Part 3

“I’m not ready,” Thomas said doggedly. “I mun have a bit more time. Happen another year I could see my way....”

“A year’s neither here nor there, surely, if yon’s all?”

“It’d be two, happen—ay, and maybe more. I don’t rightly know. I can’t rightly say.”

“Ay, well, it’s now or never for the old dad,” Bob said. “A year or two’s no use to the old chap, wi’ notice to quit pinned to his jacket-tail. What’s gitten you, lad, to be hanging back like this?” He raised his voice and spoke more firmly, sure of his cause. “The spot’ll suit you, waint it, come to that?”

“Ay, I’d like it right well.”

“Well, then, whatever’s to do?” Bob peered at him curiously, struck by the mixture of longing and dogged resistance in his tone. “If it’s nobbut a matter of a pound or two, you can fetch up easy enough on yon. There’s a deal o’ folk’d lend you a hand, seeing how you’re placed. It’s more than time, too, you were starting on your own. It doesn’t do to stop in service over long. You get kind o’ fixed and feared o’ striking out.”

“I’ll strike right enough, never you fret—I will that. But it’ll be in my own time....”

“You can’t always suit things just to the tick.... Eh, I wish the chance had come my road, that’s all!” Bob sighed and frowned, depressed by the thought of what he had missed, and the folly which refused what he would so gladly have seized. “But it’s no use my thinking on’t, so that’s flat. Even if I could borrow the brass, I’d never catch up with it, I doubt, and there’s Marget to be suited in t’matter, as I said afore. Nay, I’m a broken reed, that’s what it is, and I mun just let be. It’s for you to say what you’ll do for the old man.”

“I can’t do owt—yet,” Thomas repeated. “I mun ha’ time....” and pushed his chair further into the concealing gloom. He felt trapped in a cunning snare, all the more cunning and cruel because it was simply his own plan of life twisted and tangled out of shape. He had never dreamed that his future hung by a hair, but then he had never imagined that John might die, or that Agnes might so incredibly change her mind. He felt not only trapped but mocked, and the mockery hardened him in his resolve. Difficult as he was to turn, he might yet have been driven to yield, if the whole business had not worn so ironic a leer. The rough hand of fate was thrust in among his careful plans. His faithfulness and self-denial, his patience and hard work, were all to be shuffled and risked in a hurried moment like this.

If only things had been right between him and his lass, how triumphantly simple the whole problem would have been! It was true that he would have liked another year to look round, but he would have let that go without hesitation for the chance of the farm. The place was in a bad state, of course, but that should mean an easier rental, and all the more credit to him when he pulled it round. He knew the little farm by stick and stone, and loved it well enough, too. He was content enough in his hired spot, but the marsh blood that was in him cried always to be settled within sight and sound of the sea. Even to-night, though his heart was pulling him back, and the marsh was a dripping waste with a trap at the farther end, he had drawn great breaths as the mountains dropped behind. To have had the old home with Agnes—why, it was better by far than he had planned! And in the event, as it had proved, how far it had fallen short!

He would have been glad, too, to keep the old man, just as the Agnes he had counted as his would also have been glad. Both had been bred to the sense of duty powerful in their class, and the fact that Kit had muddled his own chance would have made no difference to that duty in their eyes. He would have been welcome to their home as long as he lived, and indeed, there would have been no hardship about it, after all, for he was both lovable and kind, as well as the sort that made little trouble about the house. Thomas, in fact, would have been proud as well as glad to give him what he asked. He would have liked to have seen him daily in his chair, playing his fiddle in a patch of shade or pottering about the garden in the sun. The old man had always been rarely fond of flowers, and no matter what happened or did not happen on the farm, the garden, at least, was always bright and sweet. Flowers seemed to grow for him, indeed, under the mere caressing glance of his eye.... But at present Agnes was turned the other way, and he would not travel a road that was not hers as well. As long as he could he would stay within reach, doggedly waiting and waiting for the recoil, and if anything else called for his help, he must shut his ears and let it go to the wall. A few miles over the hill would have made little difference, perhaps, but he could not have endured those miles, and he did not mean to try. Without Agnes, he would let the farm go without even raising his hand. Without Agnes, he would let his father go, too.

There being little else he could do for the old man, Bob was roused to fight for him to the last. It was his brother’s duty, he pointed out, a duty that would have been a pleasure to other folks, not so far. Nobody could have had a better father, as they knew right well, and he was entitled to the little they could do. It wasn’t as if Thomas hadn’t the brass—what, he had more than once told them about it himself! If that was true—and it was like enough, after all these years—there could be nothing and less than nothing in the way. Supposing it did mean a year before he’d planned, why, surely to goodness there was no hitch in that? He’d never for shame let his father be turned out, like a come-day-go-day tenant that never meant to stop? He could have both bed and bite under his roof, Bob said, but it wouldn’t be much to crack on, after Beautiful End. There was only one right road, as anybody could see, and that was to put in at once for the offered farm.

Kit never spoke or stirred while Bob argued and Thomas denied, the deep, slow voices rising a little towards the end, but never once growing bitter or unkind. Abuse and bickering had always been strangers under that roof, and even Thomas’s sullen rage did not vent itself in speech. He spoke seldom, indeed, as seldom as he could, and then only dour refusals to consider the matter at all, retreating further and further out of the path of the moon. But throughout the whole scene Kit never said another word, and his sons did not think it strange. He was of the sort that makes its appeal and then stands aside, leaving others to argue and settle its fate. He had pleaded his case with a childlike certainty that somebody would step in, and the matter was fought to an end without his help. Even when Thomas had said nay for the last time—the hundredth, miserable, degrading time, so it seemed—his father had not spoken again. Perhaps even then he hoped and had faith, that faith in chance which dreamers carry to their graves; or perhaps he guessed the hold of the tie to which Thomas would give no name.

“Ay, well, happen you’ll sleep on’t,” Bob had said, rising at last, and speaking even to the end as if his father were not there. “There’s nowt else I can think on as’ll likely change your mind, and I doubt I’d ha’ been wiser not to say so much. But it’s hard to stand by when you can’t do nowt to help, and see as others as can all right but happen won’t. There’s a home for the old man at our house whenever he likes to come, and right welcome he’ll be under any roof of mine. As for Marget, she’ll likely kick a bit at first, but I’ll get her round to it after a deal o’ talk. She’ll come to it all right, same as other folks have done, and it’s queer if I can’t give my father a share of my own spot.”

“I’ll lend a hand wi’ the keep,” Thomas muttered, out of the dark, and Bob nodded in answer, turning to the door. He knew well enough what his offer of a home was worth, among weakly, ill-tempered children and under a nagging shrew. He knew as well as Thomas or Kit that it would only be a dismal waiting-place for death. It was bad enough to have to quit, to break ties and begin a feeble life again, to lose the sound of the tide awash at the sea-wall, but the worst to come was not the loss of the farm. It was Marget that was the dreadful thing to face, as they were all aware. It was the thought of Marget with the old man in her hands that almost defeated Thomas at the last. If only the poor old chap could have gone to somebody else!... “Now ye’ll mind ye can come to us, Father!” Bob repeated on the step, and Kit had simply thanked him and said no more. In the porch, Thomas, dismal as the night, managed to drag out a few ungracious words. “As soon as I’ve gitten things straight, Father ... just hold on....” And Kit had said thank you quite simply for that, too.

Once outside he was seized by a passionate impulse to return. Grasping at one thing still out of reach, he was more than probably risking the loss of all. Supposing Agnes should never be won back, no matter what he offered or threw away? It was on the cards, as he was forced to admit. Even without her he would still have the farm, and his payment of satisfaction in his father’s face. But, rough and unthinking as he was, he guessed that partial fulfilment was more to be dreaded than complete loss, that a heart’s desire is better rejected if it cannot be had whole. And indeed, this strife with himself was only a waste of energy, after all. He knew, as things stood, he would never come away.

The brothers found nothing more to say as they followed the muddy track to the meadow gate. Bob had tried his eloquence, such as it was, to a hopeless end, and his own position was doubtful, to say the least. At any moment Thomas might have turned, and with just cause. He was the youngest after all, and the only one that had stood on his own feet. John had not had enough courage even to live, and Bob, beaten and slack, was scarcely the one to preach burdens on to another’s back. He was tired, too, after a wearing day and a scream-riddled night; busy, moreover, with the problem of facing Marget with the news.

At the back of his mind was a vague idea that Thomas’s wooing was somehow going amiss. He had thought of it while he argued in the house, but Thomas had never thought fit to mention the lass, and it wasn’t his brother’s place to bring her in. The courting, he knew, had been a long one, like his own. He could have told Thomas a thing or two, he felt sure, only telling these things was never any use. In spite of his good sense and superior luck, Thomas must dree his weird like the rest.

They had parted where the roads parted on the marsh, and after them through the lifting curtain of the rain had looked the pale wraith that wanted to be the moon. And again, over their heads from the lone farm, now slipped away into the unbordered dark, there trembled the long flight of the violin.

Alone on the marsh, Thomas had once again nearly repented and turned back. It was not that the fiddle seemed to call him back. It had, on the contrary, the effect of shutting him out. It seemed to mark the final detachment of father from son, to emphasise the division of two who by rights should have held together, but were nevertheless going to drift apart. It was Kit’s swan-song to his own place, and as such it kept its ecstasy for himself and its poignancy for the listener on the waste. Thomas had an idea that he was hurrying back to the farm, plodding again through the meadow along the rutted track. He heard the little click of the garden gate, saw himself pushing gently at the door, met the sweet flood of music rushing out, and warmed to the old man’s welcome and relief. But always his feet were taking him away, and the pull of the farm and its trouble lessened with every mile. Now his thoughts reached forward rather than behind, fixed on a dweller in another house. In his mind he saw her home between gentle curves of the land, the night brooding over its walls that seemed as much grown out of the earth as the hedgerows in the fields. He saw the syringa over the porch lifting its star-faces to the moon. He saw faint candle-light in a room upstairs, and herself a moving shadow across the blind....

He was late at his own place, and found himself locked out, but even as he tried the door he heard stumbling on the stairs, and knew that his step had warned the folk across the yard. While he waited he said to himself that if there was any bother he would give in his notice right away. It only wanted some little thing like that to fix his mind. He tried to work himself into a fiercer mood, ready to lash out at the first suggestion of rebuke. It would be grand to be his own master after so long, instead of a hired man at beck and call. With a word he could alter the position when he liked. But when the bolts were unshot the farmer said nothing except that it was a dirty night, and Thomas took off his boots in silence and followed him upstairs. In the morning the porridge was badly burnt, and again he tried to drive himself to a break, but once again something put him off and he kept still. That evening, however, he met Agnes in the lane between the farm and her home, and the thing rose in him with a rush and he spoke out.

“You can take it or leave it, as suits you,” he said, “but there it be to your hand. The farm’s ready and waiting on you, and so’s the man. I’ve had enough o’ your putting off and keeping me hanging round. You’ve got to fix it up now or let me gang.”

“You must give me time,” she answered, using his own words of the night before. “I’m not ready—I don’t know my mind. As for keeping you hanging round, you’ve been free to go this many a long day, as you know right well. I’m not that anxious to get wed, not I. But if it’s me you’re wanting, as you seem to think, well, there’s nothing for it but to give me time.”

“You’ve had time and plenty, I’m sure!” he retorted with rough scorn. “Time to look round at all the lads and begin again. Time to look round at the married folk an’ all, and see who’s suited and who baint. But there’s got to be an end of your daft shilly-shally now. Seems to me you think it’s nobbut a game.”

“Nay, then, that’s just what I don’t!” she flashed back in wrath. “It’s because I take it so serious-like that I don’t mean to be pushed. There’s times it seems to me that serious I don’t know how folk ever come to it at all. ’Tisn’t as if it was just a bit of a bargain over a cow or a two-three sheep. It’s you and me beginning our lives right over again from the start, and maybe both on us finding we’re different folk from what we thought. I’m suited well enough as I am, and I’d be a fool not to stop and think. I’ll not wed till I’m that set on the lad I’ll find myself fair running to kirk, and I’m a long way off yet from being as nicked in the head as yon! I don’t say but what I think a deal of you, because I do. I’m not breaking my heart over you, that’s all. If you want to gang, you can gang, ay, and right off the reel, but I won’t stir finger or foot until I choose!”

“Ay, but there’s the old man, I tell ye!” Thomas had blurted out. “I’m in a cleft stick, seemingly, atween you and him. They’ll turn him out of his spot if I waint promise to take hold.”

“Eh, now, if that isn’t terble hard!” She fell silent, thinking after her passionate speech, studying his lowering, fretted face, and seeing all in a moment how they stood. “But there’s never two minds about it, surely?” she added, in a troubled voice. “You’ll have to see to your father one way or t’other, you and Bob. And you’ll never to goodness miss the chance o’ the farm?”

He turned his eyes on her with their dogged, miserable look.

“Ay, but I will, if I can’t have you an’ all.”

“You’ve had your answer to that till I’m fair tired.” She turned away from him, staring vexedly at the hedge.

“Ay, well, then, that’s all there is to it, I reckon. Father and farm’ll have to see to themselves.”

“You can have a housekeeper to do for you,” Agnes said.

“An’ a bonny makeshift an’ all, for a man as wants a wife!”

“Other folks do with them all right.”

“Well, I want nowt wi’ ’em, so that’s flat.”

“But you’ll have to do summat o’ the sort,” she protested angrily, troubled and also afraid. Her own particular cleft stick was becoming plainer with every minute that passed. “You’ll have to have somebody about the place, and it’s fair wicked to talk o’ missing the farm. What, you’ve been wanting a spot of your own for long enough, I’m sure, and now you can do what’s right by your dad at the same time.”

“You wouldn’t ha’ minded him about the house? If things was fixed, I’m meaning ... if we were wed....”

“Mind an old body settin’ on the hearth?” She turned to face him again with wonder in her eyes. “Nay, but you know me better than that by a deal! I’d ha’ been glad enough to see to him, that I would. I’ve always been rarely fond o’ Fiddlin’ Kit.”

“Ay, well, then,” Thomas insisted, “what’s in the road?”

“I’ve tell’t you what’s in the road. I can’t frame to make up my mind.”

“Seems to me it’s an easy enough job,” he answered her gloomily, staring at his feet, and she laughed in spite of her anger and dismay.

“Happen it is for some folk, but not me.... Hark ye! Show a bit o’ sense, do now,” she coaxed. “You go off to your farm, and likely I’ll throw my shoe after you, even yet. I reckon you’ll ha’ forgot all about me, by then.”

“’Tisn’t me as’ll do the forgetting!” he turned on her fiercely, breaking out at last. “It’s your sort, not mine, as doesn’t keep a friend in mind. It’s your sort as goes back on your word, and plays fast and loose and suchlike tricks. You’d be glad to be shot of me, I’ll be bound, and afore long there’d be somebody easier in my shoes, but I don’t mean to give you a chance o’ forgetting, don’t you fret! Am I like to put miles between us when I’m lile or nowt to you in the same lane? Nay, I’ll bide ... I’ll bide.... I’m used to your ways, and though I don’t think much on ’em, I reckon I can see it through. But it isn’t only me as is waiting on you now. You’re making me act bad to the old dad, and that’s what’s putting me about.”

“It’s no business of mine, I tell you!” she flung back, full of resentment at this shifting of loads. “It’s nowt to do wi’ me, anyway round.” They stood glaring at each other with frowning faces and hard eyes, blaming each other for the subtle net by which they were equally entrapped. “I’ve no call to wed just to give your father a home,” she went on. “I’m sorry for him, as I said, and I’d lend a hand if I could, but I don’t see as it’s fair to blame me because I can’t. You’ve not overmuch pride, I doubt, or you’d never put it like yon. It’s nobbut a poor sort o’ lad as’d take me at the price!”

He threw her a final look of helpless rage, and swung away from her, facing towards the farm. “Then he mun gang to Marget,” he flung over his shoulder, “Marget and Bob!” and at the terrible name of Marget she cried aloud. Thomas continued steadily on his way.

“Eh, Thomas, you don’t mean that!” she called after his retreating back. “She’ll be bad to him, will Marget—she’ll finish him right off. Bide a bit, can’t you?... Save us, man, can’t you bide? I never somehow thought of the old man going there.”

“Where else should he gang?” he demanded sullenly, stopping but still turned away. “Bob’s his own flesh and blood as well as me, and a long sight the oldest on us an’ all. There’s t’ Union, likely, might do for the old dad, but I doubt they won’t take him while there’s others to fill the job.”

“Nay, and why should it, I’d like to know!” she exclaimed. “You should think shame o’ yourself for suchlike selfish talk.” There was something desperate in her glance at the hedge on either side, as if the fences were hung with the net that would not let her through. From them she looked once more at Thomas, turning slowly on his heel, and slowly beginning at last to see his way.... “I’d wed him myself and work for him sooner than that!”

“I reckon there’s nowt agen you wedding me instead.”

“Nay, then, I can’t.... I’ve tell’t you.... I just can’t.”

“Then he’ll be at Marget’s afore you can say knife.”

They had changed places at last, as was clear to both; in the course of a few moments they had changed. At last he had found a way of blocking her escape, of putting a log in the path of her everlasting no. It was he who had the better hold now, and he did not mean to be stopped from winning the fall. He knew well enough that however hard she might be with a young man foolishly in love, she had the softest heart in the world for the weak and old. Perhaps he had no pride, as she said, but he meant to use his father’s cause to the full for the furthering of his own. He stood staring fixedly at her downcast head, and the old kindliness came back into his voice now that he saw his advantage clear. He put the whole case over to her again, but always with Marget looming largely at the end, and had the same satisfaction in the last effect. Agnes knew Bob’s wife as well as anybody else, and needed no enlightening as to her ways. His hopes rose and his face cleared as he saw the position he had cursed proving the door to his desire, and as his heart eased he became more eloquent, more tender, more difficult to resist. At the finish he gave her a rough picture of the lonely farm, and the fiddle singing into the night....

She yielded at last with wet eyes and a dismal shake of her drooped head.

“Nay, then, we mun just put a stop to it, that’s all. We can’t let him gang to Marget, poor old chap! If you waint stir without me, I mun wed you and take the risk, but I doubt we’ll make a mess o’ things, you an’ me. It’s nobbut a middlin’ sort of a bargain when folks don’t both jump on the tick.” She looked up at him suddenly with a laugh that was more than half a wail. “Eh, Thomas, but baint there some other lass’d do as well?”

And then, when he had what he wanted, he put it from him and turned away. As soon as the battle was over, he saw at once the futility of his success. He could think, now that he was no longer vexed and opposed, and thinking, could find nothing else to do but draw back. His father could have only a few years in front of him, after all, but this was for all his own life and hers. He had his pride, in spite of her taunt, and this was apparently where it stopped. It was a poor bargain, as she had said, appealing angrily to his common sense; a gift, if you could call it a gift, that wouldn’t be even his own. And it wasn’t much of a man who bullied a woman into saying yes, who needed so mighty a lever to get at her heart. He stood back once again as she wept, and heard his voice sending her away, heard himself seal his father into the mercy of Bob’s wife....