Wastralls: A Novel, C. A. Dawson Scott [i love reading books TXT] 📗
- Author: C. A. Dawson Scott
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He looked from face to face along the sides of the table, from Con, heavy and ruminative, to Beulah Sowden, whose glassy eyes stared unresponsive as ever and so to Tom Rosevear. The day was being driven out by the shadow hosts of evening but the faces were still distinct. The unhappy man searched them with the old, desperate, 'Who is on my side, who?'
"What good," said he in an urgent troubling voice, "what good would Wastralls be to Gray—a young maid?"
Being farmers all, their prejudices, their outlook, would put them against the will. They could not approve of land being left to a woman. Anything else but not land. Byron thought that with them to back him he might force the lawyer-fellow to see reason. After all, it was the men of the community who made the law and, if these would give it as their opinion that the will was unjust, was unnatural, it might be upset.
To a man, those to whom he made his appeal, were kind of heart. They were sorry for Byron. They would have been sorry for any one who stood to lose a fair farm, for any one whose hopes had been disappointed. They agreed, too, that it was a pity the land should have been left to a maid. Where they joined issue with Byron was in the universal feeling that the land belonged to Rosevears. Anything was better than that it should go out of the family. They would not help him to get the will upset. On the contrary.
The failure of his appeal sent a gust of fury through Byron. They would see him wronged and not lift a hand to prevent it? What matter? He would have it in spite of them. "The land's mine," he blazed and brought his fist down on the table, with a thump that jarred from every loose surface a protesting sound and threatened to split the thick wood. "'Tis mine and by 'itch or by crook I'll 'av it. A mistake's been made and—" he flung down the gage, "you do all knaw it 'as, but we'll 'av it put right."
The other men looked to Mr. Criddle for direction.
"I'm sorry," the lawyer said in his unimpassioned way, "that you should be disappointed, but the intention was clear and the will is properly executed. You will be only wasting time and money if you try to upset it."
Byron's mind was moving quickly. "The missus thought I should be old by the time she was taken," he argued. "I bain't old, I'm so young as any. There isn't a man 'ere can put it across me."
Into this atmosphere, already full of conflicting thought, of possibilities more ominous than any there suspected, Mrs. Tom threw a barbed and poisoned phrase. "S'bina 'ad no thought of dyin' and you knaw, Leadville, that she 'adn't."
He turned at the words. The corner by the hearth was growing dark but the firelight revealed a face here and another there. Mrs. Tom was on the outskirts of the group and in her accusing eyes and on her pale features was a writing Byron could and, for all his unwillingness, must read. Mrs. Tom was telling him that his secret was known to her and that in the provisions of the will she recognized the truth of her Tom's words. That for which Leadville had schemed and done evil, that was what, to the upholding of righteousness, he was to lose.
But the man was not yet broken to the acceptance of his fate. Mrs. Tom might suspect, she could not know. He turned to the lawyer with a movement that suggested the flicking off of a troublesome fly.
"I don't believe," he said, "that missus would leave it to Gray. She wouldn't do such a thing. How could she take Wastralls from me when I bin 'ere all me life? You've made the will out wrong."
As far as Mr. Criddle's experience went, a last will and testament never satisfied the survivors. It was unfortunate that Mrs. Byron's should have come into operation while her husband was still a comparatively young man; but, after all, he had the money and there were more farms than those in Trevorrick. To the poignant aspect of the matter he was blind.
"Mrs. Byron was quite clear on the point, in fact though she did not insist on it she told me she hoped that, when Miss Gray married, she would not change her name. Being Rosevear land, Mrs. Byron felt that Wastralls should belong to a Rosevear."
The younger people, grouped on and about the bench, whispered among themselves but Byron's voice overrode their murmurs. "I could call myself Rosevear," he offered eagerly, "the name's nothing."
"You 'aven't a name of your own, Mr. Byron," said Con in his slow heavy fashion, "and one name's so well as another to you."
"Iss," agreed the other impatiently, "a man's the same, whether 'e got one name as another."
"Those are the provisions of the will," continued Mr. Criddle, ignoring the suggestion. In his clipped voice he read to the end. Gray was left residuary legatee and Thomas Freathy Rosevear and Sydney Constantine Rosevear were to be the executors. "And lastly I revoke all former wills made by me, in witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand."
CHAPTER XXIV
The lawyer, pressed for time, hurried over his farewells and, going out, pulled the door to behind him. The faulty latch failing to hold, the door swung back to fall with a little jingling clash against the post and this irritating sound, metallic and irregular, alone broke the hush of expectation that, with Mr. Criddle's departure, had fallen on the room.
His withdrawal, freeing this large family from the observation of a stranger, took from the members of it any self-consciousness they may have felt; and enabled them to give their whole attention to what was passing, to centre it, in fact, on Byron, on this man who, like a widow, was not to inherit the property but to be pensioned off with an annuity! The women about the hearth, the young people on the window-bench, the men at the table, all were wondering what Byron would say and do, whether, indeed, he quite understood.
He sat before them, with his broad shoulders hunched and a hand over his eyes, withdrawn and, though one of a crowd, solitary. Behind him rose the polished back of the old chair. He had placed it at the head of the table. He had sat in it to emphasize the fact of his ownership and there were those present who thought he had, by so doing, brought ill-luck on himself. He had stretched covetous hands to what Old Squire had set apart for his descendants and in his own way, at his own time, Old Squire, dead yet very much alive, had taken action. In the disposition of the property the people recognized his hand. Sabina had been the instrument of an older more imperious will. Rosevear land was for Rosevears. Those who had had it before this nameless wight came up out of the sea should keep it. Their grip was fixed on it, their roots went down to its rock foundations, they were of it, sprung from it, the living manifestations of it, while he—he who would have taken it from them—he was 'a foreigner.' He had no right, no part among them. As he was come, so would he go. The sea had spewed him up and in due time the earth would swallow him and the memory of him would perish.
The door banged at will, the latch catching and slipping like a nerveless hand. In the old chimneys of the old house, the drear December wind whined and entreated; and first one person then another began to stir and whisper.
In their cramped quarters under the window, the young people were responding to the faint calls of everyday life. Conscious of tension, of a something in the atmosphere that threatened and insisted, they glanced anxiously at the door. Its foolish rattling indecision suggested to them that it was open, that they had only to get up, take a quick step or two and it would provide a way of escape. Something, perhaps an appeal to their emotions, more likely a dull discussion was pending; and they were impatient to breathe fresh air, indulge in a little chaff and sweethearting, get back to the normal. The troubles of their seniors, the dark incomprehensible tragedy of Byron, were beyond their understanding. They were glad when their mothers and aunts began to move, to speak in restrained tones, to whisper of Isolda's linen, of Con's red roan and of the fifty pounds that would fall to high-shouldered George Biddick, the good old hind who had been on the farm for so many years, all the working years of a life. As they talked they fastened cloaks and pulled down veils, beginning as it were to move and so setting an example the young folks would be glad to follow.
The miller had been sitting, solid and motionless, at Byron's right hand. As the women began their tentative movements, he rose, drew a deep breath of relief and drifted in Mrs. Tom's direction. She gave him a pleasant word. "The 'awse, that S'bina give you, Con, 'll 'av a good 'ome with you."
"She knawed I liked Prince," the other said heavily. His eyes had been resting on his three sons and he now uttered a plain thought.
"Pity Gray wadn't a boy, seems a pity for the farm to go to a maid, still S'bina bin fair enough." Tom was S'bina's next of kin, and in choosing his eldest child to inherit Wastralls she had acknowledged his claim. Con, thinking of his hearty lads, regretted, while accepting, her decision.
Mrs. Tom did not take offence. "Iss!" she sighed, voicing her one grievance against fate, "I only wished I 'ad a boy..."
The young folk were frankly a little envious of Gray's good fortune and Jim Rosevear who, having taken to heart Mrs. Tom's mild scolding was standing a little behind the St. Cadic men, stooped to the girl's ear with a congratulatory word. Her eyes, as she answered him, were full of tears.
"Dear auntie! I had no idea she was goin' to give me the farm. I feel I ought to have done more for her."
"My tender dear, you done all you could do."
Upon this simple talk, born of a general willingness to be accommodating, to live and let live, broke an arresting voice. The sense of disaster, irremediable and dire, was slowly closing down on Byron; but, until he had done his utmost to escape, he would not admit he was in straits.
"I been thinkin'," he said, looking from Tom Rosevear to his cousin, "I been thinkin' if Gray 'as Wastralls p'raps she would like for me to stay on an' teel it for 'er. I've wanted the farm all along. I think 'tis very cruel to 'av it took away now; but—" he did not attempt to disguise his anxiety—"you can make it right for me if you like."
Tom had joined Constantine and, into the bearing of the two, though only so lately made executors, was crept a faint consciousness of their position. They had been placed in authority and they were used to wielding it. They stood together, listening gravely to the man's appeal, giving it, as far as appearances went, their consideration. In reality they were wondering how to avoid a direct refusal. That Byron should have set his heart on Wastralls seemed to them mere perversity. As well cry for the moon.
"I dunno," said Tom evasively. He did not want to hurt the man's feelings but he and Con had been put in charge of the property and were responsible to Sabina for its administration. "I dunno 'bout that. We shall 'av to think it over. What do you say, Constantine?"
"I think," said his more direct coadjutor, "I think the best way is to do as S'bina wished."
But Byron was unable to take a wrapped-up 'No' for an answer. "I was 'er 'usband," he pleaded and if he had addressed his words to the nether stone in St. Cadic Mill, they would have had as much effect. "I was 'er 'usband and I think she meant for me
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