Chapter VI
“She’ve a whisht ’eart, poor Gray ’as,” said the mother in deprecation of Mrs. Byron’s stout advice that the maid should wear her ring openly and tell Leadville to go hang.
“Whatever is she ’fraid of?”
“Oh, I dunno, maids is like that sometimes.”
“She needn’t be afraid of Leadville, ’e ’edn’t goin’ do nothing.”
“I don’t say ’e ’av so far,” was the cautious reply.
The wife laughed. “You don’t think I’ve lived with’n all these years an’ don’t know ’e’s all blow?”
But Mrs. Tom knew just how much justification there was for Gray’s alarm. “Well, you know, Gray’s easily frightened,” she said thoughtfully. “I don’t believe she’d come down the lane at night for all the gold in Tregols.”
“Well, I never. Whatever is there to be afraid of?”
“You know she ’ad a bit of a shock one night.”
“She didn’t say a word about it to me, then.”
“Well no, I s’pose she didn’t like to.”
“Whatever was it, then?”
“I don’t think she ’ud like for me to say anything about it.”
Mrs. Tom had successfully aroused her friend’s curiosity and Sabina clapped her arm impatiently. “I’m sure Gray wouldn’t mind you tellin’ me of’t.”
“No, p’raps she wouldn’t, still ’tis a awkward thing to say to ’ee.”
“Never mind for that. I reckon I can listen to what you can say.”
“Well, my dear.” Mrs. Tom hitched her chair nearer to the trolly and lowered her voice. “Jim ’ad gone over to Treketh to see his mother and the maid was to home and she wouldn’t leave ’er father see ’er back ’ere, said she’d be all right by ’erself. An’ as she was comin’ along, something rustled in the ’edge. ’Twas one of they dark nights and she couldn’t see, but she thought ’twas a bullock.”
“Iss?” Sabina’s mind, by now ready for it, leaped to the natural conclusion. Leadville was trying to meet Gray on the quiet.
“And some one springed out and catched ’old of er and just about pulled the clothes off ’er back, they did,” was Mrs. Tom’s startling end to the story.
“My dear life! You don’t mean to say so?” This was worse than she had feared; presented her, indeed, with a new and surprising view of her husband.
“I dunno ’owever she got away from ’im.”
“Isolda!” and the fixed colour of her cheeks was a dull red patch on the pallor, “you don’t mean to say that ’twas really ’im? You can’t mean ’twas?”
“Oh, my dear, don’t ’e ask me.”
“I can’t ’ardly believe,” said the wife miserably, “that ’e’d do such a thing. ’E’s always been a good-livin’ feller, ’e don’t drink and ’e never seemed to be after the maidens. Can’t think,” she said, surrendering the point as proven, “whatever ail the man.”
The fact that Leadville was capable of using violence to gain his ends had sunk into Mrs. Tom’s mind. She was like an old hen when a hawk is in the blue. “I don’t want to keep Gray ’ome,” she said uneasily, “but if Leadville worry the life out of ’er...”
Mrs. Byron had rallied from her consternation. At the bottom of her heart she preserved a little doubt. The story was perhaps substantially true, true enough to show in which direction the wind was blowing; but Gray, being a timid maid, the tale had not lost in the telling.
“’Tis a pack o’ tommy-rot,” she said at last, anger beginning to colour her unhappy amazement, “a man of his years runnin’ after young maidens; but once Gray’s married ’e won’t think no more about it. ’Tis disgraceful of him; and, what’s more, ’tis madness for’m to think she’s goin’ to ’av anything to do wi’ an old man like ’e. Isolda, I do think ’tis time Gray was married.”
“Iss, my dear, so do I.”
“Well—why don’t they?”
“It mean a good bit o’ money to get married, you know,” said Mrs. Tom who, in spite of her alert mind, was not capable of quick decisions, “and one thing more, marrying isn’t horse-jocking.”
“Why don’t they put the banns in and get married on the quiet?”
The other went off on a side issue. “You know,” she said, uttering her thoughts aloud, “Leadville’s bound to know one day.”
“If Gray was to walk in one morning and say ‘I’m married,’” continued Mrs. Byron, “what could ’e do then? ’E’d ’av to ’old ’is tongue.”
The thought of Gray doing anything so bold brought a smile to the mother’s lips. “I’m sure she wouldn’t do that, S’bina.”
“Well, p’raps she wouldn’t.” Mrs. Byron had realized that her friend, in revealing the incident of the lane, had meant to convey a warning. The aunt did not wish to have Gray replaced by the handsome more noisy Richbell and yet... “I feel I belong to speak to Leadville about it,” she said reluctantly. “But I don’t want for’n to think I’m always watchin’ ’im.” The little doubt as to his having been as guilty as Isolda would have her think, had grown. She could not believe his jumping out of the hedge had been more than a trick, a practical joke. Gray, in her alarm, must have magnified it. These inexperienced girls were as easily frightened as a sheep! A way out of the difficulty occurred to her. “My dear, ’ow would it be if Leonora was to come and stay for a few days?”
Mrs. Tom thought that Sabina was only postponing the reckoning which in the long run she would be bound to make, but aloud she gave consent.
“Well, Leonora can come for a bit and see ’ow they get on, but she’d ‘av to sleep ’ome. She’d better come down early in the mornin’, for ’tis breakfast-time, when you’m in bed, that Leadville torment Gray.”
“Every month,” said Sabina hopefully, “I feel I shall soon be able to get up early in the mornin’s; by spring, I’m sure I shall be able to.”
“I hope by that time, please God,” said Mrs. Tom, getting up to go, “the maid will be married.”
She felt it would be as well for Gray to have the protection of a man, in love with her and constantly at her side and, as she went uphill between the November hedges, she considered what she should tell her husband. Tom was a peaceable and cautious man, but his blood was hot. The wife wondered whether he would be willing for Gray to be married quietly? A good deal depended on the girl. Since the time, as a little child, that she had fallen into the pail of boiling pig’s meal and they had nearly lost her, she had been her father’s pet. If he understood that she was unhappy and that Leadville was the cause, he would be certain to make himself unpleasant. Mrs. Tom did not wish to stir up strife.
Leonora, when told she was to spend her days at Auntie Sabina’s, shook back her curls and declared herself delighted. One of a big household she knew the stint of comparatively narrow means and a change would be welcome. Before Gray was out of her aunt’s room the following morning, impatient fingers were rattling at the handle of the porch; and Leadville, stealing down as usual in his stockinged feet, heard with surprise a sound of voices in the kitchen. He stared when Leonora came from the linhay carrying hog’s pudding and a frying-pan.
“I’ve come to breakfast,” she said, smiling up at him with bright and friendly eyes, “and I be comin’ every morning. I like comin’ ’ere. Aunt S’bina says I shall be company for Gray and I dearly love ‘og’s puddin’, Uncle Leadville, don’t you?”
Leadville’s tortured spirit was in the gaze he turned from the busy child to her sister. Was he to lose the hour with Gray which had been the solace of lonely night and empty day, the one hour out of the twenty-four that was his? He did not answer Leonora but looked his anxious question. Was Gray at the bottom of this? But no, she could not be. It was a scheme of Sabina’s, of Mrs. Tom’s, or simple accident.
Drawing Old Squire’s big elbow-chair up to the table he took his customary seat. Leonora chattered of school, of the little pigs that had had to be killed because they had worms, such dear little pigs, all black; and Gray served the breakfast. Leadville, sitting opposite to her, drank in her morning freshness and looked forward to the time when this flower should be blooming for him.
A voice called from the Justice Room and Leonora jumped up. “I’ll see what auntie wants.”
“No, dear, I’ll go.”
“Leave ’er go,” rumbled Leadville in his compelling bass and she was off on the wings of happy service. He stared resentfully after the flying figure. “What’s she doin’ ’ere?”
Gray’s heart was aflutter. “I miss the children so.”
His eyes grew tender. “You do want a nest of your own, my bird. I can see you in it, a li’l place away from ’ere.”
She shook her head, repudiating the idea with courage born of her sister’s nearness. “I don’t want never to leave Trevorrick and mammy, and any of them.”
“You’d ’av so much of your own things to think about,” he murmured, his mind full of the nest he would build for her, “you wouldn’t ’av time to think upon ’ome.”
Before she could answer, Leonora was back. “’Tis you auntie want, Gray.”
Suspicion flamed in Leadville’s eye. “If they’re schemin’ to come between us,” he said angrily, “they’d better look out. Don’t you go, Gray.”
But the girl, running on light feet down the long dark passage, was glad to escape. When Uncle Leadville looked at her like that, she had ever a fluttered feeling that she must run away, or something, she knew not what, but something terrible, would happen. Instinct was warning her, instinct that is wiser even than experience and Leadville might sit on in the kitchen, waiting and waiting, but until he was gone, Gray would not return.