She stirred then, moved by the cheated sound in his angry voice. She gave a sigh. The fooling of Eliza had been utterly great and glorious, but it had come to an end. "It was just lies," she heard herself saying in a passionless tone, and then with a last twinge of regret, she sighed again.Eliza's scream of "I knew it! I knew it!" merged in the chorus of exclamation from the group about the door. Will said nothing, fixing his sister-in-law with his kindly gaze, but Simon fell back muttering, and staring as if afraid. He wondered, looking at her unemotional face, whether the trouble about her eyes was beginning to touch her brain. She herself had said there was no knowing what blind weather might possibly do, no telling what a blind body's brain might someday suddenly breed....He came back to the consciousness of Eliza's voice as a man from the dead hears the roar of life as he returns."I wonder you're not struck down where you stand, Sarah Thornthet! I wonder you're not liggin' dead on t'floor! But you'll be punished for it, right enough; you'll be paid for it, never fear! You'll see, summat'll happen to you afore so long,--I shouldn't wonder if it happened before morn! Like enough, the next news as we have o' Geordie'll be as he's dead or drowned.... I'll serve you a slap on t'lugs, Will, if you can't shape to let me be!"It was Sally who saved the situation for the second time that day."Fetch the trap, Uncle Simon, and look sharp about it!" she commanded smartly, "and you come and set down, Aunt Sarah, until it's round. Let her be, can't you!" she added roughly, flinging round on her mother. "She's that tired and put out she don't know what's she's at."She shook her fist at the window, and the faces disappeared like morning frost. Then she turned on the others and ordered them out, too."You'd best be getting about your business!" she commanded them, hand on hip. "You should be in t'dairy this minute, Mary Phyllis,--you know that as well as me. I'd think shame o' myself, Mr. and Mrs. Addison, to be helping other folks' wi' their weekly wash! Same to you, Elliman Wilkinson, and a bit over, come to that! You're not one o' the family yet by a long chalk, my lad; nay, nor like to be, neither, if you don't see to mend your ways!"Eliza still lingered, however, loth that anything should be left unsaid, but Sally ushered her resolutely to the door. She protested to the last inch, and the hand that had been denied judgment on Sarah flew up and slapped Sally's face. The girl looked at her with scornful eyes."Ay, you can't keep your hands off folk, can you?" she said bitterly. "You never could. I remember Jim saying he fair hated you for it when we were bairns. That was why he always liked Aunt Sarah a deal better than he liked you!""You'll find other folk free wi' their hands," Eliza stormed, "if you're that free wi' your impident tongue! Yon fool of an Elliman'll stand no nonsense, for all he looks so new-milk soft! Not that he wants any truck wi' you at all, as far as I can see. It's Mary Phyllis he can't take his eyes off, and no wonder, neither. She was always a sight better-looking than you, and she's younger, by a deal. You're that old and teptious you fair turn the cream sour just by being along wi't in t'house! Nay, I reckon you can put wedding and suchlike out o' your head as soon as you like!You'llnever have a house of your own, or a man to put in it; and as for bairns o' your own to slap, why, you'll never have none o'them...!"She said the rest to the closed door, a stout, oaken door which even she was reluctant to attack. In the few pauses that she allowed herself she could hear nothing inside the room, and presently, tiring of the one-sided contest, she waddled heavily away along the passage. She was in the dairy a minute later, and saw through the window the brothers yoking the old horse. Through the window, too, she caught scraps of their talk, and strained her ears eagerly to catch its bent. As if by magic the anger left her face, and a little smile grew happily on her lips. She even hummed a little tune to herself, as she watched and listened, leaning against the frame....The silence persisted in the room that she had left, as if the air was so laden with words that it would hold no more. Sarah groped her way to the rocking-chair and sat down again to wait. Sally went to the window, and stared miserably into the yard. So they waited together until they heard the rattle of the wheels along the stones....VIIEven now, however, the Blindbeck comedy was not quite played out. Eliza had still to give it its finishing touch. The lately routed audience must have been conscious of this, for they assembled again in order to watch the Thornthwaites take their leave. As a rule, the Simons simply faded away, unperceived and unsped of anybody but Will. They were not welcome when they came, and they were not lamented when they went away. But to-day Sarah had managed to touch the imagination of the crowd, arousing unwilling admiration and even respect. The Addisons, for instance, though outwardly badly shocked, rejoiced by proxy in a crime which they would never have had the courage to commit themselves. Even Elliman was heard to remark that Sarah's psychology seemed possibly worthy of study, after all. The main motive with all, however, was a sneaking hope that, on some ground or another, the opponents might go for each other again.As if by accident, therefore, they drifted out of the house, and on Sarah's appearance were to be found sitting on rails or pig-sty walls, or leaning in graceful attitudes against the porch. Sarah could not see them, but Simon could, and divided a scowl of dislike amongst the lot. The Thornthwaites were actually settled in the trap when Eliza came bustling after them into the yard.It was such a different Eliza, however, that at first it looked as if the audience were to be cheated of their scene. The virulent harridan of ten minutes ago had vanished as if she had never been. This Eliza was hearty, smiling, serene, the smooth-faced, smooth-tongued mocker which Sarah detested most. Even her hair and dress, lately dishevelled by rage, were now as tidy and sleek as the fur of a well-brushed cat. She came to a halt close beside the wheel, and Sarah started when she heard her speak."So you're off, are you, Sarah? Ay, well, you'll be best at home! I reckon our Sally's right, and you're not yourself at all. Mind and see doctor again, first thing as ever you can. It's a bad sign, they say, to go making up fancy tales. Folks as get telling lies is framing for softening of the brain."Will looked back with a frown as he hurried on to open the gate."We've had enough o' that, missis!" he called sharply. "Just you let Sarah be!"Mrs. Will tossed her head, but managed to preserve her compassionate air."Losh, master!" she reproached him loudly. "You've no call to speak so sharp. I'm meaning kindly enough by poor Sarah here, I'm sure! She's welcome to tell lies till they turn her black in the face, but it isn't healthy for her, all the same. I shouldn't like to see poor Sarah in Garland's Asylum, or some such spot as yon. Ay, well, we'll be having her close at hand afore so long, and then we can do our best for her ourselves!"Sarah started a second time when she said that, and the pig-sty audience brightened and pricked its ears. Simon muttered an oath and pulled at the horse until it sidled and backed, forcing the subtle tormentor to retreat."You stand back, missis," he cried angrily, waving a threatening whip, "and take your long tongue with you, or it'll be tripping us in t'road!"There was a burst of laughter at this show of wit, and Eliza flared instantly into open war. She raised her voice after the departing pair, stepping back heavily upon Elliman's feet."You'll have to speak different from that, Mr. Thornthet," she called shrilly, "if you're coming to Blindbeck to act as our hired man!"The laughter broke out again, and then stopped, cut short. Simon, red to the ears, raised the whip violently above the horse's back, but it was checked before it descended by Sarah's outstretched hand."Bide a minute, Simon," she said quietly. "Just hold on. What's Eliza meaning to say by that?"Simon looked helplessly about him, noting the interested gaping faces on all sides. "Ax me on t'road," he said desperately, yearning to get away. "It's time we were getting on, missis. Ax me on t'road!""Nay, ax him now, and ha' done wi' it, Sarah!" Eliza jeered, advancing again. "Or ax me if you want, and I'll tell you mighty sharp! Likely you've been wondering what's to come o' you when you leave the farm? Ay, well, our cowman's job is going begging at present, and I hear your master's thinking o' taking it on."There was a pause after that, in which even the pig-sty audience was hushed as mice, and the fretting horse itself was suddenly still. Those nearest to Sarah heard her give a sigh, the same little sigh with which she had loosed her hold on the Parlour Dream. The next moment Simon had thankfully eased the reins, and the trap went creaking and jolting out of the still yard....Eliza watched it triumphantly until the very last, and then, bursting into a laugh, turned expectantly for applause. But for once her usually appreciative audience failed her of her due. They avoided her eyes and looked at their boots, or leaned over the pig-sty walls and pretended a passionate interest in the pigs. The Addisons, in whom Christian charity was apt to rise and fall like a turned-on jet, murmured tepid thanks for their entertainment, and hurried away. Even the smug cousin refused to play up to Eliza for once, partly because of a latent fineness of feeling which she had hurt, but chiefly because she had trodden on his toes. Turning his back determinedly upon Mary Phyllis, he bent to whisper something in Sally's ear. She hesitated a moment, lifting her eyes to his sobered face, and then followed him slowly towards the track across the fields.VIIIOutside the farmyard wall Sarah again put out a hand to Simon's arm. "Yon's Taylor's spot, isn't it?" she enquired, as the cottage came up. "Just hold on a minute, and let me see."He obeyed, watching her nervously as she bent and peered at the house, and wondering uneasily what she was about. She knew the house well enough, both inside and out, so she could not be stopping to look at it just for that. She must be trying to form some impression of it that was wholly new, perhaps picturing it as it would be when she had come to live in it herself.When he found that she did not speak, he began to offer clipped remarks, anxiously pointing out objects that she was quite unable to see."It's a good house, missis.... You'll remember it's a tidy spot. There's a fairish garden for cabbishes and the like, and a bit of a drying-ground as well. As for berry-bushes, there's gooseberry and black currant and red ... and danged if there isn't a few rasps over at far side wall an' all!"Sarah looked away from the house the moment he started to speak, as if some spell were broken by the sound of his voice. "Ay," she said, with a total lack of interest, and staring ahead.... "Now, master, we'd best get on."Simon, cut off in mid-flight, repeated "Rasps!" in a feeble tone, and again Sarah said "Ay," and requested him to get on. He drove away rather reluctantly, looking behind him as he went, and muttering of Taylor's rasps and cabbishes until they were finally lost to sight.Now once more they were in the high-flanked lane, with Blindbeck and all that Blindbeck stood for fallen away at last. The cross went with them, indeed, but the calvary dropped behind. The horse turned homeward, and, encouraged by Will's corn, showed a sudden freakish revival of vanished youth. Bicycles met and passed them in the narrow road, sliding by like thistledown on a wind, while the riders saw only an elderly couple apparently half asleep. Yet even the dullest farm-lad would have cried aloud to them if he had known to what they went. He would have flung himself off his bicycle and barred the road, a humble but valiant imitation of an Angel of God.Evening was coming, but the day was still alive, incredibly long as the afternoon had seemed. Simon's old watch, put right that morning in Witham, asserted that it was only half-past four. The atmosphere had never been really light, and only imperceptibly was it drawing down to dusk. The grey seemed to have deepened and settled a little, but that was all. It was a day on which people forgot the time, as Mr. Dent had said, a day when they had every excuse for forgetting the right time. Simon felt suddenly as though he had never seen the sun either rise or set for at least a week. Yesterday there had been only a swift setting, hurriedly blotted out, and to-day, if there had been any fugitive brightness of farewell, it must have passed while they were still at the farm. The night was coming unduly to the grey-green land which had never had its meed of sun, just as the night came unfairly to lives whose share of glamour and glory had been missed. He longed to see a light spring out of the west, showing the silver water in a shining line, and re-tinting the heavy, neutral-coloured earth.Sun,--evening sun lying over the sea,--would have made things easier for both of them, but especially for his wife. Even though there was so little that she could see, the warmth and light would at least have lain tenderly upon her lids. Trouble and change were always easier to bear under a smiling sky; it did not mock at the trouble, as smiling faces so often seemed to do. Rain and the dark seemed to narrow a trouble in, so that change was a nameless peril into which each step was into a void. But there was to be no sun for these lost folk who seemed to be straying all the day long; only the unstirred breath of the mist in the blotted west, filling the mighty bowl at whose bottom lay the sea.They felt strange with each other, now that they were alone, because of all that the other had done while the two of them were apart. Simon's sudden decision was as inexplicable to his wife as her afternoon's jest with Eliza had seemed to him. In his place she would never have stooped to make of herself the younger brother's man; she would have worked for the hardest driver amongst them sooner than that. Even the close affection between the brothers could not dignify the position in her eyes. She could understand something of Simon's yearning towards the farm, but Sarah was never the sort of which they make doorkeepers in Heaven. She would never really have understood the strength of the pull, even with no Eliza set like a many-eyed monster on the farmyard wall. He, on the other hand, could not even pretend to understand the Lie, but then the Vision of the Parlour had been granted to her and not to him.Both their minds, however, were at work more on the change that was coming than on Sarah's sudden craze, since always the pressing business of life must supersede the dream. Simon, indeed, did not want to think about Sarah's behaviour further than he could help, because of that sinister saying about the doings of blind brains. As for Sarah herself, she had done with the dream for ever in that moment when she came face to face with the limits of her lie. It had had its tremendous hour in the down-treading of a lifelong foe, but in that one stupendous achievement it had finally passed. Never again would she be able to shut herself in the spell, until the blind saw and the lost spoke, and the sea was crossed in a leap. Never again would she be able to believe that Geordie might come home.In spite of their shameful departure, fast fading, however, from his mind, Simon was already planning the bitter-sweet prospect of their near return. Like so many ideas impossible and even repellent at the start, this had already become natural and full of an acid charm. For the time being he was content to ignore the drawbacks of the position, and to concentrate only upon its obvious gains. His mind, hurrying forward over the next few months, was already disposing of stock, farm-implements and surplus household gear; and in his complete absorption he forgot that he was not alone, and kept jerking out fragments of disjointed speech. Sarah allowed him to amuse himself after this fashion for some time, and then broke dryly into his current of thought."You may as well tell me what's settled, and get it by with," she observed in a sardonic tone. "So far, even Eliza seems to know more about it than me. You and Will seem to ha' fixed things up wi' a vengeance, that you have! You'd best to tell me how it come about, instead of booing away to yourself like a badly calf.""Nay, it was all fixed that sharp," Simon grumbled, with an injured air, though very relieved at heart to hear her speak. "There was no time to ax nobody nor nowt. I'm still a bit maiselt about it myself, for the matter o' that. I don't know as I'll be that surprised if I hear to-morrow it's all off. As for Eliza, it fair beats me how she could ha' got wind of it so smart! She likely hid herself somewheres when we was talking it out; though she's not that easy to miss,--gert, spying toad!"He brisked considerably now that the first awkwardness was past, and went on to tell her, after his usual backwards and forwards fashion, exactly how the new arrangement had come about."It's not much to crack on, I dare say," he finished, pleading with her across the disapproving silence which had again risen between them like a wall, "but, when all's said and done, it's a sight better than I'd looked for, by a deal. I'd ha' been bound to hire myself somewheres, to help us make out, and there isn't a decenter master in t'countryside than Will. It's a deal better than being odd-job man at some one-horse spot, or maybe scrattin' up weeds and suchlike at some private house. There'll be a decent wage, think on, and milk,--ay, and happen a load o' coal an' all. Will'll see as we're rightly done by, never fret! We'll be right comfortable, I'm sure. Will says his lasses'll give you a hand wi' washing and the like, and if happen we get a good sale we might run to a bit o' help ourselves. You'll miss t'horse and cart, I reckon, but we'll find a way out o' yon as well. If you felt as you fancied a bit of a ride, Will'd like enough loan me a horse and trap."He was coaxing her for all he was worth, but neither the coaxing nor the explanation seemed to get any further than her ears. Again he felt the spasm of irritation which he had felt in the parlour, and was at the same time reminded of its original cause."I don't say it'll be over pleasant for either on us," he went on vexedly, as she did not open her lips, "but you'll likely admit I did the best I could for us, all the same. It's a sad pity you and Eliza pull together so bad, but it's over late to think o' mending it now. Anyway, you did nowt to mend it by telling yon string o' lies this afternoon! What, in the name o' goodness, made you act so strange?"She moved then, a touch of the afternoon glamour reaching from Blindbeck, and following her down the lane."Nay, I don't know.... Things come over folk, now and then. I'm right sorry, though, if I set you thinking it was the lad.""I've given up thinking owt o' the sort long since," he said dejectedly. "I should ha' thought you would ha' done the same an' all.""Things come over folk," she repeated, unwilling to say more, and he nodded his head, relieved by her softer tone. "You'll try to make up your mind to Blindbeck, will you, missis?" he pressed on nervously, hoping her mood would last. "It's a bad best, maybe, but I nobbut did what I could."She gave a sharp sigh, but her voice was firm. "Ay, I'll make up my mind to it, after a bit.""It's a big change at our time of life, but you'll settle, never fear.""Ay, I'll settle all right. Don't you fret.""It's a good shop, Sarah.""Ay.""And Will's a right good sort.""Oh, ay."The sudden gentleness of her mood prompted him to a further unburdening of his soul. He leaned forward a little in the trap, staring over the grey fields, and with the note of pleading rising and falling in his tone."I don't mind telling you now, Sarah, but I've been fair fretted out o' my senses all this while. There's been times I've felt like just making off on t'sands, and letting tide settle it for me for good an' all. Ay, and by Gox! it very near come about, too, one day when I was mooning along and not looking where I was at! But there was you to see to, and I couldn't rightly bring myself to chuck up the sponge. 'Tisn't as if the lad was dead, neither,--there was that as well. He's as good as dead, likely, but it's a different thing, all the same. Folks can get along on a mighty little hope,--same as yon old horse as died just when it was learning to live on nowt! We've come to a bonny pass, these days, you and Geordie an' me, but the world isn't past bearing as long as the three on us is over sod."It was with a sense of enlightenment and escape that they came out finally on to the high road, for in the cleft of the lane every curve of the land stole what little clarity was left to the slowly withdrawing earth. Even Sarah was faintly conscious of lightened lids, as well as of easier breathing as the borders of the road drew further apart. In the lane they had been high, looming presences, over-close to the lurching wheels, but now they ceased to oppress her, though she was still aware that they marched with her as she went. It was as if the furniture of the land was being withdrawn into the wings before the curtain of night was really down; yet even in its slow departure it still formed the picture and dominated the scene. The only real comfort for brain and eyes was on the unfurnished marsh, where even the fenced roads lifted themselves as often as not above their fences to look abroad.There was more life, also, on the open road,--cycles and traps, and people walking in twos and threes; motor-cars, too, at which Simon never so much as glanced aside, though now they were really beginning to look like ghosts in the sinking light. Even when there was nobody on the road there was still the sense of being part of an unseen train, the link which binds traveller to traveller on every principal highway in the land, but especially on those which run north and south. The link strengthens and the thrill deepens as the day lengthens and the hours go on. Each wonders instinctively to what home the other is hastening before he is overtaken by the dark. From each to each at the hour of dusk passes the unconscious Godspeed uniting all who are drawing together towards the adventure of the night.And, for Simon and Sarah, as for all, either man or beast, even in this bitter hour, there was the comfort of the road that goes home. There is always a lamp set high in the house to which one returns, even though it be poor and empty and dark. The greatest sorrow awaiting one at the end is not really a sorrow until one steps inside. The ease of the road home is the ineffable ease of the mind. Stout hearts and limbs may carry us out, and barely suffice to stagger us back, but the running and leaping mind can comfort the body on. There is always a lamp set high at the end of the road that is going home....Not until they had lost it would they realise the perpetual consolation of that long-accustomed road. Times without number they had travelled it, seething with anger and hate, and yet always they were the richer for having passed that way. Simon, busily thinking of Blindbeck and all the advantages of the wealthy farm, did not know that he was putting his real wealth from him with every thought. Yet he would know it all the rest of his life when he drove a road that was not consecrated by the years, when the folk that hailed them in passing were not part of a lifelong chain; when the turns of the road were no longer pictures and books, with each house where it should be and would be for all time; when he stopped at a gate in the dusk and knew it was not his; when he entered a meaningless building at last and knew it was not home....But just for the moment he was thinking neither of the immediate present nor of the greater part of his long-reaching past. His mind, unusually stimulated by the day's events, swung easily to and fro between the future at Blindbeck and the far-off boyhood which he had spent with Will. Blindbeck had never been his home in any sense, but his call to Blindbeck was nevertheless the call of the past. They would renew their youth for each other, the two old men, and forget when they were together that they were old. They turned instinctively to each other, as all turn to those who can recreate for them the young beginnings of their lives. On the marsh Simon always felt immeasurably old, weighted as with an actual burden by the years. He saw himself looking behind him at them as at monsters created in his pride, which now and for ever were out of his control. With Will beside him, they would lie in front as they used to do, rolling meadowlands still untouched by the plough of time. Because they had been young together it would be impossible for them to be really old. Because they had been young together they could took smiling, shoulder to shoulder, into the unbelievable grave.Not that his longing had any such definite frame of thought as this, though he was aware that in it had lain the motive which had fixed his mind. He only moved towards its fulfilment as all untutored souls move naturally towards release from strain. He scarcely remembered Sarah after their talk had come to an end that was hardly an end, like an unravelled cord of which no one troubles to count the untwisted strands. That mighty leap which he was taking across the years carried him well above both Sarah's and Geordie's heads. The school-years, the climbing, running, hungry years were more distinct to him than the heavy, responsible years of marriage and middle life. He saw himself and Will running after the hounds, paddling in calm lakes of gold-shot evening tides, skating by slowly rising moons. He saw a raw lad going shyly but stolidly to his first place, already a man in the awed estimation of the brother left behind. He heard the clink of the first money he had ever earned, which had gone straight from his pocket into the family purse. He had handed it over without a twinge of regret, and his empty hands had continued to thrill with pride. Later, he had begged a couple of shillings for himself and Will, and had never thought of the money then or since but as a gift....They came at last to the dangerous, right-angled turn which dropped them down to the marsh, and as the horse began to jerk itself down the hill a car passed slowly above them along the open road. Although the day still lingered, the tail-light was already lit, as if the car were setting out on a journey instead of going home. Yet it went slowly and almost reluctantly, like a man who looks over his shoulder all the while. It was as if it was only waiting its opportunity to turn itself in its tracks. But all the time it was drifting gradually away, and the red light, that could hardly as yet impress itself on the dusk, seemed to hesitate for a moment at a curve of the road, and then, as if a hand had been clapped in front of it, was suddenly gone.The drop from the highway was like being dropped from a cliff, so distinct was the change to the loneliness of the marsh. The link was broken which made them members of a purposed line, leaving them mere strayed wanderers of whom nobody was aware. The few farmhouses, lifeless-looking in the deadened light, stared always towards great distances over their puny heads. The few trees sprang up before them, suddenly strange, acquiring an almost violent personality against the meaningless scene.The straight miles dragged reluctantly past their heavy wheels, and on the unending road they seemed to go forward without purpose and to be set on a journey that had no goal. When at length the stretches of meadow and cropped land gave place to the pale-coloured desert of the sand, there seemed no possible reason why one should cease and the other begin. Away out behind the mist there was a living, moving tide, but here on the marsh there was no consciousness of tide. Things just stopped, that was all, and from the garden became the waste, just as the growth and renewal of life had stopped for the old pair, leaving nothing but desolation before their feet.Yet still the earth was with them, and Simon turned his eyes again and again to its vague outlines with relief. Across the bay the cone of the Knott still held to its tangibility and form, protesting against the swamping hand of night. The crown of it, fitted with wood as closely as with a cap, was darker against the sky than the shadowy slopes on which the houses climbed. And, nearer inland still, on the low edge of shore that was like a trail of smoke on the farther side of the sands, a blur of formless yet purposeful grey showed where the tiny hamlet of Sandyeat clustered about the 'Ship.'Sandholes was in sight now, and the horse quickened its pace, triumphing over the last few wearisome yards. As they approached the house, with its white face set on a body of looming buildings behind, they had as always a mingled sensation of sadness and relief. Not that the place was sad to them because of its dreary emptiness set amongst formless fields. In the course of years it had become for them merely an atmosphere, not a thing of sight. They were only depressed by it because for them it was the heart of failure and loss. And in the same way they were relieved by it, dignified, sanctuaried and consoled, because this was their hiding-place against the world, and here the heart of their few memories of joy.The house was dark, but they were accustomed to that, used to the door that would not open, however they knocked, and the windows that for ever would never frame a face, however they hailed. They were used to that stumbling into the place in the folding dark, to the striking of a match that brought them nothing but the dreary waiting rigidity of the things they had left behind. They were used, too, to an uprising fear on the struck light that some terrible change might have taken place in the empty house; that even the waiting things might have played them false while they were gone....So lonely looked the place, that it seemed as if it might even revenge itself upon those who had the temerity to awaken it during that sinking hour, but, as they reached the gate, the old dog asleep in a loose box aroused himself to a hoarse, recognising bark. The few cows, also, waiting to be fed, sent out deep complaints at the sound of the coming wheels. And as they finally rattled into the uneven yard, a woman's figure stood up and waved to them from the sea-wall.PART IIIMAYIThe afternoon which had seen Sarah's short-lived splendour had been sweet also for May. Sweeter, indeed, since for her there was no clashing of fierce passions to jar the tender witchery of her mood. And though the glamour was of the past,--a sheet of gold as of sunlight far at the back of her mind; a sea of gold from which she moved ever inward towards the darkness of the hills,--a tongue of light had suddenly darted from it to stream like a golden wind-blown ribbon over her path. That light was the knowledge that in her own hands lay the possibility of Geordie's return.Youth came back to her with the thought, and she sat straighter still in the trap, holding her unused whip at a jaunty angle across the elastic bar of the reins. The good horse swung homewards in a generous stride; the bright wheels of the dog-cart flashed through the dull country like a whirled autumn leaf. The passers-by found a special sweetness in her ready smile, because it reflected the secret in her heart. As they went on their way they said what they always said,--that it was a marvel she had not married long ago.Yet the secret, fair as it was, had also the folly of all great ventures, since, in laying her hands upon the future, she risked the memory that had coloured her whole life. To bring Geordie home might mean nothing but disappointment for herself, sordid disappointment and shame for a mis-spent girlish dream. Things would be different, at the very best; part of the memory would have to go. But the chief people to be considered were the old folks who had so often been the footballs of fate. Nothing that she might fear on her own account should stand in the way of this sudden fulfilment for a frustrated old man, this light to the eyes for an old woman going blind. In any case May was the sort that would tenderly handle the cracked and mended pot right up to the moment of dissolution at the well. No disappointment that Geordie could bring her would remain sordid for very long. Out of her shattered idols her wisdom and humour would gather her fresh beauty; clear-eyed, uplifting affection for youthful worship, and pity and tenderness for passion.It was true that Sarah had already rejected her offer,--brutally, almost, in her determination that May should suffer no further for her son. But May had already almost forgotten the rough sentences which for the time being had slammed the opening door in her eager face. Sarah was strong, she knew, but she herself, because of love in the past and pity in the present, felt stronger still. She said to herself, smiling, that sooner or later she would find an argument that would serve. Sooner or later Sarah would yield, and share with secret delight in the surprise that they would so gaily prepare for the old man. Sooner or later the boat would put out from port that carried the lost lad,--Geordie, with his pockets empty but his heart full, and every nerve of him reaching towards his home.Now she had turned the end of the bay, and was running along the flat road that hugged the curve of the shore. Below on her right were the sands, almost within flick of her whip, with the river-channel winding its dull length a hundred yards away. Beyond it, the sand narrowed into the arm of the marsh, until the eye caught the soft etching of the Thornthwaite farm, set on the faint gold and green of the jutting land.The inn, low, white-faced, dark, with all the light of it in the eyes that looked so far abroad, was very quiet when she came to it about three o'clock. The odd-job man was waiting about to take her horse, and she paused to have a word or two with him in the yard. Then she went briskly into the silent place, and at once the whole drowsy air of it stirred and became alive. The spotlessness of the house seemed to take on a sparkling quality from the swift vitality of her presence. The very fire seemed to burn brighter when she entered, and the high lights on the steels and brasses to take a finer gleam. Her father called to her from the room where he lay upstairs, and her buoyant tread, as she went up, seemed to strengthen even his numb limbs and useless feet.She sat by his bed for some time, telling him all the news, and conveying as much as she could of the hiring and marketing stir combined. This particular person had wished to know how he was; the other had sent him a message to be delivered word for word. One had a grandmother who had died in similar case; another a remedy that would recover him in a week. Bits of gossip she had for him, sketches of old friends; stories of old traits cropping up again which made him chuckle and cap them from the past. By the time she had finished he was firmly linked again to life, and had forgotten that deadly detachment which oppresses the long-sick. Indeed, he almost forgot, as he listened, that he had not been in Witham himself, hearing the gossip with his own ears and seeing the familiar faces with his own eyes. For the time being he was again part of that central country life, the touchstone by which country-folk test reality and the truth of things, and by contact with which their own identity is intensified and preserved.But her eyes were turned continually to the window as she chatted and laughed, dwelling upon the misty picture even when they were not followed by her mind. Only her brain answered without fail when her gaze travelled to the farm on the farther shore. Gradually the picture shadowed and dimmed in line, but still she sat by the bed and laughed with her lips while her heart looked always abroad. Neither she nor her father ever drew a blind in the little inn. They had lived so long with that wide prospect stretching into the house that they would have stifled mentally between eyeless walls.She talked until he was tired, and then she made his tea, and left him happy with the papers which she had brought from Witham. Her own tea she ate mechanically, with the whole of her mind still fixed on the promise of the day, and when she had finished she was drawn to the window again before she knew. The Thornthwaites would be home by now, she concluded, looking out. Tired and discouraged, they would be back again at the farm, feeling none of the quivering hope which lifted and thrilled her heart. Sarah would not even dwell on the offer, having put it by for good, and Simon did not as much as know that there had been an offer at all. They would creep to bed and sleep drearily, or wake drearily against their will, while she would wake of her own accord in order to clasp her purpose and find it still alive. She could not bear the thought of the long, blank night which would so soon be wrapping them round; even a stubborn refusal of her hope would be a better friend to them than that. Stronger and stronger grew the knowledge within her that she must see them before they slept. It was for their sake, she told herself, at first, thirsting to be across, and then, as she clinched her decision, knew it was also for her own.She went upstairs again to put on her coat and hat, wondering as she did so what her father would have to say. He would be sure to enquire what took her across the sands so late, yet he would wonder and fret if she left him without a word. Geordie's name had dropped into silence between them for many a year, and, lately as she had spoken it to Sarah, it would be hard to speak it now. She knew only too well what her father would think of her offer of hard-saved gold. He had always been bitter against Geordie for her sake, and would want no wastrel fetched overseas to play on her pity again. She stole half-way down the stairs, and then was vexed with herself and went up again with a resolute tread. Once more she hesitated, with her hand on the door-latch, and then it slipped from her finger and she found herself in the room.Fleming looked up from his paper with his faded eyes. "Off again, lass?" he enquired, noticing how she was dressed. "Is there a pill-gill Milthrop way to-night?"She shook her head."Not as I know of.... Nay, I'm sure there's not." She stood staring at him, uncertain what to say, and then her eyes, as if of their own accord, turned back towards the sands. "I just felt like going out a bit again, that's all.""Likely you're going up road for a crack wi' Mrs. Bridge?""Nay ... I didn't think o' going there.""To t'station, happen?""Nor that, neither...." There was a little pause. "Just--out," she added, and the note in her voice seemed to reach before her over the sandy waste. Fleming heard it, and saw the track of her gaze as well."What's up, lass?" he asked quietly, letting his paper drop. "What d'you want to do?"She braced herself then, swinging round to him with one of her cheerful laughs. "You'll think I'm daft, I know," she said, looking down at him with dancing eyes, "but I'm right set on seeing Mrs. Thornthet again to-night. We'd a deal to say to each other this morning, but we didn't finish our talk. I thought I could slip over sand and back before it was dark."Fleming looked perturbed."It's over late for that, isn't it?" he asked. "Light's going pretty fast an' all. Hadn't you best bide till morning, and gang then?""I don't feel as I can. I'm set on going to-night. I've often been across as late, you'll think on. I'll take right good care.""What about tide?""Not for a couple of hours yet, and I've not that much to say. Boat's ready alongside channel; it nobbut wants shoving off. I'll be there and back before you can say knife.""Ay, well, then, you'd best be off, and look sharp about it!" Fleming conceded in a reluctant tone. "I'll have t'lamp put in winder as usual to set you back. Don't you get clattin' now and forget to see if it's there.""I'll look out for it, don't you fret. Like as not I'll never go inside the house. There's just something I want to make sure of before I sleep."She nodded brightly and began to move away, but he called her back before she reached the door. With the quickness of those who lie long in a sick room, he had noticed the change in her atmosphere at once. Restlessness and impatience were strange things to find in May, and there was a touch of excitement in her manner as well. He looked at her thoughtfully as she retraced her steps."Is there any news o' that wastrel lad o' theirs? Happen he's thinking o' coming back?"The words spoken from another's mouth brought a rush of certainty to her longing mind. She answered him confidently, as if she held the actual proof."That's it, father! That's right." She laughed on a buoyant, happy note. "Our Geordie's coming home!""To-night?" Fleming's mouth opened. "D'ye mean he's coming to-night?""Nay, I don't know about that!" She laughed again. "But it'll be before so long. I feel as sure about it as if he was knocking at Sandholes door!""You've no call to be glad of it, as I can see," Fleming said, with a touch of fretfulness in his tone. "Are you thinking o' wedding him after all this time?"Her head drooped a little."I'm past thinking o' that, and he'll have been past it long ago. I'm just glad for the old folks' sake, that's all. It's like as if it was somebody dead that was coming back, so that I needn't believe in death and suchlike any more. It's like as if it's myself as is coming back,--as if I should open door and see the lass I used to be outside.""I'd be glad to see you settled afore I went, but not wi' an idle do-nowt as'd spoil your life. It'll be queer to me if Geordie Thornthet's made much out. He was a wastrel, right enough, for all his wheedlin' ways.""I'm past thinking o' marriage," she said again. "It's just what it means to the old folks, poor old souls!""Ay. They've had a mighty poor time, they have that." He sighed, thinking of many a tale of woe unfolded by Simon beside his bed. Then he looked up at her with a whimsical smile. "They'd nobbut the one bairn, same as your mother and me, and there's been whiles I've been real mad because you weren't a lad. Ay, well, I've lived to see the folly o' my ways, and to thank God I'd nobbut a lass! You're worth a dozen Geordie Thornthets any day o' the week...."She was gone with an answering smile directly he finished his speech, and the sound of her feet was light and swift on the stair. Hearing her, he, too, seemed to see her a girl again, gone to meet Geordie Thornthwaite along the shore. But instead of reviving and cheering him, it made him sad. He was too near the end to wish himself back at the start. He glanced at the lamp on the table to make sure that it was filled, and settled himself back to his papers with a sigh.
She stirred then, moved by the cheated sound in his angry voice. She gave a sigh. The fooling of Eliza had been utterly great and glorious, but it had come to an end. "It was just lies," she heard herself saying in a passionless tone, and then with a last twinge of regret, she sighed again.
Eliza's scream of "I knew it! I knew it!" merged in the chorus of exclamation from the group about the door. Will said nothing, fixing his sister-in-law with his kindly gaze, but Simon fell back muttering, and staring as if afraid. He wondered, looking at her unemotional face, whether the trouble about her eyes was beginning to touch her brain. She herself had said there was no knowing what blind weather might possibly do, no telling what a blind body's brain might someday suddenly breed....
He came back to the consciousness of Eliza's voice as a man from the dead hears the roar of life as he returns.
"I wonder you're not struck down where you stand, Sarah Thornthet! I wonder you're not liggin' dead on t'floor! But you'll be punished for it, right enough; you'll be paid for it, never fear! You'll see, summat'll happen to you afore so long,--I shouldn't wonder if it happened before morn! Like enough, the next news as we have o' Geordie'll be as he's dead or drowned.... I'll serve you a slap on t'lugs, Will, if you can't shape to let me be!"
It was Sally who saved the situation for the second time that day.
"Fetch the trap, Uncle Simon, and look sharp about it!" she commanded smartly, "and you come and set down, Aunt Sarah, until it's round. Let her be, can't you!" she added roughly, flinging round on her mother. "She's that tired and put out she don't know what's she's at."
She shook her fist at the window, and the faces disappeared like morning frost. Then she turned on the others and ordered them out, too.
"You'd best be getting about your business!" she commanded them, hand on hip. "You should be in t'dairy this minute, Mary Phyllis,--you know that as well as me. I'd think shame o' myself, Mr. and Mrs. Addison, to be helping other folks' wi' their weekly wash! Same to you, Elliman Wilkinson, and a bit over, come to that! You're not one o' the family yet by a long chalk, my lad; nay, nor like to be, neither, if you don't see to mend your ways!"
Eliza still lingered, however, loth that anything should be left unsaid, but Sally ushered her resolutely to the door. She protested to the last inch, and the hand that had been denied judgment on Sarah flew up and slapped Sally's face. The girl looked at her with scornful eyes.
"Ay, you can't keep your hands off folk, can you?" she said bitterly. "You never could. I remember Jim saying he fair hated you for it when we were bairns. That was why he always liked Aunt Sarah a deal better than he liked you!"
"You'll find other folk free wi' their hands," Eliza stormed, "if you're that free wi' your impident tongue! Yon fool of an Elliman'll stand no nonsense, for all he looks so new-milk soft! Not that he wants any truck wi' you at all, as far as I can see. It's Mary Phyllis he can't take his eyes off, and no wonder, neither. She was always a sight better-looking than you, and she's younger, by a deal. You're that old and teptious you fair turn the cream sour just by being along wi't in t'house! Nay, I reckon you can put wedding and suchlike out o' your head as soon as you like!You'llnever have a house of your own, or a man to put in it; and as for bairns o' your own to slap, why, you'll never have none o'them...!"
She said the rest to the closed door, a stout, oaken door which even she was reluctant to attack. In the few pauses that she allowed herself she could hear nothing inside the room, and presently, tiring of the one-sided contest, she waddled heavily away along the passage. She was in the dairy a minute later, and saw through the window the brothers yoking the old horse. Through the window, too, she caught scraps of their talk, and strained her ears eagerly to catch its bent. As if by magic the anger left her face, and a little smile grew happily on her lips. She even hummed a little tune to herself, as she watched and listened, leaning against the frame....
The silence persisted in the room that she had left, as if the air was so laden with words that it would hold no more. Sarah groped her way to the rocking-chair and sat down again to wait. Sally went to the window, and stared miserably into the yard. So they waited together until they heard the rattle of the wheels along the stones....
VII
Even now, however, the Blindbeck comedy was not quite played out. Eliza had still to give it its finishing touch. The lately routed audience must have been conscious of this, for they assembled again in order to watch the Thornthwaites take their leave. As a rule, the Simons simply faded away, unperceived and unsped of anybody but Will. They were not welcome when they came, and they were not lamented when they went away. But to-day Sarah had managed to touch the imagination of the crowd, arousing unwilling admiration and even respect. The Addisons, for instance, though outwardly badly shocked, rejoiced by proxy in a crime which they would never have had the courage to commit themselves. Even Elliman was heard to remark that Sarah's psychology seemed possibly worthy of study, after all. The main motive with all, however, was a sneaking hope that, on some ground or another, the opponents might go for each other again.
As if by accident, therefore, they drifted out of the house, and on Sarah's appearance were to be found sitting on rails or pig-sty walls, or leaning in graceful attitudes against the porch. Sarah could not see them, but Simon could, and divided a scowl of dislike amongst the lot. The Thornthwaites were actually settled in the trap when Eliza came bustling after them into the yard.
It was such a different Eliza, however, that at first it looked as if the audience were to be cheated of their scene. The virulent harridan of ten minutes ago had vanished as if she had never been. This Eliza was hearty, smiling, serene, the smooth-faced, smooth-tongued mocker which Sarah detested most. Even her hair and dress, lately dishevelled by rage, were now as tidy and sleek as the fur of a well-brushed cat. She came to a halt close beside the wheel, and Sarah started when she heard her speak.
"So you're off, are you, Sarah? Ay, well, you'll be best at home! I reckon our Sally's right, and you're not yourself at all. Mind and see doctor again, first thing as ever you can. It's a bad sign, they say, to go making up fancy tales. Folks as get telling lies is framing for softening of the brain."
Will looked back with a frown as he hurried on to open the gate.
"We've had enough o' that, missis!" he called sharply. "Just you let Sarah be!"
Mrs. Will tossed her head, but managed to preserve her compassionate air.
"Losh, master!" she reproached him loudly. "You've no call to speak so sharp. I'm meaning kindly enough by poor Sarah here, I'm sure! She's welcome to tell lies till they turn her black in the face, but it isn't healthy for her, all the same. I shouldn't like to see poor Sarah in Garland's Asylum, or some such spot as yon. Ay, well, we'll be having her close at hand afore so long, and then we can do our best for her ourselves!"
Sarah started a second time when she said that, and the pig-sty audience brightened and pricked its ears. Simon muttered an oath and pulled at the horse until it sidled and backed, forcing the subtle tormentor to retreat.
"You stand back, missis," he cried angrily, waving a threatening whip, "and take your long tongue with you, or it'll be tripping us in t'road!"
There was a burst of laughter at this show of wit, and Eliza flared instantly into open war. She raised her voice after the departing pair, stepping back heavily upon Elliman's feet.
"You'll have to speak different from that, Mr. Thornthet," she called shrilly, "if you're coming to Blindbeck to act as our hired man!"
The laughter broke out again, and then stopped, cut short. Simon, red to the ears, raised the whip violently above the horse's back, but it was checked before it descended by Sarah's outstretched hand.
"Bide a minute, Simon," she said quietly. "Just hold on. What's Eliza meaning to say by that?"
Simon looked helplessly about him, noting the interested gaping faces on all sides. "Ax me on t'road," he said desperately, yearning to get away. "It's time we were getting on, missis. Ax me on t'road!"
"Nay, ax him now, and ha' done wi' it, Sarah!" Eliza jeered, advancing again. "Or ax me if you want, and I'll tell you mighty sharp! Likely you've been wondering what's to come o' you when you leave the farm? Ay, well, our cowman's job is going begging at present, and I hear your master's thinking o' taking it on."
There was a pause after that, in which even the pig-sty audience was hushed as mice, and the fretting horse itself was suddenly still. Those nearest to Sarah heard her give a sigh, the same little sigh with which she had loosed her hold on the Parlour Dream. The next moment Simon had thankfully eased the reins, and the trap went creaking and jolting out of the still yard....
Eliza watched it triumphantly until the very last, and then, bursting into a laugh, turned expectantly for applause. But for once her usually appreciative audience failed her of her due. They avoided her eyes and looked at their boots, or leaned over the pig-sty walls and pretended a passionate interest in the pigs. The Addisons, in whom Christian charity was apt to rise and fall like a turned-on jet, murmured tepid thanks for their entertainment, and hurried away. Even the smug cousin refused to play up to Eliza for once, partly because of a latent fineness of feeling which she had hurt, but chiefly because she had trodden on his toes. Turning his back determinedly upon Mary Phyllis, he bent to whisper something in Sally's ear. She hesitated a moment, lifting her eyes to his sobered face, and then followed him slowly towards the track across the fields.
VIII
Outside the farmyard wall Sarah again put out a hand to Simon's arm. "Yon's Taylor's spot, isn't it?" she enquired, as the cottage came up. "Just hold on a minute, and let me see."
He obeyed, watching her nervously as she bent and peered at the house, and wondering uneasily what she was about. She knew the house well enough, both inside and out, so she could not be stopping to look at it just for that. She must be trying to form some impression of it that was wholly new, perhaps picturing it as it would be when she had come to live in it herself.
When he found that she did not speak, he began to offer clipped remarks, anxiously pointing out objects that she was quite unable to see.
"It's a good house, missis.... You'll remember it's a tidy spot. There's a fairish garden for cabbishes and the like, and a bit of a drying-ground as well. As for berry-bushes, there's gooseberry and black currant and red ... and danged if there isn't a few rasps over at far side wall an' all!"
Sarah looked away from the house the moment he started to speak, as if some spell were broken by the sound of his voice. "Ay," she said, with a total lack of interest, and staring ahead.... "Now, master, we'd best get on."
Simon, cut off in mid-flight, repeated "Rasps!" in a feeble tone, and again Sarah said "Ay," and requested him to get on. He drove away rather reluctantly, looking behind him as he went, and muttering of Taylor's rasps and cabbishes until they were finally lost to sight.
Now once more they were in the high-flanked lane, with Blindbeck and all that Blindbeck stood for fallen away at last. The cross went with them, indeed, but the calvary dropped behind. The horse turned homeward, and, encouraged by Will's corn, showed a sudden freakish revival of vanished youth. Bicycles met and passed them in the narrow road, sliding by like thistledown on a wind, while the riders saw only an elderly couple apparently half asleep. Yet even the dullest farm-lad would have cried aloud to them if he had known to what they went. He would have flung himself off his bicycle and barred the road, a humble but valiant imitation of an Angel of God.
Evening was coming, but the day was still alive, incredibly long as the afternoon had seemed. Simon's old watch, put right that morning in Witham, asserted that it was only half-past four. The atmosphere had never been really light, and only imperceptibly was it drawing down to dusk. The grey seemed to have deepened and settled a little, but that was all. It was a day on which people forgot the time, as Mr. Dent had said, a day when they had every excuse for forgetting the right time. Simon felt suddenly as though he had never seen the sun either rise or set for at least a week. Yesterday there had been only a swift setting, hurriedly blotted out, and to-day, if there had been any fugitive brightness of farewell, it must have passed while they were still at the farm. The night was coming unduly to the grey-green land which had never had its meed of sun, just as the night came unfairly to lives whose share of glamour and glory had been missed. He longed to see a light spring out of the west, showing the silver water in a shining line, and re-tinting the heavy, neutral-coloured earth.
Sun,--evening sun lying over the sea,--would have made things easier for both of them, but especially for his wife. Even though there was so little that she could see, the warmth and light would at least have lain tenderly upon her lids. Trouble and change were always easier to bear under a smiling sky; it did not mock at the trouble, as smiling faces so often seemed to do. Rain and the dark seemed to narrow a trouble in, so that change was a nameless peril into which each step was into a void. But there was to be no sun for these lost folk who seemed to be straying all the day long; only the unstirred breath of the mist in the blotted west, filling the mighty bowl at whose bottom lay the sea.
They felt strange with each other, now that they were alone, because of all that the other had done while the two of them were apart. Simon's sudden decision was as inexplicable to his wife as her afternoon's jest with Eliza had seemed to him. In his place she would never have stooped to make of herself the younger brother's man; she would have worked for the hardest driver amongst them sooner than that. Even the close affection between the brothers could not dignify the position in her eyes. She could understand something of Simon's yearning towards the farm, but Sarah was never the sort of which they make doorkeepers in Heaven. She would never really have understood the strength of the pull, even with no Eliza set like a many-eyed monster on the farmyard wall. He, on the other hand, could not even pretend to understand the Lie, but then the Vision of the Parlour had been granted to her and not to him.
Both their minds, however, were at work more on the change that was coming than on Sarah's sudden craze, since always the pressing business of life must supersede the dream. Simon, indeed, did not want to think about Sarah's behaviour further than he could help, because of that sinister saying about the doings of blind brains. As for Sarah herself, she had done with the dream for ever in that moment when she came face to face with the limits of her lie. It had had its tremendous hour in the down-treading of a lifelong foe, but in that one stupendous achievement it had finally passed. Never again would she be able to shut herself in the spell, until the blind saw and the lost spoke, and the sea was crossed in a leap. Never again would she be able to believe that Geordie might come home.
In spite of their shameful departure, fast fading, however, from his mind, Simon was already planning the bitter-sweet prospect of their near return. Like so many ideas impossible and even repellent at the start, this had already become natural and full of an acid charm. For the time being he was content to ignore the drawbacks of the position, and to concentrate only upon its obvious gains. His mind, hurrying forward over the next few months, was already disposing of stock, farm-implements and surplus household gear; and in his complete absorption he forgot that he was not alone, and kept jerking out fragments of disjointed speech. Sarah allowed him to amuse himself after this fashion for some time, and then broke dryly into his current of thought.
"You may as well tell me what's settled, and get it by with," she observed in a sardonic tone. "So far, even Eliza seems to know more about it than me. You and Will seem to ha' fixed things up wi' a vengeance, that you have! You'd best to tell me how it come about, instead of booing away to yourself like a badly calf."
"Nay, it was all fixed that sharp," Simon grumbled, with an injured air, though very relieved at heart to hear her speak. "There was no time to ax nobody nor nowt. I'm still a bit maiselt about it myself, for the matter o' that. I don't know as I'll be that surprised if I hear to-morrow it's all off. As for Eliza, it fair beats me how she could ha' got wind of it so smart! She likely hid herself somewheres when we was talking it out; though she's not that easy to miss,--gert, spying toad!"
He brisked considerably now that the first awkwardness was past, and went on to tell her, after his usual backwards and forwards fashion, exactly how the new arrangement had come about.
"It's not much to crack on, I dare say," he finished, pleading with her across the disapproving silence which had again risen between them like a wall, "but, when all's said and done, it's a sight better than I'd looked for, by a deal. I'd ha' been bound to hire myself somewheres, to help us make out, and there isn't a decenter master in t'countryside than Will. It's a deal better than being odd-job man at some one-horse spot, or maybe scrattin' up weeds and suchlike at some private house. There'll be a decent wage, think on, and milk,--ay, and happen a load o' coal an' all. Will'll see as we're rightly done by, never fret! We'll be right comfortable, I'm sure. Will says his lasses'll give you a hand wi' washing and the like, and if happen we get a good sale we might run to a bit o' help ourselves. You'll miss t'horse and cart, I reckon, but we'll find a way out o' yon as well. If you felt as you fancied a bit of a ride, Will'd like enough loan me a horse and trap."
He was coaxing her for all he was worth, but neither the coaxing nor the explanation seemed to get any further than her ears. Again he felt the spasm of irritation which he had felt in the parlour, and was at the same time reminded of its original cause.
"I don't say it'll be over pleasant for either on us," he went on vexedly, as she did not open her lips, "but you'll likely admit I did the best I could for us, all the same. It's a sad pity you and Eliza pull together so bad, but it's over late to think o' mending it now. Anyway, you did nowt to mend it by telling yon string o' lies this afternoon! What, in the name o' goodness, made you act so strange?"
She moved then, a touch of the afternoon glamour reaching from Blindbeck, and following her down the lane.
"Nay, I don't know.... Things come over folk, now and then. I'm right sorry, though, if I set you thinking it was the lad."
"I've given up thinking owt o' the sort long since," he said dejectedly. "I should ha' thought you would ha' done the same an' all."
"Things come over folk," she repeated, unwilling to say more, and he nodded his head, relieved by her softer tone. "You'll try to make up your mind to Blindbeck, will you, missis?" he pressed on nervously, hoping her mood would last. "It's a bad best, maybe, but I nobbut did what I could."
She gave a sharp sigh, but her voice was firm. "Ay, I'll make up my mind to it, after a bit."
"It's a big change at our time of life, but you'll settle, never fear."
"Ay, I'll settle all right. Don't you fret."
"It's a good shop, Sarah."
"Ay."
"And Will's a right good sort."
"Oh, ay."
The sudden gentleness of her mood prompted him to a further unburdening of his soul. He leaned forward a little in the trap, staring over the grey fields, and with the note of pleading rising and falling in his tone.
"I don't mind telling you now, Sarah, but I've been fair fretted out o' my senses all this while. There's been times I've felt like just making off on t'sands, and letting tide settle it for me for good an' all. Ay, and by Gox! it very near come about, too, one day when I was mooning along and not looking where I was at! But there was you to see to, and I couldn't rightly bring myself to chuck up the sponge. 'Tisn't as if the lad was dead, neither,--there was that as well. He's as good as dead, likely, but it's a different thing, all the same. Folks can get along on a mighty little hope,--same as yon old horse as died just when it was learning to live on nowt! We've come to a bonny pass, these days, you and Geordie an' me, but the world isn't past bearing as long as the three on us is over sod."
It was with a sense of enlightenment and escape that they came out finally on to the high road, for in the cleft of the lane every curve of the land stole what little clarity was left to the slowly withdrawing earth. Even Sarah was faintly conscious of lightened lids, as well as of easier breathing as the borders of the road drew further apart. In the lane they had been high, looming presences, over-close to the lurching wheels, but now they ceased to oppress her, though she was still aware that they marched with her as she went. It was as if the furniture of the land was being withdrawn into the wings before the curtain of night was really down; yet even in its slow departure it still formed the picture and dominated the scene. The only real comfort for brain and eyes was on the unfurnished marsh, where even the fenced roads lifted themselves as often as not above their fences to look abroad.
There was more life, also, on the open road,--cycles and traps, and people walking in twos and threes; motor-cars, too, at which Simon never so much as glanced aside, though now they were really beginning to look like ghosts in the sinking light. Even when there was nobody on the road there was still the sense of being part of an unseen train, the link which binds traveller to traveller on every principal highway in the land, but especially on those which run north and south. The link strengthens and the thrill deepens as the day lengthens and the hours go on. Each wonders instinctively to what home the other is hastening before he is overtaken by the dark. From each to each at the hour of dusk passes the unconscious Godspeed uniting all who are drawing together towards the adventure of the night.
And, for Simon and Sarah, as for all, either man or beast, even in this bitter hour, there was the comfort of the road that goes home. There is always a lamp set high in the house to which one returns, even though it be poor and empty and dark. The greatest sorrow awaiting one at the end is not really a sorrow until one steps inside. The ease of the road home is the ineffable ease of the mind. Stout hearts and limbs may carry us out, and barely suffice to stagger us back, but the running and leaping mind can comfort the body on. There is always a lamp set high at the end of the road that is going home....
Not until they had lost it would they realise the perpetual consolation of that long-accustomed road. Times without number they had travelled it, seething with anger and hate, and yet always they were the richer for having passed that way. Simon, busily thinking of Blindbeck and all the advantages of the wealthy farm, did not know that he was putting his real wealth from him with every thought. Yet he would know it all the rest of his life when he drove a road that was not consecrated by the years, when the folk that hailed them in passing were not part of a lifelong chain; when the turns of the road were no longer pictures and books, with each house where it should be and would be for all time; when he stopped at a gate in the dusk and knew it was not his; when he entered a meaningless building at last and knew it was not home....
But just for the moment he was thinking neither of the immediate present nor of the greater part of his long-reaching past. His mind, unusually stimulated by the day's events, swung easily to and fro between the future at Blindbeck and the far-off boyhood which he had spent with Will. Blindbeck had never been his home in any sense, but his call to Blindbeck was nevertheless the call of the past. They would renew their youth for each other, the two old men, and forget when they were together that they were old. They turned instinctively to each other, as all turn to those who can recreate for them the young beginnings of their lives. On the marsh Simon always felt immeasurably old, weighted as with an actual burden by the years. He saw himself looking behind him at them as at monsters created in his pride, which now and for ever were out of his control. With Will beside him, they would lie in front as they used to do, rolling meadowlands still untouched by the plough of time. Because they had been young together it would be impossible for them to be really old. Because they had been young together they could took smiling, shoulder to shoulder, into the unbelievable grave.
Not that his longing had any such definite frame of thought as this, though he was aware that in it had lain the motive which had fixed his mind. He only moved towards its fulfilment as all untutored souls move naturally towards release from strain. He scarcely remembered Sarah after their talk had come to an end that was hardly an end, like an unravelled cord of which no one troubles to count the untwisted strands. That mighty leap which he was taking across the years carried him well above both Sarah's and Geordie's heads. The school-years, the climbing, running, hungry years were more distinct to him than the heavy, responsible years of marriage and middle life. He saw himself and Will running after the hounds, paddling in calm lakes of gold-shot evening tides, skating by slowly rising moons. He saw a raw lad going shyly but stolidly to his first place, already a man in the awed estimation of the brother left behind. He heard the clink of the first money he had ever earned, which had gone straight from his pocket into the family purse. He had handed it over without a twinge of regret, and his empty hands had continued to thrill with pride. Later, he had begged a couple of shillings for himself and Will, and had never thought of the money then or since but as a gift....
They came at last to the dangerous, right-angled turn which dropped them down to the marsh, and as the horse began to jerk itself down the hill a car passed slowly above them along the open road. Although the day still lingered, the tail-light was already lit, as if the car were setting out on a journey instead of going home. Yet it went slowly and almost reluctantly, like a man who looks over his shoulder all the while. It was as if it was only waiting its opportunity to turn itself in its tracks. But all the time it was drifting gradually away, and the red light, that could hardly as yet impress itself on the dusk, seemed to hesitate for a moment at a curve of the road, and then, as if a hand had been clapped in front of it, was suddenly gone.
The drop from the highway was like being dropped from a cliff, so distinct was the change to the loneliness of the marsh. The link was broken which made them members of a purposed line, leaving them mere strayed wanderers of whom nobody was aware. The few farmhouses, lifeless-looking in the deadened light, stared always towards great distances over their puny heads. The few trees sprang up before them, suddenly strange, acquiring an almost violent personality against the meaningless scene.
The straight miles dragged reluctantly past their heavy wheels, and on the unending road they seemed to go forward without purpose and to be set on a journey that had no goal. When at length the stretches of meadow and cropped land gave place to the pale-coloured desert of the sand, there seemed no possible reason why one should cease and the other begin. Away out behind the mist there was a living, moving tide, but here on the marsh there was no consciousness of tide. Things just stopped, that was all, and from the garden became the waste, just as the growth and renewal of life had stopped for the old pair, leaving nothing but desolation before their feet.
Yet still the earth was with them, and Simon turned his eyes again and again to its vague outlines with relief. Across the bay the cone of the Knott still held to its tangibility and form, protesting against the swamping hand of night. The crown of it, fitted with wood as closely as with a cap, was darker against the sky than the shadowy slopes on which the houses climbed. And, nearer inland still, on the low edge of shore that was like a trail of smoke on the farther side of the sands, a blur of formless yet purposeful grey showed where the tiny hamlet of Sandyeat clustered about the 'Ship.'
Sandholes was in sight now, and the horse quickened its pace, triumphing over the last few wearisome yards. As they approached the house, with its white face set on a body of looming buildings behind, they had as always a mingled sensation of sadness and relief. Not that the place was sad to them because of its dreary emptiness set amongst formless fields. In the course of years it had become for them merely an atmosphere, not a thing of sight. They were only depressed by it because for them it was the heart of failure and loss. And in the same way they were relieved by it, dignified, sanctuaried and consoled, because this was their hiding-place against the world, and here the heart of their few memories of joy.
The house was dark, but they were accustomed to that, used to the door that would not open, however they knocked, and the windows that for ever would never frame a face, however they hailed. They were used to that stumbling into the place in the folding dark, to the striking of a match that brought them nothing but the dreary waiting rigidity of the things they had left behind. They were used, too, to an uprising fear on the struck light that some terrible change might have taken place in the empty house; that even the waiting things might have played them false while they were gone....
So lonely looked the place, that it seemed as if it might even revenge itself upon those who had the temerity to awaken it during that sinking hour, but, as they reached the gate, the old dog asleep in a loose box aroused himself to a hoarse, recognising bark. The few cows, also, waiting to be fed, sent out deep complaints at the sound of the coming wheels. And as they finally rattled into the uneven yard, a woman's figure stood up and waved to them from the sea-wall.
PART III
MAY
I
The afternoon which had seen Sarah's short-lived splendour had been sweet also for May. Sweeter, indeed, since for her there was no clashing of fierce passions to jar the tender witchery of her mood. And though the glamour was of the past,--a sheet of gold as of sunlight far at the back of her mind; a sea of gold from which she moved ever inward towards the darkness of the hills,--a tongue of light had suddenly darted from it to stream like a golden wind-blown ribbon over her path. That light was the knowledge that in her own hands lay the possibility of Geordie's return.
Youth came back to her with the thought, and she sat straighter still in the trap, holding her unused whip at a jaunty angle across the elastic bar of the reins. The good horse swung homewards in a generous stride; the bright wheels of the dog-cart flashed through the dull country like a whirled autumn leaf. The passers-by found a special sweetness in her ready smile, because it reflected the secret in her heart. As they went on their way they said what they always said,--that it was a marvel she had not married long ago.
Yet the secret, fair as it was, had also the folly of all great ventures, since, in laying her hands upon the future, she risked the memory that had coloured her whole life. To bring Geordie home might mean nothing but disappointment for herself, sordid disappointment and shame for a mis-spent girlish dream. Things would be different, at the very best; part of the memory would have to go. But the chief people to be considered were the old folks who had so often been the footballs of fate. Nothing that she might fear on her own account should stand in the way of this sudden fulfilment for a frustrated old man, this light to the eyes for an old woman going blind. In any case May was the sort that would tenderly handle the cracked and mended pot right up to the moment of dissolution at the well. No disappointment that Geordie could bring her would remain sordid for very long. Out of her shattered idols her wisdom and humour would gather her fresh beauty; clear-eyed, uplifting affection for youthful worship, and pity and tenderness for passion.
It was true that Sarah had already rejected her offer,--brutally, almost, in her determination that May should suffer no further for her son. But May had already almost forgotten the rough sentences which for the time being had slammed the opening door in her eager face. Sarah was strong, she knew, but she herself, because of love in the past and pity in the present, felt stronger still. She said to herself, smiling, that sooner or later she would find an argument that would serve. Sooner or later Sarah would yield, and share with secret delight in the surprise that they would so gaily prepare for the old man. Sooner or later the boat would put out from port that carried the lost lad,--Geordie, with his pockets empty but his heart full, and every nerve of him reaching towards his home.
Now she had turned the end of the bay, and was running along the flat road that hugged the curve of the shore. Below on her right were the sands, almost within flick of her whip, with the river-channel winding its dull length a hundred yards away. Beyond it, the sand narrowed into the arm of the marsh, until the eye caught the soft etching of the Thornthwaite farm, set on the faint gold and green of the jutting land.
The inn, low, white-faced, dark, with all the light of it in the eyes that looked so far abroad, was very quiet when she came to it about three o'clock. The odd-job man was waiting about to take her horse, and she paused to have a word or two with him in the yard. Then she went briskly into the silent place, and at once the whole drowsy air of it stirred and became alive. The spotlessness of the house seemed to take on a sparkling quality from the swift vitality of her presence. The very fire seemed to burn brighter when she entered, and the high lights on the steels and brasses to take a finer gleam. Her father called to her from the room where he lay upstairs, and her buoyant tread, as she went up, seemed to strengthen even his numb limbs and useless feet.
She sat by his bed for some time, telling him all the news, and conveying as much as she could of the hiring and marketing stir combined. This particular person had wished to know how he was; the other had sent him a message to be delivered word for word. One had a grandmother who had died in similar case; another a remedy that would recover him in a week. Bits of gossip she had for him, sketches of old friends; stories of old traits cropping up again which made him chuckle and cap them from the past. By the time she had finished he was firmly linked again to life, and had forgotten that deadly detachment which oppresses the long-sick. Indeed, he almost forgot, as he listened, that he had not been in Witham himself, hearing the gossip with his own ears and seeing the familiar faces with his own eyes. For the time being he was again part of that central country life, the touchstone by which country-folk test reality and the truth of things, and by contact with which their own identity is intensified and preserved.
But her eyes were turned continually to the window as she chatted and laughed, dwelling upon the misty picture even when they were not followed by her mind. Only her brain answered without fail when her gaze travelled to the farm on the farther shore. Gradually the picture shadowed and dimmed in line, but still she sat by the bed and laughed with her lips while her heart looked always abroad. Neither she nor her father ever drew a blind in the little inn. They had lived so long with that wide prospect stretching into the house that they would have stifled mentally between eyeless walls.
She talked until he was tired, and then she made his tea, and left him happy with the papers which she had brought from Witham. Her own tea she ate mechanically, with the whole of her mind still fixed on the promise of the day, and when she had finished she was drawn to the window again before she knew. The Thornthwaites would be home by now, she concluded, looking out. Tired and discouraged, they would be back again at the farm, feeling none of the quivering hope which lifted and thrilled her heart. Sarah would not even dwell on the offer, having put it by for good, and Simon did not as much as know that there had been an offer at all. They would creep to bed and sleep drearily, or wake drearily against their will, while she would wake of her own accord in order to clasp her purpose and find it still alive. She could not bear the thought of the long, blank night which would so soon be wrapping them round; even a stubborn refusal of her hope would be a better friend to them than that. Stronger and stronger grew the knowledge within her that she must see them before they slept. It was for their sake, she told herself, at first, thirsting to be across, and then, as she clinched her decision, knew it was also for her own.
She went upstairs again to put on her coat and hat, wondering as she did so what her father would have to say. He would be sure to enquire what took her across the sands so late, yet he would wonder and fret if she left him without a word. Geordie's name had dropped into silence between them for many a year, and, lately as she had spoken it to Sarah, it would be hard to speak it now. She knew only too well what her father would think of her offer of hard-saved gold. He had always been bitter against Geordie for her sake, and would want no wastrel fetched overseas to play on her pity again. She stole half-way down the stairs, and then was vexed with herself and went up again with a resolute tread. Once more she hesitated, with her hand on the door-latch, and then it slipped from her finger and she found herself in the room.
Fleming looked up from his paper with his faded eyes. "Off again, lass?" he enquired, noticing how she was dressed. "Is there a pill-gill Milthrop way to-night?"
She shook her head.
"Not as I know of.... Nay, I'm sure there's not." She stood staring at him, uncertain what to say, and then her eyes, as if of their own accord, turned back towards the sands. "I just felt like going out a bit again, that's all."
"Likely you're going up road for a crack wi' Mrs. Bridge?"
"Nay ... I didn't think o' going there."
"To t'station, happen?"
"Nor that, neither...." There was a little pause. "Just--out," she added, and the note in her voice seemed to reach before her over the sandy waste. Fleming heard it, and saw the track of her gaze as well.
"What's up, lass?" he asked quietly, letting his paper drop. "What d'you want to do?"
She braced herself then, swinging round to him with one of her cheerful laughs. "You'll think I'm daft, I know," she said, looking down at him with dancing eyes, "but I'm right set on seeing Mrs. Thornthet again to-night. We'd a deal to say to each other this morning, but we didn't finish our talk. I thought I could slip over sand and back before it was dark."
Fleming looked perturbed.
"It's over late for that, isn't it?" he asked. "Light's going pretty fast an' all. Hadn't you best bide till morning, and gang then?"
"I don't feel as I can. I'm set on going to-night. I've often been across as late, you'll think on. I'll take right good care."
"What about tide?"
"Not for a couple of hours yet, and I've not that much to say. Boat's ready alongside channel; it nobbut wants shoving off. I'll be there and back before you can say knife."
"Ay, well, then, you'd best be off, and look sharp about it!" Fleming conceded in a reluctant tone. "I'll have t'lamp put in winder as usual to set you back. Don't you get clattin' now and forget to see if it's there."
"I'll look out for it, don't you fret. Like as not I'll never go inside the house. There's just something I want to make sure of before I sleep."
She nodded brightly and began to move away, but he called her back before she reached the door. With the quickness of those who lie long in a sick room, he had noticed the change in her atmosphere at once. Restlessness and impatience were strange things to find in May, and there was a touch of excitement in her manner as well. He looked at her thoughtfully as she retraced her steps.
"Is there any news o' that wastrel lad o' theirs? Happen he's thinking o' coming back?"
The words spoken from another's mouth brought a rush of certainty to her longing mind. She answered him confidently, as if she held the actual proof.
"That's it, father! That's right." She laughed on a buoyant, happy note. "Our Geordie's coming home!"
"To-night?" Fleming's mouth opened. "D'ye mean he's coming to-night?"
"Nay, I don't know about that!" She laughed again. "But it'll be before so long. I feel as sure about it as if he was knocking at Sandholes door!"
"You've no call to be glad of it, as I can see," Fleming said, with a touch of fretfulness in his tone. "Are you thinking o' wedding him after all this time?"
Her head drooped a little.
"I'm past thinking o' that, and he'll have been past it long ago. I'm just glad for the old folks' sake, that's all. It's like as if it was somebody dead that was coming back, so that I needn't believe in death and suchlike any more. It's like as if it's myself as is coming back,--as if I should open door and see the lass I used to be outside."
"I'd be glad to see you settled afore I went, but not wi' an idle do-nowt as'd spoil your life. It'll be queer to me if Geordie Thornthet's made much out. He was a wastrel, right enough, for all his wheedlin' ways."
"I'm past thinking o' marriage," she said again. "It's just what it means to the old folks, poor old souls!"
"Ay. They've had a mighty poor time, they have that." He sighed, thinking of many a tale of woe unfolded by Simon beside his bed. Then he looked up at her with a whimsical smile. "They'd nobbut the one bairn, same as your mother and me, and there's been whiles I've been real mad because you weren't a lad. Ay, well, I've lived to see the folly o' my ways, and to thank God I'd nobbut a lass! You're worth a dozen Geordie Thornthets any day o' the week...."
She was gone with an answering smile directly he finished his speech, and the sound of her feet was light and swift on the stair. Hearing her, he, too, seemed to see her a girl again, gone to meet Geordie Thornthwaite along the shore. But instead of reviving and cheering him, it made him sad. He was too near the end to wish himself back at the start. He glanced at the lamp on the table to make sure that it was filled, and settled himself back to his papers with a sigh.