DINAH
Though circumstances had of late baffled Dinah Waycott and tended
sometimes to beget a reserve and caution foreign to her; though she
found herself hiding her thoughts in a manner very unfamiliar and
keeping silent, where of old she would have spoken, or even allowing
by default an opinion to pass unquestioned as hers which of old she
would have contradicted; there was still no confusion in her mind
when she communed with herself. Therefore, when she found that she
stood face to face with a new thing, she pretended no doubt as to the
name of it. Bewilderment, none the less, filled her mind, and
elements of joy, that might be supposed proper to such an experience,
could not at present live with the other more distracting sensations
her discovery awakened. Something like dismay she did feel, that any
such paramount event should have overtaken her at this stage in her
life; for Dinah was not insensitive, though so plain-spoken, and now
painfully she felt this was no time to have developed the burning
preoccupation that already swept into nothingness every adventure and
emotion of the past.
There had happened a precious wonder beyond all wonders, but Dinah
felt angry with herself that, under present conditions of stress and
anxiety, any loophole existed for such a selfish passion. It had
come, however, and it could not stand still; and selfish she had to
be, since the good and glory of the thing must be shared with none at
present.
Silent, however, she could not be for long. There was one to whom
she never feared to talk and from whom she had no secrets. To him,
her foster-father, Dinah had taken every joy and sorrow, hope and
fear since she could talk. Only once, and that in the matter of his
own son, John, had she hidden her heart from Ben Bamsey, yet found it
possible to show it to another.
She remembered that now; and it was that same 'other,' who, from the
first, had possessed a nameless quality to challenge and arrest
Dinah. Gradually he had occupied a larger and larger domain in her
mind, until he overwhelmed it and her gradual revelation was
complete. For gradual it had been. Together they walked once more
at her wish, after their first long tramp, while, agreeably to the
invitation of Mr. Bamsey, Lawrence Maynard again visited Green Hayes
upon a Sunday afternoon. Then, indeed, under the eyes of Jane and
her mother, Dinah had hidden her heart very effectually, and even
made occasion to leave the house and go elsewhere before Maynard's
visit was ended; but she knew by signs in her body and soul that she
was in love. The amazing novelty of her thoughts, the
transfiguration they created in her outlook upon all things, the new
colours they imparted to any vision of the future, convinced her that
there could be no doubt. Against this reality, the past looked
unreal; before this immensity, the past appeared, dwarfed and futile.
That cloudy thing, her whole previous existence, was now reduced to a
mere huddled background--its only excuse the rainbow that had
suddenly glowed out upon it.
She was honestly ashamed that love could have happened to her at this
moment and thrust so abruptly in upon her sad experience with Johnny.
It seemed, in some moods, callous and ungenerous to allow such
wayward delights and dreams to enter her heart while well she knew
that his was heavy. But, at other times, she would not blame
herself, for her conscience was clear. Maynard had meant nothing to
her when she gave up her first lover, and it was no thought of him,
or any man, that had determined her to do so.
Her love at least was pure as love well could be, for she did not
know that he returned it; sometimes, at first, she almost hoped he
would not. But that was only in the dim and glimmering dawn of it.
Love cannot feed on dreams alone. She put it from her at first, only
to find it fly back. So she nursed it secretly and waited and
wondered, and, meantime, strove to find a way to leave Green Hayes.
But still Ben opposed her suggestions, and then there came a time
when, from the first immature fancy that to love him secretly,
herself unloved, would be enough, Dinah woke into a passionate desire
that he should love her back again. Now she was mature,
accomplished, awake and alert, lightning quick to read his mood, the
inflexion of every word he uttered when he was beside her, the
faintest brightening of his eyes, his dress, his walk, the
inspiration of every moment.
She could not help it. Often she returned dull and daunted, not with
him but herself; and as she began to know, from no sign of his but by
her own quickened sex endowment that he cared for her, she grew faint
and ashamed again. He had taught her a great deal. He seemed to be
very wise and patient, but not particularly happy--rather unfinished
even on some sides of his experience. There were a great many things
he did not know, and he seemed not nearly as interested in life as
she was, or as desirous to have it more abundantly. Johnny had
evinced a much keener appetite for living and far greater future
ambitions than Maynard. Lawrence was, in fact, as somebody had said,
"a twilight sort of man." But it was a cool, clear, self-contained
twilight that he moved in, and he appeared to see distinctly enough
through it. Dinah thought it was twilight of morning rather than
night. She imagined him presently emerging into a wonderful dawn,
and dreamed of helping him to do so. She checked such fancies, yet
they were natural to her direct temperament, and they recurred with
increasing force. Her native freedom of mind broke down all barriers
to private thinking, and sometimes she longed for him; then she
chastened herself and planned a future without him and found it not
worth remaining alive for. She began to sleep ill, but hid the
signs. She plotted to see Maynard and was also skilful to conceal
the fact that she did so. He always welcomed her, sometimes with a
merry word, sometimes with a sad one. The milch cows grazed upon the
moor now, and once or twice, sighting them a mile off upon her way
home, Dinah would creep near and wait for Lawrence and the sheep dog
to round them up and turn them to the valley for milking. She would
hide in a thicket, or behind a boulder, and if he came would get a
few precious words; but if Neddy Tutt appeared, as sometimes
happened, then she would lie hid and go her way when he was gone.
She knew now that Maynard cared for her; but she discounted his every
word and granted herself the very minimum. She was fearful of hoping
too much, yet could not, for love's sake, hope too little. She
longed to set her mind at rest upon the vital question; and at last
did so. Making all allowance, and striving to chill and belittle his
every word, she still could not longer doubt. He was often difficult
to understand, yet some things she did now clearly comprehend. She
had already seen a man in love, and though the love-making of Johnny
differed very widely from that of Lawrence, though indeed Lawrence
never had made a shadow of love to her, yet she knew at last, by
mental and physical signs that curiously repeated Johnny's, he did
love her.
She hugged this to her heart and felt that nothing else mattered, or
would ever matter. For a time she even returned to her first dream
and assured herself that love was enough. He might tell her some
day; he might never tell her; but she knew it, and whether they came
together, or lived their lives apart, the great fact would remain.
Yet there was no food in any such conclusion, no life, no fertility,
no peace.
She came to Ben Bamsey at this stage of her romance, for she hungered
and thirsted to tell it; and to her it seemed that her foster-father
ought to know. She came to him fresh from a meeting with Lawrence,
for she had been, at Mr. Bamsey's wish, with a message to Falcon
Farm, and she had met Maynard afterwards as she returned over the
foothills of the Beacon.
The year was swinging round, and again the time had come for scything
the fern, that it might ripen presently for the cattle byres.
He stopped a moment and shook hands with her.
"Just been up to see Soosie-Toosie," said Dinah. "Terrible sorry Mr.
Palk's cut his hand so bad."
"Yes; it'll have to go in a sling for a bit. He thought it would
mend and didn't take no great count of it, and now it's festered and
will be a fortnight before it's all right."
"I wish I could help," she said. "If you was to do his work and Mr.
Stockman would let me come and milk the cows for a week----"
"No, no--no need for any help. Tom can do a lot. It's only his left
hand and master's turning to. He says if he can't do the work of
Tom's left hand, it's a shame to him."
"Did Mr. Palk get his rise he was after?"
"He did not, Dinah. But Mr. Stockman put it in a very nice way.
He's going to raise us both next year. And you? Nothing turned up?"
She shook her head.
"A funny thing among 'em all they can't find just the right work. I
wish you was away from Green Hayes."
She had told him all about her difficulties and he appreciated them.
He thought a great deal about Dinah now, but still more about
himself. He had been considering her when she appeared; and for the
moment he did not want to see her. His mind ebbed and flowed, where
Dinah was concerned, and he was stubborn with himself and would not
admit anything. He persisted in this attitude, but now he began to
perceive it was impossible much longer to do so. If Dinah had read
him, he also had read her, for she was not difficult to read and
lacked some of the ordinary armour of a woman in love with a man. He
knew time could not stand still for either of them, yet strove to
suspend it. Sometimes he was gentle and sometimes he was abrupt and
ungenial when they met. To-day he dismissed her.
"Don't you bide here now," he said. "I'm busy, Dinah, and I've got a
good bit on my mind too."
"I'm sorry then. You ask Soosie if I shall come and milk. That
would give you more time. Good morning, Lawrence."
He had seen how her face fell.
"I wish I could think of a way out for you. Perhaps I shall. I do
have it on my mind," he said. "But there's difficulties in a small
place like this. Pity you ain't farther off, where you could breathe
easier."
For some reason this remark cheered her. She left him without
speaking again and considered his saying all the way home. The
interpretation she put upon it was not wholly mistaken, yet it might
have surprised the man, for we often utter a thought impelled thereto
by subconscious motives we hardly feel ourselves. He did not for the
moment associate himself, or his interests, with the desire that
Dinah should go away, yet such a desire really existed in him,
though, had he analysed it, he had been divided between two reasons
for such a desire. He might have asked himself whether he wished her
out of her present difficult environment in order that his own
approach to her should become easier and freer of doubtful
interpretation in the mouths of other people; or he might have
considered whether, for his own peace, he honestly wished to see
Dinah so far away that reasonable excuses should exist for dropping
her acquaintance. Between these alternatives he could hardly have
decided at present. He lagged behind her, for love seldom wakens
simultaneously, or moves with equal pace on both sides. He might
continue to lag and fall farther behind, or he might catch her and
pass her. He was at a stage in their approach when he could still
dispassionately consider all that increase of friendship must imply.
He hardly knew where the friendship exactly stood at the moment.
Actual irritation sometimes intervened. He suffered fits of
impatience both with himself and her. Yet he knew, when cool again,
that neither was to be blamed. If blame existed, it was not Dinah's.
She went home now, and after dinner on that day, found opportunity to
speak with her foster-father. They were cutting oats and she
descended to the valley field beside Ben and made a clean breast of
her secrets, only to find they were not hidden from him. He treated
her as one much younger than she really was, and seeing that she was
indeed younger than her age in many particulars of mind, this process
always satisfied Dinah and made her feel happier with Ben Bamsey than
his family, who made no such concession, but, on the contrary,
attributed qualities to Dinah she lacked.
"Foster-father," she said, "I'm wishful to have a tell and here's a
good chance. I be getting in a proper mizmaze I do assure 'e."
"You must be patient, my little dear," he answered.
"I've been patient for six months, though it's more like six years
since I changed about poor Johnny. And other people, so well as I,
do feel I'd be better away."
"Have I ever said you wouldn't be better away, Dinah? I know only
too well how it is. But a father can look deeper into life than his
child. I'm wide awake--watching. I understand your troubles and try
to lessen 'em where I can."
"If you wasn't here, I'd have runned away long ago. For a little
bit, after that cruel come-along-of-it, I wouldn't have minded to
die. Now that's passed; but you, who never did such a thing, can't
tell what it is to know that you're fretting and galling two other
women. And Mrs. Bamsey and Jane have a right to be fretted and
galled by me. I can well understand, without their looks, how I must
be to them; and 'tis a sharp thorn in your flesh to be hated, and
it's making me miserable."
He had not guessed she much felt this side of the position.
"You'm growing up, I see, like everybody else," he said. "I forget
that I can't have it both ways, and can't have you a loving, watchful
daughter and a child too. And if you can think for me, as you do so
wonderful, then you'm old enough to feel for yourself, of course.
Still you'm so parlous young in some ways, that it ain't strange I
still think of you a child in everyway. I suppose you must go and I
mustn't find nothing against no more. And yet----"
He broke off, his mind upon Maynard.
While he was hesitating and wondering whether he should name the man,
Dinah saved him the trouble.
"Only this morning coming home from Falcon Farm I met
Lawrence--Lawrence Maynard and he--even he, an outsider so to say,
said he thought I'd be better far ways off. And I well know it. I
didn't ought to be breathing the same air as Johnny. It ain't fair
to him, especially when you know he's not taking it just like I meant
it. And I wouldn't say it's right, foster-father."
He, however, was more concerned for the moment with the other man
than his own son.
"Johnny's beginning to understand. His good sense will come to help
him," he answered; "but when you say 'Lawrence Maynard,' Dinah--what
do you say? Why for has he troubled his head about your affairs?"
"You like him?" she answered.
"Granted. And so do you seemingly. And how much do you like him?
Do you like him as much as I think you do, Dinah?"
She was astonished but pleased.
"I'm glad you ask me that; but I hope Mrs. Bamsey and Jane----?"
"So do I. No, they haven't marked nothing; or if they have, they've
hid it from me very close. But Faith wouldn't hide nothing. Tell
me."
She hesitated.
"What do you think?" she asked.
"I think you care about the man."
"I love him then."
"Ah!"
"It sounds a fearful thing spoke out naked. But truth's truth, and
I'm very thankful to tell you. Don't you call it wicked nor nothing
like that. It only happened a very little while--not till long, long
after I dropped Johnny. But it has happened; and now I know I never
loved dear Johnny a morsel."
He reflected.
"The man himself told you to go--Maynard, I mean? What was in his
mind when he said that?"
"I've been wondering. It ought to have made me sad; but it hasn't.
Ought it to have made me sad?"
"Has Lawrence Maynard----? What about his side?"
"I don't know--yet I do. There's some things you feel. I don't
think I could have loved him if I hadn't known he loved me first.
Could I?"
"He's never said it, however?"
"A man's eyes and ways say things."
"Don't you talk like this to anybody but me, Dinah," urged Mr. Bamsey.
"Not likely. Is it wrong?"
"I'm moving in the matter; I'm moving," he answered. "You can't hide
much from me, and already I've had Maynard in my thoughts."
"You haven't?"
"Yes. I've seen a very good, common friend. And I'll tell you this.
I sounded Mr. Withycombe--the bed-lier. The young man often goes of
a Sunday to see him, and Enoch thinks well of him. But more than
that. He's spoke cautious with Maynard, and Maynard likes you. He
granted you was out of the common, in fact a remarkable pattern of
woman."
She had his arm and her own tightened upon it.
"Foster-father!"
"So enough said. And now you'll understand why I'm marking time.
The rest be in the hands of God. You keep out of his way for a
bit--Maynard, I mean; and we'll watch how it goes."
"Nothing else matters now," she said.
"A lot matters now; but what matters be up to him."
"I didn't think it was possible to be so happy as I be this minute,
foster-father."
"Put it out of your mind, however, so far as nature will let you. We
be groping in the dark."
"No, no--it's all light--all light now."
"So far as he's concerned, we be in the dark," he repeated. "No
doubt the time's near when he'll offer for you, Dinah. And then he's
got to come to me. I remember the first evening he was to Green
Hayes, and seemed a thought under the weather and a little doubtful
about his Maker. I said he'd got a grievance against life, and I
must hear all about that grievance, if such there is."
"You'll never hear anything but the truth from him. He wouldn't do
anything that you wouldn't like. I'm feared of him in a way. He's
very strict and very stern sometimes. He's not what you call easy on
wrongful doing. He's better'n me."
"That no man ever was, or will be," said Ben. "I'm very glad you
came to me with this; for if you'd hung off much longer, I'd have had
to see the man. Now I shan't, and I'm not sorry. We know where we
stand, because you'm so open-minded, thank God, along with me. But
we don't know--at least we can't be sure we know--where he stands.
It's up to Mr. Maynard to unfold his feelings. And for sure he very
soon will."
"And why should you reckon he advised me to be off from here so soon
as I could?" asked Dinah again. "Queerly enough I liked him for
saying it, and yet--yet you might think there might be a frosty
reason."
"There might be. Time will show. You can't be off till we've found
the proper place for you to be off to. Now you run home about your
chores. Mother wants you in the garden. There's the last lot of
rasps to be picked. I didn't count on no more, but I was surprised
to see enough to market yet."
She ran up the hill and he descended to a field of heavy oats. The
weather after a spell of sunny days began to break up and Mr. Bamsey
hoped to get his crop off the ground before it did so. But his mind
was not on his oats. He believed that Dinah must indeed leave him
now, and guessed that Maynard would think it wise to abandon his
present work and take her far away. Mr. Bamsey knew what this must
mean for him. He did not disguise from himself that he loved Dinah
better than anything on earth, while blaming himself unfeignedly for
doing so.