She stopped talking and I kicked the fire to make it blaze.
Outside the rain was lashing against the house and I was glad to be indoors.
There was another long silence and I thought that perhaps she had gone to sleep, so I did not move lest I should wake her. But she was just thinking, for suddenly she went on again as though there had been no lull.
“No one knew much about James,” she said. “There were one or two who called him Jim, but not many. I never did, not even after I married him. It wouldn’t have been right somehow.
“He was a queer man. No one knew much about him. He kept himself alone among them all, yet he wasn’t surly or proud. He’d take his drink at The Starlings with anyone. He went to church twice a Sunday, and people said he was rich. Yet he wasn’t liked. He might almost have been one of the gentry, the way that no one spoke or stopped him when he came down the Street.
“My father was pleased right through when he came to our house that day. He didn’t like him much, but he thought like everyone else did what a fine thing it was for me to get a husband who was carrier and sexton too.”
Once again she stopped, and then talked on much more briskly, as though she were coming to a part of the story which she did not enjoy remembering.
‘Well, I married “um,” she said. “I don’t know why, save that I counted it was time that I got married and I couldn’t see that Will would ever be able to keep us both. And besides—” she hesitated, “—besides, I was taken by James at that time.”
She hurried on; she felt no doubt she ought to excuse herself.
“He hadn’t never been after a girl before. There was a kind of mystery about him. It wasn’t his money—for all anybody said, it wasn’t his money. It was the honour of it. I was the only girl he ever went for. He was nearing forty, too, mind you. He wasn’t a lad, and that pleased me.
“Besides,” she added, half laughing, as though she were remembering something after a long time, “he had a sad, quiet way with him, as though he had some secret. I was sorry for him, all alone in the little house.”
It was eerie sitting there in the dark, listening to her droning voice talking of things that had happened so long ago. I made myself more comfortable against the logs.
“Life seems as though it’s going on for ever when you’re young, and almost any change looks good,” she remarked. “I had a fine wedding. James being the sexton and to do with the church knew how a wedding should be.
“I had a fine wedding.” She repeated it softly. “There were as many people outside the church as if it had been a gentry wedding. You see, everyone knew James and nobody liked him; and, too, they guessed the boy’d be there and they came to watch us.”
I nodded. People did not seem to have changed very much.
“James was always kind to me,” she remarked suddenly. “That day in the church and before I couldn’t have wished him better. But I was scared of him.
“No,” she corrected herself abruptly, “I wasn’t scared of him then. That came later. At the wedding I was shy of him, shy and a bit proud.”
“You would be,” I said feeling that it was about time I made some remark.
She sniffed. “Ah,” she agreed. “It was natural. Will did come to the church,” she continued, “and at first I was afraid to look at him. But when we came out, and everyone was shouting and laughing and cheering us, I heard him louder than the others and I looked round and saw him staring straight at me and waving and shouting with the rest. I knew he meant to be laughing at me, so I looked at his eyes and he laughed louder and cheered louder. But I’d seen, and he knew I’d seen.”
She paused.
“I reckon I loved him,” she said and sighed, but she laughed afterwards and I remembered how terribly old she was.
“James took me down between the rosemary bushes to his house,” she went on, “and I lived there after that. I didn’t see Will, for I was never a bad girl, but I thought on him. I had plenty o” time for thinking,” she added dryly. “James wouldn’t let me out of the house, and I didn’t see my mother more than five or six times all that winter.”
Her voice died away, and when she spoke again there was something about her tone which gave me my first feeling of uneasiness. She was certainly not trying to frighten me, but some of her remembered terror crept into her voice and I could hardly help but recognise it.
“It was then,” she said, “that I began to notice James. He was so quiet. He’d sit whole evenings puzzling over figures and writing letters and never saying a word. And sometimes he’d get up in the night and go out, leaving me asleep. Just the same as he was to everyone in the village, so he was to me his wife; quiet and telling nothing. I was young,” she said, nodding at me, “and I was used to being with people, but he wouldn’t let me out of his sight a minute if he could help it. And when on Tuesdays and Saturday he went off in his cart, carrying, he’d give me so much to do that I couldn’t leave the house. And when he came back he’d make me go through everything I’d done. If I’d seen anyone I had to tell him everything they’d said to me and everything I’d said back to them.
“And when I’d told him he’d put his hands on my shoulders and look at me with those dull eyes of his and say ‘Is that true?” And I’d say ‘Of course. Why should I lie to you?”
“Then he’d kiss me again and again, but he’d never tell me anything.”
A great squall of wind rattled the shutters and one or two raindrops fell down the chimney and the fire hissed.
“I soon found out I didn’t love him,” she went on, glancing at me. “But I made up my mind to that. I wasn’t no fool. But, by and by, as the winter went on and I worked about the house, not seeing anyone but him from Sunday to Sunday, I began to watch him, and the more I watched him the more frightened I grew.
“He was queer,” she said, “especially just after there’d been a burying. It was terrible cold that winter and there wasn’t much food for them. There was several died.”
She lowered her voice and I, who am not very imaginative, began to feel uncomfortable.
“While James was at work on a grave he’d be more talkative and not so sad,” she went on, “and then, after it was all done, he’d take to his going out at nights again. I’d lie awake wondering what had taken him out, and guessing and guessing aright, and yet not believing it.”
I moved closer to the old woman and I felt her small hard brown hand on my shoulder.
“At those times he wouldn’t let me load the cart for him, as I usually did,” she whispered, “but would keep me indoors while he did it himself. I grew more and more frightened, for I wasn’t very old.”
I shivered. There was something gruesome in her suggestion and I was glad of the roaring fire.
“Soon after that,” she said, “my mother came round to see me, and all the time she was with me he never left us alone. She was a cheerful body and she talked and told me what they were saying in the village: how the Playles—a wild lot, they were, who lived down by the Hard—had begun their smuggling tricks again, though one of’em had got shot for it less than two years before.
‘Then she told me that an old woman called Mrs. Finch, who lived round the back of the church, was putting it about that she’d seen a ghost-light in the graveyard the night after young Nell Wooton was buried.
“I knew James had been out that night and as my mother was speaking I looked across at him, and I’ll never forget his face.”
Mrs. Hartlebury stopped and I realised suddenly that she was looking behind her. I stirred up the fire and moved closer to it, and she went on.
“When my mother had gone James sat indoors doing nothing, looking out of the window, and for a month after that he never went out at night.
‘Then I began to think of Will again. I knew it wasn’t right, but as the spring came round again and I could get out into the garden I used to find myself standing at the gate looking down the road and hoping maybe that I’d see him.
“I didn’t want to talk to him. I only wanted just to see him again. I reckon James knew that, for he used to call me into the house and keep me busy there. Sometimes he used to make love to me, in his own way, and he’d bring me presents from the town. But I knew how he got his money, though I wouldn’t think of it. I knew what he was and I was frightened out of my life.”
I had guessed what he was too, and I mentioned the ugly word to the old woman.
“Yes,” she said, “that’s what he was. Resurrection men they called them then. An awful thing for a young wife to find. He’d sell the bodies in the town to men who’d sell them to the doctors. But mind you, I didn’t know that then as clear as I do now. If I had, I’d have run home and let the village say what it would. As it was, I was frightened enough although I’d only half guessed what he was. But I stayed with “un.” She nodded her head. “Yes, I stayed with “un.”
“And then one day,” she said in an entirely new voice, “when I was cutting rosemary to put with the little linen I had, I heard someone going by in the road. I looked up and saw Will, as I had always known I should see him, swinging past with an eel fork and splashers on his shoulder. He didn’t look at me and I couldn’t help it, I called to him, and he turned and smiled at me and said ‘What cheer, Sis?”—they called me that then.
“I went down to the gate and we stood there talking. He stared in my face and of course I didn’t look what I had been. How could I after a whole winter shut up in a little house?
“Presently he said ‘Are you all right, Sis?”
“I don’t know what I said. Maybe I didn’t speak. But anyway, he leaned over the gate.and said, ‘Why, girl, I don’t blame ye, I don’t blame ye,” kindly, just like that.
“When he had gone, and he didn’t stay long, I turned round and saw James watching me through the window, and when I went in he stared at me angrily. He didn’t say anything, but from that day he never left me alone if he could possibly help it, and Will didn’t come again.”
The rain had stopped outside and the fire was dying, so I made it up. I moved quietly, though, and I did not disturb her thoughts and presently she went on with the story.
“Then for a long time no one died, so there were no buryings, and James used to come home from the town sullen, and drunk too sometimes. Then he began to talk in his sleep, saying terrible things, and I used to lie there trembling, staring up at the thatch, trying not to listen and wondering what I would do.
“Then one night—’ her voice sank so low that I had to strain to hear her “—he came in quite different. He kissed me and started talking about the town and the folk he had seen, and making me laugh until I could hardly breathe.
“And the next morning this new way of his was still there. He seemed pleased about something, for I saw him smiling to himself when he thought I wasn’t near.
“I thought perhaps I had been mistaken about him, but a week after that I woke in the night and I heard horses galloping past the house down the road to the Hard.
“I called to James, but he was awake already.
“‘What would that be?” I said.
“‘Nothing,” said he. ‘You go to sleep, girl.” But I lay still, thinking for a while, and then I knew what it was.
“‘God Almighty, the Excise Men!” I said. ‘Was there anything doing tonight at the Hard?”
“James didn’t speak at first and then he said ‘How would I know?”, but I heard him laughing to himself in the dark and I lay shivering beside him, wondering what he knew. I was more frightened of him than ever after that.”
Her voice died away again and I resettled myself against the log pile, after edging my way across the hearth.
“I heard all about it the next morning,” she said. “My sister came up and told me soon after daylight. A fine morning it was, I remember; clear and hard, the sea a dull green and not very rough. Everywhere smelt fresh and clean. I’ll never forget the rosemary. The whole house was sick and faint with it. It was quiet, too, like a Sunday.
“Cuddy came up the path as I was giving James his breakfast. She sat down with us, but she never ate, so busy was she telling us.
“I knew before she told us just how it had been: the Excise Men coming on the Playles and holding them up, and they—a wild lot they were—telling them to shoot and be damned to them, and the riders not shooting at first, but, when the boys took to their horses in the dark, letting loose and chasing after them all along the Winstree Road.
“Cuddy told it well and James listened to her every word, for she was talking more to him than to me. Women liked James for his very quietness and the way he never cared for them.
“Long before she had told all he said so carelessly that I knew he was play-acting, ‘Was there anyone killed?”
“‘One,” she said, and I caught her looking at me as though she was watching for something.
“‘Did the others get away?” said James.
“‘They did,” she said. ‘But they think they’ve been seen, and they’ve gone out fishing for a bit till we see if anything more happens.”
“‘Did the Excise Men get the contraband?” said James.
‘“Yes,” she said.
“‘Then you’ll not hear any more of them,” said he, and he laughed.
“She smiled at him and then she said ‘It’ll teach they Playles a lesson, but it’s bad for “un who’s killed.” And she peeked at me again.
“‘Who’s he?” said James, and he looked at me and not at her as an ordinary man would have been sure to do.
“‘Haven’t I told you?” said Cuddy, though she knew as well as anyone that she hadn’t spoken his name. ‘It was Will Lintle. He was out with the Playles and they got him first shot.”
“She didn’t say any more and they two just sat and peeked at me under their eyelashes, making believe they weren’t looking. But I knew they were watching and so I didn’t say anything, or look anything, for I was getting used to play-acting by that time, having lived with James so long.
“By and by Cuddy got up and said she was going bade home, and I thought she looked at me angrily, as though I’d cheated her of something. I had cheated her, I expect.
“When she had gone I peeked at James the same as they two had peeked at me, and I saw he was laughing to himself.”
She leant forward as she spoke and I saw that even now the was angry with him for that.
“I could have killed “um,” she said. “I could have killed “um, hut I didn’t say a word. I cleared away the breakfast and I washed the dishes, while he sat there laughing quietly to himself in the doorway. He just sat there mending a bit of harness and laughing to himself.
“For a time I thought about Will and I couldn’t believe him dead. Several times I wondered if I would run down home to find out if it were true, but every time I turned to the door, there was James in the way, still laughing to himself.
“And then I went upstairs to make the bed and I began to think clearly for the first time in my life.”
Old Mrs. Hartlebury’s voice grew harder and her chair creaked as she leant forward.
“I knew he’d informed,” she said. “I stood by the window thinking, and all in one minute it came to me that Will was dead and that James was downstairs laughing. I hated him, but I daren’t do anything.
“By and by I saw Joe Lintle coming up the path, and I heard him speaking to James through the window. I didn’t listen, but I knew what he was asking, and I knew then that it was true. That was a long time ago and I was only a girl,” she said slowly. “So when I came from the window I lay on my face on the bed and I cried as if Will had still been my sweetheart and I had not been married to James.”
She paused and I wondered if she really remembered how she felt, or if it was like a ghost of an emotion after all that time.
“He came up and found me, James did,” she said suddenly. “I didn’t move. I lay there on the old bed sobbing and crying like a child would. He didn’t say anything. He just st
ood there in the doorway looking at me, and laughed, and I hated him. By and by he grew tired of standing and staring, so he went off, stamping downstairs and out of the house, still laughing to himself. I heard him all the way.
“I didn’t go to the burying,” she went on. “I sat upstairs by the window. Hidden behind the curtain, I watched the people go by. They all looked up at the house and nudged each other as they passed. I knew they were wondering would I go to the church or not.”
She laughed.
“I hated them. I could have leant from the window and shouted to them that I loved Will and that I didn’t care who knew it, but I didn’t do anything. I only stood there watching the church gate.
“I could see it from the window, just the gate and no more. I waited till they brought the coffin up the Street and took it into the church, four of them carrying it and the others following.
“I remember it seemed an awful thing to me at that time that he should be dead.”
She sank lower in her chair and the firelight shone on her twisted, capable hands where they lay crossed and quiet in her lap.
“I don’t want to die, even now,” she said. “But the thought of it doesn’t make me sick, as it did then. It’s horrible when you’re young.
“When I saw that they’d all gone into the church and the Street was empty I came away from the window and went down the stairs to get some victuals ready for James, for he was always wonderful hungry after a burying. And as I set the table and drew the ale for him, I hated him worse than ever, I did.
“By and by he came in, and that was the second and last time I saw him really happy and content with himself. He sat down at the table and I waited on him. He was smiling all the time he ate, and when he had done he pushed his chair back and pulled me down on to his knee, and he held me there whilst he told me every bit about the burying. And he watched me all the time he told me.
“I couldn’t bear to listen to him,” she said, “but I was too frightened to break away. So there he held me, laughing in my face and searching for something in it that would show the way I felt.
Mr. Campion's Lucky Day & Other Stories Page 23
