The Story of Bessie Costrell.
by Mrs. Humphry Ward.
SCENE I
It was an August evening, still and cloudy after a day unusually chilly for the time of year. Now, about sunset, the temperature was warmer than it had been in the morning, and the departing sun was forcing its way through the clouds, breaking up their level ma.s.ses into delicate latticework of golds and greys. The last radiant light was on the wheat-fields under the hill, and on the long chalk hill itself. Against that glowing background lay the village, already engulfed by the advancing shadow. All the nearer trees, which the daylight had mingled in one green monotony, stood out sharp and distinct, each in its own plane, against the hill. Each natural object seemed to gain a new accent, a more individual beauty, from the vanishing and yet lingering sunlight.
An elderly labourer was walking along the road which led to the village.
To his right lay the allotment gardens just beginning to be alive with figures, and the voices of men and children. Beyond them, far ahead, rose the square tower of the church; to his left was the hill, and straight in front of him the village, with its veils of smoke lightly brushed over the trees, and its lines of cottages climbing the chalk steeps behind it.
His eye as he walked took in a number of such facts as life had trained it to notice. Once he stopped to bend over a fence, to pluck a stalk or two of oats; he examined them carefully, then he threw back his head and sniffed the air, looking all round the sky meanwhile. Yes, the season had been late and harsh, but the fine weather was coming at last. Two or three days" warmth now would ripen even the oats, let alone the wheat.
Well, he was glad. He wanted the harvest over. It would, perhaps, be his last harvest at Clinton Magna, where he had worked, man and boy, for fifty-six years come Michaelmas. His last harvest! A curious pleasure stirred the man"s veins as he thought of it, a pleasure in expected change, which seemed to bring back the pulse of youth, to loosen a little the yoke of those iron years that had perforce aged and bent him; though, for sixty-two, he was still hale and strong.
Things had all come together. Here was "Muster" Hill, the farmer he had worked for these seventeen years, dying of a sudden, with a carbuncle on the neck, and the farm to be given up at Michaelmas. He--John Bolderfield--had been working on for the widow; but, in his opinion, she was "n.o.bbut a caselty sort of body," and the sooner she and her children were taken off to Barnet, where they were to live with her mother, the less she"d cost them as had the looking after her. As for the crops, they wouldn"t pay the debts; not they. And there was no one after the farm--"nary one"--and didn"t seem like to be. That would make another farm on Muster Forrest"s hands. Well, and a good job. Landlords must be "took down"; and there was plenty of work going on the railway just now for those that were turned off.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Village of Aldbury_]
He was too old for the railway, though, and he might have found it hard to get fresh work if he had been staying at Clinton. But he was not staying. Poor Eliza wouldn"t last more than a few days; a week or two at most, and he was not going to keep on the cottage after he"d buried her.
Aye, poor Eliza! She was his sister-in-law, the widow of his second brother. He had been his brother"s lodger during the greater part of his working life, and since Tom"s death he had stayed on with Eliza. She and he suited each other, and the "worritin childer" had all gone away years since and left them in peace. He didn"t believe Eliza knew where any of them were, except Mary, "married over to Luton"--and Jim, and Jim"s Louisa. And a good riddance too. There was not one of them knew how to keep a shilling when they"d got one. Still, it was a bit lonesome for Eliza now, with no one but Jim"s Louisa to look after her.
He grew rather downhearted as he trudged along, thinking. She and he had stuck together "a many year." There would be n.o.body left for him to go along with when she was gone. There was his niece Bessie Costrell and her husband, and there was his silly old cousin Widow Waller. He dared say they"d both of them want him to live with them. At the thought a grin crossed his ruddy face. They both knew about _it_--that was what it was. And he wouldn"t live with either of them, not he. Not yet a bit, anyway. All the same, he had a fondness for Bessie and her husband.
Bessie was always very civil to _him_--he chuckled again--and if anything had to be done with _it_, while he was five miles off at Frampton on a job of work that had been offered him, he didn"t know but he"d as soon trust Isaac Costrell and Bessie as anybody else. You might call Isaac rather a fool, what with his religion, and "extempry prayin, an that," but all the same Bolderfield thought of him with a kind of uneasy awe. If ever there was a man secure of the next world it was Isaac Costrell. His temper, perhaps, was "na.s.sty," which might pull him down a little when the last account came to be made up; and it could not be said that his elder children had come to much, for all his piety.
But, on the whole, Bolderfield only wished he stood as well with the powers talked about in chapel every Sunday as Isaac did.
As for Bessie, she had been a wasteful woman all her life, with never a bit of money put by, and never a good dress to her back. But, "Lor bless yer, there was a many worse folk nor Bessie." She wasn"t one of your sour people--she could make you laugh; she had a merry heart. Many a pleasant evening had he pa.s.sed chatting with her and Isaac; and whenever they cooked anything good there was always a bite for him. Yes, Bessie had been a good niece to him; and if he trusted any one he dared say he"d trust them.
"Well, how"s Eliza, Muster Bolderfield?" said a woman who pa.s.sed him in the village street.
He replied, and then went his way, sobered again, dreading to find himself at the cottage once more, and in the stuffy upper room with the bed and the dying woman. Yet he was not really sad, not here at least, out in the air and the sun. There was always a thought in his mind, a fact in his consciousness, which stood between him and sadness. It had so stood for a long, long time. He walked through the village to-night in spite of Eliza and his sixty years with a free bearing and a confident glance to right and left. He knew, and the village knew, that he was not as other men.
He pa.s.sed the village green with its pond, and began to climb a lane leading to the hill. Halfway up stood two cottages sideways. Phloxes and marigolds grew untidily about their doorways, and straggly roses, starved a little by the chalk soil, looked in at their latticed windows.
They were, however, comparatively modern and comfortable, with two bedrooms above and two living-rooms below, far superior to the older and more picturesque cottages in the main street.
John went in softly, put down his straw dinner-bag, and took off his heavy boots. Then he opened a door in the wall of the kitchen, and gently climbed the stairs.
A girl was sitting by the bed. When she saw his whitish head and red face emerge against the darkness of the stairhole, she put up her finger for silence.
John crept in and came to look at the patient. His eyes grew round and staring, his colour changed.
"Is she a-goin?" he said, with evident excitement.
Jim"s Louisa shook her head. She was rather a stupid girl, heavy and round-faced, but she had nursed her grandmother well.
"No, she"s asleep. Muster Drew"s been here, and she dropped off while he was a-talkin to her."
Mr. Drew was the Congregational minister.
"Did she send for him?"
"Yes; she said she felt her feet a-gettin cold and I must run. But I don"t believe she"s no worse."
John stood looking down, ruefully.
Suddenly the figure in the bed turned.
"John," said a comparatively strong voice which made Bolderfield start, "John--Muster Drew says you"d oughter put it in the bank. You"ll be a fool if yer don"t, "ee says."
The old woman"s pinched face emerged from the sheets, looking up at him.
Bluish patches showed here and there on the drawn white skin; there was a great change since the morning, but the eyes were still alive.
John was silent a moment, one corner of his mouth twitching, as though what she had said struck him in a humorous light.
"Well, I don"t know as I mind much what "ee says, "Liza!"
"Sit down."
She made a movement with her emaciated hand. John sat down on the chair Louisa gave up to him, and bent down over the bed.
"If yer woan"t do--what Muster Drew says, John--whatever _wull_ yer do with it?"
She spoke slowly, but clearly. John scratched his head. His complexion had evidently been very fair. It was still fresh and pink, and the full cheek hung a little over the jaw. The mouth was shrewd, but its expression was oddly contradicted by the eyes, which had on the whole a childish, weak look.
"I think yer must leave it to me, "Liza," he said at last. "I"ll do all for the best."
"No--yer"ll not, John," said the dying voice. "You"d a done a many stupid things--if I "adn"t stopped yer. An I"m a-goin. You"ll never leave it wi Bessie?"
"An who "ud yer "ave me leave it with? Ain"t Bessie my own sister"s child?"
An emaciated hand stole out of the bedclothes and fastened feebly on his arm.
"If yer do, John, yer"ll repent it. Yer never were a good one at judgin folk. Yer doan"t consider nothin--an I"m a-goin. Leave it with Saunders, John."
There was a pause.
Then John said, with an obstinate look, "Saunders "as never been a friend o" mine, since "ee did me out o" that bit o" business with Missus Moulsey. An I don"t mean to go makin friends with him again."
Eliza withdrew her hand with a long sigh, and her eyelids closed. A fit of coughing shook her; she had to be lifted in bed, and it left her gasping and deathly. John was sorely troubled, and not only for himself.
When she was more at ease again, he stooped to her and put his mouth to her ear.
""Liza, don"t yer think no more about it. Did Mr. Drew read to yer? Are yer comfortable in yer mind?"
She made a sign of a.s.sent, which showed, however, no great interest in the subject. There was silence for a long time. Louisa was getting supper downstairs. John, oppressed by the heat of the room, and tired by his day"s work, had almost fallen asleep in his chair when the old woman spoke again.
"John--what "ud you think o" Mary Anne Waller!"
The whisper was still human and eager.