Part 6

"'Tis a pack o' tommy-rot," she said at last, anger beginning to colour her unhappy amazement, "a man of his years runnin' after young maidens; but once Gray's married 'e won't think no more about it. 'Tis disgraceful of him; and, what's more, 'tis madness for'm to think she's goin' to 'av anything to do wi' an old man like 'e. Isolda, I do think 'tis time Gray was married."

"Iss, my dear, so do I."

"Well--why don't they?"

"It mean a good bit o' money to get married, you know," said Mrs. Tom who, in spite of her alert mind, was not capable of quick decisions, "and one thing more, marrying isn't horse-jocking."

"Why don't they put the banns in and get married on the quiet?"

The other went off on a side issue. "You know," she said, uttering her thoughts aloud, "Leadville's bound to know one day."

"If Gray was to walk in one morning and say 'I'm married,'" continued Mrs. Byron, "what could 'e do then? 'E'd 'av to 'old 'is tongue."

The thought of Gray doing anything so bold brought a smile to the mother's lips. "I'm sure she wouldn't do that, S'bina."

"Well, p'raps she wouldn't." Mrs. Byron had realized that her friend, in revealing the incident of the lane, had meant to convey a warning. The aunt did not wish to have Gray replaced by the handsome more noisy Richbell and yet... "I feel I belong to speak to Leadville about it," she said reluctantly. "But I don't want for'n to think I'm always watchin' 'im." The little doubt as to his having been as guilty as Isolda would have her think, had grown. She could not believe his jumping out of the hedge had been more than a trick, a practical joke. Gray, in her alarm, must have magnified it. These inexperienced girls were as easily frightened as a sheep! A way out of the difficulty occurred to her. "My dear, 'ow would it be if Leonora was to come and stay for a few days?"

Mrs. Tom thought that Sabina was only postponing the reckoning which in the long run she would be bound to make, but aloud she gave consent.

"Well, Leonora can come for a bit and see 'ow they get on, but she'd 'av to sleep 'ome. She'd better come down early in the mornin', for 'tis breakfast-time, when you'm in bed, that Leadville torment Gray."

"Every month," said Sabina hopefully, "I feel I shall soon be able to get up early in the mornin's; by spring, I'm sure I shall be able to."

"I hope by that time, please God," said Mrs. Tom, getting up to go, "the maid will be married."

She felt it would be as well for Gray to have the protection of a man, in love with her and constantly at her side and, as she went uphill between the November hedges, she considered what she should tell her husband. Tom was a peaceable and cautious man, but his blood was hot. The wife wondered whether he would be willing for Gray to be married quietly? A good deal depended on the girl. Since the time, as a little child, that she had fallen into the pail of boiling pig's meal and they had nearly lost her, she had been her father's pet. If he understood that she was unhappy and that Leadville was the cause, he would be certain to make himself unpleasant. Mrs. Tom did not wish to stir up strife.

Leonora, when told she was to spend her days at Auntie Sabina's, shook back her curls and declared herself delighted. One of a big household she knew the stint of comparatively narrow means and a change would be welcome. Before Gray was out of her aunt's room the following morning, impatient fingers were rattling at the handle of the porch; and Leadville, stealing down as usual in his stockinged feet, heard with surprise a sound of voices in the kitchen. He stared when Leonora came from the linhay carrying hog's pudding and a frying-pan.

"I've come to breakfast," she said, smiling up at him with bright and friendly eyes, "and I be comin' every morning. I like comin' 'ere. Aunt S'bina says I shall be company for Gray and I dearly love 'og's puddin', Uncle Leadville, don't you?"

Leadville's tortured spirit was in the gaze he turned from the busy child to her sister. Was he to lose the hour with Gray which had been the solace of lonely night and empty day, the one hour out of the twenty-four that was his? He did not answer Leonora but looked his anxious question. Was Gray at the bottom of this? But no, she could not be. It was a scheme of Sabina's, of Mrs. Tom's, or simple accident.

Drawing Old Squire's big elbow-chair up to the table he took his customary seat. Leonora chattered of school, of the little pigs that had had to be killed because they had worms, such dear little pigs, all black; and Gray served the breakfast. Leadville, sitting opposite to her, drank in her morning freshness and looked forward to the time when this flower should be blooming for him.

A voice called from the Justice Room and Leonora jumped up. "I'll see what auntie wants."

"No, dear, I'll go."

"Leave 'er go," rumbled Leadville in his compelling bass and she was off on the wings of happy service. He stared resentfully after the flying figure. "What's she doin' 'ere?"

Gray's heart was aflutter. "I miss the children so."

His eyes grew tender. "You do want a nest of your own, my bird. I can see you in it, a li'l place away from 'ere."

She shook her head, repudiating the idea with courage born of her sister's nearness. "I don't want never to leave Trevorrick and mammy, and any of them."

"You'd 'av so much of your own things to think about," he murmured, his mind full of the nest he would build for her, "you wouldn't 'av time to think upon 'ome."

Before she could answer, Leonora was back. "'Tis you auntie want, Gray."

Suspicion flamed in Leadville's eye. "If they're schemin' to come between us," he said angrily, "they'd better look out. Don't you go, Gray."

But the girl, running on light feet down the long dark passage, was glad to escape. When Uncle Leadville looked at her like that, she had ever a fluttered feeling that she must run away, or something, she knew not what, but something terrible, would happen. Instinct was warning her, instinct that is wiser even than experience and Leadville might sit on in the kitchen, waiting and waiting, but until he was gone, Gray would not return.

*CHAPTER VII*

The year ran mildly down to Christmas, but the wind with its tang of cold did not fling a rose into Gray's cheek or buffet her into keener life and, when again the friends met in council, it was to discuss changes which both saw to be necessary.

"Jim's taking the cart into Stowe, week before Christmas," said Mrs. Byron when they had talked the matter over, "to bring 'ome some coals and flour. P'raps that day'll suit Gray?"

"Well, I'll talk to 'er and see what she got to say."

"Very well then, Friday before Christmas."

"And you'll 'av Richbell till you see 'ow things turn out?"

"Iss. She growin' to a fine maid. They'm all pretty but Richbell's got the best colour. 'Tis lovely an' I don't wonder the boys is maaeze about 'er. Still," she sighed, "give me Gray."

"We all know Gray's the favourite here," smiled Mrs. Tom, sticking her needles into the stocking she was knitting and looking round for her cloak. "Well, I think we'm doing the best we can, seein' Leadville's so teasy."

"He'll settle down right enough now. 'Tedn't as if 'e was a young man. When 'e do realize 'e's out of the running, 'e'll take it quiet and we'll be all comfortable again."

"Well, my dear, I hope we shall. It 'as been a draggin' time for 'ee since you was laid up."

"'Tis funny," said Sabina, "'ow you think 'Now that's over and done with,' but 'tedn't. I thought 'Once I'm out of 'ospital I'll soon put things to rights,' but I 'aven't done it yet."

"Takes time, my dear."

"Iss, and time's life."

Leadville had become so remote and unapproachable that Sabina did not find an opportunity to tell him the wagon would be going into Stowe the Friday before Christmas and that Gray would be taking fowls, cream and butter, to the market. Not even when the day dawned did he realize that anything unusual was afoot. He had come down to breakfast, stared with sullen aversion at Leonora, as the cheerful child ran to and fro between kitchen and linhay; and sought in his uninventive mind for expedients which should leave him alone with her sister for a blessed few minutes. He did this morning after morning, sometimes successfully; but generally, as Gray wished to keep the child near her, without its making much difference. On this particular day Leonora, chattering of Christmas festivities, the tree they were to have at the chapel on New Year's Eve, the tea the following day, was eventually seen off to school and Gray, turning a deaf ear to Leadville's plea that she would linger, went candle in hand, for the sun was still below the eastern hill, to Sabina's room. Her mind was brimful of the practicalities of the day in Stowe. She had no time for Byron, had forgotten even the fear with which his hungry presence was wont to inspire her, was only conscious of the many things to be done before she could change her workaday raiment for clothes befitting the occasion.

To Leadville all seemed as usual, though Gray was perhaps unusually full of domestic business but, as Christmas was the following week, that was to be expected. He heard her low singing voice in the Justice Room as she flitted about, tidying the place, putting what Sabina needed ready to her hand; and he decided to smoke his morning pipe in the yard. He enjoyed looking on critically while the men worked. He told himself that if he had been master they would have done as much again. He had said so to Sabina more than once and she had smiled, thinking that she knew better.

As he watched them that morning, idly content with the fine weather and with his heart momentarily at rest, he called to mind that on the previous day he had seen a seal sporting in the surf beyond Morwen Cove. The end of an Atlantic gale had been lashing the cliff-face and a procession of monstrous waves had been rolling in out of the grey distance. In that welter of far-sounding sea, the living atom had been at play; and Byron, detecting the springing shadow in the curl of a wave, the dark speck in the racing tide of the Mad Rip, had reflected that the last bottle of seal-oil had been sold. Remembering this, he had thought the opportunity good and, returning to the kitchen, had lifted his gun from the leathern thong above the door. The room still lay in obscurity, the only light being that of the frugal banked-up fire. Long handling, however, had given the gun-butt a bright dark polish which reflected the faint glow, and Leadville's hand had gone out instinctively. Crossing the kitchen to the wall-cupboard on the right of the slab range he took out the ammunition of which he stood in need. Some empty bottles, not over-clean, stood on the top shelf, bottles which were to hold the fresh supply of seal-oil, a medicine for stock with which he did a trade among the farmers of the neighbouring valleys. Already Treherne Gaskis had sent once to ask for a pint. As Byron slipped the pouch into his pocket, a sound broke the stillness which lay like dust over the rooms.

"When the wind is off the hill Flows the water to the mill..."

sang a voice in the linhay and, though West-country birds sing sweetly, they cannot compare for music with West-country maidens. This voice, though without much volume, had a tender, joyous note as of one singing out of a full heart and Leadville hardly recognized it as Gray's. A narrow gleam of candle-light, edged the dark oblong of the door and, from beyond, came the brisk slap-smack of a beater upon newly made butter.

As the man stood to listen, a look, human, eager, almost happy, broke like a shining over his swarthy face. The seal-hunt was forgotten, for the voice singing of the rain had a thrill in it, the thrill of a love-call and the man's wild heart was assured the call was for him.

For a moment, the habit of years reasserting itself, he glanced at the door on the other side of the kitchen. At the end of the long dark passage his wife still lay abed, or so he hoped. The swift glance had been unintentional, the drag of a chain from which he was about to free himself. He threw back his head, the brooding night of his deep-set eyes quickened by emotion and, laying the gun on the table among the breakfast crocks, pushed farther open the door of the linhay.

This room, at once the scullery, larder and dairy of the house, was high and narrow, with a sloping roof. A pump stood by the outer door, and the place was lighted from above; but, as the dawn had not broken, Gray was butter-making by the light of a candle. The living jewel of flame illumined faintly the high and shadowy place, was reflected from the tiny surfaces of the wet butter and, outlining Gray's figure of a young and happy maid, shone on her absorbed face. The butter had "come" quickly. She struck it with the heavy beater until the milk ran soundingly into the pail below and, as she worked, she sang in that voice of infinite allure,

"When the wind is off the land It brings the weed on to the sand."

For some time Leadville, aware that his self-control was limited, had been trying to get Gray to himself. Like a wisp of blossomy tamarisk swaying in the bright upper air, however, she remained tantalizingly out of reach. He spent himself in the attempt to lay hands on her, to force her to hear his suit; but Sabina's presence was for ever being thrust between him and his objective, until between fury with his wife and baulked desire, the man was in a dangerous mood. His highly strung temperament prevented his being able to seize opportunity by the forelock; but so often had he met with disappointment, grasping shadows in place of a woman that, when he realized Gray was alone and ignorant of his proximity, he obeyed for once a natural prompting. Stepping quickly across the linhay, he threw his arms round the busy girl and sought her lips.

To his almost incredulous joy, Gray did not offer any resistance. He had come up behind, had taken her strongly in his arms and the soft young body yielded as if his coming had been in answer to her own unexpressed desire. Though the month was December, spring was in the air and with an unmistakable murmur of content, Gray abandoned herself. He bent to hers a transfigured face and then, but not till then, did she realize she was in Leadville Byron's arms.

Her body stiffened suddenly and, uttering a cry of horror, she began to struggle. "You!" she cried and made a frantic effort to escape. So surprised was he by this change of front that, with his mood in the balance between love and rage, he let her go.

"My little umuntz," he cried, "don't 'ee play with me." A moment before she had yielded herself, her voice had been liquid with invitation, he had heard in it the mating note. Now she stared at him from a safe distance with a spark in her soft eye.

"If you don't leave me alone," she said angrily, "I shall go home and never put foot inside this door no more, whiles you're here."

Byron stood with his head bent. He too was angry. He felt defrauded. Only a moment since she had lain in his embrace, thrilled by his touch, a warm and palpitating woman. Now she spoke as if her heart were virgin.

"Don't 'ee play with me," he said again. "I couldn't bear it, I've 'ad as much as I can stand. 'Ee knaw I love 'ee."

"I--I don't--I don't want to."

"Don't want to? Don't want to know that night after night I can't sleep for thinking of 'ee?" He struck his chest with a strong blunt-fingered hand. "Here's your place, love, and my arm'll ache till I 'old 'ee again."

Hot colour dyed her face. To think that she should have lain in his arms! On that day, too, of all the days in the year, of all the days in a lifetime! "'Tis all a mistake."

"The day'll come when you'll worship the ground I tread on."

"No--never."

"I'll make 'ee love me. I loved 'ee from the first day you come 'ere. I've never wanted nobody but you and I've wanted 'ee ever since I did see your 'andsome face about Wastralls and heard you singin', 'appy as a greybird. Wastralls an' you, they go together in my mind. I love 'ee, Gray, and you know what that means to a man like me, what cares for nobody and nothing. I'm eaten up with the love of you. I'd do anything to get 'ee. I must 'av 'ee and I will 'av 'ee." He came a step nearer, but she drew back.

"Leave me alone, leave me alone."

"Leave 'ee alone? I want to be kissin' of 'ee all the day."

The girl was trembling. She leant one arm upon the stone slab behind her, and the shock of its coldness was a steadying influence. "I bain't gwine let you kiss me. I'd rather slap yer face for yer. What d'yer think then?"

He coaxed her tenderly. "Bain't I worth 'avin' then?"

"I bain't gwine 'av nothing to do with 'ee. I wouldn't 'ave 'ee for the world." Taking up one of the butter pats she began mechanically shaping the mass.

"What's the matter with me that you won't 'av nothing to do with me?" Straightening himself, he opened out unusually broad shoulders and the candlelight revealed a face of black shadows and strong saliences. How strong, how ruthless, how confident he looked! Gray felt her old fear returning, she could not believe that this strange man would be held in check by any of the received standards.

"You'm married and old enough to be my father."

She clinched the matter: "You'm married to Aunt S'bina."

He laughed contemptuously. "Ah, but you would 'av me, if I was a widower, a widower wi' Wastralls for my own."

Putting down the pat, Gray turned at that in a sudden ruffle of indignation.

"Take an' 'old your tongue," she commanded. "I'm ashamed of 'ee to talk like that."

"Well," he persisted, only anxious for her to realize that he meant to make her mistress of all he hoped for in life--Wastralls. "I may be before long. I don't believe the missis'll live very long."

"I hate that kind of talk!"

Her anger, a spark in the dark eye, a flush on the soft cheek, became her and he stared admiringly. Her wrath was like the peck of a captive bird and, whatever she might say, from henceforth she would know that his pursuing love was no light matter. "I do love 'ee so," he pleaded, his voice dropping to an intimate compelling whisper. "I tremble when you come into the room. But I can't set 'ere and not touch 'ee; I 'ave to go out on cliff 'till I've walked it down. Seems sometimes at night as if you was near me and I put out my 'and--ah, if you was there I should die of joy. You'm mine and I've waited so long. I can't bear it. I can't eat or drink or sleep. I'm in a fever and I ache with longing for 'ee till I feel as if I should go mad----"

Gray caught her breath in a sob, as a soft trundling sound came from the next room. Unable to speak she pointed shakily at the door.

Leadville also heard the sound, a scrooping noise as of rubber-tyred wheels being turned about. Sabina was in the kitchen, could hear every word, would probably, in another minute, roll herself in at the linhay door. His face grew savage and rage rose in a black flood about his heart. Was it to be always like this, was this poor remnant of humanity, feeble, distorted, ageing, always to come between him and Gray? His mind grew blurry with a wild spindrift of menace. Green withes or new ropes, fools to think he could be bound by either law or convention, he whom only the lustreless black hair of one woman might hold. Love had come late, but it had come in overwhelming force and he would break every convention, every law that stood in his way! Laws?

As he stood, stricken dumb by his wife's nearness, but on the edge of passionate revolt he became conscious of a peculiar change in his surroundings. Silence fell, a thick silence like a wall, a silence that shut out the cackle of a hen in the yard and the distant baa-ing that came irregularly from the hillside. The man was alone behind this wall of soundlessness, shut away by it from the homely noises of the indoor and the out. When it had lasted for a bewildering second, it was succeeded by a faint far-off sound. The sound came out of a red distance and grew rapidly louder, resolving itself at last into the regular tap-tap of a hammer which is being used for knocking in nails. This hammering was to Byron a familiar sound. It had been heard by him at other times of stress and strain, at other moments when raging passions seemed about to drive him over some dark verge. The sound was arresting. It went as he well knew with flashes of vision, during which he would see a piece of light wood and the glint of brass-headed tacks. As the wood appeared out of the white mist which surrounded him, Byron passed into another state of consciousness. His mind, abruptly disconnected, was filled with a queer eagerness and curiosity. His wife, Gray, Wastralls, everything, were momentarily forgotten. What was it, this knocking? No carpenter was at work in the houses and courts; and the wood too, a full curve narrowing to an angle, was a curious shape. He stared about him, seeking an explanation and his eye fell on the girl at her work.

"Did you 'ear?" he said, turning on her a face from which the tide of emotion had ebbed.

Gray, thankful for the respite which had followed her aunt's entry, had seized the pats and, with feverish industry was cutting pounds and half pounds off the mass of butter.

"I heard Aunt S'bina in the kitchen," she answered coldly.

"I wasn't speaking of 'er. I meant the knockin'."

"What knocking?"

"I didn't know as the mason was comin' to-day to put up the new pigs' 'ouse?"

"He isn't coming till after Christmas."

"Well, I'm sure I 'eard some one 'ammerin' in nails."

She shook her head. "I didn't hear it."

The noise of dishes being piled together on the breakfast table caught Byron's attention. He glanced at Gray and the sight of youth, with a blush on the hot cheek, a suggestion of tears on the long lashes, was to him as the opening of a door. He came out of his preoccupation and the knocking either died away or was forgotten. Forgotten, too, were his rage and disappointment.

"What's she doin' out o' bed so early for?"

"I'm going into Stowe with the butter and there's a lot to do."

"'Oo yer gwine with?" asked Byron, instantly on the alert.

"With Jim."

"You needn't go." He was reluctant to have her out of his reach, even for a morning. He wanted her at home under his eye. He was going to renew his pleading as soon as the moment was auspicious. "Rosevear can take that in."

"I want to go to-day."

His mind examined the statement with that ever-ready fear of the lover who is uncertain of his standing. "What you want to go for?"

"Shopping!" said she and, with a smile that was faintly malicious, enumerated the items, groceries, liniment for her aunt, pitchers, cloam pans.

"Shopping?" But what he saw was that five-mile drive over Big Hill into Stowe. He saw her beside Jim, driving away from Wastralls, from him. "I'll drive 'ee in!"

Gray's heart sank and she remained silent.

"Would 'ee like me to?"

If she said 'No,' he would be all the more eager. "Once I'm in Stowe I shall be that busy you wouldn't see anything of me."

He laughed. "I'd take care of that. All right then, 'tis I as'll drive 'ee into Stowe and not the lad. I'll not trust Rosevear to drive 'ee, I'll do it myself." He looked back at her from the door, his dark face alight. "My God, if I caught 'ee with one of they, I'd--I'd break his neck."

The door banged to behind him, and Gray putting down the printer laid her head on her arms. If Aunt Sabina should not be able to prevent him!

But Aunt Sabina was a tower of strength.

*CHAPTER VIII*