She had that one moment of clear beauty unprofaned by hate, with Geordie’s face swimming before her in a golden haze. Then her hand, going out to the silk and linen of the dream, encountered the darned and threadbare serge of dreary fact. The dream rent violently all around her, letting her out again into the unlovely world. Even her blindness had been forgotten for the time, for in the dream she was never blind. Now the touch of the darns under her hand brought back the long hours of mending by candlelight which had had their share in despoiling her of her sight. She would never be able to darn by candlelight again, and the loss of that drudgery seemed to her now an added grief, because into this and all similar work, as women know, goes the hope of the future to emerge again as the soul of the past. … Sarah knew that her hand would ache for her needle as the sailor’s hand aches for the helm, or the crippled horseman’s for the feel of the flat rein. She felt, too, a sudden desperate anger against the woman who would have the mending of Simon’s clothes. Geordie’s, she knew, she would simply have wrenched from any stranger’s hands, but since there was no Geordie she need not think of that. The Dream had been merely the make-believe of the bitterly oppressed, who had taken to desperate lying as a last resort. Yet still the sweetness lingered, keeping her serene, like the last scent of a passed garden or the last light upon darkening hills.
She smoothed her hands on the arms of the precious chair, and reached out and smoothed the satin of the table. Through the dimness the solid piano loomed, the rosewood coffin of a thousand songs. The carpet under her feet felt elastic yet softly deep. There were ornaments in the room, good stuff as well as trash, trifles pointing the passions of Eliza’s curious soul. But for once, after all these years, Eliza’s soul would be sorrowful in spite of her great possessions. Back in the kitchen she would be gritting her teeth on the fact that it was Sarah’s son who was coming home, coming with money to burn and a great and splendid will to burn it. She would exact payment, of course, when the truth was known, but even the last ounce of payment could not give her back this hour. For this hour, at least, it was hers to suffer and Sarah’s to reign. For this hour, at least, the heavily-weighted tables of destiny were turned.
VI
That which had been the terrible Eliza sat still for a long moment after Sarah had gone out. There was silence about the table until Elliman Wilkinson took upon himself to speak.
“But Jim’s never your son, Cousin Eliza?” he exclaimed, puzzled, rushing in where not only angels would have feared to tread, but where the opposite host also would have taken care to keep their distance. “It’s very stupid of me, of course, but I’ve always made sure that Geordie-an’-Jim were twins.”
Eliza turned baleful eyes upon the eager, inquisitive face. Her mind, concentrated in sullen fury upon the enemy recently departed with banners, found a difficulty in focusing itself upon this insignificant shape. When it succeeded, however, she ground him into dust.
“Ay, well, next time you feel sure of anything, you can make certain you’re dead wrong!” she told him cruelly, surveying his bland countenance with cold contempt. “Jim’s my eldest, if you want to know, and as much the better o’ Geordie as Blindbeck’s the better o’ yon mudhole down on the marsh! He was always the smarter lad o’ the two—’tisn’t likely he’d ha’ been left. … I’ll lay what you like it’s Jim as is really coming, after all!”
“But in that case you would surely have heard from him yourself?” Elliman was still disporting himself with the brazen folly of innocence upon the forbidden ground. “He’d have written to tell his mother, surely—not his aunt?”
A distinct thrill of apprehension ran through the company at this tactful speech. Mary Phyllis’s nudge on this occasion was one of sharp reproof. The clouds thickened on Eliza’s brow.
“Nay, then, he just wouldn’t, Mr. Clever-Lad-Know-All, so that’s that! I’m his mother right enough, as nobody but a fool would ha’ needed telling, but he wouldn’t ha’ written me, all the same. Me and Jim got across a while back, and he’s taken sulks with me ever since. He’d be like enough to write to Sarah, by way of giving me back a bit o’ my own. She always cockered him fearful, did Sarah, and set him agen me whenever she could. And if there’s brass about, as she says, she’ll keep it warm for him, never fear! She’ll take right good care it never gets past her to Blindbeck or any of his own!”
“Jim would ha’ been right enough but for Geordie all along.” Mrs. Addison shook a loose and agile bonnet with an impressive air. “He was a right-down nuisance, was Geordie Thornthet—a bad lad as well as a reg’lar limb! Such tricks as he was up to, I’m sure—turmut-lanterns and the like, booin’ at folks’ winders after dark, and hiding behind hedges when folk was courtin’ about t’lanes! Stephen and me wasn’t wed then, you’ll think on, and I mind a terble fright as Geordie give us one summer night. Stephen was terble sweet on me, as you’ll likely know, though he’d choke himself black in the face afore he’d own to it now. Well, yon night as I’m speaking of he had hold o’ my hand, and was looking as near like a dying duck
