Wastralls: A Novel by C. A. Dawson Scott (100 books to read .TXT) 📕

gathering the dark and quiet and coolness of the linhay into her soul, her tears gradually dried up and as gradually her personal feeling, her bitterness and resentment, gave place. She had asserted a claim, had protested as a wife against the outrage of Leadville's words, had protested as a child against that flourishing of the wicked as a green bay-tree; but the habit of her mind was impersonal and very kind. Dispirited, sad, almost despairing, she yet could not do other than return to it.

"Poor chap's that worried, 'e dunno what 'e's sayin'," she told herself. Her lack of children was an oversight she had done her best to remedy. She made for Leadville the blind tender excuses of her maternal heart. "I knaw 'e don't mean it.' Ye'll be all right in a day or two's time. Always been a good-livin' feller and I'm sure 'e wouldn't 'urt a flea. I don't belong to mind..." a quivering nerve gave her the lie.... "But I do, I do mind," she said piteously, "'e's all I got. No, and tedn't that. 'Tis I do love'n."

Drawing water she bathed her eyes. The burst of emotion had left her drained of strength but supper was yet to get. "I did mean to fry for 'is supper," she said, the word covering as many varieties of appetizing food as can be cooked in a frying-pan, "but I don't think I will, I feel so tired and weary, I think us'll have to manage with what we've got." She glanced along the shelf. "That bit of cold meat'll do. 'E do dearly love a bit of fat pork."

Although her tears, easing the strain on her nerves, had left her less apprehensive, the kitchen still loomed disquieting. "'Tis because I made a fool of myself," she said, bracing herself for further effort.

Leadville was in his old place by the window. He neither moved nor spoke, seemed indeed too much absorbed in thought to be aware of her. Sabina felt relieved. She told herself she had had enough of his tantrums for one day: let them have the meal in peace and get off to bed. Putting the meat on a clean dish she began to lay the cloth but, as she moved about, a dim suspicion flitted through her mind that she was being watched. She dismissed it hurriedly and went on with her work, but it returned. Though Leadville appeared lost in thought, no sooner did she turn her back than his heavy lids lifted and his eyes followed her with a furtive question. She felt them on her, felt in his glance a quality which made her uneasy. What did he want to know? Why couldn't he put his question into words? Why should his following and thoughtful glance remind her of the way a cat, crouching, watches a bird? She was sure he was watching, yet not quite sure. Turning sharply she fixed brave blue eyes on his face, but immediately he looked away. He was not watching her, he was occupied with his own dark and brooding fancies.

The blank unconsciousness of his gaze was reassuring. She had been mistaken, fanciful. How foolish of her! Well, she was tired, she could not help it if she did fancy things. She had been through a lot that day and it had shaken her. Perhaps too the lamp had something to say to her fancies. It was not burning well and, while a good light cheered and encouraged, a jumping insufficient one bred more than shadows. Mrs. Byron went into the linhay for scalded cream, for syrup and the cocoa-jug, but as she passed her husband she felt that if he did not quite look at her, she was yet the centre of his thoughts. And he was looking. Her back was towards him, her unprotected back, and his glances were like arrows. The hair crisped on the woman's head. What did this furtive watching mean? This down-dropping look which, when unobserved, followed and considered? Leadville was sitting back in the corner, his head resting against the wall and, though his heavy features wore the expression habitual to them, his eyes were no longer filmed with inward brooding. Sabina, wandering over the moors had once stooped to look along a deserted mine-shaft and, in the darkness, had seen two round eyes, eyes of green fire, eyes which though distant had been full of a wild menace. They had stared out at her, threatening her advance and, so inimical were they, that she had left the mine-shaft unexplored. Leadville's eyes reminded her of the savage daunting thing from which she had retreated. "I wish 'e wouldn't watch me like that," she said, lingering over her errand, "it makes me feel any'ow; I wish—" her thoughts flew to Hember, Hember which, whenever she had been in a difficulty hitherto, had come to the rescue—"I wish I'd let Richbell come down."

A candle stood on the furnace and, by its light, Mrs. Byron searched the upper shelf for a jug of which she stood in need. During her long convalescence she had suffered from sleeplessness but, as her health improved, so had her nights. She put the latter down, however, to the fact that she had formed the habit of drinking a cup of hot cocoa as soon as she was in bed. A warm drink at night, a nourishing, non-stimulating drink which needed care in preparation was, she had felt, more likely to bring a return to normal conditions than patient waiting on the mysterious processes of nature. The cocoa-jug, brown, high-waisted, girdled by a gold line, stood a little behind the other pitchers. In her haste that morning, Gray had pushed it back and, the shelf being high, her aunt had some difficulty in recovering it. The effort to reach it distracted her mind and, when she returned to the kitchen, she was thinking more of the healing effects of cocoa than of the tiresome ways of husbands.

On one side of the range hung a small square mirror, such as can be bought of any gipsy pedlar for a shilling; and as she leaned forward to put on the kettle she caught sight of her face. Used to rubicund cheeks below bright eyes, she was surprised to see that, though her colour was fixed, it had lost its warm tone and that her lips were a bluish grey.

"I bin frightened," she told herself, "I knaw 'tis fulishness of me but I can't 'elp it. Pretty mawkin I be, fancyin' things like that." The eyes in the mirror were strong and encouraging, the grey lips smiled at her. Here was a tried comrade who knew what she had to endure and who sympathized—who sympathized as no one else could! Sabina was captain of her soul and could rely on it for strength and for support; yet with her reviving courage came a hint of the old discomfort. On returning from the linhay she had found Byron staring at his knees. Now that her back was turned to him she felt—and the feeling sent a quick shudder through her—she felt that he was at his trick of watching. She felt it, then suddenly she knew, for in the depths of the mirror was another face, a face which had fixed narrowing eyes on her; and these eyes travelled over her, considering her, asking a strange inhuman question.

She swung the trolly round in an access of nervous fear but that inimical glance had slipped away and Leadville was once more staring blankly at his knees. Mrs. Byron remained for a moment waiting, but he neither stirred nor looked. He had been on the verge of making the discovery he sought and her sudden movement, scattering his thoughts, had angered him. If she would go on with her work, the thing that was eluding him, would creep back and this time he would grasp it. He sat like one in a trance, focusing his mind on a dimly seen spot, a spot of dreadful knowledge.

Sabina manoeuvred the car so that she no longer had her back turned to the dark figure on the bench. To make the cocoa while in a sideways position was awkward, but the defenceless attitude had become impossible. She must know what was happening on the other side of the room. Profoundly disturbed, she yet measured the spoonfuls of cocoa with a steady hand. As Gray would not share the beneficial draught that night her aunt was mechanically careful to make only half the usual quantity. The lavish hand does not pile up a balance at the bank.

As Mrs. Byron set the jug of cocoa on the stove, in order that it might be kept hot till she was ready for it, Leadville broke the silence. He did not speak, but once more he laughed, and this time his was the satisfied laugh of a man who after long endeavour has found that of which he is in search.

His wife stared. "'Ow you made me jump," she said, a little breathlessly. A quality in the laugh, a certain sinister satisfaction, had made her flesh creep. What was it that had pleased him, that by his secret watching he had discovered? She tried to shake off the conviction of his strangeness. "Dunno what's come over me. I spose 'e can laugh at 'is own thoughts; but it's a funny thing, it makes me all goosey flesh."

Conquering an inclination to go out of the room, to leave Leadville to his secret satisfactions, she rolled herself to the table. "I should think you was feeling so leary as a grey'ound by this time," she said and, by speaking of the commonplace, would have relieved the tension. The queerness of Leadville's behaviour might after all be due to hunger for, as far as she knew, he had not had any food since morning.

The man cleared his throat. "There's no butter on the table," he said, looking past her at something on the other side of the room.

"Gray's taken every bit to market." His habit being to eat without comment what was set before him, Sabina felt a dim surprise that he should have asked for butter.

"She 'aven't. I see some on the shelf."

To ask him to fetch it did not occur to her. Turning the handle of the little car she went back to the linhay. It was possible that Gray, thoughtful for others, had put some aside.

As the trolly disappeared behind the door it was as it a hand swept from Byron's features the mask which hitherto had shrouded his resolve. Obscure, unrecognized, it had lain for many a day behind his everyday thoughts. The general upheaval had thrust it forward until it shone naked in a dreadful candour. So long had it been familiar that it came tame to the man's seeking hand. He knew at last what he must do. Sabina making the cocoa had shown it him.

Getting up from the bench and treading carefully—he whose step was always light—he tiptoed over to the wall cupboard. It yawned before him, a darkness hollowed in the solid masonry and with unerring certainty, as if his hand had gone that way in dreams, it fell on that which it sought, a little ribbed blue phial, with an orange label. The last occasion on which he had used it, had been when he adjudged Shep to be old and useless. The bottle was only a quarter full, and he felt sorry that he had wasted any of the precious contents on the dog. Would the quarter be sufficient for his purpose? For a moment he hung uncertain, but the passions which were riding him to destruction forced him to take the risk. He heard Sabina crossing the floor of the linhay and the repugnance with which she inspired him rose like nausea in his throat. He went blind with hatred, the hatred so long repressed, that primitive hatred of the under-dog. As one pressed for time, he uncorked the bottle and held it to the jug of cocoa. The colourless fluid gurgled as it flowed over the blue rim and the sound, striking through the man's absorption, woke in him the beginnings of fear. Even now, she might be able to come between him and success, this necessary, intolerably-longed-for success. He stared with wild eyes at the linhay door. If she had heard, if she came in and in her high brave way faced him and accused him,