Wastralls: A Novel

by C. A. Dawson Scott

The shallows of his mind were alive with darting thoughts. The long long contest had been declared in his favour, the adversary was not so much beaten as destroyed and yet, on the heels of his rejoicing, crept little yapping doubts.

The vision of the justice-room, of that quiet figure in the quiet chamber, was for him repellently interesting. As long as he could imagine the fine mist of her breath, the rising and falling of her breast, he was only conscious of his approaching triumph. Time, however, brought a change, for now Sabina was more than quiet, she was still. Her blue eyes were frozen, she rested in a peace deeper than that of sleep and, whereas the sleeper is harmless...

Though he did not yet understand, his satisfaction began to dwindle. He drew nearer to the hearth, to the warm living fire. The wind still shrieked a warning overhead but on the house, especially the part beyond the kitchen, a hush had fallen. Byron found the silence oppressive. If a mouse had come out of the wainscot and flitted bright-eyed about the floor, he would have welcomed it, but the place was empty even of minute and furtive life. The thick walls leaned together, brooding over stagnant space, over the dust of dead hopes, the smell and the suspicion of mould, of more than mould. They shut the man in with his dry husk of satisfaction, bade him observe it shrivelling before a new growth, a growth at which he dared not look, it seemed so closely to resemble fear.

Yet—fear?

In the unhappy past he had borne himself stoutly on the assumption that he was the stronger, that he had only to rise and assert himself. That very day he had put this contention to the proof and now Sabina, in her new stillness, was threatening—what was she threatening?

If he were to smoke a pipe he would be more at ease! Pipes were associated in his mind with long dreams of Gray, when he had wandered over the springy turf of the headland, seen her hair in the brown weed of the pools, the curve of her brow in the gull's wing; when he had sat by the fire and his vision had been broken, like water, by the light passing of her feet. Smoking, he might be able to banish the stark figure in the great four-poster and the crowding thoughts connected with it, might be able to replace them with Gray. He rose to fetch the tobacco-jar. It stood among the bottles on the cupboard shelf and to get it he must turn his back upon the door into the passage, upon that door behind which lay a something against which, though he could put no name to it, he must be on his guard. For a moment he hung irresolute on one foot, then sank back in the chair. He could not go. Though such a brave fellow and so strong, he did not dare.

During his intermittent labours he had slaughtered, as part of his work, every sort of farm creature. Sheep, pigs, bullocks, old and diseased animals, the wild-fowl that came over Trevorrick in the winter, the seals that haunted Morwen Cove. He had slaughtered as a duty. The creatures were, to him, food or refuse and he had killed them. He had also killed Sabina.

He tried to think of her as so much dead flesh, an old animal, maimed, useless, and perverse; but though the distorted trunk of Sabina might be dead, the dominant spirit with which he had been for so many years in conflict, that he had not killed. The vision of Sabina's dead body and frozen eyes began to fade. Worse things were about than bodies and glazed sightless eyes.

His wife had shown her affection for him by a cheery liking for his society, by an occasional shy caress. Although she used round terms she had been easy-tempered and if it had not been for Wastralls, that bone of contention, he would have had a good life with her. Sharp with the hinds, direct of speech, he had never seen her roused to wrath. She had told him once "It was not worth while being angry."

"I don't believe as you could, not to say, lose yer temper."