Moor Fires Part 69

"That's nothing to do with it." He stood up and kicked a protruding coal. "Nothing to do with it. I know I--want you." He turned sharply towards her. "I was half drunk that night."

"I wish you wouldn't talk about it."

He added abruptly, "I've had nothing since."

Her silence implied that this was only what she had expected and, feeling baulked of his effect, he sighed again.

"Oh, you are so pathetic! Why don't you smile?" He did it, and she nodded her applause, while he, appeased and daring, asked her, "Well, did you miss me?"

"Yes. A little."

"Are you glad I'm here?"

"I think so."

"When will you be sure?"

"Ah, that depends on you. I hate you to be rough."

"G.o.d knows I've had enough to make me. You wear me out, you're so d.a.m.ned superior."

"I'm afraid that's not my fault!"

He swore under his breath. "At it again!"

"Oh, dear!" she cried, "that was meant to be a joke! I thought it rather good! Shall I make some coffee? They say a wise woman always has good things for her--for a man to eat and drink. I'm going to try it."

They drank in silence, but as he put down his cup, she said, twinkling over hers, "Was I a wise woman?" and suddenly she felt the great loneliness of the house, and remembered that she was a woman, and this man's wife. She looked down that he might see no change. He did not answer, and the coals, dropping in the grate, were like little tongues clicking in distress. She wondered if he were ever going to speak.

"Give me your cup," she heard him say, and his voice was confident. She felt a hand put firmly on her shoulder, and she saw him bending over her.

"Good-night," he said, "I'm going," and still with that hand on her, he kissed her mouth.

She did not move when the door was shut behind him: she leaned back in the chair, pressed there by his kiss, her hands limp in her lap. She respected him at last. There had been dignity in that kiss, and she thought it better that he should take what he desired than sit too humble under her gaze, but she knew she was no longer what she had been.

He had, in some manner, made her partly his: not by the spirit, not by her will, but by taking something from her: there was more to take, and she was sure now that he would take it. She was not angry, but for a long time she cried quietly in her chair.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

Snow was falling when Zebedee at last drove up the road, and from the window of Mildred Caniper's bedroom Helen watched his huddled figure and the striving horse. She saw him look for the obliterated track and then turn towards the shelter of Brent Farm.

"Is he coming?" Mildred asked. She was childishly interested in his return.

"Yes. He has gone to put the horse up at the farm."

"He will be cold."

"Yes." Helen was cold, too.

"It is a dreadful day for driving."

"I don't think he minds that," she said in a dead voice.

"No. You had better go downstairs."

"When I see him starting back. He'll have to talk to Lily. No, he's coming now."

She stood at the window while she slowly counted twenty, and then she warmed her hands before she went.

She was irritated by the memory of him running across the road with his hands in his pockets, his head b.u.t.ting against the storm, his eager feet sinking into the snow and dragging themselves out again. She had a crazy wish that he would fall. Why could he not walk? she asked herself. It was absurd to be in such a hurry. There was plenty of time, more than enough, if he but knew it! She laughed, and hated the false, cruel sound, and looked round the hall to see if there were any one to hear; but in the snow, as she opened the gate to him, there was a moment in which she knew nothing but joy. He had come back, he was close to her, and evil had pa.s.sed away.

"Oh, my darling--" he said. "Let me get off my coat!"

He took her hands, and unsmilingly he scanned her, from her smooth hair to her mouth, from her hands to her feet.

"What is it?" he asked.

She gave him her clear regard. "All the things that have mattered most to me have been comings and goings through this gate and the garden door."

"Well, dearest one--"

"You've come again."

"And I shall come tomorrow."

"Will you?" She closed her eyelids on what he might see, and he kissed her between the eyes. "I have stayed away too long," he said.

"Yes. I want to talk to you. Come and see Notya first."

"Things have been happening, Daniel tells me."

"Oh, yes, they have."

"And if your letters had shown me your face, I shouldn't have stayed away another day."

"Isn't it so nice, Zebedee?"

"It's lovelier than it ever was, but there's a line here, and here, and here. And your eyes--"

Again she shut them, but she held up her face. "I want you to kiss my mouth."

"Helen," he said, when he had slowly done her bidding, "let us sit on the stairs and think about each other. Yes, there's room for Jim, but, oh, my blessed one, he ought to have a bath. No, you can stay down there, my boy. Are you comfortable, little heart? Let me look at you again. You are just like a pale flower in a wood. Here, in the darkness, there might be trees and you gleaming up, a flower--"

She dropped her forehead to his knees. "I wish--I were--that flower."