The Devil's Garden Part 22

"I don't care whether he approves or doesn't. I approve."

"Then I thank you," said Dale, gravely, "for the way you've met me, and I a.s.sure you I appreciate it. As to the trade itself, I b'lieve I shan't go wrong. It's not so new to me as people might suppose. I'm well aware of its principles; and, moreover, one trade's precious like another--and a man's faculties are bound to tell, no matter how you apply them."

Mavis was overjoyed. When she sang to herself now while dressing of a morning the notes poured out loud and full, even when there was scarce a puff of breath behind them. She felt so proud and happy to think that fate had given her the power to help William, and that he had consented to avail himself of the power. Once more he had begun to lean on her. As in the past, so in the future, he would derive support from his poor little misunderstood, but always well-meaning Mavis.

XII

By the end of September everything was arranged. Dale had ceased to be postmaster of Rodchurch; the purchase of the business had been completed; and Mr. Bates had moved out of Vine-Pits to a cottage near Otterford Mill, leaving behind him the bulk of his furniture as the property of the incomers. Thus the Dales would have no difficulty in furnis.h.i.+ng the comparatively large house that henceforth was to be their home.

For the last two days they had been living chaotically in rooms stripped to a woeful bareness; this morning Mary had gone along the Hadleigh Road with a wagon full of bedsteads, bedding, and household utensils; and now, late in the afternoon, the wagon stood at the post office door again, packed this time with a final load consisting of those treasures which had been held back for transit under their owners' charge.

Mavis had already climbed up, and was settling herself on a high valley of rolled carpets between two mountain ranges formed by the piano and the parlor bookcases. With anxious eyes she looked at minor chains of packing-cases that contained the best china, the mantel ornaments, the hand-painted pictures. Inside a basket on her knees their cat was mewing disconsolately, despite well-b.u.t.tered paws. The two big horses, one in front of the other, continuously tinkled the metal disks on their forehead bands; Mr. Allen and other neighbors came out of their shops; Miss Yorke and the clerks from the office filled the pavement; children gathered about the wagon staring silently, and Miss Waddy on the opposite pavement waved her handkerchief and said "Oh, dear! oh, dear!"

"Good luck!"

"Thank you, thank you kindly." Dale moved about briskly, shaking hands with every one. Already he had abandoned all trace of his ancient official costume. In cord breeches and leather gaiters, his straw hat on the back of his head, he looked thoroughly farmer-like, and he seemed to have a.s.sumed the jovial independent manner as well as the clothes appropriate to the man who has no other master but the winds and the weather.

"So long, Mr. Allen. Put in a good word for me at the Kennels."

"I will so, Mr. Dale."

"Good-by, Mr. Silc.o.x. Hope you'll honor us with a call whenever you're pa.s.sing. And if you can, give me a lift in the _Courier_. I may say it's my intention to patronize their advertis.e.m.e.nt columns regular, soon's ever I begin to feel my feet under me."

"See _Rodchurch Gossip_ next issue," said Mr. Silc.o.x significantly.

"Thanks. You're a trump."

"Good-by, Miss Yorke." And he laughed. "'Pon my soul, I'm surprised it's still _Miss_ Yorke; but it'll be _Mrs._ before long, I warrant."

"Oh, Mr. Dale!"

"There, so long," and he shook Miss Yorke's hand warmly. "And take my excuse if I bin a bit of a slave-driver now and then. I didn't mean it."

"We've no complaints," said one of the clerks. "Good luck, sir!"

Then Dale told his carter to make a start of it, and the wagon creaked, jolted, slowly lumbered away.

Though they moved at a foot pace, it was not easy traveling in the wagon; the china boxes b.u.mped and rattled, the piano swayed so much that all its strings vibrated, and the cat leaped frantically in the basket; but Mavis felt no inconvenience. She was full of hope. For more than a mile Dale walked beside the shaft horse, echoing the "Coom in then" and "Oot thar" of the man with the leader, and the sound of the voices, the plod of the iron shoes, and the bell-like tinkle of the harness were all pleasant to hear. The whole thing seemed to her picturesque and interesting, like a small episode in the Old Testament, and imaginary words offered themselves as suitable to describe it. "Therefore that day her husband gathered all that was theirs, and set her behind his horses and they journeyed into another place."

She smiled at her cleverness in inventing such good Bible language, and then the thought came to her mind that they were going into the promised land. Once she turned her head to get a last glimpse of the church tower, and perhaps be able to pick out the roof of the post office among the other roofs, but the high ma.s.s of furniture shut out all the view. Only the sky was visible, with the sun quite low, and so bright that it was almost blinding. And she thought that this chance of the hour being late and the sun being nearly down was a lucky omen.

Straight ahead of them the road was sunlit, and the long slanting sunbeams appeared to hurry on before them as if to light up and glorify the land of promise. "If," she said to herself, "we get there before it has dipped and I catch the suns.h.i.+ne on the ricks, I shall know we are going to be happy."

Then all at once she saw Dale's straw hat and face rise above the fore boards of the wagon. He had swung himself on the shaft to see how she was getting on.

"All right, old lady?"

"Yes--lovely."

The tone of his voice had made her heart bound. It was the dear old voice, speaking to her just as he used to speak before their bad time began.

"We'll be there sooner than you know where you are. I think I'll rest my bones a bit."

Then he got into the wagon, and carefully clambering over impediments came toward her. For a moment as he stood over her the sunlight was on his face, and she, looking up at him, thought that he was not only a fine but quite a beautiful man. The light seemed to soften and yet enn.o.ble his features, and his eyes, unblinking in the glare, were blue and clear as water. When he sat down close to her little nest she pushed the basket away from her, and raising her hand laid it on his knees. To her delight he put his hand on hers, and left it there. He was in shadow now, showing a dark profile, and again she admired him--her strong, big, handsome man, her man that she was pining for.

"Will," she said tremulously, "don't move, but just look behind you, and tell me all you see."

"I don't see anything, Mav, unless I heft meself up again."

"No, sit as you are. It just bears out what you said. We're never more to look back. We're only to look forward. Will?"

He had taken his hand away, and turned the back of his head toward her.

"Will," she repeated; but he did not answer. "Will, my dear one, this _is_ going to be a fresh start, isn't it? Like a new beginning for us."

"Yes," he said, very seriously, "that's what I build on its being.

Take it so. You and I are beginning life again in our new home."

"Bless you for saying it. The one thing I wished to hear."

"Yes, we must help each other. I'll do--I mean to do. But, maybe, it'll be more 'v o' fight than I'm reckoning, and there's a many ways that you can make the fight easier--beyond the one great thing you've done a'ready."

"I will, dear. I will."

Then they were silent. The carter cracked his whip, shouted to his team, and whistled; and the horses, neither frightened by the whip nor excited by the whistling, drew the big wagon at exactly the same steady pace.

And Mavis felt as if her throat had suddenly enlarged itself and become too big for her collar, while her whole breast was swelling and hardening until it seemed so rigidly immense that it would burst all her garments; it was as if her whole being, together with all the thoughts or memories that it contained felt the expansion of some force that had been long gathering and now swiftly was released. In all her life she had experienced no such sensations. .h.i.therto. She who had been pa.s.sive under the desires of others now felt desire active in herself. It was not only that she wanted pardon, kindness, companions.h.i.+p, the things that she had been so systematically deprived of; she wanted the man himself, the partner, and the mate to whom nature had given her a right.

Abruptly she changed her position, scrambling forward close against him, and put up both her hands to his shoulders.

"Will, stoop your head. I want to whisper something."

Then, as soon as he bent toward her, she clasped her hands behind his neck and tried to drag him down in a kiss.

"What yer doin'? Let me be."

"No, I won't. I won't." She was holding him with all her strength, pulling herself up since she could not pull him down. "Be nice to me."

And as he recoiled she thrust forward her upturned face, the cheeks hard and white, the eyes burning, the mouth not quite closing even while she spoke. "I won't let you go, till you've kissed me and made it up for good an' all."

She was acting now as instinctively as any wild animal of the woods.

What had started in the zone of voluntary impulse had now pa.s.sed into the ruling power of reflexes; every nerve of her body seemed to be thinking for itself, guiding her, and compelling her to struggle for the desired end. All this nonsense of high-falutin' morality must be swept aside; if he loved her still, he must admit that he loved her; it must be love or hate, but no more sham and pretense, no more of these half measures that made her a wife when people were looking, and an enemy, a culprit in disgrace, or a s.e.xless business a.s.sociate, when they two were alone behind drawn blinds.

"Mav, you're shaming me. 'A' done. 'Aarve you tekken leave o' yer senses?"

She felt him s.h.i.+ver as he resisted her; then in another moment he gripped her round the waist as brutally and violently as if he intended to pitch her out of the wagon, held her to him so fiercely that he crushed all the breath from her lungs, and gave her a long pa.s.sionate mouth-to-mouth kiss. And it seemed to her that the strength and brutality of the embrace formed the one supreme gratification that she had been burning to obtain; she wanted to give herself to him as she had never done before, and if he crushed her and broke her and killed her in their joint rapture, she would drink death greedily as something inevitable to all those who empty the deep goblet of love.