Nedda, borrowing the bicycle of Clara's maid, Sirrett, had been over to
Joyfields, and only learned on her return of her grandmother's arrival.
In her bath before dinner there came to her one of those strategic
thoughts that even such as are no longer quite children will sometimes
conceive. She hurried desperately into her clothes, and, ready full
twenty minutes before the gong was due to sound, made her way to her
grandmother's room. Frances Freeland had just pulled THIS, and, to
her astonishment, THAT had not gone in properly. She was looking at
it somewhat severely, when she heard Nedda's knock. Drawing a screen
temporarily over the imperfection, she said: “Come in!”
The dear child looked charming in her white evening dress with one red
flower in her hair; and while she kissed her, she noted that the neck
of her dress was just a little too open to be quite nice, and at once
thought: 'I've got the very thing for that.'
Going to a drawer that no one could have suspected of being there, she
took from it a little diamond star. Getting delicate but firm hold of
the Mechlin at the top of the frock, she popped it in, so that the neck
was covered at least an inch higher, and said:
“Now, ducky, you're to keep that as a little present. You've no idea
how perfectly it suits you just like this.” And having satisfied for
the moment her sense of niceness and that continual itch to part with
everything she had, she surveyed her granddaughter, lighted up by that
red flower, and said:
“How sweet you look!”
Nedda, looking down past cheeks colored by pleasure at the new little
star on a neck rather browned by her day in the sun, murmured:
“Oh, Granny! it's much too lovely! You mustn't give it to me!”
These were moments that Frances Freeland loved best in life; and, with
the untruthfulness in which she only indulged when she gave things away,
or otherwise benefited her neighbors with or without their will, she
added: “It's quite wasted; I never wear it myself.” And, seeing Nedda's
smile, for the girl recollected perfectly having admired it during
dinner at Uncle John's, and at Becket itself, she said decisively, “So
that's that!” and settled her down on the sofa. But just as she was
thinking, 'I have the very thing for the dear child's sunburn,' Nedda
said: “Granny, dear, I've been meaning to tell you—Derek and I are
engaged.”
For the moment Frances Freeland could do nothing but tremulously
interlace her fingers.
“Oh, but, darling,” she said very gravely, “have you thought?”
“I think of nothing else, Granny.”
“But has he thought?”
Nedda nodded.
Frances Freeland sat staring straight before her. Nedda and Derek, Derek
and Nedda! The news was almost unintelligible; those two were still for
her barely more than little creatures to be tucked up at night. Engaged!
Marriage! Between those who were both as near to her, almost, as her own
children had been! The effort was for the moment quite too much for her,
and a sort of pain disturbed her heart. Then the crowning principle of
her existence came a little to her aid. No use in making a fuss; must
put the best face on it, whether it were going to come to anything or
not! And she said:
“Well, darling, I don't know, I'm sure. I dare say it's very lovely for
you. But do you think you've seen enough of him?”
Nedda gave her a swift look, then dropped her lashes, so that her eyes
seemed closed. Snuggling up, she said:
“No, Granny, I do wish I could see more; if only I could go and stay
with them a little!”
And as she planted that dart of suggestion, the gong sounded.
In Frances Freeland, lying awake till two, as was her habit, the
suggestion grew. To this growth not only her custom of putting the best
face on things, but her incurable desire to make others happy, and an
instinctive sympathy with love-affairs, all contributed; moreover, Felix
had said something about Derek's having been concerned in something
rash. If darling Nedda were there it would occupy his mind and help to
make him careful. Never dilatory in forming resolutions, she decided to
take the girl over with her on the morrow. Kirsteen had a dear little
spare room, and Nedda should take her bag. It would be a nice surprise
for them all. Accordingly, next morning, not wanting to give any
trouble, she sent Thomas down to the Red Lion, where they had a
comfortable fly, with a very steady, respectable driver, and ordered it
to come at half past two. Then, without saying anything to Clara, she
told Nedda to be ready to pop in her bag, trusting to her powers
of explaining everything to everybody without letting anybody know
anything. Little difficulties of this sort never bunkered her; she was
essentially a woman of action. And on the drive to Joyfields she stilled
the girl's quavering with:
“It's all right, darling; it'll be very nice for them.”
She was perhaps the only person in the world who was not just a little
bit afraid of Kirsteen. Indeed, she was constitutionally unable to be
afraid of anything, except motor-cars, and, of course, earwigs, and even
them one must put up with. Her critical sense told her that this woman
in blue was just like anybody else, besides her father had been the
colonel of a Highland regiment, which was quite nice, and one must put
the best face on her.
In this way, pointing out the beauty of each feature of the scenery, and
not permitting herself or Nedda to think about the bag, they drove until
they came to Joyfields.
Kirsteen alone was in, and, having sent Nedda into the orchard to look
for her uncle, Frances Freeland came at once to the point. It was so
important, she thought, that darling Nedda should see more of dear
Derek. They were very young, and if she could stay for a few weeks, they
would both know their minds so much better. She had made her bring her
bag, because she knew dear Kirsteen would agree with her; and it would
be so nice for them all. Felix had told her about that poor man who had
done this dreadful thing, and she thought that if Nedda were here it
would be a distraction. She was a very good child, and quite useful in
the house. And while she was speaking she watched Kirsteen, and thought:
'She is very handsome, and altogether ladylike; only it is such a pity
she wears that blue thing in her hair—it makes her so conspicuous.' And
rather unexpectedly she said:
“Do you know, dear, I believe I know the very thing to keep your hair
from getting loose. It's such lovely hair. And this is quite a new
thing, and doesn't show at all; invented by a very nice hairdresser in
Worcester. It's simplicity itself. Do let me show you!” Quickly going
over, she removed the kingfisher-blue fillet, and making certain passes
with her fingers through the hair, murmured:
“It's so beautifully fine; it seems such a pity not to show it all,
dear. Now look at yourself!” And from the recesses of her pocket she
produced a little mirror. “I'm sure Tod will simply love it like that.
It'll be such a nice change for him.”
Kirsteen, with just a faint wrinkling of her lips and eyebrows, waited
till she had finished. Then she said:
“Yes, Mother, dear, I'm sure he will,” and replaced the fillet. A
patient, half-sad, half-quizzical smile visited Frances Freeland's lips,
as who should say: 'Yes, I know you think that I'm a fuss-box, but it
really is a pity that you wear it so, darling!'
At sight of that smile, Kirsteen got up and kissed her gravely on the
forehead.
When Nedda came back from a fruitless search for Tod, her bag was
already in the little spare bedroom and Frances Freeland gone. The
girl had never yet been alone with her aunt, for whom she had a fervent
admiration not unmixed with awe. She idealized her, of course, thinking
of her as one might think of a picture or statue, a symbolic figure,
standing for liberty and justice and the redress of wrong. Her
never-varying garb of blue assisted the girl's fancy, for blue was
always the color of ideals and aspiration—was not blue sky the nearest
one could get to heaven—were not blue violets the flowers of spring?
Then, too, Kirsteen was a woman with whom it would be quite impossible
to gossip or small-talk; with her one could but simply and directly say
what one felt, and only that over things which really mattered. And this
seemed to Nedda so splendid that it sufficed in itself to prevent the
girl from saying anything whatever. She longed to, all the same, feeling
that to be closer to her aunt meant to be closer to Derek. Yet, with
all, she knew that her own nature was very different; this, perhaps,
egged her on, and made her aunt seem all the more exciting. She waited
breathless till Kirsteen said:
“Yes, you and Derek must know each other better. The worst kind of
prison in the world is a mistaken marriage.”
Nedda nodded fervently. “It must be. But I think one knows, Aunt
Kirsteen!”
She felt as if she were being searched right down to the soul before the
answer came:
“Perhaps. I knew myself. I have seen others who did—a few. I think you
might.”
Nedda flushed from sheer joy. “I could never go on if I didn't love. I
feel I couldn't, even if I'd started.”
With another long look through narrowing eyes, Kirsteen answered:
“Yes. You would want truth. But after marriage truth is an unhappy
thing, Nedda, if you have made a mistake.”
“It must be dreadful. Awful.”
“So don't make a mistake, my dear—and don't let him.”
Nedda answered solemnly:
“I won't—oh, I won't!”
Kirsteen had turned away to the window, and Nedda heard her say quietly
to herself:
“'Liberty's a glorious feast!'”
Trembling all over with the desire to express what was in her, Nedda
stammered:
“I would never keep anything that wanted to be free—never, never! I
would never try to make any one do what they didn't want to!”
She saw her aunt smile, and wondered whether she had said anything
exceptionally foolish. But it was not foolish—surely not—to say what one
really felt.
“Some day, Nedda, all the world will say that with you. Until then we'll
fight those who won't say it. Have you got everything in your room you
want? Let's come and see.”
To pass from Becket to Joyfields was really a singular experience. At
Becket you were certainly supposed to do exactly what you liked, but
the tyranny of meals, baths, scents, and other accompaniments of the
'all-body' regime soon annihilated every impulse to do anything but
just obey it. At Joyfields, bodily existence was a kind of perpetual
skirmish, a sort of grudged accompaniment to a state of soul. You might
be alone in the house at any meal-time. You might or might not have
water in your jug. And as to baths, you had to go out to a little
white-washed shed at the back, with a brick floor, where you pumped on
yourself, prepared to shout out, “Halloo! I'm here!” in case any one
else came wanting to do the same. The conditions were in fact almost
perfect for seeing more of one another. Nobody asked where you were
going, with whom going, or how going. You might be away by day or night
without exciting curiosity or comment. And yet you were conscious of
a certain something always there, holding the house together; some
principle of life, or perhaps—just a woman in blue. There, too, was
that strangest of all phenomena in an English home—no game ever played,
outdoors or in.
The next fortnight, while the grass was ripening, was a wonderful time
for Nedda, given up to her single passion—of seeing more of him who so
completely occupied her heart. She was at peace now with Sheila, whose
virility forbade that she should dispute pride of place with this soft
and truthful guest, so evidently immersed in rapture. Besides, Nedda had
that quality of getting on well with her own sex, found in those women
who, though tenacious, are not possessive; who, though humble, are
secretly very self-respecting; who, though they do not say much about
it, put all their eggs in one basket; above all, who disengage, no
matter what their age, a candid but subtle charm.
But that fortnight was even more wonderful for Derek, caught between two
passions—both so fervid. For though the passion of his revolt against
the Mallorings did not pull against his passion for Nedda, they both
tugged at him. And this had one curious psychological effect. It made
his love for Nedda more actual, less of an idealization. Now that she
was close to him, under the same roof, he felt the full allurement of
her innocent warmth; he would have been cold-blooded indeed if he had
not taken fire, and, his pride always checking the expression of his
feelings, they glowed ever hotter underneath.
Yet, over those sunshiny days there hung a shadow, as of something kept
back, not shared between them; a kind of waiting menace. Nedda learned
of Kirsteen and Sheila all the useful things she could; the evenings she
passed with Derek, those long evenings of late May and early June, this
year so warm and golden. They walked generally in the direction of the
hills. A favorite spot was a wood of larches whose green shoots had not
yet quite ceased to smell of lemons. Tall, slender things those trees,
whose stems and dried lower branch-growth were gray, almost sooty, up
to the feathery green of the tops, that swayed and creaked faintly in a
wind, with a soughing of their branches like the sound of the sea.
From the shelter of those Highland trees, rather strange in such
a countryside, they two could peer forth at the last sunlight
gold-powdering the fringed branches, at the sunset flush dyeing the
sky above the Beacon; watch light slowly folding gray wings above
the hay-fields and the elms; mark the squirrels scurry along, and the
pigeons' evening flight. A stream ran there at the edge, and beech-trees
grew beside it. In the tawny-dappled sand bed of that clear water,
and the gray-green dappled trunks of those beeches with their great,
sinuous, long-muscled roots, was that something which man can never tame
or garden out of the land: the strength of unconquerable fertility—the
remote deep life in Nature's heart. Men and women had their spans of
existence; those trees seemed as if there forever! From generation to
generation lovers might come and, looking on this strength and beauty,
feel in their veins the sap of the world. Here the laborer and his
master, hearing the wind in the branches and the water murmuring down,
might for a brief minute grasp the land's unchangeable wild majesty.
And on the far side of that little stream was a field of moon-colored
flowers that had for Nedda a strange fascination. Once the boy jumped
across and brought her back a handkerchief full. They were of two kinds:
close to the water's edge the marsh orchis, and farther back, a small
marguerite. Out of this they made a crown of the alternate flowers, and
a girdle for her waist. That was an evening of rare beauty, and warm
enough already for an early chafer to go blooming in the dusk. An
evening when they wandered with their arms round each other a long time,
silent, stopping to listen to an owl; stopping to point out each star
coming so shyly up in the gray-violet of the sky. And that was the
evening when they had a strange little quarrel, sudden as a white squall
on a blue sea, or the tiff of two birds shooting up in a swift spiral of
attack and then—all over. Would he come to-morrow to see her milking?
He could not. Why? He could not; he would be out. Ah! he never told her
where he went; he never let her come with him among the laborers like
Sheila.
“I can't; I'm pledged not.”
“Then you don't trust me!”
“Of course I trust you; but a promise is a promise. You oughtn't to ask
me, Nedda.”
“No; but I would never have promised to keep anything from you.”
“You don't understand.”
“Oh! yes, I do. Love doesn't mean the same to you that it does to me.”
“How do you know what it means to me?”
“I couldn't have a secret from you.”
“Then you don't count honour.”
“Honour only binds oneself!”
“What d'you mean by that?”
“I include you—you don't include me in yourself, that's all.”
“I think you're very unjust. I was obliged to promise; it doesn't only
concern myself.”
Then silent, motionless, a yard apart, they looked fiercely at each
other, their hearts stiff and sore, and in their brains no glimmer of
perception of anything but tragedy. What more tragic than to have
come out of an elysium of warm arms round each other, to this sudden
hostility! And the owl went on hooting, and the larches smelled sweet!
And all around was the same soft dusk wherein the flowers in her hair
and round her waist gleamed white! But for Nedda the world had suddenly
collapsed. Tears rushed into her eyes; she shook her head and turned
away, hiding them passionately.... A full minute passed, each straining
to make no sound and catch the faintest sound from the other, till
in her breathing there was a little clutch. His fingers came stealing
round, touched her cheeks, and were wetted. His arms suddenly squeezed
all breath out of her; his lips fastened on hers. She answered those
lips with her own desperately, bending her head back, shutting her wet
eyes. And the owl hooted, and the white flowers fell into the dusk off
her hair and waist.
After that, they walked once more enlaced, avoiding with what perfect
care any allusion to the sudden tragedy, giving themselves up to the
bewildering ecstasy that had started throbbing in their blood with that
kiss, longing only not to spoil it. And through the sheltering larch
wood their figures moved from edge to edge, like two little souls in
paradise, unwilling to come forth.
After that evening love had a poignancy it had not quite had before; at
once deeper, sweeter, tinged for both of them with the rich darkness of
passion, and with discovery that love does not mean a perfect merger
of one within another. For both felt themselves in the right over that
little quarrel. The boy that he could not, must not, resign what was
not his to resign; feeling dimly, without being quite able to shape the
thought even to himself, that a man has a life of action into which a
woman cannot always enter, with which she cannot always be identified.
The girl feeling that she did not want any life into which he did not
enter, so that it was hard that he should want to exclude her from
anything. For all that, she did not try again to move him to let her
into the secret of his plans of revolt and revenge, and disdained
completely to find them out from Sheila or her aunt.
And the grass went on ripening. Many and various as the breeds of men,
or the trees of a forest, were the stalks that made up that greenish
jungle with the waving, fawn-colored surface; of rye-grass and
brome-grass, of timothy, plantain, and yarrow; of bent-grass and
quake-grass, foxtail, and the green-hearted trefoil; of dandelion, dock,
musk-thistle, and sweet-scented vernal.
On the 10th of June Tod began cutting his three fields; the whole
family, with Nedda and the three Tryst children, working like slaves.
Old Gaunt, who looked to the harvests to clothe him for the year, came
to do his share of raking, and any other who could find some evening
hours to spare. The whole was cut and carried in three days of glorious
weather.
The lovers were too tired the last evening of hay harvest to go
rambling, and sat in the orchard watching the moon slide up through the
coppice behind the church. They sat on Tod's log, deliciously weary, in
the scent of the new-mown hay, while moths flitted gray among the blue
darkness of the leaves, and the whitened trunks of the apple-trees
gleamed ghostly. It was very warm; a night of whispering air, opening
all hearts. And Derek said:
“You'll know to-morrow, Nedda.”
A flutter of fear overtook her. What would she know?