The Splendid Fairing

To
Mabel and Jimmy

Boscombe, March 28th–April 5th,
1919

“All night long the water is crying to me.”

Part I

Simon and Sarah

I

Perhaps it would never have happened but for the day. A brave, buoyant day, with a racing wind, might have scattered the clinging obsession just in time. A tender, laughing day might have laid a healing finger on old sores. A clean, frosty day might have braced the naturally sane old mind. But Fate, out of all the days in the year, took upon itself to send just this.

The human soul, which seems so utterly out of reach, is only shut away from every other soul. In every other respect it is like a harp hung on a tree. Even the actual day as it comes is itself a lever in many a fate. Deeds are done on certain days which on others would be mere passing impulses easily dead before the night. This blind Martinmas Day went all day long with its head among the clouds, as if it thought that never again would there be any sun. Indeed, it was out of the lack of every sort of sight that the evil grew; since, otherwise—“Mothers couldn’t have done those things,” as Geordie would have said.

All day the earth retained that stillness which it keeps as a rule only for the last hour before the dawn. Everywhere in the morning there was mist—that strange, wandering, thinking mist that seems to have nothing to do with either earth or air; and when the slow dark drew back there would be mist everywhere again. Between those shadowy tidemarks of the air there was a space when the white mist shredded above the trees, leaving the atmosphere with the look of a glass that has been breathed upon and never clears.

The Simon Thornthwaites were going to market simply because they did not know how to stay away. They went as naturally as the sun comes out of the east, but with a good deal less of decision about the journey. They looked dull and tired, too, less indeed as if they were setting out than as if they were wearily trundling home again. Both horse and trap looked as though they might fall to pieces after an extra jolt, and the jumble of harness was mended here and there with string. There was neither butter nor fowl in the market-basket behind; there was not even a limp rabbit dangling over the wheel. But all the time they were part of a chain which gave them a motive and impulse not their own, since others, more sure of their errand, were taking the same road. Sometimes a horseman on a young Shire went past with a flash of feather and a clumping of hoofs. Livelier traps spun by at a trot and gave them a hail. Behind and before them they had an occasional glimpse of the procession stretching to the town.

They had climbed from the marsh, leaving it dropped like a colourless cloth beside the sea, and already they seemed to have been a long time on the road. They had not slept much, and, waking, had had the cheated feeling, common to the weary, that the foregoing day had never really ended nor the incoming morning ever quite begun. Indeed, the strange, dreamlike day had never really seemed to come awake. Looking back and west, they saw everything grey, with just a lightened shadow marking the far sea, and the marsh lying down on its face like a figure flung down to die. Houses sat low to the earth as if they crouched, and the trees were vague, bodiless wisps, without backbone or sap. When they had their first glimpse of Witham, they saw the town on the fell-side like a fortress through smoked glass, and the Castle alone on its hill was of shadow-stones poised on a poised cloud.

The Simon Thornthwaites were old now, and underdogs in the tussle of life, but they had once been as strong and confident as most. Sometimes they had a vision of their former selves, and wondered how this could ever have been that. The old man was thin and bent, the sort that shows the flame through the lantern long before the end, but the woman was stronger-boned, squarer, and still straight. Most of her life she had worked like a horse, but she was still straight. Her face was mask-like and her mouth close. Only her hands betrayed her at times—old, overdone hands that would not always be still. Her eyes seemed to look straight before her at something only she could see—staring and staring at the image which she had set up.

They farmed Sandholes down on the marsh, a lonely bit of a spot that looked as if it had been left there for a winter’s tide to take away. It had always had an unlucky name, and, like many unlucky people and things, seemed to have the trick of attracting to itself those who were equally ill-starred. Certainly, Sandholes and the Thornthwaites between them had achieved amazing things in the way of ill-luck. No doubt both farm and folk would have done better apart, but then they had never succeeded in getting apart. It was just as if Fate had thrown and kept them together in order to do each other down. Luck to luck—there seemed nothing else to be said about the Thornthwaites’ plight. They even carried the stamp of each other plain to be seen. You had only to look at the farm to know how its tenants looked; you had only to see the folk to know what their home was like. Perhaps it was just that the double weight of misfortune was too big a thing to lift. Perhaps the canker at the heart of it all would allow nothing to prosper and grow sweet.

They had an easy landlord, easy and rich; too easy and rich, perhaps, for the Thornthwaites’ good. That farm had money—landlord’s and tenant’s—spent on it above its due; yes, and a certain amount of borrowed brass as well. It had work put into it, thought and courage sufficient to run a colony, and goodwill enough to build a church. And all that it did in return was to go back and back and be a deadhead and a chapter of accidents and an everlasting disappointment and surprise. It was a standing contradiction of the saying—“Be honest with the land, and it will be honest with you.” Everything went wrong with that farm that could go wrong, as well as other things that couldn’t by any chance have gone anything but right. Most people would have thrown a stone at it at an early stage, but it was part of the Thornthwaite doom that they could not tear themselves away. Even when there seemed no longer a reason for staying, still they stayed. The one streak of sentiment in them that survived the dismal years held them there captive by its silken string.

But today, as they jogged and jolted endlessly towards Witham, the whole, drear, long business came to an end. No matter what they had thought of the probable future to themselves, they had hitherto shut their mouths obstinately and clung close. They had never even said to each other that some day they would have to quit. They had put it off so long that it seemed the least little push would always put it further still. But today the matter suddenly settled itself for good; almost, it seemed, between one telegraph-post and the next.

Martinmas hirings would be in full swing when they got in, but there was no need now for Simon to enter the ring. Their hired man had seen them through the busiest time, but they could manage without him through the winter months. Their hired men had never stayed very long, because the depression of the place seemed to get into their bones. They tired of crops which seemed to make a point of “finger and toe,” and of waiting through dismal weeks to get in the hay. Now the Thornthwaites would never have the worry of hay-time on their own account again—never open the door to catch the scent from their waiting fields—never watch the carts coming back on the golden evening to the barn. “Never again” would be written over many things after today, but perhaps it was there that they saw it written first. After all this time things had somehow stopped of themselves, and after all this time there was nothing to do but go.

Lads and lasses went by them on cycles, or tugging bundles as they walked; youth with bright cheeks and strong shoulders and clear eyes, taking its health and strength to the market to be hired. Some of them greeted the old folks as they passed, but others did not as much as know their names. Both Simon and Sarah came of old and respectable stock, but to the young generation skimming by on wheels these two had been as good as buried years ago. Sarah’s eyes strained themselves after the lithe bodies of the lads, while Simon looked at the lasses with their loads. He would have liked to have offered some of them a lift, but he knew he would catch it from Sarah if he did. Sarah hated the younger end of folk, she always said, and the flyaway lasses she hated most of all. She saw them going past her into beautiful life, just as their swifter wheels went past the trap. Always they were leaving her behind as it seemed to her that she had always been left. It was true, of course, that she had had her turn, but now it seemed so far away it might never have been. All she could see in the background when she looked behind was the cheerless desert which she had had to cover since.

They were about halfway to Witham when the moment of spoken decision caught them unawares. All their stolid resistance and obstinate clinging to the farm gave in that instant as easily as a pushed door. It was as if a rock at the mouth of a cave had suddenly proved no more than a cloud pausing before it in the act of drifting by. The end came as nearly always after a prolonged fight—smoothly, painlessly, with a curious lack of interest or personal will. The burden had been so heavy that the last straw passed almost unnoticed which brought them finally to the ground. They had lived so close to the edge for so many years that the step which carried them over it scarcely jarred.

They were climbing the long hill that runs from Doestone Hall, the Tudor house standing close to the crossroads. By turning their heads they could see its gabled front with the larches set like lances beside its door. The river ran swift below the beech-covered slope of the park, reaching impatiently after the ebbed tide. The house, for all the weight of its age, looked unsubstantial in the filmy air. Fast as the river flowed below, from above it looked like a sheeted but still faintly moving corpse.

The road was damp and shadowy under the overhanging trees, and padded with the hoof-welded carpet of the autumn leaves. The fields on either side were formless and wet, and seemed to stretch away to unknown lengths. The hedges appeared to wander and wind across the land without purpose and without end. Under all the hedges and trees there were leaves, wet splashes of crushed colour on the misted grass. Simon lifted his whip to point at the hips and haws, and said it would be a hard winter when it came, but Sarah did not so much as turn her head.

“I’m bothered a deal wi’ my eyes, Simon,” she said in a quiet tone. “I thought I’d best see doctor about ’em today.”

He dropped his gaze from the hedges with a startled stare. “Oh, ay? That’s summat fresh, isn’t it?” he enquired. “You’ve never said nowt about it afore.”

“Nay, what, I thought it was likely just old age. But I’ve gitten a deal worse these last few week. I can’t shape to do a bit o’ sewing or owt.”

“Ay, well, you’d best see doctor right off,” Simon said, and the horse crawled a little further up the hill. They did not speak again for some time, but those who live together in a great loneliness grow to speak together in thought as much as in words. That was why his next speech seemed to come out placidly enough. “I doubt it’s about time for us to quit.”

“I doubt it is.”

“I never meant to gang till I was carried,” Simon said, “and then I doubt there’d still ha’ been some o’ me left. But I’ve seen the end o’ things coming for a while back now. It seems kind o’ meant, you being bothered wi’ your eyes an’ all.”

“Happen it is,” she said again, and sighed. Then she laughed, a slight laugh, but bitter and grim. “It nobbut wanted that on top o’ the rest!”

Simon threw her an uneasy glance.

“Nay, now, you mustn’t get down about it, missis,” he said hastily. “It waint do to get down. Doctor’ll likely see his way to put you right. But we’ve had a terble poor time wi’ it all,” he went on glumly, forgetting his own advice. “Seems like as if we’d been overlooked by summat, you and me. ’Tisn’t as if we’d made such a bad start at things, neither. We were both on us strong and willing when we was wed. It’s like as if there’d been a curse o’ some sort on the danged spot!”

“There’s been a curse on the lot of us right enough!” Sarah said. “Ay, and we don’t need telling where it come from, neither!”

Again he looked at her with that uncomfortable air, though he took no notice of her bitter speech. He knew only too well that haunted corner of her mind. That sour, irreclaimable pasture had been trodden in every inch.

“Ay, well, we’re through on t’far side on’t now,” he said morosely. “Sandholes can grind the soul out o’ some other poor body for the next forty year! I never hear tell o’ such a spot!” he went on crossly, with that puzzled exasperation which he always showed when discussing the marsh-farm. “It’d be summat to laugh at if only it didn’t make you dancin’ mad! What, it’s like as if even slates had gitten a spite agen sticking to t’roof! We’ve had t’tide in t’house more nor once, and sure an’ certain it’d be when we’d summat new in the way o’ gear. We’d a fire an’ all, you’ll think on, and it took us a couple o’ year getting to rights agen. Burned out and drownded out—why, it’s right silly, that’s what it is! As for t’land, what it fair swallers up lime an’ slag and any mak’ o’ manure, and does as lile or nowt as it can for it in return. Nigh every crop we’ve had yet was some sort of a letdown—that’s if we’d happen luck to get it at all! Kitchen garden’s near as bad; lile or nowt’ll come up in’t, nobbut you set by it and hod its hand! Ay, and the stock, now—if there was sickness about, sure an’ certain it’d fix on us. You’d nobbut just to hear o’ tell o’ foot and mouth, or anthrax, or summat o’ the sort, an’ it’d be showing at Sandholes inside a week! Same wi’ t’folk in t’house as wi’ folk in t’shuppon—fever, fluenzy, diphthery—the whole doctor’s bag o’ tricks. Nay, there’s summat queer about spot, and that’s Bible truth! We should ha’ made up our minds to get shot of it long since, and tried our luck somewheres else.”

“We’d likely just ha’ taken our luck along wi’ us,” Sarah said, “and there was yon brass we’d sunk in the spot—ay, and other folks’ brass an’ all.” (Simon growled “Ay, ay,” to this, but in a reproachful tone, as if he thought it might well have been left unsaid.) “We were set enough on Sandholes when we was wed, think on; and when Geordie was running about as a bit of a lad.”

“Ay, and Jim.”

“Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!”

“Ay, well, it’s a bit since now,” Simon said hastily, thinking that it seemed as long ago as when there was firm land stretching from Ireland to the marsh.

“Over forty year.”

“It’s a bit since,” he said again, just as he said equally of the Creation of the world, or his own boyhood, or the last time he was at Witham Show.

“Surely to goodness we were right enough then? We shouldn’t ha’ said thank you for any other spot. Nay, and we wouldn’t ha’ gone later on, neither, if we’d gitten chanst. It would never ha’ done for Geordie to come back and find the old folks quit.”

“Nay, nor for Jim—” he began again thoughtlessly, and bit it off. “Ay, well, I doubt he’ll never come back now!”

“He’s likely best where he is.” Sarah shut her mouth with a hard snap. Once again she stared straight in front of her over the horse’s head, staring and staring at the image which she had set up.

A motor-horn challenged them presently from behind, and Simon pulled aside without even turning his head. He had never really grown used to the cars and the stricter rule of the road. He belonged to the days when the highway to Witham saw a leisurely procession of farmers’ shandrydans, peat-carts, and carriers’ carts with curved hoods; with here and there a country gentleman’s pair of steppers flashing their way through. He never took to the cars with their raucous voices and trains of dust, their sudden gusts of passage which sent his heart into his mouth. His slack-reined driving forced him to keep to the crown of the road, and only an always forthcoming miracle got him out of the way in time. He used to shrink a little when the cars drew level, and the occupants turned their curious heads. Somehow the whole occurrence had the effect of a definite personal attack. Sometimes he thought they laughed at the jolting trap, the shabby old couple and the harness tied with string. The rush of the cars seemed to bring a crescendo of mocking voices and leave a trail of diminishing mirth. But as a matter of fact he did not often look at them when they looked at him. There was nothing to link their hurrying world with his.

This particular car, however, seemed an unusually long time in getting past. The horn sounded again, and, muttering indignantly, he pulled still further into the hedge-side. He held his breath for the usual disturbance and rush, but they did not come. The car kept closely behind him, but it did not pass. Round each corner, as they reached it, he lost and then caught again the subdued purring of the engine and the soft slurring of the wheels. When they met anything, it fell further back, so that at times he felt sure that it must have stopped. Then he would draw his breath, and drop into a walk, but almost at once it would be at his back again. The note of it grew to have a stealthy, stalking sound, as of something that waited to spring upon its prey.

The strangeness of this proceeding began suddenly to tell upon Simon’s nerves. Lack of interest had at first prevented him from turning his head, but now it changed into sheer inability to look behind. Soon he was in the grip of a panic fear that the car at his back might not be a real car, after all. He began to think that he had only imagined the horn, the gentle note of the engine and the soft sound of the wheels. Perhaps, now that he was old, his ears were playing him false, just as Sarah’s eyes, so it seemed, were suddenly playing her false. Presently he was sure, if he turned, he would see nothing at all, or that, instead of nothing at all, he would see a ghost. Something that moved in another world would be there, with spidery wheels and a body through which he could see the fields; something that had once belonged to life and gone out with a crash, or was only just coming into it on the road. …

It was quite true that there was something peculiar about the behaviour of the car. From its number, it must have come from the county next below, and it was splashed as if it had travelled far and fast. During the last few miles, however, it had done nothing but crawl. More than one farmer had heard it behind him and wondered why it took so long to pass, but it had never dallied and dawdled so long before. Almost at once it had gathered speed and slithered by, and the man inside had turned with a friendly hail. He was a stranger, so they said afterwards, with a puzzled air, but at the time they answered the hail as if he were one of themselves.

But Simon, at least, had no intention of hailing anybody just then. Indeed, he was fast losing both his sense and his self-control. He slapped the reins on the horse’s back, making urgent, uncouth sounds, and doing his best to yank it into a sharper trot. It plunged forward with an air of surprise, so that the old folks bumped in their seats, knocked against each other and were jerked back. Presently it bundled itself into an aged gallop, while Simon clicked at it through his scanty teeth.

“Nay, now, master, what are you at!” Sarah protested, gripping the rail. “We’ve no call to hurry ourselves, think on.”

“It’s yon danged car!” Simon growled, feeling somehow as though he were galloping, too. He was quite sure now that a boggle was hot on his track, and the sweat stood on his brow as he slapped and lashed. Losing his nerve completely, he got to his feet with a shout, at the same time waving the car to pass ahead. It obeyed instantly, drawing level in a breath, and just for a breath slowing again as it reached his side. The hired driver was wearing a cheerful grin, but the man leaning out of the back of the car was perfectly grave. He was a big man, tanned, with steady grey-blue eyes, fixed on the old couple with an earnest gaze. Simon, however, would not have looked at him for gold, and after its momentary hesitation, the car shot on. The horse felt its master drop back again in his seat, and subsided, panting, into its slowest crawl.

Sarah straightened her bonnet, and tugged at her mantle upon which Simon had collapsed. “Whatever took you to act like yon?” she asked. “There was nowt to put you about as I could see.”

“It was yon danged car!” Simon muttered again, but beginning already to feel rather ashamed. “It give me the jumps, taking so long to get by. What, I got thinking after a bit it wasn’t a motorcar at all! More like a hearse it seemed, when it ganged past—a gert, black hearse wi’ nid-noddin’ feathers on top. …” He let out a great sigh, mopping his face as if he would never stop. “Danged if yon new strap baint gone and give out first thing!”

He climbed down, grumbling at the new strap which had gone back on him so soon, and began to add a fresh ornamentation to the mended gear. The horse stood with drooped head, emitting great breaths which shook and stirred the trap. Simon’s hands trembled as he worked at his woolly knot, his eyes still full of that vision of sweeping plumes. Further down the road the car had stopped again, but as soon as Simon had finished, it moved away. It went over the hill as if it indeed had wings—feathery, velvet-black and soft on the misty air. …