'SPIDER'
Surely few things be sillier than the way we let human nature surprise us.
For my part 'tis only the expected that ever astonishes me, for men and
women have grown so terrible tricky and jumpy and irregular nowadays,
along of better education and one thing and another, that you didn't ought
to expect anything but the unexpected from 'em. And I never do.
So when Jenny Pardoe took Nicky White I dare say I was the only party in
Little Silver that didn't raise an upstore and cackle about it, because to
the common mind it was a proper shock, while to me, in my far-seeing way,
I knew that, just because it was the last thing on earth you might have
thought Jenny would do, it might be looked for pretty confident. She could
have had the pick of the basket, for there was a good few snug men took by
her nice figure and blue eyes and fine plucky nature; but no: she turned
'em all down and fell in love with Nicky White, or 'Spider,' as the man
was called by all that knew him, that being the only possible name for the
creature.
Under-sized, excitable and small-minded was 'Spider.' He had breadth and
strength of body, but no more intellects than please God he wanted. He was
so black as if he'd been soaked in a peat bog--black hair, black eyes,
black moustache and black beard. A short, noisy man with long arms and
hair so thick as soot on 'em. He owned Beech Cot on Merripit Hill when his
mother died, and there he took Jenny after they was wed; and the people
called 'em Beauty and the Beast.
Not that there was anything right-down beastly about Nicky but his spidery
appearance. He would be kind to childer and never picked a quarrel with
nobody--too cowardly for that; but he was ugly as they make 'em and a
sulky fashion of man. He had a silly, sensitive nature and a suspicious
bent of mind. Such a man, with a wife as pretty as a June morning, was
like to put a bit of a strain upon her; and he did, no doubt; for Nicky
found himself cruel jealous of mankind in general where Jenny was
concerned, and though there weren't no shadow of reason for it, he kept
her mighty close and didn't like to think of her gossiping with the
neighbours when he was away to work. At first she was rather pleased with
this side of her husband, thinking jealousy a good advertisement, because
it showed how properly he loved her; and there's no doubt no ugly little
man ever had a more faithful and adoring wife. She thought the world of
him and always said he was wonderful clever and much undervalued and good
for far more important work and bigger money than ever he'd reached to.
But that was her love blinding the woman, because in truth Spider had
terrible poor thinking parts, and to cut peat, or cut fern, or lend a hand
with a dry-built wall, or such-like heavy work was pretty much all as he
could be trusted to do. And none the worse for that, of course. There's
lots of work for good fools in the world; and there's lots of good fools
to do it, if only the knaves would let 'em alone.
Well, all went proper enough with the Whites till Solomon Chuff came to
Vitifer Mine as foreman, and he got to know 'em, and Jenny liked the man
because he put her in mind of her dead father. He was ten years older than
Spider--a big, handsome, clever chap with no vices in him; but there's no
doubt he did like Jenny and found her suit him amazing well; and such was
his innocence of all evil that once or twice he offered Spider a chance to
growl. Once, for example, he over-got Jenny in the road by night and gave
her a lift home in his trap. An innocent deed in all conscience, but Nicky
didn't think so; for jealousy working in a silly man soon unseats his
wits.
I pointed out to Spider, who was soon rampaging about him behind Chuff's
back, that he had nought to fear. Because if the miner had been crooked,
he'd have took care to give Jenny's husband no call for alarm.
"'Tis granted," I said, "that any wife can hoodwink any husband if she
wants to do so. No woman's such a fool but she's equal to that. In your
case, however, you've got a partner that would sooner die and drop into
her coffin than do anything to bring a frown to her husband's face, or a
pang to his heart; while as for Solomon Chuff, he's far ways off the sort
of man you think him, a more decent and God-fearing chapel member you'll
not find."
But wisdom couldn't live with Spider. He was made to flout it and go his
own sheep-headed way. He hadn't the pluck to stand up to Chuff and explain
his grievances and tell the man he'd kill him if ever he crossed his
threshold again, or ought honest and open like that. Instead he sulked and
plotted awful things quite beyond his powers to perform; and then finally
the crash came six months after he'd glumped and glowered over his silly
fancies.
Spider went fishing one Saturday afternoon when the Dart was in spate and
the weather fierce and wild. He'd been wild and fierce himself for a week,
as his wife told after; but she didn't trouble about his vagaries and
never loved him better than when he went off to catch some trout for her
that dark afternoon in March. But he didn't return, and when she came down
after dark to her aunt, Maria Pardoe, the washerwoman at Little Silver,
and made a fearful stir about the missing man, the people felt sorry for
her, and a dozen chaps went down the river to find Spider and fetch him
along. His rod they found, and his basket and his bottle of lob-worms on
the bank above a deep pool, but they didn't see a hair of the man himself;
and when the next day came and a proper police search was started, nothing
appeared, and it seemed terrible clear that Jenny's husband was a goner.
Some thought he'd just fallen in by chance and been swept to his death in
the flood; while others, knowing the fool he was, whispered that he'd took
his silly life along of fears concerning Solomon Chuff. But for my part I
never thought so, because Spider hadn't got the courage to shorten his own
thread. He was the sort that threaten to do it if they lose a halfpenny;
but they don't perform. I reckoned he'd slipped in the bad light and gone
under with none to save, and fallen in the river and been drowned like
many another spider afore him.
Months passed and Jenny was counted a widow; but though she mourned like
one and wore her black, she never could feel quite sure about her state;
and when Bill Westaway, the miller's son, began to push into her company,
she gave him to understand 'twas far too soon for any thoughts in his
direction. In fact you might say she worshipped her husband's memory as
her most cherished possession, and now he was gone, she never wearied of
his virtues, and wept at the mention of his name. She'd had two years of
him before he went, and there weren't no family and nothing to remind her
of him but her own faithful heart. Never a worthless imp won a better
woman.
And then--after a full year was told--happened the next thing. I well mind
the morning Jenny come over to me, where I was digging a bit of manure
into my garden against seed planting. A March day it was, with a soft mist
on the moor and the plovers crying behind it, like kittens that want their
mother.
"Might I have a tell, Mr. Bates?" she said.
"You might," I answered, "and I'll rest my back and light my pipe while
you do so."
She was on the way to her aunt's wash-house, where she worked Mondays.
"'Tis like this," she said. "I've had a very strange, secret sort of a
letter, Mr. Bates. It's signed 'Well Wisher,' and I believe it's true.
Thank God I'm sure if it is."
She handed me the letter and I read it. There weren't much to it so far as
the length, but it meant a powerful lot for Jenny. It ran like this:
_Dear Mrs. White, your husband's working to Meldon Quarry, so don't you
marry nobody else. Well Wisher._
"Say you believe it," begged the woman, when I handed her letter back to
her.
"Whether 'tis true or not can quickly be proved," I answered. "And if it's
true, then Spider's foolisher and wickeder than I thought him."
"I don't care how wicked he is so long as he's alive," she said.
"His one excuse for leaving you was to be drownded in the Dart, and if he
ain't drownded, he's done a damn shameful thing to desert you," I told
her. "However, you can put it to the proof. The world is full of little,
black, ugly, hairy men like your husband, so you needn't be too hopeful;
but I do believe it's true. Of course somebody may have seen his ghost;
and to go and wander about at Meldon is just a silly thing his ghost might
do; but I believe he's there--the fool."
"Where's Meldon Quarry?" she asked, and I told her.
"Beside Meldon Viaduct, on the railroad over Okehampton way. And what the
mischief will you say to the wretch if you do find him?"
"Be very, very angry," answered Jenny--in a voice like a sucking dove.
"I'm sorry for Bill Westaway," I said, "He'd have made a much finer
husband for you."
But she shook her head impatiently.
"I hate him!" she vowed. "I couldn't say for why, exactly; but there's
something about him--"
"All's fair in love," I told her.
"I only love Nicky and I shall go to Meldon Quarry and not leave it again
till he be found," she promised. "And don't tell Mr. Westaway, please.
He'd be properly furious if he thought my dear husband wasn't drownded
after all."
And at that moment if the miller's son didn't come along himself. A very
tidy-looking chap, and a good worker, and a likely sort of man by all
accounts. They left me and walked up the street together; and I heard
afterwards what they talked about.
"How much longer are you going to hold off?" he asked. "You know I won't
let you marry anybody on God's earth but me."
Jenny hid the great hopes in her mind, for she doubted if she could trust
Will with the news.
"How can I marry anybody until I know Nicky is dead?" she inquired of the
man, as she often had before.
"If he's alive, then that makes him a low-down villain, and you ought
never to think of the creature again. If he's alive, he's happy without
you. Happy without you--think of that! But of course he's not alive."
"Until we know the solemn, certain truth about him I'm for no other man,"
she told him; and her words seemed to give Will a notion.
"'The truth about him': that's an idea," he said.
"It is now a year since he went to fish and vanished off the earth," went
on Jenny. "I've sometimes thought that the people didn't search half so
carefully for the dear chap as what they might."
"I did, I'll swear. I hunted like an otter for the man."
"You never loved my husband," she said, shaking her head, and he granted
it.
"Certainly I never did. Weren't likely I could love the man who was your
husband. But I tried to find Spider, and I'll try again--yes, faith! I'll
try again harder than ever. He's in the river somewheres--what be left of
him. The rames[1] of the man must be in the water round about where he was
fishing."
[1] Rames = Skeleton.
"What's the use of talking cruel things like that?"
"Every use. Why, if I was to find enough to swear by, you could give him
Christian burial," said Will, who knew how to touch her--the cunning
blade. "Think of that--a proper funeral for him and a proper gravestone in
the churchyard. What would you give me if I was to fetch him ashore after
all?"
Jenny White felt exceedingly safe with her promises now. She'd got a
woman's conviction, which be stronger than a man's reason every time, that
Spider was alive and kicking, and had run away for some fantastic jealousy
or other foolishness. For the little man was always in extremes. She felt
that once she faced him, she'd soon conquer and have him home in triumph
very likely; and so she didn't much care what she said to Will that
morning. Besides, the thought of giving the man a job that would keep him
out of her way, for a week perhaps, rather pleased her.
"I'll give you anything I've got to give if you bring my poor Nicky's
bones to light," she said. "But it's impossible after all this time."
Will Westaway's mind was in full working order by now.
"Nought's impossible to a man that loves a woman like what I love you," he
said. "How was the poor blade dressed the day he went to his death? Can
you call home what he'd got on?"
"Every stitch down to his socks," she answered. "He'd got his old
billycock hat and his moleskin trousers and a flannel shirt--dark
blue--and a red-wool muffler what I knitted him myself and made him wear
because it was a cruel cold afternoon. And his socks was ginger-coloured.
They was boughten socks from Mrs. Carslake's shop of all sorts. He was
cranky all that day and using awful crooked words to me. I believe he knew
he weren't coming back."
"By God, he shall come back--what's left of him," swore Will. "If it takes
me ten year, I'll go on till I find the skelington of your late husband or
enough to prove he's a dead 'un. He shall be found, if only to show you
what my love's worth, Jenny."
"Looking for the little man's bones in Dart would be like seeking a dead
mouse in a haystack," she said.
"Difficult, I grant, but nothing to the reward you've promised."
"Well," she told him, "you can have me, such as I am, if you find Nicky."
Then she left William, and he turned over what she'd said. He was cunning
and simple both, was Bill Westaway. He believed by now that Jenny really
did begin to care a lot for him, and was giving him a chance in her own
way to make good.
"An old billycock hat and a bit of red-wool muffler, the tail of a blue
shirt, a pair of ginger-coloured socks," he thought. "It don't sound
beyond the power of a witty man like me. But she'll want more than that.
Us must find a bone or two as a doctor could swear by."
Full of dark, devilish ideas, the young man went his way; and Jenny got
down the hill and walked in her aunt Maria Pardoe's wash-house as usual.
But she weren't herself by no means, and the first thing she done was to
tear some frill-de-dills belonging to the parson's wife. Then she had
another accident and so she went to Maria--the kindest woman on earth--and
told her aunt she weren't feeling very clever this morning and thought
she'd better go home. "'Tis just a year since Nicky was took, as we all
know," said Maria, "and no doubt you'm feeling wisht about it, my dear.
But you must cut a loss like what your betters be often called to do. You
must take another, Jenny, and be large-minded, and remember that there's
better fish in the river than ever came out."
"Is Nicky in the river?" asked Mrs. White. "I'm powerful certain he ban't,
Aunt Maria."
"He's there," said the old woman, cheerfully. "Don't you worry about your
first. He'll rise at the Trump along of all of us. His Maker won't forget
even Nicky. And meantime he's just so peaceful under water as he would be
in the Yard. And when you think of the fiery nature of the man, what is
there better than peace you could wish him?"
So Jenny went home and her great idea grew upon her, till by noon she'd
built up her resolves and made ready for journeying.
And the very next day she was off and her house locked up, and a bit of
paper with writing on it fixed up on the door.
_Jenny White gone away for a bit. Please be kind to her
yellow cat._