Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (16 page)

"Thought better of it?" he said.

Helen said slowly, "Why did you ask me for bread?"

"Why?" He looked her up and down. "To mend my boots with, of course."

She looked at his boots.

"You silly thing," grinned the boy.

A faint color came under her skin. "I'm sorry for being stupid. I suppose you're hungry."

"As a hunter. But there's no call to trouble you. I'll be where I can get bread, and meat too, in forty minutes. Good-by, child."

"No," said Helen. "Please don't go. I'd like to give you some bread."

"Oh, all right," said the boy. "What frightened you? Did you think I was a scamp?"

"I wasn't frightened," said Helen.

"Don't tell me," mocked the boy. "You couldn't get a word out."

"I wasn't frightened."

"You thought I was a bad lot. You don't know I'm not one now."

Helen's eyes filled with tears. She turned away quickly. "I'll get you your bread," she said.

"You are a silly, aren't you?" said the boy as she disappeared.

Before long she came back with half a loaf in one hand, and something in the other which she kept behind her back.

"Thanks," said the boy, taking the bit of loaf. "What else have you got there?"

"It's something better than bread," said Helen slowly.

"Well, let's have a look at it."

She took her hand from behind her, and offered him seven ears of wheat. They were heavy with grain, and bowed on their ripe stems.

"Is this what you call better than bread?" he asked.

"It is better."

"Oh, all right. I sha'n't eat it though--not all at once."

"No," said Helen, "keep it till you're hungry. The grains go quite a long way when you're hungry."

"I'll eat one a year," said the boy, "and then they'll go so far they'll outlast me my lifetime."

"Yes," said Helen, "but the bread will be gone in forty minutes. And then you'll be where you can get meat."

"You funny thing," said the boy, puzzled because she never smiled.

"Where can you get meat?" she asked.

"In a boat, fishing for rabbits."

But she took no notice of the rabbits. She said eagerly, "A boat? are you going in a boat?"

"Yes."

"Are you a sailor?"

"You've hit it."

"You've seen the sea! you've been on the sea!--sailors do that..."

"Oh, dear no," said the boy, "we sail three times round the duckpond and come home for tea."

Helen hung her head. The boy put his hand up to his mouth and watched her over it.

"Well," he said presently, "I must get along to Pagham." He stuck the little sheaf of wheat through the hole in his cap, and it bobbed like a ruddy-gold plume over his ear. Then he felt in his pocket and after some fumbling got hold of what he wanted and pulled it out. "Here you are, child," he said, "and thank you again."

He put his present into her hand and swung off whistling. He turned once to wave to her, and the corn in his cap nodded with its weight and his light gait. She stood gazing till he was out of sight, and then she looked at what he had given her. It was a shell.

She had heard of shells, of course, but she had never seen one. Yet she knew this was no English shell. It was as large as the top of a teacup, but more oval than round. Over its surface, like pearl, rippled waves of sea-green and sea-blue, under a luster that was like golden moonlight on the ocean. She could not define or trace the waves of color; they flowed in and out of each other with interchangeable movement. One half of the outer rim, which was transparently thin and curled like the fantastic edge of a surf wave, was flecked with a faint play of rose and cream and silver, that melted imperceptibly into the moonlit sea. When she turned the shell over she found that she could not see its heart. The blue-green side of the shell curled under like a smooth billow, and then broke into a world of caves, and caves within caves, whose final secret she could not discover. But within and within the color grew deeper and deeper, bottomless blues and unfathomable greens, shot with such gleams of light as made her heart throb, for they were like the gleams that shoot through our dreams, the light that just eludes us when we wake.

She went into the mill, trembling from head to foot. She was not conscious of moving, but she found herself presently standing by the grinding stones, with sound rushing through her and white dust whirling round her. She gazed and gazed into the labyrinth of the shell as though she must see to its very core; but she could not. So she unfastened her blue gown and laid the shell against her young heart. It was for the first time of so many times that I know not whether when, twenty years later, she did it for the last time, they outnumbered the silver hairs among her black ones. And the silver by then were uncountable. Yet on the day when Helen began her twenty years of lonely listening--

(But having said this, Martin Pippin grasped the rope just above Jennifer's hand, and pulled it with such force that the swing, instead of swinging back and forth, as a swing should, reeled sideways so that the swinger had much ado to keep her seat.

Jennifer: Heaven help me!

Martin: Heaven help ME! I need its help more sorely than you do.

Jennifer: Oh, you should be punished, not helped!

Martin: I have been punished, and the punished require help more than censure, or scorn, or anger, or any other form of righteousness.

Jennifer: Who has punished you? And for what?

Martin: You, Mistress Jennifer. For my bad story.

Jennifer: I do not remember doing so. The story is only begun. I am sure it will be a very good story.

Martin: Now you are compassionate, because I need comfort. But the truth is that, good or bad, you care no more for my story. For I saw a tear of vexation come into your eye.

Jennifer: It was not vexation. Not exactly vexation. And doubtless Helen will have experiences which we shall all be glad to hear. But all the same I wish--

Martin: You wish?

Jennifer: That she was not going to grow old in her loneliness. Because all lovers are young.

Martin: You have spoken the most beautiful of all truths. Does the grass grow high enough by the swing for you to pluck me two blades?

Jennifer: I think so. Yes. What do you want with them?

Martin: I want but one of them now. You shall only give me the other if, at the end of my tale, you agree that its lovers are as green as this blade and that.)

On the day (resumed Martin) when Helen began her lonely listening of heart and ears betwixt the seashell and the millstones of her dreams, there was not, dear Mistress Jennifer, a silver thread in her black locks to vex you with. For a girl of seventeen is but a child. Yet old enough to begin spinning the stuff of the spirit...

"My boy!--

"Oh, how strange it was, your coming like that, so suddenly. Before I opened the door I stood there guessing...And how could I have guessed this? Did you guess too on the other side?"

"No, not much. I thought it might be a cross old woman. What did YOU guess?"

"Oh, such stupid things. Kings and knights and even women. And it was you!"

"And it was you!"

"Suppose I'd been a cross old woman?"

"Suppose I'd been a king?"

"And you were just my boy."

"And you--my sulky girl."

"Oh, I wasn't sulky. Oh, didn't you understand? How could I speak to you? I couldn't hear you, I couldn't see you, even!"

"Can you see me now?"

She was lying with her cheek against his heart, and she turned her face suddenly inwards, because she saw him bend his head, and the sweetness of his first kiss was going to be more than she could bear.

"Why don't you look up, you silly child? Why don't you look at me, dear?"

"How can I yet? Can I ever? It's so hard looking in a person's eyes. But I am looking at you, I AM, though you can't see me."

"Then tell me what color my eyes are."

"They're gray-green, and your hair is dark red, a sort of chestnut but a little redder and rough over your forehead, and your nose is all over freckles with very very snub--"

(Martin: Heaven help you, Mistress Jennifer!

Jennifer: W-w-w-w-why, Master Pippin?

Martin: Were you not about to fall again?

Jennifer: N-n-n-n-no. I-I-I-I-I--

Martin: I see you are as firm as a rock. How could I have been so deceived?)

He shook her a little in his arms, saying: "How rude you are to my nose. I wish you'd look up."

"No, not yet...presently. But you, did you look at me?"

"Didn't you see me look?"

"When?"

"As soon as you opened the door."

"What did you see?"

"The loveliest thing I'd ever seen."

"I'm not really--am I?"

"I used to dream about you at night on my watches. I made you up out of bits of the night--white moonlight, black clouds, and stars. Sometimes I would take the last cloud of sunset for your lips. And the wind, when it was gentle, for your voice. And the movements of the sea for your movements, and the rise and fall of it for your breathing, and the lap of it against the boat for your kisses. Oh, child, look up!..."

She looked up....

"What's your name?"

"Helen."

"I can't hear you."

"Helen. Say it."

"I'm trying to."

"I can't hear YOU now. And I want to hear your voice say my name. Oh, my boy, do say it, so that I can remember it when you're away."

"I can't say it, child. Why didn't you tell me your name?"

"What is yours?"

"I'm trying to tell you."

"Please--please!"

"I'm trying with all my might. Listen with all yours."

"I am listening. I can't hear anything. Yet I'm listening so hard that it hurts. I want to say your name over and over and over to myself when you're away. CAN'T you say it louder?"

"No, it's no good."

"Oh, why didn't you tell me, boy?"

"Oh, child, why didn't you tell me?"

"Is my bread sweet to you?"

"The sweetest I ever ate. I ate it slowly, and took each bit from your hand. I kept one crust."

"And my corn."

"Oh, your corn! that is everlasting. You have sown your seed. I have eaten a grain, and it bore its harvest. One by one I shall eat them, and every grain will bear its full harvest. You have replenished the unknown earth with fields of golden corn, and set me walking there for ever."

"And you have thrown golden light upon strange waters, and set me floating there for ever. Oh, you on my earth and I on your ocean, how shall we meet?"

"Your corn is my waters, my waters are your corn. They move on one wave. Oh, child, we are borne on it together, for ever."

"But how you teased me!"

"I couldn't help it."

"You and your boats and your duckponds."

"It was such fun. You were so serious. It was so easy to tease you."

"Why did you put your hand over your mouth?"

"To keep myself from--"

"Laughing at me?"

"Kissing you. You looked so sorry because sailors only sail round duckponds, when you thought they always sailed out by the West and home by the East. You believed the duckponds."

"I didn't really."

"For a moment!"

"I felt so stupid."

"You blushed."

"Oh, did I?"

"A very little. Like the inside of a shell. I'd always tease you to make you blush like that. Don't you ever smile or laugh, child?"

"You might teach me to. I haven't had the sort of life that makes one smile and laugh. Oh, but I could. I could smile and laugh for you if you wished. I could do anything you wanted. I could be anything you wanted."

"Shall I make something of you? What shall it be?"

"I don't care, so long as it is yours. Oh, make something of me. I've been lonely always. I don't want to be any more. I want to be able to come to you when I please, not only because I need so much to come, but because you need me to come. Can you make me sure that you need me? When no one has ever needed you, how can you believe...? Oh, no, no! don't look sorry. I do believe it. And will you always stand with me here in the loneliness that has been so dark? Then it won't be dark any more. Why do two people make light? One alone only wanders and holds out her hand and finds no one-- nothing. Sometimes not even herself. Will you be with me always?"

"Always."

"Why?"

"Because I love you."

"No," said Helen, "but because I love you."

"Tell me--WERE you frightened?"

"Of you? when I saw you at the door?"

"Yes. Were you?"

"Oh, my boy."

"But didn't you think I might be a scamp?"

"I didn't think about it at all. It wouldn't have made any difference."

"Then why were you as mum as a fish?"

"Oh, my boy."

"Why? why? why?--if you weren't frightened? Of course you were frightened."

"No, no, I wasn't. I told you I wasn't. Why don't you believe me?-- Oh, you're laughing at me again."

"You're blushing again."

"It's so easy to make me ashamed when I've been silly. Of course you know now why I couldn't speak. You know what took my words away. Didn't you know then?"

"How could I know? How could I dream it would be as quick for you as for me?"

"One can dream anything...oh!"

"What is it, child?" For she had caught at her heart.

"Dreams...and not truth. Oh, are you here? Am I? Where are you-- where are you? Hold me, hold me fast. Don't let it be just empty dreams."

"Hush, hush, my dear. Dreams aren't empty. Dreams are as near the truth as we can come. What greater truth can you ever have than this? For as men and women dream, they drop one by one the veils between them and the mystery. But when they meet they are shrouded in the veils again, and though they long to strip them off, they cannot. And each sees of each but dimly the truth which in their dreams was as clear as light. Oh, child, it's not our dreams that are our illusions."

"No," she whispered. "But still it is not enough. Not quite enough for the beloved that they shall dream apart and find their truths apart. In life too they must touch, and find the mystery together. Though it be only for one eternal instant. Touch me not only in my dreams, but in life. Turn life itself into the dream at last. Oh, hold me fast, my boy, my boy..."