He hesitated, yet scarcely two seconds, and then replied: "Not much. I
helped mow Holt Park once. My father-in-law--_Foreman_, we used to
call 'n--was at it--what lived where Mrs. Warner is, and I lived where
Porter do. And the Foreman sent for me to go and help. I didn't want
to go--'tis hard work; anybody might have mowin' for me; but at last I
agreed to go. But law! the second mornin' I was like that I didn't
hardly know how to crawl down there" the three miles. "It got better
after an hour or two.... But if a feller goes mowin' for eight or nine
weeks on end, it do give 'n a doin'."
Thus for a little while Bettesworth chatted, in the vein that had
first attracted me to him. Shall I ever hear him again, I wonder? We
tried other subjects: the washed-out state of our lane and the best
way to remedy it, the garden, the celery, the position of this or that
crop. It entertained him for a few minutes; then he failed to seize
some quite simple idea, and knew that he had failed, and said
despondently, "I can't keep things in my mind like I used to."
_July 2 (Sunday)._--Perhaps Bettesworth would have been more like
himself on Friday, if I had called at the usual afternoon hour,
instead of in the morning. As it was, he seemed fretful and
impatient, and his face was flushed. I did not perceive that he was
noticeably weaker, but rather that he was irritable. He had pain in
his chest and side; and he said that at night, when he lies with his
hands clasped over his waist, his chest is full of "such funny noises,
enough to frighten ye to hear 'em." His temper was embittered and
angry, especially angry, when some reference was made to his being in
the infirmary in the spring. For he affirmed, "If I hadn't ha' went
there, I should ha' bin a man, up and at work _now_. I told the doctor
there, 'If I was to bide here, you'd _starve_ me to death.'"
Embittered he was against his acquaintances, so that he almost wept.
"It hurts me so, to think how good I bin to 'em; and now when I be bad
myself there en't none of 'em comes near me." He instanced his sister
and her two sons at Middlesham; and his brother-in-law too: "Look what
I done for him!" If only he could get about! Get so that he could sit
and feel the air! But his bedroom is upstairs, and he is too weak to
leave it. The previous night, trying to get out of bed, he "almost
broke his neck," falling backwards with his head against the bedstead.
"I thought I'd split 'n open," he said, "but I never called nobody.
Jack said, 'Why hadn't ye called me?'" ... The old man's talk was too
incoherent, too rambling, to be followed well at the time or
remembered now.
We discussed a local beanfeast excursion to Ramsgate, which was to
take place the following day; and he brightened up to recall how he
had joined a similar trip to Weymouth some years ago. It was his last
holiday, in fact. Even now it made him laugh, to remember how old Bill
Brixton had gone on that day; and he laughed a little scornfully at
the trouble they had taken to enjoy themselves, and the fatigues they
endured. Then there came just a touch of his old manner: "I had a
little bottle with me and filled it up with a quarte'n o' whisky; and
when we was comin' home it seemed to brighten ye up. I says to old
Bill, 'Put that to your lips,' I says. So he tried. 'Why, it's
whisky!' he says. But that little wouldn't hurt 'n. 'Tis a _lot_ o'
whisky you gets for fo'pence! 'Twouldn't have hurt 'n, if he'd took it
bottle and all."
These monster excursions had never really appealed to Bettesworth's
old-fashioned taste. Rather than be cooped up in a train, I remember
he used to say, give him a quiet journey on the open road, afoot or by
waggon, so that a man may "see the course o' the country," and if he
comes to anything interesting, stop and look at it. And now, on his
bed, the ill-humour he was displaying that morning vented itself
again, in reference to a project he had heard of for another
excursion. The Oddfellows' annual fête was at hand; and, he said, with
a sneering intonation, "The secretary and some of they" (respectable
new-fangled people, he meant) "wanted 'em to go to Portsmouth. So they
called a full meetin', an' the meetin'"--ah, I have forgotten the
turn of speech. It suggested that these officious persons, interfering
to dictate how the working man should take his pleasure, had met with
a well-deserved snub, since the excursion was voted down and the
customary dinner was to be held. To myself, as to Bettesworth, this
seemed the preferable course: "It's really better," I said. Then he,
"So _'tis_, sir. It's the old, natural _way_. We _al_ways reckoned to
have _one day_ in the year, when we all had holiday. And then
everybody could join in--the women with their little childern, and
all. 'Tis _nice_...."
Mentioning the endeavours of the Colonel and Mr. ---- to get a pension
for him, I said, "They're very interested in it." "More so than what I
be," he answered. Still, I urged, it was worth trying for; and as for
the lost papers, duplicates of them might be obtained, if we knew the
regiment. I was saying this, when with a sort of pride, though still
irritably, the old man broke in, "I can tell ye _all_ that: regiment,
an' regimental number, and officers, and all." At that I asked what
was his regiment?
He stiffened his head and neck (was it just one last flicker of the so
long forgotten soldier's smartness?) and said, "Forty-eighth, and my
number was three nought nought seven.... I could name twenty people
that knowed about my service. There's old Crum Callingham. He used to
work for Sanders then, the coal merchant. The day I came back, didn't
we have a booze, too! He was at work in Sanders's hop-garden, and I
found 'n out, and two more, and I kep' sendin' for half-gallons....
Yes, that was the same day as I got 'ome--from Portsmouth."
That afternoon I happened to meet old Beagley--the retired bricklayer,
and recently Bettesworth's landlord. He spoke of Bettesworth with more
than usual appreciation, saying that he had been a strong man, as if
he meant unusually strong. His sight must have been bad "thirty or
forty years," Beagley estimated. He (Beagley) remembered first
noticing it when he dropped his trowel from a scaffold, and sent
Bettesworth down the ladder for it. He observed that Bettesworth could
not see the trowel, but groped for it, as one gropes in the dark,
until his hand touched it. But, added Beagley, "he'd mix mortar as
well as any man I ever knew. I've had him workin' for me, and noticed.
I'd as soon have had him as anybody. He couldn't have _seen_ the lumps
of lime, but I suppose 'twas something in the _feel_ of it on the
shovel. At any rate, he always _done_ it; and I've often thought about
it."
_July 14 (Friday)._--I saw Bettesworth this afternoon, and it looks as
if I shall not see him many times more.
Since my last visit to him a fortnight ago, the change in him is very
marked. His niece, downstairs, prepared me for it. He was very ill,
she said, and so weak that now they have to hold him up to feed him.
Of course he can take no solids; not even a mouthful of sponge-cake
for which he had had a fancy. His feet and the lower parts of his body
are swelling: the doctor says it is dropsy setting in, and reports
further that his heart is "wasting away." Hearing all this--yes, and
how Mrs. Cook thought he should be watched at night, for he could not
last much longer--hearing this, I fancied when I got upstairs that
there was a look as of death on the shrunken cheeks: they had a
corpse-like colour. Possibly it was only my fancy, but it was not
fancy that his flesh had fallen away more than ever.
It has been an afternoon of magnificent summer weather, not sultry,
but sumptuous; with vast blue sky, a few slow-sailing clouds, a
luxuriant west wind tempering the splendid heat. The thermometer in my
room stands at 80° while I am writing. So Bettesworth lay just covered
as to his body and legs with a counterpane, showing his bare neck,
while his sleeves falling back to the elbow displayed his arms. From
between the tendons the flesh has gone; and the skin lies fluted all
up the forearm, all up the neck. But at the foot of the bed his feet
emerging could be seen swollen and tight-skinned. His ears look
withered and dry, like thin biscuit.
He did not complain much of pain. Sometimes, "if anything touches the
bottom o' my feet, it runs all up my legs as if 'twas tied up in
knots." Again, "what puzzles the doctor is my belly bein' like
'tis--puffed up and hard as a puddin' dish." The doctor has not
mentioned dropsy, to him. Enough, perhaps, that he has told him that
his heart was "wasting away." "That's a bad sign," commented
Bettesworth, to me. He said he had asked the doctor, "'Is there any
chance o' my gettin' better?' 'Not but a very little,' he said. 'If
you do, it'll be a miracle.'" At that, Bettesworth replied, "Then I
wish you'd give me something to help me away from here." "Why, where
d'ye want to go to?" the doctor asked; and was answered, "Up top o'
Gravel Hill" to the churchyard. "I told him that, straight to his
head," said the old man.
He lay there, thinking of his death. Door and window were wide open,
and a cooling air played through the room. Through the window, from my
place by the bed, I could see all the sunny side of the valley in the
sweltering afternoon heat; could see and feel the splendour of the
summer; could watch, right down in the hollow, a man hoeing in a tiny
mangold-field, and the sunshine glistening on his light-coloured
shirt. Bettesworth no doubt knew that man; had worked like that
himself on many July afternoons; and now he lay thinking of his
approaching death. But I thought, too, of his life, and spoke of it:
how from the hill-top there across the valley you could not look round
upon the country in any part of the landscape but you would everywhere
see places where he had worked. "Yes: for a hundred miles round," he
assented.
It came up naturally enough, I remember, in the course of desultory
talk, with many pauses. He had had "gentry" to see him, he was saying,
and he named the Colonel, and Mr. ----. "Who'd have thought ever
_he_'d ha' bin like that to me?" he exclaimed gratefully. And each of
these visitors had spoken of his "good character"; had "liked all they
ever heared" about him, and so on; and it was then that I remarked
about the places where he had worked, as proof that his good character
had been well earned. But as we talked of his life, all the time the
thought of his death was present. I fancied once that he wished to
thank me for standing by him, and could not bring it off, for he began
telling how the Colonel had said, "'You've got a very good friend to
be thankful for.'" But it was easy to turn this. The Colonel too is a
friend. He had left an order for a bottle of whisky to be bought when
the last one sent by Mr. ---- is empty; and he has not given up yet
the endeavour to get Bettesworth's Crimean service recognized with a
pension.
I cannot recall all that passed; indeed, it was incoherent and
mumbling, and I did not catch all. He revived that imaginary grievance
against his neighbour, for drawing money from me to pay his club when
he went to the infirmary. It appeared that Jack had been going into
the matter, and had satisfied Bettesworth that the payments had never
been really owing; so they hoped that, now I knew, I should take
steps to be righted. Bettesworth seemed to find much relief in the
feeling that his own character was cleared from blame. "Some masters
might have give me the sack for it," he said, "when I got back to
work." To this he kept reverting, as if in the hope of urging me to
have justice; and then he would say, "There, I'm as glad it's all
right as if anybody had give me five shillin's." To humour him I
professed to be equally glad; it was not worth while to trouble him
with what I knew very well to be the truth--that Mrs. Eggar was in the
right, and had really done him a service.
What more? He said once, "I thinks I shall go off all in a moment.
Widder Cook was here ... she was talkin' about her husband Cha'les.
They'd bin tater-hoein', an' when they left off she said, 'a drop o'
beer wouldn't hurt us.' 'No,' he said, 'a drop o' beer and a bit o'
bread an' cheese, an' then git off to bed.' So they sent for the beer.
And they hadn't bin in bed half an hour afore she woke, and he'd
moved; an' she put her arm across 'n an' there he was, dead." So the
widow had told Bettesworth; and now he repeated it to me--the last
tale I shall ever hear from him, I fancy, and told all mumblingly with
his poor old dried-up mouth. He added, almost crying, "I prays God to
let me go like that." We agreed that it was a merciful way to be
taken.
It still interested him to hear of the garden, and he asked how the
potatoes were coming up, and listened to my account of the peas and
carrots, but said he was "never much of a one" for carrots. At home I
had left George Bryant lawn-mowing. Well, Bettesworth too had mown my
lawn in hot weather, and smiled happily at the reminiscence. He smiled
again when, recalling how I had known him now for fourteen years, I
reminded him of the great piece of trenching which had been his first
job for me.
So presently I came away, out on to the sunny road, thinking, "I shall
not see him many more times." From just there I caught a glimpse of
Leith Hill, blue with twenty intervening miles of afternoon sunlight:
twenty miles of the England Bettesworth has served.
Half-way down the hill the old road-mender, straightening up from his
work as I passed, asked, "Can ye keep yerself warm, sir?" And I
laughed, "Pretty nearly. How about you?" "It _boils_ out," he said.
The perspiration stood on his face while he spoke of motor-cars, and
the dust they raised; but to me dust and swift-travelling cars and all
seemed to tell of summer afternoon. And though the reason is obscure,
somehow it seems fit that possibly my last talk with Bettesworth
should be associated with the blue distant English country, and the
summer dust, and that sunburnt old folk jest which consists in asking,
when it is so particularly and exhilaratingly warm as to-day, "Can you
keep yourself warm?"
_July 21._--The weather was as brilliantly hot this afternoon as a
week ago; and Bettesworth's bedroom looked just as before; but the old
man was changed. He lay with eyes looking glazed between the half-shut
lids, and he was breathing hard. His niece accompanied me upstairs;
but he took no notice of our entry until she mentioned my name, upon
which he turned a little and put up a feeble hand for me to take. He
was in a sort of stupor, though he seemed to rouse a little, and to
understand one or two remarks I ventured. But when he spoke it was as
if utterly exhausted, and we could not always make out his meaning. In
the hope of helping him to realize that I was with him, I told of the
garden, and how Bryant was mowing again, though in this hot weather
the lawn was "getting pretty brown, _you_ know." "Yes," he said
feebly, "and if you don't keep it cut middlin' short, it soon goes
wrong." Next I reported on the potatoes--how well they were coming:
"the same sort as you planted for me last year." "Ah--the _Victoria_,
wa'n't they?" The question was a mere murmur. "No, _Duke of York_. And
don't you remember what a crop we had, when you planted 'em?" There
came the faintest of smiles, and "None of what I planted failed much,
did they?" Indeed, no. The shallots he had planted during his last
day's work had just been harvested; the beans which he sowed the same
day had but now yielded their last picking. I told him they were
over. "You can't expect no other," he said, meaning at this time of
year and in such dry weather. I mentioned the celery, reminding him,
"You _have_ sweated over watering celery, haven't you?" Again he just
smiled, and I fancy this smile was the last sign of rational interest
and pride in his labour.
For after this he became incoherent and wandering. Dimly we made out
that he "wanted to put them four poles against the veranda,"
apparently meaning my veranda. "What for?" his niece asked. "To keep
the wall up." Then I, "We won't trouble about that to-day," as if he
had been consulting me about the work, and he seemed satisfied to have
my decision. But I had stayed too long; so, grasping his hand, I said
"Good-bye." He asked, "Are ye goin' to the club?" (He was thinking of
the Oddfellows' fête arranged for to-morrow week, and had been
wondering all day, his niece said, not to hear the band.) "It isn't
till to-morrow week," we said. "How they do keep humbuggin' about," he
muttered crossly. "Yes, but they've settled it now," we assured him.
I have promised to go again to see him--to-morrow or on Sunday,
because, according to his niece, he had been counting on my visit, and
asking for several days "if this was Friday."
The thought came to me on my way home, that he is dying without any
suspicion that anyone could think of him with admiration and
reverence.
_July 25 (Tuesday)._--Bettesworth died this evening at six o'clock.
_July 28 (Friday)._--This afternoon I went to the funeral.
A week earlier (almost to the hour) when I parted from him, he seemed
too ill to take his money--too unconscious, I mean. I offered it to
his niece, standing at the foot of the bed; but she said, glancing
meaningly towards him, "I think he'd like to take it, sir." So I
turned to him and put the shillings into his hand, which he held up
limply. "Your wages," I said.
For a moment he grasped the silver, then it dropped out on to his bare
chest and slid under the bed-gown, whence I rescued it, and, finding
his purse under the pillow, put his last wages away safely there.
On the Saturday I saw him, but I think he did not know me: and that
was the last time. The thought of him keeps coming, wherever I go in
the garden; but I put it aside for fear of spoiling truer because more
spontaneous memories of him in time to come.