Wastralls: A Novel

by C. A. Dawson Scott

Sabina manoeuvred the car so that she no longer had her back turned to the dark figure on the bench. To make the cocoa while in a sideways position was awkward, but the defenceless attitude had become impossible. She must know what was happening on the other side of the room. Profoundly disturbed, she yet measured the spoonfuls of cocoa with a steady hand. As Gray would not share the beneficial draught that night her aunt was mechanically careful to make only half the usual quantity. The lavish hand does not pile up a balance at the bank.

As Mrs. Byron set the jug of cocoa on the stove, in order that it might be kept hot till she was ready for it, Leadville broke the silence. He did not speak, but once more he laughed, and this time his was the satisfied laugh of a man who after long endeavour has found that of which he is in search.

His wife stared. "'Ow you made me jump," she said, a little breathlessly. A quality in the laugh, a certain sinister satisfaction, had made her flesh creep. What was it that had pleased him, that by his secret watching he had discovered? She tried to shake off the conviction of his strangeness. "Dunno what's come over me. I spose 'e can laugh at 'is own thoughts; but it's a funny thing, it makes me all goosey flesh."

Conquering an inclination to go out of the room, to leave Leadville to his secret satisfactions, she rolled herself to the table. "I should think you was feeling so leary as a grey'ound by this time," she said and, by speaking of the commonplace, would have relieved the tension. The queerness of Leadville's behaviour might after all be due to hunger for, as far as she knew, he had not had any food since morning.

The man cleared his throat. "There's no butter on the table," he said, looking past her at something on the other side of the room.

"Gray's taken every bit to market." His habit being to eat without comment what was set before him, Sabina felt a dim surprise that he should have asked for butter.

"She 'aven't. I see some on the shelf."

To ask him to fetch it did not occur to her. Turning the handle of the little car she went back to the linhay. It was possible that Gray, thoughtful for others, had put some aside.

As the trolly disappeared behind the door it was as it a hand swept from Byron's features the mask which hitherto had shrouded his resolve. Obscure, unrecognized, it had lain for many a day behind his everyday thoughts. The general upheaval had thrust it forward until it shone naked in a dreadful candour. So long had it been familiar that it came tame to the man's seeking hand. He knew at last what he must do. Sabina making the cocoa had shown it him.

Getting up from the bench and treading carefully—he whose step was always light—he tiptoed over to the wall cupboard. It yawned before him, a darkness hollowed in the solid masonry and with unerring certainty, as if his hand had gone that way in dreams, it fell on that which it sought, a little ribbed blue phial, with an orange label. The last occasion on which he had used it, had been when he adjudged Shep to be old and useless. The bottle was only a quarter full, and he felt sorry that he had wasted any of the precious contents on the dog. Would the quarter be sufficient for his purpose? For a moment he hung uncertain, but the passions which were riding him to destruction forced him to take the risk. He heard Sabina crossing the floor of the linhay and the repugnance with which she inspired him rose like nausea in his throat. He went blind with hatred, the hatred so long repressed, that primitive hatred of the under-dog. As one pressed for time, he uncorked the bottle and held it to the jug of cocoa. The colourless fluid gurgled as it flowed over the blue rim and the sound, striking through the man's absorption, woke in him the beginnings of fear. Even now, she might be able to come between him and success, this necessary, intolerably-longed-for success. He stared with wild eyes at the linhay door. If she had heard, if she came in and in her high brave way faced him and accused him, he was done. To use violence to Sabina was not in him. He could only work against her in secret, get her at a disadvantage, strike from behind. If she found him out, he would not dare any more, he would be beaten and it would break him. His spirit acknowledged that there was a limit.