Delight's body lay stretched along the bed, her strong arms thrown out in an attitude of profound relaxation. Her mind, too, was quiet, half drowsing after wearying emotions. She knew that in an hour or two Mrs. Jessop would rap on the door, the signal for her to leave this room forever. . . . Well, she was ready to leave, except for her coat and hat. Her tin trunk, with the basket containing Granny's tea-set standing on top of it, was waiting by the door.
She had not known that she loved this poor room so, but, in truth, it was the one home she had. On the lumpy bed she and May had slept happily together; there May had poured out the story of her love for Albert. In this room she had felt remote and safe as in a little house of her own. It was intolerably stuffy, stained, and faded, but she saw none of this. Her heart enfolded it as the shrine where Gran's tea-set lived, where memories of May abounded. She was like a poor stall animal that clings to its own manger, its halter, its drinking pail, and would rush there gladly after the day's work. It seemed terrible to her, besides, to be thrown out into the street like this, as though she were a bad girl. She never thought of questioning Mrs. Jessop's authority. Mrs. Jessop had engaged her, now if she pleased she could throw her out.
But, oh, if she had not quarrelled with Jimmy! If only they had not become bitter over the tailor's proposal. . . . She might marry the tailor. She could go to him in the morning and say—"Mr. Mayberry, I'll marry you this morning if you like." He would be glad. And he wasn't so ugly, either. His legs might be a little bowed and his chest flat, but Jimmy was too hard on ugly people. He was too proud of his own compact, strong body. She remembered the feel of him in her arms, so round and firm. Well, he wouldn't have her to put her arms around him any more— He'd have to get some other girl. . . .
Slow tears drenched her eyes. The lamp became a blurred sun, far away. The echoing walls of the rain shut her in. She slept.
Thud! Thud! Mrs. Jessop's palm struck the door. She did not rap for fear of waking Annie and Pearl in the next room. Delight sat up startled, yet only half awake. The lamp had burned itself out and a smell of charred wick hung in the air. She could dimly see the furniture by the grey glimmer at the window. . . . But why was she dressed? What was it all about? Mrs. Jessop softly thumped on the door again.
"Hurry up, there," her voice came thickly. "You've no time to spare. Open the door."
Delight sprang to her feet, fully conscious now, terribly afraid of angering Mrs. Jessop still further. She dragged the washstand from before the door, and timidly opened it. Her eyes, wild and mournful, stared out at the housekeeper.
"Phew, what a stink!" exclaimed Mrs. Jessop, and she glared around the twilit room, as though she half expected to find Bastien hidden there.
Delight took her coat and hat from the peg and put them on, avoiding Mrs. Jessop's eyes.
"What about my box and basket?" she asked.
"You take one end of the trunk. It ain't very heavy, and I'll take the other. You can carry the basket in your other hand. You're big enough, ain't you?"
Together they carried the trunk down the steep black stairway. Delight was in front, the basket bumping against her leg, the trunk weighing on her cruelly. "Oh," she thought, "what a fix I'm in! What if Mrs. Jessop should let go of her end of the trunk and I'd go to the bottom with it on me! I'd be smashed. Perhaps she's planned the whole thing, to kill me." She felt like screaming.
But they reached the kitchen safely.
The fire was lighted. A pot of tea was stewing on the back of the stove. They set down the trunk and faced each other, panting. Mrs. Jessop looked ghastly in the electric light, black circles beneath her eyes, her lips blue. She said commandingly:
"Sit down at the table. Here's your month's wage." She handed her some bills. "Count it. Now, will you have a fried egg?"
"No, just a cup of tea and a bit of bread."
"It's for you to say. I'll cook you the egg if you want it."
"No. No. I don't want any egg." It was strange to sit alone at the long table, being waited on by Mrs. Jessop. The bread and butter stuck in her throat till she washed it down with strong tea. The strange thing was, she seemed to see Queenie marching up and down the kitchen singing her marching song:
"We aw mar'h toge'her,
Nih'ly in a waow."
What a comical way she talked, poor young Queenie!
Mrs. Jessop went to the back door and called, but in a low voice:
"Henry!"
A half-grown boy who worked about the stables at odd times entered now and threw a look of dull surprise at Delight. He had never seen anyone who looked at all like her, and he did not like the look of her in the least.
"This is the trunk," said Mrs. Jessop. "Got your wheelbarrow outside?"
"M-m," grunted Henry, heaving up the trunk. "Can I go on ahead? She can foller all right."
Delight answered:
"Well, don't go too fast. I'd like to keep near you." She thought of the dim, lonely streets. She would like some company, however stupid, on that last walk through Brancepeth.
Henry grunted again and staggered out with the trunk.
"You said last night that Davy would take my trunk," said Delight. "I'd like to ha' seen one of them again."
"I changed my mind."
"Well, good-bye." Delight swallowed the last of her tea and set down the cup.
With a fierce gesture, Mrs. Jessop snatched it up, and, with rigid arm, held it before the eyes of the girl.
"You see that cup?"
"Yes."
Mrs. Jessop hurled it to the floor, smashing it to fragments. A ferocious smile lighted her face.
"Well, I don't run no risk of ever putting my mouth to that cup, see? All us women hate you. Go!"
Henry was already trundling the wheelbarrow up the street when Delight crossed the stable-yard. She hurried after him, carrying her basket of dishes, feeling pursued by Mrs. Jessop's hatred. The splintering crash of the cup was still in her ears. And the bitter words, too, would not leave her.
What a rain had fallen after the long weeks of drought! Little runnels of water ran across the yard, and joined a gurgling stream in the gutter. The drinking-trough was flooded and stood in a pool, both reflecting the silver light in the east. In the west hung a grand purple cloud, driven through again and again by the pale stilettos of distant lightning, and shaken by far-off thunder.
The crows were up. She heard them coming, emerging from the fastness of their woods by the lagoon.
"Caw—caw—caw— Come along, Kate—come along. Up, Sue! Up, Sue! Speed—speed—speed— Feed, boys, feed!"
They circled above her. Jimmy's crows. Would they perhaps know her for his girl?
They dipped, and rose, and swam through the cool drenched air, peering down at her, she thought, with their bright eyes. A black guard for this last walk through Brancepeth.
"Guard her—speed her—speed her—Jimmy's girl—Who's that? Why, Delight! Delight! Delight!"
Once they fastened on that word Delight how they played with it! They screamed it across the sky till they almost frightened her. They tossed it from one to another, they tore it to fragments, and, at last, streamed out of sight, throwing only the last syllable back to her:
"Light! Light! Light! Give us Light!"
Delight was frightened. She half ran up the street trying to catch up to the boy. The wet pavements had now taken on a burnished look. The morning star sank behind the blacksmith shop. A wind rose and pressed on her from behind as though trying to hustle her out of the town. She heard horse's hoofs and the rattle of a cart. It would soon overtake her, all alone in the street.
She stepped into the deep doorway of a shop to hide till the cart should pass. It was almost opposite when the wind caught the sign hanging above her and shook it as though it would cast it down on her. She looked up and saw the name—
JOHN MAYBERRY
TAILOR
Mayberry, the tailor, whose proposal had been the cause of all her troubles! He lived over the shop. He might come down any minute to open his shutters. He might be leaning out of the window now to see who was at his door. She fled out into the street.
A train shrieked in the distance and came roaring towards the town. She would miss her train and be left stranded in this hostile town! Wild with fright she began running towards the station, the dishes rattling unnoticed in the basket. At the first corner the driver of the cart turned his horse into a side street, struck her, and knocked her down. She had run almost blindly against the horse's shoulder.
It shied now and looked askance at her, lying there on the wet road, her hat off, her basket rolled into the ditch.
"Oh, my dishes, my dear dishes!" she wailed. "They'll be broken all to tiny bits." She hid her face in the crook of her arm and broke into sobs.
The man jumped out of his cart and came towards her.
"Are you much hurt?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm not hurt at all! It's my tea-set. My Granny's tea-set that I've never been parted from yet all this long way."
"Why, it's Delight," said the man. "The girl from The Duke. Whatever are you doing here at this hour of the morning? Whoa, Bessie, whoa, girl. I'll tie her to this post and help you on to your pins."
It was Fergussen, the fishmonger. Delight had talked to him often when he brought fish to the hotel. His broad face looked friendly but she wished he had not seen her. He would tell them all of her mishap and they would think it served her right. He might even tell them that she had run out of the tailor's door.
Fergussen got her to her feet and picked up the basket of dishes. He lifted the canvas that covered them and said cheerfully:
"Nary a crack. They've just rattled about a bit. They're like yourself, they're made of the best material. Now, what I want to know is where you're running to. Are you in some nasty fix?"
"I'm turned off. I'm taking the train to the city."
"Well, you'll never get her, for there she goes now. You'll have to wait for the next."
The train hissed. The bell tolled, clanged, and then the locomotive came into view on the level crossing at the end of the street.
"Yes, you've missed her. The next train's at nine o'clock. Four hours to wait, my good girl."
"Oh, whatever shall I do? I can't go back to the hotel, and I don't want to sit waiting at the station with everyone staring at me and all."
"Now, look here, why do you want to go to the city? Cities is no good. They're bad for your 'ealth and bad for your moralities. You're too good-looking, that's the trouble. Now the country's the place for 'andsome girls all over the world, and I've seen 'em all over the world." He struck an heroic attitude in the middle of the road. "I've seen 'em in the Andes with black hair to their knees that a man might choke himself in. I've seen 'em in China with their lovely little eyes like two hot coals. I've seen 'em in Australiar with sunburnt cheeks you'd like to take a bite out of; and let me tell you it's always in the country that you sees 'em at their best."
"I'm going home to England, if ever I can get there."
"Well, old England's not so bad. Never shall I forget the first time I sailed into Plymouth early one Sunday morning. An old tar with me grabbed me by the arm and says— 'There's a pictur' for you, lad,' and a pictur' it was to make you sing with joy."
"But whatever shall I do? I've missed my train, and there's the sun coming up. It's day."
"Now, I'll tell you what. You get into my cart with me and I'll take you somewheres where you can get work. I've a load of fish here I must deliver in Northwood by eight. That's back through the quarry road, past Stebbing where they raise brook trout. Old man Heaslip lives out that way, a well-off old cadger but a little close. He has a farm and a good bit of fruit but the drought made his Indian pickers leave him, and now this grand rainfall will make the thimbleberries fit to burst with juice, and nobody to pick 'em."
"Me to pick fruit? I don't know how."
"Not know how to pick a berry? Come, now, that's too thin! Just hop into the cart with me and I'll set you down at Heaslip's. They'll be kind to you, too, and no one here will know that you're about, if that's what you want. What did you get fired for?"
"Mrs. Jessop turned against me. There's my trunk, too."
"Where?" He looked up and down the street.
"Henry was taking it to the station on the wheelbarrow."
"That's easy. We'll pass that way and get it. Hop in now, there's a good girl. You're just the girl for Heaslip's." He led the horse about, with the step of the cart invitingly before her.
Delight looked up and down the street. Factory folk were beginning to stir. Windows flamed in the upward slanting sunlight.
"I'll do it," she said. "Anything but sit in that station for hours and hours."
They found the trunk on the end of the platform. Boy and wheelbarrow had disappeared. Fergussen put the trunk before him in the cart and had to sit with his feet dangling. Delight nursed the basket in her lap. And then they jogged out of Brancepeth, the horse's feet splashing into sunlit puddles, the wind blowing Delight's hair all about her face, and throwing down green branches before her on the road. It was a wild, free morning, and, as they left the town behind, Delight began to feel happier in spite of herself and to ask the fishmonger questions about himself and his travels. She did not want to be questioned about her present misfortunes or her past life. If she were to speak of the little lodge in the great park in England where she had lived with Gran, she'd break down, she couldn't bear it.
They jogged on through a hilly, stony country of small farms, and old quarries, and bits of cedar wood. White and blue and purple Michaelmas daisies and flaming goldenrod bloomed gladly on the roadside. Shining shocks of grain dotted the stubble fields, and, here and there, in vivid green lay a field of young fall wheat.
At seven Fergussen drew up his horse beside a coffee-coloured stream that crossed beneath the road. He said:
"Look here, I think you'd better get out here and wash your face. You got more than a bit of mud on it that time you fell. I've got some sandwiches, too, in the cart and I'll give you one. You don't want to arrive at Heaslip's dirty and hungry, do you? Besides, both my legs is sound asleep along o' this bally box of yours."
They got out. Fergussen loosed the horse's headpiece and she began to crop the wet grass. He opened the canvas curtain of the cart and Delight looked in to see the glittering mass of salmon trout, whitefish, and lake herring lying on broken ice. There were his scales, his knives, his chopping board. There was a basket packed with slabs of finnan haddie. He took out his packet of lunch and a bottle of cold tea.
Delight was ravenous. She had eaten only a few mouthfuls of bread at breakfast and the long drive in the pure morning air had put her healthy body in a glow.
"I'd better wash my face first," she said.
"Well, p'raps you had. You'd be prettier company. There's a log we can sit on across the ditch. This here stream was all but dry when I passed it last, and now look at it, fairly boiling over."
Delight scrubbed her face with her wetted handkerchief till it shone like a schoolboy's and then came and sat down on the log beside the fish-dealer. He put a thick sandwich of bread and cheese into her hand and set the bottle of tea on the grass between them.
"You won't tell a soul you saw me?" urged Delight.
"Never a word, except I seen the boy a-trundling the barrow with your box on it to the station and you after it with your basket."
"And you'll tell Mr. Heaslip not to say I'm working for him?"
"Never fear him. He's the greatest man to hold his tongue you ever seen. Now, look you, Miss What's-yr-name, this Canada's a great place for opportoonities. You might walk along a country road 'ere, alone in the world, and in the first house you'd stop at to ask for a drink, you'd meet someone who'd want you as a partner for life. You can pick up a mate in no time."
"But I don't want to get married."
He had a pull from the bottle of tea and then observed:
"Well, if you like the single life—same as I do—your own boss, your own bedfellow, and no one to dash cold water on your gladness, it's a great country for that, too, for you've any hamount of chance for adventure. I travels light. I've been livin' in a little shack outside Mistwell three years. Three winters in a little shack on four posts, covered with tar-paper. . . . I may want to move on tomorrow. Wot do I do? I gets a few dollars for my old shack, a few more for my old nag, and I 'eaves the old cart in the river. You won't catch me putting my neck in a yoke."
"Nor me, neither."
"Well, you stick to Heaslips. They have no daughter and they might take a fancy to you and adopt you as their own if you're a good, willing girl, and fall in with their plans. . . . Now we'd better be movin' on. I'd like to spend a silly hour with you on the bank of this stream but I can't afford to do it 'cause my fish'ud go bad on me, so come along, my girl."
Heaslip's farm lay in a fold of two hills, a hot, sandy, secret place where grain headed sparsely yet weeds grew shoulder high, finding fit nourishment in the light soil. The farm land was laid out with no regularity; patches of fruit, of vegetables, or irregular fields of corn were divided by thickets of stunted cedars. All the land was tunnelled by the burrows of rabbits and ground-hogs, and the bank of the sluggish stream that moved unheard through a strip of undergrowth and wild shrubs showed strange foot and claw marks.
If this were safety and a harbour, it was mournful safety, thought Delight when Fergussen had driven off and left her with the Heaslips. She had not felt this till his hearty, wholesome presence was removed and she was face to face with her new life.
The house was small and grey, built of thick stone. It looked as though it had sprung from the hillside on which it stood, scarcely emerging, and ready at any time to retreat into the darkness again. Mr. and Mrs. Heaslip were small and grey like the house. He had little grey side-whiskers and round pale eyes. She had a narrow hen-like face and a tufted mole on each cheek to match his scant whiskers. They were past seventy and seemed in perfect accord, scarcely needing the aid of speech to communicate with one another. Indeed, they spoke but little, giving each other, instead, understanding looks, composed and secretive. Delight felt that they knew all about her without asking a question. They asked very few, seeming to be intent on settling the question of work and payment, and, when that was settled, to desire nothing but to retire into some inner chamber of thought. They moved about noiselessly, speaking in half-whispers. Nothing they did disarranged the order and shining cleanliness of the dim rooms. There were no pets about the house and the barn was too far away for the sounds from there to pierce its stillness. If only poor little Queenie were there, Delight thought, to stamp up and down singing her marching song, and now and then wanting to be hugged! If only Charley were there to trip over his own toes and make one laugh! Delight supposed she would get used to the order and quiet, but after the disorder and cheerful bustle of The Duke of York this was like being suddenly entombed.
It had been arranged that she was to pick thimbleberries, and later on plums at so much a basket and out of her earnings she was to pay for her board. When the fruit was done, if she were satisfactory, she would be paid regular wages as a domestic, that Mrs. Heaslip might not have the work of the farmhouse to do in the winter-time. The berries had been so soaked by the rain that it would take a morning's sunshine to dry them sufficiently for picking. In the meantime there was nothing to do but sit in the kitchen and watch those two grey shadows, one reading, one knitting.
She discovered that it was the Bible Mr. Heaslip read, and it was a disconcerting discovery. No one she had ever known had read the Bible. Gran had liked to read an almanack or a good tale if she could get one, or even a tract for the sake of the story. Not that she hadn't believed in God! But— "His ways is mysterious, dear child," she had said, "and we'd best not look into them too partic'lar." Yet here was a farmer reading the Bible of a morning and now and again smiling in a triumphant way, as though he and God had a secret between them.
It was ten o'clock. Would it never be noon? Delight longed to go out and wander about but the place held her in a spell. She could not make up her mind to ask Mrs. Heaslip if she might.
It was eleven. The clock did not strike. It wheezed a little at the hour but it did not speak. No one spoke. At last Delight whispered:
"Have you any children, ma'am?"
Mr. Heaslip looked up from his Bible. His wife looked at him and they smiled their secret smile. Then Mrs. Heaslip answered:
"One son. He is married. He lives in that cottage across the line. Maybe you saw it as you came in?"
"Yes, I saw a little cottage. Has he any children?"
Mr. Heaslip answered this time:
"He has a son, a year old. We have never seen it."
Delight's cheeks became hotly red. She had unwittingly exposed their secret trouble. Their son, whose child, a dear little baby boy, they'd never seen. Oh, what a troubled world it was! Full of trouble. But, oh, how empty her stomach was! Like a live thing drawing itself into a knot between her ribs. She saw no sign of dinner. Visions of the dinner prepared at The Duke of York rose before her—the great roast of juicy beef, the pork and apple-sauce, yes, and it was the day for Queen of puddings. She could smell the hot jam and see the white drift of meringue. Oh, she was so hungry! She pressed her broad palm against the pit of her stomach. She thought of creamed butter beans; she thought of potatoes and brown gravy; she thought of barley broth, and drowsed, sitting in her chair.
The clock wheezed. It was twelve. Mrs. Heaslip was standing by the stove over a frying-pan. The table had been laid for four so noiselessly that Delight had heard nothing. She noticed now that the fourth person had come into the room. He had been washing his hands in the summer kitchen and was pulling down the sleeves of his shirt. He was looking at her out of the sides of his eyes, a thin, sallow boy of eighteen with a shock of stiff mouse-coloured hair.
"Set the chairs up, Perkin," said Mrs. Heaslip, and the youth glided to do her bidding with the same secretive quietness of movement as the old people.
"May I help?" inquired Delight, coming forward timidly.
"You can set those on the table." She handed a dish of fried potatoes to Delight who all but dropped them when she saw how few there were. She could easily have eaten them all herself.
"Now we'll sit down if you are ready, Pa," said Mrs. Heaslip.
Her husband marked the place in his Bible, laid it down, and came to his place at the head of the table, smiling at her. He said mildly to Delight:
"This young man is Perkin Heaslip, our adopted son. I hope you and him will get on."
The boy smiled sheepishly at his plate.
Mrs. Heaslip said:
"Young folks always get on together. In a lonesome place like this you could hardly help it, could you?"
Delight scarcely heard what was being said. Like a greedy child she watched Mr. Heaslip lay a bit of cold meat and a small spoonful of potatoes on her plate. She ate them quickly and then noticed with dismay that the others had not much more than begun their helping. Covered with confusion she sat with eyes downcast, her long lashes shadowing the velvet bloom of her cheeks. The three Heaslips observed her beauty with furtive glances, and seemed silently to discuss her points among themselves, as they partook of the light meal.
Small dishes of preserved pears were passed around, also pallid tartlets, containing some custard mixture. Delight was given a cup of hot water coloured with skimmed milk.
"We do not drink tea here," said Mrs. Heaslip. "It is bad for the nerves. Perkin does not know the taste of tea. Do you, Perkin?"
"No, Ma," replied Perkin, in a thin, high-pitched voice.
Mr. Heaslip said:
"I suppose you saw lots of strong drink at The Duke of York. Mr. Fergussen told me you have been working there. If I had my way I'd pour the stuff into the gutters. I never spend a cent in a hotel. I put my horse in the stable of The British American when I go into Brancepeth and I eat my lunch which my wife prepares for me in their parlour but I never spend a cent in the evil place."
"Had you ever heard tell of me in Brancepeth?" inquired Delight anxiously.
"Never a word till the fishman set you down here this morning. I had told him to be on the lookout for a likely young girl. I asked no questions except as to your character and he said that was good. . . . Well, Ma, I guess I'll go back to my work. Perkin can show her all about the berries."
He returned to his Bible with a smile at his wife.
It was glorious to be out of doors walking beside Perkin towards the barn to get baskets, to feel the soft breeze and smell the delicious country smells after the stuffiness of that dim house, the stagnation of that whispering atmosphere. After the full-blooded people of the hotel these seemed but a company of ghosts. Even the boy looked old and sad, and no wonder he did, poor lad!
"Don't you never go into the town?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"Don't you never have any young company?"
"No."
"Look here," she exclaimed generously. "We'll try to have a little fun while I'm here. I'll liven things up for you. Not in the house, of course, but out among the fruit or in the fields."
He gave her a curious sidelong look, but said nothing.
"My goodness!" she cried, "why don't you speak? Has the pussy got your tongue? Oh, I wish that May were here!"
"Who is May?"
"May's my pal. She's gone home now. She's a regular dear, May is. . . . O-o, what's that writing on the side of the barn? What's it mean?"
In white letters four feet tall on the weather-stained surface were the words—
IF THINE EYE OFFEND THEE
PLUCK IT OUT
The noontide glare struck the words into dazzling brightness. The girl was filled with sudden apprehension. She shrank from entering the barn.
"My goodness," she said, shivering, "what's it for?"
Perkin's look was one of quiet amusement now. "Oh, that's for Joel to see. He's Pa's real son. I'm adopted. Pa and him are enemies, so Pa paints a message up there for him every month. Last month it was somethin' about the serpent's tooth, and we've had lots of 'cursed be he's'—oh, the old man's done some great ones! That's what he reads his Bible for—gettin' new hate-texts dug up to scare Joel."
They stood beneath the letters now that seemed to radiate a fierce heat and energy in the noontide glare impossible to associate with that mild little man in the house.
"And do they scare him?" asked Delight, shivering in spite of the heat.
"I guess they do. He can't take his eyes off that wall as far as he can see it. I often watch him comin' down the road glarin' at it, and when Pa paints up a new one Joel'll sometimes take to his bed for a whole day, he's that upset."
"Pore lad! And his mother—is she against him, too?"
"Against him? Why, she's the fiercest of the two. But she hates his wife far worse than him. That was the trouble. Joel, he married Steven Thurtell's daughter, Mary, and Steven and Pa has been enemies all their lives. Pa would rather an earthquake'd swallow the farm up than to have a grandson of old Thurtell's own it. The day that baby was born all our blinds were pulled down as if we was in mourning, and a new text was painted about the sins of the father being visited on the son. You know the one. Pa did it wonderful. It just glowered at you. The midwife told us that when Mary sat up in bed and saw it she went right into a screamin' spell, and Joel was runnin' round pullin' his hair and cryin' and cursin' like a crazy man."
Perkin's sallow face was alight now with malicious mirth.
"You've found your tongue, haven't you?" Delight said drily. "You can talk fast enough to tell of cruel doings like those. You'd ought to be ashamed. Why it's no better than a bull-fight, the way they do in Spain. My Granny had a picture of it. There was the poor bull on his knees and there was three men sticking little knives into him. Oh, it was a sorry sight!"
Perkin was convulsed with laughter, queer, giggling laughter that disgusted Delight.
"A bull," he stammered, "a bull! You'd ought to see Joel. If he was a bull no butcher livin' would give fifty cents for his hide. He's over forty and hump-backed and all broken down with work."
"Working for his father, I suppose, when he was too young, before his bones were set. Where does he work now?"
"He don't get much to do. Folks are afraid to give him work because they're scared of Pa. Now and then we give him a day, so's he won't starve. And he can have all his wood and turnips and potatoes off the place."
"If I was his wife I'd starve before I'd let him take a day's work from that old man."
"Not if you was nursin' a baby, would you?"
"Oh, my goodness," cried Delight, "this is the most unnatural place I've ever struck! Let's go get the baskets so I can begin my work. They're inside, aren't they?"
They went into the barn where sweet-smelling hay, spilled from the lofts, clung to the rafters, strewed the floor. In one corner crates and baskets were piled in disorder, many of them broken or scattered among straw and discarded harness.
Perkin began languidly to delve among them and extricated some of the least battered for Delight's use.
"The Indians have left these in a nice mess," he explained.
Delight watched his movements with interest.
"Who does the work on this comical farm, anyway?" she asked.
"Well, an old feller named Peake and his grandson mostly, this summer. He comes from Mistwell but he's stayin' with his daughter up this way for a while. The Indians do the pickin'. We get Joel in to plant the new beds and hoe the old ones. Pa does the prunin' and I milk the two cows and cultivate when I feel able. I've always been kind of sickly." He straightened himself with a sudden look of pride, and added: "We don't care whether we work or not here. Pa's got lots of money in the bank, and everything's to be mine when he dies. I've seen the will. Don't get it into your head we're poor farmers. I bet you we could buy your old Duke of York twice over, if we wanted. Pa's too busy with his Bible an' everything to care about farm work much. But I'll give you one piece of advice. Don't you try to get seein' Joel and Mary, because you'll lose your place if you do. Pa won't stand for any mixin' between the goats and the ewes. Come on, now, and get at your pickin'. You got to fill your boxes good and full, and don't you go puttin' leaves and stems in the bottom to make them look full, neither."
Delight could scarcely believe her ears. This sickly boy to dare to suggest that she'd do such a thing! In a sudden rage she caught him in her arms and dragged him towards an opening in the floor through which hay was put into the stable below.
"Here, what are you doin'?" he spluttered, clutching her.
"I'm going to throw you down this hole."
"If you do I'll take you with me. Let go! I didn't mean nothin'. I just wanted to see you mad. Let go! Delight! Say, if I had a name like that I'd go an' drown myself. I would truly."
He was laughing now. She laughed, too, and released him.
"You're as strong as a horse," he commented, looking her up and down.
"Well, take care you don't anger me, then, Mister Perkin. If I had a name like Perkin, I'd hang myself to that old rafter."
They picked up the crates and set out for the thimbleberry canes. Perkin was giggling as he walked ahead of her along the hot, sandy path that ran beside a heavily laden orchard.
"What is the joke?" asked Delight, staring at his narrow back and sloping shoulders.
"You thinking you're stronger than me. I could put you down and hold you if I had a mind to, you'd soon find out."
"I advise you not to try any tricks with me."
He looked over his shoulder at her with his malicious smile.
"Wait and see," he said.
The thimbleberries stretched before them now, a myriad of graceful, bending canes, swarthy berries clustered among the thorns. Here and there a bright spear of goldenrod shot upward, or a milkweed pod had burst and scattered its drift of silver down upon the russet-coloured leaves. A partridge had brought her young out from the woods to feed upon the fallen berries that lay thickly on the hot ground; but she called them and they sailed away with a loud drumming as the two approached.
"That's the way when you haven't got your gun," mourned Perkin.
"Ah, the dear little things," said Delight.
She was glad when he had gone and she was left alone among the canes. It was a pretty spot, she thought, and though the brilliant sky, the vivid colours, and sharp lights and shadows gave a foreign look, still there was something homely here, something very sweet.
She began to pick berries, dropping them swiftly into the box which was set inside another, conveniently tied against her stomach with a piece of binder twine so that both hands might be free. Perkin had tied it on for her and so equipped she felt at once competent and business-like. It was to be the emblem of her craft, as the tray had been in the dining-room of the hotel.
When the box was half full she thought she would taste the fruit. She popped a berry into her mouth, glancing hastily about beforehand to see that none of the Heaslips were in sight. It lay on her tongue large, warm, and soft as velvet. She pressed it against the roof of her mouth, and the juice spurted from it and trickled down her throat like honey. She had to smile, it was so delicious. Her body contracted in a little shiver of delight. She began to eat the berries even faster than she had picked them for her box. She did not stay in one spot but darted here and there like a great golden butterfly after the biggest and ripest. Her arm struck the box she had half filled and upset it, scattering the berries over the ground. She did not mind. Deeper and deeper into the forest of canes she went, deeper and safer and farther away from the troubling world. Her heart danced out to meet the solitude and peace. Her hungry lips advanced, pouting, toward each approaching berry.
She thought she would sit down, here in the middle of the canes, and rest a bit. She was not really tired but a little sleepy after being awake all but one hour of the night and so harried by Mrs. Jessop. She found a little sandy knoll overgrown with coarse grass, just big enough to sit on. Here she dropped with the canes arching over her head. A light breeze stirred them and the reddish leaves whispered together. A tiny goldfinch sprang on to a spray beside her and burst into the sweet medley of his autumn song. The spray swayed beneath him but he clutched it, all on a slant, and still sang on. A bit of milkweed fluff sailed shining between the canes. It caught in her hair and clung. This country scene seemed to enfold her, to make her one with it. Oh, if Jimmy were only here! If he only loved her as he had! She would be willing to marry him and settle down to be a quiet, good wife in a spot like this. Her head drooped to her updrawn knees. Soon, she was fast asleep.
Something in the spring-like sweetness of the air made the goldfinch think that, after all, it might be as well to re-line the old nest, just in case—well, his mate (he thought she was the one who had been his mate, but, at any rate, another just as good) had cocked her head in a funny way at him only that morning. He espied the bit of fluff in Delight's hair. He darted downward, caught it in his beak along with one of Delight's curly hairs, tweaked angrily to get it free, gave up in despair, abandoning all hope of a new brood, and broke into a fresh ripple of song.
Fast asleep Perkin found her when the afternoon was waning, her boxes empty, her mouth berry-stained, her eyes, when she raised them to him, hazy with dreams of Somerset and Gran.
She was conscience-smitten at what she had done, deeply grateful to Perkin when he promised not to let the elders know of her delinquency. A new pride straightened the youth's shoulders as he found this lovely big creature suddenly timid and submissive to him. He would help her fill her boxes but she must work hard too or nothing worth while could be accomplished. He kept her beside him, ordering her brusquely about, sending her down the long rows for the crates, showing her how to pack the boxes in them with the fillers between.
Two crates were filled by six o'clock. Fifty-four boxes, at a cent and a half a box, meant eighty-one cents for Delight. Perkin paid her (though he had picked the greater part) in little red tickets to be redeemed at the end of the week.
She was in her little room under the eaves, getting ready for bed at last, Mr. and Mrs. Heaslip had their bedroom downstairs. She and Perkin had climbed the short steep stair and entered the two doors opposite each other in the box-like passage that smelled of old clothes, old boots, old cooking, and candle grease. But in her room there was a rather nice smell of fruit. She could not locate it at first. Then, putting the candle on the floor, she looked under the bed and discovered a basket filled with yellow-and-red striped Duchess apples. Gently she took one from the top and rose to her feet, candle in hand. She gave a guilty look about the room before she set her teeth in it. Was she never to be anything but hungry on this unnatural farm? But what healthy girl wouldn't be hungry after a tea of one thin slice of bread, a saucer of sweet preserves, and a scrap of stale cake? No wonder the boy looked half-starved, no wonder the son, Joel, was broken down at forty. Probably Perkin kept this basket hidden here for his own private eating. Well, he would scarcely grudge her one.
As she stood, pensively eating the apple, with the candlelight touching the red of her lips, the tawny tints of her skin and hair, she was like some simple Eve, tasting the fruit of life, unheedful of what lurked in the shadows about her.
Her room at The Duke of York seemed spacious in comparison with this closet that was overcrowded by the cot-bed, a battered chest of drawers, a broken spinning-wheel, and her tin box. The house was terribly quiet, though it was only nine o'clock. Between tea and bedtime the hours had seemed endless, helping Mrs. Heaslip with the dishes, holding yarn for her, looking at a catalogue of one of the great city stores, and, at last, nodding while Mr. Heaslip read a chapter from the Old Testament and prayed in a low conversational tone to God. It was so intimate. It had made Him seem terribly near. Mr. Heaslip had spoken about the text on the barn in his prayer, and she thought of God as leaning down from a low purple thundercloud to examine it. She wished some one would make a noise in the house. The preparations for bed of these people were made in stealthy quiet. She, too, laid her shoes carefully under the bed and her garments one by one on the trunk. She put on her coarse nightgown, buttoned close to the neck, and braided her cloud of strong wheat-coloured hair.
She knelt to say her prayer—a stalwart young figure, her face buried in her arms. She said slowly, in a husky whisper, "Now I lay me," as Gran had taught her. She had never in her life made a personal appeal to the Deity, but the intimacy of the old man downstairs gave her assurance. Surely if He would listen to a cruel old man with whiskers He would lend an ear to a nice-tempered, decent young girl like her. Of course she knew He was partial to men, and to whiskers, too. She had always known that. But still, she was an honest girl, if not very religious, and would become, as she grew older, even better and more religious, especially if He granted this prayer.
She bent her head lower, and breathed:
"Oh, God, please let Granny's tea-set not be broken. I fell on the road in Brancepeth with it this morning and I've been afraid to look at it all day. Please, God, it rattled terrible, but even if it was broken, I know Thou canst mend it in a twinkling if only Thou will'st. I know it's only a tea-set but Gran set great store by it, and it's all I have of her, and please, God, it's apple-green and it's in the covered basket behind the door—please don't leave it broke. Amen."
She was breathless. She did not rise from her knees at once. She would give God time.
When, at last, she took the basket up and set it on the trunk she could hardly find courage to open it. Cautiously she removed the canvas cover, and examined the cups, each wrapped separately, one by one. Green and smooth, and glowing like jewels, she set them out. Twelve of them without a chip, except, of course, the old, old chips that scarcely showed and did not count at all. The sugar bowl, fat and round, like a crinolined old lady with her hands on her hips. The milk jug with its generous curling lip. But dare she look at the tea-pot, most precious of all? She had seen Granny drain the last drop from its curly spout, her head in its frilled cap thrown back, both hands clasping the pot. Cautiously she undid it from its wrapper. Not a chip!
Safe. Darling old tea-pot. Darling tea-pot. Darling, darling God.
Oh, but she was grateful to Him! Her whole body quivered with love and gratitude. She could not bear to part with the pot tonight. She would lay it on the other pillow, next the wall where it could not roll off. It would be company, a bedfellow, almost. She placed it snugly on the pillow, smiled at it tenderly, blew out the light, and got in beside it.
It really was company in this lonely place. She laid one warm hand on its shiny fluted belly. Its spout curved towards her parted lips.
She thought:
"I am so happy I cannot sleep."
And, in a moment, she slept.