Bess of the Woods

by Warwick Deeping

The candles were quenched in Bess’s room; her gay clothes were laid out ready for the morrow. Jeffray rose at last from the window-seat, rang the bell for Gladden, and ordered him to have candles carried to his room. Down in the street an old man with flapping brim of his hat turned down over his face, had been loitering to and fro under the shadows of the houses. He limped away as the church clocks struck ten, turned into the opening of a narrow alley, and entered the doorway of a low tavern. Isaac Grimshaw was in Lewes. His son was dead, his brother Solomon taken, the secret of the treasure betrayed by Bess. He had seen the girl drive with Jeffray through the town, had watched her enter several of the shops, and lodge at the Star Inn with her lover. Isaac had talked to one of the stable-men in the yard. He had heard that the coach was ordered for the morning, and that Jeffray and Bess were bound for Newhaven to take passage for France.

XLVI

It was early next morning when they left the town of Lewes behind upon its hill, and took the road winding across the flats towards the sea. The clouds were heavy over the downs that day, checkering the slopes with sunlight and with shadow. The Ouse burnished the broad pastures where the cattle browsed; and the green corn, dusted with scarlet poppies, waved and rippled in the freshening wind.

What zest had there been in the day for Bess since she had first wakened in the great bed to hear the clocks of Lewes striking, and the chatterings of the starlings on the tiles! The strange stir of the town, the piled-up roofs and white-faced gables, the breadth and beauty of the room she woke in charmed all her senses. She had put on those gay clothes thrice dear to her woman’s heart by reason of their love-given sanctity. The picture the mirror had made of her had made her smile and blush at her own image. And Jeffray’s eyes had proved more eloquent than any mirror. Then had come much running to and fro of servants, stir and bustle as the coach rattled out into the streets. The joyous reality of it all had included even the valedictory radiance of the landlord’s face, the barking of the dogs, the shouting of the urchins who had capered and turned somersaults for pence. It had been life at last for her, life, generous, bubbling to the brim.

So thickly had new impressions been thrust upon Bess that she lay back in the corner of the coach, and let her heart realize its dreams. Jeffray, who was watching her, saw that her silence betrayed no sadness. He was half sunk in a reverie himself, with the jingling of the harness and the thunder of the wheels. He watched Bess, and let the past drift before his eyes, and set its seal upon the glamour of the present.

They left Kingston village in a whirl of dust. Soon Iford was past, and the stunted spire of Rodmell showed white amid the trees. They went through the village at a brisk trot, under dusty elms and glittering poplars, with the sun-tanned Sussex women staring at them from doorways. A number of children were playing before the inn where roses climbed over the trellises. The youngsters ran beside the coach, cheering and waving their hands. Bess leaned forward and waved to them in turn, her eyes full of laughing light as she threw the children pence and watched them scramble. Everything was instinct with life for her that day, and her heart went out in blitheness to the world.

They were about a mile from Rodmell, with the road running through lonely marsh-lands and diked meadows, when the Pevensel folk made a last snatch at the thread of Bess’s fate. A rough shed stood at the edge of the field with a brick bridge before it closed by a gate. There was no one in sight upon the road, and nothing moved athwart the green background of the landscape, save the cattle browsing in the meadows.

The coach was within ten lengths of the cow-shed when two men came running out with a glinting of pistol-barrels in the sunlight. The younger of the two set himself in the middle of the road, and waved his arm to signal the coach to stop. It was then that Peter Gladden did one of the few bold things of his life, more from sudden impulse perhaps than from any superabundance of courage. Picking up the blunderbuss, he leaned forward over the baggage on the roof, and, chancing the singeing of his companion’s wigs, let fly straight at the man in the road.

The roar of the bell-mouthed old musket set the horses plunging into a gallop. Gladden had winged his man, for the fellow had been badly hit in the thighs and body by the leaden slugs with which the blunderbuss had been loaded. He fell heavily, and tried to crawl across the road to escape the coach that was thundering down upon him.

Gladden’s shot from the top of the coach was the first hint that Jeffray had of the adventure. He felt the coach sway and creak as the horses broke into a gallop, and heard the shouting of the servants. Instinctively he caught at Bess, and drew her down as a face flashed up at the window, a white, withered face, with snarling teeth and silvery hair blown by the wind. There was the crack of a pistol, and the splintering of a bullet through the off panel of the coach.