Du Maurier, Daphne (39 page)

The cart came nearer to the slope of the hill, and Mary shielded her eyes from the sun to watch its progress. The horse bent to the strain, and she saw that it laboured beneath a strange load of pots and pans and mattresses and sticks. Someone was making for the country with his home upon his back. Even then she did not tumble to the truth, and it was not until the cart was below her and the driver, walking by the side, looked up to her and waved that she recognised him. She went down towards the cart with a fine show of indifference and turned at once to the horse to pat him and speak to him, while Jem kicked a stone under the wheel and wedged it there for safety.

“Are you better?” he called from behind the cart. “I heard you were sick and had taken to your bed.”

“You must have heard wrong,” said Mary. “I’ve been about the house there at North Hill and walking in the grounds; there’s never been much the matter with me except a hatred for my neighbourhood.”

“There was a rumour you were to settle there and be companion to Mrs. Bassat. That’s more like the truth, I suppose. Well, you’ll lead a soft enough life with them, I daresay. No doubt they’re kindly people when you know them.”

“They’ve been kinder to me than anyone else in Cornwall since my mother died; that’s the only thing that matters to me. But I’m not staying at North Hill for all that.”

“Oh, you’re not?”

“No; I’m going back home to Helford.”

“What will you do there?”

“I shall try and start the farm again, or at least work my way to it, for I haven’t the money yet. But I’ve friends there, and friends in Helston too, that will help me at the beginning.”

“Where will you live?”

“There’s not a cottage in the village I couldn’t call home if I wanted to. We’re neighbourly in the south, you know.”

“I’ve never had neighbours, so I cannot contradict you, but I’ve had the feeling always it would be like living in a box, to live in a village. You poke your nose over your gate into another man’s garden, and if his potatoes are larger than your own there’s a talking upon it, and argument; and you know if you cook a rabbit for your supper he’ll have the sniff of it in his kitchen. Damn it, Mary, that’s no life for anyone.” She laughed at him, for his nose was wrinkled in disgust, and then she ran her eye over his laden cart and the confusion he had there.

“What are you doing with that?” she asked him.

“I’ve got a hatred for my neighbourhood the same as you,” he said. “I want to get away from the smell of peat and bog, and the sight of Kilmar yonder, with his ugly face frowning upon me from dusk till dawn. Here’s my home, Mary, all I’ve ever had of it, here in the cart, and I’ll take it with me and set it up wherever my fancy takes me. I’ve been a rover since a boy; never any ties, nor roots, nor fancies for a length of time; and I daresay I’ll die a rover, too. It’s the only life in the world for me.”

“There’s no peace, Jem, in wandering, and no quiet. Heaven knows that existence itself is a long enough journey, without adding to the burden. There’ll come a time when you’ll want your own plot of ground, and your four walls, and your roof, and somewhere to lay your poor tired bones.”

“The whole country belongs to me, Mary, if it comes to that, with the sky for a roof and the earth for a bed. You don’t understand. You’re a woman, and your home is your kingdom, and all the little familiar things of day to day. I’ve never lived like that and never shall. I’ll sleep on the hills one night, and in a city the next. I like to seek my fortune here and there and everywhere, with strangers for company and passers-by for friends. Today I meet a man upon the road and journey with him for an hour or for a year; and tomorrow he is gone again. We speak a different language, you and I.”

Mary went on with her patting of the horse, the good flesh warm and damp beneath her hand, and Jem watched her, the ghost of a smile on his lips.

“Which way will you go?” she said.

“Somewhere east of Tamar, it doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “I’ll never come west again, not until I’m old and grey, and have forgotten a lot of things. I thought of striking north after Gunnislake and making for the midlands. They’re rich up there and ahead of everyone; there’ll be fortune there for a man who goes to find it. Perhaps I’ll have money in my pockets one day and buy horses for pleasure instead of stealing them.”

“It’s an ugly black country in the midlands,” said Mary.

“I don’t bother about the colour of the soil,” he answered. “Moorland peat is black, isn’t it? And so’s the rain when it falls into your pigsties down at Helford. What’s the difference?”

“You just talk for argument, Jem; there’s no sense in what you say.”

“How can I be sensible when you lean against my horse, with your wild daft hair entangled in his mane, and I know that in five or ten minutes time I shall be over the hill yonder without you, my face turned towards the Tamar and you walking back to North Hill to drink tea with Squire Bassat?”

“Delay your journey, then, and come to North Hill, too.”

“Don’t be a damned fool, Mary. Can you see me drinking tea with the squire, and dancing his children on my knee? I don’t belong to his class, neither do you.”

“I know that. And I am going back to Helford because of it. I’m homesick, Jem; I want to smell the river again and walk in my own country.”

“Go on, then; turn your back on me and start walking now. You’ll come to a road after ten miles or so that will take you to Bodmin, and from Bodmin to Truro, and from Truro to Helston. Once in Helston you will find your friends and make a home with them until your farm is ready for you.”

“You are very harsh today, and cruel.”

“I’m harsh to my horses when they’re obstinate and out of hand; but it doesn’t mean I love them any the less.”

“You’ve never loved anything in your life,” said Mary.

“I haven’t had much use for the word, that’s why,” he told her.

He went round to the back of the cart and kicked the stone away from the wheel.

“What are you doing?” said Mary.

“It’s past noon already, and I ought to be on the road. I’ve havered here long enough,” he said. “If you were a man I’d ask you to come with me, and you’d fling your legs over the seat and stick your hands in your pockets and rub shoulders with me for as long as it pleased you.”

“I’d do that now if you’d take me south,” she said.

“Yes, but I’m bound north, and you’re not a man, you’re only a woman, as you’d know to your cost if you came with me. Move off from the trace there, Mary, and don’t twist the rein. I’m going now. Good-bye.”

He took her face in his hands and kissed it, and she saw that he was laughing. “When you’re an old maid in mittens down at Helford, you’ll remember that,” he said, “and it will have to last you to the end of your days. ‘He stole horses,’ you’ll say to yourself, ‘and he didn’t care for women; and but for my pride I’d have been with him now.’ ”

He climbed into the cart and looked down upon her, flicking his whip and yawning. I’ll do fifty miles before tonight,” he said, “and sleep like a puppy at the end of it, in a tent by the side of the road. I’ll kindle a fire and cook bacon for my supper. Will you think of me or not?” She did not listen, though; she stood with her face towards the south, hesitating and twisting her hands. Beyond those hills the bleak moors turned to pasture, and the pasture to valleys and to streams. The peace and quiet of Helford waited for her beside the running water.

“It’s not pride,” she told him; “you know that it’s not pride; there’s a sickness in my heart for home and all the things I’ve lost.”

He said nothing, but drew the reins into his hands and whistled to the horse. “Wait,” said Mary, “wait, and hold him still, and give me your hand.”

He laid the whip aside and reached down to her and swung her beside him on the driver’s seat.

“What now?” he said. “And where do you want me to take you? You have your back to Helford, do you know that?”

“Yes, I know,” she said.

“If you come with me it will be a hard life, and a wild one at times, Mary, with no biding anywhere, and little rest and comfort. Men are ill companions when the mood takes them, and I, God knows, the worst of them. You’ll get a poor exchange for your farm, and small prospect of the peace you crave.”

“I’ll take the risk, Jem, and chance your moods.”

“Do you love me, Mary?”

“I believe so, Jem.”

“Better than Helford?”

“I can’t ever answer that.”

“Why are you sitting here beside me, then?”

“Because I want to; because I must; because now and forever more this is where I belong to be,” said Mary.

He laughed then and took her hand and gave her the reins; and she did not look back over her shoulder again, but set her face towards the Tamar.

The End