The White Peacock Part 10

"I set them against him, I have kept them from him, and he wanted them.

I ought to be by him now-I ought to have taken you to him long ago."

"But how could you, when you knew nothing of him?"

"He would have come-he wanted to come-I have felt it for years. But I kept him away. I know I have kept him away. I have felt it, and he has.

Poor Frank-he'll see his mistakes now. He would not have been as cruel as I have been--"

"Nay, mother, it is only the shock that makes you say so."

"This makes me know. I have felt in myself a long time that he was suffering; I have had the feeling of him in me. I knew, yes, I did know he wanted me, and you, I felt it. I have had the feeling of him upon me this last three months especially ... I have been cruel to him."

"Well-we'll go to him now, shall we?" I said.

"To-morrow-to-morrow," she replied, noticing me really for the first time. "I go in the morning."

"And I'll go with you."

"Yes-in the morning. Lettie has her party to Chatsworth-don't tell her-we won't tell her."

"No," said I.

Shortly after, my mother went upstairs. Lettie came in rather late from Highclose; Leslie did not come in. In the morning they were going with a motor party into Matloch and Chatsworth, and she was excited, and did not observe anything.

After all, mother and I could not set out until the warm tempered afternoon. The air was full of a soft yellowness when we stepped down from the train at Cossethay. My mother insisted on walking the long two miles to the village. We went slowly along the road, lingering over the little red flowers in the high hedge-bottom up the hillside. We were reluctant to come to our destination. As we came in sight of the little grey tower of the church, we heard the sound of braying, bra.s.sy music.

Before us, filling a little croft, the Wakes was in full swing.

Some wooden horses careered gaily round, and the swingboats leaped into the mild blue sky. We sat upon the stile, my mother and I, and watched.

There were booths, and cocoanut s.h.i.+es and round-abouts scattered in the small field. Groups of children moved quietly from attraction to attraction. A deeply tanned man came across the field swinging two dripping buckets of water. Women looked from the doors of their brilliant caravans, and lean dogs rose lazily and settled down again under the steps. The fair moved slowly, for all its noise. A stout lady, with a husky masculine voice invited the excited children into her peep show. A swarthy man stood with his thin legs astride on the platform of the roundabouts, and sloping backwards, his mouth distended with a row of fingers, he whistled astonis.h.i.+ngly to the coa.r.s.e row of the organ, and his whistling sounded clear, like the flight of a wild goose high over the chimney tops, as he was carried round and round. A little fat man with an ugly swelling on his chest stood screaming from a filthy booth to a crowd of urchins, bidding them challenge a big, stolid young man who stood with folded arms, his fists pus.h.i.+ng out his biceps. On being asked if he would undertake any of these prospective challenges, this young man nodded, not having yet attained a talking stage:-yes he would take two at a time, screamed the little fat man with the big excrescence on his chest, pointing at the cowering lads and girls.

Further off, Punch's quaint voice could be heard when the cocoanut man ceased grinding out screeches from his rattle. The cocoanut man was wroth, for these youngsters would not risk a penny shy, and the rattle yelled like a fiend. A little girl came along to look at us, daintily licking an ice-cream sandwich. We were uninteresting, however, so she pa.s.sed on to stare at the caravans.

We had almost gathered courage to cross the wakes, when the cracked bell of the church sent its note falling over the babble.

"One-two-three"-had it really sounded three! Then it rang on a lower bell-"One-two-three." A pa.s.sing bell for a man! I looked at my mother-she turned away from me.

The organ flared on-the husky woman came forward to make another appeal. Then there was a lull. The man with the lump on his chest had gone inside the rag to spar with the solid fellow. The cocoanut man had gone to the "Three Tunns" in fury, and a brazen girl of seventeen or so was in charge of the nuts. The horses careered round, carrying two frightened boys.

Suddenly the quick, throbbing note of the low bell struck again through the din. I listened-but could not keep count. One, two, three, four-for the third time that great lad had determined to go on the horses, and they had started while his foot was on the step, and he had been foiled-eight, nine, ten-no wonder that whistling man had such a big Adam's apple-I wondered if it hurt his neck when he talked, being so pointed-nineteen, twenty-the girl was licking more ice-cream, with precious, tiny licks-twenty-five, twenty-six-I wondered if I did count to twenty-six mechanically. At this point I gave it up, and watched for Lord Tennyson's bald head to come spinning round on the painted rim of the round-abouts, followed by a red-faced Lord Roberts, and a villainous looking Disraeli.

"Fifty-one--" said my mother. "Come-come along."

We hurried through the fair, towards the church; towards a garden where the last red sentinels looked out from the top of the holly-hock spires.

The garden was a tousled ma.s.s of faded pink chrysanthemums, and weak-eyed Michaelmas daisies, and spectre stalks of holly-hock. It belonged to a low, dark house, which crouched behind a screen of yews.

We walked along to the front. The blinds were down, and in one room we could see the stale light of candles burning.

"Is this Yew Cottage?" asked my mother of a curious lad.

"It's Mrs. May's," replied the boy.

"Does she live alone?" I asked.

"She 'ad French Carlin-but he's dead-an she's letten th' candles ter keep th' owd lad off'n 'im."

We went to the house and knocked.

"An ye come about him?" hoa.r.s.ely whispered a bent old woman, looking up with very blue eyes, nodding her old head with its velvet net significantly towards the inner room.

"Yes--" said my mother, "we had a letter."

"Ay, poor fellow-he's gone, missis," and the old lady shook her head.

Then she looked at us curiously, leaned forward, and, putting her withered old hand on my mother's arm, her hand with its dark blue veins, she whispered in confidence, "and the candles 'as gone out twice. 'E wor a funny feller, very funny!"

"I must come in and settle things-I am his nearest relative," said my mother, trembling.

"Yes-I must 'a dozed, for when I looked up, it wor black darkness.

Missis, I dursn't sit up wi' 'im no more, an' many a one I've laid out.

Eh, but his sufferin's, Missis-poor feller-eh, Missis!"-she lifted her ancient hands, and looked up at my mother, with her eyes so intensely blue.

"Do you know where he kept his papers?" asked my mother.

"Yis, I axed Father Burns about it; he said we mun pray for 'im. I bought him candles out o' my own pocket. He wor a rum feller, he wor!"

and again she shook her grey head mournfully. My mother took a step forward.

"Did ye want to see 'im?" asked the old woman with half timid questioning.

"Yes," replied my mother, with a vigorous nod. She perceived now that the old lady was deaf.

We followed the woman into the kitchen, a long, low room, dark, with drawn blinds.

"Sit ye down," said the old lady in the same low tone, as if she were speaking to herself:

"Ye are his sister, 'appen?"

My mother shook her head.

"Oh-his brother's wife!" persisted the old lady.

We shook our heads.

"Only a cousin?" she guessed, and looked at us appealingly. I nodded a.s.sent.

"Sit ye there a minute," she said, and trotted off. She banged the door, and jarred a chair as she went. When she returned, she set down a bottle and two gla.s.ses with a thump on the table in front of us. Her thin, skinny wrist seemed hardly capable of carrying the bottle.

"It's one as he'd only just begun of-'ave a drop to keep ye up-do now, poor thing," she said, pus.h.i.+ng the bottle to my mother and hurrying off, returning with the sugar and the kettle. We refused.

"'E won't want it no more, poor feller-an it's good, Missis, he allers drank it good. Ay-an' 'e 'adn't a drop the last three days, poor man, poor feller, not a drop. Come now, it'll stay ye, come now." We refused.

"'T's in there," she whispered, pointing to a closed door in a dark corner of the gloomy kitchen. I stumbled up a little step, and went plunging against a rickety table on which was a candle in a tall bra.s.s candlestick. Over went the candle, and it rolled on the floor, and the bra.s.s holder fell with much clanging.

"Eh!-Eh! Dear-Lord, Dear-Heart. Dear-Heart!" wailed the old woman.