Chapter XVII: Dinah

Though circumstances had of late baffled Dinah Waycott and tended sometimes to beget a reserve and caution foreign to her; though she found herself hiding her thoughts in a manner very unfamiliar and keeping silent, where of old she would have spoken, or even allowing by default an opinion to pass unquestioned as hers which of old she would have contradicted; there was still no confusion in her mind when she communed with herself. Therefore, when she found that she stood face to face with a new thing, she pretended no doubt as to the name of it. Bewilderment, none the less, filled her mind, and elements of joy, that might be supposed proper to such an experience, could not at present live with the other more distracting sensations her discovery awakened. Something like dismay she did feel, that any such paramount event should have overtaken her at this stage in her life; for Dinah was not insensitive, though so plain-spoken, and now painfully she felt this was no time to have developed the burning preoccupation that already swept into nothingness every adventure and emotion of the past.

There had happened a precious wonder beyond all wonders, but Dinah felt angry with herself that, under present conditions of stress and anxiety, any loophole existed for such a selfish passion. It had come, however, and it could not stand still; and selfish she had to be, since the good and glory of the thing must be shared with none at present.

Silent, however, she could not be for long. There was one to whom she never feared to talk and from whom she had no secrets. To him, her foster-father, Dinah had taken every joy and sorrow, hope and fear since she could talk. Only once, and that in the matter of his own son, John, had she hidden her heart from Ben Bamsey, yet found it possible to show it to another.

She remembered that now; and it was that same 'other,' who, from the first, had possessed a nameless quality to challenge and arrest Dinah. Gradually he had occupied a larger and larger domain in her mind, until he overwhelmed it and her gradual revelation was complete. For gradual it had been. Together they walked once more at her wish, after their first long tramp, while, agreeably to the invitation of Mr. Bamsey, Lawrence Maynard again visited Green Hayes upon a Sunday afternoon. Then, indeed, under the eyes of Jane and her mother, Dinah had hidden her heart very effectually, and even made occasion to leave the house and go elsewhere before Maynard's visit was ended; but she knew by signs in her body and soul that she was in love. The amazing novelty of her thoughts, the transfiguration they created in her outlook upon all things, the new colours they imparted to any vision of the future, convinced her that there could be no doubt. Against this reality, the past looked unreal; before this immensity, the past appeared, dwarfed and futile. That cloudy thing, her whole previous existence, was now reduced to a mere huddled background--its only excuse the rainbow that had suddenly glowed out upon it.

She was honestly ashamed that love could have happened to her at this moment and thrust so abruptly in upon her sad experience with Johnny. It seemed, in some moods, callous and ungenerous to allow such wayward delights and dreams to enter her heart while well she knew that his was heavy. But, at other times, she would not blame herself, for her conscience was clear. Maynard had meant nothing to her when she gave up her first lover, and it was no thought of him, or any man, that had determined her to do so.

Her love at least was pure as love well could be, for she did not know that he returned it; sometimes, at first, she almost hoped he would not. But that was only in the dim and glimmering dawn of it. Love cannot feed on dreams alone. She put it from her at first, only to find it fly back. So she nursed it secretly and waited and wondered, and, meantime, strove to find a way to leave Green Hayes. But still Ben opposed her suggestions, and then there came a time when, from the first immature fancy that to love him secretly, herself unloved, would be enough, Dinah woke into a passionate desire that he should love her back again. Now she was mature, accomplished, awake and alert, lightning quick to read his mood, the inflexion of every word he uttered when he was beside her, the faintest brightening of his eyes, his dress, his walk, the inspiration of every moment.

She could not help it. Often she returned dull and daunted, not with him but herself; and as she began to know, from no sign of his but by her own quickened sex endowment that he cared for her, she grew faint and ashamed again. He had taught her a great deal. He seemed to be very wise and patient, but not particularly happy--rather unfinished even on some sides of his experience. There were a great many things he did not know, and he seemed not nearly as interested in life as she was, or as desirous to have it more abundantly. Johnny had evinced a much keener appetite for living and far greater future ambitions than Maynard. Lawrence was, in fact, as somebody had said, "a twilight sort of man." But it was a cool, clear, self-contained twilight that he moved in, and he appeared to see distinctly enough through it. Dinah thought it was twilight of morning rather than night. She imagined him presently emerging into a wonderful dawn, and dreamed of helping him to do so. She checked such fancies, yet they were natural to her direct temperament, and they recurred with increasing force. Her native freedom of mind broke down all barriers to private thinking, and sometimes she longed for him; then she chastened herself and planned a future without him and found it not worth remaining alive for. She began to sleep ill, but hid the signs. She plotted to see Maynard and was also skilful to conceal the fact that she did so. He always welcomed her, sometimes with a merry word, sometimes with a sad one. The milch cows grazed upon the moor now, and once or twice, sighting them a mile off upon her way home, Dinah would creep near and wait for Lawrence and the sheep dog to round them up and turn them to the valley for milking. She would hide in a thicket, or behind a boulder, and if he came would get a few precious words; but if Neddy Tutt appeared, as sometimes happened, then she would lie hid and go her way when he was gone.

She knew now that Maynard cared for her; but she discounted his every word and granted herself the very minimum. She was fearful of hoping too much, yet could not, for love's sake, hope too little. She longed to set her mind at rest upon the vital question; and at last did so. Making all allowance, and striving to chill and belittle his every word, she still could not longer doubt. He was often difficult to understand, yet some things she did now clearly comprehend. She had already seen a man in love, and though the love-making of Johnny differed very widely from that of Lawrence, though indeed Lawrence never had made a shadow of love to her, yet she knew at last, by mental and physical signs that curiously repeated Johnny's, he did love her.

She hugged this to her heart and felt that nothing else mattered, or would ever matter. For a time she even returned to her first dream and assured herself that love was enough. He might tell her some day; he might never tell her; but she knew it, and whether they came together, or lived their lives apart, the great fact would remain. Yet there was no food in any such conclusion, no life, no fertility, no peace.

She came to Ben Bamsey at this stage of her romance, for she hungered and thirsted to tell it; and to her it seemed that her foster-father ought to know. She came to him fresh from a meeting with Lawrence, for she had been, at Mr. Bamsey's wish, with a message to Falcon Farm, and she had met Maynard afterwards as she returned over the foothills of the Beacon.

The year was swinging round, and again the time had come for scything the fern, that it might ripen presently for the cattle byres.

He stopped a moment and shook hands with her.

"Just been up to see Soosie-Toosie," said Dinah. "Terrible sorry Mr. Palk's cut his hand so bad."

"Yes; it'll have to go in a sling for a bit. He thought it would mend and didn't take no great count of it, and now it's festered and will be a fortnight before it's all right."

"I wish I could help," she said. "If you was to do his work and Mr. Stockman would let me come and milk the cows for a week----"

"No, no--no need for any help. Tom can do a lot. It's only his left hand and master's turning to. He says if he can't do the work of Tom's left hand, it's a shame to him."

"Did Mr. Palk get his rise he was after?"

"He did not, Dinah. But Mr. Stockman put it in a very nice way. He's going to raise us both next year. And you? Nothing turned up?"

She shook her head.

"A funny thing among 'em all they can't find just the right work. I wish you was away from Green Hayes."

She had told him all about her difficulties and he appreciated them. He thought a great deal about Dinah now, but still more about himself. He had been considering her when she appeared; and for the moment he did not want to see her. His mind ebbed and flowed, where Dinah was concerned, and he was stubborn with himself and would not admit anything. He persisted in this attitude, but now he began to perceive it was impossible much longer to do so. If Dinah had read him, he also had read her, for she was not difficult to read and lacked some of the ordinary armour of a woman in love with a man. He knew time could not stand still for either of them, yet strove to suspend it. Sometimes he was gentle and sometimes he was abrupt and ungenial when they met. To-day he dismissed her.

"Don't you bide here now," he said. "I'm busy, Dinah, and I've got a good bit on my mind too."

"I'm sorry then. You ask Soosie if I shall come and milk. That would give you more time. Good morning, Lawrence."

He had seen how her face fell.

"I wish I could think of a way out for you. Perhaps I shall. I do have it on my mind," he said. "But there's difficulties in a small place like this. Pity you ain't farther off, where you could breathe easier."

For some reason this remark cheered her. She left him without speaking again and considered his saying all the way home. The interpretation she put upon it was not wholly mistaken, yet it might have surprised the man, for we often utter a thought impelled thereto by subconscious motives we hardly feel ourselves. He did not for the moment associate himself, or his interests, with the desire that Dinah should go away, yet such a desire really existed in him, though, had he analysed it, he had been divided between two reasons for such a desire. He might have asked himself whether he wished her out of her present difficult environment in order that his own approach to her should become easier and freer of doubtful interpretation in the mouths of other people; or he might have considered whether, for his own peace, he honestly wished to see Dinah so far away that reasonable excuses should exist for dropping her acquaintance. Between these alternatives he could hardly have decided at present. He lagged behind her, for love seldom wakens simultaneously, or moves with equal pace on both sides. He might continue to lag and fall farther behind, or he might catch her and pass her. He was at a stage in their approach when he could still dispassionately consider all that increase of friendship must imply. He hardly knew where the friendship exactly stood at the moment. Actual irritation sometimes intervened. He suffered fits of impatience both with himself and her. Yet he knew, when cool again, that neither was to be blamed. If blame existed, it was not Dinah's.

She went home now, and after dinner on that day, found opportunity to speak with her foster-father. They were cutting oats and she descended to the valley field beside Ben and made a clean breast of her secrets, only to find they were not hidden from him. He treated her as one much younger than she really was, and seeing that she was indeed younger than her age in many particulars of mind, this process always satisfied Dinah and made her feel happier with Ben Bamsey than his family, who made no such concession, but, on the contrary, attributed qualities to Dinah she lacked.

"Foster-father," she said, "I'm wishful to have a tell and here's a good chance. I be getting in a proper mizmaze I do assure 'e."

"You must be patient, my little dear," he answered.

"I've been patient for six months, though it's more like six years since I changed about poor Johnny. And other people, so well as I, do feel I'd be better away."

"Have I ever said you wouldn't be better away, Dinah? I know only too well how it is. But a father can look deeper into life than his child. I'm wide awake--watching. I understand your troubles and try to lessen 'em where I can."

"If you wasn't here, I'd have runned away long ago. For a little bit, after that cruel come-along-of-it, I wouldn't have minded to die. Now that's passed; but you, who never did such a thing, can't tell what it is to know that you're fretting and galling two other women. And Mrs. Bamsey and Jane have a right to be fretted and galled by me. I can well understand, without their looks, how I must be to them; and 'tis a sharp thorn in your flesh to be hated, and it's making me miserable."

He had not guessed she much felt this side of the position.

"You'm growing up, I see, like everybody else," he said. "I forget that I can't have it both ways, and can't have you a loving, watchful daughter and a child too. And if you can think for me, as you do so wonderful, then you'm old enough to feel for yourself, of course. Still you'm so parlous young in some ways, that it ain't strange I still think of you a child in everyway. I suppose you must go and I mustn't find nothing against no more. And yet----"

He broke off, his mind upon Maynard.

While he was hesitating and wondering whether he should name the man, Dinah saved him the trouble.

"Only this morning coming home from Falcon Farm I met Lawrence--Lawrence Maynard and he--even he, an outsider so to say, said he thought I'd be better far ways off. And I well know it. I didn't ought to be breathing the same air as Johnny. It ain't fair to him, especially when you know he's not taking it just like I meant it. And I wouldn't say it's right, foster-father."

He, however, was more concerned for the moment with the other man than his own son.

"Johnny's beginning to understand. His good sense will come to help him," he answered; "but when you say 'Lawrence Maynard,' Dinah--what do you say? Why for has he troubled his head about your affairs?"

"You like him?" she answered.

"Granted. And so do you seemingly. And how much do you like him? Do you like him as much as I think you do, Dinah?"

She was astonished but pleased.

"I'm glad you ask me that; but I hope Mrs. Bamsey and Jane----?"

"So do I. No, they haven't marked nothing; or if they have, they've hid it from me very close. But Faith wouldn't hide nothing. Tell me."

She hesitated.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"I think you care about the man."

"I love him then."

"Ah!"

"It sounds a fearful thing spoke out naked. But truth's truth, and I'm very thankful to tell you. Don't you call it wicked nor nothing like that. It only happened a very little while--not till long, long after I dropped Johnny. But it has happened; and now I know I never loved dear Johnny a morsel."

He reflected.

"The man himself told you to go--Maynard, I mean? What was in his mind when he said that?"

"I've been wondering. It ought to have made me sad; but it hasn't. Ought it to have made me sad?"

"Has Lawrence Maynard----? What about his side?"

"I don't know--yet I do. There's some things you feel. I don't think I could have loved him if I hadn't known he loved me first. Could I?"

"He's never said it, however?"

"A man's eyes and ways say things."

"Don't you talk like this to anybody but me, Dinah," urged Mr. Bamsey.

"Not likely. Is it wrong?"

"I'm moving in the matter; I'm moving," he answered. "You can't hide much from me, and already I've had Maynard in my thoughts."

"You haven't?"

"Yes. I've seen a very good, common friend. And I'll tell you this. I sounded Mr. Withycombe--the bed-lier. The young man often goes of a Sunday to see him, and Enoch thinks well of him. But more than that. He's spoke cautious with Maynard, and Maynard likes you. He granted you was out of the common, in fact a remarkable pattern of woman."

She had his arm and her own tightened upon it.

"Foster-father!"

"So enough said. And now you'll understand why I'm marking time. The rest be in the hands of God. You keep out of his way for a bit--Maynard, I mean; and we'll watch how it goes."

"Nothing else matters now," she said.

"A lot matters now; but what matters be up to him."

"I didn't think it was possible to be so happy as I be this minute, foster-father."

"Put it out of your mind, however, so far as nature will let you. We be groping in the dark."

"No, no--it's all light--all light now."

"So far as he's concerned, we be in the dark," he repeated. "No doubt the time's near when he'll offer for you, Dinah. And then he's got to come to me. I remember the first evening he was to Green Hayes, and seemed a thought under the weather and a little doubtful about his Maker. I said he'd got a grievance against life, and I must hear all about that grievance, if such there is."

"You'll never hear anything but the truth from him. He wouldn't do anything that you wouldn't like. I'm feared of him in a way. He's very strict and very stern sometimes. He's not what you call easy on wrongful doing. He's better'n me."

"That no man ever was, or will be," said Ben. "I'm very glad you came to me with this; for if you'd hung off much longer, I'd have had to see the man. Now I shan't, and I'm not sorry. We know where we stand, because you'm so open-minded, thank God, along with me. But we don't know--at least we can't be sure we know--where he stands. It's up to Mr. Maynard to unfold his feelings. And for sure he very soon will."

"And why should you reckon he advised me to be off from here so soon as I could?" asked Dinah again. "Queerly enough I liked him for saying it, and yet--yet you might think there might be a frosty reason."

"There might be. Time will show. You can't be off till we've found the proper place for you to be off to. Now you run home about your chores. Mother wants you in the garden. There's the last lot of rasps to be picked. I didn't count on no more, but I was surprised to see enough to market yet."

She ran up the hill and he descended to a field of heavy oats. The weather after a spell of sunny days began to break up and Mr. Bamsey hoped to get his crop off the ground before it did so. But his mind was not on his oats. He believed that Dinah must indeed leave him now, and guessed that Maynard would think it wise to abandon his present work and take her far away. Mr. Bamsey knew what this must mean for him. He did not disguise from himself that he loved Dinah better than anything on earth, while blaming himself unfeignedly for doing so.