‘I’ll say good-bye, then,’ she said.
‘Good-bye, miss, and thank ’ee,’ said Abner, and touched his cap.
The idea of leaving The Dyke had shocked him; but when he passed down the drive for the last time, with Prosser’s money in his pocket, Abner experienced a sudden feeling of relief. It was probable that hard times were ahead of him, and yet he had never felt so free since the day when he left his father’s house at Halesby. When he got home he told Mary with an affectation of lightness that he had got the sack. Her first impulse was one of fear for their finances, but almost as quickly she found herself thankful that Abner was no longer in touch with Marion Prosser. The world in which she and Marion had been friends was so far behind and spoke to her so poignantly of a lost content that she was glad to be wholly freed from it. She could not disguise the fact that she was jealous of Marion, not only for this but for other reasons. She put on a bold and heartening front.
‘I’ve a nice bit of money in hand,’ she said. ‘That shows how wise we were to go easy.’
Her show of cheerfulness and courage pleased him. ‘I thought it ‘d put you out a bit,’ he said.
‘We ought to be used to uncertainty by this time,’ she replied. ‘I’m glad you won’t have that long walk there and back. It was enough to take the strength out of any man.’
‘It’s a rum thing,’ he said, ‘but I don’t mind it any more than you do, leaving The Dyke.’
‘You must get a job nearer home now,’ she said. ‘You’re quite a stranger.’
‘Ay, I’ll have a look round to-morrow,’ he said.
When the day came he had not the heart to set out in quest of work. Instead of doing so he lounged all morning, and after dinner took the children out for a long walk over the stark, wintry fields. They were wildly excited to go with him, for it was now many months since they had known such a holiday. Mary watched them, smiling as they left Wolfpits. She saw that they were happy, and marvelled at her own happiness. Abner and the children made their way through the silent larchwoods to the top of Castel Ditches and sat there gazing idly down upon the river valleys. About the time when cohorts of starlings wheeled through the sky above the reed-beds of the Barbel where they made their nightly roosting place, the three of them dropped down the slope towards the waterworks. There Abner found a diminished gang still working on the last details of the track. The sidings, the cranes, and the engines were gone, and in place of the trenches on which Abner had worked a year before, he now saw trim walls, culverts, and bridges of stone. A single wooden hut remained standing, and there he found the Gunner rubbing his hands over a bucket of coke. He stared at Abner as though he were a stranger.