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

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'I was mothering 'em!'

'You're very keen on mothering! Wouldn't you like a kid to mother?'

'No. I'd liefer mother the bees and foxes as none takes thought on. I dunna like babies much--all bald and wrinkly. Martha said as having 'em made folk pray to die, but as it was worth anything to get one. But I dunna think so. I think they'm ugly. I seed one in a pram outside that cottage in the Hollow' (Reddin jumped), 'and it was uglier than a pig. I think you're a cruel beast, Jack Reddin, to burn my bees, and they so comforble, knowing I was taking care on 'em.'

She would not speak to him for the rest of the day. He was so bored in the evening that he went out and demanded a boxful of bees from Vessons.

'The missus wants 'em,' he said sheepishly.

Vessons was prepared to be pleasant in small matters. He fetched some from the hive.

''Ere you are,' he said patronizingly; 'but you munna be always coming to me after 'em.'

He was oblivious of the fact that they were Reddin's bees.

Reddin presented them.

'There,' he said gruffly; 'now you can be civil again.'

'But these be hive-bees!' said Hazel, 'and they was comforble to begin with! I dunna want that sort. I wanted miserable uns!'

'Hang it! how could I know?' asked Reddin irritably.

'No. I suppose you couldna,' said Hazel; 'you'm terrible stupid, Jack Reddin!'

So life went on at Undern, and Hazel adapted herself to it as well as she could. It was strange that the longer she lived there the more she thought of Edward. She always saw his face lined with grief and very pale, not tanned and ruddy with fresh air as she had known it. It was as if his mentality reached across the valley to hers and laid its melancholy upon her. Sometimes she was very homesick for Foxy, but she would not have her at Undern. She did not trust the place. She never went out anywhere, for people stared, and when Reddin, with some difficulty, persuaded her to amble round the fields with him on a pony he picked up cheap for her, she always wanted to keep in his own fields.

It was not until nearly the end of October that Vessons got his chance. Reddin had to go to a very important fair. He wanted Hazel to go with him, but she said she was tired, and, guessing the reason, he immediately gave in.

In spite of Vessons' earnest desire to get him off, he started late. He galloped most of the way, determined to get in early. He liked coming home to tea and seeing Hazel awaiting him in the firelight.

As soon as she had gone, Vessons set out for Sally's, anxious that she should be quick. But Sally would not hurry. It was washing-day, and she also insisted on making all the children very smart, unaware that their extreme ugliness was her strength. It was not till three o'clock that she arrived at the front door, baby in arms, the four children, heavily expectant, at her heels, and Vessons stage-managing in the background.

Hazel had been looking at two of the only books at Undern-'The Horse' and 'The Dog,' illustrated. Vessons had views about books. He considered them useful in their place.

'There's nought like a book,' he would say, 'one of these 'ere big fat novels or a book of sermons, to get a nice red gledy fire. A book at the front and a bit of slack behind, and there you are!'

There the books were, too.

So Hazel looked at the 'Book of the Horse' until she knew all the pictures by heart. She had fallen asleep over it, and she jumped up in panic when Sally spoke.

'Who be you?' she asked in a frightened voice as they eyed her.

'I'm Sally Haggard and these be my children.' She surveyed them proudly. 'D'you notice that they favour anyone?'

Hazel looked at them timidly.

'They favour you,' she said.

'Not Mr. Reddin?'

'Mr. Reddin?'

'Ah! They'd ought to. They'm his'n.'

'His'n?'

'Yes, parrot.'

'Be you the 'ooman as Martha said Jack lived along of?'

'He did live along of me.'

'Why, then, you'd ought to be Mrs. Reddin, and wear this gownd, and live at Undern,' said Hazel.

'Eh?' Sally was astonished.

'And he said there wunna any other but me.'

Sally laughed.

'You believed that lie? You little softie!'

Hazel looked at the children.

'Be they _all_ his'n?' she said.

'Every man-jack of 'em, and not so much as a thank you for me!'

The children were ranged near their mother--on high chairs. They gaped at Hazel, sullen and critical. An irrepressible question broke from Hazel.

'What for did you have 'em?'

Sally stared.

'What for?' she repeated. 'Surely to goodness, girl, you're not as innicent-like as that?'

'I ain't ever going to have any,' Hazel went on with great firmness, as she eyed the children.

'God above!' muttered Sally. 'He's fooled her worse'n me!'

'Come and look at the baby, my dear,' she said in a voice astonishingly soft. She looked at Hazel keenly. 'Dunna you know?' she asked.

'What?'

'As you're going to have a baby?'

Hazel sprang up, all denial. But Sally, having told the children to play, spoke for a long time in a low tone, and finally convinced a white, sick, trembling Hazel of the fact. Not being sensitive herself, she did not realize the ghastly terror caused by her lurid details of the coming event.

Hazel looked so ill that Sally tried to administer consolation. 'Maybe it'll be a boy, and you'll be fine and pleased to see 'un growing a fine tall man like Reddin.'

Hazel burst into tears, so that the children stopped their play to watch and laugh.

'But I dunna want it to grow up like Jack,' she said. 'I want it to grow up like Ed'ard, and none else!'

'Well! You _are_ a queer girl. If you like him as you call Ed'ard what for did you take up with Jack?'

'I dunno.'

'Well, the best you can do,' said Sally, 'is to go back to your Edward, lithermonsload and all. And if he wunna take you--'

'Eh, but he will!' A wonderful tender smile broke on Hazel's face. 'He'll come to the front door and pull me in and say, "Come in little Hazel, and get a cup of tea." And it'll be all the same as it was used to be.'

'Well, he must be a fool! But so much the better for you. If I was you, I'd go right back to-neet. Now what's you say to a cup o' tea? I'm thinking it's high time I took a bite and sup in this parlour!'

They got tea; and Vessons, hovering in the yard, was in despair. He could not appear, for Hazel must not know his part in the affair. 'Laws! If they've begun on tea, it's all up with Andrew,' he remarked to the swan in passing.

Dusk came on and still no Sally appeared. The two chimneys smoked hospitably, and he wanted his tea. He was a very miserable old man. He repaired to the farthest corner of the domain and began to cut a hedge, watching the field track. Soon Reddin appeared, and Vessons was unable to repress a chuckle.

'Rather 'im than me!' he said.

Reddin, having fruitlessly shouted for Vessons, took the cob round to the yard himself. Then he went in. As he entered the parlour, aware of a comfortable scent of tea and toast, he met the solemn gaze of seven pairs of eyes, and for a moment he was, for all his tough skin, really staggered.

Then he advanced upon Sally with his stock firmly grasped in his hand.

'Get out of this!' he said.

The baby set up a yell. Sally rose and stood with her arm raised to fend off the blow.

'Jack,' said Hazel, 'she'm got the best right to be at Undern. Leave her stay! She'm a right nice 'ooman.'

Reddin gasped. Why would Hazel always do and say exactly the opposite to what he expected?

'But you're the last person--' he began. 'You're thinking she'd ought to be jealous of me, Jack Reddin,' said Sally. 'But we'm neither of us jealous! I tell you straight! She's too good for you. You've lied to me; I'm used to it. Now you'm lied to her--the poor innicent little thing!'

'What for did you tell me lies, Jack?' asked Hazel.

What with the unfaltering gaze of the two women, and the unceasing howls of the baby, Reddin was completely routed.

'Oh, damn you all!' he said, and went hot-foot in a towering passion to look for Vessons. A man to rage at would be a very great luxury. Having at last found Vessons, harmlessly hedge-brushing, he was rather at a loss.

'How dare you let Sally in?' he began.

'Sally?'

'Yes. Why the h-- did you come away here and leave the house?'

'The 'edge wanted doing.'

His tone was so innocent that Reddin was suspicious.

'You didn't bring her yourself, did you?'

'Now, _is_ it me,' said Vessons, reasonable but hurt, 'as generally brings these packs of unruly women to Undern?'

'I believe you're lying, Vessons.'

Vessons opened his mouth to say, 'Notice is giv''; but seeing that in his master's present mood it might be accepted, he closed it again.

When Reddin went in, Sally was gone, and Hazel, much as usual, ministered to his comfort. The only signs of the recent tumult were the constrained silence and the array of cups and plates.

'You'd better understand once and for all,' he said at last, 'that I'll never have that woman here.'

'Not if I went?'

'Never! I'd kill her first.'

'What for did you tell me lies?'

'Because you were so pretty and I wanted you.'

The flattery fell on deaf ears.

'Them chillun's terrible ugly,' said Hazel wearily.

Reddin came over to her.

'But yours'll be pretty!' he said.

'Dunna come nigh me!' cried Hazel fiercely. 'She says I'm going to have a little 'un! It was a sneak's trick, that; and you're a cruel beast, Jack Reddin, to burn my bees and kill the rabbits and make me have a little 'un unbeknown.'

'But it's what all women expect!'

'You'd ought to have told me. She says it's mortal pain to have a baby, and I'm feared--I'm feared!'

'Hazel,' he said humbly, 'I may as well tell you now that I mean to marry you. The parson must divorce you. Then we'll be married. And I'll turn over a new leaf.'

'I'll ne'er marry you!' said Hazel, 'not till Doom breaks. I dunna like you. I like Ed'ard. And if I mun have a baby, I'd lief it was like Ed'ard, and not like you.'

With that she went out of the room, and he noticed that she was wearing the dress she had come in, and not the silk.

He sat by the fire, brooding; but at last managed to cheer himself by the thought that she would get over it in time. She was naturally upset by Sally just now.

'And, of course, the parson'll never take her back, nor her father,'