The Call
"Good-bye, Lucy," said Peter. He was standing at the mill-house door, while a man held his horse at the gate. "I wish you hadn't changed your mind," he continued, "and were coming with me. I thought that we were going to have a jolly time together. Won't you come? Are you sure you don't care to come? There's still time."
It was early morning, although darkness and night vapours hung among the trees on the other side of the beck, and the village had not yet awakened to the day's work. Lucy listened to the rushing of the water and shivered.
"How like a man," she exclaimed. "Still time when your horse is ready saddled, and I haven't even a petticoat packed. No, no, I'd rather stay at home, thank you. But I hope you'll have a pleasant journey."
"I'm awfully loath to leave you," he said.
"Why? I shall not run away. I'll be waiting for you on the doorstep when you come home, ever so pleased to see you. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, you know. There, don't look so gloomy. You make me wish I'd never said I'd go with you; for then you wouldn't have been disappointed."
"If you'd only say yes now, Lucy, you could make shift to do without the petticoats. I'd buy you new ones when we got to London. Put on your bonnet and cloak, there's a bonny wife, and come away."
"Are you afraid I'll vanish?"
"I've never left you alone before. I don't like leaving you here. The mill-house is a dreary place when you've nothing to listen to but the sound of running water. Will you go up to Greystones?"
"And be scolded all day long by great-granny! Well, if it will set your mind at rest I'll go. But don't worry about me."
He was silent for a moment.
"Good-bye, Peter," said Lucy, "it's too cold to stand here any longer. Good-bye."
He hesitated, seemed as though he would say something more, then turned to go down the path, but she called him back.
"Here, lad," she said, "give me another kiss. Don't stay away too long; I'll be counting the days till you come back."
When he had ridden off, in spite of her assertion that it was too cold to stand on the doorstep, she did not enter the house at once, but stood staring along the dark village street down which he had disappeared. Her eyes seemed to entreat him to return, but she controlled her impulse to call him back. Again she shivered. The sense of protection which her husband's presence always gave her, was withdrawn. Yet what had she to fear? The sound of the rushing beck was melancholy.
She withdrew hastily and shut the door. A bright fire was burning in the parlour, and the remains of breakfast lay on the table. She sat down in Peter's chair, and looked at a little heap of bread which his restless fingers had crumbled. She knew that he would not have left her just now if he could have helped it, and she guessed the reason. A flush mounted to her brow as she thought that he did not trust her, his wife. He need have no qualms. She had only seen Joel Hart once since his return; she had had nothing to do with the fierce wrestling at the Shepherds' Meet. Since then she had walked as prudently as any demure matron could do. What could he suspect? What right had he to suspect anything? Yet the knowledge that he did not trust her stung.
She wished, now, that she had gone with him as she had at first promised. Why had she not gone? She had tried to persuade herself that she could not endure the long ride over the pack-horse track; then the cold, uncomfortable journey in a crowded coach; and lastly a strange lodging in a strange city where she knew no one. If it had been the summer time she would not have hesitated for a moment. She had wanted all her life to see London—the Tower, St. James's, Westminster. Peter had promised to take her, but something had always come in the way to prevent him. It was too aggravating that he should have chosen this time to go, when the snow might fall any day, making travelling not only disagreeable but dangerous.
A week ago, Peter had told her that the friend, who had offered him the post in India, had written about an opening in London; and that if he thought it would suit him, he must come up at once to meet certain influential gentlemen who were deliberating upon it.
Lucy had shilly-shallied, saying first that she would go too, then that she would not go, and again that she would. The reason which lay at the back of her indecision was the hope of meeting Joel. She had heard that he meant to go away as soon as he was well enough, and she wanted, at least, to bid him good-bye.
For some unaccountable reason, she now felt afraid, and would have given—what would she not have given?—to hear the sound of hoofs in the street and then her husband's voice at the door. The room was still full of the impression of his presence, though he had gone. His slippers by the fire; his book on the sill, with the marker in it which she had worked for him before they were married; the bright walls; the cushions and hangings, the pictures—all the pretty things with which he had surrounded her, rose up like witnesses to plead for him and condemn her.
How she wished that Joel had not written the letter which had upset her peace of mind! She wished that he had never come back to Forest Hall, looking handsomer than ever. Peter and she might then have found happiness. She thought, when she married him, that she loved him truly. So she did, but she did not love him best. Why could she not love him best?
If Joel were to call her now would she spring to meet him, and claim him as her soul's true mate? A numbness crept over her. Was it of this she felt apprehensive—the coming of a call—and that she would not be strong enough to resist?
She longed for her husband's return, yet she feared him. She was afraid of Joel, yet she loved him. She wondered whether there was another woman in the world in such sore straits as she.
Tears did not relieve her; they only spoiled the colour of her cheeks, made her eyes red, and her head ache. So she dried them and looked up. Daylight was streaming through the window and turning the lamp's flame to a sickly yellow hue that paled and dwindled, like the changeling children who are said to dwindle in the cradle when morning dawns. There was something so unpleasant and unwholesome in its light that Lucy rose and turned it out. Then she called the servant-lass to come and clear away the breakfast dishes.
She wandered in and out from parlour to kitchen, and kitchen to parlour. She lifted up first this thing, then that; started to mend her frills, but pricked her finger and tossed the work aside; took up a book but dropped it listlessly; sat first in one chair, then in another; and at last sank down on a three-legged stool before the hearth.
The hours dragged. She glanced out, but the prospect was not inviting. Bare and brown stood the trees; the beck rushed along as brown as they; the road in Cringel Forest would be inches deep in mud; not a bird chirruped. She wondered if she should go up to Greystones. She had promised Peter that she would go, yet why should she? She liked her own home best. She preferred its present dreariness to her great-grandmother's tongue. Besides, up there, every movement would be watched and criticised. And she might—she did not think it likely—still she might want to go out without being asked where she was going.
This was the day that the Need Fire was to be lit in Boar Dale. Lucy had no wish to come into the midst of a bellowing herd of cattle, so she found in it another reason for deferring her visit.
Towards noon a lad knocked at the door and left a small package for her. She untied it with trembling fingers, for she knew that it was from Joel. Out of it fell a little lump of gold, and a note asking her for the sake of old times to come over the Robber's Rake to see him. He gave no reasons, but she was not surprised. He had been ill; he was not yet well enough to return to Forest Hall, and he had been longing to see her, as she to see him. Perhaps he knew that Peter was away, and that it would be easier for them to meet now than ever again.
She dropped the gold and the scrap of paper as though they had been red-hot cinders, and stood looking at them as if she expected them to speak. And they did speak. No tongue could have been more eloquent than that little bit of metal, no voice more full of entreaty than the scrawled characters of Joel's handwriting. They were urgent. With them she could not expostulate, excuse herself, or maintain a virtuous reserve.
Her dead hopes, dreams, promises came again to life and seemed to stand about her, looking into her face with blinkless eyes. They entreated her, for old sake's sake, to grant his wish.
She knit her brows in perplexity. Should she go? Would it be wise to go? Why should she not go? Wherein lay the unwisdom? She wanted to see Joel for the last time, to tell him that they must never meet again; that he must forget her, as she would endeavour to forget him. He need not leave High Fold in order to escape her; for she and Peter were going away; but he must not follow or attempt to renew their friendship. So plausible, so self-controlled, so wise appeared her reasons to her own mind that she could find no serious objection to complying with his request.
She forgot, or would not allow herself to remember, that this was the call which she had feared. But a thing far off looks so different to the same thing at hand that she did not recognise them as one and the same.
Musing thus, and undecided still, with her eyes flitting about the room as though in fear of seeing something which would turn her from the purpose she wanted to form, it seemed to her that she saw the grey-clad figures of the miller and his wife come in at the door and sit down in their vacant chairs. They did not look at her, they were but shadows, but Lucy fled. She was afraid of Peter's dead father and mother. They had loved him so, his honour was their honour, and they had died heart-broken thinking her unworthy to be his wife. She had bitterly resented their reproachful eyes, she bitterly resented that they should cross her vision now, as though they had come to guard their son's good name when he was away.
Lucy put on her cloak and went out.
In order to escape any undesirable questions or inquisitive eyes she did not follow the road through the forest, but took one of the innumerable paths that led along the fells, opposite to Greystones, on the other side of the beck.
Heavy clouds, that were purple underneath, but stained with a murky brown along their upper edges, lay motionless upon the higher hills, levelling their rugged peaks as with a knife. No gleam of sunlight or patch of blue lit the savage landscape. It was made of iron and bronze, a hard menacing corner of the world, whose scars and gashes, dealt by an earlier age, kindly Time had not yet managed to rub out or smooth into pleasant lines. The weather had been fine for several days, and a high wind had dried the dead bracken and benty grass, but there was every appearance of coming rain.
From a field in the bottom of the dale, near Greystones, smoke was rolling as though a subterranean fire had broken through the earth's crust, and begun to belch forth its pent up energies in fountains of acrid vapour. Now and then a red tongue leaped among it, only to be smothered by a denser cloud.
The Need Fire[1] was an ancient institution to which the dalesfolk had formerly resorted in times of disaster. All the household fires were extinguished, and it was lit by rubbing together two pieces of wood, which had never been inside a human habitation. Peter had smiled when he had heard that it was to be lighted in Boar Dale, and passed on from farm to farm through that district. But Timothy Hadwin believed in it, and Barbara was strongly in its favour.
Lucy looked down as she hurried along.
A loud bellowing and bleating rose from the field. Little could be seen for the drifting smoke, but she thought of Barbara in the midst of it, helping to drive through the cattle, blackened—she did not doubt—by the fire, blear-eyed, probably, with its stinging vapour, but in her proper element. Barbara had been born into her true sphere—the bleak mountains, the grey crags, the eagle, beating its wings as it were against the overhanging clouds, were her fitting companions. But she, Lucy, had never been at her ease with them. She had always felt forlorn in this land of the dales and fells. It was not her spirit's country, although her native land. Perhaps London would be more to her mind.
She had not gone far when her thoughts came back with a start to the object of her journey over the fells. The colour left her face and her eyes were filled with alarm. The temporary wandering of her mind, though it had only been for a moment, had again unsettled her. She hesitated, wondered whether to go or return. Her heart was tossed about like drift-weed upon unquiet waters. She felt that she was out upon a stormy sea. If she retreated, would she regret her action when she got back again into the safe harbour? She was afraid to go on, for she did not know with what sunken perils the way was strewn.
She came to the end of the sheep-track, where it joined the Robber's Rake on the far side of the tarn from Ketel's Parlour. She halted by a post that pointed the way, when the ground lay covered with snow. She looked up and down. Just as the sign-post pointed in two directions, so her mind was drawn in two directions. To go one way was right, to go the other wrong. But which was right and which wrong? First she decided this, then that, but as hastily reversed her ideas again. She arranged them to suit her wishes, or her sense of justice, or expediency. She could not decide.
She walked on a little further.
Then she saw a figure rise up from a rock upon which it had been sitting, and come to meet her. It was Joel.
[1] The last "Need Fire" was set going near Kendal in 1840. At Crosthwaite its "smoke" was in the Kirk Lane on Sunday, November 15th of that year.