CHAPTER XII
CILLA was leaning on the window-ledge when she heard her father’s footstep in the porch. The house-place was unlit and dim, save for the flickering of a fire that was dying hard in the wide grate; but at the window here there was a soft and tranquil light, half from the gloaming and half from the clouded moon. The geraniums, lined all along the ledge, showed a more chastened red than in the sunlight. Outside, among the lilacs and the hawthorns and the late-leafing copper beeches, the birds were twittering restlessly, and now and then were giving a last, clear challenge to the night.
Priscilla of the Good Intent had been crying quietly. She was stunned no longer, and had gone through a fire of anguish in amongst her usual household business; and now the tears had come, as dew falls on the parched, tired fields. She was glad, when she heard her father’s step, that it was dark indoors.
“Why, Cilla, ye’re all in darkness here!” cried Hirst, seeing her outlined by the half-light that filtered through the window-space.
“I was idling, father. The day’s so sorry to go down the hills, and I was sorry, too, to watch it go.”
From a brave stock came Cilla, and her voice was clear and even.
“Ay, but I’ve brought company, lile lass. I’ve promisedhim neither bite nor sup, but at the least he must have a candle lit here and there about the house-place.”
The girl raised her head quickly, and stood back a step or two. It was hard enough to meet her father, but she was not prepared to welcome “company” of any sort. She tried, in the dusk of the room, to see who it was that came, but the guest was hidden by Hirst’s bulk.
Not once did she guess that it could be Reuben Gaunt. Had Billy the Fool not led her to the thorn-bush this morning, such a visit would have been natural and looked-for; but Cilla, single-hearted and understanding little of concealment, could not realize that Gaunt, trusting in her ignorance of all concerning Peggy Mathewson, might still come asking Yeoman Hirst for his daughter.
“Will you light the candles, father?” she said hurriedly. “I—I am all in my workaday frock, and I must tidy myself if you bring company.”
Hirst would have had the matter settled at once; but, before he could protest, the girl had run lightly up the stair, and her footfall sounded crisply overhead. So he lit the candles, standing in their handsome sticks of Sheffield ware; and he took his place in front of the dying fire, and stood very straight, thrusting his hands under the lapels at his coat.
“Stand where ye like, Mr. Gaunt,” he said. “Will not ask ye to sit, for some matters are best settled standing up.”
Gaunt moved restlessly about the room, and the silence—broken by the little noise of Cilla’s movements overhead—did not help him to a more even frame of mind. But at least, he told himself, he had one ally here—Cilla herself. When she came down, and Yeoman Hirst heard from her own lips that she had plighted troth last night, he could talk to better advantage.
Cilla did not keep them waiting overlong. She had no need to change her gown, but only to pour water into the ewer, and bathe her face, and bathe it over and over again; for she knew that her father hated all signs of tears, because they weakened him and loosed his steady grip on life.
They heard her at the stair-head, the two men waiting below in enmity and silence; and then they heard the door-sneck rattle, and Cilla stood for a moment, looking across the candle-light to see who the guest might be.
She faltered for a moment, seeing Reuben’s eyes fixed eagerly on hers; then she moved to the dresser and leaned against it, one hand pressed tight against the bosom of her dress, as her wont was always when she was troubled.
“You?” she said faintly.
That was all; but Hirst, blind in his faith that Priscilla could never stoop to such as Gaunt, interpreted her trouble as sheer disdain.
“Best come to what we’ve got to say at once, Cilla,” he began. “Mr. Gaunt here said just now that you were going to wed him, and I said he was a liar. Which of us was right, lile lass?”
Again Gaunt’s spirits fell. He had looked for silence—yes; but for silence of the happy, maidish sort that is afraid to tell its secrets. Priscilla of the Good Intent wore no such look; grave, and delicate, and soft her face was, but her eyes were full of misery.
“You were right, both of you, father,” she said at last, “and both wrong. I am not going to marry Mr. Gaunt, but I promised to, yestre’en.”
It was hard to say which of the men was more non-plussed. This slim maid, standing with the candle-light upon her face, had robbed them both of sure yet separate faiths.
“Ye promised, Cilla?” said Hirst, reaching for the snuff-box on the mantel, and taking a pinch for habit’s sake.
“Yes, I promised, father. But this morning I walked up by Little Beck Hollow, and I took my promise back.”
Gaunt understood at last; and in his heart he cursed Peggy Mathewson, who had led him into this.
The yeoman was hard hit, and hit in his weakest spot; yet he gathered his strength up somehow, and found a weakened echo of his usual laugh.
“Second thoughts run safest, lass. Ye may have been a lile, daft fool yestre’en, but ye are wise to-day. Mr. Gaunt, is there aught more to be said?”
“I fancy not. Good even to you,” said Reuben, with a desperate quiet.
“I would like to see Mr. Gaunt to the door, father, and talk with him,” said Cilla unexpectedly.
Hirst looked at her, and saw the strong simplicity that hedged her sorrow round from prying eyes. He did not know whether he were wise or foolish—all old landmarks to-night were sundered from him—but he nodded grimly.
“Ye may, Cilla. ’Tis the last time he will come here,” he said, forgetting to touch wood when boasting openly.
Gaunt opened the door, and waited for her to pass through into the grey moon-dusk of the porch.
“Cilla,” he began, “Cilla, ’twas kind of you—”
“Yes, ’twas kind of me—kind toward the lass I saw you with to-day in Little Beck Hollow. Yestre’en was so much fancy, was it not? Nay, you need not interrupt me. The drive from Keta’s Well—the curlews dipping up and down the fields—the smell of violets in the wind that blew about Garth valley—they made us fairy-kist, I think, and we fancied—what did we not fancy, Reuben?”
Priscilla was self-possessed. The old reserve, half pride, half modesty, had come to her again. She fenced herself about, and Reuben Gaunt knew that the wall was strong.
“I loved you, Cilla, and I told you so.”
She strove to read his face, here by the light of the clouded moon that shone upon the highway. Women had done as much before Cilla’s time, in daylight and in dusk, and had found no answer.
“Loved me? I do not understand, Reuben. Love is for one and for always, surely; ’tis not a game to play at hop-scotch with, as the children do about Garth street. Reuben!” she went on, pain and sincerity between them getting the better of her. “Reuben, I had heard stray talk of you and Peggy Mathewson, and had passed it by, because I do not care for gossip; but I saw to-day that what I’d heard was true—and, Reuben—you needn’t fear our last night’s fairy-time.”
“Fear it, Cilla? ’Twas the love-time o’ my life. See ye, that other was a tale old and done with, and—”
“Old and done with?” she echoed piteously. “If the cobwebs had not been blown away, up yonder by the Hollow,Ishould have been old and done with, to-morrow, or the next day afterwards.”
Since grey old Garth was in the making, it had heard such women’s cries; and to-night it listened sleepily, not stirring from its quiet.
“What d’ye want of me, Cilla?” he asked, drawing nearer with a caress which she avoided.
“I want to see you wedded. ’Twas plain to be seen this morning that you were promised to her, Reuben, and last night’s forgotten altogether.”
“Promised to her—what, to Peggy Mathewson?”
Priscilla would, or could not, realize all that was meantby Gaunt’s hasty words—the surprise that he should be thought to have meant at any time to marry Widow Mathewson’s daughter—the touch of chill contempt in his voice—the acknowledgment that all was “over and done with,” and that his wooing up at Intake Farm had been so much idle devilry.
“Yes,” the girl answered simply. “What else, Reuben?”
Gaunt knew that he had lost her. Her simplicity, the return of that gentle aloofness which from the first had thwarted and enticed him, the lack of all upbraiding—these, and her trust in his good faith towards Peggy convinced him. Random, full of odd weaknesses and hidden corners where the better man in him took refuge, he was surprised to-night to find how vital Cilla’s good opinion was.
Before he could answer, footsteps sounded down the road, and Priscilla turned quickly. “Good night, Reuben,” she said. “All was glamour and fairy-webs yestre’en. Forget it, soon or late.”
She was gone before he could find a last word to say. He watched her go, slim, willowy, the clouded moonlight on her trim, bared head; and then he turned, sick at heart, and went round to the croft to find his horse, and afterwards rode up the highway.
David the Smith and Billy passed him twenty yards or so away from Good Intent. David greeted his enemy coldly, but Billy seemed unaware that anybody shared the highroad with himself and David.
“Surly fools, the two of them!” muttered Gaunt. “Could give any man a greeting, I, at this hour of a warm night.”
Priscilla of the Good Intent had reached the porch, and stood there, half in the inner dusk and half in themoonlight. She was thinking, not of Reuben Gaunt, but of the night when she had seen David to the door, had bidden farewell to him, and afterwards had called “David—David, come back!” to unheeding ears. She was reaching out again for David’s hand-grip, as she always did in time of need.
David himself, as it chanced, had refrained from stepping in at the back door of Good Intent, as his wont had been. He had feared to meet Cilla, lest his resolution to leave Garth should once again grow weak. Yet now, as he glanced at the grey porch in passing, for old affection’s sake, he saw Priscilla leaning against one of the two round, limestone pillars that buttressed the porch.
“A fair night for the time o’ year, Priscilla,” he said, with would-be cheeriness.
“Ay, fair, David. But the wind blows shrewd at times, for all that.”
“Tuts! We wouldn’t be living, if there weren’t a shrewd wind to blow all our time o’ warmth away,” growled David, viewing life darkly, almost tragically, for once. “We’d be dead, Priscilla, and in a bonnier world.”
Billy the Fool had gone forward, with a quiet nod toward Cilla and an easy slouch, as if he remembered nothing of the morning; but David halted. In sun or rain, Priscilla was good to look at; to-night, with the moon-glamour on her face and the fret of new-found understanding in her voice, she was something up and above this world, to such as simple David, like the moon in the grey, still sky.
“David, is it true that you are leaving Garth, as father hinted?”
“Ay, ’tis true. Not yet awhile, for a week or two; for my roots are here, ye see, Priscilla, and I’m frightened-liketo tear ’em out. So I’m telling myself I’ve a job here and a job there that must be done; and I’m making a few bits o’ business that weren’t there before; but I’m going from Garth, soon as I’ve settled my heart into its place.”
“Oh, I shall miss you, David!” she said unthinkingly.
David the Smith laughed sadly. “Well, that’s somewhat to the good, at any rate. Would be a poor business, eh, if a man could fare out to heathen parts, and never be missed in the old home-place?”
The night, with its clouded moon, its restless wind that rose uncertainly and fell again, was like a mirror to Priscilla’s humour. She was impatient of David’s quiet acceptance of matters; perhaps, had he stolen now into the porch and lost his diffidence, he would have had no further right, or leave, to go away from Garth. But David had seen what he had seen, and his faith that Cilla meant to marry Reuben Gaunt was as sure as hers had been as regarded Peggy Mathewson.
And so, because guile was far from both of them, David said good night and went his way, while Cilla could scarcely check the impulse to cry once again: “David—David, come back.”
She gave a last glance at the street, wondering what her life would be in coming days; then went indoors, to meet her father and go through with all the talk and explanation which she knew awaited her.
The look of the house-place chilled her as she entered. The fire was out. No friendly horn of ale rested at her father’s elbow; he was not smoking even, but was sitting with his hands upon his knees, his head a little bent, his shoulders not so square as she was wont to see them. The two candles threw no cheerful light, and they wereguttering now in the sudden draught that came through the open doorway.
“I’ll light the lamp, father,” said Cilla, with faint-hearted bustle. “Shame on me—the lamp unlit, and none to draw your ale for you—and—daddy, won’t you fill your pipe?”
“Was dreaming, lile Cilla—just dreaming, I. Fill my pipe? To be sure, I’d quite forgotten it. Ay, light the lamp, lile lass; I miss ye, somehow, when ye’re not about.”
She brought his pipe, his tobacco-box; she lit the lamp, and fetched a measure of ale and set it at his elbow; it took the keen edge from her dreariness to minister to the wants of Yeoman Hirst.
“See ye now, Cilla,” he began, puffing fiercely at his pipe, “I want to know a few odd whys and wherefores. Ye know my view of Reuben Gaunt? Is’t sober truth that ye were foolish with him yesternight?”
“Yes, father.” She was sitting opposite him across the hearth, and her troubled eyes met his without fear or secrecy. “I thought we loved each other, and I promised myself to him.”
“God, ye rate yourself cheaper than I do, Cilla! There, lile lass, there! I didn’t mean to be harsh! Well, then, what chanced to alter you?”
“I walked up the fields this morning,” she said, with hesitation now.
“Ay, I know! What did ye find there? Not one to shift round like a windle-straw, ye.”
“What I found is not for you to ask, or me to tell, father,” she answered, meeting his glance again. “I can tell you this much—that the gloaming and the moon between them were overstrong for me last night, and the morning’s sunlight cured me of my fairy-madness.”
“Cured altogether, lile Cilla?” asked the farmer, after a silence and a shrewd, long look at her.
“Cured altogether—yes,” she answered gravely.
“That’s good hearing. To tell the truth—and I’m no way hurting ye by saying it now—if Garth Valley were islanded by water, and ye and me and Gaunt were stranded on it—as folkarestranded time and time in those outlandish, heathen parts that David is going to, or says he is—why, me and ye, lile lass, would keep to one quarter o’ the dry land, and I’d ram my fist into Gaunt’s face if he came spying over to our end o’ the safe, high country. Couldn’t bide him, I, if there weren’t another man to talk to in the land.”
Priscilla scarcely heard him. Her glamour-tide was over, or seemed to be; David was unrepentant of his forthrightness, and would not see how she was hungering for the word, or the look, or the touch which only he could give.
“Come here to my knee, lass,” said Hirst by and by.
She knelt on the patch-work rug, and put her hands on his knee and rested her head on them, looking into the fireless grate. So she had knelt in childhood’s days—and afterwards at rare intervals when she and Yeoman Hirst were moved to special tenderness.
“I won’t deny my pride’s had a fall, and a steepish one,” he went on, thinking that his touch upon her hair was gentle.
“So has mine, father; but life must go on, pride in one’s way or not.”
“Art going to be a lile wise-woman before thy time? Ay, pride tumbles and gets muckied, and ye’ve to clean it up again wi’ patience, as ye clean harness gear. Still, I’m sticking to my pride, Cilla, till they coffin me up, and so are ye; the Hirsts all do, by nature.”
They said nothing for awhile, but between them was the speech of trust and understanding.
“Cilla, lass?” said the yeoman presently.
“Yes, daddy?”
“Wish I knew more about this daft business. Wish ye could tell me, like, just what ye saw up yond green pasture-lands to-day.”
“I wish so, too,” she answered simply; “but I cannot tell you, father.”
John Hirst took a pull at his ale—the first one. “D’ye know what I’ve been thinking, Cilla?” he said, wiping the froth away from his lips with a kerchief patterned all in blue and white.
“Nay, I could not guess.”
“That, if it came to a tussle ’twixt ye and me, I’d fare hard. Ye’re so slim to look at, and I could lift ye wi’ one hand and think naught on’t—but your will is made out of a piece o’ hickory wood, I do believe. Like ye the better for ’t, I—though ye mustn’t let yourself hear me say as much.”
“There’s likely to be no quarrel, father—now,” said she.
John Hirst sat brooding by the fire, long after Cilla had gone up to bed.
He stepped out-of-doors, before locking up for the night, and looked at the shrouded moon, and tasted the cold of the whimpering breeze.
“Cilla said somewhat of snow coming, a day or two gone by,” he muttered, “and Billy the Fool turned weather prophet, too, to-night. They’re apt to be right Billy and lile Cilla, and there’s a snarl and a tremor i’ the wind that I should know by now.”
He did not confess so much to himself, but thesuperstition of those cradled by the weather was with him, and in the wind’s contrariness and spite he heard quiet omens of disaster to himself and those he loved.