_February 10._--The day after his departure a rather annoying
circumstance came to light. The monthly contribution to the club was
found to be a whole year in arrear. As the sum was but threepence a
month, so that even now only three shillings were due, it seemed a
little too bad of Bettesworth to have neglected the payments which at
least secured him a doctor's attendance and at his death would produce
four pounds for funeral expenses. Perhaps, however, he was not so much
to blame as appeared; at any rate, the manner by which we learnt of
his carelessness offers to the imagination the material for an
affecting picture of the old man on his sick-bed. It was Mrs. Eggar
who, in some trouble for him, brought his club-membership card to me,
and told how he had asked her to find it. On the eve of his departure
he had taken her into his confidence, spoken of the possibility that
he might be going away only to die, and desired, in that event, to be
brought home from the infirmary and buried decently, "same as his
wife," with this sum which the club would pay. Of course the money for
the arrears had to be found, and Mrs. Eggar undertook to pay it to
the club secretary on the next day, when she went to the town to do
her Saturday's shopping. Bettesworth had further asked her, she said,
to find his discharge papers from the army, and see what reason for
his discharge was stated, since he had forgotten. I have never
understood why he should have been curious on that point, at such a
time. Defective sight seems to have been the unexciting reason
alleged.
And now, its occupant gone and Mrs. Eggar's rummagings done, the
squalid tenement next door to the Norris's stood shut up, with the
door locked on the few poor belongings it contained. To the neighbours
there seemed to be all the circumstances of a death, except the death
itself. People began to remember, what I had failed to observe yet
could well believe, how greatly Bettesworth had changed of late;
others recalled complaints he had uttered of being unbearably lonely.
It was the general opinion that, even if he lived, he would never work
again, and never again come back to the place he had left. Three or
four men approached me in the hope of getting work in my garden; while
as for the cottage, had I cared to give it up, there were already (the
owner told me) four or five applicants eager to take it. What I should
do, and what Bettesworth, formed the subject of a good deal of
speculation. Old Nanny, meeting me in the road, plunged excitedly into
the middle of the discussion. In her harsh snapping voice she assured
me that the cottage was "as dirty as _ever_!" and that, as regarded
Bettesworth, the infirmary was "the best place _for_ him!" "Have ye
give up the cot?" she asked. "No." "Oh! ... Beagley" (the owner) "told
young Cook as you had?" "I haven't." "Well, he _said_ you had." For
some reason that was never divulged, Nanny had conceived a violent
animosity towards Bettesworth, which I then supposed to be peculiar to
herself; but in other respects her unmannerly questionings only
betrayed the attitude of almost all the other neighbours. Bettesworth
was done for: he had better stay at the infirmary and let others have
his work and his cottage. Such was the prevailing opinion. The people
were not intentionally unkind; but in the merciless working-class
struggle for life one may admire how long Bettesworth had held his
own.
On the other hand, the opposite side, Bettesworth's side, was
championed probably by not a few labouring men, who had learnt to
appreciate his quality. Among these was George Bryant. Bryant had been
doing a few necessary jobs for me during Bettesworth's illness, and it
was to his interest, if anybody's, that the old man should not come
home again. When I repeated to him, however, what people had been
saying--namely, that Bettesworth ought now to stay in the infirmary,
he said "H'm!" and clearly did not agree. Finally, "Well, of course,
we knows 'tis a place where old people _ought_ to be looked after,
but--well, Bettesworth likes his liberty. And so should I, if I was
in his place!"
With a cordial feeling which warmed me at the time and may give a
little colour now to the grey narrative, he spoke of the change he had
lately observed in Bettesworth, who had confessed to him that life had
grown so lonely "he didn't know how ever to put up with it." On the
very last Sunday evening Bryant had been over at the old man's
cottage, "and 'tis a _lot_ cleaner 'n what it used to be in the old
lady's time." But the difficulty was that Bettesworth could not see. I
assented, mentioning his last labours at planting shallots. Bryant
smiled; from his adjoining garden he had noticed the same thing a year
ago, with some peas. But, in general, he admired Bettesworth. "He's a
man that don't talk much till he's started, and then.... He was
tellin' me Sunday about the things he see in the war. I reckon that
got a lot to do with the way he is now: the cold winds, when the tents
blowed over, and he'd have to lay out all in the mud. He might think
't didn't hurt 'n," but in all likelihood Bettesworth was now feeling
the effects of these sufferings of so long ago. The Crimean wind, as
described by Bettesworth, seemed to have impressed Bryant. "He did
tell me what regiment it belonged to, but I forgets which 'twas; but
one o' the regiments had the big drum lifted right up into the air an'
carried out to sea by the wind."