I had done with the valley of Nethermere. The valley of Nethermere had cast me out many years before, while I had fondly believed it cherished me in memory.
I went along the road to Eberwich. The church bells were ringing boisterously, with the careless boisterousness of the brooks and the birds and the rollicking coltsfoots and celandines.
A few people were hastening blithely to service. Miners and other labouring men were passing in aimless gangs, walking nowhere in particular, so long as they reached a sufficiently distant public-house.
I reached the Hollies. It was much more spruce than it had been. The yard, however, and the stables had again a somewhat abandoned air. I asked the maid for George.
“Oh, master’s not up yet,” she said, giving a little significant toss of her head, and smiling. I waited a moment.
“But he rung for a bottle of beer about ten minutes since, so I should think —” she emphasised the word with some ironical contempt, “— he won’t be very long,” she added, in tones which conveyed that she was not by any means sure. I asked for Meg.
“Oh, Missis is gone to church — and the children — but Miss Saxton is in, she might —”
“Emily!” I exclaimed.
The maid smiled.
“She’s in the drawing-room. She’s engaged, but perhaps if I tell her —”
“Yes, do,” said I, sure that Emily would receive me.
I found my old sweetheart sitting in a low chair by the fire, a man standing on the hearth-rug pulling his moustache. Emily and I both felt a thrill of old delight at meeting.
“I can hardly believe it is really you,” she said, laughing me one of the old intimate looks. She had changed a great deal. She was very handsome, but she had now a new self-confidence, a fine, free indifference.
“Let me introduce you. Mr Renshaw, Cyril. Tom, you know who it is; you have heard me speak often enough of Cyril. I am going to marry Tom in three weeks’ time,” she said, laughing.
“The devil you are!” I exclaimed involuntarily.
“If he will have me,” she added, quite as a playful afterthought.
Tom was a well-built fair man, smoothly, almost delicately tanned. There was something soldierly in his bearing, something self-conscious in the way he bent his head and pulled his moustache, something charming and fresh in the way he laughed at Emily’s last preposterous speech.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“Why didn’t you ask me?” she retorted, arching her brows. “Mr Renshaw,” I said. “You have out-manoeuvred me all unawares, quite indecently.”
“I am very sorry,” he said, giving one more twist to his moustache, then breaking into a loud, short laugh at his joke.
“Do you really feel cross?” said Emily to me, knitting her brows and smiling quaintly.
“I do!” I replied, with truthful emphasis.
She laughed, and laughed again, very much amused.
“It is such a joke,” she said. “To think you should feel cross now, when it is — how long is it ago —?”
“I will not count up,” said I.
“Are you not sorry for me?” I asked of Tom Renshaw.
He looked at me with his young blue eyes, eyes so bright, so naïvely inquisitive, so winsomely meditative. He did not know quite what to say, or how to take it.
“Very!” he replied in another short burst of laughter, quickly twisting his moustache again and looking down at his feet.
He was twenty-nine years old; had been a soldier in China for five years, was now farming his fathers’ farm at Papplewick, where Emily was schoolmistress. He had been at home eighteen months. His father was an old man of seventy who had had his right hand chopped to bits in the chopping machine. So they told me. I liked Tom for his handsome bearing and his fresh, winsome way. He was exceedingly manly: that is to say, he did not dream of questioning or analysing anything. All that came his way was ready labelled nice or nasty, good or bad. He did not imagine that anything could be other than just what it appeared to be-and with this appearance, he was quite content. He looked up to Emily as one wiser, nobler, nearer to God than himself.
“I am a thousand years older than he,” she said to me, laughing. “Just as you are centuries older than I.”
“And you love him for his youth?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “For that and — he is wonderfully sagacious — and so gentle.”
“And I was never gentle, was I?” I said.
“No! As restless and as urgent as the wind,” she said, and I saw a last flicker of the old terror.
“Where is George?” I asked.
“In bed,” she replies briefly. “He’s recovering from one of his orgies. If I were Meg I would not live with him.”
“Is he so bad?” I asked.
“Bad!” she replied. “He’s disgusting, and I’m sure he’s dangerous. I’d have him removed to an inebriates’ home.”
“You’d have to persuade him to go,” said Tom, who had come into the room again. “He does have dreadful bouts, though! He’s killing himself, sure enough. I feel awfully sorry for the fellow.”
“It seems so contemptible to me,” said Emily, “to become enslaved to one of your likings till it makes a beast of you. Look what a spectacle he is for his children, and what a disgusting disgrace for his wife.”
“Well, if he can’t help it, he can’t, poor chap,” said Tom. “Though I do think a man should have more backbone.” We heard heavy noises from the room above.
“He is getting up,” said Emily. “I suppose I’d better see if he’ll have any breakfast.” She waited, however. Presently the door opened, and there stood George with his hand on the knob, leaning, looking in.
“I thought I heard three voices,” he said, as if it freed him from a certain apprehension. He smiled. His waistcoat hung open over his woollen shirt, he wore no coat and was slipper-less. His hair and his moustache were dishevelled, his face pale and stupid with sleep, his eyes small. He turned aside from our looks as from a bright light. His hand as I shook it was flaccid and chill.
“How do you come to be here, Cyril?” he said subduedly, faintly smiling.
“Will you have any breakfast?” Emily asked him coldly. “I’ll have a bit if there’s any for me,” he replied.
“It has been waiting for you long enough,” she answered. He turned and went with a dull thud of his stockinged feet across to the dining-room. Emily rang for the maid, I followed George, leaving the betrothed together. I found my host moving about the dining-room, looking behind the chairs and in the corners.
“I wonder where the devil my slippers are!” he muttered explanatorily. Meanwhile he continued his search. I noticed he did not ring the bell to have them found for him. Presently he came to the fire, spreading his hands over it. As he was smashing the slowly burning coal the maid came in with the tray. He desisted, and put the poker carefully down. While the maid spread his meal on one corner of the table, he looked in the fire, paying her no heed. When she had finished:
“It’s fried white-bait,” she said. “Shall you have that?”
He lifted his head and looked at the plate.
“Ay,” he said. “Have you brought the vinegar?”
Without answering, she took