More than twenty years, she reminded herself—and yet she still looked for the fairing that Geordie had brought her on Martinmas Day! There had scarcely been any special season—Christmas, Whitsun, Easter or Mid-Lent—but he had remembered to mark it by some frolicsome gift. He had always withheld it from her until the last, and then had stood by her laughing while she unwrapped some foolish monkey on dancing wires. All the time he was saying how splendid the fairing was going to be—“It’s gold, mother, real gold—as bright as the King’s crown!” And when she had opened it, she would pretend to be cast down, and then put it snugly away and say it was “real grand!”
Jim had had his fairings for her, too, but she was trying her very hardest not to remember those. Jim’s had been prettier and more thoughtful—often of real use, but she had long since forgotten what the things were like. A mug with her name on it, a handkerchief, a brooch—long ago broken or lost, or even given away. But every ridiculous object of Geordie’s was under lock and key, with even a bit of camphor to keep the monkey from the moth. …
She stood there smiling, softly folding her hands, as if she laid them lightly over some sudden gift. On either side of her was a laughing face, and even she found it hard to tell which was which. She was very still as she made that perfect transition into the past, and the only sound in her ears was through the lips that laughed. And then, into that full stillness, in which no step moved or voice called or bird flew, there came the cry of a heron outside the door.
III
It did not reach her at first. She heard it, indeed, coming back to the present with the sound, but that Was all. The thing behind it had to travel after her over twenty years. The cry of the heron was natural enough, with a famous heronry so near, and it was only because of the exceptional stillness of the night that it drew her attention now. Her mind went mechanically to the high wood behind the Hall, to the long-necked, slender-legged birds going home to the tall trees that on this unstirred evening would be stiff as a witch’s broom. She even had time to remember the old legend of their battle with the rooks, before the thing that had been running for twenty years entered her consciousness with a rush.
She stiffened then. From being softly still she became a rigid thing, stiller than sleep, stiller than death, because it was passionate willpower that held her still. It was already a moment or two since the sound had passed, but it still rang in the ear which had seemed to refuse to take it in. It had flashed through her brain like a bright sword flung in a high arc through a night without a star, but the truth that was behind it she held rigidly from her even as it tried to step within. She knew that it was too low for a bird’s call, too sharp and clear in that muffle of mist, but she shut the knowledge out. She would not let herself either breathe or think until she had heard the sound again.
The shock was as great the second time, but it had a different effect. She began to tremble from head to foot; even her lips parted and shook; her hands relaxed and began to pluck at her gown. Her breath came in quick gasps that were almost sobs as her eyes strained towards the darkness that held the door. Her brain kept telegraphing her body that it must be still, but it was too strong for it, and paid no heed. Her heart alone, beating in hard, ponderous strokes, seemed as if by itself it must shut out any further sound; and when the call came the third time, breaking the silence so that it could not close again, her own power of restraint went by the board as well. Her hands lifted themselves and gripped each other across her breast, and her voice, shaken and full of tears, forced itself into her throat. “Jim!” she heard herself saying, “Jim!”—with no knowledge that she had meant to speak, and in that one word admitted the final defeat of all her life.
Then the knocking began, the terrible brazen knocking which soulless iron makes on the unresponsive door of an empty house. It was as if whoever knocked frightened himself by the knocking, and tried to beat away his fear with still louder blows. But to the woman who tried to pretend that the house was really empty it was more terrible still. It seemed to take on the sound of a summons to the soul itself to issue forth. The noise of it flooded the place, echoed its way upstairs and into far rooms, so that strange voices answered it sharply from wood and stone. The heavy, storm-tried walls were suddenly no more than paper, so that the knocking became folly when a push would have forced them in. It seemed to Sarah that they must hear it from end to end of the marsh, across at the “Ship,” and out to the hidden edge of sea. She wondered why Simon did not come running, and the dog break into hoarse barks, for even in the far shippon they must surely hear. But there was only that great knocking in all the world, cheerful, impatient, or resigned by turn. It paused at moments, but only as the passing-bell pauses, Sarah thought, waiting to speak its single word afresh.
The noise had swept away in a moment both the false serenity of hate and the almost falser calm of that dwelling memory of love. From the respite, indeed, the live passion seemed to have sunk, as it were,
