The Splendid Fairing Part 23

Even in his disappointment he was still able to smile. "It don't need a safe between it and a Thornthet, I guess!" was all he said. In that moment, indeed, the money was nothing and less than nothing to them both. Sarah was honest to the core, and never remembered once that dead men tell no tales and that the sea does not betray.... The thing that had conquered her soul was at least also above that.

"Ten, wa'n't it?" he asked, drifting reluctantly out again. His voice came from further away, like the gull's voice from the sky. "So long!

Cheero! I'll be back again with the tide...."

IV

She heard rather than felt the silence re-enfold the house, like the swish of a curtain softly tumbled down. She was vividly on the alert for every change in the brooding quiet, but she was not afraid of the inevitable sound that must shortly break it again. To herself she seemed to be shut into the very heart of things, where everyone knows his secret hiding-place to be. Nothing could hurt her there, because it was shut away from pain. Neither remorse nor fear could touch her in that calm.

Yet all the time her mind had followed the man who had gone out, hearing the thud of his feet on the sandy ground, and seeing the bulk of him huge on the sea-wall. The sound of his feet would be sharper on the beach, but when he got to the sand it would be m.u.f.fled as if with cloths. When he came to the channel he would stand and hail, and the light from the 'Ship' would lie on the water like a road....

But never to-night or in all time would he get as far as the bank.

Suddenly, as he walked, he would hear a whisper out of the west. It would mean nothing to him at first, nor the wind feeling along his cheek. He would only say to himself that the trees were astir on the far point. Then he would hear a noise like a coming shower, and lift up his face to meet the first of the rain. But the sound that came after would come running along the sand, until every rib was vibrating its message to his feet. When he knew what it was, he would stand perfectly still, and then he would spring in the air and start to run. But, run as he might, he would never reach the sh.o.r.e, or stand on the gold road that would take him over to May. The white tide-horses were swifter far than he; their unshod hoofs would outrun his heavy boots. The sweeping advance-water would suddenly hem him in, swirling before his feet and shooting behind his back. He would run this way and that in the dark, but it would be no use. He would run and run, but it would never be any use....

From complete detachment she pa.s.sed gradually to a comforting sense of quittance and ease. It was as if a burden that she had carried all her life had been cut away, so that she could lift up her head and look in front of her and breathe free. The sickening jealousy was gone, the gnawing pain at her heart, the fierce up-swelling of decimating rage, the long, narrowed-down brooding of helpless hate. Never again would she be able to see herself as the poor relation fawning at Eliza's skirts. The thing had been done at last which paid Eliza in full.

She had, as she came back within range of feeling again, one last, great moment of exultant pride. She seemed to herself actually to grow in size, to tower in the low room as the shadow of the home-comer had towered over ceiling and wall. Into the hands of this oppressed and poverty-stricken woman there had suddenly been given the heady power of life and death, and the stimulant of it was like wine in her thin blood, making her heart steady as a firm-blown forge. She felt strong enough in that moment to send every child of Eliza's out to its death in the maw of the Night Wave. She felt an epic figure poised on the edge of the world, heroic, tremendous, above all laws. Indeed, she seemed, as it were, to be the very Finger of G.o.d itself....

And then faintly the exultation sank; dimmed, rather, as on a summer day the sharpness goes out of the high lights on lawn and wall. The sun is not gone, but the farthest and finest quality of it is suddenly withdrawn. In some such way a blurring of vivid certainties came upon her brain. A breath of wind was blown sharply through the open window, and with a touch of surprise she found that she was cold. The fire, so lately encouraged by the visitor's presence, had died sulkily into grey clinkers tinged with red that had no more warmth to it than a splash of paint. The candle, on the other hand, had sprung into a tall flame from a high wick. It was as if it was making a last effort to illumine the world for the woman over whose mind was creeping that vague and blurring mist.

With the slackening of the mental tension her physical self slackened, too. She began to rock to and fro, muttering softly as she swayed.

"Blind thoughts in a blind body's brain!" she was saying to herself....

"Ay, it's about time. A blind night and a blind tide.... Ay, it's about time...."

And yet through the blind night and with her blind sight she still saw the figure swinging over the sands, broad, confident, strong, as were all at Blindbeck,--successful and rich. Always her mind kept close at its back, seeing the solid print of it on the air, feeling the muscular firmness of its tread, and hearing the little whistled tune that kept escaping between its teeth....

Suddenly she raised her voice, as if addressing somebody a long way off.

"What d'you want wi' a bed as'll never sleep in bed again? Nay, my lad, you'll have nowt but churchyard mould! ... Yon's if they find him, when the tide comes in. There'll be a bonny fairing for Eliza when the tide comes in!"

She stopped abruptly as Simon clattered into the room, holding herself motionless by a final effort of will. He glanced uneasily at the still figure, the unspread table and the dead fire, but he did not speak. He was still conscious of guilt and ready to make amends, even to the extent of going supperless to bed. Outside the door, he had felt curiously certain that Sarah was not alone, and even now he looked into corners for figures that were not there. Coming in from the dark on the marsh, his instinct had told him instantly that the atmosphere had changed, but the knowledge faded once he was well inside. He wondered whether anything had been done with the milk, but did not like to ask, and, setting the still-lighted lantern on the floor, stooped to unloose his boots.

"All yon talk about Geordie's fair give me the jumps!" he remarked suddenly, with an embarra.s.sed laugh. "I could ha' sworn I heard his voice as I was snecking shuppon door!"

She did not answer, and with an inward curse at his own foolishness he bent lower over his boots. "Another o' yon big tides," he went on hurriedly, when the thongs were loosed. "It's sharp on t'road now. I could hear it as I come in."

Even as he spoke the room was suddenly filled with the sound of the sea.

Before the majesty of the coming presence the whole house seemed to cringe and cower. Sarah felt the room swing round with her, and caught at the table, gripping the edge of it until her very fingers seemed of wood.

"There it be!" Simon said, raising himself. "It's big, as I said." He clanked across to the window as he spoke, the laces slapping and trailing on the flags, and again, as he put his face to the square, the wind that blows before the tide stirred mightily through the room.

Far-off, but coming fast, they could hear the messenger from the deep, sweeping its garment over the head of the crouched waste, as it sped to deliver its challenge at the locked gate of the sea-wall.

Sarah had still control over her actual body, but no more. With Simon's entrance she had realised herself again, and knew that she was weak and old, with a mind that had got beyond her, and cried and ran to and fro as Jim would run when he heard the Wave. Always she seemed to herself to be close at his back, but now she ran to warn him and stumbled as she ran. She flung out her arms towards him in an aching pa.s.sion to hold him close, and in that moment felt the truth drop, stilly, into her whirling brain. He turned his face towards her swiftly as they went, and for all its likeness it was not Jim's face. She saw him swept and helpless in the swirl of the tide, and in the dark and the tumult knew that the precious body was not Jim's. She saw him borne in the stillness of morning to the haunted t.i.the-Barn where all the drowned were laid, and by the light of the truth that there is between living and dead knew she had always known it was not Jim....

"I hope May's gitten back," Simon was saying anxiously, as he peered out. "I hope she's landed back...." Presently he leaned further, and gave a sigh of relief. "Ay,--there goes Fleming's lamp!"

Instantly, as the light went out, there came from the sands a whistle and then a cry. Simon spun round, saying, "What's yon?" with a frightened look, and when the call came again he s.n.a.t.c.hed the lantern from the floor. The third call came suddenly faint, as if its author were running towards the tide, and with a harsh cry a gull swept white and huge beyond the pane. Simon fell back at the sight of it, crying aloud, and throwing his arm before his eyes.

But at the same moment Sarah burst her bonds. "Geordie, Geordie!" she screamed, and ran frenziedly to the door. "Nay, it's over now," she finished, falling back against the wall. "Gang out and seek our fairing, master,--mine and thine!"