The Freelands

J >> John Galsworthy >> The Freelands


Accustomed to the resources of Stanley's establishment, or at least to
those of John's and Felix's, and of the hotels she stayed at, she felt
for a moment just a little nonplussed at discovering at her disposal
nothing but three dear little children playing with a dog, and one
bicycle. For a few seconds she looked at the latter hard. If only it had
been a tricycle! Then, feeling certain that she could not make it into
one, she knew that she must make the best of it, especially as, in any
case, she could not have used it, for it would never do to leave darling
Nedda alone in the house. She decided therefore to look in every room
to see if she could find the things she wanted. The dog, who had been
attracted by her, left the children and came too, and the children,
attracted by the dog, followed; so they all five went into a room on the
ground floor. It was partitioned into two by a screen; in one portion
was a rough camp bedstead, and in the other two dear little child's
beds, that must once have been Derek's and Sheila's, and one still
smaller, made out of a large packing-case. The eldest of the little
children said:

"That's where Billy sleeps, Susie sleeps here, and I sleeps there; and
our father sleeped in here before he went to prison." Frances Freeland
experienced a shock. To prison! The idea of letting these little things
know such a thing as that! The best face had so clearly not been put on
it that she decided to put it herself.

"Oh, not to prison, dear! Only into a house in the town for a little
while."

It seemed to her quite dreadful that they should know the truth--it was
simply necessary to put it out of their heads. That dear little girl
looked so old already, such a little mother! And, as they stood about
her, she gazed piercingly at their heads. They were quite clean.

The second dear little thing said:

"We like bein' here; we hope Father won't be comin' back from prison
for a long time, so as we can go on stayin' here. Mr. Freeland gives us
apples."

The failure of her attempt to put a nicer idea into their heads
disconcerted Frances Freeland for a moment only. She said:

"Who told you he was in prison?"

Biddy answered slowly: "Nobody didn't tell us; we picked it up."

"Oh, but you should never pick things up! That's not at all nice. You
don't know what harm they may do you."

Billy replied: "We picked up a dead cat yesterday. It didn't scratch a
bit, it didn't."

And Biddy added: "Please, what is prison like?"

Pity seized on Frances Freeland for these little derelicts, whose heads
and pinafores and faces were so clean. She pursed her lips very tight
and said:

"Hold out your hands, all of you."

Three small hands were held out, and three small pairs of gray-blue eyes
looked up at her. From the recesses of her pocket she drew forth her
purse, took from it three shillings, and placed one in the very centre
of each palm. The three small hands closed; two small grave bodies
dipped in little courtesies; the third remained stock-still, but a grin
spread gradually on its face from ear to ear.

"What do you say?" said Frances Freeland.

"Thank you."

"Thank you--what?"

"Thank you, ma'am."

"That's right. Now run away and play a nice game in the orchard."

The three turned immediately and went. A sound of whispering rose
busily outside. Frances Freeland, glancing through the window, saw them
unlatching the wicket gate. Sudden alarm seized her. She put out her
head and called. Biddy came back.

"You mustn't spend them all at once."

Biddy shook her head.

"No. Once we had a shillin', and we were sick. We're goin' to spend
three pennies out of one shillin' every day, till they're gone."

"And aren't you going to put any by for a rainy day?"

"No."

Frances Freeland did not know what to answer. Dear little things!

The dear little things vanished.

In Tod's and Kirsteen's room she found a little table and a pillow, and
something that might do, and having devised a contrivance by which
this went into that and that into this and nothing whatever showed,
she conveyed the whole very quietly up near dear Derek's room, and told
darling Nedda to go down-stairs and look for something that she knew
she would not find, for she could not think at the moment of any better
excuse. When the child had gone, she popped this here, and popped that
there. And there she was! And she felt better. It was no use whatever to
make a fuss about that aspect of nursing which was not quite nice. One
just put the best face upon it, quietly did what was necessary, and
pretended that it was not there. Kirsteen had not seen to things quite
as she should have. But then dear Kirsteen was so clever.

Her attitude, indeed, to that blue bird, who had alighted now twenty-one
years ago in the Freeland nest, had always, after the first few shocks,
been duly stoical. For, however her fastidiousness might jib at neglect
of the forms of things, she was the last woman not to appreciate really
sterling qualities. Though it was a pity dear Kirsteen did expose her
neck and arms so that they had got quite brown, a pity that she never
went to church and had brought up the dear children not to go, and to
have ideas that were not quite right about 'the Land,' still she was
emphatically a lady, and devoted to dear Tod, and very good. And her
features were so regular, and she had such a good color, and was so slim
and straight in the back, that she was always a pleasure to look at. And
if she was not quite so practical as she might have been, that was not
everything; and she would never get stout, as there was every danger of
Clara doing. So that from the first she had always put a good face on
her. Derek's voice interrupted her thoughts:

"I'm awfully thirsty, Granny."

"Yes, darling. Don't move your head; and just let me pop in some of this
delicious lemonade with a spoon."

Nedda, returning, found her supporting his head with one hand, while
with the other she kept popping in the spoon, her soul smiling at him
lovingly through her lips and eyes.


CHAPTER XXXII


Felix went back to London the afternoon of Frances Freeland's
installation, taking Sheila with him. She had been 'bound over to keep
the peace'--a task which she would obviously be the better able to
accomplish at a distance. And, though to take charge of her would be
rather like holding a burning match till there was no match left, he
felt bound to volunteer.

He left Nedda with many misgivings; but had not the heart to wrench her
away.

The recovery of a young man who means to get up to-morrow is not so
rapid when his head, rather than his body, is the seat of trouble.
Derek's temperament was against him. He got up several times in spirit,
to find that his body had remained in bed. And this did not accelerate
his progress. It had been impossible to dispossess Frances Freeland from
command of the sick-room; and, since she was admittedly from experience
and power of paying no attention to her own wants, the fittest person
for the position, there she remained, taking turn and turn about with
Nedda, and growing a little whiter, a little thinner, more resolute in
face, and more loving in her eyes, from day to day. That tragedy of
the old--the being laid aside from life before the spirit is ready to
resign, the feeling that no one wants you, that all those you have borne
and brought up have long passed out on to roads where you cannot follow,
that even the thought-life of the world streams by so fast that you lie
up in a backwater, feebly, blindly groping for the full of the water,
and always pushed gently, hopelessly back; that sense that you are still
young and warm, and yet so furbelowed with old thoughts and fashions
that none can see how young and warm you are, none see how you long to
rub hearts with the active, how you yearn for something real to do
that can help life on, and how no one will give it you! All this--this
tragedy--was for the time defeated. She was, in triumph, doing something
real for those she loved and longed to do things for. She had Sheila's
room.

For a week at least Derek asked no questions, made no allusion to
the mutiny, not even to the cause of his own disablement. It had
been impossible to tell whether the concussion had driven coherent
recollection from his mind, or whether he was refraining from an
instinct of self-preservation, barring such thoughts as too exciting.
Nedda dreaded every day lest he should begin. She knew that the
questions would fall on her, since no answer could possibly be expected
from Granny except: "It's all right, darling, everything's going on
perfectly--only you mustn't talk!"

It began the last day of June, the very first day that he got up.

"They didn't save the hay, did they?"

Was he fit to hear the truth? Would he forgive her if she did not
tell it? If she lied about this, could she go on lying to his other
questions? When he discovered, later, would not the effect undo the good
of lies now? She decided to lie; but, when she opened her lips, simply
could not, with his eyes on her; and said faintly: "Yes, they did."

His face contracted. She slipped down at once and knelt beside his
chair. He said between his teeth:

"Go on; tell me. Did it all collapse?"

She could only stroke his hands and bow her head.

"I see. What's happened to them?"

Without looking up, she murmured:

"Some have been dismissed; the others are working again all right."

"All right!"

She looked up then so pitifully that he did not ask her anything more.
But the news put him back a week. And she was in despair. The day he got
up again he began afresh:

"When are the assizes?"

"The 7th of August."

"Has anybody been to see Bob Tryst?"

"Yes; Aunt Kirsteen has been twice."

Having been thus answered, he was quiet for a long time. She had slipped
again out of her chair to kneel beside him; it seemed the only place
from which she could find courage for her answers. He put his hand, that
had lost its brown, on her hair. At that she plucked up spirit to ask:

"Would you like me to go and see him?"

He nodded.

"Then, I will--to-morrow."

"Don't ever tell me what isn't true, Nedda! People do; that's why I
didn't ask before."

She answered fervently:

"I won't! Oh, I won't!"

She dreaded this visit to the prison. Even to think of those places gave
her nightmare. Sheila's description of her night in a cell had made her
shiver with horror. But there was a spirit in Nedda that went through
with things; and she started early the next day, refusing Kirsteen's
proffered company.

The look of that battlemented building, whose walls were pierced with
emblems of the Christian faith, turned her heartsick, and she stood
for several minutes outside the dark-green door before she could summon
courage to ring the bell.

A stout man in blue, with a fringe of gray hair under his peaked cap,
and some keys dangling from a belt, opened, and said:

"Yes, miss?"

Being called 'miss' gave her a little spirit, and she produced the card
she had been warming in her hand.

"I have come to see a man called Robert Tryst, waiting for trial at the
assizes."

The stout man looked at the card back and front, as is the way of those
in doubt, closed the door behind her, and said:

"Just a minute, miss."

The shutting of the door behind her sent a little shiver down Nedda's
spine; but the temperature of her soul was rising, and she looked round.
Beyond the heavy arch, beneath which she stood, was a courtyard where
she could see two men, also in blue, with peaked caps. Then, to her
left, she became conscious of a shaven-headed noiseless being in
drab-gray clothes, on hands and knees, scrubbing the end of a corridor.
Her tremor at the stealthy ugliness of this crouching figure yielded
at once to a spasm of pity. The man gave her a look, furtive, yet so
charged with intense penetrating curiosity that it seemed to let her
suddenly into innumerable secrets. She felt as if the whole life of
people shut away in silence and solitude were disclosed to her in the
swift, unutterably alive look of this noiseless kneeling creature,
riving out of her something to feed his soul and body on. That look
seemed to lick its lips. It made her angry, made her miserable, with
a feeling of pity she could hardly bear. Tears, too startled to flow,
darkened her eyes. Poor man! How he must hate her, who was free, and all
fresh from the open world and the sun, and people to love and talk to!
The 'poor man' scrubbed on steadily, his ears standing out from his
shaven head; then, dragging his knee-mat skew-ways, he took the chance
to look at her again. Perhaps because his dress and cap and stubble of
hair and even the color of his face were so drab-gray, those little dark
eyes seemed to her the most terribly living things she had ever seen.
She felt that they had taken her in from top to toe, clothed and
unclothed, taken in the resentment she had felt and the pity she was
feeling; they seemed at once to appeal, to attack, and to possess her
ravenously, as though all the starved instincts in a whole prisoned
world had rushed up and for a second stood outside their bars. Then came
the clank of keys, the eyes left her as swiftly as they had seized her,
and he became again just that stealthy, noiseless creature scrubbing a
stone floor. And, shivering, Nedda thought:

'I can't bear myself here--me with everything in the world I want--and
these with nothing!'

But the stout janitor was standing by her again, together with another
man in blue, who said:

"Now, miss; this way, please!"

And down that corridor they went. Though she did not turn, she knew well
that those eyes were following, still riving something from her; and she
heaved a sigh of real relief when she was round a corner. Through barred
windows that had no glass she could see another court, where men in the
same drab-gray clothes printed with arrows were walking one behind the
other, making a sort of moving human hieroglyphic in the centre of the
concrete floor. Two warders with swords stood just outside its edge.
Some of those walking had their heads up, their chests expanded, some
slouched along with heads almost resting on their chests; but most had
their eyes fixed on the back of the neck of the man in front; and there
was no sound save the tramp of feet.

Nedda put her hand to her throat. The warder beside her said in a chatty
voice:

"That's where the 'ards takes their exercise, miss. You want to see a
man called Tryst, waitin' trial, I think. We've had a woman here to see
him, and a lady in blue, once or twice."

"My aunt."

"Ah! just so. Laborer, I think--case of arson. Funny thing; never yet
found a farm-laborer that took to prison well."

Nedda shivered. The words sounded ominous. Then a little flame lit
itself within her.

"Does anybody ever 'take to' prison?"

The warder uttered a sound between a grunt and chuckle.

"There's some has a better time here than they have out, any day. No
doubt about it--they're well fed here."

Her aunt's words came suddenly into Nedda's mind: 'Liberty's a glorious
feast!' But she did not speak them.

"Yes," the warder proceeded, "some o' them we get look as if they didn't
have a square meal outside from one year's end to the other. If you'll
just wait a minute, miss, I'll fetch the man down to you."

In a bare room with distempered walls, and bars to a window out of which
she could see nothing but a high brick wall, Nedda waited. So rapid
is the adjustment of the human mind, so quick the blunting of human
sensation, that she had already not quite the passion of pitiful feeling
which had stormed her standing under that archway. A kind of numbness
gripped her nerves. There were wooden forms in this room, and a
blackboard, on which two rows of figures had been set one beneath the
other, but not yet added up.

The silence at first was almost deathly. Then it was broken by a
sound as of a heavy door banged, and the shuffling tramp of marching
men--louder, louder, softer--a word of command--still softer, and it
died away. Dead silence again! Nedda pressed her hands to her breast.
Twice she added up those figures on the blackboard; each time the number
was the same. Ah, there was a fly--two flies! How nice they looked,
moving, moving, chasing each other in the air. Did flies get into the
cells? Perhaps not even a fly came there--nothing more living than walls
and wood! Nothing living except what was inside oneself! How dreadful!
Not even a clock ticking, not even a bird's song! Silent, unliving,
worse than in this room! Something pressed against her leg. She started
violently and looked down. A little cat! Oh, what a blessed thing! A
little sandy, ugly cat! It must have crept in through the door. She was
not locked in, then, anyway! Thus far had nerves carried her already!
Scrattling the little cat's furry pate, she pulled herself together. She
would not tremble and be nervous. It was disloyal to Derek and to her
purpose, which was to bring comfort to poor Tryst. Then the door was
pushed open, and the warder said:

"A quarter of an hour, miss. I'll be just outside."

She saw a big man with unshaven cheeks come in, and stretched out her
hand.

"I am Mr. Derek's cousin, going to be married to him. He's been ill,
but he's getting well again now. We knew you'd like to hear." And she
thought: 'Oh! What a tragic face! I can't bear to look at his eyes!'

He took her hand, said, "Thank you, miss," and stood as still as ever.

"Please come and sit down, and we can talk."

Tryst moved to a form and took his seat thereon, with his hands between
his knees, as if playing with an imaginary cap. He was dressed in an
ordinary suit of laborer's best clothes, and his stiff, dust-colored
hair was not cut particularly short. The cheeks of his square-cut face
had fallen in, the eyes had sunk back, and the prominence thus given to
his cheek and jawbones and thick mouth gave his face a savage look--only
his dog-like, terribly yearning eyes made Nedda feel so sorry that she
simply could not feel afraid.

"The children are such dears, Mr. Tryst. Billy seems to grow every
day. They're no trouble at all, and quite happy. Biddy's wonderful with
them."

"She's a good maid." The thick lips shaped the words as though they had
almost lost power of speech.

"Do they let you see the newspapers we send? Have you got everything you
want?"

For a minute he did not seem to be going to answer; then, moving his
head from side to side, he said:

"Nothin' I want, but just get out of here."

Nedda murmured helplessly:

"It's only a month now to the assizes. Does Mr. Pogram come to see you?"

"Yes, he comes. He can't do nothin'!"

"Oh, don't despair! Even if they don't acquit you, it'll soon be over.
Don't despair!" And she stole her hand out and timidly touched his arm.
She felt her heart turning over and over, he looked so sad.

He said in that stumbling, thick voice:

"Thank you kindly. I must get out. I won't stand long of it--not much
longer. I'm not used to it--always been accustomed to the air, an' bein'
about, that's where 'tis. But don't you tell him, miss. You say I'm
goin' along all right. Don't you tell him what I said. 'Tis no use him
frettin' over me. 'Twon' do me no good."

And Nedda murmured:

"No, no; I won't tell him."

Then suddenly came the words she had dreaded:

"D'you think they'll let me go, miss?"

"Oh, yes, I think so--I hope so!" But she could not meet his eyes, and
hearing him grit his boot on the floor knew he had not believed her.

He said slowly:

"I never meant to do it when I went out that mornin'. It came on me
sudden, lookin' at the straw."

Nedda gave a little gasp. Could that man outside hear?

Tryst went on: "If they don't let me go, I won' stand it. 'Tis too much
for a man. I can't sleep, I can't eat, nor nothin'. I won' stand it. It
don' take long to die, if you put your mind to it."

Feeling quite sick with pity, Nedda got up and stood beside him; and,
moved by an uncontrollable impulse, she lifted one of his great hands
and clasped it in both her own. "Oh, try and be brave and look forward!
You're going to be ever so happy some day."

He gave her a strange long stare.

"Yes, I'll be happy some day. Don' you never fret about me."

And Nedda saw that the warder was standing in the doorway.

"Sorry, miss, time's up."

Without a word Tryst rose and went out.

Nedda was alone again with the little sandy cat. Standing under the
high-barred window she wiped her cheeks, that were all wet. Why, why
must people suffer so? Suffer so slowly, so horribly? What were men made
of that they could go on day after day, year after year, watching others
suffer?

When the warder came back to take her out, she did not trust herself to
speak, or even to look at him. She walked with hands tight clenched, and
eyes fixed on the ground. Outside the prison door she drew a long, long
breath. And suddenly her eyes caught the inscription on the corner of a
lane leading down alongside the prison wall--"Love's Walk"!


CHAPTER XXXIII


Peremptorily ordered by the doctor to the sea, but with instructions to
avoid for the present all excitement, sunlight, and color, Derek and
his grandmother repaired to a spot well known to be gray, and Nedda went
home to Hampstead. This was the last week in July. A fortnight spent
in the perfect vacuity of an English watering-place restored the boy
wonderfully. No one could be better trusted than Frances Freeland to
preserve him from looking on the dark side of anything, more specially
when that thing was already not quite nice. Their conversation was
therefore free from allusion to the laborers, the strike, or Bob Tryst.
And Derek thought the more. The approaching trial was hardly ever out
of his mind. Bathing, he would think of it; sitting on the gray jetty
looking over the gray sea, he would think of it. Up the gray cobbled
streets and away on the headlands, he would think of it. And, so as not
to have to think of it, he would try to walk himself to a standstill.
Unfortunately the head will continue working when the legs are at rest.
And when he sat opposite to her at meal-times, Frances Freeland would
gaze piercingly at his forehead and muse: 'The dear boy looks much
better, but he's getting a little line between his brows--it IS such a
pity!' It worried her, too, that the face he was putting on their little
holiday together was not quite as full as she could have wished--though
the last thing in the world she could tolerate were really fat cheeks,
those signs of all that her stoicism abhorred, those truly unforgivable
marks of the loss of 'form.' He struck her as dreadfully silent, too,
and she would rack her brains for subjects that would interest him,
often saying to herself: 'If only I were clever!' It was natural he
should think of dear Nedda, but surely it was not that which gave him
the little line. He must be brooding about those other things. He ought
not to be melancholy like this and let anything prevent the sea from
doing him good. The habit--hard-learned by the old, and especially the
old of her particular sex--of not wishing for the moon, or at all events
of not letting others know that you are wishing for it, had long enabled
Frances Freeland to talk cheerfully on the most indifferent subjects
whether or no her heart were aching. One's heart often did ache, of
course, but it simply didn't do to let it interfere, making things
uncomfortable for others. And once she said to him: "You know, darling,
I think it would be so nice for you to take a little interest in
politics. They're very absorbing when you once get into them. I find my
paper most enthralling. And it really has very good principles."

"If politics did anything for those who most need things done,
Granny--but I can't see that they do."

She thought a little, then, making firm her lips, said:

"I don't think that's quite just, darling, there are a great many
politicians who are very much looked up to--all the bishops, for
instance, and others whom nobody could suspect of self-seeking."

"I didn't mean that politicians were self-seeking, Granny; I meant that
they're comfortable people, and the things that interest them are those
that interest comfortable people. What have they done for the laborers,
for instance?"

"Oh, but, darling! they're going to do a great deal. In my paper they're
continually saying that."

"Do you believe it?"

"I'm sure they wouldn't say so if they weren't. There's quite a new
plan, and it sounds most sensible. And so I don't think, darling, that
if I were you I should make myself unhappy about all that kind of thing.
They must know best. They're all so much older than you. And you're
getting quite a little line between your eyes."

Derek smiled.

"All right, Granny; I shall have a big one soon."

Frances Freeland smiled, too, but shook her head.

"Yes; and that's why I really think you ought to take interest in
politics."

"I'd rather take interest in you, Granny. You're very jolly to look at."

Frances Freeland raised her brows.

"I? My dear, I'm a perfect fright nowadays."