“It’d be two, happen—ay, and maybe more. I don’t rightly know. I can’t rightly say.”
“Ay, well, it’s now or never for the old dad,” Bob said. “A year or two’s no use to the old chap, wi’ notice to quit pinned to his jacket-tail. What’s gitten you, lad, to be hanging back like this?” He raised his voice and spoke more firmly, sure of his cause. “The spot’ll suit you, waint it, come to that?”
“Ay, I’d like it right well.”
“Well, then, whatever’s to do?” Bob peered at him curiously, struck by the mixture of longing and dogged resistance in his tone. “If it’s nobbut a matter of a pound or two, you can fetch up easy enough on yon. There’s a deal o’ folk’d lend you a hand, seeing how you’re placed. It’s more than time, too, you were starting on your own. It doesn’t do to stop in service over long. You get kind o’ fixed and feared o’ striking out.”
“I’ll strike right enough, never you fret—I will that. But it’ll be in my own time....”
“You can’t always suit things just to the tick.... Eh, I wish the chance had come my road, that’s all!” Bob sighed and frowned, depressed by the thought of what he had missed, and the folly which refused what he would so gladly have seized. “But it’s no use my thinking on’t, so that’s flat. Even if I could borrow the brass, I’d never catch up with it, I doubt, and there’s Marget to be suited in t’matter, as I said afore. Nay, I’m a broken reed, that’s what it is, and I mun just let be. It’s for you to say what you’ll do for the old man.”
“I can’t do owt—yet,” Thomas repeated. “I mun ha’ time....” and pushed his chair further into the concealing gloom. He felt trapped in a cunning snare, all the more cunning and cruel because it was simply his own plan of life twisted and tangled out of shape. He had never dreamed that his future hung by a hair, but then he had never imagined that John might die, or that Agnes might so incredibly change her mind. He felt not only trapped but mocked, and the mockery hardened him in his resolve. Difficult as he was to turn, he might yet have been driven to yield, if the whole business had not worn so ironic a leer. The rough hand of fate was thrust in among his careful plans. His faithfulness and self-denial, his patience and hard work, were all to be shuffled and risked in a hurried moment like this.
If only things had been right between him and his lass, how triumphantly simple the whole problem would have been! It was true that he would have liked another year to look round, but he would have let that go without hesitation for the chance of the farm. The place was in a bad state, of course, but that should mean an easier rental, and all the more credit to him when he pulled it round. He knew the little farm by stick and stone, and loved it well enough, too. He was content enough in his hired spot, but the marsh blood that was in him cried always to be settled within sight and sound of the sea. Even to-night, though his heart was pulling him back, and the marsh was a dripping waste with a trap at the farther end, he had drawn great breaths as the mountains dropped behind. To have had the old home with Agnes—why, it was better by far than he had planned! And in the event, as it had proved, how far it had fallen short!
He would have been glad, too, to keep the old man, just as the Agnes he had counted as his would also have been glad. Both had been bred to the sense of duty powerful in their class, and the fact that Kit had muddled his own chance would have made no difference to that duty in their eyes. He would have been welcome to their home as long as he lived, and indeed, there would have been no hardship about it, after all, for he was both lovable and kind, as well as the sort that made little trouble about the house. Thomas, in fact, would have been proud as well as glad to give him what he asked. He would have liked to have seen him daily in his chair, playing his fiddle in a patch of shade or pottering about the garden in the sun. The old man had always been rarely fond of flowers, and no matter what happened or did not happen on the farm, the garden, at least, was always bright and sweet. Flowers seemed to grow for him, indeed, under the mere caressing glance of his eye.... But at present Agnes was turned the other way, and he would not travel a road that was not hers as well. As long as he could he would stay within reach, doggedly waiting and waiting for the recoil, and if anything else called for his help, he must shut his ears and let it go to the wall. A few miles over the hill would have made little difference, perhaps, but he could not have endured those miles, and he did not mean to try. Without Agnes, he would let the farm go without even raising his hand. Without Agnes, he would let his father go, too.
There being little else he could do for the old man, Bob was roused to fight for him to the last. It was his brother’s duty, he pointed out, a duty that would have been a pleasure to other folks, not so far. Nobody could have had a better father, as they knew right well, and he was entitled to the little they could do. It wasn’t as if Thomas hadn’t the brass—what, he had more than once told them about it himself! If that was true—and it was like enough, after all these years—there could be nothing and less than nothing in the way. Supposing it did mean a year before he’d planned, why, surely to goodness there was no hitch in that? He’d never for shame let his father be turned out, like a come-day-go-day tenant that never meant to stop? He could have both bed and bite under his roof, Bob said, but it wouldn’t be much to crack on, after Beautiful End. There was only one right road, as anybody could see, and that was to put in at once for the offered farm.