IIMay stopped to speak to the hired girl as she went out, and was alarmed by the creeping dusk already in the inn. She breathed again when she was in the road, and saw the dull light holding yet on either hand. The soft closing of the door behind her back gave her a long-forgotten thrill, bringing back similar autumn evening hours, when she had gone to meet a lover from over the sands.She got down to the shore about the time that the scene at Blindbeck was drawing to an end. She hurried, not only because she had little or no time to waste, but because she could not have gone slowly if she had tried. The young May had never gone slowly, who was all kindness and knew nothing of pride. She ran down the shingle and across the sand, only pausing to draw breath and to reprove herself at the channel's edge. Passers-by on the flat road stopped to stare at her as she sped across, wondering what she could be doing at that hour. Pausing, she looked across at the farm before she bent to the boat, chiding herself for her almost childish haste. But her tongue ached to let loose the words of persuasion that she carried with her, and her heart ached for the word of permission that she was sure she would carry back. She did not doubt for a moment that Sarah would give way, so strong was her inward belief that Geordie was coming home.At last she pushed off, stepped in and punted herself across, and once out again on dry ground tried to hold herself to a walk. The sand, ribbed and hard beneath her feet, spoke to the fact that the tide had been gone for hours. It was extraordinary how forgotten the sands always seemed as soon as the tide had gone away. Only those who had proved it by daily experience could believe that the water would ever return. Even to them it remained something of the miracle that it was in truth, arousing continually a thrill of awed surprise. Yet, side by side with that impression of final retreat, of waste that had always been waste and would never be reclaimed, was one of a brooding terror that was only waiting its hour. The sea and the sands were like cat and mouse, May thought,--the one, aloof, indifferent, yet always poised to leap; the other, inert, paralysed though apparently free, and always the certain victim in the end.She looked behind and before from the quiet home which she had left to the still more lonely and quiet house which was her goal. There was a point about half-way across at which it seemed as if she would never reach the one, never get back to the other in all time. Both seemed to recede from her equally as she moved, vague shapes formed only of imagination and the mist. Just for a moment that vagueness of things which she knew to be concrete caught her by the throat. The little that she could see of the earth was so cloudlike, so lacking in sturdy strength. The very shore of the marsh looked as though a breath might dissolve it in thin air. Though the distance across was little more than a mile, the feeling of space around her was infinite as the sky. The sands seemed suddenly to become a treadmill under her feet, turning and turning, but never bringing her to the horizon which she sought. The whole doorway of the bay was blocked by the great wall of mist, and over the Lake mountains there was a smother of mist, and mist over all the land that went east to the Pennine range. She began to fear even the crinkled sand which felt so firm, as if it might suddenly sway and shift like one of the many traps with which the bay was sown. Behind her, the grey, faint-gleaming strip of the channel seemed to cut her off from her safe home. A slice of the bank broke suddenly with an echoing spash, chilling her with the lonely terror of water that has a victim in its hold. The boat, helpless-looking, inert, a mere black speck on the channel edge, seemed the only insoluble thing beside herself. She longed for the comfort of her feet on the tarred boards, for the reassurance of her hands against the sculls. It was a moment or two before she had the courage to let it go, and face a world that was full of bodiless shapes and evanescent shores.But almost before she knew it she was on the opposite side, scrambling up the stones to the grassy slope beyond, and so, panting and hurrying, to the top of the sea-wall. She saw at once that there was nobody in the house, that it was still with the growing stillness of augmented hours, and a further chill fell on her happy mood. Yet she was glad at least to be there to welcome the old folks when they came, and in any case they could not be very far. Every jolt of the trap must be bringing them nearer to the net which she was spreading so lovingly for their feet. They would be tired, of course, and probably very cross, but May was used to market-day moods and would not care. With affectionate ruthlessness she told herself that would yield to her all the sooner for being tired. Presently they would agree unwillingly that she might have her way, and then she would hurry home again as if on wings. They would be crosser than ever after she had gone, vexed both with her and themselves and terribly touched in their pride. And then, slowly but surely, the hope that she had forced upon them would begin to race its stimulant through their veins. They would lie down to sleep with a secret gladness that they had not the courage to confess, and would wake in the morning and know that the world had been made for them anew.She kept stopping the rush of her thoughts to send her senses over the marsh, but no sign of life came back to her, or sound of wheel or hoof. The wide stretches of grass and plough and the long length of road seemed almost as unsuggestive of human influence as the sands themselves. Swifter and swifter faded the passionate confidence which had sent her out, leaving the risks of the matter uppermost in her mind. She remembered that it was possible to be patient all one's life, and yet to wreck the fruits of it in an unguarded hour. This sudden mental and physical rashness might be symbolical of a greater rashness of the soul. Perhaps after to-night all her footholds and anchorages might go, leaving the world that she had managed so bravely only a nightmare blurred by tears.The dusk thickened about her as the night tried to impress itself on the earth as a separate entity from the mist. The most that it could do, however, was to produce the effect of a hovering shadow from some huge arrested wing. The real warning of night was in the deepened sense of loneliness and dread of personal diminution in a growing space, in the further recession of things unseen as well as seen. It lay, too, in the stirring consciousness of the impending advent of the tide. She began to look anxiously towards her father's window for the lamp, and though she was comforted when she saw no sign, it stamped the illusion of desolation on her mind. Then she heard the cattle stir in the shippon as she walked along the wall, and was cheered and companioned by them for a little while. She would have gone down to them, or to the dog, who was always a firm friend, but she was afraid of losing her consciousness of time. She could not tear herself, either, from her breathless waiting for the silence to fill with life. She was cold whether she stood or walked, and more and more oppressed by a sense of folly and grave doubt. She even laughed at the middle-aged woman who had thrilled like a girl, but she laughed between her tears. Once or twice she ran down the bank and on to the sand, but always something drew her back, and at last, when she had listened so long that she had ceased to hear, there came the crunching sound of the Thornthwaite wheels. It was there suddenly where there had been no sign, as if it had only begun at the moment it reached her ear. At once her courage sprang up again, and her spirits rose. The whole affair was sweet and brave once more. It was as if she had heard her lover himself coming surely towards her over the lonely marsh....IIISimon uttered an exclamation when he saw the figure on the wall. His heart leaped first with a supernatural fear, and then with a sudden foreboding of some normal ill. His nerves were still unstrung from his experience with the car, and ready enough to shape familiar objects into ghosts. Even when he had recognised May and spoken her name, he could not rid himself of his feeling of alarm.So he was not pleased to see her when she came running down, and Sarah, who had spent so kindly a morning with her, was not pleased either. In the last few miles she had seemed to travel out of human touch, and there was a jar in the sudden intrusion of even this one thing left to her to love. Her brow contracted both with the effort of thought and the effort of sight, but indeed she knew well enough why May was there. Her intuition had worked uncertainly all the day, but it warned her now. She knew what impulse had brought May out to await their coming home.Simon, however, had no clue to this sudden appearance at his journey's end. He sat still in the trap as she came swiftly through the yard, and then leaned out to address her with an anxious frown."Nay, now whatever's brought you trapesin' here so late? Nowt wrong, is there? Father badly again? Is he axin' for me, by any chance?"She reassured him with a shake of the head and a smile, and, as in the case of Mr. Dent, he felt a sudden resentment towards smiles. In all his life Simon had never encountered so many smiling faces as had looked at him that day."All's right, thank you.... Father's much about the same. I wanted a word with Mrs. Thornthet, that was all."You've been a terble while on the road, though!" she added gaily, before he could speak. "I'd about made up my mind as I'd have to be getting back.""We were kept at Blindbeck, that's how it was," Simon said, remembering suddenly and with gloom the precise circumstances under which they had been kept. "But if you nobbut wanted a word wi' the missis, you could surely ha' waited while morn. It's a daft-like trick to be lakin' on t'sands when it's getting dark."His words made her turn again to throw a glance at the inn, but still there was no summoning gleam from the room upstairs. "Ay, but tide isn't till six," she answered him coaxingly, turning back, "and I shan't be long. Father'll show a light for me when it's time I was setting off."Sarah, ignoring the pair of them, had already clambered out, and Simon remembered that he had the horse to stable and the cows to milk and feed. "Danged foolishness, that's what it is!" he growled, as he scrambled down, giving May a very unaccustomed scowl. "If I did as I ought, I'd be skifting you pretty sharp. Say what you've gitten to say, and then clear out!"Sarah had been moving away from them towards the house, but, as May followed her, she swung about. There was no invitation, however, in her rigid face."You've nowt to say as I know on," she said in a curt tone, "and I'm rarely tired. Anyway, there's no sense in lossing yourself for a bit of a chat.""I'll not lose myself, not I!" May laughed, advancing towards her, full of kindly warmth. She had been prepared for some such reception as this, and was not depressed. "What, I've been across that often, it's the same to me as the road! I've been over when it was snowing,--ay, and by moonlight, too. As for Geordie," she added, with a tender laugh, "he's crossed in the pitch dark, with only his nose to tell him where he was at!"I was bound to ask you again before I slept," she urged, casting a glance at Simon, busy with the horse. "Can't I come in a minute?--I won't be long. It's late to be telling my business in the yard.""You've no business wi' me," Sarah said stolidly, "so you can stop off yon weam voice. You're not coming into Sandholes to-night, May Fleming, so that's flat!"May laughed again, but there was less confidence in the laugh. She waited to speak again until Simon had moved away, the dog leaping and barking under the horse's nose."It's a shame," she said cheerfully, "to bother you so late, but I just couldn't bring myself to wait. It was you as brought it all back, Mrs. Thornthet, come to that, with yon talk at the doctor's of Geordie coming home!""There's no talk of him coming," Sarah said coldly, "and never was." With one magnificent sweep she disposed of the fallacy of the afternoon. "You ought to ha' more sense than to go fancying things like that!""But you'd a letter, you said, begging his fare?" May was slightly bewildered, but went pressing on. "You said he was keen to come, if he had the brass.""Ay, and there wasn't no brass; so yon's finished and by wi'," Sarah said."Ay, but there is," May pleaded. "Plenty o' brass!" She faltered a little before the other's lack of response. "Nay, Mrs. Thornthet, don't you look like that! What does it matter where it comes from if it makes folks glad?""I'll buy no gladness o' mine from you, my lass, as I said before.""I can spare the brass right enough,--if it's only that.""Ay, but I can't spare the pride to take it," Sarah said."Ay, well, then, think as you're buying my happiness!" May begged. "I'd be real proud to think as I'd brought him back, even if he never looked aside at me again.""You'd have lile or nowt to be proud on, I'll be bound!" There was a touch of weary impatience in Sarah's voice. "And what-like happiness would it be for you in the end? Nay, May, my girl, we've thrashed the matter out, and I'm over-tired to be fret wi' it to-night."May sighed, and stood looking at her with troubled eyes, but she was unable to let the whole of her hope go."I'm right sorry to have put you about," she said sadly. "It's a real shame! Can't you promise to think it over a bit? I'll come over to-morrow for another talk.""I want neither talking nor thinking, so that's flat!" Sarah snapped. "I'll promise to turn key in the door when I see you coming, and that's all!"The tears came into May's eyes."You've no call to go telling me off like that," she said, with a little break in her voice. "I haven't done anything that's wrong, I'm sure.""You've shoved your nose into other folks' business," Sarah said roughly,--"that's what you've done! I'll thank you to leave us to do for our lad as'll suit us best!""He was mine, too!" May flung at her suddenly, roused at last. "Long ago, maybe,--years on years,--but he was mine as well!"Sarah gave a sneering laugh."There'll be more than one lass, I reckon, setting up to think that!"May uttered a little cry, wounded to the heart."Eh, but you're a cruel woman, Mrs. Thornthet!" she exclaimed, in a voice quivering with pain. "It's true I'd be glad to see Geordie again, but it don't make that much difference now. It's for your sake and poor Mr. Thornthet's that I want to see him back...."You're fond o' me, nowadays," she went on bravely, controlling herself again. "You like me well enough now, whatever you felt once. Can't you take the money for the sake of bygone times?"But already Sarah had turned away from her and was moving towards the door. She fitted the key in the lock with the ease of use, and gave the rickety door an opening push. And again May followed and stood, strong in the courage of those who plead for the thing that they have at heart."Don't go away feeling mad with me, Mrs. Thornthet!" she begged. "I'm sorry I spoke as I did. Think on how happy we were together, this morning, you and me. Think how it would be if he was to come marching into the yard...."Sarah was now over the threshold, with her hand against the door, but May's hand was also against it, refusing to let it close. Her face was white as a flower upon the dusky air, pleading and sweet with frank lips and tearful eyes. Sarah herself was engulfed by the dark house, a shadow that was yet more surely a block than the actual door. It seemed to May that she had all the passionless resistance of some ancient, immovable stone. A lantern across showed the black squares of the shippon stalls, the white coats of the beasts and Simon moving from dark to light. May did not know that the old woman's purpose was giving in the pause, that that last sentence of hers had broken the stubborn will. She waited despairingly, seeking for more to say, and finding nothing, since the right word had been said. And because she despaired she broke the pause too soon, in an access of hopelessness flinging away her chance. Taking her hand from the door, she pointed to Simon at his job."I'll ask Mr. Thornthet, then!" she cried sharply, beginning to move away. "Happen he'll see to it for me instead of you. Happen he'll see the offer's kindly meant, and not let pride and suchlike stand between!"But Sarah, too, cried out before she had gone a yard, her voice harsh with wrath and a sort of fear."You leave Simon be," she cried fiercely,--"let him be! I've had enough o' your worry, without plaguin' him an' all. You get back to your dad, and don't come interfering again. You came between me and my lad, but you shan't meddle wi' my man! You mean well enough, I don't doubt, but you're nobbut a meddler, all the same. It never does to go shoving kindnesses at folk who keep on saying nay. If you force 'em, you do 'em more harm than good in the long run, by a deal. D'you think I want Geordie coming back in rags, as like a tramp on t'roads as a couple o' peas? D'you think I want a drunken do-nowt loafing about t'spot,--a thief, maybe, or happen summat worse? What sort o' food and drink would yon be to Blindbeck, d'you think? Eliza's gitten enough on her tongue, without the likes o' that! Nay, the lad as went was a limb, but he was bonny and smart, and Eliza'll always think of him like yon. She'll always think in her heart as he was the better o' Jim, for all she talks so loud. But if he come back to shame us, it'd rob me even o' that. I couldn't abide it!" she finished vehemently. "It'd be worse than death. I'd rather the sea took him afore ever he reached home!"She stopped with an indrawn breath, and the door, creaking abruptly, showed that her weight was heavy on the latch. May stood still in the yard, as still as the shadow that had once again turned to ancient stone. The silence that had fallen between them seemed to push her away, to drive them so far apart that never again would they be able to speak. At last, in that terrible outpouring, May had discovered the real barrier to her desire. There were pride and generosity in the way, but there was also something which she could not fight. The monstrous, lifelong obsession of Eliza had slopped even the natural road to a mother's heart.Fear came over her, a more terrible fear than had taken her on the sands. In the quiet spot that should have been homely because of the moving light and the dumb beasts, she had a hint of something not quite sane. Things that had no place in the life of the soil seemed suddenly to have forced a passage in. She peered into the darkness of Sarah's mind, as her bodily eyes sought for her hidden face.She was startled into action again by the old dog's nose thrust kindly into her hand. He had listened to the urgent voices with constantly pricked ears, knowing by instinct that somebody suffered and was afraid. Now he came to May, begging her to take charge of her soul, lest he, too, whose only trust was in Man, should suffer fear. She laid her hand for a moment on the warmth of his head, dropping her gaze to meet his upturned eyes. Instantly, however, as if he had brought her a further message, she looked towards the bay, and saw the lamp in her father's window spring to life.She was loth to go with this wreck of things at her feet, but in her destitution of heart she was afraid to stay. Armed with the promise, she would have cared nothing for dark or tide, but with this weight at her heart it seemed as if it would take her all the night to cross the sand. She tried to believe that she would return to wrestle with Sarah in the day, but she knew well enough that she would never return. Eliza, and all that Eliza had meant in their spoiled lives, lay like a poisonous snake across her path.She wondered drearily what had become of the passionate certainty with which she had set out. The sea still sundered her lover and herself, the bar of the sea so much greater than any possible stretch of land. There were people to whom the sea was a sort of curse, and perhaps, without knowing it, she was one of those. She loved it, indeed, but she never forgot that it had taken her first hope. Perhaps it mocked at her love as Sarah had mocked her love. Perhaps it was only waiting out in the dark to do her harm....She made one last entreating movement towards the shadow that was stone, but nobody moved in the darkness and nobody spoke. She could not be sure at that moment whether Sarah was there, or whether all that she begged of was merely blackened space. Then she began by degrees to move away, wrenching her feet, as it were, from the ground of the yard. Sadly, without looking back, she mounted the sea-wall, bowed by her burden of failure and sorrow and self-contempt. But the fear took her again as soon as she faced the sands, and she hurried down the further side. The good angel of the Thornthwaites fled away into the night as if driven by flails.PART IVGEORDIE-AN'-JIMIThe blackness stirred in the doorway and became human again, setting the door to the jamb with a firm, decisive push. Sarah followed the dark stone passage to the kitchen, moving with freedom on the ground she knew. In the bare, silent room, that seemed at the same time barer and yet more peopled because of the dusk, she took off her old mantle, her shabby bonnet and her black thread gloves. She set a lighted candle on the table in the middle of the room, and from the cupboard by the hearth she took paper and wood, and kindled a pale, unhomely glow in the dusty, ash-filled grate. In the outer darkness that was the scullery she filled the kettle, and brought it to wait the reluctant patronage of the fire. It was not yet night over the sands, but the candle was more than sufficient to quench the fainting effort of the day. The only outside light was the steady glow of the lamp, set in the face of the inn to call its daughter home.Still, however, the house seemed unaroused, and would remain so until the master came in, because those who live much by themselves do not hear the sound of their own feet. They seem to themselves to move like ghosts through the rooms; it is only their thoughts that they hear about the place. And there are no houses so quiet as those which spend half their days hearkening to that eternal talker, the sea. The other half of their lives is still as the sands are still, sharing that same impression of quittance for all time.The kitchen, once perfectly kept, was already beginning to show signs of Sarah's failing sight. There were holes in the cloth rug which she unrolled before the fire, and slits in the patch-work cushions on the rush-bottomed chairs. The pots in the half-empty pot-rail were all askew, and the battered pewter and brass had ceased to put in its claim to be silver and gold. There was an out-of-date almanack under the old clock, and an ancient tide-table over the mantelshelf. But the real tragedy of the place was not in its poverty but in its soul. Behind the lack of material comfort there was a deeper penury still,--the lack of hope and a forward outlook and a reason for going on. The place was cold because the hearts of its tenants were growing cold.The candle, as always, drove the impression of utter desolation home. No other light produces that same effect of a helpless battle against the dark. No other is so surely a symbol of the defiant human soul, thinking it shines on the vast mysteries of space. No other shows so clearly the fear of the soul that yet calls its fear by the name of courage and stands straight, and in the midst of the sea of the dark cries to all men to behold that courage and take heart.All about that little challenge of light were the brooding obscurities of sand and marsh, and, nearer yet, the looming enigma of the empty house. At the back of the mind there was always the consciousness of unlit rooms, of echoing passages, and climbing, creaking stairs. Always at night there is that mystery of terror in a half-used house, pressing on those who crouch in some charmed corner of its walls.Sarah was different, somehow, now that she was at home, and free of the outdoor-clothes which she had worn all day. It was as if bonnet and mantle were the armour of her class, in which she was ready to face the offensive of the world. Without it she was more primitive and more human, relaxed in muscles and nerves. Now one could guess at the motherliness in her to which Jim had clung, unswervingly trusting in spite of her dislike. Her grey hair had been slightly ruffled both by the bonnet and the drive, and on her old neck it even curled a little, showing itself still soft and fine.She was tired with that terrible tiredness which sees the day behind like a series of folding cardboard views. She seemed to have lived many days in that single day, with never a moment between them to fit her for the next. More than once, indeed, she had been ready to collapse, but always the stimulus of some fresh event had set her going again. Now she had reached the point when she was too tired to allow herself to be tired, when body and mind, usually careful to save the next day's strength, recklessly lay both hands upon their all.Even at the last moment had come the sudden struggle with May, and the zest of that strife still tingled in her veins. After that long day of damaged pride it was pleasant to have asserted it in the end, to have claimed the right to suffer rather than be forcibly blessed. All day she had tasted in prospect the salt savour of another's bread, but here was something that she could refuse. She was still too stiff with fight to care that she had wounded a generous nature in the act. It was true that she could not have borne the sight of a Geordie who would have brought her fresh disgrace. The love that cares for the broken more than the sound could not thrive while she feared the sneer of the idol to whom she would not bow.Beyond, in the dairy, there came the sound of metalled boots, and the pails spoke musically on the flags as Simon set them down. She heard him shuffling across to open the inner door, and then--"Milk's in, missis!" he called to her, as his head came through.There was a nervous sound in his voice, at which Sarah almost smiled, knowing that his conscience must be ill at ease. She answered "Oh, ay," without turning, for she was busy with the fire, which, as if hating the atmosphere into which it was born, was doing its best to escape from it again."I'll see to the fire for you, missis," he said, crossing to her side. "Set you down and be easy a bit. You're likely tired.""Nay, I'll manage all right," she protested stolidly, and then suddenly yielded to him, and moved away. She did not sit down, however, but remained standing on the hearth, while he went on his knees to set the bellows between the bars."May give me a fair start," he observed presently, when the flame had consented to grow. "What was she after, coming off like that?""Nay, it was nowt much," Sarah said easily, in an indifferent tone. "It was nobbut some daftness she'd got in her head, that's all.""She mun ha' been rarely keen to come across so late. Was it summat or other she wanted you to do?""Ay," Sarah said firmly, "but I couldn't see my way. I tellt her so this morning when I see her in town.""Summat about your eyes, likely?" he enquired nervously, blowing hard."Losh save us, no! It was nowt to do wi' that.""Will was rarely put out when I tellt him what doctor had said," Simon went on. "He was right sorry, he was, and real anxious to do what he could.""Ay, he's kind, is Will. He's a right good friend. But I won't take owt I can help from him, all the same.""Because o' yon woman of his?" Simon asked angrily, stumbling to his feet. He threw a last glance at the fire, and saw that it seemed resigned to its now evident fate. He was sorry for Sarah, and guiltily conscious of his own relief, but the thought of Eliza whipped his mind to rage. This was nothing new, though, either to man or wife, after the usual meeting at the end of the week. However long they had held their tongues from her name, it was suddenly out, and the air was vibrating at once with the rising tremolo of their hate."Nay, then, what's yon besom to do wi' it, any way round? Will's money's his own, I reckon, and he can do as he likes. Happen you'll choose to see sense about it come Judgment Day, but not afore!""A farmer's wife addles half his brass,--we all know that. You can't touch a man wi'out laying a finger on his folks.""A deal Eliza's done for him," Simon scoffed, "barrin' giving him best of her tongue! I'll be bound you'd never think twice about t'brass if you and Eliza was friends. It's this spite as there is atween you as sets you taking things amiss. Eliza would likely ha' been no worse than most, if you hadn't made sure she was always wanting a slap!"Sarah received these remarks with an ironic smile."Bosom friends we'd ha' been, d'ye think," she asked, "if I'd nobbut seen my way to a bit more care?""Nay, well, I wouldn't be sure about that," he returned grandly, hedging with ease. "But we'd all ha' done better, I'll take my oath, if you hadn't been that smart to take offence.""Happen I'd ha' done best to hold my tongue, when she was telling all Witham we'd gitten notice to quit?""Nay, I don't know about that!" ... He was stamping about the floor. "A bit o' tact wi' her, happen? ... nay, dang her, I don't know! ... Leastways, you needn't ha' tellt her yon rubbish this afternoon," he concluded, brought to a stand."You'd have had me set by and say nowt while she sneered at our lad?""Nay, then, I wouldn't,--dang her! ... I wouldn't, that's flat!""You'd have had me say nowt, neither, yon day we was wed,--give her a kiss, happen, and praise her gown----?""Nay, then, I wouldn't, I tell you! Blast you! Nowt o' the sort!" Simon was fairly shouting now. He thumped at the table in his rage. "I wish to Gox I could ha' gitten my hands round her throat wi'out having to swing!"Sarah looked at his prancing shape with the same ironic smile."Nay, my lad, there's better ways than that wi' Eliza, by a deal. D'ye think I haven't gitten a bit o' my own back, now and then? I've had my knife in her deep,--ay, deep!--time and again. There's better ways wi' Eliza than just twisting her neck. What, this very day I've made her weep tears as she's never wept afore,--tears as near tears o' blood as Eliza'll ever weep...." She stopped, recalling the scene in which Nature had shone like a star in Eliza just for once.... "Nay, Simon," she went on quietly, "there's no sense in our getting mad. It's over late to go preaching love atween Eliza and me. Men don't know what hate can be between women when it's gitten hold. It's a thing best let alone,--never mentioned,--let alone. It's a big thing, caged-like, as was small once, and then comes full-grown. It's over late to go trying to stroke it through the bars.""I nobbut wanted to make the best o' things," Simon muttered, ashamed. "The Lord knows I'd give my hand to put you top-dog of Eliza just for once. But I'm not denying I'm terble thankful to ha' fixed things up. I reckon I'll sleep to-night as I haven't for weeks. I'm right sorry, though, if you're taking it hard.""I'll take it right enough when it's here," Sarah said gently, turning away. "I won't make no bother about it, don't you fret."She picked up the kettle and set it on the fire, as if she meant to put an end to the talk. Simon lingered, however, casting uneasy glances at her face."I've a job in t'far shuppon to see to," he said at last, and lighted the old lantern that swung against the wall.... "Yon's tide, surely?" he added suddenly, as he took it down.... "Nay, it's over soon."He lifted the lantern to look at the table above the shelf, but Sarah shook her head."Yon's an old table, think on. It's no use looking there. Tide's six o'clock, it you want to know."He said, "Oh, ay. I'd clean forgot," and still stood on the hearth, as if reluctant to go. Presently he spoke humbly, twisting the lantern in his hand."It's real hard on you, Sarah, to come down like this. I don't know as I like it myself, but it's worse for you. But we've been right kind wi' each other all these years. You'll not think shame on me when I'm a hired man?"She turned back to him, then, trying to see his face, and it seemed to him that she really saw him for the first time in many months. But, in point of fact, it was the eyes of the mind that were looking at the eyes of the mind.... And then, unexpectedly, he saw her smile."Nay, my lad," she said strongly, "you mun be wrong in t'garrets to think that! If there's owt to think shame on it'll be stuff like yon. You're the same lad to me as when we was wed, just as Eliza's the same cruel, jibing lass. I reckon that's where the trouble lies, if it come to that. Love and hate don't change, neither on 'em, all our lives. D'you think I'd ha' kept my hate so warm if I hadn't ha' kept love?"He nodded doubtfully in reply, and began slowly to edge away. But before he had reached the threshold he paused again."Anyway, we've had the best on't!" he cried triumphantly, as if inspired. "Eliza's had what looks most, but we've had the real things, you and me!" And then, as she did not speak, the spirit died in him, and his head drooped. "Ay, well, we mun do what we can," he finished lamely. "We mun do what we can. 'Tisn't as if it'll be so long for either on us, after all.""Shall I see to t'milk for you?" he added diffidently, but was refused."Nay," Sarah said. "I can manage right well. I know they milk-pans better than my face. I'd like to stick to my job as long as I can."Simon said--"Ay, well, then, I'll be off!" and looked at the door; and stared at the door, and said--"Ay, well, I'll be off!" again. He had an uneasy feeling that he ought to stay, but there was that job in the far shippon he wanted to do. He wandered uncertainly towards the outer door, and then, almost as if the door had pushed him, stumbled into the yard.IISarah stood thinking after Simon had gone, following with ease the troubled workings of his mind. The smile came back to her lips as she recalled his obvious sense of guilt. Behind all his anger and chafing humiliation it was easy to see his growing pleasure and relief. It was more than likely, indeed, that he would be priding himself on his new position before so long. Perhaps age, which has a merciful as well as a cruel blindness of its own, might prevent him from ever realising where he stood. She could picture him lording it over the gentler-natured Will, and even coming in time to dominate the farm. It was only for her that there would be no lording it,--and open sight. It was only on her account that he was still ashamed.It was cruel to grudge him the little solace he had left, but the thing which eased the position for him would form a double cross for her. Hitherto, they had stood together in their hatred of Blindbeck and its female head, and in the very depth of their darkness still had each other to soothe their shame. But now Simon's attitude was bound to alter at least towards the farm. There would come a day when he would turn upon her for some chance remark, and from that hour he would be openly on Blindbeck's side. The new tie would make him forget those bitter upheavals of jealous rage. Slowly the place would come between them until she was left to hate alone.For her, the change would simply deliver her, blind and bound, into Eliza's hand. She could have laughed as she saw how the thing she had fought against all her life had captured her at last. Even with Eliza dead or gone, Blindbeck would still have stifled her as with unbreathable air. Her spirit and Eliza's would have lived their battles again, and even over a grave she would have suffered and struggled afresh. But Eliza was neither dead nor mercifully removed, but was already snuffing the battle-smoke from afar. The whole account of their lives would come up in full, and be settled against the under-dog for good. It was as whipping-boy to Eliza that she would go to the house by Blindbeck gates.At the present moment, however, she neither suffered nor rebelled. Physically, she had reached the point at which the mind detaches itself resolutely from further emotional strain. The flame of hate burnt steadily but without effort, and with almost as pure a light as the flame of love itself. Like all great passions, it lifted her out of herself, lending her for the time being a still, majestic strength. There is little to choose at the farthest point of all between the exaltation of holiness and the pure ecstasy of hate. To the outside eye they show the same shining serenity, almost the same air of smiling peace. It is the strangest quality in the strange character of this peculiarly self-destroying sin. Because of it she was able to go about her evening tasks with ease, to speak gently to Simon in the little scene which had just passed, and even to dwell on his methods with a humorous smile upon her lips.In the clarified state of her mind pictures rose sharply before her, covering all the years, yet remaining aloof as pictures, and never stirring her pulse. So clear they were that they might have been splashed on the canvas that instant with a new-filled brush. They sprang into being as a group springs under the white circle of a lamp, as the scenes the alive and lit brain makes for itself on the dark curtain of the night. The few journeys she had taken in life she travelled over again,--rare visits to Lancashire and Yorkshire ... Grasmere ... Brough Hill Fair. They had stayed in her mind because of the slow means by which they were achieved, but they counted for very little in the tale of things. It is not of these casual experiences that the countryman thinks when the time comes for a steady reviewing of his life, that intent, fascinated returning upon tracks which is the soul's preparation for the next great change. They flit to and fro, indeed, like exotic birds against a landscape with which they have nothing to do, but it is the landscape itself which holds the eye, and from which comes the great, silent magic that is called memory, and mostly means youth. It is the little events of everyday life that obsess a man at the last, the commonplace, circular come-and-go that runs between the cradle and the grave. Not public health problems, or new inventions, or even the upheavals of great wars, but marriage, birth and death, the coming of strangers destined to be friends, the changing of tenants in houses which mean so much more than they ever mean themselves. Binding all is the rich thread of the seasons, with its many-coloured strands; and, backing all, the increasing knowledge of Nature and her ways, that revolving wheel of beauty growing ever more complex and yet more clear, more splendid and yet more simple as the pulses slow to a close.She loved the plain, beautiful farming life that a man may take up in his hand because it is all of a piece, and see the links of the chain run even from end to end. Even now she could see the fair-haired child she had been still running about her home, the child that we all of us leave behind in our sacred place. She could hear the clatter of clogs in her father's yard, and all about her the sound of voices which the daisied earth had stopped. It was strange, when she came to think of it, that she never heard her own. In all her memories of the child it seemed to her lip-locked, listening and dumb. Perhaps it was because she was shut in the child's brain that she could not hear it speak. She could hear her mother's voice, light and a little sharp, and her father's a deep rumble in a beard. Even in the swift pictures flashing by her he looked slow, drifting with steady purpose from house to farm. Because of his slowness he seemed to her more alive than his wife; there was more time, somehow, to look at him as he passed. Her bustling, energetic mother had become little more than a voice, while the seldom-speaking man was a vital impression that remained.Rising up between the shadows that blotted them out was a certain old woolly sheep-dog and the red torch of the flowering currant beside the door. There was also a nook in the curve of the garden wall, where, under a young moon, she had seen the cattle coming across the fields, sunk to their horns in a fairy-silver mist....It was an open-air life that took her long miles to school, clogging on frozen roads, through slanting rain or fighting against the wind. School itself seemed patched in a rather meaningless fashion on that life, much as the books in the parlour on the busy, unthinking house. A life of constant and steadily increasing work, from errands of all sorts, feeding the hens and fetching home the cows, to the heavier labour of washing and baking, milking, helping with the stock. Presently there had been the excitement of the first shy dance, and then the gradual drawing towards marriage as the tide draws to the moon.And all the time there had been Eliza making part of her life, from the plump little girl whom people stopped to admire to the bold intruder at the altar-rail. Looking back, she could see herself as a stiff and grave-eyed child, grimly regarding the round-faced giggler from the start. Even then she had always been the dumb man in the stocks, of whom the street-urchin that was Eliza made mock as she danced and played. Only once had she ever definitely got the better of her, and it had had to last her all her life. Eliza had had many lovers, drawn by the counterfeit kindliness which hid her callous soul, but when she had chosen at last, it was Simon who was her choice. Perhaps the one gleam of romance in Eliza's life had been when she looked at Simon ... and Simon had looked away. Quite early he had fixed his affections on Sarah, and during their long courtship he had never swerved. Plain, business-like Sarah had drawn him after her as the moon draws the willing tide....She began to put away the things she had bought in Witham, stowing them in a cupboard between the pot-rail and the door. During the morning she had felt royally that she was buying half the town, but now she saw how small her share of the marketing had been. There was a troubled feeling at the back of her mind that something had been missed, and even though she was sure of her purchases, she counted them again. Afterwards, she stood muttering worriedly through the list ... tea, candles, a reel of cotton ... and the rest. And then, suddenly, without any help from the candles and cotton, she remembered what it was, and smiled at the childish memory that would not stay asleep.More than twenty years, she reminded herself,--and yet she still looked for the fairing that Geordie had brought her on Martinmas Day! There had scarcely been any special season,--Christmas, Whitsun, Easter or Mid-Lent,--but he had remembered to mark it by some frolicsome gift. He had always withheld it from her until the last, and then had stood by her laughing while she unwrapped some foolish monkey on dancing wires. All the time he was saying how splendid the fairing was going to be,--"It's gold, mother, real gold,--as bright as the King's crown!" And when she had opened it, she would pretend to be cast down, and then put it snugly away and say it was "real grand!"Jim had had his fairings for her, too, but she was trying her very hardest not to remember those. Jim's had been prettier and more thoughtful,--often of real use, but she had long since forgotten what the things were like. A mug with her name on it, a handkerchief, a brooch,--long ago broken or lost, or even given away. But every ridiculous object of Geordie's was under lock and key, with even a bit of camphor to keep the monkey from the moth....She stood there smiling, softly folding her hands, as if she laid them lightly over some sudden gift. On either side of her was a laughing face, and even she found it hard to tell which was which. She was very still as she made that perfect transition into the past, and the only sound in her ears was through the lips that laughed. And then, into that full stillness, in which no step moved or voice called or bird flew, there came the cry of a heron outside the door.
II
May stopped to speak to the hired girl as she went out, and was alarmed by the creeping dusk already in the inn. She breathed again when she was in the road, and saw the dull light holding yet on either hand. The soft closing of the door behind her back gave her a long-forgotten thrill, bringing back similar autumn evening hours, when she had gone to meet a lover from over the sands.
She got down to the shore about the time that the scene at Blindbeck was drawing to an end. She hurried, not only because she had little or no time to waste, but because she could not have gone slowly if she had tried. The young May had never gone slowly, who was all kindness and knew nothing of pride. She ran down the shingle and across the sand, only pausing to draw breath and to reprove herself at the channel's edge. Passers-by on the flat road stopped to stare at her as she sped across, wondering what she could be doing at that hour. Pausing, she looked across at the farm before she bent to the boat, chiding herself for her almost childish haste. But her tongue ached to let loose the words of persuasion that she carried with her, and her heart ached for the word of permission that she was sure she would carry back. She did not doubt for a moment that Sarah would give way, so strong was her inward belief that Geordie was coming home.
At last she pushed off, stepped in and punted herself across, and once out again on dry ground tried to hold herself to a walk. The sand, ribbed and hard beneath her feet, spoke to the fact that the tide had been gone for hours. It was extraordinary how forgotten the sands always seemed as soon as the tide had gone away. Only those who had proved it by daily experience could believe that the water would ever return. Even to them it remained something of the miracle that it was in truth, arousing continually a thrill of awed surprise. Yet, side by side with that impression of final retreat, of waste that had always been waste and would never be reclaimed, was one of a brooding terror that was only waiting its hour. The sea and the sands were like cat and mouse, May thought,--the one, aloof, indifferent, yet always poised to leap; the other, inert, paralysed though apparently free, and always the certain victim in the end.
She looked behind and before from the quiet home which she had left to the still more lonely and quiet house which was her goal. There was a point about half-way across at which it seemed as if she would never reach the one, never get back to the other in all time. Both seemed to recede from her equally as she moved, vague shapes formed only of imagination and the mist. Just for a moment that vagueness of things which she knew to be concrete caught her by the throat. The little that she could see of the earth was so cloudlike, so lacking in sturdy strength. The very shore of the marsh looked as though a breath might dissolve it in thin air. Though the distance across was little more than a mile, the feeling of space around her was infinite as the sky. The sands seemed suddenly to become a treadmill under her feet, turning and turning, but never bringing her to the horizon which she sought. The whole doorway of the bay was blocked by the great wall of mist, and over the Lake mountains there was a smother of mist, and mist over all the land that went east to the Pennine range. She began to fear even the crinkled sand which felt so firm, as if it might suddenly sway and shift like one of the many traps with which the bay was sown. Behind her, the grey, faint-gleaming strip of the channel seemed to cut her off from her safe home. A slice of the bank broke suddenly with an echoing spash, chilling her with the lonely terror of water that has a victim in its hold. The boat, helpless-looking, inert, a mere black speck on the channel edge, seemed the only insoluble thing beside herself. She longed for the comfort of her feet on the tarred boards, for the reassurance of her hands against the sculls. It was a moment or two before she had the courage to let it go, and face a world that was full of bodiless shapes and evanescent shores.
But almost before she knew it she was on the opposite side, scrambling up the stones to the grassy slope beyond, and so, panting and hurrying, to the top of the sea-wall. She saw at once that there was nobody in the house, that it was still with the growing stillness of augmented hours, and a further chill fell on her happy mood. Yet she was glad at least to be there to welcome the old folks when they came, and in any case they could not be very far. Every jolt of the trap must be bringing them nearer to the net which she was spreading so lovingly for their feet. They would be tired, of course, and probably very cross, but May was used to market-day moods and would not care. With affectionate ruthlessness she told herself that would yield to her all the sooner for being tired. Presently they would agree unwillingly that she might have her way, and then she would hurry home again as if on wings. They would be crosser than ever after she had gone, vexed both with her and themselves and terribly touched in their pride. And then, slowly but surely, the hope that she had forced upon them would begin to race its stimulant through their veins. They would lie down to sleep with a secret gladness that they had not the courage to confess, and would wake in the morning and know that the world had been made for them anew.
She kept stopping the rush of her thoughts to send her senses over the marsh, but no sign of life came back to her, or sound of wheel or hoof. The wide stretches of grass and plough and the long length of road seemed almost as unsuggestive of human influence as the sands themselves. Swifter and swifter faded the passionate confidence which had sent her out, leaving the risks of the matter uppermost in her mind. She remembered that it was possible to be patient all one's life, and yet to wreck the fruits of it in an unguarded hour. This sudden mental and physical rashness might be symbolical of a greater rashness of the soul. Perhaps after to-night all her footholds and anchorages might go, leaving the world that she had managed so bravely only a nightmare blurred by tears.
The dusk thickened about her as the night tried to impress itself on the earth as a separate entity from the mist. The most that it could do, however, was to produce the effect of a hovering shadow from some huge arrested wing. The real warning of night was in the deepened sense of loneliness and dread of personal diminution in a growing space, in the further recession of things unseen as well as seen. It lay, too, in the stirring consciousness of the impending advent of the tide. She began to look anxiously towards her father's window for the lamp, and though she was comforted when she saw no sign, it stamped the illusion of desolation on her mind. Then she heard the cattle stir in the shippon as she walked along the wall, and was cheered and companioned by them for a little while. She would have gone down to them, or to the dog, who was always a firm friend, but she was afraid of losing her consciousness of time. She could not tear herself, either, from her breathless waiting for the silence to fill with life. She was cold whether she stood or walked, and more and more oppressed by a sense of folly and grave doubt. She even laughed at the middle-aged woman who had thrilled like a girl, but she laughed between her tears. Once or twice she ran down the bank and on to the sand, but always something drew her back, and at last, when she had listened so long that she had ceased to hear, there came the crunching sound of the Thornthwaite wheels. It was there suddenly where there had been no sign, as if it had only begun at the moment it reached her ear. At once her courage sprang up again, and her spirits rose. The whole affair was sweet and brave once more. It was as if she had heard her lover himself coming surely towards her over the lonely marsh....
III
Simon uttered an exclamation when he saw the figure on the wall. His heart leaped first with a supernatural fear, and then with a sudden foreboding of some normal ill. His nerves were still unstrung from his experience with the car, and ready enough to shape familiar objects into ghosts. Even when he had recognised May and spoken her name, he could not rid himself of his feeling of alarm.
So he was not pleased to see her when she came running down, and Sarah, who had spent so kindly a morning with her, was not pleased either. In the last few miles she had seemed to travel out of human touch, and there was a jar in the sudden intrusion of even this one thing left to her to love. Her brow contracted both with the effort of thought and the effort of sight, but indeed she knew well enough why May was there. Her intuition had worked uncertainly all the day, but it warned her now. She knew what impulse had brought May out to await their coming home.
Simon, however, had no clue to this sudden appearance at his journey's end. He sat still in the trap as she came swiftly through the yard, and then leaned out to address her with an anxious frown.
"Nay, now whatever's brought you trapesin' here so late? Nowt wrong, is there? Father badly again? Is he axin' for me, by any chance?"
She reassured him with a shake of the head and a smile, and, as in the case of Mr. Dent, he felt a sudden resentment towards smiles. In all his life Simon had never encountered so many smiling faces as had looked at him that day.
"All's right, thank you.... Father's much about the same. I wanted a word with Mrs. Thornthet, that was all.
"You've been a terble while on the road, though!" she added gaily, before he could speak. "I'd about made up my mind as I'd have to be getting back."
"We were kept at Blindbeck, that's how it was," Simon said, remembering suddenly and with gloom the precise circumstances under which they had been kept. "But if you nobbut wanted a word wi' the missis, you could surely ha' waited while morn. It's a daft-like trick to be lakin' on t'sands when it's getting dark."
His words made her turn again to throw a glance at the inn, but still there was no summoning gleam from the room upstairs. "Ay, but tide isn't till six," she answered him coaxingly, turning back, "and I shan't be long. Father'll show a light for me when it's time I was setting off."
Sarah, ignoring the pair of them, had already clambered out, and Simon remembered that he had the horse to stable and the cows to milk and feed. "Danged foolishness, that's what it is!" he growled, as he scrambled down, giving May a very unaccustomed scowl. "If I did as I ought, I'd be skifting you pretty sharp. Say what you've gitten to say, and then clear out!"
Sarah had been moving away from them towards the house, but, as May followed her, she swung about. There was no invitation, however, in her rigid face.
"You've nowt to say as I know on," she said in a curt tone, "and I'm rarely tired. Anyway, there's no sense in lossing yourself for a bit of a chat."
"I'll not lose myself, not I!" May laughed, advancing towards her, full of kindly warmth. She had been prepared for some such reception as this, and was not depressed. "What, I've been across that often, it's the same to me as the road! I've been over when it was snowing,--ay, and by moonlight, too. As for Geordie," she added, with a tender laugh, "he's crossed in the pitch dark, with only his nose to tell him where he was at!
"I was bound to ask you again before I slept," she urged, casting a glance at Simon, busy with the horse. "Can't I come in a minute?--I won't be long. It's late to be telling my business in the yard."
"You've no business wi' me," Sarah said stolidly, "so you can stop off yon weam voice. You're not coming into Sandholes to-night, May Fleming, so that's flat!"
May laughed again, but there was less confidence in the laugh. She waited to speak again until Simon had moved away, the dog leaping and barking under the horse's nose.
"It's a shame," she said cheerfully, "to bother you so late, but I just couldn't bring myself to wait. It was you as brought it all back, Mrs. Thornthet, come to that, with yon talk at the doctor's of Geordie coming home!"
"There's no talk of him coming," Sarah said coldly, "and never was." With one magnificent sweep she disposed of the fallacy of the afternoon. "You ought to ha' more sense than to go fancying things like that!"
"But you'd a letter, you said, begging his fare?" May was slightly bewildered, but went pressing on. "You said he was keen to come, if he had the brass."
"Ay, and there wasn't no brass; so yon's finished and by wi'," Sarah said.
"Ay, but there is," May pleaded. "Plenty o' brass!" She faltered a little before the other's lack of response. "Nay, Mrs. Thornthet, don't you look like that! What does it matter where it comes from if it makes folks glad?"
"I'll buy no gladness o' mine from you, my lass, as I said before."
"I can spare the brass right enough,--if it's only that."
"Ay, but I can't spare the pride to take it," Sarah said.
"Ay, well, then, think as you're buying my happiness!" May begged. "I'd be real proud to think as I'd brought him back, even if he never looked aside at me again."
"You'd have lile or nowt to be proud on, I'll be bound!" There was a touch of weary impatience in Sarah's voice. "And what-like happiness would it be for you in the end? Nay, May, my girl, we've thrashed the matter out, and I'm over-tired to be fret wi' it to-night."
May sighed, and stood looking at her with troubled eyes, but she was unable to let the whole of her hope go.
"I'm right sorry to have put you about," she said sadly. "It's a real shame! Can't you promise to think it over a bit? I'll come over to-morrow for another talk."
"I want neither talking nor thinking, so that's flat!" Sarah snapped. "I'll promise to turn key in the door when I see you coming, and that's all!"
The tears came into May's eyes.
"You've no call to go telling me off like that," she said, with a little break in her voice. "I haven't done anything that's wrong, I'm sure."
"You've shoved your nose into other folks' business," Sarah said roughly,--"that's what you've done! I'll thank you to leave us to do for our lad as'll suit us best!"
"He was mine, too!" May flung at her suddenly, roused at last. "Long ago, maybe,--years on years,--but he was mine as well!"
Sarah gave a sneering laugh.
"There'll be more than one lass, I reckon, setting up to think that!"
May uttered a little cry, wounded to the heart.
"Eh, but you're a cruel woman, Mrs. Thornthet!" she exclaimed, in a voice quivering with pain. "It's true I'd be glad to see Geordie again, but it don't make that much difference now. It's for your sake and poor Mr. Thornthet's that I want to see him back....
"You're fond o' me, nowadays," she went on bravely, controlling herself again. "You like me well enough now, whatever you felt once. Can't you take the money for the sake of bygone times?"
But already Sarah had turned away from her and was moving towards the door. She fitted the key in the lock with the ease of use, and gave the rickety door an opening push. And again May followed and stood, strong in the courage of those who plead for the thing that they have at heart.
"Don't go away feeling mad with me, Mrs. Thornthet!" she begged. "I'm sorry I spoke as I did. Think on how happy we were together, this morning, you and me. Think how it would be if he was to come marching into the yard...."
Sarah was now over the threshold, with her hand against the door, but May's hand was also against it, refusing to let it close. Her face was white as a flower upon the dusky air, pleading and sweet with frank lips and tearful eyes. Sarah herself was engulfed by the dark house, a shadow that was yet more surely a block than the actual door. It seemed to May that she had all the passionless resistance of some ancient, immovable stone. A lantern across showed the black squares of the shippon stalls, the white coats of the beasts and Simon moving from dark to light. May did not know that the old woman's purpose was giving in the pause, that that last sentence of hers had broken the stubborn will. She waited despairingly, seeking for more to say, and finding nothing, since the right word had been said. And because she despaired she broke the pause too soon, in an access of hopelessness flinging away her chance. Taking her hand from the door, she pointed to Simon at his job.
"I'll ask Mr. Thornthet, then!" she cried sharply, beginning to move away. "Happen he'll see to it for me instead of you. Happen he'll see the offer's kindly meant, and not let pride and suchlike stand between!"
But Sarah, too, cried out before she had gone a yard, her voice harsh with wrath and a sort of fear.
"You leave Simon be," she cried fiercely,--"let him be! I've had enough o' your worry, without plaguin' him an' all. You get back to your dad, and don't come interfering again. You came between me and my lad, but you shan't meddle wi' my man! You mean well enough, I don't doubt, but you're nobbut a meddler, all the same. It never does to go shoving kindnesses at folk who keep on saying nay. If you force 'em, you do 'em more harm than good in the long run, by a deal. D'you think I want Geordie coming back in rags, as like a tramp on t'roads as a couple o' peas? D'you think I want a drunken do-nowt loafing about t'spot,--a thief, maybe, or happen summat worse? What sort o' food and drink would yon be to Blindbeck, d'you think? Eliza's gitten enough on her tongue, without the likes o' that! Nay, the lad as went was a limb, but he was bonny and smart, and Eliza'll always think of him like yon. She'll always think in her heart as he was the better o' Jim, for all she talks so loud. But if he come back to shame us, it'd rob me even o' that. I couldn't abide it!" she finished vehemently. "It'd be worse than death. I'd rather the sea took him afore ever he reached home!"
She stopped with an indrawn breath, and the door, creaking abruptly, showed that her weight was heavy on the latch. May stood still in the yard, as still as the shadow that had once again turned to ancient stone. The silence that had fallen between them seemed to push her away, to drive them so far apart that never again would they be able to speak. At last, in that terrible outpouring, May had discovered the real barrier to her desire. There were pride and generosity in the way, but there was also something which she could not fight. The monstrous, lifelong obsession of Eliza had slopped even the natural road to a mother's heart.
Fear came over her, a more terrible fear than had taken her on the sands. In the quiet spot that should have been homely because of the moving light and the dumb beasts, she had a hint of something not quite sane. Things that had no place in the life of the soil seemed suddenly to have forced a passage in. She peered into the darkness of Sarah's mind, as her bodily eyes sought for her hidden face.
She was startled into action again by the old dog's nose thrust kindly into her hand. He had listened to the urgent voices with constantly pricked ears, knowing by instinct that somebody suffered and was afraid. Now he came to May, begging her to take charge of her soul, lest he, too, whose only trust was in Man, should suffer fear. She laid her hand for a moment on the warmth of his head, dropping her gaze to meet his upturned eyes. Instantly, however, as if he had brought her a further message, she looked towards the bay, and saw the lamp in her father's window spring to life.
She was loth to go with this wreck of things at her feet, but in her destitution of heart she was afraid to stay. Armed with the promise, she would have cared nothing for dark or tide, but with this weight at her heart it seemed as if it would take her all the night to cross the sand. She tried to believe that she would return to wrestle with Sarah in the day, but she knew well enough that she would never return. Eliza, and all that Eliza had meant in their spoiled lives, lay like a poisonous snake across her path.
She wondered drearily what had become of the passionate certainty with which she had set out. The sea still sundered her lover and herself, the bar of the sea so much greater than any possible stretch of land. There were people to whom the sea was a sort of curse, and perhaps, without knowing it, she was one of those. She loved it, indeed, but she never forgot that it had taken her first hope. Perhaps it mocked at her love as Sarah had mocked her love. Perhaps it was only waiting out in the dark to do her harm....
She made one last entreating movement towards the shadow that was stone, but nobody moved in the darkness and nobody spoke. She could not be sure at that moment whether Sarah was there, or whether all that she begged of was merely blackened space. Then she began by degrees to move away, wrenching her feet, as it were, from the ground of the yard. Sadly, without looking back, she mounted the sea-wall, bowed by her burden of failure and sorrow and self-contempt. But the fear took her again as soon as she faced the sands, and she hurried down the further side. The good angel of the Thornthwaites fled away into the night as if driven by flails.
PART IV
GEORDIE-AN'-JIM
I
The blackness stirred in the doorway and became human again, setting the door to the jamb with a firm, decisive push. Sarah followed the dark stone passage to the kitchen, moving with freedom on the ground she knew. In the bare, silent room, that seemed at the same time barer and yet more peopled because of the dusk, she took off her old mantle, her shabby bonnet and her black thread gloves. She set a lighted candle on the table in the middle of the room, and from the cupboard by the hearth she took paper and wood, and kindled a pale, unhomely glow in the dusty, ash-filled grate. In the outer darkness that was the scullery she filled the kettle, and brought it to wait the reluctant patronage of the fire. It was not yet night over the sands, but the candle was more than sufficient to quench the fainting effort of the day. The only outside light was the steady glow of the lamp, set in the face of the inn to call its daughter home.
Still, however, the house seemed unaroused, and would remain so until the master came in, because those who live much by themselves do not hear the sound of their own feet. They seem to themselves to move like ghosts through the rooms; it is only their thoughts that they hear about the place. And there are no houses so quiet as those which spend half their days hearkening to that eternal talker, the sea. The other half of their lives is still as the sands are still, sharing that same impression of quittance for all time.
The kitchen, once perfectly kept, was already beginning to show signs of Sarah's failing sight. There were holes in the cloth rug which she unrolled before the fire, and slits in the patch-work cushions on the rush-bottomed chairs. The pots in the half-empty pot-rail were all askew, and the battered pewter and brass had ceased to put in its claim to be silver and gold. There was an out-of-date almanack under the old clock, and an ancient tide-table over the mantelshelf. But the real tragedy of the place was not in its poverty but in its soul. Behind the lack of material comfort there was a deeper penury still,--the lack of hope and a forward outlook and a reason for going on. The place was cold because the hearts of its tenants were growing cold.
The candle, as always, drove the impression of utter desolation home. No other light produces that same effect of a helpless battle against the dark. No other is so surely a symbol of the defiant human soul, thinking it shines on the vast mysteries of space. No other shows so clearly the fear of the soul that yet calls its fear by the name of courage and stands straight, and in the midst of the sea of the dark cries to all men to behold that courage and take heart.
All about that little challenge of light were the brooding obscurities of sand and marsh, and, nearer yet, the looming enigma of the empty house. At the back of the mind there was always the consciousness of unlit rooms, of echoing passages, and climbing, creaking stairs. Always at night there is that mystery of terror in a half-used house, pressing on those who crouch in some charmed corner of its walls.
Sarah was different, somehow, now that she was at home, and free of the outdoor-clothes which she had worn all day. It was as if bonnet and mantle were the armour of her class, in which she was ready to face the offensive of the world. Without it she was more primitive and more human, relaxed in muscles and nerves. Now one could guess at the motherliness in her to which Jim had clung, unswervingly trusting in spite of her dislike. Her grey hair had been slightly ruffled both by the bonnet and the drive, and on her old neck it even curled a little, showing itself still soft and fine.
She was tired with that terrible tiredness which sees the day behind like a series of folding cardboard views. She seemed to have lived many days in that single day, with never a moment between them to fit her for the next. More than once, indeed, she had been ready to collapse, but always the stimulus of some fresh event had set her going again. Now she had reached the point when she was too tired to allow herself to be tired, when body and mind, usually careful to save the next day's strength, recklessly lay both hands upon their all.
Even at the last moment had come the sudden struggle with May, and the zest of that strife still tingled in her veins. After that long day of damaged pride it was pleasant to have asserted it in the end, to have claimed the right to suffer rather than be forcibly blessed. All day she had tasted in prospect the salt savour of another's bread, but here was something that she could refuse. She was still too stiff with fight to care that she had wounded a generous nature in the act. It was true that she could not have borne the sight of a Geordie who would have brought her fresh disgrace. The love that cares for the broken more than the sound could not thrive while she feared the sneer of the idol to whom she would not bow.
Beyond, in the dairy, there came the sound of metalled boots, and the pails spoke musically on the flags as Simon set them down. She heard him shuffling across to open the inner door, and then--"Milk's in, missis!" he called to her, as his head came through.
There was a nervous sound in his voice, at which Sarah almost smiled, knowing that his conscience must be ill at ease. She answered "Oh, ay," without turning, for she was busy with the fire, which, as if hating the atmosphere into which it was born, was doing its best to escape from it again.
"I'll see to the fire for you, missis," he said, crossing to her side. "Set you down and be easy a bit. You're likely tired."
"Nay, I'll manage all right," she protested stolidly, and then suddenly yielded to him, and moved away. She did not sit down, however, but remained standing on the hearth, while he went on his knees to set the bellows between the bars.
"May give me a fair start," he observed presently, when the flame had consented to grow. "What was she after, coming off like that?"
"Nay, it was nowt much," Sarah said easily, in an indifferent tone. "It was nobbut some daftness she'd got in her head, that's all."
"She mun ha' been rarely keen to come across so late. Was it summat or other she wanted you to do?"
"Ay," Sarah said firmly, "but I couldn't see my way. I tellt her so this morning when I see her in town."
"Summat about your eyes, likely?" he enquired nervously, blowing hard.
"Losh save us, no! It was nowt to do wi' that."
"Will was rarely put out when I tellt him what doctor had said," Simon went on. "He was right sorry, he was, and real anxious to do what he could."
"Ay, he's kind, is Will. He's a right good friend. But I won't take owt I can help from him, all the same."
"Because o' yon woman of his?" Simon asked angrily, stumbling to his feet. He threw a last glance at the fire, and saw that it seemed resigned to its now evident fate. He was sorry for Sarah, and guiltily conscious of his own relief, but the thought of Eliza whipped his mind to rage. This was nothing new, though, either to man or wife, after the usual meeting at the end of the week. However long they had held their tongues from her name, it was suddenly out, and the air was vibrating at once with the rising tremolo of their hate.
"Nay, then, what's yon besom to do wi' it, any way round? Will's money's his own, I reckon, and he can do as he likes. Happen you'll choose to see sense about it come Judgment Day, but not afore!"
"A farmer's wife addles half his brass,--we all know that. You can't touch a man wi'out laying a finger on his folks."
"A deal Eliza's done for him," Simon scoffed, "barrin' giving him best of her tongue! I'll be bound you'd never think twice about t'brass if you and Eliza was friends. It's this spite as there is atween you as sets you taking things amiss. Eliza would likely ha' been no worse than most, if you hadn't made sure she was always wanting a slap!"
Sarah received these remarks with an ironic smile.
"Bosom friends we'd ha' been, d'ye think," she asked, "if I'd nobbut seen my way to a bit more care?"
"Nay, well, I wouldn't be sure about that," he returned grandly, hedging with ease. "But we'd all ha' done better, I'll take my oath, if you hadn't been that smart to take offence."
"Happen I'd ha' done best to hold my tongue, when she was telling all Witham we'd gitten notice to quit?"
"Nay, I don't know about that!" ... He was stamping about the floor. "A bit o' tact wi' her, happen? ... nay, dang her, I don't know! ... Leastways, you needn't ha' tellt her yon rubbish this afternoon," he concluded, brought to a stand.
"You'd have had me set by and say nowt while she sneered at our lad?"
"Nay, then, I wouldn't,--dang her! ... I wouldn't, that's flat!"
"You'd have had me say nowt, neither, yon day we was wed,--give her a kiss, happen, and praise her gown----?"
"Nay, then, I wouldn't, I tell you! Blast you! Nowt o' the sort!" Simon was fairly shouting now. He thumped at the table in his rage. "I wish to Gox I could ha' gitten my hands round her throat wi'out having to swing!"
Sarah looked at his prancing shape with the same ironic smile.
"Nay, my lad, there's better ways than that wi' Eliza, by a deal. D'ye think I haven't gitten a bit o' my own back, now and then? I've had my knife in her deep,--ay, deep!--time and again. There's better ways wi' Eliza than just twisting her neck. What, this very day I've made her weep tears as she's never wept afore,--tears as near tears o' blood as Eliza'll ever weep...." She stopped, recalling the scene in which Nature had shone like a star in Eliza just for once.... "Nay, Simon," she went on quietly, "there's no sense in our getting mad. It's over late to go preaching love atween Eliza and me. Men don't know what hate can be between women when it's gitten hold. It's a thing best let alone,--never mentioned,--let alone. It's a big thing, caged-like, as was small once, and then comes full-grown. It's over late to go trying to stroke it through the bars."
"I nobbut wanted to make the best o' things," Simon muttered, ashamed. "The Lord knows I'd give my hand to put you top-dog of Eliza just for once. But I'm not denying I'm terble thankful to ha' fixed things up. I reckon I'll sleep to-night as I haven't for weeks. I'm right sorry, though, if you're taking it hard."
"I'll take it right enough when it's here," Sarah said gently, turning away. "I won't make no bother about it, don't you fret."
She picked up the kettle and set it on the fire, as if she meant to put an end to the talk. Simon lingered, however, casting uneasy glances at her face.
"I've a job in t'far shuppon to see to," he said at last, and lighted the old lantern that swung against the wall.... "Yon's tide, surely?" he added suddenly, as he took it down.... "Nay, it's over soon."
He lifted the lantern to look at the table above the shelf, but Sarah shook her head.
"Yon's an old table, think on. It's no use looking there. Tide's six o'clock, it you want to know."
He said, "Oh, ay. I'd clean forgot," and still stood on the hearth, as if reluctant to go. Presently he spoke humbly, twisting the lantern in his hand.
"It's real hard on you, Sarah, to come down like this. I don't know as I like it myself, but it's worse for you. But we've been right kind wi' each other all these years. You'll not think shame on me when I'm a hired man?"
She turned back to him, then, trying to see his face, and it seemed to him that she really saw him for the first time in many months. But, in point of fact, it was the eyes of the mind that were looking at the eyes of the mind.... And then, unexpectedly, he saw her smile.
"Nay, my lad," she said strongly, "you mun be wrong in t'garrets to think that! If there's owt to think shame on it'll be stuff like yon. You're the same lad to me as when we was wed, just as Eliza's the same cruel, jibing lass. I reckon that's where the trouble lies, if it come to that. Love and hate don't change, neither on 'em, all our lives. D'you think I'd ha' kept my hate so warm if I hadn't ha' kept love?"
He nodded doubtfully in reply, and began slowly to edge away. But before he had reached the threshold he paused again.
"Anyway, we've had the best on't!" he cried triumphantly, as if inspired. "Eliza's had what looks most, but we've had the real things, you and me!" And then, as she did not speak, the spirit died in him, and his head drooped. "Ay, well, we mun do what we can," he finished lamely. "We mun do what we can. 'Tisn't as if it'll be so long for either on us, after all."
"Shall I see to t'milk for you?" he added diffidently, but was refused.
"Nay," Sarah said. "I can manage right well. I know they milk-pans better than my face. I'd like to stick to my job as long as I can."
Simon said--"Ay, well, then, I'll be off!" and looked at the door; and stared at the door, and said--"Ay, well, I'll be off!" again. He had an uneasy feeling that he ought to stay, but there was that job in the far shippon he wanted to do. He wandered uncertainly towards the outer door, and then, almost as if the door had pushed him, stumbled into the yard.
II
Sarah stood thinking after Simon had gone, following with ease the troubled workings of his mind. The smile came back to her lips as she recalled his obvious sense of guilt. Behind all his anger and chafing humiliation it was easy to see his growing pleasure and relief. It was more than likely, indeed, that he would be priding himself on his new position before so long. Perhaps age, which has a merciful as well as a cruel blindness of its own, might prevent him from ever realising where he stood. She could picture him lording it over the gentler-natured Will, and even coming in time to dominate the farm. It was only for her that there would be no lording it,--and open sight. It was only on her account that he was still ashamed.
It was cruel to grudge him the little solace he had left, but the thing which eased the position for him would form a double cross for her. Hitherto, they had stood together in their hatred of Blindbeck and its female head, and in the very depth of their darkness still had each other to soothe their shame. But now Simon's attitude was bound to alter at least towards the farm. There would come a day when he would turn upon her for some chance remark, and from that hour he would be openly on Blindbeck's side. The new tie would make him forget those bitter upheavals of jealous rage. Slowly the place would come between them until she was left to hate alone.
For her, the change would simply deliver her, blind and bound, into Eliza's hand. She could have laughed as she saw how the thing she had fought against all her life had captured her at last. Even with Eliza dead or gone, Blindbeck would still have stifled her as with unbreathable air. Her spirit and Eliza's would have lived their battles again, and even over a grave she would have suffered and struggled afresh. But Eliza was neither dead nor mercifully removed, but was already snuffing the battle-smoke from afar. The whole account of their lives would come up in full, and be settled against the under-dog for good. It was as whipping-boy to Eliza that she would go to the house by Blindbeck gates.
At the present moment, however, she neither suffered nor rebelled. Physically, she had reached the point at which the mind detaches itself resolutely from further emotional strain. The flame of hate burnt steadily but without effort, and with almost as pure a light as the flame of love itself. Like all great passions, it lifted her out of herself, lending her for the time being a still, majestic strength. There is little to choose at the farthest point of all between the exaltation of holiness and the pure ecstasy of hate. To the outside eye they show the same shining serenity, almost the same air of smiling peace. It is the strangest quality in the strange character of this peculiarly self-destroying sin. Because of it she was able to go about her evening tasks with ease, to speak gently to Simon in the little scene which had just passed, and even to dwell on his methods with a humorous smile upon her lips.
In the clarified state of her mind pictures rose sharply before her, covering all the years, yet remaining aloof as pictures, and never stirring her pulse. So clear they were that they might have been splashed on the canvas that instant with a new-filled brush. They sprang into being as a group springs under the white circle of a lamp, as the scenes the alive and lit brain makes for itself on the dark curtain of the night. The few journeys she had taken in life she travelled over again,--rare visits to Lancashire and Yorkshire ... Grasmere ... Brough Hill Fair. They had stayed in her mind because of the slow means by which they were achieved, but they counted for very little in the tale of things. It is not of these casual experiences that the countryman thinks when the time comes for a steady reviewing of his life, that intent, fascinated returning upon tracks which is the soul's preparation for the next great change. They flit to and fro, indeed, like exotic birds against a landscape with which they have nothing to do, but it is the landscape itself which holds the eye, and from which comes the great, silent magic that is called memory, and mostly means youth. It is the little events of everyday life that obsess a man at the last, the commonplace, circular come-and-go that runs between the cradle and the grave. Not public health problems, or new inventions, or even the upheavals of great wars, but marriage, birth and death, the coming of strangers destined to be friends, the changing of tenants in houses which mean so much more than they ever mean themselves. Binding all is the rich thread of the seasons, with its many-coloured strands; and, backing all, the increasing knowledge of Nature and her ways, that revolving wheel of beauty growing ever more complex and yet more clear, more splendid and yet more simple as the pulses slow to a close.
She loved the plain, beautiful farming life that a man may take up in his hand because it is all of a piece, and see the links of the chain run even from end to end. Even now she could see the fair-haired child she had been still running about her home, the child that we all of us leave behind in our sacred place. She could hear the clatter of clogs in her father's yard, and all about her the sound of voices which the daisied earth had stopped. It was strange, when she came to think of it, that she never heard her own. In all her memories of the child it seemed to her lip-locked, listening and dumb. Perhaps it was because she was shut in the child's brain that she could not hear it speak. She could hear her mother's voice, light and a little sharp, and her father's a deep rumble in a beard. Even in the swift pictures flashing by her he looked slow, drifting with steady purpose from house to farm. Because of his slowness he seemed to her more alive than his wife; there was more time, somehow, to look at him as he passed. Her bustling, energetic mother had become little more than a voice, while the seldom-speaking man was a vital impression that remained.
Rising up between the shadows that blotted them out was a certain old woolly sheep-dog and the red torch of the flowering currant beside the door. There was also a nook in the curve of the garden wall, where, under a young moon, she had seen the cattle coming across the fields, sunk to their horns in a fairy-silver mist....
It was an open-air life that took her long miles to school, clogging on frozen roads, through slanting rain or fighting against the wind. School itself seemed patched in a rather meaningless fashion on that life, much as the books in the parlour on the busy, unthinking house. A life of constant and steadily increasing work, from errands of all sorts, feeding the hens and fetching home the cows, to the heavier labour of washing and baking, milking, helping with the stock. Presently there had been the excitement of the first shy dance, and then the gradual drawing towards marriage as the tide draws to the moon.
And all the time there had been Eliza making part of her life, from the plump little girl whom people stopped to admire to the bold intruder at the altar-rail. Looking back, she could see herself as a stiff and grave-eyed child, grimly regarding the round-faced giggler from the start. Even then she had always been the dumb man in the stocks, of whom the street-urchin that was Eliza made mock as she danced and played. Only once had she ever definitely got the better of her, and it had had to last her all her life. Eliza had had many lovers, drawn by the counterfeit kindliness which hid her callous soul, but when she had chosen at last, it was Simon who was her choice. Perhaps the one gleam of romance in Eliza's life had been when she looked at Simon ... and Simon had looked away. Quite early he had fixed his affections on Sarah, and during their long courtship he had never swerved. Plain, business-like Sarah had drawn him after her as the moon draws the willing tide....
She began to put away the things she had bought in Witham, stowing them in a cupboard between the pot-rail and the door. During the morning she had felt royally that she was buying half the town, but now she saw how small her share of the marketing had been. There was a troubled feeling at the back of her mind that something had been missed, and even though she was sure of her purchases, she counted them again. Afterwards, she stood muttering worriedly through the list ... tea, candles, a reel of cotton ... and the rest. And then, suddenly, without any help from the candles and cotton, she remembered what it was, and smiled at the childish memory that would not stay asleep.
More than twenty years, she reminded herself,--and yet she still looked for the fairing that Geordie had brought her on Martinmas Day! There had scarcely been any special season,--Christmas, Whitsun, Easter or Mid-Lent,--but he had remembered to mark it by some frolicsome gift. He had always withheld it from her until the last, and then had stood by her laughing while she unwrapped some foolish monkey on dancing wires. All the time he was saying how splendid the fairing was going to be,--"It's gold, mother, real gold,--as bright as the King's crown!" And when she had opened it, she would pretend to be cast down, and then put it snugly away and say it was "real grand!"
Jim had had his fairings for her, too, but she was trying her very hardest not to remember those. Jim's had been prettier and more thoughtful,--often of real use, but she had long since forgotten what the things were like. A mug with her name on it, a handkerchief, a brooch,--long ago broken or lost, or even given away. But every ridiculous object of Geordie's was under lock and key, with even a bit of camphor to keep the monkey from the moth....
She stood there smiling, softly folding her hands, as if she laid them lightly over some sudden gift. On either side of her was a laughing face, and even she found it hard to tell which was which. She was very still as she made that perfect transition into the past, and the only sound in her ears was through the lips that laughed. And then, into that full stillness, in which no step moved or voice called or bird flew, there came the cry of a heron outside the door.