Relict of Josiah Begg

Taranaki Daily News, 18 December 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

Relict of Josiah Begg

bay

Vincent Cornier)

Discreet behind varied curtains the village was all one curious eye, and that, directed on the cottage garden, where the mighty red-berried holly trees grew, beyond the stumpy inn. The landlord of the Three Cranes whistled in his porch that Christmas Eve. It --would be as well, thought he, to advise the relict of Josiah Begg that he in his grandeur was abroad. Not for him, with his immense prerogatives as gossip-,monger in chief to Charlton Brough, the idling slinkiness of his inferiors. No. Mine host was out in the open to do battle —for battle is assuredly was, that grim assault upon the newly made widow’s privacy. It had gone around the village of Charlton [Brough that Mrs. Begg was leaving its bounds,. Not’ to hide her grief in decency in .the village was in itself a heinous crime against. their vaunted ordinances. But, to leave the village, to go abroad, to go to foreign shores, if Charlton Brough could be,-one eye it ached to be one hoot.

The villagers seethed. Old Josiah Begg hardly in his grave, and she not ordered his head-stone even; nor had she dropped one flower on his mound '. . .

and goiiig abroad! Mine host, well learned man, had but the night before talked wisely, and profoundly in cynicism, of modern woman. He had also.. mentioned where the ducking stool used to stand beside the pond. , His customers and cronies had' shaken, their heads’.and repeated..all this delicate allusion to their spouses, but starkly. For women’s tongues. want sharpening, even though for agreement. A truce was in the village. No household quarrelled;, time passed along the enormous ways of speculation arid contempt that the relict oft Josiah Begg had .opened. /

.A dozen gawkish men had shaved each day from the time when old Begg’s illness began. Two had been loudly acclaimed to have adjured drink for ever. Three had affected collars for their' every evening wear and /one had bought a bicycle; two gave great attention to their hands and .nailsFor was it not accepted that old Josiah Begg had wealth untold? Despite the fact' that he lived in the old ‘bottom-street.’ cottage and followed desultorily the craft of dry-set stone wall. builder, upon the moorland pastures, no man had. heard him complain of- poverty, nor had any woman’ssearching eye ..- detected' one trace of it • upon) the -well-kept household'goods of these two,, mail.and, wife. Now she was a widow-she was a prize. Joyce Hayward, as she had been, was far too comely 'and gently nurtured to have endured marriage with old Josiah Begg, had ho not money.. -And -now, a dozen men softly cufsed themselves for disappointed fools, the attractive widow was to go her ways, despising their causes/ As she despised their unwritten laws of conduct.

Josiah the women sneered now, had been old enough to be her father. Then, having sneered their fill, they thought. Had anyone noticed between the Beggs any outward signs of conjugality? They canvassed this point, avidly . . . No, [no one had. Wherd had anyone noticed a true husbandly Of wifely affection between them? Nowhere,

'Were they-main, and wife, the [shrews all asked. And that a question left unasked for nine long years. Sincb, first- Josiah Begg brought his-.grave young wife to the village no one had thought of ■that phase. Now he had gone his eternal way and had left her, their only hope of efficient contumely against her lay by way of this sudden suggestion. They had sneered, . they had: thought—now was the finality in action of such narrow. thought processes made manifest. 'Each unit in that great village eye saw With,a bitterer light. In one hour they had convinced themselves' of her infamy. She had not, said they,; been', old Begg's wife. So—pooh— a, drab: why not hoot?. Or, failing such,' why not ptobe in -bn her life as ,a lance upon living bone? - /They haft hurt'.'in their' souls, lain there by her unheeding touch.' .‘Terribly they-long-ed to hurt, her,in return

Ah, the Vicar stout'and-childishly rosy, had’nodi ded to mine host and had stopped at. her door. Now we shall see, they crowed. ' But the Vicar was ,not admitted.'

A slim tail form in black drew back the olden door. ..The Vicar swept off his hat and took a.step forward, smiling .as befitted the mood and graced the state. [:[/,'[■ i ■

But—the .village almost howled' in angry wonder —the relict of Josiah Begg did not offer her hand in welcome. Instead, she raised it in half-weary

protest. Upbn her lips they x sa\v an icy smile that not one of them could have achieved; it was the smile of them who once had. smiled' o,n crowds from; hurrying tumbrile. The-, village saw her <Jiake her graceful head before*, an expostulation of the priest; saw her hand, suddenly a-tremble, touch at her thrbat; saw her face "whiten and her eyes go large. ■ She had. recovered herself and the door Was' closing, closing. The harridan; the shameless harridan . . . The Vicar replaced his. hat; and blankly gazed at the windows'. Then he stubbed hi<S stick pn the path and ’ walked ‘away. Hie face” was purple, for he knew the village eye, arid dreaded all it saw. For upwards of ah hour the villagers talked this episode over. 'By this they were boldly whipping aprons over arms ;jnd entering one-another’s houses. That their sole topic of discussion wits the relict of Josiah Begg that lady was left in no doubt. ■She entiled again that icily imperial smile as she chanced, front her window, do see groups of children standing awkwardly and gap-mouthed at their inothero’ doors gazing all on the Beggs’ cottage.

So would they gaze just so long as their eldbrri talked behind them, not realising how tlieii". secret conclaves were thus, innocently, betrayed.

Ten o’clock . . . and there arrived the auctioneer from the near-by m&rkfet town. So there. Would you believe it. That woman whs going, to ‘sell-up’ her household. Not so much as a question had she asked of village pundits on the advisability of undertaking such a momentous thing. All on her own had she made decision. Again swiftly Acrid outbursts and a hissing accompaniment of ejaculations; a portentous, amazing and sidling shaking of heads.

Ten-thirty. The Three Cranes opened its doors. The auctioneer left Mrs. Begg and walked straight into the inn, all decked out with its rude. Christmas decorations. And there was not a man at home in the village but who was furnished feverishly, if penniless, by his womenfolk with money. Away to the Three Cranes went all of them.

And Mrs. Begg, noticing the auctioneer’s niovements and the almost unprecedented rush of custom that followed his wake, smiled yet again, this time half wearily, half pityingly, as one smile? down on a tiresomely, lovable child.

She spoke to the old clock that had ticked away the last nine years of her life. “Poor, poor fools,”-she said. Into a black steel deed case she packed what remained of a pile of papers. This was locked, and secreted the key within her bosom. It dangled, deathly co,ld, upon its thin chain on her heart.

She thought of something, felt the key’s chill and laughed, in a sound that'set a hollow echo shimmering 0 through the half dismantled house. The key of°the deed box had warmed; she could not feel it. She braced her shoulders, looked at the clock once more, and held her head high as she made her way upstairs. One room had been his. She looked around it and closed its door. Her eyes grew red and wet about their rims. The other room had been hers.' By the. side of its trim little bed she knelt and prayed, prayed and called and moaned as if her very heart was torn; cried and shuddered and besought her God, for happiness.

' And (here must have come within the tiny house a whispering of peace for, at twelve o'clock, serene and Beautiful of eye, the relict of Josiah Begg, lips parted prettily and -bosom all aflame, sat at her window, hidden; waiting, waiting.

The , village had learned that.' the cottage and its contents 'were to be sold anil the money so obtained given td. charity. This point they debated with a wondp.r--;that ■ in some way dulled their previous \ .'sullen anger,*

Now they recalled, not to Mrs. Begg, a thousand thoughtful moods of he who bad died. Why, with his almost cultured, voice, had he had such horny hands? . Why, 'ivith his certain intellect and undoubted education, had he chosen of all things work his days through in chipping shaping hnd setting -stones, out on the desolate moors? Wily had he always • helped the- under-dog ? Why had he always gripped his hands and looked like death the moment Rafter he had shown any form of anger? Why? ■ , .'. > \ • ' Thpn, where did he ■ come from -to Chariton Brough ? .- And where I, had, she; come from, tiffs graceful quiet, young wife of his? In all these years they' had never Thought''tot question on these subjects Then, .with/ .recurrent gusts of affrontedly angry pridfi,'They-recalled that never, had. opportunities beeii-i giv'eh them'. for ’ such discussion. A elose couple, if * -ever there - was one, they sagely told each other.

. Ah well.;Nothing more remained but to watch. When was the woman going? . . . There was one thing to her credit; she had been dressed decently in black, when the Vicar, called. At one o’clock a superb limousine ran into tha village,' curved gracefully, pointed its bonnet in the direction whence -it had come, and stopped before the cottage that-held a woman; the relict of Josiah Begg., , ;■ ? The chauffeur got down and swept open the door. A : tall iron-grey haired man, whose face appeared-radiantly youthful, despite its lines and its grave cool eyes, stepped into the street and moved to the door. It swung open. The relict of Josiah Begg, no longer in black, stood there. - White was she, all white and soft of every line as is a bride. The' village eye saw her hands outstretched; the village heart -stood still before the glory of her f&cb. Inside.

“Darling, my darling. Thank God it is-all over,’ said he. “And you still want me, John? Still want me?” “As - always, and for ever,' my woman.” His tears were with hers as they kissed. , So the village eye saw a man and woman ewCep away from their ken for ever in. that car. The man carried a big' black deed box and trod dike. a god. The woman trembled and was as coral flushed as a girl before the altar. So swept from the villagee life one who had given all, and the deed box could have told how gteat that alb had been. For in it lay the private papers of one Josiah Trevcrne and "his ticket-of-leave. He, who had murdered thirty years before, had served twenty years of his life sentence, and' the woman who had denied her life its love for nine long years and more went cut again into the world /to enjoy both—Trevernea eldest daughter.