Chapter 25

AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE

Billy Blee, who has appeared thus far as a disinterested spectator of other people's affairs, had yet his own active and personal interests in life. Them he pursued, at odd times, and in odd ways, with admirable pertinacity; and as a crisis is now upon him and chance knits the outcome of it into the main fabric of this narrative, Billy and his actions command attention.

Allusion has already been made, and that frequently, to one Widow Coomstock, whose attractions of income, and the ancillary circumstance of an ample though elderly person, had won for her certain admirers more ancient than herself. Once butt-woman, or sextoness, of Chagford Church, the lady had dwelt alone, as Miss Mary Reed, for fifty-five years--not because opportunity to change her state was denied her, but owing to the fact that experience of life rendered her averse to all family responsibilities. Mary Reed had seen her sister, the present Mrs. Hicks, take a husband, had watched the result of that step; and this, with a hundred parallel instances of misery following on matrimony, had determined her against it. But when old Benjamin Coomstock, the timber merchant and coal-dealer, became a widower, this ripe maiden, long known to him, was approached before his wife's grave became ready for a stone. To Chagford's amazement he so far bemeaned himself as to offer the sextoness his hand, and she accepted it. Then, left a widow after two years with her husband, Mary Coomstock languished a while, and changed her methods of life somewhat. The roomy dwelling-house of her late partner became her property and a sufficient income went with it. Mr. Coomstock's business had been sold in his lifetime; the money was invested, and its amount no man knew, though rumour, which usually magnifies such matters, spoke of a very handsome figure; and Mrs. Coomstock's lavish manner of life lent confirmation to the report. But though mundane affairs had thus progressed with her, the woman's marriage was responsible for very grave mental and moral deterioration. Prosperity, and the sudden exchange of a somewhat laborious life for the ease and comfort of independence, played havoc with Widow Coomstock. She grew lax, gross in habit and mind, self-indulgent, and ill-tempered. When her husband died her old friends lost sight of her, while only those who had reason to hope for a reward still kept in touch with her, and indeed forced themselves upon her notice. Everybody predicted she would take another husband; but, though it was now nearly eight years since Mr. Coomstock's death, his widow still remained one. Gaffer Lezzard and Billy Blee had long pursued her with varying advantage, and the latter, though his proposals were declined, yet saw in each refusal an indication to encourage future hope.

Now, urged thereto by whispers that Mr. Lezzard had grown the richer by three hundred pounds on the death of a younger brother in Australia, Billy determined upon another attack. He also was worth something--less indeed than three hundred pounds; though, seeing that he had been earning reasonably good wages for half a century, the fact argued but poor thrift in Mr. Blee. Of course Gaffer Lezzard's alleged legacy could hardly be a sum to count with Mrs. Coomstock, he told himself; yet his rival was a man of wide experience and an oily tongue: while, apart from any question of opposition, he felt that another offer of marriage might now be made with decorum, seeing that it was a full year since the last. Mr. Blee therefore begged for a half-holiday, put on his broadcloth, blacked his boots, anointed his lion-monkey fringe and scanty locks with pomatum, and set forth. Mrs. Coomstock's house stood on the hill rising into the village from Chagford Bridge. A kitchen garden spread behind it; in front pale purple poppies had the ill-kept garden to themselves.

As he approached, Mr. Blee felt a leaden weight about his newly polished boots, and a distinct flutter at the heart, or in a less poetical portion of his frame.

"Same auld feeling," he reflected. "Gormed if I ban't gettin' sweaty 'fore the plaace comes in sight! 'Tis just the sinkin' at the navel, like what I had when I smoked my first pipe, five-and-forty years agone!"

The approach of another man steadied Billy, and on recognising him Mr. Blee forgot all about his former emotions and gasped in the clutch of a new one. It was Mr. Lezzard, evidently under some impulse of genial exhilaration. There hung an air of aggression about him, but, though he moved like a conqueror, his gait was unsteady and his progress slow. He had wit to guess Billy's errand, however, for he grinned, and leaning against the hedge waved his stick in the air above his head.

"Aw, Jimmery! if it ban't Blee; an' prinked out for a weddin', tu, by the looks of it!"

"Not yourn, anyway," snapped back the suitor.

"Well, us caan't say 'zactly--world 's full o' novelties."

"Best pull yourself together, Gaffer, or bad-hearted folks might say you was bosky-eyed.[10] That ban't no novelty anyway, but 't is early yet to be drunk--just three o'clock by the church."

[10] _Bosky-eyed_ = intoxicated.

Mr. Blee marched on without waiting for a reply. He knew Lezzard to be more than seventy years old and usually regarded the ancient man's rivalry with contempt; but he felt uneasy for a few moments, until the front door of Mrs. Coomstock's dwelling was opened to him by the lady herself.

"My stars! You? What a terrible coorious thing!" she said.

"Why for?"

"Come in the parlour. Theer! coorious ban't the word!"

She laughed, a silly laugh and loud. Then she shambled before him to the sitting-room, and Billy, familiar enough with the apartment, noticed a bottle of gin in an unusual position upon the table. The liquor stood, with two glasses and a jug of water, between the Coomstock family Bible, on its green worsted mat, and a glass shade containing the stuffed carcass of a fox-terrier. The animal was moth-eaten and its eyes had fallen out. It could be considered in no sense decorative; but sentiment allowed the corpse this central position in a sorry scheme of adornment, for the late timber merchant had loved it. Upon Mrs. Coomstock's parlour walls hung Biblical German prints in frames of sickly yellow wood; along the window-ledge geraniums and begonias flourished, though gardeners had wondered to see their luxuriance, for the windows were seldom opened.

"'It never rains but it pours,'" said Widow Coomstock. She giggled again and looked at Billy. She was very fat, and the red of her face deepened to purple unevenly about the sides of her nose. Her eyes were bright and black. She had opened a button or two at the top of her dress, and her general appearance, from her grey hair to her slattern heels, was disordered. Her cap had fallen off on to the ground, and Mr. Blee noticed that her parting was as a broad turnpike road much tramped upon by Time. The room smelt stuffy beyond its wont and reeked not only of spirits but tobacco. This Billy sniffed inquiringly, and Mrs. Coomstock observed the action. "'Twas Lezzard," she said. "I like to see a man in comfort. You can smoke if you mind to. Coomstock always done it, and a man's no man without, though a dirty habit wheer they doan't use a spittoon."

She smiled, but to herself, and was lost in thought a moment. He saw her eyes very bright and her head wagging. Then she looked at him and laughed again.

"You'm a fine figure of a man, tu," she said, apropos of nothing in particular. But the newcomer understood. He rumpled his hair and snorted and frowned at the empty glasses.

"Have a drop?" suggested Mrs. Coomstock; but Billy, of opinion that his love had already enjoyed refreshment sufficient for the time, refused and answered her former remark.

"A fine figure?--yes, Mary Coomstock, though not so fine for a man as you for a woman. Still, a warm-blooded chap an' younger than my years."

"I've got my share o' warm blood, tu, Billy."

It was apparent. Mrs. Coomstock's plump neck bulged in creases over the dirty scrap of white linen that represented a collar, while her massive bust seemed bursting through her apparel.

"Coourse," said Mr. Blee, "an' your share, an' more 'n your share o' brains, tu. He had bad luck--Coomstock--the worse fortune as ever fell to a Chaggyford man, I reckon."

"How do 'e come at that, then?"

"To get 'e, an' lose 'e again inside two year. That's ill luck if ever I seen it. Death's a envious twoad. Two short year of you; an' then up comes a tumour on his neck unbeknawnst, an' off he goes, like a spring lamb."

"An' so he did. I waked from sleep an' bid un rise, but theer weern't no more risin' for him till the Judgment."

"Death's no courtier. He'll let a day-labourer go so peaceful an' butivul as a child full o' milk goes to sleep; while he'll take a gert lord or dook, wi' lands an' moneys, an' strangle un by inches, an' give un the hell of a twistin'. You caan't buy a easy death seemin'ly."

"A gude husband he was, but jealous," said Mrs. Coomstock, her thoughts busy among past years; and Billy immediately fell in with this view.

"Then you'm well rid of un. Theer's as gude in the world alive any minute as ever was afore or will be again."

"Let 'em stop in the world then. I doan't want 'em."

This sentiment amused the widow herself more than Billy. She laughed uproariously, raised her glass to her lips unconsciously, found it empty, grew instantly grave upon the discovery, set it down again, and sighed.

"It's a wicked world," she said. "Sure as men's in a plaace they brings trouble an' wickedness. An' yet I've heard theer's more women than men on the airth when all's said."

"God A'mighty likes 'em best, I reckon," declared Mr. Blee.

"Not but what 't would be a lonesome plaace wi'out the lords of creation," conceded the widow.

"Ess fay, you 'm right theer; but the beauty of things is that none need n't be lonely, placed same as you be."

"'Once bit twice shy,'" said Mrs. Coomstock. Then she laughed again. "I said them very words to Lezzard not an hour since."

"An' what might he have answered?" inquired Billy without, however, showing particular interest to know.

"He said he wasn't bit. His wife was a proper creature."

"Bah! second-hand gudes--that's what Lezzard be--a widow-man an' eighty if a day. A poor, coffin-ripe auld blid, wi' wan leg in the graave any time this twenty year."

Mrs. Coomstock's frame heaved at this tremendous criticism. She gurgled and gazed at Billy with her eyes watering and her mouth open.

"You say that! Eighty an' coffin-ripe!"

"Ban't no ontruth, neither. A man 's allus ready for his elm overcoat arter threescore an' ten. I heard the noise of his breathin' paarts when he had brown kitty in the fall three years ago, an' awnly thrawed it off thanks to the gracious gudeness of Miller Lyddon, who sent rich stock for soup by my hand. But to hear un, you might have thought theer was a wapsies' nest in the man's lungs."

"I doan't want to be nuss to a chap at my time of life, in coourse."

"No fay; 't is the man's paart to look arter his wife, if you ax me. I be a plain bachelor as never thought of a female serious 'fore I seed you. An' I've got a heart in me, tu. Ban't no auld, rubbishy, worn-out thing, neither, but a tough, love-tight heart--at least so 't was till I seed you in your weeds eight year agone."

"Eight year a widow! An' so I have been. Well, Blee, you've got a powerful command of words, anyways. That I'll grant you."

"'T is the gert subject, Mary."

He moved nearer and put down his hat and stick; she exhibited trepidation, not wholly assumed. Then she helped herself to more spirits.

"A drop I must have to steady me. You men make a woman's heart go flutterin' all over her buzzom, like a flea under her--"

She stopped and laughed, then drank. Presently setting down the glass again, she leered in a manner frankly animal at Mr. Blee, and told him to say what he might have to say and be quick about it. He fired a little at this invitation, licked his lips, cleared his throat, and cast a nervous glance or two at the window. But nobody appeared; no thunder-visaged Lezzard frowned over the geraniums. Gaffer indeed was sound asleep, half a mile off, upon one of those seats set in the open air for the pleasure and convenience of wayfarers about the village. So Billy rose, crossed to the large sofa whereon Mrs. Coomstock sat, plumped down boldly beside her and endeavoured to get his arm round the wide central circumference of her person. She suffered this courageous attempt without objection. Then Billy gently squeezed her, and she wriggled and opened her mouth and shut her eyes.

"Say the word and do a wise thing," he urged. "Say the word, Mary, an' think o' me here as master, a-keeping all your damn relations off by word of command."

She laughed.

"When I be gone you'll see some sour looks, I reckon."

"Nothing doan't matter then; 't is while you 'm here I'd protect 'e 'gainst 'em. Look, see! ban't often I goes down on my knees, 'cause a man risin' in years, same as me, can pray to God more dignified sittin'; but now I will." He slid gingerly down, and only a tremor showed the stab his gallantry cost him.

"You 'm a masterful auld shaver, sure 'nough!" said Mrs. Coomstock, regarding Billy with a look half fish like, half affectionate.

"Rise me up, then," he said. "Rise me up, an' do it quick. If you love me, as I see you do by the faace of you, rise me up, Mary, an' say the word wance for all time. I'll be a gude husband to 'e an' you'll bless the day you took me, though I sez it as shouldn't."

She allowed her fat left hand, with the late Mr. Coomstock's wedding-ring almost buried in her third finger, to remain with Billy's; and by the aid of it and the sofa he now got on his legs again. Then he sat down beside her once more and courageously set his yellow muzzle against her red cheek. The widow remained passive under this caress, and Mr. Blee, having kissed her thrice, rubbed his mouth and spoke.

"Theer! 'T is signed and sealed, an' I'll have no drawin' back now."

"But--but--Lezzard, Billy. I do like 'e--I caan't hide it from 'e, try as I will--but him--"

"I knawed he was t'other. I tell you, forget un. His marryin' days be awver. Dammy, the man's 'most chuckle headed wi' age! Let un go his way an' say his prayers 'gainst the trump o' God. An' it'll take un his time to pass Peter when all 's done--a bad auld chap in his day. Not that I'd soil your ears with it."

"He said much the same 'bout you. When you was at Drewsteignton, twenty year agone--"

"A lie--a wicked, strammin', gert lie, with no more truth to it than a auld song! He 'm a venomous beast to call home such a thing arter all these years."

"If I did take 'e, you'd be a gude an' faithful husband, Billy, not a gad-about?"

"Cut my legs off if I go gaddin' further than to do your errands."

"An' you'll keep these here buzzin' parties off me? Cuss 'em! They make my life a burden."

"Doan't fear that. I'll larn 'em!"

"Theer 's awnly wan I can bide of the whole lot--an' that's my awn nephew, Clem Hicks. He'll drink his drop o' liquor an' keep his mouth shut, an' listen to me a-talkin' as a young man should. T'others are allus yelpin' out how fond they be of me, and how they'd go to the world's end for me. I hate the sight of 'em."

"A time-servin' crew, Mary; an' Clement Hicks no better 'n the rest, mark my word, though your sister's son. 'T is cupboard love wi' all. But money ban't nothin' to me. I've been well contented with enough all my life, though 't is few can say with truth that enough satisfies 'em."

"Lezzard said money was nothin' to him neither, having plenty of his awn. 'T was my pusson, not my pocket, as he'd falled in love with."

"Burnish it all! Theer 's a shameful speech! 'Your pusson'! Him! I'll tell you what Lezzard is--just a damn evil disposition kep' in by skin an' bones--that's Lezzard. 'Your pusson'!"

"I'm afraid I've encouraged him a little. You've been so backward in mentioning the subject of late. But I'm sure I didn't knaw as he'd got a evil disposition."

"Well, 't is so. An' 't is awnly your bigness of heart, as wouldn't hurt a beetle, makes you speak kind of the boozy auld sweep. I'll soon shaw un wheer he's out if he thinks you 'm tinkering arter him!"

"He couldn't bring an action for breach, or anything o' that, could he?"

"At his time of life! What Justice would give ear to un? An' the shame of it!"

"Perhaps he misunderstood. You men jump so at a conclusion."

"Leave that to me. I'll clear his brains double-quick; aye, an' make un jump for somethin'!"

"Then I suppose it's got to be. I'm yourn, Billy, an' theer needn't be any long waitin' neither. To think of another weddin' an' another husband! Just a drop or I shall cry. It's such a supporting thing to a lone female."

Whether Mrs. Coomstock meant marriage or Plymouth gin, Billy did not stop to inquire. He helped her, filled Lezzard's empty glass for himself, and then, finding his future wife thick of speech, bleared of eye, and evidently disposed to slumber, he departed and left her to sleep off her varied emotions.

"I'll mighty soon change all that," thought Mr. Blee. "To note a fine woman in liquor 's the frightfullest sight in all nature, so to say. Not but what with Lezzard a-pawin' of her 't was enough to drive her to it."

That night the lover announced his triumph, whereon Phoebe congratulated him and Miller Lyddon shook his head.

"'T is an awful experiment, Billy, at your age," he declared.

"Why, so 't is; but I've weighed the subject in my mind for years and years, an 't wasn't till Mary Coomstock comed to be widowed that I thought I'd found the woman at last. 'T was lookin' tremendous high, I knaw, but theer 't is; she'll have me. She 'm no young giglet neither, as would lead me a devil's dance, but a pusson in full blooth with ripe mind."

"She drinks. I doan't want to hurt your feelings; but everybody says it is so," declared the miller.

"What everybody sez, nobody did ought to believe," returned Mr. Blee stoutly. "She 'm a gude, lonely sawl, as wants a man round the house to keep off her relations, same as us has a dog to keep down varmints in general. Theer 's the Hickses, an' Chowns, an' Coomstocks all a-stickin' up theer tails an' a-purrin' an' a-rubbin' theerselves against the door-posts of the plaace like cats what smells feesh. I won't have none of it. I'll dwell along wi' she an' play a husband's part, an' comfort the decline of her like a man, I warn 'e."

"Why, Mrs. Coomstock 's not so auld as all that, Billy," said Phoebe. "Chris has often told me she's only sixty-two or three."

But he shook his head.

"Ban't a subject for a loving man to say much on, awnly truth 's truth. I seed it written in the Coomstock Bible wan day. Fifty-five she were when she married first. Well, ban't in reason she twald the naked truth 'bout it, an' who'd blame her on such a delicate point? No, I'd judge her as near my awn age as possible; an' to speak truth, not so well preserved as what I be."

"How's Monks Barton gwaine to fare without 'e, Blee?" whined the miller.

"As to that, be gormed if I knaw how I'll fare wi'out the farm. But love--well, theer 't is. Theer 's money to it, I knaw, but what do that signify? Nothin' to me. You'll see me frequent as I ride here an' theer--horse, saddle, stirrups, an' all complete; though God He knaws wheer my knees'll go when my boots be fixed in stirrups. But a man must use 'em if theer 's the dignity of money to be kept up. 'T is just wan of them oncomfortable things riches brings with it."

While Miller Lyddon still argued with Billy against the step he now designed, there arrived from Chagford the stout Mr. Chappie, with his mouth full of news.

"More weddin's," he said. "I comed down-long to tell 'e, lest you shouldn't knaw till to-morrow an' so fall behind the times. Widow Coomstock 's thrawed up the sponge and gived herself to that importuneous auld Lezzard. To think o' such a Methuselah as him--aulder than the century--fillin' the eye o' that full-bodied--"

"It's a black lie--blacker 'n hell--an' if't was anybody but you brought the news I'd hit un awver the jaw!" burst out Mr. Blee, in a fury.

"He tawld me hisself. He's tellin' everybody hisself. It comed to a climax to-day. The auld bird's hoppin' all awver the village so proud as a jackdaw as have stole a shiny button. He'm bustin' wi' it in fact."

"I'll bust un! An' his news, tu. An' you can say, when you'm axed, 't is the foulest lie ever falled out of wicked lips."

Billy now took his hat and stick from their corner and marched to the door without more words.

"No violence, mind now, no violence," begged Mr. Lyddon. "This love-making 's like to wreck the end of my life, wan way or another, yet. 'T is bad enough with the young; but when it comes to auld, bald-headed fules like you an' Lezzard--"

"As to violence, I wouldn't touch un wi' the end of a dung-fork--I wouldn't. But I'm gwaine to lay his lie wance an' for all. I be off to parson this instant moment. An' when my banns of marriage be hollered out next Sunday marnin', then us'll knaw who 'm gwaine to marry Mother Coomstock an' who ban't. I can work out my awn salvation wi' fear an' tremblin' so well as any other man; an' you'll see what that God-forsaken auld piece looks like come Sunday when he hears what's done an' caan't do nought but just swallow his gall an' chew 'pon it."