Bess of the Woods

by Warwick Deeping

“Guineas, lad; she be as sweet on the gold dirt as Solomon on his liquor.”

Isaac leaned against the wall of the byre and explained the nature of the old woman’s grievance. The gist of it was that Isaac had never given her the eighty guineas that he had promised her on Bess’s marriage. Ursula Grimshaw was slipping into her dotage, and, like many an old creature in that maudlin December of life, she had waxed querulous and testy, jealous of her rights and greedy of her due. Her love of gold had increased with the waning of her intellect, and she was forever bemoaning Bess’s absence and grumbling at her brother for cheating her of her rights. Isaac, who was never eager to disburse gold, and had kept the real secret of their wealth from all save Ursula and Dan, his son, had met the old woman’s complaints with banter, and chuckled at her demand for the guineas he had promised. Ursula, however, had flown at last into a fit of senile rage, spread her claws, and spluttered like a cat. She would have the money, or Isaac should repent of cheating her because she was old and feeble. Had not Dan given Bess the brooch of emeralds? The girl should hear the whole truth unless the money was forthcoming. With dramatic spite, Ursula had tottered up out of her chair, shaken her stick at Isaac, and cackled out threats that had made her brother change his tone.

“We must fetch another bag out of the chest, lad,” Isaac said, at the end of the recital, “unless you are for giving up the guineas I gave ye.”

Dan scratched his head and frowned at the suggestion.

“Drat the old hussy,” he retorted, “I’ll give her none of my guineas. I be wanting a new wagon and new gear, and the girl’ll be wasting a powerful lot of money.”

Isaac’s face suggested the thought that a tap with an axe on the old lady’s crown would have solved the difficulty as clearly as possible. He suppressed the temptation towards violence, however, and bade Dan call at his cottage that night after it was dark. They would go to the Monk’s Grave and bring back the gold that should keep old Ursula quiet.

Bess had been vexing her ingenuity to discover how she might charm from Dan the secret of the brooch. This golden bauble starred with its emerald eyes seemed to her the one talisman that could break the silence of the past. She had tried to charm some confession from old Ursula, but the dame would tell Bess nothing, despite her grievance against Isaac. Thus when Dan, surly and morose, came in to Bess at supper-time, and told her curtly that he would be out with his gun that night, the girl grew keen and alert as a deer that scents peril on the wind.

Had not Dan given her the brooch on the morning after his last night out with his gun in Pevensel? She remembered that he had brought no birds back with him in the morning, and the more Bess pondered it, the more suspicious she grew of her husband’s honesty. To be sure Dan would be out in the forest at night now and again, and she more than suspected that he was in league with the land smugglers who worked from the sea up through Pevensel. Thorney Chapel was notorious in the neighborhood, and it was whispered that the parson had once locked a hard-pressed cargo in the vestry. Bess assured herself that there was some secret to be discovered. She made up her mind to follow Dan, and to see where he went that night in Pevensel.

After supper, looking meek and innocent, she took her candle, bade Dan good-night, and went up to bed. Bolting the door after her, she sat down on the chest to listen, after throwing a gray cloak over her shoulders and buckling on her shoes ready for the adventure. Half an hour passed before she heard Dan stumping to and fro in the kitchen beneath. She heard him take his gun down from the beam, call to his black spaniel, and unlatch the door. Swift and sure-footed she was out of the bedroom, and down the creaking stairs into the kitchen. The wood fire was burning brightly on the irons, the light twinkling on the pewter, and playing with the shadows in the dark corners of the room. She tried the door softly—found that Dan had locked it and taken the key. With a feeling of tense excitement, Bess unlatched the casement, climbed out on to the ledge, and slipped down into the garden. She stood listening a moment, cowering under the shadow of the wall, and looking out into the dark. She could see a light twinkling behind the kitchen window of Isaac’s cottage and hear voices coming gruffly out of the gloom. Stooping, and gliding under cover of the rose-bushes and the pea-sticks to the garden gate, she slipped out and passed along under the shadows of the apple-trees.

The voices came from the direction of Isaac’s cottage. Bess recognized the old man’s impatient treble, Dan answering him curtly in his gruff bass. The candle went out of a sudden, and she heard the yelp of a dog and the closing and locking of a door. Two dim figures showed in the murk before her. They moved away towards the woods. Bess, running forward on the edge of the orchard, reached Isaac’s cottage and crouched under the window, listening. She caught the whimpering of a dog, and knew that Dan had left the spaniel locked in the cottage. It would be safer for her to follow them now that they were alone.