Barring the Way
I don't know how she could have done it. I couldn't have done itmyself. At least, I don't think so. But being lame and small, andnot noticeable anyhow, I had never any temptation, so I can't judgethose that have.Ellen was tall and a slight figure, and as pretty as a picture inher Sunday clothes, and prettier than any picture on a working day,with her sleeves rolled up to her shoulder and the colour in herface like a rose, and her brown, hair all twisted up rough anyhow;and, of course, she was much sought after and flattered. But Icouldn't have done it myself, I think, even if I had been soughtafter twice as much and twice as handsome. No, I couldn't, not afterthe doctor had said that father's heart was weak, and any suddenshock might bring an end to him.But, oh! poor dear, she was my sister--my own only sister--and it'snot the time now to be hard on her, and she where she is.She was walking regular with a steady young man, who worked throughthe week at Hastings, and come home here on a Sunday, and she wouldhave married him and been as happy as a queen, I know; and all herlooking in the glass, and dressing herself pretty, would have cometo being proud of her babies and spending what bits she could gettogether in making them look smart; but it was not to be.Young Barber, the grocer's son, who had a situation in London, hecome down for his summer holiday, and then it was 'No, thank youkindly,' to poor Arthur Simmons, that had loved her faithful andtrue them two years, and she was all for walking with young Mr.Barber, besides running into the shop twenty times a day when nooccasion was, just for a word across the counter.And father wasn't the best pleased, but he was always a silent man,very pious, and not saying much as he sat at his bench, for he hadbeen brought up to the shoemaking and was very respected amongPevensey folks. He would hum a hymn or two at his work sometimes,but he was never a man of words. When young Barber went back toLondon, Ellen, she began to lose her pretty looks. I had neverthought much of young Barber. There was something common abouthim--not like the labouring men, but a kind of town commonness,which is twenty times worse to my thinking; and if I didn't like himbefore, you may guess I didn't waste much love on him when I seepoor Ellen's looks.Now, if I am to tell you this story at all, I must tell it verysteady and quiet, and not run on about what I thought or what Ifelt, or I shan't never have the heart to go through it. The longand short of it was that a month hadn't passed over our heads afteryoung Barber leaving, when one morning our Ellen wasn't there. Andshe left a note, nailed to father's bench, to say she had gone offwith her true love, and father wasn't to mind, for she was going tobe married.Father, he didn't say a word, but he turned a dreadful white, andblue his lips were, and for one dreadful moment I thought that I hadlost him too. But he come round presently. I ran across to the ThreeSwans to get a drop of brandy for him; and I looked at her letteragain, and I looked at him, and we both see that neither of usbelieved that she was going to be married. There was something aboutthe very way of the words as she had written them which showed theyweren't true.Father, he said nothing, only when next Sunday had come, and I hadlaid out his Sunday things and his hat, all brushed as usual, hesays--'Put 'em away, my girl. I don't believe in Sunday. How can I believein all that, and my Ellen gone to shame?'And, after that, Sundays was the same to him as weekdays, and thefolks looked shy at us, and I think they thought that, what withEllen's running away and father's working on Sundays, we was on thehigh-road to the pit of destruction.And so the time went on, and it was Christmas. The bells was ringingfor Christmas Eve, and I says to father: 'O father! come to church.Happen it's all true, and Ellen's an honest woman, after all.'And he lifted his head and looked at me, and at that moment therecome a soft little knock at the door. I knew who it was afore I hadtime to stir a foot to go across the kitchen and open the door toher. She blinked her eyes at the light as I opened the door to her.Oh, pale and thin her face was that used to be so rosy-red, and--'May I come in?' she said, as if it wasn't her own home. And father,he looked at her like a man that sees nothing, and I was frightenedwhat he might do, like the fool I was, that ought to have knownbetter.'I'm very tired,' says Ellen, leaning against the door-post; 'I havecome from a very long way.'And the next minute father makes two long steps to the door, and hisarms is round her, and she a-hanging on his neck, and they twoholding each other as if they would never let go. And so she comehome, and I shut the door.And in all that time father and me, we couldn't make too much ofher, me being that thankful to the Lord that He had let our dearcome back to us; and never a word did she say to me of him that hadbeen her ruin. But one night when I asked her, silly-like, andhardly thinking what I was doing, some question about him, fatherdown with his fist on the table, and says he--'When you name that name, my girl, you light hell in me, and if everI see his damned face again, God help him and me too.'And so I held my stupid tongue, and sat sewing with Ellen long days,and it was a happy, sad time, if a time can be sad and happy both.And it was about primrose-time that her time come, and we had keptit quiet, and nobody knew but us and Mrs. Jarvis, that lived in thecottage next to ours, and was Ellen's godmother, and loved her likeher own daughter; and when the baby come, Ellen says, 'Is it a boyor a girl?' And we told her it was a boy.Then, says she, 'Thank God for that! My baby won't live to know suchshame as mine.'And there wasn't one of us dared tell her that God meant no shame orpain or grief at all should come to her little baby, because it wasdead. But by-and-by she would have it to lie by her, and we said No:it was asleep; and for all we said she guessed the truth somehow.And she began to cry, the tears running down her cheeks and wettingthe linen about her, and she began to moan, 'I want my baby--oh,bring me my little baby that I have never seen yet. I want to say"good-bye" to it, for I shall never go where it is going.'And father said, 'Bring her the child.'I had dressed the poor little thing--a pretty boy, and would havebeen a fine man--in one of the gowns I had taken a pleasure insewing for it to wear, and the little cap with the crimped borderthat had been Ellen's own when she was a baby and her mother'spride, and I brought it and put it in her arms, and it was clay-coldin my hands as I carried it. And she laid its head on her breast aswell as she could for her weakness; and father, who was leaning overher, nigh mad with love and being so anxious about her, he says--'Let Lucy take the poor little thing away, Ellen,' he says, 'for youmust try to get well and strong for the sake of those that loveyou.'Then she says, turning her eyes on him, shining like stars out ofher pale face, and still holding her baby tight to her breast, 'Iknow what's the best thing I can do for them as love me, and I'mdoing it fast. Kiss me, father, and kiss the baby too. Perhaps if Ihold it tight we'll go out into the dark together, and God won'thave the heart to part us.' And so she died.And there was no one but me that touched her after she died, for allI am a cripple, and I laid her out, my pretty, with my own hands,and the baby in the hollow of her arm; and I put primroses all roundthem, and I took father to look at them when all was done, and westood there, holding hands and looking at her lying there so sweetand peaceful, and looking so good too, whatever you may think, withall the trouble wiped off her face as if the Lord had washed italready in His heavenly light.Now, Ellen was buried in the churchyard, and Parson, who was alwaysa hard man, he would have her laid away to the north side, where nosun gets to for the trees and the church, and where few folks liketo be buried. But father, he said, 'No; lay her beside her mother,in the bit of ground I bought twenty years ago, where I mean to liemyself, and Lucy too, when her time comes, so that if the talk ofrising again is true we shall be all together at the last, askinsfolk should.'So they laid her there, and her name was cut under mother's on theheadstone.Father didn't grieve and take on as some men do, but he was quieterthan he used to be, and didn't seem to have that heart in his workthat he always had even after she had left us. It seemed as if thespring of him was broken, somehow. Not but what he was goodnessitself to me then and always. But I wasn't his favourite child, norcould I have looked to be, me being what I am and she so sweet andpretty, and such a way with her.And father went to church to the burying, but he wouldn't go toservice. 'I think maybe there's a God, and if there is, I have thatin my heart that's quite enough keeping in my own poor house,without my daring to take it into His.'And so I gave up going too. I wouldn't seem to be judging father,not though I might be judged myself by all the village. But when Iheard the church-bells ringing, ringing, it was like as if some onethat loved me was calling to me and me not answering; and sometimeswhen all the folk was in church, I used to hobble up on my crutchesto the gate and stand there and sometimes hear a bit of the singingcome through the open door.It was the end of August that Mr. Barber at the shop fell off aladder leading to his wareroom, and was killed on the spot; and Mrs.Jarvis, she says to me, 'If that young Barber comes home, as Isuppose he will, to take what's his by right in the eyes of the law,he might as well go and put his head into an oven on a baking-day,and get his worst friend to shove his legs in after him and shut thedoor to.''He won't come back,' says I. 'How could he face it, when every onein the village knows it?'For when Ellen died it could not be kept secret any longer, and aheap of folks that would have drawn their skirts aside rather thanbrush against her if she had been there alive and well, with herbaby at her breast, had a tear and a kind word for her now that shewas gone where no tears and no words could get at her for good orevil.I see once a bit of poetry in a book, and it said when a woman haddone what she had done, the only way to get forgiven is to die, andI believe that's true. But it isn't true of fathers and sisters.It was Sunday morning, and father, he was working away at hisbench--not that it ever seemed to make him any happier to work, onlyhe was more miserable if he didn't,--and I had crept up to thechurchyard to lean against the wall and listen to the psalms beingsung inside, when, looking down the village street, I saw Barber'sshop open, and out came young Barber himself. Oh, if God forgets anyone in His mercy, it will be him and his like!He come out all smart and neat in his new black, and he waswhistling a hymn tune softly. Our house was betwixt Barber's shopand the church, not a stone's-throw off, anyway; and I prayed to Godthat Barber would turn the other way and not come by our house,where father he was sitting at his bench with the door open.But he did turn, and come walking towards me; and I had laid mycrutches on the ground, and I stooped to pick them up to go home--tostop words; for what were words, and she in her grave?--when I heardyoung Barber's voice, and I looked over the wall, and see he hadstopped, in his madness and folly and the wickedness of his heart,right opposite the house he had brought shame to, and he wasspeaking to father through the door.I couldn't hear what he said, but he seemed to expect an answer,and, when none came, he called out a little louder, 'Oh, well,you've no call to hold your head so high, anyhow!' And for the wayhe said it I could have killed him myself, but for having beenbrought up to know that two wrongs don't make a right, and'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; I will repay.'They was at prayers in the church, and there was no sound in thestreet but the cooing of the pigeons on the roofs, and young Barber,he stood there looking in at our door with that little sneeringsmile on his face, and the next minute he was running for his lifefor the church, where all the folks were, and father after him likea madman, with his long knife in his hand that he used to cut theleather with. It all happened in a flash.Barber come running up the dusty road in his black, and passed me asI stood by the churchyard gate, and up towards the church; butsudden in the path he stopped short, his eyes seeming starting outof his head as he looked at Ellen's grave--not that he could see hername, the headstone being turned the other way,--and he put hishands before his eyes and stood still a-trembling, like a rabbitwhen the dogs are on it, and it can't find no way out. Then he criedout, 'No, no, cover her face, for God's sake!' and crouched downagainst the footstone, and father, coming swift behind him, passedme at the gate, and he ran his knife through Barber's back twice ashe crouched, and they rolled on the path together.Then all the folks in church that had heard the scream, they comeout like ants when you walk through an ant-heap. Young Barber washolding on to the headstone, the blood running out through his newbroadcloth, and death written on his face in big letters.I ran to lift up father, who had fallen with his face on the grave,and as I stooped over him, young Barber he turned his head towardsme, and he says in a voice I could hardly catch, such a whisper itwas, 'Was there a child? I didn't know there was a child--a littlechild in her arm, and flowers all round.''Your child,' says I; 'and may God forgive you!'And I knew that he had seen her as I see her when my hands haddressed her for her sleep through the long night.I never have believed in ghosts, but there is no knowing what thegood Lord will allow.So vengeance overtook him, and they carried him away to die with theblood dropping on the gravel; and he never spoke a word again.And when they lifted father up with the red knife still fast in hishand, they found that he was dead, and his face was white and hislips were blue, like as I had seen them before. And they all saidfather must have been mad; and so he lies where he wished to lie,and there's a place there where I shall lie some day, where fatherlies, and mother, and my dear with her little baby in the hollow ofher arm.
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