She was still thinking of the screws. "No," she said with a shiver of
distress. "I wasn't near enough. I--I was in the Big Parlour. But
come on now, 'tis time for us to be goin' 'ome. They're fullin' in the
grave."
He turned for a last longing look. "I should like to 'av seen for
myself," he said grudgingly. He had forgotten why he was in the
churchyard by an open grave, forgotten who lay in its depths, forgotten
everything but the question as to whether the curving rows of cut clasps
were complete to the last nail. The stones and clods were being
shovelled on to the coffin, obliterating for ever the trifling handiwork
of man, surrendering what could not be withheld. With a sigh of
dissatisfaction, Leadville turned and, walking out of the churchyard,
took the homeward road.
*CHAPTER XXIII*
On the opposite side of the road through Church Town was a little
tavern, the only one in the parish at which spirits could be obtained.
By this, drawn up and waiting, were a number of conveyances and, among
them, the Wastralls cart. 'Uncle George,' more familiar than Byron with
the routine of a funeral, had driven to meet him. The farmer, striding
by, would have passed unseeing, but the old man stepped into the road.
"I be come for 'ee, maister."
For a moment, Byron gazed at the figure confronting him as if it were
that of a stranger, then the mists cleared. He glanced round as if
awakening from a dream and, climbing into the cart, took the reins. The
experiences of the day, the unwonted crowd, the publicity, the return of
the old obsession, had been fatiguing, and he was glad to ride. As he
jogged along, letting Lady go as she pleased, his thoughts ran before
him and he saw the evening as a time of blessed peace. These gigs and
carts with which the road was thronged, these black-clad people, would
then be gone and he would have the place to himself. Many of the
mourners had, indeed, turned in the direction of their distant homes
and, when he reached Towan Lane, yet others shouted a Good night but a
goodly number were returning to Wastralls.
Those on foot had horses to 'tackle up' and men were waiting in the yard
to help them. When Byron reached the gate, he remembered that he had a
last duty to perform. He was tired of the people, he wished they would
go home but he must not spoil the good impression he hoped he had made.
"You'd better come in, all of 'ee," he said in a tone of would-be
heartiness, "and 'av a cup of tea."
A few refused, alleging the distance they had to go, but others and,
among them, Sabina's nearest relatives, accepted the invitation.
Between the hedges the afternoon air had been stagnantly warm but a
sea-breeze was sweeping through the leafless boughs of the elms and its
breath was cold. Gray Rosevear, walking demurely at her father's side,
drew the open sides of her coat together and, with her little gloved
hands, began to fasten them. She, too, wished the day over. For her it
had been a long dreariness shot with unpleasant imaginings. Simple and
devoted, caring for little but her home and the home-circle, her aunt's
death was the first trouble she had known. Jim and her relationship to
him, though they had unsealed a fount of deep emotion, though they
possessed her to the exclusion of most other interests, had not
influenced Sabina's claim. The last rosebud, the first snowdrops of
Hember, had been laid by the weeping girl in her aunt's dead hand and,
every year, faithful affection would place a similar offering on the
mould that covered her. Gray would not forget and, when her children
came, she would plant in their young memories the tradition of the
splendid woman. She, herself, was of those who build a fire on the
domestic altar, who keep it burning for the warmth and comfort and
betterment of all who come within reach of its beams but who find no
historian.
Let in over the door of Wastralls was a brown stone. On this had been
cut a shield bearing the Rosevear arms. The winds of over a hundred
years had breathed on this stone, crumbling the edges, smoothing the
sharp surfaces. The charges were now nearly obliterated and Gray,
glancing up as she walked towards the door, felt a twinge of regret.
Wastralls, more than either Hember or St. Cadic, was the Rosevear home
and now it would belong to Uncle Leadville. She did not, being so
tender a little soul, actually grudge him the inheritance; but she felt
sorry some arrangement could not have been made which would have left a
Rosevear in possession. Jim, of course, if any relation, was a very
distant one but there were her Uncle Con's boys. Tremain, the youngest,
had thoughts of Canada. It would have been better if he could have
remained at home and Uncle Leadville gone, oh, very much better.
Byron, leading the way up the drive, wondered whether Mrs. Bate would
have the tea in readiness. He wanted to see the back of his guests, to
be alone; and it was with a feeling of annoyance that he caught sight of
an individual in parley at the open door. The stranger wore town
clothes and was a tall thin man with reddish hair. Byron, supposing him
to be a relative who, by mischance of travelling, had arrived too late,
held out his hand. "'Oo be you?" said he, downright but friendly.
"Mr. Criddle," answered the stranger in a matter-of-fact tone, "of
Messrs. Criddle and Nancarrow, of Wadebridge."
The name left Byron unenlightened. The ground was thick with Criddles
but he had never heard they were related to the Rosevears. He began to
think the man must have come on business, must be a traveller for
machinery, or patent medicine, or manures.
"We've 'ad rather a busy day," he said, determining to get rid of him as
soon as possible.
"So I understand," returned Mr. Criddle. "The news only reached me this
morning, or I should have been over earlier; but there were arrangements
to be made before I could leave."
Behind Byron, the mourners had been dragging wearily up the slope. To
some of them, however, Criddle of Messrs. Criddle and Nancarrow, was a
familiar figure; and his presence, promising fresh developments on a day
which had been tame for lack of them, proved stimulating. Bent backs
straightened and men quickened their steps, those who recognized Criddle
giving whispered information to those with whom they walked. Byron,
more mystified than ever, spoke with a touch of impatience. "Well, I'm
sorry, but you must excuse me to-day."
Mr. Criddle's smile was reflected on the faces about. "I have brought
the late Mrs. Byron's will," he explained.
Leadville could not have been more taken aback. For years, afraid lest
his wife might make a will--not inimical to him, she loved him too well
for that--but with provisions of which he might not altogether approve,
he had kept a watch on her movements and, more particularly, on the
trend of her thoughts. Once or twice, sounding her, he had said they
ought to put their wishes into writing but she had shaken her bright
head with "Time enough yet." He could have sworn he knew her simple
mind from end to end and that, living from day to day, she had not
troubled about the future.
"Her will?" he cried, bluffly incredulous. "She never made none."
"While Mrs. Byron was at the hospital she sent for me and had her will
drawn up."
"She was too ill to 'tend to any wills."
"At first, yes."
Byron's incredulity was shaken. Believing Sabina too far on her way to
the next world to have a thought for this, he had relaxed his watch.
Had she taken advantage of his absence? He hesitated and, in smooth
tones, the lawyer explained. "When she was getting better she sent for
me, made her will and"--he tapped his pocket--"left it in my care."
The statement carried conviction. Byron could not but admit that, with
regard to this will-making, Sabina had acted after her usual fashion.
Once she saw the necessity for action she lost no time and, with her,
'eaten meat' was soon forgotten. Had her husband been at hand she would
as a matter of course have told him of her intentions. He cursed the
folly that had kept him away. "I think she ought to have let me knaw,"
he said uneasily. In her weak state of health, how was it likely she
would be able to frame a sensible will?
Mr. Criddle was in a hurry. The train service between Wadebridge and
Stowe was inadequate and, unless he used dispatch he might lose the last
train. Drawing from his pocket a long blue-grey paper he glanced at the
people waiting about. "No doubt the relatives of the late Mrs. Byron
will wish to hear the will read."
On the document in plain black print was "Will of Mrs. Sabina Byron,"
and these words, pregnant with unknown far-reaching possibilities, sent
a thrill through those present. Of all who had attended the funeral,
these were the privileged, they were to have a first-hand knowledge of
the provisions of Sabina's will and, if there should be dramatic
developments, they would be on the spot. Leadville, looking to them for
sympathy with him in his uneasiness, saw on their faces only curiosity
and realized that they were indeed 'the relatives of the late Mrs.
Byron.'
"You better come in 'ere," he said and led the way through the house.
In the Big Parlour Sabina's most cherished possessions, porcelain
painted by a Chinese hand which had long since lost its cunning, lacquer
which has accompanied it overseas, old Georgian silver, dark above fine
damask, had been set out; but Byron ignored the invitation of the open
door. "There'll be more room out here in the kitchen," he said.
In placing themselves about the wide low room, it was noticeable that
the mourners seated themselves in accordance with their standing and
expectations. Byron, with a sharp assumption of ownership, placed Old
Squire's chair at the head of the table and sat in it. Tom and
Constantine Rosevear took the chairs on each side of him and Mr. Criddle
sat at the end. Between them were the substantial farmers who had
married Rosevear connexions or were themselves cousins, such men as old
Sowden, John Jacka of Forth Dennis, Solomon Old, Tom Trebilcock. A
group of young people. Con's three sons, the Hember girls and Hilda
Trudgian, were clustered about the window-bench; while the older women,
veils up and cloaks unfastened, sat by the fire.
In the hush of strained attention, the unfolding of the blue-grey paper
made a sharp whisper of sound. "This is the last Will and Testament of
me, Sabina Byron of Wastralls, Tregols Parish, in the Duchy of Cornwall,
the wife of Leadville Byron."
After a few words of preamble came the first bequest. "I give, devise
and bequeath to my dear husband, the said Leadville Byron, my property
in trust securities, the income thereof to be paid to him during his
life and, after his decease, to be divided between the children then
living of my cousins Thomas Freathy Rosevear of Hember and Sydney
Constantine Rosevear of St. Cadic in equal shares.
"The money on deposit at the bank and the balance standing in my name, I
leave to the said Leadville Byron."
As he gathered the sense of these provisions, Leadville nodded a
qualified approval. He and his wife, having lived well within their
income, it was only right he should be left the money he had helped to
save. He should, he thought, have been left the capital too but his
main concern was with the ready money lying at the bank. He would need
it to initiate the changes of which for so long he had dreamed and,
while one tract of his mind was attending closely to the reading,
another beheld the vision of an accomplished hope, the fields of
Wastralls under intensive culture, the motors carrying produce to Truro,
to Plymouth and yet farther afield, the steamers bearing it up the coast
to Cardiff and other hungry towns. A dock could be blasted out of Morwen
Cove, a stone quay built and, behind it, a row of up-to-date cottages.
In a few years, with his energy, his ideas, he would have amassed
capital--all the capital he needed.
"What money 'as she left then, sir?"
When Mr. Criddle moved, his linen made a rustling sound which was
suggestive of withered leaves and this suggestion was carried further by
his dry appearance and wooden gesture. Laying down the will, he looked
over the top of his glasses at the inquirer and embarked on a statement.
"The late Mr. Freathy Rosevear, Mrs. Byron's grandfather, invested money
in mines. For a time this investment was shaky and unsaleable but it
recovered and is now paying a good dividend. As you are already aware,
her father did not leave her much beyond the house and land. Since the
property has been in her hands it has increased in value and the savings
have been considerable. Altogether the income of about twelve thousand
pounds, well invested, will come to you."
"And the money in the bank?"
"I inquired this morning." He consulted a notebook in which various
sets of figures were entered. "Ah, yes, here it is. The late Mrs.
Byron had three hundred pounds on deposit and a balance of a hundred and
ninety pounds, eighteen shillings and tenpence."
Again Byron nodded but this time his satisfaction was unalloyed. Though
his wife had always given him what he required he had not had any
considerable sums at his disposal; and to find himself in possession of
nearly five hundred pounds, to spend as he chose, also a regular income
of about the same amount, gave him a feeling of opulence. Sabina,
generous with her pence, had been reserved as to the sum total of her
property. He had not guessed her savings to be so large.
The lawyer read on. A few small legacies were left to relatives--to
Mrs. Isolda Rosevear, the linen in the big chest: to Constantine, the
horse Sabina had been wont to ride about her fields: to the men who had
been in her employment ten years, the sum of fifty pounds each; to those
more newly come, a pound for each year of their service. Byron listened
without heeding. With hands thrust deeply into his trousers pockets,
with head sunk between his shoulders, he was awaiting the moment when
the land--Wastralls itself--should be declared his and he could face
this concourse of alien faintly hostile people with the accomplished
fact. What did it matter who had the big strawberry roan that was
eating his head off in the stable, or what became of a few sheets and
table-cloths? He cared for nothing but the land, the five hundred acres
which had been his, yet not his, for so long. The will would set all
doubt as to its ownership at rest. Sabina had, after all, been wise to
set her wishes down in black and white.
"The land, house and hereditaments of Wastralls," began the lawyer in
his dry voice, each word clipped of sound and the whole giving the
effect of a well-kept but withered hedge.
In his big chair at the head of the table Leadville stirred slightly,
clenching his hands. At last!
"I will devise and bequeath the land house and hereditaments of
Wastralls to my cousin, Gray Rosevear."
The up-turned attentive faces about the table, expressed for a moment
only intense surprise. Leadville, leaning forward, made a husky
hesitating sound--"What?"
In his precise voice, the lawyer re-read the bequest and about his
words, as the information sank into people's minds, rose a little
whisper of astonished comment.
"Gray?"
"Did 'ee ever 'ear the like?"
"Some's born lucky!"
"Well, Gray now."
A chair went over with a sudden crash and Leadville was on his feet.
Before the slower-witted men had realized his purpose he had crossed the
room, snatched the will out of Criddle's hand and, scattering the women,
was at the fire. He meant to destroy it, to press it down among the
logs, to hold it until it was burned to ashes. Flinging it on the wood,
he glanced round for the poker but the Rosevears had begun to recover
from the stupefaction into which his reckless action had thrown them.
Tom had the lean strength of whipcord and Con that of a bull. As they
closed with Byron, bearing him away from the fire, Mrs. Tom snatched up
the paper and, pressing out the flame, ran back with it out of harm's
way.
"I'm afeared 'tis a good bit burned," she said as she returned it to the
lawyer but that individual looked at her calmly over the tops of his
glasses.
"This is only a copy, Mrs. Rosevear. The will is in my safe at home."
His voice carried, and in spite of the general confusion, men smiled to
themselves. Cunning chaps, these lawyers, up to snuff. Tom Rosevear,
wiping a heated face, picked up Old Squire's chair and put it back at
the head of the table. For the moment, with devils tearing at his
heart, Byron stood in their midst, then, sullenly, he resumed his seat.
Two heads could be knocked together but there were a dozen men in the
room. Except for the relief to his feelings what would a fight
advantage him? Moreover, as he had failed to burn the will, as in fact
the will was not there to be burnt, he must take other measures.
"She've left the land to me," he asserted violently.
At the time he drew up the will, Mr. Criddle had pointed out to his
client that her husband might feel aggrieved at being passed over and
she had given him her reasons for leaving Wastralls to a Rosevear. He
had them in readiness.
"She made what she considered a proper provision for you, Mr. Byron,
when she left you the money."
"Provision? Don't want none o' that. 'Tis the land I want."
"I understood from my client that you had never done any farming."
"Never 'ad the chance."
Mr. Criddle's sandy brows went up in expostulation. "Mrs. Byron told me
you had been a sailor and that, after her marriage with you, she had
suggested your renting land but that you had refused. I understood her
to say she had even been willing to sink capital in buying some but you
impressed her as not wishing to take the responsibility."
"She told you so?" began Byron and choked over the words. His tongue
was not glib, he could not explain that he had been misrepresented and
this inability, giving him a feeling of helplessness before this man of
words, abated the violence of his mood. "A damned lie," he muttered, "a
damned lie!"
From the group of women about the hearth, a voice cut into the
discussion. "She thought," said Mrs. Tom, moved by her secret knowledge
to a bitter word, "as she'd maybe live as long as 'er 'usband."
Mr. Criddle accepted this contribution with a little bend of the head.
"She did. She said as much. She thought if she should predecease Mr.
Byron he would, by that time, be too old to start farming on his own
account."
Byron brushed this aside as irrelevant. He was becoming gradually
conscious of meshes about his feet--meshes from which, however, he still
thought he could escape. "But," he said and he believed it, "she can't
leave the land to any one else, what's 'ers is mine."
"The law gives women the right to dispose of their property," returned
the lawyer patiently. His mind was divided between Byron and the clock.
A few minutes more and, if he were not to miss the train, he must start
on the drive back.
"You don't mean," Byron was aghast but incredulous, "that the law gives
'er the right to leave the land away from me?"
"It does."
"The missus could do as she liked with the land?" began the unhappy man
and there was such poignant anxiety in his tones that, even Mrs. Tom,
angry and embittered, felt a qualm of pity. 'Poor old toad, too, he was
taking it hard!'
"Yes!"
Sabina had had the power and she had used it, used it simply and without
heart-searchings or artifice. The world was turning round with him, but
he still had his hands on that which he had taken. In spite of will and
lawyer he would hold to it. He felt that nothing could relax his grip,
that the land was his from now on until time should make him more
intimately a part of it, yet something was slipping from
him--slipping----
He looked from face to face along the sides of the table, from Con,
heavy and ruminative, to Beulah Sowden, whose glassy eyes stared
unresponsive as ever and so to Tom Rosevear. The day was being driven
out by the shadow hosts of evening but the faces were still distinct.
The unhappy man searched them with the old, desperate, 'Who is on my
side, who?'
"What good," said he in an urgent troubling voice, "what good would
Wastralls be to Gray--a young maid?"
Being farmers all, their prejudices, their outlook, would put them
against the will. They could not approve of land being left to a woman.
Anything else but not land. Byron thought that with them to back him he
might force the lawyer-fellow to see reason. After all, it was the men
of the community who made the law and, if these would give it as their
opinion that the will was unjust, was unnatural, it might be upset.
To a man, those to whom he made his appeal, were kind of heart. They
were sorry for Byron. They would have been sorry for any one who stood
to lose a fair farm, for any one whose hopes had been disappointed.
They agreed, too, that it was a pity the land should have been left to a
maid. Where they joined issue with Byron was in the universal feeling
that the land belonged to Rosevears. Anything was better than that it
should go out of the family. They would not help him to get the will
upset. On the contrary.
The failure of his appeal sent a gust of fury through Byron. They would
see him wronged and not lift a hand to prevent it? What matter? He
would have it in spite of them. "The land's mine," he blazed and
brought his fist down on the table, with a thump that jarred from every
loose surface a protesting sound and threatened to split the thick wood.
"'Tis mine and by 'itch or by crook I'll 'av it. A mistake's been made
and--" he flung down the gage, "you do all knaw it 'as, but we'll 'av it
put right."
The other men looked to Mr. Criddle for direction.
"I'm sorry," the lawyer said in his unimpassioned way, "that you should
be disappointed, but the intention was clear and the will is properly
executed. You will be only wasting time and money if you try to upset
it."
Byron's mind was moving quickly. "The missus thought I should be old by
the time she was taken," he argued. "I bain't old, I'm so young as any.
There isn't a man 'ere can put it across me."
Into this atmosphere, already full of conflicting thought, of
possibilities more ominous than any there suspected, Mrs. Tom threw a
barbed and poisoned phrase. "S'bina 'ad no thought of dyin' and you
knaw, Leadville, that she 'adn't."
He turned at the words. The corner by the hearth was growing dark but
the firelight revealed a face here and another there. Mrs. Tom was on
the outskirts of the group and in her accusing eyes and on her pale
features was a writing Byron could and, for all his unwillingness, must
read. Mrs. Tom was telling him that his secret was known to her and
that in the provisions of the will she recognized the truth of her Tom's
words. That for which Leadville had schemed and done evil, that was
what, to the upholding of righteousness, he was to lose.
But the man was not yet broken to the acceptance of his fate. Mrs. Tom
might suspect, she could not know. He turned to the lawyer with a
movement that suggested the flicking off of a troublesome fly.
"I don't believe," he said, "that missus would leave it to Gray. She
wouldn't do such a thing. How could she take Wastralls from me when I
bin 'ere all me life? You've made the will out wrong."
As far as Mr. Criddle's experience went, a last will and testament never
satisfied the survivors. It was unfortunate that Mrs. Byron's should
have come into operation while her husband was still a comparatively
young man; but, after all, he had the money and there were more farms
than those in Trevorrick. To the poignant aspect of the matter he was
blind.
"Mrs. Byron was quite clear on the point, in fact though she did not
insist on it she told me she hoped that, when Miss Gray married, she
would not change her name. Being Rosevear land, Mrs. Byron felt that
Wastralls should belong to a Rosevear."
The younger people, grouped on and about the bench, whispered among
themselves but Byron's voice overrode their murmurs. "I could call
myself Rosevear," he offered eagerly, "the name's nothing."
"You 'aven't a name of your own, Mr. Byron," said Con in his slow heavy
fashion, "and one name's so well as another to you."
"Iss," agreed the other impatiently, "a man's the same, whether 'e got
one name as another."
"Those are the provisions of the will," continued Mr. Criddle, ignoring
the suggestion. In his clipped voice he read to the end. Gray was left
residuary legatee and Thomas Freathy Rosevear and Sydney Constantine
Rosevear were to be the executors. "And lastly I revoke all former
wills made by me, in witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand."
*CHAPTER XXIV*
The lawyer, pressed for time, hurried over his farewells and, going out,
pulled the door to behind him. The faulty latch failing to hold, the
door swung back to fall with a little jingling clash against the post
and this irritating sound, metallic and irregular, alone broke the hush
of expectation that, with Mr. Criddle's departure, had fallen on the
room.
His withdrawal, freeing this large family from the observation of a
stranger, took from the members of it any self-consciousness they may
have felt; and enabled them to give their whole attention to what was
passing, to centre it, in fact, on Byron, on this man who, like a widow,
was not to inherit the property but to be pensioned off with an annuity!
The women about the hearth, the young people on the window-bench, the
men at the table, all were wondering what Byron would say and do,
whether, indeed, he quite understood.
He sat before them, with his broad shoulders hunched and a hand over his
eyes, withdrawn and, though one of a crowd, solitary. Behind him rose
the polished back of the old chair. He had placed it at the head of the
table. He had sat in it to emphasize the fact of his ownership and there
were those present who thought he had, by so doing, brought ill-luck on
himself. He had stretched covetous hands to what Old Squire had set
apart for his descendants and in his own way, at his own time, Old
Squire, dead yet very much alive, had taken action. In the disposition
of the property the people recognized his hand. Sabina had been the
instrument of an older more imperious will. Rosevear land was for
Rosevears. Those who had had it before this nameless wight came up out
of the sea should keep it. Their grip was fixed on it, their roots went
down to its rock foundations, they were of it, sprung from it, the
living manifestations of it, while he--he who would have taken it from
them--he was 'a foreigner.' He had no right, no part among them. As he
was come, so would he go. The sea had spewed him up and in due time the
earth would swallow him and the memory of him would perish.
The door banged at will, the latch catching and slipping like a
nerveless hand. In the old chimneys of the old house, the drear
December wind whined and entreated; and first one person then another
began to stir and whisper.
In their cramped quarters under the window, the young people were
responding to the faint calls of everyday life. Conscious of tension, of
a something in the atmosphere that threatened and insisted, they glanced
anxiously at the door. Its foolish rattling indecision suggested to
them that it was open, that they had only to get up, take a quick step
or two and it would provide a way of escape. Something, perhaps an
appeal to their emotions, more likely a dull discussion was pending; and
they were impatient to breathe fresh air, indulge in a little chaff and
sweethearting, get back to the normal. The troubles of their seniors,
the dark incomprehensible tragedy of Byron, were beyond their
understanding. They were glad when their mothers and aunts began to
move, to speak in restrained tones, to whisper of Isolda's linen, of
Con's red roan and of the fifty pounds that would fall to
high-shouldered George Biddick, the good old hind who had been on the
farm for so many years, all the working years of a life. As they talked
they fastened cloaks and pulled down veils, beginning as it were to move
and so setting an example the young folks would be glad to follow.
The miller had been sitting, solid and motionless, at Byron's right
hand. As the women began their tentative movements, he rose, drew a
deep breath of relief and drifted in Mrs. Tom's direction. She gave him
a pleasant word. "The 'awse, that S'bina give you, Con, 'll 'av a good
'ome with you."
"She knawed I liked Prince," the other said heavily. His eyes had been
resting on his three sons and he now uttered a plain thought.
"Pity Gray wadn't a boy, seems a pity for the farm to go to a maid,
still S'bina bin fair enough." Tom was S'bina's next of kin, and in
choosing his eldest child to inherit Wastralls she had acknowledged his
claim. Con, thinking of his hearty lads, regretted, while accepting,
her decision.
Mrs. Tom did not take offence. "Iss!" she sighed, voicing her one
grievance against fate, "I only wished I 'ad a boy..."
The young folk were frankly a little envious of Gray's good fortune and
Jim Rosevear who, having taken to heart Mrs. Tom's mild scolding was
standing a little behind the St. Cadic men, stooped to the girl's ear
with a congratulatory word. Her eyes, as she answered him, were full of
tears.
"Dear auntie! I had no idea she was goin' to give me the farm. I feel
I ought to have done more for her."
"My tender dear, you done all you could do."
Upon this simple talk, born of a general willingness to be
accommodating, to live and let live, broke an arresting voice. The
sense of disaster, irremediable and dire, was slowly closing down on
Byron; but, until he had done his utmost to escape, he would not admit
he was in straits.
"I been thinkin'," he said, looking from Tom Rosevear to his cousin, "I
been thinkin' if Gray 'as Wastralls p'raps she would like for me to stay
on an' teel it for 'er. I've wanted the farm all along. I think 'tis
very cruel to 'av it took away now; but--" he did not attempt to
disguise his anxiety--"you can make it right for me if you like."
Tom had joined Constantine and, into the bearing of the two, though only
so lately made executors, was crept a faint consciousness of their
position. They had been placed in authority and they were used to
wielding it. They stood together, listening gravely to the man's appeal,
giving it, as far as appearances went, their consideration. In reality
they were wondering how to avoid a direct refusal. That Byron should
have set his heart on Wastralls seemed to them mere perversity. As well
cry for the moon.
"I dunno," said Tom evasively. He did not want to hurt the man's
feelings but he and Con had been put in charge of the property and were
responsible to Sabina for its administration. "I dunno 'bout that. We
shall 'av to think it over. What do you say, Constantine?"
"I think," said his more direct coadjutor, "I think the best way is to
do as S'bina wished."
But Byron was unable to take a wrapped-up 'No' for an answer. "I was
'er 'usband," he pleaded and if he had addressed his words to the nether
stone in St. Cadic Mill, they would have had as much effect. "I was 'er
'usband and I think she meant for me to 'av it, only there been a
mistake made in the will."
Mrs. Tom who had been standing behind the two men took a step forward.
"I know S'bina trusted you in everything----"
He caught at the words, turning eagerly, triumphantly on the executors.
"There--I knaw she did."
"In everything else," pursued Mrs. Tom steadily, "besides Wastralls."
"Besides Wastralls?" he stammered.
"But that," and there was a note in her voice, a note of mingled grief
and satisfaction which only Tom understood, "that, she said, you would
never 'av."
Byron threw up his-hands in a wild gesture. "My good God! She must 'av
been maaeze or she wouldn't 'av done it. Surely you bain't goin' to let
'er fulish fancies take it away from me?"
Working adjacent farms, Sabina's cousins could not be blind to the fact
that she and her husband had been at odds as to the management of
Wastralls. They were, too, as averse to the changes he would have
introduced as she could be. She had appointed them her executors. They
would see her wishes were carried out. The disappointment to Byron, the
crumbling of his hope, of something more intimate than hope, did not
weigh with men intent on a plain duty.
Realizing that his appeal had as much effect on them as wind beating on
a boulder, the other shifted his ground. As reasonable beings they must
see he could be of use to them. "I'm here and I knaw every hitch and
stitch of the place. Who'll take it on and work it for Gray? For
certain she can't. She don't know a mangold from a turmit. She can't
manage it by 'erself and 'er father can't do it. 'E got 'is own work to
do."
The shadows had been encroaching and already it was growing difficult to
distinguish one pale disk among the many faces from another. As Byron
paused there was a movement among the young people and Jim Rosevear,
bearing himself modestly, stepped up to the table.
"I reckon," he said, and the claim was put forward quietly and in a
matter-of-fact voice, "I reckon I got the right now to work the land!"
Turning from the executors, Byron stared, speechlessly and in
bewilderment, at the young man. To him, Jim was a hind whom he had
lately dismissed and that he could be in any way concerned with
Wastralls was impossible. Byron felt much as if a strange dog had found
its way in at the door. "You?" he said. "What right 'av you to be
'ere? Didn't I tell yer, other day, to never put foot inside this 'ouse
again?"
"Now then, now then!" interposed Constantine, big and authoritative as a
London policeman. Those present felt he had the right to impose his
will on them, that the ownership of Wastralls had passed from the one
man to the other, that never more would Byron be in the position to
drive out even a dog. "We'll 'av none of this, no quarrellin' 'ere."
Byron felt it, too, and his spirit revolted in a last frenzy of protest.
He cursed Jim with a bitter concentrated curse but there was acceptance
of his lot, of the calamity which had overtaken him, in the final,
sullen, "Let'n clear out of this."
To Jim, as to the others, Byron was merely an angry, disappointed man.
"The shoe's on the other foot," he cried, his spirits rising, the ready
but provocative smile on his lips. "Come to that, 'tis for you to go,
not me."
Byron swept out an annihilating arm. This gadfly, he would brush him
off, silence him. "Cuss yer, get out of me sight."
But Jim, wheeling lightly, appealed to the executors. "I've a right to
be 'ere?"
To Byron's confused surprise, Tom nodded briefly and Constantine, with a
grunt of assent, admitted the claim. "What right 'av yer got then?" He
realized that Jim must be settled with, before they could get back to
the matter in hand--the farming of Wastralls. Byron still nursed a
flicker of hope that he might be left as manager or bailiff, that this
fate which was hovering would not be allowed to swoop.
Before Jim's light tongue could reel off the ready answer, Constantine
interposed. "Let Gray speak," said he, probing among the shadows for
his niece. "'Tis 'er land."
"Iss, come now, Gray," said her father encouragingly. "'Tis for you to
say."
Never had Gray disputed her father's seldom-imposed will and now, though
so reluctant that it seemed to her, her feet were leaden, she came to
the table. Her heart was beating fast. The publicity, even this
modified publicity of the family, was, to one of her retiring nature,
very unwelcome; nevertheless she carried herself with a modest dignity.
She had even a little air of confidence, as if in her bosom was a store
of courage on which she could draw at will; and this confidence in one
so timid, so unassuming, appeared as a grace. That day as, with colour
in her cheeks and a steady light in her midnight eyes, Gray faced her
redoubtable relative, she was at her finest and most desirable.
"Uncle Leadville," she began simply and the man shrank with a gesture of
repudiation from the wounding title; but all her life he had been
'Uncle' to her and he would be so to the end. "Uncle Leadville, I'm
sorry if what Aunt S'bina done is against your wish, but the land was
hers and she could do what she liked with it. You know it has always
belonged to her family and been worked, in the way that we are used to
down here. I'm very sorry to go against you in anything but--" she
paused and her serious steady gaze shifted from the dark face, watching
her as a condemned man watches the sinking sun the night before he is
shot, to Jim's blithe countenance; and, as it shifted, her eyes
softened, filling with an expression no one in the room, not even Byron
himself, could mistake, "but I think it's only right my husband should
work the farm for me."
"My husband," Gray had said and when her voice ceased the words were
still echoing through the room. They had fallen on Byron's ears, on his
passionate craving heart as fall words of doom against which there is no
appeal.
"Your 'usband?" he ejaculated but not because he had any doubt. We walk
in twilight until light falls through a window and in that moment of
revelation it did not need Gray's further words to enlighten him.
"We was married last Friday into Stowe."
To the Hember and St. Cadic Rosevears this was no news; but Mrs. Byron's
death on the night of the wedding, the subsequent rush of work, the
funeral, had prevented it from being bruited abroad. The more distant
relatives looked at each other and at the young couple, surprised yet,
on the whole, pleased. So Gray, sly puss, had picked her man and
married him on the quiet. And who was he? Rosevear of Treketh's son.
Not much money there but Mrs. Andrew of Gentle Jane was his auntie and
very fond of him. Likely looking chap too! The maid had had her wits
about her when she chose him; though, as things had turned out, she was
more of a catch than he. And Sabina had probably known! She would be
glad the maid was wedding a Rosevear, even though it was one of a
different family. Well! well! They sent a sigh after vanished youth
and prepared themselves to utter the kind commonplaces of
congratulation. The connexion would be a satisfactory one. The young
people would live in the old home and the Rosevear tradition be
maintained. The hearts of the elders, accepting them as members of the
family, blessed them to increase, a long line of stout descendants. The
erratic genius, the Lucifer of a later day, was to be driven out that
the old order might be continued, world without end. Amen.
Instinctively, though the words of congratulation were on their lips the
people waited for Byron to take the initiative. They did not know what
Gray's simple statement meant to him, had no suspicion that a
dream-castle had been tumbled about his ears, the dream in which he had
shrined hope and desire. Destroy these figments and you destroy the
purpose of a life and, as a consequence, the will to live. Byron's
dream had not been only of Gray, though she had been at the heart of
it--the reddest hottest coal of the fire. He had dreamed too of his
strength, that strength through which all else should be added unto him;
and he was being gradually forced to see it as an illusion. Some one
had been strong, but not he. Some one had given and withheld, had
ordained what he should have, what he should go without, but it was not
he. He thrust at the young people a question which seemed to them
irrelevant.
"Did 'er knaw? Did S'bina knaw?"
That was the crucial point, the point by which his self-respect must
stand or fall. Had Sabina done this thing or was it merely an
unforeseen event?
"'Twas Aunt Sabina's wish for us to be married then, she made the
arrangements." Gray was glad to make this known. She would not have
people think that she had married without the countenance of her family
and, in particular, of the aunt who had been so good to her. So much
had happened since the morning of her wedding-day, she was so different
a person from the shy and frightened girl who had driven out of
Wastralls yard, that she had almost forgotten the menace of Byron's
love. Uncle Leadville had been the ogre of her story but her marriage
had changed the ogre back into a man and she could speak frankly to him
of Aunt Sabina's part in what had been done. She was far from guessing
that her simple words would take from him a last delusion; yet, as she
spoke, she saw his face change and she wondered.
The people, too, were uneasily conscious that he had not taken the
announcement of his niece's marriage as they would have expected. What
was wrong? No whisper had ever linked her name with his, moreover,
Sabina was but three days dead. They wondered over his grey strained
face, his eyes which saw what was withheld from them and, into their
wonder, crept a tinge of apprehension.
While they hesitated Byron flung into the silence--as a bomb is flung
into a crowd--his bitter thought.
"I took 'er life and she've served me out for it."
A thrill ran through the listeners. With their Celtic perception they
had been aware of half-seen forces and thoughts, of shadows moving
remotely, of a background from which unforeseen events might issue. Not
for a moment did they believe Byron's wild statement, they only realized
he was, in some way unknown to them and beyond their guessing, a guilty
man; and upon them began to press the feeling that a spirit was abroad,
a spirit which, like clouds swept up from the rim of the sea, might be
winged with unknown and ruinous possibility.
"She knawed," he said; and in his voice was awe and an emotion more
poignant, more personal. Piercing the many veils he had found the
ultimate, that ultimate which mercy hides. He understood at last that
he had been living in a world of illusions and that Sabina, kindly,
tolerant, had left him there. She had not taken them seriously, had not
perhaps realized they were heady stuff which might give off the vapour
of death. From start to cruel finish she had preserved her careless
superiority, and now when he thought her bested had turned in her grave
and laughed. By a word, scribbled in haste at an odd moment, she had
made a mock of his pretensions, put him in his place. Secret
humiliation is the black and bitter bread of which all shall eat but to
be set at naught before his fellows breaks a man. "Like a twig in 'er
'ands I was," and he snapped his big fingers, like one snapping a stick
in two. From the beginning Sabina had been the better man and his
revolt had been as hopeless as that of a child.
"A life for a life," he muttered, using a phrase with which he was
familiar, twisting a little its plain meaning. Sabina was taking from
him, not his life but the fullness thereof, she was leaving him the
vessel but leaving it irreparably damaged, like an old bucket through
the holes of which the grass may grow.
Byron's eye rose to the gun suspended over the door. The feel of it
would be comforting. It was his only possession. Sabina's money was
nothing to him, let it go with the rest but the old gun...
It seemed to him far away. Between him and it rose, like an insuperable
obstacle, the faces of the relatives. He saw in these faces always the
eyes, the eyes that had witnessed his humiliation. Behind them were the
brains that knew him now for what he was, a poor thing, futile,
impotent. If he could but reach the old gun he would take it and he
would go.
What an intolerable burden were the eyes!
Mrs. Tom, seeing Byron glance at the gun, hanging in its thongs over the
lintel, misread his mind. She had been anxiously on the watch but by
degrees had lost her fear that he was dangerous. To himself, perhaps,
but no longer to others. Gray's marriage, presented as an accomplished
fact, had done its work. No longer a wild desire, she was only a loss
among others; but the sum total of these had been sufficient, Mrs. Tom
thought, to bring home to the unhappy man his sin. Conscious of guilt,
he might be driven to a further recklessness, might feel that, for such
as he, was only the one way out. Knowledge is responsibility and Mrs.
Tom was moved by her sense of justice to intervene. Byron should know
the truth, that truth which she had kept even from Tom, which she had
hidden in a fold of her mind, wrapping it up and putting it out of
sight.
"Leadville," she said, leaning forward between her husband and his
cousin and speaking without any premonition of the event she was
precipitating, "rest yer 'eart content. She never drinked that cocoa
that you meant for 'er to."
For a moment the burden of those intent eyes was lifted from Byron. The
people turned towards Mrs. Tom. What was she saying? What lay between
Byron and the woman whom only that afternoon they had committed to the
earth? "I took 'er life," the man had said, flinging their curiosity a
bone of fact. They were learning now that the bone had had meat on it.
"Never drinked it?" Byron did not evince any surprise at Mrs. Tom's
knowledge, did not feel any. He was only conscious of his overwhelming
need to escape--to escape from the eyes. His mind seized on this new
fact, examining it with an anxious care. What was it to him? Would it
show him the way out?
"No, 'twas that 'eavy supper. Doctor said so and it was. I saved the
cocoa and 'tis out there in the jug."
On finding the drink untouched when tidying the room on the morning of
Sabina's death, she had set it aside. Cocoa can be warmed up. Putting
it on the linhay shelf she had not thought of it again until Leadville,
walking in his sleep, had revealed the nature of the draught. Even then
she had not thrown it away. It was evidence which might be needed.
"'Tis out there still," and with a slight movement of the head she
indicated the linhay. If she could convince Byron that he was not guilty
of his wife's death, she might lessen for him his sense of overwhelming
disaster, wring the black drop out of his remorse.
To the broken man only the irony of it came home and it came home so
overwhelmingly that, in the bitterness of his spirit, he laughed. He
had had a vision of Sabina hanging the sword of fate over his head,
hanging it on the thread of her life, a thread which he, in a moment of
amazing folly, had cut. But nothing of the sort had happened. Her
dying was no tragedy of stealthy murder but the scrapping by nature of a
worn-out organism. The memory of past emotion, of grizzly fears, of
things tremendous and dire and sinister, passed before him--a procession
of wraiths! They had had no foundation in fact, they had risen out of
his mind, preposterous things, as preposterous as he. For what had he
done? Nothing! Like a puppet, a creature of wire and paste-board, he
had pranced and waved his arms. Never--not at the beginning, not during
the long years of his servitude, not even when he had tried to burst his
bonds, had he been anything but impotent. He had loved Wastralls--to no
purpose! He had loved Gray and, while he dreamed, another had been at
the wooing; even the crime he would have committed was fallen like a
spent arrow at his feet. He had set out to prove himself the man of
blood and iron who would force his way, through demon hosts and the
flaming swords of heaven, to gain his ends; he who was destined to fight
with shadows for a dream.
Sabina's death from heart-weakness after hard work and a heavy supper,
was fate's last jest at his expense. Life had justified his wife's light
estimate of his powers and he, who had believed himself able to control
circumstance, had been proved harmless as a tame ranter in a booth.
Futile, impotent! The tides of darkness were rising in the wide low
room, were rising about the people, hiding all but the watching eyes.
Leadville was conscious of coldness. A dark world and cold. Had he
ever thought that he was young, that he was strong, that there was no
man in Trevorrick who could 'put it across him'? That must have been
long ago.
What a thing was this impotence! Like a brown shrivel in place of a
nut-kernel it was rottenness but not dissolution. To live day after day
through interminable time and see the spread of the black mould, to long
for that last mercy of the mould! Life, the pricking life of kisses,
the ecstasy of the first-born, the content of ripening, can become
leprous, a thing to escape from at any cost. Damnation? Ay, a threat,
the threat of ignorance. No hell that any future life may hold can
equal what we know and, if the gate be open...
Isolda Rosevear had said, "I saved the cocoa, 'tis out there still,"
and, in the chambers of the man's distraught mind, the words echoed
helpfully.
"Sabina left the cocoa a-purpose," he said and saw the way clear. "She
left it----" For him too, as for all living creatures was hope, the
hope of deliverance. In sudden haste, he turned and went out. Delay
had been his curse but the need he was about to satisfy was so
imperative that he did not stay even to complete his sentence.
On the linhay shelf, apart from other cloam, stood the brown
high-girdled jug. Though the place was in darkness Byron's hand went
out to it as unerringly as when he sought the blue phial in the wall
cupboard: and, as he lifted it down, he heard with an eager thankfulness
the sound of liquid swishing against the earthenware.
Sabina, knowing how much he could stand, had made ready for him a way of
escape. "She left it for me," he said and, with a sob of relief, lifted
the brown jug to his lips.