Bessie Costrell Part 5

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. G.o.d had made no sign at all.

Since! All the village smiles--the village flatteries recovered--an orgie of power and pleasure--new pa.s.sions and excitements--above all, the rising pa.s.sion 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 h.o.a.rd--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 around 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 coming, 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 goin's 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 going 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 h.o.a.rd into his trousers and waist-coat pockets.

Bessie flung herself upon him. He gave her one business-like 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 playing it rayther too low down on old John. I'll leave 'im two--jest two--for luck."

He b.u.t.toned 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 pa.s.sed, between conflicting impulses. He had just pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sion 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.