Part 2

Meanwhile, under Sabina's judicious management, the farm prospered. Neither cared to spend, the one because she had no wants, the other because what he desired could not be bought. With every year the bank stocking grew heavier, also the man's heart; and every year found his thoughts fixed more bitterly upon his disappointment. Sabina saw but without understanding. Her man was moody, foolish too with his perpetual harping on his rights, but she was not thereby alienated, for, wise or unreasonable, he was her man. Though she envied Tom his houseful of daughters and Constantine his big sons, her own lack left her the more leisure to care for her husband's comfort. The standard of living at Wastralls was higher than that of the surrounding farms. Byron ate according to his fancy and lay soft; was given indeed those things to which he was indifferent, and denied that after which he hungered.

"I'm kep' like a prize bullock," he said morosely, "when what I want is to be workin' and doin' for meself."

"Well, my dear, 'oo told you not to work? There's plenty to do, there's that four-acre field, why don't yer go and plough up that, 'stead of in 'ere mumpin' about?"

"As though I was yer 'ind?"

"What, still wantin' to be maister?"

"Iss, an' shall be till I die."

"Now look 'ere. If you want money to buy Polnevas you can 'av it, but Wastralls you will never 'av."

"Well, if I can't 'av Wastralls I won't 'av nothing; but you mark my words"--he bent towards her and brought one hand with a thump into the palm of the other--"if I can't 'av it by 'itch, I will by crook."

"Not so long as I live then, any'ow."

Byron was slightly underhung, a formation which gives the face a look of strength and purpose. "We shall see, some day, which of us is the strongest of the two."

The woman, happy in her work and with her main affection satisfied, could answer with reasonable good-humour: "Well, my dear feller, 'tis my land and I must do my duty by it. 'Tis I'm responsible, not you, to the folks up yonder," and a movement of her bright head indicated the burial-ground at Church Town. "I'm sorry you're disappointed, but I can't 'elp it."

"Oh, hang it--sorry?"

"Well, I be sorry. I'd like for 'ee to 'av everything to make yer 'appy; but Wastralls I can't give." She smiled at him in her friendly fashion, a sweet inviting smile. "I do my best to make it up to yer in other ways and that you know."

"Iss, I want bread and you do give me a stone." He turned away, leaving her, as ever, uncomprehending. It was impossible for her to think of him as other than a child, who for his own sake must be denied and prevented, who was hers to care for and, in ways that could not harm him, to indulge. The truth to her, as to so many of us, would have been unbelievable.

The break-up of the situation was due to an accident. Sabina had driven a young horse to the fair at St. Columb Major and this animal, excited by the unwonted traffic, the smells and the noise, became unmanageable.

Plunging down the hill, he came into collision with a heavy van. The prancing feet slipped and he fell, shooting his driver over the shafts. Though clear of horse and cart, she was flung with considerable violence against the front wheel of the van. This startled the van horses and the heavy lumbersome creatures, with a prodigious clatter, started up the street. Sabina, rendered unconscious by the blow she had received, had fallen between the wheels and the van, lurching forward, passed over her.

It was thought at first that she was killed but the crushed woman who, later that afternoon, was admitted to the little hospital at Stowe, was still breathing. As the case seemed hopeless, the husband was sent for, and Byron, in a ferment of excitement, came pounding in on the heels of the messenger. His horse was in a lather when he checked him at the hospital gate. "Poor Sabina, poor old girl, it was a terrible thing for her to die as she lived; away from home like that. No doubt 'er 'ead was full of the farmin', never once thought of dyin', but the Lorrd would be merciful."

"If she's goin' to die, don't 'ee keep it from me," he said to Dr. Derek, who was in charge of the case. "I'd rather knaw the worst."

"And," as he explained to the neighbours, on his return home, after being allowed to glance at the unconscious face on the pillow, "the poor doctor 'ee couldn't give me no encouragement."

*CHAPTER II*

The sight of Sabina, her florid face grey against the white bandages, her pale lips open to facilitate the drawing of difficult breath, had convinced her husband that she could not possibly recover. That evening he called the hinds together, told them what had happened, and for the first time gave them their orders. As he went back into the house, old George Biddick, who had been many years on the farm, and was of a noticing disposition, drew the attention of a new-come labourer to the receding figure.

"Speaks as though 'e'd been maister all the time, don't 'e? An' carries 'isself pretty straight, too, considerin' as 'e'm bowed wi' grief."

"I don't s'pose 'e realize things yet," said Jim, a Rosevear from across the hills. "Must 'av been tarr'ble shock for'n."

The other man glanced sideways out of small brown eyes, and gave a non-committal grunt. He was queerly shaped, with a high-shouldered short body and long legs and, being related to most of the cottagers, was known generally as "Uncle George!"

"Dunno so much about that. Missus is so strong as a dunkey," he said, as he returned to his work of bedding down the horses, "an' she may chate the crows yet."

But Jim Rosevear was not listening, his thoughts had run before him up the road, to where, at the stone stile, a maid would be waiting. The rest of the world might be concerned with death; but he was young and his concern was with life, more life.

When, on the following day, Byron rode over to the hospital, he was told that his wife still breathed; but that an operation had become necessary, an operation which it was scarcely possible she could survive. He found it difficult to understand why it must be.

"Why punish 'er so? Wouldn't it be better to let 'er die quiet than to 'ack 'er about?"

The wheel of the van had gone over both legs, crushing together bone and flesh and the surgeon proposed to amputate. The limbs were injured beyond hope of saving; and it was explained that their removal might give the patient a chance.

"Do you think then, sir," said the anxious husband, "that she'll be better if she 'av the operation?"

"She may. The condition is critical and unless the operation is performed she might at any moment take a turn for the worse." He was afraid blood-poisoning might set in.

"I shouldn't 'av thought she'd be strong enough to bear it."

Dr. Derek's opinion was that Sabina would probably die on the operating-table and this, without putting it into so many words, he managed to convey. As soon as Byron understood, although the idea of the amputation was curiously repugnant to him, he gave leave for it to be attempted. Sabina had to die, poor soul, and it was hard on her that the doctors should think it necessary to try their experiments on her, should not be able to leave her in possession of her limbs. Still ... theirs the responsibility.

Byron was allowed to remain in the hospital till the result of the operation was known. He sat in an austerely furnished waiting-room and, through his mind, coursed dim memories of Sabina, handsome and active, Sabina vaulting the gates and climbing like a boy, Sabina with her free gait and her hearty open-air voice. From the other side of the picture, the Sabina whose mangled limbs were at that moment being cut from her body, he sedulously turned his gaze. That she should be thus mutilated was abhorrent to him.

Dr. Derek, his spick-and-span brightness a little dimmed and his eyes tired, came in at last. "She's still alive, Byron."

"I didn't think she would be, sir."

The doctor hummed and hawed. The operation had been long and delicate and he was weary; but he could not let the man take away with him an illusory hope.

"We have to reckon," he said gravely, "with the shock to the system."

"You don't think," returned Byron in his deep rumbling bass, "as there's much chance for 'er then, sir?"

"The condition is very serious."

"I shall be lost without 'er, even as 'tis--" he stared before him out of the window and the melancholy of his rough, unkempt appearance impressed the other man.

"Are you alone at Wastralls?" he asked, contrasting in a mind as neat as his body, his trim, small house on the main street of Stowe, with the grey homestead and irregular outbuildings of the lonely farm.

"I've a woman that do the housework but she go 'ome by night."

"Sounds a bit dreary." Dr. Derek was essentially a town bird. The noise of footsteps on the pavement, of voices in the street, was music to him.

"Well, it's what we'm accustomed to," said Byron carefully, "an' after all we'm pretty and busy. O' course I got the farm to see to as Missus is 'ere.'

"Yes, yes, of course."

"I was wonderin', sir, if you could send out and let me knaw 'ow she's gettin' on. Course, I should be delighted to set by 'er if she knawed me; but, seein' as poor sawl's gone past that, and I've so much to do, I'm better off 'ome--till I'm wanted."

"I've no doubt it could be arranged. I'll speak to Matron about it."

"Thank you, sir; an', of course, anything she want she can 'av, only send in and let me knaw. Money's no object when it's 'er life."

"You can trust me, Byron. Everything possible will be done for her," said the other gravely, "only, I'm afraid..."

The first bulletin that reached Wastralls told Byron to prepare for the worst. His wife was still alive but sinking.

That day he went about the farm in a ferment of emotion. Poor Sabina, poor soul, but if she had to die, better now when he was in his prime. She had had a good time and now it was his turn. He trod the fields as blessed souls may walk in Paradise. The dear land, the land he loved deep as Dozmare, was his and he had got it fairly; he had not pushed his wife out of it. Accident had befriended him--oh, happy accident!

When he came in from his work, he took down a well-thumbed list and wrote an order for glass, for frames, for certain much-advertised manures and for young plants. The season was advanced and, if he hoped for a speedy result, he must not lose time. The next bulletin, dropping on his happy absorption, gave but little hope that Sabina would see another dawn. She was alive and no more.

Byron, who was at breakfast, found his hunger easily satisfied. The letter had been meat and drink. Thoughts, indeed, of a day spent striding over the Cornish moors, of a night in the sacred, haunted solitudes of Rowtor passed through his mind; but, while he was considering them, his glance fell upon the honeysuckle of the porch. Long the pride of Sabina's heart, its untidy growth had been to him an eyesore. Here then was the outlet for his passionate elation, an outlet, too, symbolic of his mood. With his own hands he pulled it up, digging out the roots so that nothing remained from which a fresh shoot might spring. Jealousy, an old jealousy, the jealousy of the brooding years was in the action.

Wastralls, which had been Sabina's, was to affront him with no memories of a past humiliation. The new Wastralls was always to have been his.

At the end of the week he was surprised to learn that Sabina still hovered between life and death. Riding into Stowe, he sought out Dr. Derek and was reassured to find he took a pessimistic view of the case. Though acknowledging that Mrs. Byron showed great vitality the surgeon did not think she would outlive the week. He condoled with the farmer and Byron, satisfied that all was well, went back to his work.

A wagon, drawn by three great brown horses, had brought from Wadebridge the various articles which the farmer, lavish for the first time in his life, had ordered. Having Sabina's savings upon which eventually to draw he had commanded glass, manures, plants, in abundance. The little band of labourers, accustomed to Mrs. Byron's caution, looked on with the stolid disapproval of men averse to change. The delicate processes of market-gardening were new to them and they did not think the new scheme should have been inaugurated while she lay on her death-bed. The farmer found them irritatingly slow, but did not realize that this seeming stupidity was the cautious expression of their unwillingness. If the mistress died this man would be their employer, therefore their wisest course was to be outwardly docile but a little hard to teach. They talked among themselves, however, and, what is more, spread the tale of Byron's doings over the countryside.

Wind of it had already been wafted up the valley. At Hember and St. Cadic the cousins, after trying the one for Sabina's land, the other for her love, had long since settled to a second choice. Tom Rosevear, indeed, had gone back to an earlier fancy, a girl with whom both he and Sabina had been at school. Isolda Raby was the daughter of a fishseller and her marriage with the prosperous farmer had been for her a rise in life. Since the time they had sat on the same school bench, she had been Sabina's most intimate crony--the only interruption to their friendship being caused by the frailty, the land-hunger of man! But Tom, after some plain speaking on Sabina's part, had returned to his Isolda and the friendship had not only been revived, but placed on a wider, more satisfactory basis.

When Sabina met with her accident Mrs. Tom's heart was wrung. An imaginative, tender-hearted woman, she felt an anxious desire to be a stay and a comfort, to do something, however small, to mitigate her friends sufferings. There was at first little that she could do beyond keeping an eye on poor Sabina's household and seeing that Leadville did not lack food or service. After the first anxious days, however, she was allowed into the hospital and from that time, her eldest daughter being able to 'tend house' in her stead, she spent as many hours at her friend's bedside as the rules of the place permitted. At first Sabina was for long periods unconscious. She took nourishment, she drowsed, she suffered many and various discomforts; but it seemed to her that whenever she came to the surface her glance fell on the comforting vision of Isolda, the same pretty matronly Isolda, who with kind talk and kinder offices had for so long pervaded her daily life. Sabina was so badly injured, in such incessant pain, so low in herself, that she took little interest in her surroundings. To hear the familiar click of the knitting-needles, to open her weary eyes on that understanding smile, was, however, some sort of pleasure.

When Mrs. Tom heard that Byron was busy with carpenters and masons, putting up glass-houses and introducing a new system of tillage, she was not so much surprised as indignant. She had not gone in and out of Wastralls every day for so many years without becoming aware of the husband's disappointment and impatience. She understood that he, like her own Tom, had loved the land not the woman. He, however, had not been able to adapt himself and his life was a daily weariness. Though she allowed that the result was a judgment on him, she found it in her kind heart to wish that he could have had his way. The mad impatience which made him inaugurate far-reaching changes in anticipation of his wife's death, met, however, with scant sympathy from Mrs. Tom. A woman of moderate councils, whose very civility sprang from a sincere kindliness, the fact that Byron went so far as to tear up Sabina's honeysuckle while she yet breathed, put him beyond the pale.

When the talk reached Mrs. Tom's ears, Sabina was still undecided whether to attempt the weary climb back to health or slip quietly away. The loss of her limbs inclined her to the latter course. She could not bear to contemplate life as a cripple. The thought of the fields over which she had ridden, of the market-place in which she had bought and sold, of the whole familiar countryside, was unbearable. Better lie quiet up at Church Town than go limping where she had once leaped and run. Mrs. Tom, coming into the ward at a moment when Sabina, with "I don't want any o' that old traaede," was refusing good nourishment, decided that the truth might be as good for her as a tonic.

"How be 'ee to-day, S'bina, how be gettin' on?"

The injured woman looked at her with weary bloodshot eyes. "I dunno. I don't feel very special."

Isolda seated herself on a cane chair facing the patient and took out her knitting. As she made not only her husband's stockings but those of her five daughters, she had always one on hand. "What do 'ee feel like?"

"My dear life, I suffer like a Turk. I'd soon be dead as livin'."

Mrs. Tom's face expressed her sympathy. "'Av 'ee got much pain?"

"Yes, I ache something awful--in my legs."

The other stared in surprise. "In yer legs? But you 'aven't got any."

"Well, seem like I 'av them."

Mrs. Rosevear laughed. "If that doesn't beat everything!"

The sufferer moved restlessly on her pillow. "I'd rather be out on Gool-land,[*] than like I be now."

[*] Gulland, a barren islet off the north coast of Cornwall.

Looking at the hollows of the face once so apple-round, Isolda's heart misgave her.

"I feel," continued Mrs. Byron in a dragging voice, "that I can't stand much more of this."

"Nonsense, you'll cheat the crows yet."

"Don't care whether I do or no. What is there for a woman like me? I've neither chick nor chield."

"Well, there's Leadville to think about."

Sabina sighed. "He'd cut a poor shine without me; but there--I dunno..." her voice trailed away into silence.

Mrs. Tom's heart began to beat more quickly. "Well," she ventured, "he's workin' pretty and 'ard now."

"He's got to keep the thing going," assented the wife.

"He's doin' more'n that."

Sabina's voice was still languid, but she showed a little interest. "What's ah doin' then?"

"A cart come over from Wadebridge o' Thursday piled up wi' boxes and bags. Now just let me turn this heel."

"Boxes and bags?" murmured the wife. "Good gracious! What's ah going to do with that?"

After a few seconds given to her work, Mrs. Tom looked up. "He's teelin' the li'l medder wi' sugar-beet."

The other's mind, dulled by suffering and loss of blood, took time to grasp the significance of this statement. "Sugar-beet?" she said, slowly, "but I'm goin' to 'ave the li'l medder teeled wi' dredge-corn."

"You bain't there to give the orders."

Sabina's lips took a firmer line. "I won't 'av it teeled wi' that new-fangled traaede. You tell'n so."

"Better tell'n yourself; I reckon--" She glanced shrewdly at her friend, for Sabina's unexpected illness had put new thoughts into Mrs. Tom's head. She was not greedy, but the most self-effacing creature will scheme a little for its young. "I reckon he'd do far different if you wasn't 'ere."

"You think so?" Sabina shut her eyes the better to realize the situation. The news had been stimulating, and when she spoke again her voice was stronger. "I don't think as I'm goin' round land this time, Isolda."

"I do hope an' pray as you aren't, my dear soul."

"What else is ah doin'?"

"Tom went down to see'n last night, thought as 'ee might be lonely in that big 'ouse all by 'imself; and Leadville was tellin' 'im he didn't believe in the way missis was farmin'. He'd like to try and see what the land'd grow best. He said--terbacca."

"Terbacca? I should think he was maaeze. Never heard tell of such a thing. Whatever next is he gwine grow?"

"He think the land would grow vegetables as 'tis the right sort o' soil and that 'tis wasted in corn."

Sabina gave a feeble snort. "What do 'ee know about soils--a sailor!" She shook her head. "As long as I live he'll never have nothing to do with Wastralls."

Mrs. Rosevear's needles clicked in agreement. "As long as you do live, S'bina."

"Iss, why not me livin'? I 'ent older than he is, and there's no reason I should turn up my trotters first; at least I don't see why I should."

"We'll all live till we die, sure enough; but it's been touch and go lately with you."

"I'll live in spite of'n," said Mrs. Byron.

"I hope you will, my dear, but sposin' you don't?" Mrs. Byron returned her friend's glance with a startled look. "Ah, iss, sposin'." She saw at last what her death would have meant both to her husband and her kinsfolk. "Well, I make no promises, but I do see now where I'm to. Iss, I can see through a very small hole, and I'm not too old to learn."

Sabina had been effectually roused. Possessions that are menaced increase in value and as long as Leadville was making changes at Wastralls she would not want to die.

"There's things as you can't alter," she said, thinking Sabina should be prepared for what could not now be helped.

"What can't I alter?"

"He've pulled up the honeysuckle by the porch."

A fugitive colour dyed the wan cheeks. "Have 'ee now, the old villain? Whatever for? The honeysuckle as my poor old mother planted."

Sabina's thoughts were finally diverted from her own trials and, lame or not, she was now only too anxious to stop this meddling with what was hers.

"He's always after something new." Leadville could not have known that she treasured the climber. She was sure he would not knowingly have hurt her feelings. Whenever he did anything that to her was incomprehensible, Sabina put it down, not to design, but want of thought. She was of those who cannot see into the heart of a matter.

"I like the old things best," she continued, and her eyes, those impersonal eyes, which were the blue of a December sky, shone with new purpose. "We'll have no more of they doin's. Where's that traaede Nurse wanted for me to take? I feel I could drink some now."

Byron, busy putting his plans into execution, nearly forgot on what their success hung. He had thrown himself into the work with the eagerness of a man in all ways extreme. He was living his dream and he was happy. After one or two non-committal post cards from Dr. Derek, however, came the news that, though her husband would be wise not to build on it, Mrs. Byron was holding her own. By this time some of the glass-houses were up, and the land below the house, which should have been in dredge-corn, was planted with sugar-beet. For the first time Byron felt a qualm of anxiety. He had not imagined it possible Sabina could survive the amputation of her legs. In giving leave for the operation to be performed, he had believed that he was hastening--with the doctor's kind assistance--the inevitable end. With a sinking heart he now began to wonder whether he had underestimated her vitality. What if, after all, she should recover? She was a sound, harmonious being, whom exposure and a simple strenuous life had only toughened. If any one could survive so terrible an accident, it would be she.

That day he did his work in perturbation of spirit. He had no illusions as to what Sabina would think of the changes he was making. She would be stubbornly opposed to every one of them and Sabina's stubbornness was the force with which for so long he had had to reckon. A gleam of hope came with the thought that even if she recovered she would no longer be able to manage the farm. A poor cripple could not get about the fields, especially such up-and-down fields as those of Wastralls. She would be obliged to appoint a deputy and who so suitable as the man she had married?