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

Jim did not seem impressed. "I can clear now if you like." It would serve the 'ole hunks' right if he were left with the horse and wagon on his hands.

"An' if yer don't want to 'av yer bones broken," continued the other, pausing on a darkling thought that the sea did not always give up its dead, "you'll clear out of this part altogether."

In Jim's eyes was a little dancing light. "Shen't clear out for the likes of you."

"Well, now, you take this for a warning. If you don't you'll wish you 'ad."

"We'll see about that," and being of those whose spirits rise at the prospect of a fight he smiled. "We'll see who is the best man of the two, me or you."

A grimmer smile was on Byron's face. Knowing his strength he could look forward, past the irritating unpropitious moment, to the happy hour when they should come to grips. "Oo d'yer think's afraid of you, yer banty cock?" he cried, contemptuously, and prepared to ride on.

"If you was as big as a church and tower I ain't afraid," cried the youth after him. As the affair seemed to be hanging fire, he tried a rousing word. "An' if I'm in yer way I shall stay where I'm to."

Byron flashed him a look full of sinister possibilities, the look of one who had taken into consideration that cliffs are sheer and nights dark. "I'll see about that, then."

The prospect of a fight was dwindling into nothingness. "There's people," said Jim, on a last hope, "'ud rather see me than you."

"Any more of your cheek, young sprat, and I'll wring your neck."

But he had realized the countryside would cry shame if he were seen brawling in public while his wife lay dead at home. They would not be blinded to the reason and such knowledge might breed suspicion. He must wait. Grinding his heel into the stallion's side he started at a gallop, leaving Jim disappointed but smiling, for with him, too, it was a case of 'Gay go the Gordons.'

A little annoyance was enough to upset Byron for hours. In a fume of exasperation and bitter feeling he now urged his horse to a speed which drew on him the attention of other wayfarers.

"If 'e ride that rate 'e must be goin' after a doctor. I should think man's missis was goin' to straw—first child, too," said a man from Little Petherick to whom Leadville was a stranger.

"Thiccy feller's Mr. Byron to Wastralls," corrected his companion, "and I know there's no chick nor child there, nor any comin'. 'E do always ride as if Old Nick was after 'un. 'E'll break 'is neck one of these odd days."

The short interview with Rosevear had been unsatisfactory in more ways than one, for the youth's last words had planted a thorn. Not only had he smiled at Byron's threats but his smile, had been of a quality which made the other's blood run cold. Behind it lay assurance, a knowledge he might not divulge but which, like a hidden weapon, was for use at need. The other's jealousy, temporarily in abeyance, stirred and he sought a reason, other than the simple love of fighting inherent in the male, for Jim's smile. Not many cared to try conclusions with the strongest man in the parish. Byron had browbeaten the few who crossed his path, but Jim was game. What had happened to give him confidence? How were matters between him and Gray? That drive into Stowe! The farmer ground his teeth at the thought of it. Was she promised and did Rosevear feel sure of her? A fool for his pains! Such promises were of cobweb stuff. She might promise—his little umuntz—for she did not know, but the end would be the same.

The black stallion was damp with sweat when Byron pulled up at Dr. Derek's freshly painted gate—which in its brightness, its specklessness, was the outward and visible sign of the doctor's tastes! A pathway, gravelled with small white stones and edged with scarlet tiles, led directly to a cream-coloured house, the wide windows of which were brilliantly clean but uncurtained. On the door a highly polished knocker twinkled above a discreetly closed brass letter-flap. Dr. Derek was just returned from his morning round and, though the midday meal was on the table, his constant curiosity with regard to Mrs. Byron, would not allow him to keep her husband waiting. The farmer was, therefore, shown at once into the consulting-room.

The little doctor, round and rosy, was seated before a table of light polished wood. Byron, as he went up the room, gathered an impression of bright glass and metal surfaces, in a well-lighted sunshiny place. So bright was everything, the glass cupboards full of silver implements, the polished woods, the glazed bookcases, that the man, used to low tones within doors, blinked. The high lights of innumerable small objects, the sharply defined pattern of carpet and upholstered chair, confused him and for a moment he stood tongue-tied. At last the difficult words came.

"I've bad news for 'ee, sir."

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