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

a noise within of a door opening, and Hazel's voice cried: 'I wouldna go. It's a tramp, likely.'

Then Reddin laughed, and Edward clenched his hands in rage at the easy self-confidence of him. The bolt was drawn back, and Reddin stood in the doorway, outlined by pale light.

'Who is it?' he asked in rather a jovial tone. He felt at peace with the world now Hazel was here.

'Beast!' Edward said tersely.

'Just come in a minute, my lad, and let's have a look at you. People don't call me names twice.'

Hazel had heard Edward's voice.

She ran to the door, and the apple-green gown rustled about her.

'Ed'ard! Ed'ard! Dunna go for to miscall him! He'll hurt 'ee! He's stronger'n you. Do 'ee go back, Ed'ard!'

'Never! till you come, too.'

'I like that,' said Reddin. 'Can't you see she's got my gown on her back? She's mine. She was never yours.'

He looked meaningly and triumphantly at Edward.

'Oh, dunna, Jack! What for do you go to shame me?' said Hazel, twisting her hands.

Edward took no notice of her.

'I don't know what evil means you used, or how you brought the poor child here,' he said, controlling himself with an effort. 'But you have tried to rob me, and you have insulted her--'

'Oh, don't come here talking like an injured husband,' Reddin said; 'you know you aren't her husband.'

'Keep your foul mouth shut before innocence! To try and rob a poor child of her freedom, of her soul--'

Hazel wondered at him. His eyes darkened so upon Reddin, his face was so powerful, irradiated with love and anger.

'So young!' he went on--'so young, and as wild as a little bird. How could anyone help letting her take her own way? She wanted to go free in the woods. I let her; and there you were like a sneaking wolf.'

He threw a look at Hazel so full of wistful tenderness that she flung the green skirt over her head and sobbed.

'Stow it, can't you?' said Reddin. 'If you want a fight, say so; but don't preach all night.'

His tone was injured. He felt that he had been particularly considerate to Edward in sending him the letter. Also, he was convinced that he had only taken what Edward did not want. That Edward could love Hazel was beyond his comprehension. If a man loved a woman, he possessed her, took his pleasure of her. Love that was abnegation was to his idea impossible. So that, now, when Edward spoke of his love, Reddin simply thought he was posing.

'Why didn't you let her be?'

'Women don't want to be let be,' said Reddin with a very unpleasant laugh.

'Oh! stop talking about me as if I wunna here!' cried Hazel.

'If she loved you, I'd say nothing,' Edward went on, staring at Reddin fixedly. 'The fact that I'm her husband would not have counted with me, if you'd loved her and she you.'

'A fine pastor!'

'But you don't. You only wanted--Oh! you make me sick!'

'Indeed! Well, I'm man enough to take what I want; you're not.'

'You trapped her; you would have betrayed her. But, thank God! a young girl's innocence is a wonderful and powerful thing.'

Reddin was astounded. Could Marston really be such a fool as to believe in Hazel still?

'The innocent young girl--' he began, but Hazel struck him on the mouth.

'All right, spitfire!' he said; 'mum's the word.' He was surprisingly good-humoured.

'Well, Hazel'--Edward spoke in a matter-of-fact tone--'shall we go home now?'

'Dunnat ask me, Ed'ard! I mun bide.'

'Why?'

Hazel was silent. She could not explain the strange instinct, stronger than her wildness, that Reddin had awakened in her, and that chained her here with invisible chains.

'Come home, little Hazel!' he pleaded.

'I canna,' she whispered.

'Why? You can if you want to. Don't you want to?'

'Ah! I do that.'

She was torn between her longing to go and her powerlessness to leave Reddin.

The light went out of Edward's face.

'Do you love this man?' he asked.

'No.'

'Does it make you better to live with him?'

'No. It was living with you as did that.'

Reddin was so enraged that he struck her, and her expression of submission as she cowered under the blow was worse to Edward than the blow itself. He forgot his views about violence, and struck Reddin back.

'Come outside,' said Reddin in a tone of relief. The situation had now taken a comprehensible turn for him.

'If it's fighting you're after, I'm with you; that's settling it like gentlemen. What are you grinning at?' He spoke huffily. 'Dunna snab at each other! What for do you?' said Hazel.

'Because you're husband's jealous.'

Edward was exasperated by the realization that his action in coming did look like that of the commonplace husband. But, after all, what did it matter? Nothing mattered but Hazel. He looked across at her crouched in the armchair sobbing. He went to her and patted her shoulder.

'No one's angry with you, dear,' he said. 'Afterwards, when we're home, you shall explain it all to me.'

'If you win!' put in Reddin.

Edward stooped and kissed Hazel's hand. The momentary doubt of her--cruel as hell--had gone. She was his lady, and he was going to fight for her. Hazel looked up at him, and in that instant she almost loved him.

They went out. It was a black moonless night. They stood near the lit window.

'Draw the blind up!' shouted Reddin.

Hazel drew it up. They faced each other in the square of light. They were both quite collected. It seemed difficult to begin. The humour of this struck Reddin, and he laughed.

Edward looked at him disgustedly. Reddin began to feel a fool.

'We must begin,' he said.

Seeing that Edward was waiting for him to strike the first blow, and not being angry enough to do so, Reddin said coarsely:

'No good fighting, parson! She's mine--from head to foot.'

He received as good a blow as Edward was capable of. They fought with hard-drawn breath, for they were neither of them in training. To Edward it seemed ridiculous to be fighting; to Reddin it seemed ridiculous to be fighting such an opponent.

They moved out of the light and back again in the tense silence of the night. A rat splashed in the pool, and silence fell again.

Edward could not do much more than defend himself, and Reddin's eyes shone triumphantly. Within, Hazel leaned against the glass faintly. It was as if evil and good, angels and devils, fought for her. And whichever won, she was equally forlorn. She did not want heaven; she wanted earth and the green ways of earth.

'Oh, he'll kill Ed'ard!' she moaned.

Edward staggered under a blow, and she hid her eyes. Suddenly she thought of Vessons. Where was he? She ran to the kitchen calling him. He was not there. She went to the stables. He was nowhere to be found. Drawn by an irresistible curiosity, she rushed back to the front of the house. Under the yew-tree she ran into Vessons.

'Sh!' he whispered. 'Say nought! I'll tell you what's a mortal good thing for a dog-fight--pepper!' He held up the kitchen pepper-pot. In the other hand he had the poker.

'Now I'll part 'em, missus, you see!'

'Quick, then!'

But as she spoke Reddin got in a blow on Edward's jaw, and he fell.

Hazel rushed forward.

'You murderer!'--she screamed, and she bit Reddin's hand as he stretched it out to catch her, and bent over Edward. The victor in the fight was fated to be the loser with Hazel, for she had a never-broken compact with all creatures defeated.

She ran to the pool for water.

'Catch a holt on him!' she cried to Vessons; 'he's a murderer!'

Reddin stood by, confused and mystified at Hazel's unlooked-for behaviour. Vessons bent over Edward. He struck a match and held it to the end of his nose, chuckling as Edward winced.

'I'll tell you summat as is mortal tough!' he remarked. 'A minister of the Lord! Will the gen'leman stay supper?' he inquired of Reddin.

'No!' said Hazel; 'Mr. Reddin'll take supper alone, for allus, to his dying day. Put the horse in, please, Mr. Vessons.'

'Right you are, missus.'

Reddin was so taken aback by the turn of events, and his head ached so much, that he had nothing to say. He watched Vessons bring the horse round, blinked at Hazel as she tore off the silk dress and borrowed Edward's coat instead, and glowered dumbly at Edward as he was helped into the trap. Hazel sat between the two men.

'Pluck up!' said Vessons to the cob unemotionally, and the trap jogged through the gate and out on to the open hill.

'And if it cosses me my place, I'll tell ye one thing!' Vessons said to himself: 'There's as good to be had, and better.'

'Well, I'm damned, said Reddin as they disappeared in the darkness. He went in and finished the whisky in a state of mystification that ended in sleep.


Chapter 30

As the horse trotted along the hard road, rabbits scuttled across in the momentary lamplight. Hazel tied her handkerchief round Edward's head.

All the windows were dark in Alderslea, except one faint dormer where an old woman was dying. They began to climb the lane that led up to the Mountain. Cattle looked over hedges, breathing hard with curiosity. In an upland field a flock of horned sheep were racing to and fro through a gap in the hedge, coughing and stamping at intervals, and looking, as the moon rose, like fantastic devils working sorcery with their own shadows.

The lamps dimmed in the moonlight and the world seemed to widen infinitely, like life at the coming of love. The country lay below like a vast white mere, and the hill sloped vaguely to a silver sky. Vessons walked up the batch to ease the cob, and Edward looked down at Hazel and murmured:

'My little child!'

'Dunna talk,' said Hazel quickly; 'it's bad for 'ee!' She was afraid to break the magical silence, afraid that the new peace that came with Marston's presence would vanish like the moon in driving cloud, and that she would feel the dragging chain that pulled her back to Reddin.

Edward was silent, puzzling over the question, Why had not Hazel asked for his help? Reddin must have seen her at least several times, must have persecuted her. He grew very uneasy. He must ask Hazel.

They drew up before the white-sentried graveyard. Vessons went up the path and knocked at the silent house. Then he threw handfuls of white spar off a grave at the windows. The Minorca cockerel crew reedily.

'That's unlucky,' said Hazel.

Mrs. Marston put her head out, very sleepy, and asked who it was.

'The conquering 'ero!' said Vessons, as Edward and Hazel came up the path, deeply shadowed. He got into the trap and drove off.

'Well, Undern'll be summat like itself again now,' he thought.

'It was a deal more peaceable without her, naughty girl!' thought Mrs. Marston as she sadly and lethargically put on her clothes.

'Well, Edward!' she exclaimed, when she came down in