“I’ll ask Mr. Thornthet, then!” she cried sharply, beginning to move away. “Happen he’ll see to it for me instead of you. Happen he’ll see the offer’s kindly meant, and not let pride and suchlike stand between!”
But Sarah, too, cried out before she had gone a yard, her voice harsh with wrath and a sort of fear.
“You leave Simon be,” she cried fiercely—“let him be! I’ve had enough o’ your worry, without plaguin’ him an’ all. You get back to your dad, and don’t come interfering again. You came between me and my lad, but you shan’t meddle wi’ my man! You mean well enough, I don’t doubt, but you’re nobbut a meddler, all the same. It never does to go shoving kindnesses at folk who keep on saying nay. If you force ’em, you do ’em more harm than good in the long run, by a deal. D’you think I want Geordie coming back in rags, as like a tramp on t’roads as a couple o’ peas? D’you think I want a drunken do-nowt loafing about t’spot—a thief, maybe, or happen summat worse? What sort o’ food and drink would yon be to Blindbeck, d’you think? Eliza’s gitten enough on her tongue, without the likes o’ that! Nay, the lad as went was a limb, but he was bonny and smart, and Eliza’ll always think of him like yon. She’ll always think in her heart as he was the better o’ Jim, for all she talks so loud. But if he come back to shame us, it’d rob me even o’ that. I couldn’t abide it!” she finished vehemently. “It’d be worse than death. I’d rather the sea took him afore ever he reached home!”
She stopped with an indrawn breath, and the door, creaking abruptly, showed that her weight was heavy on the latch. May stood still in the yard, as still as the shadow that had once again turned to ancient stone. The silence that had fallen between them seemed to push her away, to drive them so far apart that never again would they be able to speak. At last, in that terrible outpouring, May had discovered the real barrier to her desire. There were pride and generosity in the way, but there was also something which she could not fight. The monstrous, lifelong obsession of Eliza had slopped even the natural road to a mother’s heart.
Fear came over her, a more terrible fear than had taken her on the sands. In the quiet spot that should have been homely because of the moving light and the dumb beasts, she had a hint of something not quite sane. Things that had no place in the life of the soil seemed suddenly to have forced a passage in. She peered into the darkness of Sarah’s mind, as her bodily eyes sought for her hidden face.
She was startled into action again by the old dog’s nose thrust kindly into her hand. He had listened to the urgent voices with constantly pricked ears, knowing by instinct that somebody suffered and was afraid. Now he came to May, begging her to take charge of her soul, lest he, too, whose only trust was in Man, should suffer fear. She laid her hand for a moment on the warmth of his head, dropping her gaze to meet his upturned eyes. Instantly, however, as if he had brought her a further message, she looked towards the bay, and saw the lamp in her father’s window spring to life.
She was loth to go with this wreck of things at her feet, but in her destitution of heart she was afraid to stay. Armed with the promise, she would have cared nothing for dark or tide, but with this weight at her heart it seemed as if it would take her all the night to cross the sand. She tried to believe that she would return to wrestle with Sarah in the day, but she knew well enough that she would never return. Eliza, and all that Eliza had meant in their spoiled lives, lay like a poisonous snake across her path.
She wondered drearily what had become of the passionate certainty with which she had set out. The sea still sundered her lover and herself, the bar of the sea so much greater than any possible stretch of land. There were people to whom the sea was a sort of curse, and perhaps, without knowing it, she was one of those. She loved it, indeed, but she never forgot that it had taken her first hope. Perhaps it mocked at her love as Sarah had mocked her love. Perhaps it was only waiting out in the dark to do her harm. …
She made one last entreating movement towards the shadow that was stone, but nobody moved in the darkness and nobody spoke. She could not be sure at that moment whether Sarah was there, or whether all that she begged of was merely blackened space. Then she began by degrees to move away, wrenching her feet, as it were, from the ground of the yard. Sadly, without looking back, she mounted the seawall, bowed by her burden of failure and sorrow and self-contempt. But the fear took her again as soon as she faced the sands, and she hurried down the further side.
