"You needn' fear. He'll take care of she."
The man turned and stared at the distorted figure in the cone of
basket-work. He had not heard her come up but his mind was too deeply
occupied with other matters for him to be startled. "Why?"
"Because they'm courtin'."
She had thought it would be difficult to tell him but the words sprang
out of her resentment at the way in which she, struggling with
difficulties, she who should have met with consideration from her
husband, had been treated.
"Courtin'?" repeated Leadville and his swarthy skin turned a dull grey.
The wagon was rattling up the road at a good pace, the cheery sound of
hoofs and wheels and voices growing fainter as it turned towards Hember.
The man stared after it and about him was the falling of dream castles,
of built-up theories, false hopes. He had heard the truth and could not
turn his back on it, could not refuse it credence. He knew, now, that
Gray's response that morning had been to Jim Rosevear and not to
himself. The pieces of the puzzle fitted. He was momentarily stunned
by the revelation. Only when he realized that they were driving away
together did he come to himself. The vision of their propinquity was
intolerable and he started to run towards the gate.
"I won't let'n go with 'er."
Sabina raised her voice. "'Bain't a bit of good for 'ee to interfere.
They'm to 'Ember by this time."
From the gate he could see the wagon had been stopped and that Tom
Rosevear was lifting down his daughter. The family had gathered in the
road and the younger girls were talking to Jim, doubtless giving him
Christmas commissions. A little air of festivity pervaded the group, an
air which as Leadville did not understand it, he found ominous. He
wanted to rush up the road and seize and carry Gray off from among them,
carry her away from Trevorrick, out of the complications of life there
and, above everything, carry her away from Jim. For a desperate
situation, desperate remedies. He did not mean to sit down under
misfortune, to accept tamely the blows of destiny. All things come--not
to those who wait, but to those who fight; and he who cannot fight for
his mate is no man.
"They've been courtin' for months," said Sabina. "Anybody but you would
have seen it, but you're never 'ome. You can't expect to know things
when you'm out mumpin' around the cliffs like an old dog."
Gray had gone into the house, the big bold house on the hillside, with
her mother; and Leadville turned back from the yard gate.
"I'll send 'un off neck and crop," he cried, ragingly. "He shall go
to-night. He shall never stay 'ere on the place another night." His
words came stammeringly, like liquid out of a bottle that is too sharply
tilted. "I'll send'n goin' neck an' crop out of this, then we shall
see."
"Iss, my dear," returned Sabina bitterly, "then we shall see. They'm
courtin' and before long they'll be married--then we shall see; and when
they'm married they'll live 'ere along with we, then we shall see."
But the unhappy man, unable to endure her words, had rushed blindly
away.
*CHAPTER X*
Beyond Wastralls rose a line of black cliffs culminating in the high
ground of Dark Head and, towards them, Leadville turned. No roads
crossed these solitudes. Sheep cropped the fine herbage, sea-gulls built
on the inaccessible ledges, tumuli and earthworks showed that man too
had once sheltered here. Far inland an occasional grey homestead, in
its nest of farm-buildings, could be discerned, while in clear weather
the daymark was visible on Stepper Point. Otherwise the eye was given
only the wide spaces of sky and sea and earth.
On the storm which had strewn the coast with wreckage had followed a
land wind; and this had brought in the weed with which the
coast-dwellers manure their sandy fields. The sea, in big unquiet
rollers, fell heavily against the walls and islands of rock. It was
dark with the slippery oreweed and, when the tide went out, the coves
and bays would be ankle-deep in shining olive-brown masses. In that
treeless wind-swept land however, the people look to the sea-harvest for
more than weed. To the beaches drift beams that can be split into gate
shivers; hatches, which put together, make a reasonable pig's house;
chests and spars and miscellaneous wreckage. From cottage and hamlet the
folks converge upon the coast and, at any other time, Byron would have
stopped above the nearest sandy cove to shout down an offer for some of
the piles of wood. Now he strode by, unconscious of the tiny carts
being filled with planks and boxes, of the little figures intent on
their grim work of salvage. The man was fleeing from the intolerable
revelation that had been thrust upon him. He was closing his ears, his
mind, his heart, seeking to delay the inevitable moment when he must
give heed; yet with him, in the depths of his being, was carrying that
from which he fled.
So obsessed was he with the desire to get away, to put space between him
and that terrible prophetic voice, that he did not realize his solitudes
had been invaded. He pressed on, crossing cliff-faces and climbing
steeps. The crags, the wide prospect, the sea-unrest were familiar to
him, this waif and foreigner who had come up out of the deep and could
claim no place as home, no human being as of his blood. He was as safe
among the crags as if he had been born to wings. The people, labouring
far below, saw the grey figure on the heights and craned their necks to
watch his perilous progress; and the salving of a good ship's bones went
on more slowly because Leadville Byron, on a ledge six inches wide and
cut away underneath, a ledge of black and crumbling slate, was risking a
possession dear to no one but himself.
The man was coming to Dark Head as a hurt child rushes blindly to its
mother. Hither had he fled after every difference with Sabina and here
had he found a vastness, a changelessness, an impersonal peace upon
which he could rest his little and tortured soul. His trouble was
greater now. He was in the grip of powers which, if he could not escape
from them, might break him. By climbing peaks on which cormorants had
nested in a confidence hitherto secure, by ploughing through deep sands
and up the slippery shale, by crazy leaps and a wild expenditure of
force, he tried to exhaust himself. By so doing he might avoid, not
only knowledge, but the sinister possibilities of his nature.
Dark Head is a narrow peninsula of rock which stands knee-deep in water.
A green mane of turf ripples to the black edge and Leadville, scourged
across the waste, came at last to a softness of thick untrodden grass.
This was the world's end and behind lay the amazing cruelty of life.
The great spaces were clean and they were sweet. The man strode to the
sloping edge but, because he was not yet ready to surrender his atom of
consciousness, drew back. For a moment he stood, looking vacantly
across the breathing sea, then turned and flung himself upon the bed the
ages had prepared. The grass, wind-swept and deep, yielded a little,
closing about his heavy figure like the displaced water of a pool.
On a rock below, an oyster-catcher chattered disapproval but the gulls
and shyer cormorants came back to their resting-places. The man was
harmless and after the storm they must make the most of the sunshine.
They stood about, preening themselves in the red light and above the
southern hills but near them, the sun made the half-circle of the sky.
In moments of overwhelming emotion Byron, when the strain grew too
intense, had hitherto passed into another state of consciousness. The
sound of hammering had as it were, opened a door, beyond which was a
bewildering peace. Forgetfulness had fallen on him like a garment and
when he came back it was, always, to begin afresh. Sabina's words
however, though they roused him to a frenzy of feeling, had not had the
usual effect. He had not been able to escape.
Drowned in an agony that was elemental he lay on the cliff-top, supine
and motionless; Sabina's bitter revelation had been like the pouring of
vitriol over his heart. Loving for the first time in his life, loving
with the passion of a highly emotional temperament, the hopelessness of
his love had been thrust suddenly upon him. A disappointment so
elemental, so profound, put him beside himself. His instinct was,
somehow, to escape the ultimate pangs. He had fled before the flood,
fled from himself, scrambled and sobbed himself across the cliffs until
he came to rest, deep in the deep grass of the headland.
His exhaustion was so great that for some time he lay supine as the
wreckage on the sands below. As the moments passed, however,
consciousness began to return and with it, through the darkness of his
mind flitted unhappy thought, a greyness here and there, a vague
suspicion. By degrees Sabina's face detached itself from the
background. He saw it resentful and defiant and, tired as he was, his
gorge rose. The woman was for ever in his road. She had withheld
Wastralls from him, now she would come between him and Gray. He saw
again the strong lined face, the unlovely trunk; saw them with a dislike
which had for some time been growing in intensity. Since her accident
Sabina had been to him a death's-head, a creature which, without the
power to enjoy, yet clung to its possessions; which, though its grave
was yawning, persisted in dragging a repulsive mortality about the
earth. A person with any decency of feeling, would have lain her down
under the turf and slept the good sleep; but Sabina was neither dead nor
alive. That trolly! He cursed it for the hideous thing it was and for
the unseemly activity of which it was the symbol. He would have liked to
break it in pieces. He would have enjoyed the wrecking and scattering.
Circumstances had put Sabina in opposition to him and had given her the
upper hand; but if it came to a struggle he did not fear the issue.
Sitting up on his bed of grass he stared out to sea and, on the horizon,
the ships went along and along, far off blacknesses, dim trails of
smoke. He did not see them, was indeed unconscious of his material
surroundings, but his mind was beginning to work. Behind Sabina's
denying face he sensed the opposition of Gray's mother. Hitherto he had
regarded Mrs. Tom as a friendly circumstance; but he knew she was shrewd
and, in a small way, ambitious. Jim Rosevear of Treketh would be a
satisfactory match. He had the promise of a good farm and was a steady
chap. And Gray? Would she take her mother's penny shrewdness for
wisdom, marry a young man for his youth, do the commonplace thing?
For the first time since the blow had fallen, Byron allowed himself to
think of Gray driving away from him with Jim Rosevear. Suffocating with
rage, he fell forward again upon the grass.
Such passion as that of Leadville Byron is the creative force at its
human strongest and the man who feels it, recognizes in it something of
the divine. He cannot doubt that he will be able to inspire in its
object an equal flame; and he seeks, with a persistence worthy of its
sacred object, for his opportunity. Byron had the most precious thing
in the world to offer Gray and nothing, not her mother, not the
hampering circumstance of a wife, not even her girlish preference for
another man, would be allowed to stand in his way.
Noon found him by the yard gate of Wastralls. He had drifted back
across the waste because the way was familiar to his wandering feet; and
he reached the farm as the kitchen clock began to strike. The familiar
sound, hoarse and creaking as the voice of an old person, carried across
the sunshiny yard and the man stood to count the strokes. Twelve
o'clock! Where had the morning gone? He rubbed his eyes like one
waking out of sleep and, as he did so, became aware that a horse had
been tethered to the staple and that beyond the horse, was a gig. The
varnish of this threw off a hundred cheerful reflections while the
buckles and bosses of the harness were of a highly polished brass. The
glitter and hard cheeriness of the whole were like the sharp gleams of
frost on a sunshiny winter morning. Byron recognized the gig as
belonging to Dr. Derek of Stowe. Whenever other business brought him
into the parish, the doctor was apt to drop in for a chat with his late
patient. He liked her, but he had also a professional reason for
coming. Her recovery had surprised him, for such vitality is unusual;
and he meant to keep an eye on the case.
The farmer hesitated for a moment. He was not in a mood for talk.
Nevertheless the force which had already set his feet upon a hidden road
drove him forward and he took his accustomed way across the now slushy
yard, straight to the porch. Clean blue flagstones ran by the
hedge-gripe, turning at right angles along the side of the house; but,
as Byron had once contemptuously said, "They were all right for cats and
women, he wasn't afraid of a little mud."
As he opened the door the appetizing smell of new bread rushed out.
Sabina had been baking and, on the side-table, stood a row of crusty
loaves flanked by lightly piled splits while behind was enough white
cake and saffron cake to carry the household over Christmas.
Byron stood for a moment, his bloodshot eyes scanning the place. The
kitchen being a dark room, a new-comer required time to forget the sun.
As his pupils widened, however, he perceived ensconced in Old Squire's
big chair, a little man, rosy-gilled and grey-haired. This man was
eating, with an air of pleasant enjoyment, a thunder-and-lightning split
and, beside him on a stool, stood a cup of tea. Though Dr. Derek had
been out all night he looked as if fresh from his bath; and no one could
have supposed that this snack of new bread was in place of the breakfast
he had missed. Opposite him, her unwieldy bulk seeming about to
overflow the wicker cone of the trolley, sat Mrs. Byron, a quiet
somewhat distrait figure. The contrivance had been made when she was a
comparatively normal shape. Since then she had grown stouter, 'gone
abroad'; and a new and roomier cone was becoming imperative. She looked
tired after her morning's bread-making and her face had lost its jovial
look. Over it a breath had passed, dulling the gaiety, wiping away even
content, and the breath was one to which all of us, unhappily, can fit a
name.
Dr. Derek looked up at the farmer's entrance. "Just come from
Curvithick," said he, "and thought I'd look in on my way home."
Curvithick Farm, the mistress of which had been cheerfully expecting her
thirteenth child, lay on the other side of the main road at the head of
the valley. The land marched with that of Constantine Rosevear.
"Maggie Martin 'av got a baker's dozen now then," said Mrs. Byron but
she spoke without her usual interest in her neighbour's concerns.
"She's done better than that," and Dr. Derek helped himself to another
split. "She's got twins!"
"Twins? My dear sawl and body, whatever they gwine do now with so many
childer?"
"Twelve last night and fourteen this morning!" Dr. Derek looked
pleased. He held that a declining birth-rate meant the opportunity of
his country's enemies and was himself the father of five sons and four
daughters. He was wont to declare blandly that he lived in the West
because the women there had, on the whole, a sense of their duty to the
empire.
"Boy and cheeld?" pursued Mrs. Byron.
"Yes, one of each kind, a pigeon pair." He beamed at her through round
glasses, the rims of which had a yellow gleam, and passed his cup for
more tea. "Your splitters are excellent, Mrs. Byron--but you," he shook
his head, "what have you been doing with yourself?"
Sabina glanced at her husband who, after greeting the doctor, had seated
himself heavily on the window-bench. The family physician has slipped
gradually into the place of the family confessor and, if Byron had not
been present, she might have taken Dr. Derek to a small extent into her
confidence. As it was, she acknowledged her state without offering to
explain it. "I don't feel very special. I be all any'ow to-day."
Not having seen her for some time Dr. Derek did not suspect that her wan
looks and cheerless air were what a day had brought forth. Remembering
the keen hearty cross-country woman of former days and contrasting her
with this dulled stay-at-home, he found support for his theory that the
amazing rally after her accident had been the last flicker of a strong
vitality. She had gone downhill since he saw her last.
"You've been doing more than you should," and a glance at the array of
loaves emphasized his words. "That heart of yours won't stand much, Mrs.
Byron. A little extra strain, you know, and you'll find yourself in
Queer Street."
Leadville who had been staring down at the gun which still lay across
the table, turned his heavy eyes on the doctor. "'Tis no good tellin'
'er to stop, for she will carry on as long as she mind to. I tell 'er
I'll do the out-o'-door work for 'er, but 'er won't listen, so 'tis so
well I leave it drop."
The little bright doctor glanced from wife to husband and back again.
With neat compact theories about everything, he held that Sabina's
childlessness was the key to the situation. "Here's a man ready and
willing to take the work off your shoulders! Why not make use of him?
He'd save you all sorts of worries."
"I reckon he would," and Sabina covered bitterness with a smile. "He'd
never say nothing about 'em. He'd keep 'em all to 'isself."
"Considering," retorted the doctor crisply, "that you have by no means
regained your strength, surely that would be a good thing?"
Sabina shook her head. He did not understand and she could not explain.
"I'd rather ride my own 'obby-'arse," she said vaguely.
"Don't overtax your strength then or you'll be sorry for it." After
all, whether she should wear herself out quickly or rot by the chimney
corner, was her affair.
Leadville withdrew his fascinated gaze from the gun. "Didn't I 'ear you
say, last time you was 'ere, she ought to 'ave a operation?"
"I did, it wouldn't be a serious one, a matter of a week or so in
hospital. What do you think, Mrs. Byron? To have it done would make you
much more comfortable. Stronger too, I fancy."
But Sabina's recollection of the days after her accident, those days of
pain and discomfort when she had hung conscious and half consenting on
the edge of the void, was still clear. She wondered why Leadville
should be showing this sudden interest on her concerns. Did he wish to
get her out of the way again, so that he might be up to his tricks? Or
did he think he still had a chance with Gray? She could smile to
herself over his infatuation. It would not be long now before he
realized its hopelessness.
"I don't like that old knife business," she said. "I'll live as long as
I can and then I must die."
"This is hardly worth calling an operation."
"Thank you, doctor, I'll stay where I'm to."
"A wilful woman!" he said, rising. "Well, then, I must send you a tonic
and Byron'll see that you take it."
"He's likely to," she said.
"Now come, Mrs. Byron, can't have you saying things like that. The
person who is really interested in your getting better is your husband.
You don't know what he was like when you were in hospital."
"I think," said she, with a little twitch of the lips, "as I can make a
guess. But thank 'ee all the same, doctor."
Picking up his gun, Byron followed the doctor out of the house. The
farmer might prefer to strike a path for himself but Dr. Derek had a
feline dislike of dirt and wet. His patent-leather boots, small and
pointed, twinkled in the sunshine as he stepped along the blue
flagstones, and through his bright round glasses, his steel-blue eye
shot an inquiring gleam at the man, padding heavily at his side.
Against that neat personality, Leadville's big frame showed rough and
heavy. He was the hulking unshaven countryman, powerful as a bear and
with a bear's light but ungainly walk. He did not attempt to
accommodate his stride to the other's city gait but lounged along
somewhere in his neighbourhood.
"The missis 'aven't been 'erself lately," Byron volunteered as they came
up to the gate, "an' I wish you could make her do as you say. P'raps,
next time you come, you'll try and persuade 'er?"
With his plans not yet matured, one way out of his difficulties was as
good as another. If Sabina could be persuaded to return to the hospital
for a time, he would only have to deal with Mrs. Tom.
The doctor climbed into the gig. "'Tis no good, Byron. When she says
'No' there's no moving her."
The farmer's vague gaze was fixed on the glittering harness but his
heart sank. "I should like to have everything done that can be done,"
he growled in his deep voice.
"I know, my good fellow," comforted the other. "Well, don't let her do
more than you can help and keep her diet as light as possible. Not too
much pork, you know, and no heavy suppers."
"She won't be said by me," returned Byron.
"Well, well, one does the best one can and there's no more to be said.
Wonderful case! Never thought she'd turn that first corner; yet, there
she is, doing a day's work. It's a pity she's growing so stout. When I
think of what she was!" With his small well-kept hands, the polished
nails of which scattered tiny reflections of the light, he made a
gesture of pity and regret. "The strength of a man, and now----"
Byron stepped back from the gig. "And now," he said grimly as the cob
began to move, "now, she's a proper wreck."
*CHAPTER XI*
An hour later Byron came into the kitchen carrying a small dead seal.
Climbing down by a little treacherous path, he had seen it lying at the
mouth of a cave and for some minutes had stood to watch it. By means of
an inner membrane it was clearing first one nostril of sea-water and
then the other; and he had shot it while it was still unaware of him.
"What's become o' the furnace?" he asked. "I told George to leav'n by
the hedge-gripe."
Sabina, though a farmer, preserved some feminine traits and in
particular a love of tidiness. She was as clean as a cat and to see her
yard churned up by the hoofs of the cattle, and the farm implements at
the mercy of the weather, troubled her. The rusty furnace, an outdoor
stove used for farm purposes and, in particular, to try out seal-oil,
had been an eyesore and she had had it removed.
"'Tis out in the bullocks' house."
Leadville 'damned 'er up in the 'eaps for interferin' with 'is things';
but he spoke, not harshly so much as absent-mindedly.
"I'll 'av the place as I've a mind to," returned Sabina placidly. Her
husband had often raged against the equable good nature which suffered
without malice, as a mother surfers the unreasonableness of her child.
Now he only muttered vaguely as he set the gun in its thongs over the
door.
"Where's Dick to?"
"Drayin' oreweed." Sabina, who had manoeuvred the trolly close to the
fender, had been nodding in the agreeable warmth. An indoor life had
made her susceptible to cold and this afternoon she felt tired and ill.
The emotions rather than the work of the day had exhausted her, and she
had thought to snatch a few minutes' rest before Mrs. Tom, whom she was
expecting to call on the way back from Stowe, should arrive.
"You'll catch afire one of these days if you keep on gruddlin' so," said
Byron, with a fathering wish. Sabina could not follow his thought, in
fact she mistook it for solicitude. It was long since he had shown any
interest in her welfare. Could the doctor's visit, revealing that she
was in a poor way, have brought her husband to a better mind? Like the
rest of us she could not believe that it takes all sorts to make a world
and, in the eyes of others, saw consequently only the reflection of
herself. She looked hopefully at Leadville and at once he turned away,
hanging his big head and balancing from one foot to the other. His mind
was stirring, as the sand crawls under an army of ants. He felt the
movement, was perhaps vaguely conscious of the direction in which he was
going, but could not see the end; not yet.
A cart laden with glistening weed, wet and olive-brown, had come up from
the beach. As Leadville lounged out of the porch he saw that Dick
Bennett was the driver. The weed had been left by the receding tide,
left ankle-deep in every sandy bay, strewn over the black rocks; a
generous provision, enough for every potato-patch in the parish. Nor
did the glossy slippery weed constitute the whole of the sea-harvest.
Manure for the fields, wood for the kitchen fires and, what that wood
had held--oranges and shelled walnuts, crates and bags and boxes--had
floated in during the night. The sea had been good to the lonely
dwellers on her coasts; and she had offered, in her own gruesome
fashion, a Christmas gift.
"The furnace, maister? I knaw where 'tis to. Leave me empt up this and
I'll get it for yer."
When the stove, red with rust, had been reinstated in the shelter of the
hedge, Byron took up the limp body and began to prepare it.
"That's every bit of coal we got, till Jim bring 'ome some from Stowe,"
said Bennett as he poured a shovelful of round knobs, which had been
salvaged from the sea, on to the furze bushes, and set them alight.
"There's plenty of wood there," grunted the other, "so we must burn
that."
"I should think 'twas time Jim 'ud be back." The hind was a little
mournful man with a grievance. He had seen Jim drive off that morning,
in his Sunday suit, with a pretty girl for company; and he had felt that
he himself, older in service, should have been sent. "But these young
chaps, when they go an errand, they take good care they don't come 'ome
very quick. Course," he added grudgingly, "'e can spend the day in
Stowe without any trouble."
"Oh, shut yer mouth," cried the other savagely. The man's grumbling
chatter had obliged him to remember that Jim Rosevear was with Gray.
Till then, he had succeeded in keeping the thought of their proximity at
the back of his mind. It had been difficult, but he had done it. Dick
had made it no longer possible and the day in Stowe unrolled itself
before his jealous eyes--the drive in, a drive of five good Cornish
miles, the drive behind Lady who, though a good mare, was slow: the
stall in the market where Rosevear would set up the trestles, help the
girl arrange to the best advantage the eggs, the poultry, the pounds and
half pounds of butter: the meeting after market on the Quay where, the
wagon being loaded with coal and flour, they would leave Lady by the
warehouse while they hurried from shop to shop, she buying and he
carrying the parcels: finally the long drive home in the windy dusk.
Leadville tortured himself with the thought of that drive, of Gray's
softness and nearness, of the little face between the fur of cap and
necklet, the little smiling face....
He had been skinning the seal. Much as less powerful men skin a rabbit,
he had been tearing the coat, grey and damp, from the smooth pale body.
A stone wall, five foot broad at the base and crowned with tamarisk
bushes, is what in Cornwall is called a hedge. It is at least a shelter
from the wind, and Dick Bennett had been careful to set the furnace in a
lew corner. The furze bushes burnt with a crackle and above them the
sea-coal smouldered slowly in large red lumps. The air in the yard was
fresh but still, and through it, a warm reek, rose the smell of blood.
It rose to Byron's nostrils, affecting him as it affects the children of
the wild, rousing in him that primitive, long-forgotten, but deathless
passion which claims survival as its right and, battling before the
hosts that wait to be called across the threshold, stakes its life.
Between his hands hung the limp body and he wrenched at the skin in a
growing fury of impatience. His blunt dark-skinned fingers were foul
and, as the sealskin slipped he noticed that a trickle of thickening
blood had run down his palm on to the wrist. He stared at this from
between narrowed eyelids for a second, then, stooping his big head,
licked it away. The taste of it, salt on his tongue, further affected
an equilibrium already unstable; and the beast which slumbers behind the
arras of our civilization, which stirs with a faint growl at every
shaking of that decent cover, that savage incalculable beast of the long
past, awoke. The blood-lust rose in him. He forgot the presence of the
bullock-man, the time, the place, everything but a sudden overmastering
need. Something, he could not remember what, had defied him and it was
of paramount necessity that this something should be done away with,
destroyed, ground into the earth. To rend and crush had become
obligatory, the vindication of his claim to live. The poor body of the
seal was gone and in its place was an enemy who had been given into his
hands. He caught up the carcass, seeing not it, but all he hated, all
he was burning to destroy and the dismemberment degenerated from honest
butchery into an orgy. Dick Bennett stood aghast. In the master's eye
was a wildness which made the hind thankful he was even more
inconspicuous than small. For once his querulousness was hushed. "The
old devil pulled and dragged and 'acked as though 'e was mad," was his
description afterwards of the scene. "'E fetched 'is spite out on the
poor creature. It made me fairly sick to see 'im."
Bit by bit the crushed fragments of bloody flesh were cast into the
cauldron; but as long as bone or sinew held together, Byron tore at the
body with unabated passion. The last lump was flung in with the same
fury of effort as the first; but as soon as his hands were empty, the
mood passed. The sweat was on his forehead, his knees were knocking
together and he was trembling, but he seemed unconscious of his
condition. For some minutes he stood by the furnace staring vacantly
into the bubbling depths but by degrees his breath came more evenly, and
the suavity of successful effort began to wash over his tortured mind.
Daunted by his master's incomprehensible ferocity, the hind waited in
the background; and, behind him again, the chickens picked and scratched
and on the lichened roof the pigeons balanced in the sun. Byron was
watching the formation of a large iridescent bubble. His eye dwelt
languidly on the red and green transparence, on the smaller bubbles
hurrying to its side; but as the film burst and disappeared he pushed
the stirring-stick into the labourer's hand with a deep, "Mind you don't
leave'n burn," and swung away. He was come fully to himself, a weary
and a hungry self and he remembered that the dinner hour was long past.
The outer door of the linhay opened on to a paved drying-yard and, as he
passed through, he stooped his head under a sagging cord with the
practical man's comment that a new prop was needed. Trifles,
common-place and wholesome, were distracting his mind. He felt cold,
noticed that what little wind there was had gone round to the north,
noticed too that above Dark Head the sky was flaming with a sunset of
good augury. The short December day being so near its close, the linhay
was dark; but the hungry man knew where to lay his hand on a rabbit
pasty. He had shot the rabbits and brought them in--to Gray; and now
Gray was--where? Behind him lay the old house with its many chambers
and not one of them harboured her. For the first time he realized that
without Gray, Wastralls was but an empty shell.
In a row on the shelf stood the loaves and, beside them, on a big white
dish lay the pasties. Sabina had added onion and bacon to make them
appetizing, parsley to give flavour, freshly dug potatoes to hold the
gravy; and all was folded in a responsible crust. Her pasties were
renowned; but Byron, satisfying his hunger, did not notice the quality
of the food. He was still obsessed by his vision of the empty house.
The barren years, when he had paced the friendly fields as a captive
paces his cage, unable either to take action or to escape, had done
their work. He had supported life on a meagre hope; but he was older
now, less patient, had a shorter time left him in which to enjoy. The
young Samson can afford to ask riddles and play tricks, it is the ageing
man who, grown desperate, brings destruction upon the people. Standing
by the shelf, eating hungrily but absent-mindedly, Byron presently
became conscious of voices in the kitchen. For a moment his heart beat
in swift anticipation. Was Gray back? He stopped eating to listen, but
the voice which had suggested that of the young girl was older and had
lost some of its West-country music. He recognized it disappointedly as
that of the girl's mother.
Filling himself a mug from the pitcher of milk that stood on the flags,
Byron drank. If Mrs. Tom were in the kitchen the little party must have
returned from Stowe, and the thought was, in a way, reassuring. Gray
would be at Hember now and Rosevear would have come on to Wastralls with
the mare and cart. At least they were no longer together.
Byron's thoughts dwelt fleetingly on Rosevear. Should he go back, find
the fellow and send him packing? He hated the sight of that womanishly
smooth face. Some day he would send his fist crashing into it, put the
weight of his shoulder into the blow. If he could fell a bullock it
would be child's play to spoil Rosevear's beauty, to make him so as the
chap's own mother wouldn't recognize him. When Gray saw what he made of
her fine sweetheart, there would be no more hesitation--Leadville could
not believe it to be more than hesitation. She would turn to the man who
had proved in primal fashion his right to her.
In the kitchen the women's voices rose and fell, lifting at the end in
the Cornish way. Phrases and half words reached the man's ears and
brought him to a distrustful consideration of them. These women, with
their 'under-hauling,' their scheming, the way they 'held for each
other'--what were they discussing? Him and his affairs? He fell to
again on the pasty, biting into its hard crust with unnecessary force,
biting indeed into more than crust and meat.
Mrs. Tom, having brought in the Christmas groceries and stacked the tins
and parcels on the side-table, had settled down for a chat. The bond
between the women, which like themselves was stout and workaday, had
been embroidered by the years with a pattern of memories; and what can
be pleasanter at the end of a winter day than to sit by a bright fire
with a friend who has been tried by time? Sabina talked of her husband,
of the farm, of the future.
"Ah!" said Mrs. Rosevear cheerfully, "and now the time 'as come for 'ee
to make a fresh start. When Leadville knaw about Gray, 'e will 'av to
rest 'is 'eart content."
Sabina stirred her tea in a meditative fashion. With a simple faith in
good and evil, reward and punishment, it was puzzling to her that she
who was a 'member and had gone to prayer meeting and chapel all right
and been a good livin' woman,' should have had so much trouble. "I think
it's a awful thing for 'e to be running after Gray, when 'e got a wife
of's own?" she said. "Too bad, I do call it."
"Well, there 'tis, my dear, I 'spose 'e can't 'elp it. Men are like
that, bain't they, poor old dragons? Best thing to do is to keep
temptation out of's way."
"Do 'ee think so? Now I'd rather show'm as 'e can't 'av what 'e wants."
The more clear-sighted woman did not dispute the matter. Even if Sabina
wanted Gray and Jim to live at Wastralls, the decision would not rest
with her. Gray would not care so long as she was with Jim, but he,
though good-natured and easygoing, knew his own mind. Not long since, he
had been over to Gentle Jane where his aunt, receiving him warmly, had
been urgent that he should live with her. He had not given a definite
answer, but Mrs. Tom knew he was considering the matter.
"Better for Leadville if 'e 'ad something to take up 'is time," she
said. "E's always mumpin' around the cliffs like a wandering Jew."
The wife's happy-go-lucky faith in Leadville's harmlessness did not
commend itself to Mrs. Tom. She remembered the zest with which he had
torn up the honeysuckle, the indifference he had shown as to whether
Sabina lived or died, his moroseness since her return. They might yet
have trouble with him.
"Well, 'tis 'is choice, 'e could work if 'e like; there's plenty to do,
but 'e's not that way inclined."
"'E 'as got fever of lurk,
Two minds to eat and none to work,"
quoted Mrs. Tom as she helped herself to a slice of yeast-cake. "If a
man got nothin' else to think about, 'e sure to get into mischief.
Can't you find something for'm to do? Why don't yer let'n go to town
for 'ee in an' out, and work a team sometimes?"
"'Av yer forgotten the trick 'e served me when I was in the 'ospital?
'Twouldn't do at all. 'E's one o' they sort, if you give'n a inch 'e'll
take a nail."
"Well, you'm Job's comforter, but all I can say is you're both gettin'
upstairs and, after a bit, you'll settle down all right again. Of
course Gray'll stay 'ome now, until we see what's to be done. The young
folks must please their own minds, then they can't blame nobody."
Sabina agreed, though with some reluctance. "Whatever be I to do
without 'er?"
"You needn't trouble yerself about that. Richbell shall come down in
the mornin' and light yer fire and get the breakfast. Iss, and while I
think of't, Tom say you must sure to come up to Hember to spend
Christmas. He'll fetch yer 'isself. The Constantines are comin', and we
shall be all together; and by then, please God, I 'ope Leadville'll be
settled down."
"I should like that very much." Her face brightened at the thought of
the welcoming faces and the cheer. "I'm sure 'tis good of 'ee to think
about it and I'll bring up something with me. 'Tis years since we've
spent Christmas together."
"My dear, 'tis more'n ten years ago. Now, 'av you told Leadville about
Gray?"
"I said to'n 'They're courtin' an'll be married very soon an' I expect
they'll come 'ere to live.'"
"What did he say about it, then?"
"'E give a nasty grunt-like, 'e did; still 'e'll get over that.
To-morrow I'll tell'n of 't; but I don't feel I could bear any more
to-day."
"Well, to-morrow'll do."
As she spoke, Byron opened the linhay door. The dancing flames
illumined the low-browed room sufficiently, for him to see the two women
seated one on each side of the hearth; and with a short mutter of
greeting he walked over to the window-bench. "Who brought they
groceries back?"
"I did," said Mrs. Tom.
"Is Gray come back then?"
"Gray? She idn't comin' back. Me and S'bina 've made arrangements for
Richbell to come in 'er place."
He had suspected the women were plotting against him. He had been
conscious of their intangible opposition and a spasm of hatred took him
by the throat. He shook in the grip of it. "Why?"
Mrs. Tom was resolved that there should be no ill-blood between Hember
and Wastralls and her reply was non-committal. "She do dearly love 'er
Aunt S'bina but she want to be 'ome."
"She'll soon be back 'ere," asserted Byron.
"She's very grateful for all your kindness but she'd rather live 'ome
with me for a bit."
"I don't like changes and I won't 'av them."
"Dear me," said Mrs. Tom placidly, "won't is a big word!" She turned to
the figure in the wicker cone as if, having disposed of one matter, she
were ready for another. "Shall I put they groceries in the cupboard for
'ee, S'bina?"
Leadville had risen from his seat. They had taken Gray from him and
they meant to keep her away. Would she be a consenting party to their
scheme? He feared she might, yet if she only knew! Mrs. Tom, tranquil,
occupied with household thoughts, seemed to the angry man to possess a
tremendous, terrifying power. She could make Gray inaccessible and she
would.
"We want 'er 'ere," and his harsh voice shook so that Mrs. Tom, aware of
him out of the corner of an eye, could not but pity him.
"I knaw 'tis very good of 'ee to make so much fuss of her," she
returned, pushing back her chair, "but just now she'd rather be 'ome."
Through the turmoil of his fears and hopes Leadville heard his wife's
easy, "You can put they things away if you like, Isolda; but leave out
the tin of boot-polish for I know we want one."
They could talk of groceries and boot-polish! He was astounded at their
lack of understanding. A man might be suffering the pains of hell and
they would still be occupied with trifles. With an effort which set the
blood drumming in his ears he forced himself to sit down. Behind him in
the thickness of the wall was the bench and above it the many-paned
window, with a geranium on the inner ledge. The kitchen table stood
against this bench and, as Leadville sank back he gripped the stout
edge, putting into the clutch the passion or his disappointment, his
revolt. The women moved about, pouring sugar and currants into jars,
filling the bin with flour, folding up bags and paper. The murmur of
their casual talk filled the air--their talk of the markets and the
shops, of prices and of people! Murmur of women's voices is the breeze
in the tree-tops; murmur of men's, the sea on the beaches, the sea at
night! Leadville heard as one a great way off hears a familiar sound.
He heard and gradually the gale of his impatience ceased to blow. He
was no longer occupied with the soft movements of the women, no longer
exasperated by their intangible opposition. He had turned from the
latter as from a thing of little moment, and in the depths of his spirit
had found enlightenment.
Take Gray from him, would they?
He understood at last that Mrs. Rosevear and Jim were not his chief
enemies. The person who stood between him and the realization of his
dreams was Sabina. She had withheld Wastralls; now, by merely living,
she blocked his path to Gray.
*CHAPTER XII*
"I've asked Gray to get Raby Gregor to come down and alter trolly a bit.
I've thrived a bit since I lost me laigs."
"Good sign that."
"Shows I'm in better 'ealth, still I don't like bein' so fat. I've 'ad
to 'av Aunt Louisa alter all my clothes and if Raby Gregor takes a long
time to make trolly bigger, I shan't be able to get about for goodness
knows 'ow long."
"Well, I should think Mrs. Bate 'ud come in for a day or two to 'elp
yer. I shouldn't 'av trolly done till after Christmas, if you do you
won't be able to come up to our place."
Leadville, sitting engrossed in secret thought, had had a withering
effect upon the women's talk. It lost spontaneity, it grew spasmodic
and, as soon as the last tin was on the shelf, Mrs. Tom said she must go
home.
"I'll go out as far as the gate with yer," Sabina had answered eagerly.
After the hot kitchen it would be pleasant to have a breath of air from
the sea, pleasant also to finish their chat. The flags being level it
was an easy run but the gate marked the end of the journey. From it the
ground fell away to the sandy commons covered with grey spire-grass,
which had given the place its name. The Wastralls had been bare blown
sand, but the stiff spire held the ridges from shifting and on its heels
had come bright lady's-fingers and silver-weed, coarse herbage and, in
depressions, the thick yellow moss. Sabina found it rested her, after
the dark confinement, the depressing influence of the house, to look
across the commons. The sand was piled in fantastic bulwarks but
between these wind-formed bastions and ditches glimmered a white unrest
of tides.
The short winter's day was drawing to a close. The sun had sunk below
Dark Head and the black shadow of the cliff had fallen on Wastralls.
Grey in the dip of the grey land, it lay like a rock; but unlike a rock
it was hollow and the many chambers were full of echoes from the past.
Above the eastern hills a vague brightness gave promise of the moon and
the women, pausing by the egg-crowned gateposts, looked up the road to
where Hember windows were aglow. Their thoughts had run before them and
they fancied they could hear faint sounds of voices and laughter.
"They will keep it up to-night," said Mrs. Tom and with a kiss bundled
off down the lane. She was returning, full of pleasant anticipations to
a merry circle--a circle which on her appearance would make her
affectionately welcome. With the five girls it was always 'Mother!'
with Tom too.
She had not taken many steps before the contrast between what she was
leaving and that to which she was hastening, brought her to a
standstill. Her heart misgave her.
"S'bina!" she called to the lonely figure, motionless by the gate.
"S'bina!"
"Well, what is it?"
"Would you like for Richbell to come down to-night?"
In the kitchen Leadville could hear the high-pitched question and reply.
"Spoil 'er evenin'? My dear life, I wouldn't think of it. Don't you
worry. I shall get on all right."
"I don't like to feel that you are all alone." She knew Sabina would
not have welcomed a reference to her helplessness.
"Now don't 'ee think about me, go and enjoy yourself."
Mrs. Tom hesitated for a moment. At the few merrymakings of the
countryside Sabina, jovial and buxom, had been a welcome guest; but,
since her accident, the difficulty of getting about had kept her at
home. Mrs. Tom decided she must be persuaded to go out more, that a pony
must be got for her and the trolly adapted. That Leadville would be
violently opposed to such a proceeding, that he would object to his
wife's making a 'laughing-stock of herself,' did not weigh with Mrs.
Tom.
More than once that evening when the young people, singing the old hymns
to the old tunes were gathered about the harmonium, the good woman's
thoughts returned to the friend of her youth. What a fine woman Sabina
had been, putting them all in the shade yet unaware of it and what happy
times they had had. She remembered childhood's days and how often she
had waited at the cross-roads for Sabina, so that they might walk the
length of the way together. The fish-seller's daughter would bring a
pasty for her school dinner and there being nine at home, it was
generally more pastry than meat; but Sabina had supplemented it with red
apples and cold sausages and other delectable foods. Sabina had also
supplemented the other's wardrobe, perhaps even her prospects.
Mrs. Tom, thinking of the lonely figure at the gate, was glad her own
days were passed at Hember, in rooms that led out of each other and were
crowded with children. Wastralls, silent and old, depressed her. Not
all the fires Sabina lighted could warm its bones and do away with the
faint but pervading smell of mould. Life that had been thinned to
ghostliness, drifted through the passages; and the rooms lay in a
brooding hush. She thought of the place with a dim prevision, too dim
for her to grasp, a prevision of calamity.
"Somebody digging my grave!" she said and drew nearer to the fire.
The wind which blew in gusts, dropping now and again into a deceitful
lull, sent a cold breath up the valley and Sabina, lingering by the
gate, drew the shawl closer about her shoulders. The shadow that rested
on Wastralls, a shadow to which she was as a rule wholesomely
indifferent, had grown a little, grown till it included her. Though her
perceptive faculty was slight, she was in no hurry to leave the clean
sanity, the freshness of the night.
Above the black oblong of the mill the rim of the moon was showing
golden, that wonderful West-country moon, which hangs, a clear lamp of
light, far above cloud and mist. The beams falling across the yard,
across the ricks, had not yet reached Wastralls. The house stood
withdrawn below the hills and, for the first time, Sabina felt her home
to be remote from the warm friendliness of the world. She saw it that
night approximately as it appeared to others, a place cut off by its
situation. The valley being far from the main highway, strangers were
unaware of it. The road through, led to nothing but the teeth of the
devouring sea and, as the hamlet of Cottages was the most cheerful spot
in Trevorrick, so Wastralls was the most lonely and the most lost.
Hember windows were always aglow. The sun found them by day and the
moon by night. They glowed from within, from the fires of driftwood and
sea-coal, from lamps swinging under the dark rafters, from the fires of
life. Sabina, reluctantly returning to the house, could not but
contrast the light and music of Hember, its continual coming and going,
with the dark desolation, the stagnant peace of Wastralls. Never had it
been otherwise. Her earliest recollections were of long hours when, her
father being at the Dolphin, the servant would take advantage and be
'walking out.' The child, given the run of the empty rooms and left to
her own devices, had peopled the place with imaginary figures. Even at
this distance of time she could recall their 'names and
attributes--Tinkle Minkle who was black and made of sugar, Creekuk and
Clokuk the eiderdown men, and Tinkle Farg who, still more absurd, had
been 'shy with a buffalo!' Naturally social she had liked to imagine a
face at every window, children playing under the 'grubby elms' of the
avenue and among the animals in the yard. She had looked forward to the
time when she should be grown up and married. "One child is a
misfortune," she had told her father at the ripe age of ten, "I'm going
to 'ave lots when I marry. I'm going to full the rooms."
The sound of a harmonium came to her through the stillness, but so faint
was it she could hardly distinguish the tune. At Hember they were
singing the familiar hymns in which all could join. The sound drew the
listening woman. How often when weary of imaginary companions had she
run up the lane and joined her cousins at their play! Hember had been a
bright spot in her life. All that she knew of sewing and housewifery,
her aunt had taught her; and Tom had wanted to marry her, yes--Tom and
Constantine. Poor old Constantine, he had tried his best. But Tom, the
rascal, Tom had been looking two ways at once. She sighed, the gusty
sigh of a stout middle-aged woman who wishes the hot cake of youthful
joys, with its plums and its citron and its spice, was once more whole
in her hand.
A puff of wind, increasing the volume of sound, enabled Sabina to
recognize the hymn. She could almost see the happy group, Isolda
knitting in her chair by the range, Tom opposite to her and, about the
harmonium, the bright heads and smiling faces of the girls. Ah, if only
one of them had been born to herself! She, who had been going to 'full
the rooms,' had had neither the full quiver nor the faithful mate; she
had had, as she realized at last, nothing in all her life but hope; and
from her, time had stolen, even that which she had.
In the kitchen, absorbed in brooding thought, Byron, a thicker shadow in
the growing gloom, was awaiting her return. Her mind, from wandering
far afield, circled to the present, to the slight repugnance she felt at
entering the house. She was not a 'nervy' woman, indeed, in a
countryside peculiarly susceptible to the so-called supernatural, had
been known to declare, "Out at all times, night and day, and never see
nothing worse than myself." Her unwillingness to go back, an
unwillingness which, in truth, was but another of the warnings which had
been tolling like death-bells all the day, seemed to her foolish.
"'Tis owin' that we've been bad friends for so long," she said. "I'm
feelin' awkward as tho' 'e'd been a stranger. The sooner I take an' go
in the better."
The door of the glass porch stood wide in a yawn of blackness, a
blackness so thick that Mrs. Byron felt as if she were pushing her way
in against a resistance intangible and, on the whole, yielding but which
could yet be felt. Afraid of what might be lurking in the depths of that
gloom she forced herself to move noisily and, making a greater effort,
to break the silence.
"'Tis darker 'ere than 'tis in the yard," she said, thinking of the
moon, and the pale flood it was pouring over meadow and common, over the
nestling farms, over every place but the dark corner in which her home
lay hid; contrasting the black and silver of the night with this
brooding hush.
She put her hand on the shelf to find the matches. Once the lamp was
lighted, once its cheery beams had driven out the dark, she would be
more at ease. In a hurry to finish her work, Gray however, had
forgotten to fill the brass receptacle with oil and Mrs. Byron was faced
with a domestic problem. To manoeuvre the trolly sufficiently close to
the wall would be difficult. Nevertheless it did not occur to her to ask
Leadville's help and he, sitting motionless by the window, did not offer
it.
"Strange 'ow I feel I must keep on craikin'," she thought, as, at last
successful, she trundled off to the linhay. "'Tis just like Leadville
'ad now comed in and I must talk to'n. I dunno when I felt so whisht."
"We 'aven't got very much paraffin left," she said aloud as she returned
with the lamp. "Jim didn't bring any. I dare say we got enough for
to-night though, we don't burn much."
"Where's Jim to?" asked Leadville suddenly.
"Couldn't get a bit of coal," said Mrs. Byron, hanging the lamp in its
bracket and trying to conceal the fact that his unexpected utterance had
jarred her unruly nerves. "'Awken 'adn't a bit, but the boat is
expected in to-night so Jim'll 'av to go in to-morrow and fetch it."
"Where's 'e to?" persisted Leadville.
Sabina held that if no fuel were thrown upon a fire, that fire must die.
"'Ow d'yer think I knaw?"
"Is 'e to 'Ember?"
"Well, where else should 'e be, seein'..."
The man's deep chest lifted and fell. "Seein'," he interrupted
fiercely, "as Tom wish for'm to be there, seein' as 'is wife wish it..."
"'Is--'is wife?" stammered Sabina.
"Don't Isolda wish it? You know she do; but my li'l bird don't wish it.
I don't believe she do."
The blood, which had drained out of the woman's face, returned with a
rush. She opened her lips but found herself voiceless and gasping.
"Don't say like that, Leadville," she whispered at last. "Don't 'ee,
don't 'ee say it--not to me."
The man threw back his head and, as if unable in any other way to
express his feelings, broke into a laugh. "You!" he said. "You!"
Sabina turned the trolly handle, pushing it blindly out of the room.
She was running away as a man runs from licking, climbing flames. She
could not yield, could not knuckle under, but she could retreat until
strong enough to resume the struggle. The tears were running down her
face as she turned into the linhay, but they were tears forced from her
by pain. Like the child in the story she could have said, "It is my
eyes that's cryin', not me."
For behind the wall of her tired and suffering body was her indomitable
spirit.
*CHAPTER XIII*
Sabina's mental attitude towards events and persons was often one of
surprise and protest. It was now.
"What 'av I done that 'e should treat me like this?" she thought. Her
right-doing was the outstanding thing in her life and could not be
missed. It was like a bonfire on a hill. If the wages of sin were
death, the reward of righteousness which she deserved, should be love
and faith. Laying claim to this reward, her poor mind, groped in a long
bewilderment. For love and faith had been withheld.
Leaning for support on the stone shelf, gathering the dark and quiet and
coolness of the linhay into her soul, her tears gradually dried up and
as gradually her personal feeling, her bitterness and resentment, gave
place. She had asserted a claim, had protested as a wife against the
outrage of Leadville's words, had protested as a child against that
flourishing of the wicked as a green bay-tree; but the habit of her mind
was impersonal and very kind. Dispirited, sad, almost despairing, she
yet could not do other than return to it.
"Poor chap's that worried, 'e dunno what 'e's sayin'," she told herself.
Her lack of children was an oversight she had done her best to remedy.
She made for Leadville the blind tender excuses of her maternal heart.
"I knaw 'e don't mean it.' Ye'll be all right in a day or two's time.
Always been a good-livin' feller and I'm sure 'e wouldn't 'urt a flea.
I don't belong to mind..." a quivering nerve gave her the lie.... "But
I do, I do mind," she said piteously, "'e's all I got. No, and tedn't
that. 'Tis I do love'n."
Drawing water she bathed her eyes. The burst of emotion had left her
drained of strength but supper was yet to get. "I did mean to fry for
'is supper," she said, the word covering as many varieties of appetizing
food as can be cooked in a frying-pan, "but I don't think I will, I feel
so tired and weary, I think us'll have to manage with what we've got."
She glanced along the shelf. "That bit of cold meat'll do. 'E do dearly
love a bit of fat pork."
Although her tears, easing the strain on her nerves, had left her less
apprehensive, the kitchen still loomed disquieting. "'Tis because I
made a fool of myself," she said, bracing herself for further effort.
Leadville was in his old place by the window. He neither moved nor
spoke, seemed indeed too much absorbed in thought to be aware of her.
Sabina felt relieved. She told herself she had had enough of his
tantrums for one day: let them have the meal in peace and get off to
bed. Putting the meat on a clean dish she began to lay the cloth but,
as she moved about, a dim suspicion flitted through her mind that she
was being watched. She dismissed it hurriedly and went on with her
work, but it returned. Though Leadville appeared lost in thought, no
sooner did she turn her back than his heavy lids lifted and his eyes
followed her with a furtive question. She felt them on her, felt in his
glance a quality which made her uneasy. What did he want to know? Why
couldn't he put his question into words? Why should his following and
thoughtful glance remind her of the way a cat, crouching, watches a
bird? She was sure he was watching, yet not quite sure. Turning
sharply she fixed brave blue eyes on his face, but immediately he looked
away. He was not watching her, he was occupied with his own dark and
brooding fancies.
The blank unconsciousness of his gaze was reassuring. She had been
mistaken, fanciful. How foolish of her! Well, she was tired, she could
not help it if she did fancy things. She had been through a lot that
day and it had shaken her. Perhaps too the lamp had something to say to
her fancies. It was not burning well and, while a good light cheered
and encouraged, a jumping insufficient one bred more than shadows. Mrs.
Byron went into the linhay for scalded cream, for syrup and the
cocoa-jug, but as she passed her husband she felt that if he did not
quite look at her, she was yet the centre of his thoughts. And he was
looking. Her back was towards him, her unprotected back, and his
glances were like arrows. The hair crisped on the woman's head. What
did this furtive watching mean? This down-dropping look which, when
unobserved, followed and considered? Leadville was sitting back in the
corner, his head resting against the wall and, though his heavy features
wore the expression habitual to them, his eyes were no longer filmed
with inward brooding. Sabina, wandering over the moors had once stooped
to look along a deserted mine-shaft and, in the darkness, had seen two
round eyes, eyes of green fire, eyes which though distant had been full
of a wild menace. They had stared out at her, threatening her advance
and, so inimical were they, that she had left the mine-shaft unexplored.
Leadville's eyes reminded her of the savage daunting thing from which
she had retreated. "I wish 'e wouldn't watch me like that," she said,
lingering over her errand, "it makes me feel any'ow; I wish--" her
thoughts flew to Hember, Hember which, whenever she had been in a
difficulty hitherto, had come to the rescue--"I wish I'd let Richbell
come down."
A candle stood on the furnace and, by its light, Mrs. Byron searched the
upper shelf for a jug of which she stood in need. During her long
convalescence she had suffered from sleeplessness but, as her health
improved, so had her nights. She put the latter down, however, to the
fact that she had formed the habit of drinking a cup of hot cocoa as
soon as she was in bed. A warm drink at night, a nourishing,
non-stimulating drink which needed care in preparation was, she had
felt, more likely to bring a return to normal conditions than patient
waiting on the mysterious processes of nature. The cocoa-jug, brown,
high-waisted, girdled by a gold line, stood a little behind the other
pitchers. In her haste that morning, Gray had pushed it back and, the
shelf being high, her aunt had some difficulty in recovering it. The
effort to reach it distracted her mind and, when she returned to the
kitchen, she was thinking more of the healing effects of cocoa than of
the tiresome ways of husbands.
On one side of the range hung a small square mirror, such as can be
bought of any gipsy pedlar for a shilling; and as she leaned forward to
put on the kettle she caught sight of her face. Used to rubicund cheeks
below bright eyes, she was surprised to see that, though her colour was
fixed, it had lost its warm tone and that her lips were a bluish grey.
"I bin frightened," she told herself, "I knaw 'tis fulishness of me but
I can't 'elp it. Pretty mawkin I be, fancyin' things like that." The
eyes in the mirror were strong and encouraging, the grey lips smiled at
her. Here was a tried comrade who knew what she had to endure and who
sympathized--who sympathized as no one else could! Sabina was captain
of her soul and could rely on it for strength and for support; yet with
her reviving courage came a hint of the old discomfort. On returning
from the linhay she had found Byron staring at his knees. Now that her
back was turned to him she felt--and the feeling sent a quick shudder
through her--she felt that he was at his trick of watching. She felt
it, then suddenly she knew, for in the depths of the mirror was another
face, a face which had fixed narrowing eyes on her; and these eyes
travelled over her, considering her, asking a strange inhuman question.
She swung the trolly round in an access of nervous fear but that
inimical glance had slipped away and Leadville was once more staring
blankly at his knees. Mrs. Byron remained for a moment waiting, but he
neither stirred nor looked. He had been on the verge of making the
discovery he sought and her sudden movement, scattering his thoughts,
had angered him. If she would go on with her work, the thing that was
eluding him, would creep back and this time he would grasp it. He sat
like one in a trance, focusing his mind on a dimly seen spot, a spot of
dreadful knowledge.
Sabina manoeuvred the car so that she no longer had her back turned to
the dark figure on the bench. To make the cocoa while in a sideways
position was awkward, but the defenceless attitude had become
impossible. She must know what was happening on the other side of the
room. Profoundly disturbed, she yet measured the spoonfuls of cocoa
with a steady hand. As Gray would not share the beneficial draught that
night her aunt was mechanically careful to make only half the usual
quantity. The lavish hand does not pile up a balance at the bank.
As Mrs. Byron set the jug of cocoa on the stove, in order that it might
be kept hot till she was ready for it, Leadville broke the silence. He
did not speak, but once more he laughed, and this time his was the
satisfied laugh of a man who after long endeavour has found that of
which he is in search.
His wife stared. "'Ow you made me jump," she said, a little
breathlessly. A quality in the laugh, a certain sinister satisfaction,
had made her flesh creep. What was it that had pleased him, that by his
secret watching he had discovered? She tried to shake off the
conviction of his strangeness. "Dunno what's come over me. I spose 'e
can laugh at 'is own thoughts; but it's a funny thing, it makes me all
goosey flesh."
Conquering an inclination to go out of the room, to leave Leadville to
his secret satisfactions, she rolled herself to the table. "I should
think you was feeling so leary as a grey'ound by this time," she said
and, by speaking of the commonplace, would have relieved the tension.
The queerness of Leadville's behaviour might after all be due to hunger
for, as far as she knew, he had not had any food since morning.
The man cleared his throat. "There's no butter on the table," he said,
looking past her at something on the other side of the room.
"Gray's taken every bit to market." His habit being to eat without
comment what was set before him, Sabina felt a dim surprise that he
should have asked for butter.
"She 'aven't. I see some on the shelf."
To ask him to fetch it did not occur to her. Turning the handle of the
little car she went back to the linhay. It was possible that Gray,
thoughtful for others, had put some aside.
As the trolly disappeared behind the door it was as it a hand swept from
Byron's features the mask which hitherto had shrouded his resolve.
Obscure, unrecognized, it had lain for many a day behind his everyday
thoughts. The general upheaval had thrust it forward until it shone
naked in a dreadful candour. So long had it been familiar that it came
tame to the man's seeking hand. He knew at last what he must do.
Sabina making the cocoa had shown it him.
Getting up from the bench and treading carefully--he whose step was
always light--he tiptoed over to the wall cupboard. It yawned before
him, a darkness hollowed in the solid masonry and with unerring
certainty, as if his hand had gone that way in dreams, it fell on that
which it sought, a little ribbed blue phial, with an orange label. The
last occasion on which he had used it, had been when he adjudged Shep to
be old and useless. The bottle was only a quarter full, and he felt
sorry that he had wasted any of the precious contents on the dog. Would
the quarter be sufficient for his purpose? For a moment he hung
uncertain, but the passions which were riding him to destruction forced
him to take the risk. He heard Sabina crossing the floor of the linhay
and the repugnance with which she inspired him rose like nausea in his
throat. He went blind with hatred, the hatred so long repressed, that
primitive hatred of the under-dog. As one pressed for time, he uncorked
the bottle and held it to the jug of cocoa. The colourless fluid
gurgled as it flowed over the blue rim and the sound, striking through
the man's absorption, woke in him the beginnings of fear. Even now, she
might be able to come between him and success, this necessary,
intolerably-longed-for success. He stared with wild eyes at the linhay
door. If she had heard, if she came in and in her high brave way faced
him and accused him, he was done. To use violence to Sabina was not in
him. He could only work against her in secret, get her at a
disadvantage, strike from behind. If she found him out, he would not
dare any more, he would be beaten and it would break him. His spirit
acknowledged that there was a limit.
He listened but Sabina was still moving from shelf to shelf on her
fruitless errand. He grew conscious that the sweat was running into his
eyes. Raising a hand, a hand foul with seal's blood, to wipe it from
his forehead, he left a brown smear in its place.
The drops fell hissing on the red-hot coals and, out of his other hand,
Byron dropped that ominous blue phial into the fire. A splutter and
crackle of flame, louder than any of the man's furtive movements, spat
out at him. Terrified he turned to the box beside the hearth, a strong
old box which had come in from the sea and was now used to hold
driftwood. From it he snatched thick pieces and thin queer-shaped bits
of old dead ships, of their gear and their furniture, and piled them on
the tell-tale bottle. When Mrs. Byron returned from her unsuccessful
search, he was holding his trembling hands before the blaze and the
flames were leaping over the heap of sea-rimed fuel.
"Mercy!" cried she, at the sight of what seemed to her careful mind a
waste of good wreck, "you'll catch the chimbly afire. Us don't want a
big fire, 'tis near bedtime, now."
She rolled forward as if to remove a log but Leadville stood his ground.
"Leave'n go. If I didn't want it, I shouldn't ha' put it there. I'm
cold."
For a man who wore the same clothes, winter and summer, who had never
cared to possess an overcoat, this was a curious assertion. Sabina,
observing that his hands shook, began to think he must be on the verge
of an illness. If so, it would account for the general strangeness of
his conduct.
"Please yourself," she said and rolled the trolly over to the table. "I
couldn't find the butter anywhere, but Isolda has promised to send some
down in the morning. Wud yer like a bit o' dripping?" She placed a
small china dish heaped with pork dripping near her husband's plate.
"Come on, make 'aste," she said, "supper's ready."
With his back to her and with those darkly stained hands still spread to
the blaze, he muttered that he could not eat.
"You'll very soon be knocked up if you don't eat something," she said
kindly. "Won't yer 'ave a bit o' this pork?"
"If I did I should bring me life up."
Concerned for his health she continued to press him. "Will 'ee 'av a
drop of beer if I fetch it?"
"I don't want anything."
"Well, couldn't 'ee drink a cup of my cocoa?"
For a moment the world heaved dizzily about the man. He stumbled
forward a space. "Of your--of your cocoa--I didn't--" he stammered, his
spirit turning craven; but Sabina's innocent uncomprehending face,
turned sideways from the table, arrested him on the brink; and he swung
off into a wild, incoherent mutter, which presently resolved itself into
oaths, such as he had not used since his seafaring days. He could not
stop, the words poured from him like steam out of a safety-valve. Even
Sabina, to whose common-sense point of view swearing was mere harmless
breath, was taken aback. To surliness she was accustomed, cursing of a
mild order was the male way of expressing gratitude for the gift of
speech, but this? Turning in the wicker cone she looked at him
searchingly and this look, puzzled and seeking to understand, brought
him to his senses. He stammered, choked over his words and flinging
himself into Old Squire's red-cushioned chair bade her 'leave him be.'
"Poor old sinner, 'e dunno what to do by 'isself," she thought
excusingly. "Like a bear wi' a sore 'ead 'e is. Well, I better leave'n
be."
She drew the pork towards her and cut it. She was reconsidering her
decision to wait till morning before telling her husband that Gray was
definitely beyond his reach. If his queerness and irritability were due
to hope deferred it would be merciful to put him out of his misery, to
give him the final blow. She glanced at the figure in the arm-chair.
Leadville was sitting forward, his elbows on his knees, his head with
its strongly growing black hair sunk between his hands. He looked
unapproachable and the saying about 'sleeping dogs' occurred to her.
If she were to make an effort, were to tell him, she would certainly
suffer for it. He would treat her to some sort of scene and she was
tired. She could not remember when she had felt so tired. Her back
ached and her head ached, she had even a whimsical feeling that her legs
ached.
She would not tell him now. The news trembling on the tip of her tongue
should wait till, strengthened by her night's rest, she were able to
take his anger and disappointment for granted.
She found that she was hungry. What a blessing there was always
to-morrow, with a fence of sleep shutting off one day and its troubles
from the next. What she needed was a good supper and a long night's
rest. Thank goodness, Richbell would be down before it was light. She,
Sabina, could lie abed until the pains had gone out of her bones.
In the quiet room the only sounds were the slight movements of the
figure at the table, the tinkle of a fork against china, the crackle of
dry wood in the grate. Once a tiny explosion, a breaking of heated
glass, was audible; but, at the same moment, Leadville rose with a loud
scrape of his chair.
"You'm eatin' like a 'adger," he said, in a tone of suppressed
irritability and, taking down his gun, began to clean it. The energy of
his movements was almost violent. By this oiling and rubbing he was
easing the strain on his nerves. Mould and rust grow in that damp
climate like the Giant-killer's bean and Leadville rubbed and polished
till the barrel was gleaming darkly in the dull light of the wall lamp,
till it caught a red glint from the flaming driftwood.
"What be yer gwine to do with your gun?" asked Sabina taking quiet note
of this outburst of energy. "Any wild fowl down?"
At Christmas stranger birds, sooty-plumaged, web-footed,
delicate-fleshed, came in large numbers to the north coast and all men,
hind and farmer alike, went out to 'get a duck for dinner.'
The relief of hearty movement seemed to have oiled Leadville's tongue
for, staring down at the last specks of rust, he said dreamily, "I used
to think as one day I should shet myself with'n."
"Whatever was 'ee gwine do that for?" She had the practical person's
contempt for extravagant talk, moreover she had listened to this threat
before, had even expressed her opinion that there 'was cleaner ways o'
dying.' She began to stack plates and dishes on a tray.
"If you can't 'av what you wanted," said he, still speaking as if only
half conscious of what he said, "what's the good of livin'?"
"If you can't 'av what you want," retorted Sabina, "you should make the
best of a bad bargain."
"No," he said simply, "I bain't made that way."
She shook her head over his childishness. "You'm a very covechous man,"
she said. "If you wanted a farm so bad as that, why didn't you rent'n?"
The light of the fire was reflected in his dark eyes, a spark in the
blackness. He had put the gun back over the door and was sitting
forward, his gaze on the burning wood. "I didn't want nothing but my
own," he said with unalterable conviction. "I'd a right to Wastralls
and 'twas just your oogliness denyin' me of it."
Sabina smiled. How foolish he was, how unreasonable! Just a big child.
"Did you marry me," she inquired, thinking to clinch the matter and her
voice was the voice of one who makes allowance for a boyish fancy--"did
you marry me or the land?"
For a moment he did not answer, then the truth which he had lived for
twenty years, forced its way out. "I married 'ee for the land," he said
quietly.
But Sabina had her memories. Let him say what he would she could not
doubt his young sincerity.
"And now," he added, "now I wish I 'adn't."
Ah, that was it--'now.' She had been loved. She could recall the days
of courtship, the first years of their union, sweet words, little tender
deeds, the potpourri of rose-leaves that a woman hoards. He had courted
her for more than the land and, though he denied it, he could not shake
her faith. The past was hers and, because it was dead, it would be
always hers.
"You wish that I was gone?" she said. He had loved her once, now he
fancied that he loved Gray. It was only a fancy and would pass. The
past was hers and the future would be, but the present? Sabina had
always lived in the present and it was the present which had betrayed
her.
"I wish we was never married, I wish you," he hesitated for a word, "I
wish you would let me go."
She had been clearing the table. Her hands worked in the familiar way.
She collected cruet, knives, forks and put them in the appointed places,
but without knowing that she had lifted a finger. "You wish I would let
you go?" she said incredulously. "You don't mean what you say,
Leadville. I'm sure you don't. You'm vexed now, you've 'ad things to
try you to-day and you don't know what you'm sayin' of; you'll be better
in the mornin'." She had not been able to let his words pass without a
protest, the protest of a still hopeful heart. Surely he would deny
them.
"I wish," he affirmed heavily, "you would let me go."
The difficult tears rose to her eyes and her chin trembled. "My dear,"
she said and her stable law-abiding spirit was behind the words, "you
knaw we'm married. It's a funny thing after all these years you want to
be let go."