Rudyard Kipling: Actions and Reactions

But young Iggulden was in charge now, and under his guidance, Buller and Roberts, the great horses, moved mountains.

“You lif’ her like that, an’ you tip her like that,” he explained to the gang. “My uncle he was roadmaster in Connecticut.”

“Are they roads yonder?” said Skim, sitting under the laurels.

“No better than accommodation roads. Dirt, they call ‘em. They’d suit you, Skim.”

“Why?” said the incautious Skim.

“Cause you’d take no hurt when you fall out of your cart drunk on a Saturday,” was the answer.

“I didn’t last time neither,” Skim roared.

After the loud laugh, old Whybarne of Gale Anstey piped feebly, “Well, dirt or no dirt, there’s no denyin’ Chapin knows a good job when he sees it. ‘E don’t build one day and dee-stroy the next, like that nigger Sangres.”

“SHE’s the one that knows her own mind,” said Pinky, brother to Skim Winsh, and a Napoleon among carters who had helped to bring the grand piano across the fields in the autumn rains.

“She had ought to,” said Iggulden. “Whoa, Buller! She’s a Lashmar. They never was double-thinking.”

“Oh, you found that? Has the answer come from your uncle?” said Skim, doubtful whether so remote a land as America had posts.

The others looked at him scornfully. Skim was always a day behind the fair. Iggulden rested from his labours. “She’s a Lashmar right enough. I started up to write to my uncle – at once – the month after she said her folks came from Veering Holler.”

“Where there ain’t any roads?” Skim interrupted, but none laughed.

“My uncle he married an American woman for his second, and she took it up like a like the coroner. She’s a Lashmar out of the old Lashmar place, ‘fore they sold to Conants. She ain’t no Toot Hill Lashmar, nor any o’ the Crayford lot. Her folk come out of the ground here, neither chalk nor forest, but wildishers. They sailed over to America – I’ve got it all writ down by my uncle’s woman – in eighteen hundred an’ nothing. My uncle says they’re all slow begetters like.”

“Would they be gentry yonder now?” Skim asked.

“Nah – there’s no gentry in America, no matter how long you’re there. It’s against their law. There’s only rich and poor allowed. They’ve been lawyers and such like over yonder for a hundred years but she’s a Lashmar for all that.”

“Lord! What’s a hundred years?” said Whybarne, who had seen seventy-eight of them.

“An’ they write too, from yonder – my uncle’s woman writes – that you can still tell ‘em by headmark. Their hair’s foxy-red still – an’ they throw out when they walk. He’s in-toed-treads like a gipsy; but you watch, an’ you’ll see ‘er throw, out – like a colt.”

“Your trace wants taking up.” Pinky’s large ears had caught the sound of voices, and as the two broke through the laurels the men were hard at work, their eyes on Sophie’s feet.

She had been less fortunate in her inquiries than Iggulden, for her Aunt Sydney of Meriden (a badged and certificated Daughter of the Revolution to boot) answered her inquiries with a two-paged discourse on patriotism, the leaflets of a Village Improvement Society, of which she was president, and a demand for an overdue subscription to a Factory Girls’ Reading Circle. Sophie burned it all in the Orpheus and Eurydice grate, and kept her own counsel.

“What I want to know,” said George, when Spring was coming, and the gardens needed thought, “is who will ever pay me for my labour? I’ve put in at least half a million dollars’ worth already.”

“Sure you’re not taking too much out of yourself?” his wife asked.

“Oh, no; I haven’t been conscious of myself all winter.” He looked at his brown English gaiters and smiled. “It’s all behind me now. I believe I could sit down and think of all that – those months before we sailed.”

“Don’t – ah, don’t!” she cried.

“But I must go back one day. You don’t want to keep me out of business always – or do you?” He ended with a nervous laugh.

Sophie sighed as she drew her own ground-ash (of old Iggulden’s cutting) from the hall rack.

“Aren’t you overdoing it too? You look a little tired,” he said.

“You make me tired. I’m going to Rocketts to see Mrs. Cloke about Mary.” (This was the sister of the telegraphist, promoted to be sewing-maid at Pardons.) “Coming?”

“I’m due at Burnt House to see about the new well. By the way, there’s a sore throat at Gale Anstey – ”

“That’s my province. Don’t interfere. The Whybarne children always have sore throats. They do it for jujubes.”

“Keep away from Gale Anstey till I make sure, honey. Cloke ought to have told me.”

“These people don’t tell. Haven’t you learnt that yet? But I’ll obey, me lord. See you later!”

She set off afoot, for within the three main roads that bounded the blunt triangle of the estate (even by night one could scarcely hear the carts on them), wheels were not used except for farm work. The footpaths served all other purposes. And though at first they had planned improvements, they had soon fallen in with the customs of their hidden kingdom, and moved about the soft-footed ways by woodland, hedgerow, and shaw as freely as the rabbits. Indeed, for the most part Sophie walked bareheaded beneath her helmet of chestnut hair; but she had been plagued of late by vague toothaches, which she explained to Mrs. Cloke, who asked some questions. How it came about Sophie never knew, but after a while behold Mrs. Cloke’s arm was about her waist, and her head was on that deep bosom behind the shut kitchen door.

“My dear! My dear!” the elder woman almost sobbed. “An’ d’you mean to tell me you never suspicioned? Why – why – where was you ever taught anything at all? Of course it is. It’s what we’ve been only waitin’ for, all of us. Time and again I’ve said to Lady – ” she checked herself. “An’ now we shall be as we should be.”

“But – but – but – ” Sophie whimpered.

“An’ to see you buildin’ your nest so busy – pianos and books – an’ never thinkin’ of a nursery!”

“No more I did.” Sophie sat bolt upright, and began to laugh.

“Time enough yet.” The fingers tapped thoughtfully on the broad knee. “But – they must be strange-minded folk over yonder with you! Have you thought to send for your mother? She dead? My dear, my dear! Never mind! She’ll be happy where she knows. ‘Tis God’s work. An’ we was only waitin’ for it, for you’ve never failed in your duty yet. It ain’t your way. What did you say about my Mary’s doings?” Mrs. Cloke’s face hardened as she pressed her chin on Sophie’s forehead. “If any of your girls thinks to be’ave arbitrary now, I’ll – But they won’t, my dear. I’ll see they do their duty too. Be sure you’ll ‘ave no trouble.”

When Sophie walked back across the fields heaven and earth changed about her as on the day of old Iggulden’s death. For an instant she thought of the wide turn of the staircase, and the new ivory-white paint that no coffin corner could scar, but presently, the shadow passed in a pure wonder and bewilderment that made her reel. She leaned against one of their new gates and looked over their lands for some other stay.

“Well,” she said resignedly, half aloud, “we must try to make him feel that he isn’t a third in our party,” and turned the corner that looked over Friars Pardon, giddy, sick, and faint.

Of a sudden the house they had bought for a whim stood up as she had never seen it before, low-fronted, broad-winged, ample, prepared by course of generations for all such things. As it had steadied her when it lay desolate, so now that it had meaning from their few months of life within, it soothed and promised good. She went alone and quickly into the hall, and kissed either door-post, whispering: “Be good to me. You know! You’ve never failed in your duty yet.”