CHAPTER IV
GRIZEL OF THE CROOKED SMILE
To expose Tommy for what he was, to appear to be scrupulously fair tohim so that I might really damage him the more, that is what I set outto do in this book, and always when he seemed to be finding a way ofgetting round me (as I had a secret dread he might do) I was toremember Grizel and be obdurate. But if I have so far got past some ofhis virtues without even mentioning them (and I have), I know how manyopportunities for discrediting him have been missed, and that wouldnot greatly matter, there are so many more to come, if Grizel were onmy side. But she is not; throughout those first chapters a voice hasbeen crying to me, "Take care; if you hurt him you will hurt me"; andI know it to be the voice of Grizel, and I seem to see her, rockingher arms as she used to rock them when excited in the days of herinnocent childhood. "Don't, don't, don't!" she cried at every cruelword I gave him, and she, to whom it was ever such agony to weep,dropped a tear upon each word, so that they were obliterated; and"Surely I knew him best," she said, "and I always loved him"; and shestood there defending him, with her hand on her heart to conceal thegaping wound that Tommy had made.
Well, if Grizel had always loved him there was surely something fineand rare about Tommy. But what was it, Grizel? Why did you always lovehim, you who saw into him so well and demanded so much of men? When Iask that question the spirit that hovers round my desk to protectTommy from me rocks her arms mournfully, as if she did not know theanswer; it is only when I seem to see her as she so often was in life,before she got that wound and after, bending over some little childand looking up radiant, that I think I suddenly know why she alwaysloved Tommy. It was because he had such need of her.
I don't know whether you remember, but there were once some childrenwho played at Jacobites in the Thrums Den under Tommy's leadership.Elspeth, of course, was one of them, and there were Corp Shiach, andGavinia, and lastly, there was Grizel. Had Tommy's parents been aliveshe would not have been allowed to join, for she was a painted lady'schild; but Tommy insisted on having her, and Grizel thought it wasjust sweet of him. He also chatted with her in public places, as ifshe were a respectable character; and oh, how she longed to berespectable! but, on the other hand, he was the first to point out howsuperbly he was behaving, and his ways were masterful, so theindependent girl would not be captain's wife; if he said she wascaptain's wife he had to apologize, and if he merely looked it he hadto apologize just the same.
One night the Painted Lady died in the Den, and then it would havegone hard with the lonely girl had not Dr. McQueen made her his littlehousekeeper, not out of pity, he vowed (she was so anxious to be toldthat), but because he was an old bachelor sorely in need of someone totake care of him. And how she took care of him! But though she was sohappy now, she knew that she must be very careful, for there wassomething in her blood that might waken and prevent her being a goodwoman. She thought it would be sweet to be good.
She told all this to Tommy, and he was profoundly interested, andconsulted a wise man, whose advice was that when she grew up sheshould be wary of any man whom she liked and mistrusted in one breath.Meaning to do her a service, Tommy communicated this to her; and then,what do you think? Grizel would have no more dealings with him! By andby the gods, in a sportive mood, sent him to labour on a farm,whence, as we have seen, he found a way to London, and while he wasgrowing into a man Grizel became a woman. At the time of the doctor'sdeath she was nineteen, tall and graceful, and very dark and pale.When the winds of the day flushed her cheek she was beautiful; but itwas a beauty that hid the mystery of her face. The sun made her merry,but she looked more noble when it had set; then her pallor shone witha soft, radiant light, as though the mystery and sadness and serenityof the moon were in it. The full beauty of Grizel came out only atnight, like the stars.
I had made up my mind that when the time came to describe Grizel'smere outward appearance I should refuse her that word "beautiful"because of her tilted nose; but now that the time has come, I wonderat myself. Probably when I am chapters ahead I shall return to thisone and strike out the word "beautiful," and then, as likely as not, Ishall come back afterwards and put it in again. Whether it will bethere at the end, God knows. Her eyes, at least, were beautiful. Theywere unusually far apart, and let you look straight into them, andnever quivered; they were such clear, gray, searching eyes, theyseemed always to be asking for the truth. And she had an adorablemouth. In repose it was, perhaps, hard, because it shut so decisively;but often it screwed up provokingly at one side, as when she smiled,or was sorry, or for no particular reason; for she seemed unable tocontrol this vagary, which was perhaps a little bit of babyhood thathad forgotten to grow up with the rest of her. At those moments theessence of all that was characteristic and delicious about her seemedto have run to her mouth; so that to kiss Grizel on her crooked smilewould have been to kiss the whole of her at once. She had a quaint wayof nodding her head at you when she was talking. It made you forgetwhat she was saying, though it was really meant to have precisely theopposite effect. Her voice was rich, with many inflections. When shehad much to say it gurgled like a stream in a hurry; but its cooingnote was best worth remembering at the end of the day. There weretimes when she looked like a boy. Her almost gallant bearing, thepoise of her head, her noble frankness--they all had something in themof a princely boy who had never known fear.
I have no wish to hide her defects; I would rather linger over them,because they were part of Grizel, and I am sorry to see them go one byone. Thrums had not taken her to its heart. She was a proud-purse,they said, meaning that she had a haughty walk. Her sense of justicewas too great. She scorned frailties that she should have pitied. (Howstrange to think that there was a time when pity was not the feelingthat leaped to Grizel's bosom first!) She did not care for study. Shelearned French and the pianoforte to please the doctor; but shepreferred to be sewing or dusting. When she might have been reading,she was perhaps making for herself one of those costumes that annoyedevery lady of Thrums who employed a dressmaker; or, more probably, itwas a delicious garment for a baby; for as soon as Grizel heard thatthere was a new baby anywhere, all her intellect deserted her, and shebecame a slave. Books often irritated her because she disagreed withthe author; and it was a torment to her to find other people holdingto their views when she was so certain that hers were right. In churchshe sometimes rocked her arms; and the old doctor by her side knewthat it was because she could not get up and contradict the minister.She was, I presume, the only young lady who ever dared to say that shehated Sunday because there was so much sitting still in it.
Sitting still did not suit Grizel. At all other times she was happy;but then her mind wandered back to the thoughts that had lived tooclosely with her in the old days, and she was troubled. What woke herfrom these reveries was probably the doctor's hand placed verytenderly on her shoulder, and then she would start, and wonder howlong he had been watching her, and what were the grave thoughtsbehind his cheerful face; for the doctor never looked more cheerfulthan when he was drawing Grizel away from the ugly past, and he talkedto her as if he had noticed nothing; but after he went upstairs hewould pace his bedroom for a long time; and Grizel listened, and knewthat he was thinking about her. Then, perhaps, she would run up tohim, and put her arms around his neck. These scenes brought the doctorand Grizel very close together; but they became rarer as she grew up,and then for once that she was troubled she was a hundred timesirresponsible with glee, and "Oh, you dearest, darlingest," she wouldcry to him, "I must dance,--I must, I must!--though it is a fast-day;and you must dance with your mother this instant--I am so happy, sohappy!" "Mother" was his nickname for her, and she delighted in theword. She lorded it over him as if he were her troublesome boy.
How could she be other than glorious when there was so much to do? Thework inside the house she made for herself, and outside the doctormade it for her. At last he had found for nurse a woman who couldfollow his instructions literally, who understood that if he said fiveo'clock for the medicin
e the chap of six would not do as well, who didnot in her heart despise the thermometer, and who resolutely preventedthe patient from skipping out of bed to change her pillow-slipsbecause the minister was expected. Such tyranny enraged every suffererwho had been ill before and got better; but what they chieflycomplained of to the doctor (and he agreed with a humourous sigh) washer masterfulness about fresh air and cold water. Windows were openedthat had never been opened before (they yielded to her pressure with agroan); and as for cold water, it might have been said that a bathfollowed her wherever she went--not, mark me, for putting your handsand face in, not even for your feet; but in you must go, the whole ofyou, "as if," they said indignantly, "there was something the matterwith our skin."
She could not gossip, not even with the doctor, who liked it of anevening when he had got into his carpet shoes. There was no usetelling her a secret, for she kept it to herself for evermore. She hadideas about how men should serve a woman, even the humblest, that madethe men gaze with wonder, and the women (curiously enough) withirritation. Her greatest scorn was for girls who made themselves cheapwith men; and she could not hide it. It was a physical pain to Grizelto hide her feelings; they popped out in her face, if not in words,and were always in advance of her self-control. To the doctor thisimpulsiveness was pathetic; he loved her for it, but it sometimesmade him uneasy.
He died in the scarlet-fever year. "I'm smitten," he suddenly said ata bedside; and a week afterwards he was gone.
"We must speak of it now, Grizel," he said, when he knew that he wasdying.
She pressed his hand. She knew to what he was referring. "Yes," shesaid, "I should love you to speak of it now."
"You and I have always fought shy of it," he said, "making a pretencethat it had altogether passed away. I thought that was best for you."
"Dearest, darlingest," she said, "I know--I have always known."
"And you," he said, "you pretended because you thought it was best forme."
She nodded. "And we saw through each other all the time," she said.
"Grizel, has it passed away altogether now?"
Her grip upon his hand did not tighten in the least. "Yes," she couldsay honestly, "it has altogether passed away."
"And you have no more fear?"
"No, none."
It was his great reward for all that he had done for Grizel.
"I know what you are thinking of," she said, when he did not speak."You are thinking of the haunted little girl you rescued seven yearsago."
"No," he answered; "I was thanking God for the brave, wholesome womanshe has grown into; and for something else, Grizel--for letting melive to see it."
"To do it," she said, pressing his hand to her breast.
She was a strange girl, and she had to speak her mind. "I don't thinkGod has done it all," she said. "I don't even think that He told youto do it. I think He just said to you, 'There is a painted lady'schild at your door. You can save her if you like.'
"No," she went on, when he would have interposed; "I am sure He didnot want to do it all. He even left a little bit of it to me to domyself. I love to think that I have done a tiny bit of it myself. Ithink it is the sweetest thing about God that He lets us do some of itourselves. Do I hurt you, darling?"
No, she did not hurt him, for he understood her. "But you arenaturally so impulsive," he said, "it has often been a sharp pain tome to see you so careful."
"It was not a pain to me to be careful; it was a joy. Oh, the thousanddear, delightful joys I have had with you!"
"It has made you strong, Grizel, and I rejoice in that; but sometimesI fear that it has made you too difficult to win."
"I don't want to be won," she told him.
"You don't quite mean that, Grizel."
"No," she said at once. She whispered to him impulsively: "It is theonly thing I am at all afraid of now."
"What?"
"Love."
"You will not be afraid of it when it comes."
"But I want to be afraid," she said.
"You need not," he answered. "The man on whom those clear eyes restlovingly will be worthy of it all. If he were not, they would be thefirst to find him out."
"But need that make any difference?" she asked. "Perhaps though Ifound him out I should love him just the same."
"Not unless you loved him first, Grizel."
"No," she said at once again. "I am not really afraid of love," shewhispered to him. "You have made me so happy that I am afraid ofnothing."
Yet she wondered a little that he was not afraid to die, but when shetold him this he smiled and said: "Everybody fears death except thosewho are dying." And when she asked if he had anything on his mind, hesaid: "I leave the world without a care. Not that I have seen all Iwould fain have seen. Many a time, especially this last year, when Ihave seen the mother in you crooning to some neighbour's child, I havethought to myself, 'I don't know my Grizel yet; I have seen her in thebud only,' and I would fain--" He broke off. "But I have no fears," hesaid. "As I lie here, with you sitting by my side, looking so serene,I can say, for the first time for half a century, that I have nothingon my mind.
"But, Grizel, I should have married," he told her. "The chief lessonmy life has taught me is that they are poor critturs--the men whodon't marry."
"If you had married," she said, "you might never have been able tohelp me."
"It is you who have helped me," he replied. "God sent the child; He ismost reluctant to give any of us up. Ay, Grizel, that's what my lifehas taught me, and it's all I can leave to you." The last he saw ofher, she was holding his hand, and her eyes were dry, her teeth wereclenched; but there was a brave smile upon her face, for he had toldher that it was thus he would like to see her at the end. After hisdeath, she continued to live at the old house; he had left it to her("I want it to remain in the family," he said), with all his savings,which were quite sufficient for the needs of such a manager. He hadalso left her plenty to do, and that was a still sweeter legacy.
And the other Jacobites, what of them? Hi, where are you, Corp? Herehe comes, grinning, in his spleet new uniform, to demand our ticketsof us. He is now the railway porter. Since Tommy left Thrums "steam"had arrived in it, and Corp had by nature such a gift for givingluggage the twist which breaks everything inside as you dump it downthat he was inevitably appointed porter. There was no travelling toThrums without a ticket. At Tilliedrum, which was the junction forThrums, you showed your ticket and were then locked in. A hundredyards from Thrums. Corp leaped upon the train and fiercely demandedyour ticket. At the station he asked you threateningly whether you hadgiven up your ticket. Even his wife was afraid of him at such times,and had her ticket ready in her hand.
His wife was one Gavinia, and she had no fear of him except when shewas travelling. To his face she referred to him as a doited sumph, butto Grizel pleading for him she admitted that despite his warts andquarrelsome legs he was a great big muckle sonsy, stout, buirdly wellset up, wise-like, havering man. When first Corp had proposed to her,she gave him a clout on the head; and so little did he know of the sexthat this discouraged him. He continued, however, to propose and sheto clout him until he heard, accidentally (he woke up in church), of aman in the Bible who had wooed a woman for seven years, and thisexample he determined to emulate; but when Gavinia heard of it shewas so furious that she took him at once. Dazed by his good fortune,he rushed off with it to his aunt, whom he wearied with his repetitionof the great news.
"To your bed wi' you," she said, yawning.
"Bed!" cried Corp, indignantly. "And so, auntie, says Gavinia, 'Yes,'says she, 'I'll hae you.' Those were her never-to-be-forgotten words."
"You pitiful object," answered his aunt. "Men hae been married aforenow without making sic a stramash."
"I daursay," retorted Corp; "but they hinna married Gavinia." And thisis the best known answer to the sneer of the cynic.
He was a public nuisance that night, and knocked various people upafter they had gone to bed, to tell them that Gavinia
was to have him.He was eventually led home by kindly though indignant neighbours; butearly morning found him in the country, carrying the news from farm tofarm.
"No, I winna sit down," he said; "I just cried in to tell you Gaviniais to hae me." Six miles from home he saw a mud house on the top of ahill, and ascended genially. He found at their porridge a very oldlady with a nut-cracker face, and a small boy. We shall see themagain. "Auld wifie," said Corp, "I dinna ken you, but I've juststepped up to tell you that Gavinia is to hae me."
It made him the butt of the sportive. If he or Gavinia were nigh, theygathered their fowls round them and then said: "Hens, I didna bringyou here to feed you, but just to tell you that Gavinia is to hae me."This flustered Gavinia; but Grizel, who enjoyed her own jokes tooheartily to have more than a polite interest in those of other people,said to her: "How can you be angry! I think it was just sweet of him."
"But was it no vulgar?"
"Vulgar!" said Grizel. "Why, Gavinia, that is how every lady wouldlike a man to love her."
And then Gavinia beamed. "I'm glad you say that," she said; "for,though I wouldna tell Corp for worlds, I fell likit it."
But Grizel told Corp that Gavinia liked it.
"It was the proof," she said, smiling, "that you have the right tomarry her. You have shown your ticket. Never give it up, Corp."
About a year afterwards Corp, armed in his Sunday stand, rushed toGrizel's house, occasionally stopping to slap his shiny knees."Grizel," he cried, "there's somebody come to Thrums without aticket!" Then he remembered Gavinia's instructions. "Mrs. Shiach'scompliments," he said ponderously, "and it's a boy."
"Oh, Corp!" exclaimed Grizel, and immediately began to put on her hatand jacket. Corp watched her uneasily. "Mrs. Shiach's compliments,"he said firmly, "and he's ower young to be bathed yet; but she's awidto show him off to you," he hastened to add. "'Tell Grizel,' was herfirst words."
"Tell Grizel"! They were among the first words of many mothers. None,they were aware, would receive the news with quite such glee as she.They might think her cold and reserved with themselves, but to see thelook on her face as she bent over a baby, and to know that the babywas yours! What a way she had with them! She always welcomed them asif in coming they had performed a great feat. That is what babies areagape for from the beginning. Had they been able to speak they wouldhave said "Tell Grizel" themselves.
"And Mrs. Shiach's compliments," Corp remembered, "and she would bewindy if you would carry the bairn at the christening."
"I should love it, Corp! Have you decided on the name?"
"Lang syne. Gin it were a lassie we were to call her Grizel--"
"Oh, how sweet of you!"
"After the finest lassie we ever kent," continued Corp, stoutly. "ButI was sure it would be a laddie."
"Why?" "Because if it was a laddie it was to be called after Him,"he said, with emphasis on the last word; "and thinks I to mysel','He'll find a way.' What a crittur he was for finding a way, Grizel!And he lookit so holy a' the time. Do you mind that swear word o'his--'stroke'? It just meant 'damn'; but he could make even 'damn'look holy."
"You are to call the baby Tommy?"
"He'll be christened Thomas Sandys Shiach," said Corp. "I hankeredafter putting something out o' the Jacobites intil his name; and Isays to Gavinia, 'Let's call him Thomas Sandys Stroke Shiach,' says I,'and the minister'll be nane the wiser'; but Gavinia was scandalized."
Grizel reflected. "Corp," she said, "I am sure Gavinia's sister willexpect to be asked to carry the baby. I don't think I want to do it."
"After you promised!" cried Corp, much hurt. "I never kent you tobreak a promise afore."
"I will do it, Corp," she said, at once.
She did not know then that Tommy would be in church to witness theceremony, but she knew before she walked down the aisle with T.S.Shiach in her arms. It was the first time that Tommy and she had seeneach other for seven years. That day he almost rivalled his namesakein the interests of the congregation, who, however, took prodigiouscare that he should not see it--all except Grizel; she smiled awelcome to him, and he knew that her serene gray eyes were watchinghim.