Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (549 page)

In due time George and Sophie asked each other that question, and put it aside. They argued that the climate — a pearly blend, unlike the hot and cold ferocities of their native land — suited them, as the thick stillness of the nights certainly suited George. He was saved even the sight of a metalled road, which, as presumably leading to business, wakes desire in a man; and the telegraph office at the village of Friars Pardon, where they sold picture post-cards and pegtops, was two walking miles across the fields and woods.

For all that touched his past among his fellows, or their remembrance of him, he might have been in another planet; and Sophie, whose life had been very largely spent among husbandless wives of lofty ideals, had no wish to leave this present of God. The unhurried meals, the foreknowledge of deliciously empty hours to follow, the breadths of soft sky under which they walked together and reckoned time only by their hunger or thirst; the good grass beneath their feet that cheated the miles; their discoveries, always together, amid the farms — Griffons, Rocketts, Burnt House, Gale Anstey, and the Home Farm, where Iggulden of the blue smock-frock would waylay them, and they would ransack the old house once more; the long wet afternoons when, they tucked up their feet on the bedroom’s deep window-sill over against the apple-trees, and talked together as never till then had they found time to talk — these things contented her soul, and her body throve.

“Have you realized,” she asked one morning, “that we’ve been here absolutely alone for the last thirty-four days?”

“Have you counted them?” he asked.

“Did you like them?” she replied.

“I must have. I didn’t think about them. Yes, I have. Six months ago I should have fretted myself sick. Remember at Cairo? I’ve only had two or three bad times. Am I getting better, or is it senile decay?”

“Climate, all climate.” Sophie swung her new-bought English boots, as she sat on the stile overlooking Friars Pardon, behind the Clokes’s barn.

“One must take hold of things though,” he said, “if it’s only to keep one’s hand in.” His eyes did not flicker now as they swept the empty fields. “Mustn’t one?”

“Lay out a Morristown links over Gale Anstey. I dare say you could hire it.”

“No, I’m not as English as that — nor as Morristown. Cloke says all the farms here could be made to pay.”

“Well, I’m Anastasia in the ‘Treasure of Franchard.’ I’m content to be alive and purr. There’s no hurry.”

“No.” He smiled. “All the same, I’m going to see after my mail.”

“You promised you wouldn’t have any.”

“There’s some business coming through that’s amusing me. Honest. It doesn’t get on my nerves at all.”

“Want a secretary?”

“No, thanks, old thing! Isn’t that quite English?”

“Too English! Go away.” But none the less in broad daylight she returned the kiss. “I’m off to Pardons. I haven’t been to the house for nearly a week.”

“How’ve you decided to furnish Jane Elphick’s bedroom?” he laughed, for it had come to be a permanent Castle in Spain between them.

“Black Chinese furniture and yellow silk brocade,” she answered, and ran downhill. She scattered a few cows at a gap with a flourish of a ground-ash that Iggulden had cut for her a week ago, and singing as she passed under the holmoaks, sought the farm-house at the back of Friars Pardon. The old man was not to be found, and she knocked at his half-opened door, for she needed him to fill her idle forenoon. A blue-eyed sheep-dog, a new friend, and Rambler’s old enemy, crawled out and besought her to enter.

Iggulden sat in his chair by the fire, a thistle-spud between his knees, his head drooped. Though she had never seen death before, her heart, that missed a beat, told her that he was dead. She did not speak or cry, but stood outside the door, and the dog licked her hand. When he threw up his nose, she heard herself saying: “Don’t howl! Please don’t begin to howl, Scottie, or I shall run away!”

She held her ground while the shadows in the rickyard moved toward noon; sat after a while on the steps by the door, her arms round the dog’s neck, waiting till some one should come. She watched the smokeless chimneys of Friars Pardon slash its roofs with shadow, and the smoke of Iggulden’s last lighted fire gradually thin and cease. Against her will she fell to wondering how many Moones, Elphicks, and Torrells had been swung round the turn of the broad Mall stairs. Then she remembered the old man’s talk of being “up-ended like a milk-can,” and buried her face on Scottie’s neck. At last a horse’s feet clinked upon flags, rustled in the old grey straw of the rickyard, and she found herself facing the vicar — a figure she had seen at church declaiming impossibilities (Sophie was a Unitarian) in an unnatural voice.

“He’s dead,” she said, without preface.

“Old Iggulden? I was coming for a talk with him.” The vicar passed in uncovered. “Ah!” she heard him say. “Heart-failure! How long have you been here?”

“Since a quarter to eleven.” She looked at her watch earnestly and saw that her hand did not shake.

“I’ll sit with him now till the doctor comes. D’you think you could tell him, and — yes, Mrs. Betts in the cottage with the wistaria next the blacksmith’s? I’m afraid this has been rather a shock to you.”

Sophie nodded, and fled toward the village. Her body failed her for a moment; she dropped beneath a hedge, and looked back at the great house. In some fashion its silence and stolidity steadied her for her errand.

Mrs. Betts, small, black-eyed, and dark, was almost as unconcerned as Friars Pardon.

“Yiss, yiss, of course. Dear me! Well, Iggulden he had had his day in my father’s time. Muriel, get me my little blue bag, please. Yiss, ma’am. They come down like ellum-branches in still weather. No warnin’ at all. Muriel, my bicycle’s be’ind the fowlhouse. I’ll tell Dr. Dallas, ma’am.”

She trundled off on her wheel like a brown bee, while Sophie — heaven above and earth beneath changed — walked stiffly home, to fall over George at his letters, in a muddle of laughter and tears.

“It’s all quite natural for them,” she gasped. “They come down like ellum-branches in still weather. Yiss, ma’am.’ No, there wasn’t anything in the least horrible, only — only — Oh, George, that poor shiny stick of his between his poor, thin knees! I couldn’t have borne it if Scottie had howled. I didn’t know the vicar was so — so sensitive. He said he was afraid it was ra — rather a shock. Mrs. Betts told me to go home, and I wanted to collapse on her floor. But I didn’t disgrace myself. I — I couldn’t have left him — could I?”

“You’re sure you’ve took no ‘arm?” cried Mrs. Cloke, who had heard the news by farm-telegraphy, which is older but swifter than Marconi’s.

“No. I’m perfectly well,” Sophie protested.

“You lay down till tea-time.” Mrs. Cloke patted her shoulder. “THEY’ll be very pleased, though she ‘as ‘ad no proper understandin’ for twenty years.”

“They” came before twilight — a black-bearded man in moleskins, and a little palsied old woman, who chirruped like a wren.

“I’m his son,” said the man to Sophie, among the lavender bushes. “We ‘ad a difference — twenty year back, and didn’t speak since. But I’m his son all the ‘same, and we thank you for the watching.”

“I’m only glad I happened to be there,” she answered, and from the bottom of her heart she meant it.

“We heard he spoke a lot o’ you — one time an’ another since you came. We thank you kindly,” the man added.

“Are you the son that was in America?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am. On my uncle’s farm, in Connecticut. He was what they call rood-master there.”

“Whereabouts in Connecticut?” asked George over her shoulder.

“Veering Holler was the name. I was there six year with my uncle.”

“How small the world is!” Sophie cried. “Why, all my mother’s people come from Veering Hollow. There must be some there still — the Lashmars. Did you ever hear of them?”

“I remember hearing that name, seems to me,” he answered, but his face was blank as the back of a spade.

A little before dusk a woman in grey, striding like a foot-soldier, and bearing on her arm a long pole, crashed through the orchard calling for food. George, upon whom the unannounced English worked mysteriously, fled to the parlour; but Mrs. Cloke came forward beaming. Sophie could not escape.

“We’ve only just heard of it;” said the stranger, turning on her. “I’ve been out with the otter-hounds all day. It was a splendidly sportin’ thing — ”

“Did you — er — kill?” said Sophie. She knew from books she could not go far wrong here.

“Yes, a dry bitch — seventeen pounds,” was the answer. “A splendidly sportin’ thing of you to do. Poor old Iggulden — ”

“Oh — that!” said Sophie, enlightened.

“If there had been any people at Pardons it would never have happened. He’d have been looked after. But what can you expect from a parcel of London solicitors?”

Mrs. Cloke murmured something.

“No. I’m soaked from the knees down. If I hang about I shall get chilled. A cup of tea, Mrs. Cloke, and I can eat one of your sandwiches as I go.” She wiped her weather-worn face with a green and yellow silk handkerchief.

“Yes, my lady!” Mrs. Cloke ran and returned swiftly.

“Our land marches with Pardons for a mile on the south,” she explained, waving the full cup, “but one has quite enough to do with one’s own people without poachin’. Still, if I’d known, I’d have sent Dora, of course. Have you seen her this afternoon, Mrs. Cloke? No? I wonder whether that girl did sprain her ankle. Thank you.” It was a formidable hunk of bread and bacon that Mrs. Cloke presented. “As I was sayin’, Pardons is a scandal! Lettin’ people die like dogs. There ought to be people there who do their duty. You’ve done yours, though there wasn’t the faintest call upon you. Good night. Tell Dora, if she comes, I’ve gone on.”

She strode away, munching her crust, and Sophie reeled breathless into the parlour, to shake the shaking George.

“Why did you keep catching my eye behind the blind? Why didn’t you come out and do your duty?”

“Because I should have burst. Did you see the mud on its cheek?” he said.

“Once. I daren’t look again. Who is she?”

“God — a local deity then. Anyway, she’s another of the things you’re expected to know by instinct.”

Mrs. Cloke, shocked at their levity, told them that it was Lady Conant, wife of Sir Walter Conant, Baronet, a large landholder in the neighbourhood; and if not God; at least His visible Providence. George made her talk of that family for an hour.

“Laughter,” said Sophie afterward in their own room, “is the mark of the savage. Why couldn’t you control your emotions? It’s all real to her.”

“It’s all real to me. That’s my trouble,” he answered in an altered tone. “Anyway, it’s real enough to mark time with. Don’t you think so?”

“What d’you mean?” she asked quickly, though she knew his voice.

“That I’m better. I’m well enough to kick.”

“What at?”

“This!” He waved his hand round the one room. “I must have something to play with till I’m fit for work again.”

“Ah!” She sat on the bed and leaned forward, her hands clasped. “I wonder if it’s good for you.”

“We’ve been better here than anywhere,” he went on slowly. “One could always sell it again.”

She nodded gravely, but her eyes sparkled.

“The only thing that worries me is what happened this morning. I want to know how you feel about it. If it’s on your nerves in the least we can have the old farm at the back of the house pulled down, or perhaps it has spoiled the notion for you?”

“Pull it down?” she cried. “You’ve no business faculty. Why, that’s where we could live while we’re putting the big house in order. It’s almost under the same roof. No! What happened this morning seemed to be more of a — of a leading than anything else. There ought to be people at Pardons. Lady Conant’s quite right.”

“I was thinking more of the woods and the roads. I could double the value of the place in six months.”

“What do they want for it?” She shook her head, and her loosened hair fell glowingly about her cheeks.

“Seventy-five thousand dollars. They’ll take sixty-eight.”

“Less than half what we paid for our old yacht when we married. And we didn’t have a good time in her. You were — ”

“Well, I discovered I was too much of an American to be content to be a rich man’s son. You aren’t blaming me for that?”

“Oh, no. Only it was a very businesslike honeymoon. How far are you along with the deal, George?”

“I can mail the deposit on the purchase money to-morrow morning, and we can have the thing completed in a fortnight or three weeks — if you say so.”

“Friars Pardon — Friars Pardon!” Sophie chanted rapturously, her dark gray eyes big with delight. “All the farms? Gale Anstey, Burnt House, Rocketts, the Home Farm, and Griffons? Sure you’ve got ‘em all?”

“Sure.” He smiled.