Chapter 46

Man and Woman

Silver and Joses went back to Cuckmere by the same train from Brighton.

The young man was well-established in a first-class smoker, and the train was about to start when the fat man came puffing along the platform. He was very hot; and out of his pocket bulged a brown paper parcel. The paper had burst and the head of a wooden mallet was exposed.

Silver, quiet in his corner, remarked that mallet.

That night he took a round of the stable-buildings before he went to bed, as his custom had been of late. There was nobody stirring but Maudie, meandering around like a ghost who did not feel well.

He went to the back of the Lads' Barn, and looked across the Paddock Close. A light in the window of a cottage shone out solitary in the darkness.

It was the cottage in which Joses lived, and the light came from an upper window.

Silver strolled along the back of the stable-buildings toward it.

Under Boy's window he paused, as was his wont.

A light within showed that the girl was in her eyrie. Then the light went out, and the window opened quietly.

Shyness overcame the young man. He moved away and went back to the corner in the saddle-room he had made his own--partly because he could smoke there undisturbed, and far more because it was directly under the girl's room, and he loved to hear her stirring above him.

He lit his pipe, settled himself, and began to brood.

The girl was still there--he could tell by the sound; and still at the window.

A vague curiosity possessed him as to what attracted her. Then she crossed the floor with that determined step of hers, and went along the loft, the planks betraying her.

He heard her swift feet on the ladder, and coming down the gangway toward the saddle-room.

In another moment she stood before him. A woolly cap was on her head, and a long muffler flung about her throat. It was clear that she was going out. He noticed with surprise that her race-glasses were slung over her shoulders.

"I came for the electric torch," she remarked.

He rose and pocketed it.

"Right," he said. "Whither away?"

"I don't want you," she answered.

"I'm coming along, though."

"You can't," coldly.

"Why not?"

"I'm going spying."

"Good," he answered cheerfully.

She led out into the night. He followed her.

In the yard she paused again.

"And spying's only for people like me," she continued daintily. "It's not work for the gentry."

They were walking across the Paddock Close now under dim heavens toward the light in the cottage across the way.

"I suppose not," he answered imperturbably. "I'm glad I'm not one."

"Oh, but you are," with quiet insistence. "Your father could have been a peer. You've told us about it many a time."

Jim Silver was roused. He surged up alongside the girl in the night, and pinched her arm above the elbow.

"Now look here, little woman!" he said.

She released her arm.

"Not so loud," she ordered. "And don't creak so."

They walked delicately in the darkness, the light guiding them, till they came to the ragged hedge at the foot of a long strip of cottage garden.

The night was very warm, the blinds up, the windows wide.

Joses, in his shirt-sleeves, was busy within working at something.

The girl watched awhile through her glasses and then withdrew quietly.

"He's whittling at wooden pegs," she whispered, keen as a knife.

"Obviously."

"What was that coil on the table?"

"Wire."

"And the thing beside it?"

"Mallet."

She glanced up at him in the dusk.

"You're short," she said.

The stables showed before them, long and black against the sky.

They were nearly off the grass. In another moment their feet would take the cobbles with a noise.

The girl paused and put her hand on her companion's arm.

"Thank you for coming," she said.

The resistance died out of him at once. He stood breathing deeply at her side.

She lifted her face to his.

"Mr. Silver!"

"Sweetheart!"

He loomed above her like a great shadow; and she felt his love beating all about her as with wings.

"Bend your head!"

His face drew down to hers in the dusk.

Then his arms stole about her lithe body; and his laughter was in her ear soft as the cooing of a dove.

"Don't kiss me," she said.

"You deserve it," he replied.

Her hands rested light as birds upon his shoulders; her eyes were steady in his, and very close.

"D'you love me?" she asked, her voice so calm, so pure, somehow so like a singing star.

He choked.

"A bit--sometimes."

"Then I'll whisper you," she said.

Her beautiful little arms, wreathing about his neck, drew his ear to her lips.

She whispered.

He chuckled deeply.

"Good," he said, and added--"Is that all?"

She released him and withdrew.

"For the present," she said.

They entered the yard. The light of the great stable-lantern brought them back from the land of dreams.

They cleared their throats and trod the cobbles aggressively.

She went toward the ladder. He turned off for the house.

"What time d'you take the hill?" he called.

"Six sharp."

"Right."

"Shall you be there?"

She spoke from the door of the loft, at the top of the ladder.

"Might," he said, and was gone.