The Splendid Fairing

by Constance Holme

She climbed down gropingly, and he led the horse away, leaving her standing, waiting, in the empty yard. She stood with her back turned to the kitchen window, conscious, though she could not see them, of the eyes that were raking her shabby figure through the glass. The sounds of merriment burst out afresh, and she winced a little, though she did not move. They were laughing at her, she felt sure, but there was nothing new to that. They often laughed, she knew, since she had ceased to be able to stop them with a glance. She shivered, standing there, and her bones ached with the damp, but she was in no hurry to enter the warm, crowded room. It was better to shiver in the coldest spaces of earth than to be shut into Heaven itself with Eliza and her tongue.

The green house-door with its brass knocker was close at her left hand, but she did not attempt to open it and go in. That was a privilege only accorded to the rich and proud, not to a poor relation come to beg. Nevertheless, it was one of her hidden dreams that someday she would enter by that grand front-door. In the Great Dream Geordie came home with a fortune in his hands, so that all doors, even the Door of Blindbeck, instantly stood wide. They would drive up to it in a smart cart behind a fast young horse, with Geordie, a pattern of fashion, holding the reins. His mother would be beside him, of course, in crackling silk, with a velvet mantle and a bonnet of plumes and jet. Simon, the lesser glory, would have to sit behind, but even Simon would be a sight for Blindbeck eyes. When the Dream came true, the house could be as full of pryers as it chose, with crushed noses and faces green with envy set like bottle-ends in every pane. The farm-men would come to the doors and gape, and even the dogs would stop to sniff at so much that was new. Geordie would jump down, reins in hand, and bang the brass knocker until it shook the house, while Sarah, secure in the presence of her golden lad, would sit aloft and aloof like any other silken queen. Soon they would hear Eliza's step along the sacred, oil-clothed passage; and she, when she opened the door, would see their glory framed beyond. Sarah would throw her a graceful word, asking leave to step inside, and climb down with a rustle of silk on the arms of her husband and son. She would set her feet on the snowy steps and never as much as trouble to look for a mat. With a smile she would offer her hostess a kindly, kid-gloved hand. In the whole armour of the successful mother she would bear down upon her foe....

It was one of those things that seem as if they might happen so easily, and never do,--never do. Simon returned presently, accompanied by Will, and they entered the house as usual through the old stone porch. No dog even looked aside at them as they crossed to the kitchen door. No portent of coming wonder shed a sudden sunlight on the day. The old trap was tipped on its shafts behind a sheltering wall. The old horse, himself mere waiting food for the nearest hounds, munched his way happily through his feed of Blindbeck corn.

Will talked shyly as he led the way, trying to brighten the melancholy pair.

"You must have a sup o' tea before we get to business," he said to his brother, "and Sarah can rest herself while we have our crack. We're over soon wi' tea to-day, but I reckon you won't mind that. You'll be tired likely, and it's none so warm. I'll be bound Simon'll have a thirst on him anyway!" he smiled to Sarah. "He's done a deal o' tattling, Simon has, to-day!"

He could not get any response from them, however; indeed, they scarcely seemed to hear. The fear of Eliza was upon them, that was always so strong until they were actually in her presence, the same fear that had sent them scuttling like scared rabbits out of the Witham inn. Sarah was struggling with the usual jealous ache as they entered the spacious, cleanly place, with the kindly smell of new-baked bread filling the whole house. She knew as well as the mistress where the kitchen things were kept, the special glories such as the bread-maker, the fruit-bottler, and the aluminium pans. The Blindbeck motto had always been that nothing beats the best. Half her own tools at home were either broken or gone, and there was only a blind woman to make shift with the rest as well as she could. Little need, indeed, for a great array, with the little they had to cook; and little heart in either cooking or eating since Geordie had gone away....

Will opened the door of the main kitchen, and at once the warmth and jollity sweeping out of it smote the shrinking visitors like an actual blast. The party were already at table, as he had said, and met the late-comers with a single, focussed stare. It was one of their chief bitternesses, indeed, that they always seemed to arrive late. Eliza was at the back of it, they felt almost sure, but they had never been able to discover how. No matter how they hurried the old horse, asked the hour of passers-by, or had Simon's old watch put as right as it would allow, they never seemed to arrive at the right time. They could not be certain, of course, that she had watched for them from upstairs, and at the first sign of their coming had hustled the party into tea, but somehow or other they knew it in their bones. Things happened like that, they would have told you, when you were up against Mrs. Will; things that never by any chance would have happened with anybody else.

The room was cloudy to Sarah as she went in, but jealousy had long ago printed its details on her mind. She knew what the vivid wall-paper was like, the modern furniture and the slow-combustion grate. Once it had been a beautiful old houseplace with a great fire-spot and a crane, an ingle-nook, a bacon-loft, and a chimney down which both sun and moon could slant a way. Eliza, however, had soon seen to it that these absurdities were changed, and Sarah, though she affected contempt, approved of the changes in her heart. It was true that she always returned to Sandholes with a great relief, but she did not know that its bare austerity soothed her finer taste. She only knew that her mind expanded and her nerves eased, and, though grief went with her over every flag and board, a cool hand reached to her forehead as she went in.

Simon included in one surly glance the faces round the loaded table, the bright flowers, the china with the gilded rim, and the new window-curtains which he would never even have seen in any house but this. "Plush, by the look on 'em, and the price of a five pun note!" he thought resentfully, as he stood waiting to be given a place, and wondering which of the people present he disliked the most. There were the two Swainson lasses from the nearest farm, with their young duke of a brother, who was in a Witham bank. There was a Lancashire youth whom Will had taken as pupil, and Stephen Addison and his missis, who were both of them preaching-mad. He held forth at chapel and she at Institute meetings and the like, and folk said they kept each other awake at nights, practising which of them could do it best. There was Sam Battersby of Kitty Fold, who never knew where his own heaf ended and other people's began, and the familiar smug cousin, long since formally pledged to Eliza's eldest lass. There was a grandchild or two, and of course the Blindbeck brood, with the exception of a couple of married daughters and the obliterated Jim.... It was small wonder, indeed, that, after all those years, nobody missed him in that upcoming crowd.

Eliza's hearty voice, that was never hearty at core, rose like a strong-winged, evil bird at the unwanted guests. The sight of them seemed to surprise her so much that she dropped a gold-rimmed cup.