A Sheaf of Corn Part 8

"A little drop of something to quench my thirst before you go!" she implored. "I can't get up to fetch it for myself, as you know, Maria; and my throat's swelled up with being so parched."

"And if you die of it, so much the better!" Maria said frankly. But she went and pumped some water, all the same, and brought it to her, the gla.s.s dimmed in her red, bare hand. "For all I've had to demean myself to wait on sich as you, I'm a Christian!" she said.

"A leetle drop of the brandy left, Maria?" the woman asked.

"Trust you for that! Not a drop!"

"Drain the bottle and see, Maria."

"You are a one, you are!" the emanc.i.p.ated servant said. "I ha' seen a sight o' bad 'uns, but never one like you. And if I was th' master, I'd up and chuck you inter th' street, see if I wouldn't, and git a little peace in 'is 'ome with a diff'runt woman than you! 'E wouldn't have to go far, neither, before 'e found one to 'is mind, master wouldn't, an'

so I tell you! An' as for me, I'm done with you, so there!"

The woman looked after her as she bounced to the door, hiccoughing, holding the now empty gla.s.s in her shaking hand. Her brows were knit; she seemed in her muddled brain to be considering something.

"The girl Grantley promised she'd come to-day," she said. "She promised she'd bring me something."

"And did so, right enough. But you 'aven't got no memory nor nothin'!"

"Where is it, then, Maria dear? For my poor head's splitting----"

"Why, in th' basket as stan' agin your sofy, where you put it yourself, for I see ye do it."

Left to herself, the woman put the gla.s.s to her lips, sucked from it the few drops that hung upon its sides, lay with it in her hand, alternately looking into it and looking into s.p.a.ce, lifting it to her lips again and again.

The machinery of her mind was too far destroyed for it to work in any suggested groove. It strayed off the line continually into all sorts of hazy, dim byways.

A disgrace!

She had broken her word to him, often enough, but he had never before called her that. It was very cruel of him, and not like a husband to use such a word to his wife, that had ever a loving word for him when he came home, and was always waiting for him, so obliging and kind. Her mother would vouch for that--she had often said she had a loving nature.

Once she had walked unexpectedly into the little sitting-room at home, and she had heard her mother saying to Horace--"Julia has a very loving nature." Why didn't her mother come and say kind things to her now? She was all alone. If her mother came and sat by her side--

She would like, if she could walk there, to get off the sofa and go to look for her in that little sitting-room, at home. It was so cool in there always, with the window open to the garden. There was a basket of violets on the table. She wondered if they were there now. She would like to put her lips, that were so hot and uncomfortable, down upon them--

With difficulty she half turned on the sofa with the idea of reaching them; but remembered as she did so that her mother had been dead for years and years, and that there were no violets now.

She cried afresh, and held the empty gla.s.s to her lips in the hope a forgotten drop might trickle down upon them.

Her mother had once scolded her--once when Horace had told tales--and had said that she had broken her heart. But, for all that, she would not have liked to hear her called a disgrace.

She wished her husband would come in and put her to bed. He would have to do it alone to-night, as Maria was gone. Or perhaps old Susan would come and help. Old Susan had carried her up to bed quite easily, last night--when she was a child. No sticks, nor bother of people pushing and dragging--had carried her up as light as a feather, and popped her into her cool, soft bed, and tucked her up--

"Susan!" she called. "Susan!" And opened her aching eyes to look for her; and cried again when she remembered why the old servant could not come, and that she was not a child again any more.

A disgrace!

It wasn't a nice thing to say to such a good wife, and she so afflicted! He had another name for her when she used to walk about like other people--like the girl Grantley, for instance, that her husband always came home from school with. She used to go to meet Horry, herself, in those days, and go down to the river in the evening with him, and sit on one of the chairs beneath the trees to watch the boats.

To watch the boats! How they glided along--gently, gently! It made you sleepy to look at them. She was in one herself now, rocking, rocking; and the sun was going down behind the trees; and a lot more boats, more and more, all rocking; and the sound of the oars, and the water lapping at the sides. She would like to put her hand in the river. It looked so cool--so cool!

The hand dropped heavily at her side, the gla.s.s broke; and she was on her sofa still, not in a boat at all; and it was the girl Grantley who sat by the river with Horry.

The girl Grantley! Where was that she had brought? The basket into which she had dropped it was easily within her reach. Here was the parcel, fastened as chemists' parcels are fastened. She shook it, and a gleam came into her eyes. Liquid! Something to drink, to moisten her burning tongue and swollen throat. No matter what--

Down by the river, on the broad path beneath the trees, where half the population of the place repaired in the summer evenings, the girl Grantley walked with her brother, and by their side walked Horace Kilbourne.

Presently the brother stopped to speak to a friend, and the girl and the other man walked on--walked through the crowds of people to where the crowds grew less, and on still, till there was comparative solitude.

Only the girl talked, telling him of her day's work--of what it had brought her of pleasure, of what had gone amiss. She had the habit of talking out her heart to him, bringing him all her difficulties and distresses.

"It rests me as nothing else does," she told him, when he had listened to the end, and said what had to be said. "And you? Have you nothing to tell me?" she asked him.

"Nothing," he said.

She glanced sideways and upwards at him as he towered above her, walking with drooping head.

"Something has happened," she said softly. "Can't you tell me? It helps, to tell a friend."

"It is nothing to which I am not well used," he said. "The same old wretched story. I have never told it in so many words. I am too ashamed to tell. You know it, well enough. Who is there that does not know?"

She turned on him a face that startled him, who knew it well, and had learnt by heart, he thought, its many changes.

"Why do you not kill her?" she said.

"Sh-sh-sh!" he whispered, surprised and reproving.

Her vivid face was aflame with pa.s.sion; almost, it seemed, with hate.

"It would be no crime," she said. "Do you think G.o.d wants His world so c.u.mbered? Why should your life, other people's lives, be destroyed? Are you to bear a burden like that for ever?"

"Sh-sh-sh!" he whispered again.

He put a hand upon her arm, and gently turned her with him. They began to retrace their steps.

"I was right never to speak to you about it before," he said presently.

"Mutual confidences are for happy people, Kate. Men burthened with great sorrows know them to be incommunicable. Forgive me that I for a moment forgot."

Her pa.s.sion had died away as quickly as it had blazed forth. She heard him in silence, a sob in her throat.

Soon they were back in the perambulating crowd, chattering, laughing, listening to the band upon the river. The broad stream was filled with boats, in which charmingly-dressed women indolently reclined on bright-hued cushions. The occupants propelled themselves by means of lazy hands laid upon the sides of neighbouring boats. Be-flannelled men, and boys in their slim canoes, slipped here and there among them.

The music mingled harmoniously with the light dip of the paddles, the soft lapping of the water, the murmuring voices. The sweet scent of hay, freshly cut in the meadows across the river, was in the air, the peace of the midsummer evening over all.

Such a happy, prosperous throng; such a concord of sweet sounds and scents and sights! One man and woman, at least, looked on, sorrowful-eyed, bitterness within their hearts.

"I am sorry if I shocked you," Kate Grantley said at length. "I thought if we two spoke together--even of that--face to face----"

"It is impossible," he said. "There are troubles in which no friend can help, Kate. The friend that is dearest to me in life cannot help me in mine."