Chapter XIII
THE SHADOW ON THE KINGDOM
The twenty-second of June was Waggon Day and the waggons were timed to start at eight o'clock.
All night Mike and Fred Stephens had kept vigil in the saddle-room at the Wold Farm, polishing brass and leather and fastening rosettes on to the best harness. The crowning triumph of their work, two painted and beribboned paper fans to be attached to the collars of the horses, lay beside the smoking lantern. The saddle-room was littered with green and scarlet papers, brass buckles and bits of harness.
Mike knocked the ashes from his pipe and opened the door. A rush of chill fragrant air shook the flames of two candles stuck on the dusty mantelpiece.
Fred extinguished the lantern and followed him to the doorway. It was a morning of pale mists and dewy freshness.
"I think it bound to tak' up," he remarked cheerfully. "What about it, Mike?"
The two men collected harness and decorations and trudged together towards the stable. From the stackyard a belated cock crew, and in the stable it was still dusk—a warm straw-scented twilight astir with the movements of chewing horses and the whispered scamperings of mice along the rafters.
Dolly and Polly, the grey pair, stood sleekly brushed awaiting the master strokes of their toilet. Soon they would lumber up the Church Hill to take their places in a team of competitors for the prize offered by Sir Charles Seton to the best decorated waggon.
"It'll be a fine day for t' bairns," murmured Fred.
"Violet going?"
"Nay. Ah'm holdin' no truck wi' Violet now. She's too stuck up for the likes o' me." But Fred spoke regretfully.
An hour later the waggon was jingling and rumbling through the mist. Fred, no longer over-burdened by the weight of his responsibility for the decorations, turned to Mike.
"Well, Mike, what did ye think to yon fellow on t' bridge last night?"
Mike spat carefully but emphatically over the side of the waggon.
"I thought he had just one fault."
"Eh? Ah thowt you couldn't abide him! What fault was that, then?"
"Just that he was born at all, bad cess to him! Coming down here and rantin' around as though he was a howly Father himself—telling us what we ought and ought not to do. 'Tis in the church we hear enough of being miserable sinners. I'm not wantin' any more preaching from the laity."
"Bain't you going to join t' union then?" asked Fred, deftly turning the horses round the post office corner.
"Union? Union o' fools who get all on end if a boy from the town comes to them with an old wives' tale. What do we want wi' unions at all? Will they put a head on the beer or give Foreman's missus a lighter hand with the pastry? Will they make owd Mare Becky pass the Flying Fox w'out a bit o' the stick? Will they stop mud getting through your leggings in the sheep-fold on a December morning? No, no. 'Mike, me boy,' I says to meself, 'that fellow's a fool and so are them that listens to him.'"
Fred nodded. He had heard all this before.
"He didn't speak so well as Mr. Rossitur," he remarked meditatively.
The great horses strained and jolted up the hill, shouldering through the mist from the low lying road. Up above, the air was clear and tender. Knots of women and children stood about talking volubly.
Mike laughed scornfully. "Rossitur, bedad? Now then, Fred, don't you go thinking that red headed lad was any better than the rest o' them. The gift o' the blarney he may have had, 'Gentlemen,' he says, 'allow me to introduce you to an agricultural labourer without a grievance.' By Holy Mary, if ever I catch him alone there'll be work for Constable Burton if he will stick his nose into the affairs o' we. The thrashing I gave that blathering idiot, Eli Waite, will be like tickling a girl with a feather beside it."
Fred was used to Mike's truculent threats. Irishmen were made like that, and there was an end of it.
"There'll be just one bit of advice, I'll be giving you, me boy," continued Mike. "And one day you'll thank me. You've got the best mistress in the world. You know her and she knows you. Never listen to them who know nothing but the sound of their own tongues."
They reached the brow of the hill. Mrs. Robson stood on a bank by the roadside and waved her hand as Dolly and Polly rattled by. She smiled at them too, but the smile faded when they had passed, and she stood gazing dreamily across the mist veiled valley.
Up on the hill Sir Charles Seton was judging the waggons. Soon she would have to pass along the line of horses and holiday makers bestowing praise and encouragement upon the competitors and wishing good luck to the children about to ride away for one glorious day of adventure by the sea.
It was not quite time yet, and she might have a little respite. She walked slowly away from them down the hill. It was just as well not to stay too long there in the crowd. Coast was there, and she didn't want to see him. They had not met since the whist drive and she felt sure that their next encounter would be unpleasant. Lately she had shrunk from all contact with unpleasantness.
Little bursts of laughter and shouting floated down the road. The mothers were being hoisted into the waggons, with shrill screamings and personal jokes. The children clutched string bags and hoarded pennies in hot excited fingers.
It must be lovely to be going on a holiday like that, thought Mary, with such excitement and good humour, to be engrossed all day by the joys of swing boats and pierrots, to bounce wildly on donkeys up and down the sands. It must be lovely to sit hand in hand with one's sweetheart, sucking Hardrascliffe rock, and listening to the distant music from the band on the esplanade. To feel so young and care free, so much welcomed and beloved, to enjoy warm human kisses and pleasant nonsense—not to walk alone through a village grown strangely unfamiliar, while all the time one thought hurt and hurt and hurt....
"Mrs. Robson! Mrs. Robson!"
Miss Taylor came panting down the hill.
"Aren't you coming to see the waggons? It's nearly time to start. And you'll never guess! Your Fred's got first prize for the greys. They are lovely!"
There was no peace then.
Mary retraced her steps and did her duty. She always did when it came to the point. There were so many people to be noticed, so many questions to be answered. Was she going in to see the tea? Wouldn't she drive down later in the day and look at them all on the sands? Would she come now at this very moment to inspect Eva Greenwood's new doll which was also going to the seaside?
But at last it was over and Mr. Slater, standing by the head of the procession, raised his hand for the signal of departure.
The final ceremony followed.
Mary held her breath. This was her moment, when balm might be poured on her troubled spirit. Here in the public recognition of her suzerainty she found all the reward she asked from life.
"Three cheers for Sir Charles Seton!" called Coast from the leading waggon.
They were given heartily, but this was merely a prelude—a preliminary trial of vocal power before the real event of the morning.
The holiday makers paused, awaiting the next command. Small boys drew in their breath ready for the next outburst of sound. Everyone looked at the schoolmaster.
"Drive on," called Coast.
With a cracking of whips and rattling of harness the waggons moved forward.
For the first time in ten years no cheers had been given for Mr. and Mrs. Robson of Anderby Wold.
Mary stood and watched them pass. They looked at her curiously with vague bewilderment. She stared in front of her, smiling mechanically. Only when the last waggon had rounded the bend in the road the tension of her attitude relaxed. She walked quickly down the hill.
On her way through the village she encountered a dark figure hurrying up the street. She knew who it was. She had heard from several people that for a week or more a towns-fellow called Hunting had been organizing t' union, that the Flying Fox had become the centre of a strange new business in Anderby, and that Coast was the chief lieutenant of the leader of industry.
Six months ago she would have laughed at it all, declaring that such a scheme was unpractical. Or that a union was very nice and would do no one any harm, and she was sure the men might join if they liked, for it wouldn't lead to anything.
Now she regarded with sick apprehension the self-confident tilt of Hunting's hat and the purposeful energy of his stride.
She raised her head defiantly.
"Good morning, Mr. Hunting," she said.
The man bent his head curtly and passed on.
He had heard from Coast and Waite and others how this woman had tried to get round young Rossitur. He would make it quite clear there was to be none of that little game with him.
Mary continued her journey.
"This is ridiculous," she told herself. "I'm letting things get on my nerves. There's nothing wrong really."
She decided to go and call on Mrs. Watts. The old lady would be pleased to hear about the waggons. Besides, she was a cheery old soul.
But the old soul refused to be cheery. Mrs. Watts was full of fears and fancies. She sat gazing through the windows across the sunlit orchard, seeing nothing but shadows that were not there.
"I'm sure I don't know what we're coming to," she sighed, shaking her head. "What with such goings on at the Flying Fox and preachin's on the bridge at evenings. Anderby isn't what it was, Mrs. Robson."
Mary agreed that it was not. But that did not necessarily imply the changes were undesirable.
"You can't expect to keep things always the same, you know," she remarked brightly.
"You don't allus like things any better because they're what you expect," said Mrs. Watts.
"What 'goings on' do you mean at the Flying Fox?" asked Mary, looking for a change of subject but thinking the time had not yet come to talk about the waggons.
"Do you mean to say ye've never heard tell o' Mike O'Flynn and Eli Waite fighting up at t' Flying Fox? Where ever have you been?"
"Busy lately. I've been staying at Market Burton a few days. Mr. Robson's uncle—Dickie Robson—died you know, and I went to help them with the funeral."
"O—Ay, Violet said as much. I forgot. Well, as I was saying"—Mrs. Watts brightened perceptively at the prospect of relating an unspoilt bit of gossip—"Mike an' Eli was up at Flying Fox a week come Tuesday it would be, and both a bit t' worse for drink, though Eli, 'e were worse nor' Mike. Irishmen can stand a lot o' drink, not but what Mike isn't a good 'un with his fists once he gets well liquored up. Well, Eli was cracking up yon Mr. Rossitur what was here, and saying what a good speaker 'e was an' all. And how this here Mr. Hunting was going to put what 'e'd said into practice like, and Mike, 'e flies up all at once like 'e do at times, an' says what Mr. Rossitur and Hunting an' all was a pack o' fond fools and ought to be shuved in tid' pond. And Eli said som'at—I don't know—about young Rossitur and a lass—they didn't tell me who—and then—I don't know—but Eli struck t' fust blow they said—or mebbe Mike—but anyway there they were at it hand an' fist when Constable Burton came up an' stopped it all. Ee but it must 'a been a rare fight! Ye don't get many such now." She shook a regretful head.
Mary frowned anxiously.
"Oh, dear, I wish I'd known. Mike mustn't go fighting like that. I'll have to stop him. He's very excitable and when he was ill the doctor said a little too much excitement on the top of drink might send him off his head."
"Ay. 'E's a rare fighter, is Mike O'Flynn."
"I know. But it isn't safe. All these agitators and people are very bad for him. Old soldiers need discipline, I think. It's very difficult."
"Ay. There's queer goings on at Anderby."
Mary rose to go. She was worried. "Queer goings on." That was just it. Nothing tangible, nothing that one could fight in the open.
She bade farewell to Mrs. Watts and walked home along the sunlit road.
It would be a fine day for the children. That was something. After all, there was nothing very wrong. Things had gone on the same in the past. They would be the same again. Ardently she tried to assure herself of this. For it meant nothing to any but a feverish and over-sensitive imagination that Mike should fight with Eli Waite, that old Deane should have omitted his customary greeting to her in the street, that Coast should refuse to cheer her and John when the waggons drove away.
Waite naturally was a cross-grained man. Mike was temperamentally unable to keep the peace. Coast and she were old enemies.
It was nothing, this shadow on the kingdom, only the ghost of her own brooding thoughts and frustrated longings.
She closed the gate behind her and paused in the blossoming garden. She needed new flowers for the dining-room table and there were roses on the prim standard bushes up the path to the house. She bent above their vivid fragrance, her fingers hovering, like the heavy-laden bees, from flower to flower.
Here at least she found tranquillity and assured possession. The anxiety died from her eyes, the strained lines from the corners of her mouth. She moved slowly about the garden.
Here, as though she were really a queen, the courtier yews cast cloaks of shade before her on the golden grass. Roses, peonies, starlike daisies against the night dark hedge of yew, delphiniums catching the blue of the sky on their delicate spears, these were gentler subjects than the men and women of Anderby.
If it were only in the village that she found her trouble, she might have sought comfort here. But she turned restlessly to the house and went to a desk in the drawing-room. Laying the roses on a table, she opened a drawer and took out a sheaf of newspaper cuttings, neatly dated and pinned together. Again she read them, though she knew their phrases by heart. "Organization of agriculture." "The beginning of a great campaign." "Yorkshire caution and progress."
"Progress." He was always talking of progress. Mary laid the papers down and looked through her window across the gold and green of the garden, but saw neither sunlight nor shadow.
She was drawing towards her the image of a red head, gallantly poised, thin hands that swept away the difficulties of the world, and laughing youthful eyes.
The butcher's cart rattled up the drive to the back door. They needed a leg of mutton. She must tell Violet.
She rose and locked away the papers.
"At least," she thought, "we know what he thinks of us all."