by E. F. Benson
“That’s one of the fields Grandfather was wanting to sell,” said Dennis. “Something’s afoot again about it.”
“Well, you be wary,” said she.
A couple of evenings later the two young folk and John Pentreath were whiling away a silent hour after supper. Nancy had hurried them through the meal, and had set off to St. Columb’s in a brand-new hat that quite eclipsed the cherry-bower, leaving Nell to wait on Willis, and clear away. Mollie had already gone to her bed, taking her knitting with her. Dennis had been helping Nell with the serving of the lodger’s supper; and when the washing-up was done, took out the old dog-eared pack of cards, and instructed her in the principles of “Beggar-my-neighbour.” John watched them a while, smoking and sipping in his arm-chair, and then, as if he had made up his mind, got up pretty briskly and pulled a long folded paper from his pocket. Just come you here, my lad,” he said, “and bring a pen and th’ inkpot along with you, while I go ask Mr. Willis to step in. It’s some tax collector’s botheration about the farm, and it needs your signature and mine and a feller to witness them.”
Nell was paying out four cards to an ace Dennis turned up, but she stopped.
“Be sure you know what you’re signing,” she whispered. Then aloud, “Two, three and four, and there’s your ace paid.”
John had half unfolded a long sheet of foolscap, so that little more than the place for signatories and witness was visible.
“I scarce understand it myself,” he said, “but at the office they tell me ’tis all in order.”
The moment he had left the room to ask Willis in, Nell got up in a fine hurry.
“Wha’s it about?” she said. “Quick: open it and let’s look.”
She bent over it with Dennis in frowning silence. There were two paragraphs written in large round hand.
“’Tis gibberish,” she said. “There’s no head nor tail to it. “The two fields abutting and adjoining the road known as St. Columb’s Lane, with all the hedges and walls appertaining to and bounding the same, excepting only the wall abutting and adjoining to the field of corn-land, where are situated the circle of stones or cromlechs—’ Help us; I see what they’re talking of: ’tis the fields next where the circle lies, where we saw him and the two fellers measuring—”
Then came the sound of Willis’s amiable cackle from the passage leading to the studio, and Nell slid back to her place by the cards.
“Don’t ‘ee sign nothing till ye understand, mind,” she whispered. « Maybe it’~ to do with the sale of land he was talking of a while ago.”
The other two entered.
“’Tis just to witness Dennis’s signature and mine,” said John, “if ye’ll be so good, Mr. Willis. It won’t keep you a moment. I’m sure I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”
He picked up the pen and scrawled his name.
“There: sign just below me, Dennis,” he said, “and don’t keep Mr. Willis waiting.”
“I’ll know what it is I’m signing afore I put my name to it,” said Dennis.
“Well, haven’t I told you? It’s some matter of tax: just a formality. That’s where your name goes.”
“Nay: I’ll know more nor that first,” said Dennis, not taking the pen John held out to him. “Will you be so good as to cast your eye over it, Mr. Willis, since my grandfather says he can scarce understand it himself.”
“Just sign, and don’t bother Mr. Willis with affairs as don’t concern him,” he said. “Mr. Willis is naught but the witness.”
“He’ll know first what he’s witnessing, and so’ll I,” said Dennis.
“Dear me, that’s not unreasonable, Mr. Pentreath,” said Willis. “Let me have a look at it.”
John put out his hand as if to get hold of the paper again, but Dennis nipped it from under his fingers before they closed on it.
“Now, Mr. Willis, take a squint at it,” he said. “I sign nothing till I know what ’tis.”
Nell had been sitting at the far end of the table while they talked, turning cards face upwards, as if not heeding them. But she was closely following what went on.
“You stick to that, Dennis,” she said.
John Pentreath turned savagely on her.
“And who, maybe, was asking for your advice?” he said. “You mind your own affairs.”
She jumped up.
“Happen they are my affairs,” she said. “We’ll know more o’ that soon. You mark and learn all that you’re putting your name to, Dennis.”
“Hell, and am I to be sent right and left in my own house by the slavey as let herself be seduced?” cried John furiously.
Dennis stuffed the paper in his pocket, leaving his hands free.
“Now you take back that word, Grandfather,” he said, “before you add another one to it, or I’ll make a sorrier plight o’ you than ever I did before. Quick: take it back. ’Tis you are keeping Mr. Willis waiting now. There’s the dog whip all handy, and you know the taste o’ that.”
For a moment it looked as if John was going to hurl himself on the boy, as he turned to unhook the whip from the wall, but he distrusted that cat-like swiftness.
My temper got the better of me,” he said, “and whatever I said, I unsay it. But mark, I’ll have no interference from any. God! Here’s a pleasant family party to ask Mr. Willis to assist at!”
“Iss sure, that it is,” said Dennis. “Mr. Willis won’t often go to such a brisk, lively little party, I reckon, when he’s in Lunnon town. And now we’ll all sit down, cool and comfortable as is our way, and perhaps Mr. Willis’ll be kind enough to tell us what’s all this botheration from the tax-collector, as I’ve got to put my name to.”
He spread the document open before Willis, with an eye on his grandfather; lest he should try his snatching again. In John’s half-tipsy brain there was still the vague hope that the girlie would be able to make nothing of it, for who could understand that entanglement of words?
Willis put on his gold pince-nez and began reading. Leaving out hedges and walls and so forth, the general purport was clear enough.
“I don’t see anything about the tax-collector,” he said to Dennis. “Ah, there it is! The purchaser pays all taxes on the land as from the date of signature.”
“Didn’t I tell ‘ee that?” said John.
“Certainly you did, Mr. Pentreath,” said Willis, “but I can’t agree with you that it’s just a tax-collector’s botheration. It’s a deed for the sale of the two fields above the road to St. Columb’s. The purchaser agrees to pay three hundred pounds for them.”
“Aye, and Dennis gets a half o’ that, paid down in good money,” said John.
“Happen you’ll make sure that’s written there, Mr. Willis,” said Dennis.
Willis glanced through it again.
“That isn’t stated here, Mr. Pentreath.”
“What? Have they left that out?” said John. “That was my intention.”
“And was it, indeed?” said Dennis, looking across at Nell. “That comes as a bit o’ news. And I’ll give you another bit o’ news to match yours. ’Twas a fool ye thought me to be as would sign blindfold, and not a word o’ your intention writ there. And I’ll tell you what it is, Grandfather: ’tis a rank cheat you meant. I was to sign away the land, not knowing what I did, and every penny 0’ that would have gone into your pocket. Ain’t that so, Mr. Willis?”
“I can only tell you that there’s nothing said about your share, Dennis,” he said.
“So that’s where we be,” said Dennis. “Just a swindle. That’s your tax-collector’s formality.”
Eh, that’s well said,” cried Nell, sweeping up the silly cards from the table. John Pentreath sat gnawing at his pipe-stem, silent under this monstrous humiliation. Here was he, under his own roof, where his word was law, made a mere mockery by these two young devils who were dependent for their broth and their bootleather on the wage he paid them. Dearly would he have liked to give Nell just such a punch as he had dealt to his wife a few months ago, but between him and her wa
s that great young tiger-cat, not asleep now, but quivering and taut. And then on his other side was this little girlie-fellow, tapping the deed with his gold pince-nez, It was he who as much as any was responsible for this mocking of him, for he had been brought in just to witness a couple of signatures, and there he was being lord-judge of it all, the little puny creature with his mincing steps and his simpering ways. John didn’t dare quarrel with him, for he was a paying proposition, worth two pounds a week, and he was thinking of stopping on now till the end of October; so well was he suited. Had John been properly drunk he’d have done something, and damned whatever might come of it, but he was no more than half afloat and his keel grated on actualities. There lay the deed still unsigned, and there round the table were three witnesses to this promise to give Dennis half the purchase money. And they all despised him as an exposed swindler: Dennis had stated the case for them all, that son of a woman who was gone whoring in St. Columb’s, A sanctified lot, weren’t they?
Dennis broke the silence.
“Well, ’tis time to settle all this,” he said, “for we’re keeping Mr. Willis. You told me false about what you asked me to sign, Grandfather, and Mr. Willis to witness, and maybe 1’d best tear the tomfool deed upand stuff it in the oven, and there’ll be the end of that.
Give it me, Mr. Willis.”
John saw the entire three hundred pounds slipping from him.
“Wait a bit,” he said. “I’ve promised you half of the purchase money, and I’ll give it you and draw out my promise regular, if you’ll sign. ’Tis a fine price for the land, and I reckon I’m good for a sight of years yet.”
Nell was listening with all her ears. There was her child coming before many months were out, and she would be laid up, not earning her wages, and there’d be lack of money, sure enough, before the winter was out. Better, she thought, to get that big sum banked away than take a risk. She nudged Dennis.
“Take it,” she whispered.
D’you mean that?” he asked. “Yes, for sure. ‘Twill make us safe.”
He turned to Willis.
“Perhaps you’d be so kind then as to write out something for my grandfather to sign, and we shan’t lack for witnesses. I’ll consent to the sale of the fields, and I’ll sign his deed, and he’s got to give me half the price of what he gets: a hundred and fifty pounds that’ll be, and the same for him. Tha’s the way ‘twill run, and you be sure to fix it down secure, so that there’s no wriggling out of it.”
Instantly John tried to get better terms for himself.
“Take a hundred pounds, Dennis,” he said, and have done with it: a hundred pounds is a lot of money, and I’ll sign and promise to give it you the day the price is paid. That’s fair.”
“I’m thinking a hundred and fifty’ll be fairer. Same as had been your intention all along, as you told us yourself,” he said.
John thumped the table.
“A hundred it shall be,” he shouted, and damned generous o’ me, too. Write it out, if you please, Mr. Willis, and let’s have an end o’ his haggling.”
Dennis took up the deed of purchase.
“Mayas well stuff it into the grate,” he said, “for you’ll get no signature from me.”
“Well, take a hundred and ten,” said John.
“Nay, let’s make an end o’ this haggling,” said Dennis.
John looked from one to the other. Still and quiet they sat, just despising him.
“God, then have it your own way,” he said at length. “’Tis a sucking blood-leech I’ve gotten for a grandson.”
“Thank you kindly,” said Dennis. “Draw it up, Mr. Willis, and we’ll all sign and witness, first one and then t’other.”
The business was now soon concluded. First, the promise to Dennis of half the purchase price of the land was signed and witnessed, and, when he had secured that, came the purchase deed itself. John snapped it up when it was executed, and off he went to his bed, without a word to any of them. A sore defeat it had been, and a heavy score there was to be chalked up to Dennis’s account.
CHAPTER XII. THE LUMP
THE influx of ready money had relieved John Pentreath’s mind of any fear that he would find a difficulty in procuring as much drink as he would be likely to want during the coming winter months, when it was but natural that a man took a drop more than in summer-time to while away the lengthening evenings, and in the early closing in of the November days he would often pull his chair up to the oven by four of an afternoon with his bottle handy, watching his boots steam till they were dry. Mollie would be there, too, doing her sewing or knitting, and when his boots began to smell of scorching leather, she would bid him get them off and put his slippers on. Evening after evening they sat there, mostly silent, he dropping off to sleep from time to time, till Nancy or Nell came to do the cooking for supper, and then they must push back their chairs to give access to the oven.
Between these dozings there were three topics which chiefly occupied John’s mind. He took them up each evening much as he had left them the night before, and they went sluggishly round in his head, ending, when supper was ready, pretty much where they began. The first of these was how he should layout the purchase money of the fields he had sold to the best advantage of the farm: that he was already laying it out as fast as his capacity for swallowing spirits would permit, if not for his own advantage, for his own solace, was not a point that need be considered. According to his reckoning all he had spent of it was just the matter of ten pounds for the insurance of the house for the coming year against fire: so there were a hundred and forty pounds left of it. After the disaster to his ewes and lambs in the spring, he was not disposed to increase the livestock, and with the sale of the two pasture fields there would not be more than enough grazing for such stock as he had of sheep and cows. But he had often considered building a couple more rooms on to the house, with the view of getting another lodger during the summer. Lodgers were safer breadwinners than sheep or indeed corn, after the ruin of this year’s harvest, especially if he could secure such large payers and such paltry trenchermen as the girlie; for he scarcely ate more than his piping bullfinch. A pound a week, when he came to reckon up, had covered the cost of his keep; that meant a clear profit of three pounds a week instead of the two pounds he had calculated on, and Willis had been here for twenty-two weeks before he left at the end of October, and intended to come back again next summer. There was a golden goose indeed; all that the little fellow wanted was to go quacking all day, and dress himself up, like the girlie he was, and draw pictures of Dennis, and lay these golden eggs as regular as Mollie’s fowls. Then there was all the money he gave Dennis for sitting to him, five shillings an hour he paid the boy for cocking himself up to be looked at, and that had saved John money, too, for it was only in reason that he should cut Dennis’s wages down by half, not but what he did as much work as any other labourer working full time. Well indeed he might, since he was employed on the property that would one day be his. So there was a sum to be done to see what Willis had been worth to him all this summer: three pounds a week, and Dennis’s wages reduced by a half. It would be a fine thing to get another such boarder; and there was plenty of room to build a second lodging, studio and bedroom, beyond the end of the house, and the money he laid out on it would earn a pretty dividend.
Arithmetic would have become difficult by now, and his mind slid off on to the second of its standing topics for fireside meditation, which was Dennis himself, and John took a good gulp from his glass to help him to steady his attention. The damned dog: whatever he himself spent, whether on building or on livestock, would all go to fill Dennis’s pockets some day. There was no getting out of that: all that he could do was to spend the price of those fields in drink, for Dennis couldn’t get hold of it then. Already he had a hundred and fifty pounds lying in the bank, without reckoning up what Willis had been giving him all these weeks for lounging round in his studio in an attitude. Every evening as John’s mind, regular as clockwork, turn
ed on him, a blacker hatred and envy of the boy for his youth and his strength and his contemptuous indifference to himself rose in him like some bitter bile of the brain. Time and again all this year, starting from mere acts of defiance and disobedience, then proceeding to tigerish bodily violence, and from that to his own even more humiliating defeat in that bad business of the purchase money, Dennis had proved his effortless mastery. Right across John’s face now, a reminder to him, whenever he shaved himself, ran the mark of the healed scar which the young devil had slashed there, and there was another on the thumb of the hand that carried his glass to his mouth; and Dennis was flush with the money he had forced his grandfather to pay him. and every night he pillowed his head on. the bosom of the prettiest lass for twenty miles round... .
And yet, what could he do to get upsides with him? That had always been running in his head ever since his mauling in the spring: round and round it went, a series of vivid pictures. In some of these he saw himself throttling the life out of him, with hands gripped tight round his throat, but that could never be realised: he had tried it before and got a bashing for his pains. To shoot him was the best way: he had often thought of that. He could get a good opportunity for it, for now and then he went out with his gun, hiding quiet in the cover of the hedge by the field where the circle stood, to kill a pigeon or two that came to feed on the ruined corn, and Dennis often passed up the path there on his way back from work. John imagined himself standing screened there, and when Dennis passed, he would just whistle so that Dennis turned his head, and saw what was coming, and then perhaps he would say, “Ah, you dog, I’ve got you now,” and pull the trigger. It would be pretty easy to account for the accident: Dennis had come into line at the very moment that he loosed off at a pigeon. But he might have to wait long for the right opportunity, for there must be nobody about...Again there was a fine strong stuff called vitriol: you used it, very dilute, on the warts that the cattle got sometimes, one part to ten of water, and the crust came crumbling away. But a splash of it pure, on a man’s face, would eat the flesh off his bones, and cause his eyeballs to smoke away in their sockets: like guttering candles whose light was spent. Perhaps one day, Dennis and he would be using it... .