Bessie's sleep of exhaustion deepened to delirium and for a long day
she lay in the grip of it. When she floated out of her
unconsciousness, she had a sense of confusion. A babel of
meaningless voices, like the many sounds of a wild night, were
clashing in her brain. A man and a woman were in her bedroom,
talking like somnambulists.
"Her feet have been bleeding. Where has she been, think you?"
The man's voice must be that of Doctor Clucas, and then came some
vague answer in the woman's voice, with a thick snuffle and a
suppressed sob--her mother's.
Bessie heard no more. A cloud passed over her brain that was like
the rolling mist that alternately reveals and conceals a bell-buoy at
sea. When it cleared she heard a strange woman's voice outside the
house--her bedroom door had been left open that her mother might hear
her if she called.
"I didn't know thy daughter had come home, Liza Collister."
"And how dost thou know now, Bridget Skillicorne?"
"How? There's someones coming will tell thee how, woman."
Bessie felt as if somebody had struck her in the face. Had anything
become known? Later she heard her step-father speaking in the
kitchen.
"Is she herself yet."
"Not yet."
"Better she never should be."
"Sakes alive, man, what art thou saying?"
"I'm saying that old trollop on the brews is after finding something
under the _Clagh-ny-Dooiney_ and sending her man to the police to
fetch it."
"Fetch what?"
"Just a parcel in a silk scarf with a lil arm sticking out--that's
all, ma'am."
The doctor at the hospital had been holding a post-mortem, and now
Cain, the constable, was to make a house to house visitation of the
parish to find the mother of the child.
Bessie covered her mouth to suppress a scream. But something
whispered, "Hush! Keep still! They know nothing!"
Early next day she was awakened by the sound of many men's voices
downstairs, and her mother's voice in angry protestation.
"I tell thee, I know nothing about it. The girl came home to me
three days ago, and I put her to bed, and she has never since been
out of it."
"They all say that, ma'am," said one of the men. It was Cain, the
constable.
A little later, while Bessie lay with closed eyes and her face to the
wall, she became aware of several persons in her bedroom, and one of
them leaning over her. She knew it was Cain--she could hear his
asthmatical breathing.
"Is she really unconscious, doctor?"
"Undoubtedly she is. You can leave her for a few days anyway.
She'll not run away, you see."
After that, listening intently, Bessie heard the constable ranging
the room as if examining everything.
"What's this?" he asked.
Bessie drew a quick breath, but dared not look around.
"Only a remnant seemingly," said the doctor.
"We'll be taking it with us, though," said the constable, and then
the rolling mist of unconsciousness covered everything again.
When it passed Bessie knew that the police were suspecting her. They
thought they had found her out, and they were going to bring the
whole machinery of the law to punish her. What a wicked thing the
law was! She had injured nobody--nobody that anybody had ever seen
in this world. She had only tried to save somebody she loved from
shame and pain. And yet the constables, the courts and the coroners
were all in a conspiracy to crush one poor girl! No matter! She
would deny everything.
Next day was Sunday. Bessie heard the church bells ringing across
the Curragh, and, before they stopped, the singing of a hymn. The
Primitives were holding a service at the corner of the high road
before going into their chapel. After the hymn somebody prayed. It
was Will Skillicorne. Bessie (listening through her open skylight)
recognised the high pitch of his preaching voice. He would be
standing on the chapel steps.
There was a great deal about "carnal transgression," about "brands
plucked from the burning," about "the judgments of the Lord," and
finally about the "conscious sinner," throwing herself upon her
Saviour and repenting of "the sin she had committed against God." At
the close of his prayer Will gave out the first two lines of another
hymn--
"_I was a wandering sheep,
I did not love the fold._"
Bessie knew whom all this was meant for. The Primitives were
torturing her. But they were torturing somebody else as well.
Through the singing and praying she heard her mother's sighs
downstairs, and the beating of her foot on the hearthstone, as she
sat by the fire and listened to the service for her guilty child.
What a cowardly thing religion was! Sin? What sin had she
committed? She had never intended to do wrong, and only those who
had gone through it could know what she had suffered. Anyway, such
as she was God had made her. She would admit nothing. Nothing
whatever.
Two days passed. Bessie's heart softened and became calm. The
police were leaving her alone--they must have given up that nonsense
about punishing her. Everything was going to turn out as she had
expected.
On the third day, her mother, coming into her bedroom, found her with
widely-opened eyes and all her face a smile. Yes, she was herself
once more. In fact there had not been much amiss with her. Only,
never having been ill before, she had been frightened and had come
home to be nursed by her mother. But now she was better and must
soon go back .... back to where she came from.
She told her mother about Alick and how fond he was of her--parting
from his father and sisters and even his mother for her sake. It was
quite a mistake to suppose that Alick had refused to marry her. He
would have married her long ago, and it was she who had been holding
back. Why? She wished to be strong and well first. It wasn't fair
to a man to let him marry a sick wife--was it?
The old woman, with a broken face, looking sadly down at the girl,
said, "Yes, bogh! It's like it isn't, bogh," and turned her eyes
away.
On the fourth day Bessie got out of bed and moved about the room just
to show how strong she was.
"See what a step I have now. I could walk miles and miles, mother."
The moral of that was that she must go back to Derby Haven without
more delay. Alick was waiting for her and he would be growing
anxious. She must take the first train in the morning.
"It's rather early, but never mind about breakfast. A cup of tea and
a piece of barley bonnag--that will do."
Late that night, when Mrs. Collister, going to bed with a heavy
heart, looked in to say good-night, Bessie asked to be called in good
time in the morning.
"Don't forget to waken me. I used to be the first up, you know, but
now I'm a sleepy-head."
And then she kissed her mother (never having kissed her since she was
a child) and the old woman's eyes overflowed.
Left alone, in the dark, she began to think how good God had been to
her after all. Only those who had sinned and suffered knew how good
He could be. She remembered the text about the friend who, when all
earthly friends forsake you, sticketh closer than a brother. Also,
with a certain shame, she recalled the hymn the Primitives had sung
on Sunday morning, and, covering her head in the bedclothes, she sang
two lines of it--
"_But now I love my Father's voice,
I love my Father's home._"
How happy she was! At that time to-morrow she would be in bed at
Derby Haven, having seen Alick and arranged everything.
Next morning, when she awoke, she was startled to find the sun
pouring into the room. She knew by the line it made on the wall that
the first train must have gone. The chickens, too, were clucking at
the kitchen door, and they never came round before breakfast.
She had risen on her elbow intending to call, when she heard the roll
of a van-like vehicle drawing up in front of the house, and
immediately afterwards, a man's husky, asthmatical voice in the
kitchen, mingling with her mother's shrill treble.
"Go upstairs and tell her to make ready, ma'am."
"No, no; the girl's not fit for it, I tell thee."
"She's fit enough for the prison hospital, anyway."
"She has never been out of my door since she came into it."
"We'll lave that to the High Bailiff and the Dempster, if you plaze."
Bessie, supporting herself on her trembling arm, could scarcely
restrain herself from screaming. One moment she sat and gasped, and
then, grasping her head with both hands, she turned about and fell
forward and buried her face in her pillow.
At the next moment she was conscious of somebody coming into her
room, and at the next, from somewhere at the foot of the bed, she
heard her mother say, in a strange voice she had never known
before--throbbing, choking, scarcely audible--
"They have come for thee, Bessie."