Before he could answer her the little nurse was back, a dark young woman. A lock of hair straying from under her cap was raven black, and the gleaming darkness of her eyes seemed to fill the room with a mysterious vibration. Matthew had hardly noticed her before, though he had seen her on other visits; but now, though for an instant only, he was conscious of the violent contrast between her glowing vitality, which the prim garb and impersonal manner could not altogether hide, and the pale wraith, the shadow of a woman, that Ann had become. He had a moment’s unease, a sense of desolation, and looked at the girl sharply, thinking he saw suspicion in the darkness of her glance.
‘Everything all right?’ she asked.
‘Yes, thanks,’ he said. ‘We’re just off.’
‘How are you feeling, Mrs Elderbrook?’ said the nurse cheerfully. ‘Not sorry to be leaving us, I expect.’ She took Ann’s arm, to help her to her feet again. ‘Mind you don’t let her do too much, Mr Elderbrook.’
‘Oh, I’m splendid now,’ said Ann. ‘You’ve all been so good to me, nurse.’
Responding to her glance Matthew entered into conspiracy with her against this gleaming girl.
‘We’ll soon have you home,’ he said. ‘Come along then. We’ll be on our way.’
He gave her his arm, as he should have done (he thought remorsefully) from the beginning. She leaned on him heavily but stealthily, hoping the nurse would not notice, and together they made steady progress.
‘She’ll be easily tired at first, Mr Elderbrook,’ said the nurse, hovering protectively. ‘You mustn’t mind that. It’s not long since she learned to walk again. Is it, Mrs Elderbrook?’
By taking things easily and carefully they reached the ground floor without mishap. Ann was supported by her rising spirits, but they were themselves treacherously uncertain, apt for sudden desertion. Bodily weak, she was also weary with the excitement of looking forward to this day. In the entrance hall they were met by a lean, arrow-straight, elderly woman just emerging from her office to say goodbye. At her appearance the nurse, with a demure farewell, discreetly vanished. The matron was frostily gracious. It was always a satisfaction to her when a patient was discharged from the hospital alive: so many were not. She was a humane woman but a tired one, and her cast-iron theory of discipline had made it difficult for her to seem kind even when she felt so.
At last-—for it seemed a long time since five minutes ago when he had called to a passing boy to mind the pony for him—Matthew and Ann found themselves out in the road, enjoying the late October sunshine. A mercy there is any, thought Matthew as he half lifted her into the trap: so easily might not have been at this time of year.
‘All right, boy. Let her go.’
He handed the child a shilling and not waiting to witness the gratified astonishment it created spoke a quick quiet word to the pony, and they were off. He reckoned an hour and a half should see them back home. He had often enough done the journey in much less time than that, but he judged that Ann would prefer a gentler progress.
There was much to be said on the way, and much to be enjoyed unsaid. Having lost his fears for Ann’s safety, being confident in her possession, he was now at peace about her. His thoughts were not those of a lover: they reflected a less excited feeling, deep-rooted in habit, a sense of home to which each of the days and years of their being together had silently contributed. He already had all his wish, being at peace in that part of his mind where her forlornness, in a series of poignant pictures, had found its reflection.
‘What we want now,’ said Matthew, ‘is a real good downpour.’
‘You’ve got your winter oats in, then?’
‘Yes, and wheat too. Funny. I can remember the time when we grazed sheep on Oxenleas. The old man would be surprised to see it in corn. A nice steady drenching of small rain, that’s what we could do with. Three or four days and nights of it.’
‘I think we shall have it too,’ said Ann contentedly.
‘Too late for the roots anyhow,’ remarked Matthew. ‘They’re past praying for. Yes,’ he said, ‘we shall be short of cattle-feed all right. Have to make up with cake. But it’s not the same, mind you: they don’t do so well on cake, not to my way of thinking, though there’s some that swear by it. Let alone the expense. Buttercup’s had her calf all right, day before yesterday: did I tell you?’
‘No. What a good job! You didn’t tell me.’
‘Good strong calf. Heifer. Dick Edgcombe is for calling her Daisy because she’s got a white patch on her forehead.’
‘I do want to see her,’ said Ann. It was true, but chiefly because seeing the new calf was part of the homecoming.
‘What’s to stop you?’ said Matthew. ‘I’ve told her you’re coming,’ he added with a grin. ‘Were they nice to you in the hospital, Ann?’
‘Most of them were,’ she answered soberly. ‘My little dark nurse was a diamond to me.’
‘I’ve often wondered,’ he said. ‘It was difficult talking when I came to see you. Never knew who might be listening. Or so I felt anyhow.’
For the next few miles Ann talked of what had been happening to her. She had been shut away from the world, with many thoughts and no one to share them with, and now, gradually, her tongue was unloosed.
There followed a long, easy silence. Then she said, with a sidelong glance:
‘You’re rather thin, Matt. Has Hilda been looking after you properly?’
The name of Hilda gave him a momentary start: he had forgotten her.
‘You bet he has,’ she said heartily. ‘She’s a good girl, Hilda is.’
He spoke his spontaneous thought, but the words, echoing in memory, gave him a moment’s pause. In all the circumstances it seemed an odd remark to make. If Ann could know everything, what a mockery of truth it would seem to her! But ‘everything’ was past. The past was done with. And Ann could never be hurt by what she would never know.
‘A sprinkle of rain we did have, last week,’ said Matthew. ‘But ‘twas hardly enough to notice.’
§ 6
NEXT day the weather broke. Signs of the impending change had not been wanting, but people in these parts had waited so long, been disappointed so often, that they hardly dared to draw the obvious conclusion from the look of the sky, the small wind springing up, the faint delicious smell in the air. In their resolve not to be fooled they almost persuaded themselves that they were inventing these things, that the hint of change was in their fancy, not in their nostrils, and that the promise in the sky admitted of some other interpretation, though in their weatherwise hearts they knew better. Even those who, rashly in the general opinion, went so far as to remark that it ‘looked like rain’ crossed their fingers as they spoke, or touched wood to propitiate the jealous fates, and were quick to add that it likely wouldn’t come to much. These countryfolk, both gentle and simple, met Sunday by Sunday to sing ancient and alien psalms, to hear ‘lessons’ read from which little or nothing to the point could be learned, to enjoy in their hearts a sense of community and common worship, and to draw a deep obscure comfort from the sonorities of sixteenth-century prose. But the gods they instinctively feared were older than Christianity, older even than the Old Testament. They were gods for ever on the watch, ready to take offence, ready to punish presumption and cheat expectation. You had only to let them hear you say that the child would soon be well again, that the rain was coming; and promptly the child would die on your hands, the rain-clouds drift continently across the wide sky to let fall their blessing on a less impious region. Such was the inarticulate conviction of at any rate the older folk. But in this particular last week of October it is to be presumed that the gods were heedless of those rash whispers, or that the rites of propitiation were punctually observed. For in fact the rain came, and came abundantly.
Matthew was in the field called Robertswood when, at about four o’clock in the afternoon, the first drops fell. Only a few ancient trees remained in what had been, once upon a time, a densely wooded region; and Matthew,
lingering in their shade, was suddenly aware of a new sound and commotion among the leaves overhead, a quick new rhythm, a rustling as of paper. This music persisted for a minute or two, while he waited hopefully, pretending not to know what it meant. Then came a pause, the gust dying away, and then, above him, the abrupt long-expected slap, raindrop on leaf. Then another and another. Already the air was colder: the season seemed to have changed in a moment. A large drop splashed upon Matthew’s welcoming hand. He laughed aloud, softly, exultantly. It had come at last! Looking westward he saw the massed rods of rain slanting down to the horizon, saw the shadow spreading towards him, and knew those drops for the first comers of an invading host. He opened his mouth, greedy to draw in the fresh earth-smelling air and fill his body with it. Its clean savour was delicious and exciting. And now, in huge deliberate drops, the rain continued, multiplied, gathered speed, and gradually, yet with quickening tempo, divided and subdivided itself into smaller units, though even so it came down in sheets. Trees, waking from their dry trance, began to toss and shiver, as with delight. The very grass of the field seemed to come alive again, to grow suddenly green under the assault. Cows and sheep lifted their faces to receive it, with no thought yet of taking cover. Faster and faster came the slanted rain, hurrying out of the west, striping the sky, filling the world with an intoxicating fragrance. The noise of it among the leaves was a joke and a joy, the taste of it a refreshment to body and spirit.
Matthew stood a long while, watching and listening. Presently he saw that the cattle, on second thoughts, had moved into the brief shelter of the hedge. In the same moment he became aware of his own condition. On shoulders and legs his clothes were very wet, in spite of the tree’s protection, and suddenly the wetness reached his skin and he knew himself to be wet through. It was a long time since he had been that. He felt lighthearted and merry, and wanted to tell someone about it.
He made his way back to the house in stages, taking shelter where he could, for the rain showed no sign of relenting. In his last port of call he found Walter Patchett and Dick Edgcombe sheltering under the lee of a haystack, between stack and hedge. They greeted him with broad grins, glad to share the enormous joke: that it was raining, raining good and proper, and didn’t look like giving over for a long time.
‘I mind we had just such another year as this in ninety-eight,’ Patchett said, producing a small blackened clay pipe from one waistcoat pocket and a quid of shag from another. ‘A long dry we had, weeks together, and then a great comedown. You was a baby then, I reckon, young Dick?’
‘And didn’t weigh much either,’ Dick answered dryly, unsmiling. ‘For I wasn’t born till December.’
‘Floods and all we had,’ said Walter complacently. He teased some tobacco into the palm of his left hand, the thumb of which was crookt dexterously round the neck of the pipe. ‘Two hundred yards of the Coxeter road was under water, if you please. Me, I went along there in high waders to see what had become of Nelly Shelton, her that lived in the Marshes’ cottage, as it was to be. We reckoned her was bedridden, pretty much. Had her bedroom in the parlour, as the saying goes, and hadn’t been upstairs many a long year. By her own will and choice it was, because being a large body she reckoned they’d never get her coffin round the stair-bend, poor soul; And I’ve no mind, she says, to spend my eternal joy on the stairs, says she, when I might be lying snug in the churchyard, she says, with good neighbours all round me.’
With an air of having finished his story, Walter struck a match, cupped the flame in his two hands, and began drawing vigorously at his pipe.
‘You’ll be setting the stack on fire with that furnace of yours,’ said Matthew, bantering.
‘Not in this weather, I won’t, master,’ returned Walter, between puffs. ‘Not in this type of weather I won’t,’ he repeated with a chuckle.
‘He’s a dangerous old man, is Walter,’ Dick said severely. ‘And did you find the poor woman drowned then, Walter?’
‘You may well ask,’ said Walter Patchett, with relish. ‘For indeed she’d every right to be drowned, the way it was. There was no opening the door, up to my thigh-bones in water. And the window was that foul you couldn’t see no more than a blink of what was inside. So I broke un in.’
‘That would be unlawful entry,’ said Dick, with a grave look. ‘Wouldn’t you say so, Mr Elderbrook?’
‘And there she was,’ said Walter, with rising excitement, ‘there she was, if you please, no more drownden than you nor me. She was sat on her own kitchen table, two inches you might say above water level, with pretty nigh half a score chicken huddled and squawking in her big lap.’
‘Well I never!’ exclaimed Dick appreciatively. ‘And her bedridden too!’
‘Ah,’ said Walter, ‘there’s nothing like a sprinkle of water to get folks out of their beds. Not but what there was creatures drownden, young Dick. There was that. Your own father, Muster Elderbrook, lost a sucking pig or two. And there was old Harry Good, that missed his footing and fell, going home with a couple o’ quart of small ale in him. And a didn’t get up no more, believe me.’
‘I was only a lad then,’ said Matthew. ‘But I remember something about it.’
‘Yes indeed, yes indeed,’ said Walter with mournful pride. ‘There was some very pretty havoc in ninety-eight.’
‘Cheer up, Walter!’ said Matthew. ‘We may all be drowned yet, you never know.’
‘Best get milking done first,’ Dick suggested, making a move.
Matthew decided to go with him. There was too much milking for one pair of hands. Moreover the cows had first to be fetched in, rain or no rain: which would have meant a visit to the house to get waterproofs, but that Dick, a piece of sacking draped across his shoulders, insisted on braving the weather as he was.
‘Can’t be much wetter,’ he said.
‘Nor can I, come to that,’ said Matthew.
But he was getting on for twenty years older than Dick, he ruefully reflected, and he was beginning to shiver in his wet clothes after standing about so long. So to the house he went, to change into something dry before joining Dick in the milking shed. It gave him a chance, too, of looking in on Ann. She had scarcely moved from her chair all day; yet she looked tired, he thought, as well as happy. She looked tired when she thought herself unobserved, but Matthew was too quick for her. He gave her a questioning, accusing glance. She smiled reassurance. ‘I’m all right, Matt. I’m having a nice rest.’ He could not doubt that she was glad to be home. And strength would return to her, he told himself, in its own good time.
On his way to the cowshed he looked into the dairy, where Hilda was.
‘She looks a bit tired, Mrs Elderbrook does, don’t you think?’ he said.
‘So she will be, for a bit,’ said Hilda sensibly. ‘Lovely rain, isn’t it!’ She glanced appreciatively at the streaming window pane. ‘Did you get wet?’
‘Drenched. Nice bundle in the kitchen for you to dry. Don’t like to see her looking so tired.’
‘She won’t be long now,’ said Hilda. ‘Getting well, I mean. Takes time though.’
‘I suppose so,’ Matthew agreed.
Without intention his fingers touched her bare forearm. She drew quickly away as though she had been stung. ‘What’s the matter?’ he said, surprised. She did not answer. There was a dark cloud in her face. ‘What’s wrong, Hilda?’
‘Aren’t you going to help with the milking? People aren’t all blind.’
‘Who isn’t blind?’
She shrugged her shoulders. Her eyes were sulky and her mouth mutinous.
‘That Caidster’s been hanging round again,’ she said, after a silence.
‘What, here?’
‘Yes, here. Poking his nose in my dairy. He’s been prying and prowling, by his own account.’
‘What’s he want?’ Matthew asked, knowing too well.
‘More than he’s going to get,’ said Hilda. ‘But you’ll have to mind out.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Matt
hew. But he was beginning to understand.
‘Seems to know more than he ought. That’s how it is.’
‘What does he know?’
‘A lot. Or thinks he does.’
‘Oh,’ said Matthew. He saw Ann, wanly smiling at him from her chair. He saw a shadow creeping towards her. ‘D’you mean he … saw something? He can’t have.’
‘His kind don’t have to see much,’ said Hilda grimly.
Matthew stared at the ground, trying to think. Presently he nodded, forced a smile, and began moving on his way.
‘You don’t need to worry, Hilda,’ he said. ‘We’ll soon send him packing.’
But already he knew that his new-found tranquillity was at an end. Life was like that. Nothing for nothing. Everything good had to be paid” for.
§ 7
IT became painfully clear to Matthew that Caidster meant mischief. Caidster himself left the matter in no doubt. He was an odd and not quite human apparition. He had the habit of being suddenly there, like an evil embodied thought. He had also, more acceptably, the habit of going away without warning, vanishing from the neighbourhood; and what became of him then no one knew or cared. He was like an erratic, occasional pain, now here, now gone, which one tries, by ignoring it, to be permanently rid of. And even when he was visibly present he had the knack of making himself insignificant, or otherwise, at his pleasure. Often his presence in or about the village went unremarked, until by some antic he chose to call attention to himself. And he did not always so choose.
This time, turning up after a long absence, he was wearing new clothes: not clothes newly made, not by a long way, but clothes different from the dingy raggedness of his earlier visits from nowhere. Some gentleman’s wardrobe was the poorer for the loss of an outfit in vociferous sporting checks. In their pristine beauty this jacket and these knickerbockers must have made a very loud noise indeed; but now, perhaps mercifully, dirt and the ministrations of sunshine had softened their seductions, and the man who wore them, the lean sharp-featured animal disguised in them, seemed to Matthew no more than the kind of sorry tramp that one doesn’t look twice at, unless to see that he has no stolen property on him. So it angered him, slow to anger though he was, it angered Matthew to be buttonholed by this fellow after church one Sunday morning. His anger was compounded with a fear which he would not squarely face. Not to look twice at the creature would have been natural and proper enough. To be compelled to look twice, to give audience, to pay attention, this was gall to the pride of a man who had farmed his own land, and his father’s before him, through many troubled years, and was conscious without arrogance of his neighbours’ liking and respect. To be held in conversation by this wastrel!—what would folk think, or guess? Yet the wastrel himself, it seemed, had a modicum of discretion; for he did take the trouble to shadow his quarry for some distance from the field side of a hedge, and accosted him, headed him off, by emerging suddenly into the road when no one else was in sight.
The Elderbrook Brothers Page 26
