Gone to Earth, Mary Webb [fiction novels to read txt] 📗

was seven o'clock when they were put down, tired and laden with parcels, at the quarry half-way up God's Little Mountain. Edward had been there for more than an hour, tormented with fears for Hazel's safety, angry with himself for letting her go. All afternoon he had fidgeted, worried Martha with suggestions about tea, finally gone to the shop several miles away for some of Hazel's favourite cake, quite forgetting that he ought to be in the house breathing. It all resulted in a most beautiful tea, as Hazel thought when they had pushed and pulled Mrs. Marston home.

What with the joy of staying the night and the wonder of her new clothes, Hazel was as radiant and talked so fast that Edward could do nothing but watch her.

In her short life there had not been many moments of such rose and gold. It was the happiest hour of Edward's life also; for she looked to him as flowers to warm heaven, as winter birds to a fruited tree. As he watched her opening parcel after parcel with frank innocence and little bird-like cries of rapture, he knew the intolerable sweetness of bestowing delight on the beloved--a sweetness only equalled by the intolerable agony of seeing helpless and incurable pain on the loved face.

'And what's that one?' he asked, like a mother helping in a child's game. He pointed to a parcel which contained chemises and nightdresses.

'That,' said Mrs. Marston, frowning portentously at Hazel, who was tearing it open--'that is other useful garments.'

'What for canna I show 'em Ed'ard? I want to show all. The money was his'n.'

It was a tribute to Edward's self-control that she was so entirely lacking in shyness towards him.

'My dear! A young man!' whispered Mrs. Marston.

Suddenly, by some strange necromancy, there was conjured in Hazel's mind a picture of Reddin--flushed, hard-eyed, with an expression that aroused in her misgiving and even terror. So she had seen him just before she fled to Vessons. At the remembrance she flushed so deeply that Mrs. Marston congratulated herself on the fact that her daughter-in-law had _some_ modesty and right feeling.

If she had known who caused the flush, who it was that had awakened the love of pretty clothes which Edward was satisfying, she would have thought very different thoughts, and would have been utterly miserable. For her love for Edward was deep enough to make her wish him to have what he wanted, and not what she thought he ought to want, as long as he did not clash with her religion. For Edward to know it, though so early in his love for Hazel, would have meant a rocking of heaven and earth around him. Even she, with her childish egotism like a shell about her, realized that this was a thing that could not be.

'But it be all right,' she thought, as she curled up luxuriously in the strangely clean and comfortable bed, 'it'll be all right. Him above'll see as Mr. Reddin ne'er shows his face here; for the old lady said Him above looked after good folks, and Ed'ard's good. But I wish some un 'ud look after the bad uns,' she thought, looking across the room to the north where Undern lay.

* * * * *

'My dear, wait a moment!' said Mrs. Marston to Edward downstairs, as he was lighting her candle. I have something to tell you. I fear you must brace yourself.'

'Well, mother?' Edward smiled.

'Hazel's not a Christian!' She spoke in a sepulchral whisper, and looked at him afterwards, as if to say, 'There, now, I _have_ surprised you!'

'And how do you make that out, mother?'

Edward found in his heart this fact, that it made no difference to his love whether Hazel were a Christian or not; this troubled him.

'No. She's not a Christian, my dear,' said Mrs. Marston in a kind of gasp; 'she refuses to be died for!'

Upstairs, Hazel was saying her orisons at the window.

'If there's anybody there,' she murmured, staring out into the consuming darkness that had absorbed every colour, every form, except the looming outline of God's Little Mountain against a watery moon-rise--'if there's anybody there, I'd be obleeged if you'd give an eye to our Foxy, as is lonesome in tub. It dunna matter about me, being under Ed'ard's roof.'

Hazel had never felt so like a child in its mother's lap. Her own mother had not made her feel so. She had been a vague, abstracted woman with an air of bepuzzlement and lostness. She looked so long out of the door--never shut, except when Abel insisted on it--that there was no time for Hazel. Only occasionally she would catch her by the shoulders and look into her eyes and tell her strange news of faery. But now she felt cared for as she looked round the low room with its chair-bed and little dressing-table hung with pink glazed calico. There was a text over the fireplace:

'"Not a hair of thy head shall perish."'

It seemed particularly reassuring to Hazel as she brushed her long shining coils before the hanging mirror. There was a bowl of double primroses--red, mauve and white--on the window-sill, and a card 'with Edward's love.'

Flowers in a bedroom were something very new. To her, as to so many poor people, a bedroom was a stuffy place to crawl into at night and get out of as quickly as possible in the morning.

'Eh! it'll be grand to live here,' she thought drowsily, as she lay down in the cool clean sheets and heard the large clock on the wall of the landing ticking slumbrously in a measured activity that deepened the peace. She heard Mrs. Marston slide past in her soft slippers with her characteristic walk, rather like skating. Then Edward came up (evidently in stockinged feet, for he was only heralded by creakings). Hazel never dreamt that he had taken his shoes off for her sake.

The moon, riding clear of cloud, flung the shadow of Edward's primroses on the bed--a large round posy like a Christmas-pudding with outstanding leaves and flowers clearly defined, all very black on the counterpane.

Undern seemed very far off.

'I like this better'n that old dark place, green dress or no green dress,' she thought, 'and I'll ne'er go back there. It inna true what he said, "Have her he will for certain sure," for I'm going to live along of Ed'ard, and the old sleepy lady'll learn me to make batter for ever and ever. Batter's a well-beaten mixture of eggs and summat.'

She fell asleep.

* * * * *

In his room Edward walked up and down, too happy to go to bed.

'My little one! my little one!' he whispered. And he prayed that Hazel might have rosy and immortal happiness, guarded by strong angels along a path of flowers all her life long, and at last running in through the celestial gates as a child runs home.

The spring wind, rainy and mournful, came groping out of the waste places and cried about the house like a man mourning for his love. The cavern of night, impenetrable and vast, was full of echoes, as if some voice, terrible and violent, had shouted there a long while since, and might, even before the age-long reverberations had died away, be uplifted again, if it was the will of the Power (invisible but so immanent that it pressed upon the brain) that inhabited the obscure, star-dripping cavern.


Chapter 13

Next morning Mrs. Marston came in from the kitchen with the toast, which she would not trust anyone but herself to make, with a face portending great happenings.

'Mind you see that they are all properly placed, Edward; they should be all together in one part of the room.'

'Who'd that be?' Hazel inquired.

'1906, plums; 1908, gooseberries; 1909, cherries, sugarless. The sugared ones are older.' Mrs. Marston spoke so personally that Hazel stared.

'It's mother's exhibits, Hazel,' explained Edward.

'Yes. They've been to shows year by year, and very well they've stood it. I only hope the constant travelling won't set up fermentation. I should like those Morellas to outlive me. A receipt I had of Jane Thorn, and she died of dropsy, poor thing, and bottled to the end.'

'Dunna you ever eat 'em?' asked Hazel.

This was blasphemy. To eat 1909 Morellas! It was passed over in tense silence, allowances being made for a prospective bride. 'Poor thing! she's upset.'

The exhibits, packed in a great bed of the vivid star-moss that grew in the secret recesses of the woods, were waiting on the front step in their usual box. There were some wonderful new jellies that made Hazel long to be Mrs. Marston and have control of the storeroom. This was a dim place where ivy leaves scraped the cobwebby window, and tall green canisters stood on shelves in company with glass jars, neatly labelled, and barrels of home-made wine; where hams hung from the ceiling, and herbs in bunches and on trays sent out a pungent sweetness. In there the magic was now heightened by the presence--dignified even in deshabille--of a wedding-cake which was being slowly but thoroughly iced.

People often wondered how Mrs. Marston did it. No one ever saw her hurried or busy, yet the proofs of her industry were here. She worked like the coral insect, in the dark, as it were, of instinct unlit by intellect, and, like the coral insect, she raised a monumental structure that hemmed her in.

They had to start early, driven by Edward's one substantial parishioner, who was principal judge, chief exhibitor, and organizer of the show. The exhibits must be there by ten; but Edward did not care in the least how many hours he spent there. The day was only darkened for him by one thing.

When the trap came round, and Hazel climbed in joyously, Edward forgot the exhibits. He would have gone off without them had not Martha come flying down the path shouting:

'Mr. Ed'ard! Mr. Ed'ard! Nineteen six! Nineteen nine! Jam!'

'What for's Martha cursing?' asked Hazel.

Edward, looking round, saw his mother's face in the doorway, dismayed, surprised, wounded. He jumped out and ran up the path.

'Oh, mother! How could I?' he said miserably.

Mrs. Marston looked up; her mouth, that had fallen in a little, trembling pitifully, and her eyes smarting with the thick, painful tears of age.

'It wasn't you, my dear,' she said; 'you never forget; it was--the young woman.'

One's god must at all hazards go clear of blame.

Edward kissed her, but with reserve, and when he got into the trap he put an arm protectingly round Hazel.

'What a fool I am!' he thought. 'Now everything's spoilt.'

In the silent store-room, hour by hour, Mrs. Marston propelled the mixture of sugar and egg through her icing syringe, building complex designs of frosty whiteness.

Her back ached, and it seemed a long way round the cake, but she went on until Martha, with a note of sympathetic understanding in her voice, announced:

'Yer dinner's in, mum, and a cup of tea along