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

procession, acknowledge him as a neighbour, as a kinsman and, above all, as the owner of the farm. To him, Sabina's funeral was a public ceremony. All men would see her laid to rest, or as he put it 'turned out'; all men would allow his right to enter into possession.

Wastralls! The thought of it was like wine running warmly through his body. Wastralls, his! His mind turned for a moment to the dreary waste of the past, he saw it stretching like the shifting sands of the coast-line to a grey horizon and, with a shudder, he came back. That was over. Thank God he had left those years behind; them and all that had to do with them. He acknowledged to himself, as he drew on his black clothes, that hitherto he had made no attempt to stand well with his neighbours. They had had hearts at ease while he had been gnawing his fingers in despite. It was his fault, nay not his but the fault of embittering circumstance, that he had no friends; but now that Wastralls was his, all this would be changed.

In spite of the warmth about his heart, in spite of his happy anticipations, when at last he found himself in the hall ready to receive the mourners, his courage began to ebb. The adventure was too crucial, meant too much to him. The sensation at the pit of his stomach which had been obliterated by those hot thrills of excitement, returned and in a more acute form. His feet grew cold and the occasion became an ordeal he could have wished were over.

The individuals, converging by train, by road, by ferry on Trevorrick were each an unknown quantity and he found that he was afraid of them and that, as the moments passed, he grew more and more afraid. As he stood by the hearth, listening for the sound of wheels which should announce the first arrival, his unstable nerves, working on his body, gave him a sensation of actual physical sickness. He turned to the chimney-piece and leaned his elbows on it, wondering how much longer he would be able to stand there.

Not far from him, her expressive face set in sober lines, Mrs. Tom Rosevear stood beside Mrs. Con. Their duty it was to receive the wives of the mourners and pass them on to Mrs. Bate who, as Stripper, would take them to pay the dead woman a last visit.

"I don't believe as you've been in to see poor S'bina," said Mrs. Tom to her companion. Byron's presence was disturbing to her and she spoke more by way of distracting her thoughts, than because she thought Betsy would care to pay the customary visit. "Why don't you go now before the rest come? There'll be plenty to do, directly."

Mrs. Con's stout body quivered a negative. "My dear life, I couldn't bear to see 'er. I should be picturin' of 'er everywhere if I did."

"Don't 'ee be so silly," encouraged the other. "I don't believe there's 'ardly any funeral in the parish but what I've seen them."

Mrs. Con sank her voice to a mysterious whisper. "'Av you never seed anything after, Isolda?"

"I never seed nothing worse then meself. More need to be afraid of the livin' than the dead."

"Well, my dear, you'm different to me. I'm that narvous if I was to see a body, I knaw I should ever after be fancying I seed its dead face."

A cart drove up to the open door and the Sowdens of Trerumpford, a childless couple who, even in that land of fat stockings were accounted well-to-do, came towards Byron. He had been for a moment in conversation with the undertaker who, the sixteen pairs of black gloves for the bearers in a parcel under his arm, was asking how soon it would be convenient for him to screw down the coffin.

"Mrs. Bate'll let you know," said Byron hastily and turned to shake old Sowden by the hand. Pleased that this important farmer should be the first to cross his threshold be showed it by his greeting; but to Beulah Sowden it made little difference how he was received. He was a little tight silent man, with glassy eyes and an unresponsive manner. Accepting Byron's cordiality with his usual reserve he left his wife, a faded person in a gooky bonnet, to offer their condolences. The Sowdens were come because Sabina Byron's mother had been cousin to Beulah and, as soon as the civilities incumbent on them had been duly observed, they stood aside to make room for others. Not a spark had Byron been able to strike from either. He glanced at them a little doubtfully as they went down the room. Was their reserve natural or assumed? They had uttered the customary phrases, in the customary way and their manner had been sufficiently friendly if a trifle, the least bit in the world, patronizing. It was difficult for him to grasp that, to the Sowdens and their like, the situation was in no way altered. He, though he had spent his life among them, must remain a 'foreigner.' Byrons they knew but he was no Byron, only a waif of the sea, who out of charity had been given the name.

In attending Sabina's funeral they were certainly accepting her husband as their host but they had the topsy-turvy feeling that her death had cancelled the connexion and that he, rather than she, had become the 'late lamented.' Under the politeness of their words had lurked a feeling that they were meeting him for the last time, that it would not be necessary to conceal much longer the faint hostility with which he inspired them. A fat inheritance had fallen to him, an inheritance which had belonged to men of their blood, and which they begrudged. The inheritance was land and they loved land, loved it more than money or any other possession. This man, who so civilly bade them welcome, was one who, pushing his way in by the gate of marriage, had seized what was more theirs than his. Unable to dispossess him they were yet wholly unable to reconcile themselves. The Sowdens had made way for the Bennett Trudgians of Wadebridge, cock-eyed father and a daughter so vivid that, though in black, she made a rainbow impression. They were followed by a voluminous widow, Mrs. Andrew of Gentle Jane. She had called at Hember for Gray and with Gray had come Jim Rosevear. Byron, when his glance fell on the three, forgot his fancy that he was on trial as a new neighbour. He shook hands with Mrs. Andrew and he looked at Gray; and, as he looked, instinct told him that, in some subtle way, the spirit those soft contours shrined had expanded. He shook the thought away. This was Gray and he had not seen her for a weary while but she was not changed. How could she be? His hand closed eagerly over hers and he searched her face for a response—the old response of answering blood; but her eyes were downcast resting, as it happened, on her own gloved hand. It was as if that little hand were part of a mystery which had all her attention.

The intriguing thought persisted. Gray, secret and pale, yet with a suggestion of unfolding petals, woke in Byron a curiosity as intense as it was anxious. What had happened to her? What experience, in which he had had no part, was she cherishing behind that veil of civil words and smiles? His jealousy, never long quiescent, woke.

Already, however, new arrivals were surging in over the threshold. The moment was unpropitious and already Gray had withdrawn her hand. He could not hope for any words with her till the funeral was over. He must rest his heart on the fact that at least she was there under his roof and must remain till he was free to go to her.

The hour was one of conflicting feelings, as numerous as the stones in Trevorrick River which, in summer, is all stones and in winter brings down yet more of them. Behind Gray stood Jim Rosevear and Byron turned on him the old lowering scowl. There was a score to settle! The dark colour purpled in his swarthy cheek but, though he clenched his fists, it was in order to keep the peace, not break it. The insult conveyed by Jim's accompanying Gray in the sight of everybody could not be immediately avenged.

"My 'ands is tied," he thought, "and 'e knaws 'e can come 'ere to-day. Wants a lesson, that one do."

"The bearers are in the kitchen," he said, pitching his voice on a loud note and pointing to the passage. If he could he would humiliate Jim, show the countryside this was a labourer who had come to the wrong door, who had not come as a mourner but for his half-crown, his meal, his pair of black gloves.

But in Rosevear he had met his match. "I'm 'ere as a mourner, not a bearer."

"Iss, my dear!" began Mrs. Andrew in a softly flowing voice and launched herself on a vague explanation in which the words 'Rosevear of Treketh and Dusha Rosevear who you know married Freathy Rosevear' and 'sister of Cap'n Josiah Rosevear of Fraddon,' occurred. Byron knew little about the ramifications of his wife's family but, remembering Jim was a Rosevear, came to the conclusion he must be some sort of cousin.

"Mourner?" he said but less confidently, "well——"

For all his wrath he must go gently. If he insulted Jim, if he uttered the words in his mind, "Well, relation or no, get out of my sight," he would offend Mrs. Andrew and who knew how many more.

Mrs. Tom, having disengaged herself from the Sowdens, came to the rescue. She had had no suspicion that Jim would stand on his rights and come to the funeral. These young people, the folly of them!

"Why, Gray, my dear, I've been expectin' you this long time. I'm so glad you're 'ere," and, placing herself between man and maid, she walked away with them.

When they reached the Big Parlour, however, she turned on the young man. "You ought not to 'ave come."

In Jim's eye was a dancing light. "Why couldn't I come? I 'bain't afraid of'n!"

"No," she retorted, "but this 'edn't a time for stirrin' up strife. You knaw 'e won't touch yer to-day."

"I'll give 'im the chance when they'm all gone if 'e like."

"Don't 'ee talk so fulish," and she thought with satisfaction that the young people would soon be on the road to Plymouth, out of harm's way. "You must think of Gray now. You men are so pig-'eaded as a cock in a fowls' pen."

Gray, who had fallen behind her mother, came up.

"You can settle with Uncle Leadville when we're back home," she said, with a little air of matronly authority which sat sweetly on her young face and which changed to a softer emotion the challenge in Jim's eyes.

"Must I now?" he said, bending over her.

"I don't want to go to Plymouth with no black eyes then," she answered poutingly.

"I'll leave old chap till after we've 'ad our..." his voice sank to a murmur and he led her away up the room, to a corner which the light from the deep-set windows hardly reached. For all the help that either would be, Mrs. Tom might as well have been without them. She smiled the realization of this to Richbell and the two, understanding that it rested with them to make good the deficiency, fell to work. The room was filling quickly and they were needed to cut beef and ham, fill cups from the big old-fashioned teapots and hand plates. Busy though she was, however, Mrs. Tom had a thought to spare for individual needs. Constantine Rosevear had entered in the wake of his three sons and was sitting under the window, staring into his hat. She thought he looked far from well. The little network of red in his cheeks had a purplish tinge and the light blue eyes had lost colour.

"'E's takin' it 'ard," she thought and went up to him.

"You'll 'av a bit o' dinner, Conny, won't yer?"

He shook his head. "'Twould choke me if I did."

"Oh, do 'ee try to eat a little bit." Con's feelings towards his cousin had always been for her an open book.