Love among the Haystacks by DH Lawrence. Part 6
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At last the horse came to a stop. Paula half fell off its back, and Maurice quickly jumped down beside her. They were both laughing, and excited by their wild ride. And suddenly, he had her in his arms, and was kissing her. They did not move for some time. Then, silently, arm in arm, they walked to the haystacks.
The sky was now dark and heavy with cloud. Maurice looked up, and felt a drop of rain on his face’
‘It’s going to rain,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to put the cover on the new stack.’
He left Paula, and went to the shed in the corner of the field. He pulled out the big heavy cover and pulled it across the ground to the stack.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Paula.
‘Put it over the top of the stack, to keep the rain out.’
‘Ah!’ she cried. ‘Up there!’
Rain began to fall. It was very dark between the two great buildings of hay. Maurice put the long ladder up the side of the stack, and Paula stared up at the black wall of hay above her.
‘You carry the cover up there?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ said Maurice.
‘I must help you,’ she said.
And she did. Maurice went first up the ladder, carrying one end of the cover, and Paula climbed up behind him, carrying the other end.
While they were climbing up the ladder, a light stopped on the road by the top field. It was Geoffrey on his bicycle, coming to help his brother with the cover for the haystack. Silently, he pushed his bicycle across the field to the shed. He was afraid to call out. If his brother was with the German girl, he did not want to surprise them together in the dark.
There was no one in the shed. He walked across to the stacks and was nearly there when he heard a noise. The ladder was slowly falling down the side of the stack. It hit the ground with a bang.
‘What was that?’ he heard Maurice’s voice, from the top of the stack.
‘Something fell,’ came the voice of the German girl.
Maurice lay down and looked over the side of the stack. ‘It was the ladder!’ he said. ‘We knocked it down, when we were pulling the cover up.’
‘‘We’re in prison up here?’ the girl said, excited.
‘Yes. But if I shout, they’ll hear at the vicar’s house.’
‘Oh no,’ she said quickly.
‘I don’t want to,’ he replied, with a short laugh.
He began to pull the cover across the top of the stack. Down below, Geoffrey moved quietly round the corner of the second haystack. He did not want them to see him. He heard Maurice’s voice again.
‘One good thing, we won’t get wet. We can sit under the cover.’
‘Maurice!’ said the girl. She sounded worried.
‘What is it?’ he said gently. ‘You’ll be all right. Look, the cover’s on now. We can sit under this corner.’
‘Will I be all right, Maurice?’
‘Of course you will. But do you want to go back to the vicar’s house? Shall I shout for somebody?’
‘No. No, I don’t want to go back.’
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘Yes, yes, I am sure.’ She laughed.
Geoffrey turned away at the last words, and walked back to the shed. The rain was now falling heavily. He felt miserable, and lonely.
In the shed he took the lamp off his bicycle and shone it round the walls. All the tools lay in one corner, and there was a big wooden box, and a deep bed of hay.
He put the lamp out and threw himself down on the hay. ‘I’ll put the ladder up for them later,’ he thought. He lay there, thinking about his brother’s luck, and the German girl, with her strange ways and her quick, bright laugh. ‘Why does she like Maurice? Why doesn’t she like me? No woman will ever love me,’ he thought miserably. ‘I’m too slow, I don’t have the words.’