CHAPTER 7
THE HILLTOP, THE VALLEY, AND THE FIVE BROTHERS
From the hour of his first decisive meeting with Charity, love had wrought so rich a ferment in Seth Shellett that the world was now transformed for him. Not for the first time, but for the first time with conscious excitement, he saw the sky squandered above him and life springing green at his feet. He was released, in part, from the lethargy that had made him stupid; the earth of him was broken up, and the pulsing light of his being became one with the energy of all creation. He heard the thunder of the universal tides and knew them for his own: knew, not with his intellectual parts, which worked as sluggishly as ever (and so had not the skill to mud a clear emotion with sophistical invention), but with senses tempered fine by desire. This desire had once seemed simple and specific enough; but with every day that passed it grew in power and subtlety and range, as a flower, rooted in earth, discovers to sunlight the pride of colour and lyric of form that have lain secreted in her seed. He moved, at blessed intervals, in a country of new marvels and new terrors. Charity was the core of his life and the sum of its meaning; and nothing could content him now but complete and public possession of her. After the brawl with Hugh Marden—an incident that was like to have driven him from the Squire’s service and to ruin, but somehow, unexpectedly, did nothing of the kind—he had flung her fiercely away from him, thinking himself cheated. But the same jealousy that drove him from her pulled him back: he wanted her, could not withstand her, and found himself unable to endure the possibility of her finding a new lover to replace him with. So he sought her again (she was not hard to find) and wooed her again. At first she pretended she would have none of him, being eager to regain her ascendancy, and liking the taste of power that such punishing of him yielded her; but at last, fearing to resist longer, she allowed herself to be coaxed back into his arms. The rapture of this reunion—for now she gave generously, and seemed to give all her heart—was enriched by a hundred shades of feeling that had been absent, or unperceived, in the wild beginnings of intimacy; for it was an experience radiant with recognition, and quickened and complicated by the quarrel of which it made an end. This hand he touched, this warm mouth, was her hand, her mouth: her very self was in them, and her self, at the lightest contact, flowed out like liquid fire to join with his.
And so, inevitably, his mind turned towards marriage. This was ambitious in him, and only the extreme of love would have encouraged him to cherish such a scheme; for though in his humble way he was a likely fellow, and had had the luck, while still young, to step into the shoes of an older man, he could not think himself good enough, by worldly standards, for the daughter of Farmer Noke of the Roughs, a man notoriously rich and powerful, and of a proud and ugly temper. Seth did not flatter himself that his suit would meet with favour in that quarter; but, though the fact disquieted and baffled him, he did not for a moment allow it to shake his purpose. Far more grievous an obstacle, in his estimation, was Charity’s evasion of the question, and her discomfort when his persistence made evasion impossible. The merest mention of marriage was enough to make her unhappy and petulant. Yet Seth was for ever mentioning it; and she knew, and he knew she knew, that the moody silences into which he not infrequently lapsed were filled with this obsession of his. Sometimes when she had begged him, with anger or with tears, not to worrit her no more about it, he would sit for half an hour without speaking: not vengefully, or to punish her, but because his mind could not leave its one idea, and, if he must not speak of that, only silence was left to him.
Now, once again, he began. ‘When’ll us get married, lovey?’
‘I dunnaw,’ said Charity.
They were in Glatting Wood again, sitting side by side in the green bower they had made their own. This was now their regular resort; and neither of them saw any reason for changing it. Charity had told Seth next to nothing of her father’s outburst against her, being by nature secretive, and with him deliberately so. Since that night of storm a brooding silence had settled upon Noke’s Farm. There was a queerness in the air, and a problem. But Charity gave no thought to it, having more immediate problems to engage her attention. She was resolved not to lose her rich prize: whether by deception, or by open revolt against a tyranny too long endured, she must keep Seth for herself and see him as often as might be. In the event, she had encountered fewer obstacles than there had been reason to expect. But for the lamentable episode of Hugh Marden, the way had been made easy for her. Noke made no allusion to the affair of Midsummer Day, though it was clear that she was unforgiven. He avoided looking at her; and never spoke to her except to command, and that but rarely. Charity, partly as a matter of policy, but more from industrious habit, was as zealous and thorough in her work as she was casual and impudent in her absences. Jenny by her silent acquiescence encouraged the new freedom: it may be that she liked the house better when Charity was not there to share it with her. And Noke, nursing an obscure grievance, bided his time.
Noke bided his time and laid his plans; and madness crouched in him, ready to spring. This evening he was in the smaller of his two hayfields, loading and hauling. The bulk of his hay had been harvested a fortnight since, but, bad weather intervening, and other affairs pressing for attention, this field had been left over. Three of his sons were with him, but the youngest was elsewhere, and the eldest, for the third night in succession, was climbing the slope that led up to Glatting Wood. Noke, in the valley, gave as yet no upward glance: nor, had he looked, could he have easily discerned the figure of his emissary moving in the shadow of the hedge. All four men seemed lost in their work: the father on the wagon, loading; the sons leading the horse round the field, from heap to heap, and with their pitchforks plying him like hodmen with great faggots of hay.
‘Dauntee want to get married then?’ asked Seth plaintively.
‘What boots wanten?’ parried the girl. ‘If us can’t, us can’t.’
‘But why can’t us? I be getten good money, good enough. And there be the old gamekeeper’s cottage waiten and ready. It’s bin empty ever sen a took and died.’ He put his arm coaxingly round her shoulders. ‘I knaw Squire ud let me have un, did I but tell him I want to be married. He be countable good to me, be Squire.’
‘Not after what you done to Master Hugh, he won’t.’ At this wanton renewal of an old and bitter dispute he became angry, and she eager to mollify him. ‘Nemmind, Seth. Marry or not, tis all one to us, bainta? I do love ee eversmuch.’
As always, he found her coaxing irresistible. She was adept in this art of hurting and healing, and so by amorous provocation escaping from an argument. Now, with Seth’s arms about her, and Seth’s kiss on her mouth, she forgave, and he forgot, his tedious talk of marriage, and both became lost in a region beyond time. There they remained for a long while at peace, and Noke, glancing up from the valley, saw the figure of his spy emerging from the wood. He grunted, and shaded his eyes that he might watch the more closely. The fellow was hurrying, but what else? Ah, now he stopped, and thrust a hand into his pocket. The next moment he was waving a red scarf. A sharp exclamation escaped Noke, half anger, half exultation. He called his sons. ‘Come along then, and sharply.’ The wagon was half-loaded: it was inconceivable that work must stop: the men looked at their father with blank faces. ‘Leave that, tellee.’ What of the hay? ‘Leave that.’ What of Dinah the mare? ‘Leave Dinah, blast ye! Come wud me.’ He was already striding away in the direction of the red sign. The three sons trailed at his heels, and their young brother, looking over the stable-wall and seeing them go, snatched up a sharp-bladed shovel and raced out of the yard.