“Come on,” she panted. “Let’s go up the hill to our place!”
She ran on. He followed her, but she ran more easily and soon the distance between them widened. Her shadow streaked behind her, grotesque and wavering and leaping.
She reached the top of the hill, stood outlined against the sky, watching the ascent of her cousin. She might have been a dark statue, remote and somber.
When Ralph came up to her, she touched his arm and murmured tensely, “I have something to tell you. Sit down here, beside me.”
He sat down, uneasy, and rested his elbows on his knees, staring down into the valley.
He was a tall wiry youth, but somehow he gave the impression of delicacy. He had long, thin, well-shaped hands, so different, Margaret always thought, from the blunt fingers of the other men she knew. His nose was his best feature, thin and straight, and almost noble. His eyes were blue and he had a shock of fine light hair which glistened in the moonlight. He gave an impression of mingled shyness and arrogance.
“Well, what is it?” he demanded, in the light voice that had always seemed so musical to Margaret. Now, for some reason, she found it exasperating.
She drew a deep and shaken breath. “I was talking to Granny today,” she began, and then was suddenly unable to go on.
“Well?”
Margaret was silent. He could not see the tears on her face.
Ralph shrugged. There was a real storm in him tonight. He, too, had something to say. He was going away to Williamsburg, perhaps even to New York. He could stay here no longer; he was smothering in this atmosphere. He had been sent by his mother through all the schools in Whitmore. Margaret had lent him old Margot’s books; they had spent hours whispering over them on this same hilltop. Now he must go away. But, he had decided, Margaret would go with him. He had some money wheedled from his doting mother. He would take his scribbled mounds of poems with him; somewhere in that bright and shimmering world were men who awaited his message!
Ralph sighed; he could not summon interest in anything Margaret had to say tonight. He was elated at the thought of departure, finally, but he was sick, a little sick at the thought of anyone but Margaret reading his poems. He had instinctive taste, and deep within him he knew his gifts were second-rate. It was a thought he could not face too often, for without poetry he was naked.
He looked at the stars thrusting their points through the pale sky; he looked at the moon, remote and terrible.
“Margaret,” he sighed. “Sometimes I’m so afraid. Sometimes I feel so strong that nothing, nobody, could hurt me, and the next minute it’s all blank, empty. I can’t seem to rouse myself. If only I could feel, Margaret. Feel something in myself that was hard and purposeful. But there is nothing, nothing even to live for.”
Margaret had heard variations of this hundreds of times. But tonight, she could only see old Margot sitting on the dead log, the coppery sunlight on every seam of her face, her knees spread, yet strong, the clod of living earth in her hands. The vision was so strong that she could have sworn that she saw her grandmother’s very face.
She felt a sudden hatred. She wanted to shout at him, “Look at the earth, you fool! Feel it in your hands, the good warm earth! Look down there, where people are sleeping, after a day’s work and a day’s sweat, happy to be able to sleep, happy to wake up tomorrow, and push their feet in the earth again! That’s where reality is, that’s where life is!”
So intense were her thoughts that she stood up abruptly, full of exultance. Ralph stared up at her amazement.
“You’re not going yet, Margaret?” he said. “I’ve got lots of things I want to talk over with you.”
He waited for her to sit down again, looking up expectantly. But she would not. She could not endure him tonight; she felt that she despised him. Then she was flooded with compassion for him, and tenderness overwhelmed her. She bent quickly and touched his forehead with her lips. He clung to her suddenly; her spirit bent back from him desperately, holding onto the color of reality. Involuntarily her body straightened, and he rose to his feet, still clinging to her. They stared at each other in the moonlight; its pale glimmer shone in Margaret’s face. Her eyes were on fire, filled with living brilliance; her face glowed with an inner vitality. Never had she been so beautiful. The young man was dazzled.
“Oh, Maggie, darling!” he cried. “I love you so!”
He put his arms around her, kissed her neck.
In her tenderness she let him hold her. She smoothed his hair with her brown young fingers.
He was whispering, “Maggie, I’m going away in a few weeks. Far away. To give the world what I can give it. And you must come with me. We’ll be married, as we have always intended.” He kissed her warm neck again.
There were tears in her black eyes; she looked over his head at the quiet night sky. She felt very close to God, humble, yet full of exquisite happiness.
“I must go now,” she said softly. She had already left him. She slipped from his arms and began to run, like a shadow. He called after her; she did not turn, did not look back. She felt that she was running back to life.
CHAPTER FOUR
At intervals Peter went to the door and listened for Margaret’s return. There was no sound. He shut the door savagely and stood gnawing his lip. Melinda smirked.
“Wal, it’s more’n an hour, and she ain’t back!” she gloated.
“Shut up,” growled Peter. But his tone was absent-minded; he spoke merely from habit. He clenched his mighty fists. “By God, I’ll break her back!”
“Time you did,” sniffed his wife.
There was a curt knock; Peter pulled the door open. John Hobart stood outside, a forced expression of amiability on his face.
“Howdy,” he said and entered the kitchen. “Howdy, Mis’ Hamilton.”
He turned to Peter. “Where’s Maggie? I ain’t got but a little while and I want to see her.”
Peter, though his eyes were angry, welcomed the visitor with a grin.
“Here, set a while, John. Come on in the settin’ room, and wait a minute—”
“Say, ain’t Maggie here?” John’s voice became suddenly ominous.
“Sure she is! Just step’ out a minute. Back right away.”
“Runnin’ around with that fool again, eh? Well, damn it, she can—” John turned; he would have left the room in a towering rage, but Margaret’s face rose before him again. If he left now, he would never see her again. He turned back to Peter; his face was black.
“I’ll wait,” he said shortly. “No, I’ll go find her, myself. She can’t be far, you say.”
“Better let me go, John.”
“No, I’ll go myself. And depends on what I find whether I come back or not.”
He slammed the door after him and strode off, full of hatred, and as he went, he looked across the moonlit valley. Was it his imagination, or did he really see a running shadow across the flatness? Yes, there it was again, just emerging from the gloom of a clump of trees. It was running lightly and swiftly. It was Margaret, running back to him! Instantly something frightful in him relaxed.
He began to run toward the girl, calling to her. Hearing his voice, Peter opened the kitchen door, stood watching. He saw John’s figure meet Margaret’s; he saw the two figures dissolve into one. There was silence, broken only by the night wind in the dying trees, the distant lowing of a forgotten cow in distress. Smiling in vast relief, Peter shut the door and stood rubbing his hands.
After that involuntary embrace, Margaret withdrew herself gently from John’s arms. Laughing shakenly, she looked up at his vital face. It was almost gentle, filled with an unbelieving happiness. Her hands slipped along his arms, feeling the strength and power of him. She felt a little sorry for him; she did not love him, but at his touch something that had little to do with love set her afire, made her legs as weak as water. It was very confusing.
He put his arm about her, and in a sudden silence they began to walk slowly toward the hills she had just l
eft.
I don’t love him! thought Margaret. I really love Ralph. But even this, to her increasing amazement, did not make her wish to return to Ralph. In the clasp of John’s arm she felt peace. When he bent and kissed her lips, it seemed to her that she was engulfed in languid flame, and her trembling was renewed.
They came to a gentle hollow between two hills and sat down. John took Margaret’s hands; he kissed the palms, slowly and lingeringly. She tried to speak, to break the spell that was subduing her, but she could not. She thought that she must die in the access of her delicious surrender. Ralph was not forgotten; but she knew that he had nothing to do with this. Never had he aroused one quicker pulse in her body.
John’s lips had moved from her hands to her throat; she could endure no more and she gently pushed him from her. When she spoke her voice was slightly hoarse.
“Was I late?”
“Sure, very late,” he murmured, pushing aside her hands and kissing the hollow in her throat. But Margaret still fought against the insidious urge to surrender. She drew away a little.
“You want me to marry you, don’t you, John? Well, I’m ready to marry you if you want me.”
“Want you!” The man’s voice was guttural. “You damn well know I do! God, you’re a witch! I couldn’t live without you. I’d—I’d kill another man if he so much as looked at you!”
He grasped her again; under the hot pressure of his mouth her will dissolved, but, strangely, Ralph’s face stood between hers and John’s. She wrenched herself from him.
“What’s the matter?” he grunted. “Don’t tell me you don’t like it!”
“I do,” she replied without shame. “I don’t know why it is! but listen John. I’ve got to tell you something. Will you please listen? Well, then, Ralph asked me to marry him and go away with him. I—I’m sorry for Ralph; folks hereabouts never understood him. Please, don’t say anything just yet. I’ve got to tell you. He’s going away; he thinks I—love him. He’s got to go away thinking that; he’s not to know about us, John. If he knows about it, he’ll never have a chance where he’s going. And it’s important to me that he has a chance. So, let’s not tell anyone just yet, John. I’ll tell Pa, that’s all. You won’t mind if I say you want it that way?”
“See here!” he cried angrily. “How long’s that young pup goin’ to hang around here, anyways? I’m not a piece of dead meat, Mag.”
“From what he said, he’ll be leaving soon; probably not more than three-four weeks.”
“And you expect me to wait all that time, when I was planning for us to be married in a couple days?”
“You’ve waited a long time. You can wait a little longer.” She smiled to herself in the darkness; it thrilled her to be so desired. “Besides, you know how folks talk when a wedding’s too quick!” And she laughed.
At the implication in her laughter, his blood rose again. He seized her; she could not even struggle in that iron grip. He bore her down, his breath hot in her face. She closed her eyes; her repelling hands relaxed on his shoulders.
“Well, I’ve got somethin’ comin’, if I let you do that!” he whispered fiercely in her ear. She made no reply; she could not. Her surrender was complete.
After a long time they began to talk again. Upon drinking from a long withheld pitcher, a man’s thirst is finally slaked. But, strangely, John’s thirst was not slaked by the drinking. He had thought that could he but possess Margaret Hamilton once, his desire for her would pass. But, as though he had drunk salt water, his thirst mounted. She belonged to him; nothing under God’s sky would take her from him now.
They lay side by side in each other’s arms. And it was also strange that Margaret believed that now she did not love him one jot the more; he had not touched what Ralph called “the inner spirit.” She was still inviolate in the hidden places of herself. Nevertheless, her desire for John was not satisfied, would never be satisfied.
They slept, side by side, even as their lips met again. They had not been conscious of the sustained lowing of the distressed cow, though its lamentations had been a background to everything that had transpired.
The cool gray dawn was drifting foggily through the trees when Margaret awoke. For a moment she did not know where she was. Her eyes blinked at the dim black tracery of the trees against the paling sky.
She sat up; John still slept beside her, one arm flung across her body. The air was very cold. She could see across the valley, could see the mist coiling over the ground.
For a moment she was held by this hushed silence; then she shook John, laughed, kissed him to confused and grunting consciousness.
“Look—we’ve slept here all night! Pa’ll kill me.”
“Let him touch one hair of your head and I’ll break his back,” said John. “Here, kiss me.”
The kiss was as ardent as the first, and for a long moment they embraced. They then scrambled to their feet; Margaret was filled with joy and a deep contentment.
Suddenly she lifted her head, drew her clear black brows together, and listened. She recognized distress calls in an animal.
“Seems to me I heard that cow all night,” she murmured. She turned in the direction of the sound. “Sounds like Granny’s old Bossy,” she continued uneasily. “Let’s go over there and see what’s the matter. Let’s tell her that we are going to be married. She’s always up at dawn.”
She ran ahead, uneasiness pricking at her more acutely every moment. John followed; his heavier step could hardly keep up with hers. They came in sight of the little cabin on its slight rise of ground. It was desolate, sharply defined now against the brightening rose of the sky. Chickens were clucking raucously for release.
Margaret ran to the door, thrust it open, called. There was no answer. She called again, in so loud and frightened a voice that John involuntarily said, “Hush.” She went into the cabin, still calling. A moment later she came out; her face was pale.
“She’s not there!”
Margaret stood in the garden, tense and silent, but her eyes darted everywhere. Then she gave a cry and pointed a trembling finger to the edge of the trees at the bottom of the garden.
John followed the pointing of her finger. In the thinning shadow of the trees they could see old Margot sitting, her head on her breast, her knees spraddled, her hands hanging between them, lifelessly. Margaret, weeping loudly, ran toward the figure. She felt a strong clutch on her arm, and, so suddenly impeded in progress, she whirled staggeringly on her heel.
John had seen in the attitude of the old woman something that he did not want Margaret to see without preparation.
“Maggie, dear, I want to tell you something,” he said. “The old woman—dead. Margaret—I think she’s dead. I kin see it from here. Better let me go first.”
Margaret began to sob weakly. He put his arm about her. Together they went to old Margot. The dawn wind fluttered her slack garments; the dawn light lay on her dead and open eyes. In her fingers remained a small lump of earth.
“Oh, Granny,” said Margaret, and then could say no more. John patted her shoulder.
“Maggie, he said, “that cow’s sufferin’ some. Suppose you go ’tend to her, and I’ll do what’s got to be done for the ole woman. Run along now, like a good girl.”
Sobbing, her head bent, Margaret went into the ancient barn. The cow was stamping, tossing her tortured head, her eyes glaring in the gloom. Margaret forced herself to make a comforting sound. The tears were running down her cheeks; she could hardly see. She found the stool, picked up a bucked, and sat down beside the miserable animal who looked at her gratefully. Bossy nuzzled her softly.
Margaret carried out the milk and poured it into the chicken trough. She carried water into the barn for the cow. Mechanically, she fed the animal. When this was done, she went toward the cabin again. Old Margot had disappeared.
The door stood open; she entered, her feet heavy. She found John standing beside old Margot. He had laid her upon her rude maple bed and had closed her eyes and cr
ossed her hands on her breast. He looked up as Margaret entered, put his arm about her.
“Well, that’s all, I ’spect,” he said heavily. He had known the old woman well. She had driven him repeatedly from her tiny apple orchard when he had been a boy, brandishing her cane. They had hated each cordially, but they had respected each other.
Margaret bent over her grandmother, tears dropping onto the dead face.
“Granny,” she whispered. “God bless you, Granny. It’s all right, now.”
She kissed the cold forehead, then without looking at John, she went out again into the morning. He left her alone a while, then followed her. She was looking at the hills. Tears still poured over her cheeks, but her face was calm.
Finally she went to the barn and led out old Bossy.
“I’m taking her home,” she said.
“I’ll go with you,” answered John. They walked slowly and in silence across the damp fields. Before they reached Margaret’s home, Peter ran out to meet them. His face was black with rage. He glanced at Margaret with such scorn that she flinched, but his business was with John. He brandished his fist in the younger man’s face.
“So that’s how you want my gal, is it?” he shouted. “Keepin’ her out all night doin’ God knows what, except you know! And I know, too! By God, I’ll slit your throat for this!”
John caught his wrist, twisted it, and then pushed Peter from him with a contemptuous gesture.
Margaret got between the two men. Her father raised his fist and smashed it into her face. She staggered, felt blood pouring from her mouth and nose. She sank down to the ground on her hands and knees.
Dimly she heard roars, shouts, thuds. She could not see yet. She felt herself lifted, felt a gentle hand wiping the blood from her eyes.
“All right, Maggie?” asked John in a thickened voice. “I’ll kill him for this, by God, I will!” he added through his teeth.
Peter was lying sprawled on his back in the stubble. He was slowly raising his head; tentatively he felt his mangled jaw. John left Margaret, seized Peter by the front of his shirt, dragged him to his feet. He caught the older man close to him, thrust his face into the dazed face of the other. There was murder in his eyes.