Part 13

To get her downstairs the help of two men besides the driver was enlisted, Kate's husband being one of them. By a kindly policy, Bettesworth himself was sent to hold the horse ("'cause he wanted to start off"), in order that the sight of her husband might not increase the poor old woman's reluctance; and so they carried her downstairs, "bodily," he said, meaning, I suppose, that she did not support herself at all.

The doctor had advised, and the neighbours too, that Bettesworth himself should not accompany his wife. But now the niece Liz, being unwell, was afraid to be alone with what looked a dying woman, and at the last moment Bettesworth jumped into the cab. As it started, the old woman's head fell back, her mouth dropped open. A pause was made at the public-house, to get brandy for her, which, however, she could not, or would not, take. Gin was tried, and she just touched it. Liz took the brandy; Bettesworth and the driver shared a pint of beer; then they drove off again. Once, on the way, Liz said, "Uncle, she's gone! Hadn't ye better stop the fly?" But he put his head down against her cheek, and found that she was still living; and so they came to the outer entrance of the infirmary. Further than that Bettesworth was dissuaded from going: it was not well that his wife should be agitated by the sight of him at the very gates; and accordingly he came away.

So he is alone in his cottage, and may rest if he can. He is to have meals at his niece's, but will sleep at home. The kindness is touching to him, not alone of the nephew and niece, but of his neighbours generally. "Kate said she'd ha' went down in the fly, if I'd ha' let her know in time. An' she'd wash for me--if I'd take anything I wanted along to her Monday or Tuesday, she'd wash it. I says to her, 'You be the first friend I got, Kate.' Well, Liz had told me she _couldn't_ undertake it. She was forced to get somebody to do her own, and the doctor come to see her one day expectin' to find her in bed, and she was gettin' the dinner. There's Jack" (her husband) "and four boys.... So Kate's goin' to do the washin' for me, and she and her daughter's goin' one day to give the place a scrub out. More'n that she _can't_ do--with eight little 'uns, and then look at the washin'!" For Mrs. Eggar takes in washing, to eke out her husband's fifteen or sixteen shillings a week.

Besides these friends, there are those who are willing to find the old man a home, "if anything should happen to the old gal." "'Tis a sort o' comfortin'," he says, "to think what good neighbours I got;" but he hopes not to break up his home yet. In an unconscious symbolism of his affection for all the home things he bought this afternoon a pennyworth of milk for the cat, who came running to meet him on his return to the lonely cottage, and then ran upstairs "to see if the old gal was there."

He will keep his home together if he may, with warm feelings towards his neighbours. "But as for these up here," and he points contemptuously in the direction of the old woman's relatives, "I dunno if they knows she's gone, and I shan't trouble to tell 'em."

[So I wrote on the Saturday evening. Four clear days pass, without any note about Bettesworth; then on the following Thursday the narrative is reopened. It is given here, unaltered.]

_September 29._--Bettesworth's wife died at the workhouse infirmary, about midnight of the 27th.

She had been unconscious since her admission, and spoke only twice. Once she said, "Bring my little box upstairs off the dresser, Fred;" the other time it was, "Fred, have ye wound up the clock?" These things were reported to him by the nurse, when he reached the infirmary on Tuesday afternoon--the usual afternoon for the admission of visitors.

He had gone down then, with his niece Liz, to see the old lady. And of course I heard the details of the expedition when he came back. Stopping at a greengrocer's in the town, he bought two ripe pears, at three halfpence each. "Did ye ever hear tell o' such a price for a pear? What 'd that be for a bushel? Why, 't'd come to a pound! But I said, 'I'll ha' the best.' Then I bought her some sponge-cakes at the confectioner's;" and with these delicacies he went to her.

She could not touch them. She lay with her eyes open, but unconscious even of the flies, which he, sitting beside, kept fanning from her face. There was no recognition of him; so he asked which was "her locker," proposing to leave the pears and sponge-cakes there for her, on the chance of her being able to enjoy them later. "Poor old lady, she'll never want 'em," the nurse said; and he replied, "Now I've brought 'em here I shan't take 'em back. Give 'em to some other poor soul that can fancy 'em."

They gave him permission to stay as long as he liked; but, said he, "I bid there an hour an' a quarter, an' then I couldn't bide no longer. What was the use, sir? She didn't know me." So at last he came away, provided with a free pass, "to go in at any hour o' the day or night he mind to."

Yesterday (Wednesday) morning he was about his work here when a letter was brought to him. It contained only a formal notice that "Lucy Bettesworth was lying dangerously ill, and desired to see him." Probably the notice was mercifully designed to prepare him for the worse news it might have told, but of course he did not know it, even if that was the case. He left here at once, to go and see his wife.

Between two and three hours afterwards he was back again. "How is it?" I asked, guessing how it was. "She's gone, sir"--and then he broke down, sobbing, but only for a minute. He had already ordered the coffin--"a nice box," he called it. The remainder of the day was spent in getting the death certificate and observing other formalities. He had the knell rung, too. Nothing would he neglect that would testify to his respect for the partner he had lost; and I think in all this he was partly animated by a savage resentment towards her relatives, who had ignored her, and by a resolved opposition to those who had contemned his wife while she lived. "Everybody always bin very good, to _me_," he has said, with significant emphasis on the last word.

In the evening he had the corpse brought away to his nephew Jack's. He also slept at Jack's, and in numerous ways Jack is behaving well to him. To spare the old man's weariness he spent the evening in going to see about the insurance money; and to-day it is Jack who is getting six other men to carry the coffin at the funeral on Saturday.

This morning Bettesworth went to the Vicar to arrange about the funeral. "He spoke very nice to me," he said. Thence he was sent to the sexton, near at hand; and soon he came to me to borrow a two-foot rule, because the sexton wanted to know the exact measurements of the coffin before digging the grave; "and _don't_ let's have any mistakes!" he had said, for there had been a mistake not so long ago, a grave having been dug too small for the coffin.

Knowing Bettesworth's fumbling blindness, and seeing him nervous, "Can you manage it?" I asked, "or would you like me to go over and measure it for you?" There was no hesitation: "It _would_ be a kindness, if you don't mind, sir...." I have but just now returned.

I think I will not record particulars of that visit. If I had not previously known it, I should have known then that Bettesworth is--but there are no fit epithets. Nothing sensational happened, nothing extravagantly emotional. But all that he did and said, so simple and unaffected and necessary, was done as if it were an act of worship. No woman could have been tenderer or more delicate than he, when he drew the sheet back from the dead face, to show me.... The coffin itself (because he is so poor and so lonely)--a decent elm coffin--is a kind of symbol, and so a comfort to him, enabling him to testify to his unspoken feelings towards his dead wife.

_October 1._--I went to the funeral of Bettesworth's wife this Saturday afternoon. In his decent black clothes and with his grey hair the old man looked very dignified, showing a quiet, unaffected patience.

There were but few people present: four or five relatives besides the bearers and the undertaker and sexton; while a young woman (Mrs. Porter) with her little boy Tim stood in the background, she carrying a wreath she had made. She is a near neighbour to us, and a very impoverished one, to whom the old man has shown what kindness has been in his power; while she on many mornings has called him into her cottage at breakfast time, to give him a cup of hot tea.

XXVIII

Shutting his mouth doggedly, Bettesworth went back to his cottage, to live alone there with his cat. There had been some talk of his going into lodgings; but after all, this was still his home. Should he once give it up, he reasoned, and dispose of his furniture, it would be impossible ever again to form a home of his own, however much he might desire to do so. To live with neighbours might be very well; yet how if he and they should disagree? He would have burnt his boats; he would be unable to resume his independence. Better were it, then, to keep while he still had it a place where he was his own master, and take the risk of being lonely.

For some seven weeks after the wife's funeral there is next to nothing to be told of him. I find that I am unable to remember anything about him for that period, unless it was then--and it could not have been much later--that he renewed some of his household goods, and amongst them his mattress, being visited apparently by a wish to regain the character for cleanliness which had been lost in his wife's time. It must have been then also that he first talked of buying muslin for blinds to his windows. It is further certain that he chatted a great deal about his next-door neighbours--the Norrises, mother and son, upon whose society he was now chiefly dependent; but of all this not a syllable remains, nor is there any dimmest picture in my memory of what the old man did, or even how he looked, in those seven weeks.

_November 22, 1904._--At the end of them, on a raw morning in November, amid our struggles to heave out of the ground a huge shrub we were transplanting, it was remarkable how strong Bettesworth seemed, because of the cunning use he made of every ounce of force in his experienced old muscles. How to lift, and how to support a weight, were things he knew as excellently as some know how to drive a golf-ball. Nor was my theory quite so good as his experience, for showing where our skids and levers should be placed. It was Bettesworth who got them into the serviceable positions.

Something about those skids set us talking of other skidding work, and especially of the extremely tricky business of loading timber on a trolly. "I see a carter once," said Bettesworth, "get three big elm-trees up on to a timber-carriage, with only hisself and the hosses. He put the runnin' chains on and all hisself."

"And _that_ takes some doing," I said.

"Yes, a man got to understand the way 'tis done.... I never had much hand in timber-cartin' myself; but this man.... 'Twas over there on the Hog's Back, not far from Tongham Station. We all went out for to see 'n do it--'cause 'twas in the dinner-time he come, and we never believed he'd do it single-handed. The farmer says to 'n, 'You'll never get they up by yourself.' 'I dessay I shall,' he says; and so he did, too. Three great elm-trees upon that one carriage.... Well, he had a four-hoss team, so that'll tell ye what 'twas. They _was_ some hosses, too. Ordinary farm hosses wouldn't ha' done it. But he only jest had to speak, and you'd see they watchin' him.... When he went forward, after he'd got the trees up, to see what sort of a road he'd got for gettin' out, they stood there with their heads stretched out and their ears for'ard. 'Come on,' he says, and _away_ they went, _tearin'_ away. Left great ruts in the road where the wheels went in--that'll show ye they got something to pull."

We got our shrub a little further, Bettesworth grunting to a heavy lift; then, in answer to a question:

"No, none o' we helped 'n. We was only gone out to see 'n do it. He never wanted no help. He didn't say much; only 'Git back,' or 'Git up,' to the hosses. When it come to gettin' the last tree up, on top o' t'other two, I never thought he could ha' done it. But he got 'n up. And he was a oldish man, too: sixty, I dessay he was. But he jest spoke to the hosses. Never used no whip, 'xcept jest to guide 'em. Didn't the old farmer go on at his own men, too! 'You dam fellers call yerselves carters,' he says; 'a man like that's worth a dozen o' you.' Well, they couldn't ha' done it. A dozen of 'em 'd ha' scrambled about, an' _then_ not done it! Besides, their _hosses_ wouldn't. But this feller--the old farmer says to 'n, 'I never believed you'd ha' done it.' 'I thought mos' likely I should,' he says. But he never had much to say."

Sleet showers were falling, and a north wind was roaring through the fir wood on top of the next hill while we worked. Dropping into the vernacular, "I don't want to see no snow," said I. "No," responded Bettesworth, "it's too white for me." "January," I went on, "is plenty soon enough for snow to think about comin'." "April," he urged. "Ah well, April," I laughed; and he, "Let it wait till there's a warm sun to get rid of it 's fast as it comes."

Then he continued, "That rain las' night come as a reg'lar su'prise to me. I was sittin' indoors by my fire smokin'--I 'ave got rid o' some baccer lately--and old Kid went up the garden. He see my light, and hollered out, 'It don't half rain!' '_Let_ it rain,' I says. I was in there as comfortable...."

In the next night but one a little snow fell, enough to justify our forecast and no more; and then we had frost, and garden work could hardly go on. I was meaning to lay turf over a plot of ground where the shrubs had stood; but the work had to wait: the frozen turfs could not be unrolled.

Bettesworth did not like the weather. I have told of those steps connecting his cottage with the road. They were slippery now, and the handrail to them was icy when he clutched it, coming down in the dark of the mornings. At the bottom of the steps, before the road is reached, there is a steep path, commonly known as "Granny Fry's." Boys were sliding there after breakfast, and they called out to Bettesworth, "Be you roughed, Master Bettesworth?" According to his tale, he spoke angrily: "''Tis _you_ ought to be roughed,' I says; 'you ought to be roughed over the bank. You be old enough to know better.' And so they be, too. They be biggish boys; and anybody goin' there might easy fall down and break their back--'specially after dark."

When he came back from his dinner, he said, "Somebody 've bin an' qualified old Granny Fry's." How? "Oh, somebody 've chucked some dirt over where they boys had made it so slippery."

He was obliged to admit, though, that in his own boyhood he had been as careless as any of these. And a few minutes later he was confessing to another boyish fault. In a cottage hard by, little Timothy Porter--a chubby little chap about five years old--was on very friendly terms with old Bettesworth. He had but lately started his schooling, and almost immediately was taken unwell and had to stay at home a week or two. I happened now to ask Bettesworth how little Tim was getting on.

"Oh, he's gettin' all right: goin' to school again Monday. He've kicked up a rare shine, 'cause they wouldn't let 'n go. I likes 'n for that. I likes to hear of a boy eager for learnin'--not to see 'm make a shine and their mothers have to take 'em three parts o' the way. Not but what I wanted makin' when I was a nipper. Many's a time I've clucked up to a tree jest this side o' Cowley Bridge, and that old 'oman" (I don't know what old woman) "come out an' drive me. There wa'n't no school then nearer 'n Lyons's--where Smith the wheelwright lives now. He used to travel with tea, and I dessay half a dozen of us 'd come to his school from Cowley Bridge. We'd start off an' say we wouldn't go to school; but we _'ad_ to."

The frost, had it continued, would very soon have been calamitous to the working people. As it was, I saw bricklayers--good men known to me, and neighbours, too--standing idle in the town, at the street corners. And Bettesworth said,

"Some o' the shop-keepers down in the town begun to cry out about it. They missed the Poor Man. And I heared the landlord down 'ere at the Swan say he was several pounds out o' pocket by it."

_December 2, 1904._--Fortunately it was not to last. The men got to work again; our gardening tasks could go forward. My notebook has this entry for the 2nd of December:

"Laying turf this afternoon, in wonderful mild dry weather."

XXIX

The thought came to me one of those afternoons, Was it I, or was it Bettesworth, who was growing dull? It might well have been myself; for at the unaccustomed labour of turf-laying, in weather that had turned mild and relaxing, mind no less than body was aware of fatigue, and perhaps on that account the old man's talk seemed less vivid than usual, less deserving of remembrance. At the same time I could not help speculating whether the livelier interests of his conversation might not be almost over. Had he much more to tell? Or had I heard it practically all?

At this turf-laying the parts were reversed now. Time had been when, at similar employments, I was the helper or onlooker; but now Bettesworth's sight was so bad that I could no longer leave him to unroll two turfs side by side and make their edges fit. I had to be down on the ground with him, or instead of him.

And yet he would not accept criticism. Did I say, "Shove that end up a little tighter," he would rejoin, "That's jest what I was a-goin' to do." Or, to my comment, "That isn't a first-rate fit just there," "No, sir," he would admit, "I was only jest layin' it so ontil," etc., etc. "You'll see that'll go down all right. That'll go down all right.... Yes, that'll go down all right." And he would fumble unserviceably, while the sentence trailed away into inaudible reiterations. Still, it was a rich, creamy, very quiet and pleasing old voice that spoke.

The habit of repeating his own words was growing upon the old man fast since his wife's death; and it irritated me at times, filling up the gaps and interrupting my share of the conversation. Instead of listening to me, he mumbled on, dreamily. Now and again, however, he appeared to become aware of the habit. More than once, after relating something he had said at home, he added in explanation, "I was talkin' to _myself_, you know. I en't got nobody else to talk _to_." This was almost the only indication he allowed me to see of that loneliness which others assured me he was feeling. Did he, I wonder, fear that if I knew of it I should be urging him to give up his cottage? For whatever reason, he made no confidant of me on that point. Once, indeed, there was mention of sitting indoors one evening by his fire, "till he couldn't sit no longer," but got up and walked up and down his garden, driven by crowding thoughts. Another time, "All sorts o' things keeps comin' into my mind now," he said. And these were the utmost complainings to which he condescended, in my hearing.

It was very fortunate that he had excellent neighbours in old Mrs. Norris (old Nanny, he called her) and her son, known as Kid, Kiddy, or Kidder. While stooping over our turfs I heard many tiny details of Bettesworth's kindly relations with these good people; and, as pleasantly as oddly, between them and myself a sort of friendship grew up, through the old man's mediation. We seldom met; we knew little of one another save what he told us; but he must have gone home and talked to them of me, just as he came here and told me about them; and thus, while I was learning to like them cordially, I think they were learning to like me, and it seemed to stamp with the seal of genuineness my intercourse with Bettesworth himself. But it was truly queer. Old Nanny Norris--the skinny old woman with the strange Mongolian or Tartar face and eyes--took to stopping for a chat, if we met on the road. In the town once, where I stood talking with some one else, she, coming up from behind me, could not pass on without looking round, nodding joyfully and grimacing her countenance--the countenance of an eastern image--into a jolly smile. She wore a Paisley shawl, and a little bonnet gay with russet and pink.

Bettesworth was distressed only by Nanny's deafness. "_En't_ that a denial to anybody!" he exclaimed feelingly. "There, I can't talk to her. I always did hate talkin' to anybody deaf. Everybody can hear what you got to say, and if 't en't nothing, still you don't want everybody to hear it.... Old Kid _breaks_ out at her sometimes: 'Gaw' dangy! I'll _make_ ye hear!' Every now an' then I laughs to myself to hear 'n, sittin' in there by myself."

He handed me another turf, and continued: "'Tis a good thing for she that old Kidder en't never got married. But she slaves about for 'n; nobody _could_n't do no more for 'n than she do. When I got home to dinner she come runnin' round. She'd jest bin to pay all his clubs for 'n. He belongs to three clubs: two slate clubs an' the Foresters."

"He doesn't mean to be in any trouble if he's ill," I grumbled up from the turf.

"Not he. Thirty-two shillin's a week he'll get, if he's laid up. There's Alf" (one of his half-brothers) "and him--rare schemin' fellers they be, no mistake." Particulars followed about this family of strong brothers; but, in fine, "Kidder 've always bin the darlin'. He's the youngest."

Fearless, black-bearded strong man that he is, though very quiet, even silky and soft in his ordinary demeanour, it was laughable to think of Kid Norris as a "darling." Along with Alf he was at work all through the summer on the new railway near Bordon Camp, they two being experts and earning a halfpenny an hour more than the common navvy. Their way was to leave home at four in the morning and walk the eight miles to their work. In the evening the 7 p.m. up-train brought them within a mile and a half of this village. Once or twice they overtook me, making their way homewards, long-striding; and sometimes they would work an hour or two after that in their gardens, in the summer twilight.

When the weather worsened and the days shortened, Kid threw up his railway-work, and took a job at digging sea-kale for a large grower. The fields were scattered about the district; some of them within two miles, and the remotest not more than three, from his home. He was the leading man of a gang of labourers; and at my paltry turf-laying I heard of his work, which, it appears, was new to him. "They had to save," he said (and the fact was interesting to old Bettesworth), "jest the parts he should ha' throwed away.... It did take some heavin': they stamms was gone down like tree-roots," especially down there in such-and-such a field. "Up here above Barlow's Mill 'twan't half the trouble." The master said to Kid, "You no call to slack. I got plenty o' trenchin' you can go on at, when the kale's up." Then said Kid to his gang, "Some o' you chaps 'll have to move about a bit quicker, if you're goin' trenchin' 'long o' me." He sent one of them packing--a neighbour from this village, too. "Not a bad chap to work, so far as that goes, but too stiff, somehow," Bettesworth said, evidently knowing the man's style.

Towards the end of one afternoon, "It looks comin' up rainy," Bettesworth observed, "but old Kid wants it frosty. Where he is now--trenchin' up there at Waterman's--he says this rain makes it so heavy; it comes up on they spuds jest as much as ever a man can lift."

"And that's not a little," said I; "Kid's a strong man."