The strong hope that had sprung in Eliza’s heart died down again before this brazen show.
“You can’t rightly know what you’re saying, Sarah,” she said coldly, “you can’t, indeed! Geordie coming after all these years—nay, now, yon isn’t true!”
“Ay, but it is, I tell ye—true enough! True as yon Sunday fringe o’ yourn as you bought in Witham!”
“And wi’ brass, you said?” Eliza let the flippant remark pass without notice, and Sarah nodded. “A deal o’ brass?”
“Yon’s what he says.”
“Eh, well, I never did!” The angry wind of her sigh passed over Sarah’s head and rustled the honesty in a vase behind. She repeated “I never did!” and creaked away from the enemy towards the window. Behind her, Geordie’s mother allowed the ghost of a smile to find a fleeting resting-place on her lips.
“And so he’s on his road home, is he—coming right back?” Mrs. Will kept her back turned, thinking hard as she spoke. There was no section of Sarah’s statement but she intended to prove by the inch. “Ay, well, it’s what they mostly do when they’ve made their brass.”
“He’ll be over here, I reckon, afore you can say knife! Taking first boat, he says he is, or the fastest he can find.” She turned her head towards the door through which his voice had come in the dream. “What, I shouldn’t be that surprised if he was to open yon door now!”
There was such conviction in her tone that Eliza, too, was startled into turning her head. There was nothing to see, of course, and she turned back, but her ears still thrilled with the thrill in Sarah’s voice. The cowman, passing, saw her face behind the glass, and said to himself that the missis was out for trouble once again.
She was silent for a while, trying vainly to grapple the situation in the pause. She saw well enough that there was nothing to be gained by dispute if the story were true. She still looked to be top-dog in that or any other case, because Blindbeck pride was founded on solid Blindbeck gold; but there was no denying that the enemy would lie in a totally different position, and would have to be met on totally different ground. If, on the other hand, the great statement was a lie, there would be plenty of time for vengeance when the facts were known. Her malicious soul argued that the real game was to give Sarah plenty of rope, but her evil temper stood in the way of the more subtle method. It got the upper hand of her at last, and she flung round with an angry swing.
“Nay, then, I can’t believe it!” she exclaimed passionately—“I just can’t! It’s a pack o’ lies, that’s what it is, Sarah—a gert string o’ senseless lies!”
This coarse description of her effort hurt Sarah in her artistic pride. She stiffened still further.
“I reckoned you’d take it like that,” she replied in a dignified tone. “ ’Tisn’t decent nor Christian, but it’s terble nat’ral.”
“I don’t see how you could look for folks to take it different!” Eliza cried. “ ’Tisn’t a likely sort o’ story, any way round. Ne’er-do-weels don’t make their fortunes every day o’ the week, and your Geordie was a wastrel, if ever there was one yet. You don’t look like good news, neither, come to that. They’ve just been saying so in t’other room.”
“Good news wants a bit o’ getting used to,” Sarah said quietly, “same as everything else. When you’ve never had no luck for years and years you don’t seem at first as if you could rightly take it in.”
“More particular when you’re making it up out o’ your own head!” Eliza scoffed, but growing more and more unwillingly convinced. “Nay, now, Sarah!” she added impatiently, her hands twitching—“what d’ye think ye’re at? What about all yon talk o’ giving up the farm? No need for such a to-do if Geordie’s coming home!”
For the first time, though only just for a second, Sarah quailed. For the first time she had a glimpse of the maze in which she had set her feet, and longed sharply for her physical sight as if it would help her mental vision. But her brain was still quick with the power of the dream, and it rose easily to the sudden need. “It’s like this, d’ye see,” she announced firmly. “Simon knows nowt about it yet. I didn’t mean telling him till we’d gitten back.”
Eliza had followed the explanation with lowering brows, but now she burst into one of her great laughs.
“Losh, Sarah, woman! but I’d have a better tale than that! What, you’d never ha’ let him give in his notice, and you wi’ your tongue in your cheek all the time! … When did you get yon precious letter o’ yours?” she enquired swiftly, switching on to another track.
“Just last minute this morning as we was starting off.” Sarah was thoroughly launched now on her wild career. Each detail as she required it rose triumphantly to her lips. “Simon was back in t’stable wi’ t’horse when postman come, so I put it away in my pocket and settled to say nowt. I thought it was likely axing for money or summat like that, and Simon had more than enough to bother him as it was. I got May Fleming to read it for me at doctor’s,” she finished simply, with a supreme touch. “I’m terble bad wi’ my eyes, Eliza, if you’ll trouble to think on.”
Once again Eliza was forced to belief against her will, and then once again she leaped at the only discrepancy in the tale.
“You could ha’ tellt Simon easy enough on the road out!” she threw at her in a swift taunt. “There’s time for a deal o’ telling at your rate o’ speed!”
But now, to her vexed surprise, it was Sarah who laughed, and with a society smoothness that would have been hard to beat. It was in matters like
