CHAPTER XVBehind the hurrying clouds the moon had risen into a clear space of sky and now hung low, her chill yet faithful breast towards her mate. The light fell on the yard of Wastralls, on the still pond in the corner and the geese sleeping beside it, on the irregular outline of the houses and courts, and on the windows of the farmstead.At one corner a little casement, that looked towards the morning sun, was swinging open, its white curtain flowing in the stream of air; and on the porch, through the black aperture of a broken pane, the light poured over winter-nipped geraniums. It poured too, through the diamonds of the kitchen window and lay in bright squares on table and floor. The ill-fed lamp, expiring in the sudden draught from the porch, had tainted the air and time had drawn over the face of the fire a veil of ash.What looked like a heap of rags had been flung across the desecrated hearth. It lay beyond the square of moonlight and below the faint glow of the smouldering logs and, but for its density, might have been a companion shadow to those whispering in the corners of the wide low room.With a clash of metal upon metal a door swung to, failed to catch and banged again. The huddle of clothes, as if recalled to life by the broken irritating sounds moved a little, and presently dragged itself with evident difficulty into a sitting posture. Byron, falling across the fender, had bruised himself against the steel edge; and he came out of nothingness into dull but growing discomfort. His shoulder, having struck the boss of the oven door, pained him; his head, having hit the stone floor, ached. What had happened? How had he hurt himself? Why was he lying on the kitchen floor? His heavy head swung round till his gaze was caught by the fitful movement of the door. He knitted his dark brows but the memories connected with it escaped him. A current of air was passing through some open window into Wastralls and, in obedience to its impulse, the door was swinging. The man's mind, alive to the practical, went from window to window on the ground-floor, until it found the one of which the fastening was insecure. He settled on it with a feeling of satisfaction and, making a further effort, dragged himself to his feet.In spite of the low fire and the thin current of wintry air flowing in from the passage, the atmosphere of the kitchen was warm and pleasant. The moonlight made the few pieces of furniture, the high glazed china cupboard, the press, the tables, dimly visible. Byron, his hand to an aching back, was conscious of the homely comfortable nature of his surroundings.He had forgotten the extremity of terror out of which he had slipped into a merciful unconsciousness, but he was still confused, still sore and, in the familiar aspect of the room, he found a certain solace. This was his home, his place, his for as long as he should live. He had a feeling that something had happened which made the place more indubitably, absolutely, his, than hitherto and, balancing himself first on one foot then on the other, he stared about him, heavily content. The thick walls, the many-paned windows, the plain familiar black of the rafters and white-wash of the walls! His! His till the end of time! He smiled to himself and the smile on that haggard, blood-stained face, was that of a child who after long waiting has been given the plaything it desires.The arms of the big chair wooed him to comfort, but out of the void Byron had brought the conviction that his work was not yet finished. In a dull bemused way, the way of a man conscious of little but physical weariness, he pondered the effort which was required of him. What was it he had to do, before he could slouch away to bed?His glance swung from side to side, questioning the friendly faces of the furniture, pausing eventually on the still swinging door. That door, yes. He considered its dark oblong and shining handle. The round brass knob, bright in the general dimness, a tiny moon against the blackness of the door, drew him; yet, deep in himself, was a stiff reluctance. He groped in the confusion of his mind for understanding, until suddenly, like an Icelandic geyser, memory tore its way out.He remembered! They—a vague they of several personalities—had goaded him to desperation. He saw himself crossing a room, taking a bottle out of the cupboard, pouring the contents into a jug. One moment he had been innocent of this tremendous act, in the next it was accomplished. He stood amazed at this new vision of himself, the doer of deeds. The lack of hesitation, the steadiness, the decision surprised him. He had not known of what he was capable and, for a moment, he was wholly pleased.Further recollections showed a falling off. He had become gradually conscious of guilt, he had grovelled in superstitious terror. Guilt? He shook his head, like a dog shaking drops of water from its coat. A man may do what he can. His deeds are between him and his soul; and the fear of punishment is a survival from the times when he was subservient to the will of another. Whatever the quality of a man's deeds, the doing of them proves him. Byron, his back to the dying fire, his dark head rising above the mantelshelf, drew himself up. He had been humiliated and he resented it. Living by faith, he had long cherished the difficult belief that of the two personalities, his and Sabina's, his was the stronger. True, he had wasted his energies in a daydream while she ordered their lives; but he had known that this must come to an end and, behold, when the crucial moment arrived, he had played a man's part. If she were able to see the past in true perspective she must acknowledge the provocation given; must see that he had been driven, that no other course was open to him. A longer endurance on his part would have been weakness and would have justified her in withholding the land. She must, at long last, see how wrongly she had acted.If, on the contrary, she were to resent his snatching from her that poor fag-end of life, if she were incapable to seeing his point of view, if in unsaintly rancour she decided to haunt her old home, he decided that he would not care. A spirit hand cannot strike, nor a ghostly whisper vex. She might wander through Wastralls, wail in the keyholes and the chimneys, but it should make no difference. She would be but a fancy of the dusk, a shade flitting from room to room, a presence. If Gray became conscious of it, she would only voice a regret which had already lost its poignancy. Sabina could not interfere with their possession of her house and property. She might 'walk' but, as he did not believe she could divulge the secret of her death, 'walk' she might.Moreover, if she haunted Wastralls, it would only be to see come to pass what she least desired. Another would farm the land, another take her place indoors. For her to haunt them would only bring her additional pain. She, not they, would suffer. Byron laughed hoarsely, for by killing her he had indeed avenged her treatment of him; but, in that contented laughter, was still a note of surprise. He had known that he could act with decision, yet was surprised to find that he had done so. A thin wave of self-gratulation flowed over his weary mind. He had justified himself; yet—had he—altogether?A man is not looked on as a 'foreigner' by his neighbours without knowing and resenting it. Only by an assumption of superiority can he equalize matters. For many years Byron had been contemptuous of the opinions held by the community. At last his contempt had found concrete expression. He had dared and he knew that no man of that community, no Rosevear, Brenton or Old would dare as much. Yes, he had shown a courage such as they, if they knew of it, must secretly envy and yet... He had not been altogether brave. Though he had taken life he had been abjectly afraid. Unable to recapture the ecstasy of that anguish he looked back in shame and doubt. Unseemly terror had given shape to a black nothing and that nothing had been stronger than he. Before he could be at peace with himself he must rise above this humiliation, prove it to have been momentary, a lapse.Stiffening himself, he gazed at the door which had now swung wide, uncovering the black mouth of the passage. What a fool he had been to think that Sabina had come in search of him. And even if she had? Afraid of a dead woman? He set his teeth yet felt his heart leaping and the blood singing in his ears. Afraid? He would show—himself—that nothing, neither apparition nor invisible presence, could daunt him. Let Sabina have her will, she was only Sabina. He grasped eagerly at the new thought. Only Sabina! Not some unknown unimaginable terror, but the tame convenient Sabina with whom he had lived in domestic intimacy for so long. How could he have fancied that by dying she had become invested with horrific power? He cursed his folly; and the words that came to his tongue were big-sounding foreign words that he had already uttered once that night, words which had come to him out of the days when he had sailed with strange men in strange waters. The curses were echoed back to him out of the passage and, for a moment, the sound once more stirred his blood with the cold finger of fear. This time he only swore more loudly, and the old words, evoking the atmosphere of daredevilry with which he had been once familiar, gave him courage. Memories that lay at the back of his mind, memories of lands where human life is of less importance than that of a sheep, of dangers and adventures, recurred to him. His voice was no longer a hoarse threat. It filled the kitchen with a round full sound, dominating the seen and the unseen, stiffening him until he knew there was nothing he would not dare. He would even walk down the passage between the kitchen and the justice-room and open that green door at the end.Those roistering nights in South American cities had been a reaction from the pent life on shipboard, had been spiced with hot dangers, mad loves and sudden death; but this last adventure was one on which no man would willingly embark. Byron, with his heart cold and middle age in his limbs, would go as a man goes on direful errand. He would go because he must prove his courage, his right to take Sabina's place, to own Wastralls, to play the lover. This was his hour and, if he avoided the issue, he must admit that those—he said 'those' but he meant one only—who had held him of no account were right. Byron's outer life had for many years been eventless; but his dreams had been a shifting drama full of colour, a play enacted for one spectator, himself. Now that dissatisfied one was insisting on reality instead of dreams and, in his state of dull-reaction from the terrors of the supernatural, he was willing. He saw, however, that what was to do, should be done at once. The courage of flesh and blood is a poor thing at best and, if he stayed upon his going, likely to run out at the finger-tips.His hands, as he took a candle from the linhay shelf and lighted it, were cold. Drawing water, he braced himself by drinking great gulps of the icy fluid; and, thus invigorated, returned to the kitchen with his head up. Nor, indeed, until he reached the door did he hesitate and then it seemed to him that the room was a snug place and quite peculiarly safe. In leaving it he was courting danger, leaving himself without a wall to set his back against!The candle flame leaping in a cross-current of air, revealed the door at the end of the passage, and Byron saw with relief that it was shut. This to his mind proved the hollowness of his late fears. A spirit should be able to pass through the wood of a shut door, to slip through crack or keyhole; but the contrary is maintained by those who claim to know. Doors, they say, may be burst open, handles may turn without visible agency; but, once the bolt is shot or the key turned, the haunt must remain on the other side. That closed green door proved to Byron that the disembodied Sabina had not left her room, that his terrors had been without foundation. With his lips twisted in a contemptuous grin he stepped into the passage.His nailed boots struck the stones with a clash that echoed up the staircase. Wastralls was so resoundingly empty that the brave sound was heard whispering away in the attics, whispering as do the monuments of extinct families in the week-day quiet of a church. Step by step, for the air seemed to him of the consistency of mud, the man pushed his way. To left of him were doors, doors without significance, doors which opened upon innocent and commonplace parlours. He passed these without seeing them and came at last to the heavy door of the old justice-room.This door had a strong lock and was of stout wood. Nevertheless, it was being shaken from within and, for a moment, Byron's courage failed. Remembering the draught in which his candle had flared, however, the cold air which had poured into the kitchen, he understood. A wind was tearing at the door, a draught from some window which had been blown open. He suspected the little Gothic casement in the eastern wall, the wood of which he knew to be worm-eaten and the fastening worn. It occurred to him, that, if for no other reason, he must have come in to close that window. As he pushed open the door, the waiting wind swooped on the candle flame and left him in darkness. A noise of banging and howling assailed his ears; but the countryman, his superstitious fears held at arm's length for the nonce, recognized it. He had been right. The Gothic window, which a sun-lover had set in the three-foot wall, was open and knocking against the plaster. Byron, forcing himself to walk with deliberate steps, crossed the room and shut it. At once the old stillness fell over the place, the silence that is more alarming than any sound. Byron, his back to the window, listened but the hush was unbroken. Nothing moved, nothing even breathed. He relighted the candle and a host of shadows darted away. The room, which had been a mere cavern of the winds, showed an accustomed face, the shining features of old furniture, the outline of a monumental bed. He looked about, anxious to establish a feeling of friendly relationship. These objects, giving service for house-room, had shared the place with him. They were older than he, so old they seemed to him part of Wastralls. The familiar shapes were pleasing to him. He raised the candle but, as he did so, became vaguely aware of change. The furniture wore a new look. The faint life that dwelt behind its wooden surfaces seemed, suddenly, to have grown less remote. He felt that the pieces were watchful and no longer friendly. He had lived with them in a long peace but, on that night, a pact had been broken. They knew and from being household goods had changed to household gods, the guardians of the home. No longer fitting obscurely into their appointed places, they had an air of purpose. They seemed on the verge of movement. Byron, startled by their covert hostility, yet drew his brows together. "Pack o' nonsense for me to think like that," he muttered, and thereby sealed their doom. When he brought Gray home he would send this old stuff to the dealer and buy new furniture, light woods, mirrors, bamboo. In spite of his stout heart, however, he stepped away rather hastily from the tall-boy. It appeared, in the uncertain light, to be leaning treacherously forward, to be about to fall and, with its weight of mahogany, to crush whatever was within reach.The covert malignancy of these shining and familiar faces impressed Byron, but a man can conquer the inanimate, he can rend and smash and burn; at least he can if, aware of hostility, he were careful to strike first.With an effort, he steadied himself. Before him, vast and shadowy, the great bed of 'Old Squire' stood out from the wall and Byron turned towards it with a tread that shook the ancient floor. Sabina had taken a housewifely pride in this bed. Every spring it had been stripped of curtains and valances, of ceiling and headcloths and of padded foot-cover. These when washed had been restretched, backaching job, to retain that stiff spotlessness for a twelvemonth. Sabina had never omitted an iota of this ritual. As the bed had been handed down to her, so it should be kept. The spring cleansing and restretching were part of the mysterious rhythm of life.Beside the curtain stood that piece of mechanism which had enabled Sabina to move about the house and from which every night she swung herself into bed. On the other side was a small table on which lay a candlestick and the brown cocoa-jug.As he approached the bed, the man forgot the dim hostility by which he was surrounded, in a practical doubt. How if the poison had proved insufficient and she should open her eyes, those ice-blue eyes and ask what had brought him thither? For a moment he stood humbly at the foot of her bed. He dared not look.The candle-light fell on a quiet face, on closed eyes, on shut lips. She had said—"Good night."Sabina lay on her back, a squat figure, occupying in that great bed but a little space. The bright silk quilt had been folded neatly back over the mahogany foot and her covering was as white as the hangings. It swept in a generous curve over her breast, this breast which no longer rose and fell.The man ventured, at last, to look and his heart leapt with relief, with more than relief, with a primitive and savage joy. In the long struggle between them he had won.The rose had faded from Sabina's cheek, but her lips were curving as if over a pleasant thought. She had taken with her into the dark the hope that she and her husband might soon be reconciled, that years of concord lay before them and this sweet expectation had given her a look of unfathomable peace. The serenity of her dead face was that of the blue night, the night that is beyond the clouds of earth. She was no longer the successful farmer, the stoutest heart in Tregols, but something infinitely remote. In dying she had proved that if life is transitory and insignificant, death hides behind closed lips, an intriguing mystery. Byron, vaunting the folly of a mad moment, of a dark dream interpretated in terms of earth, became slowly conscious of it. Drop by drop, the passion of his exultation fell. This was not the workaday woman he had known, the woman whose obstinacy and unreasonableness had so angered him, but a creature spiritually changed. He could not feel that she would bear any resentment against the instrument of what was, undoubtedly, a release. Life had chained and prevented her, now she was free and he no longer counted with her in any way. She was afar off. Human interests had dwindled to the humming of a hive and he, whom she had cherished, was become one among many. The conviction of this was not only humbling, it brought a sense of loss. The place where he had been wont to sit at ease had been shut against him and the door locked and bolted. He was outside and unimportant and forgotten.The last dregs of his excitement ran out leaving him with a sense of emptiness. Sabina was dead and death had raised a barrier between them which should have given him a sense of security. But from such a one as the woman, folded in ineffable peace, who lay before him, was no need of escape. This Sabina was a development of the other, the generous large-souled creature for whom the mean and the sordid had no existence. Byron had come to face Sabina and prove himself the stronger, but he stood before her like a child that had lost its way. For some minutes he waited in desolate silence, his heart sinking, his sense of inexorable loss growing more poignant. Sabina was dead, she had set out upon a journey from which she was never to return and he was left. The great chest heaved suddenly and a sob burst from him. Stumbling, and with the hardly wept tears of manhood rolling over his cheeks, he turned away. The door slammed behind him as he made for the shallow stairs that led to his room. Once in his refuge he flung himself on the bed, muffling his tempestuous weeping in the pillow—as he had done, when, as a boy, he had fled the fatherly corrections of the elder Leadville.On the morrow he would awaken to the old life of narrow interests and lusts and scheming; but that night he mourned with exceeding grief, mourned that golden bowl which had been his and which he had cast down and broken. The bed shook under his sobs and the little hours before the dawn scurried up, dragging after them a new and reluctant day. Byron was a weary man, overwrought both in body and mind; and by degrees the noisy gulps, the long shudders, the groans grew less frequent. He sank into broken sleep, started from it with a catch of the breath and a sudden desolate cry, but fell back again. His slumbers deepened until he lay quiescent, his heavy frame thrown across the bed, his arms outstretched. At intervals a quiver passed over his body, but he had drifted out upon quiet seas and was—poor miserable wight—at rest.CHAPTER XVIIn the bright moonlight Mrs. Tom stood at her garden gate to watch Mrs. Constantine Rosevear—or Mrs. Conny, as she was called—walk up the road. A big strong woman was Bessie Rosevear but full of nervous fears; and she had professed herself unable to go back to the mill unless some one 'put 'er 'ome.' The revelry of the evening, though sober and moderate, had carried the party into the small hours. Tom had gone off to bed and it fell, therefore, to one of the five maidens to accompany her aunt."Aw poor sawl, I'm pretty and sorry for 'er bein' so nervous," thought Mrs. Tom, making kindly allowance. "One of 'er boys should 'av come down to put 'er 'ome. They are always rangin' about in the evenings after the maidens, but any'ow Richbell was glad of a mouthful of fresh air."The breath of the night, though tempered by the sea, was cool and she had thrown round her an old blue cloak lined with home-cured skins. They crackled slightly as she leaned against the low stone wall, thinking the warm and wandering thoughts of motherhood.The voices of aunt and niece were blown back to her on that cool breath. Bessie was a slatternly creature and her house the untidiest in the parish, but she had bred tall sons, sons who, as long as she fed them well, seemed indifferent to the discomfort of their home. Mrs. Tom, listening contentedly to Richbell's voice with its clear laugh, found her thoughts straying from the handsome creature whose fortune was to seek to that one of the brood whose choice was made. As the mother of 'a long tail,' she was well pleased her eldest should be marrying so early and so well. Jim's 'auntie' would leave him what she had, 'while, whatever happened to Wastralls, S'bina would see they didn't want for nothing while she was livin'. The young couple would have every chance of gettin' on in the world; and the mother who had been a fish-seller's daughter, living from hand to mouth, took stock of their future with a grateful heart. She had done well for herself and Gray, 'with a good-livin' 'ard-workin' feller like Jim, might do even better.' She hoped the other maidens would follow their sister's example; but with the hope, a doubt, a doubt of Richbell, threaded itself darkly through the loose gold of her meditations. Richbell, the pretty madcap, was just the one to leap before she looked and, of the lads who wanted her, to take the least promising. Mrs. Tom shook her own still pretty head. The world would be a happier, more comfortable place, if parents had the arranging of their children's future, at least in matrimony.From where she stood, a stretch of bright water was visible. The sea was calling in a hoarse undertone, a sort of thunderous roar which yet did not deaden other sounds and, looking down, Mrs. Tom's glance rested on the courts and outhouses of Wastralls. If Sabina had her way, Gray and her young husband would live there. Again the wise woman shook her head. 'Leadville might prove a snake in the grass. S'bina was a good sort but she wasn't sensible. If she 'ad been she would 'av left the farmin' to 'er man.' Mrs. Tom was sorry for Leadville 'mumpin' round like an ole dog and 'e wi' the finest farm in the valley and just longin' to put 'is strength into the workin' of it. A woman's place was in the house, making the butter and feeding the fowls and no good ever came of she takin' on a man's work. 'Twas bad for both of 'em and worse'n ever now she'd lost her laigs, poor sawl. It must make the man feel mad, 'er 'oldin' to the reins when 'e ought to 'av 'em!' Mrs. Tom, her time fully occupied with housewifely and maternal duties, could see the mistakes her neighbours were making and the proper remedy; but, as she could not hope to alter circumstances which had made those mistakes inevitable, she preserved the indulgent kindliness of her attitude.The wind, sweeping round by the gate, made her fold herself more closely in the blue cloak. She thought of Gray in her new happiness and shivered a little as if conscious of a creeping chill. Her work was pretty near done. One by one each little bird would spread its young wings and fly away until, in the end, only the empty nest would remain to her. She would have been glad if Tom, sleeping deeply, had been at hand with his comfortable "Well, mother, tired be 'ee? Take and come on in and talk to me a bit."The moonlight revealed the empty stretch of road, the sharp shadows of the hedges and, at the top, the rounded tower of the mill. A patch of moving blackness could presently be descried. Through the windy stir came the light patter of running feet and, in a minute, Richbell, breathless and gay, almost fell into her mother's arms."Now, Wild-e-go, where you gwine in such a hurry?" protested Mrs. Tom."Oh, mammy, I dunno. I'm so delighted I dunno what to do wi' meself.""Av 'ee enjoyed yourself this evening then?""Ah, I should think I had!" With two lads glowering at each other across the harmonium, Richbell had been entirely happy."You'm a proper flirt.""I can't help it. I don't ask the boys to come."The mother passed a rough hand over the girl's curly mop. She was proud of Richbell's ''ead of 'air,' bronze hair with warm lights. "Did I hear you sayin' you was goin' to Percy 'Olman's place to tea?""Well, I'd nothing to do to keep me home.""I'd sooner it was Will Brenton.""Well, mammy, if I don't like him, what's the good for you to talk?"Mrs. Rosevear sighed, for Will was heir to a good farm while Percy was a sailor, dependent for his prospects on an uncle who had other nephews. "My dear, you can't live with the man alone, you must 'av something to live on.""I don't care. If I don't have grand things I must have others.""As you make your bed, my dear, so you must lie. I 'ad to fight my way in the world and so must you, that's all; but—Will Brenton's a steady decent chap.""Well, so he is, but I don't want to get married yet. Half the young girls that's married now, don't see no young life but I mean to."Mrs. Tom was not to be turned from the point she was making. "An' Percy's always after the maidens."Richbell laughed. She knew her power over the lads.Mrs. Tom understood the laugh. "'E bain't always 'ome," she said, answering its young complacency. "Percy's a sailor and they say sailors 'av a wife in every port."But Richbell's self-confidence was not to be shaken. "Oh, it's only a bit of chaff. Why, mammy, I like a bit of chaff myself.""Yes, but you'll find, my dear, that what's good for the goose bain't always good for the gander. Maidens see a thing one way and wives another."But the girl was not one to take advice. "I shall only be young once," she said, "and I shall travel me own road. You talk about me, didn't you have chaps after you? You haven't got the first man you went with, have you?"She had carried the war into the enemy's country. From sage maturity Mrs. Tom fell back a score of years, fell back to the days when she too must make her choice."Did you now, mammy?" insisted the girl."My dear," Mrs. Tom was groping for her mislaid dignity, "your father was my first sweetheart!""Well, then," youth had caught a word here and a glance there, enough lime for her mortar, "well, then, he wasn't always your sweetheart.""I was to Plymouth in service and he was 'ere. We didn't care for letter-writin'.""Who was that chap in Plymouth, then?"Mrs. Tom gave way. "Oh, a sailor, like they all are. 'E've done very well for 'isself. 'E's a captain now.""Mammy!" Out of two hints Richbell had evolved a fact. "'Twasn't that man that left the impudent message for daddy last summer, was it?""Take and 'old yer tongue, do!" But recollection had lighted Mrs. Tom's eyes with laughter."Well, was it?""Iss. 'E said, 'Is ole Tom livin' yet? I'm waitin' for 'e to die. I want 'is shoes.'""He isn't married yet?""'E say 'e's waitin' for me.""Why didn't you have him?""Because I liked your father best." Remembering the lesson she had been trying to inculcate, she added more soberly, "'E 'ad the promise of a good farm.""That had nothing to do with it," said youth shrewdly. "You liked him.""Well, I did." And she continued happily, "I 'eard 'e was goin' wi' Nina Old and I came 'ome to see.""And was he?""I run right against them up to Four Turnin's and I gived 'im a look.""I know," laughed Richbell delightedly. "I know how you looked.""'An 'e lifted 'is 'at to me." She paused meditatively. "'Good evening,' he says and come straight over to me.""Left her?""There and then.""Iss, mammy?""We was married in a month from that day; but come, my dear, 'tis blowin' up for a storm and we better go in now. You got to go down to Wastralls early to-morrow mornin'."They glanced along the road and, from Hember standing boldly out from the hillside, it was as if Wastralls lay in a hollow."Why," said Richbell, with suddenly awakened interest, "look, mammy, some one's still up down there. There's a light in the kitchen window.""'Tis late, too."The girl shivered and drew nearer to her mother. "I expect it's Uncle Leadville cleaning that old gun of his. I can't abide to see him rubbing away at it. That's all he do, all day long.""Poor old sawl, that's all 'e 'av got to do.""Mammy," her voice had lost its gaiety and self-confidence. She was a young creature, obscurely frightened. "I wish I wasn't going down there."Mrs. Tom spoke sharply. "Why? 'Av Gray been talkin' to yer?""No, Gray's close as anything, but what is it?""Oh, my dear, 'tis nothing but 'er fancy. There, go along, I bain't going to tell 'ee.""I don't need for Gray to tell me Wastralls is a whisht old house for young maidens.""My dear," said Mrs. Tom reasonably, "you'll be able to run 'ome any time to see us and yer auntie is goin' to give yer twenty pound; good money, 'edn't it?""Iss, well, I know that's all right," returned Richbell soberly. Sabina's open-handedness had put many a pleasure in her way, nevertheless instinct warned her against the place and she was Mrs. Tom's own child."Well, why don't you like goin' there?""I don't feel I like," she hesitated, lowering her voice, "I don't feel I like Uncle Leadville.""There's no 'arm in 'im," encouraged the mother, "although 'e do look downy. Any'ow 'e's nothing to do with you. You'll be with yer auntie.""Iss." The girl could not put into words her feeling that Leadville being fundamentally different from the easy-going folk among whom she had hitherto lived was vaguely alarming. "Well, he never look yer straight in the face.""My dear, that's the way of'n. 'E 'edn't goin' to take no notice of you.""Mammy!" She put her young arms round her mother's neck, so proving herself the taller by a couple of inches, "I wish you would go down with me to-morrow morning—I don't feel I like goin' by myself."Who could resist Richbell, when Richbell changed from gay defiance to entreaty? Not Mrs. Tom! "Well, I'll go down with you. I shall be able to see your auntie the same time. I'll light up the fire before I go and the kettle'll be boiling by the time I get back. Come, my dear," she turned and walked up the trim path of sea-gravel edged with quartz, "let's be goin' in, else we shan't get up early in the mornin'."December dawns are late and though, as Mrs. Tom had feared, the tired family slept until after cockcrow, morning had not broken when she and Richbell hurried down between the tamarisks, silver-grey with frost, and in at the yard gate of Wastralls. George Biddick, crossing from the shed to the stables nodded a greeting, but otherwise the yard was deserted.Mrs. Tom called after him. "Pretty rough wind last night.""Iss," he said with a gesture towards the roof. "I see it's blawed off one of the tiles and broke a pane of glass.""You won't be able to get it mended now till after Christmas," said Mrs. Tom sympathetically. She pressed her face against the window, peering in. "No one up yet?""Well, they didn't go to bed till late last night," Richbell reminded her."Dessay they've overslept theirself!" Mrs. Tom took the door key from under a stone where Sabina had hidden it in readiness. During the night, with one of the rapid changes to which that coast is liable, the wind had dropped. Frost had stilled the thousand voices of the earth and, in the house, doors hung without creak or movement and the chimneys were hushed. As she crossed the threshold Mrs. Tom shivered."'Tis a whisht old place," she said, "and cold."Her voice came back to her, echoed from the passage. "Cold!""There always seems some one in the passage," she said whimsically, "some one who wants to talk and can only say what we do say."Richbell tried the echo. "Mammy!" she said and "Mammy" was whispered back to her.Mrs. Tom hung her cloak behind the door and turned upon the world a business face. "Here's the matches," she said, taking them from the mantelshelf, "and you'll find a candle in the linhay there. Now light up the fire quick and make a cup of tea and I'll run in and see if yer auntie's awake."Exaggerating the companionable sound of her steps, she went down the passage. So dark was it that she guided herself with a hand to the wall, finding thus the stairs, the turning that led into the other part of the house and, eventually, the door of the justice-room. At this she knocked.Receiving no answer she hesitated for a moment and then knocked again. "She's sleepin' well this mornin'," she told herself. "I believe she was fair beat yesterday with all that bread-makin' and Leadville so teasy; funny, though, 'at I can't make 'er 'ear."She rattled cheerfully at the handle and, under her preoccupation with Sabina, was the feeling that Hember chambers were full of light and sound and that presently she would return to them. Never had she felt so strongly the brooding oppression of the old house."S'bina! S'bina!" she called and pushed open the door. "Pretty time o' day this to be in sleepin'," and her voice, dauntingly loud, filled the room. For a moment she stood to listen. Another voice should have answered her, should have come to her, reassuringly, out of the gloom."How be gettin' on, S'bina?" she faltered. From down the passage came sounds of human nearness: Richbell was moving about in the kitchen and the fact that the girl depended on her for direction stiffened the other's courage. Pulling herself together she crossed the threshold. Once in the room, however, and she was momentarily at a loss. As day still lingered below the eastern hills, to pull the dimity curtains apart would not further matters. Her hand went to the pocket of her white apron and, in a loud, would-be-cheerful tone, she went on talking the while she struck a match. "You always seem to be able to sleep towards the mornin', don't 'ee? Iss, and we've overslept ourself this mornin'; well, we couldn't expect any other after yesterday. 'Twas a lot to think about if not much to do. I've brought Richbell down this morning. She didn't care to come by 'erself so I told 'er I'd come with 'er; and, while she was makin' your cup of tea, I thought I'd come and 'av a little chat and tell yer 'ow we got on last night."She had been in the justice-room many a time, had sat gossiping with Sabina while she rested, had listened to her complaints of the ache in those legs which were no longer there; but, in spite of the familiarity of the place, as she reached for the candle, her chatter ceased for very fear. If only the wick would catch, but it was tallow, thick and slow to ignite. Before the flame was more than a blue glimmer she was holding it up and peering below it at the bed, gazing with a premonition of what she would find. As she said afterwards, "I thought what I should see."Nevertheless, though instinct had warned her, she was unprepared. "Oh, my dear sawl she's gone!" she cried and, with confirmation, her fear passed."S'bina! S'bina!" she cried, the tears starting. "Speak to me! It can't be true!" Laying her hand upon the brow she felt the unmistakable chill of death. "'Owever on earth did it 'appen?"The sounds of Mrs. Tom's grief reached Richbell as she put a match to the heap of tamarisk twigs with which she had filled the grate. She sat back on her heels in amazed suspense. What ailed her mother? To hear her give way openly to emotion was unknown to her sixteen years. Trembling she ran out down the passage."Whatever is the matter with you, mammy?"Mrs. Tom was clinging to the green post at the foot of the stairs. Leaning her face on its square top she was weeping for her friend. Next to husband and children Sabina had been dearest. The bond had seemed unbreakable, a thing to trust in, until for her, too, the evening should darken into night."Oh, my dear, your poor auntie's gone."The girl's eyes, which had been merely questioning, filled with terror. To discover that in the midst of life we are in death, shakes the confidence of youth. With a little cry she crept into her mother's arms and her tears, the easy tears of girlhood, ran over her round checks and mingled with those of the older woman.The needs of the occasion were grim and, after the first burst of grief, Mrs. Tom pulled herself together and, wiping her eyes on her apron, sent a call up the wide stair, a call, which echoing through the empty chambers and down the passages found Byron in his heavy sleep, a call which brought him back to consciousness."Leadville! Leadville!"Who was crying in that lamentable voice? He sat up, rubbing the sleep out of inflamed eyes. Who was calling to him so dolefully out of the darkness of the lower rooms? Not Sabina?"What is it? I'm comin'," he answered in his rough bass but he did not move. The shadow of grief, rising from below had fallen on him and he was reluctant. Out of the torpor of exhaustion he had brought a bemused mind; and, though disaster threatened, he was not yet aware of the form which it must take. Sitting on the edge of the bed and staring at his knees, it dawned on him that he was still in his workaday clothes. This surprised him and further stamped the morning as unusual."Leadville! Leadville!" cried the voice and he found its unhappiness irritating. "Are 'ee dead up there, too?""Dead? No. Can't 'ee wait a minute, man must dress."He had slept on the outside of the bed and, though the yielding feathers marked where he had lain, the clothes were undisturbed. He knew, though without as yet understanding why, that he must be careful. Everything must be as usual. Hastily pulling the clothes from the bed he threw the room into disorder.He had taken off his boots and his feet in their grey woollen wear fell noiselessly on the drugget. Upon the group at the foot of the stairs he came unexpectedly and, so coming, waited for a moment in fear and trembling. Mrs. Tom, lifting her voice to send yet another summons echoing aloft, presently caught sight of him. In the justice-room a dim light showed. She did not speak but pointed over her shoulder."Well," he quavered, aware of the dim light, "whatever's all this fuss about?""I dunno' ow to tell yer," returned Mrs. Tom. "'Tis awful thing. Poor S'bina's gone.""Gone?" His voice rang out full of incredulity and, pushing past, he walked quickly into the bedroom. "What d'yer mean?"The man's concern, if not his surprise, was genuine. Sabina's death assured, he could think of her as a tried and loyal comrade, dwell on her many virtues, mourn her as, whatever her shortcomings, she had deserved. Memories, kind and gay and casual, crowded into his mind. Though he might be glad that she was gone, he would miss her. Mrs. Tom, jealous for her friend and, with the accumulated knowledge of years to breed suspicion, weighed his words and considered his manner. Bitterly would she resent any failure on his part to render unto Sabina the conventional marks of grief. But Leadville did more. He showed real feeling, a sorrow that was unmistakably sincere.She followed him into the dead woman's presence and together they went up to the bed. As the man, stooping towards Sabina, gathered the meaning of her immobility, of her sculptured calm, his voice rang out in a cry of grief and longing, a cry which lightened Mrs. Tom's heart of its suspicion."S'bina! Oh, my dear, speak to me. Whatever shall I do, whatever shall I do without yer?" He turned with an appeal to the other's womanly knowledge. "Be yer sure she's gone? Titch 'er 'ands and see whether they'm cold or not."Mrs. Tom laid her hand on fingers already growing rigid. "Iss, my dear, she's gone right enough, I'm afraid."He covered his face, breaking suddenly into gulping and ugly grief. The last doubt that had harboured in Mrs. Tom's mind blew out to sea. After all, Leadville 'wasn't a bad feller, 'e 'ad 'is feelin's!'"Terrible job to be took away like this," he gasped after a few minutes, "and she all by 'erself too.""Aw, poor sawl, iss," agreed Mrs. Tom, "but she's lookin' 'appy and peaceful. I believe she must 'ave died in 'er sleep and didn't know nothin' about it."Leadville looked at her anxiously and his heart was in the question: "You don't think she suffered any pain, do you?""Why, look at 'er. You can see she didn't. If she 'ad suffered 'er face 'ud 'av been quite drawn. But there she is, lookin' so peaceful as a lamb." Her tears flowed again. "We shall all miss her. She was a good sawl.""I dunno whatever I shall do without 'er.""My dear life, 'tis nothing but right you should feel it so.""Well, nobody knew what a good wife she's been to me. I 'adn't 'ad a penny to bless myself when she married me, but since then I 'aven't wanted for nothing. Never an angry word between us.""Poor sawl, too.""'Twas 'ard on the missis losin' 'er laigs but after that she never complained. She made the best of everything."From the world beyond the justice-room, the world of living people and the everyday, came sounds of movement. Richbell, left in the passage, had returned to the kitchen and, once there, had mechanically resumed her work. Come life, come death, breakfast must be prepared."Come out now," said Mrs. Tom, the odour of 'fry' being wafted to her nostrils, "and 'av a bit of breakfast, Leadville. I'm sure you'll be wantin' it."The man shook his head. "I don't feel I want any. I'd rather go out on the cliff by myself. Tidn't like she's dead to me and I must get used to it." He followed Mrs. Tom out of the room but his eyes were so dim he stumbled as he went."Well, she's dead right enough. 'Ow it 'appened I dunno. She seemed quite all right yesterday. She might 'av been a bit tired but what was that? I'm afraid," she looked at him thoughtfully, "I'm afraid, as she died suddint, we shall 'av to 'av an inquest."Byron was on his way to the porch but at the word 'inquest' he stopped and, though Mrs. Tom dismissed the thought indignantly, her heart had said to her, "'E don't want no inquest.""What do we want an inquest for, after doctor been tendin' 'er so long?""Did doctor say that she might die off quick like this?""'E was 'ere yesterday and seen 'er." Leadville was trying to remember. "I can't call to mind 'zactly what 'e said but 'e didn't give me a word of encouragement.""'E knaw better than we do," said Mrs. Tom, musingly. "Did S'bina seem poorly after I went 'ome last night?"Leadville constrained himself to answer as if the elucidation of the mystery were of as much moment to him as to her. "I don't think I took much notice of 'er but she wadn't very special. After you went she got the supper and, as soon as she'd eat it, went off to bed."Mrs. Tom nodded with, however, an irrepressible doubt. "Wonder what made 'er go so early?""I dunno I'm sure." He spoke without considering whether what he asserted was in accordance with the facts. Mrs. Tom's questions were irritating him, they were like the buzz of flies on a hot day. "I didn't stay up very late. In fact we was both to bed by ten."Mrs. Tom was careful not to look at him. She and Richbell, standing at their gate in the small hours, had seen a light in Wastralls. If the Byrons were abed who then was up? Perhaps Sabina, feeling unwell, had gone in search of a remedy. That was possible, of course, indeed quite likely. Not until later did Mrs. Tom remember that the light had been stationary. If Sabina had been seeking medicine or a hot-water bottle she would have been carrying a candle."Well, there's a lot of things to be done," she said, non-committally. "Can you tend to 'em?"He shook his heavy shoulders, as if he would have shaken off something unwelcome. He would like to have told her he had not slept much the previous night but that was out of the question. "Oh well, you must leave me go out and think it over first," he said, making for the door, "I'll tell yer when I come back."Death in a household, particularly sudden death, brings a rush of work. Mrs. Tom, realizing that the brunt of this must fall on her, as the wife of Sabina's nearest relative, was thankful to see that Richbell had made the tea and fried some bacon. She drew her chair to the table and sat down, sat down with the quick lamentable thought that here Sabina would never sit again. The thought flashed up into poignancy and passed. She must not think of it now, for there was work to be done."Now, my dear," she said, when they had eaten and the little breathing-space, between the knowledge of calamity and the girding up of loins, was at an end, "Now, my dear, you must go 'ome. 'Tis no place for you 'ere.""Iss, mammy." The lively self-assertive girl was become pliant to her mother's hand.Mrs. Tom made her dispositions. "'Tis a pity that Gray went to Gentle Jane, but Leonora must run over and bring 'er back—better be all together now. After you've gived the children their breakfast, Rhoda better run up to Cottages and ask Mrs. Bate to come down and set your auntie forth; and tell Aunt Louisa Blewett to come down and bring 'er machine with 'er to do the mournin's. Let Loveday go to St. Cadic and tell your Aunt Bessie to come down to 'elp us; and now I'll go and get the room straight.""Is there anything else you'd like for me to do?" Richbell spoke in tones so subdued they hardly rose above a whisper."You can take my black things out of the box and ask your father to bring 'em down and if there's anything else I want, when 'e comes back 'e'll tell yer.""Aren't you coming home?" Hember without mother would be unspeakably dreary.The girl's tone, resigned yet unhappy, touched Mrs. Tom's heart. For a moment practical matters were put aside. "Now you mustn't go worryin' yerself," she said, her glance warm and motherly. "Yer auntie's 'ad a 'ard struggle, so it's a 'appy release she's gone. She's taken out of a world of trouble.""Well, mammy, I can't help grievin'," protested the girl, her tears rising. "It seems so sudden.""'Twas one good thing she died off in her sleep and didn't know nothing about it. It's our loss but her gain.""But mammy, I think 'tis awful to be dead. Makes me creep.""Dead? You mustn't think she's dead. I feel she's livin'. She's up there tellin' them everything about we down 'ere. She's 'appy and busy. No more tears. She've 'ad 'er share."The girl was only anxious to be comforted. "Well, if that's what's she's doing, we didn't ought to grieve, we ought to be glad she's gone." Her little face lost its pinched expression and she moved more briskly. Nevertheless when, the breakfast dishes being cleared away, she was free to go, she went as if glad to leave this house to which she had come so unwillingly and which had at once proved itself the 'whisht' place of her imagination.As she went up the road she looked back once or twice and each time she quickened her steps. The promise of dawn was brightening the east and in the bay some big sooty-plumaged birds could be dimly discerned, their web-feet set firmly on the very edge of the tide. A light was twinkling in the many panes of Wastralls kitchen, tiny glimmers that, affecting only the one spot, made the sombre outlines more darkly impressive. A part of the haunted night, what had happened there so lately gave it to the young girl's imagination an extra touch of gloom. With a quick shudder she set her face towards the lights of home.
CHAPTER XV
Behind the hurrying clouds the moon had risen into a clear space of sky and now hung low, her chill yet faithful breast towards her mate. The light fell on the yard of Wastralls, on the still pond in the corner and the geese sleeping beside it, on the irregular outline of the houses and courts, and on the windows of the farmstead.
At one corner a little casement, that looked towards the morning sun, was swinging open, its white curtain flowing in the stream of air; and on the porch, through the black aperture of a broken pane, the light poured over winter-nipped geraniums. It poured too, through the diamonds of the kitchen window and lay in bright squares on table and floor. The ill-fed lamp, expiring in the sudden draught from the porch, had tainted the air and time had drawn over the face of the fire a veil of ash.
What looked like a heap of rags had been flung across the desecrated hearth. It lay beyond the square of moonlight and below the faint glow of the smouldering logs and, but for its density, might have been a companion shadow to those whispering in the corners of the wide low room.
With a clash of metal upon metal a door swung to, failed to catch and banged again. The huddle of clothes, as if recalled to life by the broken irritating sounds moved a little, and presently dragged itself with evident difficulty into a sitting posture. Byron, falling across the fender, had bruised himself against the steel edge; and he came out of nothingness into dull but growing discomfort. His shoulder, having struck the boss of the oven door, pained him; his head, having hit the stone floor, ached. What had happened? How had he hurt himself? Why was he lying on the kitchen floor? His heavy head swung round till his gaze was caught by the fitful movement of the door. He knitted his dark brows but the memories connected with it escaped him. A current of air was passing through some open window into Wastralls and, in obedience to its impulse, the door was swinging. The man's mind, alive to the practical, went from window to window on the ground-floor, until it found the one of which the fastening was insecure. He settled on it with a feeling of satisfaction and, making a further effort, dragged himself to his feet.
In spite of the low fire and the thin current of wintry air flowing in from the passage, the atmosphere of the kitchen was warm and pleasant. The moonlight made the few pieces of furniture, the high glazed china cupboard, the press, the tables, dimly visible. Byron, his hand to an aching back, was conscious of the homely comfortable nature of his surroundings.
He had forgotten the extremity of terror out of which he had slipped into a merciful unconsciousness, but he was still confused, still sore and, in the familiar aspect of the room, he found a certain solace. This was his home, his place, his for as long as he should live. He had a feeling that something had happened which made the place more indubitably, absolutely, his, than hitherto and, balancing himself first on one foot then on the other, he stared about him, heavily content. The thick walls, the many-paned windows, the plain familiar black of the rafters and white-wash of the walls! His! His till the end of time! He smiled to himself and the smile on that haggard, blood-stained face, was that of a child who after long waiting has been given the plaything it desires.
The arms of the big chair wooed him to comfort, but out of the void Byron had brought the conviction that his work was not yet finished. In a dull bemused way, the way of a man conscious of little but physical weariness, he pondered the effort which was required of him. What was it he had to do, before he could slouch away to bed?
His glance swung from side to side, questioning the friendly faces of the furniture, pausing eventually on the still swinging door. That door, yes. He considered its dark oblong and shining handle. The round brass knob, bright in the general dimness, a tiny moon against the blackness of the door, drew him; yet, deep in himself, was a stiff reluctance. He groped in the confusion of his mind for understanding, until suddenly, like an Icelandic geyser, memory tore its way out.
He remembered! They—a vague they of several personalities—had goaded him to desperation. He saw himself crossing a room, taking a bottle out of the cupboard, pouring the contents into a jug. One moment he had been innocent of this tremendous act, in the next it was accomplished. He stood amazed at this new vision of himself, the doer of deeds. The lack of hesitation, the steadiness, the decision surprised him. He had not known of what he was capable and, for a moment, he was wholly pleased.
Further recollections showed a falling off. He had become gradually conscious of guilt, he had grovelled in superstitious terror. Guilt? He shook his head, like a dog shaking drops of water from its coat. A man may do what he can. His deeds are between him and his soul; and the fear of punishment is a survival from the times when he was subservient to the will of another. Whatever the quality of a man's deeds, the doing of them proves him. Byron, his back to the dying fire, his dark head rising above the mantelshelf, drew himself up. He had been humiliated and he resented it. Living by faith, he had long cherished the difficult belief that of the two personalities, his and Sabina's, his was the stronger. True, he had wasted his energies in a daydream while she ordered their lives; but he had known that this must come to an end and, behold, when the crucial moment arrived, he had played a man's part. If she were able to see the past in true perspective she must acknowledge the provocation given; must see that he had been driven, that no other course was open to him. A longer endurance on his part would have been weakness and would have justified her in withholding the land. She must, at long last, see how wrongly she had acted.
If, on the contrary, she were to resent his snatching from her that poor fag-end of life, if she were incapable to seeing his point of view, if in unsaintly rancour she decided to haunt her old home, he decided that he would not care. A spirit hand cannot strike, nor a ghostly whisper vex. She might wander through Wastralls, wail in the keyholes and the chimneys, but it should make no difference. She would be but a fancy of the dusk, a shade flitting from room to room, a presence. If Gray became conscious of it, she would only voice a regret which had already lost its poignancy. Sabina could not interfere with their possession of her house and property. She might 'walk' but, as he did not believe she could divulge the secret of her death, 'walk' she might.
Moreover, if she haunted Wastralls, it would only be to see come to pass what she least desired. Another would farm the land, another take her place indoors. For her to haunt them would only bring her additional pain. She, not they, would suffer. Byron laughed hoarsely, for by killing her he had indeed avenged her treatment of him; but, in that contented laughter, was still a note of surprise. He had known that he could act with decision, yet was surprised to find that he had done so. A thin wave of self-gratulation flowed over his weary mind. He had justified himself; yet—had he—altogether?
A man is not looked on as a 'foreigner' by his neighbours without knowing and resenting it. Only by an assumption of superiority can he equalize matters. For many years Byron had been contemptuous of the opinions held by the community. At last his contempt had found concrete expression. He had dared and he knew that no man of that community, no Rosevear, Brenton or Old would dare as much. Yes, he had shown a courage such as they, if they knew of it, must secretly envy and yet... He had not been altogether brave. Though he had taken life he had been abjectly afraid. Unable to recapture the ecstasy of that anguish he looked back in shame and doubt. Unseemly terror had given shape to a black nothing and that nothing had been stronger than he. Before he could be at peace with himself he must rise above this humiliation, prove it to have been momentary, a lapse.
Stiffening himself, he gazed at the door which had now swung wide, uncovering the black mouth of the passage. What a fool he had been to think that Sabina had come in search of him. And even if she had? Afraid of a dead woman? He set his teeth yet felt his heart leaping and the blood singing in his ears. Afraid? He would show—himself—that nothing, neither apparition nor invisible presence, could daunt him. Let Sabina have her will, she was only Sabina. He grasped eagerly at the new thought. Only Sabina! Not some unknown unimaginable terror, but the tame convenient Sabina with whom he had lived in domestic intimacy for so long. How could he have fancied that by dying she had become invested with horrific power? He cursed his folly; and the words that came to his tongue were big-sounding foreign words that he had already uttered once that night, words which had come to him out of the days when he had sailed with strange men in strange waters. The curses were echoed back to him out of the passage and, for a moment, the sound once more stirred his blood with the cold finger of fear. This time he only swore more loudly, and the old words, evoking the atmosphere of daredevilry with which he had been once familiar, gave him courage. Memories that lay at the back of his mind, memories of lands where human life is of less importance than that of a sheep, of dangers and adventures, recurred to him. His voice was no longer a hoarse threat. It filled the kitchen with a round full sound, dominating the seen and the unseen, stiffening him until he knew there was nothing he would not dare. He would even walk down the passage between the kitchen and the justice-room and open that green door at the end.
Those roistering nights in South American cities had been a reaction from the pent life on shipboard, had been spiced with hot dangers, mad loves and sudden death; but this last adventure was one on which no man would willingly embark. Byron, with his heart cold and middle age in his limbs, would go as a man goes on direful errand. He would go because he must prove his courage, his right to take Sabina's place, to own Wastralls, to play the lover. This was his hour and, if he avoided the issue, he must admit that those—he said 'those' but he meant one only—who had held him of no account were right. Byron's outer life had for many years been eventless; but his dreams had been a shifting drama full of colour, a play enacted for one spectator, himself. Now that dissatisfied one was insisting on reality instead of dreams and, in his state of dull-reaction from the terrors of the supernatural, he was willing. He saw, however, that what was to do, should be done at once. The courage of flesh and blood is a poor thing at best and, if he stayed upon his going, likely to run out at the finger-tips.
His hands, as he took a candle from the linhay shelf and lighted it, were cold. Drawing water, he braced himself by drinking great gulps of the icy fluid; and, thus invigorated, returned to the kitchen with his head up. Nor, indeed, until he reached the door did he hesitate and then it seemed to him that the room was a snug place and quite peculiarly safe. In leaving it he was courting danger, leaving himself without a wall to set his back against!
The candle flame leaping in a cross-current of air, revealed the door at the end of the passage, and Byron saw with relief that it was shut. This to his mind proved the hollowness of his late fears. A spirit should be able to pass through the wood of a shut door, to slip through crack or keyhole; but the contrary is maintained by those who claim to know. Doors, they say, may be burst open, handles may turn without visible agency; but, once the bolt is shot or the key turned, the haunt must remain on the other side. That closed green door proved to Byron that the disembodied Sabina had not left her room, that his terrors had been without foundation. With his lips twisted in a contemptuous grin he stepped into the passage.
His nailed boots struck the stones with a clash that echoed up the staircase. Wastralls was so resoundingly empty that the brave sound was heard whispering away in the attics, whispering as do the monuments of extinct families in the week-day quiet of a church. Step by step, for the air seemed to him of the consistency of mud, the man pushed his way. To left of him were doors, doors without significance, doors which opened upon innocent and commonplace parlours. He passed these without seeing them and came at last to the heavy door of the old justice-room.
This door had a strong lock and was of stout wood. Nevertheless, it was being shaken from within and, for a moment, Byron's courage failed. Remembering the draught in which his candle had flared, however, the cold air which had poured into the kitchen, he understood. A wind was tearing at the door, a draught from some window which had been blown open. He suspected the little Gothic casement in the eastern wall, the wood of which he knew to be worm-eaten and the fastening worn. It occurred to him, that, if for no other reason, he must have come in to close that window. As he pushed open the door, the waiting wind swooped on the candle flame and left him in darkness. A noise of banging and howling assailed his ears; but the countryman, his superstitious fears held at arm's length for the nonce, recognized it. He had been right. The Gothic window, which a sun-lover had set in the three-foot wall, was open and knocking against the plaster. Byron, forcing himself to walk with deliberate steps, crossed the room and shut it. At once the old stillness fell over the place, the silence that is more alarming than any sound. Byron, his back to the window, listened but the hush was unbroken. Nothing moved, nothing even breathed. He relighted the candle and a host of shadows darted away. The room, which had been a mere cavern of the winds, showed an accustomed face, the shining features of old furniture, the outline of a monumental bed. He looked about, anxious to establish a feeling of friendly relationship. These objects, giving service for house-room, had shared the place with him. They were older than he, so old they seemed to him part of Wastralls. The familiar shapes were pleasing to him. He raised the candle but, as he did so, became vaguely aware of change. The furniture wore a new look. The faint life that dwelt behind its wooden surfaces seemed, suddenly, to have grown less remote. He felt that the pieces were watchful and no longer friendly. He had lived with them in a long peace but, on that night, a pact had been broken. They knew and from being household goods had changed to household gods, the guardians of the home. No longer fitting obscurely into their appointed places, they had an air of purpose. They seemed on the verge of movement. Byron, startled by their covert hostility, yet drew his brows together. "Pack o' nonsense for me to think like that," he muttered, and thereby sealed their doom. When he brought Gray home he would send this old stuff to the dealer and buy new furniture, light woods, mirrors, bamboo. In spite of his stout heart, however, he stepped away rather hastily from the tall-boy. It appeared, in the uncertain light, to be leaning treacherously forward, to be about to fall and, with its weight of mahogany, to crush whatever was within reach.
The covert malignancy of these shining and familiar faces impressed Byron, but a man can conquer the inanimate, he can rend and smash and burn; at least he can if, aware of hostility, he were careful to strike first.
With an effort, he steadied himself. Before him, vast and shadowy, the great bed of 'Old Squire' stood out from the wall and Byron turned towards it with a tread that shook the ancient floor. Sabina had taken a housewifely pride in this bed. Every spring it had been stripped of curtains and valances, of ceiling and headcloths and of padded foot-cover. These when washed had been restretched, backaching job, to retain that stiff spotlessness for a twelvemonth. Sabina had never omitted an iota of this ritual. As the bed had been handed down to her, so it should be kept. The spring cleansing and restretching were part of the mysterious rhythm of life.
Beside the curtain stood that piece of mechanism which had enabled Sabina to move about the house and from which every night she swung herself into bed. On the other side was a small table on which lay a candlestick and the brown cocoa-jug.
As he approached the bed, the man forgot the dim hostility by which he was surrounded, in a practical doubt. How if the poison had proved insufficient and she should open her eyes, those ice-blue eyes and ask what had brought him thither? For a moment he stood humbly at the foot of her bed. He dared not look.
The candle-light fell on a quiet face, on closed eyes, on shut lips. She had said—"Good night."
Sabina lay on her back, a squat figure, occupying in that great bed but a little space. The bright silk quilt had been folded neatly back over the mahogany foot and her covering was as white as the hangings. It swept in a generous curve over her breast, this breast which no longer rose and fell.
The man ventured, at last, to look and his heart leapt with relief, with more than relief, with a primitive and savage joy. In the long struggle between them he had won.
The rose had faded from Sabina's cheek, but her lips were curving as if over a pleasant thought. She had taken with her into the dark the hope that she and her husband might soon be reconciled, that years of concord lay before them and this sweet expectation had given her a look of unfathomable peace. The serenity of her dead face was that of the blue night, the night that is beyond the clouds of earth. She was no longer the successful farmer, the stoutest heart in Tregols, but something infinitely remote. In dying she had proved that if life is transitory and insignificant, death hides behind closed lips, an intriguing mystery. Byron, vaunting the folly of a mad moment, of a dark dream interpretated in terms of earth, became slowly conscious of it. Drop by drop, the passion of his exultation fell. This was not the workaday woman he had known, the woman whose obstinacy and unreasonableness had so angered him, but a creature spiritually changed. He could not feel that she would bear any resentment against the instrument of what was, undoubtedly, a release. Life had chained and prevented her, now she was free and he no longer counted with her in any way. She was afar off. Human interests had dwindled to the humming of a hive and he, whom she had cherished, was become one among many. The conviction of this was not only humbling, it brought a sense of loss. The place where he had been wont to sit at ease had been shut against him and the door locked and bolted. He was outside and unimportant and forgotten.
The last dregs of his excitement ran out leaving him with a sense of emptiness. Sabina was dead and death had raised a barrier between them which should have given him a sense of security. But from such a one as the woman, folded in ineffable peace, who lay before him, was no need of escape. This Sabina was a development of the other, the generous large-souled creature for whom the mean and the sordid had no existence. Byron had come to face Sabina and prove himself the stronger, but he stood before her like a child that had lost its way. For some minutes he waited in desolate silence, his heart sinking, his sense of inexorable loss growing more poignant. Sabina was dead, she had set out upon a journey from which she was never to return and he was left. The great chest heaved suddenly and a sob burst from him. Stumbling, and with the hardly wept tears of manhood rolling over his cheeks, he turned away. The door slammed behind him as he made for the shallow stairs that led to his room. Once in his refuge he flung himself on the bed, muffling his tempestuous weeping in the pillow—as he had done, when, as a boy, he had fled the fatherly corrections of the elder Leadville.
On the morrow he would awaken to the old life of narrow interests and lusts and scheming; but that night he mourned with exceeding grief, mourned that golden bowl which had been his and which he had cast down and broken. The bed shook under his sobs and the little hours before the dawn scurried up, dragging after them a new and reluctant day. Byron was a weary man, overwrought both in body and mind; and by degrees the noisy gulps, the long shudders, the groans grew less frequent. He sank into broken sleep, started from it with a catch of the breath and a sudden desolate cry, but fell back again. His slumbers deepened until he lay quiescent, his heavy frame thrown across the bed, his arms outstretched. At intervals a quiver passed over his body, but he had drifted out upon quiet seas and was—poor miserable wight—at rest.
CHAPTER XVI
In the bright moonlight Mrs. Tom stood at her garden gate to watch Mrs. Constantine Rosevear—or Mrs. Conny, as she was called—walk up the road. A big strong woman was Bessie Rosevear but full of nervous fears; and she had professed herself unable to go back to the mill unless some one 'put 'er 'ome.' The revelry of the evening, though sober and moderate, had carried the party into the small hours. Tom had gone off to bed and it fell, therefore, to one of the five maidens to accompany her aunt.
"Aw poor sawl, I'm pretty and sorry for 'er bein' so nervous," thought Mrs. Tom, making kindly allowance. "One of 'er boys should 'av come down to put 'er 'ome. They are always rangin' about in the evenings after the maidens, but any'ow Richbell was glad of a mouthful of fresh air."
The breath of the night, though tempered by the sea, was cool and she had thrown round her an old blue cloak lined with home-cured skins. They crackled slightly as she leaned against the low stone wall, thinking the warm and wandering thoughts of motherhood.
The voices of aunt and niece were blown back to her on that cool breath. Bessie was a slatternly creature and her house the untidiest in the parish, but she had bred tall sons, sons who, as long as she fed them well, seemed indifferent to the discomfort of their home. Mrs. Tom, listening contentedly to Richbell's voice with its clear laugh, found her thoughts straying from the handsome creature whose fortune was to seek to that one of the brood whose choice was made. As the mother of 'a long tail,' she was well pleased her eldest should be marrying so early and so well. Jim's 'auntie' would leave him what she had, 'while, whatever happened to Wastralls, S'bina would see they didn't want for nothing while she was livin'. The young couple would have every chance of gettin' on in the world; and the mother who had been a fish-seller's daughter, living from hand to mouth, took stock of their future with a grateful heart. She had done well for herself and Gray, 'with a good-livin' 'ard-workin' feller like Jim, might do even better.' She hoped the other maidens would follow their sister's example; but with the hope, a doubt, a doubt of Richbell, threaded itself darkly through the loose gold of her meditations. Richbell, the pretty madcap, was just the one to leap before she looked and, of the lads who wanted her, to take the least promising. Mrs. Tom shook her own still pretty head. The world would be a happier, more comfortable place, if parents had the arranging of their children's future, at least in matrimony.
From where she stood, a stretch of bright water was visible. The sea was calling in a hoarse undertone, a sort of thunderous roar which yet did not deaden other sounds and, looking down, Mrs. Tom's glance rested on the courts and outhouses of Wastralls. If Sabina had her way, Gray and her young husband would live there. Again the wise woman shook her head. 'Leadville might prove a snake in the grass. S'bina was a good sort but she wasn't sensible. If she 'ad been she would 'av left the farmin' to 'er man.' Mrs. Tom was sorry for Leadville 'mumpin' round like an ole dog and 'e wi' the finest farm in the valley and just longin' to put 'is strength into the workin' of it. A woman's place was in the house, making the butter and feeding the fowls and no good ever came of she takin' on a man's work. 'Twas bad for both of 'em and worse'n ever now she'd lost her laigs, poor sawl. It must make the man feel mad, 'er 'oldin' to the reins when 'e ought to 'av 'em!' Mrs. Tom, her time fully occupied with housewifely and maternal duties, could see the mistakes her neighbours were making and the proper remedy; but, as she could not hope to alter circumstances which had made those mistakes inevitable, she preserved the indulgent kindliness of her attitude.
The wind, sweeping round by the gate, made her fold herself more closely in the blue cloak. She thought of Gray in her new happiness and shivered a little as if conscious of a creeping chill. Her work was pretty near done. One by one each little bird would spread its young wings and fly away until, in the end, only the empty nest would remain to her. She would have been glad if Tom, sleeping deeply, had been at hand with his comfortable "Well, mother, tired be 'ee? Take and come on in and talk to me a bit."
The moonlight revealed the empty stretch of road, the sharp shadows of the hedges and, at the top, the rounded tower of the mill. A patch of moving blackness could presently be descried. Through the windy stir came the light patter of running feet and, in a minute, Richbell, breathless and gay, almost fell into her mother's arms.
"Now, Wild-e-go, where you gwine in such a hurry?" protested Mrs. Tom.
"Oh, mammy, I dunno. I'm so delighted I dunno what to do wi' meself."
"Av 'ee enjoyed yourself this evening then?"
"Ah, I should think I had!" With two lads glowering at each other across the harmonium, Richbell had been entirely happy.
"You'm a proper flirt."
"I can't help it. I don't ask the boys to come."
The mother passed a rough hand over the girl's curly mop. She was proud of Richbell's ''ead of 'air,' bronze hair with warm lights. "Did I hear you sayin' you was goin' to Percy 'Olman's place to tea?"
"Well, I'd nothing to do to keep me home."
"I'd sooner it was Will Brenton."
"Well, mammy, if I don't like him, what's the good for you to talk?"
Mrs. Rosevear sighed, for Will was heir to a good farm while Percy was a sailor, dependent for his prospects on an uncle who had other nephews. "My dear, you can't live with the man alone, you must 'av something to live on."
"I don't care. If I don't have grand things I must have others."
"As you make your bed, my dear, so you must lie. I 'ad to fight my way in the world and so must you, that's all; but—Will Brenton's a steady decent chap."
"Well, so he is, but I don't want to get married yet. Half the young girls that's married now, don't see no young life but I mean to."
Mrs. Tom was not to be turned from the point she was making. "An' Percy's always after the maidens."
Richbell laughed. She knew her power over the lads.
Mrs. Tom understood the laugh. "'E bain't always 'ome," she said, answering its young complacency. "Percy's a sailor and they say sailors 'av a wife in every port."
But Richbell's self-confidence was not to be shaken. "Oh, it's only a bit of chaff. Why, mammy, I like a bit of chaff myself."
"Yes, but you'll find, my dear, that what's good for the goose bain't always good for the gander. Maidens see a thing one way and wives another."
But the girl was not one to take advice. "I shall only be young once," she said, "and I shall travel me own road. You talk about me, didn't you have chaps after you? You haven't got the first man you went with, have you?"
She had carried the war into the enemy's country. From sage maturity Mrs. Tom fell back a score of years, fell back to the days when she too must make her choice.
"Did you now, mammy?" insisted the girl.
"My dear," Mrs. Tom was groping for her mislaid dignity, "your father was my first sweetheart!"
"Well, then," youth had caught a word here and a glance there, enough lime for her mortar, "well, then, he wasn't always your sweetheart."
"I was to Plymouth in service and he was 'ere. We didn't care for letter-writin'."
"Who was that chap in Plymouth, then?"
Mrs. Tom gave way. "Oh, a sailor, like they all are. 'E've done very well for 'isself. 'E's a captain now."
"Mammy!" Out of two hints Richbell had evolved a fact. "'Twasn't that man that left the impudent message for daddy last summer, was it?"
"Take and 'old yer tongue, do!" But recollection had lighted Mrs. Tom's eyes with laughter.
"Well, was it?"
"Iss. 'E said, 'Is ole Tom livin' yet? I'm waitin' for 'e to die. I want 'is shoes.'"
"He isn't married yet?"
"'E say 'e's waitin' for me."
"Why didn't you have him?"
"Because I liked your father best." Remembering the lesson she had been trying to inculcate, she added more soberly, "'E 'ad the promise of a good farm."
"That had nothing to do with it," said youth shrewdly. "You liked him."
"Well, I did." And she continued happily, "I 'eard 'e was goin' wi' Nina Old and I came 'ome to see."
"And was he?"
"I run right against them up to Four Turnin's and I gived 'im a look."
"I know," laughed Richbell delightedly. "I know how you looked."
"'An 'e lifted 'is 'at to me." She paused meditatively. "'Good evening,' he says and come straight over to me."
"Left her?"
"There and then."
"Iss, mammy?"
"We was married in a month from that day; but come, my dear, 'tis blowin' up for a storm and we better go in now. You got to go down to Wastralls early to-morrow mornin'."
They glanced along the road and, from Hember standing boldly out from the hillside, it was as if Wastralls lay in a hollow.
"Why," said Richbell, with suddenly awakened interest, "look, mammy, some one's still up down there. There's a light in the kitchen window."
"'Tis late, too."
The girl shivered and drew nearer to her mother. "I expect it's Uncle Leadville cleaning that old gun of his. I can't abide to see him rubbing away at it. That's all he do, all day long."
"Poor old sawl, that's all 'e 'av got to do."
"Mammy," her voice had lost its gaiety and self-confidence. She was a young creature, obscurely frightened. "I wish I wasn't going down there."
Mrs. Tom spoke sharply. "Why? 'Av Gray been talkin' to yer?"
"No, Gray's close as anything, but what is it?"
"Oh, my dear, 'tis nothing but 'er fancy. There, go along, I bain't going to tell 'ee."
"I don't need for Gray to tell me Wastralls is a whisht old house for young maidens."
"My dear," said Mrs. Tom reasonably, "you'll be able to run 'ome any time to see us and yer auntie is goin' to give yer twenty pound; good money, 'edn't it?"
"Iss, well, I know that's all right," returned Richbell soberly. Sabina's open-handedness had put many a pleasure in her way, nevertheless instinct warned her against the place and she was Mrs. Tom's own child.
"Well, why don't you like goin' there?"
"I don't feel I like," she hesitated, lowering her voice, "I don't feel I like Uncle Leadville."
"There's no 'arm in 'im," encouraged the mother, "although 'e do look downy. Any'ow 'e's nothing to do with you. You'll be with yer auntie."
"Iss." The girl could not put into words her feeling that Leadville being fundamentally different from the easy-going folk among whom she had hitherto lived was vaguely alarming. "Well, he never look yer straight in the face."
"My dear, that's the way of'n. 'E 'edn't goin' to take no notice of you."
"Mammy!" She put her young arms round her mother's neck, so proving herself the taller by a couple of inches, "I wish you would go down with me to-morrow morning—I don't feel I like goin' by myself."
Who could resist Richbell, when Richbell changed from gay defiance to entreaty? Not Mrs. Tom! "Well, I'll go down with you. I shall be able to see your auntie the same time. I'll light up the fire before I go and the kettle'll be boiling by the time I get back. Come, my dear," she turned and walked up the trim path of sea-gravel edged with quartz, "let's be goin' in, else we shan't get up early in the mornin'."
December dawns are late and though, as Mrs. Tom had feared, the tired family slept until after cockcrow, morning had not broken when she and Richbell hurried down between the tamarisks, silver-grey with frost, and in at the yard gate of Wastralls. George Biddick, crossing from the shed to the stables nodded a greeting, but otherwise the yard was deserted.
Mrs. Tom called after him. "Pretty rough wind last night."
"Iss," he said with a gesture towards the roof. "I see it's blawed off one of the tiles and broke a pane of glass."
"You won't be able to get it mended now till after Christmas," said Mrs. Tom sympathetically. She pressed her face against the window, peering in. "No one up yet?"
"Well, they didn't go to bed till late last night," Richbell reminded her.
"Dessay they've overslept theirself!" Mrs. Tom took the door key from under a stone where Sabina had hidden it in readiness. During the night, with one of the rapid changes to which that coast is liable, the wind had dropped. Frost had stilled the thousand voices of the earth and, in the house, doors hung without creak or movement and the chimneys were hushed. As she crossed the threshold Mrs. Tom shivered.
"'Tis a whisht old place," she said, "and cold."
Her voice came back to her, echoed from the passage. "Cold!"
"There always seems some one in the passage," she said whimsically, "some one who wants to talk and can only say what we do say."
Richbell tried the echo. "Mammy!" she said and "Mammy" was whispered back to her.
Mrs. Tom hung her cloak behind the door and turned upon the world a business face. "Here's the matches," she said, taking them from the mantelshelf, "and you'll find a candle in the linhay there. Now light up the fire quick and make a cup of tea and I'll run in and see if yer auntie's awake."
Exaggerating the companionable sound of her steps, she went down the passage. So dark was it that she guided herself with a hand to the wall, finding thus the stairs, the turning that led into the other part of the house and, eventually, the door of the justice-room. At this she knocked.
Receiving no answer she hesitated for a moment and then knocked again. "She's sleepin' well this mornin'," she told herself. "I believe she was fair beat yesterday with all that bread-makin' and Leadville so teasy; funny, though, 'at I can't make 'er 'ear."
She rattled cheerfully at the handle and, under her preoccupation with Sabina, was the feeling that Hember chambers were full of light and sound and that presently she would return to them. Never had she felt so strongly the brooding oppression of the old house.
"S'bina! S'bina!" she called and pushed open the door. "Pretty time o' day this to be in sleepin'," and her voice, dauntingly loud, filled the room. For a moment she stood to listen. Another voice should have answered her, should have come to her, reassuringly, out of the gloom.
"How be gettin' on, S'bina?" she faltered. From down the passage came sounds of human nearness: Richbell was moving about in the kitchen and the fact that the girl depended on her for direction stiffened the other's courage. Pulling herself together she crossed the threshold. Once in the room, however, and she was momentarily at a loss. As day still lingered below the eastern hills, to pull the dimity curtains apart would not further matters. Her hand went to the pocket of her white apron and, in a loud, would-be-cheerful tone, she went on talking the while she struck a match. "You always seem to be able to sleep towards the mornin', don't 'ee? Iss, and we've overslept ourself this mornin'; well, we couldn't expect any other after yesterday. 'Twas a lot to think about if not much to do. I've brought Richbell down this morning. She didn't care to come by 'erself so I told 'er I'd come with 'er; and, while she was makin' your cup of tea, I thought I'd come and 'av a little chat and tell yer 'ow we got on last night."
She had been in the justice-room many a time, had sat gossiping with Sabina while she rested, had listened to her complaints of the ache in those legs which were no longer there; but, in spite of the familiarity of the place, as she reached for the candle, her chatter ceased for very fear. If only the wick would catch, but it was tallow, thick and slow to ignite. Before the flame was more than a blue glimmer she was holding it up and peering below it at the bed, gazing with a premonition of what she would find. As she said afterwards, "I thought what I should see."
Nevertheless, though instinct had warned her, she was unprepared. "Oh, my dear sawl she's gone!" she cried and, with confirmation, her fear passed.
"S'bina! S'bina!" she cried, the tears starting. "Speak to me! It can't be true!" Laying her hand upon the brow she felt the unmistakable chill of death. "'Owever on earth did it 'appen?"
The sounds of Mrs. Tom's grief reached Richbell as she put a match to the heap of tamarisk twigs with which she had filled the grate. She sat back on her heels in amazed suspense. What ailed her mother? To hear her give way openly to emotion was unknown to her sixteen years. Trembling she ran out down the passage.
"Whatever is the matter with you, mammy?"
Mrs. Tom was clinging to the green post at the foot of the stairs. Leaning her face on its square top she was weeping for her friend. Next to husband and children Sabina had been dearest. The bond had seemed unbreakable, a thing to trust in, until for her, too, the evening should darken into night.
"Oh, my dear, your poor auntie's gone."
The girl's eyes, which had been merely questioning, filled with terror. To discover that in the midst of life we are in death, shakes the confidence of youth. With a little cry she crept into her mother's arms and her tears, the easy tears of girlhood, ran over her round checks and mingled with those of the older woman.
The needs of the occasion were grim and, after the first burst of grief, Mrs. Tom pulled herself together and, wiping her eyes on her apron, sent a call up the wide stair, a call, which echoing through the empty chambers and down the passages found Byron in his heavy sleep, a call which brought him back to consciousness.
"Leadville! Leadville!"
Who was crying in that lamentable voice? He sat up, rubbing the sleep out of inflamed eyes. Who was calling to him so dolefully out of the darkness of the lower rooms? Not Sabina?
"What is it? I'm comin'," he answered in his rough bass but he did not move. The shadow of grief, rising from below had fallen on him and he was reluctant. Out of the torpor of exhaustion he had brought a bemused mind; and, though disaster threatened, he was not yet aware of the form which it must take. Sitting on the edge of the bed and staring at his knees, it dawned on him that he was still in his workaday clothes. This surprised him and further stamped the morning as unusual.
"Leadville! Leadville!" cried the voice and he found its unhappiness irritating. "Are 'ee dead up there, too?"
"Dead? No. Can't 'ee wait a minute, man must dress."
He had slept on the outside of the bed and, though the yielding feathers marked where he had lain, the clothes were undisturbed. He knew, though without as yet understanding why, that he must be careful. Everything must be as usual. Hastily pulling the clothes from the bed he threw the room into disorder.
He had taken off his boots and his feet in their grey woollen wear fell noiselessly on the drugget. Upon the group at the foot of the stairs he came unexpectedly and, so coming, waited for a moment in fear and trembling. Mrs. Tom, lifting her voice to send yet another summons echoing aloft, presently caught sight of him. In the justice-room a dim light showed. She did not speak but pointed over her shoulder.
"Well," he quavered, aware of the dim light, "whatever's all this fuss about?"
"I dunno' ow to tell yer," returned Mrs. Tom. "'Tis awful thing. Poor S'bina's gone."
"Gone?" His voice rang out full of incredulity and, pushing past, he walked quickly into the bedroom. "What d'yer mean?"
The man's concern, if not his surprise, was genuine. Sabina's death assured, he could think of her as a tried and loyal comrade, dwell on her many virtues, mourn her as, whatever her shortcomings, she had deserved. Memories, kind and gay and casual, crowded into his mind. Though he might be glad that she was gone, he would miss her. Mrs. Tom, jealous for her friend and, with the accumulated knowledge of years to breed suspicion, weighed his words and considered his manner. Bitterly would she resent any failure on his part to render unto Sabina the conventional marks of grief. But Leadville did more. He showed real feeling, a sorrow that was unmistakably sincere.
She followed him into the dead woman's presence and together they went up to the bed. As the man, stooping towards Sabina, gathered the meaning of her immobility, of her sculptured calm, his voice rang out in a cry of grief and longing, a cry which lightened Mrs. Tom's heart of its suspicion.
"S'bina! Oh, my dear, speak to me. Whatever shall I do, whatever shall I do without yer?" He turned with an appeal to the other's womanly knowledge. "Be yer sure she's gone? Titch 'er 'ands and see whether they'm cold or not."
Mrs. Tom laid her hand on fingers already growing rigid. "Iss, my dear, she's gone right enough, I'm afraid."
He covered his face, breaking suddenly into gulping and ugly grief. The last doubt that had harboured in Mrs. Tom's mind blew out to sea. After all, Leadville 'wasn't a bad feller, 'e 'ad 'is feelin's!'
"Terrible job to be took away like this," he gasped after a few minutes, "and she all by 'erself too."
"Aw, poor sawl, iss," agreed Mrs. Tom, "but she's lookin' 'appy and peaceful. I believe she must 'ave died in 'er sleep and didn't know nothin' about it."
Leadville looked at her anxiously and his heart was in the question: "You don't think she suffered any pain, do you?"
"Why, look at 'er. You can see she didn't. If she 'ad suffered 'er face 'ud 'av been quite drawn. But there she is, lookin' so peaceful as a lamb." Her tears flowed again. "We shall all miss her. She was a good sawl."
"I dunno whatever I shall do without 'er."
"My dear life, 'tis nothing but right you should feel it so."
"Well, nobody knew what a good wife she's been to me. I 'adn't 'ad a penny to bless myself when she married me, but since then I 'aven't wanted for nothing. Never an angry word between us."
"Poor sawl, too."
"'Twas 'ard on the missis losin' 'er laigs but after that she never complained. She made the best of everything."
From the world beyond the justice-room, the world of living people and the everyday, came sounds of movement. Richbell, left in the passage, had returned to the kitchen and, once there, had mechanically resumed her work. Come life, come death, breakfast must be prepared.
"Come out now," said Mrs. Tom, the odour of 'fry' being wafted to her nostrils, "and 'av a bit of breakfast, Leadville. I'm sure you'll be wantin' it."
The man shook his head. "I don't feel I want any. I'd rather go out on the cliff by myself. Tidn't like she's dead to me and I must get used to it." He followed Mrs. Tom out of the room but his eyes were so dim he stumbled as he went.
"Well, she's dead right enough. 'Ow it 'appened I dunno. She seemed quite all right yesterday. She might 'av been a bit tired but what was that? I'm afraid," she looked at him thoughtfully, "I'm afraid, as she died suddint, we shall 'av to 'av an inquest."
Byron was on his way to the porch but at the word 'inquest' he stopped and, though Mrs. Tom dismissed the thought indignantly, her heart had said to her, "'E don't want no inquest."
"What do we want an inquest for, after doctor been tendin' 'er so long?"
"Did doctor say that she might die off quick like this?"
"'E was 'ere yesterday and seen 'er." Leadville was trying to remember. "I can't call to mind 'zactly what 'e said but 'e didn't give me a word of encouragement."
"'E knaw better than we do," said Mrs. Tom, musingly. "Did S'bina seem poorly after I went 'ome last night?"
Leadville constrained himself to answer as if the elucidation of the mystery were of as much moment to him as to her. "I don't think I took much notice of 'er but she wadn't very special. After you went she got the supper and, as soon as she'd eat it, went off to bed."
Mrs. Tom nodded with, however, an irrepressible doubt. "Wonder what made 'er go so early?"
"I dunno I'm sure." He spoke without considering whether what he asserted was in accordance with the facts. Mrs. Tom's questions were irritating him, they were like the buzz of flies on a hot day. "I didn't stay up very late. In fact we was both to bed by ten."
Mrs. Tom was careful not to look at him. She and Richbell, standing at their gate in the small hours, had seen a light in Wastralls. If the Byrons were abed who then was up? Perhaps Sabina, feeling unwell, had gone in search of a remedy. That was possible, of course, indeed quite likely. Not until later did Mrs. Tom remember that the light had been stationary. If Sabina had been seeking medicine or a hot-water bottle she would have been carrying a candle.
"Well, there's a lot of things to be done," she said, non-committally. "Can you tend to 'em?"
He shook his heavy shoulders, as if he would have shaken off something unwelcome. He would like to have told her he had not slept much the previous night but that was out of the question. "Oh well, you must leave me go out and think it over first," he said, making for the door, "I'll tell yer when I come back."
Death in a household, particularly sudden death, brings a rush of work. Mrs. Tom, realizing that the brunt of this must fall on her, as the wife of Sabina's nearest relative, was thankful to see that Richbell had made the tea and fried some bacon. She drew her chair to the table and sat down, sat down with the quick lamentable thought that here Sabina would never sit again. The thought flashed up into poignancy and passed. She must not think of it now, for there was work to be done.
"Now, my dear," she said, when they had eaten and the little breathing-space, between the knowledge of calamity and the girding up of loins, was at an end, "Now, my dear, you must go 'ome. 'Tis no place for you 'ere."
"Iss, mammy." The lively self-assertive girl was become pliant to her mother's hand.
Mrs. Tom made her dispositions. "'Tis a pity that Gray went to Gentle Jane, but Leonora must run over and bring 'er back—better be all together now. After you've gived the children their breakfast, Rhoda better run up to Cottages and ask Mrs. Bate to come down and set your auntie forth; and tell Aunt Louisa Blewett to come down and bring 'er machine with 'er to do the mournin's. Let Loveday go to St. Cadic and tell your Aunt Bessie to come down to 'elp us; and now I'll go and get the room straight."
"Is there anything else you'd like for me to do?" Richbell spoke in tones so subdued they hardly rose above a whisper.
"You can take my black things out of the box and ask your father to bring 'em down and if there's anything else I want, when 'e comes back 'e'll tell yer."
"Aren't you coming home?" Hember without mother would be unspeakably dreary.
The girl's tone, resigned yet unhappy, touched Mrs. Tom's heart. For a moment practical matters were put aside. "Now you mustn't go worryin' yerself," she said, her glance warm and motherly. "Yer auntie's 'ad a 'ard struggle, so it's a 'appy release she's gone. She's taken out of a world of trouble."
"Well, mammy, I can't help grievin'," protested the girl, her tears rising. "It seems so sudden."
"'Twas one good thing she died off in her sleep and didn't know nothing about it. It's our loss but her gain."
"But mammy, I think 'tis awful to be dead. Makes me creep."
"Dead? You mustn't think she's dead. I feel she's livin'. She's up there tellin' them everything about we down 'ere. She's 'appy and busy. No more tears. She've 'ad 'er share."
The girl was only anxious to be comforted. "Well, if that's what's she's doing, we didn't ought to grieve, we ought to be glad she's gone." Her little face lost its pinched expression and she moved more briskly. Nevertheless when, the breakfast dishes being cleared away, she was free to go, she went as if glad to leave this house to which she had come so unwillingly and which had at once proved itself the 'whisht' place of her imagination.
As she went up the road she looked back once or twice and each time she quickened her steps. The promise of dawn was brightening the east and in the bay some big sooty-plumaged birds could be dimly discerned, their web-feet set firmly on the very edge of the tide. A light was twinkling in the many panes of Wastralls kitchen, tiny glimmers that, affecting only the one spot, made the sombre outlines more darkly impressive. A part of the haunted night, what had happened there so lately gave it to the young girl's imagination an extra touch of gloom. With a quick shudder she set her face towards the lights of home.