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

a promise from Vessons, so she made no retort.

'You wunna tell 'im?' she pleaded.

''Im? Never will I! Wild 'orses shanna drag it from me, nor yet blood 'orses, nor 'unters, nor cart-'orses, nor Suffolk punches!' Vessons waxed eloquent, for again righteousness and desire coincided. He did not want a woman at Undern.

'Well,' said Hazel, whispering through the crack, 'I lives at the Callow.'

'What! that lost and forgotten place t'other side the Mountain?'

'Ah! But it inna lost and forgotten; it's better'n this. We've got bees.'

'So've I got bees.'

'And a music.'

'Music? What's a music? You canna eat it.'

'And my dad makes coffins.'

'Does 'e, now?' said Vessons, interested at last. Then he bethought him of the credit of Undern. 'But you anna got a mulberry-tree,' he said triumphantly. 'Now then! _I_ 'ave!'

He creaked downstairs.

In a few moments Hazel also went down, and drank her tea by the red fire in the kitchen, watching the frost-flowers being softly effaced from the window as if someone rubbed them away with a sponge. Snow like sifted sugar was heaped on the sill, and the yard and outbuildings and fields, the pools and the ricks, all had the dim radiance of antimony.

'Where be the road?' asked Hazel, standing on the door-step and feeling rather lost. 'How'll I find it?'

'You wunna find it.'

'Oh, but I mun!'

'D'you think Andrew Vessons'll let an 'ooman trapse in the snow when he's got good horses in stable?' queried Vessons grandly. 'I'll drive yer.'

'I'm much obleeged, I'm sure,' said Hazel. 'But wunna he know?'

'He'll sleep till noon if I let 'im,' said Andrew.

They drove off in silence, the snow muffling the plunging hoofs. Hazel looked back as the sky crimsoned for dawn. The house fronted her with a look of power and patience. She felt that it had not yet done with her. She wondered how she would feel if Reddin suddenly appeared at his window. And a tiny traitorous wish slipped up from somewhere in her heart. She watched the windows till a turn hid the house, and then she sighed. Almost she wished that Reddin had awakened.

But she soon forgot everything in delight; for the snow shone, the long slots of the rabbits and hares, the birds' tracks in orderly rows, the deep footprints of sheep, all made her laugh by their vagaries, for they ran in loops and in circles, and appeared like the crazy steps of a sleep-walker to those who had not the key of their activity. Hazel's own doings were like that; everyone's doings are like it, if one sees the doings without the motive.

Plovers wheeled and cried desolately, seeing the soft relentless snow between themselves and their green meadows, sad as those that see fate drawing thick veils between themselves and the meadows of their hope and joy.

At the foot of the Callow Hazel got out.

'Never tell him,' she said, looking up.

'Never in life,' said Vessons.

Hazel hesitated.

'Never tell him,' she added, 'unless he asks a deal and canna rest.'

'He may ask till Doomsday,' said Vessons, 'and he may be restless as the ten thousand ghosses that trapse round Undern when the moon's low, but I'll ne'er tell 'im.'

Hazel sighed, and turned to climb the hill. 'A missus at Undern!' said Andrew to the cob's ears as they trotted home. 'No, never will I!'

A magpie rose from a wood near the road, jibing at him. He looked round almost as if it had been someone laughing at his resolve, and repeated, 'Never will I!'

'Where's Hazel?' asked Reddin.

'Neither wild 'orses, nor blood 'orses, nor race 'orses nor cart 'orses, nor Suffolk punches--' began Vessons whose style was cumulative, and who, when he had made a good phrase, was apt to work it to death like any other artist. 'Oh, you're drunk, Vessons!' said his master.

'Shall drag it from me,' finished Vessons.

Reddin knew this was true, and felt rather hopeless. Still, he determined not to give up the search until he had found Hazel.

He inquired at the Hunter's Arms, but Vessons had been there before him, and he was met by pleasant stupidity.

Vessons was of the people, Reddin of the aristocracy, so the frequenters of the Hunter's Arms sided as one man against Reddin.

'You'll not get another bite of that apple,' said Vessons with satisfaction, when his master returned with downcast face.

'I can't stand your manners much longer, Vessons,' said he irritably.

'Gie me notice, then,' said Vessons, falling back on the well-worn formula, and scoring his usual triumph.

Reddin had the faults of his class, but turning an old servant adrift was not one of them. Vessons traded on this, and invariably said and did exactly what he liked.


Chapter 7

When Hazel got in, her father had finished his breakfast and was busy at work.

'Brought the wreath-frames?' he asked, without looking up.

'Ah.'

'He's jead at last. At the turn of the night. They came after the coffin but now. I'll be able to get them there new section crates I wanted. He's doing more for me, wanting a coffin, and him stiff and cold, than what he did in the heat of life.'

'Many folks be like that,' said Hazel out of her new wisdom. Neither of them reflected that Abel had always been like that towards Hazel, that she was becoming more like it to him every year.

Abel made no remark at all about Hazel's adventures, and she preserved a discreet silence.

'That little vixen's took a chicken,' said Abel, after a time; 'that's the second.'

'She only does it when I'm away, being clemmed,' said Hazel pleadingly.

'Well, if she does it again,' Abel announced, 'it's the water and a stone round her neck. So now you know.'

'You durstn't.'

'We'll see if I durst.'

Hazel fled in tears to the unrepentant and dignified Foxy. Some of us find it hard enough to be dignified when we have done right; but Foxy could be dignified when she had done wrong, and the more wrong, the more dignity.

She was very bland, and there was a look of deep content--digestive content, a state bordering on the mystic's trance--in her affectionate topaz eyes.

It had been a tender and nourishing chicken; the hours she had spent in gnawing through her rope had been well repaid.

'Oh! you darlin' wicked little thing!' wailed Hazel. 'You munna do it, Foxy, or he'll drown you dead. What for did you do it, Foxy, my dear?'

Foxy's eyes became more eloquent and more liquid.

'You gallus little blessed!' said Hazel again. 'Eh! I wish you and me could live all alone by our lonesome where there was no men and women.'

Foxy shut her eyes and yawned, evidently feeling doubtful if such a halcyon place existed in the world.

Hazel sat on her heels and thought. It was flight or Foxy. She knew that if she did not take Foxy away, her renewed naughtiness was as certain as sunset.

'You was made bad,' she said sadly but sympathetically. 'Leastways, you wasn't made like watch-dogs and house-cats and cows. You was made a fox, and you be a fox, and its queer-like to me, Foxy, as folk canna see that. They expect you to be what you wanna made to be. You'm made to be a fox; and when you'm busy being a fox they say you'm a sinner!'

Having wrestled with philosophy until Foxy yawned again, Hazel went in to try her proposition on Abel. But Abel met it as the world in general usually meets a new truth.

'She took the chick,' he said. 'Now, would a tarrier do that--a well-trained tarrier? I says 'e would _not_'

'But it inna fair to make the same law for foxes and terriers.'

'I make what laws suit me,' said Abel. 'And what goes agen me--gets drownded.'

'But it inna all for you!' cried Hazel.

'Eh?'

'The world wunna made in seven days only for Abel Woodus,' said Hazel daringly.

'You've come back very peart from Silverton,' said Abel reflectively-- 'very peart, you 'ave. How many young fellers told you your 'air was abron this time? That fool Albert said so last time, and you were neither to hold nor to bind. Abron! Carrots!'

But it was not, as he thought, this climax that silenced Hazel. It was the lucky hit about the young fellows and the reminiscence called up by the word 'abron.' He continued his advantage, mollified by victory.

'Tell you what it is, 'Azel; it's time you was married. You're too uppish.'

'I shall ne'er get married.'

'Words! words! You'll take the first as comes--if there's ever such a fool.'

Hazel wished she could tell him that one had asked her, and that no labouring man. But discretion triumphed.

'Maybe,' she said tossing her head, 'I _will_ marry, to get away from the Callow.'

'Well, well, things couldna be dirtier; maybe they'll be cleaner when you'm gone. Look's the floor!'

Hazel fell into a rage. He was always saying things about the floor. She hated the floor.

'I swear I'll wed the first as comes!' she cried--'the very first!'

'And last,' put in Abel. 'What'll you swear by?'

'By God's Little Mountain.'

'Well,' said Abel contentedly, 'now you've sworn _that_ oath, you're bound to keep it, and so now I know that if ever an 'usband _does_ come forrard you canna play the fool.'

Hazel was too wrathful for consideration.

'You look right tidy in that gownd,' Abel said. 'I 'spose you'll be wearing it to the meeting up at the Mountain?'

'What meeting?'

'Didna I tell you I'd promised you for it--to sing? They'm after me to take the music and play.'

Hazel forgot everything in delight.

'Be we going for certain sure?' she asked.

'Ah! Next Monday three weeks.'

'We mun practise.'

'They say that minister's a great one for the music. One of them sort as is that musical he canna play. There'll be a tea.'

'Eh!' said Hazel, 'it'll be grand to be in a gentleman's house agen!'

'When've you bin in a gentleman's house?'

Hazel was taken aback.

'Yesterday!' she flashed. 'If Albert inna a gent I dunno who is, for he's got a watch-chain brass-mockin'-gold all across his wescoat.'

Abel roared. Then he fell to in earnest on the coffin, whistling like a blackbird. Hazel sat down and watched him, resting her cheek on her hand. The cold snowlight struck on her face wanly.

'Dunna you ever think, making coffins for poor souls to rest in as inna tired, as there's a tree growing somewhere for yours?' she asked.

'Laws! What's took you? Measles? What for should I think of me coffin? That's about the only thing as I'll ne'er be bound to pay for.' He laughed. 'What ails you?'

'Nought. Only last night it came o'er me as I'll die as well as others.'

'Well, have you only just found that out? Laws! what a queen of fools you be!'

Hazel looked at the narrow box, and thought of the active, angular old man for whom it was now considered an ample house.

'It seems like the world's a big spring-trap, and us in it,' she said slowly. Then