HOW GARD REFUSED AN OFFER AND MADE AN ENEMY
They had been most gratefully and graciously free from Tom since his
father’s death, but he reappeared a day or two before the end of the six
weeks, and brought with him a wife from Guernsey--not even a Guernsey
woman, however, but a Frenchwoman from the Cotentin--black-haired,
black-eyed, good-looking, after the type that would please such an one
as Tom Hamon--somewhat over-bold of face and manner for the rest of the
family.
Philip Tanquerel had had to bring all his sagacity to bear on his
difficult task of apportioning the lots, and Tom, who knew every inch of
the ground and all its capacities, grinned viciously now and again at
the acumen displayed in the divisions.
The allotment of the house-room had presented difficulties.
The great kitchen at La Closerie occupied the whole centre third of the
ground floor, the remaining thirds of the space on each side being taken
up with the rarely-used best room and three bedrooms, all pretty much of
a size, and all opening into the kitchen. Up above, under the sloping
thatch was the great solie or loft, entered from the outside through the
door-window in the gable by means of a short wooden ladder.
Grannie’s dower rights, when Tom’s grandfather died, had obtained for
her the two rooms constituting one-third of the house on the south side
of the kitchen, and certain rights of use of the kitchen itself. As she
needed only one room, she had bartered off the other and her kitchen
rights to her son and his wife in exchange for food and attendance, and
the arrangement had worked excellently.
But, on her first glimpse of young Tom’s quick-eyed, bold-faced
Frenchwoman, she had vowed she would have none of her; and in the end,
as the result of some chaffering, it was arranged that Tom and his wife
should have the kitchen and all the rooms north of it, while Mrs. Hamon
and Nance and Bernel had the room next Grannie’s for a kitchen, and the
great loft for bedrooms, all the necessary and duly specified
alterations to be made at Tom’s expense, and Mr. Tanquerel to see them
carried out at once. Grannie’s other room was to become their
sitting-room also and they were to provide for her as hitherto. By
boarding up the doors leading to the kitchen, and making a new entrance
to their own rooms, the families were therefore entirely separated, to
every one’s complete satisfaction.
The division of the furniture and kitchen utensils gave Mrs. Hamon all
she needed. Tom, of course, took as _droit d’ainesse_, before the
division, the family clock--which still bore signs of strife, and had
refused to go since that night when Gard’s buffet had sent him headlong
into it; and the farm-ladders and the pilotins--the stone props on which
the haystacks were built; and in addition to his own full share, as
between himself and Nance and Bernel, he exacted from them to the
uttermost farthing the extra seventh part of the value of all they
received--an Island right, but honoured more in the breach than in the
observance, and one which, in its exercise, tended to label the
exerciser as unduly mean and grasping.
Beyond that, everything was so fairly well balanced that Tom found
himself unable to secure all he had hoped, and so deemed himself
ill-used, and did not hesitate to express himself in his usual forcible
manner.
To obtain some of the things he specially wanted, Tanquerel had so
arranged the lots that he must sacrifice others, and these little
matters rankled in his mind and obscured his purview.
There was a good deal of unhappy wrangling, but in the end Mrs. Hamon
and Nance found themselves with a large cornfield, one for pasture, and
one for mixed crops, potatoes, beans and so on, besides rights of
grazing and gorse-cutting on a certain stretch of cliff common.
They had also a pony and two cows, and two pigs and a couple of dozen
hens and a cock--quite enough to keep Nance busy; and to them also fell
an adequate share of the byres and barns, and the free use of the well.
Tom, however, still looked upon them as interlopers, and grudged them
every stick and stone, and hoof and claw. If they had never come into
the family all would have been his. Whatever they had they had snatched
out of his mouth.
If it had not been for Philip Tanquerel the alterations agreed on would
never have been completed. He got down the carpenter and mason from
Sark, stood over them, day by day, till the work was done, and then
referred them to Tom for payment--and a pleasant and lively time they
had in getting it.
The conditions resulting from all this were just such as have prevailed
in hundreds of similar cases, such as are almost inevitable from the
minute divisions and sub-divisions of small properties. When ill-feeling
has prevailed beforehand it is by no means likely to be lessened by the
unavoidable friction of such a distribution.
The open ill-feeling was, however, all on Tom’s side. The others had
suffered him at closer quarters the greater part of their lives. It was
to them a mighty relief to be boarded off from him, and to feel free at
last from his unwelcome incursions.
He never spoke to any of them, and when they passed one another on their
various farm duties a black look and a muttered curse was his only
greeting.
By means of what fairy tales concerning himself, or his position, or
Sark, he had induced the lively-eyed Julie to marry him, we may not
know. But Mrs. Tom very soon let it be known that she considered herself
woefully misled, and quite thrown away upon such a place as Sark, and
still more so upon this _ultima thule_ of Little Sark, which she volubly
asserted was the very last place le bon Dieu had made, and the condition
in which it was left did Him little credit.
She, at all events, showed no disinclination to chat with her
neighbours. Very much the contrary. None of them could pass within range
of her eyes and tongue without a greeting and an invitation to talk.
“Tiens donc, Nancie, ma petite!” she would cry, at sight of Nance. “What
a hurry you are in. It is hurry and scurry and bustle from morning till
night with you over there. The hens? Let them wait, ma garche, ’twill
strengthen their legs to scratch a bit, and ’twill enlighten your mind
to hear about Guernsey and Granville. Oh the beautiful country! Mon
Dieu, if only I were back there!”
They all--except, perhaps, Grannie--felt for her--lonely in a strange
land--and were inclined to do what they could to make her more
contented. But she desired them chiefly as listeners, and the things she
had to tell were little to their taste, and less to her credit from
their point of view, though she herself evidently looked upon them as
every-day matters, and calculated to inspire these simple island-folk
with the respect due to a woman of the greater world outside.
Grannie’s views of her grand-daughter-in-law had never altered from the
first moment she set eyes on her.
When Mrs. Tom came in to hear herself talk, one afternoon when Tom was
away fishing, the old lady simply sat and stared at her from the depths
of her big black sun-bonnet, and never opened her lips or gave any sign
of interest or hearing.
“Is she deaf?” asked Mrs. Tom after a while.
“Dear me, no. Grannie hears everything,” said Mrs. Hamon, with a smile
at thought of all the old lady would have to say presently.
“Nom d’un nom, then why doesn’t she speak? Is it dumb she is?”
“Neither deaf nor dumb--nor yet a fool,” rapped Grannie, so sharply that
the visitor jumped.
And during the remainder of her visit, no matter to whom she was talking
or what she was saying, Julie’s snapping black eyes would inevitably
keep working round to the depths of the big black sun-bonnet, and at
times her discourse lost point and trailed to a ragged end.
“It’s my belief that old woman next door is a witch,” she said to her
husband later on.
“She’s an old devil,” he said bluntly. “She’ll put the evil eye on you
if you don’t take care.”
“She ought to be burnt,” said Mrs. Tom.
“All the same,” said Tom musingly, “she’s got money, so you’d best be as
civil to her as she’ll let you.”
“Mon Dieu! My flesh creeps still at the way she looked at me. She has
the evil eye without a doubt.”
And Grannie?--“Mai grand doux! What does a woman like that want here?”
said she. “A wide mouth and wanton eyes. La Closerie has never had these
before--a Frenchwoman too!”--with withering contempt. For, odd as it may
seem, among this people originally French, and still speaking a patois
based, like their laws and customs, on the old Norman, there is no term
of opprobrium more profound than “Frenchman.”
Madame Julie flatly refused to subject herself to further peril from
Grannie’s keen but harmless gaze, and contented herself with such
opportunities of enlarging Nance’s outlook on life as casual chats about
the farm-yard afforded, and found time heavy on her hands.
Ennui, before long, gave place to grumbling, and that to recrimination;
and from what the others could not help hearing, through the boarded-up
doors and the floor of the loft, Tom and his wife had a cat-and-dog time
of it.
Gard had moved over to Plaisance with great regret. But nothing else was
possible under the altered circumstances at La Closerie, so he made the
best of it.
It was some consolation to learn that they also missed him.
“Everything’s different,” grumbled Bernel, one day when they met. “Tom
and his wife quarrel so that we can hear them through the walls. And
Grannie sits by the hour without opening her mouth. And mother and Nance
are as quiet as if they were going to be sick. And I’m getting
green-mouldy. Seems as if we’d got to the end of things, and nothing was
ever going to happen again. I think I’ll go to Guernsey.”
“Do you think they’d like--I mean, would they mind if I came in for a
chat now and then? It’s pretty lonely up at Plaisance too.”
“Oh, they’ll mind and so will I. When’ll you come?”
“I’ll look in to-night as I come from the mines--if you’re sure--”
“You come and try, and if you don’t like it you needn’t come
again”--with a twinkle of the eye.
Nance did not strike him as looking as though she were going to be sick,
when he went in that night, nor did her mother.
Grannie indeed had little to say, but then she was never over-talkative,
and when Gard more than once looked at her, and wondered if she had
fallen asleep, he always found the keen old eyes wide open, and eyeing
him watchfully as ever out of the depths of the big black sun-bonnet.
Mrs. Hamon asked about his new quarters, and his quiet shake of the head
and simple--“They’re kindly folk, but it’s somehow very different”--told
its own tale.
“They’re a bit short-handed, you see,” he added, “and so they’re all
kept busy, and at times, I’m afraid, they wish me further.”
“And you go all that way back for your dinner each day?” asked Mrs.
Hamon thoughtfully.
“Well, I have tried taking it with me, but it’s not very satisfactory.”
“What would you say to coming here for it, as you used to? I think we
could manage it, Nance. What do you say?”
“We could manage it all right,” said Nance, “if--” and then, in spite of
herself, she could not keep that telltale mouth of hers in order, and
the attempt to repress a smile only emphasized the dimples at the
corners. For Gard’s face was as eager as a dog’s at sight of a rat.
“It will save me such a lot of time,” he explained--at which Nance
dimpled again as she went out to feed her chickens, and left them to
complete the new arrangement.
And if it had cost Gard every penny of his salary he would still have
rejoiced at it, and considered his bargain a good one. As it was, it
cost him no more than the trouble of rearranging his terms with the good
folks at Plaisance, and it gave a new zest and enjoyment to life since
it ensured a meeting with Nance at least once each day.
And not with Nance only!
Madame Julie, very weary of herself, and Tom, and her surroundings, and
Sark, and life in general as understood in Sark, very soon became
conscious of the regular visits next door of the best-looking young man
she had yet seen in the Island, and was filled with curiosity concerning
him.
“He’s after that slip of a Nance,” she said to herself. “And he has his
own share of good looks, has that young man.”--And then came the
inevitable, “Mon Dieu, but I wish Tom had been made like that!”
To get a better view of him--and perhaps not without a vague idea of
ulterior interest and amusement for herself--anything to add a dash of
colour to the prevailing greyness of her surroundings--she was leaning
on the gate next day when he came striding up to his dinner, and gave
him, “Bon jour, m’sieur!” with much heartiness and the full benefit of
her black eyes and white teeth.
“’Jour, madame!” and he whipped off his hat and passed on into the
house.
“That was Madame Tom, I suppose, who was leaning over the gate, as I
came in,” he said, as they ate.
“I expect so,” said Mrs. Hamon. “She generally seems to have time on her
hands.”
“When Tom’s not there,” snapped Grannie. “Got her hands full enough when
he is.”
“I should imagine Tom would not be too easy to get on with at times.
Maybe he’ll settle down now he’s married.”
“Doesn’t sound like settling down sometimes,” chirped the old lady
again.
“Oh? I’m sorry to hear that. She doesn’t look bad-tempered.”
“Tom’s got more’n enough for the two of them.”
“I’m afraid she finds it a change from what she’s been accustomed to,”
said Mrs. Hamon quietly. “She came in once or twice, but her talk is of
things that don’t interest us, and ours is of things that don’t interest
her, so we can’t get as friendly as we would like to be.”
“And Tom?”
“Tom considers us all robbers, as he always has done. He gives us his
blackest face whenever he sees any of us.”
“That’s unpleasant, seeing you’re such close neighbours.”
“Yes, it’s unpleasant, but we can’t help it. It’s just Tom. How is your
work getting on?”
“Not as I would wish,” said Gard, with a gloomy wag of the head. “Your
Sark men are difficult--very difficult, and the others who ought to know
better, and who do know better”--with more than a touch of warmth--“go
on as though I was a slave-driver.”
“Sark men are hard to drive,” said Mrs. Hamon sympathetically.
“They know perfectly well that I want only what is just and right to the
shareholders. They expect their pay to the last penny, but when I insist
on a proper return for it they look at me as if they’d like to knock me
on the head. It’s disheartening work. I’ve been tempted at times to
throw it all up and go back to England”--at which Nance’s heart gave so
unusual a little kick that she had difficulty in frowning it into
quietude, and just then Bernel came in with his gun and a couple of
rabbits.
“Who’s going to England?” he asked. “I’ll go too.”
“No you won’t,” said Nance sharply. “We want you here.”
“It’s as dull as Beauregard pond and as dirty, since the m--aw--um!”
with a deprecatory glance at Gard.
“You’d find most busy places just as dirty,” said Gard.
“Then I’ll go to sea. That’s clean at all events.”
“Let’s hope things will brighten a bit. You wouldn’t find the fo’c’sle
of a trader as comfortable as La Closerie, my boy,”--and they fell to on
their dinner and left the matter there.
“Dites-donc, Nannon, ma petite,” said Mrs. Tom to Nance, a day or two
later, “who is the joli gars who comes each day to see you?”
“Mr. Gard from the mines comes up here to get his dinner, if that’s what
you mean.”
“Oh--ho! He comes for his dinner, does he? And is that all he comes for,
little Miss Modesty?”
“That’s all,” said Nance solemnly.
“Oh yes, without a doubt, that’s all. I think I’ll ask him next time I
see him. Why doesn’t he go home for his dinner like other people?”
“He’s living at Plaisance now and it’s far to go. He used to live here,
you know.”
“Ma foi, no, I didn’t know. He used to live here? And why did he go to
Plaisance then?”
“We hadn’t room for him, you see.”
“But, Mon Dieu, we have room and to spare! There are those two bedrooms
empty. Why shouldn’t he--”
But Nance shook her head at that.
“Why then?” demanded Mrs. Tom, with visions of some one besides Tom to
talk to of an evening--a good-looking, sensible one too. “Why?”
“He and Tom don’t get on well together--”
“Pardi, I’m not surprised at that. It would need an angel out of heaven
to get on with him sometimes. What induced me ever to marry such a
grumbler I don’t know. I wonder if Monsieur What-is-it?--Gard--would
come back if I could arrange it?”
But Nance shook her head again.
“Ah--ha, ma garche, and you would sooner he did not--is it not so?”
“I’m quite sure he and Tom would never get on together, and I don’t
think Mr. Gard would come.”
“It’s worth trying, however. He would be some one to talk to of an
evening any way.”
And so, when Tom came in that evening, she tackled him on the subject.
“Say then, mon beau,”--and as she said it she could not but contrast his
slouching bulk with the straight, well-knit figure of the other--“why
should we not take in a lodger as all the rest do? Our two rooms there
are empty and--”
“Who’s the lodger?”
“There is one comes up every day to dinner next door, and would stop
there altogether if they had the room. Tiens, what’s this his name is?
He’s from the mines--”
“You mean Gard--the manager,” scowled Tom.
“That’s it--Monsieur Gard. Why shouldn’t he--”
“Because I’d break his head if I got the chance, and he knows it. Comes
up there to dinner, does he? How long’s he been doing that?”
“For a week now. Couldn’t you get over your bad feeling? It would be
money in our pockets.”
“No, I couldn’t, and he wouldn’t come if you asked him.”
“Will you let me try?”
“I tell you he won’t come.”
“In that case there’s no harm in trying. If I can persuade him, will you
promise to be civil to him, and not try to break his head?”
“He won’t come, I tell you.”
“And I say he may.”
“And you’ll nag and nag till you get your own way, I suppose.”
“Of course. What’s the use of a woman’s tongue if she can’t get her own
way with it? Will you promise to behave properly if he comes?”
“I’ll behave if he behaves,” he growled sulkily. “But we’ll neither of
us get the chance. He won’t come.”
“Eh bien, we’ll see!”
And when Gard came up to dinner next day, she was leaning over the gate
waiting for him, very tastefully dressed according to her lights, and
with an engaging smile on her face.
“Dites donc, Monsieur Gard,” she said pleasantly. “Our little Nannon was
telling me you regretted having to live so far away. Why should you not
come back and occupy your old room? It is lying empty there, and I would
do my very best to make you comfortable, and you would be close to your
friends all the time then, instead of having to go across that frightful
Coupée.”
“It is very kind of you, madame,” and he stared back at her in much
surprise, and found himself wondering what on earth had made her marry
such a man as Tom Hamon. For she was undeniably good-looking and had all
a Frenchwoman’s knack of making the very best of all she had--abundant
black hair, very neatly twisted up at the back of her head; white teeth
and full red lips; straight, well-developed figure very neatly dressed;
and large black eyes which looked capable of so many things, that they
found it difficult to settle for any length of time to any one
expression.
“It is very kind of you, madame,” said Gard, “but--” and he stood
looking at her and hesitating how to put it.
“You mean about Tom,” she laughed. “But that is all past. I have spoken
to him, and he promises to behave himself quite properly if you will
come. Voilà!”
Just for a moment the possibilities of the suggestion caught his mind.
He would be near Nance all the time. He would be saved much tiresome
walking to and fro. Especially he would be saved that passage of the
Coupée, which at night, even with a lantern, was not a thing one easily
got accustomed to, and on stormy nights was enough to make one’s hair
fly. Then this woman was very different from his present landlady, and
would probably, he thought, have different notions of comfort.
The quick black eyes caught something of what was in him: and he, as
suddenly, caught something of what lurked, consciously or unconsciously,
in them, and a little tremor of repugnance shook his heart and braced
him back to reason.
He shook his head. “It would not do, madame. He and I would never get on
together, no matter how hard we tried. I thank you for the offer all the
same,” and he made as though to pass her.
“I wish you would come,” she said, and laid a pleading hand on his arm.
“I’m sure he would try to behave. I can generally manage him except when
he’s been drinking. Then I’m afraid of him, and wish some one else was
at hand. But that’s only when he’s been out all night at the fishing,
and it’s soon over and done with. Do come, monsieur!”--It was almost a
whisper now, and she leaned towards him--the rich dark face--the great
solicitous eyes.
But she had mistaken her man. Perhaps she had not met many like him.
He shook off her hand almost brusquely.
“It is impossible, madame. I could not,” and he pushed past just as
Nance came to the door.
She had seen him coming, heard their voices outside, and wondered what
was keeping him.
She turned back into the house when she saw Julie, wondering still more.
For Gard’s face was disturbed, and had in it something of the look she
had seen more than once when he had faced Tom in his tantrums.
And, glancing past him, she had seen what he had not--Julie’s face when
he turned his back on her.
“Mon Gyu!” gasped Nance to herself, and went in wondering.
“She and Tom wanted me to take my old room again, and I refused,” was
all he said.
“Tom wanted you to go there?” said Mrs. Hamon in amazement.
“So she said.”
Grannie’s disparaging sniff was charged with libel.
* * * * *
“Well?” asked Tom of his wife, when he came in later on with Peter
Mauger, who had come over for supper. “Got your lodger?”
“No.”
“That’s what I told you,” with a provocative laugh.
“Oh, he’d have come quick enough.”
“Would, would he? Then why didn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t trust myself alone in the house with that man.”
“Ah!” said Tom, staring at her. “Always thought he was a bad lot myself,
didn’t I, Peter?”
Peter nodded.
“It’s a wonder to me that Mrs. Hamon lets him run after that girl of
hers as she does,” said Julie.
“If I catch him up to any of his tricks I’ll break his head for him.”
“Maybe it would be a good thing for little Nance if you did.”
“Knew he was a toad as soon as I set eyes on him, so did Peter. Didn’t
you, Peter?”
Peter nodded.
“What d’he say to you?” demanded Tom.
“Didn’t say much. Asked if you were much away at the fishing and that.
But the way he looked at me!--I’ve got the shivers down my back yet,”
and a virtuous little shudder shook her and made a visible impression on
Peter.
“Peter and me’ll maybe have a word with him one of these days, won’t we,
Peter?”
“Maybe,” said Peter.
“We don’t want toads like Gard running off with any of our Sark girls,
do we, Peter?”
“No,” said Peter.
“Mr. Gard had better look out for himself or take himself off before
somebody does it for him. There’s plenty wouldn’t mind giving him a
crack on the head and slipping him over the Coupée some dark night.”
As to such extreme measures Peter offered no opinion. He looked vaguely
round the big kitchen as though in search of something that used to be
there, and said--
“How about supper?”