Book 3. When Fields Lie Fallow - Chapter 4

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_ BOOK III. WHEN FIELDS LIE FALLOW
CHAPTER IV

During the following week Sally Burwell came to spend the night with Eugenia, and the girls sat before the log fire in Eugenia's room until they heard the cocks crow shrilly from the hen-house. The room was a large, old-fashioned chamber, full of dark corners and unsuspected alcoves; and the lamp on the bureau served only to intensify the shadows that lay beyond its faint illumination.

Sally, her pretty hair in a tumble on her shoulders and the light of the logs on her bare arms, was stretched upon the hearth-rug, looking up at Eugenia, who lay in an easy-chair, her feet almost touching the embers. A waiter of russet apples was on the floor beside them.

"This is my idea of comfort," murmured Sally sleepily as she munched an apple. "No men and no manners."

"If you liked it, you'd come often, chick," returned Eugenia.

"Bless you! I'm too busy. I made over two dresses this week, trimmed mamma a bonnet, and covered a sofa with cretonne. One of the dresses is a love. I wore it yesterday, and Dudley said it reminded him of one he'd seen on the stage."

"He says a good deal," observed Eugenia unsympathetically.

"Doesn't he?" laughed Sally. "At any rate, he said that he found you reading Plato under the trees, and that any woman who read Plato ought to be ostracised--unless she happens to be handsome enough to make you overlook it. Is that your Plato? What is he like?"

Eugenia savagely shook her head.

"It's no affair of his," she retorted promptly, meaning not Plato, but Dudley.

"Oh! he said he knew it wasn't. I think he even wished it were. You're too unconventional for him--he frankly admits it--but he admits also that you're good-looking enough to warrant the unconventionality of a Hottentot--and you are, you dear, bad thing, though your forehead's too high and your chin's too long and your nose isn't all that a nose should be."

"Thanks," drawled Eugenia amicably. "But Dudley's a nice fellow, all the same. He gets on splendidly with papa--and I bless him for it."

"He gets on well with everybody--even his mother--which makes me suspect that he's a Job masquerading as an Apollo. By the way, Mrs. Webb wants you to join some society she's getting up called the 'Daughters of Duty.'"

"Oh, I can't! I can't!" protested Eugenia distressfully. "I detest 'Daughter' things, and I have a rooted aversion to my duty. But if she comes to me I'll join it--I know I shall! How did you keep out of it?"

"I didn't. I'm in it. It seems that our duty is confined to 'preserving the antiquities' of Kingsborough--so I began by presenting a jar of pickled cucumbers to Uncle Ish. I trust they won't be the death of him, but he was the only antiquity in sight."

She gave the smouldering log a push with her foot, and it broke apart, scattering a shower of sparks. "I don't know any other woman so much admired and so little loved," she mused of Mrs. Webb.

"Papa worships her," said Eugenia. "All men do--at a distance. She's the kind of woman you never get near enough to to feel that she is flesh. Now, Aunt Chris is just the opposite. No one ever gets far enough away from her to feel that she's a saint--which she is."

"It's odd she never married," wondered Sally.

"She never had time to." Eugenia clasped her hands behind her head and looked up at the high, plastered ceiling. "She never happened to be in a place where she could be spared. But you know her lover died when she was young," she added. "It broke her heart, but it did not destroy her happiness. She has been happy for forty years with a broken heart."

"I know," said Sally. "It seems strange, doesn't it? But I've known so many like her. The happiest woman I ever knew had lost everything she cared for in the war. That war was fought on women's hearts, but they went on beating just the same. I'm glad I wasn't I then."

"And I'm sorry. I like stirring deeds and shot and shell and tattered flags. They thrill one."

"And kill one," added Sally. "But you've got that kind of pluck. You aren't afraid."

"Oh! yes, I am," protested Eugenia. "I'm afraid of bats and of getting fat like my forefathers."

Sally shook a reassuring head.

"But you won't, darling. Your mother was thin, and you're the image of her--everybody says so."

"But I'm afraid--horribly afraid. I don't dare eat potatoes, and I wouldn't so much as look at a glass of buttermilk. The fear is on me."

"It's absurd. Why, your grandma Tucker was a rail--I remember her. I know your other grandmother was--enormous; but you ought to strike the happy medium--and you do. You're splendid. You aren't a bit too large for your height."

Eugenia laughed as she twisted Sally's curls about her fingers. "You're the dearest little duck that ever lived on dry land," she said. "If I were a man I'd be wild about you."

"A few of them are," returned Sally meekly, casting up her eyes, "but I--"

"How about Gerald Smith?"

"He's too tall. I look like an aspiring grasshopper beside him."

"And Jack Wyth?"

"He's too short."

"And Sydney Kent?"

"He's too stupid."

"And Tom Bassett?"

Sally yawned.

"He's too--everything. There's cock crow, and I'm going to bed."

The next afternoon Eugenia drove Sally in to town, and stopped on her outward trip to pay a visit to Mrs. Webb. She found that lady serenely seated in her drawing-room, as unruffled as if she had not just dismissed a cook and cooked a dinner.

"Oh, yes, thank you, dear, all is well," she replied in answer to the girl's question; for she held it to be vulgarity to allude, in her drawing-room, to the trials of housekeeping. She was not touched by such questions because she ignored that she was in any way concerned in them. She spent six hours a day with her servants, but had she spent twenty-four she would have remained secure in her conviction that they did not come within the sphere of her life.

"I have wanted to see you to ask you to join my society, the 'Daughters of Duty,'" she went on, her eyes on a piece of fine white damask she was hem-stitching. "Its object is to preserve our old landmarks, and when I spoke to your father he told me he was quite sure you would care to become an active member."

"I'm afraid I don't have much time," began Eugenia helplessly, when Mrs. Webb interrupted her, though without haste or discourtesy.

"Not have time, my dear?" she repeated with her slow, fine smile. "If I can find time, with all my other duties, don't you think that you might be able to do so?"

Eugenia was baffled. "Of course I love Kingsborough," she said, "and I'd preserve every inch of it with my own hands if I could--but I can't bear meetings--and--and things."

Mrs. Webb took a careful stitch in the damask. "I thought you might care enough to assist us," she remarked tentatively; and Eugenia succumbed.

"I'll do anything I can," she declared. "I will, indeed--only you mustn't expect much."

In a few moments she rose to go, lingering with a courteous appearance of being unwilling to depart, which belonged to her social training. As she stood in the doorway, her hand in Mrs. Webb's, the older woman looked at her almost affectionately.

"I had a letter from Dudley this morning," she said. "He is coming down next week for Sunday."

A flush crossed Eugenia's face, evoking an expression of irritation.

"You must miss him," she observed sympathetically.

"I do miss him, but he comes often. He is a good son. He sent a message to you, by the way, but it was not important."

"No, it was not important," repeated Eugenia with a feeling that her carelessness appeared to be assumed.

She lightly kissed Mrs. Webb and ran down the steps and into the carriage, which was waiting in the road. Her visit had left her with a curious sense of oppression, and she breathed a long draught of the invigorating air.

As she drove down the street she saw Nicholas coming out of his office and offered him a "lift" to his home. He said little on the way, and his utterances were forced, but Eugenia talked lightly and rapidly, as she always did when with him.

She told him of Sally Burwell, of the last letter from Bernard--who was coming home soon--of Mrs. Webb and the "Daughters of Duty."

"The truth is, I like her, but I'm afraid of her--dreadfully."

"She disapproves of your--your liking for me," he said bitterly. "But every one does that--even the judge, though he doesn't say anything. And they are right--I see it. You know from what I came and what I am."

"Yes, I know what you are," she returned defiantly, "and they shall all know some day."

He turned and looked at her as she sat beside him, but he was silent, nor did he speak until he said "good-bye" before his father's gate.

It was some days later that she saw him again. She had gone out to gather goldenrod for the great blue vases that stood on the dining-room mantel-piece, and was standing knee-deep in the ragged field, when he leaped the fence that divided the farms and crossed to where she stood.

The sun was going down behind the blackened branches of the dead oak, and the wide common, spread with goldenrod and life-everlasting, lay like a sea of flame and snow. Eugenia, standing in its midst, a tall woman in a dress of brown, fell in richly with the surrounding colours. Her arms were filled with the yellow plumes and her dress was tinselled with the dried pollen that floated in the air. As Nicholas reached her she was seeking to free herself from the clutch of a crimson briar that crawled along the ground, and in the effort some of the broken stalks slipped from her hold.

Without speaking, he knelt beside her and released her skirt. "You have torn it," he said quietly, but he was looking up at her, and there was a quality in his voice which thrilled her.

"Have I?" she returned quickly. "Well, I can mend it--but there! it's caught again. I've been trying to get free for--hours."

He smiled.

"You came into the field only twenty minutes ago. I saw you. But, hold on. I'll uproot this blackberry vine while I'm about it."

He tore it from its tenacious hold to the earth and flung it into the field. Then he examined the rent in Eugenia's dress.

"If you had waited until I came you might have spared yourself this--patch," he observed.

"I shan't patch it--and I didn't know you were coming."

"Don't I always come--when there's a patch to be saved?" he asked. "I hate to see things ruined."

"Then you might have come sooner. There, give me my goldenrod. It's all scattered."

He began patiently to gather up the stalks, arranging them in an even layer of equal lengths.

Eugenia watched him, laughing.

"How precise you are!" she said.

"Aren't they right?" He looked up for her approval, and she saw that he had grown singularly boyish. His face was less rugged, more sensitive. He wore no hat, and his thick red hair had fallen across his forehead. She felt the peculiar power of his look as she had felt it before.

"No, they're wrong. They aren't Chinese puzzles. Don't fix them so tight. Here."

She took them from him, and as his hands touched hers she noticed that they were cold. "You're shaking them all apart," he protested, "and I took such a lot of trouble."

As she bent her head his eyes followed the dark coil of hair to the white nape of her neck where her collar rose. Several loose strands had blown across her ear and wound softly about the delicate lobe. He wanted to raise his hand and put them in place, but he checked himself with a start. With his eyes upon her he recalled the warmth of her woollen dress, and he wished that he had put his lips to it as he knelt. She would never have known.

Then, by a curious emotional phenomenon, she seemed to be suddenly invested with the glory of the sunset. The goldenrod burned at her feet and on her bosom, and her fervent blood leaped to her face. The next moment he staggered like a man blinded by too much light--the field, with Eugenia rising in its midst, flamed before his eyes, and he put out his hand like one in pain.

"What is it?" she asked quickly, and her voice seemed a part of the general radiance. "You have been looking at the sun. It hurts my eyes."

"No," he answered steadily, "I was looking at you."

She thrilled as he spoke and brought her eyes to the level of his. Then she would have looked away, but his gaze held her, and she made a sudden movement of alarm--a swift tremor to escape. She held the sheaf of goldenrod to her bosom and above it her eyes shone; her breath came quickly between her parted lips. All her changeful beauty was startled into life.

"Genia!" he said softly, so softly that he seemed speaking to himself. "Genia!"

"Yes?" She responded in the same still whisper.

"You know?"

"Yes, I know," she repeated slowly. Her glance fell from his and she turned away.

"You know it is--impossible," he said.

"Yes, I know it is impossible."

There was a gasp in her voice. She turned to move onward--a briar caught her dress; she stumbled for an instant, and he flung out his arms.

"You know it is impossible," he said, and kissed her.

The sheaf of goldenrod loosened and scattered between them. Her head lay on his arm, and he felt her warm breath come and go. Her face was upturned, and he saw her eyes as he had never seen them before--light on light, shadow on shadow. He looked at her in the brief instant as a man looks to remember--at the white brow--the red mouth, at the blue veins, and the dark hair, at the upward lift of the chin and the straight throat--at all the perfect colouring and the imperfect outline.

"You know it is impossible," he repeated, and put her from him.

Eugenia gathered herself together like one stunned. "I must go," she said breathlessly. "I must go."

Then she hesitated and stood before him, her hands on her bosom, a single spray of goldenrod clinging to her dress.

He folded his arms as he faced her.

"I have loved you all my life," he said.

She bowed her head; her face had gone white.

"I shall always love you," he went on. "You may as well know it. Men change, but I do not. I have never really loved anybody else. I have tried to love my family, but I never did. When I was a little, God-forsaken chap I used to want to love people, but I couldn't--I couldn't even love the judge--whom I would die for. I love you."

"I know it," she said.

"If you will wait I will work for you. I will work until they let me have you. I don't mean that I shall ever be good enough for you--because I shall not be. I shall always be a brute beside you--but if you will wait I will win you. I swear it!"

She had not moved. She was as still as the dead oak that towered above them. The sunset struck upon her bowed head and upon the quiet bosom, where her hands were clasped.

"I will wait," she answered.

He came nearer and kissed the hands upon her breast. His face was flushed and his lips were hot.

"Thank you," he said simply as he drew back.

In a moment he stooped to pick up the scattered goldenrod, heaping it into her arms. "This is enough to fill the house," he protested. "You can't want so much."

He had regained his rational tone, and she responded to it with a smile.

"I never know when I'm satisfied," she said. "It is my weakness. As a child I always ate candy until it made me ill."

They crossed the field, the long plumes brushing against them and powdering them with a feathery gold dust. At the fence she gave him the bunch and lightly swung herself over the sunken rails. It did not occur to him to assist her; she had always been as good as he at vaulting bars. Now her long skirts retarded her, and she laughed as she came quickly to the ground on the opposite side.

"One of the many disadvantages of my sex," she said. "The best prisons men ever invented are women's skirts. Our wings are clipped while we wear them."

"It is hard," he returned as he recalled her school-girl feats. "You were such a mighty jumper."

"Those halcyon days are done," she sighed. "I can never stray beyond my 'sphere' again."

They had reached the end of the avenue, so he left her and went homeward along the road. The sun had gone slowly down and the western horizon was ripped open in a deep red track. The charred skeleton of the oak loomed black and sinister against the afterglow, and at its feet the glory went out of the autumn field. Straight ahead the sound of shots rang out where a flock of bats circled above the road. On the darkening landscape the lights began to glimmer in farmhouses far apart, and to Nicholas they seemed watchful, friendly eyes that looked upon him. All Nature was watchful--all the universe friendly. The glow which irradiated his outlook with an abrupt transfiguration was to him the glow of universal joy, though he knew it to be but the vanishing beam of youth and the end thereof age.

It seemed to him that he was singled out--securely set apart by some beneficent hand for some supreme good which, in his limited observation, he had never seen put forth in the lots of others. His own life lay so much nearer the Divine purpose than did the lives of his neighbours--the purpose of Nature, whose end is the happiness that conforms to sane and immutable laws. His kiss on Eugenia's lips was to him God-given; the answer in her eyes had flamed a Scriptural inspiration. In the tumultuous leaping of his thoughts it seemed to him that the meaning of existence lay unrolled--a meaning obscured in all religions, overlooked in all philosophies--a meaning that could be read only by the lamp that was lit in the eyes that loved.

So in his ignorance and his ecstasy he went on his confident way, while passion throbbed in his pulses and youth quickened in his brain.

From the far-off pines twilight came to meet him, the lights glimmered clearer in distant windows, the afterglow drifted from the west, and the shots ceased where the black bats circled above the road. _

Read next: Book 3. When Fields Lie Fallow: Chapter 5

Read previous: Book 3. When Fields Lie Fallow: Chapter 3

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