Secret Bread Part 24

"Put me down, Archelaus," she whispered. He still held her, his hands beneath her armpits, so that they cupped the curve of her breast, her face just beneath his, her feet dangling.

"I'll have a kiss afore putten 'ee down, then. I've never kissed 'ee since you was a lil' maid to school."

"No!" said Phoebe; "no!" She did not know why she protested; she had been kissed with the awkward shy kisses of youth often enough for her years, but she turned her mouth this way and that to escape his. He went on holding her in air, though his arms were beginning to tremble a little with the strain, and simply followed her mouth with his, brushing it lightly. Suddenly she felt she could bear no longer that easy mastery, those following lips that pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed over hers and could so easily have settled if they chose. Why didn't they? She turned like a little animal, and instead of evading any longer, sank her lips into his.

She hung there then, helpless indeed; for his mouth, no longer making a play of hers, held it, bore it down. When he released her he dropped her on to her feet at the same time. Phoebe turned from him and ran towards the mill. He followed leisurely, sure of her next action as only his experience of women could have made him sure, and found her, for all her flight, waiting for him in the shadow of the door.

"You shouldn't," she murmured. "I had to wait and tell you you shouldn't. 'Tesn't right or fitty to kiss that way. It frightens me, Archelaus."

"Why edn' it right?"

"Because--because we aren't wed," faltered Phoebe.

"Wed!..." In his voice was light laughter and a kindly scorn. "What's wed but a word? We're men and women on this earth; that's all that matters to my way of thinken!"

Phoebe was vaguely hurt and insulted, which did duty for being shocked very well. She opened the door and pa.s.sed into the pa.s.sage.

"I'd best be going," she said, still half-wishful to linger--anxious not to make herself cheap, yet wishing he would start some conversation which would make it possible to stay without seeming to want to over much.

"When'll you be out again?" asked Archelaus, his foot in the door.

"I don't know."

"I do. Good-night, lil' thing!" And he withdrew the foot and was off through the darkness under the elms. Phoebe was left with her awakened heart-beats.

CHAPTER XIV

A LETTER

Harvest had all been gathered in at Cloom, the threshing was over, the grain lay in heaps, grey-green and golden, in the barn, or had been sold and taken away, and the first tang of early autumn was in the air. The peewits had come down and were mewing in the dappled skies, and on the telegraph wires the high-shouldered swallows sat in rows preparing for flight; in the hedgerows the dead hemlocks, brittle as fine sh.e.l.ls, were ready to scatter their pale seeds at a touch, and the blackberries, on which as the West Country saying has it, the devil had already laid his finger, were filmed with mildew. It was autumn, but rich, warm autumn, dropping her leaf and seed into the teeming earth, whose grain was garnered, but whose womb was already fertile with the future.

Blanche was still at Mrs. Penticost's, and the engagement, though it had not actually been announced, had leaked out, and Blanche was not at all satisfied with the results that had followed upon that dissemination of knowledge. Annie's hostility she could bear, for she knew that, once married to Ishmael, his mother would be placed somewhere too far removed for the nuisance of her to be more than occasional; it was not that which was blowing with so chill a breath over her spirit. It was, as she phrased it to herself, the whole thing....

Ever since that night upon the boulders above the wood her sureness, both of the depth of her own feeling for Ishmael and for the country method of life that went with him, had been declining, as from some crest set in too rarefied an air for her to breathe with comfort. Poise had been slipping from her, and she was genuinely distressed. In the first stage of her declension she was chiefly occupied with a frantic s.n.a.t.c.hing at her pa.s.sion--a sustained effort to pull it back and keep it with her; in the second she was occupied in wondering how best to get gracefully out of the entanglement, which was how she grew to envisage it. At first this seemed to be hardly possible; she saw pathetic pictures of herself going on with it and sacrificing herself, unaware how the pleasure of the moment was leading her on, how charming she found Ishmael's considerate and tender love-making that came to her jaded nerves with the refreshing quality of a draught of pure water to a man who has lived too long on champagne. The actual present continued to be pleasurable long after she had determined that it could never crystallise into anything more definite, and so she went on from day to day, enjoying herself, yet vaguely hoping something would happen which would enable her to retire from the engagement without loss of self-respect or that of Ishmael.

For gradually she became quite sure that she could not go through with it, that she must get right away. The people she wanted to know had not called on her--the Parson, on whose help she had relied, held out no a.s.sistance; Annie was stubborn and would obviously, wherever she was, do her best to make of herself a barrier against the world, the world that Blanche must know if life were to be tolerable here. The climax, to Blanche's mind, had been a ball just given by a local magnate and his wife who lived on the outskirts of Penzance. Ishmael had been invited and she with him, under the chaperonage of an elderly cousin of the Parson's who was staying at the Vicarage. And the ball, from Blanche's point of view, had been a failure. She had been received politely, but without enthusiasm; and she had overheard some of the other guests saying that they supposed young Ruan had had to be invited, but that it was really dashed awkward!... And she was beginning to realise that Ishmael, when he had paid his mother a little income, paid Va.s.sie enough to live on, paid John-James bigger wages to allow of his living elsewhere, would not be nearly as well off as she had thought ... a visit to London once a year would be the utmost to be hoped for. And for the rest--year in, year out, at Cloom, watching the waxing and waning of the seasons, bearing children, the children Ishmael looked for to inherit the horrid place after him.... Blanche, fond as she still was of him, literally shuddered as she saw where glamour, in company with boredom and desperation, had been about to lead her. After all, she need not despair: there were other men in the world, and she had been silly to expect to meet anyone she could marry at the theatre; it was no sign of waning charm that she had failed there. If only she could think of a good excuse, she would go home and write to Ishmael from there.... Yet that gave her no scope, allowed no scene such as her soul loved as long as she could shine creditably....

She could not quite decide how to stage-manage her exit; but, whether she went or not, Judy had to go back to her people--Judy who would bear with her the slim little sheaf of poems she had written during her stay, Judy sun-browned, almost more of the elf than the monkey. Killigrew had settled to go the same day to accompany her on the tiresome journey, and then he was for Paris again, his beloved Paris; he vowed that he should burst if he stayed in England any longer. On the morning of the day before Judy's departure Blanche, who, half-packed, was still trying to make up her mind, received a letter that, with no sense of impiousness, she considered providential.

Mrs. Penticost brought it in to her, between a red finger and thumb, rather steamy from washing-up, and busied herself about the room while her lodger read the closely-written pages. Mrs. Penticost was frankly curious, and if Blanche did not tell her what was in that letter she meant to find out by questioning her.

Blanche hardly noticed her presence; she was too rapt in the providential happenings described to her by the garrulous pen of her stepmother. The very crackle of the paper between her fingers gave her fresh courage as she read. And yet it was a very simple letter, coming as it did from the simple woman who she so often said had nothing in common with herself.

"Dear Blanche," ran the letter, "I wonder how much longer you are going to stay in Cornwall? Your father feels it hard that you should not spend any of your holiday with him, and I don't think will go on much longer with your allowance if you are neither working nor staying at home. You know he was determined you should have your chance to become a great actress, as you were so set on it and discontented at home, and indeed I do not blame you, for I know how dull it is here. However, just at present the neighbourhood is very lively, as we have a new lord of the manor--only imagine it! You know old Mr. Crossthwaite died in the spring and the place has been sold this summer to a very rich young man--_trade_, I think, but _quite_ a gentleman; you would never know the difference, and has been educated at Cambridge, I am told. He seems a quite nice young man, and all the neighbours are making him give parties and giving them themselves, I believe to try and marry him to one of their daughters, but as you know there is n.o.body much here now. There are Dr. Smythe's daughters, but they are so very plain, poor dears! and the only others are Lady Geraldine and Lady Sybil, and I don't suppose they would look at him, being so much older and occupied in their charities, even if he were inclined, so I'm sure we can't blame the young man if he refuses to fall in love at all down here. If you were here I expect it would be a very different story; he's just your type, if you know what I mean, very like your Mr. Bellew, poor young man. I wonder what has happened to him. I did hear he married a barmaid, and I'm sure it was a judgment on his mother for saying he was too young to marry you. Well, there is no more news, except that that silly little housemaid I got a good place for at the Hall is in trouble--the gamekeeper, I believe; but she is very obstinate and won't say. These girls are enough to make one give up trying to help them. Also the carpet in the drawing-room is right _through_ at last, so I am in hopes of persuading your father we really must have a new one. I don't think it looks at all well for the rector of the parish to have a carpet that callers have to be warned not to catch their feet in. The rug cannot be made to cover it as it's right in the middle. I do my best with an occasional table, but then that gets in the way. With love, my dear Blanche, from myself and your father, believe me,

"Yours affectionately,

"MARY LEt.i.tIA GREY."

This was the letter that had flashed like a ray of sun into the scheme of things for Blanche, and whose salient portions--by which she meant those directly affecting herself--she repeated over and over. "A very rich young man ... educated at Cambridge, I am told ... cannot blame the poor young man if he does not fall in love down here ... it would be different if you were home. He is just your style." That meant the style of man who fell in love with her, now always younger than herself.

"Got bad news, have 'ee, or is it good?" asked Mrs. Penticost, who could contain herself in silence no longer. She gave up the pretence of dusting and stood frankly looking at her lodger.

"I--I don't quite know how to take it, Mrs. Penticost," temporised Blanche.

"Whisht kind of news that must be," remarked Mrs. Penticost, who had not watched Miss Grey these past weeks without getting a shrewd idea of the tendency of her thoughts and affections. "I was wondering whether you weren't feeling glad that time's come to go--if 'ee are going along of Miss Judy?"

There was no answer to this, and Mrs. Penticost, her rosy face set in lines of determination, began again.

"Must be rare and dull for 'ee down here after London, though there was that ball in to Penzance t'other night. Dance weth Maister Ruan, ded 'ee, my dear? They do say he handles his feet some pretty. I remember when I was a maid I was all for a man who could do that. I got as far as walking arm-a-crook weth a chap wance, and, thought I, 'I won't go for to ask he to step in till I do know if he can dance wi' I.' Some trouble I ded have keepen' he quiet till there was a gala and us could dance.

Primitive Wesleyan, the gala was. He was all for me maken' up my mind long before, and I wouldn' have un till I knew, nor yet I wouldn' let un go. 'Must keep cousins weth he or he'll go off,' I thought; and so I ded, my dear, just managed it nicely. I gave the go-bye to a fine-looken chap from St. Just to dance wi' my man, and then I found that he never danced toall, and hadn't dared tell me. Mad as fire I was, and abused him worse than dung. But you couldn' ever go for to lay that complaint against Maister Ruan, nor yet any other, I should say."

"Mr. Ruan is all that is good and splendid, of course, Mrs. Penticost,"

said Blanche, folding up her letter.

"He is that, sure 'nough, and it'll be a bad day for the woman that ever does him a hurt, him that has had enough already to turn his very heart grey in his breast. I wouldn' like to see no woman do that."

"Mightn't it be better than making him unhappier in the long run by not doing him a hurt now, as you call it?" asked Blanche.

"If he but knew what was best for him, 'tes a sharp hurt and soon auver," said Mrs. Penticost frankly; "but he'm like all men, naught but a cheild that cries for the moon, and a woman as has a heart would sooner see a man getten' what he wants, even when 'tes bad for 'en, than see him eaten' his soul away with longing. There's a deal of satisfaction in maken' our own unhappiness, and a man has that to console him."

"You are a Job's comforter," cried Blanche, rustling out of the room.

She had heard the well-known click of the little gate, and she fled upstairs to be alone with her thoughts and her letter for a few moments before meeting Ishmael. She no longer doubted she was going to break off her engagement and leave for home the next day, but she still had to decide on the type of Blanche who should appear to him and what her manner and aspect should be. A tender grieving, shown in a pale face and quiet eyes, would probably be best ... and she could always introduce a maternal note in the very accent of her "dear boy...."

CHAPTER XV

BLOWN HUSKS

Not for nothing had Ishmael given way to the incursion of the personal, always before so jealously kept out of his life. His desire for impersonality now only kept by him in a fierce wish to blot out his own as much as possible, to sink it in that of the beloved, to drown in hers. He was obsessed by Blanche, she filled the world for him from rim to rim; and though with his mind he still admitted the absurdity of it, could even look at his own state dispa.s.sionately, he yet had to admit the fact. It was some time since he had been near Boase, because, although the Parson never so much as hinted it, Ishmael knew he was not in sympathy with him over this. Annie he felt he could hate for her antagonism, which, as long as it had been against himself alone, he had not minded; even Va.s.sie would not yield altogether and come in on his side. Blanche had to fight the lot of them, he told himself--resentful, fearful lest they should frighten her away. But at the bottom of it all was the fear, the distrust of her which he refused to recognise.

On this morning as he went down over the fields to Mrs. Penticost's he was more uneasy than ever before--he knew it was not his imagination that she had been different these last few days; he began to be beset by vague fears to which he had not dared give form even in his own mind, much less in any speech with her. Yet since the dance he had faced the conclusion that they could not go on as they were, that Blanche must either agree to a wedding or a final parting....

He reached the cottage and had to wait awhile till Blanche, pale and grave, came to him in the little parlour.

"Come out," he said to her. "There's a lot of things I want to say, and I can't here. The room's too small."

Blanche hesitated, seemed to be weighing something in her mind, and then agreed docilely; she put on a hat, and then went beside him towards the cliff. As they went Ishmael tried to take her hand, trying to capture with it some of the spirit of joy which had fled, but she was carrying a little bag, which she s.n.a.t.c.hed away; there came from it a crackle as of a letter.... They went down on to the cliff together and stood awhile in a speechless constraint among the withered bracken.