Chapter X: Kit's Steps

The inevitable thing happened, and, after numerous evasions, Sarah Jane consented to meet Hilary Woodrow, that he might talk to her without restraint or fear of any eavesdropper.

Not until many months had passed did she agree to his petition; then, on a day when the year again turned to autumn, they met beside the river at a lonely place known as Kit's Steps.

The farmer had found Jarratt's cottage suit him extremely well, and, moved by more motives than he declared, continued to rent it. For a month only, during high summer, he returned to Ruddyford; but afterwards, though he rode over twice or thrice a week to his farm, Hilary dwelt in Lydford. Meantime Jarratt Weekes had married Mary Churchward, and since the master of Ruddyford offered him a very generous rent for the cottage, Mr. Churchward's son-in-law, as a man of business, felt not justified in refusing. For a further term of a year he let his house, and by arrangement, lived with the schoolmaster during that period. His wife little liked the plan, but was not consulted. Jarratt, however, promised her that in the following June, at latest, she should occupy her own dwelling; and with that undertaking Mary had to be content.

Now, on an afternoon of September, Sarah Jane came to Kit's Steps to pick blackberries and meet Hilary Woodrow.

Here Lyd drops through a steep dingle, over a broken wall of stone; and then, by pools and shallows and many a little flashing fall, descends with echoing thunder into the fern-clad gloom of the gorge beneath.

At Kit's Steps the river gushes out from a cleft in the rock, and her waters, springing clear of the barrier, sweep down in a fan-shaped torrent of foam, all crimped and glittering, like a woman's hair. But the waterfall is white as snow, and, like snow, seems to pile itself upon a deep pool beneath. Hence Lyd curls and dances away all streaked and beaded with light. Bound about, shaggy brakes of furze and thorn drop by steep declivities to stream-side, and the grey crags that tower above are decked with oak and rowan and ash. At the cleft whence the stream leaps out, a curtain of moss hangs down, and great wealth of ferns and lush green things prosper. Briars dance in the fall; and now they spring aloft, as the weight of the water leaves them, and now are caught by the sparkling torrent and bent again. The dark rocks, eternally washed by spray, shine like black glass; at autumn time the lesser gorses flame; cushions of heather creep to the edge of the low precipices and fledge each boulder; while loud upon the ear there sounds the roar of tumbling Lyd. It is a place cheerful in sunshine, solemn at evening or under the darkness of storm; but always singular and always beautiful. No spirit of fear or sorrow haunts it, despite the myth of one whose griefs were ended here on a day forgotten.

Hilary was first at the Steps, and found a sheltered spot under an oak tree, where mossy stones made an easy couch. Here impatiently he awaited Sarah Jane; and at length she appeared with a basket half full of ripe blackberries.

At first she was uneasy; but he quickly made her forget the adventure of the moment, by interesting her mind with other matters.

"You ought to begin by praising me," he said, "for being so exceedingly good when I was at Ruddyford. I only spoke to you thrice all through that long month. At what a cost I avoided you, you'll never guess!"

"I was the happier that you did. I thought you was growing sensible--about things."

"Sarah Jane, there's no sense nor sanity for me away from you. I never knew, till I went away to London, what you were to me. I said to myself, 'She interested me in women again, because she's so lovely'; but it wasn't that at all. I soon found out you yourself interested me, and only you. The light dawned, and first I feared; then I feared no more. Now I glory in loving you. It is far and away the best thing that's ever happened to me."

"Was this what you wanted to say? It only makes me miserable--Hilary."

"Thank you for calling me that."

"You made me promise to."

"I didn't make you. We can't make our gods do what we want. We can only pray to them. What a curse it is that we weren't born under a different star, Sarah Jane. For me, I mean. If your fearless mind had only been taught otherwise--but that's vain to regret now."

"Always the same with you--trying to teach me things too hard for me, and mix up right and wrong."

"But I don't do anything of the sort. Right is a great deal to me. In this matter right and wrong are not the problem at all. I'm only mourning custom and convention--not the clash of right and wrong."

The sexual relation had never occupied this woman's mind apart from marriage. Now he made it do so, and very leisurely, very carefully, explained what he meant by "custom." His manner was light and bantering; none the less, he revealed to her his own deep interest in this discussion. He was a special pleader. He laughed at religious interference in this connection; told her that it was an outcome of yesterday; that foreign races shared wives and husbands; that where life was easy, many men had many wives; where life was hard, one woman might take several spouses.

"Marriage laws," he said, "have always been a matter of physical propriety and convenience. Temperature and latitude, the food supply, the possibilities of population, and the dearly bought wisdom of the community, have regulated it--not any false nonsense about right and wrong."

He told her nothing that was untrue; but everything he said was an indirect petition, and she knew it. She was not shocked at the facts he placed before her; indeed, they interested her; but she refused to let him influence her own opinion. She contrasted Hilary's information with the fierce and fiery ideas of her husband on the subject. Between the two her own mind, through forces of education, inclined to Daniel; yet she saw no great horror in a wider freedom.

"'Tis wonderful how opposite men's thoughts can be," she said. "You and my husband do look at life almost as differently as the people you be telling about. 'Tis all one to you, so long as folk do what's good to themselves, without hurting other folk; but to him--why, the very name of evil be evil's self! Yesternight he was talking to a tramp who took one of your turnips; and Daniel saw him. And he said that, according to Christ, to look over a hedge with hunger after a root was as bad as pulling and eating it."

"Doesn't it scorch you, living with such a narrow spirit?"

"'Twould scorch me to make him unhappy."

"That you must never do, Sarah Jane."

He began to talk again of the subject in his mind. But she begged him to desist.

"Leave it," she said. "What's the sense of telling me all these curious things about the way people go into marriage? Our way is so good as any, surely?"

"I only want to enlarge your ideas, and prove my argument: that there's no right and wrong in the matter, only the question of fitness and custom. You're too large-minded to care a button for peddling quibbles. But leave it, if you like. What you want to do, before all else, is to make your husband happy; and so do I. Then we'll talk of that, for there we quite agree."

"Thank you," she said. "'Tis more to me than anything."

"And you'll feel a little kind to me for coming to it?"

"Yes, I will. I always feel kind to you, because I'm sorry for you."

"Then 'tis my turn to thank you; and from my heart I do. You know why I'm going to talk of Daniel?"

"For honesty, and because he deserves it."

"Yes--and for love, and because you wish it."

"That spoils all, Mr. Woodrow."

"Call me Hilary, or I'll not go on. There's one more thing you must remember--in fairness to me. All good comes from God--doesn't it? Grant Daniel is right about a God, and you'll grant all good comes from Him."

"Why can't you say that good things come out of us ourselves? So you have said before to-day."

"And so I say again. But we must think with your husband's mind over this. If I lift him up a bit--what then?"

"He'll thank God for certain."

"Exactly. He'll be the better for advancement--body and soul. He's got a bit peevish of late. Success will sweeten him and make him a gentler man."

"He feels he's not made enough of at Ruddyford."

"Well, I promote him. I answer his prayers."

"And perhaps his God will pay you well. For Dan's very likely right."

"That's the point--I'm coming to that. I expect no payment--not from God; because I happen to know that God is an idea and not a fact. Therefore----"

"What?"

He was silent awhile. Her face changed, and he saw that she had caught his meaning. He gave her no time to dwell upon it then, but plunged into another subject suddenly.

"Nothing can happen that is not for good--if your husband is right. Always remember that, Sarah Jane. God rules everything and rules everything wisely and perfectly. Therefore, whatever you do, you are working out His pattern--whether you are making the world happier or more miserable. Now I'll ask you one question about something altogether different. Last Sunday I read the story of David and Uriah and Uriah's wife. You know it?"

"Yes, of course."

"Have you ever thought about it?"

"Only to be terrible sorry for the woman. 'Tis awful to think what she must have suffered if she loved her husband."

"I'm always sorry for Uriah. 'Twas a cruel way out of the difficulty. If I had been David I should have lifted that noble soldier's head high in the world, and studied his ambitions, and striven to make his life happier."

"David knowed the man better maybe. He reckoned 'twould be safer to put him out of the way--perhaps even kinder, too--if he was such another as my man."

"Don't think it. David had merely to keep Uriah ignorant. Many things, not the least evil in themselves, only become so by the revelation of them. Prevent those who will think them wrong from hearing of them, and no harm is done. I love another man's wife. Well and good. Is that a crime? Can I help it by an effort of will? Suppose that other man's wife is sorry for me, and fond of me too? Suppose that she finds me interesting, and useful to enlarge her mind, and helpful to throw light on the difficulties of life owing to my long years of study? Is that wrong of her? Can she help it? Can you help it, Sarah Jane?"

"I'll never come to you no more, then. I can help that, anyway."

"No, you can't help even that. You must come to me if you love--Daniel. I'm his destiny. I'm the maker of his future. His light shall shine, and he shall be a happy man, and do good and great work in the world long after I'm dead and gone. I'm only the poor means, yet vital. A stone counts for less than the tool it sharpens; but the steel couldn't do its work without the stone. You--you are your husband's light, and his life, and his salvation. You shall give him his heart's desire if----"

He broke off, was silent a moment, then asked a question.

"What would Bathsheba have said if David had put it so?"

"Depends on the sort she was. Might was right for her, poor woman. She had no choice."

"She'd have spoken according to the reality of her love for Uriah," he said positively. "She'd have said, 'I am in the hands of my God, and if good things may come to my husband through me, 'tis my joy and glory as a loving wife to take them to him.' Can God do wrong?"

He stopped and looked at her.

Her bosom panted and she grew weeping-ripe.

"Never--never, wrong or right. 'Tis cruel to put it so. He'd rather cut my throat with his own hand. He'd----"

"But think--so much for so little. I want so little, and yet not little, for I ask what's worth more than all the money I've got in the world. Kiss me--once, Sarah Jane--only once--and I'll do more for your husband than his highest dreams or hopes. For love of him kiss me--not for love of me. Would I ask you to do an evil thing? Is it evil to put new life into a very sorrowful man and purify every drop of blood in an unhappy heart? Is it evil to make the sick whole again at a touch? Didn't Daniel's Lord and Master do as much a thousand times----?"

She stared and turned pale, save for her lips. Twin tears glittered in her eyes. He put his arm round her swiftly and kissed her. For the briefest moment he held her, then he leapt to his feet and drew a great breath.

"If I did that often, I, too, should believe in God!" he said.

A moment later he had hurried away, and she sat solitary and tearful there for nearly an hour.

Through intervals of wild uncertainty the things that he had spoken returned to her memory, and she clutched at them, like the drowning at straws. To her husband and his opinions she also turned. The outlook of neither man was admirable to her now. She sickened at both surveys, and wished herself a maiden again.

Then, with great yearning, she yearned after Daniel, and rose and hurried off to her home. Before she reached it her husband actually met her. Upon White Hill he came, with his face to Lydford, and when she stood by his side he stopped and helped himself from her basket.

"Brave berries, sure enough," he said. "I wish I could carry 'em back for 'e; but Tommy Bates runned over five minutes agone with a message from farmer. He wants to see me at once, and I mustn't waste a moment. Can't say what's in the wind, I'm sure."

He went his way, and Sarah Jane returned to Ruddyford. As she arrived, a little boy came out. Tommy Bates had just enjoyed a good tea, and the jam that had smeared his bread left many traces about his mouth.

"Mr. Woodrow catched sight of me in the street by the post-office, an' ordered me to come out-along and tell Mr. Brendon as he wanted him this very minute," explained the child.