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diff --git a/11876-0.txt b/11876-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..990009a --- /dev/null +++ b/11876-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14884 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11876 *** + +THE THREE SISTERS + +BY + +MAY SINCLAIR + +1914 + + + + + + + +THE THREE SISTERS + +I + + +North of east, in the bottom, where the road drops from the High Moor, +is the village of Garth in Garthdale. + +It crouches there with a crook of the dale behind and before it, +between half-shut doors of the west and south. Under the mystery and +terror of its solitude it crouches, like a beaten thing, cowering from +its topmost roof to the bowed back of its stone bridge. + +It is the last village up Garthdale; a handful of gray houses, old +and small and humble. The high road casts them off and they turn their +backs to it in their fear and huddle together, humbly, down by the +beck. Their stone roofs and walls are naked and blackened by wind and +rain as if fire had passed over them. + +They have the silence, the darkness and the secrecy of all ultimate +habitations. + +North, where the high road begins to rise again, the Vicarage stands +all alone. It turns its face toward the village, old and gray and +humble as any house there, and looks on the road sideways, through the +small shy window of its gable end. It has a strip of garden in front +and on its farther side and a strip of orchard at the back. The garden +slopes down to the churchyard, and a lane, leading to the pastures, +runs between. + +And all these things of stone, the village, the Vicarage, the church, +the churchyard and the gravestones of the dead are alike naked +and black, blackened as if fire had passed over them. And in their +grayness and their desolation they are one with each other and with +the network of low walls that links them to the last solitary farm on +the High Moor. And on the breast of the earth they show, one moment, +solid as if hewn out of her heart, and another, slender and wind-blown +as a tangle of gray thread on her green gown. + + + + +II + + +Through four of its five front windows the house gave back darkness +to the dark. One, on the ground floor, showed a golden oblong, skirted +with watery gray where the lamp-light thinned the solid blackness of +the wall. + +The three sisters, Mary, Gwendolen and Alice, daughters of James +Cartaret, the Vicar of Garth, were sitting there in the dining-room +behind the yellow blind, doing nothing. In their supine, motionless +attitudes they seemed to be waiting for something to happen, to happen +so soon that, if there had been anything to do, it was not worth their +while doing it. + +All three were alike in the small, broad faces that brooded, half +sullen and half sad; in the wide eyes that watched vaguely; in the +little tender noses, and in the mouths, tender and sullen, too; in the +arch and sweep of the upper lips, the delicate fulness of the lower; +in the way of the thick hair, parted and turned back over the brows in +two wide and shallow waves. + +Mary, the eldest, sat in a low chair by the fireside. Her hands were +clasped loosely on the black woolen socks she had ceased to darn. + +She was staring into the fire with her gray eyes, the thick gray eyes +that never let you know what she was thinking. The firelight woke the +flame in her reddish-tawny hair. The red of her lips was turned back +and crushed against the white. Mary was shorter than her sisters, but +she was the one that had the color. And with it she had a stillness +that was not theirs. Mary's face brooded more deeply than their faces, +but it was untroubled in its brooding. + +She had learned to darn socks for her own amusement on her eleventh +birthday, and she was twenty-seven now. + +Alice, the youngest girl (she was twenty-three) lay stretched out on +the sofa. + +She departed in no way from her sister's type but that her body was +slender and small boned, that her face was lightly finished, that her +gray eyes were clear and her lips pale against the honey-white of her +face, and that her hair was colorless as dust except where the edge of +the wave showed a dull gold. + +Alice had spent the whole evening lying on the sofa. And now she +raised her arms and bent them, pressing the backs of her hands against +her eyes. And now she lowered them and lifted one sleeve of her thin +blouse, and turned up the milk-white under surface of her arm and lay +staring at it and feeling its smooth texture with her fingers. + +Gwendolen, the second sister, sat leaning over the table with her +arms flung out on it as they had tossed from her the book she had been +reading. + +She was the tallest and the darkest of the three. Her face followed +the type obscurely; and vividly and emphatically it left it. There was +dusk in her honey-whiteness, and dark blue in the gray of her eyes. +The bridge of her nose and the arch of her upper lip were higher, +lifted as it were in a decided and defiant manner of their own. About +Gwenda there was something alert and impatient. Her very supineness +was alive. It had distinction, the savage grace of a creature utterly +abandoned to a sane fatigue. + +Gwenda had gone fifteen miles over the moors that evening. She had run +and walked and run again in the riotous energy of her youth. + +Now she was too tired to read. + +Gwenda was the first to speak. + +"Is it ten yet?" + +"No." Mary smiled, but the word shuddered in her throat like a weary +moan. + +"How long?" + +"Forty-three minutes." + +"Oh, Lord----" Gwenda laughed the laugh of brave nerves tortured. + +From her sofa beyond the table Alice sighed. + +At ten o'clock Essy Gale, the maid-servant, would come in from the +kitchen and the Vicar from the inner room. And Essy would put the +Bible and Prayer-book on the table, and the Vicar would read Prayers. + +That was all they were waiting for. It was all that could happen. It +happened every night at ten o'clock. + + + + +III + + +Alice spoke next. + +"What day of the month is it?" + +"The thirtieth." Mary answered. + +"Then we've been here exactly five months to-day." + +"That's nothing," said Mary, "to the months and years we shall be +here." + +"I can't think what possessed Papa to come and bury us all in this +rotten place." + +"Can't you?" Mary's eyes turned from their brooding. Her voice was +very quiet, barely perceptible the significant stress. + +"Oh, if you mean it's _me_ he wants to bury----. You needn't rub that +in." + +"I'm not rubbing it in." + +"You are. You're rubbing it in every time you look like that. That's +the beastly part of it. Supposing he does want to get back on me, why +should he go and punish you two?" + +"If he thinks he's punishing me he's sold," said Gwenda. + +"He couldn't have stuck you in a rottener hole." + +Gwenda raised her head. + +"A hole? Why, there's no end to it. You can go for miles and miles +without meeting anybody, unless some darling mountain sheep gets up +and looks at you. It's--it's a divine place, Ally." + +"Wait till you've been another five months in it. You'll be as sick as +I am." + +"I don't think so. You haven't seen the moon get up over Greffington +Edge. If you had--if you knew what this place was like, you wouldn't +lie there grizzling. You wouldn't talk about punishing. You'd wonder +what you'd done to be allowed to look at it--to live in it a day. Of +course I'm not going to let on to Papa that I'm in love with it." + +Mary smiled again. + +"It's all very well for you," she said. "As long as you've got a moor +to walk on _you're_ all right." + +"Yes. I'm all right," Gwenda said. + +Her head had sunk again and rested in the hollow of her arms. Her +voice, muffled in her sleeve, came soft and thick. It died for +drowsiness. + +In the extreme immobility and stillness of the three the still house +stirred and became audible to them, as if it breathed. They heard the +delicate fall of the ashes on the hearth, and the flame of the lamp +jerking as the oil sputtered in the burnt wick. Their nerves shook to +the creeping, crackling sounds that came from the wainscot, infinitely +minute. A tongue of fire shot hissing from the coal. It seemed to them +a violent and terrifying thing. The breath of the house passed over +them in thick smells of earth and must, as the fire's heat sucked at +its damp. + +The church clock struck the half hour. Once, twice; two dolorous notes +that beat on the still house and died. + +Somewhere out at the back a door opened and shut, and it was as if the +house drew in its breath at the shock of the sound. + +Presently a tremor crept through Gwenda's young body as her heart +shook it. + +She rose and went to the window. + + + + +IV + + +She was slow and rapt in her going like one walking in her sleep, +moved by some impulse profounder than her sleep. + +She pulled up the blind. The darkness was up against the house, +thick and close to the pane. She threw open the window, and the night +entered palpably like slow water, black and sweet and cool. + +From the unseen road came the noise of wheels and of a horse that in +trotting clanked forever one shoe against another. + +It was young Rowcliffe, the new doctor, driving over from Morthe to +Upthorne on the Moor, where John Greatorex lay dying. + +The pale light of his lamps swept over the low garden wall. + +Suddenly the four hoofs screamed, grinding together in the slide of +their halt. The doctor had jerked his horse up by the Vicarage gate. + +The door at the back opened and shut again, suddenly, sharply, as if +in fear. + +A voice swung out like a mournful bell into the night. A dalesman's +voice; such a voice as the lonely land fashions sometimes for its own +delight, drawling and tender, hushed by the hills and charged with the +infinite, mysterious sadness of their beauty. + +It belonged to young Greatorex and it came from the doorway of the +Vicarage yard. + +"That yo, Dr. Rawcliffe? I wuss joost gawn oop t'road t' see ef yo +wuss coomin'." + +"Of course I was coming." + +The new doctor was short and stern with young Greatorex. + +The two voices, the soft and the stern, spoke together for a moment, +low, inaudible. Then young Greatorex's voice was heard again, and in +its softness there was the furtive note of shame. + +"I joost looked in to Vicarage to leave woord with Paason." + +The noise of the wheels and hoofs began again, the iron shoes clanked +together and struck out the rhythm that the sisters knew. + +And with the first beat of it, and with the sound of the two voices in +the road, life, secret and silent, stirred in their blood and nerves. +It quivered like a hunting thing held on the leash. + + + + +V + + +Their stillness, their immobility were now intense. And not one spoke +a word to the other. + +All three of them were thinking. + +Mary thought, "Wednesday is his day. On Wednesday I will go into the +village and see all my sick people. Then I shall see him. And he +will see me. He will see that I am kind and sweet and womanly." She +thought, "That is the sort of woman that a man wants." But she did not +know what she was thinking. + +Gwenda thought, "I will go out on to the moor again. I don't care if I +_am_ late for Prayers. He will see me when he drives back and he will +wonder who is that wild, strong girl who walks by herself on the moor +at night and isn't afraid. He has seen me three times, and every time +he has looked at me as if he wondered. In five minutes I shall go." +She thought (for she knew what she was thinking), "I shall do nothing +of the sort. I don't care whether he sees me or not. I don't care if I +never see him again. I don't care." + +Alice thought, "I will make myself ill. So ill that they'll _have_ to +send for him. I shall see him that way." + + + + +VI + + +Alice sat up. She was thinking another thought. + +"If Mr. Greatorex is dead, Dr. Rowcliffe won't stay long at Upthorne. +He will come back soon. And he will have to call and leave word. He +will come in and I shall see him." + +But if Mr. Greatorex wasn't dead? If Mr. Greatorex were a long time +over his dying? Then he might be kept at Upthorne, perhaps till +midnight, perhaps till morning. Then, even if he called to leave +word, she would not see him. When she looked deep she found herself +wondering how long Mr. Greatorex would be over his dying. If she had +looked a little deeper she would have found herself hoping that Mr. +Greatorex was already dead. + +If Mr. Greatorex was dead before he got to Upthorne he would come very +soon, perhaps before prayer-time. + +And he would be shown into the drawing-room. + +Would he? Would Essy have the sense? No. Not unless the lamp was lit +there. Essy wouldn't show him into a dark room. And Essy was stupid. +She might have _no_ sense. She might take him straight into the study +and Papa would keep him there. Trust Papa. + +Alice got up from her sofa and left the room; moving with her weary +grace and a little air of boredom and of unconcern. She was always +most unconcerned when she was most intent. + +Outside in the passage she stood a moment, listening. All the ways +of the house gave upon the passage in a space so narrow that by +stretching out one arm she could have touched both walls. + +With a door open anywhere the passage became a gully for the north +wind. Now, with all doors shut, it was as if the breath of the house +was being squeezed out there, between closing walls. The passage, +instead of dividing the house, drew it together tight. And this +tightness was intolerable to Alice. + +She hated it. She hated the whole house. It was so built that there +wasn't a corner in it where you could get away from Papa. His study +had one door opening into the passage and one into the dining-room. +The window where he sat raked the garden on the far side. The window +of his bedroom raked the front; its door commanded the stairhead. He +was aware of everything you did, of everything you didn't do. He could +hear you in the dining-room; he could hear you overhead; he could hear +you going up and downstairs. He could positively hear you breathe, and +he always knew whether you were in bed or not. She drew in her breath +lest he should hear it now. + +At the far end of the passage, on the wall-space between the staircase +and the kitchen door, raised on a small bracket, a small tin lamp +showed a thrifty flame. Under it, on a mahogany table-flap, was a row +of bedroom candlesticks with their match-boxes. + +Her progress to the table-flap was stealthy. She exalted this business +of lighting the drawing-room lamp to a desperate, perilous adventure. +The stone floor deadened her footsteps as she went. + +Her pale eyes, half sullen, half afraid, slewed round to the door of +the study on her right. With a noiseless hand she secured her matches +and her candle. With noiseless feet she slid into the darkness of the +drawing-room. She dared not light her candle out there in the passage. +For the Vicar was full of gloom and of suspicion in the half hour +before prayer-time, and at the spurt of the match he might come out +blustering and insist on knowing what she was doing and where she was +going, whereas presently he would know, and he might be quiet as long +as he was satisfied that she wasn't shirking Prayers. + +Stealthily, with her air of desperate adventure, she lit the +drawing-room lamp. She shook out the puffs and frills of its yellow +paper shade. Under its gaudy skirts the light was cruel to the cramped +and shabby room, to the huddled furniture, to the tarnished gilt, the +perishing tones of gray and amber. + +Alice set the lamp on the top of the cottage piano that stood +slantwise in a side window beyond the fireplace. She had pulled back +the muslin curtains and opened both windows wide so that the room was +now bared to the south and west. Then, with the abrupt and passionate +gesture of desire deferred, she sat down at the little worn-out Erard +and began to play. + +Sitting there, with the open window behind her, she could be seen, and +she knew that she could be seen from over the wall by anybody driving +past in a high dog-cart. + +And she played. She played the Chopin Grande Polonaise, or as much of +it as her fingers, tempestuous and inexpert, could clutch and reach. +She played, neither with her hands nor with her brain, but with her +temperament, febrile and frustrate, seeking its outlet in exultant +and violent sound. She fell upon the Erard like some fierce and hungry +thing, tearing from the forlorn, humble instrument a strange and +savage food. She played--with incredible omissions, discords and +distortions, but she played. She flung out her music through the +windows into the night as a signal and an appeal. She played (on the +little worn-out Erard) in ecstasy and expectation, as if something +momentous hung upon her playing. There was joy and triumph and +splendor in the Grande Polonaise; she felt them in her heart and +nerves as a delicate, dangerous tremor, the almost intolerable on +coming of splendor, of triumph and of joy. + +And as she played the excitement gathered; it swung in more and more +vehement vibrations; it went warm and flooding through her brain +like wine. All the life of her bloodless body swam there, poised and +thinned, but urgent, aspiring to some great climax of the soul. + + + + +VII + + +The whole house was full of the Chopin Grande Polonaise. + +It raged there like a demon. Tortured out of all knowledge, the Grande +Polonaise screamed and writhed in its agony. It writhed through the +windows, seeking its natural attenuation in the open air. It writhed +through the shut house and was beaten back, pitilessly, by the roof +and walls. To let it loose thus was Alice's defiance of the house and +her revenge. + +Mary and Gwenda heard it in the dining-room, and set their mouths +and braced themselves to bear it. The Vicar in his study behind the +dining-room heard it and scowled. Essy, the maid-servant, heard it, +she heard it worse than anybody, in her kitchen on the other side of +the wall. Now and then, when the Polonaise screamed louder, Mary drew +a hissing breath of pain through her locked teeth, and Gwenda grinned. +Not that to Gwenda there was anything funny in the writhing and +screaming of the Grande Polonaise. It was that she alone appreciated +its vindictive quality; she admired the completeness, the audacity of +Alice's revenge. + +But Essy in her kitchen made no effort to stand up to the Grande +Polonaise. When it began she sat down and laid her arms on the kitchen +table, and her head, muffled in her apron, on her arms, and cried. She +couldn't have told you what the Polonaise was like or what it did to +her; all that she could have said was that it went through and +through her. She didn't know, Essy didn't, what had come over her; for +whatever noise Miss Alice made, she hadn't taken any notice, not at +first. It was in the last three weeks that the Polonaise had found her +out and had begun to go through and through her, till it was more than +she could bear. But Essy, crying into her apron, wouldn't have lifted +a finger to stop Miss Alice. + +"Poor laass," Essy said to herself, "she looves to plaay. And Vicar, +he'll not hold out mooch longer. He'll put foot down fore she gets +trow." + +Through the screaming of the Polonaise Essy listened for the opening +of the study door. + + + + +VIII + + +The study door did not open all at once. + +"Wisdom and patience, wisdom and patience----" The Vicar kept on +muttering as he scowled. Those were his watchwords in his dealings +with his womenkind. + +The Vicar was making a prodigious effort to maintain what seemed +to him his god-like serenity. He was unaware that he was trying to +control at one and the same time his temper and his temperament. + +He was a man of middle height and squarish build, dark, pale-skinned +and blue-eyed like his daughter Gwendolen. The Vicar's body stretched +tight the seams of his black coat and kept up, at fifty-seven, a false +show of muscular energy. The Vicar's face had a subtle quality of +deception. The austere nose, the lean cheek-bones, the square-cut +moustache and close-clipped, pointed beard (black, slightly grizzled) +made it appear, at a little distance, the face of an ascetic. It +approached, and the blue of the eyes, and the black of their dilated +pupils, the stare of the nostrils and the half hidden lines of the red +mouth revealed its profound and secret sensuality. + +The interior that contained him was no less deceptive. Its book-lined +walls advertised him as the scholarly recluse that he was not. He had +had an eye to this effect. He had placed in prominent positions +the books that he had inherited from his father, who had been a +schoolmaster. You were caught at the very door by the thick red line +of The Tudor Classics; by the eleven volumes of The Bekker's Plato, +with Notes, bound in Russia leather, side by side with Jowett's +Translations in cloth; by Sophocles and Dean Plumptre, the Odyssey +and Butcher and Lang; by Æschylus and Robert Browning. The Vicar had +carried the illusion of scholarship so far as to hide his Aristophanes +behind a little curtain, as if it contained for him an iniquitous +temptation. Of his own accord and with a deliberate intention to +deceive, he had added the Early Fathers, Tillotsen's _Sermons_ and +Farrar's _Life of Christ_. + +On another shelf, rather less conspicuous, were some bound volumes +of _The Record_, with the novels of Mrs. Henry Wood and Miss Marie +Corelli. On the ledge of his bureau _Blackwood's Magazine_, uncut, lay +ready to his hand. The _Spectator_, in process of skimming, was on his +knees. The _Standard_, fairly gutted, was on the floor. There was no +room for it anywhere else. + +For the Vicar's study was much too small for him. Sitting there, in +an arm-chair and with his legs in the fender, he looked as if he had +taken flight before the awful invasion of his furniture. His bookcases +hemmed him in on three sides. His roll-top desk, advancing on him +from the window, had driven and squeezed him into the arm-chair. His +bureau, armed to the teeth, leaning from its ambush in the recess of +the fireplace, threatened both the retreat and the left flank movement +of the chair. The Vicar was neither tall nor powerful, but his study +made him look like a giant imprisoned in a cell. + +The room was full of the smell of tobacco, of a smoldering coal fire, +of old warm leather and damp walls, and of the heavy, virile odor of +the Vicar. + +A brown felt carpet and thick serge curtains shut out the draft of the +northeast window. + +On a September evening the Vicar was snug enough in his cell; and +before the Grande Polonaise had burst in upon him he had been at peace +with God and man. + + * * * * * + +But when he heard those first exultant, challenging bars he scowled +inimically. + +Not that he acknowledged them as a challenge. He was inclined rather +to the manly course of ignoring the Grande Polonaise altogether. And +not for a moment would he have admitted that there had been anything +in his behavior that could be challenged or defied, least of all by +his daughter Alice. To himself in his study Mr. Cartaret appeared +as the image of righteousness established in an impregnable place. +Whereas his daughter Alice was not at all in a position to challenge +and defy. + +She had made a fool of herself. + +She knew it; he knew it; everybody knew it in the parish they had left +five months ago. It had been the talk of the little southern seaside +town. He thanked God that nobody knew it, or was ever likely to know +it, here. + +For Alice's folly was not any ordinary folly. It was the kind that +made the parish which was so aware of it uninhabitable to a sensitive +vicar. + +He reflected that she would be clever if she made a fool of herself +here. By his decisive action in removing her from that southern +seaside town he had saved her from continuing her work. In order to do +it he had ruined his prospects. He had thrown up a good living for a +poor one; a living that might (but for Alice it certainly would) have +led to preferment for a living that could lead to nothing at all; a +living where he could make himself felt for a living where there was +nobody to feel him. + +And, having done it, he was profoundly sorry for himself. + +So far as Mr. Cartaret could see there had been nothing else to do. If +it had all to be done over again, he told himself that he would do it. + +But there Mr. Cartaret was wrong. He couldn't have done it or anything +like it twice. It was one of those deeds, supremeful sacrificial, +that strain a man's moral energies to breaking point and render him +incapable of further sacrifice; if, indeed, it did not render further +sacrifice superfluous. Mr. Cartaret honestly felt that even an +exacting deity could require no more of him. + +And it wasn't the first time either, nor his daughter Alice the first +woman who had come between the Vicar and his prospects. Looking back +he saw himself driven from pillar to post, from parish to parish, by +the folly or incompetence of his womankind. + +Strictly speaking, it was his first wife, Mary Gwendolen, the one +the children called Mother, who had begun it. She had made his first +parish unendurable to him by dying in it. This she had done when Alice +was born, thereby making Alice unendurable to him, too. Poor Mamie! He +always thought of her as having, inscrutably, failed him. + +All three of them had failed him. + +His second wife, Frances, the one the children called Mamma (the +Vicar had made himself believe that he had married her solely on their +account), had turned into a nervous invalid on his hands before she +died of that obscure internal trouble which he had so wisely and +patiently ignored. + +His third wife, Robina (the one they called Mummy), had run away from +him in the fifth year of their marriage. When she implored him to +divorce her he said that, whatever her conduct had been, that course +was impossible to him as a churchman, as she well knew; but that he +forgave her. He had made himself believe it. + +And all the time he was aware, without admitting it, that, if the +thing came into court, Robina's evidence might be a little damaging +to the appearances of wisdom and patience, of austerity and dignity, +which he had preserved so well. He had had an unacknowledged vision of +Robina standing in the witness box, very small and shy, with her eyes +fluttering while she explained to the gentlemen of the jury that she +ran away from her husband because she was afraid of him. He could hear +the question, "Why were you afraid?" and Robina's answer--but at that +point he always reminded himself that it was as a churchman that he +objected to divorce. + +For his profession had committed him to a pose. He had posed for more +than thirty years to his parish, to his three wives, to his three +children, and to himself, till he had become unconscious of his real +thoughts, his real motives, his real likings and dislikings. So that +when he told himself that it would have been better if his third wife +had died, he thought he meant that it would have been better for her +and for his opinion of her, whereas what he really did mean was that +it would have been better for himself. + +For if Robina had died he could have married again. As it was, her +infidelity condemned him to a celibacy for which, as she knew, he was +utterly unsuited. + +Therefore he thought of her as a cruel and unscrupulous woman. And +when he thought of her he became more sorry for himself than ever. + +Now, oddly enough, the Grande Polonaise had set Mr. Cartaret thinking +of Robina. It was not that Robina had ever played it. Robina did not +play. It was not the discords introduced into it by Alice, though +Robina had been a thing of discords. It was that something in him, +obscurely but intimately associated with Robina, responded to that +sensual and infernal tremor that Alice was wringing out of the +Polonaise. So that, without clearly knowing why it was abominable, +Mr. Cartaret said to himself that the tune Alice was playing was an +abominable tune and must be stopped at once. + +He went into the drawing-room to stop it. + +And Essy, in the kitchen, raised her head and dried her eyes on her +apron. + +"If you must make a noise," said Mr. Cartaret, "be good enough to make +one that is less--disturbing." + + * * * * * + +He stood in the doorway staring at his daughter Alice. + +Her excitement had missed by a hairsbreadth the spiritual climax. It +had held itself in for one unspeakable moment, then surged, crowding +the courses of her nerves. Beaten back by the frenzy of the Polonaise, +it made a violent return; it rose, quivering, at her eyelids and her +mouth; it broke, and, with a shudder of all her body, split itself and +fell. + +The Vicar stared. He opened his mouth to say something, and said +nothing; finally he went out, muttering. + +"Wisdom and patience. Wisdom and patience." + +It was a prayer. + +Alice trailed to the window and leaned out, listening for the sound of +hoofs and wheels. Nothing there but the darkness and stillness of the +moors. She trailed back to the Erard and began to play again. + +This time it was Beethoven, the Pathetic Sonata. + + + + +IX + + +Mr. Cartaret sat in his study, manfully enduring the Pathetic Sonata. + +He was no musician and he did not certainly know when Alice went +wrong; therefore, except that it had some nasty loud moments, he could +not honestly say that the First Movement was disturbing. Besides, he +had scored. He had made Alice change her tune. + +Wisdom and patience required that he should be satisfied, so far. And, +being satisfied, in the sense that he no longer had a grievance, meant +that he was very badly bored. + +He began to fidget. He took his legs out of the fender and put them +back again. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, but +without relief. He turned over his _Spectator_ to see what it had to +say about the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, and found that he was not +interested in what it had to say. He looked at his watch and +compared it with the clock in the faint hope that the clock might be +behindhand. + +The watch and clock both agreed that it was not a minute later than +fifteen minutes to ten. A whole quarter of an hour before Prayer-time. + +There was nothing but Prayer-time to look forward to. + +He began to fidget again. He filled his pipe and thought better about +smoking it. Then he rang the bell for his glass of water. + +After more delay than was at all necessary Essy appeared, bringing the +glass of water on a plate. + +She came in, soft-footed, almost furtive, she who used to enter so +suddenly and unabashed. She put the plate down on the roll-top desk +and turned softly, furtively, away. + +The Vicar looked up. His eyes were large and blue as suspicion drew in +the black of their pupils. + +"Put it down here," he said, and he indicated the ledge of the bureau. + +Essy stood still and stared like a half-wild creature in doubt as to +its way. She decided to make for the bureau by rounding the roll-top +desk on the far side, thus approaching her master from behind. + +"What are you doing?" said the Vicar. "I said, Put it down here." + +Essy turned again and came forward, tilting the plate a little in her +nervousness. The large blue eyes, the stern voice, fascinated her, +frightened her. + +The Vicar looked at her steadily, remorselessly, as she came. + +Essy's lowered eyelids had kept the stain of her tears. Her thick +brown hair was loose and rumpled under her white cap. But she had put +on a clean, starched apron. It stood out stiffly, billowing, from +her waist. Essy had not always been so careless about her hair or so +fastidious as to her aprons. There was a little strained droop at the +corners of her tender mouth, as if they had been tied with string. Her +dark eyes still kept their young largeness and their light, but they +looked as if they had been drawn tight with string at their corners +too. + +All these signs the Vicar noted as he stared. And he hated Essy. He +hated her for what he saw in her, and for her buxom comeliness, and +for the softness of her youth. + +"Did I hear young Greatorex round at the back door this evening?" he +said. + +Essy started, slanting her plate a little more. + +"I doan knaw ef I knaw, sir." + +"Either you know or you don't know," said the Vicar. + +"I doan know, I'm sure, sir," said Essy. + +The Vicar was holding out his hand for his glass of water, and Essy +pushed the plate toward him, so blindly and at such a perilous slant +that the glass slid and toppled over and broke itself against the +Vicar's chair. + +Essy gave a little frightened cry. + +"Clever girl. She did that on purpose," said the Vicar to himself. + +Essy was on her knees beside him, picking up the bits of glass and +gathering them in her apron. She was murmuring, "I'll mop it oop. I'll +mop it oop." + +"That'll do," he said roughly. "That'll do, I tell you. You can go." + +Essy tried to go. But it was as if her knees had weights on them +that fixed her to the floor. Holding up her apron with one hand, she +clutched the arm of her master's chair with the other and dragged +herself to her feet. + +"I'll mop it oop," she repeated, shamefast. + +"I told you to go," said the Vicar. + +"I'll fetch yo anoother glass?" she whispered. Her voice was hoarse +with the spasm in her throat. + +"No," said the Vicar. + +Essy slunk back into her kitchen with terror in her heart. + + + + +X + + +_"Attacca subito l'Allegro."_ + +Alice had fallen on it suddenly. + +"I suppose," said Mary, "it's a relief to her to make that row." + +"It isn't," said Gwenda. "It's torture. That's how she works herself +up. She's playing on her own nerves all the time. If she really +_could_ play----If she cared about the music----If she cared about +anything on earth except----" + +She paused. + +"Molly, it must be awful to be made like that." + +"Nothing could be worse for her than being shut up here." + +"I know. Papa's been a frightful fool about her. After all, Molly, +what did she do?" + +"She did what you and I wouldn't have done." + +"How do you know what you wouldn't have done? How do I know? If we'd +been in her place----" + +"If _I'd_ been in her place I'd have died rather." + +"How do you know Ally wouldn't have rather died if she could have +chosen? She didn't want to fall in love with that young ass, Rickards. +And I don't see what she did that was so very awful." + +"She managed to let everybody else see, anyhow." + +"What if she did? At least she was honest. She went straight for what +she wanted. She didn't sneak and scheme to get him from any other +girl. And she hadn't a mother to sneak and scheme _for_ her. That's +fifty times worse, yet it's done every day and nobody thinks anything +of it." + +She went on. "Nobody would have thought anything as it was, if Papa +hadn't been such a frantic fool about it. It he'd had the pluck to +stand by her, if he'd kept his head and laughed in their silly faces, +instead of grizzling and growling and stampeding out of the parish as +if poor Ally had disgraced him." + +"Well--it isn't a very pleasant thing for the Vicar of the parish----" + +"It wasn't a very pleasant thing for any of us. But it was beastly of +him to go back on her like that. And the silliness of it! Caring so +frightfully about what people think, and then going on so as to make +them think it." + +"Think what?" + +"That she really _had_ done something." + +"Do you suppose they did?" + +"Yes. You can't blame them. He couldn't have piled it on more if she +_had_. It's enough to make her." + +"Oh Gwenda!" + +"It would be his own fault. Just as it's his own fault that he hates +her." + +"He doesn't hate her. He's fond of all of us, in his way." + +"Wot of Ally. Don't you know why? He can't look at her without +thinking of how awful _he_ is." + +"And if he _is_--a little----You forget what he's had to go through." + +"You mean Mummy running away from him?" + +"Yes. And Mamma's dying. And before that--there was Mother." + +Gwenda raised her head. + +"He killed Mother." + +"What do you mean?" + +"He did. He was told that Mother would die or go mad if she had +another baby. And he let her have Ally. No wonder Mummy ran away from +him." + +"Who told you that story?" + +"Mummy." + +"It was horrid of her." + +"Everything poor Mummy did was horrid. It was horrid of her to run +away from him, I suppose." + +"Why did you tell me that? I didn't know it. I'd rather not have +known." + +"Well, now you do know, perhaps you'll be sorrier for Ally." + +"I am sorry for Ally. But I'm sorry for Papa, too. You're not." + +"I'd be sorry for him right enough if he wasn't so sorry for himself." + +"Gwenda, _you're_ awful." + +"Because I won't waste my pity? Ally's got nothing--He's got +everything." + +"Not what he cares most for." + +"He cares most for what people think of him. Everybody thought him a +good kind husband. Everybody thinks him a good kind father." + + * * * * * + +The music suddenly ceased. A sound of voices came instead of it. + +"There," said Gwenda. "He's gone in and stopped her." + +He had, that time. + +And in the sudden ceasing of the Pathetic Sonata the three sisters +heard the sound of wheels and the clank of horseshoes striking +together. + +Mr. Greatorex was not yet dead of his pneumonia. The doctor had passed +the Vicarage gate. + +And as he passed he had said to himself. "How execrably she plays." + + * * * * * + +The three sisters waited without a word for the striking of the church +clock. + + + + +XI + + +The church clock struck ten. + +At the sound of the study bell Essy came into the dining-room. Essy +was the acolyte of Family Prayers. Though a Wesleyan she could not +shirk the appointed ceremonial. It was Essy who took the Bible and +Prayerbook from their place on the sideboard under the tea-urn and put +them on the table, opening them where the Vicar had left a marker the +night before. It was Essy who drew back the Vicar's chair from the +table and set it ready for him. It was Essy whom he relied on for +responses that _were_ responses and not mere mumblings and mutterings. +She was Wesleyan, the one faithful, the one devout person in his +household. + +To-night there was nothing but a mumbling and a muttering. And that +was Mary. She was the only one who was joining in the Lord's Prayer. + +Essy had failed him. + + * * * * * + +Prayers over, there was nothing to sit up for. All the same, it was +Mr. Cartaret's rule to go back into the study and to bore himself +again for a whole hour till it was bed-time. He liked to be sure that +the doors were all bolted and that everybody else was in bed before he +went himself. + +But to-night he had bored himself so badly that the thought of his +study was distasteful to him. So he stayed where he was with his +family. He believed that he was doing this solely on his family's +account. He told himself that it was not right that he should leave +the three girls too much to themselves. It did not occur to him that +as long as he had had a wife to sit with, he hadn't cared how much +he had left them. He knew that he had rather liked Mary and Gwendolen +when they were little, and though he had found himself liking them +less and less as they grew into their teens he had never troubled to +enquire whose fault that was, so certain was he that it couldn't be +his. Still less was it his fault if they were savage and inaccessible +in their twenties. Of course he didn't mean that Mary was savage and +inaccessible. It was Gwendolen that he meant. + +So, since he couldn't sit there much longer without saying something, +he presently addressed himself to Mary. + +"Any news of Greatorex today?" + +"I haven't heard. Shall I ask Essy?" + +"No," said Mr. Cartaret, so abruptly that Mary looked at him. + +"He was worse yesterday," said Gwenda. + +They all looked at Gwenda. + +"Who told you that?" said Mr. Cartaret by way of saying something. + +"Mrs. Gale." + +"When did she tell you?" + +"Yesterday, when I was up at the farm." + +"What were you doing at the farm?" + +"Nothing. I went to see if I could do anything." She said to herself, +"Why does he go on at us like this?" Aloud she said, "It was time some +of us went." + +She had him there. She was always having him. + +"I shall have to go myself tomorrow," he said. + +"I would if I were you," said Gwenda. + +"I wonder what Jim Greatorex will do if his father dies." + +It was Mary who wondered. + +"He'll get married, like a shot," said Alice. + +"Who to?" said Gwenda. "He can't marry _all_ the girls----" + +She stopped herself. Essy Gale was in the room. Three months ago +Essy had been a servant at the Farm where her mother worked once a +fortnight. + +She had come in so quietly that none of them had noticed her. She +brought a tray with a fresh glass of water for the Vicar and a glass +of milk for Alice. She put it down quietly and slipped out of the room +without her customary "Anything more, Miss?" and "Good-night." + +"What's the matter with Essy?" Gwenda said. + +Nobody spoke but Alice who was saying that she didn't want her milk. + +More than a year ago Alice had been ordered milk for her anæmia. She +had milk at eleven, milk at her midday dinner, milk for supper, and +milk last thing at night. She did not like milk, but she liked being +ordered it. Generally she would sit and drink it, in the face of +her family, pathetically, with little struggling gulps. She took a +half-voluptuous, half-vindictive pleasure in her anæmia. She knew that +it made her sisters sorry for her, and that it annoyed her father. + +Now she declared that she wasn't feeling well, and that she didn't +want her milk. + +"In that case," said Mr. Cartaret, "you had better go to bed." + +Alice went, raising her white arms and rubbing her eyes along the +backs of her hands, like a child dropping with sleep. + +One after another, they rose and followed her. + + * * * * * + +At the half-landing five steep steps in a recess of the wall led aside +to the door of Essy's bedroom. There Gwenda stopped and listened. + +A sound of stifled crying came from the room. Gwenda went up to the +door and knocked. + +"Essy, are you in bed?" + +A pause. "Yes, miss." + +"What is it? Are you ill?" + +No answer. + +"Is there anything wrong?" + +A longer pause. "I've got th' faace-ache." + +"Oh, poor thing! Can I do anything for you?" + +"Naw, Miss Gwenda, thank yo." + +"Well, call me if I can." + +But somehow she knew that Essy wouldn't call. + +She went on, passing her father's door at the stair head. It was shut. +She could hear him moving heavily within the room. On the other side +of the landing was the room over the study that she shared with Alice. + +The door stood wide. Alice in her thin nightgown could be seen sitting +by the open window. + +The nightgown, the small, slender body showing through, the hair, +platted for the night, in two pig-tails that hung forward, one over +each small breast, the tired face between the parted hair made Alice +look childlike and pathetic. + +Gwendolen had a pang of compassion. + +"Dear lamb," she said. "_That_ isn't any good. Fresh air won't do it. +You'd much better wait till Papa gets a cold. Then you can catch it." + +"It'll be his fault anyway," said Alice. "Serve him jolly well right +if I get pneumonia." + +"Pneumonia doesn't come to those who want it. I wonder what's wrong +with Essy." + +Alice was tired and sullen. "You'd better ask Jim Greatorex," she +said. + +"What do you mean, Ally?" + +But Ally had set her small face hard. + +"Can't you he sorry for her?" said Gwenda. + +"Why should I be sorry for her? _She's_ all right." + +She had sorrow enough, but none to waste on Essy. Essy's way was easy. +Essy had only to slink out to the back door and she could have her +will. _She_ didn't have to get pneumonia. + + + + +XII + + +John Greatorex did not die that night. He had no mind to die: he was a +man of stubborn pugnacity and he fought his pneumonia. + +The long gray house at Upthorne looks over the marshes of the high +land above Garth. It stands alone, cut off by the marshes from the +network of gray walls that links the village to the hill farms. + +The light in its upper window burned till dawn, a sign to the brooding +and solitary land. Up there, in the low room with its sunken ceiling, +John Greatorex lay in the big bed and rallied a little as the clean +air from the moors lapped him like water. For the doctor had thrown +open all the windows of the house before he left. Presently Mrs. Gale, +the untrained village nurse, would come and shut them in terror, and +John Greatorex's pneumonia would get the upper hand. That was how the +fight went on, with Steven Rowcliffe on John Greatorex's side and Mrs. +Gale for the pneumonia. It was ten to one against John Greatorex and +the doctor, for John Greatorex was most of the time unconscious and +the doctor called but once or twice a day, while Mrs. Gale was always +there to shut the windows as fast as he opened them. In the length and +breadth of the Dale there wasn't another woman who would not have done +the same. She was secure from criticism. If she didn't know how to +nurse pneumonia, who did? Seeing that her own husband had died of it. + +Young Rowcliffe was a dalesman and he knew his people. In six months +his face had grown stiff in the struggle with them. It was making his +voice stern and his eyes hard, so that they could see nothing round +him but stupidity and distrust and an obstinacy even greater than his +own. + +Nothing in his previous experience had prepared him for it. In his +big provincial hospital he had had it practically his own way. He had +faced a thousand horrible and intractable diseases with a thousand +appliances and with an army of assistants and trained nurses under +him. And if in his five years' private practice in Leeds he had come +to grips with human nature, it had been at any rate a fair fight. If +his work was harder his responsibility was less. He still had trained +nurses under him; and if a case was beyond him there were specialists +with whom he could consult. + +Here he was single-handed. He was physician and surgeon and specialist +and nurse in one. He had few appliances and no assistant beside naked +and primeval nature, the vast high spaces, the clean waters and clean +air of the moors. + +Yet it was precisely these things that his romantic youth had cried +for--that solitary combat and communion, that holy and solitary aid. + +At thirty Rowcliffe was still in his romantic youth. + +He had all its appearances about him. A life of continual labor +and discomfort had kept his body slender; and all the edges of +his face--clean-shaven except for its little dark moustache--were +incomparably firm and clear. His skin was bronzed and reddened by sun +and wind. The fine hard mouth under the little dark moustache was not +so hard that it could not, sometimes, be tender. His irreproachable +nose escaped the too high curve that would have made it arrogant. And +his eyes, keen and hard in movement, by simply keeping quiet under +lowered brows, became charged with a curious and engaging pathos. + +Their pathos had appealed to the little red-haired, pink-skinned, +green-eyed nurse who had worked under him in Leeds. She was clever and +kind--much too kind, it was supposed--to Rowcliffe. There had been one +or two others before the little red-haired nurse, so that, though he +was growing hard, he had not grown bitter. + +He was not in the least afraid of growing bitter; for he knew that his +eyes, as long as he could keep them quiet, would preserve him from all +necessity for bitterness. + +Rowcliffe had always trusted a great deal to his eyes. Because of them +he had left several young ladies, his patients, quite heart-broken in +Leeds. The young ladies knew nothing about the little red-haired nurse +and had never ceased to wonder why Dr. Rowcliffe did not want to marry +them. + +And Steven Rowcliffe's eyes, so disastrous to the young ladies in +Leeds, saw nobody in Morfe whom he could possibly want to marry. The +village of Morfe is built in a square round its green. The doctor's +house stands on a plot of rising ground on the north side of the +square, and from its front windows young Rowcliffe could see the +inhabitants of Morfe coming and going before him as on a stage, and he +kept count of them all. There were the three middle-aged maiden ladies +in the long house on the west side of whom all he knew was that they +ate far too many pikelets and griddle cakes for tea. There were the +two old ladies in the white house next door who were always worrying +him to sound their chests, one for her lungs and the other for her +arteries. In spite of lungs and arteries they were very gay old +ladies. The tubes of Rowcliffe's queer, new-fangled stethescope, +appearing out of his coat pocket, sent them into ecstacies of mirth. +They always made the same little joke about it; they called the +stethescope his telephone. But of course he didn't want to marry them. +There was the very old lady on the east side, who had had one stroke +and was expecting another every day. There were the two unmarried +daughters of a retired manufacturer on the far side of the Green. They +were plump and had red cheeks, if he had cared for plumpness and +red cheeks; but they had no conversation. The only pretty girl whose +prettiness appealed to Rowcliffe had an "adenoid" mouth which he held +to be a drawback. There was the daughter of his predecessor, but she +again was well over forty, rigid and melancholy and dry. + +All these people became visibly excited when they saw young Rowcliffe +starting off in his trap and returning; but young Rowcliffe was never +excited, never even interested when he saw them. There was nothing +about them that appealed to his romantic youth. + +As for Morfe Manor, and Garth Manor and Greffington Hall, they were +nearly always empty, so that he had not very much chance of improving +his acquaintance there. + +And he had nothing to hope for from the summer visitors, girls with +queer clothes and queer manners and queer accents; bouncing, convivial +girls who spread themselves four abreast on the high roads; fat, lazy +girls who sat about on the Green; blowsed, slouching girls who tramped +the dales with knapsacks and no hats. The hard eyes of young Rowcliffe +never softened as he looked at the summer visitors. Their behavior +irritated him. It reminded him that there were women in the world and +that he missed, quite unbearably at moments, the little red-haired +nurse who had been so clever and so kind. Moreover it offended his +romantic youth. The little publicans and shop-keepers of Morfe did not +offend it; neither did the peasants and the farmers; they were part +of the place; generations of them had been born in those gray houses, +built from the gaunt ribs of the hills; whereas the presence of the +summer visitors was an outrage to the silent and solitary country that +his instincts inscrutably adored. No wonder that he didn't care to +look at them. + + * * * * * + +But one night in September, when the moon was high in the south, as +he was driving toward Garth on his way to Upthorne, the eyes of +young Rowcliffe were startled out of their aversion by the sudden and +incredible appearance of a girl. + +It was at the bend of the road where Karva lowers its head and sinks +back on the moor; and she came swinging up the hill as Rowcliffe's +horse scraped his way slowly down it. She was in white (he couldn't +have missed her) and she carried herself like a huntress; slender +and quick, with high, sharp-pointed breasts. She looked at him as she +passed and her face was wide-eyed and luminous under the moon. Her +lips were parted with her speed, so that, instinctively, his hands +tightened on the reins as if he had thought that she was going to +speak to him. But of course she did not speak. + +He looked back and saw her swing off the high road and go up Karva. A +flock of mountain sheep started from their couches on the heather and +looked at her, and she went driving them before her. They trailed up +Karva slowly, in a long line, gray in the moonlight. Their mournful, +musical voices came to him from the hill. + +He saw her again late--incredibly late--that night as the moon swept +from the south toward Karva. She was a long way off, coming down from +her hill, a white speck on the gray moor. He pulled up his horse and +waited below the point where the track she followed struck the high +road; he even got out of his trap and examined, deliberately, his +horse's hoofs in turn, spinning out the time. When he heard her he +drew himself upright and looked straight at her as she passed him. She +flashed by like a huntress, like Artemis carrying the young moon on +her forehead. From the turn of her head and the even falling of her +feet he felt her unconscious of his existence. And her unconsciousness +was hateful to him. It wiped him clean out of the universe of +noticeable things. + +The apparition fairly cried to his romantic youth. And he said to +himself. "Who is the strange girl who walks on the moor by herself at +night and isn't afraid?" + + * * * * * + +He saw her three times after that; once in the broad daylight, on the +high road near Morfe, when she passed him with a still more perfect +and inimical unconsciousness; once in the distance on the moor, when +he caught her, short-skirted and wild, jumping the wide water courses +as they came, evidently under the impression that she was unobserved. +And he smiled and said to himself, "She's doing it for fun, pure fun." + +The third time he came upon her at dawn with the dew on her skirts +and on her hair. She darted away at the clank of his horse's hoofs, +half-savage, divinely shy. And he said to himself that time, "I'm +getting on. She's aware of me all right." + +She had come down from Karva, and he was on his way to Morfe from +Upthorne. He had sat up all night with John Greatorex who had died at +dawn. + +The smell of the sick man, and of the bed and of the low close room +was still in his nostrils, and in his ears the sounds of dying and of +mourning, and at his heart the oppression (he was still young enough +to feel it) of the secret and abominable things he knew. And in his +eyes the unknown girl and her behavior became suddenly adorable. +She was the darting joy and the poignant sweetness, and the sheer +extravagant ardor and energy of life. His tempestuously romantic youth +rose up and was troubled at the sight of her. And his eyes, that +had stared at her in wonder and amusement and inquisitive interest, +followed her now with that queer pathos that they had. It was the look +that he relied on to move desire in women's eyes; and now it traveled, +forlorn and ineffectual, abject almost in its futility, over the gray +moorgrass where she went. + + * * * * * + +That was on Wednesday the fourteenth. On Friday the sixteenth he saw +her again at nightfall, in the doorway of John Greatorex's house. + +He had overtaken the cart that was carrying John Greatorex's coffin to +Upthorne. Low lighted, the long gray house brooded over the marshes, +waiting to be disencumbered of its dead. + +In the east the broken shoulders of the hills receded, winding with +the dale like a coast line of gray cliffs above the mist that was +their sea. Tortured, mutilated by the jagged cloud that held her, the +moon struggled and tore her way, she lifted and freed herself high and +struck the marshes white. Defaced and sinister, above her battlements, +she looked at the house and made it terrible, moon-haunted. Its door, +low lighted, stood open to the night. + +Rowcliffe drew back from the threshold to let a woman pass out. +Looking up, he was aware that he had seen her again. He supposed it +was the light of that detestable moon that gave her face its queer +morbid whiteness. + +She went by without seeing him, clenching her hands and carrying her +young head high; and he saw that her eyes still held the tears that +she was afraid to spill. + +Mrs. Gale stood behind her with a lamp, lighting her passage. + +"Who is that young lady?" he asked. + +"T' Vicar's laass, Gwanda." + +The woman leaned to him and whispered, "She's seen t' body." + +And in the girl's fear and blindness and defiance he saw the pride of +her youth beaten and offended by that which it had seen. + +Out there, in the bridle path leading from the high road to the farm, +the cart had stopped. The men were lifting the coffin out, shouldering +it, carrying it along. He saw Gwenda Cartaret swerve out of their way. +Presently he heard her running down the road. + +Then he remembered what he had been sent for. + +He turned his attention to Mrs. Gale. She was a square-set, +blunt-featured woman of forty-five or so, who had once been comely +like her daughter Essy. Now her soft chin had sagged; in her cheeks +the stagnant blood crawled through a network of little veins, and +the gloss had gone from her dark hair. Her brown eyes showed a dull +defiance and deprecation of the human destiny. + +"Where is he?" he said. + +"Oop there, in t' room wi' 's feyther." + +"Been drinking again, or what?" + +"Naw, Dr. Rawcliffe, 'e 'assn't. I suddn' a sent for yo all this road +for nowt." + +She drew him into the house place, and whispered. + +"I'm feared 'e'll goa queer in 'is 'head, like. 'E's sot there by t' +body sence yesterda noon. 'E's not takken off 'is breeches for tree +daas. 'E caaun't sleap; 'e wunna eat and 'e wunna drink. There's work +to be doon and 'e wunna lay haand to it. Wull yo goa oop t' 'im, Dr. +Rawcliffe?" + +Rowcliffe went up. + + + + +XIII + + +In the low lighted room the thing that Gwenda Cartaret had seen lay +stretched in the middle of the great bed, covered with a sheet. The +bed, with its white mound, was so much too big for the four walls that +held it, the white plaster of the ceiling bulging above it stooped so +low, that the body of John Greatorex lay as if already closed up in +its tomb. + +Jim Greatorex, his son, sat on a wooden chair at the head of the +bed. His young, handsome face was loose and flushed as if he had been +drinking. His eyes--the queer, blue, wide-open eyes that had hitherto +looked out at you from their lodging in that ruddy, sensuous face, +incongruously spiritual, high and above your head, like the eyes of a +dreamer and a mystic--Jim's eyes were sunken now and darkened in their +red and swollen lids. They stared at the rug laid down beside the bed, +while Jim's mind set itself to count, stupidly and obstinately, the +snippets of gray and scarlet cloth that made the pattern on the black. +Every now and then he would recognise a snippet as belonging to some +suit his father had worn years ago, and then Jim's brain would receive +a shock and would stagger and have to begin its counting all over +again. + +The door opened to let Rowcliffe in. And at the sound of the door, +as if a spring had been suddenly released in his spine, Jim Greatorex +shot up and started to his feet. + +"Well, Greatorex----" + +"Good evening, Dr. Rawcliffe." He came forward awkwardly, hanging his +head as if detected in an act of shame. + +There was a silence while the two men turned their backs upon the +bed, determined to ignore what was on it. They stood together by the +window, pretending to stare at things out there in the night; and so +they became aware of the men carrying the coffin. + +They could no longer ignore it. + +"Wull yo look at 'Im, doctor?" + +"Better not----." Rowcliffe would have laid his hand on the young +man's arm, muttering a refusal, but Greatorex had moved to the bed and +drawn back the sheet. + +What Gwenda Cartaret had seen was revealed. + +The dead man's face, upturned with a slight tilt to the ceiling that +bulged so brutally above it, the stiff dark beard accentuating the +tilt, the eyes, also upturned, white under their unclosing lids, the +nostrils, the half-open mouth preserved their wonder and their terror +before a thing so incredible--that the walls and roof of a man's room +should close round him and suffocate him. On this horrified face there +were the marks of dissolution, and, at the corners of the grim beard +and moustache, a stain. + +It left nothing to be said. It was the face of the man who had drunk +hard and had told his son that he had never been the worse for drink. + +Jim Greatorex stood and looked at it as if he knew what Rowcliffe was +thinking of it and defied him to think. + +Rowcliffe drew up the sheet and covered it. "You'd better come out of +this. It isn't good for you," he said. + +"I knaw what's good for me, Dr. Rawcliffe." + +Jim stuck his hands in his breeches and gazed stubbornly at the +sheeted mound. + +"Come," Rowcliffe said, "don't give way like this. Buck up and be a +man." + +"A ma-an? You wait till yor turn cooms, doctor." + +"My turn came ten years ago, and it may come again." + +"And yo'll knaw then what good it doos ta-alkin'." He paused, +listening. "They've coom," he said. + +There was a sound of scuffling on the stone floor below and on the +stairs. Mrs. Gale's voice was heard out on the landing, calling to the +men. + +"Easy with un--easy. Mind t' lamp. Eh--yo'll never get un oop that +road. Yo mun coax un round corner." + +A swinging thud on the stone wall. Then more and more desperate +scuffling with muttering. Then silence. + +Mrs. Gale put her head in at the door. + +"Jimmy, yo mun coom and gie a haand wi' t' coffin. They've got un +faasst in t' turn o' t' stair." + +Through the open doorway Rowcliffe could see the broad shoulders of +the coffin jammed in the stairway. + +Jim, flushed with resentment, strode out; and the struggling and +scuffling began again, subdued, this time, and respectful. Rowcliffe +went out to help. + +Mrs. Gale on the landing went on talking to herself. "They sud 'ave +browt trestles oop first. There's naw place to stond un in. Eh dear! +It's job enoof gettin' un oop. What'll it be gettin' un down again +wit' 'E layin' in un? 'Ere--yo get oonder un, Jimmy, and 'eave un +oop." + +Jim crouched and went backward down the stair under the coffin. His +flushed face, with its mournful, mystic eyes, looked out at Rowcliffe +for a moment under the coffin head. Then, with a heave of his great +back and pushing with his powerful arms against the wall and stair +rail, he loosened the shoulders of the coffin and bore it, steadied by +Rowcliffe and the men, up the stair and into the room. + +They set it on its feet beside the bed, propped against the wall. And +Jim Greatorex stood and stared at it. + +Rowcliffe went down into the kitchen, followed by Mrs. Gale. + +"What d'yo think o' Jimmy, Dr. Rawcliffe?" + +"He oughtn't to be left alone. Isn't there any sister or anybody who +could come to him?" + +"Naw; 'e's got naw sisters, Jimmy 'assn't." + +"Well, you must get him to lie down and eat." + +"Get 'im? Yo can do nowt wi' Jimmy. 'E'll goa 'is own road. 'Is +feyther an' 'e they wuss always quar'ling, yo med say. Yet when t' owd +gentleman was taaken bad, Jimmy, 'e couldn' do too mooch for 'im. 'E +was set on pullin' 's feyther round. And when 'e found 'e couldn't +keep t' owd gentleman, 'e gets it on 'is mind like--broodin'. And 'e's +got nowt to coomfort 'im." + +She sat down to it now. + +"Yo see, Dr. Rawcliffe, Jim's feyther and 'is granfeyther before 'im, +they wuss good Wesleyans. It's in t' blood. But Jim's moother that +died, she wuss Choorch. And that slip of a laass, when John Greatorex +coom courtin', she turned 'im. 'E was that soft wi' laasses. 'Er +feyther 'e was steward to lord o' t' Manor and 'e was Choorch and all +t' family saame as t' folk oop at Manor. Yo med say, Jim Greatorex, +'e's got naw religion. Neither Choorch nor Chapel 'e is. Nowt to +coomfort 'im." + +Upstairs the scuffling and the struggling became frightful. Jim's feet +and Jim's voice were heard above the muttering of the undertaker's +men. + +Mrs. Gale whispered. "They're gettin' 'im in. 'E's gien a haand wi' t' +body. Thot's soomthin'." + +She brooded ponderously. A sound of stamping and scraping at the back +door roused her. + +"Eh--oo's there now?" she asked irritably. + +Willie, the farm lad, appeared on the threshold. His face was flushed +and scared. + +"Where's Jim?" he said in a thick voice. + +"Ooosh-sh! Doan't yo' knaw t' coffin's coom? 'E's oopstairs w' t' owd +maaster." + +"Well--'e mun coom down. T' mare's taaken baad again in 'er insi-ide." + +"T' mare, Daasy?" + +"Yes." + +"Eh dear, there's naw end to trooble. Yo go oop and fatch Jimmy." + +Willie hesitated. His flush deepened. + +"I daarss'nt," he whispered hoarsely. + +"Poor laad, 'e 's freetened o' t' body," she explained. "Yo stay +there, Wullie. I'll goa. T' body's nowt to me. I've seen too many o' +they," she muttered as she went. + +They heard her crying excitedly overhead. "Jimmy! Yo coom to t' +ma-are! Yo coom to t' ma-are!" + +The sounds in the room ceased instantly. Jim Greatorex, alert and in +violent possession of all his faculties, dashed down the stairs and +out into the yard. + +Rowcliffe followed into the darkness where his horse and trap stood +waiting for him. + + * * * * * + +He was lighting his lamps when Jim Greatorex appeared beside him with +a lantern. + +"Dr. Rawcliffe, will yo joost coom an' taak a look at lil maare?" + +Jim's sullenness was gone. His voice revealed him humble and +profoundly agitated. + +Rowcliffe sighed, smiled, pulled himself together and turned with +Greatorex into the stable. + +In the sodden straw of her stall, Daisy, the mare, lay, heaving and +snorting after her agony. From time to time she turned her head +toward her tense and swollen flank, seeking with eyes of anguish the +mysterious source of pain. The feed of oats with which Willie had +tried to tempt her lay untouched in the skip beside her head. + +"I give 'er they oats an hour ago," said Willie. "An' she 'assn't so +mooch as nosed 'em." + +"Nawbody but a donmed gawpie would have doon thot with 'er stoomach +raw. Yo med 'ave killed t' mare." + +Willie, appalled by his own deed and depressed, stooped down and +fondled the mare's face, to show that it was not affection that he +lacked. + +"Heer--clear out o' thot and let doctor have a look in." + +Willie slunk aside as Rowcliffe knelt with Greatorex in the straw and +examined the sick mare. + +"Can yo tell at all what's amiss, doctor?" + +"Colic, I should say. Has the vet seen her?" + +"Ye-es. He sent oop soomthing--" + +"Well, have you given it her?" + +Jim's voice thickened. "I sud have given it her yesterda." + +"And why on earth didn't you?" + +"The domned thing went clane out o' my head." + +He turned to the window ledge by the stable door where, among a +confusion of cobwebs and dusty bottles and tin cans, the drench of +turpentine and linseed oil, the little phial of chlorodyne, and the +clean tin pannikin with its wide protruding mouth, stood ready, all +gleaming in the lantern light, forgotten since the day before. + +"Thot's the stoof. Will yo halp me give it 'er, doctor?" + +"All right. Can you hold her?" + +"That I can. Coom oop, Daasy. Coom oop. There, my beauty. Gently, +gently, owd laass." + +Rowcliffe took off his coat and shook up the drench and poured it into +the pannikin, while Greatorex got the struggling mare on to her feet. + +Together, with gentleness and dexterity they cajoled her. Then Jim +laid his hands upon her mouth and opened it, drawing up her head +against his breast. Willie, suddenly competent, held the lantern while +Rowcliffe poured the drench down her throat. + +Daisy, coughing and dribbling, stood and gazed at them with sad and +terrified eyes. And while the undertaker's men screwed down the lid +upon John Greatorex in his coffin, Jim Greatorex, his son, watched +with Daisy in her stall. + +And Steven Rowcliffe watched with him, nursing the sick mare, making +up a fresh, clean bed for her, rubbing and fomenting her swollen and +tortured belly. When Daisy rolled in another agony, Rowcliffe gave her +chlorodyne and waited till suddenly she lay still. + +In Jim's face, as he looked down at her, there was an infinite +tenderness and pity and compunction. + +Rowcliffe, wriggling into his coat, regarded him with curiosity and +wonder, till Jim drew himself up and fixed him with his queer, unhappy +eyes. + +"Shall I save her, doctor?" + +"I can't tell you yet. I'd better send the vet up tomorrow hadn't I?" + +"Ay----" Jim's voice was strangled in the spasm of his throat. But he +took Rowcliffe's hand and wrung it, discharging many emotions in that +one excruciating grip. + +Rowcliffe pointed to the little phial of chlorodyne lying in the +straw. "If I were you," he said, "I shouldn't leave that lying about." + +Through his long last night in the gray house haunted by the moon, +John Greatorex lay alone, screwed down under a coffin lid, and his +son, Jim, wrapped in a horse-blanket and with his head on a hay sack, +lay in the straw of the stable, beside Daisy his mare. From time to +time, as his mood took him, he turned and laid his hand on her in a +poignant caress. As if she had been his first-born, or his bride, he +spoke to her in the thick, soft voice of passion, with pitiful, broken +words and mutterings. + +"What is it, Daasy----what is it? There, did they, then, did they? My +beauty--my lil laass. I--I wuss a domned brute to forget tha, a domned +brute." + +All that night and the next night he lay beside her. The funeral +passed like a fantastic interlude between the long acts of his +passion. His great sorrow made him humble to Mrs. Gale so that he +allowed her to sustain him with food and drink. And on the third day +it was known throughout Garthdale that young Greatorex, who had lost +his father, had saved his mare. + +Only Steven Rowcliffe knew that the mare had saved young Greatorex. + + * * * * * + +And the little phial of chlorodyne was put back among the cobwebs and +forgotten. + + + + +XIV + + +Down at the Vicarage the Vicar was wrangling with his youngest +daughter. For the third time Alice declared that she was not well and +that she didn't want her milk. + +"Whether you want it or not you've got to drink it," said the Vicar. + +Alice took the glass in her lap and looked at it. + +"Am I to stand over you till you drink it?" + +Alice put the rim of the glass to her mouth and shuddered. + +"I can't," she said. "It'll make me sick." + +"Leave the poor child alone, Papa," said Gwenda. + +But the Vicar ignored Gwenda. + +"You'll drink it, if I stand here all night," he said. + +Alice struggled with a spasm in her throat. He held the glass for her +while she groped piteously. + +"Oh, where's my hanky?" + +With superhuman clemency he produced his own. + +"It'll serve you right if I'm ill," said Alice. + +"Come," said the Vicar in his wisdom and his patience. "Come." + +He proffered the disgusting cup again. + +"I'd drink it and have done with it, if I were you," said Mary in her +soft voice. + +Mary's soft voice was too much for Alice. + +"Why c-can't you leave me alone? You--you--beast, Mary," she sobbed. + +And Mr. Cartaret began again, "Am I to stand here----" + +Alice got up, she broke loose from them and left the room. + +"You might have known she wasn't going to drink it," Gwenda said. + +But the Vicar never knew when he was beaten. + +"She would have drunk it," he said, "if Mary hadn't interfered." + + * * * * * + +Alice had not got the pneumonia that had killed John Greatorex. Such +happiness, she reflected, was not for her. She had desired it too +much. + +But she was doing very well with her anæmia. + +Bloodless and slender and inert, she dragged herself about the +village. She could not get away from it because of the steep hills +she would have had to climb. A small, unhappy ghost, she haunted the +fields in the bottom and the path along the beck that led past Mrs. +Gale's cottage. + +The sight of Alice was more than ever annoying to the Vicar. Only +you wouldn't have known it. As she grew whiter and weaker he braced +himself, and became more hearty and robust. When he caught her lying +on the sofa he spoke to her in a robust and hearty tone. + +"Don't lie there all day, my girl. Get up and go out. What you want is +a good blow on the moor." + +"Yes. If I didn't die before I got there," Alice would say, while she +thought, "Serve him right, too, if I did." + +And the Vicar would turn from her in disgust. He knew what was the +matter with his daughter Alice. + +At dinner time he would pull himself together again, for, after all, +he was her father. He was robust and hearty over the sirloin and the +leg of mutton. He would call for a glass and press into it the red +juice of the meat. + +"Don't peak and pine, girl. Drink that. It'll put some blood into +you." + +And Alice would refuse to drink it. + +Next she refused to drink her milk at eleven. She carried it out to +Essy in the scullery. + +"I wish you'd drink my milk for me, Essy. It makes me sick," she said. + +"I don't want your milk," said Essy. + +"Please--" she implored her. + +But Essy was angry. Her face flamed and she banged down the dishes she +was drying. "I sail not drink it. What should I want your milk for? +You can pour it in t' pig's bucket." + +And the milk would be left by the scullery window till it turned sour +and Essy poured it into the pig's bucket that stood under the sink. + + * * * * * + +Three weeks passed, and with every week Alice grew more bloodless, +more slender, and more inert, and more and more like an unhappy +ghost. Her small face was smaller; there was a tinge of green in its +honey-whiteness, and of mauve in the dull rose of her mouth. And under +her shallow breast her heart seemed to rise up and grow large, while +the rest of Alice shrank and grew small. It was as if her fragile +little body carried an enormous engine, an engine of infernal and +terrifying power. When she lay down and when she got up and with every +sudden movement its throbbing shook her savagely. + +Night and morning she called to her sister: "Oh Gwenda, come and feel +my heart. I do believe it's growing. It's getting too big for my body. +It frightens me when it jumps about like that." + +It frightened Gwenda. + +But it did not really frighten Alice. She rejoiced in it, rather, +and exulted. After all, it was a good thing that she had not +got pneumonia, which might have killed her as it had killed John +Greatorex. She had got what served her purpose better. It served all +her purposes. If she had tried she could not have hit on anything that +would have annoyed her father more or put him more conspicuously in +the wrong. To begin with, it was his doing. He had worried her into +it. And he had brought her to a place which was the worst place +conceivable for anybody with a diseased heart, since you couldn't stir +out of doors without going up hill. + +Night and morning Alice stood before the looking-glass and turned out +the lining of her lips and eyelids and saw with pleasure the pale rose +growing paler. Every other hour she laid her hand on her heart and +took again the full thrill of its dangerous throbbing, or felt her +pulse to assure herself of the halt, the jerk, the hurrying of the +beat. Night and morning and every other hour she thought of Rowcliffe. + +"If it goes on like this, they'll _have_ to send for him," she said. + +But it had gone on, the three weeks had passed, and yet they had not +sent. The Vicar had put his foot down. He wouldn't have the doctor. He +knew better than a dozen doctors what was the matter with his daughter +Alice. + +Alice said nothing. She simply waited. As if some profound and +dead-sure instinct had sustained her, she waited, sickening. + +And on the last night of the third week she fainted. She had dragged +herself upstairs to bed, staggered across the little landing and +fallen on the threshold of her room. + +They kept her in bed next day. At one o'clock she refused her +chicken-broth. She would neither eat nor drink. And a little before +three Gwenda went for the doctor. + +She had not told Alice she was going. She had not told anybody. + + + + +XV + + +She had to walk, for Mary had taken her bicycle. Nobody knew where +Mary had gone or when she had started or when she would be back. + +But the four miles between Garth and Morfe were nothing to Gwenda, who +would walk twenty for her own amusement. She would have stretched the +way out indefinitely if she could; she would have piled Garthdale Moor +on Greffington Edge and Karva on the top of them and put them between +Garth and Morfe, so violent was her fear of Steven Rowcliffe. + +She had no longer any desire to see him or to be seen by him. He had +seen her twice too often, and too early and too late. After being +caught on the moor at dawn, it was preposterous that she should show +herself in the doorway of Upthorne at night. + +How was he to know that she hadn't done it on purpose? Girls did these +things. Poor little Ally had done them. And it was because Ally had +done them that she had been taken and hidden away here where she +couldn't do them any more. + +But--couldn't she? Gwenda stood still, staring in her horror as the +frightful thought struck her that Ally could, and that she would, the +very minute she realised young Rowcliffe. And he would think--not that +it mattered in the least what he thought--he would think that there +were two of them. + +If only, she said to herself, if only young Rowcliffe were a married +man. Then even Ally couldn't-- + +Not that she blamed poor little Ally. She looked on little Ally as +the victim of a malign and tragic tendency, the fragile vehicle of an +alien and overpowering impulse. Little Ally was doomed. It wasn't her +fault if she was made like that. + +And this time it wouldn't be her fault at all. Their father would have +driven her. Gwenda hated him for his persecution and exposure of the +helpless creature. + +She walked on thinking. + +It wouldn't end with Ally. They were all three exposed and persecuted. +For supposing--it wasn't likely, but supposing--that this Rowcliffe +man was the sort of man she liked, supposing--what was still more +unlikely--that he was the sort of man who would like her, where +would be the good of it? Her father would spoil it all. He spoiled +everything. + +Well, no, to be perfectly accurate, not everything. There was +one thing he had not spoiled, because he had never suspected its +existence--her singular passion for the place. Of course, if he had +suspected it, he would have stamped on it. It was his business +to stamp on other people's passions. Luckily, it wasn't in him to +conceive a passion for a place. + +It had come upon her at first sight as they drove between twilight and +night from Reyburn through Rathdale into Garthdale. It was when they +had left the wooded land behind them and the moors lifted up their +naked shoulders, one after another, darker than dark, into a sky +already whitening above the hidden moon. And she saw Morfe, gray as +iron, on its hill, bearing the square crown and the triple pendants of +its lights; she saw the long straight line of Greffington Edge, hiding +the secret moon, and Karva with the ashen west behind it. There was +something in their form and in their gesture that called to her as +if they knew her, as if they waited for her; they struck her with the +shock of recognition, as if she had known them and had waited too. + +And close beside her own wonder and excitement she had felt the deep +and sullen repulsion of her companions. The Vicar sat huddled in his +overcoat. His nostrils, pinched with repugnance, sniffed as they drank +in the cold, clean air. From time to time he shuddered, and a hoarse +muttering came from under the gray woolen scarf he had wound round +his mouth and beard. He was the righteous man, sent into uttermost +abominable exile for his daughter's sin. Behind him, on the back seat +of the trap, Alice and Mary cowed under their capes and rugs. They had +turned their shoulders to each other, hostile in their misery. Gwenda +was sorry for them. + +The gray road dipped and turned and plunged them to the bottom of +Garthdale. The small, scattering lights of the village waited for her +in the hollow, with something humble and sad and familiar in their +setting. They too stung her with that poignant and secret sense of +recognition. + +"This is the place," the Vicar had said. He had addressed himself +to Alice; and it had been as if he had said, This the place, the +infernal, the damnable place, you've brought us to with your behavior. + +Their hatred of it had made Gwenda love it. "You can have your old +Garthdale all to yourself," Alice had said. "Nobody else wants it." + +That, to Gwenda, was the charm of it. The adorable place was her own. +Nobody else wanted it. She loved it for itself. It had nothing but +itself to offer her. And that was enough. It was almost, as she +had said, too much. Her questing youth conceived no more rapturous +adventure than to follow the sheep over Karva, to set out at twilight +and see the immense night come down on the high moors above Upthorne; +to get up when Alice was asleep and slip out and watch the dawn +turning from gray to rose, and from rose to gold above Greffington +Edge. + +As it happened you saw sunrise and moonrise best from the platform of +Morfe Green. There Greffington Edge breaks and falls away, and lets +slip the dawn like a rosy scarf from its shoulder, and sets the moon +free of her earth and gives her to the open sky. + +But, just as the Vicar had spoiled Rowcliffe, so Rowcliffe had +spoiled Morfe for Gwenda. Therefore her fear of him was mingled with +resentment. It was as if he had had no business to be living there, in +that house of his looking over the Green. + +Incredible that she should have wanted to see and to know this person. +But now, that she didn't want to, of course she was going to see him. + + * * * * * + +At the bend of the road, within a mile of Morfe, Mary came riding on +Gwenda's bicycle. Large parcels were slung from her handle bars. She +had been shopping in the village. + +Mary, bowed forward as she struggled with an upward slope, was not +aware of Gwenda. But Gwenda was aware of Mary, and, not being in the +mood for her, she struck off the road on to the moor and descended +upon Morfe by the steep lane that leads from Karva into Rathdale. + +It never occurred to her to wonder what Mary had been doing in Morfe, +so evident was it that she had been shopping. + + + + +XVI + + +The doctor was at home, but he was engaged, at the moment, in the +surgery. + +The maid-servant asked if she would wait. + +She waited in the little cold and formal dining-room that looked +through two windows on to the Green. So formal and so cold, so utterly +impersonal was the air of the doctor's mahogany furniture that her +fear left her. It was as if the furniture assured her that she would +not really _see_ Rowcliffe; as for knowing him, she needn't worry. + +She had sent in her card, printed for convenience with the names of +the three sisters: + + Miss Cartaret. + Miss Gwendolen Cartaret. + Miss Alice Cartaret. + +She felt somehow that it protected her. She said to herself, "He won't +know which of us it is." + + * * * * * + +Rowcliffe was washing his hands in the surgery when the card was +brought to him. He frowned at the card. + +"But--You've brought this before," he said. "I've seen the lady." + +"No, sir. It's another lady." + +"Another? Are you certain?" + +"Yes, sir. Quite certain." + +"Did she come on a bicycle?" + +"No, sir, that was the lady you've seen. I think this'll be her +sister." + +Rowcliffe was still frowning as he dried his hands with fastidious +care. + +"She's different, sir. Taller like." + +"Taller?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Rowcliffe turned to the table and picked up a probe and a lancet and +dropped them into a sterilising solution. + +The maid waited. Rowcliffe's absorption was complete. + +"Shall I ask her to call again, sir?" + +"No. I'll see her. Where is she?" + +"In the dining-room, sir." + +"Show her into the study." + + * * * * * + +Nothing could have been more distant and reserved than Rowcliffe's +dining-room. But, to a young woman who had made up her mind that she +didn't want to know anything about him, Rowcliffe's study said too +much. It told her that he was a ferocious and solitary reader; for in +the long rows of book shelves the books leaned slantwise across the +gaps where his hands had rummaged and ransacked. It told her that his +gods were masculine and many--Darwin and Spencer and Haeckel, Pasteur, +Curie and Lord Lister, Thomas Hardy, Walt Whitman and Bernard +Shaw. Their photogravure portraits hung above the bookcase. He was +indifferent to mere visible luxury, or how could he have endured +the shabby drugget, the cheap, country wall-paper with its design of +dreadful roses on a white watered ground? But the fire in the grate +and the deep arm-chair drawn close to it showed that he loved warmth +and comfort. That his tastes made him solitary she gathered from the +chair's comparatively unused and unworn companion, lurking and sulking +in the corner where it had been thrust aside. + +The one window of this room looked to the west upon a little orchard, +gray trunks of apple trees and plum trees against green grass, green +branches against gray stone, gray that was softened in the liquid +autumn air, green that was subtle, exquisite, charmingly austere. + +He could see his little orchard as he sat by his fire. She thought she +rather liked him for keeping his window so wide open. + +She was standing by it looking at the orchard as he came in. + + * * * * * + +He was so quiet in his coming that she did not see or hear him till he +stood before her. + +And in his eyes, intensely quiet, there was a look of wonder and of +incredulity, almost of concern. + +Greetings and introductions over, the unused arm-chair was brought out +from its lair in the corner. Rowcliffe, in his own arm-chair, sat in +shadow, facing her. What light there was fell full on her. + +"I'm sorry you should have had to come to me," he said, "your sister +was here a minute or two ago." + +"My sister?" + +"I think it _must_ have been your sister. She said it was _her_ sister +I was to go and see." + +"I didn't know she was coming. She never told me." + +"Pity. I was coming out to see you first thing tomorrow morning." + +"Then you know? She told you?" + +"She told me something." He smiled. "She must have been a little +overanxious. You don't look as if there was very much the matter with +you." + +"But there isn't. It isn't me." + +"Who is it then?" + +"My other sister." + +"Oh. I seem to have got a little mixed." + +"You see, there are three of us." + +He laughed. + +"Three! Let me get it right. I've seen Miss Cartaret. You are Miss +Gwendolen Cartaret. And the lady I am to see is--? + +"My youngest sister, Alice." + +"Now I understand. I wondered how you managed those four miles. Tell +me about her." + +She began. She was vivid and terse. He saw that she made short cuts +to the root of the matter. He showed himself keen and shrewd. Once or +twice he said "I know, I know," and she checked herself. + +"My sister has told you all that." + +"No, she hasn't. Nothing like it. Please go on." + +She went on till he interrupted her. "How old is she?" + +"Just twenty-three." + +"I see. Yes." He looked so keen now that she was frightened. + +"Does that make it more dangerous?" she said. + +He laughed. "No. It makes it less so. I don't suppose it's dangerous +at all. But I can't tell till I've seen her. I say, you must be tired +after that long walk." + +"I'm never tired." + +"That's good." + +He rang the bell. The maid appeared. + +"Tell Acroyd I want the trap. And bring tea--at once." + +"For two, sir?" + +"For two." + +Gwenda rose. "Thanks very much, I must be going." + +"Please stay. It won't take five minutes. Then I can drive you back." + +"I can walk." + +"I know you can. But--you see--" His keenness and shrewdness went +from him. He was almost embarrassed. "I _was_ going round to see +your sister in the morning. But--I think I'd rather see her to-night. +And--" He was improvising freely now--"I ought, perhaps, to see you +after, as you understand the case. So, if you don't _mind_ coming back +with me--" + +She didn't mind. Why should she? + +She stayed. She sat in Rowcliffe's chair before his fire and drank his +tea and ate his hot griddle-cakes (she had a healthy appetite, being +young and strong). She talked to him as if she had known him a long +time. All these things he made her do, and when he talked to her he +made her forget what had brought her there; he made her forget Alice +and Mary and her father. + +When he left her for a moment she got up, restless and eager to be +gone. And when he came back to her she was standing by the open window +again, looking at the orchard. + +Rowcliffe looked at _her_, taking in her tallness, her slenderness, +the lithe and beautiful line of her body, curved slightly backward as +she leaned against the window wall. + +Never before and never again, afterwards, never, that was to say, for +any other woman, did Rowcliffe feel what he felt then. Looking back on +it (afterward) he could only describe it as a sense of certainty. It +lacked, surprisingly, the element of surprise. + +"You like my north-country orchard?" (He was certain that she did.) + +She turned, smiling. "I like it very much." + +They had been a long time over tea. It was half-past five before they +started. He brought an overcoat and put it on her. He wrapped a rug +round her knees and feet and tucked it well in. + +"You don't like rugs," he said (he knew she didn't), "but you've got +to have it." + +She did like it. She liked his rug and his overcoat, and his little +brown horse with the clanking hoofs. And she liked him, most decidedly +she liked him, too. He was the sort of man you could like. + +They were soon out on the moor. + +Rowcliffe's youth rose in him and put words into his mouth. + +"Ripping country, this." + +She said it was ripping. + +For the life of them they couldn't have said more about it. There were +no words for the inscrutable ecstasy it gave them. + +As they passed Karva Rowcliffe smiled. + +"It's all right," he said, "my driving you. Of course you don't +remember, but we've met--several times before." + +"Where?" + +"I'll show you where. Anyhow, that's your hill, isn't it?" + +"How did you know it was?" + +"Because I've seen you there. The first time I ever saw you--No, +_that_ was a bit farther on. At the bend of the road. We're coming to +it." + +They came. + +"Just here," he said. + +And now they were in sight of Garthdale. + +"Funny I should have thought it was you who were ill." + +"I'm never ill." + +"You won't be as long as you can walk like that. And run. And jump--" + +A horrid pause. + +"You did it very nicely." + +Another pause, not quite so horrid. + +And then--"Do you _always_ walk after dark and before sunrise?" + +And it was as if he had said, "Why am I always meeting you? What do +you do it for? It's queer, isn't it?" + +But he had given her her chance. She rose to it. + +"I've done it ever since we came here." (It was as if she had said +"Long before _you_ came.") "I do it because I like it. That's the best +of this place. You can do what you like in it. There's nobody to see +you." + +("Counting me," he thought, "as nobody.") + +"I should like to do it, too," he said--"to go out before sunrise--if +I hadn't got to. If I did it for fun--like you." + +He knew he would not really have liked it. But his romantic youth +persuaded him in that moment that he would. + + + + +XVII + + +Mary was up in the attic, the west attic that looked on to the road +through its shy gable window. + +She moved quietly there, her whole being suffused exquisitely with a +sense of peace, of profound, indwelling goodness. Every act of hers +for the last three days had been incomparably good, had been, indeed, +perfect. She had waited on Alice hand and foot. She had made the +chicken broth refused by Alice. There was nothing that she would not +do for poor little Ally. When little Ally was petulant and sullen, +Mary was gentle and serene. She felt toward little Ally, lying there +so little and so white, a poignant, yearning tenderness. Today she +had visited all the sick people in the village, though it was not +Wednesday, Dr. Rowcliffe's day. (Only by visiting them on other days +could Mary justify and make blameless her habit of visiting them on +Wednesdays.) She had put the house in order. She had done her shopping +in Morfe to such good purpose that she had concealed even from herself +the fact that she had gone into Morfe, surreptitiously, to fetch the +doctor. + +Of course Mary was aware that she had fetched him. She had been driven +to that step by sheer terror. All the way home she kept on saying to +herself, "I've saved Ally." "I've saved Ally." That thought, splendid +and exciting, rushed to the lighted front of Mary's mind; if the +thought of Rowcliffe followed its shining trail, it thrust him back, +it spread its luminous wings to hide him, it substituted its heavenly +form for his. + +So effectually did it cover him that Mary herself never dreamed that +he was there. + +Neither did the Vicar, when he saw her arrive, laden with parcels, +wholesomely cheerful and reddened by her ride. He had said to her +"You're a good girl, Mary," and the sadness of his tone implied that +he wished her sister Gwendolen and her sister Alice were more like +her. And he had smiled at her under his austere moustache, and carried +in the biggest parcels for her. + +The Vicar was pleased with his daughter Mary. Mary had never given him +an hour's anxiety. Mary had never put him in the wrong, never made him +feel uncomfortable. He honestly believed that he was fond of her. She +was like her poor mother. Goodness, he said to himself, was in her +face. + +There had been goodness in Mary's face when she went into Alice's room +to see what she could do for her. There was goodness in it now, up in +the attic, where there was nobody but God to see it; goodness at peace +with itself, and utterly content. + +She had been back more than an hour. And ever since teatime she had +been up in the attic, putting away her summer gowns. She shook them +and held them out and looked at them, the poor pretty things that she +had hardly ever worn. They hung all limp, all abashed and broken in +her hands, as if aware of their futility. She said to herself, +"They were no good, no good at all. And next year they'll all be +old-fashioned. I shall be ashamed to be seen in them." And she folded +them and laid them by for their winter's rest in the black trunk. And +when she saw them lying there she had a moment of remorse. After +all, they had been part of herself, part of her throbbing, sensuous +womanhood, warmed once by her body. It wasn't their fault, poor +things, any more than hers, if they had been futile and unfit. She +shut the lid down on them gently, and it was as if she buried them +gently out of her sight. She could afford to forgive them, for she +knew that there was no futility nor unfitness in her. Deep down in her +heart she knew it. + +She sat on the trunk in the attitude of one waiting, waiting in the +utter stillness of assurance. She could afford to wait. All her being +was still, all its secret impulses appeased by the slow and orderly +movements of her hands. + +Suddenly she started up and listened. She heard out on the road the +sound of wheels, and of hoofs that struck together. And she frowned. +She thought, He might as well have called today, if he's passing. + +The clanking ceased, the wheels slowed down, and Mary's peaceful heart +moved violently in her breast. The trap drew up at the Vicarage gate. + +She went over to the window, the small, shy gable window that looked +on to the road. She saw her sister standing in the trap and Rowcliffe +beneath her, standing in the road and holding out his hand. She saw +the two faces, the man's face looking up, the woman's face looking +down, both smiling. + +And Mary's heart drew itself together in her breast. Through her shut +lips her sister's name forced itself almost audibly. + +"_Gwen_-da!" + + * * * * * + +Suddenly she shivered. A cold wind blew through the open window. Yet +she did not move to shut it out. To have interfered with the attic +window would have been a breach of compact, an unholy invasion of her +sister's rights. For the attic, the smallest, the coldest, the +darkest and most thoroughly uncomfortable room in the whole house, +was Gwenda's, made over to her in the Vicar's magnanimity, by way of +compensation for the necessity that forced her to share her room with +Alice. As the attic was used for storing trunks and lumber, only two +square yards of floor could be spared for Gwenda. But the two square +yards, cleared, and covered with a strip of old carpet, and furnished +with a little table and one chair; the wall-space by the window with +its hanging bookcase; the window itself and the corner fireplace near +it were hers beyond division and dispute. Nobody wanted them. + +And as Mary from among the boxes looked toward her sister's territory, +her small, brooding face took on such sadness as good women feel in +contemplating a character inscrutable and unlike their own. Mary was +sorry for Gwenda because of her inscrutability and unlikeness. + +Then, thinking of Gwenda, Mary smiled. The smile began in pity for her +sister and ended in a nameless, secret satisfaction. Not for a moment +did Mary suspect its source. It seemed to her one with her sense of +her own goodness. + +When she smiled it was as if the spirit of her small brooding face +took wings and fluttered, lifting delicately the rather heavy corners +of her mouth and eyes. + +Then, quietly, and with no indecorous haste, she went down into the +drawing-room to receive Rowcliffe. She was the eldest and it was her +duty. + +By the mercy of Heaven the Vicar had gone out. + + * * * * * + +Gwenda left Rowcliffe with Mary and went upstairs to prepare Alice for +his visit. She had brushed out her sister's long pale hair and platted +it, and had arranged the plats, tied with knots of white ribbon, one +over each low breast, and she had helped her to put on a little white +flannel jacket with a broad lace collar. Thus arrayed and decorated, +Alice sat up in her bed, her small slender body supported by huge +pillows, white against white, with no color about her but the dull +gold of her hair. + +Gwenda was still in the room, tidying it, when Mary brought Rowcliffe +there. + +It was a Rowcliffe whom she had not yet seen. She had her back to him +as he paused in the doorway to let Mary pass through. Ally's bed faced +the door, and the look in Ally's eyes made her aware of the change in +him. All of a sudden he had become taller (much taller than he really +was) and rigid and austere. His youth and its charm dropped clean away +from him. He looked ten years older than he had been ten minutes ago. +Compared with him, as he stood beside her bed, Ally looked more than +ever like a small child, a child vibrating with shyness and fear, a +child that implacable adult authority has found out in foolishness and +naughtiness; so evident was it to Ally that to Rowcliffe nothing was +hidden, nothing veiled. + +It was as a child that he treated her, a child who can conceal +nothing, from whom most things--all the serious and important +things--must be concealed. And Ally knew the terrible advantage that +he took of her. + +It was bad enough when he asked her questions and took no more notice +of her answers than if she had been a born fool. That might have been +his north-country manners and probably he couldn't help them. But +there was no necessity that Ally could see for his brutal abruptness, +and the callous and repellent look he had when she bared her breast to +the stethescope that sent all her poor secrets flying through the long +tubes that attached her heart to his abominable ears. Neither (when +he had disentangled himself from the stethescope) could she understand +why he should scowl appallingly as he took hold of her poor wrist to +feel her pulse. + +She said to herself, "He knows everything about me and he thinks I'm +awful." + +It was anguish to Ally that he should think her awful. + +And (to make it worse, if anything could make it) there was Mary +standing at the foot of the bed and staring at her. Mary knew +perfectly well that he was thinking how awful she was. It was what +Mary thought herself. + +If only Gwenda had stayed with her! But Gwenda had left the room when +she saw Rowcliffe take out his stethescope. + +And as it flashed on Ally what Rowcliffe was thinking of her, her +heart stopped as if it was never going on again, then staggered, then +gave a terrifying jump. + + * * * * * + +Rowcliffe had done with Ally's little wrist. He laid it down on the +counterpane, not brutally at all, but gently, almost tenderly, as if +it had been a thing exquisitely fragile and precious. + +He rose to his feet and looked at her, and then, all of a sudden, +as he looked, Rowcliffe became young again; charmingly young, almost +boyish. And, as if faintly amused at her youth, faintly touched by +her fragility, he smiled. With a mouth and with eyes from which all +austerity had departed he smiled at Alice. + +(It was all over. He had done with her. He could afford to be kind to +her as he would have been kind to a little, frightened child.) + +And Alice smiled back at him with her white face between the pale +gold, serious bands of platted hair. + +She was no longer frightened. She forgot his austerity as if it had +never been. She saw that he hadn't thought her awful in the least. He +couldn't have looked at her like that if he had. + +A sense of warmth, of stillness, of soft happiness flooded her body +and her brain, as if the stream of life had ceased troubling and +ran with an even rhythm. As she lay back, her tormented heart seemed +suddenly to sink into it and rest, to be part of it, poised on the +stream. + +Then, still looking down at her, he spoke. + +"It's pretty evident," he said, "what's the matter with you." + +"_Is_ it?" + +Her eyes were all wide. He had frightened her again. + +"It is," he said. "You've been starved." + +"Oh," said little Ally, "is _that_ all?" + +And Rowcliffe smiled again, a little differently. + +Mary said nothing. She had found out long ago that silence was her +strength. Her small face brooded. Impossible to tell what she was +thinking. + +"What has become of the other one, I wonder?" he said to himself. + +He wanted to see her. She was the intelligent one of the three +sisters, and she was honest. He had said to her quite plainly that he +would want her. Why, on earth, he wondered, had she gone away and left +him with this sweet and good, this quite exasperatingly sweet and good +woman who had told him nothing but lies? + +He was aware that Mary Cartaret was sweet and good. But he had found +that sweet and good women were not invariably intelligent. As for +honesty, if they were always honest they would not always be sweet and +good. + +Through the door he opened for the eldest sister to pass out the other +slipped in. She had been waiting on the landing. + +He stopped her. He made a sign to her to come out with him. He closed +the door behind them. + +"Can I see you for two minutes?" + +"Yes." + +They whispered rapidly. + +At the head of the stairs Mary waited. He turned. His smile +acknowledged and paid deference to her sweetness and goodness, for +Rowcliffe was sufficiently accomplished. + +But not more so than Mary Cartaret. Her face, wide and candid, +quivered with subdued interrogation. Her lips parted as if they said, +"I am only waiting to know what I am to do. I will do what you like, +only tell me." + +Rowcliffe stood by the bedroom door, which he had opened for her +to pass through again. His eyes, summoning their powerful pathos, +implored forgiveness. + +Mary, utterly submissive, passed through. + + * * * * * + +He followed Gwendolen Cartaret downstairs to the dining-room. + +He knew what he was going to say, but what he did say was unexpected. + +For, as she stood there in the small and old and shabby room, what +struck him was her youth. + +"Is your father in?" he said. + +He surprised her as he had surprised himself. + +"No," she said. "Why? Do you want to see him?" + +He hesitated. "I almost think I'd better." + +"He won't be a bit of good, you know. He never is. He doesn't even +know we sent for you." + +"Well, then--" + +"You'd better tell me straight out. You'll have to, in the end. Is it +serious?" + +"No. But it will be if we don't stop it. How long has it been going +on?" + +"Ever since we came to this place." + +"Six months, you said. And she's been worse than this last month?" + +"Much worse." + +"If it was only the anæmia--" + +"Isn't it?" + +"Yes--among other things." + +"Not--her heart?" + +"No--her heart's all right." He corrected himself. "I mean there's +no disease in it. You see, she ought to have got well up here in this +air. It's the sort of place you send anæmic people to to cure them." + +"The dreadful thing is that she doesn't like the place." + +"Ah--that's what I want to get at. She isn't happy in it?" + +"No. She isn't happy." + +He meditated. "Your sister didn't tell me that.' + +"She couldn't." + +"I mean your other sister--Miss Cartaret." + +"_She_ wouldn't. She'd think it rather awful." + +He laughed. "Heaps of people think it awful to tell the truth. Do you +happen to know _why_ she doesn't like the place?" + +She was silent. Evidently there was some "awfulness" she shrank from. + +"Too lonely for her, I suppose?" + +"Much too lonely." + +"Where were you before you came here?" + +She told him. + +"Why did you leave it?" + +She hesitated again. "We couldn't help it." + +"Well--it seems a pity. But I suppose clergymen can't choose where +they'll live." + +She looked away from him. Then, as if she were trying to divert her +from the trail he followed, "You forget--she's been starving herself. +Isn't that enough?" + +"Not in her case. You see, she isn't ill because she's been starving +herself. She's been starving herself because she's ill. It's a +symptom. The trouble is not that she starves herself--but that she's +been starved." + +"I know. I know." + +"If you could get her back to that place where she was happy--" + +"I can't. She can never go back there. Besides, it wouldn't be any +good if she did." + +He smiled. "Are you quite sure?" + +"Certain." + +"Does she know it?" + +"No. She never knew it. But she _would_ know it if she went back." + +"That's why you took her away?" + +She hesitated again. "Yes." + +Rowcliffe looked grave. + +"I see. That's rather unfortunate." + +He said to himself: "She doesn't take it in _yet_. I don't see how I'm +to tell her." + +To her he said: "Well, I'll send the medicine along to-night." + +As the door closed behind Rowcliffe, Mary appeared on the stairs. + +"Gwenda," she said, "Ally wants you. She wants to know what he said." + +"He said nothing." + +"You look as if he'd said a great deal." + +"He said nothing that she doesn't know." + +"He told her there was nothing the matter with her except that she'd +been starving herself." + +"He told me she'd been starved." + +"I don't see the difference." + +"Well," said Gwenda. "_He_ did." + + * * * * * + +That night the Vicar scowled over his supper. And before it was ended +he broke loose. + +"Which of you two sent for Dr. Rowcliffe?" + +"I did," said Gwenda. + +Mary said nothing. + +"And what--do you--mean by doing such a thing without consulting me?" + +"I mean," said Gwenda quietly, "that he should see Alice." + +"And _I_ meant--most particularly--that he shouldn't see her. If I'd +wanted him to see her I'd have gone for him myself." + +"When it was a bit too late," said Gwenda. + +His blue eyes dilated as he looked at her. + +"Do you suppose I don't know what's the matter with her as well as he +does?" + +As he spoke the stiff, straight moustache that guarded his mouth +lifted, showing the sensual redness and fulness of the lips. + +And of this expression on her father's face Gwenda understood nothing, +divined nothing, knew nothing but that she loathed it. + +"You may know what's the matter with her," she said, "but can you cure +it?" + +"Can he?" said the Vicar. + + + + +XVIII + + +The next day, which was a Tuesday, Alice was up and about again. +Rowcliffe saw her on Wednesday and on Saturday, when he declared +himself satisfied with her progress and a little surprised. + +So surprised was he that he said he would not come again unless he was +sent for. + +And then in three days Alice slid back. + +But they were not to worry about her, she said. There was nothing the +matter with her except that she was tired. She was so tired that she +lay all Tuesday on the drawing-room sofa and on Wednesday morning she +was too tired to get up and dress. + +And on Wednesday afternoon Dr. Rowcliffe found a note waiting at the +blacksmith's cottage in Garth village, where he had a room with a +brown gauze blind in the window and the legend in gilt letters: + + SURGERY + + Dr. S. Rowcliffe, M.D., F.R.C.S. + + Hours of Attendance + Wednesday, 2.30-4.30. + +The note ran: + +"DEAR DR. ROWCLIFFE: Can you come and see me this afternoon? I think +I'm rather worse. But I don't want to frighten my people--so perhaps, +if you just looked in about teatime, as if you'd called? + + "Yours truly, + + "ALICE CARTARET." + +Essy Gale had left the note that morning. + +Rowcliffe looked at it dubiously. He was honest and he had the +large views of a man used to a large practice. His patients couldn't +complain that he lengthened his bills by paying unnecessary visits. If +he wanted to add to his income in that way, he wasn't going to begin +with a poor parson's hysterical daughter. But as the Vicar of Garth +had called on him and left his card on Monday, there was no reason why +he shouldn't look in on Wednesday about teatime. Especially as he knew +that the Vicar was in the habit of visiting Upthorne and the outlying +portions of his parish on Wednesday afternoons. + + * * * * * + +All day Alice lay in her little bed like a happy child and waited. +Propped on her pillows, with her slender arms stretched out before her +on the counterpane, she waited. + +Her sullenness was gone. She had nothing but sweetness for Mary and +for Essy. Even to her father she was sweet. She could afford it. Her +instinct was now sure. From time to time a smile flickered on her +small face like a light almost of triumph. + + * * * * * + +The Vicar and Miss Cartaret were out when Rowcliffe called at the +Vicarage, but Miss Gwendolen was in if he would like to see her. + +He waited in the crowded shabby gray and amber drawing-room with the +Erard in the corner, and it was there that she came to him. + +He said he had only called to ask after her sister, as he had heard in +the village that she was not so well. + +"I'm afraid she isn't." + +"May I see her? I don't mean professionally--just for a talk." + +The formula came easily. He had used it hundreds of times in the +houses of parsons and of clerks and of little shopkeepers, to whom +bills were nightmares. + +She took him upstairs. + +On the landing she turned to him. + +"She doesn't _look_ worse. She looks better." + +"All right. She won't deceive me." + +She did look better, better than he could have believed. There was a +faint opaline dawn of color in her face. + +Heaven only knew what he talked about, but he talked; for over a +quarter of an hour he kept it up. + +And when he rose to go he said, "You're not worse. You're better. +You'll be perfectly well if you'll only get up and go out. Why waste +all this glorious air?" + +"If I could live on air!" said Alice. + +"You can--you do to a very large extent. You certainly can't live +without it." + +Downstairs he lingered. But he refused the tea that Gwenda offered +him. He said he hadn't time. Patients were waiting for him. + +"But I'll look in next Wednesday, if I may." + +"At teatime?" + +"Very well--at teatime." + + * * * * * + +"How's Alice?" said the Vicar when he returned from Upthorne. + +"She's better." + +"Has that fellow Rowcliffe been here again?" + +"He called--on you, I think." + +(Rowcliffe's cards lay on the table flap in the passage, proving +plainly that his visit was not professional.) + +"And you made him see her?" he insisted. + +"He saw her." + +"Well?" + +"He says she's all right. She'll be well if only she'll go out in the +open air." + +"It's what I've been dinning into her for the last three months. She +doesn't want a doctor to tell her that." + +He drew her into the study and closed the door. He was not angry. He +had more than ever his air of wisdom and of patience. + +"Look here, Gwenda," he said gravely. "I know what I'm doing. There's +nothing in the world the matter with her. But she'll never be well as +long as you keep on sending for young Rowcliffe." + +But his daughter Gwendolen was not impressed. She knew what it +meant--that air of wisdom and of patience. + +Her unsubmissive silence roused his temper. + +"I won't have him sent for--do you hear?" + +And he made up his mind that he would go over to Morfe again and give +young Rowcliffe a hint. It was to give him a hint that he had called +on Monday. + + * * * * * + +But the Vicar did not call again in Morfe. For before he could brace +himself to the effort Alice was well again. + +Though the Vicar did not know it, Rowcliffe had looked in at teatime +the next Wednesday and the next after that. + +Alice was no longer compelled to be ill in order to see him. + + + + +XIX + + + "'Oh Gawd, our halp in a-ages paasst, + Our 'awp in yeears ter coom, + Our shal-ter from ther storm-ee blaasst, + And our ee-tarnal 'oam!'" + +"'Ark at 'im! That's Jimmy arl over. T' think that 'is poor feyther's +not in 'is graave aboove a moonth, an' 'e singin' fit t' eave +barn roof off! They should tak' an' shoot 'im oop in t' owd powder +magazine," said Mrs. Gale. + +"Well--but it's a wonderful voice," said Gwenda Cartaret. + +"I've never heard another like it, and I know something about voices," +Alice said. + +They had gone up to Upthorne to ask Mrs. Gale to look in at the +Vicarage on her way home, for Essy wasn't very well. + +But Mrs. Gale had shied off from the subject of Essy. She had done it +with the laughter of deep wisdom and a shake of her head. You couldn't +teach Mrs. Gale anything about illness, nor about Essy. + +"I knaw Assy," she had said. "There's nowt amiss with her. Doan't you +woorry." + +And then Jim Greatorex, though unseen, had burst out at them with his +big voice. It came booming from the mistal at the back. + +Alice told the truth when she said she had never heard anything like +it; and even in the dale, so critical of strangers, it was admitted +that she knew. The village had a new schoolmaster who was no musician, +and hopeless with the choir. Alice, as the musical one of the family, +had been trained to play the organ, and she played it, not with +passion, for it was her duty, but with mechanical and perfunctory +correctness, as she had been taught. She was also fairly successful +with the village choir. + +"Mebbe yo 'aven't 'eard anoother," said Mrs. Gale. "It's rackoned +there isn't anoother woon like it in t' daale." + +"But it's just what we want for our choir--a big barytone voice. Do +you think he'd sing for us, Mrs. Gale?" + +Alice said it light-heartedly, for she did not know what she was +asking. She knew nothing of the story of Jim Greatorex and his big +voice. It had been carefully kept from her. + +"I doan knaw," said Mrs. Gale. "Jim, look yo, 'e useter sing in t' +Choorch choir." + +"Why ever did he leave it?" + +Mrs. Gale looked dark and tightened up her face. She knew perfectly +well why Jim Greatorex had left. It was because he wasn't going to +have that little milk-faced lass learning _him_ to sing. His pride +wouldn't stomach it. But not for worlds would Mrs. Gale have been the +one to let Miss Alice know that. + +Her eyes sought for inspiration in a crack on the stone floor. + +"I can't rightly tall yo', Miss Olice. 'E sang fer t' owd +schoolmaaster, look yo, an' wann schoolmaaster gaave it oop, Jimmy, 'e +said 'e'd give it oop too." + +"But don't you think he'd sing for _me_, if I were to ask him?" + +"Yo' may aask 'im, Miss Olice, but I doan' knaw. Wann Jim Greatorex is +sat, 'e's sat." + +"There's no harm in asking him." + +"Naw. Naw 'aarm there isn't," said Mrs. Gale doubtfully. + +"I think I'll ask him now," said Alice. + +"I wouldn', look yo, nat ef I wuss yo, Miss Olice. I wouldn' gaw to +'im in t' mistal all amoong t' doong. Yo'll sha-ame 'im, and yo'll do +nowt wi' Jimmy ef 'e's sha-amed." + +"Leave it, Ally. We can come another day," said Gwenda. + +"Thot's it," said Mrs. Gale. "Coom another daay." + +And as they turned away Jim's voice thundered after them from his +stronghold in the mistal. + + "From av-ver-lasstin'--THOU ART GAWD! + To andless ye-ears ther sa-ame!" + +The sisters stood listening. They looked at each other. + +"I say!" said Gwenda. + +"Isn't he gorgeous? We'll _have_ to come again. It would be a sin to +waste him." + +"It would." + +"When shall we come?" + +"There's heaps of time. That voice won't run away." + +"No. But he might get pneumonia. He might die." + +"Not he." + +But Alice couldn't leave it alone. + +"How about Sunday? Just after dinner? He'll be clean then." + +"All right. Sunday." + +But it was not till they had passed the schoolhouse outside Garth +village that Alice's great idea came to her. + +"Gwenda! The Concert! Wouldn't he be ripping for the Concert!" + + + + +XX + + +But the concert was not till the first week in December; and it was +in November that Rowcliffe began to form the habit that made him +remarkable in Garth, of looking in at the Vicarage toward teatime +every Wednesday afternoon. + +Mrs. Gale, informed by Essy, was the first to condole with Mrs. +Blenkiron, the blacksmith's wife, who had arranged to provide tea for +Rowcliffe every Wednesday in the Surgery. + +"Wall, Mrs. Blenkiron," she said, "yo' 'aven't got to mak' tae for +yore doctor now?" + +"Naw. I 'aven't," said Mrs. Blenkiron. "And it's sexpence clane gone +out o' me packet av'ry week." + +Mrs. Blenkiron was a distant cousin of the Greatorexes. She had +what was called a superior manner and was handsome, in the slender, +high-nosed, florid fashion of the Dale. + +"But there," she went on. "I doan't groodge it. 'E's yoong and you +caann't blaame him. They's coompany for him oop at Vicarage." + +"'E's coompany fer they, I rackon. And well yo' med saay yo' doan't +groodge it ef yo knawed arl we knaw, Mrs. Blenkiron. It's no life fer +yoong things oop there, long o' t' Vicar. Mind yo"--Mrs. Gale +lowered her voice and looked up and down the street for possible +eavesdroppers--"ef 'e was to 'ear on it, thot yoong Rawcliffe wouldn't +be 'lowed t' putt 's nawse in at door agen. But theer--there's +nawbody'd be thot crool an' spittiful fer to goa an' tall 'im. Our +Assy wouldn't. She'd coot 'er toong out foorst, Assy would." + +"Nawbody'll get it out of _mae_, Mrs. Gale, though it's wae as 'as to +sooffer for 't." + +"Eh, but Dr. Rawcliffe's a good maan, and 'e'll mak' it oop to yo', +naw feear, Mrs. Blenkiron." + +"And which of 'em will it bae, Mrs. Gaale, think you?" + +"I caann't saay. But it woonna bae t' eldest. Nor t' +yoongest--joodgin'." + +"Well--the lil' laass isn' breaaking 'er 'eart fer him, t' joodge by +the looks of 'er. I naver saw sech a chaange in anybody in a moonth." + +"'T assn' takken mooch to maake 'er 'appy," said Mrs. Gale. For Essy, +who had informed her, was not subtle. + + * * * * * + +But of Ally's happiness there could be no doubt. It lapped her, soaked +into her like water and air. Her small head flowered under it and put +out its secret colors; the dull gold of her hair began to shine again, +her face showed a shallow flush under its pallor; her gray eyes were +clear as if they had been dipped in water. Two slender golden arches +shone above them. They hadn't been seen there for five years. + +"Who would have believed," said Mary, "that Ally could have looked so +pretty?" + +Ally's prettiness (when she gazed at it in the glass) was delicious, +intoxicating joy to Ally. She was never tired of looking at it, of +turning round and round to get new views of it, of dressing her hair +in new ways to set it off. + +"Whatever have you done your hair like that for?" said Mary on a +Wednesday when Ally came down in the afternoon with her gold spread +out above her ears and twisted in a shining coil on the top of her +head. + +"To make it grow better," said Ally. + +"Don't let Papa catch you at it," said Gwenda, "if you want it to grow +any more." + +Gwenda was going out. She had her hat on, and was taking her +walking-stick from the stand. Ally stared. + +"You're _not_ going out?" + +"I am," said Gwenda. + +And she laughed as she went. She wasn't going to stay at home for +Rowcliffe every Wednesday. + + * * * * * + +As for Ally, the Vicar did catch her at it. He caught her the very +next Wednesday afternoon. She thought he had started for Upthorne when +he hadn't. He was bound to catch her. + +For the best looking-glass in the house was in the Vicar's bedroom. It +went the whole length and width of the wardrobe door, and Ally could +see herself in it from head to foot. And on the Vicar's dressing-table +there lay a large and perfect hand-glass that had belonged to Ally's +mother. Only by opening the wardrobe door and with the aid of the +hand-glass could Ally obtain a satisfactory three-quarters view of her +face and figure. + +Now, by the Vicar's magnanimity, his daughters were allowed to use his +bedroom twice in every two years, in the spring and in the autumn, +for the purpose of trying on their new gowns; but this year they +were wearing out last winter's gowns, and Ally had no business in the +Vicar's bedroom at four o'clock in the afternoon. + +She was turning slowly round and round, with her head tilted back over +her left shoulder; she had just caught sight of her little white nose +as it appeared in a vanishing profile and was adjusting her head at +another and still more interesting angle when the Vicar caught her. + +He was well in the middle of the room, and staring at her, before she +was aware of him. The wardrobe door, flung wide open, had concealed +his entrance, but if Ally had not been blinded and intoxicated with +her own beauty she would have seen him before she began smiling, +full-face first, then three-quarters, then sideways, a little tilted. + +Then she shut to the door of the wardrobe (for the back view that was +to reassure her as to the utter prettiness of her shoulders and +the nape of her neck), and it was at that moment that she saw him, +reflected behind her in the long looking-glass. + +She screamed and dropped the hand-glass. She heard it break itself at +her feet. + +"Papa," she cried, "how you frightened me!" + +It was not so much that he had caught her smiling at her own face, it +was that _his_ face, seen in the looking-glass, was awful. And besides +being awful it was evil. Even to Ally's innocence it was evil. If it +had been any other man Ally's instinct would have said that he looked +horrid without Ally knowing or caring to know what her instinct meant. +But the look on her father's face was awful because it was mysterious. +Neither she nor her instinct had a word for it. There was cruelty in +it, and, besides cruelty, some quality nameless and unrecognisable, +subtle and secret, and yet crude somehow and vivid. The horror of it +made her forget that he had caught her in one of the most +deplorably humiliating situations in which a young girl can be +caught--deliberately manufacturing smiles for her own amusement. + +"You've no business to be here," said the Vicar. + +He picked up the broken hand-glass, and as he looked at it the cruelty +and the nameless quality passed out of his face as if a hand had +smoothed it, and it became suddenly weak and pathetic, the face of +a child whose precious magic thing another child has played with and +broken. + +Then Alice remembered that the hand-glass had been her mother's. + +"I'm sorry I've broken it, Papa, if you liked it." + +Her voice recalled him to himself. + +"Ally," he said, "what am I to think of you? Are you a fool--or what?" + +The sting of it lashed Ally's brain to a retort. (All that she had +needed hitherto to be effective was a little red blood in her veins, +and she had got it now.) + +"I'd be a fool," she said, "if I cared two straws what you think of +me, since you can't see what I am. I'm sorry if I've broken your old +hand-glass, though I didn't break it. You broke it yourself." + +Carrying her golden top-knot like a crown, she left the room. + +The Vicar took the broken hand-glass and hid it in a drawer. He was +sorry for himself. The only impression left on his mind was that his +daughter Ally had been cruel to him. + + * * * * * + +But Ally didn't care a rap what he thought of her, or what impression +she had left on his mind. She was much too happy. Besides, if you once +began caring what Papa thought there would be no peace for anybody. +He was so impossible that he didn't count. He wasn't even an effective +serpent in her Paradise. He might crawl all over it (as indeed he did +crawl), but he left no trail. The thought of how he had caught her at +the looking-glass might be disagreeable, but it couldn't slime those +holy lawns. Neither could it break the ecstasy of Wednesday, that +heavenly day. Nothing could break it as long as Dr. Rowcliffe +continued to look in at tea-time and her father to explore the +furthest borders of his parish. + +The peace of Paradise came down on the Vicarage every Wednesday +the very minute the garden gate had swung back behind the Vicar. He +started so early and he was back so late that there was never any +chance of his encountering young Rowcliffe. + + * * * * * + +To be sure, young Rowcliffe hardly ever said a word to her. He always +talked to Mary or to Gwenda. But there was nothing in his reticence to +disturb Ally's ecstasy. It was bliss to sit and look at Rowcliffe and +to hear him talk. When she tried to talk to him herself her brain +swam and she became unhappy and confused. Intellectual effort was +destructive to the blessed state, which was pure passivity, untroubled +contemplation in its early stages, before the oncoming of rapture. + +The fact that Mary and Gwenda could talk to him and talk intelligently +showed how little they cared for him or were likely to care, and +how immeasurably far they were from the supreme act of adoration. +Similarly, the fact that Rowcliffe could talk to Mary and to Gwenda +showed how little _he_ cared. If he had cared, if he were ever going +to care as Ally understood caring, his brain would have swum like hers +and his intellect would have abandoned him. + +Whereas, it was when he turned to Ally that he hadn't a word to say, +any more than she had, and that he became entangled in his talk, and +that the intellect he tried to summon to him tottered and vanished at +his call. + +Another thing--when he caught her looking at him (and though Ally was +careful he did catch her now and then) he always either lowered his +eyelids or looked away. He was afraid to look at her; and _that_, as +everybody knew, was an infallible sign. Why, Ally was afraid to look +at _him_, only she couldn't help it. Her eyes were dragged to the +terror and the danger. + +So Ally reasoned in her Paradise. + +For when Rowcliffe was once gone her brain was frantically busy. It +never gave her any rest. From the one stuff of its dreams it span an +endless shining thread; from the one thread it wove an endless web of +visions. From nothing at all it built up drama after drama. It was all +beautiful what Ally's brain did, all noble, all marvelously pure. (The +Vicar would have been astonished if he had known how pure.) There +was no sullen and selfish Ally in Ally's dreams. They were all of +sacrifice, of self-immolation, of beautiful and noble things done for +Rowcliffe, of suffering for Rowcliffe, of dying for him. All without +Rowcliffe being very palpably and positively there. + +It was only at night, when Ally's brain slept among its dreams, that +Rowcliffe's face leaned near to hers without ever touching it, and his +arms made as if they clasped her and never met. Even then, always +at the first intangible approach of him, she woke, terrified because +dreams go by contraries. + +"Is your sister always so silent?" Rowcliffe asked that Wednesday (the +Wednesday when Ally had been caught). + +He was alone with Mary. + +"Who? Ally? No. She isn't silent at all. What do you think of her?" + +"I think," said Rowcliffe, "she looks extraordinarily well." + +"That's owing to you," said Mary. "I never saw her pull round so fast +before." + +"No? I assure you," said Rowcliffe, "I haven't anything to do with +it." He was very stiff and cold and stern. + +Rowcliffe was annoyed because it was two Wednesdays running that +he had found himself alone with the eldest and the youngest Miss +Cartaret. The second one had gone off heaven knew where. + + + + +XXI + + +The Vicar of Garth considered himself unhappy (to say the least of it) +in his three children, but he had never asked himself what, after all, +would he have done without them? After all (as they had frequently +reminded themselves), without them he could never have lived +comfortably on his income. They did the work and saved him the +expenses of a second servant, a housekeeper, an under-gardener, an +organist and two curates. + +The three divided the work of the Vicarage and parish, according to +the tastes and abilities of each. At home Mary kept the house and +did the sewing. Gwenda looked after the gray and barren garden, she +trimmed the narrow paths and the one flower-bed and mowed the small +square of grass between. Alice trailed through the lower rooms, +dusting furniture feebly; she gathered and arranged the flowers when +there were any in the bed. Outside, Mary, being sweet and good, taught +in the boys' Sunday-school; Alice, because she was fond of children, +had the infants. For the rest, Mary, who was lazy, had taken over +that small portion of the village that was not Baptist or Wesleyan or +Congregational. Gwenda, for her own amusement, and regardless of sect +and creed, the hopelessly distant hamlets and the farms scattered +on the long, raking hillsides and the moors. Alice declared herself +satisfied with her dominion over the organ and the village choir. + +Alice was behaving like an angel in her Paradise. No longer listless +and sullen, she swept through the house with an angel's energy. A +benign, untiring angel sat at the organ and controlled the violent +voices of the choir. + +The choir looked upon Ally's innocent art with pride and admiration +and amusement. It tickled them to see those little milk-white hands +grappling with organ pieces that had beaten the old schoolmaster. + +Ally enjoyed the pride and admiration of the choir and was unaware of +its amusement. She enjoyed the importance of her office. She enjoyed +the massive, voluptuous vibrations that made her body a vehicle for +the organ's surging and tremendous soul. Ally's body had become a +more and more tremulous, a more sensitive and perfect medium for +vibrations. She would not have missed one choir practice or one +service. + +And she said to herself, "I may be a fool, but Papa or the parish +would have to pay an organist at least forty pounds a year. It costs +less to keep me. So he needn't talk." + + * * * * * + +Then in November came the preparations for the village concert. + +They were stupendous. + +All morning the little Erad piano shook with the Grande Valse and the +Grande Polonaise of Chopin. The diabolic thing raged through the shut +house, knowing that it went unchallenged, that its utmost violence was +licensed until the day after the concert. + +Rowcliffe heard it whenever he drove past the Vicarage on his way over +the moors. + + + + +XXII + + +Rowcliffe was now beginning to form that other habit (which was to +make him even more remarkable than he was already), the hunting down +of Gwendolen Cartaret in the open. + +He was annoyed with Gwendolen Cartaret. When she had all the rest of +the week to walk in she would set out on Wednesdays before teatime and +continue until long after dark. He had missed her twice now. And on +the third Wednesday he saw her swinging up the hill toward Upthorne as +he, leaving his surgery, came round the corner of the village by the +bridge. + +"I believe," he thought, "she's doing it on purpose. To avoid me." + +He was determined not to be avoided. + + * * * * * + +"The doctor's very late this afternoon," said Mary. "I suppose he's +been sent for somewhere." + +Alice said nothing. She couldn't trust herself to speak. She lived in +sickening fear that on some Wednesday afternoon he would be sent for. +It had never happened yet, but that made it all the more likely that +it had happened now. + +They waited till five; till a quarter-past. + +"I really can't wait any longer," said Mary, "for a man who doesn't +come." + + * * * * * + +By that time Rowcliffe and Gwenda were far on the road to Upthorne. + +He had overtaken her about a hundred yards above the schoolhouse, +before the road turned to Upthorne Moor. + +"I say, how you do sprint up these hills!" + +She turned. + +"Is that you, Dr. Rowcliffe?" + +"Of course it's me. Where are you off to?" + +"Upthorne. Anywhere." + +"May I come too?" + +"If you want to." + +"Of course I want to." + +"Have you had any tea?" + +"No." + +"Weren't they in?" + +"I didn't stop to ask." + +"Why not?" + +"Because I saw you stampeding on in front of me, and I swore I'd +overtake you before you got round that corner. And I have overtaken +you." + +"Shall we go back? We've time." + +He frowned. "No. I never turn back. Let's get on. Get on." + +They went on at a terrific pace. And as she persisted in walking about +half a foot in front of him he saw the movement of her fine long limbs +and the little ripple of her shoulders under the gray tweed. + +Presently he spoke. + +"It wasn't you I heard playing the other night?" + +"No. It must have been my youngest sister." + +"I knew it wasn't you." + +"It might have been for all you knew." + +"It couldn't possibly. If you played you wouldn't play that way." + +"What way?" + +"Your sister's way. Whatever you wanted to do you'd do it beautifully +or not at all." + +She made no response. She did not even seem to have heard him. + +"I don't mean to say," he said, "that your sister doesn't play +beautifully." + +She turned malignly. He liked her when she turned. + +"You mean that she plays abominably." + +"I didn't mean to _say_ it." + +"Why shouldn't you say it?" + +"Because you don't say those things. It isn't polite." + +"But I know Alice doesn't play well--not those big things. The wonder +is she can play them at all." + +"Why does she attempt--the big things?" + +"Why does anybody? Because she loves them. She's never heard them +properly played. So she doesn't know. She just trusts to her feeling." + +"Is there anything else, after all, you _can_ trust?" + +"I don't know. You see, Alice's feeling tells her it's all right to +play like that, and _my_ feeling tells me it's all wrong." + +"You can trust _your_ feelings." + +"Why mine more than hers?" + +"Because _your_ feelings are the feelings of a beautifully sane and +perfectly balanced person." + +"How can you possibly tell? You don't know me." + +"I know your type." + +"My type isn't me. You can't tell by that." + +"You can if you're a physiologist." + +"Being a physiologist won't tell you anything about _me_." + +"Oh, won't it?" + +"It can't." + +"Why not?" + +"How can it?" + +"You think it can't tell me anything about your soul?" + +"Oh--my soul----" Her shoulders expressed disdain for it. + +"Do you dislike my mentioning it? Would you rather we didn't talk +about it? Perhaps you're tired of having it talked about?" + +"No; my poor soul has never done anything to get itself talked about." + +"I only thought that as your father, perhaps, specialises in souls--" + +"He doesn't specialise in mine. He knows nothing about it." + +"The specialist never does. To know anything--the least little +thing--about the soul, you must know everything--everything you _can_ +know--about the body. So that you're wrong even about your soul. Being +a physiologist tells me that your sort of body--a transparently clean +and strong and utterly unconscious body--goes with a transparently +clean and strong and utterly unconscious soul." + +"Utterly unconscious?" + +He was silent a moment and then answered: + +"Utterly unconscious." + +They walked on in silence till they came in sight of the marshes and +the long gray line of Upthorne Farm. + +"That's where I met you once," he said. "Do you remember? You were +coming out of the door as I went in." + +"You seem to have been always meeting me." + +"Always meeting you. And then---always missing you. Just when I +expected most to find you." + +"If we go much farther in this direction," said Gwenda, "we shall meet +Papa." + +"Well--I suppose some day I shall have to meet him. Do you realise +that I've never met him yet?" + +"Haven't you?" + +"No. Always I've been on the point of meeting him, and always some +malignant fate has interfered." + +She smiled. He loved her smile. + +"Why are you smiling?" + +"I was only wondering whether the fate was really so malignant." + +"You mean that if he met me he'd dislike me?" + +"He always _has_ disliked anybody we like. You see, he's a very funny +father." + +"All fathers," said Rowcliffe, "are more or less funny." + +She laughed. Her laughter enchanted him. + +"Yes. But _my_ father doesn't mean to be as funny as he is." + +"I see. He wouldn't really mean to dislike me. Then, perhaps, if I +regularly laid myself out for it, by years of tender and untiring +devotion I might win him over?" + +She laughed again; she laughed as youth laughs, for the pure joy of +laughter. She looked on her father as a persistent, delightful jest. +He adored her laughter. + +It proved how strong and sane she was--if she could take him like +that. Rowcliffe had seen women made bitter, made morbid, driven into +lunatic asylums by fathers who were as funny as Mr. Cartaret. + +"You wouldn't, you wouldn't," she said. "He's funnier than you've any +idea of." + +"Is he ever ill?" + +"Never." + +"That of course makes it difficult." + +"Except colds in his head. But he wouldn't have you for a cold in his +head. He wouldn't have you for anything if he could help it." + +"Well--perhaps--if he's as funny as all that, we'd better turn." + +They turned. + +They were walking so fast now that they couldn't talk. + +Presently they slackened and he spoke. + +"I say, shall you ever get away from this place?" + +"Never, I think." + +"Do you never want to get away?" + +"No. Never. You see, I love it." + +"I know you do." He said it savagely, as if he were jealous of the +place. + +"So do you," she answered. + +"If I didn't I suppose I should have to." + +"Yes, it's better, if you've got to live in it." + +"That wasn't what I meant." + +After that they were silent for a long time. She was wondering what he +did mean. + +When they reached the Vicarage gate he sheered off the path and held +out his hand. + +"Oh--aren't you coming in for tea?" she said. + +"Thanks. No. It's a little late. I don't think I want any." + +He paused. "I've got what I wanted." + +He stepped backward, facing her, raising his cap, then he turned and +hurried down the hill. + +Gwenda walked slowly up the flagged path to the house door. She stood +there, thinking. + +"He's got what he wanted. He only wanted to see what I was like." + + + + +XXIII + + +Rowcliffe had ten minutes on his hands while they were bringing his +trap round from the Red Lion. + +He was warming his hands at the surgery fire when he heard voices in +the parlor on the other side of the narrow passage. One voice pleaded, +the other reserved judgment. + +"Do you think he'd do it if I were to go up and ask him?" It was Alice +Cartaret's voice. + +"I caann't say, Miss Cartaret, I'm sure." + +"Could you persuade him yourself, Mrs. Blenkiron?" + +"It wouldn't be a bit of good me persuadin' him. Jim Greatorex wouldn' +boodge _that_ mooch for me." + +A pause. Alice was wavering, aware, no doubt, of the folly of her +errand. Rowcliffe had only to lie low and she would go. + +"Could Mr. Blenkiron?" + +No. Rowcliffe in the surgery smiled all to himself as he warmed his +hands. Alice was holding her ground. She was spinning out the time. + +"Not he. Mr. Blenkiron's got soomat alse to do without trapseing after +Jim Greatorex." + +"Oh." + +Alice's voice was distant and defensive. He was sorry for Alice. She +was not yet broken in to the north country manner, and her softness +winced under these blows. There was nobody to tell her that Mrs. +Blenkiron's manner was a criticism of her young kinsman, Jim +Greatorex. + +Mrs. Blenkiron presently made this apparent. + +"Jim's sat oop enoof as it is. You'd think there was nawbody in this +village good enoof to kape coompany wi' Jimmy, the road he goas. Ef I +was you, Miss Olice, I should let him be." + +"I would, but it's his voice we want. I'm thinking of the concert, +Mrs. Blenkiron. It's the only voice we've got that'll fill the room." + +Mrs. Blenkiron laughed. + +"Eh--he'll fill it fer you, right enoof. You'll have all the yoong +laads and laasses in the Daale toomblin' in to hear Jimmy." + +"We want them. We want everybody. You Wesleyans and all." + +Another pause. Rowcliffe was interested. Alice was really displaying +considerable intelligence. Almost she persuaded him that her errand +was genuine. + +"Do you think Essy Gale could get him to come?" + +In the surgery Rowcliffe whistled inaudibly. _That_ was indeed a +desperate shift. + +Rowcliffe had turned and was now standing with his back to the fire. +He was intensely interested. + +"Assy Gaale? He would n' coom for Assy's asskin', a man like +Greatorex." + +Mrs. Blenkiron's blood, the blood of the Greatorexes, was up. + +"Naw," said Jim Greatorex's kinswoman, "if you want Greatorex to sing +for you as bad as all that, Miss Cartaret, you'd better speak to the +doctor." + +Rowcliffe became suddenly grave. He watched the door. + +"He'd mebbe do it for him. He sats soom store by Dr. Rawcliffe." + +"But"--Ally's voice sounded nearer--"he's gone, hasn't he?" + +(The minx, the little, little minx!) + +"Naw. But he's joost goin'. Shall I catch him?" + +"You might." + +Mrs. Blenkiron caught him on the threshold of the surgery. + +"Will you speak to Miss Cartaret a minute, Dr. Rawcliffe?" + +"Certainly." + +Mrs. Blenkiron withdrew. The kitchen door closed on her flight. For +the first time in their acquaintance Rowcliffe was alone with Alice +Cartaret, and though he was interested he didn't like it. + +"I thought I heard your voice," said he with reckless geniality. + +They stood on their thresholds looking at each other across the narrow +passage. It was as if Alice Cartaret's feet were fixed there by an +invisible force that held her fascinated and yet frightened. + +Rowcliffe had paused too, as at a post of vantage, the better to +observe her. + +A moment ago, warming his hands in the surgery, he could have sworn +that she, the little maneuvering minx, had laid a trap for him. She +had come on her fool's errand, knowing that it was a fool's errand, +for nothing on earth but that she might catch him, alone and +defenseless, in the surgery. It was the sort of thing she did, the +sort of thing she always would do. She didn't want to know (not she!) +whether Jim Greatorex would sing or not, she wanted to know, and +she meant to know, why he, Steven Rowcliffe, hadn't turned up that +afternoon, and where he had gone, and what he had been doing, and the +rest of it. There were windows at the back of the Vicarage. Possibly +she had seen him charging up the hill in pursuit of her sister, and +she was desperate. All this he had believed and did still believe. + +But, as he looked across at the little hesitating figure and the +scared face framed in the doorway, he had compassion on her. Poor +little trapper, so pitifully trapped; so ignorant of the first rules +and principles of trapping that she had run hot-foot after her prey +when she should have lain low and lured it silently into her snare. +She was no more than a poor little frightened minx, caught in his +trap, peering at him from it in terror. God knew he hadn't meant to +set it for her, and God only knew how he was going to get her out of +it. + +"Poor things," he thought, "if they only knew how horribly they +embarrass me!" + +For of course she wasn't the first. The situation had repeated itself, +monotonously, scores of times in his experience. It would have been +a nuisance even if Alice Cartaret had not been Gwendolen Cartaret's +sister. That made it intolerable. + +All this complex pity and repugnance was latent in his one sense of +horrible embarrassment. + +Then their hands met. + +"You want to see me?" + +"I _did_--" She was writhing piteously in the trap. + +"You'd better come into the surgery. There's a fire there." + +He wasn't going to keep her out there in the cold; and he wasn't going +to walk back with her to the Vicarage. He didn't want to meet the +Vicar and have the door shut in his face. Rowcliffe, informed by Mrs. +Blenkiron, was aware, long before Gwenda had warned him, that he ran +this risk. The Vicar's funniness was a byword in the parish. + +But he left the door ajar. + +"Well," he said gently, "what is it?" + +"Shall you be seeing Jim Greatorex soon?" + +"I might. Why?" + +She told her tale again; she told it in little bursts of excitement +punctuated with shy hesitations. She told it with all sorts of twists +and turns, winding and entangling herself in it and coming out again +breathless and frightened, like a lost creature that has been dragged +through the brake. And there were long pauses when Alice put her head +on one side, considering, as if she held her tale in her hands and +were looking at it and wondering whether she really could go on. + +"And what is it you want me to do?" said Rowcliffe finally. + +"To ask him." + +"Hadn't you better ask him yourself?" + +"Would he do it for me?" + +"Of course he would." + +"I wonder. Perhaps--if I asked him prettily--" + +"Oh, then--he couldn't help himself." + +There was a pause. Rowcliffe, a little ashamed of himself, looked at +the floor, and Alice looked at Rowcliffe and tried to fathom the full +depth of his meaning from his face. That there was a depth and that +there was a meaning she never doubted. This time Rowcliffe missed the +pathos of her gray eyes. + +An idea had come to him. + +"Look here--Miss Cartaret--if you can get Jim Greatorex to sing for +you, if you can get him to take an interest in the concert or in any +mortal thing besides beer and whisky, you'll be doing the best day's +work you ever did in your life." + +"Do you think I _could_?" she said. + +"I think you could probably do anything with him if you gave your mind +to it." + +He meant it. He meant it. That was really his opinion of her. Her +lifted face was radiant as she drank bliss at one draught from the cup +he held to her. But she was not yet satisfied. + +"You'd _like_ me to do it?" + +"I should very much." + +His voice was firm, but his eyes looked uneasy and ashamed. + +"Would you like me to get him back in the choir?" + +"I'd like you to get him back into anything that'll keep him out of +mischief." + +She raised her chin. There was a more determined look on her small, +her rather insignificant face than he would have thought to see there. + +She rose. + +"Very well," she said superbly. "I'll do it." + +He held out his hand. + +"I don't say, Miss Cartaret, that you'll reclaim him." + +"Nor I. But--if you want me to, I'll try." + +They parted on it. + +Rowcliffe smiled as he closed the surgery door behind him. + +"That'll give her something else to think about," he said to himself. +"And it'll take her all her time." + + + + +XXIV + + +The next Sunday, early in the afternoon, Alice went, all by herself, +to Upthorne. + +Hitherto she had disliked going to Upthorne by herself. She had no +very subtle feeling for the aspects of things; but there was something +about the road to Upthorne that repelled her. A hundred yards or so +above the schoolhouse it turned, leaving behind it the wide green +bottom and winding up toward the naked moor. To the north, on her +right, it narrowed and twisted; the bed of the beck lay hidden. A +thin scrub of low thorn trees covered the lower slopes of the further +hillside. Here and there was a clearing and a cottage or a farm. On +her left she had to pass the dead mining station, the roofless walls, +the black window gaps, the melancholy haunted colonnades, the three +chimneys of the dead furnaces, square cornered, shooting straight and +high as the bell-towers of some hill city of the South, beautiful and +sinister, guarding that place of ashes and of ruin. Then the sallow +winter marshes. South of the marshes were the high moors. Their flanks +showed black where they have been flayed by the cuttings of old mines. +At intervals, along the line of the hillside, masses of rubble rose in +hummocks or hung like avalanches, black as if they had been discharged +by blasting. Beyond, in the turn of the Dale, the village of Upthorne +lay unseen. + +And hitherto, in all that immense and inhuman desolation nothing (to +Alice) had been more melancholy, more sinister, more haunted than the +house where John Greatorex had died. With its gray, unsleeping face, +its lidless eyes, staring out over the marshes, it had lost (for +Alice) all likeness to a human habitation. It repudiated the living; +it remembered; it kept a grim watch with its dead. + +But Alice's mind, acutely sensitive in one direction, had become +callous in every other. + + * * * * * + +Greatorex was in the kitchen, smoking his Sunday afternoon pipe in +the chimney corner, screened from the open doorway by the three-foot +thickness of the house wall. + +Maggie, his servant, planted firmly on the threshold, jerked her head +over her shoulder to call to him. + +"There's a yoong laady wants to see yo, Mr. Greatorex!" + +There was no response but a sharp tapping on the hob, as Greatorex +knocked the ashes out of his pipe. + +Maggie stood looking at Alice a little mournfully with her deep-set, +blue, pathetic eyes. Maggie had once been pretty in spite of her +drab hair and flat features, but where her high color remained it had +hardened with her thirty-five years. + +"Well yo' coom?" + +Maggie called again and waited. Courageous in her bright blue Sunday +gown, she waited while her master rose, then, shame-faced as if driven +by some sharp sign from him, she slunk into the scullery. + +Jim Greatorex appeared on his threshold. + +On his threshold, utterly sober, carrying himself with the assurance +of the master in his own house, he would not have suffered by +comparison with any man. Instead of the black broadcloth that Alice +had expected, he wore a loose brown shooting jacket, drab corduroy +breeches, a drab cloth waistcoat and brown leather leggings, and he +wore them with a distinction that Rowcliffe might have envied. His +face, his whole body, alert and upright, had the charm of some shy, +half-savage animal. When he stood at ease his whole face, with all +its features, sensed you and took you in; the quivering eyebrows were +aware of you; the nose, with its short, high bridge, its fine, wide +nostrils, repeated the sensitive stare of the wide eyes; his mouth, +under its golden brown moustache, was somber with a sort of sullen +apprehension, till in a sudden, childlike confidence it smiled. His +whole face and all its features smiled. + +He was smiling at Alice now, as if struck all of a sudden by her +smallness. + +"I've come to ask a favor, Mr. Greatorex," said Alice. + +"Ay," said Greatorex. He said it as if ladies called every day to ask +him favors. "Will you coom in, Miss Cartaret?" It was the mournful +and musical voice that she had heard sometimes last summer on the road +outside the back door of the Vicarage. + +She came in, pausing on the threshold and looking about her, as if +she stood poised on the edge of an adventure. Her smallness, and the +delicious, exploring air of her melted Jim's heart and made him smile +at her. + +"It's a roough plaace fer a laady," he said. + +"It's a beautiful place, Mr. Greatorex," said Alice. + +And she did actually think it was beautiful with its stone floor, its +white-washed walls, its black oak dresser and chest and settle; +not because of these things but because it was on the border of her +Paradise. Rowcliffe had sent her there. Jim Greatorex had glamour +for her, less on his own account than as a man in whom Rowcliffe was +interested. + +"You'd think it a bit loansoom, wouldn' yo', ef yo' staayed in it +yeear in and yeear out?" + +"I don't know," said Alice doubtfully. "Perhaps--a little," she +ventured, encouraged by Greatorex's indulgent smile. + +"An' loansoom it is," said Greatorex dismally. + +Alice explored, penetrating into the interior. + +"Oh--but aren't you glad you've got such a lovely fireplace?" + +"I doan' knaw as I've thought mooch about it. We get used to our own." + +"What are those hooks for in the chimney?" + +"They? They're fer 'angin' the haams on--to smoak 'em." + +"I see." + +She would have sat there on the oak settle but that Greatorex was +holding open the door of an inner room. + +"Yo'd better coom into t' parlor, Miss Cartaret. It'll be more +coomfortable for you." + +She rose and followed him. She had been long enough in Garth to know +that if you are asked to go into the parlor you must go. Otherwise you +risk offending the kind gods of the hearth and threshold. + +The parlor was a long low room that continued the line of the house +to its southern end. One wide mullioned window looked east over the +marsh, the other south to the hillside across a little orchard of +dwarfed and twisted trees. + +To Alice they were the trees of her Paradise and the hillside was its +boundary. + +Greatorex drew close to the hearth the horsehair and mahogany armchair +with the white antimacassar. + +"Sit yo' down and I'll putt a light to the fire." + +"Not for me," she protested. + +But Greatorex was on his knees before her, lighting the fire. + +"You'll 'ave wet feet coomin' over t' moor. Cauld, too, yo'll be." + +She sat and watched him. He was deft with his great hands, like a +woman, over his fire-lighting. + +"There--she's burning fine." He rose, turning triumphantly on his +hearth as the flame leaped in the grate. + +"Yo'll let me mak' yo' a coop of tae, Miss Cartaret." + +There was an interrogative lilt at the end of all his sentences, even +when, as now, he was making statements that admitted of no denial. But +his guest missed the incontrovertible and final quality of what was +said. + +"Please don't trouble." + +"It's naw trooble--naw trooble at all. Maaggie'll 'ave got kettle on." + +He strode out of his parlor into his kitchen. "Maaggie! Maaggie!" he +called. "Are yo' there? Putt kettle on and bring tae into t' parlor." + +Alice looked about her while she waited. + +Though she didn't know it, Jim Greatorex's parlor was a more tolerable +place than the Vicarage drawing-room. Brown cocoanut matting covered +its stone floor. In front of the wide hearth on the inner wall was a +rug of dyed sheepskin bordered with a strip of scarlet snippets. The +wooden chimney-piece, the hearth-place, the black hobs, the straight +barred grate with its frame of fine fluted iron, belonged to a period +of simplicity. The oblong mahogany table in the center of the room, +the sofa and chairs, upholstered in horsehair, were of a style austere +enough to be almost beautiful. Down the white ground of the wall-paper +an endless succession of pink nosegays ascended and descended between +parallel stripes of blue. + +There were no ornaments to speak of in Greatorex's parlor but the +grocer's tea-caddies on the mantelshelf and the little china figures, +the spotted cows, the curly dogs, the boy in blue, the girl in pink; +and the lustre ware and the tea-sets, the white and gold, the blue +and white, crowded behind the diamond panes of the two black oak +cupboards. Of these one was set in the most conspicuous corner, the +other in the middle of the long wall facing the east window, bare +save for the framed photographs of Greatorex's family, the groups, +the portraits of father and mother and of grandparents, enlarged from +vignettes taken in the seventies and eighties--faces defiant, stolid +and pathetic; yearning, mournful, tender faces, slightly blurred. + +All these objects impressed themselves on Ally's brain, adhering +to its obsession and receiving from it an immense significance and +importance. + + * * * * * + +She heard Maggie's running feet, and the great leisurely steps of +Greatorex, and his voice, soft and kind, encouraging Maggie. + +"Theer--that's t' road. Gently, laass--moor' 'aaste, less spead. Now +t' tray--an' a clane cloth--t' woon wi' laace on 't. Thot's t' road." + +Maggie whispered, awestruck by these preparations: + +"Which coops will yo' 'ave, Mr. Greatorex?" + +"T' best coops, Maaggie." + +Maggie had to fetch them from the corner cupboard (they were the white +and gold). At Greatorex's command she brought the little round oak +table from its place in the front window and set it by the hearth +before the visitor. Humbly, under her master's eye, yet with a sort of +happy pride about her, she set out the tea-things and the glass dishes +of jam and honey and tea-cakes. + +Greatorex waited, silent and awkward, till his servant had left the +room. Then he came forward. + +"Theer's caake," he said. "Maaggie baaked un yesterda'. An' theer's +hooney." + +He made no servile apologies for what he set before her. He was giving +her nothing that was not good, and he knew it. + +And he sat down facing her and watched her pour out her tea and help +herself with her little delicate hands. If he had been a common man, a +peasant, his idea of courtesy would have been to leave her to herself, +to turn away his eyes from her in that intimate and sacred act of +eating and drinking. But Greatorex was a farmer, the descendant of +yeomen, and by courtesy a yeoman still, and courtesy bade him watch +and see that his guest wanted for nothing. + +That he did not sit down at the little table and drink tea with her +himself showed that his courtesy knew where to draw the dividing line. + +"But why aren't you having anything yourself?" said Alice. She really +wondered. + +He smiled. "It's a bit too early for me, thank yo'. Maaggie'll mak' me +a coop by and bye." + +And she said to herself, "How beautifully he did it." + +He was indeed doing it beautifully all through. He watched her little +fingers, and the very instant they had disposed of a morsel he offered +her another. It was a deep and exquisite pleasure to him to observe +her in that act of eating and drinking. He had never seen anything +like the prettiness, the dainty precision that she brought to it. He +had never seen anything so pretty as Ally herself, in the rough gray +tweed that exaggerated her fineness and fragility; never anything so +distracting and at the same time so heartrending as the gray muff and +collar of squirrel fur, and the little gray fur hat with the bit of +blue peacock's breast laid on one side of it like a folded wing. + +As he watched her he thought, "If I was to touch her I should break +her." + + * * * * * + +Then the conversation began. + +"I was sorry," he said, "to hear yo was so poorly, Miss Cartaret." + +"I'm all right now. You can see I'm all right." + +He shook his head. "I saw yo' a moonth ago, and I didn't think then I +sud aver see yo' at Oopthorne again." + +He paused. + +"'E's a woonderful maan, Dr. Rawcliffe." + +"He is," said Alice. + +Her voice was very soft, inaudible as a breath. All the blood in +her body seemed to rush into her face and flood it and spread up her +forehead to the roots of the gold hair that the east wind had crisped +round the edges of her hat. She thought, "It'll be awful if he +guesses, and if he talks." But when she looked at Greatorex his face +reassured her, it was so utterly innocent of divination. And the next +moment he went straight to the matter in hand. + +"An' what's this thing you've coom to aassk me, Miss Cartaret?" + +"Well"--she looked at him and her gray eyes were soft and charmingly +candid--"it _was_ if you'd be kind enough to sing at our concert. +You've heard about it?" + +"Ay, I've heard about it, right enoof." + +"Well--_won't_ you? You _have_ sung, you know." + +"Yes. I've soong. But thot was in t' owd schoolmaaster's time. Yo' +wouldn't care to hear my singin' now. I've got out of the way of it, +like." + +"You haven't, Mr. Greatorex. I've heard you. You've got a magnificent +voice. There isn't one like it in the choir." + +"Ay, there's not mooch wrong with my voice, I rackon. But it's like +this, look yo. I joost soong fer t' schoolmaaster. He was a friend--a +personal friend of mine. And he's gone. And I'm sure I doan' knaw--" + +"I know, Mr. Greatorex. I know exactly how you feel about it. You +sang to please your friend. He's gone and you don't like the idea of +singing for anybody else--for a set of people you don't know." + +She had said it. It was the naked truth and he wasn't going to deny +it. + +She went on. "We're strangers and perhaps you don't like us very much, +and you feel that singing for us would be like singing the Lord's song +in a strange country; you feel as if it would be profanation--a kind +of disloyalty." + +"Thot's it. Thot's it." Never had he been so well interpreted. + +"It's that--and it's because you miss him so awfully." + +"Wall--" He seemed inclined, in sheer honesty, to deprecate the +extreme and passionate emotion she suggested. I would n' saay--O' +course, I sort o' miss him. I caann't afford to lose a friend--I +'aven't so many of 'em." + +"I know. It's the waters of Babylon, and you're hanging up your +voice in the willow tree." She could be gay and fluent enough with +Greatorex, who was nothing to her. "But it's an awful pity. A willow +tree can't do anything with a big barytone voice hung up in it." + +He laughed then. And afterward, whenever he thought of it, he laughed. + +She saw that he had adopted his attitude first of all in resentment, +that he had continued it as a passionate, melancholy pose, and that he +was only keeping it up through sheer obstinacy. He would be glad of a +decent excuse to abandon it, if he could find one. + +"And your friend must have been proud of your voice, wasn't he?" + +"He sat more store by it than what I do. It was he, look yo, who +trained me so as I could sing proper." + +"Well, then, he must have taken some trouble over it. Do you think +he'd like you to go and hang it up in a willow tree?" + +Greatorex looked up, showing a shamefaced smile. The little lass had +beaten him. + +"Coom to think of it, I doan' knaw as he would like it mooch." + +"Of course he wouldn't like it. It would be wasting what he'd done." + +"So 't would. I naver thought of it like thot." + +She rose. She knew the moment of surrender, and she knew, woman-like, +that it must not be overpassed. She stood before him, drawing on her +gloves, fastening her squirrel collar and settling her chin in the +warm fur with the movement of a small burrowing animal, a movement +that captivated Greatorex. Then, deliberately and finally, she held +out her hand. + +"Good-bye, Mr. Greatorex. It's all right, isn't it? You're coming to +sing for _him,_ you know, not for _us_." + +"I'm coomin'," said Greatorex. + +She settled her chin again, tucked her hands away in the squirrel muff +and went quickly toward the door. He followed. + +"Let me putt Daasy in t' trap, Miss Cartaret, and drive yo' home." + +"I wouldn't think of it. Thank you all the same." + +She was in the kitchen now, on the outer threshold. He followed her +there. + +"Miss Cartaret--" + +She turned. "Well?" + +His face was flushed to the eyes. He struggled visibly for expression. +"Yo' moosn' saay I doan' like yo'. Fer it's nat the truth." + +"I'm glad it isn't," she said. + +He walked with her down the bridle path to the gate. He was dumb after +his apocalypse. + +They parted at the gate. + +With long, slow, thoughtful strides Greatorex returned along the +bridle path to his house. + + * * * * * + +Alice went gaily down the hill to Garth. It was the hill of Paradise. +And if she thought of Greatorex and of how she had cajoled him into +singing, and of how through singing she would reclaim him, it was +because Greatorex and his song and his redemption were a small, hardly +significant part of the immense thought of Rowcliffe. + +"How pleased he'll be when he knows what I've done!" + +And her pure joy had a strain in it that was not so pure. It pleased +her to please Rowcliffe, but it pleased her also that he should +realise her as a woman who could cajole men into doing for her what +they didn't want to do. + + * * * * * + +"I've got him! I've got him!" she cried as she came, triumphant, into +the dining-room where her father and her sisters still sat round the +table. "No, thanks. I've had tea." + +"Where did you get it?" the Vicar asked with his customary suspicion. + +"At Upthorne. Jim Greatorex gave it me." + +The Vicar was appeased. He thought nothing of it that Greatorex should +have given his daughter tea. Greatorex was part of the parish. + + + + +XXV + + +Rowcliffe was coming to the concert. Neither floods nor tempests, he +declared, would keep him away from it. + +For hours, night after night, of the week before the concert, Jim +Greatorex had been down at Garth, in the schoolhouse, practicing with +Alice Cartaret until she assured him he was perfect. + +Night after night the schoolhouse, gray in its still yard, had a door +kept open for them and a light in the solemn lancet windows. The tall +gray ash tree that stood back in the angle of the porch knew of their +coming and their going. The ash tree was friendly. When the north wind +tossed its branches it beckoned to the two, it summoned them from up +and down the hill. + +And now the tables and blackboards had been cleared out of the big +schoolroom. The matchboarding of white pine that lined the lower half +of its walls had been hung with red twill, with garlands of ivy and +bunches of holly. Oil lamps swung from the pine rafters of the ceiling +and were set on brackets at intervals along the walls. A few boards +raised on joists made an admirable platform. One broad strip of red +felt was laid along the platform, another hid the wooden steps that +led to it. On the right a cottage piano was set slantwise. In the +front were chairs for the principal performers. On the left, already +in their places, were the glee-singers chosen from the village choir. +Behind, on benches, the rest of the choir. + +Over the whole scene, on the chalk white of the dado, the blond yellow +of varnished pinewood, the blazing scarlet of the hangings, the dark +glitter of the ivy and the holly; on the faces, ruddy and sallow, +polished with cleanliness, on the sleek hair, on the pale frocks of +the girls, the bright neckties of the men, the lamplight rioted and +exulted; it rippled and flowed; it darted; it lay suave and smooth as +still water; it flaunted; it veiled itself. Stately and tall and in a +measured order, the lancet windows shot up out of the gray walls, the +leaded framework of their lozenges gray on the black and solemn night +behind them. + +A smell of dust, of pine wood, of pomade, of burning oil, of an iron +stove fiercely heated, a thin, bitter smell of ivy and holly; that +wonderful, that overpowering, inspiring and revolting smell, of +elements strangely fused, of flying vapors, of breathing, burning, +palpitating things. + +Greatorex, conspicuous in his front seat on the platform, drew it +in with great heavings of his chest. He loved that smell. It fairly +intoxicated him every time. It soared singing through his nostrils +into his brain, like gin. There could be no more violent and +voluptuous contrast of sensations than to come straight from the cold, +biting air of Upthorne and to step into that perfect smell. It was a +thick, a sweet, a fiery and sustaining smell. It helped him to face +without too intolerable an agony the line of alien (he deemed them +alien) faces in the front row of the audience: Mr. Cartaret and Miss +Cartaret (utter strangers; he had never got, he never would get used +to them) and Dr. Rowcliffe (not altogether a stranger, after what he +had done one night for Greatorex's mare Daisy); then Miss Gwendolen +(not a stranger either after what she had done, and yet formidably +strange, the strangest, when he came to think of it, and the queerest +of them all). Rowcliffe, he observed, sat between her and her sister. +Divided from them by a gap, more strangers, three girls whom Rowcliffe +had driven over from Morfe and afterward (Greatorex observed that +also, for he kept his eye on him) had shamelessly abandoned. + +If Greatorex had his eye on Rowcliffe, Rowcliffe had his eye, though +less continuously, on him. He did not know very much about Greatorex, +after all, and he could not be sure that his man would turn +up entirely sober. He was unaware of Greatorex's capacity for +substituting one intoxication for another. He had no conception of +what the smell of that lighted and decorated room meant for this man +who lived so simply and profoundly by his senses and his soul. It was +interfused and tangled with Greatorex's sublimest feelings. It was the +draw-net of submerged memories, of secret, unsuspected passions. It +held in its impalpable web his dreams, the divine and delicate things +that his grosser self let slip. He would forget, forget for ages, +until, in the schoolroom at concert time, at the first caress of the +magical smell, those delicate and divine, those secret, submerged, and +forgotten things arose, and with the undying poignancy and subtlety of +odors they entered into him again. And besides these qualities which +were indefinable, the smell was vividly symbolic. It was entwined with +and it stood for his experience of art and ambition and the power to +move men and women; for song and for the sensuous thrill and spiritual +ecstasy of singing and for the subsequent applause. It was the only +form of intoxication known to him that did not end in headache and in +shame. + +Suddenly the charm that had sustained him ceased to work. + +Under it he had been sitting in suspense, waiting for something, +knowing and not daring to own to himself what it was he waited +for. The suspense and the waiting seemed all part of the original +excitement. + +Then Alice Cartaret came up the room. + +Her passage had been obscured and obstructed by the crowd of villagers +at the door. But they had cleared a way for her and she came. + +She carried herself like a crowned princess. The cords of her cloak +(it was of dove color, lined with blue) had loosened in her passage, +and the cloak had slipped, showing her naked shoulders. She wore a +little dove-gray gown with some blue about it and a necklace of pale +amber. Her white arms hung slender as a child's from the immense puffs +of the sleeves. Her fair hair was piled in front of a high amber comb. + +As she appeared before the platform Rowcliffe rose and took her cloak +from her (Greatorex saw him take it, but he didn't care; he knew more +about the doctor than the doctor knew himself). He handed her up the +steps on to the platform and then turned, like a man who has done all +that chivalry requires of him, to his place between her sisters. The +hand that Rowcliffe had let go went suddenly to her throat, seizing +her necklace and loosening it as if it choked her. Rowcliffe was not +looking at her. + +Still with her hand at her throat, she smiled and bowed to the +audience, to the choir, to Greatorex, to the schoolmaster who came +forward (Greatorex cursed him) and led her to the piano. + +She sat down, wiped her hands on her handkerchief, and waited, +enduring like an angel the voices of the villagers and the shuffling +of their feet. + +Then somebody (it was the Vicar) said, "Hush!" and she began to play. +In her passion for the unattainable she had selected Chopin's Grande +Valse in A Flat, beginning with the long shake of eight bars. + +Greatorex did not know whether she played well or badly. He only knew +it looked and sounded wonderful. He could have watched forever her +little hands that were like white birds. He had never seen anything +more delicious and more amusing than their fluttering in the long +shake and their flying with spread wings all over the piano. + +Then the jumping and the thumping began; and queer noises, the like of +which Greatorex had never heard, came out of the piano. It jarred him; +but it made him smile. The little hands were marvelous the way they +flew, the way they leaped across great spaces of piano. + +Alice herself was satisfied. She had brought out the air; she had made +it sing above the confusion of the bass and treble that evidently had +had no clear understanding when they started; as for the bad bits, the +tremendous crescendo chords that your hands must take at a flying leap +or miss altogether, Rowcliffe had already assured her that they were +impracticable anyhow; and Rowcliffe knew. + +Flushed and softened with the applause (Rowcliffe had joined in +it), she took her place between Greatorex and the schoolmaster. The +glee-singers, two men and two women, came forward and sang their +glees, turning and bowing to each other like mummers. The schoolmaster +recited the "Pied Piper of Hamelin." A young lady who had come over +from Morfe expressly for that purpose sang the everlasting song about +the miller. + +Leaning stiffly forward, her thin neck outstretched, her brows bent +toward Rowcliffe, summoning all that she knew of archness to her eyes, +she sang. + + "Oh miller, miller, miller, miller, miller, let me go!" + +sang the young lady from Morfe. Alice could see that she sang for +Rowcliffe and at Rowcliffe; she sang into his face until he turned it +away, and then, utterly unabashed, she sang into his left ear. + +The presence and the song of the young lady from Morfe would have been +torture to Alice, but that her eyelids and her face were red as if +perpetually smitten by the east wind and scarified with weeping. To +Alice, at the piano, it was terrible to be associated with the song of +the young lady from Morfe. She felt that Rowcliffe was looking at her +(he wasn't) and she strove by look and manner to detach herself. +As the young lady flung herself into it and became more and more +intolerably arch, Alice became more and more severe. She purified the +accompaniment from all taint of the young lady's intentions. It grew +graver and graver. It was a hymn, a solemn chant, a dirge. The dirge +of the last hope of the young lady from Morfe. + +When it ceased there rose from the piano that was its grave the +Grande Polonaise of Chopin. It rose in splendor and defiance; Alice's +defiance of the young lady from Morfe. It brought down the schoolhouse +in a storm of clapping and thumping, of "Bravos" and "Encores." Even +Rowcliffe said, "Bravo!" + +But Alice, still seated at the piano, smiled and signaled. + +And Jim Greatorex stood up to sing. + + * * * * * + +He stood facing the room, but beside her, so that she could sign to +him if anything went wrong. + + "'Oh, that we two-oo were May-ing + Down the stream of the so-oft spring breeze, + Like children with vi-olets pla-aying.'" + +Greatorex's voice was a voice of awful volume and it ranged somewhere +from fairly deep barytone almost to tenor. It was at moments +unmanageable, being untrained, yet he seemed to do as much with it as +if it had been bass and barytone and tenor all in one. It had grown +a little thick in the last year, but he brought out of its very +thickness a brooding, yearning passion and an intolerable pathos. + +The song, overladen with emotion, appealed to him; it expressed as +nothing else could have expressed the passions that were within him at +that moment. It swept the whole range of his experiences, there were +sheep in it and a churchyard and children (his lady could never be +anything more to him than a child). + + "'Oh, that we two-oo were ly-ing + In our nest in the chu-urch-yard sod, + With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth's breast, + And our souls--at home--with God!'" + +That finished it. There was no other end. + +And as he sang it, looking nobly if a little heavily over the heads of +his audience, he saw Essy Gale hidden away, and trying to hide herself +more, beside her mother in the farthest corner of the room. + +He had forgotten Essy. + +And at the sight of her his nobility went from him and only his +heaviness remained. + +It didn't matter that they shouted for him to sing again, that they +stamped and bellowed, and that he did sing, again and again, taking +the roof off at the last with "John Peel." + +Nothing mattered. Nothing mattered. Nothing could matter now. + +And then something bigger than his heart, bigger than his voice, +something immense and brutal and defiant, asserted itself and said +that Come to that Essy didn't matter. She had put herself in his way. +And Maggie had been before and after her. And Maggie didn't matter +either. + + * * * * * + +For the magical smell had wrapped itself round Alice Cartaret, and her +dove-gray gown and dove-gray eyes, and round the thought of her. It +twined and tangled her in the subtle mesh. She was held and embalmed +in it forever. + + + + +XXVI + + +It was Wednesday, the day after the concert. + +Mr. Cartaret was standing before the fire in his study. He had just +rung the bell and now he waited in an attitude of wisdom and of +patience. It was only ten o'clock in the morning and wisdom and +patience should not be required of any man at such an hour. But the +Vicar had a disagreeable duty to perform. + +Whenever the Vicar had a disagreeable duty to perform he performed +it as early as possible in the morning, so that none of its +disagreeableness was lost. The whole day was poisoned by it. + +He waited a little longer. And as he waited his patience began to +suffer imperceptibly, though his wisdom remained intact. + +He rang again. The bell sounded through the quiet house, angry and +terrifying. + +In another moment Essy came in. She had on a clean apron. + +She stood by the roll-top desk. It offered her a certain cover and +support. Her brown eyes, liquid and gentle, gazed at him. But for all +her gentleness there was a touch of defiance in her bearing. + +"Did you not hear me ring?" said the Vicar. + +"Naw, sir." + +Nothing more clear and pure than the candor of Essy's eyes. They +disconcerted him. + +"I have nothing to say to you, Essy. You know why I sent for you." + +"Naw, sir." She thought it was a question. + +He underlined it. + +"You--know--why." + +"Naw. I doan' knaw, sir." + +"Then, if you don't know, you must find out. You will go down to the +surgery this afternoon and see Dr. Rowcliffe, and he will report on +your case." + +She started and the red blood rose in her face. + +"I s'all not goa and see him, Mr. Cartaret." + +She was very quiet. + +"Very good. Then I shall pay you a month's wages and you will go on +Saturday." + +It was then that her mouth trembled so that her eyes shone large +through her tears. + +"I wasn't gawn to staay, sir--to be a trooble. I sud a gien yo' +nawtice in anoother moonth." + +She paused. There was a spasm in her throat as if she swallowed with +difficulty her bitter pride. Her voice came thick and hoarse. + +"Woan't yo' kape me till th' and o' t' moonth, sir?" Her voice cleared +suddenly. "Than I can see yo' trow Christmas." + +The Vicar opened his mouth to speak; but instead of speaking he +stared. His open mouth stared with a supreme astonishment. Up till +now, in his wisdom and his patience, he had borne with Essy, the Essy +who had come before him one evening in September, dejected and afraid. +He hated Essy and he hated her sin, but he had borne with her then +because of her sorrow and her shame. + +And here was Essy with not a sign of sorrow or of shame about her, +offering (in the teeth of her deserved dismissal), actually offering +as a favor to stay over Christmas and to see them through. The naked +impudence of it was what staggered him. + +"I have no intention of keeping you over Christmas. You will take your +notice and your wages from to-day, and you will go on Saturday." + +"Yes, sir." + +In her going Essy turned. + +"Will yo' taake me back, sir, when it's all over?" + +"No. No. I shouldn't think of taking you back." + +The Vicar hid his hands in his pockets and leaned forward, thrusting +his face toward Essy as he spoke. + +"I'm afraid, my girl, it never will be all over, as long as you regard +your sin as lightly as you do." + +Essy did not see the Vicar's face thrust toward her. She was sidling +to the door. She had her hand on the doorknob. + +"Come back," said the Vicar. "I have something else to say to you." + +Essy came no nearer. She remained standing by the door. + +"Who is the man, Essy?" + +At that Essy's face began to shake piteously. Standing by the door, +she cried quietly, with soft sobs, neither hiding her face nor drying +her tears as they came. + +"You had better tell me," said the Vicar. + +"I s'all nat tall yo'," said Essy, with passionate determination, +between the sobs. + +"You must." + +"I s'all nat--I s'all nat." + +"Hiding it won't help you," said the Vicar. + +Essy raised her head. + +"I doan' keer. I doan' keer what 'appens to mae. What wae did--what +wae did--lies between him and mae." + +"Did he tell you he'd marry you, Essy?" + +Essy sobbed for answer. + +"He didn't? Is he going to marry you?" + +"'Tisn' likely 'e'll marry mae. An' I'll not force him." + +"You think, perhaps, it doesn't matter?" + +She shook her head in utter helplessness. + +"Come, make a clean breast of it." + +Then the storm burst. She turned her tormented face to him. + +"A clane breast, yo' call it? I s'all mak' naw clane breasts, Mr. +Cartaret, to yo' or anybody. I'll 'ave nawbody meddlin' between him +an' mae!" + +"Then," said the Vicar, "I wash my hands of you." + +But he said it to an empty room. Essy had left him. + + * * * * * + +In the outer room the three sisters sat silent and motionless. Their +faces were turned toward the closed door of the study. They were +listening to the sounds that went on behind it. The burden of Essy +hung heavy over them. + +The study door opened and shut. Then the kitchen door. + +"Poor Essy," said Gwenda. + +"Poor Essy," said Alice. She was sorry for Essy now. She could afford +to be sorry for her. + +Mary said nothing, and from her silence you could not tell what she +was thinking. + +The long day dragged on to prayer time. + +The burden of Essy hung heavy over the whole house. + + * * * * * + +That night, at a quarter to ten, fifteen minutes before prayer time, +Gwenda came to her father in his study. + +"Papa," she said, "is it true that you've sacked Essy at three days' +notice?" + +"I have dismissed Essy," said the Vicar, "for a sufficient reason." + +"There's no reason to turn her out before Christmas." + +"There is," said the Vicar, "a very grave reason. We needn't go into +it." + +He knew that his daughter knew his reason. But he ignored her +knowledge as he ignored all things that were unpleasant to him. + +"We must go into it," said Gwenda. "It's a sin to turn her out at +three days' notice." + +"I know what I'm doing, Gwenda, and why I'm doing it." + +"So do I. We all do. None of us want her to go--yet. You could easily +have kept her another two months. She'd have given notice herself." + +"I am not going to discuss it with you." + +The Vicar put his head under the roll top of his desk and pretended to +be looking for papers. Gwenda seated herself familiarly on the arm of +the chair he had left. + +"You'll have to, I'm afraid," she said. "Please take your head out of +the desk, Papa. There's no use behaving like an ostrich. I can see you +all the time. The trouble is, you know, that you won't _think_. And +you _must_ think. How's Essy going to do without those two months' +wages she might have had? She'll want every shilling she can lay her +hands on for the baby." + +"She should have thought of that before." + +The Vicar was answering himself. He did not acknowledge his daughter's +right to discuss Essy. + +"She'll think of it presently," said Gwenda in her unblushing calm. +"Look here, Papa, while you're trying how you can make this awful +thing more awful for her, what do you think poor Essy's bothering +about? She's not bothering about her sin, nor about her baby. She's +bothering about how she's landed _us_." + +The Vicar closed his eyes. His patience was exhausted. So was his +wisdom. + +"I am not arguing with you, Gwenda." + +"You can't. You know perfectly well what a beastly shame it is." + +That roused him. + +"You seem to think no more of Essy's sin than Essy does." + +"How do you know what Essy thinks? How do I know? It isn't any +business of ours what Essy thinks. It's what we do. I'd rather do what +Essy's done, any day, than do mean or cruel things. Wouldn't you?" + +The Vicar raised his eyebrows and his shoulders. It was the gesture of +a man helpless before the unspeakable. + +He took refuge in his pathos. + +"I am very tired, Gwenda; and it's ten minutes to ten." + + * * * * * + +It may have been because the Vicar was tired that his mind wandered +somewhat that night during family prayers. + +Foremost among the many things that the Vicar's mind refused to +consider was the question of the status, of the very existence, of +family prayers in his household. + +But for Essy, though the Vicar did not know it, it was doubtful +whether family prayers would have survived what he called his +daughters' godlessness. Mary, to be sure, conformed outwardly. She was +not easily irritated, and, as she put it, she did not really _mind_ +prayers. But to Alice and Gwendolen prayers were a weariness and +an exasperation. Alice would evade them under any pretext. By her +father's action in transporting her to Gardale, she considered that +she was absolved from her filial allegiance. But Gwendolen was loyal. +In the matter of prayers, which--she made it perfectly clear to Alice +and Mary--could not possibly annoy them more than they did her, she +was going to see Papa through. It would be beastly, she said, not to. +They couldn't give him away before Essy. + +But of the clemency and generosity of Gwendolen's attitude Mr. +Cartaret was not aware. He believed that the custom of prayers was +maintained in his household by his inflexible authority and will. He +gloried in them as an expression of his power. They were a form of +coercion which it seemed he could apply quite successfully to his +womenkind, those creatures of his flesh and blood, yet so alien and +intractable. Family prayers gave him a keener spiritual satisfaction +than the church services in which, outwardly, he cut a far more +imposing figure. In a countryside peopled mainly by abominable +Wesleyans and impure Baptists (Mr. Cartaret spoke and thought of +Wesleyans and Baptists as if they were abominable and impure pure) he +had some difficulty in procuring a congregation. The few who came +to the parish church came because it was respectable and therefore +profitable, or because they had got into the habit and couldn't well +get out of it, or because they liked it, not at all because his +will and his authority compelled them. But to emerge from his +study inevitably at ten o'clock, an hour when the souls of Mary +and Gwendolen and Alice were most reluctant and most hostile to the +thought of prayers, and by sheer worrying to round up the fugitives, +whatever they happened to be doing and wherever they happened to be, +this (though he said it was no pleasure to him) was more agreeable to +Mr. Cartaret than he knew. The very fact that Essy was a Wesleyan +and so far an unwilling conformist gave a peculiar zest to the +performance. + +It was always the same. It started with a look through his glasses, +leveled at each member of his household in turn, as if he desired to +satisfy himself as to the expression of their faces while at the same +time he defied them to protest. For the rest, his rule was that of his +father, the schoolmaster, before him. First, a chapter from the Bible, +the Old Testament in the morning, the New Testament in the evening, +working straight through from Genesis to Revelation (omitting +Leviticus as somewhat unsuitable for family reading). Then prayers +proper, beginning with what his daughter Gwendolen, seventeen years +ago, had called "fancy prayers," otherwise prayers not lifted from +the Liturgy, but compiled and composed in accordance with the freer +Evangelical taste in prayers. Then (for both Mr. Cartaret and the +schoolmaster, his father, held that the Church must not be ignored) +there followed last Sunday's Collect, the Collect for Grace, the +Benediction, and the Lord's Prayer. + +Now, as his rule would have it, that evening of the fifth of December +brought him to the Eighth chapter of St. John, in the one concerning +the woman taken in adultery, which was the very last chapter which +Mr. Cartaret that evening could have desired to read. He had always +considered that to some minds it might be open to misinterpretation as +a defense of laxity. + +"'Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?' + +"She said, 'No man, Lord.' And Jesus said unto her, 'Neither do I +condemn thee.'" + +Mr. Cartaret lowered his voice and his eyes as he read, for he felt +Gwendolen's eyes upon him. + +But he recovered himself on the final charge. + +"'Go'"--now he came to think of it, that was what he had said to +Essy--"'and sin no more.'" + +(After all, he was supported.) + +Casting another and more decidedly uneasy glance at his family, he +knelt down. He felt better when they were all kneeling, for now he had +their backs toward him instead of their faces. + +He then prayed. On behalf of himself and Essy and his family he prayed +to a God who (so he assumed his Godhead) was ever more ready to hear +than they to pray, a God whom he congratulated on His ability to +perform for them far more than they either desired or deserved; he +thanked him for having mercifully preserved them to the close of +another blessed day (as in the morning he would thank him for having +spared them to see the light of another blessed day); he besought him +to pardon anything which that day they had done amiss; to deliver them +from disobedience and self-will, from pride and waywardness (he had +inserted this clause ten years ago for Gwendolen's benefit) as well as +from the sins that did most easily beset them, for the temptations to +which they were especially prone. This clause covered all the things +he couldn't mention. It covered his wife, Robina's case; it covered +Essy's; he had dragged Alice's case as it were from under it; he had a +secret fear that one day it might cover Gwendolen's. + +Gwendolen was the child who, he declared and believed, had always +given him most trouble. He recalled (perversely) a certain thing that +(at thirteen) she had said about this prayer. + +"It oughtn't to be prayed," she had said. "You don't really think you +can fool God that way, Papa? If I had a servant who groveled to me +like that I'd tell him he must learn to keep his chin up or go." + +She had said it before Robina who had laughed. And Mr. Cartaret's +answer to it had been to turn his back on both of them and leave the +room. At least he thought it was his answer. Gwendolen had thought +that in a flash of intellectual honesty he agreed with her, only that +he hadn't quite enough honesty to say so before Mummy. + +All this he recalled, and the question she had pursued him with about +that time. "_What_ are the sins that do most easily beset us? _What_ +are the temptations to which we are especially prone?" And his own +evasive answer. "Ask yourself, my child." + +Another year and she had left off asking him questions. She drew back +into herself and became every day more self-willed, more solitary, +more inaccessible. + +And now, if he could have seen things as they really were, Mr. +Cartaret would have perceived that he was afraid of Gwenda. As it was, +he thought he was only afraid of what Gwenda might do. + +Alice was capable of some things; but Gwenda was capable of anything. + + * * * * * + +Suddenly, to Gwenda's surprise, her father sighed; a dislocating sigh. +It came between the Benediction and the Lord's Prayer. + +For, even as he invoked the blessing Mr. Cartaret suddenly felt sorry +for himself again. His children were no good to him. + +By which he meant that his third wife, Robina, was no good. + +But he did not know that he visited his wife's shortcomings on their +heads, any more than he knew that he hated Essy and her sin because he +himself was an enforced, reluctant celibate. + + + + +XXVII + + +The next day at dusk, Essy Gale slipped out to her mother's cottage +down by the beck. + +Mrs. Gale had just cleared the table after her tea, had washed up +the tea-things and was putting them away in the cupboard when Essy +entered. She looked round sharply, inimically. + +Essy stood by the doorway, shamefaced. + +"Moother," she said softly, "I want to speaak to yo." + +Mrs. Gale struck an attitude of astonishment and fear, although she +had expected Essy to come at such an hour and with such a look, and +only wondered that she had not come four months ago. + +"Yo're nat goain' t' saay as yo've got yoresel into trooble?" + +For four months Mrs. Gale had preserved an innocent face before her +neighbors and she desired to preserve it to the last possible moment. +And up to the last possible moment, even to her daughter, she was +determined to ignore what had happened. + +But she knew and Essy knew that she knew. + +"Doan yo saay it, Assy. Doan yo saay it." + +Essy said nothing. + +"D'yo 'ear mae speaakin' to yo? Caann't yo aanswer? Is it thot, Assy? +Is it thot?" + +"Yas, moother, yo knaw 'tis thot." + +"An' yo dare to coom 'ear and tell mae! Yo dirty 'oossy! Toorn an' +lat's 'ave a look at yo." + +Now that the innocence of her face was gone, Mrs. Gale had a stern +duty to perform by Essy. + +"They've gien yo t' saack?" + +"T' Vicar give it mae." + +"Troost'im! Whan did 'e gie it yo?" + +"Yasterda'." + +"T'moonth's nawtice?" + +"Naw. I aassked 'im t' kape me anoother two moonths an' 'e woonna. +I aassked 'im t' kape me over Christmas an' 'e woonna. I'm to leaave +Saturda'." + +"Did yo expact 'im t' kape yo, yo gawpie? Did yo think you'd nowt to +do but t' laay oop at t' Vicarage an' 'ave th yoong laadies t' do yore +wark for yo, an' t' waait on yo 'and an' foot? Miss Gwanda t' mak' +yore bafe-tae an' chicken jally and t' Vicar t' daandle t' baaby? + +"'Oo's goan t' kape yo? Mae? I woonna kape yo an' I canna' kape yo. Yo +ain' t' baaby! I doan' waant naw squeechin', squallin' brats mookin' +oop t' plaace as faast as I clanes it, An' '_E_ woonna kape yo--ef +yo're raakonin' on 'im. Yo need na tall mae oo t' maan is. I knaw." + +"'Tis'n 'im, Moother. 'Tis'n 'im." + +"Yo lil blaack liar! '_Tis_ 'im. Ooo alse could it bae? Yo selly! +Whatten arth possessed yo t' goa an' tak oop wi' Jim Greatorex? Ef yo +mun get into trooble yo medda chawsen battern Jim. What for did I tak' +yo from t' Farm an' put yo into t' Vicarage ef 't wasn't t' get yo out +o' Jimmy's road? '_E_'ll naver maarry yo. Nat 'e! Did 'e saay as 'e'd +maarry yo? Naw, I warrant yo did na waat fer thot. Yo was mad t' roon +affter 'im afore 'e called yo. Yo dirty cat!" + +That last taunt drew blood. Essy spoke up. + +"Naw, naw. 'E looved mae. 'E wanted mae bad." + +"'E wanted yo? Coorse 'e wanted yo. Yo sud na 'ave gien in to 'im, yo +softie. D'yo think yo're the only woon thot's tampted? Look at mae. I +could 'a got into trooble saven times to yore woonce, ef I 'ad'n kaped +my 'ead an' respected mysel. Yore Jim Greatorex! Ef a maan like Jim +'ad laaid a 'and on mae, 'e'd a got soomthin' t' remamber afore I'd +'a gien in to 'im. An' yo've naw 'scuse for disgracin' yoresel. Yo was +brought oop ralegious an' respactable. Did yo aver 'ear saw mooch aa a +bad woord?" + +"It's doon, Moother, it's doon. There's naw good taalkin'." + +"Eh! Yo saay it's doon, it's doon, an' yo think nowt o' 't. An' nowt +yo think o' t' trooble yo're brengin' on mae. I sooppawse yo'll be +tallin' mae naxt yo looved 'im! Yo looved'im!" + +At that Essy began to cry, softly, in her manner. + +"Doan' yo tall mae _thot_ taale." + +Mrs. Gale suddenly paused in her tirade and began to poke the fire +with fury. + +"It's enoof t' sicken t' cat!" + +She snatched the kettle that stood upon the hob; she stamped out to +the scullery and re-filled it at the tap. She returned, stamping, and +set it with violence upon the fire. + +She tore out of the cupboard a teapot, a cup and a saucer, a loaf on +a plate and a jar of dripping. Still with violence (slightly modulated +to spare the comparative fragility of the objects she was handling) +she dashed them one by one upon the table where Essy, with elbows +planted, propped her head upon her hands and wept. + +Mrs. Gale sat down herself in the chair facing her, and kept one +eye on the kettle and the other on her daughter. From time to time +mutterings came from her, breaking the sad rhythm of Essy's sobs. + +"Eh dear! I'd like t' knaw what I've doon t' ave _this_ trooble!"-- + +--"'Tis enoof t' raaise yore pore feyther clane out of 'is graave!"-- + +--"'E'd sooner 'ave seed yo in yore coffin, Assy."-- + +She rose and took down the tea-caddy from the chimney-piece and flung +a reckless measure into the tea-pot. + +"Ef 'e'd 'a been a-livin', 'E'd a _killed_ yo. Thot's what 'e'd 'a +doon." + +As she said it she grasped the kettle and poured the boiling water +into the tea-pot. + +She set the tea-pot before Essy. + +"There's a coop of tae. An' there's bread an' drippin'. Yo'll drink it +oop." + +But Essy, desolated, shook her head. + +"Wall," said Mrs. Gale. "I doan' want ter look at yo. 'T mak's mae +seek." + +As if utterly revolted by the sight of her daughter, she turned from +her and left the kitchen by the staircase door. + +Her ponderous stamping could be heard going up the staircase and +on the floor overhead. There was a sound as of drawers opening and +shutting and of a heavy box being dragged from under the bed. + +Essy poured herself out a cup of tea, tried to drink it, choked and +pushed it from her. + +She was still weeping when her mother came to her. + +Mrs. Gale came softly. + +All alone in the room overhead she had evidently been doing something +that had pleased her. The ghost of a smile still haunted her bleak +face. She carried on her arm tenderly a pile of little garments. + +These she began to spread out on the table before Essy, having first +removed the tea-things. + +"There!" she said. "'Tis the lil cleathes fer t' baaby. Look, Assy, +my deear--there's t' lil rawb, wi' t' lil slaves, so pretty--an' t' +flanny petticut--an' t' lil vasst--see. 'Tis t' lil things I maade fer +'ee afore tha was born." + +But Essy pushed them from her. She was weeping violently now. + +"Taake 'em away!" she cried. "I doan' want t' look at 'em." + +Mrs. Gale sat and stared at her. + +"Coom," she said, "tha moos'n' taake it saw 'ard, like." + +Between the sobs Essy looked up with her shining eyes. She whispered. + +"Will yo kape mae, Moother?" + +"I sail 'ave t' kape yo. There's nawbody 'll keer mooch fer thot job +but yore moother." + +But Essy still wept. Once started on the way of weeping, she couldn't +stop. + +Then, all of a sudden, Mrs. Gale's face became distorted. + +She got up and put her hand heavily on her daughter's shoulder. + +"There, there, Assy, loove," she said. "Doan' tha taake on thot road. +It's doon, an' it caann't be oondoon." + +She stood there in a heavy silence. Now and again she patted the +heaving shoulder, marking time to Essy's sobs. Then she spoke. + +"Tha'll feel batter whan t' lil baaby cooms." + +Profoundly disturbed and resentful of her own emotion Mrs. Gale seized +upon the tea-pot as a pretext and shut herself up with it in the +scullery. + + * * * * * + +Essy, staggering, rose and dried her eyes. For a moment or so she +stared idly at the square window with the blue-black night behind it. + +Then she looked down. She smiled faintly. One by one she took the +little garments spread out in front of her. She folded them in a pile. + +Her face was still and dreamy. + +She opened the scullery door and looked in. + +"Good-night, Moother." + +"Good-night, Assy." + + * * * * * + +It was striking seven as she passed the church. + +Above the strokes of the hour she heard through the half-open door a +sound of organ playing and of a big voice singing. + +And she began to weep again. She knew the singer, and the player too. + + + + +XXVIII + + +Christmas was over and gone. + +It was the last week in January. + +All through December Rowcliffe's visits to the Vicarage had continued. +But in January they ceased. That was not to be wondered at. Even Ally +couldn't wonder. There was influenza in every other house in the Dale. + +Then, one day, Gwenda, walking past Upthorne, heard wheels behind +her and the clanking hoofs of the doctor's horse. She knew what would +happen. Rowcliffe would pull up a yard or two in front of her. He +would ask her where she was going and he would make her drive with him +over the moor. And she knew that she would go with him. She would not +be able to refuse him. + +But the clanking hoofs went by and never stopped. There were two men +in the trap. Acroyd, Rowcliffe's groom, sat in Rowcliffe's place, +driving. He touched his hat to her as he passed her. + +Beside him there was a strange man. + +She said to herself, "He's away then. I think he might have told me." + +And Ally, passing through the village, had seen the strange man too. + +"Dr. Rowcliffe must be away," she said at tea-time. "I wonder if he'll +be back by Wednesday." + +Wednesday, the last day in January, came, but Rowcliffe did not come. +The strange man took his place in the surgery. + + +Mrs. Gale brought the news into the Vicarage dining-room at four +o'clock. + +She had taken her daughter's place for the time being. She was a just +woman and she bore no grudge against the Vicar on Essy's account. He +had done no more than he was obliged to do. Essy had given trouble +enough in the Vicarage, and she had received a month's wages that she +hadn't worked for. Mrs. Gale was working double to make up for it. +And the innocence of her face being gone, she went lowly and humbly, +paying for Essy, Essy's debt of shame. That was her view. + +"Sall I set the tae here, Miss Gwanda," she enquired. "Sence doctor +isn't coomin'?" + +"How do you know he isn't coming?" Alice asked. + +Mrs. Gale's face was solemn and oppressed. She turned to Gwenda, +ignoring Alice. (Mary was upstairs in her room.) + +"'Aven't yo 'eerd, Miss Gwanda?" + +Gwenda looked up from her book. + +"No," she said. "He's away, isn't he?" + +"Away? 'El'll nat get away fer long enoof. 'E's too ill." + +"Ill?" Alice sent the word out on a terrified breath. Nobody took any +notice of her. + +"T' poastman tell mae," said Mrs. Gale. "From what 'e's 'eerd, 'twas +all along o' Nad Alderson's lil baaby up to Morfe. It was took wi' +the diptheery a while back. An' doctor, 'e sat oop wi' 't tree nights +roonin', 'e did. 'E didn' so mooch as taak 's cleathes off. Nad +Alderson, 'e said, 'e'd navver seen anything like what doctor 'e doon +for t' lil' thing." + +Mrs. Gale's face reddened and she sniffed. + +"'E's saaved Nad's baaby for 'm, right enoof, Dr. Rawcliffe 'as. But +'e's down wi't hissel, t' poastman says." + +It was at Gwenda that she gazed. And as Gwenda made no sign, Mrs. +Gale, still more oppressed by that extraordinary silence, gave her own +feelings way. + +"Mebbe wae sall navver see 'im in t' Daale again. It'll goa 'ard, look +yo, wi' a girt man like 'im, what's navver saaved 'isself. Naw, 'e's +navver saaved 'issel." + +She ceased. She gazed upon both the sisters now. Alice, her face white +and averted, shrank back in the corner of the sofa. Gwenda's face was +still. Neither of them had spoken. + + * * * * * + +Mary had tea alone that afternoon. + +Alice had dragged herself upstairs to her bedroom and locked herself +in. She had flung herself face downward on her bed. She lay there +while the room grew gray and darkened. Suddenly she passed from a +violent fit of writhing and of weeping into blank and motionless +collapses. From time to time she hiccoughed helplessly. + +But in the moment before Mary came downstairs Gwenda had slipped on +the rough coat that hung on its peg in the passage. Her hat was lying +about somewhere in the room where Alice had locked herself in. She +went out bareheaded. + +There was a movement in the little group of villagers gathered on the +bridge before the surgery door. They slunk together and turned their +backs on her as she passed. They knew where she was going as well as +she did. And she didn't care. + +She was doing the sort of thing that Alice had done, and had suffered +for doing. She knew it and she didn't care. It didn't matter what +Alice had done or ever would do. It didn't matter what she did +herself. It was quite simple. Nothing mattered to her so long as +Rowcliffe lived. And if he died nothing would ever matter to her +again. + + * * * * * + +For she knew now what it was that had happened to her. She could no +longer humbug herself into insisting that it hadn't happened. The +thing had been secret and treacherous with her, and she had been +secret and treacherous with it. She had refused to acknowledge it, +not because she had been ashamed of it but because, with the dreadful +instance of Alice before her eyes, she had been afraid. She had +been afraid of how it would appear to Rowcliffe. He might see in it +something morbid and perverted, something horribly like Ally. She +went in terror of the taint. Where it should have held its head up +defiantly and beautifully, it had been beaten back; it cowered and +skulked in the dark places and waited for its hour. + +And now that it showed itself naked, unveiled, unarmed, superbly +defenseless, her terror of it ceased. + +It had received a sanction that had been withheld from it before. + +Until half an hour ago (she was aware of it) there had been something +lacking in her feeling. Mary and Ally (this she was not aware of) got +more "out of" Rowcliffe, so to speak, than she did. Gwenda had known +nothing approaching to Mary's serene and brooding satisfaction or +Ally's ecstasy. She dreaded the secret gates, the dreamy labyrinths, +the poisonous air of the Paradise of Fools. In Rowcliffe's presence +she had not felt altogether safe or altogether happy. But, if she +stood on the edge of an abyss, at least she _stood_ there, firm on the +solid earth. She could balance herself; she could even lean forward +a little and look over, without losing her head, thrilled with the +uncertainty and peril of the adventure. And of course it wasn't as if +Rowcliffe had left her standing. He hadn't. He had held out his hand +to her, as it were, and said, "Let's get on--get on!" which was as +good as saying that, as long as it lasted, it was _their_ adventure, +not hers. He had drawn her after him at an exciting pace, along the +edge of the abyss, never losing _his_ head for a minute, so that she +ought to have felt safe with him. Only she hadn't. She had said to +herself, "If I knew him better, if I saw what was in him, perhaps I +should feel safe." + +There was something she wanted to see in him; something that her +innermost secret self, fastidious and exacting, demanded from him +before it would loosen the grip that held her back. + +And now she knew that it _was_ there. It had been told her in four +words: "He never saved himself." + +She might have known it. For she remembered things, now; how he had +nursed old Greatorex like a woman; how he had sat up half the night +with Jim Greatorex's mare Daisy; how he kept Jim Greatorex from +drinking; and how he had been kind to poor Essy when she had the face +ache; and gentle to little Ally. + +And now Ned Alderson's ridiculous baby would live and Rowcliffe would +die. Was _that_ what she had required of him? She felt as if somehow +_she_ had done it; as if her innermost secret self, iniquitously +exacting, had thrown down the gage into the arena and that he had +picked it up. + +"He saved others. Himself he"--never saved. + +He had become god-like to her. + +And the passion she had trampled on lifted itself and passed into +the phase of adoration. It had received the dangerous sanction of the +soul. + + * * * * * + +She turned off the high road at the point where, three months ago, +she had seen Mary cycling up the hill from Morfe. Now, as then, she +descended upon Morfe by the stony lane from the moor below Karva. + +It came over her that she was too late, that she would see rows of +yellow blinds drawn down in the long front of Rowcliffe's house. + +The blinds were up. The windows looked open-eyed upon the Green. She +noticed that one of them on the first floor was half open, and she +said to herself, "He is up there, in that room, dying of diphtheria." + +The sound of the bell, muffled funereally, at the back of the house, +fulfilled her premonition. + +The door opened wide. The maid stood back from it to let her pass in. + +"How is Dr. Rowcliffe?" + +Her voice sounded abrupt and brutal, as it tore its way from her tense +throat. + +The maid raised her eyebrows. She held the door wider. + +"Would you like to see him, miss?" + +"Yes." + +Her throat closed on the word and choked it. + +Down at the end of the passage, where it was dark, a door opened, the +door of the surgery, and a man came out, went in as if to look for +something, and came out again. + +As he moved there in the darkness she thought it was the strange +doctor and that he had come out to forbid her seeing Rowcliffe. He +would say that she mustn't risk the infection. As if she cared about +the risk. + +Perhaps he wouldn't see her. He, too, might say she mustn't risk it. + +While the surgery door opened and shut, opened and shut again, she saw +that her seems him was of all things the most unlikely. She remembered +the house at Upthorne, and she knew that Rowcliffe was lying dead in +the room upstairs. + +And the man there was coming out to stop her. + + * * * * * + +Only--in that case--why hadn't they drawn the blinds down? + + + + +XXIX + + +She was still thinking of the blinds when she saw that the man who +came towards her was Rowcliffe. + +He was wearing his rough tweed suit and his thick boots, and he had +the look of the open air about him. + +"Is that you, Miss Cartaret? Good!" + +He grasped her hand. He behaved exactly as if he had expected her. He +never even wondered what she had come for. She might have come to say +that her father or one of her sisters was dying, and would he go at +once; but none of these possibilities occurred to him. + +He didn't want to account for her coming to him. It was natural and +beautiful that she should come. + +Then, as she stepped into the lighted passage, he saw that she was +bareheaded and that her eyelashes were parted and gathered into little +wet points. + +He took her arm gently and led her into his study and shut the door. +They faced each other there. + +"I say--is anything wrong?" + +"I thought you were ill." + +She hadn't grasped the absurdity of it yet. She was still under the +spell of the illusion. + +"I? Ill? Good heavens, no!" + +"They told me in the village you'd got diphtheria. And I came to know +if it was true. It _isn't_ true?" + +He smiled; an odd little embarrassed smile; almost as if he were +owning that it was or had been true. + +"_Is_ it?" she persisted as he went on smiling. + +"Of course it isn't." + +She frowned as if she were annoyed with him for not being ill. + +"Then what was that other man here for?" + +"Harker? Oh, he just took my place for a day or two while I had a sore +throat." + +"You _had_ a throat then?" + +Thus she accused him. + +"And you _did_ sit up for three nights with Ned Alderson's baby?" + +She defied him to deny it. + +"That's nothing. Anybody would. I had to." + +"And--you saved the baby?" + +He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. Some thing or other pulled +the little beggar through." + +"And you might have got it?" + +"I might but I didn't." + +"You _did_ get a throat. And it _might_ have been diphtheria." + +Thus by accusing him she endeavored to justify herself. + +"It might," he said, "but it wasn't. I had to knock off work till I +was sure." + +"And you're sure now?" + +"I can tell you _you_ wouldn't be here if I wasn't." + +"And they told me you were dying." + +(She was utterly disgusted.) + +At that he laughed aloud. An irresistible, extravagantly delighted +laugh. When he stopped he choked and began all over again; the idea of +his dying was so funny; so was her disgust. + +"That," she said, "was why I came." + +"Then I'm glad they told you." + +"I'm not," said she. + +He laughed again at her sudden funny dignity. Then, as suddenly, he +was grave. + +"I say--it _was_ nice of you." + +She held out her hand. + +"And now--as you're not dead--I'm off." + +"Oh no, you're not. You're going to stay and have tea and I'm going to +walk back with you." + +She stayed. + + * * * * * + +They walked over the moor by Karva. And as they went he talked to her +as he hadn't talked before. It was all about himself and his tone +was very serious. He talked about his work and (with considerable +reservations and omissions) about his life in Leeds, and about his +ambition. He told her what he had done and why he had done it and what +he was going to do. He wasn't going to stay in Garthdale all his life. +Not he. Presently he would want to get to the center of things. (He +forgot to mention that this was the first time he had thought of it.) +Nothing would satisfy him but a big London practice and a name. He +might--ultimately--specialise. If he did he rather thought it would be +gynæcology. He was interested in women's cases. Or it might be nervous +diseases. He wasn't sure. Anyhow, it must be something big. + +For under Gwenda Cartaret's eyes his romantic youth became fiery and +turbulent inside him. It not only urged him to tremendous heights, +it made him actually feel that he would reach them. For a solid +three-quarters of an hour, walking over the moor by Karva, he had +ceased to be one of the obscurest of obscure little country doctors. +He was Sir Steven Rowcliffe, the great gynæcologist, or the great +neurologist (as the case might be) with a row of letters after his +name and a whole column under it in the Medical Directory. + + +And Gwenda Cartaret's eyes never for a moment contradicted him. They +agreed with every one of his preposterous statements. + +She didn't know that it was only his romantic youth and that he +never had been and never would be more youthful than he was for that +three-quarters of an hour. On the contrary, to _her_ youth he seemed +to have left youth behind him, and to have grown suddenly serious and +clear-sighted and mature. + +And then he stopped, right on the moor, as if he were suddenly aware +of his absurdity. + +"I say," he said, "what must you think of me? Gassing about myself +like that." + +"I think," she said, "it's awfully nice of you." + +"I don't suppose I shall do anything really big. Do you?" + +She was silent. + +"Honestly now, do you think I shall?" + +"I think the things you've done already, the things that'll never be +heard of, are really big." + +His silence said, "They are not enough for me," and hers, "For me they +are enough." + +"But the other things," he insisted--"the things I want to do----Do +you think I'll do them?" + +"I think"--she said slowly--"in fact I'm certain that you'll do them, +if you really mean to." + +"That's what you think of me?" + +"That's what I think of you." + +"Then it's all right," he said. "For what I think of _you_ is that +you'd never say a thing you didn't really mean." + +They parted at the turn of the road, where, as he again reminded her, +he had seen her first. + +Going home by himself over the moor, Rowcliffe wondered whether he +hadn't missed his opportunity. + +He might have told her that he cared for her. He might have asked her +if she cared. If he hadn't, it was only because there was no need to +be precipitate. He felt rather than knew that she was sure of him. + +Plenty of time. Plenty of time. He was so sure of _her_. + + + + +XXX + + +Plenty of time. The last week of January passed. Through the first +weeks of February Rowcliffe was kept busy, for sickness was still in +the Dale. + +Whether he required it or not, Rowcliffe had a respite from decision. +No opportunity arose. If he looked in at the Vicarage on Wednesdays +it was to drink a cup of tea in a hurry while his man put his horse +in the trap. He took his man with him now on his longer rounds to save +time and trouble. Once in a while he would meet Gwenda Cartaret or +overtake her on some road miles from Garth, and he would make her get +up and drive on with him, or he would give her a lift home. + +It pleased her to be taken up and driven. She liked the rapid motion +and the ways of the little brown horse. She even loved the noise he +made with his clanking hoofs. Rowcliffe said it was a beastly trick. +He made up his mind about once a week that he'd get rid of him. But +somehow he couldn't. He was fond of the little brown horse. He'd had +him so long. + +And she said to herself. "He's faithful then. Of course. He would be." + +It was almost as if he had wanted her to know it. + +Then April came and the long spring twilights. The sick people had got +well. Rowcliffe had whole hours on his hands that he could have spent +with Gwenda now, if he had known. + +And as yet he did not altogether know. + + +There was something about Gwenda Cartaret for which Rowcliffe with +all his sureness and all his experience was unprepared. Their +whole communion rested and proceeded on undeclared, unacknowledged, +unrealised assumptions, and it was somehow its very secrecy that made +it so secure. Rather than put it to the test he was content to leave +their meetings to luck and his own imperfect ingenuity. He knew +where and at what times he would have the best chance of finding her. +Sometimes, returning from his northerly rounds, he would send the trap +on, and walk back to Morfe by Karva, on the chance. Once, when the +moon was up, he sighted her on the farther moors beyond Upthorne, when +he got down and walked with her for miles, while his man and the trap +waited for him in Garth. + +Once, and only once, driving by himself on the Rathdale moors beyond +Morfe, he overtook her, picked her up and drove her through Morfe (to +the consternation of its inhabitants) all the way to Garth and to the +very gate of the Vicarage. + +But that was reckless. + + * * * * * + +And in all those hours, for his opportunities counted by hours now, +he had never found his moment. There was plenty of time, and their +isolation (his and hers) in Garthdale left him dangerously secure. All +the same, by April Rowcliffe was definitely looking for the moment, +the one shining moment, that must sooner or later come. + +It was, indeed, always coming. Over and over again he had caught +sight of it; it signaled, shining; he had been ready to seize it, when +something happened, something obscured it, something put him off. + +He never knew what it was at the time, but when he looked back on +these happenings he discovered that it was always something that +Gwenda Cartaret did. You would have said that no scene on earth could +have been more favorable to a lover's enterprise than these long, +deserted roads and the vast, twilit moors; and that a young woman +could have found nothing to distract her from her lover there. + +But it was not so. On the open moors, as often as not, they had to go +single file through the heather, along a narrow sheep track, Rowcliffe +leading; and it is difficult, not to say impossible, to command the +attention of a young woman walking in your rear. And a thousand things +distracted Gwenda: the cry of a mountain sheep, the sound and +sight of a stream, the whirr of dark wings and the sudden +"Krenk-er-renk-errenk!" of the grouse shooting up from the heather. +And on the high roads where they went abreast she was apt to be +carried away by the pageant of earth and sky; the solid darkness +that came up from the moor; the gray, aerial abysses of the dale; the +awful, blank withdrawal of Greffington Edge into the night. She was +off, Heaven knew where, at the lighting of a star in the thin blue; +the movement of a cloud excited her; or she was held enchanted by +the pale aura of moonrise along the rampart of Greffington Edge. She +shared the earth's silence and the throbbing passion of the earth as +the orbed moon swung free. + +And in her absorption, her estranging ecstasy, Rowcliffe at last found +something inimical. + + * * * * * + +He told himself that it was an affectation in her, or a lure to draw +him after her, as it would have been in any other woman. The little +red-haired nurse would have known how to turn the earth and the moon +to her own purposes and his. But all the time he knew that it was not +so. There was no purpose in it at all, and it was unaware of him and +of his purposes. Gwenda's joy was pure and profound and sufficient to +itself. He gathered that it had been with her before he came and that +it would remain with her after he had gone. + +He hated to think that she should know any joy that had not its +beginning and its end in him. It took her from him. As long as it +lasted he was faced with an incomprehensible and monstrous rivalry. + +And as a man might leave a woman to his uninteresting rival in +the certainty that she will be bored and presently return to him, +Rowcliffe left Gwenda to the earth and moon. He sulked and was silent. + + * * * * * + +Then, suddenly, he made up his mind. + + + + +XXXI + + +It was one night in April. He had met her at the crossroads on Morfe +Green, and walked home with her by the edge of the moor. It had blown +hard all day, and now the wind had dropped, but it had left darkness +and commotion in the sky. The west was a solid mass of cloud that +drifted slowly in the wake of the departing storm, its hindmost part +shredded to mist before the path of the hidden moon. + +For, mercifully, the moon was hidden. Rowcliffe knew his moment. + +He meditated--the fraction of a second too long. + +"I wonder----" he began. + +Just then the rear of the cloud opened and cast out the moon, sheeted +in the white mist that she had torn from it. + +And then, before he knew where he was, he was quarreling with Gwenda. + +"Oh, look at the moon!" she cried. "All bowed forward with the cloud +wrapped round her head. Something's calling her across the sky, but +the mist holds her and the wind beats her back--look how she staggers +and charges head-downward. She's fighting the wind. And she goes--she +goes!" + +"She doesn't go," said Rowcliffe. "At least you can't see her going, +and the cloud isn't wrapped round her head, it's nowhere near her. And +the wind isn't driving her, it's driving the cloud on. It's the cloud +that's going. Why can't you see things as they are?" + +She was detestable to him in that moment. + +"Because nobody sees them as they are. And you're spoiling the idea." + +"The idea being so much more valuable than the truth." + +He longed to say cruel and biting things to her. + +"It isn't valuable to anybody but me, so you might have left it to +me." + +"Oh, I'll leave it to you, if you're in love with it." + +"I'm not in love with it because it's mine. Anyhow, if I _am_ in love +I'm in love with the moon and not with my idea of the moon." + +"You don't know how to be in love with anything--even the moon. But I +suppose it's all right as long as you're happy." + +"Of course I'm happy. Why shouldn't I be?" + +"Because you haven't got anything to make you happy." + +"Oh, haven't I?" + +"You might have. But you haven't. You're too obstinate to be happy." + +"But I've just told you that I _am_ happy." + +"What have you _got?_" he persisted. + +"I've got heaps of things. I've got my two hands and my two feet. I've +got my brain----" + +"So have I. And yet----" + +"It's absurd to say I've 'got' these things. They're me. Happiness +isn't in the things you've got. It's either in you or it isn't." + +"It generally isn't. Go on. What else? You've got the moon and your +idea of the moon. I don't see that you've got much more." + +"Anyhow, I've got my liberty." + +"Your liberty--if that's all you want!" + +"It's pretty nearly all. It covers most things." + +"It does if you're an incurable egoist." + +"You think I'm an egoist? And incurable?" + +"It doesn't matter what I think." + +"Not much. If you think that." + +Silence. And then Rowcliffe burst out again. + +"There are two things that I can't stand--a woman nursing a dog and +a woman in love with the moon. They mean the same thing. And it's +horrible." + +"Why?" + +"Because if it's humbug she's a hypocrite, and if it's genuine she's a +monster." + +"And if I'm in love with the moon--and you said I was----" + +"I didn't. You said it yourself." + +"Not at all. I said _if_ I was in love with the moon, I'd be in love +with _it_ and not with my idea of it. I want reality." + +"So do I. We're not likely to get it if we can't see it." + +"No. If you're only in love with what you see." + +"Oh, you're too clever. Too clever for me." + +"Am I too clever for myself?" + +"Probably." + +He laughed abominably. + +"I don't see the joke." + +"If you don't see it this minute you'll see it in another ten years." + +"Now," she said, "you're too clever for _me_." + +They walked on in silence again. The mist gathered and dripped about +them. + +Abruptly she spoke. + +"Has anything happened?" + +"No, it hasn't." + +"I mean--anything horrid?" + +Her voice sounded such genuine distress that he dropped his hostile +and contemptuous tone. + +"No," he said, "why should it?" + +"Because I've noticed that, when people are unusually horrid, it +always means that something horrid's happened to them." + +"Really?" + +"Papa, for instance, is only horrid to us because Mummy--my +stepmother, you know--was horrid to him." + +"What did Mummy do to him?" + +"She ran away from him. It's always that way. People aren't horrid on +purpose. At least I'm sure _you_ wouldn't be." + +"_Was_ I horrid?" + +"Well--for the last half-hour----" + +"You see, I find you a little exasperating at times." + +"Not always?" + +"No. Not by any means always." + +"Can I tell when I am? Or when I'm going to be?" + +He laughed (not at all abominably). "No. I don't think you can. That's +rather what I resent in you." + +"I wish I could tell. Then perhaps I might avoid it. You might just +give me warning when you think I'm going to be it." + +"I did give you warning." + +"When?" + +"When it began." + +"There you are. I don't know when it did begin. What were we talking +about?" + +"I wasn't talking about anything. You were talking about the moon." + +"It was the moon that did it." + +"I suppose it was the moon." + +"I see. I bored you. How awful." + +"I didn't say you bored me. You never have bored me. You couldn't bore +me." + +"No--I just irritate you and drive you mad." + +"You just irritate me and drive me mad." + +The words were brutal but the voice caressed her. He took her by the +arm and steered her amicably round a hidden boulder. + +"Do you know many women?" she asked. + +The question was startling by reason of its context. The better to +consider it Rowcliffe withdrew his protecting arm. + +"No," he said, "not very many." + +"But those you do know you get on with? You get on all right with +Mary?" + +"Yes. I get on all right with 'Mary.'" + +"You'd be horrid if you didn't. Mary's a dear." + +"Well--I know where I am with _her_." + +"And you get on all right--really--with Papa, as long as I'm not +there." + +"As long as you're not there, yes." + +"So that," she pursued, "_I'm_ the horrid thing that's happened to +you? It looks like it." + +"It feels like it. Let's say you're the horrid thing that's happened +to me, and leave it at that." + +They left it. + +Rowcliffe had a sort of impression that he had said all that he had +had to say. + + + + +XXXII + + +The Vicar had called Gwenda into his study one day. + +"What's this I hear," he said, "of you and young Rowcliffe scampering +about all over the country?" + +The Vicar had drawn a bow at a venture. He had not really heard +anything, but he had seen something; two forms scrambling hand in hand +up Karva; not too distant to be recognisable as young Rowcliffe and +his daughter Gwenda, yet too distant to be pleasing to the Vicar. It +was their distance that made them so improper. + +"I don't know, Papa," said Gwenda. + +"Perhaps you know what was said about your sister Alice? Do you want +the same thing to be said about you?" + +"It won't be, Papa. Unless you say it yourself." + +She had him there; for what was said about Alice had been said first +of all by him. + +"What do you mean, Gwenda?" + +"I mean that I'm a little different from Alice." + +"Are you? _Are_ you? When you're doing the same thing?" + +"Let me see. What _was_ the dreadful thing that Ally did? She ran +after young Rickards, didn't she? Well--if you'd really seen us +scampering you'd know that I'm generally running away from young +Rowcliffe and that young Rowcliffe is generally running after me. He +says it's as much as he can do to keep up with me." + +"Gwenda," said the Vicar solemnly. "I won't have it." + +"How do you propose to stop it, Papa?" + +"You'll see how." + +(It was thus that his god lured the Vicar to destruction. For he had +no plan. He knew that he couldn't move into another parish.) + +"It's no good locking me up in my room," said Gwenda, "for I can get +out at the window. And you can't very well lock young Rowcliffe up in +his surgery." + +"I can forbid him the house." + +"That's no good either so long as he doesn't forbid me his." + +"You can't go to him there, my girl." + +"I can do anything when I'm driven." + +The Vicar groaned. + +"You're right," he said. "You _are_ different from Alice. You're worse +than she is--ten times worse. _You_'d stick at nothing. I've always +known it." + +"So have I." + +The Vicar leaned against the chimney-piece and hid his face in his +hands to shut out the shame of her. + +And then Gwenda had pity on him. + +"It's all right, Papa. I'm not going to Dr. Rowcliffe, because there's +no need. You're not going to lock him up in his surgery and you're not +going to forbid him the house. You're not going to do anything. You're +going to listen to me. It's not a bit of good trying to bully me. +You'll be beaten every time. You can bully Alice as much as you like. +You can bully her till she's ill. You can shut her up in her bedroom +and lock the door and I daresay she won't get out at the window. But +even Alice will beat you in the end. Of course there's Mary. But I +shouldn't try it on with Mary either. She's really more dangerous than +I am, because she looks so meek and mild. But she'll beat you, too, if +you begin bullying her." + +The Vicar raised his stricken head. + +"Gwenda," he said, "you're terrible." + +"No, Papa, I'm not terrible. I'm really awfully kind. I'm telling you +these things for your good. Don't you worry. I shan't run very far +after young Rowcliffe." + + + + +XXXIII + + +Left to himself, the Vicar fairly wallowed in his gloom. He pressed +his hands tightly to his face, crushing into darkness the image of his +daughter Gwenda that remained with him after the door had shut between +them. + +It came over him with the very shutting of the door not only that +there never was a man so cursed in his children (that thought had +occurred to him before) but that, of the three, Gwenda was the one in +whom the curse was, so to speak, most active, through whom it was most +likely to fall on him at any moment. In Alice it could be averted. +He knew, he had always known, how to deal with Alice. And it would be +hard to say exactly where it lurked in Mary. Therefore, in his times +of profoundest self-commiseration, the Vicar overlooked the existence +of his daughter Mary. He was an artist in gloom and Mary's sweetness +and goodness spoiled the picture. But in Gwenda the curse was imminent +and at the same time incalculable. Alice's behavior could be fairly +predicted and provided for. There was no knowing what Gwenda would do +next. The fear of what she might do hung forever over his head, and it +made him jumpy. + +And yet in this sense of cursedness the Vicar had found shelter for +his self-esteem. + +And now his fear, his noble and righteous fear of what Gwenda might +do, his conviction that she would do something, disguised more +than ever his humiliating fear of Gwenda. She was, as he had said, +terrible. There was no dealing with Gwenda; there never had been. +Patience failed before her will and wisdom before the deadly thrust of +her intelligence. She had stabbed him in several places before she had +left the room. + + * * * * * + +The outcome of his brooding (it would have shocked the Vicar if he +could have traced its genesis) was an extraordinary revulsion in +Rowcliffe's favor. So far from shutting the Vicarage door in the young +man's face, the Vicar was, positively he was, inclined to open it. +He couldn't stand the idea of other people marrying since he wasn't +really married himself, and couldn't be as long as Robina persisted +in being alive (thus cruelly was he held up by that unscrupulous and +pitiless woman) and the idea of any of his daughters marrying +was peculiarly disagreeable to him. He didn't know why it was +disagreeable, and it would have shocked him unspeakably if you had +told him why. And if you had asked him he would have had half a dozen +noble and righteous reasons ready for you at his finger-ends. But +the Vicar with his eyes shut could see clearly that if Gwenda married +Rowcliffe the unpleasant event would have its compensation. He would +be rid of an everlasting source of unpleasantness at home. He didn't +say to himself that his egoism would be rid of an everlasting fear. He +said that if Rowcliffe married Gwenda he would keep her straight. + +And then another consoling thought struck him. + +He could deal with Alice more effectually than ever. Neither Mary nor +Alice knew what he knew. They hadn't dreamed that it was Gwenda that +young Rowcliffe wanted. He would use his knowledge to bring Alice to +her senses. + + * * * * * + +It was on a Wednesday that he dealt with her. + +He was coming in some hours earlier than usual from his rounds when +she delivered herself into his hands by appearing at the foot of the +staircase with her hair extravagantly dressed, and wearing what he +took, rightly, to be a new blue gown. + +He opened the study door, and, with a treacherous smile, invited her +to enter. Then he looked at her. + +"Is that another new dress you've got on?" he inquired, still with his +bland treachery. + +"Yes, Papa," said Alice. "Do you like it?" + +The Vicar drew himself up, squared his shoulders and smiled again, not +quite so blandly. His attitude gave him a sensation of exquisite and +powerful virility. + +"Do I like it? I should, perhaps, if I were a millionaire." + +"It didn't cost so much as all that," said Alice. + +"I'm not asking you what it cost. But I think you must have +anticipated your next allowance." + +Alice stared with wide eyes of innocence. + +"What if I did? It won't make any difference in the long run." + +The Vicar, with his hands plunged in his trousers pockets, jerked +forward at her from the waist. It was his gesture when he thrust. + +"For all the difference it'll make to _you_, my dear child, you might +have spared yourself the trouble and expense." + +He paused. + +"Has young Rowcliffe been here to-day?" + +"No," said Alice defiantly, "he hasn't." + +"You expected him?" + +"I daresay Mary did." + +"I'm not asking what Mary did. Did you expect him or did you not?" + +"He _said_ he might turn up." + +"He said he might turn up. You expected him. And he hasn't turned up. +And you can't think why. Isn't that so?" + +"I don't know what you mean, Papa." + +"I mean, my child, that you're living in a fool's paradise." + +"I haven't a notion what you mean by _that_." + +"Perhaps Gwenda can enlighten you." + +The color died in Ally's scared face. + +"I can't see," she said, "what Gwenda's got to do with it." + +"She's got something to do with young Rowcliffe's not turning up, I +think. I met the two of them half way between Upthorne and Bar Hill at +half past four." + +He took out his watch. + +"And it's ten past six now." + +He sat down, turning his chair so as not to see her face. He did not, +at the moment, care to look at her. + +"You might go and ask Mrs. Gale to send me in a cup of tea." + +Alice went out. + + + + +XXXIV + + +"It's a quarter past six now," she said to herself. "They must come +back from Bar Hill by Upthorne. I shall meet them at Upthorne if I +start now." + +She slipped her rough coat over the new gown and started. + +Her fear drove her, and she went up the hill at an impossible pace. +She trembled, staggered, stood still and went on again. + +The twilight of the unborn moon was like the horrible twilight of +dreams. She walked as she had walked in nightmares, with knees, weak +as water, that sank under her at every step. + +She passed the schoolhouse with its beckoning ash-tree. The +schoolhouse stirred the pain under her heart. She remembered the +shining night when she had shown herself there and triumphed. + +The pain then was so intolerable that her mind revolted from it as +from a thing that simply could not be. The idea by which she lived +asserted itself against the menace of destruction. It was not so much +an idea as an instinct, blind, obstinate, immovable. It had behind it +the wisdom and the persistence of life. It refused to believe where +belief meant death to it. + +She said to herself, "He's lying. He's lying. He's made it all up. He +never met them." + + * * * * * + +She had passed the turn of the hill. She had come to the high towers, +sinister and indistinct, to the hollow walls and haunted arcades of +the dead mining station. Upthorne was hidden by the shoulder of the +hill. + +She stopped suddenly, there where the road skirted the arcades. She +was struck by a shock of premonition, an instinct older and profounder +than that wisdom of the blood. She had the sense that what was +happening now, her coming, like this, to the towers and the arcades, +had happened before, and was so related to what was about to happen +that she knew this also and with the same shock of recognition. + +It would happen when she had come to the last arch of the colonnade. + +It was happening now. She had come to the last arch. + + * * * * * + +That instant she was aware of Rowcliffe and Gwenda coming toward her +down the hill. + +Their figures were almost indiscernible in the twilight. It was by +their voices that she knew them. + +Before they could see her she had slipped out of their path behind the +shelter of the arch. + +She knew them by their voices. Yet their voices had something in them +that she did not know, something that told her that they had been with +each other many times before; that they understood each other; that +they were happy in each other and absorbed. + +The pain was no longer inside her heart but under it. It was dull +rather than sharp, yet it moved there like a sharp sickle, a sickle +that gathered and ground the live flesh it turned in and twisted. A +sensation of deadly sickness made her draw farther yet into the corner +of the arcade, feeling her way in the darkness with her hand on the +wall. She stumbled on a block of stone, sank on it and cowered there, +sobbing and shivering. + +Down in Garth village the church clock struck the half hour and the +quarter and the hour. + +At the half hour Blenkiron, the blacksmith, put Rowcliffe's horse into +the trap. The sound of the clanking hoofs came up the hill. Rowcliffe +heard them first. + +"There's something wrong down there," he said. "They're coming for +me." + +In his heart he cursed them. For it was there, at the turn of the +road, below the arches, that he had meant to say what he had not said +the other night. There was no moon. The moment was propitious. And +there (just like his cursed luck) was Blenkiron with the trap. + +They met above the schoolhouse as the clock struck the quarter. + +"You're wanted, sir," said the blacksmith, "at Mrs. Gale's." + +"Is it Essy?" + +"Ay, it's Assy." + + * * * * * + +In the cottage down by the beck Essy groaned and cried in her agony. + +And on the road to Upthorne, under the arches by the sinister towers, +Alice Cartaret, crouching on her stone, sobbed and shivered. + +Not long after seven Essy's child was born. + + * * * * * + +Just before ten the three sisters sat waiting, as they had always +waited, bored and motionless, for the imminent catastrophe of Prayers. + +"I wonder how Essy's getting on," said Gwenda. + +"Poor little Essy!" Mary said. + +"She's as pleased as Punch," said Gwenda. "It's a boy. Ally--did you +know that Essy's had a baby?" + +"I don't care if she has," said Ally violently. "It's got nothing to +do with me. I wish you wouldn't talk about her beastly baby." + +As the Vicar came out of his study into the dining-room, he fixed his +eyes upon his youngest daughter. + +"What's the matter with you?" he said. + +"Nothing's the matter," said Alice defiantly. "Why?" + +"You look," he said, "as if somebody was murdering you." + + + + +XXXV + + +Ally was ill; so ill this time that even the Vicar softened to her. +He led her upstairs himself and made her go to bed and stay there. He +would have sent for Rowcliffe but that Ally refused to see him. + +Her mortal apathy passed for submission. She took her milk from her +father's hand without a murmur. "There's a good girl," he said, as she +drank it down. + +But it didn't do her any good. Nothing did. The illness itself was no +good to her, considering that she didn't want to be ill this time. She +wanted to die. And of course she couldn't die. It would have been too +much happiness and they wouldn't let her have it. + +At first she resented what she called their interference. She +declared, as she had declared before, that there was nothing the +matter with her. She was only tired. Couldn't they see that she was +tired? That _they_ tired her? + +"Why can't you leave me alone? If only you'd go away," she moaned, +"--all of you--and leave me alone." + +But very soon she was too tired even to be irritable. She lay quiet, +sunk in the hollow of her bed, and kept her eyes shut, so that she +never knew, she said, whether they were there or not. And it didn't +matter. Nothing mattered so long as she could just lie there. + +It was only when they talked of sending for Rowcliffe that they roused +her. Then she sat up and became, first vehement, then violent. + +"You shan't send for him," she cried. "I won't see him. If he comes +into the house I'll crawl out of it." + + * * * * * + +One day (it was the last Wednesday in April) Gwenda came to her and +told her that Rowcliffe was there and had asked to see her. + +Ally's pale eyes lightened and grew large. They were transparent as +glass in her white face. + +"Did _you_ send for him?" + +"No." + +"Who did then?" + +"Papa." + +She closed her eyes. The old sense of ecstasy came over her, of +triumph too, of solemn triumph, as if she, whom they thought so +insignificant, had vindicated her tragic dignity at last. + +For if her father had sent for Rowcliffe it could only mean that she +was really dying. Nothing else--nothing short of that--would have made +him send. + +And of course that was what she wanted, that Rowcliffe should see her +die. He wouldn't forget her then. He would be compelled to think of +her. + +"You _will_ see him, won't you, Ally?" + +Ally smiled her little triumphant and mysterious smile. + +"Oh yes, I'll see him." + + * * * * * + +The Vicar did not go on his rounds that afternoon. He stayed at home +to talk to Rowcliffe. The two were shut up together in his study for +more than half an hour. + +As they entered the drawing-room at tea-time it could be seen from +their manner and their faces that something had gone wrong. The Vicar +bore himself like a man profoundly aggrieved, not to say outraged, in +his own house, who nevertheless was observing a punctilious courtesy +towards the offending guest. Rowcliffe's shoulders and his jaw were +still squared in the antagonism that had closed their interview. +He too observed the most perfect courtesy. Only by the consummate +restraint of his manner did he show how impossible he had found the +Vicar, while his face betrayed a grave preoccupation in which the +Vicar counted not at all. + +Mary began to talk to him about the weather. Neither she nor Gwenda +dared ask him what he thought of Alice. + +And in ten minutes he was gone. The Vicar went with him to the gate. + +Still standing as they had stood to take leave of Rowcliffe, the +sisters looked at each other. Mary spoke first. + +"Whatever _can_ Papa have said to him?" + +This time Gwenda knew what Mary was thinking. + +"It isn't that," she said. "It's something he's said to Papa." + + + + +XXXVI + + +That night, about nine o'clock, Gwenda came for the third time to +Rowcliffe at his house. + +She was shown into his study, where Rowcliffe was reading. + +Though the servant had prepared him for her, he showed signs of +agitation. + +Gwenda's eyes were ominously somber and she had the white face of +a ghost, a face that to Rowcliffe, as he looked at it, recalled the +white face of Alice. He disliked Alice's face, he always had disliked +it, he disliked it more than ever at that moment; yet the sight +of this face that was so like it carried him away in an ecstasy of +tenderness. He adored it because of that likeness, because of all that +the likeness revealed to him and signified. And it increased, quite +unendurably, his agitation. + +Gwenda was supernaturally calm. + +In another instant the illusion that her presence had given him +passed. He saw what she had come for. + +"Has anything gone wrong?" he asked. + +She drew in her breath sharply. + +"It's Alice." + +"Yes, I know it's Alice. _Is_ anything wrong?" he said. "What is it?" + +"I don't know. I want you to tell me. That's what I've come for. I'm +frightened." + +"D'you mean, is she worse?" + +She did not answer him. She looked at him as if she were trying to +read in his eyes something that he was trying not to tell her. + +"Yes," he said, "she _is_ worse." + +"I know that," she said impatiently. "I can see it. You've got to tell +me more." + +"But I _have_ told you. You _know_ I have," he pleaded. + +"I know you tried to tell me." + +"Didn't I succeed?" + +"You told me why she was ill--I know all that----" + +"Do sit down." He turned from her and dragged the armchair forward. +"There." He put a cushion at her back. "That's better." + +As she obeyed him she kept her eyes on him. The book he had been +reading lay where he had put it down, on the hearthrug at her feet. +Its title, "_État mental des hystériques_;" Janet, stared at him. He +picked it up and flung it out of sight as if it had offended him. With +all his movements her head lifted and turned so that her eyes followed +him. + +He sat down and gazed at her quietly. + +"Well," he said, "and what didn't I tell you?" + +"You didn't tell me how it would end." + +He was silent. + +"Is that what you told father?" + +"Hasn't he said anything?" + +"He hasn't said a word. And you went away without saying anything." + +"There isn't much to say that you don't know----" + +"I know why she was ill. You told me. But I don't know why she's +worse. She _was_ better. She was quite well. She was running about +doing things and looking so pretty--only the other day. And look at +her now." + +"It's like that," said Rowcliffe. "It comes and goes." + +He said it quietly. But the blood rose into his face and forehead in a +painful flush. + +"But why? Why?" she persisted. "It's so horribly sudden." + +"It's like that, too," said Rowcliffe. + +"If it's like that now what is it going to be? How is it going to end? +That's what you _won't_ tell me." + +"It's difficult----" he began. + +"I don't care how difficult it is or how you hate it. You've got to." + +All he said to that was "You're very fond of her?" + +Her upper lip trembled. "Yes. But I don't think I knew it until now." + +"That's what makes it difficult." + +"My not knowing it?" + +"No. Your being so fond of her." + +"Isn't that just the reason why I ought to know?" + +"Yes. I think it is. Only----" + +She held him to it. + +"Is she going to die?" + +"I don't say she's _going_ to die. But--in the state she's in--she +_might_ get anything and die of it if something isn't done to make her +happy." + +"Happy----" + +"I mean of course--to get her married. After all, you know, you've got +to face the facts." + +"You think she's dying now, and you're afraid to tell me." + +"No--I'm afraid I think--she's not so likely to die as to go out of +her mind." + +"Did you tell my father that?" + +"Yes." + +"What did he say?" + +"He said she was out of her mind already." + + +"She isn't!" + +"Of course she isn't. No more than you and I. He talks about putting +the poor child under restraint----" + +"Oh----" + +"It's preposterous. But he'll make it necessary if he continues his +present system. What I tried to impress on him is that she _will_ +go out of her mind if she's kept shut up in that old Vicarage much +longer. And that she'd be all right--perfectly all right--if she was +married. As far as I can make out he seems to be doing his best to +prevent it. Well--in her case--that's simply criminal. The worse of it +is I can't make him see it. He's annoyed with me." + +"He never will see anything he doesn't like." + +"There's no reason why he should dislike it so much--I mean her +illness. There's nothing awful about it." + +"There's nothing awful about Ally. She's as good as gold." + +"I know she's as good as gold. And she'd be as strong as iron if she +was married and had children. I've seen no end of women like that, and +I'm not sure they don't make the best wives and mothers. I told your +father that. But it's no good trying to tell him the truth." + +"No. It's the one thing he can't stand." + +"He seems," said Rowcliffe, "to have such an extraordinary distaste +for the subject. He approaches it from an impossible point of view--as +if it was sin or crime or something. He talks about her controlling +herself, as if she could help it. Why, she's no more responsible for +being like that than I am for the shape of my nose. I'm afraid I told +him that if anybody was responsible _he_ was, for bringing her to the +worst place imaginable." + +"He did that on purpose." + +"I know. And I told him he might as well have put her in a lunatic +asylum at once." + +He meditated. + +"It's not as if he hadn't anybody but himself to think of." + +"That's no good. He never does think of anybody but himself. And yet +he'd be awfully sorry, you know, if Ally died." + +They sat silent, not looking at each other, until Gwenda spoke again. + +"Dr. Rowcliffe--" + +He smiled as if it amused him to be addressed so formally. + +"Do you _really_ mean it, or are you frightening us? Will Ally really +die--or go mad--if she isn't--happy?" + +He was grave again. + +"I really mean it. It's a rather serious case. But it's only 'if.' As +I told you, there are scores of women--" + +But she waived them all away. + +"I only wanted to know." + +Her voice stopped suddenly, and he thought that she was going to break +down. + +"You mustn't take it so hard," he said. "It's not as if it wasn't +absolutely curable. You must take her away." + +Suddenly he remembered that he didn't particularly want Gwenda to go +away. He couldn't, in fact, bear the thought of it. + +"Better still," he said, "send her away. Is there anybody you could +send her to?" + +"Only Mummy--my stepmother." She smiled through her tears. "Papa would +never let Ally go to _her_." + +"Why not?" + +"Because she ran away from him." + +He tried not to laugh. + +"She's really quite decent, though you mightn't think it." Rowcliffe +smiled. "And she's fond of Ally. She's fond of all of us--except Papa. +And," she added, "she knows a lot of people." + +He smiled again. He pictured the third Mrs. Cartaret as a woman of +affectionate gaiety and a pleasing worldliness, so well surrounded by +adorers of his own sex that she could probably furnish forth her three +stepdaughters from the numbers of those she had no use for. He was +more than ever disgusted with the Vicar who had driven from him a +woman so admirably fitted to play a mother's part. + +"She sounds," he said, "as if she'd be the very one." + +"She would be. It's an awful pity." + +"Well," he said, "we won't talk any more about it now. We'll think of +something. We simply _must_ get her away." + +He was thinking that he knew of somebody--a doctor's widow--who +also would be fitted. If they could afford to pay her. And if they +couldn't, he would very soon have the right---- + +That was what his "we" meant. + +Presently he excused himself and went out to see, he said, about +getting her some tea. He judged that if she were left alone for a +moment she would pull herself together and be as ready as ever for +their walk back to Garthdale. + + * * * * * + +It was in that moment when he left her that she made her choice. +Not that when her idea had come to her she had known a second's +hesitation. She didn't know when it had come. It seemed to her that it +had been with her all through their awful interview. + +It was she and not Ally who would have to go away. + +She could see it now. + +It had been approaching her, her idea, from the very instant that she +had come into the room and had begun to speak to him. And with every +word that _he_ had said it had come closer. But not until her final +appeal to him had she really faced it. Then it became clear. It +crystallised. There was no escaping from the facts. + +Ally would die or go mad if she didn't marry. + +Ally (though Rowcliffe didn't know it) was in love with him. + +And, even if she hadn't been, as long as they stayed in Garthdale +there was nobody but Rowcliffe whom she could marry. It was her one +chance. + +And there were three of them there. Three women to one man. + +And since _she_ was the one--she knew it--who stood between him and +Ally, it was she who would have to go away. + +It seemed to her that long ago--all the time, in fact, ever since she +had known Rowcliffe--she had known that this was what she would have +to face. + +She faced it now with a strange courage and a sort of spiritual +exaltation, as she would have faced any terrible truth that Rowcliffe +had told her, if, for instance, he had told her that she was going to +die. + +That, of course, was what it felt like. She had known that it would +feel like that. + +And, as sometimes happens to people who are going to die and know +it, there came to her a peculiar vivid and poignant sense of her +surroundings. Of Rowcliffe's room and the things in it,--the chair he +had sat in, the pipe he had laid aside, the book he had been reading +and that he had flung away. Outside the open window the trees of the +little orchard, whitened by the moonlight, stood as if fixed in a +tender, pure and supernatural beauty. She could see the flags on the +path and the stones in the gray walls. They stood out with a strange +significance and importance. As if near and yet horribly far away, she +could hear Rowcliffe's footsteps in the passage. + +It came over her that she was sitting in Rowcliffe's room--like +this--for the last time. + +Then her heart dragged and tore at her, as if it fought against her +will to die. But it never occurred to her that this dying of hers was +willed by her. It seemed foredoomed, inevitable. + + * * * * * + +And now she was looking up in Rowcliffe's face and smiling at him as +he brought her her tea. + +"That's right," he said. + +He was entirely reassured by her appearance. + +"Look here, shall I drive you back or do you feel like another +four-mile walk?" + +She hesitated. + +"It's late," he said. "But no matter. Let's be reckless." + +"There's no need. I've got my bicycle." + +"Then I'll get mine." + +She rose. "Don't. I'm going back alone." + +"You're not. I'm coming with you. I want to come." + +"If you don't mind, I'd rather you didn't--to-night." + +"I'll drive you, then. I can't let you go alone." + +"But I _want_," she said, "to be alone." + +He stood looking at her with a sort of sullen tenderness. + +"You're not going to worry about what I told you?" + +"You didn't tell me. I knew." + +"Then----" + +But she persisted. + +"No. I shall be all right," she said. "There's a moon." + +In the end he let her have her way. + +Moon or no moon he saw that it was not his moment. + + + + +XXXVII + + +What Gwenda had to do she did quickly. + +She wrote to the third Mrs. Cartaret that night. She told her nothing +except that she wanted to get something to do in London and to get it +as soon as possible, and she asked her stepmother if she could put her +up for a week or two until she got it. And would Mummy mind wiring Yes +or No on Saturday morning? + +It was then Thursday night. + +She slipped out into the village about midnight to post the letter, +though she knew that it couldn't go one minute before three o'clock on +Friday afternoon. + +She had no conscious fear that her will would fail her, but her +instinct was appeased by action. + +On Saturday morning Mrs. Cartaret wired: "Delighted. Expect you +Friday. Mummy." + +Five intolerable days. They were not more intolerable than the days +that would come after, when the thing she was doing would be every bit +as hard. Only her instinct was afraid of something happening within +those five days that would make the hard thing harder. + +On Sunday Mrs. Cartaret's letter came. Her house, she said, was +crammed with fiends till Friday. There was a beast of a woman in +Gwenda's room who simply wouldn't go. But on Friday Gwenda's room +would be ready. It had been waiting for her all the time. Hadn't they +settled it that Gwenda was to come and live with her if things became +impossible at home? Robina supposed they _were_ impossible? She sent +her love to Alice and Mary, and she was always Gwenda's loving Mummy. +And she enclosed a five-pound note; for she was a generous soul. + +On Monday Gwenda told Peacock the carrier to bring her a Bradshaw from +Reyburn. + + * * * * * + +She then considered how she was to account to her family for her +departure. + +She decided that she would tell Mary first. And she might as well tell +her the truth while she was about it, since, if she didn't, Mary would +be sure to find it out. She was sweet and good. Not so sweet and good +that she couldn't hold her own against Papa if she was driven to +it, but sweet enough and good enough to stand by Ally and to see her +through. + +It would be easy for Mary. It wasn't as if she had ever even begun to +care for Rowcliffe. It wasn't as if Rowcliffe had ever cared for her. + +And she could be trusted. A secret was always safe with Mary. She was +positively uncanny in her silence, and quite superhumanly discreet. + +Mary, then, should be told the whole truth and nothing but the truth. +Her father should be told as much of it as he was likely to believe. +Ally, of course, mustn't have an inkling. + +Mary herself had an inkling already when she appeared that evening in +the attic where Gwenda was packing a trunk. She had a new Bradshaw in +her hand. + +"Peacock gave me this," said Mary. "He said you ordered it." + +"So I did," said Gwenda. + +"What on earth for?" + +"To look up trains in." + +"Why--is anybody coming?" + +"Does anybody _ever_ come?" + +Mary's face admitted her absurdity. + +"Then"--she made it out almost with difficulty--"somebody must be +going away." + +"How clever you are. Somebody _is_ going away." + +Mary twisted her brows in her perplexity. She was evidently thinking +things. + +"Do you mean--Steven Rowcliffe?" + +"No, dear lamb." (What on earth had put Steven Rowcliffe into Mary's +head?) "It's not as bad as all that. It's only a woman. In fact, it's +only me." + +Mary's face emptied itself of all expression; it became a blank +screen suddenly put up before the disarray of hurrying, eager things, +unclothed and unexpressed. + +"I'm going to stay with Mummy." + +Gwenda closed the lid of the trunk and sat on it. + +(Perturbation was now in Mary's face.) + +"You can't, Gwenda. Papa'll never let you go." + +"He can't stop me." + +"What on earth are you going for?" + +"Not for my own amusement, though it sounds amusing." + +"Does Mummy want you?" + +"Whether she wants me or not, she's got to have me." + +"For how long?" + +(Mary's face was heavy with thought now.) + +"I don't know. I'm going to get something to do." + +"To _do?_" + +(Mary said to herself, then certainly it was not amusing. She pondered +it.) + +"Is it," she brought out, "because of Steven Rowcliffe?" + +"No. It's because of Ally." + +"Ally?" + +"Yes. Didn't Papa tell you about her?" + +"Not he. Did he tell you?" + +"No. It was Steven Rowcliffe." + +And she told Mary what Rowcliffe had said to her. + +She had made room for her on her trunk and they sat there, their +bodies touching, their heads drawn back, each sister staring with eyes +that gave and took the other's horror. + + * * * * * + +"Don't, Molly, don't----" + +Mary was crying now. + +"Does Papa know--that she'll die--or go mad?" + +"Yes." + +"But"--Mary lifted her stained face--"that's what they said about +Mother." + +"If she had children. It's if Ally hasn't any." + +"And Papa knew it _then_. And he knows it now--how awful." + +"It isn't as awful as Steven Rowcliffe thinks. He doesn't really know +what's wrong with her. He doesn't know she's in love with _him_." + +"Poor Ally. What's the good? He isn't in love with her." + +"He isn't now," said Gwenda. "But he will be." + +"Not he. It's you he cares for--if he cares for anybody." + +"I know. That's why I'm going." + +"Oh, Gwenda----" + +Mary's face was somber as she took it in. + +"That won't do Ally any good. If you _know_ he cares." + +"I don't absolutely know it. And if I did it wouldn't make any +difference." + +"And if--you care for him?" + +"That doesn't make any difference either. I've got to clear out. It's +her one chance, Molly. I've got to give it her. How _can_ I let her +die, poor darling, or go mad? She'll be all right if he marries her." + +"And if he doesn't?" + +"He may, Molly, he may, if I clear out in time. Anyhow, there isn't +anybody else." + +"If only," Mary said, "Papa had kept a curate." + +"But he hasn't kept a curate. He never will keep a curate. And if +he does he'll choose a man with a wife and seven children--no, he'll +choose no children. The wife mustn't have a chance of dying." + +"Gwenda--do you think anybody _knows?_ They did, you know--before, and +it was awful." + +"Nobody knows this time, except Papa and Steven Rowcliffe and you and +me." + +"I wish I didn't. I wish you hadn't told me." + +"You _had_ to know or I wouldn't have told you. Do you think Steven +Rowcliffe would have told _me----_" + +"How could he? It was awful of him." + +"He could because he isn't a coward or a fool and he knew that I'm not +a coward or a fool either. He thought Ally had nobody but me. She'll +have nobody but you when I'm gone. You mustn't let her see you think +her awful. You mustn't _think_ it. She isn't. She's as good as gold. +Steven Rowcliffe said so. If she wasn't, Molly, I wouldn't ask you to +help her--with him." + +"Gwenda, you mustn't put it all on me. I'd do anything for poor Ally, +but I _can't_ make him marry her if he doesn't want to." + +"I think Ally can make him want to, if she gets a chance. You've only +got to stick to her and see her through. You'll have to ask him here, +you know. _She_ can't. And you'll have to keep Papa off her. If you're +not very careful, he'll go and put her under restraint or something." + +"Oh--would it come to that?" + +"Yes. Papa'd do it like a shot. I believe he'd do it just to stop her +marrying him. You mustn't tell Papa what I've told you. You mustn't +tell Ally. And you mustn't tell him. Do you hear, Molly? You must +never tell him." + +"Of course I won't tell him. But it's no use thinking we can do +things." + +Gwenda stood up. + +"We haven't got to _do_ things. That's his business. We've only got to +sit tight and play the game." + + * * * * * + +Gwenda went on with her packing. + +"It will be time enough," she thought, "to tell Ally tomorrow." + +Ally was in her room. She never came downstairs now; and this week she +was worse and had stayed all day in bed. They couldn't rouse her. + +But something had roused her this evening. + +A sort of scratching on the door made Gwenda look up from her packing. + +Ally stood on the threshold. She had dressed herself completely in her +tweed skirt, white blouse and knitted tie. Her strength had failed her +only in the struggle with her hair. The coil had fallen, and hung in +a loose pigtail down her back. Slowly, in the weakness of her apathy, +she trailed across the floor. + +"Ally, what is it? Why didn't you send for me?" + +"It's all right. I wanted to get up. I'm coming down to supper. You +can leave off packing that old trunk. You haven't got to go." + +"Who told you I was going?" + +"Nobody. I knew it." She answered Gwenda's eyes. "I don't know how +I knew it, but I did. And I know why you're going and it's all rot. +You're going because you know that if you stay Steven Rowcliffe'll +marry you, and you think that if you go he'll marry me." + +"Whatever put that idea into your head?" + +"Nothing put it. It came. It shows how awful you must think me if you +think I'd go and do a beastly thing like that." + +"Like what?" + +"Why--sneaking him away from you behind your back when I know you like +him. You needn't lie about it. You _do_ like him. + +"I may be awful," she went on. "In fact I know I'm awful. But I'm +decent. I couldn't do a caddish thing like that--I couldn't really. +And, if I couldn't, there's no need for you to go." + +She was sitting on the trunk where Mary had sat, and when she began to +speak she had looked down at her small hands that grasped the edge +of the lid, their fingers picking nervously at the ragged flap. They +ceased and she looked up. + +And in her look, a look that for the moment was divinely lucid, Gwenda +saw Ally's secret and hidden kinship with herself. She saw it as if +through some medium, once troubled and now made suddenly transparent. +It was because of that queer kinship that Ally had divined her. +However awful she was, however tragically foredoomed and driven, Ally +was decent. She knew what Gwenda was doing because it was what, if any +sustained lucidity were ever given her, she might have done herself. + +But in Ally no idea but the one idea was very deeply rooted. Sustained +lucidity never had been hers. It would be easy to delude her. + +"I'm going," Gwenda said, "because I want to. If I stayed I wouldn't +marry Steven Rowcliffe, and Steven Rowcliffe wouldn't marry me." + +"But--I thought--I thought----" + +"What did you think?" + +"That there was something between you. Papa said so." + +"If Papa said so you might have known there was nothing in it." + +"And isn't there?" + +"Of course there isn't. You can put that idea out of your head +forever." + +"All the same I believe that's why you're going." + +"I'm going because I can't stand this place any longer. You said I'd +be sick of it in three months." + +"You're not sick of it. You love it. It's me you can't stand." + +"No, Ally--no." + +She plunged for another argument and found it. + +"What I can't stand is living with Papa." + +Ally agreed that this was rather more than plausible. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +The next person to be told was Rowcliffe. + +It was known in the village through the telegrams that Gwenda was +going away. The postmistress told Mrs. Gale, who told Mrs. Blenkiron. +These two persons and four or five others had known ever since Sunday +that the Vicar's daughter was going away; and the Vicar did not know +it yet. + +And Mrs. Blenkiron told Rowcliffe on the Wednesday before Alice told +him. + +For it was Alice who told him, and not Gwenda. Gwenda was not at home +when he called at the Vicarage at three o'clock. But he heard from +Alice that she would be back at four. + +And it was Alice who told Mrs. Gale that when the doctor called again +he was to be shown into the study. + +He had waited there thirteen minutes before Gwenda came to him. + +He looked at her and was struck by a difference he found in her, +a difference that recalled some look in her face that he had seen +before. It was dead white, and in its whiteness her blue eyes, dark +and dilated, quivered with defiance and a sort of fear. She looked +older and at the same time younger, as young as Alice and as helpless +in her fear. Then he remembered that she had looked like that the +night she had passed him in the doorway of the house at Upthorne. + +"How cold your hands are," he said. + +She hid them behind her back as if they had betrayed her. + +"Do you want to see me about Ally?" + +"No, I don't want to see you about Ally. I want to see you about +yourself." + +Her eyes quivered again. + +"Won't you come into the drawing-room, then?" + +"I'd rather stay here if you don't mind. I say, how much time have I?" + +"Till when?" + +"Well--till your father comes back?" + +"He won't be back for another hour. But--" + +"I hear you're going away on Friday; and that you're going for good." + +"Did Mary tell you?" + +"No. It was Alice. She said I was to try and stop you." + +"You can't stop me if I want to go." + +"I'll do my best." + +They stood, as they talked, in rigid attitudes that suggested that +neither was going to yield an inch. + +"Why didn't you tell me yourself, Gwenda?" + +She closed her eyes. It was as if she had forgotten why. + +"Was it because you knew I wouldn't let you? Did you want to go as +much as all that?" + +"It looks like it, doesn't it?" + +"Yes. But you don't want to go a bit." + +"Would I go if I didn't?" + +"Yes. It's just the sort of thing you would do, if you thought it +would annoy me. It's only what you've been doing for the last three +months--getting away from me." + +"Three months--?" + +"Oh, I cared for you before that. It's only the last three months I've +been trying to tell you." + +"You never told me anything." + +"Because you never gave me a chance. You kept on putting me off." + +"And if I did, didn't that show that I didn't want you to tell me? I +don't want you to tell me now." + +He made an impatient movement. + +"But you knew without telling. You knew then." + +"I didn't. I didn't." + +"Well, then, you know now. Will you marry me or will you not? I want +it straight." + +"No. No." + +"And--why not?" + +He was horribly cool and calm. + +"Because I don't want to marry you. I don't want to marry anybody." + +"Good God! What _do_ you want, then?" + +"I want to go away and earn my own living as other women do." + +The absurdity of it melted him. He could have gone down on his knees +at her feet and kissed her cold hands. He wondered afterward why on +earth he hadn't. Then he remembered that all the time she had kept her +hands locked behind her. + +"You poor child, you don't want to earn your own living. I'll tell you +what you _do_ want. You want to get away from home." + +"And what if I do? You've seen what it's like. Would _you_ stay in it +a day longer than you could help if you were me?" + +"Of course I wouldn't. Of course I've seen what it's like. I saw it +the first time I saw you here in this detestable house. I want to take +you away out of it. I think I wanted to take you away then." + +"Oh, no. Not then. Not so long ago as that." + +It was as if she had said, "Not that. That makes it too hard. Any +cruelty you like but that, or I can't go through with it." + +"Yes," he said, "as long ago as that." + +"You can't take me away." + +"Can't I? I can take you anywhere. And I will. Anywhere you like. +You've only got to say. I _know_ I can make you happy." + +"How do you know?" + +"Because I know you." + +"That's what you're always saying. And you know nothing about me. +Nothing. Nothing." + +She said to herself: "He doesn't. He doesn't even know why I'm going." + +"I know a lot more than you think. And a lot more than you know +yourself. I know that you're not happy as you are, and I know that +you can't _live_ without happiness. If you're not happy you'll be ill; +more horribly ill, perhaps, than Alice. Look at Alice." + +"I'm not like Alice." + +"Not now. Not next year. Not for ten years, perhaps, or twenty. But +you don't know what you may be." + +She raised her head. + +"I shall never be like that. Never." + +Rowcliffe laughed. + +It struck her then that that was what she ought never to have said if +she wanted to carry out her purpose. + +"When I say I'm not like Ally I mean that I'm not so dependent on +people. I'm not gentle like Ally. I'm not as loving and I'm not as +womanly. In fact, I'm not womanly at all." + +"My dear child, do you suppose it matters to me what you're not, as +long as I love you as you are?" + +"No," she said, "you don't love me really. You only think you do." + +She clung to that. + +"Why do you say that, Gwenda?" + +"Because, if you did, I should have known it before now." + +"Well, considering that you _do_ know it now--" + +"I mean, you'd have said so before." + +"I say! I like that. I'd have said so about five times if you'd ever +given me a chance." + +"Oh, no. You had your chance." + +"When did I have it? When?" + +"The other day. Up at Bar Hill." + +"You thought so then?" + +"I didn't say I thought so then. I think so now." + +"That's rather clever of you. Because, you see, if you thought so then +that shows--" + +"What does it show?" + +"Why, that you knew all the time--and that you were thinking of me. +You _did_ know. You _did_ think--" + +"No. No. It's only that I've got to--that you're _making_ me think of +you now. But I'm not thinking of you the way you want." + +"If you're not--if you haven't thought of me--_the way I want_--then I +can't make you out. You're beyond me." + +They sat down, tired out with the struggle, as if they had reached the +same point of exhaustion at the same instant. + +"Why not leave it at that?" she said. + +He rallied. + +"Because I can't leave it at that. You knew I cared. You must have +seen. I could have sworn you saw. I could have sworn--" + +She knew what he was going to swear and she stopped him. + +"I _did_ see that you thought you cared for me. If you'd been quite +sure you'd have told me. You wouldn't have waited. You're not quite +sure now. You're only telling me now because I'm going away. If I +hadn't said I was going away you'd never have told me. You'd just have +gone on waiting till you were quite sure." + +She had irritated him now beyond endurance. + +"Gwenda," he said savagely, "you're enough to drive a man mad." + +"You've told me _that_ before, anyhow. Don't you see that I should go +on driving you mad? Don't you see how unhappy you'd be with me, how +impossible it all is?" + +She laughed. It was marvelous to her how she achieved that laugh. It +was as if she had just thought of it and it came. + +"I can see," he said, "that _you_ don't care for me." + +He had given himself into her hands--hands that seemed to him diabolic +in their play. + +"Did I ever _say_ I cared?" + +"Well--of all the women--you _are_----! No, you didn't _say_ it." + +"Did I ever show it?" + +"Good God, how do _I_ know what you showed? If it had been any other +woman--yes, I could have sworn." + +"You can't swear to any woman--I'm afraid--till you've married her. +Perhaps--not then." + +"You shouldn't say things like that; they sound----" + +"How do they sound?" + +"As if you knew too much." + +She smiled. + +"Well, then--there's another reason." + +He softened suddenly. + +"I didn't mean that, Gwenda. You don't know what you're saying. You +don't know anything. It's only that you're so beastly clever." + +"That's a better reason still. You don't want to marry a beastly +clever woman. You really don't." + +"I'd risk it. That sort of cleverness doesn't last long." + +"It would last your time," she said. + +She rose. It was as much as giving him his dismissal. + +He stood a moment watching her. She and all her movements still seemed +to him incredible. + +"Do you mind telling me where you're going to?" + +"I'm going to Mummy." She explained to his blankness: "My stepmother." + +He remembered. Mummy was the lady who was "the very one," the lady of +remarkable resources. + +It seemed to him then that he saw it all. He knew what she was going +for. + +"I see. Instead of your sister," he sneered. + +"Papa wouldn't let Ally go to her. But he can't stop _me_." + +"Oh, no. Nobody could stop _you_." + +She smiled softly. She had missed the brutality of his emphasis. + + * * * * * + +He said to himself that Gwenda was impossible. She was obstinate and +conceited and wrong-headed. She was utterly selfish, a cold mass of +egoism. + +"Cold?" He was not so sure. She might be. But she was capable, he +suspected, of adventures. Instead of taking her sister away to have +her chance, she was rushing off to secure it herself. And the irony of +the thing was that it was he who had put it into her head. + +Well--she was no worse, and no better--than the rest of them. Only +unlike them in the queerness of her fascination. He wondered how long +it would have lasted? + +You couldn't go on caring for a woman like that, who had never cared a +rap about you. + +And yet--he could have sworn--Oh, _that_ was nothing. She had only +thought of him because he had been her only chance. + +He made himself think these things of her because they gave him +unspeakable consolation. + +All the way back to Morfe he thought them, while on his right hand +Karva rose and receded and rose again, and changed at every turn +its aspect and its form. He thought them to an accompaniment of an +interior, persistent voice, the voice of his romantic youth, that said +to him, "That is her hill, her hill--do you remember? That's where you +met her first. That's where you saw her jumping. That's her hill--her +hill--her hill." + + + + +XXXIX + + +The Vicar had been fidgeting in his study, getting up and sitting +down, and looking at the clock every two minutes. Gwenda had told +him that she wanted to speak to him, and he had stipulated that the +interview should be after prayer time, for he knew that he was going +to be upset. He never allowed family disturbances, if he could help +it, to interfere with the attitude he kept up before his Maker. + +He knew perfectly well she was going to tell him of her engagement to +young Rowcliffe; and though he had been prepared for the news any time +for the last three months he had to pull himself together to receive +it. He would have to pretend that he was pleased about it when he +wasn't pleased at all. He was, in fact, intensely sorry for himself. +It had dawned on him that, with Alice left a permanent invalid on his +hands, he couldn't really afford to part with Gwenda. She might be +terrible in the house, but in her way--a way he didn't altogether +approve of--she was useful in the parish. She would cover more of it +in an afternoon than Mary could in a month of Sundays. + +But, though the idea of Gwenda's marrying was disagreeable to him for +so many reasons, he was not going to forbid it absolutely. He was +only going to insist that she should wait. It was only reasonable +and decent that she should wait until Alice got either better or bad +enough to be put under restraint. + +The Vicar's pity for himself reached its climax when he considered +that awful alternative. He had been considering it ever since +Rowcliffe had spoken to him about Alice. + +It was just like Gwenda to go and get engaged at such a moment, when +he was beside himself. + +But he smoothed his face into a smile when she appeared. + +"Well, what is it? What is this great thing you've come to tell me?" + +It struck him that for the first time in her life Gwenda looked +embarrassed; as well she might be. + +"Oh--it isn't very great, Papa. It's only that I'm going away." + +"Going--_away_?" + +"I don't mean out of the country. Only to London." + +"Ha! Going to London--" He rolled it ruminatingly on his tongue. + +"Well, if that's all you've come to say, it's very simple. You can't +go." + +He bent his knees with the little self-liberating gesture that he had +when he put his foot down. + +"But," said Gwenda, "I'm going." + +He raised his eyebrows. + +"And why is this the first time I've heard of it?" + +"Because I want to go without any bother, since I'm going to go." + +"Oh--consideration for me, I suppose?" + +"For both of us. I don't want you to worry." + +"That's why you've chosen a time when I'm worried out of my wits +already." + +"I know, Papa. That's why I'm going." + +He was arrested both by the astounding statement and by something +unusually placable in her tone. He stared at her as his way was. + +Then, suddenly, he had a light on it. + +"Gwenda, there must be something behind all this. You'd better tell me +straight out what's happened." + +"Nothing has happened." + +"You know what I mean. We've spoken about this before. Is there +anything between you and young Rowcliffe." + +"Nothing. Nothing whatever of the sort you mean." + +"You're sure there hasn't been"--he paused discreetly for his +word--"some misunderstanding?" + +"Quite sure. There isn't anything to misunderstand. I'm going because +I want to go. There are too many of us at home." + +"Too many of you--in the state your sister's in?" + +"That's exactly why I'm going. I'm trying to tell you. Ally'll go on +being ill as long as there are three of us knocking about the house. +You'll find she'll buck up like anything when I'm gone. There's +nothing the matter with her, really." + +"That may be your opinion. It isn't Rowcliffe's." + +"I know it isn't. But it soon will be. It was your own idea a little +while ago." + +"Ye--es; before this last attack, perhaps. D'you know what Rowcliffe +thinks of her?" + +"Yes. But I know a lot more about Ally than he does. So do you." + +"Well--" + +They were sitting down to it now. + +"But I can't afford to keep you if you go away." + +"Of course you can't. You won't have to keep me. I'm going to keep +myself." + +Again he stared. This was preposterous. + +"It's all right, Papa. It's all settled." + +"By whom?" + +"By me." + +"You've found something to do in London?" + +"Not yet. I'm going to look--" + +"And what," inquired the Vicar with an even suaver irony, "_can_ you +do?" + +"I can be somebody's secretary." + +"Whose?" + +"Oh," said Gwenda airily, "anybody's." + +"And--if I may ask--what will you do, and where do you propose to +stay, while you're looking for him?" (He felt that he expressed +himself with perspicacity.) + +"That's all arranged. I'm going to Mummy." + +The Vicar was silent with the shock of it. + +"I'm sorry, Papa," said Gwenda; "but there's nowhere else to go to." + +"If you go there," said Mr. Cartaret, "you will certainly not come +back here." + +All that had passed till now had been mere skirmishing. The real +battle had begun. + +Gwenda set her face to it. + +"I shall not be coming back in any case," she said. + +"That question can stand over till you've gone." + +"I shall be gone on Friday by the three train." + +"I shall not allow you to go--by any train." + +"How are you going to stop me?" + +He had not considered it. + +"You don't suppose I'm going to give you any money to go with?" + +"You needn't. I've got heaps." + +"And how are you going to get your luggage to the station?" + +"Oh--the usual way." + +"There'll be no way if I forbid Peacock to carry it--or you." + +"Can you forbid Jim Greatorex? _He_'ll take me like a shot." + +"I can put your luggage under lock and key." + +He was still stern, though, he was aware that the discussion was +descending to sheer foolishness. + +"I'll go without it. I can carry a toothbrush and a comb, and Mummy +will have heaps of nightgowns." + +The Vicar leaned forward and hid his face in his hands before that +poignant evocation of Robina. + +Gwenda saw that she had gone too far. She had a queer longing to go +down on her knees before him and drag his hands from his poor face +and ask him to forgive her. She struggled with and overcame the morbid +impulse. + +The Vicar lifted his face, and for a moment they looked at each other +while he measured, visibly, his forces against hers. + +She shook her head at him almost tenderly. He was purely pathetic to +her now. + +"It's no use, Papa. You'd far better give it up. You know you can't +do it. You can't stop me. You can't stop Jim Greatorex. You can't even +stop Peacock. You don't want _another_ scandal in the parish." + +He didn't. + +"Oh, go your own way," he said, "and take the consequences." + +"I _have_ taken them," said Gwenda. + +She thought, "I wonder what he'd have said if I'd told him the truth? +But, if I had, he'd never have believed it." + +The truth indeed was far beyond the Vicar's power of belief. He only +supposed (after some reflection) that Gwenda was going off in a huff, +because young Rowcliffe had failed to come to the scratch. He knew +what this running up to London and earning her own living meant--she! +He would have trusted Ally sooner. Gwenda was capable of anything. + +And as he thought of what she might be capable of in London, he +sighed, "God help her!" + + + + +XL + + +It was May, five weeks since Gwenda had left Garthdale. + +Five Wednesdays came and went and Rowcliffe had not been seen or heard +of at the Vicarage. It struck even the Vicar that considerably more +had passed between his daughter and the doctor than Gwenda had been +willing to admit. Whatever had passed, it had been something that had +made Rowcliffe desire not to be seen or heard of. + +All the same, the Vicar and his daughter Alice were both so profoundly +aware of Rowcliffe that for five weeks they had not mentioned his name +to each other. When Mary mentioned it on Friday, in the evening of +that disgraceful day, he said that he had had enough of Rowcliffe and +he didn't want to hear any more about the fellow. + +Mr. Cartaret had signified that his second daughter's name was not to +be mentioned, either. But, becoming as his attitude was, he had not +been able to keep it up. In the sixth week after Gwenda's departure, +he was obliged to hear (it was Alice, amazed out of all reticence, who +told him) that Gwenda had got a berth as companion secretary to Lady +Frances Gilbey, at a salary of a hundred a year. + +Mummy had got it for her. + +"You may well stare, Molly, but it's what she says." + +The Vicar, as if he had believed Ally capable of fabricating this +intelligence, observed that he would like to see that letter. + +His face darkened as he read it. He handed it back without a word. + +The thing was not so incredible to the Vicar as it was to Mary. + +He had always known that Robina could pull wires. It was, in fact, +through her ability to pull wires that Robina had so successfully +held him up. She had her hands on the connections of an entire social +system. Her superior ramifications were among those whom Mr. Cartaret +habitually spoke and thought of as "the best people." And when it came +to connections, Robina's were of the very best. Lady Frances was her +second cousin. In the days when he was trying to find excuses for +marrying Robina, it was in considering her connections that he found +his finest. The Vicar had informed his conscience that he was +marrying Robina because of what she could do for his three motherless +daughters--and himself. + +Preferment even lay (through the Gilbeys) within Robina's scope. + +But to have planted Gwenda on Lady Frances Robina must have pulled all +the wires she knew. Lady Frances was a distinguished philanthropist +and a rigid Evangelical, so rigid and so distinguished that, in the +eyes of poor parsons waiting for preferment, she constituted a pillar +of the Church. + +To the Vicar, as he brooded over it, Robina's act was more than mere +protection of his daughter Gwenda. Not only was it carrying the war +into the enemy's camp with a vengeance, it was an act of hostility +subtler and more malignant than overt defiance. + +Ever since she left him, Robina had been trying to get hold of the +girls, regarding them as the finest instruments in her relentless +game. For it never occurred to Mr. Cartaret that his third wife's +movements could by any possibility refer to anybody but himself. +Robina, according to Mr. Cartaret, was perpetually thinking of him +and of how she could annoy him. She had shown a fiendish cleverness in +placing Gwenda with Lady Frances. She couldn't have done anything that +could have annoyed him more. More than anything that Robina had yet +done, it put him in the wrong. It put him in the wrong not only with +Lady Frances and the best people, but it put him in the wrong with +Gwenda and kept him there. Against Gwenda, with Lady Frances and a +salary of a hundred a year at her back, he hadn't the appearance of a +leg to stand on. The thing had the air of justifying Gwenda's behavior +by its consequences. + +That was what Robina had been reckoning on. For, if it had been Gwenda +she had been thinking of, she would have kept her instead of +handing her over to Lady Frances. The companion secretaries of that +distinguished philanthropist had no sinecure even at a hundred a year. + +As for Gwenda's accepting such a post, that proved nothing as against +his view of her. It only proved, what he had always known, that you +could never tell what Gwenda would do next. + +And because nothing could be said with any dignity, the Vicar had said +nothing as he rose and went into his study. + +It was there, hidden from his daughters' scrutiny, that he pondered +these things. + + * * * * * + +They waited till the door had closed on him before they spoke. + +"Well, after all, that'll be very jolly for her," said Mary. + +"It isn't half as jolly as it looks," said Ally. "It means that she'll +have to live at Tunbridge Wells." + +"Oh," said Mary, "it won't be all Tunbridge Wells." She couldn't bear +to think that it would be all Tunbridge Wells. Not that she did think +it for a moment. It couldn't be all Tunbridge Wells for a girl like +Gwenda. Mummy could never have contemplated that. Gwenda couldn't +have contemplated it. And Mary refused to contemplate it either. She +persuaded herself that what had happened to her sister was simply +a piece of the most amazing luck. She even judged it probable that +Gwenda had known very well what she was doing when she went away. + +Besides she had always wanted to do something. She had learned +shorthand and typewriting at Westbourne, as if, long ago, she had +decided that, if home became insupportable, she would leave it. And +there had always been that agreement between her and Mummy. + +When Mary put these things together, she saw that nothing could be +more certain than that, sooner or later, Ally or no Ally, Gwenda would +have gone away. + +But this was after it had occurred to her that Rowcliffe ought to know +what had happened and that she had got to tell him. And that was on +the day after Gwenda's letter came, when Mrs. Gale, having brought +in the tea-things, paused in her going to say, "'Ave yo' seen Dr. +Rawcliffe, Miss Mary? Ey--but 'e's lookin' baad." + +"Everybody," said Mary, "is looking bad this muggy weather. That +reminds me, how's the baby?" + +"'E's woorse again, Miss. I tall Assy she'll navver rear 'im." + +"Has the doctor seen him to-day?" + +"Naw, naw, nat yat. But 'e'll look in, 'e saays, afore 'e goas." + +Mary looked at the clock. Rowcliffe left the surgery at four-thirty. +It was now five minutes past. + +She wondered: Did he know, then, or did he not know? Would Gwenda have +written to him? Was it because she had not written that he was looking +bad, or was it because she had written and he knew? + +She thought and thought it over; and under all her thinking there +lurked the desire to know whether Rowcliffe knew and how he was taking +it, and under her desire the longing, imperious and irresistible, to +see him. + +She would have to ask him to the house. She had not forgotten that she +had to ask him, that she was pledged to ask him on Ally's account if, +as Gwenda had put it, she was to play the game. + +But she had had more than one motive for her delay. It would look +better if she were not in too great a hurry. (She said to herself it +would look better on Ally's account.) The longer he was kept away (she +said to herself, that he was kept away from Ally) the more he would +be likely to want to come. Sufficient time must elapse to allow of his +forgetting Gwenda. It was not well that he should be thinking all the +time of Gwenda when he came. (She said to herself it was not well on +Ally's account.) + +And it was well that their father should have forgotten Rowcliffe. + +(This on Ally's account, too.) + +For of course it was only on Ally's account that she was asking +Rowcliffe, really. + +Not that there seemed to be any such awful need. + +For Ally, in those five weeks, had got gradually better. And now, in +the first week of May, which had always been one of her bad months, +she was marvelously well. It looked as if Gwenda had known what she +was talking about when she said Ally would be all right when she was +gone. + +And of course it was just as well (on Ally's account) that Rowcliffe +should not have seen her until she was absolutely well. + +Nobody could say that she, Mary, was not doing it beautifully. Nobody +could say she was not discreet, since she had let five weeks pass +before she asked him. + +And in order that her asking him should have the air of happy chance, +she must somehow contrive to see him first. + +Her seeing him could be managed any Wednesday in the village. It was +bound, in fact, to occur. The wonder was that it had not occurred +before. + +Well, that showed how hard, all these weeks, she had been trying not +to see him. If she had had an uneasy conscience in the matter (and +she said to herself that there was no occasion for one), it would have +acquitted her. + +Nobody could say she wasn't playing the game. + +And then it struck her that she had better go down at once and see +Essy's baby. + +It was only five and twenty past four. + + + + +XLI + + +The Vicar was right. Rowcliffe did not want to be seen or heard of +at the Vicarage. He did not want to see or hear of the Vicarage or of +Gwenda Cartaret again. Twice a week or more in those five weeks he had +to pass the little gray house above the churchyard; twice a week or +more the small shy window in its gable end looked sidelong at him as +he went by. But he always pretended not to see it. And if anybody in +the village spoke to him of Gwenda Cartaret he pretended not to hear, +so that presently they left off speaking. + +He had sighted Mary Cartaret two or three times in the village, and +once, on the moor below Upthorne, a figure that he recognised as +Alice; he had also overtaken Mary on her bicycle, and once he had seen +her at a shop door on Morfe Green. And each time Mary (absorbed in +what she was doing) had made it possible for him not to see her. He +was grateful to her for her absorption while he saw through it. He had +always known that Mary was a person of tact. + +He also knew that this preposterous avoidance could not go on forever. +It was only that Mary gave him a blessed respite week by week. +Presently one or other of the two would have to end it, and he didn't +yet know which of them it would be. He rather thought it would be +Mary. + +And it _was_ Mary. + +He met her that first Wednesday in May, as he was leaving Mrs. Gale's +cottage. + +She was coming along the narrow path by the beck and there was no +avoiding her. + +She came toward him smiling. He had always rather liked her smile. It +was quiet. It never broke up, as it were, her brooding face. He had +noticed that it didn't even part her lips or make them thinner. If +anything it made them thicker, it curved still more the crushed bow of +the upper lip and the pensive sweep of the lower. But it opened doors; +it lit lights. It broadened quite curiously the rather too broad +nostrils; it set the wide eyes wider; it brought a sudden blue +into their thick gray. In her cheeks it caused a sudden leaping +and spreading of their flame. Her rather high and rather prominent +cheek-bones gave character and a curious charm to Mary's face; they +had the effect of lifting her bloom directly under the pure and candid +gray of her eyes, leaving her red mouth alone in its dominion. That +mouth with its rather too long upper lip and its almost perpetual +brooding was saved from immobility by its alliance with her nostrils. + +Such was Mary's face. Rowcliffe had often watched it, acknowledging +its charm, while he said to himself that for him it could never have +any meaning or fascination, any more than Mary could. There wasn't +much in Mary's face, and there wasn't much in Mary. She was too +ruminant, too tranquil. He sometimes wondered how much it would take +to trouble her. + +And yet there were times when that tranquillity was soothing. She had +always, even when Ally was at her worst, smiled at him as if nothing +had happened or could happen, and she smiled at him as if nothing had +happened now. And it struck Rowcliffe, as it had frequently struck him +before, how good her face was. + +She held out her hand to him and looked at him. + +And as if only then she had seen in his face the signs of a suffering +she had been unaware of, her eyes rounded in a sudden wonder of +distress. They said in their goodness and their candor, "Oh, I see how +horribly you've suffered. I didn't know and I'm so sorry." Then they +looked away, and it was like the quiet withdrawal of a hand that +feared lest in touching it should hurt him. + +Mary began to talk of the weather and of Essy and of Essy's baby, as +if her eyes had never seen anything at all. Then, just as they parted, +she said, "When are you coming to see us again?" as if he had been to +see them only the other day. + +He said he _would_ come as soon as he was asked. + +And Mary reflected, as one arranging a multitude of engagements. + +"Well, then--let me see--can you come to tea on Friday? Or Monday? +Father'll be at home both days." + +And Rowcliffe said thanks, he'd come on Friday. + +Mary went on to the cottage and Rowcliffe to his surgery. + +He wondered why she hadn't said a word about Gwenda. He supposed it +was because she knew that there was nothing she could say that would +not hurt him. + +And he said to himself, "What a nice girl she is. What a thoroughly +nice girl." + + * * * * * + +But what he wanted, though he dreaded it, was news of Gwenda. He +didn't know whether he could bring himself to ask for it, but he +rather thought that Mary would know what he wanted and give it him +without his asking. + +That was precisely what Mary knew and did. + +She was ready for him, alone in the gray and amber drawing-room, and +she did it almost at once, before Alice or her father could come in. +Alice was out walking, she said, and her father was in the study. +They would be in soon. She thus made Rowcliffe realise that if she was +going to be abrupt it was because she had to be; they had both of them +such a short time. + +With admirable tact she assumed Rowcliffe's interest in Ally and the +Vicar. It made it easier to begin about Gwenda. And before she began +it seemed to her that she had better first find out if he knew. So she +asked him point-blank if he had heard from Gwenda? + +"No," he said. + +At her name he had winced visibly. But there was hope even in his hurt +eyes. It sprang from Mary's taking it for granted that he would be +likely to hear from her sister. + +"We only heard--really," said Mary, "the other day." + +"Is that so?" + +"Of course she wrote; but she didn't say much, because, at first, I'm +afraid, there wasn't very much to say." + +"And is there?" + +Rowcliffe's hands were trembling slightly. Mary looked down at them +and away. + +"Well, yes." + +And she told him that Gwenda had got a secretaryship to Lady Frances +Gilbey. + +It would have been too gross to have told him about Gwenda's salary. +But it might have been the salary she was thinking of when she added +that it was of course an awfully good thing for Gwenda. + +"And who," said Rowcliffe, "is Lady Frances Gilbey?" + +"She's a cousin of my stepmother's." + +He considered it. + +"And Mrs.--er--Cartaret lives in London, doesn't she?" + +"Oh, yes." + +Mary's tone implied that you couldn't expect that brilliant lady to +live anywhere else. + +There was a moment in which Rowcliffe again evoked the image of the +third Mrs. Cartaret who was "the very one." If anything could have +depressed him more, that did. + +But he pulled himself together. There were things he had to know. + +"And does your sister like living in London?" + +Mary smiled. "I imagine she does very much indeed." + +"Somehow," said Rowcliffe, "I can't see her there. I thought she liked +the country." + +"Oh, you never can tell whether Gwenda really likes anything. She may +have liked it. She may have liked it awfully. But she couldn't go on +liking it forever." + +And to Rowcliffe it was as if Mary had said that wasn't Gwenda's way. + +"There's no doubt she's done the best thing. For herself, I mean." + +Rowcliffe assented. "Perhaps she has." + +And Mary, as if doubt had only just occurred to her, made a sudden +little tremulous appeal. + +"You don't really think Garth was the place for her?" + +"I don't really think anything about it," Rowcliffe said. + +Mary was pensive. Her brooding look said that she laid a secret fear +to rest. + +"Garth couldn't satisfy a girl like Gwenda." + +Rowcliffe said no, he supposed it couldn't satisfy her. His dejection +was by this time terrible. It cast a visible, a palpable gloom. + +"She's a restless creature," said Mary, smiling. + +She threw it out as if by way of lightening his oppression, almost as +if she put it to him that if Gwenda was restless (by which Rowcliffe +might understand, if he liked, capricious) she couldn't help it. There +was no reason why he should be so horribly hurt. It was not as if +there was anything personal in Gwenda's changing attitudes. And +Rowcliffe did indeed say to himself, Restless--restless. Yes. That was +the word for her; and he supposed she couldn't help it. + + * * * * * + +The study door opened and shut. Mary's eyes made a sign to him that +said, "We can't talk about this before my father. He won't like it." + +But Mr. Cartaret had gone upstairs. They could hear him moving in the +room overhead. + +"How is your other sister getting on?" said Rowcliffe abruptly. + +"Alice? She's all right. You wouldn't know her. She can walk for +miles." + +"You don't say so?" + +He was really astonished. + +"She's off now somewhere, goodness knows where." + +"Ha!" Rowcliffe laughed softly. + +"It's really wonderful," said Mary. "She's generally so tired in the +spring." + +It _was_ wonderful. The more he thought of it the more wonderful it +was. + +"Oh, well----" he said, "she mustn't overdo it." + +It was Mary he suspected of overdoing it. On Ally's account, of +course. It wasn't likely that she would give the poor child away. + +At that point Mrs. Gale came in with the tea-things. And presently the +Vicar came down to tea. + +He was more than courteous this time. He was affable. He too greeted +Rowcliffe as if nothing had happened, and he abstained from any +reference to Gwenda. + +But he showed a certain serenity in his restraint. Leaning back in +his armchair, his legs crossed, his hands joined lightly at the +finger-tips, his forehead smoothed, conversing affably, Mr. Cartaret +had the air of a man who might indeed have suffered through his +outrageous family, but for whom suffering was passed, a man without +any trouble or anxiety. And serenity without the memory of suffering +was in Mary's good and happy face. + +The house was very still, it seemed the stillness of life that ran +evenly and with no sound. And it was borne in upon Rowcliffe as he sat +there and talked to them that this quiet and tranquillity had come +to them with Gwenda's going. She was a restless creature, and she had +infected them with her unrest. They had peace from her now. + +Only for him there could be no peace from Gwenda. He could feel her in +the room. Through the open door she came and went--restless, restless! + +He put the thought of her from him. + + * * * * * + +After tea the Vicar took him into his study. If Rowcliffe had a moment +to spare, he would like, he said, to talk to him. + +Rowcliffe looked at his watch. The idea of being talked to frightened +him. + +The Vicar observed his nervousness. + +"It's about my daughter Alice," he said. + +And it was. + +The Vicar wanted him to know and he had brought him into his study in +order to tell him that Alice had completely recovered. He went into +it. The girl was fit. She was happy. She ate well. She slept well (he +had kept her under very careful supervision) and she could walk for +miles. She was, in fact, leading the healthy natural life he had hoped +she would lead when he brought her into a more bracing climate. + +Rowcliffe expressed his wonder. It was, he said, _very_ wonderful. + +But the Vicar would not admit that it was wonderful at all. It was +exactly what he had expected. He had never thought for a moment that +there was anything seriously wrong with Alice--anything indeed in the +least the matter with her. + +Rowcliffe was silent. But he looked at the Vicar, and the Vicar did +not even pretend not to understand his look. + +"I know," he said, "the very serious view you took of her. But I +think, my dear fellow, when you've seen her you'll admit that you were +mistaken." + +Rowcliffe said there was nothing he desired more than to have been +mistaken, but he was afraid he couldn't admit it. Miss Cartaret's +state, when he last saw her, had been distinctly serious. + +"You will perhaps admit that whatever danger there may have been then +is over?" + +"I haven't seen her yet," said Rowcliffe. "But"--he looked at him--"I +told you the thing was curable." + +"That's my point. What is there--what can there have been to cure +her?" + +Rowcliffe ignored the Vicar's point. + +"Can you date it--this recovery?" + +"I date it," said the Vicar, "from the time her sister left. She +seemed to pull herself together after that." + +Rowcliffe said nothing. He was reviewing all his knowledge of the +case. He considered Ally's disastrous infatuation for himself. In the +light of his knowledge her recovery was not only wonderful, it was +incomprehensible. So incomprehensible that he was inclined to suspect +her father of lying for some reason of his own. Family pride, no +doubt. He had known instances. + +The Vicar went on. He gave himself a long innings. "But that does not +account for it altogether, though it may have started it. I really put +it down to other things--the pure air--the quiet life--the absence of +excitement--the regular _work_ that _takes_ her _out_ of herself----" + +Here the Vicar fell into that solemn rhythm that marked the periods of +his sermons. + +He perorated. "The _simple_ following _out_ of _my_ prescription. You +will remember" (he became suddenly cheery and conversational) "that it +_was_ mine." + +"It certainly wasn't mine," said Rowcliffe. + +He saw it all. _That_ was why the Vicar was so affable. That was why +he was so serene. + +And he wasn't lying. His state of mind was obviously much too simple. +He was serenely certain of his facts. + + * * * * * + +By courteous movement of his hand the Vicar condoned Rowcliffe's +rudeness, which he attributed to professional pique very natural in +the circumstances. + +With admirable tact he changed the subject. + +"I also wished to consult you about another matter. Nothing" (he again +reassured the doctor's nervousness) "to do with my family." + +Rowcliffe was all attention. + +"It's about--it's about that poor girl, Essy Gale." + +"Essy," said Rowcliffe, "is very well and very happy." + +The Vicar's sudden rigidity implied that Essy had no business to be +happy. + +"If she is, it isn't your friend Greatorex's fault." + +"I'm not so sure of that," said Rowcliffe. + +"I suppose you know he has refused to marry her?" + +"I understood as much. But who asked him to?" + +"I did." + +"My dear sir, if you don't mind my saying so, I think you made a +mistake--if you _want_ him to marry her. You know what he is." + +"I do indeed. But a certain responsibility rests with the parson of +the parish." + +"You can't be responsible for everything that goes on." + +"Perhaps not--when the place is packed with nonconformists. Greatorex +comes of bad dissenting stock. I can't hope to have any influence with +him." + +He paused. + +"But I'm told that _you_ have." + +"Influence? Not I. I've a sneaking regard for Greatorex. He isn't half +a bad fellow if you take him the right way." + +"Well, then, can't you take him? Can't you say a judicious word?" + +"If it's to ask him to marry Essy, that wouldn't be very judicious, +I'm afraid. He'll marry her if he wants to, and if he doesn't, he +won't." + +"But, my dear Dr. Rowcliffe, think of the gross injustice to that poor +girl." + +"It might be a worse injustice if he married her. Why _should_ he +marry her if he doesn't want to, and if she doesn't want it? There +she is, perfectly content and happy with her baby. It's been a little +seedy lately, but it's absolutely sound. A very fine baby indeed, and +Essy knows it. There's nothing wrong with the baby." + +Rowcliffe continued, regardless of the Vicar's stare: "She's +better off as she is than tied to a chap who isn't a bit too sober. +Especially if he doesn't care for her." + +The Vicar rose and took up his usual defensive position on the hearth. + +"Well, Dr. Rowcliffe, if those are your ideas of morality----?" + +"They are not my ideas of morality, only my judgment of the individual +case." + +"Well--if that's your judgment, after all, I think that the less you +meddle with it the better." + +"I never meddle," said Rowcliffe. + +But the Vicar did not leave him. He had caught the sound of the +opening and shutting of the gate. He listened. + +His manner changed again to a complete affability. + +"I think that's Alice. I should like you to see her. If you--" + +Rowcliffe gathered that the entrance of Alice had better coincide +with his departure. He followed the Vicar as he went to open the front +door. + +Alice stood on the doorstep. + +She was not at first aware of him where he lingered in the +half-darkness at the end of the passage. + +"Alice," said the Vicar, "Dr. Rowcliffe is here. You're just in time +to say good-bye to him." + +"It's a pity if it's good-bye," said Alice. + +Her voice might have been the voice of a young woman who is sanely and +innocently gay, but to Rowcliffe's ear there was a sound of exaltation +in it. + +He could see her now clearly in the light of the open door. The Vicar +had not lied. Alice had all the appearances of health. Something had +almost cured her. + +But not quite. As she stood there with him in the doorway, chattering, +Rowcliffe was struck again with the excitement of her voice and +manner, imperfectly restrained, and with the quivering glitter of her +eyes. By these signs he gathered that if Alice was happy her happiness +was not complete. It was not happiness in his sense of the word. But +Alice's face was unmistakably the face of hope. + +Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with him. He saw that Alice's +eyes faced him now with the light, unseeing look of indifference, and +that they turned every second toward the wall at the bottom of the +garden. She was listening to something. + + * * * * * + +He was then aware of footsteps on the road. They came down the hill, +passing close under the Vicarage wall and turning where it turned +to skirt the little lane at the bottom between the garden and the +churchyard. The lane led to the pastures, and the pastures to the +Manor. And from the Manor grounds a field track trailed to a small +wicket gate on the north side of the churchyard wall. A flagged path +went from the wicket to the door of the north transept. It was a short +cut for the lord of the Manor to his seat in the chancel, but it was +not the nearest way for anybody approaching the church from the high +road. + +Now, the slope of the Vicarage garden followed the slope of the road +in such wise that a person entering the churchyard from the high road +could be seen from the windows of the Vicarage. If that person desired +to remain unseen his only chance was to go round by the lane to the +wicket gate, keeping close under the garden wall. + +Rowcliffe heard the wicket gate click softly as it was softly opened +and shut. + +And he could have sworn that Alice heard it too. + + * * * * * + +He waited twenty minutes or so in his surgery. Then, instead of +sending at once to the Red Lion for his trap, he walked back to the +church. + +Standing in the churchyard, he could hear the sound of the organ and +of a man's voice singing. + +He opened the big west door softly and went softly in. + + + + +XLII + + +There is no rood-screen in Garth church. The one aisle down the middle +of the nave goes straight from the west door to the chancel-rails. + +Standing by the west door, behind the font, Rowcliffe had an +uninterrupted view of the chancel. + +The organ was behind the choir stalls on the north side. Alice was +seated at the organ. Jim Greatorex stood behind her and so that his +face was turned slantwise toward Rowcliffe. Alice's face was in pure +profile. Her head was tilted slightly backward, as if the music lifted +it. + +Rowcliffe moved softly to the sexton's bench in the left hand corner. +Sitting there he could see her better and ran less risk of being seen. + +The dull stained glass of the east window dimmed the light at that +end of the church. The organ candles were lit. Their jointed brackets, +brought forward on each side, threw light on the music book and the +keys, also on the faces of Alice and Greatorex. He stood so close to +her as almost to touch her. She had taken off her hat and her hair +showed gold against the drab of his waist-coat. + +On both faces there was a look of ecstasy. + +It was essentially the same ecstasy; only, on Alice's face it was more +luminous, more conscious, and at the same time more abandoned, as if +all subterfuge had ceased in her and she gave herself up, willing and +exulting, to the unspiritual sense that flooded her. + +On the man's face this look was more confused. It was also more tender +and more poignant, as if in soaring Jim's rapture gave him pain. You +would have said that he had not given himself to it, but that he was +driven by it, and that yet, with all its sensuous trouble, there +ran through it, secret and profoundly pure, some strain of spiritual +longing. + +And in his thick, his poignant and tender half-barytone, half-tenor, +Greatorex sang: + + "'At e-ee-vening e-er the soon was set, + The sick, oh Lo-ord, arou-ound thee laay-- + Oh, with what divers pains they met, + And with what joy they went a-waay--'" + +But Alice stopped playing and Rowcliffe heard her say, "Don't let's +have that one, Jim, I don't like it." + +It might have passed--even the name--but that Rowcliffe saw Greatorex +put his hand on Alice's head and stroke her hair. + +Then he heard him say, "Let's 'ave mine," and he saw that his hand was +on Alice's shoulders as he leaned over her to find the hymn. + +"Good God!" said Rowcliffe to himself. "That explains it." + +He got up softly. Now that he knew, he felt that it was horrible to +spy on her. + +But Greatorex had begun singing again, and the sheer beauty of the +voice held Rowcliffe there to listen. + + "'Lead--Kindly Light--amidst th' encircling gloo-oom, + Lead Thou me o-on. + Keep--Thou--my--feet--I do not aa-aassk too-oo see-ee-ee + Ther di-is-ta-aant scene, woon step enoo-oof for mee-eea.'" + +Greatorex was singing like an angel. And as he sang it was as if two +passions, two longings, the earthly and the heavenly, met and +mingled in him, so that through all its emotion his face remained +incongruously mystic, queerly visionary. + + "'O'er moor and fen--o'er crag and torrent ti-ill----'" + +The evocation was intolerable to Rowcliffe. + +He turned away and Greatorex's voice went after him. + + "'And--with--the--morn tho-ose angel fa-a-ce-es smile + Which I-i--a-ave looved--long since--and lo-ost awhi-ile.'" + +Again Rowcliffe turned; but not before he had seen that Greatorex had +his hand on Alice's shoulder a second time, and that Alice's hand had +gone up and found it there. + +The latch of the west door jerked under Rowcliffe's hand with a loud +clashing. Alice and Greatorex looked round and saw him as he went out. + +Alice got up in terror. The two stood apart on either side of the +organ bench, staring into each other's faces. + +Then Alice went round to the back of the organ and addressed the small +organ-blower. + +"Go," she said, "and tell the choir we're waiting for them. It's five +minutes past time." + +Johnny ran. + +Alice went back to the chancel where Greatorex stood turning over the +hymn books of the choir. + +"Jim," she said, "that was Dr. Rowcliffe. Do you think he saw us?" + +"It doesn't matter if he did," said Greatorex. "He'll not tell." + +"He might tell Father." + +Jim turned to her. + +"And if he doos, Ally, yo' knaw what to saay." + +"That's no good, Jim. I've told you so. You mustn't think of it." + +"I shall think of it. I shall think of noothing else," said Greatorex. + + * * * * * + +The choir came in, aggrieved, and explaining that it wasn't six yet, +not by the church clock. + + + + +XLIII + + +As Rowcliffe went back to his surgery he recalled two things he had +forgotten. One was a little gray figure he had seen once or twice +lately wandering through the fields about Upthorne Farm. The other was +a certain interview he had had with Alice when she had come to ask him +to get Greatorex to sing. That was in November, not long before the +concert. He remembered the suggestion he had then made that Alice +should turn her attention to reclaiming Greatorex. And, though he had +no morbid sense of responsibility in the matter, it struck him with +something like compunction that he had put Greatorex into Alice's head +chiefly to distract her from throwing herself at his. + +And then, he had gone and forgotten all about it. + +He told himself now that he had been a fool not to think of it. And if +he was a fool, what was to be said of the Vicar, under whose nose this +singular form of choir practice had been going on for goodness knew +how long? + +It did not occur to the doctor that if his surgery day had been a +Friday, which was choir practice day, he would have been certain to +have thought of it. Neither was he aware that what he had observed +this evening was only the unforeseen result of a perfectly innocent +parochial arrangement. It had begun at Christmas and again at Easter, +when it was understood that Greatorex, who was nervous about his +voice, should turn up for practice ten minutes before the rest of the +choir to try over his part in an anthem or cantata, so that, as Alice +said, he might do himself justice. + +Since Easter the ten minutes had grown to fifteen or even twenty. And +twice in the last three weeks Greatorex, by collusion with Alice, had +arrived a whole hour before his time. Still, there was nothing in +this circumstance itself to alarm the Vicar. Choir practice was choir +practice, a mysterious thing he never interfered with, knowing himself +to be unmusical. + +Rowcliffe had had good reason for refusing to urge Greatorex to marry +Essy Gale. But what he had seen in Garth church made him determined to +say something to Greatorex, after all. + +He went on his northerly round the very next Sunday and timed it +so that he overtook his man on his way home from church. He gave +Greatorex a lift with the result (which he had calculated) that +Greatorex gave him dinner, as he had done once or twice before. The +after-dinner pipe made Jim peculiarly approachable, and Rowcliffe +approached him suddenly and directly. "I say, Greatorex, why don't you +marry? Not a bad thing for you, you know." + +"Ay. Saw they tall me," said Greatorex amicably. + +Rowcliffe went on to advise his marrying Essy, not on the grounds of +morality or of justice to the girl (he was a tactful person), but on +Greatorex's account, as the best thing Greatorex could do for himself. + +"Yo mane," said Greatorex, "I ought to marry her?" + +Rowcliffe said no, he wasn't going into that. + +Greatorex was profoundly thoughtful. + +Presently he said that he would speak to Essy. + + * * * * * + +He spoke to her that afternoon. + +In the cottage down by the beck Essy sat by the hearth, nursing her +baby. He had recovered from his ailment and lay in her lap, gurgling +and squinting at the fire. He wore the robe that Mrs. Gale had brought +to Essy five months ago. Essy had turned it up above his knees, and +smiling softly she watched his little pink feet curling and uncurling +as she held them to the fire. Essy's back and the back of the baby's +head were toward the door, which stood open, the day being still warm. + +Greatorex stood there a moment looking at them before he tapped on the +door. + +He felt no tenderness for either of them, only a sullen pity that was +half resentment. + +As if she had heard his footsteps and known them, Essy spoke without +looking round. + +"Yo' can coom in ef yo' want," she said. + +"Thank yo'," he said stiffly and came in. + +"I caan't get oop wi' t' baaby. But there's a chair soomwhere." + +He found it and sat down. + +"Are yo' woondering why I've coom, Essy?" + +"Naw, Jim. I wasn't woondering about yo' at all." + +Her voice was sweet and placable. She followed the direction of his +eyes. + +"'E's better. Ef thot's what yo've coom for." + +"It isn' what I've coom for. I've soomthing to saay to yo', Essy." + +"There's nat mooch good yo're saayin' anything, Jim. I knaw all yo' +'ave t' saay." + +"Yo'll 'ave t' 'ear it, Essy, whether yo' knaw it or not. They're +tallin' mae I ought to marry yo'." + +Essy's eyes flashed. + +"Who's tallin' yo'?" + +"T' Vicar, for woon." + +"T' Vicar! 'E's a nice woon t' taalk o' marryin', whan 'is awn wife +caan't live wi' 'im, nor 'is awn daughter, neither. And 'oo alse +talled yo'? 'Twasn' Moother?" + +"Naw. It wasn' yore moother." + +"An' 'twasn' mae, Jim, and navver will bae." + +"'Twas Dr. Rawcliffe." + +"'E? 'E's anoother. 'Ooo's 'e married? Miss Gwanda? Nat' e!" + +"Yo' let t' doctor bae, Essy. 'E's right enoof. Saw I ought t' marry +yo'. But I'm nat goain' to." + +"'Ave yo' coom t' tall mae thot? 'S ef I didn' knaw it. 'Ave I avver +aassked yo' t' marry mae?" + +"Haw, Essy." + +"Yo' _can_ aassk mae; yo'll bae saafe enoof. Fer I wawn't 'ave yo'. +Woonce I med 'a' been maad enoof. I med 'a' said yes t' yo'. But I'd +saay naw to-day." + +At that he smiled. + +"Yo' wouldn' 'ave a good-fer-noothin' falla like mae, would yo, laass? +Look yo'--it's nat that I couldn' 'ave married yo'. I could 'ave +married yo' right enoof. An' it's nat thot I dawn' think yo' pretty. +Yo're pretty enoof fer me. It's--it's--I caan't rightly tall whot it +is." + +"Dawn' tall mae. I dawn' want t' knaw." + +He looked hard at her. + +"I might marry yo' yat," he said. "But yo' knaw you wouldn' bae happy +wi' mae. I sud bae crool t' yo'. Nat because I wanted t' bae crool, +but because I couldn' halp mysel. Theer'd bae soomthin' alse I sud bae +thinkin' on and wantin' all t' while." + +"I knaw. I knaw. I wouldn' lat yo', Jim. I wouldn' lat yo'." + +"I knaw there's t' baaby an' all. It's hard on yo', Essy. But--I dawn' +knaw--I ned bae crool to t' baaby, too." + +Then she looked up at him, but with more incredulity than reproach. + +"Yo' wudn'," she said. "Yo' cudn' bae crool t' lil Jimmy." + +He scowled. + +"Yo've called 'im thot, Essy?" + +"An' why sudn' I call 'im? 'E's a right to thot naame, annyhow. Yo' +caann't taake thot awaay from 'im." + +"I dawn' want t' taake it away from 'im. But I wish yo' 'adn'. I wish +you 'adn', Essy." + +"Why 'alf t' lads in t' village is called Jimmy. Yo're called Jimmy +yourself, coom t' thot." + +He considered it. "Well--it's nat as ef they didn' knaw--all of 'em." + +"Oh--they knaws!" + +"D'yo' mind them, Essy? They dawn't maake yo' feel baad about it, do +they?" + +She shook her head and smiled her dreamy smile. + +He rose and looked down at her with his grieved, resentful eyes. + +"Yo' moosn' suppawse I dawn feel baad, Essy. I've laaid awaake manny a +night, thinkin' what I've doon t'yo'." + +"What _'ave_ yo' doon, Jimmy? Yo' maade mae 'appy fer sex moonths. +An' there's t' baaby. I didn' want 'im before 'e coom--seemed like I'd +'ave t' 'ave 'im stead o' yo'. But yo' can goa right awaay, Jimmy, an' +I sudn' keer ef I navver saw yo' again, so long's I 'ad 'im." + +"Is thot truth, Essy?" + +"It's Gawd's truth." + +He put out his hand and caressed the child's downy head as if it was +the head of some young animal. + +"I wish I could do more fer 'im, Essy. I will, maaybe, soom daay." + +"I wouldn' lat yo'. I wouldn' tooch yo're mooney now ef I could goa +out t' wark an' look affter 'im too. I wouldn' tooch a panny of it, I +wouldn'." + +"Dawn' yo' saay thot, Essy. Yo' dawn' want to spite mae, do yo'?" + +"I didn' saay it t' spite yo', Jimmy. I said it saw's yo' sudn' feel +saw baad." + +He smiled mournfully. + +"Poor Essy," he said. + +She gave him a queer look. "Yo' needn' pity _mae,_" she said. + + * * * * * + +He went away considerably relieved in his mind, but still suffering +that sullen uneasiness in his soul. + + + + +XLIV + + +It was the last week in June. + +Mary Cartaret sat in the door of the cottage by the beck. And in her +lap she held Essy's baby. Essy had run in to the last cottage in the +row to look after her great aunt, the Widow Gale, who had fallen out +of bed in the night. + +The Widow Gale, in her solitude, had formed the habit of falling out +of bed. But this time she had hurt her head, and Essy had gone for the +doctor and had met Miss Mary in the village and Mary had come with her +to help. + +For by good luck--better luck than the Widow Gale deserved--it was a +Wednesday. Rowcliffe had sent word that he would come at three. + +It was three now. + +And as he passed along the narrow path he saw Mary Cartaret in the +doorway with the baby in her lap. + +She smiled at him as he went by. + +"I'm making myself useful," she said. + +"Oh, more than that!" + +His impression was that Mary had made herself beautiful. He looked +back over his shoulder and laughed as he hurried on. + +Up till now it hadn't occurred to him that Mary could be beautiful. +But it didn't puzzle him. He knew how she had achieved that momentary +effect. + +He knew and he was to remember. For the effect repeated itself. + +As he came back Mary was standing in the path, holding the baby in her +arms. She was looking, she said, for Essy. Would Essy be coming soon? + +Rowcliffe did not answer all at once. He stood contemplating the +picture. It wasn't all Mary. The baby did his part. He had been +"short-coated" that month, and his thighs, crushed and delicately +creased, showed rose red against the white rose of Mary's arm. She +leaned her head, brooding tenderly, to his, and his head (he was a +dark baby) was dusk to her flame. + +Rowcliffe smiled. "Why?" he said. "Do you want to get rid of him?" + +As if unconsciously she pressed the child closer to her. As if +unconsciously she held his head against her breast. And when his +fingers worked there, in their way, she covered them with her hand. + +"No," she said. "He's a nice baby. (Aren't you a nice baby? There!) +Essy's unhappy because he's going to have blue eyes and dark hair. But +I think they're the prettiest, don't you?" + +"Yes," said Rowcliffe. + +He was grave and curt. + +And Mary remembered that that was what Gwenda had--blue eyes and dark +hair. + +It was what Gwenda's children might have had, too. She felt that she +had made him think of Gwenda. + +Then Essy came and took the baby from her. + +"'E's too 'eavy fer yo', Miss," she said. She laughed as she took him; +she gazed at him with pride and affection unabashed. His one fault, +for Essy, was that, though he had got Greatorex's eyes, he had not got +Greatorex's hair. + +Mary and Rowcliffe went back together. + +"You're coming in to tea, aren't you?" she said. + +"Rather." He had got into the habit again of looking in at the +Vicarage for tea every Wednesday. They were having tea in the orchard +now. And in June the Vicarage orchard was a pleasanter place than the +surgery. + +It was in fact a very pleasant place. Pleasanter than the gray and +amber drawing-room. + +When Rowcliffe came to think of it, he owed the Cartarets many +pleasant things. So he had formed another habit of asking them back +to tea in his orchard. He had had no idea what a pleasant place his +orchard could be too. + +Now, though Rowcliffe nearly always had tea alone with Mary at the +Vicarage, Mary never came to tea at Rowcliffe's house alone. She +always brought Alice with her. And Rowcliffe found that a nuisance. +For one thing, Alice had the air of being dragged there against +her will, so completely had she recovered from him. For another, he +couldn't talk to Mary quite so well. He didn't know that he wanted to +talk to Mary. He didn't know that he particularly wanted to be alone +with her, but somehow Alice's being there made him want it. + +He was to be alone with Mary to-day, in the orchard. + + * * * * * + +The window of the Vicar's study raked the orchard. But that didn't +matter, for the Vicar was not at home this Wednesday. + +The orchard waited for them. Two wicker-work armchairs and the little +round tea-table were set out under the trees. Mary's knitting lay in +one of the chairs. She had the habit of knitting while she talked, or +while Rowcliffe talked and she listened. The act of knitting disposed +her to long silences. It also occupied her, so that Rowcliffe, when he +liked, could be silent too. + +But generally he talked and Mary listened. + +They hadn't many subjects. But Mary made the most of what they had. +And she always knew the precise moment when Rowcliffe had ceased to +be interested in any one of them. She knew, as if by instinct, all his +moments. + +They were talking now, at tea-time, about the Widow Gale. Mary wanted +to know how the poor thing was getting on. The Widow Gale had been +rather badly shaken and she had bruised her poor old head and one +hip. But she wouldn't fall out of bed again to-night. Rowcliffe had +barricaded the bed with a chest of drawers. Afterward there must be a +rail or something. + +Mary was interested in the Widow Gale as long as Rowcliffe liked to +talk about her. But the Widow Gale didn't carry them very far. + +What would have carried them far was Rowcliffe himself. But Rowcliffe +never wanted to talk about himself to Mary. When Mary tried to lead +gently up to him, Rowcliffe shied. He wouldn't talk about himself any +more than he would talk about Gwenda. + +But Mary didn't want to talk about Gwenda either now. So that her face +showed the faintest flicker of dismay when Rowcliffe suddenly began to +talk about her. + +"Have you any idea," he said, "when your sister's coming back?" + +"She won't be long," said Mary. "She's only gone to Upthorne village." + +"I meant your other sister." + +"Oh, Gwenda----" + +Mary brooded. And the impression her brooding made on Rowcliffe was +that Mary knew something about Gwenda she did not want to tell. + +"I don't think," said Mary gravely, "that Gwenda ever will come back +again. At least not if she can help it. I thought you knew that." + +"I suppose I must have known." + +He left it there. + +Mary took up her knitting. She was making a little vest for Essy's +baby. Rowcliffe watched it growing under her hands. + +"As I can't knit, do you mind my smoking?" + +She didn't. + +"If more women knitted," he said, "it would be a good thing. They +wouldn't be bothered so much with nerves." + +"I don't do it for nerves. I haven't any," said Mary. + +He laughed. "No, I don't think you have." + +She fell into one of her gentle silences. A silence not of her own +brooding, he judged. It had no dreams behind it and no imagination +that carried her away. A silence, rather, that brought her nearer to +him, that waited on his mood. + +His eyes watched under half-closed lids the movements of her hands and +the pretty droop of her head. And he said to himself, "How sweet she +is. And how innocent. And good." + +Their chairs were set near together in the small plot of grass. The +little trees of the orchard shut them in. He began to notice things +about her that he had not noticed before, the shape and color of her +finger nails, the modeling of her supple wrists, the way her ears were +curved and laid close to her rather broad head. He saw that her +skin was milk-white at the throat, and honey-white at her ears, and +green-white, the white of an elder flower, at the roots of her red +hair. + +And as she unwound her ball of wool it rolled out of her lap and fell +between her feet. + +She stooped suddenly, bringing under Rowcliffe's eyes the nape of her +neck, shining with golden down, and her shoulders, sun-warmed and rosy +under the thin muslin of her blouse. + +They dived at the same moment, and as their heads came up again their +faces would have touched but that Rowcliffe suddenly drew back his +own. + +"I say, I _do_ beg your pardon!" + +It was odd, but in the moment of his recoil from that imminent contact +Rowcliffe remembered the little red-haired nurse. Not that there was +much resemblance; for, though the little nurse was sweet, she was +not altogether innocent, neither was she what good people like Mary +Cartaret would call good. And Mary, leaning back in her chair with +the recovered ball in her lap, was smiling at his confusion with an +innocence and goodness of which he could have no doubt. + +When he tried to account to himself for the remembrance he supposed it +must have been the red hair that did it. + +And up to the end and to the end of the end Rowcliffe never knew +that, though he had been made subject to a sequence of relentless +inhibitions and of suggestions overpowering in their nature and +persistently sustained, it was ultimately by aid of that one +incongruous and irresistible association that Mary Cartaret had cast +her spell. + +He had never really come under it until that moment. + + * * * * * + +July passed. It was the end of August. To the west Karva and Morfe +High Moor were purple. To the east the bare hillsides with their +limestone ramparts smouldered in mist and sun, or shimmered, burning +like any hillside of the south. The light even soaked into the gray +walls of Garth in its pastures. The little plum-trees in the Vicarage +orchard might have been olive trees twinkling in the sun. + +Mary was in the Vicar's bedroom, looking now at the door, and now +at her own image in the wardrobe glass. It was seven o'clock in the +evening and she had chosen a perilous moment for the glass. She wore +a childlike frock of rough green silk; it had no collar but was cut +square at the neck showing her white throat. The square was bordered +with an embroidered design of peacock's eyes. The parted waves of her +red hair were burnished with hard brushing; its coils lay close, and +smooth as a thick round cap. It needed neither comb nor any ornament. + +Mary had dressed, for Rowcliffe was coming to dinner. Such a thing had +never been heard of at the Vicarage; but it had come to pass. And as +Mary thought of how she had accomplished it, she wondered what Alice +could possibly have meant when she said to her "There are moments when +I hate you," as she hooked her up the back. + +For it never could have happened if she had not persuaded the Vicar +(and herself as well) that she was asking Rowcliffe on Alice's +account. + +The Vicar had come gradually to see that if Alice must be married she +had better marry Rowcliffe and have done with it. He had got used to +Rowcliffe and he rather liked him; so he had only held out against +the idea for a fortnight or so. He had even found a certain austere +satisfaction in the thought that he, the doctor, who had tried to +terrify him about Ally's insanity, having thrown that bomb into +the peaceful Vicarage, should be blown up, as it were, with his own +explosion. + +The Vicar never doubted that it was Ally that Rowcliffe wanted. For +the idea of his wanting Gwenda was so unpleasant to him that he had +dismissed it as preposterous; as for Mary, he had made up his mind +that Mary would never dream of marrying and leaving him, and that, if +she did, he would put his foot down. + +There had been changes in the Vicarage in the last two months. The +shabby gray and amber drawing-room was not all shabbiness and not all +gray and amber now. There were new cretonne covers on the chairs and +sofa, and pure white muslin curtains at the windows, and the lamp had +a new frilled petticoat. Every afternoon Mrs. Gale was arrayed in a +tight black gown and irreproachable cap and apron. + +All day long Mary and Mrs. Gale had worked like galley slaves over +the preparations for dinner, and between them they had achieved +perfection. What was more they had produced an effect of achieving it +every day, clear soup, mayonnaise salad and cheese straws and all. + +And the black coffee made by Mary and served in the orchard afterward +was perfection too. + +And the impression made on Rowcliffe by the Vicarage was that of +a house and a household rehabilitated after a long period of +devastation, by the untiring, selfless labor of a woman who was good +and sweet. + +After they had drunk Mary's coffee the Vicar strolled away to his +study so as to leave Rowcliffe alone with Mary, and Alice strolled +away heaven knew where so as to leave Mary alone with Rowcliffe. And +the Vicar said to himself, "Mary is really doing it very well. Ally +ought to be grateful to her." + +But Ally wasn't a bit grateful. She said to herself, "I've half a +mind to tell him; only Gwenda would hate me." And she called over her +shoulder as she strolled away, "You'd better not stay out too long, +you two. It's going to rain." + +Morfe High Moor hangs over Garth and a hot and swollen cloud was +hanging over Morfe High Moor. Above the gray ramparts the very east +was sultry. In the orchard under the low plum-trees it was as airless +as in a tent. + +Rowcliffe didn't want to stay out too long in the orchard. He knew +that the window of the Vicar's study raked it. So he asked Mary if she +would come with him for a stroll. (His only criticism of Mary was that +she didn't walk enough.) + +Mary thought, "My nice frock will be ruined if the rain comes." But +she went. + +"Shall it be the moor or the fields?" he said. + +Mary thought again, and said, "The fields." + +He was glad she hadn't said "The moor." + +They strolled past the village and turned into the pasture that lay +between the high road and the beck. The narrow paths led up a slope +from field to field through the gaps in the stone walls. The fields +turned with the turning of the dale and with that turning of the road +that Rowcliffe knew, under Karva. Instinctively, with a hand on her +arm he steered her, away from the high road and its turning, toward +the beck, so that they had their backs to the thunder storm as it came +up over Karva and the High Moor. + +It was when they were down in the bottom that it burst. + +There was shelter on the further side of the last field. They ran to +it, climbed, and crouched together under the stone wall. + +Rowcliffe took off the light overcoat he wore and tried to put it +on her. But Mary wouldn't let him. She looked at his clothes, at the +round dinner jacket with its silk collar and at the beautiful evening +trousers with their braided seams. He insisted. She refused. He +insisted still, and compromised by laying the overcoat round both of +them. + +And they crouched together under the wall, sitting closer so that the +coat might cover them. + +It thundered and lightened. The rain pelted them from the high +batteries of Karva. And Rowcliffe drew Mary closer. She laughed like a +happy child. + +Rowcliffe sighed. + +It was after he had sighed that he kissed her under the cover of the +coat. + + * * * * * + +They sat there for half an hour; three-quarters; till the storm ceased +with the rising of the moon. + + * * * * * + +"I'm afraid the pretty frock's spoiled," he said. + +"That doesn't matter. Your poor suit's ruined." + +He laughed. + +"Whatever's been ruined," he said, "it was worth it." + +Hand in hand they went back together through the drenched fields. + +At the first gap he stopped. + +"It's settled?" he said. "You won't go back on it? You _do_ care for +me? And you _will_ marry me?" + +"Yes." + +"Soon?" + +"Yes; soon." + +At the last gap he stopped again. + +"Mary," he said, "I suppose you knew about Gwenda?" + +"I knew there was something. What was it?" + +He had said to himself, "I shall have to tell her. I shall have to say +I cared for her." + +What he did say was, "There was nothing in it. It's all over. It was +all over long ago." + +"I knew," she said, "it was all over." + +And the solemn white moon came up, the moon that Gwenda loved; it came +up over Greffington Edge and looked at them. + + + + +XLV + + +It was Sunday afternoon, the last Sunday of August, the first since +that evening (it was a Thursday) when Steven Rowcliffe had dined at +the Vicarage. Mary had announced her engagement the next day. + +The news had an extraordinary effect on Alice and the Vicar. + +Mary had come to her father in his study on Friday evening after +Prayers. She informed him of the bare fact in the curtest manner, +without preface or apology or explanation. A terrible scene had +followed; at least the Vicar's part in it had been terrible. Nothing +he had ever said to Gwenda could compare with what he then said to +Mary. Alice's behavior he had been prepared for. He had expected +anything from Gwenda; but from Mary he had not expected this. It was +her treachery he resented, the treachery of a creature he had depended +on and trusted. He absolutely forbade the engagement. He said it was +unheard of. He spoke of her "conduct" as if it had been disgraceful or +improper. He declared that "that fellow" Rowcliffe should never come +inside his house again. He bullied and threatened and bullied again. +And through it all Mary sat calm and quiet and submissive. The +expression of the qualities he had relied on, her sweetness and +goodness, never left her face. She replied to his violence, "Yes, +Papa. Very well, Papa, I see." But, as Gwenda had warned him, bully as +he would, Mary beat him in the end. + +She looked meekly down at the hearth-rug and said, "I know how you +feel about it, Papa dear. I understand all you've got to say and I'm +sorry. But it isn't any good. You know it isn't just as well as I do." + +It might have been Gwenda who spoke to him, only that Gwenda could +never have looked meek. + +The Vicar had not recovered from the shock. He was convinced that +he never would recover from it. But on that Sunday he had found a +temporary oblivion, dozing in his study between two services. + +There had been no scene like that with Alice. But what had passed +between the sisters had been even worse. + +Mary had gone straight from the study to Ally's room. Ally was +undressing. + +Ally received the news in a cruel silence. She looked coldly, sternly +almost, and steadily at Mary. + +"You needn't have told me that," she said at last. "I could see what +you were doing the other night." + +"What _I_ was doing?" + +"Yes, you. I don't imagine Steven Rowcliffe did it" + +"Really Ally--what do you suppose I did?" + +"I don't know what it was. But I know you did something and I know +that--whatever it was--_I_ wouldn't have done it." + +And Mary answered quietly. "If I were you, Ally, I wouldn't show my +feelings quite so plainly." + +And Ally looked at her again. + +"It's not _my_ feelings--" she said. + +Mary reddened. "I don't know what you mean." + +"You'll know, some day," Ally said and turned her back on her. + + * * * * * + +Mary went out, closing the door softly, as if she spared her sick +sister's unreasonably irritated nerves. She felt rather miserable as +she undressed alone in her bedroom. She was wounded in her sweetness +and her goodness, and she was also a little afraid of what Ally might +take it into her head to say or do. She didn't try to think what +Ally had meant. Her sweetness and goodness, with their instinct of +self-preservation, told her that it might be better not. + +The August night was warm and tender, and, when Mary had got into bed +and lay stretched out in contentment under the white sheet, she began +to think of Rowcliffe to the exclusion of all other interests; and +presently, between a dream and a dream, she fell asleep. + + * * * * * + +But Ally could not sleep. + +She lay till dawn thinking and thinking, and turning from side to +side between her thoughts. They were not concerned with Gwenda or with +Rowcliffe. After her little spurt of indignation she had ceased to +think about Gwenda or Rowcliffe either. Mary's news had made her think +about herself, and her thoughts were miserable. Ally was so far like +her father the Vicar, that the idea of Mary's marrying was intolerable +to her and for precisely the same reason, because she saw no prospect +of marrying herself. Her father had begun by forbidding Mary's +engagement but he would end by sanctioning it. He would never sanction +_her_ marriage to Jim Greatorex. + +Even if she defied her father and married Jim Greatorex in spite of +him there would be almost as much shame in it as if, like Essy, she +had never married him at all. + +And she couldn't live without him. + +Ally had suffered profoundly from the shock that had struck her down +under the arcades on the road to Upthorne. It had left her more than +ever helpless, more than ever subject to infatuation, more than ever +morally inert. Ally's social self had grown rigid in the traditions +of her class, and she was still aware of the unsuitability of her +intimacy with Jim Greatorex; but disaster had numbed her once poignant +sense of it. She had yielded to his fascination partly through +weakness, partly in defiance, partly in the sheer, healthy +self-assertion of her suffering will and her frustrated senses. But +she had not will enough to defy her father. She credited him with an +infinite capacity to crush and wound. And for a day and a half the +sight of Mary's happiness--a spectacle which Mary did not spare +her---had made Ally restless. Under the incessant sting of it her +longing for Greatorex became insupportable. + +On Sunday the Vicar was still too deeply afflicted by the same +circumstance to notice Ally's movements, and Ally took advantage of +his apathy to excuse herself from Sunday school that afternoon. And +about three o'clock she was at Upthorne Farm. She and Greatorex had +found a moment after morning service to arrange the hour. + + * * * * * + +And now they were standing together in the doorway of the Farmhouse. + +In the house behind them, in the mistal and the orchard, in the long +marshes of the uplands and on the brooding hills there was stillness +and solitude. + +Maggie had gone up to her aunt at Bar Hill. The farm servants were +scattered in their villages. + +Alice had just told Greatorex of Mary's engagement and the Vicar's +opposition. + +"Eh, I was lookin' for it," he said. "But I maade sure it was your +oother sister." + +"So did I, Jim. So it was. So it would have been, only--" + +She stopped herself. She wasn't going to give Mary away to Jim. + +He looked at her. + +"Wall, it's nowt t' yo, is it?" + +"No. It's nothing to me--now. How did you know I cared for him?" + +"I knew because I looved yo. Because I was always thinkin' of yo. +Because I watched yo with him." + +"Oh Jim--would other people know?" + +"Naw. Nat they. They didn't look at yo the saame as I did." + +He became thoughtful. + +"Wall--this here sattles it," he said presently. "Yo caann't be laft +all aloan in t' Vicarage. Yo'll _'ave_ t' marry mae." + +"No," she said. "It won't be like that. It won't, really. If my father +won't let my sister marry Dr. Rowcliffe, you don't suppose he'll let +me marry you? It makes it more impossible than ever. That's what I +came to tell you." + +"It's naw use yo're tallin' mae. I won't hear it." + +He bent to her. + +"Ally--d'yo knaw we're aloan here?" + +"Yes, Jim." + +"We're saafe till Naddy cooms back for t' milkin'. We've three hours." + +She shook her head. "Only an hour and a half, Jim. I must be back for +tea." + +"Yo'll 'ave tae here. Yo've had it before. I'll maake it for yo." + +"I daren't, Jim. They'll expect me. They'll wonder." + +"Ay, 'tis thot waay always. Yo're no sooner coom than yo've got to be +back for this, thot and toother. I'm fair sick of it." + +"So am I." + +She sighed. + +"Wall then--yo must end it." + +"How can I end it?" + +"Yo knaw how." + +"Oh Jim--darling--haven't I told you?" + +"Yo've toald mae noothin' that makes a hap'orth o' difference to mae. +Yo've coom to mae. Thot's all I keer for." + +He put his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward the house-place. + +"Let me shaw yo t' house--now you've coom." + +His voice pleaded and persuaded. In spite of its north-country accent +Ally loved his voice. It sounded musical and mournful, like the voices +of the mountain sheep coming from far across the moor and purified by +distance. + +He took her through the kitchen and the little parlor at the end of +the house. + +As he looked round it, trying to see it with her eyes, doubt came to +him. But Ally, standing there, looked toward the kitchen. + +"Will Maggie be there?" she said. + +"Ay, Maaggie'll be there, ready when yo want her." + +"But," she said, "I don't want her." + +He followed her look. + +"I'll 'ave it all claned oop and paapered and paainted. Look yo--I +could have a hole knocked through t' back wall o' t' kitchen and a +winder put there--and roon oop a wooden partition and make a passage +for yo t' goa to yore awn plaace, soa's Maaggie'll not bae in yore +road." + +"You needn't. I like it best as it is." + +"Do yo? D'yo mind thot Soonda yo caame laasst year? Yo've aassked mae +whan it was I started thinkin' of yo. It was than. Thot daay whan yo +sot there in thot chair by t' fire, taalkin' t' mae and drinkin' yore +tae so pretty." + +She drew closer to him. + +"Did you really love me then?" + +"Ay--I looved yo than." + +She pondered it. + +"Jim--what would you have done if I hadn't loved you?" + +He choked back something in his throat before he answered her. "What +sud I have doon? I sud have goan on looving yo joost the saame. + +"We'll goa oopstairs now." + +He took her back and out through the kitchen and up the stone stairs +that turned sharply in their narrow place in the wall. He opened the +door at the head of the landing. + +"This would bae our room. 'Tis t' best." + +He took her into the room where John Greatorex had died. It was the +marriage chamber, the birth-chamber, and the death-chamber of all the +Greatorexes. The low ceiling still bulged above the big double bed +John Greatorex had died in. + +The room was tidy and spotlessly clean. The walls had been +whitewashed. Fresh dimity curtains hung at the window. The bed was +made, a clean white counterpane was spread on it. + +The death room had been made ready for the living. The death-bed +waited for the bride. + +Ally stood there, under the eyes of her lover, looking at those +things. She shivered slightly. + +She said to herself, "It's the room his father died in." + +And there came on her a horror of the room and of all that had +happened in it, a horror of death and of the dead. + +She turned away to the window and looked out. The long marshland +stretched below, white under the August sun. Beyond it the green hills +with their steep gray cliffs rose and receded, like a coast line, head +after head. + +To Ally the scene was desolate beyond all bearing and the house was +terrible. + +Her eyelids pricked. Her mouth trembled. She kept her back turned to +Greatorex while she stifled a sob with her handkerchief pressed tight +to her lips. + +He saw and came to her and put his arm round her. + +"What is it, Ally? What is it, loove?" + +She looked up at him. + +"I don't know, Jim. But--I think--I'm afraid." + +"What are you afraid of?" + +She thought a moment. "I'm afraid of father." + +"Yo med bae ef yo staayed with him. Thot's why I want yo t' coom to +mae." + +He looked at her. + +"'Tisn' thot yo're afraid of. 'Tis soomthin' alse thot yo wawn't tall +mae." + +"Well--I think--I'm a little bit afraid of this house. It's--it's so +horribly lonely." + +He couldn't deny it. + +"A'y; it's rackoned t' bae loanly. But I sall navver leaave yo. +I'm goain' t' buy a new trap for yo, soa's yo can coom with mae and +Daaisy. Would yo like thot, Ally?" + +"Yes, Jim, I'd love it. But----" + +"It'll not bae soa baad. Whan I'm out in t' mistal and in t' fields +and thot, yo'll have Maaggie with yo." + +She whispered. "Jim--I can't bear Maggie. I'm afraid of her." + +"Afraid o' pore Maaggie?" + +He took it in. He wondered. He thought he understood. + +"Maaggie sall goa. I'll 'ave anoother. An' yo sall 'ave a yooung laass +t' waait on yo. Ef it's Maaggie, shea sall nat stand in yore road." + +"It isn't Maggie--altogether." + +"Than--for Gawd's saake, loove, what is it?" + +She sobbed. "It's everything. It's something in this house--in this +room." + +He looked at her gravely now. + +"Naw," he said slowly, "'tis noon o' thawse things. It's mae. It's mae +yo're afraid of. Yo think I med bae too roough with yo." + +But at that she cried out with a little tender cry and pressed close +to him. + +"No--no--no--it isn't you. It isn't. It couldn't be." + +He crushed her in his arms. His mouth clung to her face and passed +over it and covered it with kisses. + +"Am I too roough? Tall mae--tall mae." + +"No," she whispered. + +He pushed back her hat from her forehead, kissing her hair. She took +off her hat and flung it on the floor. + +His voice came fast and thick. + +"Kiss mae back ef yo loove mae." + +She kissed him. She stiffened and leaned back in the crook of his arm +that held her. + +His senses swam. He grasped her as if he would have lifted her bodily +from the floor. She was light in his arms as a child. He had turned +her from the window. + +He looked fiercely round the room that shut them in. His eyes lowered; +they fixed themselves on the bed with its white counterpane. They +saw under the white counterpane the dead body of his father stretched +there, and the stain on the grim beard tilted to the ceiling. + +He loosed her and pushed her from him. + +"We moost coom out o' this," he muttered. + +He pushed her from the room, gently, with a hand on her shoulder, and +made her go before him down the stairs. + +He went back into the room to pick up her hat. + +He found her waiting for him, looking back, at the turn of the stair +where John Greatorex's coffin had stuck in the corner of the wall. + +"Jim--I'm so frightened," she said. + +"Ay. Yo'll bae all right downstairs." + +They stood in the kitchen, each looking at the other, each panting, +she in her terror and he in his agony. + +"Take me away," she said. "Out of the house. That room frightened me. +There's something there." + +"Ay;" he assented. "There med bae soomthing. Sall we goa oop t' +fealds?" + + * * * * * + +The Three Fields looked over the back of Upthorne Farm. Naked and +gray, the great stone barn looked over the Three Fields. A narrow +track led to it, through the gaps, slantwise, from the gate of the +mistal. + +Above the fields the barren, ruined hillside ended and the moor began. +It rolled away southward and westward, in dusk and purple and silver +green, utterly untamed, uncaught by the network of the stone walls. + +The barn stood high and alone on the slope of the last field, a long, +broad-built nave without its tower. A single thorn-tree crouched +beside it. + +Alice Cartaret and Greatorex went slowly up the Three Fields. There +was neither thought nor purpose in their going. + +The quivering air was like a sheet of glass let down between plain and +hill. + +Slowly, with mournful cries, a flock of mountain sheep came down over +the shoulder of the moor. Behind them a solitary figure topped the +rise as Alice and Greatorex came up the field-track. + +Alice stopped in the track and turned. + +"Somebody's coming over the moor. He'll see us." + +Greatorex stood scanning the hill. + +"'Tis Nad, wi' t' dawg, drivin' t' sheep." + +"Oh, Jim, he'll see us." + +"Nat he!" + +But he drew her behind the shelter of the barn. + +"He'll come down the fields. He'll be sure to see us." + +"Ef he doos, caann't I walk in my awn fealds wi' my awn sweetheart?" + +"I don't want to be seen," she moaned. + +"Wall--?" he pushed open the door of the barn. "Wae'll creep in here +than, tall he's paassed." + +A gray light slid through the half-shut door and through the long, +narrow slits in the walls. From the open floor of the loft there came +the sweet, heavy scent of hay. + +"He'll see the door open. He'll come in. He'll find us here." + +"He wawn't." + +But Jim shut the door. + +"We're saafe enoof. But 'tis naw plaace for yo. Yo'll mook yore lil +feet. Staay there--where yo are--tell I tall yo." + +He groped his way in the half darkness up the hay loft stair. She +heard his foot going heavily on the floor over her head. + +He drew back the bolt and pushed open the door in the high wall. The +sunlight flooded the loft; it streamed down the stair. The dust danced +in it. + +Jim stood on the stair. He smiled down at Alice where she waited +below. + +"Coom oop into t' haay loft, Ally." + +He stooped. He held out his hand and she climbed to him up the stair. + +They sat there on the floor of the loft, silent, in the attitude of +children who crouch hiding in their play. He had strewn for her a +carpet of the soft, sweet hay and piled it into cushions. + +"Oh, Jim," she said at last. "I'm so frightened. I'm so horribly +frightened." + +She stretched out her arm and slid her hand into his. + +Jim's hand pressed hers and let it go. He leaned forward, his elbows +propped on his knees, his hands clutching his forehead. And in his +thick, mournful voice he spoke. + +"Yo wouldn't bae freetened ef yo married mae. There'd bae an and of +these scares, an' wae sudn't 'ave t' roon these awful risks." + +"I can't marry you, darling. I can't." + +"Yo caann't, because yo're freetened o' mae. I coom back to thot. Yo +think I'm joost a roough man thot caann't understand yo. But I do. I +couldn't bae roough with yo, Ally, anny more than Nad, oop yon, could +bae roough wi' t' lil laambs." + +He was lying flat on his back now, with his arms stretched out above +his head. He stared up at the rafters as he went on. + +"Yo wouldn't bae freetened o' mae ef yo looved mae as I loove yo." + +That brought her to his side with her soft cry. + +For a moment he lay rigid and still. + +Then he turned and put his arm round her. The light streamed on them +where they lay. Through the open doorway of the loft they heard the +cry of the sheep coming down into the pasture. + + * * * * * + +Greatorex got up and slid the door softly to. + + + + +XLVI + + +Morfe Fair was over and the farmers were going home. + +A broken, straggling traffic was on the roads from dale to dale. There +were men who went gaily in spring carts and in wagons. There were men +on horseback and on foot who drove their sheep and their cattle before +them. + +A train of three were going slowly up Garthdale, with much lingering +to gather together and rally the weary and bewildered flocks. + +Into this train there burst, rocking at full gallop, a trap drawn +by Greatorex's terrified and indignant mare. Daisy was not driven +by Greatorex, for the reins were slack in his dropped hands, she was +urged, whipped up, and maddened to her relentless speed. Her open +nostrils drank the wind of her going. + +Greatorex's face flamed and his eyes were brilliant. They declared a +furious ecstasy. Ever and again he rose and struggled to stand upright +and recover his grip of the reins. Ever and again he was pitched +backward on to the seat where he swayed, perilously, with the swaying +of the trap. + +Behind him, in the bottom of the trap, two young calves, netted in, +pushed up their melancholy eyes and innocent noses through the mesh. +Hurled against each other, flung rhythmically from side to side, they +shared the blind trouble of the man and the torment of the mare. + +For the first two miles out of Morfe the trap charged, scattering men +and beasts before it and taking the curves of the road at a tangent. +With the third mile the pace slackened. The mare had slaked her thirst +for the wind of her going and Greatorex's fury was appeased. At the +risk of pitching forward over the step he succeeded in gathering up +the reins as they neared the dangerous descent to Garthdale. + +He had now dropped from the violence of his ecstasy into a dream-like +state in which he was borne swaying on a vague, interminable road that +overhung, giddily, the bottomless pit and was flanked by hills that +loomed and reeled, that oppressed him with their horrible immensity. + +He passed the bridge, the church, the Vicarage, the schoolhouse with +its beckoning tree, and by the mercy of heaven he was unaware of them. + +At the turn of the road, On Upthorne hill, the mare, utterly sobered +by the gradient, bowed her head and went with slow, wise feet, taking +care of the trap and of her master. + +As for Greatorex, he had ceased to struggle. And at the door of his +house his servant Maggie received him in her arms. + + * * * * * + +He stayed in bed the whole of the next day, bearing his sickness, +while Maggie waited on him. And in the evening when he lay under her +hand, weak, but clear-headed, she delivered herself of what was in her +mind. + +"Wall--yo may thank Gawd yo're laayin' saafe in yore bed, Jim +Greatorex. It'd sarve yo right ef Daaisy 'd lat yo coom hoam oopside +down wi yore 'ead draggin' in t' road. Soom daay yo'll bae laayin' +there with yore nack brawken. + +"Ay, yo may well scootle oonder t' sheets, though there's nawbody +but mae t' look at yo. Yo'd navver tooch anoother drap o' thot felthy +stoof, Jimmy, ef yo could sea yoreself what a sight yo bae. Naw +woonder Assy Gaale wouldn't 'ave yo, for all yo've laft her wi' t' lil +baaby." + +"Who toald yo she wouldn't 'ave mae?" + +"Naybody toald mae. But I knaw. I knaw. I wouldn't 'ave yo myself ef +yo aassked mae. I want naw droonkards to marry mae." + +Greatorex became pensive. + +"Yo'd bae freetened o' mae, Maaggie?" he asked. + +And Maggie, seeing her advantage, drove it home. + +"There's more than mae and Assy thot's freetened t' marry yo," she +said. + +He darkened. "Yo 'oald yore tongue. Yo dawn't knaw what yo're saayin', +my laass." + +"Dawn't I? There's more than mae thot knaws, Mr. Greatorex. Assy isn't +t' awnly woon yo've maade talk o' t' plaace." + +"What do yo mane? Speaak oop. What d'yo mane----Yo knaw?" + +"Yo'd best aassk Naddy. He med tall ye 'oo was with yo laasst Soonda +oop t' feald in t' girt byre." + +"Naddy couldn't sae 'oo 't was. Med a been Assy. Med a been yo." + +"'T wasn' mae, Mr. Greatorex, an' 't was n' Assy. Look yo 'ere. I tall +yo Assy's freetened o' yo." + +"'Oo says she's freetened?" + +"I saays it. She's thot freetened thot she'd wash yore sweet'eart's +dirty cleathes sooner 'n marry yo." + +"She doesn't wash them?" + +"Shea does. T' kape yore baaby, Jim Greatorex." + +With that she left him. + + * * * * * + +For the next three months Greatorex was more than ever uneasy in his +soul. The Sunday after Maggie's outburst he had sat all morning and +afternoon in his parlor with his father's Bible. He had not even tried +to see Alice Cartaret. + +For three months, off and on, in the intervals of seeing Alice, he +longed, with an intense and painful longing, for his God. He longed +for him just because he felt that he was utterly separated from him by +his sin. He wanted the thing he couldn't have and wasn't fit to have. +He wanted it, just as he wanted Alice Cartaret. + +And by his sin he did not mean his getting drunk. Greatorex did not +think of God as likely to take his getting drunk very seriously, +any more than he had seemed to take Maggie and Essy seriously. For +Greatorex measured God's reprobation by his own repentance. + +His real offense against God was his offense against Alice Cartaret. +He had got drunk in order to forget it. + +But that resource would henceforth be denied him. He was not going +to get drunk any more, because he knew that if he did Alice Cartaret +wouldn't marry him. + +Meanwhile he nourished his soul on its own longing, on the Psalms of +David and on the Book of Job. + +Greatorex would have made a happy saint. But he was a most lugubrious +sinner. + + + + +XLVII + + +The train from Durlingham rolled slowly into Reyburn station. + +Gwenda Cartaret leaned from the window of a third class carriage and +looked up and down the platform. She got out, handing her suit-case +to a friendly porter. Nobody had come to meet her. They were much too +busy up at the Vicarage. + +From the next compartment there alighted a group of six persons, a +lady in widow's weeds, an elderly lady and gentleman who addressed her +affectionately as "Fanny, dear," and (obviously belonging to the pair) +a very young man and a still younger woman. + +There was also a much older man, closely attached to them, but not +quite so obviously related. + +These six people also looked up and down the platform, expecting to +be met. They were interested in Gwenda Cartaret. They gazed at her as +they had already glanced, surreptitiously and kindly, on the platform +at Durlingham. Now they seemed to be saying to themselves that they +were sure it must be she. + +Gwenda walked quickly away from them and disappeared through the +booking-office into the station yard. + +And then Rowcliffe, who had apparently been hiding in the general +waiting-room, came out on to the platform. + +The six fell upon him with cries of joy and affection. + +They were his mother, his paternal uncle and aunt, his two youngest +cousins, and Dr. Harker, his best friend and colleague who had taken +his place in January when he had been ill. + +They had all come down from Leeds for Rowcliffe's wedding. + + * * * * * + +Rowcliffe's trap and Peacock's from Garthdale stood side by side in +the station-yard. + +Gwenda in Peacock's trap had left the town before she heard behind her +the clanking hoofs of Rowcliffe's little brown horse. + +She thought, "He will pass in another minute. I shall see him." + +But she did not see him. All the way up Rathdale to Morfe the sound of +the wheels and of the clanking hoofs pursued her, and Rowcliffe still +hung back. He did not want to pass her. + +"Well," said Peacock, "thot beats mae. I sud navver a thought thot t' +owd maare could a got away from t' doctor's horse. Nat ef e'd a mind +t' paass 'er." + +"No," said Gwenda. She was thinking, "It's Mary. It's Mary. How could +she, when she _knew_, when she was on her honor not to think of him?" + +And she remembered a conversation she had had with her stepmother two +months ago, when the news came. (Robina had seized the situation at a +glance and she had probed it to its core.) + +"You wanted him to marry Ally, did you? It wasn't much good you're +going away if you left him with Mary." + +"But," she had said, "Mary knew." + +And Robina had answered, marvelously. "You should never have let her. +It was her knowing that did it. You were three women to one man, and +Mary was the one without a scruple. Do you suppose she'd think of Ally +or of you, either?" + +And she had tried to be loyal to Mary and to Rowcliffe. She had said, +"If we _were_ three, we all had our innings, and he made his choice." + +And Robina, "It was Mary did the choosing." + +She had added that Gwenda was a little fool, and that she ought to +have known that though Mary was as meek as Moses she was that sort. + +She went on, thinking, to the steady clanking of the hoofs. + +"I suppose," she said to herself, "she couldn't help it." + +The lights of Morfe shone through the November darkness. The little +slow mare crawled up the winding hill to the top of the Green; +Rowcliffe's horse was slower. But no sooner had Peacock's trap passed +the doctor's house on its way out of the village square, than the +clanking hoofs went fast. + +Rowcliffe was free to go his own pace now. + + * * * * * + +"Which of you two is going to hook me up?" said Mary. + +She was in the Vicar's room, putting on her wedding-gown before the +wardrobe glass. Her two sisters were dressing her. + +"I will," said Gwenda. + +"You'd better let me," said Alice. "I know where the eyes are." + +Gwenda lifted up the wedding-veil and held it ready. And while Alice +pulled and fumbled Mary gazed at her own reflection and at Alice's. + +"You should have done as Mummy said and had your frock made in London, +like Gwenda. They'd have given you a decent cut. You look as if you +couldn't breathe." + +"My frock's all right," said Alice. + +Her fingers trembled as she strained at the hooks and eyes. + +And in the end it was Gwenda who hooked Mary up while Alice held the +veil. She held it in front of her. The long streaming net shivered +with the trembling of her hands. + + * * * * * + +The wedding was at two o'clock. The church was crowded, so were the +churchyard and the road beside the Vicarage and the bridge over the +beck. Morfe and Greffington had emptied themselves into Garthdale. +(Greffington had lent its organist.) + +It was only when it was all over that somebody noticed that Jim +Greatorex was not there with the village choir. "Celebrating a bit too +early," somebody said. + +And it was only when it was all over that Rowcliffe found Gwenda. + +He found her in the long, flat pause, the half-hour of profoundest +realisation that comes when the bride disappears to put off her +wedding-gown for the gown she will go away in. She had come out to the +wedding-party gathered at the door, to tell them that the bride would +soon be ready. Rowcliffe and Harker were standing apart, at the end of +the path, by the door that led from the garden to the orchard. + +He came toward her. Harker drew back into the orchard. They followed +him and found themselves alone. + +For ten minutes they paced the narrow flagged path under the orchard +wall. And they talked, quickly, like two who have but a short time. + +"Well--so you've come back at last?" + +"At last? I haven't been gone six months." + +"You see, time feels longer to us down here." + +"That's odd. It goes faster." + +"Anyhow, you're not tired of London?" + +She stared at him for a second and then looked away. + +"Oh no, I'm not tired of it yet." + +They turned. + +"Shall you stop long here?" + +"I'm going back to-morrow." + +"To-morrow? You're so glad to get back then?" + +"So glad to get back. I only came down for Mary's wedding." + +He smiled. + +"You won't come for anything but a wedding?" + +"A funeral might fetch me." + +"Well, Gwenda, I can't say you look as if London agreed with you +particularly." + +"I can't say you look as if Garthdale agreed very well with you." + +"I'm only tired--tired to death." + +"I'm sorry." + +"I want a holiday. And I'm going to get one--for a month. _You_ look +as if you'd been burning the candle at both ends, if you'll forgive my +saying so." + +"Oh--for all the candles I burn! It isn't such awfully hard work, you +know." + +"What isn't?" + +"What I'm doing." + +He stopped straight in the narrow path and looked at her. + +"I say, what _are_ you doing?" + +She told him. + +His face expressed surprise and resentment and a curious wonder and +bewilderment. + +"But I thought--I thought----They told me you were having no end of a +time." + +"Tunbridge Wells isn't very amusing. No more is Lady Frances." + +Again he stopped dead and stared at her. + +"But they told me--I mean I thought you were in London with Mrs. +Cartaret, all the time." + +She laughed. + +"Did Papa tell you that?" + +"No. I don't know who told me. I--I got the impression." He almost +stammered. "I must have misunderstood." + +She meditated. + +"It sounds awfully like Papa. He simply can't believe, poor thing, +that I'd stick to anything so respectable." + +"Hah!" He laughed out his contempt for the Vicar. He had forgotten +that he too had wondered. + +"Chuck it, Gwenda," he said, "chuck it." + +"I can't," she said. "Not yet. It's too lucrative." + +"But if it makes you seedy?" + +"It doesn't. It won't. It isn't hard work. Only----" She broke off. +"It's time for you to go." + +"Steve! Steve!" + +Rowcliffe's youngest cousin was calling from the study window. + +"Come along. Mary's ready." + +"All right," he shouted. "I'm coming." + +But he stood still there at the end of the orchard under the gray +wall. + +"Good-bye, Steven." + +Gwenda put out her hand. + +He held her with his troubled eyes. He did not see her hand. He saw +her eyes only that troubled his. + +"I say, is it very beastly?" + +"No. Not a bit. You must go, Steven, you must go." + +"If I'd only known," he persisted. + +They were going down the path now toward the house. + +"I wouldn't have let you----" + +"You couldn't have stopped me." + +(It was what she had always said to all of them.) + +She smiled. "You didn't stop me going, you know." + +"If you'd only told me--" + +She smiled again, a smile as of infinite wisdom. "Dear Steven, there +was nothing to tell." + +They had come to the door in the wall. It led into the garden. He +opened to let her pass through. + +The wedding-party was gathered together on the flagged path before the +house. It greeted them with laughter and cries, cheerfully ironic. + +The bride in her traveling dress stood on the threshold. Outside the +carriage waited at the open gate. + +Rowcliffe took Mary's hand in his and they ran down the path. + +"He can sprint fast enough now," said Rowcliffe's uncle. + + * * * * * + +But his youngest cousin and Harker, his best friend, had gone faster. +They were waiting together on the bridge, and the girl had a slipper +in her hand. + +"Were you ever," she said, "at such an awful wedding?" + +Harker saw nothing wrong about the wedding but he admitted that his +experience was small. + +The youngest cousin was not appeased by his confession. She went on. + +"Why on earth didn't Steven _try_ to marry Gwenda?" + +"Not much good trying," said the doctor, "if she wouldn't have him." + +"You believe that silly story? I don't. Did you see her face?" + +Harker admitted that he had seen her face. + +And then, as the carriage passed, Rowcliffe's youngest cousin did an +odd thing. She tossed the slipper over the bridge into the beck. + +Harker had not time to comment on her action. They were coming for him +from the house. + +Rowcliffe's youngest sister-in-law had fainted away on the top +landing. + +Everybody remembered then that it was she who had been in love with +him. + + + + +XLVIII + + +Alice had sent for Gwenda. + +Three months had gone by since her sister's wedding, and all her fears +were gathered together in the fear of her father and of what was about +to happen to her. + +And before Gwenda could come to her, Rowcliffe and Mary had come to +the Vicar in his study. They had been a long time with him, and then +Rowcliffe had gone out. They had sent him to Upthorne. And the two had +gone into the dining-room and they had her before them there. + +It was early in a dull evening in February. The lamps were lit and in +their yellow light Ally's face showed a pale and quivering exaltation. +It was the face of a hunted and terrified thing that has gathered +courage in desperation to turn and stand. She defended herself with +sullen defiance and denial. + +It had come to that. For Ned, the shepherd at Upthorne, had told what +he had seen. He had told it to Maggie, who told it to Mrs. Gale. He +had told it to the head-gamekeeper at Garthdale Manor, who had a tale +of his own that he too had told. And Dr. Harker had a tale. Harker had +taken his friend's practice when Rowcliffe was away on his honeymoon. +He had seen Alice and Greatorex on the moors at night as he had driven +home from Upthorne. And he had told Rowcliffe what he had seen. And +Rowcliffe had told Mary and the Vicar. + +And at the cottage down by the beck Essy Gale and her mother had +spoken together, but what they had spoken and what they had heard they +had kept secret. + +"I haven't been with him," said Alice for the third time. "I don't +know what you're talking about." + +"Ally--there's no use your saying that when you've been seen with +him." + +It was Mary who spoke. + +"I ha--haven't." + +"Don't lie," said the Vicar. + +"I'm not. They're l-l-lying," said Ally, shaken into stammering now. + +"Who do you suppose would lie about it?" Mary said. + +"Essy would." + +"Well--I may tell you, Ally, that you're wrong. Essy's kept your +secret. So has Mrs. Gale. You ought to go down on your knees and thank +the poor girl--after what you did to her." + +"It _was_ Essy. I know. She's mad to marry him herself, so she goes +lying about _me_." + +"Nobody's lying about her," said the Vicar, "but herself. And she's +condemning herself with every word she says. You'd better have left +Essy out of it, my girl." + +"I tell you that she's lying if she says she's seen me with him. She's +never seen me." + +"It wasn't Essy who saw you," Mary said. + +"Somebody else is lying then. Who was it?" + +"If you _must_ know who saw you," the Vicar said, "it was Dr. Harker. +You were seen a month ago hanging about Upthorne alone with that +fellow." + +"Only once," Ally murmured. + +"You own to 'once'? You--you----" he stifled with his fury. "Once is +enough with a low blackguard like Greatorex. And you were seen more +than once. You've been seen with him after dark." He boomed. "There +isn't a poor drunken slut in the village who's disgraced herself like +you." + +Mary intervened. "Sh--sh--Papa. They'll hear you in the kitchen." + +"They'll hear _her_." (Ally was moaning.) "Stop that whimpering and +whining." + +"She can't help it." + +"She can help it if she likes. Come, Ally, we're all here----Poor +Mary's come up and Steven. There are things we've got to know and +I insist on knowing them. You've brought the most awful trouble and +shame on me and your sister and brother-in-law, and the least you can +do is to answer truthfully. I can't stand any more of this distressing +altercation. I'm not going to extort any painful confession. You've +only got to answer a simple Yes or No. Were you anywhere with Jim +Greatorex before Dr. Harker saw you in December? Think before you +speak. Yes or No." + +She thought. + +"N-no." + +"Remember, Ally," said Mary, "he saw you in November." + +"He didn't. Where?" + +The Vicar answered her. "At your sister's wedding." + +She recovered. "Of course he did. Jim Greatorex wasn't there, anyhow." + +"He was _not_." + +The stress had no significance for Ally. Her brain was utterly +bewildered. + +"Well. You say you were never anywhere with Greatorex before December. +You were not with him in--when was it, Mary?" + +"August," said Mary. "The end of August." + +Ally simply stared at him in her white bewilderment. Dates had no +meaning as yet for her cowed brain. + +He helped her. + +"In the Three Fields. On a Sunday afternoon. Did you or did you not go +into the barn?" + +At that she cried out with a voice of anguish. "No--No--No!" + +But Mary had her knife ready and she drove it home. + +"Ally--Ned Langstaff _saw_ you." + + * * * * * + +When Rowcliffe came back from Upthorne he found Alice cowering in a +corner of the couch and crying out to her tormentors. + +"You brutes--you brutes--if Gwenda was here she wouldn't let you bully +me!" + +Mary turned to her husband. + +"Steven--will you speak to her? She won't tell us anything. We've been +at it more than half an hour." + +Rowcliffe stared at her and the Vicar with strong displeasure. + +"I should think you had by the look of her. Why can't you leave the +poor child alone?" + +At the sound of his voice, the first voice of compassion that had yet +spoken to her, Alice cried to him. + +"Steven! Steven! They've been saying awful things to me. Tell them it +isn't true. Tell them you don't believe it." + +"There--there----" His voice stuck in his throat. + +He put his hand on her shoulder, standing between her and her father. + +"Tell them----" She looked up at him with her piteous eyes. + +"She's worried to death," said Rowcliffe. "You might have left it for +to-night at any rate." + +"We couldn't, Steven, when you've sent for Greatorex. We _must_ get at +the truth before he comes." + +Rowcliffe shrugged his shoulders. + +"Have you brought him?" said the Vicar. + +"No, I haven't. He's in Morfe. I've sent word for him to come on +here." + +Alice looked sharply at him. + +"What have you sent for _him_ for? Do you suppose _he'd_ give me +away?" + +She began to weep softly. + +"All this," said Rowcliffe, "is awfully bad for her." + +"You don't seem to consider what it is for us." + +Rowcliffe took no notice of the Vicar. + +"Look here, Mary--you'd better take her upstairs before he comes. Put +her to bed. Try and get her to sleep." + +"Very well. Come, Ally." Mary was gentler now. + +Then Ally became wonderful. + +She stood up and faced them all. + +"I won't go," she said. "I'll stay till he comes if I sit up all +night. How do I know what you're going to do to him? Do you suppose +I'm going to leave him with you? If anybody touches him I'll _kill_ +them." + +"Ally, dear----" + +Mary put her hand gently on her sister's arm to lead her from the +room. + +Ally shook off the hand and turned on her in hysteric fury. + +"Stop pawing me--you! How dare you touch me after what you've said. +Steven--she says I took Essy's lover from her." + +"I didn't, Ally. She doesn't know what she's saying." + +"You _did_ say it. She did, Steven. She said I ought to thank Essy for +not splitting on me when I took her lover from her. As if _she_ could +talk when _she_ took Steven from Gwenda." + +"Oh--Steven!" + +Rowcliffe shook his head at Mary, frowning, as a sign to her not to +mind what Alice said. + +"You treat me as if I was dirt, but I'd have died rather than have +done what she did." + +"Come, Alice, come. You know you don't mean it," said Rowcliffe, +utterly gentle. + +"I do mean it! She sneaked you from behind Gwenda's back and lied to +you to make you think she didn't care for you----" + +"Be quiet, you shameful girl!" + +"Be quiet yourself, Papa. I'm not as shameful as Molly is. I'm not as +shameful as you are yourself. You killed Mother." + +"Oh--my--God----" The words were almost inaudible in the Vicar's +shuddering groan. + +He advanced on her to turn her from the room. Ally sank on her sofa as +she saw him come. + +Rowcliffe stepped between them. + +"For God's sake, sir----" + +Ally was struggling in hysterics now, choking between her piteous and +savage cries. + +Rowcliffe laid her on the sofa and put a cushion under her head. When +he tried to loosen her gown at her throat she screamed. + +"It's all right, Ally, it's all right." + +"_Is_ it? _Is_ it?" The Vicar hissed at him. + +"It won't be unless you leave her to me. If you go on bullying her +much longer I won't answer for the consequences. You surely don't +want----" + +"It's all right, Ally. Lie quiet, there--like that. That's a good +girl. Nobody's going to worry you any more." + +He was kneeling by the sofa, pressing his hand to her forehead. Ally +still sobbed convulsively, but she lay quiet. She closed her eyes +under Rowcliffe's soothing hand. + +"You might go and see if you can find some salvolatile, Mary," he +said. + +Mary went. + +The Vicar, who had turned his back on this scene, went, also, into his +study. + +Ally still kept her eyes shut. + +"Has Mary gone?" + +"Yes." + +"And Papa?" + +"Yes. Lie still." + +She lay still. + + * * * * * + +There was the sound of wheels on the road. It brought Mary and the +Vicar back into the room. The wheels stopped. The gate clanged. + +Rowcliffe rose. + +"That's Greatorex. I'll go to him." + +Ally lay very still now, still as a corpse, with closed eyes. + +The house door opened. + +Rowcliffe drew back into the room. + +"It isn't Greatorex," he said. "It's Gwenda." + +"Who sent for her?" said the Vicar. + +"I did," said Ally. + +She had opened her eyes. + +"Thank God for that, anyhow," said Rowcliffe. + +Mary and her father looked at each other. Neither of them seemed +to want to go out to Gwenda. It struck Rowcliffe that the Vicar was +afraid. + +They waited while Gwenda paid her driver and dismissed him. They could +hear her speaking out there in the passage. + +The house door shut and she came to them. She paused in the doorway, +looking at the three who stood facing her, embarrassed and expectant. +She seemed to be thinking that it was odd that they should stand +there. The door, thrown back, hid Alice, who lay behind it on her +sofa. + +"Come in, Gwenda," said the Vicar with exaggerated suavity. + +She came in and closed the door. Then she saw Alice. + +She took the hand that Rowcliffe held out to her without looking at +him. She was looking at Alice. + +Alice gave a low cry and struggled to her feet. + +"I thought you were never coming," she said. + +Gwenda held her in her arms. She faced them. + +"What have you been doing to her--all of you?" + +Rowcliffe answered. Though he was the innocent one of the three he +looked the guiltiest. He looked utterly ashamed. + +"We've had rather a scene, and it's been a bit too much for her," he +said. + +"So I see," said Gwenda. She had not greeted Mary or her father. + +"If you could persuade her to go upstairs to bed----" + +"I've told you I won't go till he comes," said Ally. + +She sat down on the sofa as a sign that she was going to wait. + +"Till who comes?" Gwenda asked. + +She stared at the three with a fierce amazement. And they were +abashed. + +"She doesn't know, Steve," said Mary. + +"I certainly don't," said Gwenda. + +She sat down beside Ally. + +"Has anybody been bullying you, Ally?" + +"They've all been bullying me except Steven. Steven's been an angel. +He doesn't believe what they say. Papa says I'm a shameful girl, and +Mary says I took Jim Greatorex from Essy. And they think----" + +"Never mind what they think, darling." + +"I must protest----" + +The Vicar would have burst out again but that his son-in-law +restrained him. + +"Better leave her to Gwenda," he said. + +He opened the door of the study. "Really, sir, I think you'd better. +And you, too, Mary." + +And with her husband's compelling hand on her shoulder Mary went into +the study. + +The Vicar followed them. + + * * * * * + +As the door closed on them Alice looked furtively around. + +"What is it, Ally?" Gwenda said. + +"Don't you know?" she whispered. + +"No. You haven't told me anything." + +"You don't know why I sent for you? Can't you think?" + +Gwenda was silent. + +"Gwenda--I'm in the most awful trouble----" She looked around again. +Then she spoke rapidly and low with a fearful hoarse intensity. + +"I won't tell them, but I'll tell you. They've been trying to get it +out of me by bullying, but I wasn't going to let them. Gwenda--they +wanted to make me tell straight out, there--before Steven. And I +wouldn't--I wouldn't. They haven't got a word out of me. But it's +true, what they say." + +She paused. + +"About me." + +"My lamb, I don't know what they say about you." + +"They say that I'm going to----" + +Crouching where she sat, bent forward, staring with her stare, she +whispered. + +"Oh--Ally--darling----" + +"I'm not ashamed, not the least little bit ashamed. And I don't care +what they think of me. But I'm not going to tell them. I've told _you_ +because I know you won't hate me, you won't think me awful. But I +won't tell Mary, and I won't tell Papa. Or Steven. If I do they'll +make me marry him." + +"Was it--was it----" + +Ally's instinct heard the name that her sister spared her. + +"Yes--Yes--Yes. It is." + +She added, "I don't care." + +"Ally--what made you do it?" + +"I don't--know." + +"Was it because of Steven?" + +Ally raised her head. + +"No. It was _not_. Steven isn't fit to black his boots. I know +that----" + +"But--you don't care for him?" + +"I did--I did. I do. I care awfully----" + +"Well----" + +"Oh, Gwenda, can they _make_ me marry him?" + +"You don't want to marry him?" + +Ally shook her head, slowly, forlornly. + +"I see. You're ashamed of him." + +"I'm _not_ ashamed. I told you I wasn't. It isn't that----" + +"What is it?" + +"I'm afraid." + +"Afraid----" + +"It isn't his fault. He wants to marry me. He wanted to all the time. +He never meant that it should be like this. He asked me to marry him. +Before it happened. Over and over again he asked me and I wouldn't +have him." + +"Why wouldn't you?" + +"I've told you. Because I'm afraid." + +"Why are you afraid?" + +"I don't know. I'm not really afraid of _him_. I think I'm afraid of +what he might do to me if I married him." + +"_Do_ to you?" + +"Yes. He might beat me. They always do, you know, those sort of men, +when you marry them. I couldn't bear to be beaten." + +"Oh----" Gwenda drew in her breath. + +"He wouldn't do it, Gwenda, if he knew what he was about. But he might +if he didn't. You see, they say he drinks. That's what frightens me. +That's why I daren't tell Papa. Papa wouldn't care if he did beat me. +He'd say it was my punishment." + +"If you feel like that about it you mustn't marry him." + +"They'll make me." + +"They shan't make you. I won't let them. It'll be all right, darling. +I'll take you away with me to-morrow, and look after you, and keep you +safe." + +"But--they'll have to know." + +"Yes. They'll have to know. I'll tell them." + +She rose. + +"Stay here," she said. "And keep quiet. I'm going to tell them now." + +"Not now--please, not now." + +"Yes. Now. It'll be all over. And you'll sleep." + + * * * * * + +She went in to where they waited for her. + +Her father and her sister lifted their eyes to her as she came in. +Rowcliffe had turned away. + +"Has she said anything?" + +(Mary spoke.) + +"Yes." + +The Vicar looked sternly at his second daughter. + +"She denies it?" + +"No, Papa. She doesn't deny it." + +He drove it home. "Has--she--confessed?" + +"She's told me it's true--what you think." + +In the silence that fell on the four Rowcliffe stayed where he stood, +downcast and averted. It was as if he felt that Gwenda could have +charged him with betrayal of a trust. + +The Vicar looked at his watch. He turned to Rowcliffe. + +"Is that fellow coming, or is he not?" + +"He won't funk it," said Rowcliffe. + +He turned. His eyes met Gwenda's. "I think I can answer for his +coming." + +"Do you mean Jim Greatorex?" she said. + +"Yes." + +"What is it that he won't funk?" + +She looked from one to the other. Nobody answered her. It was as if +they were, all three, afraid of her. + +"I see," she said. "If you ask me I think he'd much better not come." + +"My dear Gwenda----" The Vicar was deferent to the power that had +dragged Ally's confession from her. + +"We _must_ get through with this. The sooner the better. It's what +we're all here for." + +"I know. Still--I think you'll have to leave it." + +"Leave it?" + +"Yes, Papa." + +"We can't leave it," said Rowcliffe. "Something's got to be done." + +The Vicar groaned and Rowcliffe had pity on him. + +"If you'd like me to do it--I can interview him." + +"I wish you would." + +"Very well." He moved uneasily. "I'd better see him here, hadn't I?" + +"You'd better not see him anywhere," said Gwenda. "He can't marry +her." + +She held them all three by the sheer shock of it. + +The Vicar spoke first. "What do you mean, 'he can't'? He _must_." + +"He must not. Ally doesn't want to marry him. He asked her long ago +and she wouldn't have him." + +"Do you mean," said Rowcliffe, surprised out of his reticence, "before +this happened?" + +"Yes." + +"And she wouldn't have him?" + +"No. She was afraid of him." + +"She was afraid of him--and yet----" It was Mary who spoke now. + +"Yes, Mary. And yet--she cared for him." + +The Vicar turned on her. + +"You're as bad as she is. How can you bring yourself to speak of +it, if you're a modest girl? You've just told us that your sister's +shameless. Are we to suppose that you're defending her?" + +"I am defending her. There's nobody else to do it. You've all set on +her and tortured her----" + +"Not all, Gwenda," said Rowcliffe. But she did not heed him. + +"She'd have told you everything if you hadn't frightened her. You +haven't had an atom of pity for her. You've never thought of _her_ for +a minute. You've been thinking of yourselves. You might have killed +her. And you didn't care." + +The Vicar looked at her. + +"It's you, Gwenda, who don't care." + +"About what she's done, you mean? I don't. You ought to be gentle with +her, Papa. You drove her to it." + +Rowcliffe answered. + +"We'll not say what drove her, Gwenda." + +"She was driven," she said. + +"'Let no man say he is tempted of God when he is driven by his own +lusts and enticed,'" said the Vicar. + +He had risen, and the movement brought him face to face with Gwenda. +And as she looked at him it was as if she saw vividly and for the +first time the profound unspirituality of her father's face. She knew +from what source his eyes drew their darkness. She understood the +meaning of the gross red mouth that showed itself in the fierce +lifting of the ascetic, grim moustache. And she conceived a horror of +his fatherhood. + +"No man ought to say that of his own daughter. How does he know what's +her own and what's his?" she said. + +Rowcliffe stared at her in a sort of awful admiration. She was +terrible; she was fierce; she was mad. But it was the fierceness and +the madness of pity and of compassion. + +She went on. + +"You've no business to be hard on her. You must have known." + +"I knew nothing," said the Vicar. + +He appealed to her with a helpless gesture of his hands. + +"You did know. You were warned. You were told not to shut her up. And +you did shut her up. You can't blame her if she got away. You flung +her to Jim Greatorex. There wasn't anybody who cared for her but him." + +"Cared for her!" He snarled his disgust. + +"Yes. Cared for her. You think that's horrible of her--that she should +have gone to him--and yet you want to tie her to him when she's afraid +of him. And I think it's horrible of you." + +"She must marry him." Mary spoke again. "She's brought it on herself, +Gwenda." + +"She hasn't brought it on herself. And she shan't marry him." + +"I'm afraid she'll have to," Rowcliffe said. + +"She won't have to if I take her away somewhere and look after her. I +mean to do it. I'll work for her. I'll take care of the child." + +"Oh, you--_you----!_" The Vicar waved her away with a frantic flapping +of his hands. + +He turned to his son-in-law. + +"Rowcliffe--I beg you--will you use your influence?" + +"I have none." + +That drew her. "Steven--help me--can't you see how terrible it is if +she's afraid of him?" + +"But _is_ she?" + +He looked at her with his miserable eyes, then turned them from her, +considering gravely what she had said. It was then, while Rowcliffe +was considering it, that the garden gate opened violently and fell to. + +They waited for the sound of the front door bell. + +Instead of it they heard two doors open and Ally's voice calling to +Greatorex in the hall. + +As the Vicar flung himself from his study into the other room he saw +Alice standing close to Greatorex by the shut door. Her lover's arms +were round her. + +He laid his hands on them as if to tear them apart. + +"You shall not touch my daughter--until you've married her." + +The young man's right arm threw him off; his left arm remained round +Alice. + +"It's yo' s'all nat tooch her, Mr. Cartaret," he said. "Ef yo' coom +between her an' mae I s'all 'ave t' kill yo'. I'd think nowt of it. +Dawn't yo' bae freetened, my laass," he murmured tenderly. + +The next instant he was fierce again. + +"An' look yo' 'ere, Mr. Cartaret. It was yo' who aassked mae t' marry +Assy. Do yo' aassk mae t' marry Assy now? Naw! Assy may rot for all +yo' care. (It's all right, my sweet'eart. It's all right.) I'd a +married Assy right enoof ef I'd 'a' looved her. But do yo' suppawss +I'd 'a' doon it fer yore meddlin'? Naw! An' yo' need n' aassk mae t' +marry yore daughter--(There--there--my awn laass)--" + +"You are not going to be asked," said Gwenda. "You are not going to +marry her." + +"Gwenda," said the Vicar, "you will be good enough to leave this to +me." + +"It can't be left to anybody but Ally." + +"It s'all be laft to her," said Greatorex. + +He had loosened his hold of Alice, but he still stood between her and +her father. + +"It's for her t' saay ef she'll 'aave mae." + +"She has said she won't, Mr. Greatorex." + +"Ay, she's said it to mae, woonce. But I rackon she'll 'ave mae now." + +"Not even now." + +"She's toald yo'?" + +He did not meet her eyes. + +"Yes." + +"She's toald yo' she's afraid o' mae?" + +"Yes. And you know why." + +"Ay. I knaw. Yo're afraid o' mae, Ally, because yo've 'eard I haven't +always been as sober as I might bae; but yo're nat 'aalf as afraid o' +mae, droonk or sober, as yo' are of yore awn faather. Yo' dawn't think +I s'all bae 'aalf as 'ard an' crooil to yo' as yore faather is. She +doosn't, Mr. Cartaret, an' thot's Gawd's truth." + +"I protest," said the Vicar. + +"Yo' stond baack, sir. It's for 'er t' saay." + +He turned to her, infinitely reverent, infinitely tender. + +"Will yo' staay with 'im? Or will yo' coom with mae?" + +"I'll come with you." + +With one shoulder turned to her father, she cowered to her lover's +breast. + +"Ay, an' yo' need n' be afraaid I'll not bae sober. I'll bae sober +enoof now. D'ye 'ear, Mr. Cartaret? Yo' need n' bae afraaid, either. +I'll kape sober. I'd kape sober all my life ef it was awnly t' spite +yo'. An' I'll maake 'er 'appy. For I rackon theer's noothin' I could +think on would spite yo' moor. Yo' want mae t' marry 'er t' poonish +'er. _I_ knaw." + +"That'll do, Greatorex," said Rowcliffe. + +"Ay. It'll do," said Greatorex with a grin of satisfaction. + +He turned to Alice, the triumph still flaming in his face. "Yo're +_nat_ afraaid of mae?" + +"No," she said gently. "Not now." + +"Yo navver were," said Greatorex; and he laughed. + + +That laugh was more than Mr. Cartaret could bear. He thrust out his +face toward Greatorex. + +Rowcliffe, watching them, saw that he trembled and that the +thrust-out, furious face was flushed deeply on the left side. + +The Vicar boomed. + +"You will leave my house this instant, Mr. Greatorex. And you will +never come into it again." + +But Greatorex was already looking for his cap. + +"I'll navver coom into et again," he assented placably. + + * * * * * + +There were no prayers at the Vicarage that night. + + * * * * * + +It was nearly eleven o'clock. Greatorex was gone. Gwenda was upstairs +helping Alice to undress. Mary sat alone in the dining-room, crying +steadily. The Vicar and Rowcliffe were in the study. + +In all this terrible business of Alice, the Vicar felt that his +son-in-law had been a comfort to him. + +"Rowcliffe," he said suddenly, "I feel very queer." + +"I don't wonder, sir. I should go to bed if I were you." + +"I shall. Presently." + +The one-sided flush deepened and darkened as he brooded. It fascinated +Rowcliffe. + +"I think it would be better," said the Vicar slowly, "if I left the +parish. It's the only solution I can see." + +He meant to the problem of his respectability. + +Rowcliffe said yes, perhaps it would be better. + +He was thinking that it would solve his problem too. + +For he knew that there would be a problem if Gwenda came back to her +father. + +The Vicar rose heavily and went to his roll-top desk. He opened it and +began fumbling about in it, looking for things. + +He was doing this, it seemed to his son-in-law, for quite a long time. + +But it was only eleven o'clock when Mary heard sounds in the study +that terrified her, of a chair overturned and of a heavy body falling +to the floor. And then Steven called to her. + +She found him kneeling on the floor beside her father, loosening his +clothes. The Vicar's face, which she discerned half hidden between +the bending head of Rowcliffe and his arms, was purple and horribly +distorted. + +Rowcliffe did not look at her. + +"He's in a fit," he said. "Go upstairs and fetch Gwenda. And for God's +sake don't let Ally see him." + + + + +XLIX + + +The village knew all about Jim Greatorex and Alice Cartaret now. Where +their names had been whispered by two or three in the bar of the Red +Lion, over the post office counter, in the schoolhouse, in the smithy, +and on the open road, the loud scandal of them burst with horror. + +For the first time in his life Jim Greatorex was made aware that +public opinion was against him. Wherever he showed himself the men +slunk from him and the women stared. He set his teeth and held his +chin up and passed them as if he had not seen them. He was determined +to defy public opinion. + +Standing in the door of his kinsman's smithy, he defied it. + +It was the day before his wedding. He had been riding home from Morfe +Market and his mare Daisy had cast a shoe coming down the hill. He +rode her up to the smithy and called for Blenkiron, shouting his need. + +Blenkiron came out and looked at him sulkily. + +"I'll shoe t' maare," he said, "but yo'll stand outside t' smithy, Jim +Greatorex." + +For answer Jim rode the mare into the smithy and dismounted there. + +Then Blenkiron spoke. + +"You'd best 'ave staayed where yo' were. But yo've coom in an' yo' +s'all 'ave a bit o' my toongue. To-morra's yore weddin' day, I 'ear?" + +Jim intimated that if it was his wedding day it was no business of +Blenkiron's. + +"Wall," said the blacksmith, "ef they dawn't gie yo' soom roough music +to-morra night, it'll bae better loock than yo' desarve--t' two o' +yo'." + +Greatorex scowled at his kinsman. + +"Look yo' 'ere, John Blenkiron, I warn yo'. Any man in t' Daale thot +speaaks woon word agen my wife 'e s'all 'ave 'is nack wroong." + +"An' 'ow 'bout t' women, Jimmy? There'll bae a sight o' nacks fer yo' +t' wring, I rackon. They'll 'ave soomat t' saay to 'er, yore laady." + +"T' women? T' women? Domned sight she'll keer for what they saay. +There is n' woon o' they bitches as is fit t' kneel in t' mood to 'er +t' tooch t' sawle of 'er boots." + +Blenkiron peered up at him from the crook of the mare's hind leg. + +"Nat Assy Gaale?" he said. + +"Assy Gaale? 'Oo's she to mook _'er_ naame with 'er dirty toongue?" + +"Yo'll not goa far thot road, Jimmy. 'Tis wi' t' womenfawlk yo'll +'aave t' racken." + +He knew it. + +The first he had to reckon with was Maggie. + +Maggie, being given notice, had refused to take it. + +"Yo' can please yoresel, Mr. Greatorex. I can goa. I can goa. But ef I +goa yo'll nat find anoother woman as'll coom to yo'. There's nat woon +as'll keer mooch t' work for _yore_ laady." + +"Wull yo' wark for 'er, Maaggie?" he had said. + +And Maggie, with a sullen look and hitching her coarse apron, had +replied remarkably: + +"Ef Assy Gaale can wash fer er I rackon _I_ can shift to baake an' +clane." + +"Wull yo' waait on 'er?" he had persisted. + +Maggie had turned away her face from him. + + +"Ay, I'll waait on 'er," she said. + +And Maggie had stayed to bake and clean. Rough and sullen, without a +smile, she had waited on young Mrs. Greatorex. + + * * * * * + +But Alice was not afraid of Maggie. She was not going to admit for a +moment that she was afraid of her. She was not going to admit that she +was afraid of anything but one thing--that her father would die. + +If he died she would have killed him. + +Or, rather, she and Greatorex would have killed him between them. + +This statement Ally held to and reiterated and refused to qualify. + +For Alice at Upthorne had become a creature matchless in cunning and +of subtle and marvelous resource. She had been terrified and tortured, +shamed and cowed. She had been hounded to her marriage and conveyed +with an appalling suddenness to Upthorne, that place of sinister and +terrible suggestion, and the bed in which John Greatorex had died had +been her marriage bed. Her mind, like a thing pursued and in deadly +peril, took instantaneously a line. It doubled and dodged; it hid +itself; its instinct was expert in disguises, in subterfuges and +shifts. + +In her soul she knew that she was done for if she once admitted and +gave in to her fear of Upthorne and of her husband's house, or if +she were ever to feel again her fear of Greatorex, which was the most +intolerable of all her fears. It was as if Nature itself were aware +that, if Ally were not dispossessed of that terror before Greatorex's +child was born her own purpose would be insecure; as if the unborn +child, the flesh and blood of the Greatorexes that had entered into +her, protested against her disastrous cowardice. + +So, without Ally being in the least aware of it, Ally's mind, +struggling toward sanity, fabricated one enormous fear, the fear of +her father's death, a fear that she could own and face, and set it up +in place of that secret and dangerous thing which was the fear of life +itself. + +Ally, insisting a dozen times a day that she had killed poor Papa, +was completely taken in by this play of her surreptitiously +self-preserving soul. Even Rowcliffe was taken in by it. He called +it a morbid obsession. And he began to wonder whether he had not been +mistaken about Ally after all, whether her nature was not more subtle +and sensitive than he had guessed, more intricately and dangerously +mixed. + +For the sadness of the desolate land, of the naked hillsides, of the +moor marshes with their ghostly mists; the brooding of the watchful, +solitary house, the horror of haunted twilights, of nightfall and of +midnights now and then when Greatorex was abroad looking after his +cattle and she lay alone under the white ceiling that sagged above her +bed and heard the weak wind picking at the pane; her fear of Maggie +and of what Maggie had been to Greatorex and might be again; her fear +of the savage, violent and repulsive elements in the man who was +her god; her fear of her own repulsion; the tremor of her recoiling +nerves; premonitions of her alien blood, the vague melancholy of her +secret motherhood; they were all mingled together and hidden from her +in the vast gloom of her one fear. + +And once the dominant terror was set up, her instinct found a thousand +ways of strengthening it. Through her adoration of her lover her mind +had become saturated with his mournful consciousness of sin. In their +moments of contrition they were both convinced that they would be +punished. But Ally had borne her sin superbly; she had declared that +it was hers and hers only, and that she and not Greatorex would be +punished. And now the punishment had come. She persuaded herself that +her father's death was the retribution Heaven required. + + * * * * * + +And all the time, through the perilous months, Nature, mindful of her +own, tightened her hold on Ally through Ally's fear. Ally was afraid +to be left alone with it. Therefore she never let Greatorex out of her +sight if she could help it. She followed him from room to room of the +sad house where he was painting and papering and whitewashing to make +it fine for her. Where he was she had to be. Stowed away in some swept +corner, she would sit with her sweet and sorrowful eyes fixed on him +as he labored. She trotted after him through the house and out into +the mistal and up the Three Fields. She would crouch on a heap of +corn-sacks, wrapped in a fur coat, and watch him at his work in the +stable and the cow-byre. In her need to immortalise this passion she +could not have done better. Her utter dependence on him flattered and +softened the distrustful, violent and headstrong man. Her one chance, +and Ally knew it, was to cling. If she had once shamed him by her +fastidious shrinking she would have lost him; for, as Mrs. Gale had +told her long ago, you could do nothing with Jimmy when he was shamed. +Maggie, for all her coarseness, had contrived to shame him; so had +Essy in her freedom and her pride. Ally's clinging, so far from +irritating or obstructing him, drew out the infinite pity and +tenderness he had for all sick and helpless things. He could no more +have pushed little Ally from him than he could have kicked a mothering +ewe, or stamped on a new dropped lamb. He would call to her if she +failed to come. He would hold out his big hand to her as he would +have held it to a child. Her smallness, her fineness and fragility +enchanted him. The palms of her hands had the smoothness and softness +of silk, and they made a sound like silk as they withdrew themselves +with a lingering, stroking touch from his. He still felt, with a +fearful and admiring wonder, the difference of her flesh from his. + +To be sure Jim's tenderness was partly penitential. Only it was Ally +alone who had moved him to a perfect and unbearable contrition. For +the two women whom he had loved and left Greatorex had felt nothing +but a passing pang. For the woman he had made his wife he would go +always with a wound in his soul. + +And with Ally, too, the supernatural came to Nature's aid. Her fear +had a profound strain of the uncanny in it, and Jim's bodily presence +was her shelter from her fear. And as it bound them flesh to flesh, +closer and closer, it wedded them in one memory, one consolation and +one soul. + + * * * * * + +One day she had followed him into the stable, and on the window-sill, +among all the cobwebs where it had been put away and forgotten, she +found the little bottle of chlorodyne. + +She took it up, and Jim scolded her gently as if she had been a child. + +"Yore lil haands is always maddlin'. Yo' put thot down." + +"What is it?" + +"It's poison, is thot. There's enoof there t' kill a maan. Yo' put it +down whan I tall yo'." + +She put it down obediently in its place on the window-sill among the +cobwebs. + +He made a nest for her of clean hay, where she sat and watched him +as he gave Daisy her feed of corn. She watched every movement of him, +every gesture, thoughtful and intent. + +"I can't think, Jim, why I ever was afraid of you. _Was_ I afraid of +you?" + +Greatorex grinned. + +"Yo' used t' saay yo' were." + +"How silly of me. And I used to be afraid of Maggie." + +"_I_'ve been afraaid of Maaggie afore now. She's got a roough side t' +'er toongue and she can use it. But she'll nat use it on yo'. Yo've +naw call to be afraaid ef annybody. There isn't woon would hoort a lil +thing like yo'." + +"They say things about me. I know they do." + +"And yo' dawn't keer what they saay, do yo'?" + +"I don't care a rap. But I think it's cruel of them, all the same." + +"But yo're happy enoof, aren't yo'--all the same?" + +"I'm very happy. At least I would be if it wasn't for poor Papa. It +wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for what we did." + +Wherever they started, whatever round they fetched, it was to this +that they returned. + +And always Jim met it with the same answer: + +"'Tisn' what we doon; 'tis what 'e doon. An' annyhow it had to bae." + +Every week Rowcliffe came to see her and every week Jim said to him: +"She's at it still and I caan't move 'er." + +And every week Rowcliffe said: "Wait. She'll be better before long." + +And Jim waited. + +He waited till one afternoon in February, when they were again in the +stable together. He had turned his back on her for a moment. + +When he looked round she was gone from her seat on the cornsacks. She +was standing by the window-sill with the bottle of chlorodyne in her +hand and at her lips. He thought she was smelling it. + +She tilted her head back. Her eyes slewed sidelong toward him. They +quivered as he leaped to her. + +She had not drunk a drop and he knew it, but she clutched her bottle +with a febrile obstinacy. He had to loosen her little fingers one by +one. + +He poured the liquid into the stable gutter and flung the bottle on to +the dung heap in the mistal. + +"What were you doing wi' thot stoof?" he said. + +"I don't know. I was thinking of Papa." + +After that he never left her until Rowcliffe came. + +Rowcliffe said: "She's got it into her head he's going to die, and she +thinks she's killed him. You'd better let me take her to see him." + + + + +L + + +The Vicar had solved his problem by his stroke, but not quite as he +had anticipated. + +Nothing had ever turned out as he had planned or thought or willed. He +had planned to leave the parish. He had thought that in his wisdom he +had saved Alice by shutting her up in Garthdale. He had thought that +she was safe at choir-practice with Jim Greatorex. He had thought +that Mary was devoted to him and that Gwenda was capable of all +disobedience and all iniquity. She had gone away and he had forbidden +her to come back again. He had also forbidden Greatorex to enter his +house. + +And Greatorex was entering it every day, for news of him to take to +Alice at Upthorne. Gwenda had come back and would never go again, and +it was she and not Mary who had proved herself devoted. And it was not +his wisdom but Greatorex's scandalous passion for her that had saved +Alice. As for leaving the parish because of the scandal, the Vicar +would never leave it now. He was tied there in his Vicarage by his +stroke. + +It left him with a paralysis of the right side and an utter confusion +and enfeeblement of intellect. + +In three months he recovered partially from the paralysis. But the +flooding of his brain had submerged or carried away whole tracts +of recent memory, and the last vivid, violent impression--Alice's +affair--was wiped out. + +There was no reason why he should not stay on. What was left of his +memory told him that Alice was at the Vicarage, and he was worried +because he never saw her about. + +He did not know that the small gray house above the churchyard had +become a place of sinister and scandalous tragedy; that his name and +his youngest daughter's name were bywords in three parishes; and that +Alice had been married in conspicuous haste by the horrified Vicar +of Greffington to a man whom only charitable people regarded as her +seducer. + +And the order of time had ceased for him with this breach in the +sequence of events. He had a dim but enduring impression that it +was always prayer time. No hours marked the long stretches of blank +darkness and of confused and crowded twilight. Only, now and then, a +little light pulsed feebly in his brain, a flash that renewed itself +day by day; and day by day, in a fresh experience, he was aware that +he was ill. + +It was as if the world stood still and his mind moved. It "wandered," +as they said. And in its wanderings it came upon strange gaps and +hollows and fantastic dislocations, landslips where a whole foreground +had given way. It looked at these things with a serene and dreamlike +wonder and passed on. + +And in the background, on some half-lit, isolated tract of memory, +raised above ruin, and infinitely remote, he saw the figure of his +youngest daughter. It was a girlish, innocent figure, and though, +because of the whiteness of its face, he confused it now and then with +the figure of Alice's dead mother, his first wife, he was aware that +it was really Alice. + +This figure of Alice moved him with a vague and tender yearning. + +What puzzled and worried him was that in his flashes of luminous +experience he didn't see her there. And it was then that the Vicar +would make himself wonderful and piteous by asking, a dozen times a +day, "Where's Ally?" + +For by the stroke that made him wonderful and piteous the Vicar's +character and his temperament were changed. Nothing was left of Ally's +tyrant and Robina's victim, the middle-aged celibate, filled with the +fury of frustration and profoundly sorry for himself. His place was +taken by a gentle old man, an old man of an appealing and childlike +innocence, pure from all lust, from all self-pity, enjoying, actually +enjoying, the consideration that his stroke had brought him. + +He was changed no less remarkably in his affections. He was utterly +indifferent to Mary, whom he had been fond of. He yearned for Alice, +whom he had hated. And he clung incessantly to Gwenda, whom he had +feared. + +When he looked round in his strange and awful gentleness and said, +"Where's Ally?" his voice was the voice of a mother calling for her +child. And when he said, "Where's Gwenda?" it was the voice of a child +calling for its mother. + +And as he continually thought that Alice was at the Vicarage when she +was at Upthorne, so he was convinced that Gwenda had left him when she +was there. + + * * * * * + +Rowcliffe judged that this confusion of the Vicar's would be favorable +to his experiment. + +And it was. + +When Mr. Cartaret saw his youngest daughter for the first time since +their violent rupture he gazed at her tranquilly and said, "And where +have _you_ been all this time?" + +"Not very far, Papa." + +He smiled sweetly. + +"I thought you'd run away from your poor old father. Let me see--was +it Ally? My memory's going. No. It was Gwenda who ran away. Wasn't it +Gwenda?" + +"Yes, Papa." + +"Well--she must come back again. I can't do without Gwenda." + +"She has come back, Papa." + +"She's always coming hack. But she'll go away again. Where is she?" + +"I'm here, Papa dear." + +"Here one minute," said the Vicar, "and gone the next." + +"No--no. I'm not going. I shall never go away and leave you." + +"So you say," said the Vicar. "So you say." + +He looked round uneasily. + +"It's time for Ally to go to bed. Has Essy brought her milk?" + +His head bowed to his breast. He fell into a doze. Ally watched. + +And in the outer room Gwenda and Steven Rowcliffe talked together. + +"Steven--he's always going on like that. It breaks my heart." + +"I know, dear, I know." + +"Do you think he'll ever remember?" + +"I don't know. I don't think so." + +Then they sat together without speaking. She was thinking: "How good +he is. Surely I may love him for his goodness?" And he that the old +man in there had solved _his_ problem, but that his own had been taken +out of his hands. + +And he saw no solution. + +If the Vicar had gone away and taken Gwenda with him, that would have +solved it. God knew he had been willing enough to solve it that way. + +But here they were, flung together, thrust toward each other when they +should have torn themselves apart; tied, both of them, to a place they +could not leave. Week in, week out, he would be obliged to see her +whether he would or no. And when her tired face rebuked his senses, +she drew him by her tenderness; she held him by her goodness. There +was only one thing for him to do--to clear out. It was his plain and +simple duty. If it hadn't been for Alice and for that old man he +would have done it. But, because of them, it was his still plainer +and simpler duty to stay where he was, to stick to her and see her +through. + +He couldn't help it if his problem was taken out of his hands. + +They started. They looked at each other and smiled their strained and +tragic smile. + +In the inner room the Vicar was calling for Gwenda. + +It was prayer time, he said. + + * * * * * + +Rowcliffe had to drive Alice back that night to Upthorne. + +"Well," he said, as they left the Vicarage behind them, "you see he +isn't going to die." + +"No," said Alice. "But he's out of his mind. I haven't killed him. +I've done worse. I've driven him mad." + +And she stuck to it. She couldn't afford to part with her fear--yet. + +Rowcliffe was distressed at the failure of his experiment. He told +Greatorex that there was nothing to be done but to wait patiently till +June. Then--perhaps--they would see. + +In his own mind he had very little hope. He said to himself that he +didn't like the turn Ally's obsession had taken. It was _too_ morbid. + +But when May came Alice lay in the big bed under the sagging ceiling +with a lamentably small baby in her arms, and Greatorex sat beside her +by the hour together, with his eyes fixed on her white face. Rowcliffe +had told him to be on the lookout for some new thing or for some more +violent sign of the old obsession. But nine days had passed and he had +seen no sign. Her eyes looked at him and at her child with the same +lucid, drowsy ecstasy. + +And in nine days she had only asked him once if he knew how poor Papa +was? + +Her fear had left her. It had served its purpose. + + + + +LI + + +There was no prayer time at the Vicarage any more. + + * * * * * + +There was no more time at all there as the world counts time. + +The hours no longer passed in a procession marked by distinguishable +days. They rolled round and round in an interminable circle, +monotonously renewed, monotonously returning upon itself. The Vicar +was the center of the circle. The hours were sounded and measured by +his monotonously recurring needs. But the days were neither measured +nor marked. They were all of one shade. There was no difference +between Sunday and Monday in the Vicarage now. They talked of the +Vicar's good days and his bad days, that was all. + +For in this house where time had ceased they talked incessantly of +time. But it was always _his_ time; the time for his early morning +cup of tea; the time for his medicine; the time for his breakfast; +the time for reading his chapter to him while he dozed; the time for +washing him, for dressing him, for taking him out (he went out now, +in a wheel-chair drawn by Peacock's pony); the time for his medicine +again; his dinner time; the time for his afternoon sleep; his +tea-time; the time for his last dose of medicine; his supper time and +his time for being undressed and put to bed. And there were several +times during the night which were his times also. + +The Vicar had desired supremacy in his Vicarage and he was at last +supreme. He was supreme over his daughter Gwenda. The stubborn, +intractable creature was at his feet. She was his to bend or break +or utterly destroy. She who was capable of anything was capable of an +indestructible devotion. His times, the relentless, the monotonously +recurring, were her times too. + +If it had not been for Steven Rowcliffe she would have had none to +call her own (except night time, when the Vicar slept). But Rowcliffe +had kept to his days for visiting the Vicarage. He came twice or +thrice a week; not counting Wednesdays. Only, though Mary did not know +it, he came as often as not in the evenings at dusk, just after the +Vicar had been put to bed. When it was wet he sat in the dining-room +with Gwenda. When it was fine he took her out on to the moor under +Karva. + +They always went the same way, up the green sheep-track that they +knew; they always turned back at the same place, where the stream he +had seen her jumping ran from the hill; and they always took the same +time to go and turn. They never stopped and never lingered; but went +always at the same sharp pace, and kept the same distance from each +other. It was as if by saying to themselves, "Never any further than +the stream; never any longer than thirty-five minutes; never any +nearer than we are now," they defined the limits of their whole +relation. Sometimes they hardly spoke as they walked. They parted with +casual words and with no touching of their hands and with the same +thought unspoken--"Till the next time." + +But these times which were theirs only did not count as time. They +belonged to another scale of feeling and another order of reality. +Their moments had another pulse, another rhythm and vibration. They +burned as they beat. While they lasted Gwenda's life was lived with an +intensity that left time outside its measure. Through this intensity +she drew the strength to go on, to endure the unendurable with joy. + + * * * * * + +But Rowcliffe could not endure the unendurable at all. He was savage +when he thought of it. That was her life and she would never get away +from it. She, who was born for the wild open air and for youth and +strength and freedom, would be shut up in that house and tied to that +half-paralyzed, half-imbecile old man forever. It was damnable. And +he, Rowcliffe, could have prevented it if he had only known. And if +Mary had not lied to him. + +And when his common sense warned him of their danger, and his +conscience reproached him with leading her into it, he said to +himself, "I can't help it if it is dangerous. It's been taken out of +my hands. If somebody doesn't drag her out of doors, she'll get ill. +If somebody doesn't talk to her she'll grow morbid. And there's nobody +but me." + +He sheltered himself in the immensity of her tragedy. Its darkness +covered them. Her sadness and her isolation sanctified them. Alice had +her husband and her child. Mary had--all she wanted. Gwenda had nobody +but him. + + * * * * * + +She had never had anybody but him. For in the beginning the Vicar and +his daughters had failed to make friends among their own sort. Up in +the Dale there had been few to make, and those few Mr. Cartaret had +contrived to alienate one after another by his deplorable legend and +by the austere unpleasantness of his personality. People had not been +prepared for intimacy with a Vicar separated so outrageously from his +third wife. Nobody knew whether it was he or his third wife who had +been outrageous, but the Vicar's manner was not such as to procure for +him the benefit of any doubt. The fact remained that the poor man +was handicapped by an outrageous daughter, and Alice's behavior was +obviously as much the Vicar's fault as his misfortune. And it had been +felt that Gwenda had not done anything to redeem her father's and her +sister's eccentricities, and that Mary, though she was a nice girl, +had hardly done enough. For the last eighteen months visits at the +Vicarage had been perfunctory and very brief, month by month they had +diminished, and before Mary's marriage they had almost ceased. + +Still, Mary's marriage had appeased the parish. Mrs. Steven Rowcliffe +had atoned for the third Mrs. Cartaret's suspicious absence and for +Gwenda Cartaret's flight. Lady Frances Gilbey's large wing had further +protected Gwenda. + +Then, suddenly, the tale of Alice Cartaret and Greatorex went round, +and it was as if the Vicarage had opened and given up its secret. + +At first, the sheer extremity of his disaster had sheltered the Vicar +from his own scandal. Through all Garthdale and Rathdale, in the +Manors and the Lodges and the Granges, in the farmhouses and the +cottages, in the inns and little shops, there was a stir of pity and +compassion. The people who had left off calling at the Vicarage called +again with sympathy and kind inquiries. They were inclined to forget +how impossible the Cartarets had been. They were sorry for Gwenda. But +they had been checked in their advances by Gwenda's palpable recoil. +She had no time to give to callers. Her father had taken all her time. +The callers considered themselves absolved from calling. + +Slowly, month by month, the Vicarage was drawn back into its +silence and its loneliness. It assumed, more and more, its aspect of +half-sinister, half-sordid tragedy. The Vicar's calamity no longer +sheltered him. It took its place in the order of accepted and +irremediable events. + + * * * * * + +Only the village preserved its sympathy alive. The village, that +obscure congregated soul, long-suffering to calamity, welded together +by saner instincts and profound in memory, the soul that inhabited +the small huddled, humble houses, divided from the Vicarage by no more +than the graveyard of its dead, the village remembered and it knew. + +It remembered how the Vicar had come and gone over its thresholds, +how no rain nor snow nor storm had stayed him in his obstinate and +punctual visiting. And whereas it had once looked grimly on its Vicar, +it looked kindly on him now. It endured him for his daughter Gwenda's +sake, in spite of what it knew. + +For it knew why the Vicar's third wife had left him. It knew why Alice +Cartaret had gone wrong with Greatorex. It knew what Gwenda Cartaret +had gone for when she went away. It knew why and how Dr. Rowcliffe had +married Mary Cartaret. And it knew why, night after night, he was to +be seen coming and going on the Garthdale road. + + * * * * * + +The village knew more about Rowcliffe and Gwenda Cartaret than +Rowcliffe's wife knew. + +For Rowcliffe's wife's mind was closed to this knowledge by a certain +sensual assurance. When all was said and done, it was she and not +Gwenda who was Rowcliffe's wife. And she had other grounds for +complacency. Her sister, a solitary Miss Cartaret, stowed away in +Garth Vicarage, was of no account. She didn't matter. And as Mary +Cartaret Mary would have mattered even less. But Steven Rowcliffe's +professional reputation served him well. He counted. People who had +begun by trusting him had ended by liking him, and in two years' time +his social value had become apparent. And as Mrs. Steven Rowcliffe +Mary had a social value too. + +But while Steven, who had always had it, took it for granted and never +thought about it, Mary could think of nothing else. Her social value, +obscured by the terrible two years in Garthdale, had come to her as a +discovery and an acquisition. For all her complacency, she could not +regard it as a secure thing. She was sensitive to every breath that +threatened it; she was unable to forget that, if she was Steven +Rowcliffe's wife, she was Alice Greatorex's sister. + +Even as Mary Cartaret she had been sensitive to Alice. But in those +days of obscurity and isolation it was not in her to cast Alice off. +She had felt bound to Alice, not as Gwenda was bound, but pitiably, +irrevocably, for better, for worse. The solidarity of the family had +held. + +She had not had anything to lose by sticking to her sister. Now it +seemed to her that she had everything to lose. The thought of Alice +was a perpetual annoyance to her. + +For the neighborhood that had received Mrs. Steven Rowcliffe had +barred her sister. + +As long as Alice Greatorex lived at Upthorne Mary went in fear. + +This fear was so intolerable to her that at last she spoke of it to +Rowcliffe. + +They were sitting together in his study after dinner. The two +armchairs were always facing now, one on each side of the hearth. + +"I wish I knew what to do about Alice," she said. + +"What to _do_ about her?" + +"Yes. Am I to have her at the house or not?" + +He stared. + +"Of course you're to have her at the house." + +"I mean when we've got people here. I can't ask her to meet them." + +"You must ask her. It's the very least you can do for her." + +"People aren't going to like it, Steven." + +"People have got to stick a great many things they aren't going to +like. I'm continually meeting people I'd rather not meet. Aren't you?" + +"I'm afraid poor Alice is--" + +"Is what?" + +"Well, dear, a little impossible, to say the least of it. Isn't she?" + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +"I don't see anything impossible about 'poor Alice.' I never did." + +"It's nice of you to say so." + +He maintained himself in silence under her long gaze. + +"Steven," she said, "you are awfully good to my people." + +She saw that she could hardly have said anything that would have +annoyed him more. + +He positively writhed with irritation. + +"I'm not in the least good to your people." + +The words stung her like a blow. She flushed, and he softened. + +"Can't you see, Molly, that I hate the infernal humbug and the cruelty +of it all? That poor child had a dog's life before she married. She +did the only sane thing that was open to her. You've only got to look +at her now to see that she couldn't have done much better for herself +even if she hadn't been driven to it. What's more, she's done the best +thing for Greatorex. There isn't another woman in the world who could +have made that chap chuck drinking. You mayn't like the connection. I +don't suppose any of us like it." + +"My dear Steven, it isn't only the connection. I could get over that. +It's--the other thing." + +His blank stare compelled her to precision. + +"I mean what happened." + +"Well--if Gwenda can get over 'the other thing', I should think _you_ +might. She has to see more of her." + +"It's different for Gwenda." + +"How is it different for Gwenda?" + +She hesitated. She had meant that Gwenda hadn't anything to lose. +What she said was, "Gwenda hasn't anybody but herself to think of. She +hasn't let you in for Alice." + +"No more have you." + +He smiled. Mary did not understand either his answer or his smile. + +He was saying to himself, "Oh, hasn't she? It was Gwenda all the time +who let me in." + +Mary had a little rush of affection. + +"My dear--I think I've let you in for everything. I wouldn't mind--I +wouldn't really--if it wasn't for you." + +"You needn't bother about me," he said. "I'd rather you bothered about +your sister." + +"Which sister?" + +For the life of her she could not tell what had made her say that. The +words seemed to leap out suddenly from her mind to her tongue. + +"Alice," he said. + +"Was it Alice we were talking about?" + +"It was Alice I was thinking about." + +"Was it?" + +Again her mind took its insane possession of her tongue. + + * * * * * + +The evening dragged on. The two chairs still faced each other, pushed +forward in their attitude of polite attention and expectancy. + +But the persons in the chairs leaned back as if each withdrew as far +as possible from the other. They made themselves stiff and upright as +if they braced themselves, each against the other in the unconscious +tension of hostility. And they were silent, each thinking an +intolerable thought. + +Rowcliffe had taken up a book and was pretending to read it. Mary's +hands were busy with her knitting. Her needles went with a rapid jerk, +driven by the vibration of her irritated nerves. From time to time she +glanced at Rowcliffe under her bent brows. She saw the same blocks of +print, a deep block at the top, a short line under it, then a narrower +block. She saw them as vague, meaningless blurs of gray stippled on +white. She saw that Rowcliffe's eyes never moved from the deep top +paragraph on the left-hand page. She noted the light pressure of his +thumbs on the margins. + +He wasn't reading at all; he was only pretending to read. He had set +up his book as a barrier between them, and he was holding on to it for +dear life. + +Rowcliffe moved irritably under Mary's eyes. She lowered them and +waited for the silken sound that should have told her that he had +turned a page. + +And all the time she kept on saying to herself, "He _was_ thinking +about Gwenda. He's sorry for Alice because of Gwenda, not because of +me. It isn't _my_ people that he's good to." + +The thought went round and round in Mary's mind, troubling its +tranquillity. + +She knew that something followed from it, but she refused to see it. +Her mind thrust from it the conclusion. "Then it's Gwenda that he +cares for." She said to herself, "After all I'm married to him." And +as she said it she thrust up her chin in a gesture of assurance and +defiance. + +In the chair that faced her Rowcliffe shifted his position. He crossed +his legs and the tilted foot kicked out, urged by a hidden savagery. +The clicking of Mary's needles maddened him. + +He glanced at her. She was knitting a silk tie for his birthday. + +She saw the glance. The fierceness of the small fingers slackened; +they knitted off a row or two, then ceased. Her hands lay quiet in her +lap. + +She leaned her head against the back of the chair. Her grieved eyes +let down their lids before the smouldering hostility in his. + +Her stillness and her shut eyes moved him to compunction. They +appeased him with reminiscence, with suggestion of her smooth and +innocent sleep. + +He had been thinking of what she had done to him; of how she had lied +to him about Gwenda; of the abominable thing that Alice had cried out +to him in her agony. The thought of Mary's turpitude had consoled him +mysteriously. Instead of putting it from him he had dwelt on it, he +had wallowed in it; he had let it soak into him till he was poisoned +with it. + +For the sting of it and the violence of his own resentment were more +tolerable to Rowcliffe than the stale, dull realisation of the fact +that Mary bored him. It had come to that. He had nothing to say to +Mary now that he had married her. His romantic youth still moved +uneasily within him; it found no peace in an armchair, facing Mary. +He dreaded these evenings that he was compelled to spend with her. He +dreaded her speech. He dreaded her silences ten times more. They no +longer soothed him. They were pervading, menacing, significant. + +He thought that Mary's turpitude accounted for and justified the +exasperation of his nerves. + +Now as he looked at her, lying back in the limp pose reminiscent of +her sleep, he thought, "Poor thing. Poor Molly." He put down his book. +He stood over her a moment, sighed a long sigh like a yawn, turned +from her and went to bed. + +Mary opened her eyes, sighed, stretched herself, put out the light, +and followed him. + + + + +LII + + +Not long after that night it struck Mary that Steven was run down. He +worked too hard. That was how she accounted to herself for his fits of +exhaustion, of irritability and depression. + +But secretly, for all her complacence, she had divined the cause. + +She watched him now; she inquired into his goings out and comings in. +Sometimes she knew that he had been to Garthdale, and, though he went +there many more times than she knew, she had noticed that these moods +of his followed invariably on his going. It was as if Gwenda left her +mark on him. So much was certain, and by that certainty she went on to +infer his going from his mood. + +One day she taxed him with it. + +Rowcliffe had tried to excuse his early morning temper on the plea +that he was "beastly tired." + +"Tired?" she had said. "Of course you're tired if you went up to +Garthdale last night." + +She added, "It isn't necessary." + +He was silent and she knew that she was on his trail. + +Two evenings later she caught him as he was leaving the house. + +"Where are you going?" she said. + +"I'm going up to Garthdale to see your father." + +Her eyes flinched. + +"You saw him yesterday." + +"I did." + +"Is he worse?" + +He hesitated. Lying had not as yet come lightly to him. + +"I'm not easy about him," he said. + +She was not satisfied. She had caught the hesitation. + +"Can't you tell me," she persisted, "if he's worse?" + +He looked at her calmly. + +"I can't tell you till I've seen him." + +That roused her. She bit her lip. She knew that whatever she did she +must not show temper. + +"Did Gwenda send for you?" + +Her voice was quiet. + +"She did not." + +He strode out of the house. + +After that he never told her when he was going up to Garthdale toward +nightfall. He was sometimes driven to lie. It was up Rathdale he was +going, or to Greffington, or to smoke a pipe with Ned Alderson, or to +turn in for a game of billiards at the village club. + +And whenever he lied to her she saw through him. She was prepared for +the lie. She said to herself, "He is going to see Gwenda. He can't +keep away from her." + +And then she remembered what Alice had said to her. "You'll know some +day." + +She knew. + + + + +LIII + + +And with her knowledge there came a curious calm. + +She no longer watched and worried Rowcliffe. She knew that no wife +ever kept her husband by watching and worrying him. + +She was aware of danger and she faced it with restored complacency. + +For Mary was a fount of sensual wisdom. Rowcliffe was ill. And +from his illness she inferred his misery, and from his misery his +innocence. + +She told herself that nothing had happened, that she knew nothing that +she had not known before. She saw that her mistake had been in showing +that she knew it. That was to admit it, and to admit it was to give it +a substance, a shape and color it had never had and was not likely to +have. + +And Mary, having perceived her blunder, set herself to repair it. + +She knew how. Under all his energy she had discerned in her husband a +love of bodily ease, and a capacity for laziness, undeveloped because +perpetually frustrated. Insidiously she had set herself to undermine +his energy while she devised continual opportunities for ease. + +Rowcliffe remained incurably energetic. His profession demanded +energy. + +Still, there were ways by which he could be captured. He was not +so deeply absorbed in his profession as to be indifferent to the +arrangements of his home. He liked and he showed very plainly that he +liked, good food and silent service, the shining of glass and silver, +white table linen and fragrant sheets for his bed. + +With all these things Mary had provided him. + +And she had her own magic and her way. + +Her way, the way she had caught him, was the way she would keep him. +She had always known her power, even unpracticed. She had always known +by instinct how she could enthrall him when her moment came. Gwenda +had put back the hour; but she had done (and Mary argued that +therefore she could do) no more. + +Here Mary's complacency betrayed her. She had fallen into the error of +all innocent and tranquil sensualists. She trusted to the present. She +had reckoned without Rowcliffe's future or his past. + +And she had done even worse. By habituating Rowcliffe's senses to her +way, she had produced in him, through sheer satisfaction, that sense +of security which is the most dangerous sense of all. + + + + +LIV + + +One week in June Rowcliffe went up to Garthdale two nights running. He +had never done this before and he had had to lie badly about it both +to himself and Mary. + +He had told himself that the first evening didn't count. + +For he had quarreled with Gwenda the first evening. Neither of them +knew how it had happened or what it was about. But he had hardly come +before he had left her in his anger. + +The actual outburst moved her only to laughter, but the memory of it +was violent in her nerves, it shook and shattered her. She had not +slept all night and in the morning she woke tired and ill. And, as +if he had known what he had done to her, he came to see her the next +evening, to make up. + +That night they stayed out later than they had meant. + +As they touched the moor the lambs stirred at their mothers' sides and +the pewits rose and followed the white road to lure them from their +secret places; they wheeled and wheeled round them, sending out their +bored and weary cry. In June the young broods kept the moor and the +two were forced to the white road. + +And at the turn they came in sight of Greffington Edge. + +She stood still. "Oh--Steven--look," she said. + +He stood with her and looked. + +The moon was hidden in the haze where the gray day and the white night +were mixed. Across the bottom on the dim, watery green of the eastern +slope, the thorn trees were in flower. The hot air held them like +still water. It quivered invisibly, loosening their scent and +scattering it. And of a sudden she saw them as if thrown back to a +distance where they stood enchanted in a great stillness and clearness +and a piercing beauty. + +There went through her a sudden deep excitement, a subtle and +mysterious joy. This passion was as distant and as pure as ecstasy. +It swept her, while the white glamour lasted, into the stillness where +the flowering thorn trees stood. + + * * * * * + +She wondered whether Steven had seen the vision of the flowering thorn +trees. She longed for him to see it. They stood a little apart and her +hand moved toward him without touching him, as if she would draw him +to the magic. + +"Steven--" she said. + +He came to her. Her hand hung limply by her side again. She felt his +hand close on it and press it. + +She knew that he had seen the vision and felt the subtle and +mysterious joy. + +She wanted nothing more. + +"Say good-night now," she said. + +"Not yet. I'm going to walk back with you." + +They walked back in a silence that guarded the memory of the mystic +thing. + +They lingered a moment by the half-open door; she on the threshold, he +on the garden path; the width of a flagstone separated them. + +"In another minute," she thought, "he will be gone." + +It seemed to her that he wanted to be gone and that it was she who +held him there against his will and her own. + +She drew the door to. + +"Don't shut it, Gwenda." + +It was as if he said, "Don't let's stand together out here like this +any longer." + +She opened the door again, leaning a little toward it across the +threshold with her hand on the latch. + +She smiled, raising her chin in the distant gesture that was their +signal of withdrawal. + +But Steven did not go. + + * * * * * + +"May I come in?" he said. + +Something in her said, "Don't let him come in." But she did not heed +it. The voice was thin and small and utterly insignificant, as if +one little brain cell had waked up and started speaking on its own +account. And something seized on her tongue and made it say "Yes," and +the full tide of her blood surged into her throat and choked it, and +neither the one voice nor the other seemed to be her own. + +He followed her into the little dining-room where the lamp was. The +Vicar was in bed. The whole house was still. + +Rowcliffe looked at her in the lamplight. + +"We've walked a bit too far," he said. + +He made her lean back on the couch. He put a pillow at her head and a +footstool at her feet. + +"Just rest," he said, and she rested. + +But Rowcliffe did not rest. He moved uneasily about the room. + +A sudden tiredness came over her. + +She thought, "Yes. We walked too far." She leaned her head back on +the cushion. Her thin arms lay stretched out on either side of her, +supported by the couch. + +Rowcliffe ceased to wander. He drew up with his back against the +chimney-piece, where he faced her. + +"Close your eyes," he said. + +She did not close them. But the tired lids drooped. The lifted bow of +her mouth drooped. The small, sharp-pointed breasts drooped. + +And as he watched her he remembered how he had quarreled with her in +that room last night. And the thought of his brutality was intolerable +to him. + +His heart ached with tenderness, and his tenderness was intolerable +too. + +The small white face with its suffering eyes and drooping eyelids, the +drooping breasts, the thin white arms slackened along the couch, the +childlike helplessness of the tired body moved him with a vehement +desire. And his strength that had withstood her in her swift, defiant +beauty melted away. + +"Steven--" + +"Don't speak," he said. + +She was quiet for a moment. + +"But I want to, Steven. I want to say something." + +He sighed. + +"Well--say it." + +"It's something I want to ask you." + +"Don't ask impossibilities." + +"I don't think it's impossible. At least it wouldn't be if you really +knew. I want you to be more careful with me." + +She paused. + +He turned from her abruptly. + +His turning made it easier for her. She went on. + +"It's only a little thing--a silly little thing. I want you, when +you're angry with me, not to show it quite so much." + +He had turned again to her suddenly. The look on his face stopped her. + +"I'm never angry with you," he said. + +"I know you aren't--really. I know. I know. But you make me think you +are; and it hurts so terribly." + +"I didn't know you minded." + +"I don't always mind. But sometimes, when I'm stupid, I simply can't +bear it. It makes me feel as if I'd done something. Last night I got +it into my head--" + +"What did you get into your head? Tell me--" + +"I thought I'd made you hate me. I thought you thought I was +awful--like poor Ally." + +"_You?_" + +He drew a long breath and sent it out again. + +"You know what I think of you." + +He looked at her, threw up his head suddenly and went to her. + +His words came fast now and thick. + +"You know I love you. That's why I've been such a brute to +you--because I couldn't have you in my arms and it made me mad. And +you know it. That's what you mean when you say it hurts you. You +shan't be hurt any more. I'm going to end it." + +He stooped over her suddenly, steadying himself by his two hands laid +on the back of her chair. She put out her arms and pushed with her +hands against his shoulders, as if she would have beaten him off. He +sank to her knees and there caught her hands in his and kissed them. +He held them together helpless with his left arm and his right arm +gathered her to him violently and close. + +His mouth came crushing upon her parted lips and her shut eyes. + +Her small thin hands struggled piteously in his and for pity he +released them. He felt them pushing with their silk-soft palms against +his face. Their struggle and their resistance were pain to him and +exquisite pleasure. + +"Not that, Steven! Not that! Oh, I didn't think--I didn't think you +would." + +"Don't send me away, Gwenda. It's all right. We've suffered enough. +We've got to end it this way." + +"No. Not this way." + +"Yes--yes. It's all right, darling. We've struggled till we can't +struggle any more. You must. Why not? When you love me." + +He pressed her closer in his arms. She lay quiet there. When she was +quiet he let her speak. + +"I can't," she said. "It's Molly. Poor little Molly." + +"Don't talk to me of Molly. She lied about you." + +"Whatever she did she couldn't help it." + +"Whatever we do now we can't help it." + +"We can. We're different. Oh--don't! Don't hold me like that. I can't +bear it." + +His arms tightened. His mouth found hers again as if he had not heard +her. + +She gave a faint cry that pierced him. + +He looked at her. The lips he had kissed were a purplish white in her +thin bloodless face. "I say, are you ill?" + +She saw her advantage and took it. + +"No. But I can't stand things very well. They make me ill. That's what +I meant when I asked you to be careful." + +Her helplessness stilled his passion as it had roused it. He released +her suddenly. + +He took the thin arm surrendered to his gentleness, turned back her +sleeve and felt the tense jerking pulse. + +He saw what she had meant. + + * * * * * + +"Do you mind my sitting beside you if I keep quiet?" + +She shook her head. + +"Can you stand my talking about it?" + +"Yes. If you don't touch me." + +"I won't touch you. We've got to face the thing. It's making you ill." + +"It isn't." + +"What is, then?" + +"Living with Papa." + +He smiled through his agony. "That's only another name for it. + +"It can't go on. Why shouldn't we be happy? + +"Why shouldn't we?" he insisted. "It's not as if we hadn't tried." + +"I--can't." + +"You're afraid?" + +"Oh, no, I'm not afraid. It's simply that I can't." + +"You think it's a sin? It isn't. It's we who are sinned against. + +"If you're afraid of deceiving Mary--I don't care if I do. She +deceived me first. Besides we can't. She knows and she doesn't mind. +She can't suffer as you suffer. She can't feel as you feel. She can't +care." + +"She does care. She must have cared horribly or she wouldn't have done +it." + +"She didn't. Anybody would have done for her as well as me. I tell you +I don't want to talk about Mary or to think about her." + +"Then I must." + +"No. You must think of me. You don't owe anything to Mary. It's me +you're sinning against. You think a lot about sinning against Mary, +but you think nothing about sinning against me." + +"When did I ever sin against you?" + +"Last year. When you went away. That was the beginning of it all. Why +_did_ you go, Gwenda? You knew. We should have been all right if you +hadn't." + +"I went because of Ally. She had to be married. I thought--perhaps--if +I wasn't there----" + +"That I'd marry her? Good God! Ally! What on earth made you think +I'd do that? I wouldn't have married her if there hadn't been another +woman in the world." + +"I couldn't be sure. But after what you said about her I had to give +her a chance." + +"What _did_ I say?" + +"That she'd die or go mad if somebody didn't marry her." + +"I never said that. I wouldn't be likely to." + +"But you did, dear. You frightened me. So I went away to see if that +would make it any better." + +"Any better for whom?" + +"For Ally." + +"Oh--Ally. I see." + +"I thought if it didn't--if you didn't marry her--I could come back +again. And when I did come back you'd married Mary." + +"And Mary knew that?" + +"There's no good bothering about Mary now." + +Utterly weary of their strife, she lay back and closed her eyes. + +"Poor Gwenda." + +Again he had compassion on her. He waited. + +"You see how it was," she said. + +"It doesn't help us much, dear. What are we going to do?" + +"Not what you want, Steven, I'm afraid." + +"Not now. But some day. You'll see it differently when you've thought +of it." + +"Never. Never any day. I've had all these months to think of it and I +can't see it differently yet." + +"You _have_ thought of it?" + +"Not like that." + +"But you did think. You knew it would come to this." + +"I tried not to make it come. Do you know why I tried? I don't think +it was for Molly. It was for myself. It was because I wanted to keep +you. That's why I shall never do what you want." + +"But that's how you _would_ keep me. There's no other way." + +She rose with a sudden gesture of her shoulders as if she shook off +the obsession of him. + +She stood leaning against the chimney-piece in the attitude he knew, +an attitude of long-limbed, insolent, adolescent grace that gave her +the advantage. Her eyes disdained their pathos. They looked at him +with laughter under their dropped lids. + +"How funny we are," she said, "when we know all the time we couldn't +really do a caddish thing like that." + +He smiled queerly. + +"I suppose we couldn't." + + * * * * * + +He too rose and faced her. + +"Do you know what this means?" he said. "It means that I've got to +clear out of this." + +"Oh, Steven----" The brave light in her face went out. + +"You wouldn't go away and leave me?" + +"God knows I don't want to leave you, Gwenda. But we can't go on like +this. How can we?" + +"I could." + +"Well, I can't. That's what it means to me. That's what it means to a +man. If we're going to be straight we simply mustn't see each other." + +"Do you mean for always? That we're never to see each other again?" + +"Yes, if it's to be any good." + +"Steven, I can bear anything but that. It _can't_ mean that." + +"I tell you it's what it means for me. There's no good talking about +it. You've seen what I've been like tonight." + +"This? This is nothing. You'll get over this. But think what it would +mean to me." + +"It would be hard, I know." + +"Hard?" + +"Not half so hard as this." + +"But I can bear this. We've been so happy. We can be happy still." + +"This isn't happiness." + +"It's _my_ happiness. It's all I've got. It's all I've ever had." + +"What is?" + +"Seeing you. Or not even seeing you. Knowing you're there." + +"Poor child. Does that make you happy?" + +"Utterly happy. Always." + +"I didn't know." + +He stooped forward, hiding his face in his hands. + +"You don't realise it. You've no idea what it'll mean to be boxed up +in this place together, all our lives, with this between us." + +"It's always been between us. We shall be no worse off. It may have +been bad now and then, but conceive what it'll be like when you go." + +"I suppose it would be pretty beastly for you if I did go." + +"Would it be too awful for you if you stayed?" + +He was a long time before he answered. + +"Not if it really made you happier." + +"Happier?" + +She smiled her pitiful, strained smile. It said, "Don't you see that +it would kill me if you went?" + +And again it was by her difference, her helplessness, that she had +him. + +He too smiled drearily. + +"You don't suppose I really could have left you?" + +He saw that it was impossible, unthinkable, that he should leave her. + +He rose. She went with him to the door. She thought of something +there. + +"Steven," she said, "don't worry about to-night. It was all my fault." + +"You--you," he murmured. "You're adorable." + +"It was really," she said. "I made you come in." + +She gave him her cold hand. He raised it and brushed it with his lips +and put it from him. + +"Your little conscience was always too tender." + + + + +LV + + +Two years passed. + +Life stirred again in the Vicarage, feebly and slowly, with the slow +and feeble stirring of the Vicar's brain. + +Ten o'clock was prayer time again. + +Twice every Sunday the Vicar appeared in his seat in the chancel. +Twice he pronounced the Absolution. Twice he tottered to the altar +rails, turned, shifted his stick from his left hand to his right, and, +with his one good arm raised, he gave the Benediction. These were the +supreme moments of his life. + +Once a month, kneeling at the same altar rails, he received the bread +and wine from the hands of his ritualistic curate, Mr. Grierson. + +It was his uttermost abasement. + +But, whether he was abased or exalted, the parish was proud of +its Vicar. He had shown grit. His parishioners respected the +indestructible instinct that had made him hold on. + + * * * * * + +For Mr. Cartaret was better, incredibly better. He could creep about +the house and the village without any help but his stick. He could +wash and feed and dress himself. He had no longer any use for his +wheel-chair. Once a week, on a Wednesday, he was driven over his +parish in an ancient pony carriage of Peacock's. It was low enough for +him to haul himself in and out. + +And he had recovered large tracts of memory, all, apparently, but +the one spot submerged in the catastrophe that had brought about his +stroke. He was aware of events and of their couplings and of their +sequences in time, though the origin of some things was not clear +to him. Thus he knew that Alice was married and living at Upthorne, +though he had forgotten why. That she should have married Greatorex +was a strange thing, and he couldn't think how it had happened. He +supposed it must have happened when he was laid aside, for he would +never have permitted it if he had known. Mary's marriage also puzzled +him, for he had a most distinct idea that it was Gwenda who was to +have married Rowcliffe, and he said so. But he would own humbly that +he might be mistaken, his memory not being what it was. + +He had settled more or less into his state of gentleness and +submission, broken from time to time by fits of violent irritation and +relieved by pride, pride in his feats of independence, his comings and +goings, his washing, his dressing and undressing of himself. Sometimes +this pride was stubborn and insistent; sometimes it was sweet and +joyous as a child's. His mouth, relaxed forever by his stroke, had +acquired a smile of piteous and appealing innocence. It smiled upon +the just and upon the unjust. It smiled even on Greatorex, whom +socially he disapproved of (he took care to let it be known that he +disapproved of Greatorex socially), though he tolerated him. + +He tolerated all persons except one. And that one was the ritualistic +curate, Mr. Grierson. + +He had every reason for not tolerating him. Not only was Mr. +Grierson a ritualist, which was only less abominable than being a +non-conformist, but he had been foisted on him without his knowledge +or will. The Vicar had simply waked up one day out of his confused +twilight to a state of fearful lucidity and found the young man there. +Worse than all it was through the third Mrs. Cartaret that he had got +there. + +For the Vicar of Greffington had applied to the Additional Curates Aid +Society for a grant on behalf of his afflicted brother, the Vicar of +Garthdale, and he had applied in vain. There was a prejudice against +the Vicar of Garthdale. But the Vicar of Greffington did not relax his +efforts. He applied to young Mrs. Rowcliffe, and young Mrs. Rowcliffe +applied to her step-mother, and not in vain. Robina, answering by +return of post, offered to pay half the curate's salary. Rowcliffe +made himself responsible for the other half. + +Robina, in her compact little house in St. John's Wood, had become the +prey of remorse. Her conscience had begun to bother her by suggesting +that she ought to go back to her husband now that he was helpless +and utterly inoffensive. She ought not to leave him on poor Gwenda's +hands. She ought, at any rate, to take her turn. + +But Robina couldn't face it. She couldn't leave her compact little +house and go back to her husband. She couldn't even take her turn. +Flesh and blood shrank from the awful sacrifice. It would be a living +death. Your conscience has no business to send you to a living death. + +Robina's heart ached for poor Gwenda. She wrote and said so. She said +she knew she was a brute for not going back to Gwenda's father. She +would do it if she could, but she simply couldn't. She hadn't got the +nerve. + +And Robina did more. She pulled wires and found the curate. That +he was a ritualist was no drawback in Robina's eyes. In fact, she +declared it was a positive advantage. Mr. Grierson's practices would +wake them up in Garthdale. They needed waking. She had added that Mr. +Grierson was well connected, well behaved and extremely good-looking. + +Even charity couldn't subdue the merry devil in Robina. + +"I can't see," said Mary reading Robina's letter, "what Mr. Grierson's +good looks have got to do with it." + +Rowcliffe's face darkened. He thought he could see. + + * * * * * + +But Mr. Grierson did not wake Garthdale up. It opened one astonished +eye on his practices and turned over in its sleep again. Mr. Grierson +was young, and the village regarded all he did as the folly of his +youth. It saw no harm in Mr. Grierson; not even when he conceived a +Platonic passion for Mrs. Steven Rowcliffe, and spent all his spare +time in her drawing-room and on his way to and from it. + +The curate lodged in the village at the Blenkirons' over Rowcliffe's +surgery, and from that vantage ground he lay in wait for Rowcliffe. +He watched his movements. He was ready at any moment to fling open his +door and spring upon Rowcliffe with ardor and enthusiasm. It was as if +he wanted to prove to him how heartily he forgave him for being Mrs. +Rowcliffe's husband. There was a robust innocence about him that +ignored the doctor's irony. + +Mary had her own use for Mr. Grierson. His handsome figure, assiduous +but restrained, the perfect image of integrity in adoration, was the +very thing she wanted for her drawing-room. She knew that its presence +there had the effect of heightening her own sensual attraction. It +served as a reminder to Rowcliffe that his wife was a woman of charm, +a fact which for some time he appeared to have forgotten. She could +play off her adorer against her husband, while the candid purity +of young Grierson's homage renewed her exquisite sense of her own +goodness. + +And then the Curate really was a cousin of Lord Northfleet's and Mrs. +Rowcliffe had calculated that to have him in her pocket would increase +prodigiously her social value. And it did. And Mrs. Rowcliffe's social +value, when observed by Grierson, increased his adoration. + +And when Rowcliffe told her that young Grierson's Platonic friendship +wasn't good for him, she made wide eyes at him and said, "Poor boy! He +must have _some_ amusement." + +She didn't suppose the curate could be much amused by calling at the +Vicarage. Young Grierson had confided to her that he couldn't "make +her sister out." + +"I never knew anybody who could," she said, and gave him a subtle look +that disturbed him horribly. + +"I only meant--" He stammered and stopped, for he wasn't quite sure +what he did mean. His fair, fresh face was strained with the effort to +express himself. + +He meditated. + +"You know, she's really rather fascinating. You can't help looking at +her. Only--she doesn't seem to see that you're there. I suppose that's +what puts you off." + +"I know. It does, dreadfully," said Mary. + +She summoned a flash and let him have it. "But she's magnificent." + +"Magnificent!" he echoed with his robust enthusiasm. + +But what he thought was that it was magnificent of Mrs. Rowcliffe to +praise her sister. + +And Rowcliffe smiled grimly at young Grierson and his Platonic +passion. He said to himself, "If I'd only known. If I'd only had the +sense to wait six months. Grierson would have done just as well for +Molly." + +Still, though Grierson had come too late, he welcomed him and his +Platonic passion. It wasn't good for Grierson but it was good for +Molly. At least, he supposed it was better for her than nothing. And +for him it was infinitely better. It kept Grierson off Gwenda. + + * * * * * + +Young Grierson was right when he said that Gwenda didn't see that he +was there. He had been two years in Garthdale and she was as far +from seeing it as ever. He didn't mind; he was even amused by her +indifference, only he couldn't help thinking that it was rather odd of +her, considering that he _was_ there. + +The village, as simple in its thinking as young Grierson, shared his +view. It thought that it was something more than odd. And it had a +suspicion that Mrs. Rowcliffe was at the bottom of it. She wouldn't +be happy if she didn't get that young man away from her sister. The +village hinted that it wouldn't be for the first time. + + * * * * * + +But in two years, with the gradual lifting of the pressure that had +numbed her, Gwenda had become aware. Not of young Grierson, but of +her own tragedy, of the slow life that dragged her, of its +relentless motion and its mass. Now that her father's need of her was +intermittent she was alive to the tightness of the tie. It had been +less intolerable when it had bound her tighter; when she hadn't had +a moment; when it had dragged her all the time. Its slackening was +torture. She pulled then, and was jerked on her chain. + +It was not only that Rowcliffe's outburst had waked her and made +her cruelly aware. He had timed it badly, in her moment of revived +lucidity, the moment when she had become vulnerable again. She was the +more sensitive because of her previous apathy, as if she had died and +was new-born to suffering and virgin to pain. + +What hurt her most was her father's gentleness. She could stand his +fits of irritation and obstinacy; they braced her, they called forth +her will. But she was defenseless against his pathos, and he knew it. +He had phrases that wrung her heart. "You're a good girl, Gwenda." +"I'm only an irritable old man, my dear. You mustn't mind what I say." +She suffered from the incessant drain on her pity; for she wanted all +her will if she was to stand against Rowcliffe. Pity was a dangerous +solvent in which her will sank and was melted away. + +There were moments when she saw herself as two women. One had still +the passion and the memory of freedom. The other was a cowed and +captive creature who had forgotten; whose cramped motions guided her; +whose instinct of submission she abhorred. + + * * * * * + +Her isolation was now extreme. She had had nothing to give to any +friends she might have made. Rowcliffe had taken all that was left +of her. And now, when intercourse was possible, it was they who had +withdrawn. They shared Mr. Grierson's inability to make her out. They +had heard rumors; they imagined things; they remembered also. She was +the girl who had raced all over the country with Dr. Rowcliffe, the +girl whom Dr. Rowcliffe, for all their racing, had not cared to marry. +She was the girl who had run away from home to live with a dubious +step-mother; and she was the sister of that awful Mrs. Greatorex, +who--well, everybody knew what Mrs. Greatorex was. + +Gwenda Cartaret, like her younger sister, had been talked about. Not +so much in the big houses of the Dale. The queer facts had been tossed +up and down a smokeroom for one season and then dropped. In the big +houses they didn't remember Gwenda Cartaret. They only remembered to +forget her. + +But in the little shops and in the little houses in Morfe there had +been continual whispering. They said that even after Dr. Rowcliffe's +marriage to that nice wife of his, who was her own sister, the two +had been carrying on. If there wasn't any actual harm done, and maybe +there wasn't, the doctor had been running into danger. He was up at +Garthdale more than he need be now that the old Vicar was about again. +And they had been seen together. The head gamekeeper at Garthdale had +caught them more than once out on the moor, and after dark too. It was +said in the little houses that it wasn't the doctor's fault. (In the +big houses judgment had been more impartial, but Morfe was loyal +to its doctor.) It was hers, every bit, you might depend on it. Of +Rowcliffe it was said that maybe he'd been tempted, but he was a good +man, was Dr. Rowcliffe, and he'd stopped in time. Because they didn't +know what Gwenda Cartaret was capable of, they believed, like the +Vicar, that she was capable of anything. + +It was only in her own village that they knew. The head gamekeeper had +never told his tale in Garth. It would have made him too unpopular. + + * * * * * + +Gwenda Cartaret remained unaware of what was said. Rumor protected her +by cutting her off from its own sources. + +And she had other consolations besides her ignorance. So long as she +knew that Rowcliffe cared for her and always had cared, it did not +seem to matter to her so much that he had married Mary. She actually +considered that, of the two, Mary was the one to be pitied; it was so +infinitely worse to be married to a man who didn't care for you than +not to be married to a man who did. + +Of course, there was the tie. Her sister had outward and visible +possession of him. But she said to herself "I wouldn't give what I +have for _that,_ if I can't have both." + +And of course there was Steven, and Steven's misery which was more +unbearable to her than her own. At least she thought it was more +unbearable. She didn't ask herself how bearable it would have been if +Steven's marriage had brought him a satisfaction that denied her and +cast her out. + +For she was persuaded that Steven also had his consolation. He knew +that she cared for him. She conceived this knowledge of theirs as +constituting an immaterial and immutable possession of each other. +And it did not strike her that this knowledge might be less richly +compensating to Steven than to her. + + * * * * * + +Her woman's passion, forced inward, sustained her with an inward +peace, an inward exaltation. And in this peace, this exaltation, it +became one with her passion for the place. + +She was unaware of what was happening in her. She did not know that +her soul had joined the two beyond its own power to put asunder. She +still looked on her joy in the earth as a solitary emotion untouched +by any other. She still said to herself "Nothing can take this away +from me." + +For she had hours, now and again, when she shook off the slave-woman +who held her down. In those hours her inner life moved with the large +rhythm of the seasons and was soaked in the dyes of the visible +world; and the visible world, passing into her inner life, took on its +radiance and intensity. Everything that happened and that was great +and significant in its happening, happened there. + +Outside nothing happened; nothing stood out; nothing moved. No +procession of events trod down or blurred her perfect impressions of +the earth and sky. They eternalised themselves in memory. They became +her memory. + +The days were carved for her in the lines of the hills and painted +for her in their colors; days that were dim green and gray, when +the dreaming land was withdrawn under a veil so fine that it had the +transparency of water, or when the stone walls, the humble houses and +the high ramparts, drenched with mist and with secret sunlight, became +insubstantial; days when all the hills were hewn out of one opal; days +that had the form of Karva under snow, and the thin blues and violets +of the snow. She remembered purely, without thinking, "It was in April +that I went away from Steven," or, "It was in November that he married +Mary," or "It was in February that we knew about Ally, and Father had +his stroke." + +Her nature was sound and sane; it refused to brood over suffering. She +was not like Alice and in her unlikeness she lacked some of Alice's +resources. She couldn't fling herself on to a Polonaise of a Sonata +any more than she could lie on a couch all day and look at her own +white hands and dream. Her passion found no outlet in creating violent +and voluptuous sounds. It was passive, rather, and attentive. Cut +off from all contacts of the flesh, it turned to the distant and the +undreamed. Its very senses became infinitely subtle; they discerned +the hidden soul of the land that had entranced her. + +There were no words for this experience. She had no sense of self +in it and needed none. It seemed to her that she _was_ what she +contemplated, as if all her senses were fused together in the sense of +seeing and what her eyes saw they heard and touched and felt. + +But when she came to and saw herself seeing, she said, "At least this +is mine. Nobody, not even Steven, can take it away from me." + + * * * * * + +She also reminded herself that she had Alice. + +She meant Alice Greatorex. Alice Cartaret, oppressed by her own +"awfulness," had loved her with a sullen selfish love, the love of +a frustrated and unhappy child. But there was no awfulness in Alice +Greatorex. In the fine sanity of happiness she showed herself as good +as gold. + +Marriage, that had made Mary hard, made Alice tender. Mary was wrapped +up in her husband and her house, and in her social relations and young +Grierson's Platonic passion, so tightly wrapped that these things +formed round her an impenetrable shell. They hid a secret and +inaccessible Mary. + +Alice was wrapped up in her husband and children, in the boy of +three who was so like Gwenda, and in the baby girl who was so like +Greatorex. But through them she had become approachable. She had the +ways of some happy household animal, its quick rushes of affection, +and its gaze, the long, spiritual gaze of its maternity, mysterious +and appealing. She loved Gwenda with a sad-eyed, remorseful love. She +said to herself, "If I hadn't been so awful, Gwenda might have married +Steven." She saw the appalling extent of Gwenda's sacrifice. She saw +it as it was, monstrous, absurd, altogether futile. + +It was the futility of it that troubled Alice most. Even if Gwenda +had been capable of sacrificing herself for Mary, which had been by +no means her intention, that would have been futile too. Alice was of +Rowcliffe's opinion that young Grierson would have done every bit as +well for Mary. + +Better, for Mary had no children. + +"And how," said Alice, "could she expect to have them?" + +She saw in Mary's childlessness not only God's but Nature's justice. + + * * * * * + +There were moments when Mary saw it too. But she left God out of it +and called it Nature's cruelty. + +If it was not really Gwenda. For in flashes of extreme lucidity Mary +put it down to Rowcliffe's coldness. + +And she had come to know that Gwenda was responsible for that. + + + + +LVI + + +But one day in April, in the fourth year of her marriage, Mary sent +for Gwenda. + +Rowcliffe was out on his rounds. She had thought of that. She was fond +of having Gwenda with her in Rowcliffe's absence, when she could talk +to her about him in a way that assumed his complete indifference to +Gwenda and utter devotion to herself. Gwenda was used to this habit of +Mary's and thought nothing of it. + +She found her in Rowcliffe's study, the room that she knew better than +any other in his house. The window was closed. The panes cut up the +colors of the orchard and framed them in small squares. + +Mary received her with a gentle voice and a show of tenderness. She +said very little. They had tea together, and when Gwenda would have +gone Mary kept her. + +She still said very little. She seemed to brood over some happy +secret. + +Presently she spoke. She told her secret. + +And when she had told it she turned her eyes to Gwenda with a look of +subtle penetration and of triumph. + +"At last," she said,--"After three years." + +And she added, "I knew you would be glad." + +"I _am_ glad," said Gwenda. + +She _was_ glad. She was determined to be glad. She looked glad. And +she kissed Mary and said again that she was very glad. + +But as she walked back the four miles up Garthdale under Karva, she +felt an aching at her heart which was odd considering how glad she +was. + +She said to herself, "I _will_ be glad. I want Mary to be happy. Why +shouldn't I be glad? It's not as if it could make any difference." + + + + +LVII + + +In September Mary sent for her again. + +Mary was very ill. She lay on her bed, and Rowcliffe and her sister +stood on either side of her. She gazed from one to the other with eyes +of terror and entreaty. It was as if she cried out to them--the two +who were so strong--to help her. She stretched out her arms on +the counterpane, one arm toward each of them; her little hands, +palm-upward, implored them. + +Each of them laid a hand in Mary's hand that closed on it with a +clutch of agony. + +Rowcliffe had sat up all night with her. His face was white and +haggard and there was fear and misery in his eyes. They never looked +at Gwenda's lest they should see the same fear and the same misery +there. It was as if they had no love for each other, only a profound +and secret pity that sprang in both of them from their fear. + +Only once they found each other, outside on the landing, when they +had left Mary alone with Hyslop, the old doctor from Reyburn, and the +nurse. Each spoke once. + +"Steven, is there really any danger?" + +"Yes. I wish to God I'd had Harker. Do you mind sending him a wire? I +must go and see what that fool Hyslop's doing." + +He turned back again into the room. + +Gwenda went out and sent the wire. + +But at noon, before Harker could come to them, it was over. Mary lay +as Alice had lain, weak and happy, with her child tucked in the crook +of her arm. And she smiled at it dreamily. + +The old doctor and the nurse smiled at Rowcliffe. + +It couldn't, they said, have gone off more easily. There hadn't been +any danger, nor any earthly reason to have sent for Harker. Though, of +course, if it had made Rowcliffe happier--! + +The old doctor added that if it had been anybody else's wife Rowcliffe +would have known that it was going all right. + +And in the evening, when her sister stood again at her bedside, as +Mary lifted the edge of the flannel that hid her baby's face, she +looked at Gwenda and smiled, not dreamily but subtly in a triumph that +was almost malign. + +That night Gwenda dreamed that she saw Mary lying dead and with a dead +child in the crook of her arm. + +She woke in anguish and terror. + + + + +LVIII + + +Three years passed and six months. The Cartarets had been in Garthdale +nine years. + +Gwenda Cartaret sat in the dining-room at the Vicarage alone with her +father. + +It was nearly ten o'clock of the March evening. They waited for the +striking of the clock. It would be prayer time then, and after prayers +the Vicar would drag himself upstairs to bed, and in the peace +that slid into the room when he left it Gwenda would go on with her +reading. + +She had her sewing in her lap and her book, Bergson's _Évolution +créatrice_ propped open before her on the table. She sewed as she +read. For the Vicar considered that sewing was an occupation and that +reading was not. He was silent as long as his daughter sewed and +when she read he talked. Toward ten his silence would be broken by a +continual sighing and yearning. The Vicar longed for prayer time to +come and end his day. But he had decreed that prayer time was ten +o'clock and he would not have permitted it to come a minute sooner. + +He nursed a book on his knees, but he made no pretence of reading +it. He had taken off his glasses and sat with his hands folded, in an +attitude of utter resignation to his own will. + +In the kitchen Essy Gale sat by the dying fire and waited for the +stroke of ten. And as she waited she stitched at the torn breeches of +her little son. + +Essy had come back to the house where she had been turned away. For +her mother was wanted by Mrs. Greatorex at Upthorne and what Mrs. +Greatorex wanted she got. There were two more children now at the Farm +and work enough for three women in the house. And Essy, with all her +pride, had not been too proud to come back. She had no feeling but +pity for the old man, her master, who had bullied her and put her to +shame. If it pleased God to afflict him that was God's affair, and, +even as a devout Wesleyan, Essy considered that God had about done +enough. + +As Essy sat and stitched, she smiled, thinking of Greatorex's son who +lay in her bed in the little room over the kitchen. Miss Gwenda let +her have him with her on the nights when Mrs. Gale slept up at the +Farm. + +It was quiet in the Vicarage kitchen. The door into the back yard was +shut, the door that Essy used to keep open when she listened for a +footstep and a whisper. That door had betrayed her many a time when +the wind slammed it to. + +Essy's heart was quiet as the heart of her sleeping child. She had +forgotten how madly it had leaped to her lover's footsteps, how it +had staggered at the slamming of the door. She had forgotten the tears +that she had shed when Alice's wild music had rocked the house, and +what the Vicar had said to her that night when she spilled the glass +of water in the study. + +But she remembered that Gwenda had given her son his first little +Sunday suit; and that, before Jimmy came, when Essy was in bed, crying +with the face-ache, she had knocked at her door and said, "What is it, +Essy? Can I do anything for you?" She could hear her saying it now. + +Essy's memory was like that. + +She had thought of Gwenda just then because she heard the sound of Dr. +Rowcliffe's motor car tearing up the Dale. + + * * * * * + +The woman in the other room heard it too. She had heard its horn +hooting on the moor road nearly a mile away. + +She raised her hand and listened. It hooted again, once, twice, +placably, at the turning of the road, under Karva. She shivered at the +sound. + +It hooted irritably, furiously, as the car tore through the village. +Its lamps swung a shaft of light over the low garden wall. + +At the garden gate the car made a shuddering pause. + +Gwenda's face and all her body listened. A little unborn, undying hope +quivered in her heart always at that pausing of the car at her gate. + +It hardly gave her time for one heart-beat before she heard the +grinding of the gear as the car took the steep hill to Upthorne. + +But she was always taken in by it. She had always that insane hope +that the course of things had changed and that Steven had really +stopped at the gate and was coming to her. + + * * * * * + +It _was_ insanity, for she knew that Rowcliffe would never come to see +her in the evening now. After his outburst, more than five years ago, +there was no use pretending to each other that they were safe. He had +told her plainly that, if she wanted him to hold out, he must never be +long alone with her at any time, and he must give up coming to see her +late at night. It was much too risky. + +"When I can come and see you _that_ way," he had said, "it'll mean +that I've left off caring. But I'll look in every Wednesday if I can. +Every Wednesday as long as I live." + +He _had_ come now and then, not on a Wednesday, but "that way." He had +not been able to help it. But he had left longer and longer intervals +between. And he had never come ("that way") since last year, when his +second child was born. + +Nothing but life or death would bring Rowcliffe out in his car after +nightfall. Yet the thing had her every time. And it was as if her +heart was ground with the grinding and torn with the tearing of the +car. + +Then she said to herself, "I must end it somehow. It's horrible to go +on caring like this. He was right. It would be better not to see him +at all." + +And she began counting the days and the hours till Wednesday when she +would see him. + + + + +LIX + + +Wednesday was still the Vicar's day for visiting his parish. It was +also Rowcliffe's day for visiting his daughter. But the Vicar was not +going to change it on that account. On Wednesday, if it was a fine +afternoon, she was always sure of having Rowcliffe to herself. + +Rowcliffe himself had become the creature of unalterable habit. + +She was conscious now of the normal pulse of time, a steady pulse that +beat with a large rhythm, a measure of seven days, from Wednesday to +Wednesday. + +She filled the days between with reading and walking and parish work. + +There had been changes in Garthdale. Mr. Grierson had got married in +one of his bursts of enthusiasm and had gone away. His place had been +taken by Mr. Macey, the strenuous son of a Durlingham grocer. Mr. +Macey had got into the Church by sheer strenuousness and had married, +strenuously, a sharp and sallow wife. Between them they left very +little parish work for Gwenda. + +She had become a furious reader. She liked hard stuff that her brain +could bite on. It fell on a book and gutted it, throwing away the +trash. She read all the modern poets and novelists she cared about, +English and foreign. They left her stimulated but unsatisfied. There +were not enough good ones to keep her going. She worked through the +Elizabethan dramatists and all the Vicar's Tudor Classics, and came +on Jowett's Translations of the Platonic Dialogues by the way, and +was lured on the quest of Ultimate Reality, and found that there +was nothing like Thought to keep you from thinking. She took to +metaphysics as you take to dram-drinking. She must have strong, heavy +stuff that drugged her brain. And when she found that she could trust +her intellect she set it deliberately to fight her passion. + +At first it was an even match, for Gwenda's intellect, like her body, +was robust. It generally held its ground from Thursday morning till +Tuesday night. But the night that followed Wednesday afternoon would +see its overthrow. + +This Wednesday it fought gallantly till the very moment of Steven's +arrival. She was still reading Bergson, and her brain struggled to +make out the sense and rhythm of the sentences across the beating of +her heart. + +After seven years her heart still beat at Steven's coming. + +It remained an excitement and adventure, for she never knew how +he would be. Sometimes he hadn't a word to say to her and left her +miserable. Sometimes, after a hard day's work, he would be tired +and heavy; she saw him middle-aged and her heart would ache for him. +Sometimes he would be young almost as he used to be. She knew that +he was only young for her. He was young because he loved her. She had +never seen him so with Mary. Sometimes he would be formal and frigid. +He talked to her as a man talks to a woman he is determined to keep +at a distance. She hated Steven then, as passion hates. He had come +before now in a downright bad temper and was the old, irritable Steven +who found fault with everything she said and did. And she had loved +him for it as she had loved the old Steven. It was his queer way of +showing that he loved her. + +But he had not been like that for a very long time. He had grown +gentler as he had grown older. + +To-day he showed her more than one of his familiar moods. She took +them gladly as so many signs of his unchanging nature. + +He still kept up his way of coming in, the careful closing of the +door, the slight pause there by the threshold, the look that sought +her and that held her for an instant before their hands met. + +She saw it still as the look that pleaded with her while it caressed +her, that said, "I know we oughtn't to be so pleased to see each +other, but we can't help it, can we?" + +It was the look of his romantic youth. + +As long as she saw it there it was nothing to her that Rowcliffe had +changed physically, that he moved more heavily, that his keenness and +his slenderness were going, that she saw also a slight thickening of +his fine nose, a perceptible slackening of the taut muscles of his +mouth, and a decided fulness about his jaw and chin. She saw all these +things; but she did not see that his romantic youth lay dying in the +pathos of his eyes and that if it pleaded still it pleaded forgiveness +for the sin of dying. + +His hand fell slackly from hers as she took it. + +It was as if they were still on their guard, still afraid of each +other's touch. + +As he sat in the chair that faced hers he held his hands clasped +loosely in front of him, and looked at them with a curious attention, +as if he wondered what kind of hands they were that could resist +holding her. + +When he saw that she was looking at him they fell apart with a nervous +gesture. + +They picked up the book she had laid down and turned it. His eyes +examined the title page. Their pathos lightened and softened; it +became compassion; they smiled at her with a little pitiful smile, +half tender, half ironic, as if they said, "Poor Gwenda, is that what +you're driven to?" + +He opened the book and turned the pages, reading a little here and +there. + +He scowled. His look changed. It darkened. It was angry, resentful, +inimical. The dying youth in it came a little nearer to death. + +Rowcliffe had found that he could not understand what he had read. + +"Huh! What do you addle your brains with that stuff for?" he said. + +"It amuses me." + +"Oh--so long as you're amused." + +He pushed away the book that had offended him. + +They talked--about the Vicar, about Alice, about Rowcliffe's children, +about the changes in the Dale, the coming of the Maceys and the going +of young Grierson. + +"He wasn't a bad chap, Grierson." + +He softened, remembering Grierson. + +"I can't think why you didn't care about him." + +And at the thought of how Gwenda might have cared for Grierson and +hadn't cared his youth revived; it came back into his eyes and lit +them; it passed into his scowling face and caressed and smoothed it to +the perfect look of reminiscent satisfaction. Rowcliffe did not know, +neither did she, how his egoism hung upon her passion, how it drew +from it food and fire. + +He raised his head and squared his shoulders with the unconscious +gesture of his male pride. + + * * * * * + +It was then that she saw for the first time that he wore the black tie +and had the black band of mourning on his sleeve. + +"Oh Steven--what do you wear that for?" + +"This? My poor old uncle died last week." + +"Not the one I saw?" + +"When?" + +"At Mary's wedding." + +"No. Another one. My father's brother." + +He paused. + +"It's made a great difference to me and Mary." + +He said it gravely, mournfully almost. She looked at him with tender +eyes. + +"I'm sorry, Steven." + +He smiled faintly. + +"Sorry, are you?" + +"Yes. If you cared for him." + +"I'm afraid I didn't very much. It's not as if I'd seen a lot of him." + +"You said it's made a difference." + +"So it has. He's left me a good four hundred a year." + +"Oh--_that_ sort of difference." + +"My dear girl, four hundred a year makes all the difference; it's no +use pretending that it doesn't." + +"I'm not pretending. You sounded sorry and I was sorry for you. That +was all." + +At that his egoism winced. It was as if she had accused him of +pretending to be sorry. + +He looked at her sharply. His romantic youth died in that look. + + * * * * * + +Silence fell between them. But she was used to that. She even welcomed +it. Steven's silences brought him nearer to her than his speech. + +Essy came in with the tea-tray. + +He lingered uneasily after the meal, glancing now and then at the +clock. She was used to that, too. She also had her eyes on the clock, +measuring the priceless moments. + + * * * * * + +"Is anything worrying you, Steven?" she said presently. + +"Why? Do I look worried?" + +"Not exactly, but you don't look well." + +"I'm getting a bit rusty. That's what's the matter with me. I want +some hard work to rub me up and put a polish on me and I can't get +it here. I've never had enough to do since I left Leeds. Harker was a +wise chap to stick to it. It would do me all the good in the world if +I went back." + +"Then," she said, "you'll _have_ to go, Steven." + +She did not know, in her isolation, that Rowcliffe had been going +about saying that sort of thing for the last seven years. She thought +it was the formidable discovery of time. + +"You ought to go if you feel like that about it. Why don't you?" + +"I don't know." + +"You _do_ know." + +She did not look at him as she spoke, so she missed his bewilderment. + +"You know why you stayed, Steven." + +He understood. He remembered. The dull red of his face flushed with +the shock of the memory. + +"Do I?" he said. + +"I made you." + +His flush darkened. But he gave no other sign of having heard her. + +"I don't know why I'm staying now." + +He rose and looked at his watch. + +"I must be going home," he said. + +He turned at the threshold. + +"I forgot to give you Mary's message. She sent her love and she wants +to know when you're coming again to see the babies." + +"Oh--some day soon." + +"You must make it very soon or they won't be babies any more. She's +dying to show them to you." + +"She showed them to me the other day." + +"She says it's ages since you've been. And if she says it is she +thinks it is." + +Gwenda was silent. + +"I'm coming all right, tell her." + +"Well, but what day? We'd better fix it. Don't come on a Tuesday or a +Friday, I'll be out." + +"I must come when I can." + + + + +LX + + +She went on a Tuesday. + +She had had tea with her father first. Meal-time had become sacred to +the Vicar and he hated her to be away for any one of them. + +She walked the four miles, going across the moor under Karva and +loitering by the way, and it was past six before she reached Morfe. + +She was shown into the room that was once Rowcliffe's study. It had +been Mary's drawing-room ever since last year when the second child +was born and they turned the big room over the dining-room into a +day nursery. Mary had made it snug and gay with cushions and shining, +florid chintzes. There were a great many things in rosewood and brass; +a piano took the place of Rowcliffe's writing table; a bureau and a +cabinet stood against the wall where his bookcases had been; and a +tall palm-tree in a pot filled the little window that looked on to the +orchard. + +She had only to close her eyes and shut out these objects and she +saw the room as it used to be. She closed them now and instantly she +opened them again, for the vision hurt her. + +She went restlessly about the room, picking up things and looking at +them without seeing them. + +In the room upstairs she heard the cries of Rowcliffe's children, +bumping and the scampering of feet. She stood still then and clenched +her hands. The pain at her heart was like no other pain. It was as if +she hated Rowcliffe's children. + +Presently she would have to go up and see them. + +She waited. Mary was taking her own time. + +Upstairs the doors opened and shut on the sharp grief of little +children carried unwillingly to bed. + +Gwenda's heart melted and grew tender at the sound. But its tenderness +was more unbearable to her than its pain. + +The maid-servant came to the door. + +"Mrs. Rowcliffe says will you please go upstairs to the night nursery, +Miss Gwenda. She can't leave the children." + +That was the message Mary invariably sent. She left the children for +hours together when other visitors were there. She could never leave +them for a minute when her sister came. Unless Steven happened to be +in. Then Mary would abandon whatever she was doing and hurry to the +two. In the last year Gwenda had never found herself alone with Steven +for ten minutes in his house. If Mary couldn't come at once she sent +the nurse in with the children. + +Upstairs in the night nursery Mary sat in the nurse's low chair. +Her year-old baby sprawled naked in her lap. The elder infant stood +whining under the nurse's hands. + +Mary had changed a little in three and a half years. She was broader +and stouter; the tender rose had hardened over her high cheek bones. +Her face still kept its tranquil brooding, but her slow gray eyes had +a secret tremor, they were almost alert, as if she were on the watch. + +And Mary's mouth, with its wide, turned back lips, had lost its +subtlety, it had coarsened slightly and loosened, under her senses' +continual content. + +Gwenda brushed Mary's mouth lightly with the winged arch of her upper +lip. Mary laughed. + +"You don't know how to kiss," she said. "If you're going to treat Baby +that way, and Molly too--" + +Gwenda stooped over the soft red down of the baby's head. To Gwenda it +was as if her heart kept her hands off Rowcliffe's children, as if +her flesh shrank from their flesh while her lips brushed theirs in +tenderness and repulsion. + +But seeing them was always worse in anticipation than reality. + +For there was no trace of Rowcliffe in his children. The little +red-haired, white-faced things were all Cartaret. Molly, the elder, +had a look of Ally, sullen and sickly, as if some innermost reluctance +had held back the impulse that had given it being. Even the younger +child showed fragile as if implacable memory had come between it and +perfect life. + +Gwenda did not know why her fierceness was appeased by this +unlikeness, nor why she wanted to see Mary and nothing but Mary in +Rowcliffe's children, nor why she refused to think of them as his; +she only knew that to see Rowcliffe in Mary's children would have been +more than her flesh and blood could bear. + +"You've come just in time to see Baby in her bath," said Mary. + +"I seem to be always in time for that." + +"Well, you're not in time to see Steven. He won't be home till nine at +least." + +"I didn't expect to see him. He told me he'd be out." + +She saw the hidden watcher in Mary's eyes looking out at her. + +"When did he tell you that?" + +"Last Wednesday." + +The watcher hid again, suddenly appeased. + +Mary busied herself with the washing of her babies. She did it +thoroughly and efficiently, with no sentimental tendernesses, but with +soft, sensual pattings and strokings of the white, satin-smooth skins. + +And when they were tucked into their cots and disposed of for the +night Mary turned to Gwenda. + +"Come into my room a minute," she said. + +Mary's joy was to take her sister into her room and watch her to see +if she would flinch before the signs of Steven's occupation. She drew +her attention to these if Gwenda seemed likely to miss any of them. + +"We've had the beds turned," she said. "The light hurt Steven's eyes. +I can't say I like sleeping with my head out in the middle of the +room." + +"Why don't you lie the other way then?" + +"My dear, Steven wouldn't like that. Oh, what a mess my hair's in!" + +She turned to the glass and smoothed her disordered waves and coils, +while she kept her eyes fixed on Gwenda's image there, appraising her +clothes, her slenderness and straightness, the set of her head on her +shoulders, the air that she kept up of almost insolent adolescence. +She noted the delicate lines on her forehead and at the corners of her +eyes; she saw that her small defiant face was still white and firm, +and that her eyes looked violet blue with the dark shadows under them. + +Time was the only power that had been good to Gwenda. + +"She ought to look more battered," Mary thought. "She _does_ carry it +off well. And she's only two years younger than I am. + +"It's her figure, really, not her face. She's got more lines than I +have. But if I wore that long straight coat I should look awful in +it." + +"It's all very well for you," she said. "You haven't had two +children." + +"No. I haven't. But what's all very well?" + +"The good looks you contrive to keep, my dear. Nobody would know you +were thirty-three." + +"_I_ shouldn't, Molly, if you didn't remind me every time." + +Mary flushed. + +"You'll say next that's why you don't come." + +"Why--I--don't come?" + +"Yes. It's ages since you've been here." + +That was always Mary's cry. + +"I haven't much time, Molly, for coming on the off-chance." + +"The off chance! As if I'd never asked you! You can go to Alice." + +"Poor Ally wouldn't have anybody to show the baby to if I didn't. You +haven't seen one of Ally's babies." + +"I can't, Gwenda. I must think of the children. I can't let them grow +up with little Greatorexes. There are three of them, aren't there?" + +"Didn't you know there's been another?" + +"Steven _did_ tell me. She had rather a bad time, hadn't she?" + +"She had. Molly--it wouldn't do you any harm now to go and see her. +I think it's horrid of you not to. It's such rotten humbug. Why, you +used to say _I_ was ten times more awful than poor little Ally." + +"There are moments, Gwenda, when I think you are." + +"Moments? You always did think it. You think it still. And yet +you'll have me here but you won't have her. Just because she's gone a +technical howler and I haven't." + +"You haven't. But you'd have gone a worse one if you'd had the +chance." + +Gwenda raised her head. + +"You know, Molly, that that isn't true." + +"I said if. I suppose you think you had your chance, then?" + +"I don't think anything. Except that I've got to go." + +"You haven't. You're going to stay for dinner now you're here." + +"I can't, really, Mary." + +But Mary was obstinate. Whether her sister stayed or went she made it +hard for her. She kept it up on the stairs and at the door and at the +garden gate. + +"Perhaps you'll come some night when Steven's here. You know he's +always glad to see you." + +The sting of it was in Mary's watching eyes. For, when you came to +think of it, there was nothing else she could very well have said. + + + + +LXI + + +That year, when spring warmed into summer, Gwenda's strength went from +her. + +She was always tired. She fought with her fatigue and got the better +of it, but in a week or two it returned. Rowcliffe told her to +rest and she rested, for a day or two, lying on the couch in the +dining-room where Ally used to lie, and when she felt better she +crawled out on to the moor and lay there. + +One day she said to herself, "There's Ally. I'll go and see how she's +getting on." + +She dragged herself up the hill to Upthorne. + +It was a day of heat and hidden sunlight. The moor and the marshes +were drenched in the gray June mist. The hillside wore soft vapor like +a cloak hiding its nakedness. + +At the top of the Three Fields the nave of the old barn showed as +if lifted up and withdrawn into the distance. But it was no longer +solitary. The thorn-tree beside it had burst into white flower; it +shimmered far-off under the mist in the dim green field, like a magic +thing, half-hidden and about to disappear, remaining only for the hour +of its enchantment. + +It gave her the same subtle and mysterious joy that she had had on +the night she and Rowcliffe walked together and saw the thorn-trees on +Greffington Edge white under the hidden moon. + +The gray Farm-house was changed, for Jim Greatorex had got on. He +had built himself another granary on the north side of the mistal. He +built it long and low, of hewn stone, with a corrugated iron roof. And +he had made himself two fine new rooms, a dining-room and a nursery, +one above the other, within the blind walls of the house where the old +granary had been. The walls were blind no longer, for he had knocked +four large windows out of them. And it was as if one-half of the house +were awake and staring while the other half, in its old and alien +beauty, dozed and dreamed under its scowling mullions. + +As Gwenda came to it she wondered how the Farm could ever have seemed +sinister and ghost-haunted; it had become so entirely the place of +happy life. + +Loud noises came from the open windows of the dining-room where the +family were at tea; the barking of dogs, the competitive laughter of +small children, a gurgling and crowing and spluttering; with now and +then the sudden delicate laughter of Ally and the bellowing of Jim. + +"Oh--there's Gwenda!" said Ally. + +Jim stopped between a bellowing and a choking, for his mouth was full. + +"Ay--it's 'er." + +He washed down his mouthful. "Coom, Ally, and open door t' 'er." + +But Ally did not come. She had her year-old baby on her knees and was +feeding him. + +At the door of the old kitchen Jim grasped his sister-in-law by the +hand. + +"Thot's right," he said. "Yo've joost coom in time for a cup o' tae. +T' misses is in there wi' t' lil uns." + +He jerked his thumb toward his dining-room and led the way there. + +Jim was not quite so alert and slender as he had been. He had lost his +savage grace. But he moved with his old directness and dignity, and he +still looked at you with his pathetic, mystic gaze. + +Ally was contrite; she raised her face to her sister to be kissed. "I +can't get up," she said, "I'm feeding Baby. He'd howl if I left off." + +"I'd let 'im howl. I'd spank him ef 'twas me," said Jim. + +"He wouldn't, Gwenda." + +"Ay, thot I would. An' 'e knows it, doos Johnny, t' yoong rascal." + +Gwenda kissed the four children; Jimmy, and Gwendolen Alice, and +little Steven and the baby John. They lifted little sticky faces and +wiped them on Gwenda's face, and the happy din went on. + +Ally didn't seem to mind it. She had grown plump and pink and rather +like Mary without her subtlety. She sat smiling, tranquil among the +cries of her offspring. + +Jim turned three dogs out into the yard by way of discipline. He and +Ally tried to talk to each other across the tumult that remained. Now +and then Ally and the children talked to Gwenda. They told her that +the black and white cow had calved, and that the blue lupins had come +up in the garden, that the old sow had died, that Jenny, the chintz +cat, had kittened and that the lop-eared rabbit had a litter. + +"And Baby's got another tooth," said Ally. + +"I'm breaakin' in t' yoong chestnut," said Jim. "Poor Daasy's gettin' +paasst 'er work." + +All these happenings were exciting and wonderful to Ally. + +"But you're not interested, Gwenda." + +"I am, darling, I am." + +She was. Ally knew it but she wanted perpetual reassurance. + +"But you never tell us anything." + +"There's nothing to tell. Nothing happens." + +"Oh, come," said Ally, "how's Papa?" + +"Much the same except that he drove into Morfe yesterday to see +Molly." + +"Yes, darling, of course you may." + +Ally was abstracted, for Gwenny had slipped from her chair and was +whispering in her ear. + +It never occurred to Ally to ask what Gwenda had been doing, or what +she had been thinking of, or what she felt, or to listen to anything +she had to say. + +Her sister might just as well not have existed for all the interest +Ally showed in her. She hadn't really forgotten what Gwenda had done +for her, but she couldn't go on thinking about it forever. It was the +sort of thing that wasn't easy or agreeable to think about and Ally's +instinct of self-preservation urged her to turn from it. She tended +to forget it, as she tended to forget all dreadful things, such as +her own terrors and her father's illness and the noises Greatorex made +when he was eating. + +Gwenda was used to this apathy of Ally's and it had never hurt her +till to-day. To-day she wanted something from Ally. She didn't know +what it was exactly, but it was something Ally hadn't got. + +She only said, "Have you seen the thorn-trees on Greffington Edge?" + +And Ally never answered. She was heading off a stream of jam that was +creeping down Stevey's chin to plunge into his neck. + +"Gwenda's aasskin' yo 'ave yo seen t' thorn-trees on Greffington +Edge," said Greatorex. He spoke to Ally as if she were deaf. + +She made a desperate effort to detach herself from Stevey. + +"The thorn-trees? Has anybody set fire to them?" + +"Tha silly laass!----" + +"What about the thorn-trees, Gwenda?" + +"Only that they're all in flower," Gwenda said. + +She didn't know where it had come from, the sudden impulse to tell +Ally about the beauty of the thorn-trees. + +But the impulse had gone. She thought sadly, "They want me. But they +don't want me for myself. They don't want to talk to me. They don't +know what to say. They don't know anything about me. They don't +care--really. Jim likes me because I've stuck to Ally. Ally loves me +because I would have given Steven to her. They love what I was, not +what I am now, nor what I shall be. + +"They have nothing for me." + +It was Jim who answered her. "I knaw," he said, "I knaw." + +"Oh! You little, little--lamb!" + +Baby John had his fingers in his mother's hair. + + * * * * * + +Greatorex rose. "You'll not get mooch out o' Ally as long as t' kids +are about. Yo'd best coom wi' mae into t' garden and see t' loopins." + +She went with him. + +He was silent as they threaded the garden path together. She thought, +"I know why I like him." + +They came to a standstill at the south wall where the tall blue lupins +rose between them, vivid in the tender air and very still. + +Greatorex also was still. His eyes looked away over the blue spires +of the lupins to the naked hillside. They saw neither the hillside nor +anything between. + +When he spoke his voice was thick, almost as though he were in love or +intoxicated. + +"I knaw what yo mane about those thorn-trees. 'Tisn' no earthly beauty +what yo see in 'em." + +"Jim," she said, "shall I always see it?" + +"I dawn--knaw. It cooms and it goas, doos sech-like." + +"What makes it come?" + +"What maakes it coom? Yo knaw better than I can tall yo." + +"If I only did know. I'm afraid it's going." + +"I can tell yo this for your coomfort. Ef yo soofer enoof mebbe it'll +coom t' yo again. Ef yo're snoog and 'appy sure's death it'll goa." + +He paused. + +"It 'assn't coom t' mae sence I married Ally." + +She was wrong about Jim. He had not forgotten her. He was not saying +these things for himself; he was saying them for her, getting them out +of himself with pain and difficulty. It was odd to think that nobody +but she understood Jim, and that nobody but Jim had ever really +understood her. Steven didn't understand her, any more than Ally +understood her husband. And it made no difference to her, and it made +no difference to Jim. + +"I'll tell yo anoother quare thing. 'T' assn't got mooch t' do wi' +good and baad. T' drink 'll nat drive it from yo, an' sin'll nat drive +it from yo. Saw I raakon 't is mooch t' saame thing as t' graace o' +Gawd." + +"Did the grace of God go away from you when you married, Jim?" + +"Mebbe t' would 'aave ef I'd roon aaffter it. 'Tis a tricky thing is +Gawd's graace." + +"But _it's_ gone," she said. "You gave your _soul_ for Ally when you +married her." + +He smiled. "I toald 'er I'd give my sawl t' marry 'er," he said. + + + + +LXII + + +As she went home she tried to recapture the magic of the flowering +thorn-trees. But it had gone and she could not be persuaded that it +would come again. She was still too young to draw joy from the memory +of joy, and what Greatorex had told her seemed incredible. + +She said to herself, "Is it going to be taken from me like everything +else?" + +And a dreadful duologue went on in her. + +"It looks like it." + +"But it _was_ mine. It was mine like nothing else." + +"It never had anything for you but what you gave it." + +"Am I to go on giving the whole blessed time? Am I never to have +anything for myself?" + +"There never is anything for anybody but what they give. Or what they +take from somebody else. You should have taken. You had your chance." + +"I'd have died, rather." + +"Do you call this living?" + +"I _have_ lived." + +"He hasn't. Why did you sacrifice him?" + +"For Mary." + +"It wasn't for Mary. It was for yourself. For your own wretched soul." + +"For _his_ soul." + +"How much do you suppose Mary cares about his soul? It would have had +a chance with you. Its one chance." + +The unconsoling voice had the last word. For it was not in answer to +it that a certain phrase came into her brooding mind. + +"I couldn't do a caddish thing like that." + +It puzzled her. She had said it to Steven that night. But it came +to her now attached to an older memory. Somebody had said it to her +before then. Years before. + +She remembered. It was Ally. + + + + +LXIII + + +A year passed. It was June again. + +For more than a year there had been rumors of changes in Morfe. The +doctor talked of going. He was always talking of going and nobody had +yet believed that he would go. This time, they said, he was serious, +it had been a toss-up whether he stayed or went. But in the end he +stayed. Things had happened in Rowcliffe's family. His mother had died +and his wife had had a son. + +Rowcliffe's son was the image of Rowcliffe. + +The doctor had no brothers or sisters, and by his mother's death he +came into possession both of his father's income and of hers. He had +now more than a thousand a year over and above what he earned. + +On an unearned thousand a year you can live like a rich man in +Rathdale. + +Not that Rowcliffe had any idea of giving up. He was well under forty +and as soon as old Hyslop at Reyburn died or retired he would step +into his practice. He hadn't half enough to do in Morfe and he wanted +more. + +Meanwhile he had bought the house that joined on to his own and thrown +the two and their gardens into one. They had been one twenty years +ago, when the wide-fronted building, with its long rows of windows, +was the dominating house in Morfe village. Rowcliffe was now the +dominating man in it. He had given the old place back its own. + +And he had spent any amount of money on it. He had had all the +woodwork painted white, and the whole house repapered and redecorated. +He had laid down parquet flooring in the big square hall that he had +made and in the new drawing-room upstairs; and he had bought a great +deal of beautiful and expensive furniture. + +And now he was building a garage and laying out a croquet ground and +tennis lawns at the back. + +He and Mary had been superintending these works all afternoon till a +shower sent them indoors. And now they were sitting together in the +drawing-room, in the breathing-space that came between the children's +hour and dinner. + +Mary had sent the children back to the nursery a little earlier than +usual. Rowcliffe had complained of headache. + +He was always complaining of headaches. They dated from his marriage, +and more particularly from one night in June eight years ago. + +But Rowcliffe ignored the evidence of dates. He ignored everything +that made him feel uncomfortable. He had put Gwenda from him. He had +said plainly to Mary (in one poignant moment not long before the birth +of their third child), "If you're worrying about me and Gwenda, you +needn't. She was never anything to me." + +That was not saying there had never been anything between them, but +Mary knew what he had meant. + +He said to himself, and Mary said that he had got over it. But he +hadn't got over it. He might say to himself and Mary, "She was never +anything to me"; he might put her and the thought of her away from +him, but she had left her mark on him. He hadn't put her away. She was +there, in his heavy eyes and in the irritable gestures of his hands, +in his nerves and in his wounded memory. She had knitted herself into +his secret being. + +Mary was unaware of the cause of his malady. If it had been suggested +to her that he had got into this state because of Gwenda she would +have dismissed the idea with contempt. She didn't worry about +Rowcliffe's state. On the contrary, Rowcliffe's state was a +consolation and a satisfaction to her for all that she had endured +through Gwenda. She would have thought you mad if you had told her so, +for she was sorry for Steven and tender to him when he was nervous or +depressed. But to Mary her sorrow and her tenderness were a voluptuous +joy. She even encouraged Rowcliffe in his state. She liked to make it +out worse than it really was, so that he might be more dependent on +her. + +And she had found that it could be induced in him by suggestion. She +had only to say to him, "Steven, you're thoroughly worn out," and he +_was_ thoroughly worn out. She had more pleasure, because she had more +confidence, in this lethargic, middle-aged Rowcliffe than in Rowcliffe +young and energetic. His youth had attracted him to Gwenda and +his energy had driven him out of doors. And Mary had set herself, +secretly, insidiously, to destroy them. + +It had taken her seven years. + +For the first five years it had been hard work for Mary. It had meant, +for her body, an ignominious waiting and watching for the moment when +its appeal would be irresistible, for her soul a complete subservience +to her husband's moods, and for her mind perpetual attention to his +comfort, a thousand cares that had seemed to go unnoticed. But in the +sixth year they had begun to tell. Once Rowcliffe had made up his +mind that Gwenda couldn't be anything to him he had let go and through +sheer exhaustion had fallen more and more into his wife's hands, and +for the last two years her labor had been easy and its end sure. + +She had him, bound to her bed and to her fireside. + +He said and thought that he was happy. He meant that he was extremely +comfortable. + + * * * * * + +"Is your head very bad, Steven?" + +He shook his head. It wasn't very bad, but he was worried. He was +worried about himself. + +From time to time his old self rose against this new self that was +the slave of comfort. It made desperate efforts to shake off the +strangling lethargy. When he went about saying that he was getting +rusty, that he ought never to have left Leeds, and that it would do +him all the good in the world to go back there, he was saying what he +knew to be the truth. The life he was leading was playing the devil +with his nerves and brain. His brain had nothing to do. Hard work +might not be the cure for every kind of nervous trouble, but it was +the one cure for the kind that he had got. + +He ought to have gone away seven years ago. It was Gwenda's fault that +he hadn't gone. He felt a dull anger against her as against a woman +who had wrecked his chance. + +He had a chance of going now if he cared to take it. + +He had had a letter that morning from Dr. Harker asking if he had +meant what he had said a year ago, and if he'd care to exchange his +Rathdale practice for his old practice in Leeds. Harker's wife was +threatened with lung trouble, and they would have to live in the +country somewhere, and Harker himself wouldn't be sorry for the +exchange. His present practice was worth twice what it had been ten +years ago and it was growing. There were all sorts of interesting +things to be done in Leeds by a man of Rowcliffe's keenness and +energy. + +"Do you know, Steven, you're getting quite stout?" + +"I do know," he said almost with bitterness. + +"I don't mean horridly stout, dear, just nicely and comfortably +stout." + +"I'm _too_ comfortable," he said. "I don't do enough work to keep me +fit." + +"Is that what's bothering you?" + +He frowned. It was Harker's letter that was bothering him. He said so. + +For one instant Mary looked impatient. + +"I thought we'd settled that," she said. + +Rowcliffe sighed. + +"What on earth makes you want to go and leave this place when you've +spent hundreds on it?" + +"I should make pots of money in Leeds." + +"But we couldn't live there." + +"Why not?" + +"It would be too awful. My dear, if it were a big London practice I +shouldn't say no. That might be worth while. But whatever should we +have in Leeds?" + +"We haven't much here." + +"We've got the county. You might think of the children." + +"I do," he said mournfully. "I do. I think of nothing else but the +children--and you. If you wouldn't like it there's an end of it." + +"You might think of yourself, dear. You really are not strong enough +for it." + +He felt that he really was not. + +He changed the subject. + +"I saw Gwenda the other day." + +"Looking as young as ever, I suppose?" + +"No. Not quite so young. I thought she was looking rather ill." + +He meditated. + +"I wonder why she never comes." + +He really did wonder. + + * * * * * + +"It's a quarter past seven, Steven." + +He rose and stretched himself. They went together to the night nursery +where the three children lay in their cots, the little red-haired +girls awake and restless, and the dark-haired baby in his first sleep. +They bent over them together. Mary's lips touched the red hair and the +dark where Steven's lips had been. + +They spent the evening sitting by the fire in Rowcliffe's study. The +doctor dozed. Mary, silent over her sewing, was the perfect image of +tranquillity. From time to time she looked at her husband and smiled +as his chin dropped to his breast and recovered itself with a start. + +At the stroke of ten she murmured, "Steven, are you ready for bed?" + +He rose, stumbling for drowsiness. + +As they passed into the square hall he paused and looked round him +before putting out the lights. + +"Yes" (he yawned). "Ye-hes. I think we shall do very comfortably here +for the next seven years." + +He was thinking of old Hyslop. He had given him seven years. + + + + +LXIV + + +The next day (it was a Friday), when Mary came home to tea after a +round of ineffectual calling she was told that Miss Gwenda was in the +drawing-room. + +Mary inquired whether the doctor was in. + +Dr. Rowcliffe was in but he was engaged in the surgery. + +Mary thought she knew why Gwenda had come to-day. + +For the last two or three Wednesdays Rowcliffe had left Garthdale +without calling at the Vicarage. + +He had not meant to break his habit, but it happened so. For, this +year, Mary had decided to have a day, from May to October. And her day +was Wednesday. + +Her sister had ignored her day, and Mary was offended. + +She had every reason. Mary believed in keeping up appearances, and +the appearance she most desired to keep up was that of behaving +beautifully to her sister. This required her sister's co-operation. It +couldn't appear if Gwenda didn't. And Gwenda hadn't given it a chance. +She meant to have it out with her. + +She greeted her therefore with a certain challenge. + +"What are you keeping away for? Do you suppose we aren't glad to see +you?" + +"I'm not keeping away," said Gwenda. + +"It looks uncommonly like it. Do you know it's two months since you've +been here?" + +"Is it? I've lost count." + +"I should think you did lose count!" + +"I'm sorry, Molly. I couldn't come." + +"You talk as if you had engagements every day in Garthdale." + +"If it comes to that, it's months since you've been to us." + +"It's different for me. I _have_ engagements. And I've my husband and +children too. Steven hates it if I'm out when he comes home." + +"And Papa hates it if _I'm_ out." + +"It's no use minding what Papa hates. What's making you so sensitive?" + +"Living with him." + +"Then for goodness sake get away from him when you can. One afternoon +here can't matter to him." + +Gwenda said nothing, neither did she look at her. But she answered her +in her heart. "It matters to _me_. It matters to _me_. How stupid +you are if you don't see how it matters. Yet I'd die rather than you +should see." + +Mary went on, exasperated by her sister's silence. + +"We may as well have it out while we're about it. Why can't you look +me straight in the face and say plump out what I've done?" + +"You've done nothing." + +"Well, is it Steven, then? Has he done anything?" + +"Of course he hasn't. What _could_ he do?" + +"Poor Steven, goodness knows! I'm sure I don't. No more does he. +Unless----" + +She stopped. Her sister was looking her straight in the face now. + +"Unless what?" + +"My dear Gwenda, don't glare at me like that. I'm not saying things +and I'm not thinking them. I don't know what _you're_ thinking. If you +weren't so nervy you'd own that I've always been decent to you. I'm +sure I _have_ been. I've always stood up for you. I've always wanted +to have you here----" + +"And why shouldn't you?" + +Mary blinked. She had seen her blunder. + +"I never said you weren't decent to me, Molly." + +"You behave as if I weren't." + +"How am I to behave?" + +"I know it's difficult," said Mary. The memory of her blunder rankled. + +"Are you offended because Steven hasn't been to see you?" + +"My _dear_ Molly----" + +Mary ignored her look of weary tolerance. + +"Because you can't expect him to keep on running up to Garthdale when +Papa's all right." + +"I don't expect him." + +"Well then----!" said Mary with the air of having exhausted all +plausible interpretations. + +"If I were offended," said Gwenda, "should I be here?" + +The appearance of the tea-tray and the parlormaid absolved Mary from +the embarrassing compulsion to reply. She addressed herself to the +parlormaid. + +"Tell Dr. Rowcliffe that tea is ready and that Miss Gwendolen is +here." + +She really wanted Steven to come and deliver her from the situation +she had created. But Rowcliffe delayed his coming. + +"Is it true that Steven's going to give up his practice?" Gwenda said +presently. + +"Well no--whatever he does he won't do that," said Mary. + +She thought, "So that's what she came for. Steven hasn't told her +anything." + +"What put that idea into your head?" she asked. + +"Somebody told me so." + +"He _has_ had an offer of Dr. Harker's practice in Leeds, and he'd +some idea of taking it. He seemed to think it might be a good thing." + +There was a flicker in the whiteness of Gwenda's face. It arrested +Mary. + +It was not excitement nor dismay nor eagerness, nor even interest. +It was a sort of illumination, the movement of some inner light, the +shining passage of some idea. And in Gwenda's attitude, as it now +presented itself to Mary, there was a curious still withdrawal and +detachment. She seemed hardly to listen but to be preoccupied with her +idea. + +"He thought it would be a good thing," she said. + +"I think I've convinced him," said Mary, "that it wouldn't." + +Gwenda was stiller and more withdrawn than ever, guarding her idea. + +"Can I see Steven before I go?" she said presently. + +"Of course. He'll be up in a second----" + +"I can't--here." + +Mary stared. She understood. + +"You're ill. Poor dear, you shall see him this minute." + +She rang the bell. + + + + +LXV + + +Five minutes passed before Rowcliffe came to Gwenda in the study. + +"Forgive me," he said. "I had a troublesome patient." + +"Don't be afraid. You're not going to have another." + +"Come, _you_ haven't troubled me much, anyhow. This is the first time, +isn't it?" + +Yes, she thought, it was the first time. And it would be the last. +There had not been many ways of seeing Steven, but this way had always +been open to her if she had cared to take it. But it had been of all +ways the most repugnant to her, and she had never taken it till now +when she was driven to it. + +"Mary tells me you're not feeling very fit." + +He was utterly gentle, as he was with all sick and suffering things. + +"I'm all right. That's not why I want to see you." + +He was faintly surprised. "What is it, then? Sit down and tell me." + +She sat down. They had Steven's table as a barrier between them. + +"You've been thinking of leaving Rathdale, haven't you?" she said. + +"I've been thinking of leaving it for the last seven years. But I +haven't left it yet. I don't suppose I shall leave it now." + +"Even when you've got the chance?" + +"Even when I've got the chance." + +"You said you wanted to go, and you do, don't you?" + +"Well, yes--for some things." + +"Would you think me an awful brute if I said I wanted you to go?" + +He gave her a little queer, puzzled look. + +"I wouldn't think you a brute whatever you wanted. Do you mind my +smoking a cigarette?" + +"No." + +She waited. + +"Steven-- + +"I wish I hadn't made you stay." + +"You're not making me stay." + +"I mean--that time. Do you remember?" + +He smiled a little smile of reminiscent tenderness. + +"Yes, yes. I remember." + +"I didn't understand, Steven." + +"Well, well. There's no need to go back on that now. It's done, +Gwenda." + +"Yes. And I did it. I wouldn't have done it if I'd known what it +meant. I didn't think it would have been like this." + +"Like what?" + +Rowcliffe's smile that had been reminiscent was now vague and +obscurely speculative. + +"I ought to have let you go when you wanted to," she said. + +Rowcliffe looked down at the table. She sat leaning sideways against +it; one thin arm was stretched out on it. The hand gripped the paper +weight that he had pushed away. It was this hand, so tense and yet so +helpless, that he was looking at. He laid his own over it gently. Its +grip slackened then. It lay lax under the sheltering hand. + +"Don't worry about that, my dear," he said. "It's been all right----" + +"It hasn't. It hasn't." + +Rowcliffe's nerves winced before her fierce intensity. He withdrew his +sheltering hand. + +"Just at first," she said, "it was all right. But you see--it's broken +down. You said it would." + +"You mustn't keep on bothering about what I said." + +"It isn't what you said. It's what is. It's this place. We're all tied +up together in it, tight. We can't get away from each other. It isn't +as if I could leave. I'm stuck here with Papa." + +"My dear Gwenda, did I ever say you ought to leave?" + +"No. You said _you_ ought. It's the same thing." + +"It isn't. And I don't say it now. What is the earthly use of going +back on things? That's what makes you ill. Put it straight out of your +mind. You know I can't help you if you go on like this." + +"You can." + +"My dear, I wish I knew how. You asked me to stay and I stayed. I can +understand _that_." + +"If I asked you to go, would you go, Steven? Would you understand that +too?" + +"My dear child, what good would that do you?" + +"I want you to go, Steven." + +"You want me to go?" + +He screwed up his eyes as if he were trying to see the thing clearly. + +"Yes," she said. + +He shook his head. He had given it up. + +"No, my dear, you don't want me to go. You only think you do. You +don't know what you want." + +"I shouldn't say it if I didn't." + +"Wouldn't you! It's exactly what you would say. Do you suppose I don't +know you?" + +She had both her arms stretched before him on the table now. The hands +were clasped. The little thin hands implored him. Her eyes implored +him. In the tense clasp and in the gaze there was the passion of +entreaty that she kept out of her voice. + +But Rowcliffe did not see it. He had shifted his position, sinking a +little lower into his chair, and his head was bowed before her. His +eyes, somberly reflective, looked straight in front of him under their +bent brows. + +He seemed to be really considering whether he would go or stay. + +"No," he said presently. "No, I'm not going." + +But he was dubious and deliberate. It was as if he still weighed it, +still watched for the turning of the scale. + +The clock across the market-place struck eight. He gathered himself +together. And it was then as if the strokes, falling on his ear, set +free some blocked movement in his brain. + +"No," he said, "I don't see how I can go, as things are. Besides--it +isn't necessary." + +"I see," she said. + + * * * * * + +She rose. She gave him a long look. A look that was still incredulous +of what it saw. + +His eyes refused to meet it as he rose also. + +They stood so for a moment without any speech but that of eyes lifted +and eyes lowered. + +Still without a word, she turned from him to the door. + +He sprang to open it. + + * * * * * + +Five minutes later he was aware that his wife had come into the room. + +"Has Gwenda gone?" he said. + +"Yes. Steven----" There was a small, fluttering fright in Mary's eyes. +"Is there anything the matter with her?" + +"No," he said. "Nothing. Except living with your father." + + + + +LXVI + + +Gwenda had no feeling in her as she left Rowcliffe's house. Her heart +hid in her breast. It was so mortally wounded as to be unaware that it +was hurt. + +But at the turn of the white road her heart stirred in its +hiding-place. It stirred at the sight of Karva and with the wind that +brought her the smell of the flowering thorn-trees. + +It discerned in these things a power that would before long make her +suffer. + +She had no other sense of them. + + * * * * * + +She came to the drop of the road under Karva where she had seen +Rowcliffe for the first time. + +She thought, "I shall never get away from it." + +Far off in the bottom the village waited for her. + +It had always waited for her; but she was afraid of it now, afraid of +what it might have in store for her. It shared her fear as it crouched +there, like a beaten thing, with its huddled houses, naked and +blackened as if fire had passed over them. + +And Essy Gale stood at the Vicarage gate and waited. She had her child +at her side. The two were looking for Gwenda. + +"I thought mebbe something had 'appened t' yo," she said. + +As if she had seen what had happened to her she hurried the child in +out of her sight. + +Ten minutes to ten. + +In the small dull room Gwenda waited for the hour of her deliverance. +She had taken up her sewing and her book. + +The Vicar sat silent, waiting, he too, with his hands folded on his +lap. + +And, loud through the quiet house, she heard the sound of crying and +Essy's voice scolding her little son, avenging on him the cruelty of +life. + +On Greffington Edge, under the risen moon, the white thorn-trees +flowered in their glory. + + +THE END. + + + +The following pages contain advertisements of Macmillan books by the +same author, and new fiction. + + + +By THE SAME AUTHOR + +The Return of the Prodigal + +Cloth, 12mo. $1.35 net. + +"These are stories to be read leisurely with a feeling for the stylish +and the careful workmanship which is always a part of May Sinclair's +work. They need no recommendation to those who know the author's work +and one of the things on which we may congratulate ourselves is the +fact that so many Americans are her reading friends."--_Kansas City +Gazette-Globe._ + +"They are the product of a master workman who has both skill and art, +and who scorns to produce less than the best."--_Buffalo Express._ + +"Always a clever writer, Miss Sinclair at her best is an exceptionally +interesting one, and in several of the tales bound together in this +new volume we have her at her best."--_N.Y. Times._ + +"... All of which show the same sensitive apprehension of unusual +cases and delicate relations, and reveal a truth which would be hidden +from the hasty or blunt observer."--_Boston Transcript._ + +"One of the best of the many collections of stories published this +season."--_N.Y. Sun._ + +"... All these stories are of deep interest because all of them are +out of the rut."--_Kentucky Post._ + +"Let no one who cares for good and sincere work neglect this +book."--_London Post._ + +"The stories are touched with a peculiar delicacy and +whimsicality."--_Los Angeles Times._ + + * * * * * + +PUBLISHED BY + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York + + + + +NEW MACMILLAN FICTION + + * * * * * + +The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman + +By H.G. WELLS. + +Cloth, 12mo. $1.50 net. + +The name of H.G. Wells upon a title page is an assurance of merit. +It is a guarantee that on the pages which follow will be found an +absorbing story told with master skill. In the present book Mr. Wells +surpasses even his previous efforts. He is writing of modern society +life, particularly of one very charming young woman, Lady Harman, who +finds herself so bound in by conventions, so hampered by restrictions, +largely those of a well intentioned but short sighted husband, that +she is ultimately moved to revolt. The real meaning of this revolt, +its effect upon her life and those of her associates are narrated by +one who goes beneath the surface in his analysis of human motives. +In the group of characters, writers, suffragists, labor organizers, +social workers and society lights surrounding Lady Harman, and in the +dramatic incidents which compose the years of her existence which are +described by Mr. Wells, there is a novel which is significant in +its interpretation of the trend of affairs today, and fascinatingly +interesting as fiction. It is Mr. Wells at his best. + + * * * * * + +PUBLISHED BY + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York + + + + +NEW MACMILLAN FICTION + + * * * * * + +Thracian Sea + +A Novel by JOHN HELSTON, Author of "Aphrodite," etc. + +With frontispiece in colors. Decorated cloth, 12mo. $1.35 net. + +Probably no author to-day has written more powerfully or frankly on +the conventions of modern society than John Helston, who, however, has +hitherto confined himself to the medium of verse. In this novel, the +theme of which occasionally touches upon the same problems--problems +involving love, freedom of expression, the right to live one's life in +one's own way--he is revealed to be no less a master of the prose +form than of the poetical. While the book is one for mature minds, +the skill with which delicate situations are handled and the reserve +everywhere exhibited remove it from possible criticism even by the +most exacting. The title, it should be explained, refers to a spirited +race horse with the fortunes of which the lives of two of the leading +characters are bound up. + + + +Faces in the Dawn + +A Story by HERMANN HAGEDORN + +With frontispiece in colors. Cloth, 12mo. $1.35 net. + +A great many people already know Mr. Hagedorn through his verse. +_Faces in the Dawn_ will, however, be their introduction to him as +a novelist. The same qualities that have served to raise his poetry +above the common level help to distinguish this story of a German +village. The theme of the book is the transformation that was wrought +in the lives of an irritable, domineering German pastor and his wife +through the influence of a young German girl and her American lover. +Sentiment, humor and a human feeling, all present in just the right +measure, warm the heart and contribute to the enjoyment which +the reader derives in following the experiences of the well drawn +characters. + + * * * * * + +PUBLISHED BY + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + +NEW MACMILLAN FICTION + + * * * * * + +The Mutiny of the Elsinore + +By JACK LONDON, Author of "The Sea Wolf," "The Call of the Wild," etc. + +With frontispiece in colors by Anton Fischer. + +_Cloth, 12mo. $1.35 net._ + +Everyone who remembers _The Sea Wolf_ with pleasure will enjoy this +vigorous narrative of a voyage from New York around Cape Horn in a +large sailing vessel. _The Mutiny of the Elsinore_ is the same kind of +tale as its famous predecessor, and by those who have read it, it is +pronounced even more stirring. Mr. London is here writing of scenes +and types of people with which he is very familiar, the sea and ships +and those who live in ships. In addition to the adventure element, +of which there is an abundance of the usual London kind, a most +satisfying kind it is, too, there is a thread of romance involving a +wealthy, tired young man who takes the trip on the _Elsinore_, and the +captain's daughter. The play of incident, on the one hand the ship's +amazing crew and on the other the lovers, gives a story in which the +interest never lags and which demonstrates anew what a master of his +art Mr. London is. + + * * * * * + +PUBLISHED BY + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York + + +NEW MACMILLAN FICTION + + * * * * * + +Saturday's Child + +By KATHLEEN NORRIS, Author of "Mother," "The Treasure," etc. + +With frontispiece in colors, by F. Graham Cootes. + +Decorated cloth, 12mo. $1.50 net. + + _"Friday's child is loving and giving, + Saturday's child must work for her living."_ + +The title of Mrs. Norris's new novel at once indicates its theme. It +is the life story of a girl who has her own way to make in the +world. The various experiences through which she passes, the various +viewpoints which she holds until she comes finally to realize that +service for others is the only thing that counts, are told with that +same intimate knowledge of character, that healthy optimism and the +belief in the ultimate goodness of mankind that have distinguished +all of this author's writing. The book is intensely alive with human +emotions. The reader is bound to sympathize with Mrs. Norris's people +because they seem like real people and because they are actuated by +motives which one is able to understand. _Saturday's Child_ is Mrs. +Norris's longest work. Into it has gone the very best of her creative +talent. It is a volume which the many admirers of _Mother_ will gladly +accept. + + +Neighborhood Stories + +By ZONA GALE, Author of "Friendship Village," "The Love of Pelleas and +Etarre," etc. + +With frontispiece. Decorated cloth, 12mo. boxed. $1.50 net. + +In _Neighborhood Stories_ Miss Gale has a book after her own heart, +a book which, with its intimate stories of real folks, is not unlike +_Friendship Village_. Miss Gale has humor; she has lightness of +touch; she has, above all, a keen appreciation of human nature. These +qualities are reflected in the new volume. Miss Gale's audience, +moreover, is a constantly increasing one. To it her beautiful little +holiday novel, _Christmas_, added many admirers. _Neighborhood +Stories_ will not only keep these, but is certain to attract many more +as well. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11876 *** |