Part 8

Marget began to brag of her guilt at last, but it was impossible to tell whether he took it in. He did not seem to notice her vivid accounts of how the fiddle had met its end. Sometimes she was exasperated into contradicting her own tales, but as none of them seemed to reach him that did not matter very much. She was chiefly puzzled, however, because he never tried to get the fiddle back. The cheerful hide-and-seek that she had planned couldn’t be played because the principal person concerned in it wouldn’t take part. He never went to the water-butt to peer into its depths. He never poked about the ashheap or raked the fire. He did not even dig about the garden, as if hoping to find it among the flowers. He knew Marget would never give it as clean a burial as that. All that he did was to shut himself up and stare, until even she began to feel uneasy in her mind. It would be a poor victory if he was too crushed to care, and in any case she did not want him helpless on her hands. Daft as he was, he was of use to her sometimes, a caretaker for the house when she wanted to be out, a stick to frighten importunate beggars, a hodman to lift a load; and always a peg upon which to hang her tongue. If she drove him clean crazed, he would be a greater burden than before, and certainly it looked as though that might be the end. So it came about that, after a week, there was a miracle for which he had not even prayed.

He was sitting as usual on his bed, holding between his hands the thing that wasn’t there, when down in the kitchen he suddenly heard its voice. He hardly knew it at first—it was so raucous and strange, a voice that wept and screamed, and tried to keep silence but was forced to speak, and was like to destroy itself with its own rage; yet in all its wrath and pain it was still the voice he loved. He tried to get up to go to its help, but even the beginning of the miracle held him chained. He could only sit still and tremble ... and wonder and wait....

The children were all together downstairs, and one of them had the fiddle under his chin, while the red-haired baby, in its trailing skirt, mopped and mowed in the forgotten game. Some of the magic had come back, in spite of the fiddle’s terrible voice. They laughed and clapped as they had done in the street, and the baby’s face was exalted and set. Even the fiddler had a shadow of Kit’s dignity and poise. There was an air of innocent joy strange in the dingy room, a faint recalling of beauty once perceived. Marget, coming in on the little scene, found herself outside it and shut off. There was no part for her in the play they had learned from the daft old man, who knew no better than to go fiddling in the street. All her fierce jealousy was aroused by this faithfulness to his little moment’s power. It seemed to her, watching, that he stood between the children and herself, teaching them something she couldn’t learn, and taking them where she could not go. For every mother there is a Piper drawing her child away, as even Marget was coming to understand. Perhaps she had seen his reflection in the red-haired baby’s face, and suddenly saw it again now. In any case, she brought the show to an end, clouting both player and dancer over the head, and making away with the fiddle up the stair. Through this enveloping cloud Kit heard the door burst open at his back, and saw a shining thing flung quivering on the bed. He did not move until she had banged out once more, and then after a long while he turned and put out a hand ... found shape and touch just as they had been, and a sweet answer from every string....

There flashed back on him at once all his vision and his peace. The tree stood up again in the midst of wonderland, and on either side of it the world was wide. His link with its golden solitude was renewed, so that it was his to wander in when he would. And after a while, when the first relief was past, his mind went off down the road that led to the sea.

Always, until they took the fiddle from him, he had been able to see the marsh when he chose, the broad, flat stretches and the clean, soft lines. There, where his mind went, was no muddle of mortar and folks. There was no street with the houses crouching cheek by jowl, muttering secrets into each other’s ears; houses, where strange faces looked in, where dust blew in from the road, where nobody was securely still and safely alone. Here, nobody died or was born, or suffered and rebelled, but the whole street knew and put it into words; but out there none of these things kept one ever on guard. Nobody heeded one’s secrets but the sea, and that never told until it gave up its dead. And the sea never heeded, however folk behaved. One could run there, while here one could only walk, could shout and sing without troubling the police; while the strains of a fiddle crying out its soul were as free as a gull crying behind a boat.

There was always sun for him when he thought of the marsh, the early-evening sun on road and field. It lay in a great, golden sheet, unbroken as always on a western marsh, stretching out to the far line of the sea. No matter how it rained in the street, in his mind that walked on the marsh there was always sun. The shadows were barely out, and never conquered the gold. And through it along the white road he came to his home.

But often he lingered so long on the road that his mind never reached its goal. The journey alone was an adventure in itself, full of things that could not be missed. There were always growing things to see in the dykes, marsh-buttercups on some pool, purple vetches on some hedge. Somewhere a farm would stand up between its orchard and fields, and meet him always with a new surprise. Houses never outstared you on the marsh, for all its long distances and unbroken sweep. They grew upon you by degrees, coming, yet keeping themselves in reserve, like faces peeping welcome round a porch. Even his own home on the sand’s edge, alone on its shooting tongue of land, stood back in a shelter of fence and tree. In spite of its outstanding position, it was yet serenely aloof. It had the withdrawn unconsciousness of well-bred folk, an unawareness of alien eyes. You might stare at it all day long and it would not blink. At Marget’s you were always conscious of the street outside.

Sometimes he did reach the farm and go in, and on those days he was a long time coming back. Often he never passed the meadow gate, but once through that he did not turn until he had reached the house itself. The gate was troublesome to open because of its broken bars, and even in his mind he found it hard to move. Even in his mind he was tired by the time he got to the gate, and so he often stayed on the near side. He could see the house from there plainly enough, and it was always ready when he wished to go in. Things waited for him until he came that way again. The light stayed level and golden on the evening land. The face of the house was steadfast in its peace. No need to hurry and force himself if he was tired. It would always be ready for him when he came.

On the days when he did go in he went with a rush, as if he had jumped the distance that lay between. He went with the whole of his energy and desire unwasted by the sweetness of the way. There he was, through the meadow and the wicket-gate and the house door, and the miracle was accomplished that brought him home. All the shadows and dim places of the house rested his eyes, and hinted of folks who had never gone away. The scent of his own place was rich with his memories of the past, tangible things that asked for his hand upon their heads. The house was full of that special surprise which belongs to the things we know by heart; the colour and shape of them ... the feel of suddenly-opened doors ... the gleam of a brass handle, the shallowness of a step, the forgotten pattern of some ancient stuff. A sense of coolness in a certain room, or of sun, or of firelight on a hearth; atmospheres as full of meaning as if lavender had been stirred. It was strange how you saw things wrong when you were living in a house. You had to leave and go back to it to know.

Of course there were people in the house, but they never spoke to him or he to them. He saw them sitting and talking or going about their work, but he never heard them speak. They never looked at him, either, as he went about. If they had lifted their eyes to look at him he might have been afraid. But as long as they did not look he could watch them in peace, the folk who had all been part of his own life. His parents were there, his brothers and sisters, his wife and his three sons. The same person at all ages was there, just as he himself was there at every age, so that the house was full and rich and warm. He never thought of it as it was when he left, a chilly case for a wailing violin. As soon as he had gone he filled it again with all who had a right within its walls, and wandered among them, quietly content. He could not touch them or hear their voices or meet their eyes, but he did not want to do any of these things. He could leave the house as it was with only a little ache, but he could not have left pleading looks and hands.

Even on the days when he went into the house he did not always go upstairs, because it meant going too near the dividing-line of which he was afraid. More often, he sauntered through the rooms below, into the sudden whiteness of the dairy or the still little parlour shut like a Sabbath book. Through every window as he passed, a picture flashed that was old to him and yet strange. He saw each of them now as if mounted and set in a frame. Things changed about the house to match his memories as they came, but they never passed beyond a certain point, and every one of them was mellow and sweet with time. Looking back, he saw nothing that struck him as being new. It was all much too beautiful for that.

When he did get to the bedroom at last, there was always shadow there. He went into the shadow as he went up the stair, and met it when he opened the door. Through the windows, when he looked out, there was no sun on the marsh, only the faint rising of a moon. Somewhere out in the uncertain dark was the quiet plashing of the sea. It was the hour when the world is nothing and some one person is all; when Heaven comes easily, and earth as easily goes. So would death come, he thought, his own good death. Some day he would enter the house for the last time, and climb the stair and open and shut the door. Through the shadows for the last time he would see the things stand out that they had shared, and that perhaps they might find again on the other side. The bits of carpet that their feet had worn; the bed where they had heard each other’s breathing in the night; handles and hooks that hand after hand had touched. The sea would be there for the last time, because in Heaven there would be no sea. He would lean out to it, but would only hear it, silver and cool. Then he would let himself summon her out of the dark, because now there would be no need of turning back, and however she came she would be just right, whether fresh and young or grey and wrinkled and bowed. They would put out their arms to each other, and find each other there.... Death, that seemed so dreadful to folk, meant only that.

His dreams grew upon him after the fiddle came back, chiefly because now he very seldom went out. He could not walk very far, and no matter where he went, it was sure to be against the rules. He was forbidden the other houses in the row, and the river-bank and his potterings on the footpath by the wall. If he went out at all, it was on an errand of Marget’s to the shops, but he had lost the wish to go out, just as he seemed to have lost the wish to play. In these days his fingers never went unknowingly to the strings. Even now that the fiddle was safe, he went on sitting in his room, and for some unstated reason Marget let him be. So his mind was often away on its travels over the marsh, and the body that was left grew quieter every day. The time seemed to be getting near for that last mounting of the stairs. Those who saw him about then said that he “wouldn’t be so long.”

And now, after all the days, had come the order of release. Thomas had got the farm in the end, and straight away asked for his father to come home. Not only his mind but his body could go to the place for which he cried. He could go to a son who would ease his remaining days and a daughter awaiting him with open arms. Of course he was glad to be going, thankful beyond words; too thankful and anxious, indeed, for his content. He could have taken it simply and easily, earlier on, but after all this time it loomed too large. Before, it would have been inevitable and right, but now it seemed to him more than a little strange. As he sat waiting for them to come and take him away, he was conscious of the discomfort and even terror of change. He felt both the reluctant weariness of the old—for whom every shift on the road may be the last—and the fear of the dreamer that his dream may prove untrue. The idealist always shrinks from fulfilment just at the last, and Kit was shrinking and suffering all through. He dreaded the emotional strain through which he would have to pass, longing with shame for his wretched bed and the quiet communion with his tree. Nevertheless he reached forward eagerly to his dream, knowing that he must accept it now, even if he slew both it and himself. Steadily, at the back of his mind, shone the golden glory of the marsh.

He sat patiently, as the old sit who have to husband their strength, but he was filled with a feverish aching to be off. His nervous energy ebbed continually during this long pause before the start. He had a miserable fear that he might refuse to go when it came to the point. He saw himself making for his room as soon as the trap appeared, an obstinate, desperate old animal slinking to its lair. Marget would curse and hammer on the door, and he would cower on the bed in silence, holding his breath. When they were tired of it they would leave him alone, and his heart would stop shaking itself out of its place. He would hear the trap drive away out of his life, and know in that instant all that he had missed....

He might have steadied his nerves by dozing in his chair, but the children, as usual, kept him from doing that. All the time they were darting in and out to look for the trap, or peering at him round the doors. All about the dark cottage he could see their eyes, excited, curious, mocking and bold. He could hear them speaking of him in rough whispers that always reached him as jeers. For once he wished them busy at their quarrelsome games, but they were much too intent to take themselves out of the way. The dramatic element in Gran’pa held them to the last—the thing that hinted tragedy and scenes. Even the act of driving away would mean more with Gran’pa than with anybody else. They felt instinctively that this was one of the climaxes of life, and responded eagerly to its thrill. Gran’pa’s bundle in its red handkerchief was also a source of thrill, a sort of monster pudding in its cloth. Now and then one of the children emerged and gave the bundle a sly but searching poke. If Gran’pa hadn’t been there, they would have had it open at once, and there was always the chance that he might leave it behind. So they stayed, impatient and fidgety but firm, wearing the old man’s strength with whisper and stare. There was more to be got out of this than any casual play. Besides, Marget’s concluding scene was still to make.

Now he had that first terrible feeling of being suffocated and hemmed in. He couldn’t even find a place to rest his eyes, because of the pointing fingers bristling on all sides. There seemed to be faces everywhere as well, and even when he turned to the street one peered at him over the sill. He would have got up and gone outside, but he knew they were there to watch him and would cry him down. Panting, he fixed his hunted gaze on the stair, seeing it in the dark room as a mysterious ladder climbing into peace. It rested him just to look at it and picture where it led. Up above, safe from all the eyes, was a hiding-place for the hunted, shrinking old. The desire to be there grew upon him as he looked, so that he was drawn irresistibly to his feet. Once up the narrow stair, he would be free of the effort that lay ahead, and the minds that had fastened on his like preying teeth. Now he ached to be there, burned to be there.... Something with wings would stand outside the door.... He straightened himself, nerving himself to move, and then he saw Marget coming down the stairs.

The silence, breaking the children’s speech in half, held a sense of something thrown from a height and smashed. Something always died or was hurt when Marget entered a room. Kit had been too intent to heed her step, but now she was there before him, blocking his way. Where the presence with wings should have been he saw Marget instead, thin, pallid, slatternly, flaring-fringed and slit-eyed. Her tight lips sneered when she saw the old man on his feet, and her knuckles whitened as she gripped the rail. He looked very tall in the low room, and, with bundle and fiddle, very ready to be gone. This was a bitter moment for Marget that snatched her bone from between her teeth. She was ragingly jealous of those who wanted him for himself—wanted before they had tried him, Marget said. They couldn’t really be glad of a burden in the house; they were only pretending, to make other folks look small. She despised them for saddling themselves with the old man, and hated and mocked them because they did it with smiles. Also she hated Kit for his evident eagerness to go.

“What d’ye think ye’re at?” she demanded, looking down at him from the stair. Her malignant face sneered at him out of the gloom, and her voice was full of sounds that troubled his delicate ear.

He braced himself, as he always did when Marget spoke. Even when she looked at him he held himself ready for attack. “Trap’ll be round, waint it?” he asked, by way of reply. He leaned his hand on the table to steady himself, looking up. “I reckon trap’ll be round afore so long.”

She glanced for a moment at his hand, finer, in spite of its age, than any in the house, and there came into her face that hatred of things unknown which had stirred her to fury when the baby danced.

“Nay, then, it just waint!” she rapped out. “I told Bob he needn’t hurry himself, getting off. They won’t be looking for you yet. Marsh-folk is always a week behind everybody else.”

“I’ll be glad to be off,” Kit said dully, with the mechanical patience he had learned at her hands. “I’m getting weary a bit, hanging about. I’d best be off.”

“Ay, well,” she jibed at him, “you’ll have to bide. I don’t know as another hour or two in my house’ll do you any harm. You were glad enough on it once, when landlord skifted you out. And it’s as cheap sitting as standing, I reckon, even for folks as hasn’t the price of a seat. You’d best set down till it’s time for you to stir.”

“Trap’ll be round,” Kit repeated doggedly. “I’d reyther stand.” He drew in his fingers as if her eyes hurt them, and did his best to straighten his back and set his jaw. The deliverance that was so near gave him courage to fight, in spite of the sinister things in her face and voice. He had yielded in almost every contest yet, and if she had lost where the fiddle was concerned, it was because she had been conquered by something in herself. To sit was to own himself beaten to the end, and would send him shamed to the marsh from a last defeat. And there was always the chance that if he sat he might never get away, because of the shrinking that wrought against him in his heart.

So again he braced himself and said, “I’ll stand.”

She bent forward towards him from the stair, her chin thrust out at him and her eyes nearly shut. He wanted to push her away and hurry out into the street. He had a feeling that she had trodden that winged thing underfoot, so that there was no longer a refuge for him upstairs.

“I tellt you trap wouldn’t be round just yet.”

“Ay, but it will.”

“Likely you think I don’t know?”

“Nay, not I.” Kit looked away.

“I’m a liar, that’s what it is?”

“Nay.”

“Set down and bide.”

“I’ll stand.”

Suddenly she dropped her strained pose and became all violence and storm, like the wind that gets up out of nowhere on a silent night. Raising herself with a jerk, she flapped down the stair with the noise of a dozen carpet-beaters in full swing. Nobody ever expressed as much as Marget with a pair of down-trodden slippers loose at the heels; yet nobody would keep them when she was gone, pathetic and reverenced by a bed.... Kit thought of his winged thing she had beaten down, and looked to see feathers scattered under her feet. Her face was changed both in colour and shape by the unknown terrible things that lived in her brain. Her voice was changed in the same way, and it was her voice that Kit dreaded most, because his ear had the straighter run to his soul. The things that were part of Marget yet not Marget he never could understand. He was never ready for them, never on his guard. Now she was close to him, bent as if to strike, a trick that had a special horror for the sensitive old man. The children nudged each other and laughed, gloating, yet more than half afraid.

“Stand, will ye—getting in folks’ road and showing yourself that smart to be up and off? Ay, I know you’re fain to be shot of us at last, and you should be right shammed o’ suchlike nastiness, I’m sure. Who’d ha’ seen to you all this time if it hadn’t been for us? Thomas wanted nowt wi’ you, as you know; he’d other fish to fry, had Tom. You’d ha’ bin on the parish, that’s where you’d ha’ bin, and like enough in t’ Union itself. Yon’s the spot for do-nowts as spend their own brass and then look to spend other folks’ as well! Yon’s the spot for wastrels and rattlehorns and fancy fiddlers playing in the street. (Eh, but it banged owt, did yon!) It’ll be queer if you don’t come to it yet, wi’ a pound o’ baccy at Christmas, and ‘Thank ye kindly, master,’ all the week. Likely they’ll set you going errands, tea and currants and a bit o’ lard, or happen your job’ll be cleaning out the pigs. Ay, you’ll land there yet, as sure as eggs is eggs! Likely you’ll think on a bit then about Bob and me.”

He stood looking at her without saying a word, fascinated, just as the children were fascinated, by this exhibition of a ruthless mind. He could feel them gathering closer, magnetised though afraid. The voice that was full of strange things filled all the house, flooded the street and carried down the row, so that folks in passing halted and stared, and the neighbours came running to their doors. “She’ll do for him yet,” they said to each other when they heard that voice, and there was always the chance that the moment had arrived.

“As for the spot you’re off to,” she flared on, “I hope you’ll find it all you think for, I’m sure. Thomas and his missis’ll likely be terble throng wi’ you while you’re fresh, but wait till they’ve had you to do for as long as me. Wait till they’ve gitten you maundering about the place, making a deal o’ work wi’ your daft-like ways. Agnes Black’ll skift you pretty sharp, or she’s not the woman I take her for, that’s all.”

Still he said nothing, paralysed by the flood of sound, and the fierce inflections springing out of her voice like sparks from a cat’s back. And then suddenly she changed her method of attack, letting her voice slide down the scale until it was even and chill and full of insidious hints and something that smiled.