Chapter XX
ABDICATION
"Ham, pie, cheese, bread, tarts, a custard and stewed apples. Well, I don't think we shall do so badly. Why didn't you roast a fowl and have done with it, Mary?"
At four o'clock in the morning Sarah Bannister faced Mary across the dining-room table with a smile of grim amusement. Mary looked up from the end of the table. She was abstractedly fingering one of her best netted doilies set under the ham in a moment of mental aberration by the red-eyed Violet.
"Well, I suppose I might have done that without such trouble. I'm afraid one or two have been roasted without any help from me." She laughed forlornly and pushed back a lock of hair that had fallen across her forehead.
"Where are the men?" asked Sarah.
"I think they've gone to wash their hands. They must all be pretty black."
"Oh. I'm glad to hear it. You could do with a wash yourself, Mary. There's a smut right across the middle of your nose. No, it's no use dabbing at it with your handkerchief. You'd better by half go upstairs and get tidied a bit. I'll pour out if the men come in."
Mary left the room, and Sarah stood by the table beating a soft tattoo on the back of John's chair. Only five hours ago a cyclist passing through Anderby on his way from Hardrascliffe had brought news to Market Burton of the Robsons' stack fire.
Sarah had asked no questions. She had put on her second best bonnet, roused Tom from his sleep and sent him to hire a car from the garage while she went herself to summon Toby. Sarah never was quite sure why she considered Toby's presence necessary, but a legal adviser might always come in handy and in this final catastrophe John must lack no possible support.
There was a clatter in the passage and three men entered the room: Tom Bannister, flushed and embarrassed, his round eyes wide with sleep, Toby Robson, nervous and loud voiced, wishing himself out of the whole damned show but determined to pass it off with as much joviality as possible, John, pale and miserable, his physical bulk only emphasizing his mental helplessness.
Sarah looked at him anxiously. She wanted, with an intensity that surprised her, to go up to him and put her arms round his broad bowed shoulders and stroke his hanging head and whisper, "Never mind, John. Never mind, dear John. You couldn't help it. You've done your best. You've given the ten best years of your life to Mary's farm. It isn't your fault it's all spoilt. I'll take care of you. Give it all up and come to Market Burton and we'll all be happy there again."
Instead she remarked:
"Hum. From the time you've all been away I thought you must have been having a bath, but now I've seen you I doubt I was mistaken. Tea, John? Tom, hand me the whisky decanter, please. A drop of whisky in a little strong tea won't do any of you any harm."
She established herself behind the teapot and was pouring out when Mary came in. Quietly Sarah relinquished her place and began to cut the loaf in stalwart slices.
"I wouldn't have any pie on an empty stomach if I were you, Tom. It's a while back since tea and I'm sure after a drive in Collinson's car your liver will be upset for weeks. Give him just a little ham, please, John."
"Decent fellow that constable of yours, Mary," remarked Toby, his mouth full of pie. "Getting his head turned a bit though with two arrests in one night. Murder and arson! It's a bit thick for a village in these parts. You mayn't have much money in Anderby, but you do see life!"
Sarah frowned, but as John seemed to be paying little attention to the conversation she decided that Toby's exuberance was not worth checking. Besides, he had really been quite useful throughout this extraordinary, uncomfortable night.
Mary had been attempting to eat the ham that lay on her plate in limp pink slices. She put down her knife and fork now and turned to Toby.
"What's going to happen to Mike O'Flynn now?" she asked.
"Oh, well, of course, he'll have to be kept safe until the trial. Of course the man's insane. An old soldier you said?"
"Yes, and very excitable. He had pneumonia about two years ago and was quite off his head then for a bit. The men told me he's been drinking a lot lately and getting very worked up. I suppose I ought to have noticed, but I just didn't."
"Oh, completely mad I should say. Look at the way he never attempted to escape. Just hung about the body till some one fetched the policeman. Why on earth did he do this fellow in, though? Senseless sort of thing it seemed."
"Oh, I saw him to-night for a few minutes, you know, and he told me."
Sarah heard Mary's flat dreary voice, sounding as though she told a tale so often repeated that it had become unutterably boring.
"He seemed sane in a way then, but queer of course and not at all ashamed. He said that Mr. Rossitur had brought all the trouble to Anderby and when the strike was over he was really furious, but just pretended it was all his own doing. And Mike says that earlier in the evening he saw him hanging round and was sure he was up to some mischief. Then when he heard of the fire he knew Mr. Rossitur had lit it to pay us out, and he saw him run off to get his bicycle—really to fetch the fire-engine, but Mike thought he was running away. So he got Foreman's gun, the one John gave him to shoot rabbits with, and ran down the garden path at the back of the house to the Flying Fox, and came on Mr. Rossitur just as he was getting on his bicycle and shot him point-blank through the head."
Sarah listened with frowning brows.
Really, now the fire was over, and the police officers interviewed and the Irish murderer and Mary's discharged beastman arrested, it was time to talk about something else. She passed her cup to Mary.
"More tea, please. And, if you have any water, I should like it weaker. My digestive organs are not made of cast iron, and I don't suppose that a heavy meal at this house will exactly improve their condition. Tom, if you've had enough, you'd better go and wake that chauffeur. We'll be moving."
"Oh, no. You'll stay the night here, please, Sarah," said Mary. "Violet's putting some sheets on the spare room bed now. I found her crying all over Fred Stephens in the kitchen, and decided she had better have something else to do. Fred was very tired. He's been splendid to-night. In fact, they all have."
"Oh, very well. I suppose that man will wait. I'm sure I don't want him to stay, though, if he's going to charge us by the hour, I'd rather he took the car back to Market Burton, and you could give us a lift to the station to-morrow. I hate those nasty, smelly cars, always breaking down just when you want them most. What amazes me is that we didn't have a puncture to-night."
She straightened the bonnet which she had not yet laid aside, and helped herself to another tart.
It was strange how the memory of another meal haunted her. Last December they had all sat round the table, congratulating themselves on their own cleverness, and Uncle Dickie had made that deplorable speech. Well, Uncle Dickie was dead and there was not much matter for congratulation now. The stackyard was gone. The farm buildings were reduced to blackened husks. Only the rain, held off too long by the wind to save the stables, had come in time to check the fire before it reached the cottages beyond. And that red haired young socialist lay dead in the back sitting-room. That was bad luck. He was an irreverent, conceited young fool of course, but then one was like that when one was young, and doubtless he was rather clever, and had a good many hopes about the fine things he was going to do. It was bad luck, being shot down by a crazy harvester, just when life was beginning. Still, the important thing at the moment was to get John to bed without any more fuss. He looked absolutely worn out. She supposed that even this would not make any difference to Mary's determination to stay on at Anderby. Mary was of the obstinate, selfish type, who insist upon doing good in their own way. If she thought that she was doing her duty there at Anderby, at Anderby she would stay, even if John had twenty strokes and died.
Sarah rose from the table.
"Now then, Mary. What about getting to bed? I'm sure we're all tired, and if Violet has put those sheets on the spare bed we'd better use them."
"Well, well, it doesn't sound so bad. I could do with forty winks myself," remarked Toby, with a tremendous yawn.
They trooped upstairs, Mary hurrying first to see that the rooms were ready. In a little while she returned to the dining-room, and found Sarah sitting there. She had not even removed her bonnet.
"Aren't you going to bed?" asked Mary.
"I never go to bed within an hour after a meal unless there is some special reason. Is John in bed?"
"Yes. He went straight to sleep. He must be very tired."
Mary sat down on a chair near the table, and idly dug little pits in the salt-cellar, raising the spoon and watching the salt stream slowly back into the pot. The fire was dead and Sarah looked from the empty grate to the discarded meal on the table.
"Hadn't you better go to bed yourself? You'll have a hard day to-morrow."
"I know," said Mary, but she made no effort to rise.
"You're spilling that salt on the cloth. It'll only be more mess to clear away in the morning."
Mary's hand was still. She turned and looked at Sarah.
"You were right," she said at last very slowly.
"Indeed? I usually am. But when do you mean particularly?"
"When you said we should have to give up Anderby."
"Oh."
"I was wrong in the garden the other day. And I knew I was wrong all the time. That's why I was so angry, I suppose."
Sarah raised her eyebrows. This was the first time she ever remembered hearing Mary confess herself mistaken.
"I have not had time yet to talk to Toby, but I will in the morning. About selling the farm, I mean. I think we'll sell and not let it. I shouldn't like the idea of anyone but a Robson farming it while it was still mine. Then we could live at Littledale, or Market Burton."
Sarah said nothing. Until last Wednesday she had never believed it possible that she could have been so sorry for Mary. The flat, weary voice went on.
"You know, ever since we drove down the hill and heard about the fire, I've had a sort of feeling that if I had given way at once and said we would retire, when everyone thought we should, this wouldn't have happened."
"Now, you're being sentimental, Mary. You know quite well it had nothing on earth to do with you retiring."
"I'm not so sure. I think Waite did it to drive us out of the village. If he'd heard we were going anyhow...."
"That's all far-fetched nonsense. It's happened and it's a great pity that it's happened. But in a way it might have been worse. After the insurance has been paid, you won't have lost a deal o' money, and you can live quite comfortably somewhere else, and do a bit of farming at Littledale. I certainly think Anderby is a bit too much for John after what's happened, and now he isn't well. He looks done up enough to-night."
"That's all, then."
Sarah rose. She was tired herself, and Mary looked tired too. It was quite time that they both went to bed, but something in Mary's face made Sarah hesitate. After all, it was Mary's farm, and she knew it would not be pleasant to be driven out in this way. She wanted to comfort her—at least, part of her wanted to, the other part felt only resentment against the woman whose obstinacy and self-confidence had been so bad for John.
"Hadn't you better go to bed?" she asked.
"I'm coming in a minute. You go. I'm just going to see if the doors are fastened."
"Mary, is there anything I can do?"
"Nothing, thank you."
For a moment they confronted one another. There was no sound except the rain, falling in a steady downpour on the house and garden. The wind had dropped. Sarah took a step forward. If Mary had given one sign of emotion, had done anything but stand by the table, with a grey, bored face, Sarah might have tried to console her. She did not move.
"Good night then, Mary."
"Good night."
On the threshold, Sarah paused. Mary was still standing contemplating the wreckage of the meal. She was even smiling to herself, a strange, light smile. Now, people hadn't any business to smile like that when they had just made things thoroughly miserable for every one else. Sarah retired to bed.
Mary stood alone in the dining-room. Just through the wall, in John's little gun-room, lay David with a sheet across his face. It was one of the best linen sheets. Mary was sorry that he was in such an uncomfortable place, but the house had been very full and so many policemen and inspectors and people had wanted to look at him, that it seemed the only thing to be done. It was queer how little anyone seemed to think of him, though, because, really, he was much more important than a stack fire. Mary felt quite angry when she thought of Toby and Sarah comfortably asleep upstairs, while David lay on a sofa in the gun-room. Still, it was a linen sheet....
She did not want to go and look at him. It was not fair to go now, when her presence would have embarrassed him so much, had he still lived. There was a note from him in her pocket. He had pushed it under the door that evening after she had driven to Hardrascliffe when Mike thought he was "hanging about up to some mischief." He only said he was glad that he had been able to help in settling the strike, and hoped that Mrs. Robson would regard this as a more substantial form of apology for his recent behaviour, but that he was just as convinced as ever that Anderby was being worked on a pernicious system of patronage, and it would be so splendid if only she would realize it.
One day, she supposed, she might be glad to have this and the articles he had written, but just now she felt too tired to read—too tired even to think properly, though she was sure that there was something very special she had to think about, if only she could combat that queer, vague feeling in her head that made everything so unreal.
What had happened was all her fault.... Mike ... His sudden madness had been her fault in a way, because of something she had said to him in their last interview before the strike. She wasn't quite sure what it was, but she knew that there was something. Then Waite—it had been just his luck that some one should have caught him hiding the paraffin tins in the oilshed—of course, she might have been less unkind to him.... Then John's stroke, and Coast's invitation to Hunting, and the strike, and the fire, and David's death.... All somehow connected with things she had done or left undone.
She began to move about the room, lifting dishes and placing them on the butler's tray, then putting them back again. But the table refused to become any tidier. She ought to tidy it. Every one would be so busy in the morning. She must do her best to make things easy....
She had always done her best. Everything, her rule over the village, her saving of the farm, her treatment of John, even her dismissal of Waite.... What was one to do? Was it her fault that all the ideas she had encountered, all the circumstances surrounding her, tended to make her one kind of person?
She must try and get things straight in her head. If she persisted in blaming herself entirely, she would go mad. Besides, it probably wasn't true. If only there was some one to tell her what was true.... David could have done it.
She sat down by the curtained windows and pressed her hands across her aching eyes.
The broad view.... If one could only take the broad view. David had said, it made everything tolerable. There was something he had quoted once in an article in the Northern Clarion. "There comes a time when out of a false good, there arises a true evil." ... Was that meant for her? David had told her she belonged to a generation that should have passed.... Her work at Anderby might be the best thing of which she was capable, but it was a false good. She looked after people too much. They needed to be taught how to look after themselves, because no one could ever look after people properly. There always came a time when that vicarious strength broke down ... as with John, or the village after Hunting came....
Besides, David was dead. David, with his wild ideas for the progress of civilization and the reform of agricultural conditions, could carry out none of them now. He had died, horribly, wastefully, futilely. Such horror and such futility would hardly bear contemplating, because he had been so much alive, so full of purpose, possessing such an ardent desire for work. That was why she must go. Because, if David was dead, it wasn't fair to spoil his work even if one didn't believe in it. If the changes which David desired in Anderby were to come, then she and John must go. For, if they stayed, they would prevent the completion of his work. They could not help it. They were made like that. Whatever they might mean to do, they would slip back at last into the old ways. So, only by going could she in any way make up to David for the folly of his dying ... and she must go. Market Burton was a dull place, but she supposed there would be work of some kind to be done there. There would always be a girl's club or a nursing association or something—something that couldn't do anyone much harm....
She smiled a little bitterly. Once she had thought so much of all the good she was going to do to people....
Of course nothing mattered very much now, but she supposed that one day she would wake up and remember that she was under thirty still, and want again desperately all the things she had missed. David, the smile of the labourers as she passed them by the stackyard gate, the brown, full-bosomed, curve of the hills, and the scent of cream and butter in a red-tiled dairy....
But they were nothing to the things that David would miss. That was why one must remember all the time the things that he had said. Of course it might be consoling to realize that Jack Greenwood and Hunting and Coast and Fred Stephens were the heirs of the future and that by going away quietly she was doing the only thing she could do to ensure them the contentment of proceeding....
But Mary had seen enough of Market Burton to know that she would find little satisfaction in noble sentiments when her maid gave notice, or the rector altered the date of the missionary bazaar, or Mrs. Marly-Thompson wouldn't call.
Perhaps though, even if one did not think of them, even if in one's own limited, unsatisfactory life there seemed no room for them, those fine things were there just the same—courage, service, progress....
David's courage and service not wantonly wasted, his desire for progress not frustrated, but fulfilled at last because of him—even remotely because of her....
Just now, though, she must be practical and get to work. The morning was here already and there were policemen and insurance agents to be interviewed and the labourers to be seen and plans to be made for the sheltering of cattle and implements. For a few months until she and John left Anderby she would be too busy to think. Well, perhaps it was just as well and—after that—she might even understand a little better....
She moved suddenly and flung back the curtains. Outside, the rain had ceased and it was light again. The pungent smell of rain-washed earth came in from the autumn garden, and with it another smell of charred wood and blackened straw. From the church on the hill a bell was ringing for the seven o'clock service. Golden beyond the sodden shrubbery the sun rose slowly over Anderby Wold.
THE END
by the same author
and published by The Bodley Head
THE CROWDED STREET
a novel
WOMEN
a sociological study