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

of it.'

Mrs. Marston sighed gratefully.

'How nice and pleasant!' she said; 'but not as nice and pleasant as it was--before.'

'Not by a long mile!' said Martha heartily. For Hazel had 'taken the eye' of all the eligibles at the concert, and was altogether disturbing.

'Perhaps, Martha,' said Mrs. Marston wistfully, 'when she's been here a long while, and we're used to her, and she's part of the house--perhaps it'll be as nice and pleasant as before?'

'When the yeast's in,' said Martha pessimistically, 'the dough's leavened!'

* * * * *

As Edward and Hazel drew near the show-ground they passed people walking and were overtaken by traps.

A man passed at full gallop, and Hazel was reminded of Reddin. Later, she said:

'How'd you like it, Ed'ard, if somebody was after you, like a weasel after a rabbit or a terrier at a fox-earth? What'd you do?'

'What morbid things you think of, dear!'

'What'd you do?'

'I don't know.'

'There's nought to do.'

Edward remembered his creed.

'I should pray, Hazel.'

'What good'd that do?'

'God answers prayers.'

'That He dunna! Or where'd the fox-hunting gents be, and who'd have rabbit-pie? I dunna see as He _can_ answer 'em.'

'Little girls mustn't bother their pretty heads.'

'If you'd found as many creatures in traps as me, and loosened 'em, and seed their broken legs, and eyes as if they'd seed ghosses, and onst a dog caught by the tongue--eh! you'd bother! You would that! And feyther killing the pigs Good Fridays.'

'Why Good Fridays, of all days?'

'That was the day. Ah! every Good Friday I was used to fight feyther!'

'My dear child!'

'You would if you'd seed the pig that comforble and contented, and know'd what it'd look like in a minute. I'd a killed feyther if I could.'

'But why? Surely it was worse of you to want to kill your father than of him to want to kill the pig?'

'I dunno. But I couldn't abear it. I bit him awful one time, and he hit me on the head with a rake, and I went to sleep.'

Edward's forehead was damp with sweat.

'Merciful God!' he thought, 'that such things should be!'

'And when I've heard things screaming and crying to be loosed, and them in traps, and never a one coming to 'em but me, it's come o'er me to won'er who'd loose _me_ out if I was in a trap.'

'God would.'

'I dunna think so. He ne'er lets the others out.'

Edward was silent. The radiant day had gone dark, and he groped in it.

'What for dunnot He, my soul? What for dun He give 'em mouths so's they can holla, and not listen at 'em? I listen when Foxy shouts out.'

At this moment Edward saw Abel approaching, swaggering along with the harp. He had never been glad to see him so far; now he was almost affectionate.

'Laws, Ed'ard!' said Abel, straining the affection to breaking-point, 'you'm having a randy, and no mistake! Dancing and all, I s'pose?'

'No. I shall go before the dancing.'

'You won't get our 'Azel to go along of you, then. Dance her will, like a leaf in the fall.'

'You'd rather come home with me on your wedding-eve, Hazel, wouldn't you?'

Abel, seeing Hazel's dismayed face, laughed loudly. Edward hated him as only sensitive temperaments can, and was conscience-stricken when he realized the fact.

'Well, Hazel?' he asked gently, and created a situation.

'I dunno,' said Hazel, awkwardly. A depressed silence fell between them; both were so bitterly disappointed. Abel, like an ancient mischievous gnome, went off, calling to Hazel:

'Clear your throat agen the judgin's over!'

The judges were locked into the barn where the exhibits were. They took a long while over the judging, presumably because they tasted everything, even to the turnips (Mrs. James was partial to early turnips). Edward and Hazel passed a window and looked in.

'Look at 'em longing after the old lady's jam!' said Hazel. 'It's a mercy the covers are well stuck on or they'd be in like wasps! Look at Mr. Frodley wi' the eggs! Dear now, he's sucking one like a lad at a throstles' nest! Oh! Father'd ought to be there! He ne'er eats a cooked egg. Allus raw. Oh! Mr. James has unscrewed a bottle of father's honey and dipped! Look at 'im sucking his fingers!'

'Do people buy the remnants?' asked Edward, amused and disgusted.

'Ah! What for not?'

The judges are now making a hearty meal off some cheeses.

'I wonder whose cheeses they are?' Edward mused.

They were, in fact, Vessons'. He always insisted on making cheeses for some obscure reason; possibly it was the pride of the old-fashioned servant in being worth more than his wages. Vessons certainly was. He made stacks of cheeses, and took them to fairs and shows without the slightest encouragement from his master, who, when Vessons returned, red with conflict, and said, planking down the money with intense pride--''Ere it is! I 'ad to labour for thre'pences, though,' would merely nod uninterestedly. But still the Undern cheeses went to shows labelled 'John Reddin, Esquire, per A. Vessons.'

At last the judges came out. The mere judging did not take long, for Mr. James usually considered his exhibit the best, and said so; the others, being only small-holders, were generally too polite to gainsay him.

Edward and Hazel went into the barn where the exhibits were set out with stern simplicity, looking brave and beautiful with their earthly glamour. There were rolls of golden butter, nut-brown eggs, snowy bouquets of broccoli, daffodils with the sun striking through their aery petals, masses of dark wallflower where a stray bee revelled. There was Abel's honey, with a large placard drawn by himself proclaiming in drunken capitals:

ABEL WOODUS. BEE-MAN.
COFFINS. HONEY. WREATHS.

OPEN TO ENGAGEMENTS TO PLAY THE HARP AT
WEDDINGS, WAKES AND CLUB-DAYS.

The golden jars shone; the sections in their lace-edged boxes, whitely sealed, were as provocative as the reserve of a fair woman.

Edward bought one for Hazel. 'To open on your wedding-day,' he said. But the symbolism, so apparent to him, was lost on Hazel.

Between the judging and the tea hour was a dull time. The races had not begun, and though an ancient of benign aspect announced continually, 'I'll take two to one!' no one responded.

The people stood about, taking their pleasure like an anaesthetic, and looking like drugged bees. Now and then an old man from a far hill-side would meet another old man from a farther one, and there would be handshaking lasting, perhaps, a quarter of an hour.

When Abel played, they remained stoical and silent, however madly or mournfully the harp cried. They took good music as their right.

Then Hazel sang, gazing up at the purple ramparts of the hills that hung above the show-ground, and Edward's eyes were full of tears.

A very old man, smooth-faced, and wondering as a baby, came, leaning on his stick, and stood before Hazel, gazing into her mouth with the steadfast curiosity of a dog at a gramophone. If she moved, he moved, absorbed, his jaw dropped with interest. Hazel did not notice him. She was free on the migratory wings of music. She did not see Vessons looking across the crowd with dismay, nor know that he edged away, muttering, 'That gel agen! Never will I!'

Edward was glad when the singing and collection were over, and he could take Hazel into the shilling tent, where sat the elite, and give her tea. People remained in a sessile state over tea for a long time while the chief race of the afternoon was begun by the ringing of a dinner-bell. The race took so long, the riders having to go round the course so many times, that people went on complacently with their tea, only looking out occasionally to see how things progressed, watching the riders go by--one with bright red braces, one in a blue cotton coat, two middle-aged men in their best bowlers, and one, obviously too well mounted for the rest, in correct riding-dress. They came round each time in the same order--the correct one, red braces, blue coat, and the bowlers last. Evidently the foremost one knew he could easily win, and the others had decided that 'it was to be.' In the machine-like regularity of their advent, their unaltered positions, and leisured pace, they were like hobby-horses.

'How many times have they bin round?' Hazel asked the waitress, who poured tea and made conversation in a sociable manner.

'It'll be the seventh. They might as well give over. They're only labouring to stay in the same place.'

'I want to see 'em come in,' said Hazel. They went out, but Abel waylaid them, and took Edward off to show him a queen bee in a box from Italy. Edward loathed bees in or out of boxes, but he was too kind-hearted to refuse. Abel was so unperceptive that he touched pathos.

Hazel found a place some distance down the course where she could look along the straight to the winning-post; she loved to hear them thunder past. She leaned over the rail and watched them come, still fatalistic, but gallant, bent on a dramatic finish, stooping and 'cutting' their horses. The first man was on her side of the course. She stared at him in amazed consternation as he came towards her. His strong blue eyes, caught by the fixity of her glance or by her bright hair, saw her, and became triumphant. He pulled the horse in sharply, and within a few yards of the winning-post wheeled and went back, amid the jeers and howls of the crowd, who thought he must be drunk.

'You've given me a long enough chase,' he said, leaning towards her. 'Where the devil _do_ you live?'

'Oh, dunna stop! He's coming.'

'Who?'

'Mr. Marston, the minister.'

'What do I care if he's a dozen ministers?'

'But he'll be angered.'

'I'll make his nose bleed if he's got such cheek.'

'Oh, he's coming, Mr. Reddin! I mun go.' She turned away. Reddin followed.

'Why should he be angry?'

'Because we're going to be wed to-morrow'

Reddin whistled.

'And Foxy's coming, and all of 'em. And there's a clock as tick-tacks ever so sleepy, and a sleepy old lady, and Ed'ard's bought me a box full of clothes.'

'I gave you a box full too,' he said with a note of pleading. 'You little runaway!'

Hazel was annoyed because he disturbed her so. She wanted to get rid of him, and she desired to exercise her power. So she looked up and said impishly:

'Yours were old 'uns. His be new--new as morning.'

He was too angry to swear.

'You've got to come and talk to me while they're dancing to-night,' he said.

'I wunna.'

'You must. If you don't, I'll tell the parson you stopped the night at Undern. Surely you know that he wouldn't marry you then?'

He was bluffing. He knew Vessons would tell Marston the truth if he spoke. But it served his turn.

'You wouldna!'