Chapter 9

Betts, however, could not help himself. He gave an interrupting and sceptical chuckle.

"Ghostisses don't cough, as ever I 'eered on."

"And why shouldn't they?" said Halsey testily. "If they can do them other things they'd used to do when livin'--walkin' an' seein' an' such-like--why not coughin'?"

Betts shook his head.

"Never 'eered on it," he said, with conviction.

"Well, anyways I seed him come down to that shed, an' then I lost 'im. But I 'ad the creeps somehow and I called to Jenny to come an' take the 'orses. An' then I went after 'im. But there was all the field an' the lane to cross, and when I come to the shed, there wasn't no one and nothink to be seen--excep'--"

The old man paused, and again looked doubtfully at his companion.

"Well?" said Betts eagerly, his philosophic attitude giving way a little.

"Excep'--a large patch o' blood--_fresh blood_--I touched it--on one of them ole sacks lyin' near the cart," said Halsey slowly. "An' it worn't there in the afternoon, for I moved the sacks mysel'."

Betts whistled softly. Halsey resumed,--

"There was nothin' moved--or taken away--nothin' at all!--only that patch. So then I went all round the farm, and there was nobody. I thought 'ee might ha' turned back by the grass road, p'raps, without my seein' 'im, so I went that way, and there was nothin'--until--a little way up the road--there was blood again"--the old man's voice dropped--"every couple o' yards or so--a drop or two here--an' a drop or two there--just as they tracked old Watson by it, up the hill, and into yon wood--where Dempsey set on him."

The two old men looked at each other. Betts was evidently impressed.

"Are you sure it was blood?"

"Sure. Last night, Hastings said it was sheep-dip! After I tole 'im, when 'ee went to look under the shed, it wor so dark 'ee couldn't see nothin'. Well, 'ee knew better this mornin'. 'Ee fetched me, an' asst me if I'd said anythin' to Miss Janet. And I said, no. So then he tole me I wasn't to say nothin' to the ladies, nor the girls, nor anybody. An' 'ee'd done summat wi' the sack--I dunno what. But 'ee might ha' held 'is tongue last night about sheep-dip! Who's been dippin' sheep about here? 'As Miss Henderson got any ruddle anywhere about the farm? I know she ain't!--an' Muster Hastings knows she ain't."

"Why didn't yer tell Miss Janet?--about the bleedin'?"

"Well, I was a bit skeered. I thought I'd sleep on't, before I got talkin' any more. But on the way 'ome, as I tellt yer, I met Hastings, an' tole '_im_, an' then give 'im notice."

"That wor a bit hasty, worn't it?" said Betts after a moment, in a judicial tone. But he had been clearly much exercised by his companion's account, and his pipe hanging idly from his hands showed that his thoughts were active.

"Well, it might ha' bin," Halsey admitted, "but as I said afore, I'm gettin' an old man, and I don't want no truck wi' things as I don't unnerstan'. It give me the wust night as I've had since I had that bad turn wi' the influenza ten year ago."

"You didn't see his face?"

"No."

"An' 'ee didn't mind you of anybody?"

Halsey hesitated.

"Well, onst I did think I'd seen one o' the same build--soomwhere. But I can't recolleck where."

"As for the blood," said Betts reflectively, "it's as curous as the coughin'. Did you iver hear tell as ghosts could bleed?"

Hastings shook his head. Steeped in meditation, the two men smoked silently for a while. Then Betts said, with the explosiveness of one who catches an idea,--

"Have yer thought o' tellin' John Dempsey?"

"I hain't thought o' tellin' nobody. An' I shouldn't ha' told Miss Leighton what I did tell her, if she 'adn't come naggin' about my givin' notice."

"You might as well tell John Dempsey. Why, it's his business, is old Watson! Haven't yer seen 'im at all?"

Halsey said "No," holding his handsome old head rather high. Had he belonged to a higher station in life, his natural reticence, and a fastidious personal dignity would have carried him far. To a modern statesman they are at least as valuable as brains. In the small world of Ipscombe they only meant that Halsey himself held rather scornfully aloof from the current village gossip, and got mocked at for his pains. The ordinary human instinct revenged itself, however, when he was _tête-à-tête_ with his old chum Peter Betts. Betts divined at any rate from the expression in the old man's eyes that _he_ might talk, and welcome.

So he poured out what he knew about John Dempsey, a Canadian lad working in the Forestry Corps at Ralstone, who turned out to be the grandson of the Dempsey who had always been suspected of the murder of Richard Watson in the year 1859. This young Dempsey, he said, had meant to come to Ipscombe after the war, and put what he knew before the police. But finding himself sent to Ralstone, which was only five miles from Ipscombe, he saw no reason to wait, and he had already given all the information he could to the superintendent of police at Millsborough. His grandfather had signed a written confession before his death, and John Dempsey had handed it over. The old man, it appeared, had "turned pious" during a long illness before his death, and had wished to square matters with his conscience and the Almighty. When his grandson had volunteered for the war, and was about to sail for Europe, old Dempsey had sent for him, had told him the story, and charged him, when he was able, to place his confession in the proper hands. And having done that, he died "very quiet and comfortable"--so John Dempsey reported.

"Which is more than poor Jem Watson did," growled Halsey. He felt neither respect nor sympathy for a man who, having set up a secret, couldn't keep it; and the confession itself, rather than the crime confessed, confirmed the poor opinion he had always held of the elder Dempsey when they were young men in the village together. But he agreed to let Betts bring "young John" to see him. And thereupon they went back to the sowing of one of Miss Henderson's big fields with winter wheat.

When the milking was done, and work was nearly over for the day, a note brought by messenger arrived at the farm for Miss Henderson. It was from Ellesborough--a few scribbled words. "I am prevented from coming this evening. The Chief Forestry Officer of my district has just arrived, and stays the night. I hope to come over to-morrow between six and seven. Shall I find you?"

Rachel scribbled an answer, which a small boy on a bicycle carried off. Then she went slowly back to the sitting-room, so disappointed and unnerved that she was on the brink of tears. Janet who had just come in from milking, was standing by the table, mending a rent in her waterproof. She looked up as Rachel entered, and the needle paused in her hand.

"I say, Rachel!--you do look overdone! You've been going at it too hard."

For all day long Rachel had been lifting, and sorting, and carrying, in the potato-field, finding in the severe physical exertion the only relief from restlessness. She shook her head irritably and came to stand by the wood fire which Janet had just lit, a welcome brightness in the twilight room.

"Suppose you knock up--" began Janet in a tone of remonstrance. Rachel cut her short.

"I want to speak to you--please, Janet."

Janet looked round in astonishment and put down her work. Rachel was standing by the fire, with her hands behind her back, her eyes fixed on Janet. She was still in the graceful tunic and knee-breeches, in which her young and splendid youth seemed always most at home. But she had taken off her cap, and her brown hair was falling round a pale face.

"Janet--you know Captain Ellesborough and I had a long talk last night?"

Janet smiled.

"Of course I do. And of course I have my own thoughts about it!"

"I don't know what they are," said Rachel slowly. "But--I'd better tell you--Captain Ellesborough asked me to marry him."

She paused.

"Did you think that would be news to any of us?" said Janet, laughing, and then stopped. The sudden contraction of pain in Rachel's face, and something like a sob startled her.

"Don't, Janet, please. I told him something--which made him wonder--whether he did want to marry me after all."

Janet's heart gave an uncomfortable jump. A score of past conjectures and misgivings rushed back upon her.

"What did you tell him?"

"What I see now I ought to have told you--as well as him--long ago. Henderson is my maiden name. I was a married woman for three years. I had a child which died. I divorced my husband, and he's still alive."

The colour had flamed back into her cheeks. Janet sat silent, her eyes fixed on Rachel's.

"I did tell you I had a story, didn't I?" said Rachel insistently.

"You did. I took my chance. It was you who--who brought the action?"

"I brought the action. There was no defence. And the judge said--I'd been awfully badly treated--it was no wonder I wanted--to get free. Well, there it is. I'm sorry I deceived you. I'm sorry I deceived him."

"You didn't deceive me," said Janet. "I had practically guessed it." She rose slowly, and going up to Rachel, she put her hands on her shoulders,--

"Why didn't you tell me, you poor thing!" Her voice and eyes were full of emotion--full of pity. But Rachel shrank away a little from her touch, murmuring under her breath, "Because I wanted never to hear of it--or think of it again." Then, after a pause, she added, "But if you want to know more, I'll tell you. It's your right. My married name was Delane."

"Don't tell me any more!" said Janet peremptorily. "I don't want to hear it. But you ought to be--quite frank--with _him_."

"I know that. Naturally--it was a great shock to him."

There was something very touching in her attitude. She stood there like a shamefaced boy, in her quasi-male dress; and the contrast between her strong young beauty, and the humility and depression of her manner appealed with singular force to Janet's mind, so constantly and secretly preoccupied with spiritual things. Rachel seemed to her so much cleverer and more vigorous than herself in all matters of ordinary life. Only in the region of religious experience did Janet know herself the superior. But Rachel had never made any outward sign that she cared in the least to know more of that region, whether in Janet or other people. She had held entirely aloof from it. But self-reproach--moral suffering--are two of the keys that lead to it. And both were evident here. Janet's heart went out to her friend.

"When is he coming?"

"To-morrow evening. I dare say he'll give me up."

Janet marvelled at the absence of self-assertion--the touch of despair--in words and tone. So it had gone as deep as this! She blamed herself for lack of perception. An ordinary love-affair, about to end in an ordinary way--that was how it had appeared to her. And suddenly it seemed to her she had stumbled upon what might be tragedy.

No, no--there should be no tragedy! She put her arms round Rachel.

"My dear, he won't give you up! As if I hadn't seen! He worships the ground you tread upon!"

Rachel said nothing. She let her face rest on Janet's shoulder. When she raised it, it was wet. But she kissed Janet quietly, and went away without another word.

VIII

Four grown-ups and a child were gathered in the living-room of Halsey's cottage. The cottage was old like its tenant and had all the inconveniences of age; but it was more spacious than the modern cottage often is, since it and its neighbours represented a surviving fragment from an old Jacobean house--a house of gentlefolks--which had once stood on the site. Most of the house had been pulled down, but Colonel Shepherd's grandfather had retained part of it, and turned it into two cottages--known as 1 and 2 Ipscombe Place--which for all their drawbacks were much in demand in the village, and conferred a certain distinction on their occupants. Mrs. Halsey's living room possessed a Tudor mantelpiece in moulded brick, into which a small modern kitchener had been barbarously fitted; and three fine beams with a little incised ornament ran across the ceiling.

Mrs. Halsey had not long cleared away the tea, and brought in a paraffin lamp, small but cheerful. She was a middle-aged woman, much younger than her husband--with an ironic half-dreamy eye, and a native intelligence much superior to her surroundings. She was suffering from a chronic abscess in the neck, which had strange periodic swellings and subsidences, all of which were endlessly interesting to its possessor. Mrs. Halsey, indeed, called the abscess "she," wrapped it lovingly in red flannel, describing the evening dressing of it as "putting her to bed," and talked of "her" qualities and oddities as though, in the phrase of her next-door neighbour, "it'd a been a christened child." She had decided views on politics, and was a match for any political agent who might approach her with an eye to her vote, a commodity which she kept, so to speak, like a new shilling in her pocket, turning it from time to time to make sure it was there.

But independent as she was, she rarely interfered with the talk of Halsey and his male friends. And on this occasion when the three men--Halsey, Peter Betts, and young Dempsey--had gathered smoking round the fire, she settled herself with her knitting by the table and the lamp, throwing in every now and then a muttered and generally sarcastic comment, of which her husband took no notice--especially as he knew very well that the sarcasms were never aimed at him, and that she was as proud of him as she was generally contemptuous of the rest of the world.

Halsey had just finished a rather grudging description of his experiences two days before for John Dempsey's benefit. He was conscious that each time he repeated them, they sounded more incredible. He didn't want to repeat them; he didn't mean to repeat them; after this, nobody should get any more out of him at all.

Young Dempsey's attitude was certainly not encouraging. Attentive at first, he allowed himself, as Halsey's talk developed, a mild, progressive grin, which spread gradually over his ugly but honest face, and remained there. In face of it, Halsey's speech became more and more laconic, till at last he shut his mouth with a snap, and drawing himself up in his chair, re-lit his pipe with the expression that meant, "All right--I've done--you may take it or leave it."

"Well, I don't see that what you saw, Mr. Halsey, was so very uncommon!" Dempsey began, still smiling, in spite of a warning look from Betts. "You saw a man come down that road? Well, in the first place, why shouldn't a man come down that road--it's a reg'lar right of way--"

"It's the way, mind ye, as the ghost of old Watson has allus come!" put in Peter Betts, chivalrously anxious to support his friend Halsey, as far as he could, against a sceptical stranger. "An' it's been seen twice on that road already, as I can remember: once when I was a little boy, by old Dan Holt, the postmaster, and once about ten years ago."

Dempsey looked at the speaker indulgently. To his sharpened transatlantic sense, these old men, in this funny old village, seemed to him a curiously dim and feeble folk. He could hardly prevent himself from talking to them as though they were children. He supposed his grandfather would have been like that if he'd stayed on at Ipscombe. He thanked the stars he hadn't!

But since he had been summoned to consult, as a person who had a vested interest, of a rather blood-curdling sort, in the Great End ghost, he had to give his opinion; and he gave it, while Halsey listened and smoked in a rather sulky silence. For it was soon evident that the murderer's grandson had no use at all for the supposed ghost-story. He tore it ruthlessly to pieces. In the first place, Halsey described the man seen on the grass-road as tall and lanky. But according to his grandfather's account, the murdered gamekeeper, on the contrary, was a broadly-built, stumpy man. In the next place--the coughing and the bleeding!--he laughed so long and loudly at these points in the story that Halsey's still black bushy eyebrows met frowningly over a pair of angry eyes, and Betts tried hurriedly to tame the young man's mirth.

"Well, if yer don't think that man as Halsey saw _was_ the ghost, what do you s'pose 'ee was doin' there?" asked Betts, "and where did he go? Halsey went right round the farm. The hill just there is as bare as my hand. He must ha' seen the man--if it _wor_ a man--an' he saw nothin'. There isn't a tree or a bush where that man could ha' hid hisself--if he _wor_ a man."

Dempsey declared he should have to go and examine the ground himself before he could answer the question. But of course there was an answer to it--there must be. As to the man--why Millsborough, and Ipscombe too, had been full of outlandish East Enders, flying from the raids, Poles and Russians, and such like--thievin' fellows by all accounts. Why couldn't it be one of them--prowling round the farm for anything he could pick up--and frightened off, when he saw Halsey?

Betts, smoking with prodigious energy, inquired what he made of the _blood_. Didn't he know the old story of how Watson was tracked down to the cart-shed? Dempsey laughed again.

"Well, it's curious, grant ye. It's real funny! But where are you going to get blood without a body? And if a thing's a body, it isn't a ghost!"

The two old men were silent. Halsey was lost in a hopeless confusion of ideas, and Betts was determined not to give his pal away.

But here--say what you like!--was a strange man, seen, on the road, which had been used, according to village tradition, on several previous occasions, by the authentic ghost of Watson; his course was marked by traces of blood, just as Watson's path of pain had been marked on the night of the murder; and on reaching the spot where Watson had breathed his last, the apparition, whatever it was, had vanished. Perplexity, superstition, and common sense fought each other. Halsey who knew much of his Bible by heart was inwardly comparing texts. "A spirit hath not flesh and blood"--True--but on the other hand what about the "bodies of the saints"--that "arose"? While, perhaps, the strongest motive of all in the old man's mind was the obstinate desire to prove himself right, and so to confound young scoffers like Dempsey.

Dempsey, however, having as he thought disposed of Halsey's foolish tale was determined to tell his own, which had already made a great impression in certain quarters of the village, and ranked indeed as the chief sensation of the day. To be able to listen to the story of a murder told by the grandson of the murderer, to whom the criminal himself had confessed it, and that without any fear of unpleasant consequences to any one, was a treat that Ipscombe had seldom enjoyed, especially as the village was still rich in kinsfolk of both murdered and murderer.

Dempsey had already repeated the story so often that it was by now perfect in every detail, and it produced the same effect in this lamplit kitchen as in other. Halsey, forgetting his secret ill-humour, was presently listening open-mouthed. Mrs. Halsey laid down her knitting, and stared at the speaker over the top of her spectacles; while across Betts's gnome-like countenance smiles went out and in, especially at the more gruesome points of the tale. The light sparkled on the young Canadian's belt, the Maple Leaf in the khaki hat which lay across his knees, on the badge of the Forestry Corps on his shoulder. The old English cottage, with its Tudor brick-work, and its overhanging beams, the old English labourers with the stains of English soil upon them, made the setting; and in the midst, sat the "new man," from the New World, holding the stage, just as Ellesborough the New Englander was accustomed to hold it, at Great End Farm. All over England, all over unravaged France and northern Italy similar scenes at that moment were being thrown on the magic sheet of life; and at any drop in the talk, the observer could almost hear, in the stillness, the weaving of the Great Loom on which the Ages come and go.

There was a pause, when Dempsey came to a dramatic end with the last breath of his grandfather; till Mrs. Halsey said dryly, fixing the young man with her small beady eyes,--

"And you don't mind telling on your own grandfather?"

"Why shouldn't I?" laughed Dempsey, "when it's sixty years ago. They've lost their chance of hanging him anyhow."

Mrs. Halsey shook her head in inarticulate protest. Betts said reflectively,--

"I wouldn't advise you to be tellin' that tale to Miss Henderson."

Dempsey's expression changed at the name. He bent forward eagerly.

"By the way, who is Miss Henderson? Do you know where she comes from?"

The others stared.

"Last winter," said Betts at last, "she wor on a farm down Devonshire way. And before that she wor at college--with Miss Janet."

"Was she ever in Canada?"

"Yes!" said Halsey with sudden decision, "she wor--for she told me one day when I wor mendin' the new reaper and binder, that we in this country didn't know what harvest meant. 'Why, I've helped to reap a field--in Canada,' she ses, 'fower miles square,' she ses, 'six teams o' horses--an' six horses to the team,' she ses--'that's somethin' like.' So I know she's been in Canada."

"Ah!" said Dempsey, staring at the carpet. "And she's not married? You're sure she's not married?"

"Married?" said all the others, looking at him in disapproving astonishment.

"Well, if she ain't, I saw her sister--or her double--twice--about two-and-a-half year ago--at a place thirty miles from Winnipeg. I could ha' sworn I'd seen her before!"

"Well, you can't ha' seen her before," said Betts positively; "cause she's Miss, not Missis."

"Ah!" said Dempsey again in a non-committal voice, looking hard this time into the fire.

"Where have you seen her--in these parts?" asked Mrs. Halsey.

"At the Harvest Festival, t'other day. But I must have been mistaken--that's all. I think I'm going to call upon her some day."

"Whatever for?"

"Why--to tell her about my grandfather!" said Dempsey, looking round at Mrs. Halsey, with an air of astonishment that any one should ask him the question.

"You won't be welcome."

"Why not?"

"Because she don't want to hear nothin' about Watson's murder. And whatever's the good on it, anyhow?" said Mrs. Halsey with sudden emphasis. "You've told us a good tale, I'll grant ye. But yer might as well be pullin' the old feller 'isself out of his grave, as goin' round killin' 'im every night fresh, as you be doin'. Let 'im be. Skelintons is skelintons."

Dempsey, feeling rather indignantly that his pains had been wasted, and his audience was not worthy of him, rose to take his departure. Halsey's face cleared. He turned to look at his wife, and she winked in return. And when the young forester had taken his departure, Mrs. Halsey stroked the red flannel round her swollen neck complacently.

"I 'ad to pike 'im out soomhow. It's 'igh time she wor put to bed!"

That same evening, Ellesborough left the Ralstone camp behind him about six o'clock, and hurried through the late October evening towards Great End Farm. During the forty-eight hours which had elapsed since his interview with Rachel he had passed through much suffering, and agonies of indecision. He had had to reconstruct all his ideas of the woman he loved. Instead of the proud and virginal creature he had imagined himself to be wooing, amid the beautiful setting of her harvest fields, he had to think of her as a woman dimmed and besmirched by an unhappy marriage with a bad man. For himself, he certainly resented the concealment which had been practised on him. Yet at the same time he thought he understood the state of exasperation, of invincible revolt which had led to it. And he kept reminding himself that, after all, her confession had anticipated his proposal.