Part 8

“I b’lieve father ’d kill me if he knowed as I’d been with ye to-night,” she whispered. “Ye don’t know what ’e’s like, father. It’s bad enough when ’e ’aven’t got the drink in ’im. ’E’s mad agin you and yours—downright crazy-mad. Oh, Charley,” she moaned again, clinging to him with trembling hands, “take me with ye, do, now! Don’t leave me wi’ father! I’d not be a bit o’ trouble to ye, that I wouldn’t! You try me. I’d rather live on a crust for weeks than stay ’ere alone. I’m frightened, I am. It seems as if somethin’ bad was bound to ’appen if ye go away and leave me. Take me along with ye, Charley!”

The boy wavered. He too was frightened, though he would not have acknowledged it. He too, with the headlong recklessness of youth, would have adventured all to hold what he had won, to have what he wanted; but a vague sense of responsibility born of this new and strangely constraining love, an uncomprehended instinct to protect what clung to him, prevailed at last. He kissed her again, but it was no longer feverishly; he was as he had said—a man.

“There, now, there,” said he soothingly, “ye mustn’t be onreasonable, ye know. I shouldn’t be actin’ right by ye if I was to take ye from yer ’ome afore I’d somethin’ to keep ye on. I ’aven’t acted just as I should ha’ done by ye, may be, but I can make that right. Only ye must let me go and work for ye. If I was a ’cute un like my brother Ben, I’d say to the Guv’nor: ‘Give me the bit o’ money what’d be mine some day, and let me go and take my own chance wi’ it.’ But it’d be trickin’ ’im to do that for to marry the darter o’ the man as ’e ’ates—and I ain’t a bad lot. No, I’ll make my own way, and we’ll be man and wife, fair and open, and please God father ’ll come to love ye too—some day. ’Tain’t in nature as both on ’em shouldn’t forgive when it’s done. Ay, we’ll be man and wife come Lady Day, Bess. I swear it, and it shall be done square. I ain’t a bad lot, dear, and I’ll make ye a good ’usband, s’elp me God.”

His voice shook a little, but he lifted one hand to the moon that was bright on them for a moment, while he strained her wildly to his breast with the other; and she felt the purpose in him and bowed to the inevitable.

But her tears flowed softly, and though he stroked her cheek to dry them, they flowed still and her body shook with her grief.

“Tell me ye’ve faith in me, dear?” whispered he. “Tell me ye feel as ye can trust me?”

She did not answer; the sobs that she strove against would not be stilled.

“Why, Bess!” whispered he again, half frightened. “Ye’ll never be afraid to trust me?”

Then she understood and raised her head.

“Trust ye?” she echoed bravely, and her eyes shone in the moonlight. “Trust ye? D’ye think I take ye for a blackguard?”

He kissed her passionately and she dried her eyes.

“It ain’t that,” said she, and tried to smile. “It’s only as Lady Day’s a long way off.”

The moon had topped the tallest tree that bent and quivered in the wind; she might have been hurrying herself, so wildly the clouds hurried past her, so cruelly the moments hurried onward.

“They’ll be waitin’ supper for me,” said the girl with a little shudder, looking up at the trees. “Father’s been to market. He was to be late ’ome, but ’e’ll ’ave been back long afore this. Oh dear!”

“Well, ye mustn’t notice ’im too much,” declared he bravely. “’E won’t plague ye, if ye stand up agin’ ’im. Ye must be a bit saucier. I’m sure ye used to be saucy enough to me when first I fancied ye!”

“That was ’cos I knowed ye loved me,” smiled she, and then they kissed again. But they couldn’t keep the sauciness up, and the next thing she said was said sadly enough.

“It’s near six months to Lady Day,” she whimpered. “And I sha’n’t ’ave no news of ye till then!”

“I’ll write when I get a bit settled,” he said.

“I’d never get the letter,” moaned she.

“Ye must go to the Post-office for it,” he answered.

“Post-mistress might tell,” objected she. But then with a sudden inspiration: “May be Nan Fordham ’d fetch it for me. She’s a good child. And ye might put A. B. on it, same as the girls do when they ’vertise for a situvation.”

“Why, yes, that’s capital,” he cried. “What a clever one you is, to be sure! Nobody’d find _that_ out, I’ll be bound.”

The comfort was a little one, but they hugged it and planned their plan with fresh courage. But it was parting all the time, bitter-sweet, though they painted the future brightly for one another, and took their fill of the kisses the memory of which was to keep them alive: it was parting and it hurt.

They made it last as long as they could; sheltering her from the blasts with his arm around her, he took her to the edge of the wood, and many a time did he leave her, yet was fain to come back for a last word, a last embrace. But it was all over at last; he was gone, and she was left on the empty road, swallowing her tears, alone.

Some one stood at the house-door as she crossed the common; the moon had sailed forth from among the clouds again and stared at her grief, and would not cover her sorrow. She could see the figure plain enough in the hard, white light, and her heart leapt to her mouth and she thanked the chance that had made Charley run down the grass slope to the railway-station instead of coming round with her by the road.

She knew to whom the figure belonged, and she knew what it would say, and try as she would to call to mind her lover’s brave banter, try as she would to steel herself as he had bade her, her cheek was as white as the moonlight and her heart fell against her side.

“Where’ve ye been?” thundered the figure as she came up, and the first word told her that the man was in drink.

“Down the village,” she faltered, faintly.

“That’s a lie,” he shouted. “Why’s your feet soppin’ wet, and what are them dead leaves a-stickin’ in yer ’air for?”

She put her hand up vaguely; it was true—the leaves of the wood had left upon her the loving memory of her happiness. She took the two withered witnesses from her curls and pressed them to her bosom.

“Ye’ve been down in the copse, and ye’ve been and met a man there, ye shameless slut,” shrieked the father, shuffling a step nearer to her and seizing her by the arm. “Now, don’t tell me no more darned lies. It ain’t no use. You’ve been see’d a-cuddlin’ and a-kissin’, fit to shame the mother that bore ye. And I tell ye what, I’ve ’ad my suspicions this fortnight past, and if this lover o’ yours—damn ’im!—’ave got aught to do with that stuck-up good-for-nothing son of a scamp—ye know well enough who I mean!—I’ll break every bone in his blasted body! So now ye’re warned, and ye know me well enough to guess I’ll do what I say.”

Bess stood still and said not a word; she was cold and she trembled, but a blessed peace glowed within her, and she was not afraid, for she was happy. The glamour of her bliss was fresh upon her, his kisses still burned her lips, his heart still beat against hers. She stood still, rapt and listening—listening for the whistle of the train that should tell her he was being carried far from _her_ but far from harm also.

It struck upward from the valley, and she sighed a sigh of relief. For herself she could bear much—and _he_ was safe. No one could break every bone in his blessed body now.

“Why don’t ye answer?” snarled the man. “Am I to be fooled and cheeked by a mere brat, a chit as ain’t fit to be tret as a woman at all? Am I to be gainsayed by the likes o’ you?”

And he shook her violently by the arm.

“I don’t gainsay ye, father,” said she, quietly. “I ’aven’t said nothin’. I ain’t got nothin’ to say.”

The words seemed to exasperate him to frenzy.

“Oh, you won’t speak, won’t ye?” cried he. “You ain’t goin’ to give the young blackguard away, eh? Well, then, ye can take what I meant for _’im_ instead.”

And with a violent jerk he threw her from him, kicking her even as she fell.

She went down, striking the garden gate, which in her fear she had left unlatched, and lay, huddled together, with her head in the dust of the road, and her face as marble under the moon.

He looked at her a moment, muttering curses still, and lurched up the path again, calling fiercely to some one within as he went.

“Ye’d best come and fetch this precious darter o’ yours, marm,” cried he. “And ye’d better lock her up when ye get ’er. D’ye ’ear me? Lock her up, I say! She’s not fit to be let out doors. I thought she were only a chit,—but she’s a slut, that’s what she is—a dirty slut. But _I’ve_ punished ’er for it! Oh, and I’ll do it again if I find ’er at ’er tricks! That I swear! So now ye both on ye know.”

A feeble, spiritless-looking woman appeared on the threshold. She gave a little moan when she saw what had happened, but she attempted no remonstrance, only ran foolishly crying down the path to where the figure lay motionless in the dust.

But Bess, though stunned and bruised, was not dead. As her mother slid an arm under her head to raise it, she turned towards her.

“Never mind,” she gasped, “it ain’t so bad. Father’s been drinkin’—’e didn’t mean no ’arm. Take me indoors, mother, or the neighbours’ll see.”

Mrs. Benson looked round nervously. There was nothing she minded so much in the world as “the neighbours seeing” anything.

But luckily it was night, farm work was over, and the farm buildings that clustered close together opposite the house were deserted and silent: and the village proper lay further down the hill.

Bess tried to sit up, and the woman helped her; she helped her with her arm, but word of comfort for the young and sore spirit there was none.

“Whatever ye must needs go and take up with that young Chiswick for I’m sure I don’t know,” whimpered she. “Ain’t there trouble enough a’ready? You did ought to ha’ knowed better—your father so set on agin them Chiswicks as ’e is! One’d think there weren’t no other chaps about! But, Lor’, ye can’t count on girls!”

She had her arm round the slender waist and helped the drooping figure up the path. And in the kitchen she set her in a chair and wiped the blood from her forehead, and then took her up and put her to bed. It was done deftly enough, but all the time the same moan went on till the child was glad when the candle was taken away and she was left to her thoughts.

For in her thoughts she could live over again the happy moments that were so near in the past ... and of the future she would not think. That was grim enough, for she guessed pretty surely that her home would give her nothing but what it had given her to-night, and Charley was gone: gone to some unknown spot in that vast and unknown London, that to Bess was as the wilderness itself.

She had not put it too strongly when she had said that her fight would be a worse fight than another’s.

It _was_ a bad fight, but it was a brave one. For a while there was a lull in the persecution; either sobriety brought shame for the brutal assault on his daughter, or the departure of young Chiswick from the village removed his excuse, but anyhow Farmer Benson quieted down to sullen moroseness within-doors, and to bitter attacks upon his neighbour without.

Christmas came and went, and on Christmas Day Bess wore a face so bright that her mother looked at her wondering, and her father swore beneath his breath in sheer perplexity.

The night before a red-haired little maid had run into the kitchen with eager eyes, and the girl’s heart had leapt into her mouth. Luckily there had been no one by, but Bess had snatched the child in her arms and carried her into the orchard, kicking and screaming at the indignity, ere she had dared to ask her for what she carried. It was a letter, addressed A. B., and was supposed to be for some person unknown.

Bess took possession of it, in exchange for a good scolding for instructions of secret delivery not adhered to, and a bright penny for acid-drops. And then she ran away into the wood.

The leaves were all off the trees, and lay rotting in the purple brushwood; a hard sky looked on a hard and frozen land, and there was a promise of snow in the air in place of the soughing of the wind in the watching forest on that night when every gust had borne a tale of love through the moonlight.

But Bess knew nothing of wind or weather: Charley was beside her once more; his kisses made her heart beat again, and her face was hot in the frost as it lay, in her thought, against his. He was well, he loved her, he had never looked at another girl, he had got work at last, and he was coming back for her soon. And she kissed the letter as girls do, and cried over it in her joy.

That was why her face shone over the plum-pudding as it used to do when she was a little maid, and that was why the Christmas bells were sweet to her.

But Christmas went by, and New Year went by, and the frost held unrelenting sway, and Bess drooped. The crispness went out of her pretty hair, and her tall young figure grew quite too slim, and her fair, fresh skin became wan and transparent. The mother sighed, as any mother must, but dared make no remark, for she lived in terror of her man, and if it was for love of one whom he had said must not be loved that Bess grew pale,—pale she must grow, and there was no help: Farmer Benson never changed his mind, other folk had to change theirs.

But it was not only with the hunger of love unsatisfied that Bess was growing white; her health was strange, and a great fear was growing in her mind. Yes, young as she was, she was too much of a country girl not to know very well what things meant, and an awful chill struck at her heart.

What should she do? Whither turn for help, with whom consult, in whom confide?

Her mother? She loved her mother, and would never have dreamed of blaming her for being what she was; but was it wonderful that she should feel the burthen would only weigh the heavier on herself for endeavouring to share it with one who was too weak to bear any part of it? Perhaps—perhaps if she had known more of mother’s love she would have trusted it a little, and perhaps she might have been right; perhaps even that wavering heart would have swelled to a sense of its greatest duty, have yearned to protect that which it had borne. But Bess never gave it a thought.

“Not to worry mother” had always been her motto, it was her motto still.

The one person in the world who should have helped her, she held to be useless; the one person in the world who would have helped her was far away, and knew naught of her distress.

For that one cherished Christmas letter was the only one that she had had, and in that he had given her no address to which she could have written, even had she dared. He had said that he was changing it, and he had said that he was coming—coming very soon.

So she waited, hoping every day that “very soon” might mean the morrow; but her smile grew rarer and sadder, and her eyes more wistful and her cheek more white.

One Sunday in early February, when the sun was shining gay upon the crisp snow and icicles hung rainbow-tinted from the cottage-eaves, Farmer Benson strode into the farm kitchen. His wife was busy mixing the Sunday pudding, but Bess, contrary to her wont, was sitting listless in a chair. She rose quickly as her father entered, but not before he had had time to notice her attitude.

“Now what’s that puling face for, pray?” said he sharply. “Let’s ’ave none o’ them airs and graces ’ere. It won’t pay wi’ me, I can tell ye! No, nor get ye a ’usband, neither!”

Bess looked up with a new fear in her face, and Mrs. Benson said, half-appealing: “What, Lor’, she don’t want a ’usband yet awhile, do she, John? She’s but a child, sure_ly_.”

“Get out wi’ yer ‘_do she, John_!’” snarled the man. “Most women’s pleased to get their darters out o’ hand, but you’re such a lazy one ye want to keep ’er ’angin’ round to do yer work for ye, I suppose? But whether you want or whether _she_ wants, she’s got to ’ave one. A child she is, but if she’s woman enough to play tricks, she’s woman to ’ave a ’usband. And a child does as it’s bid.”

Bess gave a great start and went paler than ever, and her father held his bleary eye fixed fast on her.

“Yes, _she’s got to ’ave a ’usband_,” repeated he doggedly, emphasizing every word, “and ’igh time too!”

“What d’ye mean, father?” faltered the girl faintly.

“I mean what I says,” insisted he, still watching her. “Ye’ve got to ’ave a ’usband if ye can get one, and one o’ my choosin’ too, and that in just about as jolly quick time as I can do it in! Ye’ve got yerself talked about i’ the parish, a-prowlin’ round with a young vagabond at dead o’ night, and I ain’t a-goin’ to ’ave no girl o’ mine talked about, not if I knows it!”

“It’s ’ard lines, that it is,” sniffed the woman irrelevantly. “And we with on’y that one.”

“It’s ’ard lines to ’ave such a slut for a darter,” snarled the man, drawing up his bloated figure to its awful height and turning his drink-sodden face upon his wife. “The Bensons ’ave been respectable folk ever sin’ I can remember, though _you_ be a bit of a fool, Mary, and I ain’t a-goin’ to ’ave ’em blowed upon.”

“I _can’t_ get married,” faltered Bess, with a break in her voice.

“Oh, can’t ye!” sneered the father. “We’ll soon see about that, leastways if there’s a man fool enough to take ye. And that’s where I’m comin’ to. Jim Preston, from over Harraden way, is a-comin’ in this arternoon to ask ye to walk out wi’ ’im. ’E’s not much to look at, but ’e can keep a wife, and ’e saw ye over in the town one day, and was flat enough to fancy ye. Ye’re lucky to git the chance, and ye’d best catch ’old of it. Leastways, if ye don’t, I’ll know the reason why.”

“I can’t git married, father,” was all Bess said again.

And then the man went up to her with his heavy fist raised above his head, as on the night when she had come home from her tryst in the wood. She shrank against the dresser, and Mrs. Benson murmured frightened words beneath her breath.

But he seemed to think better of it, for his arm dropped at his side, and he turned from her with a muttered curse.

“Yes, I’ll know the reason why, so sure as my name’s John Benson,” he repeated. “And if I find you sittin’ pulin’ and whinin’ ’ere over that darned scapegrace lad o’ Ben Chiswick’s—damn ’im!—I tell ye fair and square I’ll turn ye out of ’ouse and ’ome.”

“I knowed it’d come to this,” moaned the mother.

“Come to this?” laughed he. “Ay, and it’ll come to wus afore I’ve done if ye can’t make ’er mind my orders, marm. Ye may think it’s tall talk, miss,” he added, turning to his daughter again, “but as sure as this is the Sabbath Day and there’s a God above us, I’ll turn ye out sooner than see ye wed to Ben Chiswick’s son. I’ll turn ye out, be the disgrace what it may.”

He brought his great fist down on the dresser with a thud that made the plates and dishes rattle on the rack, and turned upon his heel.

At the door he faced her once more, with the latch in his hand.

“Jim Preston ’ll be round somewheres about three o’clock,” said he. “Ye’d best look alive arter dinner and smarten yerself up.”

After that first shrinking from his hand, Bess had not moved while he had been speaking. She had not even dropped her eyes. And now that he was gone, she just sat down again quietly, but with a sort of slowness that told of momentarily spent energy though not of waning courage.

“Ye’ll give the young man a nice welcome, leastway, Bess,” begged the mother, half frightened without knowing it, of this silent daughter, whose moods and intentions were as a foreign tongue to her. “Even if ye did fancy young Chiswick a bit, ’e’s left the place, and out o’ sight ’s out o’ mind wi the men, they say. Very like ’e knowed it weren’t no go, for they do say th’ old man’s as set agin father as father’s agin ’im. I call it main reason’ble o’ the lad to take ’isself off: most girls fancy another lad afore the one they weds. I did myself—’andsomer than John ’e was—but, Lor’, what’s to be, ’ave got to be. And there’s no tellin’ ye mightn’t take to this Preston chap once ye got used to ’im. Anyways ye’ll speak the man civil. I don’t know whatever I shall do wi’ father if ye don’t.”

“All right, mother,” said Bess quietly, “I’ll speak ’im civil.”

The winter evening fell softly.

Jim Preston had been and gone.

He had proved to be “not much to look at;” indeed, a stout, plain young man, with a scanty wit, but Bess had been kinder to him than if he had been smart, for he had paid her no court, and for the matter of that had scarce spoken half-a-dozen words to her.

And now he was gone, and for a while at least he would not come back, and she sat alone, trying to think what she should do.

The garden stretched away on the right towards the common, but at its foot it ended in a sort of dry water-cress moat, beyond which were pastures where the cattle grazed in summer, but that were now deserted and barren, staring at the barren trees that flanked their two sides. Snow lay white over them and clung to the broad frost-bitten leaves of the winter cabbages in the garden; snow was sprinkled on the privet hedge, and the skeleton boughs of the beeches and maples that began the wood were set clear and black upon a brilliant frosty sunset. The sky was the softest thing to be seen; and all unconsciously Bess kept her eyes on the sky, and forgot the hard earth, and dreamed of love again.

Her song still had the same old rhythm; there had crept into it first one little natural womanly moan of regret because Charley had not heeded her presentiment—had not taken her with him, but the burthen of it had not changed: she loved Charley—Charley loved her; Charley would come back, he would come back soon. It was only a matter of waiting, of being plucky a little longer, and all would be well yet. To be brave, to be silent, to let matters take their course, and to wait and to trust—that was her only instinct, and that instinct she obeyed.

So when her father came in that night from the “Public” he found her restored to her usual simple sweet serenity, and was appeased in his wrath; the silly girl had thought better of it, said he to himself, and would be safely married yet before the year was much older.

But he did not quite know his gentle daughter. To him she was a child still; he did not guess that in the last few months she had become a woman: a woman strong to suffer because she loved.

Lady Day drew near, Lady Day when Charley had promised to come back and fetch her that they might be wed. But there was no news of him; no letter had come save that one long ago, and the fear that had come upon Bess was a certainty, and she knew that she could not wait much longer.

March that had come in as a lion bid fair to go out like a lamb. A sudden fit of balmy spring weather had sprung upon the heels of the cruel winter; the wood had a tender flush over its brown bareness that told of tiny buds struggling forth into the new world, a hope and a promise of green leaves and of blossoms, of summer and the sun. A few primroses opened pale petals to the unwonted warmth, like the wondering eyes of little children; a few violets in warm, moss-covered corners burst their buds amid sheltering leaves; the almond tree in the garden began to look pink, and the old thorns on the common to stud their black boughs with the tiny white stars that first tell of a winter that is past; the birds twittered and Bess sang, for it was Lady Day—the spring was come and the sun of love shone fair.

But, lo! a shower struck across the world; the sky had grown black in a moment, the geese on the common huddled drearily together, the ducks waddled disconsolate beside the pond, the chickens in the yard stood under shelter, and the little newborn lambs ran to their mothers for comfort in the meadow.