CHAPTER VTHE TOOL
Hesaw her for a moment poised against the brooding sky, and then she dropped down the bank to his side. They stood alone on the desolate strip of road twisting whitely between black peat, green mound, and brown sand. Midway from farm to farm they met—a fitting point, it seemed to him, for the peculiar arbitration he had in hand.
“Rowly’s at the boat, sir, if you’re wanting him,” she said politely, and he answered with a curt word of thanks. Then—“They’re in a bad way at Ninekyrkes,” he began, without preamble. “They seem gone to pieces altogether, both Wolf and his wife. It’s hard on an old couple, of course, when it comes to losing both their home and their only child.”
She looked away to the crag behind, and made no reply.
“I’ve just been round the place with the old man,” he went on, “and it was pitiable to see how he kept forgetting he’d got to go. It was like turning the knife in the wound to keep reminding him how things were. It’s hard, as I said. He might have had his last days in peace.”
Still she did not answer; only her gaze, turned inland, grew troubled and hard pressed.
“It seems so unnecessary!” He felt suddenly impatient before her silent resistance of his efforts. “Lup’s place is here; that’s plain enough to anybody with half a conscience. He’s fond of the old folks, too. It isn’t as if they didn’t get on. Normally, he’d never have thought of leaving them. Can’t something be done? Can’t somebody help?”
She gave a sharp sigh, as if forced against her will over old ground already trodden to weariness, and brought her eyes to his as they rested on her full of demand and penetration.
“Hadn’t we better be frank with each other, Mr. Lancaster?” she asked gently. “You’ve heard the story—I feel sure of that—and you want to try to talk me round. That’s so, isn’t it?”
“I’ve heard some sort of an account—yes; and it looks as if the key of the situation lay with you. Of course, you’ll say it’s no business of mine, and from one point of view it certainly isn’t, but when old friends are in trouble one wants to stretch a hand. I wish you’d tell me why you did it—why you went back on Lup Whinnerah just when he needed you most. You’ll not deny you went back on him, I suppose?”
“No, I don’t deny it.”
“Why, then, there’s hope!” He smiled with quick relief. “You’re surely not the sort to play down upon a good lad like Lup? You’ll never break up his home for the sake of a whim or a foolish twinge of vanity?”
“I don’t want to break up his home. I’ve tried to dissuade him from going away. He could stop, if he chose. I can’t see that I make any real difference.”
“You make all the difference.” He was speaking gently enough, now. “We like to have married men on the farms, for one thing; and even supposing Lup did stop on, what sort of a life would it be for him, with you always within reach? You’re all so dependent on each other, out here. He’s been over-hasty, I consider, but I can’t find it in my heart to blame him greatly. Sticking by the man, of course, you’ll say? Well, perhaps; but in this case there’s reason. Come, Miss Francey, think better of it. If you care for him at all, you’ll never let him go.”
“I’ll not keep him,” she said, and they fell silent.
Then—“Why?” he asked again. “But why?”
She smiled faintly.
“I don’t know why—not altogether. It’s true that it’s partly pride, I suppose—I’m not sure. I do care for Lup, and I’d promised to marry him, but when his father put it all into plain words, spoke out and told me to fix the date, all the glamour went, somehow. He had it so cut and dried—I felt as if I were being sold. It meant no more to him than a change of stock at a May fair. I’d have had to say no if it had killed me. He meant all right—of course I know that—and it would have been right for most, but it wasn’t for me. They wouldn’t treat one of your class like that, would they? But that’s the way of mine, and I’d no right to resent it, I suppose, only I’ve been made over and differently in those long years at school. I couldn’t accept it as perhaps I ought to have done. It hurt something in me that I didn’t know was there, something that wouldn’t be touched. That was part of the reason, I think. Not all.”
“And the rest?” he asked, at last.
“The rest is Lup’s, sir. I can’t tell you that. I don’t see it clear myself, as I said. Put it at pride altogether, if you like.”
“What’s pride, if you care?” he argued. “Let that go by the board! You can, if you try. And the other thing, too, whatever it is. For Lup’s sake—for the old folks’ sake——”
“I can’t. I can’t.”
“You’ll not regret it.”
“I can’t—that’s all.”
“Well, I’m not here to marry you against your will!” he growled, aggrieved at the deadlock. “If you won’t, you won’t, and there’s an end of it. I’d not be so hard on you if I thought the change would mean getting Mrs. Whinnerah away altogether, but it seems that Wolf is set on taking the Pride.”
“The Pride?” They had begun to walk slowly towards the boat, but now she half stopped, looking up at him anxiously.
“That’s his idea. I can’t very well refuse him, if he really means it, but it looks to me a bad move for the wife. Even Ninekyrkes seems too much for her nerves, as it is. You’ve seen her lately, I suppose? Can you tell me what’s at the back of it all?”
She quickened her step, looking down.
“She’s getting old, sir, and she imagines things. You mustn’t pay any heed, Mr. Lancaster. It only worries Wolf if you do.”
“Well, I must say you’re a happy family over here at present!” he grumbled, as they came down the shore. “I might as well have stopped away, for all the good I’ve done. You’ll be sorry for this, some day, Miss Francey!”
“I’m sorry now!” she answered, with so much pathos and helpless appeal in her voice that he was silenced. Scrambling into the boat, he was rowed away across the now wide stretch of water. The first shot of the new battery burst from the sky as he reached the other side, and through the playing lightning he saw Francey Dockeray still on the bank, with the blackness of all doom around and above her.