The Stepson

by Martin Armstrong

  As they drove home together, Kate and Ben chatted amicably, and from time to time the old man stole a wondering glance at her face, for it seemed to him that she had recovered all her old friendliness towards him. And yet Kate’s prayer in the Abbey had not been that she might be freed from her love for David, but that God, Who can bring all things to pass, would in His own way and His own good time grant her all her desire.

  XIX

  In the following month the year changed imperceptibly from summer to autumn. Little by little the heavy summer green of trees and hedgerows began to smoulder, their dark uniformity of tone was pied and streaked with yellows and browns. Here and there a bush in the thickets bleached to the palest yellow, another warmed to russet brown; a whole tree grew copperous or kindled to a rust-red; a single bough in a tree burst into flame; then another and another; cherries and thorns smoked and flared with purple, scarlet and yellow. Soon all vegetation had awoken to a brief, ardent life, more wonderful and more intense than the spring’s bright uprush or the calm beauty of summer. In the orchard the pears had already been gathered, but the apples still hung on the trees so thick that each loaded bough, bright with its coloured leaves, looked as if it were decorated with little variegated globes of green, yellow and red. Sometimes Kate went with a basket to gather the windfalls, taking up each apple carefully for fear it should prove to be a hollowed husk infested by wasps.

  For the last month the reaper had been busy in the fields of wheat and oats, making the mornings and afternoons seem more hot by its dry, continuous rattling. Then the shorn fields had stood thick with pointed stooks and as afternoon ripened to evening every stook stood above a great oblique shadow which, at sunset time, grew to twice the length of the stook’s height, so that every crowded acre of stooks and shadows and bristling stubble, a wallow of tawny yellow and purple, had the look of a windy sea.

  Then had followed the days when Kate had met wagons loaded with sheaves coming into the farm. They were piled so high that they looked like moving barns. Two broad-chested cart-horses, one behind the other, strained at the traces, and old George or Peter the boy, or one of the other farm-hands, strode beside the leading horse and shouted strange orders at the turning into the rickyard. Soon the last sheaves had been carted and it seemed as if the whole countryside had been left to itself, shorn and emptied. The farm was narrowing its borders, drawing inwards on itself, huddling its richness together under cover against the coming of winter. Soon a traction-engine hauling a great threshing-machine came puffing and clanking down the cart-track to the farm and for several days, while they threshed out a few of the stacks, a plume of smoke had been seen rising from the rickyard and the air had hummed with the comfortable drone of the thresher. Harvest-thanksgiving was already past. Kate had gone to the service at Appleton church and joined in the harvest hymns.

  ‘All is safely gathered in

  Ere the winter storms begin,’

  they had sung, and the words had seemed very real to Kate now that she lived and worked at the farm. Despite the warmth of those autumn days the sense of winter was already in the air. There was a frosty sting in the evenings and the early mornings, and the nights were cold. Day by day the sun took longer to break through the sharp morning mists, and day by day the spiders’ webs that covered grass and plants and shrubs with great glistening star-traceries and delicately woven hammocks took longer to dry and recede into invisibility. The robins were growing tamer. From walls and branches they challenged each other with little aggressive flourishes of song, and on the wet grass the wagtails ran and paused and ran in sudden quick sallies after invisible flies, standing sharp-eyed during their brief pauses with their long tails pulsing up and down like quaint little clockwork machines. The days drew in. The evenings were lit with flaming sunsets, burning in fiery blots and bars across the darkness of the elm-trees. There was something wild and tragic in the sight of those fires and darknesses which drove a small sting of fear into Kate’s heart. But the feeling was brief, for in her heart was a feeling of assurance and tranquillity. A steady fervour possessed her throughout all her hours of work and leisure. It seemed to her in those days that she had found something very near to perfect happiness, and this happiness remained with her till they were within a day or two of David’s return.

  But at the thought that within a few hours she would be face to face with him again, her happiness gave way to something more tremulous. Her whole being thrilled with a profound agitation at the prospect of this strange new meeting. For since last they had met she herself had become different: her new feelings towards him had changed her utterly, and David too had changed for her. He had become infinitely more capable of influencing her than when he was last at The Grange; and Kate, reflecting that, unknown to him, she had given into his hands a complete power over her happiness and misery, felt afraid. She imagined their meeting to herself, trying to plan a method of behaviour which would hide her tempestuous feelings. Would they meet alone or in company? It would be easier, perhaps, if it was in company. But what if they were alone? She would not dare to kiss him again as she had done when they had said good-bye. However, she wondered now, had she dared to do such a thing? But perhaps he would kiss her: they had kissed once, and so it might seem natural to him to do so again. What unspeakable bliss it would be to resign herself, even for a moment, to his embrace.

  Kate and Mrs. Jobson had spoken no more of David and the only reference to their previous talk had been made by Mrs. Jobson on that same day when Kate had returned from Elchester. ‘You won’t stop trusting me, will you, my dear,’ she had said to Kate, ‘even if you don’t hold with what I said? Promise me you’ll always come to me if anything’s the matter.’ And Kate had eagerly assured her that she would, for her short resentment against the old woman had vanished almost as soon as it had arisen. Their mutual affection was completely restored.

  But, all the same, Mrs. Jobson felt anxious at heart as the day of David’s return approached, and her pleasure at the thought of having him back at The Grange was dimmed by vague forebodings of the future; for she had no idea whether Kate had, in the end, determined to follow her advice or to persist in her mad infatuation. Outward appearances told her nothing, for, as she knew well enough, that outward calm might be, in one so secretive, no more than the mask of an inner tumult.

  Kate appeared, in fact, as the day approached, very cool and calm. When the time came to prepare David’s room, Mrs. Jobson, remembering that last time Kate had insisted on doing it herself, asked her if she wished to do so again.

  Kate flushed slightly and cast down her eyes. ‘Annie might as well do it,’ she said, and Mrs. Jobson had given instructions to the new girl.

  What was the meaning of it? the old woman asked herself; but, like the rest of Kate’s behaviour, it might, she knew, mean anything. Mysterious, silent young creature! Her face was paler than it had been lately and she seldom smiled, but went about her work in the absorbed, business-like way of a woman completely self-possessed. But inwardly her whole being was shaken by a cold agitation. It seemed that as the time of meeting drew near all the tenderness and humanity had faded out of her love. All she felt now was a cold, hard craving, a sort of stubbornness more like blind self-will than any love or emotion — a will which persistently and without reason had fixed itself on one exclusive object. When she tried now to picture David to herself, her memory refused to obey her desire. It was as if her mind’s eye were blinded, as if it had forgotten what David looked like. Except for that cold, stubborn fixation of her desires upon him, it seemed as if, now that she was on the point of getting him back, he had been suddenly carried worlds away from her. Her mind was plunged in a sea of darkness and she clung desperately and stubbornly to the one rope by which she still held him.

  When at last the day itself had come and Kate had awoken and dressed herself and gone downstairs, it seemed to her that even her agitation had left her. She was cold, hard, and quiet now; empty, it seemed, of all feeling. She had
dressed and done her hair listlessly and with less than her usual care, putting on her oldest workaday dress; and pale, vigorous, and precise she went about her work, so that Mrs. Jobson, noticing all these things, was almost persuaded that Kate was resolved on renunciation.

  It was market-day and it had been arranged that Ben should go to Elchester alone, so that there should be room in the gig for David’s luggage and perhaps for David himself. But it was uncertain whether David himself would come in the gig. When writing to Ben about his return, he had mentioned a horse which he had tried, belonging to a neighbouring farmer. ‘A beauty, a chestnut, nearly sixteen hands and suits me to a T. Bell will let me have him for fifty guineas and it’s dirt cheap. Do you think you could run to that much?’ David wrote. ‘I’d give anything to have him.’ And Ben, in his easy, liberal way, had replied: ‘Yes, buy your horse; and you’d better bring him with you if there’s time to arrange for a horse-box on the train.’

  ‘He’ll want a horse,’ Ben had remarked to Kate. ‘It’ll be useful for him to get about on. Besides, he’ll be doing a little hunting, no doubt.’

  Perhaps, then, David would be riding the new horse from the station. There was no saying when he would arrive. He might arrive for dinner or he might come later; not long before Ben and the gig, perhaps.

  The morning was dull and overcast, but towards midday the sun came out, lighting up the great elm-trees that overshadowed the farm with towering canopies of autumnal yellow. If David arrived in time for dinner, Kate and he would have it alone together, and in the face of that possibility Kate felt afraid. She was almost relieved when he did not come and she had her dinner in the parlour alone. She had thought so much about this meeting, lived it over so often, spent so much emotion on it, that she felt little more than a kind of weariness at the prospect of its actual realization.

  With afternoon, an uncontrollable restlessness took hold of her. She could neither work nor sit still. A feeling of constraint kept her out of Mrs. Jobson’s way, and finally she went out and wandered listlessly down the lane towards the orchard and remained for some time leaning over the gate. Her eyes gazed into the orchard but her attention was elsewhere and she saw nothing, and soon her restlessness drove her back and she turned into the old barn and sat down on a great heap of straw. Half-consciously her hands chose out three long stalks of straw and began to plait them together. How silent the place was. It was as if she were seated on a desert island surrounded by the silence of the sea. From far away, as if from some far mainland, came the mooing of a cow. Then all was silent again: she could hear the crisp breaking of the straw as her fingers wove the plait. Through the open doors of the barn the sun spread a long yellow carpet on the earthen floor which stretched almost to her feet. She raised her eyes from her plaiting and next minute her hands had dropped the straw-stalks and she was staring out through the open doors with her heart fluttering wildly. She had heard no warning sound, and yet, at the moment she raised her eyes, not twenty yards away and framed in by the great doorway, she saw David on a chestnut horse stop outside a shed which was used sometimes as a stable when an extra horse came to the farm. Next moment he had dismounted and stood patting the horse’s neck. He was bareheaded: his cap, she saw, was thrust into one of his coat pockets and as he stooped and ran his hand slowly down one of the beast’s forelegs, she saw that his head was the same bright colour as the horse. How marvellously bright and real he seemed to her, moving there in the sunlight as she sat feasting her eyes on him, assuaging her blinded mind with the shapes and colours of his actual presence. She sat there immovable in the shadow, and as her eyes devoured him whom others would have thought no more than a pleasant-faced, ginger-haired young farmer, it seemed to her that he was the most beautiful creature that she had ever seen or imagined. He opened the door of the shed and led the horse in, and soon he came out again carrying the saddle and bridle and went off towards the house.

  Kate’s heart was so full that she was unconscious of all but her inner self. All her coldness and emotional exhaustion were gone: it was as if she had been dead and life had suddenly rushed back into her. Only her fear remained. She was afraid of meeting him, afraid of the stress and strain of the first few hours in his presence. To-morrow, or, if not tomorrow, in a day or two, her feelings would have settled down and she would have regained that serene happiness which she had enjoyed when David had stayed with them in the spring.

  She stood up, looked about her like someone newly arrived, and went out of the barn and towards the house.

  As she entered by the yard door she heard his voice in the kitchen and next moment he came out and found her in the passage.

  ‘Hello, Kate,’ he said, jovial and smiling. ‘I was wondering where you were.’ He heldout his hand to her. ‘How are you?’ he said.

  Kate stood before him meek and timid as a girl. Her eyes had fallen before his straight glance. A sudden desolating sense of disappointment invaded her: she felt that she was sinking, sinking, through depths of lonely space. Then, like a drowning creature, she held out her hand and felt his, large and warm, close over it, and with a great effort she raised her eyes to his.

  His smile had shrunk back a little, chilled by her apparent coldness. ‘Im just going to get some straw for the new horse,’ he said, dropping her hand. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  He tramped down the passage and was gone, and Kate felt as if all the strength had suddenly been drained from her body. Her one impulse was to be alone, and hurrying up the passage to the staircase she ran upstairs to her room, shut the door, and sat down in a chair. She was trembling violently. What a fool she had been! She hadn’t spoken a single word to him; not a word in reply to his greeting. Obviously he had thought that she wasn’t in the least glad to see him. And that was not her only distress. She too had been chilled by his greeting. Friendly though it was, it was no more than he would have given to Mrs. Jobson and his father. It was a niggardly response to the exorbitant cravings of her hungry heart. Yet what else had she expected? Nothing. Her rational self knew it well enough. But in these tempestuous weeks the voice of reason had held little place in her thoughts. She had lived among blissful impossibilities. Too often she had allowed herself to ignore the fact that, while her feelings for him had been surging up into this intensity, his for her must have remained at the calm level of common friendliness. She raised her hands to her face and burst into tears.

  It was a relief to weep and she did not attempt to check herself but wept on until her trouble had spent itself. Then, having bathed her eyes with cold water, she opened the door to go downstairs. She felt now that she had regained her self-control and that she was happier than she had been for many days. Her morbid oppression had broken down as oppressive weather is broken and cleared by a thunderstorm. As she went downstairs she heard the clink of cups and saucers in the parlour. Annie was laying the tea; and just after Kate herself entered the parlour David came down the passage. She turned and faced him as he entered the room.

  ‘Well, are you glad to be home again?’ she asked him.

  ‘You bet!’ said David.

  ‘And we’ll be glad to have you back again,’ she said.

  Yes, she was happy again: she had shaken herself free of the dark mood which had tormented her during those last few days.

  ‘And so you’ve brought the horse?’

  His eyes shone. ‘He’s a real beauty,’ he said. ‘You must come and have a look at him afterwards.’ Then he glanced at the clock. ‘Or why not now?’ he said. ‘There’s still five minutes before tea. Do come now, Kate.’

  They went out together. Kate followed him with a heart glowing with rapture and humble gratitude because he was so eager to show her the horse.

  XX

  Days passed, then a week; then weeks grew to a month. Winds and rains swept the country, combing the hedges and thickets and scattering leaves, green, yellow, scarlet, and brown, over the roads and fields. The boughs of the great elm-trees that sheltered The Grange str
eamed on the current of the breeze, shedding on every gust showers of yellow leaves which were whirled horizontally between earth and sky and then caught suddenly into an upward sweep of the strong air or driven downwards to drift into the wet undergrowth or gum themselves to wet walls and the mud of roadways and fields. It seemed as if the year was being whirled visibly away, swept on a tide of time which had suddenly grown swift and palpable. Rooks like great black leaves were swung and tossed in the whirlpool, drifting in long curves down the wind and then suddenly towering up against it. The farm roads grew soft and muddy; their ruts filled with water; and pools stood in every hollow of the rough ground about the farm buildings and sheds. But all at The Grange was serene. In the midst of the general impermanence of all about it, when everything was visibly dying and whirling away into extinction, life at The Grange was happy, warm and permanent, as though the old house and the barn and the whole orderly accumulation of bricks and mortar, stone and timber which formed the single unit of the farm were a great anchored ship grappled strongly, calmly, and securely to its ancient moorings in that strong and universal flux of time. The old life at the farm had absorbed the new life that had come to it, taken it into its ancient being, subdued it to that one purpose of its existence which throughout four centuries had never varied. Yet the new life had changed the old, warming and refreshing and brightening it with youth and vigour and love, for it was not to Kate alone that David’s return had brought increase of life, but to every one at the farm, as young wine added to the old refreshes and enriches it and prolongs its life.

  As the weather grew colder and the days closed in, the human life of the farm was less and less diffused about the open fields and more and more concentrated within the house. Fires crackled on the hearths, the lamps were lighted early, and windows shone warm with lamplight as though the new enrichment of life burned visibly and sensibly in the warmth and light.