Selected Stories Read online

  “Ay—but I noticed you was a hand short, an’ I thowt as ’appen you’d gie me half a day.”

  “What, are you any good in a hay close?” asked Henry, with a sneer.

  The man stood slouching against the haystack. All the others were seated on the floor. He had an advantage.

  “I could work aside any on yer,” he bragged.

  “Tha looks it,” laughed Bill.

  “And what’s your regular trade?” asked the father.

  “I’m a jockey by rights. But I did a bit o’ dirty work for a boss o’ mine, an’ I was landed. ’E got the benefit, I got kicked out. ’E axed me—an’ then ’e looked as if ’e’d never seed me.”

  “Did he though!” exclaimed the father sympathetically.

  “ ’E did that!” asserted the man.

  “But we’ve got nothing for you,” said Henry coldly.

  “What does the boss say?” asked the man, impudent.

  “No, we’ve no work you can do,” said the father. “You can have a bit o’ something to eat, if you like.”

  “I should be glad of it,” said the man.

  He was given the chunk of rabbit pie that remained. This he ate greedily. There was something debased, parasitic about him, which disgusted Henry. The others regarded him as a curiosity.

  “That was nice and tasty,” said the tramp, with gusto.

  “Do you want a piece of bread ’n cheese?” asked the father.

  “It’ll help to fill up,” was the reply.

  The man ate this more slowly. The company was embarrassed by his presence, and could not talk. All the men lit their pipes, the meal over.

  “So you dunna want any help?,” said the tramp at last.

  “No—we can manage what bit there is to do.”

  “You don’t happen to have a fill of bacca to spare, do you?”

  The father gave him a good pinch.

  “You’re all right here,” he said, looking round. They resented this familiarity. However, he filled his clay pipe and smoked with the rest.

  As they were sitting silent, another figure came through the gap in the hedge, and noiselessly approached. It was a woman. She was rather small, and finely made. Her face was small, very ruddy, and comely, save for the look of bitterness and aloofness that it wore. Her hair was drawn tightly back under a sailor hat. She gave an impression of cleanness, of precision and directness.

  “Have you got some work?” she asked of her man. She ignored the rest. He tucked his tail between his legs.

  “No, they haven’t got no work for me. They’ve just gave me a draw of bacca.”

  He was a mean crawl of a man.

  “An’ am I goin’ to wait for you out there on the lane all day?”

  “You nedn’t if you don’t like. You could go on.”

  “Well, are you coming?” she asked contemptuously.

  He rose to his feet in a ricketty fashion.

  “You nedn’t be in such a mighty hurry,” he said. “If you’d wait a bit you might get summat.”

  She glanced for the first time over the men. She was quite young, and would have been pretty, were she not so hard and callous-looking.

  “Have you had your dinner?” asked the father.

  She looked at him with a kind of anger, and turned away. Her face was so childish in its contours, contrasting strangely with her expression.

  “Are you coming?” she said to the man.

  “He’s had his tuck-in. Have a bit, if you want it,” coaxed the father.

  “What have you had?” she flashed, to the man.

  “He’s had all what was left o’ th’ rabbit pie,” said Geoffrey, in an indignant, mocking tone, “and a great hunk o’ bread an’ cheese.”

  “Well, it was gave me,” said the man.

  The young woman looked at Geoffrey, and he at her. There was a sort of kinship between them. Both were at odds with the world. Geoffrey smiled satirically. She was too grave, too deeply incensed even to smile.

  “There’s a cake here though—you can have a bit o’ that,” said Maurice blithely.

  She eyed him with scorn.

  Again she looked at Geoffrey. He seemed to understand her. She turned, and in silence departed. The man remained obstinately sucking at his pipe. Everybody looked at him with hostility.

  “We’ll be getting to work,” said Henry, rising pulling off his coat. Paula got to her feet. She was a little bit confused by the presence of the tramp.

  “I go,” she said, smiling brilliantly. Maurice rose and followed her sheepishly.

  “A good grind, eh?” said the tramp, nodding after the Fräulein. The men only half understood him, but they hated him.

  “Hadn’t you better be getting off?,” said Henry.

  The man rose obediently. He was all slouching, parasitic insolence. Geoffrey loathed him, longed to exterminate him. He was exactly the worst foe of the hypersensitive; insolence without sensibility, preying on sensibility.

  “Aren’t you goin’ to give me summat for her?—it’s nowt she’s had all day, to my knowin’. She’ll ’appen eat it if I take it ’er—though she gets more than I’ve any knowledge of”—this with a lewd wink of jealous spite. “And then tries to keep a tight hand on me——” he sneered, taking the bread and cheese, and stuffing it in his pocket.

  3.

  Geoffrey worked sullenly all afternoon, and Maurice did the horse-raking. It was exceedingly hot. So the day wore on, the atmosphere thickened, and the sunlight grew blurred. Geoffrey was picking with Bill—helping to load the wagons from the winrows. He was sulky, though extraordinarily relieved: Maurice would not tell. Since the quarrel neither brother had spoken to the other. But their silence was entirely amicable, almost affectionate. They had both been deeply moved, so much so that their ordinary intercourse was interrupted: but underneath, each felt a strong regard for the other. Maurice was peculiarly happy, his feeling of affection swimming over everything. But Geoffrey was still sullenly hostile to the most part of the world. He felt isolated. The free and easy intercommunication between the other workers left him distinctly alone. And he was a man who could not bear to stand alone, he was too much afraid of the vast confusion of life surrounding him, in which he was helpless. Geoffrey mistrusted himself with everybody.

  The work went on slowly. It was unbearably hot, and everyone was disheartened.

  “We s’ll have getting-on-for another day of it,” said the father at tea-time, as they sat under the tree.

  “Quite a day,” said Henry.

  “Somebody ’ll have to stop, then,” said Geoffrey. “It ’ud better be me.”

  “Nay lad, I’ll stop,” said Maurice, and he hid his head in confusion.

  “Stop again tonight!” exclaimed the father. “I’d rather you went home.”

  “Nay, I’m stoppin’,” protested Maurice.

  “He wants to do his courting,” Henry enlightened them.

  The father thought seriously about it.

  “I don’t know——” he mused, rather perturbed.

  But Maurice stayed. Towards eight o’clock, after sundown, the men mounted their bicycles, the father put the horse in the float, and all departed. Maurice stood in the gap of the hedge and watched them go, the cart rolling and swinging downhill, over the grass stubble, the cyclists dipping swiftly like shadows, in front. All passed through the gate, there was a quick clatter of hoofs on the roadway under the lime trees, and they were gone. The young man was very much excited, almost afraid, at finding himself alone.

  Darkness was rising from the valley. Already, up the steep hill the cart-lamps crept indecisively, and the cottage windows were lit. Everything looked strange to Maurice, as if he had not seen it before. Down the hedge a large lime tree teemed with scent that seemed almost like a voice speaking. It startled him. He caught a breath of the over-sweet fragrance, then stood still, listening expectantly.

  Up hill, a horse whinneyed. It was the young mare. The heavy horses went thundering across to the far h
edge.

  Maurice wondered what to do. He wandered round the deserted stacks restlessly. Heat came in wafts, in thick strands. The evening was a long time cooling. He thought he would go and wash himself. There was a trough of pure water in the hedge bottom. It was filled by a tiny spring that filtered over the brim of the trough down the lush hedge bottom of the lower field. All round the trough, in the upper field, the land was marshy, and there the meadow-sweet stood like clots of mist, very sickly smelling in the twilight. The night did not darken, for the moon was in the sky, so that as the tawny colour drew off the heavens they remained pallid with a dimmed moon. The purple bell-flowers in the hedge went black, the ragged robin turned its pink to a faded white, the meadow-sweet gathered light as if it were phosphorescent, and it made the air ache with scent.

  Maurice kneeled on the slab of stone bathing his hands and arms, then his face. The water was deliciously cool. He had still an hour before Paula would come: she was not due till nine. So he decided to take his bath at night instead of waiting till morning. Was he not sticky, and was not Paula coming to talk to him? He was delighted the thought had occurred to him. As he soused his head in the trough, he wondered what the little creatures that lived in the velvetty silt at the bottom would think of the taste of soap. Laughing to himself, he squeezed his cloth into the water. He washed himself from head to foot, standing in the fresh, forsaken corner of the field, where no one could see him by daylight, so that now, in the veiled grey tinge of moonlight, he was no more noticeable than the crowded flowers. The night had on a new look: he never remembered to have seen the lustrous grey sheen of it before, nor to have noticed how vital the lights looked, like live folk inhabiting the silvery spaces. And the tall trees, wrapped obscurely in their mantles, would not have surprised him had they begun to move in converse. As he dried himself, he discovered little wanderings in the air, felt on his sides soft touches and caresses that were peculiarly delicious: sometimes they startled him, and he laughed as if he were not alone. The flowers, the meadow-sweet particularly haunted him. He reached to put his hand over their fleeciness. They touched his thighs. Laughing, he gathered them and dusted himself all over with their cream dust and fragrance. For a moment he hesitated in wonder at himself: but the subtle glow in the hoary and black night reassured him. Things never had looked so personal and full of beauty, he had never known the wonder in himself before.

  At nine o’clock he was waiting under the elder bush, in a state of high trepidation, but feeling that he was worthy, having a sense of his own wonder. She was late. At a quarter past nine she came, flitting swiftly, in her own eager way.

  “No she would not go to sleep,” said Paula, with a world of wrath in her tone. He laughed bashfully. They wandered out into the dim, hillside field.

  “I have sat—in that bedroom—for an hour, for hours,” she cried indignantly. She took a deep breath: “Ah, breathe!” she smiled.

  She was very intense, and full of energy.

  “I want—” she was clumsy with the language—“I want—I should laïke—to run—there!” She pointed across the field.

  “Let’s run then,” he said, curiously.

  “Yes!”

  And in an instant she was gone. He raced after her. For all he was so young and limber, he had difficulty in catching her. At first he could scarcely see her, though he could hear the rustle of her dress. She sped with astonishing fleetness. He overtook her, caught her by the arm, and they stood panting, facing one another with laughter.

  “I could win,” she asserted blithely.

  “Tha couldna,” he replied, with a peculiar, excited laugh. They walked on, rather breathless. In front of them suddenly appeared the dark shapes of the three feeding horses.

  “We ride a horse?,” she said.

  “What, bareback?,” he asked.

  “You say?”—She did not understand.

  “With no saddle?”

  “No saddle—yes—no saddle.”

  “Coop lass!” he said to the mare, and in a minute he had her by the forelock, and was leading her down to the stacks, where he put a halter on her. She was a big, strong mare. Maurice seated the Fräulein, clambered himself in front of the girl, using the wheel of the wagon as a mount, and together they trotted up-hill, she holding lightly round his waist. From the crest of the hill they looked round.

  The sky was darkening with an awning of cloud. On the left the hill rose black and wooded, made cosy by a few lights from cottages along the highway. The hill spread to the right, and tufts of trees shut round. But in front was a great vista of night, a sprinkle of cottage candles, a twinkling cluster of lights, like an elfish fair in full swing, at the colliery, an encampment of light at a village, a red flare on the sky far off above an iron foundry, and in the farthest distance the dim breathing of town-lights. As they watched the night stretch far out, her arms tightened round his waist, and he pressed his elbows to his side, pressing her arms closer still. The horse moved restlessly. They clung to each other.

  “Tha doesna want to go right away?” he asked the girl behind him.

  “I stay with you,” she answered softly, and he felt her crouching close against him. He laughed curiously. He was afraid to kiss her, though he was urged to do so. They remained still, on the restless horse, watching the small lights lead deep into the night, an infinite distance.

  “I don’t want to go,” he said, in a tone half pleading.

  She did not answer. The horse stirred restlessly.

  “Let him run,” cried Paula, “fast!”

  She broke the spell, startled him into a little fury. He kicked the mare, hit her and away she plunged downhill. The girl clung tightly to the young man. They were riding bareback down a rough, steep hill. Maurice clung hard with hands and knees. Paula held him fast round the waist, leaning her head on his shoulders, and thrilling with excitement.

  “We shall be off, we shall be off,” he cried, laughing with excitement, but she only crouched behind, and pressed tight to him. The mare tore across the field. Maurice expected every moment to be flung onto the grass. He gripped with all the strength of his knees. Paula tucked herself behind him, and often wrenched him almost from his hold. Man and girl were taut with effort.

  At last the mare came to a standstill, blowing. Paula slid off, and in an instant Maurice was beside her. They were both highly excited. Before he knew what he was doing, he had her in his arms, fast, and was kissing her, and laughing. They did not move for some time. Then, in silence, they walked towards the stacks.

  It had grown quite dark, the night was thick with cloud. He walked with his arm round Paula’s waist, she with her arm round him. They were near the stacks when Maurice felt a spot of rain.

  “It’s going to rain,” he said.

  “Rain!” she echoed, as if it were trivial.

  “I s’ll have to put the stack-cloth on,” he said gravely. She did not understand.

  When they got to the stacks, he went round to the shed, to return staggering in the darkness under the burden of the immense and heavy cloth. It had not been used once during the hay harvest.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Paula, coming close to him in the darkness.

  “Cover the top of the stack with it,” he replied. “Put it over the stack, to keep the rain out.”

  “Ah!” she cried. “Up there!” He dropped his burden.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  Fumblingly, he reared the long ladder up the side of the stack. He could not see the top. “I hope it’s solid,” he said, softly.

  A few smart drops of rain sounded drumming on the cloth. They seemed like another presence. It was very dark indeed between the great buildings of hay. She looked up the black wall, and shrank to him.

  “You carry it up there?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “I help you?,” she said.

  And she did. They opened the cloth. He clambered first up the steep ladder, bearing the upper part, she followed
closely, carrying her full share. They mounted the shaky ladder in silence, stealthily.

  4.

  As they climbed the stacks a light stopped at the gate on the highroad. It was Geoffrey, come to help his brother with the cloth. Afraid of his own intrusion, he wheeled his bicycle silently towards the shed. This was a corrugated iron erection, on the opposite side of the hedge from the stacks. Geoffrey let his light go in front of him, but there was no sign from the lovers. He thought he saw a shadow slinking away. The light of the bicycle lamp sheered yellowly across the dark, catching a glint of rain-drops, a mist of darkness, shadow of leaves and strokes of long grass. Geoffrey entered the shed—no one was there. He walked slowly and doggedly round to the stacks. He had passed the wagon, when he heard something sheering down upon him. Starting back under the wall of hay, he saw the long ladder slither across the side of the stack, and fall with a bruising ring.

  “What wor that?” he heard Maurice, aloft, ask cautiously.

  “Something fall,” came the curious, almost pleased voice of the Fräulein.

  “It wor niver th’ ladder,” said Maurice. He peered over the side of the stack. He lay down, looking.

  “It is an’ a’!” he exclaimed. “We knocked it down with the cloth, dragging it over.”

  “We fast up here?,” she exclaimed with a thrill.

  “We are that—without I shout and make ’em hear at the vicarage.”

  “Oh no,” she said quickly.

  “I don’t want to,” he replied, with a short laugh. There came a swift clatter of rain-drops on the cloth. Geoffrey crouched under the wall of the other stack.

  “Mind where you tread—here, let me straighten this end,” said Maurice, with a peculiar intimate tone, a command and an embrace. “We s’ll have to sit under it. At any rate we shan’t get wet.”

  “Not get wet!” echoed the girl, pleased, but agitated.

  Geoffrey heard the slide and rustle of the cloth over the top of the stack, heard Maurice telling her to “Mind!”

  “Mind!” she repeated. “Mind! You say ‘Mind!’.”

  “Well, what if I do!” he laughed. “I don’t want you to fall over th’ side, do I?” His tone was masterful, but he was not quite sure of himself.