Edward did not notice the strained relationship between Mrs. Marston
and Hazel. He supposed that his mother's suspicions had faded before
Hazel's frank presence.
Outwardly there was little change in the bearings of the two women; it
was only in feminine pinpricks and things implied that Mrs. Marston
showed her anger and Hazel her dislike, and it was when he was out that
Martha spoke so repeatedly and emphatically of being respectable. His
coming into the house brought an armoured peace, but no sooner was he
outside the door than the guns were unmasked again.
Hazel wished more and more that she had stayed at Undern.
She found a man's roughness preferable to women's velvet slaps, his
most masterful demands less wearing than their silent criticism. At
Undern she could not call her physical self her own. Here, her heart
and mind were attacked. She could not explain to Mrs. Marston that
something had made her go. Mrs. Marston would simply have said
'Fiddlesticks!' She could not explain that Reddin's touch drugged her.
If Mrs. Marston had ever been made to feel that madness of passivity--
which seemed impossible, so that Edward's existence was a paradox--she
had long since forgotten it. Besides, Hazel had no words in which to
express these things; she was not even clear about them herself.
She never tried to explain anything to Edward. She dreaded his anger,
and she felt that only by complete silence could she keep the look of
loving reverence in his eyes. She understood how very differently
Reddin looked at her. It did not matter with him, but Edward--it was
everything to her in Edward.
Only once there had been a keen look of criticism in Edward's eyes, and
her heart had fluttered. Edward said:
'Why, when you were dragged to Undern against your will, did you wear
the man's gown? It wasn't dignified. And why did you cry out on him not
to shame you? He could not shame you. You had done nothing wrong.'
'He said such awful things, Ed'ard, and the dress--the dress was so
pretty.'
'You poor child! you dear little one! So it was a pretty colour, was
it?'
'Ah!'
'You shall have one like it.'
He went off whistling.
* * * * *
It was when she had been back nearly six weeks, and the August days
were scorching the Mountain, that the strain became unbearable. She was
not feeling well.
Reddin had made no sign. This had at first calmed her, then piqued her;
now it hurt her. Mysteriously she felt that she must be with him.
'He'm that proud, he'd ne'er ask me to go back. And if I went, there'd
be no peace. Oh, Jack Reddin, Jack Reddin! You've put a spell on me!
There inna much peace, days, nor much rest, nights, in your dark house.
And yet--'
Yet, whenever she went for a walk, she felt her feet taking her towards
Undern.
Then, quite suddenly, one morning Reddin rode past the house. Mrs.
Marston saw him.
'Edward must know of this,' she said, very much flustered. 'You ought
to go away somewhere, Hazel.'
'Away? Why ever?'
'Out of temptation. Why not to your aunt's?'
'Aunt Prowde wouldna have me. And Ed'ard wouldna like me to go.'
'Edward, I am sure, thinks as I do.'
'Gospel?'
'Do not be irreverent.'
'I dunna think you know what Ed'ard thinks as well as me.'
'Don't say "dunna," Hazel. Of course, I know what Edward thinks a great
deal better than you. I've known him all his life.'
Afterwards, when Mrs. Marston was not in the room, Martha said in her
contemptuous tones:
'I s'pose you know, Mrs. Ed'ard, how he's going on?'
'Who?'
'Why, that Mr. Reddin.'
'What's he done?'
'Oh, I know! But I wouldn't soil me mouth, only I'm thinking you'd
ought to know.'
She looked triumphant.
'He's after that there Sally something as lives nearby. They do say as
all her brats be his.'
'Mr. Reddin's? Is he--like--married to her, Martha?'
'About as much as he was to you, I reckon!'
'And does she--live there now?'
'I dunno.'
'Is she pretty?'
'It inna allus the prettiest as get lovers.'
'But is she prettier than me?'
'I've heard she's bigger and finer.'
'But she hanna got abron hair?'
'How should I know?'
This was desolate news to Hazel; for Reddin, now that she was going to
bear his child, had become necessary to her. She was unconscious of the
reason of this need--not a spiritual one, but purely physiological. She
did not hate him for this news. Such hatred is abnormal. Nor did she
love him. That would have been still more abnormal. But she must be in
his house; she must sew for him, share his daily doings, sleep in the
big four-poster, and not in the small virginal bed at the Mountain. It
would be grievous to leave Edward. He was the shelter between her
flickering spirit and the storms of life. She had hesitated, putting
off the inevitable, feeling that Undern was always there, like an empty
room, for her re-entry, so she had not hurried. Now the room was
occupied, her place taken. Immediately she felt that she must go.
Feverishly she decided to go this very night and peer in (no one but
herself had ever drawn the blinds at Undern of late years) and see for
herself. Mrs. Marston and Martha both seemed to be pushing her over the
brink.
When, after tea, she crept from the house, she was crying--crying at
leaving Edward, the master and the comrade of her unknown self. It was
as if she gave up immortality. Yet she was relieved to be going--that
is, if she could stay at Undern. Both her tears and her relief were
natural. The pity was that body and soul had been put in opposition by
belonging to different men.
She left a little blotted note for Edward.
'Dunna think too bad of me, Ed'ard. I be bound to go to Undern and
live; I ud liefer bide along of you.'
She went through the shadow-sweet meadows where birds hopped out across
green stretches in the cool, the high corn that had once been her
comrade, the honeysuckle hedges that used to bring so childish a glee.
They wore an air of things estranged and critical. All was so sad, like
a dear friend with an altered countenance. She was an exile even in the
seeing and hearing. It was strange to her as a town under the tides.
There it was, clear and belfried as of old, but fathoms deep, and the
bells had so faint a chime that Reddin's voice drowned them. She was
turned out of the Eden of the past that she had known in wood and
meadow. She was denied the Eden of the future that she might have had
in Edward's love. She had the present--Reddin--unless the other woman
had robbed her of him also.
She sat down in the heavy shadows of the trees at the far side of
Undern Pool. The water looked cold and ghastly even on this golden day.
She watched the wagtails strut magisterially, the moorhens with the
worried air of overworked charwomen, all the mysterious evening life of
a summer pool, but she had no smile for them to-day. The swallows slid
and circled across the water; their silence was no longer intimate, but
alien. She looked across at Undern. There were roses everywhere, but
the house had so strong a faculty for imposing its personality that it
gave to the red roses and the masses of traveller's joy that frothed
over it a deep sadness, as if they had blown and dropped long since and
were but memoried flowers. The shadows of swallows came and went on the
white western wall, and smoke stood up blue and straight from Vessons'
kitchen fire. She watched the cows go down the green lane, and the
shadows go over the meadows in triumphal state. When all was shadow,
and the sky was as suddenly vacant of swallows as at dawn it had been
full of them, she went stealthily towards the house.
A light appeared in the parlour. She came close up and looked in.
Reddin was in the easy chair, reading the paper, a pipe in the corner
of his mouth. No one else was there.
'Jack Reddin!' she said.
'Hullo!' He turned. 'So you've come? I thought you'd have come long
ago.'
That was all he said. But she assured herself that he was glad she had
come, because he shouted to Vessons for tea. She was certain he was
glad to see her. Yet there was something vaguely insolent in his
manner. He was a man who must never be sure of a woman. The moment she
committed herself for him and was at a disadvantage he despised her.
'Come over here!' he said. 'There! I suppose you've forgotten what it's
like to be kissed, eh? And to live with a man? You can never go away
again now.'
'Why?'
'Well, you are a simpleton! D'you think he'd have you back after this?
The first time it was my fault, he thinks; but the second! It won't
wash.' He laughed.
'This time's your fault as much as the other. You made me come both
times. There's Vessons! Leave me get up.'
'No. Why should I?'
Vessons entered.
'This 'ere game of tether-ball,' he said, 'fair makes me giddy.'
'Jack,' said Hazel when he had gone, 'Martha said there was a woman
here.'
'Martha's a liar.'
'Hanna there bin?'
'No. Never anyone but you.'
'Hanna you bin fond of anyone?'
'Only you.'
'She said there was a woman as had a lot of little children, as was
yours.'
'Damn her!'
'And I thought she's ought to live along of you, and to be
married-like, and wear the green dress.'
'No one shall wear that but you, nor have my children but you.'
She was, as he had calculated, entirely overwhelmed, and so startled
that she forgot to question him any more.
'Oh, no,' she said; 'that'll never be.'
He raised his eyebrows at her extraordinary denseness, but he judged it
best to say no more.
He must get rid of Sally. He supposed she would make him pay heavily.
He was sick of the sight of her and the children. They were not nice
children. He looked at Hazel contemplatively. If his conjecture was
right, he would have to try and legalize things during the next few
months. He badly wanted a son--born in wedlock. He would have to go and
beg the parson to divorce her. It would be detestable, but it would
have to be done. He would wait and see.
Meanwhile, Vessons also made plans, his obstinate mouth and pear-shaped
face more dour than ever.
Hazel had a letter from Edward in the morning; it was very short. She
could not tell what he thought of her.
He only said that if she ever wanted help she was to come to him. She
cried over it, and hid it away. She knew how well Edward would have
looked as he wrote it. She knew he would be grieved. She had not the
slightest idea that he would be utterly overwhelmed and wrecked. She
had not the least notion how he felt for her.
She was very glad to be away from Mrs. Marston and Martha. She found
this household of two men a great rest after the two women, although
Vessons did not relax his disapproval. If it had not been for her
passionate spiritual longing for Edward, she would have been happy, for
the deep law of her being was now fulfilled in thus returning to
Reddin. He, for his part, liked to see her about. Roses appeared in the
rooms; it was strange to him, who had never had a woman in his house,
to find his bedroom scented with flowers. He liked to watch her doing
her hair.
He always pretended to be asleep in the morning, so that she should get
up first--shyly anxious to be dressed before he awoke. So morning after
morning he would watch her through his eyelashes. He never felt that,
as she obviously wished for privacy, he was mean or indelicate.
'I've got a right to. She's mine,' was his idea.
It was not till a week after Hazel's coming that Reddin pulled himself
together, and went to interview Sally Haggard. Vessons, observing the
fact, repaired to Sally's cottage on his master's return, and found her
in tears. To see this heavy-browed, big-boned woman crying so startled
him that he contemplated her in silence.
'Well, fool, can't you speak?' she said.
'I dare say now as he wants you to move on?' queried Vessons.
'Ah.'
'Because of this other young 'ooman he's brought?'
'Ah, what's the good o' mouthing it? I bin faithful to 'im; I hanna
gone with others. All the chillun's his'n. And never come near me, he
didna, when my time come. And now it's "go!"' She broke out crying
again.
'What I come for was to show you a way to make her go. If I tell you,
you mun swear never to come and live at Undern.'
''Struth I will!'
'Well, then, just you come and see 'er some time when the master's
away. And bring the chillun.'
'Thank you kindly.'
'Not till I say the word, though! I wunna risk it till he's off for the
day. If he found me out, it'd be notice. Eh, missus, he's like a lad
with his first white mouse! And the parson! Laws, they'm two thrussels
wi' one worm, and no mistake.'
'And yet she's only a bit of a thing, you tell me?'
'Ah! But she'm all on wires, to and agen like a canbottle.'
'Why canna she bide with the minister?'
'Lord only knows! It's for 'er good, and for the maister's and yours,
not to speak of mine. It's werrit, werrit, all the while, missus, and
the fingers in the tea-caddy the day long! It's Andrew this and Andrew
that, and a terrible strong smell of flowers--enough for a burying.'
* * * * *
Vessons waited eagerly for his opportunity; but Reddin was afraid to
leave Hazel alone, in case she might see Sally; so September came and
drew out its shining span of days, and still Vessons and Sally were
waiting.