It was arranged next morning at breakfast that Peter should work in the
field with the farmer, and that his granddaughter should clear the
remains of last year's crop of hay from the site of the stack into the
loft. Peter was grateful for this division of their work; yet, again, he
was strangely disappointed. Halfway through the morning, when he had
done all he could for the farmer, he sat miserably in the shadow of the
hedge, fighting a blind impulse to look for the girl whose presence he
detested. Surely the hot sun was burning into his brain. He went towards
the house, meeting on his way the farmer's wife.
"I wonder if you'd tell Bess there's lunch waiting to be taken. I
daren't leave the butter this half-hour."
"Where shall I find her?" Peter asked.
"She's in the loft, to be sure."
Peter went slowly to the yard. He seemed to be two men--one lured by the
echo of a song, the other hanging upon his feet, unwilling that he
should move.
The last of the stack had disappeared into the loft, wisps of hay lying
in a trail from the foot of the ladder. The yard was empty.
Peter paused at the ladder's foot. Then began slowly to climb.
She was resting in a far corner, and he did not see her till he had
stepped from the ladder. Then he found himself looking down at her
stretched at length upon piles of sweet hay. She had fallen asleep
easily as a cat, and, unconscious of her pose, was freely beautiful. Her
loveliness caught at Peter. Could she but lie asleep for ever, he could
for ever watch. Sleep had smoothed from her features the impudent
knowledge of her power. Her beauty now lay softly upon her, held in the
pure curves of her throat.
Peter leaned breathlessly towards her, filling his eyes. Had he really
feared this magic? Such loveliness as this his soul had caught at in
scattered dreams, and now it fronted him, and he had feared to take it.
Surely he had fancied that the smile of her perfect mouth was hateful,
that her eyes, so beautifully lidded, had in their pride and gluttony
dismayed him.
Peter dropped softly beside her. She seemed too like a fairy to be
rudely touched. He delicately brushed her lips in a kiss scarcely to be
felt. She started and sat upright, alert in every fibre.
Peter saw again the creature who had troubled him. He was looking into
greedy pools where her lids had seemed as curtains to hide an
intolerable purity.
"You kissed me?"
"It was not you," Peter muttered.
"Funny boy! How long have you been here?"
"I have come to say that lunch is waiting."
"Peter." She sang the name in her low voice, as though she were trying
the sound of it.
"You kissed me, Peter. Tell me. How do I look, asleep?"
Peter closed his eyes.
"You are beautiful."
"Even you can see that," she flashed.
Peter felt she was profaning her loveliness. He kept his eyes painfully
closed. She looked at him, partly in anger, partly in contempt.
"Good boy. So very good," she murmured.
As he opened his eyes, she dropped lightly towards him. In a flash she
had taken his neck between her hands, and he felt her lips and teeth
upon the muscles of his neck, where her eyes had rested when first he
had read them.
Then she nestled there with a little purr.
Peter broke roughly away, and she laughed.
"Good boy." She mocked him again from the ladder as she went down.
Peter waited with clenched hands till the trembling of the ladder had
ceased. Then he looked into the yard. She had not yet disappeared. A
young farmer had ridden into the drive, and was talking to her from his
horse. She seemed to be deprecating his anger. They paused in their talk
as Peter drew near them. The man was good-looking, with honest eyes. But
he looked at Peter with angry suspicion, carefully searching his face,
as though he desired to remember him if they should meet again.
That afternoon Peter left the farm and walked into the country. Thunder
echoed among the hills, seeming the voice of his trouble. He was
humiliated by the lure of a woman he disliked and feared. He vehemently
told himself that he would break away. But he continually felt the
strong tug of her sex. He shook under the pressure of her mouth, his
neck yet bitten with that strange caress. He shunned the memory, yet
returned to it, thrilling with an excitement, sweet even as it stung
him.
The thunder waited among the hills all that day. As the evening wore,
and Peter, back at the farm, watched the summer lightning come and go,
it seemed as though batteries were closing in from all points of the
heaven. But the sky was still open to the stars, and there was no rain.
Peter stood with the farmer by the garden gate. He told Peter that the
little hill where they united was mysteriously immune, in a tempest,
from the water which deluged the valley.
As Peter, with his thoughts full of the farmer's granddaughter, listened
to the farmer's tale of a dry storm which, with never a spot of rain,
had fired the stack in the yard, it seemed as though, now and then, he
could hear her low singing. It floated on the heavy air. Peter could
scarcely tell whether it were really her voice or an echo in his tired
brain. He strained his ears, between the pauses of the farmer's talk.
The low note swelled and died.
The farmer moved into the house, and Peter could more connectedly
listen. Now he heard it clearly, a faint persistent singing, implacably
fascinating. To find that voice was above all things to be desired.
Peter listened, faint at heart with a struggle which suddenly seemed
foolish. Pleasure caught at him. He saw her beautiful, as when she
slept, the low notes of her voice breathed from lips that were neither
mocking nor cruel. Her hands again crept upon his throat, and he did not
draw away. He needed them.
Where should he find her? Peter went like a young animal, tracking
through the dark. He paused, quietly alert; as he discovered that her
murmuring came from the loft where he had found her sleeping. He climbed
the ladder, and stepped into the darkness. The singing stopped, and he
stood still while his eyes measured the place. At last he saw her almost
at his feet. He dropped beside her without a word. She did not stir, but
said as softly as though she feared to frighten him away:
"So you have come to me?"
Her voice was very gentle. It was the voice of the woman who had slept.
Peter could descry her now, half sitting against the hay. He perceived
only the curve of her face and neck beautifully poised above him, for he
had fallen at her feet.
"I cannot see you," she said. "Are you still afraid and angry?"
She stooped over him, trying to read his face. She was very quiet. Her
voice parted the still air as placidly as a dropped stone makes eddies
in the water.
It seemed to offer him an endless comfort.
"I had to come to you," he whispered.
She gathered him into her arms, and kissed him as softly as he had
kissed her sleeping. Peter felt as though he were sinking. As she drew
her cool hands across his forehead and took his face between them, he
found her tender and compelling, and he leaned upon her bosom with the
waters of pleasure closing above him.
But the girl had played too long with her passion. She had met him
delicately, deliberately holding back her greed, enjoying the tumult in
herself and the coming delight of throwing the barriers down. She bent
to kiss Peter a second time, and Peter waited for the caress of her song
made visible. But, even as she stooped, there came into her eyes a lust
which the darkness covered.
Suddenly the veil was torn. A vivid flash of lightning lit her, and
flickered away, snatched from cloud to cloud above them. For an instant
Peter saw her eyes as she stooped to him. Then darkness blotted her
out, and her mouth closed down upon him.
He struggled in her arms. She did not measure the strength of his
revolt, but held him fast.
"Kiss me, Peter."
The words were hot upon his cheek.
Peter put forth his whole strength, and she staggered away from him.
There was a short silence. She had fallen back from the excess of his
recoil. He saw her dimly rise from among the hay.
"You beast!"
The words hissed at him in the dark. Venomous anger was in her tone, and
bitter contempt.
There was a silence in which their pulses could be heard. Then she spoke
again.
"Why did you come to me?"
Peter could not answer. His soul was a battlefield between forces
stronger than himself. She walked to the door, and Peter stared vacantly
at her going. The next moment he was alone.
"Why did you come to me?"
The question beat at Peter's brain all through the dreadful night.
Scarcely had he got back to his room than the storm burst from the four
quarters with incredible light and clamour. But Peter's ears were deaf
and his eyes were blind. He sat at his window, but heard neither the
rain rushing in the valley below, nor the intolerable din in the sky
above him where still the stars were clear.
Had he acted the green fool, or was he proved of a finer clay than he
had allowed? He had drifted towards this girl to take her, obeying the
blind motion of his blood. Then fiercely his whole being had revolted.
He could not do this thing. Was his refusal a base fear of life? Had he
denied his youth and the power of passion? He could not measure his
deed. He now saw something fine, something consistent and strong in the
girl he had refused. His own share of the story seemed only
contemptible. It was even absurd. He had ineffectually played with
forces beyond him.
Had he really thwarted and denied his nature? He asked it again and
again. He had wanted the girl. He wanted her yet. But he could not take
her with his whole soul. Therefore he could not take her at all. What
was the meaning of this ugly riddle? Why was he monstrously drawn to a
thing he could not do?
He denied with his whole soul that he lacked passion--the gift without
which man is a creeping thing. His passion even now outplayed the
lightning which forked and ran and fired the trees in the valley.
Thus Peter went wearily round his conduct of the last few hours, without
advancing. Late in the night he packed to leave in the morning, and
afterwards tried to sleep. But his tired brain trod the old circle of
his thoughts--catching at his sleep with pale gleams of speculation,
calling him into momentary consciousness, suffering him only briefly to
forget.
In the morning he was flushed and uncertain. He shivered from time to
time, though the storm had not lifted the summer heat. He had never felt
so tired, and so utterly without strength or comfort.