LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY
OE CALIEORNIA

SANTA BARBARA



PRESENTED BY
MRS. EDWIN CORLE



BEAUTIFUL END



I



BY THE SAME AUTHOR

CRUMP FOLK GOING HOME

THE LONELY PLOUGH

THE OLD ROAD FROM SPAIN




The yew's tall finger pointing to the skv




" Nobody's shadow could tread on your heels



BEAUTIFUL END



BY

CONSTANCE HOLME



' Houses not made with hands '



MILLS & BOON, LIMITED

49 RUPERT STREET

LONDON, W. 1



Published igiS



"THE PLACE FOR WHICH I CRY"



AUTHOR'S NOTE

The author wishes to state that no
character in this book is drawn from any
living person.



BEAUTIFUL END



SHE put her hand to the curtain for the last
time and drew back. Very reluctantly she
admitted to herself that now there was nothing
left to do. Here was the room really finished at
last, and none of her wistful glances from side to
side could find her a fresh task. She had
lingered over it as long as she possibly could,
but now the pleasant work had really come to an
end. Everything had to come to an end so that
other things might begin, but the hours of toil
had been so sweet that she hated to let them go.
The room seemed full of the tunes she had sung
as she painted and scrubbed, full of plans and
pleased thoughts and thrills of housewifely
pride. It stood, of course, for so very much
more than just a simply-furnished chamber in
a simple house. It stood, for instance, for the
end of a self-reproach marring a happiness
otherwise complete. It meant the comforting



2 BEAUTIFUL END

of a hurt which still troubled her kind soul,
however unwillingly it had been wrought. It
meant return and renewal on better lines,
the rebuilding of ancient things with better
hands. ...

In the upstairs room of the marsh farmhouse
there was a great pleasantness and peace. The
early evening sun drove straight towards it
from the west, and through its deep-set eyes
sent shining ladders all across the floor. Only the
corners of the room stayed dim and aloof.

Now that all was done, and so thoroughly
done, she was puzzled to find herself depressed.
Perhaps it was nothing more than the nervous
doubt which foreruns every great moment just
at the last. Perhaps it was just the regret that
lies like a sigh under the chant of pride in a
finished task. Certainly, nobody else would
ever see the room exactly as it looked to herself.
Nobody would see, as she could see, not only
the finished whole, but the work and the joy
that had made it what it was. That meant, of
course, that when she passed out for the last
time, the room's own perfect moment would
pass as well. Therefore she lingered and looked,
hoping for the chance of a further touch, but
however she looked, she could think of nothing
else.

ILven after she had ceased to wonder she



BEAUTIFUL END 3

could not tear herself away. The low room was
not only a room, such as anybody might prepare
for a guest ; it was a refuge, a place for himself
that she had made for a stray. She had stained
the floor with her own hands, and washed the
knitted quilt on the bed. She had made the
white valances with their borders of knitted
lace, the cloth rug by the bedside, the white
window-curtains with their pleated frills. She
had distempered the white walls and polished
the chest of drawers so that the brass-bound
Bible on its top was reflected deeply as in a
pool. All the paint was white ; perhaps she
was proudest of the paint. The new bedstead
was iron, with brass knobs crowning its slender
posts. In a crinkly vase on one sill was a posy
of coloured flowers. . . . Surely the old man
would be able to rest here ?

The windows of the room were so full of sun
that they looked like translucent plates of
beaten gold. Beyond them, the scene was so
bright that it hurt the eye — the river shining
and glinting close below the farm, the sands all
sparkling as if they were s:own with quartz,
and the houses across the bay snow-white against
the hill. The tide was dead out — at the end of
the world it seemed ; yet never at any time was
it very far. Always, when you had forgotten it,
it came stealing back, a thief in the night, a



4 BEAUTIFUL END

trespasser by day. Even now she had not grown
used to the tides, though she did not look out
of the windows all the time, as she had done
when she first arrived on the marsh. But he,
when he came, would look out of the windows
all day long. . . . She stood in the long rays,
staring round the room, her blue eyes frowning
a little as she looked. Her young, firm figure
was full of energy and strength. Her dark hair
was ruffled and her cheek flushed with the final
effort that was actually the last.

Very soon now the old man would be here,
and the room that had once been his for so long
would be his again. He would find things a
good deal changed, it was true, but how much
for the better, after all ! No doubt the place
had been well enough once, years and years ago,
perhaps, when he was first wed, but it had been
only a poor spot later on. It had had a neg-
lected look from the outside, and the fields and
hedges seemed to ask for a hand. At the last,
of course, it had been a desolate place, indeed.
. . . By accident, as it happened, she had seen
the room before he left, and the desolation of it
still haunted her mind. The old wooden bed-
stead had been rickety all through, and there
was never a mat on the bare, unvarnished boards.
In the quilt grown thin as a rag there was a
jagged tear, and in each of the ceiling-corners a



BEAUTIFUL END 5

spider had spun a web. The once blue-washed
walls had faded a dirty grey, and the plaster
was crumbling away where the damp had driven
in. The windows had broken hasps, and one
had a broken pane ; all dim they were, mysteri-
ous with crusted salt . . . and by the bed had
stood a pair of old woman's shoes. She remem-
bered the shoes because they had been his wife's.
It was weeks, she remembered — months — after
she was dead.

A dismal room indeed it had seemed to the
girl, a forlorn place thoroughly in tune with a
forlorn human old age. She remembered how
she laid hands on it, then as now, mending the
quilt and fetching the spiders from their homes,
spending a lusty scrubbing on the floor. P^ven
then she had had a vision of what she would some
day make of the place, plotting and planning
and laughing as she toiled. She had never put
her head inside that room, it seemed, but some
web of contrival at once began to spin. Of course
it was not exactly as she had planned, because
every creation meddles with the tools, but it
was near enough to satisfy her, nevertheless. It
was inevitable somehow . . . intended . . . de-
finitely right. It seemed inevitable, too, that
she herself should be here, although she had
questioned and delayed her fate so long. She
felt sure, when she looked back, that she had



6 BEAUTIFUL END

known it to be inevitable all the time ; that
just the same personal interest had gone to that
far-away putting of things to rights. But she
had not been ready for Thomas, just then, and
the future had had to take care of itself.
Thomas's father, however, had not been able to
care for himself. In the midst of her indecision
he had had to quit. The trouble had gone
further than just an unswept room. . . .

And yet, in spite of the intervening break,
her fate and the room's fate had fulfilled them-
selves in time. She had come in the end to the
place ordained, just as the changes she had
meant for the room had come about. Now it
was all scoured clean, painted and stained, with
a new iron bed that had full command of its
legs, and four little knobs like four little globes
of gold. Her second scrubbing had been so
thorough that it almost seemed as if there was
nothing of the old room left. Even the dust
and dimness had had a character of their own,
and both of them had been swept away. Even
the windows looked a different shape now they
were frames for those shining plaques of gold.
They were like young eyes now, shining and
clear, where before they were ancient and
blurred with tears . . . eyes with a whole
world behind them under the sky, instead of
blankness staring at nothing without sight.



BEAUTIFUL END 7

Yet something lingered that belonged to the
old room, something that was perhaps nothing
more than a question in the air. That was the
reason, perhaps, why she hesitated to call her
work complete, since the room seemed to cry
upon her for something else. It seemed to be
waiting for something to come back ; she won-
dered vaguely if it was the old woman's shoes.
She would have brought them back right will-
ingly if she could, but she had never seen
or heard of them since that day. Probably they
had gone at the sale, or simply been lost or
burnt or thrown away. It was out of the ques-
tion, anyhow, to think of finding them now. If
the room was waiting for that, it would have to
do without.

She felt sure that, even in its best days, the
room had never looked so fine, even in those
far-off days when the house had freshened itself
for another bride. There might have been cur-
tains, perhaps — perhaps not upstairs — but al-
most certainly there had been no blinds. Little
need for them, indeed, with windows facing the
lone sands, and a white-sailed yacht at the flood
the only passer-by. And she was certain that,
not for years, if ever before, had roses been set
upon the sill.

There was no doubt, however, that rooms,
like folks, were growing smarter with the times.



8 BEAUTIFUL END

Old as he was, the old man would know that,
and would feel, if only unconsciously, the finer
touch. He would be proud of a son's wife who
had such ways ; straight from his present
home, indeed, how could he be anything
but proud ? And progress and new paint
had not harried the old-time peace of the
room, nor could she herself have done it real
harm. The tradition behind her was too pure
for that, the abiding spirit of the house too
strong.

Rousing herself, she crossed the rays towards
the door, but stopped on her way to run her
hand along the quilt. The limbs that would lie
under it would be snug enough, she thought,
the head on the pillow would surely lie still.
Stooping, she came on something soft to her
foot, and started hastily aside. It was almost
as if she had trodden and crushed the worn,
old shoes. . . . But it was only the new cloth
rug beside the bed.

Out on the landing she paused again, feeling
the evening stillness warm through all the house.
There were empty rooms right and left of her,
empty, yet full of secrets, as empty rooms always
are. When other things went out of the rooms,
they filled them for themselves. Yet, in spite
of their secrets, they seemed lonely sometimes,
consciously waiting, like the room she had left ;



BEAUTIFUL END

but to-night they were only full of the sunny
peace. She looked into them, one after the other,
and shut them up again, and then out in the
passage stood gazing at the doors. It was
strange to live in a house with so many empty
rooms. It was like living with people who never
spoke, but were busily thinking all the time. A
house with empty rooms could never be at its
best. Something might come out of that brood-
ing silence, such things as come from a mind
for ever feeding on itself. She was sure that,
when the winter nights came, she would start
thinking of those empty rooms upstairs, hear
voices, perhaps, and steps ... if she left them
too long to think things by themselves. She
would put apples in one, she determined, when
the fruit was ripe ; cheeses in another, when she
started making cheese. There would be other
things after a while to fill the rest — other things,
other people, other thoughts — so that the rooms
would not have time to grow lonely and queer.
And at least one of them would have finished
with being lonely by to-night. She found herself
turning again to the room where her work was
done, and only stopped herself at the handle of
the door. Then she heard her husband moving
in the kitchen below, and her dreamy mood fell
from her and she ran down. There was carpet
under her feet, she thought, as she ran. How



10 BEAUTIFUL END

many years since the old man had seen new
carpet on those stairs ?

Thomas had been busy redding himself up,
and turned towards her a tanned but shining
face. He was still in his working clothes, but
he had shaved, and slipped his jacket over his
rolled-up sleeves. There was health in the clean
lines of his jaw and the warm colours of his
skin, and kindness and honesty in his tranquil
eyes. Only his mouth, firmly-cut and set,
showed that he could be obstinate if driven too
far. This was a man who saw one road at a
time, and when once he was set on it could not
turn aside. Agnes had known that face when it
was dogged and harsh, heard passion and bitter-
ness in the slow, deep voice, seen tortured and
angry strength in the broad, slow form. But
that was long ago, of course, before she had
come to her senses and seen clear. To-night,
Thomas's face shone as much with pleasure as
with soap. Everything was an occasion for his
smile, the slowly-broadening smile which thought
before it camie. He smiled as he turned in-
stinctively towards the stair. He had not yet
ceased to watch for her coming in. Often and
often he had seen her in his mind before she was
really there in front of his eyes. Now, as he
watched, he saw her soft, blue gown paint itself
clear on the dusk beyond the door.



BEAUTIFUL END 11

The sun was in the kitchen, too, but in far
greater power, because of the wider windows
and the open porch, that was Hke some arching
cave with a golden tide at the flood. Almost
everything in the kitchen was new, and every-
thing was scrubbed and polished as it had been
upstairs. The dresser was as white as when the
timber first yielded to the saw. The plates in
the pot-rail were so many circular mirrors in
the sun. And everything spoke of new house-
keeping and newly- wedded pride. The legs of
the table were shapely and smooth, unworn by
the marks of large or little boots, unscarred by
the clawings of generations of cats. There was
an arm-chair to the side of the flashing fender
and the modern range, an expensive-looking
chair, with its castors shining and whole, its
covers unfaded and its padding plump. The
grandfather's clock had not yet settled to his
corner place. Behind the warming-pan with
its flat gold face, there was never a mark on the
pale-coloured wall.

Out in the little garden the box hedges and
borders looked almost black, making the roses
between them a warmer, deeper red, and whiten-
ing the white rose over the cavern that was the
porch. Beside the parlour window a tall yew
stood up, clipped like Cleopatra's needle and as
straight. The little garden had peculiarly the



12 BEAUTIFUL END

air of refuge and close, set as it was between the
desolation of the sands and the lesser and different
desolation of the marsh. The marsh was lonely,
of course, but Nature was always there, growing
her grass and plants and flowers, her acorns and
cones fashioning into trees, her thorn hedges
throwing up every year their close and towering
screens ; and, after Nature, man, with his
cattle and thin ploughs, his barns and shippons,
his clustered chimney-stacks. But out on the
sand there were only sand and lost shells, and the
goalless footprints of flown birds. It was enemy
ground, where neither blown seed nor human
hearth might take hold. The marsh had a
peace of its own as well as its fear ; but out on
the sands there was only fear.

One window in the kitchen pretended to itself
that there was neither sand nor fear. It looked
across the square fields to the higher land
behind the marsh, over tall hedges thick with
rose to sloping meadowland and woods. Up
in the sky was a climbing, high-hung road, and
below it a hidden village with a seeking spire.
On the marsh between the straight hedges all
the roads ran straight. ... It was to this
window that Agnes crossed to look out.

" Hadn't you best be getting off ? " she
enquired, pressing her face against the pane.
/â– ' It'll never do to be hanging about and miss



BEAUTIFUL END 18

your time. He'll likely think he's not wanted if
you're a bit behind."

" Nay, there's no call to be off yet," Thomas
replied tranquilly, without offering to move.
" We'll catch a sight on 'em on t'road, long
afore they're here." He settled his jacket
leisurely, looking at himself in the little kitchen
glass, mottled and cracked in its worn mahogany
frame. It looked old and strange on the new
face of the wall — almost the only thing in the
kitchen that wasn't new. " 'Twas half-past
six, wasn't it, they said ? It wants a bit to
that yet."

" What was it you went and settled wi' Bob,
after all ? "

" I was to meet 'em at meader gate so as to
give the old man an arm. It's over rough
riding up for him, I doubt. He'll be best on
his feet by a deal."

" Ay, old bones can't abide being rumbled
about. I shouldn't wonder but he's a bit shaky
after his ride, so you mun be sure to be there on
the tick. . . . Eh, well, we'll have him as right
as a bobbin afore so long ! "

" It'll take a while, will that ! " Thomas
frowned. Staring, he saw the face in the glass
grow older and rather grim. " He's been going
downhill sharp, lately, has the old chap. Last
time I was at the cottage he give me a fair fright.



14 BEAUTIFUL END

It was a bad job his having to gang to Marget
an' Bob."

He could see his wife through the glass be-
yond himself, and the face that she turned to
him was clouded, too.

" Nay, what ..." she began quickly, her
voice troubled and sore. " That's by with,
surely ? You promised you'd let it bide."

Their eyes met in the glass, and he threw her
a repentant nod. " Ay, that's so, and I mean
to hold by it an' all." He drew a long breath,
squaring his shoulders as if to an enemy threat-
ening his peace. For a long moment he went
on staring thoughtfully at himself, and when he
spoke again it was with an obvious attempt at
ease. " I reckon I don't favour the old dad
much in the face ; nay, nor Bob, neither, for
the matter o' that."

" You don't take after him no way," Agnes
answered, turning back. She gave a little sigh
of relief as she stared again at the marsh.
" Folk'd be hard put to it to tell you're the same
breed. He's the light sort, for one thing, and
you're that dark. He's fond of music and terble
forgetful-like, and you're that set on your job,
and wi' no more tune than an old bull,"

Thomas laughed his good-tempered laugh.

" I'm not much in tlie singing line, I doubt,
but I'm real fond o' music, all the same. He



BEAUTIFUL END 15

was for ever trying to learn me the fiddle, but
it wasn't no use. All the music I've gitten is in
my heels."

" Ay, well, you're a bonny dancer — I'll give
you that," she agreed. " So was Bob, poor lad,
afore he got wed, but he's not much to crack
on, nowadays, I doubt. All the spring' 11 be out
on him, by now. He's been plagued and bothered
over long."

" A bad missis' 11 do for a man quicker than
a green Christmas," Thomas said. " There's
nobbut once he'll have rued, I reckon, and that's
all the time. He'd plenty o' warning an' all, if
he'd nobbut took it, the daft fool ! I never see
such a time as she give him when they were
courting — Marget an' Bob. Same as cat and
mouse it were, only worse, and yet he couldn't
frame to bide away. Come to that, he'd say
we were a while about it, ourselves. ..."

He saw her stiffen again as he said that, but
this time she did not turn. Only the back of
her smooth head was visible in the glass. " Ay,
well, I'm one as looks afore they leap," she
answered shortly, on a sharp note. . . . "Hadn't
you best be thinking o' making a move ? "

" It's over soon, I tell ye . . . there's no sign
o' them yet," Suddenly he left the glass and
came over to her side, leaning his arms along
the window-frame. All the windows in the



16 BEAUTIFUL END

kitchen were new, their sashes gleaming with
fresh paint, broad windows that filled the place
with pictures and the sun. " Seems like it
couldn't be true," he went on, looking down at
her cheek where it touched the stuff of his
sleeve — " you an' me wed and at the farm, and
the old dad coming back, after all. Seems like
I'm only dreaming it's come true. ... I doubt
he'll want seeing to a bit, at first. He's not as
young as he was, and he's terble down. You an'
me we mun do for him all we can."

" We'll see to him, don't you fret ! " Agnes
said cheerfully, in her firm tones. " We'll have
him so he won't know himself afore long, wi'
nowt to cross him and the best to eat. It's
queer if we can't shape better than Marget at
the job. We ought to be shammed on ourselves
if we can't, that's all ! "

As if bent upon showing her willingness to
begin, she left him to pick up the white cloth
ready spread for a meal, and shook it on again
with a hearty slap. Thomas, searching the
roads of the marsh in her place, heard her busy
behind him among the pots, her free step over
the flags full of energy and goodwill. The clean
air of the kitchen thrilled with kindly expecta-
tion and innocent pride. The sun and the
cheerful room seemed the best setting in the
world for the little scene of welcome that they



BEAUTIFUL END 17

had planned. Even the weather had kept the
right sort of day for the old man's coming home.
Then it was evening, early evening, when all
should go home by rights to rest and good food
and cheerful voices and open doors — doors,
flooded with sun which you took with you
when you went in, yet left as much as they
wanted for those outside ; food, such as was
being laid on the table behind ; and a voice
like his wife's as she murmured over her job.
" Father'U think they forks right smart," he
heard her say ; and, " It's the bonniest china,
I'm sure, I've seen for a while ! " Between the
setting of every two or three pots she asked
for news of the trap. ..." Likely they'll have
got off afore their time."

" Nay, Marget'll watch out for that ! "
Thomas scoffed. "It's a deal more like to be
the other way about. She was fair wild when
she heard he meant coming to us, though I
don't see how she could ha' looked for owt else.
What, he was born here, to start wi', and never
stirred off the spot ; and then, when his father
give up, he took hold for himself. I'm sure it's
like enough he should want to come back."

" He's bound to hanker to be back on the
marsh," she agreed, admiring the plated tea-
pot with an absent air. . . . "It was real kind
of Aunt Martha Bainbridge to give us yon. ..."



18 BEAUTIFUL END

" Ay, he's hankered right enough ! " Thomas
said, with so much bitterness in his voice that
it startled even himself. Agnes came out of
her meditation with a jerk, and the little cloud
settled again on her face. She looked anxiously
at her husband's back, which seemed to have
taken on the sudden harshness of his mood.
" 'Tisn't as if Marget had wanted him, neither,"
he went on, in a sort of burst. " She's no call
to make a to-do because she's going to be quit
of him at last. She took him because she couldn't
for shame do owt else, and a bonny time he's
had wi' her and her ways ! What, it's been the
talk o' the countrj^'-side, the life she's led the
poor old chap ! Coming away from her'U be
like coming out o' hell. Ay, she's been bad to
him, has Marget — she has that ! She never let
him play his fiddle or owt, and give him the
back of her tongue from morn to night. Such a
rare hand as he used to be wi' the fiddle an' all !
There's folks still ax after Fiddlin' Kit."

" Ay, well, poor old body, he'll get nobody's
tongue here ; and he can have his precious
fiddle to bed and board. He can play till all's
black if he likes, and owt he likes — fiddle or
toothcomb or big brass pan ! "

" That's right," Thomas nodded. " That's a
good lass," but she turned away almost brusquely
and without a smile. " We mun do our best



BEAUTIFUL END 19

for the old folks, I'm sure," she went on. " One
o' these days we'll want seeing to ourselves."
She began to move about the table again, but
with downcast eyes. " I'm rarely glad to have
him, and that's the truth."

" Ay, an' he's suited as sheep in a turmut-
field to come ! Fair blubbered he did, the poor
old chap, when it was fixed. I reckon he'd near
give up hoping it would ever come off. Told
me he couldn't sleep for thinking on't, he did
that ! "

Tears came into his wife's eyes, so that the
pots in front of her melted into a shining blur.