The Life Of Thomas Wanless, Peasant Part 9

Thus was the Captain's way made smooth to him, and the country side soon became as full of his ongoings with "the parson's girl" as ever it had been about his intrigue with Sally Wanless.

Thomas Wanless himself saw and heard much, for his cottage was not very far from the Vicarage road, and the Captain sometimes forgot himself, and pa.s.sed his very door, instead of taking up the back street.

Doubtless it never entered the Captain's head that any peasant would accost him about such a trifle as the ruin of his daughter. He ought rather to feel honoured thereat. What he did fear was the girl herself--he having a fine gentlemanly dread of "scenes."

Nevertheless, Thomas's wrath was awakened anew at the sight of this "cool blackguard," as he most irreverently styled the Captain, and soon the feeling extended to them that "harboured him." It was borne in upon his spirit, as the Methodists say, that he must denounce the "ruffian."

Yes, yes, he thought, this must be done; till it was done there would be no relief in his mind. He had borne too much in silence, but that this harbouring of criminals should go on before his face was more than he could stand.

"It will do no good," his wife said, as he declared his purpose to her.

"Good!" he answered, "who wants or expects good to come to them or us? I expect none, but I must and shall tell the blackguard what I think of him."

Yet this was easier said than done. He could not well stop the Captain in the street, for he nearly always drove or rode, and never once pa.s.sed Thomas's cottage door on foot. It was utterly useless to call at the Grange, for no one would see him. Obsequious menials might even set the dogs at him, or trump up a charge against him and put him in jail.

Besides, Thomas had no time except on Sundays to go in quest of his enemy, and on Sundays the Captain was usually at the Vicarage. In the bitterness of spirit which these thoughts brought him to, Thomas might have, perhaps, done something rash, but happily necessity prevented him.

He had now to work, if possible, harder than ever--early and late at the farm, on his allotment, in the little garden at his cottage, he laboured for the means of life--and did but poorly, though the work kept him up and helped him to control the fire that burned within him.

At last the chance he longed for came suddenly, and without his seeking it. He was pa.s.sing the Vicarage garden one beautiful Sunday afternoon in October, and heard voices on the little lawn which lay between the hedge and the house. Laughter and the chatter of merry tongues fell on his ear, and one hard man's voice he instantly guessed must be that of Captain Wiseman. To reach that conclusion and the resolve to face his daughter's seducer then and there may be said to have const.i.tuted one mental effort. A rush of strong emotion swept over him and made him feel, as he opened the Vicarage gate and slipped within, as if G.o.d had laid a mission upon him to lay bare the iniquity of this man and of those who countenanced him. Under the influence of this feeling he straightened himself and strode across the gra.s.s direct to the place where he heard the voices.

The scene that burst upon his view if possible heightened his courage, and I can well imagine that the rough, toil-gnarled, weather-buffeted old man looked like an avenging fate to those whose privacy he had thus invaded. Always dignified and n.o.ble in aspect, the anger at his heart now doubtless made him heroic.

Mrs. Codling and her four daughters were seated in a group on chairs in front of a sort of arbour that stood at the further end of the lawn, and a little behind the western end of the house, not far from the churchyard, from which it was hidden by a clump of evergreens and a wall. Behind Adelaide Codling, leaning over her chair, and apparently teasing her in a familiar _nonchalant_ way, stood Captain Wiseman. As he faced the gate he was the first to catch sight of Thomas Wanless, and although he hardly knew Sally's father by sight, he appeared to guess intuitively that a "scene" was at hand. His red face grew redder still, his talk suddenly ceased, and an ugly scowl gathered on his fleshly brow. Mrs. Codling's back was towards the approaching peasant, but the Captain's sudden silence and the look he gave made her turn round just as Thomas came up. She also divined that trouble was at hand, and, bridling up at the idea of that "disgusting creature" parading his girl's shameless conduct before her pure-minded daughters, prepared at once for action.

"See if the Vicar can come out, my dear," she said to the girl nearest to her, and then addressing Thomas, cried in tones meant to be frigidly severe, but which only succeeded in being savagely spiteful--

"If you want the Vicar, my good man, go to the house. You have no right to enter this garden."

She might just as well have addressed the nearest tree. Thomas paid no attention to her, but stalking up to the Captain, glared at him till that wretched being shivered with fear in spite of himself. Perhaps this "gallant" soldier thought Wanless would knock him down, and that may have been the peasant's first impulse. However, he did not, but instead turned after a minute or so to Mrs. Codling, and asked, with stern abruptness--

"Madam, do you know who this man is?"

For a brief s.p.a.ce the woman seemed scared and cowed by the tones and at the face she saw looming above her. "Good gracious me!" she exclaimed, half to herself. "What does the man mean?" Then, recovering courage, added, "I do believe the creature is crazy. I'm very sorry, Captain Wiseman, but really I fear you will have to come to the rescue of us weak women. Do speak to him and order him off."

At this two of the girls began to scream, but Adelaide giggled.

"Since you give me no answer, madam," Thomas struck in, "I shall tell you who this man is," and he stepped round and backed a little, so as to be able to look at both the Captain and the Vicar's wife. "This man is the seducer of my daughter," he continued. "He has committed a crime against her and against me which is worse than murder in the sight of G.o.d. He is the father of a helpless child that, for all he cares, might be flung into a roadside ditch to die. For his cold-blooded villainy that child and my child must suffer all their days. This man, I tell you," and here his voice rang all over the place, "this man has broken an innocent girl's heart, and you know it, madam, and you harbour him.

Shame on you!"

Mrs. Codling grew pale with rage, and tried to speak; but before she got a word out Thomas had turned to the Captain, who took a step forward as if to collar him.

"Captain Wiseman," he said; and at the sudden, sharp address that wretch paused, grew mottled in the face, and dropped the raised hand by his side. "What!" cried the labourer, "would you dare to touch me, you low, libertine scoundrel? Stand back, lest I have to sully my hands by choking the life out of you, reptile that you are!"

How much further Thomas might have gone I know not, but by this time Mrs. Codling had got her voice and charged in turn. She ordered Thomas to leave the place, and in shrill tones threatened him with the police, with the Captain's vengeance, with the Vicar's wrath, called him a h.o.a.ry old sinner, and well-nigh swore at him for polluting the ears of her precious daughters with the story of his own girl's immorality. It was a fearful torrent, Thomas afterwards confessed. Until then he had never known the length of a woman's tongue. But it came to an end at last, for Mrs. Codling lost her breath. With a parting shot to the effect that Thomas had only got what he deserved, and it was like father like child--low wretches all--the ruffled woman relapsed into a fuming silence. Somehow the tirade brought relief to Thomas's overcharged heart. It had an amusing and grotesque side that struck him forcibly in spite of himself, and it was therefore with a certain sense as of laughter welling up through his heart of sorrow--a feeling for which he would fain have reproached himself--that he answered in a voice that bore down all attempts at interruption--

"Poor lady, I did not come here to quarrel with you, far from it. G.o.d forgive you for having such ill feelings, and you a parson's wife too.

But what could one expect when you harbour scamps like this fine military seducer here? That's enough to make your heart the abode of all that is wicked. I bear you no malice though, far from it. I would warn you to mend your steps in time. You call me names, and accuse me of bringing my corrupt affairs before the pure ears of your daughters.

Take care, woman, take care. The serpent that destroyed my precious la.s.s has not lost his fangs, and your turn to mourn as I mourn may be nearer than you think. Because you have fine clothes and luxuries, and live in a grand house, you think that the ills of the poor cannot reach you.

Take care, I say, or the day may come when I can return your taunt, and tell you that if you had set a better example to your children, if you had guarded them against evil company, you might have been spared much sorrow and humiliation." With this, Thomas turned to go, but the cries of Mrs. Codling arrested him.

"The wretch," she shrieked. "Josiah, do, for heaven's sake, speak to this low fellow. His foul abuse is positively sickening." And as the Vicar shuffled up in obedience to the summons, his wife, turning to the gallant rake, added, "I'm so sorry, Captain, that you should have been insulted here. This must be very disagreeable to you."

The Captain found voice to a.s.sure her that it did not matter. He didn't "care a hang, you know," and gave it as his opinion that a strategic movement towards the house might be the best end of the affair.

"Yes, yes," cried Adelaide, "let us go indoors and leave that fellow to speak to the trees. He'll soon tire of that;" and she proceeded to gather up the stray wraps.

But before this n.o.ble plan of out-manoeuvring an enemy could be carried out, the Vicar and Thomas had encountered each other, and Mrs. Codling had to rush to the defence of her husband.

"My good man," the Vicar had begun. "Eh, Thomas Wanless is it? Dear me!

You forget yourself, sir. You mustn't behave in this way in my garden, and before ladies, too. Go away, go away, and come to me to-morrow if you have anything to complain of. I'll see you in my study."

"Come to you!" answered the peasant in tones of amazement and scorn.

"Come to you! what could you do, you whited sepulchre? You G.o.d-forsaken, poor, tippling creature. Mind your own affairs," and he laughed a bitter laugh, as once more he turned to go.

The Vicar also turned and slunk away with a scared guilty look, but his wife's wrath found outlet anew.

"This is too bad," she screamed after Wanless, "the low scoundrel. Oh, Captain Wiseman, I do wish you would thrash the fellow to within an inch of his life. Oh dear! oh dear! will n.o.body pity me," and she fairly wept with rage.

The last that Thomas heard of them was the Captain explaining in his most persuasive words that "By Jove, you know, it would hardly be the thing for me to take to fisticuffs with a low labourer-ruffian, else, by Gad, nothing would have delighted me more than to beat him to a pulp, you know."

Thomas turned and gazed in the direction of the speaker as if to invite him to come and try, but the Captain was busy hurrying the ladies into the house, and though near enough to see well the look on Thomas's face, he showed no sign of accepting the implied challenge.

It was Mrs. Codling who, brave to the last, and woman-like, gave the parting shot.

"Be off, you low blackguard," she screamed, and then disappeared within the house. It afterwards transpired that she caught sight of some of the servants watching the encounter with Wanless from a window, and had much comfort from the blowing up she gave them. Her superfluous temper was thereby wholesomely expended.

Thomas Wanless went home that afternoon struggling with a feeling of disappointment in which there mingled a certain degree of shame. He had never entered the Vicar's grounds with the intention of either wrangling with the Vicar or his wife. A desire to expose a scoundrel was his sole motive, and he had felt a sense of the heroic as he proceeded to seek his daughter's betrayer. Had that man abused him, or struck him, or in any way given him the opportunity of letting loose his wrath, he would have, perhaps, felt that a duty had been discharged. Instead of that, Thomas had merely fallen out with a sharp-tongued, not over-sensitive woman, and abused a poor parson who, whatever his failings, had not at the moment the least intention to act otherwise than as a peace-maker.

The heroics had all vanished, and in their place was something grotesque and ludicrous. The more Thomas thought of it the more he felt that he had that day vindicated neither his own honour nor his daughter's, and he resolved that henceforth he should bear his sorrows in silence.

Perhaps this self-condemnation was not quite reasonable, for Mrs.

Codling provoked Wanless most unjustifiably. She, at all events, got no more than she deserved. But the labourer was sensitive and proud, and these feelings made him prefer silent endurance to the loss of self-respect. Could he have foreseen the consequences which seemed at least to flow from his one effort at bringing home to the sinner his sin, he might have had still greater doubts about the wisdom of the course he pursued on that calm October Sunday afternoon.

For one thing, the noise of the row between the Captain and Thomas was soon heard all over Ashbrook. The Vicarage servants retailed it with many embellishments to their friends--as a secret, of course--and Adelaide Codling herself let out some episodes to her then bosom friend.

Presently, and in due course, the tale reached the Grange, where it took the circ.u.mstantial and easily comprehended form of an account of a great fight between the Captain and the labourer, in which the latter had got two black eyes, a broken nose, cut lips, a thumb out of joint, and some said three, some five teeth knocked down his throat by the scientific handling of the gallant guardsman. It was nothing to the purpose to say that the labourer had been seen going about his work as usual, for people of his sort thought nothing of maulings that would have nearly been the death of superior persons--like flunkeys and valets.

In some such guise, the story ultimately reached the ears of Mrs.

Morgan, who was so much shocked at the idea of a fight between her brother and a low labouring fellow that she felt constrained to tell her mother, especially as the fight was alleged to have taken place on the Vicarage lawn, in presence of the Vicar's family. Mrs. Morgan, keener sighted than her mother now was, had for some time been aware of the ambitions of Mrs. Codling, so far at any rate as to disapprove of the constant intercourse which the Captain had with the Vicarage. In telling her story, therefore, it was possible for her also to lay emphasis upon the Captain's relationship with the Codlings, which she took care to do, and as she flattered herself much that she succeeded admirably.

At first it seemed as if she had done nothing of the kind. The Juno of the parish, Lady Harriet Wiseman, forgot everything for a time in her wrath at the abominable presumption of a labourer in fighting with her blue-blooded son, and was eager to have him arrested and punished. In vain Mrs. Morgan pleaded the scandal such a step would cause; her wrathful ladyship would hear never a word. Nothing pacified her till she had spoken to her son on the subject, and she had so set her heart upon making an example of that vagabond fellow, who had troubled the parish ever since she could remember, that she was positively more angry than before when her son told her that what she wished could not be done for the best of all reasons--there had been no fight. Then her wrath fell partly on her son, and they quarrelled. She asked him what he was doing at the Vicarage. He replied that it was none of her business, and left her with the seeds of jealous suspicion in her heart.

Next time the Captain met his sister, he rounded upon her, and, according to common report, called her "a d.a.m.ned meddlesome fool" for interfering in his affairs. Thus matters were likely to become ravelled at the Grange. Perhaps it was to lull suspicion and allow the heated atmosphere to cool that the Captain soon after this betook himself to Newmarket, and thence to London. Before he went he gave a private hint to the head gamekeeper that he would not be inconsolable if that questionable functionary could manage to make out a case of night-poaching against Thomas Wanless. An underling heard of the plot and warned Thomas to take care, and though Thomas never poached, the warning was probably needful enough.

The row at the Grange was the least significant of the consequences that flowed from Thomas Wanless's visit to the Vicarage Gardens. Mrs. Morgan had apparently indicated to her mother the suspicions she entertained as to the aims of Mrs. Codling, and Lady Harriet, afraid to tackle her son about his amours, attacked Mrs. Codling instead. It was plainly enough intimated to that scheming woman that Lady Harriet disapproved of the constant visits of the Captain to the Vicarage, and Mrs. Codling was asked to discourage them.

A sensible person would have deferred to the wishes of the greatest lady in the parish on a point so delicate, but Mrs. Codling proved to be anything but sensible. Afraid of exciting the wrath of Lady Harriet by open hostility, she took refuge in underhand plots. The intercourse between the Captain and her daughter, which had hitherto been carried on, in a manner, openly, was now changed, with the mother's connivance, into a secret intrigue. By this change the whole moral att.i.tude of the family became debased. Captain Wiseman was astute enough to see through the would-be mother-in-law's motives, and cunning enough to egg her on in a course of duplicity and folly. His mother need know nothing, he represented, till all was over. No doubt she would at first resent a secret marriage, but when she saw she could no longer help it, her wrath would soon cool down.

With talks like these it may be supposed that Adelaide Codling, apt pupil as she was, soon came to look upon a secret marriage as just the one thing desirable and necessary to secure her happiness; and, from this conclusion, it was but a step to destruction. Probably enough Captain Wiseman had never any intention of marrying the girl, but whether or not, he certainly had abandoned it, when, after a few weeks of secret meetings and clandestine letter writing, he succeeded in persuading her to join him in London. She left home just after Christmas, in secret to all appearance, though the village gossips would have it that her mother knew of her flight beforehand, and n.o.body doubted that she had run away after the Captain. In vain did Mrs.

Codling give out that her daughter had been called away suddenly to visit a sick aunt. n.o.body believed her. Secret intrigues cannot be successfully carried out in a quiet country village, and what was declared to be the true version of the flight was current in all the country side within a week of Adelaide's departure.