They came to the kennels. She sat down on the edge of the great stone water-trough, and put her hands in the water, moving them gently like submerged flowers through the clear pool.
"I love to see myself in the water," she said, "I don't mean on the water, Narcissus--but that's how I should like to be out west, to have a little lake of my own, and swim with my limbs quite free in the water."
"Do you swim well?" he asked.
"Fairly."
"I would race you--in your little lake."
She laughed, took her hands out of the water, and watched the clear drops trickle off. Then she lifted her head suddenly, at some thought or other. She looked across the valley, and saw the red roofs of the Mill.
"Ilion, Ilion Fatalis incestusque judex Et mulier peregrina vertit. In pulverem----"
"What's that?" he said.
"Nothing."
"That's a private trough," exclaimed a thin voice, high like a peewit's cry. We started in surprise to see a tall, black-bearded man looking at us and away from us nervously, fidgeting uneasily some ten yards off.
"Is it?" said Lettie, looking at her wet hands, which she proceeded to dry on a fragment of a handkerchief.
"You mustn't meddle with it," said the man in the same reedy, oboe voice. Then he turned his head away, and his pale grey eyes roved the country-side--when he had courage, he turned his back to us, shading his eyes to continue his scrutiny. He walked hurriedly, a few steps, then craned his neck, peering into the valley, and hastened a dozen yards in another direction, again stretching and peering about. Then he went indoors.
"He is pretending to look for somebody," said Lettie, "but it's only because he's afraid we shall think he came out just to look at us"--and they laughed.
Suddenly a woman appeared at the gate; she had pale eyes like the mouse-voiced man.
"You'll get Bright's disease sitting on that there damp stone," she said to Lettie, who at once rose apologetically.
"I ought to know," continued the mouse-voiced woman, "my own mother died of it."
"Indeed," murmured Lettie, "I'm sorry."
"Yes," continued the woman, "it behooves you to be careful. Do you come from Strelley Mill Farm?" she asked suddenly of George, surveying his shameful deshabille with bitter reproof.
He admitted the imputation.
"And you're going to leave, aren't you?"
Which also he admitted.
"Humph!--we s'll 'appen get some neighbours. It's a dog's life for loneliness. I suppose you knew the last lot that was here."
Another brief admission.
"A dirty lot--a dirty beagle she must have been. You should just ha' seen these grates."
"Yes," said Lettie. "I have seen them."
"Faugh--the state! But come in--come in, you'll see a difference."
They entered, out of curiosity.
The kitchen was indeed different. It was clean and sparkling, warm with bright red chintzes on the sofa and on every chair cushion. Unfortunately the effect was spoiled by green and yellow antimaccassars, and by a profusion of paper and woollen flowers. There were three cases of woollen flowers, and on the wall, four fans stitched over with ruffled green and yellow paper, adorned with yellow paper roses, carnations, arum lilies, and poppies; there were also wall pockets full of paper flowers; while the wood outside was loaded with blossom.
"Yes," said Lettie, "there is a difference."
The woman swelled, and looked round. The black-bearded man peeped from behind the Christian Herald--those long blaring trumpets!--and shrank again. The woman darted at his pipe, which he had put on a piece of newspaper on the hob, and blew some imaginary ash from it. Then she caught sight of something--perhaps some dust--on the fireplace.
"There!" she cried, "I knew it; I couldn't leave him one second! I haven't work enough burning wood, but he must be poke--poke--"
"I only pushed a piece in between the bars," complained the mouse voice from behind the paper.
"Pushed a piece in!" she re-echoed, with awful scorn, seizing the poker and thrusting it over his paper. "What do you call that, sitting there telling your stories before folks--"
They crept out and hurried away. Glancing round, Lettie saw the woman mopping the doorstep after them, and she laughed. He pulled his watch out of his breeches' pocket; it was half-past three.
"What are you looking at the time for?" she asked. "Meg's coming to tea," he replied.
She said no more, and they walked slowly on.
When they came on to the shoulder of the hill, and looked down on to the mill, and the millpond, she said:
"I will not come down with you--I will go home."
"Not come down to tea!" he exclaimed, full of reproach and amazement. "Why, what will they say?"
"No, I won't come down--let me say farewell--jamque Vale! Do you remember how Eurydice sank back into Hell?"
"But"--he stammered, "you must come down to tea--how can I tell them? Why won't you come?"
She answered him in Latin, with two lines from Virgil. As she watched him, she pitied his helplessness, and gave him a last cut as she said, very softly and tenderly:
"It wouldn't be fair to Meg."
He stood looking at her; his face was coloured only by the grey-brown tan; his eyes, the dark, self-mistrustful eyes of the family, were darker than ever, dilated with misery of helplessness; and she was infinitely pitiful. She wanted to cry in her yearning.
"Shall we go into the wood for a few minutes?" she said in a low, tremulous voice, as they turned aside.
The wood was high and warm. Along the ridings the forget-me-nots were knee deep, stretching, glimmering into the distance like the Milky Way through the night. They left the tall, flower-tangled paths to go in among the bluebells, breaking through the close-pressed flowers and ferns till they came to an oak which had fallen across the hazels, where they sat half screened. The hyacinths drooped magnificently with an overweight of purple, or they stood pale and erect, like unripe ears of purple corn. Heavy bees swung down in a blunder of extravagance among the purple flowers. They were intoxicated even with the sight of so much blue. The sound of their hearty, wanton humming came clear upon the solemn boom of the wind overhead. The sight of their clinging, clambering riot gave satisfaction to the soul. A rosy campion flower caught the sun and shone out. An elm sent down a shower of flesh-tinted sheaths upon them.
"If there were fauns and hamadryads!" she said softly, turning to him to soothe his misery. She took his cap from his head, ruffled his hair, saying:
"If you were a faun, I would put guelder roses round your hair, and make you look Bacchanalian." She left her hand lying on his knee, and looked up at the sky. Its blue looked pale and green in comparison with the purple tide ebbing about the wood. The clouds rose up like towers, and something had touched them into beauty, and poised them up among the winds. The clouds passed on, and the pool of sky was clear.
"Look," she said, "how we are netted down--boughs with knots of green buds. If we were free on the winds!--But I'm glad we're not." She turned suddenly to him, and with the same movement, she gave him her hand, and he clasped it in both his. "I'm glad we're netted down here; if we were free in the winds--Ah!"
She laughed a peculiar little laugh, catching her breath.
"Look!" she said, "it's a palace, with the ash-trunks smooth like a girl's arm, and the elm-columns, ribbed and bossed and fretted, with the great steel shafts of beech, all rising up to hold an embroidered care-cloth over us; and every thread of the care-cloth vibrates with music for us, and the little broidered birds sing; and the hazel-bushes fling green spray round us, and the honeysuckle leans down to pour out scent over us. Look at the harvest of bluebells--ripened for us! Listen to the bee, sounding among all the organ-play--if he sounded exultant for us!" She looked at him, with tears coming up into her eyes, and a little, winsome, wistful smile hovering round her mouth. He was very pale, and dared not look at her. She put her hand in his, leaning softly against him. He watched, as if
fascinated, a young thrush with full pale breast who hopped near to look at them--glancing with quick, shining eyes.
"The clouds are going on again," said Lettie.
"Look at that cloud face--see--gazing right up into the sky. The lips are opening--he is telling us something--now the form is slipping away--it's gone--come, we must go too."
"No," he cried, "don't go--don't go away."
Her tenderness made her calm. She replied in a voice perfect in restrained sadness and resignation.
"No, my dear, no. The threads of my life were untwined; they drifted about like floating threads of gossamer; and you didn't put out your hand to take them and twist them up into the chord with yours. Now another has caught them up, and the chord of my life is being twisted, and I cannot wrench it free and untwine it again--I can't. I am not strong enough. Besides, you have twisted another thread far and tight into your chord; could you get free?"
"Tell me what to do--yes, if you tell me."
"I can't tell you--so let me go."
"No, Lettie," he pleaded, with terror and humility. "No, Lettie; don't go. What should I do with my life? Nobody would love you like I do--and what should I do with my love for you?--hate it and fear it, because it's too much for me?"
She turned and kissed him gratefully. He then took her in a long, passionate embrace, mouth to mouth. In the end it had so wearied her that she could only wait in his arms till he was too tired to hold her. He was trembling already.
"Poor Meg!" she murmured to herself dully, her sensations having become vague.
He winced, and the pressure of his arms slackened. She loosened his hands and rose half dazed from her seat by him. She left him, while he sat dejected, raising no protest.
When I went out to look for them, when tea had already been waiting on the table half an hour or more, I found him leaning against the gatepost at the bottom of the hill. There was no blood in his face, and his tan showed livid; he was haggard as if he had been ill for some weeks.
"Whatever's the matter?" I said. "Where's Lettie?"
"She's gone home," he answered, and the sound of his own voice, and the meaning of his own words made him heave. "Why?" I asked in alarm.
He looked at me as if to say, "What are you talking about? I cannot listen!"
"Why?" I insisted.
"I don't know," he replied.
"They are waiting tea for you," I said.
He heard me, but took no notice.
"Come on," I repeated, "there's Meg and everybody waiting tea for you."
"I don't want any," he said.
I waited a minute or two. He was violently sick.
"Vae meum Fervens difficile bile tumet jecur,"
I thought to myself.
When the sickness passed over, he stood up away from the post, trembling and lugubrious. His eyelids dropped heavily over his eyes, and he looked at me, and smiled a faint, sick smile.
"Come and lie down in the loft," I said, "and I'll tell them you've got a bilious bout."
He obeyed me, not having energy to question; his strength had gone, and his splendid physique seemed shrunken; he walked weakly. I looked away from him, for in his feebleness he was already beginning to feel ludicrous.
We got into the barn unperceived, and I watched him climb the ladder to the loft. Then I went indoors to tell them.
I told them Lettie had promised to be at Highclose for tea, that George had a bilious attack, and was mooning about the barn till it was over; he had been badly sick. We ate tea without zest or enjoyment. Meg was wistful and ill at ease; the father talked to her and made much of her; the mother did not care for her much.
"I can't understand it," said the mother, "he so rarely has anything the matter with him--why, I've hardly known the day! Are you sure it's nothing serious, Cyril? It seems such a thing--and just when Meg happened to be down--just when Meg was coming--"
About half-past six I had again to go and look for him, to satisfy the anxiety of his mother and his sweetheart. I went whistling to let him know I was coming. He lay on a pile of hay in a corner, asleep. He had put his cap under his head to stop the tickling of the hay, and he lay half curled up, sleeping soundly. He was still very pale, and there was on his face the repose and pathos that a sorrow always leaves. As he wore no coat, I was afraid he might be chilly, so I covered him up with a couple of sacks, and I left him. I would not have him disturbed--I helped the father about the cowsheds and with the pigs.
Meg had to go at half-past seven. She was so disappointed that I said:
"Come and have a look at him--I'll tell him you did."
He had thrown off the sacks and spread out his limbs. As he lay on his back, flung out on the hay, he looked big again, and manly. His mouth had relaxed, and taken its old, easy lines. One felt for him now the warmth one feels for anyone who sleeps in an attitude of abandon. She leaned over him, and looked at him with a little rapture of love and tenderness; she longed to caress him. Then he stretched himself, and his eyes opened. Their sudden unclosing gave her a thrill. He smiled sleepily, and murmured, "'Alto, Meg!" Then I saw him awake. As he remembered, he turned with a great sighing yawn, hid his face again, and lay still.
"Come along, Meg," I whispered, "he'll be best asleep."
"I'd better cover him up," she said, taking the sack and laying it very gently over his shoulders. He kept perfectly still while I drew her away.
CHAPTER VIII - A POEM OF FRIENDSHIP
The magnificent promise of spring was broken before the May blossom was fully out. All through the beloved month the wind rushed in upon us from the north and north-east, bringing the rain fierce and heavy. The tender-budded trees shuddered and moaned; when the wind was dry, the young leaves flapped limp. The grass and corn grew lush, but the light of the dandelions was quite extinguished, and it seemed that only a long time back had we made merry before the broad glare of these flowers. The bluebells lingered and lingered; they fringed the fields for weeks like purple fringe of mourning. The pink campions came out only to hang heavy with rain; hawthorn buds remained tight and hard as pearls, shrinking into the brilliant green foliage; the forget-me-nots, the poor pleiades of the wood, were ragged weeds. Often at the end of the day the sky opened, and stately clouds hung over the horizon infinitely far away, glowing, through the yellow distance, with an amber lustre. They never came any nearer, always they remained far off, looking calmly and majestically over the shivering earth, then saddened, fearing their radiance might be dimmed, they drew away, and sank out of sight. Sometimes, towards sunset, a great shield stretched dark from the west to the zenith, tangling the light along its edges. As the canopy rose higher, it broke, dispersed, and the sky was primrose coloured, high and pale above the crystal moon. Then the cattle crouched among the gorse, distressed by the cold, while the long-billed snipe flickered round high overhead, round and round in great circles, seeming to carry a serpent from its throat, and crying a tragedy, more painful than the poignant lamentations and protests of the peewits. Following these evenings came mornings cold and grey.
Such a morning I went up to George, on the top fallow. His father was out with the milk--he was alone; as I came up the hill I could see him standing in the cart, scattering manure over the bare red fields; I could hear his voice calling now and then to the mare, and the creak and clank of the cart as it moved on. Starlings and smart wagtails were running briskly over the clods, and many little birds flashed, fluttered, hopped here and there. The lapwings wheeled and cried as ever between the low clouds and the earth, and some ran beautifully among the furrows, too graceful and glistening for the rough field.
I took a fork and scattered the manure along the hollows, and thus we worked, with a wide field between us, yet very near in the sense of intimacy. I watched him through the wheeling peewits, as the low clouds went stealthily overhead. Beneath us, the spires of the poplars in the spinney were warm gold, as if the blood shone through. Farther gleamed the grey water, and below it the red roofs. Nethermere was h
alf hidden and far away. There was nothing in this grey, lonely world but the peewits swinging and crying, and George swinging silently at his work. The movement of active life held all my attention, and when I looked up, it was to see the motion of his limbs and his head, the rise and fall of his rhythmic body, and the rise and fall of the slow waving peewits. After a while, when the cart was empty, he took a fork and came towards me, working at my task.
It began to rain, so he brought a sack from the cart, and we crushed ourselves under the thick hedge. We sat close together and watched the rain fall like a grey striped curtain before us, hiding the valley; we watched it trickle in dark streams off the mare's back, as she stood dejectedly; we listened to the swish of the drops falling all about; we felt the chill of the rain, and drew ourselves together in silence. He smoked his pipe, and I lit a cigarette. The rain continued; all the little pebbles and the red earth glistened in the grey gloom. We sat together, speaking occasionally. It was at these times we formed the almost passionate attachment which later years slowly wore away.
When the rain was over, we filled our buckets with potatoes, and went along the wet furrows, sticking the spritted tubers in the cold ground. Being sandy, the field dried quickly. About twelve o'clock, when nearly all the potatoes were set, he left me, and fetching up Bob from the far hedge-side, harnessed the mare and him to the ridger, to cover the potatoes. The sharp light plough turned the soil in a fine furrow over the potatoes; hosts of little birds fluttered, settled, bounded off again after the plough. He called to the horses, and they came downhill, the white stars on the two brown noses nodding up and down, George striding firm and heavy behind. They came down upon me; at a call the horses turned, shifting awkwardly sideways; he flung himself against the plough, and leaning well in, brought it round with a sweep: a click, and they are off uphill again. There is a great rustle as the birds sweep round after him and follow up the new-turned furrow. Untackling the horses when the rows were all covered, we tramped behind them down the wet hill-side to dinner.