Chapter V: Part II: Eliza (2)

So Sarah got the bottom of the pot after a little more talk, a hunt for a clean cup and an address on the value of the spoons. Half a cup--consisting chiefly of tea-leaves--was passed to Simon, but was intercepted on its way by Will. Simon did not notice the manoeuvre, being busy glowering at a niece's shoulder turned sulkily on him from the left; but Eliza saw it from her end of the table and turned an angry red. She never forgot Simon's indifference to her as a girl, and would have made him pay for the insult if she could. She could not always reach him, however, because of the family tie which nothing seemed able to break. But Sarah, at least, it was always consoling to think, could be made to pay. There were times when all her reserve could not hide from a gleeful Eliza that she paid....

So Simon got the new brew without even knowing that it was new, while Sarah drank the unpleasant concoction that was weak at the top and bitter as sea-water at the bottom. Sally came in with another great brown pot, and sat down languidly at her aunt's side. She and the smug cousin had been engaged for years, but there seemed little prospect of the wedding taking place. She had been a handsome girl, and was good to look at still, but there were handsomer Thornthwaites growing and grown up, as apparently the cousin was quick enough to perceive. To-day he had found a seat for himself beside Mary Phyllis, who kept glancing across at her sister with defiant pride. Sally had a cheap town-look nowadays, the cousin thought, not knowing that she had assumed it long ago to please himself. Now that he was more mature, he preferred the purer country type of Mary Phyllis, as well as the fresher atmosphere of her youth. Sally talked to young Swainson, and pretended not to care, but she was too unhappy to bother about her aunt. The Simon Thornthwaites were boring at any time, like most permanently unlucky people, and to-day she was too worried even to try to be kind. So Sarah, after whom she was called, and who was her godmother to boot, got very little to eat and only the dregs of things to drink; and nobody at all rose up to deliver her from Eliza.

Mrs. Addison had opened her mouth very impressively more than once, but it was only now that she got a chance to speak. In spite of their boasted fluency, both she and her husband had always to yield the palm to Mrs. Will. Mrs. Addison, however, always watched her chance, while Stephen was simply flabby, and did not try. She and Eliza in the same room were like firmly opposing currents, flowing strongly in the same stream.

"Mr. Addison's to preach at this mission they're having, next week," she announced proudly. "There's to be a Service for men only, and our Stephen's to give 'em a talk. I won't say but what he'll do as well as a real minister, even though I do happen to be his wife. Likely you'll think on about it, and send some of your lads along, Mrs. Will?"

Eliza was quite unable to conceal her disgust at a distinction achieved by somebody not her own.

"I'll do my best, I'm sure," she assented casually and without looking at her, "though I doubt they'll want coaxing a bit wi' a broom-handle or a clout!" She disliked being called Mrs. Will, and knew that Mrs. Addison did it with fell intent. It was galling to be reminded that, in spite of his success, Will had still not managed to make himself into the elder son.... "I can't say they're that set on either church or chapel unless it's to see a lass," she went on, busy with the cups, "and I doubt they don't reckon much o' sermons unless they're good. They've been better eddicated than most folk, you'll think on, so they're hard to suit. 'Tisn't likely they could do wi' second-hand preaching from some as happen never went to school at all."

Mr. A'ddison made a sudden attempt to speak, but choked instead, while Eliza looked as innocent as a large-sized lamb.

"Ay, I've heard a deal o' sermons as was just waste breath," she went on kindly, "and that's the truth. All the same, I'll likely look in at Mission myself, one o' these days, if I can get away. I'm always glad to set still after a hard week, and to get a look at other folks' jackets and hats. Not that there's much to crack on at chapel, that way.... I'm a deal fonder o' church. I was wed at St. Michael's, you'll think on,--ay, and Sarah an' all. Eh, I could laugh even yet at yon march we stole on her, me an' Will!"

Sally moved impatiently at her aunt's elbow, and muttered something under her breath. She was tired of the old story, and disapproved of it as well. Sarah had lifted her cup to her lips, but now she set it down....

Mary Phyllis stopped giggling a moment, and leaned forward to speak.

"I was telling Cousin Elliman about it only this morning," she said noisily, "and he says it's the funniest thing he ever heard! I thought everybody knew about it, but he says he didn't. He said it was real smart of you, Mother, and he wished he could have been there...."

"I'll be bound Sarah didn't think it smart!" Eliza chuckled, but without glancing at her victim's face. She had a trick of discussing people when they were present, as Sarah knew. She could tell by the trend of Eliza's voice that she spoke without turning her head.

"Smart? Nay! Sarah was real wild, you take my word! I spoke to her in t'vestry when the show was through, and she give me a look as was more like a dog's bite. Eh, well, I reckon poor Sarah was jealous o' my gown, seeing her own was nowt to crack on,--and nowt then! I'd always settled to be real smart when I got wed, and my own lasses was just the same. None o' my folk can do wi' owt as isn't first-class and happen a bit over. Yon's the photo we had took at Annie Belle's wedding," she added, turning to point, "and there's another of Alice Evelyn's in the parlour."

The cousin and Mary Phyllis left their seats to giggle together over the stiff figures, and presently the girl turned to her sister with a malicious taunt.

"I say, our Sally, you'd best look out when you _do_ get wed, or happen I'll play a trick on you, same as mother did Aunt Sarah! You'll be rarely riled if I come marching up the aisle with a fine young man, taking all the shine out of you and Elliman!"

The cousin said something in a low tone which made her flush and laugh, and Sally guessed at it quickly enough, though it did not reach her ears. The tears came into her eyes, and on an impulse of fellow-feeling she turned towards her aunt. She was asking after May Fleming when her mother broke across her talk.

"Eh, now, Sarah, yon was never May, was it, along wi' you in Witham? I'll be bound I'd never have known her if she hadn't been with you, but there's not that many you're seen about with nowadays at market. 'Tisn't like me, as can't stir a step without somebody wanting a crack or hanging on to my gown. But May's changed out of all knowledge,--I was fair bothered to see her look so old! I'll swear our Annie Belle looks as young again, for all she's been wed a dozen year at least. Ay, I thought May terble old, and terble unmannerly as well. I'd be shammed to think as any lass o' mine had suchlike ways. You weren't over-pleasant spoken yourself, Sarah, if it comes to that. The folk in the caif were laughing a deal after you'd gone out, and saying you must be wrong in the garrets to act so queer."

Sarah had regained her spirit a little, in spite of her poor tea. She straightened herself on the plush chair and answered calmly.

"They can say what suits 'em and welcome, as long as they let me be. You know what put me about, Eliza, and nobody to thank for it but yourself. As for folks laughing and making game o' me and suchlike, it was you they was sniggering at plain enough when I come out."

Eliza's colour rose, but she struggled to keep her virtuous air. She looked at Sarah with a sorrowful eye.

"I wouldn't get telling lies about it, Sarah," she observed kindly, "I wouldn't indeed! Mrs. Addison's listening, think on, and she'll be rarely shocked at suchlike ways. Caif-folk were shocked more than a deal, an' me just having a friendly talk an' all!"

"It's a queer sort o' friendliness as puts folk to open shame!" Sarah's colour was flying a flag, too. "It's nobbut a queer sort o' friend as goes shouting your private business at the end of a bell!"

"There isn't a deal that's private, surely, about the mess o' things you've made on the marsh?..." The fight was really begun now, and Eliza turned in her seat, fixing her adversary with merciless eyes. Sarah could see very little but a monstrous blur, but she felt her malignant atmosphere in every nerve. She could hear the big, solid presence creaking with malice as it breathed, and had an impression of strained whalebone and stretching cloth. But it was always Eliza's most cherished garments that she visioned when they fought,--the velvet gown that was folded away upstairs ... gloves, furs, and a feathered hat; furthest of all, the wedding-gown and the flaunting veil....

"Private!" Eliza repeated the sneered word as if it were something too precious to let go. "There can't be that much private about things as we've all on us known for years. What, folks has puzzled no end why you've never ended in t'bankruptcy court long since! Will and me could likely ha' tellt them about it, though, couldn't we, Sarah? Will an' me could easy ha' tellt 'em why! Will and me could ha' tellt where brass come from as was keeping you on t'rails----"

Will had been lending a careful ear to Simon's surly talk, but he lifted his head at the sound of his name.

"Now, missis, just you let Mrs. Simon be!" he admonished, with a troubled frown. "You're over fond of other folks' business by a deal."

"I'll let her be and welcome, if she'll keep a civil tongue in her head!" Eliza cried. She went redder than ever, and slapped a tea-spoon angrily on the cloth. "But if our brass isn't our business, I'd like to know what is, and as for this stir about quitting Sandholes, it's nothing fresh, I'm sure! We all on us know it's a marvel landlord didn't get shot on 'em long ago."

The last remark galvanised Battersby into lively speech. Hitherto he had been busily concentrated on his food, but now his mean little features sharpened and his mean little eyes shone. He bent eagerly forward, leaning on the cloth, knife and fork erect like stakes in a snatched plot.

"What's yon about quitting Sandholes?" he asked, in a thin voice. "Are you thinking o' leaving, Simon? Is it true?"

"I don't see as it's any affair o' yours if it is," Simon answered him, with a sulky stare.

"Nay, it was nobbut a friendly question between man and man. If you're quitting the farm it would only be neighbourly just to give me a hint. There's a lad o' mine talking o' getting wed, and I thought as how Sandholes'd likely be going cheap. Has anybody put in for it yet wi' t'agent, do ye think?"

"Nay, nor like to do, yet awhile," Simon answered glumly, full of sullen hurt. All his love for his tiresome dwelling-place rose to the surface at this greed. "I don't mind telling you, Mr. Battersby, as you ax so kind, that I give in my notice but it wasn't took. Mr. Dent would have it I mun think it over a bit more. Your lad'll just have to bide or look out for somebody else's shoes."

This dreadful exhibition of meanness aggrieved Battersby almost to the verge of tears.

"Well, now, if yon isn't dog-in-the-manger and nowt else!" he appealed to the company at large. "What, you're late wi' your notice already, and yet you're for sitting tight to the farm like a hen on a pot egg! I shouldn't ha' thought it of you, Simon, I shouldn't indeed. Here's a farmer wanting to quit and my lad wanting a farm, and yet the moment I ax a decent question I get sneck-posset geyly sharp. You're jealous, that's what it is, Simon; you're acting jealous-mean. You've nobbut made a terble poor job o' things yourself, and you want to keep others from getting on an' all!"

Simon gave vent to an ironic laugh.

"Nay, now, Sam, never fret yourself!" he jeered. "You and your lad'll get on right enough, I'll be bound, what wi' your heaf-snatching and your sheep-grabbing and the rest o' your bonny ways! What, man, one o' your breed'd be fair lost on a marsh farm, wi' nowt to lay hands on barrin' other folks' turmuts, and never a lile chance of an overlap!"

Battersby's reputation was well known, and an irrepressible laugh greeted Simon's speech, but was instantly cut short by the terrible spectacle of the victim's face. Only the smug cousin went on laughing, because he was ignorant as well as smug, and did not know what a heaf meant, let alone how it was possible to add to it by Sam's skilful if unlawful ways. Battersby jumped to his feet and thumped the table, so that the blue and gold china danced like dervishes from end to end. Mrs. Addison's tea made a waterfall down her second-best bodice, and Sarah's heart, not being prepared for the thump, leaped violently into her mouth.

"I'll not be insulted in your spot nor nobody else's," he stormed at Will; "nay, and I'll not take telling from yon wastrel you call brother, neither! All on us know what a bonny mess o' things he's made at Sandholes. All on us know it'll be right fain to see his back.... As for you, you gomeless half-thick," he added, swinging round so suddenly on the smug cousin that he was left gaping, "you can just shut yon calf's head o' yours and mighty sharp or I'll shut it for you! Them as knows nowt'd do best to say nowt, and look as lile like gawping jackasses as Nature'll let 'em!" ... He sent a final glare round the stifled table, and let Eliza have the sting in his tail. "I'd been looking to be real friendly wi' Blindbeck," he finished nastily, "and my lad an' all, but I don't know as we'll either on us be fain for it after this. Nay, I wain't set down agen, missis, and that's flat, so you needn't ax me! I'm off home and glad to be going, and no thanks to none o' you for nowt!"

He glanced at his plate to make certain there was nothing left, snatched at his cup and hastily swallowed the dregs; then, thrusting his chair backward so violently that it fell to the floor, he clapped his hat on his head and marched rudely out. Eliza, catching a glance from a tearful daughter, got to her feet, too. They swam from the room in a torrent of loud apologies and bitter, snarled replies.

Will leaned back in his chair with a fretted expression on his gentle face. The cousin, slowly turning from red to mottled mauve, observed to Mary Phyllis that the old man's language was 'really remarkably like my chief's!' Some of the younger end started to giggle afresh, but Sarah was still trembling from the unexpected shock, and Simon felt gloomy again after his public effort. He could see that he had upset Will, and that was the last thing he wanted to do, to-day. Will did not like Battersby, but he liked peace, and there were other reasons for friendly relations at present. Will's youngest daughter had a direct interest in Battersby's lad and his hopes of a farm, and now the father had shaken the Blindbeck dust from his proud feet. She looked across at the cause of the trouble with tear-filled, indignant eyes.

"Seems to me things is always wrong when you come to Blindbeck, Uncle Simon!" she exclaimed hotly. "Nobody wants your old farm, I'm sure! I wouldn't have it at a gift! But you might have spoken him fair about it, all the same. I never see such folks as you and Aunt Sarah for setting other folk by the ears!"

Will said "Whisht, lass, whisht!" in as cross a tone as he ever used to his girls, and Simon glowered at her sulkily, but he did not speak. She was a fair, pretty thing, with Geordie-an'-Jim's eyes, and he did not wish to injure her happiness in any way. It was true enough, as she said, that there was generally something in the shape of a row as soon as he and Sarah set foot in the house, but he could not tell for the life of him how it came about. It could not be altogether their fault, he thought resentfully, yet with a sort of despair. To-day, for instance, he had every reason for keeping the peace, and yet that fool of a Battersby must come jumping down his throat! Nobody could be expected to stand such manners and such nasty greed,--grabbing a man's homestead before his notice was well in! There was nothing surprising, of course, in the fact that the women had already come to blows. He had expected it from the start, and, with the resignation of custom, thought it as well over soon as late. They had had one scrap, as it was, from what Sarah had said, and the dregs of that pot of passion would still be hot enough to stir.

"It's a shame, that's what it is!" the girl was saying, over and over again. Tears dropped from the Geordie-an'-Jim eyes, and Simon felt furious with everybody, but particularly with himself.

"You needn't bother yourself," he growled across at last, making a rough attempt to put the trouble right. "Young Battersby's over much sense to go taking a spot like ourn, and as for his dad, he'll be back afore you can speak. 'Tisn't Sam Battersby, I'll be bound, if he isn't as pleased as punch to be running in double harness wi' Blindbeck and its brass!"

"Ay, like other folk!" Eliza dropped on him from the clouds, reappearing panting from her chase. "Like other folk a deal nearer home, Simon Thornthet, as you don't need telling! Battersby wanted nowt wi' the farm,--he tellt me so outside. 'Tisn't good enough for the likes of him, nor for our Emily Marion, neither! He was that stamping mad he was for breaking it all off, but I got him promised to look in again next week. I'd a deal o' work wi' him, all the same," she added, flushing angrily at her brother-in-law's ironic smile, "and no thanks to you, neither, if I come out top, after all! Anyway, I'll thank you to speak folk civilly at my table, if you can, whatever-like hired man's ways you keep for your own!"

She would have hectored him longer if Will had not got to his feet and taken himself and his brother out of the room, so instead she went back to her seat and drank a large cup of tea in angry gulps. Between drinks, however, she managed to say to the wife the things she had wanted to say to the man, though Sarah was silent and paid little or no heed. She wished she could have gone outside with the men, and helped to decide what her future was to be. But it was not for her to advise, who would soon be no better than a helpless log. It was her part to wait patiently until Simon fetched her away.

But it was not easy to wait at all in that atmosphere of critical dislike. The successive passages of arms had had their natural effect, and the party which had been so merry at the start was now in a state of boredom and constraint. The thoughts of most of those present were unfriendly towards the folk of the marsh, and Sarah could feel the thoughts winding about her in the air. Emily Marion was right, so they were saying in their minds; trouble always followed the Thornthwaites the moment they appeared. Storms arose out of nowhere and destroyed some festive occasion with a rush. Even to look at them, dowdy and disapproving, was to take the heart out of any happy day. It was certainly hard on the poor Will Thornthwaites that the tiresome Simons should dare to exist.

Sarah, bringing her mind back from the absent brothers with an effort, found the Method working again at top speed. The tea had soothed Eliza's nerves and stimulated her brain. She was now at her very best for behaving her very worst.

"And so Mr. Addison's preaching next week, is he?" she reverted suddenly, making even that supreme egotist blink and start. Her Voice, furred and soft, reminded Sarah of a paw reaching out for someone to scratch. "Eh, now, but I should be in a rare twitter if it was Will as was setting up to preach! But there, we're none of us much of a hand at talking at our spot, and Will's summat better to do than just wagging a loose tongue. I'll see the lads come along, though, as it's you, Mrs. Addison, and an old friend, unless there's summat useful they're happen wanted for at home. Eh, Sarah, but wouldn't they talks to young men ha' done a sight o' good to Geordie-an'-Jim? It's a sad pity you didn't start preaching before they went, Mr. Addison,--it is that! Like enough, if you had, they'd be at Sandholes yet."

The preacher's brow had been thunderous during the early part of this speech, but now he looked suddenly coy. Sally, dropping her glance to her aunt's lap, saw her fingers clench and unclench on a fold of her own black gown.

"Any news of the prodigals?" Elliman Wilkinson suddenly enquired. He looked at Eliza as he spoke, and smiled as at a well-known joke. "I'm always in hopes to find one of them eating the fatted calf."

"Nay, you must ask Sarah, not me!" Eliza answered, with an affected laugh. She despised Elliman in her heart, but she was grateful for the cue. "Sarah knows what they're at, if there's anybody does at all. Like enough they'll turn up one o' these days, but I don't know as we'll run to calves. They'll be terble rough in their ways, I doubt, after all this time. Out at elbows an' all, as like as not, and wi' happen a toe or two keeking through their boots!"

There was a ripple of laughter at this show of wit, and then Elliman, urged by a nudge and a whisper from Mary Phyllis, repeated the question in the proper quarter. He raised his voice when he spoke to Sarah, as if she were deaf as well as blind, and when she paused a moment before replying, he apostrophised her again. The whole table had pricked its ears and was listening by the time the answer came.

Sarah felt the giggles and the impertinent voice striking like arrows through the misty ring in which she sat. Sharpest of all was Eliza's laugh, introducing the question and afterwards punctuating it when it was put. She was achingly conscious of the antipathetic audience hanging on her lips. They were baiting her, and she knew it, and her heart swelled with helpless rage. A passionate longing seized her to be lord of them all for once,--just for once to fling back an answer that would slay their smiles, put respect into their mocking voices and change their sneers into awed surprise. If only for once the Dream and the glory might be true,--the trap and the new clothes and Geordie and the green front door! But nothing could be further from what they expected, as she knew too well. They were waiting merely to hear her say what she had often said before,--for news that there was no news or news that was worse than none. She had faced more than one trial that day, and had come out of them with her self-respect intact, but this unexpected humiliation was more than she could bear. She was telling herself in the pause that she would not answer at all, when something that she took for the total revolt of pride spoke to the mockers through her lips.

"Ay, but there's rare good news!" she heard herself saying in a cheerful tone, and instantly felt her courage spring up and her heart lighten as the lie took shape. "I'd been saving it up, Eliza, for when we were by ourselves, but there's no sense, I reckon, in not saying it straight out. Geordie's on his way home to England at this very minute, and he says he's a rare good lining to his jacket an' all!"

The air changed about her at once as she had always dreamed it would, and she heard the gasp of surprise pass from one to another like a quick-thrown ball. Eliza started so violently that she upset her cup and let it lie. She stared malevolently at the other's face, her own set suddenly into heavy lines.

"Nay, but that's news and no mistake!" she exclaimed, striving after her former tone, but without success. The note in her voice was clear to her blind hearer, sending triumphant shivers through her nerves.... "Tell us again, will you, Sarah?" she added sharply. "I doubt I heard you wrong."

"I'll tell you and welcome till the cows come home!" Sarah said, with a sudden sprightliness that made the Wilkinson cousin open his eyes. It was almost as if another person had suddenly taken possession of Sarah's place. There was a vitality about her that seemed to change her in every feature, an easy dignity that transformed the shabbiest detail of her dress. Her voice, especially, had changed,--that grudging, dully defiant voice. This was the warm, human voice of one who rejoiced in secret knowledge, and possessed her soul in perfect security and content.

"He's coming, I tell you,--our Geordie's coming back!" The wonderful words seemed to fill her with strong courage every time she spoke. "I can't rightly tell you when it'll be, but he said we could look for him any minute now. Likely we'll find him waiting at Sandholes when we've gitten home. He's done well an' all, from what he says.... I'll be bound he's a rich man. He talks o' buying Sandholes, happen,--or happen a bigger spot. I make no doubt he's as much brass as'd buy Blindbeck out an' out!"

She fell silent again after this comprehensive statement, merely returning brief ayes and noes to the questions showered upon her from every side. Her air of smiling dignity, however, remained intact, and even her blind eyes, moving from one to another eager face, impressed her audience with a sense of truth. And then above the excited chatter there rose Eliza's voice, with the mother-note sounding faintly through the jealous greed.

"Yon's all very fine and large, Sarah, but what about my Jim? Jim's made his pile an' all, I reckon, if Geordie's struck it rich. He's as smart as Geordie, is our Jim, any day o' the week! Hark ye, Sarah! What about my Jim?"

Quite suddenly Sarah began to tremble, exactly as if the other had struck her a sharp blow. She shrank instantly in her chair, losing at once her dignity and ease. The fine wine of vitality ran out of her as out of a crushed grape, leaving only an empty skin for any malignant foot to stamp into the earth. She tried to speak, but could find no voice brave enough to meet the fierce rain of Eliza's words. A mist other than that of blindness came over her eyes, and with a lost movement she put out a groping, shaking hand. Sally, in a sudden access of pity, gathered it in her own.

She slid her arm round her aunt, and drew her, tottering and trembling, to her feet.

"It's overmuch for her, that's what it is," she said kindly, but taking care to avoid her mother's angry glance. "It's knocked her over, coming that sudden, and no wonder, either. Come along, Aunt Sarah, and sit down for a few minutes in the parlour. You'll be as right as a bobbin after you've had a rest."

She led her to the door, a lithe, upright figure supporting trembling age, and Elliman's eyes followed her, so that for once he was heedless of Mary Phyllis when she spoke. Most of the company, indeed, had fallen into a waiting silence, as if they knew that the act was not yet finished, and that the cue for the curtain still remained to be said. And the instinct that held them breathless was perfectly sound, for in the square of the door Sarah halted herself and turned. Her worn hands gripped her gown on either side, and if May had been there to see her, she would again have had her impression of shrouded flame. She paused for a moment just to be sure of her breath, and then her voice went straight with her blind glance to the point where Eliza sat.

"Jim's dead, I reckon!" she said, clearly and cruelly... "ay, I doubt he's dead. Geordie'd never be coming without him if he was over sod. You'd best make up your mind, Eliza, as he's dead and gone!"

It was the voice of an oracle marking an open grave, of Cassandra, crying her knowledge in Troy streets. It held them all spellbound until she had gone out. Even Eliza was silent for once on her red plush chair....

IV

Each of the brothers Thornthwaite drew a breath of relief as soon as he got outside. They were at ease together at once as soon as they were alone. The contrast in their positions, so obvious to the world, made little or no difference to the men themselves. It would have made less still but for the ever-recurring problem of the women-folk, and even that they did their best to put away from them as soon as they were out of sight. Each could only plead what he could for the side he was bound to support, and pass on hurriedly to a less delicate theme. Alone they fell back easily into the relation which had been between them as lads, and forgot that the younger was now a man of substance and weight, while the elder had made an inordinate muddle of things. Will had always looked up to Simon and taken his word in much, and he still continued to take it when Eliza was not present to point to the fact that Simon's wonderful knowledge had not worked out in practice. To-day, as they wandered round the shippons, he listened respectfully while his brother criticised the herd, quarrelled with the quality of the food-stuffs, and snorted contempt at the new American method of tying cattle in the stall. Experience had taught him that Simon was not the first who had made a mess of his own affairs while remaining perfectly competent to hand out good advice to others. The well-arranged water-supply was Simon's idea, as well as the porcelain troughs which were so easy to keep clean, and the milking-machine which saved so much in labour. There were other innovations,--some, Eliza's pride,--which were due to Simon, if she had only known it. He was a good judge of a beast as well, and had a special faculty for doctoring stock, a gift which had certainly not been allowed to run to waste during those bewitched and disease-ridden years at Sandholes. Will was indebted to him for many valuable lives, and often said that Simon had saved him considerably more than he had ever lent him. It remained a perpetual mystery why so useful a man should have achieved so much for others and so little for himself. The answer could only lie in the curse that was glooming over Sandholes,--if there was a curse. Nature certainly plays strange tricks on those who do not exactly suit her book, but in any case the hate at the heart of things was enough to poison luck at the very source.

While Sarah sat through her long torment in the kitchen, rising up at last for that great blow which at all events felled her adversary for the time being, Simon was enjoying himself airing his knowledge in the buildings, contradicting his brother on every possible occasion, and ending by feeling as if he actually owned the place. However, the reason of his visit came up at length, as it was bound to do, and his air of expert authority vanished as the position changed. One by one, as he had already done to Mr. Dent, he laid before his brother his difficulties and disappointments, much as a housewife lays out the chickens that some weasel has slain in the night. He wore the same air of disgust at such absurd accumulation of disaster, of incredulity at this overdone effort on the part of an inartistic fate. The story was not new to Will, any more than to the agent, but he listened to it patiently, nevertheless. He knew from experience that, unless you allow a man to recapitulate his woes, you cannot get him to the point from which a new effort may be made. He may seem to be following you along the fresh path which you are marking out, but in reality he will be looking back at the missed milestones of the past. And there were so many milestones in Simon's case,--so many behind him, and so few to come. After all, it could only be a short road and a bare into which even the kindest brotherly love had power to set his feet.

So for the second time that day Simon lived his long chapter of accidents over again, his voice, by turns emphatic and indignant or monotonous and resigned, falling like slanting rain over the unheeding audience of the cattle. Will, listening and nodding and revolving the question of ways and means, had yet always a slice of attention for his immediate belongings. His eye, casual yet never careless, wandered over the warm roan and brown and creamy backs between the clean stone slabs which Simon had advocated in place of the ancient wooden stalls. The herd was indoors for the winter, but had not yet lost its summer freshness, and he had sufficient cause for pride in the straight-backed, clean-horned stuff, with its obvious gentle breeding and beautiful feminine lines. That part of his mind not given to his brother was running over a string of names, seeing in every animal a host of others whose characteristics had gone to its creation, and building upon them the stuff of the generations still to come,--turning over, in fact, that store of knowledge of past history and patient prophecy for the future which gives the study of breeding at once its dignity and its fascination. At the far end of the shippon, where the calf-pens were, he could see the soft bundles of calves, with soft eyes and twitching ears, in which always the last word in the faith of the stock-breeder was being either proved or forsworn. The daylight still dropping through skylights and windows seemed to enter through frosted glass, dimmed as it was by the warm cloud of breathing as well as the mist that lined the sky beyond. A bird flew in at intervals through the flung-back swinging panes, and perched for a bar of song on the big cross-beams supporting the pointed roof. A robin walked pertly but daintily down the central aisle, a brave little spot of colour on the concrete grey, pecking as it went at the scattered corn under the monster-noses thrust between the rails. Simon leaned against a somnolent white cow, with an arm flung lengthways down her back, his other hand fretting the ground with the worn remnant of a crooked stick. Will's dog, a bushy, silvered thing, whose every strong grey hair seemed separately alive, curled itself, with an eye on the robin, at its master's feet.

He roused himself to greater attention when Simon reached the account of his interview with Mr. Dent. Accustomed as he was to more or less traditional behaviour under the traditional circumstances which govern such lives as his, he fastened at once on the puzzling attitude of the agent.

"It fair beats me what Mr. Dent could think he was at," he observed thoughtfully. "Once you'd settled to quit there was no sense in keeping you hanging on. Best make a job and ha' done wi' it, seems to me. 'Tisn't like Mr. Dent, neither, to carry on in such a fashion. I wonder what made him act so strange?"

Simon wore his original air of injured dignity as he leaned against the cow.

"Nay, I don't know, I'm sure, but he was terble queer! You might ha' thought he was badly or summat, but he seemed all right. Come to that, he looked as fit as a fiddle and as pleased as a punch! You might ha' thought he'd had a fortune left him, or the King's Crown!"

"Happen it was some private business," Will said, "and nowt to do wi' you at all.... What did you think o' doing when you've quit the farm?"

Simon poked the flags harder than ever, and from injured dignity sank to sulks. The sudden pressure of his arm moved the somnolent cow to a sharp kick. When he spoke it was in a surly tone, and with his eyes turned away from Will's.

"I'll have to get a job o' some sort, I reckon, to keep us going. I'm over old for most folk, but I could happen do odds and ends,--fetching milk and siding up, and a bit o' gardening and suchlike. The trouble is the missis won't be able to do for herself before so long. The doctor tellt her to-day she was going blind."

His brother's face filled at once with sympathy and dismay. In that forbidden compartment of his mind where he sometimes ventured to criticise his wife, he saw in a flash how she would take the news. This latest trouble of Sarah's would indeed be the summit of Eliza's triumph. Poverty Sarah had withstood; blindness she might have mastered, given time; but poverty and blindness combined would deliver her finally into the enemy's hand.

"I never thought it would be as bad as that," he murmured pityingly. "It's a bad business, is that! ... Didn't doctor say there was anything could be done?"

"There was summat about an operation, but it'll get no forrarder," Simon said. "They fancy things is hardly in Sarah's line."

"If it's brass that's wanted, you needn't fash over that...." He added more urgently as Simon shook his head, "It'd be queer if I grudged you brass for a thing like yon!"

"You're right kind," Simon said gratefully, "but it isn't no use. She's that proud, is Sarah, she'll never agree. I doubt she just means to let things slide."

"She's no call, I'm sure, to be proud with me!" Will's voice was almost hot. "I've always been ready any time to stand her friend. Anyway, there's the offer, and she can take it or leave it as best suits her. If she changes her mind after a while, she won't find as I've altered mine.... But there's no sense in your taking a job and leaving a blind woman to fend for herself. There's nowt for it but Sarah'll have to come to us."

Simon laughed when he said that, a grim, mirthless laugh which made the dog open his sleepless eyes and throw him a searching glance.

"Nay, nay, Will, my lad! It's right good of you, but it wouldn't do. A bonny time you'd have, to be sure, wi' the pair on 'em in t'house! And anyway your missis'd never hear tell o' such a thing, so that fixes it right off."

"It's my own spot, I reckon!" Will spoke with unusual force. "I can do as suits me, I suppose. T'lasses hasn't that much to do they can't see to a blind body, and as for room and suchlike, there'll be plenty soon. Young Battersby's made it up with our Em, and it's more than time yon Elliman Wilkinson was thinking o' getting wed. He's been going with our Sally a terble long while, though he and Mary Phyllis seem mighty throng just now. Anyway, there'll be a corner for Sarah right enough,--ay, and for you an' all."

But Simon shook his head again, and stood up straight and took his arm off the back of the cow.

"There'd be murder, I doubt," he said quite simply, and this time he did not laugh. "There's bad blood between they two women as nobbut death'll cure. Nay, I thank ye right enough, Will, but yon horse won't pull....

"I mun get a job, that's all," he went on quickly, before Will could speak again, "and some sort of a spot where t'neighbours'll look to the missis while I'm off. I'll see t'agent agen and try to ram into him as I mean to gang, and if you hear of owt going to suit, you'll likely let me know?"

Will nodded but did not answer because of approaching steps, and they stood silently waiting until the cowman showed at the door. At once the deep symphony of the hungry broke from the cattle at sight of their servant with his swill. The quiet picture, almost as still as if painted on the wall, upheaved suddenly into a chaos of rocking, bellowing beasts. The great heads tugged at their yokes, the great eyes pleaded and rolled. The big organ-notes of complaint and desire chorded and jarred, dropping into satisfied silence as the man passed from stall to stall. Will jerked his head after him as he went out at the far door, and said that he would be leaving before so long.

"Eh? Taylor, did ye say?" Simon stared, for the man had been at Blindbeck for years. "What's amiss?"

"Nay, there's nowt wrong between us, if you mean that. But his wife's father's had a stroke, and wants him to take over for him at Drigg. News didn't come till I was off this morning, or I might ha' looked round for somebody while I was in t'town."

Simon began a fresh violent poking with his ancient stick. "You'll ha' somebody in your eye, likely?" he enquired. "There'll be plenty glad o' the job."

"Oh, ay, but it's nobbut a weary business learning folk your ways." He glanced at his brother a moment, and then looked shyly away. "If you're really after a shop, Simon, what's wrong wi' it for yourself?"

The painful colour came into the other's averted face. He poked so recklessly that he poked the dog, who arose with an offended growl.

"Nay, it's charity, that's what it is! I'm over old.... You know as well as me I'd never get such a spot anywheres else."

"You know the place, and you're a rare hand wi' stock. I could trust you same as I could myself."

"I'm over old," Simon demurred again, "and done to boot. I'd not be worth the brass."

"We've plenty o' help on the place," Will said. "It'd be worth it just to have you about. Nigh the same as having a vet on t'spot!" he added jokingly, trying to flatter him into acquiescence. "I'd be main glad for my own sake," he went on, his face grave again and slightly wistful. "There's times I fair ache for a crack wi' somebody o' my own. Women is nobbut women, when all's said and done, and lads is like to think they know a deal better than their dad.... Ay, well, you can think it over and let me know," he finished, in a disappointed tone.

Simon poked for a while longer, and succeeded in poking the cow as well as the dog. He was fighting hard with his pride as he scraped busily at the flags. The tie of blood pulled him, as well as the whole atmosphere of the prosperous place. He knew in his heart that he was never so happy as when he was with his brother, never so good a man as when he was preaching in Will's shippons. As for pride, that would have to go by the board sooner or later; indeed, who would say that he had any right to it, even now? He made up his mind at last on a sudden impulse, lifting his head with a hasty jerk.

"I've had enough o' thinking things over, thank ye all the same. I'll be main glad o' the job, Will, and that's the truth...." He sank back instantly, however, and fell to poking again. "Folk'll have plenty to say, though, I reckon," he added bitterly, "when they hear as I'm hired man to my younger brother!"

"They've always a deal to say, so what's the odds? As for younger and older, there isn't a deal to that when you get up in years.... There's a good cottage across t'road," he went on eagerly, bringing up reinforcements before Simon should retire. "It's handy for t'stock, and there's a garden and orchard as well. Lasses could see to Sarah, you'll think on, if she's that closer. There's berry-bushes in t'garden and a deal besides...."

Simon was busy shaking his head and saying he wasn't worth it and that he was over old, but all the time he was listening with interest and even pleasure to Will's talk. Milking had now begun, and already, as the levers swung back and forwards over the cattle's heads, he found himself looking about the shippon with a possessive eye. Even in these few moments, life had taken a turn for the Thornthwaite of the desolate marsh farm. Already his back felt straighter, his eye brighter, his brain more alive. The drawbacks of the proposed position began to recede before the many advantages it had to offer. It was true, of course, that he would be his brother's hired man, but it was equally true that he was the master's brother, too. To all intents and purposes he would be master himself,--that is to say, when Eliza wasn't about! Will's cottages were good, like everything else of Will's, and the lasses could see to Sarah, as he said. For himself there would be the constant interest and stimulant of a big farm, as well as the mental relief of a steady weekly wage. He felt almost excited about it as they crossed the yard, making for Taylor's cottage over the road. He tried not to think of what Sarah might say when she heard the news, still less of what Mrs. Will would most certainly say. He felt equal to both of them in his present spirited mood, and even tried to convince himself that in time they would make friends.

As they stood looking at Taylor's cottage and Taylor's gooseberry bushes and canes, Will suddenly asked his brother whether there was any news of Geordie. And Simon, when he had given the old answer that there was no news that was worth crossing the road to hear, turned his face away in the direction of Taylor's hens, and enquired whether there was any news of Jim.

"There's been none for a sight o' years now," Will answered sadly, leaning on the wall. "Eliza wrote him a letter as put his back up, and he's never sent us a line since. He always set a deal more by you and your missis than he ever did by us. I'd ha' stood his friend, poor lad, if he'd ha' let me, but he always took it I was agen him, too."

There was silence between them for a while, and then,--"Eh, well, you've a mort of others to fill his place!" Simon sighed, watching a well-built lad swing whistling across the yard.

Will raised himself from the wall, and watched him, too.

"Ay, but I'd nobbut the one eldest son!" was all he said.

V

Sally led her aunt to the grand but unused parlour in which so many expensive and handsome things were doomed to spend their lives. There was a piano, of course, which none of the Blindbeck folk knew how to play, in spite of Eliza's conviction that the gift was included in the price. A Chippendale bookcase made a prison for strange books never opened and never named, and the shut doors of a cabinet kept watch and ward over some lovely china and glass. There was a satin-wood table with a velvet sheen, whose polished mirror never reflected a laughing human face. There was an American rocking-chair, poised like a floating bird, with cushions filled with the finest down ever drawn from an heirloom of a feather-bed. Sarah would not have taken the rocking-chair, as a rule; she would have thought herself either too humble or too proud. But to-day she went to it as a matter of course, because of the false pomp that she had drawn to herself like a stolen royal robe. With a sigh of relief that was half physical and half mental, she let herself gently down, dropped her rusty bonnet against the silk, and peacefully closed her eyes.

Sally stood looking at her with an expression of mingled pity, curiosity and awe. She had pitied her often enough before, but she had never before seen her through the slightest veil of romance. Sometimes, indeed, the tale of the damaged wedding-day had touched her imagination like the scent of a bruised flower, but it was so faint and far-off that it passed again like a breath. To-day, however, she had that sudden sense of exquisite beauty in the old, which all must feel who see in them the fragile storehouses of life. The old woman had known so much that she would never know, looked on a different world with utterly different eyes. There was romance in the thought of the dead she had seen and spoken to and laughed with and touched and loved. And even now, with the flower of her life apparently over and withered back again to its earth, this sudden splendour of Geordie had blossomed for her at the end.

The girl waited a moment, hoping for a word, and then, though rather reluctantly, turned towards the door. She wanted to hear still more about the marvellous news, but the old woman looked so tired that she did not like to ask. She was anxious, too, to get back to the kitchen to keep an eye on Mary Phyllis. Yet still she lingered, puzzled and curious, and still touched by that unusual sense of awe. An exotic beauty had passed swiftly into the musty air of Eliza's parlour, a sense of wonder from worlds beyond ... the strong power of a dream.

"You're over-tired, aren't you, Aunt Sarah?" she repeated, for want of something better to say. She spoke rather timidly, as if aware that the words only brushed the surface of deeper things below.

Sarah answered her without opening her eyes.

"Ay, my lass. Just a bit."

"You'd best stop here quietly till Uncle Simon's yoked up. I'll see nobody bothers you if you feel like a nap. I'd fetch you a drop of cowslip wine, but mother's got the key."

"Nay, I want nowt wi' it, thank ye," Sarah said. "I'll do all right." She lifted her hands contentedly, and folded them in her lap. "Likely I'll drop off for a minute, as you say."

"Ay, well, then, I'd best be getting back." She moved resolutely now, but paused with her hand on the latch. "Aunt Sarah," she asked rather breathlessly, "was all that about Cousin Geordie true?"

Sarah's lids quivered a little, and then tightened over her eyes.

"Ay. True enough."

"It's grand news, if it is! ... I'm right glad about it, I'm sure! I've always thought it hard lines, him going off like that. And you said he'd done well for himself, didn't you, Aunt Sarah? ... Eh, but I wish Elliman could make some brass an' all!"

"There's a deal o' power in brass." The words came as if of themselves from behind the mask-like face. "Folks say it don't mean happiness, but it means power. It's a stick to beat other folk wi', if it's nowt else."

"I don't want to beat anybody, I'm sure!" Sally laughed, though with tears in her voice. "I only want what's my own."