Part 8

MAUDLIN. Nan ... Ursel ... Nan ... Lib ... Appletoft Lib, hast come? There's no one here--I wish they might forget And sleep, and let me feel a little lonely. I need much loneliness wherein to suckle The sadness that alone can bring content: I am too burdened by long laughing days, And as I wavered through this solemn vapour Of the worn earth, the comfort-smelling earth, Where unexpected trees rose wearily And sank again like ashen-bosomed sighs, I felt a new, delighting mournfulness That made me know where I am sensitive To the deep things of life; even the late Maybloom, That stays the tiring Spring in this strange valley, Loses its too self-conscious hope to-night-- The pink would fain be white, and the spent white Still fog and sink to the moon and make an end. I must be much alone in sorrowful nights. I should have ease if Summer would but go, Its green-lit glory fail; I am so eager For overgrown too-mellowness loth to pass, For dripping trees o'er soft decaying grass, Bare orchards and shorn meadows and stripped gardens, Brown cloudy woods that drooping mists make taller About washed fields and muffled hills, subduing All to a low remote romance and charm.... Yet soon with other maids I may behold A change that comes to snirp these buds in me....

_She lays herself on her back among the tumbled hay; soon she sings in a low voice._

Fetch the porridge pot hither to me, The porridge pot and the dairy key, And bring me a clout to wind my hair Or the swarming bees will tangle there: They drip from the hive in the orchard long, And coil the green-cherried boughs among As they follow the tanking tune I ring Under the cherry leaves' shivering.... They settle, they knit--come Ailce with the skep-- Step along, Mistyhead--Smearycap, step-- Steady it while I draw the bough Warily down and shake it.... Now.... _After a little silence she resumes._ The maids went down to dip in the pool When the mirrored moon had cooled the water; But they never told the farmer's daughter, For they knew she would tell her mother, the fool, That the girls were out And awaking the water, With never a clout Though the night was cool.

_She hums the latter melody a little while._

_Without premonition URSEL, NAN and BET enter singly and noiselessly from the right, each holding a hand of the one before her. They are hoodless, white-capped, and barelegged now._

URSEL, _in a low voice._ I bade them hide until we came.... Lib ... Maudlin....

MAUDLIN, _sitting up._ Lib is not here: there's no one nigh at all; And in the lanes nought moves but squirrel whifts, Save that long gazing into the green darkness Seems to show boles half stirred by creeping light Amid the darker dark of trees impending.

BET. Was it not Lib who was dew-drenched last harvest, Hid in a wheat stook till she fell asleep?

NAN, _as they all seat themselves by_ MAUDLIN. Could any watch you as you slipped away?

MAUDLIN. Our lambs and three fat beasts must take the road Ere dawn to reach the morrow's far-off fair; So I said I would sleep along the settle And set the hinds their drinking ere they trudge. None smelt me, but I must start home by three.... What is the moaning through that little door?

URSEL, _in alarm._ I had forgot the beast; will Mease sleep with her?

NAN. When I came in to milk soon after seven He said the deathly loosening was pinched And we should keep her without more sitting up.... Yet--the other cows pushed in and nosed her As cows will do to helpless dying things.... _To_ MAUDLIN. A heifer has milk fever.

MAUDLIN, _rising eagerly._ Let me look-- I have not touched milk fever once, nor seen it; I want to know what sense it can be like, I am made to know with what sick thought it takes them, To watch it wane and learn to handle it. Ah, let me feel her, Nan, dear Nannie....

NAN. Nay. The neat-house door is open on her stall And hints the pool out in the yard beyond Dreaming a dew-dull wash of unborn moonlight In darkness sinkingly close as a bat's coat, And the large stillness of her weary eyes Might image that ... although we should not see her....

MAUDLIN. I know, I know.... But we can shut our eyes-- Nay, fear would lift them--let us enter blindfold; My fingers know just what they ought to do.

BET. Nay, she might die ... I saw a cow die once: She tried to turn her head across her shoulder And looked at me as if 'twas all my doing, Then laid it down again with a straight throat ... I fear for that old wrong I never did....

_A deep-voiced woman is heard making low dove-sounds._

Comes Lib....

_They rise to meet the newcomer, but draw back half in laughter, half in uneasy amazement as she appears to the left. She is stockinged and shod, but her topmost apparel is nightgown and nightcap._

BET, _continuing._ Lib ... Lib ... is she asleep or dead?

LIB, _entering the barn._ Do I not seem the shadow of a husband? Am I too late? I could not choose my coming: 'Tis churning day to-morrow, and nought would serve The old one but that we must scald the churn And wipe the cream-pots' lips and set them nigh Before we slept--she was so cross because One cow had broken, one cast before its time, Some hens had laid away, farmer had blamed her For standing over us to make us strip The cows too hard; so she was queer with us. That kept us late from bed, and when at last Our fallen skirts were cooling on the floor I had to lay me down beside Ruth Until she slept; for Candle-Face tells tales-- 'Twas she who lost us the low garden-chamber Where hang the dry sweet herbs, and earned instead One with a lattice up against the stars, By peaching of my clambering through the casement 'Mid dropping plums that night I went somewhere; But when I heard her wet mouth on the pillow I left her, stuffed my coats within my arm And out along the landing. As I neared The old one's chamber-door a warped board chirped, My limbs went loose and motionless with fear; On I slid again and down the stairs, And in the kitchen found I had no raiment. I dared not grope for it nor make a light; So two unmended stockings on the settle, My shoes upon the hearth, were all I had: But in the warm night it was comforting To feel myself half indistinguishable From the grey, stirless oats I stood among, Or the evasive gleams and thinner places Of mist-lit woodlands, or from slim birch boles; And when a woman met me by the brook I was so pale and slow she ran from me.

_The others laugh as they lead her to crouch with them in the hay._

Why is there moaning through that little door?

NAN. A heifer has milk fever. _There is a silence._

LIB, _in a low voice._ Women have that.... Why are we thankful for a deal of trouble?... My sister Jen was pleased and proud with herself; And when her second obedience came to her She was well eased--but goody Slippy-Stockings, Who went for wisdom-dame, bore the hot jug Too brimmed when it was time to draw the milk.... They had to dry the milk, and it, being eager, Went the wrong way and oozed into her head: The little one died so soon. She lay there Sooing the oldest milking-croon of all-- "Baby calf-lips nuzzle not nigh you, 'Tis my fingers firm that try you Knowingly; Patch-Eye, Teaty, I'll not wry you, Let your warm milk down to me...." Then she would wear her wedding gown all night, And in the orchard we could hear her sing Mall, go, gather a Posy--Lasses turn Grey-- Wander, Wonder--and, Peg was clouting her Nightcaps; She sank heavily to uneasy stillness, Then mooed a baby-noise; till, the fourth dawn, She hollowed her arms gently across her body, "Cold, cold," she said, and then "Cover us up".... And she grew colder....

MAUDLIN. Much strangeness comes in it: I've wondered what there is in me to gather So secretly, why life can leak such whiteness, And if we feel it change, and how in it We sow hid things that never were in us-- Can it be that our thoughts go into it, And all we feel and see must alter it From white to white that seems but white to us? I knew a woman and her daughter once Who went together.... The young one's died; she cried, O she did cry, until the mother said "Here, lass, have mine; I know, and you shall know." Girls, she did that quite calmly: ere he would take, Mab had to cover his eyes with a warm cloth, And even o' nights to wear her mother's clothes. 'Tis grave to suckle across the brood like that-- It threads the mind....

BET. Mothering, mothering, mothering-- Cannot we find our lives except that way?

_The moon seems to be high over the mist now, for there is light everywhere outside; so that, on peering into the night, it is with surprise all is found obscure and not easily definable or detachable amid the faint daze of light that feigns to illumine the valley. The women have become only black shapes upon the square litten patch which is the doorway surrounded by the blackness of the barn. A dog howls somewhere far away._

LIB. That dog sounds from some low-set roadside farm; What does it hear? _There is a short silence._

MAUDLIN. Women, what does it see? They say dogs howl when someone's fetch goes by.

LIB. Mayhap it is the husband-shapes a-coming.

NAN. We shall see nought but what is in our thoughts. Yet I'd be very fain to see my man.... When Gib at Hornbeam-Shallows lost his wife He had to hire a wench for the first time And at next Martimas hiring came to me And offered me four pounds for the half year, Saying he'd give me his wife's milking coats To make it up, ay, and her two best shawls, One darned across the neck-place, one loom-new; I told him I would liefer have her shoes-- That frightened him so well he stammered off. But Sib had heard; she drew him with her eyes, And said she'd go for three pounds and the shawls If he would let her use a gown sometimes. Then at each hiring she stayed on for less, Till in the third year's end he wedded her; And so she's gotten shawls and shoes as well. I missed a savoury chance, for he is old And childless; both stock and land are his: Ay, if I had gone quietly to him Ere now I might have had him for myself.

BET. I should not wait three years for any man.... When Sib would hire a lass Gib said his other Had done without for seven and thirty years, And he had ringed her but to save her wage: At first he sent the hind to milk for her, But stopped him soon, saying that men's hands Made cow-teats horny; then at Whitsun hiring He let him go, grutching it was waste With such a goodly woman in the yard; So now she has to herd and fork and winnow, To drive the cart and take a side of thatch.... Gib says young wives are better worth their fodder Than worn ones. Truly she has a gown sometimes, For she goes ever in an old woman's wear-- He says the other's gear will last her days. Nan must surely see more than that to-night.

LIB. Ah, but Sib knows him: he does so fondle her; He lets her hair down every eve to spread it And feel the pleasure of the comb's sleek goings, Bidding her "Stand over" as when a cow Rubs up against the boust at milking-time; While, when they gleaned their harvest fields by moonlight To stint the widows, he would bend down as she Bobbed up a mouth all blackberry-stains to kiss ... Before she is fit for kitchen toil again He will so wonder how she has grown the mistress.... BET _laughs._

URSEL, _shivering._ Hush, do not laugh; it creeps up in the roof, And drips on us again like the thick water Through the black pulpy thatch-leak in November.... That laugh sounded as lonely as one flail.... _There is a silence._

MAUDLIN. The heifer ceased to moan a moment past-- It seems as if it holds its breath to listen.... _There is a long silence._

BET. I need to speak, but what I have forgotten....

URSEL. Lass, do not make us speak, or we may miss it....

MAUDLIN. O, do not speak to us, or we may miss it....

LIB. We could not hear you for this listening....

NAN. I look so deeply that I cannot see... I cannot listen for it for listening....

_There is a long silence which pulses slowly with half-caught heavy breaths and slight restless rustlings of the hay in which the women seem motionless._

BET. Do I feel something? Do we feel something growing?...

_Quiet steps are heard to shift the lane's pebbles. The women look sharply at each other, start soundlessly to their feet and lean toward the door; they move forward half eagerly, yet each seeks to put the others before her, so that as they near the door> NAN poises unwillingly foremost; when the light catches their faces they seem about to laugh._

NAN. Nay, I'll not meet it--perhaps it is not mine ... I will not know aforetime to despoil The gradual joy of waking to a man-- I will not lose one feeling of dear change, Or slur it by being conscious of the next.... Yet even then love should be marvellous As the surprise of secret lights expected ... O, if I meet some one I do not want.... Come, maids, join hands and let us go together-- Still, we might make too sure....

_When NAN is across the threshold the others huddle back. The steps come nearer. In the road beyond NAN a woman appears quietly from the left; so far as it is possible to see, her features and array are the counterpart of NAN'S._

NAN, _continuing._ Hey, here's a woman ... Lib, did you tell the slatterns at Cherry-Close mill? Nay, 'tis some rag-bag sleeper under hedges....

BET, _in an undertone of wonder._ Why are their coats alike?

NAN, _turning her head and calling._ Ursel, Ursel, She's from the farm--our granary has been searched; For see, she wears my old plum petticoat-- Come, let us strip her and pen her in a sty ... But ... I have on my old plum petticoat ... And how can she come from the farm when she goes to the farm?...

LIB, _hastily and below her breath._ Fetches and wraiths ... fetches and wraiths ... fetches and wraiths ... _Peering about her._ Is there no way from here?

MAUDLIN, _under her breath._ My mother's grandmam Saw her own fetch a week before she died....

BET, _in a low tone._ Come through the neat-house ere we too see ours-- Ursel, come ... come....

URSEL, _in a hushed voice._ If all your days are used Your fetch can meet you at the neat-house door-- Ah, stay, for Nan will need us when ... that goes....

_BET, LIB, and MAUDLIN hurry and crowd into the mistal unheedingly. Meanwhile the woman has passed from left to right along the road, turning always to NAN and holding out her arms to her._

NAN, _leaning out toward her with her hands pressed over her heart._ Her unapparent features make me feel How others must feel my face.... The droop of her skirt Is creeping on my hips.... I have watched my feet Draw sideways so.... Her shadow is long like mine About the bosom ... I wish I could touch her hair-- I know so well the tingle and smell of my hair ... Is this a fetch?

_She reaches forward as if she would follow, until she is in the middle of the road; the woman passes from, sight to the right. NAN'S body loosens; she turns confusedly to the barn and sees URSEL'S face pale in the shade._

NAN, _continuing._ O, Ursly, where have I gone? I have lost myself, for I was here but now.... _She remembers and shakes._ Dear soul, what did you see?

URSEL, _taking her in her arms._ I saw what you saw.

NAN. Was it my fetch?

URSEL. I think it was a fetch.

NAN, _numbly._ I must be going to die.... I cannot feel so ... There's nought I want to do when I am dead ...

_She is silent a moment, then seems startled into sobbing._

O, Ursel, Ursel, I cannot let me die....

URSEL. Folk say a fetch is seen at its departing From a cold house whence it shall lead a soul; But this comes like a child-birth closing in, And so perchance it does but signify The consciousness of death that breaks in all. We stand outside the process of the earth And watch it as immortals; and consider Death, which we think a deeply moving thing (Observing eagerly its fine emotions, The impressive strangeness of its mean romance, Its strong-tanged character and accidents, And all the keen new chances it affords For sympathy and for imagination), But think not to connect it with ourselves-- So sure we are all's possible to us. Then a near comprehension that is love Of trees or sheep, songs or some man or woman, Shakes us one day and nothing is the same, Because we grow aware that we must leave The very joy that lights ourselves for us And shows where we may greaten for its sake. 'Tis life's beginning; we perceive the earth And go down into it and nestle to it Defeatedly before its larger thought: Numbly we measure ourselves by all we see, We feel uneasily yet willingly Each thing that happens may happen to us too, And we are cheated by each grief unsuffered-- Yea, ever we interrogate decay To know our own duration; we must touch Each lovesome thing lest it or we should fade, Until the searching quiver of contact reaches And makes us conscious where we can be lovesome; We find ourselves in others and thus learn How others are in us, and so we creep To large experiences we could not think-- Effectual perfection of ripe life; The earth and all the darling ways of it Are ours by love, for all that we must leave Comes into us and makes us live it swiftly Lest we should miss some thing. So that one love Insists that every love in earth shall feed it, To keep it from the unsafety of ignorance And let our brief days yield their sweetness up. Such is the consciousness of death--ah, such Must be made yours; mayhap this is the way.

NAN. The consciousness of death.... Though that be all, It is too much: even if this fetch abides Unnumbered years ere I see it depart, Yet all is made unsure and I may sink Before I have felt half I need to feel. I must make every passion in myself, Have each emotion of my wilful sowing-- The pain of sap, the pain of bud and bloom, Of hard green fruit sun-bruised to thick gold juice, The pain of the sharp kernel in the pulp (Transmuter of sweet to inmost bitterness), The pain of orderly corruption too-- Of the withdrawing sap, of the sick falling Into long grass beneath the rain-soaked boughs, Of gentle decomposing for small roots; So that if death's the end, the true completion, I could believe myself fulfilled and ripe, A sufferer of the topmost joy and grief, And past the need of any eternity ... O, I desire old age, because old age Has more capacity, more ways of joy....

_Her sobs hide her words. URSEL leads her to the hay and seats her among it again and herself by her, putting her arms about her and drawing her head down upon her bosom._

URSEL. Old age must sit and wait as we must wait ... We can grow old so quickly in our souls.... One utters a love-call and no answer comes, One suffers motherhood within one's heart Of cold unconscious children who can render A tolerance of affection more remote Than strait denial; and such maternity Waits not for any bearing through the body-- When love has come maternity must follow, And if the body may not be made fruitful The spirit chooses its own fruitfulness: All that we miss is happening in others, Others are feeling all we yearn to feel, And if we will not let ourselves forget How love has wrung us we pass through it with them.... Ah, wonder, joy, of contact that enlarges Our bodies' possibilities and times, And gathers life for us to nourish....

_A stifled cry from BET is heard from the neat-house._

BET. Aa--h....

NAN, _sinking back faintly in_ URSEL'S _arms._ Does ... it return and ... call?...

URSEL. Hush, 'tis Bet's voice....

_After a brief interval filled with slight sounds,_ BET _appears in the neat-house doorway; she peeps before her until she sees the two women in the hay._

BET, _in a low eager tone._ Ursel, Ursel.... URSEL _rises and goes toward her._ The cow has died ... in the dark.... When I returned but now by the yard door I missed the boust and groped into her stall-- And did not know until I heaved and spread Up a flat softness that went sick beneath me With long stiff shakings, while her unearned wind Broke far within, then slid against my cheek ... I could have borne it if she had been cold; But she was nearly cold, so that I felt A thread-thin warmth I could not stay nor make ...

NAN, _approaching_ BET _swiftly from behind and grasping her shoulder._ Is the cow dead?

BET, _shrinking from her touch._ Nannie, the cow is dead.

NAN. I milked her last of all, and now my fetch Has milked her too; will ... it ... take all from me I own through love? (_To_ BET.) Why did you shrink from me?

BET. I did not shrink from you; what need is there?

NAN _holds out her arms to her; again she draws away from_ NAN.

Nannie, I cannot help it ... I cannot help it.... There's more than this world in you, and I know not What you might do to me past your own will: You have seen your fetch and are not one of us, For we know not your being's dim half-conditions ... And maybe if you touch ought that has life You make it that your fetch can take it too-- So died the heifer.... Or maybe your least touch Draws life from others to win you a few hours; Or you are of the dead, and call folk to them Through sympathy of the senses' understanding.... Poor Nannie ... O, poor Nannie ... O, poor Nannie....

_She sobs loudly, stooping to wipe her eyes with her petticoat-hem._

URSEL, _while seeking to still her._ Let us turn home to bed: we shall not sleep; But once we're stripped we can relax our bodies, Lying past thought for misery till insight Returns again and brings us the proportion Of all ... and us....

NAN. I shall bide here till dawn To see if ... I return and go out ... out.... (_To_ BET.) Have you left Lib and Maudlin hiding somewhere; Or do they home by now?