Part 50 (1/2)
”I'm not going to. I'm not vindictive. I'm rather nice. I've recovered from my rage, and now I wouldn't set his farm on fire for worlds. Why, if I saw it blazing, I should run to help! But I'd like to tease him just a little bit.”
”I wish you wouldn't. I think it's rather mean, he looks so miserable.
And I'm sure it isn't safe. Please, Miriam.”
”I can take care of myself, my dear.”
”I'm not so sure.”
”Oh, yes, I can. I'm going to make it up with him. I must, or I shall never be able to walk about the moor again.”
”I wish you didn't live here,” Helen said.
”Well, so do I. But it's not for long.” She was working vigorously, and, with her peculiar faculty for fitting her surroundings, she looked as though she had been begotten of sun and rain and soil. Helen took delight in her bright colour, strong hands and ready foot.
”I wonder,” Helen said thoughtfully, ”if Uncle Alfred would take you now.”
”Do you want to save me from George's clutches?”
”Yes, I do.”
Miriam threw back her head and laughed. ”You funny little thing! You're rather sweet. George hasn't a clutch strong enough to hold me. You can be sure of that.”
She was herself so certain that she waylaid him on the moor next day, but to her amazement he did not answer her smile of greeting and pa.s.sed on without a word.
”George!” she called after him.
”Well?” He looked beyond her at the place where green moor met blue sky: he felt he had done with her, and Helen's trust had taken all the sweetness from revenge.
”Aren't you going to say good-morning? I came on purpose to see you.”
”You needn't trouble,” he said and, stealing a look at her, he weakened.
”But I need.” He was wavering, she knew, and her mouth and eyes promised laughter, her body seemed to sway towards him.
”I want--I want to forgive you, George.”
”Well, I'm--”
”Yes, you are, no doubt, but I don't want to be, so I forgive my trespa.s.sers, and I've come to make friends.”
”You've said that before.”
”I've always meant it. Must I hold out my arm any longer?”
”No.” She was too tempting for his strength. He took her by the shoulders, looked greedily at her, saw the shrinking he had longed for and pressed his mouth on hers. She gave a cry that made a bird start from the heather, but he held her to him and felt her struggling with a force that could not last, and in a minute she dropped against him as helplessly as if she had been broken.
He turned her over on his arm. ”You little devil!” he said, and kissed her lips again.
Her face was white and still: she did not move and he could not guess that behind the brows gathered as if she were in pain, her mind ransacked her home for a weapon that might kill him, and saw the carving-knife worn to a slip of steel that would glide into a man's body without a sound. She meant to use it: she was kept quiet by that determination, by the intensity of her horror for caresses that, unlike those first ones in the larch-wood, marked her as a thing to be used and thrown away.
She knew his thoughts of her, but she had her own amid a delirium of hate, and when he released her, she was shaking from the effort of her control.