VI
THE impending change, he found, was already at work upon the house when he went in to his dinner. The whole place was upset. Cupboards and doors stood open; shelves had been stripped; while the contents of the parlour looked as though they had been having a waltzing competition. There was a large packing-case in the coal-hole, and another in the larder. Things which were usually upstairs had somehow managed to get down, while other things, which he had not seen for years, were strewn about the kitchen. The very atmosphere of the house seemed to have been shaken and churned,—to have been stirred up as violently as Mattie stirred her puddings. If he had felt at breakfast as though they were already at the station, he was now absolutely convinced that they were actually on the steamer.
Only in one instance, however, did he make any comment upon the upheaval. Mattie, as far as he could see, had moved almost every piece of furniture in the house, merely, it would appear, in order to prove that it was possible to move it. He ventured to point out that some time would have to elapse before they could even hold their sale, and she answered him rather curiously as they sat down to their meal.
“Nay, I know it looks rather silly to be moving the stuff so soon, but I’d a reason for doing it. We’ve got to settle what we’re going to take, you’ll think on, and what we’re going to sell; and I thought the sooner I started in at the job, the better. But I found when I came to think about it that I couldn’t see the things in any spot but this! In fact, it wasn’t till I’d started pushing and pulling ’em about that I could do anything with ’em at all!”
“You do get used to seeing things in the same spot,” Kirkby said, feeling at the sight of the “pushed and pulled” objects surrounding him much as he would have felt before a bed of uprooted flowers.
“You do that!” Mattie agreed, passing a hand over her heated face. “That used you forget what they’re like altogether. Why, I found I didn’t even know the shapes and sizes of things when I came to look at them!”
“They get part of a place,—that’s what it is,” Kirkby said. “You don’t see them as if they were by themselves, but as if they were built in.”
“Ours seemed built in right enough, this morning, anyhow,—I know that! I never remember them taking such a lot of managing before. It was almost as if they knew what it was all about, and didn’t mean to budge if they could help it!”
It was warmer this morning, Kirkby said, and likely she was feeling it a bit,—looking out as he spoke at the thin, young, spring-glow lying over the gardens, and wondering again how yesterday could have been so different.
“Nay, it wasn’t that altogether, though I’m not saying it mightn’t have something to do with it....” Getting up, Mattie set an open tart, light as an autumn leaf, on the table between them. “But I can tell you I was real taken aback when I found I didn’t even know my own furniture! I made sure, for instance, as that dresser of ours would be first-class for the new house, but now that I’ve had a right good look at it, I doubt it’s over-big. Then I thought as how that corner-cupboard we bought would do nicely for our pots, but as soon as I got it down I saw it was too small. It’s a queer thing, it seems to me, when you’re so far out with your own stuff! It’s like living with folks that long you don’t even know their faces.”
“They get part of you,” Kirkby said once more, as he had said about the house. “Faces or furniture, it’s the same thing. They get that much part of you, after a while, you don’t rightly seem to notice them.”
Mattie looked about her at the disordered fittings with a mixture of affection and distaste, much as a mother might look at a host of unruly children. “Ay, they do get part of you,” she agreed reluctantly. “I never thought I should mind parting with anything in this house. I never liked the things, as you don’t need telling, even though we bought ’em together; nay, nor the house, neither. But I found, when it came to it, that I wasn’t over-keen on letting any of ’em go. It seemed sort of cruel, somehow, to go leaving them behind.”
“You’ll not think twice about ’em,” he assured her, “once they’re out of the road. There’s no need to go fretting yourself over a thing like that.”
“I’m not fretting myself, not I,—nor likely to be!...” She laughed across at him, her lips curving and her eyes shining. She had always been a woman of a fluid temperament, easily up and down, but of late years it had seemed to him that she had grown a little dry. “Dry” seemed particularly the right word, he thought, looking at her to-day, reminding him as she did of a thirsty plant that was lifting its head in the rain.
“I’d be likely to fret, wouldn’t I, on a day like this?”... She leaned towards him, laying her arms on the table, and emanating so much sheer radiance of spirit that it almost seemed as if there were an actual halo round her. “Why, I’ve been rubbing my eyes half the morning thinking it couldn’t be true! That was why I was in such a hurry to get things sorted out. It seemed as if it helped to bring it all that much nearer.”
“It’s near enough, as it is,” he answered, in perfectly good faith, and then looked up guiltily, startled by something in his tone which he had not intended to be there. But she was too busy thinking to notice it.
“You’re right there! In fact, it beats me how we’ll ever be ready if we’re to get off, this spring. Old folks like us can’t afford to be kept waiting about.... It won’t be too soon for them Over There, anyhow,—I know that!” She laughed contentedly, looking past him over his shoulder as if she saw welcoming hands reaching towards her, and welcoming eyes turned her way. “They’ll be sending word, like enough, as we’re to go by flying-machine!”
“You’ve not got word written to them yet we’re meaning to come?” Kirkby asked. “We ought to let ’em know by the first mail.”
“Well, I’ve not got as far as putting pen to paper, yet, if you mean that; but the letter’s written all right! What, I had it off as pat as you like before ever I’d had my breakfast!... Come to that,” she added, “I’ve written that letter many a time in my head during these last ten years,—ay, and set it down as well, just to liven myself with the sight of it!... In fact, I’ve done it that often, it seems almost as if there’d be no need to do it now.”
“If you go thinking about it like that, you’ll likely never get it done at all,” he warned her, but she only smiled.
“There’s no fear of that! I’ve never had a bonnier job to do before, and I’ll likely never have as good again!... Every spring when it came round I’ve prayed as this might happen, and it’s happened at last. It was always worse in the spring. You can stand a deal of things in the winter when you’re comfortable like, and you’ve your own hearth-fire; but you want to be stirring in the spring.”
He did his best to nod sympathisingly at the wistfulness in her tone, but he could find no answer to give her. He had never known what it was to be afflicted by the fever of spring-wandering. He had never wanted to leave his gardens at any time, but especially not in the spring. Leaving a garden before the spring-sowing was finished would have seemed to him like leaving a child before it was able to walk....
It was true, of course, that last night he had signed his gardens away, and that, too, in the spring. But he had only signed them away in exchange for another garden, and the work would be well on its way before he went. It was not restlessness but weariness which had forced him to a reaching-out towards new life; not the spring-fret but the overwhelming pressure of years which was driving him overseas.
“I just can’t believe we’re really going!” he discovered Mattie to be saying, when his mind returned to her. “It don’t seem possible. To think we’re going to see the lads once more, and hear ’em speak! They’ll have altered a deal, I reckon, especially Joe. I always said Joe would make something to look at, if he once got going, and it’s queer if he hasn’t, out there. They say the air’s that grand, it’s like fine wine. I don’t know much about wine, but I’ve always hankered after the sort of air that sounded like it. I’ve sometimes thought I could breathe a bit of it, after reading the letters.... Then there’s the girls, too,—I fair ache to set eyes on ’em. Maggie, now,—she was always a good sort; but I don’t know how I’ll contain myself when I see Ellen. I thought a deal of ’em all, as you know, and lads is always lads, but I’ve sometimes thought I kept the softest spot of all for my little Ellen!”
He heard the words at first as one hears a familiar tune played from afar off, familiar but unmeaning; but presently the intensity of her feeling got home to him, and his outlook brightened. He had been troubled when he first came into the house, jarred both by its chaotic state and by the events of the morning, but as the meal proceeded he found himself calming gradually. It was impossible, in any case, not to find something infectious in Mattie’s attitude; to feel, if only as a pale reflection, something of her ecstasy. With a deliberate effort he adjusted his angle of mind, setting aside his preoccupation with the things that he must lose, and forcing himself to turn his attention to the things that he would gain.
“They’ll be taken aback, Over There, when they hear we’re coming!” he contributed presently, more cheerfully. “I doubt they won’t credit it, at first, we’ve been so long about it!”
“Nay, they’ll credit it all right!” Mattie laughed contentedly. “Many’s the time Maggie’s told me she’s dreamt we were on the road. All the same, they’ll be on pins till we’ve actually arrived. They’ll be thinking every day as we might go and change our minds.”
He shook his head without looking at her.
“Nay, we’ll not do that. It’s too big a thing, is this, to go playing about with.”
“Too big a thing, and too short of time. It’s got to be yes or no with folks when they get to our time of life. Just yes or no.... Anyway, they’ll know it won’t be me as’ll be likely to change,” she added, with a touch of defiance. “It’s you they’ll be afraid of, if it’s anybody.”
“They’ve no call to be afraid, nor you, neither. I’ve passed my word, and I’m going to keep it. I shouldn’t have written that letter if I hadn’t meant it.”
“There’s many a letter gets written as is never sent,” Mattie said, half-mischievously, dallying, as human nature loves to do, on the very threshold of happiness. “I was saying something of the sort only just now.”
“This here’ll get sent right enough, don’t you fear....” He straightened himself a little, and his mouth set firmly. “Where’s it got to, by the way? I’ll be making the round of the place, this afternoon, and I could leave it as I pass.”
She nodded a trifle vaguely in the direction of one of the cupboards.
“I sided it away, so it wouldn’t get lost.... I could likely run down with it for you if you’re busy?”
He said “no” to that, however, speaking with the same air of determination which sat so strangely upon him. It might be Mattie who, in the long run, had brought about the present position, but dignity demanded that at least he should hand in his own notice.
“I’d best see to it myself,” he told her, getting up from the table. “Mind and give it me before I go.”
“Likely I’d forget to give it you, isn’t it?” she laughed; and then, still laughing, shivered.... “It fair gives me the creeps to think how, if that letter never went, things’d be just the same as before!”
“They wouldn’t be quite the same, no matter what happened. Folks pass on, somehow. Even trying to do things makes a difference.”
“A deal o’ difference it’d make to me, I’m sure,” Mattie answered him cynically, “if I found myself still landed in this one-eyed spot!... Ay, well, I won’t go fretting about things, just when they’re shaping so nicely,” she corrected herself quickly. “Anyway, I’m glad you’ve seen your way to facing the job at last.”
There was a hint of interrogation in her tone as to how he had arrived at his decision, together with another and fainter one as to how he was taking it. Standing, he looked away from her through the window while he answered her unspoken questions.
“It just came over me, as it were, that I might never see the lads again if I didn’t do something about it. You go on thinking there’s time enough and to spare, and then all of a sudden there comes a day when you think there’s no time. That was how it was, yesterday. I just sort of felt I’d be rare and glad to see ’em all again.”
The tears came into Mattie’s eyes.
“You’ll never know how glad till you do see ’em!” she said, with a break in her voice. “There’s nothing like your own flesh and blood, when all’s said and done. And there’s the grandchildren an’ all.”
“Ay, and the garden....” He turned to her then, smiling a little shyly, a little shamefacedly. “I’ve never let on to you about it, Mattie, but I’ve been fair wild to see that garden!”
She laughed back at him and his hesitation, triumph and good-humoured affection mingled on her countenance.
“You’d no need to let on.... It was plain enough, I’m sure! I’ve known for a long while now you were thinking a deal about it.”
“Ay, well, it’d be queer if you hadn’t, I suppose,—you’re that sharp! But I’ve often thought I’d like to take a look in and see how the lads were framing.”
“You’ll be seeing how all right before you’re a couple of months older!...” She got to her feet, too, and began sweeping the pots together in a series of joyous movements. “Eh, but I hardly know how to hold myself in about it! I was fair tongue-tied, last night, when you said as we’d best go, but I’m that full of it all to-day, I can’t keep it from wagging! What, I’ve been clacking to the furniture all morning for want of anything better,—telling it all about it as if it was human beings! You’d have laughed fit to crack if you’d seen the way I went on. Len Machell popped in for a word and catched me doing it, and he looked scared out of his life!”
He stiffened a little at Machell’s name, feeling a cold wind blow in upon him and his manufactured enthusiasm. As before, the situation had remained more or less in the air until Len touched it; but as soon as he laid a finger upon it, it became concrete.... He said “Machell?” after her, not as a question, but as if weighing a sound which, in the space of a morning, had grown sinister and threatening. But she took no notice.
“I was making pretence this house was Over There, and the furniture was the lasses and lads. ‘Eh, Ellen, my girl,’ says I, hugging the grandfather clock, ‘I’m that glad to see you I could cry!’... ‘And is this little Sally?’ I says, kissing yon little stool. ‘She’s grown rarely since her last photo!’ Right daft I must have looked, and no mistake, but I couldn’t help it. I was that chock with it all I had to get shot of it, one way or another.”
She was laughing and crying as she talked, busy living over again the absurd scene which had yet been so vivid and poignant, but for once she did not receive the kindly smile with which he usually rewarded her attempts at humour. Instead, he turned away from her again, almost as if he had been wounded and wished to hide it.
“What was Len doing, hanging about the place?” he enquired, surprising her both by his words and by his faintly-sharp tone, for he was a lenient master with his men.
“Nay, what, he was only in the house half a minute or so! You’ve no call to be vexed with him, I’m sure. He just looked in to say you’d told him we were leaving, and to ask if there was anything he could do. He said his missis would be glad to come up any time to lend a hand with the packing, so I said the sooner we set about it, the better.”
“I never told him we were going,” Kirkby said, in the same almost angry tone, making her stare again. “It was him as said it.... He said it was all over the spot, and had been for long; and he wanted to know if it was true.”
She answered him soothingly as she carried off the pots to be washed in the back kitchen.
“Ay, well, it doesn’t matter, does it, one way or t’other? He’d have had to know, anyway, before so long. I must say I was a bit surprised to find you’d been so glib about it, but it makes no odds. He didn’t tell me it was all over the spot, but I might have guessed it. Folks always seem to know what you’re meaning to do a deal sooner than you do yourself!”
He picked up his hat from a side table, and moved towards the door. The impulse was strong in him to tell her of Machell’s application, but he restrained it, being uncertain of her attitude. He was longing for sympathy on the subject, despising himself as he did for the bitterness in his heart, and knowing that sympathy would assuage it. But she had never seemed to value his position as head gardener,—had, indeed, constantly made him feel that it was something to be ashamed of,—and he dared not risk the reference. Yet he lingered before going out, still playing about the question, as if hoping that something or other might occur to ease the trouble in his mind.
“I can’t say I’m best pleased to think Len’s been settling our business for us,” he said, as she came back into the kitchen. “He’s paid to attend to his own job, and not to go prying into ours.”
“He hasn’t settled it for us,—not he! We’ve settled it ourselves. And as for a bit of gossip and such-like, I don’t see how you’re going to keep folks from taking an interest in those about them.”
“I don’t look for Machell and the rest of the staff to go taking an interest in my private affairs.” He lifted his voice a little, and felt a flame rise in him as she laughed. This was the second time to-day that he had felt that sudden spurt of hate, and in his horror at its recurrence his bitterness deepened. He hastened to get outside the door in case the hate should suddenly decide to vent itself in angry words.
Mattie followed him to the threshold.
“It’d be queer if the whole place didn’t know I’d wanted to go!” she said briskly. “There’s been times, I’m sure, when I’ve felt like telling it all round England. It isn’t a crime, anyway,—not as far as I know. We’d a right to go if we liked. As for Machell, he’s a decent-enough lad. I don’t see why you’re so mad with him. Mrs. Machell’s a good little soul, too, though she hasn’t much about her. Let ’em talk if it pleases ’em! A deal o’ difference it’ll make to us what they’re saying and doing here, once you and me are a thousand miles away!”
She stopped to draw breath both for fresh laughter and fresh speech, and in the pause he managed to break away from her. He went slowly, it is true, still longing for the consolation which he had been denied, and bowed by her last words as though she had set a weight upon him. The thousand miles of which she had spoken were laid like lead about his neck. But he went, all the same.... By the time she was speaking again he had rounded the corner of the greenhouse and was lost to her. He heard her voice continuing for a moment, as if not even the consciousness of his departure could force it into silence, and then break as if something had snapped it. He walked on blindly, not heeding where he was going.
And neither of them had remembered the letter.