CHAPTER XVII. IN WHICH MRS. LOMAX GROWS ANGRY.
They had been at the Manor for a week, Kate and he, before it seriously occurred to Griff that they could not go on living here for ever. Mrs. Lomax had been very urgent, more than once since his return, that they should make the Manor their home; but Griff knew his mother too well to dream for a moment that she could endure a second mistress in the house. Kate was as strong and unbending in some ways as the older woman, and the position was sure to be productive, in the long run, of jar and discomfort.
So Griff went for a long walk one afternoon, in order to think out what was best to be done. To tell his mother straightforwardly that it was time he sought a house elsewhere seemed likely to result in a quarrel between them; and he shirked the idea of that more instinctively than he shrank from the thought of letting their lives drift into a state of perpetual, half-felt friction. At the end of his walk he was no nearer to a solution of the difficulty than when he started, and he turned into the Bull, not feeling over anxious to meet his women-folk while he was still in this pitiable state of doubt.
"You're looking bothered, like, Mr. Lummax," said the landlord, bustling in to serve his favourite customer.
"I am bothered, Crabtree. Give me a Scotch whisky, and we'll see if that will help me."
Crabtree loitered about, as his habit was, after bringing the whisky. He finally came to rest against the window, pointing his meditations by an up-and-down motion of the straw between his teeth.
"Well, how's the world?" asked Griff.
"Nobbut sadly, sir, nobbut sadly. They tell us it's th' best world we've getten, but I niver did see how that helped a body. What wi' th' sheep lambing too forrard-like i' th' spring, an' th' frost taking half th' lambkins off, an' th' rain when I should hev been leäding my hay, an' th' drought when th' tummits wanted watter, an' th' wife slipping away under-sod fair at t' thrangest time she could ha' chosen—nay, it's a poor mak on a world, tak it how ye will. Thank ye, Mr. Lummax, I will hev a fill; baccy an' strong drink is all as us poor men can look to for comfort."
"You're a fine hand at the grumbles, Crabtree. I warrant you've turned over a tidy penny this year, for all your growls. As to your wife, you've soon found another, eh?"
There was the faintest trace of a smile at that corner of the landlord's mouth which was not occupied by the straw; but the rest of his face was expressive of sad rebuke.
"It's easy to jest, sir, when ye've getten the lump of your troubles afore ye. She war a grand lass, th' first 'un, an' niver a wrang word between us, save when it jumped out accidental-like. But what can a feckless man do wi' a public on his hands, an' none to see to th' sarving-maid, an' th' washing, an' th' cooking? I've nowt agen t' other missuses, ye'll understand, but they're more, as a man might say, i' th' way o' meät an' drink—a thing 'at cannot be done without. But th' first wife—it war more i' th' way of a pleasure, like, nor a business, my marrying her. Well, well, it's up an' it's down i' this life, an' afore ye've rightly getten used to one position, ye're shifted to t' other. My head fair swims, whiles, when I fall to thinking o' th' whirligig."
Griff's eyes had wandered from his host to the half-dozen bills of sale that lined the opposite wall.
"I say, Crabtree!" he interrupted; "I didn't know Gorsthwaite Hall was for sale. Have you noticed that bill up there—the middle one?"
"I can't say as I hev, sir. They come an' they go, does farms—like wives, in a manner o' speaking—an' a man gets ower used to th' shiftings to pay much heed to 'em."
Crabtree moved to the printed sheet and slowly read out the contents.
"Mr. Crowther Crowther is honoured, by the executors of the late Thomas Widdop, with instructions to sell that valuable freehold property known as Gorsthwaite Hall, with all the farm buildings, implements, live and dead stock, as under." Then followed a list of horses, heifers, cows in calf, waggons, turnip and hay choppers, and the like; and an exposition of the agricultural merits of the "Three closes of land adjoining thereto, comprising in all about thirty acres."
"A fine old place it is, too," said Griff, thoughtfully.
"It's like a sight of other fine old places hereabouts, sir—gone to wrack an' ruin. Ay, I mind th' time when there war more Widdops at Gorsthet nor old Thomas: he war nobbut a young 'un' then, an' I war nobbut a young 'un, an' there war three as bonny lasses—sisters o' Thomas's—as ever stepped i' shoe leather used to cross th' Gorsthet doorstuns day in an' day out. But they're all owered wi', is th' Widdops, an' I misdoubt th' owd spot will be selled, so to say, for th' price of a pint."
"There's no telling. Well, Crabtree, your whisky has set me up again, and I think it's about time I was off."
"Afore ye go, sir, there's a bit of a matter I wanted to tell ye on. Happen ye've forgetten Joe Strangeways?"
Griff perceptibly changed colour.
"Not likely," he said brusquely.
"Meaning no offence, Mr. Lummax—me that hes known ye, man an' boy, these thirty year. But he's getting forrarder i' drink, is Joe, an' there comes a time when drink 'ull mak th' softest mammy's lad i' th' land shape courageous-like. He's a wind-bag, says t' others; but I've getten my own notions about that, an' he swears at ye summat fearful, sir, nowadays—says he'll hev your life; an' a mak o' foul-mouthed words he's getten to say it in. I'd advise ye to hev a care, an' that's what I set out to tell ye, sir."
"It's good of you to bother, Crabtree—but you can trust me to look after myself. Good day."
"Short an' sharp, as th' gentry allus is when their women-folk is in case. Nay, nay, they're kittle cattle, is women, an' kittle they mak their men; an' I should hev a right to know," muttered Crabtree, as he strolled into the kitchen to watch the fourth of his wives rolling out the dough for a gooseberry-pasty.
Griff went straight back to the Manor, his good spirits restored now that he had made up his mind how to act. But he said nothing of his resolve, and merely told his mother, when mare Lassie and he set off after breakfast the next morning, that he had to go to Saxilton on business. His destination was a certain office, half-way up the narrow main street of Saxilton, which had been given at the bottom of the poster as the address of the trustees of the late Thomas Widdop's estate. Griff, though he knew there was a reckoning in store for him, felt something of a lad's blithe glee in truantry as he rode down the trough of the valley, and up the other side, and down again till he came to the wood-road that lies between Saxilton and Plover Court, where old Squire Daneholme lived. The air was moist and kindly, and the young green things were sprouting up through the withered leaves of the under-brush: cock-pheasants were exhibiting their charms to admiring wives in many a glade of the open park-land that divided the woods here and there; weasels and stoats kept peeping at him from clefts in the mossy walls, and squirrels lay flat along their tree-branches at his approach, in a well-feigned stiffness that was suggestive of death. Griff laughed as he passed the sweep of sandy carriage-drive that struck up the hill to Plover Court.
"You gave me a merry time not long since, Squire. Shall I take you at your word, and drop in to dinner to-night?" he thought.
And no sooner had he turned the corner where the highway runs over the river-bridge and past the corn-mill, than whom should he meet but the bluff old Squire himself, coming cantering home on a chestnut thoroughbred. Griff saluted him merrily with his whip at his cap, and the Squire pulled up.
"You're young Lomax, aren't you? We've met before, I fancy."
"We have. I hope you were no worse, sir, for the meeting?"
"Worse for it? No, you young sinner; it did me good, after my jaws unstiffened enough to let me eat. Your face was scratched a bit, by the way, wasn't it?"
They laughed heartily at that, the Squire's chestnut fidgeting all the while as if he thought to take his master unawares at last. Old Daneholme swore most pleasantly at the brute, and then looked Griff up and down.
"You've a pretty seat on horseback, lad. I like to look at a figure like yours, in these damned round-shouldered, narrow-chested times. If you had seen all the changes for the worse in the race that I have, you'd be sorry that you were not born when I was—a generation sooner. Well, are you coming home with me to lunch?"
"Not to-day, I'm afraid. I have business to attend to in Saxilton, and after that I must put my best foot forward to Marshcotes."
"Ah, yes! I remember now—something in the papers—you're married, eh?"
"Yes. Just what did you see in the papers, Mr. Daneholme?" said Griff, with a sudden flush.
"Something about a divorce, and then a notice that you were married. Humph! A riskier enterprise, marriage, than poaching an old fool's game."
Griff thought that the poaching of game was merely a simile, and he resented the innuendo. If he had known the Squire better, he would not have credited him with any such beating about the bush.
"The divorce came through no fault of ours, sir; the story was a trumped-up lie," said he, hotly.
Roger Daneholme opened his mouth for a guffaw that showed his splendid double row of teeth, scarce one of which was a whit the worse for wear.
"What do I care about that, eh?" said he, good-humouredly. "Bless me, a young man must love, or he's no man at all. But marriage—it's risky. So you'll take Plover on your way back, will you?"
There was no resisting the cheery, persistent hospitality of the man, and Griff gave in. He could well believe now that the Marshcotes folk had spoken a true word when they said that the Squire was a devil to those he hated, and the best of good fellows to any who happened to take his fancy.
The stocks and the old market-place have gone from Saxilton main street now, but in those days they fronted the lawyer's office of which Griff had come in search. After saying good-bye to the Squire, he cantered up the narrow street, hitched Lassie's bridle to a ring at the end of the stocks, and went inside to get through his business with what expedition he might, since they lunched sharp at one at Plover. Gorsthwaite Hall, as Crabtree of the Bull had prophesied, was to be had for a song; the lawyers were only too glad to get rid of it at a trifle over the price which Griff first named, and the place was his in a very short space of time. Then, his business settled, he set off for Plover Court, and reached it within five minutes of the luncheon hour.
It was lucky that Griff had a good head for liquor; for the Squire kept him drinking long after Mrs. Daneholme had left the table, with the avowed intention of seeing which was the better man at the bottle.
"You worsted me with your fists, you puppy—not that you would find it easy to do as much a second time—but I'm hanged if I haven't the stronger head for port."
"We can only decide that in one way," laughed Griff, who was always quick to take up a challenge.
They cracked a second bottle, and a third, the Squire chatting ceaselessly of this and that harum-scarum adventure in which he had taken part—when he was younger, he never failed to add. And the longer Griff listened, the better he liked the man's healthy energy. Old Daneholme had no conscience whatever, save on certain points where a rough-and-tumble honesty was concerned. By his own showing, he had indulged in some rough vices, and even generosity he carried recklessly past the point where it ceased to be a virtue. Yet, with it all, there was a fresh, inborn strenuousness about old Roger; he never stopped to ask himself if he were good or bad—could not have been certain, indeed, what so absurd a question implied—but just took life at a gallop, over hedge and ditch, and enjoyed such frolic as Heaven sent in his way. There was a vein of sound humour in him, too,—a trifle rough and biting to the taste, may be, but sound for all that—and his fine grey eyes looked out at you with a twinkle which said, as plainly as possible, that he cared not one button for your opinion. A man of the true old Yorkshire breed.
"Get on to your legs, my boy," said the Squire, when they were half through with the fourth bottle.
Griff complied with the request, and stood looking down at his host with humorous gravity. Then he went the length of the room and back again, with the action of a horse being put through its paces. Finally, he resumed his seat, with a—
"Can you do as much, sir?"
"Can I do as much?" roared the Squire. "Confound your impertinence, sir! I'm scarcely warmed with the wine as yet. Gad, though, you don't turn a hair! I wish that son of mine had been at home to see you; it would have knocked some of the conceit out of him. He can't touch me, Lomax, not if I give him one bottle handicap. Come, drink up!"
He went over to the bell and put his hand on the rope. Not for a fortune would Griff have suggested that they had drunk enough, though he could see only one end to the adventure—and that a most annoying one, with Kate awaiting his return. But the Squire thought better of it, and flashed round on his guest with merry boisterousness.
"Well, well, I'll let you off another bottle. You are young in marriage yet, and your wife might not altogether like it if you turned up happily drunk. Women are such fools about these matters."
When Griff succeeded at last in making his escape, Squire Daneholme walked with him down the drive as far as the Saxilton highroad. There was a faint tinge of regret in his tone as he held out his hand to his guest.
"I thought the fresh air might help a bit, Lomax. But you're as steady as a rock, confound you! You must come again when marriage wears thin, and we'll make a night of it. Bless you, boy, I have not taken to any one for years as I have to you."
Griff, laughing off the compliment, sprang into the saddle.
"Stay, lad!" shouted the Squire, as Lassie was breaking into a trot. "A piece of parting advice. Ride straight, drink level, never repent of your sins, and die as I find you—a jolly good fellow. Good-bye."
Late that evening, when Kate had left him alone with the mother, Griff summoned up all his courage and blurted out what had been the trend of his morning's business.
"I have bought Gorsthwaite Hall, mother."
She looked up sharply at him.
"So it has come at last, Griff? I feared it would, some day—but scarcely as soon as this."
"Now, old lady, don't be foolish about it. Do you want it to be said that I beat you in the matter of common sense? Kate and I must leave you sooner or later."
She fell into an obstinate silence, her face averted from her son's; it seemed as if she heard nothing of his fragmentary explanations. Then, at last—
"It is I who ought to leave. The Manor is yours, not mine."
"Mother, how can you!" He knelt at her feet, and took her hands, and tried to force her eyes to meet his.
But she would neither look at him nor suffer his endearments.
"Get up, Griff, and leave me alone. I don't want to hear any more excuses."
There was such a peremptory sharpness in her voice that Griff had no choice but to obey. The quarrel had come, but he had not dreamed that his mother would have taken it as badly as this.
The fire had burnt very low when he next ventured into the room. The old lady was still in the same attitude.
"Mother," whispered Griff.
She made no answer for awhile; then the tears ran slowly down her cheeks—those scanty tears of the old, which are so much bitterer, so much more heavily laden, at the end of a lifetime's disappointments.
"It is time I went, Griff. You are tired of the old woman, you and Kate."
Then there followed such a storm of lover-like protestations, such a fondling of the wrinkled face and hands, that these two might never have been mother and son at all, but just a pair of newly-married youngsters getting through the business of their first quarrel. And Griff vowed, at the end of it all, that nothing would induce him to leave the Manor, since the dearest old lady in the world wanted him to stay. Whereupon the mother got up from her chair, wiped her eyes, smoothed out the rumples in her dress, and put twice as much asperity as usual into her voice.
"Now you are ridiculous, Griff. Dear, dear; here have I been wasting my time in crying—it was only a tear or two, though, was it?—when I should have been supplying you with wits. Stay on at the Manor, when you have bought Gorsthwaite? Waste your money, and let the house drop to pieces for want of looking after? Boy, where is your common sense?"
And that was how Griff came to take his wife to Gorsthwaite Hall.