“I don’t know how you can put up with it, Simon,” said Brearley, his usually kind tones rough with vexation. “I couldn’t be so patient with him myself. If I were your father I’d give you a good clout over the ear-hole,” he said sharply to Wilfred, who was dancing, giggling, round the departing guests. “It might do him good, you know, Simon.”
“I don’t like to upset Emily,” said Simon lightly, glancing back at his wife. “She dotes on him, you see.”
“Emily spoils him,” said Alice with some asperity.
If they only knew, thought Simon, compressing his lips, what an iron control he had to exercise over himself to behave calmly over Wilfred’s silly escapades, so foreign to his own decorous inclinations! But of course Emily had suffered a shock from Harry’s death, while she was carrying the boy; hence his disability; there was no more to be said.
Wilfred reached the age of twelve, and a new trouble arose.
“He wants to go and be a half-timer, Simon,” said Emily.
“Oh, nonsense,” said Simon. “Why should he want to go into the mill so young?”
“Two of Alice’s boys go. They’re his cousins, after all.”
“William and Alice have four children to rear, we’ve one. I can well afford to keep him full time at school.”
“Your father doesn’t want thee to be a half-timer, Wilf,” said Emily gently to her son when he returned from school.
Wilfred threw himself on her breast with a wailing cry.
“I want to go. I want to go wi’ Bill and Jack.”
Emily’s arms closed about him and she rocked him gently to and fro with that glowing look of love in her soft dark eyes which always turned Simon’s bowels to water. “Never mind, love. Never mind.”
“I want to go,” wailed Wilfred.
“You’re too young yet. We want you at home for a while yet,” said Simon.
Throbbing with fury—for the matter was one of status—and with frustration because he had no child of his own, Simon yet commanded his tone to a decent mildness as he told this lie.
Wilfred looked up from his mother’s breast and cried shrewdly:
“No, you don’t. I want to go wi’ Bill and Jack,” he repeated, sticking out his heavy lower lip.
“After all, Simon, if he doesn’t go to the mill, where will he go?” said Emily. “When he gets a bit older, I mean. I mean—on the moors with you—I don’t think—”
Her voice trailed away, submissive as always, but in this case she spoke sense, reflected Simon. Wilfred could certainly not be trusted with a gun.
The argument—mute on Emily’s part, hysterical on Wilfred’s, outwardly calm on Simon’s—continued for several days. Eventually Simon, as he had expected from the first, gave in. Application had to be made to the head teacher at Marthwaite school, regulations explained, exemption from school sought. It appeared that Wilfred would be obliged to put in some three hundred attendances at school every year. This sounded a large number, but when worked out meant only a few hours at school, morning or afternoon, each week. The rest of his time he could spend at a mill.
“I can’t see how they learn anything,” grumbled Simon.
“He wants to go, Simon,” said Emily softly.
“That’s you all over, Emily, you give in to what anybody wants,” thought Simon, remembering (of course) her surrender to Harry’s wishes.
But he did not say it aloud. Instead, though it was September, the height of the shooting season, he made time to go doggedly down the Ire Valley to Syke Mill to ask for a half-timer’s job for Wilfred.
“You, Emmett? I hope you’re not wanting to change your job again?” said Brigg.
“No. I hope I give satisfaction on t’moor,” said Simon.
“You do.”
Simon made his request. Brigg raised his eyebrows and thus confirmed Simon’s private view: that Wilfred was dragging him down, would always drag him down. The request, however, was granted. Simon went off up the moor having made, he thought, all necessary arrangements for the boy’s début as a half-timer next Monday, but sore at heart.
It was afternoon by the time he got home. Emily was pleased when he told her of his arrangements for Wilfred, and this further darkened his mood. Having snatched a hasty meal, he took down his gun from above the hearth and went out to empty and reset his traps. Stoats, weasels, foxes and poachers were his eternal enemies—nothing scared off poachers more than the sight of a gamekeeper with a gun, reflected Simon grimly. The weekend would see a big shoot on his moor, and he meant his employers to have plenty of birds available.
Suddenly, towards the end of the afternoon, Wilfred came running over the edge of the moorland towards him. The boy plunged down into the hollow where Simon happened to be standing, waving his arms and shouting wildly:
“You did it! You did it!”
“Is there summat wrong wi’ your mother?” cried Simon, alarmed.
“No. You did it! You didn’t want me to go to the mill!”
“What are you talking about, Wilfred?” said Simon in his artificially mild tone, biting back his vexation, for malice blazed in the boy’s mad blue eyes and his thin pale face was horridly distorted.
“You told them! You made them!”
“Tell me what is wrong, Wilfred,” said Simon soothingly.
“The head teacher says I can’t have exemption and be a half-timer,” panted Wilfred.
“But why not? He told me he thought you could.”
“Yes, yes. But now he says he’s enquired about me, and I haven’t reached the necessary standard of proficiency,” screamed Wilfred, blurring and muddling these obviously quoted words. “I can’t read.”
“What, at twelve years old?” cried Simon.
“Mother’s been trying to teach me,” whimpered Wilfred. “They haven’t time to bother with me, at school. But you told them.”
Suddenly all the frightful exasperations of his life—Harry, Wilfred, Emily’s love for Wilfred, no children of his own, his own everlasting repression, this imbecile boy impossible to get rid of, his unnecessary humiliation, now doubled, about half-timing, Emily’s love for Harry’s son—all this boiled up agonisingly in Simon’s brain. The fury of years seethed, exploded. He raised his gun, placed it against Wilfred’s breast, and fired.
After the shot, a strange silence.
Simon lowered his gun to the ground, leaned on it and sighed heavily.
The boy was dead, it seemed. Yes, he was dead; his body lay sprawled and motionless. Another matter about which Simon must learn to keep silence, for Emily must never know her husband’s part in Wilfred’s death. Never. The boy’s death would break her heart, in any case. For the time. But she would get over it. Wilfred had snatched Simon’s gun, of course—it was just the silly sort of thing he would do—and accidentally jerked the trigger and shot himself. Such accidents were always happening. Well! So it was, then. No more Wilfred. A relief, after all!
Simon accepted grimly the task of concealment which lay before him, shouldered it, sighed and raised his eyes, wondering whether to drag Wilfred home alone, or seek Brearley’s help.
On the rim of the hollow stood Brearley, gazing down at him.
“William! Thank God you’re here! The boy’s shot himself by accident! Help me take him home!”
“I saw you,” gasped Brearley, his eyes starting, his throat choked, with horror. “You shot him. I saw you.”
“No!” cried Simon, springing forward.
Brearley turned and fled.
Simon, fiercely clutching his gun, chased him headlong over the wiry heather, the tussocks of rough grass, the black peaty marsh, For a moment he disappeared from view, but when Simon bounded up a slope, Brearley lay crouched face downwards in the hollow beyond—he had tripped, perhaps, or perhaps merely sought to hide from his pursuer. Simon sprang down and shot him dead, the bullet entering behind his ear.
Again the strange silence, into which presently intruded the sound of the rising wind and his own gasping b
reath.
After a while, these calmed, and Simon became capable of rational thought. Well! His story must be changed now. Some poacher must obviously have been come upon by Brearley, and shot him when threatened with arrest—Brearley had no gun with him. The boy Wilfred had by chance seen the murder and fled, been caught and killed by the murderer in fear for his life. But Simon could not know of this, must not know of this; best to go home and act complete ignorance; concern at Wilfred’s continued absence could arise later, leave it to Alice to worry when her husband did not return. Pity about Brearley. Always a pleasant chap. Simon cleaned his gun and returned home.
“Wilfred not home yet?” he said to his wife.
“He came, but he went out on t’moor to seek you.”
“Oh? He didn’t find me.”
“He were worried, like, because teacher said after all he couldn’t have exemption to be a half-timer.”
“Oh? Why were that?”
“Nay, I couldn’t right make it out,” said Emily.
This might be true, but it might more probably be an attempt to conceal and diminish the reading trouble. It was Emily’s habit thus to try to hide Wilfred’s defects and peccadilloes from her husband. Simon knew this habit all too well; it maddened him. But now that Wilfred would no longer cause this trouble, he forgave Emily, smiled lovingly at her and said no more.
As the evening wore on and darkness fell, Emily became very uneasy about her son. She went to the door and stood gazing out into the dark, calling “Wilfred! Wilf!” in her soft tones. The pathos of this appeal which could never be answered, and the look of her perplexed eyes, usually so clear, struck Simon to the heart as he went to console her.
“Sit down, love. He’ll come in when he’s hungry.”
“But where can he be? You didn’t see him, did you?”
“I told you, no.”
“Happen he’s afraid to come now because he thinks you’ll scold him for being late.”
“Happen he is,” said Simon gravely, nodding.
After some repetitions of this scene Simon sighed and took down his jacket.
“I’ll go out and have a look for him,” he said kindly.
“Thank you, thank you,” said Emily, softly wailing. “You’re a good father to him, Simon.”
To search these miles of rolling moorland was a difficult task at any time, in the dark almost impossible. Though Simon knew the moors well, nobody would be surprised by his lack of success in a night search. He tramped about, however, to give an air of verisimilitude to his proceedings, and as the night turned wet and wild, rain on his shoulders and peaty mud on his boots lent support to the tale he would have to tell. It occurred to him to conceal Wilfred’s body, though not too deeply; a delay in its discovery, he thought, a little mystery, would be useful in clouding the true course of events. Dragging the body behind a rock, he covered it with earth and bracken. Brearley’s body, since it lay on the stretch of moor in Brearley’s care, he thought it safe to leave exposed.
He returned home to find Brearley’s two sons in his kitchen, making anxious enquiries about their father. Had Uncle Simon seen him?
“No. But I shouldn’t worry yet. He’ll be out after poachers,” said Simon. “Tell you what,” he added as the boys’ faces remained troubled: “If he isn’t back by morning, I’ll go down to Marthwaite and tell the police. He might have met up with Wilfred—one of them might have had an accident, and the other not like to leave him, you know. Aye, we’ll get the police to search.”
This plan was carried out next morning, neither of the missing persons having returned. Not only police, but unofficial Marthwaite men, in instinctive goodwill, took part in the search. These latter turned first to Brearley’s beat, for they thought his disappearance more serious than that of an irresponsible boy, who might merely have run away and be in hiding. They soon found the dead gamekeeper, and observed that he was not carrying a gun. The police, to Simon’s (concealed) chagrin, found Wilfred sooner than he had hoped, for one of them perceived the metal tips of Wilfred’s clogs glittering in the sunlight to which the stormy night had given place, and the body was unearthed.
“Fancy leaving his feet uncovered!” said a young policeman. “Seems daft to me.”
“Murderer didn’t know he’d left feet uncovered. Lad was buried in the dark, that’s what it means,” deduced the sergeant.
“Aye, it would seem so,” agreed Simon with a puzzled look.
“How do you see it, then, Mr Emmett?” asked the sergeant.
“Brearley caught a poacher, and the poacher shot him, and Wilfred saw it, and the poacher chased him and shot him to prevent him telling, that’s how it looks to me.”
“What, a poacher in daylight?”
“Nay, it might have been in t’dark. Or twilight falling dark.”
“That’s so.”
When Wilfred’s lifeless corpse was carried across the threshold of his home, Emily gave a great cry and fell unconscious, clutching at her son’s cold hands as she fell. She lay in bed for several days, hardly moving. Simon, seeing her so distraught, understood better the magnitude of her collapse after Harry’s demise. He gave her tender and unceasing care.
Meanwhile, the account of the course of events which Simon had devised to cover the two deaths was generally accepted, and the thought of an imaginary poacher filled men’s minds. An entirely innocent man who had—it came out at the inquest and he admitted it frankly—been shooting that afternoon on the free, unleased portion of the moor, was suspected, questioned, arrested, brought before the Annotsfield magistrates, remanded in custody. When this suspicion was first voiced to Simon he was staggered. But he instantly commanded himself.
“I hope he gets off,” he thought, “but I can’t tell the truth, choose how. It would kill Emily. Nay, I know nowt of it,” he said aloud in a worried tone. “I just don’t know. I heard shots on the moor that afternoon, that’s true.”
By the time resumed hearing before the magistrates took place, Emily was well enough to attend, and insisted upon doing so.
Some Annotsfield men who did not know Simon’s reputation as an honest man and a good father had been giving him rather odd looks lately when he went to the town on errands, so as Simon set out for the magistrates’ court he felt quite uncertain as to whether he would return thence as an accused murderer or no. Accordingly he dressed himself very neatly, and shaved with special care. As he climbed the steps to the court, with Emily and Alice in deep mourning beside him, he felt himself the mark of every eye, and carried himself with stony dignity. In spite of his short stature and thinning hair, his appearance commanded respect; the lofty carriage of his large head showed him as a man not lightly to be distrusted. The innocent accused, pale and hangdog, looked far more guilty than he, reflected Simon with satisfaction.
This time, however, the accused man had secured from somewhere a sharp shrewd counsel, who produced and proved—not perhaps quite to the hilt but enough to convince any reasonable mind—an alibi for his client. The magistrates recalled Simon to the witness box.
“Hold hard,” he urged himself as he calmly rose. “Keep the secret.”
He set his jaw, advanced with a firm regular tread and gave his replies in a quiet steady tone.
The magistrate took him again through his own meagre story of the day of the murder, and then, to his surprise, began to ask him questions about Wilfred.
“Was the boy quite normal?”
“He was a little backward,” replied Simon.
“How backward?”
“Well—he couldn’t read very well.”
“At twelve years old?”
“His mother was trying to teach him,” said Simon rather hastily, alive to a hint of censure.
“Backward, yes. But was he ever violent?”
“Never,” said Simon emphatically. “He was a gentle, eager boy.”
“Was he fond of his uncle?”
“His uncle?” repeated Simon, amazed.
“Hi
s uncle, William Brearley. Had his uncle not scolded him at times?”
With a shock Simon perceived that they suspected Wilfred of having shot his uncle and then himself, and Simon of having come upon the body and to conceal his son’s crime removed the gun and buried Wilfred. This might have been a convenient hypothesis but for its effect upon Emily, who was already flushed and panting under its mere suggestion. He made haste to discredit it.
“Wilfred was always fond of his uncle. He went a good deal to Brearley’s place, and played with the two boys, his cousins.”
“Had Wilfred ever handled a gun?”
“Never. He was never allowed to touch a gun.”
“Did you ever teach him how to fire a gun?”
“Never.”
“Could he have had a gun in his possession, even for a few moments, on the afternoon of the murder?”
“Impossible. I had my gun with me, and as you’ve heard my sister-in-law say, Brearley left home without his gun.”
The hearing ended with the discharge of the innocent accused, and without any other accusation being made.
“I’m glad he got off, for I don’t think he did it,” said Simon soberly as he drove Alice and Emily home in the trap he had hired.
The sisters were too sunk in grief, it seemed, to reply. But when, having left Alice at the cottage she must soon vacate, the Emmetts presently found themselves in their own home, Emily turned her dark luminous eyes steadily on her husband, and asked in a low tone:
“Who do you think killed my son, Simon?”
“We shall never know,” replied Simon with a sigh.
He sighed because he felt the burden of secrecy, the need to conceal, heavy upon his shoulders. It would rest there, he knew, till the day he died.
Sometimes in the years that followed, he felt the burden almost intolerable. It was his first thought in the morning, his last at night: keep the secret. Occasionally when he was out on the moors in the driving winds and bright cold sunshine of March, the still shimmering heat of August, the white dazzling snow of January, he felt a lifting of the heart, as if he might be about to be happy; but instantly the weight of the secret closed down on him again and forbade it. (The feeling he had when he took the passive Emily in his arms was entirely different: a hot passion, a guilty unrelenting triumph.) Again, when he helped Alice to regain her job as mender, supervised her removal back to Marthwaite—her parents took her in—presently found jobs for her growing sons and “gave away” her daughter in a suitable marriage, Simon smiled to himself and felt a warmth about his heart. But in a moment the warmth chilled and his heavy features hardened again into sternness; he could not afford to relax.
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