Barbara Lynn Part 13

"I'm so glad, Joel, and--and great-granny's very old!" She was half afraid to utter words which implied a wish that she dared not express.

"She'll be older still before she dies," said he, then added as a second thought, "I shouldn't wonder if she buried us first. Death seems to forget the old folk sometimes, and to take the young instead."

Lucy turned away; tears rushed to her eyes; she forced them back.

What was wrong with Joel to-night? She had not seen him for a week, and had been longing to hear him say that he had missed her desperately. But he seemed to be preoccupied and answered her enquiries after his health in on off-hand manner; his bearing was no longer gay, but distant.

Saying good-night she went back to Greystones.

Joel let her go with the customary embrace, but she felt no warmth in it. She was hurt at his indifference, and paused, when she reached the garden, to compose her features before meeting the eyes of her great-grandmother, who believed that she was in the dairy turning cheeses. She thought of his handsome face and form, and then her resentment sank. She dared not lose him; she could not contemplate a quarrel; if she entered the house now and shut the door upon her present feelings, she would be also shutting up sorrow in her heart. She wondered whether she were to blame: whether she had failed in sympathy and understanding. Perhaps she had been cold, and he was hurt as well as she.

Lucy plucked a half-opened rose and returned, meaning to run after him if he had gone home. But he was still standing in their meeting place, hidden by the trees.

"I couldn't leave you so, Joel," she murmured, twining her fingers in his. "I shouldn't sleep to-night if I thought you had any cause to be angry with me. Have I done aught amiss?"

He put his arms round her, roused to a show of affection by her voice.

He cared for her deeply, but there were times when he found her love exacting, when he could not reach the heights whereon she stood. The fault lay in himself. It lay in his heart, which was so weighted by anxiety, that he often had not the energy to climb up beside her.

"Yes," he said with a return to his usual manner, "you've done one thing amiss--you've grown so deucedly pretty that you've left me neither a calm heart nor a clear head to manage my worldly affairs."

Lucy laughed, and pinned the rose-bud into his coat, rea.s.sured at his words. She was happy again, happy as a flower drinking in the dew. The beck sang of tranquillity; the trees were kindly souls, making a bower for him and her; the darkness was a soft green curtain shutting out the world and prying eyes.

They lingered a while without speaking--she thinking only of him, he distracted by his own thoughts. Then she went away.

He saw her go with a feeling of relief. Now he would have quietness in which to measure his intentions and understand himself. When the glimmer of her cotton frock had vanished up the path, he sat down to contemplation. He had not yet made up his mind what to do: he had deferred his decision--so he thought--until this moment, because he wished to face it squarely. He would not have his mind entrapped by some subtle move of the hand of chance. But he was only deceiving himself. In the silence of the copse, with the singing water to take the intensity off a silence which would have distracted him, he found that he had no decision to make. The contest had been fought in his innermost being by manoeuvres which he was barely aware of. It had gone on, as it were, under cover of a veil that he had drawn between his consciousness and his nature.

Later on he walked back to Greystones. He still half-heartedly hoped that the door of the wool-barn would be barred, or that the dogs would announce his coming, and so make his projected plan impossible. But no one saw him, the latch lifted lightly--Barbara had not yet locked up for the night.

Waiting was tedious. His head swam with the heat, for he was obliged to hide himself under the fleeces: the blood sang in his ears, and throbbed at his wrists. Barbara pa.s.sed with a candle, and shot to the bolts; darkness closed down. He flung off the coverings, and sank upon the wool-bales, nursing his chin. His heart began to beat like a hammer; he thought that someone would surely hear it.

The darkness danced. It was alive with threads of light wriggling past him into the corners of the barn. He began to wish that he had not come.

To be sure he could unbolt the door, and slip away unseen and unheard.

But then he would lose his chance. That which he really desired was some outside power to decide for him, either a voice audibly commanding, or a superhuman hand forcibly withholding him. But nothing of this kind happened. The way was smoothed. It seemed as though the powers above man had planned the enterprise, and were egging him on to fulfil it.

He wished that he had a light. The darkness was disconcerting with those wriggling streaks of fire. He heard the kitchen clock chiming the quarters and the half-hours, and when it struck twelve, he crept into the pa.s.sage. He listened, but there was no sound within. Then he gently lifted the sneck and entered.

Mistress Lynn was just turning away from lighting a candle. She was sitting up in bed, and looked round at the sound. Their eyes met.

For a moment they stared at each other--the man confused, the old woman astonished, a look which swiftly turned to that expression of suspicion, with which she had regarded him earlier in the evening. Then she clasped her hands on her lap, and leaned back against the pillows.

"I's pleased to see thee, Joel Hart," she said. "Surely it's sommat pressing that's brought thee up to Greystones at this hour!"

He did not reply; endeavoured to meet her glance with one as lofty; failed miserably, and moved to the door, putting into his action a boldness which he did not feel.

"Sit down, lad," she said. "Come in, Joel. Thee needn't fear the old woman; she wunna bite."

Mistress Lynn smiled, but bitterly.

"I'm going," he replied, "good-night."

"Nay, nay, let's have a crack, Joel. Shut the door."

Her voice held him. He glanced at her, but could make nothing of that grim, inscrutable face. He did not know what to do. If he went away he would still have to give an explanation of this untimely visit; it seemed better to stay and face the difficulty now; invent a likely motive--if he could.

"It's late," he said, "hadn't we better wait for a more seasonable opportunity to have a crack?"

"What didst say?" she asked, putting her hand behind her ear. "I's getting deaf, lad, breaking up, losing my sight, and my hearing, and my wits, too, it seems. I's an old woman, Joel. How old art thou?

Twenty-five! It's good to be twenty-five! It's a wise, pleasant age to be!"

Her voice was growing scornful.

"An age for sowing wild oats, and gathering apples off other folks trees, eh? Haven't you a word to say?" she continued. "Haven't you a reason to give for coming to see me? Lost thy tongue, hasta? Well, well, I's pleased and proud it's me you've come to see; me, the great-grandmother, and not one of the la.s.ses upstairs. Step hither to the bedside, lad, till I see thee better."

Unable to understand the old woman's words, but hoping that his purpose might escape undetected, Joel did as she bade him, swaggering somewhat, and curtaining his real feelings with a smile.

She gripped him with her skinny hands.

"Oh, thee's a fine make of a man," she said, her voice changing; "thee's a man indeed, a handsome, pleasant-spoken young man and a virtuous one."

She shook him with her rising pa.s.sion.

"Didst think to find me asleep?" she asked. "Didst think to pluck the bonny golden apples out o' my hand? I never sleep, lad, leastways, not at night. And this night--wouldst like to know where I've been--eh?"

She paused to give point to her words.

"I've been with your grandfather. And you're blood of his blood and bone of his bone! Ah! he should have married me, though I was but a statesman's la.s.s, and not heiress to a fine house. I'd have given him children worthy of him--lads that would have held their heads high, and walked with honest folk, and just folk, and proud folk--too proud to soil their souls with their hands. It's your lady grandmother that's polluted you, Joel, so you can't help it. Poor lad, poor lad--the spring was poisoned before you were born!"

Her voice softened, and she looked at him more kindly.

"You might have trusted me, Joel," she said. "You should have been straight with me, asked in the name of your grandfather, I'd have listened for his sake."

He muttered something about her hard nature.

"Hard!" she replied. "Aye, I's hard, but iron melts. I'd have melted like a bit of beeswax, if you'd been strong and true and wise enough to come to me with a straight story. It's them crooked ways of folk I can't abide. Why didn't you--eh?"

She pushed him suddenly away.

"You've a bad heart, Joel, though you've the face of your grandfather, and he was the handsomest man in the dales. You've got his name too--Joel Hart! Joel Hart! A young la.s.s once thought it was the sweetest music in the world! Shame on you, shame on you for bringing a stain on it!"

"It was stained before I got it," he replied; he was not one to take his deserts meekly. "His own country shot him for a rebel!"

"That's an ill jibe," she cried, shaking her clenched fist at him, then fell back upon her pillows unable to continue, but glaring like a wounded wild thing.

He felt that some apology, some explanation must be made.

"I'm sorry, Mistress Lynn," he began, "I never meant, I didn't mean----"

"Well," she gasped, "is that all; you didn't mean--what?"

He straightened himself, looked the old woman full in the face. He was not a thief; he had wandered from the straight path; but the crooked way was not to his liking; it abounded in pitfalls, so he forsook it.