Chapter V: Part II: Hers (1)

I

Mattie never forgot what she had felt when she awoke on that miracle-morning,--never forgot, and never allowed herself to remember.... She came back to consciousness still swathed and steeped in the sweetness of her dream, arriving presently, with a little shock of joy, at the thought of the sweeter fulfilment which was to follow. At the moment, however, she found it difficult to believe that the latter could possibly be more concrete than the former. So real, so intense had been that experience of the spirit, that the senses also seemed to have been satisfied by it for the time being.

She lay on for some time after she had told Kirkby of the beautiful journey which she had taken in the night, living it over again to fresh thrills of delight which were like little inward cries of pleasure. (_So_ they had looked and spoken, and held, and kissed....) It was not often, except in the case of illness, that she had allowed herself the luxury of staying in bed. Very occasionally she had yielded to it when life was pressing too hardly upon her, watching the hours drift by with a hopelessness which was in itself a sort of hope, knowing as she did that, when that phase was over, she would be able to take up existence again a little more cheerfully. But she had never yet stayed in bed because the moments in front of her were so rich and wonderful that she could afford to waste them.... A sort of radiance seemed to her to pervade the room, in which the earthly day had not yet quite prevailed, so that she felt that, if anybody should look in upon her, just then, they would see her through a wall of light.

She had said to Kirkby that she was “back,”--back in her prison, she had meant,--speaking the word with a bitterness which had first driven him out, and then almost brought him back to comfort her; but he was barely out of the room before she was gone Canada-wards again. She had forgotten so much about Them, she said to herself, half-ashamed to have forgotten, and wholly enchanted by the reminder. She had forgotten Luke’s habit of cocking his head on one side as he talked, and Joe’s love of humming a tuneless tune, while he drummed out the beat of it on his knee. Maggie’s shrug of the shoulders, and Ellen’s trick of half-closing her eyes when she laughed, together with that little way she had of touching you affectionately when she sat beside you.... Joe’s eldest boy hummed, too, and Ellen’s baby shut its eyes in the same fascinating fashion. It put out its hands to you in the same way,--little, round, baby hands groping half-consciously for the comfort of human touch.

It was astonishing, she thought, that people who cared for their children should forget so much about them. Not, of course, that you forgot _them_. You had only to think of them,--sometimes it happened without your thinking,--and their faces came up before you, in a sort of halo of light. But the little tricks and ways which held so much of their character seemed to fade if you were parted from them for years. Perhaps it was as well that they should fade, seeing how much they could hurt you to remember.

It had not occurred to her that she might be going to dream about the children when she went upstairs to bed. Indeed, to be perfectly frank, she had hardly thought about them at all. A great exhaustion had fallen upon her as soon as she realised that her forty years’ struggle against circumstances was over. It had been hard to realise it, too. Even while Kirkby was writing the letter, she had found it difficult to believe that he was really doing it. Each moment, also, she had expected that he would break off and refuse to finish, and had found it incredible that he should continue calmly to the end. Indeed, he had puzzled her, last night, as much as she had puzzled him. To her, too, as to him, it had seemed impossible that the mere writing of a letter could bring so much to a close.

Even when it lay before her, addressed and sealed, and Kirkby, without any sign of repentance, had let it lie, she had felt no sensation either of joy or triumph. Instead, she had felt that great weariness, as after a heavy burden at last laid down, together with a curious impression of being out in a great space, without any sense of direction. She had seen herself, during those few moments in which she groped aimlessly about the kitchen, as a coloured balloon, broken suddenly from its tether, and drifting out across the world at the light mercy of the winds.

Nor, when she was alone upstairs, had she felt any glow of happiness over her victory. She had not cried, as Kirkby, sitting and waiting below, had imagined her to be crying. She had simply undressed as rapidly as possible, still feeling that curious unsteadiness as she moved about the room; and, once in bed, had seemed to pass instantly to that far-off place which was still more real to her perceptions than anything that she saw around her.

She had not visualised herself as going, nor could she remember anything about her actual arrival. She had merely found herself There, already a settled member of the little community. But she had known well enough when the time came for coming away; perhaps because, after all those years of longing, it was easier to get There than to leave.

She had seen herself passing between the houses, moving from one to the other with the assurance of long custom, and never once feeling that anything was strange. She had known which paths to take, which windows to look through, which rooms to enter. She had known that you always had trouble with Maggie’s doors, and that Ellen’s water-supply wasn’t as good as it might be. She had known that Luke had a piano, and that Joe (who hadn’t risen to one yet, in spite of his fondness for humming), sent his children to Luke’s to practise. She had known the hours they kept, the clothes they wore, their furniture and their meals, their neighbours and their hired men. And they had known that she knew. She had fitted into their midst as a glove fits a hand which has never taken it off.

And other things, too,--the sort which nobody told, and which couldn’t by any chance have got into their letters. Just when Maggie’s husband was a bit tiresome with Maggie, and where Joe’s missis failed in being just what he had hoped she would be.... Those queer sisters-in-law of Ellen’s; and Luke’s father-in-law, who was the sort you could quite well do without.... The trouble about the bit of money which Joe had lent Maggie’s husband.... The trouble about the bit of money which Ellen had lent Joe....

It surprised her to remember how much at home she had felt, how completely in tune with conditions which she had never experienced in the flesh. Why, she had even felt at home in the house which she had seen as already built for herself and Kirkby, although in point of fact it was not yet in existence! Just by closing her eyes she could see herself in, it again, could feel, as she had felt in the night, her pleasure in her environment. It was a small house, of course, with no more than four rooms in it, at the most, but it was a smallness which made for comfort and not constriction. She had felt so happy in it, so snug, that she laughed contentedly at the very remembrance. It was a queer thing, when you came to think of it, and rather uncanny, that you could feel at home in a house which hadn’t even been built!

There were more than four rooms in the cottage in which she had lived so long, but she had always felt pressed in upon by it, and as if she could hardly breathe. It was a good place, of course, and a big one, as cottages went,--almost too big, indeed, when it came to single-handed work. But she had never yet felt at home in it, or known the intimate joy of the home-lover and the home-maker. She had done her duty by it, that was all. She had lived and worked in it merely as a caretaker might have lived and worked, and on the few occasions when she had gone away from it she had felt as if it had ceased to exist....

There was only one thing which had troubled her in the dream, and she had not said anything to Kirkby about it. Indeed, she had almost forgotten it when she awoke, safe in her hopes as she was, as if ringed by shields; but now it set her mind wondering and her brow wrinkling.... She had been troubled and puzzled because of the questions which They had asked her.

Maggie, for instance, had wanted to know all about the people at home,--who lived in this place and that, and a lot of other things which she had been put to it to answer.

“Who’s got Beck Edge, nowadays, Mother, and Field Howe? Beck Edge belonged to the father, didn’t it, and t’other to the son? I remember hearing they wanted to change about, but I don’t know if they ever did.”

Her mother, however, had been quite unable to clear up the mystery,--if mystery there was,--about Beck Edge and Field Howe. She had never been interested in the matter, and she cared nothing about it now. But Maggie was so interested that she couldn’t stop talking about it. Her colour rose and her eyes shone. Digging up vague details from a quite improbable past, she proceeded to shape them into an unreliable present. You might almost have thought that she had a personal bias in the affair; whereas the truth was that she had never been nearer either of the houses than a crow’s flight on a fine day.

Luke’s questions had been chiefly about the staff,--who was working for his father, these days, and what had happened to the rest. “I always thought Nicholson wouldn’t last so long,” he had said. “He was a bad egg,--sure! Tommy Rigg’ll be getting an old man now, and likely past his work. What? D’you mean to say he’s been gone five year back and more? Gosh! How time does scoot!”

He had said another thing after that which had annoyed her sorely in the dream, and which even in remembrance made her fume a little.

“Len Machell’s still hanging on, isn’t he?” he had asked. “Father thought a lot of Len. I never let on to you about it, Mother, but he once applied to me for a job. When we were on our feet, it was, and he knew we’d something to offer; but of course I told him that I shouldn’t think of sniping him like that from the old dad.”

She had been pretty short with him, she remembered now,--had implied, whilst busy commenting upon Machell’s “cheek,” that there had been “cheek” on Luke’s part as well. He had only laughed in his cheerful way, and the dream had melted and changed, but the flame of her indignation was still at work within her. She had not known that she could care so much about a thing like that, or that she could resent so bitterly a slight on Kirkby. And not only Kirkby himself, but Kirkby’s job, which she had always imagined that she despised and hated!... She was surprised by her own attitude, and lay for some time brooding over it. It was only with difficulty that she reminded herself that it was “only a dream,” and that in all probability Machell had never applied at all.

Joe’s questions had been much the same as Luke’s, with now and then a family resemblance to some of Maggie’s. He, too, had wanted to know about the staff, and who was now at the Home Farm. But he had also wanted information about some of his old-time sweethearts, and that with his wife sitting by and not looking over-suited!

“Where’s Bessie Dale, these days, Mother, and Carrie Sharpe? Married long since, both of them, I’ll be bound,--nay, don’t tell me you’ve never heard! Carrie was a school-teacher, you’ll think on, and Bessie in Morton’s office. There was Dolly Dale, as well, but, of course, _she_ married Len Machell....” It was queer how the Machells kept coming into the dream!

She had done her best to suppress Joe, both because of his wife’s crab-apple look, and because of the hot little ache at the heart which mothers feel at the mention of girls who have wanted their sons. But he had refused to be silenced, at first, and had gone on chattering about Dolly. “Dolly was the best of the bunch,” he had said, laughing, “and more than a bit fond of yours truly. Len would never have got her, I know that, if I’d stopped at home instead of hitting the trail!”

But They had got tired at last of asking her about England,--even Joe, who saw it sunned by the bright smiles of his lost lasses. They had understood that she did not want to talk about it, and had stopped teasing her, realising also that she had very little to tell them. But it had been impossible to explain that it had ceased to be real to her as soon as she had left it,--that she had clean forgotten such things as that Machell had married Dolly!

It was Ellen, amazingly, who had been the worst of all, because it was Ellen who had asked about the house and gardens. This was the more surprising because she had been the one child who had seemed to share her mother’s dislike of them. Many a pleasant chat they had had together, abusing the dull, shut-in place, and feeling greatly enlivened. And now it was Ellen who was bringing it back to mind, tying her down to it again when at last she was safely shot of it!

“Have you got that extra window put in, Mother, you were always so keen on? Does the kitchen fire still smoke in a west wind? Privet hedge’ll have grown to a grand size, nowadays, I expect? Does the dad still grow ‘Creeping Jenny’ over the front door?”

She had tried hard to find answers for Ellen, sitting on a stool at her knee, and fondly fingering her skirt. There had been a distant look in her eyes as she put her questions, as if her mind had jumped to her mother’s side of the ocean, as her mother’s had jumped to hers. Mattie had felt it a trifle disloyal of Ellen to have gone away, so to speak, the moment she arrived. It was almost as if they had been nearer together when those heaving miles of Atlantic had lain between them....

But those were the only shadows which had blurred the exquisiteness of the dream, and the effect of them, after all, had been to make it even more real. For, as she had to admit, those were the very questions that They _would_ ask, Over There, until their excitement over their parents’ arrival had sobered down a little. Later on, too, they would ask, at intervals, again, for even in the busiest lives there are hours when, the body quiet, the mind insists upon travelling. But she would not mind it so much, then.... It was only Ellen who had given her something of a shock,--whose questions, now that she came to think of them, did not seem quite real.

The rest of the experience, however, had been pure joy, so full of laughter and sweet looks and tender touches that it seemed as if the sensation of them must last for ever. There were the grandchildren, too,--but she must give an hour or two, later, to thinking about them. They were too many, and too dear, to be hurried over when she ought to be getting up and seeing to Kirkby’s breakfast.

But the biggest thing in the dream had been the feeling of escape,--together with that exhilarating sense of space after which she had always hankered, without rhyme or reason. Other places, no doubt, could have given her that same sense, but it was Canada that had captured her imagination. Canada as a whole seemed to have got into the dream, with its strong air, its mountains and lakes, and its long stretches of land reaching to the great line of its horizon. She thought of prairies and woods, and great rivers, and ice-bound harbours. She saw the glint of gold, and dog-sledges racing over frozen country. She saw the soft colours of ripened orchards, and a fresh wind running for miles over the stooping heads of wheat.... All that she had heard and read about the Dominion seemed to have merged into one single setting for that keen adventure of her spirit.

It had all been wonderful beyond imagining, joyful beyond ecstasy; perfect,--no, not quite perfect. There had been just one thing lacking,--one person who had not been present. Kirkby was not in the dream....

II

She was still wondering why Kirkby was not in the dream when she had got herself out of bed and was beginning to dress quickly, although not so quickly as she was in the habit of dressing, for her limbs felt heavy, this morning, as if her body also had travelled in the night. Her mind, too, was still inclined to wander, so that at intervals she found herself losing touch with what she was doing. In the very act of fastening button or tape, sewn on with that efficient sureness which was her distinguishing characteristic, she would pause to answer some question put by a voice which could not be less than three thousand miles away.

She felt disconcerted by the fact that Kirkby had apparently had neither lot nor part in last night’s expedition. She was also rather glad, with a queer, jealous gladness which she did not understand, and which made her slightly ashamed. But his absence not only detracted from the reality of the dream; it rather frightened her. The superstition always dormant at the back of the country mind rose up to persuade her that Kirkby would never live to cross the ocean with her.

But the shadow soon passed, as the other shadows had passed, and the rush of excitement returned more headily than ever. She even sang as she dressed, and then stopped with a laugh, feeling that even the walls of the house must come alive to hear her. She was the type of woman who sings naturally as she moves about, but the number of times she had sung in that house she could count on her ten fingers.... Not only had she not had the heart to sing in a place so hostile to her, but it would have seemed to her rather false, implying to all who might hear it that she was beginning to “settle down.”

She had not known that she was going to dislike the place when she first came to it; indeed, she had never even thought about it. She had taken it for granted that she would “settle,” as everybody else, apparently, settled. She had been too young, at that time, to know much about wives who wanted to “move on,” although she had come across more than one (and thought nothing of them) in later life. And she had certainly not known that the place you lived in could be either your enemy or your friend.

Yet she might have guessed that it would not do for her to be dumped down just anywhere; that, like so many of Kirkby’s precious plants, she needed a special soil on which to thrive. And at least she might have guessed that she needed room.... Quite early on her mother had noticed the fact, and commented upon it.

“Look at her now,” Mattie could vaguely recall her saying, pointing her out to some on-looker as she sat at table, “pushing and shoving at t’ pots till she’s got ’em away from her! She did the same as a babby, and a sight o’ mugs she broke an’ all! She can’t abide to be cluttered up, or to have folks pressing on her, can’t our Mattie.”

She had said the same to the school-teacher, when, calling indignantly to demand the meaning of some trifling punishment, she was told that Mattie had insisted upon annexing more of the school-bench than she was entitled to.

“She’ll never do as she’s meant if you don’t allow for it,” was her parting advice. “Best give her two folks’ room, and then you’ll have done with it. She’s a big child, to begin with,--as fine a one as you’ll see anywhere, though I says it as shouldn’t,--but it isn’t only that. It’s just she can’t do with feeling she hasn’t room to breathe and spread about in.”

Later on, of course, she had learned to adapt herself better to the conditions in which she lived, so that pots were no longer broken, or schoolfellows thrust aside. But her love of space continued to grow with her, although more or less unconsciously, showing itself mainly in a liking for long walks, and for open windows and doors. It was during a dispute with her mother over the latter that for once she had caught a faint glimpse of the life for which she was really intended. An aunt of hers had been staying with them, who knew a little of the world, and she had taken a hand in the family quarrel.

“Folks can’t all think the same,” she had said, in reply to the mother’s statement that, “if our Mattie had her way, roof would be off afore you could say Jack Robinson!” “They’re different, all the world over. Your Mattie’d likely do rarely in one o’ them new countries they’re talking of opening up.”

Mattie’s mother had been altogether vague upon the subject of “new countries,” having, indeed, sufficient difficulty, as it was, in realising that there was more of England beyond the one little spot in which she lived and moved and had her being.... “Eh, now! What countries?” she had enquired incredulously, rather as if she suspected the visitor of inventing them on the spur of the moment.

“Colonies, they call ’em,” the other had said firmly, although almost equally vaguely, and speaking the word as people spoke it in those days, before such names as Canada and New Zealand had become living realities to the public mind. “Fine big spots wanting big strong folk as like fresh air and a bit o’ work. Your Mattie’d do grand for Colonies, from what they tell me.”

“They’re big, d’you say?” Mattie herself had asked, fixing upon the one point which had intrigued her imagination, and in that one word, had she but known it, assessing the whole of her life’s trouble.

The visitor nodded.

“Big, every way, so I understand. Mountains and rivers, and great pieces as they call--nay, I can’t think on, except that I know it made me think o’ church. Trouble is, though, they’re such a sight of a long way off,--t’other side of the ocean, though I’m sure I can’t say which.”

Mattie’s mother had laughed when the ocean was mentioned, as though the very sound of that awe-inspiring word had put a full stop to the conversation.

“Nay, now, it’s no use your talking Colonies to the lass, if there’s oceans and such-like mixed up in it! She can’t abide the sea, can’t our Mattie, and never could. I don’t know where she gets it from, I’m sure, unless it’s my mother, as was once right near drowned, falling off a pier at Morecambe. She had a terble down on the sea, after that, and I reckon our Mattie’s the same. What, she can’t even abide a picture of it in the room,--says it puts her off her meat! Nay, if Colonies means crossing the ocean and such-like, I reckon they’ll have to do without our Mattie.”

Remembering this speech of her mother, ominously clear as speeches seem which have been long forgotten and then are suddenly recalled, she felt disconcerted for the second time, that morning. It was true, of course, that she had always dreaded the sea. Every kind of evil of which it was capable had seemed at one time or another to fasten upon her imagination. Accounts of shipwrecks held her as no other literature had power to hold her,--tidal waves, broken embankments, water-spouts moving like monstrous spectres.... The sea was the only thing in life which had so far been able to intimidate her, and she had not yet mastered her fear of it. Not easily would she forget those bad days after her children had sailed, or the unbelievable relief with which she had heard that the ground was firm again under their feet.

And now she was definitely committed to cross that very ocean which had driven the Colonies out of a cottage talk all those years ago! Even in the midst of her luminous satisfaction she shivered as she remembered it. The sea frightened you, made you sick, heaved you about, and then finally drowned you.... Not, of course, that she anticipated being drowned,--the dream alone seemed surety enough for that--but she knew that she would suffer it a hundred times in her mind before she was safely landed.

Yet it had to be faced if ever she was to know the happiness that was waiting for her, Over There.... She felt a pang of impatience because she could not make the journey as she had just made it in the night,--as she had made it many and many a time over her cooking or her needle. Yet what were a few days of misery, after all, compared with the long heart-breaking years through which she had struggled already?

The picture called up by her aunt had faded as soon as it was painted, not only blotted out by the terrors of the sea, but dwindling from sheer vagueness. She had had that one hint of a door wider than any of those which she opened daily, and then it was closed again before she could see beyond it. One glimpse, followed by a single pang of recognition and disappointment ... and presently she had forgotten it. In any case, she would have had little use for the Colonies, just then, for already she was aware that she meant to marry Kirkby.

Looking back, she could see him coming into her life as softly as the river mists which lay so often upon the gardens, and which she so much dreaded and hated. She could not remember either the day she had first met him, or the still more important day when he had asked her to marry him. All that she knew was that he had not been in her life, and then suddenly he was all of it. She could no more trace the moment when that had happened than she had ever been able to catch a tulip closing for the night.

She had neither hated nor dreaded Kirkby, in spite of his home mists, and even now the memory of their courtship had the power to thrill her with its sweetness. But he had been the wrong mate for her, nevertheless. He and all that he represented had muffled her spirit as the mists had muffled her body. The bold driving-force that was in her had been irritated by his reserved and delicate ways. It was amazing that they had pulled together as well as they had,--she always reaching outward, and he always holding back. Many a couple as badly suited would have parted company before now.

She winced a little in her new happiness, remembering how often she had felt bitterly towards him. She was ashamed, now, of their many quarrels.... In the great peace that had come to her it seemed impossible that there could ever have been anything but peace. Even when they were not disputing, she had raged against him in her heart. She flushed as she recalled that she had actually sunk so low as to try to set the children against him....

She flushed and she was ashamed, but these troubles out of the past had already vanished so far that they could not really hurt the present. Already they were gone as the wrinkles in a cloth were gone as soon as a hot iron was passed upon them. With the new peace had come to her also a new vision. She had not meant to hurt Kirkby any more than he had meant to hurt her. She would do her best to make up to him for it in the little time that was left to them Over There.

It seemed strange to her now that her mother, who had read her so plainly when she was small, had yet not seen fit to warn her when she most required it. Perhaps she was one of those people who could see things clearly in a child, but never thought about them again directly they grew up. Even if she had thought, she would only have said that a good husband like Kirkby was not to be sneezed at. Mattie herself would have said it if a child of her own had asked her. He was a decent, steady young man in a job to which she was accustomed. You did not sneeze at a man like that if you had any sense of values.

She had not sneezed at him, and she was not sneezing now, though she had sneezed often enough at what he had had to offer. It was a better position, of course, than might well have fallen to her lot; a better one, for instance, than had fallen to her sisters. It was not Kirkby’s fault that the longing with which she had been born had finally got on her mind; and it was certainly her fault, if it was anybody’s, that the children had been born with it, too!

She opened the window before going downstairs, her glance falling, as she did so, on the privet hedge, and she was amazed by the sudden rush of affection which took her as she looked at it. The shadows were still on the little lawn which it sheltered, giving it that air of seclusion for which it had been planned. A flower-bed ran all round the lawn under the hedge, and in the middle of the grass was another bed with a standard rose. At one end of the little plot was a rustic seat, set with its back to the rest of the gardens and its face towards the west.

The Mattie looking out of the window saw many Matties walking in that little plot, and making it, by dint of years of dreaming, into an orchard of escape. She saw a young Mattie, first of all, and a little hedge, too thin and too small to fend off the curious glances of the men working close at hand. But the years fled before her mind little faster than they had fled in actual truth. Almost before you could turn round there was an older Mattie and an older hedge, with flowers in the trim border and a green closeness about the lawn. And presently both Mattie and the hedge were growing old and stout, and the turf had grown thick and soft, and there was a snug richness about the soil....

The little place, where, as she had told Kirkby, she was able to “get away,” had very soon become the real centre of her married life. To it she had taken both her early discontent and her later bitterness of frustration. Many a hard speech, which otherwise might have been Kirkby’s portion, had been tossed off at the privet hedge; many a salt tear had been wept into that lawn! Sitting and sewing in it, she had been a girl again, in her home towards the west. Walking in it, with her Canadian letters in her hand, the tiny spot had resolved itself into that broad country where her soul went free.

Going to Canada would, of course, mean leaving that little home of memories behind her. Somebody else would have the right to walk in it, to sit and sew and dream.... She felt a jealousy that was almost fierce as she thought of that somebody, and her throat contracted a little. If it had been possible, she would have gathered up the lawn and the privet hedge, and taken them away with her.

She continued to feel amazed by her sudden feeling for the place; or, rather, by the sudden revelation that it meant so much to her. She had thought of it only as a refuge, a makeshift for want of anything better, and now it had become something that actually belonged to her. She tested herself, looking away from it and then back to it again, and felt always the same rush of affection and the same jealous ache. She had always thought that she hated every inch of the ground on which her married life had been spent; but in spite of herself these few square yards of it had stolen into her heart.

Perhaps it was only, she thought, that the place looked different because she was leaving it. It was a well-known fact that people often regretted even the worst of things when the time came for them to part with them. (Why, she had had a cousin of her own with a broken leg, who had cried when her crutches had been taken away from her!) Or else it was just because she had not been free that she had not been able to see things properly. It was her mind, even more than her body, that had been in chains, and now she had shaken the chains from her. Perhaps she was seeing things now as she would see them in Canada, when at last she had got away from them....

She went downstairs, still thinking about the privet hedge, and feeling her first ecstasy a little tarnished. She knew now, what she had not realised before, that, in spite of the joy that was coming, there were things that would make her suffer. She had fondly imagined that she had paid for the joy long since, but apparently she had been wrong. Life was piling its debts against you all the time.... Already there had been the questions and the thought of the sea; and now had come the shock of the privet hedge. They would plant another hedge for her, if she wanted it, Over There, but they could not ensure her another forty years in which to watch it growing. They could not make each leaf and twig speak to the memories of a whole life. They could not give her back the English soil which she had salted and watered with her tears.

III

But even before she set foot in the kitchen her mind had recovered its tone. The mere fact of rapid movement, of swift passage from one room to another, had, as always, the power to cheer her. As for the letter, the presence of which had so intimidated Kirkby that it had taken him at least half an hour to look at it, she found it little less than a magic spell. To see it lying there on the table was almost to hear her children’s voices bidding her good morning, to meet their faces turned towards her as she entered, and to feel the warm reality of their hands.

So far, at least, Kirkby had not repented of his decision, she thought, relieved, finding a fresh resting-place for the precious object. He had let the letter lie.... It was true, of course, that he had seemed to have no regrets when he came to her upstairs, but you could not always tell. There was time, as she had just proved, for a whole change of heart between the first stair and the last. And he had never really wanted to go, in spite of his hankering after that distant garden and a fresh sight of his lads.

He had never yet broken a promise to her that she could remember; yet she knew that she would feel a good deal happier when the letter had really gone. For a moment she thought of stamping it and giving it to the postman if he should happen to call, but abandoned the idea instantly. Kirkby, as she knew, would prefer to give it in by hand. In these out-of-the-way places it was still considered insulting to persons of high degree to send them a letter of that sort through the post.

There would be other letters for the post, anyhow, she thought gleefully, as she prepared breakfast. Letters to her sisters, telling them that she was leaving England ... to one or two old friends still surviving in the neighbourhood of her home. Letters about passages and passports ... about her single tiny investment.... Above all, the great letter to Them, Over There, announcing their speedy coming.

She would write to Luke, she supposed, he being not only the eldest of the family, but the head of the firm. It was to his house that they would probably go, until their own could be got ready for them. But she had it at the back of her mind that she would write to Ellen, as well. Ellen was the one who would be the most pleased about it, she thought fondly, if it was fair to say that any one of them would be more pleased than the others.

The phrasing of the letter, some of it new, but most of it so old as to have become almost mechanical, raced and hammered through her brain to a triumphant close, only to begin again the moment it was finished. Always she saw it written, not in ink, but in scrolled and burnished gold; with certain extracts, such as “see you again,” “really coming,” and “hoping to find you as this leaves me,” rising above the rest like rocks in a golden sea.

She had had moments when she had thought that a quieter method would be more appropriate to the occasion,--a few, quiet, colourless sentences, easily filled in by those to whom they were sent. She had waited so long and so bitterly that it seemed almost indecent to make a song about it.... But now that the time had actually arrived she was too happy to be restrained and tasteful. The only letter that would satisfy her would be vivid and underlined, with exclamation-marks scattered here and there like little shouts of joy.

The quieter method, however, would do excellently for her sisters and the few old friends. Too great a show of excitement would seem out of place to them. They would sympathise, of course, with her desire to see her children, but otherwise they would be sure to think that she was making a mistake. Folks who never moved more than a yard from their own spots all their lives always did think that others who moved a yard or two further were making a mistake.

In any case, they had always been inclined to think her “a bit wild,” although why it should be considered “wild” to want to live in one country rather than another it was difficult to see. Anyhow, it was lucky for the Empire that somebody had been wild enough to do it sometimes! Occasionally she had tried to point this out both to the sisters and the friends, but she had never convinced them that it applied to her personally. Perhaps the folks among whom you were brought up never did understand that things might apply to you just as much as to the people outside.

No doubt the neighbours here had thought her “a bit wild,” too, and discussed her disapprovingly over their tea-cups. The village was a small one, little more than a hamlet set on the edge of the park, and no member of the limited community would be likely to escape its gossip. The thought of their shaken heads did not distress her, however, for she had found them a kindly enough lot, on the whole. More than one of them would have a good word for her, she knew, when the message got round to them that she was leaving them for ever.

She had known some of them now for nearly forty years, and yet there was not one among them she could really call a friend. They were on good enough terms, of course,--such terms as other people would undoubtedly call friendship; but in this, as in other things, she had asked more of life than it had so far seen fit to give her. A friend was a person you settled down with, side by side, and whose life dovetailed into yours as board dovetailed into board. She had never been able to have a friend like that because she had never been able to settle down. Always she had lived like someone starting on a journey, for whom at any moment the signal may be dropped.

It was not only that, in her first years of homesickness and revolt, she had not cared to know the people in the place; or that, having come from a village which was the hereditary enemy of this, she was naturally disposed to dislike its inhabitants. There was jealousy between villages as bitter and lasting as there ever was between individuals. Nobody knew what started it, as a rule, or why it persisted from generation to generation. But the moment the people from these two places happened to get together, there was bound to be trouble. Before you could turn round, they were at work belauding themselves and belittling each other, whether it was about football or the quality of the land or the amount of money in the Sunday collection-bag.

Kirkby had been not only too gentle but too much in love to make trouble of that kind, although she herself had made it unashamedly in their quarrels. But that particular feeling of animosity had died in her to some extent as time went on. The real bar to friendship had been the fear of being tied down,--the necessity for keeping herself free against the hour when she should go.

Well, she had not tied herself down, and for all those years of keeping herself aloof from people she would find herself repaid. There would be no tears on either side when the time came to say good-bye. She would be able to slip away without bitterness or regret, without a single pull at her heart, or a hand snatching at her own.

She would be sorry to part with some of them, all the same, even though there would be no sharpness about the sorrow. Things came back to her now which had long since dropped away, but which had touched her nearly, at the time. Kindnesses, which, for the time being at least, had seemed to make life brighter.... Gifts with the kind of thought behind them that was better than any gift.... Jokes which had stayed persistently in her mind, and made a sort of laughter there, even if it could not reach her lips.

And other things, infinitely more poignant, which, impossible as it seemed, she was beginning to forget.... That year when Ellen had nearly died, and Mrs. Grisedale had come unasked to help her with the nursing.... She could still see her face as she bent over the sick child, could hear the note in her voice to which, as to an actual arm, both she and Ellen had clung. She had done her best to repay the kindness, although she had not maintained the intimacy, and she had thought the matter cleared. But she knew now that, when the time came for saying good-bye to Mrs. Grisedale, she would also have to say good-bye to the bitter-sweet memory of which she was a part.

The things which you did for others were even worse in rising up against you at farewell moments.... It was she herself to whom Mrs. Ellwood had clung, during those first bad weeks after the poor thing had lost her husband. Ignoring her own people, she had asked firmly for Mattie, and Mattie had gone to her, as one always did go, in these cases. They had drifted apart long since, but they would remember when she said good-bye.... She felt absurdly that she was in some way forsaking Mrs. Ellwood, even though for twenty years at least they had been nothing more to each other than just ordinary good neighbours.

No doubt she would have other if lesser pangs to bear before she was finished with her acquaintance. Of course, it was open to her to go without saying good-bye at all, but she was not willing to slink off as if ashamed of what she was doing. The pangs would be lost soon enough in the happiness ahead of her. But she saw once again that, no matter what you paid, there was always something to pay. No matter how you kept yourself free of life, life would never leave you free....

IV

She passed with a sigh of relief to the thought of all that would have to be done before she could get away. Her heart rose to the task as she remembered it. Work,--and especially organising work,--had always been a pleasure to her, and this would mean more than pleasure. In the rush of planning and packing, of solving the many problems which would undoubtedly arise, she would easily lose sight of the few burdens that were weighing on her spirit.

At the moment, however, she had no intention of beginning to pull the house to pieces, or even of starting upon such minor operations as going through drawers and cupboards. There would be no sense in making the place uncomfortable before she was obliged. The day would be full enough, as it was, what with the ordinary routine and the letters which had to be written; not to speak of the long hours of dreaming and gloating to which she would certainly fall captive.

There would be plenty to do, of course, when the moment arrived, but it would be done all right, and done like so much clockwork. In any case, her house, always in order and always clean, was not the sort that had almost to be built over again before it was fit to leave. It was not overcrowded, either, with those things which accumulate as the years go on, so unconsciously, sometimes, that they seem to have grown out of the very stuff of life itself. Broadly speaking, she was almost as free of unnecessary belongings as a seabird poised for flight on the edge of a naked cliff.

Yet almost without knowing what she was doing she was setting her hand to the lever which Fate had so tardily thrust into it. Even while she was making the breakfast she was moving a few things here and there, rejecting this and accepting that, and hunting for paper and string with which to pack them. It was more than likely that they would have to be unpacked again, later on, even if, in a future scheme of things, they were not left behind altogether. But the excitement of putting the work in train was impossible to resist. With each parcel she packed her heart rose a little higher. Every change in the standing order of things was an added assurance that that order was at an end.

The desire to alter it even further grew upon her when breakfast was over and Kirkby had returned to his duties. A great restlessness possessed her. It was almost as if the long strain of waiting for what she wanted had sapped her power to believe in it when it came; as if she feared that, unless she instantly took advantage of it, it might still manage to evade her....

It was this fear that drove her to shifting the furniture, to dragging out hidden treasures, and reducing the house generally to a chaotic state worse even than in the yearly whirlpool of spring-cleaning. Pushing and tugging, she performed feats of strength which she had thought beyond her, even in youth, and which sent her gasping to a chair for a few moments’ relaxation. She raced up and down stairs fetching and carrying, and then did not know what to do with things, and had to take them back again. The tide of life within her rose to its fullest height in the necessity for proving to herself that at last the longed-for miracle had been accomplished.

She was standing on a chair by the dresser, measuring the pot-rail with a tape, and in constant danger of losing her balance in her efforts, when the postman’s whistle came shrilling up to her as he climbed towards the gardens. In the sudden start that it gave her she lost count of what she was doing, and, getting down rather stiffly, she went to the door to wait for him.

For how many years now, she said to herself, still flushed and panting, had she listened, morning by morning, for Dick Nelson’s whistle! For how many years now had it had power to thrill her, carrying with it, as it so often did, the possibility of a Canadian letter! Even when there was no chance of such a thing it could set her heart leaping and her eyes shining. The single, climbing note of it had always been for her a call straight from the Great Beyond.

So many mornings she had longed and listened, and now she could almost count on her fingers the mornings that were left! She wondered whether she would still find herself listening when she was over the water,--going to the door, perhaps, to stand waiting and watching. It would be some time, no doubt, before she would get used to doing without those constant letters. She had lived for them so long that the loss of them at first would be almost like the loss of meat and drink.

She would not need them, of course, when she had the children,--so much nearer and dearer than any letter could make them!--but she would miss them, all the same. There were things people told you in letters which they never told in the flesh; things they felt for you when they wrote which they did not think of when you were by. And, once written, you had them to turn to, even if they never said them again. The very handwriting of those who loved you was in itself a loving speech....

The postman was getting nearer now, she could tell, and he had not whistled again. He had known for many a year now that he did not need to whistle more than once when it came to Mrs. Kirkby!... Like a wise man, he was saving his breath for the last steep little pull that led to the gardens. She could hear him wheezing and puffing, as it was, and the shuffle of his step which betrayed the slow lifting of his feet. Dick Nelson was getting old, she thought idly, and then remembered with a start that he was the same age as herself. She knew that was so because he had told her his age on his last birthday, and, looking at his wrinkles and his bowed back, she had been startled, even then. To-day, listening to his puffing and pausing as he climbed the gardens path, she was more than startled. To-day, faced as she was with new conditions which would make such trial of her strength, Dick’s loss of vigour seemed an actual menace.

She tried to console herself with the thought that age was purely a personal matter, and that people did not necessarily grow old at the same rate because they were born on the same day. Dick, as she knew, had been a weakling in his youth, whereas she had never known ache or pain. A walking-post’s job was a trying one, too, especially in this northern climate.... Nevertheless, she found it an effort to look at him as he came in at the little gate.

He was still wheezing as he stopped in front of her, and, diving into his bag, produced a flat packet, which she saw to be addressed to her in Ellen’s writing. He fumbled a little with it before he handed it over, and for the moment, curiously enough, she felt no impulse to take it from him.

“Another letter from your folks, Missis,” Dick said, with the familiarity of the old country postman, which pays for itself by a genuine sympathy in either joy or sorrow. “It should ha’ been here yesterday, but I took it to Mrs. Crosby’s, by mistake.”