CHAPTER XXXI
BRASS POTS AND EARTHENWARE PIPKINS
The worst of winter had stormed itself away, and it was March—the latter end of March. The leonine portion of his reign had endured a long time this year, and though it was now over, the warmer gales had yet some north-east to blow back, and the dominion of the lamb had not fairly set in. And yet, there was the caress of spring in the air—that caress which is unmistakable, and which may be felt, if it be there, through the bleakest wind and the coldest rain. This caress was in the air, and the hue of spring was in the sky. Here and there her fingers had swept aside the withered leaves, and allowed a violet to push its way up; and in some very sheltered southern corners appeared a tuft or two of primroses. In the garden borders at Thorsgarth, the crocuses were beginning to make a gallant show. The blue behind the rolling white clouds was deep and profound,—steady and to be relied upon. In the shady corners of the garden, under the budding trees, the clumps of daffodils were putting forth their tender first shoots, ready to nod their heads and laugh through the April showers. And the grass, too, was recovering its colour,—its green, which weeks under the snow had faded and browned. Everything was full of promise. Nature stepped forward, erect and laughing, jocund, casting the burden of her sadness behind her; not as in autumn, advancing droopingly towards it.
So much for the garden, the cultivated. Outside, the roads were heavy and soft with mud; but it was a mud to make glad the heart of man, especially farming man. The ploughed fields, stretching their great shoulders towards the uplands, looked rich in their purple-brown hue. The hedgerows here and there seemed to wear a filmy, downy veil, the first output of yellow-green buds. In the great pastures near Rookswood, on the Durham side of Tees, the giant ash-trees stood yet in their winter bareness, giving no sign, save by the hard, burnished black buds, which for months to come were meaning to hold fast their secret wealth of bud and leaf, their treasure of summer glory. There was every promise that this year the oak would be out before the ash, with, it was to be hoped, the proverbial result.
It was on such an afternoon as this, when the breeze blew from the south-west, that Eleanor walked along one of the muddy lanes leading from Thorsgarth to Bradstane. Beside her trotted Mrs. Johnson’s little girl, Effie, whom Eleanor had borrowed a week or two ago from her mother, to keep her company in the solitude of Thorsgarth. For Gilbert’s prophecy had been fulfilled. She found it very lonely there, so lonely that she was now on her way, half-willingly, half-reluctantly, to the Dower House, in order to inspect it from garret to cellar, and think whether it would not better suit her as a residence than the great dreary house which had grown so oppressive to her.
As they came in their walk to a bend in the river, Effie suddenly said—
‘How full the river is just now; and so brown and strong! Dr. Langstroth says he remembers the river longer than anything else; and he says that Tees is as broad as Bradstane is long. Isn’t that queer?’
Eleanor laughed. It is an indubitable fact, and one which she had herself noted with amusement during the first part of her stay in Bradstane, that in a town like this, or, indeed, in any small town or village situated upon a stream as big as the Tees, ‘the river’ becomes the important feature of the neighbourhood. What it looks like, whether it be high or low; in winter, whether the river be frozen or flowing; and in fishing-time, what sort of a water the river shows to-day; whether there has been rain to the north-west, which floods it, or whether drought, which makes it dry. Whenever the conversation turns upon out-of-door subjects, the river is sure to assert itself somewhere or other, and that before very long. It is the same as a living thing, and that a powerful one; its moods are watched and recorded as if they were the moods of a person in whom one took a deep interest. It is for ever the river, the river; and this watery friend, and enemy—for it is both—gives a colour, and has an influence over the lives that are lived near it, which is very remarkable, especially to those who know nothing of such surroundings. And Tees, be it remarked, is a river with a powerful individuality, which none in his vicinity can afford to despise.
‘He says that because people think so much about the river here,’ said Eleanor. ‘You must know how they talk about it. You never go anywhere without finding the Tees,—in people’s houses as well as here flowing through the meadows. That is what he means.’
‘I suppose it must be,’ said Effie, who was a philosophical child. And they went on in silence. Eleanor resumed the mental debate which had been occupying her before—as to the wisdom of the step she contemplated taking. It would be separating herself from Otho, at one moment, she thought; and then she remembered Gilbert’s dry words—that Otho left her without scruple, and that no thought of her loneliness would bring him back a moment before it was convenient or pleasant to him to come. That was true; she would most likely see quite as much of him at the Dower House as at Thorsgarth. She had not had a line from him since he had gone away with Gilbert to London. Once or twice she had seen Magdalen, who had mentioned having heard from him; but Eleanor suspected that his letters to Magdalen even, were very brief. Miss Wynter volunteered no details or news, and Eleanor felt no more drawn to her than before, and disdained to ask for information which was not proffered.
Once or twice she had ventured on making a tour of inspection all round the Thorsgarth park and grounds, penetrating even to the courtyards, the kennels, and stables which lay behind the house. What she saw there did not tend to encourage her. She found that everything was conducted with a lavish profusion, a reckless extravagance, which would have been foolish in any case; and it was a lavishness which had also its stingy side, as such lavishness usually has. While necessary repairs were left neglected for months, or undone altogether, many pounds would be spent on some new contrivance for warming or ventilating a stable, already luxuriously fitted up. While some of the men on the farm complained that their carts were falling to pieces, silver-mounted harness was accumulating in the harness-room, for no earthly purpose except to make a show behind the glass doors. Many another extravagant and senseless fancy or whim was indulged to the full, while ordinary necessaries were stinted. It seemed to Eleanor that the establishment swarmed with servants, both men and maids. Their functions and offices were a mystery to her. They always seemed exceedingly busy when she appeared upon the scene, but she had an uneasy consciousness that it was only in seeming, and that as soon as her back was turned, a very different state of things again prevailed. She had been accustomed to a liberal, and even splendid establishment, but one conducted on principles of enlightened economy—without a superfluous retainer, but at the same time without a fault or a failure, from one year’s end to the other. The contrast which she saw here offended her sense of decency and order. She knew that Otho ought to retrench, and she would gladly have helped him to do so, with the joy usually brought to bear by women, unskilled in active financial matters, upon this negative process of saving by means of renouncing things.