They put on their clogs and leggings, and wrapped themselves up, and stood in the hall.
“We must go,” said George, “before the clock strikes — like Cinderella — look at my glass slippers —” he pointed to his clogs. “Midnight, and rags, and fleeing. Very appropriate. I shall call myself Cinderella who wouldn’t fit. I believe I’m a bit drunk — the world looks funny.”
We looked out at the haunting wanness of the hills beyond Nethermere. “Good-bye, Lettie; good-bye.”
They were out in the snow, which peered pale and eerily from the depths of the black wood.
“Good-bye,” he called out of the darkness. Leslie slammed the door, and drew Lettie away into the drawing-room. The sound of his low, vibrating satisfaction reached us, as he murmured to her, and laughed now. Then he kicked the door of the room shut. Lettie began to laugh and mock and talk in a high strained voice. The sound of their laughter mingled was strange and incongruous. Then her voice died down.
Marie sat at the little piano — which was put in the dining-room — strumming and tinkling the false, quavering old notes. It was a depressing jingling in the deserted remains of the feast, but she felt sentimental, and enjoyed it.
This was a gap between today and tomorrow, a dreary gap, where one sat and looked at the dreary comedy of yesterdays, and the grey tragedies of dawning tomorrows, vacantly, missing the poignancy of an actual today.
The cart returned.
“Leslie, Leslie, John is here, come along!” called Marie. There was no answer.
“Leslie — John is waiting in the snow.”
“All right.”
“But you must come at once.” She went to the door and spoke to him. Then he came out looking rather sheepish, and rather angry at the interruption. Lettie followed, tidying her hair. She did not laugh and look confused, as most girls do on similar occasions; she seemed very tired.
At last Leslie tore himself away, and after more returns for a farewell kiss, mounted the carriage, which stood in a pool of yellow light, blurred and splotched with shadows, and drove away, calling something about tomorrow.
PART TWO
Chapter 1
Strange Blossoms and Strange New Budding
Winter lay a long time prostrate on the earth. The men in the mines of Tempest, Warrall and Co. came out on strike on a question of the rearranging of the working system down below. The distress was not awful, for the men were on the whole wise and well-conditioned, but there was a dejection over the face of the country-side, and some suffered keenly. Everywhere, along the lanes and in the streets, loitered gangs of men, unoccupied and spiritless. Week after week went on, and the agents of the Miners’ Union held great meetings, and the ministers held prayer-meetings, but the strike continued. There was no rest. Always the crier’s bell was ringing in the street; always the servants of the company were delivering handbills, stating the case clearly, and always the people talked and filled the months with bitter, and then hopeless, resenting. Schools gave breakfasts, chapels gave soup, well-to-do people gave teas — the children enjoyed it. But we, who knew the faces of the old men and the privations of the women, breathed a cold, disheartening atmosphere of sorrow and trouble.
Determined poaching was carried on in the squire’s woods and warrens. Annable defended his game heroically. One man was at home with a leg supposed to be wounded by a fall on the slippery roads — but really, by a man-trap in the woods. Then Annable caught two men, and they were sentenced to two months’ imprisonment.
On both the lodge gates of Highclose — on our side and on the far Eberwich side — were posted notices that trespassers on the drive or in the grounds would be liable to punishment. These posters were soon mudded over, and fresh ones fixed.
The men loitering on the road by Nethermere looked angrily at Lettie as she passed, in her black furs which Leslie had given her, and their remarks were pungent. She heard them, and they burned in her heart. From my mother she inherited democratic views, which she now proceeded to debate warmly with her lover.
Then she tried to talk to Leslie about the strike. He heard her with mild superiority, smiled, and said she did not know. Women jumped to conclusions at the first touch of feeling; men must look at a thing all round, then make a decision — nothing hasty and impetuous — careful, long-thought-out, correct decisions. Women could not be expected to understand these things, business was not for them; in fact, their mission was above business — etc. etc. Unfortunately Lettie was the wrong woman to treat thus.
“So!” said she, with a quiet, hopeless tone of finality.
“There now, you understand, don’t you, Minnehaha, my Laughing Water. — So laugh again, darling, and don’t worry about these things. We will not talk about them any more, eh?”
“No more.”
“No more — that’s right — you are as wise as an angel. Come here — pooh, the wood is thick and lonely! Look, there is nobody in the world but us, and you are my heaven and earth!”
“And hell?”
“Ah — if you are so cold — how cold you are! — it gives me little shivers when you look so — and I am always hot — Lettie!”
“Well?”
“You are cruel! Kiss me — now — No, I don’t want your cheek — kiss me yourself. Why don’t you say something?”
“What for? What’s the use of saying anything when there’s nothing immediate to say?”
“You are offended!”
“It feels like snow today,” she answered.
At last, however, winter began to gather her limbs, to rise, and drift with saddened garments northward.
The strike was over. The men had compromised. It was a gentle way of telling them they were beaten. But the strike was over.
The birds fluttered and dashed; the catkins on the hazel loosened their winter rigidity, and swung soft tassels. All through the day sounded long, sweet whistlings from the bushes; then later, loud, laughing shouts of bird triumph on every hand.
I remember a day when the breast of the hills was heaving in a last quick waking sigh, and the blue eyes of the waters opened bright. Across the infinite skies of March great rounded masses of cloud had sailed stately all day, domed with white radiance, softened with faint, fleeting shadows as if companies of angels were gently sweeping past; adorned with resting, silken shadows likes those of a full white breast. All day the clouds had moved on to their vast destination, and I had clung to the earth yearning and impatient. I took a brush and tried to paint them, then I raged at myself. I wished that in all the wild valley where cloud shadows were travelling like pilgrims, something would call me forth from my rooted loneliness. Through all the grandeur of the white and blue day, the poised cloud masses swung their slow flight, and left me unnoticed.
At evening they were all gone, and the empty sky, like a blue bubble over us, swam on its pale bright rims.
Leslie came, and asked his betrothed to go out with him, under the darkening wonderful bubble. She bade me accompany her, and, to escape from myself, I went.
It was warm in the shelter of the wood and in the crouching hollows of the hills. But over the slanting shoulders of the hills the wind swept, whipping the redness into our faces.
“Get me some of those alder catkins, Leslie,” said Lettie,