“Isn’t it down yet?” she cried, in a high little voice.
“Just thinking about it,” called her husband. His tone towards the two girls was always rather mocking and satirical. March did not want to go on with her hitting while he was there. As for him, he wouldn’t lift a stick from the ground if he could help it, complaining, like his daughter, of rheumatics in his shoulder. So the three stood there a moment, silent in the cold afternoon, in the bottom corner near the yard.
They heard the far-off taps of a gate, and craned to look. Away across, on the green horizontal approach, a figure was just swinging onto a bicycle again, and lurching up and down over the grass, approaching.
“Why, it’s one of our boys—it’s Jack,” said the old man.
“Can’t be,” said Banford, looking through her spectacles.
March craned her head to look. She alone recognised the khaki figure. She flushed, nearly rolling with a familiar heated desire, but said nothing. The inner heat swelled and surrounded her, wrapping itself around her shoulders with the weight of a shawl she’d put on again after a season.
“No, it isn’t Jack, I don’t think,” said the old man, staring with little round blue eyes under his white lashes.
In another moment the bicycle lurched into sight, and the rider dropped off at the gate. It was Henry, his face wet and red and spotted with mud. He was altogether a muddy sight. March reached up and patted the wild locks of her hair and tugged on the front of her tunic. Some twigs and dry needles came loose and fell to the ground. It was no use, she looked a mess. Suddenly, she realised what a fool she was for fussing over her appearance and forced herself to drop her hands.
“Oh!” cried Banford, as if afraid. “Why, it’s Henry!”
“What?” muttered the old man. He had a thick, rapid, muttering way of speaking, and was slightly deaf. “What? What? Who is it? Who is it, do you say? That young fellow? That young fellow of Nellie’s? Oh! Oh!” And the satirical smile came on his pink face and white eyelashes, this time taking on a new and evil twist. March wanted to wipe the look off the man’s face. What little there was between her and Henry was her business and nobody else’s.
Henry, pushing the wet hair off his steaming brow, had caught sight of them and heard what the old man said. His hot, young face seemed to flame in the cold light and even from the distance they could see the red in his cheeks.
“Oh, are you all there!” he said, giving his sudden, puppy’s little laugh. He was so hot and dazed with cycling he hardly knew where he was. He leaned the bicycle against the fence and climbed over into the corner on to the bank, without going into the yard. His entire body seemed to glow, and even though he’d only been gone little more than a week, he no longer moved like the boy March remembered. He moved like a man now and his effect on her was that much stronger. How had she not expected this? His return? Of course he would come back, hunting her down like a wounded rabbit, him the wild dog that saw her weakness and turned it against her.
“Well, I must say, we weren’t expecting you,” said Banford laconically.
March cast a glance at her friend, the truth of Banford’s comment evident in the surprise flickering in her pale eyes. How little she understood, March realised.
The old man shifted on his weak legs, taking delight in the sudden awkward change in the circle beneath the dead tree.
“No, I suppose you weren’t expecting me,” said he, looking at Banford then at March, his gaze going slowly down and up her body even though the others were there. His eyes stayed too long on the curve of her breasts, now warm and heavy, newly aching for his touch.
She stood aside, slack, with one knee drooped and the axe resting its head loosely on the ground. Her eyes were wide and vacant, and her upper lip lifted from her teeth in that helpless, fascinated rabbit look. The moment she saw his glowing, red face it was all over with her. She was as helpless as if she had been bound. The moment she saw the way his body seemed to reach for her even though his arms remained at his sides. Her need was in her eyes and her desire lingered on her lips. He saw it plainly and knew by the way her chest suddenly rose and fell, that she had accepted the way he affected her.
“Well, who is it? Who is it, anyway?” asked the smiling, satirical old man in his muttering voice.
“Why, Mr Grenfel, whom you’ve heard us tell about, father,” said Banford coldly.
“Heard you tell about, I should think so. Heard of nothing else practically,” muttered the elderly man, with his queer little jeering smile on his face. “How do you do,” he added, suddenly reaching out his hand to Henry.
The boy shook hands, just as startled. Then the two men fell apart.
“Cycled over from Salisbury Plain, have you?” asked the old man.
“Yes.” Henry looked across the yard. Everything was the same as when he’d left--with the exception of March. She was different. Dark circles rimmed her eyes and she wasn’t standing as close to Banford as he would have expected. In fact, the two of them were farther apart than he had even seen them stand. March had missed him, had clearly been affected by his absence, and that made him happy. Satisfied.
The old man smacked his hands together. “Hm! Longish ride. How long d’it take you, eh? Some time, eh? Several hours, I suppose.”
“About four,” he said, moving over to stand closer to Nellie. She looked up at him but said nothing. He felt the heat of her body and wished that the man would stop asking questions and that Banford would storm off in one of her sulks.
“Eh? Four! Yes, I should have thought so. When are you going back, then?”
He stood up to his full height and looked down at the old man. “I’ve only got till tomorrow evening.”
“Till tomorrow evening, eh? Yes. Hm! Girls weren’t expecting you, were they?”
And the old man turned his pale-blue, round little eyes under their white lashes mockingly towards the girls. Henry deflated and also looked round. He had become a little awkward. He looked at March, who was still staring away into the distance as if to see where the cattle were. Her hand was on the pommel of the axe, whose head rested loosely on the ground. He admired her strong fingers and remembered the way it had felt to have her touch him. He looked at her mouth and thought of their kisses. How could she have so easily cast him aside? And for what? Banford and an old man? This was to be her life? No. It wasn’t and it was his responsibility to prevent her from wasting her years without him.
“What were you doing there?” he asked in his soft, courteous voice. “Cutting a tree down?”
March seemed not to hear, as if in a trance. She continued looking off into the distance. Oh! How he wanted to grab her, shake her and pull her away from this terrible scene. Anything to get her to see what she must do.
“Yes,” said Banford. “We’ve been at it for over a week.”
“Oh! And have you done it all by yourselves then?” he asked, again trying to draw March into the conversation.
“Nellie’s done it all, I’ve done nothing,” said Banford.
“Really! You must have worked quite hard,” he said, addressing himself in a curious gentle tone direct to March. She did not answer, but remained half averted staring away towards the woods above as if in a trance.
“Nellie!” cried Banford sharply. “Can’t you answer?”
“What—me?” cried March, starting round and looking from one to the other. “Did anyone speak to me?”
“Dreaming!” muttered the old man, turning aside to smile. “Must be in love, eh, dreaming in the daytime!”
“Did you say anything to me?” said March, looking at the boy as from a strange distance, her eyes wide and doubtful, her face delicately flushed.
“I said you must have worked hard at the tree,” he replied courteously.
“Oh, that! Bit by bit.” Her gaze travelled the length of his body. He brought himself up again, as he had when looking down at the old man. Then she continued, “I thought it would have come down by now.”
“I’m thankful it hasn’t come down in the night, to frighten us to death,” said Banford.
“Let me just finish it for you, shall I?” said the boy.
March slanted the axe-shaft in his direction. He took the wooden handle slowly, using the exchange as an excuse to touch her. The muscles in his arm tightened, and her eyes widened.
“Would you like to?” she said, even though he was already holding the axe.
“Yes, if you wish it,” he said. He wasn’t really talking about the tree and they both knew it.
“Oh, I’m thankful when the thing’s down, that’s all,” she replied, nonchalant.
“Which way is it going to fall?” said Banford. “Will it hit the shed?”
“No, it won’t hit the shed,” he said. No doubt she wanted it to strike the shed, as though getting rid of the building could erase what happened there. “I should think it will fall there—quite clear. Though it might give a twist and catch the fence.”
“Catch the fence!” cried the old man. “What, catch the fence! When it’s leaning at that angle? Why, it’s farther off than the shed. It won’t catch the fence.”
“No,” said Henry, “I don’t suppose it will. It has plenty of room to fall quite clear, and I suppose it will fall clear.”
“Won’t tumble backwards on top of us, will it?” asked the old man, sarcastic.
“No, it won’t do that,” said Henry, taking off his short overcoat and his tunic. “Ducks! Ducks! Go back!”
A line of four brown-speckled ducks led by a brown-and-green drake were stemming away downhill from the upper meadow, coming like boats running on a ruffled sea, cockling their way top speed downwards towards the fence and towards the little group of people, and cackling as excitedly as if they brought news of the Spanish Armada.
“Silly things! Silly things!” cried Banford, going forward to turn them off. But they came eagerly towards her, opening their yellow-green beaks and quacking as if they were so excited to say something.
“There’s no food. There’s nothing here. You must wait a bit,” said Banford to them. “Go away. Go away. Go round to the yard.”
They didn’t go, so she climbed the fence to swerve them round under the gate and into the yard. So off they waggled in an excited string once more, wagging their rumps like the stems of little gondolas, ducking under the bar of the gate. Banford stood on the top of the bank, just over the fence, looking down on the other three, the sun glinting off her spectacles.
Henry looked up at her, and met her queer, round-pupilled, weak eyes staring behind her round lenses. He was perfectly still. He looked away, up at the weak, leaning tree. And as he looked into the sky, like a huntsman who is watching a flying bird, he thought to himself, If the tree falls in just such a way, and spins just so much as it falls, then the branch there will strike her exactly as she stands on top of that bank.
He looked at her again. She was wiping the hair from her brow again, with that perpetual gesture. In his heart he had decided her death. A terrible still force seemed in him, and a power that was just his. If he turned even a hair’s breadth in the wrong direction, he would lose the power.
“Mind yourself, Miss Banford,” he said. And his heart held perfectly still, in the terrible pure will that she should not move.
“Who, me, mind myself?” she cried, her father’s jeering tone in her voice. “Why, do you think you might hit me with the axe?”
“No, it’s just possible the tree might, though,” he answered soberly. But the tone of his voice seemed to her to imply that he was only being falsely solicitous, and trying to make her move because it was his will to move her.
“Absolutely impossible,” she said, the words so soft the sound floated away on the breeze.
He heard her though. But he held himself icy still, lest he should lose his power over the moment and her.
“No, it’s just possible. You’d better come down this way.”
“Oh, all right. Let us see some crack Canadian tree-felling,” she retorted, her frail shoulders stiff and her eyes flat with disdain behind her spectacles.
“Ready, then,” he said, taking the axe, gripping it tightly in his fists as he looked round to see he was clear.
There was a moment of pure, motionless suspense, when the world seemed to stand still. Then suddenly his form seemed to flash up enormously tall and fearful, he gave two swift, flashing blows, in immediate succession, the tree was severed, turning slowly, spinning strangely in the air and coming down like a sudden darkness on the earth. No one saw what was happening except himself. He saw it and felt it in every muscle in his lean, hard body. No one heard the strange little cry which the Banford gave as the dark end of the bough swooped down, down on her. No one saw her crouch a little and receive the blow on the back of the neck. No one saw her flung outwards and laid, a little twitching heap, at the foot of the fence. No one except the boy. And he watched with intense bright eyes, as he would watch a wild goose he had shot. Was it winged or dead? Dead!
Immediately he gave a loud cry. Immediately March gave a wild shriek that went far, far down the afternoon. And the father started a strange bellowing sound.
The boy leapt the fence and ran to the fringe. The back of the neck and head was a mass of blood, of horror. He turned it over. The body was quivering with little convulsions. But she was dead really. He knew it, that it was so. He knew it in his soul and his blood. The inner necessity of his life was fulfilling itself, it was he who was to live. The thorn was drawn out of his bowels. So he put her down gently. She was dead.
He stood up. March was standing there petrified and absolutely motionless. Her face was dead white, her eyes big black pools. The old man was scrambling horribly over the fence.
“I’m afraid it’s killed her,” said the boy.
The old man was making curious, blubbering noises as he huddled over the fence. “What!” cried March, starting electric.
“Yes, I’m afraid,” repeated the boy. “She is dead.”
March was coming forward. The boy was over the fence before she reached it.
“What do you say, killed her?” she asked in a sharp voice.
“I’m afraid so,” he answered softly.
She went still whiter, fearful. The two stood facing one another. Her black eyes gazed on him with the last look of resistance. Then in a last agonised failure she began to grizzle, to cry in a shivery little fashion of a child that doesn’t want to cry, but which is beaten from within, and gives that little first shudder of sobbing which is not yet weeping, dry and fearful.
He had won. And it had happened almost without him trying, as though Fate had recognised what must occur and had made it so. March stood there absolutely helpless, shuddering—her dry sobs and her mouth trembling rapidly. Then, as in a child, with a little crash came the tears and the blind agony of sightless weeping. She sank down on the grass, and sat there with her hands on her breast and her face lifted in sightless, convulsed weeping. He stood above her, looking down on her, mute, pale, and everlasting-seeming. She was broken now and he would be the one to pull the pieces together. He alone could make her whole. He never moved, but looked down on her, watching and waiting for her to accept the truth of the situation. And among all the torture of the scene, the torture of his own heart and bowels, he was glad, he had won. In time, she too would be glad.
After a long time he stooped to her and took her hands. He pulled her close and held her tightly. There was no rush now to take what he wanted. She was his now and forever. He would have what he wanted from her every day and as often as he wanted.
“Don’t cry,” he said softly. “Don’t cry.”
She looked up at him with tears running from her eyes, a senseless look of helplessness and submission. So she gazed on him as if sightless, yet looking up to him. She would never leave him again. He had won her. And he knew it and was glad, because he wanted her for his life. His life must have her. And now he had won her. It was what his life must have.
>
But if he had won her, he had not yet got her. They were to be married at Christmas as he had planned, and he got again ten days’ leave. They went to Cornwall, to his own village, on the sea. Each step he took through his village resounded with the thump of his success. The weight of his boots as he went across the stones of the streets reminded him of the weight of the tree boughs and of the frailness of Banford’s body.
And so he enjoyed his time in the village. He took March’s firm hand in his tough one and walked her through the streets, between the cottages and businesses, past the school, along the fenced farm lanes that bordered the centre of the village. With each new delight, her face brightened and she would turn to him, her dark eyes almost light with joy. He realised it was awful for her to be at the farm—so he took her away from it and showed her the sights of his village. But more than her delight, he relished her submission to him and his world. Years later, he would relive those days before the ceremony. On nights when his bed was cold and his heart felt like stone, he would draw up the images of March’s smile, expectant and open, filled with the hope that he was going to take her pain away and replace it with something so hot it would burn away the loss of her best friend. During those hours when they walked hand in hand, scarves covering their chins, their heavy boots making dull thumps across the cold stones, she had believed he could mend her. And he had believed it. Why shouldn’t he have? He had, with two strong swings of an axe, changed the course of their lives. He had planned, he had won. He could do anything.
Or so he believed.
On the eve of their wedding, the boy, still filled with confidence and the knowledge that he had won her, took his bride-to-be to the top of the highest hill in the village. He wanted her to see the dark hills, dotted with white and yellow lights. The moon was full and bright and the village was beautiful and when he looked across the valley he felt as if he owned it in the same way he would soon own her. He wasn’t sure why he wanted her to see the expanse of homes and farms, but he did. The highest place was the centre point of the cemetery and so they were surrounded by grave markers and low trees.
The Fox Page 10