Bessie Costrell | Page 6

wasn't going to accept a farthing less than his
shilling a pound for three months--not he! So they might take it or
leave it. And Mrs. Moulsey got hers from the Building Society, and
Sam Field made shift to go without. And John Bolderfield was three
pounds poorer that quarter than he need have been--all along of
Saunders. And now Saunders was talking "agen him" like this--blast
him!
"Oh, an' then he went on," pursued Bessie with gusto, "about your bein'

too ignorant to put it in the post-office. 'Ee said you'd think Edwards
would go an' spend it" (Edwards was the post-master), "an' then he
laughed fit to split 'imself. Yer couldn't see more nor the length of your
own nose, he said--it was edication you wanted. As for 'im, 'ee said,
'ee'd have kep' it for you if you'd asked him, but you'd been like a bear
with a sore 'ead, 'ee said, ever since Mrs. Moulsey's affair--so 'ee didn't
suppose you would."
"Well, 'ee's about right there," said John, grimly; "ee's talkin' sense for
onst when 'ee says that. I'd dig a hole in the hill and bury it sooner nor
I'd trust it to 'im--I would, by----" he swore vigorously. "A thieving set
of magpies is all them Saunders--cadgin' 'ere and cadgin' there."
He spoke with fierce contempt, the tacit hatred of years leaping to sight.
Bessie's bright brown eyes looked at him with sympathy.
"It was just his nassty spite," she said. "He knew 'ee could never ha'
done it--not what you've done--out o' your wages. Not unless 'ee got
Sally to tie 'im to the dresser with ropes so as 'ee couldn't go a-near the
Spotted Deer no more!"
She laughed like a merry child at her own witticism, and John relished
it too, though he was not in a laughing mood.
"Why," continued Bessie with enthusiasm, "it was Muster Drew as said
to me the other afternoon, as we was walkin' 'ome from the churchyard,
says 'ee, 'Mrs. Costrell, I call it splendid what John's done--I do,' 'ee
says. 'A labourer on fifteen shillin's a week--why, it's an example to the
county,' 'ee says. ''Ee ought to be showed.'"
John's face relaxed. The temper and obstinacy in the eyes began to
yield to the weak complacency which was their more normal
expression.
There was silence for a minute or two. Bessie sat with her hands on her
lap and her face turned towards the open door. Beyond the cherry-red
phloxes outside it the ground fell rapidly to the village, rising again
beyond the houses to a great stubble field, newly shorn. Gleaners were

already in the field, their bent figures casting sharp shadows on the
golden upland, and the field itself stretched upwards to a great wood
that lay folded round the top of a spreading hill. To the left, beyond the
hill, a wide plain travelled into the sunset, its level spaces cut by the
scrawled elms and hedgerows of the nearer landscape. The beauty of it
all--the beauty of an English midland--was of a modest and measured
sort, depending chiefly on bounties of sun and air, on the delicacies of
gentle curves and the pleasant intermingling of wood and cornfield, of
light spaces with dark, of solid earth and luminous sky.
Such as it was, however, neither Bessie nor John spared it a moment's
attention. Bessie was thinking a hundred busy thoughts. John, on the
other hand, had begun to consider her with an excited scrutiny. She was
a handsome woman, as she sat in the doorway with her fine brown head
turned to the light. But John naturally was not thinking of that. He was
in the throes of decision.
"Look 'ere, Bessie," he said suddenly; "what 'ud you say if I wor to ask
Isaac an' you to take care on it?"
Bessie started slightly. Then she looked frankly round at him. She had
very keen, lively eyes, and a bright red-brown colour on thin cheeks.
The village applied to her the epithet which John's thoughts had applied
to Muster Hill's widow. They said she was "caselty," which means
flighty, haphazard, excitable; but she was popular, nevertheless, and
had many friends.
It was, of course, her own settled opinion that her uncle ought to leave
that box with her and Isaac; and it had wounded her vanity, and her
affection besides, that John had never yet made any such proposal,
though she knew--as, indeed, the village knew--that he was perplexed
as to what to do with his hoard. But she had never dared to suggest that
he should leave it with her, out of fear of Eliza Bolderfield. Bessie was
well aware that Eliza thought ill of her, and would dissuade John from
any such arrangement if she could. And so