Bessie Costrell, Mrs. Humphry Ward [romantic novels to read txt] 📗

Get me some water from over there."

His countenance fell sadly. But he got the water, exclaiming when he saw the wound.

He bathed it clumsily, then tied a bit of rag round it, and made her head easy with the pillow. She did not speak, and he sat on beside her, looking at her pale face, and torn, as the silent minutes passed, between conflicting impulses. He had just passed an hour listening to a good man's plain narrative of a life spent for Christ, amid fever-swamps, and human beings more deadly still. The vicar's friend was a missionary bishop, and a High Churchman; Isaac, as a staunch Dissenter by conviction and inheritance, thought ill both of bishops and Ritualists. Nevertheless, he had been touched; he had been fired. Deep, though often perplexed, instincts in his own heart had responded to the spiritual passion of the speaker. The religious atmosphere had stolen about him, melting and subduing.

And the first effect of it had been to quicken suddenly his domestic conscience; to make him think painfully of Bessie and the children as he climbed the hill. Was his wife going the way of his son? And he, sitting day after day like a dumb dog, instead of striving with her!

He made up his mind hurriedly. "Bessie," he said, stooping to her and speaking in a strange voice, "Bessie, had yer been to Dawson's?"

Dawson was the landlord of the Spotted Deer.

Bessie was long in answering. At last she said, almost inaudibly--

"Yes."

She fully understood what he had meant by the question, and she wondered whether he would fall into one of his rages and beat her.

Instead, his hand sought clumsily for hers.

"Bessie, yer shouldn't; yer mustn't do it no more; it'll make a bad woman of yer. I know as I'm not good to live with; I don't make things pleasant to yer; but I've been thinkin'; I'll try if yo'll try."

Bessie burst into tears. It seemed as though her life were breaking within her. Never since their early married days had he spoken to her like this. And she was in such piteous need of comfort; of some strong hand to help her out of the black pit in which she lay. The wild impulse crossed her to sit up and tell him--to throw it all on Timothy, to show him the cupboard and the box. Should she tell him; brave it all now that he was like this? Between them they might find a way--make it good.

Then the thought of the man in the public-house, of the half-crowns, a host of confused and guilty memories, swept upon her. How could she ever get herself out of it? Her heart beat so that it seemed a live creature strangling and silencing her. She was still fighting with her tears and her terror when she heard Isaac say--

"I know yer'll try, and I'll help yer. I'll be a better husband to yer, I swear I will. Give us a kiss, old woman."

She turned her face, sobbing, and he kissed her cheek.

Then she heard him say in another tone--

"An' I got a bit o' news down at the Club as will liven yer up. Parkinson was there; just come over from Frampton to see his mother; an' he says John will be here to-morrer or next day. 'Ee seed him yesterday--pulled down dreadful--quite the old man, 'ee says. An' John told him as he was comin' 'ome directly to live comfortable."

Bessie drew her shawl over her head.

"To-morrer, did yer say?" she asked in a whisper.

"Mos' like. Now, you go to sleep; I'll put out the lamp."

But all night long Bessie lay wide awake in torment, her soul hardening within her, little by little.


SCENE IV

Just before dark on the following day a man descended from a down train at the Clinton Magna station. The porters knew him and greeted him; so did one or two labourers outside, as he set off to walk to the village, which was about a mile distant.

"Well, John, so yer coom back," said one of them, an old man, grasping the newcomer by the hand. "An' I can't say as yer looks is any credit to Frampton--no, that aa can't."

John, indeed, wore a sallow and pinched air, and walked lamely, with a stick.

"Noa," he said peevishly; "it's a beastly place is Frampton; a damp, nassty hole as iver I saw--gives yer the rheumaticks to look at it. I've 'ad a doose of a time, I 'ave, I can tell yer--iver sense I went. But I'll pull up now."

"Aye, this air 'll do yer," said the other. "Where are yer stoppin'? Costrells'?"

John nodded.

"They don't know nothin' about my comin', but I dessay they'll find me somethin' to sleep on. I'll 'ave my own place soon, and some one to look arter it."

He drew himself up involuntarily, with the dignity that waits on property. A laugh, rather jeering than cordial, ran through the group of labourers.

"Aye, yer'll be livin' at your ease," said the man who had spoken first. "When will yo' give us a drink, yer lardship?"

The others grinned.

"Where's your money, John?" said a younger man, suddenly staring hard at the returned wanderer.

John started.

"Don't you talk your nonsense!" he said fretfully; "an' I must be getting on, afore dark."

He went his way, but, as he turned a corner of the road, he saw them still standing where he had left them. They seemed to be watching his progress, which astonished him.

A light of windy sunset lay spread over the white valley, and the freshening gusts drove the powdery snow before them, and sent little stabs of pain through John's shrinking body. Yet how glad he was to find himself again between those familiar hedges, to see the church-tower in front of him, the long hill to his right! His heart swelled at once with longing and satisfaction. During his Frampton job, and in the infirmary, he had suffered much, physically and mentally. He had missed Eliza and the tendance of years more than he had ever imagined he could; and he had found himself too old for new faces and a new society. When he fell ill he had been sorely tempted to send for some of his money, and get himself nursed and cared for at the respectable lodging where he had put up. But no; in the end he set his teeth and went into the infirmary. He had planned not to touch his hoard till he had done with the Frampton job and returned to Clinton for good. His peasant obstinacy could not endure to be beaten; nor, indeed, could he bring himself to part with his keys, to trust the opening of the hoard even to Isaac.

Since then he had passed through many weary weeks, sometimes of acute pain, sometimes of sinking weakness, during which he had been haunted by many secret torments, springing mainly from the fear of death. He had almost been driven to make his will. But in the end superstitious reluctance prevailed. He had not made his will; and to dwell on the fact gave him the sensation of having escaped a bond, if not a danger. He did not want to leave his money behind him; he wanted to spend it, as he had told Eliza and Mary Anne and Bessie scores of times. To have assigned it to any one else, even after his death, would have made it less his own.

Ah, well! those bad weeks were done, and here he was, at home again. Suddenly, as he tramped on, he caught sight against the hill of Bessie's cottage, the blue smoke from it blown across the rime-laden trees behind it. He drew in his breath with a deep, tremulous delight. That buoyant self-congratulation indeed which had stood between him and the pain of Eliza's death was gone. Rather, there was in him a profound yearning for rest, for long dreaming by the fire or in the sun, with his pipe to smoke, and Jim's Louisa to look after him, and nothing to do but to draw a half-crown from his box when he wanted it. No more hard work in rain and cold; and no cringing, either, to the young and prosperous for the mere fault of age. The snowy valley, with its circling woods, opened to him like a mother's breast; the sight of it filled him with a hundred simple hopes and consolations; he hurried to bury himself in it and be at peace.

He was within a hundred yards of the first house in the village, when he saw a tall figure in uniform approaching, and recognised Watson.

At sight of him the policeman stopped short, and John was conscious of a moment's vague impression of something strange in Watson's looks.

However, Watson shook hands with great friendliness.

"Well, I'm glad to see yer, John, I'm sure. An' now, I s'pose, you're back for good?"

"Aye. I'm not going away no more. I've done my share--I wants a bit o' rest."

"Of course yer do. You've been ill, 'aven't yer? You look like it. An' yer puttin' up at Costrells'?"

"Yes, till I can turn round a bit. 'Ave yer seen any thin' ov 'em? 'Ow's Bessie?"

Watson faced back towards the village.

"I'll walk with yer a bit--I'm in no 'urry. Oh, she's all right. You 'eard of her bit o' money?"

John opened his eyes.

"Noa, I don' know as I did."

"It wor an aunt o' hers, soa I understan'--quite a good bit o' money."

"Did yer iver hear the name?" said John, eagerly.

"Some one livin' at Bedford, I did 'ear say."

John laughed, not without good-humoured relief. It would have touched his vanity had his niece been discovered to be richer than himself.

"Oh, that's old Sophy Clarke!" he said. "Her 'usband bought the lease o' two little 'ouses in Church Street, and they braat 'er in six shillin's a week for years, an' she allus said she'd leave it to Bessie if she wor took afore the lease wor up. But the lease ull be up end o' next year, I know, for I saw the old lady myself last Michaelmas twelve-month, an' she told me all about it, though I worn't to tell nobody meself. An' I didn't know Sophy wor gone. Ah, well! it's not much, but it's 'andy--it's 'andy."

"Six shillin's a week!" said Watson, raising his eyebrows. "It's a nice bit o' money while it lassts, but I'd ha' thought Mrs. Costrell 'ad come into a deal more nor that."

"Oh, but she's sich a one to spend, is Bessie!" said John, anxiously. "It's surprisin' 'ow the money runs. It's sixpence 'ere, an' sixpence there, allus dribblin', an' dribblin', out ov 'er. I've allus tole 'er as she'll end 'er days on the parish."

"Sixpences!" said Watson, with a laugh. "It's not sixpences as Mrs. Costrell's 'ad the spendin' of this last month or two--it's _suverins_--an' plenty ov 'em. You may be sure you've got the