第56章 A MAN OF DEVON(13)

"Life's hard enough," he wrote, "without tying yourself down.Don't think too hardly of me! Shall I make you happier by taking you into danger? If I succeed you'll be a rich woman; but I shall fail if you're with me.To look at you makes me soft.At sea a man dreams of all the good things on land, he'll dream of the heather, and honey--you're like that; and he'll dream of the apple-trees, and the grass of the orchards--you're like that; sometimes he only lies on his back and wishes--and you're like that, most of all like that...."When I was reading those words I remember a strange, soft, half-scornful look came over Pasiance's face; and once she said, "But that's all nonsense, isn't it...?"Then followed a long passage about what he would gain if he succeeded, about all that he was risking, the impossibility of failure, if he kept his wits about him."It's only a matter of two months or so," he went on; "stay where you are, dear, or go to my Dad.He'll be glad to have you.There's my mother's room.There's no one to say 'No' to your fiddle there; you can play it by the sea;and on dark nights you'll have the stars dancing to you over the water as thick as bees.I've looked at them often, thinking of you...."Pasiance had whispered to me, "Don't read that bit," and afterwards Ileft it out....Then the sensuous side of him shows up: "When I've brought this off, there's the whole world before us.There are places I can take you to.There's one I know, not too warm and not too cold, where you can sit all day in the shade and watch the creepers, and the cocoa-palms, still as still; nothing to do or care about; all the fruits you can think of; no noise but the parrots and the streams, and a splash when a nigger dives into a water-hole.

Pasiance, we'll go there! With an eighty-ton craft there's no sea we couldn't know.The world's a fine place for those who go out to take it; there's lots of unknown stuff' in it yet.I'll fill your lap, my pretty, so full of treasures that you shan't know yourself.A man wasn't meant to sit at home...."Throughout this letter--for all its real passion--one could feel how the man was holding to his purpose--the rather sordid purpose of this venture.He's unconscious of it; for he is in love with her; but he must be furthering his own ends.He is vital--horribly vital! Iwonder less now that she should have yielded.

What visions hasn't he dangled before her.There was physical attraction, too--I haven't forgotten the look I saw on her face at Black Mill.But when all's said and done, she married him, because she's Pasiance Voisey, who does things and wants "to get back." And she lies there dying; not he nor any other man will ever take her away.It's pitiful to think of him tingling with passion, writing that letter to this doomed girl in that dark hole of a saloon."I've wanted money," he wrote, "ever since I was a little chap sitting in the fields among the cows....I want it for you now, and I mean to have it.I've studied the thing two years; I know what I know....

The moment this is in the post I leave for London.There are a hundred things to look after still; I can't trust myself within reach of you again till the anchor's weighed.When I re-christened her the Pied Witch, I thought of you--you witch to me...."There followed a solemn entreaty to her to be on the path leading to the cove at seven o'clock on Wednesday evening (that is, to-morrow)when he would come ashore and bid her good-bye.It was signed, "Your loving husband, Zachary Pearse...."I lay at the edge of that cornfield a long time; it was very peaceful.The church bells had begun to ring.The long shadows came stealing out from the sheaves; woodpigeons rose one by one, and flapped off to roost; the western sky was streaked with red, and all the downs and combe bathed in the last sunlight.Perfect harvest weather; but oppressively still, the stillness of suspense....

Life at the farm goes on as usual.We have morning and evening prayers.John Ford reads them fiercely, as though he were on the eve of a revolt against his God.Morning and evening he visits her, comes out wheezing heavily, and goes to his own room; I believe, to pray.Since this morning I haven't dared meet him.He is a strong old man--but this will break him up....

VII

"KINGSWEAR, Saturday, i3tb August.

It's over--I leave here to-morrow, and go abroad.

A quiet afternoon--not a breath up in the churchyard! I was there quite half an hour before they came.Some red cows had strayed into the adjoining orchard, and were rubbing their heads against the railing.While I stood there an old woman came and drove them away;afterwards, she stooped and picked up the apples that had fallen before their time.

"The apples are ripe and ready to fall, Oh! heigh-ho! and ready to fall;There came an old woman and gathered them all, Oh! heigh-ho! and gathered them all."......They brought Pasiance very simply--no hideous funeral trappings, thank God--the farm hands carried her, and there was no one there but John Ford, the Hopgoods, myself, and that young doctor.

They read the service over her grave.I can hear John Ford's "Amen!"now.When it was over he walked away bareheaded in the sun, without a word.I went up there again this evening, and wandered amongst the tombstones."Richard Voisey," "John, the son of Richard and Constance Voisey," "Margery Voisey," so many generations of them in that corner; then "Richard Voisey and Agnes his wife," and next to it that new mound on which a sparrow was strutting and the shadows of the apple-trees already hovering.

I will tell you the little left to tell....

On Wednesday afternoon she asked for me again.

"It's only till seven," she whispered."He's certain to come then.