Part 14

One house chained her attention and awoke in Madge personal thoughts again. She looked at a small cottage near Lowery, far distant on the opposite side of the river. It stood under a few trees and crouched meanly a hundred yards from the highway. The roof was of turf, mended with a piece of corrugated iron kept in its place by heavy stones; the broken windows were stuffed with clouts. A few fowls pecked about the threshold, and adjoining the dwelling stood a cow-byre under the same roof with it. The front gate was rotted away and rusty pieces of an old iron bedstead had taken its place. These details were hidden from the distant watcher, but she knew them well, and in her mind’s eye could see a flat-breasted, long-nosed, hungry-faced woman, with grey hair falling down her back and dirt grimed into her cheeks and hands. It was Eliza Screech, widow of a man who had blown himself to pieces with blasting powder in the adjacent quarry, and mother of William Screech, the mistrusted admirer of Madge’s sister-in-law, Dorcas. This young fellow had lately brewed a sort of familiar trouble; and while she thought upon it, David’s wife considered her own situation and wished that a thing presently to happen to Dorcas might happen to her instead, and so turn sorrow into rejoicing. This was the cloud on her horizon. Her mother, indeed, shared her pessimism but everybody else laughed at Margaret’s concern and declared it to be ridiculous in one scarcely six months a wife.

She debated on the ways of nature and the ironies of chance; then Bartley’s voice was lifted, and she popped up again, and he saw her and approached.

"Didn’t you hear me sooner?" he asked, flinging himself down near her.

"No, indeed. I was thinking so much about one thing and another, that I never heard you. Hope you’ve not been seeking for me a long time?"

He did not answer but struck at once into the subject that had brought him.

"Well," he said, "I’ve started on her. I’ve begun and told her a few things to clear the way and get her into a better frame of mind. Pity I hadn’t stopped there and left what I said to soak in a bit; but I had to go on and give the reason for saying it."

"You told her then?"

"I did, and she took it fairly quiet. Of course she said ’twas out of the question and never, never could be. I expected that. But I’m not going to believe it, Madge. The thing is how to go on with it. I want you to tell me what to do next. You promised you would. Mustn’t worry her, and at the same time mustn’t let her forget I’m at her elbow--dogged and determined and fixed in my mind. I want you to be clever for me, as well you know how, and tell me what line will please her best. I shall leave talking for a bit, and then I shall offer again. My only fear is that she’ll see somebody else in the meantime, and that while I’m planning and holding off and doing nought to fluster or anger her, some other pattern of fool will blunder in and shock her into saying ’yes’ before she knows what she’s done. You can often surprise a woman into relenting who never would relent if you went on grinding away in a cold-blooded fashion. They’re obstinate themselves, but they don’t admire obstinacy in us. Would you have a dash at her and keep on, or would you hold off and busy yourself in other quarters? Which would bring her to the scratch quickest? You know her; you can give me a few good hints, surely."

"Do neither of these things, Bartley. She hates anything like courting, or speech about marriage. And she hates surprises of any sort. She’s an old woman in the way she likes things to jog steady. If aught falls out unexpected, it flurries her. And that’s the hard thing you’ve got afore you, if you are going on with it. Because you’re all for dash and quickness and surprises, and she’s all against everything of the sort."

"I must keep grinding on in a cold-blooded style, then?"

"Ess fay, and the more cold-blooded, the better like to please her."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Be damned if I think I’ve got patience for it, Madge. I love her well enough but I can’t bide like a lizard or a spider watching a fly. I lost you along of taking it too easy--yes, I did, for I swear you’d have married me if I’d offered myself a year before David came along. And now, perhaps, I’ll end by losing Rhoda. There’s nobody else in the field and she’s got no excuse for not taking me; and that’s just what will make her hard to catch. But I’m determined in reason to have her. Only I’m not built to wait till we’re both grey-headed."

"Let me begin to help," she said. "You bade me do nought so far, and I’ve done nought. Not by a word or wish have I let her guess I thought about you or about her. She don’t know that I’m interested yet. And I won’t let her know; but I can set to work witty and say the word in season and help the good cause on. Why not? I want to see her married just as much as I want to see you married. ’Twould mend you both--yes, you so well as her."

"That wise you’ve grown since you took David! Though, for that matter, you was always wise enough for any two girls."

"Not a bit wise--wish I was; far from that, worse luck; but sensible how things are and sensible how difficult ’tis to get two natures to fit in sometimes. I be sure as possible that you and she would make a happy couple and that you’ll never regret it if she takes you, and no more will she; but the difficulty is to see where your natures be built to fit together. ’Tis like a child’s puzzle: to fit you and her close."

"There’s not much we’ve got in common except love of roaming by night."

"A pretty useful taste in common for lovers, I should think. But I’ll find more out than that. I know a lot more about her now than once I did; and I’ll tell you this: I’m not so much in secret fear of her as once I was. Yes--fearful I felt at first--so off-handed and stern and aloof she was. But now I’ve come to see she’s terrible simple really, and not very different from other girls--except here and there. She’s interested in all that falls out, and she’s hopeful to-day and cast down to-morrow like anybody else. She sits of a night thinking--yes, she thinks. Lord knows what about, but ’tis a sign of a heart in her that she can pucker up her forehead thinking. Kind, mind you, too. Not partickler kind to me, or interested in me away from David--I must grant that. But kind to living things in general."

"But I don’t want her to be kind--to anybody but me. I want her to be grand and odd and unlike t’others. ’Tis her oddness as much as her loveliness took my fancy; but if her oddness ends in her being an old maid, that’ll mean a good deal of my time wasted."

"Don’t think it. A rare good wife’s hid in Rhoda, and, please God, you’ll be the man to find it out. I’ll set to work, Bartley. Don’t fear I’ll be clumsy. Too fond of you both for that. We’ll meet again in a month, if you can wait so long--"

"Which I certainly can not."

"In a fortnight then. Thursday’s always David’s morning for Tavistock; so this day fortnight we’ll meet again, unless anything falls out to prevent it. And I won’t be idle. But I mustn’t frighten her; and she’s easily frighted when men are concerned. Fellows drop in of a night often to speak to David; but nine times out of ten, if she’s to home, she’ll pick up her work and pop up to her chamber, or take her hat and away out of the house by the back door."

"Never was such another, I believe. All the same, I’m a hopeful fashion of man. I’ll win her yet, with your help."

"I do trust so, Bartley."

Silence fell between them, only broken by the hiss of the wind above their heads.

"I must get back-along now," she said at length. "How goes on Mrs. Crocker? Better, I hope?"

He shook his head but did not reply.

"I shall come to see her again next week, if I may."

"Do, and welcome, Madge. Strange how illness breaks down the pride and shows the naked truth of a man or woman. She’s frightened to think of dying--her that you might have said was frightened of nothing."

"And still frightened of nothing really. ’Tisn’t this world that frights her, nor yet the next--only the link snapping between. There’s a lot like that."

He changed the subject again and followed her eyes that had roamed across the valley once more.

"You’re looking at Screech’s house," he said. "I hope this thing they tell about isn’t true?"

"I hope not, Bartley, but I think it is."

"And if it is? However, it don’t become a giddy bachelor to make light of it. Only you’ll hear such a devil of a lot on the other side, that perhaps before long you’ll be thankful to find one here and there who can keep his nerve about it."

"Yes, I shall hear enough about it--and to spare: you’re right there."

He laughed.

"I’m not one of those that can see no good in Billy Screech," he said. "Too like him myself, I reckon. All the same, I know if the right woman came along to make it worth while, I could stand to work--for her--as well as any man. You’ll see some day. I can’t be bothered to work for myself, Madge, but if ever I get hold of Rhoda, ’twill surprise you to find what a knack for earning money I shall show. And same with yonder hairy chap. He’s clever and cunning. He’ll make a very good partner, if the woman ban’t too hard to please, and don’t worry him with silly questions."

They parted a few minutes later; but before he went Bartley Crocker shook Madge’s hand very heartily as he thanked her with great earnestness for her promises.

"What you’ll do for me I can’t guess," he said; "yet well I know that what you can do you will."

"Couldn’t name it in words myself," she answered. "But all the same, I feel as one woman might have a bit of power over another in such a matter. I put my hope in her common sense. She don’t lack for that, and, once you win her, her common sense will be a tower of strength for the both of you."

"That’s good to know, I’m sure; for common sense never was my strong point and never will be," he confessed.

"And if I’ve promised more than I can perform, you must forgive me," she said. "I must guard myself against your disappointment, Bartley, for it may come to that."

"You’ll do what you can," he answered, "for liking of me; and you’ll do the best you can; and if I lose, ’twill be no blame to you; and if I win, ’twill be such a feather in your cap as few of the cleverest women can boast."

*CHAPTER VIII*

*TRIUMPH OF BILLY SCREECH*

On a day in early summer David Bowden met his father by appointment at Nosworthy Bridge in Meavy valley. It was not Sunday, but both wore their Sunday clothes. The fact would have led observers to suppose that a funeral or a wedding must be at hand, but it was not so. They had before them a serious and, they feared, a difficult duty. Neither knew that the other proposed to wear black; yet a sort of similar instinct led to the donning of the colour, and each felt glad, when he saw the other, that he had been of that mind.

"’Twill be for you to speak, father," said David; "and where I can think of words to back you up, I shall put them in. If you and me together ban’t stronger than such a man as Screech, ’tis pity."

"The law be weak, unfortunately," answered Elias, "else I’d never have gone near the man, but just left justice to take its course. But as it stands, so lawyer tells me, we can’t make Screech marry Dorcas if he won’t. The thing is to be as patient with the man as we know how, and coax him into it if possible."

David nodded.

"It’s a bad business, looked at which way you will. Rhoda’s took it more to heart than all of us. She won’t never speak to Dorcas or see her again."

"We mustn’t talk that nonsense. Nature will out, and for my part, to you, David, though to none else, I’m sorry to God now I said ’nay.’ However, we’ll see if we can fetch him to reason. Here’s the house--a ragged, hang-dog look it hath."

"And there’s the man," added David.

Billy Screech was digging in a patch of garden beside his cottage, but at sight of the visitors, he stuck his spade into the earth, cleaned his boots on it, drew down his shirt-sleeves, donned his coat and came forward.

"You’m a thought earlier than I expected," he said. "Give you a very good-morning, Mr. Bowden; and you, David."

Elias took the hairy Screech’s hand; David nodded, but avoided a direct salute.

"In your black, I see--a black business, no doubt," said Billy. "And if you’ll give me a matter of minutes, I’ll polish up a bit and put on mine. Perhaps you didn’t know as I’ve got some good broadcloth for my back; but I have."

He called to his mother and went upstairs. Then, while he was absent, the thin and slatternly woman known as Eliza Screech shuffled in and put chairs for the Bowdens. She stood and rubbed her hands over each other and listened to the noise her son made overhead. By certain sounds she knew how his change of attire advanced.

"I hope you are on our side in this matter, ma’am," began Elias, solemnly.

"Yes, I am, and always have been since I heard about it," she said. "I’ve been at him night and day till he threatened to take the wood-chopper to me. I can’t say what he thinks about it, for not a word will he utter. He’s always chuckling to hisself, however. ’Tis a very shameless thing to have happened, though very common. I’m sorry about it."

She spoke kindly but indifferently.

"My girl is the same as him," declared Mr. Bowden. "’Shameless’ is the only word to be used against her--a hardened giglet as keeps her own secrets and did keep ’em till they would out. And, instead of going in tears and sackcloth, she’s as gay as a lark and don’t care a button for our long faces. Even to church she’ll come, if you can believe it. And not a word of sorrow."

Mrs. Screech heard her son putting on his boots.

"Well, I hope that your way of saying things will catch hold on William," she answered. "He’s a thoughtless man; but he was never fond of the girls till he met your Dorcas, and ’twas a very great blow to him he couldn’t take her."

"He must take her: that’s what we’ve come about," declared David.

Mrs. Screech shrugged her shoulders.

"There’s room here," she said, "and though us be a little down in the world, I daresay for a pound or two we could mend up the glass and make things vitty for Dorcas. I’m very fond of her, I may tell you. Here’s William coming down, so I’ll go."

She left them, and a moment later Mr. Screech entered transformed. He wore excellent black. He had brushed his hair and beard; he had washed his hands and put on a pair of tidy boots.

"Now," he said, "perhaps you’ll let me know what I can do for you, Mr. Bowden. Not long since there was a thing as you might have done for me; but I got a very sour answer, if I remember right. However, you’ll find me more reasonable if you come in reason."

"In reason and in right I come, William Screech. And well you know why for I’m here," said the master of Ditsworthy. "You’ve seduced my daughter Dorcas, and you cannot deny it."

"Yes, I can," answered Mr. Screech. "I can deny it and I can take my Bible oath of it. I never seduced her, and I never even offered to. I’ll swear she never told you that I seduced her."

"She’ll tell me nought."

"Then why d’you charge it against me?"

"Don’t fiddle with words," broke in David. "The question be simple, and the answer be ’yes’ or ’no.’ Do you deny that you are the father of the child she’m going to bear?"

"Certainly not. I am the parent; and a very proud man I shall be on the day."

"Then why d’you say you didn’t seduce her?" cried David.

Mr. Screech looked at him in a pitying and highly superior manner.

"Better let your father talk," he said. "You childless men be rather narrow in your opinions. He’s more sensible and more patient. Because a maiden changes her state and starts out to bud, it don’t follow nobody’s seduced her. If anybody was seduced, ’tis me, standing here afore you."

He grinned genially at the humour of the situation. David uttered an inarticulate sound of anger; Mr. Bowden settled himself in his chair.

"Explain yourself, William," he said.

"Well, I will. Perhaps you may remember when you forbade the match, that your daughter was a bit savage about it."

"She was. I allowed for that."

"You didn’t allow enough. You didn’t know what a clever girl Dorcas was; and you didn’t know how well she understood me. None ever understood me like her. I was merely a sort of a mongrel man--good for nought--in your opinion. You didn’t know how witty I could be if I chose; or what a lot of brains there was in my head. But she knowed and she trusted me. Pluck! Talk about this here prizefighter’s pluck and your Rhoda’s pluck--Good Lord! there’s more valour in Dorcas than the whole pack of you! She’s a marvel, she is. This be her work, master, not mine. After her big sister catched her with me and boxed her ears, she soon knowed what to do. And she done it; and I was very pleased to help. And here we are."

Mr. Bowden gasped.

"Do you mean to say a daughter of mine axed you to get her in the family way?" he asked.

"That’s the English of it," answered Mr. Screech. "There was nothing else she could do. ’Anything to oblige you, Dorcas,’ I said, and my bosom swelled with rejoicing to think the maiden I loved best in the world could trust me like that. ’’Twill larn my father and that self-righteous David and Rhoda to mind their own business in future,’ said Dorcas to me; and I’m sure I hope it will. You must all try to be sensibler without a doubt."

David felt an inclination to crush and smite the hairy and insolent Screech; but nothing could be gained by such an act.

"And how do we stand now, please?" inquired Mr. Bowden, very humbly.

"In a very awkward fix, of course," answered Billy. "Here’s my dear Dorcas going to have a babby, and me wrapped up in her, and my mother cruel fond of her, and her own people all shocked out of their skins at her; and yet I ban’t allowed to make an honest woman of her; because you’ve sworn afore witnesses that you’d sooner see her dead than Mrs. William Screech. It do seem a pity; but of course we all know the man you are--never known to call back an opinion. Dorcas and me be halves of a flail--one nought without t’other; but you’ve spoken. I shall be very pleased to help with the child, however; and I hope you’ll bring it up well to the Warren House."

This was too much for David.

"If you give us any more of your cheek, I’ll smash you where you sit," he said.

Billy shrugged his shoulders.

"Where’s the cheek? What a silly man you are! Ax your father if I’ve said a syllable more than the truth. I’m only sorry about it. Of course the likes of me, with my skilled inventions and general cleverness, ban’t worthy to be your brother-in-law--you with your great ideas and your five hundred pounds--left to you by somebody else. But, maybe, your father may feel different. A father can understand a father. ’Tis for him to speak now, not you, and say what he thinks had better be done about his child--and mine."

"There’s only one thing to be done, and that afore the month is out," said Mr. Bowden. "And you know what, for all your sly jokes, Billy. The pair of you have bested me. Well, I know when I’m beat. And the sooner the wedding be held, the better for everybody’s credit."

Billy pretended immense surprise.

"You mean as you’ll call home all them high words, master?"

"Every one of ’em," answered Elias, calmly. "If I’d been a bit sharper, I might have guessed as you and her would find a way. You have found it--’tis vain to deny that. So there’s nothing to do but wed; and I hope you’ll live to make good your promises; and so soon as you do, I’ll be the first to up and own I misjudged you."

"That’s fair and sportsmanlike, master, and I’ll be as good as you; and if my new rabbit trap don’t make you proud of me for a son-in-law, Elias Bowden, you ban’t the honest man I think."

"It’s settled then," said David, rising, and eager to be away.

"On one condition," answered the other; "that me and Dorcas have a proper show wedding, same as David here had. Us won’t have no hole and corner sort of job; and there’s no reason why we should. Only us and you know about it."

"She shall have a perfectly right and proper wedding, Billy," declared Mr. Bowden.

"Very good," answered the other; "and the day after we’m married and my Dorcas comes here to live, I’ll show you the trap, and save you twenty pounds a year if a penny."

Mr. Screech rose and indicated that the interview was ended.

"The banns go up on Sunday," he said. "Have no fear of me. I’m in quite so much of a hurry as anybody."

Mrs. Screech, who had heard everything from behind the door, crept off, and the Bowdens departed, while Billy went as far as the gate with them.

"Please give Dorcas my respects, and tell her I’ll be up over to tea on Sunday, if agreeable to all parties," he said.

"I will, William," answered Elias, mildly; "and ’twill be quite agreeable, I assure you."

The victory was complete and time proved Mr. Screech a just and even magnanimous conqueror. But for the moment the friction set up by his methods of approaching matrimony caused not a few persons a little uneasiness. While David had writhed before Billy’s satirical humours, Rhoda Bowden also suffered; but she took herself off and thus escaped direct contact with the cause of it. It happened that Dorcas was restless after her father had set forth to see Mr. Screech. She had wandered towards Coombeshead and finally--moved as many others were moved--determined to seek Madge, and so win comfort, and wait with her at ’Meavy Cot’ until David returned. Of the issue Dorcas felt no manner of doubt. Mr. Screech longed to marry her, and his single-hearted devotion was the finest element in a rather mean character. Marriage Dorcas felt to be a certainty; but she was none the less eager to learn how the great interview had fallen out and to what extent Billy had punished his future brother-in-law. Mr. Screech especially despised the Puritanical views of David; and Dorcas suspected that he might have taken pleasure on this occasion in wounding rather deeply her brother’s susceptibilities. She went to see Margaret, therefore, and felt sorry to find Rhoda also at home. Her sister was in the garden; but Rhoda saw the visitor some way off and departed leisurely without any interchange of words. The red girl flushed and set her teeth in a sneer; the other passed quickly into the Moor.

Then Dorcas entered and found Madge making a pudding. She sat down, took off her sunbonnet, and nibbled a piece of raw rhubarb.

"Did you see Rhoda go off?" she asked.

"Never mind, ’twill come right. You know how she feels things."

"Feel! Don’t you think she feels, Madge. She’s hard as them stone statues of women in church--a dead-alive, frozen beast! Feel! I wish somebody would make her feel. Don’t you look like that. You’ve lived with her now half a year and more. You know what she is."

"Be fair, Dorcas. She takes this a bit to heart; but that’s only what all of us do."

"You don’t, and you needn’t pretend it--not like her, anyway. You’d have done the same if your father had said you wasn’t to have David. You’d have trusted David, same as I trusted Billy. Things like her--Rhoda, I mean--why, good Lord! they’re not women; they ban’t built to bring dear li’l, cuddling, cooing babbies into the world, like you and me. All for yowling dogs and walking in the moonlight--_by herself_! Pretty frosty sport that for a female creature with blood in her veins!"