II
ONCE again, however, he shut it out, firmly refusing to look at it as he stepped across to the kettle. Yet again his awareness of it was apparent in his every movement. His hand shook as he made the tea; and when the bed upstairs creaked again, with that sharp, emphatic creak which he had come to regard as actually emanating from his wife rather than as the mere protest of a piece of furniture, he hurried out of the room as if thankful to get away from it.
Cup in hand, he went upstairs, and entered the low bedroom, with its window looking out on to the little plot of ground which was private to the house, separated from the rest of the gardens by a privet hedge which he had planted forty years ago, and which had now grown thick and high. He had never ceased to feel surprised when he looked at that hedge, not because it had done so well, but because it was there at all. He would never have thought of planting it but for his wife, because it would never have occurred to him to feel the need of it. Either the whole place was his, or else none of it was,—that was how he looked at it. Nevertheless, he had planted the hedge to please her, because she wanted a spot where she could “get away.” In the same way she had chosen the bedroom which looked out on that particular side, because it made her feel that she “wasn’t there.” He had had some difficulty in understanding either of these rather puzzling statements, but he had made no bones about them. He himself had never wanted either to get away or to feel that he wasn’t there; but of course it wasn’t to be expected that he and Mattie should always feel the same.
She was sitting up in bed when he went in, and leaning forward a little, as if some eagerness in her had sent her spirit before her to unburden itself to him. The paralysis which had seemed to afflict her on the previous night,—the result, perhaps, of over-emotion or fatigue—had completely dropped from her. This morning, indeed, she looked alive to her very finger-tips. Her strong, buxom figure looked hale and wholesome in its good longcloth nightgown. Her plaited hair, run through with silver, was still silky and thick. Her eyes were shining and her cheeks flushed. She took the cup from him in a grasp that was as firm and capable as when he had first known her.
“Eh, but I’ve slept sound!” she announced, yawning and smiling in a breath, while the vibrant tones of her voice, running through the room, seemed to stir up the atmosphere of the house, and even to assist at the awakening of the world outside. “I don’t know that I ever remember sleeping like that before.”
He nodded, looking at her affectionately as he stood beside the bed in one of those still attitudes of his which suggested the poise of a flower on a windless day.
“Yes. You’ve slept grand. You were tired, likely, with all that settling and such-like.”
She laughed at that, showing teeth that were still fine, and stirring her tea with a steady hand.
“Nay, not I!” she said in the same voice, the very strength of which was an added denial. “It’d take a deal more than that to knock me out.” Then suddenly she sobered, staring thoughtfully at the cup before her. “I was just sort of—satisfied—I suppose.”
He said: “That’s right! That’ll be it,” in his quiet tones, nodding at her again, although this time she wasn’t looking at him; the little action and the repeated phrase seeming to warn off something inside him that was making him feel guilty.
“I was dreaming a deal, although I was so sound....” She lifted her eyes to him once more in their shining eagerness. “I dreamt I was There!”
He grew, if possible, a trifle more still. So far, he had evaded the letter successfully, but he could not evade this. In another minute, and in spite of himself, he, too, would be There....
“I saw the whole spot as plain as plain!” Mattie went on rapidly. “There was Luke’s house, first of all, and then Joe’s, and then Maggie’s and her husband’s,—all nearabouts together, just as they’ve always said.”
He murmured, “Yes, yes! Yes, yes!” trying to hold himself back, but feeling that he was going, all the same.
“Ellen was there, too, though she lives a good bit off....” She ruminated a little, as if trying to work out in her mind how Ellen had managed it. “It was all just as they said, only a deal bigger. All of ’em together, just as they used to be, and things as snug as snug!”
“Yes, yes! Yes, yes!”
She paused a moment, contentedly sipping her tea, and staring at the knitted quilt on the bed as though she saw the whole pattern of her dream laid out there before her.
“There was another house as well,” she said presently, still staring,—“a house you and me know of, as isn’t built yet, but will be, before long....”
“Yes, yes! Yes, yes!”
“And between the houses there was that garden they talk so much about,—a great big stretch of a place as seemed to go on for ever and ever.”
He did not say anything to that, for the simple reason that he was no longer present to say it. He was There now, just as she had been There, all during those night-hours when he had lain awake and she had slept so sweetly. The garden had taken him, as he had known it would take him, if she began to speak of it. He could fight against all the rest,—the houses and their occupants, even that other house which was going to be so important, although it was not yet even built; but he could not fight the garden. The very mention of it was sufficient to drag him out of the safe place in which he had lived so long, and to carry him overseas.
“It was all just as we thought,” Mattie was saying again,—“only a deal bigger.” She had forgotten her tea, for the time being, and her gaze at the quilt seemed not so much to be seeing pictures upon it as to pierce through it and beyond. “There was that much room,—more room than I’d ever thought there was in the whole world! Even the sky seemed bigger and higher than our sky over here.” She drew a deep breath, as if even in imagination it was a delight to fill her lungs under that higher and wider sky.... “The children were there and all,” she went on, after a pause, her voice softening. “You’ll hardly believe it, but I knew ’em as well as well, even though I’ve never seen no more of ’em than just their photos! There was Luke’s Joe, and Joe’s Luke, and little Sally, and Daisy May; little Eric, too ... and Maggie’s last, as hasn’t done as well as it should.... I couldn’t have known them better if I’d brought them up myself! And the queerest thing of all was that they knew me!... Just before I woke up I told ’em I’d got to go, and they set to and cried fit to break their hearts.”
“It was only a dream,” he tried to console her, speaking with an effort as if from a great distance.
“Yes, but it wasn’t like dreaming; it was like being!” she said quickly, and suddenly her eyes filled with tears. “It was that real!”
He came back then from his leap across the ocean, and, reaching out his hand, patted her on the shoulder.
“It’ll be real enough soon,” he reminded her gently. “It’s only a matter of being patient a few weeks more.”
“Only a few weeks, that’s all,” she repeated after him in a curiously childlike fashion, heartening herself both with the words and with a sip of the cooling tea. “But it’s a long while, all the same.... Seems strange, doesn’t it, you should feel as if you couldn’t wait a few more weeks, when you’ve waited for years and years?”
“You won’t notice you’re waiting,” he pointed out. “You’ll be too busy. There’ll be a deal to do.”
She brightened at that, her vitality mounting at the very thought of the approaching period of activity. “Ay, and I’m keen to be at it!” she retorted briskly. “I shan’t feel it’s really real until I begin to pack!”
She was launched now upon a subject of which the possibilities were endless, and was already deep in its details when the same whistled snatch reached them which Kirkby had heard earlier from the park. He moved automatically. “There’s the men. I must be off,” he said, turning towards the door.
Mattie nodded, her mind still full of delightful problems.
“It’s time we were both moving,” she agreed, though vaguely. “I’m late this morning.... It’s that dream, I suppose,” she added, passing her hand over her eyes as if to remove something which still lingered before them, “but I don’t rightly feel as if I was back!”
“Oh, you’re back, right enough!” he smiled at her from the door; and at the words the thing which had stayed in front of her eyes fled, and she looked across at him.
“Ay, I’m back,” she said in a curious tone, and looked away from him and about her. “Back!”—and her glance went to the privet hedge beyond the window.... He waited a moment, staring at her uncertainly and rather uncomfortably, and then slipped quietly from the room. Half-way down the stairs, he heard her say “Back!” again, and hesitated in his step as if meaning to return to her; only to hurry on afterwards more rapidly than ever.