Constance Holme

“ Among the many snapshots arriving year by year there had never been one of Ellen, arm in arm with a husband, or half hidden behind a baby. She had never “taken” well, even in her youth, and, once over the water, had firmly refused to be “taken” at all. Always she had resisted her mother’s demands in that light, laughing way of hers which seemed to bring her so closely to you. No photograph, so Mattie had often felt, could possibly seem more real than the Ellen who came to you with her letters. ”

“ You could not keep yourself away from people, no matter how you tried. Even if you shared nothing else with them, you shared the same countryside. Your life was marked by the milestones of their happenings, just as their lives were marked by yours. And when the time came to die, you lay down together to sleep in the same soil....
She was too old for Canada, she said to herself, accepting the fact calmly because as yet it had not come home to her. Not too old in body, perhaps, in spite of her age, but almost certainly in spirit. ”

“ When folks get to the end of things, all that they’ve got left to them is just their lives....”
She had ceased crying long before he stopped, only sighing and bowing her head upon her hand as she had done at the beginning. Her mind, utterly wearied and over-strained, had for compensation that curious quality peculiar to extreme exhaustion of seeing clear in flashes. By virtue of those flashes, so much more vivid and poignant than those of the normal course of thought, she was able for the first time to see life as Kirkby saw it. ”

“ Right up to the time of her wedding, indeed, Mattie had been so busy, one way and another, [48] that she had never realised her own requirements. Even if she had thought about them, she would have taken it for granted that marriage would mean a wider life, and instead she had found life narrow down upon her. Existence in her native place had been narrow, too, as she was ready to admit, but not so narrow; for in the home of one’s youth there is always a way of escape through the magic door of childhood. ”

“ I’ve got into a trap, and I doubt I’ll never get out.”
“You can get out, Mattie,” Kirkby said gently. “You’ve only to say the word.”
“Nay, but I can’t.” She looked down at her hands as she rested them on the table, as if already she saw ghostly fetters forming about her wrists.... “Words won’t make any difference, nor letters, neither. It’s my own self makes the trap,—being too old, and being afraid of things. You should have let us go when I was younger and able to face it. You’ve kept us here too long.”
“’Twasn’t me, Mattie,” Kirkby said, wincing a little for the first time. ”

“ He saw red and white jewels hung by the thousand on raspberry canes and currant bushes, and the creamy ovals of new potatoes. He saw roses, not singly, but in arches and flung handfuls, and a cloud of sweet peas like pinioned butterflies. Backing it all he saw green again, the young live green of the early spring, and the deep, sap-running green of the flush of summer. But above all he saw blue, that colour so precious in a northern county which is kept short of blue skies. ”

“ The very handwriting of those who loved you was in itself a loving speech....
The postman was getting nearer now, she could tell, and he had not whistled again. He had known for many a year now that he did not need to whistle more than once when it came to Mrs. Kirkby!... Like a wise man, he was saving his breath for the last steep little pull that led to the gardens. She could hear him wheezing and puffing, as it was, and the shuffle of his step which betrayed the slow lifting of his feet. ”

“ He waited patiently, standing with that still poise of his in which he seemed to breathe as quietly as a flower. And almost at once she began to speak, jerkily at first, but gradually gathering smoothness and speed, and keeping her hands always on either side of her face as if they guarded her.
“It’s just we’ve waited too long.... Things alter if you wait. You stop wanting things you’ve always wanted, and you get to like things you used to hate. And you get old, [233] waiting. I didn’t know till to-day I was getting old.”
“You’re not old, Mattie.” ”

“ Not only was there the kitchen garden to think of, but there were the glass-houses [28] as well, fruit grown inside and out, tomatoes, orchids, carnations, violets. Then down at the Hall there were the rose-gardens and lawns, tennis-courts and flower-borders, and the long yew and beech-hedges to be kept trim and close. And besides all these there was the big rock-garden across the river, full of plants which, however much you might suppress them, grew as giants grow in a single night. ”

“ Even folks as has been in prison knows what it is to strike roots.”
The privet hedge came into Mattie’s mind, together with that past look on Mrs. Grisedale’s face, and the clinging touch of Mrs. Ellwood’s hand.... But she laughed again.
“They’re roots as is easy pulled up, I should say!” she said cheerfully. “Folks in prison, I mean.... As for me, I’ve always been on the go, so to speak. I’ve never settled down.”
“You can’t not settle!” Dick said suddenly, in a loud voice that was almost threatening. “Don’t you make any mistake, Mrs. Kirkby. Life settles you. Time settles you. ”

“ The atmosphere changed around him almost as soon as he opened the letter. Canada leaped out of the pages at him as he read,—Canada, live and free, and with red blood rushing in its veins. It had always seemed to him a country where everybody was young, and to-day more than ever it seemed peopled with radiant youth. The letter was full of vitality, of hope, of healthy [64] happiness and success. ”

“ He saw the vegetables he would grow with the warm, homely thrill with which the farmer sees his crops, and the housewife her stores of linen and jam. The fruit he saw as an artist sees his finished task,—as gleaming jewels of price which you can hold and weigh in your hand. But the flowers he saw as the mystic and the dreamer see Heaven,—not in concrete form, but as sheer colour and light, and an ecstasy of shaded tones. ”

“ It was always worse in the spring. You can stand a deal of things in the winter when you’re comfortable like, and you’ve your own hearth-fire; but you want to be stirring in the spring.”
He did his best to nod sympathisingly at the wistfulness in her tone, but he could find no answer to give her. He had never known what it was to be afflicted by the fever of spring-wandering. He had never wanted to leave his gardens at any time, but especially not in the spring. Leaving a garden before the spring-sowing was finished would have seemed to him like leaving a child before it was able to walk.... ”

“ It was impossible, in any case, not to find something infectious in Mattie’s attitude; to feel, if only as a pale reflection, something of her ecstasy. With a deliberate effort he adjusted his angle of mind, setting aside his preoccupation with the things that he must lose, and forcing himself to turn his attention to the things that he would gain. ”

“ You’ll let us go?”
“We’ll go, Mattie. Don’t you fret.”
“It’ll be just as it was, this morning?” she pursued, unsatisfied. “The same as it was, last night?”
“Just as it was, Mattie.”
A smile touched for a moment her tear-wet face, and for the first time he felt the tears spring to his own eyes. She looked at him kindly.
“You mustn’t be wild with me for chopping and changing like this. I can’t help it. I’ve got to see ’em all again, and the grandchildren and the houses. I’ve got to see them. You can’t plan and work for a thing all your life, and not get it in the end. ”

“ To-morrow it’ll all be nasty, just as before.”
“It’ll never be just as nasty, Mattie, whatever you think,” Kirkby said firmly. “Once you’ve looked at a thing with love, you never rightly forget it. It comes creeping back into your heart, no matter how often you turn it out.” ”

“ There’s some Madisons, she says, from over Witham way, as is that full of themselves they can hardly walk. They tell folks they had a big farm over here, with a pedigree herd of the best; whereas everybody knows they had nothing but a milk-round as was more like a water-round, by a deal!”
But Mattie had had more than she could bear for the time being of Jessie’s depressing reflections. A fresh picture of Canada was forming before her eyes, blotting out the fine-hued image which she had made for her own enchantment. ”

“ He had thought her happy enough when he saw her at home, cheerful and busy and making her own interests; but that, as he knew now, was merely because of her youth. The soul can lay out its own pleasure-grounds when it is young. ”

“ But you could never hope to receive that comfort except in the home of your youth. No other place would do; not Canada, nor another.... In any other place you would have to grow old patiently without that blessed assurance, and to bolster up your faith in a future existence as best you might.
He had planned to get face to face with the Canadian problem as soon as he was safely across the river, out of reach of the staring eyes of his staff and of Mattie’s exultation. ”

“ He was certainly like a garden, as he stood at his house-door, looking out. When most people open their doors and stare, the things outside come awake, but they took no notice of Kirkby. The gardens, as it were, did not even look up. ”

“ Yes, it was a great thing to be free.
The day coming in at the door was going to be a fine one, he saw, although he had known that, indeed, as soon as he opened his eyes. But it was a shrouded day as yet, with the mist still high above the river, and threaded in and out among the woods which surrounded the gardens. In any case, he could not have seen either the river or the Hall, for they were a hundred feet below, but even his usual glimpse of the fells across the valley, beautifully vignetted [23] by the stems of larch and beech, was hidden from him by the mist. ”

“ All that he had definitely learned from the clash of wills was that the heart must face its own way; that one man’s meat may be another man’s poison, and that the holy, inhabited place wherein one soul can find its peace may be nothing but an airless vacuum to another. ”

“ We’ve quarrelled a deal about this Canadian business, I know that, but we’ve not done so badly, all told. We’ve had a good life together in a beautiful place, which is more than a lot of folks get. We’ve been God-fearing folk, on the whole, and we’ve as good children as ever stepped. We’ve had a good life, Mattie, and we’ve been together a long while. Children matter a sight, I know, but we matter to each other more. We’ve made something between us in this spot as we’ll never have anywhere else. We’ve made our lives.... ”

“ But Dolly had no intention of parting with such an asset until she had added her utmost to the interest of the occasion. She was too much absorbed by her own prospects to be greatly aware of another person’s reactions, as well as too highly excited to refrain from talking. Moreover, she thought in all innocence that Mrs. Kirkby would be only too glad to listen to anything that she could tell her about Canada. Her cousin Jessie, therefore, was so much present with them during the afternoon, that it seemed to Mattie sometimes she had only to turn herself about in order to see her. ”

“ Mattie might not like it; the people at the other end might not like it; and most certainly the cat wouldn’t like it. No, it would never do.
He pulled himself together, after a while, and went off about his business, but the beauty of the young spring day was largely spoiled for him. He even shrank from it, now, especially when it called to him, attracting his attention with scent and sigh in the fashion peculiar to the spring. Instead of soothing and heartening [75] him, as it had always done before, it now seemed almost to attack him. ”

“ Mattie joined in the laugh with the heartiness of the excellent housewife who for once in a lifetime is found wanting.
“Ay, it looks like it, I’m sure,” she agreed, in reply to Mrs. Machell’s remark that at all events there seemed plenty to be going on with. “I’ll be right grateful if you’ll help me to put things straight. Kirkby was that sick about ’em at dinner, it fair went to your heart to see him! A man minds a house being pulled about a deal more than a woman.”
“They do that!” Dolly Machell nodded wisely. “They make as much noise about it as a dog being skifted from its kennel. ”

“ Dugdale going off to New Zealand when she was nigh on ninety!”
“Ay, but they go sudden-like,” Dick said, wrinkling his brow as if to help the working of his brain. “They don’t sit planning a sight o’ years. Things is sudden-like when they’re meant.”
“Things always seem sudden when they come,” Mattie retorted briskly. “Planning makes no difference. Look how folks know they’re going to die from the very minute they’re born, and yet they’re mighty surprised about it when it happens!”
“Folks don’t plan to die.... Leastways, them as does seldom brings it off. ”

“ He knew, who had done every job in a garden in his time, the contentment that may wait upon a man [33] when he is working out even the smallest detail of a great conception. Long ago he had learned that the whole is implicit in the part; so that, while he broke his way through stiff soil, or toiled patiently with the knife, he felt his material quiver with the message of all that was yet to come, and saw, not the apparently trivial task upon which he was engaged, but the beauty that should be. ”