Carnival Part 69

"Well, I sha'n't go down to the shop to-day, not now. Let's have a line to say you've arrived all safe. You know my address after I clear out of Hagworth Street."

"So long, dad," said Jenny awkwardly. Neither she nor May had ever within memory kissed their father, but on this last opportunity for demonstrative piety they compromised with sentiment so far as each to blow him a kiss when the train began to move, and in token of goodwill to let for a little while a handkerchief flutter from the window.

There was no one else in the carriage besides themselves, and in the stronger light that suddenly succeeds a train's freedom from stationary dimness, Jenny thought how lonely they must look. To be sure, May's company was a slight solace, but that could neither ease the constraint of her att.i.tude towards Trewh.e.l.la nor remove the sense of imprisonment created by his proximity. It was a new experience for her to be compelled to meet a man at a disadvantage, although as yet the nearness of freedom prevented the complete realization of oppression. Trewh.e.l.la himself seemed content to sit watching her, proud in the consciousness of a legalized property.

So the green miles rolled by until the naked downs of Wiltshire first hinted of a strange country, and in a view of them through the window Trewh.e.l.la seemed to gather from their rounded solitudes strength, tasting already, as it were, the tang of the Cornish air.

"Well, my lovely, what do 'ee think of it all?"

"It's nice, I like it," replied Jenny.

Conversation faltered in the impossibility of discussing anything with Trewh.e.l.la, or even in his presence. Jenny turned her mind to the moment of first addressing him as Zachary or Zack. She could not bring herself to mouth this absurd name without an inward blush. She began to worry over this problem of outward behavior, while the unusual initial twisted itself into an arabesque at once laughable and alarming. And she was Mrs. Z. Trewh.e.l.la. Jenny began to scrabble on the pane filmed with smoke the fantastic initial. As for Jenny Trewh.e.l.la, madness would have to help the signature of such an inapposite conjunction. Then, in a pretense of reading, she began to study her husband's countenance, and with the progress of contemplation to persuade herself of his unreality.

Sometimes he would make a movement or hazard a remark, and she, waking with a start to his existence, would ponder distastefully the rusted neck, the hands like lizard skin, and the lack l.u.s.ter nails frayed by agriculture.

The train was rocking through the flooded meads of Somerset in a desolation of silver, and the length of the journey was already heavy on Jenny's mind. She had not traveled so far since she was swept on to the freedom of Glasgow and Dublin. Now, with every mile nearer to the west, her bondage became more imminent. Trewh.e.l.la loomed large in the narrow compartment as Teignmouth was left behind. They seemed to be traveling even beyond the sea itself, and Jenny was frightened when she saw it lapping the permanent way as they plunged in and out of the hot-colored Devonshire cliffs. Exeter with its many small gardens and populated back windows cheered her, and Plymouth, gray though it was, held a thought of London. Soon, however, they swung round the curve of the Albert Bridge over the Tamar and out of Devon. Sadly she watched the Hamoaze vanish.

"Cornwall at last," said Trewh.e.l.la, with a sigh of satisfaction. "'Tis a handsome place, Plymouth, but I do dearly love to leave it behind me."

The heavy November twilight caught them as the train roared through the Bobmin valley past hillsides stained with dead bracken--like iron mold, Jenny thought. St. Austell shone white in the aquamarine dusk, and darkness wrapped the dreary country beyond Truro. Every station now seemed crowded with figures, whose unfamiliar speech had a melancholy effect upon the girls in inverse ratio to the exhilaration it produced in Trewh.e.l.la. Jenny thought how little she knew of her destination: in fact without May's company she might as well be dead--into such an abyss of strange gloom was she being more deeply plunged with every mile.

Trewh.e.l.la, as if in reply to her thoughts, began to talk of Trewinnard.

"Next station's ours," he said. "And then there's a seven-mile drive; so we sha'n't get home along much before half-past eight."

"Fancy, seven miles," said Jenny.

"Long seven mile, 'tis, too," he added. "And a nasty old road on a dark night. Come, we'll set out our pa.s.sels."

It was like action in a dream to reach down from the rack various parcels and boxes, to fold up cloaks and collect umbrellas. Jenny watched from the window for the twinkle of town lights heralding their stopping-place, but without any preliminary illumination the train pulled up at Nantivet Road.

"Here we are," shouted Trewh.e.l.la, and as the girls stood with frightened eyes in the dull and tremulous light of the platform, he seemed fresh from a triumphant abduction. The luggage lay stacked in a gray pile with ghostly uncertain outlines. The train, wearing no longer any familiar look of London, puffed slowly on to some farther exile, its sombre bulk checkered with golden squares, the engine flying a pennant of sparks as it swung round into a cutting whence the sound of its emerging died away on the darkness in a hollow moan. The stillness of the deep November night was now profound, merely broken by the rasp of a trunk across the platform and the punctuated stamping of a horse's hoof on the wet road.

"That's Carver," said Trewh.e.l.la, as the three of them, their tickets delivered to a shadowy figure, walked in the direction of the sound.

"Carver?" repeated Jenny.

"My old mare."

The lamps of the farm cart dazzled the vision as they stood watching the luggage piled up behind. To the girls the cart seemed enormous; the mare of mammoth size. The small boy who had driven to meet them looked like a gnome perched upon the towering vehicle, and by his smallness confirmed the impression of hugeness.

"Well, boy Thomas," said his master in greeting.

"Mr. Trewh.e.l.la!"

"Here's missus come down."

"Mrs. Trewh.e.l.la!" said the boy in shy welcome.

"And her sister, Miss Raeburn," added the farmer.

Jenny looked wistfully at May as if she envied her the introduction with its commemoration of Islington.

"Now, come," said Zachary, "leave me give 'ee a hand up."

He lifted May and set her down on the seat. Then he turned to his wife.

"Come, my dear, leave me put 'ee up."

"I'd rather get in by myself," she answered.

But Trewh.e.l.la caught her in his arms and, with a kiss, deposited her beside May. Thomas was stowed away among the luggage at the back; the farmer himself got in, shook up Carver, and with a good night to the porter set out with his bride to Bochyn.

The darkness was immense: the loneliness supreme. At first the road lay through an open stretch of flat boggy gra.s.sland, where stagnant pools of water glimmered with the light of the cart lamps as the vehicle shambled by. After a mile or so they dipped down between high hedges and overarching trees that gave more response to their lights than the open country, whose incommensurable blackness swallowed up their jigging, feeble illumination.

"It smells like the inside of a flower-shop, doesn't it?" said May. "You know, sort of bathroom smell. It must be glorious in the daytime."

"Yes, 'tis grand in summer time, sure enough," Trewh.e.l.la agreed.

The declivity became more precipitous, and the farmer pulled up.

"Get down, you, boy Thomas, and lead Carver."

Thomas scrambled out, and with a loud "whoa" caught hold of the reins.

"It's like the first scene of a panto. You know, demons and all," said Jenny.

Indeed, Thomas, with his orange-like head and disproportionately small body, leading the great mare, whose breath hung in fumes upon the murky air, had a scarcely human look. At the walking pace May was able to distinguish ferns in the gra.s.s banks and pointed them out to Jenny, who, however, was feeling anxious as in the steep descent the horse from time to time slipped on a loose stone. Down they went, down and down through the moisture and lush fernery. Presently they came to level ground and the gurgle of running water. Trewh.e.l.la pulled up for Thomas to clamber in again. Beyond the rays of their lamps, appeared the outline of a house.

"Is this a place?" Jenny asked.

"'Tis Tiddlywits," Trewh.e.l.la answered. "Or belonged to be rather, for there's nothing left of it now but a few mud walls. A wisht old place, 'tis."

On restarting, they splashed through a stream that flowed across the road.

"Oo-er," cried Jenny, "take care, we're in the water."

Trewh.e.l.la laughed loudly, and a moorhen waking in sudden panic rose with a shrill cry from a belt of rushes.

"Oo-er, I'm getting frightened," said Jenny. "Put me down. Oh, May, I wish we hadn't come."

Trewh.e.l.la laughed louder than before. The wish appealed in its futility to his humor.

Now came a slow pull up an equally deep lane, followed at the summit by another stretch of open country very wild. Suddenly the mare swerved violently. Jenny screamed. A long shape leaned over them in menace.

"Ah, look! Oh, no! I want to go back," she cried.

"Steady, you devil," growled Trewh.e.l.la to the horse. "'Tis nothing, my dear, nothing only an old stone cross."

"It gave me a shocking turn," said Jenny.