The Devil's Garden Part 17

Miss Waddy came out of her absurd little post-card shop and kept saying, "Oh, dear!" She, like almost everybody else in the village except Mavis Dale and Mary, had known the news for hours; but she was greedy for the more and more particularized information that every newcomer brought with him along the road from Manninglea.

"How was the body taken to the Abbey?"

"Sent one of the carriages."

"Oh, dear!"

They continued to talk; and Mavis, listening, for a few moments felt gladness, nothing but gladness. He had gone out of their lives forever. There could be no divorce. Now that he was dead, she would be forgiven. Then again she felt the horror of it. The thing was like an answer to her secret prayer or wish--like the mysterious overwhelming consequence of her curse. It was as though in cursing him she had doomed him to destruction.

"They caught the horse last night, didn't they?"

"Yes. Some chaps at Abbey Cross Roads see un go gallopin' by, and followed un up Beacon Hill. Catched un in the quag by th' old gravel pits."

"Oh, dear!" said Miss Waddy.

Little by little Mavis pieced the story together. Mr. Barradine had been out riding late yesterday, and the riderless horse had given the alarm some time about nine o'clock in the evening. But, although a wide-spread search continued all through the night, the body was not found until past noon to-day.

They had found it at Kibworth Rocks. These rocks, situated in Hadleigh Wood, about two miles from the Abbey, were of curious formation--a wide ma.s.s of jagged boulders cropping out unexpectedly from the sandy soil, some of them half hidden with bracken, while others, the bigger ones, rose brown and bare and strange. They provided a redoubtable fortress for foxes, and contained what was known as the biggest "earth" of the neighborhood. Not far off, the main ride pa.s.sed through the wood, making a broad sunlit avenue between the gloomy pines; but no one without local knowledge would have suspected the existence of the rocky gorge or slope, because, although only at a little distance, it was quite invisible from the ride.

The body had been discovered lying in a narrow cleft, the head fearfully battered; and how Mr. Barradine came by his death was obvious. He had been riding through or near the rocks, and the horse, probably stumbling, had thrown him; and then, frightened and struggling away, had dragged him some considerable distance, until the rocks held him fast and tore him free.

What remained doubtful was how or why Mr. Barradine approached the rocks. Of course, his horse might have shied from the ride and taken him there before he could recover control of it; or, as perhaps was more probable, Mr. Barradine might have ridden from the safe and open track in order quietly to examine what was called the main earth, and, if fortunate, gratify himself with a glimpse of two or three l.u.s.ty fox cubs playing outside the burrows.

However, as Mr. Allen sagely observed, such conjectures were at present idle. These and all other matters would be cleared up at the inquest.

"Oh, dear!" said Miss Waddy. "Will there have to be an inquest?"

"Certainly there will," said Mr. Allen.

"Yes, that's the law always," said somebody else.

"Surely not," said Miss Waddy, "in the case of such a well-known gentleman as Mr. Barradine."

"It would be the same," said Allen, "if it was the Prince of Wales, or the Archbishop of Canterbury. Coroner's Court sits on everybody who doesn't die in his bed certified by his doctor."

"And it rained, too, last night," said Miss Waddy.

"Yes, there was some heavy showers."

"Fancy the poor gentleman lying out in the rain. Oh, dear!"

Mavis Dale left them talking and went back to the post office. In her agitation she had forgotten about the reply telegram to her husband.

She got Mr. Ridgett to write the message--her hands were trembling so that she could scarcely hold the pencil.

"Very sorry, I'm sure," said Mr. Ridgett sympathetically. "This was the party you told me of--the gentleman that was giving his support to Mr. Dale?"

"Yes."

"Well, well--very sad. How will you word it?"

"Please say--'Report true. Mr. Barradine killed by fall from his horse yesterday.' And sign it 'Mavis.' No, sign it 'Mav.'"

"Mav!--Ma-v!" Mr. Ridgett looked round, smiling. "That's hubby's pet name for you, isn't it? Upon my word, you two _are_ a pair of love-birds.... There, off it goes. Good night, Mrs. Dale. I'm truly sorry that you've been deprived of such a friend."

She went up-stairs to her bedroom, and did not come out of it that evening. For a long time she sat on the bed sobbing and shivering. She was glad really, and she knew that she was glad, and yet all the blood in her body seemed to be running coldly because of unreasoning superst.i.tious fear. It was as though she had seen a ghost, and as though the ghost, while imparting to her a piece of surprisingly good news, had at the same time almost frightened her out of her wits. It is so wicked, so impiously wicked to wish for the death of a fellow creature. But what are wishes? Common sense revolts from the supposition that thoughts can kill. Why, if they could, half the population of the world would succ.u.mb beneath the impalpable weapons wielded by the other half. It is only toward nightfall, when rooms begin to grow dark, and the deepening shadows give queer shapes to furniture, curtains, and other familiar objects, that one can be foolish enough to entertain such fancies.

She told Mary to bring the candles, and to run out and buy a night-light. Then Mary helped her to undress and to get to bed; and she slept dreamlessly. The feeling after all was one of unutterable relief. Mr. Barradine _was_! Never again would her flesh shrink at the sight of him; never again could those lascivious hands touch her.

Next day, between dinner-time and tea-time, while she was giving final touches to the well-cleaned parlor, she heard her husband's voice just outside the door. He had come up-stairs very quietly and was speaking to Mary on the landing.

"Will, Will!" With a cry of delight, Mavis rushed out to welcome him.

"Oh, thank goodness, you've come home." She boldly took his arm, drew him into the parlor and shut the door again. "Will--aren't you going to kiss me?"

"No." And he disengaged himself and moved away from her. "No, I can not kiss you."

"Oh, Will. Do try to forget and forgive." She stood stretching out her hands toward him imploringly, with eyebrows raised, and lips quavering.

"I can never forget," he said, after a moment's pause.

Then she tried to make him say that things would eventually come all right, that if he could not pardon her and take her to his heart now, he would do so some time or another. He listened to her pleadings impa.s.sively, stolidly; his att.i.tude was stiffly dignified, and it seemed to her that, whatever his real frame of mind might be, he had determined to hide it by maintaining an impenetrably solemn tone and manner.

"Will, you've come home, and I'm grateful for it. But--but I do think you're cruel to me. Especially considering what's happened, I did hope you'd begin to think kinder to me."

"Mavis," he said solemnly, "it is the finger of G.o.d." And he repeated the phrase slowly, with a solemnity that was almost pompous. "It is the finger of G.o.d. If that man had not chanced to die in this sudden and startling way, I could never have come home to you. It was the decision I had arrived at before I read of his accident in the paper.

Otherwise you'd 'a' never set eyes on me. Now all I can say is, you and I must trust to the future. It will be my endeavor not to look back, and I ask you equally to look forward."

She was certain that this was a set speech prepared beforehand. She knew so well the faintly unnatural note in his voice when he was reciting sentences that he had learned by rote: she who had helped in so many rehearsals before his public utterances could not be mistaken.

However, she had to be contented with it. And, stilted and stiff as it was, it certainly seemed to imply that she need not relinquish hope.

He added something, in the same ponderous style, about the probability of its being advisable to put private inclinations on one side and attend the funeral of the deceased in his public capacity of postmaster. This mark of respect would be expected from him, and people would wonder if he did not pay it. Then he left the parlor, and again spoke to Mary.

Mavis, listening, heard him give orders that an unused camp bedstead should be brought down from the clerk's room and made up in the kitchen. He told Mary that he wished to sleep by himself because he felt twinges of rheumatism and was afraid of disturbing the mistress if the pain came on during the night. And Mavis noticed that all the time that he was talking to Mary his voice sounded perfectly natural.

Then he went down-stairs, speaking again when he was half-way down.

"How goes it, Miss Yorke? Is Mr. Ridgett in the office?"

And this time it was absolutely his old voice--rather loud, rather authoritative, but really quite cheerful.

Thinking of his manner to her and his manner to others, she believed that she could now understand all that he intended. She was to be held in disgrace perhaps for a long time, but appearances were to be kept up. No breath of scandal was to tarnish the reputation of the Rodchurch postmaster; the curious world must not be allowed the very slightest peep behind the scenes of his private life; and she, without explicit instructions, was to a.s.sist in preventing any one--even poor humble Mary--from guessing that as husband and wife they were not as heretofore on the best possible terms.

Down below in the sorting-room Dale greeted Mr. Ridgett very heartily.

"Here I am. May I venture to come in a minute? I'm only a visitor till Monday, you know." And he told Ridgett how he had taken a liberty in returning before the stipulated date; but he had written to headquarters explaining the circ.u.mstances, and he had no doubt they would approve. "There's the funeral, you know. Though I suppose that won't be till Tuesday or even Wednesday. But there's the inquest. And I felt it like a duty to attend that too."

"Yes, I suppose this is a bit of a blow to you--knowing him so long.

Your good lady was mightily upset."