CHAPTER IX.
The fire sank, and Mrs. Hurd made no haste to light her lamp. Soon theold people were dim chattering shapes in a red darkness. Mrs. Hurd stillplaited, silent and upright, lifting her head every now and then at eachsound upon the road.
At last there was a knock at the door. Mrs. Hurd ran to open it.
"Mother, I'm going your way," said a strident voice. "I'll help you homeif you've a mind."
On the threshold stood Mrs. Jellison's daughter, Mrs. Westall, with herlittle boy beside her, the woman's broad shoulders and harsh strikinghead standing out against the pale sky behind. Marcella noticed that shegreeted none of the old people, nor they her. And as for Mrs. Hurd, assoon as she saw the keeper's wife, she turned her back abruptly on hervisitor, and walked to the other end of the kitchen.
"Are you comin', mother?" repeated Isabella.
Mrs. Jellison grumbled, gibed at her, and made long leave-takings, whilethe daughter stood silent, waiting, and every now and then peering atMarcella, who had never seen her before.
"I don' know where yur manners is," said Mrs. Jellison sharply to her,as though she had been a child of ten, "that you don't say good evenin'to the young lady."
Mrs. Westall curtsied low, and hoped she might be excused, as it hadgrown so dark. Her tone was smooth and servile, and Marcella dislikedher as she shook hands with her.
The other old people, including Mrs. Brunt, departed a minute or twoafter the mother and daughter, and Marcella was left an instant withMrs. Hurd.
"Oh, thank you, thank you kindly, miss," said Mrs. Hurd, raising herapron to her eyes to staunch some irrepressible tears, as Marcellashowed her the advertisement which it might possibly be worth Hurd'swhile to answer. "He'll try, you may be sure. But I can't think as howanythink 'ull come ov it."
And then suddenly, as though something unexplained had upset herself-control, the poor patient creature utterly broke down. Leaningagainst the bare shelves which held their few pots and pans, she threwher apron over her head and burst into the forlornest weeping. "I wish Iwas dead; I wish I was dead, an' the chillen too!"
Marcella hung over her, one flame of passionate pity, comforting,soothing, promising help. Mrs. Hurd presently recovered enough to tellher that Hurd had gone off that morning before it was light to a farmnear Thame, where it had been told him he might possibly find a job.
"But he'll not find it, miss, he'll not find it," she said, twisting herhands in a sort of restless misery; "there's nothing good happens tosuch as us. An' he wor allus a one to work if he could get it."
There was a sound outside. Mrs. Hurd flew to the door, and a short,deformed man, with a large head and red hair, stumbled in blindly,splashed with mud up to his waist, and evidently spent with longwalking.
He stopped on the threshold, straining his eyes to see through thefire-lit gloom.
"It's Miss Boyce, Jim," said his wife. "Did you hear of anythink?"
"They're turnin' off hands instead of takin' ov 'em on," he saidbriefly, and fell into a chair by the grate.
He had hardly greeted Marcella, who had certainly looked to be greeted.Ever since her arrival in August, as she had told Aldous Raeburn, shehad taken a warm interest in this man and his family. There wassomething about them which marked them out a bit from theirfellows--whether it was the husband's strange but not repulsivedeformity, contrasted with the touch of plaintive grace in the wife, orthe charm of the elfish children, with their tiny stick-like arms andlegs, and the glancing wildness of their blue eyes, under the frizzle ofred hair, which shone round their little sickly faces. Very soon she hadbegun to haunt them in her eager way, to try and penetrate their peasantlives, which were so full of enigma and attraction to her, mainlybecause of their very defectiveness, their closeness to an animalsimplicity, never to be reached by any one of her sort. She soondiscovered or imagined that Hurd had more education than his neighbours.At any rate, he would sit listening to her--and smoking, as she made himdo--while she talked politics and socialism to him; and though he saidlittle in return, she made the most of it, and was sure anyway that hewas glad to see her come in, and must some time read the labournewspapers and Venturist leaflets she brought him, for they were alwayswell thumbed before they came back to her.
But to-night his sullen weariness would make no effort, and the huntedrestless glances he threw from side to side as he sat crouching over thefire--the large mouth tight shut, the nostrils working--showed her thathe would be glad when she went away.
Her young exacting temper was piqued. She had been for some time tryingto arrange their lives for them. So, in spite of his dumb resistance,she lingered on, questioning and suggesting. As to the advertisement shehad brought down, he put it aside almost without looking at it. "Thereud be a hun'erd men after it before ever he could get there," was all hewould say to it. Then she inquired if he had been to ask the steward ofthe Maxwell Court estate for work. He did not answer, but Mrs. Hurd saidtimidly that she heard tell a new drive was to be made that winter forthe sake of giving employment. But their own men on the estate wouldcome first, and there were plenty of them out of work.
"Well, but there is the game," persisted Marcella. "Isn't it possiblethey might want some extra men now the pheasant shooting has begun. Imight go and inquire of Westall--I know him a little."
The wife made a startled movement, and Hurd raised his misshapen formwith a jerk.
"Thank yer, miss, but I'll not trouble yer. I don't want nothing to dowith Westall."
And taking up a bit of half-burnt wood which lay on the hearth, he threwit violently back into the grate. Marcella looked from one to the otherwith surprise. Mrs. Hurd's expression was one of miserable discomfort,and she kept twisting her apron in her gnarled hands.
"Yes, I _shall_ tell, Jim!" she broke out. "I shall. I know Miss Boyceis one as ull understand--"
Hurd turned round and looked at his wife full. But she persisted.
"You see, miss, they don't speak, don't Jim and George Westall. When Jimwas quite a lad he was employed at Mellor, under old Westall, George'sfather as was. Jim was 'watcher,' and young George he was assistant.That was in Mr. Robert's days, you understand, miss--when Master Haroldwas alive; and they took a deal o' trouble about the game. An' GeorgeWestall, he was allays leading the others a life--tale-bearing an'spyin', an' settin' his father against any of 'em as didn't give in tohim. An', oh, he behaved _fearful_ to Jim! Jim ull tell you. Now, Jim,what's wrong with you--why shouldn't I tell?"
For Hurd had risen, and as he and his wife looked at each other a sortof mute conversation seemed to pass between them. Then he turnedangrily, and went out of the cottage by the back door into the garden.
The wife sat in some agitation a moment, then she resumed. "He can'tbear no talk about Westall--it seems to drive him silly. But I say ashow people _should_ know."
Her wavering eye seemed to interrogate her companion. Marcella waspuzzled by her manner--it was so far from simple.
"But that was long ago, surely," she said.
"Yes, it wor long ago, but you don't forget them things, miss! An'Westall, he's just the same sort as he was then, so folks say," sheadded hurriedly. "You see Jim, miss, how he's made? His back was twistedthat way when he was a little un. His father was a good oldman--everybody spoke well of 'im--but his mother, she was a queer madbody, with red hair, just like Jim and the children, and a temper! myword. They do say she was an Irish girl, out of a gang as used to worknear here--an' she let him drop one day when she was in liquor, an'never took no trouble about him afterwards. He was a poor sickly lad, hewas! you'd wonder how he grew up at all. And oh! George Westall hetreated him _cruel_. He'd kick and swear at him; then he'd dare him tofight, an' thrash him till the others came in, an' got him away. Thenhe'd carry tales to his father, and one day old Westall beat Jim withinan inch of 'is life, with a strap end, because of a lie George told 'im.The poor chap lay in a ditch under Disley Wood all day, because he wasthat knocked about he couldn't walk, and at night he crawled home on
hishands and knees. He's shown me the place many a time! Then he told hisfather, and next morning he told me, as he couldn't stand it no longer,an' he never went back no more."
"And he told no one else?--he never complained?" asked Marcella,indignantly.
"What ud ha been the good o' that, miss?" Mrs. Hurd said, wondering."Nobody ud ha taken his word agen old Westall's. But he come and toldme. I was housemaid at Lady Leven's then, an' he and his father were oldfriends of ourn. And I knew George Westall too. He used to walk out withme of a Sunday, just as civil as could be, and give my mother rabbitsnow and again, and do anything I'd ask him. An' I up and told him he wasa brute to go ill-treatin' a sickly fellow as couldn't pay him back.That made him as cross as vinegar, an' when Jim began to be about withme ov a Sunday sometimes, instead of him, he got madder and madder. An'Jim asked me to marry him--he begged of me--an' I didn't know what tosay. For Westall had asked me twice; an' I was afeard of Jim's health,an' the low wages he'd get, an' of not bein' strong myself. But one dayI was going up a lane into Tudley End woods, an' I heard George Westallon tother side of the hedge with a young dog he was training. Somethin'crossed him, an' he flew into a passion with it. It turned me _sick_. Iran away and I took against him there and then. I was frightened of him.I duresn't trust myself, and I said to Jim I'd take him. So you canunderstan', miss, can't you, as Jim don't want to have nothing to dowith Westall? Thank you kindly, all the same," she added, breaking offher narrative with the same uncertainty of manner, the same timidscrutiny of her visitor that Marcella had noticed before.
Marcella replied that she could certainly understand.
"But I suppose they've not got in each other's way of late years," shesaid as she rose to go.
"Oh! no, miss, no," said Mrs. Hurd as she went hurriedly to fetch a furtippet which her visitor had laid down on the dresser.
"There is _one_ person I can speak to," said Marcella, as she put on thewrap. "And I will." Against her will she reddened a little; but she hadnot been able to help throwing out the promise. "And now, you won'tdespair, will you? You'll trust me? I could always do something."
She took Mrs. Hurd's hand with a sweet look and gesture. Standing therein her tall vigorous youth, her furs wrapped about her, she had the airof protecting and guiding this poverty that could not help itself. Themother and wife felt herself shy, intimidated. The tears came back toher brown eyes.
* * * * *
When Miss Boyce had gone, Minta Hurd went to the fire and put ittogether, sighing all the time, her face still red and miserable.
The door opened and her husband came in. He carried some potatoes in hisgreat earth-stained hands.
"You're goin' to put that bit of hare on? Well, mak' eeaste, do, for I'mstarvin'. What did she want to stay all that time for? You go and getit. I'll blow the fire up--damn these sticks!--they're as wet as Dugnallpond."
Nevertheless, as she sadly came and went, preparing the supper, she sawthat he was appeased, in a better temper than before.
"What did you tell 'er?" he asked abruptly.
"What do you spose I'd tell her? I acted for the best. I'm alwaysthinkin' for you!" she said as though with a little cry, "or we'd soonbe in trouble--worse trouble than we are!" she added miserably.
He stopped working the old bellows for a moment, and, holding his longchin, stared into the flames. With his deformity, his earth-stains, hisblue eyes, his brown wrinkled skin, and his shock of red hair, he hadthe look of some strange gnome crouching there.
"I don't know what you're at, I'll swear," he said after a pause. "Iain't in any pertickler trouble just now--if yer wouldn't send a fellowstumpin' the country for nothink. If you'll just let me alone I'll get alivin' for you and the chillen right enough. Don't you troubleyourself--an' hold your tongue!"
She threw down her apron with a gesture of despair as she stood besidehim, in front of the fire, watching the pan.
"What am I to do, Jim, an' them chillen--when you're took to prison?"she asked him vehemently.
"I shan't get took to prison, I tell yer. All the same, Westall got holto' me this mornin'. I thought praps you'd better know."
Her exclamation of terror, her wild look at him, were exactly what hehad expected; nevertheless, he flinched before them. His brutality wasmostly assumed. He had adopted it as a mask for more than a year past,because he _must_ go his way, and she worried him.
"Now look here," he said resolutely, "it don't matter. I'm not goin' tobe took by Westall. I'd kill him or myself first. But he caught melookin' at a snare this mornin'--it wor misty, and I didn't see no onecomin'. It wor close to the footpath, and it worn't my snare."
"'Jim, my chap,' says he, mockin', 'I'm sorry for it, but I'm going tosearch yer, so take it quietly,' says he. He had young Dynes withhim--so I didn't say nought--I kep' as still as a mouse, an' sure enoughhe put his ugly han's into all my pockets. An' what do yer think hefoun'?"
"What?" she said breathlessly.
"Nothink!" he laughed out. "Nary an end o' string, nor a kink o'wire--nothink. I'd hidden the two rabbits I got las' night, and all mybits o' things in a ditch far enough out o' his way. I just laughed atthe look ov 'im. 'I'll have the law on yer for assault an' battery, yerdamned miscalculatin' brute!' says I to him--'why don't yer get that boythere to teach yer your business?' An' off I walked. Don't you beafeared--'ee'll never lay hands on me!"
But Minta was sore afraid, and went on talking and lamenting while shemade the tea. He took little heed of her. He sat by the fire quiveringand thinking. In a public-house two nights before this one, overtureshad been made to him on behalf of a well-known gang of poachers withhead-quarters in a neighbouring county town, who had their eyes on thepheasant preserves in Westall's particular beat--the Tudley Endbeat--and wanted a local watcher and accomplice. He had thought thematter at first too dangerous to touch. Moreover, he was at that momentin a period of transition, pestered by Minta to give up "the poachin',"and yet drawn back to it after his spring and summer of field work byinstincts only recently revived, after long dormancy, but now hard toresist.
Presently he turned with anger upon one of Minta's wails which happenedto reach him.
"Look 'ere!" said he to her, "where ud you an' the chillen be this nightif I 'adn't done it? 'Adn't we got rid of every stick o' stuff we iver'ad? 'Ere's a well-furnished place for a chap to sit in!"--he glancedbitterly round the bare kitchen, which had none of the little propertiesof the country poor, no chest, no set of mahogany drawers, nocomfortable chair, nothing, but the dresser and the few rush chairs andthe table, and a few odds and ends of crockery and householdstuff--"wouldn't we all a bin on the parish, if we 'adn't starvedfust--_wouldn't_ we?--jes' answer me that! _Didn't_ we sit here an'starve, till the bones was comin' through the chillen's skin?--didn'twe?"
That he could still argue the point with her showed the innervulnerableness, the inner need of her affection and of peace with her,which he still felt, far as certain new habits were beginning to sweephim from her.
"It's Westall or Jenkins (Jenkins was the village policeman) havin' the_law_ on yer, Jim," she said with emphasis, putting down a cup andlooking at him--it's the thought of _that_ makes me cold in my back.None o' _my_ people was ever in prison--an' if it 'appened to you Ishould just die of shame!"
"Then yer'd better take and read them papers there as _she_ brought," hesaid impatiently, first jerking his finger over his shoulder in thedirection of Mellor to indicate Miss Boyce, and then pointing to a heapof newspapers which lay on the floor in a corner, "they'd tell yersummat about the shame o' _makin_' them game-laws--not o' breakin' ov'em. But I'm sick o' this! Where's them chillen? Why do yer let that boyout so late?"
And opening the door he stood on the threshold looking up and down thevillage street, while Minta once more gave up the struggle, dried hereyes, and told herself to be cheerful. But it was hard. She was farbetter born and better educated than her husband. Her father had been asmall master chair-maker in Wycombe, and her mot
her, a lackadaisicalsilly woman, had given her her "fine" name by way of additional proofthat she and her children were something out of the common. Moreover,she had the conforming law-abiding instincts of the well-treateddomestic servant, who has lived on kindly terms with the gentry andshared their standards. And for years after their marriage Hurd hadallowed her to govern him. He had been so patient, so hard-working, sucha kind husband and father, so full of a dumb wish to show her he wasgrateful to her for marrying such a fellow as he. The quarrel withWestall seemed to have sunk out of his mind. He never spoke to or ofhim. Low wages, the burden of quick-coming children, the bad sanitaryconditions of their wretched cottage, and poor health, had made theirlives one long and sordid struggle. But for years he had borne his loadwith extraordinary patience. He and his could just exist, and the manwho had been in youth the lonely victim of his neighbours' scorn hadfound a woman to give him all herself and children to love. Hence yearsof submission, a hidden flowering time for both of them.
Till that last awful winter!--the winter before Richard Boyce'ssuccession to Mellor--when the farmers had been mostly ruined, and halfthe able-bodied men of Mellor had tramped "up into the smoke," as thevillage put it, in search of London work--then, out of actual sheerstarvation--that very rare excuse of the poacher!--Hurd had gone onenight and snared a hare on the Mellor land. Would the wife and motherever forget the pure animal satisfaction of that meal, or the fearfuljoy of the next night, when he got three shillings from a local publicanfor a hare and two rabbits?
But after the first relief Minta had gone in fear and trembling. For theold woodcraft revived in Hurd, and the old passion for the fields andtheir chances which he had felt as a lad before his "watcher's" placehad been made intolerable to him by George Westall's bullying. He becameexcited, unmanageable. Very soon he was no longer content with Mellor,where, since the death of young Harold, the heir, the keepers had beendismissed, and what remained of a once numerous head of game lay open tothe wiles of all the bold spirits of the neighbourhood. He must needs goon to those woods of Lord Maxwell's, which girdled the Mellor estate onthree sides. And here he came once more across his enemy. For GeorgeWestall was now in the far better-paid service of the Court--and a veryclever keeper, with designs on the head keeper's post whenever it mightbe vacant. In the case of a poacher he had the scent of one of his ownhares. It was known to him in an incredibly short time that that "lowcaselty fellow Hurd" was attacking "his" game.
Hurd, notwithstanding, was cunning itself, and Westall lay in wait forhim in vain. Meanwhile, all the old hatred between the two men revived.Hurd drank this winter more than he had ever drunk yet. It wasnecessary to keep on good terms with one or two publicans who acted as"receivers" of the poached game of the neighbourhood. And it seemed tohim that Westall pursued him into these low dens. The keeper--big,burly, prosperous--would speak to him with insolent patronage, watchinghim all the time, or with the old brutality, which Hurd dared notresent. Only in his excitable dwarf's sense hate grew and throve, verysoon to monstrous proportions. Westall's menacing figure darkened allhis sky for him. His poaching, besides a means of livelihood, becamemore and more a silent duel between him and his boyhood's tyrant.
And now, after seven months of regular field-work and respectableliving, it was all to begin again with the new winter! The same shuddersand terrors, the same shames before the gentry and Mr. Harden!--thesoft, timid woman with her conscience could not endure the prospect. Forsome weeks after the harvest was over she struggled. He had begun to goout again at nights. But she drove him to look for employment, and livedin tears when he failed.
As for him, she knew that he was glad to fail; there was a certain easeand jauntiness in his air to-night as he stood calling the children:
"Will!--you come in at once! Daisy!--Nellie!"
Two little figures came pattering up the street in the moist Octoberdusk, a third, panted behind. The girls ran in to their motherchattering and laughing. Hurd lifted the boy in his arm.
"Where you bin, Will? What were yo out for in this nasty damp? I'vebrought yo a whole pocket full o' chestnuts, and summat else too."
He carried him in to the fire and sat him on his knees. The littleemaciated creature, flushed with the pleasure of his father's company,played contentedly in the intervals of coughing with the shiningchestnuts, or ate his slice of the fine pear--the gift of a friend inThame--which proved to be the "summat else" of promise. The curtainswere close-drawn; the paraffin lamp flared on the table, and as thesavoury smell of the hare and onions on the fire filled the kitchen, thewhole family gathered round watching for the moment of eating. The fireplayed on the thin legs and pinched faces of the children; on the baby'scradle in the further corner; on the mother, red-eyed still, but able tosmile and talk again; on the strange Celtic face and matted hair of thedwarf. Family affection--and the satisfaction of the simpler physicalneeds--these things make the happiness of the poor. For this hour,to-night, the Hurds were happy.
Meanwhile, in the lane outside, Marcella, as she walked home, passed atall broad-shouldered man in a velveteen suit and gaiters, his gun overhis shoulder and two dogs behind him, his pockets bulging on eitherside. He walked with a kind of military air, and touched his cap to heras he passed.
Marcella barely nodded.
"Tyrant and bully!" she thought to herself with Mrs. Hurd's story in hermind. "Yet no doubt he is a valuable keeper; Lord Maxwell would be sorryto lose him! It is the system makes such men--and must have them."
The clatter of a pony carriage disturbed her thoughts. A small, elderlylady, in a very large mushroom hat, drove past her in the dusk and bowedstiffly. Marcella was so taken by surprise that she barely returned thebow. Then she looked after the carriage. That was Miss Raeburn.
To-morrow!