Part 9

“You think it’ll be a soft spot, I’ll be bound, wi’ nowt to do but set fiddling all day. You reckon you’re going back to things as they was, only wi’ other folk to see to the work instead o’ you. But if you’re counting on things being just the same, you’re badly wrong. Nowt stands still, and I reckon farms is like the rest. What, I doubt you’ll not know the place when you set eyes on it again! It’ll have changed a deal in these last two years, same as you’ve changed a deal yourself. Last man let it down pretty bad; it’s a mercy he broke his neck afore so long. Landlord’s had a deal to do at it, they say, and Thomas is that set up he’s for doing a deal more. Ay, it’ll not be the same farm, no more than Kit Sill’s the same man. You’ll find it out for yourself afore you’ve been there a week. You’ll be nobbut a beggar there, you’ll think on, same as here, and owe somebody every bite. It’ll be another man’s roof over you, as used to be your own. There’ll be another chap master, telling you what’s what. There’ll be a woman for missis as baint no wife o’ yours. It’ll be bitter as salt water washing at your door....”

“Ay, but it’ll be home,” Kit said bravely, holding up his head, and wondering what devil taught her his secret fear.

“Yon’s what you think—now.” For the first time there was a touch of sincerity in her voice. Her cold eyes looked away from him through the open door. “Them as gangs once shouldn’t return. Going back doesn’t mend things; it nobbut spoils what you’ve had. You’ll likely spoil summat if you gang ... summat you’ve fettled for yourself.... Your sort doesn’t live in houses made wi’ hands....”

“Summat I’ve fettled?” Kit asked, and his voice shook. “Houses not made wi’ hands...?” He stared at her, terror and pleading in his face, and she knew she had beaten him and turned again with a jeer.

“Nay, I doubt there’s summat smittal about daft folks like ye! I nobbut mean you’ll happen wish yourself back wi’ Marget afore you’ve done. Not that you’re off yet, so you can just set you down. Folks wi’ manners wouldn’t be showing themselves that smart.”

“I reckon I’ll stand.”

She shot out a furious hand, thin, with flat finger-tips and curved nails. “Set down!” she hissed, and he shrank back, but recovered himself again and stood firm.

“I’ll stand.”

She made a step towards him until their faces almost touched, putting such intensity into the short approach that his strength seemed to ebb from him consciously as he watched. She leaned across the table willing him to obey. “You’ll set down,” she said. “_You’ll set down!_” And suddenly he gave way as if pulled by a string, crumpling into a shaking heap of bones. He sat down slowly, grasping the fiddle so tight that it hurt his hands, and very slowly the tears ran down his face. For a moment longer she stayed as she was, holding him with her eyes, terrible as a Juggernaut in the way. And then the trap came trundling down the street.

The spell broke at the sound of the wheels, and at once the children were out at the door, tumbling and fighting as they went. As soon as the trap stopped they were round it like flies, fretting the horse and settling on the step. Marget caught the baby by its skirts as it stumbled after the rest, and it set up one of its stupendous howls. Only Kit stayed perfectly still where he was, as if the strength had indeed gone out of his limbs. The stage was set, but the chief actor did not appear. Bob turned in his seat and looked in at the door, and up at his father’s window and gave a hail, but Kit never showed that he heard him or tried to stir. The tears ran down his face and he did not so much as lift up a hand. Then Marget snatched at his bundle and thrust it into his arms.

“Ay, well, then gang!” she said in a brutal voice, and watched him tremble and totter to his feet. The red-haired baby fought and shrieked to be down, but she shook the breath out of it with a mighty jolt. Bob whistled and called again, but the two in the house still looked at each other and paid no heed. They had come too close in that last clash to slip apart again with ease. The hatred on both sides had its mixture of fascination and fear. He felt a helpless dread of a power that beauty could not touch; she, an angry terror of genius out of reach.

One of the children came running back to the door, but still the old man did not move. It seemed as though the leash in which Marget held him had not been slipped. The moment was here that began for him better things, but he did not feel in the least as though the break had come. The sense of relief he had looked for did not ease his heart. She scowled, “Be off with you, then,” turning away her head, but still he stood without attempting to go, as motionless as a stock. Never once did he even turn and look out at the door. And then, “I’m obliged to you, Marget,” he said at last; “I’m obliged to you, Marget, for all you’ve done,” and shifted the bundle to show a shaky hand.

She brushed it aside with a sharp elbow, but the red came violently into her face. “I’ll be bound you’re obliged!” she sneered, tossing her head. “You’d ha’ been in Queer Street, I reckon, but for us. Eh, well, I hope you’ll find everything to your liking at the farm.” The baby opened its mouth again, and she shut it with a jerk. There was a pause, and then she went on, her voice sounding hypnotised and dragged. “You’ll mind you can come back if you find as you can’t bide? I want nowt wi’ you, an’ that’s flat, but I reckon I can go on. You’d be best to come back if you find as you can’t bide....”

But now he had turned away and was looking eagerly at the door, so that he scarcely seemed to hear her final words. With that look he began his journey to the marsh, to the sun on the long levels that were all of them paths to home. He moved, and at once his feet were over the threshold and he found himself out in the street. He had forgotten Marget as if she had never been, though he had never noticed the snapping of the cord. She did not follow him out, but stayed at the door. The red-haired baby burst into bitter tears.

The neighbours were all looking out along the row, and a little crowd had gathered round the trap. The children still quarrelled and climbed and pushed each other down, or poked and fidgeted the sleepy horse. The road was like a river in the sun, golden beside the black one under the trees, but both of them coming ultimately to the sea. The light dazzled him as he went out, so that he could hardly see the smiling faces and outstretched hands. Somebody took the bundle from him and put it into the trap, but when they offered to take the fiddle he shook his head. A woman brought a nosegay from a bush beside her door, and pinned it laughingly in his coat. Another pushed a buttered scone into his hand, and asked if she should bring him a cup of tea. It would never be Marget, he heard them say, if she’d thought of setting him up for his ride like that. He shook his head at the tea and stared helplessly at the scone, while they pulled at his arm and wished him luck, or clapped him on the shoulder in farewell. Somebody begged him to give them a tune for the last time, but he was too dazed by the sun to heed what they said. He just stood there, fiddle and scone in hand, staring about him like a puzzled child. Then the parson came along and wished him a pleasant ride, and shook the hand that wasn’t holding the scone. Everybody seemed glad for him that he was going home, that he was getting away from Marget, after all. Folks were nearly always glad when they saw others going home. They felt kindlier towards them then than at any other time, he thought. Folks away from home were a kind of public trust. The world was worried about them until they were safely back.

Bob begged the parson to help the old man into the trap, and at once there were a dozen hands hoisting him up the step, holding needlessly to the horse’s head, and pulling the children from under the wheels. Kit arrived at his seat a little breathless and pulled about, and felt the fiddle quiver against his coat. He was grateful for the sympathy and help, but he had not expected to be sped by a crowd. He couldn’t help shrinking from the cheerful voices and the smiling eyes that made of him a spectacle in the street. They confused him and crossed his thoughts—troubled his perfect journey at the start. He did not know what to do with the buttered scone, and the button-hole worried him dreadfully under the chin. He would have liked to creep quietly out of the house where he had been so sad, and steal silently towards the house where he had been so gay.

The crowd saw that they fretted him at last and drew away, but Bob still talked to the parson over the wheel. The old man looked back up the street, and saw the village radiant in the sun, the white wall of the school like a snow-palace in its midst, and the church-tower high and sharp against the sky. He looked up at the trees and saw the leafy roof thick and green and still, and the doors of many mansions among the boughs. “Houses not made wi’ hands,” he said to himself, and wondered where he had heard the words. He looked at the cottages, with their porches and worn steps, their shaded windows and grey walls, their climbing roses and sagging, slated roofs. And for a long moment he looked at his own window which held the enchantment of the tree. From his window on the marsh he would see no trees, neither magic ones on a velvet sward nor giants bent into bondage by the gale. There would be nothing before his eyes which had been straitened so long but the long distances of the sands and the long pathways of the sea.

Bob sat up and put his hand on the whip, and saw the onlookers black as ink against the swimming gold of the road. Kit’s hat was over his eyes, so that he did not see Marget at the wheel until she spoke. Then he looked and saw her white face and her fringe, and the red head of the baby glowing in the light. “Think on you can come back,” she said in her hard tones, and repeated it as they slowly drew away. He nodded vaguely by way of reply, wondering why she talked of coming back when he was not yet conscious of being gone, and Bob said hurriedly, “Ay, ay, he knows,” and flourished the ragged whip. The horse gathered itself into a slow trot, and Marget fell back out of sight. The river that was yet road began to swim past, lined with waving figures on its banks. They lurched away straight into the eye of the sun, and the folk came back to the street to watch them go. Kit looked a very old man indeed from behind, and Bob’s shoulders seemed tired and slack. They were like weary folk hurrying into the light to be made young and strong. The swing of the cart behind the rolling horse gave them the air of going very fast. Those who were left talking in the street began to dispute whether the old man would look round. “Nay, he’s over glad to be off,” said one; “he’ll look round none, will the old chap, not he!” And another said, “He’s not found it that grand he’ll risk his neck for it, I’ll swear!” But a woman said, “We’ve had many a crack together, him and me”; and another said, “He makes his own things to suit himself with, does Kit.”

They watched the trap to the end of the street, past the little white rows that had steps up to the doors, and the woodyard and the smithy and the farmhouse by the bridge, and still Kit did not turn. The trap gave a sudden swerve, and they could see the buttered scone held tightly in his hand. Bob leaned towards him and spoke, but the old man gave no sign of reply.

And then just at the very last he turned, when another minute would have blotted him out. All he could see now was the tunnel of the trees, with the houses showing dimly along the side. He had thought himself free without so much as a pang, but somewhere a link was holding, after all. Something was left behind in the village street, something that would not follow, that could not come. He felt the tug at his heart and looked back, though it was too late to do anything but look. It passed as soon as the turn was passed, and his heart lifted, thinking itself loosed. Nevertheless, something was gone that he might not find again—something that he had made in prison, and might not take away.

III

Once they were past the turn, Bob let the horse slip into a walk, and moved in his seat with something like relief. Now they were out of reach of the following eyes, and especially of Marget’s terrible eyes. Even they, piercing as they were, could not bore through stone and rising earth. The remains of his youth awoke at this touch of adventure and escape, and he looked about him from side to side, and whistled as if compelled by the rhythm of the hoofs. The old man stirred, too, and looked about, and suddenly, with a half-mechanical lifting of the hand, he began to eat his buttered scone. He forgot it again, however, after a couple of bites, because his memories crowded in too fast.

They came to the twilight spot on the river bank where he had played until Marget found him out, but he barely looked at it as he drove past. He was a different person to-day from the shabby fiddler who had played through stolen hours to an idle ring. A charm had begun to work after he reached the turn, so that he was no longer the down-trodden creature rated by a shrew. Now he was just the simple old man who had lived at the sea’s edge with a fiddle under his arm. Marget’s voice was no longer in his ears, but the voice of the peewit and gull and the rush of the incoming tide. And Bob, too, was changed from a dull epitome of mistakes to a soul who remembered the pride and spring of life. If Kit had turned to look at him just then, he would have seen him a moment in his splendid youth, with the wrestler’s steady eye and muscular grace. He remembered him conqueror in many a ring, and wondered what had become of his cups and belts. They were not at the cottage, he felt sure of that. Marget would have been sure to say they were “in the road,” and at least he would have seen the children using them in their play. Bob’s exploits were never mentioned in that house, because Marget was of opinion that wrestling was low. Probably the trophies had gone long since to provide other things more necessary if less proud. But in the old days there had been a grand show of them on the dresser at the farm, polished glories that, when the dusk came, made silver points of light both above and within the oak.

The river still ran by them on the left, and beyond it was the climbing sweep of the park, with the belts of wood binding it east and west. Once, coming home in the dawn from a dance on the far side, he had found a little fawn in a dim glade. It was said to be lucky to find a new-born fawn. Over the hill-top the wishing-trees used to stand, but he had never been back there since they were cut down. Things couldn’t alter as long as you didn’t go back. They stayed the same while you kept them so in your mind.... The further wood was slowly growing black, because of the hill between it and the west. At the foot of the wood was the long, clean-coloured house, with its pillars and flat windows and wide, stately steps. Kit saw his own life clearly when he looked at the house, because the lives within and around the house were bound together like a bundle of sticks. Through all his memories the romance of a higher class ran like a silken thread through a homespun cloth. High and low, they had seen together so much that was the same. They had watched death and life changing the country-side, and awakened each morning to the gift of the same day. They had done many things together, too, and where one had done them alone, the one that looked on seemed still to have his share. Glancing back from a great age, it was hard to tell where the lives really drew apart. Rich or poor, they belonged to the same scheme of things, and had their final share in the same earth.

He could not have told you how many squires he had known. The old family had died off fast, and in the multitude of their names he could not be certain which had gone churchwards first. He was always put to it when asked to say whether Philip Edmund or Edmund John had died before the succession honours were barely his; whether John Philip or merely John had lived to the striking age of fifty-one. One who had lived to be really old had died when Kit was a lad; a fine, old-fashioned autocrat who knew his place. Folks saluted on all sides when he walked up the street, and the women had had to go in and shut their doors. Perhaps he was at his best in the church over the hill, with its hacked Crusader monument and its floor paved with names. All who served him had to come to church, wearing the livery of their class. Even the keepers from over the sands had to be there, crossing the river-channel when they could. The head keeper wore a scarlet coat, he thought, and the others green, and the men with the hound-dogs, blue. Coachmen and grooms came in livery, too, with buttons that shone like little moving moons. Through the deep, diamond-paned windows you could see the churchyard full of gold laburnum trees, and old houses with their feet among the tombs, and luminous patches of morning sky. Those who had been rich or poor in their lives shared the gold of the laburnum equally in death. Nobody nodded in the sermon under the Squire’s eye, or moved a foot to the aisle until he had left the church.

Now they were passing the agent’s house on the right, a creepered dwelling facing river and hill. It was many a long year since he had been inside, but a certain room was always clear in his mind. He had gone to ask for the farm when his father died, and taken with him the lass he meant to wed. They had sat stiffly on the leather chairs, speaking their parts as bravely as they could. Ann had been far the smarter of the two, spoken up better and known what she was about. Likely enough they had got the farm because of her, but he wasn’t the only man who had to own to that. She was always the better horse, as everybody knew....

Now, when he thought of the room, it was like a picture in a book, and the shy young couple seemed like pictures, too. Yet all his life he had thought of Ann as she was then, with her dark stuff gown and the colour bright in her cheeks, and his real self was still that daft young man, twisting his cap on the edge of an office chair. Folks said you lived your life before you were twenty-five, and that all the rest was simply looking back. Marget would have it he had changed, but change couldn’t touch that picture in his mind. Ann and Kit still sat on their leather chairs, smiling at him, steadfastly alive.

The plantation further on which he had seen cut down, was grown again just as tall and thick. The road was dark and damp under the trees, cool in summer and muddy in the wet. Down this hill he had once seen timber-waggons running away. It must have been winter because it had snowed in the night, and the sky was black and the road just sprinkled white. The river was the colour of the blade of an axe, and running as if it was out of control, too. The children were coming from school when the first waggon got away, with a team of three horses and a load of larch. The long, clean poles, straight as a ship’s masts, swung like an anchored boat to the incoming tide. The driver was running close in front of the wheel, lying back on the reins and shouting all the way. The children scattered like feathers thrashed from a bed, and collected again to watch the waggon take the turn, skidding and swinging broadways to the road. The other waggon braked along the wall, driving a furrow in mortar and moss and fern. Kit remembered it all as if it had been last week,—the fine bite in the air and the thundering hoofs, the musical clink of the brasses and the fierce clanking of the chains, the swing and heave and weight and length of the load, the great horses, the nerve and strength of the men.... When you were old you liked to think of these things, to remember that not everybody grew old at the same time. Once he had seen Bob lift a trap through a gate with the help of the cowman from the Hall. The broad shoulders and strong wrists had raised the wheels like toys, and the Squire had sat in the trap above their heads and laughed. And there were still men to do these things though Bob had fallen out. Youth was still in the world, and hands were firm on a rein....

Bob pulled up on the bridge before he turned to the marsh, to let him look at the river from either side. And first he looked at it sliding through the park, between grass banks and bulrushes and dreaming, stooping trees. Through the trees he saw flashes of red and white that were cattle coming down to drink, and where the sun had left the water black there was the sudden whiteness of still swans. The ghosts of themselves gleamed at them from beneath, and when the cattle stooped to drink there would be coloured cattle in the water, too. The fish were rising as the shadows grew, stirring the river with their delicate rings. It was hard to remember in the peace that all water had its toll, even this calm dreamer shedding its gold coat. Yet it, too, had its weeds that could drag a swimmer down, its black spot of tradition where the brothers had been drowned, pools where the lonely had sought a greater solitude still. But to-night the peace of the evening was glad peace, because of the Tyranny of Marget overpast.

On one side of the bridge the river was making ready for the night, but on the other it was still sunny and awake. It had still to get out on to the sands, to catch the last drop of gold as it fell from the lingering day. There were no bridges or banks to gather it into shade, or trees that hushed the water with shadow long before the sun was under the sea. Once safely out it ran in a glinting length in which nothing was mirrored but the sky. This was the river he knew best, that was never afraid of the lonely flat or the Terrible Friend that was the tide. In the park and the village it was cluttered and darkened by the growing things on its banks, like the minds of folks who lived in a close street. Here, on the edge of the world, nobody’s shadow could tread on your heels. He drew a breath of relief as they turned for the moss-road, and took another bite from his buttered scone.

The moss-road, running close beside the sands, with the sea-wall on its left like a ruled fence, had grassy borders dropping to grass-grown dykes. Beyond the hedge to the right the fields lay level and square, planned for the easy handling of the plough. The long lines of the roots were at right angles to the long line of the road, and when there was wind over the young corn it billowed across it in unbroken waves. Marsh and sands were full of these darting lines with their sense of flight, as if they were arrows shot from the bow of the eye.

Dropping behind them to the south was the hamlet above the beach that had once been known as a port. All its white faces were snowy in the sun, but there were no sails slipping to rest in front of it to-day. Yet it was not so long since ships had sailed from there to trade with Spain. Kit remembered the old merchant who had owned the ships, with his comb of white hair, round spectacles and benevolent grey eyes. The Spanish trade had died with him, and seemed like a fairy tale to-day. He had been everybody’s friend who needed a friend, and there had been hands in his pockets all his life.