At last Leslie tore himself away, and after more returns for a farewell kiss, mounted the carriage, which stood in a pool of yellow light, blurred and splotched with shadows, and drove away, calling something about tomorrow.
PART TWO
CHAPTER I - STRANGE BLOSSOMS AND STRANGE NEW BUDDING
Winter lay a long time prostrate on the earth. The men in the mines of Tempest, Warrall and Co. came out on strike on a question of the rearranging of the working system down below. The distress was not awful, for the men were on the whole wise and well-conditioned, but there was a dejection over the face of the country-side, and some suffered keenly. Everywhere, along the lanes and in the streets, loitered gangs of men, unoccupied and spiritless. Week after week went on, and the agents of the Miners' Union held great meetings, and the ministers held prayer-meetings, but the strike continued. There was no rest. Always the crier's bell was ringing in the street; always the servants of the company were delivering handbills, stating the case clearly, and always the people talked and filled the months with bitter, and then hopeless, resenting. Schools gave breakfasts, chapels gave soup, well-to-do people gave teas--the children enjoyed it. But we, who knew the faces of the old men and the privations of the women, breathed a cold, disheartening atmosphere of sorrow and trouble.
Determined poaching was carried on in the squire's woods and warrens. Annable defended his game heroically. One man was at home with a leg supposed to be wounded by a fall on the slippery roads--but really, by a man-trap in the woods. Then Annable caught two men, and they were sentenced to two months' imprisonment.
On both the lodge gates of Highclose--on our side and on the far Eberwich side--were posted notices that trespassers on the drive or in the grounds would be liable to punishment. These posters were soon mudded over, and fresh ones fixed.
The men loitering on the road by Nethermere looked angrily at Lettie as she passed, in her black furs which Leslie had given her, and their remarks were pungent. She heard them, and they burned in her heart. From my mother she inherited democratic views, which she now proceeded to debate warmly with her lover.
Then she tried to talk to Leslie about the strike. He heard her with mild superiority, smiled, and said she did not know. Women jumped to conclusions at the first touch of feeling; men must look at a thing all round, then make a decision--nothing hasty and impetuous--careful, long-thought-out, correct decisions. Women could not be expected to understand these things, business was not for them; in fact, their mission was above business--etc. etc. Unfortunately Lettie was the wrong woman to treat thus.
"So!" said she, with a quiet, hopeless tone of finality.
"There now, you understand, don't you, Minnehaha, my Laughing Water.--So laugh again, darling, and don't worry about these things. We will not talk about them any more, eh?"
"No more."
"No more--that's right--you are as wise as an angel. Come here--pooh, the wood is thick and lonely! Look, there is nobody in the world but us, and you are my heaven and earth!"
"And hell?"
"Ah--if you are so cold--how cold you are!--it gives me little shivers when you look so--and I am always hot--Lettie!"
"Well?"
"You are cruel! Kiss me--now--No, I don't want your cheek--kiss me yourself. Why don't you say something?"
"What for? What's the use of saying anything when there's nothing immediate to say?"
"You are offended!"
"It feels like snow today," she answered.
At last, however, winter began to gather her limbs, to rise, and drift with saddened garments northward.
The strike was over. The men had compromised. It was a gentle way of telling them they were beaten. But the strike was over.
The birds fluttered and dashed; the catkins on the hazel loosened their winter rigidity, and swung soft tassels. All through the day sounded long, sweet whistlings from the bushes; then later, loud, laughing shouts of bird triumph on every hand.
I remember a day when the breast of the hills was heaving in a last quick waking sigh, and the blue eyes of the waters opened bright. Across the infinite skies of March great rounded masses of cloud had sailed stately all day, domed with white radiance, softened with faint, fleeting shadows as if companies of angels were gently sweeping past; adorned with resting, silken shadows likes those of a full white breast. All day the clouds had moved on to their vast destination, and I had clung to the earth yearning and impatient. I took a brush and tried to paint them, then I raged at myself. I wished that in all the wild valley where cloud shadows were travelling like pilgrims, something would call me forth from my rooted loneliness. Through all the grandeur of the white and blue day, the poised cloud masses swung their slow flight, and left me unnoticed.
At evening they were all gone, and the empty sky, like a blue bubble over us, swam on its pale bright rims.
Leslie came, and asked his betrothed to go out with him, under the darkening wonderful bubble. She bade me accompany her, and, to escape from myself, I went.
It was warm in the shelter of the wood and in the crouching hollows of the hills. But over the slanting shoulders of the hills the wind swept, whipping the redness into our faces.
"Get me some of those alder catkins, Leslie," said Lettie, as we came down to the stream.
"Yes, those, where they hang over the brook. They are ruddy like new blood freshening under the skin. Look, tassels of crimson and gold!" She pointed to the dusty hazel catkins mingled with the alder on her bosom. Then she began to quote Christina Rossetti's "A Birthday".
"I'm glad you came to take me a walk," she continued--"Doesn't Strelley Mill look pretty? Like a group of orange and scarlet fungi in a fairy picture. Do you know, I haven't been, no, not for quite a long time. Shall we call now?"
"The daylight will be gone if we do. It is half-past five--more! I saw him--the son--the other morning."
"Where?"
"He was carting manure--I made haste by."
"Did he speak to you--did you look at him?"
"No, he said nothing. I glanced at him--he's just the same, brick colour--stolid. Mind that stone--it rocks. I'm glad you've got strong boots on."
"Seeing that I usually wear them."
She stood poised a moment on a large stone, the fresh spring brook hastening towards her, deepening sidling round her.
"You won't call and see them, then?" she asked.
"No. I like to hear the brook tinkling, don't you?" he replied.
"Ah, yes--it's full of music."
"Shall we go on?" he said, impatient but submissive. "I'll catch up in a minute," said I.
I went in and found Emily putting some bread into the oven. "Come out for a walk," said I.
"Now? Let me tell Mother--I was longing--"
She ran and put on her long grey coat and her red tam-o'-shanter. As we went down the yard, George called to me. "I'll come back," I shouted.
He came to the crew-yard gate to see us off. When we came out onto the path, we saw Lettie standing on the top bar of the stile, balancing with her hand on Leslie's head. She saw us, she saw George, and she waved to us. Leslie was looking up at her anxiously. She waved again, then we could hear her laughing, and telling him excitedly to stand still, and steady her while she turned. She turned round, and leaped with a great flutter, like a big bird launching, down from the top of the stile to the ground and into his arms. Then we climbed the steep hill-side--Sunny Bank, that had once shone yellow with wheat, and now waved black tattered ranks of thistles where the rabbits ran. We passed the little cottages in the hollow scooped out of the hill, and gained the highlands that look out over Leicestershire to Charnwood on the left, and away into the mountain knob of Derbyshire straight in front and towards the right.
The upper road is all grassy, fallen into long disuse. It used to lead from the Abbey to the Hall; but now it ends blindly on the hill-brow. Half-way along is the old White House farm, with its green mounting-steps mouldering outside. Ladies have mounted here and rid
den towards the Vale of Belvoir--but now a labourer holds the farm.
We came to the quarries, and looked in at the lime-kilns. "Let us go right into the woods out of the quarry," said Leslie. "I have not been since I was a little lad."
"It is trespassing," said Emily.
"We don't trespass," he replied grandiloquently.
So we went along by the hurrying brook, which fell over little cascades in its haste, never looking once at the primroses that were glimmering all along its banks. We turned aside, and climbed the hill through the woods. Velvety green sprigs of dog-mercury were scattered on the red soil. We came to the top of a slope, where the wood thinned. As I talked to Emily I became dimly aware of a whiteness over the ground. She exclaimed with surprise, and I found that I was walking, in the first shades of twilight, over clumps of snowdrops. The hazels were thin, and only here and there an oak tree uprose. All the ground was white with snowdrops, like drops of manna scattered over the red earth, on the grey-green clusters of leaves. There was a deep little dell, sharp sloping like a cup, and white sprinkling of flowers all the way down, with white flowers showing pale among the first inpouring of shadow at the bottom. The earth was red and warm, pricked with the dark, succulent green of bluebell sheaths, and embroidered with grey-green clusters of spears, and many white flowerets. High above, above the light tracery of hazel, the weird oaks tangled in the sunset. Below, in the first shadows, drooped hosts of little white flowers, so silent and sad; it seemed like a holy communion of pure wild things, numberless, frail, and folded meekly in the evening light. Other flower companies are glad; stately barbaric hordes of bluebells, merry-headed cowslip groups, even light, tossing wood-anemones; but snowdrops are sad and mysterious. We have lost their meaning. They do not belong to us, who ravish them. The girls bent among them, touching them with their fingers, and symbolising the yearning which I felt. Folded in the twilight, these conquered flowerets are sad like forlorn little friends of dryads.
"What do they mean, do you think?" said Lettie in a low voice, as her white fingers touched the flowers, and her black furs fell on them.
"There are not so many this year," said Leslie.
"They remind me of mistletoe, which is never ours, though we wear it." said Emily to me.
"What do you think they say--what do they make you think, Cyril?" Lettie repeated.
"I don't know. Emily says they belong to some old wild lost religion. They were the symbol of tears, perhaps, to some strange-hearted Druid folk before us."
"More than tears," said Lettie. "More than tears, they are so still. Something out of an old religion, that we have lost. They make me feel afraid."
"What should you have to fear?" asked Leslie.
"If I knew I shouldn't fear," she answered. "Look at all the snowdrops"--they hung in dim, strange flecks among the dusky leaves--"look at them--closed up, retreating, powerless. They belong to some knowledge we have lost, that I have lost and that I need. I feel afraid. They seem like something in fate. Do you think, Cyril, we can lose things off the earth--like mastodons, and those old monstrosities--but things that matter--wisdom?"
"It is against my creed," said I.
"I believe I have lost something," said she.
"Come," said Leslie, "don't trouble with fancies. Come with me to the bottom of this cup, and see how strange it will be, with the sky marked with branches like a filigree lid."
She rose and followed him down the steep side of the pit, crying, "Ah, you are treading on the flowers."
"No," said he, "I am being very careful."
They sat down together on a fallen tree at the bottom. She leaned forward, her fingers wandering white among the shadowed grey spaces of leaves, plucking, as if it were a rite, flowers here and there. He could not see her face.
"Don't you care for me?" he asked softly.
"You?"--she sat up and looked at him, and laughed strangely. "You do not seem real to me," she replied, in a strange voice.
For some time they sat thus, both bowed and silent. Birds "skirred" off from the bushes, and Emily looked up with a great start as a quiet, sardonic voice said above us:
"A dove-cot, my eyes if it ain't! It struck me I 'eered a cooin', an' 'ere's th' birds. Come on, sweethearts, it's th' wrong place for billin' an' cooin', in th' middle o' these 'ere snowdrops. Let's 'ave yer names, come on."
"Clear off, you fool!" answered Leslie from below, jumping up in anger.
We all four turned and looked at the keeper. He stood in the rim of light, darkly; fine, powerful form, menacing us. He did not move, but like some malicious Pan looked down on us and said:
"Very pretty--pretty! Two--and two makes four. 'Tis true, two and two makes four. Come on, come on out o' this 'ere bridal bed, an' let's 'ave a look at yer."
"Can't you use your eyes, you fool," replied Leslie, standing up and helping Lettie with her furs. "At any rate you can see there are ladies here."
"Very sorry, Sir! You can't tell a lady from a woman at this distance at dusk. Who may you be, Sir?"
"Clear out! Come along, Lettie, you can't stay here now." They climbed into the light.
"Oh, very sorry, Mr Tempest--when yer look down on a man he never looks the same. I thought it was some young fools come here dallyin'--"
"Damn you--shut up!" exclaimed Leslie--"I beg your pardon, Lettie. Will you have my arm?"
They looked very elegant, the pair of them. Lettie was wearing a long coat which fitted close; she had a small hat whose feathers flushed straight back with her hair.
The keeper looked at them. Then, smiling, he went down the dell with great strides, and returned, saying, "Well, the lady might as well take her gloves."
She took them from him, shrinking to Leslie. Then she started, and said:
"Let me fetch my flowers."
She ran for the handful of snowdrops that lay among the roots of the trees. We all watched her.
"Sorry I made such a mistake--a lady!" said Annable. "But I've nearly forgot the sight o' one--save the squire's daughters, who are never out o' nights."
"I should think you never have seen many--unless--Have you ever been a groom?"
"No groom but a bridegroom, Sir, and then I think I'd rather groom a horse than a lady, for I got well bit--if you will excuse me, Sir."
"And you deserved it--no doubt."
"I got it--an' I wish you better luck, Sir. One's more a man here in th' wood, though, than in my lady's parlour, it strikes me."
"A lady's parlour!" laughed Leslie, indulgent in his amusement at the facetious keeper.
"Oh, yes! 'Will you walk into my parlour--'"
"You're very smart for a keeper."
"Oh yes, Sir--I was once a lady's man. But I'd rather watch th' rabbits an' th' birds; an' it's easier breeding brats in th' Kennels than in th' town."
"They are yours, are they?" said I.
"You know' em, do you, Sir? Aren't they a lovely little litter?--aren't they a pretty bag o' ferrets?--natural as weasels--that's what I said they should be--bred up like a bunch o' young foxes, to run as they would."
Emily had joined Lettie, and they kept aloof from the man they instinctively hated.
"They'll get nicely trapped, one of these days," said I. "They're natural--they can fend for themselves like wild beasts do," he replied, grinning.
"You are not doing your duty, it strikes me," put in Leslie sententiously.
"Duties of parents!--tell me, I've need of it. I've nine--that is eight, and one not far off. She breeds well, the ow'd lass--one every two years--nine in fourteen years--done well, hasn't she?"
"You've done pretty badly, I think."
"I--why? it's natural! When a man's more than nature he's a devil. Be a good animal, says I, whether it's man or woman. You, Sir, a good natural male animal; the lady there--a female un--that's proper as long as yer enjoy it."
"And what then?"
"Do as th' animals do. I watch my brats--I let 'em grow. They're beauties, they are--sound as a young ash p
ole, every one. They shan't learn to dirty themselves wi' smirking deviltry--not if I can help it. They can be like birds, or weasels, or vipers, or squirrels, so long as they ain't human rot, that's what I say."
"It's one way of looking at things," said Leslie.
"Ay. Look at the women looking at us. I'm something between a bull and a couple of worms stuck together, I am. See that spink!" he raised his voice for the girls to hear, "Pretty, isn't he? What for?--And what for do you wear a fancy vest and twist your moustache, Sir! What for, at the bottom! Ha--tell a woman not to come in a wood till she can look at natural things--she might see something.--Good night, Sir."
He marched off into the darkness.
"Coarse fellow, that," said Leslie when he had rejoined Lettie, "but he's a character."
"He makes you shudder," she replied. "But yet you are interested in him. I believe he has a history."
"He seems to lack something," said Emily.
"I thought him rather a fine fellow," said I.
"Splendidly built fellow, but callous--no soul," remarked Leslie, dismissing the question.
"No," assented Emily. "No soul--and among the snowdrops."
Lettie was thoughtful, and I smiled.
It was a beautiful evening, still, with red, shaken clouds in the west. The moon in heaven was turning wistfully back to the east. Dark purple woods lay around us, painting out the distance. The near, wild, ruined land looked sad and strange under the pale afterglow. The turf path was fine and springy.
"Let us run!" said Lettie, and joining hands we raced wildly along, with a flutter and a breathless laughter, till we were happy and forgetful. When we stopped we exclaimed at once, "Hark!"
"A child!" said Lettie.
"At the Kennels," said I.
We hurried forward. From the house came the mad yelling and yelping of children, and the wild hysterical shouting of a woman.
"Tha' little devil--tha' little devil--tha' shanna--that tha' shanna!" and this was accompanied by the hollow sound of blows, and a pandemonium of howling. We rushed in, and found the woman in a tousled frenzy belabouring a youngster with an enamelled pan. The lad was rolled up like a young hedgehog--the woman held him by the foot, and like a flail came the hollow utensil thudding on his shoulders and back. He lay in the firelight and howled, while scattered in various groups, with the leaping firelight twinkling over their tears and their open mouths, were the other children, crying too. The mother was in a state of hysteria; her hair streamed over her face, and her eyes were fixed in a stare of overwrought irritation. Up and down went her long arm like a windmill sail. I ran and held it. When she could hit no more, the woman dropped the pan from her nerveless hand, and staggered, trembling, to the squab. She looked desperately weary and foredone--she clasped and unclasped her hands continually. Emily hushed the children, while Lettie hushed the mother, holding her hard, cracked hands as she swayed to and fro. Gradually the mother became still, and sat staring in front of her; then aimlessly she began to finger the jewels on Lettie's finger.