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

Mrs. Byron, wheeling her trolly through the "houses and courts" of Wastralls, along the garden paths and down the neglected drive, found that her creation had a feeling for rises in the ground that was almost uncanny. "Thus far shalt thou go," said the trolly and Jim Rosevear spent many a half-hour levelling surfaces which Mrs. Byron had hitherto believed to be as flat as the yard pond. On the whole she got about as much as she had expected to; and far more than her husband or even the hinds had believed possible.

The latter had served her well, partly because she, being a good master, it was difficult for them to do otherwise; but also because, being raised above them, a woman and unfamiliar, she was in some dim way that Golden Helen of all male dreams. For her part she understood them as she understood the animals on the farm, their idiosyncrasies, their capacity. She worked them as she worked her horses, as kindly, with as much consideration; but without feeling that they were nearer to her in the scale of creation.

On her return to Wastralls she found that her long absence and Leadville's slack rule, hard work one day, off shooting the next, had demoralized the little band. They gave their employer a hearty welcome, vicariously, proud of one who, though desperately injured, had refused to give up the struggle which is life; but it soon became evident that they believed her accident and subsequent mutilation had changed her into something weak and strange. Her orders were questioned. Unconsciously the men were testing the power that for so long had kept them subservient.

"George," said she to Biddick, one bright June morning, "you'd better cut that 'ay in Cross Parks to-day."

"I think I should leave it a day or two longer, missis. I b'lieve we're goin' to 'av some rain," returned the old fellow who, at the moment, had a job more to his liking.

Sabina's voice rang out. "Never mind about that. You get the men and 'av it done at once. It'll be done before the rain come then."

She had a sense of weather so keen that she had been known to predict it for months, even seasons, ahead and Biddick looked at her uneasily. When some days later, he came for his week's money, she spoke to him sharply.

"If you'm too old for yer work, better jack it up and I'll hire a younger man."

"I thought missis, as we was in for a lot of rain."

"I'm missis and I'll 'av things done my way."

As she once said, "Don't meet fear half-way, go all the way and you'll crush 'un in the egg!"

But although Sabina asserted herself with promptitude and decision, it was not in the old effortless way. Her health was far from satisfactory. She held her own, reduced her team to an obedience which for them was happiness, but paid for her victory in restless nights, in pain and weariness. She thought sometimes that it would be impossible for her to carry on.

"I do ache so bad," she told her faithful crony, "that I feel I shall 'av to give up and be a bed-lier."

"My dear life," said Mrs Tom, pursuing her old tactics, "'tis just what Leadville'd like for 'ee to be."

"D'yer think 'e would?"

"Iss, I'm sure 'e would, 'e'd wait on yer 'and and foot."

"I should like to see 'un then."

"I can't fancy you being a bed-lier," said Mrs. Tom comfortably. "Did Gray tell 'ee there's a piece of hedge down in the li'l medder?"

"No, she didn't." Sabina was interested. "An' I thinking to 'av the sheep turned into the lower field! I'll send Jim down this afternoon to mend'n. 'E's a good boy."

"Farmer's son and got farmin' in's veins."

"I like to see the way he wait on Gray. I should be glad for'm to live 'ere after they'm married. The way he's goin' he'll do fine. Biddick's gettin' old and Jim shall be foreman and teel Wastralls for me. He got an eye for the stock and he's a good-working li'l feller. Oh iss, Gray's a lucky maid."

Mrs. Tom did not think the suggested arrangement would prove satisfactory; but the young couple were not yet married, were not even engaged and, if Sabina could not see what was going on, it was not for others to point it out to her.

"Jim'll be agreeable," she said non-committally, "'tis all the same to him whether he go to his auntie at Gentle Jane or whether he stay 'ere. All 'e think about is Gray. Ah, my dear, I should like for 'ee to get as far as Hember and see they two sittin' together wi' us. 'Tis so good as a picture."

Sabina nodded. "Leadville was only sayin' yesterday he never seen a maid so fond of 'er 'ome as Gray. Soon ever 'er work's done she's off 'ome like a bird."

"I 'ope she don't leave 'ee too much by yerself?"

"No, no, my dear, if she'd been my own daughter she couldn't do more for me," and she sighed, feeling that if Gray had been the child whose place she filled, Leadville would have been able to rest his heart content. She could see that the pseudo-relationship in which the young girl stood to him was unsatisfactory and she understood, though too vaguely to put it into words, that for people to share a home they should be bound by blood or sex.

"Well, I must do so well as I can," she added, reverting to the main topic of their wandering talk. "'Tis live from day to day and though I don't feel very special, I must be surely stronger than I was."

"Iss," said Mrs. Tom encouragingly, "I can see as each month make a difference to 'ee."

Sabina might talk of becoming a 'bed-lier,' but only the slightest spur was required to nerve her to fresh effort; and by living, as she had said, from day to day and leaning on the young strength of Gray, she won through the summer. Indeed the glooms of autumn were brightened for her by the conviction that she would live usefully and might live long. Leadville on the other hand saw his last hope fading. Dr. Derek had declared that she could not stand the shock to her system; that, if she survived, it would be as an invalid. Sabina however had the will to live and the trolly—a contrivance which Leadville both detested and contemned—carried her from kitchen to linhay and from barn to byre. Her husband looked on with growing exasperation, opposing to her good-will a sulky silence. At meal-times he sat with eyes fixed on his plate or lifted them for a quick glance at Gray. When he went out, he took his gun, the gun that hung on thongs over the kitchen door and which, as he had inherited it from old Leadville Byron, was the one possession he did not owe his wife. When he came back it was to sit in Old Squire's big chair and spend his time cleaning and oiling it. Whither he went, Sabina did not know. She sighed over his withdrawal of himself, his dull hostility, but did not lose heart. In the end Leadville, seeing that the struggle was hopeless, must return to her. What else could he do? He, too, was middle-aged and except for her was alone in the world.

Although Mrs. Byron felt sure of the ultimate issue, she had not missed the import of those quick glances when Leadville, she and Gray sat at table together. He would answer when the girl spoke and, if she were likely to be making butter or plucking chickens, would hang about and offer his help. When he brought in fish or birds it was to Gray that he took them and, in the evening, laying the gun across his knees, he would lean forward and stare at her. The wife looked on, not indulgently but with her usual robust common sense. Middle-aged men were often transiently attracted by young relatives—nieces or cousins—but the girls went to homes of their own, the old fellows forgot and no harm was done. In a better-managed world, the generations would be sharply defined and each would be sufficient unto itself. Sabina could not wonder that Leadville should prefer the delicacy of tint, the soft dewy eyes of the maid to her own stale and faded charms. She looked at herself in the glass, at her white hair, the loose skin of her neck, the fixed colour in her cheeks. She had been handsome and she had not cared. Now that wrinkles had come about her eyes she thought longingly of the pale smooth lids between which she had so contentedly surveyed her world. The mood, the regret, were new to her, an outcome of her illness and she returned before long to the old comfortable indifference. If she were in the forties so was Leadville. His figure was heavy, his face lined and weatherbeaten. Gray comparing him with Jim Rosevear could not fail to mark the contrast.

"Aunt S'bina, you been in the house all day," the girl said one evening as they sat at tea.

"Well, my dear," returned Mrs. Byron easily, "I've been busy; I had the baking to do and this afternoon I've cleaned out the rubbish your mammy put in the stair-cupboard and after that"—she smiled and looked hopefully at her husband—"I mended yer uncle's socks."

Leadville, who was cutting himself a slice of ham, threw the knife into the dish with a clatter. Why did she meddle with his clothes? He'd rather wear them all holes than have her mend them. 'Your uncle,' too! He wasn't Gray's uncle, he wasn't even her cousin. No, but—and he drifted out upon the wave that was for ever lapping about his feet.

"Do you think you can spare me? I should like to go home after tea," pursued the girl.

"Iss, my dear, I can spare yer."

"Why can't you come too, Aunt S'bina?"

"Me go up that hill? Why, you know trolly won't take the least rise in the ground."

"Well, I'll push behind."

"Don't believe you'm strong enough."

"Why not Uncle Leadville push it then?"

Byron returned from his dream to sweep a lowering glance over the little platform of shivered wood. "I'd like to see myself pushin' that thing."

"'Twould do Aunt Sabina good to have a craik with mammy."

As this was to him