A Woman's War - Warwick Deeping (best black authors .TXT) 📗

happen to know the woman’s name,” he said;

“but she must have been a good ‘un, Mr. Burt, to be

showed in the same class as the doctor’s lady. Why

and the farmer withdrew his hands from his pockets

and tapped his left palm with his right forefinger “why,

d’you know what she did when she’d been over here and

seen how we were fixed?”

 

Mr. Carrington paused expressively, and looked the

young clergyman in the face, as though defying him to

conceive the nature of this unique woman’s genius.

 

“No, I have not heard.”

 

“Well, Mr. Burt, there’s religion and there’s religion;

some of us wear black coats on a Sunday and put silver

in the plate; some of us aren’t so regular and respectable,

but we play the game, and that’s more than many of your

sitting pew-hens do. Excuse me, sir, I’m rather rough

in the tongue. Well, Mrs. Murchison, she doesn’t strike

you as a district visiting sort of lady to look at; she’s got a

fine face and a head of hair, like the Countess of Camber,

who gave the prizes away at our Agricultural Show last

season. Well, Mr. Burt, she came over here, and saw

what sort of a fix we were in, two grumbling nurses, and

not much more than straw and sacking. Well, what does

she do but take one of my wagons and my men and go

off to Roxton all on her own.”

 

Mr. Carrington paused for breath, took off his sun-hat

and wiped his forehead with it, his eyes remaining fixed

emphatically on the Curate’s face.

 

“And what d’you think, sir? Back came that wagon

of mine loaded up with linen, and basins, and crockery,

a bed or two, and God knows what. She’d ransacked her

own house, sir, and gone round to all the neighbors begging like a papist. Get the stuff? She did that. Not

easy to say no to a woman with a face and a voice like hers.

 

Carmagee joined in, and Canon Stensly, and a good

score more. And dang my soul, Mr. Burt, she’d been

working with her husband here, day in, day out; and

that’s the sort of thing, sir, that I call religion.”

 

The Curate began to look vaguely uncomfortable under

the farmer’s concentrated methods of address. It took

much to move Mr. Carrington to words, but when once

moved, the result resembled the eruption of a long quiescent volcano, the vigor of the eruption corresponding

roughly to the length of the period of quiescence.

 

“I quite agree with you, Mr. Carrington,” he said,

with a certain boyish stiffness, as though he considered

it superfluous for the farmer to condemn his soul to perdition.

 

“You must excuse my language, Mr. Burt; when I get

worked up over a subject I must let fly. And it’s these

dirty lies that have been flying abroad about this good

lady’s husband that have made me hot, sir, to see justice

done.”

 

Mr. Burt appeared interested by the windows of the

house that glimmered from amid a mass of creepers like

water shining through the foliage of trees.

 

“One hears very curious rumors,” he acknowledged,

with a discreet frown.

 

“I suppose you’ve heard them over at Cossington?”

 

“Well, I have heard reports.”

 

“About our doctor here and the drink?”

 

Mr. Burt nodded.

 

“But I don’t think any one believed them,” he confessed.

 

The farmer’s right forefinger began to tap his left palm

again.

 

“Look here, sir, I ought to know something about Dr.

Murchison’s character, I imagine. The man’s been here

nearly a month, living in my house, and working like a

Trojan. We’ve had nearly sixty cases, what with the

pickers and our own people. You haven’t seen what

the doctor’s been through in this little epidemic of ours,

Mr. Burt, and I have. You get to the bottom of a man’s

nature when he’s working eighteen hours out of the

twenty-four, doing the nurse’s jobs as well as his own,

and feeding some of the kids with his own hands. I’ve

seen him come into my parlor, sir, at night, and go slap

off to sleep on the sofa, he was that done. And never,

not on one single blessed occasion, have I seen that man

show the white feather or touch a drop of drink!”

 

Mr. Burt appeared to become more and more embarrassed by being stared at vehemently in the face, as the

farmer’s right fist smacked the points of his argument

into his left palm. He had to return Mr. Carrington’s

stare, eye to eye, as a pledge of sincerity. He began to

fidget, to scan the horizon, and to fumble with his watchchain.

 

“Your evidence sounds conclusive,” he said; “I think

it is time I—”

 

Mr. Carrington ignored the little man’s restiveness, and

came and stood outside the gate.

 

“Now, I make it a rule in life, Mr. Burt, to take people just as I find ‘em, and not to listen to what all the old

women say. The rule of a practical man, you understand. Now—”

 

The Curate cast a flurried glance up the road, and pulled

out his watch.

 

“You must really excuse me, Mr. Carrington.”

 

“In a hurry, are you? Well, I was only going to say

that some of us people have come by a shrewd notion

how all this chaff got chucked about in these parts. Murchison was a first-class man, and some people got jealous

of him, and played a low-down game to get him out of

the town. You take my meaning, Mr. Burt?”

 

“Yes, certainly. Good Heavens, it is nearly twelve.

I must really say good-bye, Mr. Carrington; I hope—”

 

“One moment, sir. I won’t mention any name, but

perhaps you are just as wise as I am. And what’s more,

Mr. Burt, from what I’ve heard, that” gentleman that we

know of has just been treated as he tried to treat a better

man than himself. It was his wife, they say—”

 

“Excuse me, Mr. Carrington, but some one is calling

you, I think.”

 

“They can wait. Now—”

 

“To be frank with you, Mr. Carrington, I can’t.”

 

“Oh, well, sir, if you are in such a hurry, I’ll postpone

my remarks. I was only going to say—”

 

But Mr. Burt gave him a wave of the hand, and fled.

 

A girl of seventeen came down the path from the house,

between the standard roses, her black hair already gathered up tentatively at the back of a brown neck, and the

smartness of her blouse and collar betraying the fact that

she considered herself a mature and very eligible woman.

 

“Dad, are you deaf?”

 

Mr. Carrington turned with the leisurely composure of

a father.

 

“What’s all this noise about, Nan?”

 

“I’ve been calling you for five minutes. They’re all

there in the fourteen-acre.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Why, Mrs. Murchison and the Canon, and old Lady

Gillingham, and half a dozen more. Dr. Murchison sent

one of the boys over for you.”

 

Mr. Carrington began to hustle.

 

“Dang it, I expected them tomorrow!”

 

“What a man you are, dad!” and she stood like an

armed angel of scorn in the middle of the path; “you

can’t go and see them in your shirt-sleeves.”

 

“Bless my soul, Nan, where ‘s my coat?”

 

“On the fence. You were talking to Mr. Burt long

enough to forget it. Why didn’t you bring him in?”

 

Mr. Carrington was struggling into his alpaca coat,

his daughter watching his contortions with the superior

serenity of seventeen.

 

“Bring who in?”

 

“Mr. Burt.”

 

“The little man’s as shy as a calf.”

 

“Perhaps you talked him silly.”

 

“Look here, my dear, it’s too hot to argue. Is my tie

proper?”

 

His daughter regarded him with critical candor.

 

“It will do,” she answered, resignedly, as though her

father’s ties were beyond all promise of salvation.

 

The camp of the fruit - pickers in Mr. Carrington ‘s

fourteen-acre stood out like a field-hospital under the

August sun. There were half a dozen white tents pitched

near the two sheds, and on an ingenious frame-work of

poles an awning had been spread so that convalescents

could be brought out to lie in the shade, and gain the

maximum amount of air. The whole place looked trim

and clean, and a faint perfume of some coal-tar disinfectant permeated the air.

 

Mr. Carrington, as he emerged from the orchard gate,

saw quite a representative gathering moving through the

camp. Several of the Roxton celebrities who had subscribed to the relief fund, had been invited by Porteus

Carmagee, the treasurer, to drive over and see how the

money had been spent. The farmer recognized Lady

Gillingham’s carriage and pair waiting in the roadway

beyond the white field-gate. The Canon’s landau had

drawn up deferentially behind it, while Mrs. Murchison’s

pony, that drew her governess car, was being held by one

of the pickers who had lost two children but a week

ago.

 

Lady Sophia appeared to be holding quite a state inspection, for she had Murchison in his white linen jacket

at one elbow, and the Canon in his black coat at the other.

She was making considerable use of her lorgnette a very

affable, commonplace, and well-meaning great lady, who

felt it to be a most Christian condescension on her part

to drive out and examine this temporary hospital and its

London poor. Catherine Murchison and Mrs. Stensly

were talking to one of the women lying under the awning.

The treasurer had remained judiciously in the background, and was snapping away to three Roxton ladies

who appeared to be fascinated by some subject foreign

to enteric fever and pickers of fruit.

 

Porteus Carmagee looked very much amused. A thin

little lady in a hat far too big for her, giving her an indistinct resemblance to a mushroom, was attempting to draw

more definite information from the lawyer by the feminine

pretence of unbelief.

 

“But are you sure, Mr. Carmagee? It may only be a

rumor; one hears so many extraordinary things.”

 

“I am perfectly sure, madam, There are facts, however, that cannot well be discussed.”

 

The suggestion of mystery lent a double glamour to

Porteus Carmagee’s information.

 

“Then he has left the town for good?”

 

“I think I may swear to that as a fact.”

 

“And alone?”

 

“Quite alone.”

 

“But surely his wife?”

 

Mr. Carmagee tightened up his mouth and stared reflectively into space.

 

“Don’t ask me to unravel the complexities of other

people’s households, Mrs. Blount.”

 

“But how extraordinary! Of course every one knows

that she is ill.”

 

“Every one knows a great deal more of one’s private

affairs, madam, than one knows one’s self.”

 

The three ladies exchanged glances; they formed

three spokes of curiosity, with Mr. Carmagee for the

hub.

 

“And no one has seen Betty Steel for some weeks.”

 

“That is so.”

 

“And it is rumored—”

 

“Then you have heard that too?”

 

“What, my dear?”

 

“That it is an affection of the skin.”

 

The lawyer extricated himself from the group, and

moved to where Catherine’s golden head shone Madonnalike over the face of a little child.

 

“Affection of tom-cats,” quoth he, under his breath;

“it is curious the way these women play with a piece of

scandal like a cat with a mouse. It mustn’t die, or half

the zest of the game would be gone. Catherine, my

friend, you are different from the rest.”

 

During these digressions Mr. Carrington had brought

himself within the ken of Lady Gillingham’s lorgnette.

It appeared to the farmer