AFTER THE HOLIDAY
Chance is half-sister to destiny, and though her patterns appear less
orbicular and complete, yet seen in the fulness of their weaving,
from a standpoint sufficiently detached, they are often as inexorable
and consummate. As Jeremy built designs with his apples and oranges;
as Jacob built the ideal Bullstone terrier, working year after year
with canine flesh and blood to attain the ideal; so chance, operating
upon his temperament, defied its own slight name and wrought, with
personal intention as it seemed, rather than unconscious accident,
for a definite object. Chance appeared to exercise a malign
ingenuity in finding substance. It was as though an initial incident
had opened the eyes of Moira, weaver of destinies, and upon that
trivial circumstance, she had elected to build the edifice of Jacob's
life, choosing only one fatal material for the fabric, to the
exclusion of others that might as reasonably have been selected.
The new year began; then, after a pause, wherein progress proceeded
so slowly that Bullstone was not aware of movement, a quickening
period followed. Thus he had always advanced--by jolts and thrusts
forward--never smoothly. But remission did not blunt the raw edges
of incomplete work; they were always ready to receive the next
addition, when reinforcement came to the ghostly builders.
With another summer, Margery's annual holiday to Plymouth returned.
It was Auna's year to accompany her mother, and when both were gone
to Mr. Lawrence Pulleyblank, Jacob speculated as to whether his wife,
or his youngest child left the larger gap in his life. He examined
the problem and decided that no comparison could be instituted, since
each represented a different plane of existence and a different field
of emotional interest. But though unable to pursue the problem
through any rational argument, to solve it was easy enough. His own
soul told him that he missed Auna more than her mother; because Auna
was far nearer what Margery had been when first he loved her, but
could be no longer. Bullstone shared the usual rooted conviction of
the married, that their partners have mightily altered during the
years of united life. He assured himself that his own foundations
were exactly as of yore, and that still he stood for the same ideals
and purposes. It was Margery who had changed; Margery who had been
blown away from the old anchorage in his heart and now sailed other
seas. But in Auna he believed that he saw again exactly what his
wife had been; in Auna he perceived growing all that had made him
fall in love with Margery. Thus now he lived the more happily in her
companionship. She was close to him and she loved him with devotion;
but his wife did not. She had gone afield. He knew not how far off
she had really wandered, but believed that the gap between them
continued to lengthen as the years passed; that her outlines grew
dimmer; that less and less she shared his days, more and more pursued
her own, where he possessed neither will nor power to follow. And
she had reached to a similar opinion concerning him.
Margery and Auna had been away a week, and Auna had already sent her
father two letters full of her adventures. Then Jacob happened to be
with Barton Gill, who was now reduced to milking the goats and doing
other tasks within his waning activity. For the present Avis, free
of school and not desirous to learn more that school could teach her,
was exalted to kennel-maid, a part she filled with enthusiasm.
Gill was grumbling as usual and expressing revolutionary doubts
concerning goats' milk for puppies. Peter had already dared to
question its supreme value and Barton, who thought highly of Peter's
knowledge and personally disliked the flock, began to wonder if the
later wisdom might not discover a substitute. Jacob, however, would
not hear of any change.
"Time you stopped altogether and took your ease, Barton, if you're
going to put Peter's opinions higher than your own experience," he
said. "Goats' milk was the first and best food for puppies long
before my boy, Peter, came into the world; and it will continue to be
long after he goes out of it, theories or no theories. The modern
idea is to get the old, fine results all round, with half the old,
hard work; and, such a fool is man, that he believes it can be done."
Then came Sammy Winter along the river path beside the kennels. He
peered in, tried the iron door and finding it locked, shouted to
Jacob, who stood within the yard. At his noise a dozen dogs barked
and Bullstone admitted him.
"Evening, Samuel. And how is it with you?" he asked. "Haven't seen
you this longful time."
"I be very nicely indeed," answered Sammy, "but our sheep-dog ban't;
and I should be most thankful if you would come over, or else Gill,
and look at his paw. He's drove something into it--a hob-nail I dare
say; but he won't let me look, and he yowls and shows his teeth if I
offer for to touch him."
Gill laughed.
"Fancy that now, Sammy--you, so bold as a hero with 'Turk,' as nobody
dursn't handle but you, and yet feared of a little thing like a
sheep-dog. I never would have believed it."
"You shut your head," answered the other. "You don't know nothing
better'n to milk goats. The dog's a devil-dog; and I'd have shot him
long ago if I'd had my way. But he's a terrible useful dog and if
anything was to overtake him such as death he'd be a cruel loss. And
if you dare to say I be frightened, Barton Gill, I'll be revenged
against you some of these days."
Samuel was easily moved and could never stand the mildest jest
against himself, or his brother. He glowered at Gill and his jaw
worked.
"Don't cry about it," said Jacob kindly. "We've all got our likes
and dislikes, Samuel. I wouldn't handle bees for the world, yet you
can go among them and take the honey, brave as a bear. We're all
frighted at some thing--if it's only our poor selves."
"'Tis a devil-dog, I tell you," repeated Sammy, "and 'Turk' hates him
as much as me."
"Well I don't fear him. But can't Adam tackle him?"
"Yes he can. Adam's got the whip-hand of him, I grant. But Adam
ain't there. He's gone away."
"Gone away--where?" asked Bullstone. "It isn't often your brother
takes a holiday." A proleptic throb went through him. He felt that
he knew Samuel's answer before he made it. And he was right.
"To Plymouth, after calves. Some proper calves he've bought off a
man; and he's bringing 'em home by rail on Tuesday; and if I ban't at
the station with this damned dog, I don't rightly know what might
happen."
Bullstone was silent for a few moments, then he returned to the
present.
"Come on," he said abruptly, and going to a little chamber at the
kennels, collected a pair of gloves, one or two instruments and a
bottle of healing lotion. These he put into his pocket and set off
to Shipley Farm beside Samuel.
He asked concerning Adam's purchase of calves, but the other only
knew that they would arrive early the following week and must be met.
The patient--a great, high-sterned English sheep-dog, with touzled
head and bright eyes, one of which was blue, the other green--showed
no temper to Bullstone, but he harboured private grudges against
Samuel, who had been cruel to him in secret, and he probably
associated his present misery with the enemy. Jacob extracted a
large splinter of wood from his paw and dressed the wound, while the
bob-tailed dog expressed nothing but well-mannered gratitude and
licked his face.
"He'll be all right in twenty-four hours, Samuel. Shut him up till
noon to-morrow, so as he can't get running in the muck, and give him
an extra good supper," advised Bullstone. Amelia, who had witnessed
the operation, thanked her neighbour.
"And Adam will be properly grateful, I'm sure, when he hears tell of
it. A very friendly thing, and I never thought as you would come
yourself."
"Your nephew's at Plymouth--eh? My wife and Auna are down there with
Mr. Pulleyblank," explained Jacob.
"To be sure. And I hope the sea air will do Margery good. She've
looked a thought pinnickin and weary to my eye of late. Too thin,
Jacob."
"She always enjoys the change. I might go down for a day or so,
perhaps, and fetch her back."
"A very clever thought," declared Amelia; "and I've asked Adam to
bide there a few days, for he never takes a holiday and it will do
him good and rest him. So I hope he will bide."
Bullstone weighed every word of this conversation as he walked home,
and he lay awake till the dawn, oppressed--now striving to see
nothing in it, now confronted with visions that worked him into a
sweat of doubt and dismay. He determined to go to Plymouth. He laid
his plans. Then he banished the thought and decided against any such
step. Auna had not mentioned Adam Winter in her letters. He rose,
lighted a candle, descended and read them again, to be sure. They
cast him down immeasurably, because they mentioned that Auna had been
on the sea for a long day with her great-uncle; but her mother had
not gone. Margery did not like the sea. She had been free--planned
to be free--of Auna and her uncle--for many hours. And Winter was in
Plymouth.
He returned to his bed and suffered a flood of desolate thoughts to
flow through his mind, till barn cocks were crowing against each
other in the grey of dawn. He got up, threw open his window and saw
stars still hanging over Shipley Tor. Then he returned to his bed
again, and worn out, slept at last. It wanted but five minutes to
the breakfast hour when he awoke, then dressed hurriedly and
descended unshaved to his children.
He was very taciturn; but they did not notice that he kept a heavier
silence than usual and chattered among themselves.
"'Red Beauty's' got her puppies, father," said Avis. "Four."
"Good--good," he answered.
John Henry was going to Bullstone Farm for the day and meant to spend
some time with Bob Elvin at Owley also.
"Mother thought that when I went, I might take one of the ox tongues
she cured, for Mr. Elvin, because he can't let down his food very
well nowadays," said John Henry.
"An excellent notion," answered his father. "Be sure you remember
it."
"And ask Bob if he's coming Sunday," said Avis.
John Henry laughed knowingly.
"No need to ask, I reckon. I'll tell him you've got a new hat, with
a jay's feather in it. He couldn't shoot a jay for you, but I did."
"I'll lay he'll shoot a jay when he's got time," answered Avis.
"'Got time,'" sneered John Henry. "If I was after a maiden, I'd make
time to shoot an elephant, if she wanted one."
They chattered and Avis was well pleased. Their talk drifted past
Jacob where he sat. They did not notice that he ate no breakfast.
Time dragged dreadfully for the man and a letter from his wife did
not shorten it. He half hoped that she would mention Winter; but
Margery made no allusion to the farmer; and Bullstone knew that if
she had mentioned him, he must still have read evil into the fact.
He told himself that. Margery could not have met with Winter by an
accident in a place so large as Plymouth. If she had met him, it was
by design. He made himself believe that they had not met. But he
intended to be sure, though he would not ask her. Margery's letter
was frank enough and her time appeared to be fully engaged. She was
feeling better and stronger. She sent directions for home and wrote
of things to be told to the servant, to Avis and the boys. Auna was
enjoying herself and loved to be on the sea.
Adam Winter would be coming back on Tuesday, according to Samuel;
therefore Jacob invented a message for him and sent Peter to deliver
it. But he returned to say that Mr. Winter had not come home. The
calves duly arrived and were safe at Shipley; but Adam delayed for a
few days, to make a longer holiday, as Miss Winter had suggested.
Bullstone battled in secret and came to a bitter conclusion. It was
exceedingly unlikely that such a man as the master of Shipley would
dawdle by the sea for his health's sake. Some far greater and more
pressing reason kept him from home. Jacob raged over this, departed
from himself and determined upon an action entirely foreign to his
genius. He resolved to see Winter and challenge him. He planned to
confront the man and woman when they returned and judge them out of
their own mouths. But he knew, even while he designed such drastic
deeds, that they would never happen.
Winter returned some days sooner than Margery was due to do so. She
had, indeed, written a second letter to Jacob, asking if he would let
her extend her holiday for three days at the entreaty of her uncle,
who made a great favour of it. She apologised for the delay, but
knew he would not mind. He raised no objection, and avoided Adam
Winter, desiring now that he should first find whether Margery made
any mention of him when she came home.
He drove to Brent and met his wife and daughter at the appointed
time; and he found Margery well and in unusually cheerful spirits.
Like every woman whose existence is subject to the tyranny of the
passing hour, her nervous energy and temper had both gained tone from
rest. But she declared herself as beyond measure delighted to be
home again. Auna, too, was much more talkative than usual. She had
brought her father and brothers and sister presents from Plymouth,
and again and again declared her delight at the sea. Twice she had
been upon it and seen a trawl shot and fish caught. But neither she
nor her mother had anything to say of Adam Winter, and, after
fighting with himself not to do so, Jacob took opportunity to
question Auna when her mother was not present. It argued a new
attitude and he suffered before sinking to it. Indeed for some time
he resisted the temptation; but the thirsty desire to discover things
possibly hidden conquered pride. He convinced himself that he must
leave no channel unexplored and face every painful need to attain
reality; while in truth he lived in a world of increasing unreality
and his values steadily began to have less correspondence with fact.
Auna caused a passing revulsion, and his heart smote him before her
ingenuous replies to the questions that he put. He asked for no
direct revelation, but came to the matter sidelong and sought to know
what his wife did for entertainment on the days that Auna went to
sea. The child was apparently familiar with all that Margery had
done on shore while they were separated; but the circumstantial
account of her mother's doings, evidently related to Auna on her
return, awoke new suspicions. For why should Margery have been at
pains to tell the child so much and relate her doings so fully? Auna
had not seen or heard of Mr. Winter. Jacob mentioned the fact that
their neighbour was in Plymouth at the same time as the child and her
mother; but he did not follow the statement with any direct question.
He mentioned the coincidence as of no importance, and when Auna
declared that she had not known it, added casually, "Mother did not
see him, then?"
"I'm sure she'd have told great-uncle if she had," answered the
child, "because he's so good to everybody, and great-uncle would very
like have given Mr. Winter a treat and let him go trawling."
Whereupon Jacob, stricken to passing self-contempt, made one of his
great, periodic efforts to believe that all was well with his life.
Margery had come home stronger and more cheerful than he had seen her
for some time. She was full of activity, and she found her home very
sufficient for present happiness and interest. She seemed a closer
and more understanding friend than usual to her husband, and he
argued with himself and strove to build hopeful resolutions upon her
good-will. But to attempt such a position now, or regain peace, even
for a brief interval, though it entailed immense concentration on
Jacob's part, was in reality impossible, for the man had reached a
main attitude from which no final retirement was likely until the
actual truth should be attained--either to support and vindicate him,
or confound him for ever. He struggled to some vague standpoint of
hope for a little while. It served him but two days, then perished
before a meeting with Adam Winter.
Adam saw Jacob pass his gate on the way to Brent and hastened to stop
him before he went out of earshot. He flung down his fork, for he
was digging potatoes, and joined his neighbour. Winter's object was
only to thank Jacob for tending his sheep-dog; and when he had done
so, he spoke of an incident from the immediate past as though it had
no significance whatever.
"Funny how small the world is," he said. "To think that two such
stop-at-homes as your wife and me should actually meet in a great
place like Plymouth!"
Jacob seemed to forget that Adam was part of the tale himself. For a
strange moment he looked through him merely as the teller--as a
machine narrating fearful facts and not implicated in them. His mind
thrust Winter and Margery back to Plymouth. He was alert, strung to
acute tension. He pretended.
"Odd you should meet sure enough," he said, and felt the perspiration
break on his forehead.
"Yes, faith, I saw her looking in a shop window in George Street.
'Hullo, Mrs. Bullstone, nothing ever happens but the unexpected!'" I
said, "and she jumped around. Two poor strangers in a strange
country we were, and glad to meet according. We drank a cup of tea
together. But you'll have heard all this."
"Yes--yes--she told me all about it. I must get on now--I must get
on now, Winter."
He hurried away and Adam, disappointed of a talk, looked after him in
some surprise. He had not the faintest notion that Jacob was
distressed at the matter of their few words, yet could not fail to
see perturbation. This appeared still more apparent five minutes
later, for then the farmer marked his neighbour walking back to Red
House. He had evidently changed his mind about Brent and was now
returning home.
In truth a great storm had raged in Jacob after leaving Shipley and
he was tossed to confusion among frantic thoughts. He could not
understand; he read guile into everything that concerned his wife.
He assured himself that, as soon as his back was turned, Adam would
go up the valley to speak with Margery. He felt certain Adam had
read him, and was not deluded into thinking that he had really known
these facts. Adam would doubtless perceive he had made a mistake to
mention his meeting with Margery at all; and he would then hurry off
to warn Margery. Inspired by this suspicion and feeling it vital
that he should see Margery before she learned of Winter's
conversation and admission, he turned back and made haste to
anticipate the farmer.
But Adam was still working in his garden. Jacob guessed that he
might meet Margery coming from Red House to see the other man; for
she knew that he had gone to Brent. Jacob told himself that it would
be wiser in future to keep his movements a secret. But, after all,
Margery was not upon the way, and she expressed genuine astonishment
when he appeared.
"Forgotten something?" she asked.
"I don't forget," he answered. "It's for others to forget. But I
remembered certain facts, and they saved my journey. I turned just
beyond Shipley Bridge."
He made no mention of Adam Winter, but changed his mind again, said
nothing and took occasion to keep at home until Margery had next met
Adam herself. This happened within a week, when she went to Shipley
Farm to see Amelia. Her manner was pensive after she returned, and
Jacob expected that he would now have some story from her. He knew
that she had met Winter and doubtless learned from him how the thing
she had chosen to conceal was out. For his own reasons apparently
Adam had chosen to record the meeting, while Margery had not. But
why had Winter mentioned the incident at all? How much easier to
have said nothing. His wife's manner changed after her visit to
Shipley Farm, and on the evening afterwards, she asked Jacob to walk
with her up the valley in the idle, sunset hour.
Instantly he guessed what she was going to say, and a great regret
flashed through him that he had not himself challenged her, after
seeing Adam Winter. Then her version of the meeting might have
possibly differed from the farmer's and helped him towards the truth;
now that they had spoken together, no doubt she would have heard what
he had said and echo his version.
Jacob decided to hear, yet believed that he knew what he would hear.
Above the kennels, Auna River wound through a deep place, where the
moor descended to her margins and only a fisherman's path ran through
the brake fern. Between steep and verdant banks the waters came, and
upon the hills round about flashed gems of golden green, where
springs broke out of the granite and fell from mossy cradles to the
valley. Here and there the water-side opened on green spaces cropped
close by the rabbits, and at intervals a little beach of pebble and
sand extended by the shallows of the stream. Now the river spread
her arms to make an islet, where grey sallows grew and the woodrush;
and sometimes she narrowed to a glimmering cleft, then by a waterfall
leapt forward again into the light. A warm evening glow lay upon the
eastern hill and each isolated stone, or tree, burnt with sunset
brightness; but the valley was in shadow, very cool after the heat of
a late August day.
"I always love this place and this time," said Margery. "It's full
of memories--precious ones to me."
"I thought you were like Billy Marydrew and never looked back," he
answered.
"You must look back, to save heartbreak, if the past is happier than
the present. To remember pure happiness--that's something."
"It only makes the present worse than it need be. To know what life
might be and feel what it is--that's the bitter spring where half the
discontent in the world rises from."
"And the jealousy and mistrust and bad will too, I dare say. Look
here, Jacob, I'm cruel sorry about Adam Winter. I'm sorry for
myself, and sorrier for him."
"But not for me?"
"Yes, for you, because you're such an infant still--groping and blind
for all your wisdom--and no more able to read character than a child.
I met Adam Winter in Plymouth. I was alone. Auna had gone to sea
with Uncle Lawrence and I'd been to the Guildhall, where there was a
great concert. But I came out before the end, because I was tired of
it, and looking in a shop window Adam found me. We went and had tea
together. And then he told me his aunt had begged him to stop a few
days more, so we fixed to meet again, and we did do, when Auna was to
sea again. And once more we had tea in a big shop in the midst of
the town."
"But you never breathed a word of this until you found that Winter
had told me about it."
"I did not, because I feared it might vex you."
"Vex me! Is that all? A pretty small word."
"Surely large enough for such a small thing. It couldn't, at worst,
do more than vex you to know I'd met a good neighbour and drank tea
with him."
"I'd give my immortal soul to look in your heart," he answered.
"It's always open for you, if you'd believe your eyes."
For a moment he did not speak. Then he asked a question:
"And why did you do what you knew would vex me?"
"I did it because I wanted to do it, being sure no honest reason
existed against. I set no store by it and never thought of it again.
If I'd thought of it, I might have asked Mr. Winter not to mention
the matter; but--no, that's not true neither. I certainly should
never have dreamed of asking him that."
"Why?"
"Good Lord! Can't you see? What would it have made you look like.
I'm proud for you as well as myself. I know you wouldn't have liked
me to drink tea with him; but how could I tell him that? He would
have wanted to know why you didn't--and then--for that matter I don't
know why myself. I only knew in an unconscious sort of way,
remembering silly things in the past, that you wouldn't have liked
it."
A hundred questions leapt to Jacob's lips; but he did not put them.
She was, he thought, guiding the conversation away from the actual
event. She had told him what she had arranged with Winter to tell
him and no more; and that done, now wanted to leave the subject,
saddle him with folly, call him a child, and so come out as the
aggrieved party. But this he would not suffer.
"Did you know Winter was going to Plymouth?" he asked.
"I did not. He only decided to go after I left."
"But he knew you were there?"
"Yes; but he was just as surprised as I that we met."
"So you say."
Then she flamed and turned upon him, in such anger as he had never
seen from her before.
"What are you doing? What are you trying to do? D'you want to smash
up your home? D'you want me away? If my record these seventeen
years is that of a woman you can't trust out of your sight, then say
so and I shall know what to do. But think--think for God's sake
first, and use your wits, and get your mind clear of all this
beastliness. Try and look at life from my point of view, for a
change, if you can. I'm many years younger than you and I married
you for pure love, well knowing that I'd have to give up a few
things--nothing compared with the joy of wedding with you--but little
knowing how many things I'd have to give up. I've lived here--and
never hungered for the pleasures--the fun and stir--that meant so
much to me; I've let much that would have made my life fuller and
happier go without a sigh, because I had what was better; and
now--now, in sight of middle age--this. And I'll not endure it,
Jacob. Much I'd endure--anything--everything in justice and reason
but this is out of reason. It's a needless thorn--a scourge for an
innocent back. You wish you could look in my heart. I wish to God
you could; and you'd see what would shame you--shame you. D'you know
what stock I am, if you don't know what I am myself? And I tell you
this: I've been a good, faithful mother to your children and a good,
faithful wife to you. That all the world knows, and if I was to
start and whine about being kept like a broody hen under a coop,
there's many would sympathise with me and blame you; but if you were
to whisper in any ear on earth that I was not all I ought to be, the
people would call you a moon-struck liar--and that's what you would
be."
"I don't shout my troubles, Margery."
"No; because you well know what they'd sound like if you did.
Instead you breathe the bad air of 'em, and let 'em foul and sicken
you. They only look out of your eyes when I look into them. You
take cruel, good care to hide them from everybody else--and so do
I--for common decency. Why d'you hide them? Tell me that. And I
tell you I won't much longer hide them--I swear I won't. If you
think evil of me, then let it out. Point your finger at me before
the people and hear what they'll say about it. I've lived your life
without a murmur, but if so to do, and sink myself in you as I have
done, is to win no better reward than---- There, we'd best to leave
it before I say what could never be unsaid."
He did not immediately answer. He was impressed--for a moment
relieved. Her indignation rang true. He felt disposed to express
sorrow and even promise practical proofs of his regret at causing her
such suffering; but he considered deeply first. He had to convince
himself that these words were sincere and not merely uttered by a
woman acting cleverly to hide her cherished secrets. They sounded as
though from her heart: she had never spoken with such passion; but
such a clever woman might be quite capable of pretending, if she
thought it wise. He wanted to believe her; for if he could do so, it
would lift his immense agony off his shoulders at one gesture and
lighten the load of the past as well as promise some brighter hope in
the present. He perceived that, if he could believe her, the
situation was saved, for he would have no difficulty in thinking of a
thousand things to prove the sincerity of his own regret and the size
of his own amendment. He would not be ashamed to confess his errors
to Margery, if she could convince him that they were errors.
They walked silently side by side for a few hundred yards and she
waited for him to speak. She grew calmer and realised the quality of
her tremendous counter-attack. She had never stripped him bare to
himself in this fashion; but she did not regret a word. She was
hating him heartily while she spoke. Only his tyranny and her long
endurance held her thoughts. Apart from his own troubles, which she
scorned as the folly of a lunatic, she was glad that opportunity had
offered to remind him of hers. He had outraged her, and no word that
she could speak was too hard for him. So she still felt.
Her temper rose again at his continued silence.
"Things are at a climax now," she said, "and I won't have no more
doubt and darkness between us. It's wrong and sordid and mean and
hateful. You've got to say you're sorry, Jacob--you've got to tell
me straight out, in plain words, that you're sorry for what you've
thought against me, for God knows how long. You've got to do it, and
you've got to show me you mean it. Either that, or I'll leave you.
I'll go and live my own clean life and not share yours another week."
"That's quite true, Margery. There's no third course."
"Decide then; decide, decide this instant moment if you call yourself
a man. Why should I breathe the same air as you and suffer what I'm
suffering now while you make up your mind? Why should you have to
make up your mind? What devil's got in you to make you doubt a woman
like me? Or do you doubt all women? If you do, you're mad and ought
to be locked up. When I think of it, I wish to Christ this river had
drowned me into peace afore ever I gave myself to you at all."
She flung herself on the ground and wept; her anger expired. She was
only bitterly conscious of dishonour and degradation. Not built to
suffer very deeply, or very long, suffering, when it did come, broke
like a hurricane over Margery and beat her down before its onset.
But she had a spirit to spring up again, a spirit avid for such hope
and happiness as might be within reach. It was a spirit as innocent
as a child's, and her pleasures were such that any child might have
shared them with her.
Jacob Bullstone slowly expressed contrition. He imagined that he
believed her; and the conviction plunged through his soul, sweeping
bare the rocks and channels. It was real and did a temporary,
cathartic work; but while it cleansed the stuff he was made of, it
could not alter the stuff. By an effort of will be abased himself.
He knelt down beside her and prayed for forgiveness. He poured scorn
upon himself and talked until, knowing that much speech was foreign
to him, Margery began to be fearful of this phenomenon and her tears
dried. She bade him cease at last; but he persisted and showed
himself a new man in her eyes--a strange man, whom she presently
began to pity. She knew that Jacob would never be the same to her
again; but she did not know whether he would stand ultimately higher,
or lower, as a result of what had happened between them. She was
weary and unspeakably sorrowful, for her heart could not be hard and
her natural sympathies were large. He seemed to roll back time and
even speak with the voice of the lover from the far past. He pleaded
for absolute forgiveness; he was very humble and he promised on his
oath to change from that hour.
"God helping," he said, "this is a day that shall see us nearer and
dearer to each other than ever we have been. And I ask you to
forgive, because I want you to do that before you see what I shall
do, Margery, and not afterwards. Bear with me if you can a bit
longer yet; trust the future till I show you what I'll make of it."
She was glad enough to accept all that he said and to express regret
for her own words.
"Let us forget for mercy's sake. Let us forget every syllable and go
on with our lives," she said.
"Forget never," he answered; "but go on with our lives we will.
Watch me."
She had it on her lips to add:
"And for Christ's sake, don't watch me;" but she did not endanger the
harmony now attained. She remembered how they had walked in this
place as lovers, and she put her hand in his. Thus they went back
silently together.