GEORDIE-AN'-JIM
I
The blackness stirred in the doorway and became human again, setting the
door to the jamb with a firm, decisive push. Sarah followed the dark
stone passage to the kitchen, moving with freedom on the ground she
knew. In the bare, silent room, that seemed at the same time barer and
yet more peopled because of the dusk, she took off her old mantle, her
shabby bonnet and her black thread gloves. She set a lighted candle on
the table in the middle of the room, and from the cupboard by the hearth
she took paper and wood, and kindled a pale, unhomely glow in the dusty,
ash-filled grate. In the outer darkness that was the scullery she
filled the kettle, and brought it to wait the reluctant patronage of the
fire. It was not yet night over the sands, but the candle was more than
sufficient to quench the fainting effort of the day. The only outside
light was the steady glow of the lamp, set in the face of the inn to
call its daughter home.
Still, however, the house seemed unaroused, and would remain so until
the master came in, because those who live much by themselves do not
hear the sound of their own feet. They seem to themselves to move like
ghosts through the rooms; it is only their thoughts that they hear about
the place. And there are no houses so quiet as those which spend half
their days hearkening to that eternal talker, the sea. The other half
of their lives is still as the sands are still, sharing that same
impression of quittance for all time.
The kitchen, once perfectly kept, was already beginning to show signs of
Sarah's failing sight. There were holes in the cloth rug which she
unrolled before the fire, and slits in the patch-work cushions on the
rush-bottomed chairs. The pots in the half-empty pot-rail were all
askew, and the battered pewter and brass had ceased to put in its claim
to be silver and gold. There was an out-of-date almanack under the old
clock, and an ancient tide-table over the mantelshelf. But the real
tragedy of the place was not in its poverty but in its soul. Behind the
lack of material comfort there was a deeper penury still,--the lack of
hope and a forward outlook and a reason for going on. The place was
cold because the hearts of its tenants were growing cold.
The candle, as always, drove the impression of utter desolation home.
No other light produces that same effect of a helpless battle against
the dark. No other is so surely a symbol of the defiant human soul,
thinking it shines on the vast mysteries of space. No other shows so
clearly the fear of the soul that yet calls its fear by the name of
courage and stands straight, and in the midst of the sea of the dark
cries to all men to behold that courage and take heart.
All about that little challenge of light were the brooding obscurities
of sand and marsh, and, nearer yet, the looming enigma of the empty
house. At the back of the mind there was always the consciousness of
unlit rooms, of echoing passages, and climbing, creaking stairs. Always
at night there is that mystery of terror in a half-used house, pressing
on those who crouch in some charmed corner of its walls.
Sarah was different, somehow, now that she was at home, and free of the
outdoor-clothes which she had worn all day. It was as if bonnet and
mantle were the armour of her class, in which she was ready to face the
offensive of the world. Without it she was more primitive and more
human, relaxed in muscles and nerves. Now one could guess at the
motherliness in her to which Jim had clung, unswervingly trusting in
spite of her dislike. Her grey hair had been slightly ruffled both by
the bonnet and the drive, and on her old neck it even curled a little,
showing itself still soft and fine.
She was tired with that terrible tiredness which sees the day behind
like a series of folding cardboard views. She seemed to have lived many
days in that single day, with never a moment between them to fit her for
the next. More than once, indeed, she had been ready to collapse, but
always the stimulus of some fresh event had set her going again. Now she
had reached the point when she was too tired to allow herself to be
tired, when body and mind, usually careful to save the next day's
strength, recklessly lay both hands upon their all.
Even at the last moment had come the sudden struggle with May, and the
zest of that strife still tingled in her veins. After that long day of
damaged pride it was pleasant to have asserted it in the end, to have
claimed the right to suffer rather than be forcibly blessed. All day
she had tasted in prospect the salt savour of another's bread, but here
was something that she could refuse. She was still too stiff with fight
to care that she had wounded a generous nature in the act. It was true
that she could not have borne the sight of a Geordie who would have
brought her fresh disgrace. The love that cares for the broken more
than the sound could not thrive while she feared the sneer of the idol
to whom she would not bow.
Beyond, in the dairy, there came the sound of metalled boots, and the
pails spoke musically on the flags as Simon set them down. She heard
him shuffling across to open the inner door, and then--"Milk's in,
missis!" he called to her, as his head came through.
There was a nervous sound in his voice, at which Sarah almost smiled,
knowing that his conscience must be ill at ease. She answered "Oh, ay,"
without turning, for she was busy with the fire, which, as if hating the
atmosphere into which it was born, was doing its best to escape from it
again.
"I'll see to the fire for you, missis," he said, crossing to her side.
"Set you down and be easy a bit. You're likely tired."
"Nay, I'll manage all right," she protested stolidly, and then suddenly
yielded to him, and moved away. She did not sit down, however, but
remained standing on the hearth, while he went on his knees to set the
bellows between the bars.
"May give me a fair start," he observed presently, when the flame had
consented to grow. "What was she after, coming off like that?"
"Nay, it was nowt much," Sarah said easily, in an indifferent tone. "It
was nobbut some daftness she'd got in her head, that's all."
"She mun ha' been rarely keen to come across so late. Was it summat or
other she wanted you to do?"
"Ay," Sarah said firmly, "but I couldn't see my way. I tellt her so
this morning when I see her in town."
"Summat about your eyes, likely?" he enquired nervously, blowing hard.
"Losh save us, no! It was nowt to do wi' that."
"Will was rarely put out when I tellt him what doctor had said," Simon
went on. "He was right sorry, he was, and real anxious to do what he
could."
"Ay, he's kind, is Will. He's a right good friend. But I won't take
owt I can help from him, all the same."
"Because o' yon woman of his?" Simon asked angrily, stumbling to his
feet. He threw a last glance at the fire, and saw that it seemed
resigned to its now evident fate. He was sorry for Sarah, and guiltily
conscious of his own relief, but the thought of Eliza whipped his mind
to rage. This was nothing new, though, either to man or wife, after the
usual meeting at the end of the week. However long they had held their
tongues from her name, it was suddenly out, and the air was vibrating at
once with the rising tremolo of their hate.
"Nay, then, what's yon besom to do wi' it, any way round? Will's
money's his own, I reckon, and he can do as he likes. Happen you'll
choose to see sense about it come Judgment Day, but not afore!"
"A farmer's wife addles half his brass,--we all know that. You can't
touch a man wi'out laying a finger on his folks."
"A deal Eliza's done for him," Simon scoffed, "barrin' giving him best
of her tongue! I'll be bound you'd never think twice about t'brass if
you and Eliza was friends. It's this spite as there is atween you as
sets you taking things amiss. Eliza would likely ha' been no worse than
most, if you hadn't made sure she was always wanting a slap!"
Sarah received these remarks with an ironic smile.
"Bosom friends we'd ha' been, d'ye think," she asked, "if I'd nobbut
seen my way to a bit more care?"
"Nay, well, I wouldn't be sure about that," he returned grandly, hedging
with ease. "But we'd all ha' done better, I'll take my oath, if you
hadn't been that smart to take offence."
"Happen I'd ha' done best to hold my tongue, when she was telling all
Witham we'd gitten notice to quit?"
"Nay, I don't know about that!" ... He was stamping about the floor. "A
bit o' tact wi' her, happen? ... nay, dang her, I don't know! ...
Leastways, you needn't ha' tellt her yon rubbish this afternoon," he
concluded, brought to a stand.
"You'd have had me set by and say nowt while she sneered at our lad?"
"Nay, then, I wouldn't,--dang her! ... I wouldn't, that's flat!"
"You'd have had me say nowt, neither, yon day we was wed,--give her a
kiss, happen, and praise her gown----?"
"Nay, then, I wouldn't, I tell you! Blast you! Nowt o' the sort!"
Simon was fairly shouting now. He thumped at the table in his rage. "I
wish to Gox I could ha' gitten my hands round her throat wi'out having
to swing!"
Sarah looked at his prancing shape with the same ironic smile.
"Nay, my lad, there's better ways than that wi' Eliza, by a deal. D'ye
think I haven't gitten a bit o' my own back, now and then? I've had my
knife in her deep,--ay, deep!--time and again. There's better ways wi'
Eliza than just twisting her neck. What, this very day I've made her
weep tears as she's never wept afore,--tears as near tears o' blood as
Eliza'll ever weep...." She stopped, recalling the scene in which
Nature had shone like a star in Eliza just for once.... "Nay, Simon,"
she went on quietly, "there's no sense in our getting mad. It's over
late to go preaching love atween Eliza and me. Men don't know what hate
can be between women when it's gitten hold. It's a thing best let
alone,--never mentioned,--let alone. It's a big thing, caged-like, as
was small once, and then comes full-grown. It's over late to go trying
to stroke it through the bars."
"I nobbut wanted to make the best o' things," Simon muttered, ashamed.
"The Lord knows I'd give my hand to put you top-dog of Eliza just for
once. But I'm not denying I'm terble thankful to ha' fixed things up.
I reckon I'll sleep to-night as I haven't for weeks. I'm right sorry,
though, if you're taking it hard."
"I'll take it right enough when it's here," Sarah said gently, turning
away. "I won't make no bother about it, don't you fret."
She picked up the kettle and set it on the fire, as if she meant to put
an end to the talk. Simon lingered, however, casting uneasy glances at
her face.
"I've a job in t'far shuppon to see to," he said at last, and lighted
the old lantern that swung against the wall.... "Yon's tide, surely?"
he added suddenly, as he took it down.... "Nay, it's over soon."
He lifted the lantern to look at the table above the shelf, but Sarah
shook her head.
"Yon's an old table, think on. It's no use looking there. Tide's six
o'clock, it you want to know."
He said, "Oh, ay. I'd clean forgot," and still stood on the hearth, as
if reluctant to go. Presently he spoke humbly, twisting the lantern in
his hand.
"It's real hard on you, Sarah, to come down like this. I don't know as
I like it myself, but it's worse for you. But we've been right kind wi'
each other all these years. You'll not think shame on me when I'm a
hired man?"
She turned back to him, then, trying to see his face, and it seemed to
him that she really saw him for the first time in many months. But, in
point of fact, it was the eyes of the mind that were looking at the eyes
of the mind.... And then, unexpectedly, he saw her smile.
"Nay, my lad," she said strongly, "you mun be wrong in t'garrets to
think that! If there's owt to think shame on it'll be stuff like yon.
You're the same lad to me as when we was wed, just as Eliza's the same
cruel, jibing lass. I reckon that's where the trouble lies, if it come
to that. Love and hate don't change, neither on 'em, all our lives.
D'you think I'd ha' kept my hate so warm if I hadn't ha' kept love?"
He nodded doubtfully in reply, and began slowly to edge away. But
before he had reached the threshold he paused again.
"Anyway, we've had the best on't!" he cried triumphantly, as if
inspired. "Eliza's had what looks most, but we've had the real things,
you and me!" And then, as she did not speak, the spirit died in him,
and his head drooped. "Ay, well, we mun do what we can," he finished
lamely. "We mun do what we can. 'Tisn't as if it'll be so long for
either on us, after all."
"Shall I see to t'milk for you?" he added diffidently, but was refused.
"Nay," Sarah said. "I can manage right well. I know they milk-pans
better than my face. I'd like to stick to my job as long as I can."
Simon said--"Ay, well, then, I'll be off!" and looked at the door; and
stared at the door, and said--"Ay, well, I'll be off!" again. He had an
uneasy feeling that he ought to stay, but there was that job in the far
shippon he wanted to do. He wandered uncertainly towards the outer
door, and then, almost as if the door had pushed him, stumbled into the
yard.
II
Sarah stood thinking after Simon had gone, following with ease the
troubled workings of his mind. The smile came back to her lips as she
recalled his obvious sense of guilt. Behind all his anger and chafing
humiliation it was easy to see his growing pleasure and relief. It was
more than likely, indeed, that he would be priding himself on his new
position before so long. Perhaps age, which has a merciful as well as a
cruel blindness of its own, might prevent him from ever realising where
he stood. She could picture him lording it over the gentler-natured
Will, and even coming in time to dominate the farm. It was only for her
that there would be no lording it,--and open sight. It was only on her
account that he was still ashamed.
It was cruel to grudge him the little solace he had left, but the thing
which eased the position for him would form a double cross for her.
Hitherto, they had stood together in their hatred of Blindbeck and its
female head, and in the very depth of their darkness still had each
other to soothe their shame. But now Simon's attitude was bound to
alter at least towards the farm. There would come a day when he would
turn upon her for some chance remark, and from that hour he would be
openly on Blindbeck's side. The new tie would make him forget those
bitter upheavals of jealous rage. Slowly the place would come between
them until she was left to hate alone.
For her, the change would simply deliver her, blind and bound, into
Eliza's hand. She could have laughed as she saw how the thing she had
fought against all her life had captured her at last. Even with Eliza
dead or gone, Blindbeck would still have stifled her as with
unbreathable air. Her spirit and Eliza's would have lived their battles
again, and even over a grave she would have suffered and struggled
afresh. But Eliza was neither dead nor mercifully removed, but was
already snuffing the battle-smoke from afar. The whole account of their
lives would come up in full, and be settled against the under-dog for
good. It was as whipping-boy to Eliza that she would go to the house by
Blindbeck gates.
At the present moment, however, she neither suffered nor rebelled.
Physically, she had reached the point at which the mind detaches itself
resolutely from further emotional strain. The flame of hate burnt
steadily but without effort, and with almost as pure a light as the
flame of love itself. Like all great passions, it lifted her out of
herself, lending her for the time being a still, majestic strength.
There is little to choose at the farthest point of all between the
exaltation of holiness and the pure ecstasy of hate. To the outside eye
they show the same shining serenity, almost the same air of smiling
peace. It is the strangest quality in the strange character of this
peculiarly self-destroying sin. Because of it she was able to go about
her evening tasks with ease, to speak gently to Simon in the little
scene which had just passed, and even to dwell on his methods with a
humorous smile upon her lips.
In the clarified state of her mind pictures rose sharply before her,
covering all the years, yet remaining aloof as pictures, and never
stirring her pulse. So clear they were that they might have been
splashed on the canvas that instant with a new-filled brush. They
sprang into being as a group springs under the white circle of a lamp,
as the scenes the alive and lit brain makes for itself on the dark
curtain of the night. The few journeys she had taken in life she
travelled over again,--rare visits to Lancashire and Yorkshire ...
Grasmere ... Brough Hill Fair. They had stayed in her mind because of
the slow means by which they were achieved, but they counted for very
little in the tale of things. It is not of these casual experiences
that the countryman thinks when the time comes for a steady reviewing of
his life, that intent, fascinated returning upon tracks which is the
soul's preparation for the next great change. They flit to and fro,
indeed, like exotic birds against a landscape with which they have
nothing to do, but it is the landscape itself which holds the eye, and
from which comes the great, silent magic that is called memory, and
mostly means youth. It is the little events of everyday life that
obsess a man at the last, the commonplace, circular come-and-go that
runs between the cradle and the grave. Not public health problems, or
new inventions, or even the upheavals of great wars, but marriage, birth
and death, the coming of strangers destined to be friends, the changing
of tenants in houses which mean so much more than they ever mean
themselves. Binding all is the rich thread of the seasons, with its
many-coloured strands; and, backing all, the increasing knowledge of
Nature and her ways, that revolving wheel of beauty growing ever more
complex and yet more clear, more splendid and yet more simple as the
pulses slow to a close.
She loved the plain, beautiful farming life that a man may take up in
his hand because it is all of a piece, and see the links of the chain
run even from end to end. Even now she could see the fair-haired child
she had been still running about her home, the child that we all of us
leave behind in our sacred place. She could hear the clatter of clogs
in her father's yard, and all about her the sound of voices which the
daisied earth had stopped. It was strange, when she came to think of
it, that she never heard her own. In all her memories of the child it
seemed to her lip-locked, listening and dumb. Perhaps it was because
she was shut in the child's brain that she could not hear it speak. She
could hear her mother's voice, light and a little sharp, and her
father's a deep rumble in a beard. Even in the swift pictures flashing
by her he looked slow, drifting with steady purpose from house to farm.
Because of his slowness he seemed to her more alive than his wife; there
was more time, somehow, to look at him as he passed. Her bustling,
energetic mother had become little more than a voice, while the
seldom-speaking man was a vital impression that remained.
Rising up between the shadows that blotted them out was a certain old
woolly sheep-dog and the red torch of the flowering currant beside the
door. There was also a nook in the curve of the garden wall, where,
under a young moon, she had seen the cattle coming across the fields,
sunk to their horns in a fairy-silver mist....
It was an open-air life that took her long miles to school, clogging on
frozen roads, through slanting rain or fighting against the wind.
School itself seemed patched in a rather meaningless fashion on that
life, much as the books in the parlour on the busy, unthinking house. A
life of constant and steadily increasing work, from errands of all
sorts, feeding the hens and fetching home the cows, to the heavier
labour of washing and baking, milking, helping with the stock.
Presently there had been the excitement of the first shy dance, and then
the gradual drawing towards marriage as the tide draws to the moon.
And all the time there had been Eliza making part of her life, from the
plump little girl whom people stopped to admire to the bold intruder at
the altar-rail. Looking back, she could see herself as a stiff and
grave-eyed child, grimly regarding the round-faced giggler from the
start. Even then she had always been the dumb man in the stocks, of
whom the street-urchin that was Eliza made mock as she danced and
played. Only once had she ever definitely got the better of her, and it
had had to last her all her life. Eliza had had many lovers, drawn by
the counterfeit kindliness which hid her callous soul, but when she had
chosen at last, it was Simon who was her choice. Perhaps the one gleam
of romance in Eliza's life had been when she looked at Simon ... and
Simon had looked away. Quite early he had fixed his affections on
Sarah, and during their long courtship he had never swerved. Plain,
business-like Sarah had drawn him after her as the moon draws the
willing tide....
She began to put away the things she had bought in Witham, stowing them
in a cupboard between the pot-rail and the door. During the morning she
had felt royally that she was buying half the town, but now she saw how
small her share of the marketing had been. There was a troubled feeling
at the back of her mind that something had been missed, and even though
she was sure of her purchases, she counted them again. Afterwards, she
stood muttering worriedly through the list ... tea, candles, a reel of
cotton ... and the rest. And then, suddenly, without any help from the
candles and cotton, she remembered what it was, and smiled at the
childish memory that would not stay asleep.
More than twenty years, she reminded herself,--and yet she still looked
for the fairing that Geordie had brought her on Martinmas Day! There
had scarcely been any special season,--Christmas, Whitsun, Easter or
Mid-Lent,--but he had remembered to mark it by some frolicsome gift. He
had always withheld it from her until the last, and then had stood by
her laughing while she unwrapped some foolish monkey on dancing wires.
All the time he was saying how splendid the fairing was going to
be,--"It's gold, mother, real gold,--as bright as the King's crown!"
And when she had opened it, she would pretend to be cast down, and then
put it snugly away and say it was "real grand!"
Jim had had his fairings for her, too, but she was trying her very
hardest not to remember those. Jim's had been prettier and more
thoughtful,--often of real use, but she had long since forgotten what
the things were like. A mug with her name on it, a handkerchief, a
brooch,--long ago broken or lost, or even given away. But every
ridiculous object of Geordie's was under lock and key, with even a bit
of camphor to keep the monkey from the moth....
She stood there smiling, softly folding her hands, as if she laid them
lightly over some sudden gift. On either side of her was a laughing
face, and even she found it hard to tell which was which. She was very
still as she made that perfect transition into the past, and the only
sound in her ears was through the lips that laughed. And then, into
that full stillness, in which no step moved or voice called or bird
flew, there came the cry of a heron outside the door.
III
It did not reach her at first. She heard it, indeed, coming back to the
present with the sound, but that Was all. The thing behind it had to
travel after her over twenty years. The cry of the heron was natural
enough, with a famous heronry so near, and it was only because of the
exceptional stillness of the night that it drew her attention now. Her
mind went mechanically to the high wood behind the Hall, to the
long-necked, slender-legged birds going home to the tall trees that on
this unstirred evening would be stiff as a witch's broom. She even had
time to remember the old legend of their battle with the rooks, before
the thing that had been running for twenty years entered her
consciousness with a rush.
She stiffened then. From being softly still she became a rigid thing,
stiller than sleep, stiller than death, because it was passionate
will-power that held her still. It was already a moment or two since
the sound had passed, but it still rang in the ear which had seemed to
refuse to take it in. It had flashed through her brain like a bright
sword flung in a high arc through a night without a star, but the truth
that was behind it she held rigidly from her even as it tried to step
within. She knew that it was too low for a bird's call, too sharp and
clear in that muffle of mist, but she shut the knowledge out. She would
not let herself either breathe or think until she had heard the sound
again.
The shock was as great the second time, but it had a different effect.
She began to tremble from head to foot; even her lips parted and shook;
her hands relaxed and began to pluck at her gown. Her breath came in
quick gasps that were almost sobs as her eyes strained towards the
darkness that held the door. Her brain kept telegraphing her body that
it must be still, but it was too strong for it, and paid no heed. Her
heart alone, beating in hard, ponderous strokes, seemed as if by itself
it must shut out any further sound; and when the call came the third
time, breaking the silence so that it could not close again, her own
power of restraint went by the board as well. Her hands lifted
themselves and gripped each other across her breast, and her voice,
shaken and full of tears, forced itself into her throat. "Jim!" she
heard herself saying, "Jim!"--with no knowledge that she had meant to
speak, and in that one word admitted the final defeat of all her life.
Then the knocking began, the terrible brazen knocking which soulless
iron makes on the unresponsive door of an empty house. It was as if
whoever knocked frightened himself by the knocking, and tried to beat
away his fear with still louder blows. But to the woman who tried to
pretend that the house was really empty it was more terrible still. It
seemed to take on the sound of a summons to the soul itself to issue
forth. The noise of it flooded the place, echoed its way upstairs and
into far rooms, so that strange voices answered it sharply from wood and
stone. The heavy, storm-tried walls were suddenly no more than paper,
so that the knocking became folly when a push would have forced them in.
It seemed to Sarah that they must hear it from end to end of the marsh,
across at the 'Ship,' and out to the hidden edge of sea. She wondered
why Simon did not come running, and the dog break into hoarse barks, for
even in the far shippon they must surely hear. But there was only that
great knocking in all the world, cheerful, impatient, or resigned by
turn. It paused at moments, but only as the passing-bell pauses, Sarah
thought, waiting to speak its single word afresh.
The noise had swept away in a moment both the false serenity of hate and
the almost falser calm of that dwelling memory of love. From the
respite, indeed, the live passion seemed to have sunk, as it were, on
its haunches for a fiercer leap. She could not think clearly or control
her limbs under the sudden impact of its spring. It seemed to fling
itself on her as she had seen the tides in the winter crash against the
wall. She, too, went under as if the water had beaten her down, and the
noise at the door became the blows of the waves and the roar of the
dragged beach.
She had that impulse to laughter which comes with long-expected woe, as
if the gods were guilty of bathos when they stooped at last to strike.
Scorn is the first sensation of those who seem to have watched the
springs of action long before the hour. Sudden sorrows, quick blows
have a majesty of their own, as if the gifts of the gods made for honour
in good or ill. But long-deferred trouble, like suspended joy, has a
meaner quality in fulfilment, and a subtle humiliation in its ache.
That when the gods come they come quickly is true for both libations
from the emptied cup. Royal sorrows, like royal joys, fall swift as
thunderbolts from heaven.
She had always known in her heart that there was no fighting Blindbeck
luck, that even the dregs of it were more potent than the best of the
Sandholes brand. It could hardly fail to reach even across the sea, so
that one of the failures would be less of a failure than the other in
the end. The trouble of being the under-dog too long is that even the
dog himself begins at last to think it his rightful place. For all her
dreaming and lying on Geordie's behalf, she would have found it hard to
believe in his ultimate success. Not for nothing had Eliza carefully
tended her Method all this while, and watered it weekly with the Simons'
tears.
At first she told herself that she would put out the light, and let the
knocker knock until he was tired. Perhaps he would open the door and
step inside, but the darkness would surely thrust him out again. He
might even go to the foot of the stairs and call, until the silence
itself put a hand upon his throat. But already the strain was more than
she could bear, and each blow as it came was a blow on her own heart.
She tried to move, but was afraid of the sound of her own feet, and it
was only under the cover of fresh knocking that she made the effort at
last. Now she was facing the door which she could not see, though she
knew its panels like the palm of her hand. Behind it, she felt the
knocking ring on her brain, but now she had come within range of a more
persistent power than that. Plainly, through the wooden barrier that
was raised between them, she felt the presence of the man who stood
without.
There is always an effort, a faint dread, about the opening of a door,
as if the one who entered were admitted to more than a room. From each
personality that enters even for a moment into one's life something is
always involuntarily received. The opening is only a symbol of the more
subtle admission of the two, which leaves an intruder behind when the
actual bodily presence has passed away. And of all openings there is
none that includes such realisation and such risk as that which lets in
the night and a stranger's face.
And then suddenly the knocking ceased, as if the knocker was now as
aware of her presence as she of his. They were like enemies, crouched
on either side of a barricade; or like lovers, so near and yet so far,
in the last, long second before the bars are down. Each waited for a
breath, a touch, a turn of the hand that would bring the flash of the
final blow or the thrill of the first kiss.
Their consciousness of each other was so strong that she knew at once
when he lifted his arm again, just as he knew when she stirred in fear
of the fresh attack. The latch gave its loose, metallic clink as she
raised it and let it drop, and then the door began to open with the
almost human grudging of old doors. The stranger put out a hand to help
it on its way, and with a harsh shriek that sounded like protest it
dragged across the flags.
At once the bulk of his big form was in the open square, substantial
even in the dissolving light. There was a last pause as the shock of
the actual meeting smote upon their minds, and then his voice, cheerful
and loud as the knocking, flooded the house.
"Everybody dead here?" he demanded gaily, bending forward to peer at the
figure set like a statue just inside. The tone of his voice, deep and
kindly, had yet a touch of nervousness at its back. The strain of the
waiting had told upon him as well as on her. "Say, you _are_ real,
ain't you?" he enquired sharply, and then laughed. "Mercy! I sure
thought everybody must be dead!"
Sarah had another shock at the sound of his voice, topped by the accent
from over the pond as the deep note of flood is topped by the thinner
note of the surf. She had listened instinctively for the
Jim-an'-Geordie voice, but this was the voice of neither Geordie nor
Jim. It was as strange to her who knew nothing of other peoples' speech
as if it had been a voice from another star. She shrank away from him,
saying--"I thought it was Jim." And then, almost violently, "You're
never Jim!"
The man laughed a second time, but more naturally, as if reassured the
moment he heard her speak. "I sure am!" he answered her joyfully. "Why
shouldn't I be? Leastways, I'm all of Jim Thornthet that's managed to
swim across!" The smile stayed on his lips as he stared, but died when
she did not respond. "May I come in a spell?" he enquired anxiously.
"I've only struck England to-day, and I've a bag of news."
But again she blocked the entrance as she had blocked it for May. It
was the way into herself as well as into the house that these people
sought, and she yielded to neither of them by an inch. "You can get
out, if you're Jim," she said caustically, "and as smart as you like!
Blindbeck's your spot. We want nowt wi' you here."
The sharp words did not depress him, however. They were too reminiscent
of old time.
"That's a real mean Howdy!" he answered her humorously, advancing a
foot. "'Tisn't like Westmorland folk to keep folk tugging at the
latch.... Shucks for Blindbeck!" he added laughingly, as she began the
word again. "Sandholes is my little old home,--always was, and always
will be." He advanced further, a merry, teasing note in his big voice.
"You can't keep me out, old woman! You never could. I'm coming right
in, old woman! ... I'm sure coming.... I'm right in!"
It was true, too. He was in the passage now, making his way by a force
of desire stronger than May's entreating love. Something else helped
him as well, perhaps,--some old extorted freedom of house and board. He
put out his hand to Sarah as he turned to the light, but she shrank away
from him against the wall.
"I won't have you in t'house!" she cried angrily to his dim form. "Be
off with you now, and look sharp about it!"
But again he seemed to be pleasantly cheered by her wrath, as if with a
happy echo from the past.
"I'll shin off right quick when I've had a word," he coaxed. "Come on
in, old woman, and look at me where there's a bit more sun!" The
flickering light seemed to beckon him on, for he began to move towards
its dim dwelling. "I've news of Geordie for you," he called back to her,
as she did not stir. "You'll sure be wanting to hear that!"
She heard him pass into the kitchen, his firm, confident tread raising a
ring from every flag, and wondered, as with the knocking, why it did not
carry all over the marsh. But still she stayed behind, fighting with
herself and with the longing to hear his news. It could be of nothing
but failure, she reminded herself, and her heart answered that that
would be better than nothing at all. She heard him walking about the
kitchen, as if he walked from this memory to that, peering into old
cupboards and laying a hand upon old chairs. Presently, however, there
came a silence as if he had seen enough, and, in a sudden panic lest he
should be gone, she hurried after him into the room.
At once, as she went in, she traced the shape of him on the hearth,
though she could not see his huge shadow that climbed the ceiling and
swamped the wall. Clearly, too, she could feel his dominant personality
all about, too heady a wine for the frail, cob webbed bottle of the
place. Paused on the hearth, he was still looking around him with a
wistful, humorous smile. He was thinking, as all think who return, how
strong and yet how slender was the chain, how futile and yet how
tenacious were the humble things which had held him through the years!
He was thinking, too, how amazingly tiny everything had grown,--the
house, the kitchen, and the old woman within the door. Even the stretch
of sand, which he could vaguely see, seemed narrow to him who had known
much greater wastes.
He turned his smiling eyes suddenly to Sarah's face.
"How's the old man, by the way? Still keeping uppermost of the weeds?"
"He's nobbut middlin', that's all," she forced herself to reply.
"Is he anywhere about?"
"Like enough ... but you needn't wait."
"I'd like a chin with him, all the same!" He hugged himself as he stood
on the hearth, and his huge shadow hugged itself on the wall. The same
mischievous sound crept back into his voice. "I'm mighty glad to see
you again, old woman, I am that! Perhaps you'll feel like slinging me a
smile or two after a bit."
"Eliza'll smile, I'll warrant, if you've nobbut a pound or two in your
poke."
"I have that--sure!" He slapped his coat as he spoke, laughing a great
laugh which shook her as cruelly as his knock. "It's up to me to keep
my pockets stitched, nowadays," he finished, in a contented tone.
"I'm main glad to hear it," she said sardonically, and he nodded gaily.
"That's real nice of you, old woman! You can keep right on. You'd a
terrible down on me in the old days, hadn't you now?"
"I've no use for you, Jim Thornthwaite, and never had. You know that as
well as me."
"That's so!" He laughed again. "But I was always mighty fond of
_you_." He made a movement as if to cross to her side, but she backed
instantly, as if she guessed. "Of course, you'd a deal rather it had
been Geordie," he said. "I know that. But he was never much of a
sparkle in the family tarara, and that's honest. I left him serving in
a store,--poor lad Geordie,--and hankering like honey after the old
spot!"
"And you left him behind," Sarah flung at him,--"you wi' brass?"
"He wouldn't take a red cent. I looked him up as soon as I struck it
rich, but he was always set on hoeing his own row. He'd have taken it
from his own folks, but he wouldn't from me. Guess it was Blindbeck
hate in him coming out at last! But if ever he'd had the dollars, he'd
have been home before you could hear him shout."
"He's best where he is," Sarah said coldly, repenting her charge.
Eliza's son should not see that she grudged or cared. "Them as makes
beds can likely lie on the straw."
"Well, Blindbeck luck still holds, anyway!" Jim smiled. "See here!" He
put his hand in the great-coat that seemed to hide from her that he was
a creature of flesh and blood, and instantly she heard the rustle of
notes. He opened the big pocket-book under the light, running his hand
over the clean slips with joyous pride. "Don't that talk?" he said
cheerfully. "Doesn't it sure talk?" and in spite of her resolve she
shrank from the crisp, unaccustomed sound.
"Good enough, eh?" he demanded warmly,--"and there's plenty more behind!
That's only to pass the time o' day with, so to speak. Guess it'll do
for a fairing for my old mother, that's about all." He snapped the
elastic again and flung the book on the table, so that it slid across
within Sarah's reach. Lifting his eyes he met her gaze fixed blindly
upon his face, and his brow contracted as he puzzled over that hard,
unrecognising stare.
"Can't we sit down for a spell?" he asked her coaxingly, turning back to
the hearth. "I feel real unwanted, standing on my hind legs."
"Eliza'll be waiting on you," Sarah said, through a stiff throat.
"She's waited twenty years." He laid a hand on a chair, and pulled it
nearer to the warmth. It protested violently when it felt his weight,
but he settled himself snugly, and did not care. The fire, as if
heartened at sight of him on the hearth, changed its cold yellow for a
crimson glow.
"It's good to be home," he said happily,--"good as a Sunday-school,
treat,--sure!" He pulled his pipe from his pocket, and began to fill it
meditatively, with quiet hands.... "Now, if it had been Geordie that
had struck it rich, it would have been a real hum for you, wouldn't it,
old woman? Guess I feel real mean, for your sake, that it's only me.
Guess I could almost wish it was Geordie out and out!"
He leaned forward with the firelight on his face, looking at her with
the same smile that was like a hand that he reached out.
"He was always making a song," he said, "about what he'd do when he
struck it rich. 'I'll be off home that slick you'll hear the bump,' he
used to say, 'and I'll be planning all the way how I'll burn the cash!'
I'd like to buy the farm for the old dad;--guess Squire'd part all right
if I could pass him enough. As for the old woman, there's just no end
to what I'd do,--glad rags and brooches, and help all round the house.
It'd be just Heaven and Witham Gala, playing Providence to the old
woman! ... That's what I want my brass for, when I strike it rich!'"
"A fool's dream!" Sarah said.
"A fine fool's dream."
"Them as dreams over much likely never does nowt else."
He leaned forward still further, the smile more urgent on his lips.
"There was only one thing used to fret him," he went on, "and he spent a
powerful lot of time thinking about it, and wearing himself thin.
'S'pose she don't know me when I sail in?' he used to say. 'S'pose I'm
that changed I might as well be any other mother's son as well as hers?
There's a mighty pile o' years between us,--big, terrible years! I'd
sure break my heart if she didn't know me right off, even if I'd grown a
face like a pump-handle and a voice like a prize macaw! But I guess I
needn't trouble,' he used to say, 'because mothers always know. I've
got that slick by heart,--they always know.'" He waited a moment, and
then pressed on, with a note that was like alarm. "Say, he was right,
wa'n't he?"--he asked anxiously,--"dead right? It's a sure cinch that
mothers always know?"
The force of his demand seemed almost to shake the obstinate figure so
cynically aloof. It was as if he were prompting her to something that
she knew as well as he, but would not admit for some reason of her own.
Even after he had stopped speaking the demand seemed to persist, and she
answered at last with a cold smile on her hard face.
"Nay, my lad," she said sneeringly, "you needn't put yourself about!
Eliza'll be fain to see you, wherever you got your brass. She'll know
you well enough, never fret, wi' yon pack o' cards in your hand!"
His smile died as if she had struck him,--the whole laughing pleasure of
him died. "I worked for it honest," he said in reply, but his voice
sounded dull and tired. Even in the dusk she might have seen the spirit
go out of him, the lines in his face deepen, his head sink, his
shoulders droop. The merry boy that had come into the house was gone,
leaving the stern man of middle age. Sarah could not see what she had
done to him, but she could feel the change. Scenes with Jim in the old
days had always ended much as this. Many a time he had come to her full
of affection and fun, and in a few moments she had slain them both. He
had looked up at her with hurt eyes that still laughed because they
couldn't do anything else, and had held to his old cry--"I'm _your_ lad
_really_, Aunt Sarah,--same as Geordie is!"
He sat for a few minutes staring at the floor, his pipe with its filled
bowl hanging idly from his hand. He seemed to be adjusting himself to
new ideas, painfully making room for them by throwing overboard the old.
Then he rose to his feet with a half-sigh, half-yawn,--and laughed.
Sarah heard him, and started,--it was so like the old-time Jim! But
though she might have winced in the old days, it did not trouble her
now. If she had had no tenderness for the scapegrace lad she was not
likely to pity the grown, successful man.... Without looking at her
again he went across to the window and stared out. The pane swung open
wide on its bent rod, and not a breath of wind troubled its buckled
frame. Across the vanished sands the light still glowed from the
'Ship,' red on the dark that seemed like a mere dissolution of
everything into mist.
"Old Fleming still at the 'Ship'?" he enquired, keeping his back turned.
"And May?" His voice warmed again on the little name. "May's married
this many a year, I guess!"
"Nay, not she!" Sarah said. "She's not wed, nor like to be."
Unconsciously she relaxed a little. "She was always terble sweet on
Geordie, was May."
The man looking out smiled at the light as if it had been a face. He
spoke low, as if speaking to himself.
"I'd sure forgot!"
"I reckon she's waiting for him yet, but I doubt she'll wait till the
Judgment, and after that!"
"She was always a sticker, was May...." He swung round, cheerful again,
though lacking the ecstasy with which he had come in. "Sweet on
Geordie, was she? Well, I guess a live dog's better than a dead lion!
I'll hop across for a chin."
"You'll loss yourself, crossing t'sand."
"I've crossed it every night in my dreams!" He came back to her, with
his face tender again, the thin flame of the candle showing his pleasant
eyes and kindly lips. "Say, though!" he added anxiously. "I can come
back?"
"Best bide at t' 'Ship.'"
"But I'd a deal rather sleep here!"
"Well, you wain't, and that's flat!"
"There's Geordie's bed, ain't there?" he urged her, in pleading tones.
"I'll lay you've kept it fixed for him all along!"
"Ay,--for Geordie!" said Geordie's mother, setting her mouth.
"Couldn't you kinder think I was Geordie once in a while?"
"Nay."
"Not for a mite of a minute?" His voice shook.
"Nay, not I!"
He lifted his shoulders, and let them droop again. "I'm sure coming
back, though!" he finished, in his persistent way.... "Stop a shake,
though! What about the tide?"
His eyes turned from old custom to the table over the hearth, and,
crossing over to it, he struck a light. The silver box in his hand
flashed a tiny scintilla on the dusky air. He looked up at the table,
but he did not see it, the match dwindling above his brooding face.
"You might ha' been just a mite glad to see me!" he exclaimed wistfully,
stamping it out upon the flags. "Why, you'd never ha' known me from
Adam if I hadn't given you the call! It'll give me the knock right out
if May don't know me neither when I sail in. They say sweethearts don't
forget, no more than mothers, but perhaps it's all a doggoned lie!"
"She was Geordie's lass,--not yours!" Sarah told him, with jealous
haste.
"Sure!" he said with a smile, and struck a second match.
Now he looked at the table in earnest, but only for a space.
"Saturday," she heard him murmuring, in an absent voice. "Martinmas,
ain't it? ... Tide at ten...."
She made a movement forward and put out her hands.
"Nay, but yon's never----" she began; and stopped.
"Eh, old woman?"
"Nay, it's nowt."
"It's Saturday, ain't it?"
"I reckon it is."
"Saturday's my day for luck," she heard him saying, as the match died
down. "I've got a cinch on Saturdays, that's sure!" The gaiety in his
tone was only a mockery of what it had been before. "Tide at ten,
eh?--and it's six, now." He drew his watch from his pocket and gave it
a glance. "Well, so long! I'll be right back!"
To both the moments seemed endless in which he moved across the floor.
His look dwelt upon her in a last effort to reach her heart, and then
lingered about the room on the dim fellowships of his youth. But even
Geordie himself could hardly have touched her in that hour. The
strongest motive that had ruled her life had her finally by the throat.
Yet she called to him even as he went, afraid, woman-like, of the sound
of the shut door. "Jim!" she flung after him. "Jim, lad! ... Jim!"
"Say! Did you call?" He was back again on wings.
"Nay ... it was nowt." She indicated the pocket-book within reach of
her hand. "You'd best take yon truck along wi' you an' all."
Even in his disappointment he was still able to smile. "It don't need a
safe between it and a Thornthet, I guess!" was all he said. In that
moment, indeed, the money was nothing and less than nothing to them
both. Sarah was honest to the core, and never remembered once that dead
men tell no tales and that the sea does not betray.... The thing that
had conquered her soul was at least also above that.
"Ten, wa'n't it?" he asked, drifting reluctantly out again. His voice
came from further away, like the gull's voice from the sky. "So long!
Cheero! I'll be back again with the tide...."
IV
She heard rather than felt the silence re-enfold the house, like the
swish of a curtain softly tumbled down. She was vividly on the alert
for every change in the brooding quiet, but she was not afraid of the
inevitable sound that must shortly break it again. To herself she
seemed to be shut into the very heart of things, where everyone knows
his secret hiding-place to be. Nothing could hurt her there, because it
was shut away from pain. Neither remorse nor fear could touch her in
that calm.
Yet all the time her mind had followed the man who had gone out, hearing
the thud of his feet on the sandy ground, and seeing the bulk of him
huge on the sea-wall. The sound of his feet would be sharper on the
beach, but when he got to the sand it would be muffled as if with
cloths. When he came to the channel he would stand and hail, and the
light from the 'Ship' would lie on the water like a road....
But never to-night or in all time would he get as far as the bank.
Suddenly, as he walked, he would hear a whisper out of the west. It
would mean nothing to him at first, nor the wind feeling along his
cheek. He would only say to himself that the trees were astir on the
far point. Then he would hear a noise like a coming shower, and lift up
his face to meet the first of the rain. But the sound that came after
would come running along the sand, until every rib was vibrating its
message to his feet. When he knew what it was, he would stand perfectly
still, and then he would spring in the air and start to run. But, run
as he might, he would never reach the shore, or stand on the gold road
that would take him over to May. The white tide-horses were swifter far
than he; their unshod hoofs would outrun his heavy boots. The sweeping
advance-water would suddenly hem him in, swirling before his feet and
shooting behind his back. He would run this way and that in the dark,
but it would be no use. He would run and run, but it would never be any
use....
From complete detachment she passed gradually to a comforting sense of
quittance and ease. It was as if a burden that she had carried all her
life had been cut away, so that she could lift up her head and look in
front of her and breathe free. The sickening jealousy was gone, the
gnawing pain at her heart, the fierce up-swelling of decimating rage,
the long, narrowed-down brooding of helpless hate. Never again would
she be able to see herself as the poor relation fawning at Eliza's
skirts. The thing had been done at last which paid Eliza in full.
She had, as she came back within range of feeling again, one last, great
moment of exultant pride. She seemed to herself actually to grow in
size, to tower in the low room as the shadow of the home-comer had
towered over ceiling and wall. Into the hands of this oppressed and
poverty-stricken woman there had suddenly been given the heady power of
life and death, and the stimulant of it was like wine in her thin blood,
making her heart steady as a firm-blown forge. She felt strong enough
in that moment to send every child of Eliza's out to its death in the
maw of the Night Wave. She felt an epic figure poised on the edge of
the world, heroic, tremendous, above all laws. Indeed, she seemed, as
it were, to be the very Finger of God itself....
And then faintly the exultation sank; dimmed, rather, as on a summer day
the sharpness goes out of the high lights on lawn and wall. The sun is
not gone, but the farthest and finest quality of it is suddenly
withdrawn. In some such way a blurring of vivid certainties came upon
her brain. A breath of wind was blown sharply through the open window,
and with a touch of surprise she found that she was cold. The fire, so
lately encouraged by the visitor's presence, had died sulkily into grey
clinkers tinged with red that had no more warmth to it than a splash of
paint. The candle, on the other hand, had sprung into a tall flame from
a high wick. It was as if it was making a last effort to illumine the
world for the woman over whose mind was creeping that vague and blurring
mist.
With the slackening of the mental tension her physical self slackened,
too. She began to rock to and fro, muttering softly as she swayed.
"Blind thoughts in a blind body's brain!" she was saying to herself....
"Ay, it's about time. A blind night and a blind tide.... Ay, it's
about time...."
And yet through the blind night and with her blind sight she still saw
the figure swinging over the sands, broad, confident, strong, as were
all at Blindbeck,--successful and rich. Always her mind kept close at
its back, seeing the solid print of it on the air, feeling the muscular
firmness of its tread, and hearing the little whistled tune that kept
escaping between its teeth....
Suddenly she raised her voice, as if addressing somebody a long way off.
"What d'you want wi' a bed as'll never sleep in bed again? Nay, my lad,
you'll have nowt but churchyard mould! ... Yon's if they find him, when
the tide comes in. There'll be a bonny fairing for Eliza when the tide
comes in!"
She stopped abruptly as Simon clattered into the room, holding herself
motionless by a final effort of will. He glanced uneasily at the still
figure, the unspread table and the dead fire, but he did not speak. He
was still conscious of guilt and ready to make amends, even to the
extent of going supperless to bed. Outside the door, he had felt
curiously certain that Sarah was not alone, and even now he looked into
corners for figures that were not there. Coming in from the dark on the
marsh, his instinct had told him instantly that the atmosphere had
changed, but the knowledge faded once he was well inside. He wondered
whether anything had been done with the milk, but did not like to ask,
and, setting the still-lighted lantern on the floor, stooped to unloose
his boots.
"All yon talk about Geordie's fair give me the jumps!" he remarked
suddenly, with an embarrassed laugh. "I could ha' sworn I heard his
voice as I was snecking shuppon door!"
She did not answer, and with an inward curse at his own foolishness he
bent lower over his boots. "Another o' yon big tides," he went on
hurriedly, when the thongs were loosed. "It's sharp on t'road now. I
could hear it as I come in."
Even as he spoke the room was suddenly filled with the sound of the sea.
Before the majesty of the coming presence the whole house seemed to
cringe and cower. Sarah felt the room swing round with her, and caught
at the table, gripping the edge of it until her very fingers seemed of
wood.
"There it be!" Simon said, raising himself. "It's big, as I said." He
clanked across to the window as he spoke, the laces slapping and
trailing on the flags, and again, as he put his face to the square, the
wind that blows before the tide stirred mightily through the room.
Far-off, but coming fast, they could hear the messenger from the deep,
sweeping its garment over the head of the crouched waste, as it sped to
deliver its challenge at the locked gate of the sea-wall.
Sarah had still control over her actual body, but no more. With Simon's
entrance she had realised herself again, and knew that she was weak and
old, with a mind that had got beyond her, and cried and ran to and fro
as Jim would run when he heard the Wave. Always she seemed to herself
to be close at his back, but now she ran to warn him and stumbled as she
ran. She flung out her arms towards him in an aching passion to hold
him close, and in that moment felt the truth drop, stilly, into her
whirling brain. He turned his face towards her swiftly as they went,
and for all its likeness it was not Jim's face. She saw him swept and
helpless in the swirl of the tide, and in the dark and the tumult knew
that the precious body was not Jim's. She saw him borne in the
stillness of morning to the haunted Tithe-Barn where all the drowned
were laid, and by the light of the truth that there is between living
and dead knew she had always known it was not Jim....
"I hope May's gitten back," Simon was saying anxiously, as he peered
out. "I hope she's landed back...." Presently he leaned further, and
gave a sigh of relief. "Ay,--there goes Fleming's lamp!"
Instantly, as the light went out, there came from the sands a whistle
and then a cry. Simon spun round, saying, "What's yon?" with a
frightened look, and when the call came again he snatched the lantern
from the floor. The third call came suddenly faint, as if its author
were running towards the tide, and with a harsh cry a gull swept white
and huge beyond the pane. Simon fell back at the sight of it, crying
aloud, and throwing his arm before his eyes.
But at the same moment Sarah burst her bonds. "Geordie, Geordie!" she
screamed, and ran frenziedly to the door. "Nay, it's over now," she
finished, falling back against the wall. "Gang out and seek our
fairing, master,--mine and thine!"
PRINTED AT
WM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
PLYMOUTH. ENGLAND
----
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THE SWIMMER
6s. net
THE MYSTERY OF GOLDEN LOTUS
6s. net
MILLS & BOON, Ltd., 49 Rupert Street, London, W.1