Slinker’s wife was restless on Christmas Eve. At dinner, she talked in
feverish snatches, and ate nothing; and when the dismal meal was over
at last, she wandered nervously from room to room, lifting blind after
blind to look at the white waste of the park. Christian followed her
like a puzzled dog, oppressed once more by the mighty loneliness which
had lifted a little since her coming, until she turned on him brusquely
with a little jump.
“For goodness’ sake, Laker, don’t go trailing after me like a broken
bootlace! I’m a bundle of nerves to-night, and not fit to speak to--the
snow, I suppose.” She shivered, looking almost fearfully at the inky
spectres of the avenue flung upon the sinister white of the hill. “How
near it is! Somehow it makes me feel as if I couldn’t breathe. Life can
make you feel like that, too; as if you’d fastened yourself into your
coffin, and couldn’t get out.”
“And couldn’t--_couldn’t_ get out!” she repeated, beating her hands on
the frosty pane; and the next instant had opened the hall-door and was
half-way down the steps before he realised that she had gone. Springing
after her, he caught her arm and drew her back forcibly into the
warmth.
“What’s the matter with you to-night, Nettie? You’re not a bit like
yourself! This isn’t the weather for moonlight walks, and I can’t have
you catching your death of cold while you’re in my charge. Come and sit
by the fire, and let us talk.”
He struck the log with his foot, sending up a shower of sparks, but she
drew away from him, and back again to the door. He looked at her in
surprise. He had never seen her like this--her eyes wide, every nerve
tensely strung.
“I’m going out!” she said quickly. “Don’t try to stop me. I’m not
ragging, Youngest One--I _must_ go! Yes, fetch me something to put on,
like an old dear, only be quick about it.”
He brought a coat and a scarf and wrapped her in them, and gave her his
hand down the slippery steps; but when he would have come further she
checked him imperatively.
“I’m going alone,” she said, pushing him gently from her, “so scoot
back at once, Laker child! I’m not going far, and I’m going alone. I
shan’t take any harm, so don’t get excited, and if you dare to sit and
freeze on the steps, I’ll leave Crump to-morrow! I can’t stop in the
house to-night, and that’s all there is about it. It’s full of Slinker
from garret to cellar, and I just can’t bear it. Couldn’t you feel
him at dinner--that awful ghost-walk of a dinner? I wondered how you
could sit in your chair and swallow your port! He was there all the
time--just shrieking to come back! Oh, Christian!--suppose he should?”
He took her hand again, looking at her with concern.
“Why, Nettie, there’s certainly something very wrong with you! Come
back into the house and sing something, and let’s be happy. There is
nothing to be afraid of. How could there be anything to be afraid of on
Christmas Eve?”
She clung to his fingers, staring up at the house.
“I should hear Slinker singing along with me. He had a voice, you
remember--a queer sort of voice like an owl squawking in the night!
Christian--suppose that window opened up there, and Slinker’s face
looked out--Slinker’s face--Christian----!”
He gave her a peremptory little shake.
“Stop that at once--do you hear? And you’re just coming back with me
this instant, so you can make up your mind to do as you’re told for
once, instead of twisting the whole world round your little finger!”
She shook her head, pulling herself together with a trembling sigh and
a smile.
“No, I’m going on. It’s all right, Youngest One. I’m quite sane, and
perfectly fit to be loose. Go in and wait for me in the hall, and brew
me some nice warm gruel to drink when Christmas comes in. I’m going to
the place where I’m safest in the whole world. Oh, if I’d only guessed
it, long ago!”
He watched her disappear up the avenue, a dark speck on the purity of
the white track, walking firmly and with purpose, and then he returned
reluctantly to thaw himself, keeping an eye on the half-open door the
while. No sound came to him from any part of the house but the creak of
the stairs and the running talk of the fire. In the oak chair with the
high back he looked very young and very lonely--the new master sharing
his shadowed home with his ghosts.
Slinker’s wife walked fast--fast, like a woman going to meet her
lover--and her heart beat and the colour burned in her cheek. She
clasped her hands tight in the wide sleeves of Christian’s coat, and
her breath came unevenly on the frosty air. Leaving the arch of the
avenue for the full moonlight, she saw beneath her a wide sheet of
bright ice, and, to the right, the long, low buildings of Dockerneuk
Farm. She stopped then as if a hand had barred her way, trembling
violently and leaning against the stoup of the gate.
Work was long done at the farm. The clash of milk-pails was still, long
before. The cattle had had their extra Christmas feed, and the men had
gone home. The blinds were drawn. The kitchen had red blinds through
which lamp and fire glowed warm. From the parlour a piano tinkled a
Christmas hymn.
Slinker’s wife, leaning against the stoup, needed no open doors for her
sad eyes. She knew so well the wide kitchen with its open range and oak
settle, the spotless stone of the floor, the shining pans, the queer
things that hung from the oak rafters, hams and Christmas puddings
and great, dry bunches of sage. She knew the parlour, too, with its
yellow-keyed, silk-faced piano, its pot dogs, wool mats and vases of
honesty, but it was to the kitchen that the passionate eyes of her
mind strayed and stayed. For Dixon would be in the kitchen.
She saw him as she had seen him often in the old days, when the tie of
a distant relationship through her mother had brought her to Dockerneuk
for many a long week; saw him in his deep wooden chair by the steel
fender, his dog’s head against his knee, as they listened together to
the little hymn played by his sister’s child. The door would be open
between the rooms, she knew. Dixon loved both children and music.
He would be sitting very still in his big chair, with that curious,
almost fateful stillness of the men bred in the Dales. His tall,
slow-moving figure would be bent a little, his square, quiet hand
laid along the smooth wood of the chair-arm, his tranquil face turned
towards the fire.
It would be such a good fire, too--Slinker’s wife, through Christian’s
warm coat, felt the cold strike her like a knife--a great, roaring,
glowing, gladsome fire, filling full the big mouth of the chimney, and
flinging splashes of brightness over the half-shadowed room. There
would be holly, too, perhaps, and a bunch of mistletoe over the outer
door. Dixon had once wanted to kiss her under a bunch of mistletoe.
He had held her hands and looked at her with grave eyes, but he would
not kiss her in jest. Slinker’s wife, laying her head against the icy
stone, knew that the mistletoe might have saved her. But Dixon had not
known that you may win or lose the whole world with a kiss, or perhaps
he had known it too well, and not dared the risk.
The piano stopped suddenly, and the parlour went dark, so that she knew
the door into the kitchen had shut. The child was going to bed. Dixon
would stoop his tall head to bid her good-night, and presently her feet
would patter on the polished, carpetless stair. His old mother would
be waiting to settle her warm and safe for the night, and to steal in
later with sweeties for her little stocking. Soon he would go upstairs
himself, and the lights in Dockerneuk would slide out silently, and
when the moon sank the dark would swallow it up as if it had never
been. Slinker’s wife hid her face against the stoup and cried aloud,
and one of the fine-eared dogs in the stable heard her, and barked
quick and deep. The kitchen door opened instantly in response, and
Dixon came out into the porch.
He did not need his dog’s repeated signal, for he could see her figure
plainly enough under the moon, but some instinct kept him from speaking
until he was near enough to discern her face. She stayed quiet, leaning
against the stone, and they looked into each other’s eyes.
“It’s sharp to-night,” he said gravely, and saluted her with a raised
finger. The tiny action put the whole world between them. “Were you
wanting anything of me, Mrs. Lyndesay of Crump?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. I--it’s Christmas Eve. I just--walked
up.” She gathered her courage and looked up at him again. “Can I come
in?” she begged. “I want to come in--oh, please--let me come in!”
But Dixon shook his head.
“Crump’s your place. You chose Crump. You’d a right to choose for
yourself--I’m not denying that. But it’s done, and you must bide by it.
You’ve finished with Dockerneuk for ever.”
“No, no! Oh, no, no----!” she stammered, suddenly broken-hearted like a
child wrenched from a happiness just within its grasp. She put out her
hands, the quick tears running down her face. “Anthony--I’ve come back.
Why did you ever let me go? Anthony, take me in!”
And again he shook his head.
“You chose Crump!” he repeated doggedly. “All the wishing in the world
won’t change it. You’re Crump, now, and Crump you must bide till you
die.” He moved forward. “They’ll be missing you at the Hall. I’ll set
you back.”
But she caught his arm, brave through her confidence in the man’s fine
nature and his faithful love.
“Ah, don’t turn me away! It’s my home for all you may say--mine as
well as yours. I belong to you and to Dockerneuk, though I never knew
it until it was too late. You’ll take me back, Anthony--you’ll take me
back?”
He gathered her cold hands into his warm ones.
“I’ve thought the world of you always,” he said. “Your place was ready
for you ever after I had once set eyes on you. I could scarce bring
myself to bolt the door of a night because it seemed to shut you out,
and yet the house had you in every corner. I used to sit of an evening,
and think I heard you laugh--you were so close. And in the morning,
when I came in from the shippons, I’d look to see your face at the
window. But when you married Lyndesay, you shut the door yourself,
and I never saw your shadow in the old place again. You went into a
different world, and I couldn’t follow you. You’re Crump now, and
you’ll never be Dockerneuk no more. You’ve learned quality’s ways such
as I never learned--fine talk and fine manners, dinners, carriages and
footmen. What-like would farm-life seem to you, _now_? You’ve had a
gentleman to your husband--a liar and a wastrel, happen, but a Lyndesay
and quality for all that. Dixon of Dockerneuk’s not quality, and you’d
remember it--ay, and I’d know you remembered! It would be hell for both
of us. If once you’re quit of your own folk, there’s never any getting
back in this world, for it’s you that changes, no matter how you may
think things look the same. There’s no help--no way out. You left me
and Dockerneuk behind you, and all the longing in the world won’t ever
bring you home.”
She tightened her clasp on his, and spoke steadily for the first time.
“There’s no change can harm love,” she said. “I didn’t know when I
married Stanley, but I knew soon after. I knew that you were the best
thing in my life--ah, no!--that you were the whole of it! I married
Stanley for Crump, right enough, but when once I saw clear, I never
raised a finger to take it. I knew where my real place should have
been, by then, and I wouldn’t come. I came when he was dead, because,
when once I was free, I couldn’t stop away from you and never see
you; just as I’ll stay, Anthony, till you take me in, if I’ve to come
begging like a tramp every night to ask it!”
“I can’t believe it!” Dixon’s voice was harsh and troubled. “It’s not
likely you’ll ever stoop to me, now. Think what folk’ll say--Dockerneuk
after Crump! You’ve got to make me sure it’s right before I’ll take the
risk for you. I’ll not snatch at what I want, and be hated for it all
my days. I couldn’t bide that--to see you eating out your heart for
things I couldn’t give you. You’re Mrs. Lyndesay’s darling, nowadays,
they say. She’ll find another Lyndesay for you, likely, or some other
of the quality.” The first touch of bitterness crept into his voice. “I
can’t think you’d ever be happy with me. ’Tisn’t in reason. You’ve got
to prove it.”
“How can I prove it better than by being here to-night?” she asked
piteously. “Did you ever know Nettie Stone go on her knees before?”
“It’s not enough,” he answered, loosing her hands, and a cloud went
over the moon. “It’s not enough! To-night’s to-night, but there’s half
a lifetime to think other in. Only prove it, and you’ll find every
stone of Dockerneuk calling for you, but till then we must go our
different ways, and bide it as we may.”
They descended the avenue in silence, to meet Christian speeding
anxiously up it. His face lightened when he saw Dixon, though he made
no comment, only gave him a Christmas greeting, and pressed Crump
hospitality upon him. But Dixon refused obstinately.
“Thank you kindly, sir, but I’d best be getting back. I left the door
open, and my old mother’ll likely get feared. _He_ never asked me, Mr.
Christian, and he’s been dead such a short while. I can’t rightly feel
that he isn’t still there.”
“You’ve infected him, Nettie!” Christian said, as lightly as he could,
when Dixon had vanished among the trees. “You’ve told him all the
things you thought you saw, and all the other things you thought you
felt.”
“I told him nothing,” she answered bitterly, “but I’m not surprised. He
felt the chain at my heel. If you put your life into the hands of a man
like Slinker, you’ll never quite escape him after, alive or dead!”
In the hall she slipped out of his coat, and he brought her a steaming
glass; and as she took it from him, over the snow-smooth park the bells
began to ring. Christian opened the door, and let the joy of them flood
the sombre hall. The clock struck in the dimness under the stair, and
at the foot of the steps the fiddler broke into his thin, wailing hymn,
and the shouter cried them their Christmas mirth. Mrs. Slinker laid
her hand lightly on Christian’s shoulder, and kissed him.
“A Merry Christmas to you, Laker, my dear!” she said, with a thrill in
her voice and a kindly look. “Here’s luck to Lakin’ Lyndesay!” and she
lifted her glass and drank. Then she raised it again, turning south to
Dockerneuk. “And here’s the right home to every soul, and to all the
lost dogs a-seeking!”