South Riding

by Winifred Holtby

  “Oh, God!”

  Mrs. Beddows covered her face with her hands. After a moment she said:

  “Do you want to go on?”

  “Yes, please,” said Sarah. “He came, of course. In the circumstances, it was inevitable. But the dancing, the exertion, and then running up five flights of stairs to my room was too much for him. He had an attack immediately. He was very ill. I thought he was going to die. He had nitrate of amyl in his room. I got it for him. By morning he was better. He went down to his own room. I left the hotel and went home to my sister. I do not know what he did next day, but from that time he must have known that life might end at any moment.”

  “Oh,” Emma Beddows hardly breathed the word. “Oh, I see. I see.”

  She was looking straight before her and seeing, not Sarah, but Carne as he stood in her doorway, giving her the brooch which had been Muriel’s. Her hand went up to it. She fingered the stones, then suddenly withdrew it and cried, “He was your lover!”

  “No. No. He was not. He—he was ill too soon. I meant him to be.” Sarah stood up. “I tell you here and now that I would have given all I have for one night—one hour. Even knowing that I should be only a passing fancy. I should have gone away. I should have left Yorkshire. I should not have cared what happened to me afterwards. But he did not—he did not—you must believe that.”

  “Oh, I believe it.”

  Sarah came over to the alderman and stood looking down at her.

  “And believe this. It was all my doing. Never for a moment would he have dreamed of it. We had been together many times. He had had ample opportunity. Until that night I do not think it ever even entered his head that I was a woman. And even then—he never so much as kissed me.”

  Sarah went back to her window seat. She knelt, looking out to sea. The light was fading. Her little eastward room was almost dark. After a pause she continued.

  “So you see. You know everything now—what sort of person I am, and how unfit to keep school here. You are a governor and an alderman. You can deal as you think fit with the situation. But I will send in my resignation at once.”

  Then the strength went out of her, and she could speak no more. She leant back with her eyes closed against the deep embrasure. She wanted only to sit quite still and say nothing.

  Mrs. Beddows was quiet too until she asked, “Why did you tell me this?”

  “I believe you loved him. I have never been able to give him anything. I thought that you might at least know the truth about him. He was a sick man. He knew he must die. He tried to make preparations for that. He did not kill himself.”

  “And you think—I shall expect you to resign now?”

  “Of course. I am what is known as an immoral woman. Not only that, but your friend, Robert Carne, disliked me. Don’t men hate women who throw themselves at their heads? I tell you. I took the initiative; I made him want to come. In a moment of impulse and desire, he might have taken me. But when all that happened was this frightful attack, of course he loathed me.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “We never met again till the day he died. He never wrote. Why should he? He avoided the governors’ meetings—every thing. Then suddenly—on the day of the inspection it was— he came to call to scold me about my action over the new buildings. We had a frightful quarrel. We were quarrelling when Miss Teasdale arrived. He rushed out, and she asked me, ‘Is that one of your local problems?’ Problems? My God. So you see, I have lost everything, even his good opinion of me. And it is my own fault completely. No blame to him. Oh, no, no blame to him.”

  “Wait a minute,” Mrs. Beddows said strangely. “What time was it when he called on you?”

  “In the morning—about—Miss Teasdale came at half-past eleven—Why?

  “What difference can it make? Oh, let me go. End this interview. I cannot bear much more. Haven’t I given you what you want? Haven’t I torn my heart from my body to give you back your idea of Carne—my Carne?”

  “I’m just remembering. It was the afternoon I saw him,” Mrs. Beddows said. “Why, yes. And he gave me a message for you.”

  “A message? For me?”

  “Yes. I never thought it was important. In one way it wasn’t. Just a light word. He said, ‘Give her my love. Tell her she’s a grand lass. I wouldn’t miss quarrelling with her for a great deal.’”

  “He said that? And you never told me?”

  “It went out of my mind. I thought it half a joke. I never thought it might be important to you. I’m very, very sorry.”

  From her pit of misery, Sarah stared fiercely at the alderman.

  “You’re telling the truth? You’re not fooling me? Not fobbing up something to comfort me with?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. People do.”

  “But I know he liked and admired you. He told me once that he wished Midge had half your courage and generosity.”

  “Ah—but he altered his mind when I behaved—like a bitch in heat, like a cat on the roof.”

  “Hush. Be quiet. I won’t have you say such things. It’s ugly and horrid and false and doesn’t help. He didn’t. He admired you.”

  “Why did he never speak, then? Why did he leave me alone, thinking he hated and despised me? It was cruel, cruel. One word—only one word—just to show . . .”

  “Oh, can’t you see? He wasn’t the kind to talk. He never spoke a word, unless he was in a temper, when silence would do. Just like his father there. Then I expect he was a little embarrassed too for being ill with you. Ashamed.”

  “Ashamed?”

  “Those men who are so proud of their bodies. He was—”

  “Why—yes——”

  “I expect he didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. He hadn’t much imagination, you know. He didn’t think much of what other people might be feeling, or what effect he might have made on them. He often hurt me too, without meaning it, just by not seeing. Being rather blind. Only with Muriel he used to be so sensitive. He’d force himself to imagine what she felt, and usually I think he tortured himself imagining that she’d take things even harder than she did. So don’t you worry. Nobody despised you. And you mustn’t despise yourself—any more.”

  But Sarah had gone back to her seat and she bowed herself in the darkened window, and, for the first time since she heard the news of Carne’s accident, was lost in weeping.

  After a little while she felt a gentle experienced hand stroking her fallen head and a tired kind voice that spoke in a weary monotone.

  “So you mustn’t think of resigning, because you are needed here. I don’t say you’ve behaved well. I don’t think you did. You were foolish and reckless and very, very wrong, and it’s this kind of thing that leads to so much misery. But I’m not one to condemn you. Because for years I’ve thought far more of Carne than was good for me—or Jim. Mind you, I don’t say I loved him the way you did. More as a son. I’m an old woman. But when you’re seventy you don’t always feel old. I know I don’t. There are times when you find yourself thinking of yourself as a girl. ‘Now the girl went downstairs.’ ‘Now the girl put her hat on.’ And then you look in the glass and there’s a stiff heavy lump of an elderly person facing you, your face all wrinkles and the life gone out of your limbs. But you can still feel young. And if I’d been your age—and thought I could comfort him—though it’s always wrong and leads to misery, I’ve sometimes wondered . . .”

  “But I loved him and hurt him. I hurt him. It was because of me he rode so recklessly. . . .”

  “You flatter yourself, my girl. He had plenty to worry about without you.”

  “Oh, it’s no use hiding it. I made him ill. I roused him, to satisfy my desire. If only I’d never spoken, kept still, held back. I cannot bear this pain.”

  “And who are you to think you could get through life without pain? Did you expect never to be ashamed of yourself? Of course this hurts you. And it will go on hurting. You needn’t believe much what they say a
bout time healing. I’ve had seventy years and more of time and there are plenty of things in my life still won’t bear thinking of. You’ve just got to get along as best you can with all your shames and sorrows and humiliations. Maybe in the end it’s those things are most use to you. They’ll make you a better teacher, anyway.”

  “I shan’t teach any more.”

  “Oh, yes, you will. You can’t take all your experience and education and training if you go and throw it all up just when you might be of some service. I call that cowardice. Not playing fair either.”

  “But what use? I? Now?”

  “Now listen to me, my dear. I don’t know much about your past life. You may have done many wrong things in it for all I know. You may have been loose in your morals, as they say all young people are nowadays. That’s not my business. I don’t know and I don’t want to. But I tell you what is my business, and that’s the kind of woman you are and the teacher you will be. Up till lately you’ve always been pretty successful, haven’t you? Scholarships, honours, promotions. You’re good-looking in a queer sort of way. You’re attractive. You’re young for your age, and strong, and confident. And you did your work well—up to a point, I think. You were good with the bright ones, Lydia Holly and Biddy Peckover, and the scholarship girls. You took pains with Midge—for other reasons. But what about the stupid and dull and ineffective? The rather dreamy sort of defeated women? You hadn’t much use for the defeated, had you? Not much patience with failure. Well, now at last you know what it is to be defeated. Now you know what it is to feel ashamed.”

  Sarah hardly listened.

  “If only I could tell him I didn’t mean it. If only I could explain. I was only angry. When I said I didn’t want Midge at school, it was because I loved him so unbearably. I told him to take her away, you know.”

  “And now she’s going away. I’m sending her.”

  “So I can’t even take that back. I can do nothing.”

  “And did you expect to get through life with no word spoken you couldn’t take back, with no failure you couldn’t turn to triumph? Oh, my dear—you haven’t begun to live yet.”

  “But if this is living, I cannot bear it. I cannot bear myself. Whatever you tell me, I can’t stay here. I can’t do it. Don’t you understand? I cannot bear this body that he did not desire. I wanted his child, don’t you see? I never wanted a child before, but I wanted his child.”

  “I dare say. And now want must be your master. As it has been to many women. As it will be to many of the girls that you’ll be teaching. It’s no use only having a creed for the successful. Robert wanted what he couldn’t have. He wanted Muriel not to have had the child and lost her reason. He wanted himself not to have forced it on her. Rightly or wrongly, he thought he had sent her mad. He never thought of her without pain or shame. Now you know something of what he felt. Now you can understand him and those who feel like him. Now perhaps you are fit to teach a little.”

  “But how can I teach here, when the things I know are right are all the things which he resisted? I cannot work for the world that Robert wanted; I cannot work for the world he did not want. My triumphs would be only defeats for him. My success would only be bought at his expense.”

  “Still thinking of triumphs? How do you know that you won’t fail?”

  “You’re right. I don’t know. I only know that I cannot bear this pain. There’s no hope. No remedy.”

  “Yes. I understand that. And when there’s no hope and no remedy, then you can begin to learn and to teach what you’ve learned. The strongest things in life are without triumph. The costliest things you buy are those for which you can’t even pay yourself. It’s only when you’re in debt and a pauper, when you have nothing, not even the pride of sorrow, that you begin to understand a little.”

  Sarah lifted her ravaged face.

  “I expect I shall begin to hate you in a few days, because of all the things I have told you. I never meant to expose myself like this. But tell me, tell me, why should I love him like this? I’m not a green girl. I’m not inexperienced. I didn’t even like him. He was everything I dislike most—reactionary, unimaginative, selfish, arrogant, prejudiced. Yet—he had filled the world for me. I can see nothing else now. Oh, why?”

  “You’ve got him wrong. He may have been all that you say he was, but he was much more. He was courageous and kind and honest. He was, in dealing with people, the gentlest man I ever knew. He knew all about loving. He let a woman destroy his whole life, yet he never blamed her. To the end he worshipped—yes—and respected Muriel—and was grateful for all she’d given him. He never ran away from failure; he never whined, never deceived himself, never blamed other people when things went wrong. In the end—it’s not politics nor opinions—it’s those fundamental things that count—the things of the spirit.”

  “In the end? In what end? In no end I’ve ever heard of.”

  “Perhaps not. Perhaps in an end too far away for us to dream of. So you see—you’ve got to stay and work here, Sarah Burton. Because you belong to the South Riding, and he loved it. Maybe his ideals were wrong and his ways old-fashioned. Maybe all that we do here isn’t very splendid. As I see it, when you come to the bottom, all this local government, it’s just working together—us ordinary people, against the troubles that afflict all of us—poverty, ignorance, sickness, isolation—madness. And you can help us. You who belong here, and who were clever, and went out into the world to gain your education.”

  “And came back to lose it here,” Sarah smiled wearily.

  “Very well then. To lose it. And start again.”

  “But—I’ve done so badly. I hate myself so.”

  “Well, quite a few of us have to get through life without too good an opinion of ourselves and yet we manage. You’ll learn even that, you know, one day.”

  The telephone rang, cutting into the quiet darkness. Outside the window only the faint bar of the afterglow lay along the eastward horizon above the silent sea.

  Sarah rose and moved clumsily across the room. Mrs. Beddows heard her fumbling blindly for the receiver.

  “Yes? Hallo? This is Miss Burton.”

  All tone had left her dead weary voice. “All right. Very well. I may be a little late, I have a governor with me. Tell them I’m coming.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Only a staff meeting. I’d forgotten.”

  “You must go.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ll come to the funeral to-morrow.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ll stay on and work here.”

  “I don’t know. I must think.”

  “You will stay. I don’t think you’re a coward either. Well. Ugh! my knees. They’re stiff if I sit long. I’ll leave you. Have you any whisky in the house?”

  “Why? I—yes—I’ll see——”

  “No hurry. Take a strong one before you face that meeting. I don’t hold with it. But there are times. Good-bye, my dear— and brave—girl. God bless and comfort you—and thank you.”

  “Oh—for what?” breathed Sarah.

  The little woman paused at the door. She was buttoning her coat round her. Her weather-beaten face was broken with grief and tenderness.

  “For loving my dear boy—and wanting to comfort him,” whispered Mrs. Beddows, and went off into the darkening town.

  Sarah went to her staff meeting. She heard nothing. She made mechanical replies. She congratulated the women on Miss Teasdale’s favourable report. Nothing that any one said made any impression on her.

  When it was over she took her little car and drove out, under a small horned moon, to Maythorpe.

  The gate was still off its hinges, the drive lay open. She drove down below the budding limes and sycamores.

  The house lay bare and blank in the faint moonlight. She climbed from her car and sat on the cold stone step, trying to feel near the man whom she had tried to hate, believing that he despised her, and who had not despised her, and whom she could not he
lp but love.

  All her life she would love him, and all through her life she would fight against him. His ways were not her ways, his values were not her values. She had followed her reason, until her passion crossed it, and now she sought, beyond reason and beyond passion, some further meeting-place.

  She had lost her faith in herself and her opinions. She was certain of nothing. The solid earth beneath her feet had melted, and she had fallen into a gulf of grief and shame. Take what you want, she had cried in arrogance. Take it and pay for it.

  She knew now that the costliest things are not the ones for which those who take can pay. Carne had paid. He would continue to pay—for all she bought now, for all impersonal triumph, for all that she might achieve in the South Riding. She would remain his debtor.

  She knelt on his threshold, her arms round the crumbling pillar, her cheek on the cold stone.

  “Oh, my love, my love,” she cried to the unresponding darkness.

  Bushes stirred. A bat fluttered silently. Far away in the pit beyond Minton Riggs a fox was barking.

  I cannot touch you, she thought. I cannot reach you. There is no comfort or thanks now that I can bring you. All my life I can do nothing but destroy where you have builded and build where you destroyed. Forgive me. Forgive me. I have nothing for you—nothing, nothing, nothing.

  But even as she cried out that there was nothing, beating her hand against the pillar which soon itself would stand no longer there, she became aware that perhaps there was something. It was no visible or audible presence, no ghost of the man she had loved, no reassurance that in his darkest hour he had indeed turned to her and found comfort in the thought of her. It was no more than the faintest fading of her isolation.