COMING
Robert Whinnerah looked 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 daft lakin’. 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. “So _yon’s_ what fetched 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 he _was_ back. 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 the door 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 mightily to 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 do _him_ all
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
Michael had 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 in the
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 him
later, 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. All the 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.