Amelia was aware of her advantage as she engaged Reddin in conversation. He fell in with the arrangement, for he detested her sister, who always prefaced every remark with 'Have you read—?'
As he never read anything, he thought she was making fun of him.
'And what,' asked Miss Clomber of Hazel, lowering her lids like blinds, 'was your maiden name?'
'Woodus.'
'Where were you married?'
'The Mountain.'
'Shawly there's no charch there?'
'Ah! Ed'ard's church.'
'Edward?'
'Ah! He's minister.'
'You mean the chapel. So that's your persuasion. Now Mr. Reddin is such a sta'nch Charchman.'
Reddin looked exceedingly discomfited.
'And when did this happy event take place?'
A cat with a mouse was nothing to Miss Clomber with a sinner.
At this point Reddin saw, as he put it, what she was driving at. He was very sleepy, having been out all day and eaten a large tea, and he never combated a physical desire. So he cut across a remark of Amelia's to the effect that marriage with therightwoman so added to a man's comfort, and said:
'I'm not married if that's what you mean.'
'Then who—' said Miss Clomber, feeling that she had him now.
'My keep,' he said baldly. He thought they would go at that. But they sat tight. They had, as Miss Clomber said afterwards, a soul to save. They both realized how pleasant might be the earthly lot of one engaged in this heavenly occupation.
'Hah! You call a spade a spade, Mr. Reddin,' said Miss Clomber, with a frosty glance at Hazel; 'you are not, as our dear Browning has it, "mealy mouthed".'
'In the breast of a true woman,' said Amelia authoritatively, as a fishmonger might speak of fish, 'is no room for blame.'
'True woman be damned!'
Miss Clomber saw that for to-day the cause was lost.
At this point Miss Amelia uttered a piercing yell. The hedgehog, encouraged by being left to itself, and by the slight dusk that had begun to gather in the northerly rooms of Undern—where night came early—had begun to creep about. Surreptitiously guided by Hazel's foot, it had crept under Amelia's skirt and laid its cold inquiring head on her ankle, thinly clad for conquest.
Hazel went off into peals of laughter, and Miss Amelia hated her more than before.
Vessons, in the kitchen, shook his head.
'I never heerd the like of the noise there's been since that gel come.Never did I!' he said.
'Leave him!' said Miss Clomber to Hazel on the doorstep. She was going to add 'for my sake,' but substituted 'his.' 'You are causing him to sin,' she added.
'Be I?' Hazel felt that she was always causing something wrong. Then she sighed. 'I canna leave 'im.'
'Why not?'
'He wunna let me.'
With that phrase, all unconsciously, she took a most ample revenge on the Clombers; for it rang in their ears all night, and they knew it was true.
On Sunday Vessons put his resolve—to go to the Mountain and reveal Hazel's whereabouts—into practice. If he had waited, gossip would have done it for him. He set out in the afternoon, having 'cleaned' himself and put on his pepper-and-salt suit, buff leggings, red waistcoat, and the jockey-like cap he affected. He arrived at the back door just as Martha was taking in supper.
'Well?' said Martha, who wanted to have her meal and go home.
'Well?' said Vessons.
'When I say "well," I mean what d'you want?'
'Allus say what you mean.'
'Who d'you want? Me?'
'The master.'
'The master's out.'
'I'll wait, then.'
He sat down by the fire, and looked so fixedly at Martha as she poured out her tea that she offered him some in self-defence. He drew up his chair. Now that he was receiving hospitality, he felt that he must be agreeable and complimentary.
'Single, I suppose?' he asked.
'Ah,' said Martha coyly, 'I'm single; but I've no objection to matrimony.'
'Oh!' Vessons spoke sourly, 'I'm sorry for you, then.'
'Maybe you're a married man yourself?'
'Never.'
'Better late than never!'
'If I've kep' out of it in the heat of youth, is it likely I'll go into it in the chilly times? Maiden I am to my dying day!'
'But if you was to meet a nice tidy woman as had a bit saved?' ToMartha, a bridegroom of sixty-five seemed better than nothing.
'If I met a score nice tidy women, if I met a gross nice tidy women, it 'ud be no different.'
'Not if she could make strong ale?'
'I can make ale myself. No woman shall come into my kitchen for uncounted gold.'
Martha sighed as she changed the subject.
'What do you want the master for?'
'Never tell your tidings,' said Vessons, 'till you meet the king.'
'Martha!'
Mrs. Marston stood at the kitchen door in the most splendid of her caps—a pagoda of white lace—and her voice was, as she afterwards said, 'quite sharp,' its mellifluousness being very slightly reduced.
Vessons rose, touching his hair.
'What is it, my good man?'
'A bit of news, mum.'
'For my son?'
'Ah!'
'You may go, Martha,' said Mrs. Marston, and Martha went without alacrity.
'Now.' Mrs. Marston spoke encouragingly.
'It's for the master.'
'He cannot see you.'
The two old faces regarded each other with silent obstinacy, and Vessons recognized that, for all Mrs. Marston's soft outlines, she was as obstinate as he was. He cleared his throat several times.
Mrs. Marston produced a lozenge, which he ate reluctantly, chumbling it with nervous haste. He was so afraid that she would give him another that he told her his news.
'Thank you,' she said, keeping her dignity in a marvellous manner. 'Mrs. Edward Marston, of course, wrote to the minister, but she forgot to give her address.'
'Accidents will 'appen,' Vessons remarked, as he went out.
It was some time before Edward came in. He had spent most of his time since last Sunday tramping the hillsides. It was not till he had finished his very cursory meal that his mother said calmly, looking over her spectacles:
'I know where Hazel is.'
'Youknow, mother? Why didn't you tell me?'
'I am telling you, dear. There's nothing to be in a taking about.You've had no supper yet. A little preserve?'
Edward, in a sudden passion that startled her, threw the jam-dish across the room. It made a red splash on the wall. Mrs. Marston stopped chumbling her toast, and remained with the rotary motions of her mouth in abeyance. Then she said slowly:
'Your poor father always said, dear, that you'd break out some day. And you have. The best dish! Of course the jam I say little about; jam is but jam, after all; but the cut-glass dish—!'
'Can't you go on with the tale, mother?'
'Yes, my dear, yes. But you fluster me like the Silverton Cheap-jack does; I nevercanbuy the dish he holds up, for I get in such a fluster for fear he'll break it, and then he does. And now you have.'
Edward pushed back his chair in desperation.
'For pity's sake!' he said.
'I'm telling you. I never thought Hazel was steadfast, you know.'
'Whereisshe? Why will you torment me?'
'An old man came. A very untrustworthy old man, I fear. A defiant manner, and that is never pleasant. There he was in the kitchen with Martha! Age is no barrier to wrong, and Martha was very flushed. There was a deal of laughter, too.'
'Mother! If you keep on like this, I shall go mad.'
'Why, Edward, you are all in a fever. There, there! It's more peaceful without her, and I wish Mr. Reddin well of her.'
'Reddin? What Reddin?'
'Mr. Reddin of Undern. Who else?'
'Damn the fellow!'
'Edward! What words you take on your lips! And just think,' she went on sorrowfully, 'that he seemed such a nice man. He liked the gooseberry wine so much, and gave me a "ma'am," which is more than Martha does half her time. Where are you going?'
'To Undern.'
'What for?'
'Hazel.'
Mrs. Marston sat bolt upright.
'But, of course, she'll never darken the door again!'
'I shall bring her back to-night, of course.'
'But, my dear! You must divorce her, however unpleasant on account of the papers. Remember, she has been there a week.'
'What of that?'
'But a week, dear!'
'Mother, I did not think to hear the talk of the filthy world from you.'
Mrs. Marston quailed a little. There is nothing in the world so pure, so wonderful, so strong, as a young man's love can be—nothing so spiritual, nothing so brave.
Mrs. Marston, in her own words, 'shed tears.'
'Don't cry, mother, but help me,' Edward said. 'Be ready for her, love her. She is as pure as a dew-drop. I know it. And I want her more than life.'
'But if she doesn't want you, Edward, what more is to do?'
'To seek and to save,' snapped Edward, and he banged the door and went hatless down the path between the heavy-browed tombstones. But he came back to suggest that there should be some tea ready.
As he went down the batch, owls were shrieking in the woods, and the sky was pied with grey and crimson, like bloodstained marble. The cries of the owls were hard as marble also, and of a polished ferocity. They would have their prey.
He walked fast through the lonely fields where Hazel had passed on her mushrooming morning. The roses that had then been in the bud were falling.
At Alderslea people stared at him as he went by, flushed and hatless.
From Alderslea to Wolf batch was some miles; from there to Undern the way lay over Bitterly Hill, where he missed the path. So it was quite dark when he came past Undern Pool, lying black and ghastly in its ring of skeleton trees. The foxhound set up a loud baying within. Only one window was lit.
Edward hammered on the knocker, and the sound echoed in the hollow house.
There was a noise within of a door opening, and Hazel's voice cried: 'I wouldna go. It's a tramp, likely.'
Then Reddin laughed, and Edward clenched his hands in rage at the easy self-confidence of him. The bolt was drawn back, and Reddin stood in the doorway, outlined by pale light.
'Who is it?' he asked in rather a jovial tone. He felt at peace with the world now Hazel was here.
'Beast!' Edward said tersely.
'Just come in a minute, my lad, and let's have a look at you. People don't call me names twice.'
Hazel had heard Edward's voice.
She ran to the door, and the apple-green gown rustled about her.
'Ed'ard! Ed'ard! Dunna go for to miscall him! He'll hurt 'ee! He's stronger'n you. Do 'ee go back, Ed'ard!'
'Never! till you come, too.'
'I like that,' said Reddin. 'Can't you see she's got my gown on her back? She's mine. She was never yours.'
He looked meaningly and triumphantly at Edward.
'Oh, dunna, Jack! What for do you go to shame me?' said Hazel, twisting her hands.
Edward took no notice of her.
'I don't know what evil means you used, or how you brought the poor child here,' he said, controlling himself with an effort. 'But you have tried to rob me, and you have insulted her—'
'Oh, don't come here talking like an injured husband,' Reddin said; 'you know you aren't her husband.'
'Keep your foul mouth shut before innocence! To try and rob a poor child of her freedom, of her soul—'
Hazel wondered at him. His eyes darkened so upon Reddin, his face was so powerful, irradiated with love and anger.
'So young!' he went on—'so young, and as wild as a little bird. How could anyone help letting her take her own way? She wanted to go free in the woods. I let her; and there you were like a sneaking wolf.'
He threw a look at Hazel so full of wistful tenderness that she flung the green skirt over her head and sobbed.
'Stow it, can't you?' said Reddin. 'If you want a fight, say so; but don't preach all night.'
His tone was injured. He felt that he had been particularly considerate to Edward in sending him the letter. Also, he was convinced that he had only taken what Edward did not want. That Edward could love Hazel was beyond his comprehension. If a man loved a woman, he possessed her, took his pleasure of her. Love that was abnegation was to his idea impossible. So that, now, when Edward spoke of his love, Reddin simply thought he was posing.
'Why didn't you let her be?'
'Women don't want to be let be,' said Reddin with a very unpleasant laugh.
'Oh! stop talking about me as if I wunna here!' cried Hazel.
'If she loved you, I'd say nothing,' Edward went on, staring at Reddin fixedly. 'The fact that I'm her husband would not have counted with me, if you'd loved her and she you.'
'A fine pastor!'
'But you don't. You only wanted—Oh! you make me sick!'
'Indeed! Well, I'm man enough to take what I want; you're not.'
'You trapped her; you would have betrayed her. But, thank God! a young girl's innocence is a wonderful and powerful thing.'
Reddin was astounded. Could Marston really be such a fool as to believe in Hazel still?
'The innocent young girl—' he began, but Hazel struck him on the mouth.
'All right, spitfire!' he said; 'mum's the word.' He was surprisingly good-humoured.
'Well, Hazel'—Edward spoke in a matter-of-fact tone—'shall we go home now?'
'Dunnat ask me, Ed'ard! I mun bide.'
'Why?'
Hazel was silent. She could not explain the strange instinct, stronger than her wildness, that Reddin had awakened in her, and that chained her here with invisible chains.
'Come home, little Hazel!' he pleaded.
'I canna,' she whispered.
'Why? You can if you want to. Don't you want to?'
'Ah! I do that.'
She was torn between her longing to go and her powerlessness to leaveReddin.
The light went out of Edward's face.
'Do you love this man?' he asked.
'No.'
'Does it make you better to live with him?'
'No. It was living with you as did that.'
Reddin was so enraged that he struck her, and her expression of submission as she cowered under the blow was worse to Edward than the blow itself. He forgot his views about violence, and struck Reddin back.
'Come outside,' said Reddin in a tone of relief. The situation had now taken a comprehensible turn for him.
'If it's fighting you're after, I'm with you; that's settling it like gentlemen. What are you grinning at?' He spoke huffily.
'Dunna snab at each other! What for do you?' said Hazel.
'Because you're husband's jealous.'
Edward was exasperated by the realization that his action in coming did look like that of the commonplace husband. But, after all, what did it matter? Nothing mattered but Hazel. He looked across at her crouched in the armchair sobbing. He went to her and patted her shoulder.
'No one's angry with you, dear,' he said. 'Afterwards, when we're home, you shall explain it all to me.'
'If you win!' put in Reddin.
Edward stooped and kissed Hazel's hand. The momentary doubt of her—cruel as hell—had gone. She was his lady, and he was going to fight for her. Hazel looked up at him, and in that instant she almost loved him.
They went out. It was a black moonless night. They stood near the lit window.
'Draw the blind up!' shouted Reddin.
Hazel drew it up. They faced each other in the square of light. They were both quite collected. It seemed difficult to begin. The humour of this struck Reddin, and he laughed.
Edward looked at him disgustedly. Reddin began to feel a fool.
'We must begin,' he said.
Seeing that Edward was waiting for him to strike the first blow, and not being angry enough to do so, Reddin said coarsely:
'No good fighting, parson! She's mine—from head to foot.'
He received as good a blow as Edward was capable of. They fought with hard-drawn breath, for they were neither of them in training. To Edward it seemed ridiculous to be fighting; to Reddin it seemed ridiculous to be fighting such an opponent.
They moved out of the light and back again in the tense silence of the night. A rat splashed in the pool, and silence fell again.
Edward could not do much more than defend himself, and Reddin's eyes shone triumphantly. Within, Hazel leaned against the glass faintly. It was as if evil and good, angels and devils, fought for her. And whichever won, she was equally forlorn. She did not want heaven; she wanted earth and the green ways of earth.
'Oh, he'll kill Ed'ard!' she moaned.
Edward staggered under a blow, and she hid her eyes. Suddenly she thought of Vessons. Where was he? She ran to the kitchen calling him. He was not there. She went to the stables. He was nowhere to be found. Drawn by an irresistible curiosity, she rushed back to the front of the house. Under the yew-tree she ran into Vessons.
'Sh!' he whispered. 'Say nought! I'll tell you what's a mortal good thing for a dog-fight—pepper!' He held up the kitchen pepper-pot. In the other hand he had the poker.
'Now I'll part 'em, missus, you see!'
'Quick, then!'
But as she spoke Reddin got in a blow on Edward's jaw, and he fell.
Hazel rushed forward.
'You murderer!'—she screamed, and she bit Reddin's hand as he stretched it out to catch her, and bent over Edward. The victor in the fight was fated to be the loser with Hazel, for she had a never-broken compact with all creatures defeated.
She ran to the pool for water.
'Catch a holt on him!' she cried to Vessons; 'he's a murderer!'
Reddin stood by, confused and mystified at Hazel's unlooked-for behaviour. Vessons bent over Edward. He struck a match and held it to the end of his nose, chuckling as Edward winced.
'I'll tell you summat as is mortal tough!' he remarked. 'A minister of the Lord! Will the gen'leman stay supper?' he inquired of Reddin.
'No!' said Hazel; 'Mr. Reddin'll take supper alone, for allus, to his dying day. Put the horse in, please, Mr. Vessons.'
'Right you are, missus.'
Reddin was so taken aback by the turn of events, and his head ached so much, that he had nothing to say. He watched Vessons bring the horse round, blinked at Hazel as she tore off the silk dress and borrowed Edward's coat instead, and glowered dumbly at Edward as he was helped into the trap. Hazel sat between the two men.
'Pluck up!' said Vessons to the cob unemotionally, and the trap jogged through the gate and out on to the open hill.
'And if it cosses me my place, I'll tell ye one thing!' Vessons said to himself: 'There's as good to be had, and better.'
'Well, I'm damned, said Reddin as they disappeared in the darkness. He went in and finished the whisky in a state of mystification that ended in sleep.
As the horse trotted along the hard road, rabbits scuttled across in the momentary lamplight. Hazel tied her handkerchief round Edward's head.
All the windows were dark in Alderslea, except one faint dormer where an old woman was dying. They began to climb the lane that led up to the Mountain. Cattle looked over hedges, breathing hard with curiosity. In an upland field a flock of horned sheep were racing to and fro through a gap in the hedge, coughing and stamping at intervals, and looking, as the moon rose, like fantastic devils working sorcery with their own shadows.
The lamps dimmed in the moonlight and the world seemed to widen infinitely, like life at the coming of love. The country lay below like a vast white mere, and the hill sloped vaguely to a silver sky. Vessons walked up the batch to ease the cob, and Edward looked down at Hazel and murmured:
'My little child!'
'Dunna talk,' said Hazel quickly; 'it's bad for 'ee!' She was afraid to break the magical silence, afraid that the new peace that came with Marston's presence would vanish like the moon in driving cloud, and that she would feel the dragging chain that pulled her back to Reddin.
Edward was silent, puzzling over the question, Why had not Hazel asked for his help? Reddin must have seen her at least several times, must have persecuted her. He grew very uneasy. He must ask Hazel.
They drew up before the white-sentried graveyard. Vessons went up the path and knocked at the silent house. Then he threw handfuls of white spar off a grave at the windows. The Minorca cockerel crew reedily.
'That's unlucky,' said Hazel.
Mrs. Marston put her head out, very sleepy, and asked who it was.
'The conquering 'ero!' said Vessons, as Edward and Hazel came up the path, deeply shadowed. He got into the trap and drove off.
'Well, Undern'll be summat like itself again now,' he thought.
'It was a deal more peaceable without her, naughty girl!' thought Mrs.Marston as she sadly and lethargically put on her clothes.
'Well, Edward!' she exclaimed, when she came down in her crimson shawl with the ball fringe, 'here's a to-do! A minister of grace with a pocket-handkerchief round his head coming to his house in the dead of night with a wild old man. What's happened? Oh, my dear, is it your arteries? We wondered where you were, Hazel Marston!'
'I'm very shivery, mother,' Edward said.
'Something hot and sweet!' She bustled off. They were alone for the first time.
'Hazel, why didn't you tell me about this man? It was not kind or right of you.'
'There was nought to tell.' She fidgeted.
'But he must have seen you several times.'
'I was near telling you, but I thought you'd be angered.'
'Angry! With you! Oh, to think of you in such danger!'
'What danger?'
'Of things that, thank God, you never dream of. He forged that letter,I suppose? Or did he frighten you into writing it?'
'Ah.'
'But why did you ever go?'
'He pulled me up on the horse and took me.'
'The man's a savage.'
Hazel checked a hasty denial that was on her lips.
'What a pity you happened to meet him!' Edward said.
'Ah!'
'But why didn't you want to come at once when I came to fetch you? Were you so afraid of him as that?'
'Ah!'
'Well, it's over now. He won't show his face here again; we've done with him.'
Hazel sighed. But whether it was her spiritual self sighing with relief at being with Edward, or her physical self longing for Reddin, she could not have said.
'Only you could come through such an experience unchanged, my sweet,'Edward said.
'I mun go to Foxy!' she cried desperately. 'Foxy wants me.'
'Foxy wants a good beating,' said Mrs. Marston benignly, looking mercifully over her spectacles. Her wrath was generally like the one drop of acid in a dell of honey, smothered in loving-kindness andembonpoint.
When Hazel had gone, she said:
'You will send her away from here, of course?'
Edward went out into the graveyard without a word. He sat on one of the coffin-shaped stones.
'God send me some quiet!' he said.
Mrs. Marston came and draped her shawl round him. He got up, despairing of peace, and said he would go to bed.
'There's a good boy! So will I. You'll be as bright as ever in the morning.' Then she whispered: 'You won't keep her here?'
'Keep her! Who? Hazel? Of course Hazel will stay here.'
'It's hardly right.'
'Pleasant, you mean, mother. You never liked her. You want to be rid of her. But how you can so misjudge a beautiful soul I cannot think. I tell you she's as pure as a daisy. Why, she could not even bear, in her maidenly reserve, the idea of marriage. It is sheer blasphemy to say such things.'
'Blasphemy, my dear, is not a thing you can do against people. It is disagreeing with the Lord that is blasphemy.'
'I must ask you, anyway, never to mention Hazel's name to me until you can think of her differently.'
When, after saying good night to Hazel and Foxy, Edward had gone to bed, Mrs. Marston shook her head.
'Edward,' she said, 'is not what he was.' She waited till Hazel came in.
'You're no wife for my son,' she said, 'you've sinned with another man.'
'I hanna done nought nor said nought; it's all other folk's doing and saying, so I dunna see as I've sinned. And I never could abear 'ee,' Hazel cried; 'I'd as lief you was dead as quick!'
She rushed up to her room and flung herself on her bed sobbing. She felt dazed, like a child taken into a big toy-shop and told to choose quickly. Life had been too hasty with her. There were things, she knew, that she would have liked; but she had so far not had time to find out what they were.
She wished she could tell Edward all about it. But how could she explain that strange inner power that had driven her to Hunter's Spinney? How could she make him understand that she did not want to go, and was yet obliged to go? She could not tell him that. Although she was furious with Reddin on his behalf, although she hated Reddin for the coarseness and cruelty in him, yet parting with him had hurt her.
How could this be? She did not know. She only knew that as she lay in her little bed she wanted Reddin, his bodily presence, his kisses or his blows. He had betrayed her utterly, bringing to his aid forces he could not gauge or understand. His crime was that he had made of a woman who could not be his spiritual bride (since her spirit was unawakened, and his was to seek) his body's bride. All the divine paradoxes of sex—the mastery of the lover and his deep humility, his idealization of his bride and her absolute surrender—these he had dragged in the mud. So instead of the mysterious, transcendant illumination that passion brings to a woman, she had only confusion, darkness, and a sense of something dragging at the roots of her being in the darkness.
Her eyes needed his eyes to stare them down. The bruises on her arms ached for his hard hands. Her very tears desired his roughness to set them flowing.
'Oh, Jack Reddin! Jack Reddin! You've put a spell on me!' she moaned.'I want to be along of Ed'ard, and you've bound me to be along of you.I dunna like you, but I canna think of ought else!'
She fought a hard battle that night. The compulsion to get up and go straight to Undern was so strong that it could only be compared to the pull of matter on matter. She tried to call up Edward's voice—quiet, tender, almost religious in its tone to her. But she could only hear Reddin's voice, forceful and dictatorial, saying, 'I'm master here!' And every nerve assented, in defiance of her wistful spirit, that hewasmaster.
That, when morning came, she was still at the Mountain showed an extraordinary power of resistance, and was simply owing to the fact that Reddin had, in what he called 'giving the parson a good hiding,' opened her eyes very completely to his innate callousness, and to his temperamental and traditional hostility to her creed of love and pity. Soon, in the mysterious woods, the owls turned home—mysterious as the woods—strong creatures driven on to the perpetual destruction of the defenceless, destroyed in their turn and blown down the wind—a few torn feathers.
Edward did not notice the strained relationship between Mrs. Marston and Hazel. He supposed that his mother's suspicions had faded before Hazel's frank presence.
Outwardly there was little change in the bearings of the two women; it was only in feminine pinpricks and things implied that Mrs. Marston showed her anger and Hazel her dislike, and it was when he was out that Martha spoke so repeatedly and emphatically of being respectable. His coming into the house brought an armoured peace, but no sooner was he outside the door than the guns were unmasked again.
Hazel wished more and more that she had stayed at Undern.
She found a man's roughness preferable to women's velvet slaps, his most masterful demands less wearing than their silent criticism. At Undern she could not call her physical self her own. Here, her heart and mind were attacked. She could not explain to Mrs. Marston that something had made her go. Mrs. Marston would simply have said 'Fiddlesticks!' She could not explain that Reddin's touch drugged her. If Mrs. Marston had ever been made to feel that madness of passivity— which seemed impossible, so that Edward's existence was a paradox—she had long since forgotten it. Besides, Hazel had no words in which to express these things; she was not even clear about them herself.
She never tried to explain anything to Edward. She dreaded his anger, and she felt that only by complete silence could she keep the look of loving reverence in his eyes. She understood how very differently Reddin looked at her. It did not matter with him, but Edward—it was everything to her in Edward.
Only once there had been a keen look of criticism in Edward's eyes, and her heart had fluttered. Edward said:
'Why, when you were dragged to Undern against your will, did you wear the man's gown? It wasn't dignified. And why did you cry out on him not to shame you? He could not shame you. You had done nothing wrong.'
'He said such awful things, Ed'ard, and the dress—the dress was so pretty.'
'You poor child! you dear little one! So it was a pretty colour, was it?'
'Ah!'
'You shall have one like it.'
He went off whistling.
* * * * *
It was when she had been back nearly six weeks, and the August days were scorching the Mountain, that the strain became unbearable. She was not feeling well.
Reddin had made no sign. This had at first calmed her, then piqued her; now it hurt her. Mysteriously she felt that she must be with him.
'He'm that proud, he'd ne'er ask me to go back. And if I went, there'dbe no peace. Oh, Jack Reddin, Jack Reddin! You've put a spell on me!There inna much peace, days, nor much rest, nights, in your dark house.And yet—'
Yet, whenever she went for a walk, she felt her feet taking her towardsUndern.
Then, quite suddenly, one morning Reddin rode past the house. Mrs.Marston saw him.
'Edward must know of this,' she said, very much flustered. 'You ought to go away somewhere, Hazel.'
'Away? Why ever?'
'Out of temptation. Why not to your aunt's?'
'Aunt Prowde wouldna have me. And Ed'ard wouldna like me to go.'
'Edward, I am sure, thinks as I do.'
'Gospel?'
'Do not be irreverent.'
'I dunna think you know what Ed'ard thinks as well as me.'
'Don't say "dunna," Hazel. Of course, I know what Edward thinks a great deal better than you. I've known him all his life.'
Afterwards, when Mrs. Marston was not in the room, Martha said in her contemptuous tones:
'I s'pose you know, Mrs. Ed'ard, how he's going on?'
'Who?'
'Why, that Mr. Reddin.'
'What's he done?'
'Oh, I know! But I wouldn't soil me mouth, only I'm thinking you'd ought to know.'
She looked triumphant.
'He's after that there Sally something as lives nearby. They do say as all her brats be his.'
'Mr. Reddin's? Is he—like—married to her, Martha?'
'About as much as he was to you, I reckon!'
'And does she—live there now?'
'I dunno.'
'Is she pretty?'
'It inna allus the prettiest as get lovers.'
'But is she prettier than me?'
'I've heard she's bigger and finer.'
'But she hanna got abron hair?'
'How should I know?'
This was desolate news to Hazel; for Reddin, now that she was going to bear his child, had become necessary to her. She was unconscious of the reason of this need—not a spiritual one, but purely physiological. She did not hate him for this news. Such hatred is abnormal. Nor did she love him. That would have been still more abnormal. But she must be in his house; she must sew for him, share his daily doings, sleep in the big four-poster, and not in the small virginal bed at the Mountain. It would be grievous to leave Edward. He was the shelter between her flickering spirit and the storms of life. She had hesitated, putting off the inevitable, feeling that Undern was always there, like an empty room, for her re-entry, so she had not hurried. Now the room was occupied, her place taken. Immediately she felt that she must go. Feverishly she decided to go this very night and peer in (no one but herself had ever drawn the blinds at Undern of late years) and see for herself. Mrs. Marston and Martha both seemed to be pushing her over the brink.
When, after tea, she crept from the house, she was crying—crying at leaving Edward, the master and the comrade of her unknown self. It was as if she gave up immortality. Yet she was relieved to be going—that is, if she could stay at Undern. Both her tears and her relief were natural. The pity was that body and soul had been put in opposition by belonging to different men.
She left a little blotted note for Edward.
'Dunna think too bad of me, Ed'ard. I be bound to go to Undern and live; I ud liefer bide along of you.'
She went through the shadow-sweet meadows where birds hopped out across green stretches in the cool, the high corn that had once been her comrade, the honeysuckle hedges that used to bring so childish a glee. They wore an air of things estranged and critical. All was so sad, like a dear friend with an altered countenance. She was an exile even in the seeing and hearing. It was strange to her as a town under the tides. There it was, clear and belfried as of old, but fathoms deep, and the bells had so faint a chime that Reddin's voice drowned them. She was turned out of the Eden of the past that she had known in wood and meadow. She was denied the Eden of the future that she might have had in Edward's love. She had the present—Reddin—unless the other woman had robbed her of him also.
She sat down in the heavy shadows of the trees at the far side of Undern Pool. The water looked cold and ghastly even on this golden day. She watched the wagtails strut magisterially, the moorhens with the worried air of overworked charwomen, all the mysterious evening life of a summer pool, but she had no smile for them to-day. The swallows slid and circled across the water; their silence was no longer intimate, but alien. She looked across at Undern. There were roses everywhere, but the house had so strong a faculty for imposing its personality that it gave to the red roses and the masses of traveller's joy that frothed over it a deep sadness, as if they had blown and dropped long since and were but memoried flowers. The shadows of swallows came and went on the white western wall, and smoke stood up blue and straight from Vessons' kitchen fire. She watched the cows go down the green lane, and the shadows go over the meadows in triumphal state. When all was shadow, and the sky was as suddenly vacant of swallows as at dawn it had been full of them, she went stealthily towards the house.
A light appeared in the parlour. She came close up and looked in.
Reddin was in the easy chair, reading the paper, a pipe in the corner of his mouth. No one else was there.
'Jack Reddin!' she said.
'Hullo!' He turned. 'So you've come? I thought you'd have come long ago.'
That was all he said. But she assured herself that he was glad she had come, because he shouted to Vessons for tea. She was certain he was glad to see her. Yet there was something vaguely insolent in his manner. He was a man who must never be sure of a woman. The moment she committed herself for him and was at a disadvantage he despised her.
'Come over here!' he said. 'There! I suppose you've forgotten what it's like to be kissed, eh? And to live with a man? You can never go away again now.'
'Why?'
'Well, you are a simpleton! D'you think he'd have you back after this? The first time it was my fault, he thinks; but the second! It won't wash.' He laughed.
'This time's your fault as much as the other. You made me come both times. There's Vessons! Leave me get up.'
'No. Why should I?'
Vessons entered.
'This 'ere game of tether-ball,' he said, 'fair makes me giddy.'
'Jack,' said Hazel when he had gone, 'Martha said there was a woman here.'
'Martha's a liar.'
'Hanna there bin?'
'No. Never anyone but you.'
'Hanna you bin fond of anyone?'
'Only you.'
'She said there was a woman as had a lot of little children, as was yours.'
'Damn her!'
'And I thought she's ought to live along of you, and to be married-like, and wear the green dress.'
'No one shall wear that but you, nor have my children but you.'
She was, as he had calculated, entirely overwhelmed, and so startled that she forgot to question him any more.
'Oh, no,' she said; 'that'll never be.'
He raised his eyebrows at her extraordinary denseness, but he judged it best to say no more.
He must get rid of Sally. He supposed she would make him pay heavily. He was sick of the sight of her and the children. They were not nice children. He looked at Hazel contemplatively. If his conjecture was right, he would have to try and legalize things during the next few months. He badly wanted a son—born in wedlock. He would have to go and beg the parson to divorce her. It would be detestable, but it would have to be done. He would wait and see.
Meanwhile, Vessons also made plans, his obstinate mouth and pear-shaped face more dour than ever.
Hazel had a letter from Edward in the morning; it was very short. She could not tell what he thought of her.
He only said that if she ever wanted help she was to come to him. She cried over it, and hid it away. She knew how well Edward would have looked as he wrote it. She knew he would be grieved. She had not the slightest idea that he would be utterly overwhelmed and wrecked. She had not the least notion how he felt for her.
She was very glad to be away from Mrs. Marston and Martha. She found this household of two men a great rest after the two women, although Vessons did not relax his disapproval. If it had not been for her passionate spiritual longing for Edward, she would have been happy, for the deep law of her being was now fulfilled in thus returning to Reddin. He, for his part, liked to see her about. Roses appeared in the rooms; it was strange to him, who had never had a woman in his house, to find his bedroom scented with flowers. He liked to watch her doing her hair.
He always pretended to be asleep in the morning, so that she should get up first—shyly anxious to be dressed before he awoke. So morning after morning he would watch her through his eyelashes. He never felt that, as she obviously wished for privacy, he was mean or indelicate.
'I've got a right to. She's mine,' was his idea.
It was not till a week after Hazel's coming that Reddin pulled himself together, and went to interview Sally Haggard. Vessons, observing the fact, repaired to Sally's cottage on his master's return, and found her in tears. To see this heavy-browed, big-boned woman crying so startled him that he contemplated her in silence.
'Well, fool, can't you speak?' she said.
'I dare say now as he wants you to move on?' queried Vessons.
'Ah.'
'Because of this other young 'ooman he's brought?'
'Ah, what's the good o' mouthing it? I bin faithful to 'im; I hanna gone with others. All the chillun's his'n. And never come near me, he didna, when my time come. And now it's "go!"' She broke out crying again.
'What I come for was to show you a way to make her go. If I tell you, you mun swear never to come and live at Undern.'
''Struth I will!'
'Well, then, just you come and see 'er some time when the master's away. And bring the chillun.'
'Thank you kindly.'
'Not till I say the word, though! I wunna risk it till he's off for the day. If he found me out, it'd be notice. Eh, missus, he's like a lad with his first white mouse! And the parson! Laws, they'm two thrussels wi' one worm, and no mistake.'
'And yet she's only a bit of a thing, you tell me?'
'Ah! But she'm all on wires, to and agen like a canbottle.'
'Why canna she bide with the minister?'
'Lord only knows! It's for 'er good, and for the maister's and yours, not to speak of mine. It's werrit, werrit, all the while, missus, and the fingers in the tea-caddy the day long! It's Andrew this and Andrew that, and a terrible strong smell of flowers—enough for a burying.'
* * * * *
Vessons waited eagerly for his opportunity; but Reddin was afraid to leave Hazel alone, in case she might see Sally; so September came and drew out its shining span of days, and still Vessons and Sally were waiting.
Morning by morning Hazel watched the fuchsia bushes, set with small red flowers, purple-cupped, with crimson stamens, sway in beautiful abandon. The great black bees pulled at them like a calf at its mother. Their weight dragged the slender drooping branches almost to the earth. So the rich pageantry of beauty, the honeyed silent lives went on, and would go on, it seemed for ever. And then one morning all was over; one of Undern's hard early frosts took then all—the waxen red-pointed buds, the waxen purple cups, the red-veined leaves. The bees were away, and Hazel, seeking them, found a few half alive in sheltered crevices, and many frozen stiff. She put those that were still alive in a little box near the parlour fire. Soon a low delighted humming began as they one by one recovered and set off to explore the ceiling. Into this contented buzzing came Reddin, who had just been again to Sally's, and was much put out by her refusal to go away before November.
'What the h—- is all this humming?' he asked.
'It's bees. I've fetched 'em in to see good times a bit afore they die.'
'What a child's trick!' he said, fending off an inquiring bee. 'Why, they'll stay here all winter! We shall get stung.' Then he saw the hospital full of bees by the fire.
'More?' he said. 'Good Lord!' He threw the box into the fire.
Hazel was silent with horror. At last she gasped:
'I was mothering 'em!'
'You're very keen on mothering! Wouldn't you like a kid to mother?'
'No. I'd liefer mother the bees and foxes as none takes thought on. I dunna like babies much—all bald and wrinkly. Martha said as having 'em made folk pray to die, but as it was worth anything to get one. But I dunna think so. I think they'm ugly. I seed one in a pram outside that cottage in the Hollow' (Reddin jumped), 'and it was uglier than a pig. I think you're a cruel beast, Jack Reddin, to burn my bees, and they so comforble, knowing I was taking care on 'em.'
She would not speak to him for the rest of the day. He was so bored in the evening that he went out and demanded a boxful of bees from Vessons.
'The missus wants 'em,' he said sheepishly.
Vessons was prepared to be pleasant in small matters. He fetched some from the hive.
''Ere you are,' he said patronizingly; 'but you munna be always coming to me after 'em.'
He was oblivious of the fact that they were Reddin's bees.
Reddin presented them.
'There,' he said gruffly; 'now you can be civil again.'
'But these be hive-bees!' said Hazel, 'and they was comforble to begin with! I dunna want that sort. I wanted miserable uns!'
'Hang it! how could I know?' asked Reddin irritably.
'No. I suppose you couldna,' said Hazel; 'you'm terrible stupid, JackReddin!'
So life went on at Undern, and Hazel adapted herself to it as well as she could. It was strange that the longer she lived there the more she thought of Edward. She always saw his face lined with grief and very pale, not tanned and ruddy with fresh air as she had known it. It was as if his mentality reached across the valley to hers and laid its melancholy upon her. Sometimes she was very homesick for Foxy, but she would not have her at Undern. She did not trust the place. She never went out anywhere, for people stared, and when Reddin, with some difficulty, persuaded her to amble round the fields with him on a pony he picked up cheap for her, she always wanted to keep in his own fields.
It was not until nearly the end of October that Vessons got his chance. Reddin had to go to a very important fair. He wanted Hazel to go with him, but she said she was tired, and, guessing the reason, he immediately gave in.
In spite of Vessons' earnest desire to get him off, he started late. He galloped most of the way, determined to get in early. He liked coming home to tea and seeing Hazel awaiting him in the firelight.
As soon as she had gone, Vessons set out for Sally's, anxious that she should be quick. But Sally would not hurry. It was washing-day, and she also insisted on making all the children very smart, unaware that their extreme ugliness was her strength. It was not till three o'clock that she arrived at the front door, baby in arms, the four children, heavily expectant, at her heels, and Vessons stage-managing in the background.
Hazel had been looking at two of the only books at Undern-'The Horse' and 'The Dog,' illustrated. Vessons had views about books. He considered them useful in their place.
'There's nought like a book,' he would say, 'one of these 'ere big fat novels or a book of sermons, to get a nice red gledy fire. A book at the front and a bit of slack behind, and there you are!'
There the books were, too.
So Hazel looked at the 'Book of the Horse' until she knew all the pictures by heart. She had fallen asleep over it, and she jumped up in panic when Sally spoke.
'Who be you?' she asked in a frightened voice as they eyed her.
'I'm Sally Haggard and these be my children.' She surveyed them proudly. 'D'you notice that they favour anyone?'
Hazel looked at them timidly.
'They favour you,' she said.
'Not Mr. Reddin?'
'Mr. Reddin?'
'Ah! They'd ought to. They'm his'n.'
'His'n?'
'Yes, parrot.'
'Be you the 'ooman as Martha said Jack lived along of?'
'He did live along of me.'
'Why, then, you'd ought to be Mrs. Reddin, and wear this gownd, and live at Undern,' said Hazel.
'Eh?' Sally was astonished.
'And he said there wunna any other but me.'
Sally laughed.
'You believed that lie? You little softie!'
Hazel looked at the children.
'Be theyallhis'n?' she said.
'Every man-jack of 'em, and not so much as a thank you for me!'
The children were ranged near their mother—on high chairs. They gaped at Hazel, sullen and critical. An irrepressible question broke from Hazel.
'What for did you have 'em?'
Sally stared.
'What for?' she repeated. 'Surely to goodness, girl, you're not as innicent-like as that?'
'I ain't ever going to have any,' Hazel went on with great firmness, as she eyed the children.
'God above!' muttered Sally. 'He's fooled her worse'n me!'
'Come and look at the baby, my dear,' she said in a voice astonishingly soft. She looked at Hazel keenly. 'Dunna you know?' she asked.
'What?'
'As you're going to have a baby?'
Hazel sprang up, all denial. But Sally, having told the children to play, spoke for a long time in a low tone, and finally convinced a white, sick, trembling Hazel of the fact. Not being sensitive herself, she did not realize the ghastly terror caused by her lurid details of the coming event.
Hazel looked so ill that Sally tried to administer consolation. 'Maybe it'll be a boy, and you'll be fine and pleased to see 'un growing a fine tall man like Reddin.'
Hazel burst into tears, so that the children stopped their play to watch and laugh.
'But I dunna want it to grow up like Jack,' she said. 'I want it to grow up like Ed'ard, and none else!'
'Well! Youarea queer girl. If you like him as you call Ed'ard what for did you take up with Jack?'
'I dunno.'
'Well, the best you can do,' said Sally, 'is to go back to your Edward, lithermonsload and all. And if he wunna take you—'
'Eh, but he will!' A wonderful tender smile broke on Hazel's face.'He'll come to the front door and pull me in and say, "Come in littleHazel, and get a cup of tea." And it'll be all the same as it was usedto be.'
'Well, he must be a fool! But so much the better for you. If I was you, I'd go right back to-neet. Now what's you say to a cup o' tea? I'm thinking it's high time I took a bite and sup in this parlour!'
They got tea; and Vessons, hovering in the yard, was in despair. He could not appear, for Hazel must not know his part in the affair. 'Laws! If they've begun on tea, it's all up with Andrew,' he remarked to the swan in passing.
Dusk came on and still no Sally appeared. The two chimneys smoked hospitably, and he wanted his tea. He was a very miserable old man. He repaired to the farthest corner of the domain and began to cut a hedge, watching the field track. Soon Reddin appeared, and Vessons was unable to repress a chuckle.
'Rather 'im than me!' he said.
Reddin, having fruitlessly shouted for Vessons, took the cob round to the yard himself. Then he went in. As he entered the parlour, aware of a comfortable scent of tea and toast, he met the solemn gaze of seven pairs of eyes, and for a moment he was, for all his tough skin, really staggered.
Then he advanced upon Sally with his stock firmly grasped in his hand.
'Get out of this!' he said.
The baby set up a yell. Sally rose and stood with her arm raised to fend off the blow.
'Jack,' said Hazel, 'she'm got the best right to be at Undern. Leave her stay! She'm a right nice 'ooman.'
Reddin gasped. Why would Hazel always do and say exactly the opposite to what he expected?
'But you're the last person—' he began.
'You're thinking she'd ought to be jealous of me, Jack Reddin,' said Sally. 'But we'm neither of us jealous! I tell you straight! She's too good for you. You've lied to me; I'm used to it. Now you'm lied to her—the poor innicent little thing!'
'What for did you tell me lies, Jack?' asked Hazel.
What with the unfaltering gaze of the two women, and the unceasing howls of the baby, Reddin was completely routed.
'Oh, damn you all!' he said, and went hot-foot in a towering passion to look for Vessons. A man to rage at would be a very great luxury. Having at last found Vessons, harmlessly hedge-brushing, he was rather at a loss.
'How dare you let Sally in?' he began.
'Sally?'
'Yes. Why the h— did you come away here and leave the house?'
'The 'edge wanted doing.'
His tone was so innocent that Reddin was suspicious.
'You didn't bring her yourself, did you?'
'Now,isit me,' said Vessons, reasonable but hurt, 'as generally brings these packs of unruly women to Undern?'
'I believe you're lying, Vessons.'
Vessons opened his mouth to say, 'Notice is giv''; but seeing that in his master's present mood it might be accepted, he closed it again.
When Reddin went in, Sally was gone, and Hazel, much as usual, ministered to his comfort. The only signs of the recent tumult were the constrained silence and the array of cups and plates.
'You'd better understand once and for all,' he said at last, 'that I'll never have that woman here.'
'Not if I went?'
'Never! I'd kill her first.'
'What for did you tell me lies?'
'Because you were so pretty and I wanted you.'
The flattery fell on deaf ears.
'Them chillun's terrible ugly,' said Hazel wearily.
Reddin came over to her.
'But yours'll be pretty!' he said.
'Dunna come nigh me!' cried Hazel fiercely. 'She says I'm going to have a little 'un! It was a sneak's trick, that; and you're a cruel beast, Jack Reddin, to burn my bees and kill the rabbits and make me have a little 'un unbeknown.'
'But it's what all women expect!'
'You'd ought to have told me. She says it's mortal pain to have a baby, and I'm feared—I'm feared!'
'Hazel,' he said humbly, 'I may as well tell you now that I mean to marry you. The parson must divorce you. Then we'll be married. And I'll turn over a new leaf.'
'I'll ne'er marry you!' said Hazel, 'not till Doom breaks. I dunna like you. I like Ed'ard. And if I mun have a baby, I'd lief it was like Ed'ard, and not like you.'
With that she went out of the room, and he noticed that she was wearing the dress she had come in, and not the silk.
He sat by the fire, brooding; but at last managed to cheer himself by the thought that she would get over it in time. She was naturally upset by Sally just now.
'And, of course, the parson'll never take her back, nor her father,' he reflected. 'Yes, it'll all come right.'
He was upheld in this by the fact that Hazel's manner next day was much as usual, only rather quiet.