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+Project Gutenberg's The Story of Bessie Costrell., by Mrs. Humphry Ward
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Story of Bessie Costrell.
+
+Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward
+
+Release Date: April 27, 2004 [EBook #12181]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF BESSIE COSTRELL. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Carol David and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WRITINGS OF
+
+MRS HUMPHRY WARD
+
+
+
+FENWICK'S CAREER
+AND
+THE STORY OF BESSIE COSTRELL
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: [[Latin inscription: TOVT BIEN OV BIEN]]]
+
+
+BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+MDCCCCX
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1895, 1905, 1906, BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+STORY OF BESSIE COSTRELL
+
+
+
+
+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 masses 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 'nobbut 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.
+
+[Illustration: _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 nobody 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 'nassty,' 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 passed 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 passed 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 passed 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 assent, 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.
+
+John roused himself, and could not help an astonished laugh.
+
+'Why, whatever put Mary Anne into your head, 'Liza? Yer never thought
+anythink o' Mary Anne--no more than me.'
+
+Eliza's eyes wandered round the room.
+
+'P'raps--' she said, then stopped, and could say no more. She seemed to
+become unconscious, and John went to call for Louisa.
+
+In the middle of the night John woke with a start, and sat up to listen.
+Not a sound--but they would have called him if the end had come. He
+could not rest, however, and presently he huddled on some clothes and
+went to listen at Eliza's door. It was ajar, and hearing nothing he
+pushed it open.
+
+Poor Eliza lay in her agony, unconscious, and breathing heavily. Beside
+her sat the widow, Mary Anne Waller, and Louisa, motionless too, their
+heads bent. There was an end of candle in a basin behind the bed, which
+threw circles of wavering light over the coarse whitewash of the roof
+and on the cards and faded photographs above the tiny mantelpiece.
+
+John crept up to the bed. The two women made a slight movement to let
+him stand between them.
+
+'Can't yer give her no brandy?' he asked, whispering.
+
+Mary Anne Waller shook her head.
+
+'Dr. Murch said we wern't to trouble her. She'll go when the light
+comes--most like.'
+
+She was a little shrivelled woman with a singularly delicate mouth, that
+quivered as she spoke. John and Eliza Bolderfield had never thought much
+of her, though she was John's cousin. She was a widow, and greatly 'put
+upon' both by her children and her neighbours. Her children were grown
+up, and settled--more or less--in the world, but they still lived on her
+freely whenever it suited them; and in the village generally she was
+reckoned but a poor creature.
+
+However, when Eliza--originally a hard, strong woman--took to her bed
+with incurable disease, Mary Anne Waller came in to help, and was
+accepted. She did everything humbly; she even let Louisa order her
+about. But before the end, Eliza had come to be restless when she was
+not there.
+
+Now, however, Eliza knew no more, and the little widow sat gazing at her
+with the tears on her cheeks. John, too, felt his eyes wet. But after
+half an hour, when there was still no change, he was turning away to go
+back to bed, when the widow touched his arm.
+
+'Won't yer give her a kiss, John?' she said, timidly. 'She wor a good
+sister to you.'
+
+John, with a tremor, stooped, and clumsily did as he was told--the first
+time in his life he had ever done so for Mary Anne. Then, stepping as
+noiselessly as he could on his bare feet, he hurried away. A man shares
+nothing of that yearning attraction which draws women to a death-bed as
+such. Instead, John felt a sudden sickness at his heart. He was thankful
+to find himself in his own room again, and thought with dread of having
+to go back--for the end. In spite of his still vigorous and stalwart
+body he was often plagued with nervous fears and fancies. And it was
+years now since he had seen death--he had indeed carefully avoided
+seeing it.
+
+Gradually, however, as he sat on the edge of his bed in the summer dark,
+the new impression died away, and something habitual took its place--
+that shielding, solacing thought, which was in truth all the world to
+him, and was going to make up to him for Eliza's death, for getting old,
+and the lonesomeness of a man without chick or child. He would have felt
+unutterably forlorn and miserable, he would have shrunk trembling from
+the shapes of death and pain that seemed to fill the darkness, but for
+this fact, this defence, this treasure, that set him apart from his
+fellows and gave him this proud sense of superiority, of a good time
+coming in spite of all. Instinctively, as he sat on the bed, he pushed
+his bare foot backwards till his heel touched a wooden object that stood
+underneath. The contact cheered him at once. He ceased to think about
+Eliza, his head was once more full of whirling plans and schemes.
+
+The wooden object was a box that held his money, the savings of a
+labourer's lifetime. Seventy-one pounds! It seemed to him an ocean of
+gold, never to be exhausted. The long toil of saving it was almost done.
+After the Frampton job, he would begin enjoying it, cautiously at first,
+taking a bit of work now and again, and then a bit of holiday.
+
+All the savour of life was connected for him with that box. His mind ran
+over the constant excitements of the many small loans he had made from
+it to his relations and friends. A shilling in the pound interest--he
+had never taken less and he had never asked more. He had only lent to
+people he knew well, people in the village whom he could look after, and
+seldom for a term longer than three months, for to be parted from his
+money at all gave him physical pain. He had once suffered great anxiety
+over a loan to his eldest brother of thirty pounds. But in the end James
+had paid it all back. He could still feel tingling through him the
+passionate joy with which he had counted out the recovered sovereigns,
+with the extra three half-sovereigns of interest.
+
+Muster Drew indeed! John fell into an angry inward argument against his
+suggestion of the savings-bank. It was an argument he had often
+rehearsed, often declaimed, and at bottom it all came to this--without
+that box under his bed, his life would have sunk to dulness and
+decrepitude; he would have been merely a pitiful and lonely old man. He
+had neither wife nor children, all for the hoard's sake; but while the
+hoard was there, to be handled any hour, he regretted nothing. Besides,
+there was the peasant's rooted distrust of offices, and paper
+transactions, of any routine that checks his free will and frightens his
+inexperience. He was still eagerly thinking when the light began to
+flood into his room, and before he could compose himself to sleep the
+women called him.
+
+But he shed no more tears. He saw Eliza die, his companion of forty
+years, and hardly felt it. What troubled him all through the last scene
+was the thought that now he should never know why she was so set against
+'Bessie's 'avin it.'
+
+
+
+
+SCENE II
+
+It was, indeed, the general opinion in Clinton Magna that John
+Bolderfield--or 'Borrofull,' as the village pronounced it, took his
+sister-in-law's death too lightly. The women especially pronounced him a
+hard heart. Here was 'poor Eliza' gone, Eliza who had kept him decent
+and comfortable for forty years, ever since he was a lad, and he could
+go about whistling, and--to talk to him--as gay as a lark! Yet John
+contributed handsomely to the burial expenses--Eliza having already,
+through her burial club, provided herself with a more than regulation
+interment; and he gave Jim's Louisa her mourning. Nevertheless these
+things did not avail. It was felt instinctively that he was not beaten
+down as he ought to have been, and Mrs. Saunders, the smith's wife, was
+applauded when she said to her neighbours that 'you couldn't expeck a
+man with John Bolderfield's money to have as many feelins as other
+people.' Whence it would seem that the capitalist is no more truly
+popular in small societies than in large.
+
+John, however, did not trouble himself about these things. He was hard
+at work harvesting for Muster Hill's widow, and puzzling his head day
+and night as to what to do with his box.
+
+When the last field had been carried and the harvest supper was over, he
+came home late, and wearied out. His working life at Clinton Magna was
+done; and the family he had worked for so long was broken up in distress
+and poverty. Yet he felt only a secret exultation. Such toil and effort
+behind--such a dreamland in front!
+
+Next day he set to work to wind up his affairs. The furniture of the
+cottage was left to Eliza's son Jim, and the daughter had arranged for
+the carting of it to the house twelve miles off where her parents lived.
+She was to go with it on the morrow, and John would give up the cottage
+and walk over to Frampton, where he had already secured a lodging.
+
+Only twenty-four hours!--and he had not yet decided. Which was it to be
+--Saunders after all--or the savings-bank--or Bessie?
+
+He was cording up his various possessions--a medley lot--indifferent
+parcels and bundles, when Bessie Costrell knocked at the door. She had
+already offered to stow away anything he might like to leave with her.
+
+'Well, I thought you'd be busy,' she said as she walked in, 'an I came
+up to lend a hand. Is them the things you're goin to leave me to take
+care on?'
+
+John nodded.
+
+'Field's cart, as takes Louisa's things to-morrer, is a-goin to deliver
+these at your place first. They're more nor I thought they would be. But
+you can put 'em anywheres.'
+
+'Oh, I'll see to 'em.'
+
+She sat down and watched him tie the knots of the last parcel.
+
+'There's some people as is real ill-natured,' she said presently, in an
+angry voice.
+
+'Aye?' said John, looking up sharply. 'What are they sayin now?'
+
+'It's Muster Saunders. 'Ee's allus sayin nassty things about other
+folks. And there'd be plenty of fault to be found with 'im, if onybody
+was to try. An Sally Saunders eggs him on dreadful.'
+
+Saunders was the village smith, a tall, brawny man, of great size and
+corresponding wisdom, who had been the village arbiter and general
+councillor for a generation. There was not a will made in Clinton Magna
+that he did not advise upon; not a bit of contentious business that he
+had not a share in; not a family history that he did not know. His
+probity was undisputed; his ability was regarded with awe; but as he had
+a sharp tongue and was no respecter of persons, there was of course an
+opposition.
+
+John took a seat on the wooden box he had just been cording, and mopped
+his brow. His full cheeks were crimson, partly with exertion, partly
+with sudden annoyance.
+
+'What's 'ee been sayin now? Though it doan't matter a brass farthin to
+me what 'ee says.'
+
+'He says you 'aven't got no proper feelins about poor Eliza, and you'd
+ought to have done a great deal more for Louisa. But 'ee says you allus
+were a mean one with your money--an you knew that '_ee_ knew it--for 'ee
+'d stopped you takin an unfair advantage more nor once. An 'ee didn't
+believe as your money would come to any good; for now Eliza was gone you
+wouldn't know how to take care on it.'
+
+John's eyes flamed. 'Oh! 'ee says that, do 'ee? Well Saunders wor allus
+a beast--an a beast 'ee'll be.'
+
+He sat with his chin on his large dirty hands, ruminating furiously.
+
+It was quite true that Saunders had thwarted him more than once. There
+was old Mrs. Moulsey at the shop, when she wanted to buy those cottages
+in Potter's Row--and there was Sam Field the higgler--both of them would
+have borrowed from him if Saunders hadn't cooled them off. Saunders said
+it was a Jew's interest he was asking--because there was security--but
+he wasn't going to accept a farthing less than his shilling a pound for
+three months--not he! So they might take it or leave it. And Mrs.
+Moulsey got hers from the Building Society, and Sam Field made shift to
+go without. And John Bolderfield was three pounds poorer that quarter
+than he need have been--all along of Saunders. And now Saunders was
+talking 'agen him' like this--blast him!
+
+'Oh, an then he went on'--pursued Bessie with gusto--'about your bein
+too ignorant to put it in the post-office. 'Ee said you'd think Edwards
+would go an spend it' (Edwards was the postmaster), 'an then he laughed
+fit to split 'imself. Yer couldn't see more nor the length of your own
+nose he said--it was edication _you_ wanted. As for 'im, 'ee said, 'ee'd
+have kep it for you if you'd asked him, but you'd been like a bear with
+a sore 'ead, 'ee said ever since Mrs. Moulsey's affair--so 'ee didn't
+suppose you would.'
+
+'Well, 'ee's about right there,' said John, grimly; ''ee's talkin sense
+for onst when 'ee says that. I'd dig a hole in the hill and bury it
+sooner nor I'd trust it to 'im--I would, by--' he swore vigorously. 'A
+thieving set of magpies is all them Saunders--cadgin 'ere and cadgin
+there.'
+
+He spoke with fierce contempt, the tacit hatred of years leaping to
+sight. Bessie's bright brown eyes looked at him with sympathy.
+
+'It was just his nassty spite,' she said. 'He knew '_ee_ could never ha
+done it--not what you've done--out o' your wages. Not unless 'ee got
+Sally to tie 'im to the dresser with ropes so as 'ee couldn't go a-near
+the "Spotted Deer" no more!'
+
+She laughed like a merry child at her own witticism, and John relished
+it too, though he was not in a laughing mood.
+
+'Why'--continued Bessie with enthusiasm, 'it was Muster Drew as said to
+me the other afternoon, as we was walkin 'ome from the churchyard, says
+'ee, "Mrs. Costrell, I call it splendid what John's done--I _do_," 'ee
+says. "A labourer on fifteen shillins a week--why it's an example to the
+country," 'ee says. "'Ee ought to be showed."'
+
+John's face relaxed. The temper and obstinacy in the eyes began to yield
+to the weak complacency which was their more normal expression.
+
+There was silence for a minute or two. Bessie sat with her hands on her
+lap and her face turned towards the open door. Beyond the cherry-red
+phloxes outside it, the ground fell rapidly to the village, rising again
+beyond the houses to a great stubble field, newly shorn. Gleaners were
+already in the field, their bent figures casting sharp shadows on the
+golden upland, and the field itself stretched upwards to a great wood
+that lay folded round the top of a spreading hill. To the left, beyond
+the hill, a wide plain travelled into the sunset, its level spaces cut
+by the scrawled elms and hedgerows of the nearer landscape. The beauty
+of it all--the beauty of an English Midland--was of a modest and
+measured sort, depending chiefly on bounties of sun and air, on the
+delicacies of gentle curves and the pleasant intermingling of wood and
+cornfield, of light spaces with dark, of solid earth with luminous sky.
+
+Such as it was, however, neither Bessie nor John spared it a moment's
+attention. Bessie was thinking a hundred busy thoughts. John, on the
+other hand, had begun to consider her with an excited scrutiny. She was
+a handsome woman, as she sat in the doorway with her fine brown head
+turned to the light. But John naturally was not thinking of that. He was
+in the throes of decision.
+
+'Look 'ere, Bessie,' he said suddenly; 'what 'ud you say if I wor to ask
+Isaac an you to take care on it?'
+
+Bessie started slightly. Then she looked frankly round at him. She had
+very keen, lively eyes, and a bright red-brown colour on thin cheeks.
+The village applied to her the epithet which John's thoughts had applied
+to Muster Hill's widow. They said she was 'caselty,' which means
+flighty, haphazard, excitable; but she was popular, nevertheless, and
+had many friends.
+
+It was, of course, her own settled opinion that her uncle ought to leave
+that box with her and Isaac; and it had wounded her vanity, and her
+affection besides, that John had never yet made any such proposal,
+though she knew--as, indeed, the village knew--that he was perplexed as
+to what to do with his hoard. But she had never dared to suggest that he
+should leave it with her, out of fear of Eliza Bolderfield. Bessie was
+well aware that Eliza thought ill of her and would dissuade John from
+any such arrangement if she could. And so formidable was Eliza--a woman
+of the hardest and sourest virtue--when she chose, that Bessie was
+afraid of her, even on her death-bed, though generally ready enough to
+quarrel with other people. Nevertheless, Bessie had always felt that it
+would be a crying shame and slight if she and Isaac did not have the
+guardianship of the money. She thirsted, perhaps, to make an impression
+upon public opinion in the village, which, as she instinctively
+realised, held her cheaply. And then, of course, there was the secret
+thought of John's death and what might come of it. John had always
+loudly proclaimed that he meant to spend his money, and not leave it
+behind him. But the instinct of saving, once formed, is strong. John,
+too, might die sooner than he thought--and she and Isaac had children.
+
+She had come up, indeed, that afternoon, haunted by a passionate desire
+to get the money into her hands; yet the mere sordidness of
+'expectations' counted for less in the matter than one would suppose.
+Vanity, a vague wish to ingratiate herself with her uncle, to avoid a
+slight--these were, on the whole, her strongest motives. At any rate,
+when he had once asked her the momentous question, she knew well what to
+say to him.
+
+'Well, if you arst me,' she said hastily, 'of course _we_ think as it's
+only nateral you should leave it with Isaac an me, as is your own kith
+and kin. But we wasn't goin to say nothin; we didn't want to be pushin
+of ourselves forward.'
+
+John rose to his feet. He was in his shirt-sleeves, which were rolled
+up. He pulled them down, put on his coat, an air of crisis on his fat
+face.
+
+'Where 'ud you put it?' he said.
+
+'Yer know that cupboard by the top of the stairs? It 'ud stand there
+easy. And the cupboard's got a good lock to it; but we'd 'ave it seen
+to, to make sure.'
+
+She looked up at him eagerly. She longed to feel herself trusted and
+important. Her self-love was too often mortified in these respects.
+
+John fumbled round his neck for the bit of black cord on which he kept
+two keys--the key of his room while he was away, and the key of the box
+itself.
+
+'Well, let's get done with it,' he said. 'I'm off to-morrer mornin, six
+o'clock. You go and get Isaac to come down.'
+
+'I'll run,' said Bessie, catching up her shawl and throwing it over her
+head. 'He wor just finishin his tea.'
+
+And she whirled out of the cottage, running up the steep road behind it
+as fast as she could. John was vaguely displeased by her excitement; but
+the die was cast. He went to make his arrangements.
+
+Bessie ran till she was out of breath. When she reached her own house, a
+cottage in a side lane above the Bolderfields' cottage and overlooking
+it from the back, she found her husband sitting with his pipe at the
+open door and reading his newspaper. Three out of her own four children
+were playing in the lane, otherwise there was no one about.
+
+Isaac greeted her with a nod and slight lightening of the eyes, which,
+however, hardly disturbed the habitual sombreness of the face. He was a
+dark, finely featured man, with grizzled hair, carrying himself with an
+air of sleepy melancholy. He was much older than his wife, and was a
+prominent leader in the little Independent chapel of the village. His
+melancholy could give way on occasion to fits of violent temper. For
+instance, he had been almost beside himself when Bessie, who had
+leanings to the Establishment, as providing a far more crowded and
+entertaining place of resort on Sundays than her husband's chapel, had
+rashly proposed to have the youngest baby christened in church. Other
+Independents did it freely--why not she? But Isaac had been nearly mad
+with wrath, and Bessie had fled upstairs from him, with her baby, and
+bolted the bedroom door in bodily terror. Otherwise, he was a most
+docile husband--in the neighbours' opinion, docile to absurdity. He
+complained of nothing, and took notice of little. Bessie's untidy ways
+left him indifferent; his main interest was in a kind of religious
+dreaming, and in an Independent paper to which he occasionally wrote a
+letter. He was gardener at a small house on the hill, and had rather
+more education than most of his fellows in the village. For the rest he
+was fond of his children, and, in his heart of hearts, exceedingly proud
+of his wife, her liveliness and her good looks. She had been a
+remarkably pretty girl when he married her, some eight years after his
+first wife's death, and there was a great difference of age between
+them. His two elder children by his first marriage had long since left
+the home. The girl was in service. It troubled him to think of the boy,
+who had fallen into bad ways early. Bessie's children were all small,
+and she herself still young, though over thirty.
+
+When Bessie came up to him, she looked round to see that no one could
+hear. Then she stooped and told him her errand in a panting whisper. He
+must go down and fetch the box at once. She had promised John Borrofull
+that they would stand by him. They were his own flesh and blood--and the
+cupboard had a capital lock--and there wasn't no fear of it at all.
+
+Isaac listened to her at first with amazement, then sulkily. She had
+talked to him often certainly about John's money, but it had made little
+impression on his dreamer's sense. And now her demand struck him
+disagreeably.
+
+He didn't want the worrit of other people's money, he said. Let them as
+owned it keep it; filthy lucre was a snare to all as had to do with it;
+and it would only bring a mischief to have it in the house.
+
+After a few more of these objections, Bessie lost her temper. She broke
+into a torrent of angry arguments and reproaches, mainly turning, it
+seemed, upon a recent visit to the house of Isaac's eldest son. The
+drunken ne'er do weel had given Bessie much to put up with. Oh, yes!--
+_she_ was to be plagued out of her life by Isaac's belongings, and he
+wouldn't do a pin's worth for her. Just let him see next time, that was
+all.
+
+Isaac smoked vigorously through it all. But she was hammering on a sore
+point.
+
+'Oh, it's just like yer!' Bessie flung at him at last in desperation.
+'You're allus the same--a mean-spirited feller, stannin in your
+children's way! 'Ow do _you_ know who old John's goin to leave his money
+to? 'Ow do _you_ know as he wouldn't leave it to _them_ poor
+innercents'--she waved her hand tragically towards the children playing
+in the road--'if we was just a bit nice and friendly with him now 'ee's
+gettin old? But you don't care, not you!--one 'ud think yer were made o'
+money--an that little un there not got the right use of his legs!'
+
+She pointed, half-crying, to the second boy, who had already shown signs
+of hip disease.
+
+Isaac still smoked, but he was troubled in his mind. A vague
+presentiment held him, but the pressure brought to bear upon him was
+strong.
+
+'I tell yer the lock isn't a good un!' he said, suddenly removing his
+pipe.
+
+Bessie stopped instantly in the middle of another tirade. She was
+leaning against the door, arms akimbo, eyes alternately wet and flaming.
+
+'Then, if it isn't,' she said, with a triumphant change of tone,' I'll
+soon get Flack to see to it--it's nobbut a step. I'll run up after
+supper.'
+
+Flack was the village carpenter.
+
+'An there's mother's old box as takes up the cupboard,' continued Isaac,
+gruffly.
+
+Bessie burst out laughing.
+
+'Oh! yer old silly,' she said. 'As if they couldn't stand one top o'
+t'other. Now, do just go, Isaac--there's a lovey! 'Ee's waitin for yer.
+Whatever did make yer so contrairy? Of course I didn't mean nothin I
+said--an I don't mind Timothy, nor nothin.'
+
+Still he did not move.
+
+'Then I s'pose yer want everybody in the village to know?' he said, with
+sarcasm.
+
+Bessie was taken aback.
+
+'No--I--don't'--she said, undecidedly--'I don't know what yer mean.'
+
+'You go back and tell John as I'll come when it's dark, an, if he's not
+a stupid, he won't want me to come afore.'
+
+Bessie understood and acquiesced. She ran back with her message to John.
+
+At half-past eight, when it had grown almost dark, Isaac descended the
+hill. John opened the door to his knock.
+
+'Good-evenin, Isaac. Yer'll take it, will yer?'
+
+'If you can't do nothin better with it,' said Isaac, unwillingly. 'But
+in gineral I'm not partial on keeping other folks' money.'
+
+John liked him all the better for his reluctance.
+
+'It'll give yer no trouble,' he said. 'You lock it up, an it'll be all
+safe. Now, will yer lend a hand?'
+
+Isaac stepped to the door, looked up the lane, and saw that all was
+quiet. Then he came back, and the two men raised the box.
+
+As they crossed the threshold, however, the door of the next cottage--
+which belonged to Watson the policeman--opened suddenly. John, in his
+excitement, was so startled that he almost dropped his end of the box.
+
+'Why, Bolderfield,' said Watson's cheery voice, 'what have you got
+there? Do you want a hand?'
+
+'No, I don't--thank yer kindly,' said John, in agitation. 'An, if _you_
+please, Muster Watson, don't yer say nothin to nobody.'
+
+The burly policeman looked from John to Isaac, then at the box. John's
+hoard was notorious, and the officer of the law understood.
+
+'Lor bless yer,' he said, with a laugh, 'I'm safe. Well, good evenin to
+yer, if I can't be of any assistance.'
+
+And he went off on his beat.
+
+The two men carried the box up the hill. It was in itself a heavy,
+old-fashioned affair, strengthened and bottomed with iron. Isaac
+wondered whether the weight of it were due more to the box or to the
+money. But he said nothing. He had no idea how much John might have
+saved, and would not have asked him the direct question for the world.
+John's own way of talking about his wealth was curiously contradictory.
+His 'money' was rarely out of his thoughts or speech, but no one had
+ever been privileged for many years now to see the inside of his box,
+except Eliza once; and no one but himself knew the exact amount of the
+hoard. It delighted him that the village gossips should double or treble
+it. Their estimates only gave him the more ground for vague boasting,
+and he would not have said a word to put them right.
+
+When they reached the Costrells' cottage, John's first care was to
+examine the cupboard. He saw that the large wooden chest filled with
+odds and ends of rubbish which already stood there was placed on the top
+of his own box. Then he tried the lock, and pronounced it adequate; he
+didn't want to have Flack meddling round. Now at the moment of parting
+with his treasure he was seized with a sudden fever of secrecy. Bessie
+meanwhile hovered about the two men, full of excitement and loquacity.
+And the children, shut into the kitchen, wondered what could be the
+matter.
+
+When all was done, Isaac locked the cupboard, and solemnly presented the
+key to John, who added it to the other round his neck. Then Bessie
+unlocked the kitchen, and set the children flying, to help her with the
+supper. She was in her most bustling and vivacious mood, and she had
+never cooked the bloaters better or provided a more ample jug of beer.
+But John was silent and depressed.
+
+He took leave at last with many sighs and lingerings. But he had not
+been gone half an hour, and Bessie and Isaac were just going to bed,
+when there was a knock at the door, and he reappeared.
+
+'Let me lie down there,' he said, pointing to a broken-down old sofa
+that ran under the window. 'I'm lonesome somehow, an I've told Louisa.'
+
+His white hair and whiskers stood out wildly round his red face. He
+looked old and ill, and the sympathetic Bessie was sorry for him.
+
+She made him a bed on the sofa, and he lay there all night, restless,
+and sighing heavily. He missed Eliza more than he had done yet, and was
+oppressed with a vague sense of unhappiness. Once, in the middle of the
+night when all was still, he stole upstairs in his stocking feet and
+gently tried the cupboard door. It was quite safe, and he went down
+contented.
+
+An hour or two later he was off, trudging to Frampton through the August
+dawn, with his bundle on his back.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE III
+
+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 with 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
+Mr. Drew caught a momentary glimpse of the bar and the drinkers.
+Bessie's handsome, reckless head stood out an instant in the bright
+light.
+
+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, and 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 goins-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 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--
+old 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 judgement 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 scandalmongers 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 further. 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'p'orth for
+so lugubrious and hypocritical a husband.
+
+She had showered drinks on all her friends, and had, moreover, clattered
+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 taproom 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 woolen 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 halfway 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
+Gaol--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.
+Teetotallers 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 orgy
+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 round 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. 'It's old John's money. So yo've been after it, eh?'
+
+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 comin,
+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 goins-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 goin 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 waistcoat pocket.
+
+Bessie flung herself upon him. He gave her one businesslike 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 playin 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.'
+
+Bessie burst into tears. It seemed as though her life were breaking
+within her. Never since their early married days had he spoken to her
+like this. And she was in such piteous need of comfort; of some strong
+hand to help her out of the black pit in which she lay. The wild impulse
+crossed her to sit up and tell him--to throw it all on Timothy, to show
+him the cupboard and the box. Should she tell him; brave it all now that
+he was like this? Between them they might find a way--make it good.
+
+Then the thought of the man in the public-house, of the half-crowns, a
+host of confused and guilty memories, swept upon her. How could she ever
+get herself out of it? Her heart beat so that it seemed a live creature
+strangling and silencing her. She was still fighting with her tears and
+her terror when she heard Isaac say:
+
+'I know yer'll try, and I'll help yer. I'll be a better husband to yer,
+I swear I will. Give us a kiss, old woman.'
+
+She turned her face, sobbing, and he kissed her cheek.
+
+Then she heard him say in another tone:
+
+'An I got a bit o' news down at the club as will liven yer up. Parkinson
+was there; just come over from Frampton to see his mother; an he says
+John will be here to-morrer or next day. 'Be seed him yesterday--pulled
+down dreadful--quite the old man, 'ee says. An John told him as he was
+comin 'ome directly to live comfortable.'
+
+Bessie drew her shawl over her head.
+
+'To-morrer, did yer say?' she asked in a whisper.
+
+'Mos like. Now you go to sleep; I'll put out the lamp.'
+
+But all night long Bessie lay wide awake in torment, her soul hardening
+within her, little by little.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IV
+
+Just before dark on the following day, a man descended
+from a down train at the Clinton Magna station. The porters knew him and
+greeted him; so did one or two labourers outside, as he set off to walk
+to the village which was about a mile distant.
+
+'Well, John, so yer coom back,' said one of them, an old man, grasping
+the newcomer by the hand. 'An I can't say as yer looks is any credit to
+Frampton--no, that aa can't.'
+
+John, indeed, wore a sallow and pinched air, and walked lamely, with a
+stick.
+
+'Noa,' he said, peevishly; 'it's a beastly place is Frampton; a damp,
+nassty hole as iver I saw--gives yer the rheumaticks to look at it. I've
+'ad a doose of a time, I 'ave, I can tell yer--iver sense I went. But
+I'll pull up now.'
+
+'Aye, this air'll do yer,' said the other. 'Where are yer stoppin?
+Costrells'?'
+
+John nodded.
+
+'They don't know nothin about my comin, but I dessay they'll find me
+somethin to sleep on. I'll 'ave my own place soon, and some one to look
+arter it.'
+
+He drew himself up involuntarily, with the dignity that waits on
+property.
+
+A laugh, rather jeering than cordial, ran through the group of
+labourers.
+
+'Aye, yer'll be livin at your ease,' said the man who had spoken first.
+'When will yo give us a drink, yer lardship?'
+
+The others grinned.
+
+'Where's your money, John?' said a younger man suddenly, staring hard at
+the returned wanderer.
+
+John started.
+
+'Don't you talk your nonsense!' he said, fretfully; 'an I must be gettin
+on, afore dark.'
+
+He went his way, but as he turned a corner of the road, he saw them
+still standing where he had left them. They seemed to be watching his
+progress, which astonished him.
+
+A light of windy sunset lay spread over the white valley, and the
+freshening gusts drove the powdery snow before them, and sent little
+stabs of pain through John's shrinking body. Yet how glad he was to find
+himself again between those familiar hedges, to see the church-tower in
+front of him, the long hill to his right! His heart swelled at once with
+longing and satisfaction. During his Frampton job, and in the infirmary,
+he had suffered much, physically and mentally. He had missed Eliza and
+the tendance of years more than he had ever imagined he could; and he
+had found himself too old for new faces and a new society. When he fell
+ill he had been sorely tempted to send for some of his money, and get
+himself nursed and cared for at the respectable lodging where he had put
+up. But no; in the end he set his teeth and went into the infirmary. He
+had planned not to touch his hoard till he had done with the Frampton
+job, and returned to Clinton for good.
+
+His peasant obstinacy could not endure to be beaten; nor, indeed, could
+he bring himself to part with his keys, to trust the opening of the
+hoard even to Isaac.
+
+Since then he had passed through many weary weeks, sometimes of acute
+pain, sometimes of sinking weakness, during which he had been haunted by
+many secret torments, springing mainly from the fear of death. He had
+almost been driven to make his will. But in the end superstitious
+reluctance prevailed. He had not made the will; and to dwell on the fact
+gave him the sensation of having escaped a bond, if not a danger. He did
+not want to leave his money behind him; he wanted to spend it, as he had
+told Eliza and Mary Anne and Bessie scores of times. To have assigned it
+to any one else, even after his death, would have made it less his own.
+
+Ah, well! those bad weeks were done, and here he was, at home again.
+Suddenly, as he tramped on, he caught sight against the hill of Bessie's
+cottage, the blue smoke from it blown across the rime-laden trees behind
+it. He drew in his breath with a deep, tremulous delight. That buoyant
+self-congratulation indeed which had stood between him and the pain of
+Eliza's death was gone. Rather there was in him a profound yearning for
+rest, for long dreaming by the fire or in the sun, with his pipe to
+smoke, and Jim's Louisa to look after him, and nothing to do but to draw
+a half-crown from his box when he wanted it. No more hard work in rain
+and cold; and no cringing, either, to the young and prosperous for the
+mere fault of age. The snowy valley with its circling woods opened to
+him like a mother's breast; the sight of it filled him with a hundred
+simple hopes and consolations; he hurried to bury himself in it, and be
+at peace.
+
+He was within a hundred yards of the first house in the village, when he
+saw a tall figure in uniform approaching, and recognised Watson.
+
+At sight of him the policeman stopped short, and John was conscious of a
+moment's vague impression of something strange in Watson's looks.
+
+However, Watson shook hands with great friendliness.
+
+'Well, I'm glad to see yer, John, I'm sure. An now, I s'pose, you're
+back for good?'
+
+'Aye. I'm not goin away no more. I've done my share--I wants a bit o'
+rest.'
+
+'Of coorse yer do. You've been ill, 'aven't yer? You look like it. An
+yer puttin up at Costrells'?'
+
+'Yes, till I can turn round a bit. 'Ave yer seen anythin ov 'em? 'Ow's
+Bessie?'
+
+Watson faced back towards the village.
+
+'I'll walk with yer a bit--I'm in no 'urry. Oh, she's all right. You
+'eard of her bit o' money?'
+
+John opened his eyes.
+
+'Noa, I don know as I did.'
+
+'It wor an aunt o' hers, soa I understan--quite a good bit o' money.'
+
+'Did yer iver hear the name?' said John, eagerly.
+
+'Some one livin at Bedford, I did 'ear say.'
+
+John laughed, not without good-humoured relief. It would have touched
+his vanity had his niece been discovered to be richer than himself.
+
+'Oh, that's old Sophy Clarke,' he said. 'Her 'usband bought the lease o'
+two little 'ouses in Church Street, and they braät 'er in six shillins a
+week for years, an she allus said she'd leave it to Bessie if she wor
+took afore the lease wor up. But the lease ull be up end o' next year I
+know, for I saw the old lady myself last Michaelmas twelvemonth, an she
+told me all about it, though I worn't to tell nobody meself. An I didn't
+know Sophy wor gone. Ah, well! it's not much, but it's 'andy--it's
+'andy.'
+
+'Six shillins a week!' said Watson, raising his eyebrows. 'It's a nice
+bit o' money while it lassts, but I'd ha thought Mrs. Costrell 'ad come
+into a deal more nor that.'
+
+'Oh, but she's sich a one to spend, is Bessie,' said John, anxiously.
+'It's surprisin 'ow the money runs. It's sixpence 'ere, an sixpence
+there, allus dribblin, an dribblin, out ov 'er. I've allus tole 'er as
+she'll end 'er days on the parish.'
+
+'Sixpences!' said Watson, with a laugh. 'It's not sixpences as Mrs.
+Costrell's 'ad the spendin of this last month or two--it's _suverins_--
+an plenty ov 'em. You may be sure you've got the wrong tale about the
+money, John; it wor a deal more nor you say.'
+
+John stood stock-still at the word 'sovereigns,' his jaw dropping.
+
+'_Suverins!_' he said, trembling; 'suverins? Bessie ain't got no
+suverins. Isaac arns sixteen shillin a week.'
+
+The colour was ebbing fast from his cheek and lips. Watson threw him a
+quick professional glance, then rapidly consulted with himself. No; he
+decided to hold his tongue.
+
+'Yo _are_ reg'lar used up,' he said, taking hold of the old fellow
+kindly by the arm. 'Shall I walk yer up the hill?'
+
+John withdrew himself.
+
+'_Suverins!_' he repeated, in a low hoarse voice. 'She ain't got 'em, I
+tell yer--she ain't got 'em!'
+
+The last words rose to a sort of cry, and without another word to Watson
+the old man started at a feeble run, his head hanging.
+
+Watson followed him, afraid lest he should drop in the road. Instead,
+John seemed to gather strength. He made straight for the hill, taking no
+heed whatever of two or three startled acquaintances who stopped and
+shouted to him. When the ground began to rise, he stumbled again and
+again, but by a marvel did not fall, and his pace hardly slackened.
+Watson had difficulty in keeping up with him.
+
+But when the policeman reached his own cottage on the side of the road,
+he stopped, panting, and contented himself with looking after the
+mounting figure. As soon as it turned the corner of the Costrells' lane,
+he went into his own house, said a word to his wife, and sat himself
+down at his own back door to await events--to ponder, also, a few
+conversations he had held that morning, with Mrs. Moulsey at 'the shop,'
+with Dawson, with Hall the butcher. Poor old John--poor old fellow!
+
+When Bolderfield reached the paling in front of the Costrells' cottage,
+he paused a moment, holding for support to the half-open gate and
+struggling for breath. 'I must keep my 'edd, I must,' he was saying to
+himself piteously;' don yer be a fool, John Borroful, don yer be a
+fool!'
+
+As he stood there, a child's face pushed the window-blind of the cottage
+aside, and the lame boy's large eyes looked Bolderfield up and down.
+Immediately after, the door opened, and all four children stood huddling
+behind each other on the threshold. They all looked shyly at the
+newcomer. They knew him, but in six months they had grown strange to
+him.
+
+'Arthur, where's your mother?' said John, at last able to walk firmly up
+to the door.
+
+'Don know.'
+
+'When did yer see her lasst?'
+
+'She wor 'ere gettin us our tea,' said another child; 'but she didn't
+eat nothin.'
+
+John impatiently pushed the children before him back into the kitchen.
+
+'You 'old your tongues,' he said, 'an stay 'ere.'
+
+And he made for the door in the kitchen wall. But Arthur caught hold of
+his coat-tails and clung to them.
+
+'Yer oughtn't to go up there--mother don't let any one go there.'
+
+John wrenched himself violently away.
+
+'Oh, don't she! yo take your 'ands away, yer little varmint, or I'll
+brain yer.'
+
+He raised his stick, threatening. The child, terrified, fell back, and
+John, opening the door, rushed up the stairs.
+
+He was so terribly excited that his fumbling fingers could hardly find
+the ribbon round his neck. At last he drew it over his head, and made
+stupendous efforts to steady his hand sufficiently to put the key in the
+lock.
+
+The children below heard a sharp cry directly the cupboard door was
+opened; then the frantic dragging of a box on to the stairs, the creak
+of hinges--a groan long and lingering--and then silence.
+
+They clung together in terror, and the little girls began to cry. At
+last Arthur took courage and opened the door.
+
+The old man was sitting on the top stair, supported sideways by the
+wall, his head hanging forward, and his hands dropping over his knees,
+in a dead faint.
+
+At the sight all four children ran helter-skelter into the lane,
+shouting 'Mammy! Mammy!' in an anguish of fright. Their clamour was
+caught by the fierce north wind, which had begun to sweep the hill, and
+was borne along till it reached the ears of a woman who was sitting
+sewing in a cottage some fifty yards further up the lane. She stepped to
+her door, opened it and listened.
+
+'It's at Bessie's,' she said; 'whativer's wrong wi' the childer?'
+
+By this time Arthur had begun to run towards her. Darkness was falling
+rapidly, but she could distinguish his small figure against the snow,
+and his halting gait.
+
+'What is it, Arthur?--what is it, lammie?'
+
+'O Cousin Mary Anne! Cousin Mary Anne! It's Uncle John, an 'ee's dead!'
+
+She ran like the wind at the words, catching at the child's hand in the
+dark, and dragging him along with her.
+
+'Where is he, Arthur?--don't take on, honey!'
+
+The child hurried on with her, sobbing, and she was soon on the stairs
+beside the unconscious John.
+
+Mary Anne looked with amazement at the cupboard and the open box. Then
+she laid the old man on the floor, her gentle face working with the
+effort to remember what the doctor had once told her of the best way of
+dealing with persons in a faint. She got water, and she sent Arthur to a
+neighbour for brandy.
+
+'Where's your mother, child?' she asked, as she dispatched him.
+
+'Don know,' repeated the boy, stupidly.
+
+'Oh, for goodness' sake, she's never at Dawson's again!' groaned Mary
+Anne to herself; 'she wor there last night, an the night afore that. An
+her mother's brother lyin like this in 'er house!'
+
+He was so long in coming round that her ignorance began to fear the
+worst. But just as she was telling the eldest girl to put on her hat and
+jacket and run for the doctor, poor John revived.
+
+He struggled to a sitting posture, looked wildly at her and at the box.
+As his eye caught the two sovereigns still lying at the bottom, he gave
+a cry of rage, and got upon his feet with a mighty effort.
+
+'Where's Bessie, I tell yer? Where's the huzzy gone? I'll have the law
+on 'er! I'll make 'er give it up--by the Lord, I will!'
+
+'John, what is it?--John, my dear!' cried Mary Anne, supporting him, and
+terrified lest he should pitch headlong down the stairs.
+
+'Yo 'elp me down,' he said, violently. 'We'll find 'er--we'll wring it
+out ov 'er--the mean thievin vagabond! Changin suverins, 'as she? we'll
+soon know about that--yo 'elp me down, I tell yer.'
+
+And with her assistance he hobbled down the stairs, hardly able to
+stand. Mary Anne's eyes were starting out of her head with fear and
+agitation, and the children were staring at the old man as he came
+tottering into the kitchen, when a sound at the outer door made them all
+turn.
+
+The door opened, and Bessie appeared on the threshold.
+
+At sight of her John seemed to lose his senses. He rushed at her,
+threatening, imploring, reviling--while Mary Anne could only cling to
+his arms and coat, lest he should attempt some bodily mischief.
+
+Bessie closed the door, leant against it, and folded her arms. She was
+white and haggard, but perfectly cool. In this moment of excitement it
+struck neither John nor Mary Anne--nor, indeed, herself--that her
+manner, with its brutality, and its poorly feigned surprise, was the
+most revealing element in the situation.
+
+'What's all this about yer money?' she said, staring John in the face.
+'What do I know about yer money? 'Ow dare yer say such things? I 'aven't
+anythin to do with it, an never 'ad.'
+
+He raved at her, in reply, about the position in which he had found the
+box--on the top of its fellow instead of underneath, where he had placed
+it--about the broken lock, the sovereigns she had been changing, and the
+things Watson had said of her--winding up with a peremptory demand for
+his money.
+
+'Yo gi me my money back,' he said, holding out a shaking hand. 'Yer
+can't 'ave spent it all--tain't possible--an yer ain't chucked it out o'
+winder. Yer've got it somewhere 'idden, an I'll get it out o' you if I
+die for 't!'
+
+Bessie surveyed him steadily. She had not even flinched at the mention
+of the sovereigns.
+
+'What yer 'aven't got, yer can't give,' she said. 'I don know nothin
+about it, an I've tole yer. There's plenty o' bad people in the world--
+beside me. Somebody came in o' nights, I suppose, an picked the lock--
+there's many as 'ud think nothin of it. And it 'ud be easy done--we all
+sleeps 'ard.'
+
+'Bessie!' cried Mary Anne, outraged by something in her tone, 'aren't
+yer sorry for 'im?'
+
+She pointed to the haggard and trembling man.
+
+Bessie turned to her reluctantly.
+
+'Aye, I'm sorry,' she said, sullenly. 'But he shouldn't fly out at yer
+without 'earin a word. 'Ow should I know anythin about his money? 'Be
+locked it up hisself, an tuk the keys.'
+
+'An them suverins,' roared John, rattling his stick on the floor; 'where
+did yer get them suverins?'
+
+'I got 'em from old Sophy Clarke--leastways, from Sophy Clarke's lawyer.
+And it ain't no business o' yourn.'
+
+At this John fell into a frenzy, shouting at her in inarticulate
+passion, calling her liar and thief.
+
+She fronted it with perfect composure. Her fine eyes blazed, but
+otherwise her face might have been a waxen mask. With her, in this
+scene, was all the tragic dignity; with him, the weakness and vulgarity.
+
+At last the little widow caught her by the arm, and drew her from the
+door.
+
+'Let me take 'im to my place,' she pleaded: 'it's no good talkin while
+'ee's like 'ee is--not a bit o' good. John--John dear! you come along wi
+me. Shall I get Saunders to come and speak to yer?'
+
+A gleam of sudden hope shot into the old man's face. He had not thought
+of Saunders; but Saunders had a head; he might unravel this accursed
+thing.
+
+'Aye!' he said, lurching forward, 'let's find Saunders--coom along--
+let's find Saunders.'
+
+Mary Anne guided him through the door, Bessie standing aside. As the
+widow passed, she touched Bessie piteously.
+
+'O Bessie, yer _didn't_ do it--say yer didn't!'
+
+Bessie looked at her, dry-eyed and contemptuous. Something in the
+speaker's emotion seemed to madden her.
+
+'Don't yer be a fool, Mary Anne--that's all!' she said scornfully, and
+Mary Anne fled from her.
+
+When the door had closed upon them, Bessie came up to the fire, her
+teeth chattering. She sank down in front of it, spreading out her hands
+to the warmth. The children silently crowded up to her; first she pushed
+them away, then she caught at the child nearest to her, pressed its fair
+head against her, then again roughly put it aside. She was accustomed to
+chatter with them, scold them, and slap them; but to-night they were
+uneasily dumb. They looked at her with round eyes; and at last their
+looks annoyed her. She told them to go to bed, and they slunk away,
+gaping at the open box on the stairs, and huddling together overhead,
+all on one bed, in the bitter cold, to whisper to each other. Isaac was
+a stern parent; Bessie a capricious one; and the children, though they
+could be riotous enough by themselves, were nervous and easily cowed at
+home.
+
+Bessie, left alone, sat silently over the fire, her thin lips tight-set.
+She would deny everything--_everything_. Let them find out what they
+could. Who could prove what was in John's box when he left it? Who could
+prove she hadn't got those half-crowns in change somewhere?
+
+The reflexion of the day had only filled her with a passionate and
+fierce regret. _Why_ had she not followed her first impulse, and thrown
+it all on Timothy?--told the story to Isaac, while she was still
+bleeding from his son's violence? It had been her only chance, and out
+of pure stupidness she had lost it. To have grasped it might at least
+have made him take _her_ part, if it had forced him to give up Timothy.
+And who would have listened to Timothy's tales?
+
+She sickened at the thought of her own folly, beating her knee with her
+clenched fist. For to tell the tale now would only be to make her doubly
+vile in Isaac's eyes. He would not believe her--no one would believe
+her. What motive could she plead for her twenty-four hours of silence,
+she knowing that John was coming back immediately? Isaac would only hate
+her for throwing it on Timothy.
+
+Then again the memory of the half-crowns, and the village talk--and
+Watson--would close upon her, putting her in a cold sweat.
+
+When would Isaac come? Who would tell him? As she looked forward to the
+effect upon him, all her muscles stiffened. If he drove her to it, aye,
+she _would_ tell him--she didn't care a hap'orth, she vowed. If he must
+have it, let him. But as the name of Isaac, the thought of Isaac,
+hovered in her brain, she must needs brush away wild tears. That
+morning, for the first time for months, he had been so kind to her and
+the children, so chatty and cheerful.
+
+Distant steps along the lane! She sprang to her feet, ran into the back
+kitchen, tied on her apron, hastily filled an earthenware bowl with
+water from the pump, and carrying it back to the front kitchen began to
+wash up the tea-things, making a busy household clatter as she slid them
+into the bowl.
+
+A confused sound of feet approached the house, and there was a knock.
+
+'Come in,' said Bessie.
+
+Three figures appeared, the huge form of Saunders the smith in front,
+John and Mary Anne Waller behind.
+
+Saunders took off his cap politely. The sight of his bald head, his
+double chin, his mouth with its queer twitch, which made him seem as
+though perpetually about to laugh, if he had not perpetually thought
+better of it, filled Bessie with angry excitement. She barely nodded to
+him, in reply to his greeting.
+
+'May we come in, Mrs. Costrell?' Saunders inquired, in his most
+deliberate voice.
+
+'If yer want to,' said Bessie, shortly, taking out a cup and drying it.
+
+Saunders drew in the other two and shut the door.
+
+'Sit down, John. Sit down, Mrs. Waller.'
+
+John did as he was told. Dishevelled and hopeless misery spoke in his
+stained face, his straggling hair, his shirt burst open at the neck and
+showing his wrinkled throat. But he fixed his eyes passionately on
+Saunders, thirsting for every word.
+
+'Well, Mrs. Costrell,' said Saunders, settling himself comfortably,
+'you'll be free to confess, won't yer, this is an oogly business--a very
+oogly business? Now, will yer let us ask yer a question or two?'
+
+'I dessay,' said Bessie, polishing her cup.
+
+'Well, then--to begin reg'lar, Mrs. Costrell--yo agree, don't yer, as
+Muster Bolderfield put his money in your upstairs cupboard?'
+
+'I agree as he put his box there,' said Bessie sharply.
+
+John broke into inarticulate and abusive clamour.
+
+Bessie turned upon him.
+
+''Ow did any of us know what yer'd got in your box? Did yer ever show it
+to me, or Mary Anne there, or any livin soul in Clinton? Did yer?'
+
+She waited, hawk-like, for the answer. 'Did yer, John?' repeated
+Saunders, judicially. John groaned, rocking himself to and fro. 'Noa.
+I niver did--I niver did,' he said. 'Nobbut to Eliza--an she's gone--
+she's gone!' 'Keep your 'ead, John,' said Saunders, putting out a
+calming hand. 'Let's get to the bottom o' this, quiet an _reg'lar_. An
+yer didn't tell any one 'ow much yer 'ad?' 'Nobbut Eliza--nobbut
+Eliza!' said the old man again.
+
+'Yer didn't tell _me_, I know,' said Saunders, blandly.
+
+John seemed to shrink together under the smith's glance. If only he had
+not been a jealous fool, and had left it with Saunders!
+
+Saunders, however, refrained for the present from drawing this
+self-evident moral. He sat twirling his cap between his knees, and his
+shrewd eye travelled round the kitchen, coming back finally to Bessie,
+who was washing and drying diligently. As he watched her cool movements
+Saunders felt the presence of an enemy worthy of his steel, and his
+emulation rose.
+
+'I understan, Mrs. Costrell,' he said, speaking with great civility, 'as
+the cupboard where John put his money is a cupboard _hon_ the stairs?
+Not in hany room, but _hon_ the stairs? Yer'll kindly correck me if I
+say anythin wrong.'
+
+Bessie nodded.
+
+'Aye--top o' the stairs--right-'and side,' groaned John.
+
+'An John locked it hisself, an tuk the key?' Saunders proceeded.
+
+John plucked at his neck again, and, dumbly, held out the key.
+
+'An there worn't nothin wrong wi the lock when yo opened it, John?'
+
+'Nothin, Muster Saunders--I'll take my davy.'
+
+Saunders ruminated. 'Theer's a cupboard there,' he said suddenly,
+raising his hand and pointing to the cupboard beside the fireplace.
+'Is't anythin like the cupboard on th' stairs, John?'
+
+'Aye, 'tis!' said John, startled and staring. 'Aye, 'tis, Muster
+Saunders!'
+
+Saunders rose.
+
+'Per'aps,' he said slowly, 'Mrs. Costrell will do us the favour ov
+lettin us hexamine that 'ere cupboard?'
+
+He walked across to it. Bessie's hand dropped; she turned sharply,
+supporting herself against the table, and watched him, her chest
+heaving.
+
+'There's no key 'ere,' said Saunders, stooping to look at the lock. 'Try
+yours, John.'
+
+John rushed forward, but Bessie put herself in the way.
+
+'What are yer meddlin with my 'ouse for?' she said fiercely. 'Just mek
+yourselves scarce, all the lot o' yer! I don't know nothin about his
+money, an I'll not have yer _insultin_ me in my own place! Get out o' my
+kitchen, if _yo_ please!'
+
+Saunders buttoned his coat.
+
+'Sartinly, Mrs. Costrell, sartinly,' he said, with emphasis. 'Come
+along, John. Yer must get Watson and put it in 'is hands. 'Ee's the law
+is Watson. Maybe, as Mrs. Costrell ull listen to '_im_.'
+
+Mary Anne ran to Bessie in despair.
+
+'O Bessie, Bessie, my dear--don't let 'em get Watson; let 'em look
+into't theirselves--it'll be better for yer, my dear, it _will_.'
+
+Bessie looked from one to the other, panting. Then she turned back to
+the table.
+
+'_I_ don care what they do,' she said, with sullen passion. 'I'm not
+stannin in any one's way, I tell yer. The more they finds out the better
+I'm pleased.'
+
+The look of incipient laughter on Saunders's countenance became more
+pronounced--that is to say, the left-hand corner of his mouth twitched a
+little higher.
+
+But it was rare for him to complete the act, and he was not in the least
+minded to do so now. He beckoned to John, and John, trembling, took off
+his keys and gave them to him, pointing to that which belonged to the
+treasure cupboard.
+
+Saunders slipped it into the lock before him. It moved with ease,
+backwards and forwards.
+
+'H'm! that's strange,' he said, taking out the key and turning it over
+thoughtfully in his hand. 'Yer didn't think as there were _another_ key
+in this 'ouse that would open your cupboard, did yer, Bolderfield?'
+
+The old man sank weeping on a chair. He was too broken, too exhausted,
+to revile Bessie any more.
+
+'Yo tell her, Muster Saunders,' he said, 'to gie it me back! I'll not
+ast for all on it, but some on it, Muster Saunders--some on it. She
+_can't_ a spent it. She must a got it somewhere. Yo speak to her, Muster
+Saunders. It's a crule thing to rob an old man like me--an her own
+mother's brother. Yo speak to 'er--an yo, too, Mary Anne.'
+
+He looked piteously from one to the other. But his misery only seemed to
+goad Bessie to fresh fury. She turned upon him, arms akimbo.
+
+'Oh! an of course it must be _me_ as robs yer! It couldn't be nobody
+else, could it? There isn't tramps an thieves, an rogues--'undreds of
+'em--going about o' nights? Nary one, I believe yer! There isn't another
+thief in Clinton Magna, nobbut Bessie Costrell, is ther? But yer'll not
+blackguard me for nothin, I can tell yer. Now will yer jest oblige me by
+takin yourselves off? I shall 'ave to clean up after yer'--she pointed
+scornfully to the marks of their muddy boots on the floor--'an it's
+gettin late.'
+
+'One moment, Mrs. Costrell,' said Saunders, gently rubbing his hands.
+'With your leave, John and I ull just inspeck the cupboard _hup_ stairs
+before leavin--an then we'll clear out double-quick. But we'll 'ave one
+try if we can't 'it on somethin as ull show 'ow the thief got in--with
+your leave, of _coorse._'
+
+Bessie hesitated; then she threw some spoons she held into the water
+beside her with a violent gesture.
+
+'Go where yer wants,' she said, and returned to her washing.
+
+Saunders began to climb the narrow stairs, with John behind him. But the
+smith's small eyes had a puzzled look.
+
+'There's _somethin_ rum,' he said to himself. 'Ow _did_ she spend it
+all? 'As she been carryin on with someone be'ind Isaac's back, or is
+Isaac in it too? It's one or t'other.'
+
+Meanwhile Bessie, left behind, was consumed by a passionate effort of
+memory. _What_ had she done with the key, the night before, after she
+had locked the cupboard? Her brain was blurred. The blow--the fall--
+seemed to have confused even the remembrance of the scene with Timothy.
+How was it, for instance, that she had put the box back in the wrong
+place? She put her hand to her head, trying in an anguish to recollect
+the exact details.
+
+The little widow sat meanwhile a few yards away, her thin hands clasped
+on her lap in her usual attitude of humble entreaty; her soft grey eyes,
+brimmed with tears, were fixed on Bessie. Bessie did not know that she
+was there--that she existed.
+
+The door had closed after the two men. Bessie could hear vague
+movements, but nothing more. Presently she could bear it no longer. She
+went to the door and opened it.
+
+She was just in time. By the light of the bit of candle that John held,
+she saw Saunders sitting on the stair, the shadow of his huge frame
+thrown back on the white wall; she saw him stoop suddenly, as a bird
+pounces; she heard an exclamation--then a sound of metal.
+
+Her involuntary cry startled the men above.
+
+'All right, Mrs. Costrell,' said Saunders, briskly--'all right. We'll be
+down directly.'
+
+She came back into the kitchen, a mist before her eyes, and fell heavily
+on a chair by the fire. Mary Anne approached her, only to be pushed
+back. The widow stood listening, in an agony.
+
+It took Saunders a minute or two to complete his case. Then he slowly
+descended the stairs, carrying the box, his great weight making the
+house shake. He entered the kitchen first, John behind him. But at the
+same moment that they appeared, the outer door opened, and Isaac
+Costrell, preceded by a gust of snow, stood on the threshold.
+
+'Why, John!' he cried, in amazement--'an _Saunders_!'
+
+He looked at them, then at Mary Anne, then at his wife.
+
+There was an instant's dead silence.
+
+Then the tottering John came forward.
+
+'An I'm glad yer come, Isaac, that I am--thankful! Now yer can tell me
+what yer wife's done with my money. D'yer mind that box? It wor you an I
+carried it across that night as Watson come out on us. An yo'll bear me
+witness as we locked it up, an yo saw me tie the two keys roun my neck--
+yo _did_, Isaac. An now, Isaac'--the hoarse voice began to tremble--'now
+there's two--suverins--left, and one 'arf-crown--out o' seventy-one
+pound fower an sixpence--seventy-one pound, Isaac! Yo'll get it out on
+'er, Isaac, yer will, won't yer?'
+
+He looked up, imploring.
+
+Isaac, after the first violent start, stood absolutely motionless,
+Saunders observing him. As one of the main props of Church Establishment
+in the village, Saunders had no great opinion of Isaac Costrell, who
+stood for the dissidence of dissent. The two men had never been friends,
+and Saunders in this affair had perhaps exercised the quasi-judicial
+functions the village had long by common consent allowed him, with more
+readiness than usual.
+
+As soon as John ceased speaking, Isaac walked up to Saunders.
+
+'Let me see that box,' he said peremptorily, 'put it down.'
+
+Saunders, who had rested the box on the back of a chair, placed it
+gently on the table, assisted by Isaac. A few feet away stood Bessie,
+saying nothing, her hand holding the duster on her hip, her eyes
+following her husband.
+
+He looked carefully at the two sovereigns lying on the bit of old cloth
+which covered the bottom of the box, and the one half-crown that Timothy
+had forgotten; he took up the bit of cloth and shook it, he felt along
+the edge of the box, he examined the wrenched lock. Then he stood for an
+instant, his hand on the box, his eyes staring straight before him in a
+kind of dream.
+
+Saunders grew impatient. He pushed John aside, and came to the table,
+leaning his hands upon it, so as to command Isaac's face.
+
+'Now, look 'ere, Isaac,' he said, in a different voice from any that he
+had yet employed, 'let's come to business. These 'ere are the facks o'
+this case, an 'ow we're a-goin to get over 'em, I don see. John leaves
+his money in your cupboard. Yo an he lock it up, an John goes away with
+'is keys 'ung roun 'is neck. Yo agree to that? Well and good. But
+there's _another_ key in your 'ouse, Isaac, as opens John's cupboard.
+Ah--'
+
+He waved his hand in deprecation of Isaac's movement.
+
+'I dessay yo didn't know nowt about it--that's noather 'ere nor there.
+Yo try John's key in that there door'--he pointed to the cupboard by the
+fire--'an yo'll find it fits _ex_--act. Then, thinks I, where's the key
+as belongs to that 'ere cupboard? An John an I goes upstairs to look
+about us, an in noa time at aw, I sees a 'ole in the skirtin. I whips in
+my finger--lor bless yer! I knew it wor there the moment I sets eyes on
+the hole.'
+
+He held up the key triumphantly. By this time, no Old Bailey lawyer
+making a hanging speech could have had more command of his task.
+
+''Ere then we 'ave'--he checked the items off on his fingers--'box
+locked up--key in the 'ouse as fits it, unbeknown to John--money tuk
+out--key 'idden away. But that's not all--not by long chalks--there's
+another side to the affair _hal_togefher.'
+
+Saunders drew himself up, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and
+cleared his throat.
+
+'Per'aps yer don know--I'm sartin sure yer don know--leastways I'm
+hinclined that way--as Mrs. Costrell'--he made a polite inclination
+towards Bessie--''ave been makin free with money--fower--five--night a
+week at the "Spotted Deer"--fower--five--night a week. She'd used to
+treat every young feller, an plenty old uns too, as turned up; an there
+was a many as only went to Dawson's becos they knew as she'd treat 'em.
+Now she didn't go on tick at Dawson's; she'd _pay_--an she allus payed
+in 'arf-crowns. An those arf-crowns were curous 'arf-crowns; an it came
+into Dawson's [transcriber's note: "Dawon's" in original] 'ead as he'd
+colleck them 'arf-crowns. 'Ee wanted to see summat, 'ee said--an I
+dessay 'ee did. An people began to taak. Last night theer wor a bit of a
+roompus, it seems, while Mrs. Costrell was a-payin another o' them
+things, an summat as was said come to my ears--an come to Watson's. An
+me and Watson 'ave been makin inquiries--an Mr. Dawson wor obligin
+enough to make me a small loan, 'ee wor. Now I've got just one question
+to ask o' John Borroful.'
+
+He put his hand into his waistcoat-pocket, and drew out a silver coin.
+
+'Is that yourn, John?'
+
+John fell upon it with a cry.
+
+'Aye, Saunders, it's mine. Look ye 'ere, Isaac, it's a king's 'ead. It's
+Willum--not Victory. I saved that un up when I wor a lad at Mason's, an
+look yer, there's my mark in the corner--every arf-crown I ever 'ad I
+marked like that.'
+
+He held it under Isaac's staring eyes, pointing to the little scratched
+cross in the corner.
+
+''Ere's another, John--two on 'em,' said Saunders, pulling out a second
+and a third.
+
+John, in a passion of hope, identified them both.
+
+'Then,' said Saunders, slapping the table solemnly, 'theer's nobbut one
+more thing to say--an sorry I am to say it. Them coins, Isaac'--he
+pointed a slow finger at Bessie, whose white, fierce face moved
+involuntarily--'them 'arf-crowns wor paid across the bar lasst night, or
+the night afore, at Dawson's, by _yor wife_, as is now stannin there, an
+she'll deny it if she can!'
+
+For an instant the whole group preserved their positions--the breath
+suspended on their lips.
+
+Then Isaac strode up to his wife, and gripped her by the arms.
+
+'Did yer do it?' he asked her.
+
+He held her, looking into her eyes, Slowly she sank away from him; she
+would have fallen, but for a chair that stood beside her.
+
+'Oh, yer brute!' she said, turning her head to Saunders an instant, and
+speaking under her breath, with a kind of sob. 'Yer _brute_!'
+
+Isaac walked to the door, and threw it open.
+
+'Per'aps yer'll go,' he said, grimly.
+And the three went, without a word.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE V
+
+So the husband and wife were left together in the cottage room. The door
+had no sooner closed on Saunders and his companions than Isaac was
+seized with that strange sense of walking amid things unreal upon a
+wavering earth which is apt to beset the man who has any portion of the
+dreamer's temperament, under any sudden rush of circumstance. He drew
+his hand across his brow, bewildered. The fire leapt and chattered in
+the grate; the newly-washed tea-things on the table shone under the
+lamp; the cat lay curled, as usual, on the chair where he sat after
+supper to read his _Christian World_; yet all things were not the same.
+What had changed?
+
+Then across poor John's rifled box he saw his wife sitting rigid on the
+chair where he had left her.
+
+He came and sat down at the corner of the table, close to her, his chin
+on his hand.
+
+''Ow did yer spend it?' he said, startled, as the words came out, by his
+own voice, so grinding and ugly was the note of it.
+
+Her miserable eyes travelled over his face, seeking as it were, for some
+promise, however faint, of future help and succour, however distant.
+
+Apparently she saw none, for her own look flamed to fresh defiance.
+
+'I didn't spend it. Saunders wor lyin.'
+
+''Ow did yer get them half-crowns?'
+
+'I got 'em at Bedford. Mr. Grimstone give 'em me.'
+
+Isaac looked at her hard, his shame burning into his heart. This was how
+she had got her money for the gin. Of course, she had lied to him the
+night before, in her account of her fall, and of that mark on her
+forehead, which still showed, a red disfigurement, under the hair she
+had drawn across it. The sight of it, of her, began to excite in him a
+quick loathing. He was at bottom a man of violent passions, and in the
+presence of evil-doing so flagrant, so cruel--of a household ruin so
+complete--his religion failed him.
+
+'When was it as yer opened that box fust?' he asked her again, scorning
+her denials.
+
+She burst into a rage of tears, lifting her apron to her eyes, and
+flinging names at him that he scarcely heard.
+
+There was a little cold tea in a cup close to him that Bessie had
+forgotten. He stretched out his hand, and took a mouthful, moistening
+his dry lips and throat.
+
+'Yer'll go to prison for this,' he said, jerking it out as he put the
+cup down.
+
+He saw her shiver. Her nerve was failing her. The convulsive sobs
+continued, but she ceased to abuse him. He wondered when he should be
+able to get it out of her. He himself could no more have wept than iron
+and fire weep.
+
+'Are yer goin to tell me when yer took that money, and 'ow yer spent it?
+'Cos, if yer don't, I shall go to Watson.'
+
+Even in her abasement it struck her as shameful, unnatural, that he, her
+husband, should say this. Her remorse returned upon her heart, like a
+tide driven back. She answered him not a word.
+
+He put his silver watch on the table.
+
+'I'll give yer two minutes,' he said.
+
+There was silence in the cottage except for the choking, hysterical
+sounds she could not master. Then he took up his hat again, and went out
+into the snow, which was by now falling fast.
+
+She remained helpless and sobbing, unconscious of the passage of time,
+one hand playing incessantly with a child's comforter that lay beside
+her on the table, the other wiping away the crowding tears. But her mind
+worked feverishly all the time, and gradually she fought herself free of
+this weeping, which clutched her against her will.
+
+Isaac was away for an hour. When he came back he closed the door
+carefully, and, walking to the table, threw down his hat upon it. His
+face under its ruddy brown had suffered some radical disintegrating
+change.
+
+'They've traced yer,' he said, hoarsely;' they've got it up to
+twenty-six pound, an more. Most on it 'ere in Clinton--some on it,
+Muster Miles o' Frampton ull swear to. Watson ull go over to Frampton,
+for the warrant--to-morrer.'
+
+The news shook her from head to foot. She stared at him wildly--
+speechless.
+
+'But that's not 'arf,' he went on--'not near 'arf. Do yer 'ear? What did
+yer do with the rest? I'll not answer for keepin my 'ands off yer if yer
+won't tell.'
+
+In his trance of rage and agony, he was incapable of pity. He had small
+need to threaten her with blows--every word stabbed.
+
+But her turn had come to strike back. She raised her head; she measured
+her news against his; and she did it with a kind of exultation.
+
+'Then I _will_ tell yer--an I 'ope it ull do yer good. _I_ took
+thirty-one pound o' Bolderfield's money then--but it warn't me took the
+rest. Some one else tuk it, an I stood by an saw 'im. When I tried to
+stop 'im--look 'ere.'
+
+She raised her hand, nodding, and pointing to the wound on her brow.
+
+Isaac leant heavily on the table. A horrible suspicion swept through
+him. Had she wronged him in a yet blacker way? He bent over her,
+breathing fast--ready to strike.
+
+'Who was it?'
+
+She laughed. 'Well, it wor _Timothy_ then--yur precious--beautiful son--
+Timothy!'
+
+He fell back.
+
+'Yo're lyin,' he cried; 'yer want to throw it off on some one. How cud
+Timothy 'ave 'ad anythin to do with John's money? Timothy's not been
+near the place this three months.'
+
+'Not till lasst night,' she said, mocking him; 'I'll grant yer--not till
+lasst night. But it _do_ 'appen, as lasst night Timothy took forty-one
+pound o' John Borroful's money out o' that box, an got off--clean. I'm
+sorry if yer don't like it--but I can't 'elp that; yo listen 'ere.'
+
+And lifting a quivering finger she told her tale at last, all the
+beginning of it confused and almost unintelligible, but the scene with
+Timothy vivid, swift, convincing--a direct impression from the ugly
+immediate fact.
+
+He listened, his face lying on his arms. It was true, all true. She
+might have taken more and Timothy less; no doubt she was making it out
+as bad as she could for Timothy. But it lay between them--his wife and
+his son--it lay between them.
+
+'An I 'eard yer comin,' she ended; 'an I thought I'd tell yer--an I wor
+frightened about the 'arf-crowns--people 'ad been talkin so at
+Dawson's--an I didn't see no way out--an--an--'
+
+She ceased, her hand plucking again at the comforter, her throat
+working.
+
+He, too, thought of the loving words he had said to her, and the memory
+of them only made his misery the more fierce.
+
+'An there ain't no way out,' he said violently, raising his head.
+'Yer'll be took before the magistrates next week, an the assizes ull be
+in February, an yer'll get six months--if yer don't get more.'
+
+She got up from her chair as though physically goaded by the words.
+
+'I'll not go to gaol,' she said, under her breath. 'I'll not--'
+
+A sound of scorn broke from Isaac.
+
+'You should ha thought o' that,' he said. 'Yo should ha thought o' that.
+An what you've been sayin about Timothy don't make it a 'aporth the
+better--not for _you_! Yo led _'im_ into it too--if it 'adn't been for
+yo, 'ee'd never ha' _seen_ the cursed stuff. Yo've dragged 'im down
+worse nor 'ee were--an yerself--an the childer--an me. An the drink, an
+the lyin!--it turns a man's stomach to think on it. An I've been livin
+with yer--these twelve years. I wish to the Lord I'd never seen yer--as
+the children 'ud never been born! They'll be known all their life now--
+as 'avin 'ad sich a woman for their mother!'
+
+A demon of passion possessed him more and more. He looked at her with
+murderous eyes, his hand on the table working.
+
+For his world, too, lay in ruins about him. Through many hard-working
+and virtuous years he had counted among the righteous men of the
+village--the men whom the Almighty must needs reckon to the good
+whenever the score of Clinton Magna had to be made up. And this
+pre-eminence had come to be part of the habitual furniture of life and
+thought. To be suddenly stripped of it--to be, not only disgraced by his
+wife, to be thrust down himself among the low and sinful herd--this
+thought made another man of him; made him wicked, as it were, perforce.
+For who that heard the story would ever believe that he was not the
+partner of her crime? Had he not eaten and drunk of it; were not he and
+his children now clothed by it?
+
+Bessie did not answer him nor look at him. At any other moment she would
+have been afraid of him; now she feared nothing but the image in her own
+mind--herself led along the village street, enclosed in that hateful
+building, cut off from all pleasure, all free moving and willing--alone
+and despised--her children taken from her.
+
+Suddenly she walked into the back kitchen and opened the door leading to
+the garden.
+
+Outside everything lay swathed in white, and a snowstorm was drifting
+over the deep cup of land which held the village. A dull, melancholy
+moonlight seemed to be somewhere behind the snow curtain, for the
+muffled shapes of the houses below and the long sweep of the hill were
+visible through the dark, and the objects in the little garden itself
+were almost distinct. There, in the centre, rose the round stone edging
+of the well, the copious well, sunk deep into the chalk, for which
+Bessie's neighbours envied her, whence her good nature let them draw
+freely at any time of drought. On either side of it the gnarled stems of
+old fruit-trees and the bare sticks of winter kail made black scratches
+and blots upon the white.
+
+Bessie looked out, leaning against the doorway, and heedless of the wind
+that drove upon her. Down below there was a light in Watson's cottage,
+and a few lights from the main street beyond pierced the darkness. The
+'Spotted Deer' must be at that moment full of people, all talking of her
+and Isaac. Her eye came hastily back to the snow-shrouded well and dwelt
+upon it.
+
+'Shut that door!' Isaac commanded from inside. She obeyed, and came back
+into the kitchen. There she moved restlessly about a minute or two,
+followed by his frowning look--the look, not of a husband but of an
+enemy. Then a sudden animal yearning for rest and warmth seized her. She
+opened the door by the hearth abruptly and went up, longing simply to
+lie down and cover herself from the cold.
+
+But, after all, she turned aside to the children, and sat there for some
+time at the foot of the little boys' bed. The children, especially
+Arthur, had been restless for long, kept awake and trembling by the
+strange sounds outside their door and the loud voices downstairs; but,
+with the deep silence that had suddenly fallen on the house after Isaac
+had gone away to seek his interview with Watson, sleep had come to them,
+and even Arthur, on whose thin cheeks the smears left by crying were
+still visible, was quite unconscious of his mother. She looked at them
+from time to time, by the light of a bit of a candle she had placed on a
+box beside her; but she did not kiss them, and her eyes had no tears.
+From time to time she looked quickly round her, as though startled by a
+sound, a breathing.
+
+Presently, shivering with cold, she went into her own room. There,
+mechanically, she took off her outer dress, as though to go to bed; but
+when she had done so her hands fell by her side; she stood motionless
+till, suddenly wrapping an old shawl round her, she took up her candle
+and went downstairs again.
+
+As she pushed open the door at the foot of the stairs, she saw Isaac,
+where she had left him, sitting on his chair, bent forward, his hands
+dropping between his knees, his gaze fixed on a bit of dying fire in the
+grate.
+
+'Isaac!'
+
+He looked up with the unwillingness of one who hates the sound he hears,
+and saw her standing on the lowest step. Her black hair had fallen upon
+her shoulders, her quick breath shook the shawl she held about her, and
+the light in her hand showed the anguished brightness of the eyes.
+
+'Isaac, are yer comin up?'
+
+The question maddened him. He turned to look at her more fixedly.
+
+'Comin up? noa, I'm not comin up--so now yer know. Take yerself off, an
+be quick.'
+
+She trembled.
+
+'Are yer goin to sleep down 'ere, Isaac?'
+
+'Aye, or wherever I likes: it's no concern o' yourn. I'm no 'usband o'
+yourn from this day forth. Take yourself off, I say!--I'll 'ave no thief
+for _my_ wife!'
+
+But instead of going she stepped down into the kitchen. His words had
+broken her down; she was crying again.
+
+'Isaac, I'd ha' put it back,' she said, imploring. 'I wor goin in to
+Bedford to see Mr. Grimstone--'ee'd ha' managed it for me. I'd a worked
+extra--I could ha' done it--if it 'adn't been for Timothy. If you'll
+'elp--an you'd oughter, for yer _are_ my 'usband, whativer yer may say--
+we could pay John back--some day. Yo can go to 'im, an to Watson, an say
+as we'll pay it back--yo _could_, Isaac. I can take ter the plattin
+again, an I can go an work for Mrs. Drew--she asked me again lasst week.
+Mary Anne ull see to the childer. You go to John, Isaac, to-morrer--an--
+an--to Watson. All they wants is the money back. Yer couldn't--yer
+couldn't--see me took to prison, Isaac.'
+
+She gasped for breath, wiping the mist from her eye with the edge of her
+shawl.
+
+But all that she said only maddened the man's harsh and pessimist nature
+the more. The futility of her proposals, of her daring to think, after
+his fiat and the law's had gone forth, that there was any way out of
+what she had done, for her or for him, drove him to frenzy. And his
+wretched son was far away; so he must vent the frenzy on her. The
+melancholia, which religion had more or less restrained and comforted
+during a troubled lifetime, became on this tragic night a wild-beast
+impulse that must have its prey.
+
+He rose suddenly and came towards her, his eyes glaring, and a burst of
+invective on his white lips. Then he made a rush for a heavy stick that
+leant against the wall.
+
+She fled from him, reached her bedroom in safety, and bolted the door.
+She heard him give a groan on the stairs, throw away the stick, and
+descend again.
+
+Then for nearly two hours there was absolute stillness once more in this
+miserable house. Bessie had sunk, half-fainting, on a chair by the bed,
+and lay there, her head lying against the pillow.
+
+But in a very short time the blessed numbness was gone, and
+consciousness became once more a torture, the medium of terrors not to
+be borne. Isaac hated her--she would be taken from her children--she
+felt Watson's grip upon her arm--she saw the jeering faces at the
+village doors.
+
+At times a wave of sheer bewilderment swept across her. How had it come
+about that she was sitting there like this? Only two days before she had
+been everybody's friend. Life had been perpetually gay and exciting. She
+had had qualms indeed, moments of a quick anguish, before the scene in
+the 'Spotted Deer.' But there had been always some thought to protect
+her from herself. John was not coming back for a long, long time. She
+would replace the money--of course she would! And she would not take any
+more--or only a very little. Meanwhile the hours floated by, dressed in
+a colour and variety they had never yet possessed for her--charged with
+all the delights of wealth, as such a human being under such conditions
+is able to conceive them.
+
+Her nature, indeed, had never gauged its own capacities for pleasure
+till within the last few months. Excitement, amusement, society--she had
+grown to them; they had evoked in her a richer and fuller life, expanded
+and quickened all the currents of her blood. As she sat shivering in the
+darkness and solitude, she thought with a sick longing of the hours in
+the public-house--the lights, the talk, the warmth within and without.
+The drink-thirst was upon her at this moment. It had driven her down to
+the village that afternoon at the moment of John's arrival. But she had
+no money. She had not dared to unlock the cupboard again, and she could
+only wander up and down the bit of dark road beyond the 'Spotted Deer,'
+suffering and craving.
+
+Well, it was all done--all done!
+
+She had come up without her candle, and the only light in the room was a
+cold glimmer from the snow outside. But she must find a light, for she
+must write a letter. By much groping she found some matches, and then
+lit one after another while she searched in her untidy drawers for an
+ink-bottle and a pen she knew must be there.
+
+She found them, and with infinite difficulty--holding match after match
+in her left hand--she scrawled a few blotted lines on a torn piece of
+paper. She was a poor scholar, and the toil was great. When it was done,
+she propped the paper up against the looking-glass.
+
+Then she felt for her dress, and deliberately put it on again, in the
+dark, though her hands were so numb with cold that she could scarcely
+hook the fastenings. Her teeth chattered as she threw her old shawl
+round her.
+
+Stooping down she took off her boots, and pushing the bolt of her own
+door back as noiselessly as possible, she crept down the stairs. As she
+neared the lower door, the sound of two or three loud breathings caught
+her ear.
+
+Her heart contracted with an awful sense of loneliness. Her husband
+slept--her children slept--while she--
+
+Then the wave of a strange, a just passion mounted within her. She
+stepped into the kitchen, and walking up to her husband's chair, she
+stood still a moment looking at him. The lamp was dying away, but she
+could still see him plainly. She held herself steadily erect; a frown
+was on her brow, a flame in her eyes.
+
+'Well, good-bye, Isaac,' she said, in a low but firm voice.
+
+Then she walked to the back door and opened it, taking no heed of noise;
+the latch fell heavily, the hinges creaked.
+
+'Isaac!' she cried, her tones loud and ringing,--_Iaac!_'
+
+There was a sudden sound in the kitchen. She slipped through the door,
+and ran along the snow-covered garden.
+
+Isaac, roused by her call from the deep trance of exhaustion which only
+a few minutes before had fallen upon his misery, stood up, felt the
+blast rushing in through the open door at the back, and ran blindly.
+
+The door had swung to again. He clutched it open; in the dim weird
+light, he saw a dark figure stoop over the well; he heard something
+flung aside, which fell upon the snow with a thud; then the figure
+sprang upon the coping of the well.
+
+He ran with all his speed, his face beaten by the wind and sleet. But he
+was too late. A sharp cry pierced the night. As he reached the well, and
+hung over it, he heard, or thought he heard, a groan, a beating of the
+water--then no more.
+
+Isaac's shouts for help attracted the notice of a neighbour who was
+sitting up with her daughter and a new-born child. She roused her
+son-in-law and his boy, and through them a score of others, deep night
+though it was.
+
+Watson was among the first of those who gathered round the well. He and
+others lowered Isaac with ropes into its icy depths, and drew him up
+again, while the snow beat upon them all--the straining men--two
+dripping shapes emerging from the earth. A murmur of horror greeted the
+first sight of that marred face on Isaac's arm, as the lanterns fell
+upon it. For there was a gash above the eye, caused by a projection in
+the hard chalk side of the well, which of itself spoke death.
+
+Isaac carried her in, and laid her down before the still glowing hearth.
+A shudder ran through him as he knelt, bending over her. The new wound
+had effaced all the traces of Timothy's blow. How long was it since she
+had stood there before him pointing to it?
+
+The features were already rigid. No one felt the smallest hope. Yet with
+that futile tenderness all can show to the dead, everything was tried.
+Mary Anne Waller came--white and speechless--and her deft gentle hands
+did whatever the village doctor told her. And there were many other
+women, too, who did their best. Some of them, had Bessie dared to live,
+would have helped with all their might to fill her cup of punishment to
+the brim. Now that she had thrown herself on death as her only friend,
+they were dissolved in pity.
+
+Everything failed. Bessie had meant to die, and she had not missed her
+aim. There came a moment when the doctor, laying his ear for the last
+time to her cold breast, raised himself to bid the useless effort cease.
+
+'Send them all away,' he said to the little widow, 'and you stay.'
+
+Watson helped to clear the room, then he and Isaac carried the dead
+woman upstairs. An old man followed them, a bent and broken being, who
+dragged himself up the steps with his stick. Watson, out of compassion,
+came back to help him.
+
+'John--yer'd better go home, an to yer bed--yer can't do no good.'
+
+'I'll wait for Mary Anne,' said John, in a shaking whisper--'I'll wait
+for Mary Anne.'
+
+And he stood at the doorway leaning on his stick; his weak and reddened
+eyes fixed on his cousin, his mouth open feebly.
+
+But Mary Anne, weeping, beckoned to another woman who had come up with
+the little procession, and they began their last offices.
+
+'Let us go,' said the doctor, kindly, his hand on Isaac's shoulder,
+'till they have done.'
+
+At that moment Watson, throwing a last professional glance round the
+room, perceived the piece of torn paper propped against the glass. Ah!
+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
+o' 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 show me no mercy, an I can't think of anythin different. I did
+love yer an the childer, but the drink got holt o' 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 encompassed 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
+pressed, 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 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 abasement, 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 associations, 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-abasements 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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Story of Bessie Costrell., by Mrs. Humphry Ward
+
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+Project Gutenberg's The Story of Bessie Costrell., by Mrs. Humphry Ward
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Story of Bessie Costrell.
+
+Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward
+
+Release Date: April 27, 2004 [EBook #12181]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF BESSIE COSTRELL. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Carol David and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WRITINGS OF
+
+MRS HUMPHRY WARD
+
+
+
+FENWICK'S CAREER
+AND
+THE STORY OF BESSIE COSTRELL
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: [[Latin inscription: TOVT BIEN OV BIEN]]]
+
+
+BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+MDCCCCX
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1895, 1905, 1906, BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+STORY OF BESSIE COSTRELL
+
+
+
+
+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 masses 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 'nobbut 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.
+
+[Illustration: _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 nobody 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 'nassty,' 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 passed 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 passed 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 passed 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 assent, 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.
+
+John roused himself, and could not help an astonished laugh.
+
+'Why, whatever put Mary Anne into your head, 'Liza? Yer never thought
+anythink o' Mary Anne--no more than me.'
+
+Eliza's eyes wandered round the room.
+
+'P'raps--' she said, then stopped, and could say no more. She seemed to
+become unconscious, and John went to call for Louisa.
+
+In the middle of the night John woke with a start, and sat up to listen.
+Not a sound--but they would have called him if the end had come. He
+could not rest, however, and presently he huddled on some clothes and
+went to listen at Eliza's door. It was ajar, and hearing nothing he
+pushed it open.
+
+Poor Eliza lay in her agony, unconscious, and breathing heavily. Beside
+her sat the widow, Mary Anne Waller, and Louisa, motionless too, their
+heads bent. There was an end of candle in a basin behind the bed, which
+threw circles of wavering light over the coarse whitewash of the roof
+and on the cards and faded photographs above the tiny mantelpiece.
+
+John crept up to the bed. The two women made a slight movement to let
+him stand between them.
+
+'Can't yer give her no brandy?' he asked, whispering.
+
+Mary Anne Waller shook her head.
+
+'Dr. Murch said we wern't to trouble her. She'll go when the light
+comes--most like.'
+
+She was a little shrivelled woman with a singularly delicate mouth, that
+quivered as she spoke. John and Eliza Bolderfield had never thought much
+of her, though she was John's cousin. She was a widow, and greatly 'put
+upon' both by her children and her neighbours. Her children were grown
+up, and settled--more or less--in the world, but they still lived on her
+freely whenever it suited them; and in the village generally she was
+reckoned but a poor creature.
+
+However, when Eliza--originally a hard, strong woman--took to her bed
+with incurable disease, Mary Anne Waller came in to help, and was
+accepted. She did everything humbly; she even let Louisa order her
+about. But before the end, Eliza had come to be restless when she was
+not there.
+
+Now, however, Eliza knew no more, and the little widow sat gazing at her
+with the tears on her cheeks. John, too, felt his eyes wet. But after
+half an hour, when there was still no change, he was turning away to go
+back to bed, when the widow touched his arm.
+
+'Won't yer give her a kiss, John?' she said, timidly. 'She wor a good
+sister to you.'
+
+John, with a tremor, stooped, and clumsily did as he was told--the first
+time in his life he had ever done so for Mary Anne. Then, stepping as
+noiselessly as he could on his bare feet, he hurried away. A man shares
+nothing of that yearning attraction which draws women to a death-bed as
+such. Instead, John felt a sudden sickness at his heart. He was thankful
+to find himself in his own room again, and thought with dread of having
+to go back--for the end. In spite of his still vigorous and stalwart
+body he was often plagued with nervous fears and fancies. And it was
+years now since he had seen death--he had indeed carefully avoided
+seeing it.
+
+Gradually, however, as he sat on the edge of his bed in the summer dark,
+the new impression died away, and something habitual took its place--
+that shielding, solacing thought, which was in truth all the world to
+him, and was going to make up to him for Eliza's death, for getting old,
+and the lonesomeness of a man without chick or child. He would have felt
+unutterably forlorn and miserable, he would have shrunk trembling from
+the shapes of death and pain that seemed to fill the darkness, but for
+this fact, this defence, this treasure, that set him apart from his
+fellows and gave him this proud sense of superiority, of a good time
+coming in spite of all. Instinctively, as he sat on the bed, he pushed
+his bare foot backwards till his heel touched a wooden object that stood
+underneath. The contact cheered him at once. He ceased to think about
+Eliza, his head was once more full of whirling plans and schemes.
+
+The wooden object was a box that held his money, the savings of a
+labourer's lifetime. Seventy-one pounds! It seemed to him an ocean of
+gold, never to be exhausted. The long toil of saving it was almost done.
+After the Frampton job, he would begin enjoying it, cautiously at first,
+taking a bit of work now and again, and then a bit of holiday.
+
+All the savour of life was connected for him with that box. His mind ran
+over the constant excitements of the many small loans he had made from
+it to his relations and friends. A shilling in the pound interest--he
+had never taken less and he had never asked more. He had only lent to
+people he knew well, people in the village whom he could look after, and
+seldom for a term longer than three months, for to be parted from his
+money at all gave him physical pain. He had once suffered great anxiety
+over a loan to his eldest brother of thirty pounds. But in the end James
+had paid it all back. He could still feel tingling through him the
+passionate joy with which he had counted out the recovered sovereigns,
+with the extra three half-sovereigns of interest.
+
+Muster Drew indeed! John fell into an angry inward argument against his
+suggestion of the savings-bank. It was an argument he had often
+rehearsed, often declaimed, and at bottom it all came to this--without
+that box under his bed, his life would have sunk to dulness and
+decrepitude; he would have been merely a pitiful and lonely old man. He
+had neither wife nor children, all for the hoard's sake; but while the
+hoard was there, to be handled any hour, he regretted nothing. Besides,
+there was the peasant's rooted distrust of offices, and paper
+transactions, of any routine that checks his free will and frightens his
+inexperience. He was still eagerly thinking when the light began to
+flood into his room, and before he could compose himself to sleep the
+women called him.
+
+But he shed no more tears. He saw Eliza die, his companion of forty
+years, and hardly felt it. What troubled him all through the last scene
+was the thought that now he should never know why she was so set against
+'Bessie's 'avin it.'
+
+
+
+
+SCENE II
+
+It was, indeed, the general opinion in Clinton Magna that John
+Bolderfield--or 'Borrofull,' as the village pronounced it, took his
+sister-in-law's death too lightly. The women especially pronounced him a
+hard heart. Here was 'poor Eliza' gone, Eliza who had kept him decent
+and comfortable for forty years, ever since he was a lad, and he could
+go about whistling, and--to talk to him--as gay as a lark! Yet John
+contributed handsomely to the burial expenses--Eliza having already,
+through her burial club, provided herself with a more than regulation
+interment; and he gave Jim's Louisa her mourning. Nevertheless these
+things did not avail. It was felt instinctively that he was not beaten
+down as he ought to have been, and Mrs. Saunders, the smith's wife, was
+applauded when she said to her neighbours that 'you couldn't expeck a
+man with John Bolderfield's money to have as many feelins as other
+people.' Whence it would seem that the capitalist is no more truly
+popular in small societies than in large.
+
+John, however, did not trouble himself about these things. He was hard
+at work harvesting for Muster Hill's widow, and puzzling his head day
+and night as to what to do with his box.
+
+When the last field had been carried and the harvest supper was over, he
+came home late, and wearied out. His working life at Clinton Magna was
+done; and the family he had worked for so long was broken up in distress
+and poverty. Yet he felt only a secret exultation. Such toil and effort
+behind--such a dreamland in front!
+
+Next day he set to work to wind up his affairs. The furniture of the
+cottage was left to Eliza's son Jim, and the daughter had arranged for
+the carting of it to the house twelve miles off where her parents lived.
+She was to go with it on the morrow, and John would give up the cottage
+and walk over to Frampton, where he had already secured a lodging.
+
+Only twenty-four hours!--and he had not yet decided. Which was it to be
+--Saunders after all--or the savings-bank--or Bessie?
+
+He was cording up his various possessions--a medley lot--indifferent
+parcels and bundles, when Bessie Costrell knocked at the door. She had
+already offered to stow away anything he might like to leave with her.
+
+'Well, I thought you'd be busy,' she said as she walked in, 'an I came
+up to lend a hand. Is them the things you're goin to leave me to take
+care on?'
+
+John nodded.
+
+'Field's cart, as takes Louisa's things to-morrer, is a-goin to deliver
+these at your place first. They're more nor I thought they would be. But
+you can put 'em anywheres.'
+
+'Oh, I'll see to 'em.'
+
+She sat down and watched him tie the knots of the last parcel.
+
+'There's some people as is real ill-natured,' she said presently, in an
+angry voice.
+
+'Aye?' said John, looking up sharply. 'What are they sayin now?'
+
+'It's Muster Saunders. 'Ee's allus sayin nassty things about other
+folks. And there'd be plenty of fault to be found with 'im, if onybody
+was to try. An Sally Saunders eggs him on dreadful.'
+
+Saunders was the village smith, a tall, brawny man, of great size and
+corresponding wisdom, who had been the village arbiter and general
+councillor for a generation. There was not a will made in Clinton Magna
+that he did not advise upon; not a bit of contentious business that he
+had not a share in; not a family history that he did not know. His
+probity was undisputed; his ability was regarded with awe; but as he had
+a sharp tongue and was no respecter of persons, there was of course an
+opposition.
+
+John took a seat on the wooden box he had just been cording, and mopped
+his brow. His full cheeks were crimson, partly with exertion, partly
+with sudden annoyance.
+
+'What's 'ee been sayin now? Though it doan't matter a brass farthin to
+me what 'ee says.'
+
+'He says you 'aven't got no proper feelins about poor Eliza, and you'd
+ought to have done a great deal more for Louisa. But 'ee says you allus
+were a mean one with your money--an you knew that '_ee_ knew it--for 'ee
+'d stopped you takin an unfair advantage more nor once. An 'ee didn't
+believe as your money would come to any good; for now Eliza was gone you
+wouldn't know how to take care on it.'
+
+John's eyes flamed. 'Oh! 'ee says that, do 'ee? Well Saunders wor allus
+a beast--an a beast 'ee'll be.'
+
+He sat with his chin on his large dirty hands, ruminating furiously.
+
+It was quite true that Saunders had thwarted him more than once. There
+was old Mrs. Moulsey at the shop, when she wanted to buy those cottages
+in Potter's Row--and there was Sam Field the higgler--both of them would
+have borrowed from him if Saunders hadn't cooled them off. Saunders said
+it was a Jew's interest he was asking--because there was security--but
+he wasn't going to accept a farthing less than his shilling a pound for
+three months--not he! So they might take it or leave it. And Mrs.
+Moulsey got hers from the Building Society, and Sam Field made shift to
+go without. And John Bolderfield was three pounds poorer that quarter
+than he need have been--all along of Saunders. And now Saunders was
+talking 'agen him' like this--blast him!
+
+'Oh, an then he went on'--pursued Bessie with gusto--'about your bein
+too ignorant to put it in the post-office. 'Ee said you'd think Edwards
+would go an spend it' (Edwards was the postmaster), 'an then he laughed
+fit to split 'imself. Yer couldn't see more nor the length of your own
+nose he said--it was edication _you_ wanted. As for 'im, 'ee said, 'ee'd
+have kep it for you if you'd asked him, but you'd been like a bear with
+a sore 'ead, 'ee said ever since Mrs. Moulsey's affair--so 'ee didn't
+suppose you would.'
+
+'Well, 'ee's about right there,' said John, grimly; ''ee's talkin sense
+for onst when 'ee says that. I'd dig a hole in the hill and bury it
+sooner nor I'd trust it to 'im--I would, by--' he swore vigorously. 'A
+thieving set of magpies is all them Saunders--cadgin 'ere and cadgin
+there.'
+
+He spoke with fierce contempt, the tacit hatred of years leaping to
+sight. Bessie's bright brown eyes looked at him with sympathy.
+
+'It was just his nassty spite,' she said. 'He knew '_ee_ could never ha
+done it--not what you've done--out o' your wages. Not unless 'ee got
+Sally to tie 'im to the dresser with ropes so as 'ee couldn't go a-near
+the "Spotted Deer" no more!'
+
+She laughed like a merry child at her own witticism, and John relished
+it too, though he was not in a laughing mood.
+
+'Why'--continued Bessie with enthusiasm, 'it was Muster Drew as said to
+me the other afternoon, as we was walkin 'ome from the churchyard, says
+'ee, "Mrs. Costrell, I call it splendid what John's done--I _do_," 'ee
+says. "A labourer on fifteen shillins a week--why it's an example to the
+country," 'ee says. "'Ee ought to be showed."'
+
+John's face relaxed. The temper and obstinacy in the eyes began to yield
+to the weak complacency which was their more normal expression.
+
+There was silence for a minute or two. Bessie sat with her hands on her
+lap and her face turned towards the open door. Beyond the cherry-red
+phloxes outside it, the ground fell rapidly to the village, rising again
+beyond the houses to a great stubble field, newly shorn. Gleaners were
+already in the field, their bent figures casting sharp shadows on the
+golden upland, and the field itself stretched upwards to a great wood
+that lay folded round the top of a spreading hill. To the left, beyond
+the hill, a wide plain travelled into the sunset, its level spaces cut
+by the scrawled elms and hedgerows of the nearer landscape. The beauty
+of it all--the beauty of an English Midland--was of a modest and
+measured sort, depending chiefly on bounties of sun and air, on the
+delicacies of gentle curves and the pleasant intermingling of wood and
+cornfield, of light spaces with dark, of solid earth with luminous sky.
+
+Such as it was, however, neither Bessie nor John spared it a moment's
+attention. Bessie was thinking a hundred busy thoughts. John, on the
+other hand, had begun to consider her with an excited scrutiny. She was
+a handsome woman, as she sat in the doorway with her fine brown head
+turned to the light. But John naturally was not thinking of that. He was
+in the throes of decision.
+
+'Look 'ere, Bessie,' he said suddenly; 'what 'ud you say if I wor to ask
+Isaac an you to take care on it?'
+
+Bessie started slightly. Then she looked frankly round at him. She had
+very keen, lively eyes, and a bright red-brown colour on thin cheeks.
+The village applied to her the epithet which John's thoughts had applied
+to Muster Hill's widow. They said she was 'caselty,' which means
+flighty, haphazard, excitable; but she was popular, nevertheless, and
+had many friends.
+
+It was, of course, her own settled opinion that her uncle ought to leave
+that box with her and Isaac; and it had wounded her vanity, and her
+affection besides, that John had never yet made any such proposal,
+though she knew--as, indeed, the village knew--that he was perplexed as
+to what to do with his hoard. But she had never dared to suggest that he
+should leave it with her, out of fear of Eliza Bolderfield. Bessie was
+well aware that Eliza thought ill of her and would dissuade John from
+any such arrangement if she could. And so formidable was Eliza--a woman
+of the hardest and sourest virtue--when she chose, that Bessie was
+afraid of her, even on her death-bed, though generally ready enough to
+quarrel with other people. Nevertheless, Bessie had always felt that it
+would be a crying shame and slight if she and Isaac did not have the
+guardianship of the money. She thirsted, perhaps, to make an impression
+upon public opinion in the village, which, as she instinctively
+realised, held her cheaply. And then, of course, there was the secret
+thought of John's death and what might come of it. John had always
+loudly proclaimed that he meant to spend his money, and not leave it
+behind him. But the instinct of saving, once formed, is strong. John,
+too, might die sooner than he thought--and she and Isaac had children.
+
+She had come up, indeed, that afternoon, haunted by a passionate desire
+to get the money into her hands; yet the mere sordidness of
+'expectations' counted for less in the matter than one would suppose.
+Vanity, a vague wish to ingratiate herself with her uncle, to avoid a
+slight--these were, on the whole, her strongest motives. At any rate,
+when he had once asked her the momentous question, she knew well what to
+say to him.
+
+'Well, if you arst me,' she said hastily, 'of course _we_ think as it's
+only nateral you should leave it with Isaac an me, as is your own kith
+and kin. But we wasn't goin to say nothin; we didn't want to be pushin
+of ourselves forward.'
+
+John rose to his feet. He was in his shirt-sleeves, which were rolled
+up. He pulled them down, put on his coat, an air of crisis on his fat
+face.
+
+'Where 'ud you put it?' he said.
+
+'Yer know that cupboard by the top of the stairs? It 'ud stand there
+easy. And the cupboard's got a good lock to it; but we'd 'ave it seen
+to, to make sure.'
+
+She looked up at him eagerly. She longed to feel herself trusted and
+important. Her self-love was too often mortified in these respects.
+
+John fumbled round his neck for the bit of black cord on which he kept
+two keys--the key of his room while he was away, and the key of the box
+itself.
+
+'Well, let's get done with it,' he said. 'I'm off to-morrer mornin, six
+o'clock. You go and get Isaac to come down.'
+
+'I'll run,' said Bessie, catching up her shawl and throwing it over her
+head. 'He wor just finishin his tea.'
+
+And she whirled out of the cottage, running up the steep road behind it
+as fast as she could. John was vaguely displeased by her excitement; but
+the die was cast. He went to make his arrangements.
+
+Bessie ran till she was out of breath. When she reached her own house, a
+cottage in a side lane above the Bolderfields' cottage and overlooking
+it from the back, she found her husband sitting with his pipe at the
+open door and reading his newspaper. Three out of her own four children
+were playing in the lane, otherwise there was no one about.
+
+Isaac greeted her with a nod and slight lightening of the eyes, which,
+however, hardly disturbed the habitual sombreness of the face. He was a
+dark, finely featured man, with grizzled hair, carrying himself with an
+air of sleepy melancholy. He was much older than his wife, and was a
+prominent leader in the little Independent chapel of the village. His
+melancholy could give way on occasion to fits of violent temper. For
+instance, he had been almost beside himself when Bessie, who had
+leanings to the Establishment, as providing a far more crowded and
+entertaining place of resort on Sundays than her husband's chapel, had
+rashly proposed to have the youngest baby christened in church. Other
+Independents did it freely--why not she? But Isaac had been nearly mad
+with wrath, and Bessie had fled upstairs from him, with her baby, and
+bolted the bedroom door in bodily terror. Otherwise, he was a most
+docile husband--in the neighbours' opinion, docile to absurdity. He
+complained of nothing, and took notice of little. Bessie's untidy ways
+left him indifferent; his main interest was in a kind of religious
+dreaming, and in an Independent paper to which he occasionally wrote a
+letter. He was gardener at a small house on the hill, and had rather
+more education than most of his fellows in the village. For the rest he
+was fond of his children, and, in his heart of hearts, exceedingly proud
+of his wife, her liveliness and her good looks. She had been a
+remarkably pretty girl when he married her, some eight years after his
+first wife's death, and there was a great difference of age between
+them. His two elder children by his first marriage had long since left
+the home. The girl was in service. It troubled him to think of the boy,
+who had fallen into bad ways early. Bessie's children were all small,
+and she herself still young, though over thirty.
+
+When Bessie came up to him, she looked round to see that no one could
+hear. Then she stooped and told him her errand in a panting whisper. He
+must go down and fetch the box at once. She had promised John Borrofull
+that they would stand by him. They were his own flesh and blood--and the
+cupboard had a capital lock--and there wasn't no fear of it at all.
+
+Isaac listened to her at first with amazement, then sulkily. She had
+talked to him often certainly about John's money, but it had made little
+impression on his dreamer's sense. And now her demand struck him
+disagreeably.
+
+He didn't want the worrit of other people's money, he said. Let them as
+owned it keep it; filthy lucre was a snare to all as had to do with it;
+and it would only bring a mischief to have it in the house.
+
+After a few more of these objections, Bessie lost her temper. She broke
+into a torrent of angry arguments and reproaches, mainly turning, it
+seemed, upon a recent visit to the house of Isaac's eldest son. The
+drunken ne'er do weel had given Bessie much to put up with. Oh, yes!--
+_she_ was to be plagued out of her life by Isaac's belongings, and he
+wouldn't do a pin's worth for her. Just let him see next time, that was
+all.
+
+Isaac smoked vigorously through it all. But she was hammering on a sore
+point.
+
+'Oh, it's just like yer!' Bessie flung at him at last in desperation.
+'You're allus the same--a mean-spirited feller, stannin in your
+children's way! 'Ow do _you_ know who old John's goin to leave his money
+to? 'Ow do _you_ know as he wouldn't leave it to _them_ poor
+innercents'--she waved her hand tragically towards the children playing
+in the road--'if we was just a bit nice and friendly with him now 'ee's
+gettin old? But you don't care, not you!--one 'ud think yer were made o'
+money--an that little un there not got the right use of his legs!'
+
+She pointed, half-crying, to the second boy, who had already shown signs
+of hip disease.
+
+Isaac still smoked, but he was troubled in his mind. A vague
+presentiment held him, but the pressure brought to bear upon him was
+strong.
+
+'I tell yer the lock isn't a good un!' he said, suddenly removing his
+pipe.
+
+Bessie stopped instantly in the middle of another tirade. She was
+leaning against the door, arms akimbo, eyes alternately wet and flaming.
+
+'Then, if it isn't,' she said, with a triumphant change of tone,' I'll
+soon get Flack to see to it--it's nobbut a step. I'll run up after
+supper.'
+
+Flack was the village carpenter.
+
+'An there's mother's old box as takes up the cupboard,' continued Isaac,
+gruffly.
+
+Bessie burst out laughing.
+
+'Oh! yer old silly,' she said. 'As if they couldn't stand one top o'
+t'other. Now, do just go, Isaac--there's a lovey! 'Ee's waitin for yer.
+Whatever did make yer so contrairy? Of course I didn't mean nothin I
+said--an I don't mind Timothy, nor nothin.'
+
+Still he did not move.
+
+'Then I s'pose yer want everybody in the village to know?' he said, with
+sarcasm.
+
+Bessie was taken aback.
+
+'No--I--don't'--she said, undecidedly--'I don't know what yer mean.'
+
+'You go back and tell John as I'll come when it's dark, an, if he's not
+a stupid, he won't want me to come afore.'
+
+Bessie understood and acquiesced. She ran back with her message to John.
+
+At half-past eight, when it had grown almost dark, Isaac descended the
+hill. John opened the door to his knock.
+
+'Good-evenin, Isaac. Yer'll take it, will yer?'
+
+'If you can't do nothin better with it,' said Isaac, unwillingly. 'But
+in gineral I'm not partial on keeping other folks' money.'
+
+John liked him all the better for his reluctance.
+
+'It'll give yer no trouble,' he said. 'You lock it up, an it'll be all
+safe. Now, will yer lend a hand?'
+
+Isaac stepped to the door, looked up the lane, and saw that all was
+quiet. Then he came back, and the two men raised the box.
+
+As they crossed the threshold, however, the door of the next cottage--
+which belonged to Watson the policeman--opened suddenly. John, in his
+excitement, was so startled that he almost dropped his end of the box.
+
+'Why, Bolderfield,' said Watson's cheery voice, 'what have you got
+there? Do you want a hand?'
+
+'No, I don't--thank yer kindly,' said John, in agitation. 'An, if _you_
+please, Muster Watson, don't yer say nothin to nobody.'
+
+The burly policeman looked from John to Isaac, then at the box. John's
+hoard was notorious, and the officer of the law understood.
+
+'Lor bless yer,' he said, with a laugh, 'I'm safe. Well, good evenin to
+yer, if I can't be of any assistance.'
+
+And he went off on his beat.
+
+The two men carried the box up the hill. It was in itself a heavy,
+old-fashioned affair, strengthened and bottomed with iron. Isaac
+wondered whether the weight of it were due more to the box or to the
+money. But he said nothing. He had no idea how much John might have
+saved, and would not have asked him the direct question for the world.
+John's own way of talking about his wealth was curiously contradictory.
+His 'money' was rarely out of his thoughts or speech, but no one had
+ever been privileged for many years now to see the inside of his box,
+except Eliza once; and no one but himself knew the exact amount of the
+hoard. It delighted him that the village gossips should double or treble
+it. Their estimates only gave him the more ground for vague boasting,
+and he would not have said a word to put them right.
+
+When they reached the Costrells' cottage, John's first care was to
+examine the cupboard. He saw that the large wooden chest filled with
+odds and ends of rubbish which already stood there was placed on the top
+of his own box. Then he tried the lock, and pronounced it adequate; he
+didn't want to have Flack meddling round. Now at the moment of parting
+with his treasure he was seized with a sudden fever of secrecy. Bessie
+meanwhile hovered about the two men, full of excitement and loquacity.
+And the children, shut into the kitchen, wondered what could be the
+matter.
+
+When all was done, Isaac locked the cupboard, and solemnly presented the
+key to John, who added it to the other round his neck. Then Bessie
+unlocked the kitchen, and set the children flying, to help her with the
+supper. She was in her most bustling and vivacious mood, and she had
+never cooked the bloaters better or provided a more ample jug of beer.
+But John was silent and depressed.
+
+He took leave at last with many sighs and lingerings. But he had not
+been gone half an hour, and Bessie and Isaac were just going to bed,
+when there was a knock at the door, and he reappeared.
+
+'Let me lie down there,' he said, pointing to a broken-down old sofa
+that ran under the window. 'I'm lonesome somehow, an I've told Louisa.'
+
+His white hair and whiskers stood out wildly round his red face. He
+looked old and ill, and the sympathetic Bessie was sorry for him.
+
+She made him a bed on the sofa, and he lay there all night, restless,
+and sighing heavily. He missed Eliza more than he had done yet, and was
+oppressed with a vague sense of unhappiness. Once, in the middle of the
+night when all was still, he stole upstairs in his stocking feet and
+gently tried the cupboard door. It was quite safe, and he went down
+contented.
+
+An hour or two later he was off, trudging to Frampton through the August
+dawn, with his bundle on his back.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE III
+
+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 with 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
+Mr. Drew caught a momentary glimpse of the bar and the drinkers.
+Bessie's handsome, reckless head stood out an instant in the bright
+light.
+
+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, and 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 goins-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 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--
+old 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 judgement 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 scandalmongers 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 further. 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'p'orth for
+so lugubrious and hypocritical a husband.
+
+She had showered drinks on all her friends, and had, moreover, clattered
+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 taproom 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 woolen 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 halfway 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
+Gaol--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.
+Teetotallers 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 orgy
+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 round 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. 'It's old John's money. So yo've been after it, eh?'
+
+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 comin,
+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 goins-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 goin 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 waistcoat pocket.
+
+Bessie flung herself upon him. He gave her one businesslike 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 playin 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.'
+
+Bessie burst into tears. It seemed as though her life were breaking
+within her. Never since their early married days had he spoken to her
+like this. And she was in such piteous need of comfort; of some strong
+hand to help her out of the black pit in which she lay. The wild impulse
+crossed her to sit up and tell him--to throw it all on Timothy, to show
+him the cupboard and the box. Should she tell him; brave it all now that
+he was like this? Between them they might find a way--make it good.
+
+Then the thought of the man in the public-house, of the half-crowns, a
+host of confused and guilty memories, swept upon her. How could she ever
+get herself out of it? Her heart beat so that it seemed a live creature
+strangling and silencing her. She was still fighting with her tears and
+her terror when she heard Isaac say:
+
+'I know yer'll try, and I'll help yer. I'll be a better husband to yer,
+I swear I will. Give us a kiss, old woman.'
+
+She turned her face, sobbing, and he kissed her cheek.
+
+Then she heard him say in another tone:
+
+'An I got a bit o' news down at the club as will liven yer up. Parkinson
+was there; just come over from Frampton to see his mother; an he says
+John will be here to-morrer or next day. 'Be seed him yesterday--pulled
+down dreadful--quite the old man, 'ee says. An John told him as he was
+comin 'ome directly to live comfortable.'
+
+Bessie drew her shawl over her head.
+
+'To-morrer, did yer say?' she asked in a whisper.
+
+'Mos like. Now you go to sleep; I'll put out the lamp.'
+
+But all night long Bessie lay wide awake in torment, her soul hardening
+within her, little by little.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE IV
+
+Just before dark on the following day, a man descended
+from a down train at the Clinton Magna station. The porters knew him and
+greeted him; so did one or two labourers outside, as he set off to walk
+to the village which was about a mile distant.
+
+'Well, John, so yer coom back,' said one of them, an old man, grasping
+the newcomer by the hand. 'An I can't say as yer looks is any credit to
+Frampton--no, that aa can't.'
+
+John, indeed, wore a sallow and pinched air, and walked lamely, with a
+stick.
+
+'Noa,' he said, peevishly; 'it's a beastly place is Frampton; a damp,
+nassty hole as iver I saw--gives yer the rheumaticks to look at it. I've
+'ad a doose of a time, I 'ave, I can tell yer--iver sense I went. But
+I'll pull up now.'
+
+'Aye, this air'll do yer,' said the other. 'Where are yer stoppin?
+Costrells'?'
+
+John nodded.
+
+'They don't know nothin about my comin, but I dessay they'll find me
+somethin to sleep on. I'll 'ave my own place soon, and some one to look
+arter it.'
+
+He drew himself up involuntarily, with the dignity that waits on
+property.
+
+A laugh, rather jeering than cordial, ran through the group of
+labourers.
+
+'Aye, yer'll be livin at your ease,' said the man who had spoken first.
+'When will yo give us a drink, yer lardship?'
+
+The others grinned.
+
+'Where's your money, John?' said a younger man suddenly, staring hard at
+the returned wanderer.
+
+John started.
+
+'Don't you talk your nonsense!' he said, fretfully; 'an I must be gettin
+on, afore dark.'
+
+He went his way, but as he turned a corner of the road, he saw them
+still standing where he had left them. They seemed to be watching his
+progress, which astonished him.
+
+A light of windy sunset lay spread over the white valley, and the
+freshening gusts drove the powdery snow before them, and sent little
+stabs of pain through John's shrinking body. Yet how glad he was to find
+himself again between those familiar hedges, to see the church-tower in
+front of him, the long hill to his right! His heart swelled at once with
+longing and satisfaction. During his Frampton job, and in the infirmary,
+he had suffered much, physically and mentally. He had missed Eliza and
+the tendance of years more than he had ever imagined he could; and he
+had found himself too old for new faces and a new society. When he fell
+ill he had been sorely tempted to send for some of his money, and get
+himself nursed and cared for at the respectable lodging where he had put
+up. But no; in the end he set his teeth and went into the infirmary. He
+had planned not to touch his hoard till he had done with the Frampton
+job, and returned to Clinton for good.
+
+His peasant obstinacy could not endure to be beaten; nor, indeed, could
+he bring himself to part with his keys, to trust the opening of the
+hoard even to Isaac.
+
+Since then he had passed through many weary weeks, sometimes of acute
+pain, sometimes of sinking weakness, during which he had been haunted by
+many secret torments, springing mainly from the fear of death. He had
+almost been driven to make his will. But in the end superstitious
+reluctance prevailed. He had not made the will; and to dwell on the fact
+gave him the sensation of having escaped a bond, if not a danger. He did
+not want to leave his money behind him; he wanted to spend it, as he had
+told Eliza and Mary Anne and Bessie scores of times. To have assigned it
+to any one else, even after his death, would have made it less his own.
+
+Ah, well! those bad weeks were done, and here he was, at home again.
+Suddenly, as he tramped on, he caught sight against the hill of Bessie's
+cottage, the blue smoke from it blown across the rime-laden trees behind
+it. He drew in his breath with a deep, tremulous delight. That buoyant
+self-congratulation indeed which had stood between him and the pain of
+Eliza's death was gone. Rather there was in him a profound yearning for
+rest, for long dreaming by the fire or in the sun, with his pipe to
+smoke, and Jim's Louisa to look after him, and nothing to do but to draw
+a half-crown from his box when he wanted it. No more hard work in rain
+and cold; and no cringing, either, to the young and prosperous for the
+mere fault of age. The snowy valley with its circling woods opened to
+him like a mother's breast; the sight of it filled him with a hundred
+simple hopes and consolations; he hurried to bury himself in it, and be
+at peace.
+
+He was within a hundred yards of the first house in the village, when he
+saw a tall figure in uniform approaching, and recognised Watson.
+
+At sight of him the policeman stopped short, and John was conscious of a
+moment's vague impression of something strange in Watson's looks.
+
+However, Watson shook hands with great friendliness.
+
+'Well, I'm glad to see yer, John, I'm sure. An now, I s'pose, you're
+back for good?'
+
+'Aye. I'm not goin away no more. I've done my share--I wants a bit o'
+rest.'
+
+'Of coorse yer do. You've been ill, 'aven't yer? You look like it. An
+yer puttin up at Costrells'?'
+
+'Yes, till I can turn round a bit. 'Ave yer seen anythin ov 'em? 'Ow's
+Bessie?'
+
+Watson faced back towards the village.
+
+'I'll walk with yer a bit--I'm in no 'urry. Oh, she's all right. You
+'eard of her bit o' money?'
+
+John opened his eyes.
+
+'Noa, I don know as I did.'
+
+'It wor an aunt o' hers, soa I understan--quite a good bit o' money.'
+
+'Did yer iver hear the name?' said John, eagerly.
+
+'Some one livin at Bedford, I did 'ear say.'
+
+John laughed, not without good-humoured relief. It would have touched
+his vanity had his niece been discovered to be richer than himself.
+
+'Oh, that's old Sophy Clarke,' he said. 'Her 'usband bought the lease o'
+two little 'ouses in Church Street, and they braaet 'er in six shillins a
+week for years, an she allus said she'd leave it to Bessie if she wor
+took afore the lease wor up. But the lease ull be up end o' next year I
+know, for I saw the old lady myself last Michaelmas twelvemonth, an she
+told me all about it, though I worn't to tell nobody meself. An I didn't
+know Sophy wor gone. Ah, well! it's not much, but it's 'andy--it's
+'andy.'
+
+'Six shillins a week!' said Watson, raising his eyebrows. 'It's a nice
+bit o' money while it lassts, but I'd ha thought Mrs. Costrell 'ad come
+into a deal more nor that.'
+
+'Oh, but she's sich a one to spend, is Bessie,' said John, anxiously.
+'It's surprisin 'ow the money runs. It's sixpence 'ere, an sixpence
+there, allus dribblin, an dribblin, out ov 'er. I've allus tole 'er as
+she'll end 'er days on the parish.'
+
+'Sixpences!' said Watson, with a laugh. 'It's not sixpences as Mrs.
+Costrell's 'ad the spendin of this last month or two--it's _suverins_--
+an plenty ov 'em. You may be sure you've got the wrong tale about the
+money, John; it wor a deal more nor you say.'
+
+John stood stock-still at the word 'sovereigns,' his jaw dropping.
+
+'_Suverins!_' he said, trembling; 'suverins? Bessie ain't got no
+suverins. Isaac arns sixteen shillin a week.'
+
+The colour was ebbing fast from his cheek and lips. Watson threw him a
+quick professional glance, then rapidly consulted with himself. No; he
+decided to hold his tongue.
+
+'Yo _are_ reg'lar used up,' he said, taking hold of the old fellow
+kindly by the arm. 'Shall I walk yer up the hill?'
+
+John withdrew himself.
+
+'_Suverins!_' he repeated, in a low hoarse voice. 'She ain't got 'em, I
+tell yer--she ain't got 'em!'
+
+The last words rose to a sort of cry, and without another word to Watson
+the old man started at a feeble run, his head hanging.
+
+Watson followed him, afraid lest he should drop in the road. Instead,
+John seemed to gather strength. He made straight for the hill, taking no
+heed whatever of two or three startled acquaintances who stopped and
+shouted to him. When the ground began to rise, he stumbled again and
+again, but by a marvel did not fall, and his pace hardly slackened.
+Watson had difficulty in keeping up with him.
+
+But when the policeman reached his own cottage on the side of the road,
+he stopped, panting, and contented himself with looking after the
+mounting figure. As soon as it turned the corner of the Costrells' lane,
+he went into his own house, said a word to his wife, and sat himself
+down at his own back door to await events--to ponder, also, a few
+conversations he had held that morning, with Mrs. Moulsey at 'the shop,'
+with Dawson, with Hall the butcher. Poor old John--poor old fellow!
+
+When Bolderfield reached the paling in front of the Costrells' cottage,
+he paused a moment, holding for support to the half-open gate and
+struggling for breath. 'I must keep my 'edd, I must,' he was saying to
+himself piteously;' don yer be a fool, John Borroful, don yer be a
+fool!'
+
+As he stood there, a child's face pushed the window-blind of the cottage
+aside, and the lame boy's large eyes looked Bolderfield up and down.
+Immediately after, the door opened, and all four children stood huddling
+behind each other on the threshold. They all looked shyly at the
+newcomer. They knew him, but in six months they had grown strange to
+him.
+
+'Arthur, where's your mother?' said John, at last able to walk firmly up
+to the door.
+
+'Don know.'
+
+'When did yer see her lasst?'
+
+'She wor 'ere gettin us our tea,' said another child; 'but she didn't
+eat nothin.'
+
+John impatiently pushed the children before him back into the kitchen.
+
+'You 'old your tongues,' he said, 'an stay 'ere.'
+
+And he made for the door in the kitchen wall. But Arthur caught hold of
+his coat-tails and clung to them.
+
+'Yer oughtn't to go up there--mother don't let any one go there.'
+
+John wrenched himself violently away.
+
+'Oh, don't she! yo take your 'ands away, yer little varmint, or I'll
+brain yer.'
+
+He raised his stick, threatening. The child, terrified, fell back, and
+John, opening the door, rushed up the stairs.
+
+He was so terribly excited that his fumbling fingers could hardly find
+the ribbon round his neck. At last he drew it over his head, and made
+stupendous efforts to steady his hand sufficiently to put the key in the
+lock.
+
+The children below heard a sharp cry directly the cupboard door was
+opened; then the frantic dragging of a box on to the stairs, the creak
+of hinges--a groan long and lingering--and then silence.
+
+They clung together in terror, and the little girls began to cry. At
+last Arthur took courage and opened the door.
+
+The old man was sitting on the top stair, supported sideways by the
+wall, his head hanging forward, and his hands dropping over his knees,
+in a dead faint.
+
+At the sight all four children ran helter-skelter into the lane,
+shouting 'Mammy! Mammy!' in an anguish of fright. Their clamour was
+caught by the fierce north wind, which had begun to sweep the hill, and
+was borne along till it reached the ears of a woman who was sitting
+sewing in a cottage some fifty yards further up the lane. She stepped to
+her door, opened it and listened.
+
+'It's at Bessie's,' she said; 'whativer's wrong wi' the childer?'
+
+By this time Arthur had begun to run towards her. Darkness was falling
+rapidly, but she could distinguish his small figure against the snow,
+and his halting gait.
+
+'What is it, Arthur?--what is it, lammie?'
+
+'O Cousin Mary Anne! Cousin Mary Anne! It's Uncle John, an 'ee's dead!'
+
+She ran like the wind at the words, catching at the child's hand in the
+dark, and dragging him along with her.
+
+'Where is he, Arthur?--don't take on, honey!'
+
+The child hurried on with her, sobbing, and she was soon on the stairs
+beside the unconscious John.
+
+Mary Anne looked with amazement at the cupboard and the open box. Then
+she laid the old man on the floor, her gentle face working with the
+effort to remember what the doctor had once told her of the best way of
+dealing with persons in a faint. She got water, and she sent Arthur to a
+neighbour for brandy.
+
+'Where's your mother, child?' she asked, as she dispatched him.
+
+'Don know,' repeated the boy, stupidly.
+
+'Oh, for goodness' sake, she's never at Dawson's again!' groaned Mary
+Anne to herself; 'she wor there last night, an the night afore that. An
+her mother's brother lyin like this in 'er house!'
+
+He was so long in coming round that her ignorance began to fear the
+worst. But just as she was telling the eldest girl to put on her hat and
+jacket and run for the doctor, poor John revived.
+
+He struggled to a sitting posture, looked wildly at her and at the box.
+As his eye caught the two sovereigns still lying at the bottom, he gave
+a cry of rage, and got upon his feet with a mighty effort.
+
+'Where's Bessie, I tell yer? Where's the huzzy gone? I'll have the law
+on 'er! I'll make 'er give it up--by the Lord, I will!'
+
+'John, what is it?--John, my dear!' cried Mary Anne, supporting him, and
+terrified lest he should pitch headlong down the stairs.
+
+'Yo 'elp me down,' he said, violently. 'We'll find 'er--we'll wring it
+out ov 'er--the mean thievin vagabond! Changin suverins, 'as she? we'll
+soon know about that--yo 'elp me down, I tell yer.'
+
+And with her assistance he hobbled down the stairs, hardly able to
+stand. Mary Anne's eyes were starting out of her head with fear and
+agitation, and the children were staring at the old man as he came
+tottering into the kitchen, when a sound at the outer door made them all
+turn.
+
+The door opened, and Bessie appeared on the threshold.
+
+At sight of her John seemed to lose his senses. He rushed at her,
+threatening, imploring, reviling--while Mary Anne could only cling to
+his arms and coat, lest he should attempt some bodily mischief.
+
+Bessie closed the door, leant against it, and folded her arms. She was
+white and haggard, but perfectly cool. In this moment of excitement it
+struck neither John nor Mary Anne--nor, indeed, herself--that her
+manner, with its brutality, and its poorly feigned surprise, was the
+most revealing element in the situation.
+
+'What's all this about yer money?' she said, staring John in the face.
+'What do I know about yer money? 'Ow dare yer say such things? I 'aven't
+anythin to do with it, an never 'ad.'
+
+He raved at her, in reply, about the position in which he had found the
+box--on the top of its fellow instead of underneath, where he had placed
+it--about the broken lock, the sovereigns she had been changing, and the
+things Watson had said of her--winding up with a peremptory demand for
+his money.
+
+'Yo gi me my money back,' he said, holding out a shaking hand. 'Yer
+can't 'ave spent it all--tain't possible--an yer ain't chucked it out o'
+winder. Yer've got it somewhere 'idden, an I'll get it out o' you if I
+die for 't!'
+
+Bessie surveyed him steadily. She had not even flinched at the mention
+of the sovereigns.
+
+'What yer 'aven't got, yer can't give,' she said. 'I don know nothin
+about it, an I've tole yer. There's plenty o' bad people in the world--
+beside me. Somebody came in o' nights, I suppose, an picked the lock--
+there's many as 'ud think nothin of it. And it 'ud be easy done--we all
+sleeps 'ard.'
+
+'Bessie!' cried Mary Anne, outraged by something in her tone, 'aren't
+yer sorry for 'im?'
+
+She pointed to the haggard and trembling man.
+
+Bessie turned to her reluctantly.
+
+'Aye, I'm sorry,' she said, sullenly. 'But he shouldn't fly out at yer
+without 'earin a word. 'Ow should I know anythin about his money? 'Be
+locked it up hisself, an tuk the keys.'
+
+'An them suverins,' roared John, rattling his stick on the floor; 'where
+did yer get them suverins?'
+
+'I got 'em from old Sophy Clarke--leastways, from Sophy Clarke's lawyer.
+And it ain't no business o' yourn.'
+
+At this John fell into a frenzy, shouting at her in inarticulate
+passion, calling her liar and thief.
+
+She fronted it with perfect composure. Her fine eyes blazed, but
+otherwise her face might have been a waxen mask. With her, in this
+scene, was all the tragic dignity; with him, the weakness and vulgarity.
+
+At last the little widow caught her by the arm, and drew her from the
+door.
+
+'Let me take 'im to my place,' she pleaded: 'it's no good talkin while
+'ee's like 'ee is--not a bit o' good. John--John dear! you come along wi
+me. Shall I get Saunders to come and speak to yer?'
+
+A gleam of sudden hope shot into the old man's face. He had not thought
+of Saunders; but Saunders had a head; he might unravel this accursed
+thing.
+
+'Aye!' he said, lurching forward, 'let's find Saunders--coom along--
+let's find Saunders.'
+
+Mary Anne guided him through the door, Bessie standing aside. As the
+widow passed, she touched Bessie piteously.
+
+'O Bessie, yer _didn't_ do it--say yer didn't!'
+
+Bessie looked at her, dry-eyed and contemptuous. Something in the
+speaker's emotion seemed to madden her.
+
+'Don't yer be a fool, Mary Anne--that's all!' she said scornfully, and
+Mary Anne fled from her.
+
+When the door had closed upon them, Bessie came up to the fire, her
+teeth chattering. She sank down in front of it, spreading out her hands
+to the warmth. The children silently crowded up to her; first she pushed
+them away, then she caught at the child nearest to her, pressed its fair
+head against her, then again roughly put it aside. She was accustomed to
+chatter with them, scold them, and slap them; but to-night they were
+uneasily dumb. They looked at her with round eyes; and at last their
+looks annoyed her. She told them to go to bed, and they slunk away,
+gaping at the open box on the stairs, and huddling together overhead,
+all on one bed, in the bitter cold, to whisper to each other. Isaac was
+a stern parent; Bessie a capricious one; and the children, though they
+could be riotous enough by themselves, were nervous and easily cowed at
+home.
+
+Bessie, left alone, sat silently over the fire, her thin lips tight-set.
+She would deny everything--_everything_. Let them find out what they
+could. Who could prove what was in John's box when he left it? Who could
+prove she hadn't got those half-crowns in change somewhere?
+
+The reflexion of the day had only filled her with a passionate and
+fierce regret. _Why_ had she not followed her first impulse, and thrown
+it all on Timothy?--told the story to Isaac, while she was still
+bleeding from his son's violence? It had been her only chance, and out
+of pure stupidness she had lost it. To have grasped it might at least
+have made him take _her_ part, if it had forced him to give up Timothy.
+And who would have listened to Timothy's tales?
+
+She sickened at the thought of her own folly, beating her knee with her
+clenched fist. For to tell the tale now would only be to make her doubly
+vile in Isaac's eyes. He would not believe her--no one would believe
+her. What motive could she plead for her twenty-four hours of silence,
+she knowing that John was coming back immediately? Isaac would only hate
+her for throwing it on Timothy.
+
+Then again the memory of the half-crowns, and the village talk--and
+Watson--would close upon her, putting her in a cold sweat.
+
+When would Isaac come? Who would tell him? As she looked forward to the
+effect upon him, all her muscles stiffened. If he drove her to it, aye,
+she _would_ tell him--she didn't care a hap'orth, she vowed. If he must
+have it, let him. But as the name of Isaac, the thought of Isaac,
+hovered in her brain, she must needs brush away wild tears. That
+morning, for the first time for months, he had been so kind to her and
+the children, so chatty and cheerful.
+
+Distant steps along the lane! She sprang to her feet, ran into the back
+kitchen, tied on her apron, hastily filled an earthenware bowl with
+water from the pump, and carrying it back to the front kitchen began to
+wash up the tea-things, making a busy household clatter as she slid them
+into the bowl.
+
+A confused sound of feet approached the house, and there was a knock.
+
+'Come in,' said Bessie.
+
+Three figures appeared, the huge form of Saunders the smith in front,
+John and Mary Anne Waller behind.
+
+Saunders took off his cap politely. The sight of his bald head, his
+double chin, his mouth with its queer twitch, which made him seem as
+though perpetually about to laugh, if he had not perpetually thought
+better of it, filled Bessie with angry excitement. She barely nodded to
+him, in reply to his greeting.
+
+'May we come in, Mrs. Costrell?' Saunders inquired, in his most
+deliberate voice.
+
+'If yer want to,' said Bessie, shortly, taking out a cup and drying it.
+
+Saunders drew in the other two and shut the door.
+
+'Sit down, John. Sit down, Mrs. Waller.'
+
+John did as he was told. Dishevelled and hopeless misery spoke in his
+stained face, his straggling hair, his shirt burst open at the neck and
+showing his wrinkled throat. But he fixed his eyes passionately on
+Saunders, thirsting for every word.
+
+'Well, Mrs. Costrell,' said Saunders, settling himself comfortably,
+'you'll be free to confess, won't yer, this is an oogly business--a very
+oogly business? Now, will yer let us ask yer a question or two?'
+
+'I dessay,' said Bessie, polishing her cup.
+
+'Well, then--to begin reg'lar, Mrs. Costrell--yo agree, don't yer, as
+Muster Bolderfield put his money in your upstairs cupboard?'
+
+'I agree as he put his box there,' said Bessie sharply.
+
+John broke into inarticulate and abusive clamour.
+
+Bessie turned upon him.
+
+''Ow did any of us know what yer'd got in your box? Did yer ever show it
+to me, or Mary Anne there, or any livin soul in Clinton? Did yer?'
+
+She waited, hawk-like, for the answer. 'Did yer, John?' repeated
+Saunders, judicially. John groaned, rocking himself to and fro. 'Noa.
+I niver did--I niver did,' he said. 'Nobbut to Eliza--an she's gone--
+she's gone!' 'Keep your 'ead, John,' said Saunders, putting out a
+calming hand. 'Let's get to the bottom o' this, quiet an _reg'lar_. An
+yer didn't tell any one 'ow much yer 'ad?' 'Nobbut Eliza--nobbut
+Eliza!' said the old man again.
+
+'Yer didn't tell _me_, I know,' said Saunders, blandly.
+
+John seemed to shrink together under the smith's glance. If only he had
+not been a jealous fool, and had left it with Saunders!
+
+Saunders, however, refrained for the present from drawing this
+self-evident moral. He sat twirling his cap between his knees, and his
+shrewd eye travelled round the kitchen, coming back finally to Bessie,
+who was washing and drying diligently. As he watched her cool movements
+Saunders felt the presence of an enemy worthy of his steel, and his
+emulation rose.
+
+'I understan, Mrs. Costrell,' he said, speaking with great civility, 'as
+the cupboard where John put his money is a cupboard _hon_ the stairs?
+Not in hany room, but _hon_ the stairs? Yer'll kindly correck me if I
+say anythin wrong.'
+
+Bessie nodded.
+
+'Aye--top o' the stairs--right-'and side,' groaned John.
+
+'An John locked it hisself, an tuk the key?' Saunders proceeded.
+
+John plucked at his neck again, and, dumbly, held out the key.
+
+'An there worn't nothin wrong wi the lock when yo opened it, John?'
+
+'Nothin, Muster Saunders--I'll take my davy.'
+
+Saunders ruminated. 'Theer's a cupboard there,' he said suddenly,
+raising his hand and pointing to the cupboard beside the fireplace.
+'Is't anythin like the cupboard on th' stairs, John?'
+
+'Aye, 'tis!' said John, startled and staring. 'Aye, 'tis, Muster
+Saunders!'
+
+Saunders rose.
+
+'Per'aps,' he said slowly, 'Mrs. Costrell will do us the favour ov
+lettin us hexamine that 'ere cupboard?'
+
+He walked across to it. Bessie's hand dropped; she turned sharply,
+supporting herself against the table, and watched him, her chest
+heaving.
+
+'There's no key 'ere,' said Saunders, stooping to look at the lock. 'Try
+yours, John.'
+
+John rushed forward, but Bessie put herself in the way.
+
+'What are yer meddlin with my 'ouse for?' she said fiercely. 'Just mek
+yourselves scarce, all the lot o' yer! I don't know nothin about his
+money, an I'll not have yer _insultin_ me in my own place! Get out o' my
+kitchen, if _yo_ please!'
+
+Saunders buttoned his coat.
+
+'Sartinly, Mrs. Costrell, sartinly,' he said, with emphasis. 'Come
+along, John. Yer must get Watson and put it in 'is hands. 'Ee's the law
+is Watson. Maybe, as Mrs. Costrell ull listen to '_im_.'
+
+Mary Anne ran to Bessie in despair.
+
+'O Bessie, Bessie, my dear--don't let 'em get Watson; let 'em look
+into't theirselves--it'll be better for yer, my dear, it _will_.'
+
+Bessie looked from one to the other, panting. Then she turned back to
+the table.
+
+'_I_ don care what they do,' she said, with sullen passion. 'I'm not
+stannin in any one's way, I tell yer. The more they finds out the better
+I'm pleased.'
+
+The look of incipient laughter on Saunders's countenance became more
+pronounced--that is to say, the left-hand corner of his mouth twitched a
+little higher.
+
+But it was rare for him to complete the act, and he was not in the least
+minded to do so now. He beckoned to John, and John, trembling, took off
+his keys and gave them to him, pointing to that which belonged to the
+treasure cupboard.
+
+Saunders slipped it into the lock before him. It moved with ease,
+backwards and forwards.
+
+'H'm! that's strange,' he said, taking out the key and turning it over
+thoughtfully in his hand. 'Yer didn't think as there were _another_ key
+in this 'ouse that would open your cupboard, did yer, Bolderfield?'
+
+The old man sank weeping on a chair. He was too broken, too exhausted,
+to revile Bessie any more.
+
+'Yo tell her, Muster Saunders,' he said, 'to gie it me back! I'll not
+ast for all on it, but some on it, Muster Saunders--some on it. She
+_can't_ a spent it. She must a got it somewhere. Yo speak to her, Muster
+Saunders. It's a crule thing to rob an old man like me--an her own
+mother's brother. Yo speak to 'er--an yo, too, Mary Anne.'
+
+He looked piteously from one to the other. But his misery only seemed to
+goad Bessie to fresh fury. She turned upon him, arms akimbo.
+
+'Oh! an of course it must be _me_ as robs yer! It couldn't be nobody
+else, could it? There isn't tramps an thieves, an rogues--'undreds of
+'em--going about o' nights? Nary one, I believe yer! There isn't another
+thief in Clinton Magna, nobbut Bessie Costrell, is ther? But yer'll not
+blackguard me for nothin, I can tell yer. Now will yer jest oblige me by
+takin yourselves off? I shall 'ave to clean up after yer'--she pointed
+scornfully to the marks of their muddy boots on the floor--'an it's
+gettin late.'
+
+'One moment, Mrs. Costrell,' said Saunders, gently rubbing his hands.
+'With your leave, John and I ull just inspeck the cupboard _hup_ stairs
+before leavin--an then we'll clear out double-quick. But we'll 'ave one
+try if we can't 'it on somethin as ull show 'ow the thief got in--with
+your leave, of _coorse._'
+
+Bessie hesitated; then she threw some spoons she held into the water
+beside her with a violent gesture.
+
+'Go where yer wants,' she said, and returned to her washing.
+
+Saunders began to climb the narrow stairs, with John behind him. But the
+smith's small eyes had a puzzled look.
+
+'There's _somethin_ rum,' he said to himself. 'Ow _did_ she spend it
+all? 'As she been carryin on with someone be'ind Isaac's back, or is
+Isaac in it too? It's one or t'other.'
+
+Meanwhile Bessie, left behind, was consumed by a passionate effort of
+memory. _What_ had she done with the key, the night before, after she
+had locked the cupboard? Her brain was blurred. The blow--the fall--
+seemed to have confused even the remembrance of the scene with Timothy.
+How was it, for instance, that she had put the box back in the wrong
+place? She put her hand to her head, trying in an anguish to recollect
+the exact details.
+
+The little widow sat meanwhile a few yards away, her thin hands clasped
+on her lap in her usual attitude of humble entreaty; her soft grey eyes,
+brimmed with tears, were fixed on Bessie. Bessie did not know that she
+was there--that she existed.
+
+The door had closed after the two men. Bessie could hear vague
+movements, but nothing more. Presently she could bear it no longer. She
+went to the door and opened it.
+
+She was just in time. By the light of the bit of candle that John held,
+she saw Saunders sitting on the stair, the shadow of his huge frame
+thrown back on the white wall; she saw him stoop suddenly, as a bird
+pounces; she heard an exclamation--then a sound of metal.
+
+Her involuntary cry startled the men above.
+
+'All right, Mrs. Costrell,' said Saunders, briskly--'all right. We'll be
+down directly.'
+
+She came back into the kitchen, a mist before her eyes, and fell heavily
+on a chair by the fire. Mary Anne approached her, only to be pushed
+back. The widow stood listening, in an agony.
+
+It took Saunders a minute or two to complete his case. Then he slowly
+descended the stairs, carrying the box, his great weight making the
+house shake. He entered the kitchen first, John behind him. But at the
+same moment that they appeared, the outer door opened, and Isaac
+Costrell, preceded by a gust of snow, stood on the threshold.
+
+'Why, John!' he cried, in amazement--'an _Saunders_!'
+
+He looked at them, then at Mary Anne, then at his wife.
+
+There was an instant's dead silence.
+
+Then the tottering John came forward.
+
+'An I'm glad yer come, Isaac, that I am--thankful! Now yer can tell me
+what yer wife's done with my money. D'yer mind that box? It wor you an I
+carried it across that night as Watson come out on us. An yo'll bear me
+witness as we locked it up, an yo saw me tie the two keys roun my neck--
+yo _did_, Isaac. An now, Isaac'--the hoarse voice began to tremble--'now
+there's two--suverins--left, and one 'arf-crown--out o' seventy-one
+pound fower an sixpence--seventy-one pound, Isaac! Yo'll get it out on
+'er, Isaac, yer will, won't yer?'
+
+He looked up, imploring.
+
+Isaac, after the first violent start, stood absolutely motionless,
+Saunders observing him. As one of the main props of Church Establishment
+in the village, Saunders had no great opinion of Isaac Costrell, who
+stood for the dissidence of dissent. The two men had never been friends,
+and Saunders in this affair had perhaps exercised the quasi-judicial
+functions the village had long by common consent allowed him, with more
+readiness than usual.
+
+As soon as John ceased speaking, Isaac walked up to Saunders.
+
+'Let me see that box,' he said peremptorily, 'put it down.'
+
+Saunders, who had rested the box on the back of a chair, placed it
+gently on the table, assisted by Isaac. A few feet away stood Bessie,
+saying nothing, her hand holding the duster on her hip, her eyes
+following her husband.
+
+He looked carefully at the two sovereigns lying on the bit of old cloth
+which covered the bottom of the box, and the one half-crown that Timothy
+had forgotten; he took up the bit of cloth and shook it, he felt along
+the edge of the box, he examined the wrenched lock. Then he stood for an
+instant, his hand on the box, his eyes staring straight before him in a
+kind of dream.
+
+Saunders grew impatient. He pushed John aside, and came to the table,
+leaning his hands upon it, so as to command Isaac's face.
+
+'Now, look 'ere, Isaac,' he said, in a different voice from any that he
+had yet employed, 'let's come to business. These 'ere are the facks o'
+this case, an 'ow we're a-goin to get over 'em, I don see. John leaves
+his money in your cupboard. Yo an he lock it up, an John goes away with
+'is keys 'ung roun 'is neck. Yo agree to that? Well and good. But
+there's _another_ key in your 'ouse, Isaac, as opens John's cupboard.
+Ah--'
+
+He waved his hand in deprecation of Isaac's movement.
+
+'I dessay yo didn't know nowt about it--that's noather 'ere nor there.
+Yo try John's key in that there door'--he pointed to the cupboard by the
+fire--'an yo'll find it fits _ex_--act. Then, thinks I, where's the key
+as belongs to that 'ere cupboard? An John an I goes upstairs to look
+about us, an in noa time at aw, I sees a 'ole in the skirtin. I whips in
+my finger--lor bless yer! I knew it wor there the moment I sets eyes on
+the hole.'
+
+He held up the key triumphantly. By this time, no Old Bailey lawyer
+making a hanging speech could have had more command of his task.
+
+''Ere then we 'ave'--he checked the items off on his fingers--'box
+locked up--key in the 'ouse as fits it, unbeknown to John--money tuk
+out--key 'idden away. But that's not all--not by long chalks--there's
+another side to the affair _hal_togefher.'
+
+Saunders drew himself up, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and
+cleared his throat.
+
+'Per'aps yer don know--I'm sartin sure yer don know--leastways I'm
+hinclined that way--as Mrs. Costrell'--he made a polite inclination
+towards Bessie--''ave been makin free with money--fower--five--night a
+week at the "Spotted Deer"--fower--five--night a week. She'd used to
+treat every young feller, an plenty old uns too, as turned up; an there
+was a many as only went to Dawson's becos they knew as she'd treat 'em.
+Now she didn't go on tick at Dawson's; she'd _pay_--an she allus payed
+in 'arf-crowns. An those arf-crowns were curous 'arf-crowns; an it came
+into Dawson's [transcriber's note: "Dawon's" in original] 'ead as he'd
+colleck them 'arf-crowns. 'Ee wanted to see summat, 'ee said--an I
+dessay 'ee did. An people began to taak. Last night theer wor a bit of a
+roompus, it seems, while Mrs. Costrell was a-payin another o' them
+things, an summat as was said come to my ears--an come to Watson's. An
+me and Watson 'ave been makin inquiries--an Mr. Dawson wor obligin
+enough to make me a small loan, 'ee wor. Now I've got just one question
+to ask o' John Borroful.'
+
+He put his hand into his waistcoat-pocket, and drew out a silver coin.
+
+'Is that yourn, John?'
+
+John fell upon it with a cry.
+
+'Aye, Saunders, it's mine. Look ye 'ere, Isaac, it's a king's 'ead. It's
+Willum--not Victory. I saved that un up when I wor a lad at Mason's, an
+look yer, there's my mark in the corner--every arf-crown I ever 'ad I
+marked like that.'
+
+He held it under Isaac's staring eyes, pointing to the little scratched
+cross in the corner.
+
+''Ere's another, John--two on 'em,' said Saunders, pulling out a second
+and a third.
+
+John, in a passion of hope, identified them both.
+
+'Then,' said Saunders, slapping the table solemnly, 'theer's nobbut one
+more thing to say--an sorry I am to say it. Them coins, Isaac'--he
+pointed a slow finger at Bessie, whose white, fierce face moved
+involuntarily--'them 'arf-crowns wor paid across the bar lasst night, or
+the night afore, at Dawson's, by _yor wife_, as is now stannin there, an
+she'll deny it if she can!'
+
+For an instant the whole group preserved their positions--the breath
+suspended on their lips.
+
+Then Isaac strode up to his wife, and gripped her by the arms.
+
+'Did yer do it?' he asked her.
+
+He held her, looking into her eyes, Slowly she sank away from him; she
+would have fallen, but for a chair that stood beside her.
+
+'Oh, yer brute!' she said, turning her head to Saunders an instant, and
+speaking under her breath, with a kind of sob. 'Yer _brute_!'
+
+Isaac walked to the door, and threw it open.
+
+'Per'aps yer'll go,' he said, grimly.
+And the three went, without a word.
+
+
+
+
+SCENE V
+
+So the husband and wife were left together in the cottage room. The door
+had no sooner closed on Saunders and his companions than Isaac was
+seized with that strange sense of walking amid things unreal upon a
+wavering earth which is apt to beset the man who has any portion of the
+dreamer's temperament, under any sudden rush of circumstance. He drew
+his hand across his brow, bewildered. The fire leapt and chattered in
+the grate; the newly-washed tea-things on the table shone under the
+lamp; the cat lay curled, as usual, on the chair where he sat after
+supper to read his _Christian World_; yet all things were not the same.
+What had changed?
+
+Then across poor John's rifled box he saw his wife sitting rigid on the
+chair where he had left her.
+
+He came and sat down at the corner of the table, close to her, his chin
+on his hand.
+
+''Ow did yer spend it?' he said, startled, as the words came out, by his
+own voice, so grinding and ugly was the note of it.
+
+Her miserable eyes travelled over his face, seeking as it were, for some
+promise, however faint, of future help and succour, however distant.
+
+Apparently she saw none, for her own look flamed to fresh defiance.
+
+'I didn't spend it. Saunders wor lyin.'
+
+''Ow did yer get them half-crowns?'
+
+'I got 'em at Bedford. Mr. Grimstone give 'em me.'
+
+Isaac looked at her hard, his shame burning into his heart. This was how
+she had got her money for the gin. Of course, she had lied to him the
+night before, in her account of her fall, and of that mark on her
+forehead, which still showed, a red disfigurement, under the hair she
+had drawn across it. The sight of it, of her, began to excite in him a
+quick loathing. He was at bottom a man of violent passions, and in the
+presence of evil-doing so flagrant, so cruel--of a household ruin so
+complete--his religion failed him.
+
+'When was it as yer opened that box fust?' he asked her again, scorning
+her denials.
+
+She burst into a rage of tears, lifting her apron to her eyes, and
+flinging names at him that he scarcely heard.
+
+There was a little cold tea in a cup close to him that Bessie had
+forgotten. He stretched out his hand, and took a mouthful, moistening
+his dry lips and throat.
+
+'Yer'll go to prison for this,' he said, jerking it out as he put the
+cup down.
+
+He saw her shiver. Her nerve was failing her. The convulsive sobs
+continued, but she ceased to abuse him. He wondered when he should be
+able to get it out of her. He himself could no more have wept than iron
+and fire weep.
+
+'Are yer goin to tell me when yer took that money, and 'ow yer spent it?
+'Cos, if yer don't, I shall go to Watson.'
+
+Even in her abasement it struck her as shameful, unnatural, that he, her
+husband, should say this. Her remorse returned upon her heart, like a
+tide driven back. She answered him not a word.
+
+He put his silver watch on the table.
+
+'I'll give yer two minutes,' he said.
+
+There was silence in the cottage except for the choking, hysterical
+sounds she could not master. Then he took up his hat again, and went out
+into the snow, which was by now falling fast.
+
+She remained helpless and sobbing, unconscious of the passage of time,
+one hand playing incessantly with a child's comforter that lay beside
+her on the table, the other wiping away the crowding tears. But her mind
+worked feverishly all the time, and gradually she fought herself free of
+this weeping, which clutched her against her will.
+
+Isaac was away for an hour. When he came back he closed the door
+carefully, and, walking to the table, threw down his hat upon it. His
+face under its ruddy brown had suffered some radical disintegrating
+change.
+
+'They've traced yer,' he said, hoarsely;' they've got it up to
+twenty-six pound, an more. Most on it 'ere in Clinton--some on it,
+Muster Miles o' Frampton ull swear to. Watson ull go over to Frampton,
+for the warrant--to-morrer.'
+
+The news shook her from head to foot. She stared at him wildly--
+speechless.
+
+'But that's not 'arf,' he went on--'not near 'arf. Do yer 'ear? What did
+yer do with the rest? I'll not answer for keepin my 'ands off yer if yer
+won't tell.'
+
+In his trance of rage and agony, he was incapable of pity. He had small
+need to threaten her with blows--every word stabbed.
+
+But her turn had come to strike back. She raised her head; she measured
+her news against his; and she did it with a kind of exultation.
+
+'Then I _will_ tell yer--an I 'ope it ull do yer good. _I_ took
+thirty-one pound o' Bolderfield's money then--but it warn't me took the
+rest. Some one else tuk it, an I stood by an saw 'im. When I tried to
+stop 'im--look 'ere.'
+
+She raised her hand, nodding, and pointing to the wound on her brow.
+
+Isaac leant heavily on the table. A horrible suspicion swept through
+him. Had she wronged him in a yet blacker way? He bent over her,
+breathing fast--ready to strike.
+
+'Who was it?'
+
+She laughed. 'Well, it wor _Timothy_ then--yur precious--beautiful son--
+Timothy!'
+
+He fell back.
+
+'Yo're lyin,' he cried; 'yer want to throw it off on some one. How cud
+Timothy 'ave 'ad anythin to do with John's money? Timothy's not been
+near the place this three months.'
+
+'Not till lasst night,' she said, mocking him; 'I'll grant yer--not till
+lasst night. But it _do_ 'appen, as lasst night Timothy took forty-one
+pound o' John Borroful's money out o' that box, an got off--clean. I'm
+sorry if yer don't like it--but I can't 'elp that; yo listen 'ere.'
+
+And lifting a quivering finger she told her tale at last, all the
+beginning of it confused and almost unintelligible, but the scene with
+Timothy vivid, swift, convincing--a direct impression from the ugly
+immediate fact.
+
+He listened, his face lying on his arms. It was true, all true. She
+might have taken more and Timothy less; no doubt she was making it out
+as bad as she could for Timothy. But it lay between them--his wife and
+his son--it lay between them.
+
+'An I 'eard yer comin,' she ended; 'an I thought I'd tell yer--an I wor
+frightened about the 'arf-crowns--people 'ad been talkin so at
+Dawson's--an I didn't see no way out--an--an--'
+
+She ceased, her hand plucking again at the comforter, her throat
+working.
+
+He, too, thought of the loving words he had said to her, and the memory
+of them only made his misery the more fierce.
+
+'An there ain't no way out,' he said violently, raising his head.
+'Yer'll be took before the magistrates next week, an the assizes ull be
+in February, an yer'll get six months--if yer don't get more.'
+
+She got up from her chair as though physically goaded by the words.
+
+'I'll not go to gaol,' she said, under her breath. 'I'll not--'
+
+A sound of scorn broke from Isaac.
+
+'You should ha thought o' that,' he said. 'Yo should ha thought o' that.
+An what you've been sayin about Timothy don't make it a 'aporth the
+better--not for _you_! Yo led _'im_ into it too--if it 'adn't been for
+yo, 'ee'd never ha' _seen_ the cursed stuff. Yo've dragged 'im down
+worse nor 'ee were--an yerself--an the childer--an me. An the drink, an
+the lyin!--it turns a man's stomach to think on it. An I've been livin
+with yer--these twelve years. I wish to the Lord I'd never seen yer--as
+the children 'ud never been born! They'll be known all their life now--
+as 'avin 'ad sich a woman for their mother!'
+
+A demon of passion possessed him more and more. He looked at her with
+murderous eyes, his hand on the table working.
+
+For his world, too, lay in ruins about him. Through many hard-working
+and virtuous years he had counted among the righteous men of the
+village--the men whom the Almighty must needs reckon to the good
+whenever the score of Clinton Magna had to be made up. And this
+pre-eminence had come to be part of the habitual furniture of life and
+thought. To be suddenly stripped of it--to be, not only disgraced by his
+wife, to be thrust down himself among the low and sinful herd--this
+thought made another man of him; made him wicked, as it were, perforce.
+For who that heard the story would ever believe that he was not the
+partner of her crime? Had he not eaten and drunk of it; were not he and
+his children now clothed by it?
+
+Bessie did not answer him nor look at him. At any other moment she would
+have been afraid of him; now she feared nothing but the image in her own
+mind--herself led along the village street, enclosed in that hateful
+building, cut off from all pleasure, all free moving and willing--alone
+and despised--her children taken from her.
+
+Suddenly she walked into the back kitchen and opened the door leading to
+the garden.
+
+Outside everything lay swathed in white, and a snowstorm was drifting
+over the deep cup of land which held the village. A dull, melancholy
+moonlight seemed to be somewhere behind the snow curtain, for the
+muffled shapes of the houses below and the long sweep of the hill were
+visible through the dark, and the objects in the little garden itself
+were almost distinct. There, in the centre, rose the round stone edging
+of the well, the copious well, sunk deep into the chalk, for which
+Bessie's neighbours envied her, whence her good nature let them draw
+freely at any time of drought. On either side of it the gnarled stems of
+old fruit-trees and the bare sticks of winter kail made black scratches
+and blots upon the white.
+
+Bessie looked out, leaning against the doorway, and heedless of the wind
+that drove upon her. Down below there was a light in Watson's cottage,
+and a few lights from the main street beyond pierced the darkness. The
+'Spotted Deer' must be at that moment full of people, all talking of her
+and Isaac. Her eye came hastily back to the snow-shrouded well and dwelt
+upon it.
+
+'Shut that door!' Isaac commanded from inside. She obeyed, and came back
+into the kitchen. There she moved restlessly about a minute or two,
+followed by his frowning look--the look, not of a husband but of an
+enemy. Then a sudden animal yearning for rest and warmth seized her. She
+opened the door by the hearth abruptly and went up, longing simply to
+lie down and cover herself from the cold.
+
+But, after all, she turned aside to the children, and sat there for some
+time at the foot of the little boys' bed. The children, especially
+Arthur, had been restless for long, kept awake and trembling by the
+strange sounds outside their door and the loud voices downstairs; but,
+with the deep silence that had suddenly fallen on the house after Isaac
+had gone away to seek his interview with Watson, sleep had come to them,
+and even Arthur, on whose thin cheeks the smears left by crying were
+still visible, was quite unconscious of his mother. She looked at them
+from time to time, by the light of a bit of a candle she had placed on a
+box beside her; but she did not kiss them, and her eyes had no tears.
+From time to time she looked quickly round her, as though startled by a
+sound, a breathing.
+
+Presently, shivering with cold, she went into her own room. There,
+mechanically, she took off her outer dress, as though to go to bed; but
+when she had done so her hands fell by her side; she stood motionless
+till, suddenly wrapping an old shawl round her, she took up her candle
+and went downstairs again.
+
+As she pushed open the door at the foot of the stairs, she saw Isaac,
+where she had left him, sitting on his chair, bent forward, his hands
+dropping between his knees, his gaze fixed on a bit of dying fire in the
+grate.
+
+'Isaac!'
+
+He looked up with the unwillingness of one who hates the sound he hears,
+and saw her standing on the lowest step. Her black hair had fallen upon
+her shoulders, her quick breath shook the shawl she held about her, and
+the light in her hand showed the anguished brightness of the eyes.
+
+'Isaac, are yer comin up?'
+
+The question maddened him. He turned to look at her more fixedly.
+
+'Comin up? noa, I'm not comin up--so now yer know. Take yerself off, an
+be quick.'
+
+She trembled.
+
+'Are yer goin to sleep down 'ere, Isaac?'
+
+'Aye, or wherever I likes: it's no concern o' yourn. I'm no 'usband o'
+yourn from this day forth. Take yourself off, I say!--I'll 'ave no thief
+for _my_ wife!'
+
+But instead of going she stepped down into the kitchen. His words had
+broken her down; she was crying again.
+
+'Isaac, I'd ha' put it back,' she said, imploring. 'I wor goin in to
+Bedford to see Mr. Grimstone--'ee'd ha' managed it for me. I'd a worked
+extra--I could ha' done it--if it 'adn't been for Timothy. If you'll
+'elp--an you'd oughter, for yer _are_ my 'usband, whativer yer may say--
+we could pay John back--some day. Yo can go to 'im, an to Watson, an say
+as we'll pay it back--yo _could_, Isaac. I can take ter the plattin
+again, an I can go an work for Mrs. Drew--she asked me again lasst week.
+Mary Anne ull see to the childer. You go to John, Isaac, to-morrer--an--
+an--to Watson. All they wants is the money back. Yer couldn't--yer
+couldn't--see me took to prison, Isaac.'
+
+She gasped for breath, wiping the mist from her eye with the edge of her
+shawl.
+
+But all that she said only maddened the man's harsh and pessimist nature
+the more. The futility of her proposals, of her daring to think, after
+his fiat and the law's had gone forth, that there was any way out of
+what she had done, for her or for him, drove him to frenzy. And his
+wretched son was far away; so he must vent the frenzy on her. The
+melancholia, which religion had more or less restrained and comforted
+during a troubled lifetime, became on this tragic night a wild-beast
+impulse that must have its prey.
+
+He rose suddenly and came towards her, his eyes glaring, and a burst of
+invective on his white lips. Then he made a rush for a heavy stick that
+leant against the wall.
+
+She fled from him, reached her bedroom in safety, and bolted the door.
+She heard him give a groan on the stairs, throw away the stick, and
+descend again.
+
+Then for nearly two hours there was absolute stillness once more in this
+miserable house. Bessie had sunk, half-fainting, on a chair by the bed,
+and lay there, her head lying against the pillow.
+
+But in a very short time the blessed numbness was gone, and
+consciousness became once more a torture, the medium of terrors not to
+be borne. Isaac hated her--she would be taken from her children--she
+felt Watson's grip upon her arm--she saw the jeering faces at the
+village doors.
+
+At times a wave of sheer bewilderment swept across her. How had it come
+about that she was sitting there like this? Only two days before she had
+been everybody's friend. Life had been perpetually gay and exciting. She
+had had qualms indeed, moments of a quick anguish, before the scene in
+the 'Spotted Deer.' But there had been always some thought to protect
+her from herself. John was not coming back for a long, long time. She
+would replace the money--of course she would! And she would not take any
+more--or only a very little. Meanwhile the hours floated by, dressed in
+a colour and variety they had never yet possessed for her--charged with
+all the delights of wealth, as such a human being under such conditions
+is able to conceive them.
+
+Her nature, indeed, had never gauged its own capacities for pleasure
+till within the last few months. Excitement, amusement, society--she had
+grown to them; they had evoked in her a richer and fuller life, expanded
+and quickened all the currents of her blood. As she sat shivering in the
+darkness and solitude, she thought with a sick longing of the hours in
+the public-house--the lights, the talk, the warmth within and without.
+The drink-thirst was upon her at this moment. It had driven her down to
+the village that afternoon at the moment of John's arrival. But she had
+no money. She had not dared to unlock the cupboard again, and she could
+only wander up and down the bit of dark road beyond the 'Spotted Deer,'
+suffering and craving.
+
+Well, it was all done--all done!
+
+She had come up without her candle, and the only light in the room was a
+cold glimmer from the snow outside. But she must find a light, for she
+must write a letter. By much groping she found some matches, and then
+lit one after another while she searched in her untidy drawers for an
+ink-bottle and a pen she knew must be there.
+
+She found them, and with infinite difficulty--holding match after match
+in her left hand--she scrawled a few blotted lines on a torn piece of
+paper. She was a poor scholar, and the toil was great. When it was done,
+she propped the paper up against the looking-glass.
+
+Then she felt for her dress, and deliberately put it on again, in the
+dark, though her hands were so numb with cold that she could scarcely
+hook the fastenings. Her teeth chattered as she threw her old shawl
+round her.
+
+Stooping down she took off her boots, and pushing the bolt of her own
+door back as noiselessly as possible, she crept down the stairs. As she
+neared the lower door, the sound of two or three loud breathings caught
+her ear.
+
+Her heart contracted with an awful sense of loneliness. Her husband
+slept--her children slept--while she--
+
+Then the wave of a strange, a just passion mounted within her. She
+stepped into the kitchen, and walking up to her husband's chair, she
+stood still a moment looking at him. The lamp was dying away, but she
+could still see him plainly. She held herself steadily erect; a frown
+was on her brow, a flame in her eyes.
+
+'Well, good-bye, Isaac,' she said, in a low but firm voice.
+
+Then she walked to the back door and opened it, taking no heed of noise;
+the latch fell heavily, the hinges creaked.
+
+'Isaac!' she cried, her tones loud and ringing,--_Iaac!_'
+
+There was a sudden sound in the kitchen. She slipped through the door,
+and ran along the snow-covered garden.
+
+Isaac, roused by her call from the deep trance of exhaustion which only
+a few minutes before had fallen upon his misery, stood up, felt the
+blast rushing in through the open door at the back, and ran blindly.
+
+The door had swung to again. He clutched it open; in the dim weird
+light, he saw a dark figure stoop over the well; he heard something
+flung aside, which fell upon the snow with a thud; then the figure
+sprang upon the coping of the well.
+
+He ran with all his speed, his face beaten by the wind and sleet. But he
+was too late. A sharp cry pierced the night. As he reached the well, and
+hung over it, he heard, or thought he heard, a groan, a beating of the
+water--then no more.
+
+Isaac's shouts for help attracted the notice of a neighbour who was
+sitting up with her daughter and a new-born child. She roused her
+son-in-law and his boy, and through them a score of others, deep night
+though it was.
+
+Watson was among the first of those who gathered round the well. He and
+others lowered Isaac with ropes into its icy depths, and drew him up
+again, while the snow beat upon them all--the straining men--two
+dripping shapes emerging from the earth. A murmur of horror greeted the
+first sight of that marred face on Isaac's arm, as the lanterns fell
+upon it. For there was a gash above the eye, caused by a projection in
+the hard chalk side of the well, which of itself spoke death.
+
+Isaac carried her in, and laid her down before the still glowing hearth.
+A shudder ran through him as he knelt, bending over her. The new wound
+had effaced all the traces of Timothy's blow. How long was it since she
+had stood there before him pointing to it?
+
+The features were already rigid. No one felt the smallest hope. Yet with
+that futile tenderness all can show to the dead, everything was tried.
+Mary Anne Waller came--white and speechless--and her deft gentle hands
+did whatever the village doctor told her. And there were many other
+women, too, who did their best. Some of them, had Bessie dared to live,
+would have helped with all their might to fill her cup of punishment to
+the brim. Now that she had thrown herself on death as her only friend,
+they were dissolved in pity.
+
+Everything failed. Bessie had meant to die, and she had not missed her
+aim. There came a moment when the doctor, laying his ear for the last
+time to her cold breast, raised himself to bid the useless effort cease.
+
+'Send them all away,' he said to the little widow, 'and you stay.'
+
+Watson helped to clear the room, then he and Isaac carried the dead
+woman upstairs. An old man followed them, a bent and broken being, who
+dragged himself up the steps with his stick. Watson, out of compassion,
+came back to help him.
+
+'John--yer'd better go home, an to yer bed--yer can't do no good.'
+
+'I'll wait for Mary Anne,' said John, in a shaking whisper--'I'll wait
+for Mary Anne.'
+
+And he stood at the doorway leaning on his stick; his weak and reddened
+eyes fixed on his cousin, his mouth open feebly.
+
+But Mary Anne, weeping, beckoned to another woman who had come up with
+the little procession, and they began their last offices.
+
+'Let us go,' said the doctor, kindly, his hand on Isaac's shoulder,
+'till they have done.'
+
+At that moment Watson, throwing a last professional glance round the
+room, perceived the piece of torn paper propped against the glass. Ah!
+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
+o' 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 show me no mercy, an I can't think of anythin different. I did
+love yer an the childer, but the drink got holt o' 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 encompassed 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
+pressed, 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 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 abasement, 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 associations, 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-abasements 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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Story of Bessie Costrell., by Mrs. Humphry Ward
+
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