Now this much was accomplished in the schedule of her mind. They would
all know. She left it to Hannah to tell them. The next day after this
confession to her sister, she went to Yarningdale Farm, having made all
arrangements to stay there two or three days and complete her plans for
the future.
It had been a difficult moment to tell Hannah. She had not quite
realized beforehand how difficult it would be. Pride she had calculated
would have helped her from the first; pride of the very purposes of life
that had passed her sisters by. But pride had not been so ready to her
thoughts when the actual moment of contact had come. The habitual
instincts of convention had intervened. Pride, when it had come to her
aid, had not been pride of herself. It was proud she was of her sex
when in the abruptness of that instant she had flung her confession
before Hannah.
There would be no question of pride; no support could it give her when
she came to tell Mrs. Peverell. To that simple farmer's wife it could
only seem that here was one, pursued by the error of her ways, seeking
sanctuary and hiding her shame in the remotest corner she could find.
Giving no reason to Jane or Fanny, but only to Hannah for her sudden
departure, she went the next day into Warwickshire.
"You can tell them when I'm away," she said to Hannah. "It's no good
thinking you needn't tell them. Hiding it won't conceal. They must
know."
With an impulsive gesture she laid her hands on Hannah's shoulders and
looked into those eyes that indeed, as she had said, even in those few
short hours of knowledge, had grown conscious that she was old.
"I don't know how much you hate me for bringing all this trouble on you.
It shan't be much trouble, I promise you. No one need know why I've
gone away. But I sort of feel sure of this, Hannah, you don't hate me
for the thing itself--not so much as you might have thought you would
have done."
Hannah tried to meet the gaze of Mary's eyes. Her own held fast a
moment, then faltered and fell. Something in Mary's glance seemed to
have tracked down something in her. The one with her child had glimpsed
into the heart of her who had none. It had been like a shaft of light,
slanting into a cellar, some chamber underground that for long had been
locked, the bolts on whose door were rusty and past all use, the floor
of which was no longer paved for feet to walk upon.
For so many years untenanted had that underground chamber been that, as
has been said, Hannah had forgotten its existence. Content had come to
her with the house of life she lived in and now by the illumination of
this ray of light, shooting through cellar windows, lighting up the very
foundations of the structure of her being, she had been made aware, when
it was all too late, of the solid and real substance upon which Nature
had built the wasted thing she had become.
"Don't!" she muttered. "Don't--don't!" and almost in shame it might
have been she hung her head as though it were Mary who might accuse, as
though Mary it were who rose in judgment above her then.
* * * * *
Mr. Peverell in a spring cart from the nearest station brought Mary to
Yarningdale Farm. She had no need to touch Henley-in-Arden. There was
no likelihood that whilst there she would ever come across her friends.
They had walked many miles that day. It was the highest improbability
they would ever walk that way again; and certainly not to visit the
farm.
"It happen be a quiet day," he said as he gathered up the reins, "or I
couldn't have come for 'ee with the spring cart. No--I couldn't have
come for 'ee with the spring cart if it didn't happen to be a quiet day.
I got the machine ready last night and we be cuttin' hay to-morrow."
Cutting hay!
"May I help?" she asked with an impulsive eagerness. He looked down at
her on the lower seat beside him and his eyes were twinkling with a
kindly amusement.
"'Ee can help," said he, "but hay-makin' ain't 'helpin'--it's work.
When they cut the grass over at Stapeley--Lord Orford's place there
over--there's some of the ladies puts on them dimity-like sunbonnets and
come and help. But then you see there's plenty to do the work." His
eyes twinkled again. "We've only got hundred and thirteen acres and
there's me and the carter and a boy. My missis comes out. So does the
carter's wife. But 'tain't helpin'. 'Tis work. We can't 'ford
amusements like helpin' each other. We have to work--if you understand
what I mean."
"But I mean that too," she said quickly. "I meant to work. Of course I
don't know anything about it; but couldn't I really do something?"
"We'll be beginning half-past five to-morrow morning," he said and she
felt he was chuckling in his heart. She felt that all who did not know
the land as he knew it were mere children to him.
"Can't I get up at half-past five?" she asked.
"Can 'ee?"
"Of course I can. I want to work. Do you know that's one of the things
I want to come here for. When I come and stay--that's what I've come to
arrange with Mrs. Peverell--when I come and stay, I want to work. I can
do what I'm told."
"There's few as can," said he. "Them things we're told to do, get
mighty slow in doin'. Could 'ee drive a horse rake?"
"I can drive a horse."
He whipped up the old mare and said no more until she asked him why they
had not cut the grass that day. It was so fine, she said, and fine
weather she thought was what they wanted first of all.
"There be plenty of fine days when the grass is green," said he.
"'Twill be fine now a few days, time we'd be gettin' it in. We'd a
shower yesterday--a nice drop of rain it was. Sun to-day and they
trefolium'll have their seed just right and nigh to droppin'. 'Ee want
the seed ripe in the stack. 'Tain't no good leavin' it in the bottom of
the wagon."
She let him talk on. She did not know what trefolium was. He needed a
listener, no more. Questions would not have pleased his ear. All the
way back he talked about the land and as to one who understood every
word he said. There was his heart and there he spoke it as a lover
might who needed no more than a listener to hear the charms of his
mistress. The mere sound of his voice, the ring it had of vital energy,
these were enough to make that talking a thrilling song to her. It
echoed to something in her. She did not know what it was. Scarce a
word of it did she understand; yet not a word of it would she have lost.
This something that there was in him, was something also in her.
Indistinctly she knew it was that which she must feed and stimulate to
make her child. As little would he have understood that as she had
comprehension of his talk of crops and soil. Their language might not
be the same, but the same urging force was there to give them speech and
thought. Just as he spoke of the land though never of himself or his
part with it, so she thought of her child, a thing that needed soil to
grow in. No haphazard chance of circumstance did she feel it to be.
Tilling must she do and cleansing of the earth, before her harvest could
be reaped. Her night would come, that night before, that night when all
was ready, that night after rain and sun when the seed was ripe and must
be gathered in the stack and none be wasted on the wagon floor.
"'Ee understand what I'm sayin'," she suddenly heard him interpose
between the level of her thoughts.
"Yes, yes--I understand," said she. "And you don't know how interesting
it is."
He turned the mare into the farm gate and tossed the reins on to her
back.
"She's a knowsome girl," he said that night as he lay beside his wife.
"She's a knowsome girl. 'Twon't rain to-morrow. There was no rain in
they clouds."