In the half light of the third hour she rose, freshened her eyes with
cold water and crept out of the creaky house into the grey midsummer
world.
The birds were half awake, chirruping, as it seemed in that stillness,
loud and shrill, tuning up for the concert that was to come; but the
trees had still their motionless carved night-look, and the hedges and
fields were as fast as if the thick film of dew spread over them were a
visible spell.
In spite of the burning season the air was cold, with the dank cold of
the smallest hours, when virtue goes out of beast and man alike, in
sleep that is half at one with its exemplar death.
Laura, fever-driven, trailing through the dust-white grass that edged
the high-road, wrenching as she went, with a sort of aimless cruelty, at
the dripping tansy heads and trails of dewberries, felt the flying
water-drops soak through her thin sleeves and spray up on to her face,
and shivered and burned again, and had no good of them. Yet the riot
within her was dying out: her mood was as desolate as the hour. She had
ceased fighting. She acknowledged her duty: was set (and therein lay her
fever) upon doing it. She had only come out because in the open she
could breathe more easily, think more clearly, and because ... because
... (here, if she had been speaking aloud, would have come the high
note) because she could not bear her bedroom any longer. But it was not
because she doubted, was questioning her duty. That was settled.
That—she would not think of it—but _that_ she had settled, with herself,
last night. But that inexorable self had left to her own decision
(because she knew him so well—so well) how best to hurt Justin—to hurt
him.
And so—let us sit down, oh, my thoughts, not masters any more, but weary
servants of my will, and discover how best we may hurt Justin....
Because it is to do him good—to wake him up. That is settled, though....
No need to go into that.... Some need though—if only to satisfy
rebellious thoughts! You do not ask a woman to tear her heart out of her
body for honour or justice or repentance’ sake——But if it be for Justin?
Let us find out quickly, before we grow selfish again, what will hurt
our Justin.... Not a little thing.... A big thing.... A big thing to
him.... A thing he will never forget—or forgive....
From the bend of the road a pitter-pat and clatter of wheels warned her
that the market carts would be passing, and at the next gate she turned
aside into the fields that fringed the Priory woods.
She wandered through the sleeping corn, following the footways, and so
came at last to the familiar unregarded notice boards and the high
tarred gate, and the hurdles that held back the trees as a rope checks
the straining populace at a procession. And as there the children will
be always slipping under it and out into the cleared way, so ever and
again there were patches of polled hazel and seedling oak and yard-high
bracken running out into the no-man’s-land between the hedgerow and the
plough.
The place was thick with ghostly summer flowers—mallow, scarcely
visible, foxglove and corncockle and knapweed, bled of their hearty
crimsons by the vampire night, and all the little pink and yellow field
flowers, dim white as the huge empty sky yawning over them.
She stood a moment uncertainly by the padlocked gate, and then, with a
vague gesture, waded through the strip of bracken and, sitting down, let
herself sink backward into the deeps of the hedge. The foxgloves and the
sorrel swayed and shook above her and she pulled them down to her for
their freshness’ sake, and let them spring free again, and then lay back
once more, her lips besmeared with dew and pollen, her hands clasped
under her head, and watched the mists, not rising from the earth but
thinning and vanishing where they lay, and the grey surface of the corn
warming to bronze-tipped green, and the dawn-light spreading like a
smile across the sky, and had no answering smile for it, but turned
where she lay, stopping her ears against the riot of the birds, hiding
her face from the sun, and at last falling, for very weariness, into a
cramped, uneasy drowse.
It was roaring day without a dew-drop left in the open when she woke.
She lay a moment confused. Vague thrills ran like ants up and down her
body and soul, and her stupor thinned and vanished like the night mists
two hours before. She had sunk through the yielding green stuff and her
body had pressed so heavily against the damp, stony earth that she felt
as if she were clamped to it. Her first movement set her shivering with
pain and cold. Yet her linen frock was bone dry where the sunshine had
beaten down on it, shiny and hot to the touch. Fern-flies rose buzzing
from it as she moved stiffly in her place.
The footsteps—she realized that the sound of footsteps had awakened
her—drew nearer. A labourer going to work? She pulled a fan of bracken
across her face. Her frock was green and the brishwood high: it would be
mere ill-luck if she were seen. When he had passed she would get up and
go home, out of the glare. One could not think in the glare, and she had
come out to think ... to think about Justin ... to plan—what was the
plan?...
She put her cold hand to her head, and then dropped it again, stiffening
where she lay. She knew that step, that whistle. Yet what should Justin
do here? Unless—unless—could he, too, have had his sleepless night?...
He had stopped a dozen yards away from her. Through the bracken stalks
she could see his arrested pose, his lifted head. He was shading his
eyes with his hand, listening and staring about him.
With the instant, all-adapting egoism of the lover, she arrived at the
only explanation. Something had happened.... Some word of hers had taken
root, had flowered in the night.... He wanted her.... He had come to
find her.... Things were going to be all right.... Why not? Why not?...
In another moment she would have been on her feet, calling to him: “I’m
here. I’ll get it for you. What is it you want?” But before she could
scramble to her feet he had nodded to himself, and walked on again, and
she watched him climb the gate and disappear among the trees.
What a fool she was.... He had been listening to a bird in the wood....
He was out nesting.... He had said only yesterday that he wanted more
blackcap eggs.... She jerked herself to her knees and listened. She
could hear him moving in the undergrowth and the serene outpouring
change to short, sharp cheepings, to the agonized danger note.
He was in luck....
“Krek! Krek! Krek-krek!”
She wished he wouldn’t. It was beastly....
With sudden decision she rose to her feet and moved noiselessly and
hurriedly down the path. She would get away while she could.... He might
be strolling back at any moment with the warm eggs in his hand.... There
would be the blow-pipe and the mess of yolk to follow.... And he would
go home at last looking perfectly satisfied.... Why not? Didn’t he care
more for his wretched eggs than for anything on God’s earth? Of course!
And that was why Coral had said——
Here for an instant her mind stood rigid for the old order. Then her
thoughts, like waters when the dam breaks, overwhelmed it, came rushing
and tumbling over each other, sweeping away the last remnants of
opposition.
And that was why—and that was why she was going up to the Priory that
very morning—up to his den—to smash up his old eggs! That would wake him
up! Smash up his old eggs—that would wake him up! That would wake him
up!...
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