Part 20

Bart was reminded of another maiden and he sighed, put his hand to his chin, and looked into vacancy with a very lack-lustre expression.

"Shillabeer was here afore you comed home," said his father; "and he says you’m too young to stand up to Mattacott. You’d kill the man."

"I may yet," declared Bart gloomily. "Anyway I can’t wait like this much longer. No more can he. She won’t say which ’tis to be, and the strain of mind is getting a bit too sharp. Something’s got to go scat afore long--either him or me--or her."

"She ought to decide, no doubt," admitted his mother. "But I hope you ban’t hopeful, Bart, for I’m not. T’other’s better off than you and wiser; and Jane West has found it out, of course."

"He may be wiser, or he may not be," answered Bart. "Anyway I’m too wise to wait till Doomsday; and so I’ve told her; and she’s going to decide afore the New Year."

"She’ll take Timothy Mattacott," repeated his mother. "Stanburys ban’t no good at competing with other people. No more was my family--they always went under; and now they’ve gone under altogether, for I’m the last of ’em."

*CHAPTER III*

*THE VOICE FROM THE POOL*

Mr. Billy Screech found himself more than usually busy on the eve of Christmas Day; but when three o’clock came he abandoned his work and set off into the Moor. A dismal enterprise lay before him, and bad weather made the prospect worse; but he had promised, and failure to keep his promise would upset others and lessen Billy’s credit. Therefore he went, and presently, ascending above Kingsett Farm, reached Crazywell where it stared up out of the waste, like a blind eye in a black socket. Silence and desolation haunted the pool. It seemed an hour indeed when secret spirits might wake from sleep, rise, strike the leaden face of the waters, and bring terror to mankind. A heavy and hushed trance held the pool. But little wind blew; no cloud stirred in the grey vault of heaven; but beneath at earth level, fog crept leisurely along in streaks and hung motionless in patches. Even Billy--hardened unbeliever though he was--felt some slight uneasiness as he sank down into the hollow cup of Crazywell. The threatening mist made him both glad and fearful. It would certainly help the dramatic force of the thing to be done; but it might also increase in density and cause him to lose his way home. He turned up his coat collar, found a clump of furze near the water’s brink, and settled there. All had fallen out as Mr. Screech desired, and presently Jane West and Bart Stanbury would pass that way on the road to Princetown for some Christmas shopping. Only one fear existed in the watcher’s mind. If the mists increased in density, Bart might hesitate to take his sweetheart this way, but prefer to tramp round by road.

Billy had hidden himself beneath the principal footpath near the pool, and he knew that the travellers must pass by him. It was certain that he would not be called upon to wait long. He practised to himself once or twice, and as he had suffered from a cold in his throat for some days, the voice of Mr. Screech promised to be sufficiently sepulchral.

But the day grew more dark and more still. A lifeless, listless gloom haunted the spot, a blank despondency that reached even Billy’s nerves, dashed his spirit, and made him long heartily to be away. Then came the crawling tentacles of the fog, and they stole over the brim of Crazywell and thrust here and there, like some blind, live creature feeling for food. They poured down into the hollow presently and crept over the water at the bottom. Half an hour passed and the vapour increased in density. It hung drops of moisture on the thorns of the furze and spread a glimmering dew over Billy’s hairy face and ragged eyebrows; it struck cold; it entered his sore throat and promised to silence his voice altogether.

"If they ban’t here pretty spry, I shan’t be able to croak no louder than a frog," thought Mr. Screech.

He determined to give Bart and Jane fifteen minutes more. If they had not passed by during that time, he would leave the pool. It seemed pretty certain that the plot had failed. Billy had no watch, but he began to count slowly up to sixty, and each of these instalments represented one minute. The gloom increased, and unconsciously he hastened his counting. And then he heard voices and knew that the man and woman were passing, high above him in the fog. They shuffled slowly along and both spoke, but the plotter could not hear their words. He was quite safe from possibility of observation and so rose and descended to the sandy shore of the pool. Then he lifted up his voice and astonished himself, for his words rose and reverberated in the fog with a strange resonance, quite proper to the supernatural creature that might be supposed to live in Crazywell.

"Bartholomew Stanbury! Bartholomew Stanbury!" he cried.

Then he heard a woman’s thin shriek up aloft in the grey mist; and a man’s voice answered:

"By God! who’s down theer?"

But Billy made no reply to the question. He hastened to the further side of the pit and crawled up on to the Moor; then he ran for a couple of hundred yards, struck the Kingsett road and so got home, by Lether Tor Bridge, as swiftly as possible.

Meantime a woman had fainted above Crazywell and a man was stirring himself wildly to restore her. It was neither Bart Stanbury nor Jane West who had been shocked at the message from the pool, but Bart’s mother and father. The young couple were far away, tramping in close communion along the highroad; but Constance and her husband had been to see sick Madge and take her and David their Christmas gift and good wishes. They were returning from Meavy Cot, and it was upon their ears--where they moved slowly-fog-foundered above Crazywell--that this mournful doom had fallen from invisible lips beneath.

Mrs. Stanbury sank before the shock. She had just time to make her husband understand that it was the spirit of Crazywell who thus addressed them, before she lost consciousness. Bartholomew, too concerned for her to trouble about his own fate, gathered moisture from the heath, wetted her forehead and loosened her gown. But it was long before she recovered. She sat and shivered for half an hour upon a stone, and only by slow stages and with much assistance was able to reach her home.

It had grown dark before man and wife returned to Coombeshead and Bartholomew got his partner to bed. She had suffered a terrific nerve shock and was incoherent until a late hour. Then she became intelligent, and her native pessimism thus fortified, broke loose in the small hours of Christmas morning.

"Never out of my sight shall you go--God’s my judge! You mustn’t seek to do it, Bartholomew. Your time’s drawn down to within twelve month, and us must spend it hand-in-hand to the end. Oh, that awful voice! And for me to hear the name--me of all people! God A’mighty never did a crueller thing; and if I’d knowed we was going back along by the pool, I’d rather have walked the soles out of my boots and the flesh off my feet than do it. Your name of all names, and it might have been any other man’s. But you are chosen. If they’d only take me--not that I can bide after you, Bartholomew. Mark me, I shall be after you long afore you know your way about in the next world."

Mr. Stanbury, albeit a man without superstition, had also suffered not a little under the tragedy of the day. He had always laughed at the pool until now; but this was not a laughing matter. He could trust his ears and it was impossible to deny that a very extraordinary voice, hardly to be called human, had shouted his name up through the mist from Crazywell. It struck him also that the words actually ascended from the face of the water.

"Things look a bit black," he admitted, "and I’m powerful sorry I’ve scoffed at thicky water; but I ban’t gwaine to throw up the sponge yet, my old dear, and no more must you. If ’tis the Powers of Darkness live in the pool, then we must call in the Powers of Light to fight against ’em. God in Heaven’s the only Party who knows when I be going to be took off, and ’tis a gert question in my mind whether He’d let it out to this here queer thing that lives in Crazywell--like a toad in a tree-stump. What do you say, Bart?"

Their son had returned and was in great trouble at this evil news.

"I say that I’d better tell Jane not to come here for her Christmas dinner," he answered. "Mother won’t be up for any high jinks to-morrow. She won’t even be good for getting over to worship. She’s white as a dog’s tooth still. Why, there ban’t hardly a spark of nature left in her. And as for the voice, I’ve no patience with such things. I’d have gone down and pulled the spirit’s damned nose if I’d been there, same as I would any other man’s. I don’t believe a word of it, and faither’s right: God A’mighty wouldn’t let no vagabond ghosts poke about on Christmas Eve of all times--just afore the birthday of the Lord--to frighten God-fearing, respectable people with their nonsense. If ’tis a spirit, ’tis a bad one; and I wouldn’t care no more for a bad tankerabogus than I would for a bad man.

"If us can get to church in the morn, I’ll ax parson Merle afterwards," said Mr. Stanbury. "For my part, I won’t pretend I like it; but all the same, I’ve got a right to make a fight for it; and if parson be of your view, Bart, that I oughtn’t to care a button about it, then I won’t care."

"What’s the use of telling like that?" asked Mrs. Stanbury fretfully. "How be twenty parsons going to overrule a voice like what we heard a bit ago? Oh, my God! my flesh creams to the bones when I call back them awful sounds."

"’Twas more like a parrot than a human," said Bartholomew.

"And there’ll be some such way to explain it," declared the son. "I’ll wager that Mr. Merle will laugh the whole story to scorn."

"How’s that going to mend it, even if he do?" asked Constance. "Time enough to laugh when next year be dead and your father’s still living. But it can’t be. He’s got to leave us and I want for to know what becomes of me then?"

She relapsed into a condition of hysterical emotion, and her husband sat up with her all night.

In the morning Bart went for the doctor and also explained to Jane West that the hoped-for meeting at dinner could not take place.

A medical man reached the fastness of Coombeshead before midday and found Mrs. Stanbury suffering from shock. He was interested and sympathetic. He drove Bart home to his surgery six miles off, and, at evening, Constance took her physic and soon slept in peace.

Bart and his father were in the habit henceforth of regarding that occasion as the most mournful Christmas Day within their memories; and when the adventure began to be known a little later, their friends deeply sympathised with them and were divided in their opinions. Some secretly hoped that the solemn tradition of the pool would be upheld, and felt that it would be better for Mr. Stanbury to pass away than that the great mystery and glory of Crazywell should vanish. Others flouted the spirit and agreed with Bart that no sane person should take this meddlesome hobgoblin seriously.

Elsewhere Christmas Day brought other discomforts. Mr. Screech and his wife and children spent the anniversary at Ditsworthy; but they went reluctantly as a substitute for David and Rhoda. This spoilt the pleasure of Dorcas, and both she and her husband were glad to be home again. They criticised everybody at the Warren House in an unfriendly spirit, and Dorcas could find nothing genial to say even of her own mother. Indeed, none of her own had ever been forgiven for their initial adverse attitude in the matter of Billy. With her father alone could Mrs. Screech be said to remain on good terms.

And while the Screech family were able to go to Ditsworthy, owing to the enforced absence of David and his household, Christmas passed pleasantly at Meavy Cot. Margaret did not know of her mother’s misfortune, and as her own health now mended again, she much enjoyed the day. Moreover, there came a visitor, for David invited the lonely Bartley to share the feast, and Mr. Crocker, after hesitating between his duty to his Aunt Susan Saunders and his duty to himself, finally felt the opportunity of seeing Rhoda must be taken, in justice to his own future plans and ambitions. He went, therefore, and added to Margaret’s pleasure, but failed to advance his personal cause.

The dinner was a great success, and Hartley, quite unconscious that every jest he made was damaging his most cherished hope, excelled himself in merriment, and kept David and Madge in much laughter. Rhoda’s amusement, however, was at the best but frosty. She could not forget the past, and when she looked at Mr. Crocker she did not see an unstable, good-natured, and kindly spirit, mentally incapable of sustained sorrow, but a man whose mother had but lately died, and who found it possible to laugh and utter futile jests before the grass was grown upon her grave. She allowed for no extenuating circumstances; she forgot that Nannie Crocker’s end was a release for which to be thankful. She only saw an orphaned son playing the fool; and that he could do so now, to the accompaniment of a good dinner, did not surprise her; for had he not done the same upon the day after his mother’s death? She remembered what she had seen upon the island above Nosworthy Bridge; and she hardened her heart against Bartley and his humour. Rhoda had been influenced in other directions also by that unfortunate incident. To explain Margaret’s share in it with credit to Margaret was impossible. Her brother’s wife must have known that Mrs. Crocker had just died; indeed, the man had doubtless gone to tell her so. And Madge’s apparent reply was to conduct herself like a silly and irresponsible child. Such an action frankly disgusted Rhoda, and she was deeply offended and shocked at it. The emotion waxed with time and even made her uneasy. She believed that with no man living, other than her husband, might a woman permit herself such pleasantries. The past looked more and more unseemly in Rhoda’s eyes. It lessened her respect for Margaret, and unconsciously she showed it. Yet when Margaret, whose sensitive nature was lightning-quick to mark such a change of attitude, asked her sister-in-law how she had offended, Rhoda could not bring herself to speak. She evaded the question, but made some general allusions, hoping thereby to remind Madge of her recent folly. She failed, however, for David’s wife did not see the application of a theory of man’s lightness to herself or to Mr. Crocker.

And now, at this inauspicious hour, and fired thereto by a successful dinner and an excellent opportunity, the lover offered himself again. Chance so to do was deliberately made by Madge. She planned with David to leave her sister-in-law and the visitor, and, before Rhoda could avoid the trap, Bartley and she were alone together in the parlour.

"Keep Bartley in good spirits till I come back, Rhoda," said Margaret suddenly; "I must take my medicine, else doctor will be vexed when he calls again."

She hurried off, and as David had already gone out, man and maid found themselves alone.

Rhoda frowned; Bartley pulled himself together and wished he had taken half-a-pint less of the bottled porter.

Each in secret heart was planning speech, and Rhoda, not guessing that he had ever again thought of her as a wife, after her definite reply to his proposal, wondered now if she might reprove Mr. Crocker himself for his folly on the island. Her object was not the welfare of the man. She was thinking a little for Margaret and a great deal for David. She knew surely what David must have said had he crossed the bridge when she did. But to speak to David about it appeared impossible, for he brooked no criticism of Margaret even from her; and to approach Madge seemed equally out of the question in Rhoda’s view. But here was an opportunity to speak directly to the offender himself; for it could not but be that Bartley had led Margaret into the lapse of self-respect with the sandwiches.

Rhoda’s mind swiftly traced this path, and she was preparing to speak when her companion began to talk. His conversation related to a very different matter, and for some time the woman found little opportunity.

Mr. Crocker had picked up a photograph album and was gazing at the picture of the Bowden family taken at Tavistock in their full and imposing completeness before David’s marriage.

"My word!" he said, "that’s a proper piece of work sure enough. Let’s see--father and mother--boys of all sizes, your married sister, you and David, and Dorcas and Joshua. I hope you’ve made it up with Dorcas, Miss Rhoda?"

She flushed.

"You’ll do well to mind your own business," she said.

He shut the book and put it on the table. It rested upon a red and yellow wool mat, and he was careful to place it exactly in the middle.

"You’re right," he answered. "When aren’t you right? I oughtn’t to have said that. It’s not my place to dictate to you--quite the reverse. I’m sorry."

She did not reply and he spoke again.

"But my own business is different. I can mind that, and it’s time I thought a bit more about it. Not that ’tis ever out of my thoughts really; yet life comes between a man and his deepest desires sometimes, and life--and death--has stood between me and the first business of my life lately."

"Has it?" she said in an indifferent voice.

"You know it has, Rhoda. You know what I’ve been through. You came to the graveside of my dear mother at my express wish--"

"’Twas at your aunt’s wish--not yours."

"Anyway you came, and not being blind, you must have known what putting her into the ground meant to me."

She stared at him coldly, but did not speak. The grief that Bartley had displayed above his mother’s coffin when it sank to earth was real enough. He had mourned her then from his heart. But while Rhoda watched the man weep on that mournful occasion, there had filled her mind, not sympathy at his present real grief, but sheer amazement at his past equally real levity. It was quite beyond her mental endowment to understand how the same man could laugh on the day after his mother’s death, and weep at the ceremony of her interment.

Her thoughts now hardened her heart. She guessed that he was about to be personal and prepared to waste no consideration upon him.

"You’ll be gone out of England soon, I suppose. What’s Miss Saunders going to do?"

"Lord knows. My Aunt Susan’s been rather difficult since mother died. She wants to go to Canada with me; but--well, my mind’s set on somebody else."

"You’ll never find anybody to care for you like she will."

"Shan’t I? That’s bad news," he said. "And, what’s more, I’ll make so bold as to question it. Why should I waste time and beat about the bush? Look back a bit--to that day on the leat path, Rhoda. Well, a lot’s happened since then; but nothing has happened to my great love of you except it’s grown stronger and stronger. And you, Rhoda? Don’t say that you never thought of it again. Perhaps you blame me for holding off so long; but you see how I was placed. Couldn’t go on with it and mother fading out day by day."

In the light of her knowledge she believed that this statement was untrue. At best the hypocrisy of it offended her. The man who played with Madge on the island was surely not the man to let his mother’s last illness interfere with love-making.

But she did not comment upon this side of the question. She did not comment at all, but waited for him to make an end.

"And now, though you might think I was too near her still, yet I know it isn’t so. And I ask you to remember what I said before, and answer me different. You’re more to me than all the rest of the world put together, and I’m sure that I could make you a happy woman. I’ve watched you, like a cat watches a mouse, these many months. I’ve followed your ways and learned your fancies. David’s self don’t know so much about you as I do--all I know of your beautiful, brave nature and likes and dislikes--down to the walks by night with nought but the moonbeams and your own thoughts for company. And you--can’t you feel a bit too, and picture your life along with me away over the water? Can’t you see yourself mistress of such a place as you’ve heard me tell about to David? Can’t you let me love you and make you my dear wife, Rhoda? For God’s sake think about it, and don’t say ’no’ again. I’ll wait your pleasure; I’ll not hurry you. Take a year to say ’good-bye’ to Dartmoor if you like; or stop on Dartmoor if you like; and I’ll gladly stop too, if you say the word; but oh, Rhoda Bowden, do marry me and find what it is to have a husband who worships your shadow!"

He stood over her as he spoke, while she sat motionless and looked out of the window. Now she saw David returning and was glad. But her quick ears heard Margaret stop him outside, and husband and wife went into the kitchen together.

"Say ’yes’ and have done with it," begged Bartley.

She was thinking, but not of him. It occurred to her that Margaret had planned the entire incident. Her thoughts retraced many past events, and she wondered how much more Margaret might have planned. Then she asked herself the reason.

Her sustained silence made the lover speak again; but she was so interested in side views of the situation that the central fact seemed unimportant. To him, however, nothing else mattered; and her answer to one who had just asked her to marry him, struck the man as extraordinary.

"Don’t be dumb, unless silence is to give consent," he said; then she came to herself, looked at him blankly, and shook her head.

"Good God! Is that all your answer?" he asked.

"That’s all," she replied.

"Why--why--why? What’s between us? I’m frank to you; be frank with me, Rhoda. It’s now or never. Say everything in your mind to say. Leave nothing unsaid. What is it between us? What’s the bar? Can it be got over or broken down? Where do I fail? Can I mend it? Can I change anything--every thing to please you better? Don’t fear to hurt me. Anything is better than refusal."

"You’re too light-minded," she said. "And, even if you wasn’t, I shouldn’t care about you. You’re not the sort of man that I like."

"What sort do you like then? Tell me, and I’ll try to be that sort."

She did not answer the question, but reproved him for the past. It occurred to her again that by protesting now against the incident on the island she might prevent any such folly in the future. She was only considering David--not Margaret, and not the man before her.

"Too light-minded," she repeated, "and I’ll tell you for why I say it. On the day after your mother died, you met my sister-in-law and it chanced that I saw you together. She don’t know it and needn’t. But you’d better know. The man who could play child’s tricks at such a time wouldn’t be trusted by any woman, I should think."

He wrinkled his forehead and endeavoured to remember.

"Whatever did you see that shocked you so much?"

She told him and he shrugged his shoulders.

"I’m afraid I can’t expect to make you understand that. Perhaps no woman that ever I met but Madge would understand it. Don’t let that come between us. Be just. Moods and whims and silliness after a long cruel strain may happen to men as well as women."

"Well, I despise the men, or women either, who could sink to such things."

"You were at my mother’s funeral. You know if I felt her loss or not."

"Things are as they are," she answered calmly. "’Tis no good us telling any more. My brother and his wife want to come in the parlour, and we’re keeping ’em out."

Bartley rose.