The Spinners

by Eden Phillpotts

CHAPTER VII

THE WALK HOME

Upon a Bank Holiday Sabina took Abel to West Haven for a long day on the beach and pier. He enjoyed himself very thoroughly, ate, drank and played to his heart's content. But his amusements brought more pleasure to the child than his mother, for he found the wonderful old stores and discovered therein far more entertaining occupation than either sea or shore could offer.

The place was deserted to-day, and while Sabina sat outside in a corner of the courtyard and occupied herself with the future, Abel explored the mysteries of the ancient building and found all manner of strange nooks and mysterious passages. He wove dreams and magnified the least incident into an adventure. He inhabited the dark corners and sombre, subterranean places with enemies that wanted to catch him; he most potently believed that hidden treasures awaited him under the hollow-echoing floors. Once he had a rare fright, for a bat hanging asleep in its folded wings, was wakened by him and suddenly flew into his face. He climbed and crawled and crept about, stole a lump of putty and rejoiced at the discovery of some paint pots and a brush. The 'Red Hand' no longer existed; but the opportunity once more to set up its sinister symbol was too good to resist. He painted it on the walls in several places and then called his mother to look at the achievement.

She climbed up a long flight of stone steps that led to the lofts, and suffered a strange experience presently, for the child was playing in the chamber sacred to her surrender. She stood where twelve years before she had come with Raymond Ironsyde after their day at Golden Cap.

Light fell through a window let into the roof. It was broken and fringed with cobwebs. The pile of fishermen's nets had vanished and a carpenter's bench had taken its place. On the walls and timbers were scrawled names and initials of holiday folk, who had explored the old stores through many years.

Sabina, perceiving where she stood, closed her eyes and took an involuntary step backward. Abel called attention to his sign upon the walls.

"The carpenter will shiver when he sees that," he said.

Then he rambled off, whistling, and she sat down and stared round her. She told herself that deep thoughts must surely wake under this sudden experience and the fountains of long sealed emotion bubble upwards, to drown her before them. Instead she merely found herself incapable of thinking. A dull, stale, almost stagnant mood crept over her. Her mind could neither walk nor fly. After the first thrill of recognition, the light went out and she found herself absolutely indifferent. Not anger touched her, nor pain. That the child of that perished passion should play here, and laugh and be merry was poignant, but it did not move her and she felt a sort of surprise that it should not. There was a time when such an experience must have shaken her to the depths, plunged her into some deep pang of soul and left indelible wounds; now, no such thing happened.

She gazed mildly about her and almost smiled. Then she rose from her seat on the carpenter's bench, went out and descended the staircase again.

When she called him to a promised tea at an inn, Abel came at once. He was weary and well content.

"I shall often come here," he said. "It's the best place I know—better than the old kiln on North Hill. I could hide there and nobody find me, and you could bring me food at night."

"What do you want to hide for, pretty?" she asked.

"I might," he answered and looked at her cautiously For a moment he seemed inclined to say more, but did not.

After tea they set out for home, and the fate, which, through the incident of the old store, had subtly prepared and paved a way to something of greater import, sent Raymond Ironsyde. They had passed the point at which the road from West Haven converges into that from Bridport, and a man on horseback overtook them. They were all going in the same direction and Abel, as soon as he saw who approached, left his mother, went over a convenient gate upon their right and hastened up a hedge. Thus he always avoided his father, and when blamed for so doing, would silently endure the blame without explanation or any offer of excuse. Raymond had seen him thus escape on more than one occasion, and the incident, clashing at this moment upon his own thoughts, prompted him to a definite and unusual thing. The opportunity was good; Sabina walked alone, and if she rebuffed him, he could endure the rebuff.

He determined to speak to her and break a silence of many years. The result he could not guess, but since he was actuated by friendly motives alone, he hoped the sudden inspiration might prove fertile of good. At worse she could only decline his advance and refuse to speak with him.

Their thoughts that day, unknown to each, had been upon the other and there was some emotion in the man's voice when he spoke, though none in hers when she answered. For to him that chance meeting came as a surprise and prompted him to a sudden approach he might not have ventured on maturer consideration; to her it seemed to carry on the experience of the day and, unguessed by Raymond, brought less amazement than he imagined. She was a fatalist—perhaps, had always been so, as her mother before her; yet she knew it not. They had passed and repassed many times during the vanished years; but since the moment that she had dismissed him with scorn and hoped her child would live to insult his grave, they had never spoken.

He inquired now if he might address her.

"May I say a few words to you?" he asked.

Not knowing what was in her mind, he felt surprised at her conventional reply.

"I suppose so, if you wish to do so."

Her voice seemed to roll back time. Yet he guessed her to be less indifferent than her words implied.

He dismounted and walked beside her.

"I dare say you can understand a little what I feel, when I see that child run away whenever he sets eyes on me," he began; but she did not help him. His voice to her ear was changed. It had grown deeper and hardened. It was more monotonous and did not rise and fall as swiftly as of old.

"I don't know at all what you feel about him. I didn't know that you felt anything about him."

This was a false note and he felt pained.

"Indeed, Sabina, you know very well I want his friendship—I need it even. Before anything I wish to befriend him."

"You can't help him. He's a very affectionate child and loves me dearly.
You wouldn't understand him. He's all heart."

He marked now the great change in Sabina. Her voice was cold and indifferent. But a cynic fate willed this mood. Had she not spent the day at West Haven and stood in the old store, it is possible she might have listened to him in another spirit.

"I know he's a clever boy, with plenty of charm about him. And I do think, whatever you may feel, Sabina, it is doubtfully wise of you to stand between him and me."

"If you fancy that, it is a good thing you spoke," she answered. "Because nothing further from the truth could be. I don't stand between him and you. I've never influenced him against you. He's heard nothing but the fact that you're his father from me. I've been careful to leave it at that, and I've never answered more than the truth to his many questions."

"It is a very great sorrow to me, and it will largely ruin my life if I cannot win his friendship and plan his future."

"A child's friendship is easily won. If he denies it, you may be sure it is for a natural instinct."

"Such an instinct is most unnatural. He has had nothing but friendly words and friendly challenges from me."

She felt herself growing impatient. It was clear that he had spoken out of interest for the child alone, and any shadowy suspicion that he designed to declare interest in herself departed from Sabina's mind.

"Well, what's that to me? I can't alter him. I can't make him regard you as a hero and a father to be proud of. He's not hard-hearted or anything of that. He's pretty much like other boys of his age—more sensitive, that's all. He can suffer very sharply and bitterly and he did when that cruel, blundering fool at North Hill House had him whipped. He gets the cursed power to suffer from his mother. And, such is his position in the world, that his power to suffer no doubt will be proved to the utmost."

"I don't want him to suffer. At least it is in my reach to save him a great deal of needless suffering."

"That's just what it isn't—not with his nature. He'd rather suffer than be beholden to you for anything. Young as he is, he's told me so in so many words. He knows he's different from other boys—already he knows it—and that breeds bitterness. He's like a dog that's been ill-treated and finds it hard to trust anybody in consequence. Unfortunately for you, he's got brains enough to judge; and the older he grows, the harder he'll judge."

"That's what I want to break down, Sabina. It's awfully sad to feel, that for a prejudice against things that can't be altered, he should stand in his own light and be a needless martyr and make me a greater villain than I am."

"Are you a villain? If you are, it isn't my child that made you one—nor me, either. No doubt it's awkward to see him running about and breathing the same air with you."

He felt an impulse of anger, but easily checked it.

"You're rather hard on me, I think. It's a great deal more than awkward to have my child take this line. It's desperately sad. And you must know—thinking purely and only of him—that nothing can be gained and much lost by it. You say he'll hate me more as he grows older. But isn't that a thing to avoid? What good comes into the world with hate? Can't you see that it's your place, Sabina, to use your influence on my side?"

"My God!" she said, "was there ever such a selfish man as you! Out of your own mouth you condemn yourself, for it's your inconvenience and discomfort that's troubling you—not his fate. He's a living witness against you—a running sore in your side—and that's why you want his friendship, to ease yourself and heal your conscience. Anybody could see that."

He did not answer; but this indictment astonished him. Could she still be so stern after the years that had swept over their quarrel?

"You wrong me there, Sabina. Indeed, it's not for my own comfort only, but much more largely for his that I am so much concerned. Surely we can meet on the common ground of his welfare and leave the rest?"

"What common ground is there? Why must I think your friendship and your money are the best possible things for him? Why should I advise him to take what I refused for myself twelve years and more ago? You offered me your friendship and your money—as a substitute for being your wife. You were so stark ignorant of the girl you'd promised to marry, that you offered her cash and the privilege of your company after your child was born. And now you offer your child cash and the privilege of your company—that's all. You deny him your name, as you denied his mother your name; and why should he pick up the crumbs from your table that his mother would have starved rather than eaten? I've never spoken against you to him and never shall, but I'm not a fool now—whatever I was—and I'm not going to urge my son to seek you and put his little heart into your keeping; because well I know what you do with hearts. I'm outside your life and so is he; and if he likes to come into your life, I shan't prevent it. I couldn't prevent it. He'll do about it as he chooses, when he's old enough to measure it up. But I'm not for you, or against you. I'm only the suffering sort, not the fighting sort. You know whether you deserve the love and worship of that little, nameless boy."

He was struck into silence, not at her bitter words, but at his own thoughts. For he had often speculated on future speech with her and wondered when it would happen and what it would concern. He had hoped that she would let the past go and be his friend again on another plane. He had pictured some sort of amity based on the old romance. He had desired nothing so much in life as a friendly understanding and the permission to contribute to the ease and comfort of Sabina and the prosperity of his son. He hoped that in course of time and faced with the rights of the child, she would come round. He had pictured her coming round. But now it seemed that he was not to plan their future on his own terms. What he offered had not grown sweeter to her senses. No gifts that he could devise would be anything but poor in the light of the unkind past. And that light burned steadfastly still. She was not changed. As he listened to her, it seemed that she was merely picking up the threads where they were dropped. He feared that if he stopped much longer beside her, she would come back to the old anger and wake into the old wrath.

"I'd dearly hoped that you didn't feel like that, any more. You've got right on your side up to a point, though human differences are so involved that it very seldom happens you can get a clean cut between right and wrong. However, the time is past for arguing about that, Sabina. Granted you are right in your personal attitude, don't carry it on into the next generation and assume I cannot even yet, after all these years, be trusted to befriend my own child."

"He's only your child in nature. He's only your child because your blood's in his veins. He's my child, not yours."

"But if I want to make him mine? If I want to lift him up and assure his future? If I want to assume paternity—claim it, adopt him as my son—to succeed me some day?"

"He must decide for himself whether that's the high-water mark for his future life—to be your adopted son. We can't have it all our own way in this world—not even you, I suppose. A child has to have a mother as well as a father, and a mother's got her rights in her child. Even the law allows that."

"Who'd deny them, Sabina? You're possessed, as you always were, with the significance of legal marriage. You don't know that marriage is merely a human contrivance and, nine times out of ten, an infernally clumsy makeshift and a long-drawn pretence. Like every other human shift, it is a thing that gets out-grown by the advance of humanity towards higher ideals and cleaner liberties. We are approaching a time when the edifice will be shaken to its mouldering foundations, and presently, while the Church and the State are wrangling and quibbling, as they soon must be, over the loathsome divorce laws, these mandarins will wake up to find the marriage laws themselves are being threatened by a new generation sick of the archaic tomfoolery that controls them. If you could only take a larger view and not let yourself be bound down by your own experience—"

"You'd better go," she said. "If you'd spoken, so twelve years ago on Golden Cap, and not hid your heart and lied to me and promised what you never meant to perform, I'd not be walking the world a lonely, despised woman to-day. And law, or no law, the law of the natural child is the law of the land—cruel and vile though it may be."

"I'll go, Sabina; but I must say what I want to say, first. I must stand up for Abel—even against you. Childish impressions and dislikes can be rooted out if taken in time; if left to grow, they get beyond reach. So I ask you to think of him. And don't pretend to yourself that my friendship is dangerous, or can do him anything but good. I'm very different from what I was. Life hasn't gone over me for nothing. I know what's right well enough, and I know what I owe your son and my son, and I want to make up to him and more than make up to him for his disadvantages. Don't prevent me from doing that. Give me a chance, Sabina. Give me a chance to be a good father to him. Your word is law with him, and if you left Bridetown and took him away from all the rumours and unkind things he may hear here, it would let his mind grow empty of me for a few years; and then, when he's older and more sensible, I think I could win him."

"You want us away from this place."

"I do. I never should have spoken to you until I knew you wished it, but for this complication; but since the boy is growing up prejudiced against me, I do feel that some strong effort should be taken to nip his young hatred in the bud—for his sake, Sabina."

"Are you sure it's all for his sake? Because I'm not. They say you think of nothing on God's earth but machinery nowadays, and look to machines to do the work of hands, and speak of 'hands' when you ought to speak of 'souls.' They say if you could, you'd turn out all the people and let everything be done by steam and steel. There's not much humanity in you, I reckon. And why should you care for one little, unwanted boy? Perhaps, if you looked deeper into yourself, you'd find it was your own peace, rather than his, that's making you wish us away from Bridetown. At any rate, that's how one or two have seen and said it, when they heard how everybody was at me to go. I've had to live down the past for long, slow, heart-breaking years and seen the fingers pointed at me; and now, with the child growing up, it's your turn I daresay, and you—so strong and masterful—have had enough of pointing fingers and mean to pack us out of our home—for your comfort."

He stared at her in the gathering dusk and stood and uttered a great sigh from deep in his lungs.

"I'm sorry for you, Sabina—sorrier than I am for myself. This is cruel.
I didn't know, or dream, that time had stood still for you like this."

"Time ended for me—then."

"For me it had to go on. I must think about this. I didn't guess it was like this with you. Don't think I want you away; don't think you're the only thorn in my pillow and that I'm not used to pain and anxiety, or impatient of all the implicit meaning of your lonely life. Stop, if you want to stop. I'll see you again, Sabina, please. Now I'll be gone."

When he had mounted his horse and ridden away without more words from her, Abel, who had been lurking along on the other side of the hedge, crept through it and rejoined his mother.

They walked on in silence for some time. Then the child spoke.

"Fancy your talking to Mister Ironsyde, mother!"

"He talked to me."

"I lay you dressed him down then?"

"I told him the truth, Abel. He wants everything for nothing, Mister
Ironsyde does. He wants you—for nothing."

"He's a beast, and I hate him, and he'll know I hate him some day."

"Don't hate him. He's not worth hating."

"I will hate him, I tell you. But for him I'd be the great man in
Bridetown when he dies. Mister Baggs told me that."

"You mustn't give heed to what people say. You've got mother to look after you."

The boy was tired and spoke no more. He padded silently along beside her and presently she heard him laugh to himself. His thoughts had wandered back to the joy of the old store.

And she was thinking of what had happened. She, too, even as Raymond, had imagined what speech would fall out between them after the long years and wondered concerning the form it would take. She had imagined no such conversation as this. Half of her regretted it; but the other half was glad. He had gone on, but it was well that he should know she had stood still. Could there be any more terrible news for him than to hear that she had stood still—to feel that he had turned a living woman into a pillar of stone?