Patricia Wentworth - The Watersplash

Susan laughed.

“A penny a day bought as much as a good many shillings do now. It paid the rent of a cottage and fed and clothed a family.”

“And a pity is isn’t like that now!” said Mrs. Alexander.

As Susan went back she wasn’t thinking about the deterioration in the value of money, or about Fullerby, or William Jackson, or even about poor Annie. She had two pictures in her mind, and do what she would, she couldn’t blot them out. In one of them she was standing in the dusty lane between Embank and Greenings with her suit-case at her feet and her hands stretched out to Edward Random. In the other Clarice Dean was doing practically the same thing in the middle of the village street. This picture was a great deal brighter and more distinct than the other. Clarice was a great deal brighter and prettier than the rather shadowy figure of Susan Wayne. She had a humiliated sense of having been outdone. Ridiculous, but there it was. She had felt warm and friendly towards Edward. She had showed it with nothing at all in her mind except that friendly warmth. And then Clarice had to do practically the same thing and do it a great deal better. There had been a sparkle-a glow of colour-

She came into the lodge, and found Emmeline in the back room lying flat on the floor trying to scoop the kitten out from under the tallboy with a dusting-brush, whilst Amina wailed from the kitchen. With every tiny claw the kitten clung to the carpet.

“Perhaps if we took the drawers out-”

“These old things are generally solid right through.” They took out the bottom drawer, which was immensely heavy because it was full of photograph albums. As Susan had feared, the bottom of the tallboy was solid oak, but right in the middle where the heaviest album had been the boards had parted and there was a definite crack. After about half an hour of the most exhausting and exhaustive pressing, poking, and levering with a chisel they had almost reached the point of deciding that there was nothing to be done that way, when the kitten, who had probably begun to feel hungry, came crawling out on its belly like a little black snake, fixed them with a reproachful stare, and yawned in Emmeline’s face.

It was not until the back room had resumed its usual littered appearance, most of the things which Emmeline had intended to throw away having been reprieved, that she said to Susan in quite her ordinary voice,

“ Arnold has been here this morning. He wants to turn me out. But I don’t think we will tell Edward just for the present. I am afraid it would worry him.”

Edward stayed late with Mr. Barr. It was just short of ten o’clock and black dark when he came down to the water-splash and got out a pocket torch to see him over the stepping-stones, though for the matter of that his feet would have found them easily enough with no more than memory to guide. There had been heavy rain in the night, and the stream was full. The stones were slippery and the big flat one half way across had a film of water over it. He took them with a run and a jump, and was aware of being relaxed, and freer than he had been during the five arid years which lay behind him. It was not raining now-it had not rained all day-but the air was damp, and soft, and very mild. “East, west, home’s best.” The words rang in his mind. There wasn’t any place like the one where the world had come alive to you, where you knew every stick and stone, every man, woman and child, where you could look around you and know that the men of your blood had had their part in the shaping of things for three hundred years.

He came up the slope from the splash and saw the church tower black against the sky. A faint glow showed the tracery in the window by the organ loft. The still air carried the sound of music.

Everything in Edward stiffened. After all, there was one familiar thing which had slipped from his mind. It was Friday, and on a Friday night from nine to ten Arnold would be in the church practising for Sunday. The Hall made its own electric light, and its supply extended to the church. The days when a village child panted over the bellows were gone. The organ was a fine one, and Arnold could take his fill of music. The village was proud of his playing. On a summer evening the musically inclined would stand and listen for ten minutes or so before going on their way with the remark that Mr. Arnold did play lovely.

Edward felt no urge to stand and listen. His softened mood was gone. He frowned in the dark, lengthened his stride, and nearly collided with someone making a wavering course from the village. He said sharply, “Hold up, man!” and lent a hand to the process. The fellow had been drinking. He swayed where he stood and said, “Beg pardon, sir.” Edward turned the torch on him. Reddish hair and a dead white face. If it hadn’t been for that unnatural pallor, he might not have known him, but wet or fine, boy or man, sun, wind or rain, William Jackson’s skin had never tanned. “Colour of cream cheese,” Edward could remember old Fullerby saying. “And no more the matter with him than with you nor with me, Mr. Edward.” It was William Jackson all right, and quite a bit the worse for wear. Edward spoke his name, and William straightened up.

“That’s right, Mr. Edward-going home-that’s me-just going home-”

“Well, you’d better be careful over the stones. They’re slippery.”

There was an unsteady laugh.

“I’m all right-couldn’t slip if I tried to. Nails in my boots, that’s what does it-and over those stones four times a day reg’lar. Got the old cottage at the turn, Annie and me have. That’s since your time. Matter of two years we been married- Annie Parker that used to work for Miss Lucy Wayne. Left her a nice little bit, Miss Lucy did, so we bought the cottage and I put up the banns.”

The drink was more in his legs than in his tongue, but he was in a mood to stand talking, and Edward was not. He said briskly,

“Well, you’d better be getting along-and mind your step.”

William Jackson swayed. He could stand all right if he wanted to-stand as steady as any of them. The trouble was, he didn’t know whether he wanted to be coming or going. There was Mr. Arnold up there in the church, and what did he have that last pint for if it wasn’t to get him so he could stand his ground and say the piece he planned to say? But there was Mr. Edward here-suppose he was to say his piece to Mr. Edward. There was the two of them in it-Mr. Arnold up at the church, and Mr. Edward here in the lane. He didn’t rightly know-he didn’t ought to have had that last pint- He said in a doubtful voice,

“Mr. Edward-”

But Edward had already passed him.

“Good-night, Willy,” he said, and was gone.

There was the sound of his footsteps getting less, very quick and firm, the same as he always walked from the time they were boys together. Perhaps he did ought to have talked to Mr. Edward-but it was the other one that had the cash. He shook his head, standing there all by himself in the damp lane. Then he turned and went up through the black yew tunnel to the church.

The sewing-party at the Vicarage was breaking up. It had been started rather humbly and tentatively by Mrs. Ball, who was interested in the Save the Children movement, but it had proved quite a success. Friday evening found most of the available women in the neighborhood plying a charitable needle in the Vicarage drawing-room. It was a magnificent opportunity for the exchange of news and views, and every woman nourished the hope that to her, and to her alone, there would some day be imparted the secret of the really delicious cake which always made its appearance at half past nine. The hope was a vain one. Unassuming and obliging as Mrs. Ball had proved herself, neither hints, compliments, nor the offer of a fair exchange had achieved anything but a smiling shake of the head and a perfectly amiable “Oh, I wish I could, but it is a family secret, and I had to promise not to tell before my Aunt Annabel would let me have it.” Mrs. Pomfret, whose husband farmed his own land to the east of Greenings, had offered the real eighteenth-century recipe for frumenty, Miss Sims had tried to drive a bargain against an infallible way of keeping potatoes new until Christmas time, Miss Blake had put forward her great-grandmother’s crême brulée , said to be superior to the famous Oxford variety, but without result. After each overture Mrs. Ball would at some time during the following evening heave a deep sigh and inform the Vicar that she really did feel terribly mean-“Only she did make me promise, John, and she said she would haunt me if I let it go out of the family.” At which Mr. Ball had the barbarity to laugh and say that from what he had heard about her aunt, he would prefer not to have her as a permanent guest.