Hazel sat on a large flat gravestone with Foxy beside her. They were
like a sculpture in marble on some ancient tomb. Coming, so soon after
her strange moment of terror in the quarry, to this place of the dead,
she was smitten with formless fear. The crosses and stones had, on that
storm-beleaguered hillside, an air of horrible bravado, as if they knew
that although the winds were stronger than they, yet they were stronger
than humanity; as if they knew that the whole world is the tomb of
beauty, and has been made by man the torture-chamber of weakness.
She looked down at the lettering on the stone. It was a young girl's
grave.
'Oh!' she muttered, looking up into the tremendous dome of blue, empty
and adamantine--'oh! dunna let me go young! What for did she dee so
young? Dunna let me! dunna!'
And the vast dome received her prayer, empty and adamantine.
She was suddenly panic-stricken; she ran away from the tombs calling
Edward's name.
And Edward came on the instant. His hands were full of cabbage which he
had been taking to the rabbit.
'What is it, little one?'
'These here!'
'The graves?'
'Ah. They'm so drodsome.'
Edward pointed to a laburnum-tree which had rent a tomb, and now waved
above it.
'See,' he said. 'Out of the grave and gate of death--'
'Ah! But her as went in hanna come out. On'y a new tree. I'll be bound
she wanted to come out.'
At this moment Edward's friend, who was to marry them, arrived.
'Now I shall go and wait for you to come,' Edward whispered.
Waiting in the dim chapel, with its whitewashed walls and few leaded
windows half covered with ivy, his mind was clear of all thoughts but
unselfish ones.
His mother, trailing purple, came in, and thought how like a sacred
picture he looked; this, for her, was superlative praise. Martha's
brother was there, ringing the one bell, which gave such a small
fugitive sound that it made the white chapel seem like a tinkling
bell-wether lost on the hills.
Mr. James was there, and several of the congregation, and Martha, with
her best dress hastily donned over her print, and a hat of which her
brother said 'it 'ud draw tears from an egg.'
Mr. James' daughter played a voluntary, in the midst of which an
altercation was heard outside.
'Her'll be lonesome wi'out me!'
'They wunna like it. It's blasphemy.'
Then the door opened, and Abel, very perspiring, and conscious of the
greatness of the occasion, led in Hazel in her wreath of drooping
lilies. The green light touched her face with unnatural pallor, and her
eyes, haunted by some old evil out of the darkness of life, looked
towards Edward as to a saviour.
She might have been one of those brides from faery, who rose wraith-like
out of a pool or river, and had some mysterious ichor in their veins,
and slipped from the grasp of mortal lover, melting like snow at a
touch. Edward, watching her, was seized with an inexplicable fear.
He wished she had not been so strangely beautiful, that the scent
of lilies had not brought so heavy a faintness, reminding him of
death-chambers.
It was not till Hazel reached the top of the chapel that the
congregation observed Foxy, a small red figure, trotting willingly in
Hazel's wake--a loving though incompetent bridesmaid.
Mr. James arose and walked up the chapel.
'I will remove the animal' he said; then he saw that Hazel was leading
Foxy. This insult was, then, deliberate. 'A hanimal,' he said, 'hasn't
no business in a place o' worship.'
'What for not?' asked Hazel.
'Because--' Mr. James found himself unable to go on. 'Because not,' he
finished blusterously. He laid his hand on the cord, but Foxy prepared
for conflict.
Edward's colleague turned away, hand to mouth. He was obliged to
contemplate the ivy outside the window while the altercation lasted.
'Whoever made you,' Hazel said, 'made Foxy. Where you can come, Foxy
can come. You'm deacon, Foxy's bridesmaid!'
'That's heathen talk,' said Mr. James.
'How very naughty Hazel is!' thought poor Mrs. Marston. She felt that
she could never hold up her head again. The congregation giggled. The
black grapes and the chenille spots trembled. 'How very unpleasant!'
thought the old lady.
Then Edward spoke, and his voice had an edge of masterfulness that
astonished Mr. James.
'Let be,' he said. '"Other sheep I have which are not of this fold.
Them also will I bring." She has the same master, James.'
Silence fell. The other minister turned round with a surprised,
admiring glance at Edward, and the service began. It was short and
simple, but it gathered an extraordinary pathos as it progressed.
The narcissi on the window-sills eyed Hazel in a white silence, and
their dewy golden eyes seemed akin to Foxy's and her own. The fragrance
of spring flowers filled the place with wistful sadness. There are no
scents so tearful, so grievous, as the scents of valley-lilies and
narcissi clustered ghostly by the dark garden hedge, and white lilac,
freighted with old dreams, and pansies, faintly reminiscent of
mysterious lost ecstasy.
Edward felt these things and was oppressed. A great pity for Hazel and
her following of forlorn creatures surged over him. A kind of dread
grew up in him that he might not be able to defend them as he would
wish. It did seem that helplessness went to the wall. Since Hazel had
come with her sad philosophy of experience, he had begun to notice
facts.
He looked up towards the aloof sky as Hazel had done.
'He is love,' he said to himself.
The blue sky received his certainty, as it had received Hazel's
questioning, in regardless silence.
Mrs. Marston observed Edward narrowly. Then she wrote in her hymn-book:
'Mem: Maltine; Edward.'
The service was over. Edward smiled at her as he passed, and met Mr.
James' frown with dignified good-humour.
Foxy, even more willing to go out than to come in, ran on in front, and
as they entered the house they heard from the cupboard under the stairs
the epithalamium of the one-eyed cat.
'Oh, dear heart!' said Hazel tremulously, looking at the cake, 'I ne'er
saw the like!'
'Mother iced it, dear.'
Hazel ran to Mrs. Marston and put both her thin arms round her neck,
kissing her in a storm of gratitude.
'There, there! quietly, my dear,' said Mrs. Marston. 'I'm glad it
pleases.' She smoothed the purple silk smilingly. Hazel was forgiven.
'I'd a brought the big saw if I'd 'a thought,' said Abel jocosely.
Only Mr. James was taciturn.
Foxy was allowed in, and perambulated the room, to Mrs. Marston's
supreme discomfort; every time Foxy drew near she gave a smothered
scream. In spite of these various disadvantages, it was a merry party,
and did not break up till dusk.
After tea Abel played, Mr. James being very patronizing, saying at the
end of each piece, 'Very good'; till Abel asked rudely, 'Can yer play
yourself?'
Edward came to the rescue by offering Mr. James tobacco. They drew
round the fire, for the dusk came coldly, only Abel remaining in his
corner playing furiously. He considered it only honest, after such a
tea, to play his loudest.
Hazel, happy but restless, played with Foxy beside the darkening
window, low and many-paned and cumbered with bits of furniture dear to
Mrs. Marston.
Edward was showing his friend a cycle map of the country.
Mrs. Marston was sleepily discussing hens--good layers, good sitters,
good table-fowl--with Mr. James. Hazel, tired of playing with Foxy,
knelt on the big round ottoman with its central peak of stuffed
tapestry and looked idly from the window.
Suddenly she cried out. Edward was alert in a moment.
'What is it, dear?'
Hazel had sunk back on the ottoman, pale and speechless; but she
realized that she must pull herself together.
'I stuck a pin in me,' she said.
Tins in a wedding-dress? Oh, fie!' said Mrs. Marston. Tricked at your
wedding, pricked for aye.'
'Oh, dear, dearie me!' cried Hazel, bursting into tears, and flinging
herself at Edward's feet.
Wondering, he comforted her.
Mrs. Marston called for the lamp; the blinds were drawn, and all was
saffron peace.
Outside, in the same attitude as before, bowed, and motionless, stood
Reddin. He saw Hazel, watched her withdraw, and knew that she had seen
him. When the window suddenly shone like daffodils, he recoiled as if
at a lash, and, turning, went heavily down the batch. He turned into
the woods, and made his way back till he was opposite the house. Thence
he watched the guests depart, and later saw Martha go to her cottage.
The lights wavered and wandered. He saw one go up the stairs.
Inside the house Mrs. Marston confronted with a bridal which she did
not quite know how to regard, very tactfully said good night, and left
them together in the parlour. They sat there for a time and Edward
tried not to realize how much he was missing. He got up at last and lit
Hazel's candle. At her door he said good night hastily. Hazel took the
arrangements for granted, partly because she had slept in this same
room two nights ago, partly because Edward had never shown her a hint
of passion.
The higher the nature, the more its greatness is taken for granted.
Edward turned and went to his room.
Reddin, under his black roof of pines, counted the lights, and seeing
that there were three, turned homewards with a sigh of relief. But as
he went through the fields he remembered how Hazel had looked last
night; how she had danced like a leaf; how slender and young she was.
He was a man everlastingly maddened by slightness and weakness. As a
boy, when his father and mother still kept up their position a little,
he had broken a priceless Venetian glass simply because he could not
resist the temptation to close his hand on it. His father had flogged
him, being of the stupid kind who believe that corporal punishment can
influence the soul. And Reddin had done the same thing next day with a
bit of egg-shell china.
So now, as he thought of Hazel's lissom waist, her large eyes, rather
scared, her slender wrists he cursed until the peewits arose mewing all
about him. In the thick darkness of the lonely fields he might have
been some hero of the dead, mouthing a satanic recitative amid a chorus
of lost souls.
The long search for Hazel, begun in a whim, had ended in passion. If he
had never looked for her, never felt the nettled sense of being foiled,
or if he had found her at once, he would never have desired her so
fiercely. Now, for the first time in his life impassioned, he felt
something mysterious and unwelcome to him begin to mingle with his
desire. Above all, life without her meant dullness, lack of vitality,
the swift onset of middle-age. He saw this with shrinking. He walked
wearily, looking older than he was in the pathos of loss.
Life with her meant an indefinitely prolonged youth, an ecstasy he had
not dreamt of, the well-being of his whole nature. He walked along
moodily, thinking how he would have started afresh, smartened up
Undern, worked hard, given his children--his and Hazel's--a good
education, become more sober.
But he had been a fortnight too late. A miserable fortnight! He, who
had raved over the countryside, had missed her. Marston, who had simply
remained on his mountain, had won her.
'It's damned unfair!' he said, and pathos faded from him in his rage.
All the vague thoughts, dark and turgid, of the last two nights took
shape slowly.
He neither cursed nor brooded any more. He thought keenly as he walked.
His face took a more powerful cast--it had never been a weak face at
the worst--and he looked a man that it would not be easy to combat.
Bitter hatred of Edward possessed him, silent fury against fate,
relentless determination to get Hazel whether she would or not. He had
a purpose in life now. Vessons was surprised at his quick,
authoritative manner.
'Make me some sandwiches early to-morrow,' he said, 'and you'll have to
go to the auction. I shan't go myself.'
''Ow can I go now? Who's to do the cheeses?'
'Give 'em to the pigs.'
'Who's to meet the groom from Farnley? Never will I go!'
'If you're so damned impudent, you'll have to leave.'
'Who's to meet the groom?' Vessons spoke with surly, astonished
meekness.
'Groom? Groom be hanged! Wire to him.'
'It'll take me the best part of two hour to go and telegrapht. And it
cosses money. And dinner at the auction cosses money.'
'Oh!' cried Reddin with intense irritation, 'take this, you fool!'
He flung his purse at Vessons.
'Well, well,' thought Vessons, 'I mun yumour 'im. He's fretched along
of her marrying the minister. "Long live the minister!" says Andrew.'