Chapter VI

The upbringing of John Throgmorton at Yarningdale Farm has more of the nature of an idyll in it than one is wont to ask for in a modern world, where idylls are out of fashion and it has become the habit to set one's teeth at life.

Still continuing, as soon as she was strong again, to fulfill the duties of milkmaid for Mr. Peverell, Mary spent all her spare time with her child. No fretting mother she was, but calm and serene in all her doings. He took no fever of spirit from her.

"Seems as if the milk she give him must almost be cool," said Mrs. Peverell to her husband, who now, since the registration of John's birth had had to be told the truth--that there was no father--that Mary was one of those women who had gone astray.

"Fair, she beats me," he replied. "Ain't there no shame to her? Not that I want to see her shamed. But it 'mazes me seein' her calm and easy like this. Keep them cows quiet, I told her when she 'gan amilkin'--keep 'em easy. Don't fret 'em. They'll give 'ee half as much milk again if 'ee don't fret 'em. And when the flies were at 'en last summer, dommed if she didn't get more milk than that lad could have got. That's where she's learnt it. She ain't frettin' herself when most women 'ud be hangin' their heads and turnin' the milk to water in their breasts wi' shame. I doant make her out and that's the truth of it."

Yet he had made her out far better than he knew. That was where she had learnt the secret, as she had intended she should learn all the secrets it was possible to know. On sunny days she took her baby with her into the fields where the cows were grazing.

One by one on the first of these occasions, solemnly she showed them the treasure she brought. Sponsors, they were, she told them, having had recent acquaintance with that word. One by one they stared with velvet eyes at the bundle that was presented to them.

When that ceremony was over, solemnly proclaimed with words the written word can give no meaning to, she found for herself a sheltered corner in the hedgerow, there unfastening her dress and with cool fingers lifting her breast for his lips to suckle where none could watch her. The warm spring air on those sunny days was no less food for him than the milk she gave. With gurgling noises he drew it in. With round, dark eyes, set fast with the purposes of life, he took his fill as she gazed upon him.

That there was nothing more wonderful to a woman than this, Mary knew in all the certainty of her heart. There alone with her baby, she wanted no other passion, no other love, no other company. This for a woman was the completeness of fulfillment. Yet this it was that men denied to so many.

She knew then in those moments that no shame would be too great to bear with patience for such realization of life as this. Realization it was and, to fail in knowing it, was like a fallow field to have yielded naught but a harvest of weeds in which there was shame indeed.

Often in the previous summer she had heard Mr. Peverell bitterly accusing himself for the bare and weedy patches in his crops. Twice since she had been there on the farm had a barren cow been sent to market for sale because it was of no use to them. They had been cows she herself had named. She had fretted when they were driven away and had taken herself far from the yard when it came to the moment of their departure.

Yet no word of pleading had she said to Mr. Peverell on such occasions. Receive and give, these were the laws she recognized and found no power of sentiment strong enough in her to make her seek or need to disobey them. Gain and keep--against such principles as these her soul had caparisoned and armed itself, clearly knowing how all laws in the operation must carry with them the savor of injustice, uncomplaining if that injustice should be measured for her portion. For never so great an injustice could it be as that which men in their ideals of possession and inheritance had meted out to women. Living there at Yarningdale Farm so close to the land, she had found a greater beneficence in Nature than in all the organized charity of mankind.

On the second occasion when the barren cow had been sent to market some delay had been made in her departure and Mary had returned to the house just as the flurried beast had been driven out of the yard. With head averted, she had quickened her steps into the house, finding Mrs. Peverell looking out of the window in the parlor kitchen.

"Why are they drivin' that cow to market?" she asked. "He said naught to me 'bout sellin' a cow to-day."

"She's barren," said Mary. "They sent her four times to the bull. I've milked her nearly dry now. It does seem hard, doesn't it? She was so quiet. But I'm afraid she's no good to us."

She had been taking off her hat as she spoke, never appreciating the significance of what she said when, in a moment, she became conscious of Mrs. Peverell's silence and swiftly turned round.

She was standing quite motionless with one hand resting on the back of a chair, staring out of the window at the departing beast, yet seeing nothing, for, with a searching steadfastness, her eyes were looking inwards.

For a moment Mary's presence of mind had left her. She had swayed in movement, half coming forward when indecision had arrested her. It might not be that her thoughts were what Mary supposed. To comfort her for them if they were not there was only to put them in her mind.

"What are you thinking of?" she inquired tentatively.

"I be thinkin'," said Mrs. Peverell, "if he gets a good price for that cow we'd have a new lot o' bricks laid down in that wash-house. There be holes there a body might fall over in the dark."

A thousand times more bitter was this than the truth, for still she stood staring inwards with her thoughts and still standing there, with her hand on the back of the chair and her eyes gazing through the window, Mary had left her and gone upstairs.