Part 20

In the end she consented to his staying—happily for herself since otherwise life would have been almost impossible. During the three weeks that passed before George’s trial, they settled down into a new and orderly condition, living poorly, it is true, but contentedly, and aided by the attentions of their neighbours. Mrs Mamble, perhaps at Mary’s request, often softened the awkwardness of the situation by dropping in about supper-time and staying to talk over the fire, and old Drew was continually giving the children presents of eggs from his own fowl-yard, farm-produce from the land on which he worked, and even some of the milk which, according to the custom in those parts, he received in part payment of his wage. Mary could not refuse these gifts so beautifully given; she could not even return him adequate thanks; but she tried to add a little to the comfort of the rooms in which the old man lived, and offered to attend to his clothes, an attempt in which she failed, since Drew always locked his door when he left it in the dawn, resenting, in the manner of many bachelors, the least interference with his own homely dirt, and wore in winter every shred of clothing that he possessed.

The sense of an obligation unfulfilled would have made them awkward if the old man had not accepted the help of Abner in his garden, a proceeding that he watched with suspicion, being as fidgety as any old maid, and that of Mary in the feeding of his fowls. Within a few weeks, indeed, the inhabitants of Wolfpits had settled down into a kind of communal life that was happy if only for the fact that its existence implied so much goodwill.

The subpoenas for the assizes arrived, and with them a new wave of rumour and excitement troubled the villages. It was agreed that George had no chance of being acquitted, but those who had experience of the law vied with those who had none in predicting the term of his sentence. Through the medium of Susie, Pound House gossip filtered back to Abner, and in this way he learned that Mrs Malpas had managed in spite of her loss to brief a barrister named Rees, who had a great reputation for skill in criminal defences on that circuit. A week before the trial Abner received a note from the lesser of the two local solicitors, who, being a liberal and a nonconformist, had nothing to lose by an implied opposition to the squire. Together with Mick Connor and Atwell, Abner repeated his version of the affair to this man.

‘I shall let Mrs Malpas, senior, know by wire when the case is likely to come on,’ he said, ‘and you, of course, will hold yourselves in readiness.’

A fortnight later Mrs Malpas sent up a message by a small boy from Chapel Green to Wolfpits, telling Abner that it would be necessary to set out for Shrewsbury on the following morning. The message made no mention of Mary.

‘But I shall go all the same,’ she said.

They left Wolfpits in darkness, whispering their farewells to Mrs Mamble for fear of waking the children, whom Mary, dressing quietly, had left asleep. The nearest station to Chapel Green was that of Llandwlas, a minute hamlet hidden amid the springs of the Barbel, a little to the north of the single line that winds painfully out of Wales between the dominant masses of the forests of Radnor and Clun. From Wolfpits, cross-country, this made a five-mile walk. A dripping mist hid the land, and they saw no soul until they reached the station. There, on the raw, deserted platform, where the porter had lit a single oil lamp to show that the day had begun, they waited, walking up and down to keep themselves warm. They were early, and the only other sign of life was the yellow square of the stationmaster’s bedroom in the adjoining cottage. Even if daylight had come, the density of the mist would have given them the same sense of isolation. Little by little the place became alive: first a float drove up with a couple of milk-cans; next came a gnomish figure who carried a stick, with dead rabbits slung from it over his shoulder: then a noisy party of two, whom Abner recognised as his fellow-witnesses.

‘That’s Connor and Atwell come up,’ he said.

‘Let’s keep at the other end,’ Mary whispered, moving away.

Two more traps arrived, the first containing the Hinds, the second Badger, alone, and last, the small, energetic figure of George’s mother. All these people, whom a chance blow had precipitated into the same grim business, stood waiting for the train singly or in isolated groups of two. A straining of wires was heard, and the fogged, red eye of the signal changed to green. The stationmaster threw up the shutter of the booking office with a rattle. Abner found himself wedged in front of the window between Badger and Mr Hind. Mrs Malpas, fidgeting with her purse, stood waiting in the background. As Abner rejoined Mary, a sound of distant panting was heard, and a minute later the front of the engine loomed enormous through the fog. They entered a third-class smoker at the end of the train. The milk-cans were rolled over the echoing platform into the van, and the train moved off with a clank of couplings and a hiss of white steam. Down through the valleys, mile on mile they wound. The train rocked on the gradients until it seemed that the carriages must touch the black edge of the woods. The mist turned white and dazzling. The sun had risen.

The Sixteenth Chapter

AFTER nightfall on the same evening that train of old-fashioned coaches came blundering back along the curves of the Llandwlas line. The snorting of its engine was the only sound, as its yellow windows and fire-belching funnel were the only light, in all those miles of woodland and valley. The train ran late as usual, stuttering up the gradients as though the weight it carried were too much for the power of its groaning pistons.

Scattered through the various compartments of its three short coaches sat all the witnesses of George’s condemnation. The jury, having no alternative, had found him guilty of manslaughter, and the judge, who saw in front of him a programme of cases more important than this flicker of violence in a remote agricultural district, wasted no time on his sentence. If Bastard had not been a policeman, and therefore a humble symbol of the code which his lordship administered, if the witness Badger had not been a gamekeeper, which was much the same thing, George might easily have escaped with a few months’ imprisonment, or half a year’s at most. The barrister whom Mrs Malpas had employed for the defence realised this. The fact that he was most eager to establish seemed to be that George was not, and had never been, a poacher, and that he was not on bad terms with the man he had killed. Mrs Malpas, sitting in the public gallery on the bench in front of Mary, listened eagerly. Her heart sank as she listened to the evidence, the words that she had heard before in the police-court at Lesswardine, for she had expected that the little man in the gray wig who had shaken hands with her an hour before in consideration of the thirty pounds that she had scraped together to pay him, would throw some new and startling light upon the case, reducing Badger to tears and confounding the Lesswardine police. She had expected thunders and passionate appeals to the mercy of the jury. Instead of this he spoke in a low voice, with a Jewish lisp, and even cracked a joke, at which the jury smiled, with one of the witnesses for the prosecution. The old woman felt that she had been betrayed. Seeking ideal justice she had found something trivial and cynical. The whole business was nearly over before she realised that it had begun. The judge summed up lazily, only pitching his voice when he dwelt upon the necessity of such men as Bastard to the public safety and the very existence of property. The jury retired for less than two minutes. The judge gave sentence of eighteen months’ hard labour, and the white face of George, who had stood like a statue throughout the trial, disappeared from the dock. When she looked again she saw that another man, who looked like a tramp, had entered it. People around her began to talk, for this was a case of real murder, and this mean-looking creature was to fight for his life. Only then did the old woman realise that George’s case was over. She passed Mary in the door of the gallery and hurried downstairs, where the counsel whom she had briefed congratulated her on the issue of the case. While she was engaged with him and with Harley, the solicitor, Mary passed her and joined Abner on the steps of the court. Mrs Malpas, in the middle of her conversation, gave them a queer sidelong glance that filled Mary with uneasiness.

‘I don’t think we had better go home together,’ she whispered.

‘Come on and get a spot of tea,’ he said. ‘I reckon you must be clammed, and there’s near an hour before the train goes.’

It made her flurried and impatient to think that Abner had not understood her.

‘I don’t want you to be with me,’ she said. ‘She’s watching us. Don’t you see?’

‘Let her watch!’ said Abner, looking round in a way that made Mrs Malpas sure that they had been speaking of her. ‘Come on . . .’

But she slipped away from him in the crowd outside the steps so quickly that he could not very well follow her with dignity. At the same moment Connor and Atwell appeared and solved his perplexity by dragging him off into a public-house. Mick gave the ball a kick, as he called it, with a round of Irish whisky. None of them had tasted any food since they left their homes before dawn, and the spirit soon went into Abner’s head. They sat in a corner of the bar, laughing uproariously at Mick’s ridiculous stories, and making outrageous plans for getting their own back on Badger. Indeed, if the clock in the bar had not struck to warn them of the time, they would have missed their train. They had to hurry down the steep hill to Shrewsbury station. Lights were gleaming in the muddy streets and in the windows of tall, half-timbered houses. Above them hung the threatening mass of the castle.

‘That’s where poor old George will get his lodging,’ said Mick.

‘This time eighteen month . . .’ said Atwell solemnly.

‘Ah, not at all,’ said Mick. ‘Sure he’ll be out and about next winter, if he plays his game.’

At the station they found they had still a few minutes to spare, and Abner’s hazy intention of looking for Mary was lost in another rush to the third-class refreshment-room. Just before the train started he ran along the carriages to see if he could find her. In one carriage he saw Mrs Malpas, in another three Lesswardine policemen, in a third Mr Hind was sitting with Susie, who smiled at him. Mary was nowhere to be seen. Mick pulled him into a smoker as the train was starting.

‘God help me!’ said he, ‘is it crazed you are that you can’t leave the woman five minutes to herself. You’ll be seeing all you want of her time her George comes out.’

Atwell laughed stupidly. Abner jumped up in a rage and was for throwing Connor through the window.

‘Ah, be quiet now!’ Mick persuaded, ‘for I don’t mane a word of it!’

Abner settled down sulkily. Atwell had already forgotten the incident and was snoring in his corner. Mick hummed quietly the song about Macarthy, spitting through a chink in the window between the verses. The train jolted on into the darkness, crossing the deep valley of Severn, skirting the eastern foothills of the Long Mynd, sliding down with braked engine into the basin of Teme. At Craven Arms a Welsh cattle dealer joined them, a small, red-bearded man, who eyed them suspiciously and would not be drawn into talk with Mick Connor. The train climbed painfully, the air grew colder. Atwell’s snores joined with the clanking of the wheels to set a spell of drowsiness on Abner’s fuddled brain. He fell asleep.

At Llandwlas Mick woke him. They tumbled out on to the deserted platform. Mary was nowhere to be seen. She had slipped him again, and though he was inclined to be angry at this unreasonable conduct he submitted to Mick’s suggestion that they should walk back to Chapel Green together and get another drink. Two traps passed them on the road, flinging an uncertain light upon the frosty hedges. From the first of them Susie called good-night; in the second they could see the helmets of the police, but no trace either of Mrs Malpas or Mary was to be seen on the road.

The sleep had cleared Abner’s head. They walked quickly through the raw air and in a little more than an hour they saw the poplars of Chapel Green.

‘What about a drop at the Buffalo?’ said Mick.

Even from a distance they could see that this forbidding resort had become unusually cheerful. It was now the time of evening at which the labouring men who formed the greater part of Mrs Malpas’s customers finished their quarts and went home to bed. As the three men approached, many voices were heard.

‘Sounds as if there’s a drop stirrin’,’ said Mick. ‘By the houly, an’ so there will be! There’s the Pound House, after being closed on them with Mr Hind and Susan away!’

He opened the door and a mist of tobacco smoke met the colder air. At the same moment a tall musical box, shaped like a grandfather clock and worked by a penny-in-the-slot apparatus, struck up the tune of Champagne Charlie. In front of it, beating time with a pint pot, dangerously full, stood Wigan Joe. The man was three-parts drunk, as were most of the other cloggers who crowded the bar. At his right hand, next the fire, sat old Mr Malpas, following with anxious eyes the evolutions of the big man’s tankard. The room was so full of smoke and occupied by the jingle of the musical box that Abner and his friends entered without the clogger realising that they were there. . . .

‘That’s a good rousing tune, lad,’ he cried, leaning over Mr Malpas and beating out the rhythm with his free hand on the old man’s shoulder. ‘Eh, it’s a grand night is this. Makes you feel like you’re young again. Let’s have another bloody penn’orth!’ Mr Malpas nodded, smiling feebly.

Fumbling in his pocket for the coin, he became aware of Abner, Mick, and Atwell.

‘By gum, lads, is that you? Tell us quick what’s happened . . .’

‘They give him eighteen months,’ said Abner.

‘The b—s!’ said Joe under his breath. He took them aside and explained that he and his mates had thought that old Mr Malpas would be lonely-like with George in trouble and his missus away. ‘We thought we’d stay in and brighten things up a bit to take his mind off it like. We’ve had a nice bit of harmony,’ he said. ‘Eighteen months! Well, that’s a b— that is!’

At this moment the musical box, after one or two metallic protests, inharmoniously stopped in the middle of its chorus. Joe threw a penny to the man who sat nearest to it. ‘’Ere, put in another copper,’ he said, ‘an’ wind the blasted thing oop.’ The clockwork grated and the tune began again. ‘Don’t say a word to the old ’un,’ he said. ‘Keep his mind off it: that’s the ticket.’

With this end in view he left them and poked old Malpas, who had now relapsed into a state of nodding imbecility, in the ribs. ‘Do you see that there gun, dad?’ he shouted.

Malpas stared vaguely.

‘Gun,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t you go telling me you don’t know what a gun is!’ He pointed to an old muzzle loader that hung above the hearth.

‘Oh, ay . . . gun!’ said Old Malpas blandly. Wigan Joe bent over him and began to declaim in his ear an endless, and, as it seemed, pointless story, of how he had once gone out with a friend to shoot crows; how he had seen a crow on a haystack on the parish boundary, and how his friend, after taking careful aim, had missed it. At this point he raised his voice still louder. ‘By gum, lad,’ I says, ‘you’re the first ever I knew that shot at a haystack and missed a parish!’ With the last words he gave the old man a hearty slap on the back, and Malpas collapsed into a feeble fit of laughter.

‘Shot at a haystack and missed a parish,’ the clogger repeated, roaring at his own joke, and presenting it to the company, who were now in a condition to laugh at anything.

At the same moment the door opened and Mrs Malpas entered. Joe steadied himself, the others were silent at the sight of her small, tragic figure, only the musical box continued to jangle out its tune and the old man to be shaken with equally mechanical chuckles. She did not speak, but took in the whole assembly with her eyes.

‘Evening, ma’am,’ said the clogger. ‘We’ve been giving the old gentleman a bit of a tune to liven him up like, and make him forget his troubles.’

Without answering, she stepped straight over to the musical box and pulled a lever that stopped it. Then she shook the shoulder of her husband, who had not yet realised her coming.

‘What’s up with you, dad?’ she cried. ‘Are you stark mad?’

‘It’s all right, mother,’ he replied feebly.

‘Right?’ she cried. Then she turned on the others. ‘Out of this!’ she said. ‘Out of this, every one of you. . . . As if there wasn’t enough shame and sorrow in this house without your mocking it with your drink and your music. Out of it, I say!’ And she waved her arms as though she were driving cattle.

‘Now don’t take on so, ma’am,’ said Wigan Joe mildly. ‘It was all meant for the best. Can’t you let the man forget his troubles? It’s a poor heart that never rejoices!’

‘Don’t speak to me!’ she cried angrily. ‘To think that you have the face to come here, you that led him astray with your drink and your bawdiness! To come and make a mock of his own father!’

Her eyes fell on Abner, who had risen to go to the door.

‘And that man!’ she cried, whipping herself up into a white paroxysm of rage. ‘That man who, if all had their rights, would be in the dock and in the prison where my son is lying! That’s the man he’s suffering for! That’s the serpent he took into his bosom!’ She stood before Abner spitting like a snake herself. ‘Never let me see your face again!’ she cried. ‘Never come nigh this door. It was the devil that sent you to bring trouble on a good Christian house!’

Again Wigan Joe protested the innocence of his intentions, while the old man sat nodding by the fire as if the storm had broken without him knowing it.

‘Don’t talk to me,’ she said, ‘with the liquor in your breath. Go away and leave us alone.’

Abner went out. The other men were standing on the pavement laughing. Mick implored him to go on with them to the Pound House where Mr Hind and Susie had by this time presumably arrived, but he shook his head and took the road to Wolfpits, pondering, through the darkness of night, on the curious turn which his fortune had taken.

He had now time to think about Mary, and the unreasonable obstinacy she had shown in leaving him on the steps of the court and later avoiding him both at Shrewsbury and Llandwlas. He felt a little concerned that she should have chosen to walk so many miles cross-country through the dark rather than submit to his company. After all it would have been only natural for them to go home together; he had always treated her with respect, and there was nothing in the history of their acquaintance that should have made her shy of him, nothing—unless it were perhaps that one curious moment on the night when they had carried George upstairs between them and put him to bed. Then he had told her, in George’s defence, of his own intimacy with Susie Hind, and this revelation, instead of putting her at ease, as it should have done, had actually seemed to embarrass her. This knowledge, however, gave her no reason for her present behaviour. Indeed, if she knew him to be so thick with Susie, there was surely less cause than ever for her to be shy with him herself. He gave women up—you never knew where you were with them. He supposed that nothing but fear of Mrs Malpas was at the bottom of Mary’s queer behaviour. ‘I don’t want you to be with me: she’s watching us,’ she had said when she gave him the slip at Shrewsbury. Another memory of Mrs Malpas returned to him: the end of her outburst at Wolfpits when she had come in search of her money. ‘You and your fancy lodger!’ she had screamed. Abner laughed to himself. It was clear that Mary hadn’t much of a fancy for him at present.

All the same he couldn’t entirely dismiss Mrs Malpas from his thoughts. She had shown herself definitely hostile to him, and his last vision of her clearing the bar of the Buffalo, a puny figure with white cheeks, burning eyes, and nodding plume of jet, showed him her fanatical strength, stronger for the fact that she regarded herself in her most violent moments as a representative of the right and the rest of the world as inspired by the devil. Yet he couldn’t get away from the ludicrous side of her, and found himself chuckling in the dark, ‘Poor old soul’ he thought. ‘She dain’t know what she wants, and that’s the truth!’ But Mrs Malpas did know what she wanted.

Mary had gone to bed when he reached Wolfpits, but she had left his supper ready on the kitchen table. He ate his bread and cheese and drank his beer. That night, exhausted with the strain of the day, he slept heavily.

So the new life began. If George Malpas, lying in Shrewsbury Jail, returned, in one of the debauches of sentiment to which his nature was subject, to the idea of his desolate wife and family, and dwelt on it with pity or remorse, he might well have spared himself the luxury of these emotions. There were few changes at Wolfpits. The children knew that they need no longer expect the violent attentions which George gave them when he felt like it; Spider, the bitch, settled down to a life untroubled by George’s kicks and stones; while Mary, that strange and secret creature, was spared at least the alternations of reproaches and endearments which made up the greater part of her marriage. George had vanished from her life. For three months at least no word, no sign from him might reach her. It was true that the family had to live more simply. Abner’s wages, which she now took without question every Saturday night, could buy them nothing more than the absolute necessities of life, and, even so, must be spent with care; but it pleased her to think that she was managing on them and that not one penny went on frivolous things.

Abner himself kept back no more than a couple of shillings for tobacco every week. To drink was out of the question, and it now seemed to him fortunate that Mr Hind, in a fit of temper, should have warned him off the Pound House. He now spent most of his evenings at home sitting before the fire, with Gladys on his knee, and making catapults or other wooden weapons for Morgan with his knife. Even in so small a household as theirs there was plenty of rough work that a man could do, not only in the way of digging and dressing the garden and hewing wood for the fires, but actually in patching up the crumbled fabric of Wolfpits which, left to the mercies of rain and frost, would have fallen about their heads. The sudden intimacy with their neighbours into which George’s arrest had thrown them, continued, and the more Abner detached himself from the life of the cloggers and of his own mates, the more sufficient did this isolated communal life of Wolfpits become. It was the most peaceful and natural that he had ever lived, and he grew to love it for its regularity and calm.