Beautiful end

by Constance Holme

But she had forgotten Kit once more when she found herself at her gate, and heard her lover’s step going from her down the lane. In her bedroom she watched the moon come up, over the road where they had walked, the patient moon that had not hurried or spied. Parts of the lane would be as bright as day where for their passing had been a velvet dusk. Folks who walked there now would have to whisper low, because voices carried so clearly under the moon. They would see their own shadows close about their feet, so that they would be four instead of two, and therefore never alone. Thomas and she had had no shadows at all, and even the shadows of their wasted years had been hidden by the night.

They had got the farm, after all, but they had had another year to wait. The new tenant’s fate had hung in the balance for some time, and though, when the end came, it came short and sharp, there had been much to do before they could move in. The new tenant, who had never had time to become an old tenant, had yet contrived to occasion many repairs. They had had to furnish, of course, and that meant visits to sales, and hours of pondering in Witham shops. There was also her mother to settle with a decent hired girl. The old woman’s house was her own, and she had no notion of coming to the farm. “The old man’ll keep you stirring, as it is,” she said to her daughter, when the point was raised. “Young folks as is newly-wed don’t want old folks hanging round their necks. It’ll make you feel what you’ll come to, if it doesn’t do nowt else....”

So she stayed in the house between the fields while Agnes went to the marsh, and though she paid her an afternoon visit now and then, she could not be coaxed to stop for as much as a night. Agnes would have been glad enough of her company, at times. She found the marsh very lonely at first, and the hours were long when Thomas was out on the land. She did not mind very much when the weather was fine, and she could see the houses winking across the sands, but it was dreary indeed when the bay was blotted out and there was nothing to break the shaken veil of the rain. That was one of her reasons for welcoming old Kit; they would be such cronies, she and the old man! She would see him about the garden while she was at work in the house, and could call to him from the windows if she felt inclined. Just to hear her own voice answered once in a while would give the place a feeling of fresh life. They would sit on the new seat shelling peas, or watching the fishing boats making home with their catch, their sails three-cornered blurs on the opal evening sky. They would sit on the white-stoned hearth of a winter’s night, and watch the fire burn red with the hardening of the frost. He would have tales to tell when the gales came out in the spring, and the narrow sea deepened and frothed into driven flood. Thomas would be out with the sheep, and she would want a tale to distract her from the storm. And sometimes, perhaps, Kit would play her the old, thin tunes, bringing the dance-itch back to her sober feet. That careless pleasure seemed to have dropped behind—not but what she could dance with the smartest yet. But she seemed to herself to have shut a door at her back, and behind that door were the strains of a violin.

She began to sing as she went about, and her voice escaped through the open windows and fled away through the door; yet it was in the house all the time as well. Down on the shore a man looked up as he stepped on the sands, hearing the voice that was both within and without. The house looked empty, he thought, with all its windows wide, and the voice that sang seemed a bodiless voice, making the house the emptier for its song. It followed him as he went leisurely out, making for the channel and the farm across. He did not hurry, for the tide would not be ready to turn for over an hour. Presently he was on the bank, hailing the farm for a boat, and his voice, shrill and lost-sounding in the open space, broke like a cry for help across the joy of the song. Thomas, down by the gate, heard both the song and the cry, but the old man coming in the trap heard only the fiddle singing on his knee.

She sang so long that she did not know when she stopped, but Thomas, down by the gate, felt as if a fiddle-string had snapped. He had the same sense as of something wounded and ceasing to be. It was just at that moment the trap checked at his side....

The wife in the house looked out and saw the marsh roads empty north and east and south. The crawling speck she had watched so long must have reached its stopping-place at last. She thought again of the yacht, swinging so eagerly over the tide, only to turn so suddenly at the end. Even the highest hopes, it seemed, met barriers they could not leap.... But the trap, when the time came for it to turn, trundling over land that had once been sailing-ground as well, would leave something behind it when it went away. It would leave a heart in haven, a spirit released, a wanderer come home. She wondered what they were saying to each other, away down there under the thick hedges by the meadow-gate. She wondered if Kit would notice the new gate, its new paint and how easily it swung. The other had been an ancient of days unwilling to be moved, protesting with rusty hinges and the creak of rotten wood. And, when once it was opened, you had to scurry through, so great was its haste to creak itself back to rest....

But of course he would never notice it to-night, after all the excitement of the ride. It was one of the grand new changes to be shown him later on. Thomas, trained in sound methods on a well-kept farm, seemed already to have changed the character of this. It was almost as if it had pulled itself together under the mere glance of his disapproving eye. Roots looked healthy, the corn was even and getting ahead; the hedgerows were clear of nettles and the meadows of thistles—on the whole. The hay was doing well and was thick at the roots; they hoped to be cutting in a week. The old man would be pleased with the new machines, the cutter and tedder in their brilliant coats of blue. There were the horses, too, bargains and rare good beasts. He would hardly know either stable or shippon, with all that the Squire had done in the way of repairs. And as for all the fine new things about the house—why, it would take a month of Sundays to see them all!

She had, in that last pause, one of those rare moments when joy is awaited fully prepared. All was swept and garnished about her for this hour, as perfect as she could make it in the time; perhaps it would never be as perfect again. Now she could put aside the work of the weeks and meet the occasion with a settled mind. Both to herself and to Thomas, hardly conscious of it though they were, there was something symbolic in the coming event. Both recognised, more or less, that they were owed a grudge by fate. In their search after happiness, they had made someone sad. In their groping after each other they had allowed somebody to be alone. Now that life had given them so much they were ashamed to think that somebody was poor. This coming of the old man stood for atonement on their part, resurrection on his. It meant the sanction of fate to hold their consciences clear....

So they had put into this home-coming everything that they knew of kindly work and pleasant conspiring and kindly thought. There was nothing within their compass that they had left undone, nothing omitted that held a welcome of its own. They meant him to walk straight into peace out of the passion through which he had passed, while they looked on with relieved hearts, not quite certain whether they were forgiven sinners or his guardian saints. Not that it mattered if only old Kit was pleased; if only their good but troubled souls might rest.

And still there was no sign of the guest, though she felt sure the splendid moment had begun. Of course they would wait for a final word with Bob, after Thomas had helped the old man down. Bob would be asked, of course, to come to the house, but if he had hired or borrowed the trap he would have to be getting back. She had never included Bob in the picture in her mind, except as a part of the trap as it lumbered away. And that parting crack would not be a long one, she felt sure. Kit would be tired and fretting to get indoors, and Thomas would know she was waiting for them—and tea. She was rarely glad she had got that ham for tea....