Aura"s eyebrows almost met in a sudden frown. "You don"t mean that they will refuse----"
"I don"t know nothin", Miss H"Aura," interrupted Martha; "only what I hear tell. I don"t "old with baptism, nor yet with burials, specially the penny things they has hereabout. I don"t want no halfpence to help bury me. I ain"t like the folk nowadays, as is that restless they don"t know where they"ll lie, much less where they"ll go to when they"re dead. But I do hear it said that there"ll be a fuss, becos the Calvinists wouldn"t baptize the babby, hoping to get hold o" the name o" the father, for it _was_ a sin and a shame, her not bein", as it were, all there, an" now the rector"ll object to a unbaptized, except in the odd corner where they puts the "fellow deceased." No, it ain"t the sort of thing for you to be mixing yourself up with, Miss H"Aura.
Them lovely lilies"d be ashamed o" your taking them to that gurl Gwen."
Aura bent her head caressingly to the great bunch of gold-rayed j.a.panese lilies she held.
"I am taking them to a dead baby," she said quietly, "the lilies won"t be ashamed of it."
And with that she turned on her heel superbly, leaving Martha speechless, to watch the blue linen smock cross the lawn and disappear behind the rhododendrons. A glimmer of it showed like a bit of heaven among the birchwood beyond the bridge ere the older woman found her tongue, and going over to where Adam was weeding beetroot confided in him.
"You mark my word, Adam Bate," she said solemnly, "Miss H"Aura" (the _h_ was always added on such occasions as a point of ceremony) ""ll marry the wrong man, sure as eggs is eggs."
Adam looked up aghast. "The wrong "un? Why, sakes me, she ain"t got never one at all; and sorry be, for "twud be a right sight to see "un billin" and cooin" "mongst the yapple trees, as true lovers shud."
Martha"s repressed indignation found instant outlet. "Adam Bate," she remarked severely, "you "em"s got a low depraved mind, that"s what"s the matter with you. Miss H"Aura ain"t o" the cuddlin" sort, no, nor me neither, as you know to your cost, or shud do by this time. No!
Miss H"Aura, bless her dear heart, has such a outlook as no man can ever reach to it truly; an" when one is a-lookin" down from a "eight, it"s hard to tell on what rung o" the ladder a feller"s standing.
There"s always somethin" in the way o" right seein", either "is body or "is head, specially if it has good looks."
"Not if "e be low "nuff, Martha, woman," replied Adam, stooping closer to his beetroot, some of which seemed to get into his sunburnt ears.
"When she be so high as a star, and he be a creepin" wum in the yerth, an" there never cud be no count of bein" ekal----"
"Then "e"d better leave coortin" alone," interrupted Martha uncompromisingly, "seein" "e cud never clasp her, try "e ever so hard.
But head or heart, you mark my word, when Miss H"Aura"s time comes, him as cares least, an" lays least finger to her, is the one for that prize. An" there won"t be no billin" and cooin" among your yapple trees, Mr. Bate--so there!"
Adam stood looking after her admiringly. ""Twarn"t so bad if it hadn"t bin for that trick o" blushin"; but there, beet is beet, and what"s in the hands comes out in the face. I"ll tell her so when I gives it in fur bilin"."
With which remark he chuckled, and settled down to his weeding once more. For fifteen years he had made ineffectual attempts to court Martha, and nothing now would have surprised or taken him aback more than the faintest success.
On her side, Martha kept up the conflict with external spirit, but with a certain sneaking admiration also for his pertinacity. As she went back to her kitchen she also chuckled. "Blushed like a babby,"
she murmured, "an" he wrinkled like a bad batch o" bread. I"ll tell him that there beetroot"s bled when he brings it in."
Aura by this time was out of the woods and cresting the bracken-patched hillside, the silly Welsh sheep, alarmed even at her gracious presence, fleeing from the tussocks and rocks far ahead of her with grunts and whistles such as no other sheep in the world can make.
The lilies on her arm brought a pa.s.sing sweetness into the fresh morning air, and as she carried them her thoughts were busy with what Martha had said to her. What did it all mean? Her arms, which in all their young and vigorous life had never held a child, closed tenderly round the flowers as if they had been the body of the dead baby. Poor little babe! to come into this world unsought, to leave it to be quarrelled over. The motherhood which was hers by right of her s.e.x wakened in her strongly; she laid her soft cheek caressingly once more on a white petal, then, in sudden impulse, she kissed it softly. Poor little childie! But Gwen had loved it, and it had not minded being unbaptized. It had not even minded its fatherlessness. Neither had Gwen; but then she, poor soul, was what people called wanting. Wanting in what? Not in motherhood, certainly.
Aura had often seen the two playing together on the sunny banks about the shepherd"s cottage; the toddling baby with its fists full of its mother"s curly hair, both faces aglow with laughter and with love.
And now the child was dead. Poor Gwen!
Aura, accustomed to look at Nature with clear eyes, and utterly untouched by conventional conclusions, felt a wellspring of sympathy rise up in her heart. Such a pretty baby, too, as it had been! More than once she had paused in pa.s.sing to watch it and wish that she too had so delightful a plaything, thinking that with so abiding an interest in them, the hills and woods, the streams and flowers of her secluded valley would suffice for her life.
And now it was dead!
Her eyes, blurred with tears, made a misty halo round the cottage, tucked out of man"s way in a little hollow among the hills. A desolate-looking little cottage, gardenless, fenceless, a mere human habitation set down beside a spouting spring, which day and night, night and day, splashed on in high-pitched, feeble, querulous iteration.
As she came up to it a black shadow showed on the doorstep, and, through the mist of her unshed tears, she recognised it as the figure of a man. It was, indeed, the Reverend Morris Pugh coming away from consolation. He paused at the sight of her, as any man well might, and over his keen Celtic face swept a wave of enthusiastic approval. His hat was off, his smile shone out brilliantly.
"Excuse me," he said, "I am the minister, and this is kind indeed; those beautiful lilies, they will surely comfort the poor mother, and teach her to trust in the mercy of Him who considers the flowers of the fields--it--it is a Christian act." There were almost tears in his voice.
Aura looked at him and smiled.
"But I am not a Christian. I brought them for the baby," she said simply.
Morris Pugh"s eyes narrowed. "I am sorry; and they can do no good to the child. G.o.d has taken him. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay. Gwen has to learn her lesson, poor child."
"You mean,"--Aura"s face had grown a little pale,--"that the child"s death is--is a punishment?"
"It is done in love--the Lord loveth whom He chasteneth," he replied gently.
"And you have told her so?"
Something in the girl"s tone made him reply on the instant: "She did not need the telling; she knew it already."
"She knew it already!"
Aura pa.s.sed him like a flame of fire, and entered the cottage eager with her purely human consolation; but the note of preparation within struck a chill to her very soul.
Old Mrs. Evans, Gwen"s mother, sat in a black dress with her Bible before her at the receipt of custom. The door between the living-room and the bedroom was half open, and through it, lying on a table covered with a white sheet, was a tiny, still, uncovered form in a white gown. Aura could see the little dimpled hands folded so sedately on the little breast; it sent a great pang through her to think of them so quiet.
And Gwen? What of her?
"I have brought these lilies," she said almost apologetically to stout Mrs. Evans; "I should like to give them to Gwen, if I may."
Mrs. Evans"s English being of the smallest, she sighed, rose, and saying "Pliss you, come this way," ushered Aura with her armful of lilies into the bedroom. In the further corner of it, her ap.r.o.n over her face, sat Gwen rocking herself to and fro, and muttering under her breath. She drew down the ap.r.o.n at her mother"s touch and quick sentence in Welsh, and so sat staring across the body of the dead baby at Aura. Her face was more vacant than distraught, its pink and white prettiness seeming to hide the tragedy of grief which must surely lie beneath it.
"I have brought these," said Aura, laying one of the lilies beside the dead child.
With a cry, fierce as a wild animal, Gwen sprang to her feet, s.n.a.t.c.hed at the flower, tore it shred from shred, and flung them to the corners of the room.
"Stand back, Englishwoman!" she cried in Welsh, her eyes blazing with sudden, wild, distracted pa.s.sion. "Leave us alone! We are accursed!
accursed! we want no flowers here." Then she clung to her mother and wailed, "Oh! mother, take it away--take the child away--I do not want it; it is accursed. G.o.d has taken it away, and it must go. Let her take it if she wants it; take it away and bury it out of sight. I must forget my sin--my sin--my sin! _Beth n"ai! Beth n"ail Gwae fi! beth n"ai!_"
The mingled sobbing of the two women, roused in an instant to the very highest pitch of unrestrained emotion, smote on Aura"s ears turning her to veritable stone. She understood enough to grasp the drift of what she heard, and with a quick pulse of pity for the quiet rest thus rudely disturbed, she bent and kissed the clay-cold child, then turned without a word and left the room. Not to be long alone, however.
The elder woman, recovering her self-control as quickly as she had lost it, followed her into the sunshine beyond the low door, and arrested her with mingled tears and apologies. Gwen, she said in quaintest English and Welsh, was a mad _iolin_--just a silly nonsense--though it was just true the child wa.s.s better to die.
It was not as the "nother one--here she looked sorrowfully at a five-year-old who was busy making mud pies by the waterspout, and shook her head--that one wa.s.s two shillin" and sixpence a week. Yess, indeed! because her daughter wa.s.s for ever in the good shentleman placiss; but Gwen--silly nonsense, Gwen--she could pay nothing. She was not all wise----
Aura, staring out into the sunshine which happed the whole beautiful world-expanse of hill and wood in its magic mantle, looked in the woman"s really grief-stricken face, in slow, almost incredulous wonder.
"You mean that--that--" she hesitated, pointing to the child--"that your other daughter in service pays you half a crown?"
Something in her voice made Mrs. Evans mop her eyes with her ap.r.o.n still more strenuously. "It is the price," she protested; "there is many askiss three shillin". Mrs. Jhones and she have two, an" Mrs.
Daviss, an"----"
"And Gwen gave nothing!"
The words seemed to Aura to burden the sunshine; she turned swiftly to go, feeling the need of escape.
"But the ladiess," sobbed Mrs. Evans, "would be given a shillings or so when they be comning. Yess, indeed! a shillings or so."