They followed on,and came up to where a vast copper was set in the open air.Here the linen was boiled and disinfected.By the light of the lanterns Laura discovered that her husband was standing by the copper,and that it was he who unloaded the barrow and immersed its contents.The night was so calm and muggy that the conversation by the copper reached her ears.
'Are there many more loads to-night?'
'There's the clothes o'they that died this afternoon,sir.But that might bide till to-morrow,for you must be tired out.'
'We'll do it at once,for I can't ask anybody else to undertake it.
Overturn that load on the grass and fetch the rest.'
The man did so and went off with the barrow.Maumbry paused for a moment to wipe his face,and resumed his homely drudgery amid this squalid and reeking scene,pressing down and stirring the contents of the copper with what looked like an old rolling-pin.The steam therefrom,laden with death,travelled in a low trail across the meadow.
Laura spoke suddenly:'I won't go to-night after all.He is so tired,and I must help him.I didn't know things were so bad as this!'
Vannicock's arm dropped from her waist,where it had been resting as they walked.'Will you leave?'she asked.
'I will if you say I must.But I'd rather help too.'There was no expostulation in his tone.
Laura had gone forward.'Jack,'she said,'I am come to help!'
The weary curate turned and held up the lantern.'O--what,is it you,Laura?'he asked in surprise.'Why did you come into this?You had better go back--the risk is great.'
'But I want to help you,Jack.Please let me help!I didn't come by myself--Mr.Vannicock kept me company.He will make himself useful too,if he's not gone on.Mr.Vannicock!'
The young lieutenant came forward reluctantly.Mr.Maumbry spoke formally to him,adding as he resumed his labour,'I thought the --st Foot had gone to Bristol.'
'We have.But I have run down again for a few things.'
The two newcomers began to assist,Vannicock placing on the ground the small bag containing Laura's toilet articles that he had been carrying.The barrowman soon returned with another load,and all continued work for nearly a half-hour,when a coachman came out from the shadows to the north.
'Beg pardon,sir,'he whispered to Vannicock,'but I've waited so long on Mellstock hill that at last I drove down to the turnpike;and seeing the light here,I ran on to find out what had happened.'
Lieutenant Vannicock told him to wait a few minutes,and the last barrow-load was got through.Mr.Maumbry stretched himself and breathed heavily,saying,'There;we can do no more.'
As if from the relaxation of effort he seemed to be seized with violent pain.He pressed his hands to his sides and bent forward.
'Ah!I think it has got hold of me at last,'he said with difficulty.'I must try to get home.Let Mr.Vannicock take you back,Laura.'
He walked a few steps,they helping him,but was obliged to sink down on the grass.
'I am--afraid--you'll have to send for a hurdle,or shutter,or something,'he went on feebly,'or try to get me into the barrow.'But Vannicock had called to the driver of the fly,and they waited until it was brought on from the turnpike hard by.Mr.Maumbry was placed therein.Laura entered with him,and they drove to his humble residence near the Cross,where he was got upstairs.
Vannicock stood outside by the empty fly awhile,but Laura did not reappear.He thereupon entered the fly and told the driver to take him back to Ivell.
CHAPTER VII
Mr.Maumbry had over-exerted himself in the relief of the suffering poor,and fell a victim--one of the last--to the pestilence which had carried off so many.Two days later he lay in his coffin.
Laura was in the room below.A servant brought in some letters,and she glanced them over.One was the note from herself to Maumbry,informing him that she was unable to endure life with him any longer and was about to elope with Vannicock.Having read the letter she took it upstairs to where the dead man was,and slipped it into his coffin.The next day she buried him.
She was now free.
She shut up his house at Durnover Cross and returned to her lodgings at Creston.Soon she had a letter from Vannicock,and six weeks after her husband's death her lover came to see her.
'I forgot to give you back this--that night,'he said presently,handing her the little bag she had taken as her whole luggage when leaving.
Laura received it and absently shook it out.There fell upon the carpet her brush,comb,slippers,nightdress,and other simple necessaries for a journey.They had an intolerably ghastly look now,and she tried to cover them.
'I can now,'he said,'ask you to belong to me legally--when a proper interval has gone--instead of as we meant.'
There was languor in his utterance,hinting at a possibility that it was perfunctorily made.Laura picked up her articles,answering that he certainly could so ask her--she was free.Yet not her expression either could be called an ardent response.Then she blinked more and more quickly and put her handkerchief to her face.She was weeping violently.
He did not move or try to comfort her in any way.What had come between them?No living person.They had been lovers.There was now no material obstacle whatever to their union.But there was the insistent shadow of that unconscious one;the thin figure of him,moving to and fro in front of the ghastly furnace in the gloom of Durnover Moor.
Yet Vannicock called upon Laura when he was in the neighbourhood,which was not often;but in two years,as if on purpose to further the marriage which everybody was expecting,the -st Foot returned to Budmouth Regis.
Thereupon the two could not help encountering each other at times.
But whether because the obstacle had been the source of the love,or from a sense of error,and because Mrs.Maumbry bore a less attractive look as a widow than before,their feelings seemed to decline from their former incandescence to a mere tepid civility.
What domestic issues supervened in Vannicock's further story the man in the oriel never knew;but Mrs.Maumbry lived and died a widow.
1900.