CHAPTER VIII: THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY
Dick had at length secured Fancy for that most delightful ofcountry-dances, opening with six-hands-round.
"Before we begin," said the tranter, "my proposal is, that 'twould be aright and proper plan for every mortal man in the dance to pull off hisjacket, considering the heat."
"Such low notions as you have, Reuben! Nothing but strip will go downwith you when you are a-dancing. Such a hot man as he is!"
"Well, now, look here, my sonnies," he argued to his wife, whom he oftenaddressed in the plural masculine for economy of epithet merely; "I don'tsee that. You dance and get hot as fire; therefore you lighten yourclothes. Isn't that nature and reason for gentle and simple? If I stripby myself and not necessary, 'tis rather pot-housey I own; but if westout chaps strip one and all, why, 'tis the native manners of thecountry, which no man can gainsay? Hey--what did you say, my sonnies?"
"Strip we will!" said the three other heavy men who were in the dance;and their coats were accordingly taken off and hung in the passage,whence the four sufferers from heat soon reappeared, marching in closecolumn, with flapping shirt-sleeves, and having, as common to them all, ageneral glance of being now a match for any man or dancer in England orIreland. Dick, fearing to lose ground in Fancy's good opinion, retainedhis coat like the rest of the thinner men; and Mr. Shiner did the samefrom superior knowledge.
And now a further phase of revelry had disclosed itself. It was the timeof night when a guest may write his name in the dust upon the tables andchairs, and a bluish mist pervades the atmosphere, becoming a distincthalo round the candles; when people's nostrils, wrinkles, and crevices ingeneral, seem to be getting gradually plastered up; when the veryfiddlers as well as the dancers get red in the face, the dancers havingadvanced further still towards incandescence, and entered the cadaverousphase; the fiddlers no longer sit down, but kick back their chairs andsaw madly at the strings, with legs firmly spread and eyes closed,regardless of the visible world. Again and again did Dick share hisLove's hand with another man, and wheel round; then, more delightfully,promenade in a circle with her all to himself, his arm holding her waistmore firmly each time, and his elbow getting further and further behindher back, till the distance reached was rather noticeable; and, mostblissful, swinging to places shoulder to shoulder, her breath curlinground his neck like a summer zephyr that had strayed from its properdate. Threading the couples one by one they reached the bottom, whenthere arose in Dick's mind a minor misery lest the tune should end beforethey could work their way to the top again, and have anew the sameexciting run down through. Dick's feelings on actually reaching the topin spite of his doubts were supplemented by a mortal fear that thefiddling might even stop at this supreme moment; which prompted him toconvey a stealthy whisper to the far-gone musicians, to the effect thatthey were not to leave off till he and his partner had reached the bottomof the dance once more, which remark was replied to by the nearest ofthose convulsed and quivering men by a private nod to the anxious youngman between two semiquavers of the tune, and a simultaneous "All right,ay, ay," without opening the eyes. Fancy was now held so closely thatDick and she were practically one person. The room became to Dick like apicture in a dream; all that he could remember of it afterwards being thelook of the fiddlers going to sleep, as humming-tops sleep, by increasingtheir motion and hum, together with the figures of grandfather James andold Simon Crumpler sitting by the chimney-corner, talking and nodding indumb-show, and beating the air to their emphatic sentences like peoplenear a threshing machine.
The dance ended. "Piph-h-h-h!" said tranter Dewy, blowing out his breathin the very finest stream of vapour that a man's lips could form. "Aregular tightener, that one, sonnies!" He wiped his forehead, and wentto the cider and ale mugs on the table.
"Well!" said Mrs. Penny, flopping into a chair, "my heart haven't been insuch a thumping state of uproar since I used to sit up on old Midsummer-eves to see who my husband was going to be."
"And that's getting on for a good few years ago now, from what I've heardyou tell," said the tranter, without lifting his eyes from the cup he wasfilling. Being now engaged in the business of handing roundrefreshments, he was warranted in keeping his coat off still, though theother heavy men had resumed theirs.
"And a thing I never expected would come to pass, if you'll believe me,came to pass then," continued Mrs. Penny. "Ah, the first spirit ever Isee on a Midsummer-eve was a puzzle to me when he appeared, a hardpuzzle, so say I!"
"So I should have fancied," said Elias Spinks.
"Yes," said Mrs. Penny, throwing her glance into past times, and talkingon in a running tone of complacent abstraction, as if a listener were nota necessity. "Yes; never was I in such a taking as on that Midsummer-eve! I sat up, quite determined to see if John Wildway was going tomarry me or no. I put the bread-and-cheese and beer quite ready, as thewitch's book ordered, and I opened the door, and I waited till the clockstruck twelve, my nerves all alive and so strained that I could feelevery one of 'em twitching like bell-wires. Yes, sure! and when theclock had struck, lo and behold, I could see through the door a littlesmall man in the lane wi' a shoemaker's apron on."
Here Mr. Penny stealthily enlarged himself half an inch.
"Now, John Wildway," Mrs. Penny continued, "who courted me at that time,was a shoemaker, you see, but he was a very fair-sized man, and Icouldn't believe that any such a little small man had anything to do wi'me, as anybody might. But on he came, and crossed the threshold--notJohn, but actually the same little small man in the shoemaker's apron--"
"You needn't be so mighty particular about little and small!" said herhusband.
"In he walks, and down he sits, and O my goodness me, didn't I fleeupstairs, body and soul hardly hanging together! Well, to cut a longstory short, by-long and by-late, John Wildway and I had a miff andparted; and lo and behold, the coming man came! Penny asked me if I'd gosnacks with him, and afore I knew what I was about a'most, the thing wasdone."
"I've fancied you never knew better in your life; but I mid be mistaken,"said Mr. Penny in a murmur.
After Mrs. Penny had spoken, there being no new occupation for her eyes,she still let them stay idling on the past scenes just related, whichwere apparently visible to her in the centre of the room. Mr. Penny'sremark received no reply.
During this discourse the tranter and his wife might have been observedstanding in an unobtrusive corner, in mysterious closeness to each other,a just perceptible current of intelligence passing from each to each,which had apparently no relation whatever to the conversation of theirguests, but much to their sustenance. A conclusion of some kind havingat length been drawn, the palpable confederacy of man and wife was oncemore obliterated, the tranter marching off into the pantry, humming atune that he couldn't quite recollect, and then breaking into the wordsof a song of which he could remember about one line and a quarter. Mrs.Dewy spoke a few words about preparations for a bit of supper.
That elder portion of the company which loved eating and drinking put ona look to signify that till this moment they had quite forgotten that itwas customary to expect suppers on these occasions; going even furtherthan this politeness of feature, and starting irrelevant subjects, theexceeding flatness and forced tone of which rather betrayed their object.The younger members said they were quite hungry, and that supper would bedelightful though it was so late.
Good luck attended Dick's love-passes during the meal. He sat nextFancy, and had the thrilling pleasure of using permanently a glass whichhad been taken by Fancy in mistake; of letting the outer edge of the soleof his boot touch the lower verge of her skirt; and to add to thesedelights the cat, which had lain unobserved in her lap for severalminutes, crept across into his own, touching him with fur that hadtouched her hand a moment before. There were, besides, some littlepleasures in the shape of helping her to vegetable she didn't want, andwhen it had nearly alighted on her plate taking it across for his ownuse, on the plea of waste not
, want not. He also, from time to time,sipped sweet sly glances at her profile; noticing the set of her head,the curve of her throat, and other artistic properties of the livelygoddess, who the while kept up a rather free, not to say too free,conversation with Mr. Shiner sitting opposite; which, after some uneasycriticism, and much shifting of argument backwards and forwards in Dick'smind, he decided not to consider of alarming significance.
"A new music greets our ears now," said Miss Fancy, alluding, with thesharpness that her position as village sharpener demanded, to thecontrast between the rattle of knives and forks and the late notes of thefiddlers.
"Ay; and I don't know but what 'tis sweeter in tone when you get aboveforty," said the tranter; "except, in faith, as regards father there.Never such a mortal man as he for tunes. They do move his soul; don't'em, father?"
The eldest Dewy smiled across from his distant chair an assent toReuben's remark.
"Spaking of being moved in soul," said Mr. Penny, "I shall never forgetthe first time I heard the 'Dead March.' 'Twas at poor Corp'l Nineman'sfuneral at Casterbridge. It fairly made my hair creep and fidget aboutlike a vlock of sheep--ah, it did, souls! And when they had done, andthe last trump had sounded, and the guns was fired over the dead hero'sgrave, a' icy-cold drop o' moist sweat hung upon my forehead, and anotherupon my jawbone. Ah, 'tis a very solemn thing!"
"Well, as to father in the corner there," the tranter said, pointing toold William, who was in the act of filling his mouth; "he'd starve todeath for music's sake now, as much as when he was a boy-chap offifteen."
"Truly, now," said Michael Mail, clearing the corner of his throat in themanner of a man who meant to be convincing; "there's a friendly tie ofsome sort between music and eating." He lifted the cup to his mouth, anddrank himself gradually backwards from a perpendicular position to aslanting one, during which time his looks performed a circuit from thewall opposite him to the ceiling overhead. Then clearing the othercorner of his throat: "Once I was a-setting in the little kitchen of theDree Mariners at Casterbridge, having a bit of dinner, and a brass bandstruck up in the street. Such a beautiful band as that were! I wassetting eating fried liver and lights, I well can mind--ah, I was! and tosave my life, I couldn't help chawing to the tune. Band played six-eighttime; six-eight chaws I, willynilly. Band plays common common time wentmy teeth among the liver and lights as true as a hair. Beautiful 'twere!Ah, I shall never forget that there band!"
"That's as tuneful a thing as ever I heard of," said grandfather James,with the absent gaze which accompanies profound criticism.
"I don't like Michael's tuneful stories then," said Mrs. Dewy. "They arequite coarse to a person o' decent taste."
Old Michael's mouth twitched here and there, as if he wanted to smile butdidn't know where to begin, which gradually settled to an expression thatit was not displeasing for a nice woman like the tranter's wife tocorrect him.
"Well, now," said Reuben, with decisive earnestness, "that sort o' coarsetouch that's so upsetting to Ann's feelings is to my mind arecommendation for it do always prove a story to be true. And for thesame reason, I like a story with a bad moral. My sonnies, all truestories have a coarse touch or a bad moral, depend upon't. If the story-tellers could ha' got decency and good morals from true stories, who'dha' troubled to invent parables?" Saying this the tranter arose to fetcha new stock of cider, ale, mead, and home-made wines.
Mrs. Dewy sighed, and appended a remark (ostensibly behind her husband'sback, though that the words should reach his ears distinctly wasunderstood by both): "Such a man as Dewy is! Nobody do know the troubleI have to keep that man barely respectable. And did you ever heartoo--just now at supper-time--talking about 'taties' with Michael in sucha work-folk way. Well, 'tis what I was never brought up to! With ourfamily 'twas never less than 'taters,' and very often 'pertatoes'outright; mother was so particular and nice with us girls there was nofamily in the parish that kept them selves up more than we."
The hour of parting came. Fancy could not remain for the night, becauseshe had engaged a woman to wait up for her. She disappeared temporarilyfrom the flagging party of dancers, and then came downstairs wrapped upand looking altogether a different person from whom she had beenhitherto, in fact (to Dick's sadness and disappointment), a womansomewhat reserved and of a phlegmatic temperament--nothing left in her ofthe romping girl that she had seemed but a short quarter-hour before, whohad not minded the weight of Dick's hand upon her waist, nor shirked thepurlieus of the mistletoe.
"What a difference!" thought the young man--hoary cynic pro tem. "What amiserable deceiving difference between the manners of a maid's life atdancing times and at others! Look at this lovely Fancy! Through thewhole past evening touchable, squeezeable--even kissable! For whole half-hours I held her so chose to me that not a sheet of paper could have beenshipped between us; and I could feel her heart only just outside my own,her life beating on so close to mine, that I was aware of every breath init. A flit is made upstairs--a hat and a cloak put on--and I no moredare to touch her than--" Thought failed him, and he returned torealities.
But this was an endurable misery in comparison with what followed. Mr.Shiner and his watch-chain, taking the intrusive advantage that ardentbachelors who are going homeward along the same road as a pretty youngwoman always do take of that circumstance, came forward to assureFancy--with a total disregard of Dick's emotions, and in tones which werecertainly not frigid--that he (Shiner) was not the man to go to bedbefore seeing his Lady Fair safe within her own door--not he, nobodyshould say he was that;--and that he would not leave her side an inchtill the thing was done--drown him if he would. The proposal wasassented to by Miss Day, in Dick's foreboding judgment, with onedegree--or at any rate, an appreciable fraction of a degree--of warmthbeyond that required by a disinterested desire for protection from thedangers of the night.
All was over; and Dick surveyed the chair she had last occupied, lookingnow like a setting from which the gem has been torn. There stood herglass, and the romantic teaspoonful of elder wine at the bottom that shecouldn't drink by trying ever so hard, in obedience to the mightyarguments of the tranter (his hand coming down upon her shoulder thewhile, like a Nasmyth hammer); but the drinker was there no longer. Therewere the nine or ten pretty little crumbs she had left on her plate; butthe eater was no more seen.
There seemed a disagreeable closeness of relationship between himself andthe members of his family, now that they were left alone again face toface. His father seemed quite offensive for appearing to be in just ashigh spirits as when the guests were there; and as for grandfather James(who had not yet left), he was quite fiendish in being rather glad theywere gone.
"Really," said the tranter, in a tone of placid satisfaction, "I've hadso little time to attend to myself all the evenen, that I mean to enjoy aquiet meal now! A slice of this here ham--neither too fat nor toolean--so; and then a drop of this vinegar and pickles--there, that'sit--and I shall be as fresh as a lark again! And to tell the truth, mysonny, my inside has been as dry as a lime-basket all night."
"I like a party very well once in a while," said Mrs. Dewy, leaving offthe adorned tones she had been bound to use throughout the evening, andreturning to the natural marriage voice; "but, Lord, 'tis such a sight ofheavy work next day! What with the dirty plates, and knives and forks,and dust and smother, and bits kicked off your furniture, and I don'tknow what all, why a body could a'most wish there were no such things asChristmases . . . Ah-h dear!" she yawned, till the clock in the cornerhad ticked several beats. She cast her eyes round upon the displaced,dust-laden furniture, and sank down overpowered at the sight.
"Well, I be getting all right by degrees, thank the Lord for't!" said thetranter cheerfully through a mangled mass of ham and bread, withoutlifting his eyes from his plate, and chopping away with his knife andfork as if he were felling trees. "Ann, you may as well go on to bed atonce, and not bide there making such sleepy faces; you look aslong-favoured as a fiddle, upon my l
ife, Ann. There, you must be weariedout, 'tis true. I'll do the doors and draw up the clock; and you go on,or you'll be as white as a sheet to-morrow."
"Ay; I don't know whether I shan't or no." The matron passed her handacross her eyes to brush away the film of sleep till she got upstairs.
Dick wondered how it was that when people were married they could be soblind to romance; and was quite certain that if he ever took to wife thatdear impossible Fancy, he and she would never be so dreadfully practicaland undemonstrative of the Passion as his father and mother were. Themost extraordinary thing was, that all the fathers and mothers he knewwere just as undemonstrative as his own.