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....