Up at Steens the young widow spent the three days before the funeral in a
flutter of the nerves. For reasons of her own she stood in fear of her
stepson, and felt herself in hourly desperate need of a male champion.
Yet she had pluck as well as a head on her shoulders. She might have
summoned--what more natural at such a time?--her old father, the
fisherman, over from Porthleven; but she argued it out with herself,
and decided that his presence would be a protection rather apparent than
real, and might easily set Roger suspecting. Even less politic would be
the presence of her Penzance lawyer, Mr. Alfonso Trudgian. In the early
morning hours after her husband's death she sat a long while with her
hands in her lap, thinking. She was a young and pretty woman, and by no
means a bad one. But she had not married old Humphrey for love, and she
meant to have her rights now. Also her having married Humphrey was proof
of that courage which she now distrusted. While her heart sank at the
prospect, she resolved to meet and face Roger alone.
He came on horseback that same evening, with Malachi on horseback behind
him--both in their best black clothes with hideous black streamers pinned
to their hats and dangling. Mrs. Stephen, having made enquiries among the
servants--it added to her helplessness that she had never prevailed on
Humphrey to dismiss his old servants, though she had made more than one
attempt, and they knew it and hated her for it--had Roger's old room
prepared for him, and met him at the door with decorous politeness.
Roger had never set eyes on her before. But she had long ago made it her
business to see him; had, in fact, put on bonnet and shawl one day and
visited Helleston on pretence of shopping, and had, across the width of
Coinagehall Street, been struck with terrified admiration of his stern
face and great stature, recognising at a glance that here was a stronger
man and better worth respecting than old Humphrey--a very dangerous man
indeed for an enemy.
Roger in return considered her merely as a hussy--a designing baggage who
had sold herself to an old fool. He came with a mind quite clear about
this, and was not the sort of man to dismiss a prejudice easily.
But her greeting, though it did not disarm him, forced him to defer
hostilities for the moment, and in his room he allowed to himself that the
woman had shown sense. He could not well send her packing while the old
man lay above ground, and to begin quarrelling, with his corpse in the
house, would be indecent. Go the woman should, but during her three days'
grace stepson and stepmother had best keep up appearances.
He did not demur, when descending to supper, he found his father's chair
removed from its place at the head of the table and his own set at the
side on the widow's right. She met him with a smile, too, of which he had
to approve; it seemed to say, "I do not forget that we are, and must be,
antagonists; but in trifles, and for the short while permitted to us, let
us do each other justice." She discussed, in low tones but frankly, the
old man's illness--told him what there was to tell, pausing now and then
with a silent invitation to question her were he minded, and apologised
very prettily for her shortcomings as a hostess.
"But you will, of course, order just what you want. Luckily the servants
know you and your ways, and you will forgive anything I have overlooked.
In the circumstances--"
She broke off, and Roger found himself grunting that "she wasn't to
trouble about that: he'd do well enough." He did not actually thank her
for her preparations to make him comfortable, but discovered with a kind
of indignant surprise that he had come very near to it. Somehow this
woman, whom he had expected to find an ignorant fisher-wench, hoity-toity
and brazen or tearful and sullen, was making him painfully conscious of
his own boorishness. Out she must go, of course, after the funeral;
but he wished he had seen a little more of good company in the past,
and he kept up his temper by reminding himself that he had been ill-used
and denied a college education.
The meal ended, she rose and swept him a curtsey, neither over-friendly
nor standoffish. "Peggy will bring you the brandy and water," she said,
"or, if you prefer it, there is rum in the house. I thought, maybe, the
weather was warm for a fire; but, as you see, it is laid, and only needs a
light if you feel chilly. Your father liked to sit by a fire even on
summer evenings." She did not add that he had invariably come drunk to
bed. "But there," she ended with a faint smile, "we have the old
servants, and they are not likely to neglect you."
A second curtsey, and she was gone. Roger sat down by the cold hearth
and stroked his chin. By-and-by he looked at his fingers, as if
(absurdly enough) to make sure he had not shaken hands with her.
Next day this armed but almost friendly neutrality continued.
Roger spent the hours in striding about his acres, planning how to improve
them and curtail expenses here and there. The farm to be sure was
neglected; but here and there he noted improvements, and caught himself
wondering if the credit of them belonged to the old man. He left the
household to his stepmother, and returned to find his meals ready and his
appetite courted by some of his favourite dishes.
At dinner Mrs. Stephen produced and handed to him a sheet of paper.
"I thought it might save trouble," she explained, "if I made out a list of
folks to be invited to the funeral. You understand that I've only put
down those that occurred to me. Please take the list away and strike out
or add any names you choose."
Roger was within an ace of telling her to look after this for herself.
He had forgotten that these invitations were necessary, and the writing of
them would be a nuisance. But he recollected his suspicions, took the
paper, and carried it out into the fields to study it. The list was a
careful one, and almost all the names belonged to neighbours or old family
friends. Half a dozen at most were unfamiliar to him. He pored over
these one by one, but scratched none out. "Let the poor creature invite
them if they're friends of hers," he decided; "'twill be her last
chance." At supper he gave her back the list, and somewhat awkwardly
asked her to send the invitations.
Had he been cleverer in the ways of women, he might still have failed to
read the glint in her eyes as she folded the paper and thrust it into her
bodice.
So the three days passed.