THE LONELY PLOUGHCHAPTER IACROSS THE DUB
THE LONELY PLOUGH
Hefelt very old.
Older than the old face at the table before him, than the office furniture, which had been there before he was born, than his father’s portrait over the desk; older even than the tulip-tree bowing its graceful head to his window. Very old.
They said the tulip-tree blossomed no more than once in a hundred years. It was an ancient tree, biding its time as ancient things may. But Lancaster felt older even than that.
It had been a trying day. Helwise had made it trying, to begin with. She had come down to breakfast in a black print flickering with white spots, and a whirlpool frame of mind, grievance after grievance spinning musically to the surface, only to be submerged again in the twinkling of an eye. In the intervals of digesting a troublesome correspondence, he found himself flinging life-belts of common sense after long-sunk bits of wreckage, gaining nothing but an impulse of helpless annoyance and a growing dislike for the flickering spots. Helwise was his aunt and housekeeper, and though she could add nearly a score of years to his thirty-seven, the weight of time lay infinitely lighter upon her shoulders than on his; perhaps because she twitched them so gracefully from under every descending yoke. Her delicate face and softly greying hair gave the impression of a serene mind and a fading constitution, and if you were not,vulgarly speaking, up to snuff, you ran and did things for Helwise that Helwise ought to have been doing for you, and she always let you. But the serenity was sheer illusion and the constitution was tough. Closer inspection found her racing through life with the objectless hurry of a cinema express. She shimmered along a permanent way of mazy speech, and when you lived close to her you were always breathless and hurried, and the air was never quiet. She had the aimless velocity of a trundled hoop, and accomplished about as much.
Various printed notices drifted across the table on the rippling and bubbling of worries. She had a passionate habit of joining societies in all capacities, from President or Secretary to General Bottle-Washer, of getting herself appointed on innumerable county committees. As Lancaster’s aunt she was considered “the right person,” and as Lancaster’s aunt she took it for granted that his fingers should straighten the tangle of her ensuing bewilderment, and make her trundling path smooth.
He glanced through the circulars quickly, folding them neatly and adding them to his own collection. He was very business-like in his movements. The sheep and the goats of his correspondence were separated right and left; each envelope had its pencilled name and date; while the more important took cover in an elastic band and an inner pocket. His brown hands were methodical and deft; his weighing eyes implied a steady brain; his glance at the clock showed a sense of routine always alert. He was haste without hurry, while she, like the picture-train, rushed wildly and got nowhere.
A business-man born and made, you would have said of Lancelot Lancaster, not of stocks and shares or rustling parchments, but an acute, sound man of the land, a lean, light, open-air man, often in the saddle, with no aim beyond a clear-sighted judgment of terms and tenants, nor any desire more whimsical than a steady prosperity. It was only when youlooked at his mouth, with its hint of patience and repression, of longing held in leash and idealism shrouded like a sin, that you wondered if he was not, after all, only very well-trained.
Yes, Helwise had been particularly trying at breakfast. Her post had required a lot of explanation, and his own had included a letter from Bluecaster, one of the kindly, idiotic letters at which Lanty smiled and swore in a breath. There was also a second letter (which of course he had read first) totally contradicting the other; and at the bottom of all had been one from the London solicitor, telling him (unofficially) to take no notice of either. Bluecaster’s agent pencilled patient comments on the three unnecessary epistles.
He had spent the morning with a prospective tenant who had seemed to take a gloating delight in raising difficulties which would never have so much as occurred to anybody else; the type of sportsman who goes house-hunting for the sheer joy of pointing out to the lessor the contemptible disabilities of his property. Getting back for lunch at the usual time, he found that Helwise had had it early and eaten most of it, afterwards cinematographing off to some meeting at least an hour too soon; and the afternoon had seen him harried from pillar to post by an inspector who kept telephoning trysting-places and never turning up. Helwise was having tea at her meeting, so there was none for him unless he chose to order it, and just as his hand was on the bell, tenants of standing had arrived, wanting him. It was really the tenants who had made him feel old.
Facing him at the office-table, Wolf Whinnerah had the light full upon his fierce old face, with its sunk, dark eyes and thatch of silver hair. He was over seventy, but until recently he had carried his years with an almost miraculous lightness. Now, at last, however, the rigorous hand of Time had touched him suddenly, breaking him in a few weeks. Pneumonia, during a trying season, had carried him very near thegrave, and though he had fought his way back, he was nevertheless a beaten man. The strong bones of his keen face showed their clean lines under his furrowed skin. His height was dwindled, his step grown uncertain, his grasp weakened, his sight dulled. The end of the things that mattered had come to old Wolf Whinnerah.
His son—his only child—sat between the other two men, with his back to the fireplace. He had the mountain colouring, for all that he had been bred on a marsh-farm—the dark hair, and the gray eyes that have the blue of mountain-mist across them, the dale length and breadth, too, and the long, easy, almost lurching swing in his walk. And he had the slow, soft, deep, dale voice, and its gentle, distant dignity of manner.
He sat, for the most part, looking at the table, while his father laid his case before the agent. It was a case that put himself hopelessly in the wrong, but he kept his mouth shut, and stayed undefended. He had learned to keep his mouth shut. Argument with Wolf generally led to something perilously near unharnessed battle. He was over thirty, now, and during all the years he had worked for his father he had never had a penny’s wage. He had been kept and clothed, like a child, had tips for treats doled him like a child, and like a child been ruled in all his ways. He did not resent it; there was no question of injustice, since it was the custom in his class, and only slowly was it drawing towards change. But it kept a man his father’s property in a way curiously patriarchal and out of date to an outsider, making paternal authority a mighty weapon, and filial independence a strange, iconoclastic crime.
“Yon’s the way of it, sir!” old Whinnerah finished, leaning back in his chair, and spreading the long fingers of his knotted hand along the table, opening and shutting them slowly, as if they levered the operation of his mind. “I’m done, and the farm must go; and if the lad won’t take it on, as he sayshe won’t, why, then, there’s nowt for it but I must go an’ all!”
He looked down at his hand as he spoke, and clenched it, for it was trembling. The other men looked at it, too, Lancaster with regretful eyes; but the younger glanced away sharply, and set the line of his mouth a trifle closer.
“It’s bad hearing!” the agent said at last, seeing that the son did not mean to speak. “You’ve been at Ninekyrkes so long, you Whinnerahs. Naturally we like to keep the farms in the family, if it’s a family worth having. We’d be more than sorry to part with you—you don’t need telling that. Can’t you see your way to stopping on a bit longer yourself?”
The old man raised himself painfully to his feet, looking indeed like a grim old wolf, with the last yard of pace run out of him, and the last ounce of fight gone from him. His name he owed to a family tradition tracing a connection with Hugh Lupus of the Conquest, through his sister Lucia. Wolf’s son had the name in its Latin dignity, long since distorted to everyday use.
“I said I was done, Mr. Lancaster! You’ve eyes in your head as’ll show you, right enough. Yon time I was down such a terrible while, a year come Martinmas, that finished me, or I’d have likely been good for another nice few years. But I can’t carry the whole farm, now. I must give it over to a younger pair o’ hands. Not that I’m grudging that; it comes to all of us, in the end; but I’m rare an’ sore they’ll not be Whinnerah hands, Mr. Lancaster! The lad’s set on going abroad, as I’ve told you. He says he’ll not bide. I could have done a bit on the farm along with him, even yet—odd jobs to earn my board and keep my old bones warmed, but wanting him I’ll have to quit for good, and see other folk of another breed in the old spot. It’s not what I looked for, sir, not what I meant, and I’ll take it hard. I’ll take it hard!”
He lowered himself shakily back to his chair, and his hand slid out again on the table, opening andshutting, opening and shutting. Lup did not move, nor did his mouth alter. There came a second silence.
“Well, you know your own business best, of course,” Lancaster said presently, wondering what lay behind; “but surely”—he turned to the young man—“surely you don’t really mean leaving us? There has never been any misunderstanding either on your side or ours that I know of. My father thought a lot of you all—that’s old news, isn’t it?—and I’m of his mind. What’s making you quit, Lup, just when you’re needed most?”
Lup looked at the table and his father’s hand.
“I can’t stop, sir,” he said, respectfully but quite definitely. “I’m sorry if it’s putting folk about, but I reckon I’ll be better suited on the other side o’ the dub.”
“Canada?” The agent smiled and frowned. “Come, Lup, we can’t part with you, and that’s the long and the short of it! They’re taking too many of our best men, as it is. I don’t want to preach, but doesn’t it seem to you that it’s your duty to stay with your father as long as he wants you?”
“Happen it be,” laconically.
“Then, for every sake, man, stop!”
“Nay, I’ll not.”
He shut his mouth again, and Lancaster looked across to the father with a half shrug, then slewed on another tack.
“It’s a good farm, and you’ve done well by it. There’s money behind you, and money before you, which is more than a deal of folk can say. You’ll find nothing like Ninekyrkes, over there. Hasn’t it any memories for you? I don’t mind laying you’ll find it tug pretty hard on the other side!” He paused, and tried again. It was a very one-sided conversation. “I understood you were thinking of getting married—that there was to be a wedding on the far marsh. Do you propose taking the lady with you ‘across the dub?’”
The blood flamed over the set obstinacy of the dark face, but died instantly.
“I’ll not bide!” he said again, and that was all.
A wave of hysterical revolt broke over the dispossessed at his side. Wolf’s self-command was never of a lasting quality, and it had been very sorely tried.
“Nay, but I’ll not have you gang!” he cried, shaking from head to foot with the terrible effort of finished age forcing its will upon dogged youth and strength. “You’ll stop till I’m in my grave and through an’ by with my job for good! You’ll be quit of methen, right enough, and free to set about any daft-like scheme you choose, but I’m not under the sod yet, and I’ll see you do as you’re bid. I was a fool ever to hark to you! I should have said nay and nay to it from the start. It’s not so long since I could have broken my stick across you, an’ I’m not feared of you, now. Am I like to be feared, d’you think”—a sneer edged his quivering voice—“of a fool as can’t stick out a bit of a disappointment, as gets sneck-posset from the lass he’s after, and bides door slapped in his face without so much as shoving a foot inside? Nay, I’ll tell you what it is, my lad! she cares nowt, I tell you—nowt——!”
He stopped, for Lup had risen to his feet and bent towards him, so that over the table the two dark faces almost met, and before the steady anger of his eyes and locked lips even old Wolf was stilled. Lancaster felt the swift current of hatred and bitterness flash between them, sensed the passionate resentment, puzzle, and pain. Then Lup turned on his heel and went out.
“I’ll be yoking up, sir,” he threw over his shoulder as he disappeared, and presently they heard his long, unhurrying tread across the cobbled yard.
“What’s the trouble, Wolf?” Lancaster asked gently, as the clatter of hoofs and the jingle of harness came in through the open window. “What’s put the lad wrong?”
“Nowt but what puts every lad wrong, soon orlate!” the other answered bitterly, sinking back. “It’s Dockeray’s lass, her as went to boarding school for a sight o’ years, and come back with a look an’ a way with her fit to beat a ladyship! Lup was always set on her, ay, an’ she on him, if seeing’s believing. They’ve been courtin’ this year past and more, going to singin’-practice an’ pill-gills an’ such-like, and I’ve never known her give him a wrong word. And then, when it comes to taking on the farm and getting wed and settling down, she’ll have none of it! She was at our spot to supper, the night it first come up. Whinnerahs and Dockeray’s have always been rarely thick, you’ll think on, living alongside, just them two selves right away over yon. You could never put a pin between ’em. Well, as I told you, she was having a bit o’ supper with us when I first spoke. I’d had it in my mind for long, ever since I was badly, but I’d put it by, time an’ again, and let it be. Likely I was no more ready than most to be set on the shelf, but the lad’s getting on, an’ he’d a right to his chance. I’d had a hard day, too, and it came over me sudden-like as I was done for good, and in a queer sort o’ way I was glad to be through with it all and rest, if it didn’t mean quitting. I thought of the old chair in the corner, and the view of a summer evening, and the sea washing at the wall, an’—an’ all the other things meaning Ninekyrkes and no other spot whatever! I’m not saying any man cares to sit by and see his son master where he’s held the reins, but there was a sort of pleasure in feeling I’d done with my job. I reckon the Almighty sends you that as a kind o’ sop, just to keep you from fretting over hard. And so I just up an’ told them how it was. I said I’d see you, sir, about handing the farm over, and then I says to Lup, ‘Now, Lup, my lad,’ says I, ‘You’ve been courtin’ long enough an’ to spare, and it’s time you settled down. We’ll change jobs this Martinmas, an’ you can get wed, an’, please God, there’ll be Whinnerahs at Ninekyrkes for many a long year to come. It’s a bargain, lad, that’s what it is! So now, Miss Francey,don’t you keep him waiting. You be getting your gear an’ such-like together, and we’ll have the wedding as soon as ever you can make shape to be ready!’ Yon’s what I said, an’ I reckon I put it real smart, eh, Mr. Lancaster?”—the agent nodded response to the appeal for commendation—“but happen it was over-smart-like for Dockeray’s lass! She never so much as coloured up or turned shy, but she round with her head very slow an’ looked at me that calm—she’s got quality’s ways with her, sir, as I said, very soft an’ kind, but with something holding her off at the back—an’ says she, in her whyet voice, ‘And what’s all that to do with me, Mr. Whinnerah?’ Eh! but I was rarely bothered just for the minute! When I come to think of it, there’d never been owt in black an’white, after a manner of speaking. Lup’s not one for tongue-wagging, you’ll have found that for yourself. For all I could ha’ sworn to there might never have been talk o’ weddin’ betwixt ’em at all; but they’d been together a deal, an’—an’—why, I’d seen Lup’s eyes on her acrost table, an’ I’d be like to know, I reckon, when a Whinnerah’s set on a lass! So after a bit o’ coughing and fidging, thinking she was happen likely just joking us, I got out as we’d always taken it as she and Lup was sweethearts.
“‘Happen we be!’ says she, only in quality-talk, and she gives Lup the sweetest little look sideways as set him shining like the Angel Gabriel!
“‘Why, then, what there’s nowt to find!’ says I, trying not to get above myself. ‘If you’re courtin’, you’re likely thinking to get wed, and now’s your time. What’s to hinder? The farm’s ready, and the lad.’
“‘Ay, but not the lass!’ says she, spirity-like. ‘The right time’s my own time, and I’ll come when I choose!’
“‘You’ll come when Lup chooses!’ I said, fair lossing my temper out an’ out. ‘Tell her that, my lad. Tell her she’ll come when she’s fetched!’
“But Lup just sat there like a half-rocked ’un,glowering at nowt an’ saying less, as he did just now, and then my lady gets on her feet and has her talk out.
“‘You mean kindly,’ she says, ‘and to be fair and just, but you don’t understand how it looks to me. It’s the way things are worked, I know. A lad slaves for his father for years after he’s a man grown, with never so much as a penny to put between his teeth, and at last, when the old man’s tired, he gives his son his chance. Round comes the agent, and it’s, “You’re for getting wed, I reckon? Right!” (if itisright), and the contract’s made. The lass goes into the contract along with the farm, and along at the beck of the three men to the church. Well, that’s your way, but it’s not mine, and you may as well know it first as last. I’ll come when I’m ready, or I’ll never come at all!’
“And with that she took herself off, an’ after a minute Lup up an’ followed her. He didn’t come home while morning—I’ve an idea he spent the night on the sea-wall—and after that it was Canada. Ay, an’ Canada it’ll be, sir, and no two words about it!”
He stopped, exhausted, and Lancaster laughed.
“Why, man, you’re worrying yourself for nothing! It’s a lovers’ quarrel—no more. I thought, by the look of you, there was murder in the wind! Come, there’s no sense in whistling up your own ill-luck. The girl will be round again at the swing of the pendulum by this time to-morrow. She’ll pull up to the pole all right, you take my word!”
The old man shook a dogged contradiction.
“You’ve seen Lup,” he said. “You know how far there’s bendinghim. Have you seen the lass, sir? Nay? What, then——” on a sudden, cheering impulse—“see here, sir, supposeyouput in a word?”
“What’s that?” Lancaster laughed again, amused but embarrassed. “You want me to tackle her—talk to her nicely, point out what she’s throwing away? That’s a bit too much to ask, Wolf! I’m not agent for Bluecaster for that.”
“She’d happen take it from you. She’d ha’ took it from your father, Mr. Lancaster. There’s a many he’s talked into a right way o’ thinking—ay, an’ women-folk among ’em!—as is glad and proud of it to-day.”
“Yes, but I’m——” Lancaster looked rather helpless—“well—not my father, Wolf!”
“You’re your father’s son. What a Lancaster says, goes—with most of us. You’ll try it, sir?”
“I don’t see how I can. What has your wife to say about it?”
“Something of the same mak as Lup, sir—lile or nowt, an’ nowt most often of the two. She sticks to it there’s trouble ahead, anyhow, and it’s no odds what road it travels. She’s got a queer trick of sitting an’ watching the tide, like as if she’s waiting to see something happen.”
“But surely she’s tried to make Lup hear reason?”
“Ay, I reckon she has, though she’s never let wit on it to me. He’s the very apple of her eye; she’s not like to let him go unspoken. But you’ll have a shot, won’t you, Mr. Lancaster? Do, sir—do now!” The tone was first wheedling, then wistful. “’Tisn’t only the lad. It means the farm—to me.”
He looked across at the agent with a childlike trustfulness that was almost absurdly pathetic, and Lancaster broke suddenly.
“Well, well, I’ll see what I can do!” he said, smiling somewhat wryly, and went out to help the old man into his trap, a growing feeling upon him of having seen the curtain rise upon some slow working of Fate. The dog-cart jogged through the gate, and for a moment he saw Lup’s head above the wall as he turned his horse towards the marsh. The rap of the hoofs came to him for long enough, dying and returning, until the last hill between swallowed them up.
And he felt old.