Part 16 (1/2)

Simon, cut off in mid-flight, repeated ”Rasps!” in a feeble tone, and again Sarah said ”Ay,” and requested him to get on. He drove away rather reluctantly, looking behind him as he went, and muttering of Taylor's rasps and cabbishes until they were finally lost to sight.

Now once more they were in the high-flanked lane, with Blindbeck and all that Blindbeck stood for fallen away at last. The cross went with them, indeed, but the calvary dropped behind. The horse turned homeward, and, encouraged by Will's corn, showed a sudden freakish revival of vanished youth. Bicycles met and pa.s.sed them in the narrow road, sliding by like thistledown on a wind, while the riders saw only an elderly couple apparently half asleep. Yet even the dullest farm-lad would have cried aloud to them if he had known to what they went. He would have flung himself off his bicycle and barred the road, a humble but valiant imitation of an Angel of G.o.d.

Evening was coming, but the day was still alive, incredibly long as the afternoon had seemed. Simon's old watch, put right that morning in Witham, a.s.serted that it was only half-past four. The atmosphere had never been really light, and only imperceptibly was it drawing down to dusk. The grey seemed to have deepened and settled a little, but that was all. It was a day on which people forgot the time, as Mr. Dent had said, a day when they had every excuse for forgetting the right time.

Simon felt suddenly as though he had never seen the sun either rise or set for at least a week. Yesterday there had been only a swift setting, hurriedly blotted out, and to-day, if there had been any fugitive brightness of farewell, it must have pa.s.sed while they were still at the farm. The night was coming unduly to the grey-green land which had never had its meed of sun, just as the night came unfairly to lives whose share of glamour and glory had been missed. He longed to see a light spring out of the west, showing the silver water in a s.h.i.+ning line, and re-tinting the heavy, neutral-coloured earth.

Sun,--evening sun lying over the sea,--would have made things easier for both of them, but especially for his wife. Even though there was so little that she could see, the warmth and light would at least have lain tenderly upon her lids. Trouble and change were always easier to bear under a smiling sky; it did not mock at the trouble, as smiling faces so often seemed to do. Rain and the dark seemed to narrow a trouble in, so that change was a nameless peril into which each step was into a void.

But there was to be no sun for these lost folk who seemed to be straying all the day long; only the unstirred breath of the mist in the blotted west, filling the mighty bowl at whose bottom lay the sea.

They felt strange with each other, now that they were alone, because of all that the other had done while the two of them were apart. Simon's sudden decision was as inexplicable to his wife as her afternoon's jest with Eliza had seemed to him. In his place she would never have stooped to make of herself the younger brother's man; she would have worked for the hardest driver amongst them sooner than that. Even the close affection between the brothers could not dignify the position in her eyes. She could understand something of Simon's yearning towards the farm, but Sarah was never the sort of which they make doorkeepers in Heaven. She would never really have understood the strength of the pull, even with no Eliza set like a many-eyed monster on the farmyard wall. He, on the other hand, could not even pretend to understand the Lie, but then the Vision of the Parlour had been granted to her and not to him.

Both their minds, however, were at work more on the change that was coming than on Sarah's sudden craze, since always the pressing business of life must supersede the dream. Simon, indeed, did not want to think about Sarah's behaviour further than he could help, because of that sinister saying about the doings of blind brains. As for Sarah herself, she had done with the dream for ever in that moment when she came face to face with the limits of her lie. It had had its tremendous hour in the down-treading of a lifelong foe, but in that one stupendous achievement it had finally pa.s.sed. Never again would she be able to shut herself in the spell, until the blind saw and the lost spoke, and the sea was crossed in a leap. Never again would she be able to believe that Geordie might come home.

In spite of their shameful departure, fast fading, however, from his mind, Simon was already planning the bitter-sweet prospect of their near return. Like so many ideas impossible and even repellent at the start, this had already become natural and full of an acid charm. For the time being he was content to ignore the drawbacks of the position, and to concentrate only upon its obvious gains. His mind, hurrying forward over the next few months, was already disposing of stock, farm-implements and surplus household gear; and in his complete absorption he forgot that he was not alone, and kept jerking out fragments of disjointed speech. Sarah allowed him to amuse himself after this fas.h.i.+on for some time, and then broke dryly into his current of thought.

”You may as well tell me what's settled, and get it by with,” she observed in a sardonic tone. ”So far, even Eliza seems to know more about it than me. You and Will seem to ha' fixed things up wi' a vengeance, that you have! You'd best to tell me how it come about, instead of booing away to yourself like a badly calf.”

”Nay, it was all fixed that sharp,” Simon grumbled, with an injured air, though very relieved at heart to hear her speak. ”There was no time to ax n.o.body nor nowt. I'm still a bit maiselt about it myself, for the matter o' that. I don't know as I'll be that surprised if I hear to-morrow it's all off. As for Eliza, it fair beats me how she could ha' got wind of it so smart! She likely hid herself somewheres when we was talking it out; though she's not that easy to miss,--gert, spying toad!”

He brisked considerably now that the first awkwardness was past, and went on to tell her, after his usual backwards and forwards fas.h.i.+on, exactly how the new arrangement had come about.

”It's not much to crack on, I dare say,” he finished, pleading with her across the disapproving silence which had again risen between them like a wall, ”but, when all's said and done, it's a sight better than I'd looked for, by a deal. I'd ha' been bound to hire myself somewheres, to help us make out, and there isn't a decenter master in t'countryside than Will. It's a deal better than being odd-job man at some one-horse spot, or maybe scrattin' up weeds and suchlike at some private house.

There'll be a decent wage, think on, and milk,--ay, and happen a load o'

coal an' all. Will'll see as we're rightly done by, never fret! We'll be right comfortable, I'm sure. Will says his la.s.ses'll give you a hand wi' was.h.i.+ng and the like, and if happen we get a good sale we might run to a bit o' help ourselves. You'll miss t'horse and cart, I reckon, but we'll find a way out o' yon as well. If you felt as you fancied a bit of a ride, Will'd like enough loan me a horse and trap.”

He was coaxing her for all he was worth, but neither the coaxing nor the explanation seemed to get any further than her ears. Again he felt the spasm of irritation which he had felt in the parlour, and was at the same time reminded of its original cause.

”I don't say it'll be over pleasant for either on us,” he went on vexedly, as she did not open her lips, ”but you'll likely admit I did the best I could for us, all the same. It's a sad pity you and Eliza pull together so bad, but it's over late to think o' mending it now.

Anyway, you did nowt to mend it by telling yon string o' lies this afternoon! What, in the name o' goodness, made you act so strange?”

She moved then, a touch of the afternoon glamour reaching from Blindbeck, and following her down the lane.

”Nay, I don't know.... Things come over folk, now and then. I'm right sorry, though, if I set you thinking it was the lad.”

”I've given up thinking owt o' the sort long since,” he said dejectedly.

”I should ha' thought you would ha' done the same an' all.”

”Things come over folk,” she repeated, unwilling to say more, and he nodded his head, relieved by her softer tone. ”You'll try to make up your mind to Blindbeck, will you, missis?” he pressed on nervously, hoping her mood would last. ”It's a bad best, maybe, but I n.o.bbut did what I could.”

She gave a sharp sigh, but her voice was firm. ”Ay, I'll make up my mind to it, after a bit.”

”It's a big change at our time of life, but you'll settle, never fear.”

”Ay, I'll settle all right. Don't you fret.”