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

seem pretty and comfortable in here." Never had the little room, the close quarters, seemed so attractive; and Tom too, looking round, found his discontent had evaporated. It was a jolly snug little place, so it was.

He went with her to the door and they found that, between scudding clouds, the moon was showing a bright face. The lane lay white between the stone hedges with their crown of tamarisk and, at its foot, the Trevorrick River ran with faint occasional sparkle across the sands. Mrs. Tom had warmed her heart at the domestic fire. What was one night away? She could look back at Tom, standing on the doorstep, and send him an affectionate good night. After all, in keeping Leadville company, she was doing what Sabina would have wished.

When she reached Wastralls she found an empty kitchen. Leadville, following her directions, had brought down a small bed, set it in the angle of the wall, between table and linhay door and, that done, had gone to his own. The lamp was burning brightly, the fire glowed red between the bars, the cushions of Old Squire's chair, the cloth on the side-table, made notes of cheerful colour and the room, dark-raftered, whitewashed, had an encouraging homeliness of aspect. A pang of loss stabbed Mrs. Tom, for this had been her friend's home—had been! Only yesterday those brave blue eyes of hers had rested contentedly on objects made familiar by a lifetime of careful use. Sabina, to Mrs. Tom, was not dead. She had gone away, exchanged this known and comfortable world for things new and strange. The other was bound to believe the change was for the better; but after all a change is a change. She wished the veil that now hung between herself and Sabina were not so thick, so deadening; she wished, with a sad heart, that she might have been permitted to draw it aside. There must be much Sabina would like to tell her.

The candles in the justice-room were burning steadily. Before arranging the pile of pillows and blankets Leadville had left ready, Mrs. Tom stole down the passage and went in. She must say good night to Sabina, this Sabina who could not hear. She looked to see that no draught was filtering through blind and curtain to set the lights guttering, then turned to her friend; but, as her glance fell on the set cold face, she had a sense of disappointment. Sabina was so remote. No word of hers could carry so far, nor could the eager seeking of her spirit find this other which for so long had been in touch with hers. The figure in the bed was not Sabina. It was the cloak she had worn and, taking off, had thrown away. It had been shaped to her uses, it had been hers, but that was all.

Turning away, she closed the door on it and went back to the kitchen. The ache of her loss, realized in this quiet hour, was a gnawing pain but she had been at work from before dawn and her limbs were heavy. Extinguishing the lamp, she settled herself between the blankets. As her eyes accustomed themselves to the change of light she saw that the room was not in darkness. Pale diamonds of moonlight lay on floor and table, filling the space with a soft greyness in which the few articles of furniture, the tables, the big chair and the glazed cupboard, loomed darkly clear. In spite of grief, Mrs. Tom was too tired to be wakeful. Her eyelids closed on the familiar objects which spoke so loudly of Sabina and she fell asleep.

A little later, but while the moon was still a mild radiance lighting the low warm room, she was roused—and being the mother of young children she slept lightly—by a distant but regular sound, the sound of approaching steps. Sick or sleepless or frightened little ones often stole to her bedside and she awoke therefore, not to fear but a kind readiness. As she opened her eyes she realized that she was not in her sea-scented upper chamber at Hember, but this did not alarm her. Too unself-conscious for small timidities, her mind leaped to the surmise that Leadville, having been 'twitchy-like' all day, was worse. Before he thrust back the kitchen door she was considering which of the simple remedies at her command would prove most beneficial.

"Why Leadville, whatever's the matter..." she was beginning when something about him, some departure from the normal, checked her words; and she perceived that, though he had come into the room with head thrust forward in everyday fashion, his aspect was unusual. His features were set and his eyes had an inward look. It was as if something behind his eyes and not they themselves, were looking out. He was staring across the room and his glance had focused itself on the wall behind Mrs. Tom. She had thought he saw her but, in a moment, she realized her mistake. He was not aware of her, in fact was looking through her. To him she was unsubstantial as the sea-mist, nay as the warm air of the kitchen. His was the illumination of a dream. The objects he saw were not the actual furnishings of the kitchen but the figments of a mind asleep.

Mrs. Tom, who had seen children walking in their sleep, recognized the look. It was as if an intelligence, banished to some remote cell of being, had seized the opportunity of slumber to assert itself. The body moved, but unconsciously and as if under a spell. It obeyed, but clumsily and as if it had a difficulty in interpreting the wishes of this new master.

She was not alarmed but at a loss. The children 'walked' when they had eaten too many raw blackberries or had sat overlong at their lessons or been frightened; and Leadville, 'poor sawl too,' was only a big child. He had had a shock and this was the result. She wondered what she had better do? A little maid could be led back to bed and tucked in again and left, but Leadville? She decided to wait and see. Perhaps, in a minute or two, he would go of himself.

Meanwhile the sleep-walker, after standing by the door for some moments, had crossed the room and seated himself on the window-bench. Mrs. Tom was tired and very drowsy. Reassured as to his needs and purpose, she found it difficult to remain awake. Her lids were closing, her mind was drifting from the contemplation of his dark and motionless figure and she was nodding off again, when the elbow on which she was leaning, slipped. Jarred into wakefulness she glanced hastily at Leadville. For a moment she had been oblivious of him. She hoped to find that he had gone quietly back to bed, but no, he was still sitting in the moonlight.

To Mrs. Tom it seemed either that the moonlight was particularly bright or that she saw by it more clearly than usual, for not only was Byron's figure clear and sharp but his features were darkly visible. She could see that he was interested in something which was taking place on the other side of the room, that his eyes moved as if watching some one who, to Mrs. Tom, was invisible.

"Old chap see something," she thought and, looking at the blank space about the hearth, felt her flesh creep. Of a folk who accept the supernatural, the unusual, without doubt or question, she took it for granted that Leadville in his sleep-walking condition would have powers to which she could not pretend. That what he saw he had first created, did not occur to her. What moved about the hearth was, she believed, actually there; and she was intensely, tremulously interested. Who could it be? Sabina?

She had at first supposed that, unnerved by his wife's sudden and unexpected death and with his self-control relaxed by sleep, he had not been able to resist the inclination to wander restlessly about the house. She had had to admit, however, that there was more in this sleep-walking than mere shock and restlessness. Byron was conscious in a peculiar way, conscious of things and events. He saw something and this something or somebody, was moving about as if engaged on a domestic task. Could Sabina, having put off mortality, be here in the spirit; was her wraith haunting the rooms familiar to her, viewlessly busy in the old way? Mrs. Tom strained her eyes in a pathetic attempt to catch a glimpse of the dear long-known features and full figure, but no spectral greyness lightened the heavy obscurity of that part of the room and nothing moved, nothing that is, that she could see. She turned back presently to Leadville and it seemed to her that either the moonlight was brighter or she more observant, for now his face had grown so clear to her, its very expression could be seen. She looked at him and then began hurriedly to hope she had been mistaken and that the unseen form he was watching was not Sabina's for, if it were, how should his gaze be at once so furtive and so menacing? What did it mean?

If, at the suggestion of an unseen companion her flesh had crept, what was her state when in Leadville's eye she read a threat? Under her the little bed shook until she feared lest she might attract his attention.

She did not know that to him she was the invisible occupant of the room. His subconscious mind was reconstructing a scene out of the past in which she had no part and he was therefore entirely unaware of her. For some time he continued to follow the movements of the unseen person by the fireplace and, gradually, his intent look changed to a smile, a smile of satisfaction. He had learned what he would know and he was smiling to himself over it, smiling after such a fashion that the watcher shrank back and back until she was against the wall. This was a 'whisht' old house and she was alone in it with a dead woman and with this man.

Her thoughts, hitherto vague as mist, distilled a clear drop ... 'a dead woman and why dead?'

The question frightened her and, for a moment, she shut her eyes. If only she could have shut the eyes of her mind, for suspicion was one thing, actual knowledge another. But no, a word was being whispered in her unwilling ear and already, although she refused to admit it she knew what lay behind Leadville's terrifying smile.

That time last night a light had been burning in the kitchen, yet he had told her he was in bed by ten. She had doubted then and, during the day, had found a hundred reasons for continuing to doubt. If her mind had swung uncertain, anxious to think generously, to discredit its own acumen, uncertainty was now over. The blood was drumming in her ears but, suddenly, above it rose the soft padding sound of a stockinged foot. Mrs. Tom opened her eyes quickly and from that moment forgot herself and her reluctance in an absorbed attention. For her the time was come when what was still hidden would be made clear. Leadville had got up from his seat and was crossing the room. He went directly to the wall cupboard, opened the green door and took something from the shelf. There was no groping, his hand fell at once on what was required and he turned away with it to the range. As if expecting to find a vessel of some kind on the top, he passed his hand slowly across the cavernous space. As it did not meet with an obstacle he paused and, for a moment, stood balancing in his habitual way from one foot to the other. Mrs. Tom saw that he was at a loss, that the directing impulse was no longer clear. In her curiosity, her distress, she had risen and followed him; and now stood by the table watching his face, his face which though the eyes were open was yet blind. On it trouble was depicted, trouble and anxiety. The onlooker had more than a suspicion of his purpose, knew indeed as well as if she had seen it what he held in his hand. Had he not cried out that the pipe Sabina had bought for him was poisoned?

She wondered what he had thought to find on the oven-top, what saucepan, kettle, pan. She had no doubt as to what