The Black Diamond

by Francis Brett Young

‘I’d forgive him taking it. . . . I’d forgive him. Mr Harley says they’ll want twenty pound before they touch the case. Only twenty pound. . . . I can find more later. Give me twenty pound.’

‘She says she don’t know nothing about it,’ said Abner.

‘Says! It must have been George. No one else knew where I kept it. He’s hidden it. Up in his room. You must look . . . you must look!’

‘I know nothing about it,’ said Mary, mastering herself. ‘I’ve not seen a penny. I . . . I can’t talk to you. I wish you would go away.’

‘Leave the woman alone, missus,’ said Abner. ‘She’s enough to put up with without you. You’d best go out quiet. You’m not answerable. Come on, now!’

The old woman seemed to pull her strength together, looking from one to the other. They waited for a new outburst, but instead of speaking she suddenly threw up her hands and burst into a fit of choking sobs. Mary made a compassionate movement toward her, but Mrs Malpas stopped her with a violent gesture. Then she straightened her bonnet and moved to the door. She became her old, wiry, deliberate self. Her voice was clear and her face like stone.

‘If George took it,’ she said emphatically, ‘it was the devil that drove him, and I can’t do no more. But not one penny shall you ever get out of me, Mary Condover. You can starve, you and your children together, but don’t come crying to dad and me. You and your pride. . . .! Now you can see what you’ve to be proud of. The daughter of a thief and the wife of a thief. That’s what you are! I never want to set eyes on you again . . . you and your fancy lodger!’

She went out, leaving the door open behind her. Mary stood looking after her, shaken like a tree in the wind. Then she gave a curious laugh and sat down at the table. Abner could do nothing for her; but she managed to contain herself until she had risen and passed from his sight upstairs.

It was fortunate for them all in the suspense that now held them that the Shrewsbury assizes had been fixed for the middle of December, immediately before the Christmas vacation. On his committal by the Lesswardine bench, George had been taken at once to the county jail where he lay awaiting his trial. In the meantime the leisurely routine of work in those wintry valleys, disturbed so abruptly by these violent events, reasserted itself. The snow melted. To the sodden days of thaw succeeded a period of mild and mistily golden weather that would have seemed like spring had it not been so silent. The work on the pipeline began again like the progress of some great engine that had kept its power hissing beneath the snow, and daily gathered speed. Even the Pound House, still suspect by the police but happily safe until the Brewster sessions, regained its old popularity, though Mr Hind, having been duly warned, gave more attention to his business than ever before. It had been clear from the first that he had taken a violent dislike to Abner, whom he regarded as the cause of all his trouble. On the day of the inquest he had shown this by his silence; but when Abner appeared again at the inn, he told him in as many words that his custom wasn’t wanted. Susie, a little shaken by her father’s severity, implored him not to persist in coming to the Pound House, and though she appeared no less passionately devoted to Abner, the lovers’ meetings were fewer and their secrecy more precarious.

It was strange how little difference George’s absence made to life at Wolfpits. Within a week it almost seemed as if the place and its inhabitants had forgotten him. Neither Mary nor the children ever mentioned his name, and since the day of the police-court proceedings Abner had heard nothing from him but a single scribbled letter which George contrived to send from the lock-up by the hand of the young policeman who had drunk his beer. In this letter a new flicker of care for his family had shown itself: he had reminded Abner of his promise to stay at Wolfpits and look after them. ‘I would have sent you some money,’ he wrote, ‘but they’ve taken it off me. Mary can ask mother if she’s in a fix.’ The reminder was quite unnecessary. Abner had given his word to a pal and meant to stick to it, though he foresaw a difficult moment when the plan should be disclosed to Mary. He could not see, for the life of him, how to open the subject, and so he let things take their course, waiting for the occasion to arrive without his interference.