The Country of the Blind | Page 6

pulled away into the
four-wheeler by his future wife and mother-in-law from the reluctant
hands of our discarded Jane. There were threats of giving her "in
charge."
"My poor Jane!" said my wife, mincing veal as though she was mincing
William. "It's a shame of them. I would think no more of him. He is not
worthy of you."

"No, m'm," said Jane. "He is weak.
"But it's that woman has done it," said Jane. She was never known to
bring herself to pronounce "that woman's" name or to admit her
girlishness. "I can't think what minds some women must have--to try
and get a girl's young man away from her. But there, it only hurts to
talk about it," said Jane.
Thereafter our house rested from William. But there was something in
the manner of Jane's scrubbing the front doorstep or sweeping out the
rooms, a certain viciousness, that persuaded me that the story had not
yet ended.
"Please, m'm, may I go and see a wedding tomorrow?" said Jane one
day.
My wife knew by instinct whose wedding. "Do you think it is wise,
Jane?" she said.
"I would like to see the last of him," said Jane.
"My dear," said my wife, fluttering into my room about twenty minutes
after Jane had started, "Jane has been to the boot-hole and taken all the
left-off boots and shoes, and gone off to the wedding with them in a
bag. Surely she cannot mean--"
"Jane," I said, "is developing character. Let us hope for the best."
Jane came back with a pale, hard face. All the boots seemed to be still
in her bag, at which my wife heaved a premature sigh of relief. We
heard her go upstairs and replace the boots with considerable emphasis.
"Quite a crowd at the wedding, ma'am," she said presently, in a purely
conversational style, sitting in our little kitchen, and scrubbing the
potatoes; "and such a lovely day for them." She proceeded to numerous
other details, clearly avoiding some cardinal incident.
"It was all extremely respectable and nice, ma'am; but her father didn't

wear a black coat, and looked quite out of place, ma'am. Mr.
Piddingquirk--"
"Who?"
"Mr. Piddingquirk--William that was, ma'am--had white gloves, and a
coat like a clergyman, and a lovely chrysanthemum. He looked so nice,
ma'am. And there was red carpet down, just like for gentlefolks. And
they say he gave the clerk four shillings, ma'am. It was a real kerridge
they had--not a fly. When they came out of church there was
rice-throwing, and her two little sisters dropping dead flowers. And
someone threw a slipper, and then I threw a boot--"
"Threw a boot, Jane!"
"Yes, ma'am. Aimed at her. But it hit him. Yes, ma'am, hard. Gev him a
black eye, I should think. I only threw that one. I hadn't the heart to try
again. All the little boys cheered when it hit him."
After an interval--"I am sorry the boot hit him."
Another pause. The potatoes were being scrubbed violently. "He
always was a bit above me, you know, ma'am. And he was led away."
The potatoes were more than finished. Jane rose sharply with a sigh,
and rapped the basin down on the table.
"I don't care," she said. "I don't care a rap. He will find out his mistake
yet. It serves me right. I was stuck up about him. I ought not to have
looked so high. And I am glad things are as things are."
My wife was in the kitchen, seeing to the higher cookery. After the
confession of the boot-throwing, she must have watched poor Jane
fuming with a certain dismay in those brown eyes of hers. But I
imagine they softened again very quickly, and then Jane's must have
met them.
"Oh, ma'am," said Jane, with an astonishing change of note, "think of

all that might have been! Oh, ma'am, I could have been so happy! I
ought to have known, but I didn't know...You're very kind to let me talk
to you, ma'am...for it's hard on me, ma'am...it's har-r-r-r-d--"
And I gather that Euphemia so far forgot herself as to let Jane sob out
some of the fullness of her heart on a sympathetic shoulder. My
Euphemia, thank Heaven, has never properly grasped the importance of
"keeping up her position." And since that fit of weeping, much of the
accent of bitterness has gone out of Jane's scrubbing and brush work.
Indeed, something passed the other day with the butcher-boy--but that
scarcely belongs to this story. However, Jane is young still, and time
and change are at work with her. We all have our sorrows, but I do not
believe very much in the existence of sorrows that never heal.

II.
THE CONE.
The night was hot and