The Story of Bessie Costrell

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

The lock on Bolderfield's box had been forced long before; it opened to her hand. A heap of sovereigns and half-sovereigns lay on one side, divided by a wooden partition from the few silver coins, crowns and half-crowns, still lying on the other. She counted both the gold and silver, losing her reckoning again and again, because of the sudden anguish of listening that would overtake her.

Thirty-six pounds on the one side, not much more than thirty shillings on the other. When John left it there had been fifty-one pounds in gold, and rather more than twenty pounds in silver, most of it in half-crowns. Ah! she knew the figures well.

Did that man who had spoken to the landlord in the public-house suspect? How strange they had all looked! What a silly fool she had been to change so much of the silver, instead of sticking to the gold! Yet she had thought the gold would be noticed more.

When was old John coming back? He had written once from Frampton to say that he was 'laid up bad with the rheumatics,' and was probably going into the Frampton Infirmary. That was in November. Since then nothing had been heard of him. John was no scholar. What if he died without coming back? There would be no trouble then, except—except with Isaac.

Her mind suddenly filled with wild visions—of herself marched through the village by Watson, as she had once seen him march a poacher who had mauled one of Mr. Forrest's keepers—of the towering walls of Frampton Gaol—of a visible physical shame which would kill her—drive her mad. If, indeed, Isaac did not kill her before any one but he knew! He had been that cross and glum all these last weeks—never a bit of talk hardly—always snapping at her and the children. Yet he had never said a word to her about the drink—nor about the things she had bought. As to the 'things' and the bills, she believed that he knew nothing—had noticed nothing. At home he was always smoking, sitting silent, with dim eyes, like a man in a dream—or reading his father's old books, 'good books,' which filled Bessie with a sense of dreariness unspeakable—or pondering his weekly paper.

But she believed he had begun to notice the drink. Drinking was universal in Clinton, though there was not much drunkenness. Teetotallers were unknown, and Isaac himself drank his beer freely, and a glass of spirits, like anybody else on occasion. She had been used for years to fetch his beer from the public, and she had been careful. But there were signs—

Oh! if she could only think of some way of putting it back—this thirty-odd pounds. She held her head between her hands, thinking and thinking. Couldn't that little lawyer man to whom she went every month at Bedford, to fetch her legacy money—couldn't he lend it her, and keep her money till it was paid? She could make up a story, and give him something for himself to induce him to hold his tongue. She had thought of this often before, but never so urgently as now. She would take the carrier's cart to Bedford next day, while Isaac was at work, and try.

Yet all the time despair was at her heart. So hard to undo! Yet how easy it had been to take and to spend. She thought of that day in September, when she had got the news of her legacy—six shillings a week from an old aunt—her father's aunt, whose very existence she had forgotten. The wild delight of it! Isaac got sixteen shillings a week in wages—here was nearly half as much again. She was warned that it would come to an end in two years. But none the less it seemed to her a fortune—and all her life, before it came, mere hard pinching and endurance. She had always been one to spend where she could. Old John had often rated her for it. So had Isaac. But that was his money. This was hers, and he who, for religious reasons, had never made friends with or thought well of any of her family, instinctively disliked the money which had come from them, and made few inquiries into the spending of it.

Oh! the joy of those first visits to Frampton, when all the shops had seemed to be there for her, and she their natural mistress! How ready people had been to trust her in the village! How tempting it had been to brag and make a mystery! That old skinflint, Mrs. Moulsey, at 'the shop,' she had been all sugar and sweets then.

And a few weeks later—six, seven weeks later—about the beginning of October, these halcyon days had all come to an end. She owed what she could not pay—people had ceased to smile upon her—she was harassed, excited, worried out of her life.