Produced by Al Haines
BESSIE COSTRELL
BY
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
AUTHOR OF
"ROBERT ELSMERE," "THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE,"
"MARCELLA," ETC.
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON ---- NEW YORK ---- TORONTO
1912
SCENE I
It was an August evening, still and cloudy after a day unusually chilly
for the time of year. Now, about sunset, the temperature was warmer
than it had been in the morning, and the departing sun was forcing its
way through the clouds, breaking up their level masses into delicate
lattice-work of golds and greys. The last radiant light was on the
wheat-fields under the hill, and on the long chalk hill itself.
Against that glowing background lay the village, already engulfed by
the advancing shadow. All the nearer trees, which the daylight had
mingled in one green monotony, stood out sharp and distinct, each in
its own plane, against the hill. Each natural object seemed to gain a
new accent, a more individual beauty, from the vanishing and yet
lingering sunlight.
An elderly labourer was walking along the road which led to the
village. To his right lay the allotment gardens just beginning to be
alive with figures, and the voices of men and children. Beyond them,
far ahead, rose the square tower of the church; to his left was the
hill, and straight in front of him the village, with its veils of smoke
lightly brushed over the trees, and its lines of cottages climbing the
chalk steeps behind it. His eye as he walked took in a number of such
facts as life had trained it to notice. Once he stopped to bend over a
fence, to pluck a stalk or two of oats. He examined them carefully;
then he threw back his head and sniffed the air, looking all round the
sky meanwhile. Yes, the season had been late and harsh, but the fine
weather was coming at last. Two or three days' warmth now would ripen
even the oats, let alone the wheat.
Well, he was glad. He wanted the harvest over. It would, perhaps, be
his last harvest at Clinton Magna, where he had worked, man and boy,
for fifty-six years come Michaelmas. His last harvest! A curious
pleasure stirred the man's veins as he thought of it, a pleasure in
expected change, which seemed to bring back the pulse of youth, to
loosen a little the yoke at those iron years that had perforce aged and
bent him; though, for sixty-two, he was still hale and strong.
Things had all come together. Here was "Muster" Hill, the farmer he
had worked for these seventeen years, dying of a sudden, with a
carbuncle on the neck, and the farm to be given up at Michaelmas.
He--John Bolderfield--had been working on for the widow; but, in his
opinion, she was "nobbut a caselty sort of body," and the sooner she
and her children were taken off to Barnet, where they were to live with
her mother, the less she'd cost them as had the looking after her. As
for the crops, they wouldn't pay the debts; not they. And there was no
one after the farm--"nary one"--and didn't seem like to be. That would
make another farm on Muster Forrest's hands. Well, and a good job.
Landlords must be "took down"; and there was plenty of work going on
the railway just now for those that were turned off.
He was too old for the railway, though, and he might have found it hard
to get fresh work if he had been staying at Clinton. But he was not
staying. Poor Eliza wouldn't last more than a few days; a week or two
at most, and he was not going to keep on the cottage after he'd buried
her.
Aye, poor Eliza! She was his sister-in-law, the widow of his second
brother. He had been his brother's lodger during the greater part of
his working life, and since Tom's death he had stayed on with Eliza.
She and he suited each other, and the "worritin' childer" had all gone
away years since and left them in peace. He didn't believe Eliza knew
where any of them were, except Mary, "married over to Luton"--and Jim
and Jim's Louisa. And a good riddance too. There was not one of them
knew how to keep a shilling when they'd got one. Still, it was a bit
lonesome for Eliza now, with no one but Jim's Louisa to look after her.
He grew rather downhearted as he trudged along, thinking. She and he
had stuck together "a many year." There would be nobody left for him
to go along with when she was gone. There was his niece Bessie
Costrell and her husband, and there was his silly old cousin Widow
Waller. He dared say they'd both of them want him to live with them.
At the thought a grin crossed his ruddy face. They both knew about
_it_--that was what it was. And he wouldn't live with either of them,
not he. Not yet a bit, anyway. All the same, he had a fondness for
Bessie and her husband. Bessie was always very civil to _him_--he
chuckled again--and if anything had to be done with it, while he was
five miles off at Frampton on a job of work that had been offered him,
he didn't know but he'd as soon trust Isaac Costrell and Bessie as
anybody else. You might call Isaac rather a fool, what with his
religion, and "extemp'ry prayin', an' that," but all the same
Bolderfield thought of him with a kind of uneasy awe. If ever there
was a man secure of the next world it was Isaac Costrell. His temper,
perhaps, was "nassty," which might pull him down a little when the last
account came to be made up; and it could not be said that his elder
children had come to much, for all his piety. But, on the whole,
Bolderfield only wished he stood as well with the Powers talked about
in chapel every Sunday as Isaac did.
As for Bessie, she had been a wasteful woman all her life, with never a
bit of money put by, and never a good dress to her back. But, "Lor'
bless yer, there was a many worse folk nor Bessie." She wasn't one of
your sour people--she could make you laugh; she had a merry heart.
Many a pleasant evening had he passed chatting with her and Isaac; and
whenever they cooked anything good there was always a bite for him.
Yes, Bessie had been a good niece to him; and if he trusted any one he
dared say he'd trust them.
"Well, how's Eliza, Muster Bolderfield?" said a woman who passed him in
the village street.
He replied, and then went on his way, sobered again, dreading to find
himself at the cottage once more, and in the stuffy upper room with the
bed and the dying woman. Yet he was not really sad, not here at least,
out in the air and the sun. There was always a thought in his mind, a
fact in his consciousness, which stood between him and sadness. It had
so stood for a long, long time. He walked through the village
to-night, in spite of Eliza and his sixty years, with a free bearing
and a confident glance to right and left. He knew, and the village
knew, that he was not as other men.
He passed the village green with its pond, and began to climb a lane
leading to the hill. Half-way up stood two cottages sideways. Phloxes
and marigolds grew untidily about their doorways, and straggly roses,
starved a little by the chalk soil, looked in at their latticed
windows. They were, however, comparatively modern and comfortable,
with two bedrooms above and two living-rooms below, far superior to the
older and more picturesque cottages in the main street.
John went in softly, put down his straw dinner-bag, and took off his
heavy boots. Then he opened a door in the wall of the kitchen, and
gently climbed the stairs.
A girl was sitting by the bed. When she saw his whitish head and red
face emerge against the darkness of the stair-hole, she put up her
finger for silence.
John crept in and came to look at the patient. His eyes grew round and
staring, his colour changed.
"Is she a-goin'?" he said, with evident excitement.
Jim's Louisa shook her head. She was rather a stupid girl, heavy and
round-faced, but she had nursed her grandmother well.
"No; she's asleep. Muster Drew's been here, and she dropped off while
he was a-talkin' to her."
Mr. Drew was the Congregational minister.
"Did she send for him?"
"Yes; she said she felt her feet a-gettin' cold, and I must run. But I
don't believe she's no worse."
John stood looking down, ruefully. Suddenly the figure in the bed
turned.
"John," said a comparatively strong voice which made Bolderfield
start--"John, Muster Drew says you'd oughter put it in the bank.
You'll be a fool if yer don't, 'ee says."
The old woman's pinched face emerged from the sheets, looking up at
him. Bluish patches showed here and there on the drawn white skin;
there was a great change since the morning, but the eyes were still
alive.
John was silent a moment, one corner of his mouth twitching, as though
what she had said struck him in a humorous light.
"Well, I don't know as I mind much what 'ee says, 'Liza."
"Sit down."
She made a movement with her emaciated hand. John sat down on the
chair Louisa gave up to him, and bent down over the bed.
"If yer woan't do--what Muster Drew says, John--whatever _wull_ yer do
with it?"
She spoke slowly, but clearly. John scratched his head. His
complexion had evidently been very fair. It was still fresh and pink,
and the full cheek hung a little over the jaw. The mouth was shrewd,
but its expression was oddly contradicted by the eyes, which had on the
whole a childish, weak look.
"I think yer must leave it to me, 'Liza," he said at last. "I'll do
all for the best."
"No--yer'll not, John," said the dying voice. "You'd a done a many
stupid things--if I 'adn't stopped yer. An' I'm a-goin'. You'll never
leave it wi' Bessie?"
"An' who 'ud yer 'ave me leave it with? Ain't Bessie my own sister's
child?"
An emaciated hand stole out of the bed-clothes and fastened feebly on
his arm.
"If yer do, John, yer'll repent it. Yer never were a good one at
judgin' folk. Yer doan't consider nothin'--an' I'm a-goin'. Leave it
with Saunders, John."
There was a pause. Then John said with an obstinate look--
"Saunders 'as never been a friend o' mine since 'ee did me out o' that
bit o' business with Missus Moulsey. An' I don't mean to go makin'
friends with him again."
Eliza withdrew her hand with a long sigh, and her eyelids closed. A
fit of coughing shook her; she had to be lifted in bed, and it left her
gasping and deathly. John was sorely troubled, and not only for
himself. When she was more at ease again, he stooped to her and put
his mouth to her ear.
"'Liza, don't yer think no more about it. Did Mr. Drew read to yer?
Are yer comfortable in yer mind?"
She made a sign of assent, which showed, however, no great interest in
the subject. There was silence for a long time. Louisa was getting
supper downstairs. John, oppressed by the heat of the room and tired
by his day's work, had almost fallen asleep in his chair, when the old
woman spoke again.
"John--what 'ud you think o' Mary Anne Waller?"
The whisper was still human and eager.
John roused himself, and could not help an astonished laugh.
"Why, whatever put Mary Anne into your head, 'Liza? Yer never thought
anythink o' Mary Anne--no more than me."
Eliza's eyes wandered round the room.
"P'r'aps----" she said, then stopped, and could say no more. She
seemed to become unconscious, and John went to call for Louisa.
In the middle of the night John woke with a start, and sat up to
listen. Not a sound--but they would have called him if the end had
come. He could not rest, however, and presently he huddled on some
clothes and went to listen at Eliza's door. It was ajar, and, hearing
nothing, he pushed it open.
Poor Eliza lay in her agony, unconscious, and breathing heavily.
Beside her sat the widow, Mary Anne Waller, and Louisa, motionless too,
their heads bent. There was an end of candle in a basin behind the
bed, which threw circles of wavering light over the coarse whitewash of
the roof and on the cards and faded photographs above the tiny
mantelpiece.
John crept up to the bed. The two women made a slight movement to let
him stand between them.
"Can't yer give her no brandy?" he asked, whispering.
Mary Anne Waller shook her head.
"Dr. Murch said we wer'n't to trouble her. She'll go when the light
comes--most like."
She was a little shrivelled woman with a singularly delicate mouth,
that quivered as she spoke. John and Eliza Bolderfield had never
thought much of her, though she was John's cousin. She was a widow,
and greatly "put upon" both by her children and her neighbours. Her
children were grown up, and settled--more or less--in the world, but
they still lived on her freely whenever it suited them; and in the
village generally she was reckoned but a poor creature.
However, when Eliza--originally a hard, strong woman--took to her bed
with incurable disease, Mary Anne Waller came in to help, and was
accepted. She did everything humbly; she even let Louisa order her
about. But before the end, Eliza had come to be restless when she was
not there.
Now, however, Eliza knew no more, and the little widow sat gazing at
her with the tears on her cheeks. John, too, felt his eyes wet.
But after half an hour, when there was still no change, he was turning
away to go back to bed, when the widow touched his arm.
"Won't yer give her a kiss, John?" she said timidly. "She wor a good
sister to you."
John, with a tremor, stooped, and clumsily did as he was told--the
first time in his life he had ever done so for Mary Anne. Then,
stepping as noiselessly as he could on his bare feet, he hurried away.
A man shares nothing of that yearning attraction which draws women to a
death-bed as such. Instead, John felt a sudden sickness at his heart.
He was thankful to find himself in his own room again, and thought with
dread of having to go back--for the end. In spite of his still
vigorous and stalwart body, he was often plagued with nervous fears and
fancies. And it was years now since he had seen death--he had,
indeed, carefully avoided seeing it.
Gradually, however, as he sat on the edge of his bed in the summer
dark, the new impression died away, and something habitual took its
place--that shielding, solacing thought, which was in truth all the
world to him, and was going to make up to him for Eliza's death, for
getting old, and the lonesomeness of a man without chick or child. He
would have felt unutterably forlorn and miserable, he would have shrunk
trembling from the shapes of death and pain that seemed to fill the
darkness, but for this fact, this defence, this treasure, that set him
apart from his fellows and gave him this proud sense of superiority, of
a good time coming in spite of all. Instinctively, as he sat on the
bed, he pushed his bare foot backwards till his heel touched a wooden
object that stood underneath. The contact cheered him at once. He
ceased to think about Eliza, his head was once more full of whirling
plans and schemes.
The wooden object was a box that held his money, the savings of a
labourer's lifetime. Seventy-one pounds! It seemed to him an ocean of
gold, never to be exhausted. The long toil of saving it was almost
done. After the Frampton job, he would begin enjoying it, cautiously
at first, taking a bit of work now and again, and then a bit of holiday.
All the savour of life was connected for him with that box. His mind
ran over the constant excitements of the many small loans he had made
from it to his relations and friends. A shilling in the pound
interest--he had never taken less and he had never asked more. He had
only lent to people he knew well, people in the village whom he could
look after, and seldom for a term longer than three months, for to be
parted from his money at all gave him physical pain. He had once
suffered great anxiety over a loan to his eldest brother of thirty
pounds. But in the end James had paid it all back. He could still
feel tingling through him the passionate joy with which he had counted
out the recovered sovereigns, with the extra three half-sovereigns of
interest.
Muster Drew indeed! John fell into an angry inward argument against
his suggestion of the savings bank. It was an argument he had often
rehearsed, often declaimed, and at bottom it all came to this--without
that box under his bed, his life would have sunk to dulness and
decrepitude; he would have been merely a pitiful and lonely old man.
He had neither wife nor children, all for the hoard's sake; but while
the hoard was there, to be handled any hour, he regretted nothing.
Besides, there was the peasant's rooted distrust of offices, and paper
transactions, of any routine that checks his free will and frightens
his inexperience. He was still eagerly thinking when the light began
to flood into his room, and before he could compose himself to sleep
the women called him.
But he shed no more tears. He saw Eliza die, his companion of forty
years, and hardly felt it. What troubled him all through the last
scene was the thought that now he should never know why she was so set
against "Bessie's 'avin' it."