THE TROUBLE SHAPING
It was 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 the
future 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 to her. 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 by destiny. 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!” and as 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 looked down 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’s heart
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’ve_ no 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 best friend 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.