CHAPTER XXIICOMING
Robert Whinnerahlooked in at the door of the little bedroom, and saw Lup standing by the window, knitting his dark brows over a sheet of flimsy. The yellow envelope lay on his bed.
“What’s amiss, lad?” He had seen him take the telegram in, and wondered; and presently he had followed him up. He was a tall, gaunt, white-bearded man, with a look of Wolf about the eyes.
“Nay, I can’t make top nor bottom on it!” Lup puzzled. “If there’s owt amiss, it’s the sort as doesn’t bide shouting down a wire. It just says ‘Come at once!’ with never a why nor wherefore to its tail. ‘Come at once!’ Ay, yon’s all there is to it.”
“From Wolf? From your dad?”
“Not it! It’s from Bracken Holliday. You’ll mind the Hollidays o’ Pippin Hall, I reckon? Well, old Willie’s Brack’s uncle. He took him in an orphan and tried to put him in the way o’ things, but Brack was all for something fresh, and made off to Canada afore he was sixteen. He raised money there an’ all—he’s smart in his way, is Brack—and then come home to farm at Thweng. He’s in fine fettle, nowadays, and as throng as a dog wi’ two tails, aping quality and driving his own motor-car, but he’s no friend o’ mine. That’s why I’m capt to reckon up the meaning o’ this here.”
“Happen it’s a joke.” With Lup’s arrival, Robert had fallen speedily to the use of the old words.
“Nay, I thought of that, but I don’t hold by it. Brack thinks overmuch of himself for such-like daftlakin’. Besides—I’d a notion he’d his own reasons for wishing me out o’ the road.”
“Best wire your folk, asking if there’s owt wrong.”
Lup shook his head, folding the paper back into its cover.
“I reckon nowt o’ wire-talk an’ trumpet-talk an’ such-like! Seein’s believin’, when all’s said an’ done. I’ll gang myself. There’s a train somewheres about midnight, isn’t there?”
Robert stared.
“You’re forgetting you sail to-morrow, lad, at noon!”
Lup reached for his overcoat.
“Happen—if I’m not sailing across t’ Wythe instead!”
“Ay, but your passage booked—your gear aboard!”
“Let ’em bide!” said Lup tranquilly, and went out to the station.
He was in Witham before seven o’clock. It was a dreary morning, and offered to be a wild day. Passing Hest Bank, he could both hear and feel a big wind whistling in from the sea, and it was raining heavily.
In Witham it was raining, too, and the wind ran in fierce gusts up the narrow streets and down the innumerable entries. Overhead was a sky like a sodden blanket. He had his big coat, however, and after some breakfast at the “Green Dragon,” he went into the streets as they began to fill for market, seeking news and a friendly lift out. One after another of his acquaintances met him, open-mouthed and incredulous, but from none could he glean that there was anything wrong with his folk. This man had seen them quite recently; that had had news of them but yesterday, and so on. All was well on the marsh—Pippin Hall and the rest. Ninekyrkes still empty, of course. “What of Ladyford?”
This brought sly jibes from the growing ring of farmers round the late deserter. “Soyon’swhatfetched tha back i’ sic a ter’ble scufter like, eh, lad? Nay, now, there’s no use lookin’ as slape as an eel tail! We ken all about it. Oh ay, Ladyford’s snug enough. Here’s Michael to speak for hissel!”
Dumbfounded, Dockeray stared as at a ghost, but when he had gathered his wits, had nothing different to say from the rest. He urged the young man to make some attempt to catch his boat, but could not move him.
“Ower late, now,” Lup said, running his eye over the wet street for Brack in vain. He had kept his own counsel about the telegram, scarcely knowing why. “I’ve missed it, right enough.” And as in Liverpool, so he said in Witham: “Seein’s believin’!”
There was no sign of Brack all morning, but presently he ran into Denny, who fell upon him in delight, and cared not a rush what reason had brought him back as long as hewasback. To the dogged inquiry he returned the common denial, but his usually open glance shifted a little when Lup asked for Brack.
“Nay, he’s not in town this morning. Leastways, there’s nobody clapped eyes on him yet. He’s a bit rocky in the upper storey, nowadays, is Brack. Going clean off his nut, I reckon!”
They had dinner together at the “Dragon,” and afterwards he suggested that Lup should drive back with him and spend the night at Lockholme. Dockeray was for taking him to Ladyford, but Denny clung jealously to his prize, and though Lup’s heart turned to the latter farm, his courage shrank unmistakably. He would go with Denny. If all was right at the Pride, there was no haste till morning.
“There’s yon do of Mr. Shaw’s, to-night, at the ‘Duke,’” Denny went on, heartened out of his vague doubts by the “Dragon’s” ale. “What d’you say to going down? I’ll lay Mr. Shaw’ll be glad to see you, and there’s Brack’s invite going begging, anyhow. I hear he’s not for turning up. You can slip over to the Pride first thing while morning. The old folk’ll be feared to death if you come knocking at thedoor to-night. If you can hang about a bit longer, I’ll be through with my job, an’ then we’ll get out.”
After some hesitation, Lup agreed. He had had no sleep, and was bewildered almost to helplessness by the sharp turn of events and the puzzle of the situation. He had a feeling that he ought to go with Michael, but he did not know why. If he went now, he could get over to the Pride before dark without running any risk of alarming the old people, but if there was nothing wrong, what would they think of his sudden return, cropping up in this aimless manner, having thrown away Ninekyrkes on the one hand, and like enough his passage-money on the other? Wolf would call him a fool. He began to feel a fool, too—to wonder what could possibly have taken him. Drink heartens some and depresses others. Lup wondered and worried. Francey would have something to say as well; unsaid, even, he would see it in her eyes. In any case she would be certain to think that he had come crawling back to her because he could not keep away, and at that his Westmorland pride took fire. The powerful instinct that had drawn him blindly but surely so far, checked in the last ten miles before the possibility of a woman’s scorn. No! He would not go with Michael.
Yet, when Dockeray drove out, he watched the retreating trap with something like a very agony of desire to follow. He wanted to tear down the crowded street and leap up behind; he could scarcely hold himself back. But the Westmorland farmer does not tear, especially after dinner on a market-day, so he stood where he was, and let the trap drop out of sight.
Waiting for Denny, he wandered aimlessly here and there, stopping now and then for a chat under some shelter, or to stare, with little interest, at a shop-window. There was a hat he thought would look a regular knock-out on Francey. It was of extensive diameter, with two wild wings beating the air far behind. The marsh wind would have taken it mightilyto heaven, but he did not think of that. He thought, though, of the gulls he had seen driving inland in the dawn, as the night-train hugged the edge of the wind-swept bay.
The confectioner next door had a window of cakes with knobs running round them like castle-ramparts—Simnel cakes they called them. Then it must be Simnel Sunday—Mothering Sunday—to-morrow! A slip of paper pasted on the wet pane informed him that it was. The old custom was gone, leaving, as in the case of so many customs, merely something in the way of eating as its memorial. He remembered hearing the parson preach about it, last year; how the farm lads used to go home to their mothers, taking flowers with them. Francey had been in the choir, and they had driven home together. If he slept at Lockholme to-night, it would be Mothering Sunday by the time he reached the Pride. Seemed appropriate, somehow. Perhaps, after all, he had been right not to go with Michael—so he tried to comfort the puzzle out of his heart. In any case, he might take the old folk a remembrance of some kind, even though it might not be over and above well received, in view of the lost passage-money. Shag for the old dad—that would dohimall right!—but his mother was a harder problem. He had often heard her say she had all she wanted and a bit over. After a while, he sneaked ashamedly into the florist’s and bought some violets, large, dewy and sweet. The girl watched with amusement as he sank them gingerly into a capacious pocket. He would put them in water at Lockholme, if he could possibly escape Denny’s inquiring eye.
The boisterous wind that had roared through the town all morning was still as high as ever when they drove out in the late afternoon, calming no whit even at the dead ebb of the tide, and it was raining with the same steady violence. Crouching low against it, Lup was glad that he had not to meet it on the Northern marsh. He wondered if Michaelhad got his horse to face the driving storm, or whether he had had to trudge at its head—a weary-enough job even for a young man. He had done well to stay with Denny. Yet, at the first turn leading to the marsh, he threw off the rug and put out a foot to the step.
“I doubt I’d best be making tracks for home, Thomas! It’ll be a bit of a drag across the moss, but better now than when tide gets turned. We’re in for a wild night, by the look of it, an’ there’ll be no getting to the Pride after dark. It’ll be dark soon, an’ all.”
Denny expostulated.
“Losh save us, man, you’ll never win out to the Pride to-night! Light’ll be gone afore you’re at Ladyford, and Mrs. Dockeray’ll never let you cross door a second time.” He had set his heart on taking Lup down to the supper, and, in spite of the rain, was still aglow with “Dragon” confidence. “What’s got you, Lup? You’re as queer as Dick’s hatband! You’ve never Brack’s bee in your bonnet, surely?”
“How’s the tide?” Lup asked, unmoved.
“Sometime after midnight. Nowt to speak of. There’s nobody looking for trouble on the marsh, barrin’ Brack, as I said. Holliday o’ Pippin has yon prize beasts o’ hisn down on the low land, an’ there’s sheep in plenty out an’ all. Tide’s low, I tell you, and it’s only been blowing since morn. We’ve seen many a worse day, you an’ me. Come on with you, lad! I tell you what it is”—he brought out the joke that had been going round all day—“it’s yon lass o’ Dockeray’s you’re after. We all know what skifted you to Canada, but I reckon you found you couldn’t quit, after all!”
And again Lup put his purpose by, yielding his last chance for fear of a woman’s eyes.
The turn was passed, and Denny’s stepper, eager for home, rocked over the bridge and along by the towering wall of Doestone, which, with the swaying, dripping trees facing, formed a darkening avenue inthe quickening night. Then up the hill and sharp to the right, sliding down towards the west. Once on the low land, with nothing betwixt them and the sea, the whole panorama of sky and sand lay blended before them in one buffeted veil of gray, torn by the sheets of rain. Only Denny’s voice kept the horse to the wind, and now and again they had to draw into a curve of the hedge for breath.
“We’ll fair catch it, coming back from the ‘Duke’!” Denny observed, in one of these pauses. “But it’ll likely blow itself out by daylight, an’ tide’s nowt, as I said.”
They called at Thweng as they passed, at Lup’s request, but Brack was not indoors. His doddering old housekeeper, more than anxious to be shut of them and back to the warm kitchen, told them he was out somewhere on the land. Had he left a message for one Lup Whinnerah? Nay, what he’d left a parshel o’ messages for more than one body, and the visitor could take his choice! Ya body was to gang, an’ another body was to bide, an’ there was summat about a motor-car an’ summat else about wool, wi’ a bit o’ the Bible thrown in like, for luck. T’ master’d talk t’ hind leg off a dog, any day, an’ if they could mak’ owt of any on it, they were welcome.
The draught round the door was growing unbearable, so she promptly banged it, and they withdrew, pondering. Brack and his housekeeper seemed much of a piece, and neither of them more than elevenpence in the shilling. The conviction grew upon Lup that the telegram, if not a joke, had at least been the outcome of a mad obsession, and saw himself the laughing-stock of the district. Whether he told or not, the outward circumstances would never be forgotten—how Lup Whinnerah turned tail on Canada at the last minute, and ran home as hard as he could lick. Well, Ladyford at least should have the laugh last. To-night, Denny must see him through. He stumbled thankfully into the warmth of Lockholme, and fell asleep before the fire. Denny, trying to rouse himlater, heard him muttering as he slept. “Wait of me!” he was saying. “Mother! Wait!”
After infinite trouble, Hamer got Lanty on the telephone towards one o’clock on that Saturday afternoon. The agent was deep in deeds in some Witham lawyer’s office, and excessively annoyed at being snatched from them. Hamer, at the other end, sounded anxious, and started badly.
Did Lancaster know it was raining?
Lancaster was safely under cover and furiously occupied, and did not care a toss what it was doing outside. Why should Mr. Shaw care—if he did care?
It seemed he did. He recounted Brack’s conversation of the day before—at least, as much of it as Lanty would deign to receive—and found himself cut off before the end of it. After five minutes’ patient waiting, the agent’s voice came back to him, slightly breathless.
“I say, I beg your pardon! Saw a chap out of the window that I mightn’t catch again for a month of Sundays, so I just sprinted. I’m always pressed on Saturday, so you must overlook it. By the way, it’s raining more than a bit, as you say, and I’d no umbrella. But I give you my word it’s not the Day of Judgment or anything of that sort! You don’t know our weather, yet; we’ve had such a fine year. As for Brack, didn’t he strike you as being a little off his chump? I’m rather anxious about him.... Why, no! Hotpot it for all you’re worth! They’ll turn up, you’ll see. There’s nobody minding rain in this district except Brack. Right! Thanks very much. I’ll come over by the Lane. How is Wigmore, this morning? ... That’s good. By the way, Harriet turned in to the Board to-day for the first time. Great doings, I hear! Put the Chairman right on a matter of some cubic feet, and trotted out a point of law that cleared up that supply difficulty like magic, and left them all gaping. Allthe old hands are saying it’s like old times and John Knewstubb over again. Harriet will shake them up before she’s through!”
Hamer, still worried, observed that there was a wind, and Lancaster groaned.
“My dear sir, it can’t always be summer! We’d do badly if we didn’t get a wind now and then. It’s to be expected, you know. Time o’ year. March.”
March!The fatefully-returning word smote on his ear like a blast. He hung up the receiver and stood, thinking.