The Serpent (18 page)

He did not think of the hills and found himself presently in the shop, but he was too restless to settle down to anything.

She did not come on Friday.

He lived through the days in a curious poised state, his mind unable to think one way or the other, waiting, dumbly waiting.

Then one evening, as he locked the shop in the dusk and went up into the village with a few of the lads, he left them to inquire about some parcels he was expecting by the bus. When he had done this, he did not return to his companions, but walked on out of the village towards the manse. It was getting quite dark, but when he discerned two figures coming towards him, he at once swung off the road and through a field gate.

The figures stopped at a little distance, their voices low-pitched. ‘No, please!' rose Janet's voice with a pleading intensity, stopping her companion from doing something or coming farther. Donald laughed, restraining his voice.

Janet's footsteps now came alone and quickly along the road and passed Tom, crouched behind the low hedge.

Tom sat there for a long time.

The following Friday, Donald in the late afternoon rode away to the town on one of Tom's bicycles. That night Janet came to the hollow.

‘I'm not going to wait long,' she said. ‘I'm frightened for my mother tonight.' She seemed nervous and uncertain, but was determined to be gay, too, with much of her managing, practical air sensibly in evidence.

Tom had made up his mind to take their old relationship for granted, never by sign or word to insinuate or reproach. But it was difficult work, for everything in his body and mind urged him to insinuate and reproach. Words and intonations moved in him like serpents.

Suddenly she broke down and began to cry.

At once he was overwhelmed, and all the horrid stuff like
venom was swept from inside him, and he took her in his arms, but did not speak to her because he could not trust his own throat. He blinked the tears out of his eyes. ‘Janet! Janet!' And as he brought his face down he wiped his eyes against his sleeve so that she should not know how weak and moved he was. Janet, his own love.

‘It's Mother,' she said.

Yes, he knew. ‘It's hard on you. I know.'

‘It wears you down.'

He comforted her tenderly and presently she was sitting wiping her eyes with her small handkerchief.

‘I had thought that – that – by me going to the manse, she would – she would – stop.'

Her design was a small revelation to him, so hopeful, so wise. She had always borne her burdens alone, with a brave, gay air. Anyone would think she was the most carefree girl in the whole district.

He knew that she was thinking now of nothing but her mother's trouble. It was with them and around them. Nothing but that.

It remained with them when she smiled and said she was sorry for making a fool of herself; and with them when they went along the hillside. It bound them together and he said good-bye to her gently and stroked her hair. She almost broke down again, and pressed her forehead hard against his chest. It was her way of saying, ‘You are good to me', as she had done before, but this time she did not say it. And she walked away soberly and quietly, like one overcome by the sadness in life which they both knew.

The following night, late, he came by the henhouse wall and listened at the window. He knew the mother's voice and after a long time, when all was quiet, his finger-tips moved over the pane. She came. She did not speak, but resigned herself, her face in the hollow of his neck, like one given completely, caring no more.

She stirred. ‘Oh, I wish,' she murmured, ‘I wish you –'

‘But I will, Janet; I will take you away,' he murmured back, knowing he was completing the thought which had halted on her lips.

Slowly, sweetly, she rubbed her forehead on his shoulder
and withdrew. And if somehow she withdrew, too, from her thought which he had spoken, it was with a smiling sadness in which there was strength and assurance for the future.

In that moment, in the dim light of a waning moon risen behind narrow bands of summer cloud, she stood there against the black opening of the door, his vision of love and beauty and all desire.

Quietly he went along the hillside, strangely chastened, in wonder, and to listen was to listen to the hillside, to know what the hillside said and to look at the moon.

She was waiting for him the following Friday, and her mood was now the old mood. This delighted him, because he had hatched a scheme in his mind. If driven to it, he might have told her about it, but not otherwise.

Old Widow Macrae was on her death-bed. Neighbour women went in to see her every day. She was ninety-two and had no-one of her own to look after her. At long intervals a son in Canada sent her money. The cottage had been badly neglected and there was practically no land attached to it, so it was certainly not the kind of place there would be competition for. Tom could easily outbid any likely offerer. What a joy it would be to turn that cottage into a model dwelling, with front porch, back porch, and all! His job would still be exactly the same – to run his shop and work his father's croft, and by the one stroke he would be freed from his father's eternal presence! Janet's mother was no distance away and Janet could look after her to her heart's content!

Such ideas of marriage as may hitherto have floated through his head had not been definite, had referred rather to a future, not a distant future, but still an uncertain future in which he would have established himself. The glory was to come. Now, breaking upon him like something seen with the eyes, it was here. like a bird out of a legendary forest, out of a haunting dream, it was here in his workshop, flashing in magical colour, singing in the long moment when he was alone, his hands still.

What a fury of work was in his hands when the moment passed! And the plan was so simple, so complete and
satisfying at every point, that it could not be countered. It had the perfect simplicity of the inevitable.

But he would not mention it to Janet. Girls were very superstitious about the simplest things, and to reveal a plan that hung on another person's death, even the death of an old woman, might carry an air of ill omen. And he would yet have to deal with his own father.

So that to find the old Janet in the hollow was just what he wanted. Even if she seemed a trifle withdrawn into herself, more given to pleasant talk and good common sense than to showing her personal feelings, surely that was understandable, a tribute to the independence that would make up for her recent weakness by the back door. She was asking nothing from him! So delicately she kept him at a slight distance! Their play was delightful and rarely had she been so continuously alive and various. When he kissed her she sank into a strange apathy, but even that he understood as a backwash from the mood of fear and hopelessness.

What if there was something hidden and strange about her, alive and yet reluctant, keeping him off now and then with a gaiety just a little forced? She would not want to break down again – and ah, now, he held the secret key! He was making no demands upon her, none, until the cottage was empty and his plan mature.

His plan obsessed him. It held a brightness that nothing could dim. Janet had asked him to take her away. She had gone to the manse for reasons that moved him. If he could read signs, Donald had a student girl in the town. And he, Tom, had his plan!

When next Friday passed, and the following week-end, without sign of Janet, he was pursued by a restless impatience rather than that first awful premonitory fear. His desire to see Janet alone began to burn in him, but the strength that came from his command of circumstance was greater. He was distracted, too, by thoughts of the cottage and Widow Macrae's death. He now made up his mind that immediately Widow Macrae died he would tell Janet his plan: a definite point that steadied his whole world.

Meantime he had money to make and work to do; he
had to work for the future, and the more he was troubled by not seeing Janet the harder he worked.

From his next meeting with Janet, he came away uneasy. There had been much of the old liveliness, but now he saw that she was troubled about something, that she was keeping him at a distance, as if she were weary of emotion. She denied it – or at least she said he would have to forgive her, because she was tired. No, there was nothing wrong, but if he could just be friendly it would help her.

His uneasiness in the following days was slowly eaten up by the old premonition, but not now a vague premonition descending in stillness. This premonition had a claw that caught at his physical heart. It could pounce upon him at the oddest moments, clutch him and stop his breathing.

She was overworked, had trouble at home, was tired. Anyone might get tired and despondent. Look how his own father had affected himself at times.

He worked like a slave, but now sleep would desert him for spells, awful desperate agony of midnight hours that saw new meaning, revelation in a gesture, a smile, an attitude, an intonation, the slightest movement of reluctance. Those awful eyes of the midnight hours that he cursed and blinded with Glasgow gutter-oaths.

Widow Macrae died in the second week of September.

Tom had not seen Janet for a long time. He now had to see her at all costs. Running into Tina in the village, he stopped to chat and asked her if she had seen Janet lately. ‘Yes,' she answered lightly, ‘I saw her last night', and she gave him a curious glance. In a flash he realised that Tina must know of their meetings: Janet would have had to tell her, if only to prepare Tina for a possible question from Janet's mother.

‘I would like to see her tonight. Would you tell her that?'

‘Yes, I will,' said Tina. ‘I don't think she has anything on.'

‘Good. How's George?'

‘Who? That fellow!' said Tina.

Tom went off smiling.

And Janet came, making no excuse for her long absence,
friendly and pleasant, in the night-light by the field corner wrapped coolly in herself, like a pillar. She had at times a lovely grace of slow movement.

He saw at once that she wished to keep him at a friendly distance, that she desired this friendliness above all else, that she deliberately set herself to achieve it, using her full powers.

Though more uneasy than ever, her manner bewitched him and he had the surprise and hope of his plan.

Then, after some time, leading up to it not without cunning, he told her of it.

To begin with, his words came haltingly. He had been thinking over their difficulties, he said. Something would have to be done for both their sakes. His own father – he was not actively against him now, but – it was like having something hanging over your head, it preyed on you, it got you down. It would be best for his father, for his mother, if he wasn't there at all. And Janet, having to work so hard all day, and then – at night – her mother. It was getting her down, too. If all this went on, it would tear them to bits. They must look at it sensibly. life was only beginning for them. They must take it into their own hands.

A silence had come upon Janet. He felt her stillness.

Widow Macrae's cottage was not much to look at, he went on, keeping his excitement down. But it could be made a fine place. It could be added to. It could be made one of the neatest little houses in the whole district. And he could make it that. His excitement was difficult now to keep down. ‘If you and I were living there, Janet, you could look after your mother and I could look after my own folk. What do you say?'

She did not speak.

‘I could get it ready for the November term.' The quiver of his excitement got the better of him. ‘Janet?' He put his arms round her shoulders, ‘Janet,' cried his quivering voice through a rush of eager feeling. ‘Isn't that – wouldn't that – be lovely for us? It's the one way, Janet, Janet my own one. Janet!' He crushed her and shook her. ‘Janet!'

But she did not respond to his wild play. Naturally enough
she was overcome. It was a big thing to have come upon her all at once.

She stirred like one in a heavy dream.

‘I never thought – I couldn't –'

‘I know, I know, Janet, but isn't it the perfect way? I have been thinking over it for weeks. Oh, I have everything worked out.'

She was silent.

‘Look at it this way,' he began eagerly.

‘My mother –'

‘Yes, I know. But don't you see that this would settle everything? You would not only be able to look after your mother, but you would have me behind you.'

‘My mother – I couldn't. Not yet. Wait, Tom. Let us wait for a little.'

‘But what's the good of waiting? Things will not get any better. They'll only get worse. And the house is there. It's there now!'

‘My mother – it would kill her.'

‘But if you're going to wait for your mother, you might wait all your life. For heaven's sake, Janet, let us be sensible.'

‘Give me time, Tom. Let me think it over.' Her voice had the quiet desperation of one under a paralysing burden.

‘Yes, but –'

‘Please, Tom – don't – make me break down.'

He was swiftly moved by that appeal. At the touch of his hands, she got up, turned away, and he heard her controlling the threatening gulps.

Sensitively he stood beside her, giving her time, but as he looked at the dark hillside, a strange withering came upon him like a shivering of cold, an immense, an immortal loneliness.

It made him feel bleak and bitter and yet in some aloof way tender. It passed, leaving him quietened, and as they went along the hillside his voice came back, helping her, for she seemed blinded now and altogether uncertain of her feet.

‘Think it over,' he said quietly at the corner of the field.
‘You'll have to let me know soon. Others may be after the house.'

Her lip pressed down over her top teeth. ‘Give me time to –' He heard her hold her breath. All at once she turned and walked away.