  Some five months passed away. One January night the Independent minister of Clinton Magna was passing down the village street. Clinton lay robed in light snow, and "sparkling to the moon." The frozen pond beside the green, though it was nearly eight o'clock, was still alive with children, sliding and shouting. All around the gabled roofs stood laden and spotless. The woods behind the village, and those running along the top of the snowy hill, were meshed in a silvery mist which died into the moonlit blue, while in the fields the sharpness of the shadows thrown by the scattered trees made a marvel of black and white. The minister, in spite of a fighting creed, possessed a measure of gentler susceptibilities, and the beauty of this basin in the chalk hills, this winter triumphant, these lights of home and fellowship in the cottage windows disputing the forlornness of the snow, crept into his soul. His mind travelled from the physical purity and hardness before him to the purity and hardness of the inner life—the purity that Christ blessed, the "hardness" that the Christian endures. And such thoughts brought him pleasure as he walked—the mystic's pleasure. Suddenly he saw a woman cross the snowy green in front of him. She had come from the road leading to the hill, and her pace was hurried. Her shawl was muffled round her head, but he recognised her, and his mood fell. She was the wife of Isaac Costrell, and she was hurrying to the Spotted Deer, a public-house which lay just beyond the village, on the road to the mill. Already several times that week had he seen her going in or coming out. Talk had begun to reach him, and he said to himself to-night as he saw her—that Isaac Costrell's wife was going to ruin. The thought oppressed him, pricked his pastoral conscience. Isaac was his right-hand man: dull to all the rest of the world, but not dull to the minister. With Mr. Drew sometimes he would break into talk of religion, and the man's dark eyes would lose their film. His big troubled self spoke with that accent of truth which lifts common talk and halting texts to poetry. The minister, himself more of a pessimist than his sermons showed, felt a deep regard for him. Could nothing be done to save Isaac's wife and Isaac? Not so long ago Bessie Costrell had been a decent woman, though a flighty and excitable one. Now some cause, unknown to the minister, had upset a wavering balance, and was undoing a life. As he passed the public-house a man came out, and through the open door Then Drew saw that the man who had emerged was Watson the policeman. They greeted each other cordially and walked on together. Watson also was a member of the minister's flock. Mr. Drew felt suddenly moved to unburden himself. "That was Costrell's wife, Watson, wasn't it, poor thing?" "Aye, it wor Mrs. Costrell," said Watson in the tone of concern natural to the respectable husband and father. The minister sighed. "It's terrible the way she's gone downhill the last three months. I never pass almost but I see her going in there or coming out." "No," said Watson, slowly, "no, it's bad. What I'd like to know," he added reflectively, "is where she gets the money from." "Oh, she had a legacy, hadn't she, in August? It seems to have been a curse. She has been a changed woman ever since." "Yes, she had a legacy," said Watson dubiously; "but I don't believe it was much. She talked big, of course, and made a lot o' fuss—she's that kind o' woman—just as she did about old John's money." "Old John's money?—Ah! did any one ever know what became of that?" "Well, there's many people thinks as Isaac has got it hid in the house somewhere, and there's others thinks he's put it in Bedford bank. Edwards told me private he didn't know nothing about it at the post-office, an' Bessie told my wife as John had given Isaac the keepin' of it till he come back again; but he'd knock her about, she said, if she let on what he'd done with it. That's the story she's allus had, and boastin', of course, dreadful, about John's trustin' them, and Isaac doin' all his business for him." The minister reflected.—"And you say the legacy wasn't much?" "Well, sir, I know some people over at Bedford where her aunt lived as left it her, and they were sure it wasn't a great deal; but you never know." "And Isaac never said?" "Bless yer, no, sir! He was never a great one for talking, wasn't Isaac; but you'd think now as he'd never learnt how. He'll set there in the Club of a night and never open his mouth to nobody." "Perhaps he's fretting about his wife, Watson?" "Well, I don't believe as he knows much about her goin's-on—not all, leastways. I've seen her wait till he was at his work or gone to the Club, and then run down the hill,—tearin'—with her hair flyin'—you'd think she'd gone silly. Oh, it's a bad business," said Watson, strongly, "an' uncommon bad business—all them young children too." "I never saw her drunk, Watson." "No—yer wouldn't. Nor I neither. But she'll treat half the parish if she gets the chance. I know many young fellers as go to the Spotted Deer just because they know she'll treat 'em, She's a-doin' of it now—there's lots of 'em. And allus changin' such a queer lot of money too—odd half-crowns—years and years old—King George the Third, sir. No—it's strange—very strange." The two walked on into the darkness, still talking. Meanwhile, inside the Spotted Deer Bessie Costrell was treating her hangers-on. She had drunk one glass of gin and water—it had made a beauty of her in the judgment of the tap-room, such a kindling had it given to her brown eyes and such a redness to her cheek. Bessie, in truth, had reached her moment of physical prime. The marvel was that there were no lovers in addition to the drinking and the extravagance. But the worst of the village scandal-mongers knew of none. Since this new phase of character in her had developed, she would drink and make merry with any young fellow in the place, but it went no farther. She was bonne camarade with all the world—no more. Perhaps at bottom some coolness of temperament protected her; nobody, at any rate, suspected that it had anything to do with Isaac, or that she cared a ha'porth for so lugubrious and hypocritical a husband. She had showered drinks on all her friends, and had, moreover, chattered and screamed herself hoarse, when the church-clock outside slowly struck eight. She started, changed countenance, and got up to pay at once. "Why, there's another o' them half-crowns o' yourn, Bessie," said a consumptive-looking girl in a bedraggled hat and feathers, as Mrs. Costrell handed her coin to the landlord. "Wheriver do yer get 'em?" "If yer don't ask no questions, I won't tell yer no lies," said Bessie, with quick impudence. "Where did you get them hat and feathers?" There was a coarse laugh from the company. The girl in the hat reddened furiously, and she and Bessie—both of them in a quarrelsome state—began to bandy words. Meanwhile the landlord was showing the coin to his assistant at the bar. "Rum, ain't it? I niver seed one o' them pieces in the village afore this winter, an' I've been 'ere twenty-two year come April." A decent-looking labourer, who did not often visit the Spotted Deer, was leaning over the bar and caught the words. "Well, then, I 'ave," he said promptly. "I mind well as when I were a lad, sixteen year ago, my fayther borrered a bit o' money off John Bolderfield, to buy a cow with—an' there was 'arf of it in them 'arf-crowns." Those standing near overheard. Bessie and the girl stopped quarrelling. The landlord, startled, cast a sly eye in Bessie's direction. She came up to the bar. "What's that yer sayin'?" she demanded. The man repeated his remark. "Well, I dessay there was," said Bessie—"I dessay there was. I s'pose there's plenty of 'em. Where do I get 'em?—why, I get 'em at Bedford, of course, when I goes for my money." She looked round defiantly. No one said anything; but everybody instinctively suspected a lie. The sudden silence was striking. "Well, give me my change, will yer?" she said impatiently to the landlord. "I can't stan' here all night." He gave it to her, and she went out showering reckless good-nights, to which there was little response. The door had no sooner closed upon her than every one in the tap-room pressed round the bar in a close gathering of heads and tongues. Bessie ran across the green and began to climb the hill at a rapid pace. Her thin woollen shawl blown back by the wind left her arms and bosom exposed. But the effects of the spirit in her veins prevented any sense of cold, though it was a bitter night. Once or twice, as she toiled up the hill, she gave a loud sudden sob. "Oh, my God!" she said to herself. "My God!" When she was half-way up she met a neighbour. "Have yer seen Isaac?" Bessie asked her, panting. "'Ee's at the Club, arn't 'ee?" said the woman. "Well, they won't be up yet. Jim tolt me as Muster Perris"—Muster Perris was the vicar of Clinton Magna—"'ad got a strange gen'leman stayin' with 'im, and was goin' to take him into the Club to-night to speak to 'em. 'Ee's a bishop, they ses—someun from furrin parts." Bessie threw her good-night and climbed on. When she reached the cottage the lamp was flaming on the table and the fire was bright. Her lame boy had done all she had told him, and her miserable heart softened. She hurriedly put out some food for Isaac. Then she lit a candle and went up to look at the children. They were all asleep in the room to the right of the stairs—the two little boys in one bed, the two little girls in the other, each pair huddled together against the cold, like dormice in a nest. Then she looked, conscience-stricken, at the untidiness of the room. She had bought the children a wonderful number of new clothes lately, and, the family being quite unused to such abundance, there was no place to keep them in. A new frock was flung down in a corner just as it had been taken off; the kitten was sleeping on Arthur's last new jacket; a smart hat with a bunch of poppies in it was lying about the floor; and under the iron beds could be seen a confusion of dusty boots, new and old. The children were naturally reckless, like their mother, and they had been getting used to new things. What excited them now, more than the acquisitions themselves, was that their mother had strictly forbidden them ever to show any of their new clothes to their father. If they did, she would beat them well, she said. That they understood; and life was thereby enriched, not only by new clothes but by a number of new emotions and terrors. If Bessie noted the state of the room, she made no attempt to mend it. She smoothed back the hair from the boys' foreheads with a violent, shaky hand, and kissed them all, especially Arthur. Then she went out and closed the door behind her. Outside she stood a moment on the tiny landing—listening. Not a sound; but the cottage walls were thin. If any one came along the lane with heavy boots she must hear them. Very like he would be half an hour yet. She ran down the stairs and shut the door at the bottom of them, opening into the kitchen. It had no key, or she would have locked it; and in her agitation, her state of clouded brain, she forgot the outer door altogether. Hurrying up again, she sat down on the topmost step, putting her candle on the boards beside her. The cupboard at the stair-head where John had left his money was close to her left hand. As she sank into the attitude of rest, her first instinct was to cry and bemoan herself. Deep in her woman's being great floods of tears were rising, and would fain have spent themselves. But she fought them down, rapidly passing instead into a state of cold terror—terror of Isaac's step—terror of discovery—of the man in the public-house. There was a mousehole in the skirting of the stairs close to the cupboard. She slipped in a finger, felt along an empty space behind, and drew out a key. It turned easily in the cupboard lock, and the two boxes stood revealed, standing apparently just as they stood when John left them. In hot haste Bessie dragged the treasure-box from under the other, starting at every sound in the process, at the thud the old wooden trunk made on the floor of the cupboard as its supporter was withdrawn, at the rustle of her own dress. All the boldness she had shown at the Spotted Deer had vanished. She was now the mere trembling and guilty woman. The lock on Bolderfield's box had been forced long before; it opened to her hand. A heap of sovereigns and half-sovereigns lay on one side, divided by a wooden partition from the few silver coins, crowns and half-crowns, still lying on the other. She counted both the gold and silver, losing her reckoning again and again, because of the sudden anguish of listening that would overtake her. Thirty-six pounds on the one side, not much more than thirty shillings on the other. When John left it there had been fifty-one pounds in gold, and rather more than twenty pounds in silver, most of it in half-crowns. Ah! she knew the figures well. Did that man who had spoken to the landlord in the public-house suspect? How strange they had all looked! What a silly fool she had been to change so much of the silver, instead of sticking to the gold! Yet she had thought the gold would be noticed more. When was old John coming back? He had written once from Frampton to say that he was "laid up bad with the rheumatics," and was probably going into the Frampton Infirmary. That was in November. Since then nothing had been heard of him. John was no scholar. What if he died without coming back? There would be no trouble then, except—except with Isaac. Her mind suddenly filled with wild visions—of herself marched through the village by Watson, as she had once seen him march a poacher who had mauled one of Mr. Forrest's keepers—of the towering walls of Frampton jail—of a visible physical shame which would kill her—drive her mad. If, indeed, Isaac did not kill her before any one but he knew! He had been that cross and glum all these last weeks—never a bit of talk hardly—always snapping at her and the children. Yet he had never said a word to her about the drink—nor about the things she had bought. As to the "things" and the bills, she believed that he knew nothing—had noticed nothing. At home he was always smoking, sitting silent, with dim eyes, like a man in a dream—or reading his father's old books, "good books," which filled Bessie with a sense of dreariness unspeakable—or pondering his weekly paper. But she believed he had begun to notice the drink. Drinking was universal in Clinton, though there was not much drunkenness. Teetotalers were unknown, and Isaac himself drank his beer freely, and a glass of spirits, like anybody else, on occasion. She had been used for years to fetch his beer from the public, and she had been careful. But there were signs—— Oh! if she could only think of some way of putting it back—this thirty odd pounds. She held her head between her hands, thinking and thinking. Couldn't that little lawyer man to whom she went every month at Bedford, to fetch her legacy money—couldn't he lend it her, and keep her money till it was paid? She could make up a story, and give him something for himself to induce him to hold his tongue. She had thought of this often before, but never so urgently as now. She would take the carrier's cart to Bedford next day, while Isaac was at work, and try. Yet all the time despair was at her heart. So hard to undo! Yet how easy it had been to take and to spend. She thought of that day in September, when she had got the news of her legacy—six shillings a week from an old aunt—her father's aunt, whose very existence she had forgotten. The wild delight of it! Isaac got sixteen shillings a week in wages—here was nearly half as much again. She was warned that it would come to an end in two years. But none the less it seemed to her a fortune—and all her life, before it came, mere hard pinching and endurance. She had always been one to spend where she could. Old John had often rated her for it. So had Isaac. But that was his money. This was hers, and he who, for religious reasons, had never made friends with or thought well of any of her family, instinctively disliked the money which had come from them, and made few inquiries into the spending of it. Oh! the joy of those first visits to Frampton, when all the shops had seemed to be there for her, and she their natural mistress! How ready people had been to trust her in the village! How tempting it had been to brag and make a mystery! That old skinflint, Mrs. Moulsey, at "the shop," she had been all sugar and sweets then. And a few weeks later—six, seven weeks later—about the beginning of October, these halcyon days had all come to an end. She owed what she could not pay—people had ceased to smile upon her—she was harassed, excited, worried out of her life. Old familiar wonder of such a temperament! How can it be so easy to spend, so delightful to promise, and so unreasonably, so unjustly difficult, to pay? She began to be mortally afraid of Isaac—of the effect of disclosures. One night she was alone in the cottage, almost beside herself under the pressure of one or two claims she could not meet—one claim especially, that of a little jeweller, from whom she had bought a gold ring and a brooch at Frampton—when the thought of John's hoard swept upon her—clutched her like something living and tyrannical, not to be shaken off. It struck her all in an instant that there was another cupboard in the little parlour, exactly like that on the stairs. The lower cupboard had a key—what if it fitted? The Devil must have been eager and active that night, for the key turned in the lock with a smoothness that made honesty impossible—almost foolish. And the old, weak lock on the box itself—why, a chisel had soon made an end of that! Only five minutes—it had been so quick—there had been no trouble. God had made no sign at all. Since! All the village smiles—the village flatteries recovered—an orgie of power and pleasure—new passions and excitements—above all, the rising passion of drink, sweeping in storms through a weak nature that alternately opened to them and shuddered at them. And through everything the steadily dribbling away of the hoard—the astonishing ease and rapidity with which the coins—gold or silver—had flowed through her hands! How could one spend so much in meat and dress, in beer and gin, in giving other people beer and gin? How was it possible? She sat lost in miserable thoughts, a mist around her. . . . "Wal, I niver!" said a low, astonished voice at the foot of the stairs. Bessie rose to her feet with a shriek, the heart stopping in her breast. The door below was ajar, and through the opening peered a face—the vicious, drunken face of her husband's eldest son, Timothy Costrell. The man below cast one more look of amazement at the woman standing on the top stair, at the candle behind her, at the open box. Then an idea struck him: he sprang up the stairs at a bound. "By gosh!" he said, looking down at the gold and silver. "By gosh!" Bessie tried to thrust him back. "What are you here for?" she asked fiercely, her trembling lips the colour of the whitewashed wall behind. "You get off at onst, or I'll call yer father." He pushed her contemptuously aside. The swish of her dress caught the candle, and by good fortune put it out, or she would have been in a blaze. Now there was only the light from the paraffin lamp in the kitchen below striking upwards through the open door. She fell against the doorway of her bedroom, panting and breathless, watching him. He seated himself in her place, and stooped to look at the box. On the inside of the lid was pasted a discoloured piece of paper, and on the paper was written, in a round, laborious hand, the name, "John Bolderfield." "My blazes!" he said slowly, his bloodshot eyes opening wider than ever. He turned to her with a grin, one hand on the box. He had been tramping for more than three months, during which time they had heard nothing of him. His filthy clothes scarcely hung together. His cheeks were hollow and wolfish. From the whole man there rose a sort of exhalation of sodden vice. Bessie had seen him drunken and out at elbows before, but never so much of the beast as this. However, by this time she had somewhat recovered herself, and, approaching him, she stooped and tried to shut the box. "You take yourself off," she said, desperately, pushing him with her fist. "That money's no business o' yourn, It's John's, an' he's comin' back directly. He gave it us to look after, an' I wor countin' it. March!—there's your father comin'!" And with all her force she endeavoured to wrench his hand away. He tore it from her, and hit out at her backwards—a blow that sent her reeling against the wall. "Yo take yer meddlin' fist out o' that!" he said. "Father ain't coming, and if he wor, I 'spect I could manage the two on yer—Keowntin' it—" he mimicked her. "Oh! yer a precious innercent, ain't yer? But I know all about yer. Bless yer, I've been in at the Spotted Deer to-night, and there worn't nothin' else talked of but yo' and yor goin's on. There won't be a tongue in the place to-morrow that won't be a-waggin' about yer—yur a public charickter, yo' are—they'll be sendin' the reporters down on yer for a hinterview. 'Where the devil do she get the money?' they says." He threw his curly head back and laughed till his sides shook. "Lor', I didn't think I wor going to know quite so soon! An' sich queer 'arf-crowns, they ses, as she keeps a-changin'. Jarge somethin'—an old cove in a wig. An' 'ere they is, I'll be blowed—some on 'em. Well, yer a nice 'un, yer are!" He stared her up and down with a kind of admiration. Bessie began to cry feebly—the crying of a lost soul. "Tim, if yer'll go away an' hold yer tongue, I'll give yer five o' them suverins, and not tell yer father nothin'." "Five on 'em?" he said, grinning. "Five on 'em, eh?" And, dipping his hands into the box, he began deliberately shovelling the whole hoard into his trousers and waist-coat pockets. Bessie flung herself upon him. He gave her one business-like blow, which knocked her down against the bedroom door. The door yielded to her fall, and she lay there half stunned, the blood dripping from her temple. "Noa, I'll not take 'em all," he said, not even troubling to look where she had fallen. "That 'ud be playing it rayther too low down on old John. I'll leave 'im two—jest two—for luck." He buttoned up his coat tightly, then turned to throw a last glance at Bessie. He had always disliked his father's second wife, and his sense of triumph was boundless. "Oh! yer not hurt," he said; "yer shammin'. I advise yer to look sharp with shuttin' up. Father'll be up the hill in two or three minutes now. Sorry I can't 'elp yer, now yer've set me up so comfortabul. Bye-bye!" He ran down the stairs. She, as her senses revived, heard him open the back-door, cross the little garden, and jump the hedge at the end of it. Then she lay absolutely motionless, till suddenly there struck on her ear the distant sound of heavy steps. They roused her like a goad. She dragged herself to her feet, shut the box, had just time to throw it into the cupboard and lock the door, when she heard her husband walk into the kitchen. She crept into her own room, threw herself on the bed, and wrapped her head and eyes in an old shawl, shivering so that the mattresses shook. "Bessie, where are yer?" She did not answer. He made a sound of astonishment, and, finding no candle, took the lamp and mounted the stairs. They were covered with traces of muddy snow, and at the top he stooped to examine a spot upon the boards. It was blood; and his heart thumped in his breast. "Bessie, whatever is the matter?" For by this time he had perceived her on the bed. He put down the lamp and came to the bedside to look at her. "I've 'ad a fall," she said, faintly. "I tripped up over my skirt as I wor comin' up to look at Arthur. My head's all bleedin'. Get me some water from over there." His countenance fell sadly. But he got the water, exclaiming when he saw the wound. He bathed it clumsily, then tied a bit of rag round it, and made her head easy with the pillow. She did not speak, and he sat on beside her, looking at her pale face, and torn, as the silent minutes passed, between conflicting impulses. He had just passed an hour listening to a good man's plain narrative of a life spent for Christ, amid fever-swamps, and human beings more deadly still. The vicar's friend was a missionary bishop, and a High Churchman; Isaac, as a staunch Dissenter by conviction and inheritance, thought ill both of bishops and Ritualists. Nevertheless, he had been touched; he had been fired. Deep, though often perplexed, instincts in his own heart had responded to the spiritual passion of the speaker. The religious atmosphere had stolen about him, melting and subduing. And the first effect of it had been to quicken suddenly his domestic conscience; to make him think painfully of Bessie and the children as he climbed the hill. Was his wife going the way of his son? And he, sitting day after day like a dumb dog, instead of striving with her! He made up his mind hurriedly. "Bessie," he said, stooping to her and speaking in a strange voice, "Bessie, had yer been to Dawson's?" Dawson was the landlord of the Spotted Deer. Bessie was long in answering. At last she said, almost inaudibly— "Yes." She fully understood what he had meant by the question, and she wondered whether he would fall into one of his rages and beat her. Instead, his hand sought clumsily for hers. "Bessie, yer shouldn't; yer mustn't do it no more; it'll make a bad woman of yer. I know as I'm not good to live with; I don't make things pleasant to yer; but I've been thinkin'; I'll try if yo'll try." |
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