“Nay, but that’s news and no mistake!” she exclaimed, striving after her former tone, but without success. The note in her voice was clear to her blind hearer, sending triumphant shivers through her nerves. … “Tell us again, will you, Sarah?” she added sharply. “I doubt I heard you wrong.”
“I’ll tell you and welcome till the cows come home!” Sarah said, with a sudden sprightliness that made the Wilkinson cousin open his eyes. It was almost as if another person had suddenly taken possession of Sarah’s place. There was a vitality about her that seemed to change her in every feature, an easy dignity that transformed the shabbiest detail of her dress. Her voice, especially, had changed—that grudging, dully defiant voice. This was the warm, human voice of one who rejoiced in secret knowledge, and possessed her soul in perfect security and content.
“He’s coming, I tell you—our Geordie’s coming back!” The wonderful words seemed to fill her with strong courage every time she spoke. “I can’t rightly tell you when it’ll be, but he said we could look for him any minute now. Likely we’ll find him waiting at Sandholes when we’ve gitten home. He’s done well an’ all, from what he says. … I’ll be bound he’s a rich man. He talks o’ buying Sandholes, happen—or happen a bigger spot. I make no doubt he’s as much brass as’d buy Blindbeck out an’ out!”
She fell silent again after this comprehensive statement, merely returning brief ayes and noes to the questions showered upon her from every side. Her air of smiling dignity, however, remained intact, and even her blind eyes, moving from one to another eager face, impressed her audience with a sense of truth. And then above the excited chatter there rose Eliza’s voice, with the mother-note sounding faintly through the jealous greed.
“Yon’s all very fine and large, Sarah, but what about my Jim? Jim’s made his pile an’ all, I reckon, if Geordie’s struck it rich. He’s as smart as Geordie, is our Jim, any day o’ the week! Hark ye, Sarah! What about my Jim?”
Quite suddenly Sarah began to tremble, exactly as if the other had struck her a sharp blow. She shrank instantly in her chair, losing at once her dignity and ease. The fine wine of vitality ran out of her as out of a crushed grape, leaving only an empty skin for any malignant foot to stamp into the earth. She tried to speak, but could find no voice brave enough to meet the fierce rain of Eliza’s words. A mist other than that of blindness came over her eyes, and with a lost movement she put out a groping, shaking hand. Sally, in a sudden access of pity, gathered it in her own.
She slid her arm round her aunt, and drew her, tottering and trembling, to her feet.
“It’s overmuch for her, that’s what it is,” she said kindly, but taking care to avoid her mother’s angry glance. “It’s knocked her over, coming that sudden, and no wonder, either. Come along, Aunt Sarah, and sit down for a few minutes in the parlour. You’ll be as right as a bobbin after you’ve had a rest.”
She led her to the door, a lithe, upright figure supporting trembling age, and Elliman’s eyes followed her, so that for once he was heedless of Mary Phyllis when she spoke. Most of the company, indeed, had fallen into a waiting silence, as if they knew that the act was not yet finished, and that the cue for the curtain still remained to be said. And the instinct that held them breathless was perfectly sound, for in the square of the door Sarah halted herself and turned. Her worn hands gripped her gown on either side, and if May had been there to see her, she would again have had her impression of shrouded flame. She paused for a moment just to be sure of her breath, and then her voice went straight with her blind glance to the point where Eliza sat.
“Jim’s dead, I reckon!” she said, clearly and cruelly … “ay, I doubt he’s dead. Geordie’d never be coming without him if he was over sod. You’d best make up your mind, Eliza, as he’s dead and gone!”
It was the voice of an oracle marking an open grave, of Cassandra, crying her knowledge in Troy streets. It held them all spellbound until she had gone out. Even Eliza was silent for once on her red plush chair. …
IV
Each of the brothers Thornthwaite drew a breath of relief as soon as he got outside. They were at ease together at once as soon as they were alone. The contrast in their positions, so obvious to the world, made little or no difference to the men themselves. It would have made less still but for the ever-recurring problem of the women-folk, and even that they did their best to put away from them as soon as they were out of sight. Each could only plead what he could for the side he was bound to support, and pass on hurriedly to a less delicate theme. Alone they fell back easily into the relation which had been between them as lads, and forgot that the younger was now a man of substance and weight, while the elder had made an inordinate muddle of things. Will had always looked up to Simon and taken his word in much, and he still continued to take it when Eliza was not present to point to the fact that Simon’s wonderful knowledge had not worked out in practice. Today, as they wandered round the shippons, he listened respectfully while his brother criticised the herd, quarrelled with the quality of the foodstuffs, and snorted contempt at the new American method of tying cattle in the stall. Experience had taught him
