Chapter 11

Indeed she was delighted. She had been deeply moved by all he told her about his distaste for the work he used to love, and she recognized that he had been magnanimous in refraining from reproaches, but rather implying a purely personal change of ideas as to the cause of disillusionment and depression. So that, jumping at the opportunity to prove that she counted his inclinations as higher than mere money, she would have accepted any scheme, however unpromising; but in fact the enterprise appeared to her judgment as quite gloriously hopeful. Every moment increased the charms that it presented; above all, its complete novelty fascinated, and with surprising quickness she found herself thinking almost exactly what her husband had thought in regard to their present existence. It seemed to her too that she was pining for a larger, freer environment, that this narrow home had become a permanent prison-house, and that she could never really be contented until she got away from it; then she thought of Vine-Pits Farm, the peaceful fields, the lovely woodland, the space, the air, the sunlight that one would enjoy out there; and then in another moment came the fear lest all this should prove too good to be true.

"But, Will, however can Mr. Bates be willing to part with such a splendid business as his for no more than two thousand pounds?"

"Ah, there you show your sense, Mavis." As he said this Dale took his hand from his forehead, and resumed his entirely matter-of-fact tone. "You must understand things aren't always what they seem. The business is not what it was."

"But Mr. Bates is very rich, isn't he?"

"He _ought_ to be, but he isn't. That son of his has bin eating him up, slow an' fast, for th' last ten years. The turnover of his trade is big enough, but the whole management of it has gone end-ways. From a man working with capital he's come down to a man financing things from hand to mouth. What's left to him now is strictly speaking his stock, his wagons, his horses, his lease, his household belongings--and whatever should be put down for the good-will."

Then, continuing his purely businesslike exposition, he explained that he would have to make two engagements, one to his wife and one to Mr. Bates. All material property would be charged with Mavis' loan, and the value of the good-will would be repaid how and when he could repay it. Mr. Bates was content to risk that part of the bargain on his faith in Dale's personal integrity.

"Don't say any more," cried Mavis. "I'm not understanding it, but I know it's all right. Do let's get it settled before Mr. Bates alters his mind."

"It must be done formally, Mavis, through your lawyers. Mr. Cleaver is capable and trustworthy. It's to be a regular mortgage, properly tied up; and he must approve--"

"I don't care whether he approves or doesn't. I approve."

"Then I thank you," said Dale, gravely, "for the way you've met me, and I assure you I appreciate it. As to the trade itself, I b'lieve I shan't go wrong. It's not so new to me as people might suppose. I'm well aware of its principles; and, moreover, one trade's precious like another--and a man's faculties are bound to tell, no matter how you apply them."

Mavis was overjoyed. When she sang to herself now while dressing of a morning the notes poured out loud and full, even when there was scarce a puff of breath behind them. She felt so proud and happy to think that fate had given her the power to help William, and that he had consented to avail himself of the power. Once more he had begun to lean on her. As in the past, so in the future, he would derive support from his poor little misunderstood, but always well-meaning Mavis.

XII

By the end of September everything was arranged. Dale had ceased to be postmaster of Rodchurch; the purchase of the business had been completed; and Mr. Bates had moved out of Vine-Pits to a cottage near Otterford Mill, leaving behind him the bulk of his furniture as the property of the incomers. Thus the Dales would have no difficulty in furnishing the comparatively large house that henceforth was to be their home.

For the last two days they had been living chaotically in rooms stripped to a woeful bareness; this morning Mary had gone along the Hadleigh Road with a wagon full of bedsteads, bedding, and household utensils; and now, late in the afternoon, the wagon stood at the post office door again, packed this time with a final load consisting of those treasures which had been held back for transit under their owners' charge.

Mavis had already climbed up, and was settling herself on a high valley of rolled carpets between two mountain ranges formed by the piano and the parlor bookcases. With anxious eyes she looked at minor chains of packing-cases that contained the best china, the mantel ornaments, the hand-painted pictures. Inside a basket on her knees their cat was mewing disconsolately, despite well-buttered paws. The two big horses, one in front of the other, continuously tinkled the metal disks on their forehead bands; Mr. Allen and other neighbors came out of their shops; Miss Yorke and the clerks from the office filled the pavement; children gathered about the wagon staring silently, and Miss Waddy on the opposite pavement waved her handkerchief and said "Oh, dear! oh, dear!"

"Good luck!"

"Thank you, thank you kindly." Dale moved about briskly, shaking hands with every one. Already he had abandoned all trace of his ancient official costume. In cord breeches and leather gaiters, his straw hat on the back of his head, he looked thoroughly farmer-like, and he seemed to have assumed the jovial independent manner as well as the clothes appropriate to the man who has no other master but the winds and the weather.

"So long, Mr. Allen. Put in a good word for me at the Kennels."

"I will so, Mr. Dale."

"Good-by, Mr. Silcox. Hope you'll honor us with a call whenever you're passing. And if you can, give me a lift in the _Courier_. I may say it's my intention to patronize their advertisement columns regular, soon's ever I begin to feel my feet under me."

"See _Rodchurch Gossip_ next issue," said Mr. Silcox significantly.

"Thanks. You're a trump."

"Good-by, Miss Yorke." And he laughed. "'Pon my soul, I'm surprised it's still _Miss_ Yorke; but it'll be _Mrs._ before long, I warrant."

"Oh, Mr. Dale!"

"There, so long," and he shook Miss Yorke's hand warmly. "And take my excuse if I bin a bit of a slave-driver now and then. I didn't mean it."

"We've no complaints," said one of the clerks. "Good luck, sir!"

Then Dale told his carter to make a start of it, and the wagon creaked, jolted, slowly lumbered away.

Though they moved at a foot pace, it was not easy traveling in the wagon; the china boxes bumped and rattled, the piano swayed so much that all its strings vibrated, and the cat leaped frantically in the basket; but Mavis felt no inconvenience. She was full of hope. For more than a mile Dale walked beside the shaft horse, echoing the "Coom in then" and "Oot thar" of the man with the leader, and the sound of the voices, the plod of the iron shoes, and the bell-like tinkle of the harness were all pleasant to hear. The whole thing seemed to her picturesque and interesting, like a small episode in the Old Testament, and imaginary words offered themselves as suitable to describe it. "Therefore that day her husband gathered all that was theirs, and set her behind his horses and they journeyed into another place."

She smiled at her cleverness in inventing such good Bible language, and then the thought came to her mind that they were going into the promised land. Once she turned her head to get a last glimpse of the church tower, and perhaps be able to pick out the roof of the post office among the other roofs, but the high mass of furniture shut out all the view. Only the sky was visible, with the sun quite low, and so bright that it was almost blinding. And she thought that this chance of the hour being late and the sun being nearly down was a lucky omen. Straight ahead of them the road was sunlit, and the long slanting sunbeams appeared to hurry on before them as if to light up and glorify the land of promise. "If," she said to herself, "we get there before it has dipped and I catch the sunshine on the ricks, I shall know we are going to be happy."

Then all at once she saw Dale's straw hat and face rise above the fore boards of the wagon. He had swung himself on the shaft to see how she was getting on.

"All right, old lady?"

"Yes--lovely."

The tone of his voice had made her heart bound. It was the dear old voice, speaking to her just as he used to speak before their bad time began.

"We'll be there sooner than you know where you are. I think I'll rest my bones a bit."

Then he got into the wagon, and carefully clambering over impediments came toward her. For a moment as he stood over her the sunlight was on his face, and she, looking up at him, thought that he was not only a fine but quite a beautiful man. The light seemed to soften and yet ennoble his features, and his eyes, unblinking in the glare, were blue and clear as water. When he sat down close to her little nest she pushed the basket away from her, and raising her hand laid it on his knees. To her delight he put his hand on hers, and left it there. He was in shadow now, showing a dark profile, and again she admired him--her strong, big, handsome man, her man that she was pining for.

"Will," she said tremulously, "don't move, but just look behind you, and tell me all you see."

"I don't see anything, Mav, unless I heft meself up again."

"No, sit as you are. It just bears out what you said. We're never more to look back. We're only to look forward. Will?"

He had taken his hand away, and turned the back of his head toward her.

"Will," she repeated; but he did not answer. "Will, my dear one, this _is_ going to be a fresh start, isn't it? Like a new beginning for us."

"Yes," he said, very seriously, "that's what I build on its being. Take it so. You and I are beginning life again in our new home."

"Bless you for saying it. The one thing I wished to hear."

"Yes, we must help each other. I'll do--I mean to do. But, maybe, it'll be more 'v o' fight than I'm reckoning, and there's a many ways that you can make the fight easier--beyond the one great thing you've done a'ready."

"I will, dear. I will."

Then they were silent. The carter cracked his whip, shouted to his team, and whistled; and the horses, neither frightened by the whip nor excited by the whistling, drew the big wagon at exactly the same steady pace.

And Mavis felt as if her throat had suddenly enlarged itself and become too big for her collar, while her whole breast was swelling and hardening until it seemed so rigidly immense that it would burst all her garments; it was as if her whole being, together with all the thoughts or memories that it contained felt the expansion of some force that had been long gathering and now swiftly was released. In all her life she had experienced no such sensations hitherto. She who had been passive under the desires of others now felt desire active in herself. It was not only that she wanted pardon, kindness, companionship, the things that she had been so systematically deprived of; she wanted the man himself, the partner, and the mate to whom nature had given her a right.

Abruptly she changed her position, scrambling forward close against him, and put up both her hands to his shoulders.

"Will, stoop your head. I want to whisper something."

Then, as soon as he bent toward her, she clasped her hands behind his neck and tried to drag him down in a kiss.

"What yer doin'? Let me be."

"No, I won't. I won't." She was holding him with all her strength, pulling herself up since she could not pull him down. "Be nice to me." And as he recoiled she thrust forward her upturned face, the cheeks hard and white, the eyes burning, the mouth not quite closing even while she spoke. "I won't let you go, till you've kissed me and made it up for good an' all."

She was acting now as instinctively as any wild animal of the woods. What had started in the zone of voluntary impulse had now passed into the ruling power of reflexes; every nerve of her body seemed to be thinking for itself, guiding her, and compelling her to struggle for the desired end. All this nonsense of high-falutin' morality must be swept aside; if he loved her still, he must admit that he loved her; it must be love or hate, but no more sham and pretense, no more of these half measures that made her a wife when people were looking, and an enemy, a culprit in disgrace, or a sexless business associate, when they two were alone behind drawn blinds.

"Mav, you're shaming me. 'A' done. 'Aarve you tekken leave o' yer senses?"

She felt him shiver as he resisted her; then in another moment he gripped her round the waist as brutally and violently as if he intended to pitch her out of the wagon, held her to him so fiercely that he crushed all the breath from her lungs, and gave her a long passionate mouth-to-mouth kiss. And it seemed to her that the strength and brutality of the embrace formed the one supreme gratification that she had been burning to obtain; she wanted to give herself to him as she had never done before, and if he crushed her and broke her and killed her in their joint rapture, she would drink death greedily as something inevitable to all those who empty the deep goblet of love.

"There!" He took his lips away, and she sank back gasping. "You've 'ad yer way wi' me;" and he heaved a sigh that was as loud as a groan. "Oh, Mav, my girl, gi' me yer kisses--kiss me all night and all day--if on'y you make me forget."

Her hat had tumbled off in the struggle, a mesh of brown hair was dangling over her shoulder, and she was still too much out of breath to speak. The wagon rolled heavily forward along the flat road, and the carter cracked his whip continuously to tell the horses they were nearly home. Presently Mavis got up, perched herself beside her husband, and whispered to him jerkily.

"You've nothing to forget, dear. No looking back. But, oh, my darling, I'm going to be more than I ever was to you. I feel it. I _know_ it--an' we'll be happy, happy, happy, so long as we live."

She pressed her face against the sleeve of his jacket, and stroked his knee with as much luxurious pleasure as if the rough cord breeches had been made of the softest satin velvet.

"See. Look straight ahead," and she raised her hand and pointed.

Vine-Pits Farm was in sight. The stone house, the barns, the straw ricks, and the fruit trees all seeming to have clustered close together, to form a compact little kingdom of hope and joy.

"Look, dear. How pretty--see the sunlight on the roofs and on the ricks. That's luck. All the straw is changing into gold. My old Will is going to make heaps of golden sovereigns as big as any rick."

"Woo then. A-oo then." The carter stopped the horses outside the garden entrance. "Will the missis get down here at th' front door, or be us to go on into yaard?"

Mrs. Dale got down here, took the cat-basket from her husband, and went gaily up the path to the open front door.

"Don't let th' cat loose," Dale called after her warningly, "or she'll be back to Rodchurch like a streak o' greased lightning. She'll need acclim'tyzing all to-morrow."

Mavis ran through the house to the kitchen, where Mary and a courtesying old woman received her. Then she scampered from room to room, uttering little cries of contentment. Often as she had seen and admired the house during the last few weeks, it had never seemed so perfectly delightful as it did to-day: with its low-ceiled cozy little rooms at the back, its high and imposing rooms in front, its broad staircase and square landing, it would be quite a little palace when all had been set to rights.

Coming hurrying back to the hall, she saw her husband in the porch, a splendid dark figure with the last rays of yellow sunlight behind him. He paused bare-headed on the threshold, obviously not aware of her presence, and she was about to speak to him when he startled her by dropping on his knees and praying aloud.

"O merciful Powers, give me grace and strength to lead a healthy fearless life in this house."

XIII

The Dales were beginning to prosper now, but their first winter had been an anxious, difficult time.

Dale had made a common mistake in his calculations, and experience soon taught him that what is known as good-will, the most delicate and sensitive of all trade-values, can not by a mere stroke of the pen be transferred from one person to another. Solid customers turned truant; the business went down with terrifying velocity; and old Bates, who loyally came day after day to advise and assist, spoke with sincere regret. "William, I never foretold this. I must see what can be done. I'll leave no stone unturned." And he trotted about, touting for his successor, tramping long miles to beg for a continuance of favors that had unexpectedly ceased, but usually returning sadly to confess that his efforts had again been fruitless. They were gloomy evening hours, when the old and the young man sat together in the office by the roadway; and at night Mavis used to hear her sleeping husband moan and groan so piteously that she sometimes felt compelled to wake him.

"What is it?" Awakened thus, he would spring up with a hoarse cry, and be almost out of the bed before she was able to restrain him.

"It's nothing, dear. Only you were in one of your bad dreams, and I simply couldn't let you go on being tormented."

"That's right," he used to mutter sleepily. "I don't want to dream. I've enough that's real."

"Don't you worry, dear old boy. You're going to pull through grand--in the end. I _know you are_. Besides, if not--then we'll try something else."

She always murmured such consolatory phrases until he fell asleep once more.

The fact was that Bates had been respected by the well-to-do and loved by the humble; and Dale, out here, remained an unknown quantity. Anything of his fame as postmaster that had traveled along these two miles from Rodchurch did not help him. He was not liked. He felt it in the air, a dull inactive hostility, when talking to gentlefolks' coachmen or giving orders to his own servants. The coachmen could take no pleasure in patronizing him, nor the men in working for him. Mr. Bates advised him once or twice to cultivate a gentler and more ingratiating method of dealing with the people in his employ.

"Perhaps, William, I'm to blame for having spoilt 'em a bit;--but it'd be good policy for you to take them as you find them, and get them bound to you before you begin drilling 'em. A soft word now and then, William--you don't know how far it goes sometimes."

"What I complain of is this," said Dale; "they don't show any spirit. Every stroke o' bad luck I've had--every chance where they might step in with common sense, or extra care, or a spark of invention to save a situation for me--it's just as if they were a row o' turnips."

And the strokes of bad luck were so many and so heavy. The elements seemed to be making war against him--such wet days as made it impossible to deliver hay without damage to it, and an accusation from somebody's stables that the last lot was poisoned; then frost, and two horses seriously injured on the ice-clothed roads; then February gales, wrecking the barn roofs, entailing costly repairs; then floods; and last of all _rats_. The unusual amount of land water had driven them to new haunts, and Dale's granaries were suddenly invaded. "Oh, William," said Mr. Bates, horror-stricken, "beware of rats. They are the worst foe. _One_ rat will mess up a mountain of grain."

About the time of the vernal equinox there came a tempest in comparison with which all previous wind and rain were but a whispering and a sprinkling. Every door was being rattled as if by giant hands, the glass sang in the latticed windows, and the whole house seemed swaying, when Mary told her mistress that something had gone wrong with the big straw stack and that the master was attempting to climb to the top of it on the long ladder.

Mavis instantly pulled up her skirt in true country fashion to make a cloak, and told Mary to help her open the kitchen door.

"You bide where you be, Mrs. Dale," said the old charwoman. "You ben't goin' to be no use of any kind out there, and you may bring yourself to a misfortune."

But Mavis insisted on struggling through the doorway, into the rude embrace of the weather. Great branches of the walnut tree were waving wildly, while little twigs and buds flew from apple trees like dust; the rain, not in drops but as it seemed in solid packets, struck her face and shoulders with such force that she could scarcely stand against it; a shallow wooden tub came bounding to her along the flagged path and passed like a sheet of brown paper; and just as she got to the corner of the buildings from which she could obtain a view of the rick-yard, thirty feet of pale fencing lay down upon the beehives and the rhubarb bed without a sound that was even faintly audible above the racket of the storm.

But she had no eyes for anything except her husband, and no other thought than of the horrible peril in which he was placing himself. Four men clung to the bottom of the ladder, and yet, with Dale's weight half-way up to help them, could not for a moment keep it steady. On top of the rick one of the tarpaulin sheets had broken loose; the cruel wind was tearing beneath it, wrenching out pegs and cordage, snatching at thatch-hackle, and making the stout ropes that should have held the sheet hiss and dart like serpents.

It seemed to her that the rick was as high as Mont Blanc, and that even on a placid summer day no one but a lunatic would want to scale it. Then she screamed, and went rushing forward.

Dale, in the act of clambering from the top rung of the ladder, had been blown off, and was hanging to a rope over the edge of the stack. With extreme difficulty the men moved the ladder, and he succeeded in getting on it again.

"Gi't up, sir. 'Tis mortally impossible." As well as Mavis, every one of them shouted an entreaty that he would come down.

Probably he did not hear them, and certainly he did not obey them. He went up, not down. Then for half an hour he fought like a madman with the flapping sheet, and finally conquered it.

Mavis, as she stared upward, saw the gray clouds driving so fast over the crest of the stack that they made it seem as if the whole yard was drifting away in the opposite direction; while her man, a poor little black insect painfully crawling here and there, desperately writhed as new billows surged up beneath him, labored at the rope, seemed to use feet, hands, and teeth in his frantic efforts against the overwhelming power that was opposed to him. She felt dazed and giddy, sick with fear, and yet glowing with admiration in the midst of her agonized anxiety.

To the men it was a wonderful and exciting sight that had altogether stirred them from their usual turnip-like lethargy. When the master came down, all shaking and bleeding, they bellowed hearty compliments in his ear.

"Now," said the old charwoman, when Mr. and Mrs. Dale returned to the kitchen, "you've a 'aad a nice skimmle-skammle of it, sir, an' you best back me up to send the missis to her bed, and bide there warm, and never budge. I means it," she added, with authority. "You ben't to put yourself in a caddle, Mrs. Dale, an' I know what I be talkin' of."

After this the men appeared to work better for Dale; perhaps still somewhat sulkily whenever he pressed them, continuing to be more or less afraid of him, but not so keenly regretting the loss of their white-haired old master.