"If 'e done it, 'twas tarr'ble wicked of'n."
"Tarr'ble, sure."
"But 'tis done now," he said slowly. "Poor S'bina can't be fetched
back."
She caught at the suggestion. "I only wish she could then. 'Twould be
a great blow for'n."
"Iss, 'twould, and any'ow if 'e've done what you think 'e 'av, she'll
surely haunt'n."
"I don't believe 'e'll care even if 'e is haunted." In her desire for
tangible punishment she showed a waning faith in other influences.
"No, p'raps 'e won't. But 'e knaw 'e've done it and the Lorrd knaw and
'e'll be brought to judgment."
"You think it'll come to light some day?" she asked eagerly.
"I dunno about that, God's ways bain't our ways."
"Well, what should you do about it?"
He considered. "I should 'old me tongue and say nothing about it, if I
was you. 'Cos if't got to policeman's ears you'd be 'ad up for your
words."
His caution, that of a law-ignoring folk who manage their own affairs
and keep silence concerning them, did not satisfy her.
"But if he did do't," she persisted, "'e ought to be punished."
"You knaw, mother, there's no proof so 'tedn't no good to say anything
about it."
"Well," she said sharply, "there's this--bottle's gone out of cupboard!
What's become of it? I s'pose that won't be any proof? And Leadville
seem to be very uneasy, but that won't be any proof uther? And I feel
sure in me bones and veins 'e wanted for 'er to die, but that's no
proof?"
Tom was not to be moved. "A still tongue," said he, "make a wise 'ead
and anyway a craikin' tongue do often mean a sore one."
She gave up the attempt to influence him. "I s'pose then, I shall 'av
to rest me 'eart content, but you've no idea 'ow desperate towards 'im I
feel. Knowin', too, that 'e owes 'er everything, for what was 'e,
nothing but a come-by-chance? And for 'im to serve 'er like 'e 'av!"
"I reckon 'e's like one of they cuckoos. They do say cuckoo hi-ists the
other li'l birds out o' the nest."
She was paying but scant attention. "I don't feel I can bear to speak
'im civil. Tidn't," she added mysteriously, "for what 'e've done but
for what 'e've tried to do. Doctor, 'e said she died of 'eart failure
and I s'pose doctor ought to know."
Tom could not follow his wife's flying thought. "Well," he said in
those rough full tones which contained the very body of sound, "I don't
believe doctors knaw everything. If they did 'twould make a fine
newspaper. Nobody told Dr. Derek about the cocoa. He thought she 'ad
'er supper as usual and then died off suddint in 'er sleep."
"Iss," said Mrs. Tom thoughtfully and passed a hand over Smut who,
accepting the fact that her mistress was too much engrossed in making
mouth-noises--the main occupation of human beings--to pet her, had
climbed quietly back into her lap and gone to sleep. "Iss--doctor
didn't know anything about the cocoa."
She, herself, knew more than any one but was disinclined to impart the
knowledge. After all it was not the act that damned a man but the
intention; and she did not want Tom to think Leadville less guilty than
he seemed to her. She remained silent going back over their talk and,
on the whole, she found it comforting. Tom, deprecating the idea of
human interference, had given utterance to one pregnant sentence: "'E
knaw 'e've done it and the Lorrd knaw and 'e'll be brought to judgment."
"Iss, the Lorrd knaw," she told herself, "and I can see as old chap
won't 'av everything 'is own way; but I wanted more'n that, I--I wanted
S'bina to git 'er own back." She hushed her vindictive longings with a
common-sense reflection. "Well, don't s'pose she'd be any 'appier if
she did."
*CHAPTER XXII*
As the funeral procession was to leave Wastralls at 1.30 P.M., by eleven
that morning the road from Four Turnings was black with farmers' carts,
with people from the hamlets of Church Town, of Shoppe and of Cottages,
with people who had come from the distant towns of St. Columb and
Wadebridge. For three generations Mrs. Byron's family had taken a
leading part in the affairs of the district. The memory of man went back
to Old Squire--a personality so pronounced that it had obliterated the
more shadowy figures of its ancestry. From Old Squire, who had added
acre to acre, to Sabina Byron the bold yet conservative farmer, was but
a life and imagination had leaped it. Like her grandfather she was an
outstanding figure, a woman of whom the countryside had been half proud,
half envious. The lamentable tragedy of her accident, setting her apart
from struggling humanity, had affected the popular opinion. Successful
beyond the ordinary she had in a twinkling been reduced to helplessness
and, before interest in her--the tenacious interest of the agricultural
mind--had had time to wane, the last misfortune had overtaken her. The
people would follow her to her grave, not only out of respect for the
Rosevears, but as a protest against fate which, not content with the
inevitable, the building up or the breaking down, must introduce into
the affairs of man, a harsh caprice.
On ordinary occasions people approached Wastralls by way of the yard but
this being one of ceremonial the visitors went past the blind wall at
the end and up the weed-grown avenue of 'grubby elms.' The
double-leaved door, studded with iron heads, stood hospitably open and,
on the hearth, a hearth which had not been modernized, a pile of
seasoned wood was burning. On the stone chequers of the floor lay some
faded rugs, the colours of which were yet bright enough to throw the
sombre figures of the mourners into relief. The dull Oriental reds made
a strange setting for these men and women from whom work and time had
stolen the young comeliness and who, in their harsh ill-fitting black,
appeared so awkward and ill at ease. The proportions of the hall were
good but man, who had dreamed it and set it up, seemed unworthy of it, a
poorer thing than that which he had made.
Beyond the entrance hall the parlours, giving on the passage, showed
also an inviting face. These rooms, owing to the thickness of their
walls, the smallness and eastern aspect of the many-paned casements,
were gloomy. They smelt, not of the sea but its pervading damp and of
the mould which crept like leprosy over boot and book and furniture. In
both, fires had been lighted but the smoke showed little liking for the
damp chimneys and, in the grates, the sea-coal smouldered without flame.
In the Big Parlour the best china, silver and glass had been set out and
a meal laid; and the gleam of polished surface, the white glow of the
freshly laundered damask, the colour of the plates and dishes made a
pleasant impression. Mrs. Tom and Richbell, rising early, had helped to
carry from the linhay the food piled on its shelves. Fowls were at one
end of the table, beef and ham at the other and between stood mountains
of splits, bowls of Cornish cream, junkets and cake and pastry. The
mourners as they came in would help themselves and plates, with darkly
bright knives and shining forks, were stacked in readiness. The Little
Parlour had, as far as possible, been denuded of furniture; for the
mourners after they had eaten, would form up there in couples, ready
when the coffin should have been brought forth, to follow it.
Tom Rosevear had prophesied a large gathering and the event justified
him. The many who could 'call cousin' with Sabina Byron came through
the deep winding lanes to take part in her funeral and besides these
persons--literally 'the mourners'--were a number who did not go up to
the house but stood about on Trevorrick Sands, waiting. Though lacking
the right conferred by kinship--and in the West you are not invited to a
funeral, you go, if a relative, as a matter of course--they, too, would
follow her and see her committed 'earth to earth'; and so numerous were
they that it was said afterwards that the only person in Tregols parish
who did not attend Mrs. Byron's funeral was an old 'bedlier' of the name
of Hawken and she, poor soul, had been bedridden up 'in the teens of
years.'
Byron had carried with him overstairs a mood of serenity and content;
but when he awoke in the morning his mental weather had changed from Set
Fair to an uncertain condition of the mercury which expressed itself in
a heavy dull sensation at the pit of his stomach. Waves of excitement
were flowing through him. This would be a great day. Before a crowd of
witnesses--and already they were leaving their distant homes, crossing
in the ferry from Rock, coming by train from Wadebridge, driving in from
Treremborne and Trerumpford and Treginnegar--Sabina would be finally
dispossessed of Wastralls. He who, for so long, had taken second place
would come into his own. It was he who would receive them. They would
eat his bread, follow him in the long procession, acknowledge him as a
neighbour, as a kinsman and, above all, as the owner of the farm. To
him, Sabina's funeral was a public ceremony. All men would see her laid
to rest, or as he put it 'turned out'; all men would allow his right to
enter into possession.
Wastralls! The thought of it was like wine running warmly through his
body. Wastralls, his! His mind turned for a moment to the dreary waste
of the past, he saw it stretching like the shifting sands of the
coast-line to a grey horizon and, with a shudder, he came back. That
was over. Thank God he had left those years behind; them and all that
had to do with them. He acknowledged to himself, as he drew on his
black clothes, that hitherto he had made no attempt to stand well with
his neighbours. They had had hearts at ease while he had been gnawing
his fingers in despite. It was his fault, nay not his but the fault of
embittering circumstance, that he had no friends; but now that Wastralls
was his, all this would be changed.
In spite of the warmth about his heart, in spite of his happy
anticipations, when at last he found himself in the hall ready to
receive the mourners, his courage began to ebb. The adventure was too
crucial, meant too much to him. The sensation at the pit of his stomach
which had been obliterated by those hot thrills of excitement, returned
and in a more acute form. His feet grew cold and the occasion became an
ordeal he could have wished were over.
The individuals, converging by train, by road, by ferry on Trevorrick
were each an unknown quantity and he found that he was afraid of them
and that, as the moments passed, he grew more and more afraid. As he
stood by the hearth, listening for the sound of wheels which should
announce the first arrival, his unstable nerves, working on his body,
gave him a sensation of actual physical sickness. He turned to the
chimney-piece and leaned his elbows on it, wondering how much longer he
would be able to stand there.
Not far from him, her expressive face set in sober lines, Mrs. Tom
Rosevear stood beside Mrs. Con. Their duty it was to receive the wives
of the mourners and pass them on to Mrs. Bate who, as Stripper, would
take them to pay the dead woman a last visit.
"I don't believe as you've been in to see poor S'bina," said Mrs. Tom to
her companion. Byron's presence was disturbing to her and she spoke
more by way of distracting her thoughts, than because she thought Betsy
would care to pay the customary visit. "Why don't you go now before the
rest come? There'll be plenty to do, directly."
Mrs. Con's stout body quivered a negative. "My dear life, I couldn't
bear to see 'er. I should be picturin' of 'er everywhere if I did."
"Don't 'ee be so silly," encouraged the other. "I don't believe there's
'ardly any funeral in the parish but what I've seen them."
Mrs. Con sank her voice to a mysterious whisper. "'Av you never seed
anything after, Isolda?"
"I never seed nothing worse then meself. More need to be afraid of the
livin' than the dead."
"Well, my dear, you'm different to me. I'm that narvous if I was to see
a body, I knaw I should ever after be fancying I seed its dead face."
A cart drove up to the open door and the Sowdens of Trerumpford, a
childless couple who, even in that land of fat stockings were accounted
well-to-do, came towards Byron. He had been for a moment in
conversation with the undertaker who, the sixteen pairs of black gloves
for the bearers in a parcel under his arm, was asking how soon it would
be convenient for him to screw down the coffin.
"Mrs. Bate'll let you know," said Byron hastily and turned to shake old
Sowden by the hand. Pleased that this important farmer should be the
first to cross his threshold be showed it by his greeting; but to Beulah
Sowden it made little difference how he was received. He was a little
tight silent man, with glassy eyes and an unresponsive manner.
Accepting Byron's cordiality with his usual reserve he left his wife, a
faded person in a gooky bonnet, to offer their condolences. The Sowdens
were come because Sabina Byron's mother had been cousin to Beulah and,
as soon as the civilities incumbent on them had been duly observed, they
stood aside to make room for others. Not a spark had Byron been able to
strike from either. He glanced at them a little doubtfully as they went
down the room. Was their reserve natural or assumed? They had uttered
the customary phrases, in the customary way and their manner had been
sufficiently friendly if a trifle, the least bit in the world,
patronizing. It was difficult for him to grasp that, to the Sowdens and
their like, the situation was in no way altered. He, though he had spent
his life among them, must remain a 'foreigner.' Byrons they knew but he
was no Byron, only a waif of the sea, who out of charity had been given
the name.
In attending Sabina's funeral they were certainly accepting her husband
as their host but they had the topsy-turvy feeling that her death had
cancelled the connexion and that he, rather than she, had become the
'late lamented.' Under the politeness of their words had lurked a
feeling that they were meeting him for the last time, that it would not
be necessary to conceal much longer the faint hostility with which he
inspired them. A fat inheritance had fallen to him, an inheritance which
had belonged to men of their blood, and which they begrudged. The
inheritance was land and they loved land, loved it more than money or
any other possession. This man, who so civilly bade them welcome, was
one who, pushing his way in by the gate of marriage, had seized what was
more theirs than his. Unable to dispossess him they were yet wholly
unable to reconcile themselves. The Sowdens had made way for the Bennett
Trudgians of Wadebridge, cock-eyed father and a daughter so vivid that,
though in black, she made a rainbow impression. They were followed by a
voluminous widow, Mrs. Andrew of Gentle Jane. She had called at Hember
for Gray and with Gray had come Jim Rosevear. Byron, when his glance
fell on the three, forgot his fancy that he was on trial as a new
neighbour. He shook hands with Mrs. Andrew and he looked at Gray; and,
as he looked, instinct told him that, in some subtle way, the spirit
those soft contours shrined had expanded. He shook the thought away.
This was Gray and he had not seen her for a weary while but she was not
changed. How could she be? His hand closed eagerly over hers and he
searched her face for a response--the old response of answering blood;
but her eyes were downcast resting, as it happened, on her own gloved
hand. It was as if that little hand were part of a mystery which had
all her attention.
The intriguing thought persisted. Gray, secret and pale, yet with a
suggestion of unfolding petals, woke in Byron a curiosity as intense as
it was anxious. What had happened to her? What experience, in which he
had had no part, was she cherishing behind that veil of civil words and
smiles? His jealousy, never long quiescent, woke.
Already, however, new arrivals were surging in over the threshold. The
moment was unpropitious and already Gray had withdrawn her hand. He
could not hope for any words with her till the funeral was over. He
must rest his heart on the fact that at least she was there under his
roof and must remain till he was free to go to her.
The hour was one of conflicting feelings, as numerous as the stones in
Trevorrick River which, in summer, is all stones and in winter brings
down yet more of them. Behind Gray stood Jim Rosevear and Byron turned
on him the old lowering scowl. There was a score to settle! The dark
colour purpled in his swarthy cheek but, though he clenched his fists,
it was in order to keep the peace, not break it. The insult conveyed by
Jim's accompanying Gray in the sight of everybody could not be
immediately avenged.
"My 'ands is tied," he thought, "and 'e knaws 'e can come 'ere to-day.
Wants a lesson, that one do."
"The bearers are in the kitchen," he said, pitching his voice on a loud
note and pointing to the passage. If he could he would humiliate Jim,
show the countryside this was a labourer who had come to the wrong door,
who had not come as a mourner but for his half-crown, his meal, his pair
of black gloves.
But in Rosevear he had met his match. "I'm 'ere as a mourner, not a
bearer."
"Iss, my dear!" began Mrs. Andrew in a softly flowing voice and launched
herself on a vague explanation in which the words 'Rosevear of Treketh
and Dusha Rosevear who you know married Freathy Rosevear' and 'sister of
Cap'n Josiah Rosevear of Fraddon,' occurred. Byron knew little about
the ramifications of his wife's family but, remembering Jim was a
Rosevear, came to the conclusion he must be some sort of cousin.
"Mourner?" he said but less confidently, "well----"
For all his wrath he must go gently. If he insulted Jim, if he uttered
the words in his mind, "Well, relation or no, get out of my sight," he
would offend Mrs. Andrew and who knew how many more.
Mrs. Tom, having disengaged herself from the Sowdens, came to the
rescue. She had had no suspicion that Jim would stand on his rights and
come to the funeral. These young people, the folly of them!
"Why, Gray, my dear, I've been expectin' you this long time. I'm so
glad you're 'ere," and, placing herself between man and maid, she walked
away with them.
When they reached the Big Parlour, however, she turned on the young man.
"You ought not to 'ave come."
In Jim's eye was a dancing light. "Why couldn't I come? I 'bain't
afraid of'n!"
"No," she retorted, "but this 'edn't a time for stirrin' up strife. You
knaw 'e won't touch yer to-day."
"I'll give 'im the chance when they'm all gone if 'e like."
"Don't 'ee talk so fulish," and she thought with satisfaction that the
young people would soon be on the road to Plymouth, out of harm's way.
"You must think of Gray now. You men are so pig-'eaded as a cock in a
fowls' pen."
Gray, who had fallen behind her mother, came up.
"You can settle with Uncle Leadville when we're back home," she said,
with a little air of matronly authority which sat sweetly on her young
face and which changed to a softer emotion the challenge in Jim's eyes.
"Must I now?" he said, bending over her.
"I don't want to go to Plymouth with no black eyes then," she answered
poutingly.
"I'll leave old chap till after we've 'ad our..." his voice sank to a
murmur and he led her away up the room, to a corner which the light from
the deep-set windows hardly reached. For all the help that either would
be, Mrs. Tom might as well have been without them. She smiled the
realization of this to Richbell and the two, understanding that it
rested with them to make good the deficiency, fell to work. The room
was filling quickly and they were needed to cut beef and ham, fill cups
from the big old-fashioned teapots and hand plates. Busy though she
was, however, Mrs. Tom had a thought to spare for individual needs.
Constantine Rosevear had entered in the wake of his three sons and was
sitting under the window, staring into his hat. She thought he looked
far from well. The little network of red in his cheeks had a purplish
tinge and the light blue eyes had lost colour.
"'E's takin' it 'ard," she thought and went up to him.
"You'll 'av a bit o' dinner, Conny, won't yer?"