, with its famous sheaves of corn and corn-plaited pillars, its great bunches of grapes, dangling like ta.s.sels from the pulpit corners, its marrows and potatoes and pears and apples and damsons, its purple asters and yellow j.a.panese sunflowers. Just as before, the red dahlias round the pillars were dropping, weak-headed among the oats. The place was crowded and hot, the plates of tomatoes seemed balanced perilously on the gallery front, the Rev. Enderby was weirder than ever to look at, so long and emaciated and hairless.

The Rev. Enderby, probably forewarned, came and shook hands with her and welcomed her, in his broad northern, melancholy singsong before he mounted the pulpit. f.a.n.n.y was handsome in a gauzy dress and a beautiful lace hat. Being a little late, she sat in a chair in the side-aisle wedged in, right in front of the chapel. Harry was in the gallery above, and she could only see him from the eyes upwards. She noticed again how his eyebrows met, blond and not very marked, over his nose. He was attractive too: physically lovable, very. If only--if only her _pride_ had not suffered! She felt he dragged her down.

'Come, ye thankful people come, Raise the song of harvest-home.

All is safely gathered in Ere the winter storms begin--'

Even the hymn was a falsehood, as the season had been wet, and half the crops were still out, and in a poor way.

Poor f.a.n.n.y! She sang little, and looked beautiful through that inappropriate hymn. Above her stood Harry--mercifully in a dark suit and dark tie, looking almost handsome. And his lacerating, pure tenor sounded well, when the words were drowned in the general commotion. Brilliant she looked, and brilliant she felt, for she was hot and angrily miserable and inflamed with a sort of fatal despair. Because there was about him a physical attraction which she really hated, but which she could not escape from. He was the first man who had ever kissed her. And his kisses, even while she rebelled from them, had lived in her blood and sent roots down into her soul. After all this time she had come back to them. And her soul groaned, for she felt dragged down, dragged down to earth, as a bird which some dog has got down in the dust. She knew her life would be unhappy. She knew that what she was doing was fatal. Yet it was her doom. She had to come back to him.

He had to sing two solos this afternoon: one before the 'address' from the pulpit and one after. f.a.n.n.y looked at him, and wondered he was not too shy to stand up there in front of all the people. But no, he was not shy. He had even a kind of a.s.surance on his face as he looked down from the choir gallery at her: the a.s.surance of a common man deliberately entrenched in his commonness. Oh, such a rage went through her veins as she saw the air of triumph, laconic, indifferent triumph which sat so obstinately and recklessly on his eyelids as he looked down at her. Ah, she despised him! But there he stood up in that choir gallery like Balaam's a.s.s in front of her, and she could not get beyond him. A certain winsomeness also about him. A certain physical winsomeness, and as if his flesh were new and lovely to touch. The thorn of desire rankled bitterly in her heart.

He, it goes without saying, sang like a canary this particular afternoon, with a certain defiant pa.s.sion which pleasantly crisped the blood of the congregation. f.a.n.n.y felt the crisp flames go through her veins as she listened. Even the curious loud-mouthed vernacular had a certain fascination. But, oh, also, it was so repugnant. He would triumph over her, obstinately he would drag her right back into the common people: a doom, a vulgar doom.

The second performance was an anthem, in which Harry sang the solo parts.

It was clumsy, but beautiful, with lovely words.

'They that sow in tears shall reap in joy, He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him--'

'Shall doubtless come, Shall doubtless come--' softly intoned the altos--'Bringing his she-e-eaves with him,' the trebles flourished brightly, and then again began the half-wistful solo:

'They that sow in tears shall reap in joy--'

Yes, it was effective and moving.

But at the moment when Harry's voice sank carelessly down to his close, and the choir, standing behind him, were opening their mouths for the final triumphant outburst, a shouting female voice rose up from the body of the congregation. The organ gave one startled trump, and went silent; the choir stood transfixed.

'You look well standing there, singing in G.o.d's holy house,' came the loud, angry female shout. Everybody turned electrified. A stoutish, red-faced woman in a black bonnet was standing up denouncing the soloist.

Almost fainting with shock, the congregation realized it. 'You look well, don't you, standing there singing solos in G.o.d's holy house, you, Goodall. But I said I'd shame you. You look well, bringing your young woman here with you, don't you? I'll let her know who she's dealing with. A scamp as won't take the consequences of what he's done.' The hard-faced, frenzied woman turned in the direction of f.a.n.n.y. '_That's_ what Harry Goodall is, if you want to know.'

And she sat down again in her seat. f.a.n.n.y, startled like all the rest, had turned to look. She had gone white, and then a burning red, under the attack. She knew the woman: a Mrs. Nixon, a devil of a woman, who beat her pathetic, drunken, red-nosed second husband, Bob, and her two lanky daughters, grown-up as they were. A notorious character. f.a.n.n.y turned round again, and sat motionless as eternity in her seat.

There was a minute of perfect silence and suspense. The audience was open-mouthed and dumb; the choir stood like Lot's wife; and Harry, with his music-sheet, stood there uplifted, looking down with a dumb sort of indifference on Mrs. Nixon, his face nave and faintly mocking. Mrs.

Nixon sat defiant in her seat, braving them all.

Then a rustle, like a wood when the wind suddenly catches the leaves.

And then the tall, weird minister got to his feet, and in his strong, bell-like, beautiful voice--the only beautiful thing about him--he said with infinite mournful pathos:

'Let us unite in singing the last hymn on the hymn-sheet; the last hymn on the hymn-sheet, number eleven.

'Fair waved the golden corn, In Canaan's pleasant land.'

The organ tuned up promptly. During the hymn the offertory was taken. And after the hymn, the prayer.