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

things. 'Tis better to look after their souls than their bodies. 'Tis an awful thing to die not being prepared to meet God. I sing hymns till they'm happy and not afraid to die. I 'ope 'tis all right with poor Mrs. Byron's soul," she paused, a little troubled by Sabina's eminent unpreparedness, "but she was always a good-livin' woman and God is merciful to the last."

Aunt Louisa turned her quiet grey eyes on the other woman and in them was a suggestion from, which Mrs. Bate shrank in pretended ignorance. "Must 'av died pretty and suddent!" said the seamstress.

"Well, I think she has been ailing for some time, she 'aven't been vitty since her accident!" Louisa was so 'forth-y,' but it didn't pay to say all you thought. She, herself, daring enough before the event, knew that 'a still tongue make a wise 'ead.'

"Mrs. Bate!" cried a voice from the road, where old Hawken, rather staggery about the feet, was making shift to carry an armful of fodder to his donkey. "Rhoda's comin' up the lane. I believe she want you."

"Thank you, Mr. 'Awken," said the old woman modestly, "but there's more'n me'll be wanted at Wastralls."

"You're the Stripper, bain't you? and you'll be wanted first. Iss, first and last."

The child, a sensible as well as pretty little girl of ten, came quickly from the direction of the sea. She was shocked to think that kind Auntie S'bina was dead. She was also impressed with the importance of her errand. Seeing Mrs. Bate at Aunt Louisa's door, she ran to her across the little green. "Mammy says, please will you come down to Wastralls at once and will Aunt Louisa come too and bring her machine."

"I'll be prettily glad to do anything for Mrs. Byron and your mammy," responded the latter, a little anxiously, "but I can't carr' the machine, my dear."

Old Hawken who had lingered, curious to hear what passed, seized the opportunity. "If you will wait a minute," he volunteered, "I'll put the ole dunkey in and drave 'ee down."

"Well, 'tis braäve and kind of 'ee, Mr. 'Awken."

"Time like this, everybody must do all they can to 'elp," and, as Mrs. Bate saw her neighbour drive off in the donkey-cart, she regretted that laying out the dead did not necessitate the transport of large and heavy parcels; but it was like Louisa, so it was, she got the best of everything and always had since she was born wrong side of the blanket and everybody allowed it was the right!

Meanwhile Mrs. Tom, her heart heavier than it had been for many a year, had set Sabina's room in order and removed the evidences of humble use. She took up the cocoa-jug, looked into it, then carried it away and put it on the upper shelf in the linhay. With the certainty of knowledge, she went to the bottom drawer of the tall-boy for the clothes in which Mrs. Bate was to 'set her forth'—'no need to stream up anything, S'bina 'ad 'er clothes ready, stockings, night-cap and all!' As Mrs. Tom hung them over the back of a chair, a belated tear ran down her cheek and she glanced from their smooth white folds to the still figure on the bed. A lifetime of friendship! She caught her breath in a sob but, because she had so much to do, tried to check her grief. Yet when, a little later, Tom brought the black dress for which she had asked, he found her sitting on the floor, her head against the chair and her tears falling unheeded on the hem of her friend's shroud.

"Why, mother, dear!" he cried with a quick rush of tenderness. "I shouldn't take on like that. You know we've all got to die sometime."

She put out her arms to him like a forlorn and sorrowful child. "I can't 'elp feeling of it. You know we was schoolgirls together."

"Well, well, my dear, she's gone. I'm pretty and sorry but still she's better off. We 'av got each other still and we need to be thankful for't."

Mrs. Tom clung to him. "I knaw. I've got a lot to be thankful for. I've got you and the childern, but to-day I can't 'elp thinkin' about 'er. What 'appy times we've 'ad together."

"I knaw, my dear." He held her close, closer than was his wont in prosperous times and, with her head on that middle-aged shoulder, Mrs. Tom wept till the rush of grief was spent.

When the women whom she had summoned made their appearance, however, though red-eyed, she had herself in hand. She and Mrs. Con Rosevear being the nearest relatives, the family, only too well aware of the latter's slatternly ways, would look to Mrs. Tom for direction. And she was ready for them. Experience had instructed her in the routine to be followed and, before long, Mrs. Bate with a bowl of hot water, with flannel, soap and scissors, had shut herself into the justice-room: Mrs. Con with the bustling help of a sister-in-law, Mrs. William Brenton of Cumean, was turning out the big parlour; and Aunt Louisa, like an embodied shadow, was slipping from room to room in search of mourning apparel. Mrs. Byron had stores of black material, in the piece and made up, and to the old woman was deputed the congenial work of looking for it. Her sewing machine had been given pride of place on the side-table in the kitchen and, already, the other was growing dark with the first results of her search, with crape, black ribbon, cottons, buttons, etc., a heterogeneous assortment. When Leadville returned from Dark Head, the work of preparation was so far forward, that the women, calling a halt, had gathered for a mid-morning cup of tea.

When life has passed the adventurous stage—if it ever does—it turns to the doings of others for its spice; and, in that homely room, about which were scattered so many black garments that the place looked as if draped for some funereal occasion, the five women discussed the dead.

"'Tis very good of 'ee, Aunt Louisa, to come at once to 'elp wi' the blacks, when I knaw you be always slagged wi' work," said Mrs. Tom, with the usual sweet civility of the Cornishwoman.

"Well, my dear," returned Mrs. Blewett, "at a time like this anybody 'ud do anything. I'd go on me 'ands and knees for Mrs. Byron. I've knawed 'er ever since she was a child and 'ave always done 'er sewin' for 'er. Why, some time back, I made the clothes to set 'er forth with! But I thought she was worth a hundred dead ones. Never thought, as I should live to make up 'er mournin's."

"She's lookin' so natural now," said Mrs. Bate, who had brought from the death-chamber the night-cap which had been put in readiness. The lacy frills of it were limp with the sea-damp and Mrs. Tom had offered to iron and goffer it. She was glad to do for her friend this last of many kindnesses.

"Aw, poor soul, she's at rest now. Gone out of a world of trouble. She's best off where she's to," said Aunt Louisa, in tones of conventional grief.

"I wonder," began Mrs. William Brenton, who being in Trevorrick on a week-end visit to her sister-in-law, had accompanied her and was delighted to find herself in the midst of such interesting occurrences. Living at Polscore, and that only since her marriage, for she was a woman from up-country, she was not deeply versed in local gossip. She endeavoured to remedy this by asking questions but, as she was not noted for discretion, her gleanings were apt to be scanty. "I wonder if she've left any will?"

Neither Mrs. Tom nor Mrs. Constantine looked up. The latter felt that after Leadville's death the farm should come to one of her tall sons, to Freathy, Ern or Tremain; while Mrs. Tom was sure that her girls, being Mrs. Byron's favourites, had the prior claim.

"You ought to know if anybody do," said Aunt Louisa, snipping the thread of a finished hem and turning her grey eyes on Mrs. Tom. The neat precise old woman gave a general impression, in colourless face, smooth scanty braids and capable hands, of greyness. She was like water overhung by trees, a limpid stillness in which shadows moved.

"Well," said Mrs. Tom carefully, "I don't know. S'bina was very close wi' money matters. She never let on to any one what she intend doin'."

Aunt Louisa's clear eyes moved thoughtfully from face to face. With the exception of Mrs. Tom she was far and away the cleverest woman in Trevorrick and she applied her wits—as do all of us, from scholar to ale-house gossip—to gathering stores of useless information. "Never 'eard tell of any will," she said, beginning to tack the seams of a skirt for little Rhoda, "and I never knawed of any lawyer comin' 'ere to do anything about a will."

"What you don't knaw, my dear," said. Mrs. Bate, tactless but admiring, "is good for sore eyes;" and in this statement she voiced so conclusively the opinions of all present that the hopes of both Mrs. Con and Mrs. Tom sank. If there were no will Leadville would inherit and there was no reason he should leave it to a Rosevear. In all probability he would marry again and rear a family. Mrs. Tom thought fleetingly of his infatuation for Gray and what might have been.

"Goodness!" said Mrs. Brenton cheerfully. "There'll be pretty ole capers if everything's left to Mr. Byron. 'E'll be turnin' the place upside down. 'E'll be tellin' us all 'ow to farm. Continuous croppin' 'e call it, but my maister say 'better leave things as they be and not make work when there's no need for it.' 'E don't believe in these new-fangled ways."

"I think," said Mrs. Con uneasily, "'e'll teel all those new things 'e's craikin' about and I wonder what Old Squire would say if 'is 'ead was above the earth."

"Some do say 'is 'ead's up now." Mrs. Tom's smile was faint, a twitch of the lips, a recognition of Mrs. Con's tremulous outlook. "I think if Leadville was to start 'is sugar-beet and terbacker teelin' 'e 'ud 'av a 'ot time wi' Old Squire!"

"Mrs. Byron," began Aunt Louisa and stopped to re-thread her needle. She spoke as if her mouth were full of pins. Use had made her able to speak through a bristling chevaux de frise while age made her forget whether the pins were there or not. "Mrs. Byron is the livin' image of Old Squire as I remember'n." She glanced at his elbow-chair, wide and built with a cunning hand. Pushed against the wall, its red cushions were hidden under billows of black material, but this drapery only made its outlines the more regal. None of those who looked but thought of the man for whom it had been made as still dimly occupying it. More than one had a glimpse of silver hair above a masterful face and caught the faint sound of an imperious voice. "I seed'n when 'e was in 'is coffin," continued Louisa, recalling further a mountainous bulk. "I warn't higher than the table when 'e died but I can remember mother takin' me in."

"'E was a great big man, wasn't 'e?" asked Mrs. Brenton.

"A lickin' great feller!" Aunt Louisa basted as she talked and the other women, most of them younger by a generation, listened with interest. With the exception of Mrs. Brenton they knew why the old woman's mother had been anxious to imprint the features of Freathy Rosevear on her child's plastic memory. "When he was dead," continued Aunt Louisa, who in her neatness, her precision, was as unlike her sire as any child might be, "they couldn't get his coffin overstairs. They had to take it up in pieces and put'n together in's bedroom. And then they couldn't get'n out. They 'ad to take out the big winder in the end of the 'ouse and slide'n down over the boords. I can remember as if 'twere yesterday. 'E was so 'eavy they had the bier out from Stowe to carr'n; for 'twas more'n the bearers could manage."

"And S'bina was like 'im," said Mrs. Con curiously. She had heard the tale of Old Squire's funeral before but that his granddaughter resembled him so closely was new to her.

"The spit of 'n. 'E was a great big red-faced feller with flamin' 'air which was always stickin' up