Mrs Bosenna

“ Cai descended to his garden, and at the foot of it found a trio of dark figures by the low fence of the edge of the cliff—'Bias and Mrs Bosenna in talk together, Dinah standing a little apart. "But that," thought he, "is only her place, as I've just been hearing." He had a just mind and was slow to suspect. Even now he could not assimilate the poison of Mr Philp's story. Everybody knew Mr Philp and his propensities. As Mr Toy the barber was wont to say, "Philp don't mean any harm: he just makes mischief like a bee makes honey." ”

“ I have heard it mentioned in a casual way that she came from Holsworthy in Devon, and (unless my memory deceives me, sir) nothing relative to Duchesses was dropped—or not at the time, at least. But I pass no remarks on Mrs Bosenna. If she chose to marry an old man with her eyes open, it's not for me to cast it up, beyond saying that some folks know on which side their bread's buttered. I never dragged in Mrs Bosenna. You will do me that justice, I hope?"
"Then who the dickens is it you're talkin' about?" ”

“ In the midst of it he found Mrs Bosenna, gloved, armed with a pair of secateurs, and engaged in cutting the thorns back to a few ugly inches.
She smiled as he approached. "You don't understand roses?" she asked. "If you don't, you'll be surprised at my hard pruning. If there's real strength in the root, you can trust for June, no matter what a stick you leave. The secret's under the ground; or, as you may say, under the surface, as it is with folks."
"That helps me, ma'am," said Captain Cai, "to tell you it's like that with my friend 'Bias—"
A whistle sounded up the valley. ”

“ Mr Sobey touched his forelock again and grinned, as who should add, "You and me, ma'am, meets in strange places."
"Well, I never! . . . How things do turn out!" It crossed Mrs Bosenna's mind that on the last occasion of her addressing a word to Walter Sobey he had been employed by her to cart manure for her roses: and across this recollection floated a sense of money wasted—for to what service could Walter Sobey, inhabitant of a three-roomed cottage, put a two-handled loving-cup embossed in silver? ”

“ What, 'Bias? . . . He's the gentlest you ever knew, and the easiest-goin': and for ladies' company—well, I don't know," confessed Captain Cai, "as he ever found himself in such, least-ways not to my knowledge. But I'll be bound he wouldn't be able to open his mouth."
"—Unless in defence of a friend," suggested Mrs Bosenna, laughing.
"You must bring him to call on me."
Captain Cai shook his head.
"Oh"—she nodded confidently—"I'll make him talk, never fear!
If he's half so true a friend to you as you are to him—"
"He's a truer." ”

“ But Captain Cai did not hear for the moment. He was peering into the looking-glass and thinking less of Mrs Bosenna than of his shaven-altered appearance.
"'Twould be a nice change for her, too," pursued Mr Toy in a rallying tone; "an adaptable man like you, Cap'n."
"Eh? What's that you were sayin' about my hat?" asked Captain Cai; and just then, letting his gaze wander to the depths of the glass, he was aware of Mr Philp shamelessly trying on that same hat before another mirror at the back of the shop. ”

“ It—it humiliates you."
"We were a pair of fools," conceded Cai.
"What men cannot see somehow," she went on angrily, "is that it doesn't end there. That kind of thing humiliates a woman; especially when—when she happens to be cast on her own resources and it is everything to her to find a man she can trust."
Mrs Bosenna threw into these words so much feeling that Cai in a moment forgot self. His awkwardness fell from him as a garment.
"You may trust me, ma'am. Truly you may. Tell me only what I can do." ”

“ One can never trust to servants—or at any rate not to the men kind. Dinah is different; but even with Dinah—" Mrs Bosenna let fall another, slightly fainter, sigh.
"That reminds me," said Captain Cai hardily entering, and for all his lack of observation falling at once under the spell of the little front garden—so scrupulously tidy it was, so trim and kempt, with a pathway of white pebbles leading up between clumps of daffodils and tulips to a neatly thatched porch: so homely too, with but a low fence of euonymus shutting off all that could offend in the court before the cow-byres ”

“ But in female company it comes out. You may depend that's the explanation."
"Why, of course it is," chimed in Mrs Bosenna with sudden—suspiciously sudden—conviction. "How clever of Captain Hocken to think of it!"
"Yes, he's clever," growled 'Bias, unappeased. "Oh, he's monstrous clever, ma'am, is Caius Hocken! Such a friend, too! . . . And now, perhaps, he'll explain how it happened—he bein' so clever and such a friend—as he didn't find this out two nights ago and warn me?"
"I did warn ye, 'Bias," Cai's face had gone white under the taunt. ”

“ Half a minute passed thus, and then (oh, drat the fireworks after all!) a salvo of rockets climbed the sky—luminous ones, this time. As they shot up with a wroo—oo—sh! the hand was snatched away, gently, swiftly. . . .
They burst in balls of fire—blue, green, yellow, crimson. They lit up the garden so vividly that each separate leaf on the laurustinus bushes cast its own sharp shadow. "O—oh!" breathed Mrs Bosenna, but now on a very different note, and as though her whole spirit drank deep, quenching a celestial desire. ”

“ But what's to prevent ye?"
"'Tis that nasty disagreeable Mr Middlecoat," answered Mrs Bosenna pettishly. "He comes and tells me now as that strip has always been the apple of his eye. . . . It's my belief he wants to grow roses against me; and what's more, it's my belief he'd swallow up all Rilla if he could; which is better land than his own, acre for acre. It angers him to live alongside a woman and be beaten by her at every point o' farmin'."
"But you've the longer purse, ma'am, as I understand," suggested 'Bias. ”

“ At this moment William Skin—a crab-apple of a man, whose infirmity of deafness had long since reduced all the world for him to a vain tolerable show, in which so much went unexplained that nothing caused surprise—came stumbling around the corner of the house with a waggon-rope and a second ladder, which he proceeded to rest alongside the first one; showing the while no recognition of Cai's presence, even by a nod.
"I want you," said Mrs Bosenna, "to invest a hundred pounds for me. Oh!"—as Cai gave a start and glanced at Skin—"we may talk before him: he's as deaf as a haddock." ”

“ They do always best when laid lateral."
"He'll come down bodily with a little coaxin'. The question is how to peg him when he's down?"
"Rick-spars," answered Mrs Bosenna promptly. "The small kind. There's dozens in the waggon-house loft." She signalled to William Skin to come down, bawled an order in his ear, and despatched him to fetch a score or so.
"Hullo!" cried Cai, who, being unemployed for the moment, had leisure to look around and enjoy the view from the roof-ridge. "If it isn't 'Bias comin' up the path! . . . Hi! 'Bias!" ”

“ Neither heeded the pretty tactful clatter with which Mrs Bosenna, after sweeping her ivory toys in a heap and starting up with a little cry of pleasure, held out her hand to the intruder. Cai took it as one in a dream. His eyes were fixed on 'Bias, as 'Bias, who had withdrawn the pipe from his mouth and replaced it, withdrew it again, and asked—
"Well, an' what brings you here?"
For a moment Cai seemed to be chewing down a cud in his throat. He ought to have been quicker, he felt. It is always a mistake to let your adversary (Good Lord! had it come to this?) set up an interrogatory. ”

“ Stay-at-home fares best in this world!"
"I don't know, Dinah," sighed Mrs Bosenna. "Haven't you ever in your life wished for a pair o' wings?"
"To wear in my hat? Why, o' course I have."
"No, no; I mean, for the wings of a dove, to fly away and be—well, not at rest exactly—"
"No, I haven't, mistress. But 'tis the way with you discontented rich folks. Like Hocken's ducks, all of 'ee—never happy unless you be where you baint. . . . I wonder if that Hocken was any relation—S-sh! now! Talk of the devil!"
Captain Cai and Fancy had spent a good hour-and-a-half in overhauling the two cottages. ”

“ Rogers made the vacancy, and managed it for me; retired in my favour, as you might say."
"Seems to me Mr Rogers must be weakenin' in his head."
"Oh no, he's not!" 'Bias assured her with a chuckle. "But he's pretty frail in the body. At his time o' life and with his infirmity a man may be excused, surely?"
"I reckon," said Mrs Bosenna, "there's few would have wept if Mr Rogers had superannuated himself years ago. ”

“ The climb, though not steep, was continuous, and the chimneys of Rilla lay some twenty or thirty feet below them, when they reached a second stile and, overing it, stood on the edge of a mighty field, the extent of which could not be guessed, for it domed itself against the sky, cutting off all view of hedge or limit beyond.
"This is Higher Parc," announced Mrs Bosenna. "Ten acres."
"Oh?" exclaimed Cai with a sudden flash of memory. "And stubble!" ”

“ Off the Committee Ship, a cable's length up the river, the penultimate race (ran-dan pulling-boats) was finishing amid banging of guns and bursts of music from the "Troy Town Band," saluting the winner with "See the Conquering Hero Comes," the second boat with strains consecrated to first and second prize-winners in Troy harbour since days beyond the span of living memory, even as all races start to the less classical but none the less immemorial air of "Off She goes to Wallop the Cat."
The crowd parted and made passage for Mrs Bosenna to descend the slip-way: for Troy is always polite. ”

“ But I reckoned you'd both be countin' this for a Sunday."
"Christmas Day isn't Sunday, not more'n once in seven years," objected
'Bias.
"It's Friday this year," said Cai, with simple conviction.
"Fiddlestick!" retorted 'Bias. "You can't make it out to be like an ordinary Friday—I defy you. There's a—a feelin' about the day."
"It feels like Friday to me," maintained Cai.
But here Mrs Bosenna interposed. "'Twon't feel like Christmas to me then if you two start arguin'. 'Peace and goodwill' was the motto, as I thought; but I don't see much of either abroad this afternoon." ”

“ After that we've to peg it out somewheres above the eaves, as Madam gives orders. See?"
"I see. When you're ready, slide away."
Just then William Skin came hurrying back with an armful of rick-spars: and within ten minutes the two rivals were hotly at work—yet cheerfully, intelligently, as though misunderstanding had never been,— clipping out dead wood from the rose-bush, layering it, pegging it, driving in the spars,—while Mrs Bosenna called directions, and William Skin gazed, with open mouth.
"This is better than ploughin', ma'am?" challenged Cai in his glee. ”

“ Cai was crestfallen at once. "I didn' mean it in that light, ma'am," he stammered; "and I only made inquiries, d'ye see? Bein' ignorant of so many things ashore. You'd be astonished how ignorant 'Bias an' me found ourselves, first-goin' off."
"Speak for yourself," put in 'Bias.
"You should have come to me," said Mrs Bosenna. "I could have told you all about Education, especially the sort that ought to be given to labourers' children; and it's astonishin' to me the way some people will talk on matters they know nothing about. ”

“ There's what they call a one-design Class o' these in the harbour: which is good sport and worth encouragin'. There's no handicap in it either: the first past the line takes the prize—always the prettiest kind o' race to watch. Now the favour I ask is that, when the time comes, you'll hand the Cup to the winner."
"It—it'll look rather marked, won't it?" hesitated Mrs Bosenna. She had as small a disinclination as any woman to find herself the central figure in a show, and Cai (had he known it) was attacking one of the weakest points in her siege-defences. ”

“ There's William Skin, my waggoner, for instance—five children, and a three-roomed cottage—all the children attending school, and regular, too. Pleasant life it would be for William, with all five coming home with 'The Sea, the Open Sea' in their mouths and all about the house when he gets home from work! Leastways it would be, if he wasn't providentially deaf."
"Is the woman deaf, too?" asked 'Bias.
"No. She believes in Education," said Mrs Bosenna. "She's bound to believe in anything that takes the children off her hands five days in the week."
Cai puckered his brow. ”

“ Unknowing it, he had a sense of beauty, and he decided that horticulture, for a leisured man, was well worth a trial.
"That's the best of living ashore," he told himself. "A man can choose what hobby he will and, if he don't like it, pick up another."
He climbed the hill briskly, to view his own garden and take stock of its possibilities. . . . The roses planted by Mrs Bosenna had scarcely flagged at all, thanks to the night's rain. ”

“ Cai wiped the back of his neck and pocketed his handkerchief with an air of decision—or of desperation. "What you don't seem to know—though with any experience o' speakin' you'd understand well enough—is that close upon the last moment all your thoughts fly, and specially if folks will keep chatterin': but when you stand up and open your mouth—provided as nobody interrupts you . . ."
"I declare! If it isn't Captain Hocken—and Captain Hunken with him!"
At the creaking of the small gate, as Cai opened it, Mrs Bosenna had looked up and espied them. ”

“ The two friends sat in a constrained silence, now and again pushing the wine politely.
"When you are ready?" suggested 'Bias at length—as Cai helped himself to a final half-glassful, measuring it out with exactitude and leaving as much or may be a trifle more at the bottom of the decanter. "Ladies don't like to be kept waitin' too long."
Cai swallowed the wine and stood up, swallowing down also an inward mirth to which his anger had given way. During the last minute or two he had been recalling many things,—his first meeting with Mrs Bosenna ”