Wastralls: A Novel, C. A. Dawson Scott [i love reading books TXT] 📗

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."

But he persisted. "If I was to clear out of this..."

"Go—go away?" she stammered, as if his previous words had been a meaningless ejaculation. "Go right away? Whatever for?"

"I bin 'ere all these years and I 'aven't been 'appy. A man want a little 'appiness in's life."

"Oh, Leadville, don't say such things. I've done my best to make you 'appy and comfortable."

"You couldn't do it," he said and added with finality, "you wasn't the right one."

The tears were running down her face, her poor quivering face which to his eyes looked so old, so unattractive. "I've done my best—my best."

"If I was to clear out of this..." he said, returning to what occupied his mind. Why could she not believe him, realize that for her own sake, she must let him go? Even now it was not too late. He glanced at the brown jug on the stove—not too late yet.

"No," she cried, "no, don't 'ee go away."

"One of us got to go, then."

But she had found the answer, the word of power. "Not—not till death us do part," she responded.

"Aw," he said, "and that's it. Till death us do part," and he repeated the words as if they were the chorus of a song already sung, the refrain of a chant known long ago and until then forgotten. "Till death us do part."

He had spoken throughout as if hardly conscious of his words, but now a spurt of irritation, irritation at her folly, shook him. "You and your ways!" he cried harshly. "'Tis you that's responsible. You drove me to do things I wouldn't do."

Relieved by his return to this more ordinary mood Sabina's courage rose. "'Tis your own self that 'arnessed the 'arse," she said with greater confidence. "I've 'ad nothing to do with it. My 'ands is clean."

The man's inconsequent attention was caught by her last words. Glancing stupidly at his hands he saw to his surprise, and swiftly growing consternation, that they were