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Devil's Garden

<h2>II</h2> He went to bed early; but he knew that he would not sleep until the mail-cart had gone. His wife was sleeping peacefully. He could feel the warmth of her body close against him; her breath, drawn so lightly and regularly, just touched his face; and he edged away cautiously, seeking space in which to turn without disturbing her. At immeasurably long periods the church clock chimed the quarters. That last chime must have been the quarter after eleven. Every now and then there came a sound that told him of the things that were happening on the ground floor; and in the intervals of silence he began to suffer from an oppressive sense of unreality. This disruption of the routine of life was so strange as to seem incredible. They were making up the two big bags for the up mail and the down mail; and he was lying here like a state prisoner, of no account for the time being, while below him his realm remained actively working. As midnight approached, an increasing anxiety possessed him. The horse and cart had been standing under the window for what appeared to be hours, and yet they would not bring out the bags. What in the name of reason were they waiting for now? Then at last he detected the movement of shuffling footsteps; he heard voices—Ridgett's voice among the others; a wheel grated against the curbstone, and the cart rolled away. The sounds of the church clock chiming twelve mingled with the reverberations made by the horse's hoofs as the cart passed between the garden walls. Thank goodness, anyhow, they had got it off to its time. With a sigh, he turned on his back and stared at the darkness that hid the ceiling. Ah! A profuse perspiration had broken out on his neck and chest. To give himself more air he pulled down the too generous supply of bed clothes, and in imagination he followed the cart. It was progressing slowly and steadily along the five miles of road to the railway junction. Would Perkins, the driver, break the regulations to-night and pick up somebody for a ride with the sacred bags? Such a gross breach of duty would render Perkins, or his employer, liable to a heavy penalty; and again and again Dale had reminded him of the risks attending misbehavior. But unwatched men grow bold. This would be a night to bring temptation in the way of Perkins. Some villager—workman, field-laborer, wood-cutter—tramping the road would perhaps ask for a lift. "What cheer, mate! I'm for the night-mail. Give us a lift's far as junction, and I'll stan' the price of a pint to you." A glance up and down the empty road—and then "Jump in. Wunnerful weather we're having, aren't us?" So much for the wise regulation! Most wise regulation, if one understand it properly. For when once you begin tampering with the inviolable nature of a mail-cart, where are you to stop? Suppose your chance passenger proves to be not an honest subject, but a malefactor—one of a gang. "Take that, ye swab." A clump on the side of his head, and the driver is sent endways from the box-seat; the cart gallops on to where the, rest of the gang lurk waiting for it; strong arms, long legs, and the monstrous deed is consummated. Her Majesty's bags have been stolen. Though so dark in this bedroom, there would be light enough out there. There was no moon; but the summer night, as he knew, would never deepen to real obscurity. It would keep all of a piece till dawn, like a sort of gray dusk, heavy and impenetrable beneath the trees, but quite transparent on the heath and in the glades; and then it would become all silvery and trembling; the wet bracken would glisten faintly, high branches of beech trees would glow startlingly, each needle on top of the lofty firs would change to a tiny sword of fire—just as he had seen happen so often years ago, when as an undisciplined lad he lay out in the woods for his pleasure. Now! The church clock had struck one. Barring accidents, the cart was at its goal; and in imagination he saw the junction as clearly as if he had been standing at Perkins' elbow. There was the train for London already arrived—steam rising in a straight jet from the engine, guard and porter with lanterns, and a flood of orange light streaming from the open doors of the noble Post Office coach. Perkins hands in his up bag, receives a bag in exchange, and half his task is done. Forty minutes to wait before he can perform the other half of it. Then, having passed over the metals with the cart, he will attend to the down train; hand in his other bag, receive the London bag; and, as soon as the people in the signal-box will release the crossing-gates, he may come home. Dale knew now that he would not sleep until the cart returned. When the church clock struck the half-hour after two, he lay straining his ears to catch the sound of the horse's hoofs. Finally it came to him, immensely remote, a rhythmic plod, plod, plod. Then in a few more minutes the cart was at rest under his window again; they were taking in the bags; bolts shot into their fastenings, a key turned in a lock, and the clerk went back to bed at the top of the house. All was over now. Nothing more would happen until the other clerk came down in a couple of hours' time, until the bags were opened, until Ridgett came yawning from his hired bedroom at the saddler's across the street, and the new day's work began. And Dale would be shut out of the work—a director who might not even assist, a master superseded, a general under arrest in the midst of his army. He gulped and grew hot. "By Jupiter! I'll have to tell them what I think of them up there, and please the pigs!" Then he remembered the pleadings of his wife. She had implored him to keep a tight hold of himself; and in fairness to her he must exercise discretion. She and he were one. With extraordinary tenderness he mentally framed the words that by custom he employed when speaking of her. "She is the wife of my boosum." For a little while he calmed himself by thinking only of her. Then, tossing and turning and perspiring again, he began to think of his whole life, seeing it as a pageant full of wonder and pathos. Holy Jupiter! how hard it had been at its opening! Everything against him—just a lout among the woodside louts, an orphan baited and lathered by a boozy stepfather, a tortured animal that ran into the thickets for safety, a thing with scarce a value or promise inside it except the little flame of courage that blows could not extinguish! And yet out of this raw material he had built up the potent, complex, highly-dowered organism known to the world as Mr. Dale of Rodchurch. There was the pride and glory—from such a start to have reached so magnificent a position. But he could not have done it—not all of it—without Mavis. It would be unkind to wake this dear bedfellow merely because he himself could not sleep. He clasped his hands behind his head, and by a prolonged effort of will remained motionless. But insomnia was exciting every nerve in his body; each memory seemed to light up the entire labyrinth of his brain; each sense-message came inward like a bomb-shell, reaching with its explosion the highest as well as the deepest centers, discharging circuits of swift fire through every area of associated ideas, and so completely shattering the normal congruity between impressions and recognitions that the slight drag of the sheet across his raised toes was sufficient to make him feel again the pressure of thick boots that he had worn years ago when he tramped as new postman on the Manninglea Road. And each thing that he thought of he saw—hawthorn blossom like snow on the hedgerows, red rhododendrons as vivid as Chinese lanterns in the gloom of the dark copse, the green moss of the rides, the white paint of the gates. The farthest point of his round was Mr. Barradine's mansion, and he used to arrive there just before eight o'clock. With the thought came the luminous pictures, and he saw again, as clearly as fifteen years ago, the splendor of the Abbey House—that is, all one can see of it as one approaches its vast servants' offices. Here, solidly real, were the archway, the first and the second courtyard, grouped gables and irregular roof ridges, the belfry tower and its gilded vane; men washing a carriage, a horse drinking at the fountain trough, a dog lying on a sunlit patch of cobble-stones and lazily snapping at flies; a glimpse, through iron scroll work, of terrace balustrades, yellow gravel, and lemon-trees in tubs; the oak doors of laundries, drying-rooms, and so forth. It was here, outside the laundry, that he saw Mavis for the first time; and although the sleeves of her print dress were rolled up and she was carrying a metal skimming dish, something ineffably refined and superior in her deportment led him to believe that she was some lesser member of the august Barradine family, and not one of its hired dependents. He touched his peaked cap, and did not even venture to say "Good morning, miss." Then he found out about her. She was not quite so grand as all that. You might say she was a young lady right enough, if you merely counted manners and education; but she had been born far below the level of gentility. She belonged to the Petherick lot; and, living with her aunt at North Ride Cottage, she came every day to the Abbey to do some light and delicate work in Mr. Barradine's model dairy. The fact that she had lost both her parents interested and pleased Dale: orphanhood seemed to contain the embryonic germs of a mutual sympathy. He used to speak to her now whenever he saw her. One day they stood talking in the copse, and he showed her their distorted reflections on the curves of her shining cream-dish. She laughed; and that day he was late on his round. Then somehow he got to a heavy sort of chaff about the letters. She said she liked receiving letters, and she never received enough of them. He used to say, "Good morning, miss. My mate started off with a tremendous heavy bag to-day. I expect the most of it was for you. You'll find 'em when you get home this evening—shoals of 'em." Walking fast on his round he rehearsed such little speeches, and if she made an unanticipated answer he was baffled and confused. He suffered from an extreme shyness when face to face with her. Then all at once his overwhelming admiration gave him a hot flow of language. Beginning the old cumbrous facetiousness about her correspondence, he blurted out the true thoughts that he had begun to entertain. "You didn't ought to want for letters, miss, and you wouldn't—not if I was your letter-writer. I'd send you a valentine every day of the year." As he spoke, he looked at her with burning eyes. He was astonished, almost terrified by his hardiness; and what he detected of its effect on her threw him into an indescribable state of emotion. Rough and coarse he might be, and yet not truly disagreeable to her fine senses; his freckled face and massive shoulders did not repel her; no instinct of the lovely princess turned sick at these advances of the wild man of the woods. Under his scrutiny she showed a sort of fluttered helplessness, a mingling of beauty and weakness that sent fiery messages thrilling through and through him, a pale tremor, a soft glow, a troubled but not offended frown; and from beneath all these surface manifestations the undeveloped woman in her seemed to speak to the matured manhood in him—seemed to say without words, "Oh, dear me, what is this? I hope you haven't taken a real fancy to my whiteness and slenderness and tremulousness; because if you have, you are so big and so strong that I know you'll get me in the end." That was the crucial moment of his marvelous life. After that all his dreams fused and became one. He felt as if from soft metal he had changed into hard metal. And, moreover, the stimulus of love seemed to induce a vast intellectual growth; things that had been difficult of comprehension became lucidly clear; prejudices and ignorances fell away from him of their own accord. A shut world had suddenly become an open world. As a grown man he returned to the benches of evening school. He learned to write his beautiful copper-plate hand, and knocked the bottom out of arithmetic and geography. Then came sheer erudition—the nature of chemical elements, stars in their courses, kings of England with their Magna Chartas and habeas corpuses. Nor content even then, he must needs grapple with Roman emperors and Greek republics, and master the fabled lore concerning gods and goddesses, cloven-footed satyrs, and naked nymphs of the grove. But he understood that, in spite of all this culture, in spite, too, of his greater care for costume and his increased employment of soap and water, Mavis was still enormously above him. The aunt, a smooth-tongued little woman whom for a long time he regarded as implacably hostile to his suit, made him measure the height of the dividing space every time that he called at North Ride Cottage. Plainly trying to crush him with the respectability both of herself and of her surroundings, she showed off all the presents from the Abbey—the china and glass ornaments, the piano; the photographs of Mr. Barradine on horseback, of the late Lady Evelyn Barradine in her pony-carriage, of Mr. Barradine's guests with guns waiting to shoot pheasants. And she conducted him into and out of the two choicely upholstered rooms which on certain occasions Mr. Barradine deigned to occupy for a night or a couple of nights—for instance, when the Abbey House was being painted and he fled the smell of paint, when the Abbey House was closed and he came down from London to see his agent on business, when he wanted to make an early start at the cub-hunting and he couldn't trust the servants of the Abbey House to rouse him if he slept there. "Last time of all," and Mrs. Petherick rubbed her hands together and smiled insinuatingly, "he paid me the pretty compliment of saying that I made him more comfortable than he ever is in his own house. I said, 'If we can't let you feel at home here, it's something new among the Pethericks.'" It seemed that the bond between the humble family and the great one had existed for several generations. It was a tradition that the Pethericks should serve the Barradines. Mavis' grandfather had been second coachman at the Abbey; her aunt's husband had been valet to Mr. Everard and made the grand tour of Europe with him; aunt herself was of the Petherick blood, and had been a housemaid at the Abbey. It also seemed to be a tradition that the acknowledgment made by the Barradines for this fidelity of the Pethericks should be boundless in its extent. Aunt spoke of the Right Honorable Everard as though she held him like a purse in her pocket, and Dale at one period had some queer thoughts about this old widow of a dead servant for whom so much had been done and who yet expected so much more. She said Mr. Barradine had charged himself with the musical training of another niece, and he would probably not hesitate to send Mavis to Vienna for the best masters, should she presently display any natural talent. Her cousin Ruby sang like an angel from the age of ten; but Mavis so far exhibited more inclination for instrumental music. "She'll belie her name, though, if she doesn't pipe up some day, won't she?" When Dale secured his appointment at Portsmouth, he and Mavis were not engaged. She said, "Auntie simply won't hear of it." "Not now," he said. "But later, when I've made my way, she'll come round. Mav, will you wait for me? "Oh, I don't know," said Mavis. "I can't give any promise. I must do whatever Auntie tells me. I can't go against her wishes." Yet somehow he felt sure that she would be his. A thousand slimy, humbugging old aunts should not keep them apart. From Portsmouth he wrote a letter to his sweetheart on every day of the year for three years—except on those days of joyous leave when he could get away and talk to her instead of writing to her. At the end of the three years the postmastership at Rodchurch became vacant, and he boldly applied for the place. His life just then was almost too glorious to be true. All difficulties and dangers seemed to melt away in a sort of warm haze of rapture. Mrs. Petherick no longer opposed the marriage; Mr. Barradine, at the zenith of political power, exerted his influence; the postmastership was obtained. To top up, Dale made the not unpleasing discovery that Mavis was an heiress as well as an orphan. She had two hundred pounds of her very own, "which came in uncommon handy for the furnishing." And his education did not cease with wedlock. Mavis was always improving him, especially in regard to diction. He was pleased to think that he made very few slips nowadays—an "h" elided here and there; the vowels still rather broad, more particularly the Hampshire "a"; and one or two unchanged words, such as "boosum." But these microscopic faults were of no consequence, and Mav had stopped teasing him about them. She only warned him of what he knew was Gospel truth—that the little failures were more frequent under hurry or excitement, and that when deeply moved he had a tendency to lapse badly toward the ancient peasant lingo. Nothing to worry about, however. It merely indicated that he must never speak on important matters without due preparation. He would be all right up there, knowing to a syllable what he wished to say; and he thought with swelling pride of comparatively recent public speeches and the praise that he had received from them. After the Parish meeting last January the Rodhaven District Courier had said, "With a few happy remarks Mr. Dale adverted again to the fallacy of plunging the village into the expense of a costly fire-engine without first ascertaining the reliability of the water supply." His very words, almost verbatim "Happy remarks!" A magistrate on the bench could not have been better reported or more handsomely praised. The reviewing of these manifold bounties of Providence had produced a sedative effect; but now he grew restless once more. He felt that twinge of doubt, the pin-prick of illogical fear which during the last eighteen hours had again and again pierced his armor of self-confidence. Suppose things went against him! No, that would be too monstrous; that would mean no justice left in England, the whole fabric of society gone rotten and crumbling to dust. The spaces between the blinds and window-frames were white instead of gray; the sun had risen; presently the whole room was visible. Mavis' little face showed pink and warm as a baby's above the bed clothes. And a sudden longing for caresses took possession of her husband. To wake her, fold her in his arms, and then, pacified by the embrace, perhaps obtain a few hours' sound sleep? For some moments his desire was almost irresistible. But it would be selfish thus to break her tranquil repose—poor little tired bird. He noiselessly slipped from the bed, huddled on some clothes, washed his face in cold water at the kitchen sink, and let himself out of the house. The open air refreshed him almost as much as sleep could have done. He walked nearly five miles and back on the Manninglea Road, and would not even glance at the busy sorting-room when he came in again. Mavis accompanied him to Rodchurch Road Station, and saw him off by the nine o'clock train. He looked very dignified in his newest bowler hat and black frock-coat, with a light overcoat on one arm and his wife's gloved hand on the other; and as he walked up and down the platform he endeavored to ignore the fact that he was an object of universal attention. When buying his ticket he had let fall a guarded word or two about the nature of his errand, and from the booking-office the news had flown up and down both sides of the station, round the yard, and even into the signal cabins. "See Mr. Dale?" "Mr. Dale!" "There's Mr. Dale, going to London for an interview with the Postmaster-General." Mr. Melling, the Baptist minister, took off his hat and bowed gravely; Mrs. Norton, the vicar's wife, smilingly stopped Mavis and spoke as if she had been addressing a social equal; then they received greetings from old Mr. Bates, the corn merchant, and from young Richard Bates, his swaggering good-for-nothing son. And then, as passengers gathered more thickly, it became quite like a public reception. "Ma'arnin', sir." "Good day, Mr. Dale." "I hope I see you well, sir." Mavis got him away from all this company just before the train came in, and made a last appeal to him. Would he recollect what the deputy had said about eating that ugly dish which is commonly known as humble pie? But at the mention of Mr. Ridgett's advice Dale displayed a slight flare of irascibility. "Let Mr. Ridgett mind his own business," he said shortly, "and not bother himself about mine. And look here," he added. "I am not trusting that gentleman any further than I see him." "I think you're wrong there, Will." "I know human nature." His face had flushed, and he spoke admonitorily. "I don't need to tell you to be circumspect during my absence—but you may have a little trouble in keeping Mr. R. in his proper place. You'll be quick to twig if he supposes the chance has come to pester you. These London customers—whatever their age—think when they get along with a pretty woman—" "Oh, Will, don't be absurd;" and she looked at him wistfully, and spoke sadly. "I'm not so attractive as you think me. I may be the same to your eyes—but not to others. It's very doubtful if anybody would want me now—except those who knew me when I was young." Then after a moment's reflection she said that, if he consented, she proposed to relieve his mind of any silly jealous fancies about Mr. Ridgett by going over to stay with her aunt at North Ride. "I should be anxious and miserable here, Will, while you were away—whereas with her I could occupy my thoughts." He immediately consented to the arrangement. An excellent idea. She might go that very afternoon, and safely promise to stay three days. He would write to North Ride and keep her informed as to his movements. "Good-by, my sweetheart. God bless you." "Good luck, Will. Good luck, my dear one." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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