Part 15

When the women whom she had summoned made their appearance, however, though red-eyed, she had herself in hand. She and Mrs. Con Rosevear being the nearest relatives, the family, only too well aware of the latter's slatternly ways, would look to Mrs. Tom for direction. And she was ready for them. Experience had instructed her in the routine to be followed and, before long, Mrs. Bate with a bowl of hot water, with flannel, soap and scissors, had shut herself into the justice-room: Mrs. Con with the bustling help of a sister-in-law, Mrs. William Brenton of Cumean, was turning out the big parlour; and Aunt Louisa, like an embodied shadow, was slipping from room to room in search of mourning apparel. Mrs. Byron had stores of black material, in the piece and made up, and to the old woman was deputed the congenial work of looking for it. Her sewing machine had been given pride of place on the side-table in the kitchen and, already, the other was growing dark with the first results of her search, with crape, black ribbon, cottons, buttons, etc., a heterogeneous assortment. When Leadville returned from Dark Head, the work of preparation was so far forward, that the women, calling a halt, had gathered for a mid-morning cup of tea.

When life has passed the adventurous stage--if it ever does--it turns to the doings of others for its spice; and, in that homely room, about which were scattered so many black garments that the place looked as if draped for some funereal occasion, the five women discussed the dead.

"'Tis very good of 'ee, Aunt Louisa, to come at once to 'elp wi' the blacks, when I knaw you be always slagged wi' work," said Mrs. Tom, with the usual sweet civility of the Cornishwoman.

"Well, my dear," returned Mrs. Blewett, "at a time like this anybody 'ud do anything. I'd go on me 'ands and knees for Mrs. Byron. I've knawed 'er ever since she was a child and 'ave always done 'er sewin' for 'er. Why, some time back, I made the clothes to set 'er forth with! But I thought she was worth a hundred dead ones. Never thought, as I should live to make up 'er mournin's."

"She's lookin' so natural now," said Mrs. Bate, who had brought from the death-chamber the night-cap which had been put in readiness. The lacy frills of it were limp with the sea-damp and Mrs. Tom had offered to iron and goffer it. She was glad to do for her friend this last of many kindnesses.

"Aw, poor soul, she's at rest now. Gone out of a world of trouble. She's best off where she's to," said Aunt Louisa, in tones of conventional grief.

"I wonder," began Mrs. William Brenton, who being in Trevorrick on a week-end visit to her sister-in-law, had accompanied her and was delighted to find herself in the midst of such interesting occurrences. Living at Polscore, and that only since her marriage, for she was a woman from up-country, she was not deeply versed in local gossip. She endeavoured to remedy this by asking questions but, as she was not noted for discretion, her gleanings were apt to be scanty. "I wonder if she've left any will?"

Neither Mrs. Tom nor Mrs. Constantine looked up. The latter felt that after Leadville's death the farm should come to one of her tall sons, to Freathy, Ern or Tremain; while Mrs. Tom was sure that her girls, being Mrs. Byron's favourites, had the prior claim.

"You ought to know if anybody do," said Aunt Louisa, snipping the thread of a finished hem and turning her grey eyes on Mrs. Tom. The neat precise old woman gave a general impression, in colourless face, smooth scanty braids and capable hands, of greyness. She was like water overhung by trees, a limpid stillness in which shadows moved.

"Well," said Mrs. Tom carefully, "I don't know. S'bina was very close wi' money matters. She never let on to any one what she intend doin'."

Aunt Louisa's clear eyes moved thoughtfully from face to face. With the exception of Mrs. Tom she was far and away the cleverest woman in Trevorrick and she applied her wits--as do all of us, from scholar to ale-house gossip--to gathering stores of useless information. "Never 'eard tell of any will," she said, beginning to tack the seams of a skirt for little Rhoda, "and I never knawed of any lawyer comin' 'ere to do anything about a will."

"What you don't knaw, my dear," said. Mrs. Bate, tactless but admiring, "is good for sore eyes;" and in this statement she voiced so conclusively the opinions of all present that the hopes of both Mrs. Con and Mrs. Tom sank. If there were no will Leadville would inherit and there was no reason he should leave it to a Rosevear. In all probability he would marry again and rear a family. Mrs. Tom thought fleetingly of his infatuation for Gray and what might have been.

"Goodness!" said Mrs. Brenton cheerfully. "There'll be pretty ole capers if everything's left to Mr. Byron. 'E'll be turnin' the place upside down. 'E'll be tellin' us all 'ow to farm. Continuous croppin' 'e call it, but my maister say 'better leave things as they be and not make work when there's no need for it.' 'E don't believe in these new-fangled ways."

"I think," said Mrs. Con uneasily, "'e'll teel all those new things 'e's craikin' about and I wonder what Old Squire would say if 'is 'ead was above the earth."

"Some do say 'is 'ead's up now." Mrs. Tom's smile was faint, a twitch of the lips, a recognition of Mrs. Con's tremulous outlook. "I think if Leadville was to start 'is sugar-beet and terbacker teelin' 'e 'ud 'av a 'ot time wi' Old Squire!"

"Mrs. Byron," began Aunt Louisa and stopped to re-thread her needle. She spoke as if her mouth were full of pins. Use had made her able to speak through a bristling _chevaux de frise_ while age made her forget whether the pins were there or not. "Mrs. Byron is the livin' image of Old Squire as I remember'n." She glanced at his elbow-chair, wide and built with a cunning hand. Pushed against the wall, its red cushions were hidden under billows of black material, but this drapery only made its outlines the more regal. None of those who looked but thought of the man for whom it had been made as still dimly occupying it. More than one had a glimpse of silver hair above a masterful face and caught the faint sound of an imperious voice. "I seed'n when 'e was in 'is coffin," continued Louisa, recalling further a mountainous bulk. "I warn't higher than the table when 'e died but I can remember mother takin' me in."

"'E was a great big man, wasn't 'e?" asked Mrs. Brenton.

"A lickin' great feller!" Aunt Louisa basted as she talked and the other women, most of them younger by a generation, listened with interest. With the exception of Mrs. Brenton they knew why the old woman's mother had been anxious to imprint the features of Freathy Rosevear on her child's plastic memory. "When he was dead," continued Aunt Louisa, who in her neatness, her precision, was as unlike her sire as any child might be, "they couldn't get his coffin overstairs. They had to take it up in pieces and put'n together in's bedroom. And then they couldn't get'n out. They 'ad to take out the big winder in the end of the 'ouse and slide'n down over the boords. I can remember as if 'twere yesterday. 'E was so 'eavy they had the bier out from Stowe to carr'n; for 'twas more'n the bearers could manage."

"And S'bina was like 'im," said Mrs. Con curiously. She had heard the tale of Old Squire's funeral before but that his granddaughter resembled him so closely was new to her.

"The spit of 'n. 'E was a great big red-faced feller with flamin' 'air which was always stickin' up on end and 'is voice, it was like it was going to wake the dead."

"I wonder at your mother takin' you to see 'im, an old dead man. It don't 'ardly seem the thing, do it?" said Mrs. Brenton looking round at the others but finding them, to her surprise, dull and unresponsive.

"She wanted for me to remember what 'e was like," said the old woman placidly and Mrs. Bate, who had received the night-cap from Mrs. Tom and was absent-mindedly smoothing the strings, smiled to herself a little wistfully. She was old now, but she had been a handsome maid. If only she had been alive when Old Squire was in his prime!

"I shouldn't think," said Mrs. Con, putting down her empty cup and leaning both elbows comfortably on the table, "that S'bina's coffin would cost so much, now, without laigs? Twill be all that the shorter and 'twont be so 'cavy for the men to carry. I should think one set of bearers 'd do."

"Surely," urged Mrs. Brenton, "they'll make it the right size? Twill look funny to 'av a dumpy coffin."

"'Ere, Betsy, you can tack this seam," said Mrs. Tom, who, seeing no reason for any one to be idle, was apportioning the sewing. This done she spoke with authority. "They must make S'bina's coffin the right length; for when 'er laigs was cut off she wouldn't 'av them throwed away. 'When I'm buried up,' she say, 'I'll 'av me laigs with me. Anybody can't rise up on the Last Day without laigs!'"

The others showed surprise. "Very thoughtful of 'er, I'm sure," said Mrs. Brenton.

"No," said Aunt Louisa in her pin-muted voice, "'twouldn't be decent to go before 'er Maker wi'out laigs. But I didn't know she 'ad 'em. Wherever's she kept 'em to?"

"Well, she got 'em in a box, salted away. She brought 'em 'ome from the 'orspital and they'm in the li'l parlour in the cupboard. I think we'd better get'n out against Mr. 'Enwood come to measure 'er."

"She'll make a vitty corpse, after all," said Mrs. Con, who had been haunted by the thought of that legless body and who would now be able to think of her cousin as made whole by the restoration of the carefully preserved limbs. Her person, large and soft, the person of a big eater and small doer, heaved in a gusty sigh of satisfaction. "Nights I've lied thinkin' when she die there'd 'av to be something put in the coffin to keep 'er from boompin' up and down."

Mrs. Bate got up. "I'll just put on 'er cap and then you can all come in and see 'er. She's the fines' body I've set forth for many a day. Some fat body, too, she be, some 'andsome body, fat as butter."

Before the others could take advantage of this invitation which, with the exception of Mrs. Con they were naturally eager to do, Leadville's step was heard on the linhay flags and he at once became the centre of interest. The corpse could wait but this was their first glimpse of the bereaved. Curiosity was veiled by industry and politeness and like the fates they snipped and stitched.

Fresh from his sleep in the sunshine and ready to do his part, he paused, on his way in, to break his fast. As he ate, the whirr of the sewing-machine caught his ear and at once some of his briskness passed.

"Well, Mrs. Tom, I'm come back," he cried, pulling open the little door. To him, the room, always dark, seemed full of soberly clad women and, between them, he made out masses of black material which, overflowing chairs and tables, lay in discreet heaps on the clean blue floor. The women glanced up with conventional murmurs and he perceived that, for the nonce, it was they who were at home there and not he. "What is there for me to do?"

Isolda put down the child's frock on which she was at work. "I think you better go into Stowe and see Mr. Henwood and tell'n to come out and measure 'er for 'er coffin."

Leadville viewed the task set him with disfavour. "I can't abide that job."

"It bain't a bit of good for 'ee to talk like that, my dear," said Mrs. Tom, as to a fractious child, "you know it's got to be done. As well 'av it done first as last."

"I know that." Traffic in the gruesome ceremonial of death was repugnant to him and he would have liked to take a broom and sweep these women and their blacks out of Wastralls, to clear the place of them and have it once more sweet and clean. "Still 'tis 'ard lines on a poor feller."

"Of course it be but, there, it can't be 'elped. I don't want to bother you more'n I can 'elp; but still there's things as must be seen to."

He stood before her, balancing first on one foot, then on the other.

"Well?" he said.

"There's the funeral and what about the food?"

"Tedn't a bit of good for 'ee to ask me. You must do zactly as you like. You knaw best, better than I do."

"I thought," she pursued, bent on getting his assent to the arrangements she considered should be made, "about 'avin' a 'am and a couple of chicken and a piece of beef and then I thought we'd better 'ave a couple of tarts and white cake and yeller cake: and tea. That will be enough."

"Iss," he said, longing to get away, "well, you know what to do."

"And you'll 'av to go and see doctor to get a certificate before you go down to Mr. 'Enwood. As 'e was 'ere yesterday, 'e may not want an inquest--still you never know."

"Well, I'll see'n."

"What day be yer thinkin' to 'av the funeral?"

Leadville was anxious to have it as soon as possible, but knew that this desire was not one to which he could give utterance. "I can't abear to think of 't," he said, conscious of his audience. "I feel as if I'm waitin' for 'er to come in. 'Tidn't like she's dead, to me."

The women glanced at him kindly. They were sorry for him, a poor forlorn creature, a widow man. "I'm afraid," said Mrs. Tom, regretfully, "we shall 'av to bury 'er up pretty quick. Mrs. Bate think she oughtn't to be kep' longer'n Monday."

"Monday?" cried the man and, for a moment, lifted his heavy lids and stared at her. "You don't mean it? Why it's now Saturday?"

"Well, my dear, she died on a full stomach and you know you can't keep her very long. Still I should be the last to 'urry 'er into 'er grave. We'll see what Mr. 'Enwood say."

Mrs. Con, glad of a moment's respite from the sewing, had been watching the speakers. "What 'av 'ee got on yer face there?" she asked peering, with short-sighted eyes, at a brown smear on the man's forehead, the smear his seal-blooded hand had made the previous evening when wiping away the drops of his fear.

"'E 'aven't washed yet," interposed Mrs. Tom and turned back to Byron. "I've put yer black clothes upstairs on yer bed and there's plenty of 'ot water you can 'av."

"Look like you've got blood there," persisted Mrs. Con, "'av you cut yerself?"

Byron swung over to the little mirror by the range. Across his forehead lay a broad smear, dark brown in hue. Though he recognized it instantly as blood, his forgetfulness of the unimportant past prevented his being able to account for it and superstitious dread swooped on him out of a clear sky.

"I dunno what that is," he stammered, already shaken out of his reasonableness and with a vague recollection of a similar episode on the previous evening. "It do look like blood! 'Owever did it get there?"

"Don't 'ee worry, Leadville," soothed Mrs. Tom and who knows whether her words were accidental or chosen. "There's no mark o' Cain on 'ee, Lorrd be praised."

"Mark o' Cain!" he muttered and Mrs. Tom saw leap into his eyes a questioning terror.

"I expect you've scratched yourself somewhere," she said easily. "Take'n go and wash it off." Pouring hot water into a dipper she offered it to him and Leadville, treading delicately among the heaps of black material, went out. He had brought from Dark Head a clear simplicity of purpose, but now his mind was like a ruffled pool. "Mark o' Cain?" he muttered to himself as he went upstairs. "What do they knaw about it? It's all tommy-rot, they can't knaw anything, 'tis only what they'm surmisin'. Can't trust they women, their tongues is always waggin'. They'll ferret out the last rat that's in the mow."

As he put his hands into the dipper he noticed they were trembling and, with this, his caution began to reassert itself. The women must not be allowed to suspect that there was anything concealed. "If I don't take care," he admonished himself, "I shall find meself in a box. Pretty feller me, to take so much notice o' they. I've done more'n they'll ever bear to think on and 'ere I'm all twitchy because of their silly talk."

After washing his face he examined it in the toilet-glass for any sign of a hurt, but the skin was unbroken.

"I 'aven't cut meself," he said perplexedly, and suddenly the episode of the seal occurred to him. He laughed aloud. "Mark o' Cain indeed! And me, what don't believe in they old ideas! Iss, they'm too fanciful for our day o' livin'." He shook his heavy shoulders. "I mus' pull meself together. I must remember, only thing that's 'appened is that I've lost the missus--poor sawl."

In the room below the women had returned to their work of 'makin' up the mournin's.'

"'E seem rather cut up about it, not like 'e belong to be," commented Aunt Louisa.

"Well, what can 'ee expect," said Mrs. Brenton, "only lostin' 'is wife this mornin'? Can't expect for'm to be bright and cheerful!"

"I don't expect anything," said the old woman, "still you can't 'elp noticin' things."

*CHAPTER XVIII*

As Leadville on his black stallion turned the corner below Church Town, he met the Wastralls wagon coming back from Stowe with a load of coal and oil. The sight of the teamster, leading his horse as it zigzagged across the sharp ascent, brought the other a sudden tingling realization of power. Yesterday Rosevear had been a hind on his wife's farm and Byron, though ostensibly, blusteringly master, had not been able to dismiss him. Now, opportunity, spruce and debonair, was walking towards him up the wide curve of the road.

Reining in his horse--a gift from Sabina, who liked him to be well mounted--he waited till Jim, this 'proper jump-the-country' was abreast of him.

"The missus is gone!" He was not thinking of Sabina but of the alteration in their relative position.

Jim's face had been as cheerful as his thoughts. Though in workaday clothes he wore them with a holiday air and had adorned his cap with the iridescent wing-feather of a drake. He was in pairing mood and had seen in Stowe 'a lickin' great wardrobe' that he would like for Gray 'if she'd a mind to't.' His nest-building thoughts were scattered by Byron's untimely news and his face lengthened. "Gone?" he repeated. "'E don't say so? Poor sawl! I'm awful sorry. Was it a fit or what was it?"

Byron, impatient to assert himself, ignored the question. Sitting his horse with a touch of swagger he said truculently: "I'll leave yer know I'm maister now."

Jim believed that he had a reason to dislike the speaker and none whatever to avoid a quarrel. Better bad blood between them than that Byron, under the cloak of kinship, should be able to come worrying Gray.

"Iss," he said, accepting the challenge, "missus is 'ardly cold, but still I s'pose you think you'm maister now."

In Byron's fierce eyes was the longing to begin the inevitable fight. The youth, blithe and with his handsome face upturned, was incarnate provocation. One hearty blow and Byron saw the contour of that admirable nose for ever changed.

"When you finish up to-night you can come in," he growled, "and I'll pay you your wages. I don't want you 'ere, on the place, any longer."

Jim did not seem impressed. "I can clear now if you like." It would serve the 'ole hunks' right if he were left with the horse and wagon on his hands.

"An' if yer don't want to 'av yer bones broken," continued the other, pausing on a darkling thought that the sea did not always give up its dead, "you'll clear out of this part altogether."

In Jim's eyes was a little dancing light. "Shen't clear out for the likes of you."

"Well, now, you take this for a warning. If you don't you'll wish you 'ad."

"We'll see about that," and being of those whose spirits rise at the prospect of a fight he smiled. "We'll see who is the best man of the two, me or you."

A grimmer smile was on Byron's face. Knowing his strength he could look forward, past the irritating unpropitious moment, to the happy hour when they should come to grips. "Oo d'yer think's afraid of you, yer banty cock?" he cried, contemptuously, and prepared to ride on.

"If you was as big as a church and tower I ain't afraid," cried the youth after him. As the affair seemed to be hanging fire, he tried a rousing word. "An' if I'm in yer way I shall stay where I'm to."

Byron flashed him a look full of sinister possibilities, the look of one who had taken into consideration that cliffs are sheer and nights dark. "I'll see about that, then."

The prospect of a fight was dwindling into nothingness. "There's people," said Jim, on a last hope, "'ud rather see me than you."

"Any more of your cheek, young sprat, and I'll wring your neck."

But he had realized the countryside would cry shame if he were seen brawling in public while his wife lay dead at home. They would not be blinded to the reason and such knowledge might breed suspicion. He must wait. Grinding his heel into the stallion's side he started at a gallop, leaving Jim disappointed but smiling, for with him, too, it was a case of 'Gay go the Gordons.'

A little annoyance was enough to upset Byron for hours. In a fume of exasperation and bitter feeling he now urged his horse to a speed which drew on him the attention of other wayfarers.

"If 'e ride that rate 'e must be goin' after a doctor. I should think man's missis was goin' to straw--first child, too," said a man from Little Petherick to whom Leadville was a stranger.

"Thiccy feller's Mr. Byron to Wastralls," corrected his companion, "and I know there's no chick nor child there, nor any comin'. 'E do always ride as if Old Nick was after 'un. 'E'll break 'is neck one of these odd days."

The short interview with Rosevear had been unsatisfactory in more ways than one, for the youth's last words had planted a thorn. Not only had he smiled at Byron's threats but his smile, had been of a quality which made the other's blood run cold. Behind it lay assurance, a knowledge he might not divulge but which, like a hidden weapon, was for use at need. The other's jealousy, temporarily in abeyance, stirred and he sought a reason, other than the simple love of fighting inherent in the male, for Jim's smile. Not many cared to try conclusions with the strongest man in the parish. Byron had browbeaten the few who crossed his path, but Jim was game. What had happened to give him confidence? How were matters between him and Gray? That drive into Stowe! The farmer ground his teeth at the thought of it. Was she promised and did Rosevear feel sure of her? A fool for his pains! Such promises were of cobweb stuff. She might promise--his little umuntz--for she did not know, but the end would be the same.

The black stallion was damp with sweat when Byron pulled up at Dr. Derek's freshly painted gate--which in its brightness, its specklessness, was the outward and visible sign of the doctor's tastes! A pathway, gravelled with small white stones and edged with scarlet tiles, led directly to a cream-coloured house, the wide windows of which were brilliantly clean but uncurtained. On the door a highly polished knocker twinkled above a discreetly closed brass letter-flap. Dr. Derek was just returned from his morning round and, though the midday meal was on the table, his constant curiosity with regard to Mrs. Byron, would not allow him to keep her husband waiting. The farmer was, therefore, shown at once into the consulting-room.

The little doctor, round and rosy, was seated before a table of light polished wood. Byron, as he went up the room, gathered an impression of bright glass and metal surfaces, in a well-lighted sunshiny place. So bright was everything, the glass cupboards full of silver implements, the polished woods, the glazed bookcases, that the man, used to low tones within doors, blinked. The high lights of innumerable small objects, the sharply defined pattern of carpet and upholstered chair, confused him and for a moment he stood tongue-tied. At last the difficult words came.

"I've bad news for 'ee, sir."