Part 16

If that well-regulated organ, which Dr. Derek called his heart, ever varied in its beat this was one of the occasions. He had been convinced that with such injuries as had been inflicted by her accident Mrs. Byron could not recover and, by doing so, she had proved him mistaken. Was it possible that after all...

"Sorry to hear it, Byron. The missus isn't worse, I hope?"

The man breathed heavily. "I'm sorry to tell 'ee, sir, she's gone."

Dr. Derek sat back in his cane elbow-chair. It was a sign, with him, of elation but his face was decorously long. "Dear, dear, you don't say so? How did it happen?"

Byron twisted his hat in his hands. In the meticulously clean room he showed clumsy, weather-browned and out of place. "She wasn't like herself all day, yesterday," he volunteered after a pause, during which Dr. Derek, waiting and knowing he must wait, had occupied himself with a retrospect. No woman could survive such injuries. If it had been one leg or if the head had not been hurt! Her partial recovery had been the effort of a healthy organism, a fine effort but foredoomed. The event had justified his prognosis. "She went to bed early," continued Byron, dragging out his words as if they were creatures with a will opposed to his, "she thought if she did she might be better by the mornin'."

"Did she take her food?"

"She was eatin' like a 'adger last night. I couldn't 'elp noticing it. I thought 'twas a poor sign."

"What did she have for supper?"

Byron recalled, not the articles of food but, the look of the table. "Well, I believe as she 'ad a piece of cold pork."

"Ah!" said the doctor and, behind his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes gleamed with the satisfaction of the investigator who has run a fact to earth. "And I said she was to be careful about her food. If you remember I recommended a light diet?"

Byron, without understanding it, had noted the satisfaction. "Iss, doctor, but 'er mind was runnin' on pork." He did not know what a light diet was nor that fat pork, when indulged in freely and late at night, was unwholesome.

"A hearty meal," mused the doctor, "and a heart suffering from overstrain. Well--what happened?"

"Since 'er accident, she've been sleepin' downstairs and I never 'eard nothin' of 'er till Mrs. Rosevear come over early this mornin' and found 'er dead in bed." He shook his head. "It frightened all the lot of us."

The doctor, turning to a brass dish, picked up an agate penholder. "Very sad, Byron, very sad; but I'm afraid only what was to be expected."

It was the countryman's turn to experience surprise. The doctor had taken Sabina's death as a matter of course. Very satisfactory, but on what grounds? "You don't say so, sir," he began cautiously. "I'd no idea!"

"If people in a weak state of health will eat pork late at night, in other words give their stomach more work than it is capable of doing," explained Dr. Derek and, behind his twinkling spectacles, his cold and keen eyes emitted a friendly gleam, "the heart is apt to stop work. It's not a bad death, Byron. She didn't suffer."

"I'm pretty and thankful to hear that, sir. We was rather afraid, poor sawl, there by 'erself, might 'av 'ad a 'ard death."

"You can put that fear out of your mind. In all probability she passed in her sleep, just--" he snapped his fingers--"snuffed out. Now, let's see, do you want me to come over?"

So far, matters had gone better than Byron had dared to hope; but now his heart sank. If Dr. Derek were to see Sabina he might realize--Byron accredited him with miraculous powers--on what a fairy superstructure his diagnosis was built. "Well, sir," he said, "just as you like. If you think you ought to come, do so. I shouldn't like for people to talk after she were buried up and say we didn't do what we ought to 'ave done; but she's dead and stiff."

"You don't make a point of it, then?"

"I want you to zactly please yerself, sir."

"Humph!" The doctor considered. "I saw her yesterday and I'm pretty busy. Yes, yes, it isn't necessary." His gold nib in its cool agate holder began to run in smooth flowing style over a sheet of partly printed paper. "Show that to the undertaker," he said, passing the certificate to Byron.

"Thank you, doctor, and for all the trouble you've took of 'er." He placed the paper carefully in his pocketbook and prepared to go. "Seems rather hard that after all you couldn't pull 'er through!"

In Dr. Derek's bosom the professional man was often at war with the scientific. "The fact is, Byron," he said honestly, "I didn't expect to save her. I've never thought she would live so long." His experienced glance dwelt fleetingly on the other's face. "You look pretty seedy, yourself. If you don't take care we shall have you on the sick list."

"Well, sir, 'twas awful sudden, 'twas. I don't feel to believe she's really gone. I'm like I'm in a dream." But, in his hidden mind, he was wondering why the man who saw so much could not pierce to the little more.

"Must have been a terrible shock to you. When is the funeral to be?"

"Monday, I believe, sir."

"Walking, I suppose?"

The man looked surprised. "What else would we 'av, sir?"

"No, of course, I was forgetting. Well, I'll try to come to it. I had the greatest possible respect for your wife as a farmer. She should have been a man."

"'Tis great respect you're payin' her, sir."

The doctor smiled enigmatically. "That's as may be," he said and, indeed, for him to say a woman resembled a man was the reverse of complimentary. In his experience the sterile female frequently approximated to the male in type and habits; and he thought such approximation a sign of degeneracy. He had been interested from a scientific point of view in Mrs. Byron. She had led a man's life and she was childless. Was the latter a consequence, or had the childlessness determined her way of life? He could find arguments in support of both theories.

Byron had brought to the interview a mind filled with misgiving. Dr. Derek had a reputation for ability and the other had hardly ventured to hope his tale would pass muster. He had told the truth because he dared not do other and behold it had stood him in good stead, that and the fact that Dr. Derek, for the sake of his professional reputation, had not been altogether sorry to hear of Mrs. Byron's death. As he rode at a walking pace down the hilly street the farmer could congratulate himself on the outcome.

The streets of Stowe, like spokes of a wheel, converge on the quay; and back from it, but near at hand, lie the huddle of warehouses, shops and inns, which supply the needs of sailormen. The quayside itself is, at low tide, a sheer drop of many feet; but the children play on its unprotected verge and the drunken man rolls gaily home from the waterside pubs and there is no tale of casualties. In one of the less frequented streets, opposite the Farmer's Arms, stood the undertaker's shop with, in the window, by way of advertisement, a baby's coffin and a hollow mortuary urn. Henwood, the undertaker, a little chattery man, fond of society and overfond of his glass, was generally to be found on his neighbour's premises; and, when Byron rode up, was fetched therefrom by the wife whose tongue was supposed to drive him thither. As Dr. Derek would have said, however, it was a moot point whether Mrs. Henwood's temper was the cause of his going, or his going the cause of her temper.

He came in, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and, the subject of beer being to him the most congenial in the world, opened the proceedings by asking Byron if he would have a glass. The latter, preoccupied and anxious, had not known he was thirsty.

"I don't mind if I do 'av one," he said, with that increase of cordiality which an offer of hospitality induces.

"Wait a moment, then." Little Henwood, who was a man of girth rather than height, rolled himself down the shop. When he reached the door at the end, he opened the upper half and called to some one within. "Sandra! would you mind running in for a jug of beer?"

A clatter of tin pans reached Byron's ears, then a voice the reverse of amiable. "Do you think I'm going to run my foot in and out for you--yer walkin' beer-barr'l? Fetch it yerself."

"'Tidn't fer me, my dear," twittered the little man.

"Mr. Byron don't want beer when he's come for yer to make a coffin. 'Tis for yerself I reckon and quench yer thirst in this world you can but Lorrd knows yer throat will be dry enough in the next."

"Well, 'av it your own way then, my dear, but Mr. Byron's thirsty as a gull. He's comed all the way from Trevorrick. Perhaps," he added disarmingly, "you'll 'and me out a jug--a jug of water, my dear."

"And 'ave you empt that water away and go after beer? Do you think, Mr. Henwood; you've married a fool?"

"I wish I 'ad, I wish I 'ad," muttered Henwood and shaking a head on which a rim of grey curls surrounded an unreverend tonsure he came slowly back. "Don't you take no notice of 'er," he said, lifting the mortuary urn out of the window.

"I don't," said the other simply. "I've 'ad enough of that."

"Where there's a will there's a way," said the little undertaker making for the door, "and thiccy urn 'olds just about a pint. I'll be back in a jiffy."

Left to himself, Byron glanced down the shop. He felt curiously at home in it; and this was strange because he could not remember ever to have been there before. At the end was a shed lighted from above and furnished with a carpenter's bench, trestles and some newly planed boards. A sack of shavings stood in a corner and the air carried a scent of wood. Byron sniffed it appreciatively. It wakened in him a dim memory, a memory so elusive that, try as he might, he could not capture it. The place was familiar, the boards, the smell of wood, but something was lacking, some sound. As he stood, puzzling over the circumstance, Henwood returned with the brimming urn.

Setting it carefully on a small black stool or cricket, he turned to the window and, lifting the lid of the baby's coffin, took from within two rather smeary glasses. "The Lorrd 'elps them as 'elps 'emselves," he said cheerfully. "Missus 'ud never think of looking in thiccy coffin and many a drink I've 'ad from'n."

The other drank in silent appreciation of the undertaker's mother-wit. He found it pleasant after the annoyances, the secret fears and elations of the morning, to be in contact with this simple soul, whose one idea was beer and yet more beer.

"Not much doing," said Henwood, conversationally, as he returned the glasses to their hiding-place, "but what's my loss is other people's gain and, after all, though I do my duty by the dead the livin' 'as always been more to my taste. What can I do for you, Mr. Byron?"

"I want for 'ee to come over to measure my wife for 'er coffin."

"My dear life, you don't mean to say she's dead?"

"Iss, the poor sawl, she died off in her sleep last night and we want for you to come and do the business."

The little man considered, his head on one side. "You want 'er buried decent, I s'pose?"

So that Sabina was hurried into the grave, Byron was indifferent as to the furnishings of her journey but he knew better than to let this appear. "Of course I do--although I don't believe in wastin' so much money to be put'n under the turf, when it could be used for something better. The missus used to think same as I do, she was never one for grandeur."

"Well, you got to study other people's tongues, you know."

"If it wasn't for that," said the countryman with his grim smile, "you'd cut a poor shine, I reckon. Well, what sort of wood be yer goin' to put in?"

"I've a good piece of oak here, seasoned wood, what about that? I cut a coffin for Colonel Pendarves out of it, but there's enough for another."

Bargaining was second nature to these men and Henwood, in suggesting what he knew would not be acceptable, was only observing the rules of the game.

Byron made the expected answer. "Oak 'edn't for the likes o' we, it's for the gentry folk. What other 'av you got?"

"There's ellum. It's good hard wood and lastin'."

"Don't matter 'ow long it last when 'tis once in under the earth."

Henwood led the way into the shed and pointed to some timber.

"Why don't you 'av a polished pitch pine wi' brass fittin's? Thiccy stuff was only landed last week." He touched the wood with spatulate hands, the hands of the craftsman. Next to his beer he loved 'a bit o' seasoned wood.' "You wouldn't wish for a handsomer coffin than that 'uld make."

"Pitch pine is more like it," agreed the buyer. "What would it cost?"

"I dunno as I could tell 'ee to a pound or two. There's a lot o' things to consider. There's the linin's and the fittin's; and then there's the gloves for the bearers and their 'arf crowns. Was you thinkin' to 'av one set of bearers or two?"

"'Tis a braaeve way to Church Town and the missus was a big woman, I think we better 'av the two."

"Sixteen half-crowns is a good bit. That'll make two pound. You see that tally up."

"Well, 'av it done decent, but she wouldn't like no show nor fuss. I know she wouldn't."

"We'll 'ave it plain as possible then." He made a note on the wood itself and then stood thoughtful. "When would you like to 'av it?"

"Mrs. Rosevear said I'd better leave it to you."

Henwood tapped his teeth with the broad wood pencil. "Weather's braaeve and cold," he said meditatively, "but if she died off sudden----"

"She done 'er day's work as usual and ate a good supper but doctor said 'twas 'er 'eart. Accident must 'av strained it. 'E didn't think she'd live so long as she 'av."

"She must 'er died on a full stomach, so I should bury her up as soon as we can. To-day's Saturday, but I can be ready by Monday."

"We must 'av it that way."

"Very well, then, tell Mrs. Rosevear we shall leave the 'ouse at 'arf-past one."

As Byron went out, the little man's glance travelled beyond him on an errand in no way connected with the business in hand. Life was 'terrible short' and he must make the most of his time, get down as many 'cups o' beer' as he could before his journeymen were set to make that coffin which must be put together without his help.

The Farmer's Arms beckoned and he went.

*CHAPTER XIX*

That afternoon, having snatched a moment from her work of setting Wastralls in the pious order which a death and consequent funeral demand, to run home, Mrs. Tom found Hember kitchen deserted by all but Gray. The range was open and on a stool by the dull fire--a stool usually appropriated by Smut the old black and white cat--sat the young girl. She was, of course, in black; but the dress, not having been worn for some time, was a little tight. The promise of Gray's frame was womanly and as she sat, huddled on the low stool, she looked not only unhappy, but uncomfortable. The mother, appraising the woe-begone face and uneasy figure, saw that here also was work for her. Aunt Louisa could alter the dress but it was for Mrs. Tom to comfort this little heart which in all its eighteen years had had no greater grief than the loss of Smut's frequent kittens.

"My dear," she said and hung her purple knitted bonnet behind the door, thereby giving a pleasant air of permanency to her visit. "Where's the childern to?"

"They'm with dad."

"And Richbell?"

"Gone up to Shoppe for some black ribbon."

"She needn't have troubled to do that," said Mrs. Tom, with a lack of her usual perspicacity, "there's plenty down to Wastralls."

Gray's little tear-blurred face showed a faint lightening, as of a thinning in the rain-cloud. "I heard them telling," she said tentatively, "that Art Brenton is home."

"Art?" said Mrs. Tom severely. "'Im an' Percy 'Olman's a pretty pair. I should think the maid 'ud 'av somethin' else to do 'stead of gaddin' round the lanes!"

Gray knew her mother's opinion of Richbell's various admirers. "I wouldn't worry my head about her," she said, a touch of sympathy in her voice. "I don't believe she means to have any one of them. She's only just amusing herself and, when the time comes, she'll know better."

"Let's 'ope she will." Mrs. Tom had not found that young people showed a greater wisdom than their forbears with regard to matrimony. "Please God she won't do so silly as yer auntie did, turn up 'er nose on all the chaps round 'ere and marry a stranger that she don't know nothing 'tall about."

"Poor auntie after all!" The tears welled up till Gray's dark eyes were shining stars.

Mrs. Tom changed the subject. "I'm pretty and glad you're back, my dear. 'Ow did Mrs. Andrew treat yer?"

"Oh, she treated me as if I was one of 'er own," but Gray's tones were flat. With Aunt Sabina newly dead what did it matter how old Mrs. Andrew had treated her? "She'd have liked for us to stop altogether."

"Well," said the mother, but with a little knit of perplexity between the brows, "you might do worse'n that. Still--I wish Gentle Jane was a little farther away from Wastralls."

Gray had no difficulty in following the trend of her mother's thoughts. "I don't think Uncle Leadville 'ud bother to come over there," she said, adding, as if struck by a fresh idea, "I suppose he knows?"

"Dunno whether he do or no. Everything's been upside down to-day and that reminds me----" she turned to the cupboard in the wall and took from the top shelf a box of stationery. "My dear, if you 'aven't got nothing else to do, I think you'd better write some letters for me."

Gray rose from the stool. "I shall be glad to have the job." Her lip quivered, her whole soft face crumpled into childish lines. "Oh, mammy," she said, looking forlornly across the gulf of the generations, "I do keep on thinking and thinking."

Middle age accepted the further burthen. "Iss, I know you must be!" Mrs. Tom, putting comforting arms about her, drew the young head to rest against her shoulder and, at ease after what had seemed a long loneliness, Gray sobbed out the thought that had been troubling her.

"'Tis the first night since auntie's accident that she've been left by herself." The circumstances of this death, seeming to reflect on her conduct, had added a poignancy to what would otherwise have been endurable.

"We can't pick nor choose our hour," said Mrs. Tom gravely; "'cos, when 'tis the Lorrd's time, it must be ours whether we'm ready or no."

"Yes, mammy, but I've got the feeling that if I hadn't gone away it wouldn't have happened."

But Mrs. Tom could comfort her daughter with the larger outlook that proves our insignificance. We are less important than we feared. We are of no importance at all. "My dear, you mustn't look at the black side. Her time was come and she'd be sorry for you to grieve yerself so. I knaw you've been like a daughter to 'er all these months and she did dearly love yer; but when it come to the end she wouldn't be wantin' you nor me. She had other things to think about."

"Supposing she was suff'rin', mammy?"

"She couldn't 'av suffered anything, my dear, and that you'll say when you see 'er face. 'Tis lovely, just like an angel. She must 'a passed away in 'er sleep."

Mrs. Tom's words, turning mortal death into the visitation of God, had the effect she wished. Gray, forgetting the personal equation, had a quieting vision of powers at once superhuman and beneficent. The Unknown, that was God and Good, had blossomed about her homely aunt and, through those dead eyes, all might look for a little moment into the Beyond.

"You'm a better 'and for writin' letters than I be," said Mrs. Tom, returning after a time to the simple needs of the hour. "And there is people who must know that yer auntie is gone." She turned to the table, rummaging in the box of stationery. "I always keep some mournin' letters in the bottom of this. Ah, 'ere 'tis," and she extracted some black-edged paper.

Gray, with death at once simplified and exalted, was able to follow her lead. She had been to a school in Stowe kept by two Welsh ladies and was passably instructed, that is to say, knew how to cast accounts and phrase a simple letter. "Who must I write to, mammy?"

"Well, my dear, there's the Rosevears of St. Issy and St. Minver and there's the Trudgians to Wadebridge and the Jackas and Sowdens and Trebilcocks. They'm all relations, you knaw. Tell 'em your poor auntie died in 'er sleep and the funeral's goin' to be--" she paused, remembering day and hour had been left for the undertaker to fix. "Well, now you must leave a place for that and put it in after we know." She glanced about the kitchen, which for Hember looked cheerless, being indeed dusty and unswept. "And when you've finished the writing, you better try and clean up a bit."

"Why--you aren't goin' back, are you?"

"Yes, I must for a bit, but I shan't be long. You'll find there's plenty for yer to do. Time quickly goes when you're busy."

She nodded briskly and, refusing to be moved by her daughter's unwillingness, set off down the lane. She had left the cleaning of Wastralls well begun. Above stairs and below, the rooms had to be turned out, scrubbed and set in order; and, no doubt, this washing and polishing, though applied to an already clean house, had its useful side. It affected not only the walls and furniture but the emotions of the workers and was a panacea for inconvenient feelings. Grief expended itself in hard conscientious rubbings and nerves were turned, to the benefit of their owners, into elbow-grease. Mrs. Tom, having set every one to work, had thought she might slip away without being missed but, on her return, heard her name being called about the house. The undertaker had come to measure the body for its wooden dress and she was required to bring him into the room where Sabina, her hands folded over the Bible on her chest, lay sleeping. Mrs. Bate, in her capacity of Stripper, had already conducted thither a number of admiring visitors but they had been without exception of her own sex. The old woman was by no means shy, nevertheless when Henwood drove up behind a black long-tailed horse, which seemed surprised at being required to move at other than a walking pace, she hurried in search of Mrs. Tom.

"If you don't mind, my dear," she said with something as near a blush as her old cheeks could show, "I'd rather for you to take'n in."

Mrs. Tom agreed. "I don't mind. I'll do it if you want for me to."

The other emphasized her feelings by a tap on Mrs. Tom's arm. "The truth is, I was always a bit shy and I don't like tellin' about they laigs. Laigs is laigs and I can 'ardly explain them to a man."

Which shows that Mrs. Bate, in spite of the illegitimacy of Janey and Jenifer, had a modest mind.

"Why, my dear life, 'e's used to laigs. Been measurin' bodies all 'is lifetime. 'E wouldn't take any notice of 'em, or you, uther."

"Well, other bodies got laigs but this one 'aven't got any. Don't seem hardly decent to talk about 'em."

Little Henwood, however, when the matter of the legs was explained to him, behaved with propriety; showing only a calm satisfaction that the coffin he was about to make, should be of the usual length and shape. He said nothing that could bring a blush to spinster cheeks--if Mrs. Bate who, in spite of the matronly title, had never been married, could be called a spinster--but demeaned himself with a practical common sense which won him some tolerable opinions.

"The coffin will be 'ere to-morrow early, I'll bring it meself and put 'er in."

"'E knaw 'is business, that one do," said Mrs. Tom, as she watched him drive off behind the surprised-looking horse. "Got a good 'ead on his shoulders."

Mrs. William Brenton, however, happened to be his wife's cousin. She sniffed disparagingly. "Proper l'il tubby. When Sandra was ill, 'e was such a glutton 'e drinked up all the brandy that Passon sent down for 'er 'e did."