Moor Fires Part 72

"And you love me less?"

"Come with me and see! Helen, Helen, darling, come with me. I want you so. We'll make life beautiful together. Sweetheart, if you needn't suffer, I could bear it for myself, I could manage to bear it for myself."

"I should suffer if I came with you. I should always feel George wanting me."

"And you won't feel me?"

"You are just like myself. You will always be there. No one can come between. George can't."

"But his children will." He set her on her feet and began to walk up and down the room. "Had you thought of that?"

She covered her face and whispered, "I can't talk about it yet. And, oh!" she went on, "I wanted ours. Did you?"

"You know I did."

"And even if I went with you, we couldn't have them. That's gone--just slipped away. They were so clear to me, so beautiful."

"In that house of ours," he said. "Helen, I bought that house before I went away."

"Our house?"

"Our square house--with the trees."

She broke into another storm of sobbing, and he took her on his knee again. He knew that Halkett's children would come and stifle pain and, as he tried to think he would not hate them, her voice came softly through those thoughts.

"Zebedee, I want to tell you something."

"Go on, dear."

"I want to tell you--I--He's not repellent. Don't think that. I didn't want you to think that. I suppose one can forget. And I shall always think, 'It's Zebedee who has the rest, who has all the best of me.'"

"I know you, dear. You'll be giving him all you have."

"Oughtn't I to?"

"Oh, my darling, G.o.d only knows. Don't ask me. To me there seems only one thing to do--to smite him in the mouth--and you whom I wors.h.i.+p have tied my hands. And I sit here! What do you think is happening to me inside? I'm mad! I can promise nothing. I need time to think. Helen, if you would hate him always, I could bear it better. But you won't, you'll grow fond of him--and I suppose I should be glad; but I can't stand that." He put her down roughly and stood over her. "I can't endure this any longer," he said under his breath, and went.

Then she realized what she had done to him, and with how much gentleness he had used her. She ran after him and called from the stairhead:

"Zebedee! Wait for me. Kiss me once more. I'll never ask again. It isn't easy for me, either, Zebedee."

He stood, helpless, enraged at destiny, aware that any weapon he might lift in her defence would fall on her and wound her. He could do nothing but swear his lasting love, his ready service.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

She thought Zebedee would come to her on the next day, or the next, but she watched in vain for him. Though she had sent him from her, she longed for him to be back, and at night, when George entered the kitchen, she hardly looked up to welcome him. Her mind was more concerned with Zebedee's absence than with George's presence, but in her white face and tired eyes he fancied resentment for the kiss that still burned on his own mouth.

"You haven't much to say," he told her, after an hour of silence. He did not know if he most hated or adored the smooth head turned sideways, the small ear and the fine eyebrow, the aloofness that kept him off and drew him on; but he knew he was the victim of a glorious kind of torment of which she was the pain and the delight.

"I have been thinking," she explained.

"Then why don't you tell me what you think about?"

"Would you be interested?" She smiled at the thought of telling him with what anxiety she looked for Zebedee, with what anger she blamed him for neglect, with what increase she loved him.

"Yes, I would. Now you're laughing. D'you think it funny? D'you think I can't read or write, or understand the way you speak?"

"George," she said, "I wish you wouldn't get so cross. I don't think any of those things."

"Never think about me at all, I suppose. Not worth it."

She answered slowly, "Yes, you are," and he grunted a mockery of thanks.

It was some time before he threw out two words of accusation. "You're different."

"Different?"

"That's what I said. You never answer straight."

"Don't I?"

"There you are again!"

"What do you want me to say? Shall I ask you how I'm different? Well, I've asked, George. Won't you answer?"

"I can't. I can't explain. But a few nights back--well--all tonight you've been sitting as if I wasn't here. I don't know why I stand it.

Look here! You married me."

"So you are always telling me; but no one can buy the things you want."

"I'll get them somehow." He used the tones that made her shrink, but tonight she was unmoved, and he saw that her womanhood was crushed by the heaviness of her fatigue, and she was no more than a human being who needed rest.

"I think you ought to go to bed," he said. "I'm going. Good-night." He kissed her hand, but he did not let it fall. "You're not to look so white tomorrow night," he said.

She did not know why she went to the kitchen door and stood by it while he climbed the wall and dropped to the crisp snow on the further side.

He called out another low good-night and had her answer before she heard his boots crunching the frozen crust. No stars and no moon shone on the white garden, and to her it was like a place of death. The deep black of the trees against the wall made a mourning border, and the poplars lifted their heads in questioning of fate, but they had no leaves to make the question audible, and no wind stirred their branches.

Everything was silent; it seemed as if everything had died, and Helen was envious of the dead. She wished she might curl herself up at a poplar's foot and sleep there until the frost tightened on her heart and stopped its beating.

"It is so hard," she said aloud, and shut the door and locked it with limp hands.

The kitchen's warmth gave back her sanity and humour, and she laughed as she sat before the fire again, but when she spoke to Jim, it was in whispers, because of the emptiness of the old house.

"We shall manage if only we can see Zebedee sometimes. Other women have worse things to bear. And George likes me. I can't help liking people when they like me. And there'll be Zebedee sometimes. We'll try to keep things beautiful, and we'll be strong and very courageous, and now we'll go to bed."

The next morning Zebedee appeared, and in the hall of their many greetings, she slipped her hand into his.