II
Another thing happened to them on the road to Witham, though it was even more trivial than the last. The first, perhaps, was meant for Simon—that face coming out of the void and trying to look him in the eyes. The other—a voice from the void—was a call to the woman with the failing sight. But to most people there come these days of slight, blind, reasonless events. Something that is not so much memory as revision reaches out of the past into the present; faint foretellings shape themselves out of some far-off hour. And then on the following morning there is sun, and clear outlines and a blowing sky. The firm circlet of Today is bound again shining and hard about the narrow earth.
For a short time they seemed almost alone on the processional road. No more cars passed them, and only occasionally a bicycle or a trap. Simon felt more than ever ashamed of himself as his nerve steadied and his excitement cooled. He had made a bonny fool of himself, he thought, standing up and shouting as if he was cracked. Witham would snap at the tale like a meaty bone, and folk would be waiting to twit him when he got in. It wasn’t as if he were in the mood for a joke, either, seeing how things were; he would find it hard to take it as it was meant. And there was one person at least to whom the tale would be Balm in Gilead for many a happy day. He hoped fervently that it might not reach her ears.
Sooner or later it would reach her, of course; everything that made mock of them always did. The most that could be hoped for was that they would not meet her today, backed by her usual sycophantic crowd. Sarah would never stand any nonsense from her today, depressed as she was by the trouble about her eyes. There would be a scuffle between them, as sure as eggs were eggs, and just when he wanted things smooth in that quarter, too. He thought of giving her a hint to be careful, and opened his mouth, and then decided to keep off the subject, and shut it again.
Not that they ever did keep off it, as he knew perfectly well. Sooner or later it was on their lips, and certainly always after a day at market. They had discussed it so often from every possible point that they did not always know which it was that spoke. They had long since forgotten from which of their minds the bitter, perpetual speeches had first been born. Often they waked in the night to talk of the hated thing, and slept and wakened only to talk of it again. There was nothing good that they had which it had not poisoned at the source, and no sorrow but was made a double sorrow thereby. There was scarcely one of their memories that did not ache because of that constant sword-point in its heart.
It was on market-day each week that their fount of bitterness was continually refreshed. They kept up the old habit for more reasons than one, but most of all because of this thing which hurt and cramped their lives. It was like a vice of some sort which had long become an imperative need. Each week they came home with the iron fresh sunk in their souls, and each week they went again to look on the thing that they both loathed.
Now they were right away from the marsh and the sands, and would not see them until they returned, although from the moor and fell-land surrounding Witham it was always possible to see the bay. Indeed, in this part of the little county it was hard to get away from the knowledge of the sea, and even further in, among the shouldering peaks, you had only to climb awhile to find the water almost within a throw. On days like this, however, even on the beach it was hard to tell which was water and which mist, and when at last the tide drew silently from beneath, those who looked at it from the hills could not tell whether it went or stayed.
Simon, looking drearily around, thought that the whole earth had a drowned appearance today. It reminded him of the marsh after it had been swamped by a flood, and the miserable land emerged soddenly as the sea drew back. Everything was so still, too, with the stillness of the dead or drugged. Only the mist moved steadily and of set purpose, though it was the purpose of a creature with shut eyes walking in its sleep.
Out of the low vapour softly roofing the fields a gull came flying slowly over their heads. First Simon saw the shadow of it huge upon the mist, and then it came swooping and circling until it hung above the road. Its long, pointed wings and drooping legs were magnified by the distorting air, and presently he could see the colour of its bill and the gleam of its expressionless eye. It moved in that lifeless atmosphere as a ship that has lost the wind moves still by its gathered momentum over a deadened sea, but when it came over the road it turned to follow the trap, instead of making away at an angle towards the west. Simon concluded that it must have lost its way in the mist, and was following them as seabirds follow a boat, but presently he was reminded of the car in this leisurely gliding on their track. Like the car, too, it drew level at last, but this time he was not afraid. He looked up at it, indeed, but without much interest, watching its lone vagrancy with apathetic eyes. It was silent at first as it circled and swooped, looping its aimless, unnecessary curves, yet always travelling on. It might have been a piece of the wandering mist that had taken shape, yet the sluggish, unbuoyant atmosphere seemed scarcely to have sufficient strength to carry its weight. So low it flew at last that it almost brushed their faces and the horse’s ears, and in fancy he felt the touch of it damp and soft against his cheek. And then, as it dropped for the hundredth time, it suddenly spoke.
Sarah started violently when the cry broke over her head, the harsh wailing cry that makes all sands desolate and all moorland lone. She lifted her face to search the curtained sky as well as she could, but already the bird had left them and mounted higher, as if called and turned to another road. Each cry as it came was fainter than the last, like the speech of a passing soul ever further off. There was about it something of the majesty and terror of all irrevocable retreats, of those who go forth unhesitatingly when summoned, never to return. It left behind it the same impulse to reach out passionate, yearning arms, to cry aloud for the fainting answer that would still go on long after the ear had ceased to take it in.
Sarah sat with her face lifted to the last, trembling and drawing short, uneven breaths. Simon was silent until she had settled again, and then—“It was nobbut a gull,” he said, at length.
She gave a deep sigh, and folded her hands tightly before her in their black cotton gloves.
“We’ve plenty on ’em, I’m sure, down on t’marsh. … I’m that used to them, I never hear their noise.”
She turned her head slightly towards him, as if in a vain attempt to see his face.
“Ay, but it was that like,” she answered in a suppressed tone. “Eh, man, but it was terble like!”
He gave a grunt by way of reply, knowing well enough what she meant, but knowing also that there was nothing to say. It was not true, of course, that he never heard the gulls. He heard them always, and behind them the voice that called across the years. But they had long since ceased to talk about it or to take the voice of the present for the voice of the past. Sometimes, indeed, when the cry came at the window on a stormy night, they started and looked at each other, and then looked away. But it was not often that they were deceived, as Sarah had been today. Even now, he felt sure, she was straining after the voice, that would never cease crying until it reached the tide.
They were passed again before they reached the town, but this time it was by the cheerful rap of hoofs. It caught them as they creaked their way up the last hill—the smart going of a good horse that even on the smothered highway managed to ring sharp. A whip was waved as the dogcart dashed by, and the driver turned back to give them a smile. She was Fleming’s motherless daughter from the “Ship” Inn across the sands, and Simon and Sarah had known her all her life. All her life she had lived looking out across the bay, and half her life looking a thousand miles beyond.
Simon threw up his hand to her with an answering smile, a sudden sweetness changing his whole face. Even Sarah relaxed when she knew who it was, and both of them brightened for a little while. They were fond of May, a good girl who did not change, and who never made light of those whom Fate was counting out. She had always had the power to strengthen their hold on life, to blow their dying courage into a flame. There was a serene yet pulsing strength about her that had the soothing stimulus of a summer tide. Sarah had been jealous of her when she was young, and had fended her off, but May had long since found her patient way to her heart. Now she stood to both the old people as their one firm link with the past, and as such she was more precious to them than rubies and dearer than bright gold.
“A good lass!” Simon observed, with the smile still present on his lips.
“Ay.”
“I’ve always thought a deal o’ May.”
“Ay, an’ me.”
“Geordie an’ all,” he added, with a faintly mischievous air.
Sarah did not speak.
“An’ Jim—”
“Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!”
Simon drew the lash gently along the horse’s back.
“I hear Fleming’s been none so well lately,” he resumed, as they rumbled into Witham. “We mun think on to ax. Happen I could slip across to t’ ‘Ship’ after we’ve gitten back. Tide’s about six, isn’t it? I could happen do it.”
“Fleming’s nobbut going the same road as t’rest on us,” Sarah said. “He’ll be glad to see you, though, like enough. But it’ll be dark soon, think on, wi’ all this fog.”
“There’s summat queer about t’weather,” Simon said broodingly, knitting his brows. “Tides is fairish big, and yet it’s terble whyet. Happen we’ll have a change o’ some sort afore so long.”
“I’ve noticed it’s often whyet afore a big change. Seems like as if it knew what was coming afore it was on t’road.”
“Ay, but it’s different, some way. … It’s more nor that. There’s a blind look about things, seems to me.”
“Blind weather for blind folk!” Sarah put in with a grim laugh. Simon grunted a protest but she took no notice. “I never thought as I should be blind,” she went on, almost as if to herself. “I’ve always been terble sharp wi’ my eyes; likely that’s why I’ve managed to wear ’em out. And I’ve always been terble feared o’ folk as couldn’t see. There’s no telling what blind weather and a blind body’s brain may breed. … Ay, well, likely I’ll know a bit more about they sort o’ things now. …”