“And all day,” he said, “Blench has been ploughing his wheat in, because it was that bitten off by the rabbits it was no manner of use, so he’s ploughed it in: an’ they say with idylls, eating peaches in our close.”
Then there was silence, while the clock throbbed heavily, and outside a wild bird called, and was still; softly the ashes rustled lower in the grate.
“She said it ended well — but what’s the good of death — what’s the good of that?” He turned his face to the ashes in the grate, and sat brooding.
Outside, among the trees, some wild animal set up a thin, wailing cry.
“Damn that row!” said I, stirring, looking also into the grey fire.
“It’s some stoat or weasel, or something. It’s been going on like that for nearly a week. I’ve shot in the trees ever so many times. There were two — one’s gone.”
Continuously, through the heavy, chilling silence, came the miserable crying from the darkness among the trees.
“You know,” he said, “she hated me this afternoon, and I hated her —”
It was midnight, full of sick thoughts.
“It is no good,” said I. “Go to bed — it will be morning in a few hours.”
PART THREE
Chapter 1
A New Start in Life
Lettie was wedded, as I had said, before Leslie lost all the wistful traces of his illness. They had been gone away to France five days before we recovered anything like the normal tone in the house. Then, though the routine was the same, everywhere was a sense of loss, and of change. The long voyage in the quiet home was over; we had crossed the bright sea of our youth, and already Lettie had landed and was travelling to a strange destination in a foreign land. It was time for us all to go, to leave the valley of Nethermere whose waters and whose woods were distilled in the essence of our veins. We were the children of the valley of Nethermere, a small nation with language and blood of our own, and to cast ourselves each one into separate exile was painful to us.
“I shall have to go now,” said George. “It is my nature to linger an unconscionable time, yet I dread above all things this slow crumbling away from my foundations by which I free myself at last. I must wrench myself away now —”
It was the slack time between the hay and the corn harvest, and we sat together in the grey, still morning of August pulling the stack. My hands were sore with tugging the loose wisps from the lower part of the stack, so I waited for the touch of rain to send us indoors. It came at last, and we hurried into the barn. We climbed the ladder into the loft that was strewn with farming implements and with carpenters’ tools. We sat together on the shavings that littered the bench before the high gable window, and looked out over the brooks and the woods and the ponds. The tree-tops were very near to us, and we felt ourselves the centre of the waters and the woods that spread down the rainy valley.
“In a few years,” I said, “we shall be almost strangers.”
He looked at me with fond, dark eyes and smiled incredulously.
“It is as far,” said I, “to the ‘Ram’ as it is for me to London — farther.”
“Don’t you want me to go there?” he asked, smiling quietly.
“It’s all as one where you go, you will travel north, and I east, and Lettie south. Lettie has departed. In seven weeks I go. — And you?”
“I must be gone before you,” he said decisively.
“Do you know —” and he smiled timidly in confession, “I feel alarmed at the idea of being left alone on a loose end. I must not be the last to leave —” he added almost appealingly.
“And you will go to Meg?” I asked.
He sat tearing the silken shavings into shreds, and telling me in clumsy fragments all he could of his feelings:
“You see, it’s not so much what you call love. I don’t know. You see, I built on Lettie”— he looked up at me shamefacedly, then continued tearing the shavings —“you must found your castles on something, and I founded mine on Lettie. You see, I’m like plenty of folks, I have nothing definite to shape my life to. I put brick upon brick, as they come, and if the whole topples down in the end, it does. But you see, you and Lettie have made me conscious, and now I’m at a dead loss. I have looked to marriage to set me busy on my house of life, something whole and complete, of which it will supply the design. I must marry or be in a lost lane. There are two people I could marry — and Lettie’s gone. I love Meg just as well, as far as love goes. I’m not sure I don’t feel better pleased at the idea of marrying her. You know I should always have been second to Lettie, and the best part of love is being made much of, being first and foremost in the whole world for somebody. And Meg’s easy and lovely. I can have her without trembling, she’s full of soothing and comfort. I can stroke her hair and pet her, and she looks up at me, full of trust and lovingness, and there is no flaw, all restfulness in one another —”
Three weeks later, as I lay in the August sunshine in a deck-chair on the lawn, I heard the sound of wheels along the gravel path. It was George calling for me to accompany him to his marriage. He pulled up the dog-cart near the door and came up the steps to me on the lawn. He was dressed as if for the cattle market, in jacket and breeches and gaiters.
“Well, are you ready?” he said, standing smiling down on me. His eyes were dark with excitement, and had that vulnerable look which was so peculiar to the Saxtons in their emotional moments.
“You are in good time,” said I, “it is but half-past nine.”
“It wouldn’t do to be late on a day like this,” he said gaily, “see how the sun shines. Come, you don’t look as brisk as a best man should. I thought you would have been on tenterhooks of excitement. Get up, get up! Look here, a bird has given me luck”— he showed me a white smear on his shoulder.
I drew myself up lazily.
“All right,” I said, “but we must drink a whisky to establish it.”
He followed me out of the fragrant sunshine into the dark house. The rooms were very still and empty, but the cool silence responded at once to the gaiety of our sun-warm entrance. The sweetness of the summer morning hung invisible like glad ghosts of romance through the shadowy room. We seemed to feel the sunlight dancing golden in our veins as we filled again the pale liqueur.
“Joy to you — I envy you today.”
His teeth were white, and his eyes stirred like dark liquor as he smiled.
“Here is my wedding present!”
I stood the four large water-colours along the wall before him. They were drawings among the waters and the fields of the mill, grey rain and twilight, morning with the sun pouring gold into the mist, and the suspense of a midsummer noon upon the pond. All the glamour of our yesterdays came over him like an intoxicant, and he quivered with the wonderful beauty of life that was weaving him into the large magic of the years. He realised the splendour of the pageant of days which had him in train.
“It’s been wonderful, Cyril, all the time,” he said, with surprised joy.
We drove away through the freshness of the wood,