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- Author: C. A. Dawson Scott
Book online «Wastralls: A Novel by C. A. Dawson Scott (best motivational novels TXT) 📖». Author C. A. Dawson Scott
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 XVII
Leadville left the house with a hasty but heavy step. He had slept but little and his fall the previous evening had jarred and bruised him. Carrying his head even more forward than was his wont, he went along the shaly path which led, a little circuitously, up Dark Head. At another time he would have made the ascent without realizing he was not on level ground but, that morning, he stubbed his feet against the grey rock and stumbled over the cushions of sea-thrift. He was so tired, so stiff, that he, who had the sure-footedness of the mountain sheep, slipped on the smoother surfaces and came near to falling. When, at a turn in the path, a lew corner presented itself, an angle of rock about a few hardy plants, he uttered a grunt of satisfaction. Why should he go farther? Here was a refuge from the questioning of the women, a spot where he could rest. The cliff wall rose between him and the north and, when the southerly sun rose, its first beams would fall on that high but sheltered rock. He flung himself down and, as he lay on the tussocks of colourless grass, seemed in his weather-worn clothes as much a bit of natural waste as the oreweed drying on the rocks below.
The day was mild, one of those we owe to what we are told is not the Gulf Stream but something which has a similar effect. In the growing light the sea shone dimly, a pale expanse of quiet water. On the man's harassed mind the peace of the scene had, as ever, a soothing effect. His glance roved over the treeless country, the rare farmsteads with each a group of grey outbuildings, the Cornish moors and the far range of rounded hills. What he saw was dear to him as it was familiar. Those well-known slopes, swelling softly till they reached Rowtor and Brown Willy, sinking to the abrupt black rocks that edged the sea! Byron seemed to himself a part of that on which he looked. Wastralls had made ham. He was, as he had said in his youth, a clod of Wastralls earth, dust which at the appointed time would fertilize the land to a fresh harvest. To be of it and, at the last, to go back to it, was what he had asked of life. He had been obsessed by one large and simple idea and, in his extreme weariness, he returned to it, looking across the land he loved, lifting his eyes to the good sun. He was outwearied and he longed for warmth and comfort. The shelter of his corner promised forgetfulness. The land lay green about him, the sea sang its thunderous lullaby and sleep was in the soft touch of the air, the thin warmth of the December sun. Pillowing his shaggy head upon his arm, the man drifted from the manifold irritations, the aches and pains of life, into that state which doth so mysteriously resemble death.
For at least two hours, Leadville, warmed through by sunbeams and the sea-scented air, lay deeply asleep. When he stirred the red was in his cheek and his eyes were clear. He looked about him and remembered. He had killed Sabina and now must bear himself so that none should know or even suspect. It would, he thought, be easy enough. She had been a good wife to him and, as she was actually dead, he might show, without tempting Providence, a natural grief. His walk as he went down the hill was brisk and purposeful. To the dead their hour, a sob and a black coat; when they were underground it would be the turn of the living. From the future opening before him, Leadville turned his eyes. Sabina should have her due!
Before Rhoda, full of the importance of her message, reached Cottages, its inhabitants were agog. A little bird had carried the news of Mrs. Byron's death and those whom it least concerned were discussing it. Mrs. Bate, who lived in the end cottage of the hamlet, a tiny two-roomed place, had for many years been Stripper, or, as some call the woman who prepares the dead for their last journey, 'Nurse' to the community. As soon as a death occurred, she was sent for and her duty it was not only to strip the clothes from the corpse and array it in fine linen, but to receive the many visitors and conduct them, in turn, to the death-chamber. On the day of the funeral her position was one of some importance. She was the undertaker's right hand. Indeed, the responsibility for the smooth working of the arrangements rested on her rather than on him.
When the news reached Mrs. Bate, therefore, that Mrs. Byron of Wastralls had died during the night, she knew that she would be wanted. Though the possessor of a handsome jolly face she was given to timid fears and, after raking out her fire, she went across to Mrs. Blewett, the seamstress, better known as 'Aunt Louisa,' to have one of these resolved.
"Mrs. Rosevear sure to be there," she said anxiously, "and she could set Mrs. Byron forth if her liked; but she wouldn't do anybody out of a job, would she?"
'Aunt Louisa,' slim and, in spite of the wear and tear of life still graceful, was fitting the cover to her machine. "She bin poor 'erself," she said encouragingly. The two old bodies had lived in the same parish for seventy years, and as next-door neighbours, for thirty. She knew that Fanny Bate, in spite of her large well-covered frame and square face, found it difficult to stand alone.
"I wouldn't miss doing this," said Mrs. Bate, her old blue eyes still anxious, "for all the golden sovereigns in Trevorrick. When Judgment Day come, there won't be many from 'ere but what will look up and thank me for settin' 'em forth."
"If you set 'em forth," said Aunt Louisa, remembering the many shrouds her fingers had fashioned, "I've made the things for 'm."
"Iss, but I've nursed and tended them as well as set them forth," she would not admit the other's claim to a share in the work of preparing the neighbourhood for burial. "And I think of their souls, too, poor
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