The Torch and Other Tales Part 30

"When the weasel sucked the robin's eggs, sir, the robin and his wife was properly mad about it and swore as they'd be fearfully revenged upon him."

"And what did they do?" axed the gentleman.

"What could they do?" I axed him back.

"Nothing."

"That's exactly what they did do; and that's exactly what Nicky White done--nothing. Once--in the street a bit after he'd come home--Will Westaway turned round and saw Spider making hideous faces at him behind his back. So he walked across the road and smacked the little man's earhole and pulled his beard. Nought happened, however."

"And what became of William Westaway?"

"Well, most of us was rather sorry for him. He'd took a lot of trouble to queer Spider's pitch and put up a mighty clever fight for Jenny, you see.

But the woman liked her little black beetle best. In fact she adores him to this day. Billy married a very fine girl from Princetown. But I reckon he never felt so properly in love with her as what he did with Mrs.

White."

No. XIV

THE WOODSTACK

As butler at Oakshotts I was a busy man no doubt, with a mighty good master who knew he'd got a treasure. Because wine and tobacco be second nature to me, and though very sparing in the use of both, I have great natural gifts and a sort of steadfast and unfailing judgment for the best.

And as master be fond of saying in his amusing way, the best is always good enough for him, so Sir Walter Oakshott of Oakshotts trusted in me, with great credit to himself and applause from his guests. Never was such an open-handed man, and being a widower at fifty, with no mind just then to try again, he let his sociable instincts run over for his friends, and Oakshotts, as I sometimes said, was more like an hotel than a country house. For he had his gardening pals come to see his amazing foreign rhododendrons in spring, and his fishermen pals for his lakes and river-banks in summer; while so soon as September came, it was sportsmen and guns and dogs till the end of the shooting season.

So I was a busy man and also a prosperous, because money cleaves to money and Sir Walter's friends were mostly well-to-do, though few so rich as him; and the gentlemen were experienced and knew a butler when they met one.

But few be too occupied for romance to over-get 'em sooner or later, and at forty I fell in love--a tiresome thing at that age and not to have been expected from a bachelor-minded man same as me. And if I'd had the second sight and been able to see where the fatal pa.s.sion was going to take me, I'd have kept my eyes off Jenny Owlet very careful indeed.

But so it was, though fifteen years separated us there's little doubt Jenny loved me very well afore Tom Bond appeared. Because I'd never loved before I saw her, and even an elderly man--and a butler's always elderly by virtue of his calling--has a charm to the female mind if she knows he's never loved before. In me Jenny saw a well-set-up and personable party, inclined a thought to a full body, but smart and active, clean-shaven and spotlessly clean every way, with brown eyes and a serious disposition, yet a nice taste for a seemly bit of fun. My hair was black and kept sleek and short, of course, and my voice was slow and deep, and my natural way of approaching all women most dignified, whether they belonged to the kitchen or the drawing-room. And, of course, she well knew I was a snug man and her worldly fortune would be made if she came to me. That was what I had to offer, while for her part she was a high-spirited thing and good as gold, aged twenty-five, with a cheerful nature and a great art for taking what pleasure life had to offer the second kitchen-maid at Oakshotts, which weren't very much. But she never groused about her hard career, or was sorry for herself, or anything like that. I liked her character and I liked her good sense and I much liked her nice and musical voice; and if she'd been educated, she'd have shone among the highest by reason of her back answers, which I never knew equalled. Not that she had any chances in that direction with me, because I'm not a man to let my inferiors joke with me, though none knows how to put 'em in their place quicker than I do.

Her eyes were betwixt blue and grey and sometimes favoured one colour and sometimes t'other, and her hair was a light brown and her figure inclined to the slim. But she was very near about five foot eight--two inches shorter than me--and of an amazing activity and enjoying most perfect health. Her home was in Little Silver, which is our village; and only poverty and the need for work had took her out of it. There she tended her widowed father, and he had such a pa.s.sion for the girl, her being his only one, that 'twas only the shadow of the Union Workhouse ever steeled him to part from her. But she saw him oftener than her day out and would many a time run like a lapwing the mile to his cottage, so as he should have a glimpse of her. And it was her wages that helped the man to carry on. He hated her working at Oakshotts and prayed ceaselessly to her to come back and starve along with him, for he was a very unreasonable fashion of man--a dog-like man with one idea and one worship and one religion, you may say. In fact he lived for Jenny alone, and when I came to be acquaint with him, I feared it was to be war to the knife between us. He always proved queer and difficult, and nought but my great love for Jenny would have made me tolerate a man like Joshua Owlet for a moment.

You couldn't absolutely say there was a screw loose in him, because to love your only child with all right and proper devotion is in the order of nature; but to come between a daughter and her future mate, when the mate was a man like me, seemed weak-minded, to say no more. A very selfish man in fact, and the thought of Jenny having a home of her own away from him, though to any decent father a right and proper thing to happen, got Joshua Owlet in a rage, and I had to exercise unbounded patience. He was a small-brained man, and that sort is the most obstinate.

"Such a woman be bound to wed, Mr. Owlet," I told him, "and lucky for you in your humble way of life that she's fallen in with one that can make her a home worthy of her and lift her up in the land. And if you love her so fierce, surely the first thing you did ought to feel is that, when she takes me, your mind will be at rest about her for evermore. I ain't retiring yet and, be it as it will, I'm Devonshire, and the home I determine upon won't be very far ways off, and she'll be within call and you'll find yourself welcome under my roof in reason."

He scratched in his grey beard and looked at me out of his shifty eyes, and if looks could have killed he'd have struck me dead, for he was a malicious sort of man and a pretty good hater. Owlet wore rags for choice and he picked up a living making clothes-pegs and weaving osier baskets.

That was his mean fashion of life, and he was allowed to get his material down in Oakshotts swamps, where the river overflowed and the woodc.o.c.k and snipe offered sport in winter. But the keepers hated Owlet poking about, because they said he took more than withies from the osier beds.

Well, the man most steadfastly refused to sanction the match and held off and cussed and said he was Jenny's duty and she didn't ought to dream of leaving him under any conditions. Of course he held no power over her and at heart she never liked him very much, because he'd served her mother bad and she remembered it. But she told me straight that I was first, father or no father, and that she'd come to me when I was ready to take her. So I could afford to feel no fear from Joshua and went my own way and dwelt on a clever scheme by which I'd bide along with Sir Walter after marriage and see my wife uplifted in the establishment--to help the housekeeper or something like that. For well I knew my master would pleasure me a long way before he'd lose me. I'd served him steadfast and we'd faced death together in the Great War.

And so I settled down in my usual large and patient spirit and just kept friendly touch with Jenny's father and no more. Nor did Jenny say much upon the future when she was home, and so, no doubt, Joshua got to hope he'd have his way in the long run.

And then came Tom Bond upon the scene of action and the fearful affair of the woodstack began to take shape. We wanted a new first footman, and he offered, and his credentials looked so right that Sir Walter, in his careless way, didn't bother about 'em, seeing by his photograph that Tom was a good-looking man and hearing he stood six feet two inches. And certainly, after his arrival, n.o.body thought no more of his character, for a cleverer and more capable chap you couldn't wish to meet. He knew his job from A to Z, and I will say here and now that, merely regarded as a first footman, Tom was never beat in my experience. He had an art to understand and antic.i.p.ate my wishes and a skill to fall into my ways that gave me very great satisfaction, and he pleased the gentlemen also and shone in the servants' hall. In fact I seldom liked a young man better, and what followed within six months of his arrival came as a fearful shock upon me, because by that time I'd grown to feel uncommon friendly to the wretch.

He was amazing good-looking, with curly hair and blue eyes and very fine teeth. And he was one of those men that win the women by their nice manners and careful choice of words. You never heard him speak anything unbecoming, and he was just as civil to the humblest as he was to the housekeeper herself. A care-free man seemingly, with his life before him and such gifts that he might be expected to make a pretty good thing of it. An orphan, too, or so he said.

Thirty-two he claimed to be, but I judged him to be a bit more in reality.

Then came the fatal cloud. Knowing that I was engaged to Jenny, he took good care to keep the right side of her on my account, but all too soon there dawned the making of the future tragedy and he was pleasuring her for her own sake. He hid his games from me, of course, and it was an easy thing to do, because I stood above any suspicion with regard to Jenny; but a time came when he didn't hide his games from her, and it was only when I began to see queer signs about her I couldn't read that any uneasiness overgot me. I do think most honest that she didn't know what was happening to her for a long time, because she loved me, or thought she did; but little by little her old gladsome way along with me wilted and I found her wits wandering. She'd be dreaming instead of listening to my discourse, and then she'd come back to herself and squeeze hold of my hand, or kiss me, and ask me to say what I'd just said over again. I pa.s.sed it off a lot of times, and then on the quiet had a tell with her father, thinking, maybe, if there was anything biting her, he might know it.

But he said little. He only scowled and glowered and wriggled his eyebrows like a monkey--a nasty trick he had.

"If there's trouble on her mind," said Joshua, "you may lay your life it's the thought of deserting a lonely father. And if conscience works in her, as I hope to G.o.d it will, then you'll find yourself down and out yet, William Morris."

That's how he talked to me; but my great gift of patience never deserted me with Owlet, and seeing he knew nothing about any real disquiet in his daughter's head, I left it at that and hoped I was mistook.

Mighty soon I found that I was not, however, and then, in the hour for my daily const.i.tutional, which I never missed, rain or shine, I turned over the situation and resolved to approach Jenny on the subject and invite a clean breast of it.

There was a woodman's path ran on the high ground behind Oakshotts, and here I seldom failed to take an hour's walk daily for the sake of health.

Up and down I'd go under the trees in the lonely woods, and mark the signs of nature and rest my mind from the business of the house. And sometimes Jenny would come along with me, but oftener I went alone, because our regular afternoon out gave me the opportunity for her company and she couldn't often break loose other times.

There was an ancient woodstack on the path hid deep in undergrowth of laurels and spruce fir, and not seldom in summer I'd smoke a pipe with my back against it; but oftener I'd tramp up and down past it, where it heaved up beside the narrow way. They was always going to pull it down, but there never rose no call for wood and it was let bide year after year--a very picturesque and ancient object.

During an autumn day it was that I went there, with the larches turned to gold and the leaf flying from the oaks and shining copper-red on the beech trees. And I resolved once for all to challenge Jenny upon her troubles, because if her future husband couldn't throw no light on 'em and scour 'em away, he must be less than the man I took him for.

I'd about spent my hour and was turning back to the house half a mile below when Jenny herself came along, well knowing where I was; and so I wasted no words, but prepared to strike while the thought of her set uppermost in my mind. She spoke first, however, and much surprised me.

'Twas her way of breaking into the matter did so, and she well knew that what she had to tell would let the cat out of the bag.

"William," she said, "I couldn't bear for you to hear the thing what's happened except from me, and I want for you to be merciful to all concerned."

She was excited and her hair waving in the autumn wind so brown as the falling leaves. Her eyes were wild also, and her mouth down-drawn, and a good bit of misery looked out of her face.

"I'm known for a merciful man where mercy may be called for, my lovely dear," I said to her. "Us'll walk up and down my path once more since you've come. I've long known there was a lot on your mind and went so far as to ask your father what it might be; but he only said 'twas your conscience up against you leaving him."

"'Tis my conscience all right," she answered, "but not like that--a long sight more crueller than that. Tom Bond has gone to see father this afternoon and--oh, William, I wish I was dead!"

I kept my nerve, for that was the only hope in her present frame of mind.

"'Tis a very ill-convenient thing for my future wife to wish she was dead," I told her; "and why for has Tom gone to see your father? Mr. Owlet ain't the sort of man to find a gay young spark like Tom much to his taste."

"You must listen," she said, "and G.o.d forgive me for saying what I'm going to say, but I can't live a lie no more, William, and Tom can't live a lie no more. He loves me and I love him. I thought I loved you, and do love you most sure and true and never better than now; but I don't love you like I love him."

Then she poured it all out--how they'd found their real selves in each other and so on--and I couldn't make up my mind on the instant whether she spoke true, or whether she only thought she did. Being a proud sort of man, I very well knew that there'd be no great fuss and splutter on my side in any case, nor yet no silly attempts to keep her if her heart was gone; but she appeared so excited and so properly frantic and so torn in half between what she felt for Tom Bond and what she felt for me, that I perceived how I must go steady and larn a lot more about the facts before I stood down. There was my self-respect, of course, but there was also my deep affection for the girl. What did amaze me was that I'd never seen the thing unfolding under my eyes, and that none of the staff had called my attention to it. But none had--man or woman--and when, afterwards, I asked one or two of the elder ones if they'd marked any improprieties I ought to know about, all said they had not. So that was another feather in Tom Bond's cap in a manner of speaking, for he'd made amazing sure of his ground and got himself safe planted in Jenny's affections without giving one sign, even to my eyes, that he was up to any wickedness.

I knew he was clever, but shouldn't have thought anybody could be so clever as that with the woman of my choice. And I knew, only too well, that Jenny must have been amazing clever also. I calmed her down and showed no spark of anger and didn't say a hard word against Bond; but that night, after dinner, I bade him come in my pantry and tell me what he'd been doing. Because a lot turned in my mind on the way he was going to state the case, and I weren't in no yielding mood to him. Words flowed from the man, like feathers off a goose, and under his regrets and shame, and all the rest of it, was a sort of a hidden note of triumph, which I didn't like at all, because it showed he was contemptuous of me at heart and knew he'd got the whip-hand.

"It's this way, Mr. Morris," he said. "I have nothing much to tell you that will excuse what's happened. I knew you were engaged to her and all that; and G.o.d's my judge, I never dreamed to come between; but nature's stronger than the strongest, and I hadn't been here six months before I knew it was life or death between me and Jenny. I fought it down and so did she, and we suffered a terrible lot more than you'll ever know or guess; but such things happen every day and true love never did run smooth. But the truth of what has happened you can see on her face, and nought will ever change her again. And I'm the sun to your moon if you'll excuse my saying so. And the triumph to have won such a woman is all lost for me, because I know a man like you--so straight and honest--will never understand such a thing and find it hard to pardon. It will darken our lives, no doubt, that she made such a fatal mistake and thought she loved you and made you think the same; but you're old enough to know that girls make that mistake every day of their lives, and think love's come to 'em before it has, and only know the difference when the true and only man appears afore 'em."

He ran on like that, and I marked that his old, straight glance was gone.

There was a new expression in his eyes and a sort of suggestion that he was tired of the subject and only concerned to save his face and let me out so quick as might be. He spoke like a conqueror, in fact, and I well knew he didn't care a farthing for my feelings under his pretence that he did.

But I weren't going to let him out quite so easy. I'd seen war, which Tom Bond had not, for I'd been my master's batman at the front and was known for a brave man, though not a warrior like Sir Walter. So I weren't going to be swept aside as a thing of no account in the matter, and I meant to know a lot more about Bond himself before I went out of the game and handed Jenny over.

When he had done I spoke and went on polishing while I did so: