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

looked on with the stolid disapproval of men averse to change. The delicate processes of market-gardening were new to them and they did not think the new scheme should have been inaugurated while she lay on her death-bed. The farmer found them irritatingly slow, but did not realize that this seeming stupidity was the cautious expression of their unwillingness. If the mistress died this man would be their employer, therefore their wisest course was to be outwardly docile but a little hard to teach. They talked among themselves, however, and, what is more, spread the tale of Byron's doings over the countryside.

Wind of it had already been wafted up the valley. At Hember and St. Cadic the cousins, after trying the one for Sabina's land, the other for her love, had long since settled to a second choice. Tom Rosevear, indeed, had gone back to an earlier fancy, a girl with whom both he and Sabina had been at school. Isolda Raby was the daughter of a fishseller and her marriage with the prosperous farmer had been for her a rise in life. Since the time they had sat on the same school bench, she had been Sabina's most intimate crony—the only interruption to their friendship being caused by the frailty, the land-hunger of man! But Tom, after some plain speaking on Sabina's part, had returned to his Isolda and the friendship had not only been revived, but placed on a wider, more satisfactory basis.

When Sabina met with her accident Mrs. Tom's heart was wrung. An imaginative, tender-hearted woman, she felt an anxious desire to be a stay and a comfort, to do something, however small, to mitigate her friends sufferings. There was at first little that she could do beyond keeping an eye on poor Sabina's household and seeing that Leadville did not lack food or service. After the first anxious days, however, she was allowed into the hospital and from that time, her eldest daughter being able to 'tend house' in her stead, she spent as many hours at her friend's bedside as the rules of the place permitted. At first Sabina was for long periods unconscious. She took nourishment, she drowsed, she suffered many and various discomforts; but it seemed to her that whenever she came to the surface her glance fell on the comforting vision of Isolda, the same pretty matronly Isolda, who with kind talk and kinder offices had for so long pervaded her daily life. Sabina was so badly injured, in such incessant pain, so low in herself, that she took little interest in her surroundings. To hear the familiar click of the knitting-needles, to open her weary eyes on that understanding smile, was, however, some sort of pleasure.

When Mrs. Tom heard that Byron was busy with carpenters and masons, putting up glass-houses and introducing a new system of tillage, she was not so much surprised as indignant. She had not gone in and out of Wastralls every day for so many years without becoming aware of the husband's disappointment and impatience. She understood that he, like her own Tom, had loved the land not the woman. He, however, had not been able to adapt himself and his life was a daily weariness. Though she allowed that the result was a judgment on him, she found it in her kind heart to wish that he could have had his way. The mad impatience which made him inaugurate far-reaching changes in anticipation of his wife's death, met, however, with scant sympathy from Mrs. Tom. A woman of moderate councils, whose very civility sprang from a sincere kindliness, the fact that Byron went so far as to tear up Sabina's honeysuckle while she yet breathed, put him beyond the pale.

When the talk reached Mrs. Tom's ears, Sabina was still undecided whether to attempt the weary climb back to health or slip quietly away. The loss of her limbs inclined her to the latter course. She could not bear to contemplate life as a cripple. The thought of the fields over which she had ridden, of the market-place in which she had bought and sold, of the whole familiar countryside, was unbearable. Better lie quiet up at Church Town than go limping where she had once leaped and run. Mrs. Tom, coming into the ward at a moment when Sabina, with "I don't want any o' that old traäde," was refusing good nourishment, decided that the truth might be as good for her as a tonic.

"How be 'ee to-day, S'bina, how be gettin' on?"

The injured woman looked at her with weary bloodshot eyes. "I dunno. I don't feel very special."

Isolda seated herself on a cane chair facing the patient and took out her knitting. As she made not only her husband's stockings but those of her five daughters, she had always one on hand. "What do 'ee feel like?"

"My dear life, I suffer like a Turk. I'd soon be dead as livin'."

Mrs. Tom's face expressed her sympathy. "'Av 'ee got much pain?"

"Yes, I ache something awful—in my legs."

The other stared in surprise. "In yer legs? But you 'aven't got any."

"Well, seem like I 'av them."

Mrs. Rosevear laughed. "If that doesn't beat everything!"

The sufferer moved restlessly on her pillow. "I'd rather be out on Gool-land,[*] than like I be now."

[*] Gulland, a barren islet off the north coast of Cornwall.

Looking at the hollows of the face once so apple-round, Isolda's heart misgave her.

"I feel," continued Mrs. Byron in a dragging voice, "that I can't stand much more of this."

"Nonsense, you'll cheat the crows yet."

"Don't care whether I do or no. What is there for a woman like me? I've neither chick nor chield."

"Well, there's Leadville to think about."

Sabina sighed. "He'd cut a poor shine without me; but there—I dunno..." her voice trailed away into silence.

Mrs. Tom's heart began to beat more quickly. "Well," she ventured, "he's workin' pretty and 'ard now."

"He's got to keep the thing going," assented the wife.

"He's doin' more'n that."

Sabina's voice was still languid, but she showed a little interest. "What's ah doin' then?"

"A cart come over from Wadebridge o' Thursday piled up wi' boxes and bags. Now just let me turn this heel."

"Boxes and bags?" murmured the wife. "Good gracious! What's ah going to do with that?"

After a few seconds given to her work, Mrs. Tom looked up. "He's teelin' the li'l medder wi' sugar-beet."

The other's mind, dulled by suffering and loss of blood, took time to grasp the significance of this statement. "Sugar-beet?" she said, slowly, "but I'm goin' to 'ave the li'l medder teeled wi' dredge-corn."

"You bain't there to give the orders."

Sabina's lips took a firmer line. "I won't 'av it teeled wi' that new-fangled traäde. You tell'n so."

"Better tell'n yourself; I reckon—" She glanced shrewdly at her friend, for Sabina's unexpected illness had put new thoughts into Mrs. Tom's head. She was not greedy, but the most self-effacing creature will scheme a little for its young. "I reckon he'd do far different if you wasn't 'ere."

"You think so?" Sabina shut her eyes the better to realize the situation. The news had been stimulating, and when she spoke again her voice was stronger. "I don't think as I'm goin' round land this time, Isolda."

"I do hope an' pray as you aren't, my dear soul."

"What else is ah doin'?"

"Tom went down to see'n last night, thought as 'ee might be lonely in that big 'ouse all by 'imself; and Leadville was tellin' 'im he didn't believe in the way missis was farmin'. He'd like to try and see what the land'd grow best. He said—terbacca."

"Terbacca? I should think he was maäze. Never heard tell of such a thing. Whatever next is he gwine grow?"

"He think the land would grow vegetables as 'tis the right sort o' soil and that 'tis wasted in corn."

Sabina gave a feeble snort. "What do 'ee know about soils—a sailor!" She shook her head. "As long as I live he'll never have nothing to do with Wastralls."

Mrs. Rosevear's needles clicked in agreement. "As long as you do live, S'bina."

"Iss, why not me livin'? I 'ent older than he is, and there's no reason I should turn up my trotters first; at least I don't see why I should."

"We'll all live till we die, sure enough; but it's been touch and go lately with you."

"I'll live in spite of'n," said Mrs. Byron.

"I hope you will, my dear, but sposin' you don't?" Mrs. Byron returned her friend's glance with a startled look. "Ah, iss, sposin'." She saw at last what her death would have meant both to her husband and her kinsfolk. "Well, I make no promises, but I do see now where I'm to. Iss, I can see through a very small hole, and I'm not too old to learn."

Sabina had been effectually roused. Possessions that are menaced increase in value and as long as Leadville was making changes at Wastralls she would not want to die.

"There's things as you can't alter," she said, thinking Sabina should be prepared for what could not now be helped.

"What can't I alter?"

"He've pulled up the honeysuckle by the porch."

A fugitive colour dyed the wan cheeks. "Have 'ee now, the old villain? Whatever for? The honeysuckle as my poor old mother planted."

Sabina's thoughts were finally diverted from her own trials and, lame or not, she was now only too anxious to stop this meddling with what was hers.

"He's always after something new." Leadville could not have known that she treasured the climber. She was sure he would not knowingly have hurt her feelings. Whenever he did anything that to her was incomprehensible, Sabina put it down, not to design, but want of thought. She was of those who cannot see into the heart of a matter.

"I like the old things best," she continued, and her eyes, those impersonal eyes, which were the blue of a December sky, shone with new purpose. "We'll have no more of they doin's. Where's that traäde Nurse wanted for me to take? I feel I could drink some now."

Byron, busy putting his plans into execution, nearly forgot on what their success hung. He had thrown himself into the work with the eagerness of a man in all ways extreme. He was living his dream and he was happy. After one or two non-committal post cards from Dr. Derek, however, came the news that, though her husband would be wise not to build on it, Mrs. Byron was holding her own. By this time some of the glass-houses were up, and the land below the house, which should have been in dredge-corn, was planted with sugar-beet. For the first time Byron felt a qualm of anxiety. He had not imagined it possible Sabina could survive the amputation of her legs. In giving leave for the operation to be performed, he had believed that he was hastening—with the doctor's kind assistance—the inevitable end. With a sinking heart he now began to wonder whether he had underestimated her vitality. What if, after all, she should recover? She was a sound, harmonious being, whom exposure and a simple strenuous life had only toughened. If any one could survive so terrible an accident, it would be she.

That day he did his work in perturbation of spirit. He had no illusions as to what Sabina would think of the changes he was making. She would be stubbornly opposed to every one of them and Sabina's stubbornness was the force with which for so long he had had to reckon. A gleam of hope came with the thought that even if she recovered she would no longer be able to manage the farm. A poor cripple could not get about the fields, especially such up-and-down fields as those of Wastralls. She would be obliged to appoint a deputy and who so suitable as the man she had married?

He cursed the impatience which had led him astray. If he had waited, the matter would have arranged itself in accordance with his wishes. Now, if Sabina recovered, it was only too likely that she would make it difficult for him to carry out his schemes. He tried to imagine what form her opposition would take, but though he had lived beside her