there was the letter. There was always a letter.
He walked forward, glanced at it, and handed it to Isaac. Isaac drew his hand across his brow in bewilderment, then seemed to recognise the handwriting, and thrust it into his pocket without a word. Watson touched his arm. "Don"t you destroy it," he said in warning; "it"ll be asked for at the inquest."
The men descended. Watson and the doctor departed. John and Isaac were left alone in the kitchen. Isaac hung over the fire, which had been piled up in the hope of restoring warmth to the drowned woman.
Suddenly he took out the letter and, bending his head to the blaze, began to read it.
"Isaac, yer a cruel husband to me, an" there"s no way fer me but the way I"m goin". I didn"t mean no "arm, not at first, but there, wot"s the good of talkin"? I can"t bear the way as you speaks to me an"
looks at me, an" I"ll never go to prison--no, never. It"s orful--fer the children ull "ave no mother, an" I don"t know however Arthur "ull manage. But yer woodent shew me no mercy, an" I can"t think of anythin" different. I did love yer an" the childer, but the drink got holt of me. Yer mus" see as Arthur is rapped up, an" Edie"s eyes "ull "ave to be seen to now an" agen. I"m sorry, but there"s nothin" else.
I wud like yer to kiss me onst, when they bring me in, and jes say, Bessie, I forgive yer. It won"t do yer no "arm, an" p"raps I may "ear it without your knowin". So good-bye, Isaac, from yur lovin" wife, Bessie. . . ."
As he read it, the man"s fixed pallor and iron calm gave way. He leant against the mantelpiece, shaken at last with the sobs of a human and a helpless remorse.
John, from his seat on the settle a few yards away, looked at Isaac miserably. His lips opened now and then as though to speak, then closed again. His brain could form no distinct image. He was encompa.s.sed by a general sense of desolation, springing from the loss of his money, which was pierced every now and then by a strange sense of guilt. It seemed to have something to do with Bessie, this last, though what he could not have told.
So they sat, till Mary Anne"s voice called "Isaac" from the top of the stairs.
Isaac stood up, drew one deep breath, controlled himself, and went, John following.
Mary Anne held the bedroom door open for them, and the two men entered, treading softly.
The women stood on either hand crying. They had clothed the dead in white and crossed her hands upon her breast. A linen covering had been pa.s.sed, nun-like, round the head and chin. The wound was hidden and the face lay framed in an oval of pure white, which gave it a strange severity.
Isaac bent over her. Was this _Bessie_--Bessie, the human, faulty, chattering creature--whom he, her natural master, had been free to scold or caress at will? At bottom he had always been conscious in regard to her of a silent but immeasurable superiority, whether as a mere man to mere woman, or as the Christian to the sinner.
Now--he dared scarcely touch her. As she lay in this new-found dignity, the proud peace of her look intimidated, accused him--would always accuse him till he too rested as she rested now, clad for the end. Yet she had bade him kiss her--and he obeyed her--groaning within himself, incapable altogether, out of sheer abas.e.m.e.nt, of saying those words she had asked of him.
Then he sat down beside her, motionless. John tried once or twice to speak to him, but Isaac shook his head impatiently. At last the mere presence of Bolderfield in the room seemed to anger him. He threw the old man such dark and restless looks that Mary Anne perceived them, and, with instinctive understanding, persuaded John to go.
She, however, must needs go with him, and she went. The other woman stayed. Every now and then she looked furtively at Isaac.
"If some one don"t look arter "im," she said to herself, ""ee"ll go as his father and his brothers went afore him. "Ee"s got the look on it awready. Wheniver it"s light I"ll go fetch Muster Drew."
With the first rays of the morning Bolderfield got up from the bed in Mary Anne"s cottage, where she had placed him a couple of hours before, imploring him to lie still and rest himself. He slipped on his coat, the only garment he had taken off, and, taking his stick, he crept down to the cottage door. Mary Anne, who had gone out to fetch some bread, had left it ajar. He opened it and stood on the threshold, looking out.
The storm of the night was over, and already a milder breeze was beginning to melt the newly-fallen snow. The sun was striking cheerfully from the hill behind him upon the glistening surfaces of the distant fields; the old labourer felt a hint of spring in the air. It brought with it a hundred vague a.s.sociations, and filled him with a boundless despair. What would become of him now--penniless and old and feeble? The horror of Bessie"s death no longer stood between him and his own pain, and would soon even cease to protect her from his hatred.
Mary Anne came back along the lane, carrying a jug and a loaf. Her little face was all blanched and drawn with weariness, yet, when she saw him, her look kindled. She ran up to him.
"What did yer come down for, John? I"d ha" taken yer yer breakfast in yer bed."
He looked at her, then at the food. His eyes filled with tears.
"I can"t pay yer for it," he said, pointing with his stick. "I can"t pay yer for it."
Mary Anne led him in, scolding and coaxing him with her gentle, trembling voice. She made him sit down while she blew up the fire; she fed and tended him. When she had forced him to eat something, she came behind him and laid her hand on his shoulder.
"John," she said, clearing her throat. "John, yer shan"t want while I"m livin". I promised Eliza I wouldn"t forget yer, and I won"t. I can work yet--there"s plenty o" people want me to work for "em--an"
maybe, when yer get over this, you"ll work a bit too now and again.
We"ll hold together, John--anyways. While I live and keep my "elth yer shan"t want. An" yer"ll forgive Bessie"--she broke into sudden sobbing. "Oh! I"ll never "ear a crule word about Bessie in my "ouse, _never_!"
John put his arms on the table and hid his face upon them. He could not speak of forgiveness, nor could he thank her for her promise. His chief feeling was an intense wish to sleep; but, as Mary Anne dried her tears and began to go about her household work, the sound of her step, the sense of her loving presence near him, began, for the first time, to relax the aching grip upon his heart. He had always been weak and dependent, in spite of his thrift and his money. He would be far more weak and dependent now and henceforward. But again, he had found a woman"s tenderness to lean upon, and, as she ministered to him--this humble, shrinking creature he had once so cordially despised--the first drop of balm fell upon his sore.
Meanwhile, in another cottage a few yards away, Mr. Drew was wrestling with Isaac. In his own opinion, he met with small success. The man who had refused his wife mercy shrank, with a kind of horror, from talking of the Divine mercy. Isaac Costrell"s was a strange and groping soul. But those misjudged him who called him a hypocrite.
Yet in truth, during the years that followed, whenever he was not under the influence of recurrent attacks of melancholia, Isaac did again derive much comfort from the aspirations and self-abas.e.m.e.nts of religion. No human life would be possible if there were not forces in and round man perpetually tending to repair the wounds and breaches that he himself makes. Misery provokes pity; despair throws itself on a Divine tenderness. And for those who have the "grace" of faith, in the broken and imperfect action of these healing powers upon this various world--in the love of the merciful for the unhappy, in the tremulous, yet undying, hope that pierces even sin and remorse with the vision of some ultimate salvation from the self that breeds them--in these powers there speaks the only voice which can make us patient under the tragedies of human fate, whether these tragedies be "the falls of princes" or such meaner, narrower pains as brought poor Bessie Costrell to her end.