Chapter 18
It was going round a corner into the mouth of the quarries that she ran upon Spider wheeling a barrow; and she saw he was but little changed, save that he looked a good bit dirtier and wilder than of old. His hair was longer than ever and his eyes shone so black as sloes; and to Jenny's mind there was a touch of stark madness in 'em without doubt. He was strong and agile seemingly, and he began to gibber and cuss and chatter like an ape the moment he catched sight of her. He dropped the barrow and stared, and his jaw dropped and then closed up again. He drew up to his full height, which weren't above five foot, five inches, and he screamed with rage and began his talk with several words I ban't going to write down for anybody. Then he axed her how in the devil's name she dared to find him out and stand afore him.
"What do you mean, you vile woman?" he screamed. "Who told you I was here? I'll tear his heart out when I know who 'twas--and yours also--you hateful hell-cat!"
"Alive! Alive, thank God! They told me true," she cried. "Oh, Nicky!"
"Not alive to you," he answered. "I'm dead to you for evermore, so you can be gone again, so soon as you mind to. I know all about you and your goings on, and I ordain to strike at my appointed time and no sooner. And them as told you I was here shall suffer in their bones for it! So you clear out, or I'll pitch you over the quarry with these hands."
He picked up his barrow handles to push past her; but she was three inches taller than him and so strong as a pony; and she knew when you be along with a madman you've got to stand firm.
"Put that down and listen to me, Nicky," she said. "I ain't come all this way and spent eight shillings on a railway ticket and a horse and trap to be turned down without hearing my voice. Listen you shall--it's life and death for me, if not for you. I got a 'nonymous letter from a well wisher saying you was here and that's why I be come."
He heaped curses on her head and made horrible faces at her. He threatened to murder her on the spot if she went an inch nearer, and he picked up a great stone to do it with. In fact you'd have said he weren't at all the sort of man for a woman to fret at losing. But woman's taste in man be like other mysteries, and 'tis no good trying to explain why a nice, comely she such as his wife had any more use for this black zany.
"Devil--beast!" he yelped at her. "For two pins I'd strangle you! How have you got the front to dare to breathe the same air with the man you've outraged and ruined?"
"Do as you please and strangle me and welcome, Nicky; but listen first. Us'll have everything in order if you please. First read that. Somebody here--I don't know from Adam who 'twas--wrote to tell me you were working to Meldon; and that's how I've found you."
He read the letter and grew calmer.
"As to that," he said, "I've told a good few stonemen of my fearful misfortunes and what I meant to do; and one of 'em has gone back on me and given my hiding-place away to you; and if I knew which it was, I'd skin the man alive. But I'll find out."
"So much for that then," answered his wife, "and the next thing be to know why you are in a hiding-place and what you're hiding from. And if I was you, I'd come home this instant moment and explain after you get back."
"Home!" he screamed. "You say 'home!' A nice home! D'you think I don't know all--every tricky wicked item of your plots and your wickedness? D'you think I don't know you be going to marry Solomon Chuff? You stare, you foul slut; but I know, and that's what I'm waiting for. So soon as the man have took you, then I was coming back to turn you out of my house--my house, you understand! I was only waiting for that, and when Chuff thinks he's settled in my shoes, I'll be on to him like a flame of fire, and he'll call on the hills to cover him. And I won't take you back--don't think it. I'm done with you for evermore and all other beasts of women."
"Aw Jimmery!" cried his wife. "I'm hearing things! And where did you larn these fine lies if I ban't axing too much?"
"From a friend," he said. "I've got one good and faithful friend left at Postbridge, and thanks to him, I've had the bitter truth these many days."
"Would it surprise you to hear, Nicky, that Solomon Chuff's tokened to Miller Ley's oldest daughter? They be going to wed at Easter, and 'twas Alice Ley herself that told me about it a month ago and I wished her joy."
"Liar I know better, and Bill Westaway knows better. Yes, you may gape your hateful eyes out of your head; but Bill Westaway's my friend; and he's straight; and he's took good care to keep me in touch with the facts ever since I came here--so now then! You was after Chuff from the minute he went to Vitifer Tin Mine, and I knew it. I weren't blind to the man and I soon saw my revenge--fearful though it was."
"A funny sort of revenge," said Jenny, smiling at him. "I'm afraid, my poor little man, your revenge have come back on your own silly head. You've seen Bill Westaway, have you?"
"Yes, I have. And you needn't think to bluff it off. Every three months since I went away he's been over here to tell me how my vengeance was working."
"He knew all about your plot then, and that you weren't in the river?"
"He did so. A likely thing a man like me would drown hisself for a woman like you. And terrible sorry he felt to bring me the fatal news of what you was up to, though well I knew you would be. Nought astonished me. I knew you'd wait a year, to save your shameful face, and then take Chuff."
"What a world!" said Jenny. "What dark, hookemsnivey creatures be in it--men most times. Do you know who's been pestering me to marry him ever since the people all thought you'd falled in the river and was drownded, Nicky? Not Mr. Chuff, but Billy Westaway himself. He's your rival, my dear, and none other. Fifty times has that man called on me to take him."
"You cunning liar! He hates women worse than I do."
"D'you know where he is this minute? Down on Dart pretending to hunt for your bones. God's my judge, Nicholas White, if I ain't telling you the truth."
The little wretch stared at her, and saw truth in her eyes, and felt all his idiotic vengeance slipping away from him. He didn't want to believe in her and made another struggle.
"What rummage be you talking, woman? Do you think you can sloke me off with this stuff? Westaway's my friend through thick and thin. Be you mad, or me?"
"Neither one nor t'other," she answered. "I thought to find you mad naturally; but I'm not the sort to shirk my duty, whatever you are. For better, for worse I took you, and I'd meant, if I found you cracked, to put you away nice and comfortable in a proper asylum, where they'd look after you, as became an unfortunate man with good friends. But you're not mad, only deceived by a damned rascal. Drop that rock and come here and listen to me."
He obeyed her and crept a foot or two nearer.
"What's happened be this," she said. "The Almighty have punished us for loving each other too well. I've worshipped you and, till Solomon Chuff came along, you worshipped me. And God wouldn't stand for such wickedness on our part, so He threw dust in your eyes and led you out into the wilderness--to home with a lot of navvies and be deceived by a rare rascal. And you've had your dose by the look of you; and I've had mine; and what I've suffered you'll never know, I assure you."
He went whiter than a dog's tooth behind his black hair, and his eyes bulged on her. He crept a bit nearer and she held out her hand. But the little loony had got his pride yet.
"I ban't so sure," he said. "No doubt you've come with a tale; but you'll have to hear me first. Your tongue be running a thought too smooth I reckon. How do I know this is truth? Why should I believe you afore Bill? He's sworn on his oath that Chuff spends half his time along with you and the banns be called. He's come, as I tell you, off and on, to let me know everything, and never a good word for you."
"You ought to break his neck," said Jenny. "However, you ain't heard all yet. It may interest you to know that at last I've promised to marry--not Chuff--he's old enough to be my father--but Bill himself."
"And you've come here to tell me that?"
Nicky looked round for his stone again.
"No, I have not. I've come firstly to forgive you, which be a lot more than you deserve, and secondly to take you home."
"'Tis for me to forgive you I reckon; and why for should I?"
"I've worn black for a year and prayed for your soul and eaten the bread of tears and lived like the widow-woman I thought I was--just lived in the memory of our beautiful life together," she says. "That's all you've got to forgive, Nicky. And it didn't ought to be partickler hard I should think. Poison--poison--that's what you've been taking--poison--sucking it down from Bill Westaway, like a little child sucks cream."
"And you tell me you're going to marry the man--or think you are? What's that mean?"
Spider had come right alongside of her now.
"On one condition I shall certainly marry him, so you needn't pull no more faces. I told him I'd take him if he found all that was left _of you in the river_! And so I will." "But I ban't in the Dart! I ban't in the Dart! I'm alive!" cried Nicky--as if she didn't know it.
"Working along with these quarry men have made you dull seemingly," she answered. "It is true no doubt that you ban't in the Dart; but that's no reason why Billy Westaway shouldn't find you there. He's quite clever enough for that. He's a cunning, deep rogue, and I'll lay my life he'll find you there. He's separated us for a whole bitter year, to gain his own wicked ends, and if you can't see what he's done you must be mad after all."
"And what if I refuse to come back?" he asked, his monkey face still working.
"Then I'll marry Bill--rascal though he is. When I look into the past and think how he used to tell me you were running after the girls behind my back! But did I believe him? No! I boxed his ears and told him where the liars go. I didn't run away and hide from my lawful husband."
Nicky took it all in very slow.
"I'll have such a fearful vengeance on that dog as never was heard about!" he swore. "Strike me blind if I don't! I'll strangle him with these hands afore the nation."
"You can tell about that later," she said. "Meantime you'd best forget your kit and come home this minute. You've grown cruel rough and wild seemingly. You want me after you."
"I shall calm in fullness of time," he told her, "and no doubt be the same as ever I was before this fearful affair happened. I never thought to take off my clothes, nor yet wash again. I've been like a savage animal with such troubles as I've suffered; but now, thank the watching God, my woes be very near passed seemingly, and I've got my honour and my pride and a wife and a home also."
"Come back to 'em then!" begged Jenny, and the little creature put his spider arms around her and pressed her to his shirt.
"You must certainly wash again, and the sooner the better," she said; then she kissed his hairy muzzle and patted his head and thanked the Lord for all His blessings. As for Spider, he pawed her and called upon heaven and wept out of his dirty eyes.
"It is almost too much," he said; "but mark me, I'll never rest no more till I've took my revenge on that anointed devil from hell and torn his throat out!" Knowing the nature of the man, however, Jenny didn't fret too much about that. They went afore the master of the works presently, and being a human sort of chap, he took a sporting view of the situation and let Spider go along with his wife; which he did do. He had certainly suffered a good bit one way and another, owing to his own weak-minded foolishness, and found himself meek as a worm afore Jenny and terrible thankful to be in sight of better times.
"I wanted to die, too," his silly wife assured him; "but Providence knew better and saw the end from the beginning."
"Providence shan't be forgot," promised Nicky. "I'll turn over a new leaf and even go to chapel I shouldn't wonder--after I've done in William Westaway."
III
They spent that night at Plymouth, and she made Nicky scrap his clothes and get a new fit out; and the next day she took him home. No doubt her yellow cat was terrible pleased to see the pair of 'em; but the home-coming had its funny side too, for none marked them arrive--'twas after dark when they did so--and they'd only just finished their meal, when come heavy footsteps up the path, and Jenny well knew the sound of 'em.
"'Tis Bill Westaway!" she said. "He don't know as I've been away and no doubt he's found what he's pretending to search for. Slip in here, afore I let him come in, then you'll hear all about yourself."
There was a cupboard one side of the kitchen fireplace, and being quite big enough to take in Spider, he crept there, and his wife put home the door after him, but left a little space so as he could hear. And then she went to the cottage door and let in the visitor. 'Twas William sure enough, and his face was long and melancholy.
"A cruel time I've had--more in the river than out of it," he said. "I'm bruised and battered and be bad in my breathing parts also along of exposure and the wet. I dare say I've shortened my life a good bit; but all that was nothing when I thought of you, Jenny. And now I'm terrible afraid you must face the worst. I've made a beginning, I'm sorry to say." He drew a parcel from under his arm and laid out afore her the wreck of a water-sodden billycock hat, a rag of a dark-blue flannel shirt and one ginger-coloured sock in a pretty ruinous state.
"What d'you make of these here mournful relics?" he asked. "Without doubt they once belonged to your Spider, and where I found'em I'm afraid his poor little bones ain't far off."
"They be even nearer than you think, William Westaway," she said. "In fact, I've found'em myself."
"Found'em!" he gasped out, glazing with his shifty eyes at her and a miz-maze of wonder on his face.
"Found'em--not in the Dart neither; but at Meldon Quarry. Nicky is alive and well, and you know it, and you always knew it. And your day of reckoning be near!"
She paused. You might have thought she'd expect for her husband to leap out of the cupboard, but he didn't; he bided close where he was, like a hare in its form; and she knew he would.
Of course Bill Westaway felt a good bit disappointed. He cussed Spider up hill and down dale and poured a torrent of rude words upon him.
"That know-nought, black swine come back! And you put him afore the likes of me I You don't deserve a decent man," he finished up. "And the patience and trouble I've took, thinking you was worth it!"
"Go!" she said. "You're a wicked, bare-faced scamp, and God, He'll reward you. You did ought to be driven out of Little Silver by the dogs, and no right-thinking person ever let you over their drexels[1] no more."
[1] Drexels = Thresholds
"I'm punished enough," he told her. "Good-bye, my silly dear! A thousand pities you've took that little worm back. You'd have grown very fond of me in time. I'm worth a wagon-load of such rubbish as him."
He lit his pipe, cussed a bit more, hoping Spider would front him, and then went away, banging the gate off its hinges very near; and after he was well clear of the premises Nicky bounced out of his cupboard full of brimstone and thunder.
"Lock the door," he said, "or I'll be after him and strangle him with these hands!"
"I most feared you'd have blazed out and faced the wretch," said Jenny--to please the little man.
"I managed to hold in. I drew out my knife however; but I put it back again. I hadn't got the heart to spoil the night of my home-coming. His turn ain't far off. His thread's spun. Nothing short of his death be any good to me--not now."
"Us'll forget the scoundrel till to-morrow, then," said Mrs. White.
It was six months later and summer on the wane, when I met a fisherman on the river--a gent I knew--and made him laugh a good bit with the tale of they people.
"And what did Spider do after all, Mr. Bates?" inquired the fisher, when I came to the end of the story, and I answered him in a parable like.
"When the weasel sucked the robin's eggs, sir, the robin and his wife was properly mad about it and swore as they'd be fearfully revenged upon him."
"And what did they do?" axed the gentleman.
"What could they do?" I axed him back.
"Nothing."
"That's exactly what they did do; and that's exactly what Nicky White done--nothing. Once--in the street a bit after he'd come home--Will Westaway turned round and saw Spider making hideous faces at him behind his back. So he walked across the road and smacked the little man's earhole and pulled his beard. Nought happened, however."
"And what became of William Westaway?"
"Well, most of us was rather sorry for him. He'd took a lot of trouble to queer Spider's pitch and put up a mighty clever fight for Jenny, you see. But the woman liked her little black beetle best. In fact she adores him to this day. Billy married a very fine girl from Princetown. But I reckon he never felt so properly in love with her as what he did with Mrs. White."
No. XIV
THE WOODSTACK
As butler at Oakshotts I was a busy man no doubt, with a mighty good master who knew he'd got a treasure. Because wine and tobacco be second nature to me, and though very sparing in the use of both, I have great natural gifts and a sort of steadfast and unfailing judgment for the best. And as master be fond of saying in his amusing way, the best is always good enough for him, so Sir Walter Oakshott of Oakshotts trusted in me, with great credit to himself and applause from his guests. Never was such an open-handed man, and being a widower at fifty, with no mind just then to try again, he let his sociable instincts run over for his friends, and Oakshotts, as I sometimes said, was more like an hotel than a country house. For he had his gardening pals come to see his amazing foreign rhododendrons in spring, and his fishermen pals for his lakes and river-banks in summer; while so soon as September came, it was sportsmen and guns and dogs till the end of the shooting season.
So I was a busy man and also a prosperous, because money cleaves to money and Sir Walter's friends were mostly well-to-do, though few so rich as him; and the gentlemen were experienced and knew a butler when they met one.
But few be too occupied for romance to over-get 'em sooner or later, and at forty I fell in love--a tiresome thing at that age and not to have been expected from a bachelor-minded man same as me. And if I'd had the second sight and been able to see where the fatal passion was going to take me, I'd have kept my eyes off Jenny Owlet very careful indeed.
But so it was, though fifteen years separated us there's little doubt Jenny loved me very well afore Tom Bond appeared. Because I'd never loved before I saw her, and even an elderly man--and a butler's always elderly by virtue of his calling--has a charm to the female mind if she knows he's never loved before. In me Jenny saw a well-set-up and personable party, inclined a thought to a full body, but smart and active, clean-shaven and spotlessly clean every way, with brown eyes and a serious disposition, yet a nice taste for a seemly bit of fun. My hair was black and kept sleek and short, of course, and my voice was slow and deep, and my natural way of approaching all women most dignified, whether they belonged to the kitchen or the drawing-room. And, of course, she well knew I was a snug man and her worldly fortune would be made if she came to me. That was what I had to offer, while for her part she was a high-spirited thing and good as gold, aged twenty-five, with a cheerful nature and a great art for taking what pleasure life had to offer the second kitchen-maid at Oakshotts, which weren't very much. But she never groused about her hard career, or was sorry for herself, or anything like that. I liked her character and I liked her good sense and I much liked her nice and musical voice; and if she'd been educated, she'd have shone among the highest by reason of her back answers, which I never knew equalled. Not that she had any chances in that direction with me, because I'm not a man to let my inferiors joke with me, though none knows how to put 'em in their place quicker than I do.
Her eyes were betwixt blue and grey and sometimes favoured one colour and sometimes t'other, and her hair was a light brown and her figure inclined to the slim. But she was very near about five foot eight--two inches shorter than me--and of an amazing activity and enjoying most perfect health. Her home was in Little Silver, which is our village; and only poverty and the need for work had took her out of it. There she tended her widowed father, and he had such a passion for the girl, her being his only one, that 'twas only the shadow of the Union Workhouse ever steeled him to part from her. But she saw him oftener than her day out and would many a time run like a lapwing the mile to his cottage, so as he should have a glimpse of her. And it was her wages that helped the man to carry on. He hated her working at Oakshotts and prayed ceaselessly to her to come back and starve along with him, for he was a very unreasonable fashion of man--a dog-like man with one idea and one worship and one religion, you may say. In fact he lived for Jenny alone, and when I came to be acquaint with him, I feared it was to be war to the knife between us. He always proved queer and difficult, and nought but my great love for Jenny would have made me tolerate a man like Joshua Owlet for a moment.
You couldn't absolutely say there was a screw loose in him, because to love your only child with all right and proper devotion is in the order of nature; but to come between a daughter and her future mate, when the mate was a man like me, seemed weak-minded, to say no more. A very selfish man in fact, and the thought of Jenny having a home of her own away from him, though to any decent father a right and proper thing to happen, got Joshua Owlet in a rage, and I had to exercise unbounded patience. He was a small-brained man, and that sort is the most obstinate.
"Such a woman be bound to wed, Mr. Owlet," I told him, "and lucky for you in your humble way of life that she's fallen in with one that can make her a home worthy of her and lift her up in the land. And if you love her so fierce, surely the first thing you did ought to feel is that, when she takes me, your mind will be at rest about her for evermore. I ain't retiring yet and, be it as it will, I'm Devonshire, and the home I determine upon won't be very far ways off, and she'll be within call and you'll find yourself welcome under my roof in reason."
He scratched in his grey beard and looked at me out of his shifty eyes, and if looks could have killed he'd have struck me dead, for he was a malicious sort of man and a pretty good hater. Owlet wore rags for choice and he picked up a living making clothes-pegs and weaving osier baskets. That was his mean fashion of life, and he was allowed to get his material down in Oakshotts swamps, where the river overflowed and the woodcock and snipe offered sport in winter. But the keepers hated Owlet poking about, because they said he took more than withies from the osier beds.