Chapter IV: Part I: HIS (3)

And she had never swerved from her determination during the years which followed,--never swerved at heart, that is, for she had not been hard and fast about it. She had got to know both Mrs. Grisedale and Mrs. Ellwood in the end, as well as the usual run of people in the district. She had gone to parties in her time. She was never behindhand, either, when help of any sort was required, for she was a kind enough woman, in spite of her discontent. But she had never got to the point of making intimate friends. Always she had looked beyond her neighbours to that distant thing in which they had neither lot nor part.

Descending the steep steps which led to the water’s edge, he came to the catamaran moored in its pool between the wooded sides of the worn gorge. Going aboard, he began to wind himself from bank to bank, the light, wooden raft moving easily on its steel pulleys. The water was quiet enough here, black and almost still, but on either hand he could see the fretted rush of one of the fastest streams in England. A beautiful river, winding and sweeping and leaping.... A river which could rise in a few hours and become a broad, flying torrent, with crisp, curling waves like those of the neighbouring sea.

And at once, almost the very moment, it seemed, that he pushed off, the ache at his heart left him, succumbing to that curious influence which water has upon the human mind. The detachment it breeds worked upon him even in that black pool which could for no more than a moment give pause to the sea-going mountain stream. The smooth rush out across the unrippled surface was a steady rush into peace. His nerves eased in the gliding movement of the raft, held to earth though it was by that velvet pull on its under side. He drew deep breaths as he worked at the creaking handle. His released mind took to itself wings.

For he had been a boy on this river, and nothing that life had so far attempted to give him had ever equalled that. He had been a boy, climbing among its rocks, swimming in its pools, watching its hidden life and learning its hidden lore. He had known it empty almost as a sand-channel is empty when the water alters its course; seen it foaming and full, a swirling engine of destruction. It had been the playground of his youth, and at the same time it had been his friend, for to his young mind it had had all the personality and importance of a dominant human being.

He was a boy again now, as he grounded the raft softly, and softly stepped off on the other side, as if stepping into a church. Here, where he had spent so many hours with other lads, or alone, there lingered for him still the holy touch of youth. It was in the water and in the air, in the colour and shape of things, and in the peculiar values of the light. Above all, it was in that atmosphere of childhood which never changes, and which is so distinct from any other that it can be recognised even in the dark.

He stood for a moment or two after he had landed, surrendering himself joyfully to the ancient thrill, and seeking from point to point for reminders which should serve to accentuate it. Here, where a low bough, along which he had often walked, still thrust out its bold and crooked arm over the racing water.... There, where the salmon rose in the summer ... where the bathing-strand lay firm and dry ... where the long curve of the rose-gardens against the river even at this time of the year showed a velvet line. It seemed to him as he stood, quivering to the thrill, that never until now had he grasped the meaning of its peculiar comfort. Its virtue lay in that easy leap back to childhood, which made of life such a little thing, and at the same time held such a vivid assurance of a life that should be eternal.

But you could never hope to receive that comfort except in the home of your youth. No other place would do; not Canada, nor another.... In any other place you would have to grow old patiently without that blessed assurance, and to bolster up your faith in a future existence as best you might.

He had planned to get face to face with the Canadian problem as soon as he was safely across the river, out of reach of the staring eyes of his staff and of Mattie’s exultation. He had meant to set forth to himself the advantages of the change, to conjure up the presence of his children and to dwell happily upon the interest of their garden. He had meant to meet, once for all, the call of the things he would have to leave, so that, no matter what else might lie before him, he could never suffer as much again. He had intended to return from his round already passed over in spirit to the new life in the new country, having said good-bye once and for all to the life he had lived in the old.

But he found that he could not think of either his lasses or his lads as he climbed the shallow steps which guided him up the rock-garden, strive as he might to picture them in their far homes under that high sky of which Mattie had spoken so often and so fondly. They were not real to him on this ground where, the instant he set foot on it, he relinquished his own manhood. Always they slipped away from him as ghosts might slip away. He had, indeed, one rather frightening moment when he found that he could not even remember their names.

He wandered for a long time in his country of the past, including both past and present in his gesture of farewell. At point after point along the paths he stopped to dream and stare, seeing the long, plant-carpeted terraces which he had planned, and could not have told whether they were the old or the new things that he saw. But in any case it did not matter. The old and the new were fused for the time being to make a greater loveliness, a finer air; that special atmosphere in which he lived again his own enchanted youth, and was permeated, as he looked, by the happiness which is a foretaste of the happiness of eternity.

Some inward monitor brought him back again at last to the raft, set his fingers to the stiff handle, and pushed him off across the quiet water. The mist was high above the river by now, so that, as he passed into it, he was lost to sight from either bank, with only the melancholy creaking of the machinery to locate his whereabouts. But he did not feel lost, because of the coloured picture of youth which still glowed and moved upon the vaporous canvas before him. He was still at peace, still sure both of this world and the next, when he met the further bank with a sudden shock.

There came back to him with the shock the realisation not only of his physical but of his mental position. Climbing up the wood-edged steps, he rose both out of the mist and out of the boyhood dream which had so contentedly ensnared him. He looked back for a moment before turning resolutely towards the Hall, and saw the mist lying like a shroud, not only upon the river, but upon the precious things of his own past.

He had lingered and dallied during the last hours as if time had suddenly ceased to be, so that he was forced to hurry now in order to make up for it. All day, he thought, he had been behaving like that, alternately dawdling and hurrying, and then forgetting and dawdling again.... The men had disappeared who had been working in the grounds, and were no doubt up at the kitchen garden, waiting for him. It was pay-day, too, he remembered suddenly, with quick dismay, and they would not be best pleased at being kept waiting for their money. They would say it was time he went, he told himself, as he skirted the still-silent house, and came again to the steep path which mounted his own hill. They would echo the words which Machell had all but spoken, that morning,--that it was patent to all and sundry that he was getting too old for his job.

He had no difficulty now in thinking of his children over the sea, less than no difficulty in remembering their names. The whole Canadian project came back to him, with all that it entailed, together with the memory of yesterday’s fatal promise. He could no longer hide from himself that, for him, at least, that promise had been fatal, whatever it might mean for Mattie. It was a knife set at his own throat, a pair of shears at his own roots. Even if he had not known the truth before he started on his round, he could not have helped but know it after those hours across the river.

The men were waiting for him, as he expected, and he paid them hurriedly, taking care not to look at them, and without any of the little kindly enquiries and comments which he often had for them. He had hoped that Machell, being the first paid, would be the first to go, but instead he lingered behind the others. Coming out of his office, he found him waiting for him outside, looking rather unhappy.

“If you could spare me a minute, sir ...” he began, looking more abashed than ever by Kirkby’s movement of recoil. “I just wanted to say I hope I didn’t put you about by what I mentioned to you this morning.”

“Why should it put me about?” Kirkby asked, looking, not at him, but at The Cat, which, moving tawnily between the white purity of the evening light and the warm brown of the soil, had developed an unearthly beauty of its own.

“No reason at all, I’m sure, if you’re really meaning going. But it struck me afterwards, thinking about it, that perhaps I’d been over-smart.”

“You’ve got to put in early, these days, if there’s a job going begging,” Kirkby said, wishing so earnestly that the man would go that he felt as if he were pushing him.

“Yes, sir, I know. And there’s others to think of, too.... But I should be sorry if I’d put you about. It’s seemed to me all day as you were a bit down----”

But to be told that he looked “down” was more than Kirkby could bear,--more than he could bear to know that he carried the mark of his defeat.... Waving both Machell and his consolation away, he turned on his heel.

“You’ve no call to worry yourself, my lad,” he found himself saying, both his sense of justice and his native politeness forcing him to the speech. “You get off home. If I do send in my notice, you’ll be more than welcome to the job.”

He heard Machell begin to speak again as he walked away,--broken but grateful phrases, ending bravely with: “If you’re stopping on, there’ll be nobody better pleased than me ...” followed presently by the sound of the man’s footsteps receding along the path. He turned then, and watched him walk across the gardens, noticing, as he thought, the already-possessive glance which he cast on either hand. At the gate Len stopped and looked back towards the elder man, and even at that distance their glances seemed to meet and mingle as over some prone and coveted body. When finally he had closed the gate and disappeared, there came from Kirkby’s lips a little sound that was like a cry....

It occurred to him presently that Mattie would be waiting for him, as other people had already waited, that day, and he turned mechanically towards the house. He shrank, however, as he remembered the state of the place as he had found it, earlier on, as well as from the fresh transports which Mattie would have in store for him. He felt, as he had felt about Machell’s rough attempts at sympathy, that he could not bear them just now.... Swerving away to the right before he reached his home, he took a path which led him beyond the walls into the healing quiet of empty spaces.

The spring evening was very still, so still that, as he stood, he could hear the faint cry of new-born lambs from across the river. All over the land was that cool silver light which is so much more mystic, and at the same time more intimate, than any other. An incredible gentleness had come upon the earth under its touch. Bathed in that heavenly light it became suddenly more human. Beneath it, the brown plough lay warm and rich, while the grassland looked springy and deep, a comfort to eye and foot. The woods to the west showed silver palings between their trunks, while down on the flat the plantations looked like clumps of sepia feathers. In the soft yet clear air everything seemed to draw together, the white-faced farm-houses, the woods, the hills, the gentle, coloured earth ... gathered to hear the happy message with which the whole world seemed to thrill.

High on a bough above him a blackbird began to sing, and again there came from Kirkby’s lips that sound that was like a cry....

In the drawn dusk he wandered about the gardens, seeing the glass-houses, which were so brisk and coloured in the day, ghostly as water is ghostly under the first finger of the dark. Mattie had made no attempt to look for him, so that he was alone, as he had been in the early hours, but without the solace of his vision. The procession of the year no longer marched in strength before him, sounding its coloured trumpets as it passed. When he came to the place where the dawnbell was to stand, he could no longer picture it blue and exquisite against the soil.

For the third time that day rage seized him as he stood looking down at the dark ground which had blossomed so easily for him in the morning, but from which he could now conjure nothing but despair and gloom. He knew definitely now that he had been trapped by fate, and felt none the less bitter because he had sprung the trap with his own hand. He thought of his children with love, but knew that for such as himself there were things which were more than children. Closer to him than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.... His children had grown away from him and made a life for themselves; but he, if he was to follow them, could do nothing but pine and die.

He made up his mind as he stood that he would go back on his word, and that after to-day he would shut his ears to Mattie’s pleadings for ever. If she must go, she must go alone, and he must manage as best he might. The letter had not been delivered yet, as far as he knew, and, even if it had, he could always withdraw his notice. They would not be hard on him at the Hall, knowing well enough as they did what had brought him to this pass. For in writing that letter he had been trapped ... trapped! The rage in him was so great that he shook with it as he stood, clenching and unclenching his hands and grinding his teeth. This time he actually cried aloud, and it seemed to him that the cry rushed out and over the walls, so that even down at the Hall they could hear him shouting that he was trapped....

And then suddenly Mattie’s face came to him as he had seen it, that morning, fresh and sweet and glad after her dream-tryst of the night. He saw the light in her eyes, and heard the break in her voice. He thought of her years of beating against the bars, and of how for her the trap he had sprung for himself meant the opening of her prison-gate. Remembering these things, he knew that he could not break his promise.... Slowly his rage subsided and his hands unclenched. He stood, an indistinct figure in the dusk, with drooped shoulders and bowed head. He had promised Mattie, and he could not fail her. Perhaps, once safely Over There, he might be allowed to find peace, and forget.

* * * * *

Turning towards the house, he saw Mattie running and stumbling towards him across the gardens.