When his arms went about her and pulled her fiercely to him she gasped and whispered, ‘We’re on the main road.’
‘What of that! Have we ever met anyone on the main road at this time on a Sunday?’
His mouth was on hers, hard, searching. After a moment her stiff body relaxed against him and her lips answered his.
When he released her he stood gazing down into her face; then he cupped her chin in his hand as he said, ‘A fortnight today we will have been married for twenty-four hours.’
She gave a nervous laugh, drew herself from his embrace and walked on, and he walked close beside her now, his bent arm pressing hers tight against his side.
A fortnight today at this time they would have been married for twenty-four hours.
A fortnight ago she had all but decided to tell him she could not go through with the marriage, and then she had asked herself if she did that, what would life hold for her, what prospects had she of marrying if she refused this opportunity? She could see herself ending up, not only like Barbara, but like Anna, and she couldn’t bear the thought. She wanted a husband and a home of her own and children, lots of children. She had read in a Ladies’ Journal only recently an article that explained the bearing of children, and the doing of good works within one’s ability and the contents of one’s pocket, brought to women great compensation, and contributed towards a better and longer-lasting happiness than did the early experience of so-called love marriages, wherein the young bride saw life through rosy-tinted glasses.
There was another thing that was worrying her, she did not know whether she would like living in the farmhouse; it wasn’t that she disliked his mother and father, nor that they disliked her, but there was a restraint in their manner towards her. They acted more like servants might be expected to do and this made her uneasy. The one comforting thought was that Matthew would be there. She got on well with Matthew, she liked Matthew, she had always liked him, he seemed to belong to another world altogether from that which had bred Donald. He was more refined, gentle. She had never teased Matthew as she had teased Donald, which was strange when she came to think of it; perhaps because Matthew had talked little and had been rather shy. He was still shy.
They had walked in silence for some time, and she didn’t like long silences, and now she reverted to their previous topic and said, ‘I thought Matthew was looking very well today.’
‘He’s well enough considering, an’ if he sticks to the horse and doesn’t walk too much he’ll be better. If I don’t keep me eye on him he’s off up the hills with a book; he’ll be blind afore he dies, I’ve told him that. Had things been different from what they are with him he would have made a good schoolteacher; he’s learned, you know.’ He had turned his head towards her and there was a note of pride in his voice as if he were speaking of a son, and she nodded and said, ‘Yes, yes; I think he is.’
‘Think!’ he repeated. ‘Be sure of it; he never goes into Hexham or Allendale but he borrows a book. That reminds me. I’ve got to go to the sales next Friday an’ that’s when you were coming over to meet Uncle and Aunt, so Matthew’ll come for you early on. He’ll bring Ned along; Ned’s back’s as broad as an inglenook, and you couldn’t fall off him if you tried.’
She laughed now as she said, ‘I could, even without trying, you know I’m no horsewoman. It isn’t that I dislike horses, I just can’t ride them. Now, Barbara, she sits a horse as good as any man. I always think it’s a pity we weren’t able to keep one; she would have loved it.’
He said abruptly, ‘Barbara’s grown sullen.’
‘You think so?’
‘I know it. It’s because she doesn’t want to lose you. And that’s understandable.’ He was nodding at her. ‘They all don’t want to lose you, but their loss is my gain.’ He pressed her arm tighter into his. Then, his voice unusually soft, he said, ‘You know, I determined years ago to get everything I set me heart on, and I set me heart on you from the beginning. But even so there were days and nights, long nights when I doubted me own ability, an’ now it’s come about, well,’—he gazed sideways at her and, his voice just above a whisper, he said, ‘Have you any idea how I feel about you, Constance?’ Without waiting for an answer he made a small motion with his head and went on, ‘No, you never could have, for I can’t explain the sense of…what is the word?’ Again he made a motion with his head. ‘Elation, aye, that’s it, the sense of elation I feel every time I look at you.’
‘Oh, Donald! Don’t, don’t; you make me feel embarrassed, as if I were someone of importance.’
‘You are. Look at me.’ He jerked her arm and when, half-smiling, she looked at him, he said, ‘You are, you are someone of great importance. Get that into your head. There’s nobody more important than you, and there’s only one thing I regret.’
When he paused she asked, ‘And what’s that?’
And now he pointed along the road towards the iron gates. ‘Them,’ he said.
‘Them?’
‘Aye, them. If I could perform a miracle I’d have them opened as we get near. The lodge-keeper would hold them wide, and we’d go up the drive sitting in a carriage behind prancing horses, an’ the lackeys would run down the steps and open the house door. They’d put a footstool out for you, and they’d bow their heads to me, and the head lackey would say, “I hope you had a pleasant journey, sir?” And we’d go through that hall and up the staircase and into our apartments—not rooms mind, apartments, an’ I’d see you take off your hat and cloak; I’d see you change into a fine gown; then down the stairs we’d go together and into the dining room an’…’
They had reached the gates now and she gripped the rusty iron railings, and leaning her head against them she laughed until her body shook, and when she turned to look at him her face was wet with tears of laughter; but his was straight and stiff and he said, ‘You think it funny?’
‘Yes, yes, Donald, I do, for it would take a miracle, wouldn’t it?’
He stared at her for a long moment before saying, ‘If I had been brought up in that house as I should have been, as his son, we would be there the day, I know it, I feel it inside.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Her voice held an imperious note. ‘You were a boy then only thirteen; you could no more have made a miracle then than you could now; the miracle that was needed then was the sum of thirty thousand pounds, I understand, and that would only have acted as a stopgap.’ Her own face was straight now, and what she said next was a statement rather than a question, ‘You have always hated the fact, haven’t you, that you weren’t recognised as his son.’
When she saw his chin go into hard nodules and his cheekbones press out against the skin she said hastily, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Donald, I…I didn’t mean it in a nasty way. I’m sure you, with your forethought and tenacity, would have tried to do something, I’m sure you would, even as young as you were. Believe me,’—she put out her hand and touched his—‘I wasn’t intending to hurt you in any way. You do believe me?’
He drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly before answering, ‘Aye…aye, I believe you. And what you say is true.’ He turned from her, and now he gripped the iron bars and looked through them and up the weed-covered drive and into the dark tunnel where the trees were now meeting overhead, and he said, ‘It’s a blasted shame.’ He turned his head and glanced at her. ‘I don’t mean about me, but about the place. Why didn’t they stay, they paid enough for it? Only three years in it and then they cleared out and didn’t leave even one man to see to the grounds.’
She, too, was looking up the drive as she said, ‘This part of the country accepts or rejects as it pleases. They were from Hampshire, this was another world to them; what was more they were new to money and thought it could buy anything. If they had been disliked I think they could have understood it, but not being ignored. Uncle was disliked. Oh yes.’ She nodded at him. ‘He was hated by many people; but he was someone they couldn’t ignore—not even now.’ She chuckled, and he smiled as he muttere
d, ‘No, I’ll give him that, you can’t ignore him.’
One again she was looking up the drive and her voice had a sad note to it as she said, ‘They’ll never get the gardens back in order; it took two years before, but now the place has been deserted for almost four years. The house must be mouldering. This lock always annoys me.’ She now rattled the chain attached to the huge lock. ‘And that glass they had put all along the top of the walls.’ She looked first to the right and then to the left of her. ‘It seems an act of spite to me. And when I think of all that fruit going rotten inside. Oh, I feel like knocking a hole in the wall, I do.’ She nodded at him, her face straight, but when he said playfully, ‘I’ll do it for you if you like. Wait till I go and get a pick,’ and pretended to dash away, she laughed again.
They turned from the gate, walked a little way along the road, then mounted the fells to take the roundabout way back to the cottage, and when with an impulsive movement she slipped her hand through his arm he gripped it tightly; then swiftly he caught her under the armpits and lifted her into the air and swung her round as if she were a child; and when at last he stopped whirling her and put her feet on the ground she leant against him gasping and laughing and he pressed her to him as he looked away over her head towards the high mountains, and the feeling that he termed elation rose in him and burst from him and formed itself into a galloping creature, and he saw it clear the peaks one after the other until it reached the farm.
Two
They were all standing in the roadway outside the gate, seeing her off, Matthew at the head of the two horses. Mary was giggling, saying, ‘I don’t blame you, Miss Constance; you wouldn’t get me up on that, not for a thousand pounds you wouldn’t.’
‘If I offered you one gold sovereign you wouldn’t only be on it, but you’d jump over it this minute, woman.’
It spoke plainly for the change in the social pattern that Thomas could joke with his one and only servant and Mary answer, ‘Oh, Master. Master, I’d as soon jump over the moon, I would so, as get on that animal. I don’t envy you, Miss Constance, I don’t that, I…’
‘Be quiet, Mary!’ At times Miss Brigmore’s manner reverted to that of the Miss Brigmore that Mary remembered from years back, and on these occasions she obeyed her without murmur.
Miss Brigmore now stepped towards Constance where she was standing near the big flat-backed horse and she said, ‘You have nothing to fear, he’ll just amble.’
‘He won’t gallop?’ Constance divided the question by a look between Miss Brigmore and Matthew, and Matthew, smiling, said, ‘His galloping days are over, long since.’
‘It’s so close; you don’t think there’ll be a storm?’
Constance was now looking at Barbara who, her face unsmiling but her expression pleasant and her voice consoling, said, ‘No, I’m sure there’ll be no storm, it’s passed over. Look,’—she pointed—‘it’s passing to the south of us. By the time you get on to the hills the sun will be out.’
The two sisters looked at each other. It was a long probing look as if each had the desire to fall into the other’s arms.
‘It’ll be tomorrow you get there if you don’t make a start; hoist her up, Matthew, and get going.’
Matthew bent down, cupped his hands and Constance put her foot on them; the next moment she was sitting in the saddle. Then without a word Matthew mounted the brown mare, and after inclining his head towards those on the road, he said, ‘Get up there!’ and the two horses moved off simultaneously.
No-one called any farewell greetings, but when Constance turned her head and looked back at them Miss Brigmore raised her hand in a final salute.
It was almost ten minutes later, after they had left the road and were beginning to mount upwards, that Matthew spoke. Looking towards her, he said, ‘You all right?’
‘Yes, Matthew, yes. He’s…he’s quite comfortable really.’
‘Yes, he’s a steady old boy, reliable.’
They exchanged glances and smiled.
A few more minutes elapsed before she said, ‘It’s looking dark over there; you don’t think we’ll ride into the storm do you, Matthew?’
Matthew did not answer immediately because he was thinking that that was exactly what they were likely to do. Barbara’s statement that the storm was passing southwards was quite wrong; it was coming from the south-west if he knew anything, and it would likely hit them long before they reached home. He said, ‘Don’t worry; if it does come we’ll take shelter. There’s the old house on the peak, you remember it?’
‘That derelict place?’
‘Yes, it’s derelict, but it’s been a haven to many in a storm these past years, and even before that when the Rutledges lived there.’
‘I can’t imagine why anyone would want to live in such an isolated spot.’
‘Needs must in most cases; they had their sheep and a few galloways; and some people want to be alone.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ She nodded towards him. His face looked grave, serious. On each of the few occasions she had met him over the past year his expression had been the same; grave, serious. At one time, even in spite of his shyness, he had appeared jolly. When he smiled she thought he looked beautiful, in a delicate sort of way. She had wondered often of late whether he was displeased at the prospect of her coming to live on the farm. If that was the case it would be a great pity for she imagined him lightening the evenings in the long winter ahead. She had visualised them conversing about books, as he did with Anna. She knew she wouldn’t be able to converse with Donald about books; she had remarked to Anna recently it was a pity that Donald wasn’t a reader, and Anna had replied tersely that she had to face up to the fact that her husband-to-be was a doer rather than a dreamer. That was a very good definition of Donald, a doer rather than a dreamer. Matthew here was the opposite, he was a dreamer rather than a doer, but it was his health she supposed that made the latter impossible. She felt a deep pity for Matthew and a tenderness towards him. She had realised of late that she had been somewhat hurt by his restrained attitude towards her.
The path was getting steeper. The land on one side of them fell sharply away to a valley bottom before rising again, but more gradually, to form distant peaks. On the other side of them it spread upwards in a curving sweep to form what, from this distance, looked like a plateau.
Matthew, glancing towards this height, calculated that before they covered the mile that would bring them to the top, and within a few minutes’ ride of the old house, the storm would break. Even as he stared upwards the first deep roll of thunder vibrated over the hills, bringing a startled exclamation from Constance, and he came closer to her side, saying, ‘It’s all right. If it comes this way we’ll take shelter.’
She was gripping the reigns tightly; her face had gone pale. She looked at him and murmured hesitantly, ‘I’m…I’m sorry but…but I’m really afraid of storms. I’ve tried to overcome the feeling but I can’t. It…it seems so childish…’
‘Not a bit, not a bit. There are plenty of men who are afraid of storms an’ all.’
‘Really?’
‘Aw aye, yes. I know…I know two.’
‘Men?’
‘Yes, men. There’s a fellow who lives over by Slaggyford, a farmer he is.’
‘And he’s afraid of storms?’
‘Yes; dives for the cow byre every time the sky darkens.’ He hoped she never repeated this to Donald for he would laugh his head off.
‘Is…is he a grown man?’
‘Yes, he’s a good age. But it’s got nothing to do with age. There’s a young boy in the market. I see him at times, that’s when there’s not a storm about, for he makes for shelter when there’s the first sign of thunder, mostly under a cart. So you’re not the only one, you see.’
She smiled at him, and he smiled back while he congratulated himself on his ability to tell the tale.
‘Get up there! Get up there!’ He urged the horses forward, but Ned, having maintained one pace for many years n
ow, refused to alter it; and the coming of a storm didn’t make him uneasy, he had weathered too many. But the younger horse was uneasy. She tossed her head and neighed, and Matthew tried to calm her, saying, ‘Steady now, steady,’ while at the same time thinking whimsically it was no good lying to a horse.
After the first flash of lightning streaked the sky above them Constance bowed her head and smothered a scream, and Matthew, bringing his horse close to hers again, put out his hand and caught her arm, saying, ‘It’s all right now, it’s all right. Look, we’re nearly at the top; another five minutes and we’ll be in shelter.’
She lifted her head and looked at him and gasped, ‘Can…can you make it hurry, the horse?’
‘No, I’m afraid he’ll go at his own gait, come flood, storm or tempest. But don’t worry, don’t worry, everything’ll be all right; just sit tight.’
‘It’s getting dark.’
Yes, it was getting dark; the valley to the left of them was blotted out; the sky in front seemed to be resting on the hills. Her face appeared whiter in the dimness, there were beads of perspiration round her mouth. He looked at her mouth and shivered. Then moving his horse forward, he gripped Ned’s rein and yelled, ‘Come on! Come on, Ned! Get up with you! Get up!’
The Mallen Streak Page 15
