“Geordie wasn’t that sort.” May shook her head. “He’ll not have taken to drink, not he!”
“Folks change out of all knowledge—ay, and inside as well as out.”
“Not if they’re made right,” May said stubbornly, “and Geordie was all right. He was a daft mafflin, I’ll give you that, always playing jokes and the like, but it was just the life in him—nowt else. He was a fine lad then, in spite of it all, and I don’t mind swearing that he’s a fine man now.”
“Ay,” Sarah said slowly, “fine enough, to be sure! A fine lad to leave his folks for t’far side o’ the world wi’ never a word! A fine man as can’t look to himself at forty, let alone give his father and mother a bit o’ help! … Nay, my lass, don’t you talk to me!” she finished brusquely. “We’ve thought a deal o’ Geordie, me and Simon and you, but I reckon he’s nowt to crack on, all the same!”
“You’d think different when he was back,” May pleaded—“I’m sure you would. And you needn’t fret about me if that’s all there is in the road. I made up my mind long since as I shouldn’t wed. But I’d be rarely glad, all the same, to have had a hand in fetching him home.”
“You’re real good, as I said, but it’s over late.” She paused a moment and then went on again. “Letter went a couple o’ week ago.”
The tears came into May’s eyes.
“You don’t mean as you said him no? Eh, Mrs. Thornthet, but I’m sorry to hear that!”
“Yon sort o’ thing’s best answered right off.”
For a moment or two May put her hand to her face. “Eh, but what a pity!” she murmured, after a while. “What does it matter whose brass fetches him home?”
“It matters to me.”
“It matters a deal more that you’re breaking your heart—”
“Nay, then, I’m not! … Ay, well, then, what if I be?”
“Let me get the brass right off!” May said, in a coaxing tone. “Let me—do now! Send it to him today.”
“Nay.”
“You’ve got it into your head he’s different, but I’ll swear you’re wrong! Different in looks, maybe, but he’ll be none the worse for that. He always framed to be a fine figure of a man when he was set. You’d be as throng wi’ him as a clockie hen wi’ a pot egg.”
Sarah snorted scorn, but her face softened a little.
“He’s forty, but I’ll be bound he hasn’t changed. I’ll be bound he’s nobbut the same merry lad inside.”
“Happen none the better for that.”
“Geordie isn’t the sort as grows old—Geordie an’ Jim—”
“Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!” Sarah flared, and the other laughed.
“It’s hard to think of ’em apart even now—they were that like. Why, I’ve mixed ’em myself, over and over again, and fine fun it was for them, to be sure!”
“I never mixed ’em!” Sarah snapped, with a blind glare. “I never see a scrap o’ likeness myself.”
“Why, the whole countryside couldn’t tell ’em apart—school-folk an’ all! ‘Twasn’t only their faces was like; ’twas their voices, too.”
“Hold your whisht!”
“You’ll remember yon calls they had, Geordie an’ Jim—”
“Whisht, I tell ye!” There was something scared as well as angry in Sarah’s tone, and May was hushed into silence in spite of herself. “Jim was sweet on you, too,” the old woman went on surlily, after a pause. “If there wasn’t that much to choose between ’em, why didn’t you choose him?”
“There was all the world to choose between them, when it come to it,” May said smiling, but with tears in her voice. “Once Geordie’d kissed me, I never mixed ’em up again!”
The rough colour came suddenly into Sarah’s face. She tried to turn it away, with the pathetic helplessness of the blind who cannot tell what others may be reading there in spite of their will. May, however, was looking away from her into the past.
“Not but what Jim was a rare good sort,” she was saying, with the tenderness of a woman towards a lover who once might have been and just was not. “Eh, and how fond he was of you, Mrs. Thornthet!” she added, turning again. “No lad could ha’ thought more of his own mother than he did of you.”
“I wanted nowt wi’ his fondness,” Sarah said in a hard tone. “And I want no mewling about him now, as I said afore!”
“Ay, you told him off terrible, poor lad, but he was that set on you he didn’t mind. He used to fetch you fairings and suchlike, didn’t he—same as Geordie did? It was never his mother he fetched ’em for; ’twas always you.”
“Eliza never had no need o’ fairings, wi’ all she had at her back!” Sarah stood up sharply and began to grope about for her mantle and gloves. “You’re bringing things back just to coax me about yon brass!” she added, as May came forward to help. … “Your father’s none so well, I’m sorry to hear?”
“He hasn’t been himself for a while now, and he’s getting worse. I doubt he’s going down the hill sharp-like, poor old chap!”
“Ay, well, our time comes to us all, and we wouldn’t wish for owt else. But it’ll be rare an’ lonely for you wi’out him, all the same.”
“I’m used to being alone, though I can’t say it’s very grand. … You’ll have to let me come and see to you and Mr. Thornthet,” she added, with a cheerful laugh.
“We’re over old for the likes o’ you. You want friends of your own age to keep you lively-like.”
“I’m not so young myself, if it comes to that,” May said. “And I don’t know as I ever had a real friend, barring Geordie-an’-Jim.”
“That’s enough o’ the two on ’em!” Sarah snarled, as they went out. “Geordie’s been a bonny friend to you, anyway—he has that! We’d best be getting about our business. Talking o’ things as is dead and gone won’t
