THE PANGS OF DESPISED LOVE.
The farmhouse looked desolate in the dusk of the November evening when
Bram, in fulfilment of his promise to Theodore, crossed the farmyard to
the back door and tapped at it lightly.
It was opened by Joan, who looked as if she had been interrupted in the
middle of “a good cry.”
“Ay, coom in, sir,” said she, “coom in. But you’ll find no company here
now.”
“Isn’t Mr. Biron back yet?”
“No, sir,” she answered with a sudden change to aggressive sullenness,
“and he’s welcome to stay away, he is! If it hadn’t been for that
miserable auld rascal, poor Miss Claire ’ud never been took away from
us. Ah wouldn’t have on my conscience what yon chap has, no, not for a
kingdom.”
Bram, sombre and stern, sat down by the fire, staring at the little
wooden stool on which he had so often seen Claire sitting in the
opposite corner, with her sewing in her hand. The big chimney-corner
which they had both loved--how bare it looked without her! Joan,
alone of all the people he had met that day, seemed to understand
what had taken place in him, to realize the sudden death, the total,
irremediable decay, of what had been the joy of his life. She put down
the plate she had been wiping, and she came over to look at him in the
firelight. There was no other light in the room.
“Poor lad! Poor chap!” she murmured in accents so tender, so motherly,
that her rough voice sounded like most sweet, most touching music in
his dull ears.
For the first time since the horrible shock he had received that
morning his features quivered, became convulsed, and a look of
desperate anguish came into his calm gray eyes.
Her strong right hand came down upon his shoulder with a blow which was
meant to be inspiriting in its violent energy.
“Well, lad, ye must bear oop; ye must forget her! Ay, there’s no two
ways about it. It’s a sad business, an’ Ah’m broken oop abaht it mysen,
but she’s chosen to go, an’ there’s no help for it, an’ no grieving can
mend it! It was only you, an’ her liking for you, that stopped her from
going before, I reckon. Look at yon auld spend-t’-brass and the life
she’s led wi’ him, always having to beg, beg, beg for him from folks
as didn’t pity her as they should!”
Bram moved impatiently.
“Yes, that’s what I cannot forgive him!” growled he.
Joan stared at him in the dusk.
“Have you heard,” said she, peering mysteriously into his face, “if
anything ’as happened while you were away?”
Bram shook his head.
“Well, summat did happen. Mr. Biron got money from some one, an’ began
to spend it loike one o’clock. You must have heard o’ that?”
Bram nodded, remembering the new hunter and Theodore’s smart appearance.
“Well,” went on Joan, leaning forward, and dropping her voice, “it was
summat to do wi’ that as broke oop poor Miss Claire. Ay, lad, don’t
shiver an’ start; it’s best you should know all, and forget all if you
can. Well, it was after that, after t’ auld man had gotten t’ brass,
that I saw a change coom over her. She went abaht loike one as warn’t
right, an’ she says to ’im one day--Ah were in t’ kitchen yonder an’ Ah
heard her--‘Papa,’ says she, ‘Ah can never look Bram Elshaw in t’ face
again.’ That’s what she said, my lad; Ah heard her.”
Bram got up, and began to pace up and down the tiled floor without a
word. Joan went on, quickening her pace, a little anxious to get the
story over and done with.
“You know his way. But there was summat in her voice told me it were
no laughin’ matter wi’ her. An’,” went on the good woman in a voice
lower still, “when Mr. Christian coom that evening, says she, says
Miss Claire--‘Ah mun see ’im to-neght.’ An’ he came in, an’ they went
in through to the best parlor, and they had a long talk together. That
were t’ day before yesterday. She must have gone last neght, as soon as
Ah left t’ house.”
Still Bram said nothing, pacing up and down, up and down, on the red
tiles which he had trodden so often with something like ecstasy in his
heart.
Joan was shrewd enough and sympathetic enough to understand why he did
not speak. She finished her plate-washing, disappeared silently into
the outhouse, and presently returned with her bonnet on.
“Are ye going to stay here, sir?” she asked, as she laid her hands on
the door to go out.
“Yes; I promised I’d look in.”
“Friendly loike? You aren’t going for to do him any hurt?”
“No, oh, no.”
“Well,” said Joan, as she turned the handle and took her portly person
slowly round the door, “if so be you had, you might ha’ done it an’
welcome! Ah wouldn’t have stopped ye. Good-neght, sir.”
“Good-night, Joan.”
She went out, and Bram was left alone. The sound of her footsteps died
away, until he felt as if he was the only living thing about the farm.
Even the noises that usually came across from the sheds and the stables
where the animals were kept seemed to be hushed that evening. No sound
reached his ears but the moaning of the rising wind, and the scratching
of the mice in the old wainscotting.
Never before had he felt so utterly, hopelessly miserable and castdown.
In the old days, when he had lived one of a wretched, poverty-stricken
family in a squalid mean way, ill-kept, half-starved, he had had his
daydreams, his vague ambitions, to gild the sorry present. Now, on the
very high-road to the fulfilment of those ambitions, he was suddenly
left without a ray of hope, without a rag of comfort, to bear the most
unutterable wretchedness, that of shattered ideals.
Not Claire alone, but Chris also had fallen from the place each had
held in his imagination, in his heart, and Bram, who hid a spirit-world
of his own under a matter-of-fact manner and a blunt directness of
speech, suffered untold anguish.
While he watched the embers of the fire in profound melancholy, with
his hands on his knees, and his eyes staring dully into the red heart
of the dying fire, he heard something moving outside. He raised his
head, expecting to hear the sound of Mr. Biron’s voice.
But a shadow passed before the window in the faint daylight that was
left; and with a wild hope Bram sat up, his heart seeming to cease to
beat.
The shadow, the step were those of a woman.
The next moment the door was softly, stealthily opened, and away like a
dream went joy and hope again.
The woman was not Claire.
He could see that the visitor was tall, broad-shouldered, of
well-developed figure, and that she was of the class that wear shawls
round their heads, and clogs on their feet in the daytime.
She stood in the room, just inside the door, and seemed to listen. Then
she said in a voice which was coarse and uncultivated, but which was
purposely subdued to a pitch of insincere civility, as Bram instantly
felt sure--
“Miss Biron! Is Miss Claire Biron here?”
Now, Bram had never, as far as he knew, met this girl before; he did
not even know her name. But, with his sense of hearing made sharper,
perhaps, by the darkness, he guessed at once something which was very
near the truth. He knew that this woman came with hostile intent of
some kind or other.
He at once rose from his seat, and said--“No; Miss Biron is not in.”
And he put his hand up to the high chimney-piece, found a box of
matches, and lit a candle which was beside it. Meanwhile the visitor
stood motionless, and was so standing when the light had grown bright
enough for him to see her by. She was a handsome girl, black-haired,
blacked-eyed, with cheeks which ought to have been red, but which were
now pale and thin, showing a sharp outline of rather high cheek-bone
and big jaw. Bram recognized her as a girl whom he had often seen
about Hessel, and who lived at a little farm about a mile and a half
away. Her name was Meg Tyzack. She was neatly dressed, without any of
the flaunting, shabby finery which the factory girls usually affect
when they leave their shawl and clogs. Her lips were tightly closed,
and in her eyes there was an expression of ferocious sullenness which
confirmed the idea Bram had conceived at the first sound of her voice.
Her black cloth jacket was buttoned only at the throat, and her right
hand was thrust underneath it as if she was hiding something.
“Not in, eh?” she asked scoffingly, as she measured Bram from head to
foot with a look of ineffable scorn. Then, with a sudden, sharp change
of tone to one of passionate anxiety, she asked, “Where’s she gone to
then?”
Bram hesitated. This woman’s appearance at the farm, her look, her
manner, betrayed to him within a few seconds a fact he had not guessed
before, though now a dozen circumstances flashed into his mind to
confirm it. This was one of the many girls with whom Chris had had
relations of a more or less questionable character. Bram had seen her
with him in the lane leading to her home, and on the hill above Holme
Park; had seen her waiting about in the town near the works. But to see
Chris talking to a good-looking girl was too common a thing for Bram to
have given this particular young woman much attention. Now, however,
he divined in an instant that it was jealousy which had brought her to
the farmhouse, and a feeling of sickening repulsion came over him at
the thought of the words which he might have to hear directed by this
virago at Claire. If the idol was broken, it was an idol still.
As he did not reply at once, Meg Tyzack stepped quickly across the
floor, and glared into his eyes with a look terrible in its fierce
eagerness, its deadly anxiety.
“Where has she gone? Ye can’t keep t’ truth from me.” Then, as he was
still silent, she burst out with an overwhelming torrent of passion.
“Ah know what they say! Ah know they say he’s taken her away wi’ him,
Mr. Christian of t’ works, Cornthwaite’s works. But it’s a lie. Ah know
it’s a lie. He’d never take her wi’ him; he’d never dare take any one
but me. He care for her? Not enoof for that! She’s here, Ah know she
is; only she’s afraid to coom out, afraid to meet me! But Ah’ll find
her; Ah’ll have her aht. What ’ud you be doin’ here if she wasn’t here?
Oh, Ah know who Christian was jealous of; Ah know she was artful enough
to keep the two of ye on. Ah know it was her fault he used to coom here
and----” Her eyes flashed, and her voice suddenly dropped to a fierce
whisper. “Ah mean to have her aht.”
As she suddenly swung round and made for the inner door leading into
the hall, Bram saw that she held under her jacket a bottle. There was
mischief in the woman’s eyes, worse mischief even than was boded by her
tongue. For one moment, as he sprang after her, Bram felt glad that
Claire was not there. Meg laughed hoarsely in his face as she eluded
him, and disappeared into the hall, slamming the door.
Bram did not follow her. Claire being gone, she could do little harm.
He opened the outer door, and went out into the farmyard. In a few
minutes he saw a light flickering in room after room upstairs. Meg
Tyzack was searching, hunting in every nook and every corner, searching
for her rival with savage, despairing eagerness. Bram shivered. It was
a relief to him when he heard footsteps approaching the farm, and a few
moments later the voice of Theodore calling to him.
“Yes, Mr. Biron, it’s me.”
“Then who’s that in the house? Is it Joan?” asked Theodore fretfully,
testily.
He was dispirited, dejected; evidently he had met with neither comfort
nor sympathy at Holme Park. He had been trying to comfort himself
on the way back, as Bram discovered by his unsteady gait and husky
utterance.
“It’s a girl, Meg Tyzack,” answered Bram.
Mr. Biron started.
“That vixen!” cried he. “That horrible virago! Why did you let her get
in?”
“I couldn’t help it,” replied Bram simply.
“What is she up to?”
“She’s looking for Miss Claire,” said Bram in a low voice.
Theodore made no answer. But he shuddered, and leaning against the wall
of the farmyard began to cry.
“Come, Mr. Biron,” said Bram impatiently, “it’s no use giving way like
that. It’s just something to be thankful for that this mad woman can’t
get hold of her.”
Mr. Biron did not answer. A moment later, attracted probably by the
voices, Meg came rushing out of the house like a fury, and made
straight for the two men.
“Ah!” cried she shrilly, when she made out who the newcomer was,
thrusting her angry face close to his in the gloom. “So it’s you, is
it? You, the father of that----”
“Hold your tongue.”
“Hush!” cried Bram, seizing her arm.
There was a sound so impressive in his voice, short and blunt as his
speech was, that the woman turned upon him sharply, but for a moment
was silent. Then she said with coarse bravado--
“And who are you to talk to me? Why, t’ very mon as ought to take my
part, if you had any spirit? But you leave it to me to pay out t’ pair
on ’em. An’ Ah’ll do it. Ah’ll made ’em both smart for it, if Ah swing
for it! Ah’ll show him the price he has to pay for treatin’ a woman
like me the way he’s done. When Ah loved him so! Ay, ten times more’n
than that little hussy could! Oh, my God, my God!”
Bram, child of the people that he was, was moved in the utmost depths
of his heart by the woman’s mad, passionate despair. He felt for her
as he could never feel for the cool, prim, little wife Christian had
served so ill. He would have comforted her if he could. But as no words
strong enough or suitable enough to the occasion came to his lips, he
just put a gentle hand upon the woman’s shoulder as she bowed herself
down and sobbed.
But Mr. Biron’s refinement was shocked by this scene. Seeing the
woman less ferocious, now that she was more absorbed in her grief, he
ventured to come a little nearer, and to say snappishly--
“But, my good woman, though we may be sorry for you, you have no right
to force yourself into my house. Nor have you any right to speak in
such terms of my daughter.”
Meg was erect in a moment, her eyes flashing, her nostrils quivering.
With a wild, ironical laugh, she faced about, pointing at his mean
little face a scornful finger.
“You!” cried she in a very passion of contempt. “You dare to speak to
me! You as would have sold your daughter a dozen times over if t’ price
had been good enoof! Why, mon, your hussy of a daughter’s a pearl to
you! You’re a rat, a cur! Ah could almost forgive her when Ah look at
you! It’s you Ah’ve got to blame for it all, wi’ your black heart an’
your mean, white face! You more’n her, more’n him!”
With a sudden impulse of indomitable rage, she stepped back, and
raising her right hand quickly, flung something at his face.
[Illustration: “A wedding, Sir?” Bram’s face clouded with perplexity.
--_Page 70._]
Mr. Biron uttered a piercing shriek, as shrill as a woman’s.
“Fiend! She-devil! She’s killed me! Help! Oh, I’m on fire!”
Bram, who hardly knew what had happened, caught Theodore as the latter
fell shrieking into his arms. Meg, with a wild laugh, picked up the
remains of her broken bottle, and ran out of the farmyard.