Part 11

She drew the pork towards her and cut it. She was reconsidering her decision to wait till morning before telling her husband that Gray was definitely beyond his reach. If his queerness and irritability were due to hope deferred it would be merciful to put him out of his misery, to give him the final blow. She glanced at the figure in the arm-chair. Leadville was sitting forward, his elbows on his knees, his head with its strongly growing black hair sunk between his hands. He looked unapproachable and the saying about 'sleeping dogs' occurred to her.

If she were to make an effort, were to tell him, she would certainly suffer for it. He would treat her to some sort of scene and she was tired. She could not remember when she had felt so tired. Her back ached and her head ached, she had even a whimsical feeling that her legs ached.

She would not tell him now. The news trembling on the tip of her tongue should wait till, strengthened by her night's rest, she were able to take his anger and disappointment for granted.

She found that she was hungry. What a blessing there was always to-morrow, with a fence of sleep shutting off one day and its troubles from the next. What she needed was a good supper and a long night's rest. Thank goodness, Richbell would be down before it was light. She, Sabina, could lie abed until the pains had gone out of her bones.

In the quiet room the only sounds were the slight movements of the figure at the table, the tinkle of a fork against china, the crackle of dry wood in the grate. Once a tiny explosion, a breaking of heated glass, was audible; but, at the same moment, Leadville rose with a loud scrape of his chair.

"You'm eatin' like a 'adger," he said, in a tone of suppressed irritability and, taking down his gun, began to clean it. The energy of his movements was almost violent. By this oiling and rubbing he was easing the strain on his nerves. Mould and rust grow in that damp climate like the Giant-killer's bean and Leadville rubbed and polished till the barrel was gleaming darkly in the dull light of the wall lamp, till it caught a red glint from the flaming driftwood.

"What be yer gwine to do with your gun?" asked Sabina taking quiet note of this outburst of energy. "Any wild fowl down?"

At Christmas stranger birds, sooty-plumaged, web-footed, delicate-fleshed, came in large numbers to the north coast and all men, hind and farmer alike, went out to 'get a duck for dinner.'

The relief of hearty movement seemed to have oiled Leadville's tongue for, staring down at the last specks of rust, he said dreamily, "I used to think as one day I should shet myself with'n."

"Whatever was 'ee gwine do that for?" She had the practical person's contempt for extravagant talk, moreover she had listened to this threat before, had even expressed her opinion that there 'was cleaner ways o' dying.' She began to stack plates and dishes on a tray.

"If you can't 'av what you wanted," said he, still speaking as if only half conscious of what he said, "what's the good of livin'?"

"If you can't 'av what you want," retorted Sabina, "you should make the best of a bad bargain."

"No," he said simply, "I bain't made that way."

She shook her head over his childishness. "You'm a very covechous man," she said. "If you wanted a farm so bad as that, why didn't you rent'n?"

The light of the fire was reflected in his dark eyes, a spark in the blackness. He had put the gun back over the door and was sitting forward, his gaze on the burning wood. "I didn't want nothing but my own," he said with unalterable conviction. "I'd a right to Wastralls and 'twas just your oogliness denyin' me of it."

Sabina smiled. How foolish he was, how unreasonable! Just a big child.

"Did you marry me," she inquired, thinking to clinch the matter and her voice was the voice of one who makes allowance for a boyish fancy--"did you marry me or the land?"

For a moment he did not answer, then the truth which he had lived for twenty years, forced its way out. "I married 'ee for the land," he said quietly.

But Sabina had her memories. Let him say what he would she could not doubt his young sincerity.

"And now," he added, "now I wish I 'adn't."

Ah, that was it--'now.' She had been loved. She could recall the days of courtship, the first years of their union, sweet words, little tender deeds, the potpourri of rose-leaves that a woman hoards. He had courted her for more than the land and, though he denied it, he could not shake her faith. The past was hers and, because it was dead, it would be always hers.

"You wish that I was gone?" she said. He had loved her once, now he fancied that he loved Gray. It was only a fancy and would pass. The past was hers and the future would be, but the present? Sabina had always lived in the present and it was the present which had betrayed her.

"I wish we was never married, I wish you," he hesitated for a word, "I wish you would let me go."

She had been clearing the table. Her hands worked in the familiar way. She collected cruet, knives, forks and put them in the appointed places, but without knowing that she had lifted a finger. "You wish I would let you go?" she said incredulously. "You don't mean what you say, Leadville. I'm sure you don't. You'm vexed now, you've 'ad things to try you to-day and you don't know what you'm sayin' of; you'll be better in the mornin'." She had not been able to let his words pass without a protest, the protest of a still hopeful heart. Surely he would deny them.

"I wish," he affirmed heavily, "you would let me go."

The difficult tears rose to her eyes and her chin trembled. "My dear," she said and her stable law-abiding spirit was behind the words, "you knaw we'm married. It's a funny thing after all these years you want to be let go."

But he persisted. "If I was to clear out of this..."

"Go--go away?" she stammered, as if his previous words had been a meaningless ejaculation. "Go right away? Whatever for?"

"I bin 'ere all these years and I 'aven't been 'appy. A man want a little 'appiness in's life."

"Oh, Leadville, don't say such things. I've done my best to make you 'appy and comfortable."

"You couldn't do it," he said and added with finality, "you wasn't the right one."

The tears were running down her face, her poor quivering face which to his eyes looked so old, so unattractive. "I've done my best--my best."

"If I was to clear out of this..." he said, returning to what occupied his mind. Why could she not believe him, realize that for her own sake, she must let him go? Even now it was not too late. He glanced at the brown jug on the stove--not too late yet.

"No," she cried, "no, don't 'ee go away."

"One of us got to go, then."

But she had found the answer, the word of power. "Not--not till death us do part," she responded.

"Aw," he said, "and that's it. Till death us do part," and he repeated the words as if they were the chorus of a song already sung, the refrain of a chant known long ago and until then forgotten. "Till death us do part."

He had spoken throughout as if hardly conscious of his words, but now a spurt of irritation, irritation at her folly, shook him. "You and your ways!" he cried harshly. "'Tis you that's responsible. You drove me to do things I wouldn't do."

Relieved by his return to this more ordinary mood Sabina's courage rose. "'Tis your own self that 'arnessed the 'arse," she said with greater confidence. "I've 'ad nothing to do with it. My 'ands is clean."

The man's inconsequent attention was caught by her last words. Glancing stupidly at his hands he saw to his surprise, and swiftly growing consternation, that they were dark with blood. The minor events of the afternoon--the slaughter of the seal, its skinning, the 'running out' of the oil, had been forgotten. He could see no reason, no reason but the one, for this significant stain. "Mine 'edn't," he cried shaking them as if he would shake it off. "Can't think whatever this is!"

"Looks as tho' you got blood on them."

His first shuddering dismay changed to fear. He glanced at her sidelong. "'Ow 'av I got blood on my 'ands, can yer tell me?"

"No, I can't." She also had forgotten the trifling incident of the seal. "But 'tis certainly blood."

To a man in Leadville's confusion of mind, a confusion shot with flashes of clear thought, the age of miracles was not past. That the dark intention of his spirit should have been made supernaturally visible, did not seem impossible, not even improbable.

"Get out--blood?" he cried furiously. "'Tis only dirt. I'll go and wash them."

Hurrying into the linhay he began to pump water over his hands, washing and re-washing them till they were red with cold, till not a speck of the betraying colour remained. The flow of the water, bright and unbroken, had a soothing effect on him. He watched it falling from the round mouth of the pump on to the grating, listened dreamily to it running out by the conduit under the flags; and with it his horror drained away, leaving him at peace. As the flow thinned to a trickle, like a child at innocent but mischievous play, he raised the green handle and brought another rush. The winter rains had filled the well and Mrs. Byron, though she wondered mildly what he might be doing, was too much occupied with her griefs to pay much attention.

However stout a woman's common sense it crumbles before such simplicity as that of Leadville. Alleging a long unhappiness, he had begged for the freedom which should straighten out the tangle of his life. "If I was to clear out of this--" he had said.

To accord it, was not in her. If their marriage was a mistake as he averred, and she could not grant that it was, the mistake once made must be accepted. They must, as she had said, 'make the best of a bad bargain.' Gray married and out of reach, Leadville would surely remember that when he had wandered into Trevorrick, like some flying creature into a garden, she had been the one, of all those rooted there who, opening her heart, had given him shelter. She could not take seriously that desire of his to spread his wings and lift himself once more into the blue. What was there for him, now that he was no longer young, but the security of the garden, the sheltering walls of that one heart?

Sabina, hungry for an old age of peace and affection, turned in thought to a couple well known in Tregols, the Henwoods of Curyarnon. Married after a long courtship and the father of boys and girls, Mr. Henwood had yet had two sons by a woman of the village. Though the scandal was open the wife had chosen to ignore it and, in the end, he had gone back to her. Now, an example of senile devotion, they were tottering hand in hand down the gradual hill. Sabina envied them. Like Mrs. Henwood she felt that she could wait and, when the time came, forgive.

The kitchen was always tidy, but some of the parcels that had been brought from Stowe still lay on the side-table and, rolling herself, in tired fashion, across the room she began to sort them. Cottons, needles, a roll of flannel, unbleached calico for the hams and a new account-book, they were speedily drafted into drawers and work-box; but behind the parcel of drapery lay an object, the purchase of which she had forgotten. For a moment she looked at it in sadness and uncertainty; then, with the faint dawnings of a smile. Gray had executed the commission with which she had been charged. She had bought the pipe, a good one with an amber mouthpiece, and it lay before Sabina on the blue and red table-cloth. Leadville smoked by fits and starts and, for some days, his foul and blackened pipe had lain untouched on the mantelshelf. With the thought of the man's material welfare she put the new pipe by the old. Let him go? Go where? He had no trade, no money and he was getting 'up in years.' Her kind heart saw him drifting on the tides of poverty, saw him submerged and she shook her head. For this reason and for every other, she must not let him have the freedom that he asked--it was too late.

For a moment the oppression that was clouding her mind lifted on a sunset thought. She could imagine his surprise when he found the new pipe by the old, his pleasure and the word of thanks she would be accorded. By then he would know Gray was out of reach and though his vanity might suffer--not even now could the wife believe it was more than vanity--the pipe smoked and smoking sweetly, must remind him of the tried companion who for so many years had looked after his creature comforts, and given him with one exception, everything he asked.

She must have patience.

She was so tired that if she did not go to bed she felt she would sink away through cone and trolly, sink into nothingness. Lifting the jug of cocoa from the stove and carrying it with her, she went out of the kitchen and down the long passage to her room.

"Good night!" she called.

*CHAPTER XIV*

Sabina's voice, not having been modified by the habit of rooms, had a resonant, carrying note. "Good night!" she had said and the sound, travelling out to the linhay, fell on Leadville's ears.

Through the skylight in the high sloping roof, the moon was dimly sketching shelves and barrels, and the absorbed figure of the man. He stood, his eyes fixed on the swelling and diminishing flow of the water, his hand on the pump. The bell-like voice calling Good night, a good night to new days and the following years, broke the spell. The two short sounds did not, however, reach his mind as a word with a certain meaning. They were to him the beginning of a familiar sequence of sound. Tap, tap, tap, the hammer was at work again. A puzzled look came into his eyes and he drew his black brows together in the effort to understand who was knocking in--not nails, no, but large-headed brass tacks. He became aware, in some inward manner which yet was convincing, of a polished surface of light wood on which were two curving rows of round brass heads, two complete rows. The shaped board with the rows of cut clasps was oddly familiar. He had seen it before, but where? He struggled to retain the vision, to see more, but it broke into innumerable yellow points, specks of dancing light. He shook his rough head as if the lights were dazzling him and, turning away, began to dry his hands. From time to time he had had glimpses of wood and even of brass nails, but never so clear a vision. He wondered whether, now that the rows were complete to the last round head, the knocking would cease, this knocking which had haunted him for so long.

In order to husband the lamp-oil Sabina, before going to bed, had lowered the wick, but Byron had a dislike of shadows and obscurity. Before he turned up the light, however, a furtive glance assured him the brown jug was gone from the stove.

Its disappearance, though expected, gave him a shock. While he, in the linhay, had been oddly forgetful of the event he had prepared, the moment had come and passed, that moment so heavily charged with possibilities, the moment of the last chance. It was as if, having laid the train, another had touched off the fuse. The matter had been taken out of his hands and, though startled, he was conscious of relief. The thing was done.

Old Squire's chair, which stood during the day to the right of the hearth, had been pushed against the wall. Sabina, tidying the room, had supposed that her husband would soon go to bed; he, however, was no more conscious of a desire for rest than if it had been morning. Replenishing the fire he sat down, but though the maker of the chair had shaped it cunningly, Byron neither leaned back in it nor relaxed his limbs.

The catch of the door opening into the house was weak and, suddenly, the long passage that began at the kitchen and ended at the justice-room, was filled with whispering sounds. A breeze, wandering in, had lost itself in the darkness. It pulled at the handle until Leadville, sitting forward, his head sunk between his shoulders in the attitude of a bird of prey, his mind concentrated on the approaching and dreadful and longed-for end, looked up. For him the breeze was winged with fear. He fancied that the handle moved. Could Sabina be coming back for something she had forgotten? She had a fancy that she suffered from cold feet, that she must have a flagon of hot water in the bed. To Leadville this fancy had seemed part of her general unreasonableness.

"Yer laigs are gone," he had said irritably.

"As long as they're above ground-'they bain't gone."

"Any'ow you can't 'av cold feet."

"I tell yer, I can't sleep for 'em."

"Well, what's the good of a 'ot jar at the bottom of the bed when you'm to the top?"

"I put the bottle," she had said obstinately, "where I feel my feet's to. That's where I feel cold."

He remembered to have seen on the linhay shelf the old Hollands jar which was used as a hot-water bottle. Was she returning to fetch it? Was it her fingers that were moving the little brass door-knob? His fear grew until it mastered him. He had done with Sabina and she must not come back. He could not stand it. If she swung in on that loathly trolly and began to potter about, heating water, looking for the flagon, he felt that some containing wall would bulge and give and what was held up by it fall into the open.

"I should 'av to tell her," he said, staring at the handle. "Shouldn't be able to keep it in. 'Twould be out of me mouth before I knawed."

On that coast a gale may be blowing great guns one moment and the next drop into silence. The land wind which had piled cove and bay with the welcome oreweed had died down during the day and, out of the north, had come a flock of small white clouds. They trailed on their unknown errand across the sky and behind them, like a sheep-dog, ran a fitful wind. It sang in the ears of the old house and Leadville, made aware of it, turned his eyes contemptuously from the spasmodically moving door-knob. "That's only the wind," he muttered.

The rocky shelf on which Wastralls was built, lying behind Dark Head and lower than the ridges of the valley, lay also below the wind. A thickness on the turning earth it lay in an unnatural hush. On the beaches the tides roared and thundered. Above, but divided from the homestead by wide, clean, moonlighted space, the winds shrieked a warning; but the house, except for that one breath of disturbed and whispering sound, was very still. It kept a vigil. Byron, motionless in Old Squire's chair, knew that he too was waiting.

A board, in which were bolt-holes, which had indeed been part of a ship wrecked long ago, creaked loudly, startling the watcher. With whirring note the old clock had told the hour, once, twice, but he had not marked it. He had been like one turned to stone. In him only one tract of consciousness had burned with life and this glow, fierce and steady, burned in the innermost place, in the darkness and silence that are beyond thought. Recalled to the surface, the man became conscious of numb limbs and an aching back. He stretched himself, a little and very cautiously. He was not anxious to draw attention to himself. With the same caution he put another log on the sinking fire. He had been waiting, for what he hardly knew; but the dream, the old secret dream to which his clumsy hands had given form and substance, was rising through the blackness and the silence, changing into a fact. As he leaned back in the Windsor chair, he was being shown a picture, a picture from which, if he could, he would have turned his eyes. He was looking into the big shadowy justice-room at the end of the passage, the room in which Sabina lay.

He saw the grey walls, the little old windows curtained with white dimity and the four-poster which, for so long, had been the bed of bridal and of birth, the death-bed of a family. In it Old Squire had lain him down to sleep and then to die. In it his childless descendant was drawing her last breaths. Her last breaths! Byron saw them coming slowly, a mist on the cold air, more slowly and then no mist. Sabina was about to die. Die? He said the word softly to himself. His wife, the woman at whose side he had lived for so many years, was about to die. He shook his head over the word as something of which the meaning escaped him, which was portentous, which stirred him in a dim elemental way, but which he could not grasp. Sleep he could understand. Sabina asleep was something he had often seen. A healthy creature, once she had shut her eyes, she did not stir till morning. He was different, found it difficult to lose himself, slept lightly as a cat and dreamed. Day-dreams and night-dreams, he had lived in dreams; but Sabina...

She was asleep now. She was sleeping dreamlessly and from this empty sleep she would not rouse. Daylight would broaden in the east, the farmyard stir with life, and feet would come and go in the house. Do what they might, however, she would not waken. He frowned, knitting his brows over the to-morrow which was about to dawn, the to-morrow in which Sabina had no part. That she who was so vigorously alive should thus have been wiped out, that she should have gone, not for a little time but for ever, was unthinkable and yet...

A nerve vibrated with relief, with a slow thick satisfaction. Gone was she? In their long struggle then, he was the victor? He had come into the open, fought for the woman that he loved, the bit of land that was his 'by rights.' He had always had it in him to fight but not until driven to extremities had he shown his mettle. At long last he had proved that he and not Sabina was the one who counted, that fundamentally he was the stronger.

And yet...

The shallows of his mind were alive with darting thoughts. The long long contest had been declared in his favour, the adversary was not so much beaten as destroyed and yet, on the heels of his rejoicing, crept little yapping doubts.

The vision of the justice-room, of that quiet figure in the quiet chamber, was for him repellently interesting. As long as he could imagine the fine mist of her breath, the rising and falling of her breast, he was only conscious of his approaching triumph. Time, however, brought a change, for now Sabina was more than quiet, she was still. Her blue eyes were frozen, she rested in a peace deeper than that of sleep and, whereas the sleeper is harmless...

Though he did not yet understand, his satisfaction began to dwindle. He drew nearer to the hearth, to the warm living fire. The wind still shrieked a warning overhead but on the house, especially the part beyond the kitchen, a hush had fallen. Byron found the silence oppressive. If a mouse had come out of the wainscot and flitted bright-eyed about the floor, he would have welcomed it, but the place was empty even of minute and furtive life. The thick walls leaned together, brooding over stagnant space, over the dust of dead hopes, the smell and the suspicion of mould, of more than mould. They shut the man in with his dry husk of satisfaction, bade him observe it shrivelling before a new growth, a growth at which he dared not look, it seemed so closely to resemble fear.

Yet--fear?

In the unhappy past he had borne himself stoutly on the assumption that he was the stronger, that he had only to rise and assert himself. That very day he had put this contention to the proof and now Sabina, in her new stillness, was threatening--what was she threatening?