The Black Diamond

by Francis Brett Young

She did not pass on to her father what Abner had told her. He came back from Shrewsbury that evening tired and depressed. ‘The doctors reckon that we were only just in time with poor Hayes,’ he said. ‘It’s a near shave for his left arm. They’ve had to open it right up to the shoulder and he’ll be lucky if he’s out of hospital by Christmas. I don’t know what we can do, with Harris ill as well.’

‘There’s Fellows,’ she said.

‘Yes, there’s Fellows,’ he repeated, thinking of other things. He stared at her vaguely, but it seemed to her that his eyes were searching her, and she left him, blushing.

Abner’s new work kept him almost exclusively on the farm premises, and for this reason he and Marion often crossed each other’s paths. They met so often that Marion lost a little of her shame in speaking with him. She handled him cleverly, so that in the end he lost a good deal of the awkwardness that she herself had created. She was frank and kind, helping him in many small things. He came to take her for granted, and even to like her. In a little time he became accustomed to the cowman’s job and took a pride in it. To all intents and purposes he was his own master; for the dairy was Marion’s province, and Mr Prosser rarely interfered with its management.

Within a week of his hammering, Harris returned, apparently not much the worse for it. Nobody but old Avery knew what had happened, and the ploughman kept to himself a story that was hardly flattering. Abner had been prepared to treat him friendlily; but he soon saw that Harris had no intention of doing the same, maintaining a surly silence that was never to be broken, since their work now lay in different directions.

So autumn passed, the first frosts of winter whitened the upland, and the first ploughing began. Abner kept to his own work. The Prossers’ dairy was a small one, for their pasture land was limited, but he found that with the two station deliveries, the milking, and the care of the cows, his hands were pretty full. He saw less and less of Wolfpits, for it had been arranged that he should take his evening meal at the farm on his return from the station, and Mary was not altogether sorry for this, since it freed her from many embarrassing moments.

Abner was now earning a good wage, and the household was relatively prosperous. He was even able to replace the watch that had been stolen at Bran. In this peaceful interlude the only thing that really disquieted Mary’s mind was George’s letter. She had never yet dared to show it to Abner, but she had not destroyed it, and from time to time a cruel fascination compelled her to take it from the drawer where she had hidden it and to read it again. It seemed strange to her that she had received no other word from him. If he could write once he could surely write again, and though she did not dare to confide its contents to Mrs Mamble, she induced the old woman to question the wife of a policeman at Lesswardine whom she had attended in a confinement as to the conditions under which a prisoner in the county jail might receive visitors or write letters. A prisoner in George’s condition, Mrs Mamble told her, was entirely separated from the outside world for the first three months of his sentence. After that, if his conduct were good, he might write and receive one letter every month, and invite one visitor to see him during the same period. This knowledge amazed her; for George had now been in jail more than nine months but had only written her this one, disturbing letter and had never once asked her to visit him. The fact filled her with an inexplicable pang of jealousy; but what troubled her more deeply was to know that Mrs Mamble was conscious of her humiliation.

‘The less you think about him the better,’ said the old woman stoutly. ‘He was never no good to you, and never will be.’

But Mary could not put the matter out of her mind. Once again she commissioned Mrs Mamble to make inquiries in Chapel Green and find out if old Mrs Malpas had visited George in prison. The answer was definite. Mrs Malpas had never left the village since the day of the trial, although she had received several letters from George, as the postman, who lodged with one of Mrs Mamble’s friends, could vouch.

Then Mary hardened her heart; for she guessed that George was choosing for his only visitor the widow woman from Lesswardine, whom she had seen at the trial. Re-reading George’s letter she burned with anger. What right had he to dictate to her how she should behave? Her soul was full of hatred and contempt, so that she almost wished that she had given him real cause for suspicion. In this state she allowed her memory to dwell with tenderness on the surprising moment that had come to her and Abner by the sea-crows’ pool. She felt that she had been foolish to shrink from it. And yet she dared not let Abner see what she was thinking; knowing for certain, that if she did so something violent and terrible must happen to them. For herself she had no fear; but the thought of what the children might suffer chilled her. And she released her surfeit of feeling in a more passionate devotion to these small creatures, determining, whatever might happen, to hold on for the remaining eight months of George’s imprisonment. This artificial resolution made her harden herself more than ever against Abner.