Wastralls: A Novel

by C. A. Dawson Scott

The question frightened her and, for a moment, she shut her eyes. If only she could have shut the eyes of her mind, for suspicion was one thing, actual knowledge another. But no, a word was being whispered in her unwilling ear and already, although she refused to admit it she knew what lay behind Leadville's terrifying smile.

That time last night a light had been burning in the kitchen, yet he had told her he was in bed by ten. She had doubted then and, during the day, had found a hundred reasons for continuing to doubt. If her mind had swung uncertain, anxious to think generously, to discredit its own acumen, uncertainty was now over. The blood was drumming in her ears but, suddenly, above it rose the soft padding sound of a stockinged foot. Mrs. Tom opened her eyes quickly and from that moment forgot herself and her reluctance in an absorbed attention. For her the time was come when what was still hidden would be made clear. Leadville had got up from his seat and was crossing the room. He went directly to the wall cupboard, opened the green door and took something from the shelf. There was no groping, his hand fell at once on what was required and he turned away with it to the range. As if expecting to find a vessel of some kind on the top, he passed his hand slowly across the cavernous space. As it did not meet with an obstacle he paused and, for a moment, stood balancing in his habitual way from one foot to the other. Mrs. Tom saw that he was at a loss, that the directing impulse was no longer clear. In her curiosity, her distress, she had risen and followed him; and now stood by the table watching his face, his face which though the eyes were open was yet blind. On it trouble was depicted, trouble and anxiety. The onlooker had more than a suspicion of his purpose, knew indeed as well as if she had seen it what he held in his hand. Had he not cried out that the pipe Sabina had bought for him was poisoned?

She wondered what he had thought to find on the oven-top, what saucepan, kettle, pan. She had no doubt as to what he would do, but the actual means?

Leadville swayed from side to side in a long uncertainty and it was evident that his trouble grew. His face twitched, those unseeing eyes of his stared anxiously; and at last in a voice, hoarse and smothered, he uttered with immense effort two words:

"The ... jug..."

Startled by this desolate and abominable sound, Mrs. Tom shrank back from him. The words had come from those depths in which was lurking the guilty spirit of the man, they had come in spite of the swaddling bands of sleep, they had come laden and heavy laden. He wanted—a jug; and her thoughts flew to the jug that had stood on the table by Sabina's bed, the brown high-girdled jug which, after supper, was always placed on the oven-top that the contents might be kept warm until she was ready to drink them. Mrs. Tom remembered his expression when she had offered to brew cocoa for his supper—''Twas S'bina that drinked the cocoa.'

Byron had torn the veil from his deed. Mrs. Tom knew what was kept in the wall cupboard and where. She knew upon what bottle his hand had fallen. Presently she would make sure but she already knew. The measure meted to the old and damaged and useless of the farm animals had been meted to Sabina; and the hand that poured the poison had been the one which owed her everything.

After that exclamation which seemed to have been torn from some remote corner of his being, Leadville's agitation began to pass. His disappointment, even his purpose was forgotten and, for some time, he stood quietly by the range, his face wearing a fixed but no longer an intent look. The impulse that had driven him remorselessly, which had reconstructed for him the scene of the preceding night, which had shown that, like Zimri, there was for him no peace, was fading.

The chill of the night had begun to invade the kitchen and the sleep-walker seemed to be dully conscious of discomfort. He shivered slightly, stirred and then slowly, heavily, turned away. During the last few minutes he had lost vitality, grown older; and it was a man shouldering the full burthen of his years who went out of the kitchen and up the shallow treads of the stair.

CHAPTER XXI