Mrs. Byron, wheeling her trolly through the "houses and courts" of
Wastralls, along the garden paths and down the neglected drive, found
that her creation had a feeling for rises in the ground that was almost
uncanny. "Thus far shalt thou go," said the trolly and Jim Rosevear
spent many a half-hour levelling surfaces which Mrs. Byron had hitherto
believed to be as flat as the yard pond. On the whole she got about as
much as she had expected to; and far more than her husband or even the
hinds had believed possible.
The latter had served her well, partly because she, being a good master,
it was difficult for them to do otherwise; but also because, being
raised above them, a woman and unfamiliar, she was in some dim way that
Golden Helen of all male dreams. For her part she understood them as
she understood the animals on the farm, their idiosyncrasies, their
capacity. She worked them as she worked her horses, as kindly, with as
much consideration; but without feeling that they were nearer to her in
the scale of creation.
On her return to Wastralls she found that her long absence and
Leadville's slack rule, hard work one day, off shooting the next, had
demoralized the little band. They gave their employer a hearty welcome,
vicariously, proud of one who, though desperately injured, had refused
to give up the struggle which is life; but it soon became evident that
they believed her accident and subsequent mutilation had changed her
into something weak and strange. Her orders were questioned.
Unconsciously the men were testing the power that for so long had kept
them subservient.
"George," said she to Biddick, one bright June morning, "you'd better
cut that 'ay in Cross Parks to-day."
"I think I should leave it a day or two longer, missis. I b'lieve we're
goin' to 'av some rain," returned the old fellow who, at the moment, had
a job more to his liking.
Sabina's voice rang out. "Never mind about that. You get the men and
'av it done at once. It'll be done before the rain come then."
She had a sense of weather so keen that she had been known to predict it
for months, even seasons, ahead and Biddick looked at her uneasily.
When some days later, he came for his week's money, she spoke to him
sharply.
"If you'm too old for yer work, better jack it up and I'll hire a
younger man."
"I thought missis, as we was in for a lot of rain."
"I'm missis and I'll 'av things done my way."
As she once said, "Don't meet fear half-way, go all the way and you'll
crush 'un in the egg!"
But although Sabina asserted herself with promptitude and decision, it
was not in the old effortless way. Her health was far from
satisfactory. She held her own, reduced her team to an obedience which
for them was happiness, but paid for her victory in restless nights, in
pain and weariness. She thought sometimes that it would be impossible
for her to carry on.
"I do ache so bad," she told her faithful crony, "that I feel I shall
'av to give up and be a bed-lier."
"My dear life," said Mrs Tom, pursuing her old tactics, "'tis just what
Leadville'd like for 'ee to be."
"D'yer think 'e would?"
"Iss, I'm sure 'e would, 'e'd wait on yer 'and and foot."
"I should like to see 'un then."
"I can't fancy you being a bed-lier," said Mrs. Tom comfortably. "Did
Gray tell 'ee there's a piece of hedge down in the li'l medder?"
"No, she didn't." Sabina was interested. "An' I thinking to 'av the
sheep turned into the lower field! I'll send Jim down this afternoon to
mend'n. 'E's a good boy."
"Farmer's son and got farmin' in's veins."
"I like to see the way he wait on Gray. I should be glad for'm to live
'ere after they'm married. The way he's goin' he'll do fine. Biddick's
gettin' old and Jim shall be foreman and teel Wastralls for me. He got
an eye for the stock and he's a good-working li'l feller. Oh iss, Gray's
a lucky maid."
Mrs. Tom did not think the suggested arrangement would prove
satisfactory; but the young couple were not yet married, were not even
engaged and, if Sabina could not see what was going on, it was not for
others to point it out to her.
"Jim'll be agreeable," she said non-committally, "'tis all the same to
him whether he go to his auntie at Gentle Jane or whether he stay 'ere.
All 'e think about is Gray. Ah, my dear, I should like for 'ee to get
as far as Hember and see they two sittin' together wi' us. 'Tis so good
as a picture."
Sabina nodded. "Leadville was only sayin' yesterday he never seen a
maid so fond of 'er 'ome as Gray. Soon ever 'er work's done she's off
'ome like a bird."
"I 'ope she don't leave 'ee too much by yerself?"
"No, no, my dear, if she'd been my own daughter she couldn't do more for
me," and she sighed, feeling that if Gray had been the child whose place
she filled, Leadville would have been able to rest his heart content.
She could see that the pseudo-relationship in which the young girl stood
to him was unsatisfactory and she understood, though too vaguely to put
it into words, that for people to share a home they should be bound by
blood or sex.
"Well, I must do so well as I can," she added, reverting to the main
topic of their wandering talk. "'Tis live from day to day and though I
don't feel very special, I must be surely stronger than I was."
"Iss," said Mrs. Tom encouragingly, "I can see as each month make a
difference to 'ee."
Sabina might talk of becoming a 'bed-lier,' but only the slightest spur
was required to nerve her to fresh effort; and by living, as she had
said, from day to day and leaning on the young strength of Gray, she won
through the summer. Indeed the glooms of autumn were brightened for her
by the conviction that she would live usefully and might live long.
Leadville on the other hand saw his last hope fading. Dr. Derek had
declared that she could not stand the shock to her system; that, if she
survived, it would be as an invalid. Sabina however had the will to live
and the trolly--a contrivance which Leadville both detested and
contemned--carried her from kitchen to linhay and from barn to byre.
Her husband looked on with growing exasperation, opposing to her
good-will a sulky silence. At meal-times he sat with eyes fixed on his
plate or lifted them for a quick glance at Gray. When he went out, he
took his gun, the gun that hung on thongs over the kitchen door and
which, as he had inherited it from old Leadville Byron, was the one
possession he did not owe his wife. When he came back it was to sit in
Old Squire's big chair and spend his time cleaning and oiling it.
Whither he went, Sabina did not know. She sighed over his withdrawal of
himself, his dull hostility, but did not lose heart. In the end
Leadville, seeing that the struggle was hopeless, must return to her.
What else could he do? He, too, was middle-aged and except for her was
alone in the world.
Although Mrs. Byron felt sure of the ultimate issue, she had not missed
the import of those quick glances when Leadville, she and Gray sat at
table together. He would answer when the girl spoke and, if she were
likely to be making butter or plucking chickens, would hang about and
offer his help. When he brought in fish or birds it was to Gray that he
took them and, in the evening, laying the gun across his knees, he would
lean forward and stare at her. The wife looked on, not indulgently but
with her usual robust common sense. Middle-aged men were often
transiently attracted by young relatives--nieces or cousins--but the
girls went to homes of their own, the old fellows forgot and no harm was
done. In a better-managed world, the generations would be sharply
defined and each would be sufficient unto itself. Sabina could not
wonder that Leadville should prefer the delicacy of tint, the soft dewy
eyes of the maid to her own stale and faded charms. She looked at
herself in the glass, at her white hair, the loose skin of her neck, the
fixed colour in her cheeks. She had been handsome and she had not
cared. Now that wrinkles had come about her eyes she thought longingly
of the pale smooth lids between which she had so contentedly surveyed
her world. The mood, the regret, were new to her, an outcome of her
illness and she returned before long to the old comfortable
indifference. If she were in the forties so was Leadville. His figure
was heavy, his face lined and weatherbeaten. Gray comparing him with
Jim Rosevear could not fail to mark the contrast.
"Aunt S'bina, you been in the house all day," the girl said one evening
as they sat at tea.
"Well, my dear," returned Mrs. Byron easily, "I've been busy; I had the
baking to do and this afternoon I've cleaned out the rubbish your mammy
put in the stair-cupboard and after that"--she smiled and looked
hopefully at her husband--"I mended yer uncle's socks."
Leadville, who was cutting himself a slice of ham, threw the knife into
the dish with a clatter. Why did she meddle with his clothes? He'd
rather wear them all holes than have her mend them. 'Your uncle,' too!
He wasn't Gray's uncle, he wasn't even her cousin. No, but--and he
drifted out upon the wave that was for ever lapping about his feet.
"Do you think you can spare me? I should like to go home after tea,"
pursued the girl.
"Iss, my dear, I can spare yer."
"Why can't you come too, Aunt S'bina?"
"Me go up that hill? Why, you know trolly won't take the least rise in
the ground."
"Well, I'll push behind."
"Don't believe you'm strong enough."
"Why not Uncle Leadville push it then?"
Byron returned from his dream to sweep a lowering glance over the little
platform of shivered wood. "I'd like to see myself pushin' that thing."
"'Twould do Aunt Sabina good to have a craik with mammy."
As this was to him a matter of indifference he made no answer and Gray
turned to Mrs. Byron. "Anyhow, auntie, you'll come as far as the gate
with me, won't you?"
"Why, of course I will. I did last night and the night before, didn't
I?" said the other innocently. From the yard gate the road was in sight
as far as Hember.
"Yes and I like for you to be there. It's company till I get home."
"I'll give you my company," said Leadville abruptly, "without you askin'
me for't."
Gray turned a face, from which all expression had been banished, on the
speaker. "I think you better stay with Aunt S'bina."
"Oh, she don't want me," he answered, a touch of pleading in his manner.
"Iss, Leadville," said the wife tranquilly, "I'm glad for 'ee to stay in
wi' me. Let the young ones go, they don't want we old 'uns followin' of
them up. We've 'ad our day."
The man turned on her quickly. "Me old?" he cried with manifest
irritation. "I'll tell yer about old. I bain't old."
"You'm in yer prime; but that seem old to a young maid."
"Do I seem old to you, Gray?" demanded he, and his eyes were both
pleading and threatening, eyes so hungry that the girl had some ado to
give him an unmoved reply. Not that she felt any sympathy with him in
what she looked on as a tiresome aberration, but that under the quiet
surface she was a little stirred and a little afraid. "You'm older than
dad," she said at last.
"I'm ten times the man your father is!" He stretched his arms and
expanded his deep chest. He was desperately anxious to prove to her his
unabated virility, while she, timid, and on the threshold of awakening
sensation, would have avoided the thought of it. His strength, present
with her, and always desirous, was a subtle menace to the young
happiness which her bosom shrined. "There isn't a feller for miles round
can wrestle me or box me. You know I can carry four hundredweight on my
shoulders where other chaps take two. I hain't old."
The girl, moved by her longing to escape, had risen and drawn nearer to
her aunt. Here was, at least, protection, protection from all but that
dim admission of her own heart that Leadville Byron was indeed all he
claimed to be and more. For he was not only strong he was persistent,
he was forcible. "Don't make no difference to me," she said, in a voice
she tried to render careless, "whether you're old or not." And she
spoke the truth. It was not his age that mattered.
When she came to Wastralls she had been prepared to find Leadville
devoted to his wife's interests and deeply thankful she had been spared
to him. By degrees it dawned on her simplicity that his thoughts were
otherwise busy, that Sabina was a matter of indifference to him, or
worse, that he was living a dream life of which she, Gray, was the
centre. An unhappy little centre! She had had her share of attention
from the young men of the scattered community, a little sighing, a soft
pursuit, a hot word and the end. But Leadville was a stranger and his
pursuit was not soft but fierce. He did not sigh but she could not be
in the room with him without feeling that his brawny chest, his strong
arms were aching with the longing to lay hold of her. She could not
touch him accidentally without feeling the thrill of his desire. She
was enveloped by his thoughts; and she struggled, resenting this emotion
which threatened to overwhelm her and the bright prospects of her youth.
For Gray was in need, not of a conflagration, but of a little fire upon
the hearth.
With the man, matters were gradually coming to a head. He had not loved
the old couple who had adopted him, he had been only mildly attracted by
his wife, but he had in him a fund of passion which, through the fallow
years, had been growing in concentration and of which the fuse had at
length been lighted. His love for Gray was as overwhelming to himself
as it might prove to its object. He had not known what a furnace was
smouldering at the heart of him and, when the flame broke forth, to
resist was impossible. He did not attempt it. On the contrary he gave
himself up to these new sensations that ran through him, wave after
wave, like a burning but not scarifying fire. His new passion pushed
Wastralls for the time being into the background. He could not contain
more than one absorbing emotion. He had been the persistent, passionate
lover of the land, so but with more fever, did he love Gray. Wonderful
as to him were these new feelings, he found them almost too poignant.
When she entered a room in which he sat his throat went dry, he could
hardly speak and the brief contacts of skirt or hand proved unendurably
sweet. He turned from these moments of a troubling ecstasy to the
languorous long intervals when she was absent and he, recalling her
face, could dwell on it and imagine the fulfilling, tender, fiery,
wonderful, of his every hope.
During the first months that Gray was living at Wastralls, Byron spent
much of his time on Dark Head; but in the end he woke to a desire for
more than dreams could give, a desire which grew in intensity after the
manner of Jack the Giant-killer's bean. He began to haunt the young
girl's steps and her honest attempts to discourage him passed with him
for a sort of tantalizing encouragement. He could not believe that the
object of a feeling so intense could be unresponsive, that these
troubling sensations were not mutual; and when Gray avoided him, escaped
from him, even, when protected by Sabina, flouted him with a little
angry ruffling, he smiled with the conviction that his hour was at hand.
Steady untiring pursuit is apt to demoralize the victim and while Sabina
thought the summer heats had washed the colour out of Gray's cheek, Mrs.
Tom, uneasy as a hen when hawks are hovering, went to the root of the
matter.
"Do 'ee like being to Wastralls, Gray?" she asked that evening when,
having left Sabina stationed at the yard gate, the girl had run up the
road, to arrive breathless and panting.
"Oh yes, mammy, I do dearly love Aunt S'bina."
"Why was you runnin' so just now?"
Gray hesitated. Very few girls confide such matters to a mother's ear.
Experience shall not teach. Each generation will make its own mistakes
and gather its handful of treasures and keep its secrets. Gray was
however very doubtful and unhappy and, having no girl of her own age to
consult, she turned to her mother.
"It's Uncle Leadville. He's always wanting to come with me and I don't
want'n. I dunno--" she paused.
"Iss?" said Mrs. Tom quietly.
"I dunno as Jim'll be agreeable."
"My dear, why don't you wear the ring that 'e give you?"
"I don't know, I don't like to. I"--she smiled anxiously, yet with a
glimmering of humour--"I don't believe Uncle Leadville would like to see
me wearin' a ring."
Having said so much, Gray was willing to make further admissions. "I
feel afraid of Unde Leadville, he's always after me and his eyes seem to
be watching me as if they was coming out of his sockets. I can't sleep
by night, mammy, I--I'm always thinking about him and," she looked shyly
away, unable in this moment of revelation to meet her mother's
understanding eye, "I don't want to, I'm--" her voice sank, "I'm
afraid."
"'Tis a shame," said Mrs. Tom warmly. She knew how compelling are
strength and intensity but thought it wisest not to let her knowledge
appear. The susceptibilities of young people are easily ruffled.
"I think it's wicked of him, mammy." She was righteously indignant that
he should be making life so difficult, "and auntie is so good to him."
"Iss," sighed the matron, "but men's so, they can't help
theirselves--poor old villains. Why don't you come 'ome with me for a
bit and leave Richbell go down with your auntie?"
Gray's face brightened hopefully, then she shook her head. "I don't
think Aunt S'bina would like it."
"Well, I'll talk to yer auntie about it an' tell 'er what I think."
"Don't you say nothing about what I've told you," cried youth, anxious
as to the discretion of gossiping middle-age.
"You can trust me," and Gray, looking into the kind shrewd face, felt
that she might.
"You know she see Uncle Leadville's tiresome but she don't think he mean
anything."
"Poor sawl, no she wouldn't, of course, bein' 'is wife. He'll say one
thing to she an' another thing to you."
Gray nodded. That was the way of it.
"And she'll believe what 'e say."
"He'd tell her I was making a fuss about nothing. Yes, he would."
"There's Jim comin' up the road," said Mrs. Tom, who was sitting by the
window; "I wonder 'e and Leadville get on."
"They don't see but very little of each other. If I was to be with Jim
when Uncle Leadville come, I believe they'd fight; and the fear of that
keeps me on pins and needles when I'm with Jim. It's all horrid."
"Well, dearie, I'll see what I can do with yer auntie. 'Twould be better
if you could say as you was engaged to Jim, but I suppose you can't?"
"I daren't, mammy." Her large eyes, softly black, filled with tears.
Courting-time is April weather but Gray felt that more showers than
sunshine were falling to her share. "I'm frightened of Uncle Leadville
and his old gun. We often say we'll do things but we don't after all; I
got an idea he would."
Mrs. Tom took from behind the door a purple knitted bonnet and a cloak.
The evenings were dark and the wind from the sea cold. She did not stay
to take off her apron but went as she was, in her dark gown and with her
kind face bright between the flaps of the woollen bonnet.
Sabina, lonely, because the husband who should have been sitting
opposite to her at the end of the day was gone out, gave her a warmer
greeting than was her wont. She was tired and the peace and
good-fellowship to which she was looking forward seemed long in coming.
She, also, would be glad of a chat.
*CHAPTER VI*
"She've a whisht 'eart, poor Gray 'as," said the mother in deprecation
of Mrs. Byron's stout advice that the maid should wear her ring openly
and tell Leadville to go hang.
"Whatever is she 'fraid of?"
"Oh, I dunno, maids is like that sometimes."
"She needn't be afraid of Leadville, 'e 'edn't goin' do nothing."
"I don't say 'e 'av so far," was the cautious reply.
The wife laughed. "You don't think I've lived with'n all these years
an' don't know 'e's all blow?"
But Mrs. Tom knew just how much justification there was for Gray's
alarm. "Well, you know, Gray's easily frightened," she said
thoughtfully. "I don't believe she'd come down the lane at night for
all the gold in Tregols."
"Well, I never. Whatever is there to be afraid of?"
"You know she 'ad a bit of a shock one night."
"She didn't say a word about it to me, then."
"Well no, I s'pose she didn't like to."
"Whatever was it, then?"
"I don't think she 'ud like for me to say anything about it."
Mrs. Tom had successfully aroused her friend's curiosity and Sabina
clapped her arm impatiently. "I'm sure Gray wouldn't mind you tellin'
me of't."
"No, p'raps she wouldn't, still 'tis a awkward thing to say to 'ee."
"Never mind for that. I reckon I can listen to what you can say."
"Well, my dear." Mrs. Tom hitched her chair nearer to the trolly and
lowered her voice. "Jim 'ad gone over to Treketh to see his mother and
the maid was to home and she wouldn't leave 'er father see 'er back
'ere, said she'd be all right by 'erself. An' as she was comin' along,
something rustled in the 'edge. 'Twas one of they dark nights and she
couldn't see, but she thought 'twas a bullock."
"Iss?" Sabina's mind, by now ready for it, leaped to the natural
conclusion. Leadville was trying to meet Gray on the quiet.
"And some one springed out and catched 'old of er and just about pulled
the clothes off 'er back, they did," was Mrs. Tom's startling end to the
story.
"My dear life! You don't mean to say so?" This was worse than she had
feared; presented her, indeed, with a new and surprising view of her
husband.
"I dunno 'owever she got away from 'im."
"Isolda!" and the fixed colour of her cheeks was a dull red patch on the
pallor, "you don't mean to say that 'twas really 'im? You can't mean
'twas?"
"Oh, my dear, don't 'e ask me."
"I can't 'ardly believe," said the wife miserably, "that 'e'd do such a
thing. 'E's always been a good-livin' feller, 'e don't drink and 'e
never seemed to be after the maidens. Can't think," she said,
surrendering the point as proven, "whatever ail the man."
The fact that Leadville was capable of using violence to gain his ends
had sunk into Mrs. Tom's mind. She was like an old hen when a hawk is
in the blue. "I don't want to keep Gray 'ome," she said uneasily, "but
if Leadville worry the life out of 'er..."
Mrs. Byron had rallied from her consternation. At the bottom of her
heart she preserved a little doubt. The story was perhaps substantially
true, true enough to show in which direction the wind was blowing; but
Gray, being a timid maid, the tale had not lost in the telling.
"'Tis a pack o' tommy-rot," she said at last, anger beginning to colour
her unhappy amazement, "a man of his years runnin' after young maidens;
but once Gray's married 'e won't think no more about it. 'Tis
disgraceful of him; and, what's more, 'tis madness for'm to think she's
goin' to 'av anything to do wi' an old man like 'e. Isolda, I do think
'tis time Gray was married."
"Iss, my dear, so do I."
"Well--why don't they?"
"It mean a good bit o' money to get married, you know," said Mrs. Tom
who, in spite of her alert mind, was not capable of quick decisions,
"and one thing more, marrying isn't horse-jocking."
"Why don't they put the banns in and get married on the quiet?"
The other went off on a side issue. "You know," she said, uttering her
thoughts aloud, "Leadville's bound to know one day."
"If Gray was to walk in one morning and say 'I'm married,'" continued
Mrs. Byron, "what could 'e do then? 'E'd 'av to 'old 'is tongue."
The thought of Gray doing anything so bold brought a smile to the
mother's lips. "I'm sure she wouldn't do that, S'bina."
"Well, p'raps she wouldn't." Mrs. Byron had realized that her friend,
in revealing the incident of the lane, had meant to convey a warning.
The aunt did not wish to have Gray replaced by the handsome more noisy
Richbell and yet... "I feel I belong to speak to Leadville about it,"
she said reluctantly. "But I don't want for'n to think I'm always
watchin' 'im." The little doubt as to his having been as guilty as
Isolda would have her think, had grown. She could not believe his
jumping out of the hedge had been more than a trick, a practical joke.
Gray, in her alarm, must have magnified it. These inexperienced girls
were as easily frightened as a sheep! A way out of the difficulty
occurred to her. "My dear, 'ow would it be if Leonora was to come and
stay for a few days?"
Mrs. Tom thought that Sabina was only postponing the reckoning which in
the long run she would be bound to make, but aloud she gave consent.
"Well, Leonora can come for a bit and see 'ow they get on, but she'd 'av
to sleep 'ome. She'd better come down early in the mornin', for 'tis
breakfast-time, when you'm in bed, that Leadville torment Gray."
"Every month," said Sabina hopefully, "I feel I shall soon be able to
get up early in the mornin's; by spring, I'm sure I shall be able to."
"I hope by that time, please God," said Mrs. Tom, getting up to go, "the
maid will be married."
She felt it would be as well for Gray to have the protection of a man,
in love with her and constantly at her side and, as she went uphill
between the November hedges, she considered what she should tell her
husband. Tom was a peaceable and cautious man, but his blood was hot.
The wife wondered whether he would be willing for Gray to be married
quietly? A good deal depended on the girl. Since the time, as a little
child, that she had fallen into the pail of boiling pig's meal and they
had nearly lost her, she had been her father's pet. If he understood
that she was unhappy and that Leadville was the cause, he would be
certain to make himself unpleasant. Mrs. Tom did not wish to stir up
strife.
Leonora, when told she was to spend her days at Auntie Sabina's, shook
back her curls and declared herself delighted. One of a big household
she knew the stint of comparatively narrow means and a change would be
welcome. Before Gray was out of her aunt's room the following morning,
impatient fingers were rattling at the handle of the porch; and
Leadville, stealing down as usual in his stockinged feet, heard with
surprise a sound of voices in the kitchen. He stared when Leonora came
from the linhay carrying hog's pudding and a frying-pan.
"I've come to breakfast," she said, smiling up at him with bright and
friendly eyes, "and I be comin' every morning. I like comin' 'ere.
Aunt S'bina says I shall be company for Gray and I dearly love 'og's
puddin', Uncle Leadville, don't you?"
Leadville's tortured spirit was in the gaze he turned from the busy
child to her sister. Was he to lose the hour with Gray which had been
the solace of lonely night and empty day, the one hour out of the
twenty-four that was his? He did not answer Leonora but looked his
anxious question. Was Gray at the bottom of this? But no, she could
not be. It was a scheme of Sabina's, of Mrs. Tom's, or simple accident.
Drawing Old Squire's big elbow-chair up to the table he took his
customary seat. Leonora chattered of school, of the little pigs that
had had to be killed because they had worms, such dear little pigs, all
black; and Gray served the breakfast. Leadville, sitting opposite to
her, drank in her morning freshness and looked forward to the time when
this flower should be blooming for him.
A voice called from the Justice Room and Leonora jumped up. "I'll see
what auntie wants."
"No, dear, I'll go."
"Leave 'er go," rumbled Leadville in his compelling bass and she was off
on the wings of happy service. He stared resentfully after the flying
figure. "What's she doin' 'ere?"