Читать книгу The Black Dog, and Other Stories - A. E. Coppard - Страница 7

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The next morning an air of uneasy bustle crept into the house after breakfast, much going in and out and up and down in restrained perturbation.

Orianda asked him if he could drive the horse and trap to the station. Yes, he thought he could drive it.

“Lizzie is departing,” she said, “there are her boxes and things. It is very good of you, Gerald, if you will be so kind. It is a quiet horse.”

Lizzie, then, had been subdued. She was faintly affable during the meal, but thereafter she had been silent; Gerald could not look at her until the last dreadful moment had come and her things were in the trap.

“Good-bye, ’Thaniel,” she said to the innkeeper, and kissed him.

“Good-bye, Orianda,” and she kissed Orianda, and then climbed into the trap beside Gerald, who said “Click click,” and away went the nag.

Lizzie did not speak during the drive—perhaps she was in tears. Gerald would have liked to comfort her, but the nag was unusually spirited and clacked so freshly along that he did not dare turn to the sorrowing woman. They trotted down from the uplands and into the windy road over the marshes. The church spire in the town ahead seemed to change its position with every turn of that twisting route. It would have a background now of high sour-hued down, now of dark woodland, anon of nothing but sky and cloud; in a few miles further there would be the sea. Hereabout there were no trees, few houses, the world was vast and bright, the sky vast and blue. What was prettiest of all was a windmill turning its fans steadily in the draught from the sea. When they crossed the river its slaty slow-going flow was broken into blue waves.

At the station Lizzie dismounted without a word and Gerald hitched the nag to a tree. A porter took the luggage and labelled it while Gerald and Lizzie walked about the platform. A calf with a sack over its loins, tied by the neck to a pillar, was bellowing deeply; Lizzie let it suck at her finger for a while, but at last she resumed her walk and talked with her companion.

“She’s a fine young thing, clever, his daughter; I’d do anything for her, but for him I’ve nothing to say. What can I say? What could I do? I gave up a great deal for that man, Mr. Loughlin—I’d better not call you Gerald any more now—a great deal. I knew he’d had trouble with his wicked wife, and now to take her back after so many years, eh! It’s beyond me, I know how he hates her. I gave up everything for him, I gave him what he can’t give back to me, and he hates her; you know?”

“No, I did not know. I don’t know anything of this affair.”

“No, of course, you would not know anything of this affair,” said Lizzie with a sigh. “I don’t want to see him again. I’m a fool, but I got my pride, and that’s something to the good, it’s almost satisfactory, ain’t it?”

As the train was signalled she left him and went into the booking office. He marched up and down, her sad case affecting him with sorrow. The poor wretch, she had given up so much and could yet smile at her trouble. He himself had never surrendered to anything in life—that was what life demanded of you—surrender. For reward it gave you love, this swarthy, skin-deep love that exacted remorseless penalties. What German philosopher was it who said Woman pays the debt of life not by what she does, but by what she suffers? The train rushed in. Gerald busied himself with the luggage, saw that it was loaded, but did not see its owner. He walked rapidly along the carriages, but he could not find her. Well, she was sick of them all, probably hiding from him. Poor woman. The train moved off, and he turned away.

But the station yard outside was startlingly empty, horse and trap were gone. The tree was still there, but with a man leaning against it, a dirty man with a dirty pipe and a dirty smell. Had he seen a horse and trap?

“A brown mare?”

“Yes.”

“Trap with yaller wheels?”

“That’s it.”

“O ah, a young ooman druv away in that....”

“A young woman!”

“Ah, two minutes ago.” And he described Lizzie. “Out yon,” said the dirty man, pointing with his dirty pipe to the marshes.

Gerald ran until he saw a way off on the level winding road the trap bowling along at a great pace; Lizzie was lashing the cob.

“The damned cat!” He puffed large puffs of exasperation and felt almost sick with rage, but there was nothing now to be done except walk back to “The Black Dog,” which he began to do. Rage gave place to anxiety, fear of some unthinkable disaster, some tragic horror at the inn.

“What a clumsy fool! All my fault, my own stupidity!” He groaned when he crossed the bridge at the half distance. He halted there: “It’s dreadful, dreadful!” A tremor in his blood, the shame of his foolishness, the fear of catastrophe, all urged him to turn back to the station and hasten away from these miserable complications.

But he did not do so, for across the marshes at the foot of the uplands he saw the horse and trap coming back furiously towards him. Orianda was driving it.

“What has happened?” she cried, jumping from the trap. “O, what fear I was in, what’s happened?” She put her arms around him tenderly.

“And I was in great fear,” he said with a laugh of relief. “What has happened?”

“The horse came home, just trotted up to the door and stood still. Covered with sweat and foam, you see. The trap was empty. We couldn’t understand it, anything, unless you had been flung out and were bleeding on the road somewhere. I turned the thing back and came on at once.” She was without a hat; she had been anxious and touched him fondly. “Tell me what’s the scare?”

He told her all.

“But Lizzie was not in the trap,” Orianda declared excitedly. “She has not come back. What does it mean, what does she want to do? Let us find her. Jump up, Gerald.”

Away they drove again, but nobody had seen anything of Lizzie. She had gone, vanished, dissolved, and in that strong warm air her soul might indeed have been blown to Paradise. But they did not know how or why. Nobody knew. A vague search was carried on in the afternoon, guarded though fruitless enquiries were made, and at last it seemed clear, tolerably clear, that Lizzie had conquered her mad impulse or intention or whatever it was, and walked quietly away across the fields to a station in another direction.