Furze the Cruel Part 49

"I wun't tak' what bain't mine no more," Brightly promised.

In the morning they set out. It was raining, but they did not notice that. They crossed the Taw river, pa.s.sed through Belstone, and struck into the lane which would bring them down to the Okehampton road. They had not gone far before they came upon a pony and cart fastened to a gate, belonging to the washerwoman, but the cart was empty and there was no one in sight. It carried a lamp, and a board was at the side revealing the owner's name, and the bottom was covered with fern.

Brightly brought his pinched face near the cart, stopped to regard this revelation of his life-long dream, and then he succ.u.mbed to the great temptation. He unfastened the pony, climbed into the cart, and drove in majesty up the lane.

"What be yew doing?" cried Thomasine in great fear. "It bain't yourn."

Brightly did not hear her. He knew at last what it was like to jog along the lane in a little pony-cart, and for five precious minutes he was in dreamland. In that short s.p.a.ce of time he completed the allotted span of human existence. He was returning to the littlie cottage in the midst of the potato-patch, after a day of successful work. The cart behind was piled high with rabbit-skins, and in her own little corner Ju was sitting, fat and content. Brightly put up his ridiculous head and whistled "Jerusalem the Golden" for the last time. Then he got down, tied up the pony to another gatepost, and tramped through the mud with Thomasine.

In the town they pa.s.sed a window where a notice was displayed: "Men wanted," and the girl drew his attention to it, but Brightly only coughed. The dream had faded and he had returned to realism. Men were wanted to dig foundations, build houses, work in stone, hairy-armed men who could lift granite, not a poor creeping thing who had hardly the strength to strangle a fluttering fowl.

They went through the town, up the long hill on the other side, and near a quarry of red stone they stopped.

"It be the way to Plymouth," Brightly said.

"Thankye kindly," said Thomasine. "Be yew going back?"

"Ees; I be going back," he answered.

"Be yew going far?"

"A bit o' the way towards Meldon."

"Yew ha' got no money," she said pityingly.

"I ha' got duppence," he reminded her.

"You'll live honest?" she said again.

"It wun't be long. I ha' a sort o' choking feeling," he said, putting a raw hand to his throat.

"Be ye going down under?" Thomasine was looking over the hedge and between the bare trees. Some way below, beside the river, she could just see the workhouse.

"I be a going to walk towards Meldon, and sot by the river. If the pains get bad I'll fall in mebbe."

"No," she cried. "Don't ye du that."

"Us mun get on," said Brightly, mindful of business. "I wish ye good-bye."

They shook hands, and Thomasine began to cry again. She did not like the idea of walking along a lonely road all the way to distant Plymouth.

"Thankye kindly," she sobbed.

"You'm welcome," said Brightly.

They parted, and the little man shuffled back to the town. Upon the bridge which spans the Okement he stopped, and took out the little packet which contained the "duppence." It was a wonderful sum of money, after all, if it would procure for him admission to the celestial dairy, where he could feast, and listen to, an organ playing, and see people dancing; and perhaps Ju would be sitting at his feet, wagging her tail, looking up, and enjoying it all too. It would be better than the wet cave, better than the workhouse, better than going back to prison. He would have to be quick, or they might discover how he had attempted to steal the pony and cart. He seemed to have become quite blind suddenly, and his heart was thumping against his side. He had to feel his way along towards the chemist's, which was the ticket office where he could obtain his twopenny pa.s.s into Palestine. There would be no stop on the journey, and they would be certain to let him in. Already he seemed to hear some one like Boodles saying: "Please to step inside, Mr. Brightly.

Have a drop o' milk, will ye?" And there was another Boodles coming towards him with the pleasant words: "Be this your little dog, mister?

Her's been whining vor ye cruel."

Brightly held the precious "duppence" for his fare tightly in his raw hand. He was smiling as he entered the chemist's shop.

CHAPTER XXVII

ABOUT REGENERATION AND RENUNCIATION

Sad-eyed little Boodles stood in the porch of Lewside Cottage holding a letter which the postman had just left. She did not know who it was from, nor did she care, as there was no foreign stamp on the envelope, and the postmark was only unromantic Devonport. Aubrey had not written for a month, and she knew the reason. His parents had told him the truth about her, and he was so horrified that he couldn't even send her a line on a naked postcard as a sort of farewell. Still it was better to have no letter than a cruel one; if he could not write kindly she was glad he didn't write at all.

What was supposed to be spring had come round again, and something which used to be the sun was shining, and the woods beside the Tavy were carpeted with patches of blue and yellow which "once upon a time" had been called bluebells and primroses. The ogre had done his work of transformation thoroughly, leaving nothing unchanged. During those days Boodles went about the house so quietly that she wondered sometimes if she was much better than a shadow; she seemed to have lost the power of making pleasant noises; and when she caught sight of herself in the gla.s.s as she moved about her bedroom she would say: "There it is again--the ghost!" She told her friends of the hut-circles that the cottage was haunted, and Mary exclaimed: "Aw, my dear, I'll be round wi'

my big stick," while Peter rebuked his sister for her folly, pondered the matter deeply, and at last told Boodles he should come in his own good time to "exercise the ghost" with various spells. Peter had fallen into the pernicious habit of using strange words, as he had purchased a cheap dictionary, and made constant use of it. He was developing other evil traits of authorship, having added to his ordinary costume of no collar and leather ap.r.o.n a yard of flimsy material about his neck in the form of a flowing tie. Master had told him philosophers wore such things, and Peter was also contemplating the purchase of a pair of spectacles, not because he required them, but Master declared that no man could possibly appear philosophic unless he regarded men and matters through gold-rimmed circles of gla.s.s. Every evening Peter approached Boodles with the utterance: "I be coming. I be coming to-morrow to exercise the ghost." She reminded him of the clock which he had been going to clean for two years, and added: "I'm the ghost," which brought upon her the fierce denunciation of Mary, who still maintained Boodles to be the "most butiful maid that ever was," and now that her Old Sal was no more the most perfect of all living creatures; while Peter went away, not like his apostolic namesake to weep bitterly, but to indite illegible aphorism number three-hundred-and-one dealing with the sad truism that men of wisdom do not receive a proper tribute of respect from the young and foolish.

Boodles was afraid of her mysterious letter and did not open it for some time. It might be from some relation of Weevil's, claiming what property he had left; or from her unknown mother concerning the obligations upon daughters to support their parents. At last she pulled the envelope apart, glanced timidly at the signature, and her dread departed, or became lost in astonishment, when the most extraordinary name caught her eye: "yours faithfully, Yerbua Eimalleb."

Boodles had a little fun left in her, not much, but enough to let her laugh sometimes. She plunged into the letter, to discover that Miss Eimalleb had only recently come to England, she wanted lodgings on Dartmoor, and having heard of Miss Weevil she was writing to know if she could accommodate her. "I believe you prefer old ladies," Boodles read.

"I am not old, indeed I am quite young, and shall be glad to be a companion to you, but I am not well off, so I cannot come unless your charges are very moderate. I have only about 80 a year left me by an aunt, though my parents are still living."

"Oh, you darling!" cried Boodles. Then she sat down and began to think.

Here was a young girl wanting to come and live with her, and willing to pay; a girl to be her companion and friend, who would go about with her everywhere, help her, comfort her, work with her--what a splendid prospect it was! They would cling together like two sisters, and the winds would not trouble, and the shadows would not terrify, any more; and she could laugh at the windy moonlit nights. The G.o.ds were being good to her at last, perhaps because she had been truthful and had not told Mrs. Bellamie the lie she had invented. They had taken the great thing from her because it was obviously impossible that she should have it. Aubrey was gone from her for ever, but surely this was the next best thing; a girl friend to live with her, perhaps to enter into partnership with her. Boodles felt she could face the big desert with a friend to help her, and a companion to depend upon. Love was not for her, but she would have the next best thing, which is friendship.

The letter was certainly a remarkable one, the writer's candour being no less extraordinary than her name. It was obvious she was a foreigner, but the signature gave Boodles no clue as to her nationality until she recalled a certain book on Eastern travel which she had once read, where a Persian name--or at least she thought it was Persian--very much like Eimalleb had occurred.

"I hope she's not a n.i.g.g.e.r," Boodles sighed, as her ethnical knowledge was slight and she had no idea what a Persian girl would be like.

"Ethiopians have black faces, I'm sure. And she's certain to be a heathen. What fun it will be! She will wake me at some unearthly hour and say: 'Come on, Boodles, we must hurry up to the top of Gar Tor and worship the sun.' I hope she won't have a lot of husbands, though," she went on with a frown. "Don't they do that? Oh no, it's the men have a lot of wives, and they are not Persians, but Mohammedans. I am sure Persians worship fire. Persian cats do, I know. She will kneel before the grate and say her prayers to the coals."

Boodles was getting excited. The prospect of a companion was bringing smiles to her face and colour to her cheeks. One young maid would be decidedly more congenial to her than a covey of old ones. She would give up her own bedroom to the Persian girl, and when the cottage was nicely crammed with unquestionable old maids they could sleep together. She was sure her friend wouldn't mind, because she seemed so nice.

"She must be an impulsive, warm-hearted girl," Boodles murmured.

"Telling me, a perfect stranger, about her private affairs." Then she plunged again into the letter, which was full of astonishing sentences.

"Could you meet me on Friday morning at eleven o'clock in Tavy woods?"

she read. "There is a gate at the Tavistock side and I would meet you close to that. You are sure to know me, as it is not likely there will be any one else about. I shall wear grey flannel and a plain straw hat.

I understand you are not elderly. I think you will like me."

"I shall love you," cried Boodles with much decision, laughing joyously at the concluding sentences. "She understands I am not elderly, but I expect she will be astonished when she sees what a very young thing I am. Perhaps I had better make myself look older, wear a rusty black frock trimmed with lace, and a huge flat brooch at my throat, and a bonnet--Boodles, a little black bonnet with a lot of shaking things on it."

She ran indoors, singing for the first time since Weevil's death, and sat down to answer the wonderful letter as primly as she could. "I will be at the gate of the wood Friday morning," she wrote. Shall I say weather permitting or G.o.d willing? she thought. No, I shall be there anyhow. "I will come whatever happens," she went on, in defiance of G.o.ds and thunderbolts. "I am rather a small girl with lots of golden hair, and like you I am quite young. I feel certain I shall like you." This note she fastened up, and addressed to Miss Y. Eimalleb, again exclaiming: "What a name!" at the Post Office, Devonport.

When the fit of high spirits had exhausted itself she became unhappy again. It was unfortunate that the foreign girl with the wonderful name should have asked her to come to that gate where she and Aubrey had parted for ever, the gate which was just outside fairyland. All that childish nonsense was over, and the story had finished that day they roamed about the wood, and the gate had closed with unnecessary noise and violence behind them; but still it would be hard for her to wait there, not for Aubrey, but for a stranger. Her new friend would be coming from Tavistock, she supposed, meeting her halfway, just as Aubrey had done. It was quite natural she should do so, but Boodles wished she had appointed any other meeting-place. It cheered her a little to think that the Bellamies had cast aside enough of their respectability to recommend her, as she did not know how the young foreigner could have heard of her except through them. "She cannot be quite a lady, or they would never have sent her to me," was the girl's natural inference.

"Perhaps they think foreigners don't count. I do hope she will have a nice English girl's face. If she is a n.i.g.g.e.r I shall scream and run away."

She carried the good news to Ger Cottage, but the savages both expressed their disapproval. Peter, who had travelled to distant lands, such as Exeter and Plymouth, told Boodles that foreigners, by which he meant dwellers in the next parish, were fearful folk with no regard whatever for strangers. Peter did not know anything about Persia, but when Boodles talked about the East he supposed she meant that mythical land of dragons and fairies called Somerset, which was the uttermost limit of his horizon in that direction; and he declared that the folk there were savage and unscrupulous, and spoke a language which no intelligent person could understand. Peter implored Boodles to have nothing to do with such people. While Mary, who had not travelled, except in one memorable instance from Lydford to Tavistock, said regretfully: "It bain't a maid yew wants, my dear, but the butiful young gentleman." Mary was much too outspoken, and was always making Boodles wretched with her blundering attempts at happy suggestions.

When Peter was shown the astonishing signature, and had obtained the mastery over it letter by letter, he nearly strangled himself with his abnormal tie, and expressed an opinion that the stranger was coming from absolutely unheard-of places, from the paint-clad aborigines of some land beyond Somerset, although his geography did not extend beyond that county.

"Her's a heathen," he cried, without any regard for the fact that he was himself no better. "Her will worship idols."

"Aw, my dear, don't ye ha' nought to du wi' she," begged Mary.