SHEAVES
The following day dawned still and hot as ever, but overcast with a grey
film, though the pale sky held a glaring quality that reflected on to
the eyeballs. Down in the lowest meadow the oats had not yet been
gathered into sheaves, and John-James, gazing at the sky, was of opinion
that the sooner it was done the better. Ishmael agreed without
enthusiasm, till it occurred to him that Blanche, who was so charmed
with a farmer's life, would probably enjoy helping. It might be made
into a sort of picnic, a _fête champêtre_; the beautiful monkey could
help, and he could send a boy over to the mill to fetch Phoebe. They
would make a day of it--the kind of pastoral occasion which cannot
exactly be called artificial and yet which does not in the least
represent the actual life of those who live by land.
Vassie was enthusiastic about the idea, and soon the house was in a
ferment with preparations; bottles of cider were brought out, a stone
puncheon of beer produced for the men, cakes and pasties began to form
beneath Vassie's willing hands. Ishmael felt a pang as he watched her.
How could it affect her but adversely, this change he was to make? He
felt that Blanche would not want any of his family, even Vassie, living
in the house with them, and it was her right to order such a matter as
she would. To settle anywhere with her mother was impossible for the
proud fastidious Vassie, and, though he could allow her enough money to
make her independent, she could hardly, in the ideas of those days, go
alone into the world upon it.
There would be terrible scenes with his mother, he realised, before she
would consent to go, but he shook the thought of it all off him on this
the first morning of his plighted faith with Blanche. It would be
unpleasant, but imperative, and how well worth it!... Meanwhile, there
was love to be enjoyed, every moment of it--love that was still to him
such a shy and delicate thing that he hardly dared to breathe upon it
for fear of ruffling in some clumsy way Blanche's fine susceptibilities.
She must have had so much to suffer from undue approaches in her battle
with the world; not from him should such tarnishing come.
He sent a note down to her at Mrs. Penticost's to tell her again, in his
morning greeting, of his love and to advise her of the mock-business of
the day. Blanche was still in bed when it arrived, and Judith, looking
more like a handsome monkey than ever in a faded red Garibaldi, took it
in to her.
Judith still admired Blanche above all women, although she saw her as
now with a creamed face and hair that resembled a row of little slugs
disposed about her brow. Blanche rose above all this as she managed to
rise above an inauspicious background, and the lazy stretch she gave
beneath the sheet that was all that covered her, bringing out two white
arms above her head so that the muscles swelled under the tight skin,
was so lovely in its feline grace as to triumph over anything else.
"Here's a note for you; I think it's from Mr. Ruan," said Judith. "Mrs.
Penticost said she thought it was." Judy did not add that Mrs.
Penticost's precise method of giving the information had been to snort
out: "T'young maister can't live through the night wethout writing to
she, simminly.... Poor sawl!"
Blanche read the little note through twice, a smile on her face, then
pulled Judith down to her and kissed her.
"Blanche, are you ...?" asked Judy breathlessly.
Blanche nodded.
"Oh, Blanche, what is it like? Is it as wonderful as books say? Do you
feel thrills?"
"What sort of thrills?"
"Oh, up and down your spine, I suppose! Like I feel when I hear music."
"Yes, it's just like music. It somehow sets the whole of life to music,"
answered Blanche solemnly.
"How wonderful!... Blanche--has he kissed you?"
"Yes, last night. Judy, a woman doesn't know what life means till the
man she loves kisses her."
Judy sat rapt, saying nothing. Her deep-set hazel eyes took on a look as
of one who sees visions, impersonal but entrancing. Blanche rolled
herself out of bed and, going over to the glass, began to examine her
skin in the white light shed from the sky in at the window.
"Bother!" she murmured; "I'm getting a spot! Oh, Judy, isn't that too
bad just when I want to look nice?... Of course, he's the kind to love
me just as much with a spot, but I feel I can't love myself so much...."
"I'll lend you some of my lotion," said Judy, jumping up; "you can cover
it over, if you try, with that and powder. It doesn't look anything
really. I always think one sees one's own spots long before anyone else
can, anyway."
"Yes, that's true; it will be all right if I can prevent it getting
any worse. You never have any spots, you lucky baby. Just hand me the
lotion ... and my dressing-gown ... thanks ever so." Blanche slipped on
the wrapper, and going to the top of the little flight of stairs called
down them: "Mrs. Penticost ... my bath-water, please!"
No answer.
"Mrs. Pe-e-e-ntico-s-st," called Blanche, "I must have my bath-water! I
shall die, dear Mrs. Penticost, if I can't have my bath-water this very
moment!"
From subterranean distance came a muffled voice which nevertheless
enunciated distinctly: "Die, then, damon, die...."
"Oh, Mrs. Penticost, how unkind you are!" cried Blanche, laughing. "I
don't a bit want to die to-day. I want to live and be happy and for
everyone in the world to be happy too."
These last remarks were addressed to the form of Mrs. Penticost toiling
upstairs with the can of water. The good lady clanked the can down and
pulled out the flat tin bath from under the bed before replying, which
she did over her shoulder as she was leaving the room.
"Aw!" she observed, "I'd be careful if I was you. Be cryen before
night!"
"Cheery old thing!" grimaced Blanche. "Do go and see she gets breakfast
ready quickly, Judy. She'll do anything for you."
Judy flung herself downstairs and upon the neck of Mrs. Penticost, who
called her a lamb, bade her get out of the way and sit down while she
got her a cup of tea and some bread and butter to keep her going till
that lazy faggot overstairs should have put enough mucks on her face to
be able to breakfast.
The day brightened, though still with a curious pallor that was more
glare than sunlight, and both girls put on cool muslin dresses, or as
cool as the long full skirts would allow of their being. Vassie was in
blue, Phoebe in pink, Judy in primrose, while Blanche was white even
to her shady hat. Girls never look as well as when there are several of
them together, just as men never look so ill as in a crowd. What brings
out all the ungainliness of men's attire emphasises the butterfly nature
of girls--their look, their voices, the little graces they
half-consciously and half-unknowingly display with each other, show
each off to better advantage than at any other time. Vassie, Phoebe,
Judith, and Blanche made the rough field a flower-garden that day to eye
and ear, almost to nostril, for their presence was so quickening that
the sweet smell of the oats and the green things cut with it seemed to
emanate from the girls and be part of their presence. Laughter and the
swish of skirts mingled with the rustle of stalk and grain, the sway and
the dip of skirts mingled with the bending of the sheaves. To Ishmael
his lover seemed the sweeter thus absorbed as one of others than even
alone. All that month he had been seeing her only, to such an extent
that her relationship with the rest of the world down at Cloom had not
held his attention. Now he realised how vital the state of those
relationships was, and seeing her one of a beautiful scheme that seemed
inevitable and lasting as a Greek frieze, he took that purely physical
circumstance to mean mental harmony as well.
It was hard work, though sweet, among the oats, and the physical
exertion satisfied everyone, so that no fringe was left beyond it for
thought. When they first entered the field the crop lay in broad tawny
bands across the greener stubble, just as it had fallen from the
scythes. The amateur harvesters had to gather the oats into great
bundles and, binding them, stack the sheaves thus made together, against
the day, close at hand now, when they would be carried to the threshing.
Bent-backed, the girls went along the rows, pushing the oats as they
went into bundles bigger than themselves, trying to keep the feathery
heads as much as possible at one end. Round each bundle Ishmael pulled a
roughly-twisted rope of the oats, tugging it fast; and when it was
Blanche's bundle be spanned, then his hands would touch hers through the
glossy straws. Every now and again, for change of labour, the girls
would stagger under a heavy sheaf to where one or two others lay ready
and prop them up against each other, with a careful eye to the wind,
lest, if the sheaves were not built solidly enough or fairly balanced,
they might be found spilt along the ground in the morning. And all
through the work, the sweeping up of the bundles, the twisting of the
ropes, the carrying and the stacking, the rustling noise filled the air,
while the faint but pervading smell, that subtle, inexpressibly
wholesome smell of ripe grain, made it sweet.
"I love you!" said Ishmael over the dancing oats as Blanche's eyes met
his.
"And I you!..." she replied, slipping her fingers through the yielding
straws for his to find and press, while he drew her as near him as she
could come for the sheaf between.
She had, indeed, never been so sure she loved him, not even the night
before when passion had called to her. He looked so splendid with his
brown throat laid bare by his open shirt; his dark hair, wet with sweat,
pushed off his brow; his dark eyes at once younger and more the eyes of
a man than they had ever showed. Blanche felt an odd and delicious
thrill as she met his dominant glance; she exulted in the swing of his
lithe body, in the ease with which he tossed the heavy sheaves, even in
the sweat that stood out over his face and chest, and which made him the
more male, the more primitive. She herself had never seemed so
fascinating and so sure; Vassie was swept away by her for the first
time; Phoebe lost a certain sense of grudge in awed admiration; Judy,
in speech and action, contrived to lead up to her friend,
whole-heartedly exploiting the wonder of her. John-James and Killigrew
were probably the only two there who did not acknowledge the sway.
Killigrew declined to labour with the rest; he set up his easel and did
several little sketches, nearly all of Judy, whose dark head showed
against the grey-gold background of the field with a greater
distinction than the pale chignons of Blanche and Vassie or the
indeterminate locks of Phoebe.
"You don't repent?" asked Ishmael, sure of his answer, as he and Blanche
each poised a sheaf against the other's.
"No, no, and no," she told him, bending round the stack to see his face,
her hands still holding it at either side as children stand and dodge
when they are playing hide-and-seek. He shot out a hand to her, but she
evaded it and was off to where more bundles lay upon the stubble, and
not for some time did he get another chance to speak to her. Without a
word said they tacitly agreed to play this game of only meeting, hands
and eyes, now and again as though by chance, she sheltering behind the
oats, feeling his passion of worship, even so, as much as she could face
under watching eyes. Like children they played at this game which had
grown up without a word, both recognising it, and both the happier for
the frail barriers and the secret exchanged by stealth before the
others. At lunch, eaten on the grassy slope of the next field, he did
not even sit next her, but both had to watch over themselves that they
did not yield too often to the temptation of a glance that would have
told as much to an onlooker as to each other.
The afternoon somehow lacked the first ecstasy of the morning, the
labour suddenly became harder to unaccustomed muscles, and the girls lay
in the shadows of the stooks and idled. They had time to talk among
themselves while Ishmael and John-James worked on at the far end of the
field. Blanche thought it rather silly and tiresome of Ishmael to keep
on at it; surely he could leave that clumsy brother of his--for the
first time the realisation that John-James actually was whole brother to
Ishmael flashed into her mind--and wander away somewhere with her! What
was the good of being the owner and master if he could not get some one
else to do the work when it became a bore? So Blanche inwardly; and
Ishmael, to whom it would never have occurred to begin work on a field
and leave it half-done, went on steadily--stooping, gathering, binding;
she could see the perpetual crouch of his figure, hardly ever
straightening itself, down there against a background of green hedge and
sullen grey sea.
Blanche leant up alongside her stook and Vassie sat watching her, while
Judy, who had seen a wistful look on Phoebe's baby face, drew her into
such superficial personal talk as she could best compass.
"When do you go back to London?" was Vassie's abrupt and not very happy
opening.
"Why, I don't know ... it all depends," answered Blanche, her beautiful
low voice sounding very rich after Vassie's hard tones. "You've never
been to London, have you, Vassie? I may call you Vassie, mayn't I?"
"I've never been further than Plymouth."
"You must come to London some day with me," said Blanche. She had no
intention of spending all her days at Cloom, and she wished to win over
this sulky beauty to her side. Vassie looked doubtfully at her, but
began to thaw. London ... it meant all of hope and the future to Vassie.
"I would dearly love to," she said. "I suppose you know it very well,
like I know Penzance. I don't go even to Plymouth very often, and of
course it's not London. The people are rather common. I daresay there's
all sorts in London, but I suppose you know a lot of families up there?"
"A good many," said Blanche casually. She was pleased at the signs of a
thaw; she was one of those women who are as eager to stand well with
their own sex as with men and take as much care to ensure it.
"You would do well in London, Vassie," she went on, fixing her eyes on
the girl after a habit she had, and which always gave the impression
that she was talking to the only person on earth who really interested
her; "you are very beautiful, you know."
Vassie flushed with pleasure and did not trouble to deny the obvious
truth of the statement. She knew she was the only girl there with
undoubted beauty; what she did not know was that she was also the only
one who would never be very attractive to men. She looked at Phoebe's
retreating chin, at Judith's prominent cheek-bones and deep-set,
melancholy eyes with the bistre stains below them, at Blanche's
subtly-broad face with its too-small lips, and unconsciously she put up
her hand to feel her own lovely contours and smooth skin.
Blanche slipped a firm, cool hand into hers. "Don't worry, Vassie," she
said in a low voice; "I foresee great things for you. You're a wonderful
girl, my dear. Now, I suppose we ought to be helping those two poor,
dear men again." She rose to her feet with one of the lithe movements
that always seemed rather surprising in a girl of her firmly-knit build,
which would have been heavy had it not been for its grace. Vassie, with
a fulness that was so much more supple to a casual glance, yet followed
her less beautifully.
"Still, a lot can be done with her," thought Blanche, watching. She
motioned to her to come and help her with a row that had not yet been
gathered into a bundle, and Vassie stooped over it with her.
"Why, what's that?" exclaimed Blanche, catching sight of something grey
that went rustling swiftly downwards between the straws. She thrust her
hand down, thinking it was a field-mouse, and caught the thing. A
speckled toad wriggled in her fingers, lustily enough, but it was a toad
that had seen tragedy. The keen edge of a scythe must have caught it,
for one side of its head was shorn away; the eye had just been missed,
but the inside of the poor little animal's mouth and throat lay exposed,
pulsating and brilliantly red--a purer hue of blood was never seen than
in that grey creature.
Blanche cried out in pity, while Vassie calmly advised death, seconded
by Phoebe, and Judith looked away, sorry and sick, Blanche called to
Ishmael, using his Christian name for the first time publicly, and aware
of it herself and of its effect on Vassie through all her real pity.
Ishmael came running, and, taking the little beast tenderly, offered to
knock it on the head with a stone before it knew what was happening; but
Blanche forbade him. She took it back, her fingers slipping in between
it and his palm, and stood bending over it.
"Poor little thing!" she said; "at least it's not bleeding now, and I
believe it may live. It doesn't seem to be suffering, so let's give it
its chance. Put it over the wall onto the grass, Ishmael."
He vaulted over and, taking the toad from her, laid it down on the dewy
grass. It sat trembling for a few moments, and then began to hop away
and was lost in the tall blades that met above its mutilated head--one
of the many tragedies of harvest.
Dusk had fallen while the toad's fate hung in the balance; a pastel dusk
that, even as the girls still stood watching, was made tremulous by the
first faint breath of the moon. From the sea came the red glare of the
Wolf and the cold pure beam of the Bishop; in the north Charles' Wain
gave the first twinkle of its lights; while from the roads came the
creak of the terrestrial waggons beginning to lumber slowly home. It was
time for supper, for lamps, for that meeting within walls which enforces
a sudden intimacy after a day spent in the open, for beginning real
life, as it would have to be lived, once more. The three men stayed
behind to gather the remnants of the picnic, but the girls lifted their
pale skirts about them and were gone over the high stone stile like
moths.