"I'm going to have a baby. Seven months from now. I don't want you to
think I'm hiding here. I could take refuge anywhere. I'm not ashamed.
But there are seven months. They won't be long to me. Indeed they'll be
all too short. Children aren't just born. They're made. Thousands are
born, I know. I don't want just to bear mine. When I came here that
day, two years ago, I felt something about this place. You'll think
nothing of this. You live here. It's so much part of your life that you
don't know what it means. But you're close to the earth--you're all one
with growing things. You touch Nature at every turn. Oh--do you
understand what I'm saying?"
"I don't understand," said Mrs. Peverell, "but I'm listenin' and I beant
too old to feel."
Mary sped on with the words that now were rushing in her thoughts.
"Well--all that means such a lot to me. That's how I want to make my
child, as you make your lives here. No cheating. You can't cheat
Nature. No pretence--no shame. There's nothing so flagrant or
unashamed as Nature when she brings forth. Out there in the world,
there where I live, they'd do all they could to make me ashamed. At
every turn they'd shriek at me it was a sin. The laws would urge them
to it, just as for that one moment they urged you. It's not a sin.
It's not a shame. It's the most wonderful thing in the world. Do you
think if women had the making of the laws that rule them, they'd ever
have made of it the shame it is out there? When I knew that this was
going to happen to me, I remembered my impressions of this place two
years ago, and I knew it was here I would make him, month by month,
while he's leaning in me to make him. Oh--I know I must be talking
strangely to you; that half of what I say sounds feather-brained
nonsense, but--don't you know it's true, don't you feel it's true?"
With an impulsive gesture when words had failed, she leant forward and
caught the knotted knuckles in her hand.
Mrs. Peverell glanced up.
"In that room there," said she, pointing in the direction of the parlor
sitting room, "there's a girt Bible lies heavy on a mat. We bought it
marriage time to write the names of those we had."
"I saw it," said Mary.
"'Tis clean paper lies on front of it," she went on. "It shan't be clean
for long. We'll write his name there."