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Chapters 15 and 16 · The Golden Arrow

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  Chapter fifteen and chapter sixteen of The Golden Arrow by Marry Webb. This LibriVox
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  recording is in the public domain. Read by Anne Ericsson, Toronto, Chapter
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  fifteen. Joe and Lily ran down the path like children. Below, in
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  a purple cup, rimming with golden moonlight and covered by a lid of sky
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  jeweled like the cover of a wasail cup, lay the small huddled village of
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  Sleep. The church tower, gray square, knowing all winds, all rains,
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  all snows, and regarding them. But as the beating of small birds
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  against its massive walls rose out of a tall rookery, a farm or two,
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  the vicarage, the school where Deborah and Joe learnt all their less useful
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  knowledge, the post office, and a few cottages. These were all the
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  human outposts between the empty valley and the lonely hills. When Joe and Lily
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  reached the bottom of the cup, they saw that even the bedroom windows were
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  all dark. They heard cows breathing inimically behind hedges, while the stream,
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  broad here with a sheen as of tapestry mirrored in armor, spoke with bated
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  breath to the rook burdened elms. They felt like conspirators. If the dog
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  at low levels barks, I shall shrike, said Lily. They crept by
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  the church. The clock ticked with loud, measured sounds over the intense,
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  rich quiet. Isn't it a randy, said Lily. It feels just as
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  if we were doing wrong I Joe spoke with relish, then added, but
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  we're not, for we're taken the bitter along with the sweet. It's folks
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  that want all ale and no work that do wrong. Eh, Dear Ami,
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  why did you go for to damp it all? Lily began to cry,
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  under the sense of reaction, the remembrance of yesterday, and the knowledge
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  that she could not, as she had always dreamed, take her hair down
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  and stand like a hair oil advertisement before her bridegroom, but must surreptitiously and
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  inglorious take it off. She hated her father, She mistrusted God. She
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  edged away from Joe the soft night, like a moth, flitted on over
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  the bloom and dust of the world. There now, Lil, don't take
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  on, said Joe. They came into the precincts of the honeysuckle. Joe
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  unlocked the door, lost the old fires out. Never mind, Lil you
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  see how quick, I'll start it and get you a cup of tea.
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  Lily sat by the stainless new kitchen table in the dark and sobbed the pig
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  outside, set up a yell for supper. Joe went to the back door,
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  older row. He shouted. Then he poured such a generous libation of
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  paraffin on the embers that there was a terrific roar. He was feeling very
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  much of a householder, and very full of admiration for his father in bearing
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  up so well for so many years. Now, Lil, he said,
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  looks a blaze. Kettle will boil in no time. Lily was slightly consoled.
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  She lingered over the tea, crumbling cake, drinking cup after cup.
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  Til Joe suggested that it was time to turn in. He locked up and
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  lit the candle. Lily did not move. I'm comfortable here. Cannot I
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  bide here? No, jos answered shortly. He too was tired, and
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  it seemed so unlike his dreams. Come on this minute, Lil. She
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  went upstairs. A bat flew round and round the room. Reality came upon
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  Lily unbearably. She remembered the funeral of a girlfriend and her baby. Oh,
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  there's a bit bat, she wailed, It's a sign, Joe,
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  I'm feared, Leave me go down to the kitchen. I want to go
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  on as I be. Why should I slave and get ugly and sickly for
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  the sake of brats. I dunna want what's the good? What was I
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  born for? Look how father treats me. I want to enjoy myself.
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  I dunna want to do things, nor put up with things, not for
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  you nor anybody. Oh, why did I ever take your Joe arden,
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  and me so young and all, and you so set? She flung her
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  cotton gloves on the chest of draw and threw Lucy's pincushion out of the window.
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  The shepherd's fast, vicarious sorrow came like a cloud over the midsummer passion.
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  In Joe's face. He looked more like his father than ever. Now.
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  Now, he whispered, you're tired, little and see here, Let's
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  get these fanglements off and this pretty hair down off, said Lily hysterically,
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  and then you'll have a good long sleep and be right as a trivet.
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  He helped her as his mother might have done, with the sexless solicitude that
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  love brings. When the beloved cries from the dark, he patted her as
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  he did the lambs there, He said, Now for that pretty nightgown,
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  where is it? Top of my box? Lily spoke with small sobs.
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  That's it. Now you go to sleep. We'll have a rare day tomorrow.
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  Sit by me, implored Lily, and don't let the bit bats come.
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  This confidence in him was the sweetest thing life had yet given him.
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  Sitting on Lily's walk through the long hours with a small ringed hand in his
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  he was content. He watched Lily's face growing clearer as dawn came up,
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  impearl armor from beyond the ranges. The honeysuckle scent surged in the lattice.
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  His arm grew stiffer. It'd be a poor thing if I couldn't a watch
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  with her one hour, he murmured, unconsciously, scriptural, I mind what
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  father said and what I never saw till now, For I'm agawk and that's
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  the truth. If there's any one in the Earl besides him that first said
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  it, as can say, this is my body broken for you. It's
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  a woman to the man she set her heart on. Joe was unaware that
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  Lily had barely begun to cultivate a heart end of chapter fifteen. Chapter sixteen.
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  Well, I wonder what they're doing down at sleep, said missus Arden,
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  as they sat down to breakfast on Monday morning. My word, deb
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  you be togged up. You've waved your hair. Deborah blushed. I won't
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  say, as it donna suit you. You look real nice, not like
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  yourself at all, she added with maternal candor. But I do wonder if
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  they're hitting it off all right down there, well, mother, said John
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  slowly, Since we can't know, why do you wear it? Hark at
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  him, We can't know, missus Arden spoke tartly, for she felt flat
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  after the festive weekend and irritated at all the accumulated washing up, with no
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  Deborah to help her. John's placidity brought down a storm on him. Hark
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  at him, we can't know. Speak for your own ignorant self, John,
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  as can't see a thing nearer than the color on the farthest off hills.
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  And that's not real, for it goes when you come up to them.
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  Don't speak for me, as maybe knows us two three things you dunna.
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  She snapped her lips and thought of Friday at sleep, John met this
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  squarely as he met all storms. Well, well, mother, he said,
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  if I help you to dry them plates by and by no doubt my
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  ignorance will mend rover. He was gone straight lean, dreaming on the far
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  heights. The sheep on their lawns near by left their grazing to follow,
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  pattering after him with an increasing sound as stray ones joined the flock, until
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  he walked in muffled thunder of little feet, and looked from a distance like
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  when pursued by large snow flakes. Well, mother, I'll be going now,
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  said Deborah. Missus Arden looked at her face lit as John would have
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  said for marvels. She felt a crisis in the air. Deb she said,
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  bringing from her store the best wisdom that she had, as she would
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  have brought her cranberry jelly dunighive Till you're asked, I asked many and many
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  a time, and then only through the gold ring and cherry like. Deborah
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  went out, overwhelmed that her secret had been discovered, ashamed, ecstatic,
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  with a stress of joy in the high places of her being, like the
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  galloping of the ponies on the high sky line. She had no more of
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  the recommended cheriness in her than there was in the bloom of the hills,
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  the burning sunlight, the eternal song of the rock springs that never failed.
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  She reached the signpost an hour or too soon, and sat down beneath its
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  white arms, merged in rolling seas of heather, down its sleep. Just
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  as she reached the signpost, Joe awoke, filled with a great new sense
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  of well being. Lil, he whispered, it's gone seven, we'll be
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  late. Lily slipped on. Joe looked at her pale face, blew under
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  the eyes, at the brown lashes still bright with half dried tears. He
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  looked at the lilies, and the jug, the tallest of them, was
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  snapped and rested its faded head on the soap dish. He felt that he
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  was to blame for it. If he had known the word, he would
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  have called himself an iconoclast. He crept softly downstairs and lit the fire,
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  pottering up and down with cups and bread and butter till the kettle boiled.
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  I did not wake her, and she worn out, He thought, all
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  my fault too. But there deb will be that cut up of her,
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  not up to time he hesitated, My lad, he adjured himself, turn
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  your back to the storm. For if Lil was touchy yesterday when I'd set
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  up all night along of her, what'll she be now? He heaved a
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  sigh of foreboding. But he had much to learn on Lily's tired face.
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  When he apologetically woke her, broke a smile so bewildering that he blinked,
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  Why Lil? She continued to look at him softly, Lil, he said,
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  do you feel bad? No? Joe? Be you sleepy? No,
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  Joe, be you wishing you was back along of Eli. No what
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  then, Lil? I dunno, well, said Joe, basking in the
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  unexpected warmth and doubting the great doctrine of retributive reward and punishment. Well,
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  all I can say is whatever you're thinking, it suits you, Lil.
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  And now here's your breakfast, and then we must be off. And we've
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  got a whole day, he added, delightedly, a whole day afore us
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  I wish we needn't go, said Lil. Not go? Why to goodness?
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  Not? I don't know what to talk about to deb Lil replied,
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  girls talk is so dull. Joe laughed, till the teacups rattled in their
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  saucers, and by nine o'clock, when they should have been two miles away,
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  they started. End of Chapter sixteen,