Part 35 (1/2)
She answered him--sadness in her voice rather than reproach--”We have done that talk long since. Thou dost not heed me. It is that I am going that I am telling thee.”
He knew he had been careless of her again, and sought to laugh it off.
”Well, it is why you stopped your lessons that I am asking thee,” he mimicked her. ”Woman's reasons, Ima?”
She threw out her hands towards him in a gesture of appeal. ”Ah, do not toy me woman's reasons,” she said. ”Think me less light than that--if thou thinkest of me. Not woman's reasons bade me back to the van when winter broke. Not woman's reasons. I knew me there were green buds in the ditches beneath the dead wet leaves. I had discovered them to the sun and the breezes many years--turning back the leaves and smelling the smell they have. How could I stay beneath a roof when I had thoughts of such?”
She drew a deep and tremulous breath of the mild night air as though she inhaled the scents of which she spoke, and he watched her gaze across the eastward vale with those starry eyes that, as she went on, never the lids unstarred, and she said: ”Thoughts of such--of green buds in the ditches beneath the moulding leaves that waited for me to uncover them and knew me when I came; of the first cloud of dust along the road--dust, ah! of tiny sprigs on every bough that I might run to see; of busy birds stealing the straws and coming for the bits of cloth and wool they know I place for them; of early light with all the trees and fields wet and aglisten; of gentle evenings when the new stars come dropping down the sky; of the road--the road, ah!--I sitting on the shafts; of the cool brooks, and leading Pilgrim in and hearing him suck the water and hearing him tear the gra.s.s; of the running stream about my feet and the soft gra.s.s that sinks a little--these bade me back.”
She turned to him and said in the low voice in which she had been speaking: ”Not women's reasons these.” She changed her voice to one that cried: ”Remember me that if I am not like fine ladies I cannot help be what I am with these things speaking to me. Now I am going,”
and she went swiftly from him and was a dozen paces gone before he called her back.
III
”Ima!” While she spoke he had envisaged what she told, setting its freedom and its elemental note to his own desires as one sets music that stirs the breast. Shaking himself from the spell, ”Ima!” he called, and went to her. ”Don't go like that. Say good-by properly.”
She stopped short and put her hand to her side as though his call had launched a shaft that struck her. She did not turn--as though she dared not turn--until he was close up to her, touching her. Then she turned, and he saw her eyes amazingly lit, and as they met his, saw the light pa.s.s like a star extinguished. It was as if she had expected much and had found nothing; and it was so p.r.o.nounced that he said: ”Ima! Why, what did you think I was going to say?”
There was a wild rose in the bosom of her dress that she had plucked as they came through the lane. She bent her head to it and put her hands to it in the action of one that seeks to cover lack of words by some occupation. She drew the flower from her breast and placed it in his coat, pinning it there.
”That's right,” he smiled. ”I'll keep that to remember you by. What did you think I was going to say? You seemed as though you expected something--then as if you were disappointed. What was it?”
She was very careful in settling the flower. Then she dropped her hands and looked up at him. ”I asked nothing,” she said. ”How should I be disappointed?”
”Asked! No! I saw it in your eyes.”
She answered swiftly, almost as one speaking in menace of offending words: ”What in mine eyes?”
”Why, what I tell you. As though you expected something and were disappointed.”
”No more?” she inquired, and repeated it--”No more?”
”No more--no. But I want to know why--or what?”
She gave a gentle laugh and relaxed her att.i.tude that had been strained, in keeping with her voice. She seemed to have feared he had derived some secret that she had; and she seemed glad and yet a little sad her eyes had not betrayed her. She gave a gentle laugh and threw her hands apart as if to show how small a thing was here.
”Why, little master, there is nothing in that,” she said. ”The eyes light for that the heart runneth to peep through them as a child to the window.”
He laughed at the pleasant fancy: ”Well, what did your heart run to see?”
”Nay, I have not done,” she told him. ”Look also how one may see a child run happily past the window--from the van I have seen it: so sometimes the heart but pa.s.seth across the eyes with a glad face, singing from one happy thought to where another waits. I think my heart pa.s.sed so and thou didst catch the gleam.”
He heard her take in a quick breath as her words ended. Then, ”Suffer me to go now,” she said. ”Keep my pretty flowers;” and turned and went swiftly from him down the slope; and was dim where the moonlight faded; and was gone in the further darkness.
CHAPTER VII
ALONE ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE
I