I

The afternoon which had seen Sarah’s short-lived splendour had been sweet also for May. Sweeter, indeed, since for her there was no clashing of fierce passions to jar the tender witchery of her mood. And though the glamour was of the past⁠—a sheet of gold as of sunlight far at the back of her mind; a sea of gold from which she moved ever inward towards the darkness of the hills⁠—a tongue of light had suddenly darted from it to stream like a golden windblown ribbon over her path. That light was the knowledge that in her own hands lay the possibility of Geordie’s return.

Youth came back to her with the thought, and she sat straighter still in the trap, holding her unused whip at a jaunty angle across the elastic bar of the reins. The good horse swung homewards in a generous stride; the bright wheels of the dogcart flashed through the dull country like a whirled autumn leaf. The passersby found a special sweetness in her ready smile, because it reflected the secret in her heart. As they went on their way they said what they always said⁠—that it was a marvel she had not married long ago.

Yet the secret, fair as it was, had also the folly of all great ventures, since, in laying her hands upon the future, she risked the memory that had coloured her whole life. To bring Geordie home might mean nothing but disappointment for herself, sordid disappointment and shame for a misspent girlish dream. Things would be different, at the very best; part of the memory would have to go. But the chief people to be considered were the old folks who had so often been the footballs of fate. Nothing that she might fear on her own account should stand in the way of this sudden fulfilment for a frustrated old man, this light to the eyes for an old woman going blind. In any case May was the sort that would tenderly handle the cracked and mended pot right up to the moment of dissolution at the well. No disappointment that Geordie could bring her would remain sordid for very long. Out of her shattered idols her wisdom and humour would gather her fresh beauty; clear-eyed, uplifting affection for youthful worship, and pity and tenderness for passion.

It was true that Sarah had already rejected her offer⁠—brutally, almost, in her determination that May should suffer no further for her son. But May had already almost forgotten the rough sentences which for the time being had slammed the opening door in her eager face. Sarah was strong, she knew, but she herself, because of love in the past and pity in the present, felt stronger still. She said to herself, smiling, that sooner or later she would find an argument that would serve. Sooner or later Sarah would yield, and share with secret delight in the surprise that they would so gaily prepare for the old man. Sooner or later the boat would put out from port that carried the lost lad⁠—Geordie, with his pockets empty but his heart full, and every nerve of him reaching towards his home.

Now she had turned the end of the bay, and was running along the flat road that hugged the curve of the shore. Below on her right were the sands, almost within flick of her whip, with the river-channel winding its dull length a hundred yards away. Beyond it, the sand narrowed into the arm of the marsh, until the eye caught the soft etching of the Thornthwaite farm, set on the faint gold and green of the jutting land.

The inn, low, white-faced, dark, with all the light of it in the eyes that looked so far abroad, was very quiet when she came to it about three o’clock. The odd-job man was waiting about to take her horse, and she paused to have a word or two with him in the yard. Then she went briskly into the silent place, and at once the whole drowsy air of it stirred and became alive. The spotlessness of the house seemed to take on a sparkling quality from the swift vitality of her presence. The very fire seemed to burn brighter when she entered, and the high lights on the steels and brasses to take a finer gleam. Her father called to her from the room where he lay upstairs, and her buoyant tread, as she went up, seemed to strengthen even his numb limbs and useless feet.

She sat by his bed for some time, telling him all the news, and conveying as much as she could of the hiring and marketing stir combined. This particular person had wished to know how he was; the other had sent him a message to be delivered word for word. One had a grandmother who had died in similar case; another a remedy that would recover him in a week. Bits of gossip she had for him, sketches of old friends; stories of old traits cropping up again which made him chuckle and cap them from the past. By the time she had finished he was firmly linked again to life, and had forgotten that deadly detachment which oppresses the long-sick. Indeed, he almost forgot, as he listened, that he had not been in Witham himself, hearing the gossip with his own ears and seeing the familiar faces with his own eyes. For the time being he was again part of that central country life, the touchstone by which country-folk test reality and the truth of things, and by contact with which their own identity is intensified and preserved.

But her eyes were turned continually to the window as she chatted and laughed, dwelling upon the misty picture even when they were not followed by her mind. Only her brain answered without fail when her gaze travelled to the farm on the farther shore. Gradually the picture shadowed and dimmed in line, but still she sat by the bed and laughed with her lips while her heart looked always abroad. Neither she nor her father ever drew a blind in the little inn. They had lived so long with that wide prospect stretching into the house that they would have stifled mentally between eyeless walls.

She talked until he was tired, and then she made his tea, and left him happy with the papers which she had brought from Witham. Her own tea she ate mechanically, with the whole of her mind still fixed on the promise of the day, and when she had finished she was drawn to the window again before she knew. The Thornthwaites would be home by now, she concluded, looking out. Tired and discouraged, they would be back again at the farm, feeling none of the quivering hope which lifted and thrilled her heart. Sarah would not even dwell on the offer, having put it by for good, and Simon did not as much as know that there had been an offer at all. They would creep to bed and sleep drearily, or wake drearily against their will, while she would wake of her own accord in order to clasp her purpose and find it still alive. She could not bear the thought of the long, blank night which would so soon be wrapping them round; even a stubborn refusal of her hope would be a better friend to them than that. Stronger and stronger grew the knowledge within her that she must see them before they slept. It was for their sake, she told herself, at first, thirsting to be across, and then, as she clinched her decision, knew it was also for her own.

She went upstairs again to put on her coat and hat, wondering as she did so what her father would have to say. He would be sure to enquire what took her across the sands so late, yet he would wonder and fret if she left him without a word. Geordie’s name had dropped into silence between them for many a year, and, lately as she had spoken it to Sarah, it would be hard to speak it now. She knew only too well what her father would think of her offer of hard-saved gold. He had always been bitter against Geordie for her sake, and would want no wastrel fetched overseas to play on her pity again. She stole halfway down the stairs, and then was vexed with herself and went up again with a resolute tread. Once more she hesitated, with her hand on the door-latch, and then it slipped from her finger and she found herself in the room.

Fleming looked up from his paper with his faded eyes. “Off again, lass?” he enquired, noticing how she was dressed. “Is there a pill-gill Milthrop way tonight?”

She shook her head.

“Not as I know of.⁠ ⁠… Nay, I’m sure there’s not.” She stood staring at him, uncertain what to say, and then her eyes, as if of their own accord, turned back towards the sands. “I just felt like going out a bit again, that’s all.”

“Likely you’re going up road for a crack wi’ Mrs. Bridge?”

“Nay⁠ ⁠… I didn’t think o’ going there.”

“To t’station, happen?”

“Nor that, neither.⁠ ⁠…” There was a little pause. “Just⁠—out,” she added, and the note in her voice seemed to reach before her over the sandy waste. Fleming heard it, and saw the track of her gaze as well.

“What’s up, lass?” he asked quietly, letting his paper drop. “What d’you want to do?”

She braced herself then, swinging round to him with one of her cheerful laughs. “You’ll think I’m daft, I know,” she said, looking down at him with dancing eyes, “but I’m right set on seeing Mrs. Thornthet again tonight. We’d a deal to say to each other this morning, but we didn’t finish our talk. I thought I could slip over sand and back before it was dark.”

Fleming looked perturbed.

“It’s over late for that, isn’t it?” he asked. “Light’s going pretty fast an’ all. Hadn’t you best bide till morning, and gang then?”

“I don’t feel as I can. I’m set on going tonight. I’ve often been across as late, you’ll think on. I’ll take right good care.”

“What about tide?”

“Not for a couple of hours yet, and I’ve not that much to say. Boat’s ready alongside channel; it nobbut wants shoving off. I’ll be there and back before you can say knife.”

“Ay, well, then, you’d best be off, and look sharp about it!” Fleming conceded in a reluctant tone. “I’ll have t’lamp put in winder as usual to set you back. Don’t you get clattin’ now and forget to see if it’s there.”

“I’ll look out for it, don’t you fret. Like as not I’ll never go inside the house. There’s just something I want to make sure of before I sleep.”

She nodded brightly and began to move away, but he called her back before she reached the door. With the quickness of those who lie long in a sick room, he had noticed the change in her atmosphere at once. Restlessness and impatience were strange things to find in May, and there was a touch of excitement in her manner as well. He looked at her thoughtfully as she retraced her steps.

“Is there any news o’ that wastrel lad o’ theirs? Happen he’s thinking o’ coming back?”

The words spoken from another’s mouth brought a rush of certainty to her longing mind. She answered him confidently, as if she held the actual proof.

“That’s it, father! That’s right.” She laughed on a buoyant, happy note. “Our Geordie’s coming home!”

“Tonight?” Fleming’s mouth opened. “D’ye mean he’s coming tonight?”

“Nay, I don’t know about that!” She laughed again. “But it’ll be before so long. I feel as sure about it as if he was knocking at Sandholes door!”

“You’ve no call to be glad of it, as I can see,” Fleming said, with a touch of fretfulness in his tone. “Are you thinking o’ wedding him after all this time?”

Her head drooped a little.

“I’m past thinking o’ that, and he’ll have been past it long ago. I’m just glad for the old folks’ sake, that’s all. It’s like as if it was somebody dead that was coming back, so that I needn’t believe in death and suchlike any more. It’s like as if it’s myself as is coming back⁠—as if I should open door and see the lass I used to be outside.”

“I’d be glad to see you settled afore I went, but not wi’ an idle do-nowt as’d spoil your life. It’ll be queer to me if Geordie Thornthet’s made much out. He was a wastrel, right enough, for all his wheedlin’ ways.”

“I’m past thinking o’ marriage,” she said again. “It’s just what it means to the old folks, poor old souls!”

“Ay. They’ve had a mighty poor time, they have that.” He sighed, thinking of many a tale of woe unfolded by Simon beside his bed. Then he looked up at her with a whimsical smile. “They’d nobbut the one bairn, same as your mother and me, and there’s been whiles I’ve been real mad because you weren’t a lad. Ay, well, I’ve lived to see the folly o’ my ways, and to thank God I’d nobbut a lass! You’re worth a dozen Geordie Thornthets any day o’ the week.⁠ ⁠…”

She was gone with an answering smile directly he finished his speech, and the sound of her feet was light and swift on the stair. Hearing her, he, too, seemed to see her a girl again, gone to meet Geordie Thornthwaite along the shore. But instead of reviving and cheering him, it made him sad. He was too near the end to wish himself back at the start. He glanced at the lamp on the table to make sure that it was filled, and settled himself back to his papers with a sigh.