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

/> ''Er?' queried Reddin, shaking hands in his rather race-course manner.

'Introduce me, Mr. Reddin!' simpered Amelia Clomber. It was painful when she simpered; her mouth was made for sterner uses.

They surveyed Hazel, who shrank from their gaze. Something in their eyes made her feel as if they were her judges, and as if they knew all about Hunter's Spinney.

They looked at her with detestation. They thought it was detestation for a sinner. Really, it was for the woman who had, in a few weeks after meeting him, found favour in Reddin's eyes, and attained that defeat which, to women even so desiccated as the Clombers, is the one desired victory.

They had come, as they told each other before and after their visit, to snatch a brand from the burning. What was in the heart of each--the frantic desire to be mistress of Undern--they did not mention.

Miss Clomber had taken exception to Amelia's tight dress. For Amelia had a figure, and Miss Clomber had not. She always flushed at the text, 'We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts.'

Amelia was aware of her advantage as she engaged Reddin in conversation. He fell in with the arrangement, for he detested her sister, who always prefaced every remark with 'Have you read--?'

As he never read anything, he thought she was making fun of him.

'And what,' asked Miss Clomber of Hazel, lowering her lids like blinds, 'was your maiden name?'

'Woodus.'

'Where were you married?'

'The Mountain.'

'Shawly there's no charch there?'

'Ah! Ed'ard's church.'

'Edward?'

'Ah! He's minister.'

'You mean the chapel. So that's your persuasion. Now Mr. Reddin is such a sta'nch Charchman.'

Reddin looked exceedingly discomfited.

'And when did this happy event take place?'

A cat with a mouse was nothing to Miss Clomber with a sinner.

At this point Reddin saw, as he put it, what she was driving at. He was very sleepy, having been out all day and eaten a large tea, and he never combated a physical desire. So he cut across a remark of Amelia's to the effect that marriage with the _right_ woman so added to a man's comfort, and said:

'I'm not married if that's what you mean.'

'Then who--' said Miss Clomber, feeling that she had him now.

'My keep,' he said baldly. He thought they would go at that. But they sat tight. They had, as Miss Clomber said afterwards, a soul to save. They both realized how pleasant might be the earthly lot of one engaged in this heavenly occupation.

'Hah! You call a spade a spade, Mr. Reddin,' said Miss Clomber, with a frosty glance at Hazel; 'you are not, as our dear Browning has it, "mealy mouthed".'

'In the breast of a true woman,' said Amelia authoritatively, as a fishmonger might speak of fish, 'is no room for blame.'

'True woman be damned!'

Miss Clomber saw that for to-day the cause was lost.

At this point Miss Amelia uttered a piercing yell. The hedgehog, encouraged by being left to itself, and by the slight dusk that had begun to gather in the northerly rooms of Undern--where night came early--had begun to creep about. Surreptitiously guided by Hazel's foot, it had crept under Amelia's skirt and laid its cold inquiring head on her ankle, thinly clad for conquest.

Hazel went off into peals of laughter, and Miss Amelia hated her more than before.

Vessons, in the kitchen, shook his head.

'I never heerd the like of the noise there's been since that gel come. Never did I!' he said.

'Leave him!' said Miss Clomber to Hazel on the doorstep. She was going to add 'for my sake,' but substituted 'his.' 'You are causing him to sin,' she added.

'Be I?' Hazel felt that she was always causing something wrong. Then she sighed. 'I canna leave 'im.'

'Why not?'

'He wunna let me.'

With that phrase, all unconsciously, she took a most ample revenge on the Clombers; for it rang in their ears all night, and they knew it was true.


Chapter 29

On Sunday Vessons put his resolve--to go to the Mountain and reveal Hazel's whereabouts--into practice. If he had waited, gossip would have done it for him. He set out in the afternoon, having 'cleaned' himself and put on his pepper-and-salt suit, buff leggings, red waistcoat, and the jockey-like cap he affected. He arrived at the back door just as Martha was taking in supper. 'Well?' said Martha, who wanted to have her meal and go home.

'Well?' said Vessons.

'When I say "well," I mean what d'you want?'

'Allus say what you mean.'

'Who d'you want? Me?'

'The master.'

'The master's out.'

'I'll wait, then.'

He sat down by the fire, and looked so fixedly at Martha as she poured out her tea that she offered him some in self-defence. He drew up his chair. Now that he was receiving hospitality, he felt that he must be agreeable and complimentary.

'Single, I suppose?' he asked.

'Ah,' said Martha coyly, 'I'm single; but I've no objection to matrimony.'

'Oh!' Vessons spoke sourly, 'I'm sorry for you, then.'

'Maybe you're a married man yourself?'

'Never.'

'Better late than never!'

'If I've kep' out of it in the heat of youth, is it likely I'll go into it in the chilly times? Maiden I am to my dying day!'

'But if you was to meet a nice tidy woman as had a bit saved?' To Martha, a bridegroom of sixty-five seemed better than nothing.

'If I met a score nice tidy women, if I met a gross nice tidy women, it 'ud be no different.'

'Not if she could make strong ale?'

'I can make ale myself. No woman shall come into my kitchen for uncounted gold.'

Martha sighed as she changed the subject.

'What do you want the master for?'

'Never tell your tidings,' said Vessons, 'till you meet the king.'

'Martha!'

Mrs. Marston stood at the kitchen door in the most splendid of her caps--a pagoda of white lace--and her voice was, as she afterwards said, 'quite sharp,' its mellifluousness being very slightly reduced.

Vessons rose, touching his hair.

'What is it, my good man?'

'A bit of news, mum.'

'For my son?'

'Ah!'

'You may go, Martha,' said Mrs. Marston, and Martha went without alacrity.

'Now.' Mrs. Marston spoke encouragingly.

'It's for the master.'

'He cannot see you.'

The two old faces regarded each other with silent obstinacy, and Vessons recognized that, for all Mrs. Marston's soft outlines, she was as obstinate as he was. He cleared his throat several times.

Mrs. Marston produced a lozenge, which he ate reluctantly, chumbling it with nervous haste. He was so afraid that she would give him another that he told her his news.

'Thank you,' she said, keeping her dignity in a marvellous manner. 'Mrs. Edward Marston, of course, wrote to the minister, but she forgot to give her address.'

'Accidents will 'appen,' Vessons remarked, as he went out.

It was some time before Edward came in. He had spent most of his time since last Sunday tramping the hillsides. It was not till he had finished his very cursory meal that his mother said calmly, looking over her spectacles:

'I know where Hazel is.'

'You _know_, mother? Why didn't you tell me?'

'I am telling you, dear. There's nothing to be in a taking about. You've had no supper yet. A little preserve?'

Edward, in a sudden passion that startled her, threw the jam-dish across the room. It made a red splash on the wall. Mrs. Marston stopped chumbling her toast, and remained with the rotary motions of her mouth in abeyance. Then she said slowly:

'Your poor father always said, dear, that you'd break out some day. And you have. The best dish! Of course the jam I say little about; jam is but jam, after all; but the cut-glass dish--!'

'Can't you go on with the tale, mother?'

'Yes, my dear, yes. But you fluster me like the Silverton Cheap-jack does; I never _can_ buy the dish he holds up, for I get in such a fluster for fear he'll break it, and then he does. And now you have.'

Edward pushed back his chair in desperation.

'For pity's sake!' he said.

'I'm telling you. I never thought Hazel was steadfast, you know.'

'Where _is_ she? Why will you torment me?'

'An old man came. A very untrustworthy old man, I fear. A defiant manner, and that is never pleasant. There he was in the kitchen with Martha! Age is no barrier to wrong, and Martha was very flushed. There was a deal of laughter, too.'

'Mother! If you keep on like this, I shall go mad.'

'Why, Edward, you are all in a fever. There, there! It's more peaceful without her, and I wish Mr. Reddin well of her.'

'Reddin? What Reddin?'

'Mr. Reddin of Undern. Who else?'

'Damn the fellow!'

'Edward! What words you take on your lips! And just think,' she went on sorrowfully, 'that he seemed such a nice man. He liked the gooseberry wine so much, and gave me a "ma'am," which is more than Martha does half her time. Where are you going?'

'To Undern.'

'What for?'

'Hazel.'

Mrs. Marston sat bolt upright.

'But, of course, she'll never darken the door again!'

'I shall bring her back to-night, of course.'

'But, my dear! You must divorce her, however unpleasant on account of the papers. Remember, she has been there a week.'

'What of that?'

'But a week, dear!'

'Mother, I did not think to hear the talk of the filthy world from you.'

Mrs. Marston quailed a little. There is nothing in the world so pure, so wonderful, so strong, as a young man's love can be--nothing so spiritual, nothing so brave.

Mrs. Marston, in her own words, 'shed tears.'

'Don't cry, mother, but help me,' Edward said. 'Be ready for her, love her. She is as pure as a dew-drop. I know it. And I want her more than life.'

'But if she doesn't want you, Edward, what more is to do?'

'To seek and to save,' snapped Edward, and he banged the door and went hatless down the path between the heavy-browed tombstones. But he came back to suggest that there should be some tea ready.

As he went down the batch, owls were shrieking in the woods, and the sky was pied with grey and crimson, like bloodstained marble. The cries of the owls were hard as marble also, and of a polished ferocity. They would have their prey.

He walked fast through the lonely fields where Hazel had passed on her mushrooming morning. The roses that had then been in the bud were falling.

At Alderslea people stared at him as he went by, flushed and hatless.

From Alderslea to Wolf batch was some miles; from there to Undern the way lay over Bitterly Hill, where he missed the path. So it was quite dark when he came past Undern Pool, lying black and ghastly in its ring of skeleton trees. The foxhound set up a loud baying within. Only one window was lit.

Edward hammered on the knocker, and the sound echoed in the hollow house.

There was