XXVIII
The wind shrieked through the cutting and dashed itself against the crawling train. Up and up the steep curve of the gradient panted the blunt-nosed engine. Pushing forward slowly, it flung two streamers of fiery smoke out for the swooping hurricane to snatch and tear to ribbons. From the carriage window Muriel could see blank walls of grey rank grass, scarred by rough boulders and disfigured here and there by the blackened skeletons of burnt-out gorse. Once or twice a wheeling sea-bird with strong, outstretched wings swept across the sky, and twice since Aunby Station the embankment had dipped, revealing the huge desolation of the moor beyond. Only once she had seen through a gash in the hill-side the dark tumbling water of the wintry sea, whirled into patches of white foam and driven ruthlessly against the broken cliff.
She consulted again the map on the other side of the railway carriage, flanked by pictures of Whitby Abbey and Scarshaven shore. She could trace there the railway straggling up the coast past Scarshaven, Aunby and Flying-fall, before it branched inland again to Follerwick. Only one more station separated her from Connie. It was surprising how little Muriel had thought about her for the past four months. The news of Godfrey's disaster had wiped her sister as completely from her mind as a sponge erases writing from a slate, and even the later information that the disaster was less terrible than she had feared had not so much recalled the Thraile family to Muriel as it had recalled Muriel to Marshington. Mrs. Neale had heard of Godfrey. His wound was a slight one, and the worst consequence of his prison life seemed to be an exasperating but tolerably safe boredom which at least might save his life until the end of the war. That was a vast relief. It had enabled Muriel to face with greater equanimity the post-girl's rap at the door, and the soft flutter of letters into their wire cage; but at the time when Muriel heard it she was racked by another anxiety that engrossed her mind and body. Mrs. Hammond had caught influenza. She began with it one morning early in November and continued to have it badly for about six weeks. "She has got thoroughly run down—seems to have been worrying. You ought to take care of her, you know," said Dr. Parker; and Muriel, who considered that she had done nothing else for the past twelve years, thought this a little hard. Nor was Mrs. Hammond easy to nurse. When Muriel brought her Benger's food, she wanted Bovril, and when Muriel brought her Bovril, then she didn't think that she really could eat anything just then. For three weeks Muriel nursed her night and day, sleeping in her father's dressing-room, or rather lying there in drowsy apprehension waiting for her mother's call.
And now she was better, and Christmas was over, and Muriel was being carried in the train to Thraile. Connie had responded to her offer without enthusiasm, she thought; but Connie's letters never were particularly indicative of her feelings. Her handwriting did not adapt itself to lucid analysis. Yet a secret apprehension drew Muriel from Marshington into this bleak country where everything was just a little sinister, and therefore where anything might happen.
The rain rattled now against the window. It flooded out the landscape, leaving for Muriel's eyes only a blurred line of horizon and for her ears the howling of the wind. Sound rather than sight gave to Muriel her first impression of the Follerwick moors.
The train came to a standstill with a grinding scream of brakes. Muriel pulled her suit-case from the rack, buttoned her fur collar more tightly, and wrestled with the door. The wind caught it from her and almost hurled her out on to the platform. She staggered out into the driving rain. For a moment she stood bewildered, facing a short stretch of wooden platform, a deserted shelter, and the grim pile of the moors beyond, hill after hill shouldering up into a melting sky.
The wind flung itself upon her like a fury and almost tore her suit-case from her hand.
Then, just when she was beginning to wonder whether this could possibly be a station, Connie bore down upon her; Connie wrapped in a great man's mackintosh, her dripping arms outstretched, her cheeks wet and her eyes shining through the rain.
"Oh, here you are! Good old Mu! By Jove, it's good to see you!"
She enfolded Muriel with a damp but unequivocal embrace.
"Oh, Connie," shouted Muriel reproachfully; she had to shout because of the wind and the rain. "You shouldn't have come. This awful day!"
Connie laughed, and Muriel was glad of her laugh. It seemed to loosen the tight feeling of doubt and fear that ever since her father's illness had bound her chest uncomfortably.
"This? Oh, this is nothing! My dear, we didn't know what weather was at Marshington. That your bag? Come on."
On the road outside the station stood a high-wheeled, springless vehicle known, possibly on account of its cumbrous heaviness, as a "light cart." A red-nosed youth in oilskins held the reins of a very old, yellowish horse that stood dejectedly, its tail between its lean legs, and its back hunched against the blinding storm.
They climbed into the cart and Muriel wondered how ever Connie could endure the constant jolting as the wheels jarred over stones, jerked in and out of ruts, and set the cart rocking like a ship on a rough sea. Wind and rain prevented any attempt at conversation. Muriel, sitting sideways behind the driver, could see Connie's profile, her eyes, swollen with wind or tears, the sullen misery of her mouth. She turned away, sorely troubled, but there was nothing else to look at. Grey curtains of rain shut down the travellers. They seemed to be isolated from all life or colour. Marshington and the warm comfort of their mother's drawing-room was in a far-off world. It seemed impossible that the journey would end at another house, where there would be fires and tea and dry clothes to wear.
The thick black waterproof rug across Muriel's knees grew heavy with rain. She found that she had been sitting with her hands in a pool of water. Timidly she shook it off her knee, and watched it run away through the cracks in the bottom of the cart.
They had been driving for years and years, while Muriel's courage fluctuated between fear of the unknown and gladness that a change had come at last into the monotony of life. Slowly the second feeling conquered the first. This was Thraile. Connie was here and unhappy. Something had to be done and if possible done by Muriel. She lifted her chin obstinately, determined that no fear should shake her purpose, though what she had to do or how to do it were equally unknown to her. Her imagination already raised her to unfounded ecstasies, and through the rain her eyes shone as in her mind she sang Bunyan's hymn:
"Hobgoblin nor foul fiend
Shall daunt his spirit . . .
There's no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
If he do but consent
To be a pilgrim."
The driver unfastened a gate and led the cart along a rough field road bordered on one side by a broken wall of piled grey stones. At the top of a steep incline another wall enclosed a narrow strip of mud, and tangled, stunted bushes known as the garden. Beyond it, facing westward across the moors, stood the High Farm. Stark bare to all winds that blew were its grey walls. Five narrow windows above and four below stared blankly at the winding road, like eyes without eyebrows. A few farm buildings huddled to the south and crept behind the shelter of the hill, but the house stood square to the wild wind and the wild sky and the waiting menace of the moor.
"Is—is this Thraile?" Muriel faltered.
Connie smiled at her, a queer light smile of pride, of fear, of challenge.
"Yes, this is Thraile all right. The High Farm—Muriel. Muriel—the High Farm. Now you are properly introduced. And very nice too, I don't think!"
The wind caught her laugh and snatched it away, as it had caught the smoke of the ascending engine.