1
When they got back to Morton there was Puddle in the hall, with that
warm smile of hers, always just a little mocking yet pitiful too, that
queer composite smile that made her face so arresting. And the sight of
this faithful little grey woman brought home to Stephen the fact that
she had missed her. She had missed her, she found, out of all proportion
to the size of the creature, which seemed to have diminished. Coming
back to it after those weeks of absence, Puddle’s smallness seemed to be
even smaller, and Stephen could not help laughing as she hugged her.
Then she suddenly lifted her right off her feet with as much ease as
though she had been a baby.
Morton smelt good with its log fires burning, and Morton looked good
with the goodness of home. Stephen sighed with something very like
contentment: ‘Lord! I’m so glad to be back again, Puddle. I must have
been a cat in my last incarnation; I hate strange places—especially
Cornwall.’
Puddle smiled grimly. She thought that she knew why Stephen had hated
Cornwall.
After tea Stephen wandered about the house, touching first this, then
that, with affectionate fingers. But presently she went off to the
stables with sugar for Collins and carrots for Raftery; and there in his
spacious, hay-scented loose box, Raftery was waiting for Stephen. He
made a queer little sound in his throat, and his soft Irish eyes said:
‘You’re home, home, home. I’ve grown tired with waiting, and with
wishing you home.’
And she answered: ‘Yes, I’ve come back to you, Raftery.’
Then she threw her strong arm around his neck, and they talked together
for quite a long while—not in Irish or English but in a quiet language
having very few words but many small sounds and many small movements,
that meant much more than words.
‘Since you went I’ve discovered a wonderful thing,’ he told her, ‘I’ve
discovered that for me you are God. It’s like that some times with us
humbler people, we may only know God through His human image.’
‘Raftery,’ she murmured, ‘oh, Raftery, my dear—I was so young when you
came to Morton. Do you remember that first day out hunting when you
jumped the huge hedge in our big north paddock? What a jump! It ought to
go down to history. You were splendidly cool and collected about it.
Thank the Lord you were—I was only a kid, all the same it was very
foolish of us, Raftery.’
She gave him a carrot, which he took with contentment from the hand of
his God, and proceeded to munch. And she watched him munch it, contented
in her turn, hoping that the carrot was succulent and sweet; hoping that
his innocent cup of pleasure might be full to the brim and overflowing.
Like God indeed, she tended his needs, mixing the evening meal in his
manger, holding the water bucket to his lips while he sucked in the
cool, clear, health-giving water. A groom came along with fresh trusses
of straw which he opened and tossed among Raftery’s bedding; then he
took off the smart blue and red day clothing, and buckled him up in a
warm night blanket. Beyond in the far loose box by the window, Sir
Philip’s young chestnut kicked loudly for supper.
‘Woa horse! Get up there! Stop kicking them boards!’ And the groom
hurried off to attend to the chestnut.
Collins, who had spat out his two lumps of sugar, was now busy indulging
his morbid passion. His sides were swollen well-nigh to bursting—blown
out like an air balloon was old Collins from the evil and dyspeptic
effects of the straw, plus his own woeful lack of molars. He stared at
Stephen with whitish-blue eyes that saw nothing, and when she touched
him he grunted—a discourteous sound which meant: ‘Leave me alone!’ So
after a mild reproof she left him to his sins and his indigestion.
Last but not least, she strolled down to the home of the two-legged
creature who had once reigned supreme in those princely but now depleted
stables. And the lamplight streamed out through uncurtained windows to
meet her, so that she walked on lamplight. A slim streak of gold led
right up to the porch of old Williams’ comfortable cottage. She found
him sitting with the Bible on his knees, peering crossly down at the
Scriptures through his glasses. He had taken to reading the Scriptures
aloud to himself—a melancholy occupation. He was at this now. As
Stephen entered she could hear him mumbling from Revelation: ‘And the
heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths
issued fire and smoke and brimstone.’
He looked up, and hastily twitched off his glasses: ‘Miss Stephen!’
‘Sit still—stop where you are, Williams.’
But Williams had the arrogance of the humble. He was proud of the stern
traditions of his service, and his pride forbade him to sit in her
presence, in spite of their long and kind years of friendship. Yet when
he spoke he must grumble a little, as though she were still the very
small child who had swaggered round the stables rubbing her chin,
imitating his every expression and gesture.
‘You didn’t ought to have no ’orses, Miss Stephen, the way you runs off
and leaves them;’ he grumbled, ‘Raftery’s been off ’is feed these last
days. I’ve been talkin’ to that Jim what you sets such store by!
Impudent young blight, ’e answered me back like as though I’d no right
to express me opinion. But I says to ’im: “You just wait, lad,” I says,
“You wait until I gets ’old of Miss Stephen!”’
For Williams could never keep clear of the stables, and could never
refrain from nagging when he got there. Deposed he might be, but not yet
defeated even by old age, as grooms knew to their cost. The tap of his
heavy oak stick in the yard was enough to send Jim and his underling
flying to hide curry-combs and brushes out of sight. Williams needed no
glasses when it came to disorder.
‘Be this place ’ere a stable or be it a pigsty, I wonder?’ was now his
habitual greeting.
His wife came bustling in from the kitchen: ‘Sit down, Miss Stephen,’
and she dusted a chair.
Stephen sat down and glanced at the Bible where it lay, still open, on
the table.
‘Yes,’ said Williams dourly, as though she had spoken, ‘I’m reduced to
readin’ about ’eavenly ’orses. A nice endin’ that for a man like me,
what’s been in the service of Sir Philip Gordon, what’s ’ad ’is legs
across the best ’unters as ever was seen in this county or any! And I
don’t believe in them lion-headed beasts breathin’ fire and brimstone,
it’s all agin nature. Whoever it was wrote them Revelations, can’t never
have been inside of a stable. I don’t believe in no ’eavenly ’orses
neither—there won’t be no ’orses in ’eaven; and a good thing too,
judgin’ by the description.’
‘I’m surprised at you, Arth-thur, bein’ so disrespectful to The Book!’
his wife reproached him gravely.
‘Well, it ain’t no encyclopaedee to the stable, and that’s a sure
thing,’ grinned Williams.
Stephen looked from one to the other. They were old, very old, fast
approaching completion. Quite soon their circle would be complete, and
then Williams would be able to tackle Saint John on the points of those
heavenly horses.
Mrs. Williams glanced apologetically at her: ‘Excuse ’im, Miss Stephen,
’e’s gettin’ rather childish. ’E won’t read no pretty parts of The Book;
all ’e’ll read is them parts about chariots and such like. All what’s to
do with ’orses ’e reads; and then ’e’s so unbelievin’—it’s aw-ful!’ But
she looked at her mate with the eyes of a mother, very gentle and
tolerant eyes.
And Stephen, seeing those two together, could picture them as they must
once have been, in the halcyon days of their youthful vigour. For she
thought that she glimpsed through the dust of the years, a faint flicker
of the girl who had lingered in the lanes when the young man Williams
and she had been courting. And looking at Williams as he stood before
her twitching and bowed, she thought that she glimpsed a faint flicker
of the youth, very stalwart and comely, who had bent his head downwards
and sideways as he walked and whispered and kissed in the lanes. And
because they were old yet undivided, her heart ached; not for them but
rather for Stephen. Her youth seemed as dross when compared to their
honourable age; because they were undivided.
She said: ‘Make him sit down, I don’t want him to stand.’ And she got up
and pushed her own chair towards him.
But old Mrs. Williams shook her white head slowly: ‘No, Miss Stephen, ’e
wouldn’t sit down in your presence. Beggin’ your pardon, it would ’urt
Arth-thur’s feelin’s to be made to sit down; it would make ’im feel as
’is days of service was really over.’
‘I don’t need to sit down,’ declared Williams.
So Stephen wished them both a good night, promising to come again very
soon; and Williams hobbled out to the path which was now quite golden
from border to border, for the door of the cottage was standing wide
open and the glow from the lamp streamed over the path. Once more she
found herself walking on lamplight, while Williams, bareheaded, stood
and watched her departure. Then her feet were caught up and entangled in
shadows again, as she made her way under the trees.
But presently came a familiar fragrance—logs burning on the wide,
friendly hearths of Morton. Logs burning—quite soon the lakes would be
frozen—‘and the ice looks like slabs of gold in the sunset, when you
and I come and stand here in the winter . . . and as we walk back we can
smell the log fires long before we can see them, and we love that good
smell because it means home, and our home is Morton . . . because it
means home and our home is Morton. . . .’
Oh, intolerable fragrance of log fires burning!