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Gone to Earth

<h2 id="id02681" style="margin-top: 4em">Chapter 34</h2> Edward, coming downstairs, felt such a rush of joy and youth at sight of her that he was obliged to stand still and remember that joy and youth were not for him, that his only love had gone of her own will to another man, and must be to him now only a poor waif sheltered for pity. He was very much altered. His face frightened Hazel. 'Have you come to stay, Hazel, or only for a visit?' he asked. 'Oh, dunna look at me the like o' that, and dunna talk so stern, Ed'ard!' 'I wasn't aware that I was stern.' Edward's face was white. He looked down at her with an expression she could not gauge. For there, had come upon him, seeing her there again, so sweet in her dishevelment, so enchanting in her suppliance, the same temptation that tormented him on his wedding-day. Only now he resisted it for a different reason. Hazel, his Hazel, was no fit mate for him. The words flamed in his brain; then fiercely, he denied them. He would not believe it. Circumstance, Hazel, his mother, even God might shout the lie at him. Still, he would not believe. But he must have it out with her. He must know. 'Hazel,' he said, 'after breakfast I want you to come with me up the Mountain.' 'Yes, Ed'ard,' she said obediently. She adored his sternness. She adored his look of weariness. She longed hopefully and passionately for his touch. For now, when it was too late, she loved him—not with any love of earth; that was spoilt for her—but with a grave amorousness kin to that of the Saints, the passion that the Magdalen might have felt for Christ. The earthly love should have been Edward's, too, and would have run in the footsteps of the other love, like a young creature after its mother. But Reddin had intervened. 'First,' Edward said, 'you must have some food and a cup of tea.' He never wavered in tenderness to her. But she noticed that he did not say 'dear,' nor did he, bringing her in, take her hand. Breakfast was an agony to Edward, for his mother, who had from the first treated Hazel with silent contempt as a sinner, now stood, on entering with the toast, and said: 'I will not eat with that woman.' 'Mother!' 'If you bring that woman here, I will be no mother to you.' 'Mother! For my sake!' 'She is a wicked woman,' went on Mrs. Marston, in a calm but terrible voice; 'she is an adulteress.' Edward sprang up. 'How dare you!' he said. 'Are you going to turn her out, Edward?' 'No.' 'Eddie! my little lad!' Her voice shook. 'No.' 'My boy that I lay in pain for, two days and a night, to bring you into the world!' Edward covered his face with his hands. 'You will put me before—her?' 'No, mother.' 'You were breast-fed, Eddie, though I was very weak.' There was a little silence. Edward buried his face in his arms. 'Right is on my side, Edward, and what I wish is God's will. You will put duty first?' 'No. Love.' 'I am getting old, dear. I have not many more years. She has all a lifetime. You will put me first?' He lifted his head. He looked aged and worn. 'No! And again no!' he said. 'Stop torturing me, mother!' Mrs. Marston turned without a word to go out. Hazel sprang up, breaking into a passion of tears. 'Oh, let me go!' she cried. 'I'll go away and away! What for did you fetch me from the Calla? None wants me. I wunna miserable at the Calla. Let me go!' She stared at Mrs. Marston with terrified eyes. 'She's as awful as death,' she said, 'the old lady. As awful as Mr. Reddin when he's loving. I'm feared, Ed'ard! I'd liefer go.' But Edward's arm was round her. His hand was on her trembling one. 'You shall not frighten my little one!' he said to his mother; and she went to the kitchen, where, frozen with grief, she remained all morning in a kind of torpor. Martha was afraid she would have a stroke. But she dared not speak to Edward, for, hovering in the passage, she had seen his face as he shut the door. He made Hazel eat and drink. Then they went out on the hill. 'Now, Hazel,' he said, 'we must have truth between us. Did you go with that man of your own will?' She was silent. 'You must have done, or why go a second time? Did you?' His eyes compelled her. She shivered. 'Yes, Ed'ard. But I didna want to. I didna!' 'How can both be true?' 'They be.' 'How did he compel you to go, then?' Hazel sought for an illustration. 'Like a jacksnipe fetches his mate out o' the grass,' she said. 'What did he say?' 'Nought.' 'Then how—?' 'There's things harder than words; words be nought.' 'Go on.' 'It was like as if there was a secret atween us, and I'd got to find it out. Dunna look so fierce, Ed'ard!' 'Did you find out?' A tide of painful red surged over Hazel; she turned away. But Edward, rendered pitiless by pain, forcibly pulled her back, and made her look at him. 'Did you find out?' he repeated. 'There inna no more,' she whispered. 'Then it is true what he said, that you were his from head to foot?' 'Oh, Ed'ard, let me be! I canna bear it!' 'I wish I could have killed him!' Edward said. 'Then you were his—soul and body?' 'Not soul!' 'You told a good many lies.' 'Oh, Ed'ard, speak kind!' 'What a fool I was! You must have detested me for interrupting the honeymoon. Of course you went back! What a fool I was! And I thought you were pure as an angel.' 'I couldna help it, Ed'ard; the signs said go, and then he threw me in the bracken.' Something broke in Edward's mind. The control of a life-time went from him. 'Why didn't I?' he cried. 'Why didn't I? Good God! To think I suffered and renounced for this!' He laughed. 'And all so simple! Just throw you in the bracken.' She shuddered at the knife-edge in his voice, and also at the new realization that broke on her that Edward had it in him to be like Reddin. 'What for do you fritten me?' she whispered. 'But it's not too late,' Edward went on, and his face, that had been grey, flushed scarlet. 'No, it's not too late. I'm not particular. You're not new, but you'll do.' He crushed her to him and kissed her. 'I'm your husband,' he said, 'and from this day on I'll have my due. You've lied to me, been unfaithful to me, made me suffer because of your purity—and you had no purity. Tonight you sleep in my room; you've slept in his.' 'Oh, let me go, Ed'ard! let me go!' She was lost indeed now. For Edward, the righteous and the loving, was no more. Where should she flee? She did not know this man who held her in desperate embrace. He was more terrible to her than all the rest—more terrible, far, than Reddin—for Reddin had never been a god to her. 'I knelt by your bedside and fought my instincts, and they were good instincts. I had a right to them. I gave up more than you can ever guess.' 'I'm much obleeged, Ed'ard,' she said tremblingly. 'I've disgraced my calling, and I've this morning hurt my mother beyond healing.' 'I'd best be going, Ed'ard. The sun'll soon be undering.' The day blazed towards noon, but she felt the chill of darkness. 'And now,' Edward finished, 'that I have no mother, no self-respect, and no respect for you, I will at least have my pleasure and—my children. The words softened him a little. 'Hazel,' he said, 'I will forgive you for murdering my soul when you give me a son, I will almost believe in you again, next year—Hazel—' He knelt by her with his arms round her. She was astonished at the mastery of passion in him. She had never thought of him but as passionless. 'To-night,' he said, and tenderness crept back into his voice, 'is my bridal. There is no saving for me now in denial, only in fulfilment. I can forgive much, Hazel, for I love much. But I can't renounce any more.' Hazel had heard nothing of what he said since the words, 'when you give me a son.' They rang in her brain. She felt dazed. At last she looked up affrightedly. 'But,' she said, 'when I have the baby, it unna be yours, but his'n.' 'What?' 'It—it'll be his'n.' 'What?' He questioned foolishly, like a child. He could not understand. 'It's gone four month since midsummer,' she said, 'and Sally said I was wi' child of—of—' 'You need not go on, Hazel.' Edward's face looked pinched. The passion had gone, and a deathly look replaced it. He was robbed, utterly and cruelly. He could no longer believe in a God, or how could such things be? Manhood was denied him. The last torture was not denied him—namely, that he saw the full satire of his position, saw that it was his own love that had destroyed them both. Out of his complete ruin he arose joyless, hopeless, but great in a tenderness so vast and selfless that it almost took the place of what he had lost. Hazel was again his inspiration, not as an ideal, but as a waif. In his passion of pity for her he forgot everything. He had something to live for again. 'Poor child!' he said. 'Come home. I will take care of you.' 'But—the old lady?' 'You are first.' She caught his hands; she flung herself upon his shoulder in a rush of tears. If this was his tragic moment, it was also hers. 'Oh, Ed'ard, Ed'ard!' she cried, 'it's you as I'd lief have for my lover! It's you as I'm for, body and soul, if I'm for a mortal man! It's your baby as I want, Ed'ard, and I wouldna be feared o' the pain as Sally told of if it was yours. What for didna you tell me in the spring o' the year, Ed'ard? It be winter now, and late and cold.' 'There, there! you don't know what you're saying. Come home!' Edward did not listen to her, she knew. And, indeed, his brain was weary, and could take in no more. He only knew he must care for Hazel as Christ cared for the lambs of His fold. And darkly on his dark mind loomed his new and bitter creed, 'There is no Christ.' <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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