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

December dawns are late and though, as Mrs. Tom had feared, the tired family slept until after cockcrow, morning had not broken when she and Richbell hurried down between the tamarisks, silver-grey with frost, and in at the yard gate of Wastralls. George Biddick, crossing from the shed to the stables nodded a greeting, but otherwise the yard was deserted.

Mrs. Tom called after him. "Pretty rough wind last night."

"Iss," he said with a gesture towards the roof. "I see it's blawed off one of the tiles and broke a pane of glass."

"You won't be able to get it mended now till after Christmas," said Mrs. Tom sympathetically. She pressed her face against the window, peering in. "No one up yet?"

"Well, they didn't go to bed till late last night," Richbell reminded her.

"Dessay they've overslept theirself!" Mrs. Tom took the door key from under a stone where Sabina had hidden it in readiness. During the night, with one of the rapid changes to which that coast is liable, the wind had dropped. Frost had stilled the thousand voices of the earth and, in the house, doors hung without creak or movement and the chimneys were hushed. As she crossed the threshold Mrs. Tom shivered.

"'Tis a whisht old place," she said, "and cold."

Her voice came back to her, echoed from the passage. "Cold!"

"There always seems some one in the passage," she said whimsically, "some one who wants to talk and can only say what we do say."

Richbell tried the echo. "Mammy!" she said and "Mammy" was whispered back to her.

Mrs. Tom hung her cloak behind the door and turned upon the world a business face. "Here's the matches," she said, taking them from the mantelshelf, "and you'll find a candle in the linhay there. Now light up the fire quick and make a cup of tea and I'll run in and see if yer auntie's awake."

Exaggerating the companionable sound of her steps, she went down the passage. So dark was it that she guided herself with a hand to the wall, finding thus the stairs, the turning that led into the other part of the house and, eventually, the door of the justice-room. At this she knocked.

Receiving no answer she hesitated for a moment and then knocked again. "She's sleepin' well this mornin'," she told herself. "I believe she was fair beat yesterday with all that bread-makin' and Leadville so teasy; funny, though, 'at I can't make 'er 'ear."

She rattled cheerfully at the handle and, under her preoccupation with Sabina, was the feeling that Hember chambers were full of light and sound and that presently she would return to them. Never had she felt so strongly the brooding oppression of the old house.

"S'bina! S'bina!" she called and pushed open the door. "Pretty time o' day this to be in sleepin'," and her voice, dauntingly loud, filled the room. For a moment she stood to listen. Another voice should have answered her, should have come to her, reassuringly, out of the gloom.

"How be gettin' on, S'bina?" she faltered. From down the passage came sounds of human nearness: Richbell was moving about in the kitchen and the fact that the girl depended on her for direction stiffened the other's courage. Pulling herself together she crossed the threshold. Once in the room, however, and she was momentarily at a loss. As day still lingered below the eastern hills, to pull the dimity curtains apart would not further matters. Her hand went to the pocket of her white apron and, in a loud, would-be-cheerful tone, she went on talking the while she struck a match. "You always seem to be able to sleep towards the mornin', don't 'ee? Iss, and we've overslept ourself this mornin'; well, we couldn't expect any other after yesterday. 'Twas a lot to think about if not much to do. I've brought Richbell down this morning. She didn't care to come by 'erself so I told 'er I'd come with 'er; and, while she was makin' your cup of tea, I thought I'd come and 'av a little chat and tell yer 'ow we got on last night."

She had been in the justice-room many a time, had sat gossiping with Sabina while she rested, had listened to her complaints of the ache in those legs which were no longer there; but, in spite of the familiarity of the place, as she reached for the candle, her chatter ceased for very fear. If only the wick would catch, but it was tallow, thick and slow to ignite. Before the flame was more than a blue glimmer she was holding it up and peering below it at the bed, gazing with a premonition of what she would find. As she said afterwards, "I thought what I should see."

Nevertheless, though instinct had warned her, she was unprepared. "Oh, my dear sawl she's gone!" she cried and, with confirmation, her fear passed.

"S'bina! S'bina!" she cried, the tears starting. "Speak to me! It can't be true!" Laying her hand upon the brow she felt the unmistakable chill of death. "'Owever on earth did it 'appen?"

The sounds of Mrs. Tom's grief reached Richbell as she put a match to the heap of tamarisk twigs with which she had filled the grate. She sat back on her heels in amazed suspense. What ailed her mother? To hear her give way openly to emotion was unknown to her sixteen years. Trembling she ran out down the passage.

"Whatever is the matter with you, mammy?"

Mrs. Tom was clinging to the green post at the foot of the stairs. Leaning her face on its square top she was weeping for her friend. Next to husband and children Sabina had been dearest. The bond had seemed unbreakable, a thing to trust in, until for her, too, the evening should darken into night.

"Oh, my dear, your poor auntie's gone."

The girl's eyes, which had been merely questioning, filled with terror. To discover that in the midst of life we are in death, shakes the confidence of youth. With a little cry she crept into her mother's arms and her tears, the easy tears of girlhood, ran over her round checks and mingled with those of the older woman.

The needs of the occasion were grim and, after the first burst of grief, Mrs. Tom pulled herself together and, wiping her eyes on her apron, sent a call up the wide stair, a call, which echoing through the empty chambers and down the passages found Byron in his heavy sleep, a call which brought him back to consciousness.

"Leadville! Leadville!"

Who was crying in that lamentable voice? He sat up, rubbing the sleep out of inflamed eyes. Who was calling to him so dolefully out of the darkness of the lower rooms? Not Sabina?

"What is it? I'm comin'," he answered in his rough bass but he did not move. The shadow of grief, rising from below had fallen on him and he was reluctant. Out of the torpor of exhaustion he had brought a bemused mind; and, though disaster threatened, he was not yet aware of the form which it must take. Sitting on the edge of the bed and staring at his knees, it dawned on him that he was still in his workaday clothes. This surprised him and further stamped the morning as unusual.

"Leadville! Leadville!" cried the voice and he found its unhappiness irritating. "Are 'ee dead up there, too?"

"Dead? No. Can't 'ee wait a minute, man must dress."

He had slept on the outside of the bed and, though the yielding feathers marked where he had lain, the clothes were undisturbed. He knew, though without as yet understanding why, that he must be careful. Everything must be as usual. Hastily pulling the clothes from the bed he threw the room into disorder.

He had taken off his boots and his feet in their grey woollen wear fell noiselessly on the drugget. Upon the group at the foot of the stairs he came unexpectedly and, so coming, waited for a moment in fear and trembling. Mrs. Tom, lifting her voice to send yet another summons echoing aloft, presently caught sight of him. In the justice-room a dim light showed. She did not speak but pointed over her shoulder.

"Well," he quavered, aware of the dim light, "whatever's all this fuss about?"

"I dunno' ow to tell yer," returned Mrs. Tom. "'Tis awful thing. Poor S'bina's gone."

"Gone?" His voice rang out full of incredulity and, pushing past, he walked quickly into the bedroom. "What d'yer mean?"

The man's concern, if not his surprise, was genuine. Sabina's death assured, he could think of her as a tried and loyal comrade, dwell on her many virtues, mourn her as, whatever her shortcomings, she had deserved. Memories, kind and gay and casual, crowded into his mind. Though he might be glad that she was gone, he would miss her. Mrs. Tom, jealous for her friend and, with the accumulated knowledge of years to breed suspicion, weighed his words and considered his manner. Bitterly would she resent any failure on his part to render unto Sabina the conventional marks of grief. But Leadville did more. He showed real feeling, a sorrow that was unmistakably sincere.

She followed him into the dead woman's presence and together they went up to the bed. As the man, stooping towards Sabina, gathered the meaning of her immobility, of her sculptured calm, his voice rang out in a cry of grief and longing, a cry which lightened Mrs. Tom's heart of its suspicion.

"S'bina! Oh, my dear, speak to me. Whatever shall I do, whatever shall I do without yer?" He turned with an appeal to the other's womanly knowledge. "Be yer sure she's gone? Titch 'er 'ands and see whether they'm cold or not."

Mrs. Tom laid her hand on fingers already growing rigid. "Iss, my dear, she's gone right enough, I'm afraid."

He covered his face, breaking suddenly into gulping and ugly grief. The last doubt that had harboured in Mrs. Tom's mind blew out to sea. After all, Leadville 'wasn't a bad feller, 'e 'ad 'is feelin's!'

"Terrible job to be took away like this," he gasped after a few minutes, "and she all by 'erself too."

"Aw, poor sawl, iss," agreed Mrs. Tom, "but she's lookin' 'appy and peaceful. I believe she must 'ave died in 'er sleep and didn't know nothin' about it."

Leadville looked at her anxiously and his heart was in the question: "You don't think she suffered any pain, do you?"

"Why, look at 'er. You can see she didn't. If she 'ad suffered 'er face 'ud 'av been quite drawn. But there she is, lookin' so peaceful as a lamb." Her tears flowed again. "We shall all miss her. She was a good sawl."

"I dunno whatever I shall do without 'er."

"My dear life, 'tis nothing but right you should feel it so."

"Well, nobody knew what a good wife she's been to me. I 'adn't 'ad a penny to bless myself when she married me, but since then I 'aven't wanted for nothing. Never an angry word between us."

"Poor sawl, too."

"'Twas 'ard on the missis losin' 'er laigs but after that she never complained. She made the best of everything."

From the world beyond the justice-room, the world of living people and the everyday, came sounds of movement. Richbell, left in the passage, had returned to the kitchen and, once there, had mechanically resumed her work. Come life, come death, breakfast must be prepared.

"Come out now," said Mrs. Tom, the odour of 'fry' being wafted to her nostrils, "and 'av a bit of breakfast, Leadville. I'm sure you'll be wantin' it."

The man shook his head. "I don't feel I want any. I'd rather go out on the cliff by myself. Tidn't like she's dead to me and I must get used to it." He followed Mrs. Tom out of the room but his eyes were so dim he stumbled as he went.

"Well, she's dead right enough. 'Ow it 'appened I dunno. She seemed quite all right yesterday. She might 'av been a bit tired but what was that? I'm afraid," she looked at him thoughtfully, "I'm afraid, as she died suddint, we shall