Moor Fires Part 82

"It's the way you walk--and the white. And that little black hat for a beak."

"Well, swan or not," she said, and laughed, "you think I look nice, don't you?"

"I should think I do!" He stepped back to gaze at her. "You must always have clothes like that. There's no need for you to make your own."

"But I like my funny little dresses! Don't I generally please you? Have you been thinking me ugly all this time?"

He did not answer that. "I wish I was coming with you."

"You mustn't. There are hay-seeds on you everywhere. Is the field nearly finished? George, you are not answering questions!"

"I'm thinking about you. Helen, you needn't go just yet. Sit down under this tree. You're lovely. And I love you. Helen, you love me! You're different now. Will you wear that ring?"

Her mind could not refuse it; she was willing to wear the badge of her submission and so make it complete, and she gave a shuddering sigh. "Oh, George--"

"Yes, yes, you will. Look, here it is. I always have it with me. Give me your little hand. Isn't it bright and heavy? Do you like it?" He held her closely. "And my working clothes against your pretty frock! D'you mind?"

"No." She was looking at the gold band on her finger. "It's heavy, George."

"I chose a heavy one."

"Have you had it in your pocket all the time?"

"All the time."

He and she had been alike in cheris.h.i.+ng a ring, but when she reached home she would take Zebedee's from its place and hide it safely. She could not give it back to him: she could not wear it now.

"I must go," she said, and freed herself.

He kissed the banded finger. "Be quick and come back and let me see you wearing it again."

It weighted her, and she went more slowly down the road, feeling that the new weight was a symbol, and when she looked back and saw George standing where she had left him, she uttered a small cry he could not hear and ran to him.

"George, you must always love me now. You--I--"

"What is it, love?"

"Nothing. Let me go. Good-bye," she said, and walked on at her slow pace. Light winds brought summer smells to her, clouds made lakes of shadow on the moor, and here, where few trees grew and little traffic pa.s.sed, there were no dusty leaves to tell of summer's age; yet, in the air, there was a smell of flowers changing to fruit.

She pa.s.sed the gorse bushes in their second blossoming, and the moor, stretched before her, was as her life promised to be: it was monotonous in its bright colouring, quiet and serene, broad-bosomed for its children. Old sheep looked up at her as she went by, and she saw herself in some relations.h.i.+p to them. They were the sport of men, and so was she, yet perhaps G.o.d had some care of them and her. It was she and the great G.o.d of whose existence she was dimly sure who had to contrive honourable life for her, and the one to whom she had yearly prayed must remain in his own place, veiled by the smoke of the red fires, a survival and a link like the remembrance of her virginity.

So young in years, so wise in experience of the soul, she thought there was little more for her to learn, but acquaintance with birth and death awaited her: they were like beacons to be lighted on her path, and she had no fear of them.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

She did her shopping in her unhurried, careful way, and went on to the outfitter who made John's corduroy trousers. Clothes that looked as if they were made of cardboard hung outside the shop; unyielding coats, waistcoats and trousers seemed to be glued against the door: stockings, suspended by their gaudy tops, flaunted stiff toes in the breeze, and piles of more manageable garments were ma.s.sed on chairs inside, and Helen was aghast at the presence of so many semblances of man.

It was dark in the shop, and the smell of fustian absorbed the air. The owner, who wore an intricately-patterned tie, stood on the pavement and talked to a friend, while a youth, pale through living in obscurity, lured Helen in.

She gave her order: two pairs of corduroy trousers to be made for Mr.

Caniper of Brent Farm, to the same measurements as before: she wished to see the stuff.

"If you'll take a seat, miss--"

She would rather stand outside the door, she said, and he agreed that the day was warm.

The narrow street was thronged with people who were neither of the town nor of the country, and suffered the disabilities of the hybrid. There were few keen or beautiful faces, and if there were fine bodies they were hidden under clumsy clothes. Helen wanted to strip them all, and straighten them, and force them into health and comeliness, and though she would not have her moor peopled by them, she wished they might all have moors of their own.

The young man was very slow. She could hear him struggling with bales of cloth and breathing heavily. It was much hotter here than on the moor, and she supposed that human beings could grow accustomed to any smell, but she stepped further towards the kerbstone and drew in what air the street could spare to her.

Quite unconscious of her fairness against the dingy background, she watched the moving people and heard the talk of the two men near her.

They spoke of the hay crop, the price of bacon, the mismanagement of the gas company, and the words fell among the footsteps of the pa.s.sers-by, and the noise of wheels, and became one dull confusion of sound to her; but all sounds fainted and most sights grew misty when she saw Zebedee walking on the other side of the street, looking down as he went, but bending an ear to the girl beside him.

Men and women flitted like shadows between him and Helen, but she saw plainly enough. Zebedee was interested: he nodded twice, looked at the girl and laughed, while she walked sideways in her eagerness. She was young and pretty: no one, Helen thought, had ever married her.

The noise of the street rushed on her again, and she heard the shopman say, "That's a case, I think. I've seen that couple about before. Time he was married, too."

Slowly Helen turned a head, which felt stiff and swollen, to look at the person who could say so. She restrained a desire to hold it, and, stepping to the threshold of the shop, she called into the depths that she would soon return.

Without any attempt at secrecy she followed that pair absorbed in one another. She went because there was no choice, she was impelled by her necessity to know and unhindered by any scruples, and when she had seen the two pa.s.s down the quiet road leading to his house, with his hand on her elbow and her face turned to his, Helen went back to the young man and the bales of cloth.

She chose the corduroy and left the shop, and it was not long before she found herself outside the town, but she could remember nothing of her pa.s.sage. She came to a standstill where the moor road stretched before her, and there she suffered realization to fall on her with the weight of many waters. She cried out under the shock, and, turning, she ran without stopping until she came to Zebedee's door.

An astonished maid tried not to stare at this flushed and elegant lady.

"The doctor is engaged, miss," she said.

"I shall wait. Please tell him that I must see him."

"What name shall I say?"

"Miss Caniper. Miss Helen Caniper." She had no memory of any other.

She sat on one of the hard leather chairs and looked at a fern that died reluctantly in the middle of the table. Her eyes burned and would not be eased by tears, her heart leapt erratically in her breast, yet the one grievance of which she was exactly conscious was that Zebedee had a new servant and had not told her. If she had to have her tinker, surely Zebedee might have kept Eliza. She was invaded by a cruel feeling of his injustice; but her thoughts grew vague as she sat there, and her dry lips parted and closed, as though they tried to frame words and could not. For what seemed a long, long time, she could hear the sound of voices through the wall: then the study door was opened, a girl laughed, Zebedee spoke; another door was opened, there were steps on the path and the gate clicked. She sat motionless, still staring at the fern, but when Zebedee entered she looked up at him and spoke.

"Zebedee," she said miserably.

"Come into my room," he said.

The door was shut on them, and she dropped against it.

"Zebedee, I can't bear it."

"My little life!"