ONCE again the situation had to be faced. This time Abner was in no
doubt as to what must be done. Those lonely days on the cold upland had
given him time to think. He now realised that as far as finding work in
the Lesswardine district went he was definitely beaten, and that every
day that he spent at Wolfpits must make him more and more a drag upon the
resources of the family. The obvious thing for him to do was to turn his
early experiences at Mawne to account, to set off southward for the coal
valleys and work as a miner underground. On the Welsh coalfield, wages
ran high and he might be sure of earning enough to keep himself in
comfort and to supply the Wolfpits household with a living that would
seem luxurious after their long privations. In solitude this
determination had been easily made, and the feeling that something
definite was in view had made him happier and better pleased with
himself; but when he left the Pentre and came to lay his plans before
Mary, his course did not seem so clear or so free from complications.
During their three months of hardship their relations had undergone a
curious change. Mary’s outburst of jealous anger when she learned the
true cause of his dismissal from The Dyke, had swept through her like a
storm, stripping her heart of its hidden grudges and reservations. It
passed, leaving her weak, bewildered, and yet happy. It was as if this
sudden tempest, while almost destroying her, had snapped the last threads
that bound her to her old life. All the past was broken. It rolled away
from her in a tumult of spent cloud, and in the serene silence that
followed she came to herself, realising that she was alone in the world
with Abner and her children. It was like the bewildered calm that comes
after an escape from death; the hushed birth of a new world; a strange,
unearthly quiet.
In this new state she found herself most eager to atone for the endless,
wordless contest that she had waged against him. She knew that she could
never repay him a hundredth part of what he had given her and suffered at
her hands. The money was nothing. What he had sacrificed for her was
his freedom, a hard denial for a man in the prime of youth. And so,
thinking gratefully of his goodness toward her and of his unfathomed
patience, she began to dwell tenderly on other aspects of the man: his
splendid, supple strength, his honest eyes, the straightness and
simplicity of his whole nature, and to compare them, instinctively, with
what she knew of her husband: his superficial charm, his persuasive
manners, and his callous heart: all those qualities that she had been
taught by bitterest experience to hate and to mistrust. It was in this
light that Abner seemed to her most wonderful. And she had used him like
a shrew! Every natural impulse of kindness in him she had checked and
thwarted! Pride had made her thankless; prudishness had hardened her.
She was detestable, and if he hated her she had only herself to thank for
it.
But did he hate her? She hoped, fervently, that he did not. She could
not bear that he should hate her. It pained her even to think that she
owed his kindness to the fact that he had given some promise to George,
and in the simplicity of his nature felt that he must redeem it. She
knew that he was fond of the children and could not bear to see them
suffer; but that was not enough for her. Her new being craved for a
personal devotion. If that were not forthcoming she felt that she would
have little left in the world, that her life must be finally bitter and
useless. And she knew that she was far too young for any such finality.
She hated the pride that had brought her to this, and resolved to
proclaim her new humility by every means in her power.
Abner himself was sensible of the change in her attitude toward him.
During the time of his work at the Pentre, he became aware of it. Little
by little, for she was far too cautious to make the change a sudden one,
she was demolishing the barrier that she had built so carefully between
them, and he, reluctantly, had accepted. Slowly, almost imperceptibly,
they were nearing once more the point which they had reached in a moment
of stress and abandonment on the night of the white mist six months
before, the moment when he had seen her transfigured, or rather revealed,
as the one woman in the world whom he wanted, body and soul.
In all those hard days not a single chilling word passed her lips, not a
single intolerable silence drove him away from her. Her kindness made
her beautiful, but the nearness of her beauty frightened him and he
withdrew himself, having once cruelly burnt his fingers at that flame.
He was happy, but could not trust his happiness, not because any scruples
of honour pricked him, but because he feared a new rebuff.
Even though he dared not believe in her submission he could not escape
the influence of her tenderness. The lean days were the best he had ever
known at Wolfpits: even if he had had money to spend he would not have
gone elsewhere, and every moment that brought him nearer to the
inevitable parting on which he had decided, made the idea of it more
painful and more difficult. It now seemed to him monstrously
unreasonable that when such complete happiness was in his grasp he should
wilfully renounce it. And yet, what else could he do? A sense of the
futility of her kindness made him shrink from it.
She saw what was happening, knew that she deserved it, and in order that
she might justify herself she now tried to play on his affection for the
children, to create an atmosphere of interdependence among the four of
them, to bind him closer to her with a web of many strands each so
slender that he need not be aware of the process. But he felt the light
pressure of the net in which he was being entangled; he struggled to free
himself. And she saw the convulsions of his struggle and feared to lose
him. The thrill of this new, half-hidden conflict held her.
On the Saturday night before his last week at the Pentre, he kept back
five shillings of his earnings. By working from dawn till sunset each
day he had managed to put in many hours of overtime, so that he was able
to give her half a sovereign clear. It seemed to him a good opportunity
for breaking the news of his plan to her. Sooner or later the word must
be spoken. She held the gold coin in her hand and looked at him
inquiringly.
‘You’ll be two bob short this week,’ he said, ‘but if any one knows how
to manage, you do. After that I reckon things’ll begin to look up a
bit.’
She flushed with a sudden pleasure.
‘Abner!’ she cried. ‘You don’t mean to say that Mr Williams is going to
keep you on?’
‘Not he!’ said Abner. ‘There’s not more than four or five days left of
the stone picking, and I can tell you I’m not all that sorry. My back’s
fair broke at it! No, I’m thinking of a change. I might stay on round
here a year before I find another job worth calling one. They’ve got a
down on you and me, these farming chaps, them and your old mother.
There’s only one thing to be done as I can see. And that’s what I’ve
kept five bob back for to-night.’
‘I don’t understand, Abner,’ she said, understanding only too well.
‘Of course you don’t. Well, I’ll tell you. While I’ve been up on the
hill I’ve had a good few hours for thinking. I’ve reckoned it all up
square. There’s about four month as you’ll have to hang on here afore
old George comes out, and you can’t keep the lot of us for four odd month
on nothing. That’s clear enough, bain’t it?’
She assented.
‘So I thought like this. What’s the use of a chap of my sort, that’s
learned a trade and all, and can pick up good money at it, going round
cadging work from a lot of beggars that don’t mean to give it me? I’ve
had a bellyful of farmers’ promises, I have, and I tell you straight!’
Again she said: ‘Yes . . .’
‘And so this is how I see it. The only thing left for me when I’ve
finished along with old Williams is to take a turn down Swansea way.’
‘Swansea?’ she cried.
‘That’s it. I looked it up Sunday in the time-table on Llandwlas
station, and asked about the fare. You go down through Builth and Brecon
and Neath, and five bob’ll do it. There’s plenty of work going in the
Western Valleys, they say, and good money and all. You can pick up two
pound ten a week, without killing yourself either. They say lodging’s
dear, but I reckon I can send you a clear pound easy: postal orders you
can change at Mainstone and nobody know where they come from. I ought to
have done it before. I know that. But now it looks like as if there’s
nothing else.’
While he spoke he was walking up and down the little room, never looking
at her. Her eyes followed him, but her heart fell within her. He
finished and faced her. She could scarcely answer him.
‘You mean that you must go away . . . leave me?’
‘That’s the ticket,’ he said. ‘I ought to have done it afore. If I had
they’d have left you alone.’
‘But you can’t,’ she said. ‘You can’t!’
‘You can’t live on nothing,’ he said brutally.
She could not listen to reason. She was beyond reason now.
‘No, no,’ she cried. ‘Abner, you mustn’t go!’
He set his will against her. She stood and trembled before him, but he
would not face her for fear that he should be softened. He kept silence.
‘You can’t,’ she cried again. ‘I couldn’t face it . . . the loneliness!
I couldn’t, really! This place . . . all alone. No, Abner, you can’t!’
‘It’s not for so long,’ he reassured her. ‘What’s four month? After
that you’ll have George back again.’
‘George!’ she cried. ‘Oh, don’t speak of it! You’re cruel!’
Her words came as a shock to him. It was now many months since they had
spoken of George. Since the evening of his letter she had not even
mentioned his name to the children nor encouraged Abner to talk about
him. Abner saw the fateful direction in which the tide was drifting, and
held steadily to his course.
‘It’s not so long since,’ he said, ‘that you told me to go away if I
wanted to. The time they tried to get you to go and keep house for the
parson. I reckon you’ve changed about a good bit since then.’
‘Of course I’ve changed,’ she said. ‘I was a fool then. I didn’t know
what I wanted. It’s different now.’ She paused, and then returned
instinctively to her first words. ‘You can’t! You can’t!’
‘You’re talking wild,’ he said brusquely. ‘I’ve thought it all out.
It’s the only thing. You’ll have the comfort you’m used to, you and the
kids. You won’t find it all that lonely with your stomachs full. It’s
the bad times we’ve been having that makes you talk like that.’
Still she protested. ‘No, no, it isn’t. I couldn’t bear it. It’s like
taking the life away from me.’
He didn’t wait to think what she meant. He was angry that she should
increase the difficulty of his parting.
‘It’s no good talking to you,’ he said, ‘if you can’t see sense. I can’t
take you along with me, can I?’
‘Why not?’
She stood before him, meek, submissive. He was overwhelmed. Through all
those months he had schooled himself so thoroughly that this sudden,
voluntary surrender staggered him. His heart melted within him; the
blood beat in his wrists. The past shrivelled away in that moment’s
flame. The future was a blaze of light, and in the present he saw
nothing but the woman of his desire. There had been no one like her. In
all his lighter loves he had been able to see himself from without as a
creature fevered with appetite. But now he was lost. He knew nothing in
the world but Mary: her softened eyes, the curve of her lips, the thrill
of her yielding body. He picked her up in his arms, holding her so that
her breath came quickly on his cheek, and strained her toward him as
though, by doing so, he might make her a part of himself. Even if he
killed her with his strength in that moment she was made his, clasped
immutably to him in the surrounding darkness. Their lips were joined in
eager kisses. Her proud body gave itself to his arms. Her eyes were
closed: her lips infinitely happy.
‘Mary, Mary . . .’ he whispered to her, rejoicing in the sound of her
name. But his voice was strange, distant, thick with passion, and his
clasping hands could not be certain that they held her. They followed
every curve of her body, seeking to know if it were really she. His
tongue stumbled on phrases that had never come to him before.
‘Mary, my little one, my beauty! Did I use you rough? Did I hurt you?’
She shook her head and smiled back at him, full of content. She herself,
shyly daring, allowed her hands to caress his head, stroking his hair,
his ears, his neck. And the light contact of her fingers maddened him,
finding strange nerves that had never felt before, awakening new
yearnings.
At last she opened her eyes.
‘The lamp’s flaring,’ she said, in a curious, toneless voice. Smiling
gently she freed herself from his arms and turned down the wick. He
followed her, feeling that she was escaping him. Never again should she
escape him. Obedient to his will she came back to him.
‘Us bain’t gooin’ to wait for the parson, bin’ us?’ he said, and when she
would not answer: ‘Durs’n’t you, wench? We’ve waited above a bit, us
two!’
‘There’s the children,’ she said, lowering her eyes. ‘I thought I heard
Morgan cry out in his sleep.’
‘Bless them!’ he said. ‘And don’t I love every bone in their bodies as
if they was my own?’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know. And they’re so fond of you.’
‘It’s because they’m yours,’ he said. ‘So what does it matter?’
‘Don’t ask me. Poor sweet lambs! Oh, Abner, where am I?’
‘You’m here with me, wench! In my arms. You belong to me, Mary.
There’s nought can take you away from me. I don’t let you go now I’ve
got you. Not a minute, not a second!’
‘I can’t take it in,’ she said. ‘If Mrs Mamble could see through the
wall! To think of all that people have said of us!’
‘They can say it again. They’re welcome now! Talk? They can talk their
damned heads off. We’ve been through all that!’
‘I should just think we have,’ she sighed. ‘They can’t touch us now.
Abner! Abner!’
She clung to him and kissed him again and again. ‘Ah, Abner, don’t ask
me!’ she said. ‘Just let things happen as they will.’
She hid her face against him.
‘But afterward,’ she whispered. ‘What can we do? How can we get away,
Abner? I feel as if something might stop us. Let’s get away at once.
Let’s go. I can’t bear waiting!’
He laughed at her. ‘To-night?’
‘No, to-morrow.’
‘Nobody will know it’s any different till we’re gone,’ he said. ‘They
can’t say worse of us than they have done.’
‘They will. . . . Of course they will. They can’t help seeing. Mrs
Mamble . . . an old woman like that sees everything. I shall look
different. I know I shall, if it’s only that I’m happy.’
He laughed as he kissed her. ‘Bin yo’ happy, my love?’
‘Oh, Abner!’
‘Three or four days’ll see me finished up at old Williams’s. He done us
a good turn, and don’t you forget it. Besides that you couldn’t get
ready by to-morrow. You’ll take a few days over that, and I’ll go on and
look for a home.’
‘No, no, Abner!’ she cried. ‘Don’t leave me now! Don’t you leave me!
If ever I lose sight of you now something will happen. I know it as sure
as sure.’
‘You’m a baby, that’s what you are!’ he said, teasing. He gathered her
up in his arms and talked foolishly to her.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I mean it. I’m as serious as I can
be.’
‘A damned sight too serious for me!’ he grumbled.
‘We must all go together. In three days I can be ready. No, two.’
‘In that case every one’ll see us. You’m all the other way now.’
‘I don’t care who sees us now,’ she said passionately. ‘What does it
matter? Let it take its chance! It’s nothing to us. I’m so sick of
their talk that it means nothing to me.’
She became thoughtful once more.
‘Abner,’ she said suddenly, ‘tell me truly, when did you first want me?’
Again he teased her.
‘What does that matter?’
‘I want to know,’ she protested.
And he told her of the night at Redlake when he had stood burning in the
moonlight beneath the jasmine-covered windows of the inn.
‘I knew, I knew!’ she said softly. ‘I couldn’t sleep that night. The
time we’ve lost, us two! Oh, how I hate myself! It was nearly the same
with me. Just when we’d missed our way and my legs ached so that I felt
I couldn’t walk another step. Poor little Morgan, and the bottle of pop
you promised him! And then those strange sea-birds crying up in the
dark. Do you remember how I turned on you and told you I hated the sight
of you? That was when I loved you. Then and ever since.’
‘We’ve been through something, one time and another,’ he said.
She laughed softly.
‘It’s like a long courtship,’ she said. ‘George and I only knew each
other six weeks before we were married.’
It amazed her to find that now she could speak of George without
discomfort. Her mind ran swiftly over those early days.
‘Abner,’ she said, ‘I feel sorry for George now, don’t you?’
‘Don’t speak of him!’ said Abner seriously.
‘You’re jealous . . .’
‘Don’t speak of him. I gave old George my word. I’ve not been a pal to
George.’
‘You’re a funny boy,’ she said, loving him with her eyes.
‘I want to forget old George,’ he said obstinately.
‘Then I won’t speak of him, Abner. What time is it?’
She put her hand into his waistcoat pocket and took out his watch. The
sweet familiarity of the action entranced him. His eyes followed her
fingers, and the newly conscious turn of her head as she looked at it.
‘Ten o’clock,’ she said. ‘Who’d have thought it?’
She rose, and again she abandoned herself to his arms. Then she left him
suddenly and went before him, never looking back. He followed with the
little lamp in his hand. At the foot of the stairs he stopped.
‘What’s the matter?’ she whispered, turning. ‘Aren’t you coming?’
‘There’s a step outside,’ he said. ‘Some one on the garden path.’
‘Whoever can it be at this time? Take the light to the door and see.’
The darkness of the staircase engulfed her as he opened the kitchen door
and peered outside.
‘Who’s that?’ he called.
‘Is that you, Abner?’ a voice replied. ‘Now I thought I see’d a light.
I guessed you’d have gone up over by this.’
‘What do you want, Mr Drew?’
‘You wait while I do get my breath back,’ said the old man. He had
evidently been drinking and walked unsteadily. ‘Ah, that’s better!
Well, Abner, I’ve a’ been down to the Buffalo to-night for a quart, and I
thought as how I’d bring ’ee a bit of downright good news I heared. Yes,
old Mrs Malpas she’ve got news from Shrewsbury—whether it be by letter or
word of mouth I can’t say for certain—as young George have behaved
himself so well into prison that they’m going to knock off part of his
time. Any day this week he may be coming home along, so they says, and I
thought I’d better bring the news quick to his missus.’
‘Coming home . . .?’ said Abner, dazed.
‘Yes. ’Tis not onusual, they do say. If she’s abed you can tell her in
the marnin’. Wish ’ee good-night, Abner.’
‘I’ll tell her. Thank’ee for looking in.’
‘Oh, that’s nothing! ’Tis only natural. Good-night!’
‘Good-night, Mr Drew.’
He closed the door. The light fell on Mary, standing pale at the foot of
the stairs.
‘He’s coming back,’ said Abner.
‘I heard. When?’
‘He couldn’t say certain. In a day or two.’
‘Abner!’
‘Well, there it is! We’re only just in time, my girl.’ She stood mute,
paralysed. He wished she would speak.
‘It’s no good your standing there,’ he said. ‘Go on up. I’ll hold the
lamp.’
She did not move.
‘I can’t take it in,’ she said.
He put the lamp down on the table again and held out his arms.
Still she did not move.
‘Mary . . .!’
She obeyed, came to his arms, shuddering, shaken with sobs, and through
her tears he kissed her, comforting: ‘Mary, don’t cry now, don’t cry . . .’
‘What did I tell you?’ she wailed. ‘Abner, I knew, I knew! I told you
something would happen. Thank God it came in time! We’ve not a minute
to think. Two or three days! Abner, we _must_ go to-morrow.’
He did not answer her, for his mind was deeply troubled.
‘I think I can manage if you leave it to me,’ she said. He held her
closer. ‘What does it matter if we take nothing away? Only just a few
clothes for me and the children. I can leave everything tidy, just as it
was when he went.’ She hesitated, for she remembered the tea-set that
she had pawned in Shrewsbury. He would miss that. Then she realised,
thankfully, that it was her wedding present, not his.
‘Nearly everything,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think it’s better that we
should start with nothing? In lodgings at first. Won’t it be strange?’
She laughed softly. ‘And not a soul to know! It’s beginning life all
over again. Oh, Abner, my love!’
So she spoke, confidently, at times almost gaily, and he made believe
that he was listening to her, humouring her childishness.
‘And isn’t it lucky,’ she said, ‘that Mr Drew’s working up at the Pentre.
You won’t need to go there yourself. If you get up early you can catch
him before he goes and send up a message to the farm. It isn’t as if it
mattered your breaking your word to Mr Williams. People must make
allowances, mustn’t they?’
He did not answer her, and she became conscious of his brooding.
‘Abner! What’s up with you? Tell me! You’re frightening me. Abner!’
‘We can’t go to-morrow,’ he said.
‘But, Abner, we must, we must! Two or three days, he said. He might
even be a day early. He might come to-morrow. Think of it, Abner! I
should die.’
‘If George is coming home like that we can’t go.’
‘Abner, are you mad? What’s come over you?’
‘I don’t know. Naught’s come over me. It’s hearing his name sudden like
that. It’s like a judgment. It makes you think.’
‘Judgment!’ she scoffed. ‘Oh, Abner, haven’t we thought enough? Haven’t
we been thinking for six months? I’m sick of thinking!’
‘Like a warning. Just the very second. If he’d come an hour later . . .’
‘What’s the difference, Abner? If he’d come to-morrow or in a week’s
time it would be no different. We’d made up our minds, Abner, we’re not
children. Things like that don’t count. Whether you’ve had me or not,
I’m yours. You know that.’
She clung closer to him, but his mind would not accept the sway of her
emotion. He freed himself from her hands, and the movement swept her
into a passion.
‘Abner!’ she cried. ‘Don’t do that! Don’t! You’ll kill me . . . kill
me!’
‘George is my pal,’ he said stolidly. ‘I gave old George my word. We
shook hands on it, George and me. “Abner,” he said, “you’m the only pal
I’ve got that I can trust.”’
‘Oh, that’s it, is it?’ she cried, and her voice went shrill. ‘That’s
it? What children men are! Gave George your word! Don’t you see that
you’ve broken your word already . . . broken it long ago, ever since you
thought of me like that? And then you say you love me! That isn’t love,
Abner, not my kind anyway!’
He caught her up in his arms, and she could not speak now for tears. His
own face was anguished.
‘You’d better kill me and have done with it,’ she sobbed. ‘Far better.
Oh, why don’t you kill me right out if you’re going to leave me? I wish
I were dead! I do! Abner, if we don’t go away to-morrow I shall lose
you. I know it . . . I know it! For my sake, Abner! I’ve had so little
happiness.’
He fondled her as she spoke. ‘I’m not going to leave go of you,’ he
said. ‘Don’t you ever think that!’ He kissed her tearful face. ‘But I
gave old George my word,’ he continued obstinately.
‘Oh, damn your word!’ she cried, violently wrenching herself away from
him.
‘Don’t get wild,’ he protested. ‘Listen to me.’
‘I won’t listen. You’re talking wickedly, madly.’
‘You’ve got to listen, my girl!’ He took hold of her and held her with
his strength. ‘A chap may go back on his word. Every one knows that.
But a man that’s worth calling don’t go slinking away behind another
chap’s back like a dog. If old George is coming home he’s got to hear
what I say to his face, not find the place empty and say I’ve run away
from him. Me and George has got to have this out.’
‘Then take us away first,’ she pleaded, ‘and come back to see him
afterward.’
‘You’m talking soft now!’
‘I’m frightened, Abner . . . frightened!’
‘You’ve no need to be while I’m here. I can look after myself and you
too. I’m going to see old George and tell him straight. You may like it
or lump it. That’s my way.’
She wept, inconsolable. She would not let him comfort her. She hoped
that her tears would soften him.
‘Can’t you do just one thing for me, Abner? You’re cruel . . . cruel!
You don’t love me. That isn’t love.’
‘I’ve got to do it my own way.’
‘You might just as well kill me.’
‘I’ve never run away from a man yet.’
‘If you don’t take me away from here now,’ she said desperately, ‘you’ll
never have me at all. Never! I know it, Abner, it’s our last chance.’
‘It’s been too much for you,’ he said. ‘You can’t see anything clear.
I’m not a chap that changes.’
She stared at him in silence with sad, resentful eyes. Then she lost
control of herself and began to curse the clumsiness of old Drew, who had
blundered in on them with his drunken gossip in the middle of the night.
‘I’ll never forgive him!’ she cried. ‘Never!’ She shouted like a
drunken woman. Then she stopped and listened intently, just as an animal
listens in suspicion. Morgan, awakened by the sound of raised voices,
had begun to cry.
‘It’s Morgan,’ she whispered.
‘You’d better go to him,’ Abner replied.
She put her hands to her face.
‘Don’t!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Abner, don’t! You’re driving me!’
‘Go on!’ he said roughly. ‘I’ll put the light out. Got the matches?’
She saw that he meant it, and blindly went.
Slowly, methodically, Abner locked the kitchen door and put out the
light. A moment later he himself went upstairs in the dark. Morgan was
still sobbing, mechanically, for the sake of hearing his own voice, and
as Abner passed the door he was aware of a soft moaning which told him
that Mary was crying too. His heart ached, his body yearned for her; but
in his brain George Malpas’s words re-echoed: ‘By God, you’re the only
pal I’ve got that I can trust!’ In a day or two George would be home,
and then the situation must be faced. He could not be a man and run away
from it.
He got into bed. Lying there in the dark, listening to the ceaseless
creaking of the boards and joists, he cursed himself for a fool. His
body was on fire. He knew that he could not possibly sleep, and guessed
that Mary surely was awake. He was a damned, soft fool, and nothing
more! Lying there with eyes open, staring at the darkness, it seemed to
him that he heard a soft step on the stairs. The latch of his door
started. His heart dissolved within him. He leapt out of bed,
trembling, tingling in every limb. Mary had been wiser. He knew it.
She had come to him for comfort. She was his. In a moment she would be
sinking warm into his arms. His scruples vanished like a puff of smoke.
He heard himself swallow, heard his breath coming in short grunts. He
opened the door to meet her, to take her. The stair was empty and dark.
A rat scuttled away in the wainscot. A dank, wintry air possessed the
house. He slammed the door to, viciously.
Next morning, before Mary had stirred from her bed, he had set out as
usual for the Pentre.