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Gone to Earth

<h2 id="id01132" style="margin-top: 4em">Chapter 14</h2> Prize-giving time came, and the younger Miss Clomber, who was to present them, tried to persuade Reddin to go up on the platform, a lorry with chairs on it. There already were Mr. James and the secretary, counting the prize-money. Below stood the winners, Vessons conspicuous in his red waistcoat. Miss Clomber felt that she looked well. She was dressed in tweeds to show that this was not an occasion to her as to the country damsels. 'No. I shall stay here,' said Reddin, answering her stare, intended to be inviting, with a harder stare of indifference. 'As the last representative of such an old family—' 'Oh, damn family' he said peevishly, having lost sight of Hazel. As Miss Clomber still persisted, he quenched the argument. 'Young families are more in my line than old 'uns.' She blushed unbecomingly, and hastily got on to the lorry. Reddin went in search of Hazel, while Mr. James began to read the names. 'Mr. Thomas. Mr. James. Mrs. Marston. Mr. James—' He handed the pile of shillings to Miss Clomber, who presented them with the usual fatuous remarks. When he had won the prize he received it back from her with a bow, taking off his hat. As his own name occurred more frequently than usual, he began to get rather self-conscious. He looked round the ring of faces, and translated their stodginess as self-consciousness dictated. Perhaps it would be as well to carry it off as a jest? So his hat came off with a flourish, and he said jocosely as he took the next heap, 'Keeping-apples, Mr. James. I'll put it in me pocket!' This attitude wearing thin, he took refuge in that of unimpeachable honesty. 'Fair and square! The best man wins!' This lasted for some time, but was not proof against 'Swedes, Mr. James. Mangolds, Mr. James. Stewing pears, Mr. James.' He began to get in a panic. His bow was cursory. He pocketed the money furtively and read his name in a low, apologetic tone. But this would never do! He must pull himself together. He tried bravado. 'Mr. Vessons. Mr. James.' Vessons stood immovable within arm's reach of Miss Clomber. When he got a prize, which he did three times, no one else having sent any cheeses, he extended his arm like one side of a pair of compasses, and vouchsafed neither bow nor smile. He disliked Miss Clomber because he knew that she meant to be mistress of Undern. Mr. James was getting on well with the bravado. 'What do I care what people think? Dear me! All the world may see me get my prize.' Then he caught Abel's satiric eye, and went all to pieces. He clutched at his first attitude—the business-like—and so began all over again, and managed to get through by not looking in Abel's direction, being upheld by the knowledge that his pockets were getting very full. When he read out, 'Cherries, bottled. Mrs. Marston,' and Edward went to receive the prize, Reddin shouldered up to Hazel and asked: 'What time's he going?' 'I dunno.' 'Don't forget, mind.' 'Oh, Mr. Reddin, I mun go! What for wunna you let me be?' But Reddin, finding Miss Clomber's eye on him, was gone. Mr. James had come to the end of the list. He read out Abel's name and that of an old bent man with grey elf-locks, a famous bee-master. Mr. James looked at Abel as much as to say, 'You've got your prize, you see! It's quite fair.' 'Thank yer,' said Abel to Miss Clomber, and then to James with fine irony: 'You dunna keep bees, do yer, Mr. James?' * * * * * The hills loomed in the dusk over the show-ground. They were of a cold and terrific colour, neither purple nor black nor grey, but partaking of all. Kingly, mournful, threatening, they dominated the life below as the race dominates the individual. Hazel gazed up at them. She stood in the attitude of one listening, for in her ears was a voice that she had never heard before, a deep inflexible voice that urged her to do—she knew not what. She looked up at the round wooded hill that hid God's Little Mountain—so high, so cold for a poor child to climb. She felt that the life there would be too righteous, too well-mannered. The thought of it suddenly made her homesick for dirt and the Callow. She thought of Undern crouched under its hill like a toad. She remembered its echoing rooms and the sound as of dresses rustling that came along the passages while she put on the green gown. Undern made her more homesick than the parsonage. Edward had gone. She had said she wanted to stay with her father, and Edward had thought her a sweet daughter and had acquiesced, though sadly. Now she was awaiting Reddin. The dancing had not begun, though the tent was ready. Yellow light flowed from every gap in the canvas, and Hazel felt very forlorn out in the dark; for light seemed her natural sphere. As she stood there, looking very small and slight, she had a cowering air. Always, when she stood under a tree or sheltered from the rain, she had this look of a refugee, furtive and brow-beaten. When she ran she seemed a fugitive, fleeing across the world with no city or refuge to flee into. Miss Clomber's approach made her start. 'A word with you!' said Miss Clomber in her brisk, unsympathetic voice. 'I saw you with Mr. Reddin twice. I just wanted to say in a sisterly and Christian spirit'—she lowered her voice to a hollow whisper—'that he is not a good man.' 'Well,' said Hazel, with a sigh of relief in the midst of her shyness and her oppression about the mountain, 'that's summat, anyway!' Miss Clomber, outraged and furious, strode away. Hazel was again left to the hills. The taciturnity of winter was upon them still, and in the sky beyond was the cynical aloofness that comes with frost after sunset. She turned from them to the lighted tent. The golden glow was like some bright creature imprisoned. Abel had prorogued an interminable argument with the old man with the elf-locks, and now began thrumming inside the tent. Young men and women converged upon it at the sound of the music, as flies flock to the osier blossom. They went in, as the blessed to Paradise. The canvas began to sway and billow in the wind of the dancing. Hazel felt that life was going on gaily without her—she shut away in the dark. Her feet began to dance. 'I'll go in!' she said defiantly. 'What for not?' But just as she was lifting the flap she heard Reddin's voice at her elbow. 'Hazel, why did you run away?' 'I dunno.' 'Why didn't you tell me your name? Here have I been going hell-for-leather up and down the country.' 'Ah! That's gospel! That's righteous! I seed you.' Reddin was speechless. 'Me and father was in the public, and you came. I thought it was the Black Huntsman.' 'Thanks. Not a pin to choose, I suppose.' 'Not all that.' 'We're wasting time. What's all this about the parson?' 'I told 'ee.' 'But it isn't true. You and the parson!' He laughed. Hazel looked at him with disfavour. 'You're like a hound-dog when you laugh like to that,' she said, 'and I dunna like the hound-dogs.' He stopped laughing. Abel's harp beat upon them, and the soft thudding of feet on the turf, like sheep stamping, had grown in volume as the shyest were gradually drawn into the revelry. A rainstorm, shaped like a pillar, walked slowly along the valley, skirting the base of the hills. It was like a grey god with folded arms and head aloof in the sky. As it drew slowly nearer to the two who stood there like lovers and were not lovers, and as it lashed them across the eyes, it might have been fate. 'Hazel, can't you see I'm in love with you?' 'What for are you?' There was a wailing note in Hazel's voice, and the rain ran down her face like tears. 'There's you and there's Ed'ard Oh, what for are you?' Reddin looked at her in astonishment. A woman not to like a man to be in love with her. It was uncanny. He stood square-set against the darkening sky, his fine massive head slightly bent, looking down at her. 'I never thought,' he said helplessly—'I never thought, when I had come to forty years without the need of women' ('of love,' he corrected himself), 'that I should be like this.' He looked at Hazel accusingly; then he gazed up at the coming night as a lion might at the sound of thunder. 'Be you forty?' Hazel's voice was on the top note of wonder. 'Laws! what an age!' 'It's not really old,' he pleaded, very humbly for him. She laughed. 'The parson, now, I suppose he's young?' His voice was wistful. 'He'm the right age.' Reddin's temper flamed. 'I'll show you if I'm old! I'll show you who makes the best lover, me or a silly lad!' 'Hands off, Mr. Reddin!' But her words went down the lonely wind that had begun to drag at the lighted tent. 'There' said Reddin, pleased with his kisses. 'Now come and dance, and you'll see if a chap of forty can't tire you. Afterwards we'll settle the parson's hash.' He lifted the tent-flap, and they went in and were taken by the bright, slow-whirling life. Hazel was glad to dance with him or anyone, so that she might dance. Reddin held his head high, for he was a lover to-night, and he had never been that before in any of his amours. He was angry and enthralled with Hazel, and the two emotions together were intoxicating. Hazel was a flower in a gale when she danced, a slim poplar tremulous and swaying in the dawn, a young beech assenting to the wind's will. Abel watched her with pride. She was turning out a credit to him, after all. It was astonishing. 'It's worth playing for our 'Azel's feet. The others just stomps,' he thought. 'Who's the fellow she's along with? I'd best keep an eye. A bargain's a bargain.' 'You'm kept your word,' said Hazel suddenly to Reddin. 'H'm?' 'Tired me out.' 'Come outside, then, and I'll get you a cup of tea.' He fetched it and sat down by her on an orange-box. 'Now look here,' he said, 'fair and square, will you marry me?' He was surprised at himself. Andrew Vessons, who had tiptoed after them from the tent, spread out his hands and gazed at heaven with a look of supreme despair, all the more intense because he could not speak. He returned desolately to the tent, where he stood with a cynical smile, leaning a little forward with his arms behind him, watching the dancing, an apotheosis of sex, to him not only silly and pitiful, but disgusting. Now and then he shook his head, went to the door to see if his master was coming, and shook it again. A friend came up. 'Why did the gaffer muck up the race?' he asked. 'Why,' asked Vessons, with a far-off gaze, 'did 'Im as made the 'orld put women in?' Outside things were going more to his liking than he knew. 'What's the good of keeping on, Mr. Reddin? I told 'ee I was promised to Ed'ard.' 'But you like me a bit? Better than the parson?' 'I dunno.' 'Come off with me now. I swear I'll play fair.' 'I swore!' she cried. 'I swore by the Mountains, and that can ne'er be broke.' 'What did you swear?' 'To marry the first as come. That's Ed'ard. If I broke that oath, when I was jead, my cold soul 'ud wander and find ne'er a bit of rest, crying about the Mountains and about, nights, and Ed'ard thinking it was the wind. 'If you chuck him, he'll soon get over it; if you chuck me, I shan't. He's never gone after the drink and women.' It was a curious plea for a lover. 'Miss Clomber said you wunna a good man.' 'Well, I'm blowed! But look here. If he loses you, he'll be off his feed for a bit; but if I lose you, there'll be the devil to pay. Has he kissed you?' 'Time and agen.' 'I won't have it!' ''Azel!' called her father. 'You won't go?' 'I mun. It's father.' 'And I shan't see you again-till you're married? Oh, marry me, Hazel! Marry me!' His voice shook. At the mysterious grief in his face—a grief that was half rage, and the more pitiful for that—she began to sob. Abel came up. 'A mourning-party, seemingly,' he said, holding his lantern so as to light each face in turn. 'I want to marry your daughter.' Abel roared. 'Another? First 'er bags a parson and next a squire!' 'Farmer.' 'It'll be the king on his throne next. Laws, girl! you're like beer and treacle.' 'You've not answered me,' said Reddin. 'She's set.' 'Eh?' 'Set. Bespoke. Let.' 'She's a right to change her mind.' 'Nay! A bargain's a bargain. Why, they've bought the clothes, mister, and the furniture and the cake!' 'If she comes with me, you'll go home with a cheque for fifty pounds, and that's all I've got,' said Reddin naively. 'I tell you, sir, she's let,' Abel repeated. 'A bargain's a bargain!' It occurred to him that the Callow garden might, with fifty pounds, be filled with beehives from end to end. 'Mister,' he said, almost in tears, 'you didn't ought to go for to 'tice me! Eh! dear 'eart, the wood I could buy, and the white paint and a separator and queens from foreign parts!' He made a gesture of despair and his face worked. 'You could have a new harp if you wanted one.' Reddin suggested. Abel gulped. 'A bargain's a bargain!' he repeated. 'And I promised the parson.' He turned away. ''Azel,' he said over his shoulder, 'you munna go along of this gent. Many's the time,' he added turning round and surveying her moodily, 'as you've gone agen me and done what I gainsayed.' With a long imploring look he hitched the harp on his back and trudged away. Hazel followed. But Reddin stepped in front of her. 'Look here, Hazel! You say you don't like hurting things. You're hurting me!' Looking at his haggard face, she knew it was true. She wiped her tears away with her sleeve. 'It inna my fault. I'm allus hurting things. I canna set foot in the garden nor cook a cabbage but I kill a lot of little pretty flies and things. And when we take honey there's allus bees hurted. I'm bound to go agen you or Ed'ard, and I canna go agen Ed'ard; he sets store by me, does Ed'ard. You should 'a seen the primmyroses he put in my room last night; I slep' at the parsonage along of us being late.' Reddin frowned as if in physical pain. 'And he bought me stockings, all thin, and a sky-blue petticoat.' Reddin looked round. He would have picked her up then and there and taken her to Undern, but the road was full of people. 'I couldna go agen Ed'ard! He'm that kind. Foxy likes him, too; she'd ne'er growl at 'im.' 'Perhaps,' Reddin said hoarsely, 'Foxy'd like me if I gave her bones.' 'She wouldna! You'm got blood on you.' She drew away coldly at this remembrance, which had been obliterated by Reddin's grief. 'You'm got the blood of a many little foxes on you,' she said, and her voice cut him like sharp sleet—'little foxes as met have died quick and easy wi' a gunshot. And you've watched 'em minced alive.' 'I'll give it up if you'll chuck the parson.' 'I won'er you dunna see 'em, nights, watching you out of the black dark with their gold eyes, like kingcups, and the look in 'em of things dying hard. I won'er you dunna hear 'em screaming.' His cause was lost, and he knew it, but he pleaded on. 'No. If I hadna swore by the Mountain I wouldna come,' she said. 'You've got blood on you.' At that moment a neighbour passed and offered Hazel a lift. Now that she was marrying a minister, she had become a personality. Hazel climbed in and drove off, and Reddin's tragic moment died, as great fires die, into grey ash. He went home heavily. His way lay past the parsonage where Edward and his mother slept peacefully. The white calm of unselfish love wrapped Edward, for he felt that he could make Hazel happy. As he fell asleep that night he thought: 'She was made for a minister's wife.' Reddin, leaning heavily on the low wall, staring at the drunken tombstones and the quiet moon-silvered house, thought: 'She was made for me.' Both men saw her as what they wanted her to be, not as she was. Many thoughts darkened Reddin's face as he stood there hour after hour in the cold May night. The rime whitened his broad shoulders as he leaned on the wall, and in the moonlight the sprinkling of white hairs at his temples shone out from the black as if to mock this young passion that had possessed him. God's Little Mountain lay shrugged in slumber; the woods crouched like beaten creatures under the night; the small soft leaves hung limply in the frost. Still Reddin stood there, chilled through and through, brooding upon the house. Not until dawn, like a knife, gashed the east with blood did he stir. He sighed. 'Too late!' he said. Then he laughed. 'Beaten by the parson!' A demoniac rage surged in him. He picked up a piece of rock, and lifting it in both arms, flung it at the house. It smashed the kitchen window. But before Edward came to his window Reddin was out of sight in the batch. 'My dear,' said Mrs. Marston tremulously, 'I always feared disaster from this strange match.' 'How can Hazel have anything to do with it, mother?' 'I think, dear, it is a sign from God. On your wedding-morning! Broken glass! Yes, it is a sign from God. I wish it need not have been quite so violent. But, of course, He knows best.' <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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