Janet marvelled at the absence of self-a.s.sertion--the touch of despair--in words and tone. So it had gone as deep as this! She blamed herself for lack of perception. An ordinary love-affair, about to end in an ordinary way--that was how it had appeared to her. And suddenly it seemed to her she had stumbled upon what might be tragedy.
No, no--there should be no tragedy! She put her arms round Rachel.
"My dear, he won"t give you up! As if I hadn"t seen! He worships the ground you tread upon!"
Rachel said nothing. She let her face rest on Janet"s shoulder. When she raised it, it was wet. But she kissed Janet quietly, and went away without another word.
VIII
Four grown-ups and a child were gathered in the living-room of Halsey"s cottage. The cottage was old like its tenant and had all the inconveniences of age; but it was more s.p.a.cious than the modern cottage often is, since it and its neighbours represented a surviving fragment from an old Jacobean house--a house of gentlefolks--which had once stood on the site. Most of the house had been pulled down, but Colonel Shepherd"s grandfather had retained part of it, and turned it into two cottages--known as 1 and 2 Ips...o...b.. Place--which for all their drawbacks were much in demand in the village, and conferred a certain distinction on their occupants. Mrs. Halsey"s living room possessed a Tudor mantelpiece in moulded brick, into which a small modern kitchener had been barbarously fitted; and three fine beams with a little incised ornament ran across the ceiling.
Mrs. Halsey had not long cleared away the tea, and brought in a paraffin lamp, small but cheerful. She was a middle-aged woman, much younger than her husband--with an ironic half-dreamy eye, and a native intelligence much superior to her surroundings. She was suffering from a chronic abscess in the neck, which had strange periodic swellings and subsidences, all of which were endlessly interesting to its possessor.
Mrs. Halsey, indeed, called the abscess "she," wrapped it lovingly in red flannel, describing the evening dressing of it as "putting her to bed,"
and talked of "her" qualities and oddities as though, in the phrase of her next-door neighbour, "it"d a been a christened child." She had decided views on politics, and was a match for any political agent who might approach her with an eye to her vote, a commodity which she kept, so to speak, like a new shilling in her pocket, turning it from time to time to make sure it was there.
But independent as she was, she rarely interfered with the talk of Halsey and his male friends. And on this occasion when the three men--Halsey, Peter Betts, and young Dempsey--had gathered smoking round the fire, she settled herself with her knitting by the table and the lamp, throwing in every now and then a muttered and generally sarcastic comment, of which her husband took no notice--especially as he knew very well that the sarcasms were never aimed at him, and that she was as proud of him as she was generally contemptuous of the rest of the world.
Halsey had just finished a rather grudging description of his experiences two days before for John Dempsey"s benefit. He was conscious that each time he repeated them, they sounded more incredible. He didn"t want to repeat them; he didn"t mean to repeat them; after this, n.o.body should get any more out of him at all.
Young Dempsey"s att.i.tude was certainly not encouraging. Attentive at first, he allowed himself, as Halsey"s talk developed, a mild, progressive grin, which spread gradually over his ugly but honest face, and remained there. In face of it, Halsey"s speech became more and more laconic, till at last he shut his mouth with a snap, and drawing himself up in his chair, re-lit his pipe with the expression that meant, "All right--I"ve done--you may take it or leave it."
"Well, I don"t see that what you saw, Mr. Halsey, was so very uncommon!"
Dempsey began, still smiling, in spite of a warning look from Betts.
"You saw a man come down that road? Well, in the first place, why shouldn"t a man come down that road--it"s a reg"lar right of way--"
"It"s the way, mind ye, as the ghost of old Watson has allus come!" put in Peter Betts, chivalrously anxious to support his friend Halsey, as far as he could, against a sceptical stranger. "An" it"s been seen twice on that road already, as I can remember: once when I was a little boy, by old Dan Holt, the postmaster, and once about ten years ago."
Dempsey looked at the speaker indulgently. To his sharpened transatlantic sense, these old men, in this funny old village, seemed to him a curiously dim and feeble folk. He could hardly prevent himself from talking to them as though they were children. He supposed his grandfather would have been like that if he"d stayed on at Ips...o...b... He thanked the stars he hadn"t!
But since he had been summoned to consult, as a person who had a vested interest, of a rather blood-curdling sort, in the Great End ghost, he had to give his opinion; and he gave it, while Halsey listened and smoked in a rather sulky silence. For it was soon evident that the murderer"s grandson had no use at all for the supposed ghost-story. He tore it ruthlessly to pieces. In the first place, Halsey described the man seen on the gra.s.s-road as tall and lanky. But according to his grandfather"s account, the murdered gamekeeper, on the contrary, was a broadly-built, stumpy man. In the next place--the coughing and the bleeding!--he laughed so long and loudly at these points in the story that Halsey"s still black bushy eyebrows met frowningly over a pair of angry eyes, and Betts tried hurriedly to tame the young man"s mirth.
"Well, if yer don"t think that man as Halsey saw _was_ the ghost, what do you s"pose "ee was doin" there?" asked Betts, "and where did he go?
Halsey went right round the farm. The hill just there is as bare as my hand. He must ha" seen the man--if it _wor_ a man--an" he saw nothin".
There isn"t a tree or a bush where that man could ha" hid hisself--if he _wor_ a man."
Dempsey declared he should have to go and examine the ground himself before he could answer the question. But of course there was an answer to it--there must be. As to the man--why Millsborough, and Ips...o...b.. too, had been full of outlandish East Enders, flying from the raids, Poles and Russians, and such like--thievin" fellows by all accounts. Why couldn"t it be one of them--prowling round the farm for anything he could pick up--and frightened off, when he saw Halsey?
Betts, smoking with prodigious energy, inquired what he made of the _blood_. Didn"t he know the old story of how Watson was tracked down to the cart-shed? Dempsey laughed again.
"Well, it"s curious, grant ye. It"s real funny! But where are you going to get blood without a body? And if a thing"s a body, it isn"t a ghost!"
The two old men were silent. Halsey was lost in a hopeless confusion of ideas, and Betts was determined not to give his pal away.
But here--say what you like!--was a strange man, seen, on the road, which had been used, according to village tradition, on several previous occasions, by the authentic ghost of Watson; his course was marked by traces of blood, just as Watson"s path of pain had been marked on the night of the murder; and on reaching the spot where Watson had breathed his last, the apparition, whatever it was, had vanished. Perplexity, superst.i.tion, and common sense fought each other. Halsey who knew much of his Bible by heart was inwardly comparing texts. "A spirit hath not flesh and blood"--True--but on the other hand what about the "bodies of the saints"--that "arose"? While, perhaps, the strongest motive of all in the old man"s mind was the obstinate desire to prove himself right, and so to confound young scoffers like Dempsey.
Dempsey, however, having as he thought disposed of Halsey"s foolish tale was determined to tell his own, which had already made a great impression in certain quarters of the village, and ranked indeed as the chief sensation of the day. To be able to listen to the story of a murder told by the grandson of the murderer, to whom the criminal himself had confessed it, and that without any fear of unpleasant consequences to any one, was a treat that Ips...o...b.. had seldom enjoyed, especially as the village was still rich in kinsfolk of both murdered and murderer.
Dempsey had already repeated the story so often that it was by now perfect in every detail, and it produced the same effect in this lamplit kitchen as in other. Halsey, forgetting his secret ill-humour, was presently listening open-mouthed. Mrs. Halsey laid down her knitting, and stared at the speaker over the top of her spectacles; while across Betts"s gnome-like countenance smiles went out and in, especially at the more gruesome points of the tale. The light sparkled on the young Canadian"s belt, the Maple Leaf in the khaki hat which lay across his knees, on the badge of the Forestry Corps on his shoulder. The old English cottage, with its Tudor brick-work, and its overhanging beams, the old English labourers with the stains of English soil upon them, made the setting; and in the midst, sat the "new man," from the New World, holding the stage, just as Ellesborough the New Englander was accustomed to hold it, at Great End Farm. All over England, all over unravaged France and northern Italy similar scenes at that moment were being thrown on the magic sheet of life; and at any drop in the talk, the observer could almost hear, in the stillness, the weaving of the Great Loom on which the Ages come and go.
There was a pause, when Dempsey came to a dramatic end with the last breath of his grandfather; till Mrs. Halsey said dryly, fixing the young man with her small beady eyes,--
"And you don"t mind telling on your own grandfather?"
"Why shouldn"t I?" laughed Dempsey, "when it"s sixty years ago. They"ve lost their chance of hanging him anyhow."
Mrs. Halsey shook her head in inarticulate protest. Betts said reflectively,--
"I wouldn"t advise you to be tellin" that tale to Miss Henderson."
Dempsey"s expression changed at the name. He bent forward eagerly.
"By the way, who is Miss Henderson? Do you know where she comes from?"
The others stared.
"Last winter," said Betts at last, "she wor on a farm down Devonshire way. And before that she wor at college--with Miss Janet."
"Was she ever in Canada?"
"Yes!" said Halsey with sudden decision, "she wor--for she told me one day when I wor mendin" the new reaper and binder, that we in this country didn"t know what harvest meant. "Why, I"ve helped to reap a field--in Canada," she ses, "fower miles square," she ses, "six teams o"
horses--an" six horses to the team," she ses--"that"s somethin" like." So I know she"s been in Canada."
"Ah!" said Dempsey, staring at the carpet. "And she"s not married? You"re sure she"s not married?"
"Married?" said all the others, looking at him in disapproving astonishment.
"Well, if she ain"t, I saw her sister--or her double--twice--about two-and-a-half year ago--at a place thirty miles from Winnipeg. I could ha" sworn I"d seen her before!"
"Well, you can"t ha" seen her before," said Betts positively; "cause she"s Miss, not Missis."
"Ah!" said Dempsey again in a non-committal voice, looking hard this time into the fire.
"Where have you seen her--in these parts?" asked Mrs. Halsey.
"At the Harvest Festival, t"other day. But I must have been mistaken--that"s all. I think I"m going to call upon her some day."
"Whatever for?"
"Why--to tell her about my grandfather!" said Dempsey, looking round at Mrs. Halsey, with an air of astonishment that any one should ask him the question.
"You won"t be welcome."
"Why not?"
"Because she don"t want to hear nothin" about Watson"s murder. And whatever"s the good on it, anyhow?" said Mrs. Halsey with sudden emphasis. "You"ve told us a good tale, I"ll grant ye. But yer might as well be pullin" the old feller "isself out of his grave, as goin" round killin" "im every night fresh, as you be doin". Let "im be. Skelintons is skelintons."