Читать книгу Seven for a Secret - Mary Webb - Страница 8

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Aunt fanteague was to stay a fortnight. She had been at Dysgwlfas a week before Gillian found courage to think of asking her about the visit to Silverton. Now she was desperate, because, when she got up at seven and peeped into the outer world, the sky was soft and woolly with snow, and a few flakes already wandered past the window—which meant that Aunt Fanteague would hasten her departure lest, as she said, ‘a worse thing befall her.’ At Dysgwlfas people were often snowed-up for a week at a time, and Christmas drew near, and it would never do for Mrs. Fanteague to be away at Christmas, for then poor Emily and Mr. Gentle could not keep the festival together, since they would be unchaperoned.

‘This day, if ever!’ said Gillian, breaking the ice in her jug and wondering, as she washed her face, how she would break the ice in Aunt Fanteague’s mind.

As she lit the kitchen fire she thought how lovely it would be to live at a grand place like the Drover’s Arms at Weeping Cross, where the Farmer’s Ordinary was, of which her father told her carefully censored tales when he came back from fairs and auctions.

While she sat by the sudden blaze made by an armful of heather and chips, and drank her cup of tea, she read the serial in the weekly paper her father took in. It told how a young and innocent girl, not very much prettier than herself, went to London and was betrayed, and lived in luxury and sin, and then died. She thought it would be almost worth dying in order first to see and hear and experience all the wonderful things the heroine saw and heard and felt. ‘Betrayed!’ What food for curiosity! What depths of horror! It recalled old tales, and detective stories (of which Robert possessed two), and Judas Iscariot. It was wicked, deliciously wicked, and it implied a sort of vicarious wickedness in the betrayed one. It had a thrill. She had lived, this girl, for nearly a year in a ‘palatial suite’ somewhere near a place called Piccadilly. Gillian supposed that this was where the pickle came from, which occasionally varied the home-made red cabbage. She went to theatres. She wore satin, jewels, swans-down. She was called ‘Madame.’ She was kissed. She went about in a motor-car, marvellously upholstered, with the man who betrayed her, who was over six feet tall in his (expensively) stockinged feet, and had a long drooping moustache and a fur coat. Gillian was sure he could have walked about on the most toppling load of hay without the slightest inconvenience. Delightful Iscariot! There he was, within a few hours’ journey of Silverton. If once she could get there, she would only have to step into a train, and in such a little while she would be in London. The rest, no doubt, followed mechanically.

‘Ask her, I will, this very day! She may say she’s deaf. She may read a book. She may walk out of the room. But I’ll ask her. If I can get to Sil’erton, I can get to London.’

She surveyed herself in the kitchen mirror.

‘I’m not so bad. And if I learn to sing that’ll be one to me, for this here Julia couldna sing a note.’

While she stirred the porridge, she saw a vision of herself in the slate-coloured dress (that was to be), with a feather hat made of the slatey drake, walking in high-heeled satin shoes past shops full of yellow, square bottles of piccalilli.

‘Dreamy!’ said her father, as he knocked the earth from his boots and came in to breakfast. ‘Now look lively, my girl, for the sooner I start the more chance to get back early. It’s white-over now, and I’ve got to get a hundred sheep back afore night.’

‘Is it set in for snow, Isaiah?’ asked Mrs. Fanteague.

‘Ah.’

‘Then I pack. I’ll catch the last train from the Keep.’

‘A short visit, sister!’

‘Weather’s weather, Isaiah. If I stay, maybe the thaw won’t come till after Christmas. And Emily’d be all alone.’

‘There’d be Mr. Gentle, A’ntie.’

‘Aunt Emily wouldn’t dream of asking a gentleman to the place in my absence,’ said Aunt Fanteague.

Gillian opined that there were a good many different kinds of women in the world, for what could be more different than the minds of Emily and Julia? And she herself was like neither.

Isaiah swallowed his breakfast, went to the door and shouted for Robert.

‘Be I to come, sir? Or stepfather?’

‘No, I must make shift, for Jonathan must take Mrs. Fanteague. I’ll ride the cob, and call for Dosset’s lad—he’s got a pony. He’ll give me a hand with the sheep.’

‘I’d sooner Robert drove me,’ observed Mrs. Fanteague.

‘Robert’s got to stop. The threshing-engine may come any minute. If it does, Jonathan’s no manner use.’

‘Mother says, would you kindly send her as far as the Maiden? Mrs. Thatcher’s took bad. They want mother to bide the night over.’

‘And welcome. Jonathan can send her.’

Isaiah looked at Robert, hesitated, then stepped out into the foldyard.

‘Oh, Rideout!’ he said, with less than his customary ease, ‘no offence, but you’ll bear in mind as my girl’s for none but a farmer, or higher.’

Robert smiled. His smile was slow, sad, a little ironical, but sweet. His eyes did not always smile in unison with it. They did not smile now. There was criticism and a spice of mockery in them.

‘Nothing less than a lord, sir!’ he said. ‘But what is to be, will be.’

‘Whatever’s to be, it’s not to be cowman-shepherd, seesta?’

‘Ah! I see, sir. And if so be I’d raised my eyes to your little maid, I’d lower ’em agen. But I want no woman.’

‘What do you want, lad?’ asked Isaiah, with some compunction.

‘My time to myself, sir,’ replied Robert, and turned towards the stable.

‘His time to himself and he wants no woman!’

Gillian laughed as she washed the dishes, having listened at the kitchen window.

Robert had not, previously, seemed worth captivating. She took him for granted. Now, as she watched his sturdy and independent figure cross the fold, she became conscious of him as a young man to be enslaved.

‘Good-bye, sister!’ said Isaiah. ‘There’s a box of them winter pears, and the red apples you like, and Gillian can gather some eggs for ye, and Robert’ll get you a couple of fowl. Tell Emily to dream what I said!’

With a shout of laughter he swung into the saddle.

‘Good-bye, Isaiah,’ said Mrs. Fanteague. ‘God willing, I shall see Silverton shops to-night.’

‘A’nt Fanteague willing, I shall see ’em soon!’ thought Gillian.

‘Shall I give you a hand packing, A’ntie?’ she asked.

‘No, child.’

‘Shall I kindle a bit of fire in your room?’

‘I’m not so nesh as to need a fire to pack by, my dear.’

‘Could you sit by this ’un, then? I want to ask you summat particular.’

‘Oh.’

‘A’ntie! Let me come and bide with you a bit! Please, A’ntie!’

‘For why?’

‘To learn to make that grand Simnel cake, and bake a ham the old-fashioned way, and plain-sew.’

‘And go shopping and look for a young man?’

‘Oh, A’ntie!’

‘Well, maybe it ud liven up poor Emily. I’ll consider it.’

‘Not too long! Life goes over. “Nut in November, nut for doom.” ’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Robert.’

‘Do you like that young man?’

‘Oh, all right! He’s nought but cowman-shepherd, though.’

‘That’s right, child. Never demean yourself.’

Aunt Fanteague became ruminative. There was a young organist at Silverton, also a bachelor doctor and an unmarried curate. Aunt Fanteague dreamed. How surprised the ladies who now despised her would be! If it was the curate, she might even be asked to decorate the pulpit instead of doing the two dark windows by the door. If it was the doctor, the little doses of bromide for Emily after Mr. Gentle’s visits would be prescribed free. If it was the organist—well, it had better not be the organist.

‘Well, my dear, if you’re a good girl, and your father raises no objection, you shall come for a bit in the New Year!’

‘Oh, A’ntie, I do love you!’

‘That you don’t, Gillian! But so long as you respect me, I ask no more.’

‘How long can I come for?’

‘That depends.’

‘A month? Two? Three?’

‘Maybe a month.’

‘When, A’ntie?’

‘When the snow’s gone. January, maybe.’

‘I’ll buy some cashmere with my coney money and make me a frock. And I’ll kill the slatey drake.’

‘Don’t bedizen yourself, Gillian. You know what poor Emily says of a lady.’

‘What?’

‘You can tell a lady, because nobody knows she’s there.’

‘But slatey colour’s as meek as mice, A’ntie!’

‘It’s according as it’s worn. Now write me the label while I pack.’

As Gillian wrote the label, she thought how it would look.

‘Miss Juliana Lovekin. Silverton.’

‘Miss Juliana Lovekin. London.’

She preferred the last.

After dinner, Jonathan, with resignation in his manner, brought round the trap. The eggs and fruit were packed in. Mrs. Makepiece sat on the tin box at the back. Jonathan observed:

‘It’s snow for our pillow to-night, Mrs. Fanteague, ma’am. Ah! that’s what it’ll be, snow for our pillow!’

Mrs. Fanteague waved resignedly, and they drove away through the thickening snow.

‘Please God, take care of A’ntie so that I can get to London soon!’ prayed Gillian.

The simplicity with which people express themselves when there is no one to hear but the Almighty must often entertain Him.

‘Robert!’ called Gillian. ‘Robert Rideout O!’

‘Well, Miss Gillian?’

‘What have I done to be treated so stiff?’

‘Nought.’

‘Well, then, come your ways in. We’ll have a randy, same as we always do when they’re out.’

‘We didn’t ought.’

‘Didn’t ought’s in Dead Man’s Yard. Come on! We’ll make toffee. There’s all the market butter. We’ll play “I spy” all over the house. Then I’ll help you to milk. Then we’ll have tea. You can finish outside while I get it. They’ll neither of ’em be back before seven or eight. It’ll be cosy as cosy. We’ll pretend it’s our house and I’m your missus.’

Robert flushed and turned away, suddenly shy, perhaps because of Isaiah, perhaps because of his consciousness of Gillian in the meadow.

‘No!’ he said.

‘Yes! I’m going away come New Year.’

He turned quickly.

‘Where?’

‘To Sil’erton. I’ll tell you at tea. Now for the toffee!’

She was going away. This would be the last time of childish romping. When she came back she would be a lady. She might be engaged—even married. He could put in longer time at the wood-chopping to-morrow. He scraped his boots and came in.

‘Butter first!’ said Gillian. She ran to the dairy where the round yellow pats—all decked with swans—lay on their clean white cloth. Into the saucepan went two pats, for Gillian never believed in doing things by halves.

‘You stir! You’re an old steady-goer!’ said she.

Robert scrubbed his hands in the back-kitchen and stirred. They were nice hands, large and dependable and strong. What they undertook, they finished. The animals on the farm loved them. People with whom he shook hands at market felt a kind of promise of protection in them, and they would have trusted him with their lives, or even their bank-books. They were hands that might have helped to make him a great surgeon. The local vet. had noticed them, and had offered to take him into partnership. But Robert refused. He did not like to see creatures in pain oftener than he could help. Also, he had his dream to dream on Dysgwlfas itself. Day after day, in the early morning or after his work was done, he brooded upon the waste as it lay beneath his gaze, self-wrapped, conning its own secret, dreaming of itself and its dark history, its purple-mantled past and its future clothed in vaporous mystery. The colour that comes on the heather when it is in full flower, which is like the bloom on a plum, was in his dream. The rumour that runs, in warm, dark spring evenings, from the peering leaf down the veins of the stalk, to the waiting flower sleeping in the root—a rumour of rain and misty heat and the melodious languors of a future June; this, too, was in his dream. Wave on profound wave of beauty broke over him, submerged him. The wonder and terror of it came to his soul with a keenness that darted from the colours and perfumes like a sword hidden in roses. Far beyond the rim of blue was still the moorland—the secret moorland, with its savage peace. There the curlews cried, eerie and lonely, in spring. Thence the wind drew, urgent, vital. And always, whether he was at market or chapel, in the farm or the inn, which lay alone out on the moor, he heard—whatever the weather or the season—as it were a long way off, and far down in his consciousness—the roar of the winter wind over the bleak, snowy acres of Dysgwlfas. He was aware that an almost vocal sympathy existed between the place and himself. There was something he must do for it, but he could not guess what it was. Also he felt a vague portent in the winter country. There was something waiting for him there in the future—some deed, some high resolve. Was it death? It was mysterious as death, he thought. All his days he walked in this dream, which did not hinder his deft hands nor his quick feet, and continually the country spun more threads between itself and him.

He would sit dreaming by his mother’s fire as if he had been fairy-led, or, as Jonathan said, as if he had been ‘comic-struck.’ And now Gillian was finding a place in his dream. Softly, relentlessly as a leaf-boring bee, she was impressing herself on the purple twilight of his unwritten poetry.

As to what all this meant, he was doubtful. He must bide his time. He could always do that, without being either lethargic or futile. And when the waiting was over, he could act.

At the present moment it was time to act, for the toffee was ready.

‘Dunna forget to put the tin in cold water, Gillian!’ he reminded her.

They played ‘I spy’ till it cooled. Then it was milking-time. There was laughter in the cowhouse and milking was soon done. Then, with one of her weird owl cries, she ran across the dark fold into the kitchen.

It glowed, for Robert had made up the fire. She set the table with the best china, brought out cranberry jelly, new bread, lemon cheese, visitor’s tea. She put on her best frock, put up her hair, and picked a scarlet geranium from the window to wear in it. She would be as gay, as pretty and as kind as she could. It wasn’t nice of her father to tell him he was only a cowman. And perhaps, if she looked really pretty, Robert would kiss her! That would be good practice for the future. Isaiah had forbidden all ‘May-games.’ Kissing was certainly a May-game. But then—Robert had such a nice mouth. Now that she considered it attentively, it was remarkably nice.

She went to the door. Snow was falling thickly now, whirling softly, coming in large flakes. She could see Robert’s lantern in the stable, and his shadow on the white wall.

‘Bob!’

He came, smoothing his roughened, snowy hair.

‘Now! I’m missus. You’re maister.’

‘I’m cowman-shepherd,’ said Robert. ‘And you’re the maister’s daughter. And only a farmer’s good enough, but you might consider a lord.’

‘Oh, Bob! You are unkind. I didna say it.’

‘You think it. You know right well you’d never marry a farm-labourer.’

‘Maybe, if—if the labourer was called—Robert Rideout O!’

‘You’re a jill-flirt, my dear, and that’s all about it. Gillian jill-flirt!’

‘Pretend, Robert!’

‘There’s danger in pretending.’

She sulked.

‘This is a good tea,’ observed Robert. ‘And I’m sure it’s very charitable of you, miss!’

‘Don’t you dare mock me!’

‘I amna. I’m enjoying meself.’

He stretched comfortably. His lean, strong, pleasant face was happy in the firelight. His boots steamed. The snow-wind soughed fitfully in the chimney. Gillian, demure in the dignity of having her hair up, poured out tea and did the honours.

Through his lashes Robert observed her; saw her lovely, wilful, remote; wanted to conquer and possess.

‘I’d thank you not to look at me so fierce!’ she laughed.

‘I’d thank you for some more tea,’ said Robert, ‘and some of that nice cake.’

‘Oh, Bob! You hanna come to see me a bit! You’re after what you can get!’

‘Ah! That’s the tune of it!’ said Robert, lying splendidly. ‘Jelly, please, mum!’

After tea she sat on the hearthrug and told him her dreams—some of them. She told him how she would dress when she sang at an Eisteddfod, and as she looked up, lit with new beauty, he suddenly found out what it was he wanted to do. Pennillions! He would make pennillions about the moor, and in the midst of them should be Gillian Lovekin. He did not know quite what pennillions were, nor how to make them, but he could learn. He could walk over the mountains to the abode of some Eisteddfod singer, and learn. Here was the way to express all those strange things, those wild and dim and tender thoughts, that invaded his soul and would not let him rest. When he had given them house-room, when he had made garments of song for them, they could not cry out on him so. And secretly, unknown even to herself, Gillian should be the bright centre of these dim pictures, the flower in the rocky cavern of his poetry.

‘Seven for a secret!’ he murmured.

‘Now then! No talking to mommets! What is it?’ cried Gillian.

‘Nought—nought.’

One must not make love to the master’s daughter, nor enthrone her in a poem, nor make poems. He reflected with amusement that the time in which he would make songs in his mind would be paid for by Isaiah; that the moor all round the farm, which had inspired him, was Isaiah’s; that their central beauty would be Isaiah’s only child.

‘It’ll take a deal of overtime to make up for all that, I doubt!’ he thought. His smile stirred Gillian’s curiosity.

‘Tell! Tell!’

‘No. I canna tell ye.’

‘Summat you’re going to do?’

‘Maybe.’

‘For me?’

‘In a sort of a way it’ll be all for you.’

‘Oh, Bob!’

‘Now say all about what coloured gowns you’ll get when you’re a rich lady.’

They sat in the firelight, happy, gay. Anyone looking through the snow-fingered window would have thought them lovers, not knowing the barriers of class and wealth between them.

Seven o’clock.

‘I mun go now, Gillian. Thank you kindly.’

‘We shanna have another time like this before I go away.’

‘Never, maybe.’

‘Robert!’

‘Well?’

‘Pretend!’

‘What?’

‘Pretend we’re—’ she whispered.

‘Pretending’s no good.’

She held up a glowing cheek. She was bent on adventure.

‘You can take one, Robert!’

But Robert’s face was hard. It smiled no more; there was no sweetness in it. She did not guess that it was his hardest battle yet.

‘When I want a kiss,’ he said, ‘I’ll ask for it.’

He was gone.

Gillian flung herself on the hearthrug, raging, sobbing.

‘Oh, I wanted him to kiss me! I wanted to know what it was like! I’ll pay him out for this. Oh, dearie, dearie me; suppose they’re all like Robert!’

She was in despair. She could not think how the innocent Julia (who never dreamt of asking for kisses, but always screamed and said, ‘Unhand me, sir!’) had had love-affairs.

‘I don’t believe Julia was all that much prettier than me!’ she sobbed. ‘But seemingly it’s them as don’t ask don’t want, and them as do ask can’t have!’