Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard by Eleanor Farjeon (best new books to read txt) 📕

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