CHAPTER IVTHE TROUBLE SHAPING
Itwas milking-time when Lanty left Ladyford, with Dockeray beside him, and they met the cattle coming in to the shippons. Their slow swing across the yard added to the drowsy oppression of the day. It was as if he walked in sleep along the narrow sea-road linking the two farms. The flat land behind was in good cultivation. When it was turned by the plough, the share came out clean of rust and shining like silver. A big plantation stood away towards Wythebarrow, hiding the highway between. A wide cut was cloven betwixt the far meadows. There was no sign of the tide as yet, and out on the dry sands the Lugg still lay meaningless and bare.
Ninekyrkes was nearer the open sea than Ladyford, less sheltered, less homely, less pleasant to the eye. The rough, sturdy house stood up bravely to the winds. There were flowers round Dockeray’s, and an orchard behind it. Whinnerah’s had neither. It was built for storm and stress and fierce happenings, and bore upon its forehead the mark of an abiding-place of Fate.
Wolf came round as they appeared, and after a brief greeting Michael turned home. Lancaster saw him go with strange reluctance. The grim farm and its grim tenant fostered a sense of tragedy lying in wait, gathering itself to spring; but he roused his business-side determinedly, and kept strictly to technicalities as he started on his tour of inspection. Yet still the hand of tragedy obtruded through all. It was pitiful to hear the old man reverting to plans for thefuture as if the doom of dismissal had never been pronounced. He would stop at some field or fence, pointing out what he meant to do next year or later, and Lancaster listened patiently, or brought him back gently to the real state of things. His self-consciousness with regard to Michael’s daughter disappeared in face of the full situation, and his anger grew against the girl, who, for some trivial reason, could stubbornly rob a failing man of his earned desire. For Lup he had sympathy, if a good deal of impatience. He was strong enough, surely, to take what he wanted; yet perhaps it needed something finer than mere strength to capture Francey Dockeray. In any case, he should know his own business best.
They got to the house at last, and within it he felt again the marked contrast with Ladyford. Here, in the kitchen so similar in many ways, the cheerful peace was changed for hinted dread, emanating, he concluded at length, from the frail figure in the chair by the window. He had known Mrs. Whinnerah all his life, and he was not afraid of her unsmiling welcome, but to-night he felt that something hidden suffered and watched behind her chill reserve. The sense of it was so strong that it claimed his thoughts even while he carried on the usual conversational exchange.
They were a pathetic pair, he thought, looking from one bent figure to the other. Wolf was a sad enough picture, a fine man gone to wreck in a few devastating months, but the pathos of the woman went deeper. The hard life on the marsh had broken her long since, stolen her youth in the first years of marriage, crippled her with rheumatism, stamped on her thin face that look of passionless endurance which can be seen in many a farmer’s wife who has found her burden too heavy and gone on bearing it. She had been pretty, once. In the line of her cheek and the set of her head was still a beauty of refinement absent from Francey’s mother over at Ladyford, and the thin fingers of her worn hands were curiously sensitive and suggestive of a rare intuition. But that was all that was left toher. She was finished, as Wolf was finished, and the one thing that life might yet have held for them was to be taken away. Lanty wondered how Lup could look at them, night after night, sitting there hopeless, and steel his heart to the unbreathed prayer, even though sacrifice might mean daily crucifixion, with the love denied so close at hand. But Lup himself was part of the cruel situation. He did not come to it from outside, as Lancaster came, with fresh eyes full of pity.
Remembering both Wolf’s words and the Dockerays’ embarrassment, he found himself noting the old woman’s constant and fixed gaze out to sea. Her faded eyes were still clear, and the large pupils had the effect of dark pebbles seen through deep pools. Time after time he succeeded in drawing them to his own face, but, his question answered, they returned instantly to some invisible point beyond. Wolf had said she was watching for something, and it certainly seemed like it, for the glance was not the wandering one of custom, but a stare of genuine expectation, suggesting held breath and stiffened muscles. Wolf looked at her uneasily at times, and when she became conscious of his gaze she would bring her own with an effort to the guest, but always, always it went back. The sensation of mystery deepened, and Lancaster stirred restlessly under its touch. The sky had darkened and then filled with fire, and beneath the dull thunder-glow the houses on Bytham Knott looked like flakes of snow dropped on a sullen slab of granite. The thin trees stood like dumb sentinels of fear; the green of the fields smote the eye; a sudden clash of milk-pails from without set every nerve leaping, and then the stillness sank again. And the sands and the bank were stiller than the air. The only moving thing was the shining, quivering line far away to the west.
Mrs. Whinnerah made no complaint of the approaching change. She was ready to go, not with the decision of personal choice, but with the apathy of one led bydestiny. Lanty asked at last where they thought of moving when the time came for breaking-up. There was a pause after the question, and he saw Wolf’s eyes travel to his wife, as if, in this moment, some urgent problem must be solved, but she gave him no assistance.
“You’ll think it queer, likely,” he began, filling his pipe with slow fingers, “but I’m hoping you’ll not say no to an old man’s wish. There’s yon cottage your father built, you’ll think on—that on the new land as they call the ‘Pride.’ It’s been empty a good bit, but it’s taken no harm. The key’s here, and I’ve had a look round now and then. Folk say it’s over lonesome; they get flate at night, hearkening to the sea, them as hasn’t been bred by it an’ learned to like it. I’d never rest without the song of it coming and going, but there’s folk can’t abide it. Well, I’ve got a fancy for that cottage, Mr. Lancaster. It’s nigh on Ninekyrkes land, and I’d be able to reach an eye over the old spot from the door. With a bit o’ practice I’ll likely learn not to mind seeing other folk at my job. It’ll not be for that long, I doubt.”
“Come, you’re good for many a year yet!” Lancaster put in, as cheerfully as he could. “I can have the cottage put in order for you if you’re really set on it, but don’t you think you’d be wiser to pitch your tent somewhere else altogether? Living within a stone’s-throw will only set you hankering after the farm. You’d be happier away. What has your wife to say to it?”
He turned to the woman, but before she could answer there came a sharp crack right across the empty sands, and with a strangled cry she half rose to her feet, gripping the wooden arms of the chair, her face livid and her arms rigid, her glassy eyes fixed on the inscrutable beyond.
“It’s through!” she said in a choked voice, so full of horror that it drew Lancaster to his feet beside her, but Wolf sat still and snarled from his chair.
“Yon’s thunder, nowt else! Look ye there!” andas a fierce flicker of lightning danced down the pane, she sank back into her chair, biting her lips to steady them, and knotting her trembling hands together on her knee. She was calm again almost immediately, and Lancaster, at the window, watching the blue daggers stabbing the dead waste, and hearkening to the long rattle of charging clouds, marvelled that she showed no further signs of agitation. Shock after shock broke overhead, leaving her unmoved, and the vivid flashes scarcely shut her eyes. It was not the storm that had frightened her, he told himself. What was it?
The almost running roar made conversation impossible, so he stood silent, watching the tempest sweep along the open space before him. The passion of it seemed grotesque, as wreaked upon a lifeless thing beyond the reach of hurt. It died away at last in tired, angry spasms and slow gleams, and the thick silence came again into the heavy sky.
When it was spent, Lanty turned to say good-bye, hoping to make home before the storm returned, circling on its tracks like a driven hare, but as he reached the door a strange thing happened.
Through the stillness dropped like a muffling shroud came a new sound, smooth, stealthy, swift, a soft sound as of shod wheels, swept wings and subdued speech; and in the same moment Mrs. Whinnerah collapsed in her chair, until he saw the thin, gray hair coiled at the nape of her neck. With an exclamation, half of pity, half wrath, Wolf turned and went back to her, and, looking out, Lanty saw the bore sweeping up over the vanishing sand. It was small to-day, innocent and slim, with a crest of white on its smooth head, but in the deadly certainty of its advance, the unhasting speed with which it met the sand and took it, there was a sinister promise of mightier power held back. The insidious reminder of its faint wash was almost as terrible as the shout of battle with which the winter tides came in. It slid lightly along the foot of the Lugg with barely a ripple, and the bank lookeddown almost unaware, like a dreaming graybeard at a child playing round his knees.
Behind him, with a troubled sense of intrusion, he could hear Wolf’s voice, impatient and distressed, coaxing the crouching figure in the chair.
“It’s by, lass—past an’ safe, by now—a whyet enough water with barely a lift to it. Nay, what you must be daft to take on like this! It’ll stand many a long year after we’re under the sod. You’ve no call to fret. It’s a Lancaster’s job, Martha, as sure as a gun an’ as right as a bobbin!” He looked up apologetically. “You’ll not take it amiss, sir? She’s always like this at the turn of the tide.”
Lanty sympathised as well as he could, but when he would have held out his hand in farewell, she shrank away and hid her face once more.
“The Lancaster hand!” she muttered, winding her fingers in the woollen antimacassar. “Oh, God! How long? How long?”
With a pleading look, Wolf drew him out, and he went gladly enough, bewildered by the whole situation. There was mystery somewhere, and he did not like to ask the cause.
“Mrs. Whinnerah seems thoroughly upset,” he ventured at last, in a matter-of-fact tone. “Living so long by the sea has got on her nerves, and I don’t wonder! It must be pretty drear out here on a rough night. You should get her away for a change,—she has a sister over at Bortun, hasn’t she? It doesn’t do to play with these things. If she keeps like this, you’ll surely never think of taking the cottage?”
Over the old man’s shoulder he could see in the distance the little gray building behind the Lugg, that some mocker had ticketed “Lancaster’s Pride.” It had had many tenants, but none had stayed very long. Their courage had not been equal to the dark nights on the lonely waste—nights, when behind the wall a full sea surged and swayed, claiming the land that man had robbed. It stood empty, now, waiting stronger spirits, and it was to this place of fear that Wolf’sheart turned, for from its windows he could look to Ninekyrkes all day long.
“Nay, the missis’ll do well enough,” he said, in answer to Lancaster’s speech. “She started yon worriting job nigh on a year back, a matter of a few week afore Brack Holliday landed home. He made such a stir, it kind o’ fixed it in my mind! She’ll likely mend after a bit. Anyway, she’ll not quit the marsh no more than me, that’s sure an’ certain!”
“Why, but man, it’s bad enough for her at Ninekyrkes!” the other argued. “It’ll be a good few hundred times worse at the Pride. You’ll never get her to go.”
“She’ll gang where I gang!” Wolf said obstinately. “Offer her any other spot on the estate, and see for yourself. She’ll bide all right.”
“Well, I can’t say I think you’re wise. Suppose I won’t let you the cottage? I’ve more than half a mind to refuse.”
“Then I’ll see his lordship, Mr. Lancaster! It’s not for a steward to be looking awry at a good tenant!” He added, “Begging your pardon, sir!” with instant contrition.
Lancaster nodded assurance.
“That’s all right, Wolf. But I wish you’d reconsider your decision. I don’t like the idea of your roosting away in that desolate spot.”
“It’s desolate, sir, but it’s safe enough.You’veno call to fear the Lugg, surely?”
“Why, no, the bank’s all right!” Lanty answered, with a smile. “There’s never anything my father did but holds good to this day. But, all the same, I don’t want you at the Pride.”
“Ay, but all the same you’ll let it me, sir! It’s this way, Mr. Lancaster. Your father, when he’d made sure the Lugg was standing, he’d just time to build yon lile cot afore he died. He’d framed for a many more, but they had to bide. An’, near about the last time he was down, he says to me (I’d been a deal with him up an’ down the marsh, and he was the bestfriend I had, but yon’s an old story you don’t need to hear), he says to me: ‘Wolf,’ says he, ‘yon’ll be just the spot for you if ever you come to quit the farm. I’ll have been in my grave many a year by then, but my bank’ll see to you for me. I’d like to think of you in the little house, for there’s never a stone nor a plank but will call me to mind. Not but what I know you’ll not forget. I’ll never really die while the Lugg stands and Wolf Whinnerah’s over sod!’ You’ll not say no after that, sir?”
“Well, I’ll think it over,” Lanty answered reluctantly. “By the way, I haven’t had a word yet with the girl. Perhaps I’ll catch her as I go back, though I doubt it’s no use. Good-bye, and I wish to goodness you’d change your minds all round!”
He left him at the yard gate, and strode off along the road. On the other side of the Let the tide lapped tenderly. Deep in frowning thought, he was startled by a voice speaking his name, and, looking up, saw Francey Dockeray on the grassy barrier above him.