Frederick Bettesworth

“ A pagan of the antique English kind, ready to poke fun at a bad horse, or sneer at a fanatic, or be happy in listening to the April talk of the starlings, Bettesworth had quite his share too of the pugnacity 106 of his race. Years ago he had said that a fight used to be "just his clip," as a young man; not many years ago he had promptly knocked down in the road a baker who had got down out of his cart to make Bettesworth move his wheelbarrow out of the way (I remember that when the old man told me of this I advised him not to get into trouble, and he pleaded that it "seemed to do him good") ”

“ As there is nothing in the talk itself to give the impression, it must have been my working in the sunshine when I heard of these details, that now makes them—the glaring stone-mason's yard, the village smithy, the engine hauling bricks along the high road—seem all sun-baked and dusty, in the heat which men like Bettesworth have to face, while I am admiring the summer landscape.
Twice in the early days of July the old man's homely rustic living is touched upon. By now, in the cottage gardens, the broad-beans are at their best ”

“ And, referring to Bettesworth's military service, "'What was ye?' he says. 'A man,' I says. He laughed and says, 'What are ye drinkin'?' 'Only a glass o' cold fo'penny,' I says." And Bettesworth seems to have said it in a very meek voice, subtly insinuating that "the feller" might stand something better. ”

“ At this point I let the talk wander; and presently 175 Bettesworth was relating perhaps the least creditable story he ever told me about himself. In judging him, however, if anyone desires to judge him after so many years, the circumstances should be borne in mind. The farm-lad on thirty shillings a year, the young soldier from the Crimea where he had been rationed on rum, marrying at last and settling down in this village where the rough eighteenth-century habits still lingered, might almost be expected to shock his twentieth-century critics. ”

“ To men in Bettesworth's position it is always an embarrassment to comply with the formalities of official business. They do not see the reason, and they feel keenly the wearisomeness, of the steps which must be taken to gain their end. Bettesworth now seemed paralyzed; he had forgotten how to go on; moreover, he could not be satisfied—although there was a new infirmary—that his wife would be 47 more decently treated there than in the old one. If only he could be sure of that! But of course he was not important enough to approach, himself, anyone so important as a guardian ”

“ I ought to have been busy, yet I stood and listened; for the earth seemed busy too, but in a softened way, managing its many businesses beautifully. The air seemed melting into numberless liquid sounds. Quite near—not three trees off—there was a nightingale nonchalantly babbling; from the neighbourhood of the cottage came, penetrating, the bleating of a newly-born goat; while in the orchard just before me Bettesworth stooped over a zinc pail, which, as he scrubbed it, gave out a low metallic note. ”

“ Such a dry, whimsical old man was this landlord that the story was not incredible. A retired bricklayer, and a widower, he lived by himself on next to nothing, not from miserliness but from choice, and his chief object in life seemed to be to avoid trouble. He had, however, worked with Bettesworth in years gone by, and was, in fact, a sort of chum of his, so that it seemed worth while to try what persuasion would do to shake his resolution of keeping an empty cottage. ”

“ His ingratitude to her was Bettesworth's chief offence—after all she had done for him! So she told what she had done: how she had cooked his supper night after night, and got it all ready while he sat down there at the public-house waiting to be fetched. She wouldn't have done it, but Kid said, "Poor old feller, help 'n all you can. He en't got nobody to do anything for him." ”

“ As to the neighbours—some of them resented his coming, for of course the scandal of his wife's condition was public property by now. With a certain defiant shame, therefore, he crept in amongst them. Fortunately, the people in the next-door cottage—an 141 unmarried labourer and his mother—knew Bettesworth's record, and regarded him as a veteran to be cared for; and not many weeks passed before the old man felt himself established in their good-will, and was trying to persuade himself that all was for the best. ”

“ If he was slow, he was still strong; if he was half blind, he was wholly efficient at heavy straightforward work. During this winter, in making some radical changes which involved a good deal of excavating work, Bettesworth was like a first-rate navvy, and eagerly put all his experience at my disposal. There was a trench to be opened for laying a water-pipe. With a young man to help him, he dug it out and filled it in again, in about half the time that the job would have taken if it had been entrusted to a contractor. ”

“ Usually he wears spectacles, being eighty years old. And still we talked to Bettesworth. His niece was as unsuccessful as myself in trying to reason with him. To some remark of hers, suggesting that if he were at home he would be without anyone to nurse him, he replied fiercely (and I have no notion of his meaning) , "No! and there won't be none, neither, once I gets home and got my key. I shall lock my door!..." Liz argued then that this place was so comfortable and so clean. "'Tis the patients has to do that," said Bettesworth. ”

“ He stood on a ladder, which was held steady by Bettesworth at the foot; and presently through the open window the old man's voice reached me, complaining of the recent blighty weather: "There en't nothin' 'ardly looks kind."
"No; not to say kind," the pruner assented.
That is all. But precisely because there is nothing in it, because it is a piece of normal instead of exceptional talk, it has the accent of the season. Bettesworth's voice reaches me; the light falls warm through the vine-leaves ”

“ Shutting his mouth doggedly, Bettesworth went back to his cottage, to live alone there with his cat. There had been some talk of his going into lodgings; but after all, this was still his home. Should he once give it up, he reasoned, and dispose of his furniture, it would be impossible ever again to form a home of his own, however much he might desire to do so. To live with neighbours might be very well ”

“ Bettesworth spread his hands over his chest, and continued, "Most men got 'em made; their wives 'd make 'em. Some women, o' course, if they wasn't handy wi' the needle, 'd git somebody else to do 'em. They was warmer 'n anybody 'd think. And if you bought brown stuff, 'tis surprisin' what a lot o' rain they'd keep out. One o' them, and a woollen jacket under it, and them yello' leather gaiters right up your thighs—you could go out in the rain.... But 'twas a white round frock for Sundays." ”

“ Eggar's rummagings done, the squalid tenement next door to the Norris's stood shut up, with the door locked on the few poor belongings it contained. To the neighbours there seemed to be all the circumstances of a death, except the death itself. People began to remember, what I had failed to observe yet could well believe, how greatly Bettesworth had changed of late; others recalled complaints he had uttered of being unbearably lonely. It was the general opinion that, even if he lived, he would never work again, and never again come back to the place he had left. ”

“ On Thursday morning, the 9th of February, I went to Bettesworth's cottage, and found preparations in progress for his going away. There was more than preparation. With all their kindliness, it must be said of the labouring people that they want tact. Bettesworth's poor home had become a sort of show, in its small squalid fashion. The door stood wide open; there were half a dozen people in the living-room, where the old man had of late shut himself in with his loneliness and his independence ”

“ December 2, 1901.—In view of the hatred in which Bettesworth had previously held the workhouse infirmary, and which he was destined to renew later, it is interesting to observe how favourably the place impressed him about this time, when he visited a friend there.
The friend, whom I will rename "Tom Loveland," had been taken to the infirmary in October, suffering with the temporary increase of some obscure chronic disorder which to this day cripples him. Bettesworth had gone to see him on Sunday afternoon, December 1, in company with Harriett Loveland, the man's wife. ”

“ On the third we had snow, and in the succeeding days frost followed, and the roads grew slippery.
These things no doubt provided Bettesworth with topics for many little chats I must have enjoyed with him, although I saved no reminder of any of them. But about the middle of the month a circumstance came to my knowledge which made his good-tempered gossip seem rather remarkable. I could not but admire that a man so situated should be able to talk with such urbanity. ”

“ But he put his head down against her cheek, and found that she was still living; and so they came to the outer entrance of the infirmary. Further than that Bettesworth was dissuaded from going: it was not well that his wife should be agitated by the sight of him at the very gates; and accordingly he came away.
So he is alone in his cottage, and may rest if he can. He is to have meals at his niece's, but will sleep at home. The kindness is touching to him, not alone of the nephew and niece, but of his neighbours generally. ”

“ With what increasing bitterness he wore through the day, with what fretfulness and final despair as of a man despised and forgotten, must be left to conjecture. For the doctor did not come, after all. Conjecture, too, must picture if it can the night that followed—the attempts to sleep in the chair, the restless wanderings into the garden to smoke, the repetition, in fact, of the preceding night's misery, but with a great addition of weariness and distress. Bettesworth, when he came round the next morning to tell me how he was situated, did not so much as mention all this ”

“ Boys were sliding there after breakfast, and they called out to Bettesworth, "Be you roughed, Master Bettesworth?" According to his tale, he spoke angrily: "''Tis you ought to be roughed,' I says; 'you ought to be roughed over the bank. You be old enough to know better.' And so they be, too. They be biggish boys; and anybody goin' there might easy fall down and break their back—'specially after dark."
When he came back from his dinner, he said, "Somebody 've bin an' qualified old Granny Fry's." How? "Oh, somebody 've chucked some dirt over where they boys had made it so slippery." ”

“ On the very last Sunday evening Bryant had been over at the old man's cottage, "and 'tis a lot cleaner 'n what it used to be in the old lady's time." But the difficulty was that Bettesworth could not see. I assented, mentioning his last labours at planting shallots. Bryant smiled; from his adjoining garden he had noticed the same thing a year ago, with some peas. But, in general, he admired Bettesworth. "He's a man that don't talk much till he's started, and then.... He was tellin' me Sunday about the things he see in the war. ”

“ January 27, 1903.—Again, in the end of January, Bettesworth reported: "That man down here ast me about peas—what sort we gets, an' so on." (Remember that he had nearly an acre of ground.) "So I told 'n, and he says, 'What do they run to for price?' 'Oh, about a shillin' a quart,' I says; and that's what they do run to. 'I must have half a pint,' he says. I bust out laughin' at 'n. An' he says he must have a load o' manure, too! He must mind he don't overdo it! ”

“ Poor old Lucy Bettesworth! I did not anticipate, then, that I should never again 190 see her alive. Dirty and dishevelled as ever, alone in the squalid cottage, she received me with a meek simplicity that in my eyes made amends for many faults. She was more sane than I had dared to hope I should find her, eager for "Fred" to come home, but contented, it seemed, to wait, if it was doing him good. She did not want for anything; she ate no meat, and it cost her nothing to live. Would I like a vegetable marrow? There was a nice one in the garden that "wanted cuttin'." ”

“ Bettesworth, however, was not to be so easily appeased, but replied, "We don't feel it down here, where 'tis so sheltered, but depend upon it, 'tis purty cold down the road, when you gets into the wind. I met old Steve when I was comin' back from dinner. 'How d'ye get on up there?' I says." (Up there is on the ridge of the hill, where Steve works in a garden.) "''Tis purty peaky up there,' he says. I'll lay it is, too. I shouldn't think there's anybody got a much colder job than he have. ”

“ To Bettesworth's wounded feelings the explanation needed no seeking: he was being made to wait for 200 richer people, because he was poor and unimportant. Meanwhile, happening to meet with the relieving officer, I laid the case before him, and heard that a call to a distance had obliged the doctor to leave his work for a day or two in the hands of a locum tenens, who must have blundered. And this proved to be the fact. On Thursday afternoon a doctor who was a stranger at last found his way to Bettesworth's cottage, and the unhappy old man's long suspense was so far over. ”

“ That afternoon I happened to meet old Beagley—the retired bricklayer, and recently Bettesworth's landlord. He spoke of Bettesworth with more than usual appreciation, saying that he had been a strong man, as if he meant unusually strong. His sight must have been bad "thirty or forty years," Beagley estimated. He (Beagley) remembered first noticing it when he dropped his trowel from a scaffold, and sent Bettesworth down the ladder for it. He observed that Bettesworth could not see the trowel, but groped for it, as one gropes in the dark, until his hand touched it. ”