is struck, she knew what it was she wanted. Luke’s hand, just to touch his hand: that would allay the agony that tore her, the pain that gnawed and could not be located, that was in all her body and yet nowhere.
She knew now. She wanted Luke. All of him, and to be her own. And the torrent of her passion, sweeping headlong, bore her on in imagination past every obstacle between her and her desire. The thought of Dussie was like a straw tumbled in a cataract. Let the whole world be swamped and broken in this cataract, so it carry her to her goal. The Ironside in her blood was up. Like her father who had swept the proud Leggatt beauty on to marriage, masterful until he had his will; like her Aunt Sally who had defied opinion and eloped with the man who roused her passion; Martha was ready to spurn the whole world and herself as well, in the savage imperious urge of her desire. Leggatt respectability! − She wanted Luke with an animal Ironside ardour. And was he not already half in love with her? − or more than half. ‘I could make him love me,’ she thought; and the sense of her own power rushed over her with a wild black sweetness she could not resist.
A curious part to be cast for a Beatrice. Martha was going out of her rôle. But in truth she was neither Beatrice, nor Artemis, but Martha Ironside, a woman: of like dimensions, senses, affections, passions, with other women. If you prick her, will she not bleed? And if you wrong her −
But it was a little later till Martha began to consider whether she had not been wronged.
Morning came at last, and she could rise without exciting comment.
The day was Sunday. Impossible to see Luke that day. She passed the time in restless walking, and had one thought only: ‘I can make him love me.’ She had never had a strong sense of the complex social inter-relationships of life: now it was gone completely.
At night she slept in the field. Slept! − Sleep was past imagining. There was no darkness; and the diffusion of light was strange and troubling. In the very early hours of morning she slipped from bed, put on her clothes, and went to the wood.
There the light was stranger still. The wood was bathed in it; a wood from another world; as though someone had enclosed it long ago in a volatile spirit, through which as through a subtly altering medium one saw its boughs and boles. She was almost afraid to enter in; and when, ahead through the glimmering gloom, she had a swift glimpse of fire, as though a match had been struck and extinguished, she shook with an undefined terror and plunged hastily in another direction.
Roaming thus through the wood, she came in sight of Luke himself, standing among the trees. She knew of his night-wandering habits, but nonetheless at finding him there just then, an intoxication seized her. Her blood raced; her heart thumped; she could hardly stand: but recovering herself she went straight towards him. ‘I will have what I want. I can make him give −’ But as she glided on among the boles of the pine-trees, and he saw her coming and stood watching where he was, there was no alteration in her that he could have seen. The boiling fermentation of her passion was all within; and her habit of self-control and silence was too strong to be broken soon or lightly. The Martha who advanced through the strange shimmering night came tranquilly, stole in an exquisite quietude to shatter and plunder and riot. In her heart was havoc, in face and movement a profundity of peace. Luke, watching her coming, did not stir. She stood beside him, and neither he nor she spoke a syllable. They did not look at each other but at the night. Moon and afterglow and the promise of dawning were dissolved together in one soft lustre. They stood side by side and looked at it. After a long time Martha swayed a little, made a blundering half-step backwards, as though numbed with standing and seeking the support of a tree. He put out an arm and she swayed against it; and stood so for some minutes longer; and imperceptibly her head drew closer until she laid it at last upon his shoulder and looked up full, for the first time that night, in his face. Her whole being cried, ‘Take me, take me.’ But she stood so still, so poised, that it did not occur to him that she was offering herself. After a while he stooped and kissed her on the lips. There was no passion in the kiss. It was grave, a reluctance, diffident and abashed, as of a worshipper who trembles lest his offering pollute the shrine. But the flame that burned within herself was fierce enough to transfigure the kiss. It seemed to blaze upon her lips and run like fire through all her body. She closed her eyes under its ecstasy; and opening them again, slipped from his arm and went swiftly away through the wood. He did not follow her, nor did she look back, nor had either of them spoken.
Martha did not perceive that she had not had her desire. She was drunk with the sense of her own power over Luke and gulped more and more of the perilous draught until she was incapable of distinguishing any other taste. She lived only for seeing him again, but would not place herself in his path. It was three days later that, walking along the street, she heard his voice behind her and turned. The look she gave him was a direct continuance of the look with which she had left him, as though all that had passed between had not existed and they were still at their moment of exquisite communion in beauty. But he was not aware of the look. He had been much occupied in the interval and plunged at once into the theme that engrossed him.
‘Tremendous news, Marty. If you have tears, prepare, etcetera.’
And suddenly very grave:
‘Marty, how long have you known me? − four years, is it? And have you seen me in all that time accomplish anything? Lord, I’ve strewn the street with corpses! − things I’ve begun and cast away unfinished. And you’ve seen it and never said a word. Why didn’t you tell me about it earlier?’
‘Tell you,’ stammered Martha. How could she have told what she had not perceived?
‘You should have stabbed me awake to it sooner. There I’ve been, junketting at a thousand occupations, while you walk steadily on at one. So that’s why I’m going away.’
‘Away.’
‘Imphm. A spell of hard labour. Hard labour and prison fare. It’s you that’s sending me away, you know. Aren’t you upset by the responsibility?’
‘Sending you away,’ she said again. She had not fully grasped his meaning. He always went away in summer; but, was there more in this? And her responsibility? Wildly self-conscious, remembering the night in the wood, she queried: Was he fleeing her? Afraid of her power? And black exultation shook her. But he was speaking − she forced herself to listen.
‘We’re bound for Liverpool, Marty. I’ve just completed the purchase of a practice − a fine slummy practice, plenty of work and little pay. I’m leaving the University − old Dunster has his hanky out.’
She stared at him without speaking. Her mind seemed to have stopped working.
‘Got a shock?’ he said, looking down on her. ‘We’re giving shocks all round, it seems.’
‘It’s so − sudden.’
‘Yes. Well, no. Not exactly. It’s been under consideration for awhile, but we didn’t want to say anything till it was all settled.’
She asked,
‘Does Dussie know?’
‘Dussie? − Rather!’
‘I mean, did she know? − before.’
‘Before? − When? − But of course she knew. A man doesn’t do that sort of thing without consulting his wife.’
He was still unaware that Martha loved him. Rapidly though his education had progressed in the last few months, he was still able to believe that a woman could be all spirit. He had told Dussie, with a certain defiant
