§ 4

Well, there was no time for reflection, either happy or sorrowful—she must start off for Ashford, or her father would be kept waiting. Once again, after many times, she experience the relief of practical action. Her disposition was eminently practical, and the practical things of love and life and religion—kisses and meals and sacraments—were to her the realities of those states. A lover who did not kiss and caress you, a life which was based on plain living and high thinking, a religion without good outward forms for its inward graces, were all things which Stella’s soul would never grasp.

So she went out to the little “tenant’s fixture” garage, filled the Singer’s tank and cranked her up, and drove off comforted a little in her encounter with life’s surprises. The day was damp and mild. There was a moist sweetness in the air, and the scent of ploughed and rain-soaked earth. Already the spring sowings had begun, and the slow teams moved solemnly to and fro over the January fields. Surely, thought Stella, ploughing was the most unhurried toil on earth. The plough came to the furrow’s end, and halted there, while men and horses seemed equally deep-sunk in meditation. Whole minutes later the whip would crack, and the team turn slowly for the backward furrow. She wouldn’t like to do a slow thing like that—and yet her heart would ache terribly when it was all gone, and she would see the great steam ploughs tearing over the mile-long fields of the West ... she would then think sorrowfully of those small, old Sussex fields—the oldest in the world—with their slow ploughing; she would crave all the more for the inheritance which Peter might have given her among them....

She was beginning to feel bad again—and it was a relief to find that the car dragged a little on the steering, pulling towards the hedge, even though she knew that it meant a punctured tyre. The Singer always punctured her tyres like a lady—she never indulged in vulgar bursts, with a bang like a shot-gun and a skid across the road. Stella berthed her beside the ditch, and began to jack her up.

Well, it was a nuisance, seeing that her father would be kept waiting. But she ought to be able to do the thing in ten minutes ... she wished she was wearing her old suit, though. She would make a horrible mess of herself, changing wheels on a dirty day.... The car was jacked up, and Stella was laying out her tools on the running board when she heard a horse’s hoofs in the lane.

It seemed at first merely a malignant coincidence that the rider should be Peter; yet, after all, the coincidence was not so great when she reflected that she was now on the lane between Conster and Starvecrow. She had heard that Peter had lately taken to riding a white horse—it was all part of the picture he was anxious to paint of himself as Squire. He would emphasize his Squirehood, since to it he had sacrificed himself as freeman and lover.

She had never seen him looking so much the Squire of tradition as he looked today. He wore a broadcloth coat, corduroy breeches, brown boots and leggings and a bowler hat. Of late he had rather increased in girth, and looked full his forty years. Unaccountably this fact stirred up Stella’s heart into a raging pity—Peter middle-aged and getting stout, Peter pathetically over-acting his part of country gentleman—it stirred all the love and pity of her heart more deeply than any figure of romance and youth. She hoped he would not stop, but considering her position she knew she was hoping too much.

He hitched the white horse to the nearest gate and dismounted. They had not been alone together since the summer, though they had met fairly often in company, and now she was conscious of a profound embarrassment and restraint in them both.

“Have you punctured?” he asked heavily.

“No, but the tyre has,” said Stella.

The reply was not like herself, it was part of the new attitude of defence—a poor defence, since she despised herself for being on guard, and was therefore weaker.

“You must let me help you change the wheel.”

“I can do it myself, quite easily. Don’t bother, Peter—you know I’m used to these things.”

“Yes, but it’s dirty work for a woman. You’ll spoil your clothes.”

She could not insist on refusing. She went to the other side of the car, where her spare wheel was fastened, and bent desperately over the straps. She wondered how the next few minutes would pass—in heaviness and pertness as they had begun, or in technical talk of tyres and nuts and jacks, or in the limp politeness of the knight errant and distressed lady.

The next moment Peter made a variation she had not expected.

“Stella, is it true that you’re going away?”

“I—I don’t know. It isn’t settled.... Who told you?”

“Rose told me—but it can’t be true.”

“Why not?”

“Your father surely would never go away at his time of life—and Rose spoke of the Colonies. He’d never go right away and start afresh like that.”

“Father’s heard of a very good billet near Montreal. We haven’t settled anything yet, but we both feel we’d like a change.”

“Why?”

“Well, why shouldn’t we? We’ve been here more than twenty years, and as for Father being old, he’s not too old to want to see a bit more of the world.”

Peter said nothing. He was taking off the wheel. When he had laid it against the bank he turned once more to Stella.

“It’s queer how I always manage to hear gossip about you. But it seems that this time I’m right, while last time I was wrong.”

“Everyone gets talked about in a little place like this.”

She tried to speak lightly, but she was distressed by the way he looked at her. Those pale blue eyes ... Alard eyes, Saxon eyes ... the eyes of the Old People looking at her out of the Old Country, and saying “Don’t go away....”

The next minute his lips repeated what his eyes had said:

“Don’t go away.”

She trembled, and stepped back from him on the road.

“I must go.”

“Indeed you mustn’t—I can’t bear it any longer if you do.”

“That’s why I must go.”

“No—no——”

He came towards her, and she stepped back further still.

“Don’t go, Stella. I can’t live here without you.”

“But, Peter, you must. What good am I doing you here?”

“You’re here. I know that you’re only a few miles away. I can think of you as near me. If you went right away....”

“It would be much better for both of us.”

“No, it wouldn’t. Stella, it will break me if you go. My only comfort during the last six hellish months has been that at least you’re not so very far from me in space, that I can see you, meet you, talk to you now and then....”

“But, Peter, that’s what I can’t bear. That’s why I’m going away.”

Her voice was small and thin with agitation. This was worse, a hundred times worse, than anything she had dreaded five minutes ago. She prayed incoherently for strength and sense.

“If that’s what you feel, you’ve got to stay,” Peter was saying. “Stella, you’ve shown me—Stella, you still care.... Oh, I’ll own up, I’ll own that I’ve been a fool, and a blackguard to you. But if you still care, I can be almost happy. We’ve still something left. Only you’ll have to stay.”

“You mustn’t talk like this.”

“Why not—if you still care? Oh, Stella, say it’s true—say you still care ... a little.”

She could not deny her love, even though she was more afraid of his terrible happiness than she had been before of his despair. To deny it would be a profaning of something holier than truth. All she could say was—

“If I love you, it’s all the more necessary for me to go away.”

“It’s not. If you love me, I can be to you at least what you are to me. But if you go away, you’ll be as wretched as I shall be without you.”

“No ... if I go away, we can forget.”

“Forget!—What?—each other?”

“Yes.”

The word was almost inaudible. She prayed with all her strength that Peter would not come to her across the road and take her in his arms. His words she could fight, but not his arms....

“Stella—you’re not telling me that you’re going away to forget me?”

“I must, Peter. And you’ll forget me, too. Then we’ll be able to live instead of just—loving.”

“But my love for you is my life—all the life I’ve got.”

“No—you’ve got Vera, and soon you’ll have your child. When I’ve gone you can go back to them.”

“I can’t—you don’t know what you’re talking about. If you think I can ever feel again for Vera what I felt when I was fool enough——”

“Oh, don’t....”

“But I will. Why should you delude yourself, and think I’m just being unfaithful to my wife? It’s to you I’ve been unfaithful. I was unfaithful to you with Vera—and now I’ve repented and come back.”

They faced each other, two yards apart in the little muddy lane. Behind Peter the three-wheeled car stood forlornly surrounded by tools, while his horse munched the long soaking tufts under the hedge. Behind Stella the hedge rose abruptly in a soaring crown. Looking up suddenly, she saw the delicate twigs shining against a sheet of pale blue sky in a faint sunlight. For some reason they linked themselves with her mind’s effort and her heart’s desire. Here was beauty which did not burn.... She suddenly found herself calm.

“Peter, dear, there’s no good talking like that. Let’s be sensible. Rightly or wrongly you’ve married someone else, and you’ve got to stand by it and so have I. If I stay on here we will only just be miserable—always hankering after each other, and striving for little bits of each other which can’t satisfy. Neither of us will be able to settle down and live an ordinary life, and after all that’s what we’re here for—not for adventures and big passions, but just to live ordinary lives and be happy in an ordinary way.”

“Oh, damn you!” cried Peter.

It was like the old times when he used to rail against her “sense,” against the way she always insisted that their love should be no star or cloud, but a tree, well rooted in the earth. It made it more difficult for her to go on, but she persevered.

“You’ve tried the other thing, Peter—you’ve tried sacrificing ordinary things like love and marriage to things like family pride and the love of a place. You’ve found it hasn’t worked, so don’t do the whole thing over again by sacrificing your home and family to a love which can never be satisfied.”

“But it can be,” said Peter—“at least it could if you were human.”

Stella, a little to his annoyance, didn’t pretend not to know what he meant.

“No, it couldn’t be—not satisfied. We could only satisfy a part of it—the desire part—the part which wants home and children would always have to go unsatisfied, and that’s as strong as the rest, though it makes less fuss.”

“And how much satisfaction shall we get through never seeing each other again?”

“We shall get it—elsewhere. You will at least be free to go back to Vera—and you did love her once, you can’t deny it—you did love her once. And I——”

“—Will be free to marry another man.”

“I don’t say that, Peter—though also I don’t say that I won’t. But I shall be free to live the life of a normal human being again, which I can’t now. I shan’t be bringing unrest and misery wherever I go—to myself and to you. Oh, Peter, I know we can save ourselves if we stop now, stop in time. We were both quite happy last time I was away—I was a fool ever to come back. I must go away now before it’s too late.”

“You’re utterly wrong. When you first went away I could be happy with Vera—I couldn’t now. All that’s over and done with for ever, I tell you. I can never go back to her, whether you go or stay. It’s nothing to do with your coming back—it’s her fault—and mine. We aren’t suited, and nothing can ever bring us together again now we’ve found it out.”

“Not even the child?...”

“No—not even that. Besides, how do I know.... Stella, all the things I’ve sacrificed you to have failed me, except Starvecrow.”

“You’ve still got Starvecrow.”

“Yes, but I.... Oh, Stella, don’t leave me alone, not even with Starvecrow. The place wants you, and when you’re gone I’m afraid.... Vera doesn’t belong there; it’s your place. Oh, Stella, don’t say you can live without me, any more than I can live without you.”

She longed to give him the answer of her heart—that she could never, never live without him, go without the dear privilege of seeing him, of speaking to him, of sacrificing to him all other thoughts and loves. But she forced herself to give him the answer of her head, for she knew that it would still be true when her heart had ceased to choke her with its beating.

“Peter, I don’t feel as if I could live without you, but I know I can—and I know you can live without me, if I go away. What you’ve said only shows me more clearly that I must go. I could never stop here now you know I love you.”

“And why not?—it’s your damned religion, I suppose—teaching you that it’s wrong to love—that all that sort of thing’s disgusting, unspiritual—you’ve got your head stuffed with all the muck a lot of celibate priests put into it, who think everything’s degrading.”

She felt the tears come into her eyes.

“Don’t, my dear. Do you really believe—you who’ve known me—that I think love is degrading?—or that my religion teaches me to think so? Why, it’s because all that is so lovely, so heavenly and so good, that it mustn’t be spoilt—by secrecy and lies, by being torn and divided. Oh, Peter, you know I love love....”

“So much that you can apparently shower it on anyone as long as you get the first victim out of the way.”

They both turned suddenly, as the jar of wheels sounded up the hill. It would be agony to have the discussion broken off here, but Stella knew that she mustn’t refuse any opportunity of ending it. No longer afraid of Peter’s arms, she crossed swiftly to the dismantled car.

“Please don’t wait. I can manage perfectly now. Please go, Peter—please go.”

“I’ll go only if you promise to see me again before you leave.”

“Of course I will—I’ll see you again; but you must go now.”

The wagon of Barline, heavy with crimson roots, was lurching and skidding down the hill towards them. Peter went to his standing horse, and rode him off into the field. Stella turned to the car, and, crouched in its shelter, allowed herself the luxury of tears.