The Freelands Part 40

"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 a.s.sizes. 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 x.x.xIII

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 s.e.x--of not wis.h.i.+ng for the moon, or at all events of not letting others know that you are wis.h.i.+ng 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 n.o.body 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."

Thus pus.h.i.+ng away what her stoicism and perpetual aspiration to an impossibly good face would not suffer her to admit, she added:

"Where would you like to drive this afternoon?"

For they took drives in a small victoria, Frances Freeland holding her sunshade to protect him from the sun whenever it made the mistake of being out.