Chapter 14

In the cupboard with the jam-pots, there were two or three boxes of cigars, the famous sloe gin, and other liqueurs, for the entertainment of such highly esteemed visitors; and so long as one of them occupied the colossal armchair, her husband was quite a different Dale. He was then such a much better listener than usual, so quick to see a joke and so easy to be tickled by it, so debonair that he would swallow almost insulting criticism of his favorite politicians. As she thought of these things her eyelids fluttered and her lips parted mirthfully. She never asked any questions as to Dale's more secret methods of dealing with customers' servants. Obviously he got on well with them; and one might be quite certain that he did not offer any material compliments that were either traditionally illegitimate or open in the smallest degree to a suspicion of corrupt purpose.

And she thought admiringly that her man was really a very wonderful man. Though so candid and straight, he could be grandly silent; he told his womankind all that he considered it good for them to know, and the rest he kept to himself; he had that quality of rulership without which manhood always seems deficient.

"Mummy," said Rachel, "I do believe Mary is reading aloud."

"Is she, darling? Yes, I think she is."

Through the kitchen door one could hear a monotonous murmur.

"D'you think she's reading fairy tales?"

"Perhaps. Would you like to listen to her?"

"Oh, no. I'd sooner stay and help you, Mummy."

"Then so you shall, my angel; and I thank you for preferring my company."

Mavis, with the little girl at her knee, got to work. She had purchased a large scrap-album, and was now to begin putting in her scraps. For a long time she had collected interesting extracts from the newspapers, more especially portions of old numbers of the _Rodhaven Courier_ which contained her husband's name.

"Here, Rachel, we'll commence with this;" and she started the book with a long account of the ceremonial opening of the Barradine Orphanage. The report of a speech by "Mr. Dale of Vine-Pits Farm" at a political meeting was the second item, and other gems followed fast.

Rachel assisted from time to time, by twice upsetting the paste pot, tearing a good many cuttings, and finally by tilting the heavy album off Mummy's lap to the floor.

But Mavis thought all these actions rather spirited and charming than maladroit and annoying. They proved that Rachel was trying hard to be of use, and her too rapid and abrupt gestures were a pleasing evidence that the little creature possessed a vivacious and not a sluggish disposition. However, the crash of the album on the floor had awakened Billy, who was now crying lustily; and Rachel's license having long since expired, Mavis decided to send both her treasures to bed. Rachel resisted the edict, and, presently conducted up-stairs by Mary, bellowed more loudly than her brother; indeed for a little while the house was filled with the harsh sound of squalling. Yet this noise, though distressing, was as musical as harps and lutes to the mother's ears; and while old Mrs. Goudie in the kitchen was saying: "They children want a smart popping to learn them on'y to squawk when there's reason for squawking," Mavis was thinking: "Poor darlings, I'd go up and kiss them again, if Mary didn't always quiet them down quicker than I can."

Alone with her newspaper snippets, Mavis did more reading than pasting. "Heroic Rescue at Otterford Mill"--that was the description of how Will saved good-for-nothing Abraham Veale. She knew it almost by heart, but she had to read it again. "Brave Deed at Manninglea Cross Station"--that was something that made her feel faint every time she thought of it, and she trembled now as she read in the snippet of how there had been a frightened dog on the line between the platforms, and how Will had jumped down in front of the approaching train and whisked the dog out of danger just in time.

She folded her hands, puckered her forehead, and passed into a reverie about him. Combining with her intense admiration, there was a great horror of all this reckless courage. He would not have been so foolhardy years ago. It was against the principles that he had once laid down as limiting the risks that a brave man may run. It indicated a change in him, a change that she had never pondered on till now. She thought of him fighting the wind on top of their rick, and of several other incidents unchronicled by the press--of his going with the police at Old Manninglea when there was the bad riot, of his joining the Crown keepers when they went out to catch the poachers, of his wild performance when Mr. Creech's bull got loose. Goring bulls, bludgeoning men, tempest and flood--wherever and whatever the danger, he went straight to it. But it was not fair to her and the babes. His thrice precious life! And she grew cold as she thought that an accident--like a curtain descending when a stage play is over--might some day end all her joy.

Then she thought once more of that dark period of their dual existence; and it was the last time that she was ever capable of thinking of it seriously and with any real concentration. Had that trouble left any permanent mark on him? Her own suffering had left no mark on her. It was gone so entirely that, as well as seeming incredible, it seemed badly invented, silly, preposterous. All that remained to her was just this one firm memory, that, strange or not, there had truly once been a time when his arms were not her shelter, and she dared not look into his face.

But he was different from her; with a vastly more capacious brain, in which there was such ample room that perhaps the present did not even impinge upon the past, much less drive it out altogether. She who in the beginning had tacitly agreed with those who considered her the obvious superior now felt humbly pleased in recognizing that he was of grander, finer, and more delicate stuff than herself. And for the first and last time she was assailed by a disturbing doubt. Was he completely happy even now? He loved her, he loved his children, he loved his successful industry; yet sometimes when she found him alone his face was almost as somber as it had ever been.

And those bad dreams of his still continued. At first, when things were all in jeopardy, it had seemed not unnatural that the troubles of the day should break his rest at night; but why should he dream now, when he was prosperous and without a single anxiety to distress him? Did he in sleep go back to that old storm of anger, jealousy, and grief about which he never thought during his waking hours?

And again Mavis was actuated all unconsciously by the elemental selfishness that mingles with our joy. When we are happy we want others to be happy too, we can not brook their not being so; even transient darkness in those we love seems inimical to the light that is burning so cheerfully in ourselves. Mavis ceased to trouble herself with questions, and forgot that they remained unanswered.

When Dale came in she was, however, more than ordinarily sweet to him, waiting on him, bringing the supper dishes, not sitting down until he was served, and watching him while he ate. She told him that she had been reading about the dog on the railway line, and that he was not to do such things. If he ever again felt such a wild impulse, he was to stifle it immediately by remembering his wife and bairns.

"D'you understand, Will? We won't have it--and we all three think you ought to be ashamed of yourself for not knowing better. You're not a boy."

"No," he said, "I shall be forty-two next year. Look here," and he pointed to his temples. "Look at my gray hair."

"I can't see it."

"But it's there, my dear, all the same. I am beginning to turn toward the sear and yellow leaf, as Shakespeare puts it."

She admired the easy way in which he quoted Shakespeare, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do. Indeed, all through supper she was admiring him. She thought how beautifully he spoke, expressing himself so elegantly, and with tones in his voice that every day seemed to sound a little more cultivated. At first after their arrival at Vine-Pits, being plunged again into the midst of purely rustic talk, he had fallen back in regard to his diction. Instinctively he reverted to the dialect that had been his own, and that was being used by everybody about him; but now one might say that he really had two languages--his rough patter for the yard and the fields, and his carefully-measured phrasing for the home, office, and upper circles. She understood that his constant reading and his unflagging desire for self-improvement were telling rapidly; and with a touch of sadness she wondered if, passing on always, he would finally leave her quite behind.

No, while life lasted, he would hold to her. He would never shake her off now. Even if she were old and ugly, useless to him, a dead-weight upon his ascending progress, he would be true to her now. Even if his love died, the memory of it would keep him still hers. And she thought of the pity in him, as well as the strength. The man who could not resist the appeal of a poor little stray dog would not break faith with the mother of his children; and she thought, "Yes, whatever I say to him, I know really and truly that it was a nobler, better thing to risk all than to allow even a dog to perish. And I love him for not having hesitated then, even when I pray him not to do it again."

Looking at him, she saw the gray hair that she had just now denied; and to her eyes these gray feathers at each side of the forehead not only increased his dignity, but gave him a fresh charm. The gray hair made him somehow more romantic. In her eyes his face was always growing more beautiful, always refining itself, always losing something that had been rather coarsely massive and gaining something that was new, spiritualized, and subtle.

"What are you examining me like that for, Mav? A penny for your thoughts."

"Shall I tell you truly?" and she laughed. "I was thinking if your looks continue to improve at this rate all the girls will get falling in love with you."

"Go along with you."

XVI

In this manner the full and happy years began to glide past them. Their prosperity was now firmly established; the business grew; and money came in so nicely that Mrs. Dale's mortgage had been paid off and her two thousand pounds invested in gilt-edged securities, while Dale hoped very shortly to discharge the remainder of his obligation to Mr. Bates. They were, however, as economical as ever in their own way of life, although they permitted themselves some license in the generosity they had begun to practise with regard to their less fortunate neighbors. But they found, as so many have found before them, that in personal charity a little money goes a long way, and that the claims of the very poor, although sometimes noisy, are rarely excessive. Naturally they had to be careful for the sake of their children, the security of whose future must be the first consideration. Dale had promised the baby boy in his cradle "the advantages of a lib'ral education," and he intended to act up to this promise largely.

"It is my wish," he said, "that the two of them shall enjoy all that I was myself deprived of."

New scraps were continually being pasted into the album, and it seemed to Mavis that she ought to have bought a bigger one, if indeed any albums were made of a size sufficiently big to contain all the evidences of her husband's gratified ambition. Scarce a _Courier_ was published without "a bit" in it that referred to Mr. Dale of Vine-Pits Farm. He was really becoming quite a public character. He had been called to the District Council, on its foundation, as a personage who could not be left out. When the Otterford branch of the Fire Brigade was instituted all agreed in inviting Mr. Dale to be its captain; and four of the once sluggish yard-servants had immediately decided that they must follow their master wherever he led, and had enrolled themselves forthwith under his captaincy. He was a prominent figure at the Old Manninglea corn market, known by sight in its streets, and had recently been chosen as a member of its very select tradesmen's club. This was an affair truly different from that vulgar boozing circle at the Gauntlet Inn which he had denounced so contemptuously in old days. The Manninglea Club was solid and respectable, a pleasant meeting-place where he could take his midday meal after market business in company with men of substance and repute. He was on friendly terms with most of the farmers between the down country and Rodhaven Harbor; and last, but not least, the gentry all passed the time of day when they met him, and many would stop him on the high-roads for a chat in the most polite and jolly fashion.

He confessed to Mavis that the sweetest thing in his success was the feeling of being no longer disliked.

"Oh, Will, you never were disliked."

"But that's just what I was. And I begin to get a glimmer of the reason why. I was reading an article in _Answers_ last week, and it seemed as if it had been written specially to enlighten me. It was about sympathy. The author, who didn't sign his name, but was ev'dently a man of powerful int'lect, said that without understanding you can't sympathize; and he went on to show that without sympathy the whole world would come to a standstill."

"Ah," said Mavis, "that's the sort of difficult reading that you like. It's too deep for me."

"It's plain as the nose on one's face, come to think of it. Sympathy is the key-note. It enables you to look at things from both sides--to put yourself in another man's place, and ask yourself the question, What should I be thinking and doing, if I was him?--I should say if I was he. In the old days I was very deficient in that. A fool just made me angry. Now I try to put myself in his place." He paused, and smiled. "Perhaps you'll say I'm there already--a fool myself."

"Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to say that;" and Mavis smiled too. "Not _quite_ a fool, Will."

He went on analyzing his characteristics, talking with great interest in the subject, and after a didactic style, but not with the heavy egoistic method that he had often employed years ago.

"No, I never remarked that."

"You know," he said presently, "in spite of all my bounce, I was a _shy_ man.

"It's the fact, Mav. And my shyness came between me and others. I couldn't take them sufficiently free. I wanted all the overtures to come from them, and I was too ready to draw in my horns if they didn't seem to accept me straight at what I judged my own value. For a long while now it has been my endeavor to sink what was once described to me as my pers'nal equation. I don't think of myself at all, if I can help it; and the consequence is the shyness gets pushed into the background, my manner becomes more free and open, and people begin to treat me in a more friendly spirit."

And he wound up his discourse by returning to the original cause of satisfaction.

"Yes, I do think there are some now that like me for myself--not many, but just one or two, besides dear old Mr. Bates."

"Everybody does. Why, look at that child, Norah. Only been here a month, and worships the ground you tread on."

"Poor little mite. That's her notion of being grateful for what I did for her father. Does she eat just the same?"

"Ravenous."

"Don't stint her," said Dale, impressively. "Feed her _ad lib_. Give her all she'll swallow. It's the leeway she's got to make up;" and he turned his eyes toward the kitchen door. "Is she out there?"

"Yes."

"I spoke loud. You don't think she heard what I said?"

"Oh, no. She's busy with Mrs. Goudie."

"I wouldn't like for her to hear us discussing her victuals as though she was an animal."

"You might have thought she was verily an animal," said Mavis, "if you'd seen her at the first meals we set before her. And even now it brings a lump into my throat to watch her."

"Just so."

"When I told her to undress that night to wash herself, she was a sight to break one's heart. Her poor little ribs were almost sticking through the skin; and, Will, I thought of one of ours ever being treated so."

Dale got up from the table, his face glowing redly, his brows frowning; and he stretched his arms to their full length.

"By Jupiter!" he said thickly, "if only Mrs. Neath had been a man, I'd 'a' given him--well, at the least, I'd 'a' given him a piece of my mind. I'd have told him what I thought of him."

"I promise you," said Mavis, "that I told Mrs. Neath what I thought of _her_."

"An' I'm right glad you did."

This new inmate under their roof was Norah Veale, a twelve-year-old daughter of the Hadleigh Wood hurdle-maker. Mavis, taking a present of tea and sugar to one of the Cross Roads cottages, had found her digging in the garden, and, struck by her pitiful aspect, had questioned her and elicited her history. It was a common enough one in those parts. Not being wanted at home, she had been "lent" to Mrs. Neath, the cottage woman, in exchange for her keep, and was mercilessly used by the borrower. She rose at dawn, worked as the regular household drudge till within an hour of school-time, then walked into Rodchurch for the day's schooling with a piece of dry bread in her pocket as dinner; and on her return from school worked again till late at night. She admitted that she felt always hungry, always tired, always miserable; that she suffered from cold at night in her wretched little bed; and that Mrs. Neath often beat her. She was a bright, intelligent child, black-haired, olive-complexioned, with lively blue eyes which expressed at once the natural trustfulness of youth, a certain boldness and wildness derived from gipsy ancestors, and a questioning wonder that this pleasant-looking world should be systematically ill-treating her.

The horrid, lying, carneying old woman of the cottage received home truths instead of tea and sugar from Mavis Dale, who, with all her maternal feelings aroused, rushed off straightway to hunt for the neglectful father. She found him at the Barradine Arms, and demanded his permission to take away the child. Veale, although sadly bemused, at once said that he could refuse nothing to the wife of his preserver.

"Oh, lor-a-mussy, yes, mum, you may 'aave my little Norrer an' do what you like wi' her. Bless her heart, I look on Norrer and her brothers to be the comfort o' my old age, but I wunt stan' in their light to interfere wi' what's best for any of 'em."

Mavis then took Norah straight home with her to Vine-Pits, bathed her, fed her, clothed her, and made much of her. And Norah proved grateful, docile, amenable, doing all that Mrs. Dale told her to do; and from the first exhibiting an almost superstitious worship of Mr. Dale. For truly, as he himself had surmised, her little starved breast was overflowing with gratitude to the man who had saved her father. It mattered nothing to the children of the mud hovel that their father was not an exemplary character; they did not want him to be drowned; and Norah, hearing in extreme youth of the hero who had interposed between him and such a cruel death, had mentally built a pedestal for the hero and kept him on top of it ever since.

It happened that about the time when Dale was preparing to pay off the last instalment of his debt, Mr. Bates unexpectedly applied for the money. He had never before shown the least anxiety for repayment; it had always been "Take your time, William. I know I'm in safe hands," and so forth; but now he said, "If you can make it convenient to you, William, it would be convenient to me."

"Oh, certainly, Mr. Bates. You shall have it before the end of the week--and I hope you're going to act on the advice I ventured to offer last time; that is, put it in one of these Canadian Government guaranteed stocks."

"I'm sure it was good advice, William--even if I didn't act on it."

"Of course my orig'nal advice was what you ought to have acted on, Mr. Bates. That is to say, bought an annuity with your entire capital."

"Ah, William, I really couldn't do that;" and Mr. Bates turned away his eyes, as if unable to support Dale's friendly regard. "Apart from these annuities for old folk being rather a dog-in-the-manger trick, I--well, one has one's private difficulties, William. One is not always a free agent."

The demand for repayment, and with something of evasiveness or reticence in the old fellow's manner, greatly troubled Dale. Not at all from selfish motives; but because it confirmed a suspicion that he had long entertained. Although invisible locally, disgraced and hiding somewhere at a distance, that blackguardly son was probably still draining the good old man's resources.

So many things pointed to the correctness of this supposition. On the interest of the money that Mavis and Dale had together paid him for the business, he should have been able to live very comfortably; whereas, in fact, his way of life was mean and sorry. His cottage was quite a decent dwelling, separated from the road by a nice long strip of garden, and with a miniature apple orchard behind it; but it showed all those signs of neglect that had been evident at Vine-Pits when the Dales first came there. He had no proper servant, but just pigged it anyhow with the occasional assistance of a woman and her husband. His clothes, though neatly brushed, were too shabby and overworn for a person of his position. And he was not a miser; he was a proud self-respecting man, who naturally would desire to maintain conventionally adequate state, were he able to do so.

These thoughts worried Dale. He really loved Mr. Bates, thoroughly appreciated the great dignity and sweetness of his nature, and felt it to be a monstrous and intolerable thing that the dear old chap at the age of seventy-three, instead of being allowed to end his days in a happy, seemly style, should be as if were bled to death by a conscienceless reprobate. But what could one do? It was like the cruelties of the woods that one regrets, but can not prevent--the rabbits chased by the weasels, the pheasants killed by the foxes, the thrushes destroyed by the hawks.

Any doubt that remained in the mind of Dale was soon dissipated. He told Mavis how he had seen Bates junior--a seedy, wicked-looking wretch now--lurking at dusk in the cottage porch, and how next morning he had ridden over to talk to Mr. Bates about this ill-omened visitor. Mr. Bates said it was true that his son had been there for two or three days, but he was now gone; and he declined to discuss the matter any further. "I can't speak of it, William. I thank you for meaning kindness, but it's a thing I can't speak of."

Dale also told Mrs. Goudie that Richard Bates had shown himself in the neighborhood, and asked her if the fact was generally known. He was aware that Mrs. Goudie had almost as much regard for the old man as he had himself.

"No, sir," said Mrs. Goudie, "I hadn't 'a' heard of it."

"Then that proves how close he kept. No doubt he came and went as surreptitiously as he could. Let it be between ourselves, Mrs. Goudie. Don't spread the tale an inch beyond us three."

"I will not, sir. But, oh, well-a-day, it's a bad bit o' news, sir. I did hope Mr. Bates was cured o' that runnin' sore."

She had been summoned from the kitchen just before leaving for the night; and with her shawl over her head, her wrinkled face working, and her bony hands clasped she stood near the table and waited for Mr. Dale to give the signal for her to withdraw.

"If you should see him, at any time, let me know, Mrs. Goudie."

"I will, sir."

"I might perhaps do good, if I could get hold of him on the quiet and address a few words to him."

"I wish you'd break his neck for him, yes, I do, indeed I do. I could tell you things as 'd make any one say hanging was too good for him."