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Title: The lonely plough
Author: Constance Holme
Release Date: March 20, 2023 [eBook #70324]
Language: English
Produced by: MWS, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONELY PLOUGH ***
THE LONELY PLOUGH
_THE MORNING POST says: “Messrs. Mills & Boon seem to have acquired a
monopoly in clever first Novels.” T.P.’s WEEKLY says: “Readers have
got into the habit of looking to the publications of Mills & Boon for
freshness, originality, and the novelty of surprise.”_
Mills & Boon’s New Novels
_Crown 8vo. 6s. each._
=JOHN BARLEYCORN= JACK LONDON
=THE TEMPLE OF DAWN= I. A. R. WYLIE
=BREADANDBUTTERFLIES= DION CLAYTON CALTHROP
=THE PLAYGROUND= Author of “Mastering Flame”
=ANDREW AND HIS WIFE= THOMAS COBB
=LITTLE FAITHFUL= BEULAH MARIE DIX
=JETSAM= VICTOR BRIDGES
=PATIENCE TABERNACLE= SOPHIE COLE
=THE WEB OF LIFE= (New Edit.) ROBERT HERRICK
=GRIZEL MARRIED= MRS. G. DE HORNE VAIZEY
=THE LONELY PLOUGH= CONSTANCE HOLME
=THE PRIDE OF THE FANCY= GEORGE EDGAR
=SHOP GIRLS= ARTHUR APPLIN
=BURNT FLAX= MRS. H. H. PENROSE
=AN ABSENT HERO= MRS. FRED REYNOLDS
=HER LAST APPEARANCE= A. NUGENT ROBERTSON
=ENTERTAINING JANE= MILLICENT HEATHCOTE
=THE PROGRESS OF PRUDENCE= W. F. HEWER
=THE MAGIC TALE OF HARVANGER AND YOLANDE= G. P. BAKER
=THE PLUNDERER= ROY NORTON
=KICKS AND HA’PENCE= HENRY STACE
=HAPPY EVER AFTER= R. ALLATINI
=SARAH EDEN= E. S. STEVENS
=GAY MORNING= J. E. BUCKROSE
=COPHETUA’S SON= JOAN SUTHERLAND
=THE RELATIONS AND WHAT THEY RELATED= MRS. BAILLIE REYNOLDS
=HIS GREAT ADVENTURE= ROBERT HERRICK
=ONE MAN RETURNS= HAROLD SPENDER
=THE MUSIC MAKERS= LOUISE MACK
THE
LONELY PLOUGH
BY
CONSTANCE HOLME
AUTHOR OF “CRUMP FOLK GOING HOME”
“It is always one man’s work--always and everywhere.”
KIPLING.
MILLS & BOON, LIMITED
49 RUPERT STREET
LONDON, W.
_Published 1914_
TO
THE PEACE-RULERS
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I ACROSS THE DUB 1
II THE GREEN GATES OF VISION:--I. DUSK 12
III TROUBLE 26
IV THE TROUBLE SHAPING 42
V THE TOOL 50
VI HAMER’S HUT 54
VII THE TROUBLE COMING.--THE GREEN GATES OF
VISION:--II. MORNING 63
VIII NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES 77
IX THE UPPER AND THE NETHER STONES 89
X TERROR BY NIGHT 102
XI THE TROUBLE COMING.--THE GREEN GATES OF
VISION:--III. MOONLIGHT 106
XII THE REAL THINGS 122
XIII HAMER’S FIRST TRAM 137
XIV THE OLD ORDER 150
XV THE BEGINNING OF THE END 175
XVI SPURS TO GLORY 184
XVII THE GREEN GATES OF VISION:--IV. DARK--THE
LONELY PLOUGH 196
XVIII HAMER’S SECOND TRAM 203
XIX UNDER THE JUNIPER-TREE 216
XX WIGGIE’S FIVE MINUTES 232
XXI THE TROUBLE COMING 256
XXII COMING 266
XXIII COME. THE GREEN GATES OF VISION:--V. THE
OUTER DARK 275
XXIV MOTHERING SUNDAY 296
XXV ONE MAN’S WORK 297
XXVI HIS SILLY HOME 306
XXVII THE GREEN GATES OF VISION:--VI. SWEETHEART-TIME 325
XXVIII HAIL AND FAREWELL! 344
THE LONELY PLOUGH
CHAPTER I
ACROSS THE DUB
He felt very old.
Older than the old face at the table before him, than the office
furniture, which had been there before he was born, than his father’s
portrait over the desk; older even than the tulip-tree bowing its
graceful head to his window. Very old.
They said the tulip-tree blossomed no more than once in a hundred
years. It was an ancient tree, biding its time as ancient things may.
But Lancaster felt older even than that.
It had been a trying day. Helwise had made it trying, to begin with.
She had come down to breakfast in a black print flickering with white
spots, and a whirlpool frame of mind, grievance after grievance
spinning musically to the surface, only to be submerged again in the
twinkling of an eye. In the intervals of digesting a troublesome
correspondence, he found himself flinging life-belts of common sense
after long-sunk bits of wreckage, gaining nothing but an impulse of
helpless annoyance and a growing dislike for the flickering spots.
Helwise was his aunt and housekeeper, and though she could add nearly a
score of years to his thirty-seven, the weight of time lay infinitely
lighter upon her shoulders than on his; perhaps because she twitched
them so gracefully from under every descending yoke. Her delicate face
and softly greying hair gave the impression of a serene mind and a
fading constitution, and if you were not, vulgarly speaking, up to
snuff, you ran and did things for Helwise that Helwise ought to have
been doing for you, and she always let you. But the serenity was sheer
illusion and the constitution was tough. Closer inspection found her
racing through life with the objectless hurry of a cinema express. She
shimmered along a permanent way of mazy speech, and when you lived
close to her you were always breathless and hurried, and the air was
never quiet. She had the aimless velocity of a trundled hoop, and
accomplished about as much.
Various printed notices drifted across the table on the rippling
and bubbling of worries. She had a passionate habit of joining
societies in all capacities, from President or Secretary to General
Bottle-Washer, of getting herself appointed on innumerable county
committees. As Lancaster’s aunt she was considered “the right person,”
and as Lancaster’s aunt she took it for granted that his fingers
should straighten the tangle of her ensuing bewilderment, and make her
trundling path smooth.
He glanced through the circulars quickly, folding them neatly and
adding them to his own collection. He was very business-like in his
movements. The sheep and the goats of his correspondence were separated
right and left; each envelope had its pencilled name and date; while
the more important took cover in an elastic band and an inner pocket.
His brown hands were methodical and deft; his weighing eyes implied a
steady brain; his glance at the clock showed a sense of routine always
alert. He was haste without hurry, while she, like the picture-train,
rushed wildly and got nowhere.
A business-man born and made, you would have said of Lancelot
Lancaster, not of stocks and shares or rustling parchments, but an
acute, sound man of the land, a lean, light, open-air man, often in
the saddle, with no aim beyond a clear-sighted judgment of terms and
tenants, nor any desire more whimsical than a steady prosperity. It
was only when you looked at his mouth, with its hint of patience and
repression, of longing held in leash and idealism shrouded like a sin,
that you wondered if he was not, after all, only very well-trained.
Yes, Helwise had been particularly trying at breakfast. Her post had
required a lot of explanation, and his own had included a letter
from Bluecaster, one of the kindly, idiotic letters at which Lanty
smiled and swore in a breath. There was also a second letter (which
of course he had read first) totally contradicting the other; and at
the bottom of all had been one from the London solicitor, telling
him (unofficially) to take no notice of either. Bluecaster’s agent
pencilled patient comments on the three unnecessary epistles.
He had spent the morning with a prospective tenant who had seemed to
take a gloating delight in raising difficulties which would never have
so much as occurred to anybody else; the type of sportsman who goes
house-hunting for the sheer joy of pointing out to the lessor the
contemptible disabilities of his property. Getting back for lunch at
the usual time, he found that Helwise had had it early and eaten most
of it, afterwards cinematographing off to some meeting at least an hour
too soon; and the afternoon had seen him harried from pillar to post by
an inspector who kept telephoning trysting-places and never turning up.
Helwise was having tea at her meeting, so there was none for him unless
he chose to order it, and just as his hand was on the bell, tenants of
standing had arrived, wanting him. It was really the tenants who had
made him feel old.
Facing him at the office-table, Wolf Whinnerah had the light full upon
his fierce old face, with its sunk, dark eyes and thatch of silver
hair. He was over seventy, but until recently he had carried his
years with an almost miraculous lightness. Now, at last, however, the
rigorous hand of Time had touched him suddenly, breaking him in a few
weeks. Pneumonia, during a trying season, had carried him very near
the grave, and though he had fought his way back, he was nevertheless
a beaten man. The strong bones of his keen face showed their clean
lines under his furrowed skin. His height was dwindled, his step grown
uncertain, his grasp weakened, his sight dulled. The end of the things
that mattered had come to old Wolf Whinnerah.
His son--his only child--sat between the other two men, with his back
to the fireplace. He had the mountain colouring, for all that he had
been bred on a marsh-farm--the dark hair, and the gray eyes that have
the blue of mountain-mist across them, the dale length and breadth,
too, and the long, easy, almost lurching swing in his walk. And he had
the slow, soft, deep, dale voice, and its gentle, distant dignity of
manner.
He sat, for the most part, looking at the table, while his father laid
his case before the agent. It was a case that put himself hopelessly
in the wrong, but he kept his mouth shut, and stayed undefended. He
had learned to keep his mouth shut. Argument with Wolf generally led
to something perilously near unharnessed battle. He was over thirty,
now, and during all the years he had worked for his father he had
never had a penny’s wage. He had been kept and clothed, like a child,
had tips for treats doled him like a child, and like a child been
ruled in all his ways. He did not resent it; there was no question of
injustice, since it was the custom in his class, and only slowly was
it drawing towards change. But it kept a man his father’s property in
a way curiously patriarchal and out of date to an outsider, making
paternal authority a mighty weapon, and filial independence a strange,
iconoclastic crime.
“Yon’s the way of it, sir!” old Whinnerah finished, leaning back in
his chair, and spreading the long fingers of his knotted hand along
the table, opening and shutting them slowly, as if they levered the
operation of his mind. “I’m done, and the farm must go; and if the lad
won’t take it on, as he says he won’t, why, then, there’s nowt for it
but I must go an’ all!”
He looked down at his hand as he spoke, and clenched it, for it was
trembling. The other men looked at it, too, Lancaster with regretful
eyes; but the younger glanced away sharply, and set the line of his
mouth a trifle closer.
“It’s bad hearing!” the agent said at last, seeing that the son did
not mean to speak. “You’ve been at Ninekyrkes so long, you Whinnerahs.
Naturally we like to keep the farms in the family, if it’s a family
worth having. We’d be more than sorry to part with you--you don’t
need telling that. Can’t you see your way to stopping on a bit longer
yourself?”
The old man raised himself painfully to his feet, looking indeed like a
grim old wolf, with the last yard of pace run out of him, and the last
ounce of fight gone from him. His name he owed to a family tradition
tracing a connection with Hugh Lupus of the Conquest, through his
sister Lucia. Wolf’s son had the name in its Latin dignity, long since
distorted to everyday use.
“I said I was done, Mr. Lancaster! You’ve eyes in your head as’ll show
you, right enough. Yon time I was down such a terrible while, a year
come Martinmas, that finished me, or I’d have likely been good for
another nice few years. But I can’t carry the whole farm, now. I must
give it over to a younger pair o’ hands. Not that I’m grudging that; it
comes to all of us, in the end; but I’m rare an’ sore they’ll not be
Whinnerah hands, Mr. Lancaster! The lad’s set on going abroad, as I’ve
told you. He says he’ll not bide. I could have done a bit on the farm
along with him, even yet--odd jobs to earn my board and keep my old
bones warmed, but wanting him I’ll have to quit for good, and see other
folk of another breed in the old spot. It’s not what I looked for, sir,
not what I meant, and I’ll take it hard. I’ll take it hard!”
He lowered himself shakily back to his chair, and his hand slid out
again on the table, opening and shutting, opening and shutting. Lup
did not move, nor did his mouth alter. There came a second silence.
“Well, you know your own business best, of course,” Lancaster said
presently, wondering what lay behind; “but surely”--he turned to the
young man--“surely you don’t really mean leaving us? There has never
been any misunderstanding either on your side or ours that I know of.
My father thought a lot of you all--that’s old news, isn’t it?--and I’m
of his mind. What’s making you quit, Lup, just when you’re needed most?”
Lup looked at the table and his father’s hand.
“I can’t stop, sir,” he said, respectfully but quite definitely. “I’m
sorry if it’s putting folk about, but I reckon I’ll be better suited on
the other side o’ the dub.”
“Canada?” The agent smiled and frowned. “Come, Lup, we can’t part with
you, and that’s the long and the short of it! They’re taking too many
of our best men, as it is. I don’t want to preach, but doesn’t it seem
to you that it’s your duty to stay with your father as long as he wants
you?”
“Happen it be,” laconically.
“Then, for every sake, man, stop!”
“Nay, I’ll not.”
He shut his mouth again, and Lancaster looked across to the father with
a half shrug, then slewed on another tack.
“It’s a good farm, and you’ve done well by it. There’s money behind
you, and money before you, which is more than a deal of folk can
say. You’ll find nothing like Ninekyrkes, over there. Hasn’t it any
memories for you? I don’t mind laying you’ll find it tug pretty hard on
the other side!” He paused, and tried again. It was a very one-sided
conversation. “I understood you were thinking of getting married--that
there was to be a wedding on the far marsh. Do you propose taking the
lady with you ‘across the dub?’”
The blood flamed over the set obstinacy of the dark face, but died
instantly.
“I’ll not bide!” he said again, and that was all.
A wave of hysterical revolt broke over the dispossessed at his side.
Wolf’s self-command was never of a lasting quality, and it had been
very sorely tried.
“Nay, but I’ll not have you gang!” he cried, shaking from head to foot
with the terrible effort of finished age forcing its will upon dogged
youth and strength. “You’ll stop till I’m in my grave and through an’
by with my job for good! You’ll be quit of me _then_, right enough,
and free to set about any daft-like scheme you choose, but I’m not
under the sod yet, and I’ll see you do as you’re bid. I was a fool ever
to hark to you! I should have said nay and nay to it from the start.
It’s not so long since I could have broken my stick across you, an’
I’m not feared of you, now. Am I like to be feared, d’you think”--a
sneer edged his quivering voice--“of a fool as can’t stick out a bit
of a disappointment, as gets sneck-posset from the lass he’s after,
and bides door slapped in his face without so much as shoving a foot
inside? Nay, I’ll tell you what it is, my lad! she cares nowt, I tell
you--nowt----!”
He stopped, for Lup had risen to his feet and bent towards him, so that
over the table the two dark faces almost met, and before the steady
anger of his eyes and locked lips even old Wolf was stilled. Lancaster
felt the swift current of hatred and bitterness flash between them,
sensed the passionate resentment, puzzle, and pain. Then Lup turned on
his heel and went out.
“I’ll be yoking up, sir,” he threw over his shoulder as he disappeared,
and presently they heard his long, unhurrying tread across the cobbled
yard.
“What’s the trouble, Wolf?” Lancaster asked gently, as the clatter
of hoofs and the jingle of harness came in through the open window.
“What’s put the lad wrong?”
“Nowt but what puts every lad wrong, soon or late!” the other answered
bitterly, sinking back. “It’s Dockeray’s lass, her as went to boarding
school for a sight o’ years, and come back with a look an’ a way with
her fit to beat a ladyship! Lup was always set on her, ay, an’ she
on him, if seeing’s believing. They’ve been courtin’ this year past
and more, going to singin’-practice an’ pill-gills an’ such-like, and
I’ve never known her give him a wrong word. And then, when it comes
to taking on the farm and getting wed and settling down, she’ll have
none of it! She was at our spot to supper, the night it first come up.
Whinnerahs and Dockeray’s have always been rarely thick, you’ll think
on, living alongside, just them two selves right away over yon. You
could never put a pin between ’em. Well, as I told you, she was having
a bit o’ supper with us when I first spoke. I’d had it in my mind for
long, ever since I was badly, but I’d put it by, time an’ again, and
let it be. Likely I was no more ready than most to be set on the shelf,
but the lad’s getting on, an’ he’d a right to his chance. I’d had a
hard day, too, and it came over me sudden-like as I was done for good,
and in a queer sort o’ way I was glad to be through with it all and
rest, if it didn’t mean quitting. I thought of the old chair in the
corner, and the view of a summer evening, and the sea washing at the
wall, an’--an’ all the other things meaning Ninekyrkes and no other
spot whatever! I’m not saying any man cares to sit by and see his son
master where he’s held the reins, but there was a sort of pleasure in
feeling I’d done with my job. I reckon the Almighty sends you that as
a kind o’ sop, just to keep you from fretting over hard. And so I just
up an’ told them how it was. I said I’d see you, sir, about handing
the farm over, and then I says to Lup, ‘Now, Lup, my lad,’ says I,
‘You’ve been courtin’ long enough an’ to spare, and it’s time you
settled down. We’ll change jobs this Martinmas, an’ you can get wed,
an’, please God, there’ll be Whinnerahs at Ninekyrkes for many a long
year to come. It’s a bargain, lad, that’s what it is! So now, Miss
Francey, don’t you keep him waiting. You be getting your gear an’
such-like together, and we’ll have the wedding as soon as ever you can
make shape to be ready!’ Yon’s what I said, an’ I reckon I put it real
smart, eh, Mr. Lancaster?”--the agent nodded response to the appeal
for commendation--“but happen it was over-smart-like for Dockeray’s
lass! She never so much as coloured up or turned shy, but she round
with her head very slow an’ looked at me that calm--she’s got quality’s
ways with her, sir, as I said, very soft an’ kind, but with something
holding her off at the back--an’ says she, in her whyet voice, ‘And
what’s all that to do with me, Mr. Whinnerah?’ Eh! but I was rarely
bothered just for the minute! When I come to think of it, there’d never
been owt in black an’ _white_, after a manner of speaking. Lup’s not
one for tongue-wagging, you’ll have found that for yourself. For all I
could ha’ sworn to there might never have been talk o’ weddin’ betwixt
’em at all; but they’d been together a deal, an’--an’--why, I’d seen
Lup’s eyes on her acrost table, an’ I’d be like to know, I reckon, when
a Whinnerah’s set on a lass! So after a bit o’ coughing and fidging,
thinking she was happen likely just joking us, I got out as we’d always
taken it as she and Lup was sweethearts.
“‘Happen we be!’ says she, only in quality-talk, and she gives Lup the
sweetest little look sideways as set him shining like the Angel Gabriel!
“‘Why, then, what there’s nowt to find!’ says I, trying not to get
above myself. ‘If you’re courtin’, you’re likely thinking to get wed,
and now’s your time. What’s to hinder? The farm’s ready, and the lad.’
“‘Ay, but not the lass!’ says she, spirity-like. ‘The right time’s my
own time, and I’ll come when I choose!’
“‘You’ll come when Lup chooses!’ I said, fair lossing my temper out an’
out. ‘Tell her that, my lad. Tell her she’ll come when she’s fetched!’
“But Lup just sat there like a half-rocked ’un, glowering at nowt an’
saying less, as he did just now, and then my lady gets on her feet and
has her talk out.
“‘You mean kindly,’ she says, ‘and to be fair and just, but you don’t
understand how it looks to me. It’s the way things are worked, I know.
A lad slaves for his father for years after he’s a man grown, with
never so much as a penny to put between his teeth, and at last, when
the old man’s tired, he gives his son his chance. Round comes the
agent, and it’s, “You’re for getting wed, I reckon? Right!” (if it _is_
right), and the contract’s made. The lass goes into the contract along
with the farm, and along at the beck of the three men to the church.
Well, that’s your way, but it’s not mine, and you may as well know it
first as last. I’ll come when I’m ready, or I’ll never come at all!’
“And with that she took herself off, an’ after a minute Lup up an’
followed her. He didn’t come home while morning--I’ve an idea he spent
the night on the sea-wall--and after that it was Canada. Ay, an’ Canada
it’ll be, sir, and no two words about it!”
He stopped, exhausted, and Lancaster laughed.
“Why, man, you’re worrying yourself for nothing! It’s a lovers’
quarrel--no more. I thought, by the look of you, there was murder in
the wind! Come, there’s no sense in whistling up your own ill-luck.
The girl will be round again at the swing of the pendulum by this time
to-morrow. She’ll pull up to the pole all right, you take my word!”
The old man shook a dogged contradiction.
“You’ve seen Lup,” he said. “You know how far there’s bending _him_.
Have you seen the lass, sir? Nay? What, then----” on a sudden, cheering
impulse--“see here, sir, suppose _you_ put in a word?”
“What’s that?” Lancaster laughed again, amused but embarrassed. “You
want me to tackle her--talk to her nicely, point out what she’s
throwing away? That’s a bit too much to ask, Wolf! I’m not agent for
Bluecaster for that.”
“She’d happen take it from you. She’d ha’ took it from your father, Mr.
Lancaster. There’s a many he’s talked into a right way o’ thinking--ay,
an’ women-folk among ’em!--as is glad and proud of it to-day.”
“Yes, but I’m----” Lancaster looked rather helpless--“well--not my
father, Wolf!”
“You’re your father’s son. What a Lancaster says, goes--with most of
us. You’ll try it, sir?”
“I don’t see how I can. What has your wife to say about it?”
“Something of the same mak as Lup, sir--lile or nowt, an’ nowt most
often of the two. She sticks to it there’s trouble ahead, anyhow, and
it’s no odds what road it travels. She’s got a queer trick of sitting
an’ watching the tide, like as if she’s waiting to see something
happen.”
“But surely she’s tried to make Lup hear reason?”
“Ay, I reckon she has, though she’s never let wit on it to me. He’s
the very apple of her eye; she’s not like to let him go unspoken. But
you’ll have a shot, won’t you, Mr. Lancaster? Do, sir--do now!” The
tone was first wheedling, then wistful. “’Tisn’t only the lad. It means
the farm--to me.”
He looked across at the agent with a childlike trustfulness that was
almost absurdly pathetic, and Lancaster broke suddenly.
“Well, well, I’ll see what I can do!” he said, smiling somewhat wryly,
and went out to help the old man into his trap, a growing feeling upon
him of having seen the curtain rise upon some slow working of Fate. The
dog-cart jogged through the gate, and for a moment he saw Lup’s head
above the wall as he turned his horse towards the marsh. The rap of the
hoofs came to him for long enough, dying and returning, until the last
hill between swallowed them up.
And he felt old.
CHAPTER II
THE GREEN GATES OF VISION:--I. DUSK
He went back into the house when the distance had snapped the last
vibrating link, but he did not stay there. The office was still under
the domination of the young man’s silent anger, the old man’s piteous
revolt. He felt troubled for both, seeing the situation as each saw it,
and was conscious of sharp impatience with the cause of the deadlock,
though in his own mind he was certain that her obstinacy would not
last. But the whole affair was an unnecessary worry with which he could
have dispensed very thankfully, and added heavily to his sense of weary
irritation.
He found both drawing-room and dining-room equally unbearable in
his present mood, for both were oppressively characteristic of
Helwise, curiously so, since her character seemed always a shifting
thing, sliding through your fingers and resting nowhere. He had lost
his mother early--before his teens--but the house, under the firm
conservatism of his father and an old servant, had kept her memory
and her tenets for long. Helwise, however, had banished them very
completely. With a long-nursed resentment he marked the disorder of
the dining-room, the drunken regiment of chairs, the holes in the lace
curtains, the cheap almanacs pinned haphazard between the good prints.
Helwise loved to surround herself with calendars. They gave her a sense
of keeping even with Time. He could not steal a march on her by a
single day, while some grocer’s tribute marked the black footsteps of
his pilgrimage. Yet she rarely availed herself of their services, left
them hanging for years--horrible traps to the unwary--her own hasty
references being invariably directed to the wrong month.
Lanty frowned distastefully at their almost ribald askewness, at the
torn places in the paper where the crooked pins had slipped, at the
untidy hearth and wild mass of correspondence on the open desk. It
should have been a handsome room, by rights, for it was bright and
well proportioned. The severe furniture that his father had bought had
mellowed with time, and the few bits of silver on the sideboard had
lost their parvenu air of recent presentation. He had chosen the carpet
himself, and its soft, dark tints still pleased him, in spite of the
tread worn white by the hurrying feet of his aunt. But there was no
ease or homeliness in the room, and it was certainly not handsome, save
as an elderly _roué_ of once better days is handsome, in a last drunken
effort after dignity and repose.
The drawing-room was worse. He had had no hand in the drawing-room,
so Helwise had let herself loose upon it, with results that made
him creep. He hated it, from the collection of smug pot dogs on the
mantelpiece to the bad Marcus Stone imitations on the cold blue of the
walls. He hated the cheap books lying about, the spindly furniture,
the innumerable chair-backs bristling so fiercely with pins that you
dared neither lay your head on them in front nor your hand on them
from behind. There was only one comfortable chair in the room, and
that was sacred to Helwise. Not that she ever actually claimed it as
hers, but if you sat down on it by accident, she wandered helplessly
over the wild-patterned carpet as if there wasn’t another seat within
reach, until you became gradually aware of criminal poaching, and arose
with shame. There were almanacs here, too, gaudy things evidently of
a higher grade, matching, with a pleasantly thoughtful touch, the
shrieking tiles of the modern grate. The wide fireplace of his youth
had been a sacred altar, lighting a torch to many dreams, lifting the
smoke of many prayers; but nobody but a Post-Impressionist could have
prayed to this grate, and its brazen canopy had never housed a single
vision.
With a half-sigh he wandered out again and into the garden, but even
here Helwise had successfully impressed herself. During one of his
very rare absences she had had the fine box-borders removed, and the
paths edged with glittering rockery-stones, intersected by scrubby and
unwilling little ferns. Lanty never quite forgot what he had felt at
sight of them. There was an old song he had been used to growl softly
as he walked between the box, a tender thing called “My Lady’s Garden,”
and sometimes, at dusk, after a hard day, he had vaguely thought to
find her there in the cool of the evening, even as himself and Another.
He had always missed her, but she had been there, he was sure of that.
But when the rockery-stones appeared, she came no more; and to all his
big wants and losses there was added the loss of a little dream.
That was hard to forgive Helwise, just as it was hard to forgive her
the scars on his precious lawn, where her heavy niblick had taken
greedy mouthfuls, and the insane bumble-puppy pole, rearing its
unsightly length in the middle of the soft, green stretch. She had a
summer-house, too, a Reckitt’s Blue wooden thing on wheels, with texts
all over it, like a Church Army Van. All the texts were about food,
strung together at random: “I washed my steps with butter.” “Is there
any taste in the white of an egg?” “There is nothing better for a man
than that he should eat and drink ... For who can eat, or who else
can hasten hereunto, more than I?” etc., etc. Lanty passed them with
averted eyes, for they reminded him that he had had no tea and only the
scrapings of his aunt’s lunch, and stopped for comfort before the one
spot in the garden left untroubled, a stone seat in the terrace wall,
with straggling letters running along its curve. “The whole earth is
at rest, and is quiet,” said the quiet seat in the wall, a soothing
rede for a tired heart, no matter how the truth might rage and storm
without. With its balm upon his lips he dropped into the road through
a little stile, and came before long, without pause or thought, to a
lane winding across country vaguely south. He looked about him before
turning into it. If there had been anybody in sight, he would have
taken another way, but there was not a soul even far distant, and he
stepped in quickly.
Once within its bounds, however, he slackened his pace to an almost
hushed saunter. You did not use this lane as a muscular training-ground
or a mere short cut; you crept into it on tiptoe, and caught it
unawares. It was a capricious lane, racing up and down tiny hills
between its high, warm, leaning hedges, spinning round sharp corners
out of sight, or running innocently to alluring gateways, only to leave
you stranded on arrival. It was full of surprises, full of secrets. As
you walked, you heard all sorts of bewitching sounds above and around
you, sounds you had known always and sounds you never heard anywhere
else. You knew, for instance, the slur of the plough, the whistle
of the blackbird, the whirr of the grass-cutter, the slash of the
bill-hook on a far fence, the gnawing of turnips, the wind-talk of dead
leaves. But there were others you never placed: elf-like twitterings
that never came from any bird’s throat, weird, hoarse grunts like
some guttural gnome-language that couldn’t possibly be just a sheep
coughing; and if you caught the right time on the right night, you
would hear a rustling along the lower fields as the Brush-Harrow Dobbie
went by, with never a horse before it nor a man behind. There was also
the famous Bluecaster Black-Dog Dobbie, which slunk stealthily at your
side, panting and padding ever so softly in the dusk, and disappearing
into the wraith of an old Tithe-Barn long since fallen away, that had
once marked the boundary of the estate.
Besides these attractions, Lanty had a ghost of his own, and half his
joy in the lane lay in wondering if he should find it. It was a very
deep lane. You had to look up and up before you saw the feathery tops
kissing the sky, and you walked between, very warm and safe and quiet,
listening with all your ears at once. And then, all of a sudden, there
would be a break on the lower side, and over a couple of moss-grown
bars, or an ancient gate thrust in at any and every beautiful angle,
you would see the lovely land sweeping down and out beneath you, and
rising slowly, slowly again to soft curves and blue vapours. They came
all along the lane, these flashing little peeps of a world shut out,
like cloister vignettes in some silent Abbey. Your heart went before
you hungrily to each, yet was loth to leave any for the next. And which
was more dear, the tender quiet or the land through its living frame,
it would have been hard to say. Lancaster called the peeps his Green
Gates of Vision.
He stopped at the first of all, and his Ghost was there to meet him,
a long, faint, knife-edged mountain, flung like a cloud against the
south-west sky. It was often missing, and at its clearest the mass of
it was no more than a blown web, yet the line of it had always the
quivering sharpness of steel. He had grown to believe that the sight of
it brought him luck, this Ghost-Mountain of his, so christened because
it never seemed but the ghost of a hill, edged with the spirit-fire
of something safe escaped from clogging matter. Its absence did not
depress him, but its presence, sprung suddenly upon his cloistered
walk, always made his heart leap, as at an unexpected promise of
goodwill. He welcomed it to-day when he was weary and out of tune,
and he leaned his arms on the weathered timber with a sense of rest,
drawing his gaze slowly back from the far symbol to the country close
at hand.
Four or five dropping fields away, Rakestraw stood in its sheath of
woods, the new hay thick in the grey Dutch barns. There were rooks’
nests in the trees overhanging the house; even at that distance he
could see them. That meant luck for Rakestraw, said the wise. He
had always told himself that he would live at Rakestraw when the
cease-fire sounded for the work he loved, farm it himself, lead his hay
and breed his stock, and perhaps the rooks would build for him, too,
as they had built for Dart Newby. He knew in his heart that he would
never do it, just because it seemed so essentially the beautiful and
right thing for him to do. Most of us have our dream-houses somewhere,
and plot and plan their future and ours together; and whether we ever
win to them or not with a signed conveyance, we have something of them
always that is never set down in any legal bond.
To the left he could see the road twisting and dipping but yet steadily
rising towards Gilmichel, and another road far away on higher land,
with Topthorns set on its edge; then Dick Crag, like a soft, gray
bear raising itself on hind legs to look abroad, and, behind it, fold
on fold of neutral-tinted, blended fells. On the right the land rose
again, only more sharply, until the line of the hedges broke once more
into the sky, but over the hill he knew was Gilthrotin in the hollow,
with its one little, steep street, its old bridge and ancient church,
and its empty, eyeless manor-house topping the terrace over the river.
He would come to that presently, when, by slow and delicious chapters,
he had read his lane from start to finish.
Leaning there, his eyes resting on restful Rakestraw, he went back in
mind to his late interview and the task he had undertaken. It was only
one among many unconventional duties falling to him, he reflected, with
the same wry smile. As agent for the Bluecaster estate, free to use
his own discretion in almost every instance, yet often tied hand and
foot by old observance, he frequently found himself in situations for
the right conduct of which there could be no possible arbiter but his
own judgment. Old duties were his along with the outside management,
duties of house-steward and administrator, and even where his rule
ended, the claims on him went on. If a casual visitor at the “Feathers”
was lost out fishing, Lancaster was called to find him, as a matter of
course. If the draper wished to commit suicide, Lancaster was fetched
to command him to desist. If the doctor objected to the rates, or the
parson struck a bad rock in Local Government, Lancaster was signalled
for aid. Difficulties of all sorts came to him for settlement, from
disputes over neighbours’ hens and washing and fondness for the
American organ, to the moot point whether your money ought or ought not
to go to your wife’s relations.
At the age of twenty-four, when scarcely through his training, he had
been thrust into his father’s place by a blast of sudden death which
carried off master, heir, and steward in the same month. The new lord
was only just of age, and glad enough to have a Lancaster to lean on,
so that before the young agent had learned to stand alone, he had the
whole estate upon his shoulders. Thirteen years it was now since he
took hold. Thirteen years since Jeffrey Kennet Cospatrick, tenth Baron
Bluecaster, greeted his inheritance with a sigh. He was a kindly, shy
young man, one of those puzzling natures that swing from an almost
idiotic simple-mindedness to sudden touches of shrewdness; that take
everybody at face-value three-fourths of the time, and for the rest
can see through a stone wall. He had few near relations, and for the
most part spent his flying visits to Bluecaster alone, but he always
came when he was wanted, ready to face some traditional ordeal with
a shy effort. He was generous, too--to a fault--but even in his most
ultra-altruistic flights he could be made to listen to reason. Indeed,
his faith in his agent was almost irritatingly sublime; there were
times when the latter longed earnestly for a man who could see things
steadfastly through his own eyes, Bluecaster leaned so heavily. Yet he
knew himself wonderfully fortunate, and it was only when he was very
wearied or worried, as he had been of late, that he felt his shoulders
ache.
It was scarcely strange that he should feel old; he had had so little
time to be really young. There were drawbacks to being the son of a
fine man, he thought occasionally. People expected you to start where
your father left off, to keep up his standard of ripe experience where
any other beginner would be busy learning from his own mistakes. The
tenants had turned to him from the first with the personal confidence
and affection that they had given his predecessor, scarcely realising
that he had not yet grown to the full stature of control. He had gone
through hard years, often troubling himself unnecessarily, but in the
end he had won out. Before he was thirty he had come to father the
whole lot of them, Bluecaster included. The trust was his dearest
possession, but, serving it, he had missed his youth.
His work was the breath of his life; its varied interests kept him keen
and stimulated, but they increased continually, and every year new
legislation made things more difficult for those engaged with land.
The county, too, had claimed him, and he had yielded, inch by inch, to
the fascination making almost the sole reward of the Great Unpaid. He
had not had a holiday for years; he was too absorbed, too pressed, too
afraid of getting behind. Besides, no other place called him. The whole
of his heart was here.
Things might have run easier if Helwise had been--well, something
quite inconceivably different from what she was. Her descent upon his
desolate hearth from unrewarding efforts as companion to successive old
ladies, had been welcomed by him at the time, not knowing that it was
her special mission in life to make it more desolate still. He had been
too busy at first to notice the atmosphere with which she surrounded
him, attributing his dreariness of spirit to his father’s loss and his
over-heavy task; and by the time he had made himself and formed his
routine, it was too late to send her away. She was happy after her
own parasitical fashion, and to uproot her now would mean a gigantic
effort to which neither his will nor his heart felt equal. But of late
there had grown upon him a longing for a home of his own making, an
atmosphere with which Helwise should never have anything to do. He
murmured old Samuel Daniel’s words as he leaned against the gate.
“To have some silly home I do desire,
Loth still to warm me by another’s fire.”
He had a home, certainly, and one silly enough, too, in its
mismanagement and lack of all peace; but it was another silliness for
which he yearned, the silliness of little, common home-interests and
home-jokes, of crossed glances and talk without words, of parting
kisses and meeting hands. He had a fire, of course, as well; that is to
say, he paid for it; but in every other sense it was “another’s.” He
thought of the drawing-room grate and renounced it violently.
Dusk was drawing down, now, though the Mountain still stayed with
him, faintly limned as a dried tear. Milking was over at Rakestraw.
He watched the cattle coming out from the shippons to a quiet night
in the cool fields. Near at hand a sleepy twittering told him where a
late-nested bird was hidden close. The clipped sheep and the sturdy
lambs still called to each other, as if the tender time of mother-love
was not yet over; and far down on the road he could hear children
pattering home from their summer treat. There came into his head a song
he had heard at a musical festival.
“What can lambkins do,
All the keen night through?
Nestle by their woolly mother,
The careful ewe.
“What can nestlings do
In the nightly dew?
Sleep beneath their mother’s wing
Till dawn breaks anew.
“If in field or tree
There might only be
Such a warm, soft sleeping-place
Found for me!”
Well, his hour of comfort and sanctity was nearly over. His soothed
nerves gave him courage to laugh at his own longings. He must get
back to Helwise and other duties, think out some plan of campaign
with regard to Dockeray’s recalcitrant daughter. He raised himself
reluctantly, wondering, at the last moment, what encouragement his
Ghost was about to send him, when he was brought round sharply by
sounds of frivolous song pouring down the lane. The shuttered quiet
passed. The sheep, newly snuggled under the hedge, scattered in
bleating alarm; fresh twitterings broke from the late nest, and every
shy-peeping fairy-thing became instantly dumb and dead.
With the song came a shuffling as of dancing, and panting requests
to the singer to “bang a bit more on the brass!” and as Lancaster,
standing in the rutted road, looked up to the first frolicking bend,
two figures whirled into sight through the thin veil of eve. Behind,
their obedient accompanist let out his fine voice a little further.
With the singer was a girl.
The dancers, closely clasped in each other’s arms, executed a series
of intricate steps from hedge to hedge with the unanimity and gravity
of extremely superior marionettes. They wore dinner-coats and evening
pumps; their heads were bare, and now and then Lancaster caught the
gleam of shirt-fronts as he watched them swing down through the dusk.
He did not know them, he felt certain of that, and wondered in widening
circles until he remembered that the eyeless house over the hill had
been sold recently, and that these must be some of its new occupants.
Watters was Gilthrotin property, and therefore not in his hands, and
though he had been present at the sale, he had forgotten the buyer,
though he had marked the Lancashire name as one with plenty of money
behind it. That accounted for the strangers. It did not account though,
he thought, ruffled and jarred, for their bad taste in thrusting
noisily into his lane just at fairy-time. With the dogged resentment of
the conscientious objector who stands stolidly in front of a motor-car,
he remained in the middle of the road until the dancers ran into him.
They spun in opposite directions, clutching at nothing, and the singer
broke on a high note. Lancaster went on standing still.
The girl stepped forward, her whitely gray gown showing moth-like in
the shadows. The disgruntled performers were busy picking themselves
out of the hedge, breathing somewhat offhand apology.
“I hope they didn’t hurt you?” she began anxiously. “It’s the Tango.
They don’t seem able to stop doing it, and of course they are only boys
and very foolish. I do hope you’re not hurt!”
Lancaster assured her, smiling a little grimly, that he was perfectly
whole. If anybody was hurt, it was much more likely to be the Tangoists
in the hedge. These now came up, still panting.
“Licks creation! Stuns the stars! Bangs Banagher! I say, beastly sorry
we barged into you like that. Took you for a turnip, honest injun we
did! We’re shooting over to Bluecaster after a smoke-shop, and we
thought it just as easy to tango there. And I say, look here! You’ll
know what time they close, I expect. I suppose we can do it all right?”
“It’s six furlongs, and you’ve just ten minutes,” Lancaster answered
severely. “You may do it, with luck. But if you beat Banagher down the
hill in that costume, you’ll probably find yourself in jail in less
time still.”
“Right-o, old cock! What’s a furlong, anyway? Anybody seen a furlong?
As to the togs, why, it’s the country, the dear, silly old simple-life
country! You can do anything you like in the country, or else what’s
the good of it? Come on, you fellows, we’ve got to get that smoke!”
They flew together again in a furious embrace, and spun away out of
sight, whistling like flying engines at a crossing. The girl and the
singer stayed behind, still apologetic.
“You’d have gone quicker by the main road,” Lancaster said stiffly,
still resentful. “But of course you probably know that already.”
She nodded.
“Yes. But the boys wanted to come by the lane. They love the lane. When
they don’t tango, they bring the car and squeeze her along as fast as
they can. The hedges are too high, though; you daren’t risk the turns.
If they were only clipped so that you could see over, it would make a
fine test for steering!”
The singer in the background began an appeasing little chant, as if he
knew that Lancaster writhed.
“Perhaps some of us prefer it as it is,” he answered coldly. “Hadn’t
you better be looking after your--your brothers? There’s rather a smart
police-sergeant in Bluecaster.”
“They’re not my brothers. They’re just stopping with us, that’s all.
Are we trespassing?” She lifted an anxious face. “I didn’t know the
lane was yours. I’m ever so sorry! We’d better go on, hadn’t we, after
the boys? but we’ll come back the other way.”
Lanty reddened, ashamed. The singer gave him a friendly smile over the
girl’s head.
“It isn’t my lane--of course not. There’s no reason you shouldn’t motor
down it if you happen to know a collapsible method of passing carts.
It’s a favourite walk of mine, that’s all. And everything was just
about asleep.”
She looked a little puzzled and still troubled.
“I expect you _do_ feel it’s your own lane, really! I’ve only been here
since March--we’re at Watters in Gilthrotin--but I’ve noticed people
seem to think that lots of things belong to them just because they’ve
had them somewhere round all their lives--hills and footpaths and
favourite views--things like that. The man in the cottage behind us was
dreadfully vexed because we cut down a half-dead sycamore by the river.
He said he was used to seeing it from his bedroom window--wasn’t it
funny of him? That’s what you feel about the lane, though, isn’t it? I
wish I’d known! Any other lane would have done for us.”
Lancaster choked his feelings with an effort.
“Please do not bother about me,” he said curtly, raising his cap. “You
have every right to the lane. And I don’t think it was funny at all.
Good-night.”
She responded reluctantly, feeling that she had somehow failed to put
things right. She wanted to placate this cross, solitary-minded person
who had already turned his thin, serious face back to the break in the
hedge. Perhaps he was not really cross. He might be suffering from
nerves. They ought not to have worried him, poor thing!
A young moon came up over the hill. For a moment they looked together
through the green arch.
“It must be fearfully quiet, down there!” she said, nodding towards the
buildings hugging the land close as if they loved it and were loved in
return. “I’m not sure I shall like living in the country. Everything
seems to be listening for something that never gets itself said. And
why don’t they put the poor animals under cover? I should hate to spend
the night out of doors, myself!”
He had been watching the moon and his wraith of a Mountain, and at her
words he winced again. She was shattering his magic with both hands.
She had no thought for the summer dew or the nestled lambs, the grey
robe of the night or the gentle miracle of dawn. It meant nothing to
her, this creeping mystery of eve.
“Thought I heard a policeman’s whistle a minute ago,” he observed
casually. “I met the constable following up tramps when I came out.
Perhaps your folks have run into him.”
With a sense of relief he found himself alone again at last, but
the charm had temporarily vanished, the fairy-things remained away.
He wished she had not looked through his Green Gate with her alien
eyes; he was afraid of seeing things as she saw them. She had thought
it nicer for the stock to be indoors, just as she doubtless thought
it better for him to be under his own roof instead of mooning about
a ridiculous lane. He loathed the thought of his own house at that
moment. He disliked the girl who had broken the happy spell. He leaned
over the gate in the gloaming, watching the quietened sheep, and trying
to call the magic back.
“If in field or tree
There might only be
Such a warm, soft sleeping-place
Found for me!”
CHAPTER III
TROUBLE
He rode over to Ladyford the following afternoon.
Helwise came agitating on to the doorstep, just as his foot was in the
stirrup, to tell him that his lordship had returned unexpectedly.
“He telephoned from the House in the middle of the morning,” she went
on, with the high-pitched, running ease which always seemed to make
every difficult situation doubly trying. “He said he would like to see
you at your earliest convenience, but of course I told him you were
engaged both this morning and afternoon, and to-night you were going to
take me to that lecture on ‘The Home Beautiful.’ (It _was_ to-night,
wasn’t it?) I forgot to tell you at lunch. I think it just as well,
Lancelot, to let his lordship know how extremely busy you are, and not
always able to run at his beck and call. I am sure it is quite time
you applied for a rise, with all these horrid insurances to add up. We
could do quite easily with a small brougham.”
Lanty loosed the stirrup.
“I’m quite satisfied with my screw, thank you,” he answered shortly.
“You know Bluecaster’s generosity as well as I do. And I do wish,
Helwise,” (their old Lancaster names formed the one love they had in
common), “that you wouldn’t arrange my business for me. I could have
gone to Ladyford to-morrow, and this morning I was no further than
the show-field, having a look round. You might have sent Armer with a
message. He was only helping you to thread that bead-curtain. I’ll go
in and ring his lordship up at once.”
He turned towards the door, but she stopped him.
“It’s no good; he won’t be at home. He said he was going out to
lunch--I forget where--but he assured me it would be quite all right if
you went up in the morning. So you see there’s nothing to prevent you
riding over to Ladyford, and as you’re passing through Sandwath I do
wish you would call at Brunskill’s for my watch. The man in Bluecaster
is no more good than my shoe. And--oh, Lancelot!--I do believe it’s the
Annual Meeting of the Nursing Association to-day, and it had gone clean
out of my mind! I’m something important, I’m sure--let me see, what
was it?--oh, yes, of course, Honorary Secretary--and they’ll certainly
expect me to be there, but it’s absolutely out of the question. I’ve
promised to drive to a bazaar in Witham with Harriet Knewstubb--I
believe we’re judging something--I’ve forgotten what--but I can’t
possibly leave her in the lurch. The report is ready--you went through
it for me last week, if you remember--but I simply can’t be there to
present it. Couldn’t you do it for me?”
“No, I couldn’t!” Lanty returned firmly. “I do some queer jobs both
for you and for Bluecaster, but I haven’t yet got as far as presenting
reports at a nursing meeting. Throw over Harriet and get along to
your post. If you don’t want to walk, you can order a trap from the
‘Feathers.’”
“I dare say, but I shan’t try. You know what Harriet is if you go back
on her--her language, I mean. The whole nursing committee _and_ the
patients wouldn’t be in it. I do think you might help me, Lancelot! It
isn’t often I turn to you for assistance.”
The last phrase had been part of his life so long that it did not
draw even a mental shrug. In a way he had grown almost to welcome it,
since it marked the full stop to some tangled rigmarole. As a rule, he
awaited it patiently with shut ears, and answered--something.
“I’ll help you by leaving the report as I pass, if you like,” he said,
at last, “but you can’t expect me to do more. What time is the meeting?
Three? Then I shall only just do it. Fetch the papers along, please,
and don’t invent any fresh messages for his lordship while I’m away.”
“And while you’re getting them,” he threw after her, “just think up
some really plausible lie. Even a committee of women won’t swallow that
bazaar.”
He stood waiting with a hand on the saddle, too trained to patience
even to flick his worn cords with a restless whip. Blacker, the horse,
had the same air of long-suffering towards feminine caprice. The black
spaniel sank her nose between her paws. Black was the Bluecaster
colour, from the flag on the roof to the household liveries and the
pigs at the Home Farm. There had been a Bluecaster, fleeing from the
Plague, who had put all posterity into mourning for his particular sins.
The odd-job man, who did a little of everything, including stable-work
and summer-house texts, leaned somnolently against the horse’s
shoulder. Lanty exchanged a word with him, and then left him in peace.
Armer had had a hard morning. Helwise was entered for a bumble-puppy
competition, in aid of a Dogs’ Home, and when he had finished the
bead-curtain he had been called out to give her practice.
Through a window above she could be heard engaged in a scatter-brained
search, and Lanty wondered vaguely why she kept nursing reports in
the bathroom, but to follow the workings of Miss Lancaster’s mind was
to return Ophelia-like, weaving wreaths for one’s distracted head.
She appeared at last with a bundle of papers through which he looked
carefully, having once been basely misled over Boarding-Out Agenda
produced by him on her behalf at a golf-meeting; receiving a volley of
instructions as he climbed finally into the saddle.
“If you don’t like to mention the bazaar, you must think of something
for yourself,” she told him, following him down the drive. “There are
plenty of useful things to say on these occasions, and nobody believes
them. And you can just tell them I think nothing of the new district
nurse--nothing at all! I’ve met her at least three times this week,
and she never even dreams of bowing to me. Of course, I wasn’t able
to attend the meeting at which she was interviewed, but that’s no
excuse, as she must know as well as I do that I’m the Treas--no, what
was it?--Honorary Secretary. She cycles with her saddle far too low,
too--wait a minute, though; that was the last but one--and she spends
too much of her time making herself pleasant to people of no importance
whatever--the sort who are never ill and don’t subscribe a penny.
Don’t forget the watch, will you, and the slippers--did I mention the
slippers? Bedroom-blue-quilted-one-and-elevenpence-ha’penny--size
6--Wilson’s--no, I can’t get them in Bluecaster, you might have known
that--and be sure you say something useful!”
She turned to seize on the factotum, who had adroitly vanished to
finish his nap in the harness-cupboard, and Lanty succeeded in leaving
her behind. Once safe in the road, however, he checked his horse a
moment for a survey of the house. It was a square, gray-stone building,
comfortable and compact, old enough to have acquired atmosphere, yet
not too old for convenience. The garden, thanks to Armer, and in spite
of Helwise, was looking well. There were roses everywhere, creepers
and climbers as well as bushes, and here and there the dark velvet
of violas foiled the pallor of the pinks. At the back of Crabtree
Bluecaster stood in its park, with its shoulder to the hill, and behind
and behind again, as far as he could see, the fells rose in long ranks
until the Whygills towered above them all.
It was a strange day, very sultry and sunless, and the hills had an
edge to their ominous dark blue. The stillness had a menace in it,
too. Only in the garden, as he looked at it, where the colours showed
vividly, as always before thunder, there seemed a protected peace. The
house slept and the garden held its breath, and, caught in the spell,
he could almost have believed the place a home indeed. Then his aunt’s
voice came running (it seemed) from all directions at once, her feet
scurrying in search of the slumbering one; and with a sigh he touched
up the chafing horse, and made west to the marsh.
He met the district nurse almost immediately, a bright little woman of
100 h.p. energy, and found no difficulty in getting himself recognised;
and a mile further on he turned up a drive, drawing rein before a porch
arched with sweetbriar, where he pulled the bell without dismounting.
Mrs. Yare herself came out to him, and to her he handed the papers.
Through the near window he had a glimpse of a selection of hats,
framing various degrees of interest and annoyance. His regrets were
received with gracefully concealed unbelief.
“We were all wondering what had happened!” she told him. “We always
have the meeting here--I’m a Chief Lady Superintendent or something
Mikado-ish of that kind, you know--so I hardly thought Miss Lancaster
could have forgotten, especially as she calls the meeting herself! I’m
very disappointed she wasn’t able to come, but no doubt we shall manage
all right. She is well, I hope?” she added courteously.
“She is only--mixed,” Lanty answered curtly, gathering up his reins.
“I’m extremely sorry if you have been put out. Please accept my
assurance that it shall not happen again. I was told to say something
useful,” he finished grimly, “so perhaps you will be kind enough to
convey a message to the committee? My aunt, with much regret, resigns
her position on the Association!”
Bluecaster, House and village, lay some three miles from the narrow
bay where it ran in to take the rivers Bytha, Wythe, and Ulva. Lanty
could see the winding estuaries as he topped Hullet, with Wythebarrow
standing out to the marsh on the north-west, and the grand barrier of
Lake hills behind. Both north and east lay the marsh-farms, part of
the rich property which ran from the sea (for the foreshore rights
were Bluecaster’s) to the Yorkshire and Lancashire borders. But there
were only two farms on the north, below Wythebarrow and across the
strait--Ladyford and Ninekyrkes, standing alone on the lip of the tide.
He lost them again as he dropped into Sandwath, where he executed his
orders, turning into the marsh-road towards four o’clock.
The same brooding stillness held the bay in thrall; the same line
of warning edged the hills. The tide was dead out, and the sands
lay desolate under the heavy sky. Now he had the twin farms again,
ahead and across where the bay narrowed in and stopped, unnaturally
white on the gloom of their background, and flanked by slender stems
of larch and fir. The marsh-road was deep-dyked on either hand, and
here and there in the watery bottom he caught the sunny gleam of
late goldilocks. On his left was the long sea-wall known as the Let,
guarding the eastern marsh; on his right the land rose gently until it
hid the village. Here were Moss End and Meadow’s Ing, with Lockholme
beyond, and others; and, still beyond, close to the brown waste, Pippin
Hall, where he left his horse.
He skirted the grassy bank for some ten minutes, and then struck
across the sands to his destination. Walking thus, a lonely speck
on the dreary flat, the isolation of the dwellings in front came to
him sharply, so that their air of prosperous serenity, of tranquil
sureness, seemed almost dangerously provocative. Far away and out,
where the bay, between two headlands, ran into open water, a slant of
light from the sullen sky laid a shining strip from point to point
which he knew to be the sea. It was there and it was coming, quietly,
perhaps, and inoffensively, but there would be many a night when it
would come like a beast of prey, ravening its path between narrow
shores, devouring the waiting desert. And yet the farms were not afraid.
The sea-wall had been carried in front of them also, reaching out to
the last inch of broken land, and from thence merging into the huge,
defiant bank which had once been famous throughout the kingdom. It ran
along the coast for a couple of miles, joining the hill on which the
town of Cunswick climbed, and behind it the reclaimed land lay safe.
Lancaster’s father had built both walls, the success of the lesser
firing him, years later, to throw the larger gauntlet over the sands.
They had christened the low wall “Lancaster’s Let,” which means merely
a hindrance, but the big bank they had named “Lancaster’s Lugg,” from
the Scandinavian “lugg,” a forelock, and “lugga,” which means “to
pull by the hair,” for Lancaster had knotted the manes of the white
sea-horses together, and dragged them out of their ancient stable.
It was built with a high daring across the one lung of the limited
passage, and at its back the grassy waste harboured sheep and waited
for man’s hand; for though it had long since been mapped out for
building, only one house had risen as yet on the stolen ground.
Lanty had often looked at his father’s plans, and locked them away
again. Something held him back from putting them into shape, and,
moreover, decreasing values and increasing Government drains had left
the income tight at times. Yet he meant some day to materialise his
father’s dreams, and had good hopes of them, for Cunswick was a growing
seaside resort, and would eventually take up the land quickly enough.
Meanwhile the big wall held its own, caring nothing for the onslaughts
of the crouching foe behind that shining line. Whether the full moon
brought the fierce thrust of a heavy swell, or the west wind, riding
a wracked sky, hurried the shock of racing billows, the bank held off
the one and flung back the other, steadily throwing the trend of the
tide to the further and higher side of the bay. To-day, with never a
trickle of water at its base, it looked like a mighty serpent on the
uncovered sand, winding its slow and writhing length lazily to the sea,
purposeless, abnormal, monstrous in the unnatural fight and leashed
quiet. The sands themselves were dangerous--dangerous to walk and
sail, with their deep, shifting banks, unknown quicksands and tidal
bore. The whole place had the terrible fascination of lurking ill, and
yet on all hands the farms lay peaceful and content, like trustful
women sleeping in a tiger’s cage.
Lanty looked at the Lugg, that tremendous thwarter of the tides, and
thought of his father. The project had aroused a storm of controversy
at the time, out of which the thing itself had emerged triumphant.
Men had pronounced it a risk to the whole coast, and time had proved
them wrong. Lancaster had vindicated himself, leaving the bank as his
monument, for, in looking out to it each day, the marsh saw also the
dead who had planned it. They were not afraid of it there. Because a
Lancaster had built it they trusted it, resting tranquilly on his word.
It was in their simple confidence that his real monument was raised.
The son came at last to the channel of the Wythe, hurrying to sea past
the foot of Ladyford, and from there he hailed the farm, shattering the
stillness and causing even himself to start. Somebody answered from
behind the buildings, and presently a tall boy appeared on the bank,
and scrambled down to the boat below. This was Dockeray’s youngest son,
the only one at home, and Lanty wondered, watching him pull across,
what he and his parents thought of the Whinnerah complication. He had
come with no definite plan, after all--simply to see how the land lay,
and whether a timely word might in any way be possible. Certainly he
doubted both the opportunity and his own wisdom. If the girl were as
good-looking as her brother, he thought idly, she might be forgiven a
little petulant coquetting with destiny.
Rowly greeted him with a smile as he grounded the boat, and made
conversation readily enough as they went over. His parents were well,
and the married brothers away. His sister? Yes, she was at home,
now--had been for some time. Oh, yes, he was glad to have her. It was a
bit lonely at Ladyford of a winter’s night, and Francey was champion
at the piano and singing. He liked a song himself, and so did the
old folks. They were well, too, at Ninekyrkes, barring old Wolf. He
feared he looked like breaking up fast; but anyhow it was time he had
a rest, and let Lup take hold. Ever since the pneumonia he’d been a
different man. But that was all; no sign or hint of how matters stood,
or on which side his sympathies lay. Lanty knew only too well the
deeps covered by the apparent guilelessness of the breed, and asked no
leading questions. It was early work for that, in any case. Better bide
his time until he had seen the girl herself.
Michael Dockeray was waiting on the bank when they pulled in, spare and
upright, with wise, quiet eyes and little to say. A totally different
type from old Wolf--this; refined and tactful where the other was
blunt and unafraid; strong enough, too, but with none of Wolf’s added
violence. Yet the two had always been friends, often disagreeing, but
turning to each other for help as naturally as to one of their own.
He met Lanty’s grasp warmly, and they moved on up to the house, leaving
Rowly to get the boat ashore, for the tide would be on the turn before
long. The agent came but seldom to the far marsh, and he caught a wave
of welcoming excitement as he approached--figures passing from kitchen
to dairy in a cheerful flurry that yet allowed time for a peep through
the nearest window at the coming guest. Mrs. Dockeray’s voice could be
heard running the full gamut of agitated instruction, dropping to a
last whisper behind the pantry door concerning the new strawberry jam.
Then she appeared, all pleasant smiles and hearty kindness, and Lanty’s
homelessness was taken up into her motherly arms and smothered out of
existence. Through the half-open door he had a glimpse of a smooth,
dark head and a trim figure, and a desire for flight came upon him, in
spite of the new strawberry jam. His task, vaguely irritating before,
became suddenly impossible and grotesque. He consented to sit in the
parlour, making polite conversation with his host while the ordered
ceremonies went forward beyond, but he refused to be given tea there,
and was glad when the summons came at last from the atmosphere of wool
mats and honesty to the artistic rightness of the kitchen. Across the
cool picture of yellowed walls, white-stoned flags, shining linen and
china, Francey Dockeray’s face stood out cooler still, and as he shook
her by the hand he felt painfully clumsy and inadequate before her
pleasant self-possession. She knew why he had come--he guessed it from
the faint satirical twist in her otherwise charming smile, from the
swift summing-up of her gray eyes. The business-matter which he had put
forward to her father would not pass muster with her, he felt certain
of that. He could have dealt with the ordinary farmer’s daughter;
he knew to a turn the phrase and manner to adopt with success, but
they would not apply here. Wolf had been right when he used the word
“quality” of Francey Dockeray. Her ease of manner had the simplicity
of true good breeding, and it was to this that he had unwillingly paid
tribute. But she was aloof, as he had said. Affectionate towards her
parents, thoughtful for the guest, interested and attentive, she was
yet, in some inexplicable fashion, outside and away from them all.
Lancaster liked his errand less with every minute that passed.
It was inevitable, of course, that the conversation, veering from
land-politics to wrestling and singing-practice for the benefit of the
young folks, and back again to the farm, should turn at last to their
neighbours. As soon as Whinnerah’s name was mentioned, Lanty took his
first tentative step.
“You’ll know, I suppose, that Wolf’s talking of leaving?” he asked
casually. “Lup’s off to Canada, he tells me, and that means the old
folks clearing out of the farm. I’m sorry for both pieces of news.
Whinnerahs are old friends. We can always do with the right sort, and
Lup’s one of the best.”
He sent a straying glance round the group, only to meet the same blank
impassiveness that had resisted his efforts crossing channel. It seemed
as if, in the eyes of her family at least, Francey could do no wrong.
“Ay, the pneumonia did for Wolf!” Dockeray admitted sadly. “I’ll be
loth to see the Whinnerahs go. We’ve known each other a sight o’ years,
now, and when it comes to old company taking its hand off the plough,
I’m like to think my own time won’t be so long, neither.”
“Nay, now, master!” Mrs. Dockeray put in quickly. “What, you’re a deal
younger than Wolf, and as lish as a whip! You’ve no call to talk of
giving up yet awhile. Not but what you’ll be missing them all sadly, I
doubt, as I will myself. I’m not one for taking up with new stuff, an’
I’ve sort of grown with Whinnerahs. I’m not saying, though, but what
it’ll do young Lup a deal o’ good to see a bit of the world. He sticks
away in the old groove till he gets that tied with his tongue you’d
think he hadn’t two brains to rub one at back o’ t’other!”
“Lup’s right enough, mother!” young Rowly put in indignantly. “Lup’s
head’s as full o’ meat as most. You’ve no need to call him out of his
name!”
“Nay, why I’ve nowt against the lad, not I! But he’d do with a shake
an’ a slake an’ a shine with a polisher, after a manner of speaking.
Look at Brack Holliday, now! _Yon’s_ a lad worth running to see of
a Saturday night! Canada done that; happen it’ll do something for
the other an’ all. He hadn’t much in the way of schoolin’, hadn’t
Lup--he was that stuck on the farm--and it doesn’t do not to keep a
few manners put by when there’s call for ’em. Why, there’s whiles
I’ve heard him talking with our Francey there, he so rough and she
that nice-spoken--though I say it as shouldn’t, she being my own
lass--there’s times I’ve felt right-down sorry Lup shouldn’t have no
more chance of bettering himself than his own hired man.”
Lanty’s circular glance caught the faintest flush on Francey’s cheek,
and passed to meet Mrs. Dockeray’s glance seeking his own; and it came
to him, in a flash of inspiration, that she was on Lup’s side and
her men-folk with her, that the wise mother-mind had its own method
of pulling the strings, while the others stood apart, committing
themselves to nothing. The matter struck him suddenly as a charming,
homely comedy of courtship--no more; and he planted a further step with
a firmer tread.
“I was doubly surprised to hear of his departure, because it was quite
other news I’d looked for. Folk had it he was getting ready to marry
and settle down, and I thought the lady in luck, whoever she might be.
I was misinformed, I suppose? Strange how these tales get round!”
A certain uneasiness became apparent in both Michael and Rowly at this,
but Mrs. Dockeray never turned a hair.
“Ay, well, courtin’ he might be, like enough, but it isn’t every lass
would look at Lup, as I mentioned a minute ago, for all he’s a good
enough lad and steady as yon shuppon. He’s not everybody’s choice in
these days o’ lettering and figuring. There’s a many as’ll seek to look
higher than just poor Lup Whinnerah!”
She fixed him again, and he nodded assent, seeing that it was expected
of him; and then, from her post at the window, where she had moved at
the end of the meal, he met Francey’s clear gaze. She stood half-turned
to the casement and the stretch of sand beyond, her pale cheek to
the brilliant geraniums on the wide ledge, and in her eyes, as they
rested on his, something of scorn and yet of wounded appeal. He felt
the blood rise to his face as he looked, conscious of having outraged
both her feelings and his own good taste. The type he understood would
have taken him in jest, or retreated from the room in dudgeon; not
have remained without retort, gently contemptuous and quietly hurt. He
changed the subject abruptly, wishing the Whinnerahs and their affairs
at Jericho.
Lup’s name dropped like a stone, but the question of matrimony still
hung in the air, for Michael himself came back to it after a lengthy
discussion upon the late danger of plague from Irish cattle.
“Ay, there’s many a knock-down blow lying in wait for the poor farmer!”
he observed, shaking his head over a new and harrowing tale. “But
it’s a decent enough life for them as is framed for it and knows how
to take it standing. It’s done well enough by me. I’ve a fairish farm
and a just landlord, and the sort of missis a man’ll be put about to
part with when the time comes for his last ride to church!” He looked
across at his wife with a mild twinkle. “Not but what she’s a rough
side to her tongue, and a mighty short stock o’ patience for them as
doesn’t see same ways as herself;--but there’s only two sorts o’ wives,
Mr. Lancaster--them as a man’s fain to be shot of, an’ them as he’d be
right fain to be shot _for_--an’ yon last’s my missis, sir, and a good
bit over!”
Francey left the window, and laid her hands on his shoulders for a
moment, her face lightly smiling and tender. Then she was gone from the
room, while Mrs. Dockeray, with the suspicion of a shake in her voice,
defended her character for patience.
“Eh, well, I reckon we’re as easy as most!” she admitted at last
with her cheerful laugh. “You’d do no harm to take copy from us, Mr.
Lancaster. We’ve been looking for you to get wed, any time these last
ten years!”
Lanty was used to the suggestion, and repudiated it without
embarrassment.
“I’m not a marrying man, I doubt!” he answered; and, even as he spoke,
felt a surge of envy sweep over him at the picture of mutual need
before him. “Any more than Lup!” he added, with meaning, and there came
another pause, during which Rowly slipped out after his sister.
“You know what’s to do, sir, I reckon?” the mother asked presently,
as Lancaster waited for his challenge to be accepted; and at his
brief--“Wolf told me something”--she unburdened herself of the
situation, while Michael stared straight before him with his wise
eyes, rocking gently from time to time in his cushioned chair.
“Whinnerah he come across rampin’ fit to kill himself, saying as how
our lass had been playing fast an’ loose with his lad, and there was
talk o’ Canada and quitting the farm an’ such-like! He was set on our
putting our foot down, Michael an’ me, and giving Francey a piece of
our minds, but we told him that hadn’t never been our way with her,
and it wasn’t likely we’d begin now; so he took off again in a rare
tantrum, an’ that’s all there is to it. It’s true, as he says, as we’ve
always made sure she and Lup was courtin’, but we didn’t ask questions,
taking it that she’d speak when she’d a mind. I’d be glad to see her
wed the lad, ay, an’ so would Michael here, though I’m not saying she
mightn’t do better. But if she’s not set on having him, she shan’t be
driven to it, as long as there’s folks at Ladyford to her back. I’m
real sorry for Wolf and Lup--ay, an’ poor Martha!--and I’d give a deal
to see the lad stop, but our own barn comes first, and she shall suit
herself, Mr. Lancaster.”
And Michael said: “Ay. Yon’s the way of it. Yon’s right!” rocking
gently from time to time in his cushioned chair.
“Well, it seems a pity,” Lanty said at last, reluctantly making ready
to go, “but I’m still hoping things will right themselves. It’s natural
a girl should like to be consulted, though I shouldn’t have thought
it was just a touch of pride with your daughter. She looks too fine a
character for anything as small-minded as that.”
“’Tisn’t only pride, Mr. Lancaster! It’s something a deal
stronger,--it’s love upside down. We’ve nobody but ourselves to thank,
as I tell Michael. It’s the schoolin’ as done it. We’d a bit of money
saved, and we took a fancy to have her finished like a lady, but I’m
not so sure, nowadays, as we did the right thing by her. It’s hard,
Mr. Lancaster, when you think a deal o’ your own, not to want to give
them something better than you’ve had yourself, but I’ll not say as I
think it’s always wise or kind, leastways, for a woman. A man, happen,
can go an’ fight his own way in the world, but if a woman’s got to
bide at home, the schoolin’s likely learned her nowt but hankering for
what’s out of her reach. Not but what Francey’s been biddable enough,
but I’ve kept my eye on her. I’ve been biding my time for this, an’
now it’s come. We’ve made her different of our own will, and we’ve
no right to expect her to do as we’d have done. It’s us that’s to
blame--an’ the learning. It makes a woman look at a man like a new sort
o’ lesson-book. It starts her wondering what she feels instead o’ just
feeling. It sets her seeing with her eyes an’ not with her heart. It’s
not just brains you want for dealing wi’ men-folk, sir. It’s something
as feels in the dark with blind eyes, something as sharp to hark as yon
collie-pup, as soft to touch as a mother’s hands! Francey’s looking an’
not letting herself feel, and till she’s learned that looking doesn’t
count in love, there’s nobody can help her. Nobody but Lup--and,
happen, life--can set her right.”
“You’ll likely be giving them a look-in at Ninekyrkes, sir, as you’re
here?” she added, following him to the door. “They’re terrible down,
an’ it would cheer them up a bit. Wolf’s that set on your family,
you’d happen think it was Royalty, to hark to him! He saw a deal o’
your father, yon time as the Lugg was so long building--Mr. Lancaster
used to stop many a night along with him--an’ he’ll crack for a week
about it if happen he gets the chance. He’d swear with his eyes shut to
everything your father ever did--says there’ll never be his like again.
Not but what he thinks a sight o’ _you_ an’ all, sir! You’ll look in?”
“Yes, I’ll step over, now I’m here, but of course I’ll say nothing of
what you’ve told me. If they really mean leaving, we must get things
fixed up. Wolf said his wife had taken to looking ahead for trouble. Is
that so, do you know?”
He saw a half-embarrassed glance pass between the two.
“She was always a bit of a worrit,” Michael said at last, rather
hurriedly, “an’ this’ll have likely got on her nerves. I’ll set you a
piece of the way, sir.”
Wondering, Lancaster followed him out into the heavy evening.
CHAPTER IV
THE TROUBLE SHAPING
It was milking-time when Lanty left Ladyford, with Dockeray beside him,
and they met the cattle coming in to the shippons. Their slow swing
across the yard added to the drowsy oppression of the day. It was as
if he walked in sleep along the narrow sea-road linking the two farms.
The flat land behind was in good cultivation. When it was turned by the
plough, the share came out clean of rust and shining like silver. A big
plantation stood away towards Wythebarrow, hiding the highway between.
A wide cut was cloven betwixt the far meadows. There was no sign of the
tide as yet, and out on the dry sands the Lugg still lay meaningless
and bare.
Ninekyrkes was nearer the open sea than Ladyford, less sheltered,
less homely, less pleasant to the eye. The rough, sturdy house stood
up bravely to the winds. There were flowers round Dockeray’s, and an
orchard behind it. Whinnerah’s had neither. It was built for storm and
stress and fierce happenings, and bore upon its forehead the mark of an
abiding-place of Fate.
Wolf came round as they appeared, and after a brief greeting Michael
turned home. Lancaster saw him go with strange reluctance. The
grim farm and its grim tenant fostered a sense of tragedy lying in
wait, gathering itself to spring; but he roused his business-side
determinedly, and kept strictly to technicalities as he started on his
tour of inspection. Yet still the hand of tragedy obtruded through
all. It was pitiful to hear the old man reverting to plans for the
future as if the doom of dismissal had never been pronounced. He would
stop at some field or fence, pointing out what he meant to do next
year or later, and Lancaster listened patiently, or brought him back
gently to the real state of things. His self-consciousness with regard
to Michael’s daughter disappeared in face of the full situation, and
his anger grew against the girl, who, for some trivial reason, could
stubbornly rob a failing man of his earned desire. For Lup he had
sympathy, if a good deal of impatience. He was strong enough, surely,
to take what he wanted; yet perhaps it needed something finer than mere
strength to capture Francey Dockeray. In any case, he should know his
own business best.
They got to the house at last, and within it he felt again the marked
contrast with Ladyford. Here, in the kitchen so similar in many
ways, the cheerful peace was changed for hinted dread, emanating, he
concluded at length, from the frail figure in the chair by the window.
He had known Mrs. Whinnerah all his life, and he was not afraid of
her unsmiling welcome, but to-night he felt that something hidden
suffered and watched behind her chill reserve. The sense of it was so
strong that it claimed his thoughts even while he carried on the usual
conversational exchange.
They were a pathetic pair, he thought, looking from one bent figure to
the other. Wolf was a sad enough picture, a fine man gone to wreck in
a few devastating months, but the pathos of the woman went deeper. The
hard life on the marsh had broken her long since, stolen her youth in
the first years of marriage, crippled her with rheumatism, stamped on
her thin face that look of passionless endurance which can be seen in
many a farmer’s wife who has found her burden too heavy and gone on
bearing it. She had been pretty, once. In the line of her cheek and the
set of her head was still a beauty of refinement absent from Francey’s
mother over at Ladyford, and the thin fingers of her worn hands were
curiously sensitive and suggestive of a rare intuition. But that was
all that was left to her. She was finished, as Wolf was finished,
and the one thing that life might yet have held for them was to be
taken away. Lanty wondered how Lup could look at them, night after
night, sitting there hopeless, and steel his heart to the unbreathed
prayer, even though sacrifice might mean daily crucifixion, with the
love denied so close at hand. But Lup himself was part of the cruel
situation. He did not come to it from outside, as Lancaster came, with
fresh eyes full of pity.
Remembering both Wolf’s words and the Dockerays’ embarrassment, he
found himself noting the old woman’s constant and fixed gaze out to
sea. Her faded eyes were still clear, and the large pupils had the
effect of dark pebbles seen through deep pools. Time after time he
succeeded in drawing them to his own face, but, his question answered,
they returned instantly to some invisible point beyond. Wolf had said
she was watching for something, and it certainly seemed like it, for
the glance was not the wandering one of custom, but a stare of genuine
expectation, suggesting held breath and stiffened muscles. Wolf looked
at her uneasily at times, and when she became conscious of his gaze she
would bring her own with an effort to the guest, but always, always it
went back. The sensation of mystery deepened, and Lancaster stirred
restlessly under its touch. The sky had darkened and then filled with
fire, and beneath the dull thunder-glow the houses on Bytham Knott
looked like flakes of snow dropped on a sullen slab of granite. The
thin trees stood like dumb sentinels of fear; the green of the fields
smote the eye; a sudden clash of milk-pails from without set every
nerve leaping, and then the stillness sank again. And the sands and the
bank were stiller than the air. The only moving thing was the shining,
quivering line far away to the west.
Mrs. Whinnerah made no complaint of the approaching change. She was
ready to go, not with the decision of personal choice, but with the
apathy of one led by destiny. Lanty asked at last where they thought
of moving when the time came for breaking-up. There was a pause after
the question, and he saw Wolf’s eyes travel to his wife, as if, in
this moment, some urgent problem must be solved, but she gave him no
assistance.
“You’ll think it queer, likely,” he began, filling his pipe with slow
fingers, “but I’m hoping you’ll not say no to an old man’s wish.
There’s yon cottage your father built, you’ll think on--that on the new
land as they call the ‘Pride.’ It’s been empty a good bit, but it’s
taken no harm. The key’s here, and I’ve had a look round now and then.
Folk say it’s over lonesome; they get flate at night, hearkening to the
sea, them as hasn’t been bred by it an’ learned to like it. I’d never
rest without the song of it coming and going, but there’s folk can’t
abide it. Well, I’ve got a fancy for that cottage, Mr. Lancaster. It’s
nigh on Ninekyrkes land, and I’d be able to reach an eye over the old
spot from the door. With a bit o’ practice I’ll likely learn not to
mind seeing other folk at my job. It’ll not be for that long, I doubt.”
“Come, you’re good for many a year yet!” Lancaster put in, as
cheerfully as he could. “I can have the cottage put in order for you if
you’re really set on it, but don’t you think you’d be wiser to pitch
your tent somewhere else altogether? Living within a stone’s-throw will
only set you hankering after the farm. You’d be happier away. What has
your wife to say to it?”
He turned to the woman, but before she could answer there came a sharp
crack right across the empty sands, and with a strangled cry she half
rose to her feet, gripping the wooden arms of the chair, her face livid
and her arms rigid, her glassy eyes fixed on the inscrutable beyond.
“It’s through!” she said in a choked voice, so full of horror that it
drew Lancaster to his feet beside her, but Wolf sat still and snarled
from his chair.
“Yon’s thunder, nowt else! Look ye there!” and as a fierce flicker of
lightning danced down the pane, she sank back into her chair, biting
her lips to steady them, and knotting her trembling hands together on
her knee. She was calm again almost immediately, and Lancaster, at
the window, watching the blue daggers stabbing the dead waste, and
hearkening to the long rattle of charging clouds, marvelled that she
showed no further signs of agitation. Shock after shock broke overhead,
leaving her unmoved, and the vivid flashes scarcely shut her eyes. It
was not the storm that had frightened her, he told himself. What was it?
The almost running roar made conversation impossible, so he stood
silent, watching the tempest sweep along the open space before him. The
passion of it seemed grotesque, as wreaked upon a lifeless thing beyond
the reach of hurt. It died away at last in tired, angry spasms and slow
gleams, and the thick silence came again into the heavy sky.
When it was spent, Lanty turned to say good-bye, hoping to make home
before the storm returned, circling on its tracks like a driven hare,
but as he reached the door a strange thing happened.
Through the stillness dropped like a muffling shroud came a new sound,
smooth, stealthy, swift, a soft sound as of shod wheels, swept wings
and subdued speech; and in the same moment Mrs. Whinnerah collapsed
in her chair, until he saw the thin, gray hair coiled at the nape of
her neck. With an exclamation, half of pity, half wrath, Wolf turned
and went back to her, and, looking out, Lanty saw the bore sweeping up
over the vanishing sand. It was small to-day, innocent and slim, with a
crest of white on its smooth head, but in the deadly certainty of its
advance, the unhasting speed with which it met the sand and took it,
there was a sinister promise of mightier power held back. The insidious
reminder of its faint wash was almost as terrible as the shout of
battle with which the winter tides came in. It slid lightly along the
foot of the Lugg with barely a ripple, and the bank looked down almost
unaware, like a dreaming graybeard at a child playing round his knees.
Behind him, with a troubled sense of intrusion, he could hear Wolf’s
voice, impatient and distressed, coaxing the crouching figure in the
chair.
“It’s by, lass--past an’ safe, by now--a whyet enough water with barely
a lift to it. Nay, what you must be daft to take on like this! It’ll
stand many a long year after we’re under the sod. You’ve no call to
fret. It’s a Lancaster’s job, Martha, as sure as a gun an’ as right as
a bobbin!” He looked up apologetically. “You’ll not take it amiss, sir?
She’s always like this at the turn of the tide.”
Lanty sympathised as well as he could, but when he would have held out
his hand in farewell, she shrank away and hid her face once more.
“The Lancaster hand!” she muttered, winding her fingers in the woollen
antimacassar. “Oh, God! How long? How long?”
With a pleading look, Wolf drew him out, and he went gladly enough,
bewildered by the whole situation. There was mystery somewhere, and he
did not like to ask the cause.
“Mrs. Whinnerah seems thoroughly upset,” he ventured at last, in a
matter-of-fact tone. “Living so long by the sea has got on her nerves,
and I don’t wonder! It must be pretty drear out here on a rough night.
You should get her away for a change,--she has a sister over at Bortun,
hasn’t she? It doesn’t do to play with these things. If she keeps like
this, you’ll surely never think of taking the cottage?”
Over the old man’s shoulder he could see in the distance the little
gray building behind the Lugg, that some mocker had ticketed
“Lancaster’s Pride.” It had had many tenants, but none had stayed very
long. Their courage had not been equal to the dark nights on the lonely
waste--nights, when behind the wall a full sea surged and swayed,
claiming the land that man had robbed. It stood empty, now, waiting
stronger spirits, and it was to this place of fear that Wolf’s heart
turned, for from its windows he could look to Ninekyrkes all day long.
“Nay, the missis’ll do well enough,” he said, in answer to Lancaster’s
speech. “She started yon worriting job nigh on a year back, a matter of
a few week afore Brack Holliday landed home. He made such a stir, it
kind o’ fixed it in my mind! She’ll likely mend after a bit. Anyway,
she’ll not quit the marsh no more than me, that’s sure an’ certain!”
“Why, but man, it’s bad enough for her at Ninekyrkes!” the other
argued. “It’ll be a good few hundred times worse at the Pride. You’ll
never get her to go.”
“She’ll gang where I gang!” Wolf said obstinately. “Offer her any other
spot on the estate, and see for yourself. She’ll bide all right.”
“Well, I can’t say I think you’re wise. Suppose I won’t let you the
cottage? I’ve more than half a mind to refuse.”
“Then I’ll see his lordship, Mr. Lancaster! It’s not for a steward to
be looking awry at a good tenant!” He added, “Begging your pardon,
sir!” with instant contrition.
Lancaster nodded assurance.
“That’s all right, Wolf. But I wish you’d reconsider your decision. I
don’t like the idea of your roosting away in that desolate spot.”
“It’s desolate, sir, but it’s safe enough. _You’ve_ no call to fear the
Lugg, surely?”
“Why, no, the bank’s all right!” Lanty answered, with a smile. “There’s
never anything my father did but holds good to this day. But, all the
same, I don’t want you at the Pride.”
“Ay, but all the same you’ll let it me, sir! It’s this way, Mr.
Lancaster. Your father, when he’d made sure the Lugg was standing, he’d
just time to build yon lile cot afore he died. He’d framed for a many
more, but they had to bide. An’, near about the last time he was down,
he says to me (I’d been a deal with him up an’ down the marsh, and he
was the best friend I had, but yon’s an old story you don’t need to
hear), he says to me: ‘Wolf,’ says he, ‘yon’ll be just the spot for
you if ever you come to quit the farm. I’ll have been in my grave many
a year by then, but my bank’ll see to you for me. I’d like to think
of you in the little house, for there’s never a stone nor a plank but
will call me to mind. Not but what I know you’ll not forget. I’ll never
really die while the Lugg stands and Wolf Whinnerah’s over sod!’ You’ll
not say no after that, sir?”
“Well, I’ll think it over,” Lanty answered reluctantly. “By the way,
I haven’t had a word yet with the girl. Perhaps I’ll catch her as I
go back, though I doubt it’s no use. Good-bye, and I wish to goodness
you’d change your minds all round!”
He left him at the yard gate, and strode off along the road. On the
other side of the Let the tide lapped tenderly. Deep in frowning
thought, he was startled by a voice speaking his name, and, looking up,
saw Francey Dockeray on the grassy barrier above him.
CHAPTER V
THE TOOL
He saw her for a moment poised against the brooding sky, and then she
dropped down the bank to his side. They stood alone on the desolate
strip of road twisting whitely between black peat, green mound, and
brown sand. Midway from farm to farm they met--a fitting point, it
seemed to him, for the peculiar arbitration he had in hand.
“Rowly’s at the boat, sir, if you’re wanting him,” she said politely,
and he answered with a curt word of thanks. Then--“They’re in a bad way
at Ninekyrkes,” he began, without preamble. “They seem gone to pieces
altogether, both Wolf and his wife. It’s hard on an old couple, of
course, when it comes to losing both their home and their only child.”
She looked away to the crag behind, and made no reply.
“I’ve just been round the place with the old man,” he went on, “and it
was pitiable to see how he kept forgetting he’d got to go. It was like
turning the knife in the wound to keep reminding him how things were.
It’s hard, as I said. He might have had his last days in peace.”
Still she did not answer; only her gaze, turned inland, grew troubled
and hard pressed.
“It seems so unnecessary!” He felt suddenly impatient before her silent
resistance of his efforts. “Lup’s place is here; that’s plain enough
to anybody with half a conscience. He’s fond of the old folks, too. It
isn’t as if they didn’t get on. Normally, he’d never have thought of
leaving them. Can’t something be done? Can’t somebody help?”
She gave a sharp sigh, as if forced against her will over old ground
already trodden to weariness, and brought her eyes to his as they
rested on her full of demand and penetration.
“Hadn’t we better be frank with each other, Mr. Lancaster?” she asked
gently. “You’ve heard the story--I feel sure of that--and you want to
try to talk me round. That’s so, isn’t it?”
“I’ve heard some sort of an account--yes; and it looks as if the key
of the situation lay with you. Of course, you’ll say it’s no business
of mine, and from one point of view it certainly isn’t, but when old
friends are in trouble one wants to stretch a hand. I wish you’d tell
me why you did it--why you went back on Lup Whinnerah just when he
needed you most. You’ll not deny you went back on him, I suppose?”
“No, I don’t deny it.”
“Why, then, there’s hope!” He smiled with quick relief. “You’re surely
not the sort to play down upon a good lad like Lup? You’ll never break
up his home for the sake of a whim or a foolish twinge of vanity?”
“I don’t want to break up his home. I’ve tried to dissuade him from
going away. He could stop, if he chose. I can’t see that I make any
real difference.”
“You make all the difference.” He was speaking gently enough, now.
“We like to have married men on the farms, for one thing; and even
supposing Lup did stop on, what sort of a life would it be for him,
with you always within reach? You’re all so dependent on each other,
out here. He’s been over-hasty, I consider, but I can’t find it in my
heart to blame him greatly. Sticking by the man, of course, you’ll say?
Well, perhaps; but in this case there’s reason. Come, Miss Francey,
think better of it. If you care for him at all, you’ll never let him
go.”
“I’ll not keep him,” she said, and they fell silent.
Then--“Why?” he asked again. “But why?”
She smiled faintly.
“I don’t know why--not altogether. It’s true that it’s partly pride,
I suppose--I’m not sure. I do care for Lup, and I’d promised to marry
him, but when his father put it all into plain words, spoke out and
told me to fix the date, all the glamour went, somehow. He had it so
cut and dried--I felt as if I were being sold. It meant no more to him
than a change of stock at a May fair. I’d have had to say no if it had
killed me. He meant all right--of course I know that--and it would
have been right for most, but it wasn’t for me. They wouldn’t treat
one of your class like that, would they? But that’s the way of mine,
and I’d no right to resent it, I suppose, only I’ve been made over and
differently in those long years at school. I couldn’t accept it as
perhaps I ought to have done. It hurt something in me that I didn’t
know was there, something that wouldn’t be touched. That was part of
the reason, I think. Not all.”
“And the rest?” he asked, at last.
“The rest is Lup’s, sir. I can’t tell you that. I don’t see it clear
myself, as I said. Put it at pride altogether, if you like.”
“What’s pride, if you care?” he argued. “Let that go by the board! You
can, if you try. And the other thing, too, whatever it is. For Lup’s
sake--for the old folks’ sake----”
“I can’t. I can’t.”
“You’ll not regret it.”
“I can’t--that’s all.”
“Well, I’m not here to marry you against your will!” he growled,
aggrieved at the deadlock. “If you won’t, you won’t, and there’s an end
of it. I’d not be so hard on you if I thought the change would mean
getting Mrs. Whinnerah away altogether, but it seems that Wolf is set
on taking the Pride.”
“The Pride?” They had begun to walk slowly towards the boat, but now
she half stopped, looking up at him anxiously.
“That’s his idea. I can’t very well refuse him, if he really means it,
but it looks to me a bad move for the wife. Even Ninekyrkes seems too
much for her nerves, as it is. You’ve seen her lately, I suppose? Can
you tell me what’s at the back of it all?”
She quickened her step, looking down.
“She’s getting old, sir, and she imagines things. You mustn’t pay any
heed, Mr. Lancaster. It only worries Wolf if you do.”
“Well, I must say you’re a happy family over here at present!” he
grumbled, as they came down the shore. “I might as well have stopped
away, for all the good I’ve done. You’ll be sorry for this, some day,
Miss Francey!”
“I’m sorry now!” she answered, with so much pathos and helpless appeal
in her voice that he was silenced. Scrambling into the boat, he was
rowed away across the now wide stretch of water. The first shot of
the new battery burst from the sky as he reached the other side, and
through the playing lightning he saw Francey Dockeray still on the
bank, with the blackness of all doom around and above her.
CHAPTER VI
HAMER’S HUT
Dandy Shaw looked round the Watters drawing-room with a little twist
of the lips. She was perched on a high oak stool, with her feet on the
rungs, and through the Chippendale mirror opposite she could see both
her own figure and its setting. It was afternoon, and under the looped
yellow silk blinds the sun pattered on dark wood and faint brocades, a
carpet hushed as moss, elusive little water-colours, china ephemeral
as frost-breath, books with the colouring of rare gems. There were no
photographs in the room, and there was no silver, no flotsam and jetsam
of Christmas and birthday offerings, but there were flowers everywhere,
not massed with heavy ballroom effects, nor set at conventional
intervals like a well-drilled regiment, but leading the eye on with
unexpected thrills of pleasure from one delicate single shade to
another, like tiny semitones in a fairy scale. From without, where the
river crept beneath the dark splendour of turned beeches edging the
terrace, the long, low, gray-faced house with its plain windows looked
almost asleep, but there was a very active brain at work within.
Dandy--otherwise Anne--had no need to fear her image in the mirror, but
she frowned at it, nevertheless. Even the image seemed joyously alive,
with soft, bright hair, and blue eyes full of candid goodwill; and
nothing about it clashed at first sight with its surroundings, yet she
glanced from it to the old walls with amused yet abashed and apologetic
resentment. For the first time in her life, Dandy Shaw was discovering
that there are things which mean more than people.
From the still house and the simple, beautiful room her thoughts
went back to Halsted, her late home on the outskirts of a Lancashire
town--to the overwhelming magnificence of its _ménage_, the long, rich
meals, the endless contrivances for comfort, the stream of guests, the
intricate programmes of amusement. She saw the big, red pile, with the
shining cars slurring up its drive, the long lines of hothouses, the
priceless roses, the precious orchids flung into elaborate schemes
of colour. It was all rich and splendid and inviting, luxurious and
perfectly organised; but Watters cared for none of these things.
It was pale and gray and plain and cool and utterly aloof. It did not
care a toss whether you looked at it or not, so of course you always
did, leaning over the humped bridge, and wondering what ghosts moved in
the darkened rooms and met by moonlight on the terrace. If you tried
to bring a car up its twisting, cross-grained drive, the odds were you
would find yourself in the river or a clump of clipped yews as old as
Ernuin the Priest. And the roses at Watters would have died of sheer
disgust in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of a rose-show marquee. They
grew and scrambled and climbed in their own strong-willed fashion,
clothing cold stone with hearts of deep orange, flinging arches of
tender pink or glowing crimson against opal skies, or lifting single,
dewy heads like pale lamps in the hushed garden after sunset. And at
any but simple food it looked rigidly askance, loftily permitting the
butcher to drop his beef and mutton, and condescending to game, as a
country house of standing, but shutting shocked eyelids upon French
ménus and foreign cheeses. Anything _bisqué_ or _braisé_ or _soufflé_
or _au gratin_ scarcely dared trust itself near the stove, and a pot of
_foie-gras_ had positively to be smuggled.
It was a curious impulse that had driven the Lancashire tradesman from
the home of his own creating to one with which he had apparently
nothing in common. Less than a year ago, Dandy had found him on the
Halsted drive, with his hands in his pockets and his hat on the back of
his head, surveying the symbol of wealth with a puzzled frown.
“There’s something wrong, Dandy Anne!” he broke out, as she slid a hand
through his arm. “It’s strong and it’s good, and it’s warm and it’s
cool, and comfortable and convenient and clean, but it isn’t anything
else. It doesn’t make you think of the past and the future. It doesn’t
make you want to throw up your hat one minute and dry your eyes on your
coat-sleeve the next. It’ll never have any troubles or joys bigger than
an insurance-card or a mayoral invitation. It’s smug--that’s what it
is! It doesn’t feel--it _can’t_, and so it can’t make you feel, either.
When a man’s getting on in years, he wants the sort of house that can
show him how to grow old kindly. This red elephant would be smug and
smiling while I was tottering into the grave. Let’s go and find a hut,
Dandy Anne, where I can grow old gently.”
And Watters, for some reason known only to himself, had seemed to him
just that “hut.” He had had it decorated by an artist, who, recognising
the individuality of the place, seemed to have listened in secret
to its whispered wants; and when it was finished, Hamer Shaw strode
happily up and down it, a burly, incongruous figure with its hat on the
back of its head, satisfied to the very marrow, and growing younger
every day. He had opened his eyes in a Westmorland cottage, and though
he had left it so speedily that it was scarcely worth mention, some
power, biding its time, had called him back, to his passionate content.
Mrs. Shaw was of the type that belongs nowhere but to the absorbing
house-world of the moment, and she had borne the transplanting
cheerfully enough, if not with her husband’s bubbling ecstasy. But to
Dandy it was almost as terrific an experience as a total change of
planet.
Bred in Lancashire, educated in London, finished abroad, she had no
single tie with her new life and surroundings. She had been perfectly
happy at Halsted, liking the constant excitement, the flow of money,
the crowd of guests. She had understood everybody, and they had
understood her. She had been an excellent hostess, and a very charming
uncrowned queen, with not only Halsted, but all her circle at her feet.
She had lived quickly and strongly, a little noisily, perhaps, but
very vividly; and now, at the age of twenty-four, she was flung out
of the rush into still water. Cessation may prove as distracting as
revolution, and after five months she was even yet eminently perplexed.
She had put no stone in the way of her father’s sudden desire,
cheerfully resigning the old life for the new, for she was a happy
creature with an interest in the world at large that would have stood
the shock of almost any change. But this had proved so puzzling and
disconcerting,--yielded so many emotions of an unexpected nature! Not
only was she no longer a queen; she was scarcely an individual. With
her somewhat exceptional powers of clear vision she soon discovered
that. She was “the new girl from somewhere awful--I forget where;
daughter of the new people at Watters--I forget who; new-rich dealers
in something--I forget what.”
The word “new” followed her about like a witch’s curse. At Halsted
it had been the last touch of praise for everything. If you made a
purchase, you called everybody in the house to see it, whether it was
a diamond necklace or the tiling in the bathroom. But in Gilthrotin
nothing new was tolerated but necessaries like bread and butter;
diamonds were nothing accounted of unless they had glittered first on
a family neck in a family portrait; and when progress and the plumber
forced you to a hot-water system or incandescents, you were always
glad that your great-grandfather had not lived to see it. Under her
cruel consciousness of “newness” Dandy was oppressed even to the earth.
She frowned at the picture in the glass, much as Hamer had frowned at
soulless Halsted.
Few people had called, as yet, except the neighbouring clergy,
together with countless daughters of the horse-leech, cased in
subscription-lists. More daughters had written. Indeed, begging letters
dropped like hail. Hamer contributed to the first twenty-five, and then
sat down to think about the rest. The county came slowly, however; in
driblets, so to speak. Things would alter in time, of course, for even
in the conservative country Hamer Shaw’s money would make its way, as
well as--later--Hamer Shaw’s sterling worth and fine business capacity.
And his daughter would be taken up, when it was discovered that she
hadn’t actually worked in a mill and worn clogs, but was merely a
charming and well-educated member of human society. But she would never
be a queen again, even then. She would never be even one of the elect.
She would always be “new.” In a ripe old age she would have progressed
no further than “rather new.” She would always be an outsider at
Watters in Gilthrotin.
To do her justice, though she sent a sigh after her lost crown, that
was not the cause of her dissatisfaction. For the first time in her
smooth career she was arrested, called to halt by something that
thrilled almost to pain. For the first time, too, she saw herself no
longer the pivot of her world, an outstanding figure on an obliging
background of earth, but a mere unnecessary pigmy on its surface. She
found the country cruel and very lonely, full of shut secrets, fearful,
yet unquestionably alluring. In this new atmosphere, where the true
Romance still brushed by on velvet wings, her unfledged soul shrank a
little, and as yet was lost. The name of it in books had stirred her
to a vague desire; the reality of it, keen as a sword, rich as purple
curtains before God, made her afraid.
The house affected her in the same way. Its tranquillity, its dignity,
its rapt air of hiding secrets mystic as the Grail, impressed her as
the attributes of a living thing, with a mind and being larger than
her own. Its susceptibility, too, amazed her. Halsted, for instance,
had cared nothing for weather. When the sun burned, you drew the
blinds, and, within, the luxury grew cool and fragrant; and when storm
held sway without, again the blinds were drawn, shutting you into soft
comfort, where electric light, silver, and china, laughter and the
click of balls or the slur of dancing feet, struck always the same
note of lapped pleasure. But, at Watters, when the sun shone, the old
house stirred dreamily and smiled, and half-forgotten pictured faces
looked alive from the dim walls, and threads of hot gold ran molten
along the dark floors. There was no need to curtain the sun; the place
needed it, and turned its old bones gratefully under its touch. And on
days of stress the house shared it with the day; you could not shut
the storm from Watters. The wind was in the house itself, lifting the
rugs, whistling up the stair, crying like a lost soul in the eaves.
The hurrying sky was mirrored in the glass of the panelling, and the
beating rain filled the stone eyes with streaming tears. Outside, the
full river swung above its banks, and the lost wail of sheep on the
mist-hung fell rode on the tortured air.
But the silence was worse than anything, she found,--the real silence
that is full of notes but never a note that jars. When she woke
in the morning, it took her by the throat. No jangling of trams,
mill-whistles, and trains; only, at times, faint music from the farm
across the way, and the slow, sleepy call of church-bells. She could
not lie, as she learned to do in later days, staring with quiet eyes
at the sky, wrapped in a happy stillness more soothing than sleep. It
often woke her in the night--that full silence.
They had had visitors, at first. Before they were fairly settled in the
place, a crowd of friends had descended on them, and Hamer Shaw would
sooner have shut his door to a Royal honour than an old acquaintance.
But the circle, so pleasant and suitable at Halsted, was altogether out
of the picture at Watters. The very house itself would have nothing
to say to the guests; indeed, it deliberately sulked at them with
grudging fires and lukewarm baths. It had other tricks, too--sudden
stairs down which they tumbled in the dark; rattling windows, creaking
boards and whistling key-holes for the hag-ridden hours of the
night; soot in spotless grates, burst pipes and skilfully situated
coal-buckets; while the outside world co-operated subtly, from the
early rooster to the midnight owl. These drawbacks had been unknown
at Halsted, and the guests asked each other dismally what could have
possessed old Hamer to quit his palace for a God-forsaken monument like
Watters. Their torpedo-nosed cars had a kind of abnormality in the
little village at the river’s edge. The Halsted habitués rent the night
with gramophones, and across the cool water flung the frenzied parlance
of snooker. They were Halstedites who had tangoed through a dream in
the lane. Dandy found herself shrinking from them unintentionally but
unmistakably. She was glad when they went; and yet, when they had gone,
she was sorry, for she felt her place to be with them. And the friends
bemoaned themselves as they motored home, saying sadly--“That’s the
end of _you_, Hamer, old man! In another year he’ll have forgotten
he ever knew us. It’s the country does it--the benighted, besotted,
be-swank-ridden country. Give him six months more, and he’ll be as
rooted an old tree-stump as any of them!”
It wasn’t anybody’s fault, Dandy realised that thankfully. The hosts
had been kind as usual, the guests hearty as ever, but the new
conditions had laughed the old friendships to scorn. It was very sad,
and it was also rather terrible, if you were once fully convinced that
a house, a senseless mixture of stone and mortar, had done it all on
its own!
Thus Dandy held review as she sat with her feet on the rungs of the
high stool. Later in the day, on a sudden impulse, she unburdened her
mind to her parents.
“It’s going to be a bit hard for me,” she said frankly, “so you must
not be disappointed if I’m a failure! I don’t match here, and I’ve
lost my old element, so at present I’m neither flesh, fowl, nor good
red herring. I’ll have to grow to this place, and that sort of thing
takes time. I don’t mean that I’m unhappy; it’s only that I don’t fit
in. _You’re_ all right, aren’t you, mummy? You touched ground over the
Bluecaster butcher with the Halsted smile. And father’s been all right
all along. It doesn’t seem fair that I should still be struggling in
deep water.”
Mrs. Shaw said--“6 tr., 3 lacets, 1 sp., 31 tr.--have you seen the new
stair-rods?--4 sl. sts. from third horizontal tr., turn!”
And Hamer took his pipe out of his mouth and added--“It’s great!” and
put it back again.
“Yes, it’s great.” Dandy laughed and sighed. “So great that I’m not
sure I’ll ever get round to the far side of it! It’s small and mean,
too--does _every_body keep a pet charity chained like a dog to nobble
new-comers? And those that don’t beg seem to be tied up in a pride as
big as a bath-towel--that nice, cross agent-person, for instance, who
looks rather like a high-class keeper, and nabobs you off his land
like a reigning duke. _He_’ll never want to be kind to us, I’m sure,
and we must have _some_body to pass the time of day with. Perhaps
the house will decide. It turned a cold enough shoulder on the poor
Halstedites; it owes us somebody in return. I hope it will send an
interesting selection soon, though it seems queer to have to let a
house choose your friends for you! I get on fairly well with the
villagers, though they’re not exactly flattering. ‘Very pleased to meet
you, miss, I’m sure! You mind me something surprising of her as was
last school-teacher but two!’ That was the ‘Jeanne’ frock, mother, that
Wiggie used to say looked like concrete moonshine, at Halsted. It looks
like the fairy queen in a ballet, _here_. Even my sporting clothes are
wrong--they sport too much. And I find I don’t know any of the things
that matter--when the grass begins to grow, and which weather is coming
up from the sea, and what to call it when it _has_ come. No, I don’t
fit in. Perhaps I’ll learn, after a while.”
Hamer Shaw said--“The land’ll teach you,” and leaned back and shut his
eyes. He could hear milk-pails on the flags at the Parsonage Farm.
“And love,” Mrs. Shaw added, very unexpectedly, “7 lacets, 7 tr., 9
ch., turn--don’t forget to look at the rods!”
“The land--and love.” Dandy said no more, knowing nothing of either.
On the fell opposite a floating wreath of mist was lifting delicately
upward like a lawn kerchief drawn from a sleeping face. “The land--and
love.” Great Masters. But the land, as yet, would have none of her, and
love might never look her way. She could win the one if she chose to
woo it; the other and greater must come unasked.
“Mais, cher dieu, de la tendre et divine épouvante,
Amour, que feraient-ils si vous ne veniez pas?”
CHAPTER VII
THE TROUBLE COMING.--THE GREEN GATES OF VISION: II. MORNING
“Afraid I’ve got to worry you a bit!” Bluecaster began apologetically
in his slow, shy voice. He was big and broad-shouldered, with a manner
toiling anxiously to meet your approval, and never quite sure of
getting there. Yet there was the charm of breeding in his diffident
speech and pleasant smile, and under all his patient horror of
responsibility was a real desire to do “the decent thing.” He looked at
his agent much as a conscientious hound looks at a kind and skilful but
strict whip. If you were fond of dogs, you reached out your hand and
patted him when nobody was looking, and he licked your hand in return.
“You’ll wonder, I expect, why I never dropped you a line to say I was
coming, but, as a matter of fact, I hadn’t meant turning up again just
yet. Had to leave the mixed doubles at Sledhammer. Ripping tennis we
were having, too--and yet they say we landowners never do anything for
our property! But the fact is, I’ve been put out about something, and I
wanted to talk it over. How have things been going? Any news?”
Lanty thought of the careful letters he had written at such short
intervals, detailed, explicit letters, suggesting, accounting, and
wondered how much, if any, of the information had been grasped by
his employer. He did not refer to them, however, but gave him the
outstanding points of several situations as simply and rapidly as
possible. Bluecaster was obviously glad when it was over.
The Ninekyrkes problem, though, had a chapter to itself.
“That’s curious!” he said thoughtfully. “It was about the land round
there that I wanted to see you. Nothing to do with the matrimonial
mix-up, of course! Very awkward for everybody, the girl cutting up
rough like that. I wonder they didn’t call _you_ in, Lancaster! They
seem to think you can settle most things.”
“Well, they did,” the agent confessed, “but I wasn’t a success. I think
I made matters worse, if anything! There’s no other trouble, though,
that I know of, on the marsh. What have you heard, my lord?”
Bluecaster, however, still beat about his particular bush, inquiring
after Helwise, the factotum, even the Church Army Van. He always
remembered Helwise with little, quietly administered courtesies, though
she pestered him to martyrdom when he came within reach.
“I’ve had a letter,” he broke out at last, with a rush. “Yesterday--no,
the day before. It’s from a tenant, of course; though when I say of
course, of course I don’t mean of course, because they never do write
to me, at least, scarcely ever. They don’t need to, when they’ve you.”
Lancaster wondered a little. A sense of coming ill was in the air.
“They’ve a right to go straight to you, if they choose,” he said,
“though, as you say, they don’t seem to find it necessary, as a rule.”
“Or much use, either!” Bluecaster smiled shamefacedly. “You’re not so
much older than I am, but they wouldn’t give a brass farthing for my
opinion against yours. Neither would I, for the matter of that! I don’t
believe they ever remember that you’re really a young man, yet. They
come to you with all their worries and woes, don’t they?--even the
women! You’re the real king of this little, ring-fenced pheasant-run.
I’m only a sort of Privy Seal that you carry about on your
watch-chain. The tenants know that as well as I do. Half the time they
forget my existence, but they believe in you like their prayers--all
except this blithering nuisance with his letter.”
“Nothing serious, I hope?” Lancaster was longing for the point.
“Well--that’s just it. I don’t know. But _you’ll_ know, of course.
That’s why I say it seems a bit low-down writing me behind your back,
so to speak. Still, perhaps he thought it the right thing to do. You
see, it’s almost personal.”
“Personal?” Lanty smiled. “You needn’t be worrying about my private
character, if that’s the trouble.”
“Good Lord, no!” Bluecaster almost blushed. “Afraid I’m getting mixed
and making an ass of myself. But I think you’ll take this rather worse
than libel, if I’m not mistaken. Your father did so much for the place.
It’s seems such ghastly cheek, calling any of his work in question.”
“Who’s the man, my lord? New, I suppose?”
“Yes, of course. At least, a new freak of an old breed. The others
would string themselves up before they’d throw mud at a Lancaster.
It’s Bracken Holliday over at Thweng--little tin god in a Trilby and
a Studebaker-Flanders. Claimed me as a sort of long-lost brother at
Cunswick Races, and seemed to think I was by way of being blessed of
the gods in having him on the estate. What made you let him Thweng?”
“He’s old Holliday’s nephew--Willie of Pippin Hall. Willie kept him as
an orphaned lad until he cleared out to Canada, and made money there,
somehow. He wrote to me from abroad about the farm, and I thought he
ought to have his chance. He’s not framing over well, but I’m still
hoping the old blood will tell when he’s settled down, and that he’ll
find his level after a bit.”
“Not until he’s under the turf, I should say! Well, it seems he’s got a
down on the Lugg.”
Lancaster opened his eyes. The surface of his mind scoffed, but in that
instant the waiting trouble sprang into existence. In every terrible
memory there is always one moment more poignantly lasting than the
rest. It is generally the moment when fear first springs. All his life
he remembered the tone in which Bluecaster said--“The Lugg”--the plain,
leather-upholstered room and its harassed master. Yet he scoffed. He
answered with a smile.
“What’s he got against it? Not æsthetic enough for him? Or has he some
new patent facing that he wants to palm off on us?”
“Nothing so mild.” Bluecaster lumbered through all his pockets after a
letter lying directly in front of him. “It s the old story, of course.
He says--where’s the thing got to, anyhow?--that it isn’t safe.” He
pushed the envelope across, avoiding the agent’s eyes. “He makes out
some sort of a case--but you’ll see for yourself.”
It was not an attractive letter, since courtesy had been left in the
lurch by an assurance very different from the dignified independence of
the men of the old type. The writer had a good conceit of himself--you
could almost have deduced the Trilby and the motor from the over-tall
capitals--but in spite of the insolent tone it carried a certain
conviction that could not be denied respect. He believed what he said
when he called the Lugg a public danger.
“Manners just a shade worse than mine, if anything!” Bluecaster went
on nervously. “His penny a week seems to have gone shouting. Still,
perhaps we’d better let him down gently, as he’s so worried in his
mind. He’s nothing against the Let, of course, but he’s got his knife
pretty deep into the poor old Lugg. I wonder what set him raising this
view-hullo? It’s in repair, I suppose, and all that kind of thing?”
“I had it overhauled at the end of the bad weather. It’s as good to-day
as when my father built it.”
“That’s over fifteen years ago, isn’t it? How the county
hummed!--remember? The Let was a pretty piece of work, but the Lugg
fetched ’em up all standing. And what a rattling time the old lord had,
sitting round and watching while your father ran the thing! He was
getting a bit over age for Newmarket and all that, and fighting the sea
put him on finely for amusement. People howled, and said it was defying
Nature, and so on. The papers kept an eye on it for years, didn’t they?
Remember that rough winter, when a lot of them sent reporters down to
be ready on the spot when the bank broke, and the old serpent simply
laughed at them? Why, Lancaster’s Lugg made the family famous! We’ve
never done anything startling on our own account--nothing publishable,
anyhow. And now this outsider has the old tale by the ears once more.
Give me the gist of what he writes, will you?”
“He says--it opens well!--that nothing but the most inflated arrogance
would ever have built the Lugg at all; that the land behind it is
a death-trap, while the Pride is a sheer insult in the face of the
Almighty. But that’s only the beginning. His main argument is that the
forcing of the tide into a narrower channel is a distinct menace to the
farms at the head of the bay. (Thweng’s one of them, of course.) He
contends that each storm places them in imminent danger, and demands
that we break the bank, sacrifice the new land, and give the flood
room. (Just the original arguments dug up again.) Failing this, he
promises us a tide held waiting in God’s Hand, which will arrange
matters so effectually that not only the whole present world but all
succeeding generations shall gnash their teeth at us and brand us with
shame!”
“It’s a bit rough, isn’t it?” Bluecaster put in ruefully. “Seems pretty
intimate Up Above, doesn’t he? Of course, one isn’t such a Borgia as to
want to risk anybody’s life or set death-traps, or anything such rotten
bad form as that--I’d sooner let the sea suck up the whole blessed
income and have done with it--but your father always said the new land
would make money for us eventually, and the Lloyd-Georgian era is very
expensive. Surely he’s rambling a bit, Lancaster?”
“He’s certainly quite unnecessarily anxious. I can’t understand what
has worked him to this pitch. Sounds almost on the verge of brain-fever
about it! We had a few words when he took the farm--there may be
something of that at the back of it. Sneered at our old-fashioned
methods--we’ve scarcely any agreements in writing, you know--and said
_he_ was a business-man, anyway, and didn’t trust anybody. Of course,
after that, I had everything down with him in black and white. This
may be just his way of trumping up a grudge on that account. He can’t
really consider the Lugg a danger, in spite of this fervent epistle.
It’s stood the test--both ways--for so long. I’ve heard my father say
that nothing short of an earthquake wave could take the bank. I’ve
heard him swear that the head farms were as safe as Heaven. He would
never have risked a yard of the land he loved. My father’s word is good
enough for me.”
“And for me!” Bluecaster added bluntly. “It was a big undertaking,
though,” he went on, with the recurring nervousness in his voice. “I’d
never have had the pluck to broach it myself. The bay does look a bit
caught by the throat. I suppose it’s just possible that a heavy flood
with an exceptional gale behind it--well, well, that’s all settled,
isn’t it? What’s to be done with this man? If he’s worrying, can’t he
change farms or something?”
“I hardly think he’ll do that.” Lancaster looked again at the letter.
“I can’t help feeling that there’s something more that we’ll get at,
presently. Of course, as a marsh-tenant, he’s entitled to a hearing.
He might have put his views rather more delicately, but that’s neither
here nor there. Will you write him, or shall I see him? And, if the
latter, have you any instructions?”
“Oh, see him, certainly!” Bluecaster looked alarmed. “And of course
you’ll know streets better than I do what to say. As long as you think
the Lugg’s all right, it can’t be wrong. I’ll stop on a few days, now
I’m here, in case you want me, but you’ll manage as you think best.” He
heaved a sigh, looking away. “I’m glad you’re sure about the old bank!
I thought it couldn’t be anything but a false alarm, but one never
knows. _You_ do, though! A Lancaster always knows. It’s a jolly good
thing for me I’ve a Lancaster to know for me!”
Lanty sighed, too, when he got outside, but it was a little
impatiently. Bluecaster was a splendid chap, considerate, generous,
reasonable even when he couldn’t see the point, but he so often
not only did not see the point but made violent haste to escape
it. Difficulties that it was his special province to unravel were
transferred from his fingers to his agent’s with the rapidity of
cat’s-cradle. He was no support in any problem; generally, indeed,
an added factor to the puzzle. In the growing atmosphere of trouble
Lancaster longed earnestly for his father.
On the gravel, a thought struck him, and he retraced his steps.
Bluecaster was playing billiards by himself, and urged him to have a
game. He looked resigned but amiable when Lancaster reverted to the
tiresome subject he had thought happily dropped.
“With your permission, my lord, we’ll have the matter out with all the
marsh-tenants. There may be something more behind, as I said. Not but
what I’m sure they all trust the Lugg to a man, barring Brack. Still,
they shall have their chance of speaking, if you’re willing.”
“Of course. Get ’em together when you like. Need I be there?”
“I should prefer it. It isn’t a question for me to handle alone. It
wouldn’t be fair to ask me.”
That fetched Bluecaster at once, as he expected.
“Right you are! I’ll not shirk. I say--can’t you really spare time for
a hundred up?”
But Lanty couldn’t. He knew that his eye along the cue would see
nothing but the wriggling length of the Lugg, and he got away again as
soon as possible, calling to the black spaniel that had waited on the
drive. He went out through the gardens and across the park, half his
mind busy with the new vexation, the other turned, as usual, upon the
general condition of the property. Certainly, he had every reason to be
satisfied. The gardens were perfect. The old Tudor house showed plainly
enough that a keen eye watched its every need. The park, too, had had
its special attention. The winding carriage-road was trim and rolled;
the fences were in order, the young trees protected against cattle, and
the Home Farm adjoining was a model holding. Bluecaster was certainly
very well-groomed.
He climbed a hillock crowned by a ring of oaks, from which he could
see for miles in all directions, and pride grew in him as he looked.
Bluecaster might have done nothing startling, as its owner had said,
might have sent no great statesmen or fighters to its country’s
service; but it was known throughout the North for its prosperity, its
careful management, tempering justice with mercy. Bluecaster tenantry
were envied, for, if not pampered, they were always considered, could
always find an ear for a grievance. Class-hatred was almost unknown on
this particular property, where so much of it ran into isolated dales
and along lonely marsh-borders. The balance between landlord and tenant
swung sanely and steadily, for both had trust in the hand that held it.
Only the agent himself felt the weight of the scales cut deep.
But he had not failed. He had taken hold where his father had loosed,
and had kept his father’s standard, stumbling at first, but steadying
himself as the years passed. He was squarely on his feet, now. His back
was straight. No. He had not failed.
He allowed himself this fleeting moment of satisfaction and warm
pleasure; and then the chill of the new shadow crept over him, a cloud
like a man’s hand out of the west, where the marsh-farms lay. He must
think the matter out, have his words in order before the tenants met.
He turned his back on Bluecaster, and sought his Lane of Vision.
The thunder had passed, and there was a bright breeze flickering over
the sun-touched fields like the wind of a gaily-flirted fan. Even in
the lane little whiffs of it darted at him over the hedges, kissing his
cheek and brushing his lashes, and when he reached the second arch, he
saw it twinkling like the racing feet of airy children over the new,
green corn. But, as under the brooding sky at Ninekyrkes, so here, in
the fresh morning, the foreknowledge of evil weighed him down, and in
his state of mental weariness, of reaction from years of over-strain,
he was too weak to throw it off.
He had known that Bracken Holliday disliked him, and would be glad to
wound him if he got the chance. Fresh home from the colonies, with
money in his pocket, Brack was a great man in his own estimation, and
if not perhaps quite on the same plane as Bluecaster himself, felt at
least a perfect equality with the agent. Lanty had shown him plainly
that the feeling was all on one side, and Brack hadn’t forgotten it.
His acute mind had soon grasped that he could hurt Lancaster quickest
through his father, and the fact that he had not had to forge his
weapon, but had found it sprung to his hand, had given it a strength
vastly superior to any carefully-invented grudge. Lanty’s confidence
stood firm, but his opponent’s equal conviction hacked at his faith
like a hedger’s bill. Of course it would pass. The meeting would laugh
Brack to scorn, and that would be the end of the matter. But for the
first time a tenant had openly and venomously questioned his father’s
judgment and his own, and it rankled. There rose in his heart the cold
anger waked by cruel criticism of our helpless dead.
He could see nothing but the corn through the Second Gate of Vision,
not even the towering Mountain, though it had met him as he first
stepped within.
The break came under the hill, and over the timber he could touch the
land as it rose close, curved above, and then raced away into the pale
sky. The grain had reached the moment when it waits the last fiery kiss
of the sun; it was still ungilt and tenderly green. The crop was heavy,
this year, rich as he had scarcely ever known it. Standing beneath it,
he could see how thick it was down at the roots.
Just opposite the gap there was a break in the wheat no more than half
a yard wide, a miniature glade that gambolled straight up into the air
and vanished. Lanty found himself wishing that he was just six inches
high, in a purple pansy coat, red pimpernel boots and a pale primrose
cap, so that he might strut along that wonderful bridle-path, and hear
what the forest was saying on either hand. He had just decided that
the primrose brim should be edged with thistledown, and carry a noble
lamb’s-tail bravely dipping down behind, when a lumbering, ebony body,
eminently unfairy-like, with lolling tongue and gleaming eyes, crashed
through his forest and down his glade, bringing up heavy and panting at
his very feet. Behind his shoulder, Hamer Shaw and daughter besought
the fat Labrador to return to civilisation as typified by the road. He
raised his hat curtly. This girl and her roystering belongings seemed
destined to shatter his most precious moments. She would think that he
was always gaping into vacancy like the village idiot, leaning over
a rotten gate. There seemed so particularly little, too, to see just
there, unless you had the seeing eye. As before, he felt annoyed and
jarred.
The fat dog was too fat to squeeze, and much too fat to jump, so,
stooping wrathfully, he hauled it into the lane, leaving the field much
as if an elephant had frisked through it. It greeted its owners with
the passionate relief of an explorer escaped from an African bush.
Lanty’s silky spaniel stayed decorously to heel.
Hamer had seen him at the sale, and introduced himself, apologising for
the Labrador’s behaviour.
“He isn’t used to things yet,” Dandy explained, with a hand on the
smooth head. “At Halsted--our old home--he only had town-walks and
motor-rides, and behaved like an urban human being. Here, he isn’t
quite sure what he is, and he’s trying very hard to find out. He’s not
very strong in the upper storey, and he can’t make up his mind whether
he’s a retriever or an otter-hound or only a ferret. I don’t know what
he thought he was, just now.”
“A reaper and binder, I should imagine!” Lanty answered crossly,
and then smiled in spite of himself, conquered by the infectious
cheerfulness of Hamer’s laugh. “You’d better see and get him to heel
as soon as possible,” he added, severe again instantly, “or you’ll be
finding him behind a fence with a plug of lead in him. The Gilthrotin
keepers won’t stand any nonsense, and he’d be difficult to miss.”
“You mean he’s too fat?” Dandy asked incredulously. “Of course, he’s
better fed than yours.” She looked pityingly at the graceful spaniel,
who slapped a fluffy tail against the road, but did not stir. “Grumphy
has always had the same meals as ourselves. We never leave him to
cooks. Perhaps you don’t care for dogs. Yours seems almost afraid to
move!” She hugged the Labrador, who leaned his head against her and
snored loudly, while the spaniel slapped again in welcome to one who,
if not quite of the right figure, was nevertheless of the only correct
shade. “Grumphy doesn’t know what it is to hear an unkind word!”
Hamer Shaw laughed again, this time at the helpless disgust in
Lancaster’s face.
“You think he’d be all the better for it, I expect? Perhaps I agree
with you, but he’s Dandy’s dog, you see. My little girl knows nothing
of country ways yet, but she’ll learn. By the way, sir, they tell me
you’ve a lot to do with the fishing, here. I’ve had some trouble over
my private stretch of the river, Can you spare me a minute or two?”
They fell into talk, and Dandy, excluded, wandered to the gap and
stood looking at the joy-path of her stout trespasser. Grumphy was a
dear, but he was certainly also a galumphing idiot. The agent-man would
think she was in the habit of taking her walks with idiots. It was only
the other day that her variety-troupe had danced through his evening
meditation, and now her variety-dog had pranced through his corn.
“It will straighten up in a day or two, with luck,” he broke suddenly
into her thoughts, looking with her up the green aisle. “And if it
doesn’t, there’s not much harm done. You needn’t put too much blame on
your ten stone of dog.”
“I don’t mean to blame him!” she flashed, colouring a little. “Didn’t I
tell you he was looking for himself? I’m doing the same, if it comes to
that. _I_ shall make mistakes, too. If I’m hard on him, I shall have to
be hard on myself.”
“You’ll both learn the quicker.”
“Yes, but we’ve been spoilt--haven’t we, Grumphy boy? We shouldn’t take
kindly to the whip.”
“Sometimes the whip is the only teacher.”
He checked himself then, feeling that the intimacy of the gap had
misled him. He was in no mood to be friendly, and departed presently
with a curt good-bye. Round the turn, he dropped his hand with a faint
snap of the fingers, and the spaniel, close at his knee, thrust a
gentle nose into his palm, looking up at him with worshipping eyes.
“Starved, are you, old lady?” he asked, with a shrug. “Neglected?
Half-cowed? How would you fancy yourself at the Royal, looking like
that fat Astrakhan or Saskatchewan or whatever they call it? We’ll
give him a bucketing some day over Ewrigg after rabbits. Perhaps he’ll
have settled what he is, by that time, unless the keepers have settled
_him_.”
He mentioned the meeting to Helwise, and asked whether she had called
yet. It seemed she had not.
“Of course one always _does_ call at Watters, but it isn’t the thing
to rush. Five or six months is quite soon enough for really _old_
inhabitants. But I’ve been meaning to go. I was only waiting until the
balance-sheet of the Kindness to Kitchenmaids came in. They’ll be sure
to give to that, because, if you don’t, it looks as though you couldn’t
afford a kitchenmaid, like people who profess they adore walking when
you stop to offer them a lift. It was so difficult to find out what
they _were_--the Watters crowd, I mean. One was afraid they might offer
one tea in the kitchen--not that one ever _does_ get tea at a first
call, but they couldn’t be expected to know that. Still, I don’t mind
going, if you think I ought. There’s the Onion-Protesters, too, and the
Paper Roses.”
“They seem very decent people,” Lanty answered shortly. “Not by any
means savages, as you suggest. I should be glad if you could find time
to call, as I have already met the daughter twice, but I shall be
extremely annoyed if you ask them for a penny at a first visit.”
“But it’s my duty to get all I can for my societies,” his aunt urged.
“I do so despise people who take up causes, and then forget all about
them! Let me see--is it _one_ year’s subscription or two that I owe
to the Church Army? I suppose you could tell me if I brought you my
bank-book? And are you thinking of going to the Roselands garden-party,
to-day?”
Lanty said no; he had work on hand, and couldn’t be taken from it; and
Helwise thought how snappy he had grown of late, taciturn at meals, and
quick to take all her statements awry. It was tiresome when a man began
to grow middle-aged and surly. She congratulated herself upon being
neither one nor the other.
And Lanty thought of the morning’s problem, and longed to speak of
it, but did not. He would receive more consolation from the shut lips
of his father’s portrait than from the mindless mouth of his aunt.
He could not tell her, but he fancied he could have told Hamer Shaw.
Hamer had captured him, even in their brief meeting. He could picture
himself laying the case before the big, sane mind, feeling his burden
lightened by the big, generous hand. But he knew he would not speak;
he had learned to keep silence too long. He would see this through
alone, as he had seen many another anxious point. He went into his
office, and shut the door. Helwise spent the rest of the day hunting up
subscription-lists.
CHAPTER VIII
NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES
The next afternoon he ran into Harriet Knewstubb, wheeling her bicycle
into his front hall. She bestowed upon him the kind of cool nod that
you keep for the butcher’s boy when you find him loitering at your door
without obvious excuse. She was a plain, straight girl, with keen, dark
eyes and a breeziness of manner that made the air sing in your ears.
“Helwise asked me to call for her,” she announced--“explained” implies
a certain courtesy very aggressively absent. “We’re going over to throw
cards at Watters. You’ve no objection to my shoving this in here, have
you? I hate my machine standing about in the sun.”
Lanty said he was only too pleased, and watched dispassionately while
she scraped the doorpost with her off-pedal, and a valuable oak chest
with the front mud-guard. Then he took it from her and put it in a
corner, inviting her to come in and wait, but she refused.
“No, thanks. I’ll hang about till she’s ready. Hope she won’t be long.
We arranged to go early, so as to skip kitchen tea. Is it true, do you
know? By the way, Helwise said something about driving. Hope it isn’t
a closed shanty, anyway! I can’t stick them, myself. I told her she’d
much better cycle. Do her a lot more good than stuffing along in an old
’bus.”
“It’s too hot for cycling.” Lanty tried not to look annoyed. “You’ll
hardly find it stuffy in the dog-cart, I think. I prefer my aunt to
drive. She’s so energetic, I’m afraid of her knocking up.”
In reality, he had shrunk from the mental image of Helwise in
flickering spots pounding through blazing motor-dust to call
at Watters. He had no feeling for Dandy except irritation and
misunderstanding, but it would have hurt his pride that she should see
his only female relative sliding off a bicycle at her front door. He
had even gone to the unprecedented length of suggesting costume, and
Helwise, with a conscience shrieking subscription-lists, had consented
to oblige. Miss Knewstubb, of course, was at liberty to please herself,
as far as he was concerned, and her tastes were certainly plain. She
could not be much older than Dandy, he reflected, looking back over
years of acquaintance, but she gave no impression of appealing youth.
She bullied you at bridge, hammered you at golf, while at tennis she
picked you up by the scruff of your neck, shook you, and slammed you
down again. These, however, were her amusements. Her main business in
life was farming Wild Duck Hall, the pretty farm over the hill, and
very successfully she did it. He admitted that, even while resenting
her aggressive self-satisfaction, her pistol-shot conversation and
general hardness of appearance.
He knew vaguely that Dandy’s smart tweeds had been too passionately
sporting, the fringed tongues of her polished brogues too elaborate,
her little cap worn at too rakish an angle, but she had kept a feminine
graciousness, nevertheless. Harriet’s skirt and shirt were right for
the place, if not exactly for a first call; her smoothly-drawn tie
was a tie and not a frivolous butterfly of blue silk; her hat held no
suggestion of advertisement _à la mode_; but she was hard from her tall
silk collar to the nails in her square shoes. Even her glossy hair
looked hard. He thought gloomily that no man would ever want to put his
lips to it, or draw her well-set head against his shoulder. Dandy’s
hair was soft as gossamer. Her little head would nestle as lightly as a
downy Buff Orpington. He shook off the wandering thought, surprised and
annoyed. She believed that he starved Flower!
Helwise bustled down the stairs in the requested lavender, and fell
over the bicycle, which instantly swung round by the head and described
a graceful curve on the paint with a ribbed handle. The master of the
house picked it up, and followed the ladies out, to find them already
mounted. Helwise was anxious to be off, in case he remembered the
subscriptions. Harriet had dispossessed the factotum of the reins,
without asking anybody, and flourished down the drive, leaving echoes
of “kitchen tea” behind her. Lanty went back into the house and looked
at the mark on the wall.
* * * * *
They did have tea, after all, though not in the kitchen. Hamer would
have felt the evading of his hospitality as a child the rejection of
its penny bag of sweets. He saw to it also that Armer had a square
meal. There were no half-measures about Hamer Shaw.
He had a warm greeting for Lancaster’s aunt, and laboured heartily
through her mixed periods, while Mrs. Shaw murmured crochet-patterns as
she made the tea, and Dandy, with an anxious expression, hearkened to
Harriet’s slashing opinions. There was a fair, pale young man, sitting
as close to her as possible, who also seemed fascinated by the caller’s
conversational methods. Harriet was enjoying herself.
“Two and a half, _at least!_” she pronounced firmly, with a critical
eye on Dandy’s skirt. “Anything less would be certain to trip you
in turnips. And I don’t recommend leather--no, I can’t say that I
recommend leather! It’s very nutty when it first comes home, but give
it a day over plough, and slap it has to go into the bucket! Those
brogues of yours are nailed all wrong, too. They should be done in
threes”--she extended a foot for inspection--“and plain tongues, of
course, the plainer the better. Those Indian-scalp imitations would
soon hang you up in a fence.”
“Does one run _all_ day in the country?” the young man inquired,
deeply interested. Harriet nodded with condescension.
“One gets about. Of course there are crowds of cat-footers who frowst
indoors with a book or a needle, but nobody worth mentioning. One’s
always off somewhere, either on a push-bike or Shanks’s pony. The
tennis is getting over, but I can put you up for the hockey, if you
care about it, Miss Shaw. I’m captain, and Miss Lancaster is secretary
and all that kind of thing. By the way, Helwise, have you got your
fixtures out yet?”
Miss Lancaster turned a vague eye.
“Fixtures? I believe Lancelot has them somewhere. He generally arranges
them for me--I’m so busy! He likes doing little things like that. Of
course, _I_ do all the _real_ work, shaking hands with the teams when
they come, and seeing that they have plenty of hairpins and two cups of
tea. _He_ only writes the letters and keeps the funds straight.”
“That’s her nephew,” Harriet kindly explained to Dandy and the pale
young man. “Agent for Bluecaster--perhaps you’ve met him. Rather a slow
old tortoise, but well-meaning. So it’s settled you’ll play hockey?
Where’s your place, I wonder? Forward, I should think, in a decent
skirt.”
Dandy thanked her politely, having expressed no opinion whatever on the
matter. Hamer looked across with a twinkle in his eye. Both Harriet and
Helwise pleased him mightily. The buffeting breeziness of the one moved
him to tolerant amusement, while the silvery ineffectiveness of the
other claimed his chivalry. He promised subscriptions without demur,
and Helwise almost purred aloud. Lancelot was so ridiculously narrow
and proud. Why, these new people _liked_ to be asked!
“You’ll be going to the Show, of course?” Harriet demanded. “Bluecaster
Agricultural Show, I mean. What do you do? Oh, you--you _prod_. Sheep
and cows and things, that is. I’m showing, of course, and if I don’t
get anything there’ll be a row. Perhaps you know I farm? And you scrap
with your friends as to which hunter will grab the card--at least,
other people do. I’ve given it up myself, because I’m always right.
Occasionally I get a bit lost at the Royal, and have to fall back on
Lanty Lancaster, but I’m always O.K. at these local arrangements.
You’ll join the choral society, I suppose? I’m nothing of a singist
personally, but I always put in an appearance. They like it. Keeps
the thing together, don’t you know? I’m not sure that it’s quite good
form to have much of a voice--looks a bit like swank--so you’ll be
all right. Lanty Lancaster used to belong at one time. He’s got a few
decent notes somewhere round the bottom C.”
“Wiggie--Mr. Wigmore--sings, too,” Dandy put in meekly, glad of a
chance to speak. The pale young man was the only friend from the old
life that had managed to get into touch with the new. He had stayed on
unobtrusively after the others had departed blatantly, and the house
had not repudiated him. Harriet gave him a casual stare.
“Oh?” she said, not at all encouragingly. “Not platforms and things, I
hope? We leave that to the tradespeople, here. Evening-dress and a red
handkerchief--_you_ know! Are you only stopping, or do you belong? You
might enter for my bumble-puppy tournament, next Thursday.”
The pale young man looked regretful.
“I’d love to, but I shan’t be here, worse luck! I’ve got to sing for a
few people, that very day. I’m so sorry.”
“Platforms and things, I’m afraid!” Dandy added, with a touch of
mischief. “But a white handkerchief. That’s something, isn’t it?”
Harriet looked puzzled.
“But don’t you _do_ anything?” she inquired briskly. “What’s your
handicap at golf? You look rather like a bank. _Are_ you a bank? Surely
you do something besides _sing_?”
Dandy opened her lips sharply, but Wiggie’s gentle gaze crossed her
own, checking her.
“I play draughts quite nicely,” he said thoughtfully; and Harriet
snorted and gave him her shoulder. Dandy looked at the carpet.
“Well, I can rake _you_ in, can’t I, Miss Shaw? Two bob entrance,
grub provided. Helwise, I’m bringing Miss Shaw to practise on your
pole! Mine’s being painted for the tournament. If Lanty or the
scrape-up-behind man will play, we can have a foursome.”
“Pleasure--of course--certainly!” Miss Lancaster responded, dragged
from a demand for rummage. “Armer isn’t very safe, though. He _will_
play a sort of Aunt Sally, and it hurts. And Lancelot is very worried,
just now. Some of his silly tenant-people are leaving, and he’s quite
put out about it. You’d think he actually _cared_ when an old man
began to fail, or his children turned out badly! I tell him they all
look exactly alike to me, so I’m afraid I can t pretend to be very
sympathetic.”
“You mean the Ninekyrkes business?” Harriet asked. “It’s all over the
place, of course, about young Whinnerah and Michael’s daughter. The
girl’s been over-educated, that’s what’s wrong. Thinks herself too good
for her own class. They sent for Lanty, didn’t they, to try and patch
things up?”
“Why, does he always lend a hand in the tenants’ love-affairs?” Hamer
laughed. “That’s a big order, surely!”
“Oh, they use him as a family iron to smooth out the creases!” Helwise
sighed. “I have no doubt he talked to the girl like a Methuselah.
He has no _joie de vivre_. People with no _joie de vivre_ are very
depressing to live with. Oh, _thank_ you, dear Mr. Shaw! That will be a
guinea each for the Protesters and the Rummage, half a guinea for the
Paper Roses--it _was_ the Paper Roses, wasn’t it?--and, by the way, did
I mention the Torn Tea-Cloths? Oh, you must really allow me to interest
you in the Torn Tea-Cloths!”
She had the money in her hand when Lanty was suddenly announced, and
Hamer, following his accusing eyes, grasped the situation instantly.
“I’ve just been getting Miss Lancaster’s opinion on your local
charities,” he remarked, putting his big, kindly person between the
two. “I’m a whale at charities--you just ask our Dandy Anne! They’re
a sort of hobby of mine, and I’m glad to have a bit of advice from
somebody who knows what’s worth helping. Mother, give Miss Lancaster
another cup of tea!”
“Hamer doesn’t count life worth living if he hasn’t a hand in
somebody’s pie,” his wife added, comfortably following on. “There
was one whole year I declare he talked of nothing but overworked
tram-horses! I’m glad to see you, Mr. Lancaster! You know Dandy there,
I fancy? That’s Mr. Wigmore, an old friend of ours from our old home.”
Lanty found himself engineered to a chair beside the daughter of the
house, while his aunt hurried clinking coins into her purse behind
Hamer’s broad back.
“You needn’t scowl at old Helwise like that!” Harriet flung at him,
brutally undoing the family diplomacy in a breath. “Why shouldn’t she
go round catching pennies if she wants? It’s no business of yours!”
Lanty looked at her seethingly, the memory of the bicycle handle still
rankling, but before he could answer, Wiggie was at his elbow with a
teacup. He remembered him now as the singer in the Lane, and a further
memory, of much older standing, fretted vainly at the back of his
brain. A moment later he heard him telling Helwise that he had found
half a sovereign in the gutter, and couldn’t in conscience spend it
on himself. The gentle voice was so convincing, the purring answer so
ecstatic, that he smiled unwillingly, meeting deprecating flower-blue
eyes at his side.
“It seems so rotten to rook you at a first call!” he broke out. “I
expect you’ve come up against a fearful lot of that sort of thing
already, and it can’t impress you very favourably. That’s the worst of
the country. Everybody has some sort of a show wanting a leg-up, and
all the giving falls on the same people. You’ve got to help, even when
you’re not interested, or half the things would never run at all. But
new-comers should have a certain amount of rope. You must stand out
when it gets to rank robbery, and ask for time!”
“We’ll consult Watters!” Dandy said promptly. “This is a very
strong-minded house--did you know? We have to give in to it dreadfully.
It was simply hateful to our Halsted friends, especially the Tango
ones--_you_ didn’t like them either, did you?--and now it has taken a
dislike to the gardener we brought with us--drops slates on him in a
dead calm, smokes him out of the potting-shed, and, if he tries to put
up a ladder, simply humps its back and throws it off again! I’m afraid
he’ll have to go. It’s bearing _us_, so far, but of course we’re very
careful. Mother wanted to turn the old nursery into a linen-room, but
the minute she suggested it a patch of damp appeared on the ceiling,
though there hadn’t been any rain for weeks; so we had to give up the
idea. It likes Wiggie tremendously, though. His bathwater is always
hot, and his room’s always full of spiders, and stacks of little
sunbeams follow him everywhere, patting him on the head.”
Lanty laughed, and she felt quite disproportionately pleased. When he
laughed, he looked years younger and a hundred times less worried. Then
Harriet plunged into the lightened atmosphere with the pawing of a
battle-horse.
“I say--what about this matrimonial agency of yours? We’ve all been
hearing about Francey Dockeray and young Lup. What did you say to the
girl, and how did she take it?”
The transient boyish look left his face. Dandy had drawn him into a
quaint little world where tenants and their troubles had no place, but
Harriet hauled him out again.
“Aren’t you asking a bit too much?” he answered as amiably as he
could. “You’re a Bluecaster tenant, too, remember! You’ll like _your_
sermon kept private, I fancy, if ever I come arbitrating in _your_
love-affairs!”
It was said merely to chill her curiosity, but its actual effect was
quite unaccountable. Harriet blushed--a slow, surprising blush from the
rigid silk collar to the smooth hair--but she met his eye with fierce
contempt in spite of it.
“Oh, well, be an oyster, if you choose! _I_ shan’t die of it! You
didn’t do much good, from all accounts. Have you seen Brack Holliday,
lately? They say he’s raking up the old fuss about the Lugg.”
The foreboding slid in and tapped him on the shoulder. He had not meant
to come to Watters, but something had driven him; perhaps the same need
of Hamer Shaw’s strength that he had realised yesterday. He had left
the worry at Hamer’s door. Things were no different, he told himself.
The Lugg held no threat. Brack had no case. But after that one bright
moment of clear-eyed proportion, Harriet had whistled the fear back to
his side.
“Brack’s teeming with theories--has his pockets full of them!” he
answered abruptly, getting up. He moved across to his hostess, excusing
himself on business grounds. Helwise gathered herself together in a
flutter and dropped her open purse, standing helpless in chattering
dismay while everybody else dived and darted after trundling coins.
Lanty took a last look round the room, while Wiggie, grave and
anxious, moved the coalbox and the fender and the fire-screen and
all the fire-irons to rescue a threepenny-bit. It was a lovely room,
and it soothed him; it made his own still more absurdly desolate and
drear; but even this was not his ideal. Somewhere, dimly defined in
his imagination, was his holy place, with time-worn furniture and the
calling atmosphere of home.
“Queer little body!” Hamer observed when he had seen Helwise and her
purse safely off the horizon. “Talks like a string of telephone-wires
touching in a wind. And the young one sounds as though she was
pillow-fighting folk all the time! But they’re both ladies--queer how
it creeps out, in spite of the top dressing! And the lad’s a gentleman
too, although he’s so short and see-you-damned-first! He’s worrying,
though, more than a bit. Seems to me he’s got something on his mind.
Didn’t he strike you that way, Dandy Anne--as if he’d something on his
mind?”
“He isn’t happy,” Dandy answered slowly. “He’s always thinking you’re
going to hurt him, and getting ready for it. People don’t do that when
they’re happy.”
“Likely he’s got too much to carry,” Hamer said thoughtfully. “He’s
bitten off a big bite in Bluecaster, and they say the young lord don’t
help much with the chewing. Some writing-chap has it that the strongest
man is the one that can walk under the heaviest weight without
staggering, but he doesn’t say how soon he drops in his tracks. I’ve a
feeling that that Bluecaster agent isn’t so far from dropping.”
Mrs. Shaw laid a hand on his arm and drew him towards the door. Wiggie
had petitioned her with a glance.
“Now, Father dear, you leave that particular tram alone! The horse may
be a bit overwilling, but it doesn’t follow it isn’t up to weight.
Don’t start putting things right before you’ve found the hitch. Come
and help me unpack the new vacuum cleaner.”
“I hate to see any creature overpressed,” Hamer said pitifully. “I
know what it is--it eats the soul out of you if you haven’t some big
happiness behind to hold you up. And he hasn’t that. I can see he
doesn’t take kindly to that little aunt of his. I should say they
don’t pull well together. He’s lonely, is that young chap; he’s not
satisfied--right you are, Mother, I’m coming!”
Wiggie had got his wish--Dandy all to himself--but he did not say
anything for quite a long time. Instead, he came as if by accident
to the piano, and though he played nothing coherent, he drew out
funny little bunches and ripples of sound that somehow made the cool
room seem cooler. Now and again he glanced at Dandy, sitting on her
favourite stool with her head bent. She was changed already, he
thought, and she was only too obviously not thinking of him. She had
lost a little of her Halsted brilliance; she was a shade thinner, a
shade dimmed, as if some new power had breathed a moment on her soul.
Wiggie turned his eyes away when he thought that. His own soul was full
of delicate little instincts like the dainty grace-notes tripping under
his touch.
Dandy was thinking of Lancaster, and wondering why she had felt pleased
when he laughed. Was it because in that instant he had ceased to be
aloof? Yet how alien he really found her! There was the whole network
of outlook between them. More than anybody else he had made her feel
“new.”
Wiggie stopped playing bunches and began to whisper a desperate French
appeal--
“Ma chandelle est morte,
Je n’ai plus de feu:
Ouvre-moi la porte,
Pour l’amour de Dieu!”
Dandy said “Don’t!” quite suddenly, without in the least meaning to,
and, without in the least meaning to, he got up and came to her.
“Are you hankering to help the tram-horse, too?” he asked, and she
lifted her eyes with a laugh.
“Nothing so unselfish, Wiggie dear! But that song always makes me
shiver. The door is so fast and so hard. It is bolted and barred, with
iron knobs as big as mushrooms, and nothing gets under it but the
draught of one’s sighing.”
“_My_ door isn’t like that!” Wiggie said quickly. “It’s as fine as
thistledown and as thin as air, but it keeps you out all the same. You
can see through it all the dearness within, but--it keeps you out! If
it were hard, you could hammer the ache out of your heart, and lay your
cheek against the mushroom knobs for pity. But you cannot bruise your
fists on gossamer, and the web of it blows weakly pitiless against your
cheek.”
“But it’s not for you to hammer at doors,” he added presently. “They
fly open all along your road!”
She shook her head doubtfully.
“I’ve a feeling I may come to it before I’m through!” she said
whimsically. “I can see myself in the dust and the dark, hugging a dead
candle, and begging, begging----”
He stopped her with a gesture.
“Don’t cheapen yourself! Don’t stand at the door like the milk. The
golden drink should be kept for the golden chalice.”
“Why, Wiggie, what snobbish butlerage! It is the stone jar that makes
the beauty of the miracle. Watters has taught me that.”
He took her hands.
“But for me even Cherith’s brook is dried up,--Dandy dear?”
Her lips quivered.
“Don’t quote Elijah into my mouth, Cyril!”
He let her fingers slip,--not abruptly, but with a lingering touch that
left no sense of desolation.
“Forgive me! When one is thirsty, even the golden wine is not too
precious and wonderful to drink. It’s all right. I didn’t mean to
worry. Go on thinking about the tram-horse.”
He went back to the piano and played more bunches. Presently he asked
to be taken to see the vacuum cleaner.
CHAPTER IX
THE UPPER AND THE NETHER STONES
The marsh-meeting was held at Pippin Hall, the principal farm at the
head of the bay, standing boldly on the edge of the sand and looking
strictly out to sea. From it the Lugg could be seen in all its length,
and the full sweep of the tide running between the narrow shores.
Willie Holliday held Pippin with his two sons, and for all that they
had harboured him as a child, they hadn’t a good word among them for
Cousin Brack of Thweng. Brack was always finding mares’ nests and
raising alarms, and generally trying to teach his grandmother. It
was just like Brack’s cheek to think he knew better than a couple of
Lancasters and the whole of the marsh-men put together!
A quiet little tide was washing under the Let as Lanty drew rein at the
farmyard gate. In the blurred distance the back of the Lugg rose from
the gently-heaving water like some zoological monster wading happily in
a tank. It had a drowsy air of good nature and content as the passing
wavelets slapped its side. There was no hint anywhere of tragedy or
fear. He had taken the matter far too seriously. Probably the farmers
thought him a fool for calling the meeting at all.
Certainly, the group in the yard was treating the affair as a huge
joke. Men were asking Will Holliday whether he did daily boat-drill
with his stock, and there was much laughter when the local wit, Thomas
Dennison of Lockholme, produced a life-belt, borrowed from the old Ship
Inn, and proceeded solemnly to try it on everybody in turn.
Bluecaster was there already. Lanty could see the black liveries in
front of the door. Bluecaster himself, in shabby riding-kit and any
sort of a hat, was bravely trying to dispense exactly the same amount
of attention to each tenant in turn, and chuckling appreciatively at
the trenchant wit of the older men. Yet he did not find the life-belt
quite as funny as the rest, Lancaster noticed with surprise. He had had
one or two narrow shaves out yachting, and was recounting them with
some earnestness when he caught sight of his agent, and came to meet
him with a touch of confusion. Lanty wondered a little as he handed
Blacker to Willie’s younger son.
There was about a dozen of them all told, including Wolf and Michael
from over the sand. Only Brack was missing, and even as they realised
it they heard his car on the flat road, and, a minute later, sitting
low in his seat, with his hat on one side and a cigarette at the
corner of his mouth, he swung gracefully round the stoup. It was a
very effective entrance--the pretty curve, the easy pull-up at exactly
the right point, the nod and the casual eyelids dropped in general
greeting, the flicking of ash with a ringed finger over the glossy
door--thoroughly well-staged in every detail. It was a pity that the
most important person present should have chosen that particular
moment for addressing a miserable barn-cat. Bluecaster had his own
methods of conveying his opinions, and he was certainly fronting the
right way a minute after, when Denny, carrying the belt like a floral
funeral-offering, deposited it mournfully upon Brack’s bonnet. Brack’s
temper was slightly on edge as he slid out of the car and stamped on
the cigarette.
He was a slim, dark young man, of the type glorified in tailors’
windows, and his neat suit and grey spats carried a suggestion of being
still behind plate-glass. He would have been an ordinary person of
rather vivid good looks but for his arresting eyes--of a clear, cold
gray, with the pupils very black and steady.
He lifted his hat to Bluecaster where his uncle had lifted a finger.
Bluecaster acknowledged gravely. To Lanty he nodded. Lancaster--there
is a whole code in the action--nodded back. After which they trooped
into the house.
Even there, though, settled round the kitchen table, with his lordship
at one end and the agent at the other, there was a frivolous tendency
to regard the meeting more as a friendly “crack” than a call to
business. It was some time before Bluecaster, at last allowing Brack’s
deeply-chagrined countenance to swim gently into his ken, hammered on
the table for silence. Then he got to his feet diffidently, stammering
and sticking a little, his glance travelling nervously from face to
face. He had Will Holliday on his right hand, and Dockeray on his left,
with Bownass of Moss End beyond, Bradley of Wilson Fold and old Simon
Farrer of Meadow’s Ing. They looked at each other stolidly, and said
“Ay, ay! Yon’s reet!” at intervals.
Brack was about the middle, with Wolf on one side and a joyful Holliday
cousin ready with gibes on the other. Denny sat directly across, and
pretended to be rowing hard whenever he thought Bluecaster wasn’t
looking. Brack stared over him and through him, and hated the whole lot
of them, lock, stock and barrel. It was a pity they were too stuck in
the mud to recognise real merit when they ran into it head first.
Lanty listened to Bluecaster’s speech with the faint discomfort that
he always experienced under his employer’s efforts. In the landlord’s
place, and in his own present grim mood, he would have told the lot of
them to stay and be drowned or clear out and be damned, but that wasn’t
Bluecaster’s way at all. On the contrary, he was always pathetically
anxious to carry a stray leg of anybody’s donkey.
A question had been raised about the Lugg, he told them--was it really
as safe as was made out? There was an old theory just brought up again
that in flood-time the tide hadn’t enough room. Well, it always _had_
had enough room, they knew that, but of course nobody could answer
for the future. The question was--were they justified in continuing
to gamble on the point? The late Mr. Lancaster, whom they had all
known, and not only known but respected, had given as his definite
opinion that there was no gamble in the matter at all. World-famous
engineers had, after the first, backed that opinion, and so far the
Lugg had proved them all right. Mr. Lancaster had affirmed that it was
no sort of danger to the east side, while it meant a great benefit to
the north. Speaking as a landowner, he was naturally anxious to see
the estate improved and extended, but, speaking as a man, he was not
willing to risk, even upon a mere possibility, good tenants who were
also, he hoped, his very good friends. If the Lugg was really a danger,
it must go, but he felt sure that wouldn’t be necessary. He would now
call upon Mr. Bracken Holliday of Thweng to put before them his views
on the matter.
Brack was only too ready to be up, in spite of cousinly adjurations
to “Hod thy gab, an’ let yan o’ t’aald yans kick off!” Denny was now
swimming violently behind Bradley’s back, but Brack ignored him, fixing
his eyes on Bluecaster. He was nervous at first--the antagonism in
the atmosphere had the passivity but also the resistance of the yard
wall--but it ceased to embarrass him as he warmed to his subject.
His pace quickened, his words came easily. For the moment he forgot
any petty personal animosity, and the sincerity of his belief wrung
attention even from the most scathing mocker.
He knew he was a stranger, nowadays, he said, and what had been good
enough for them for so long was sure good enough for him. That was
one way of looking at it, no doubt. But--now he didn’t want to put on
frills!--he’d knocked about the world more than a bit, and he’d seen
little jokes played by Nature that here on the marsh they’d just laugh
down and out if he was fool enough to waste time telling them. But
they had set his mind’s eye jumping, and it was still jumping when he
settled down at Thweng. At first he had been content to take the word
of older men than himself, but after a while that mind’s eye of his
got jumping again, and told him right out that the Lugg had got the
cinch on the top marsh-farms. No, he didn’t believe they were safe! He
had a slap-up, cracker-jack reason for refusing to believe it, but he
meant to keep it to himself, along with the jokes in meteorology. They
had no guarantee, except an almighty run of luck, (that was probably
pretty well run out, by now), that the Lugg wasn’t throttling the bay.
They had never had a real storm to test it, not one of those storms
that could buck the roof off creation. The Lugg had never seen the real
goods. There had been an imitation, fifty or sixty years back--his
uncle would remember it--when the marsh roads were under water for a
week. There was no Let then, certainly, but he opined the Let wouldn’t
have made much difference, and anyway the flood had had full room.
That wasn’t the case, now. They had no guarantee--he struck one hand
against the other and the cousin copied him, while Denny swam harder
than ever--he didn’t mind repeating it, because it was the thing he
wanted to hammer plum into their minds--_they had no guarantee that the
Lugg wasn’t throttling the bay_! It wasn’t as if the tides were backing
off. He guessed it was the other way about. From what he could remember
before he went West, the force of the inflow was greater now than it
had been then. He wasn’t setting out to say it was much, but the mere
fact itself meant a lot. He called upon his uncle to say how close on
Pippin walls the last winter tides had brought the sea.
Avuncular love failed him, however, for Willie, disgusted at being thus
dragged in without notice, was understood to reply that he wasn’t “in
t’dock or any sic-like spot,” and Brack had to fall back once more upon
his own unsupported eloquence.
It wasn’t as if the Lugg protected the north farms. It hadn’t even that
excuse. Ninekyrkes and Ladyford were safe enough, W.P. and G.W., with
the Let to guard them. But all the Lugg protected was land clean robbed
from the sea, while it threatened other land that the sea had given
them of its own accord. So far, the sea hadn’t fired them out, but it
would do it some day. He was dead sure the estate was crowding its
luck! As tenant of a marsh-farm, sharing what he reckoned a very real
danger, he asked his lordship right now to give the matter his earnest
attention.
He sat down abruptly, and the cousin patted him violently on the back,
disarranging the set of his coat. There was a pause, during which
everybody looked at the agent, and after a glance at Bluecaster he
slowly obeyed the unspoken call.
Brack’s virulent letter in mind, he had been surprised by the temperate
tone of his speech. Perhaps he was reserving his private knowledge of
the Almighty’s intentions for a peroration to be appended later. But
thus far he was behaving well enough, and deserved a temperate reply.
They all knew that marsh-farms had their drawbacks, he said plainly.
The land had belonged to the sea once. There was always a remote
chance that the sea might claim it again. In this case he was prepared
to say that it was very remote indeed. The farms were certainly not
death-traps, as had been very largely suggested, and he was quite
unable to see why the Lugg, after a trial of over fifteen years, should
not be allowed to continue its existence. There was a big stretch of
land behind it, which might one day be very valuable. It ought not to
be sacrificed in a moment’s panic. His father had taken great pride
in the sea-walls, particularly in the Lugg, and, as his son, he was
naturally averse to hearing its reliability questioned; but if any real
evidence could be brought against it he need not say he should be the
first to listen. He did not consider, however, that it had been brought
as yet. The increase of pressure also he took leave to doubt. In fact,
he was ready to maintain that the danger referred to was practically
non-existent, but he would be glad to hear what the older men had to
say, men who had known his father, and the Lugg when it was first
framed.
Holliday was still upset at being treated as a witness for the
prosecution, and couldn’t be got to speak, and Bownass and Bradley
started to rise at the same moment, and fell back, glowering at each
other. Finally, Wolf stirred, taking his time about getting to his
feet, and leaning heavily on his stick as he looked round the table.
There was curious weight in his slow gaze, curious strength in his slow
speech.
“There’s them as is born to _do_ things,” he began deliberately, “an’
them as is born to find fault! I knew Mr. Lancaster’s father a sight o’
years, and he was always a-doing, and it was always the right things
he did. He was a grand man, the grandest man I ever clapped eyes
on! His word was his bond. If you’d his word, there was no call for
inkhorn-stuff and such-like--nay, nor a postage-stamp ontilt, neither!”
(He looked at Brack, and a smile went pleasantly round.) “He was a
just man. He had fair treatment for everybody. There’s folks, likely,
as think he favoured me, being over at our place a deal, seeing to the
Lugg, but they can just put this in their pipes and smoke it. There
was a year after I first took hold as Mr. Lancaster give me notice to
quit--said I wasn’t doing well by the farm, and wouldn’t take telling.
Ay, and he was right an’ all! I was young and a bit above myself, I
reckon, but that fetched me up sharp. The missis begged us on again
with a deal o’ trouble, and I never looked back after. I’d learned my
lesson. Ay, he was a just man!
“And he was a good man. If a farmer got behind, he knew he could go
to Mr. Lancaster for help; and if he meant fair an’ square, he’d _be_
helped, right enough. And we all know he was a man wi’ _brains_.
There’s proof on every mile of the estate. He could see twice as far
ahead as most folk, and twice an’ a half farther round. Bluecaster
knows best what it owes him, though there was always a-plenty folks in
his road, same as there was with the Lugg. An’ now, just look ye here
a minute! Would a just man favour one bit of land over another? Would
a good man let traps to folk as trusted him? And would a clever man--a
man o’ _business_”--this went home quickest, and he knew it--“risk good
farms for a bit of a show-off? Mr. Lancaster give us his word the Lugg
would do us no harm, and his word has a fifteen years’ stamp to it as
never come out of no government office. There’s young Mr. Lancaster
saying the same, an’ that’s all there is about it. I tell you what it
is again--there’s them as _does_ things, an’ them as finds fault. It’s
easy choosing, I reckon, for folk as has eyes in their head and a bit
o’ good hoss-sense!”
The funny little gruff salvos of applause that had punctuated this
speech ended in a regular fusillade of commendation. Lanty said
“Thanks, Wolf!” quite simply, and looked round for the next speaker.
There were two or three ready by now, and they said much the same as
Wolf, though they did not handle Brack quite so delicately. Brack had
a rare lot of names pinned to his jacket before they were through, and
had to sit passive while the conservative farmers followed the track
like so many sheep. He was aching to be up again, and had difficulty
in restraining himself when Denny, having anxiously awaited his turn,
plunged into public speaking.
Denny thought it was time somebody cracked a bit about the present Mr.
Lancaster. He himself was a younger man who hadn’t farmed under the
former agent, but at least he could say he wasn’t wanting any better
sort than he’d got! If the present Mr. Lancaster said the Lugg was all
right, that was full stop and a lick for Thomas Cuthbert Dennison. As
for the duke who was shaping to farm Thweng in a Trilby, he’d likely
hit upon a thing or two he didn’t know if he lived long enough and
looked hard. Even he, Denny, could happen learn him a bit about sowing
corn an’ such-like, and there was more than one of them on the spot who
could give him a leg-up over pigs. There was a roar at this, for Brack
had a patent drill that sowed each seed separately--so separately that,
when the grain came up, you could walk between the stems; and there was
also a tale that he had given his pigs water used for boiling hams,
with horrible results. Even Bluecaster’s presence could not restrain
the general joy, and there was not much of Brack’s moderation left when
he rose to his final effort.
“You’ve only one argument in your whole outfit!” he raged at
them bitterly, “and that’s the old, threadbare wheeze that
because your fathers did a thing you’re bound to follow their
trail. It makes me tired to see the lot of you--narrow, ignorant
stick-in-the-ditchers--sitting round with your mouths and ears open for
any old thing a Lancaster may choose to pour in! You’ve got that durned
Lugg fixed in your minds as a kind of monument to your late agent.
Well, I guess you’re right in one way. It _is_ a monument, sure--a
monument to the biggest piece of swank, the rankest self-conceit I ever
struck! Look at the Pride! You’ll say it’s as safe as Bytham Knott, and
yet there’s nobody will live in it. They try, but they can’t stand it
out--and why? Because they know the man that built it laughed in the
Face of God! You say he was a good man, a just man, but _I_ say he was
a theatrical guy, with an eye on the gallery and swank fit to jump the
earth! I tell you I’ve my own reasons for knowing what’s coming--coming
on the hop--and there’s somebody sure going to get left. Right now’s
the time to pull out, if you’d only listen! But you won’t. You’re too
deep in your dusty old beliefs for that. But you’ll listen, you may bet
your life, and _remember_, in the night when the sea comes knocking at
your door!”
There had been silence through his speech, the silence of outrage,
and there was still silence when he stopped. His strange eyes looked
singularly bright and compelling. Lanty stared curiously at him during
the pause, and followed his glance, the men round him doing the same.
Brack was looking at Bluecaster.
To a very timid, sensitive nature there is, in the forcing of a
decision, something of the inhuman terror of being hunted down. The
young man was between two fires. If he stood by the Lugg, he carried
the lives of men. If he stood by Brack, the Lancasters went to the
wall. The first responsibility had been another’s; this was his. Brack
was thrusting it upon him with keen eyes that held and coerced him and
would not let him go.
“His lordship agrees with me!” the latter cried suddenly, so sharply
that more than one man jumped. “His lordship is on my side--sure! Ask
him if his conscience isn’t hustling him! Ask him what he thinks away
down in his heart of Lancaster’s Lugg!”
Bluecaster moved in his chair and opened his lips. There was breeding
in the way he mastered his inward shrinking, and tried to smooth the
warring elements into courtesy.
“You are making things a little difficult, Mr. Holliday!” he said
gently. “Won’t you sit down and allow us to finish the discussion
quietly? You will gain nothing by vilifying an honourable gentleman
whom all here remember with affection and regret.”
“I’ll sit down when I’m through!” Brack said insolently. “I’m asking
your lordship for a straight answer. Are you on my side or are you not?”
Bluecaster looked down the table. There was no staving it off. He must
act if he could get no other to act for him. In his extremity he did
what he had always done--dropped his burden for Lanty to pick up.
“I am on the Lancasters’ side always,” he answered Brack. “You have
produced no conclusive arguments, and naturally I put their word before
yours. If Mr. Lancaster thinks the Lugg should stand, I think so, too.
That is all I have to say.”
It was cowardice, and it sounded like courtesy--flight and fear,
though it seemed like standing shoulder to shoulder; and only two men
present guessed it for what it was. Bluecaster was shirking, and for
the moment Lancaster filled with passionate revolt; but out of the
wrath and clamour at the injustice something nobler rose and conquered.
He heard the call to help that no true fighter ever denies; he saw the
young man caught in a trap too cruel for his hesitant soul, and he put
out his hand to him at once. He looked up the table with a smile and
nodded, and as Bluecaster’s face lost its strain, and the trusting
dog-look came back into his eyes, he yielded to the old rush of keen
affection. Of course, you did things for Bluecaster, though you damned
yourself to all eternity!
The decision was left to him, the one person in the world who could not
possibly see the problem unbiassed. Even if he had not believed, there
could scarcely have been but one answer. And he _did_ believe. He did
trust the Lugg. The fear that dogged him was not of his own heart, but
put into him from outside. Brack could talk a clock into stopping. But
there was only one answer.
“I stand by my father’s work, of course!” he said cheerfully, and with
a passionate exclamation Brack sank into his seat. And then old Wolf
spoke again.
“And now you’ll let me the Pride, Mr. Lancaster!”
He turned to the other question with a start. Wolf and his worries had
been out of his mind for the moment. Now they wove a thread in the weft
of his father’s warp. He hedged, trying to put the point aside.
“Come, Wolf, I’d hopes you’d change your mind! It isn’t fair to your
wife--I tell you that plainly.”
Wolf set his mouth.
“That’s neither here nor there!” he said doggedly. “It’s betwixt her
an’ me. I’m asking for the Pride. I’d a reason for wanting it afore.
I’ve a double reason now. You an’ me an’ the old master, we’ve passed
our word for the Lugg. I’ll fly that flag for the whole marsh to lift
its hat! Let me the Pride!”
He leaned forward, holding out his hand in his desire, and Brack
leaned, too.
“You’d better go the whole hog!” he sneered. “Here’s the proof of your
trusting. Give him the Pride!”
The agent hesitated, cornered and distressed. Before his troubled
vision rose a fearful old woman, terrified to madness when the tide
came in.
“His wife----” he began again, and Brack leaped down his throat with a
second jeer.
“Oh, put it on the missis! I guess a bad excuse is better than none.
Come, man, own out that you’re not honest, or else--let him the Pride!”
“He’s all in!” he added, turning to Wolf with a laugh. “Look at him!
He’s chilled right through. He’ll not give it you--not on your life!”
“Ay, but he will!” Wolf said quietly, his hand outstretched. “It’s to
be yes, sir, isn’t it? Isn’t it, Mr. Lancaster?”
And Lanty said yes.
* * * * *
Out in the yard, by Bluecaster’s wheel, revulsion swept over him. The
weight he had lifted pressed hard. He looked up sharply.
“You trust me too much! Will you never see a thing with your own eyes?
Suppose I’m wrong, after all?”
Bluecaster, reins in hand, looked down at him with a shamed bitterness
in his face.
“It’s better to be wrong and a sportsman than a cur that won’t face the
drain! I wish to God, Lancaster, you were my elder brother!”
Lanty rode after him across the marsh, his foreboding heart in his
stirrups. But as he began to climb at last, and the whole panorama of
eastern hills came into view, his burden dropped from him. The die was
cast. None but a coward would wish it back. What would come, must. He
would rest content.
He could see the Whygills curled asleep on the horizon, like giant
elephants cuddled trunk to trunk, their soft, velvet, wrinkled backs
hunched into the tender sky. Below them the heather glowed pink and
rich on the dark ridges of moor. He drew a deep breath as he rode
forward, his heart eased. Yet he had taken not only the whole of the
marsh, but Bluecaster himself into his hands.
CHAPTER X
TERROR BY NIGHT
Lup was waiting with the boat when Wolf came down to the channel. The
tide was gone, now, but where the old man stood the still-shining sand
sucked heavily at his boots. The son held the boat while his father
climbed in, then pushed off again in silence. They had not spoken
unless forced since the moment of fierce contact in Lancaster’s office.
It is a very strong Northern trait--perhaps the strongest of all--this
absolute refusal to dig up any subject that has once gone deep. In
ungenerous natures it takes the form of a dogged sullenness which even
Time cannot melt or break, but in the Whinnerahs it was something
finer yet even more stubborn, a deadly aloofness, an icy withdrawal.
In neither face was there any trace of evil feeling; but in both there
was stiff-necked pride, iron resolution, unforgiving decision. Where
blood runs thickest and ties hold closest this characteristic is most
fiercely marked.
They parted at the bank, and Wolf’s tired limbs took him slackly
back to the homestead. His wife had tea ready for him, but asked no
questions, and he vouchsafed no information. It was typical of him that
not until close of day did he manage to say what waited to be said.
Lup had gone up to bed. They could hear him walking about the floor of
his room. There was scarcely any light in the kitchen, for in farmland
they go upstairs early and spare the candle. The room was full of
black, shapeless shadows, and in the gray, drear glimmer from the bay
the bent figures showed a little grayer, a little more drear. When
Lup’s step had ceased for the night, Wolf told what had passed at
Pippin Hall.
She took it quietly, so quietly that alarm gripped him, and his voice
roughened as he stumbled in his own fashion of excuse.
“There was a deal o’ talk among the lot o’ them, an’ lile or nowt to
show for it when all was said! I had my own word soon on, but after
that I held my whisht till things was fixed, and then--_then_ I asked
for the Pride. I’d put in for it afore, but he wasn’t for giving it me,
wasn’t Mr. Lancaster. Nay, what any man with owt in him would ha’ done
the same, after Brack calling the old master out of his name an hour or
more! You mustn’t take it amiss, Martha. ’Twas for the old master.”
“And what call had the agent to say you nay at the start?” the thin
voice asked in the dusk.
“Why--why I doubt it was seeing you that put about over the water, yon
day as he give us a look-in, if you’ll think on. He would have it you’d
be best off marsh-ground altogether. It’s the Pride for me, now, come
happen what may, but if you’d likely be better suited with your own
folk over Bortun way--say, for a bit of a spell--ay, or for good----”
He slurred and stopped, for speech was bitter, and there was a pause,
while out on the featureless night the woman’s eyes kept vigil.
“Nay, I reckon I’ll bide till we’re through,” she said at last, in
the same expressionless voice. “Lup gone, it’s not much differ what
comes, one way or another. ’Tisn’t your doing, nor even Lancaster’s.
It’s something back of us all, that drives us as stock is driven to the
butcher. ’Twas the waiting I couldn’t abide. I’ll not fret no more,
now. But all the trusting in the world won’t stop what’s in front, cold
an’ slape an’ rivin’ an’ lowpin’----”
“Whisht, now, whisht!” Wolf begged, raising himself painfully, and
presently the gray figures went wearily over the stone floor, and
melted into the blackness of the stair.
About two in the morning, Lup stirred in his still sleep, and saw
his mother standing at his open casement. The old folk had changed
their room of late to one looking over the moss, but Lup’s faced fair
and square to the bay. It was just on tide-time, too, he remembered
drowsily, and was puzzled.
She had an old Paisley shawl thrown over her nightgown, and in the
glow of the dip she carried she looked strangely young and singularly
unfearful. There was almost a smile on her face turned and lifted
towards the sea.
He could feel that she was waiting, and her tense expectation kept
him still. A sandbank broke away just below with a thud and splash,
weirdly loud in the quiet. A chill snap of wind broke through the
window, flaring the flame and clattering the unfastened pane without.
An advance-battalion of raindrops smote the glass like a challenge, and
died. Stillness again, and the waiting silence; and then out on the
dark came the steady rush of the night-wave.
He raised himself on his elbow, ready to go to her, but she did not
flinch as the sound filled the room, and her face did not change, even
though the after-rain, riding on the wind, spattered through the open
square. There was a hiss in the water to-night, a muttered hint of
hate. The dead hour and the live wave together caught him into a vague
dread, and he stayed where he was, wondering. The night and the water
and his mother’s face; for she was listening, so he felt, not only to
the incoming tide, but to something that had as yet neither voice nor
being. He almost shivered as the pane beat against the wall like a
chained and frightened thing.
So long she stood, in the tossed light dipping and leaping like a
chased elf, so still she stood, her white face strained to that which
was not yet without, she grew into his drifting dream as he dropped
gradually to his pillow. But when the water was well past, brimming the
banks and pressing fast up the bay, he heard her draw in her breath and
let it out in a great sigh.
“_One!_” she said, like a prisoner counting towards release, or a
sufferer looking ahead in unbearable pain; and then, as she had said to
Lancaster, down below: “How long? Oh, how long?”
Lup moved again, and this time she heard him and came to his bed, and
when she looked at him he was not afraid any more, for her eyes, when
they rested on her son, saw nothing beyond.
“Nay, what Mother, you’ll get your death of cold!” he broke out in his
deep voice. “Get back to your bed. You’ll have the old man seeking you.”
She stayed a moment longer, looking at his ruffled head and drowsy
eyes, but she did not speak or stoop to kiss him--only at last
stretched out one of her strange, worn hands and smoothed the sheet
under his throat.
Lying in the dark when the door had closed, he heard her in the
passage. “_One!_” she said again, like the numb stroke of a
passing-bell; and through the silent house he followed the piteous
voice: “How long? How many? How long?”
CHAPTER XI
THE TROUBLE COMING--THE GREEN GATES OF VISION: III. MOONLIGHT
“Lancelot is a different creature to-day!” Helwise observed, hitting
hard at the empty air, and getting the ball in her left eye for her
pains. “Almost cheery and inclined to gambol--oh, I _am_ sorry! Did
it hurt? He was a little put out at breakfast, when the Duchess of
Saddleback returned him a sixpenny postal order I had meant for a
Home Tattle Limerick, instead of the subscription he had told me to
send for her Cemetery Bazaar--Armer, please, _over_ my head, not _at_
it!--but of course anybody might do a thing like that, anybody, I mean,
as busy as I am. It was the Duchess’s letter that upset him--I don’t
know why, because it was charmingly friendly and polite. Said she hoped
the sixpence wouldn’t be too late to win him the competition--nice of
her, wasn’t it? What do _you_ think? Lancelot says that now he’ll have
to double his donation, though I can’t see any reason for it myself.
Still, he didn’t really show temper about it, and I didn’t in the least
mind asking him to check the month’s groceries directly afterwards. Of
course, I can’t say that he showed any _joie de vivre_--I _do_ think
he’s lacking in _joie de vivre_--but he got the groceries to come
out all right, and do you mind if we stop?--the ball’s caught in my
hair-net.”
“Glad to hear he’s recovered!” Harriet returned, watching impatiently
while Dandy set her hostess at liberty. “He was just about the limit,
that day at Watters. Never saw such a jaundiced old crab-apple in my
life! Rotten of him, though, not to turn up to bumble.”
“He’s gone to see his lordship off--your service, I think, Miss
Shaw--but he should be back presently. He sent me down some flowers,
this morning--his lordship, I mean--and a message to say he was
prevented from calling. He makes a point of coming in to see me, as a
rule, and I tell him all the things that want doing to the house, and
we get on splendidly! I sent him an invitation to bumble, but something
always seems to stop him. Last time it was toothache, and the time
before it was a hair-cut or a motor-smash or some other very close
shave.”
Dandy caught echoes of this vocal accompaniment as she smote wildly
at dancing hanks of string under Harriet’s pitying gaze, seething
with helpless rage at the flying ball as it spun over and under and
apparently through the racquet, leaving her to plant weighty smashes
upon space or the inoffensive pole. There was something diabolical in
the way it shot down upon you like a bolt from the blue, and caught you
on the nose when you weren’t looking. When you _did_ hit it, (which
was seldom) you struck with a murderous zest that nearly dislocated
your shoulder, not in the least with the friendly dispatch of a drive
at golf, or the _esprit de corps_ of a clean clearing-shot at hockey.
The one ball was a jolly little nipper you hoped to see again very
shortly; the other a sportsman and a pal, the twelfth and keenest
member of the team; but this was a jeering devil and an aeroplane and a
merry-go-round and a slimy sneak, and you hit it as if you were killing
wasps.
She was paired against the ladies with what Harriet called
“the-man-who-scraped-up-behind,” and soon grasped that she had cause
to be thankful, since he was not only a much better player than either
of the enthusiasts, but was also thoroughly up to their little tricks.
Occasionally he tipped Dandy a respectful wink to leave the ball to
him, or to send it over instead of round, and she obeyed with anxious
alacrity. She soon rose to his tactics, and when she discovered that,
every time Harriet hit Armer, Armer responded by hitting Helwise, she
made every effort to play up to him and keep control of the ball. When,
by way of a change, Helwise hit her, and she couldn’t always manage to
hit Harriet, it was even more exciting, though not so comfortable.
Even Bluecaster noticed the change in his agent as they walked the
platform together. He was accustomed to seeing him more as a walking
encyclopædia of solid business facts than as a man with half the wine
of life yet untasted, and youth still to his hand. But to-day he looked
younger and freer than he had done for a long time, his laugh was
more ready, and his business worries seemed shelved. Even unanalytic
Bluecaster could feel that his blood ran more strongly, and his pulse
beat quicker.
Bluecaster himself seemed depressed and rather restless, one moment
anathematising the delay of his train, the next hinting that he should
stay on, in a tone that openly asked for encouragement. As the train
came in at last, he thrust an envelope into Lanty’s hand, climbing
reluctantly to his place.
“From that infernal Brack, I suppose!” he said in a tone of irritation,
going across to close a window which he knew he would reopen
immediately. “There’s no name to it, and the address might have been
written with the poker, but I think it’s pretty obvious.”
Lancaster took it with a shrug--the usual, cheap envelope that carries
unsigned slander. The postmark gave no sort of clue, and the fierce
venom of the writing disguised it effectually. Within was a page torn
from the Book of Ezekiel, scored carefully so that the phrases ran into
a connected message. Lanty read it aloud as he stood by the open door.
“Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because ye have spoken vanity,
and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, saith the Lord
God. And mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity and that
divine lies ... and ye shall know that I am the Lord God. Because, even
because they have seduced my people, saying Peace; and there was no
peace; and one built up a wall ... say unto them ... that it shall fall
... there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones,
shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it.
“Thus saith the Lord God; I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my
fury; and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger, and great
hailstones in my fury to consume it. So will I break down the wall ...
and bring it down to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall
be discovered, and it shall fall ... and ye shall know that I am the
Lord. Thus will I accomplish my wrath upon the wall, and will say unto
you, The wall is no more ... there is no peace, saith the Lord God.”
On the margin was scrawled the one word “MARCH” in the vitriolic hand
of the envelope, but that was all. Everything else had been left to
Ezekiel.
Lancaster looked up with a laugh.
“Must be Brack!” he agreed, making as if he would tear the page
across, and then, since, after all, it was sacred speech, however
distorted, folding it and slipping it into his pocket. “The same trail
of omniscience is over it all! I ran into him in Witham on Saturday,
and suggested that, if he was really bothered over the matter, we
might put him on to some other place. ’Tisn’t business, but it might
save us trouble in the end, and Thweng won’t go wanting. However, he
wasn’t having any--talked about sticking to the ship and holding by
the fort, like Casabianca and Sankey and Moody mixed. That annoyed me
a bit, though he was quite quiet and polite--didn’t even offer me his
confounded Turkish cigarettes! Just as we separated, he asked quite
casually whether I believed in clairvoyance. I said no rather shortly,
for I was keen to be off. (I’d have said no, in any case, to _him_.)
Then he told me he’d come across a lot of it in America, been rather
thick with some chap who went in for it professionally, and would
have it Brack had the gift, too. This fellow gave him some rather
curious information--the name of the farm he would take in England,
for instance. That was certainly queer. Thweng isn’t the sort of name
you’d naturally get your tongue round without a little assistance! He
looked as if he could tell me a lot more if he chose, only I didn’t
stop for it. He rapped out something after me, but I didn’t catch any
of it except the word ‘wool.’ Wonder if he sits up all night with his
Trilby and his Turks, summoning spirits! He’s been fearfully ragged by
the rest of the marsh-men, by the way. Denny left a parcel at Thweng,
the other day, which turned out to be some old bathing-togs he had dug
up somewhere!”
The train moved off, and he walked a few yards with it.
“You won’t be up again just yet, I suppose?”
Bluecaster shook his head.
“Not to stop. I’ll run up for the Show, and I’ll be home for the audits
as usual. I’m shooting a good bit, and then going abroad. Christmas in
Cairo. But I’ll be back altogether”--he leaned out and called as the
train gathered speed, his expression half-laughing, half-earnest--“I’ll
be back--in _March_!”
Lanty found his guests reinforced by Wiggie when he got home at last.
They were seated round a table in the drawing-room, engaged in an
impromptu foxhunt evolved by the singer, by means of dice, a surprising
collection of knick-knacks, and the pot dogs off the mantelpiece. He
had spent the day in Manchester with Hamer, and looked paler than
ever and desperately tired, but he hunted with the infectious zest of
a Troughton or a Peel. Even the host, standing with his back to the
cheerless grate, smiled as he watched the absurd game.
The room was as hideously comfortless as ever, and smelt abominably of
stocks. Tea had been taken away, and it had not occurred to Helwise to
offer him a fresh brew. A détour upstairs before entering, prompted by
some inexplicable shyness, had shown him his dressing-table standing in
water. Evidently the window had been open when the factotum wielded
his weekly hose. On the hall-floor he found a telegram requiring
immediate answer, and an envelope containing money had slipped off the
table into Helwise’s umbrella. Yet he felt less irritated than usual
as he stood on his mockery of a hearth, while Wiggie, with a throw
of double sixes, sprang Climber over an imitation brass inkstand, a
framed funeral card and a mug from Morecambe. Helwise looked happy, he
thought, tossing dice with breathless intensity. He did a great deal
more for her, every day, than this foolish young man was doing at the
moment, but it never evoked that spirit of flagrant joy. He realised
suddenly that, in spite of her rattle-headed irresponsibility, she had
something he had not--a youth of soul at once a blessing and a curse.
Perhaps he had taken her too seriously, demanded too much of her, not
in practice, but in temperament. The Shaws and Wiggie asked nothing of
her except to be her aimless and absurd self. Even Harriet bullied but
protected and liked her. He alone kept her, made things easy for her,
and found her a pricking thorn. He shrugged his shoulders. After all,
it was _his_ dressing-table.
Harriet had grabbed the only true hound in the pack, a daintily-finished
model that Bluecaster had brought Helwise from Grasmere, and was
playing in her usual fashion, barking orders and rattling the dice like
an enemy’s brains. After Lanty came in, she barked rather louder than
before, especially at Wiggie, for whom she seemed to have a measureless
contempt. Nobody noticed it, though, but Wiggie himself, with all his
little thread-ropes of intuition flung out like so many cables.
Dandy was having very bad luck, laboriously boosting a pincushion-backed
dachshund over a pink mountain of Lanty’s best blotting-paper. She
wooed the fates with a variety of chants and curses, but to no purpose.
For her the dice would not fall. Her cheeks were as pink as the paper
by the time Pincushion’s head came over the hill.
“He despises me for being a wretched town-person!” she said dismally.
“Wiggie’s getting on all right, but then Wiggie’s a magician. All hairy
and feathery and furry things love him. We can’t keep the birds out of
his bedroom.”
“Birds in your room mean bad luck!” Harriet observed brutally, slinging
the dice-box at the magician, and adding “Butter-thumbs!” when he
missed it. “Rotten luck--illness--death! You’d better be making your
will.”
A fresh shadow drifted almost imperceptibly across Wiggie’s tired
face. Dandy looked up quickly, but, as once before, he smiled her into
holding her peace, and with a sharp fling of the dice she scrambled
Pincushion down the mountain and over a wall of matches.
He took heart of grace after that, and began to forge rapidly ahead,
passing Helwise’s pug-nosed St. Bernard and Wiggie’s black and tan with
the Pomeranian tail. Harriet’s hound was leading easily. Her fierce
throws seemed to frighten the dice into showing their most lucrative
faces. The fox--as represented by an ancient pen-wiper lately chewed by
mice--was in imminent danger.
Pincushion gained, however, straining clumsily after Cragsman’s
delicate grace. The others withdrew, leaving them to fight it out, and
then a curious thing happened. The moment Pincushion’s head drew level
with Cragsman’s lean flank, Harriet began to throw blanks. Cragsman
stayed stubbornly glued to the same spot, while Dandy’s monstrosity,
in a succession of twos, finished the course and claimed the quarry.
Harriet reached for her gloves and announced that she must be going.
Dandy stood up, too, still looking at the game.
“That was queer, wasn’t it?” she asked. “The finish, I mean? Cragsman
stopped playing!”
“The luck changed,” Lancaster said briefly. “All the same, they say
in the fells that if a mongrel joins in the chase the pure-bred hound
drops the fox instantly. No wonder Cragsman took steck at that overfed
pincushion of yours!”
“I know a song about that,” Wiggie put in. “Yes, I _shall_ say it if I
like!” He began to quote softly--
“There was a Love went after a Heart,
Haughty and fine and fleet,
Till it chanced a little Cur-Love took part,
That hadn’t been at the meet.
And the Proud Love bowed in a cold despite,
And out of the running stept;
And said--‘It’s very bad form to fight.
J’accepte!’
But the little Cur-Love made shift to pass,
For it cared too much for pride,
And, stealing fearfully through the grass,
Came out on the other side;
And said, as it took the Heart to keep
And hold and cherish and cleave,--
‘I’m glad I wasn’t too proud to creep.
J’arrive!’”
Harriet glared at him, dragging on her hard gloves in ruthless
snatches, but as he finished he lifted his eyes to hers with a smile
so full of warm goodwill that her own dropped. Wiggie knew what the
ugly room meant to her, and the ridiculous game and the taciturn man,
where nobody else had even so much as guessed. But then Wiggie was a
magician, so Dandy had said, and magicians don’t count.
Dusk was dropping as they came out of the house, and along the quiet
fields had risen the heart-high, ghostly barriers of the mist. A
far-off touch of frost was in the air, and the clean smell of a bonfire
soared with its faint, pale smoke beyond a distant wall.
“I’ll walk over to Watters with you, if I may,” Lancaster said, groping
in the hall for his cap. “I’ve papers for Mr. Shaw.”
“But what about Harriet?” Helwise fluttered. “You must see her home
first, Lancelot, and then you might take Mrs. Shaw that crochet pattern
she wants for my Deep-Sea Fishermen--or was it the Night-Cap Club?
Eight ch., 1 d.c. into sixth ch., back, 2 ch., 1 d.c.--perhaps I’d
better write it down. Of course Harriet mustn’t go home alone!”
He apologised at once. Harriet generally cycled over, and he associated
her instinctively with the steel steed that turned and rent his walls.
However, she brushed him aside with scant ceremony.
“Rot! Of course I can. I’m used to paddling about by myself all
over the place, and if you think I’ll feel any braver for having a
land-lunatic mooning along beside me, grunting about turnips, you’re
jolly well mistaken! It’s no use arguing, because I don’t mean to be
bothered with you, so you can just crochet yourself over to Watters and
have done with it.”
She saluted the party with a side way jerk of her head in her best
ploughboy manner, and strode off, watched by her host with annoyance,
and something else, altogether different, that held him back from
pursuit. Courtesy conquered, however, and he started after her, only
to be stopped by Wiggie. “Let _me_!” he said, gripping his arm. “I’ll
catch you up later”--and sped away on Harriet’s swinging trail. The
misty air caught him by the throat as he ran. It had been stuffy in
the stock-scented room, and he had no wrap of any kind. Perhaps that
was why he coughed as he came up. Perhaps he knew that she strained
hungry ears to his step, and wished to spare her even a momentary
disappointment. In any case, he was certainly not well received.
“You go back!” she snapped, turning on him. “You’re an insult--a
howling insult! D’you think I want protecting by a thing that _sings_?”
“I play draughts, too, you know,” he reminded her meekly, and she
laughed grudgingly and moved on again, her escort with her. And as he
went he talked--strange talk that was new to her, talk that set the
torch of fancy flaring through the mist. Vaguely through her dogged
resistance there stole a sense of protection that was of the soul.
Physically, indeed, she had no fear, as she had said, but the manly
stride had covered an effort to escape the clinging pain of her own
heart. Around her in the dusk Wiggie wove his net of comfort, of
beauty, of magic kindliness, and by the time he let her in at her own
gate, the first bitterness was past. To-morrow she would remember that
he sang and coughed, and looked as though he needed cod-liver-oil and
malt. To-night she only knew that an angel had walked with her.
* * * * *
Through the dewy garden Lanty led his guest past the ivied seat and
the pink fingers of the cherry-tree, and so out by the little stile
under the mighty shadow of Bluecaster walls. As they passed the great,
wrought gates, already closed for the night, he caught a glimpse of the
house itself, its bare flagstaff proclaiming mutely that the master was
from home. Then they were under the walls again, sunk in an avenue of
lime, and presently in the Lane.
There was the whole of wonder through the Green Gates to-night. The
chestnuts were already turning to the pure crimson that comes with
the first frost. Already, in the little plantation backing Rakestraw,
the beeches had red at their feet. A late harvest-field, stooked and
waiting, lay wanly yellow under the white over-world between dark
building and close-laid fence. There was a moon coming, a big moon
slowly topping the hill, and when it came the hill would go black, and
Rakestraw lights would beckon like swung lanterns of horn. His first
look was for his Mountain, as usual, but it was not there. From the day
of the marsh-meeting he never saw his Ghost-Mountain again, until his
life had been broken utterly and utterly re-made.
Dandy was thinking of Harriet as they walked in the quiet of the Lane.
Both her sudden defeat and her violent independence had held a touch of
pathos. She asked Lanty how long he had known her.
“All her life, or thereabouts. Her people belong here--good old yeoman
stock, the best in the land. The backbone of England, some of the
books call it! It’s true, too. That’s why Harriet’s so dead sure of
herself--she’s on her own ground. She runs her own farm with the help
of a good head man. I got him for her. It’s quite a model place; you
ought to see it. There isn’t much about farming she doesn’t know. She’s
a good hand with a plough, too, and can swing a scythe with anybody.
Oh yes, Harriet’s all right in her own way! It’s only her manners that
are wrong, and goodness knows _I_’ve no need to talk! She bullies you
no end, but she’s absolutely straight--couldn’t cheat if she tried.
We’ve never been very thick, she and I, but she gets on with my aunt
all right, and she’s one of our own people, and that means a lot, after
all!”
He laughed as he finished, surprised to find himself so urgent in
Harriet’s praise. He was thinking purely of his offended guest,
but his companion felt, as she had felt at Watters, the intangible
barrier of outlook rise between them. She had better manners than
Harriet--yes--but she knew nothing whatever about a farm. She was
better-tempered, but she couldn’t tell the signs of the weather. And
she was decidedly better-looking, but she couldn’t bumble or scythe or
pick out a prize hunter. And all that this first autumn night meant to
Lanty, Harriet knew as she couldn’t possibly know. She was outside.
The smell of the bonfires came again--the fine, pungent smell that is
incense in country nostrils. Lancaster lifted his head as he caught it.
“That’s real back-end!” he exclaimed. “Unless you’ve lived in the
country all your life, you can’t know what it means. You need only shut
your eyes, and it paints little pictures for you. I can see things I
loved when I was a boy: shadowy autumn evenings, driving home with
my father from Witham, the long, white road and the black hedges and
the dim land. Children running in to bed, and the cattle close under
the fence, and no birds singing--all the field-things resting. The
horse’s hoofs going clip-clop, a bit tired, and myself snuggled under
my father’s elbow, half-asleep. The smell of the bonfires all the
way--frost coming--leaves dropping--the lights showing one by one,
and then the quiet night. The smell of the bonfires all the way, and
then--home.”
He was quite evidently talking to himself only, and again isolation
turned her chill. Harriet would have known what he meant. Harriet, who
nodded like a ploughboy, was born to the mysteries of bonfires and the
back-end.
They reached the Third Gate in Lancaster’s Lane, and there a big bank
of mist laid its ghost-hands over their eyes, shutting out the scene
beyond. Below it, on the soft, wet, vivid grass, was a fairy-ring.
Dandy asked the meaning of it.
“Fungus,” he explained, “but who wants to believe that? Do you know
that picture of Butler’s--‘Pixie-Led’--the farm lad caught by the
fairies in the gloaming, with the mist-wreaths twining round his knees,
and the lights of the farm and the low, red sunset behind? He looks
such a clumsy, bewildered giant, whirled round by the mischievous
shreds of elves! I wonder if he remembered or forgot? They say if you
dance with the fairies, you’re never the same again.”
“It’s worth trying!” she put in half-mischievously. “They might teach
me what the bonfires mean.”
He shook his head.
“That’s heritage--and association. By the time you’re old you’ll
understand, if you go on wanting to. It’s the having grown with you,
the being part of you, that fills the country with glamour. Rain in
the night, the rolling of cart-wheels in the early morn, hounds giving
tongue in a soft November--things like that--they’re riches, handfuls
of gold, when you understand!” He dropped suddenly from the heights to
tug at the ancient bars before them. “Time there was some new timber in
here, by the look of it! This rotten stuff’ll hardly last the winter.”
The golden lamp of the moon was up by now, shredding the barrier into
misty scarves and skeins, and showing green-shaded fields where turnips
and potatoes were grown alongside. Every shadow grew pitilessly sharp,
and from the black hill-sides the lights sprang warm.
“I like to watch the windows open their eyes,” Lancaster said. “They’re
so quiet, and yet there’s all life behind them. Tragedy, often. At
Oxenfoot the old man’s dying by half-inches. Up at Topthorns they’re
slipping slowly down the fell into the workhouse. It’s nobody’s fault,
and nobody can help. The young folk at Cowgill--bad hats, every one
of them!--make the place a hell among them, with the hate and the
quarrelling and the mean striving to best the rest. Better things,
too--men and women sticking to in the teeth of bad luck and bad health,
paying their rent somehow, and keeping a stiff neck whatever comes
along. All life--and yet the lights so quiet and steady, just as if
peace were the real thing and the trouble behind only an ugly shadow.
You don’t remember it, outside. You think of folk sitting happy round a
fire or at their evening meal, or slipping away quietly to sleep. You
think of home.”
Over Dandy, listening, came a sudden longing for Halsted, cheerful,
rampant, unmagicked, clean away from this mist-wrapped lane and the man
who made the underneath things seem so real. They were not hers and
therefore she feared them, and though they were not even looking at
her, cared nothing for her existence, she ran away from them in spirit
as fast as she could scamper.
“It doesn’t mean home to _me_!” she broke out with reckless hurry.
“At _my_ home there’s a blaze from hundreds of tantalums, and there
are motor-horns tooting on the drive and crowds of people coming up
the steps, laughing and talking. There’s dancing in the drawing-room,
and snooker in the billiard-room and rinking in the hall. In _your_
house there’s a bowl of milk and a candle and a smoky chimney and a
hard bed”--she was half-hysterical, by now--“but in mine there are
spring-mattresses and gramophones and Thermos flasks and electric
hair-curlers----” She stopped, laughing unsteadily. “You’ve made me
really home-sick for the first time since I came to Watters!”
He turned from the gap, rebuffed and ashamed.
“Afraid I’ve bored you!” he apologised bluntly. “Why didn’t you stop
me yarning? Harriet said I’d get mooning about turnips, you know.
I’ve only one subject. You’ll soon learn to steer clear of it! That’s
Wigmore behind us, I should say.”
Wiggie joined them, trying very hard to put a morning freshness into
his dragging step, and because Dandy had fallen silent, exerted himself
to bridge the gulf. He was quite willing to make an ass of himself over
the rotation of crops, if it saved her the burden of conversation.
Arrived at Watters, there was no getting away from Hamer’s hospitality,
and Lancaster stayed to dinner with a sardonic consciousness of cold
sausage and scrambled eggs awaiting him at Crabtree. They were still at
table, however, when the lights of his dog-cart flashed on the windows,
summoning him to a fire at Far Borrans. Hamer and Dandy followed him
out to listen to Armer’s explanation. It was the hay, it seemed--like
enough the late crop had been got in too fast--and the Hall itself
was in danger. There was a big crowd of helpers gone up, and the
fire-engine was out from Witham, as well as the small one from the
House. Armer, full of theories and excitement, had thought the master
ought to know at once. He had brought the trap in case he was tired;
incidentally, that he might himself assist at the pageant.
Lanty climbed in, said good-bye, and clicked to Blacker, but from an
overgrown rambler a thick briar reached out and held him fast. Hamer
laughed as he loosed him with difficulty.
“My little girl says Watters has the choosing of our friends. It’s made
a pretty tight grab at _you_, anyway! I hope you’ll take it as an omen.
See here--can’t I run you to this farm in the car? I could have her out
in five minutes.”
“Thanks, but it’s up the Dale,” Lancaster said. “No motor-road. Narrow.
Bad surface. Dangerous to-night, with so many traps going up. I suppose
you wouldn’t care to come with me?”
Hamer shook his head.
“Not unless I’d be of use! It hurts me to see good stuff going by the
board. I’d be dreaming all night it was Watters, and waking Mother
twisting ropes out of the sheets! I’ll have a Minimax in every corner
after this, won’t I, Dandy Anne?”
He linked his arm in hers, and they followed the trap as it spun out
into the main road, and turned quickly into the Lane. Now and again,
over and through the hedges, they caught the gleam of the lamps; and
once Lanty’s head and shoulders stood out black on the golden air. In
the drawing-room at Watters, Wiggie used the perfect artistry of his
_demi-voix_ to set Mrs. Hamer nodding over 1 d.c. between sixth and
seventh d.trs.
Hamer sighed in the Lane, and Dandy knew he was away on his tram-horse
hobby once more.
“I could have lent a hand with a bucket!” he said regretfully, “though
they’ve likely more than enough men on the job already. I could have
sent the hat round, too, though perhaps they’d not say thank you for
that sort of thing, up here, and of course they’re insured. But I’m a
big weight. I’d have made a difference to the going, and Lancaster was
in a hurry. But I’d have liked to lend a hand!”
Dandy was not listening. Their wandering had brought them to the Gate
of the Fairy-Ring, and she drew him up to the fence. There she told him
something of the walk home and the talk that had roused her to revolt.
“I’m a Halstedite still!” she said ruefully. “I’ve no right to Watters
until lean make little pictures out of the smell of burnt wood and the
flicker of a farthing dip--until sight and sound and scent are all
mixed more or less into one. At present, when I wake to a slow Scotch
drizzle, I don’t smell violets, or see mushrooms rushing up, or hear
cabbages taking long drinks, but I’ve got to learn. Do you think I
might ask the fairies to put me up to a thing or two--what ‘fog’ means,
for instance, and ‘hoggin’ taties,’ and ‘a good tommy-spot’; and how
you ‘kill’ hay, and why the weather is always wrong for turnips? Let me
through, Daddy dear, and I’ll see if they’ve anything to say to me!”
Hamer slipped a bar and let her slide past, and with a laugh she
stepped on limber feet into the circle, a fairy-thing herself in her
white gown, with the yellow light on her uncovered hair. But even as
she caught her dress in her fingers and pointed a foot, she checked,
her lips parted, her ear bent to listen. Lancaster’s trap, long lost in
the myriad turns of the Lane, had emerged into the open road, and the
horse’s hoofs, quickened to a sharp trot, rang from hill to hill. There
are things to be read from a hoof-beat in the country quiet. Up in the
Dales, when a man gallops, the farmers come to their doors, knowing he
rides for succour. Lanty’s trot spelt urgency, and more than one voice
hailed him as he passed. They heard him answer without stopping; saw
the far-off lamps flung on the dark borders; heard the hoofs dwindle
and quicken and finally die.
Hamer’s wise eyes were on Dandy as she stood, her head stooped for the
last message. She had forgotten him as well as the fairies, and her
face, in its unconscious revelation, was neither that of a spirit nor
of the little girl he loved, but the face of a woman come into her
kingdom. With a passionate sense of loss, he strode over and lifted her
out of the Ring.
CHAPTER XII
THE REAL THINGS
Brack was thinking hard as he drove along the north marsh-road, his hat
pulled low over his eyes against the evening sun. He was on his way to
Ninekyrkes, to unearth a rumour and prove it true. Talk had it that
one other on marsh-ground thought as he did of the Lugg, felt for it
the same sinister distrust. The agent himself, at the late purgatorial
meeting, had hinted that Whinnerah’s wife was far from sharing her
husband’s attitude, and, since then, other tales had reached his ears.
He was a constant visitor at Ladyford since his occupation of Thweng,
and had gathered by degrees that there was something curiously wrong
at the twin-farm. He meant to find out what it was. He had known Mrs.
Whinnerah in his childhood, and even if she had been a stranger, Brack
was not the man to be deterred by shyness. He remembered her as a
delicate, highly-strung woman, with the fated look that many carry
from cradle to grave without obvious fulfilment. She must be getting
old now, and should therefore be easily handled. If she could be got
to back his opinion, on whatever visionary or sentimental grounds, he
might yet win his throw with the Lancasters. He had seen the young
lord waver, and guessed that to his particular temperament a feeble
woman’s mania would carry a strong appeal. Once arouse his pity,
his fear of hurting something weaker than himself, and no amount of
practical advice would keep him from trying to right however imaginary
a grievance. Brack began to formulate a letter from Mrs. Whinnerah, to
be dictated by himself. He was fond of framing letters. The biting word
that goes home was to him much as a neat wrestling-chip to his boors
of cousins at Pippin. He could see Bluecaster’s face grow troubled as
he read, watch him pen his apologetic decision to that sneering image
at Crabtree. (Brack had an imagination.) Once his lordship was started
after his red herring of justice, the pride of the Lancasters would
soon be kissing the earth! He bit at his cigarette so savagely that
it broke in half and nearly choked him, which did not tend to soothe
a jarred temper kept on edge by a fretted pride. He had had a bad
time since the meeting, and though his cult of super-superiority had
withheld him from the vulgarity of open retaliation, repression had
increased a passing dislike to a single-eyed hate.
Born of good farm-stock, Brack had craved for so-called higher
things--he had wished to be a gentleman; and the particular brand
which had formed his ideal he now quite adequately represented. But
the red-hot vanity that had brought him home prancing with effect
had met a rude shock. The gray, old-world atmosphere had foiled his
meretricious gentility as an ancient manor-wall a flaring poster. Its
mellow feudalism, its pure instinct for “the real thing,” laughed at
him and cast him out. The parent-stem mocked at the prize-shoot, and,
deep down in him, something, hated and unacknowledged, recognised
its justice. Certain colonies, indeed, in Witham and Cunswick, drawn
chiefly from other and larger towns, hailed him with enthusiasm, but in
this one instance he was true to the soil and would have none of them.
Yet the soil would have none of him, and gave him no fellow--neither in
Bluecaster, shabby and halting, but unmistakable, nor in Lancaster, at
home in each man’s understanding, and certainly none in Uncle Willie
Holliday, that rugged monument of fitness of place. That which was
artist in Brack, the very thing that had betrayed him, now made hell
for him where he had looked for a paradise of approval. The bitterness
of it obscured the real motive of his late action, turning a passionate
crusade into a petty wreaking of malice, clouding even the fear that
waked him, shaking, in the night.
At Ladyford alone had he found balm. Michael Dockeray’s hospitality
questioned the self-valuation of no guest under his roof. Francey was
baffling but polite, and undoubtedly attractive, while the mistress,
playing her own mother’s-game, laid no bar to his visits. He would call
at Ladyford when he had finished at Ninekyrkes, and have supper with
them. He lighted another cigarette, and felt vaguely comforted.
Ninekyrkes seemed like a house of the dead as he came to it in the
early autumn evening. Wolf and Lup were at a shorthorn sale over
at Cunswick--he happened to know that--so Mrs. Whinnerah would be
alone. She came to the door when she saw the car, and received his
self-introduction hospitably if without enthusiasm. She led the way
into the unloved parlour, and Brack, breathing horsehair and mustiness,
was inwardly flattered until assailed by a childish memory of the old
Lord Bluecaster at Pippin, smoking on the settle with his feet on the
hob. The old lord had d----d the parlour, and refused to bear company
with the Family Bible. Brack had an uncomfortable feeling that the
still woman opposite would have thought more of him if he had preferred
the kitchen.
He talked Canada, farming, and life in general, with the peculiar
ease that comes of having left home _sans recommandation_, to return
in your own Studebaker-Flanders, and passed to the genial intimacy
of interrogation which Northern folk tolerate only from their kind.
Lancaster would have got his answers all right, but from Brack it
smacked of the travelling bagman, and he discovered presently that he
was getting nothing. He dropped it, then, and struck boldly for his
point.
“I’ve come asking for sympathy!” he said, with a confidential smile.
“You’ll have heard about the meeting, I guess, and how they think
they’ve got the laugh on me over the Lugg, your Wolf and the rest.
Well, they can go on laughing till the cows come home, but they’ll not
make me take anything back. The Lugg’s got an eye-opener safe and handy
for them, and when that comes along, I guess some of them will laugh
on the wrong side of their mouths! But I’ve a notion--though I’m not
saying why or how--that there’s somebody thinks as I do of the crawling
old son of a gun, somebody that reckons with me that it should never
have been built--and that’s you yourself right here, Mrs. Whinnerah!
Tell me if I’m wrong. Don’t mind me!”
She didn’t mind him. He was certainly wrong, she told him, with her
light, expressionless eyes fixed on his ingratiating countenance.
Foiled again, he became less flippant.
“You’ll say it’s no affair of mine what you think, but when a man has a
bang-up honest conviction, it’s up to him to get it proved if he can.
I’m still smarting at the way they petered me out. I didn’t expect
they’d catch on right away, but I did look for decent consideration.
Oh, they’ll hold to it that I’ve had it--I’ve got _that_ fixed! They’ll
point to the meeting and say the matter was fairly discussed; but they
know as well as I do that the whole arrangement was a barnstormer fake,
stage-managed down to the smallest cue. The agent saw to that! It’s the
old fairy-tale--Lancaster fiddled and the farmers danced, and the man
shouting trouble was bucked out. I’m mighty sore about it, I say. I
meant well, and I’m sore!”
He was in earnest, now. He drew his chair forward, laying his hand on
the string-cover of the round table between them.
“I’ll just tell you what first set me hustling Bluecaster, and then
perhaps you’ll chip in with your little lot. Over the pond I ran up
against a queer sort of lie-slinger making a living out of telling
folks’ futures when he wasn’t getting nabbed by the police. He was the
real goods, too--I’d stake the whole Thweng outfit on it--though I’m
not saying he didn’t feather-stitch the futures a trifle, just to make
them look pretty! But that was when there were dollars on the game; he
got none out of me. But he digged in my hotel when he had the cash, and
the night before I sailed for England he fetched me up on the stairs.
He said: ‘You’re clearing--pulling out for England, ain’t you?’ I told
him he’d guessed it in once. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you just keep those eyes
of yours skinned! There’s the gosh-dangdest trouble you ever struck
coming for you out of the west. There’s some sort of mighty curiosity,
wriggling like a snake, that’s getting ready to jump its contract;
and water; and dead, wet, woolly things. I can’t see them--it’s so
plum dark--only feel them when I reach out. There’s a crack like a gun
over the sea, but you’ll not hear it when it comes, though you’ll get
cold scares many a night, waiting for it! And where there was road
there’ll be water, water big enough to drown a house, water and wet,
woolly things----’ I told him to come off it when he started again on
the wet woollies--he was giving me the jim-jams!--and I let him know
pretty straight that I thought he was in for the blue devils, but he
was too slick in earnest to take me up. He said he couldn’t fix it
plainer, but I’d find it shine up brisk enough when the clock struck.
‘It’ll beat hell!’ he said. He told me I could see it for myself, if
I’d practise a spell, that I’d the power as good as he had. I got him
to show me how”--he laughed rather uncomfortably, looking away--“and I
guess I know what the wet woollies are, anyway! He told me what farm
I’d fixed on, after a deal of teeth-grinding and eye-rolling--it’s a
bit of a twister for the psychic tongue, you’ll admit! and then he
said: ‘There’s somebody else knows the last card in this deal--somebody
in England.’ That’s what he told me, Mrs. Whinnerah, and I want to
know! ‘There’s a woman over there powerful scared’”--he eyed her
searchingly--“‘a woman scared clean out of creation----’”
The faintly-ironic lips opened at last.
“Ay? An’ did he tell you as our bull-calf had slipped shuppon an’ was
lakin’ wi’ yon steam-engine o’ yourn?”
Brack’s superiority broke on a curse as he tore out to the car. The
concrete facts that the bull-calf had smashed his off-lamp and horned
fancy patterns on his paint did not lessen his chagrin at his mental
defeat. He turned irritably on the calm old woman watching from the
porch.
“It’s the old wheeze--the same old fusty old wheeze! ‘What a Lancaster
says, goes!’ It’s Lancaster and Lancaster to it. Guess the whole lot
of you’ll be something struck of a heap when they turn out plaster
imitations at the Judgment!” He leaned on the car, looking at her
with tense impatience. “You’ll not speak, but there’s folks in plenty
putting words in your mouth. Now just listen right here! It wouldn’t
take more than a cent’s-worth of shove to set his lordship against
the Lugg for good and all. I had him wobbling, as it was. _You_ can
put the cinch on him, if you choose. Lancaster’s only a paid servant,
when all’s said, and he’d have to knuckle under. You’ll never go to
the Pride, with the fear of the sea on you, just to help the Lancaster
tradition make good? I hope to God I may see them fired out of the
countryside before I’m a year older, humbled and cursed and damned and
broke!”
She looked at him straightly, then, answering him straightly for the
first time.
“I’ve nowt to say to you, Brack Holliday, and them as says I have,
lies! Who made the likes o’ _you_ judge betwixt me an’ the Lancasters?
But I’ll tell you what it is--you’re an over-throng, fidging, meddling
jammy-lang-neck, as teptious as a wamp! You’re nowt but a daft rabbit
scuttling to ground afore a storm. It’s not _you_ that has anything to
fear, and them as has can get through it without your help. There’s
bigger things than you in this world, Canada Brack--ay, and a parlish
lot o’ bigger folk an’ all!--and happen you’ll learn it sooner than
late!”
She wiped him out of existence with her old stare over the sea, and,
raging but silenced, he turned the Flanders to the gate.
By contrast, the atmosphere of Ladyford was all pure comfort and grace.
Here he was an honoured guest. Here he could flow conversationally
without fear of ironic silence. The string of self twanged joyfully in
the breath of Mrs. Dockeray’s admiration. It was pleasant to sup to the
sauce of her interest, to see Rowly’s eyes widen at his effects. Still
more pleasant to stand behind Francey at the piano, asking in a light
tenor, from a far-off point not specified, if they thought of him in
the Dear Old Home. But it was rarest of all to sit opposite to her,
watching her pale cheek bent over her knitting, while her mother, with
discrimination almost too marked for comfort, called attention to his
good points.
“It’s just as I’ve always said! There’s nowt like seeing the
world--having a bit of a look round, if it’s only over the near wall
into the next bull-coppy! Westmorland folks is that set on their own
yard o’ ground, it takes a travelling-crane to hawk ’em out. Why,
Brack, it doesn’t bear thinking on what-like you were as a lad, popin’
about like a yard o’ pump-water, wi’ toes turning in an’ chin poking
out--a reg’lar daft-watty! And now you’ve come back real quality,
talking as like his lordship as two peacocks, and in a deal better
fettle an’ more than a deal better-like! It fair frets me thinking of
folk--folk I could put a name to--slouching and talking broad, clumping
about in great boots and smelling of the shuppons, with never a thought
to spare above stock, an’ never a word to throw at a dog! You’ve capt
the lot of us, my lad, showing folks what they can frame for if they’ll
nobbut try!”
Brack glowed, seeing himself winsome and well-tailored, elegant,
cultured, “arrived,” but before the women’s eyes rose Lup in his still,
dumb dignity of the soil. Mrs. Dockeray was playing high. Armoured in
commonplace virtues duly admitted, he would have stood little chance
beside Brack’s glistening veneer; but mockery and contempt could not
but give him place even in the most grudging imagination. Something
of the pathos and power of Millet’s “Angelus” clung about him under
her rough touch, showing him in full and beautiful accord with both
earth and heaven. Unfortunately, Lup himself, coming in with Michael
just as they sat down to supper, dispelled the illusion more than a
little. His “bettremer” clothes were heavy and ill-cut, foiling the
plate-glass impressions to which Brack added grace. His old-fashioned
“bowler,” several sizes too small, gave him the anxious air of an
uncertain juggler, while an astonishing red-and-yellow handkerchief
of his father’s shrieked at Brack s peeping square of white silk. He
followed Michael in with a forgotten catalogue, and was for making off
again when Mrs. Dockeray netted him with cumbrous but sure sweep.
“You’ll stop and have a bite with us now you’re here, surely! It’s not
so many more chances we’ll have of a crack with you. Wolf’ll likely
be set on getting back, so we’ll let him be, but I’ll not take nay
from you, Lup, so you can just set yourself down! There’s Brack here
with all Canada at his finger-ends, ready to learn you anything you’ve
a mind to, an’ a deal more, I reckon! I’m real glad you looked in.
The master’s never a word for us home-keeping folk after sales an’
such-like. He’s that weary he gets sluming in his chair afore he’s
half-through, and it’s vexing when one’s aching for a bit o’ news.
Brack’s not been; leastways, he’s never mentioned it.”
“Oh say! I have, though,” Brack put in hastily, conscious that his
perfunctory interest in the sale of an historic herd was bound to
go against him. “Guess I was too taken up to remember. I’d other
business shouting, but I just blew over for a spell--thought it was
up to me to give ’em a look-in.” As for the stock, it had been very
much over-rated, he considered. All the best stuff went over the pond;
everybody knew that, and he happened to be able to confirm it. Lup
would find it so for himself when he got across. Yes, sir, _he_ had
been at the sale, right enough! That was the best of a car; you could
whiz about all over the place, and see a chunk of everything that was
going.
“You stopped just on half an hour,” Lup put in, fixing him steadily
across the table. “I saw when you come--you were having a bit of a
turn-up with the Duke’s shover; and I saw you quit--at the tail of
a cart to the first motor-shop. And the biggest stock wasn’t in the
ring till you’d been gone more than a while. It was a rare good sale.
There’s no finer beasts in the world.”
Brack felt his halo dwindling.
“Engine-trouble--fixed in five minutes!” he answered casually. “No use
my stopping, anyway--prices ran too all-creation big. You feel mighty
thrilled, of course, watching good stock put to the hammer, even when
you’ve got to grit your teeth on your tongue to keep it mum, but I d
another trail to follow. I don’t mind laying that half the farmers
there went just for the fun of the circus--they weren’t out to buy. You
and your father, I take it, weren’t on to anything, now that Ninekyrkes
is changing hands, and you’re for out West?”
Lup flushed, and fell into dogged silence. The afternoon had been
bitter as Dead Sea drink. Time and again the surface of the situation
had been explained to inquiring minds, and in most cases had met with
disapproval. More than one county gentleman had buttonholed him, asked
his plans, and dropped him with a shrug. His father’s contemporaries
had wagged censuring heads, and, as often as not, a tongue to match.
Already he felt something of an outcast. Not that he really cared a
whit for condemnation. It would be a poor-blooded Westmorland farmer
that even looked aside at criticism; but where his pride had shaken off
concern, his heart had not gone unscathed. Even on his accustomed gaze
the pathos of old Wolf had smitten hard. He knew afterwards--months
afterwards--that this was the last happy day the old man ever had.
Mixing with the huge crowd in the beautiful park, greeting and greeted
at every step, tuned to the excitement of a big sale, he was young
and keen again, forgetting the future. On this happy flickering of
dead joy it was Lup’s business to lay the chill, extinguishing hand of
reality. He wondered how often he had reiterated the same dull speech:
“Nay, father, what we want no more wi’ stock, you’ll think on!” just as
he had wondered, each time, how soon he would have to speak it again.
It was like killing something that would not die, and in spite of his
efforts the old man had insisted on bidding at Rosedale Queen, until
Lup had sought out Lancaster and begged him to bring him to reason.
Somehow Lanty had succeeded, and Wolf had dropped out, his eager desire
followed by a piteous apathy. The agent stayed near, trying to cheer
him, but with little result. Old Wolf’s swan-song, he thought, had been
that frenzied bidding at Rosedale Queen.
Brack had the whip of the conversation again, and was making the most
of it. All Mrs. Dockeray could elicit from Lup was that Rose Diamond
had sold for two hundred and fifty guineas, or that Denny had picked up
Rosedale Squire for seventeen, and already saw himself beating the King
at the Royal--statements barely stemming the steady flow of Brack’s
assurance. The mother fretted and wondered, watching the girl’s eyes as
they travelled between the two, weighing them in the balance.
But Francey could not look at them as she, at the same age, would
have looked. In the daughter’s case, education of a high class had
sharpened the over-critical faculty of a fine intelligence until it
held her emotional capacity captive. She saw them more as types than as
human flesh and blood. She could neither be fascinated by the surface
charm of the one, nor lose herself in the primitive strength of the
other. Behind Brack’s refinement and overplayed ease she saw that he
was restless, meretricious, lacking in stability. Around Lup’s steady
sanity and simple faith she felt the rough shell of his ignorance. Lup
saw as his fathers saw, loved as they loved, glimpsing life sharply but
narrowly, not in the least with her wider if more dangerous vision.
There were depths in her he would never fathom, finenesses he might
respect but never grasp, shades of feeling making life vivid that he
would always fail to seize. Brack could seize them, after his own
fashion. She could feel him follow her mood almost as it turned its
coat, where Lup would have been blundering up blind alleys, or sitting
dumbly at corners, waiting her return. Her interest quickened, so that
Brack flattered himself and shone. It was with real reluctance that he
tore himself from his thrilling attitude of cock-o’-the-midden.
“Guess I feel leaving Ladyford like leaving home!” he said
sentimentally. “I saw mighty little of hearth and home for many a
long year.” (The string of the exiled orphan-nephew twanged with fine
effect.) “Lup, I sure envy you, hanging out just over the way! Why
didn’t you hit the trail last year, old man? I’d have had Ninekyrkes,
then, instead of Thweng. You’d have found me real neighbourly, Mrs.
Dockeray!”
The words were meant for Francey, with the tail of an eye on Lup, for
he knew well enough the talk that was going; but if he expected to
score he was disappointed.
“Folk have it you’re feared of a marsh-farm,” the other said
indifferently. “Over much water about--sets you dreaming-like! It’s
only a dowly sort of a night. You’d best to see to your lamps. I’ll fix
yon far gate for you. It’s a trick o’ swinging.”
He rose and went out, but not before he heard Brack beg the girl for a
meeting at the café in Witham, with a ride in the car to follow. As a
preliminary canter, he cajoled her into letting him run her to the far
gate, just to show he was to be trusted. She came, to his surprise,
but when he would have taken her hand in farewell, she had already
melted into shadow behind the car, and the gate, under Lup’s ruthless
propulsion, was closing steadily upon him. To save his wings he cleared
quickly, his fetich of gentility forcing him to shout a cheerful
gratitude he was very far from feeling. Well, she would drive with
him, yet; though after a fashion of which he could not dream.
The night was drear. The dark had none of the velvet comfort that
goes with the soft blackness before the rising of the moon. Its touch
was harsh, its suggestion sinister. The elm over the gate creaked
with rheumatic movement, while the brittle autumn leaves whispered
restlessly, like sleepers too tired to be still. The couple stayed
beneath.
“You’ll be meeting him, likely?” Lup asked suddenly, with no hint of
jealousy or vexation in his voice. He had taken his dismissal, and had
no intention of presuming on old rights.
“Not I!” Francey answered, with a touch of impatience. “Why, they
say he takes a different girl to the café every week! The men in the
smoke-room run a sweep as to which it will be! I came down in the car
for fear you got across with him. He was a bit above himself to-night,
our friend Brack.”
“You were getting on with him rarely at supper.”
“Yes.” She fell thoughtful. “I can talk to him, but that’s all. It’s
like playing a game with somebody of your own form for the sheer
pleasure of being in sympathy with that side of them. You may not give
a snap of the fingers for them otherwise, but at the moment it doesn’t
count. _You_ don’t feel like that, do you?”
“No,” Lup said simply. “I like folks, or I can’t abide them. I’m keen
to clap eyes on them and have a crack, or else I want no dealings with
them whatever. I’ll not drink with them, nor sell with them, nor pass
the time o’ day unless I’m put to it. I’ve no use for them at all.”
“That’s simple, Lup, but it’s blind--blind and narrow! Folk are not all
white or black; they’ve different sides, different shades. You can pick
out the one you want, and leave the rest. Even Brack has his points.”
“Like enough,” he answered carelessly. “He’s welcome to them as long as
he keeps out of my road----” and she laughed a little and was silent.
Brack’s “points” did not interest her overmuch, either.
They had not quarrelled, these two. Even in the first bitterness of
rejection he had recognised that she was not moved by cruel or petty
perversity. She had simply faded out of his reach when he was surest
of her, retreating behind some barrier which would fall to neither of
them. He had certainly been passionately hurt and deeply angry, but he
had never been unjust. Unable to see her standpoint, he yet bowed to
it; only he could not bring himself to stay and suffer.
“When do you go?” she asked suddenly. He told her, and then: “_Need_
you go?” she added somewhat nervously, Lancaster’s embassy in mind.
“There’s your father and mother--you could keep away--_need_ you go?”
He answered briefly, turning his head away from her even in the
darkness, and she held her tongue; but after a while she began again in
stumbling, disjointed phrases like bodiless thoughts not shaped for the
clothing of speech.
“It’s my fault--but why? What is it? You’d be good to me, but I want so
much. I’m several people, and all asking. One of me loves you, but not
all--no, not all! One of me is afraid--that’s the strongest one. There
are so many closed doors. Can anybody be happy in a single room? Or
are there new rooms for us to find together that I don’t know of, now,
so that the closed doors wouldn’t matter? If only I knew! If only you
could tell me! Suppose the one room was a prison for always? How am I
to know?”
He moved uneasily, and she pulled herself up and made an attempt at
coherence.
“Marriage isn’t just one thing to me; it’s all--love, companionship,
understanding for always. How can I face closed doors through Eternity?
You love me, but half I say has no meaning for you, half I feel passes
you by even when we’re nearest. It isn’t your fault; it isn’t mine.
You’re patient with me, but even love and patience are not enough.
All the time we’re both of us groping, you for light and I for touch.
You’re gentler than your father, but at the bottom you’re alike. You
believe in the same things, you feel about them in the same way. You
were vexed for my sake when he forced us into each other’s arms over
the farm, but you didn’t feel that he caught up our dream in rough
hands, and made it coarse and common. It was right and natural to you,
perhaps even beautiful. Perhaps it was I who broke the glamour for
_you_--I hadn’t thought of that! But I had to do it. I should do it
again. What are the real things--the things that matter?” And for the
second time she said: “How am I to know?”
He had been standing looking away from her, but now he turned and took
her gently in his arms, with one hand raising her face as if it had
been a child’s. Perhaps it came to him that in her doubt and trouble
she was indeed a child to his certainty of purpose. All her acquired
wisdom could not give her the unclouded sureness that love had taught
him long since.
“The real things are the old things,” he said. “They’re all I know, but
I reckon you’d find them enough if you’d only believe it. I’d bide if
I thought I could learn you, but I doubt you’re a long way off, and I
can’t stop on as things are. I’d sooner be shot than have to stand it
out--the never knowing when I’d be seeing you, the hearing and feeling
you all around me, and not mine. D’you think I’d not know, passing
the house, whether it had you inside of it, or turn a bend and not go
sick with longing for you and fear to meet you? One of us must shift,
and it can’t be you. It’s not for you to leave your folks and fend for
yourself--it’s for me. I wish the old man didn’t take it so hard, but
this is _my_ job, and I’ve got to quit. As for you, I reckon you’ll see
clear some day, when you’re older. You’re only a bit of a lass yet--I
forget it, you’re that wise! I don’t rightly know what you mean about
closed doors. A man and a woman each has thoughts the other can’t hold
with--they’re made different; but when they’re man and wife there’s
a lot they can share together as they’d likely have never known,
wanting one another. It seems to me that it’s made up that way. I can’t
talk to you like Brack. I reckon I’m not sorry, neither, but I’m not
that sort, anyway. I’ve my mind a deal on my work, as you don’t need
telling, but it’s my heart as really learns me the things that matter.
They’re few enough--ay, but they’re big enough too! Just trust in the
morning and quiet in the evening, our own folk, and work, and food and
sleep--seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and
night--the things the folks behind us knew afore we were born. The real
things are the old things.”
They went back to the beckoning porch in silence.
* * * * *
And all night long, in his troubled sleep, Wolf was bidding at Rosedale
Queen.
CHAPTER XIII
HAMER’S FIRST TRAM
In the country there are houses far more truly the recipients of
formal visits than their occupants, just as, at public functions, your
carriage comes up to your place’s name instead of your own; for master
and tenant pass away, but the House remaineth. You do not call “on”
Bythams, Lyndesays and Wyllens; you call “at” Gilthrotin, Crump or The
Laithes. It is the house that stands on your visiting-list,--that has
become a habit; and your dropped pasteboard is for its door rather than
for those beneath its roof.
Watters was one of these “habits,” but the Legend of the Kitchen
Tea, mysteriously promulgated and enlarged, held many aloof who had
no particular axe to grind. Mrs. Shaw, divided between crochet and
creameries, was indifferent to the quality and size of their social
circle. Hamer, sweetly taking the grinders at their personal estimate,
was unconscious of any difficulty. It was only Dandy on whom the
situation, seen more clearly, pressed unkindly.
She began to grow suspicious of callers, to strain her ears when the
sound of the grinding was low, waiting for it to start up with the
roar of a motor-cycle. She came to know the grades in leeches--the
business-leech and the hobby-leech and the charity-leech and the
soul-leech. No matter what their particular goal, it was reached by the
same path--Hamer Shaw’s cheque-book. The grinders did not want money,
as a rule. Their needs as well as their methods were more subtle, based
upon the pure ethics of elections, local, general or “by,” demure eyes
turned upon next year’s voting-register. It was most of it “by,”
Dandy reflected, watching their tortuous procedure. On the whole, she
preferred the leeches.
She began to wince a little when Harriet, cheerfully unconscious of
having helped the Legend on its way, took it for granted that their
acquaintance was in common; and though, at Dandy’s disclaimer, she
would grunt “Cat-footers! Gees out of repair or something!” her
contempt for the ostraciser did little to soothe the soul of the
ostracised.
Visiting Harriet’s farm, Dandy had come, with some surprise, upon
Harriet’s father. Harriet seemed to stand so very much alone; you did
not credit her with such weaknesses as near relations. Yet Fawcett
Knewstubb was a distinct weakness, a very delicate spot indeed. He
was very horsy, very check and utterly selfish, and a really strong
connoisseur in language and whisky. Harriet kept him and his hunters,
called him “Stubbs!” in the voice of a sergeant, and wished him dead,
in a bitter heart.
Hamer and his daughter motored to Bluecaster Show along a road swarming
with enthusiasts who had no notion of making room for anybody. Dandy
felt more of an outsider than ever in the crowded field, with its
jumping and cattle rings, its tents, its long lines of wooden stands.
She saw many faces she had come to know, but few held return signs
of recognition. The usual people were busy greeting each other, very
contented, very much at home. They were there because they had always
been there, since the time they could first sit on a stand without
falling through. After the greetings, they buried their heads in their
catalogues and slouched along from pen to pen, walking blindly into
everybody else, and offering information to the empty air. Anxious
to do the thing thoroughly, Dandy and Hamer bought catalogues and
slouched, too. By this means they were successful in running into
Harriet, leaning up against something extremely solid with four legs
and a horn or two, gloating over the blue-ribboned card opposite. When
Hamer’s catalogue knocked her hat sideways, she merely remarked “How’s
that for beef?” and continued to gloat. It was a minute or two before
they could call her back to earth, but as soon as she realised their
existence she left off gloating, and trotted them round the field in a
terrific whirl of instruction, leading them at last, somewhat stunned,
to a seat on the Grand Stand.
The day was brilliant, but Harriet, defended against all odds by
Donegal, Burberry and K., with a huge carriage-umbrella tucked under
her arm, insisted stoutly that you never could tell. It always rained
at Bluecaster Show--everybody knew that--and it would rain to-day; this
in a tone indicating that it jolly well better had. Dandy, dressed with
the delicacy of a Blue Wyandotte, felt abashed until she discovered
that Harriet was practically alone in her gloomily-barometric choice of
attire.
Ringed in its green cup brimmed by blue hills, the scene had its own
untheatrical charm, but its thrills were mild and long in arriving.
Business went forward with little regard to spectators, and after a
tedious half-hour, during which four horses, eight cows and twelve
sheep stared solemnly at the crowd, while the whole Committee got down
into the ring and wrangled about them, she found her thoughts straying
to the social ethics of the meeting.
There was a rail dividing the stand, cleaving the two-shilling section
from the half-crown. This puzzled her, as the planks on either side
were equally hard. Harriet’s explanation that you got sixpenny-worth
more water-jump scarcely seemed to go deep enough. The grinders were
half-crowners, she noticed, glued as a rule to the side of some local
celebrity, such as the Member or the High Sheriff or the President; but
the leeches only ran to two shillings--with the exception of Helwise,
who was inviting Bluecaster to come and see how badly they wanted a new
bath at Crabtree, when she wasn’t issuing orders to Lanty in the ring.
Apart from his aunt, Lancaster was having the usual harried time of an
authority on these occasions. When he wasn’t helping or looking for
the judge, he was calling competitors or catching stray sheep, artfully
eluding business-demands from button-holing tenants, or rescuing the
usual veterans of the ring who stand so trustingly behind the hurdles.
He knew everybody, it seemed, just as Helwise, talking baths, knew
everybody, and Harriet, flourishing her clumsy gamp. Names passing from
mouth to mouth were no more than empty sound to herself. The fact that
Seaman was jumping did not fill her with anticipation, nor could the
recent death of a well-known horseman move her to a sense of loss. She
began to be rather bored by the unhurrying succession of events, and
checked herself guiltily in a yawn. The judge of the moment was having
a real day out with a fine hunter-class, and had to be practically
dragged off each horse in turn. Hamer was drinking in Harriet’s
observations like an eager child, but he was as new to it all as his
daughter.
Even the old hands were getting a little weary, and found time to turn
a speculative eye upon the strangers--the cheery, handsome man and
the slim, well-groomed girl; and the Legend went round in ascending
chromatics of incredulity. Some knew Hamer by accident, so to speak:
“Behaved very decently over that Abbey Corner smash, don’t you know!
Sporting and all that--gave a thumping big subscription to to-day’s
business,” etc. etc., and wondered vaguely whether he might not be
worth cultivating. The women with sons looked at Dandy and said that
anybody married anybody nowadays, and that even Kitchen Tea might be
made positively chic if the butter were spread thick enough. The women
with daughters only were not interested.
Dandy had ceased to be self-conscious, however. She was watching
Lancaster at work with the same dreary chill of separation that she
had experienced in the Lane. This was his life, this interchange of
business and friendship to which she was an absolute stranger. Harriet
was perfectly at ease in it, grumbling, grunting, cracking a joke with
a passing farmer or summing-up a prize-winner in a pithy sentence--at
ease and happy.
“Dull enough to _you_, I expect,” she observed, detecting Dandy’s
secret yawn. “We’re brought up to it, of course. Besides, it’s my
trade. Rotten show, though! Rotten judging! Fool of a crowd! But all
the same I couldn’t stop away, any more than Lanty Lancaster. I’ve
grown to it, you see. When I was a kid it was my big blow-out of the
year, and I’ve still got the same feeling for it, like Christmas Day
and all that piffle. It isn’t the thing itself--it gets slacker and
rottener every year, as I’m always telling them, especially Lanty
Lancaster--it’s what it stands for, and all the years behind it. If
ever I want to purr, it’s when I’m sitting on this shaky old stand,
watching a flat-footed imitation of a horse going slap for the water.
But you must be about fed up on it, I suppose! It’s as slow as Noah’s
Ark, and, besides, it always rains.” She slipped the catch of the gamp
to see if it worked, and shot a glance at the sun which should have
sent it slinking over the horizon like a dog shouted to kennel. “We’re
getting through to the jumping, though. You’ll find that a bit more
enlivening. Stubbs is turning out--did I tell you? He’s got a mount
that can jump about as much as a hedgehog, but he thinks he’s going to
win all right. It’s no use _my_ jawing; he won’t take anything from
_me_. I hope he’ll behave decently, that’s all, and not get slanging
the judges. Trust Stubbs to have been where the sun is shining, even
though it always rains!”
The band behind the stand broke into a dirge which proved to be “The
Girl in the Taxi,” and to this suitable _motif_ the leapers sidled into
the ring for their primary reconnaissance. There was something of the
dignity of ritual in their solemn progression from fence to fence, in
the measuring thrust of the intelligent heads through the furze. Dandy
had her first thrill in spite of the accompaniment. She wanted to beat
a little drum in the wake of the processional hoofs.
Harriet knew the riders, gentleman, groom or horse-dealer, just as she
knew the mounts,--from the hunter, that did a little gentle following
of hounds by the aid of gates, to the professional “leppers,” that
never see open country, but spend their time winning prizes at a round
of shows, and jump more with their brains than with any other section
of their queer-shaped carcasses. She dragged out a pencil like a poker,
and settled down to work.
“That’s Captain Pole-Pole on Griselda, the little gray. Rushes
everything that she doesn’t take steck at, and a brute to hold, by the
look of her. The big roarer waving its wild tail and doing an imitation
of a charging squadron belongs to Bluecaster. Lanty has her out for the
fun of the thing. They call her something idiotic--oh, yes--_Flossie!_
She can jump quite a bit--Heaven knows how--though you can feel the
stand shake. There’s a groom up--plays the triangle in my village
orchestra. The thing called Chipmunk, looking as though it was made of
knitting-needles, belongs to the Ritson Bros. One’s riding, and the
other runs in and throws things if Chippie starts frivolling. There’s
the winner--the little brown like an oak box with head and legs. You’d
think he hadn’t the reach for a grass-plot rail, but he’s there, every
time. Watch his eyes, and his good-tempered ears! He’s as pleased as
Punch all along, and as dead in earnest as a city man sprinting for
his train. Yes, he’ll win right enough! Why? Because he jumps with
his head. You can see him stop to think just before he takes off, and
he doesn’t give the fence an inch more than is wanted. This is his
living--he comes from Saddleback way--and little Seaman doesn’t mean
to waste himself playing round. Stubbs must be cracked to think he can
beat him! The rough-looking black with the rope-reins has been taught
to behave like a mad circus and an Ulster riot combined. Its owner is
a blacksmith in his spare time, and nobody else can stick on its back.
It’s clever, too, but it’s apt to get carried away by its play-acting
and make mistakes. Flyer goes to sleep and leaves his heels behind
him, and Grace tries to do the tight-rope act on the pole with all
four feet at once. That’s Stubbs on his beetle-crusher--Lapwing, _he_
calls it! He doesn’t look any too genial, does he? We had a row before
starting about rotifers, if you know what those are--some sort of a
measly swimming microbe or rotten reptile of that kind. It’s the only
thing he cares a rap about except horses and the inside of a glass, and
he was ramping mad because some of the beastly things had got thrown
away. I hope Lanty is somewhere about.”
Stubbs was immense--very check, very baggy, and very red in the face.
His side-whiskers bristled aggressively, and there was a vicious gleam
in his eye. He was riding a boring chestnut with weak quarters and the
action of a schoolboy in clogs. Harriet dug the person in front of her
with the gamp by way of relieving her feelings. Hamer and Dandy tried
to think of things to say, but she cut them short.
“Oh, it won’t be the first time he’s made fools of us both in public!
I can’t help feeling a bit grubbed, but I suppose I can stick it out.
Anyhow, I’ve got to stop and see him through. Save them hunting me up,
if he goes and breaks his neck.”
She thrust her hands in her pockets and scowled. Lapwing had already
collided with the brown, and Stubbs, ripe for fight, was beginning to
explode. The quiet little boy on Seaman stared in astonishment until
Lancaster, coming up, laid a palm on Lapwing’s poking nose and drew him
out of range. He had some tale ready, peculiarly adapted to Stubbs’
appreciation, and Harriet caught her father’s guffaw as he rode to his
place. She sighed sharply--with relief, Dandy judged--and addressed
herself to shouting “Good lad!” or “Good lass!” with supreme and
delightful unconsciousness of self.
The sleepy Flyer led off, and left everything in ruins behind him,
after which there was a lengthy pause, while rails and bricks were
replaced and furze-tops refixed. Griselda gave a charming illustration
of the so-called feminine temperament, refusing to look at any jump
until forced upon it, and then flying it with a complete trust in
Providence and an absolute disregard of economy. After these, the
performance of the Bluecaster warrior ranked high, in spite of the
roaring and waving accompaniment, and a suggestion of clanking chains
as she rocked past. Carrying her proud head at the noble angle affected
by some ladies much engaged in good works, she yet contrived, by dint
of squinting down her nose at the last moment, to view a jump in time
to clear it, and thundered on to the next in an atmosphere of escaped
earthquakes. In spite of her size and weight, she tackled the trap
quite neatly, and roared down the field to the water. Here she was
superb! On the wings of sound she came, gathered herself into a mighty
bunch, plunged and was over, leaving mingled impressions of trumpets,
bazaar-bunting and a motor-exhaust.
Chipmunk did quite a good round, thanks to a continuous shower of hats,
sticks and ear-splitting yells; but Grace’s tight-rope effects were
unsuccessful, except with the pole, on which she managed to do quite a
delicate little bit of work. Lucifera, the black, was greeted warmly
by the crowd, to whom she was well known, and responded by putting her
back into things, like any other popular clown. Nothing grudging, she
gave them all her tricks, from the preliminary, vicious, white-eyed
sidle and spin to the last terrific bound with which she caught the bit
in her teeth and rushed the obstacle. She missed the water, however, by
trying to do a circle on the back outside edge too far up the field,
but made up for it by leathering off into the crowd with a splendid
impersonation of a mad runaway.
Little Seaman had only one mannerism, a circular trot like the weaving
of a spell that seemed to wind him up for the first hurdle. Dandy’s
heart went out to the sensible, eager, square little horse with the
box-legs. He might have been a machine measured to each length and
lift, so obviously did he spare unnecessary effort, had it not been
for clear evidence of mind behind, of humanly-patient intelligence
and endeavour. At the water, his customary check drew a groan of
disappointment, changing to applause as it was seen that he was safely
across. Certain ladies were so ear-piercingly enraptured that he had to
drop on his knees and bow his little box-head before trotting soberly
back to his place.
And, at last--Stubbs.
It was perfectly clear that Nature had never intended Lapwing to “lep”;
clearer still that Lapwing was entirely of Nature’s opinion. He was
born tired; his foolish head had a weary droop; his heavy hoofs were in
curious contrast with his weedy frame. What he could not walk through,
he sat on behind. When driven to rise, he hit the swing-gate with such
force that he nearly looped the loop along with it. He bundled into the
trap like a sack of old clothes, utterly abolished the stone wall, and
plumped slick into the water, where he stayed determinedly, in spite of
the volcanic eruption in the saddle. Lancaster removed the pair once
more, this time with difficulty. Harriet flushed a little under the joy
of the crowd, but she said nothing, only gave the same sharp little
sigh as she watched the retreating figures and the soothing hand on the
check knee.
The second round brought its own disasters. Flyer had finally gone to
sleep for the afternoon, and was withdrawn. Chipmunk missed the gate,
owing to there being no hat handy. Griselda and Grace both foozled the
wall, the one from temper and the other from silliness, and Flossie
was so busy being noble that she forgot to squint at the trap and was
caught. Lucifera, excited by the crowd, began to overact, tried to sit
on the shilling stand and broke a stirrup-leather. Only Seaman steadily
kept his form--and Stubbs.
Lapwing came out as if he were going to be hanged. At the first hurdle
he manifested pained surprise, stopped dead and began to nibble the
furze. Blows and curses brought him to the straw-bound pole, where he
again paused to munch. The gate being uneatable, however, he cleared
it, pecking heavily, broke the trap into matchwood, and jammed his
rider’s knee against the wall. Then, evincing a sudden passion for the
water, tore up to it _con amore_, only to swerve aside at the wing,
leaving Stubbs to go on in the main direction; and as splash, roar and
oath ascended to heaven, returned to his nibbling.
The Committee appeared on the spot like mushrooms. Stubbs was fished
out, set right end up, condoled with, and, being close in front of
the Grand Stand, requested to hush. But Stubbs did not hush, had no
intention of hushing. Stamping and shouting, he informed them what
he thought of shows in general and this show in particular. Then
he was requested to leave, but he wouldn’t do that, either, and by
way of reply ran a coil of lurid language round every member of the
association. Men climbed down from the stands and joined the happy
party, until presently it seemed as if the whole Agricultural Society
was helping in the suppression and ejection of Stubbs.
Harriet, white to the lips, observed “Rotter! Low-down rotter!” between
her teeth and got to her feet; but when she would have made her way
down, Hamer caught her by the arm.
“This isn’t your job, my girl!” he said cheerfully, pressing her back
into her seat. “You stick to Dandy there, and grit your teeth a minute
longer. I’ll have things straightened out in two twos.”
He dropped into the ring with extraordinary lightness, while his
daughter slipped a hand round Harriet’s unreceptive elbow, by way of
conveying sympathy and keeping her quiet at the same time. Helwise
fussed down to them, dropping things and repeating the bath-theme _ad
lib._ The people near began to discuss hats and servants with feverish
politeness, bringing a faint smile even to the victim’s rigid lips. The
Member stood up and tried to see something at the back of the stand
that wasn’t there, and of course all the grinders followed his example.
Hamer broke a path through the crush with his own pleasant directness
of purpose. Everybody was trying to make Stubbs behave, and nobody was
succeeding: neither Bluecaster, tongue-tied and ashamed, nor Lancaster,
soothing and propelling, nor the High Sheriff, the Chief Constable, the
Judges, the Secretary and Treasurer, the Referee in All Classes, nor
the Police. It was a case of carrying Stubbs off bodily, and nobody
liked to do it, for, in spite of language and check and abominable
conduct, he was yet One of Us, and moreover his daughter watched from
the stand. To them came Hamer the Outsider.
“Sir,” he observed to Stubbs, with the simple grace of touch that gave
his every action charm, “I understand you to be an authority upon
_Rotifera_. I should like your advice upon the mounting of certain
specimens of _Bdelloidaceæ_ that I have just obtained!”
Stubbs broke off half-way in a stream of adjectives beginning with the
second and fourth letters of the alphabet, and stared; and everybody
round, after a momentary impression that Hamer was drunk, too, wagged
their heads and repeated “_Bdelloidaceæ!_” in a loud chorus, as if it
were some kind of charm, until Stubbs himself began to say any bits of
it that came foremost, without in the least meaning to.
“I have also some fine samples of _Pedalionidæ_,” Hamer continued in
his comforting tones, motioning Lancaster to call up his car as he
engineered the offender towards the rope. “A remarkable species--most
remarkable!--but perfectly familiar to you, I’ve no doubt. The
_Flosculariaceæ_, too, not to speak of the _Philodinaceæ_--here we are,
and mind the step!”
Stubbs made one last attempt to get up steam, but was throttled with a
fresh animalculæ, hustled into the car and driven off. Lanty came back
to the girls.
“I’m to drive you home, if you’ll allow me,” he said to Dandy; and “Can
I find your bicycle?” to Harriet. “The third round will be through in
a few minutes, but I’ll hand my job over to somebody, and we’ll clear
off at once, if you like. Your man has the horse, so he’s all right.
You’ve done well, to-day, haven’t you? How many firsts did you get? You
and Wild Duck are bad to beat!”
Harriet grunted, but her face relaxed. It hardened again, however, as
she stood up and took a last defiant look round before walking off
the field. She cycled home behind the dog-cart, counting the times
Lancaster’s eyes were turned to Dandy’s face. She was a trifle cheered
when it began to rain heavily, and she was able to hand over the
carriage-umbrella with an air of patronage, and splash along bravely in
Burberry and K.; but, in spite of the “firsts,” in spite of having been
proved infallible, her cup of bitterness, that day, was full.
Helwise chattered all the way as blithely as if erring fathers and
shamed daughters did not exist. Bluecaster, it seemed, had promised the
bath.
“He was quite agreeable about it, Lancelot--porcelain on legs,
nickel-plated hot and cold, _you_ know! I really hadn’t to hint more
than _twice_! That led on, of course, to the Perils to Plumbers--my
dear boy, how often have I told you that I never _ask_? He’s sending
the cheque to-night. You don’t think, Miss Shaw, that your charming
father----? Really, Lancelot, you needn’t bite my head off! You’re not
a bit grateful about the bath, and I don’t agree with you that the old
one was all right. I knew I should get a present to-day, because I
put on my skirt wrong side out. That always means luck! It was rather
awkward, because the wrong side of the stuff doesn’t go with the coat,
and the picoted seams looked rather queer--I saw people staring, on the
stand--but I’m glad I stuck to it! If I’d changed, I shouldn’t have got
the bath.”
Dandy listened vaguely to the chattering voice, thinking of her
father, happily mounted on his favourite hobby. He would love looking
after Stubbs, and they would spend the evening forming plans for his
regeneration. She had a touch of tenderness for the impossible Stubbs;
he had unintentionally given her this blissful ride in the rain. When
Helwise stopped for a second, she listened to the hoofs and to Lanty’s
little clicks and calls of encouragement. She had heard him define
horse-travelling as “company and music.” She remembered it now, and had
music in her heart to match. And so, in hearing it, forgot to listen to
Helwise altogether.
* * * * *
And for a whole week the County talked of Hamer, and went about prating
of _Bdelloidaceæ_ as if they bred them, and looked up rotiferous
information on the quiet, in order to confound each other’s ignorance.
The wives called at Watters and filled the card-tray, and the postman
staggered under letters of invitation. Hamer became known as “sound,”
“useful,” “a man at a pinch,” “a dashed good sort all round, don’t you
know!” and every club in the district fought to own him. He was quite
pleased about it all, and never guessed that his impulsive piece of
“tramming” had worked the transformation. Somebody in a hole needing
pulling out was all that Hamer wanted to make him happy, and he was
seldom out of a job. He welcomed the new friends as he had welcomed the
grinders and leeches, and opened to them his heart and his pocket.
That was how Hamer became “county.”
CHAPTER XIV
THE OLD ORDER
Seated at his table in the window of the “Duke,” Lancaster could see
the farmers come jogging into Sandwath, rounding the dangerous corner
with a loose rein, and, as often as not, a head turned in the opposite
direction. There were few dreary faces among them, for the late year
had been a good one, with heavy crops and the right sort of weather,
and no disease to play havoc with stock. He watched them disappear into
the stable-yard, and from thence drift across to the Bank, presently
to drift back to the “Duke” for their receipts. It was the last of the
three January rent-audits, Bluecaster, Witham and Sandwath; the last,
the smallest, and far the most enjoyable. The others, where the numbers
ran in each case to over a hundred, were too big, too busy, too long;
but to-day there were only the marsh-men and some from nearer home,
including Wild Duck, counting barely forty, all told. Here, everybody
knew his neighbour, and the tenants were mostly of long holding, so
that the half-yearly meeting was more like a gathering of a clan than a
business convocation. He knew precisely the time-worn joke that would
herald most of them, together with the equally hoary grievance; just
as he knew the ancient answer that would spring to his lips of its own
accord. He was not bored, even if he had ceased to be much amused. The
years had not changed the audit into a mere mechanical necessity, nor
stolen one whit of its humanity. These people were part of himself by
now, with their shrewdness and simpleness, ignorance and intuition,
pungent wit, callous exteriors and sentimental hearts. He had the key
to every one of them, knew how far each was to be trusted, how far
advice would carry, how much sympathy would be wise. The breaking-up
of an old man hurt him, as did the downfall of a young one; just as
octogenarian vigour or steady success was a matter of almost personal
pride. Scarcely any life on the land but touched his own somewhere,
definitely or unconsciously working its own effect.
The last three months had passed quickly, and more happily than any
since his father’s death. It seemed as if, with the settling of the
marsh problem, the worry of years had come to a head and ceased; as
if, in playing the rôle of Fate, he had acquired something of Fate’s
serenity. The old, grinding anxiety had vanished, leaving in its place
a steady, uplifting consciousness of righteous power.
Outwardly, things were not altered. His employer, though rushed home
for the last three days, was generally, if not always postally, at
least mentally out of reach. Helwise still hampered him with her
activities, like a child pettishly dragging unwieldly toys for a walk
and expecting the grown-up to carry them. Harriet’s bicycle still
scraped his walls; the cares of the estate changed only in detail; the
county work still clamoured. But he brought to it all fresh ardour and
a new sense of peace, from what source he could not have told. Perhaps
it was the new interest over at Watters; perhaps the gathering of
strength from a big decision over-past. Just possibly it was the long
moment of calm wherewith the gods soothe a man before they strike.
He was at Watters a good deal, nowadays, more often, indeed, than he
realised, unconsciously seeking the stimulation of Hamer’s vitality and
courage. He still kept his difficulties to himself, after long habit,
yet he often came away finding them solved. Except for his weakness
for leeches, Hamer’s tram-horse philosophy was founded upon excellent
common sense, and had nothing of Bluecaster’s nervous charity. He saw
life pitifully, but never morbidly, and his remedies were for time and
not for the moment alone. Lancaster left him braced not only to work
but to feel, and to be glad of his capacity for both.
On the other hand, he was of use to the older man in many ways,
engineering him over social pitfalls, along the precipice of tradition
and through the network of county relationship; while to Mrs. Shaw
he was an everlasting support and stay. He knew the best methods of
reconciling modern grates with ancient hearths; why the newspaper
didn’t turn up, and what was wrong with the milk; how to re-tape
Venetian blinds and bottle fruit, and where to buy the best blankets
and hams; what was a tramp and what wasn’t; what you might say to your
servants, and what you certainly might not; why it was wrong to tip the
Force, and right to use steamers in apple-tarts; the neatest way of
clearing cockroaches, and what the Government was going to do.
But with Dandy he seemed to get very little further. He was often
so absorbed that he forgot to speak to her, though he seldom
forgot--unconsciously, perhaps--to look at her. He knew vaguely that he
liked her, found her presence pleasing, and was grateful for her kindly
acts; and sometimes, in some hour magnetised by Wiggie’s singing, he
turned to her as to the woman of his dreams. But always he came back
doggedly to his first impression of her in the Lane. She was not of his
world--the world of the soul, where it walks alone until the silver
fingers of its eternal mate make music on the thrilling door. She did
not speak his language, or love his loves; and sometimes he would leave
the beauty of Watters with a queer relief, to talk shop with Harriet
under a shippon wall.
The latter drove in now, in her smart, new milk-float, affecting the
farmer’s jog-trot which would soon ruin the brisk little cob he had
bought for her, he reflected, with a shrug. She had Wiggie with her,
and threw him the reins while she made the pilgrimage from the Bank to
the “Duke.” Wiggie knew nothing about horses, but he would have held a
megalosaurus if Harriet had commanded, so hung on and murmured all the
horse songs he could think of, from “The Tin Gee-Gee” to “The Arab’s
Farewell to his Favourite Steed.”
She scowled when Lancaster and the clerk got up as she entered, and
the former offered her a chair. She resented their reception of her as
a lady rather than as a rent-paying tenant, and her ploughboy manner
was particularly evident upon these occasions. Perhaps, in spite of
her strenuous pose, the pilgrimage, ending at Lancaster’s table, hurt
something of her hidden woman’s pride. In any case she needed to carry
a high head for Stubbs, who marked the day with a white stone. He
always insisted upon attending the dinner with Harriet’s ticket, and
the result, if customary, was none the less galling.
She refused the seat, flipping the bank voucher across the table, and
thrusting the estate receipt into an important-looking pocket-book;
then, remembering her part, sat down sideways and dug her hands into
her pockets.
“What about that pig-hull you promised me?” she demanded, in a Judge
Jeffreys tone that made the clerk jump.
Lanty temporised solemnly, with the tactful evasiveness of custom. He
knew quite well that she had only said it to impress his subordinate,
because the pig-hull had been granted at least a week before, but he
wouldn’t for worlds have denied her the traditional privilege of the
punctual tenant, which was in this case no more than just a little bit
of side.
“I see you’ve Wigmore with you,” he added, looking out to where that
unhappy gentleman, to the tune of “Come, pretty bird, and live with
me!” was trying to persuade the cob that the bar-parlour of the “Duke”
was not the mouth of his private stable.
“We’ve been to see the Vicar--Bluecaster, I mean--so I brought him
on. The choral has been asked to oblige with ‘Elijah,’ sometime in
March, in aid of missions over the seas and kindred objects. Would you
consider Stubbs, half-seas-over, a kindred object? Wiggie happened to
say he knew something about the music, so I told him he could sing. He
hung back a bit at first, but I wasn’t standing any nonsense. Mind you
turn up with plenty of cash. By the way, there’s that match with Bortun
to-morrow.” (Hockey understood.) “You’ll be pig-and-whistle as usual,
of course? I’ve got some sort of a team scratched together, but I’m
still short of a centre-half. I expect I’ll have to play there myself,
unless _you_’ll take it on?”
“Too old!” Lanty shook his head. “Is Wigmore training for a circus, by
any chance?”
Harriet rose and came to the window, to behold the cob threading a
Ladies’ Chain with half-a-dozen vehicles at the “Duke’s” kerb. Poor
Wiggie, utterly at its mercy, chirrupped, sang and apologised in a
breath.
“Why not get _him_ to play?” Lancaster added.
“Much use!” Harriet laughed contemptuously. “_He_ can’t do anything
but _sing_! By the way, he wants to know if you’ll do him the favour
to ask him to the dinner? I offered him my ticket, but Stubbs went out
and threw bricks at the hens until I withdrew, so I had to come to you.
Dandy wants to know what it’s like, so of course Wiggie’s ready to
break his neck over it. He’d do anything for her--crawl into the boiler
and come out with the steam!”
She did not look at him--she was too sporting for that--but she felt
as if in herself the sudden twinge of jealousy that for a moment held
him still. Then he said “Of course!” and handed her the ticket; and she
turned to the door with a rough-and-ready greeting for the next comer.
Lanty’s voice followed her.
“Two o’clock--and you’d better tell him to pass the punch! It’ll just
about finish him if he isn’t used to that sort of thing, and he doesn’t
look over-sturdy. The atmosphere will be pretty dangerous, too. You
might mention in passing that there’s no need to make a martyr of
himself. I can tell Miss Shaw anything she wants to know.”
Harriet said “Right-o!” with a queer smile, adding,--“you’ll think on
about that pig-hull?” for the benefit of her successor, and went out
with the ticket burning in her pocket. It was Dandy’s ticket all right,
no matter who passed the punch or coughed in the smoke.
Lanty came back to business haunted by the smile and an irritating
conviction that he had somehow made a fool of himself. They stayed with
him all morning, marring his real contentment; for it was pleasant to
have no difficult points to tackle after the good year. Not that the
tenants were at pains to emphasise the luck. On the contrary, scarcely
one of them would own to any special favouring of Providence. Hay
might have done well, but it had been slow weather, if fine, and that
meant labour at an exorbitant wage. “Why, a man could bare lig his
head on t’pillow fur thinkin’ he sud be out an’ about, puttin’ the
wark through!” Harvest might have been fair to middlin’, “Ay, but look
at t’last two crops! What, we’ve not pulled up on _that_ lot, yet!
It’s one year wi’ another i’ farmin’, an’ like as not t’bad year’s
t’yan as gits t’job! ’Tisn’t as if crops was all, neyther. Stock’s gey
ticklish stuff to manish, breet as a button ya minnit, an’ deein’ off
like flees t’next. Why, t’whole countryside knaas what luck I’ve had
wi’ my coves!” And then would follow the usual wheedling demand for
midden-steads, lime, shippon-repairs in their degree, or anything else
that “Mr. Lancaster, sir” looked good for. It was all part of the game,
and there was little goodwill going missing as they came and went in
the wintry sun. What bitter struggle the past could show, what grinding
fear the future might hold, were alike forgotten as they stood about in
little groups, weather-beaten faces and ageing backs, ready to enjoy
their pillgill now that the pang of “parting” was over; for though the
Westmorland farmer must have a grievance even at the wonder-point of
prosperity, he must also, on the very verge of ruin, crack his joke.
Brack’s beautiful entry in the S.-F.--an elaborate =S= bend round his
Uncle Holliday and old Simon Farrer, violently exchanging views in
the middle of the road--was spoilt by a large mangold at the end of a
rope, attached to his back axle by Denny, somewhere _en route_. The
mangold, not being accomplished in =S= bends, knocked Simon’s feet from
under him and caught Uncle Willie on the knee; and while they were busy
asking Brack what he meant by it, Denny himself ramped in with his
high-stepper and the expression of a lily-white hen.
Taken altogether, it was a gay enough morning but for one solitary
episode, when Wolf came in for the last time as tenant of Ninekyrkes.
The little interview was one of those that Fate stamps with a fiery
thumb.
He drove in alone, acknowledging no greeting, and, when some one came
forward to take his horse, climbing down without a word. It seemed a
long time before he came out of the Bank, and when at last he crossed
the road it was with bitter reluctance, his head bent, ignoring
salutation and outstretched hand.
Lanty met him as cheerfully as he could with his usual--“Well, Wolf,
how’s yourself?” but the time-hallowed reply--“A long way on to
ploughin’ over Jordan!” drew but a ghost of the old smile from both;
and when business was through with, the shaky old figure still sat in
the chair, saying nothing and staring at the floor. Lancaster made a
movement with his hand, and the clerk got up and went out. The agent
waited, sorry and patient.
“How’s your missis?” he asked at last, when the silence grew
unbearable, trying to keep the same brisk, commonplace tone. Wolf
raised his eyes.
“She’s a deal better, thank you kindly, sir. She’s not like the same
woman since things was fixed. She never fashes herself over the water,
nowadays. I can’t rightly make her out, though--but it’s no matter.
It’ll not be for long.”
“You’ll be getting into the Pride soon, I suppose?”
“Ay. In a few weeks.”
“You’ll not think better of it?”
“Yon’s over an’ by with, sir. I reckon we can let it bide.”
Lancaster nodded, and there was a second silence. Wolf sat still, as
if unable to make the move which would mean the end of all the former
things. Unspoken, between them was the memory of many other days
when he had sat thus, first with the father, and later with the son.
Reminiscences surged upward of kindnesses on either side, of mutual
sympathy and encouragement. There had been bad years when the farmer
had needed help, but on the other hand the agent had had in return
many a piece of rough advice, worth its weight in gold. Looking back
to his early struggle, Lancaster knew that, both to Michael’s tolerant
handling of a problem and Wolf’s fierce cutting at the root, he had
owed much. And Wolf was a link between himself and his father. The
younger men, even loyal partisans like Denny, did not count the same.
Again, as months before in his own office, he felt old, seeing the
strong man of his father’s time tottering on the last steep slope. This
was the end of Wolf’s real life, whether he went to his grave a year
later or ten. The situation wrung his heart, fretting him with his own
helplessness. He could do nothing except attempt, by some recurring
instinct, to turn him from the one last boon he craved.
They sat on while the clerk, kicking his heels on the mat, wondered at
the silence. This was their real good-bye, without thanks or spoken
sorrow, the last speechless God-be-with-you! of two troubled men of the
North.
The clerk’s attention was distracted by a dog in the bar-parlour--a
dog that had a fluffy-haired damsel as background--and into the
death-chamber of a passing relationship Brack stepped, unchecked.
Looking up, Lanty saw him at the door, running his curious eyes over
the pair at the table. In spite of what came after, he never in all his
life quite forgave Brack for his intrusion at that moment.
Wolf pulled himself up, and was for leaving with the usual unemotional
jerk, but Lanty stood up, too, and held out his hand. Still, neither
said anything, until the old man, going, spoke up suddenly, playing the
game to the last, even as Harriet had tried to play it, posing to hide
a wounded heart.
“Yon fodder-gang, sir, as I mentioned? The old one’s as near done as
may be. You’ll happen think it over----?” He broke off then, reality
gripping him, and Lanty, biting his lip, said “I’ll see to it, Wolf!”
and turned to the window. Brack laughed callously as the door closed.
“What’s the old boy so almighty stuck about? He’s through with
Ninekyrkes to-day, isn’t he? Mighty sick, I should say, and feeling
kind of ‘’Way down upon the Swanee River’! A bit lost, too, from his
talk. He’ll want precious little with fodder-gangs out at the Pride!”
Lancaster said--“Grand weather for the time of year,” and handed
him his receipt. The eyes of the two men met, Brack’s in a smiling
half-sneer; and then he said “Champ!” turning, still smiling, to leave.
“I’m not going to hustle you with ‘wants,’” he added kindly, “though I
guess that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to ask! I reckon the only thing
that would mend Thweng is a keg of gunpowder. But I’d just like to warn
you to keep your boots well strutted. There’ll be powerful cold feet
for somebody in March!”
He swung out with his insolent smile, the last word successfully
arresting an impulse that would have sent him spinning into the road.
“March!” So Brack had evidently been behind Ezekiel, as conjectured.
But why March? What was at the back of it all? And what did he think
was coming?
Denny burst in just afterwards and dispelled his wonderings, full of
joy about the mangold, and anxious to know if Mr. Lancaster had seen
it. His rollicking vitality swept the air clean both of regret and
apprehension, so that, by the time Lanty took his seat at dinner, the
surprising touch of jealousy evoked by Wiggie’s request was his only
aftermath of the morning.
The singer was on his left, with a very well-brushed Stubbs beside
him, and Michael Dockeray opposite. At the head, Bluecaster, not quite
certain that he wasn’t still in Cairo, had Willie Holliday, as chief
tenant, on one hand, and Wolf on the other. The last was Dockeray’s
place by right, but Bluecaster had contrived to remember the special
circumstances and to whisper a word in Michael’s ear. The right waived,
he called to Wolf, and the little attention brightened the old man
considerably. It was by acts like these that Bluecaster kept his hold
on his people in spite of his long absences. His larger generosity came
to them, tempered by reason, through his agent, but his little touches
of consideration had the charm of personal courtesy, and were thereby
kept in mind. Lancaster was the strong arm upon which they leaned, but
his lordship had his own place in their hearts.
Wiggie had a bad time with the enormous meal, but while he tried to
disguise his primary plate of beef as turkey and various other dishes,
his mind was busy with his surroundings. He knew that he had before him
an ancient system working at its best under the most ideal conditions,
a triangular relationship which needed the right men in each department
to keep the bearings smooth. Just such a state of things might never
come his way again. Men said the system was getting played out,
becoming extinct as the dodo; but here at least it seemed as if change,
however well-intentioned, could mean little but disintegration. The
fascination of that most claiming of problems, the interdependence
of human beings, not only for things of the body but of the spirit,
took him as he looked round the ring of faces, after staving off a
too-attentive plum-pudding. The townsman knew many employers of
labour, men of large hearts and high standards, who had their thousands
at a nod in the morning, and could play “smack-at-back-o’-t’lug” with
them of an evening without the faintest troubling of authority. But
here was something altogether different, reaching back into far years
that had, even then, given each man present his place. Here were ease
and understanding, but no forcing of either. The invisible silken
strings between the three elements yielded this way and that to the
need of the moment, but readjusted themselves immediately. You could
shake hands across them, hail flesh and blood on the other side and
hear the beating of good human hearts, but you could not climb them.
They were always there, stretched by long custom and spun on many
graves.
Brack alone was out of place, with his over-smart good looks and
jarring mannerisms. If he could not scale the strings he could snip
them, and you heard the click of the scissors. Even Stubbs, already
well on the way to becoming a “kindred object,” and talking as broad
Westmorland as anybody present, was to be preferred to Brack. Later,
however, he began to get really warmed-up and quarrelsome, and it took
pounds of Rotifer Magic to keep him quiet. Wiggie had spent the whole
of the previous evening with a weary eye glued to the microscope, so
that he was in a position to be fluent, and if he made bad breaks at
times, the kindred object was not in a condition to point them out.
Wiggie had a knack of acquiring information that was of no earthly
use to himself, but smoothed the way for other people; and if the
opportunity did not always turn up immediately, that did not prevent
him getting ready for it. Sitting on stiles waiting for lame dogs was
constitutional with Wiggie.
He had early found his way into Lancaster’s good graces, so that he was
rather troubled by his touch of stiffness at the beginning of the meal.
He thawed him, however, with one of his quaint questions, and Lancaster
soon found himself pointing out characters and fixing labels,
supplying histories and opening his treasury of tales. He forgot that
“Dandy wants to know” was the driving-power behind Wigmore’s interest,
remembering only that he was being given a clear run for the hobby of
his heart.
“You know my neighbour here, I suppose--Mr. Dockeray of Ladyford?
Oh, well, he’s a pillar of the county--Justice of the Peace, R.D.C.,
Guardian, etc., so we have to behave ourselves at this end of the
room! Mr. Wigmore’s stopping at Watters, Michael--you’ve met Mr.
Shaw, of course. Brought him over one day, didn’t I? Michael’s
going to give us a song, after a bit. By the way, I hope you’ll be
kind enough to do something in that line, too. We fancy our singing
here, but I don’t exactly imagine we’ve anything to beat you! Brack
Holliday?--yes--that’s the man you gave a lesson in carburettors in
the middle of Leighton Mosses. He offered you a cigarette--one of his
Turks--and you took it just to oblige him and coughed for ten minutes
after he’d cleared out. How do I know? Because I was on the far side of
the hedge, working out valuations, and I was pressed for time, or I’d
have come over and held your hand or patted you on the back. The shy,
thin man between the big cattle-dealer and Belt-End Gibson is Bownass
of Moss End. He’s one of your musical people. Been in Sandwath Church
choir for years and years, and can’t read a part to save his life. Best
ploughman in the district, too--barring, perhaps, Lup Whinnerah, but
Lup doesn’t count now, worse luck! You must come to a ploughing-match,
one of these days. They’re a bit tedious, though, if you’re a stranger.
The masters curse them like anything, beforehand, because the men are
so keen practising that they plough like snails, stopping all the time
to look behind and admire. It’s a slow job anyway, of course. Still,
Miss Shaw might like to know.”
He couldn’t resist the sentence, and saw the blood rise in Wiggie’s
face. Rather ashamed, he went on hurriedly--
“That’s Thomas Cuthbert Dennison with the twinkle. He’s asking Brack
if he means to start classes for restoring respiration. Brack thinks
they’re all going to be drowned on the marsh, you know, and Denny wants
to be in practice. He’s a great chap! Bit too fond of a joke, that’s
all. Did you see the mangold? No? Well, that cob _does_ take a bit
of holding!” He met Wigmore’s eye in polite sympathy, and they both
laughed.
“There’s a tale against Denny that never quite goes out of fashion.
When he was a lad he was out with a pretty cousin from Lancaster. After
a long while of saying nothing at all, he gives a great sigh. ‘Why,
whatever’s the matter?’ says the cousin, alarmed. ‘Nay, I was nobbut
thinking,’ says Denny, very dismal. Well, then, the cousin offers him a
penny for his thoughts, but Denny was terribly shy-like, and wouldn’t
out with them. ‘Eh, well,’ he says at last, ‘I was just thinking as
I’d never furgit this here walk with thee!’ Cousin fluttered, of
course. ‘Why, I’m sure you’re very kind, but you sound terribly serious
about it!’ ‘Ay,’ says Denny, ‘I reckon I is. I’se gitten on a paar o’
Brother Steve’s boots, an’ they’ve scratted aw t’ skin off my heels!’ I
say--can’t you smother Knewstubb with another microbe or two?”
(The boot story made him think of Brack’s parting speech. He wondered
what had brought the tale to mind.)
“Yes, Denny’s a laddie! He’s framed a bit differently with the lasses,
since then! But he’s a right good sort, taken all round. His lordship’s
making ready for the Loyal Toast, so you’d better be getting something
into that glass of yours. You don’t happen to be a parson, do you?
That’s all right--we can skip the Bishop and Clergy and get ahead.
There’ll be a deuce of a smoke before long--do you think you ought to
sing in it? If you find you can’t stick it, there’s a door here, just
behind my chair.”
And Wiggie nodded his head gratefully, and began to repeat a mental
list as long as the Shorter Catechism, beginning with beef and mutton
and silken threads and mangolds and ploughing-matches, and ending with
Brother Steve’s boots.
After that, the business of the evening began. The cloths cleared, and
dessert on the table, together with the long, white churchwardens,
Bluecaster rose to propose “The King!” This having been honoured with
fervour, the hands went out to the pipes, and Uncle Willie got to his
feet to have his say about the landlord. You could see Bluecaster
wriggle until his health was safely through the wine, and the cheers
and musical honours safely off the feudal chest. His speech in reply
was a mixture of Cairo and crops, recognition, New Year wishes and
shy little jokes, haltingly delivered, but it was well intended and
very well received; and always the hint of breeding crept out in some
graceful thought, however poorly spoken,--regret for a sick man’s
absence, sympathy in bereavement, congratulation upon some particular
success. Towards the end, he stumbled and stuck with half a sentence on
his lips, and Lancaster knew that he wanted to say something about the
Whinnerahs, but he was barely through the introductory words before the
old man reached out a hand, begging: “Don’t, my lord! Don’t now!” and
the master huddled up his speech in a last blanket of acknowledgment
and sat down.
Michael had the agent’s health in trust, and when Lancaster stood up to
answer, the faces grew interested, for his was the only serious speech
of the evening. He looked at Wiggie first, though, firmly taking from
him the pipe with which he was meekly struggling. He jerked his head
towards the door.
“This is going to be dull, so clear off out for a breath of fresh air,
and stop putting chimneys down that precious throat of yours. It’s
going to be dull, I tell you, and I ought to know! You’re not missing
anything. As for Miss Shaw, she can read it in the papers, if she
wants!”
That sent the faithful Wiggie flying, as he expected, to cool his
aching head in the drawing-in afternoon; and with the tail of his eye
on Stubbs and his behaviour, Lancaster got to work.
His speech was technical, concentrated, rigidly pinned down to the
main interest, but dull it was not, so clearly did the plain words
round and emphasise each situation, salting hard facts with the short,
dry wit that stimulates the Northerner like his own first frosts.
Drifting outside to an uncurtained window, Wiggie was fascinated by
the picture within. Through the mist of smoke he saw the faces at the
table turned with the stillness of complete attention to the forceful
figure at the end. Lancaster was at his best when speaking. The whole
man braced and strengthened, and the almost dour look, so often seen
in those who come early into big responsibilities, relaxed as some apt
finish sent a slow ripple round the ring, setting its final seal on
his own mouth. There came to Wigmore, of the town, a sense of the wide
qualifications that go to the making of the ideal steward. A well-known
member of this “easy” profession has said that the land agent must be
“a keen judge of character, of a genial and sympathetic disposition
and energetic nature, must know when to be firm, when yielding, the
many times when he must lead, the few when he must drive, whom to
trust and whom to suspect, what to notice and what to ignore, where to
command and where merely to suggest, whom to praise and whom censure.
Forethought, vigilance, courtesy, reticence are qualities which will
carry him far.... He has duties to perform on behalf of tenants as well
as landlord. He is a human buffer between his employer and the farmers,
and must shield the former from annoyance, and uphold the just claims
of the latter, even to the sacrifice of his own popularity. He must be
as reticent as the lawyer, as upright as the parson, as firm as the
policeman. He must be well informed on every subject, whether it be
Bradshaw or the debenture stocks of a company--the pedigree of a cow or
that of a peer; the price of a Scotch moor, or the vintage of a claret.”
The “easy” profession carries with it the immense penalty of an
influence reaching forward into the future long after death, in a
fashion characteristic of scarcely any other. There are some of us
whose chief honour and glory is to find men of humble station still
appraising right and wrong by the standards taught them of our fathers.
Wiggie’s eye ran along the dark heads etched on the yellow light,
from Stubbs, somnolently fixing Lanty to the punctuation of a
spasmodic “Hear, hear!” to Dockeray, thoughtful and quiet, Brack,
supercilious but attentive, Wolf, quiveringly interested and yet
outside, and finally to Bluecaster in his big chair at the head. He
wondered afterwards why, of all the tragedies at the table--and there
was more than one plain to the eye--Bluecaster’s had seemed to him
the most helpless and complete. There is something terrible in the
relentlessness with which inheritance may force a man into a position
he is not framed to fill, thrusting power into his hands and judgment
into his mouth whether he desire their fiery splendours or no. He may,
of course, pluck the joys of heritage and leave its duties to look
after themselves; but if he has good blood behind him and a strong hand
beside him, he will come to them, soon or late. Left to himself, with
no great name to support, Bluecaster would have been a tennis champion
or somebody’s private skipper, chauffeur or huntsman--anything but the
head of a large estate, with his generous but harassed brain besieged
by the growing problems of the day. Yet he had hurried home from Egypt
to take his place, to speak the right word as far as he knew, and was
sitting with his patient dog’s eyes raised in courteous attention,
keeping his end up not too unsuccessfully, thanks to the spur of race
and the steady influence of a good servant.
Lancaster finished the survey of the half-year, covering general
events, agricultural conditions and the new legislation; and then,
on an impulse that he never ceased to regret, referred, in his final
sentences, to a subject already closed.
“I should just like to add that I hope all the marsh-men are sleeping
well!” he ended, dropping into a lighter tone. “Mr. Bracken Holliday
was a little anxious, as we all know, about the beginning of last
autumn, but I trust that by now he has come round to the general
conclusion of safety.” He lifted his glass. “I wish all on the marsh a
succession of prosperous seasons and no dreams!”
Denny seized this excellent opportunity for sending round a cardboard
nautical imitation labelled “The Thweng Life-Boat,” and quite a number
of pence was jangled down in front of Brack. He nodded careless thanks,
but he whitened angrily, and he sent one long glance up the table which
set Lancaster biting his lip. The farmer said nothing, however, and his
lordship, grateful that the difficult subject was not to be re-opened,
muttered--“Bounder got some decent feeling, after all!” and handed
him his own cigarette-case. Brack coloured, this time, and fell into
frowning thought. The courtesy got home, even through his armour of
conceit, but vaguely he groped for subtler sympathy behind. Who knew
what Bluecaster really thought about the Lugg?
Denny was asked to respond for “The Bonny Lasses of Westmorland,” and
did so with enthusiasm, quite unabashed by pointed interrogations,
such as: “Wha was fust-footer ower to Braithet’s?” (Braithwaite had a
crowd of pretty daughters) and, “Wha’s buits bed ta gitten fur t’job?”
etc., etc. Michael opened the singing in the gentle, light tenor that
he raised every Sunday in the Ladyford family pew where his fathers
had worshipped. The song was the inevitable “Kind Mary,” and Lanty
wondered whether he was thinking of his own cheerful, masterful partner
as he sang with his mild eyes fixed on the ceiling, marking the rhythm
with slow nods. Denny gave them the famous “Eh, poor Lassie, she was
Dumb!” and called upon Brack to oblige with “Pull for the Shore,
Sailor!” or “Throw out the Life-Line!” but his victim, placated by the
cigarette-case, was not to be drawn. Old Simon contributed “The Mardale
Hunt,” hammering out the time with the punch-ladle, and quaveringly
commanding the chorus to “give it weft!” Lanty always sang the same
song, his father’s song: “In the Downhill of Life.” Wigmore, drawn
gradually back by the music, stood presently in the doorway, listening
to the simple faith of an older generation--
“In the Downhill of Life when I find I’m declining,
May my fate no less fortunate be,
Than a snug Elbow Chair can afford for reclining,
And a Cot that o’erlooks the wide sea.
With an ambling pad Poney to pace o’er the Lawn,
While I carol away Idle sorrow,
And blythe as the Lark, that each day hails the dawn,
Look forward with hope for To-morrow.
To-morrow, To-morrow, Look forward with hope for To-morrow.
With a Porch at my door both for shelter and shade too,
As the sunshine or rain may prevail,
And a small spot of ground, for the use of the spade too,
With a Barn for the use of the flail;
A Cow for my dairy, a Dog for my game,
And a Purse when a friend wants to borrow,
I’ll envy no Nabob his riches or fame,
Nor what honours may wait him To-morrow.
From the bleak northern blast may my Cot be completely
Secur’d by a neighbouring hill,
And at night may repose steal upon me more sweetly,
By the sound of a murmuring rill:
And while peace and plenty I find at my board,
With a heart free from sickness and sorrow,
With my Friends I will share what to-day may afford,
And let them spread the Table To-morrow.
And when I at last must throw off this frail cov’ring,
Which I’ve worn for Threescore Years and Ten,
On the brink of the grave I’ll not seek to keep hov’ring,
Nor my thread wish to spin o’er again;
But my face in the glass I’ll serenely survey,
And with smiles count each wrinkle and furrow;
And this old worn-out stuff which is threadbare to-day,
May become everlasting To-morrow!”
Stubbs wished to supplement this with “Riding down to Bangor,” but was
firmly suppressed, and Wiggie was called in to keep him in order and
supply his share of the entertainment.
“It’s fearful cheek to ask you!” Lancaster apologised, “but they don’t
know what a big favour it is, and they’ll like it no end. You might
just give us something to send us home happy, if you’re not afraid of
your voice.”
“I’ll sing with pleasure!” Wiggie said contentedly, standing up beside
Lancaster’s chair with the same childlike detachment that he showed on
a public platform. He did not begin at once, though, because he found
the last song very difficult to follow, but after a moment or two he
gave them “The Song of Good Heart” in a half-whisper sweet as mountain
church-bells, more as if he were thinking it than singing it.
“Give, dear O Lord,
Fine weather in its day,
Plenty on the board,
And a Good Heart all the way.
Kind soil for the share,
Kind sun for the ley,
Fair crop and to spare,
And a Good Heart all the way.
Good Hand with the stock,
Good Help and Hope aye,
Christ-blessing on the flock,
And a good Heart all the way.
Gold-yellow on the com,
Green-yellow on the hay,
A whistle in the morn,
And a Good Heart all the way.
Good Heart in the field,
And the Home-Heart gay.
Ay! Heaven yield
A Good Heart all the way!
A last prayer in the night
That God ’ild the day.
Bide still and die light,
With a Good Heart all the way.”
And after that he sang a grand old German “Alleluja!” letting out his
magnificent power until the room echoed, and his audience thrilled and
rocked, intoxicated with enthusiasm, mightily growling out the Royal
Salute in various keys of their own, as Wiggie swept them away to the
Table of the Great Rent-Auditor of All. The voice beat at Lancaster’s
brain, dragging at a lost memory. Wigmore was a bit of a puzzle all
round. He had no relations that one ever heard of, and no home. He was
a professional singer, yet one never seemed to come across his name,
in spite of his undeniable gift. Perhaps he was one of the unlucky,
to whom no roads open. Certainly there was little of the blatantly
successful artist about his slight, tired figure and unassuming manner.
Yet it was surely genius that was swinging them all out of their narrow
anchorages on that flood of sound. And only Brack, suddenly fearful
and cold, felt the irony of that “Alleluja!” on the marshmen’s lips,
singing their Easter anthem before ever the agony and the grave were
passed.
They fell upon Wiggie in a body after that, and clumped him heavily on
the back until he gasped, and told him it was “champion” and “reet as a
bobbin,” and “fit to beat Holliday’s Royal bull!” until Bluecaster had
to rescue him by giving the final toast, “To our next merry meeting!”
drunk by Brack with shaking lips. Old Simon presented an unsolicited
testimonial.
“There’s them as _can_ sing an’ _waint_ sing!” he pronounced
emphatically, with a scathing eye on Brack, “an’ the de’il tak’ ’em
fur a lock o’ snirpin’ dew-nowts! An’ theer’s them as _can’t_ sing an’
_dew_ sing--an’ neea thanks tull them, neyther--but niver did I hear
the likes o’ yon!”
Lanty shook the singer by the hand, and said, “Miss Shaw will be
pleased to hear of _this_, anyhow!” with nothing in his voice but the
heartiest liking, and Wiggie met it instantly. There was never again
between them a shadow of any kind.
At the door, Harriet waited in the float. It was already dark. The
short January day was over, and as Wiggie shoved Stubbs up the step,
he was glad that he could not see her face. A moment later, gathering
that the kindred object was already fast asleep, he asked for a lift
home, but Harriet suspected him and snapped refusal. “It’s a long way
to walk!” he remonstrated sadly, and so convincingly that she yielded,
thinking he meant to try. Holding on to Stubbs as they trotted steadily
through the dark, he asked suddenly why she had come herself instead of
sending the man.
“Because this is _my_ job, in spite of Hamer!” she answered abruptly.
“I’ve got to see Stubbs through, whatever he does. He’s only a poor
exhibit as a father, but he’s all I’m likely to have, and if he chooses
to drink himself to death it’s up to me to stand the racket.” She
pulled into the hedge. “Isn’t that the Watters car?”
“It’s so difficult to tell, at night,” the subtle Wiggie made innocent
reply, all the time knowing the note of it as well as the sound of his
own voice. But what he did not know was that, inside it, was Dandy,
come to fetch him in an idle moment. That disappointment had yet to
be revealed. Thus is the spilt wine of our good deeds made bitter as
waters of Marah.
* * * * *
Lup walked over to drive the old man home. Lancaster had a word with
him on the kerb.
“You might have given us a look-in, for the last time! When next
January comes round, you’ll be feeling sorry you didn’t. When do you
leave?”
“In another few weeks, sir. I’ll be stopping a while with an uncle
in Liverpool before sailing. I’d meant to go, if I’d had to work my
passage, but the old man’s seen to the brass. There’ll be plenty to
start me on the other side an’ all. When he’d once given in, he wasn’t
for stinting me. He’s hard, but he’s not unjust, and he knows I’ve
earned it all right.”
“It’s _you_ that’s hard, Lup--ay, and unjust, too! You haven’t earned
the right to spoil your father’s last days.”
“He’s had his life, sir. This is mine.”
“And much good may it do you! You’re a fool!” Lanty swung on his heel
to find the Watters chauffeur at his elbow, wearing such a shocked
expression that both the other men smiled. Lup said, “Like enough!
Good-night to you, sir!” and rattled off, and Lancaster drifted to the
car. Dandy put out a hand to him through the window.
“Whom were you slanging on the pavement? And do you know what has
happened to Wiggie? They have it inside that he’s gone home already.”
It was explained that he had driven off with Mr. and Miss Knewstubb,
and she lifted her eyebrows a little. She was so used to Wiggie’s
devotion that the wind blew cold at the slightest sign of defection.
“It’s quite all right, of course, but we’d promised to send over.
I had nothing particular to do, so I just came for the run. I hope
he won’t get cold after the hot room--I brought the closed car on
purpose--especially as he came to please me.”
“He pleased a good many other people, too,” Lanty said warmly. “He
was immense! I can’t think why he isn’t in the front rank of English
singers. Surely somebody ought to have found him out!”
“Oh, he’s getting on all right,” she answered, rather hurriedly. “I’m
sure he enjoyed singing for you.”
“Well, yes, I think he did. He was great, anyhow! I’m glad you thought
of sending him as your representative.”
“I was interested.” She looked down, so that her head with its halo of
yellow light was thrown into relief by the night and her dark furs.
There were yellow chrysanthemums opposite.
He laughed with a shade of incredulity.
“We’re dull enough at close quarters--just a lot of rough working-men
digging up God’s gold out of the land. I’d an idea you didn’t approve
of us; thought we starved our dogs or something!” There came to him a
recollection of the last meeting in the Lane. “You told me once you
were home-sick for a collection of oddments of some sort--Tantalums,
Thermos flasks and hair-curlers!”
It was she who laughed now, and so infectiously that Bluecaster, making
for his carriage, stopped and asked to be introduced.
“I didn’t include _him_ in my estimate,” Lanty added, when he had
passed on, leaving a word for Hamer, and a message of sympathy for
Helwise, struggling with a cold. “He’s different from the rest of
us--you’d know it on the top of Skiddaw. _He_’s never done any digging,
and I don’t want him to.”
“Digging might be good for him,” Dandy ventured, and was growled at for
her pains.
“No, it wouldn’t! It might alter him, that’s all, but he’d lose all
the other things. He’s the best chap in Britain! We’re here to do the
digging for him, as we’ve always been. You don’t understand. They
mean a lot to us--the little thoughtfulnesses and the bottles of
cough-medicine and the words in season. If Bluecaster was digging, he’d
be too busy to bother. That’s what _he_’s here for. But of course it
can’t mean anything to you.”
“You’re rather rude, I think!” she replied gently, with a kind of
humorous resignation at which he smiled in spite of himself. Up the
street, on the green, a group of caravans was stationed, the lights of
a merry-go-round filling the winter evening with colour. A rollicking
tune came down to them, mixed with the shouts and laughter of the crowd.
“Come out and have a look!” he suggested, opening the door and offering
a hand, and presently they were standing in the ring of light, caught
in the deafening blare of the full orchestrion overhead. Some of
the farmers had stayed for a final flourish to the day’s festivity.
Denny was mounted on a tiger, with his brother’s little girl in front
of him, and one of Braithwaite’s pleasing daughters behind. The big
cattle-dealer was perched on an inadequate ostrich, with a scared wife
clinging to the neck of a giraffe. The shy ploughman rode solemnly
alone in the red-plush sumptuousness of a car. The blaze of brightness
scooped out of the pressing dark gave the whole scene a curiously
unreal effect, so that, watching the mechanical rise and fall of the
flying circle, Lanty’s mind, reacting from the strain of the three
days’ audit, grew gradually quiescent and dazed. Dandy spoke to him,
but he did not hear her. Close at hand in the crowd, Brack had turned
to face him, but he did not see him. The lights dimmed suddenly, became
lanterns swinging and dipping in a night as dark as hell. The blare
of the trumpets was the shattering roar of a big wind as it tore the
air to tatters, and the wailing of the reeds grew into the shrieks
of women and the thin crying of lambs. He was conscious of intense,
paralysing fear, of a frantic necessity to shout, choked on his lips
by the pressure of the gale. And through it all he felt that he was
listening, straining his ears to madness against the tumult of an
inferno let loose, just as, at Ninekyrkes, he had seen an old woman
strain and reach through the tense stillness of coming thunder. The
deadly helplessness of nightmare weighed him down as he writhed against
the horror, certain that, if he could speak _now_, hear _now_, the
unthinkable danger would pass. Through the torture a hand came up on to
his, a hand that he had never touched before to recognise, but which
held and drew him up and out of the abyss. He thought vaguely that
it must be Hamer’s--the clasp had the same comfort--but when he had
struggled blindly back to the present, he found it was not Hamer’s, but
his daughter’s. He saw Brack, then, his eyes, as they rested on him,
unnaturally brilliant, the pupils unnaturally large, before he dropped
his still swaying gaze to Dandy’s face.
“What was it?” he asked. “I heard--water!” and as he said it he caught
a little click in a man’s throat, as of satisfaction and justification,
but when he looked again, Brack was gone. Dandy drew him out of the
crowd.
“You looked as if you had gone blind!” she said. “I was frightened, and
you trembled as if you were frightened, too. And you called first to
your own father and then to mine, just as though you were drowning and
wanted help. I expect you’re tired out, and ought to rest. Let me take
you home in the car. You can send over for your horse to-morrow.”
But he refused. He wanted the quiet ride home in the night for thought.
“Jogging along in the air will do me good--thanks all the same! I _am_
tired--you’re right, there--but I’m as strong as an ox and can stand
anything. I don’t usually behave like this, even after a rent-audit!
I’m dreadfully sorry if I upset you. I expect the glare of the lights
hypnotised me on top of the landlord’s punch! You won’t trust yourself
to me again, if I’m going to see visions in your company.”
She gave him her hand a second time through the window, and he looked
down at it in his own. “It _is_ like Hamer’s!” he said curiously,
marking the resemblance in miniature, small, but square and strong. She
withdrew it with a shade of embarrassment.
“Yes, I know, but what made you think of it, now? I’m proud of it--dear
old Dad! You’ll start at once, won’t you?--and do keep your wits about
you on that lonely road!”
At the top of the hill he pulled up for a last look down into the
little blaze of life below him, throwing its brilliance over the pile
of the church and the looming canopies of the trees. The lights still
circled madly, the music still crashed, but they had no power over him,
now. What was it that had used them to the forcing of that terrible
moment? Vague words of Brack’s about clairvoyance drifted back into
his mind. He had laughed with Bluecaster over a mental picture of
Brack evoking spirits. Was he responsible for that tortured nightmare?
Perhaps he had really been trying to tell him something; or was it just
hypnotic reaction from that theory of his, obsessing him to madness?
For himself, he could do nothing, now. Even if he had believed it,
he could not doom the Lugg on the strength of a prophecy--after a
rent-dinner, too! And he did not believe it. His faith stayed where it
was.
He quickened his horse along the silent highway, the healing of the
night gathering him into quiet; and, as he rode, there went with him
the pressure of the hand that was so like Hamer’s, cool and firm and
blessedly kind.
CHAPTER XV
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
It was a very dreamlike day on which Lup left Ninekyrkes, turning his
back upon the marsh and all that had filled his life hitherto. He
made no round of good-byes, no flurry of preparation, but when the
time came, he went, just as he would go at the end of his day on a
further journey yet. He would “bide still and die light,” as taught the
unhurrying philosophy of Wiggie’s song.
Not even for Francey had he a farewell; yet she had her moment with
him, all unknown. Lifting her blind in the first showing of dawn, she
saw him standing on the sea-wall, looking over the bay. He was still in
his rough clothes, and the dull shade of the worn stuff was one with
the colourless growth of the breaking day. He stood perfectly still,
his hands dropped at his sides, his head a little bent, more like a
symbol than a breathing human. On either side of him a shadowy wraith
of a sheepdog lay crouched with pricked ears, as if watching for an
invisible flock to come shouldering out of the dim space beneath. They
had scarcely left him a moment during the last few days, clinging like
burrs, and all the last night they had whimpered and wept, until in
desperation he rose and called them out. Francey knelt at the window
with her black hair looped on either side of her pale face, and saw the
day come up to the feet of her parting love.
He was going, and by a finger she could have held him, but something
kept her back that did not seem part of her at all. If she had but
known it, the tragedy that was coming was in her hands to force or
to withhold; but she did not know. The question was still purely
personal, still hung on the one point, whether or not her real
happiness lay in the primitive figure on the bank. There were tears in
her eyes as she thought of the coming dawns when she might look to find
him there and all in vain, but she was prepared to shed them. He would
leave desolation behind him, but it would pass. She knew that she was
able to let him go, and while she realised that she would not keep him.
Yet she longed for a last look, however far, and from her post under
the lifted sash she tried to will that he should turn and send
his climbing glance over the house to her window, as he had done
so many times before, but her fixed gaze did not reach him. Brack
would have answered it, she knew--Brack, sensitive, impressionable,
ultra-self-conscious; but Lup looked straight before him with his
tranquil eyes, and all the hysterical telepathy in the world might have
shrieked in his ear and found him deaf. And just for that, just because
he did not look, nor heed, nor answer, Francey felt wounded and full of
longing; for it is always the man that turns his back that pulls at a
woman’s heart.
There was a clink of milk-pails on the stone floor beneath, followed by
steps on the stairs; and then the door opened, and her mother stood at
her shoulder.
“You’ll get your death at yon window! For the land’s sake don’t be
staring at nowt, like poor Martha at Ninekyrkes! She fair gives me the
creeps. It’s about time to be stirring. I’ve been down a bit, and t’
master’s out an’ about. Yon’s Lup, I reckon. What’s he at? Feeling a
bit down in the mouth, likely, but he’ll get over it. Westmorland folk
be gey ill to shift, but they do rarely when they get going. Lup’ll be
a sight better for a change. Canada’ll happen make a man of him--same
as Brack!”
Francey said nothing, watching the pale day grow round the figure on
the wall. The mother kept her light tone, but her unslept eyes were red.
“It isn’t as if he hadn’t a bit of brass. Wolf’s not the sort to send
him off with his thumb in his mouth, for all his jye looks! He’s doing
well by the lad, and Lup’ll be fit to do his best back again. What, I
shouldn’t wonder if he’s home in a two-three year, as like Brack as one
pea to another! It’s a sad pity Brack didn’t hold on till Ninekyrkes
was empty. It would have been pleasant-like, having him next door.”
“Brack at Ninekyrkes!” Francey fired contemptuously. “Why, mother, he
knows nothing of farming! You should hear the tales going about him.
You should see his fences and his thistles! Mr. Lancaster will be
having a word with him, if he doesn’t mend. He knows less about crops
than I do, and I can handle a rake with him, any day!”
“Why, there’s nowt to that! Brack’s got a snack o’ yon culture you
reckon so much on. He can handle that puffin’ billy o’ his, anyhow,
an’ carry a smart coat an’ finger the banjo. Yon was a rare good tune
he give us, t’other night at Sunflatts, with his face blacked an’ all!
Lup’ll never shape for owt o’ _that_ sort, I doubt.”
On the bank Lup turned sharply without lingering or hesitation, and
dropped down into the road, the dogs springing on the instant, as
if part of him. Looking straight before him, he made off towards
Ninekyrkes, and they saw his fine, dark profile as he stooped to hasp
a gate. Then he was gone, and the waste was empty as before. And in
that moment Mrs. Dockeray forgot her daughter and forwent her methods,
pressing her working face to the cold glass. Francey heard her say:
“Good lad, Lup! God bless you; good lad!” and when she stood up beside
her, she saw the quick tears running down the kind cheek.
“He’ll come back!” she found herself saying, vaguely wondering how the
post of comforter had come to be reversed, and the elder woman nodded,
passing her hand over her eyes, her subtle diplomacy broken at last to
plain words.
“Ay, he’ll come back, I reckon, but he’ll happen come too late! Folk
change--there’s no getting past it; we’ve got to face it out! I’ve
always thought a deal of Lup. He’s the real thing, all through. Eh!
an’ there’s poor Martha losing her lad! It doesn’t bide thinking on.
I doubt it’ll just about finish her; there’s lile or nowt to her as
it is. It’s her happiness as’ll drive off atween the shafts o’ the
cart. Ay, my lass, and it’s your happiness as’ll take the road along
wi’ him an’ all! What’s the use o’ schoolin’ an’ such-like if it sets
you snirpin’ at the right stuff? I’ve had a good man myself, mannerly
and decent, but I’ve had to be the gray mare, as I reckon you know,
Michael’s that soft an’ easy led. He leans on me, does Michael, and
I’d not have it different, nay, nor him neither; but there’s something
better than that for a woman, and you’d have had it from Lup. He’d have
been master; he’s strong enough for both an’ more, and you’d have been
glad of it, every year. I’m not blaming you. It’s me that’s to blame,
being over fond an’ wanting the best for you could be got. You were
such a bonny barn an’ that smart, I’d have scraped the roads to get you
learned an’ done by like a lady! Ay--_fond_--I was that! But what was
to tell your happiness lay just over yon fence, an’ me blinding your
eyes to it? I’ve done you a terrible big wrong. I can see that now,
right enough. You’ll sorrow for it all your life, if you send him off.
You’ve just to say the word, and he’ll bide. Say it, my lass! You’ll be
rare an’ glad when it’s done.”
The door opened wider very gently, and Michael looked in.
“That you, missis? You’re wanted. Francey badly, this morning?”
Mrs. Dockeray wiped her eyes hastily and bustled towards him.
“Nay, nowt o’ t’ sort! You get along downstairs, an’ the lass’ll
follow. You might have given a body a shout, instead of bursting in as
if t’ house was afire!”
At the door she turned.
“You’ve just to say the word!” she urged.
But Francey did not say it.
* * * * *
Denny had begged the honour of driving him to the station, and turned
up with the ramper about nine, a small “Jack” at one lamp-bracket,
and the “Stars and Stripes” at the other. Lup stayed stolidly on the
step until he removed them. The dogs sniffed and whined at the bags as
they were lifted into the trap. In the dull light everything took on a
deadened effect, utterly dismal and forlorn, from the melancholy house
on the edge of the dreary flat to the two worn figures with their set
faces and shut hands. At the gate the cowman waited for a last word.
Through the window the “girl” peered at the little scene. The dogs
leaped at Lup, whimpering and beseeching, refusing to be stilled.
Denny’s efforts to lighten the atmosphere did not go far. His flags had
not drawn even a smile; his new tale about Brack died on his lips. In
the silent trouble before him even his frothing joy in life sank and
drowned.
Lup took a step towards the cart as though meaning to leave without
farewell, and then stopped. As if driven by whips, he strode back to
his mother and kissed her; to his father he gave his hand. None of the
three spoke. Their eyes did not meet. The tradition of silence, of
fatalistic stoicism, gripped them all alike in that last moment.
At the gate he dropped a word and a shake to the man as he wished him
luck, and out in the road turned--once--to look behind, set against the
skyline in the high-wheeled trap. But only the “girl” at the casement
waved; the couple in the porch made no sign. Only their weak, old eyes,
strong in inward vision, followed him tirelessly on the long miles.
Passing Ladyford, master, mistress and hands were out to speed him. A
horseshoe took the place of the discarded “Jack.” Mrs. Dockeray was
weeping again--into a large muffler meant for his wearing on board.
Something of value passed in Michael’s grip, but there was no word
either of or from Francey, and this time he did not turn on the road.
He did not dare. It might be that he would see her, after all, come
too late.
He slid a hand over the back of the seat, and a tongue came up and
licked it. Behind the tongue was a brown dog-body hidden between the
bags. The miles flew by in the misty morning. The drifting hails of
friendly tongues came faintly to his dulled brain. Even Denny seemed
very far off. Only the ache in his heart was real, and the warm tongue
reaching comfort to his hand.
In Sunflatts they met Lancaster, and drew up for a last word, and long
after they had disappeared the agent stood staring up the street. The
changes were beginning. Lup was gone. What came next?
He was to take the express at Oxenholme, and as they pulled into the
station, Brack’s car snorted up behind, setting the ramper on end,
and scaring the brown dog between the bags. They had already met him,
miles away, taking an opposite direction altogether, yet here he was
at their heels. He seemed uneasy, too, fixing them when they were not
looking, and walking away when they turned. If he had been meeting
anybody, he would have said so, surely, and he took no ticket himself,
only loitered on the platform, tugging at his moustache and staring.
However, when the train thundered in, and Denny was busy holding to
the ramper with one hand and the howling brown dog with the other, he
seemed to make up his mind.
“Just pulling out, I reckon?” he observed at the carriage-door, his
casual tone rather more casual than usual. “Well, I hope you’ll find my
luck meeting you on the other side. Tell them I sent you along, with
my love, as one of the best! And--and--we’ll see to your folk for you,
those of us left behind.”
Lup nodded something that could scarcely, even with the best
intentions, have been termed gratitude. The other lighted a cigarette
nervously. The luggage was in, the guard looking round for the last
time. Suddenly Brack jumped to the footboard.
“When do you sail?”
“Thirtieth March.”
“Liverpool till then?”
“Ay. Take time! We’re moving.”
“What address?”
“Nay, what it’s no--get out, man! We’re off!”
“_The address?_”
“Five, Derby Road.”
Angry hands tore Brack from the express, and more or less hurled him
off the station and into his car, but for once he was too distracted to
resent interference with his personal dignity. He did not hear Denny’s
polite inquiry after the pigs. He even drove away with his hat on the
middle of his head, and a dead cigarette hanging limply from his mouth.
* * * * *
The sale was over. The Whinnerahs had seen their possessions catalogued
and scattered, saving only a remnant for the furnishing of the little
Pride. Wolf had gone the round of the house, handling each piece for
the last time as if it had been a pet beast, but his wife had made no
sign, refusing to quiver at the blow of the hammer. When the end came,
it was she, lately so shrinking and afraid, who led the man out into
the waste.
The closing door echoed its drear Amen through the deserted building.
The empty house followed them with its desolate, hollow eyes--the bent
man clinging to the frail woman in her old-fashioned mantle and neat
bonnet, the dispirited dogs slinking at their heels. He would have
turned again for a last wander through the shippons had she not held
him with her thin fingers. To the left, as they walked, the heaving
gray of the sea reached out into the still gray of the sky. The Lugg
itself looked gray, and ruggedly old. Below it the tide was running
strongly, lipping far up the Let and filling the estuaries. It seemed a
forty years’ travel in the wilderness, this sad progress out of life,
but at last, a few hundred yards beyond where the road ceased and
became a track, their new home waited their slow approach.
Mrs. Dockeray and Francey were there to welcome them, and had brought
a cheerful homeliness into the isolated cottage, setting a kettle
singing in the kitchen, and a bowl of Ladyford snowdrops on the wooden
table. The old couple’s chairs were in their usual places at the
hearth. Wolf’s patchwork cushion was ready to his shoulders, and the
last week’s _Gazette_ put to his hand. On the wall, Mrs. Whinnerah’s
proud “Peter” hung in all his glory of burnished copper, and a set of
cherished willow-pattern stood to attention in the little pot-rail. A
thick cloth hearthrug promised comfort to the dogs. On the miniature
oak-floored landing the Ninekyrkes “grandfather,” an ancient Whinnerah
name on his brass face, swung a deep, almost human note down the
shallow stairs.
The mantelpiece held a tobacco-jar and a tin or two, and, cheek by jowl
with a Sheffield candlestick, was a photograph of Lup, looking very
black and white and square and fierce and awkward and dull. In the
waiting moments before they caught the slow footsteps, Francey looked
long at this travesty of the original, and knew that, just as the cold
negative had ignored his living, breathing humanity, so her own cold,
critical sense had robbed him of sympathy and glamour. They should have
no eyes to see, she thought bitterly, who have not also wide, tolerant
hearts to feel, brewing their own transmuting elixir of love. Yet she
had thought to taste it, once, had stooped her head to it to drink,
before Wolf, at that fatal supper, had coarsened it on her lips.
She heard her mother in the passage, sweeping in the outcasts on a
breeze of cheer that made even the dogs lift depressed ears, but she
herself stayed rather nervously on the hearth, stirring the brisk fire
into a mighty “low,” and filling the pot as soon as the wayfarers were
snug in their seats. Over the cups a little consolation crept up and
took hold, and now and then there was actually weak laughter in the
lonely little house. The afternoon died, and presently, when Wolf began
to nod in his chair, when the dogs had finished exploring and settled
on the rug with great, sleepy sighs of satisfaction, the comforters
took their leave.
There were other visitors, though, even then; Michael, looking in for
a short chat, and Denny, flying over with a few pounds of apples and
a present of twist; even their late cowman, “just to see if they were
settling-like”; but when the last figure had passed the window and
melted into the dusk, the vast loneliness came down upon the Pride,
swallowing it as before.
The soothing sounds within--Wolf’s quiet breathing, the soft snoring
of the dogs, the crackle of the fire, the patient speech of the
clock--seemed to intensify the mighty silence without. There was no
voice from shippon or dairy to give a sense of warm nearness and
surrounding companionship. Facing the still-glimmering window, the
wakeful woman gathered no feeling of protection from the well-built
walls; seemed, rather, to be out unsheltered in the green emptiness,
with the chill night settling heavily down. She could still mark the
Lugg, dark against the paler sky, but the tide beyond it had been
gone more than an hour; she knew it, though she could not see it. She
folded her hands and laid her head against the woollen antimacassar,
looking back over the years. The time for looking forward was past.
Gradually, the pain of exile drew away. Here, in the very shadow of her
great dread, it ceased to hold her, leaving her lapped in peace. There
came to her, too, the consciousness of power, of victory almost, in
the mere fact of having lived, which gives to old age, however humble,
its own peculiar dignity. “_My_ life!”--says every soul--“that sum of
happenings which is mine and mine alone, that wonderful and dreadful
pilgrimage that I have made with Time. Whatever the record, I have
lived, finished the course, bound myself to Eternity by the tendrils of
experience and growth.”
Her eyes closed slowly as the Lugg faded from view. The fire sank
a little; the dogs turned and sighed; the shadows crept in. On the
flickering hearth the old man and the old woman slept, dreamless.
CHAPTER XVI
SPURS TO GLORY
Slowly, very slowly, the faintly-shifting kaleidoscope of the months
adjusted Dandy to her new conditions. The first sense of stagnation,
following on the hurry of Halsted, was replaced gradually by a
feeling of steady movement and expansion. The days were alive but
never feverish. She came to see that rampant activity does not always
mean progression, that the stimulant of rush may finally produce
stupefaction, and flying feet carry one over all the great truths of
life. The country’s gift was hers--time to grow.
But the gift came gauntleted, she found. It had its Judgment Book,
its Black List, its Penal Code. There were long evenings with nobody
at hand to deliver her from herself, long, hopeless days with a heart
like a spurless steed, and long, terrible nights when the ghosts of the
place woke her to clamour in cold hate at her presence. For Watters
would not always own her. It had its brutal hours, when the very garden
was sinister and the eyes of the house had no soul, and terror waited
at every turn of the stair. She came to know, too, the penalty of
identifying her mood with that of the weather--the cruel relentlessness
of storm, the utter soullessness of glaring heat, the cynicism of an
edged wind, the inquisition-beat of hail.
Yet for these what exquisite consolation! Exhilaration of frost, peace
of still days swung on a soft, low wind, inspiration of light and shade
and mist and evening sun. She learned, too, to look on the rain as a
dominant personality ruling great issues. At Halsted, after scorching
days of tennis, a healing drizzle soft as down, blotting out the day
and whispering through the night, brought no comment except--“Filthy
weather! Shut it out!”--but here they said of it: “It’s doing
rarely--coming down nicely--doing grand!” thinking in the dark of tarns
filling in the lonely hills, and listening to the drinking earth with a
sense of personal benefit, and almost of personal achievement. And when
the big winds came, so that the lights quivered and the beds shook and
the carpets flapped like bunting, you did not say, as at Halsted: “Just
the night for ‘Everybody’s Doing It’--what? Somebody order the closed
car!” but you wondered under which hedge the sheep had gathered, and
whether the tide was over the road at Sandfoot, and if, by some miracle
of endurance, the frail old ash would live till morning.
Moreover, the country sense of clannish commonness in so much took her
by degrees, giving her whole new world into her hand.
“I believe I’m beginning to understand,” she said to Hamer, one day
when the mood of analysis was upon her. “I know now why old James
was so angry when we cut down that sycamore, just after we came.
Why, I could hate the whole District Council for pulling down the
ferny old wall at Abbey Corner, just because you and I ran round it
into the Chairman! Everything seems to get up close to you in the
country and make a personal matter of itself without being asked.
Haven’t you noticed how people say, ‘Oh, the harvest is all in, with
_us_!’ or, ‘_We_ did splendidly in roots!’ even if they own nothing
but an ivy-strangled cottage with a lean-to henpen and a border of
nasturtiums? It grows on you, somehow. Everybody does it. Why, only
last week, when those horrid cousins of mother’s motored through, and
did nothing but grumble about the Westmorland butter, I found myself
saying: ‘It can’t have been local. _Ours_ has been winning all over
the place!’ just as if I’d been raising prize pats on my own account,
instead of Harriet and Mrs. Wilson!”
“It’s great!” Hamer answered, irrelevantly but comprehensively, as he
had answered, months before. He had a fat book or two in his arm.
“Doing anything this evening, Dandy Anne? I’m going over to Wild Duck
with these, and I thought of bringing Knewstubb back with me.”
“_Need_ we have him to dinner again to-night?” Dandy sighed. “(No. The
V.A.D. was yesterday, and the S.P. something-or-other’s to-morrow.)
I’m sure I know every hair on that wretched Lapwing, by now! And two
of the maids have threatened to give notice if he goes on calling them
‘Skirts.’ Harriet says it’s his generic term for all women-servants,
just as he calls all the men ‘Whiskers,’ but it isn’t very polite. I
wish you’d give him a hint, Daddy dear.”
Hamer looked troubled.
“Of course I don’t want to pester you with him, little girl, but I
can’t help worrying and wanting to lever him out of his rut. A man with
my luck ought to be handing it round if he can. Knewstubb isn’t bad all
through. He’s only--careless. He’s begun to take an interest in one
or two things going, lately. And, anyway, my whisky’s better than the
‘White Lion’s.’”
“How you are scooping in the shekels up aloft, Daddy dear! If you’re
not careful, you’ll break the bank. Why, yes, Stubbs is quite a
different creature already, and you’ve started others stretching a hand
to him, too. They made him a platform ornament at the last Conservative
meeting, and several good souls are trying to push him into positions
of trust. It won’t be your fault if you don’t waft him into Heaven
among you!”
Hamer looked more troubled than ever.
“You’re not sneering at me, are you, Dandy Anne?”
“Oh, DARLING!” Dandy took the fat books from him, and put herself in
their place. “Now may the Bald-Head Bears come out of Crag Yeat Wood
and gobble me up! As if I didn’t just worship you and your trams, and
mean to ride into glory at the tail of one of them! Ask the Stubbs,
by all means, and I will get him to teach me the Farmers’ Shuffle
for the fifteenth time, while you have your after-dinner nap. And you
might ask the Forgotten Parson and the Lonely Lady with the Policeman’s
Rattle. Let’s have a real Tram-Party while we’re about it. There’s the
Grammar-School-Master, too, who blew himself up, last week. I met him
this morning, wandering about in bandages and a splint. He hasn’t a
spare hand, so you’ll have to feed him. Shall I tell mother dinner for
seven? And then let me walk over to Wild Duck with you, and help to
carry the books. I want to see Harriet about ‘Elijah.’”
They found the lady-farmer round by the shippons, on the point of
climbing into the float between the shining milkcans. It was growing
dusk as they went up the gravelled path, and already a light showed in
the pretty farm-house. Snowdrops were thick in the garden, and a band
of yellow crocus edged the foot of the whitewashed porch. Over the
dividing wall they could hear Harriet directing the lighting of the
sparkling lamps.
“Just taking the milk to the Workhouse,” she informed them, as
they appeared through the little gate. “Martindale is laid up with
rheumatics, and there’s some complaint I want to settle in person.
Stubbs is indoors, if you’ve brought that dull-looking inkhorn-stuff
for him. You might keep him stodging at it till I get back. I shan’t
be long, so don’t clear out before I’ve had a chin with you. Right,
horse--get along off!”
She spun out of the yard with the flashing cans, flourishing her whip
as she rounded the turn, and swaying easily to the swing of the trap.
Hamer looked after her admiringly.
“I like a woman with a straight back!” he observed. “It means a lot
more than you’d think. It’s a pleasure to watch that girl move. She’s
real grit bent on getting there all the time!”
“Ay, she’s a devil to meet, but an angel to follow!” Stubbs commented
at his elbow. “She’s got my figure”--the check swelled proudly--“but
I’m hanged if she’s got my face! Deuced plain, _I_ call her. Don’t know
where she picked it up. And the very dickens for language, though I’m
d----d if I know where she gets _that_, either! Come along in, won’t
you, and have a glass of--snow about somewhere, I’ll swear!”
Through the deep-seated porch into the narrow passage, where a staring
stag’s head threatened their own from the pink-washed wall, they came
into the snug parlour, and soon Hamer and Stubbs were happy with a fat
book between them under the lamp on the round table. The fire chuckled
merrily, and the lustre ornaments on the mantelpiece caught the
dancing light and flashed it on to the brass candlesticks and a gilt
beer-barrel of a clock. Above the clock was a black paper silhouette
of Harriet’s grandfather, _the_ John Knewstubb, Prop of the County.
It was a man’s room, from the business-like bureau to the prints
and the books--county, agricultural, sporting and veterinary--the
leather leggings flung at the side of the hearth, and the silver-bound
carriage-whip in the corner. Yet it was here that Harriet spent most of
her scanty indoor hours, and the room was as much hers as her father’s.
There was no sign of feminine occupation, nor a single softening touch,
but for all that it was cosy and cheerful with the homeliness that
clings imperishably to the farm-house, the fundamental, abiding home
of all. It had the real farm-house smell, too--Dandy was beginning to
recognise it, and was proud of the fact--the smell that registered it
as the Holy of Holies of many a past generation.
A kitten was flung, white-pawed and drowsy, on the red window-seat,
and, drawing it to her knee, she looked through the narrow panes into
the gathering shadows. Hamer glanced up once from the printed page and
across to her dreaming face, and a look of whimsical distress came into
his own. He had lost his girl, he knew that; had known it ever since
the night she had danced with the fairies through a Gate of Vision.
The minutes slid by, bringing no roll of returning wheels, but
presently, across the men’s talk and the song of the furry sleepiness
in her lap, Dandy caught the sound of voices on the path--Helwise’s
first, penetrating as escaping steam, and then Lancaster’s, deep and
abrupt, followed by the framing of their figures in the arc flung on
the night. Helwise plunged in at the porch, still babbling, but Lanty
stayed a moment, arrested, and through the little, old casement he and
Hamer’s daughter sent glance to meet glance. So had he seen her in the
car, he remembered, her charming, wistful head aureoled in light. That
picture had remained; this, too, held him. There was to be a third
also, kept for an hour as yet mercifully hid from both.
Meanwhile Helwise had streamed into the passage and through the parlour
door, and had addressed at least half a paragraph to Harriet before
she discovered that she wasn’t in the room. Stubbs said “H----ll of
a bore!” under his breath, and “Milk. Back in a jiff!” above it,
and retired into the fat book without more ado. He couldn’t stand
Helwise at any price. It was Hamer who got up, put her into the rocker
and lifted her feet to the fender, loosened her furs and plunged a
poker into the red coals. The big man loved waiting on the piece of
deceptively-appealing inconsequence, and of course Helwise loved it,
too, so they were both happy. Dandy moved her eyes from the window with
a start, and stood up politely to offer her a cushion.
Stubbs looked relieved when he saw Lancaster, and drew him down to
the table, pointedly turning his back upon his female relative, but
she soon wore him into silence. She was upset, it appeared, about the
forthcoming oratorio in Bluecaster. The church was small, and it seemed
that there would be a squash for the Choral Society. Forms would have
to be added to the choir-stalls. The Vicar had written Miss Lancaster,
as Secretary of the Society, to know whether Elijah and Co. might be
accommodated on chairs on the chancel steps, and, if so, whether the
chairs should be plain or upholstered. Miss Lancaster was of opinion
that the chairs in question ought to be the Vicar’s best saddle-bags,
and had answered to that effect--a suggestion indignantly vetoed by the
Vicar’s wife. The Vicar had replied that, according to _his_ humble
judgment, large and bulgy saddle-bags were in keeping neither with the
appointments of a church nor with the original entourage of Elijah and
his troupe. Helwise had responded with quotations: “The Lord loveth
a cheerful giver,” and “Whatever, Lord, we lend to Thee, repaid a
thousandfold will be,” envisaging the terrible prospect of countless
saddle-bags prancing cumbrously up the Vicarage drive. This Biblical
trespassing had been taken in bad part by the other side, and Elijah
bade fair to fall between two stools. Lanty having refused to show any
interest whatever in the matter, Helwise had flown to Harriet, who,
it seemed, was at the Workhouse. Stubbs audibly wished them both at
Hong-Kong, and Elijah along with them.
Hamer came soothingly to the rescue. He happened to have some old
chairs that were exactly the thing. In fact, he rather believed that
they had been church-wood, to begin with. He would be delighted to
lend them, and also to send them, if they would be of service. He even
borrowed notepaper from the disgusted Stubbs, and sat down to write
to the Vicar at Helwise’s dictation. Lanty, in the window, stroking
White-Paws on Dandy’s lap, growled a remonstrance, which she checked.
“Oh, please let him!” she begged under her breath; and, remembering
that Wiggie would occupy one of the chairs, he said no more. Stubbs
rattled off a string of all the most swear-sounding rotifera he could
think of.
To the tune of a spanking trot Harriet dashed into the yard, and strode
in, a fine colour in her sallow cheeks, and every fighting bristle
raised for war. Hospitality dragged from her a brief recognition of the
later arrivals as they rose to greet her, but she paid it no further
dues. Stubbs brightened. Evidently there had been a row.
“Worm!” said Harriet, slapping down her hard gauntlets under
Helwise’s nose. “Caterpillar! Bloodless, backboneless caterpillar!
To dare to talk to _me_ about milk--ME! Knewstubb of Wild Duck!
Centipede--white-livered, backstair crawler--Earwig! CROCODILE!”
The Shaws paled--this was a new and dreadful Harriet--but Stubbs merely
hallooed: “Sick ’em, lass! Good dog--hie on to him!” snapping his
fingers with keen enjoyment, and even Helwise seemed unconcerned. As
for Lanty, he laughed with evident understanding.
“Thorne, I suppose, is it? I’ve seen him slinking into the Workhouse
once or twice lately as I passed. Afraid he thinks no great shakes of
me as his fellow-Guardian. It isn’t often I get time to look in. I
fancy he gives them a pretty thin time there, poking about and finding
fault.”
“Yes. Ollivant Thorne. ‘Creeping Jesus’ they call him in the village,
with his slimy voice and his shifty eyes! What are you all on your
hind legs for, by the way? I’ve a lot to say, so you may as well ease
up to it. That’s better! It was like this: Lambert sent me a private
note to say that Thorne didn’t think the milk up to standard, so I went
round myself to see about it, and there if you please was the Creeping
Jesus, waiting ready to sniff at the milkcan as soon as it stopped at
the door. Of course I asked him where the devil he had learned anything
about milk with his death’s head always stuck in a ledger, and he
said he was there to see that the poor were not being fleeced by a
flummoxing farmer. I replied that the milk was the best in the county,
as anybody but a long-eared sarsaparilla raised on barley-water and
lemon wouldn’t need telling, and he said that language wasn’t allowed
in the Sacred Precincts of the Pure Pauper, and that he should parley
with the Board, and have the contract taken from me. I told him he
could sue me for jumping it on the spot, and tried to come away and the
milk with me, but Lambert nearly wept, so of course I turned soft and
let him have it. He said awful things about Thorne when the Creeping
Jesus had bunked, but of course that’s unofficial, so you must keep it
dark. The creature’s had his knife into me ever since I chucked him out
for trying some stuff on Stubbs that he called a perfect substitute for
whisky. Stubbs was ill for days afterwards--weren’t you, Stubbs?--and I
had to stick upstairs nursing him and let the farm slide.”
“Thorne?” Hamer pondered. “I know the man. Excise--insurance--law--what
is he? Something parchmenty, anyhow. Had two hours of him one day, and
never guessed what he was after until the last five minutes, when he
tried to get some work out of me. Wouldn’t trust him as far as I could
throw him. County odd-jobber, isn’t he, as well?”
Lanty nodded.
“Rural District Council. Attends like his prayers. I share the honour
with him. We’ve been returned unopposed at least twice, and there’s
nobody coming up against us this time either that I know of. Election
in March. Afraid I don’t lay myself out much to oblige. The estate
carries me, and Thorne has a select band of slummites that he beats up
for the occasion.”
“Estate be hanged!” Harriet jeered. “Lanty’s shoving his head in the
sand, Mr. Shaw. He doesn’t need to canvass, because the district, in
its rational moments, happens to know a useful man when it sees one.
Thorne always works like a black if he thinks there’s a chance of a
fight. You’ll find him slumming for months beforehand--the carping old
milk-sniffer! I’ve half a mind to stand against him myself.”
The words meant nothing, spoken in a last leaping spasm of annoyance,
but after a pause Hamer said “Why not?” very quietly; and after a
second pause--of astonishment, this time--Stubbs suddenly said “Why
not?” too. Indeed, he got solemnly to his feet and repeated it,
extending a check arm.
“Why not? In the family. Always in the family! Rur’l D’trict C’cillor
myself, once upon a time”--so he had been, in forgotten ages--“father
Rur’l D’trict C’cillor, too. Chairman, in fact. Chairman myself but for
accident. Other important business--you all know! Father great man,
very highly respected. Chairman. In the family. Always in the family!”
Harriet said--“Oh, cheese it, Stubbs!” looking embarrassed, but the
colour had risen again in her cheeks, and she pulled the gauntlets back
and fidgeted with them.
“We all remember John Knewstubb,” Lancaster paid tribute. “His work
for the county will stand for many a long year.” He looked laughingly
at Harriet. “Come on! I’m sure his granddaughter will find plenty of
backers.”
“Bunkum!” Harriet frowned uncomfortably. He was not serious, she knew,
but her colour mounted higher. “You’re talking through your hats. Of
course I can’t do it!”--and again came the query, placidly from Hamer,
importantly from Stubbs.
“But isn’t she too--young?” Dandy put in, gazing with awe at the
proposed candidate. “Of course, I know they do have ladies sometimes,
but not--not like Harriet.” Excitement conquered doubt. “Oh, Harriet,
_do_, and we’ll all help! Dad and I will canvass for you, and Miss
Lancaster and Wiggie--Wiggie will love it, and nobody ever refuses him
anything”--she pulled up suddenly, biting her lip. “We shall all be so
proud of you, if you get in!”
“Lancelot won’t let me canvass,” Helwise lamented. “Such a good
opportunity for collecting subscriptions, too! He says they’re
side-issues, whatever that may mean. But I’m sure they’d put you in,
Harriet, even without me. You know you always get the egg-accounts
within a shilling or two.”
And Stubbs said: “In the family. Always in the family. Rur’l D’trict
C’cillor!” with a final wave that abolished one of the lustres, and the
diversion gave the visitors their chance to move. Harriet refused the
Shaws’ invitation both for herself and her father.
“I’m going to write to the Creeping Jesus, and it’ll take me all
evening. I’ve remembered lots of things I could have said and didn’t,
and I’ll want Stubbs by me to put in the adjectives. He’ll be as happy
as a king with that and the microbes. We’ll come some other night, if
you’ll have us. You’d better take a light, hadn’t you? It’ll be as
black as a hearse in the lane.”
She lighted a lantern, and walked with them to the gate. Behind her
straight, boyish figure the well-kept house spoke of comfort, honesty
and respect. She snapped the latch after them with a firm hand.
“Good-night. And good luck!” Lanty called laughingly. “I shan’t mind
standing down to John Knewstubb’s successor!”
Harriet grunted with annoyance.
“Stow all that piffle! You’re as safe as houses, and you know it. It’s
Thorne I’d be out to rattle; I’d make no difference to _you_. And in
any case I’m not doing it. You’ll only set Stubbs agitating. I wish
you’d chuck it!”
But as she went slowly back up the path, the stray-flung idea settled
and took root. It was absurd, of course, and she was much too young,
too insignificant, and--only a woman; but after all she was doing a
man’s job in a man’s place, and doing it well. She had earned respect
in her own line--there was no doubt about that--and she’d as good a
head-piece as most of the old buffers on the Board, thank the powers!
It would be a fine old crow over the Creeping Jesus if she bagged his
post. Might be a help in business as well, now she came to think of it.
She was bred to it, too, as Stubbs had said. A certain knowledge of
Poor Law and County management comes the way of most country people,
but Harriet, brought up by her grandfather, had breathed it in with her
native air. She could still cite many a point of importance which he
had made familiar, repeat stories of difficulties triumphantly solved.
She loved it, too; all the machinery and the ceremony and the cracking
of nuts with Nasmyth hammers. Association and instinct alike made the
dull things dear and vivid. There are few stronger claims in certain
families than this obligation of service, passing from one generation
to another. On the backs of its often inadequate but willing gentry the
agricultural county moves forward, exorbitant with them because it has
bred them, exacting more of them with each succeeding year, and only
they know what it gives them in return. Titles--silver--illuminated
addresses--a squad of police to walk before their coffin--a portrait to
hang behind their empty chair--these make their testimony; but the real
guerdon is surely immeasurably different and beyond.
Later, in her own room, the deeper reason--the woman’s reason--spoke
for itself. Dandy had said: “We shall all be proud of you.” “All?”
Would _he_ care if she went in to fight and came out victorious,
honour her because honour had come her way? The suggestion had amused
him; he had not taken it seriously, but it had roused him to new
interest in her, nevertheless. She had thrilled at his homage to her
grandfather; _that_ had been serious and genuine, without question,
and the reflection, if pale, had yet been hers. The possible venture
would surely bring her a little nearer! She would share some measure
of his work, lay her hand to it beside his, join in the common
endeavour. Thorne and the milk-insult were forgotten. The woman’s
reason, the woman’s hope, urged her forward. Lighting a candle, she
slipped silently down to the sitting-room, and drew out one of her
grandfather’s books.
CHAPTER XVII
THE GREEN GATES OF VISION:--IV. DARK--THE LONELY PLOUGH
In the road, Dandy came to halt, dismayed.
“It’s too late, now, for the rest of the Tram-Party, and there’s all
that food hurrying to meet them! Miss Lancaster, please come and help
to eat it.”
“The boy, too,” Hamer added. He often called Lancaster “the boy,” with
a quaint, protective accent. “We’ll catch it from Mother if you don’t
lend a hand, giving her all that trouble for nothing. Don’t you hark to
Dandy Anne--the Tram-Party’s only her nonsense. She wanted to give one
or two down-in-the-mouth folk a bit of a feed, but they’ll have to have
their particular wire-in another night. You’ll come, won’t you now?
We’ll send you back in the car.”
Lancaster hesitated, his business-conscience pricking, but his aunt’s
declaration that she could not remember whether she had ordered tinned
sardines, or tongue, or both, or neither, for their evening meal, did
not tend to waken his homing instinct, and he found himself following
up the Lane, swinging the lantern over Dandy’s path. It was black, as
Harriet had prophesied. In the shifting light the hedges looked huge
and dense, climbing to where their sombre tops scarred the fainter
dark of the starless heaven, and every curve and turn loomed a barrier
impenetrable as the Sleeping Beauty’s Forest. The dream-traps yawned
emptily, with witless mouths and vacant eyes.
“Will Harriet really stand, do you think?” Dandy asked, keeping with
difficulty in the middle of the narrow road, so subtly were track and
hedge blended by the Northern night. “It was only a joke, wasn’t it?”
“Well, it started as a joke, of course, but I shouldn’t wonder if it
didn’t end there. It would be an innovation, just here, but there must
always be pioneers, and the lot may have fallen to Harriet. She’s
young, but she’s a better man than Thorne, not only in position, but in
business and brain. I shouldn’t be surprised if she does have a shot at
it. You see, her grandfather’s name still carries weight, and in this
county half of us run our reputations on those of our forbears.”
“That’s true enough!” Dandy laughed. “Why, only the other day, when we
were going over Bluecaster, I heard you say to the housekeeper: ‘Tell
me who her mother was, and I’ll know what she is!’ It all comes back to
the same thing.”
“There’s a lot of reason in it, though, don’t you think? You’ll hear
the very man who breeds prize-dogs and specialises in orchids insist
that all human beings are equal. He’ll sniff at a cross-bred mongrel
and sneer at a dandelion, but he’ll tell you straight that he himself
is as good as the bluest blood and the finest stock, though he may be
sprung from a collier’s cot or twenty nameless mixed strains. ’Tisn’t
common sense, to my thinking! There is no good or evil done, (fine
thoughts put into shape or base ones grown secretly,) but blossoms
again somehow in later lives. We’ve got to fight our own way, but
there’s both help and binding from those gone before.”
“But you--surely you stand alone?”
They were well on towards Watters by now, and the rhythmic dance of the
light had broken over one of the gaps, catching a sudden reflection
from clean steel. They stopped to look.
It was only a plough, flung on its side in the hedge, waiting the
morrow and renewal of toil. The bright share told that it had been in
use that day, and Lanty knew that, near it in the dark, the long, clean
furrows curved up over the hill. It seemed a small, inadequate tool for
its great work; simple, too, as are all enduring things; yet it had the
whole of history behind it.
“Yes, I suppose I do,” he said at last. “We all stand alone, if it
comes to that. We drive our furrow single-handed, out of the dark into
the dark, though we’ve got to reckon with the soil that others have
left, just as others must reckon with our leavings after us. But it’s
our job while we’re on to it, all the same. It’s our job while the
light lasts, to make the best of it we can. It’s always one man’s hand
on the lonely plough.”
For a long moment they stood silent, ringed round by the night, in
closer communion than they had ever found themselves. Strange talk
still and new was this, but she did not shrink from it, now; and he,
opening his heart, did not find it shuttered by an alien hand. Together
they looked through the dim Gate, so near that, when he stooped his
head to the lantern, he felt her hair against his face.
Calls for help came out of the vast beyond, and they took guiltily
to pursuit, to find Helwise and Hamer marooned up a blind alley in
the swamping sea of the dark, and, as they set them right again, a
new elf-candle appeared from the opposite direction, having Wiggie
somewhere in its vicinity. He was just back from an engagement in town,
and in the glowing hall at Watters looked shockingly thin and ill,
though excellently clothed and brushed, making Lancaster conscious
of muddy boots and the general wear of a busy day. He began to have
his favourite complaint of feeling old, and when Dandy, after a
miracle-change into something softly pink, danced in to dinner on the
singer’s arm, the lightly-welded link of the Lane snapped as lightly,
leaving her farther than before.
Wiggie had brought her from town an infinite variety of excitements,
new books, new music, even new fashions, described after his own
manner. There was also an umbrella-thing meant especially for country
use--so they had told him in London; indeed, they had been quite
feverish about it. You could sit on it when you went shooting or
fishing or mushrooming or marketing on Saturday, and it had buttoned
pockets for carrying anything from grouse to reels of cotton, and
collapsible spokes that could be adjusted to cover any part of a hat,
and a purse and a pocket-handkerchief and a plate with the owner’s
name. He had practised with it in the train, but he had been dreadfully
stupid and allowed it to take steck in the door, so that, when the
train stopped, none of the ordinary umbrella-people inside could get
out, and a very cross inspector on the platform couldn’t get in.
However, the collapsible spokes had collapsed before they were carried
on to Carlisle, and he was quite sure that Dandy would manage them
in a few lessons. Dandy was quite certain of it, and could scarcely
live through the enormous Tram-Dinner in her anxiety to try. It was a
first-class Highways-and-Hedges Dinner; and now that Wiggie had turned
up, they were only one or two short, after all.
He was immensely thrilled about Harriet, and full of hope that the
“joke” would prove serious. He hadn’t another engagement for--oh, next
door to never!--except, of course, “Elijah” in Bluecaster--and would
love to run round and help if they would let him stay so long. His
joyousness set Dandy shining like a clear light on gems, bringing home
to Lancaster how different she was with himself. Probably he seemed
old and staid to her, certainly dull and one-sided. Wigmore’s was her
natural atmosphere. Wiggie could ring every pretty change on her as
easily as he rippled the vocal octave, but the elder man had no key to
her moods. The sympathy in the Lane had been shallow and fleeting. Not
here--not _here_ was the making of his “silly home”!
He said little during the evening, and, in the car, showed scant
enthusiasm for his aunt’s surprise-packet from town--a large pot pug,
with a chocolate-box interior and an almanac on his chest. Wiggie loved
people’s little weaknesses, and saw no reason for refusing to pander
to them. He did it charmingly enough, too, but, after all, it wasn’t
Wiggie who had to live with the pot dogs.
Helwise was in ecstasies over the luxurious car, and more than once
nearly wrecked them all by switching on the electric light just as the
unhappy chauffeur rounded a bend. She thought Lancelot might see his
way to giving up his horse and buying a motor. Bluecaster would help.
Look what he had done about the bath!
Lanty answered unkindly that if ever he did own a car, it would
certainly not be at Bluecaster’s expense, and that he preferred the old
gee to all the petrol-puffers in creation; and then felt ashamed when
she sighed and was hurt. No doubt he did sound cross and discourteous
after Wiggie’s chocolate-box consideration, just as in all probability
he had seemed countrified and slow beside the singer’s wit and finish.
That was the worst of these pandering sympathisers! They showed you
up as a very bad second, though you might really be carrying a big
load quite respectably. Still, he need not have snubbed Helwise so
brutally. It was partly Bluecaster’s own fault that she looked upon
him less as an employer than as a free emporium and family asset. He
could see him buying her the car without a murmur. He had to admit,
too, that the padded elegance of the limousine fitted her to a nicety,
just as the luxury of Watters seemed her natural setting. There was
no doubt you couldn’t expect the best of people out of their special
environment--certainly not weak creatures like Helwise, formed for
others to pity and sustain.
Nevertheless, his philosophy did little to soothe him on arrival at
their own cheerless dwelling. The fires were all out, of course, and
they were met by a wandering odour of kippered herring not to be
located anywhere, certainly not in the burnt slices of chilly ham
congealed on the dining-room table. He found a telephone-message from
the House ingeniously concealed in the barometer, and could have sworn
that there was a fresh scratch on the maltreated wall. He waited
while Helwise introduced the new pug to the old collection, and then
requested a candle for his empty stick. His nightly tour discovered
bolts unshot, gases burning and taps half-turned, not to speak of a
general back-premises condition sufficient to set a fastidious taste
hunger-striking for weeks. And so upstairs with the rocking candle to
his cold bedroom, and had barely shut his door before Helwise called
him to unhook her gown. There was only carbolic soap to wash with,
and the kitchen fire had long ago left the cylinder in the lurch.
Probably the flue wanted cleaning, anyhow. He thought of the bathroom
at Watters, with its hot rails and shining taps, and hated himself for
even remembering them. They reminded him, however, that there offered
to be a sharp frost in the early hours, and he betook himself to an icy
attic to see that a certain pipe was properly wrapped. Finally, to a
lumpy bed with wandering sheets. Sleep brought oblivion, but no magic.
He did not dream, as Dandy, of swung lanterns in a lover’s lane.
* * * * *
But before that dream-flower blossomed, she asked Hamer whether he
really meant to back Harriet’s Attempt. She was curled on the hearth
at his knee, with her mother nodding asleep at one side, and Wiggie’s
overbright eyes on the other. Hamer took his cigar from his mouth, and
pressed her head against him before replying.
“I’ll let it lie till morning,” he said thoughtfully, “and then, if
it doesn’t seem too much of a forlorn hope, I’ll run over and set her
going. She won’t need overmuch persuasion! I’m new, of course, but I
can do a bit of talking and getting folks interested. _She’s_ well
enough known, and there’s a good many that think a lot of her judgment.
They’ll laugh, at first, but I shouldn’t wonder if she went through,
and I don’t mind laying that they’ll find her pretty useful. She’s
not the ordinary woman. She looks at things like a man, and she’s
get-up-and-git enough to run a train. She wants more outlet, too,
and Fate owes her more than a bit for that halma-board of a father,
especially as all the elections in the kingdom will never get her the
one big thing----”
He stopped abruptly. Wiggie was looking at him.
“Tramming again, old dear?” Dandy put up her hand to meet his. “It’s
rather a dangerous experiment, playing Providence in your wholesale
fashion. And what do _you_ know about Harriet’s ‘one big thing’?”
“I was only talking. Probably I’m right out of it, but one just
wonders. Hadn’t you and Mother better be getting off to bed?”
But when they had taken his advice, and Wigmore had closed the door
behind them, Hamer got up slowly and knocked his ash into the fire, a
sorrowful expression on his handsome face.
“Some have Paradise and some Elections,” he said, not looking at
Wiggie, collapsed now like a tired child in his chair. “And the
others--what have the others got, Cyril, my boy?”
“Dead candles and a tune in the throat!” Wiggie answered, with closed
eyes, and began to croon--
“Ma chandelle est morte,
Je n’ai plus de feu.”
Good Hamer sighed.
CHAPTER XVIII
HAMER’S SECOND TRAM
As it happened, Harriet’s Attempt seized the Skirts of Happy Chance
exactly at the right moment. Election fever had been rampant during
the last six weeks, setting everybody canvassing his neighbour with
delirious zeal. First, a county by-election had been rushed through in
a glorious fourteen days of crowded life, taking the eye of the whole
country by the fact that it was fought upon a pioneer question of
national importance. Then the County Council reorganisation came on,
loosing all the grinders at each other’s throats; and when that had
passed, leaving the different divisions to settle down for the next
three years, the District and Parish Councils followed. All sorts of
unaccountable hatreds and differences were abroad, as well as still
stranger enthusiasms for individuals who had not counted a snap of
the fingers before. It was amazing how blood bubbled and boiled for
or against some harmless person whose existence had hitherto mattered
about once in a blue moon. Both men and women made each election a
question of personal insult or exaltation, and said so as often and as
loudly as possible; while the grinders ran from pillar to post, setting
everybody by the ears, and talking loudest of all.
Into this whirlpool was flung the announcement of Harriet’s candidature
as Rural District Councillor for Bluecaster. The district was still
seething, but the strain was beginning to tell, and its enthusiasm
showed signs of needing a fillip. Harriet gave it this fillip. The
older generation was scandalised, the younger amused or contemptuous;
while the earnest ladies who sit on Boarding-out and School Committees
pronounced it publicly to be horrid presumption, and privately wished
that they had thought of doing it themselves. In her own neighbourhood,
however, when the first shock was over, she soon began to find
supporters. Thorne was disliked by most outside his own peculiar,
gullible clan. The story of the milk-fracas soon got round, bringing
the farmers solidly to Harriet’s defence. Wild Duck milk needed no
bush, and though Thorne’s slummites had a pleasant habit of shrieking
“Milk O!” after his opponent, they did not succeed in bringing the
blush of shame to the Knewstubb cheek of innocence. Ratepayers of
standing signed her nomination, and all went merry as a marriage-bell.
And in his thin, deceitful-looking, wedge-shaped boots, Ollivant Thorne
shook.
Harriet did not do very much canvassing on her own account. She
hadn’t the right grinding touch, which is either very bluff and
“Come-along-be-a-good-dog!”-ish, or silkily insidious and appealing.
Her request for a vote was apt to sound more like a County Court
judgment, so she prudently left the work to her backers. Wiggie said
little, but then Wiggie’s very presence smoothed the wrinkles out of
the atmosphere and demoralised resistance; and Dandy sat behind, ready
to hand out fresh suggestions when Hamer came to a halt. As for Stubbs,
he had but one argument, the inevitable “In the family. Always in the
family!” but it carried weight; and it seemed as if, in reminding
others of the family honour, he was reminded of his own, for he
certainly pulled himself together during this fateful time. But still
it was Hamer who was the real canvassing success. These local elections
are carried largely on the women, and Hamer went down with the women
all the way. He turned up each evening at Wild Duck with his reports,
triumphant over the certainties, miserable about the failures, and
worried to death over the doubtfuls.
Wiggie often came with him, and on the first occasion was so delighted
with Harriet’s dwelling that he couldn’t be made to attend to business.
Wild Duck captured him from the start. While Hamer waved a pencil over
the lists, he wandered round the room, worshipping the silhouette and
the carriage-whip and the beer-barrel, and was positively childish
about the clover-leaf into which Grandfather Knewstubb had squeezed
the Lord’s Prayer. He sank happily into the comfortable rocker pulled
close to the glowing bars, cuddling the kitten in his arm, and watched
the colours floating in the lustres until Harriet’s voice in the
background--“Oh, _he’s_ no good! Let him slack”--brought him to his
feet as if a live coal had sprung at him. She looked a trifle ashamed
at his earnest apology, and, after a minute or two, muttered a word of
excuse and went to fetch him a glass of new milk from the dairy; and
when, on the following day, she found him at the gate with a message,
she actually condescended to show him round the buildings. He looked
regretfully behind him as he turned back into the road.
“I’ve always known there was a place like this somewhere,” he said,
“ever since I was top angel in St. Somebody-Something’s choir, but
I hardly believed I should ever really find it. It’s so beautifully
restful, it almost makes me glad to be tired. I love Watters, and it’s
very patient with me, but after all it only kind of shakes hands,
whereas Wild Duck opens its arms and takes you on its knee. You won’t
sell it, I suppose? You should have what you wanted for it. You’re a
very honest person, I know. I wouldn’t haggle a farthing.”
“It’s Bluecaster property,” Harriet explained, “though I mean to buy
it in the long run, if I can get his lordship to let me have it, and
if Lanty doesn’t want too thieving a price. When my grandfather died,
we had to turn out of the old place, and I took Wild Duck on the money
he left me, though everybody said I’d have had enough in a year. But I
haven’t; and I wouldn’t go back, not if I was paid! I’m sticking to
the farm all right, so I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere as long
as I’m over sod.”
Wiggie went a little further, looking sadder than ever.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I mean--I’m sorry we can’t both have it.” And as
he vanished under the hedge, the wistful voice finished its speech--
“I believe I could get well here. I’m sorry.”
A surprising touch of concern startled Harriet as she heard him,
prompting her to call him back to the rocker and the kitten; but she
shook it off with impatient disgust. He suffered from nerves--anybody
could see that. He lived too much in stuffy rooms and microbe-ridden
railway-carriages, and ate all the poisonous messes they give you in
towns. It was doubtful, indeed, whether he got enough to eat at all.
His clothes looked prosperous, but he was as thin as a match; you
could hardly see him sideways. These artist-people had to make a show,
so probably he economised in food. No doubt he smoked excessively to
make up for it--that was why he coughed and always looked tired. He
was thoroughly under condition altogether, out of training and in a
bad way generally. What he wanted was a stiff walk and a run with the
bassets and ten miles or so on a push-bike; new milk, good butcher’s
meat, and one pipe a week--poor, weedy rotter! Harriet drew up her own
splendidly-working collection of organisms, and went within to swing
dumb-bells.
And all the way home the voice repeated--as if it simply couldn’t get
away from it: “I believe I could get well there. I _do_ believe I
could! I’m very sorry.”
Bluecaster affairs were keeping Lanty very busy just at this time,
sending him to London more than once, and otherwise pinning him to his
office, so that the electorate saw little of him and his particular
friends less. His clerk, a young person of enthusiasms, with a
vivid admiration for everything Blue--and Lancastrian, scamped his
meal-hours in order to put in a little electioneering on his own, but
he generally returned convinced that he had risked his digestion for
nothing. The men he interviewed assured him that as long as a Lancaster
was putting up he could be certain of their word. Happen they’d vote
for Miss Harriet as well--Mr. Shaw (him over at Watters) seemed to
think they ought to be having her on, and they weren’t saying but
she’d her head set straight enough on her shoulders for a lass, and
they’d all thought a deal of the old man, and pity there weren’t a few
more like him--but Mr. Lancaster anyhow could be sure of their cross
when the time came--ay, that he could! But he never got as far as the
women, and indeed he never worried about them at all. The women always
voted for Lanty, because he was young and unmarried. The clerk had a
penchant for the study of human nature, and rather fancied he knew all
about women--at least, politically. Perhaps he did; but straws may blow
different ways in the same wind.
The poll opened on a Monday at twelve, but long before that hour the
Watters cars--the limousine, driven by the chauffeur, and Dandy’s
little Delage cheeping like a scurrying chick behind Hamer in the
touring Austin--were running through the ring of villages. They made
quite an effective little procession, carrying Stubbs’ old racing
colours flying from the screens, and wonderful placards devised by
Hamer: “Wild Duck Wins!” “Vote for the Old Stock!” “Help for Harriet!”
etc. The candidate, rolling down the hill in the float five minutes
after noon, with no more ostentation than lay in shining harness
in front of her and a well-trimmed Stubbs at her side, frowned a
little at the flaunting gaiety before the booth; but objection was
impossible in face of Hamer’s joyful excitement as he hurried to her
with outstretched hand. Thorne’s thin, furtive countenance could be
seen peering round the doorpost for the children he had stationed at
the gate with milkcans labelled “Watered Wild Duck.” He was puzzled to
know why the war-cry arranged for Harriet’s arrival had missed fire,
but the reason was not far to seek. On the front seat of the limousine
sat Grumphy, very black and fat and swathed in ribbon, with a collar of
snowdrops round his neck and a red rose nodding over his ear, smiling
eternally at the wondering childish faces below.
Inside the booth the polling-clerk greeted the lady-farmer with polite
amusement tinged with admiration, and the early voters, brought in
by the Watters contingent, shook her warmly by the hand. Even Thorne
offered her the same pledge of goodwill, and she returned it brusquely.
“I doubt you’ll be too much for me, Miss Harriet!” he remarked, with
his thin smile. “You’re so popular, and those friends of yours have
been working terribly hard. _I’ve_ no cars to fetch folks along to
vote for me, so I must just depend on a little kindly feeling and any
service I may have done the district in all these years. That may carry
me a bit of the way, but I fear it won’t go far against motors and
ribbons!”
“Thorne’s funking you--that’s a sure thing!” Hamer observed outside.
“He’s thinking he’s out of the game from the start. Lancaster’s certain
to go through--everybody says that--so the Creeping Jesus has a very
thin chance, I’m afraid. Now, Kavanagh, off you get to Stone Riggs for
those almshouse folk--four of ’em, mind now! Dandy Anne, the Sunflatts
district’s yours; you know how we mapped it out. I’ll run over to
Halfrebeck for that old chap I couldn’t get a promise from. It might
help a bit, Harriet, if you came along, too. It’s only about a mile.”
Wiggie, who was wearing her colours in his buttonhole, gave her his
seat behind the driver, and hopped in behind; and, as they slid over
the hill, found himself observing the candidate from a fresh mental
standpoint. There was something new about Harriet, to-day, that wasn’t
to be accounted for by the dark-gray tailor-made and trim _suède_
hat. The impression of strength, almost of rough power, already
familiar, was now fused with a more courteous dignity and a nervous
self-possession very different from her usual sledge-hammer assurance.
Memory had leaped upon her from under a snapped lock, showing her
similar crises in her grandfather’s career. Just so had he said this,
done the other, looked and thought--one of the fine men a county never
quite forgets. It was pretty fair cheek, perhaps, to think she was fit
to follow him. It would be a rotten turn-out if she made a mess of it.
For all our vaunted superiority, what trembling children we are, in the
first moment of feeling for our fathers’ shoes!
Lanty had arrived by the time they came back, with the wobbler
triumphantly installed in the tonneau, and shortly afterwards
Bluecaster motored down. Voters were coming in quickly, now, and a
cheerful crowd was collecting round the booth, Helwise’s voice being
easily distinguishable above the rest, as she informed his lordship
that he must certainly call and see the perfectly sweet “porcelain on
legs,” and there was also just one other little matter of a washhouse
boiler. She had worked him up to offering her an entire kitchen
range when the Watters limousine groaned round the corner, with four
inside, a few more in front, and Grumphy fatly ensconced within the
luggage-rail; and under cover of its entry he escaped.
The day wore on, but still the tireless cars ran in and out, and
smiling ladies were dug from dark corners in strange garments that
seldom saw the sun. After six o’clock the rush quickened again until
closing-time at eight, and then, under the fallen curtain of night,
began the weary wait during the count. The crowd that had ebbed and
flowed all day now drifted back, and where the motor-lamps flung their
rays, familiar faces stood out whitely. The door of the booth had shut
with a final click as the last strokes from the church clock died,
and the mean face of the Creeping Jesus had peered out for the last
time. The black figures hung patiently round the railings, while the
slow half-hours spoke over their heads. In the grouped cars the weary
canvassers turned anxious eyes to the one bright window of the dark
building. Grumphy alone slumbered soundly, with a fat head laid on the
knee of the yawning chauffeur. It was very chill and dismal, and the
lights ringing the square seemed lost in separate hollows of gloom.
Dandy was sitting in the Austin with Helwise and Wiggie, exchanging
conversation with the doctor and his wife, who had given them tea; and
the passage of the fateful minutes filled her with vague depression.
Close to the Austin’s lamps her father was standing with Bluecaster
and Lanty’s clerk, Stubbs leaning against the door, and it struck her
that they all looked worried. The clerk was talking rapidly in a low
voice, hammering in his statements fist on palm, while Bluecaster
nodded assent from time to time. The shrieking children playing on the
outskirts of the crowd quietened suddenly, and the clerk’s words came
up sharply over the car.
“It doesn’t do to take a thing for granted with the women! There’s
never any getting at what they understand and what they don’t. You
can explain till you’re black in the face, and then have to start at
the beginning and say it all over again. Why, at the Parish Council
Elections, I’ve known them stick their mark against every man-jack on
the card, though the whole boiling had been at them telling them they
could only vote for nine! They do other daft things, too--put the cross
half-way between a couple of names, or plump for the very man they
don’t want, thinking it’ll out him, and then swear afterwards that you
told ’em to do it! I don’t know what sort you breed in Lancashire, Mr.
Shaw, but some of our lot up here want a lot of looking after. A deal
of them don’t bother much about politics in between election-times, and
I’m not saying they’re any the worse for that; but it makes it a bit
stiff working with them when it comes to the vote. You’ve got to be
dead sure that they know what you want of them, and then you have to
go back and see that they haven’t got it upside down in the meantime!
I may be wrong, sir, and nobody’s wishing it harder than myself, but
I’m very much afraid that you’ve gone and done it, this time, without
meaning to. It’ll be a bad day for Bluecaster, if you have!”
Dandy looked questioningly at Wiggie as their acquaintances melted into
the dark.
“Is there anything wrong? They seem put out, over there.”
He shook his head.
“I haven’t an idea. I saw Harriet about half an hour before the poll
closed--all three of them have scarcely stirred out of the place since
six o’clock--and I thought she looked tired and rather white, but it
has been a big ordeal for her, and she’s--well--different to-day,
anyhow. It just entered my head to wonder whether things were going
right. Thorne was somewhere in the background, looking rather pleased
with himself. They said Harriet’s votes were coming in like smoke this
afternoon, but of course the luck may have turned since then.”
“Oh, I do hope she won’t be out!” Helwise lamented. “It will send
Stubbs simply running to the White Lion, and her grandfather will be so
disappointed up in Heaven, or wherever it is Rural District Councillors
go when they’re finished with. Lanty was saying only yesterday that
Lancaster and Knewstubb had represented Bluecaster for many a long
year, so it would be quite like old times to have the two names going
to the Board together. I’m sure he will be disappointed if he has to be
coupled with Thorne again. Lanty always gets in, of course. You see,
he’s so frightfully well known. He always gets in.”
Inside the room the last vote fluttered down, the last figure cut the
air, and, at long last, Harriet, white to the lips, looked up and
across at Lancaster. He smiled as he met her eyes, a smile of franker,
kinder comradeship than he had ever given her, putting out his hand to
her as she passed, and she felt the hot tears fill and burn her throat.
Thorne smiled also, his own thin, furtive smile. The polling-clerk
looked with some curiosity at all three, as, paper in hand, he turned
to the door.
Outside, there was a sharp murmur as the square of light broke the
dark mass of the house, framing the figure in whose hands lay the will
of the people. Dandy saw the keen face of the Bluecaster clerk thrust
forward like that of a leashed hound, and afterwards her father’s,
braced as if for shock; and then the far-away voice from the door came
thinly over the heads of the silent crowd.
Harriet Knewstubb 104
Ollivant Thorne 99
Lancelot Lancaster 95
Through the roar that followed she heard Helwise burst suddenly into
tears, and saw the clerk spin round on Hamer with a fierce nod and
exclamation, his face flushed violently as if he had been struck. She
turned blindly to the comforting of Helwise, surprised to find her
hands trembling and her own eyes full of tears. Wigmore slid from the
car, and joined the little band of men as Lancaster came up. He met
them with a cheerful shrug, and they stood in silence while Harriet,
Head of the Poll, spoke her thanks to her supporters. It was strange
to hear her steady, strong English, devoid of slang adornments--old
inhabitants thought of Grand Old John as they listened--stranger still
to hear her voice quiver as she added her regret at Mr. Lancaster’s
defeat. More than one of her friends wondered secretly if they were
meeting the real Harriet for the first time. Only Stubbs, shining with
happiness, muttered: “In the family. Always in the family!” with an
uplifting pride worth all the temperance sermons in the world.
When the cheer had died, Thorne said his few, plausible, little
sentences. His cheer was isolated to a deliberate section, but he
seemed quite satisfied with it. He had expressed his pleasure that the
lady was to be his partner on the Board, and now he turned to her,
offering a furtive paw with something like real admiration in his
shifty eyes.
“It’s to be you and me, after all, Miss Harriet!” he said kindly. “I’m
not sorry I interfered in that milk business, if it’s ended in bringing
you to this!”
And John Knewstubb’s granddaughter, whose fine diction had so recently
filled delighted ears, remarked: “Go to the devil, you Creeping Jesus!”
and strode off into the crowd.
Hamer Shaw laid a hand on Lancaster’s shoulder.
“See here, my boy!” he began, looking old and troubled in the sharp
light. “Your lad here says it’s my fault they’ve outed you. He says I
was so taken up asking the women to vote for Harriet I forgot to remind
’em to vote for you, too. He asked at least ten as they came out, and
they all said they’d plumped for Harriet and that I’d told ’em to! Of
course, I didn’t do anything of the sort, but it’s true enough I never
thought of bothering them about _you_. Everybody said you were safe,
that the usual crowd always voted for you. Anything else never entered
my head. Your lad says I was so busy running Harriet I made them think
they could only vote for one candidate. He says those ten female
plumpers could have put you at the head of the poll. If that’s so, I
deserve to be shot--drowned--anything--as the most interfering old ass
in England!”
Lancaster laughed as cheerfully as he knew how. Hamer he might deceive,
but there were too many natives round him who knew exactly what he must
be feeling.
“Oh, Garnett’s talking through his hat!” he said lightly. “They put me
out because they were tired of me and wanted a change; it had nothing
to do with you. Let’s get home. It’s been a long day. Harriet came out
fine, didn’t she? Nothing like the old stuff! Really, my dear Mr. Shaw,
there’s no need to worry.”
“But the female plumpers!” the clerk put in eagerly, still writhing and
bitter.
“Oh, stop it, Garnett!” Lanty frowned, then softened. The boy’s
partisanship was sweet, after all. “I’m sorry, Jimmy. It’s hard lines
on you, after the way you slaved for me in your off-time, but it can’t
be helped. As for the women, half of them have forgotten what they did
by the time they get outside the door.”
The young man opened his lips again, but shut them at once with an
effort. Only, as he turned and groped for a bicycle leaning somewhere
against a tree, Dandy heard him reviling the female plumpers with
bitter if bated breath, ending with his original statement: “It never
does to take things for granted with a woman!”
She also heard Stubbs inquiring for Harriet, and when it appeared
that that undutiful daughter had driven off without him, the stranded
parent was stuffed into the Austin. Bluecaster had taken charge of the
still-sobbing Helwise, murmuring incoherent consolation in the shape of
boilers, and persuaded Lanty to come with him as well, leaving Armer,
whose groans could be heard all over the square, to follow with the
trap. But first the ex-councillor went back for a final word with the
ex-canvasser.
“It’s really all right!” he said, feeling as sorry for Hamer as for
himself. “I’ve far too much on my hands, anyhow, and this will ease me
a bit. Don’t you think any more of Garnett’s nonsense. These young ’uns
are always too clever by half. He’s wrong, I tell you--dead wrong!”
But he knew, and Hamer, looking down at him, knew that the “young ’un”
had been perfectly right.
At Watters, the poor man tried to eat his wife’s carefully-thought-out
supper and could not; and Dandy played an intricate game with a
chicken-wing that was always on its way to her mouth and never got
there, while Wiggie ate nothing either, in his efforts to keep Mrs.
Shaw from observing the others. They drifted to a warm hearth, and were
presently comforted a little, but Hamer was still very low when he took
his girl in his arms for her good-night kiss.
“This is the Last Tram, little one!” he said sadly. “I’ve made a
fine mess of it, and I’ll never forgive myself. There’ll be no more
tramming for Hamer Shaw!”
* * * * *
Soon after eleven o’clock, Harriet, standing at her window in the dark,
caught the shuffling of feet in the road, and directly afterwards a
lusty cheer startled the sleeping peace of Wild Duck. She knew at once
what it meant. So, in her grandfather’s time, had his supporters come
to seal his victory. She remembered to this day the thrill of pride
with which, as a child, she had listened to the demonstration, creeping
from her bed to peep at the massed enthusiasts without. Lighting the
lamp, she called to Stubbs and threw up the window, to meet a second
cheer as she came into sight. Standing there, with her father’s hand on
her shoulder, she thanked them briefly and told them to get off home,
with just the same rough humour that Grand Old John had used with such
effect; and after a final tribute they withdrew. She went to bed with
the warmth and the pride of it glowing at her heart.
* * * * *
But in the night she woke and saw the thing that she had done in all
its naked, irrevocable folly, saw how her stratagem had twisted in her
hand, to the undoing of the man she loved. Power and adulation were
sweet, but real love will have first place even in a Knewstubb heart.
She had meant to-day to draw them together--deep down she knew that she
had had no other hope but that--and instead it had set them leagues
asunder, probably for ever. She had put herself in the very place where
he could not love her--his own place. She had cut her throat with her
own so subtle weapon, the clever lady of Wild Duck Hall. She hid her
face in her hands, and wept.
CHAPTER XIX
UNDER THE JUNIPER TREE
Hamer’s chairs in the chancel looked very select and correct. There
were four of them on the stone steps, their fine austerity fittingly
framed by the rough arch. The Vicar gazed at them lovingly, and from
them over the fast-filling building. Carriages and cars were lining up
busily at the lych-gate, dropping an audience drawn from every side of
the district. Things looked promising for the Missions over the Seas;
even for the K.O.s.
The Bluecaster Choral Society, numbering over sixty, was packed
tightly into the choir-stalls, with a surplus of men on forms. Late
comers were greeted with despairing shakes of the head, and stood
about in the aisle, looking lost, but in a minute or two they had
always miraculously disappeared, stowed away somewhere in the serried
ranks. The chancel had been partially decorated in honour of the
occasion, and through the fronds of palm and fern could be traced
exotic blooms of mystifying shape and colour, appearing presently
as ladies’ hats. There was a good deal of whispered conversation in
progress--the sort that misses your neighbour’s ear but can be heard
well across the aisle--and a fluttering of leaves like a fretted
wind up an autumn glade. Hymn-books and direction-papers were being
handed about, and anxious-looking tenors stood up and signalled
to worried-looking basses. The male portion of a choir is always
economical of concentration. No matter how its part in the programme
has been explained, it will generally wait to wonder about things until
the stick is well up on the opening beat.
A twin fluttering was going on in the congregational forest, and
feathers and fur bent towards each other in the throes of lowered
comment. So Nancy Leyburne _was_ going to be the soprano--the
Widow--after all! A little pointed, surely--curious, anyhow--so soon
after her broken engagement! And really it was a shocking pity that
Graham-Langwathby insisted upon considering himself a tenor, when it
was perfectly plain to anybody--anybody _musical_--that he was simply a
pushed-up baritone. They might have been sure he would be the Obadiah.
You met him at every old thing--like other people’s clothes.
“The Angel--oh, my dear, _do_ remember you’re in church!--the Angel,
‘Fidge’ Morseby! Let me see--was it _last_ night I saw her on the
luggage-carrier of Captain Gaythorne’s motor-cycle? And at the
Gaythornes’ theatricals--well, perhaps I _had_ better wait till we get
home.”
“Who’s the Elijah?--something Wigmore--C. or G.? Oh, I believe he’s
a friend of the new Watters people. I seem to have heard of him--the
only one of their old set that they weren’t able to choke off. Colossal
cheek to tackle a big thing like ‘Elijah,’ but perhaps he thinks it
doesn’t matter here. It’s really very distressing how little outsiders
realise our extremely high standard of culture!”
Hamer and his wife were in a convenient position for admiring both
their own chairs and their daughter’s head through the palms. Helwise
was at the extreme end of a stall under the reading-desk, just where
her wandering soprano would sail straight into Wiggie’s sensitive ear.
There was a pretty colour in her delicate cheeks. She had just been
having words with the Vicar about the necessity of providing his best
silk drawing-room cushions for the unyielding oak seats of Hamer’s
property. Harriet was in the altos. If you are not quite sure whether
you possess a voice or not, they always shove you into the altos, or
else into that last refuge of the destitute--the second trebles.
Bluecaster was talking to Lanty in the porch when a long gray car,
covered with mud, slid up to the gate, setting down a young man, thin
and eager-looking, and an older one, broad-shouldered and dark, with
sad eyes. They were evidently strangers, from the way they looked about
them, and in the porch the thin man appealed for information.
“I understand there is to be a performance of the ‘Elijah,’ this
afternoon. Shall we find seats, do you think? We’ve come some distance
to hear a friend sing.”
Bluecaster took them in tow and persuaded the verger to put them in the
Vicar’s pew in front, the Vicar’s wife being securely jammed in the
chancel sardine-box. The strangers looked tired, as if they had come
far, and they talked to each other in little, snapped-off, troubled
sentences. Once, the hatchet-faced man rose as if set on an errand, but
the big man dragged him down again. His voice was low, but singularly
penetrating, on account of its curious inflections.
“It’s no good. You can’t make a fuss, with this crowd. He would never
forgive us. Sit still, man, and trust to Heaven. You’ll have the
congregation thinking we’re the bailiffs!”
In the vestry, the Bluecaster schoolmaster, an excitable little
man with a beat like an aeroplane propeller, was giving the last
instructions to his soloists. The Obadiah was making quite sure of
his moustache in the clerical looking-glass, while the Angel, in the
very latest of earthly fashions, followed Wiggie round the room,
declaiming: “Elijah! Get thee hence, Elijah!” with playful fervour.
The Widow looked out of the window, rather sad and pale, and to her
Wiggie drifted by degrees. She was young and evidently very nervous,
and because she had blue eyes rather like Dandy’s, he wanted to speak
to her; so he opened his neat, leather-bound copy, asking how she meant
to take a certain phrase.
As he closed it again, she caught the name on the cover, and gave a
little cry, putting out her hand.
“It _was_! I knew it was! I heard you----”
Wiggie grabbed the hand and squeezed it, he was so anxious to stop her.
The conductor looked round hurriedly.
“Thought you were going to cry or have hysterics, Miss Leyburne! Don’t
be nervous. You’ll feel as right as rain the minute you hear the first
note of your beautiful voice. (I think everything is ready, now, so we
can go in.) Look at Mr. Wigmore there, as easy as you like!”
Elijah smiled politely. His hands were icy, and his heart was beating
in great, wavering bumps, but that had nothing to do with the conductor.
“He’s wrong, isn’t he?” the Widow whispered--she had touched his
hand--and he nodded.
“It’s my belief you don’t do anything great if you’re not frightened
beforehand. A self-possessed performer may get at an audience’s
admiration, but it takes the inside-frightened person to get at their
hearts. It’s like going into battle--the trembling Tommy hits hardest
when he starts.”
Seated at last under the reading-desk palm, with the Angel beside
him, the sea of faces so near seemed to rise and engulf him, turning
him faint. His heart still hammered its wavering stroke, like a bad
workman. It was a blessing Gardner could not hear it--Gardner in
London; though it was almost a wonder, it thumped so loudly.
And then he saw Gardner, with his hatchet-face over the pew-front as
if he meant to leap it--Gardner and the other dear old watchdog!--and
the sickening nervousness changed to a freakish joy, a mischievous
delight. Edgar looked upset; he had forgotten poor old Edgar. There
were the children, too--but it didn’t do to think of them. Edgar would
understand. He would have done the same himself. He sent a brilliant
smile to the men in the front pew, a smile so gaily defiant that
Lancaster, far behind, wondered. The organist played the first of the
four big chords, but he was too busy smiling to heed, until the Angel
nudged him, alarmed. But, once up, he forgot the watchdogs, forgot the
palm tickling his ear, forgot even the children of whom he would not
think. He was Elijah, flinging out his mighty message to a cowering
people.
During his long wait following, he did not look at the audience again.
They did not matter any more. The big thing that was happening was not
on their side of the building. Most of the time he sat with his eyes on
the well-known notes, but when he turned ever so little to the right,
he could see Dandy singing with every inch of her, her rapt gaze fixed
on the whirling beat. How the Dandy Shaw of Halsted would have scoffed,
not unkindly, but with sincere amusement, at such rustic enthusiasm!
He saw an admiring young joiner offer her a paper bag when the close
air caught her throat during Obadiah’s pushed-up solo, and watched her
abstract the offering without a qualm. Absurd details like these were
little wind-arrows, pointing the trackless way along which she was
drifting, further and further from him.
All the delinquencies and hiatuses of the plucky little chorus smote
his trained ear in a succession of torturing shocks. He knew when
the infant basses asked for bread exactly half a bar too late, and
heard Helwise calling upon Baal to listen at a moment when she had no
business to be singing at all. Through all the shades of alto he could
detect a queer grumbling like that of a home-sick cow, and traced it
correctly to Harriet. Yet you could not have told from his face that
the Second Tenor Angel had dashed his foot against several stones in
the way of accidentals, though the conductor moaned and wept, and
knocked a mauve hat eastwards in one of his volplaning movements. The
professional knew so much better than anybody else just what was the
real standard of the big work, and the long rehearsal of the night
before had set him marvelling at the perseverance which had brought
it into presentable form. He had been told the miles the choir came
through wild weather, opening his eyes at the record of attendance;
and when he had grasped their deeds achieved, in face of the average of
knowledge among them, he saw each member a Hercules striving to seventy
times seven, and the little aeroplaning schoolmaster a hero storming
Valhalla.
The Widow trembled to her feet, and Wiggie guessed that there were real
tears behind the first words of pleading for the sick child. He got
up presently, long before his time, and stood beside her to give her
courage; and when he broke at last into the thrice-repeated, conquering
prayer, with eyes fixed on a far window, unheeding the woman’s
interjected lament, it seemed to the girl, bitterly conscious of her
personal trouble, that it was her own spirit, her own future, that he
gave back alive again into her hands.
But, curiously enough, it was not the praying but the fighting Elijah
that Wiggie loved best. The pale, diffident young man saw himself as
the fierce, tanned herald of woe, and made others see him as such, too.
It was glorious to curse kings, run before chariots and slay false
prophets by the hundred! He felt the inspired words hot on his lips,
the racing blood in his veins, the warm dust spurned by his swift feet.
In the great “hammer” solo he worked to such a pitch of intensity,
beating out the last iron strokes of the _più lento_ so strongly that
the audience almost winced beneath his power, and the hatchet-faced man
shook like a whippet on leash, uttering sharp little sounds remarkably
like oaths. But after that--after the Reproach to Ahab--Elijah sank
back into Wigmore, quivering under the virulent words of the venomous
Queen as if they had been live blades. The Queen was a strenuous member
of the Society, with a bludgeon air that reminded him of Harriet, and
he shrank before her condemnation as he had shrunk many a time under
Harriet’s scorn. The tired protest under the juniper-tree, in face
of the fresh task--“Oh, Lord, I have laboured in vain! Yea, I have
spent my strength, have spent my strength for naught. O that I now
might die!” brought the tears chasing down Hamer’s cheeks, but it was
Wiggie, not Elijah, who brought them there, though he did not know it.
It was Wiggie’s own cry from a desolate heart and an almost finished
body, looking into a future void of the one hope that had kept him
alive for long--the terrible cry of the human, seeing the strength of
the flesh break, taking the strength of the soul with it. He was in the
wilderness, and no God could set his feet for Horeb.
But the pitiful personal note was felt, if not recognised, bringing
the Angel to “O Rest in the Lord” with a style very different from
her famous “Sing me to Sleep” imitation, and aweing the basses to an
unwonted mellowness of mumbling in the tender balm of “He that shall
Endure to the End.” And at the close of it, the quiet figure on Hamer’s
chair lifted his eyes and smiled the same whimsical smile at the
strangers in the front pew. The man with the sad eyes smiled also. The
leashed whippet sank back and was still.
It was over at last, the last brave spurt of confidence and hope, the
swirl of the final choruses, followed by the stillness of a prayer; and
then the organ burst out again, the doors flew open, the sardine-box
unpacked itself and stretched. A hum of wonder was running through
the congregation. _Who_ was the collapsed young man with the perfect
voice at least six sizes too big for him? Quite extraordinarily good,
and with a great look of--something like “Quagga”--the man who was
commanded to Windsor last month--but of course they all knew that he
was nothing more exciting than the Shaws’ last, unthrottled-off pal.
Wiggie saw the watchdogs spring up and leave the pew, to be checked at
their first step by the Vicar’s wife, strongly suspicious that they
had been sitting on her best Prayer-book; and as the stream from the
chancel joined the human sea below, he seized the opportunity to escape
from the adoring conductor, and steer his swimming head towards the
vestry door. Here the Vicar had his word, but at last he was out on the
step and in the air; and there he found Harriet.
“Saw you bolt for the vestry,” she began, “so I came round outside, as
I wanted to speak to you. I say, you _did_ do us all proud! Hefty sort
of song, that hammer-yell--what? You must be stronger than you look, to
put all that weft into it. By the way, there’s a couple of outsiders
waiting at the lych-gate, asking for you. I suppose they didn’t see
you bunk for the short cut. Look here! Will you play hockey for me,
to-morrow?”
He gazed at her with the patient surprise of one, half-crossed to the
other world, surveying the caperings of those still firmly anchored to
this. At that moment he could not have run from one tombstone to the
next, and a hockey-ball, bounding down the path, would have taken to
itself a dozen nebulous brethren under his reeling sight. Except in the
case of her own employees, who were rigidly well looked after, Harriet,
with her superb health, rarely troubled about other people’s, unless
they were yellow with jaundice or pink with scarlet fever. And she had
already decided what was the right treatment for Wiggie.
“I haven’t played for years,” he hedged, “so I should be worse than
useless. And I’m afraid I’ve--a--a very bad headache!” he added
apologetically.
“No wonder! The atmosphere in there was enough to lift the roof clean
off its hinges. But your head will have gone by to-morrow, won’t it?
As for being out of training, it doesn’t matter; at least, it _does_
matter, but it can’t be helped. You can always get in the way and let
the ball hit you. Every little helps. It’s Dandy’s fault. She was one
of the team, and now she and her folks are scuttling off to that Motor
and Aero Show to-morrow. Don’t say you’re going with them, because you
can’t. They’ll let you stop on by yourself, won’t they? You might help
me out of a hole--especially as it’s Dandy’s hole. We’re up against a
classy team, so I don’t want to be short. I ought to have a girl, of
course, but I don’t suppose Witham will mind our playing a man extra,
as it’s only you.”
Wiggie pondered, expecting every minute to see the watchdogs round
the corner, and felt again that frivolous longing for a last snap
of the fingers in the relentless face of Fate. He had been a keen
player in his early twenties, before the Moloch of music clasped him
in its searing arms. There had even been international visions, at
one time. It would be rather fun to feel the ugly old stick again,
jumping and ready under his hand, to put out a foot in the path of the
whizzing ball and nurse it neatly up the hugged touch-line. Of course,
he couldn’t possibly last more than five minutes, and Harriet would
be extremely angry if he went and died suddenly in front of a clean
clearing-shot, but he wanted those five minutes very badly. Moreover,
for some curious reason, he had never been able to disobey Harriet’s
mandates. He did things for Dandy because it was as natural as eating
and sleeping, not in the least because he felt he had to; but he was
always conscious that Harriet was pushing him, and he seldom tried to
resist, for, deep down somewhere in his drifting soul, was a queer
sense of comfort in being pushed.
“Togs?” he asked weakly, and Harriet’s face brightened.
“Oh, Lanty will rig you out! He’s got all the necessary kit stowed away
somewhere, if Helwise hasn’t shifted it to the nearest rummage-sale.
I’ll tell him you’ll send over for it in the morning, if you don’t see
him yourself. I say--it’s jolly decent of you! Hope you don’t really
mind missing the old ’buses? It makes all the difference to _me_;
and the fresh air will do you no end of good--you take my word for
it!--that, and a bit of hopping about. D’you suppose those friends of
yours are still kicking their heels? Perhaps they’re wanting to cocker
you about the hammer-yell. Oughtn’t you to be scouting round?”
“They’re not friends,” Wiggie answered absently--he was trying to
remember that neat little twist of the stick-point that had been such a
favourite of his--“they’re police. At least, I mean----” He stammered,
catching her surprised eye. “I say, my head is really rather bad! I
think I’ll take the path across the fields, and miss everybody. You
might shunt the--the friends for me, captain, and whisper a word in
Hamer’s ear!”
“Right-o!” She swerved off with a nod as he opened the little gate and
fled across the green to the stile in the opposite wall. There he heard
her hail him a second time, just as he was stepping into safety.
“You know where the ground is, I suppose? The big meadow just below
Wild Duck. Don’t forget. Bully-off at 2.30, _sharp_!”
He stood a moment with a foot on the hollowed stone. The feel of the
farm came back to him, and the rocker, and the furry cat. He was glad
the ground was just there--wherever it was. If he might not live at
Wild Duck, he might at least, when the match was over, go and die in it.
He kept close to the hedge until he was safely out of the danger zone,
like a hare lying low in its form for the wind to bring news of the
pack. He began to feel a little better in the cool and the quiet, and
the same mischievous excitement crept upon him that had roused at
the sight of Gardner’s face. He would have a good run for his money,
wherever it ended, but he must be careful, or the watchdogs would nab
him before he was ready. For all he knew, they might be at Watters
when he got there, which would be more than awkward. He must keep out
of their way until he had stood long enough in front of a hockey-ball
to please Harriet, even if he had to tell lies to do it. He wondered
whether lies counted when you were finishing with everything, and
breaking all the foolish little threads of life, or whether a special
concession was made by the Angel of the Judgment, just as, in some
fatal illnesses, you may eat anything that you fancy, because nothing
can possibly harm you ever any more. He laughed a little. It was all
quite amusing, and he wondered why he had felt so dismal under the
juniper-tree. But of course he hadn’t remembered then just how that
neat little point-twist snatched the ball from under an opponent’s
nose. He pulled a stick out of the hedge, and began to practise with
it, and when he found the old turn still oiled after all these years,
he laughed again, and a farm lad heard him over the fence, and confided
to his dog that there was somebody on the loose “as mun sewerly be a
bit wrang in t’ garrets!”
At Watters there was no sign of the long gray car, but he reconnoitred
carefully before committing himself to the prisoning of four walls.
Dandy was a little bit hurt because he had elected to walk home alone,
escaping all laudation. She was very excited about the performance, and
perfectly convinced that it must have been faultless in every detail,
seeing that she herself hadn’t sung a single wrong note from beginning
to end. But her momentary chagrin vanished at sight of the star’s drawn
face, and she pushed him into a chair and brought him tea, comforting
him with pleasant little words of praise. He received her attentions
without protest because he was still thinking about that point-twist,
and practised it mentally with the teaspoon.
“You’ll have to take a long rest, Cyril, my boy!” Hamer said kindly.
“You must have to raise a deal of steam to keep that rock-breaking
business going up to time. It made me feel sore inside, just watching
you breathe! It can’t be good for you, to my way of thinking. You’ll
please just keep quiet for a bit, or we’ll have you going to pieces
altogether.”
“Oh, I’ll soon be having a lot of quiet!” Wiggie answered cheerfully,
twiddling the spoon. (He wondered whether they would think him silly
if he asked to have a hockey-stick buried with him. Working out a
new point-twist would put him on nicely until the Judgment.) “You
know, I haven’t any more engagements for a long time.” (He hoped they
wouldn’t collar him at once for the Heavenly Choir. He would like to
sit and listen for a bit, and hear somebody else getting up steam for a
change.) “I’m glad I had ‘Elijah’ as the final bust-up.”
“Why, you talk as though you never meant to sing again!” Dandy
exclaimed curiously. “You _do_ look tired, Wiggie dear! I feel anxious
about you. Don’t you think you’d better stop here quietly, to-morrow,
and just lounge about and do nothing, instead of coming up to the Show?
I’m sure you’re not fit for a hard day, and we’d be back at night, you
know, so you wouldn’t be alone for long.”
This suggestion was loudly encored by both parents, and Mrs. Shaw
offered to stay down with him, but Hamer wouldn’t hear of it.
“No, no, Mother! We know what you and Cyril are when you get together.
He’d be carrying jam-pots for you, or reading your crochet-patterns and
singing you little snooze-tunes when he ought to be resting. He’ll be
best alone, brutal as it sounds.”
“It will be horrid, leaving you behind!” Dandy added regretfully, and
Wiggie felt a little spasm of happy warmth, and then a little twinge of
shame because he was going to deceive these kind souls so completely.
He grasped the teaspoon a little tighter, and tried not to care. It
would be no use trying to make them understand how impossible it was to
disobey Harriet.
“I forgot to tell you I heard two men asking for you,” Dandy went
on. “They were sitting in the front pew--perhaps you noticed them?
They wanted to know the way to Watters, and just as I was thinking
of telling them you belonged to us, Harriet came up and said you’d
gone to the station to meet the 4.45. I was so taken aback that I
missed my opportunity, and let them escape, and when I tried to get at
Harriet, to ask her what she meant, she just nodded and disappeared.
I’m afraid she’s dreadfully vexed about the hockey-match. I hope she’ll
get somebody all right. _Did_ you go to the station, Wiggie, or was I
dreaming? I suppose you don’t know who the men are? They’ll probably
come on here, I should think, if they didn’t find you.”
“Probably!” Wiggie agreed. “Oh yes, I think I know them all right.
They want to worry me about something, and I don’t think I could stand
being bullied to-night. They’re terribly difficult people to get rid
of, any time. Don’t you think we might tell them to call again?”
“In the morning,” she suggested, “just for a few minutes before you
begin your nice, quiet day? How would that do? We’re starting before
nine, you know, so I’m afraid we shan’t be here to protect you, but
we’ll leave Blenkinship’s Marget in charge. She’s very brave with all
the one-foot-on-the-mat people, and she’ll simply stand on her head for
a chance of nursing somebody, so I do hope you’ll lie on the sofa and
let her bring you beaten-up eggs and things.”
“And treacle-posset? I love treacle-posset!” Wiggie murmured happily,
then got up quickly, dropping the teaspoon. He had heard a car turn in
at the gate. “May I go and see her about it now?”
But instead of seeing Marget, he slid silently through the old gun-room
into the stable-yard, and shinned up the Jacob’s Ladder in the loose
box to the loft above, and sat on a rusty old turnip-chopper and
shivered in the dark until there had been time to rout the enemy’s
attack. It was Dandy who caught Blenkinship’s Marget in the hall,
and whispered instructions that set that warlike damsel yearning for
battle. She was a little surprised to find two quite pleasant, if
rather tired and troubled gentlemen on the doorstep, but her orders
were definite. Yes, Mr. Wigmore had been in, and gone out again,
leaving word for them to call and see him at eleven o’clock in the
morning. Well, could they see the master, Mr. Shaw, or say, Mrs. Shaw,
if there was one? They couldn’t. The master was up to his ears in
letters for the post, and as to whether there was a mistress or not,
that was none of _their_ business! How _was_ Mr. Wigmore? Alive and
kicking, if they cared to know, and fit to stick up for himself against
anybody, any day. No, they couldn’t come in and wait. They’d lost
two silver candlesticks off the hall-table, that way, already--but
they might leave cards if they had such things--considered doubtful.
However, the cards were forthcoming, and the disappointed callers drew
back on their tracks. Watters had received them odiously altogether.
They had found difficulty in turning into the drive, to begin with,
and, when once safely through, had nearly run into a wheelbarrow that
some idiot had left in the middle of it. Then they had been allowed to
shiver unregarded on the step, and afterwards treated with contumely.
The gate that had refused to open when they entered, swung heavily on
their tail-lamp as they drove out. Decidedly, this wasn’t their day.
Blenkinship’s Marget, studying the cards with interest, found Wiggie at
her shoulder, and handed them over, though under protest. “They said
as they were for t’ master,” she explained, but Wiggie only smiled and
began to talk about treacle-possets. It was just as well that Hamer
shouldn’t see those cards.
Everybody was very kind to him, that evening, and thought he should not
only have a nice, quiet day following, but a nice, quiet night straight
away, so he was packed off to bed soon after dinner was over. As he
crossed the hall to the foot of the stairs--very slowly, for he was
afraid of the night--Dandy came out of the smoke-room to meet him. She
looked singularly radiant, he thought, from the depths of his own chill
fear. Beyond, he could hear Hamer at the telephone.
“You’re going up? That’s right!” she said with a relieved air. People
always think things are going to straighten themselves out when they
have persuaded you to do something unpleasant. She gave him her hand
with a kindly pressure. “Are you sure you have everything you want?
Isn’t there _really_ something more we can give you or do for you?
You’ve had such a fearfully hard day, and you’re so tired! And, look
here, you must promise--promise faithfully, or I won’t let you
go--that if you feel bad in the morning you’ll let us know, first
thing. I’d never forgive myself if we went off for a day’s pleasure,
leaving you to be ill all alone.” She wrinkled her brow, looking at him
very earnestly. “I sometimes wonder, Wiggie, whether you tell us all
the truth. You never do talk much about yourself, do you? We know who
you _are_, of course, and we’ve been friends for years, but you never
tell us your troubles, and though you always say there’s nothing the
matter with you that matters, I don’t think I quite believe it. You
look so”--she laughed rather shakily, and put a comforting hand on his
arm--“so dreadfully ‘gone before!’ Don’t you know how precious you are
to us all, Wiggie dear? Let us have a chance of taking care of you if
you really need it, won’t you?”
With his own hands tightly clasped on the banister, he stood looking
down into her eyes, and at her hair, tossed into a mesh of gold by the
little watchman’s lamp at the foot of the stair, at the pleading mouth
and the pearls at her throat, at the whole, terrible, beautiful want
in his life that she represented, and an impulse came over him to tell
her the truth, and see the mouth quiver, and the tears so near the
surface brim over for his sorry plight. He had always taken care of
_her_, thought for _her_, lived for _her_, but perhaps she had had help
for him, too, all the time. If he broke now, completely and in utter
thankfulness, would he find himself, if only for a little, within the
comfort of her arms?
The telephone rang off, and instantly, as if snatched by a cord, Dandy
dropped her hand and turned, her lips opened to an unspoken question
as Hamer came into the hall with a pleased expression on his face. He
nodded to her as he advanced.
“Not gone yet, Cyril? Come, now, be a good lad, and get tucked up! The
missis is still set on stopping behind, but I tell her she’ll only fuss
you. I’ve got Lancaster persuaded to come, Dandy Anne! He hung fire for
some time, talked about work and umpiring a hockey-match, but I made
him promise to cry off and join us. I’m talking of to-morrow, Cyril.
I had an idea at dinner. As you’re a bit under the wind, I’ve asked
Lancaster to come along in your place.”
Wiggie moved a few steps up the stair.
“Glad you thought of it! And awfully glad he’ll go! He doesn’t give
himself a day off very often. Hope you’ll have a first-class time, all
the lot of you!” He glanced at Dandy, thrilling with a happy excitement
she could not repress. (No, he had no right, there.) “Sleep well, Dandy
Anne, and don’t worry your dear head. I’ll be as fit as ever, after my
nice, quiet day.”
Inside his silent lavender room with the rosy curtains, he found a
well-groomed spink sitting on the rail of his bed. It cocked its head
on one side when he closed the door behind him, and they surveyed
each other with interest. Harriet had said that birds in your room
meant disaster, and Harriet was always right. He had thought, for a
moment--one crowned, delirious moment on the stair--that Harriet would
not find him at her hockey-match, after all, but Fate did not mean him
to fail her. Lancaster was going to the Show. Lancaster would have his
place in the car. Very well! Let Lancaster have his Show and his seat,
and his share of Life Everlasting. _He_ would have his five little
minutes of the point-twist.
He laughed aloud as he had done in the fields, scaring the bird from
its perch, and after a minute or two he caught it deftly in his thin
fingers. How frail it felt! he thought, as he opened the window and
tossed it lightly into the night. Would the Almighty find him just
so, he wondered--a piteous, frightened heart beating the walls of its
fragile tenement--when His Fingers closed softly round him for the
last, light fling into the Dark?
CHAPTER XX
WIGGIE’S FIVE MINUTES
It was still scarcely day when he heard the house rouse to action,
and dragged his miserable body out of bed for a look at the weather.
He had not slept much--most of the night he had been toying with an
imaginary hockey-stick in a dull stupor--but every time he had waked
to acute consciousness he had been certain that the rain was dripping
heavily down the pane. He would have been bitterly disappointed if
Harriet’s hockey-match had been frustrated, and that little ecstasy of
five minutes had slipped his reach. But he might have remembered that
Harriet always got everything she wanted--almost everything; little
things like weather and Rural District Councillorships, anyhow. And
certainly it was not raining now, though the brightening earth had a
watery look which would be dried presently from its clean, green face,
sparkling through its veil of soft, gray air, and clothed around with
the dark zone of wood. It was going to be just the right sort of day
for hockey, with the ground springy and true, and the air soft but
strong, and all the little spring-voices calling to you as you line up,
light and free. He wondered what sort of a stick Lanty would be able
to find him, and hoped it wouldn’t be a Bulger. You wanted something
lighter and whippier to bring that point-twist off properly. But of
course it _would_ be a Bulger. It was just the right sort of steady
whacker for a respectable person like a land agent, playing back. He
was absolutely certain Lancaster had played back. He always seemed to
be behind things, somehow, on guard and keeping watch.
Then he heard Hamer’s voice in the passage, and realised suddenly that
he was very cold, and the bed a terribly long way off. However, he got
back there all right, and was busily reminding himself about the nice,
quiet day, and trying not to think of the Bulger, when Hamer knocked
and entered. How was he? Oh, topping, thanks! Just a bit tired, though.
Hoped they’d excuse him for not showing to see them off. Would get up
after a bit and have a nice, quiet breakfast. It was awfully decent of
them to think they would miss him, but he was sure the Show atmosphere
would have bowled him over at once. He hoped Hamer would buy that motor
lawn-roller they were advertising. It would save the gardeners a lot of
work, and he might lend it to Harriet, perhaps, for the hock--well, why
on earth shouldn’t he say “hockey-ground”? The motor-roller kept his
host off the guest’s health for the next five minutes, and by that time
the car was at the door.
He had handled Hamer rather artistically, he thought, sinking back with
somewhat weary satisfaction, and then came Dandy’s fingers drumming
lightly on the panel.
Was he better? _Sure_ he was better? If he didn’t say it more
convincingly than that, nothing on earth would induce her to leave him.
She wasn’t half-certain she wanted to go, as it was! But it was going
to be a lovely day, and she loved the long run, and of course she loved
the aeroplanes and the lovely, big cars--
“In fact, God’s in His Heaven, and no doubt about it, my lovely dear!”
Wiggie observed sadly to his sorry self, and, because the panel was
between them, put into his hearty wish for her day’s happiness all the
melody of the beautiful things he would never say to her now as long
as she lived. And then there came the pulsing roar of the car beneath
his window, throttled down after to a steady purr, and the big wheels
gripped the drive and slurred off and out into the distance. He lay
in bed, listening to the sudden silence of the house, and feeling in
every nerve the desolation of being left behind.
After an argument--carried on, it seemed, independently of his own
brain--between a body which flatly refused to arise, and something
brandishing threats with faces like Harriet’s--he found the body
dressed and at breakfast, by some curious conjuring, and feeling a
little braver and bigger by virtue of a large bath, strong coffee
and the bright morning. Blenkinship’s Marget waited on him with
ardent devotion, and he began hastily to lay his evil plans, seeing
sofa-cushions and beaten-up eggs quite plainly in her yearning eye.
With a royal air he ordered the limousine and the under-chauffeur for
ten minutes to eleven.
Blenkinship’s Marget stared, as well she might, for although she knew
that everything at Watters was entirely at Mr. Wigmore’s service, down
to the last salt-spoon, he had never so much as ordered a wheelbarrow
before. Wiggie read the newspaper upside down, and tried not to look as
though he knew she was staring.
“I thought you’d to keep quiet, sir, to-day, if you’ll excuse my
mentioning it,” she ventured at last, “and you’re looking that poorly,
it fair makes my heart ache! There’s them two gents., too, as was to
call at eleven. You’ll just miss them.”
“No, Marget, I shall not!” he replied firmly. “I shall meet them on the
road, and so you will be saved answering the bell. And we shall both be
saved having to throw them out of the house, because they will never
be inside it. You can’t say it isn’t keeping quiet to sit perfectly
still on a padded seat while things called spiggots and stub-axles and
tappets and gudgeon-pins pull you along. And I’m looking poorly this
morning because you didn’t bring me that treacle-posset you promised,
yesterday. You can’t expect me to be very hearty and blooming after
screaming with hunger all night.”
Marget looked conscience-stricken, and then brightened. The
treacle-posset might atone in some measure for the lack of egg-and-sofa
treatment.
“You shall have it this evening, sir, honest and faithful! I thought it
was only your bit of joke. Then you’ll see the gents., sir?”
“Oh, I’ll certainly _see_ them!” Wiggie promised cheerfully. “And look
here, Marget, if they come worrying again to the house and make out
they haven’t met me, just pretend you’re all dead or something, will
you, and keep on keeping out of the way? I’ve to have a nice, quiet
day, you know--master’s orders!”
And see them he did, meet them he did, quite five minutes before their
time, just as the limousine had cleared Watters and settled down into
the straight. But it is quite easy to see and yet not be seen in a
closed car with a deep back seat, and at the wheel an enthusiastic
under-chauffeur, blessed with the Heaven-sent chance of “letting her
rip.” Wiggie was over at Crabtree asking for garments by the time
the “two gents.” had finished knocking and peering at an apparently
deserted house. As they were leaving, in intense irritation and
disgust, they met a gardener’s boy, who told them that the whole family
had gone to the Show. Which Show? “Why, t’ gert ’un i’ Manchester,
o’ coorse!” Mr. Wigmore, too? Yes, certainly Mr. Wigmore, too. The
gardener’s boy was always at least twenty-four hours behind the clock,
so his knowledge of Wiggie’s indisposition was not due for some time
yet.
The wily quarry found Helwise in the attic, hunting for the shirt and
shorts that she had assured Lanty were safe in the green ottoman on
the front landing. She had believed her own statement quite honestly,
and as Lancaster was in a hurry, he believed he believed it, too,
which he would not have done in a calmer moment, but no amount of
belief had conjured the garments into the ottoman. Wiggie joined in
the search with zest, and though it was not Wiggie’s attic, it was
certainly Wiggie who suggested twenty hiding-places and discovered the
treasure in the twenty-first. And after Lanty’s hockey-stick had been
run to earth in the jam-cupboard, it was nearly lunch-time, so at Miss
Lancaster’s request the borrower stayed to join her at the scrapings of
something potted. She was driving over to the match in any case, so he
sent the car home and changed in Lanty’s room. He fell asleep by the
dining-room fire while he was waiting for Helwise to decide whether
she looked more sporting in her own golf jersey or Lanty’s aquascutem,
and dreamed he was the sparking-plug in a very large motor-roller at
the Show, over which Dandy’s face was bent in earnest struggle after
comprehension. Hamer had bought the motor-roller, and wished to see it
roll something, if only a little Manchester mud, so it was trotted out
and set to work, and then everything went to smithereens in a hundred
and forty different directions, and he could hear Dandy’s voice, far
and very far off, remarking: “Something wrong with the sparking-plug! I
knew it last night on the stairs!”
He woke gasping and clutching at things, and if Helwise (in Lanty’s
’scutem) had been anybody but Helwise, she would have rung all the
bells and ordered doctors and hot bottles and brandy, but instead she
asked him to button her gloves, and thought him tiresomely stupid and
fumbling as she tried to see exactly how sporting she looked in the
sideboard mirror.
He felt better again, however, as they jogged along to the ground, and
began to experience joyful thrills as strenuous figures with bare knees
and flapping overcoats push-biked past them, armed with sticks. He drew
his own from under the rug so that the push-bikers could see it. It was
a Bulger, as he had anticipated, slightly elegantised by wear and tear,
but a Bulger for all that. Still, it might possibly bring off the twist
all right, if he hurried it a bit.
The field under the farm was already dotted by the red shirts of
the opposing team, and a sprinkling of spectators edged the neat
touch-lines. The white-topped Bluecastrians were grouped beside the
little pigeon-house of a pavilion (where at least two people who liked
each other might have found room to shelter) listening to Harriet’s
barked directions. When the trap drove up, she looked at a very strong
watch on her wrist so emphatically that Helwise tried to leap the
wheel, and tore Lanty’s ’scutem on the lamp-bracket.
The home team stared curiously at Wiggie as he came in, carrying a few
mufflers and a camp-stool belonging to Helwise, for half of them had
heard him sing, the day before, and the half that hadn’t wished it
had, while both halves had just been told by Harriet that of course he
wouldn’t be the slightest use in the game, so that they must all back
him as much as they could. Certainly, he did not give an impression of
superfluous strength; indeed, when he had taken off his coat, he looked
as fragile and hopeless an athlete as you could possibly expect to see,
so much so that the brawny captain-back of the opposing side came up
and implored Harriet to “put it somewhere where I can’t hit it!”
Wiggie didn’t hear him, but he wouldn’t have cared if he had. The soft,
bright air was wine in his blood. The press of the spring turf lent him
a buoyancy not his own. The strength of union, of interdependence and
support, put fire into his slack muscles. He stole the ball from the
red shirts when it shot out suddenly from the circle, and was trying
to persuade the Bulger that he had always belonged to it, when Harriet
stalked up. She looked very trim and hard and clean and extremely
well put together. You could picture her lasting through half-a-dozen
matches without losing so much as a hairpin.
“Where do you want to play?” she demanded. “You’d better go and stand
about somewhere at the back, hadn’t you? I’m putting all the strength
into the attack--it’s the only thing to do with this team. Johnson”
(the brawny captain) “loses his head if you keep on nagging at him.
Suppose you take the right, and mark that little black-headed curate
on their left outer? You’ll be worth your salt if you only keep _him_
occupied. He’s a terror! Cut him over the shins if he won’t behave.
There’s plenty of weft in that stick of yours.”
Wiggie twiddled the Bulger discontentedly, showing the “L. Lancaster”
cut clearly on the blade. A tinge of colour came into Harriet’s face.
“It’s too heavy!” he murmured mournfully. “You see, when you get going
up the field, it’s always just a second behind your wrist----” He tried
to execute a double twist that didn’t come off. Harriet looked scornful.
“You don’t need to ‘get going’ when you’re back. All you’ve got to do
is to let out, but I suppose you won’t be able to clear far. And if the
thing tires you”--she looked down casually at her own lighter, handier
weapon--“I don’t mind changing. An ounce or so makes no odds to _me_!”
“Oh, but I shouldn’t dream--I didn’t mean----!” Wiggie protested, and
then stopped. “If you’re sure you don’t mind, I dare say I should get
on ever so much better.”
Harriet did not mind. You could see how little she minded, running her
firm fingers along the rubber where Lancaster’s hands had so often
gripped. Wiggie tried the double twist with ecstatic success.
“This’ll do me all right.” Harriet tucked the stick under her arm with
a kind of savage shame. “By the way, of course you know Lanty let me
in, too? I’ve the rottenest lot of friends anywhere--barring you, of
course! _You’ve_ been a sport. Very well, then, you get along back and
do what you can if anything comes your way. Johnson won’t have to worry
about you, then. He seems nervous of breaking you. Don’t get crocked
up or anything--it wastes time so rottenly; and let Saunders have as
much of the game as he wants, otherwise he’ll sulk. For goodness’ sake
remember that the goal-posts are none too steady, so don’t get shoving
against them. And keep an eye on the curate!”
Wiggie walked sadly to the back. He had never played back, and he had
no wish to begin now. How was he to get his glorious five minutes if he
stood about and did nothing? He would just dodder and shiver and wither
away into thin air, and there was nothing dramatic about _that_. And
the point-twist simply wouldn’t get a show. Delicate art of that kind
wasn’t needed at back. You hit out slashingly, and then stood with your
feet crossed and bowed to the crowd, until the idiot in front whom you
had fed so prettily allowed another idiot to grab the ball and send it
back again. He wouldn’t clear far, having parted with Lanty’s sledge.
Harriet’s possession was nearly sure to sting if he began putting
anything into it, and in any case Saunders was to have the limelight.
Saunders, fair-haired and finely built, greeted him without enthusiasm.
He had just been telling the goalkeeper that he would have all the work
to do, just as if that wasn’t exactly what he wanted. Five minutes
before he had told her that, owing to the rotten scheme of attack, he
never hoped to see a ball all afternoon, but he expected her to have
forgotten that. The goalkeeper said it was a shame to both remarks,
and prayed that, if a ball ever did arrive, he wouldn’t knock her down
inside the goal-posts and sit on her, as he had a trick of doing. She
was a bright-faced young person in pads, and nodded genially to Wiggie
as he came up shyly. She wanted to tell him that she had heard him
sing, and though of course she liked this sort of thing much better,
she could do with a tune now and then. Wiggie thanked her sweetly for
doing with it, and told her how much he admired her in her perilous
position. At least Harriet had not put him _there_, to combine the
philosophy of a fisherman with the stoicism of an Aunt Sally.
Saunders suddenly felt rather jealous, and came and joined them.
He was pleased to be patronising and instructive, if somewhat
contra-law-and-order.
“The great thing is to keep in your _place_!” he said kindly. “Never
mind if you think the ball is six yards nearer your side than mine; it
probably isn’t. You leave it to me. _I’ll_ see to it all right. But
if you come barging in just as I get there, we shan’t hit anything
but each other, and the ball will be pushed through; whereas, if you
keep out of the way, I can give our forwards a chance. You spend your
time looking after the left outer. He’s always offside--know what that
is, of course?--and fouls every other minute, but it’s no earthly
use appealing. Knewstubb is much too busy looking after his legs to
remember he’s a whistle in his mouth, and in any case no referee pays
any attention to appeals about Davids--they’re too fed up on ’em. So
don’t waste your breath yelling over his operations, but sneak the ball
from him any way you can get at it, and if he starts shoving, just
shove him back!”
Wiggie cheered a little. The glorious five minutes were evidently not
to be his, but something offered. To go down to death in a locked
struggle with the curate was not exactly an heroic finish, but it was
better than shivering into nothingness. He went to his post with more
hope.
The teams lined up under the faint but kindly sun, between the clean,
white lines and the clean flags at the corners. There was a graceful,
curly-headed youth bullying-off for Bluecaster, with Harriet at
centre-half a good deal closer behind the ball than was safe for her
excellent front teeth. On her left she had a strong Army Major, backing
a wild and ineffectual left outer with masses of hair on the point of
descent, and a clever left inner, the kindest and most unselfish player
in the team. At her other hand was a long-legged person of the male
persuasion, excitably pretending to support the best right outer in the
county, a young girl with a tightly tied mane and the cheerful trot of
a Shetland pony. As her inner she had a meek little man who lived only
to get rid of the ball to somebody else, after the manner of cowards
who funk the sixpence in “Up Jenkins!” Stubbs was in the middle of the
field, with a nervous eye revolving round him. Raymond, the opposing
centre-forward, had a trick of lifting the ball about the level of your
knee-cap. If it came his way, he should skip. He blew the whistle, and
skipped.
Harriet’s offensive policy answered very well at first. The home
team knew the tiny drop in the gradient that carried a sudden rush
irresistibly into the net, and made the most of it. For some time a
furious warfare raged round the visitors’ circle, and then the Shetland
pony got a pretty shot home, passed her politely by the unambitious
inner. After that, though Bluecaster still kept in the foreign half,
they were held away from the ring, and Wiggie watched the curate edging
slowly up, waiting for the hungry backs to rush into the fray, leaving
him offside and well ahead for his centre-half’s clearing drive. He was
a black-headed, blue-eyed, boyish little thing, as strong as a horse,
with an impudent, twinkling smile and no sporting conscience whatever.
Wiggie, drooping wearily on the exact square foot of earth appointed
him by Saunders, tried to intimidate him with a glance, and failed.
The drive came, a long, low, steady shot with half the field before it,
aimed clean and true at the red shirt on the line, and Wiggie’s white
shirt stepped out to meet it. But even as he stopped it neatly with
his stick, earning a cheer from the spectators, a plunging, leaping
Saunders fell upon him out of the far distance and squashed him to the
earth, hacking wildly as he tumbled after him; and while they were busy
disentangling themselves, the ball was passed to the waiting curate,
who banged it in at the net, regardless of the shrieked appeals of the
deserted goalkeeper. Stubbs had met Saunders in his kangaroo career
and was badly injured in the ribs, which rendered him incapable of
listening to claims of any kind. He gave the goal with a mule-like
obstinacy. He knew Harriet would make it hot for him afterwards, but
he didn’t care. He would give that galloping Saunders something to
remember him by--dashed if he wouldn’t!
And all the way back to their posts, Saunders pointed out to his
colleague that that was what came of not playing the game, and hoped
he’d profit by it.
“You see, my dear fellow,” he said earnestly, “everything went wrong
just because you didn’t follow our arrangement. If you’d stayed and
minded the curate, as I think you _said_ you would, I should have got
the ball away nicely, and you wouldn’t have been there to hamper me
when I arrived. Yes, I know it _looked_ as if it was coming straight
to you, and as if it was in your half of the ground and not mine, but
it doesn’t do to be led away by these things. I admit I was a second
late, because I ran over that idiot Knewstubb, who was watching you
instead of attending to me. And, by the way, it really isn’t safe on a
ground like this to stop a long shot with your stick. All very well on
South-Country cricket-pitches, but no use on rough stuff like ours up
here. Very pretty and swanky, of course, if it comes off, and goes down
A 1 with the crowd, but it’s too big a risk to be really sporting. Use
your feet, man--use your feet!--and do give me a free hand. A really
first-class player has no chance, my dear fellow, if he isn’t allowed
to have his head.”
Wiggie didn’t answer because Saunders had flattened all the breath
out of him, and the next minute Harriet came up and pitched into both
of them. He felt a hearty, uprising hatred of several people, but
especially of the curate, twinkling cheerfully where he now stood
decorously with his front line.
The little imp grew shameless after that, and Wiggie had his hands full
with him. He had all the engaging tricks of the trade--turning on the
ball, putting his foot on it, pushing with his shoulder or his little
black head, and using more or less any part of his stick that came
first; perpetrating each offence with the same maddening, childlike
gaiety and delight. The gentle Wiggie could gladly have strangled
him. They fought away in a far corner--Stubbs turning a blind eye, and
Saunders behind, shouting a lordly--“Here, sir, here!”--the little,
scratching, jabbing, twisting, poking game that kills quicker than the
wildest spurt, until the singer was sick and stupid, with a swimming
brain and a clamour in his ears. Bits of the “Elijah” joined forces
with Saunders and added their quota to the muddle in his poor head.
“What have I to do with thee, O man of God?” “Here, sir, here!” “They
have laid a net for my feet.” (The curate had his wicked little stick
hooked firmly round Wiggie’s leg.) “Yet doth the Lord see it not.”
“Behind you, sir! Back to your left.... LEFT, I said, you ass!” “Mark
how the scorner derideth.... It is enough.... See mine affliction!”
“Shoot! Shoot!” “There is no breath left in me.”
By the end of the first half he was trembling, gasping and half-blind,
and he had had no five minutes. Harriet came up and looked at him
anxiously.
“Bit done, aren’t you?” she said. He was working for her at the present
moment, so must be cared for, just as he had had to have glasses of new
milk during the election. “Afraid you’ve had a thin time with Davids.
I can’t think why the clubs don’t combine and refuse to play against
him. He’s quite a decent little chap, though, off the field. Doesn’t
take the thing seriously enough--that’s what’s wrong. I thought that
stick of mine wouldn’t be any good to you--you want something beefy for
Davids. Perhaps you’d like to have Lanty’s back again? Saunders brought
you down a nasty whack; must have hurt you somewhere. He’s a clumsy
ass. Only last week, he got his stick fast in a girl’s hair, and pulled
some of it out by the roots. Look here, hadn’t you better knock off
altogether? We’ll get along somehow. Saunders hasn’t begun to stretch
himself yet, and I can do a bit more, too. I’m resigned to lose,
anyhow. Stubbs will just simply give the whole blooming game away if
Saunders hits him again. I wish Lanty had been here! There’ll be no
saving us in any case if Teddy Dunn” (the centre-forward) “loses his
wool after half-time, as he always does. His nerves aren’t guaranteed
to wear the whole seventy minutes. Well, ease up for a while, won’t
you? Hang about on the touch-line if you don’t care to go up to the
house, and if you feel like chipping in again later, well, chip!”
She brought him his coat, and snatched the camp-stool from a bleating
Helwise, and a kind little kid-gloved lady, who had been calling
somewhere, produced some smelling-salts from a russia-leather bag. He
sat on the camp-stool with his head in his hands, bitterly ashamed but
helpless, and wishing with all his heart that Saunders had finished
him off completely. He had not meant any of it to be in the least like
this. He had hugged a vision of fleeting, soaring ecstasy, and--with
God be the rest!--but it seemed that things didn’t happen like that.
This was shrieking farce and despicable exhibition--no saving grace
about it anywhere. But he would not go up to the house, though his face
burned every time anybody looked at him. He was an object of utter
derision, and, worse--pity, but he would not go up to the house, though
his whole soul turned to it with longing. He must stop until the last
chance of glory was past; so he clung to his stick, refusing to give it
up, and sniffed bravely at the smelling-salts, hoping and praying that
he might feel able to “chip in again, later.”
The second half opened with instant trouble for Bluecaster, for the
visiting team, having now the better of the gradient, ran through like
greased lightning before Saunders had finished impressing upon his
goalkeeper that he was perfectly equal to doing both Wigmore’s work and
his own without her stepping out of the net. Harriet said nothing--just
looked at him--and he was a good deal more careful after that. Wiggie
found himself admiring her as he sat on his camp-stool, noticing her
steady control of the team, absence of fuss, and the neat strength of
her play. She spoke out when necessary, but she did not nag, and she
took reversal with stoic calm. She had not even opened her lips to
Stubbs when he had failed her so disgracefully. There was something
rather fine about her, even if she did push you; and again he felt the
queer sense of comfort in being pushed.
The curate came and condoled with him, standing the while in his usual
illegal and colossally impertinent position, and Wiggie found him
quite a decent sort, after all, if somewhat weak in customary sporting
ethics. Nevertheless, he had a philosophy of his own which he expounded
with charming insouciance.
“What’s the fun of sticking to rules?” he asked brightly. “Any old
donkey can stick to rules, but it takes brain to be always just on
the wrong side of the law without getting collared. Besides, it’s
frightfully interesting seeing how the other man gets his hair up when
you foul him all round the place. _You_ took it first-class, like a
regular turn-the-other-cheek Sunday-school teacher. You were jolly
nippy, too--took me all my time to keep ahead of you! Awfully sorry if
I worried you too much; you do look rottenly off colour. Wish you’d
buck up, though, and come on again. I can’t get any fun out of Hoofy
Saunders--he doesn’t enter into the spirit of the thing like you. Hoofy
just gets his hair blazing and lams into you and yells for help, and
there’s no seeing past his feet when once the ball’s on the other side.”
Play kept pretty well to the middle of the ground for some time after
this, the Witham attack being warded off by Harriet and a somewhat
humbled Saunders. Then the Most Kind and Unselfish Member of the Team
put in a kind and unselfish goal, so gently that the goalkeeper did
not even see it; but there the luck ended. Fresh disaster fell upon
Bluecaster. Teddy Dunn “lost his wool.”
Teddy was a pretty player, supple and light, very quick on the ball,
and very easy with his stick, but the excitement of the game invariably
set his usually pleasant temper bubbling hot. In common with the
whole team, he had been thoroughly ruffled by Stubbs’ cruel behaviour
in presenting Witham with a patently unearned goal, and when, fifteen
minutes before time, the opposing centre-half caught him napping over
a simple shot at the nets, incidentally waking him with a drive across
the shins, he shook off Harriet’s yoke and let himself go altogether.
Ceasing to take any notice of the game, he concentrated his attention
upon following up the centre-half in order to pay him back in his
own coin, and various unauthorised persons dug the ball from under
their feet as the murderous debt was cleared. General disorganisation
ensued, ending in a passionate onslaught on the Bluecaster goal,
setting Wiggie quivering to help. When he could bear it no longer,
he dragged off his coat and took himself back to his place. Nobody
noticed him in the hurly-burly, until the ball clove a miraculous path
out of the crowded circle, leaving a fiery sting running clean up to
his shoulder, and the first thrill of exultation that the game had
brought him yet. But as the centre-forward was still adding interest
to payment, the ball soon came back again, and the frantic scramble
resumed. Wiggie slammed and rammed, saved and better saved, listening
as in a dream to Saunders’ mechanical “With you, sir! Here, sir,
here!” and to Stubbs’ announcement--somewhere on the lip of Hell--that
there wanted only five minutes to time. He had a vision of the curate
standing practically inside the nets, imperturbably ignoring the
goalkeeper’s expostulations, and then, as if dropped from Heaven, his
own chance rushed upon him. The ball was suddenly in the crook of his
stick, cuddling there as though it loved it. He caught a glimpse of a
Shetland mane away on the rim of the circle, and slipped through to it
between a horde of clashing weapons. Saunders, drunk with agitation,
tried to drive the ball back again, catching him on the foot with his
heavy swing, but he hopped free, and was out in open country. Then was
seen the shocking spectacle of a centre-forward far behind, doggedly
leaning on his stick, while a staid full back carried the game home.
The Shetland pony swung into line with a jolly little chuckle, and a
second later the M.K. and U.P. came up on Wiggie’s left. The three
passed up the field as the wind-shadows pass above clover. Harriet
was not far after them; he could hear her call to the other halves to
follow up, and was conscious of complete independence of all the halves
in the United Kingdom. _Now_ he felt the lift of the elastic earth, the
free, flying joy that he had craved all afternoon. _Now_ his choice of
stick was justified, the ball running steadily before the sharp, little
strokes. Wiggie might be fragile, but he was the right shape. His sally
had the grace of a flying Mercury, and the Shetland pony, keeping
easily level, chuckled a second time. She nodded across to the M.K.
and U.P., and he sent back his own M.K. smile of content. This was the
real stuff, the smile and the nod said alike. What on earth had this
treasure been doing at the back?
He knew that he had no business where he was, the newly-imported rotter
who ought to have been minding his nets, the miserable failure who so
lately had sat on a camp-stool and sniffed at smelling-salts. He felt
certain that Saunders sulked behind in utter scandalisation, but he
did not care. Still inside the Bluecaster goal, the curate gaped in
open-mouthed astonishment, but he had forgotten the curate. He had his
five minutes. The gods had heard his prayer, and not allowed him to
pass away shamed.
“He that shall endure to the end.... Arise, Elijah, for thou hast a
long journey before thee.... Forty days and forty nights shalt thou
go.” Not every part of him seemed to be working at once, but some of
him would get there. His feet were still moving, and his wrist, but
his eyes--“Night falleth round me, O Lord!” Saunders would say he
hadn’t kept his place--Hoofy Saunders--but Harriet would be pleased,
anyhow, and that was the chief thing. Here were the backs, Johnson and
Co.--“Go, return upon thy way! Then did Elijah the prophet break forth
like a fire”--_that_ got him all right, and it was quite simple! If he
fell down suddenly, would his feet still go on running, running? They
seemed to know all about it, more than he did, but he would get away
from here soon and lie down in Harriet’s parlour. “Though thousands
languish and fall beside thee”--nasty E♯ that for the tenors in the
fifty-seventh bar! There was a rocking-chair, too, and a kitten, and
somebody with a black face. “Through darkness riseth light, light for
the upright”--awful jar for Saunders, his getting away like this! Ah,
but what came after? “Shall the dead arise, the dead arise and praise
thee? Lord, our Creator, how excellent thy name is! My flesh also shall
rest in hope.”
The Witham left back came out steadily and with discretion, and
Wiggie’s twist carried the ball round him as easily as a dancer spins
a pirouette, leaving him staring. The right sprang to meet the attack,
and he passed out to the Pony, who passed back just as the racing left
crossed them a second time. The Witham halves were coming up, thudding
and panting, but the three were not to be caught. The right back sprang
again, shouting to his partner, and Wiggie passed to the Most Kind,
who dribbled cleverly to the line as if meaning to shoot, and then,
with a lightning turn, centred back to the stranger. Wiggie took the
ball daintily on his stick, Saunders or no Saunders, meeting the final
rush of the recovered left with the same bewildering trick, and, as the
goalkeeper danced and slashed, aimed delicately past her into the net.
The whistle blew.
But as the teams came up, both sides ready with praise (always
excepting Saunders, limping vaingloriously), Wiggie walked straight off
the ground without looking at anybody, not discourteously, but as if
very pressing business were hurrying him away. Indeed, from the moment
he took the ball in the Bluecaster circle until he had scored his goal,
crossed the field and disappeared, he never really stopped at all. It
didn’t do to stop. He must go on walking ... walking ... “Lord, our
Creator” ... not rushing, but just walking, or he would never get to
the other end. The curate tore after him, waving a coat, but he did
not look back. If he turned his head, he would never reach the farm,
because he couldn’t see it any longer. He could only go on walking
towards the place where it had been a minute ago. There was a stile
somewhere in the field; his feet would find it all right. He had really
wonderful feet; it was only all the rest of him that was wrong--his
heart and his lungs and his head and his blind eyes. Well, it was
something to have feet, anyhow. Gravel path, surely? Feet again! And
then steps and a flagged floor. It was time he got there, because even
his feet would have to stop soon. Yes, he was there ... he could feel
the fire, though he could not see it ... there would be the kitten and
the rocker.... “Lord, our Creator ... Lord, our----”
Harriet explained that Mr. Wigmore was knocked up, probably wanted to
rest. No, she had not known he was _that_ sort of player. He had given
her to understand he knew nothing about the game. Anyhow, he had won
the match for them, snatched it out of the fire at the last moment; not
but what they had won it by rights already! If they would kindly make
their way to the house, they would find tea in the usual place.
She shepherded them up to the back of the farm, and through the kitchen
into the house-place, where tea was set on the long table, but in her
heart she was troubled. Wiggie had not joined them. Perhaps he was not
in the house at all. Perhaps he had gone for quiet to the parlour.
She had her hand on the door when a long, gray car drew up at the
gate, and the men she had seen at the church hurried up the path. The
tale of the gardener’s boy at Watters had not satisfied them, and
after a dismal lunch at the “Four Feathers” they had started out on
a fresh hunt. Rumours had met them at last of a match and a stranger
playing for Bluecaster--“a lile chap what sings a bit”--and in spite
of incredulity had come on the wanderer’s trail to Wild Duck. The
hatchet-faced man pushed past Harriet into the house.
“Is he here?” he flashed. He looked ready to drop.
Harriet put her hand back to the parlour door and hesitated. She
understood him at once, and for some reason she felt frightened,
frightened as she had never been in her life.
“I--don’t know!” she stammered, holding the knob tight; then made an
effort to pull herself together. “If you mean Mr. Wigmore, I am just
looking for him. He may be resting in here, away from the crowd. He
seemed very tired after the match.”
The hatchet-faced man echoed “_Match!_” in a tone that was half-bitter
irony and half a snarling curse. The big man behind laughed a sad and
perfectly hopeless laugh. One of them took the knob out of Harriet’s
hand and pushed the door. On the hearth by the steel fender Wiggie was
fallen, the comforting glow of the fire playing over his white shirt
and his closed eyes. The rocker stood empty above his quiet head. The
kitten curled, purring, in the curve of his helpless arm.
* * * * *
But he was not dead. Sitting alone in her own room, Harriet willed
it with all the force of her personality. He _should_ not be dead!
The men had said he was, and he had looked it, lying there without a
breath, but she would not have it so. After they had carried him up to
Stubbs’ room and shut the door on her, she had gone across to her own
and willed him violently back to existence. He had been her player, her
loyal man; he was her guest. He could not die under her roof. In some
inexplicable fashion he seemed to belong to her, this stranger from
another life and another world.
Downstairs, the teams made merry, wondering a little what had happened
to their hostess. Somebody had seen a car come up; perhaps she was
wanted on business. That Wigmore chap had disappeared, too. Pity!
They would have liked a word with him. Somebody said he was stopping
at Watters, so probably he had cleared off at once. He had certainly
looked thoroughly played out. Stubbs, explaining to a bursting Saunders
exactly how and where he would not be hit by him again, was unaware of
any tragedy passing overhead. Only the little curate, emerging last
from a flying bath, with his round face glowing above the neatest of
clericals, paused on the landing upstairs, brought to halt by a sure
instinct of trouble. As he did so, the door sprang open in his face,
and a desperate man strode out on top of him. He recoiled when he saw
the parsonic figure, as if it had struck him.
“What’s brought _you_ along?” he demanded roughly. “He’s not dead,
yet--not going to be dead, I tell you! You can take yourself and your
psalm-singing off again!”
Davids said: “Hockey--bath--just passing--can I help?” with cogent
simplicity, and the other relaxed. He thrust a paper into the curate’s
hand.
“Fetch the nearest doctor, will you, and ask him to bring anything he
can? Car at the door. There’s a chemist somewhere in this county, I
suppose? If not, send the chauffeur to Lancaster--Manchester--anywhere.
Fire along, and never mind limits. We pay. But for God’s sake hurry!”
He shut the door as abruptly as he had opened it, and the little curate
slid downstairs as if dropped from the banisters. They called him in to
tea as he passed, but he did not stop to reply. Hungry but valiant, he
tore down the path, sending before him the name of the profession that
sets every wheel racing and every hoof at the beat. The chauffeur had
his engine started before the passenger was in the car, and leaped back
to his seat. They became a very sudden blur in the distance. Whatever
his philosophy, the curate certainly had the knack of being always on
the spot.
Tea finished in the house-place, and Johnson, shouting down a perfect
roar of argument and contradiction, was busy illustrating with
Harriet’s china just how Wigmore had got his goal, when a cool medical
voice broke across the hubbub.
“Will somebody kindly tell me who owns this house?”
Stubbs took his head out of a teacup, and came forward and said that he
did, which was not in the least true, but sounded well.
“Then perhaps you will forgive me for asking that it may be kept as
quiet as possible? Mr. Wigmore is upstairs, dangerously ill. I doubt if
he will live through the night.”
He disappeared before anybody’s breath had come back, and the stricken
teams hunted hats and coats in a graveyard silence, stealing forth
as if from a meeting in the Catacombs. Queer that Stubbs shouldn’t
have known!--but then Stubbs never did know anything for two minutes
together. Made a chap feel such a bounder, yelling and roaring with
a sick man overhead! Certainly, Harriet had vanished clean off the
earth; they might have guessed something was up, from that. It had been
a queer match altogether; one they wouldn’t be likely to forget in a
month of Sundays. The push-bikes crept down into the road, and silently
faded away, and a death-like, terrible peace descended upon the farm.
The car came back, bringing a local doctor and a nurse, who disappeared
upstairs without asking for anybody. The curate had been explicit.
He himself stayed outside with the chauffeur, munching a penny bun.
Harriet came down into the parlour, and was joined by Stubbs, whose
voluble demands for explanation she strangled savagely into silence.
Nobody took any notice of either of them. They might not have existed.
The shadows were well down in the little room when the hatchet-faced
man was heard in the garden, directing the chauffeur to take the curate
to the station, and then the door opened, and the strangers came in.
Harriet asked “How is he?” and Stubbs looked around and behind him, not
recognising the voice.
The hatchet-faced man opened the fingers of an expressive hand, and
shut them again.
“A long way on!” he answered, and wondered at himself. He had never
heard the expression until a minute before, when the nurse had used
it on the stairs. “But we shall bring him back,” he added--“perhaps.
We won’t waste time discussing that. I have to apologise for taking
possession of your house in this extraordinary manner. We cannot thank
you enough for allowing us to do so. I should be glad to explain.”
Harriet said “Sit down, won’t you?” in the same voice that had set
Stubbs peering into corners. She found a match and lighted the centre
lamp. The big man said nothing.
“My name is Gardner. I am a Londoner--Wigmore’s medical adviser, and
incidentally his oldest friend. Before he left town, last month, I told
him--though he didn’t need telling--that his voice was killing him. I
warned him that any out-of-the-way effort would probably finish him;
that in any case he would not last another year unless he took instant
precautions. He had just had a big concert in London, and I knew--what
I knew. He promised me to throw up all his engagements and come down
here for absolute rest, and I let him go because I believed he would
keep his word. On Monday night I discovered by the merest chance that
he was to sing here on Tuesday, and I left London before six in the
morning--_we_ left London--but we were too late to stop him. He would
neither have listened to us then, nor forgiven us ever after. God! but
I thought he would die before the thing was through! _That_ was mad and
bad enough, but on top of it he goes and plays in a hockey-match, after
leading us a dance round half the county to prevent us finding out.
What’s at the back of it all I can’t possibly imagine! Perhaps _you_
can. Who is the insensate fool that led him to fling away his last
little gasp of life?”
Stubbs stirred uneasily. He thought Dr. Gardner should be told that
such language was unfitting the company of both a past and present
Rur’l D’trict C’cillor. The big man by the window still said nothing,
and nobody introduced him. His eyes travelled from one face to another
with pathetic, questioning intensity.
And, at last, “_I_ am the insensate fool!” said Harriet, in the voice
of Eve after the Fall. “_I_ bullied him to sing. _I_ pestered him to
play. I told him that all he wanted was fresh air and hopping about. He
tried to say no, but I said yes, and he always did what I told him. I
made him.”
The doctor drew in his breath as if physically hurt. He struck his
hands together with a little movement of passionate regret.
“Then you will probably have the satisfaction of knowing that you have
killed the finest singer in England.”
She winced sharply, but surprise came uppermost.
“I don’t understand! We knew he was a singer, of course, but not of any
importance. His name is never in the papers.”
“He sings under his mother’s name--the famous Quetta. You’ve heard of
_her_, I suppose, even at this Back o’ Beyond? You must have heard
of him, too. _He’s_ the great Quetta, now--makes pots of money, and
is wanted everywhere. His agent in town was tearing his hair to come
along with us. He can close his account now. Quetta’s done! I suppose
you _might_ not know, though. He liked to be incog. here, and his
friends respected his wish for quiet. Well, _you’ve_ quietened him all
right! He should have stopped singing, years ago, but he had a reason
for going on, a good reason----” He caught the big man’s eyes fixed
earnestly on his lips, and checked himself with a vexed start. The
other stood up slowly and looked at Harriet. (It was strange how both
seemed to forget Stubbs.) His voice was low, with a curious intonation.
“I am that reason,” he said quietly. “I am Cyril’s half-brother, and
once--it seems a very long time ago now--I was a singer, too. I had
my own share of our mother’s gift, and I was getting on well. I might
have been a great Quetta, also. Then I had an accident which left me
totally deaf. I had no other trade in my hands, and I had both wife and
children. Cyril was just coming out, and he took every engagement that
came his way to bring us in a living. It was in those first hard years
of fight that he broke his health. He kept us all then, and he keeps us
all now. I do not know why he never told. Perhaps he was afraid that
Mr. Shaw--his friend--would give him money. I do what I can for him--I
learned the lip language, and I am now his secretary--but I do not
earn half we cost him. And I have never heard him sing. I would give
everything I have or ever hope to have, just to hear Cyril sing.”
* * * * *
Stubbs was sent down to the White Lion to telephone to Watters, and a
middle-aged damsel at the other end clasped a treacle-posset to her
bosom and wept. Long into the dawn Harriet sat by a burnt-out lamp in
the little parlour. The walking-mail went by in the smallest hours, the
creak of the wheels alone coming up to her, like a ghostly, undriven
hearse of the dead. And when the first cock crew, just as if it were
Harriet’s imperative voice calling him, the great Cyril Quetta, who
was, after all, only Wiggie, struggled back to life, and observed that
he was a sparking-plug.
CHAPTER XXI
THE TROUBLE COMING
The twenty-ninth of March. Lancaster had been at the Pride. Now he was
walking along the north road, where he had stood with Francey Dockeray,
months ago. They had had a good winter, just enough hard weather
and little wind, and the spring was wonderfully early. The whole
countryside breathed an atmosphere more like that of late Easter than
wild March. But March had had no lion in it, this year. It had come
in like a lamb, and continued to frolic softly onwards, crowned with
garlands, like a sacrifice frisking to the altar.
He walked slowly, loving the kind air and the delicate light lying
over the land, and his soul was at peace. His visit to the Pride had
left him happier than he had expected. For long, the necessity of it
had haunted him, and he had shrunk, without admitting it, from what he
possibly might find. But there had been nothing to disturb or alarm.
Wolf looked very old, but in better spirits than when he had last seen
him, for old age has its own medicine of the mind. He spent most of his
time at the last Ninekyrkes fence, looking over the fields. The new
tenants were not into the house yet, but they were at work on the land,
and he found a queer, half-bitter interest in watching others till his
soil. Mrs. Whinnerah was a great deal thinner, seemed to have no more
substance than a blown straw, but she was much softer in manner than
Lanty had ever known her. Her eyes, grown large as she grew small, had
the exalted, aloof, almost happy expression of the martyr-fanatic, but
they rested more kindly upon him than of yore.
The little Pride was a model of neatness and comfort. He found himself
envying them its cosy quiet, until, looking up, he saw the Lugg
towering in at the window. For a moment he had the impression that his
own satisfaction, the woman’s calm and the man’s quiet were all alike
due to one terrible fascination, the charm that holds a fated creature
still before a beast that springs. It was gone directly, and, as he
walked with Wolf on the new land, they talked again of his father’s
planning. He saw it broken up, portioned out, houses built, fences set,
a new estate growing under the shelter of the Lugg. When there was a
little colony there, the loneliness would vanish, and those that had
never known it would laugh at the old tale of a dead fear.
Bluecaster was still at home, waiting. He seemed bored and rather
restless, but he would not leave. When Lancaster suggested a Swiss
trip, or at least some sort of a party in the big house, he could
generally produce some halting excuse; but one day, when hard pressed,
he said simply: “It’s March!” and looked at the barometer. Lanty wanted
to laugh, but forbore. There were days when it did not do to laugh at
Bluecaster. He could make you feel that you were laughing, not only at
him, but at nine other Baron Bluecasters behind him.
Well, March was passing, wearing a dainty face showing neither fear nor
frown. This was Friday, and Sunday would be Mid-Lent Sunday. The worst
of the year was over, thank goodness, and with luck there should be a
second good season in front. He was almost sure there would be another
good season.
He asked after Lup. He would sail to-morrow, it seemed. They had had
a letter, saying a last good-bye after the most circumscribed method
of good-byes. Lanty had the letter to read, and wondered how long it
had taken him to frame the clipped sentences. At the bottom of the
page, far below the abrupt signature, three words were scribbled, as
if jerked into being by some ghost-hand gripping his elbow. Almost
indecipherable, they evolved themselves on inspection into “Wait of
me,” and no more. Completely out of touch with the letter both in
spirit and position, they gave the impression that the writer might
have sealed the cover without ever knowing they were there.
Mrs. Whinnerah saw the agent’s eyes on the message, and smiled faintly.
“There’s that as waits for nobody,” she said enigmatically, and turned
her face to the window. And again the thought came to him, as it had
come, months before, that she saw what no other eye could envisage.
The old couple walked with him to the fence, and there he bade them
farewell.
“I’ll be back again before long,” he said cheerily, shaking each by the
hand. “I’ll be looking you up again soon”--and knew not what truth he
spoke. So they parted, with mutual kindly smile and thought and word;
and as they turned from each other at last, a magpie fluttered out of
the fence and stood between them, lonely and alone on the alone and
lonely road.
Young Rowly came out from Ladyford at his hail, and his sister behind
him. Mother and father were away for the day, it seemed. Francey met
him with her usual pleasant manner. Lup’s departure had left her
apparently untouched, he thought. Perhaps, after all, it had been best
for him to go.
“Have you seen Bracken Holliday, lately?” she asked, as he put a foot
into the boat, a subtle change coming over her tone.
Some undercurrent of sympathy made Lanty start, realising that the man
had been in his mind, also.
“Why, no!” he answered, steadying himself in the boat, and looking
at her instead of crossing to the stern. “What’s his Loftiness been
doing with himself? Getting engaged, or making ready to stand for the
County? I hear he was a great man at election-time.”
Young Rowly looked up from his seat with a ripple of mirth running over
his clear, young face.
“Nothing o’ _that_ sort! He’s got religion. He’s taken to going to
church!”
“Not just Sundays, to show off the fit of his coat,” Francey explained.
“He’s done that, all along. Rowly means Lent services--weekday
services. Brack’s there, every time!”
“But what’s taken him? Some girl gone back on him? Or has he lost
another pig or something?”
She looked down at the sand. There were words on her lips, plainly
enough, but she did not utter them. Rowly, however, supplied the
deficiency with the same happy haste.
“If you want to know, sir, he’s praying for _you_!”
“For me? What in creation----! For _me_?”
“Yes, sir--for you. He says there’s something awful coming along, and
you’re responsible for it. Says if he can only get the Almighty to
listen to reason, He’ll happen let you off and give you another chance.
So he goes to church every day, motor-machine, bettremer clothes an’
all!”
Lanty scrambled over, and sat down with a bump and a laugh. It was
difficult to take any theory seriously that included a vision of Brack,
pale-gray suit, Trilby and S.-F., waving wild arms in supplication
before the Lord.
“Seems to me Brack must have collected a germ or two on the other side
of the pond! He’s a queer specimen. Well, I’m grateful for anybody’s
prayers. Who knows? Brack’s may do me a good turn yet!”
Over the sand, he went to Pippin Hall for his horse. Uncle Willie was
in the yard, and walked with him for some distance along the dyked
road. He remembered afterwards how many people seemed to have stopped
and held him, as if loth to let him go, on that last journey round the
banks.
“I suppose you’ll be over at this feed to-morrow night, you and your
lads?” he inquired--“Mr. Shaw’s hotpot supper at the ‘Duke.’”
“Ay, we’ll happen show up. T’ element’s quiet enough at present.” He
cast a keen look over the sky, and then the deep-set eyes twinkled,
dropping to Lanty’s face. “They seem a likely sort, the new folk over
at Watters. They do say as you’re looking round there, Mr. Lancaster.
Time you got wed an’ all!”
Lanty laughed as he mounted.
“Oh, they’ve had me fixed up more often than I could count, but it’s
never come off yet! I’m over-throng for that kind of thing, with the
Government setting me a different sort of sum every other week. The
estate’s my wife. I’ll never have any other.”
But, as he rode away, he knew that the real reason had been left
unspoken. True, the estate had the whole of his heart at present, but
it had not yet claimed all his dreams. The Lady that had walked between
his box-borders was not forgotten, though still yet to be found. The
shadows would have to lengthen further before he ceased to hope.
He would have no half-gods, this blunt, absorbed business-man of the
land. Thorough as he was in every detail of his work, he carried the
same demand for perfection even to his private, human joy. It had
always been said of the Lancasters that they would have the best--the
best stuff, the best workmen, the best methods, no matter at what cost.
And the last Lancaster of all added that, in little things like love
and marriage, he would also have the best--or go wanting them.
He had had a very pleasant day in Manchester. Hamer had treated him
royally, and Dandy’s joyous enthusiasm had shed brilliance over the
expedition. For once she had shown for him the rare sparkle that she
always kept for Wiggie. He had felt free and gay and almost as young as
she as they wandered round the Show, tasting the charm of fellowship
and mutual interest, but even then it had failed as it had always
failed before. He had told her that she must persuade Hamer to take
her to the Royal, and she had mocked: “Cows and turnips!” passing on
to show rapturous interest in the latest type of plane. He could not
know that, five hours before, on the Preston Road, she had decided that
Hamer should certainly take this very same party to the Royal. He only
felt like a turnip, and wished that his boots were more like those of
the nearest showman, and wondered if he could possibly tolerate an
overcoat with a waist to it. And when they had turned their backs on
the city lights, she had wriggled from under the rug to look behind
her over the hood, and had sighed: “Dear Manchester!” It had always
been for her a city of wonder and delight, paved and padded by the
genie-hands of Hamer’s gold, but there hung no gleam of hard cash
over it to-night, only the will-o’-the-wisp lantern of new love. But
Lanty remembered the Thermos flasks and electric hair-curlers, and
believed that she turned sadly from the rich man’s city, where such
comforts were as common as dog-roses in Westmorland. _He_ would never
have an electric thingumbob in _his_ house, he reflected savagely and
childishly. They had a Thermos flask already, in spite of him, given to
Helwise by Hamer, last Christmas, and she had found it a glorious boon
on the servant’s day out, when she happened to want a day out, too.
Lanty had had many a cooped-up cup of tea out of it, longing the while
with a foolish bitterness for a singing kettle and a fresh brew. The
Lady would never give him tea out of a Thermos--he was certain of that.
The shock of Wiggie’s illness had laid the final lever to the reopening
gulf. During the following anxious weeks, Dandy’s one thought had been
for her old friend, so that the new seemed completely put aside; and
the latter, hearing her self-reproach and seeing her genuine trouble
and anxiety, was more than ever convinced that, in spite of their day
together, she belonged to the Wiggies of the world, and could never be
rightly his. With a very little incense she might be a half-god--his
rebelling soul confessed that!--but he did not mean to burn it. He
would swing no single censer, nor strew a single flower.
As he climbed out of the marsh on to the main road, he met Brack in
the Flanders. A church-bell was ringing somewhere on the hill-side,
and on the empty seat at Brack’s left lay a Prayer-book. When he saw
the well-known figure, he pulled up with a jerk that ground fierce
complaint from his tyres. Lanty looked at the Prayer-book in mild
surprise, and up to its owner. The angry colour flew into Brack’s face,
but he did not put out a hand to the strange object. Let the d----d
agent look if he liked!
When the colour faded, Lanty saw that he was thinner, less superior,
less exaggerated, less--well, less Brack. The superciliousness that had
marked him at the rent-audit was gone, the splendid self-possession
changed to mere nervous defiance. His eyes were restless, frightened.
He looked as though, at any moment, he might bolt like a startled deer.
Lanty stared at him curiously, with more contempt in the curiosity than
he knew. It was impossible to take Brack seriously; the man must have
dropped a screw or two somewhere “across the dub.” The Prayer-book
alone, sitting blandly on the seat of the car, stamped the situation.
Stung by his expression, Brack pulled himself together with an effort,
drawing out his cigarette-case with shaking hands.
“Been looking out for you!” he began, coughing to steady his voice.
“Just come from calling at Watters.”
“Indeed?” The agent raised his eyebrows. Was Brack aspiring to that
particular orbit? The younger man flushed angrily once more.
“Westmorland Holliday blood need touch its hat to no manufacturer’s
cash, Mr. Lancaster!”
“Granted!” Lanty said heartily--“though it lifts it to honest success!”
His manner changed, however. The little outburst pleased him, coming
as it did, not from vanity, but from heritage, showing the man to be
really one of the old stock. He dropped into the coaxing tone he kept
for the long-time tenants. “Come, Brack! What’s worrying you? Not the
same old tale, man, surely? You’re looking as nervous as a cat, and
more fit to be in hospital than driving a car.”
But Brack ignored the question, struggling with his obstinate
cigarette, and cursing under his breath (despite the Prayer-book) as
the wind took the flame.
“I went to Watters,” he continued, speaking very carefully, “to see
about this hotpot supper. I went to tell Mr. Shaw I reckoned he’d
better put it off.”
“Put it off?” Lanty’s eyebrows went up again. “What on earth for?
Measles or something broken out at the ‘Duke’? He must have thought you
had a pretty fair cheek! What did he say?”
“Say?” Brack raised himself in the car, shaking suddenly with
distorting rage. “He heard me right out without bucking in once--all
I’ve told you from the start, and a bit more--and then he said what the
whole durned crowd of them say, every bright boy among ’em, but what
I reckon they’ll soon be shutting their mouths on for ever and ever,
Amen--he said, ‘I’ll ask Mr. Lancaster!’ That’s the ticket--always has
been. ‘I’ll ask Mr. Lancaster. What a Lancaster says, goes!’”
His hand fell accidentally on the Prayer-book, and he quietened. The
bell had ceased ringing up on the hill. Lanty regarded him gravely.
“I know what you believe, Brack--it didn’t take long to guess who sent
that chapter out of the Bible--but you can hardly expect us to believe
it, too, just on your word. You’ll admit it’s a queer story. And what’s
it got to do with the hotpot?”
Brack fiddled with the wheel, suddenly embarrassed and distressed, his
personal animosity fading before the pressure of his inexplicable fear.
His tale had run fluently enough to Hamer, a listener from without.
Before the agent’s steady contempt it fell to pieces.
“Dead woolly things!” he muttered, incoherent and unintelligible; and
other words completely lost. And then again: “Wet little woolly things!
_Dead!_”
Lanty might be forgiven for thinking that his sudden religious mania
had been backed by the “Duke’s” ale. He touched up his horse, but Brack
put out a hand.
“I’ve just been slinging a word over the wire!” he said queerly.
“Really?” Lancaster was wearying to get away. “To the Clerk of the
Weather, I presume?”
“No! Will you listen, if I tell you?” He leaned forward eagerly, and
then got his hands back to their place as the sound of wheels warned
him from the near corner. Denny tore round it, and pretended to have a
heart-attack when he saw Brack.
“Danged if it bain’t the Judgment hissel! Runnin’ about in a motor an’
all!” He put his hands together, and turned his eyes to heaven. “Give
us a bit of a prayer, Parson Brack, do!”
Livid, Brack snatched at the Prayer-book with quivering fingers, and
stood up.
“Guess you shall have it right now!” he cried, and raised his hat. The
book fell open instantly at the Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea. By
the fierce rush of his words they guessed that he knew the page by
heart.
“O most glorious and merciful Lord God.... Look down, we beseech thee,
and hear us, calling out of the depths of misery, and out of the jaws
of this death, which is ready to swallow us up! Save, Lord, or else we
perish. The living, the living shall praise thee....”
His voice steadied as he read, the greatness of the need taking hold,
not only of the speaker, but of the two men hearkening. Mechanically,
Lanty put his hand to his cap, and Denny awkwardly followed suit. The
last words came out quietly into calm.
“Stir up thy strength, O Lord, and come and help us; for thou givest
not always the battle to the strong, but canst save by many or by
few.... Hear us thy poor servants begging mercy, and imploring thy
help.”
And Lanty, with his face turned to the sea, answered “Amen!”
Denny passed him as he rode on, saluting him with a lifted whip. His
pleasant, uncaring face was troubled and wondering. He met the agent’s
eyes with a question in his own.
Lancaster broke into a trot in the fair evening, and, behind him, over
the sea, there came up a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand.
CHAPTER XXII
COMING
Robert Whinnerah looked in at the door of the little bedroom, and saw
Lup standing by the window, knitting his dark brows over a sheet of
flimsy. The yellow envelope lay on his bed.
“What’s amiss, lad?” He had seen him take the telegram in, and
wondered; and presently he had followed him up. He was a tall, gaunt,
white-bearded man, with a look of Wolf about the eyes.
“Nay, I can’t make top nor bottom on it!” Lup puzzled. “If there’s owt
amiss, it’s the sort as doesn’t bide shouting down a wire. It just says
‘Come at once!’ with never a why nor wherefore to its tail. ‘Come at
once!’ Ay, yon’s all there is to it.”
“From Wolf? From your dad?”
“Not it! It’s from Bracken Holliday. You’ll mind the Hollidays o’
Pippin Hall, I reckon? Well, old Willie’s Brack’s uncle. He took him
in an orphan and tried to put him in the way o’ things, but Brack was
all for something fresh, and made off to Canada afore he was sixteen.
He raised money there an’ all--he’s smart in his way, is Brack--and
then come home to farm at Thweng. He’s in fine fettle, nowadays, and
as throng as a dog wi’ two tails, aping quality and driving his own
motor-car, but he’s no friend o’ mine. That’s why I’m capt to reckon up
the meaning o’ this here.”
“Happen it’s a joke.” With Lup’s arrival, Robert had fallen speedily to
the use of the old words.
“Nay, I thought of that, but I don’t hold by it. Brack thinks overmuch
of himself for such-like daft lakin’. Besides--I’d a notion he’d his
own reasons for wishing me out o’ the road.”
“Best wire your folk, asking if there’s owt wrong.”
Lup shook his head, folding the paper back into its cover.
“I reckon nowt o’ wire-talk an’ trumpet-talk an’ such-like! Seein’s
believin’, when all’s said an’ done. I’ll gang myself. There’s a train
somewheres about midnight, isn’t there?”
Robert stared.
“You’re forgetting you sail to-morrow, lad, at noon!”
Lup reached for his overcoat.
“Happen--if I’m not sailing across t’ Wythe instead!”
“Ay, but your passage booked--your gear aboard!”
“Let ’em bide!” said Lup tranquilly, and went out to the station.
* * * * *
He was in Witham before seven o’clock. It was a dreary morning, and
offered to be a wild day. Passing Hest Bank, he could both hear and
feel a big wind whistling in from the sea, and it was raining heavily.
In Witham it was raining, too, and the wind ran in fierce gusts up the
narrow streets and down the innumerable entries. Overhead was a sky
like a sodden blanket. He had his big coat, however, and after some
breakfast at the “Green Dragon,” he went into the streets as they began
to fill for market, seeking news and a friendly lift out. One after
another of his acquaintances met him, open-mouthed and incredulous, but
from none could he glean that there was anything wrong with his folk.
This man had seen them quite recently; that had had news of them but
yesterday, and so on. All was well on the marsh--Pippin Hall and the
rest. Ninekyrkes still empty, of course. “What of Ladyford?”
This brought sly jibes from the growing ring of farmers round the
late deserter. “So _yon’s_ what fetched tha back i’ sic a ter’ble
scufter like, eh, lad? Nay, now, there’s no use lookin’ as slape as an
eel tail! We ken all about it. Oh ay, Ladyford’s snug enough. Here’s
Michael to speak for hissel!”
Dumbfounded, Dockeray stared as at a ghost, but when he had gathered
his wits, had nothing different to say from the rest. He urged the
young man to make some attempt to catch his boat, but could not move
him.
“Ower late, now,” Lup said, running his eye over the wet street for
Brack in vain. He had kept his own counsel about the telegram, scarcely
knowing why. “I’ve missed it, right enough.” And as in Liverpool, so he
said in Witham: “Seein’s believin’!”
There was no sign of Brack all morning, but presently he ran into
Denny, who fell upon him in delight, and cared not a rush what reason
had brought him back as long as he _was_ back. To the dogged inquiry
he returned the common denial, but his usually open glance shifted a
little when Lup asked for Brack.
“Nay, he’s not in town this morning. Leastways, there’s nobody clapped
eyes on him yet. He’s a bit rocky in the upper storey, nowadays, is
Brack. Going clean off his nut, I reckon!”
They had dinner together at the “Dragon,” and afterwards he suggested
that Lup should drive back with him and spend the night at Lockholme.
Dockeray was for taking him to Ladyford, but Denny clung jealously
to his prize, and though Lup’s heart turned to the latter farm, his
courage shrank unmistakably. He would go with Denny. If all was right
at the Pride, there was no haste till morning.
“There’s yon do of Mr. Shaw’s, to-night, at the ‘Duke,’” Denny went on,
heartened out of his vague doubts by the “Dragon’s” ale. “What d’you
say to going down? I’ll lay Mr. Shaw’ll be glad to see you, and there’s
Brack’s invite going begging, anyhow. I hear he’s not for turning up.
You can slip over to the Pride first thing while morning. The old
folk’ll be feared to death if you come knocking at the door to-night.
If you can hang about a bit longer, I’ll be through with my job, an’
then we’ll get out.”
After some hesitation, Lup agreed. He had had no sleep, and was
bewildered almost to helplessness by the sharp turn of events and the
puzzle of the situation. He had a feeling that he ought to go with
Michael, but he did not know why. If he went now, he could get over
to the Pride before dark without running any risk of alarming the
old people, but if there was nothing wrong, what would they think of
his sudden return, cropping up in this aimless manner, having thrown
away Ninekyrkes on the one hand, and like enough his passage-money
on the other? Wolf would call him a fool. He began to feel a fool,
too--to wonder what could possibly have taken him. Drink heartens some
and depresses others. Lup wondered and worried. Francey would have
something to say as well; unsaid, even, he would see it in her eyes.
In any case she would be certain to think that he had come crawling
back to her because he could not keep away, and at that his Westmorland
pride took fire. The powerful instinct that had drawn him blindly but
surely so far, checked in the last ten miles before the possibility of
a woman’s scorn. No! He would not go with Michael.
Yet, when Dockeray drove out, he watched the retreating trap with
something like a very agony of desire to follow. He wanted to tear down
the crowded street and leap up behind; he could scarcely hold himself
back. But the Westmorland farmer does not tear, especially after dinner
on a market-day, so he stood where he was, and let the trap drop out of
sight.
Waiting for Denny, he wandered aimlessly here and there, stopping
now and then for a chat under some shelter, or to stare, with little
interest, at a shop-window. There was a hat he thought would look a
regular knock-out on Francey. It was of extensive diameter, with two
wild wings beating the air far behind. The marsh wind would have taken
it mightily to heaven, but he did not think of that. He thought,
though, of the gulls he had seen driving inland in the dawn, as the
night-train hugged the edge of the wind-swept bay.
The confectioner next door had a window of cakes with knobs running
round them like castle-ramparts--Simnel cakes they called them. Then
it must be Simnel Sunday--Mothering Sunday--to-morrow! A slip of paper
pasted on the wet pane informed him that it was. The old custom was
gone, leaving, as in the case of so many customs, merely something in
the way of eating as its memorial. He remembered hearing the parson
preach about it, last year; how the farm lads used to go home to their
mothers, taking flowers with them. Francey had been in the choir, and
they had driven home together. If he slept at Lockholme to-night, it
would be Mothering Sunday by the time he reached the Pride. Seemed
appropriate, somehow. Perhaps, after all, he had been right not to
go with Michael--so he tried to comfort the puzzle out of his heart.
In any case, he might take the old folk a remembrance of some kind,
even though it might not be over and above well received, in view of
the lost passage-money. Shag for the old dad--that would do _him_ all
right!--but his mother was a harder problem. He had often heard her
say she had all she wanted and a bit over. After a while, he sneaked
ashamedly into the florist’s and bought some violets, large, dewy and
sweet. The girl watched with amusement as he sank them gingerly into a
capacious pocket. He would put them in water at Lockholme, if he could
possibly escape Denny’s inquiring eye.
The boisterous wind that had roared through the town all morning was
still as high as ever when they drove out in the late afternoon,
calming no whit even at the dead ebb of the tide, and it was raining
with the same steady violence. Crouching low against it, Lup was glad
that he had not to meet it on the Northern marsh. He wondered if
Michael had got his horse to face the driving storm, or whether he had
had to trudge at its head--a weary-enough job even for a young man. He
had done well to stay with Denny. Yet, at the first turn leading to the
marsh, he threw off the rug and put out a foot to the step.
“I doubt I’d best be making tracks for home, Thomas! It’ll be a bit
of a drag across the moss, but better now than when tide gets turned.
We’re in for a wild night, by the look of it, an’ there’ll be no
getting to the Pride after dark. It’ll be dark soon, an’ all.”
Denny expostulated.
“Losh save us, man, you’ll never win out to the Pride to-night!
Light’ll be gone afore you’re at Ladyford, and Mrs. Dockeray’ll never
let you cross door a second time.” He had set his heart on taking Lup
down to the supper, and, in spite of the rain, was still aglow with
“Dragon” confidence. “What’s got you, Lup? You’re as queer as Dick’s
hatband! You’ve never Brack’s bee in your bonnet, surely?”
“How’s the tide?” Lup asked, unmoved.
“Sometime after midnight. Nowt to speak of. There’s nobody looking for
trouble on the marsh, barrin’ Brack, as I said. Holliday o’ Pippin has
yon prize beasts o’ hisn down on the low land, an’ there’s sheep in
plenty out an’ all. Tide’s low, I tell you, and it’s only been blowing
since morn. We’ve seen many a worse day, you an’ me. Come on with you,
lad! I tell you what it is”--he brought out the joke that had been
going round all day--“it’s yon lass o’ Dockeray’s you’re after. We all
know what skifted you to Canada, but I reckon you found you couldn’t
quit, after all!”
And again Lup put his purpose by, yielding his last chance for fear of
a woman’s eyes.
The turn was passed, and Denny’s stepper, eager for home, rocked over
the bridge and along by the towering wall of Doestone, which, with
the swaying, dripping trees facing, formed a darkening avenue in the
quickening night. Then up the hill and sharp to the right, sliding down
towards the west. Once on the low land, with nothing betwixt them and
the sea, the whole panorama of sky and sand lay blended before them in
one buffeted veil of gray, torn by the sheets of rain. Only Denny’s
voice kept the horse to the wind, and now and again they had to draw
into a curve of the hedge for breath.
“We’ll fair catch it, coming back from the ‘Duke’!” Denny observed, in
one of these pauses. “But it’ll likely blow itself out by daylight, an’
tide’s nowt, as I said.”
They called at Thweng as they passed, at Lup’s request, but Brack
was not indoors. His doddering old housekeeper, more than anxious to
be shut of them and back to the warm kitchen, told them he was out
somewhere on the land. Had he left a message for one Lup Whinnerah?
Nay, what he’d left a parshel o’ messages for more than one body, and
the visitor could take his choice! Ya body was to gang, an’ another
body was to bide, an’ there was summat about a motor-car an’ summat
else about wool, wi’ a bit o’ the Bible thrown in like, for luck. T’
master’d talk t’ hind leg off a dog, any day, an’ if they could mak’
owt of any on it, they were welcome.
The draught round the door was growing unbearable, so she promptly
banged it, and they withdrew, pondering. Brack and his housekeeper
seemed much of a piece, and neither of them more than elevenpence in
the shilling. The conviction grew upon Lup that the telegram, if not a
joke, had at least been the outcome of a mad obsession, and saw himself
the laughing-stock of the district. Whether he told or not, the outward
circumstances would never be forgotten--how Lup Whinnerah turned
tail on Canada at the last minute, and ran home as hard as he could
lick. Well, Ladyford at least should have the laugh last. To-night,
Denny must see him through. He stumbled thankfully into the warmth of
Lockholme, and fell asleep before the fire. Denny, trying to rouse him
later, heard him muttering as he slept. “Wait of me!” he was saying.
“Mother! Wait!”
* * * * *
After infinite trouble, Hamer got Lanty on the telephone towards one
o’clock on that Saturday afternoon. The agent was deep in deeds in some
Witham lawyer’s office, and excessively annoyed at being snatched from
them. Hamer, at the other end, sounded anxious, and started badly.
Did Lancaster know it was raining?
Lancaster was safely under cover and furiously occupied, and did not
care a toss what it was doing outside. Why should Mr. Shaw care--if he
did care?
It seemed he did. He recounted Brack’s conversation of the day
before--at least, as much of it as Lanty would deign to receive--and
found himself cut off before the end of it. After five minutes’ patient
waiting, the agent’s voice came back to him, slightly breathless.
“I say, I beg your pardon! Saw a chap out of the window that I mightn’t
catch again for a month of Sundays, so I just sprinted. I’m always
pressed on Saturday, so you must overlook it. By the way, it’s raining
more than a bit, as you say, and I’d no umbrella. But I give you my
word it’s not the Day of Judgment or anything of that sort! You don’t
know our weather, yet; we’ve had such a fine year. As for Brack, didn’t
he strike you as being a little off his chump? I’m rather anxious
about him.... Why, no! Hotpot it for all you’re worth! They’ll turn
up, you’ll see. There’s nobody minding rain in this district except
Brack. Right! Thanks very much. I’ll come over by the Lane. How is
Wigmore, this morning? ... That’s good. By the way, Harriet turned in
to the Board to-day for the first time. Great doings, I hear! Put the
Chairman right on a matter of some cubic feet, and trotted out a point
of law that cleared up that supply difficulty like magic, and left them
all gaping. All the old hands are saying it’s like old times and John
Knewstubb over again. Harriet will shake them up before she’s through!”
Hamer, still worried, observed that there was a wind, and Lancaster
groaned.
“My dear sir, it can’t always be summer! We’d do badly if we didn’t
get a wind now and then. It’s to be expected, you know. Time o’ year.
March.”
_March!_ The fatefully-returning word smote on his ear like a blast. He
hung up the receiver and stood, thinking.
CHAPTER XXIII
COME--THE GREEN GATES OF VISION:--V. THE OUTER DARK
It was dark when Brack got in, pitch-dark and blowing the very roof
off the world. He found his housekeeper slumbering peacefully in the
kitchen, with a bottle of gin peeping coyly from under the table. He
shook her into some measure of wakefulness, but coherence was beyond
her. Ay, Lup Whinnerah had called, sure enough, and kept her yammering
in a draught fit to blow the flesh off her old bones. “Message?
What-like message? Nay, now, master, ye said nowt o’ t’ sort! T’ lad
didn’t bide long or say much neyther, barrin’ he’d happen look in
later. Ay, he’d a manbody o’ sorts wi’ him, but I don’t mind who. It
was ower black.”
She had let out a screech at first sight of the dripping figure with
haggard cheeks and staring eyes, and even after he had thrown off his
coat and emerged as the elegant, somewhat ineffectual master she knew,
her fear of him scarcely lessened. He told her to make him some tea,
shooting out sharp questions as she dragged to and fro, and swearing
helplessly at the maddening vagueness of her replies. When the tea
came, he drank it black and strong, and ate nothing, sitting at the
table with his wet hands locked, the flying firelight on his white,
strained face and drooped shoulders. At every fresh blow of the gale
he started, and more than once he went to the door to peer into the
dark, looking for Lup’s form on the step, and returning breathless
from the fight with the entering storm. As the hours wore on, he could
not sit still even for a few minutes together, but was forced to pace
the flags, straining and listening, his restless eyes on the banging
windows and the shaking rugs, coughing as the wind in the chimney drove
great clouds of smoke into the room. The housekeeper had fallen asleep
again, taking no heed of his mutterings as he passed continually behind
her.
The stock was safe, anyhow, up in those far pens. Were they doing
anything at Pippin?--Pippin, on the very edge of the sand, hobnobbing
with every tide that ran in? Probably they were all gallivanting off to
the “Duke,” eating and drinking with that Lancaster-worshipping fool
from Watters. Was Lup there, too, blind and deaf to the call of the
storm? and, if not, where was he? That was the torturing, unanswerable
problem. He’d never have come to Thweng, though, if he hadn’t thought
something was up--why, he would never have left Liverpool at all! What
had that old hag _really_ told him? She might easily have given him the
message, after all, and forgotten all about it. If he had gone straight
to the Pride, Brack would certainly never set eyes on him to-night. If,
on the other hand, it was true that he meant to call again, he might be
here, any minute. Should he wait, or should he go himself? God! What
was that? A fresh, tearing roar from the gale drove him to a scream
that brought the old woman leaping out of her happy, drunken sleep. He
was struggling back into his coat, trying to control himself. It had
only been the wind, after all.
“I’m off out again!” he threw at her, tying a scarf over his mouth to
keep the force of the air from choking him. “Come and bar the door
after me, and if you don’t stop awake with your eye on that fire,
you’ll sure be cinders in hell by to-morrow morning! Do you take me?
And if Lup’s round again, tell him I’ve gone to the Pride!”
It took all their united strength to force the door back when once it
was open, and after the bolts were shot, the old creature sank on the
floor, shaking with long, sobbing breaths. She could not hear what
direction the master took, nor catch the note of the car as it turned
out presently through the yard. She could only hear the song of the
wind as it swept up from under the door in a maniac scream, playing
over her crouching form like the gust of a thresher’s flail.
* * * * *
Within the cheer of Ladyford, the storm seemed of less account, and
there was no tide yet, washing at its foot, to add the sinister dread
of live water close at hand in the dark and a flying gale. They had
known many a night as wild, though none worked to such a pitch in
so short a time; yet the women looked anxiously at the clock, and
wished Michael safe back from the “Duke.” He had turned out again
reluctantly--nothing but an urgent business-matter to be put to
Lancaster would have dragged him to Sandwath--and would have a bad
time, coming back. It was nearly midnight, now. He should be home
before long behind a horse who knew his road like a homing pigeon; yet
in the warmth and jollity of the “Duke” the wildness without might pass
unfelt. Mrs. Dockeray fidgeted, sighed, set the kettle boiling, stole a
look at her daughter and sighed again.
Michael had told them of Lup’s return, and, between the three of them,
thrash it out as they might, they could make nothing of it. He seemed
anxious about his folks, but that hadn’t prevented him stopping the
night at Lockholme instead of coming on to the far marsh. He’d no call
to be anxious, either, unless some busybody had been writing him lies.
Happen he’d taken boggle at the big ship and the far-off country, but
that wasn’t like Lup, who had always found the hardest thing in life to
be turning back or changing his mind. Happen he was home-sick, or just
taking steck and no more; happen, and happen to it. The riddle would
not read, any way round.
Left alone, for young Rowly was in bed with a foot sprained on the
shore the night before, the two women dropped the subject like a split
egg, and wondered in silence, the mother glad and relieved, the girl
resentful, though longing. She knew now how the dead ache of parting
had weighed her down, but she had no welcome for the knowledge. She did
not want him back, to begin the struggle again, yet hungered for the
sight of his face. Thinking he could not leave her, she despised his
weakness, yet fretted because, having returned, he had nevertheless
stayed at the last mile.
He would not come in as he had come with Michael so often, wet but
cheery out of the night, filling the house with a sense of safety, and
stealing the fear from the storm. Yet it might have been, if she had
not willed it otherwise. She might have sat in another house, too,
listening and longing for her man, and have had Lup come back to her
and her alone. But that also she had rejected. She had put the dream
from her for always, but to-night it came every hour, passionately and
insistently real, though never in all her life was it to come true on
the Northern marsh.
Going to the window, as the two of them had gone by turn for the last
hour, she saw blinding lights climb up the dark to the porch. They
were too strong and too low-set for the lights of the trap, as she
thought after the first instant, and even as she called to her mother,
Brack burst in at the door. He looked distraught enough in truth as he
stood with his shoulder to the panel, the rain shining on his tossed,
uncovered hair, his brilliant, frantic eyes scouring the kitchen as he
asked for Lup.
Mrs. Dockeray exchanged a puzzled glance with her daughter.
“Lup? Ay, Michael said he was back, setting all Witham gaping, but he’s
never got the length of Ladyford. He’s to bide with Denny, isn’t he,
after the supper at the ‘Duke’? We’re not looking for him to-night.
Whatever’s set you seeking him here?”
“I thought he’d sure come right out.” Brack turned as if to go. “No,
I’ve never put eyes on him myself. I just reckoned I’d look in on the
chance.”
“Have you heard what’s brought him?” she asked curiously, and he shook
his head impatiently. There was scant time for talk, and less use. She
pressed him to a warm drink before leaving, but he refused; then turned
again, blurting out quick speech.
“Guess I’ll trot on to the Pride! It’ll be bad going, but I reckon
I can get the car most there, even to-night. She’ll come back smart
enough, anyway! I promised Lup I’d keep an eye on his folks, and I’ve
heard say the old woman used to funk the tide something cruel. Guess
she’ll be scared out of her skin, to-night! If I can get them to move,
will you take them in?”
She stared again. This was not like Brack--this unnecessary
consideration and struggle for others. She was amazed, too, at his
agitation, the terror-stricken eyes that would not meet her own, and
the ghostly echo of lightness over hollow fear.
“Why, Whinnerahs need never go wanting as long as there’s Dockera’s,
that’s certain! But they’ll be to bed a while since, lad. You’ll never
stir them. They’ll not feel the wind over yon like us here. The Lugg’ll
break it a good bit. You’re never really feared o’ the Lugg, as they
make out? What, it stood yon storm as tore up the front at Bytham, an’
t’other as broke Cunswick Pier, ay, an’ many more! It’ll stand to-night
an’ all.
“You’ll never get Martha off the spot!” she added, laughing.
“I must! I must!” Brack beat his clenched hand on the door. “Guess you
might come along and help.”
“What? Me?” She laughed again, but with less heartiness. Brack was so
strange, so daft. “Nay, I’d have all the breath out of me afore we’d
reached the first gate! Stop here, lad, and make yourself easy.”
Francey stepped forward suddenly. Mad or no, Brack had made her afraid.
“I’ll go!” she said. “We’d be happier with them here at Ladyford.
Anyhow, we can see if they’re all right and not anxious.”
Brack gave her no time to retract, but thrust her roughly into a wrap
close at hand, paying no whit of attention to motherly protests, and
had her out in the yard before she had drawn the streaming ends of
her scarf around her head. Scrambling over her to his seat, he bade
her crouch on the floor for protection, for the rain made the screen
worse than useless, and, moreover, he was afraid for it against the
gale. In the whirling dark he dared not reverse out, so set the car
head on to the gateway, trusting to luck to turn her in the open road.
With the wind behind her, she took the slight gradient free like a
greyhound, and he threw in the clutch at the bottom just in time to
save her mounting the sea-wall. Then, with infinite trouble and labour
on the narrow track, he wrenched her head round into the storm, the
gale fighting him all the time. Brack had done many a pretty piece of
driving for the impressing of his friends, but to-night both vanity and
pose were as far from him as the black gulf of heaven above. Straining
and gasping, he pulled round on his road with a sob of relief, not even
conscious of the crouching girl at his feet.
Then began the struggle out to the Pride, the engine biting its way
yard by yard through the opposing force, often almost stopping, as
an extra weight of air drove upon it, but always gallantly picking
up again. Brack had learned to see through slashing rain, like most
drivers, but this torrent of wind and water made as though it would
hurl him off the face of the earth. With numb hands he kept the car on
the road by some sense that seemed outside himself altogether.
Francey, with her head buried on her knees, feeling the striving engine
growing hot and hotter beneath her, and Brack’s feet moving beside
her, wondered what tremendous motive could have brought them both to
this shared nightmare. She remembered the former occasion when he had
asked her to drive with him, and she had refused, little dreaming of
this that lay before. In the comparative tranquillity of Ladyford it
had seemed easy to talk of going over to the Pride. On a reasonable day
it was no more than fifteen minutes’ walk. To-night, behind a powerful
engine, it seemed as far away as Whitehaven.
She had little hope of persuading the Whinnerahs, and, indeed, dreaded
for them the shock of this sudden midnight descent, but at least they
would know that they were not unthought of at their lonely post. Did
Brack really think that the Lugg might go to-night? She remembered
all the tests it had passed, triumphantly as Wythebarrow itself. She
thought of the gale that had overthrown the Whitehaven express in the
dead of a black night on the viaduct crossing the sands. The fury
and passion of that tempest had left the Lugg untouched, as had many
another. Why should Brack fume and fret and struggle to reach the
lonely house on the farthest marsh? And--still more--why should she
have joined forces with him? Her heart gave her the answer. She went to
carry the news of Lup’s return. Whatever they might say, however puzzle
and condemn, how glad they would be over the main fact, the three of
them together, father, mother and lover!
The road ceased suddenly, and they were on the grass-grown trail
leading to the Pride, the wheels squelching and sticking on the sodden
land; and at once, by the lessened force of the wind, they knew
the Lugg to be risen at their left hand. They were still swept and
buffeted, but not with the pitiless malignacy of the open, and the run
along the difficult waste was accomplished in less time than that on
the metal. So thick was the darkness, however, that they did not raise
the Pride until practically at its door, and saw a warm-eyed window
peer unblinking into the immeasurable solitude. Through the unshuttered
pane they could see Wolf and his wife at either side of the hearth,
staring into the red cavern of magic and memory that was built between
them. The light of it fondled the old faces and shot along the walls,
turning steel to silver and copper to gold, drawing the deep blues
out of the china, and chasing itself in molten streams along oak and
stone. Only the fire and the dogs stirred in that absolute, happy peace
of reaching back. The latter were plainly uneasy, lifting themselves
out of sleep with pricked ears; and at intervals the older dog laid a
wistful muzzle on his master’s knee and cried softly. Then Wolf would
set a hand on its head without look or word, and it would sink back to
the hearth, yet keeping its questioning eyes on his dreaming face. It
was a curious picture to be seen in the heart of a waste that should by
rights have been covered with rolling billows, and to the watchers it
had the effect of a tiny gem on the mourning folds of a widow’s robe,
of a lost star in an illimitably shrouded heaven.
Brack’s knock broke the peace like a hammer, and through the wind
they heard the dogs bark, springing, bristling, on guard. Wolf came
presently to the door.
He let them in at once when he knew them, for talk without was
impossible, but they found more bewilderment than welcome waiting them.
What, for the land’s sake, had brought them out on such a night at such
an hour, scaring folks out of their senses? Brack, exhausted with his
fight, was almost speechless, but Francey broke into the kitchen with
her woman’s wit alive and ready.
They’d been worrying about them at Ladyford, she explained quickly.
They felt lonely, somehow, with Ninekyrkes at hand empty, and their old
friends such a way off. It was the first wild night for many and many
a winter that they had spent so far apart. Brack had been calling with
his car, so she’d taken it into her head to come along with him to have
a look at them. Father was down at Sandwath, at Mr. Shaw’s supper, or
he’d have been over himself. And there was news, too, clamouring to be
out.
Kneeling between the dogs and spreading her cold fingers to the flame,
she told them of Lup’s return, startling the whole neighbourhood by its
apparent lack of reason. Brack fidgeted in the background, chafing to
get at their chief cause for coming, but she checked him with a look.
There was only one way of working to that.
Wolf dropped back into his chair, clinging to his stick,
interrogation, wrath and wonder stamped out in turn by unwilling and
sharply-suffocated joy, but the old woman said nothing, smiling and
staring on into the fire. She did not even look surprised, Francey
thought. Had _she_ summoned him back at the last moment? How strange
and reasonless it all was! And what would be the end?
Catching Brack’s agonised glance of entreaty, she went on hurriedly,
laying her hand on the mother’s knee.
Lup was at the hotpot with Denny, but there was more than a chance
Michael would bring him back to Ladyford. He’d never get out to the
Pride to-night on foot, and he’d be wearying to see them. Wouldn’t they
venture the short run in Brack’s car, in the hope that he might turn
up? Her mother was looking for them, and with the wind at their back
they’d not be more than five minutes on the way. Like as not, they
would find Lup waiting on the doorstep. They must wrap up warm, and
with the dickey seat they could manage, somehow. She could sit on the
step.
She got no further than that, for Wolf growled her into silence with
the utmost fierce contempt, having battered down his first delight. He
was like to gang scuttering off to meet yon wastrel as had ought to
be well loosed out o’ dock by now--ay, wasn’t he! He’d see him strung
afore he stirred a foot on such a night to reach Ladyford or any spot
in the kingdom! The news could well have kept while morning. They might
have spared themselves their trouble, and the sooner they were away and
back at home the better for all concerned. Mrs. Whinnerah stared and
smiled.
Brack broke in, then, bursting into a torrent of entreaty and command.
“I’ll not leave you! I’ll not stir without you! You’re sitting here
snug and asleep, putting your trust in your one-eyed Lancasters, and
you’ll drown in your trust like rats in a trapped hole! But it’s up to
me to see you don’t. I’ll hike you out, with or without your will. I’ll
get a move on you in spite of you!”
He seized the old man by the shoulder, but Wolf shook him off, striking
at him furiously with his heavy stick. Then he turned to the woman,
stammering, hysterical, almost weeping, his voice rising in desperate
appeal.
“_You_ know what’s coming! I guess I needn’t tell _you_! You know what
the tide’s bringing, ’way out on the dark sand! _You_ hear it, same as
I do, what it’s seeking, what it sure means to have. It’s all in for
the Lugg to-night, and yet you’ll set your life and his to foot the
account, just to make good on a Lancaster’s word, a Lancaster’s honour
going plum to hell for ever and ever and ever----”
He stuttered into silence before the smiling dreadfulness of her eyes
on his working face, and, when he stopped, she turned them again with
complete and horrible definiteness to the fire. Wolf staggered to his
feet, the dogs close at his knee, half-crouched to spring. Across
Brack’s hand where he had struck him the blood showed in a vivid streak.
“You’ll say nowt agen the Lancasters under _this_ roof, Bracken
Holliday! We all ken the trouble you’ve made on the marsh, and the
tales you’ve set agog about the Lugg and the old master; an’ I tell you
now, if it’s with the last breath God Almighty puts into my mouth, that
they’re every one on ’em lies! The Lugg’ll last many a long year after
us as saw it built, an’ many a year after such as you an’ all; just as
the Lancasters’ honour will stand, an’ their word an’ their righteous
judgment, long after the likes o’ you is mouldered away an’ forgot.”
He tottered across to his wife and held out his hand for hers.
“Wilta bide wimma, Martha?” he asked in a dropped voice, and she looked
up at him, resting her gray head against his sleeve.
“Ay, lad, I will that!” she answered, in the same tone of rarest
intimacy, and he remembered in a lightning-flash how she had spoken
those very words, in just that way, to his rough courting of long ago.
Cursing and sobbing, Brack tore out into the night, calling to Francey
to follow, and after a last look of pity and pain she obeyed, the tears
rolling down her cheeks. In that moment all her theories and doubts and
surface convictions went by the board. Before her eyes she saw made
manifest the one thing that holds human life safe and unafraid against
all the unknown terrors of the dark, and knew that to end it thus with
Lup, her hand in his, her cheek against his arm, was to have for ever
all of the very best that God could offer.
The car went back as rooks go home on a slanting gale. More than once
Brack felt her slide up and off the bank, on the other side of which
lay the waiting sands. And, as they fled, with the tempest-roar in
their ears, above it and behind them they heard the voice of the coming
tide.
* * * * *
Over the telephone, Hamer had offered to motor Lancaster to the “Duke,”
and the latter had accepted, adding that he would walk to Watters by
the short cut. Driving home from Witham, his mind had been so deep
in ruts of law that he scarcely noticed the increasing violence of
the sinking day, but when he left the house again about seven o’clock
he was appalled by its gathered strength. He wished now that he had
asked Hamer to send the car round, but the Lane would soon take him,
and he would be sheltered under the tall hedges. Knowing the road so
well, he carried no light, and consequently stumbled into Dandy in the
pelting dark, feeling her way home in a state of abject misery. To his
astonished questioning she made answer in a voice very close on tears,
and she was more than a little cross. She had had a trying experience,
and even her beautiful temper had snapped under the strain.
“I’ve been losing myself!” she explained, conscious of sopping boots,
clinging skirts, rat-tail hair and tingling fingers, from which she had
long since cast away ruined gloves. He could not see her here, but he
would certainly see her in the hall at Watters, and though, out of all
heaven and earth and any other stray universe, he was the one and only
person she wanted, she naturally used him as the whipping-boy of her
pent-up wrath and distress.
“I’ve come from Wild Duck. Harriet had gone to Witham--perhaps you
saw her--so I went over to have lunch with Wiggie, and as I knew the
car would be out again to-night, I said I’d walk back. It’s not so
far, and I meant to be home long before dark. However, Harriet was
late in coming in, and I didn’t like to leave Cyril alone with Stubbs
(the nurse was resting, and Stubbs talks him to death), so tea was
over before I got away. It was still light, then, but very wet and
blowing hard, so Harriet told Stubbs to see me home, and we started
off, but we hadn’t got far before he announced that he wanted to call
at Rakestraw. He’d got it into his head that it would do Wiggie good
to go out in a bath-chair, with himself to push, and he knew they had
a bath-chair at Rakestraw, which he meant to borrow. I asked him if he
couldn’t go some other time, but he said no. No time like the present
was his motto. It had been his father’s motto. In fact, it was in the
family. Always in the family. I said that Wiggie might not care about
a bath-chair, but that, if he did, Father would hire him the latest
pattern from Manchester, but he wouldn’t hear of that; and when finally
I suggested that he should go chair-hunting by himself and let me go
home, he wouldn’t hear of that, either. He said that, coming from a
town, I must naturally know all about bath-chair charges, and he
would want me to tell him what to pay if he couldn’t get it borrowed.
If I wouldn’t help, he’d have to call for advice at the ‘White Lion,’
so for Harriet’s sake I went. The Rakestraw people dug the chair out
of the barn, and said they’d be delighted to lend it, and Stubbs was
so overjoyed that he started practising on it at once, with Newby’s
daughter as passenger. He’d evidently forgotten all about me, so when
I was thoroughly tired and chilled to the bone I slipped out, hoping
he’d go on practising until I was safely away. Unfortunately, I took
the wrong turning and had to ask the road, as I didn’t dare to go back.
A boy told me to keep on up the ginnel, and I’d strike a gate opening
on to the main road, so I rushed on without taking much notice where I
was going, until I’d lost the farm and everything else as well. It was
getting dark, by then, and every bush looked exactly like every other
bush, and I suppose I went on walking round them, as I never found the
gate at all. I ginnelled and ginnelled and ginnelled _and_ ginnelled,
but nothing ever ended anywhere. I found all sorts of glades and walls
and little woods and streams I’d never seen or dreamed of before, and
that I’m perfectly sure are not there at all in the daytime, but there
was no way out. I felt just as if I were bewitched, and all the bushes
seemed like little stunted men jeering and leering; and when it got
quite dark I was properly lost altogether. I was just getting ready
to die and deciding what I meant to say about Stubbs at the Judgment,
when young Newby ginnelled up and found me. He’d thought he’d seen me
wandering about earlier, and was anxious in case I was really lost, so
hunted me up. He wanted to bring me home, but I knew he’d to get down
to the ‘Duke’ by eight o’clock, so I wouldn’t let him. He’d only just
gone when you caught me up. They’ll be out of their minds about me at
Watters, and I shall probably die there if not in the ginnel; but even
if I don’t, I mean to file that Judgment Bill against Stubbs!”
It was certainly quieter in the Lane, so that Lanty was able to catch
most of her troubled story, and though he sympathised warmly, and
reviled Stubbs heartily, he could not help laughing, too, and when he
laughed she felt hurt, and wetter than ever.
“I’m frightened of your horrid country!” she said miserably. “I’m sure
there was something queer about it to-night, anyhow. I felt as if it
were playing cat and mouse with me, and watching me run round and round
and yet never out of reach. _Don’t_ laugh! It laughed at me, too--I
could hear it--and the wind set all the bushes catching and clawing at
me as I passed. Young Newby says it’s going to be the worst storm for
years, and that he’s very glad he’s farming inland--not on the bay. He
says that, after midnight, if it keeps on, the marsh will be holding to
its hair!”
A chill not of the striving elements came over Lancaster. For the first
time he thought of Brack since Hamer’s call on the wire. Where was he
to-night? He had prophesied this storm, and prayed over it. Was his
madness really about to be justified? He would know by the time he
got down to the “Duke.” If Brack was there he needn’t worry, though
of course he wasn’t doing anything so absurd. But if he wasn’t there?
Bluecaster too; not a sign of him all day. Well, to-morrow he would
laugh at all this! In the meantime, he heard Dandy speaking again. He
had made no answer to her last words, but had merely gone on splashing
beside her without offering to help her, probably with his head full of
some stupid farm-person she had never heard of. She thought him more
unkind with every minute that passed.
“It will be dreadful at Watters to-night, if the wind keeps up!” she
went on presently. “I shall lie awake all the time, and shiver and
shake. Watters just purrs in a wind! You’d think it liked to feel its
joints cracking and its slates flying and the big trees threatening
it on all sides. _It_ isn’t frightened an atom, but _I_ am. I never
remember being frightened at Halsted. I wish we were back there. I
used to think I was getting to love the country, but now I’m almost
sure I hate it!”
In her vehemence she stumbled into the side, and when he had picked her
out again they could see, grown accustomed to the dark, the straining
blackness of a giant tree beyond the still, black break in the hedge.
They could hear it groaning, too, above the storm, and, in the sense
of fearful battle and pain, felt it as the impotent writhing of a soul
in hell. In this his Lane, where the magic set his fancy at full play,
Lancaster wondered what the soul really felt, the impotent, lost soul?
As Dandy had said, there were strange things abroad to-night.
“I doubt the old shippon at Pippin will never stand,” he said absently,
thinking all the time of the soul, and scarcely for an instant of the
shippon, and started when she uttered a sharp little sound of misery
and contempt.
“I’m sorry, but may we go on? No doubt it is very important, but I’m
afraid I’m too wet and tired to care!”
He begged her pardon instantly, and then, because behind the shippon
had been all his anxious thought for the men of the marsh, “You don’t
understand,” he added quickly. They were the opening words of much that
he wanted to tell her, seeking comfort from her and strength; but she
could not know that, and she did not wait to learn.
“No, I do not understand!” she said passionately.
“I am an outsider, and you always take care to make me feel it. Very
well. I will remain outside. And I do not wish to understand.”
They trudged on in silence, and after she had again walked into the
hedge he offered her his arm in a detached voice that might have come
from the nearest stump. She took it without answer. On her wet cheek
the wind could tell no difference between salt tears and the rain.
* * * * *
In spite of the weather and the busy season, the men turned up fairly
well at the “Duke,” making light of their wet drive. Some of the elders
were absent--Holliday of Pippin, for one; but his sons were there,
and Dockeray’s arrival from the far marsh was greeted with applause.
He drew Lancaster into conversation at once, and, almost immediately
after, attention sprang to Denny, leading in Lup with the swagger and
importance of a hen with a single chick. The latter met the general
curiosity with the defensive imperturbability he had shown all day;
only, when Lanty came to him wondering, he asked for Brack. He saw the
agent start, and the eyes of the two men met in a dumb perplexity,
almost as those of trapped creatures walked stubbornly to the same
snare. But neither Lancaster nor anybody else knew anything of Brack,
save his late church-going mania, though they had plenty to say about
_that_. As they sat down at the long table, his name was shuttle-cocked
from mouth to jesting mouth.
It was just about the time that Brack burst in at Ladyford that
Bluecaster came into the “Duke” and opened the supper-room door. The
warm air was full of light and comfort, smoke, fellowship and song. The
“Duke” stood well protected by the surrounding buildings, so that the
storm was not only shut out, but forgotten. His lordship came to the
head of the table and shook hands with Hamer. At the far end, Lancaster
stood up.
Bluecaster looked round the assembly with his shy, appeasing smile. His
face was rather pale, but his voice was even quieter than usual.
“Are there many sheep out on the mosses, to-night?”
After the first stare of wonder, anxiety rolled like a wave from
one face to another, each looking into each and back again to his
lordship, and then the answers broke round the table: “Twenty in
t’ lower meader--fourteen on t’ middle moss--nay, I’ve all mine
penned--seventeen--ten--why, what’s the stir? Storm’s nowt, is it?”
Holliday’s lads got up and looked at the door, remembering the
precious stock on the lowest land of all. Other men followed their
example. Only Lup sat on, with his eyes fixed on Lanty.
“The tide is for one o’clock,” said Bluecaster. “The wind may bring it
earlier. It will be a big tide.”
He said no more, but the room emptied as if by magic, the men jerking
their good-nights over their shoulders as they went on.
“You will forgive me?” the intruder said to the host. Outside, he
motioned Lancaster into his car.
“Pippin!” he ordered, “and----if we can get there,” he added, under his
breath. The agent looked at him.
“Is it coming?” he asked.
“It is here,” said Bluecaster.
* * * * *
As Brack caught the dread sound that had risen so often through his
tortured dreams, he uttered a cry of such agony that Francey shrank
beside him. Thrusting her out at the gate of Ladyford, he leaped after
her to the ground and stood straining into the dark over the sea. Then
suddenly he began to run in the direction from which they had come,
gasping and beating against the air in a fresh effort to get back to
the Pride. But before he had gone a hundred yards, he saw ahead of him,
towering over the Let, a white mountain of water as if the whole of the
tidal wave had swerved and mounted its barrier. On a screamed prayer
he turned and raced for his life with the monster behind him, and, as
he reached the gate, a galloping horse and rocking trap burst past him
into the yard, a flood also at its heels. The water poured after them
up the slope, and above the shriek of the wind they heard the roar of
the full tide as it swung on and past to the top of the bay.
In the kitchen, the frightened women and the roused hands were busy
moving food and valuables as the sea came in at the door, until
presently it was standing two feet deep on the flags. Michael and Lup
(for they had driven together) came in at the back after they had
stabled the horse, and a short consultation was held in the larder,
raised by stone steps above the level of the kitchen. Brack had sunk
into a kind of stupor in a corner.
“The banks are giving on all sides!” Michael said, as the household
crowded round him. “We were near caught time an’ again as we came
along. The water kept bursting through behind us before we were barely
clear. The marsh-road’s gone--ay, an’ the main road an’ all, I doubt!
There’s a gap like the mouth o’ hell just below there where we galloped
in. The Let’s going all round the marsh, but the Lugg’s not gone yet!”
He looked at Lup, rigid and silent, and went on slowly. “I feel somehow
we’d know right off if the Lugg went.”
Young Whinnerah nodded. He had not looked at Francey since he came in,
nor attempted to question Brack. The time for wonder was past.
“I must get out, some way,” he said. “I must learn if they are safe.
Happen it’d be possible back o’ t’ house, over the land. Which of you’s
game to come along?”
They were all game--no question about that--and the women made no
protest. Storm and tide were no new things to the folk of the marsh,
and in this case friends of tried worth were in peril out in the
night. Brack dragged himself up, and joined the rest as they furnished
themselves with sticks and splashed across the yard to the drier land.
He had done his share already, but that did not keep him. His car was
sunk in a swirling torrent, but he never thought of it. Through the web
of conceit which had sealed his heart to his kin, there had sounded at
last the call of the clan.
They formed a human chain and groped, with the big sticks scouting
before them, in imminent danger all the time, and more than once
utterly bewildered and all but lost. Wading often to their waists,
trapped by deep holes, by wire fencing wrenched into sunk snares for
their stumbling feet, blinded, dripping, breathless and stunned,
buffeted by the wild gusts and clouds of spray beating in through
the mighty breaks in the bank, they yet held on until there seemed to
stretch before them a limitless expanse, and knew that the floodgates
at Ninekyrkes must have smashed. For long enough they tried to get
round, but in vain, and at last, in the same perilous fashion, they
struggled back to the house. All over the marsh men were doing the
same, risking their lives for news of each other’s safety, or in
attempts to rescue stock, counting it all as just so much in a bad
day’s work.
In the big bedroom upstairs, the women had lighted a fire and set
food, and called the weary band to it. Michael, the old man, heartened
himself to hearten the rest.
“The Lugg’s standing,” he said more than once. “I tell you we’d know
right off if the Lugg went! It’ll hold its own as it’s always done.
It’ll win through this lot an’ all.”
And Brack held his peace.
* * * * *
“For Loyalty is still the same
Whether it win or lose the game,
True as the dial to the sun
Although it be not shined upon.”
At the Pride the fire sank a little, and the dogs grew more restless
with every five minutes that passed. The clock on the stairs struck
half-past one, and Wolf stood up stiffly.
“Time we were abed,” he said.
She looked up at him for a minute without moving. She would have
preferred to stay where she was, gleaning a little false assurance of
security from the red coals, but, after all, what difference could
it make? She raked out the fire after her usual custom, and Wolf
turned the lamp to a dying flicker and lighted the bedroom candle.
The whittering flame caught their son’s eyes looking down under drawn
brows from the mantel, and they stared at him together in silence.
At that very moment Lup was fighting to get to them in vain, and all
the way his heart was saying the same words: “Wait of me, Mother!
Wait--_wait_!”
There was no change in the wildness of the night; only, upstairs, it
seemed more apparent. The frightened dogs scratched and howled at the
bedroom door until it opened, when they fled under the bed and lay
shivering and whining in mortal fear. The old clock beat steadily on
the stairs. A shrieking gust tore at the window as the old couple knelt
at the bedside for their evening prayer, but they were not afraid. In
the little kitchen, Love had wrapped them round with a golden moment
from the past, but here a higher angel spread protecting wings.
The roar of the night increased suddenly in volume, and after it there
came the special voice that had called the whole trembling marsh to
listen--the voice of the sea. And, as if listening also, in the middle
of its steady swing, without whirr or warning, like the last, soft,
never-repeated breath of the gently-dead, the clock stopped.
* * * * *
His lordship’s car never got to Pippin.
About one o’clock, old Willie woke as if a finger had touched him, and
struck a light. He had barely flung on his clothes before the tide had
leaped the bank and swung round the farm like the turning flow riding
a stranded yacht. By the time he had roused his wife and daughter,
the water was in the house, half-a-dozen feet on the ground floor and
climbing the stairs. The elder woman crouched on the bed and wept for
her best parlour furniture, bumping below like rocked boats anchored
aside; but Holliday thought of his prize beasts drowning in their pens,
of his ewes choking in the fields, and--lastly--of his lads racing
home against the sea. Would they trick the tide? And more--if saved
themselves--would there be any home at all for them by morning?
He guessed what had happened. The river Wythe, semi-ringing the farm,
had been in flood all day, and, meeting the driven tide, had flung
terrific pressure on the whole of the marsh banks. Here and there they
had quickly burst, letting the tide through, and Pippin had been taken
in its first stride. From the top of the stairs he watched the water,
wondering how long it would continue to rise, and listening to his
wife’s lamentations over the parlour carpet. He let her alone, though
he knew all the provisions in the house were gone, and that they were
cut off from help on all hands. What he did not know was that in the
bank outside was a gap a quarter of a mile wide, but if he had known he
could have done nothing. He could only watch the water creeping up.
His daughter came out to join him, and leaned a second light over
the sliding, heaving enemy below. When it had passed by six inches
the Great Tide-Mark on the stairs, recording the big storm of his
childhood, he remembered suddenly how he had denied his nephew in the
flooded room below. Brack had said this would come, and they had none
of them believed or cared.
Now the water was three stairs from the top. Stooping, he could touch
it. Each stair was a foot wide, and the black water over the black
oak seemed to hold the depth of the bottomless pit. When it reached
the third step it stayed as if uncertain, listening, waiting for
some ghostly order from without. The light gleamed along the yard of
shining baluster rising from the well, lending a silvery whiteness
to Holliday’s bent head, and the shimmer of gold to his daughter’s
drooping plaits. With strained, almost inhuman faces they leaned above
their doom, waiting, as the water waited, for a fate that hung in the
balance. And at last, after incredible years, something happened.
Holliday let out a hoarse cry that rang through the house, and father
and child, staring into each other’s eyes, read the same flashed
message of sickening horror and passionate relief. The tide had dropped
a foot in sixty seconds.
They fell on their knees, shuddering, and Holliday spoke.
“T’ Lugg’s brast!” he said. “Whinnerahs is done. T’ Lugg’s brast!”
CHAPTER XXIV
MOTHERING SUNDAY
Dawn saw a boat-load of haggard faces under the walls of the Pride.
There was water as far as eye could see, and the grim light filtered
through six great gaps in the bank. The Let had given in all
directions, and from Watch How the whole Wythe valley showed like one
vast lagoon.
Lup stood up in the stern to hail, and found his voice a dead thing in
his throat. All night long it had been calling, but it was dumb, now.
In his pocket his icy fingers crushed the forgotten violets meant for
his mother.
Lancaster, at an oar, looked up at his terrible face, and shivered.
Somebody called, and they rowed closer. Across the sill of an upper
room the wind had blown the silvery strand of a woman’s hair. They
hailed once more, and drew towards it; but when they saw the watermark,
they were silent.
So, on Mothering Sunday, Lup Whinnerah came home again.
CHAPTER XXV
ONE MAN’S WORK
It was a strange and fearful world that lifted its mangled face to the
growing day. The wind was still blowing, but with less violence, and
the rain drifted in a kind of desultory fretfulness between the weary
grays of earth and sky. From all the districts round folk had come to
see what the storm had made of the marsh, and the wreck of Lancaster’s
Lugg had sped on wire and rail through the country. On all hands men
were at work saving what they could of the remnant of stock; here, a
sheep crawled on a fence within a few inches of the reaching water;
there, cattle still deep in it long after noon had struck. Pippin Hall
was completely surrounded, but friends had crossed the swollen river
with food, and from an upper window Holliday asked shakingly for news
of the Pride. Pippin had lost almost everything it could lose--ewes,
new lambs, calves, poultry, stacks, turnips, mangolds, carts--and had
half a ruined house to top the account. Only, by some miracle, the
prize beasts had been saved. Standing up to their necks, half a mile
from dry land, they could only be approached by boat, and the difficult
and dangerous rescue extended far into the afternoon. Poor Denny had
lost a valuable horse as well as half his flock. Nearly every farm
had suffered with its sheep, and the “dead, woolly things” of Brack’s
prophecy covered the marsh.
On the sea-roads the water rose level with the hedges all day, and,
when it left, the scars of the land crept shudderingly into sight.
Great holes five and six feet deep where had been metalled surface,
uprooted fences and railings twisted like cord; and everywhere dead
things, rabbits, hares, poultry--and always sheep. The peaceful,
cared-for country lay broken and horribly disfigured, as if by the
riving hands of a maddened giant.
And over it all--gray; the gray of desolation, of cowering shame, of
finished defeat and despair.
Lancaster stood in the wet kitchen at Ladyford, and stared at his
wrecked world. He looked utterly changed, years older, stunned and
almost wondering, like a man struck from empty skies. His face and
hands were blue with cold, and his wet clothes clung to him soddenly.
Before him he could see the Lugg heaving out of the clearing sands,
and the Pride still girthed in flood--guard and trap, betrayer and
betrayed. In the room above him he could hear footsteps, hushed and
slow. The Pride had given up its dead that Ladyford might take them in.
Lup was dropped at the table with his head on his arms, and opposite
him Francey stood stiffly, white as the new scrubbing-stone on the
hastily fettled hearth. When Lancaster turned from the window with a
definite movement, Whinnerah lifted his face and looked from him to the
girl. So, to the slow music of the hushed steps, they stared at each
other, the three who had sent the proud old couple to their doom.
“They went on my word!” Lancaster said at last, in a curious voice. “I
wonder if they forgave me before they died?”
“They went because of _me_!” Francey put in passionately. “They could
have stopped at Ninekyrkes, but I drove them out. They went because of
_me_.”
And though he was right, she was right, too. Far away, far back had
been sown the seed of this trouble, when an upright, loving pair had
put their savings to the bettering of their only girl.
But Lup denied them both with a sharp gesture full of the dignity of
possession.
“They were my folk--not yours. If I’d stopped, they’d be here to-day.
They were my folk, and I drowned them!”
And he also was right.
Yet Lancaster, listening, knew that from the leader and not the led is
toll exacted, on the head and not the hand is judgment passed. This
debt was his, this judgment his. The two had been but tools in the
carving of his fate.
He saw Lup sink back, and Francey fall to her knees beside him, and
he went out and shut the door. They would mend their broken lives
together, but he was alone.
* * * * *
Michael ferried him to a point from which he could reach an untouched
road by means of climbing fences and skirting meadows. The day was
fading into quiet and dusk with the death-exhaustion more terrible
than the height of wrack and pain. The trouble that was passing was
physical, rending the body and stupefying the mind. The trouble that
followed was the still, corroding trouble of the soul.
Behind him the Lugg, broken monument and draggled standard. Behind,
the Pride, tomb of more than human flesh. Before him, Pippin, with the
water still at its door, and the stretch of ruin around. With the marks
of the long hours upon them, agent and tenant parted on the soaking
grass.
“Don’t fret yourself overmuch, sir!” Michael said earnestly. “It had to
happen. It was nobody’s blame. It had to come.”
And all across the marsh he met men who said the same, men spent with
giant exertions, who had lost heavily, and saved even their lives only
by sheer good luck.
“It had to be, sir! It’s bad, but it might have been worse. If the
Lugg hadn’t given, the whole of the top marsh would ha’ went, and that
would have settled a deal more folk than just two. There wasn’t room
for a tide such as yon. Why, it was like to have taken the whole Wythe
valley! It wasn’t anybody’s blame. Who would have looked for such a
flood, and that sharp like? The Lugg had been a smart bit of framing,
and had done its best. There were volcanoes and such-like abroad,
ready to brast up any minute, but that didn’t stop folk building nigh
’em. With luck, the Lugg might have stood another fifty year. It was
nobody’s blame.”
And not one of the well-meant words lifted the load an atom, or
carried a shade of comfort home. It had been his choice, and he had
chosen wrong; his team, and he had pulled the wrong rein. This thing
had happened in his time, this record would be written against his
name. The cheering words went with the wind. And as he turned for the
last time to look behind, seeing always the faces of the newly dead,
there came over him a hard rage against the man who had tied his hands
with his plans and his pride. He cursed his father as he stood on the
wrecked shore, and in that loss of faith fathomed the darkest depths of
all.
His circumambulatory journey took him past Thweng, and, done though he
was, a sharp impulse turned him to its door. Within, he found Brack and
Denny, and, seated at the kitchen table, Bluecaster.
For more than a dozen hours he had forgotten Bluecaster completely.
They had lost each other in the dark, and had gone to help, one at one
farm, the other at another. He had thought of the whole matter as his
own, and wondered at himself now even while he clung to the thought,
for here was the real master. Yet, had Bluecaster ever been master?
Again, as at Ladyford, he recognised that always the leader paid.
“You _knew_?” Denny was saying, half-fearful, but resentful and
distressed. “Nay, you’re just getting at us! You _couldn’t_ know.”
“I _did_ know!” Brack answered wearily. “Guess I might as well tell
the table, though, for all the understanding I’d get. I played myself
out trying to make you see square, but there was no getting past that
bleat of yours about the Lancasters. Well, I reckon you’ve got your
head in your hands, this time! Keep to your bleating and see what
you’ll get, next. Seems to me folks that don’t bleat aren’t wanted any
on Bluecaster--folks with their eyes skinned ahead. For I knew--that’s
sure!” He paused suddenly. “And his lordship knew!” he added.
“No,” said Bluecaster.
Brack swung round with a piercing look and opened his lips, but
Bluecaster kept his eyes steady with an effort. Lanty stepped into the
room.
“I thought you’d have been gone long since, my lord! They’ll be getting
anxious at the House. Can you drive us home, Thomas?”
Denny turned with quick gladness on his poor, troubled face.
“Ay, that I can, sir, though I’ve lost the best horse in my stable!” He
reached out and laid a hand on Lanty’s arm. “There’s folks, sir--none
so far off, neither--as say the Lugg ought never to have been built,
folks as think ’twas pride as put it there and pride as kept it there.
But there’s other folks as say the Lancasters may build a score o’
Luggs an’ drown the lot of us; an’ the fust on ’em’s Thomas Cuthbert
Dennison o’ Lockholme!”
He hurried out, leaving Brack staring curiously after him.
“What’s the cinch you’ve got on ’em all?” he asked at last. “What’s the
receipt for making blind, boot-licking fools of thinking men, setting
them kissing your feet and your kid gloves? How have you fixed these
kow-towing cranks on the marsh?”
Lancaster came forward to the table.
“There’s only one tie, Brack, between man and man, that will stand a
week, and that’s just simple faith. You think we’re out of date up here
because some of us still trust each other, still hold a man’s word as
his bond, unbacked by a Government stamp. You think that folks should
trust themselves and nobody else, should keep looking out all the time
for other folks getting ready to do them. Now, _I_ tell you, who have
seen my own faith go down to-day--_I_ tell you, it is better to keep
trust and be betrayed--ay! better even to betray trust in keeping
trust, than never to have trust at all! What you knew, you knew of
yourself; it could not help us. We at the helm had to take our chance,
and failed. Do not doubt that always, and in every way, we shall pay.”
A flush came into Brack’s haggard cheeks. He gave a short laugh of pure
nervous excitement. He straightened himself. His elegance came back to
him. You looked instinctively for the Trilby and the S.-F., though both
had been swept out to sea. He stepped in front of Lanty, clicking his
heels together, and flinging up a hand in salute.
“Mr. Lancaster, you’re great!” he exclaimed, at his most colonial.
“You’re the real goods, all the way. You’ve got me, any time you like.
I’ll take a top line, please, in that drowning-list of yours, along
with friend Thomas Dennison!”
He gave the same nervous laugh and went out. But, as he went, he cast
one last keen and curious glance at the young man at the table.
* * * * *
“Sit down, won’t you?” Bluecaster said. “Dennison will be some little
time yet. You look thoroughly done up.”
Lanty took the chair opposite. They were both tired out, but there were
things yet to be said, things that might never be possible, perhaps, on
any other day but this.
“I spoke for us both, my lord. If I took too much on myself----”
Bluecaster lifted a hand.
“You have always had to take everything. It isn’t the first time. I
have never helped you. Do you think I don’t know it?”
“That’s not true!” Lanty answered warmly. “How could I achieve anything
without your consent? In the end, everything comes to you, and you’ve
never hindered. There’s no better landlord in the kingdom.”
“It’s easy to be kind without lifting a finger; easy to agree to a
judgment you know to be right; but there’s a final responsibility that
is mine and mine only, and that I’ve never faced. In this matter of the
Lugg, for instance----”
There came to Lanty a memory of the meeting at which, with a single
look, Bluecaster had passed the fate of the bank into his hands.
“Of course you couldn’t know!” he exclaimed incredulously. “That’s
only Brack’s raving. But”--he stopped suddenly, stared, stammering and
half-rising--“you don’t mean that you agreed with him, thought the Lugg
ought to go--did not trust it, all the time?”
Bluecaster bowed his head without reply.
“You thrust the problem on me, convinced in your own mind of the one
right course--bade me answer for us both, unjust as it was, biased as
you knew I must be, certain that my answer would not be yours? I took
it that you had no opinion, could not and would not choose. For that
reason only I stepped into your place. Have I failed so far in my duty
that you dared not set your will against mine?” Doubt assailed him,
the fearful doubt besetting the strong of the unconvincedness of the
consenting weak. “My lord--was it _that_?”
“No, it was not that,” said Bluecaster.
“It must have been! I thought you wanted help--but it was that.”
“It was _not_ that!” Bluecaster spoke very firmly. “Sit down again,
man, and listen to me. We’re neither of us fit to see very clearly
to-night, but I want to get this said. You’ve never bullied me--don’t
worry your head about that. You’ve been the stronger man, that’s
all, and you’re suffering for it. It’s always unfair on the servant
to be the stronger man. But sometimes”--he smiled his pleasant
smile--“sometimes, Lancaster, old man, the master is jolly glad of it!
“I’d always thought the Lugg might be a menace to the top marsh. The
neck of the bay is so narrow--it used to look to me as if the Lugg was
choking it. And, like Brack, I’ve seen storms--one does see things
knocking about as I do,” he added half-apologetically, the idle,
rich traveller to the home-keeping worker. “And the reclaimed land
always made me creep a bit. It looked so--well--_snatched!_ I’ve a
fear of the sea, although I’ve been out on it so much in all sorts
of cockle-shells. It always has something in hand. You may trick it,
but it generally gets its own back in the end. And though I know all
the marsh has been fought out of it, yard by yard, it seemed to me to
have a queer kind of grudge about the land behind the Lugg. I’d have
been glad to see it go, and that’s the truth! But then--your father
had built it, and I’d been brought up on the things your father did.
They used to call him the Big Man of the North. _He_ said the Lugg
would stand, and it did, long after he wasn’t there to see that it
was doing as it was told. Then _you_ came--as good a man as your
father--_yes!_--and said the same thing, and I kept quiet. All the
marsh knew my opinion wasn’t worth the flick of a whip against yours.
If I’d touched the bank, they’d have taken it that I meant to slight
you, and I would have cut off my head rather than do that. See?”
He smote the table suddenly with his clenched fist.
“God! What a liar and a coward I am! That’s all lies--you know it,
don’t you, Lancaster?--no--not lies, perhaps, but side-issues. The
truth is, I was afraid, as I’ve always been afraid when it came to a
big shove. I shirked having to speak out, having to decide, so I put
it on to you. I knew _you_ wouldn’t be afraid, that you would take
the straight path as you saw it. I knew you’d shoulder things for
me, as you’d always done. You must have despised me often; and yet I
don’t think that, somehow. But I’d despise myself more than I do if
I didn’t feel that they’ve given me overweight to carry--the powers
up above that fix our place for us down below. I wasn’t meant to
handle men. It isn’t my job. I shouldn’t have been slung up like St.
Simon what’s-his-name on his pillar. I was cut out a quiet, retiring,
harmless individual with a taste for sailing and rather a good eye
at tennis, and I’m expected to be a symbol, a father-confessor,
general caretaker, referee and prop of the State! I haven’t been
any of all that except in spurts. You’ve had to be it for me; but
in the end it all comes back to me. It’s slated down to my account.
The responsibility’s mine. It isn’t that I don’t love the place and
the people, and the feel of it all belonging to me, but those of us
who stop to think what it means are paying for it all the time, even
chuckle-headed idiots like myself. Do they never realise--these men who
are always going for the landlords--that power and place have to be
paid for, and in bitter coin? It all looks so easy from the outside;
but it’s loading a horse a ton too much, setting a seasick chap to furl
the tops’l, when it comes to poor beggars like me!
“But you’re clear in this,” he added presently. “The final
responsibility’s mine, as I said. It’s I who will have to face the
music for those lost lives when the bill comes in.”
Lancaster shook his head without lifting it from his hand where he had
leaned it, listening.
“I took the responsibility from you. I need not have done it. I could
have refused it. But I didn’t refuse. This is _my_ work.”
And, as at Ladyford, so here, he saw clearly that, in every crisis,
one particular soul holds the scale. Bluecaster was right, as Lup and
Francey had been right, but there was a more stringent law beyond. The
words that had haunted him all day came back to him now with redoubled
force. “It is always one man’s work--always and everywhere.”
CHAPTER XXVI
HIS SILLY HOME
He dropped from the trap at his own gate, and walked up the drive.
There had been no sound of his coming, so the door was not open,
and the lack of welcome hurt him somehow, as if the house meant
deliberately to shut him out. He did not come to it as to a place of
healing, but at least it was his own hole to creep into when wounded.
The blank door seemed to deny him even that.
It was very dark in the high-walled garden, but a ray from a
side-window caught the Church Army summer-house across the lawn, and
sprang a text into being. “Feed my sheep,” said the text, in reference
to scrambled teas dispensed by Helwise under the Reckitt’s roof, but
it brought many other things to his mind, to-night. He stood still and
looked at it, thinking of the helpless stock the sea had taken. Brack’s
dead, woolly things would cry to him for many a long day to come. He
thought, too, of the marshfolk, broken and spent to-day because of his
father’s building and his own seal upon it, of the two at Ladyford
sleeping their last sleep; and out of the dark from over the west there
seemed to come to him an exceeding bitter cry: “Where is the flock that
was given thee, thy beautiful flock?”
As he turned again to the house, the door was flung open, and Helwise
peered into the night.
“Is that you, Armer? Whatever are you doing, so late? I thought you
had gone home long ago. But as you _are_ here, you may as well bring
a pound of bacon when you come in the morning, or there’ll be none
for breakfast. Sliced. One pound. And remember I will _not_ have those
brown boots blacked!”
Lanty stepped inside.
“It isn’t Armer,” he said.
Helwise jumped and stared. It was certainly not Armer, but in that
first instant it seemed to her as if it was not Lanty, either. Her
voice was almost hushed.
“Why, Lancelot! When I saw you on the step, I thought for a moment it
was your father!”
“Thank God it is not!” he answered, and moved towards his office.
Across the hall, where the drawing-room door stood slightly ajar, he
could see that there was a warm fire in the loathly grate, though the
grate itself he could not see, nor the pot dogs on the mantelpiece.
There was no light in the room but the light of the fire. On a low
stool Dandy was sitting, staring into the red glow as it poured out
and wrapped her round, setting a thousand torches to the brightness
of her hair, and racing with golden feet over her slender grace. She
looked curiously lonely, he thought, since there was somebody else in
the room, whose voice he placed without hesitation. If the somebody
else hadn’t been there, he might perhaps have entered, drawn by the
first real glimpse of heart’s joy the house had held for years. At
least he might have stood on the threshold and looked within, before
his personal tragedy dragged him back into the desert; but instead he
turned to Helwise, still staring at him with that half-look of fear.
“Can I have something to eat? I don’t seem to have had anything all
day--I don’t remember.”
At the sound of his voice Dandy sprang up, looking nervously towards
the hall, and Harriet came out of the dusk and stood beside her.
Helwise threw the door wide.
“Don’t go into the office, Lancelot! There’s no fire, and the gas has
been escaping. What a dreadful storm, wasn’t it? I felt certain every
minute that the house would be blown down. I don’t know why I didn’t
have a heart-attack! Dandy and Harriet came over for news, so I made
them promise to stay until you got back. I really _couldn’t_ be left
alone, and it’s Our Agnes’s night out.”
The two girls came forward into the hall.
“It was very good of you,” Lanty said mechanically, looking at them
with tired eyes. Behind them he could see the grate, now, and the pot
dogs. Helwise chattered on.
“I’m sure I don’t know if you can have anything to eat! I expected
you’d get some food at one of the farms. You always say you like it
best there. We’ve had supper some time since, and it’s the girl’s night
out, as I said. There isn’t any meat in the house, I know, and there
won’t be any bacon for breakfast, as you weren’t Armer, after all, but
I dare say you can have some tea, if you care about it. I put some into
the Thermos at five o’clock, thinking you might turn up, so you can’t
say I don’t remember your comfort sometimes! I’ll go and get it.”
“Hot whisky do you a jolly sight more good!” Harriet shot out bluntly,
without looking at him. She looked instead at the sign-manual of her
bicycle on the wall. Dandy, in an apologetic tone, murmured “Soup!”
Lanty smiled faintly. What a mixture life was--bathos dancing on the
edge of the Pit! Now he came to think of it, he did not want anything
to eat. He had asked for it as one asks for some small alleviation in
an unbearable trial. He would not have the Thermos, anyhow.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t really care anything about it.” The smile
was slightly satirical, this time. “I’d forgotten it was Our Agnes’s
night out!”
Helwise looked upset, and as if she might be getting ready for another
heart-attack.
“I dare say there’s a tin of something somewhere, but I shouldn’t
know what to do with it if there was. You’d much better let me get
the Therm.--_not_ in the office, Lancelot! I meant to have had it all
tidied up before you got back, but Dandy brought another crochet
pattern and that was how I didn’t turn off the gas. What I mean is that
I’ve been hunting through your old papers for accounts of the Lugg
when it was first built. I thought it would be so interesting to have
them pasted in a book now that the thing’s gone altogether, and then
there’ll be all the fresh paragraphs about it, this week. I felt sure
you would like to see them, but there were so many years back to look
through, and the stickphast stuck such lots of other things beside the
right ones. Oh, and do you know, Lancelot, there was a photograph of
your father taken on the top of the Lugg, with his foot on the last
spadeful, and on the right--no, left!--that poor old Whinnerah person
who was drowned? Underneath they’d put: ‘Conqueror of the Sea!’ Don’t
you think that it would be nice to have the photograph reproduced in
this week’s paper, while everybody is so interested? People forget so
soon. There might be a companion one of you, too, don’t you think,
looking at one of the breaks?”
“With my foot on a coffin?” Lanty’s voice, risen a little, had in
it something strange and wild. He stood gazing at her with a fixed
expression on his face, striving to measure the exact immensity of the
gulf between them, seeing her thousand selfish follies climb out of
it like mocking gnomes. He had done all he could for her, not all she
wanted, perhaps, but everything within his power, and at his greatest
need she gave him nothing--no, much worse than nothing--in return. In
this his hour of bitterness she would drag his dead into light, holding
it up to public calumny with a pot of stickphast. He closed the office
door between them, and heard her burst into terrified tears on the
other side.
“It was his father!” she sobbed and gasped, as the girls attempted
to soothe her. “It’s no use telling me it was Lancelot, because he
never looked at me like that in his life. They say the dead come back
sometimes, and stare at you through the children’s eyes, and I’m sure
it’s true! He never liked me--the other. He always said I was silly,
and I was frightened of him. I believe Lancelot is drowned, and this is
his father come back in his place! No, it’s no use talking to me about
eggs and bread-and-butter! If he’s a ghost, how can he eat? I won’t
stay down here--no, I daren’t! He might come out again, and I should
never get over it!”
She tore herself out of their hands, and stumbled, panting and weeping,
up the stairs, and immediately they heard the bolt of her door shoot
home. They were left in the hall, looking at each other, awkward and
uncomfortable.
“This is rot!” Harriet observed presently. “Helwise must have gone
clean off it. We can’t let the man starve. We’d better see if we can’t
dig up something. That soup-notion of yours was first-class.”
“We might try,” Dandy agreed, “but I’m afraid I know next to nothing
about cooking.”
“Well, _I_ know everything!” Harriet answered calmly. “I can make
soup that will fetch you galloping from the top of the house. You
good-looking people haven’t bagged quite _all_ the tricks in this
unjust world!”
They went exploring into the dark larder, and both the rich man’s
daughter and the mistress of the spotless farm-house exclaimed at the
patent evidences of neglect.
“No bread!” Harriet commented, leaning over the big pot with a
guttering dip. “Wish I’d left that last tough old crust at supper.
Weren’t there some biscuits in that sixpence-ha’penny glass thing in
the dining-room? Just think on about them, will you? Half a blanc-mange
and a few pine-apple chunks--_that’s_ no use to a hungry man! It’s
all he’ll get for breakfast, though, by the look of things. I wonder
if it’s any good going down into the cellar? Helwise said there was
no meat, didn’t she? Eggs? No, I’m afraid not! There _must_ be some
milk, though--I wonder where? Might be in the boot-cupboard, on _this_
system. Come on! We’ve got to unearth that soup somehow!”
They found the full tin stowed thoughtfully among a stack of empty
ones, and in the dirty kitchen Harriet began her labours by the light
of a gas-jet that burnt one-sidedly with a shrieking flame. Fortunately
for present conditions, though not for the master’s pocket, the fire
had been left piled up high; but this piece of criminal wastefulness
was the only happy accident that befell them.
“What beats _me_,” Harriet remarked, sniffing disgustedly at pans, and
flinging half-washed spoons into a slimy tin in a stopped-up sink, “is
why Lanty hasn’t been poisoned before now, or at any rate sold up and
carted to the Workhouse. It’s too bad of old Helwise, it really is!
After all, he keeps her, and he works jolly hard. She might have done
him a bit better than this. Do you mind cleaning a few of these things
while I open the soup?”
So while Harriet boiled, Dandy scrubbed, and produced, by some
conjuror’s wand, a bowl and silver spoon, a small tray and a passably
clean tray-cloth; also the biscuits. When the soup was added, steaming
and strong, they looked at each other with conscious pride, on the
heels of which came a sudden sense of guilt and confusion. After all,
it was open to question that a couple of outsiders should be cooking
food for a man in his own kitchen without his permission or even his
knowledge.
“How are you going back?” Harriet asked, covering in the range, and
slipping a plate over the lidless bowl. “I meant to have cleared out
long before this. I hope Stubbs hasn’t been worrying Cyril.”
The name came out naturally enough, but Dandy started a little. The use
of it by Harriet seemed to put her old friend Wiggie in a new light.
“Father is coming for me,” she replied. “He had to go to Manchester
to-day, but he said he’d run over as soon as he got back. He wanted to
see Mr. Lancaster. You’ll wait and come with us, won’t you? He should
be here any time now, and I can’t stop alone, with my hostess locked
away upstairs.”
“Right you are!” Harriet lifted the tray with reverent care. “Put out
that one-eyed gas, will you, and light the candle? There’s a cockroach
crawling up you--don’t know if you’re keen on ’em! You’d better go on
in front and yell out if there are any booby-traps. I nearly broke my
shin over a clothes-horse, and we can’t afford to lose the soup.”
But in the hall she stopped, even as her hand was raised to knock, for
Dandy, with flushed cheeks, had stepped back into the firelight from
the drawing-room, bringing to the other how Lanty had paused--from
her corner she had seen him--paused, weary as he was, to look at the
same picture. There had been in his face something of which he had not
known, but which even Harriet, unobservant and callous, had not failed
to read. It was as if, in that instant, he had seen at last the “silly
home” of his desire.
She drew back, holding out the tray.
“_You_ take it in, will you? I’m not fit to be seen, after grubbing
about in that region of the lost.”
Dandy started, and shook her head violently.
“Nonsense! It’s _your_ cooking. Go in and collect your own credit. If
it comes to that, _I’m_ not fit to be seen, either!”
“Don’t fish!” Harriet snarled. “Buck up, I tell you! The stuff’s
freezing. I’m not going in, anyway, so if you won’t take it I may as
well sling it through the window.”
“But----” Dandy advanced with reluctance. “I don’t like to! It’s your
place. You know him so much better than I.”
“That’s just it. He doesn’t want the folks he knows. They know too
much. I’d probably be giving him my opinion before he asked it. You
walk in as if you were used to it, and he’ll probably think you’re only
Our Agnes.”
Dandy took the tray slowly, still doubtful.
“Git!” said Harriet, and knocked. Without waiting for an answer, she
opened the door and pushed the girl in, closing it again instantly.
Not content with that, she went out into the porch, and shut the inner
door behind her. She would not even be within reach of their voices.
The damp cold swept in from the west as she stood in the dark, biting
her lip. The standard of action is mercifully adjusted to each of us,
and perhaps Harriet’s funny, homely, big-little sacrifice formed a fine
enough leaf in the laurels of Love.
She had been there barely a couple of minutes before the Watters
limousine turned in and drew up at the step. She went forward,
expecting to see Hamer, but instead, out of it came Wiggie. He came
carefully, with the chauffeur’s hand under his arm, a wavering shadow
uncertain of its feet, but yet he came, smiling a ghost of his old
smile at Harriet’s amazement and concern. The chauffeur planted him
safely within reach of her assistance, and returned to his car.
“Hamer’s a little way behind,” the new-comer explained breathlessly.
“We met a certain Mr. Dennison going home from Bluecaster, and Hamer
wanted to ask him things, so I came on.”
“But what on earth are you doing here at all?” Harriet demanded
angrily. “What were Stubbs and that cap-and-apron nurse thinking of? Go
back at once, or you’ll die!”
Wiggie looked guilty, trying to lean against a flower-stand afflicted
with a chronic wobble, and she put her hand beneath his elbow.
“Oh, I needn’t die yet, need I, please? Hamer came round on his way
here, and I--he seemed lonely. Dennison said Lancaster was back.”
Harriet nodded, opening the glass door, and supporting him inside.
“You’d better come out of the cold, as you _are_ here. Yes. About an
hour since. Looking about twenty years older, and half-cracked. Sent
Helwise upstairs in screaming hysterics. He’s in there.” She jerked
her head towards the office. “Dandy’s with him.”
Wiggie gave one long, quiet glance at the closed door. No sound of
voices came to the two equally silent outside, the absence of speech
within that shut room conveying an intimate isolation that no exchange
of words could have held. In that look it seemed almost as if he were
saying good-bye. Then he turned to Harriet, smiling as on the step.
“I did not come for Dandy,” he said gently. “I came for you.”
Harriet blushed violently. She looked angered almost to tears.
“You’ve no need to lie to _me_, Cyril! I should have thought you ought
to know that, by now.”
“But it is true!” he said simply. And it _was_ true. The look had been
merely the seal set on a renunciation made weeks ago on the Watters
stairs. “It’s been such a dreadfully long day without you! Dear old
Stubbs has been hunting germs, and the nurse told me all the diseases
I’d just missed having, and all the diseases I might have yet, if I’d
hurry up. Can’t we slip away now, and send the car back for the others?
Hamer won’t mind.”
“But don’t you want to see Lanty?”
“Perhaps I’d better not worry him to-night. I’ll be ready for him when
he wants me, poor old man! Please take me home.” His voice was very
weak, and she felt him heavy on her arm. “You might, you know. You’re
not the only lonely pebble on the beach!”
Harriet blushed again, but without anger, this time. Wiggie had known,
all along, and the thought had never hurt her or made her ashamed. And
no matter where his own love was placed, he yet had an urgent need of
herself. She remembered how he had turned to Wild Duck as his refuge.
It was queerly pleasant to be needed. She would take him home.
They got him back to the car with some difficulty, and, once inside,
he lay against the cushions so still that she was afraid, until she
found that he had simply fallen into exhausted sleep. He had spent all
his little store of strength in coming to her in the dark hour when she
had deliberately shut herself out of Heaven. It was strange that he
should always be digging her out of deep places. It seemed almost like
fate.
The Rur’l D’trict C’cillor drew the rug more closely round him with an
oddly-motherly touch.
* * * * *
There was indeed a vile smell of gas in the office, and an unlighted
fire, astonishingly badly laid, showed yesterday’s cinders still
unraked. A perfect sea of newspapers heaved along the floor, and
across them Lanty’s boots had trodden a path to his desk at the far
end, where his private documents had been swept aside to make room for
more _Gazettes_. A large island of stickphast sat smugly upon the fine
leather. The shelves had been ruthlessly rifled. Cupboard doors stood
open. The newspapers themselves, evidently long folded away with neat
precision, had been crushed and crumpled, slashed or torn across. For a
second, Dandy forgot her nervousness in sheer amazed horror.
Lanty was standing by the desk, with one of the myriad sheets in his
hand, looking down at it with a still intentness and absorption. When
he heard the door he lifted his head without turning, clutching the
paper close as if afraid that somebody might see it over his shoulder.
“Who is it?” he asked, still with the air of being on guard, and Dandy
of the Tray, in a faint and rather frightened voice, wishing herself
safely back at Watters answered: “Our Agnes!” The silver spoon clinked
against the bowl.
Lanty had been well-trained by weekly nightmare meals to the stern
remembrance of the “girl’s night out,” but in the present stress of
circumstance his weary brain had again let slip the important fact.
The voice might easily have belonged to Our Agnes, who boasted an
organ varying between the colourless twitter of a new-fledged sparrow
and the discordance of the tom-tom. It certainly carried no faintest
reminder of Dandy. Moreover, in his passionate concentration upon the
paper, yielding to it entire heart and soul and quickened, yearning
memory, Dandy was as if she had never been.
He did not turn, because he was afraid to let even a vacant mirror like
Our Agnes reflect his face; and also for another reason. The fragrance
of Harriet’s galloping soup reached him quickly across the room, waking
him to the violent realisation that he had not tasted food for many
hours. If he saw it, he might be driven to a fierce snatching which
would send Our Agnes to join Helwise in her orgy of hysterics upstairs;
so he stood fast, clasping the paper like a child in peril.
“Will you put it down--whatever it is?” The tray touched the table.
“Thanks! And, while you’re here, do you mind lighting the fire? I
couldn’t find any matches.”
He sat down in the desk-chair, struggling with his consuming hunger,
and cursing himself for having kept her a moment longer than was
necessary. She would take hours to light the fire--she always did--and
he would have to sit in torture until she had finished. But he was very
cold, chill with hunger as well as damp, and the mere consciousness of
a woman’s presence had roused the weary man’s instinctive claim for
help. Perhaps she would not find the matches, either, and while she
went for others he could retreat in dignity with the food. But she did
find them. He heard them rattle as she drew them out from behind the
clock. Why on earth hadn’t he thought of looking there himself? It
wasn’t like Our Agnes to be so quickwitted. Now he would have to sit
through an eternity of craving while she fumbled with the wet sticks.
He fixed his eyes furtively on the paper, and was back again sharply in
his former atmosphere of longing and regret.
Dandy, on her knees, fighting the unwilling sticks, fought also the
strangling tears and pitiful laughter in her own heart. Harriet’s jest
was become fact; he had indeed taken her for Our Agnes! Her voice had
sounded strange even in her own ears--she admitted that; but, if she
had ever had a real place in his life, ever stirred, if only for an
instant, his difficult heart, ever been to him even a fraction of more
worth than the slattern in his kitchen, would he not have known that
there was somebody quite other in the room? She looked at his tired
back and roughened hair with a great rush of pity and pain and longing
to help, but it did not reach him. His wet wristbands and soaked boots
blurred before her misty eyes, but he did not guess or care. Love
was round him, kissing his hand, begging at his knee, pressing his
aching head to rest, but he could not feel it. She might have drawn
his attention with a word, a touch, but she left the one unspoken,
the other unperformed. There are rights belonging to unself-conscious
friendship that shrinking, fastidious love will never claim.
How could he _not_ know? Ah, but he _ought_ to have known! If he had
cared ever so little, he would have guessed at her presence; cared
much--sprung to meet it; and, last of all, if he had loved her, he
would have looked for her to come to him somehow from the very ends of
the earth.
But he had done none of these things. There was no answer to her
prayer. If he never guessed, never turned, she would know that she
meant nothing to him at all.
The soup was getting cold. She fretted, battling with the fire. Harriet
would be annoyed if their labour was wasted, and he seemed too deep in
his reading to remember that she had brought him food. Nervously she
pushed the basin up the table within reach of his hand, and went back
to her task. When she looked round again, it was empty, and he had
buried himself afresh in his paper. After the thrill of joy that she
had at least given him some shred of comfort came the renewed certainty
that he was quite unconscious of the giver. It was more than plain
that she was outside his thoughts altogether.
The fire was crackling merrily now, and with a last strained hope that
he might yet know her, she began to gather the papers into a corner,
but before she had set the last on the pile, she saw him stir as if
distressed and irritated through his absorption by her quiet movements.
She stopped instantly, then, and moved to the door, yet slowly, and
looking towards him, and all the way her heart was begging, begging
for a sign. She knew that all these months her little taper of hope
had burnt bravely, bending at times to the wind of disappointment,
but always brightening and glowing. Now it was dying. By the time she
reached the door it would be dead. Yet she would not call, nor speak
aloud the words that the soul only could utter and its twin-soul only
should hear. Even a commonplace he might possibly resent in this his
trouble. He had said she did not understand. He might certainly say it
now, if, in her ignorance of the real conditions, she tried to comfort
him. She could only speak to him dumbly from her heart, and he did
not hear. His home, his resting-place, were at hand, and he held his
face from them. The little torch flickered low. The handle turned, and
turned again. Outside the door Dandy stood, hugging her dead candle.
* * * * *
Hamer came in like an anxious bear in his large coat, and found her
there.
“All alone?” he asked, stooping to kiss her. “Where’s the boy?”
“In the office. Miss Lancaster is upstairs. She seems rather upset.”
“That so? Poor little woman! I’ll go up and have a look at her. She
wants stroking a bit, I reckon. Can you wait any longer, little girl,
or are you aching to get home? I’d like just to have a word with the
boy, if he’ll see me.”
“Yes--do. I don’t mind how long I wait.”
“I’ll get Miss Lancaster down to keep you company.” He stopped, his
foot on the first stair, lowering his voice. “Does the boy look bad,
Dandy Anne?”
She nodded.
“I doubt he’ll take it terribly hard--worse than anybody else would
have done. He didn’t say anything to you, I suppose?”
“No. Nothing.” (And, verily--nothing!)
“You look a bit white, dearie. Getting tired, are you?” He came back
to her. “Didn’t _you_ say a word to him, Dandy Anne? Didn’t you try to
comfort the poor lad?”
She smiled bravely.
“I took him some soup, Daddy! Harriet made it, and I ‘dished up.’ I
don’t think he wanted to talk. He’s very tired.”
Hamer said no more, looking down at her anxiously, trying to read her
face. Sorrow was for bringing folks together, said Hamer’s simple
philosophy, but it seemed to have failed here. He couldn’t think of any
trouble in which his first longing would not be to feel Dandy’s arms
round his neck. Things were wrong somewhere for his little girl. Had he
brought her to Watters only to seek diligently for pain?
“Please hurry a little bit, Daddy dear!”
He gave her a last glance, turning reluctantly, with words evidently
trembling on his lips; then marched off up the stair. Above, she could
hear him pounding at Helwise’s door, and presently he had her out on
the landing.
“It was his father!” Helwise chattered still.
“Nonsense, my dear! You’re a bit overstrung, that’s what it is! You
want somebody to pet you and tuck you up on the sofa with a hot
bottle--that’s it, isn’t it? Now you put your hand through my arm and
we’ll trot along down to the fire. Why, you’re just shivering, poor
dear! I’ve got a plan to propose to you, if you’ll take it on. What
do you say to sending Lancaster for a trip after he’s got things in
working order again--say Egypt or the Canaries--and you shut up house
and come over to Watters? If we get a fairish spring we might try
a motor-tour after Easter--how’d you like that? Cathedral cities,
perhaps, or something of that sort. You keep Dandy company for a bit
while I look in at the boy, and see if she can’t persuade you to think
it over!”
So Helwise, purring with excitement, was stayed with cushions and
comforted with cathedrals in front of the drawing-room fire, and Dandy,
very heart-sick and resentful at her selfish neglect, yet remembered
that she was something of Lanty’s, and was patient and sweet with her
therefore, mapping out a tour on the hearthrug, with the whole of her
being reaching across the hall.
Hamer knocked once, and went straight in to the lonely figure without a
moment’s hesitation, setting big, raising hands on its shoulders. The
Hamers of the world may do these things with impunity, for in their
rare, angelic sincerity they carry an Open Sesame through the locked
gates of the furthest shrinking sorrow. And though a dreaded somebody
was looking over his shoulder at last, Lanty let his paper lie, and
neither moved nor minded. Hamer’s eye passed over it as he drew up a
chair and sat down close.
“I had to go to Manchester. Only just home, or I’d have been
down--_there_--with you. I was somewhere on the marsh, as it was, until
after three. Had anything to eat?”
“Yes, thanks.” Lanty’s voice sounded as if pulled by a string. “I’m
afraid I frightened Helwise a little, but the girl brought me some
soup. She lighted the fire, too. She’s not usually so useful.”
Hamer stared a minute, but said nothing. What game had Dandy been
playing? Had Lanty really mistaken her for the “girl”?
“Miss Lancaster’s all right now, anyhow. She and Dandy Anne are having
a cosy chat in the drawing-room, snug as snug. She’s very easy thrown
out of gear. Dandy’s cosseting her a bit.”
“It’s very kind of Miss Shaw.” Hamer glanced at him shrewdly, but found
the answer purely mechanical. No; this wasn’t Dandy’s hour, he decided
with a sigh.
“I heard the--bad news--before I left. Lancaster, I can’t forgive
myself for having that show of mine, last night!”
“It made very little difference.”
“A deal, surely! There’d have been many more, sheep saved, if the men
had been on the spot.”
“I doubt it. You forget that they didn’t think the storm anything out
of the common.”
“Except Brack. It was queer how he knew, wasn’t it? I’m blessed if I
can make it out! He certainly did his best to warn us.”
“Perhaps. But Brack’s was hardly a business proposition.”
His tone was cold, and Hamer felt suddenly silenced. He raised his eyes
to the portrait above them, vivid with energy and pride, remembering
Helwise’s hysterical conviction, and the likeness between father and
son, always marked, struck him strangely to-night. Reversion to type is
always the first strong instinct to emerge under great stress. There
had been something much deeper than she knew behind Miss Lancaster’s
chattered fears.
“Well, I’ll fix no more hotpots till I get the weather ruled to order!”
Hamer sighed. “I suppose the Lugg’s broken its back out and out? I
saw a paper in Manchester. Those poor old souls at the Pride! I met
Dennison, just now. He said Whinnerah was set on going there. You’d no
choice but to let him have it, had you?”
Lanty thought a moment. There _had_ been choice, perhaps, at the very
beginning. He hardly knew; so swift had the hour of forced decision
come upon him.
“They made it the test of my belief in the Lugg,” he said. “If the
storm were to-morrow instead of yesterday, I would still let the
cottage to-night!”
“Then you think you were right about the bank? You don’t blame it--you
still think it justified?” Hamer stammered, taken aback.
For the first time Lanty turned and looked him straight in the eyes.
“Shaw, I’ve _got_ to think it! If I didn’t, I should shoot myself. I’ve
_got_ to believe, in spite of everything, that the thing had a right
to its existence. I’m not of the class that judge their fathers. I was
brought up to see mine as the standing emblem of right thinking and
right doing, and though out on the marsh I lost my bearings awhile and
forgot it, I found my faith again here. This was his house, his office,
his desk. There’s his face above it. Even now the place seems almost
more his than mine, and, sitting here, I know what he saw, feel what
he felt.” He laid his hand on the paper. “This is the full account of
the building of the Lugg--how it was opposed and condemned, and finally
sanctioned, fully sanctioned by expert authority--yes, and praised and
copied! My father _had_ the right to take the risk, both for himself
and for posterity. That’s the faith I lost--and regained. The success
was his. The rest--the failure--is mine.”
Hamer shook his head.
“The world won’t agree with you, my boy! It will say you had no chance,
that you were bound to stand by your father’s work. It will place the
fault with the man before you.”
“It will be wrong! It isn’t that I don’t believe in inheritance, in
reaping and sowing from one generation to another. I’ve seen the
dragon’s teeth come up too often for that. We’re bound both before and
behind--I admit it all the way. Thinking of a race, from father to son,
I always see--what is it?--‘the lean, locked ranks go roaring down to
die.’ We’ve a hand in more fates than one. But, in spite of that, I
hold that a strong man wins out on his own--wins out, or goes to the
wall. There’s no other self-respecting creed. This thing fell to me.
Judgment is due on me. I wouldn’t have it otherwise. Each of us in his
little day represents all the rest, and in his own person stands by
what he reaps. I say, I wouldn’t have it otherwise!” And he said to the
father as he had said to the daughter in an hour of sympathy forgot.
“It’s our job while we’re on to it. It’s our job while the light lasts,
to make the best of it we can. It’s always one man’s hand on the lonely
plough.”
After the long silence, Hamer rose.
“I must be getting back to my little girl. Promise me you’ll be off to
bed soon, and not stop the night here, fretting and thinking. And for
Heaven’s sake get out of those sopping clothes! No--don’t come with
me. Dandy’ll understand. Cyril came over for a word with you--did you
know?--but he thought he’d better not bother you to-night. And Mother
sent her love. Save us! I’d have caught it if I’d forgotten that!
You’ll look us up, sometime?”
“When I’ve made my world over again.”
“Lancaster”--the words came hesitatingly, almost as if the speaker
wondered at himself and them--“there’s one thing I envy you, anyway!
I’m just a plain business-man who’s never run up against much except
money that everybody else doesn’t taste equal, but you and your father
between you have had something bigger and grander than comes to most
folk, something that sets you near alongside the gods. They say old
Whinnerah stuck it out because of you both, though Brack went to fetch
him. For how many of us others, I wonder, would a man die to prove our
pledged word?”
Before he went upstairs, Lanty opened the door and called to Helwise,
still purring over her prospects. She rose startled, and came
fearfully. He was standing by the table, and upon it the _Gazette_ lay
wide. The whole world might see it now.
“I hope you haven’t waited up for me,” he said, quite gently. “I just
wanted to tell you that I should like those cuttings in a book, after
all. I should be grateful if you would finish them for me.”
The tears rushed back to her eyes.
“I didn’t mean to vex you. I didn’t mean to be prying and unkind! I
thought all the fine things they said about the Lugg might comfort you
a little--help you----”
“They have helped me.”
“Of course I know you’ll blame yourself because those two old people
got themselves drowned, and the sheep and the mangolds and everything
like that, but everybody thought it was very wonderful when it was
built, and admired your father and said he had such a good leg! He was
ever so proud of that photograph when it came out.”
“I am proud of it, too,” Lanty said, leaning over the paper. He looked
long from his father’s face to that of Wolf behind. It was hard to
think that both were dead--men of a personality that never really dies,
but lives on in its effects. Taking a pen, he added a letter to the
inscription below, and left the paper lying--
“CONQUERORS OF THE SEA.”
CHAPTER XXVII
THE GREEN GATES OF VISION:--VI. SWEETHEART-TIME
In the late October afternoon Lancaster rode through the Lane fast,
for he was behind time with his promise. Therefore he looked ahead of
him to each flying curve, letting the Gates of Vision pass without
notice, nor culling one magic thrill from the garden of enchantment.
Yet he checked suddenly where the Lane ran off at right angles like a
darting trout, half lest his pressed horse should take the hedge, half
in joyful recognition. Out on the drifting distance--of the land, yet
of the sky also--his Ghost-Mountain smote his eye with its strange
twin-qualities of edged clarity and floating opaqueness, like the
Shoulder of God made manifest, yet not clothed upon with flesh. What
help had it for him, after all these desolate months?
He could spare it only a moment’s greeting, but for some reason
his heart was lighter as he rode on. Amid the wreck of much the
Ghost-Mountain had foundered too, forgotten. Its vivid, unexpected
return set a faint hope beating that somehow, through some outside
power, other lost things might come to resurrection also.
The spell of the “back-end” had its will again, and in spite of him
caught him in its wound gossamer of remembrance. Though he looked
between his horse’s ears, he knew well enough that round him on every
hand were soft distances, melting, blending and changing from blue to
purple and purple to gray, with filmy pillars of smoke raised like the
standards of home against the stark, stripped woods. He could not keep
his cheek from the mild fingers of the gentle air, nor from his lungs
the smell of the fresh, damp earth, going rain- and dew-washed to its
winter sleep. And under the horse’s hoofs the dry leaves rustled and
the wet leaves crushed into a still, soft carpet of stamped crimson and
bruised gold. Far in the amber sky a black little bird was singing,
swung on a twig like a poised finger, and over Dick Crag he could hear
the baffling music of tired hounds on the last spurt of the afternoon.
Little by little he was taken and held by the old wonder and the
familiar glory, so that the last terrible months dropped away, and his
heavily self-raised prison unlocked. Through the cruel summer he had
come mechanically and doggedly, with all his joy in his work gone like
a blown petal, together with the quivering sympathy that had made him
the perfect instrument of atmosphere and environment. For this is the
last punishment of souls ordinarily attuned to Nature, when bent to
the yoke of pain or sin. They cry to her, and she does not answer; she
calls to them, and they do not heed; for though the eyes look abroad on
the same beauty, the ears gather the same music, the spirit and meaning
are fled, leaving only soulless mirages and jangled wires. But to-night
Lancaster came back again to his kingdom.
The look of sudden age, stamped on that far death-dawn, still clung to
some extent; the stern lines of his face were hammered and set; he was
thinner, and his hair had whitened a little. But for compensation he
had a new self-reliance, a new quietude born of the absence of nervous
struggle. His was now the unfearful poise of one who has fallen and
risen again before the hammer of the gods.
The inquest, the long, dreary spell of wild weather, intensifying
the merciless handling of the marsh--the dismal rent-audit, the
interminable hours of calculating and planning, of patient hearing of
complaint, of ordering and overseeing repairs--all these were behind
him now. The new tenant was settled at Ninekyrkes, and the Dockerays
had taken both him and his to their robbed hearts. For Francey was
in Canada with Lup, and though the old folk were for ever planning a
future that held Rowly with a wife at Ladyford, and Lup back at the
twin-farm--Dockera’s and Whinnerahs as of yore--they knew well enough
that for the wanderers there could be no place ever again on the
Northern marsh.
Slowly the wreck of things was pulled back into symmetry and
order--houses carpeted and papered, Dutch barns rebuilt, fences set up
again, the mutilated roads laid and rolled. The Let, too, had had all
its yawning mouths filled and strengthened, and the dykes and cuts were
deepened and increased. So the patched marsh grew trim again, and by
the time the haycutter sang on the hill, the land below had gathered
itself out of the horrors of destruction into a growing likeness of its
old beauty. Only the Lugg and the Pride were left untouched, derelicts
at the will of wind and tide.
The story had roused a storm of interest throughout the country,
coming as it did at a slack time for news, and carrying with it the
precious breath of long romance. Lanty refused all dealings with
reporters and kept his eyes from the papers, yet knew well enough
that both his father’s career and his own, their private life, and
probably his personal future, were all common property in a highly
decorated fashion. Into a seething world of clashing interests and
warring classes the tale of the Northern property, where the flower
of ancestry still sprang purely as well from yeoman and peasant stock
as from patrician, where law was less than loyalty, long service a
matter of course, friendship and understanding things born of inbred
knowledge--dropped like a mediæval, blazoned shield into the arena of
modern warfare. Men picked it up wonderingly, fitting it clumsily to an
unaccustomed arm, only to discard it with a laugh.
“No agreements? _That’s_ a lie, anyhow! You’ve got to have everything
down in writing, nowadays, or else it’s just simply putting your neck
in a halter. Landlord’s personal charm--tenants’ appreciation--sounds
like the days of Magna Charta, doesn’t it?--tenure by knight service,
socage, villeinage, and all the rest of it! I must say these
journalists know how to pile on the colour. Amity between agent and
farmers--well, I just _don’t_ think! Why, it’s an understood thing
that they’re always at each other’s throats! Scion of Hugh Lupus of
the Conquest gives his life for an old trust--feudalism dug up by the
spadeful, and plastered on with a trowel! _Lies!_”
Yet the true picture was there all the time, defying the brush of
maudlin sentiment, as a masterpiece glimmers through a daub.
The rights of the case spun between blame and praise like a feather
between two mouths. Both Lancasters were strong men of a rare type
that should be stuffed and labelled. They were also murderers, and
should both have been drowned; truth-lovers, peace-rulers, regarding
their charge as sacred; specious liars and hypocrites, afflicted with a
grossly inordinate ambition.
But, as a matter of fact, there was plenty of sympathy for the son, the
supposed victim of forced loyalty to a weak employer and an arrogant
parent, the creature of destiny, bound to take the course he did, a
helpless, doomed sheep, like all the other martyrs of the marsh. There
were certain well-meaning souls who pursued Lanty with such comforting
extracts, but even these smug blunderers did not do it twice. Only Lup
and Francey, over the sea, and Hamer, sadly silent, knew what he really
felt about it all; and not they fully. There are debts a man pays in
himself alone.
He had resisted all attempts to get him away--Hamer’s pleasant plan
for the Canaries had had a short existence and a sudden and violent
death--but Helwise had not been defrauded of her tour. For a month
she had spun luxuriously from place to place, petted and considered,
chattering incessantly and happy as a singing kettle. And after that
they had kept her at Watters for long enough, while Blenkinship’s
Marget, lent to Lanty during his aunt’s absence, scrubbed and organised
like an inspired fury, ruthlessly forcing the twittering Agnes through
the mill of discipline and method, and feeding the silent master as he
had hitherto been fed only in dreams. The transfer had been brought
about by Dandy, cognisant, through bitter experience, of his need. But
now Helwise was coming home, and King Muddle would have his own again.
Wigmore, slowly returning to a semblance of health, had spent the
summer recruiting at Bournemouth and yachting with Bluecaster, and was
now at Watters, while over at Wild Duck Harriet entertained the whole
Quetta family (whose real name was something quite different) with
reckless generosity. Lanty had seen her with them at the various Shows,
preaching Westmorland agriculture into puzzled foreign ears. He had
also seen Stubbs, no longer requiring to be soothed with rotifers, hung
about with Quetta-lings like a family elephant.
But of Dandy he had seen nothing--nothing, that is, but, at intervals,
a smiling, daintily-gracious transparency hovering on the borders of
his clouded existence. Blotted out in a night of storm, she, who had
come so near to meaning everything in his life, had ceased to mean
anything at all. But to-night the old transfiguration was upon the
once-loved fields, and everything was human and dear again, even as the
friendly earth. At eventide there was light.
To a groom crossing the drive at Watters he handed over his horse, and
went up through the gate at the top of the garden to the fields above.
The house behind him lay silent and apparently deserted, but in Hamer’s
meadow there was a busy little community, receiving that particular
instruction in butter-making which comes under the County Council
heading of “Higher Education.”
The Travelling Dairy Van from Asprigg was planted on the breast of the
hill looking over the tiny, half-hidden village below, the long curve
of the North Road, and the upward sweep of the park. In the big tent
stretching from the side of the Van a dozen churns were at work on the
wet boards of the temporary floor, and in the frame of lifted curtains
on the far side the white gowns of pupils and instructress showed
vividly against the green of the hill beyond. There was quite a little
crowd on the surrounding benches, for this was examination-day, and
relatives and friends were present to support the last supreme effort.
On the raised platform of the Van, Mr. and Mrs. Shaw, together with
Helwise and a county lady or two, backgrounded by a couple of husbands,
an odd parson and Grumphy, surveyed the final throes of competition.
The examiner, moving about among the workers, was very busy being
taught his business by Harriet, mightily full of contempt for all Dairy
Schools and officials thereto attached. In the last little gleam of sun
outside Wiggie was walking slowly with his brother, while a gentle,
foreign-looking woman struggled with a trio of joyous ruffians rolling
down the hill. Stubbs had a fourth in the Rakestraw bath-chair, and was
wheeling it patiently if awkwardly over the steep slope. The fourth was
a sad little boy of eight, with black eyes swallowing up a pathetic
face, conducting the bath-chair progression with the solemnity of high
ceremonial. He smiled once, though, when a rapturous thrush, enamoured
of the growing sunset, flung it a little flutter of song from a near
hedge; and Lanty suddenly saw Wiggie in the smile.
From the middle of the tent, where the scales awaited the butter,
the caretaker ruled teacher and taught alike, by virtue of ancient
standing, peculiar wit, and a deficiency in hearing which made mutual
wordy warfare impossible. To this autocrat Lanty handed his onlooker’s
threepence, stopping to exchange a word with the examiner before
joining Hamer on the platform. Harriet, however, was still saying her
say.
“Of course I know you think you’re doing no end of good, but it’s all
rot! None of that butter will be _really_ fit to eat--you know it
as well as I do. You wash and work all the goodness out of it, for
one thing. Yet, in a minute, you and all the rest of the crowd will
get up and say what first-class stuff it is, just because it looks
pretty squatting on that table with a silly pattern sprawling over
it. You’ve admitted yourself that I sent you in the best cream of all
the farmers round. Very well! I can send you in a sample of the best
butter to match. But I didn’t learn how to make it in a rotten tent
from a mass of theories walking about with a notebook. I learned it
from hard experience and Stubbs’s swears when he had to eat the result.
Butter-making on the stage, _I_ call it!” Harriet finished, glaring
round at the trim, white figures. “Might be a Gaiety chorus getting
ready to sing ‘We are the Churniest Churners!’ or, ‘Never forget your
Plug!’ Let ’em go home and learn the real thing from their mothers!”
Wiggie looked in over the heads of the pleased crowd.
“Harriet, I’d be awfully obliged if you could persuade Geronimo to come
out of the duck-pond! And I rather believe that Stubbs has emptied the
Little Great Quetta out of the bath-chair.”
Harriet flew, nearly annihilating the examiner. Wiggie met Lanty’s eyes
with the smile that he had already seen on another pair of lips.
“Oh, nothing dangerous! Come out and talk, will you, when business is
over? Isn’t this jolly? I don’t care _what_ Harriet says. I should like
to eat _all_ that butter myself!”
He moved away, followed by looks of passionate gratitude from the
disheartened competitors, and Lanty mounted the platform.
“Seen Dandy Anne?” Hamer asked him in a loud whisper, when he had
shaken hands all round, and found a chair. Grumphy crawled from under
the table, and snored against his knee. Hamer laughed with suppressed
jollity.
“She’s making butter!” he announced in a joyful undertone. “Insisted
on having a shot at seeing what she could make out. Taken all the ten
lessons, as serious as seven Sundays all in a lump! Our Dandy Anne!
Funny, isn’t it?--though you needn’t say I said so. I hope she’ll pull
through all right. Mother here’ll be sadly vexed if she comes out with
a duck-egg!”
He pointed surreptitiously, and, looking along the lines of farmers’
daughters, running his eye from faces he knew personally to others
whose parentage was easily placed, Lanty found Dandy at last no more
than two churns away.
She looked extraordinarily serious, as Hamer had said, and not
only serious but anxious; not only anxious but even--just a
little--dishevelled. Her butter had been a long time in coming, and
though she had it on the worker by now, it would be a race to finish
it. She had seen Lanty when his head first topped the hill, and after
that she had done everything wrong, forgotten her plug, made a thorough
hash of lifting out the butter and had then over-salted it, so that the
marks against her were totting up like a washing-bill, to the distress
of the examiner, who admired her exceedingly. That poor four pounds was
worked and overworked until it didn’t know itself, and was received
for weighing with grunted contempt. With flushed cheeks and escaping
hair, Dandy took it back to finish, and tried to console herself with
a perfectly-executed pattern. Lanty watched her with interest, and
decided that he liked her--just a little--dishevelled.
And then at last came a stir of relief from the patient audience,
and the white figures retreated to a form, looking excited and hot.
The examiner prefaced his report with a short lecture upon butter
in general, keeping a nervous eye on Harriet the while. She was on
the point of argument more than once, but Wiggie, close at hand,
always seemed to know when the explosion was due, and conjured up a
Quetta-ling to distract her.
The examiner was very pleased to be there that day, and very pleased
with results, and everything that had gone wrong had, of course, been
pure accident or a passing spasm of forgetfulness or sheer evil fate.
Because everybody had meant excellently, and that, of course, was the
main thing, as where there was a will there was a way, and the person
who made a mistake to-day would most certainly correct it to-morrow,
etc., etc. Still, mistakes that day were in such negligible quantity
that they were really not worth mentioning. Indeed, he was happy to
say that he had been able to place the whole of the competitors in
the first-class, with one exception only. Here he looked with such
agonised care at least six feet over Dandy’s head that everybody else
instantly looked six feet lower. This, of course, did not imply that
the aforesaid competitor was hopelessly behind the rest; it only meant
that her work was not quite up to the standard. Indeed, any one who had
watched this particular competitor could see with half an eye that she
knew perfectly well how to make butter, only she had been unfortunate.
Everybody knew that butter could turn nasty if it liked, and it had
treated her badly. She had had other misfortunes, too--little troubles
connected with the plug, etc.--but it was really hardly worth while to
dwell upon them. He was most decidedly pleased to be there! And this
time he looked six feet down and straight at Dandy, so adoringly that
all the audience who had really nice feelings instantly looked six feet
up.
Then one of the pretty county ladies rose and said how pleased _she_
was to be there, and how pleased everybody else was pleased, and how
more than pleased everybody would be when they read about it in the
papers, while the competitors wished she would hurry up and put them
out of their misery, and thought how infinitely more desirable it
was to stand on a platform and look charming and sweet and say all
the right things in exactly the right way, with an adoring husband
somewhere behind, than to make the best butter in the Three Kingdoms.
After that, the certificates were given out, and the noble first-class
came up blushing and bowing to receive the spoils of war. Finally,
Dandy, for her duck-egg.
It seemed to her that the tent was ten miles long and packed like a
Military Tournament. She saw the examiner’s eyes bulging with pity, and
wondered absently why they didn’t fall out. She heard her father’s big
whisper: “Now then, Mother, don’t you fret! Don’t fret, Mother!” and
knew that he was patting his wife’s hand. She heard the caretaker’s
grunt. And at the foot of the steps she felt exactly as if hot needles
were dancing red-slippered all over her, simply because there was one
very ordinary person sitting on the platform, engaged in staring at his
boots.
But as she curtsied to the pretty lady and the duck-egg, wishing
herself at Halsted for the last time in her life, Harriet came suddenly
to her rescue.
“Good lad, Dandy!” she bawled, clapping like a small thunderstorm,
and the general embarrassment broke in a burst of amusement and
applause. Everybody laughed; competitors, audience, the miserable
examiner--thrilling with gratitude towards his late tormentor--and
Dandy herself. Grumphy waddled forward to the extreme edge, and reached
out a long, loving tongue.
“I am sure we all appreciate Miss Shaw’s sporting effort!” the pretty
lady said prettily, and there was more applause. Dandy looked up
bravely and met Lanty’s eyes, turned on her at last as if they really
saw her.
“It was very bad butter!” she said candidly, putting out a hand to the
rolling tongue, and raising a fresh laugh by her cheerful honesty.
Lancaster leaned forward, smiling.
“May I buy it for that thin dog of mine?” he asked; and instantly the
Lane was about them both instead of the crowded tent, and a vision of
rippling wind on the turning corn. They had been alien, then; he had
almost frankly disliked her; but that was long ago, and in this moment
they were all the nearer for it. She had said that she was looking for
herself, even as Grumphy, galumphing through new wheat; and in looking
for herself she had found somebody--ah, how much dearer! And _he_ had
said that the whip was the only teacher. Well, she had come through
many a scourging of longing and revolt, unbearable pain, self-hatred
and contempt, and had learned many things; but in this hour of absurd
humiliation she knew that the one great thing she had learned she had
at last taught him also. She turned and went blindly through the still
cheering crowd to her seat. But it was twenty miles back, because she
went from him.
As they streamed out of the tent, Bluecaster came over a hedge on
a splashed hunter, and the Quetta-lings, who had a passion for all
locomotion that did not include plain walking upon their own legs,
swarmed up him. Harriet stalked after them, and lifted the Little Great
Quetta down again, because he was precious. The big, black eyes filled
with tears, but he did not rebel. He knew that he was precious, and it
had very serious drawbacks.
Lanty ran into Denny, standing in tongue-tied admiration before a Miss
Braithwaite. So had he stood all afternoon, from the first whirl of
the swinging churn to the proud moment when she had laid before the
examiner the four best pounds of the day. He started when Lanty tapped
him on the shoulder.
“Your wife will have plenty of sale for her butter, Thomas!” he told
him slyly.
Denny reddened hotly, and found his tongue with a rush.
“Ay! an’ yours’ll likely be her first customer!” he retorted briskly,
with meaning, and chuckled as he saw his embarrassment reflected. He
had caught the episode of the duck-egg. Lanty went away hurriedly.
Wiggie joined him on the slope, with Edgar and his Southern wife, and
they went down together to Watters, to find Dandy and the examiner
putting the last touches to the waiting meal, while Helwise rooked the
instructress for a bazaar. Harriet and Stubbs followed with the rolling
ruffians, and then Bluecaster. Bluecaster had taken the Little Great
Quetta to see the horse stabled, because you may sometimes look on at
interesting things, even if you _are_ precious. And lastly, Mr. and
Mrs. Shaw with their other butter-supporting guests, who were still
as pleased about everything as ever. They did not stay long, though,
having some distance to drive; and then the Quetta-lings were able to
let themselves go with Italian shrieks and wild, operatic gestures.
Only the Little Great Quetta sat silent and could not eat for quivering
excitement, because a real, live, large horse had munched out of his
thin, little hand; until Bluecaster, with a furtive air of removing his
neighbour’s landmark, took him on his knee and fed him himself.
Lanty looked round the big, joyous, crowded room, and in spite of the
buzz of talk and the soaring, staccato shrieks, felt again the peace
that had met him, months ago, on his first entrance. He was happy, too.
It came to him with a shock, since he had been so sure that he could
never be happy again. Hamer made him happy, moving about gloriously
contented with the swarm under his roof; and Mrs. Shaw, presiding with
conjuring cleverness over her teapot. Dandy had given hers to Helwise,
who loved the effect of her white fingers on the silver handle, and
took care to do nothing more active than incline the spout gently
towards each cup. Dandy did not make him feel happy, though. She made
him feel breathless, and as if he would like to climb on the table and
shriek with the Quetta-lings. It was safer not to look at her.
Wiggie, however, murmuring at his side, busily bridging a big gap with
his summer experiences, filled him, as usual, with little chuckles of
content. Lanty noticed that he never forgot to turn his face so that
his brother might read his words. Presently he went a step further back
still.
“Did I ever tell you that all the players in that hockey-match turned
up again, one after another, to say how sorry they were I was ill?
I thought it so awfully decent of them! It helped a lot, I can tell
you. Saunders _did_ say that, if only I had stayed in my place, he
could have done all the work and perhaps saved me something, but
that’s--well--just Saunders, isn’t it?--and he brought me a book on the
actinic force of light, to cheer me up a bit when I was getting better.
Do _you_ know anything about the actinic force of light? Neither did
I till I met Saunders, but I do now. I learned it up to talk to him.
The little curate said that he had saved my life, and that I owed him
a penny bun. Harriet was very angry--you’ve no idea! She said there
was plenty of food in the kitchen, and that he had done nothing but
sit still while a motor-car took him somewhere, and that anybody, even
an idiot or a parson, could have done _that_. The curate said the
point was that he was the body on the spot. It was his motto. In the
family, he said, like dear old Stubbs. I like him. He lent me a novel
by--perhaps I had better not say it out loud. The others were all
awfully kind, too. I liked them. I remarked to Harriet one day that
they seemed to be really keen on music up here, and she just snorted.
She said: ‘You don’t imagine, do you, that they care a straw about
your being a singer, any more than I do? They’re simply stuck on you
because you stole that goal!’ Edgar wasn’t a bit pleased--were you, old
man?--and Gardner said awful things, but I think I liked it.”
“He is the Great Quetta!” Edgar put in, with a note of indignation in
his deep, curious voice.
Wiggie laughed.
“Do you know that they say I may--perhaps--be able to sing again, in a
year’s time? I’ve still a half-crown or two in the toe of a stocking,
and Edgar’s got a post somewhere where they waggle their fingers
instead of their tongues, so the babies won’t starve yet awhile. We’ll
keep the pot boiling, somehow, but I do not think I shall ever be the
Great Quetta again.”
Edgar uttered an exclamation of angry pain, and his brother smiled
at him affectionately. Blenkinship’s Marget came up and handed him a
medicine-glass, and he finished the tail of the smile on her.
“What does it matter? Anyhow, I can always teach; and the Little Great
Quetta will keep us all out of the Workhouse when we’re old! You must
hear him sing, Lancaster. He has the true singer’s throat, and cords
like the harp of all the winds. Perfect ear, of course. Even the
Quetta-lings, shrieking themselves hoarse over there, have _that_. He
will be the Greatest Quetta some day, please God, and make up to Edgar
for his poor old ears, and to me for all the poor other things that
have gone wrong in my inside--won’t he, old man?”
“He looks very sensitive,” Lanty observed, watching the child.
“The instrument has to be tuned,” Wiggie answered, rather sadly. “It is
out of wrung strings that both God and man make their sweetest music.”
“Still jabbering about your stupid singing!” Harriet scoffed, thrusting
a plate of scones into his face. “Try these. They’re buttered with Wild
Duck. I told the examiner it was the stuff from the Van, and he cleared
out like a shot, and hasn’t been seen since. By the way, the L.G. knows
what you call your Quetta-Song perfectly now. He was singing it all
morning.”
“It’s a song I used to sing,” Wiggie explained, for Lanty’s benefit,
“a song about lambkins and resting-places and things. We call it the
Quetta-Song because the Quettas never have a resting-place. They are
always on the move.”
“I know a song like that,” Lanty said slowly, out of far depths when
Harriet had turned away, and nobody but Wiggie could hear. “_I_ call it
my Home-Song. I heard it years ago at the Westmorland Festival.”
“You heard _me_,” Wiggie said simply. “I remember singing it there. It
is known as the Quetta-Song in the profession, so the others do not
sing it. It was when I first came out and was plump and pretty, with my
voice not quite full grown, so of course you wouldn’t remember me. But
I thank you ever so much for remembering the song.”
“I always remembered it, but I lost faith in it,” Lanty said. “I could
find no home to match the song.”
“But you will find it soon!” Wiggie answered with a quick look, and saw
where the other’s eyes turned. “I have found mine,” he added. He stood
up as Harriet came back. “Harriet--when may I come home again?”
“Home?” Harriet stared.
“Home to Wild Duck--for good!”
They gazed at each other over the plate of scones, and then, still
clasping it, the Rur’l D’trict C’cillor fled from the room. The Great
Quetta (who was only Wiggie) followed.
“Seen Brack lately?” Hamer inquired in a low tone, dropping into the
vacant chair. Lanty nodded.
“Yes, I’ve come across him a good deal. He often looks in to see me,
too. But he’s leaving--did you know?--giving up Thweng in the spring,
and going out to Canada again, to join Lup. They say he wants to take
Braithwaite’s youngest girl with him. He’s money, you know, so he can
afford to play about between the Continents. I’ll be sorry to lose
him--yes, it’s come to that, though I’d never have believed it! There’s
nothing he won’t do for me, nowadays. Oh, he’s the old Brack again, of
course!--all the stage-effects piled on as thick as ever--but the old
Brack with a difference. He still goes to church, by the way.”
“New life for everybody,” Hamer mused. “There’s not much doubt where
Cyril will end, is there? You’ll be putting out your hand, too, my boy!”
Lanty looked at him with a question in his eyes.
“Put it out soon!” said Hamer.
Bluecaster left, shortly afterwards, and the agent walked part of the
way with him.
“You’ll come back?” Hamer begged, concerned. “You’ll stop to dinner,
you and your aunt? I’ve scarcely had the tail of a word with you, with
all those folks to see to. Come back!”
And all the rest of the party gathered on the steps and called after
him as he went down the drive--kindly Shaws and gentle Quettas,
Helwise, smilingly satisfied and perfectly at home, and Stubbs,
untroubled by the least alluring vision of any White Lion, all under
the long, creepered house in the opal evening. “Come back! Be sure you
come back!”
The two men turned into the Lane, walking by the tired horse, and after
their short business chat was finished they went on some way together
in silence. Bluecaster was going abroad again soon to his usual winter
round, but to-night he went back alone to his big, lonely house. Lanty
was glad that, behind himself, the friendly, happy party awaited him at
Watters.
Bluecaster’s would always be a lonely life, he thought, unconsciously
prophetic. Such a temperament as his would send him weaponless into
every battle, and receive him back more sure than ever of the forces
arrayed against him, yet pathetically ready to the bitter end. And each
defeat would leave him more silent and more shy. Yes--and more lovable,
he said to himself, holding his stirrup for him while he mounted, and
watching for the last courteous salute that he knew would be sent him
from the turn. Bluecaster might be little more than a symbol of great
ideals beyond his perfect grasp, but even as such he met a passionate
need in the stronger man behind him, since every brave Viking-soul
sails forth the happier for the figurehead and the spilt wine.
There was coming into the sky the steely clearness of still autumn, and
a faint breath of frost was promised by the yellow bar yet lingering
on the horizon and the starkening edge of the woods. It was darker and
stiller in the Lane, and when Dandy grew out of the mist creeping
up from the earth beneath, she came with the hush and mystery of
vapour-borne elves. Not only was she not outside any more, but she
had looked right into the fairies’ haunts and bent her ear to their
rippling talk. Across the almost fiercely-pure sky the birds went home.
Close at hand, she had still her mystery, but now it was human and
breathing, with kind, shy eyes and delicate colour coming to and fro.
“Wiggie sent me!” she said rather breathlessly. “He told me to stop
you at the last gap as you came back. He said you had lost something,
and would find it there, if you looked. Do you know what he meant? He
wouldn’t explain--just packed me off with the message. I don’t know
what to make of him--he’s like a schoolboy to-night! It’s glorious
to see him getting well, isn’t it? You wouldn’t believe how pleased
Watters was to have him back! Two roses bloomed in the night under his
window, and at dawn there were half-a-dozen birds waiting on the sill.”
“I believe he’s a wizard!” Lanty smiled. “Look at Harriet! He has her
at the end of a string.”
“Harriet has fallen in love with him! I believe it happened the
night he came to Crabtree--the dreadful night after the storm when I
brought you the soup--I mean, when Our Agnes--Wiggie--Harriet----” She
floundered, agonised and helpless.
He stopped, looking at her with a frown.
“When _you_ brought me the soup?”
“Yes. No!” She was almost in tears at the unmeant revelation. “It
was Harriet! _She_ made it, and there were cockroaches--a tin of
something--I washed the pan.”
He held doggedly to his question.
“When _you_ brought me the soup?”
“I carried it in--that was all--and you didn’t know. You thought it was
the servant! But I only found the tray-cloth. It was Harriet----”
“Bother Harriet!” he said cruelly, and put his hands on her shoulders,
trying to see her face. “It was _you_ who fed me, _you_ who lighted
the fire and tidied up those horrible papers, and were good to me all
round? And I didn’t know!”
“No, you didn’t know!” She let her pride slip through soft fingers and
looked up at him, all the pain of that gone hour in her sobbing voice.
“But you ought to have known--oh, you ought, you _ought_! I wanted to
be good to you more than anything in the world, and you wouldn’t let
me. I asked you--I begged in my heart--how was it you did not hear? I
did not dare to speak aloud. You had said I did not understand--do you
remember?--and I was afraid. So when I found you did not hear, I went
away, and you let me go. You let me go!”
“I was out on a far road, sweetheart, and I had lost you in the dark. I
doubt I haven’t got back to you, even yet!”
“Come soon!” she whispered, in his arms.
Behind them, a crystal voice broke into singing, and, turning, they
looked together through the last Green Gate of Vision. On the hill-side
a little child was standing with his face turned to the bar of sunset,
as if he sang to listening souls behind that dying door of gold. Far
out of sight, the Quettas stood arm in arm, risking their Little Great
Quetta in the autumn mist. There was nothing framed by the Gate of
Vision but the sleeping land and the singing child.
He sang the Wander-Song of the Quettas, that was Lancaster’s Song of
Home.
“What can lambkins do,
All the keen night through?
Nestle by their woolly mother,
The careful ewe.
What can nestlings do
In the nightly dew?
Sleep beneath their mother’s wing
Till dawn breaks anew.
If in field or tree
There might only be
Such a warm, soft sleeping-place
Found for me!”
With the last note he stayed, looking up at the door of Heaven closing
before him. Almost he might have seen the long years of wandering and
struggle, searing glory and usuried fame, before he came to his last,
soft sleeping-place on the Arm of God.
“And _my_ place?” Lanty whispered. “It is cold in the dark.”
“It is warm in my heart,” she said.
CHAPTER XXVIII
HAIL AND FAREWELL!
On the marsh there was the breath of mown hay that comes when the grass
is ready, before ever the scythe is swung or the cutter yoked. On the
eve of his wedding, Lancaster walked the ribbon of road alone.
To-morrow Helwise would be gone, joyfully transplanted to Watters for
life, and in her place his dear love, with all his joy in her hands. He
closed a reverent palm on the leaping thought, and turned to send his
tribute out across the sea.
The Let had come through the winter months unharmed, but the
unbuttressed Lugg looked pitifully rent, with its six doors set open
for any flood to charge unchallenged. Year after year it would shrink
and crumble, beaten and torn, until the memory of its fame would be but
a tale mumbled in old men’s mouths. And not a hand had been laid on
the Pride since the Whinnerahs had gone out with the dawn. Tide after
tide swam cold into its wrecked rooms, and took its flotsam of broken
sticks. In the little fire-lit home the waves swallowed the empty
hearth and fretted the mouldering walls. Where the kettle had sung and
the tired dogs breathed in a happy sleep, the bitter water plashed and
moaned.
Yet the sea had not won. Wolf was its victor, though it had dragged him
down and strangled him out of life. For many waters cannot quench love,
neither can the floods drown it.
On this the eve of blessed beginnings, Lancaster gave himself wholly to
his faithful dead.
“_Who hath remembered me? who hath forgotten?_
Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,
But the world shall end when I forget!”
_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay._
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
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