V

Feeding time and milking time were done; in his jutting room over the door-place John was washing and dressing for Sunday evening. He called out to her through his window, "Go up to our seat and wait for me there."

He had come back again, suddenly, that morning, a day before they had expected him.

Charlotte came out of the hot field into the cool room of the beech ring.

She sniffed up the clean, sharp smell of sap from the rough seat that she and John had put up there, sawing and hacking and hammering all Sunday afternoon. Every evening when the farm work was done they would sit there together, inside the round screen of the beeches.

The farm people wouldn't disturb them; not even Mr. Burton, now, looking in, smiling the fat, benevolent smile that blessed them, and going away; the very calves were so well used to them that they had left off pushing their noses through the tree trunks and staring.

John's window faced her where she sat; she could see his head pa.s.sing and pa.s.sing across the black window s.p.a.ce. To her sharp, waiting soul Barrow Farm took on a sudden poignant and foreign beauty. The house was yellow where the rain had soaked it, gold yellow like a sun-struck southern house, under the black plume of the firs, a yellow that made the sky's blue solid and thick. The gra.s.s, bright green after the rain, stretched with the tight smoothness of velvet over the slopes and ridges of the field. A stripe of darker green, where their feet had trodden down the blades, led straight as a sheep's track from the garden gate to the opening of the ring.

To think that she had dreamed bad dreams in a place like this. She thought: "There must be something wrong about me, anyhow, to dream bad dreams about John."

John was coming up the field, walking slowly, his hands thrust in his pockets, his eyes fixed steadily on a point in front of him that his mind didn't see, drawn back in some intense contemplation. He strolled into the ring so slowly that she had time to note the meditative gestures of his shoulders and chin. He stood beside her, very straight and tall, not speaking, still hiding his hands in his pockets, keeping up to the last minute his pose of indestructible tranquillity. He was so close that she could hear his breathing and feel his coat brushing her shoulder.

He seated himself, slowly, without a break in the silence of his meditation.

She knew that something wonderful and beautiful was going to happen. It had happened; it was happening now, growing more certain and more real with every minute that she waited for John to say something. If nothing changed, if this minute that she was living now prolonged itself, if it went on for ever and ever, that would be happiness enough.

If she could keep still like this for ever--Any movement would be dangerous. She was afraid almost to breathe.

Then she remembered. Of course, she would have to _tell_ him.

She could feel the jerk and throb in John's breathing, measuring off the moments of his silence. Her thoughts came and went. "When he says he cares for me I shall have to tell him"--"This is going on for ever. If he cared for me he would have said it before now."--"It doesn't matter. He can care or not as he likes. Nothing can stop my caring."

Then she was aware of her will, breaking through her peace, going out towards him, fastening on his mind to make him care; to make him say he cared, now, this minute. She was aware of her hands, clenched and unclenched, pressing the sharp edge of the seat into their palms as she dragged back her will.

She was quiet now.

John was looking at his own loose clasped hands and smiling. "Yes," he said, "yes. Yes." It was as if he had said, "This will go on. Nothing more than this can ever happen. But as long as we live it will go on."

She had a sense almost of relief.

"Charlotte--"

"John--"

"You asked me why I came here. You must have known why."

"I didn't. I don't."

"Can't you think?"

"No, John. I've left off thinking. _My_ thinking's never any use."

"If you _did_ think you'd know it was you."

"_Me_?"

"If it wasn't you just at first it was your face. There are faces that do things to you, that hurt you when they're not there. Faces of people you don't know in the least. You see them once and they never let you alone till you've seen them again. They draw you after them, back and back.

You'd commit any sin just to see them again once....

"... You've got that sort of face. When I saw you the first time--Do you remember? You came towards me over the field. You stopped and spoke to me."

"Supposing I hadn't?"

"It wouldn't have mattered. I'd have followed you just the same. Wherever you'd gone I'd have gone, too. I very nearly turned back then."

She remembered. She saw him standing in the road at the turn.

"I knew I had to see you again. But I waited two days to make sure. Then I came ...

"... And when I'd gone I kept on seeing your face. It made me come back again. And the other day--I tried to get away from you. I didn't mean to come back; but I had to. I can't stand being away from you. And yet--

"... Oh well--there it is. I had to tell you ... I couldn't if I didn't trust you."

"You tried to get away from me--You didn't mean to come back."

"I tell you I _had_ to. It's no use trying."

"But you didn't want to come back.... _That's_ why I dreamed about you."

"Did you dream about me?"

"Yes. Furiously. Three nights running. I dreamed you'd got away and when I'd found you a black thing came down and cut you off. I dreamed you'd got away again, and I met you in a foreign village with a lot of foreign women, and you looked at me and I knew you hated me. You wouldn't know me. You went by without speaking and left me there."

"My G.o.d--you thought I could do that?"

"I dreamed it. You don't think in dreams. You feel. You see things."

"You see things that don't exist, that never can exist, things you've thought about people. If I thought that about myself, Jeanne, I'd blow my brains out now, so that it shouldn't happen."

"That wasn't the worst dream. The third was the worst. You were in a dreadful, dangerous place. Something awful was happening, and you wanted me, and I couldn't get to you."

"No, that wasn't the worst dream. I _did_ want you, and you knew it."

She thought: "He cares. He doesn't want to care, but he does. And he trusts me. I shall have to tell him ..."

"There's something," she said, "I've got to tell you."

He must have known. He must have guessed.