sitting at dinner in rather a gloomy mood, wondering what was to be the
end of it, we caught sight of a man's coat-tails whisking up to the
front-door.
"Sit still," cried Tod to me, as the bell rang. "It's another of those
precious creditors. Betty! don't you open the door. Let the fellow cool
his heels a bit."
But, instead of cooling his heels, the fellow stepped aside to our open
window, and stood there, looking in at us. I leaped out of my chair, and
nearly out of my skin. It was Mr. Brandon.
"And what do you two fine gentlemen think of yourselves?" began he, when
we had let him in. "You don't starve, at any rate, it seems."
"You'll take some, won't you, Mr. Brandon?" said Tod politely, putting
the breast of a duck upon a plate, while I drew a chair for him to the
table.
Ignoring the offer, he sat down by the window, threw his yellow silk
handkerchief across his head, as a shade against the sun and the air,
and opened upon our delinquencies in his thinnest tones. In the Squire's
absence, Mrs. Todhetley had given him my letter to read, and begged him
to come and see after us, for she feared Tod might be getting himself
into some inextricable mess. Old Brandon's sarcasms were keen. To make
it worse, he had heard of the new complications, touching Copperas and
the furniture, at the Whistling Wind.
"So!" said he, "you must take a house and its responsibilities upon your
shoulders, and pay the money down, and make no inquiries!"
"We made lots of inquiries," struck in Tod, wincing.
"Oh, did you? Then I was misinformed. You took care to ascertain whether
the landlord of the house would accept you as tenant; whether the
furniture was the man's own to sell, and had no liabilities upon it;
whether the rent and taxes had been paid up to that date?"
As Tod had done nothing of the kind, he could only slash away at the
other duck, and bite his lips.
"You took to a closet of linen, and did not think it necessary to
examine whether linen was there, or whether it was all dumb-show----"
"I'm sure the linen was there when we saw it," interrupted Tod.
"You can't be sure; you did not handle it, or count it. The Squire told
you you would hasten to make ducks and drakes of your five hundred
pounds. It must have been burning a hole in your pocket. As to you,
Johnny Ludlow, I am utterly surprised: I did give you credit for
possessing some sense."
"I could not help it, sir. I'm sure I should never have mistrusted
Captain Copperas." But doubts had floated in my mind whether the linen
had not gone away in those boxes of Miss Copperas, that I saw the
grenadier packing.
Tod pulled a letter-case out of his breast-pocket, selected a paper, and
handed it to Mr. Brandon. It was the cheque for one hundred pounds.
"I thought of you, sir, before I began upon the ducks and drakes. But
you were not at home, and I could not give it you then. And I thank you
very much indeed for what you did for me."
Mr. Brandon read the cheque and nodded his head sagaciously.
"I'll take it, Joseph Todhetley. If I don't, the money will only go in
folly." By which I fancied he had not meant to have the money repaid to
him.
"I think you are judging me rather hardly," said Tod. "How was I to
imagine that the man was not on the square? When the roses were here,
the place was the prettiest place I ever saw. And it was dirt-cheap."
"So was the furniture, to Copperas," cynically observed Mr. Brandon.
"What is done is done," growled Tod. "May I give you some raspberry
pudding?"
"Some what? Raspberry pudding! Why, I should not digest it for a week. I
want to know what you are going to do."
"_I_ don't know, sir. Do you?"
"Yes. Get out of the place to-morrow. You can't remain in it with bare
walls: and it's going to be stripped, I hear. Green simpletons, you must
be! I dare say the landlord will let you off by paying him three months'
rent. I'll see him myself. And you'll both come home with me, like two
young dogs with their tails burnt."
"And lose all the money I've spent?" cried Tod.
"Ay, and think yourself well off that it is not more. You possess no
redress; as to finding Copperas, you may as well set out to search for
the philosopher's stone. It is nobody's fault but your own; and if it
shall bring you caution, it may be an experience cheaply bought."
"I could never have believed it of a sailor," Tod remarked ruefully to
old Druff, when we were preparing to leave.
"Ugh! fine sailor he was!" grunted Druff. "_He_ warn't a sailor. Not
a reg'lar one. Might ha' been about the coast a bit in a collier,
perhaps--nothing more. As to that grenadier, I believe she was just
another of 'em--a sister."
But we heard a whiff of news later that told us Captain Copperas was not
so bad as he seemed. After he had taken Rose Lodge and furnished it,
some friend, for whom in his good-nature he had stood surety to a large
amount, let him in for the whole, and ruined him. Honest men are driven
into by-paths sometimes.
And so that was the inglorious finale to our charming retreat by
Bendemeer's stream.
XIX.
LEE, THE LETTER-MAN.
In a side lane of Timberdale, just off the churchyard, was the cottage
of Jael Batty, whose name you have heard before. Side by side with it
stood another cottage, inhabited by Lee, the assistant letter-carrier;
or, as Timberdale generally called him, the letter-man. These cottages
had a lively look-out, the farrier's shop and a few thatched hayricks
opposite; sideways, the tombstones in the graveyard.
Some men are lucky in life, others are unlucky. Andrew Lee was in the
latter category. He had begun life as a promising farmer, but came down
in the world. First of all, he had to pay a heap of money for some man
who had persuaded him to become his security, and that stripped him of
his means. Afterwards a series of ill-fortunes set in on the farm: crops
failed, cattle died, and Lee was sold up. Since then, he had tried at
this and tried at that; been in turn a farmer's labourer, an agent for
coal, and the proprietor of a shop devoted to the benefit of the younger
members of the community, its speciality being bull's-eyes and besoms
for birch-rods. For some few years now he had settled down in this
cottage next door to Jael Batty's, and carried out the letters at
fourteen shillings a-week.
There were two letter-men, Spicer and Lee. But there need not have been
two, only that Timberdale was so straggling a parish, the houses in it
lying far and wide. Like other things in this world, fortune, even in
so trifling a matter as these two postmen, was not dealt out equally.
Spicer had the least work, for he took the home delivery, and had the
most pay; Lee did all the country tramping, and had only the fourteen
shillings. But when the place was offered to Lee he was at a very low
ebb indeed, and took it thankfully, and thought he was set up in riches
for life; for, as you well know, we estimate things by comparison.
Andrew Lee was not unlucky in his fortunes only. Of his three children,
not one had prospered. The son married all too young; within a year he
and his wife were both dead, leaving a baby-boy to Lee as a legacy. The
elder daughter had emigrated to the other end of the world with her
husband; and the younger daughter had a history. She was pretty and good
and gentle, but just a goose. Goose that she was, though, all the parish
liked Mamie Lee.
About four years before the time I am telling of, there came a soldier
to Timberdale, on a visit to Spicer the letter-carrier, one James West.
He was related to Spicer's wife; her nephew, or cousin, or something of
that sort; a tall, good-looking, merry-tempered dragoon, with a dashing
carriage and a dashing tongue; and he ran away with the heart of Mamie
Lee. That might not so much have mattered in the long-run, for such
privilege is universally allowed to the sons of Mars; but he also
ran away with her. One fine morning Mr. James West was missing from
Timberdale, and Mamie Lee was missing also. The parish went into a
rapture of indignation over it, not so much at him as at her; called
her a "baggage," and hoping her folly would come home to her. Poor old
Lee thought he had received his death-blow, and his hair turned grey
swiftly.
Not more than twelve months had gone by when Mamie was back again. Jael
Batty was running out one evening to get half-a-pound of sugar at
Salmon's shop, when she met a young woman with a bundle staggering down
the lane, and keeping under the side of the hedge as if she were afraid
of falling, or else did not want to be seen. Too weak to carry the
bundle, she seemed ready to sink at every step. Jael Batty, who had her
curiosity like other people, though she was deaf, peered into the bent
face, and brought herself up with a shriek.
"What, is it you, Mamie Lee! Well, the impedence of this! How on earth
could you pick up the brass to come back here?"
"Are my poor father and mother alive? Do they still live here?" faltered
Mamie, turning her piteous white face to Jael.
"They be both alive; but it's no thanks to you. If they---- Oh, if I
don't believe---- What have you got in that ragged old shawl?"
"It's my baby," answered Mamie; and she passed on.
Andrew Lee took her in with sobs and tears, and thanked Heaven she had
come back, and welcomed her unreasonably. The parish went on at him for
it, showering down plenty of abuse, and asking whether he did not feel
ashamed of himself. There was even a talk of his post as letter-carrier
being taken from him; but it came to nothing. Rymer was postmaster then,
though he was about giving it up; and he was a man of too much sorrow
himself to inflict it needlessly upon another. On the contrary, he sent
down cordials and tonics and things for Mamie, who had had a fever and
come home dilapidated as to strength, and never charged for them. Thomas
Rymer's own heart was slowly breaking, so he could feel for her.
The best or the worst of it was, that Mamie said she was married. Which
assertion was of course not believed, and only added to her sin in the
eyes of Timberdale. The tale she told was this. That James West had
taken her straight to some town, where he had previously had the banns
put up, and married her there. The day after the marriage they had
sailed for Ireland, whither he had to hasten to join his regiment, his
leave of absence having expired. At the end of some seven or eight
months, the regiment was ordered to India, and he departed with it,
leaving her in her obscure lodging at Cork. By-and-by her baby was born;
she was very ill then; very; had fever and a cough, and sundry other
complications; and what with lying ill eight weeks, and being obliged to
pay a doctor and a nurse all that time, besides other expenses, she
spent all the money Mr. James West left with her, and had no choice
between starvation and coming back to Timberdale.
You should have heard how this account was scoffed at. The illness, and
the baby, and the poverty nobody disputed--they were plain enough to be
seen by all Timberdale; and what better could she expect, they would
like to know? But when she came to talk about the church (or rather, old
Lee for her, second-hand, for she was not at all a person now to be
spoken to by Timberdale), then their tongues were let loose in all kinds
of inconvenient questions. _Which_ was the town?--and which was the
church in it?--and where were her "marriage lines"? Mamie could give no
answer at all. She did not know the name of the town, or where it was
situated. James had taken her with him in the train to it, and that
was all she knew; and she did not know the name of the church or the
clergyman; and as to marriage lines, she had never heard of any. So, as
Timberdale said, what could you make out of this, except one thing--that
Mr. Jim West had been a deep rogue, and taken her in. At best, it could
have been but a factitious ceremony; perhaps in some barn, got up like a
church for the occasion, said the more tolerant, willing to give excuse
for pretty Mamie if they could; but the chief portion of Timberdale
looked upon the whole as an out-and-out invention of her own.
Poor Andrew Lee had never taken a hopeful view of the affair from the
first; but he held to the more tolerant opinion that Mamie had been
herself deceived, and he could not help being cool to Spicer in
consequence. Spicer in retaliation threw all the blame upon Mamie, and
held up Mr. James West as a paragon of virtue.
But, as the time went on, and no news, no letter or other token arrived
from West, Mamie herself gave in. That he had deceived her she slowly
became convinced of, and despair took hold of her heart. Timberdale
might have the satisfaction of knowing that she judged herself just as
humbly and bitterly as they judged her, and was grieving herself to a
shadow. Three years had passed now since her return, and the affair was
an event of the past; and Mamie wore, metaphorically, the white sheet of
penitence, and hardly dared to show her face outside the cottage-door.
But you may easily see how all this, besides the sorrow, told upon Lee.
Fourteen shillings a week for a man and his wife to exist upon cannot
be called much, especially if they have seen better days and been used
to better living. When the first grandchild, poor little orphan, arrived
to be kept, Lee and his wife both thought it hard, though quite willing
to take him; and now they had Mamie and another grandchild. This young
one was named Jemima, for Mamie had called her after her faithless
husband. Five people and fourteen shillings a-week, and provisions dear,
and house-rent to pay, and Lee's shoes perpetually wanting to be mended!
One or two generous individuals grew rather fond of telling Lee that he
would be better off in the union.
It was November weather. A cold, dark, biting, sharp, drizzly morning.
Andrew Lee got up betimes, as usual: he had to be out soon after seven
to be ready for his letter delivery. In the kitchen when he entered it,
he found his daughter there before him, coaxing the kettle to boil on
the handful of fire, that she might make him his cup of tea and give
him his breakfast. She was growing uncommonly weak and shadowy-looking
now: a little woman, still not much more than a girl, with a shawl
folded about her shivering shoulders, a hacking cough, and a mild,
non-resisting face. Her father had lately told her that he would not
have her get up in the morning; she was not fit for it: what he wanted
done, he could do himself.
"Now, Mamie, why are you here? You should attend to what I say, child."
She got up from her knees and turned her sad brown eyes towards him:
bright and sweet eyes once, but now dimmed with the tears and sorrow of
the last three years.
"I am better up; I am indeed, father. Not sleeping much, I get tired of
lying: and my cough is worse in bed."
He sat down to his cup of tea and to the bread she placed before him.
Some mornings there was a little butter, or dripping, or mayhap bacon
fat; but this morning he had to eat his bread dry. It was getting near
the end of the week, and the purse ran low. Lee had a horror of debt,
and would never let his people run into it for the smallest sum if he
knew it.
"It's poor fare for you this morning, father; but I'll try and get a
morsel of boiled pork for dinner, and we'll have it ready early. I
expect to be paid to-day for the bit of work I have been doing for young
Mrs. Ashton. Some of those greens down by the apple-trees want cutting:
they'll be nice with a bit of pork."
Lee turned his eyes in the direction of the greens and the apple-trees;
but the window was misty, and he could only see the drizzle of
rain-drops on the diamond panes. As he sat there, a thought came into
his head that he was beginning to feel old: old, and worn, and shaky.
Trouble ages a man more than work, more than time; and Lee never looked
at the wan face of his daughter, and at its marks of sad repentance,
but he felt anew the sting which was always pricking him more or less.
What with that, and his difficulty to keep the pot boiling, and his
general state of shakiness, Lee was older than his years. Timberdale had
fallen into the habit of calling him Old Lee, you see; but he was not
sixty yet. He had a nice face; when it was a young face it must have
been like Mamie's. It had furrows in it now, and his scanty grey locks
hung down on each side of it.
Putting on his top-coat, which was about as thin as those remarkable
sheets told of by Brian O'Linn, Lee went out buttoning it. The rain
had ceased, but the cold wind took him as he went down the narrow
garden-path, and he could not help shivering.
"It's a bitter wind to-day, father; in the north-east, I think," said
Mamie, standing at the door to close it after him. "I hope there'll be
no letters for Crabb."
Lee, as he pressed along in the teeth of the cruel east wind, was hoping
the same. Salmon the grocer, who had taken the post-office, as may be
remembered, when the late Thomas Rymer gave it up, was sorting the
letters in the room behind the shop when Lee went in. Spicer, a lithe,
active, dark-eyed man of forty-five, stood at the end of the table
waiting for his bag. Lee went and stood beside him, giving him a brief
good-morning: he had not taken kindly to the man since West ran away
with Mamie.
"A light load this morning," remarked Mr. Salmon to Spicer, as he handed
him his appropriate bag. "And here's yours, Lee," he added a minute
after: "not heavy either. Too cold for people to write, I suppose."
"Anything for Crabb, sir?"
"For Crabb? Well, yes, I think there is. For the Rector."
Upon going out, Spicer turned one way, Lee the other. Spicer's district
was easy as play; Lee's was a regular country tramp, the farm-houses
lying in all the four points of the compass. The longest tramp was over
to us at Crabb. And why the two houses, our own and Coney's farm, should
continue to be comprised in the Timberdale delivery, instead of that of
Crabb, people could never understand. It was so still, however, and
nobody bestirred himself to alter it. For one thing, we were not often
at Crabb Cot, and the Coneys did not have many letters, so it was not
like an every-day delivery: we chanced to be there just now.
The letter spoken of by Salmon, which would bring Lee to Crabb this
morning, was for the Reverend Herbert Tanerton, Rector of Timberdale. He
and his wife, who was a niece of old Coney's, were now staying at the
farm on a week's visit, and he had given orders to Salmon that his
letters, during that week, were to be delivered at the farm instead of
at the Rectory.
Lee finally got through his work, all but this one letter for the
parson, and turned his steps our way. As ill-luck had it--the poor
fellow thought it so afterwards--he could not take the short and
sheltered way through Crabb Ravine, for he had letters that morning to
Sir Robert Tenby, at Bellwood, and also for the Stone House on the way
to it. By the time he turned on the solitary road that led to Crabb, Lee
was nearly blown to smithereens by the fierce north-east wind, and
chilled to the marrow. All his bones ached; he felt low, frozen, ill,
and wondered whether he should get over the ground without breaking
down.
"I wish I might have a whiff at my pipe!"
A pipe is to many people the panacea for all earthly discomfort; it was
so to Lee. But only in the previous February had occurred that damage
to Helen Whitney's letter, when she was staying with us, which the
authorities had made much of; and Lee was afraid to risk a similar
mishap again. He carried Salmon's general orders with him: not to smoke
during his round. Once the letters were delivered, he might do so.
His weak grey hair blowing about, his thin and shrunken frame shivering
and shaking as the blasts took him, his empty post-bag thrust into his
pocket, and the Rector of Timberdale's letter in his hand, Lee toiled
along on his weary way. To a strong man the walk would have been
nothing, and not much to Lee in fairer weather. It was the cold and wind
that tired him. And though, after giving vent to the above wish, he held
out a little while, presently he could resist the comfort no longer, but
drew forth his pipe and struck a match to light it.
How it occurred he never knew, never knew to his dying day, but the
flame from the match caught the letter, and set it alight. It was that
thin foreign paper that catches so quickly, and the match was obstinate,
and the wind blew the flame about. He pressed the fire out with his
hands, but a portion of the letter was burnt.
If Timbuctoo, or some other far-away place had been within the distance
of a man's legs, Lee would have made straight off for it. His pipe on
the ground, the burnt letter underneath his horrified gaze, and his hair
raised on end, stood he. What on earth should he do? It had been only a
pleasant young lady's letter last time, and only a little scorched; now
it was the stern Rector's.
There was but one thing he could do--go on with the letter to its
destination. It often happens in these distressing catastrophes that the
one only course open is the least palatable. His pipe hidden away in his
pocket--for Lee had had enough of it for that morning--and the damaged
letter humbly held out in his hand, Lee made his approach to the farm.
I chanced to be standing at its door with Tom Coney and Tod. Those two
were going out shooting, and the Squire had sent me running across the
road with a message to them. Lee came up, and, with a face that seemed
greyer than usual, and a voice from which most of its sound had
departed, he told his tale.
Tom Coney gave a whistle. "Oh, by George, Lee, won't you catch it! The
Rector----"
"The Rector's a regular martinet, you know," Tom Coney was about to add,
but he was stopped by the appearance of the Rector himself.
Herbert Tanerton had chanced to be in the little oak-panelled hall, and
caught the drift of the tale. A frown sat on his cold face as he came
forward, a frown that would have befitted an old face better than a
young one.
He was not loud. He did not fly into a passion as Helen Whitney did. He
just took the unfortunate letter in his hand, and looked at it, and
looked at Lee, and spoke quietly and coldly.
"This is, I believe, the second time you have burnt the letters?" and
Lee dared not deny it.
"And in direct defiance of orders. You are not allowed to smoke when on
your rounds."
"I'll never attempt to smoke again, when on my round, as long as I live,
sir, if you'll only be pleased to look over it this time," gasped Lee,
holding up his hands in a piteous way. But the Rector was one who went
in for "duty," and the appeal found no favour with him.
"No," said he, "it would be to encourage wrong-doing, Lee. Meet me at
eleven o'clock at Salmon's."
"Never again, sir, so long as I live!" pleaded Lee. "I'll give you my
word of that, sir; and I never broke it yet. Oh, sir, if you will but
have pity upon me and not report me!"
"At eleven o'clock," repeated Herbert Tanerton decisively, as he turned
indoors again.
"What an old stupid you must be!" cried Tod to Lee. "He won't excuse
you; he's the wrong sort of parson to do it."
"And a pretty kettle of fish you've made of it," added Tom Coney. "I
wouldn't have minded much, had it been my letter; but he is different,
you know."
Poor Lee turned his eyes on me: perhaps remembering that he had asked
me, the other time, to stand his friend with Miss Whitney. No one could
be his friend now: when the Rector took up a grievance he did not let
it drop again; especially if it were his own. Good-hearted Jack, his
sailor-brother, would have screened Lee, though all the letters in the
parish had got burnt.
At eleven o'clock precisely the Reverend Herbert Tanerton entered
Salmon's shop; and poor Lee, not daring to disobey his mandate, crept
in after him. They had it out in the room behind. Salmon was properly
severe; told Lee he was not sure but the offence involved penal
servitude, and that he deserved hanging. A prosperous tradesman in his
small orbit, the man was naturally inclined to be dictatorial, and was
ambitious of standing well with his betters, especially the Rector. Lee
was suspended there and then; and Spicer was informed that for a time,
until other arrangements were made, he must do double duty. Spicer,
vexed at this, for it would take him so much the more time from his
legitimate business, that of horse doctor, told Lee he was a fool, and
deserved not only hanging but drawing and quartering.