Chapter VII A Sharp Tongue
Timothy Mattacott and his life-long friend, Ernest Maunder, walked and talked together. The latter was on duty, but since the way led over an open space skirted with wild and empty land, the constable relaxed his official manner and gave ear to Mattacott.
“I ban’t too easy,” confessed the elder man; “for it’s rumoured that along of that silly business on Christmas Eve, when Screech hollered out Stanbury’s name in the fog to Crazywell, and the wrong people heard him, that Mrs. Stanbury’s going out of her mind. Something ought to be done.”
“Something certainly ought to be done,” admitted Maunder. “You couldn’t say strictly that it comes under the head of law, else I should take steps; but we must consider of it before the woman gets worse.”
“I don’t want to anger Screech, for he took a lot of trouble, and ’twasn’t his fault that Jane didn’t hear the voice. For that matter, ’twas as good as if she had done, and she’s holding off even now from Bart Stanbury, as Screech foretold me she would do. But I don’t get no forwarder with her, and ’tis only an evil postponed from my point of view, because she’s plainly told me that she likes Bart better than me, and she’s only waiting to see if there was anything in that voice, or if ’twas all nonsense and stuff.”
“In other words,” said Mr. Maunder, “if the man lives over into next year, which, of course, he will do, then she’ll take him.”
“Yes, exactly so. If he died she’d have me, but on no other terms.”
“I’m afraid then, to say it kindly, Tim, the game’s up,” declared Ernest. “You see, the man ban’t going to die, and you’m harrying his mother silly for nought. If I may venture to advise, I’d urge for you to let it out and give her up.”
“I don’t mind for myself, but there’s Billy Screech.”
“If you’ve lost her, ’tis no good keeping up these hookem-snivey doings. Nought’s gained by it. To use craft, though foreign to my nature, I hope, in a general way, I should advise that Screech lets the thing out sudden. He might pretend that he’s just heard tell about it, and his wife could tell Mrs. Stanbury’s daughter, Margaret Bowden. Then ’twould be all right in a day, and the poor creature might recover her senses and rest in peace.”
“As ’tis,” explained Timothy, “she’s in a double mess, which we never thought upon—no, not the cleverest among us—for she can’t tell whether ’tis her son or her husband be going to drop. And she goes in fear according.”
“It oughtn’t to be. It mustn’t be,” declared the other. “’Tis unworthy and improper; and though I couldn’t say ’twas an actual crime against law, yet ’tis a very indecent situation, and if the poor creature was to go mad, you’d feel a heavy load on your conscience, Timothy, even though Billy Screech may be so built as not to care.”
“Yes, I should,” admitted Mr. Mattacott; “and something must be done—especially so, since I’ve lost the woman. ’Tis very vexatious in her, for she’s as near as damn it said ‘yes’ a score of times.”
“You’ll do better to look elsewhere, whether or no. Them uncertain creatures afore marriage are often uncertain afterwards, and then they be the very mischief,” said Ernest. “And as for wits, upon my life I don’t think Mrs. Stanbury’s the only one that’s tottering. ‘Twouldn’t maze me any day to hear as Reuben Shillabeer had to be handled. That man’s not what he was.”
“He hath a wandering eye, I grant you.”
“More than that, and worse than that. ’Tis my business, in its higher branches, to take thought of what be passing in a man’s brain, Timothy, and oft of late I’ve marked the ‘Dumpling’ waver in his speech and break off and lose the thread.”
“Have you now!”
“True as I’m here on duty. He don’t fix his intellects as he used.”
“He’s always down—I grant that. ‘The Corner House’ ban’t very lively nowadays.”
“He is down, and that’s a sign of a screw loose. Say nought, however, for ’twould be libel and land you in trouble; but mark me, the poor fellow changes from his old self, though never a cheerful creature since his wife went.”
They overtook a woman and both saluted Rhoda Bowden. She had just crossed Lether Tor bridge, and was proceeding by the road to Lowery. They talked concerning Mr. Shillabeer a while longer, and then Mr. Maunder mentioned Dorcas and her children. Whereupon from urbanity Rhoda lapsed into silence, soon bade them good-day, and turned off the main road into a lane. They passed on, and having left the track, Rhoda pursued the way she had chosen. It wound to her right, skirted a quarry on Lowery Tor, and returned to the main thoroughfare half a mile beyond. The detour was of no account, and yet, owing to this trivial incident, there happened presently an event that set rolling deep waves along the shore of chance.
The rough footpath led directly behind Mr. Billy Screech’s cottage, and just as Rhoda was speeding by with her eyes turned from the place, the eldest child of Dorcas—a boy of more than three years old—fell headlong out of the hedge at her feet. The accident looked serious. For a moment her nephew lay motionless and silent, then he began to utter piercing screams and cry for his mother. The noise stilled Rhoda’s alarm and brought Dorcas flying from her cottage, with her mother-in-law after her. When they arrived at the hedge Rhoda had picked up her sister’s first-born, and was endeavouring to calm it.
The lesser William Screech was found to have escaped with no worse hurt than fright and bruises. He was soon in his mother’s arms, and she handed him on to his grandmother. Dorcas thanked Rhoda and told the elder Mrs. Screech to depart; then, the opportunity being a good one, she descended into the road herself, set her face, shook her red fringe out of her eyes, and resolutely overtook Rhoda, who had hastened forward.
“Stop, if you please,” she said. “It’s a free country and you’ve no right to deny speech to any civil-spoken creature. I want to speak to you, and I’ll be obliged if you’ll listen for a minute. You can’t refuse to hear me.”
Even at this moment Rhoda was struck by the calm authority in her younger sister’s voice. She spoke as the superior woman, with all the weight of a husband, a family, and a home behind her. The aggressive personality of Dorcas was something new.
“I don’t want to have aught to do with you,” said Rhoda.
“Nor I with you,” answered the other. “But we’ve all got to do a lot of things we don’t like in this world—you and me among the rest.”
“Speak then,” said the elder. She had not stood face to face with her sister for some years, and now she marked that Dorcas looked better far than of old. She had filled into neat matronly lines; her eyes were stronger; her gift of ready words was still with her.
“’Tis this: I’m weary of the scandal between us. I’m looked up to and treated proper by other women, and ’tis a wonder to them all why you hold off as you do. I don’t want your friendship, God knows, nor yet your good word; but civility I’ve a right to ask for, and ’tis a beastly, obstinate wickedness in you that refuses it. Here, but three days since, Madge comed in and said how hard she’d tried again to make you see different, but not a kindly thought to your own flesh and blood have you got. A minute agone, if you’d known ’twas my child you’d picked up, no doubt you’d have let the poor little toad drop again. And Madge says you won’t make friends and be civil, even on the outside, out of respect to everybody; and I’ll ask you why and thank you to tell me.”
Rhoda lacked the usual armoury of women. Her mind moved slowly; her words did the like. She made no instant answer, but looked down into the angry eyes of Mrs. Screech and noticed her hands were wet and puffy.
“’Tis washing-day with you, I see,” she said in a mechanical voice. Why she made this remark she had not the least idea. It was certainly not meant as an offence; but Dorcas held such irrelevance as rude.
“Never mind whether ’tis my washing-day or not. Please to answer me and give me a reason for what you’m doing year after year. I suppose you think ’tis terrible fine to stick your vartuous nose up in the air, and pretend you’m a holy saint and not a common woman. Terrible fine, no doubt—and terrible foolish—like many other terrible fine things be. Don’t you judge your betters so free, and sneer at every woman who does her first duty in the world and helps the world along; but look at home a bit and see what a nasty-minded, foul-thinking creature you be, without enough charity to keep your brains sweet. You was very fond of bally-ragging me in the old days, when I was a stupid girl and didn’t know what I was born for; but you shan’t come it over me no more, and I warn you not to try.”
Her voice was shrill, and Rhoda, listening to the sound, perceived another whom marriage had made a shrew.
“What’s the use of this noise?” she asked coldly. “You can’t make me have aught to do with you or your children, and I refuse to do it. ’Tis playing with the past to ask the reason. You know the reason. I never would speak, and never will speak to any woman who does what you did. I’m jealous for women, and the like of you, that makes them a scorn and a laughing-stock, should be cast out by all right-minded females. Then such things as you did wouldn’t be done no more.”
“No! If the women were like you, there’d mighty soon be no more women—nor men neither—a poor, unfinished thing—like a frost-bitten carrot—good for nought. You to talk to me out of your empty life! You to say I’m not fit company for people—me as be bringing brave boys and girls into the world, while you look after puppies and lambs! Why, damn you, you be no more than a useless lump of flesh, as might so well be underground as here! You—out of your empty, silly life—to talk to me in my full, busy days! I spit at you; and if you think to punish me, then I’ll punish you too. I can bite so well as bark; and if you ban’t on your knees pretty soon, I’ll have you and David by the ears—then we’ll see what becomes of you!”
Mrs. Screech suggested a woman suffering under too much alcohol. But she was merely drunk with anger. Her sister’s calm attitude and patient indifference to this attack did not help to soothe her. Rhoda looked at the sun, and Dorcas knew that she was judging the time of day.
“You’ll call for the hours to move a bit faster afore long,” she said. “Don’t you think you can insult me and my husband, year ’pon year like this, and not smart for it. We know very well how to hit back, and if it hadn’t been for a better woman than you, I’d have done it a long time ago. I don’t forget how you boxed my ears once, because I knowed how to love a man. You’d have better axed me what the secret was and begged to know it. But you think you’ve got no use for a man; and they’ve got no use for you and never will have—as you’ll live to find out. And I’ll sting you to the quick now—now—this instant moment, if you don’t say you’m sorry for the past and promise on your honour to treat me and mine decent in future. I warn you to mind afore you speak.”
A malignant light shone over the face of Dorcas. She set her teeth and panted at her own great wrongs, while she waited for the other to speak.
“You can’t hurt me,” said Rhoda, “and you know it.”
“Can’t I? We’ll see then! God defend the world from white virgins like you—that’s what I say. A holy terror you are; and we’re all to be brought up for judgment, I suppose—to have our heads chopped off, because we dare to be made of flesh and blood instead of dead earth. Pure and clean—is it? What you call pure. All the same, the likes of you does things, and thinks things, us married women would blush to do and think.”
“If that’s all you want to say, I’ll thank you to get out of my road,” answered the other.
“’Tisn’t all, as it happens. I’m going to talk of Bartley Crocker now, and then you can take away something to think about yourself, you frozen wretch! I suppose, in your pride, you fancy he’s after you all these days, and comes because he wants to marry you—wants to marry a lump of granite! ’Tisn’t you he thinks about, or cares about, or ever will; ’tis one whose shoes you ban’t worthy to black—or David either. Between you she’d be like to die of starvation, I reckon; and who shall blame her if she does take her hungry heart to somebody, else? You and him—good God! ’tis like living between two ice images—enough to kill the nature in any creature higher than a dog. And she knows it, and a good few more—Bartley Crocker among the number—knows it. Belike Madge grows tired of being moss to his stone, and working her fingers raw for such as you and her husband. And even your precious David ban’t the only man in the world. And so a decent chap like Bartley comes along, an old friend that knows a little about girls and what they feel like, and knows they be different from sheep and heifers. Hear that! ’Tis not for you the man seeks your house. He uses your name like a blind. He laughs at you and your airs and graces. He’s got no use for you and never will have. They meet here and there and everywhere—and why not? ‘Fallen woman’ be the word for me, I suppose. ’Tis you be the fallen woman; and to call you woman is too good for you! You never was a woman; but Madge is, and I hope to God you’ll wake one day to find she’ve had pluck and sense enough to leave you and David and run for it with a better man. You may stare your owl’s eyes out of your head. But you’ve got it now, and you’ve earned it.”
Dorcas stopped, panting from her tirade, and passed her sister and disappeared without more speech. Rhoda, left alone, stood quite still for a little while; then she proceeded on her business. Not a shadow of anger clouded her mind, only dreadful dismay at the things she had heard. She was not galled for herself; she did not wince at the foul torrent loosed upon her. It passed over her harmlessly. But her thoughts busied themselves entirely with David. That Dorcas should thus have supported her own fears, and driven home her own cloudy suspicions and terrors, struck Rhoda dumb. Here was the thing that she had hidden and suffered to gnaw her breast without a sign, now shouted on the loud, vulgar tongue of the world, as represented by Dorcas. Here was the secret that she had suspected, and searched out in fear and trembling, blurted coarsely for any ear.
A period of increased happiness had recently passed over ‘Meavy Cot,’ and Madge, who appeared to hide her emotions no more than a bird, went singing and cheerful through it. Then matters drifted into the old ways. Now much of hope deferred was upon David’s mind and some abstraction and silence clouded the home again, for the Tavistock appointment remained still a matter of uncertainty. But the circumstance chiefly in Rhoda’s thoughts at this moment was the attitude of her brother to Bartley Crocker.
Their relations had grown more and more friendly of late. Crocker often came uninvited to ‘Meavy Cot,’ and David always appeared well pleased to see him. When the younger was not by, her brother often spoke of him, and both he and Margaret endeavoured to make Rhoda share their high opinion. From Madge she had always turned impatiently away; but to David she had listened and not seldom wondered that he and she—who found themselves thinking alike in most questions of life and character—should differ so widely upon the subject of this man. The reason was now easy to discover: she knew the truth and her brother did not. Her judgment was confirmed. Then, upon this appalling conclusion, came doubt and deepest perplexity. Why should such a woman as Dorcas be right? Her evil heart might have invented the whole story with no purpose but to torture and torment. Rhoda had next reluctantly to consider Crocker himself and his bearing when they met.
If he was acting a lie, he was acting it well. He had made it clear half a hundred times, though without offering another formal proposal, that he would be rejoiced and thankful above measure if she threw in her lot with him, and married him, and accompanied him to Canada. She asked herself what would happen if she accepted him. Her thoughts grew more and more difficult. She reached the lowest depth of discomfort that life had shown her.