Furze the Cruel Part 39

"Aw, my dear, yew mustn't talk to I so larned like. You'm as larned as Master," complained Mary.

"I'll tell you about my windy organ," Boodles went on, trying to force a little sunshine through what threatened to be steady rain. "With the wind, doors, and windows, I can play all sorts of marches. With my bedroom window open, and the door shut, the wind plays sad music, a funeral march; but when I shut my window, and open the one in the next room, it is loud and lively, like a military march. If I open the sitting-room window, and the one in the pa.s.sage up-stairs, and shut all the doors, it is splendid, Mary, a coronation march. I hear the procession sweeping up-stairs, and the clapping of hands, and the crowd going to and fro, murmuring ah-ah-ah. But the best of all is when I open what was old daddy's bedroom window, and sit in my own room with the door shut, for the wind plays a wedding-march then, and I can make it loud or soft by opening and shutting my window. That is the march I play every evening till I get the shivers."

"She'm dafty getting," muttered Mary, understanding nothing of the musical principle of the little girl's amus.e.m.e.nt. "Don't ye du it, my dear," she went on. "'Twill just be making you mazed, and us will find ye jumping at the walls like a b.u.mbledor on a window."

"I'll try and keep sensible, but there is Christmas, and January, and February. Oh, Mary, I shall never do it," cried Boodles. "I shall be mad before March, which is the proper time for madness."

"Get another maid to come and bide wi' ye," Mary suggested.

"How can I?"

"Mebbe some old dame, who wants a home--" began Mary.

"She would be an expense, and she might get drunk, rob me, beat me, perhaps."

"Her wouldn't," declared Mary, with a glance at her big stick.

"I must go on being alone and making believe," said Boodles.

"Won't the butiful young gentleman come and live wi' ye?" said poor Mary, quite thinking she had found a splendid way out of the difficulty.

"Silly old thing," sighed Boodles, actually smiling. Then she rose to go, and Mary tramped heavily to her dairy. "Tak' eggs and b.u.t.ter wi'

ye," she called. "Aw, my dear, yew mun't starve, or you'll get decline.

'Tis cruel to go abroad on an empty stomach."

"I'm not a snake," said Boodles; and at that moment Peter appeared in search of thoughts, heard the conversation, agreed that it was indeed cruel to go abroad on an empty stomach, and went to record the statement in his diary, adding for the sake of a light touch the observation of Boodles that she was not a snake, though Peter could not see the joke.

Mary was a busy creature, but she found time that evening to stalk across the moor and down to Helmen Barton, where she banged at the door like the good champion Ethelred, hero of the Mad Trist, until the noise of her stick upon the door "alarummed and reverberated" throughout the hollow. When Annie appeared she was bidden to inform her master that if he ventured again near Lewside Cottage, or dared to frighten "my little maid," she, Mary, would come again with the stick in her hands, and use his body as she had just used his door. When Mary had spoken she turned to go, but the friendless woman called her, feeling perhaps that she too needed a champion, and Mary turned back.

"Come inside," said Annie in a strange voice, and Mary went, with the statement that she could not remain as the cows were waiting to be milked.

"Been to Lewside Cottage, has he? He'm crazed for money. He'd rob the little maid of her last penny, and pray for her whiles he was doing it,"

said Annie bitterly.

Mary said nothing, but her anger rose, and she spat noisily upon her hands to get a good grip of the stick.

"I've been wi' 'en twenty years, and don't know 'en yet I thought once he was a man, but I know he bain't. If yew was to shake your fingers at 'en he'd run."

"Yew ha' been drinking, woman," said Mary.

"Ah, I've had a drop. There's nought else to live vor. Twenty years, Mary Tavy, he've had me body and soul, twenty years I've been a slave to 'en, and now he've done wi' me."

"What's that, woman?" cried Mary, lifting her long stick, and poking at Annie's left hand and the gold ring worn upon it.

"That!" cried Annie furiously. "It be a dirty thing, what any man can buy, and any vule of a woman will wear. Ask 'en what it cost, Mary Tavy.

A few shilluns, I reckon, the price of a joint o' meat, the price of a pair o' boots. And it ha' bought me for twenty years."

"You'm drunk, woman."

"Ah, purty fine. Wimmin du main dafty things when they'm drunk. Your brother ha' made a mommet of 'en, and like a vule he went and broke it for a bit o' dirty money."

"It bain't broke," said Mary. "Peter made a new mommet, and broke that."

"Glory be to G.o.d," cried Annie wildly, plucking out some grey hairs that were falling upon her eyes. "I'll tell 'en. 'Twill work, Mary Tavy. The devil who pa.s.sed over last month will see to it. He never pa.s.sed the Barton. He didn't want his own. I never knowed a mommet fail when 'twas made right."

"Du'ye say he bain't your husband?" Mary muttered, looking at the grey hairs in the woman's hand.

"See beyond!" screamed Annie, losing all self-control, pulling Mary to the kitchen window, pointing out. It was a dark cold kitchen, built of granite, with concrete floor. There was nothing to be seen but the big brake of furze, black and tangled, swaying slightly. It was a mighty brake, twenty years untouched, and there were no flowers upon it. The interior was a choked ma.s.s of dead growth.

"Why don't ye burn 'en, woman?"

"Ask 'en. It ain't going to be burnt yet--not yet, Mary Tavy." Annie's voice had fallen to a hoa.r.s.e whisper. She was half-drunk and half-mad.

Those twenty years were like twenty mountains piled upon her. "Look at my white hairs, Mary Tavy. I'm getting a bit old like, and I'm for the poorhouse, my dear. Annie Crocker, spinster--that's me. Twenty years I've watched that vuzz before this window rocking to and fro, like a cradle, my dear, rocking 'em to sleep. Yew know what 'tis to live wi' a man. You'm a fool to first, and a vule always I reckon, but such a vule to first that yew don't know' how to stop 'em coming. Yew think of love, Mary Tavy, and you don't care--and there 'em be, my dear, two of 'em, in the middle o' the vuzz."

"Did'st du it?" muttered Mary, standing like a wooden image.

"Me! I was young then, and I loved 'em. He took 'em from me when I was weak and mazed. I had to go through it here alone, twice my dear, alone wi' him, and he said they was dead, but I heard 'em cry, twice, my dear, only I was that weak I couldn't move. 'Twas winter both times, and I lay up over, and heard 'en walking on the stones of the court, and heard 'en let the bucket down, and heard 'en dra' it up--and then I heard 'en cursing o' the vuzz 'cause it p.r.i.c.ked 'en, and his hands and face was b.l.o.o.d.y wi' scratches when he come up. I mind it all, though I was mazed--and I loved 'em, my dear."

"Preaches in chapel tu," said Mary, a sense of inconsistency occurring to her. "You'm a vule, woman, to tell to me like this."

"I've ha' bitten my tongue for twenty years, and I'd ha' bitten it another twenty if he'd used me right. Didn't your brother find 'en wi'

Chegwidden's maid? Don't I know he's been wi' she for months, and used she as he've used me? Don't I know he wants to have she here, and turn me out--and spend the price of a pair o' boots on a ring same as this, and buy she wi' that for twenty years?"

Mary turned away. It was already dark, the cows were not milked, and would be lowing for her to ease their udders. Annie was beside herself.

The barrier of restraint had fallen, and the pent-up feelings of a generation roared out, like the Tavy with its melted snow, sweeping away everything which was not founded upon a rock.

"Burn it down, woman," said Mary as she went.

"Not till the mommet ha' done its work," screamed Annie. Then she lighted the lantern, and went to the linhay for more cider.

When lonely little Boodles got home she saw at once that the cottage had been entered. The sitting-room window had been forced open, and its catch was broken; but Pendoggat had got nothing for his pains. She had hidden the money-box so cunningly that he had failed to find it; and she was glad then that she had seen him prowling about the cottage the night before. She got some screws and made the window fast. Then she cried and had her supper. After that she went to her bed and sobbed again until her head ached, and then she sat up and scolded herself severely; and as the wind was blowing nicely she turned on the wedding march, and while listening to it prattled to herself--

"You mustn't break down, Boodles. It is much too early to do that, for things have not begun to go really badly for you yet. There's enough money to keep things going till summer, if you do without any new clothes, and by the way you mustn't walk too much or you'll wear your boots out, and next summer you will have a nice lot of old maids here for their health, and make plenty of money out of them for your health.

I know you are only crying because it is so lonely, but still you mustn't do it, for it makes you thin and white. You had better go and study the cookery-book, and think of all the nice things you will make for the old maids when you have caught them."

Boodles never allowed herself to speak upon the subject which was always in her mind, and she tried to persuade herself she was not thinking of Aubrey and Weevil's wild story, although she did nothing else. While she was talking of her prospects she was thinking of Aubrey, though she would not admit it. She had tried once to put six puppies into a small cupboard, but as often as she opened the door to put another puppy in those already inside tumbled out. That was exactly the state her mind was in. When she opened it to think of her prospects, Aubrey, Weevil's story, and her unhappy origin, fell out sprawling at once, and were all over the place before she could catch them again; and when she had caught them she couldn't shut them up.

It was absolutely necessary to find something to do, as regulating the volume and sound of the wind by opening or shutting various windows and doors, and turning on what sounded to her like marriage or martial marches, was an unwholesome as well as a monotonous amus.e.m.e.nt. The child roamed about the cottage with a lamp in her hand, trying to get away from something which was not following. She could not sit down to sew, for her eyes were aching, and she kept starting and p.r.i.c.king her finger.

She wandered at last with an idea into what had been Weevil's bedroom.

There was an old writing-table there, and she had lately discovered a key with a label attached informing her that it would open the drawers of that table. Boodles locked herself in, lighted two lamps, which was an act of extravagance, but she felt protected somehow by a strong light, and began to dig up the dust and ashes of the old man's early life.

Many people have literary stuff they are ashamed of hiding away under lock and key, which they do not want, and yet do not destroy. Every one has a secret drawer in which incriminating rubbish is preserved, although it may be of an entirely innocent character. They are always going to make a clean sweep, but go on putting it off until death can wait no longer; and sorrowing relations open the drawer, glance at its contents, and mutter hurriedly: "Burn it, and say nothing." To know the real man it is only necessary to turn out his secret drawer when he is dead.

There was not much stored away in the old writing-table. Apparently Weevil had destroyed all that was recent, and kept much that was old.

There was sufficient to show Boodles the truth; that the old man had always been Weevil, that his story to her had been a series of lame lies, that his origin had been a humble one. There were letters from friends of his youth, queer missives suggesting jaunts to the Welsh Harp, Hampstead, or Rosherville, and signed: "your old pal, George," or "yours to the mustard-pot. Art." They were humorous letters, written in slang, and they amused Boodles; but after reading them she could not suppose that Weevil had been ever what one would call a gentleman. A ma.s.s of such stuff she put aside for the kitchen fire; and then she came upon another bundle, tightly fastened with string, which she cut, and drawing a letter from the packet she opened it and read--

"My own Dearest.