Secret Bread Part 22

He held her close, covering her face with clumsy eager kisses, the first he had ever given a woman, and he gave himself up to worshipping her as she sat on the throne he had made for her.

"Let us go to the boulders above the wood," whispered Blanche, who even in the grip of one of the deepest feelings of her life kept her unfailing flair for the right background; "we can see the sun rise there, over the trees...."

He helped her to her feet and they walked together, hand in hand, like children. The keen personal emotion had pa.s.sed, leaving them almost timid; now certainty had settled on them pa.s.sionate inquiry gave place to peace. So they went, and he felt as though he walked in Eden, with the one mate in all the world. Across the moors they went; then--for they were going inland--they came to fields again, and the path ran through acres of cabbages. The curves of the grey-green leaves held the light in wide shimmers of silver, the dew vibrating with diamond colours; edging their two shadows the refraction of the beams brought a halo of brightest white. Another stretch of furze brought them to the boulders above the wood on a level with the ma.s.sed tree-tops. Ishmael made Blanche put on his coat; then he sat beside her, his hand holding the coat together under her chin.

Nestling her head against him, she closed her eyes, and with soft, regular breathings feigned a sleep that presently became reality.

Through the starlit hour between moon-setting and sun-rising Ishmael held her; every now and then she stirred, half woke, and, moving a little to ease his arm, lifted the pallor of her face to his. Before the dawn she awoke completely and began to reproach herself and him.

The time of un-self-consciousness was already over for her, and she was once more the woman who knew how to make men love.

"Oh, how could you let me waste time sleeping? I've not been really asleep--only drowsing. I knew I was sitting beside you all the while."

"Then it wasn't waste for you either." His lips trembled a little, and he said nothing about his own emotions; it had been so unutterably sweet to him to hold her, trusting, quiescent, in his arms and feel the night-wind ruffling her hair against his cheek.

It was still dusk, though the misty blue-grey of the tree-tops was imperceptibly changing to a more living hue, and the sky, stained a deep rust colour, showed a molten whiteness where it touched the world's rim.

He unknowingly gripped Blanche's hand till she nearly cried out; except as something that made beauty more beautiful he hardly knew she was there. Slowly the miracle of dawn unfolded; down in the woods birds lifted glad heads, the lids were raised from round, bright eyes, and there came up to the watchers on the rocks the first faint notes that pierced the air of the new day.

Nothing was very wide-awake as yet; all life stirred as though beneath a film; a dim blue coverlet still lay lightly over the wood; the earth held her breath for the moment of birth. What a waiting, what a wide clear sense of certain expectation! The sky, naked of clouds, had become a brightening sphere of pearliness; a deep rose gathered over the hills and spread fanlike, licking up the ashen pallor with stabs of flame. A livid red-gold rim sprang into being behind the hill crests, and slowly and in state the sun swam up the molten sky. He turned to Blanche with the tears in his eyes.

"Dearest, the sun has risen!" He drew her face to his and kissed her, not as before, but with the sense of consummating a sacrament. She rose to her feet a little unsteadily, and they set their faces towards Paradise cottage.

"You must get some rest," he said; "it's only half-past four now."

The exaltation of the dawn had left her, and she quickened her steps, wondering uneasily what her skin looked like unaided in this dazzling light. She slipped noiselessly into the house by the front door, which she barred behind her; the clatter of hobnails from the little yard told that Billy was already about his business, but behind Mrs. Penticost's door all was quiet. With her finger to her lips Blanche leaned from her window and breathed "Good-night" and disappeared into the shadows.

CHAPTER XII

SHEAVES

The following day dawned still and hot as ever, but overcast with a grey film, though the pale sky held a glaring quality that reflected on to the eyeb.a.l.l.s. Down in the lowest meadow the oats had not yet been gathered into sheaves, and John-James, gazing at the sky, was of opinion that the sooner it was done the better. Ishmael agreed without enthusiasm, till it occurred to him that Blanche, who was so charmed with a farmer's life, would probably enjoy helping. It might be made into a sort of picnic, a _fete champetre_; the beautiful monkey could help, and he could send a boy over to the mill to fetch Phoebe. They would make a day of it--the kind of pastoral occasion which cannot exactly be called artificial and yet which does not in the least represent the actual life of those who live by land.

Va.s.sie was enthusiastic about the idea, and soon the house was in a ferment with preparations; bottles of cider were brought out, a stone puncheon of beer produced for the men, cakes and pasties began to form beneath Va.s.sie's willing hands. Ishmael felt a pang as he watched her.

How could it affect her but adversely, this change he was to make? He felt that Blanche would not want any of his family, even Va.s.sie, living in the house with them, and it was her right to order such a matter as she would. To settle anywhere with her mother was impossible for the proud fastidious Va.s.sie, and, though he could allow her enough money to make her independent, she could hardly, in the ideas of those days, go alone into the world upon it.

There would be terrible scenes with his mother, he realised, before she would consent to go, but he shook the thought of it all off him on this the first morning of his plighted faith with Blanche. It would be unpleasant, but imperative, and how well worth it!... Meanwhile, there was love to be enjoyed, every moment of it--love that was still to him such a shy and delicate thing that he hardly dared to breathe upon it for fear of ruffling in some clumsy way Blanche's fine susceptibilities.

She must have had so much to suffer from undue approaches in her battle with the world; not from him should such tarnishing come.

He sent a note down to her at Mrs. Penticost's to tell her again, in his morning greeting, of his love and to advise her of the mock-business of the day. Blanche was still in bed when it arrived, and Judith, looking more like a handsome monkey than ever in a faded red Garibaldi, took it in to her.

Judith still admired Blanche above all women, although she saw her as now with a creamed face and hair that resembled a row of little slugs disposed about her brow. Blanche rose above all this as she managed to rise above an inauspicious background, and the lazy stretch she gave beneath the sheet that was all that covered her, bringing out two white arms above her head so that the muscles swelled under the tight skin, was so lovely in its feline grace as to triumph over anything else.

"Here's a note for you; I think it's from Mr. Ruan," said Judith. "Mrs.

Penticost said she thought it was." Judy did not add that Mrs.

Penticost's precise method of giving the information had been to snort out: "T'young maister can't live through the night wethout writing to she, simminly.... Poor sawl!"

Blanche read the little note through twice, a smile on her face, then pulled Judith down to her and kissed her.

"Blanche, are you ...?" asked Judy breathlessly.

Blanche nodded.

"Oh, Blanche, what is it like? Is it as wonderful as books say? Do you feel thrills?"

"What sort of thrills?"

"Oh, up and down your spine, I suppose! Like I feel when I hear music."

"Yes, it's just like music. It somehow sets the whole of life to music,"

answered Blanche solemnly.

"How wonderful!... Blanche--has he kissed you?"

"Yes, last night. Judy, a woman doesn't know what life means till the man she loves kisses her."

Judy sat rapt, saying nothing. Her deep-set hazel eyes took on a look as of one who sees visions, impersonal but entrancing. Blanche rolled herself out of bed and, going over to the gla.s.s, began to examine her skin in the white light shed from the sky in at the window.

"Bother!" she murmured; "I'm getting a spot! Oh, Judy, isn't that too bad just when I want to look nice?... Of course, he's the kind to love me just as much with a spot, but I feel I can't love myself so much...."

"I'll lend you some of my lotion," said Judy, jumping up; "you can cover it over, if you try, with that and powder. It doesn't look anything really. I always think one sees one's own spots long before anyone else can, anyway."

"Yes, that's true; it will be all right if I can prevent it getting any worse. You never have any spots, you lucky baby. Just hand me the lotion ... and my dressing-gown ... thanks ever so." Blanche slipped on the wrapper, and going to the top of the little flight of stairs called down them: "Mrs. Penticost ... my bath-water, please!"

No answer.

"Mrs. Pe-e-e-ntico-s-st," called Blanche, "I must have my bath-water! I shall die, dear Mrs. Penticost, if I can't have my bath-water this very moment!"

From subterranean distance came a m.u.f.fled voice which nevertheless enunciated distinctly: "Die, then, damon, die...."

"Oh, Mrs. Penticost, how unkind you are!" cried Blanche, laughing. "I don't a bit want to die to-day. I want to live and be happy and for everyone in the world to be happy too."

These last remarks were addressed to the form of Mrs. Penticost toiling upstairs with the can of water. The good lady clanked the can down and pulled out the flat tin bath from under the bed before replying, which she did over her shoulder as she was leaving the room.

"Aw!" she observed, "I'd be careful if I was you. Be cryen before night!"

"Cheery old thing!" grimaced Blanche. "Do go and see she gets breakfast ready quickly, Judy. She'll do anything for you."

Judy flung herself downstairs and upon the neck of Mrs. Penticost, who called her a lamb, bade her get out of the way and sit down while she got her a cup of tea and some bread and b.u.t.ter to keep her going till that lazy f.a.ggot overstairs should have put enough mucks on her face to be able to breakfast.

The day brightened, though still with a curious pallor that was more glare than sunlight, and both girls put on cool muslin dresses, or as cool as the long full skirts would allow of their being. Va.s.sie was in blue, Phoebe in pink, Judy in primrose, while Blanche was white even to her shady hat. Girls never look as well as when there are several of them together, just as men never look so ill as in a crowd. What brings out all the ungainliness of men's attire emphasises the b.u.t.terfly nature of girls--their look, their voices, the little graces they half-consciously and half-unknowingly display with each other, show each off to better advantage than at any other time. Va.s.sie, Phoebe, Judith, and Blanche made the rough field a flower-garden that day to eye and ear, almost to nostril, for their presence was so quickening that the sweet smell of the oats and the green things cut with it seemed to emanate from the girls and be part of their presence. Laughter and the swish of skirts mingled with the rustle of stalk and grain, the sway and the dip of skirts mingled with the bending of the sheaves. To Ishmael his lover seemed the sweeter thus absorbed as one of others than even alone. All that month he had been seeing her only, to such an extent that her relationship with the rest of the world down at Cloom had not held his attention. Now he realised how vital the state of those relationships was, and seeing her one of a beautiful scheme that seemed inevitable and lasting as a Greek frieze, he took that purely physical circ.u.mstance to mean mental harmony as well.

It was hard work, though sweet, among the oats, and the physical exertion satisfied everyone, so that no fringe was left beyond it for thought. When they first entered the field the crop lay in broad tawny bands across the greener stubble, just as it had fallen from the scythes. The amateur harvesters had to gather the oats into great bundles and, binding them, stack the sheaves thus made together, against the day, close at hand now, when they would be carried to the threshing.

Bent-backed, the girls went along the rows, pushing the oats as they went into bundles bigger than themselves, trying to keep the feathery heads as much as possible at one end. Round each bundle Ishmael pulled a roughly-twisted rope of the oats, tugging it fast; and when it was Blanche's bundle be spanned, then his hands would touch hers through the glossy straws. Every now and again, for change of labour, the girls would stagger under a heavy sheaf to where one or two others lay ready and prop them up against each other, with a careful eye to the wind, lest, if the sheaves were not built solidly enough or fairly balanced, they might be found spilt along the ground in the morning. And all through the work, the sweeping up of the bundles, the twisting of the ropes, the carrying and the stacking, the rustling noise filled the air, while the faint but pervading smell, that subtle, inexpressibly wholesome smell of ripe grain, made it sweet.