Love is heavy to carry. Though at first it settles upon its victim like a butterfly, it quickly changes into lead.
When love came to Joseph Bridle, he soon learned the weight of the god. He might have been Christian, but Joseph’s progress was very different from the Pilgrim’s. Instead of being born in the City of Destruction, Joseph lived near to a Delectable Mountain. This mountain was Madder Hill. There a man walked sometimes who resembled a homely shepherd—this was Tinker Jar. As soon as Love fastened the burden upon Joe, the peace of Madder Hill left him. He was forced to quit that peace, and go quickly; he must escape.
But whither could he go? To the City of Destruction, where one lived who could alone ease him of his burden—by taking his life away. And there was no casting away his burden before that day came. The thought of Susie filled him utterly; she was the universe, she was a terrible monster, and yet the sweetest thing that ever man saw.…
When Susie awoke, she found that she was no happier than Joe. Although her peace had never been quite like his, yet she journeyed the same road.
Susie rose from her bed, knowing that she loved John Death. If John did not content her soon, and fill her whole body with his love, she knew that she would die. In a kind of way, he had already entered her body, for his eyes had fastened upon her and she could not shake them off.
She heard the village sounds, but she could not listen to them. She wondered how it was that ever a poor girl could feel so strangely. ’Twas a terrible jest to play upon her—this woeful desire.
God is merciful, His trade is to forgive, but Love’s trade is to hurt and destroy.
Susie awoke, tormented by fierce jealousy. She, as well as every one else in Dodder, knew that John Death, attracted by the scarlet thread, had often visited Daisy Huddy.
Nothing escapes the one eye of the old woman who is Dodder. She can look, she can also speak, for every one in Dodder has been given a little piece of her tongue. Nothing is ever missed that happens in a village. Even the winter’s night, or the summer’s day, when a child is conceived, is spoken of; the compact is known and the hour talked of. Nothing that lives under Madder Hill can ever be hid; all insects, and all lights and shadows are the whisperers. The old woman points before one knows oneself, to where one is going.
Perform all with the greatest secrecy, get the church key from old Huddy, and dance to a country tune in the Squire’s pew—the very hassock and psalter will tell. Go down like the beast into the valley and enter the hollow tree, the worms will see you—your merry doings will be extolled by the rabbits.
The old woman sees all that is ill done—it is that she rejoices in. But do good, and you will never be noticed. Nothing is ever seen in that kind of fancy. All eyes are shut, and all ears closed to a good deed. And rightly so, for it is destroyed, if spoken of.…
Susie gazed into the glass as she dressed.
“Surely,” she thought, looking at herself, “John must find me a sweeter morsel than ever Daisy Huddy has been to him. Every one knows that one has only to touch Daisy and she begins to cry. When Mr. Mere goes to her she can be heard crying from the road.” She would not be fearful like Daisy, and she longed to receive any pain that John could give to her.
Susie came downstairs and prepared the breakfast for herself and her father. Her father ate in silence, and then he went out to measure Joseph’s field. Did he but find a square yard of earth less than what Mr. Mere said that the field contained, he would cancel his bargain.
The day passed slowly with Susie; she tried to work, but nothing went right. She laid things in their wrong places, she slipped and broke the handle of the teapot, she allowed the kettle to boil over into the grate.
In all her movements in the house, she only had one thought—to meet John Death and to yield herself to him. In her wish there was no pleasure, only intense longing. When the evening came, Susie could bear to wait no longer; she laid her father’s tea, and went out.
She stood in the lane and her heart beat fast. She looked down at her feet; they were certainly a girl’s shoes that she wore. John must be near to her, he could never have travelled off again, to leave her desolate.
She listened. Of course she could find out where John was. She would only have to wait a little time in the lane to know that. Some one would be sure to laugh presently in the village, and the laugh would tell her where John was, for every one used to laugh at the funny things that he said to them.
Susie pouted and stamped her feet. Perhaps John might have gone that evening to visit Daisy. How could she get to know if he were there? She could not pull Daisy out of her own bed and place herself there instead. But, anyhow, she meant to walk along the street and listen beside Mr. Huddy’s door. If her love shamed her, she could not help it. She did not wish to spy and yet she was compelled to follow Death. She must find out where he was.
He might, she thought more happily, be all alone in his cottage preparing his supper. If that were so, he would accept her help. His cottage would be sure to need dusting, and perhaps his bed might need making. Susie listened for a laugh. She only heard the sound of a haycutter, far away in one of Mr. Mere’s fields. Where was Death? Could no one tell her?
Susie began to walk down the lane towards the Dodder green. The evening air was scented with sweet clover. Two swifts flashed past her, a cuckoo called—its note was changed, summer was come.
Near to the green, Susie met Winnie Huddy. Winnie had a scarlet thread in her hand that she was rolling into a ball.
“You mustn’t quiz me about it,” she said slyly to Susie, “and I don’t envy you your Mr. Rushworth.”
“What are you talking of?” asked Susie. “I don’t know any Mr. Rushworth, and I only stopped you to inquire where John Death might be.”
“Oh,” cried Winnie, carelessly, “I don’t pay no attention to him, ’e do only talk to girls who no one else don’t want.”
Winnie laughed and ran off.
Susie turned down a narrow lane. Why she took that way she hardly knew. Perhaps she thought that Winnie might call after her again, and so she got out of her sight as quickly as she could.
The tiny lane that she had chosen to go down was near to the Dodder Vicarage. It was but a place to toss odd rubbish into. People who had any refuse to get rid of would carry it into this lane and leave it there. From such manure as old tins and rags, nettles, docks, and burrs grew finely.
The lane began deceitfully. It looked pleasant enough at first, the beginning was grassy. One went along for a little, admiring the may-blossoms, and then all at once fell into nettles, old boots, dock leaves, and broken bottles. If one struggled on, nothing better would come of it. There was no pleasure in going on there. The lane soon narrowed; it became only brambles, long trailing brambles with sharp thorns.
To struggle through these brought one into no fairyland, for, at the end of the lane was but a slough made of cow-dung.
About half-way down this lane there was a gate, through which Mr. Mere would often go when he went to the Inn. From this hidden gate everything that went on in the village—cries, laughter, jeers, and the wagging of the old women’s tongues could be easily heard.
Susie waited beside this gate. She waited, knowing that Death would come. So sure was she that he must soon come to her, that she even persuaded herself that he had told her to meet him there. She waited expectantly, yielding herself to pleasing thoughts of love.
The evening was very fair; no sound disturbed the summer peace—unless the rooks did so. For these dark birds seemed unduly excited for such an evening. During such lovely weather the birds ought to have been teaching their young to fly, or else seeking for worms in the water-meadows. And yet they whirled wildly in the sky.
Susie wished so much for Death that she knew he must come to her; he could not deny her fierce longing. Happiness, a long life, sweet children, a loving husband, might never come, but he would come. Of course Winnie knew where he was, and she would be sure—if only to tease her sister—to tell John who had asked for him.
Time moves sullenly while a girl wishes and waits. Each moment that might be so precious to her—were he but come—mocks her and passes by. Duration—that many-headed beast—gives her no comfort. She hears a step. That moment smiles, the others pass on, unthinkingly.
But no moments, to a waiting girl, are silent moments. They come by like an army, and they pass with the tramp of many feet, treading down hope and trampling the wished-for joy into the mud. They all pass by, and all the girl knows of them is that they are gone.
Presently Susie heard voices in the lane. She climbed the gate and, creeping a little way into Mr. Mere’s field, she crouched down under a gorse-bush, whence she could see into the lane without being seen herself.
The speakers came near to her; she knew them. They stopped beside the gate. Susie was astonished; she had not expected John Death and Priscilla Hayhoe to come there together.
There was no one in Dodder who did not know the goodness of Priscilla—the Queen of Heaven Herself could not be more pious. And only the worst, only the really abandoned women, ever went down that lane. Only the naughty ones who, though they might themselves be well-favoured, were said to meet very ill-favoured ones there.
If any girl allowed herself to be taken by a man where those docks and nettles grew so finely amongst broken crocks, her modesty and her happiness would run from her in a hurry, and no doings in that lane ever led to a joyful wedding.
Susie listened breathlessly; she could hardly believe her own ears. John was talking to Priscilla exactly as he had talked to her. His jests were the same, his inquiries were as strange. He asked Priscilla, in his most happy manner, the oddest questions: In what manner did her husband sport and play? and was it after saying his prayers, or before, that he was the most merry with her? Susie expected, when she heard this, that Priscilla would fly from such idle words, but she did not appear to be in the least offended by what he said.
Susie knew that Priscilla remained very near to Death. He seemed to fascinate her in an extraordinary manner. She listened to all he said, and never rebuked him once for the merry freedoms he took with her. She let him say what he liked, and nothing that he said could prevent her from wishing to know more about him.
“How comes it”—Priscilla spoke in a low tone—“that you are able to please and content all the people in Dodder—all the poor people, I mean, and the children? Every cottager praises you, and you make us all forget our troubles when you are near. Even my husband forgets Lord Bullman when he talks to you.”
“I daresay,” replied John gaily, “that Lord Bullman would be very glad if I forgot him too.”
Priscilla gave a little scream of delight. What had John done?
“You have a strange power,” said Priscilla. “What are you?”
“Your lover,” answered Death.
“You never knew my little boy, did you?” asked Priscilla, in a very low voice that Susie could only just hear.
John Death did not reply. He only guided Priscilla through the nettles to a mossy bank under the hedge. Susie crept nearer. She wished to see what was happening. She was so eager for John Death that she would even share him with any woman. She crept as cunningly as any vixen chased by Lord Bullman; she kept close under the hedge without heeding the thorns.
Presently she came to a place in the hedge where she could peep through. She heard a sigh. What were they doing? Susie looked. Priscilla was alone; John Death was nowhere to be seen.