Chapter V: How Beatrice Cultivated Local Talent

When Beatrice came out to offer her morning devotions to the sun the first sight which greeted her eyes was Ann Cobbledick, her landlady. The good soul was seated upon a stool, milking her cow in the centre of the road. There was not much traffic through the moorland village; but what there was had to make room for Ann and her cow. Her geese waddled and cackled around her, and her son Willum leaned against the wall of the linhay, blinking complacently and catlike.

“’Tis a fine marning this marning,” greeted the widow.

“Why do you always milk your cow in the middle of the road?” Beatrice asked.

“Mother milked ’en here, so did her mother, so did hers, and I be going to long as I lives. They laugh at I,” Ann went on, referring indirectly to the villagers. “Let ’en laugh. They can’t make butter same as me. I wouldn’t grease my boots wi’ the butter they makes. Bide still wi’ that tail, Artful, will ye? Them flies be that worriting,” she muttered.

“You should let Willum do the milking,” said Beatrice.

“Willum!” cried the fond mother. “Willum mun’t du nothing. Willum be dying o’ decline.”

Willum shuffled his feet into the dust, and muttered a hoarse acknowledgment of this fiction.

“Poor Willum!” said Beatrice sweetly.

“Willum wun’t die whiles he has his old mother to look arter he,” Ann went on. “I makes ’en eat and drink plenty. I wun’t let ’en work. Work would kill Willum. He be a scholar. There b’ain’t many as knows what Willum du. Willum says ’isself work would kill ’en.”

“I’m sure it would,” said Beatrice.

“Willum walks about the village all day,” continued Ann, warming to her subject. “He takes it easy, and that be good for ’en. And he smokes a lot. Smoking does Willum good. And he drinks a lot o’ beer. Beer be fattening, Willum says, and he knows ’cause he be a scholar. Willum would like to work, he says, but knows he mun’t. Make ’en decline faster, he says.”

“I shoots rabbuts,” muttered Willum, in self-defence.

“He shoots rabbuts,” echoed the proud mother. “Hear ’en? Shoots a lot, Willum du. That be good for ’en, and he trains dogs, and he brings the goosies home.”

“He mustn’t do too much,” said ironical Beatrice.

“That’s what I tell ’en,” cried Ann. “Mun’t du too much and strain yeself, Willum, I says. They boys be that daring! Willum thinks nothing o’ walking five mile wi’ his gun. Makes I worrit often, he du.”

“How will he manage when he hasn’t got you to look after him?” asked Beatrice.

“I’ll be finding a maiden for ’en soon,” said Ann. “A lusty maiden, what can work, and keep Willum same as I du.”

Willum smiled complacently. Mrs. Cobbledick’s plans for his future received his entire approval.

“That will be nice for him,” Beatrice murmured. “But she might want him to work.”

“She wun’t,” declared Ann. “Willum have promised me he wun’t work as long as it pleases God to spare ’en. Ain’t ye, Willum?”

“Iss,” said her son, in no uncertain fashion. “I wun’t work.”

“Hear ’en?” said the widow again. “Allus does what I tell ’en. Ain’t many sons like my old dear. And he be a scholar too.”

Exactly what Willum’s attainments were nobody knew except the fond mother. Somebody had given him a decrepit violin, and he would scrape upon it with terrifying results. Somebody else had given him an old camera, with which he pretended to operate, although without visible results. His library consisted of two books, a “Crockford’s Clerical Directory,” ten years out of date, and a “Guide to Devon.” Over these volumes he would pore during winter evenings, watched in silent admiration by his mother who could neither read nor write. At such moments Willum was studying, and was not to be disturbed by trivial matters. Whenever a clergyman came to the village, Willum would dive into his Crockford and enlighten his fellow-villagers as to the cleric’s “pedigree,” as he called it. From the guide-book he would cull much information regarding his native moor for the benefit of visitors. He would inform them for instance, “The church be Perp,” and evade further questioning by simply repeating the statement. When some enlightened visitor enquired whether he meant perpendicular, he would reply in the negative, and repeat his assertion that the church was perp., the word being thus abbreviated in his guide-book.

Anything more ludicrous than Ann Cobbledick’s belief that her son was dying of consumption could hardly be imagined. A stronger-lunged creature than Willum did not exist. Since a good many people came to the little mountain village to undergo the open-air treatment, it had become the fashion among the villagers to pretend they were similarly affected; just in the same way as certain people of lowly birth in times past would try to persuade themselves they had contracted the aristocratic gout. Mrs. Cobbledick’s logic was curious. She saw the patients roaming about the moor. They were unmistakably gentlemen. Willum was, in her estimation, a complete gentleman. Therefore he too must be in a decline. Willum hastened to agree; and nobly submitted to a life of laziness and vice to please his mother and gratify himself.

Willum spent most of his time leaning up against something. So long as he had a support for his back he was happy. When he saw a wall he would make for it instinctively, and set his back against it. He was a human buttress. While Beatrice talked to his mother he looked at her with the eyes of a brute, thinking no doubt what a dainty morsel she was.

“Have you got your tombstone yet?” Beatrice asked the widow, with mischief in her eyes.

“I ain’t got ’en,” Ann replied, with a sign of anger. “It be up to Eastaway’s, and he can’t sell ’en cause my name’s on’t. It be a gurt stoane, and a good ’un. If Willum could work I’d get he to go up there one night when ’twas dark and fetch ’en away. There be room for ’en in the linny. But Eastaway be that left-handed he’d call it stealing. I be a widow, and Willum be an orphan, so they be agin we. They be agin I cause o’ my butter,” she went on shrilly. “They knows theirs ain’t fit for waggon-grease. They knows the secret o’ butter-making will die wi’ me. And they hates Willum ’cause he be book-learned. Ain’t ye a scholar, old dear?”

“I be intellectual,” Willum admitted.

“Hear ’en,” said Ann. “There bain’t many like Willum. Gets things out o’ books, Willum du. Everyone knows Willum. They comes here to shake hands wi’ ’en.”

The tombstone, to which Beatrice had referred, was Ann’s special grievance. Some time after her husband’s death it had been pointed out to the widow that she might show suitable respect to his memory by erecting a stone above his resting-place. She had discussed the matter with Willum, and had arrived at the conclusion that a stone would cost money. Further she did not see why her husband should have a stone all to himself. She went to Eastaway, the granite-merchant, and opened her mind to him. He suggested that a small portion of the proposed tombstone should be occupied by the name of the late Cobbledick, while the greater part should receive inscriptions relative to the virtues of Ann; and that the stone should not be erected until her bones were mingled with those of her husband. This proposal was eminently satisfactory. One Sunday evening Ann went with Eastaway upon the moor, and after much rambling among bracken, heather, and whortleberries a slab of granite was perceived which met with the widow’s approbation. Eastaway marked it, and the next day sent a waggon and a couple of stone-crackers to secure it.

So far things had gone nicely, but so soon as the granite had been hewn into orthodox shape troubles began. It was over the wording of the inscription that the quarrel arose. “Under this stone lies the body of William Cobbledick,” was a sufficient opening; but a difficulty occurred over the spelling. Eastaway declared stone should be spelt stune. Willum, whose opinion on such matters was usually final, amended it to stoane. While the man who had hewn it took his oath the word should be spelt starne. A search in the churchyard brought no enlightenment, as all the memorials there commenced with the words “Sacred to the memory of.” Willum appealed to his guide-book, and finally announced that, although stoane was undoubtedly the usual form, there was sufficient authority to justify the use of the older and practically obsolete rendering, stone. He recommended its adoption in this instance as being shorter and thus cheaper.

The next stumbling-block was the word William. Eastaway was for spelling it in the orthodox form, but when this was explained to Ann her wrath was great.

“He warn’t Willyam,” she cried at the stone-merchant. “He wur Willum. He wur born Willum, and he died Willum, and he be Willum in heaven. His father’s name wur Willum, and my son be Willum, and his son’ll be Willum. If I’d called my man Willyam he wouldn’t have answered.”

Willum the scholar corroborated, and Eastaway had to give way.

The worthy Cobbledick having been curtly dismissed, the monosyllable Ann was cut large and deep upon the stone, for the admiration of posterity in general and the living lady in particular. At this point Eastaway was given an idea by meeting a brother stone-merchant who made a speciality of head-stones. This man suggested that the line following should run, “Relict of the above.” Eastaway communicated the idea to the party interested; and Mrs. Cobbledick went at once in search of Willum.

“I be a relic o’ father, old dear,” she announced.

“So be I,” said Willum, seeing that he was expected to say something, and speaking more truly than he was aware of.

“What du it mean?” asked the widow.

The scholar looked profound. He was leaning as usual against a wall, smoking industriously.

“I’ll tell ye presently. It wants thinking over,” he said.

The widow went to milk her cow, and Willum sauntered to the Vicarage. He interviewed “old Y.” with satisfactory results, and in due course returned to his angle in the wall.

“It be a thing kept in a box,” he began vaguely, when his mother reminded him of his promise.

“What sort of thing?” Ann demanded.

“Something holy kept in a box, and worshipped by folk what believe in idols,” Willum went on, struggling to recall detached fragments of the Vicar’s halting phrases. “Kept in a golden box sometimes, and they call it a bit of an apostle,” he said eloquently. “They don’t know really if it be or bain’t, but they worships it all the same. They kneels down and worships it.”

A little more conversation convinced mother and son that Eastaway had been trying to make game of them; so they went off and told him what they thought of his conduct. It was useless for the poor man to protest his innocence. Ann declared he was “agin her ’cause o’ the butter,” and stated that the village would never have been discovered by visitors had it not been for the intellectual attainments of her son.

After this a deadlock was reached. Eastaway flatly declined to record Ann’s fame as a butter-maker upon the stone, and the widow in return refused to pay for work done. As a matter of fact it had never been her intention to pay for it. She argued it was absurd to pay for anything which could be of no use to her during her lifetime. She thought it quite probable that Willum would be too poor to pay for it after her decease; but, seeing that it had been spoilt for any other purpose, she reckoned upon Eastaway making her a present of it when she was upon her deathbed.

The tombstone controversy was then in its fourth year. The granite-merchant would not part with it, and Ann resolutely refused to pay for it. Had it been possible to purloin the slab Ann would have done so long ago. As matters were she was content to say, “Let ’en bide.”

“I want my breakfast,” cried Beatrice. “I feel perfectly hollow. What’s the time, Mrs. Cobbledick?”

“Willum knows,” said the widow, who was quite unable to read clock or watch for herself.

Before the scholar could collect his wits sufficiently to answer, the postman rode up with the letters. There were none for Beatrice. She received those for her aunt, and ran indoors with them.

“Willum,” said the widow, directly the girl had disappeared. “She wur with Mr. Burrough last night.”

“I knows. I saw ’en,” said the scholar.

“They wur walking in the lane, and ’twas dark,” the old gossip went on. “And she hadn’t got no hat on.”

This partial nudity on Beatrice’s part caused them to shake their heads violently.

“She came back alone,” Ann went on. “She wur out o’ breath and hurrying. Why didn’t he come back wi’ her, if all was honest? Did ye hear anything, old dear?”

“I heard ’en laugh,” said the scholar gloomily.

“Did ye hear any kissing?” Ann whispered. “But there! Ye be such an old innocent ye wouldn’t know if ye did hear any.”

“I wouldn’t say what I heard,” said Willum darkly.

That was what Ann wanted. The scandal was established. Burrough had stumbled at last, and the widow felt she would be perfectly justified in assuring the villagers that Beatrice had passed the evening alone with him in his cottage. She decided there would be just time to run down, and tell the post-mistress, before getting the breakfast ready.