“Did he mind so much?” said Connie in wonder.
“Yes, he sort of couldn’t take it for natural, all that pain. And it spoilt his pleasure in his bit of married love. I said to him: If I don’t care, why should you? It’s my lookout!—But all he’d ever say was: It’s not right!”
“Perhaps he was too sensitive,” said Connie.
“That’s it! When you come to know men, that’s how they are: too sensitive in the wrong place. And I believe, unbeknown to himself, he hated the pit, just hated it. He looked so quiet when he was dead, as if he’d got free. He was such a nice looking lad. It just broke my heart to see him, so still and pure looking, as if he’d wanted to die. Oh, it broke my heart, that did. But it was the pit.”
She wept a few bitter tears, and Connie wept more. It was a warm spring day, with a perfume of earth and of yellow flowers, many things rising to bud, and the garden still with the very sap of sunshine.
“It must have been terrible for you!” said Connie.
“Oh, my Lady! I never realised at first. I could only say: Oh my lad, what did you want to leave me for!—That was all my cry. But somehow I felt he’d come back.”
“But he didn’t want to leave you,” said Connie.
“Oh, no, my Lady! That was only my silly cry. And I kept expecting him back. Especially at nights. I kept waking up thinking: Why he’s not in bed with me!—It was as if my feelings wouldn’t believe he’d gone. I just felt he’d have to come back and lie against me, so I could feel him with me. That was all I wanted, to feel him there with me, warm. And it took me a thousand shocks before I knew he wouldn’t come back, it took me years.”
“The touch of him,” said Connie.
“That’s it, my Lady! the touch of him! I’ve never got over it to this day, and never shall. And if there’s a heaven above, he’ll be there, and will lie up against me so I can sleep.”
Connie glanced at the handsome, brooding face in fear. Another passionate one out of Tevershall! The touch of him! For the bonds of love are ill to loose!
“It’s terrible, once you’ve got a man into your blood!” she said.
“Oh, my Lady! And that’s what makes you feel so bitter. You feel folks wanted him killed. You feel the pit fair wanted to kill him. Oh, I felt, if it hadn’t been for the pit, an’ them as runs the pit, there’d have been no leaving me. But they all want to separate a woman and a man, if they’re together.”
“If they’re physically together,” said Connie.
“That’s right my Lady! There’s a lot of hardhearted folks in the world. And every morning when he got up and went to th’ pit, I felt it was wrong, wrong. But what else could he do? What can a man do?”
A queer hate flared in the woman.
“But can a touch last so long?” Connie asked suddenly. “That you could feel him so long?”
“Oh my Lady, what else is there to last? Children grows away from you. But the man, well—! But even that they’d like to kill in you, the very thought of the touch of him. Even your own children! Ah well! We might have drifted apart, who knows. But the feeling’s something different. It’s ’appen better never to care. But there, when I look at women who’s never really been warmed through by a man, well, they seem to me poor dool-owls after all, no matter how they may dress up and gad. No, I’ll abide by my own. I’ve not much respect for people.”
XII
Connie went to the wood directly after lunch. It was really a lovely day, the first dandelions making suns, the first daisies so white. The hazel thicket was a lacework of half-open leaves, and the last dusty perpendicular of the catkins. Yellow celandines now were in crowds, flat open, pressed back in urgency, and the yellow glitter of themselves. It was the yellow, the powerful yellow of early summer. And primroses were broad, and full of pale abandon, thick-clustered primroses no longer shy. The lush, dark green of hyacinths was a sea, with buds rising like pale corn, while in the riding the forget-me-nots were fluffing up, and columbines were unfolding their ink-purple riches, and there were bits of bluebird’s eggshell under a bush. Everywhere the bud-knots and the leap of life!
The keeper was not at the hut. Everything was serene, brown chickens running lustily. Connie walked on towards the cottage, because she wanted to find him.
The cottage stood in the sun, off the wood’s edge. In the little garden the double daffodils rose in tufts, near the wide-open door, and red double daisies made a border to the path. There was the bark of a dog, and Flossie came running.
The
