The Four Roads

by Sheila Kaye-Smith

Thyrza Beatup did not walk with the others. Her grief was still too raw, and Mr. Sumption’s words about Tom had made her cry. She carried Will under her cloak, walking quickly over the wet ruts, home to the fire before which she would undress him and put him to bed. Mr. Sumption’s sermon had not had the same effect on her as on the others—for one thing, she thought of Tom more than of Jerry; for another, her feeling towards the minister was of pure compassion. Poor chap! how he must have suffered, how he must have hated all those Who mourned honourably, who grieved for heroes and saints, such as her Tom. What would she have felt, she wondered, if Tom had died like Jerry?...

She wished she could have seen Mr. Sumption after the service, and asked him in to a bit of supper. Poor soul! one could always comfort him through his inside. She was glad Tom had been to see him on his last leave ... he had spoken very nicely of Tom.

She came to the little house, all blurred into the darkness, with the rain scudding before it. A pale, blue light hung under the clouds from the hidden moon, and was faintly reflected in the gleaming wet of the roadway. Thyrza fumbled for her key, and let herself into the shop. The firelight leaped to meet her. As she turned to shut the door, she saw a man go quickly past, head sloped, shoulders hunched against the Wind.

11

Mr. Sumption felt he could not stay indoors—he could not bear the thought of sitting long hours, harassed and lonely, in that shabby, wind-thridden study of his, with the peeled wall-paper flapping in the draught and the rain cracking on the windows. Besides, he would have to face a personal encounter with Mrs. Hubble, and weather the storm of her wrath at being “preached at”; more than once she had thought fit to give him a piece of her mind when the sermon had affronted her. The tongue of a scolding woman was an anti-climax he dared not face, so he let himself out of the little door at the back of the chapel, and, turning up his collar, marched away against the rain.

He had no exact idea where he was going. All he knew was that he wanted to get away from Sunday Street, from the people who had come to stare at him in his trouble. A lump of rage rose in his throat and choked him, and tears of rage burned at the back of his eyes. He saw the rows of stolid faces, the greased heads, the stupid bonnets. There they had sat and wagged in judgment on him and his boy. There they had sat, the people who were content to be suffered and died for by the boys in Flanders, while they stayed at home and grumbled. Well, thank the Lord he had told them what they were! Ho! he had given it to them straight—he had made their ears burn!

He walked on and on, cracking his joints with fury. He had turned into the East Road at Pont’s Green, and was now hurrying southward, head down, to meet the gale. There was something in the flogging and whirling of the wind which stimulated him; he found relief in pushing against the storm, in swallowing the rain that beat upon his lips and trickled down his face. He would walk till he was tired, and then he would find some sheltered place to go to sleep. Only through exhaustion could he hope to find sleep to-night. It would be horrible to lie and toss in stuffy sheets, while the darkness pressed down his eyeballs and at last the dawn crept mocking round the window.... It did not matter if he stopped out all night; he did not care what people thought of him—he had burned his boats.

The moon was still pale under the clouds, and the wet road gleamed like pewter. The hedges roared, as the wind moved in them, and every now and then he could hear the swish of a great tree, or the cracking and crying of a wood. In the midst of all this tumult he felt very lonely—if he passed a farm, with slats of lamplight under its blinds, he felt more lonely still. But it was better than the loneliness of a room, of the room to which someone he loved would never come again. He had a sudden memory of Jerry as he had seen him, the morning after the boy’s own night out of doors, sitting like a monkey in the big wash-tub in front of the fire....

It must have been between two and three o’clock in the morning when Mr. Sumption found the road leading past the gape of a big barn. By this time his legs were aching with cold and wet, and his face felt all raw with the sting of the rain. It would be good to take shelter for a little while. Then he would go home, and brave Mrs. Hubble. He would be back in his study when she brought in his breakfast. Breakfast ... he rubbed his big hands together, he was already beginning to feel hungry. But before he went home he must rest. That weariness which had muffled him like a cloak in the chapel, fumbling his movements and veiling his eyes, was dropping over him now. He felt the weight of it in his limbs, and, worse still, in his heart and brain. When he shut his eyes he saw nothing but rows of heads, staring and wagging.... He went into the barn, and the sudden stopping of the wind and rain made him feel dazed. Then a queer thing happened—he pitched forward on his face into a pile of straw, not giddy, not fainting, merely fast asleep.