Читать книгу The Golden Arrow - Mary Webb - Страница 15

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When he had gone Lily crept out of her hiding-place in the woodhouse and met Joe on the hill. She had no idea that he was going to ask her to marry him, and so, by the irony of things, she spent more time and energy luring him on than she had ever spent over anything.

‘My, Lil! You do look pretty. Why don’t you allus turn your dress in?’

Lily smiled.

‘What was it you was going to say about my arms on Sunday, Joe?’

‘As I wanted to touch ’em.’

‘Well—you can.’

Joe’s hand went gingerly up and down one arm.

‘D’you like me, Joe?’

‘Like you? Oh, laws!’

‘Well, then, would you like to—put your arm round me?’

‘Let’s sit down, Lil.’ Joe was quite overcome. He had always thought ‘askin’ to wed’ was as difficult as catching sparrows in open weather. And now here was Fate playing into his hands. It seemed too good to be true.

‘Shall I be on your knee, Joe?’ asked Lily confidingly.

Joe had the sensation of home-brewed very strongly. He was conscious that he must not have much more of this heady delight.

‘You are big!’ Lily’s flattery was obvious, but sufficiently subtle for Joe.

‘You’re a bit of honey, that’s what!’ said Joe rapturously.

‘Like to kiss me, Joe?’

There was a short silence.

‘You don’t like kissing, I can see,’ Lily commented disappointedly.

‘Not like it?’ Joe gasped.

‘Well, you kiss as soft as a hen pecking bread.’

‘I’ll show ’ee if I like it.’

‘Oh, dear! You’ve knocked my bonnet off. My hair!’

‘It’s all right—all curly like a young lamb, and shining.’

This was sweet to Lily as homage to a king dethroned. She leant back against his shoulder. He kissed her again. They were in the Little Wood. Her eyes sought his bewitchingly as she lay in apparent abandonment to the sweetness of the kiss. She was wondering how many more hints she must give him before he would speak. Joe kissed her throat. Then he put her on the ground roughly.

‘We’d best go whome,’ he said.

‘Why?’ She was petulant, not having as yet attained her object.

‘I want to do right by you, Lil; and you’re so—I canna remember ought when you’re like you be to-night.’

‘How d’you mean “right” by me?’

Joe took a deep breath.

‘I mean will you wed me, Lil, my dear?’

‘Well! Why ever couldn’t he say that before?’ thought Lily. She smiled.

‘I might.’

‘Soon?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Come on whome, Lil. The devil’s in this little old wood.’

He walked furiously down the track, Lily half running, not understanding the fires she had kindled so carefully.

‘When?’ asked Joe, slackening speed as they neared home.

‘I dunno.’

‘Next week?’

‘Well — ’

‘Saturday next as ever is?’

‘Oh, Joe!’

‘Saturday it is, then! And no more Little Wood till then. For you’re like home-brewed, Lil.’ He gazed at her in puzzled and admiring wonder.

‘And you remember as it means no going back to your feyther if you marry me quick. See?’

Lily did see—had seen all along with a clearness that would have startled Joe.

‘There’s a cottage at Slepe, not set; I’ll take it. We only want a few chairs and a table and a mangle to begin with, and a double bed—’ He stopped. ‘My tongue’s hung on in the middle,’ he muttered.

There was a short silence.

‘I dunno as it can be Saturday, after all,’ said Lily at last.

In Deborah’s small, whitewashed room with ‘God is Love’ over the mantelpiece and a bunch of mimulus in the window, the two girls tossed all night.

‘What a craking them two keep up, like calves in a strawy calfskit!’ Joe thought. An intolerable sweetness came over him as he let his sleepy thoughts wander on to next Saturday.

‘There’s surely no harm in thinking of it now, it being all settled up,’ he reasoned; ‘besides, I mun get used to it, or I’ll never remember all the things I’ve got to remember!’

‘Hark at those girls!’ said Mrs. Arden to John. ‘They’re both in love.’

‘Or it met be heat lumps,’ John suggested.

‘Dear sakes, what a man!’

Mrs. Arden would have her romance.

Lily was faced by the necessity of a decision—a thing she hated. There were three ways open to her, and she must traverse one of them, since she could not stay where she was. All were equally detestable to her. She could go home, be a dairymaid, or become the mother of Joe’s children. She writhed at the idea of physical endurance. She did not love, and it is love that makes all pain, all privation, a crown of everlastings. The lover knows that the reward is greater than the hardship. To Lily, who had never cared for any creature, it was not so. She had always supposed that some time she would have children: but now that the vague future had come near it was a different matter. So much for Joe, then. But could she go home? No. The dairymaid’s situation remained.

‘Not if I know it!’ she said. ‘Work, work, day in, day out.’ She came back to Joe. An idea struck her. With a pathetic mingling of naïveté and selfishness she decided that she and Joe could be ‘brother and sister.’ As she had not divined anything of Joe’s nature or his dreams—for intuitions do not come to the self-centred—this resolve was not so heartless as it seemed.

Having come to a satisfactory decision, Lily curled up to sleep like a kitten.

Deborah half awoke.

‘He’s coming to High Leasurs,’ she thought, ‘to see me! Me! Not Lily.’ She was astonished at his blindness—Lily was so pretty. She was glad with a boundless joy. Already on the horizon of her life flickered the immortal fires, darting strange rays, changing the world.

‘Stephen ... Stephen Southernwood!’ A dart of pride ran through her as she remembered that Lily had not lured his eyes from her once.

‘Stephen!’ she said aloud, half asleep.

‘Keep your silly names to yourself, can’t you?’ grumbled Lily. But Deborah was asleep.

‘Stephen,’ she murmured again.

‘Oh!’ cried Lily, much irritated. ‘Joe! Joe! Joe! then, if it’s got to be said!’ She cried from sheer vexation.