When he suggested Hilda’s walking out with him she said:
‘What’s the good?’
‘Mean you don’t want to?’
‘It’s not a question of what I want. It’s what’s sensible. You better think again, Mr Dorsett.’
‘Will to you,’ said Dorsett. ‘Well, I’ve thought again, and I’m of the same mind. How about it?’
‘You know what people’ll say?’
‘Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t care.’
Plain speaking was Hilda’s way. ‘They’ll say my baby’s yours.’
Will Dorsett nodded. ‘Well?’ He shrugged and smiled. ‘Pity he isn’t, in a way. Suit me all right.’
‘Go on with you!’ Hilda laughed.
She laughed in order to clear the air, to gain time, to prevent things going too fast. First, if anything, must come the walking-out, the time-honoured probationary ritual that made for mutual understanding and committed no one to anything. And then … well, we’ll see.
‘What about tomorrow evening?’ said Will. ‘In Church Lane. Seven o’clock.’
She stood silent, considering deeply, lost in astonishment at the discovery that he meant what he said, and perhaps more.
Misinterpreting her silence he said, staring at the ground: ‘I’m not up to any tricks, girl. I mean honest by you.’
‘I know that all right,’ she said quickly.
In later talks, during those golden autumn evenings, they reverted often to the subject of young Caleb. She was warmed and comforted by Will’s goodness to her; she had always liked him in a neighbourly way; and she found less than no difficulty in becoming fond of him. But her astonished gratitude to him for wanting her, and her growing sense of a responsive desire in herself, left one axiom of the heart untouched. When the question of marriage came up she made it crystal clear that nothing would induce her to part with Caleb.
‘Well, why should you?’ said Will. ‘Plenty of room. He won’t quarrel with mine.’ Will was childless.
‘I thought maybe you knew, Will. Mrs Elderbrook wants to adopt him.’
‘Why?’ Will asked. Though by now he could guess why.
‘Because she has none of her own. And can’t have. They want to make a gentleman of him,’ she said bitterly.
‘Well … wouldn’t you like that?’
She did not answer. He saw that she was on the point of tears.
‘Because if you wouldn’t,’ he said, with a quick change of tone, ‘we won’t have it, my dear. You come along and be Mrs Dorsett, and I’ll teach young Caleb how to saddle the mare, soon’s he’s big enough. We’ll be as snug as you please. See?’
Hilda said no, and fully believed it was her last word. She said it wouldn’t be fair to him, and that she mustn’t go out with him any more. Wisely disregarding these gestures of despair, Mr Dorsett took an early opportunity of calling on Mrs Elderbrook and explaining his intentions, which were by now as firm as they were precise. If the girl would have him, he said modestly, speaking as though to the girl’s guardian, he would marry her any day she liked to name; and it was to be clearly understood that he must have the baby too.
‘We shall miss him dreadfully,’ Ann said. ‘We were hoping she would leave him with us. Don’t you think that perhaps, later on …’
‘You can’t part a mother from her baby, ma’am. It wouldn’t be right.’
Ann watched him shrewdly. ‘You’ve been very frank with me, Mr Dorsett’—a village carrier might be Will or plain Dorsett, but Hilda’s betrothed had a new dignity—‘and I do appreciate it very much. But let me be frank too. Between ourselves, you surely don’t want to begin your married life with another man’s child in the house?’
Dorsett flushed. ‘I want whatever Hilda wants, ma’am.’
So saying he rose to his feet; and Ann, offering her hand, said warmly: ‘Hilda is a very lucky girl. And I’m sure she’ll be a good wife to you.’
‘If she’ll have me, ma’am,’ he said, taking nothing for granted. ‘Thank you.’
Before the handshake was quite ended Ann tried yet again: ‘I think we understand each other, Mr Dorsett?’
‘I hope so, ma’am.’
‘Maybe some day she’ll be willing to change her mind about Caleb, don’t you think? When, I mean, she has another child to care for.’
His sternness relaxed. A smile slowly dawned in his face. ‘Ah well! Who knows?’ He stared at distance. ‘Yes, I think maybe you’re right, ma’am,’ he brought out at length. ‘But’—he smiled, looked mysterious, came as near winking as his invincible respect for Mrs Elderbrook would permit— ‘mum’s the word, mind!’
§ 7
BEFORE October was out, Felix arrived at the conclusion that his coming to Stanton had been a grave mistake, and one for which a bitter price was being exacted. He knew now, or thought he knew, why he had hesitated so long before accepting that invitation. His apparent reasons had been, he now thought, nothing but a series of elaborate disguises for the real one. Devotion to an arduous duty, reluctance to take his hand from the plough (how promptly the stalest phrases slipped from the tongue), a stiff-necked pride that forbad him to admit to ill-health: of these only the last and least creditable would he allow to have been entirely sincere. Behind them all had lurked fear, fear of a challenge which to refuse would unman him and to accept would work only havoc and disaster, if not humiliation. During these latter years, ever since a blundering emotional episode in France in the days when he was still a private soldier, he had driven himself with too tight a rein to be capable now of easily yielding to his heart’s wish. With charity for all sins but his own, he had schooled himself in the notion that the only happiness he could legitimately ask of life was the happiness of ministering to others, of lightening, if only by a feather’s weight, the burden of the world’s misery. But here at Stanton existence was too pleasant. To drift on the placid tide of an uneventful routine was too easy. He had time on his hands. And Satan, that oldfashioned but convenient fiction, was at his old tricks. Felix’s mind was no longer his own. All thoughts went the same road, and his prayers for deliverance, because his heart was not in it, became a hollow form and a mockery of God.
The crisis of his self-discovery came in a dream. He dreamt he was involved in a fox-hunt, now as a spectator, now as unwilling participant. Scene after scene flitted by, to the sound of yapping hounds. At moments he was the fox, dragging himself along with bleeding pads and parched swollen tongue; at moments the huntsman, blowing his ribboned horn; at moments himself again, detached but not free, aloof yet not aloof, a homeless soul entangled like a snared bird among the persons of his fantasy. The grinning masks of the local gentry confronted him. They were like dressed-up apes, yet recognizably his neighbours. They called him by name. They slashed at him joyously with their crops. They grinned and grinned, laying bare their dog-teeth. But the name they called him by was not his own, and he looked round him in a fever, from face to face, in search of someone, he didn’t know whom. The yapping and galloping rose to an intolerable pitch; fields and hedges came racing to meet him; and suddenly his horse bucked, the world turned upside down, and there he was, there someone was, lying dead in the grass. He woke, spent but calm.
For seven whole days, marking them off one by one in his pocket diary, he refrained from visiting Kate. On the morning of the eighth day she sent the gardener round with a note for him, asking him to tea.
He went. She received him as usual, kindly, and with the lack of ceremony which he rejoiced in because it was the sign of their long friendship. And being with her he was happy, his nerves at rest, the tumult of his seven days’ agony a distant rumour. It was a deep and blessed and a precarious peace, lasting just so long as he should have her in his sight, and no longer. A few minutes after their parting the starved heart would cry out for her, the mind renew its longing. This he knew well enough, but the knowledge was powerless to impair the moment’s bloom. He was with her. It was enough.
Tea was laid for two only.
‘Your mother’s out?’
‘Yes, she’s visiting one of her cronies. That’s why it had to be today. You had my note?’
‘Of course. I shouldn’t be here otherwise.’
With the words gone past recall, he wished them unsaid. They seemed to say more than he had intended.
‘Wouldn’t you? You don’t usually wait to be invited.’
If a question was implied he evaded it, with a laugh. ‘I don’t, do I.’
During tea, in which neither was interested, she kept him amused with small talk of her doings and his. It did not matter to him what she said, so long as it was she who said it. He looked and listened and was at peace, not because she was beautiful, not because her talk had a quality that gave new life to the most ordinary remark, but because above all she was Kate and he loved her. What is love? ’Tis not hereafter. Hereafter there would be a penalty to pay: till then he was in bliss.
She forgot to offer him a second cup.
‘I specially wanted you to come today, Felix. There’s something I must tell you.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s about Johnny.’ She had suddenly paled. She was silent.
Felix trembled. Shame and compassion tore at his heart. ‘I know,’ he said gently.
‘What do you know?’
Her voice was very low. She seemed afraid to look at him.
‘He’s been killed, hasn’t he?’ said Felix. ‘In the hunting field.’
She raised startled eyes to his. ‘Felix! What do you mean?’
‘I saw it in a dream,’ he said, ‘seven nights ago.’
‘But——’ Suddenly, and rather loudly, she laughed. ‘My poor Felix, don’t worry. He’s not dead. I had a letter from him this morning.’ To give him time to recover his balance she added quickly: ‘It was in answer to mine. He’s not very pleased with me, poor lamb.’
‘Why?’ The question was automatic. The answer could not concern him.
‘I’ve asked him to release me from my engagement.’
‘I see,’ said Felix gravely. ‘And he?’
‘He wants to know why.’
Felix smiled. His brain was in a whirl. ‘A natural curiosity. One sees his point.’
Kate fixed her gaze on the fire glowing in the grate. ‘Felix, will you give me your advice?’ She glanced at him and smiled strangely. ‘Or must I wait till they make you vicar?’
‘What is it, Kate?’
‘You don’t believe in breaking promises, do you? Nor do I. But is it right, do you think, for a girl to marry someone she doesn’t really love? Just to fulfil her engagement? Just to please her mother?’
‘My dear Kate!’ He could say no more for a moment, but presently went on: ‘You know the answer to that as well as I do. Yes, and better. You know what’s right for yourself better than I can. So I think there must be another question in your mind. What is it?’
‘You can’t imagine, can you?’
In his confusion he thought he detected a new note in her voice. Was it possible that she was angry? Was it possible that she was still unsure of her decision?
‘You were fond of him, I suppose?’ he said tentatively.
‘I’m still fond of him. That’s not the same.’
‘Not quite,’ said Felix.
‘Not nearly,’ said Kate.
‘I don’t want to pry, Kate. But has anything happened to make you change your mind about him?’
‘Yes. I’ve come to my senses.’
‘I see,’ said Felix again. He waited for elucidation.
She stood up suddenly. Her eyes blazed at him. ‘If you weren’t such a fool and a prig,’ she said furiously, ‘you, …’
She was in tears and stumbling towards the door. He caught her just in time, and held her struggling in his arms.
‘Leave me alone,’ she said. ‘You know the way out.’
He held her tighter. A shattering light dawned upon him. The stars sang together and the little hills clapped their hands.
‘Darling Kate! You wouldn’t marry me, I suppose?’
‘No.’
‘I thought not,’ he said, cupping her face in his hands.
‘I haven’t been given the chance,’ said Kate, feebly fending him off.
‘And anyhow,’ said Felix exultantly, ‘you wouldn’t marry a fool and a prig, would you?’
She faced him with a rueful reluctant grin. ‘I hate you, Felix.’
They kissed. The battle was over.
‘I don’t hate you, said Felix. ‘At least, not very much. I rather think I’ve been in love with you always, from the first moment I saw you.’
It was not true. It was not even nearly true. But he wanted to believe it, and so did.
§ 8
No sooner was Hilda married than Matthew put into effect a project he had long meditated. There was no logical reason why he should have waited till her going; there was indeed no reason at all unless it was his reluctance to remind her, even indirectly, of something he wanted her to forget.
Hilda’s going was an immense relief to him. The thought of her as another man’s wife made her a different person in his imagination. It was a distasteful yet welcome thought, putting an end both to his responsibility for her and to his itch for possession. She was gone. He was rid of her. He was a free man again. Yet even now the worm of fear was not dead in him. The shared knowledge of that night’s fantastic work still bound him to Hilda in a bitter bondage. How much or how little she knew he did not ask; never once had they spoken of it together; but she knew enough, too much; and though he knew he could depend on her loyalty he was not so sure of her judgment. Sometimes in the small hours he would wake in a cold sweat, wondering what unguarded confidences might be wheedled out of her in the intimacy of a contented marriage, such as hers promised to be. Only time could appease him. Only time could blunt the memory and draw the sting of his terror. He prayed that the weeks and months and years might come and go, uneventfully, piling themselves up into a great mountain of oblivion, which no eye, no probing curious eye, should ever pierce. He had the fancy, too, that his own remembering would somehow betray him, would fill the surrounding air with the poison of his thought and provoke the very interest he most feared. And the beech by Hilda’s window was a perpetual reminder.
At his bidding Harry Newth and Pug Barnfield came over from Sawston End to see about it. They were not only tree-fellers by trade but would negotiate a sale for you with the timber merchants if the job were worth it. Harry was a taciturn fellow, speaking only to the point. He was the elder of the two, a tall beetle-browed man with half-an-inch of prickly grey stubble covering the greater part of his wind-dried face. But Pug, born forty years ago in Upmarden itself, had plenty to say, especially to Mr Matthew, whom he had known familiarly from boyhood days. Simple and cheerful, with a face as round and red as the rising sun in a child’s picture-book, he carried with him an air of perpetual wonder and surprise, and his mouth was full of marvels.
‘He’s a good wholesome tree, Mr Matthew. Not shaken, look.’ He patted the trunk affectionately, as though it had been the flank of a horse. ‘There’s a bit of nice timber there.’
‘Pretty nigh four tons,’ said Harry. ‘Us’ll have to put a set in him.’
‘That’s right, Harry,’ said Pug. ‘We’ve brought all the gear, look. Where’ll you have him tumble, Mr Matthew? He leans towards the house, don’t he? My meaning ‘twould be a rare smash if he went that way.’ Pug threw back his head, puckering his face in silent laughter. ‘Fine mess he’d make of that window.’
‘That wouldn’t do at all, Pug,’ said Matthew, smiling.
‘Na-a-a-ay,’ drawled Pug emphatically, ‘there’d be no profit in that.’
‘Us’ll have to put a set in him,’ said Harry, patient and unamused. ‘I told you.’
Putting a set in the tree meant hacking a section out of the far side of the trunk, some eighteen inches from the ground, to correct the bias, so that when the sawing from the other side began to make he
adway the tree must tend to fall away from the house and the sawyers. Harry Newth, with no more words, got to work with the axe; and Pug, fondling the large two-handed saw, went on with the conversation.
‘You’re an old hand at this game, Pug.’
‘Ye-e-es,’ said Pug. ‘One way and another I bin tree-throwing since a boy, look. I seen a man killed once,’ he went on with relish. ‘In the woods it was. It wasn’t the falling tree that hit him, look. Na-a-a-ay! The tree we was throwing was a crooked ‘un, see? And what did he do but strike another tree, lying quiet on the ground! And up he jumped, the other tree did, up he jumped like as if he was alive, and fetched him a clout o’ the skull. Twas the last of poor Jim, that it was.’
Matthew could not give his whole attention to the anecdote. The sound of the great axe cleaving the air and cutting into the firm flesh of the tree distracted him. It was a noble tree, with a history, and but for that one night a rich and happy history. It had seen two generations of men grow into manhood; it had survived a thousand hazards and gathered into its green mysterious life the magic of uncounted seasons; he hated destroying it.
‘I’ll take a turn with him, Harry,’ said Pug.
‘She bites well this morning,’ remarked Harry, surrendering the axe.
Soon it was time to get busy with the saw. Pug and Harry each took an end, and presently Matthew himself lent a hand, to each in turn. The rhythm of the sawing helped to dull his fancy. The whole experience began to assume the quality of a dream. At intervals the tree shuddered and shifted a little. It shuddered and creaked, as if after long years of silent life it were finding, in death, a voice at last. To witness a tree-felling was no novelty to Matthew, but he could not drag himself away. He owed it to this friend of his childhood to stay with him till the end.
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