The next evening it was, after the first day in the hayfield and while
Mr. Peverell in the big barn was sharpening the knives of the mowing
machine, that Mary set herself to the task of telling his wife why she
wanted to come to the farm.
Hard as she knew it would be, so much the harder it became when alone
she found herself watching that sallow face with its sunken and
lusterless eyes, the thin, unforgiving line of lip, the chin set square,
obediently to turn the other cheek to the smiting hand of Fate.
Mrs. Peverell was knitting.
"A woolly vest," said she--"for the old man, come next winter. Time
they leaves be off the apple trees, the wind ain't long afindin' we'd be
here top of the hill."
For a while Mary sat in silence counting her stitches--two purl, two
plain, two purl, two plain. The needles clicked. The knotted knuckles
turned and twisted, catching the light with rhythmic precision. And all
the time she kept saying to herself--"Soon he'll come back from the barn
and I shan't have said it. Soon he'll come back."
"Did you make all your children's things for them?" she asked with
sudden inspiration, striking the note to key her thoughts when she could
speak them.
The needles clicked on. The knotted knuckles twisted and turned as
though she had never heard. The head was bent, the eyes fastened upon
her stitches.
Thinking she had not heard, Mary was about to repeat her question when
suddenly she looked. Stone her eyes were, even and gray. Through
years, each one of which was notched upon her memory, she looked at Mary
across the dim light of their parlor kitchen.
"I had no children," she said hardly; "all the stitches I've ever
gathered was for my man."
Her gaze upon Mary continued for a long silence then, as though her
needles had called them, her eyes withdrew to her knitting. Saying no
more, she continued her occupation.
To Mary could she have said less? There was the gap filled in between
that winsome creature whose portrait hung upon the wall in the other
room and this woman, sour of countenance, whose blood had turned to
vinegar in her heart.
Many another woman would have been still more afraid, possessed of such
knowledge as that. With a heart that swelled in her to pity, Mary found
her fear had gone.
Somewhere in that forbidding exterior, she knew she could find the
response of heart she needed. Even Nature, with her crudest whip, could
not drive out the deeper kindliness of the soul. It was only the body
she could dry up and wither, with the persisting ferment of discontent;
only the external woman she could embitter with her disregard.
For here was one whom circumstance had offered and Nature had flung
aside. Great as the tragedy of her sisters' lives might be, Mary knew
how much greater a tragedy was this. Here there was no remedy, no fear
of convention to make excuse, no want of courage to justify. Like a
leper she was outcast amongst women. The knowledge of it was all in her
face. And such tragedy as this, though it might wither the body and turn
sour the heart, could only make the soul great that suffered it.
Mary's fear was gone. At sight of the unforgiving line of lip and
square set chin to meet adversity, she knew a great soul was hidden
behind that sallow mask.
The long silence that had followed Mrs. Peverell's admission added a
fullness of meaning to Mary's words.
"It'd sound foolish and empty if I said I was sorry," she said quietly,
"but I know what you must feel."
The lusterless eyes shot up quickly from their hollows. Almost a light
was kindling in them now.
"'Ee bain't a married girl," she said, "Miss Throgmorton or what 'ee
call it, that's how I wrote my letter to 'ee."
"Yes."
"How could 'ee know things I'd feel?
"I do."
"How old are 'ee?"
"Thirty next September."
"Why haven't 'ee married?"
"I haven't been asked. Look at me."
"I am."
"But look at me well."
Mrs. Peverell stared into her eyes.
"I have three sisters older than me," Mary went on. "Four girls--four
women. We're none of us married. None of us was ever as pretty or sweet
as you were when that photograph was taken of you in the other room."
The silence that fell between them then as Mrs. Peverell gazed at her
was more significant than words. For all they said, once understanding,
they did not need words. Indications of speech sufficed.
"Did any of 'ee want to be married?" asked the farmer's wife. "Did
you?"
"Did you?" replied Mary.
"I wanted a good man," said she, "and I got him."
"Yes, but looking back on it now--all these years--back to that
photograph in there, was that what you wanted?"
All this time Mrs. Peverell had been holding her needles as though at
any moment the conversation might command her full attention no longer
and she would return to her knitting. Definitely, at last she laid it
in her lap and, leaning forward, she set her eyes, now lit indeed, upon
Mary's face before her.
"'Ee know so much," said she slowly. "How did 'ee learn? What is it
'ee have to tell me?"
Without fear, Mary met her gaze. Long it was and keen but she met it
full, nor turned, nor dropped her eyes. Brimmed and overflowing that
silence was as they sat there. Words would have been empty sounds had
they been spoken. Then, but not until it had expressed all their
thoughts, Mrs. Peverell's lips parted.
"It's sin," she said.
"Is it?" replied Mary, and, so still her voice was that it made no
vibrations to disturb the deeper meaning she implied. In their
following silence, that deeper meaning filtered slowly but inevitably
through the strata of Mrs. Peverell's mind, till drop by drop it fell
into the core of her being. In the far hidden soul of her, she knew it
was no sin. She knew moreover that Mary had full realization of her
knowledge. Too far the silence had gone for her to deny it now.
Whatever were the years between them, in those moments they were just
women between whom no screen was set to hide their shame. They had no
shame. All that they thought and had no words for was pure as the
clearest water in the deepest well.
It was at this moment as they sat there, still, without speech, that the
door opened and Mr. Peverell entered. Swiftly his wife turned.
"'Ee'll not be wanted here awhile," she said sharply. "Go and sit in the
parlor, or back to the barn, or get to bed maybe. The hay'll make
without talking."
Obediently, like a child, he went out at once and closed the door. It
was not things they talked of that he might not hear. Not even was it
things they talked of that he might not understand. Here it was that no
man had place or meaning; in that region their minds were wandering in,
no laws existed but those of Nature. They walked in a world where women
are alone.
The opening of that door as he came in, the closing of it as obediently
he went out, seemed to make definite the thoughts they had. At the
sound of his footsteps departing, Mrs. Peverell turned to Mary.
"Say all 'ee've got to say," she muttered. "I'm listenin'."