IN WHICH NANCY DISCUSSES THE SITUATION WITH
JAGGER
IN hamlets like Mawm, which are familiarised with nothing except the commonplace (for even the natural phenomena which arouse the wonder and admiration of every visitor are just ordinary features of the landscape to those who have looked upon them from their birth) an occasional episode is welcomed as a spice that gives an agreeable flavouring to life; but a succession of episodes, like an over-measure of spice, soon creates distaste and even revulsion. Ever from the date of the robbery startling events had succeeded each other with such rapidity that the villagers were stupefied by the unaccustomed whirligig. It was as if the earth which had always been so substantial and secure had become subject to sudden tremors and upheavals, which had already wrought the ruin of some familiar structures, and might for anything they knew bring the solid mass of the mountains down upon their heads.
Swithin Marsden and Jack Pearce, drawn together at last by the strong twofold cord of a common sorrow and a common hate, took care that the community should trace these disturbing occurrences and disasters to their origin in Inman, and that astute man’s star set as quickly as it had risen. When the mourners returned from following Polly Marsden’s body to its resting place at Kirkby Mawm it is doubtful if the man had more than one staunch adherent in the whole neighbourhood.
One, however, there was. Police-Constable Stalker, all the more because public opinion was now ranged definitely on the other side, persisted that Inman was an injured man; and he set aside the wrong done to Swithin’s granddaughter as a venial offence which many of the master-carpenter’s critics had good reason for condoning if they would but examine their own secret records. The suggestion that the Drakes owed their troubles to the same agency he dismissed with the cryptic assertion that “them ’at lives t’ longest’ll see t’ most;” and he allowed it to be understood that he was devising a trap which would provide the neighbourhood with a climax in sensations if all went well.
The accident which meanwhile kept Inman a prisoner was a misfortune that individual heartily cursed. The extent of it nobody knew but himself, for his wife’s offer of help was refused with an emphasis that forbade repetition. In plain words she was told to keep away from his room, and even Keturah’s ministrations were declined.
“He’s damaged his leg; that’s what he’s done,” said the woman. “He can hardly shift himself off o’ t’ bed. It caps me he doesn’t send for t’ doctor.”
Nancy was indifferent. Although she was moving about again she was still weak, and too dispirited to concern herself over the ailment or attitude of a man who hated her. His rough dismissal had been, indeed, a relief, and afforded her a sense of freedom and an opportunity for its enjoyment which were as welcome as they were unexpected.
Her baby’s death had left her without an interest in life, and it had done more: it had half-persuaded her that it was useless to fight against fate.
“A Clegg wife
And it’s sorrow or strife!”