Part 4

So Kit had gone to Marget’s, trustful to the end, even with his sold-up house behind him and a shrewish face before. Thomas attended the sale and bought in a few trifles at the old man’s wish, and when all was over he borrowed a trap and drove him away. Kit was cheerful and talkative throughout the drive, and they never so much as mentioned Marget’s name. Thomas had an insane idea that they would find his mother at the farther end, and kept seeing her waiting for them at the door. He never forgot the journey’s real end, the shut house full of eyes at every pane, the cold wait in the empty street, the colder opening to let them in. Marget had met them with silence at first, and then with a gathering flood of angry speech. Kit’s attempt at grateful thanks had been swallowed up in it as the channels out on the sands were swallowed by the winter wave. Thomas waited until Marget’s breath gave out, and then went away, feeling as though he had thrown a live thing to a cat. After that time he had gone as seldom as his sense of duty would allow. He never failed, however, to pay his share, and he managed to get news of the old man from Bob. Not that Bob ever had a very great deal to say, because he kept out of the house as much as he could. The old man was “ailing a bit,” or “right enough,” as the case might be, but that was all. Now it was nearly two years since Kit had gone to the unhappy place—the place where a pair of lovers had prisoned him in.

* * * * *

Agnes, returning, found him at the mirror again, so intent that he started when she spoke.

“Land’s sake! Why, you’re not off yet!... What’s come to you to be gaping in yon glass?” She stared at him wonderingly, and he turned a somewhat sheepish face. “You nobbut look at it once a week, as a rule, and that’s when you’re donning yourself for kirk.”

“I was nobbut taking a squint at the room,” he answered in a puzzled tone. “Glass makes it look different, I don’t know why.”

“Ay, I’ll be bound it’s different!” she exclaimed with pride. “I’d a sight on’t once, not long afore the sale, and a lost-looking, dismal spot it was, to be sure! Seems like as if it couldn’t possibly be the same. What wi’ new furniture and range and wall-papers an’ suchlike, it’s for all the world like some other place.”

“Ay, but I wasn’t meaning it like that. Seems as if it was the _old_ room I can see in t’glass. It was the old kitchen glass, you’ll think on, as I bought at the sale. Father didn’t want it going to off-comers and suchlike, so I bought it to please the poor old chap. He’d a sort of idea as glasses knew a deal—said there was glasses remembered things they’d seen. Likely this here has got the old kitchen on its mind. Likely it’s looked that often at the old, it can’t frame yet to take a peep at the new.”

“Likely you’re blinded wi’ the sun!” She flung him a look of laughing scorn and went to the window again.... “What in the name o’ goodness can ha’ come to yon trap! D’you think owt’s gone amiss on the road?”

“More like they’ve been late in setting off, as I said afore. I’ll be bound Marget’s found summat to keep ’em back, if it’s only to put the poor old man about. Or likely they’ve been bothered wi’ folk stopping ’em on t’road. They’ll all be agog on the marsh to think as he’s coming home.”

“Folks say they’re glad the Sills isn’t quitting the marsh,” Agnes said. “They thought nowt o’ the man as come here after your dad. He seems to have been only a terble middlin’ sort—over fond o’ the drink and happen a bit daft. The place isn’t over lucky, Thomas, I doubt!”

“Folks make their own luck,” Thomas said doggedly, squaring his jaw, “and anyway round it’s brought me all the luck I want. There’s you here, as I never thought’d come, and brass enough to put the farm on its legs. And now there’s the old man coming home to-night. I reckon I’m suited as well as most. There’s nobbut one thing grubs me,” he went on, with a moody look, “and that’s that the old chap ever had to gang.”

“Eh, let it bide, can’t you?” Agnes cried aloud. She stole a glance at his face and her own drooped again. “Surely to goodness you’ve never been going over yon? Things is right enough now—as right as rain.”

“Ay, but they’re spoilt a bit for us, all the same.” His voice had dropped back into the bitter tone. “I still feel sort o’ shamed about the job, and I reckon you’re none so bright about it yourself. And yet, if it come back over again, I’d do same as afore.”

“I don’t see as we could ha’ done different,” Agnes said, and sighed. “I did say as I’d come if you couldn’t fix nowt else, but I doubt we wouldn’t ha’ made much out in the end.”

“It’d ha’ been hell for both on us afore so long.” He began to walk restlessly up and down behind her back, the old angry resentment blurring and troubling his face. “What beats me about it all is what come over you just then. You’d been right enough afore, and you’re suited well enough now. What, for the land’s sake made you act so strange?”

“Nay, I don’t know, I’m sure. I’m fair puzzled about it myself.” She laughed, but there were regretful tears behind the laugh. “Seems to me women don’t always know exactly what they’re at. Folks don’t always see their road clear in front o’ their feet. There’s a time for everything, I reckon, that’s what it is, and it hadn’t come just then for you and me.”

“Anyway, it’s come now, thanks be!” he said in a sudden burst, and he stopped his angry pacing and came to her side. “But all the same,” he persisted, “I’d ha’ liked it perfect all through. There’s things as hurt to look back on more than a deal. There’s times I’ve heard her rating the poor old chap, I’ve felt that bad I could ha’ shot myself right out. ’Twas summat like as if he’d been clapped in jail; as if you an’ me had gone and put him in quod.”

She put her hands on his shoulders, her eyes filling with tears.

“Nay, now—don’t—don’t! You make me feel that bad.”

“And him so kind,” he went on, as if unable to stop. “Ay, it makes you feel bad enough to swear.”

“It’s over ... it’s by wi’ ... we’ll make it up to him, you’ll see!” He put his arms about her, and her hands went up around his neck. “You’ll not be keeping a grudge agen me all our lives?”

“Nay, it’s myself I’m sore with, not you. I should ha’ done my duty by the old chap, and trusted you’d come to me in the end. But I wasn’t for taking the risk. I was over feared. And now I doubt I’ll always feel sort o’ shamed.”

“Things’ll sort themselves out, don’t you fret. They’ll right themselves sure as a bobbin, after a bit.”

“Likely they will.”

“It’ll make a sight o’ difference, once he’s back. You’ll never think twice o’ yon weary time no more.”

“Likely I waint.”

“And you’ll not throw it up at me when you’re mad?” she begged. “You’ll not forget just how it come about?”

“I tell you I blame myself,” he repeated, “and nobody else. Happen I wanted you that bad I’d to pay a bigger price than most. Or happen we were both on us driven, and couldn’t help ourselves at all. But like enough it’ll all come right, as you say, and it’s nobbut fools as frets themselves, looking back.”

“We’ve come out a deal better than we deserve!” She smiled and drew away from him, looking happy again. “We took a deal o’ risk, you an’ me, but we’ve bit on our feet, I reckon, after all....” She drifted back to the table, as to an altar on which their sacrifice of thanksgiving was set. “What can ha’ come to the trap, Thomas? Father’ll be wearied out afore they land.... I mind you said he liked a bit o’ ham to his tea. You said Marget wasn’t for giving him ham if she could help.”

“She’d ha’ given him nowt,” Thomas growled, “if it wasn’t she was feared o’ finishing him off. Brass she was getting for him was over good to lose. He never eat what I give her, I’ll be bound.... Ay, he’d always a fancy-like for ham, and when he’d finished he’d gang outside for his smoke. There’s a new pipe I bought him, somewheres. Marget took t’other off him, Bob said.... Ay, an’ there’s some of his pet bacca in a tin.”

“Have you finished yon seat you were making for him under t’hedge?”

“Ay, it’s finished right enough. A gradely seat it is an’ all—a sight better than t’other as used to be by t’door. If you’ll stop fidging over yon table you might take a look for yourself.”

She laughed and went out with him into the porch. Their figures divided the sun as they stood, so that they looked like swimmers deep in the streaming gold. Their heads leaned together as they nodded approval at the seat, a wooden bench in the arms of a well-laid fence. It was a grand seat, Agnes said, and a grand evening for anybody wanting to sit out. They pictured the old man sitting there, warming himself in the last of the sun. They were excited and full of plans again, like children preparing for a treat. She had her hand on his arm, peering across him round the porch, when the trap suddenly lumbered into sight. It might have been dumped out of space on the straight-ruled road, a languid object jolting over the flat. Thomas, meditating proudly upon the seat, turned about to a hasty prod.

“There it be, Thomas—there it be! Trap, I mean, man—look ye—can’t ye see? Be off now as smart as you can. They’ll be here afore you’ve made shift to start.”

She tried to push him out of the porch, deaf to his protest that the trap had a fairish piece to cover yet. “A bonny time it’ll take an’ all,” he added, “wi’ yon bag o’ bones atween the shafts. Seems like it meant liggin’ down for a bit of a nap.”

“Best be soon than late,” she urged. “Nay, now, be off, do!”—and he allowed himself to be shoved on to the path, grinning at her eager face. “I’ll have kettle singing by you’re back,” she went on, “and then there’ll be nowt to keep us from setting to, right off. Bob’ll have a bite o’ summat, likely, afore he makes off. Eh, but I’m right fain to see the old man’s face when he passes t’door.”

“He’ll find summat better than Marget to look at, and that’s sure!” he teased her, lingering, and she stamped her foot at him and cried:

“Get on, you gert soft!”

And he answered, “I _is_ getting on!” and stood like a stock.

The farm, full of the evening sun, and with smiling figures at its door, made a gay enough welcome for the exile that was drawing towards it over the marsh. Thomas received a final wave of mingled speeding and threat, and then the blue gown vanished through the porch. “We mun do what we can,” he heard her call from within, “but if we don’t suit him better than Marget, I’ll shut up house!”

Then he was gone at last, his broad figure dwindling as he went, until the high hedges hid him and the wild roses closed above his head. Away on the road, coming to meet him, the trundling speck grew and grew in size. As he dwindled and disappeared, so it enlarged and sharpened into sight. There was something fateful, indeed, about its slow yet determined approach. One knew, without dreaming of asking, that its errand was for the farm. In spite of its slow and clumsy advance it reminded Agnes of a sailing-boat she had seen, coming on high water across the glancing bay. It had seemed to come straight from the village under the hill to the farm that stood alone on the edge of the sand. Wind and tide were both at its back, driving it on a flowing path that seemed to have no possible end except in the house itself. She had watched it from that upstairs room upon which she had been at work so long, and had seen it heaving towards her, purposeful and direct. As it drew nearer the shore without slackening its speed, she began to feel almost afraid. The tilted bowsprit seemed ruled to the last inch on the window of the room. It was like a racer, nearing the post, leaping ahead along the last stretch. It was like a child, hurrying to be home, heedless of any obstacle in the way. She could not see the man in charge for the sail, so that the boat seemed like a thing by itself, a toy launched by the impetus of some mighty hand. She felt certain it meant to try to sail to her in the room, and would dash itself on the sea-wall just below. There was even a moment when she leaned from the window to scream, because it looked as though nothing could stop it now it was so near. And then, just as it seemed that the bow was over the hedge, it had swung on its heel and forgotten and gone away.... Like swinging a reel on a thread, she thought to herself; as easy as turning the handle of a door. Now it was leaning over, beating into the wind, and she could see a figure in the sheets. Quickly, though more slowly than it had come, it went away, fretting and fuming where it had been smoothly intent, and fighting where it had almost seemed to fly. She watched it beating back and forth for a time, hoping it might return, but always it threshed away into the wind, and dwindled and lost meaning and never looked back. And it had never come since, however high the tide, in that spirit of leaping joy directed at the farm.

Of course there was nothing like it about the trap, heavy and crawling and jolting along the road. But it, too, seemed headed towards her as she stood, as if it saw what was coming and couldn’t by any chance be stopped. And if Bob wouldn’t come in to share the evening meal, the trap, like the boat, would never reach the farm. It, too, the moment it had arrived, would turn its back on the place, and go away....

A sense of loneliness came upon her in the sunny room, and the house that had been so full of expectation and content grew still and listened for old voices and called again upon its hidden ghosts. She wished now that she had gone with Thomas to the gate, to share in the home-coming from the first. Indeed, she started to run down the path and through the gate, and found herself out in the meadow before she scolded herself and returned with a laugh. This was Thomas’s father, not hers, who was coming to-day. Her own had been dead for ever so many years. She was only the son’s wife, and her place was to welcome him at the door. She remembered the kettle, too, as she hurried back, and was glad she had had the sense to turn in time. She couldn’t help wishing, however, that she might have been there. She would have known, in that first moment, whether her conscience might be at ease....

Back in the kitchen, she filled the kettle and set it on the fire, struggling with the temptation to take another peep at the room upstairs. She argued with herself that she wanted to make sure nothing had been missed, knowing all the while that she had been perfectly sure for hours. It could not be long now before she ushered the old man in, and surely she could manage to wait till then? The room would be all the fresher if she could bring herself to wait, would look to her something of what it looked to him.... Thomas’s reparation was through outward things, she thought—shelter and physical ease and a decent burying at the last; but hers was through things more subtle, touches that eased the heart.... More than comfort and look went to that carpet on the stairs.

She wondered, looking round, which of the changes would strike him first. Which of the new things would catch his eye—the range, the padded chair, the spoons, or the new pots? There was a shelf with reading of some sort, mostly about farming, she believed; and a gate-leg table, left her by an aunt, on which he could lay his fiddle if he chose. In the parlour, of course, there were treasures without price, wedding-presents and suchlike and sudden fancies at sales; but Sunday, she thought, would be time enough for those. They would have to be careful not to worrit the old man. The kitchen alone would be enough for to-night—that and the other surprises up above.

She had been puzzled to find in herself this sudden passion for a house. She had been willing and busy enough at home, but she had always been glad to get finished and go out. Now, when she went out, she had almost to tear herself away; her household gods might play her false while she was gone. All the inanimate things that made her work—furniture and pots and pans and the rest—they seemed strangely alive to her now, and capable of mischief if she left them too long alone. Even in church she thought of fire and moths, of dry-rot and damp and water-spouts gone wrong. When once the hay was in she felt sure she would never go out at all, but would spend her days watching for the first thread of smoke. There was that fire at Crookfield, only last year, when the dogs had awakened the folk in the pouring dark. They had pulled the furniture out into the yard, and set the pillows and beds along the wall. You did not want to do that every year with your best beds, and there was a wardrobe or so that never got out at all. Then, on the marsh, there was a further terror to fear—floods that swam into your rooms and left them damp for years. She could see she would fret herself thin before she was through! Of course the possessive fury would die down after a while, but she did not want it to die too soon. The new passion fretted her, but it braced her as well; made her feel strong and capable and rich and proud....

And just as she had not known of this feeling for a house, so she had not known that a man could count for so much. She puzzled sometimes, staring at Thomas, and thinking how strange it was that eyes should so alter their point of view. Why, there were things she loved about him now for which she had laughed at him before! He was still only the Thomas whom she had flouted so long, and from whom she had parted without a pang; yet now, when he turned his back, she had a sense of fear, as if he had left her straying in some lonely place.... But even now she did not know why she had ever rebelled, could find no clue, however vexed for the missed years. It could only be that it wasn’t the right time, as she had said. And, after all, Thomas was not the man she had known. She would never see that Thomas of hers again. The strange thing was that she sometimes wanted that Thomas back—angry and sullen, or awkward and afraid.

Sometimes she held her breath, remembering how narrowly her fortune had been reaped. Thomas had never asked her again after that dogged appeal for his father in the lane. He stayed at hand, it was true, he spoke when they met, and they danced together as before, but he had never again asked her to be his wife. And perhaps his drawing-back had worked the miracle at last, for it was certainly about that time that she had begun to change. Perhaps it was just the natural impulse to want the thing out of reach, or maybe she had a vision of life, of the part that burdens may bear in it and be sweet. Just possibly it was Marget who was the real factor in the change, setting the levers pity and jealousy to work.

Agnes had known Bob’s wife from a child, and needed no telling how Kit would fare at her hands. They had been at school together first, though Marget was much the elder of the two, and afterwards they had been rivals or friends as things had happened to run. But Marget had married early and grown old soon, or rather had reached the vinegary age and there remained. Agnes had tried to keep up the acquaintance for a while, but it was not long before her visits ceased. Marget had grown into a shrew as mushrooms grow between showers, and of a subtle variety before which Agnes shrank. She had known shrews before, and found them human enough, with hearts that were more or less kindly under their fretted nerves. They were not like Marget, venomous all through. She remembered something in Marget, as a child, that had given her even then a kind of power, something inhuman, implacable and cold, that edged her words and barbed the look in her eyes. It had won her a sort of distinction as a girl, so that others had wanted her as well as Bob, but time had soon shown it as merely the passion of a cold woman for riding others down. Agnes, warm-hearted, tolerant and gay, was frankly afraid of Marget by the end. Marget liked to talk of Thomas and hint and jeer, and if the other gave battle in his defence she was terrible indeed. In spite of her idleness and slovenly ways, she still contrived to be terrible and a power. Her methods made Agnes shiver in her chair—thin and insidious and trickling at the first, and then, at the point of contact, bursting forth. She was like an iceberg, chilling you from afar, and crushing and riving and blinding you when you struck. You felt her icy paralysis as you sank; you heard her shrill-voiced grindings as you drowned. Agnes fled from the combat and did not return, and the reports of her one-time rival worsened with the years. Yet it was up to this arctic terror she had delivered Kit.

But at the end of everything she had married Thomas just for himself, and not for his father or anybody else at all. The finish had come about at Appleton Hall, one of those old homes that, changing from manor-house to farm, have yet contrived to keep their dignity intact. Both she and Thomas were helping as usual at the boon-clip, which fell that year on the hottest day in June. It was always a long day and often hot, but this was the longest and finest she had ever known. Afterwards she divided her life into—life, and then “the clip.” If it was true that she had had to wait for the right time, the right time came royally enough on a day so splendid that it seemed bound to affect some destiny before it passed.

She went up to the farm early, before the heat, and was in time to see the sheep coming down from the fells. There was still a haze over the tops, and through it the complaining voices drove and dropped, reaching her long before she saw the flock. When they came out of the haze at last, with their heavy fleeces trailing to the ground, they had the effect of a drifting, woolly cloud. Slim, ghostly dogs darted in and out of the cloud, and behind them the slender silhouette of a horseman shaped itself through the mist. He had a lamb slung before him when he rode into the yard, a tiny, black-faced thing with dangling hoofs.

Other girls joined her as she went in through the arch, all of them splashes of cool colour in their fresh print gowns. The arch stood twenty feet high in the monster courtyard wall, and topping the wall was a crown of grass and fern. Fern and the dark velvet of old moss were so much a part of the wall that it might have been fashioned of them from the start. At present the yard was in deep shadow, and the house a mere breath of a house, a huddle of formless grey. The covered stone passage was lost and dark that ran along its side. The tall arched windows showed nothing but pools of gloom behind their diamond panes. In spite of voices through its rooms and clatter on its flags, the place seemed barely alive, an embryo slowly evolving with the day. But when the sun, in the wake of the woolly cloud, had climbed the fell and was full above the yard, the house would alter and gain body and stand up firm. Its thick walls would grow solid to the eye, and the lines of them spring out sharp and straight. Its roots would go down deep, and its chimneys would be massed like towers. Colour would come into the grey, and the weight of centuries lie heavy on its roof. Its vagueness would take on meaning and the unchanging speech of form, together with the aloof dignity of those whose times are other than man’s.