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....