The late autumn had a profusion of exhilarating days. The crops kept
Jeff in the garden and brought his father out for his quota of pottering
care. When the land was cleared for ploughing and even the pile of
rubbish burned, Jeff got to feeling detached again, discontented even,
and went for long tramps, sometimes with Alston Choate. Esther, seeing
them go by, looked after them in a consternation real enough to blanch
her damask cheek. What was the bond between them? Whatever bond they had
formed must be to the exclusion of her and her dear wishes, and their
amity enraged her.
Once, in walking, she saw Jeff turn in at Miss Amabel's gate, and she
did not swerve but actually finished her walk and came back that way
praying, with the concentration of thought which is an assault of will,
that he might be coming out and meet her. And it happened according to
her desire. There, at the gate was Jeff, handsomer, according to a
woman's jealous eye, than she had ever seen him, fresh-coloured, his
face set in a determination that was not feigned, hard, fit for any
muscular task more than the average man might do. Esther was looking her
prettiest. She continued to look her prettiest now, so far as woman's
art could serve her, for she could not know what moment might summon her
to bring her own special strength to bear. Jeff, at sight of her, took
off his hat, but stopped short standing inside the gate. Esther
understood. He wasn't going to commit her to walk with him where
Addington might see. She, too, stopped, her heart beating as fast as she
could have desired and giving her a bright accession of colour. Esther
greatly prized her damask cheek.
Jeff, feeling himself summoned, then came forward. He looked at her
gravely, and he was at a loss. How to address her! But Esther, with a
beguiling accent of gentleness, began.
"Isn't it strange?" she said, wistfully and even humbly, as if it were
not a question but a reflection of her own, not necessarily to be
answered.
"What is strange?" asked Jeff, with a kindly note she found reassuring.
"You and me," said Esther, "standing here, when--I don't believe you
were going to speak."
Her poor little smile looked piteous to him and the lift of her brows.
Jeff was sorry for her, sorry for them both. At that moment he was not
summoning energy to distrust her, and this was as she hoped.
"I'm sorry, Esther," he said impulsively. "I did mean to speak. It
wasn't that. I only don't mean to make you--in other folks' eyes, you
know--seem to be having anything to do with me when--when you don't want
to."
"When I don't want to!" Esther repeated. There was musing in the soft
voice, a kind of wonder.
"It's an infernal shame," said Jeff. He was glad to tell her he hated
the privation she had to bear of having cast him off and yet facing her
broken life without him. "I know what kind of time you have as well as
you could tell me. You've got Madame Beattie quartered on you. There's
grandmother upstairs. No comfort in her. No companionship. I've often
thought you don't go out as much as you might for fear of meeting me.
You needn't feel that. If I see it's going to happen I can save you
that, at least."
Esther stood looking up at him, her lips parted, as if she drank what he
had to say through them, and drank it thirstily.
"How good you are!" she said. "O Jeff, how good! When I've--" There she
paused, still watching him. But Esther had the woman's instinctive trick
of being able to watch accurately while she did it passionately.
Jeff flushed to his hair, but her cleverness did not lead her to the
springs of his emotion. He was ashamed, not of her, but of himself.
"You're off," he said, "all wrong. I do want to save you from this
horrible mix-up I've made for you. But I'm not good, Esther. I'm not the
faithful chap it makes me seem. I'm different. You wouldn't know me. I
don't believe we ever knew each other very well."
Something like terror came into her beautiful eyes. Was he, that inner
terror asked her, trying to explain that she had lost him? Although she
might not want him, she had always thought he would be there.
"You mean--" she began, and strove to keep a grip on herself and decide
temperately whether this would be best to say. But some galled feeling
got the better of her. The smart was too much. Hurt vanity made her
wince and cry out with the passion of a normal jealousy. "You mean," she
continued, "you are in love with another woman."
It was a hit. He had deserved it, he knew, and he straightened under it.
Let him not, his alarmed senses told him, even think of Lydia, lest
these cruelly clever eyes see Lydia in his, Lydia in his hurried breath,
even if he could keep Lydia from his tongue.
"Esther," he said, "don't say such a thing. Don't think it. What right
have I to look at another woman while you are alive? How could I insult
a woman--" He stopped, his own honest heart knocking against his words.
He had dared. He had swept his house of life and let Lydia in.
"Yes," said Esther thoughtfully, and, it seemed, hurt to the soul, "you
love somebody else. O Jeff, I didn't think--" She lifted widened eyes to
his. Afterward he could have sworn they were wet with tears. "I stand in
your way, don't I? What can I do, not to stand in your way?"
"Do?" said Jeff, in a rage at all the passions between men and women.
"Do? You can stop talking sentiment about me and putting words into my
mouth. You can make over your life, if you know how, and I'll help you
do it, if I can. I thought you were trying to free yourself. You can do
that. I won't lift a hand. You can say you're afraid of me, as you have
before. God knows whether you are. If you are, you're out of your mind.
But you can say it, and I won't deny you've just cause. You mustn't be a
prisoner to me."
"Jeff!" said Esther.
"What is it?" he asked.
She spoke tremblingly, weakly really as if she had not the strength to
speak, and he came a step nearer and laid his hand on the granite
gatepost. It was so hard it gave him courage. There were blood-red vines
on it, and when he disturbed their stems they loosened leaves and let
them drift over his hand.
"Now I see," said Esther, "how really alone I am. I thought I was when
you were away, but it was nothing to this."
She walked on, listlessly, aimlessly even though she kept the path and
she was going on her way as she had elected to before she saw him. But
to Jeff she seemed to be a drifting thing. A delicate butterfly floated
past him, weakened by the coldness of last night and fluttering on into
a night as cold.
"Esther," he called, and hurried after her. "You don't want me to walk
with you?" he asked impatiently. "You don't want Addington to say we've
made it up?"
"I don't care about Addington," said Esther. "It can say what it
pleases--if you're kind to me."
"Kind!" said Jeff. "I could have you trounced. You don't play fair. What
do you mean by mixing me all up with pity and things--" Esther's lids
were not allowed to lift, but her heart gave a little responsive bound.
So she had mixed him up!--"Getting the facts all wrong," Jeff went on
irritably. "You ignore everything you've felt before to-day. And you
begin to-day and say I've not been kind to you."
Now Esther looked at him. She smiled.
"Scold away," she said. "I've wanted you to scold me. I haven't been so
happy for months."
"Of course I scold you," said Jeff. "I want to see you happy. I want to
see you rid of me and beginning your life all over, so far as you can.
You're not the sort to live alone. It's an outrage against nature. A
woman like you--"
But Esther never discovered what he meant by "a woman like you." He had
gone a little further than her brain would take her. Did he mean a woman
altogether charming, like her--or? She dropped the inquiry very soon,
because it seemed to lead nowhere and it was pleasanter to think the
things that do not worry one.
Jeff remembered afterward that he had known from the beginning of the
walk with her that they should meet all Addington. But it was not the
Addington he had irritably dreaded. It was Lydia. His heart died as he
saw her coming, and his brain called on every reserve within him to keep
Esther from knowing that here was his heart's lady, this brave creature
whose honour was untainted, who had a woman's daring and a man's
endurance. He even, after that first alarm of a glance, held his eyes
from seeing her and he kept on scolding Esther.
"What's the use," he said, "talking like that?" And then his mind told
him there must be no confusion in what he said. He was defending Lydia.
He was pulling over her the green leaves of secrecy. "I advise you," he
said, "to get away from here. Get away from Madame Beattie--get away
from grandmother--" Lydia was very near now. He felt he could afford to
see her. "Ah, Lydia!" he said casually, and took off his hat.
They were past her, but not before Esther had asked, in answer:
"Where shall we go? I mean--" she caught herself up from her wilful
stumbling--"where could I go--alone?"
They were at her own gate, and Jeff stopped with her. Since they left
Lydia he had held his hat in his hand, and Esther, looking up at him saw
that he had paled under his tan. The merciless woman in her took stock
of that, rejoicing. Jeff smiled at her faintly, he was so infinitely
glad to leave her.
"We must think," he said. "You must think. Esther, about money, I'll
try--I don't know yet what I can earn--but we'll see. Oh, hang it! these
things can't be said."
He turned upon the words and strode off and Esther, without looking
after him, went in and at once upstairs.
"Good girl!" Madame Beattie called to her, from her room. "Well begun is
half done."
Esther did not answer. Neither did she take the trouble to hate Aunt
Patricia for saying it. She went instantly to her glass, and smiled into
it. The person who smiled back at her was young and very engaging.
Esther liked her. She thought she could trust her to do the best thing
possible.
Jeff went home and stood just inside his gateway to wait for Lydia. He
judged that she had been going to Amabel's, and now, her thoughts thrown
out of focus by meeting him with Esther, she would give up her visit and
come home to be sad a little by herself. He was right. She came soon,
walking fast, after her habit, a determined figure. He had had time to
read her face before she drew its veil of proud composure, and he found
in it what he had expected: young sorrow, the anguish of the heart
stricken and with no acquired power of staunching its own wounds. When
she saw him her face hardly changed, except that the mournful eyes
sought his. Had Esther got power over him? the eyes asked, and not out
of jealousy, he believed. The little creature was like a cherishing
mother. If Esther had gained power she would fight it to the uttermost,
not to possess him but to save his intimate self. Esther might pursue it
into fastnesses, but it should be saved. To Jeff, in that instant of
meeting the questioning eyes, she seemed an amazing person, capable of
exacting a tremendous loyalty. He didn't feel like explaining to her
that Esther hadn't got him in the least. The clarity of understanding
between them was inexpressibly precious to him. He wouldn't break it by
muddling assertions.
"I've been to Amabel's," he said. "You were going there, too, weren't
you?"
Lydia's face relaxed and cleared a little. She looked relieved, perhaps
from the mere kindness of his voice.
"I didn't go," she said. "I didn't feel like it."
"No," said Jeff. "But now we're home again, both of us, and we're glad.
Couldn't we cut round this way and sit under the wall a little before
Anne sees us and makes us eat things?"
He took her hand, this time of intention to make her feel befriended in
the intimacy of their common home, and they skirted the fence and went
across the orchard to the bench by the brick wall. As they sat there and
Jeff gave back her little hand he suddenly heard quick breaths from her
and then a sob or two.
"Lydia," said he. "Lydia."
"I know it," said Lydia.
She sought out her handkerchief and seemed to attack her face with it,
she was so angry at the tears.
"You're not hurt," said Jeff. "Truly you're not hurt, Lydia. There's
been nothing to hurt you."
Soon her breath stopped catching, and she gave her eyes a final
desperate scrub. By that time Jeff had begun to talk about the land and
what he hoped to do with it next year. He meant at least to prune the
orchard and maybe set out dwarfs. At first Lydia did not half listen,
knowing his purpose in distracting her. Then she began to answer. Once
she laughed when he told her the colonel, in learning to dig potatoes,
had sliced them with the hoe. Father, he told her, was what might be
called a library agriculturist. He was reading agricultural papers now.
He could answer almost any question you asked. As for bugs and their
natural antidotes, he knew them like a book. He even called himself an
agronomist. But when it came to potatoes! By and by they were talking
together and he had succeeded in giving her that homely sense of
intimacy he had been striving for. She forgot the pang that pierced her
when she saw him walking beside the woman who owned him through the
law. He was theirs, hers and her father's and Anne's, because they knew
him as he was and were desperately seeking to succour his maimed life.
But as she was going to sleep a curious question asked itself of Lydia.
Didn't she want him to go back to his wife and be happy with her, if
that could be? Lydia had no secrets from herself, no emotional veilings.
She told herself at once that she didn't want it at all. No Esther made
good as she was fair, by some apt miracle, could be trusted with the man
she had hurt. According to Lydia, Esther had not in her even the seeds
of such compassion as Jeff deserved.